Brothers: The True History of a Fight Against Odds

by Horace Annesley Vachell

"For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."

If this indeed were true, how many of those around Betty Kirtling were of the quick, how many of the dead? How many, again, were asleep, lulled to slumber by indifference? She saw Pynsent staring at Archie's face. Unconsciously he had raised his right hand, as if it held a brush poised above a canvas. Beside him sat Jim Corrance engrossed in thought. Jim was frowning; his lips were shut, as if he feared that information of commercial value might leak from them. It struck Betty, with a certain poignant suddenness, that Jim, dear old Jim, had lost his look of youth, and she wondered vaguely whether or not his mother had marked the loss—and regretted it. Was his face becoming hard? Was it setting into that inexorable mask of death of which the apostle spoke? She shivered and looked away, meeting the curious gaze of Lady Randolph. Then with an effort she restrained her vagabond thoughts and eyes, and listened attentively to the voice of the reader.

Afterwards she wondered if what followed would have impressed her so profoundly had it not been for what went before. At the moment she was merely sensible that her perceptive and intuitive faculties were sharpened to keen edge. She knew with conviction that a veil had been lifted, that she saw clearly and in true proportion what was vital and everlasting.

When Archie ascended the pulpit, Betty prepared herself for an anti-climax, Lady Randolph, for a nap. "Ye also as lively stones are built up a spiritual house." The preacher repeated his text, and paused. The Prime Minister inclined his ear in a gesture familiar to all who knew him; the Dean polished his spectacles and replaced them, as if seeking to see more clearly what hitherto had been obscured. Silence, always significant, suffused itself throughout the cathedral!

The sermon began as a history of the cathedral, presented with a dramatic sense of the relation borne by Gothic architecture to the renaissance of spirituality in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. But soon the preacher passed from the sanctuary in which he stood straight to the hearts of the congregation. It has been well said that neither writer nor painter lives who can set forth adequately on paper or canvas what such artists as Wykeham and Fox expressed in stone. And who dares to portray the house spiritual: the house hewn out of living stones under the direction of the Supreme Architect? But if the whole transcends description, the parts invite it. Archibald paused before taking the stride from the abstract to the concrete. When he spoke again his voice was troubled. Smooth persuasiveness gave place to a rougher eloquence. So far, admirable and inspiring though the sermon had been, it revealed rather the scholar and idealist than the practical man of the world. The cathedral, for instance, interpreted the past. It enshrined the faith and patience of yesterday. What message did it hold for the strivers of to-day?

Archie answered that question in the last half of the sermon, and, answering it, displayed a knowledge of humanity which Mark had gleaned in Stepney and Whitechapel. All that is affecting and pathetic in life was laid bare, but with a delicacy of phrase, a poignancy of suggestion, a sense of proportion, which thrilled rather than dismayed. A sane optimism informed even deformity. It was characteristic of Mark (and most uncharacteristic of the preacher) that he dwelt tenderly upon the inglorious parts of the temple: the rough flints, the bricks, the clay, the mortar! Of the glittering ornaments he said little, of the stone which the builders rejected much. His congregation listened with an attention which never waned. The children stared spellbound at the splendid figure in the pulpit. To them, as to their elders, came the assurance of work to do worth the doing, and the conviction that such work, however slight, brought with it a reward: the Pentecostal gift. Here Mark had attempted to define the unpardonable sin: the rejection of the spiritual and the acceptance of the carnal life. And then followed the apostrophe. When it was delivered, smiles curved the children's lips; men felt the current of their blood flowing strong and free in their veins. For a sound as from heaven had filled the house where they were sitting, and gladness of heart scourged once more from God's temple disease and despair and death!

After the service, the Dean took Archie's hand and congratulated him. "You have spoken with tongues," he said, in his too cold voice, which impressed but never thrilled. Archibald hesitated, flushed, clutched at opportunity and missed it. The Dean turned aside as others approached. To them Archie listened, wondering if Betty knew. The Dean, watching him, amended previous estimates. "The man is really modest," he told his wife at luncheon. "He blushed and stammered when I spoke to him."

Archie went into the Close, accompanied by a prebendary, whom, as it happened, he had slight reason to dislike. As he left the cathedral he saw a small group: the Prime Minister, Lord Randolph, and Lady Randolph; Pynsent and Jim Corrance were standing beyond these. The Prime Minister acclaimed the preacher in Latin, holding out both hands:

"I salute Chrysostom," and then he added simply: "Thank you—thank you!"

Once more Archibald clutched at opportunity, but the prebendary, eyeing him with jealous glance, stood between him and confession. Then Lord Randolph and his wife, Pynsent and Corrance, swelled a chorus of felicitation. Archie was feeling that the truth must be written on his scarlet face. But his friends, like the Dean, attributed confusion to modesty.