It was useless to discuss the matter with Montrose, and for this reason she had ended their conversation by entering the church. The young man and her father had become excellent friends, and he would never believe that Enistor was anything but what he presented himself to be. In fact, Douglas had told her very plainly that she had misjudged her father, and her own surface-thoughts implying that such was the case inflicted a pang. But intuition scouted the idea of misjudgment. As one human being adjusting herself to another human being she knew how to act, but as a child striving to understand her parent she was quite bewildered. Finally, she decided that the only thing to be done was to accept the situation as her father wished it to be accepted, if only for the sake of peace and quietness. The Squire was willing to permit the marriage, and was doing his best to be agreeable to his future son-in-law. Nothing else mattered for the moment. Having arrived at this sensible conclusion, Alice compelled herself to attend to the service.
It was by no means an interesting one, as there was a want of warmth and colour about it which reduced the whole to a monotonous repetition of fine phrases. The vicar was a thoroughly good man, earnest and self-sacrificing, but with so moral a temperament that he entirely failed to understand sinners. And not understanding them he was unable to give them that sympathetic help which a practical experience of temptation teaches. He would scold a wrong-doer with great anger—box his ears so to speak—not because he was a bad-tempered man, but for the simple reason that he could not see the sin from the wrong-doer's point of view. As Mr. Sparrow said again and again, he did not want to run away with his neighbour's wife; he did not desire to drink too much, or to cheat, or to swear, so why—he asked plaintively—should his parishioners desire to do such uninviting things? By this inborn obtuseness he missed his aim, as he invariably attempted to bully ignorant wrong into becoming enlightened right without necessary explanations. Naturally those he genuinely tried to help resented a process which robbed them of their self-respect, and which gave them no logical reason for doing other than their crude desires bade them. Therefore while some remained members of the church, and accepted ecclesiastical scoldings stolidly as part of the burdens of life which they were called upon to bear because they could not help the bearing, others took refuge in the beer-shops and rejected all authority. Also, there were a few who joined Nonconformist sects of the democratic type, where the congregation controlled the preacher, and turned him out if his views were unsatisfactory to their narrow understandings. The result of these things was chaos, and Mr. Sparrow lamented that he had to deal with such stiff-necked people. Yet had he been able to explain reasonably what he taught, and had he possessed the tact to coax instead of bullying, he would soon have reduced the whole parish to order.
As a matter of fact in one way the vicar was better than his religion: not that his religion was not true and helpful, but because he knew it only externally, and taught by the letter rather than by the spirit. In the first lesson he read about the angry and jealous God of the Jews, and in the second declared the everlasting Love of the Father, Who sent His beloved Son to suffer for His children. Naturally the congregation could not understand such a contradiction, and Mr. Sparrow did not explain, because he did not understand himself. Therefore on Sundays he was rather a failure, while on week-days he was highly successful. The fishermen and their wives could comprehend a parson who helped them in their small needs and talked kindly to them, and shared their joys as well as their sorrows. But what they could not comprehend was the priest who tried to bully them into seeking a vague state of existence, which to them appeared to be vapour and moonshine. They wanted proofs, or at least reason, and they got neither.
In his sermons Mr. Sparrow told those who listened drowsily that if they were black with sin, they would go to hell: if they kept innocently white, they would arrive in a dreamland heaven: but he made no provision for the grey people. And as the majority of the congregation, if not the whole, belonged to the third category, being neither particularly good nor particularly sinful, the alternatives did not interest them much. Those in church adopted various attitudes, said certain words, sang certain tunes, and went through a set ceremony, with a vague idea that it was all necessary somehow to arrange matters for a vague future. When Montrose came out he commented on their orderly behaviour, and utter ignorance of what it all meant.
"Though of course," he added truthfully, "there were some who understood more than the rest. Still, what a clockwork ceremony!"
"Oh, but, Douglas, the liturgy of the Church of England is very beautiful."
"The most beautiful the mind of man can conceive," he admitted readily. "What can be more glorious than the Litany, which includes all possible petitions that mortals can offer. Said understandingly nothing can be more helpful."
"Mr. Sparrow read it beautifully, and the responses were made correctly."
"Oh yes! But I missed the living spirit. It was all words, repeated parrot-fashion by the majority—I don't say all—of those present."