"Thank you, sir, for calling at our house the other day," he said. "It is a terrible loss, sir, but we shall see our boy again."
I went back to my little house on the cliff thinking deeply. Yes, a subtle change had come over the little congregation. The first excitement of the war was over, but something, I could not define what, had created a new atmosphere. Personally, I was still as much in the dark as ever; and the faith, the suggestion of which I had realized that morning, seemed to rest on utterly insufficient foundations; but I could not deny its existence.
In the evening I found my way to the Parish Church. I saw at a glance that a larger congregation than usual had gathered. I noticed that old Squire Treherne was in the great square Treherne pew. Noticed, too, that Mr. Prideaux, father of young Prideaux, whose name I have mentioned, also several of the larger farmers who seldom came to Church of an evening, were present. What had drawn them there I could not tell, for it was in no way a special service. And yet, perhaps, it was special, for I knew that the sympathies of the people were drawn out towards Mr. Trelaske.
The Vicar did not look so haggard as when he had visited me, but the marks of suffering were plainly to be seen on his face. There was no change in the order of the service. The usual evening prayers were repeated, the Psalms were sung, and the village schoolmaster read the lessons as he was wont to do, and yet here, too, was a suggestion of a change. A deeper note was struck, a new meaning felt. I asked myself why it was so, and wondered if the change were in me or in the people around me. The Vicar conducted the service like a man who was very weary. There was no suggestion of triumph or even conviction in his tones. He seemed to be bearing a heavy burden. When presently the hymn before the sermon was being sung and he left his stall in the choir to go into the pulpit, I wondered what he could say. Had he a message to deliver? Had his sorrow brought him hope, faith?
He preached the shortest sermon, I think, I ever heard. Altogether, I imagine it did not take more than five minutes in its delivery, but the people listened as they had never listened before during the time I had been in St. Issey. He chose for his text a passage from the Psalms: "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." When he had read the passage, he waited for some seconds as if not knowing what to say.
"Has it struck you, brethren, that during this ghastly war, in spite of the fact that the greater part of the world is under arms, in spite of the fact that hellish deeds are being done, in spite of the welter of blood and the unutterable carnage, that we have heard no one deny the existence of God? I thought when the war first broke out and assumed such awful proportions, when I realized the misery it was causing, that people would have doubted God, that they would have said, like the enemies of the Psalmist of old, 'Where is now thy God?' I thought that atheism would have lifted its head again and uttered its desolating cry; that men would have said, 'If there is a God, He would not have allowed these things.' And yet worse things have happened than we, at the commencement of the war, thought possible, but I have heard no one deny the existence of God, neither have I heard any one seriously doubt His goodness. Why is it?"
He paused a few seconds and seemed to be communing with himself.
"Brethren," he went on, "we meet under the shadow of a great loss. Some of you, even as I at this moment, feel that we are in the deep waters, and in our heart's agony we cry out to God. We cannot help it."
He ceased again, and a silence, such as I have never known before in a Church, pervaded the building.
"Brethren," he went on, "will you pray for me, and I will pray for you? Pray that we may be led out of darkness into light."