“Well?” said Tom.
“I’ll turn with you, Mr. Pinder. You are doubtless more pressed for time than I. Parson’s Monday, you know, is Parson’s Sunday.”
“Parsons seem to have a fair share of Sundays to the week,” said Tom, but without any malice in the remark. “I remember good old Mr. Whitelock of St. Chad’s couldn’t bear to see a visitor on Saturday—preparing for Sunday, I suppose. Then of course there was Sunday itself, and on Monday every parson I’ve ever met declares that he feels like a wet rag or a squeezed orange.”
“Well it takes it out of a man to have to preach two sermons a day. But you should know something about it. I understand you have a sort of service at your mill on Sunday afternoons?”
“You can scarcely call our meetings services,” Tom replied. “We have no hymns, no sermon, and no collection. We have no preacher and no deacons.”
“But I thought you were the preacher.”
“Then you have been misinformed. It is true that I select some reading, generally not always, from the Scriptures. Then I try to make its meaning, or the meaning of some particular verse or verses, clear as I understand them. That’s all; it’s really more of a chat than a set discourse.”
“I see.”
“Then again the discoursing or preaching or chatting is not all done by one man. My experience is that the combined experience and wisdom of an audience are greater than those of any ordinary individual. We are so fashioned that most of what we read in the Bible is read by the light of the reader’s own experience of life, his observations and his reflection.”
“Well?”