“This talk is absurd,” declared Chisholm. “The city has taken Vedder Court away from us.”
“Only the property,” quickly corrected Rufus Manning, turning to Chisholm with sharpness in his deep blue eyes. “If you will remember, I told you this same thing before Doctor Boyd came to us. I have waited ever since his arrival for him to develop to this point, and I wish to announce myself as solidly supporting his views.”
“Your own will not bear inspection!” charged Clark, turning to Manning with a scowl.
“I’ll range up at the judgment seat with you!” flamed Manning. “We’re both old enough to think about that!”
Joseph G. Clark jumped to his feet, and, leaning across the table, shook a thin forefinger at Manning.
“I have been attacked enough on the point of my moral standing!” he declared, his high pitched nasal voice quavering with an anger he had held below the explosive point during the most of his life. “I can stand the attacks of a sensational press, but when spiteful criticism follows me into my own vestry, almost in the sacred shadow of the altar itself, I am compelled to protest! I wish to state to this vestry, once and for all, that my moral status is above reproach, and that my conduct has been such as to receive the commendation of my Maker! Because it has pleased Divine Providence to place in my hands the distribution of the grain of the fields, I am constantly subject to the attacks of envy and malice! It has gone so far that I, last night, received from the Reverend Smith Boyd, a request to resign from this vestry!” He paused in triumph on that, as if he had made against the Reverend Smith Boyd a charge of such ghastly infamy that the young rector must shrivel before his eyes. “I have led a blameless life! I have never smoked nor drank! I have paid every penny I ever owed and fulfilled every promise I ever made. I have obeyed the gospel, and partaken of the sacraments, and the Divine Being has rewarded me abundantly! He has chosen me, because of my faithful stewardship, to gather the foods of earth from its sources, and feed it to the mouths of the hungry; and I shall not depart from my stewardship in this church, because I am here, as I am everywhere, by the will of God!”
Perhaps W. T. Chisholm was not shocked by this blasphemy, but the dismay of it sat on every other face, even on that of Nicholas Van Ploon, who was compelled to dig deep to find his ethics.
“You infernal old thief!” wondered Manning, recovering from his amazement. “Was it Divine Providence which directed you to devise the scheme whereby the railroads paid you two dollars rebate on every car of wheat you shipped, and a dollar bonus on every car of wheat your competitors shipped? I could give you a string of sins as long as the catechism, and you dare not deny one of them, because I can prove them on you! And yet you have the effrontery to say that a Divine Providence would establish you in your monopoly, by such scoundrelly means as you have risen to become the greatest dispenser of self advertising charities in the world! You propose to ride into Heaven on your universities and your libraries, and on the fact that you never smoked nor drank nor swore nor gambled; but when you come face to face with this horrible new god you have created, a deity who would permit you to attain wealth by the vile methods you have used, you will find him with a pitch-fork in his hands! I am glad that Doctor Boyd, though knowing your vindictive record, has had bravery enough to demand your resignation from this vestry! I hope he receives it!”
Joseph G. Clark had remained standing, and his head shook, as with a palsy, while he listened to the charge of Manning. He was a very old man, and it had been quite necessary for him to restrain his passions throughout his life.
“You will go first!” he shouted at Manning. “I am impregnable; but you have no business on this vestry! You can be removed at any time an examination is ordered, for I have heard you, we have all heard you, deny the immaculate conception, and thereby the Divinity of Christ, in whom alone there is salvation!”