They came, they behaved themselves, they said not a word, cloven tongues of inspiration no longer descended upon them; but in the most moving passage of prayer or sermon, they would feel imperatively moved to get up and go. And with much deprecatory fuss and whispered apology, always from the centre of a well-occupied row—they would go forth and presently return again, finding that they had left book, or handbag, or handkerchief behind them, or that they had taken away their neighbour’s in mistake for their own. And it was all so politely and apologetically done that everybody, except the preacher, had to forgive them.
And so it came about that after Mr. Trimblerigg had been at Bethesda for a little more than two years, he accepted with alacrity a post at the Free Evangelical centre for the organization of foreign missions. And when he went out to preach it was at short notice here, there and everywhere, where the sedulous attentions of Miss Isabel Sparling and her followers had not time to overtake him.
That great work of organization, and the addressing of meetings for men only, gave his energies the outlet, the flourish, and the flamboyance which they imperatively demanded; and while he discovered in himself a head for business and a leaning toward speculative finance, in the great Free Evangelical connection his spiritual and oratorical reputation continued to grow.
And meanwhile, in his domestic circumstances, Mr. Trimblerigg was living an enlarged life and doing well. His wife had presented him with three children; and he in return, by moving them from a remote country district of primitive ways to one of the big centres of civilization, had presented her with a house containing a basement and a bathroom.
The basement enabled them to keep a servant; while the bathroom—a matter of more importance—enabled me to obtain a clearer view (which is not quite the same as a complete explanation), of Mr. Trimblerigg’s character.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Theory and Practice
IT is as a rule (though not always) when men are not under the observation of others, that they most surely reveal themselves. Word and face and gesture are not then the concealment which at other times they may become; and though when a man talks or gesticulates to himself he is often very far from telling the truth, he is generally near to revealing it.
And that, I suppose, is why writers of fiction have so generally taken the impossible liberty of following their characters into places of solitude and the privacy of their own thoughts; and from this godlike vantage-ground have pulled the strings of their puppets, imposing upon the reader a shoddy romanticism which pretends to be science.
But the gods can very seldom gaze into the secrecy of the things they have made, with so omniscient and cocksure a spirit. Between mortal man and his maker there is a remove which sometimes baffles each alike. Free-will, inside a fixed radius of determined environment, creates an obscurity. The outer integument, the limited viewpoint, the competing interests and motives, which go to make up one of those small self-centred individualities called man, are often obstructive to the larger and more serene intelligence which accompanies the spiritual standpoint; and I confess that in his privacy Mr. Trimblerigg used often to puzzle me.
It was seeing the puzzle at work—putting itself elaborately together, then pulling itself to pieces again—which gave me the clearer view; though it remained a puzzle still. But it was something to discover, suddenly and unexpectedly, that Mr. Trimblerigg had a passion for sincerity—towards himself at any rate—which took him to strange lengths; and though I recount what came under my observation, I do not pretend that I am able to explain it.