Yet, in spite of his iron rule amongst his flock, he himself had no scruples in indulging in his own weaknesses. The Sunday after, he would kneel in front of the whole congregation, wringing his hands, his face streaming with tears, and send up fervent supplications for Divine forgiveness, for his own and his brother's sins. Sometimes, when it chanced that an up-to-date town clergyman, who was in the habit of entertaining his parishioners at home with sermons of a liberal tendency, interlarded with quotations from Goethe and Lessing, occupied the pulpit at Wengern in his stead, he would say that sort of thing was priestly clowning, and reminded him of "Abraham a Sancta Clara." The natives were not cultivated enough to appreciate it.
The old man had long been a thorn in the flesh of the church-wardens. Several times, at Church council meetings, the subject of his resignation had been broached, but owing to an official report to the effect that the standard of morality was higher in the parish of Wengern than anywhere else in the province, it was decided to leave him alone. The flock loved their shepherd because he reflected their own vices and weaknesses, and their own rough, though cute, mental fibre.
This morning Pastor Brenckenberg found it difficult to attune his thoughts to the Holy Scriptures. He had chosen the unexciting theme of harvest, taking for his text the verse from the second of Corinthians: "He that had gathered much had nothing over, and he that had gathered little had no lack."
A propos he had tried to hang together a few consolatory reflections on the consequences of the wet summer--the diseased potato crop, the rotten fruit, and to give voice to joyous thanksgiving that at last God had let the glorious sun shine on the harvest-fields. But this "drivel," as he expressed it, nauseated him. He was in a mood to thunder and bruise. He would like to have something to curse.
"Shall I give them 'Hell' again, freshly furbished up?" he asked himself. But he had dealt with this subject only a fortnight ago. "I must let their burns heal first, and then I can go for them once more." Also, the Last Judgment; the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, in its modern application to Berlin and the Social Democrats; the baby-farming murder case; the diphtheria outbreak; one and all had been used in previous sermons.
He meditated and meditated; but the more he did so the worse his headache became, and the more irritably wiry his well-oiled hair.
"Next time the lad shall not tempt me," he said, and savagely pushed back the cup of coffee and milk which had grown cold.
The door opened, and Kurt, who had won his point and got a starched collar, came into the parlour, smiling amiably.
"Have you slept well, papa?" he asked carelessly. The old man threatened him with his open hand. "I'll never do it any more on a Saturday night, you young dog," he roared at him. "How am I to compose my sermon on Sunday with a splitting head?"
Kurt perceived that his father was not in a humour to be trifled with, and poured himself out some coffee from the big brown family jug in silence. The old man shut up the folio before him with a furious bang.