There were social meetings in which Browett dispassionately confirmed these early impressions gained under the spell of a matchless oratory, and in due time there followed an invitation to the young rector of St. Anne's of Edom to preach at the Church of St. Antipas, which was Browett's city church.
CHAPTER V
A Belated Martyrdom
The rectory at Edom was hot with the fever of preparation. The invitation to preach at St. Antipas meant an offer of that parish should the preaching be approved. It was a most desirable parish—Browett's city church being as smart as one of his steam yachts or his private train (for nothing less than a train sufficed him now—though there were those of the green eyes who pretended to remember, with heavy sarcasm, the humbler day when he had but a beggarly private car, coupled to the rear of a common Limited). It was, moreover, a high church, its last rector having been put away for the narrowness of refusing to "enrich the service." This was the church and this the patron above all others that the Reverend Allan Delcher Linford would have chosen, and earnestly did he pray that God in His wisdom impart to him the grace to please Browett and those whom Browett permitted to have a nominal voice in the control of St. Antipas.
Both Aunt Bell and Nancy came to feel the strain of it all. The former promised to "go into the silence" each day and "hold the thought of success," thereby drawing psychic power for him from the Reservoir of the Eternal.
Nancy could only encourage by wifely sympathy, being devoid of those psychic powers that distinguished Aunt Bell. Tenderly she hovered about Allan the morning he began to write the first of the three sermons he was to preach.
As for him, though heavy with the possibilities of the moment, he was yet cool and centred; resigned to what might be, yet hopeful; his manner was determined, yet gentle, almost sweet—the manner of one who has committed all to God and will now put no cup from him, how bitter soever.
"I am so hopeful, dearest, for your sake," his wife said, softly, wishing to reveal her sympathy yet fearful lest she might obtrude it. He was arranging many sheets of notes before him.
"What will the first one be?" she asked. He straightened in his chair.