Was this false doctrine? Perhaps. Protestants are fond of saying with a sneer that Catholicism is a very “comfortable religion.” The implication would seem to be that a religion is not to be chosen because of its consolations. Therefore, it is perhaps regrettable that Sidney’s preachment to Dole was so pronouncedly a message of “sweetness and light.”
His hearers loved him, and looked upon his unministerial ways with a tolerance which surprised themselves; often, as he passed upon these long, seemingly aimless, walks which Dole could not comprehend, a hard-wrought man would pause in his work, straighten himself and look after him wistfully even as the eyes of the fishermen followed the Galilean, or a weary woman would stand in her doorway until such time as he drew near, and then, with some little excuse upon her lips, arrest his steps for a moment, to turn away comforted by the benediction of his mere presence.
Nor was Sidney insensible of, or irresponsive to this output of affection. He felt the full force of it, and returned to them their full measure heaped up and running over. And for a time the comfort of the mutual feeling helped to sustain his spirit, fainting beneath the burden of morbid introspection, and sapped by the ignorantly exercised power of his wife, for, not understanding the influence she wielded, Vashti used it rashly. Suggestion was superimposed upon suggestion until the centre of his mental gravity was all but lost, and in his walks he often paused bewildered at the upspringing of certain things within his mind, grasping at the elusive traces of his vanishing individuality.
The hour is past when these things might be scoffed at; the old legends have given place to scientific data more marvellous than the myths they discredit. The law has recognized the verity of these things, and justice has vindicated its decision with the extreme fiat of death. Alas, the justice of men is for those who kill the body; it cannot reach those who murder the mind.
The church was unusually crowded when Sidney arose. It had been hinted abroad that Ann Serrup was to be there, and Dole stirred with pleasurable anticipation, for Ann Serrup was an unregenerate individual so far as religion was concerned.
It was related of her that once at a revival meeting in Brixton, when the fiery revivalist of that place, Mr. Hackles, approached her, asking in sepulchral tones where she expected to go when she died, Ann replied, unmoved, that she would go to where they put her, a response calculated, in the mind of Mrs. Ranger, to bring a “judgment onto her.”
The Rev. Hackles denounced her as a vessel of wrath and designated her as chaff ready to be cast into the fire, but Ann sat dreamily through it all, and, as Lanty related afterwards, “never turned a hair.” And this was when she bore no other shame than the stigma of being a Serrup, and therefore predestined to evil, and now she was coming to Dole church. What would their gentle pastor say?
It was a sweet summer day. Mabella and little Dorothy sat by a window, and the yellow sunshine lingered about the two yellow heads, and reached out presently to Lanty’s curls when he entered a little later.
Vashti, white and stately, entered with Sally and took her place in the conspicuous pew set aside for the preacher’s family. Sally behaved herself demurely enough in church now, but such is the force of habit that the eyes of all the juveniles in Dole were bent steadily upon the preacher’s pew, for in Sally their childish instinct and experience told them there were possibilities, and indeed, to be strictly truthful, it must be confessed that now and then, at decent intervals, Sally treated them to a surreptitious grimace worth watching for.