The clerical utterances so excited at least half-a-dozen other Eminent Scientists that the latter undertook to demonstrate, through the columns of the daily papers, that the book of Genesis was written by Jeremiah; that life first visited this planet in the shape of star-dust, which, after developing into jelly-fish, gradually grew to the ape form, and ultimately became man. They showed how all religion is priestcraft and superstition; they traced all the creeds backward to myths built upon the operations of Nature; they could hardly refrain from mirth at the notion of a Great First Cause; and they positively refused to join with the multitude, for whom, however, they expressed deep compassion, in believing anything that they could not see, or feel, or analyze.
It seemed a large controversy to grow out of Coroner McSorley’s arrangement of the unearthed bones; but the controversialists manifestly regarded it as of the very highest importance; although, when it was ended, each believed precisely what he had believed before.
At St. Cadmus’s, the Cowdrick tragedy had had, upon the whole, rather a good effect. The event was mournful, of course, but it produced some desirable results. The Tunicle party felt that they had lost one of their most ardent supporters, and a contributor upon whose wealth they had depended greatly for the success of their plans. Thus they were able more easily to perceive the excellence of a spirit of concession, and at once they began to approach the other side with offers of compromise.
Happily, at this juncture, Father Krum received a “call” to a church in another diocese, and he accepted it promptly, sending in his resignation of his position as the assistant minister at St. Cadmus’s. Father Tunicle, then, of his own motion, offered to abandon, as not absolutely essential to salvation, the use of black book-markers upon Good Friday; whereupon Mr. Yetts and his adherents in the vestry declared themselves satisfied, and once more resumed their accustomed places in the sanctuary on Sunday.
Upon the second Sunday after the disappearance of Mr. Cowdrick, Father Tunicle, who held stoutly to the theory that his late vestryman had been murdered, resolved to refer indirectly in his remarks from the pulpit to the bereavement; and upon his invitation, Mrs. Cowdrick and Leonie attended the church, heavily veiled, to obtain what consolation might be possible from the services.
Father Tunicle, being somewhat pressed for time during the preceding week, had procured from a dealer in such commodities, at the price of three dollars, an original sermon addressed to persons in affliction, and this he brought with him into the pulpit, wrapped in Leonie’s worked velvet sermon-cover. The fact that the sermon was nicely lithographed, so that it closely resembled manuscript, made it quite impossible for any one to suspect that it was not the product of Father Tunicle’s own intellectual effort and of his earnest sympathy. The discourse was divided into four parts; three heads, and an affecting application; which, at three dollars for the whole, of course amounted to just seventy-five cents a part—not too much, surely, for so wholesome and comforting a sermon.
Father Tunicle preached it with much eloquence; but Mrs. Cowdrick, despite an occasional sob beneath her veil, managed to restrain her feelings until Father Tunicle had gotten through with one dollar and a half’s worth of the sermon, and had begun upon the third head. Then Mrs. Cowdrick could stand it no longer. One passionate outburst of grief followed another, until, when the attention of the entire congregation was directed to Mrs. Cowdrick, the sexton came in, and led her in a fainting condition down the aisle to the door, where she was placed in the carriage with Leonie, with nothing to solace her but the reflection that everybody in the church, including the odious De Flukes, must have noticed her sealskin sacque and her lovely diamond earrings.
CHAPTER IV.
MR. WEEMS.—TOM BENNET’S WAY.—MR. GUNN’S PROPOSAL.—BREACH OF PROMISE.—THE TRIAL.
