Many speakers have this automatic habit of addressing one or two persons as if they were the ear of the whole congregation. It is said that by such means, even if unconsciously employed, the brain becomes more concentrated and clearer for the work in hand.
Slowly the preacher's voice became more resonant and triumphant. To many of the congregation the overwhelming and stupendous evidences for the truth of the Gospel narratives which the study of late years has collected was entirely new. The Higher Criticism, the fact that it is not only in science that "discoveries" can be made, the excavations in the East and the newly discovered MSS., with their variations of reading, the possibility that the lost Aramaic original of St. Matthew's Gospel may yet be discovered, were all things which came to them for the first time in their lives. Gortre's words began to open up to them an entirely new train of thought. Their interest was profoundly quickened.
Very few clergymen of middle age are cognisant of the latest theological thought. Time, money, and lack of education alike prevent them. The slight mental endowment and very ordinary education which are all that is absolutely necessary for an ordination candidate, are not realised by the ordinary member of a church congregation. The mass of the English clergy to-day are content to leave such questions alone, to do their duty simply, to impose upon their flock the necessity of "faith," and to deny the right of individual judgment and speculation.
They do not realise that the world of their middle age is more educated, and so more intelligent, than the world of their youth, and that, if the public intellect is nurtured by the public, those whose duty it is to keep it within the fold of Christianity must provide it with a food suited to its development.
Gortre, in his sermon, had crystallised and boiled down into pregnant paragraphs, without circumlocution or obscurity, all the brilliant work of Latham, Westcott, Professor Ramsay, and Homersham Cox. He quoted Renan's passage from Les Apôtres, dealing with the finding of the empty tomb, and showed the flaws and fallacies in that brilliant piece of antichristian suggestion.
As he began to bring his arguments to a close he was conscious that the people were with him. He could feel the brains around him thinking in unison; it was almost as if he heard the thoughts of the congregation. The dark, handsome woman stared straight up at him. Trouble was in her eyes, an awakened consciousness, and Gortre knew that the truth was dropping steadily into her mind, and that conviction was unwelcome and alarming.
And he felt also the bitter antagonism which was alive and working behind the impassive face and half-closed eyes of the millionaire below. It was a silent duel between them. He knew that his words were full of meaning, even of conviction, to the man, and yet he was subjectively conscious of some reserve of force, some hidden sense of fearful power, a desperate resolve which he could not overcome.
His soul wrestled in this dark, mysterious conflict as with a devil, but could not prevail.
He finished all his argument, the last of his proofs. There was a hushed silence in the church.