“Please help me, sir,” continued Morrison, appealingly; “you’ve known me many years, and I hope you don’t think I’d be the man to wilfully refuse to do my duty. Will you say a word for me, sir? You understand these things more than me.”
The Curate raised his head sharply, and as his eyes met those of the suffering man, they were so full of sympathy, that the look was like balm to the poor fellow, and he took heart of grace.
“I will, Morrison—I will,” said he, huskily; and he turned to his brother clergyman.
“Mr Mallow,” he said, gently—and there was as much appeal in his voice as in that of the suppliant before them—“forgive me for interfering between you and one of your parishioners, but I do it in no meddling spirit, only as a servant of our Great Master, when I ask you whether in such a case as this the Church would wish us to adhere so strictly to those laws made for our guidance so many years ago. I think you might—nay, as a Christian clergyman, I think you should—accede to our suffering brothers prayer.”
“God bless you, sir, for this!” ejaculated Morrison, in a broken voice.
The Rector turned slowly round, and his eyes opened widely now as they fixed themselves upon the countenance of his curate.
For a few moments he did not speak, but panted as if his feelings were too much for him. Then, in a voice faltering from emotion, he exclaimed—
“Mr Paulby, you astound me. You, whom I received here with testimonials that were unimpeachable, or I should not have trusted you as I have,—you, a priest of the Church of England, to counsel me to go in direct opposition to her laws!”
“I ask you, sir,” said the Curate, gently, “to perform, at a suffering father’s prayer, the last duties to the dead, over the body of an innocent babe, freshly come from its Maker’s hands, freshly there returned.”
“Sir,” exclaimed the Rector, and there was indignation now in his words, “well may the enemies of the Church triumph and point to its decadence, when there are those within the fold who openly, and in the presence of back sliders, counsel their brother priests to disobey the sacred canons of her laws. I feel sure, however, that you have been led away by your feelings, or you would not have spoken so.”