“And that was the cause——”
“It left her what you see, now. The effect upon her character and feelings was, if possible, more deplorable. From that hour she has never spoken to her father at all, or of him as ‘papa.’ It is always ‘he’ and ‘him’ to the family, ‘Mr. Wayt’ to strangers. It seems horribly unnatural, but she loathes and despises him. While she lay crushed and suffering for the months that passed before she left her bed, she would go into convulsions at sight of him. Her mother begged her, on her knees, to ‘forgive poor papa, who had a delirious headache when he pushed her away from the door.’ Hester refused passionately. She is no more forgiving now. Yet she was so proud and shrewd, even then, that she never betrayed to the doctors how she was hurt. She let everybody believe that it was an accident. I had been her nurse for six months before she told me the fearful story.
“The truth never got abroad in Cincinnati, but flying rumors of Mr. Wayt’s growing eccentricities and the possible cause gathered an opposition party in the church. It was headed by a prominent druggist, who had talked with others in the trade from whom Mr. Wayt had bought opium, laudanum, and brandy. He has been more cunning in his purchases since then. He was obliged to resign his charge, and became what poor Hester calls ‘an ecclesiastical tramp.’ He controls his appetite within tolerably safe bounds for a while, sometimes for months, then gives way, and we live on the verge of discovery and disgrace until the crisis comes. The end is always the same. We break camp and ‘move on.’”
“Yet he brought clean papers to the Fairhill church.”
A dreary smile went with the answer.
“Clerical charity suffereth long and is kind! Out of curiosity I attended once a meeting of a presbytery that dismissed him from his church and commended him to another presbytery. We had narrowly escaped public exposure at that time. The sexton found Mr. Wayt in the condition you have seen this evening upon the floor of the lecture room and called in a physician, who boldly proclaimed that the man was ‘dead drunk.’ The accused put in a plea of indisposition and an overdose of brandy, inadvertently swallowed. His brethren, assembled in solemn session, spoke of his faithful work in the vineyard and the leadings of Divine Providence, and said that their prayers went with him to his new field of labor.
“I don’t want to be unjust or cynical, Mr. Gilchrist, and I can see that there is a pleasanter side to the case. There is such a thing as Christian charity, and more of it in the world than we are willing to admit. However church people may gossip about an unpopular pastor, and maneuver to get rid of him, when the parting comes they will not brand him in the eyes of others. And clergymen are very faithful to one another. It is really beautiful to see how they try to hide faults and foibles. It is a literal fulfillment of the command, ‘Bear ye one another’s burdens.’ In some—in most of Mr. Wayt’s charges—the secret of his frequent change of pastorate was not told. He was ‘odd,’ and ‘had nomadic tastes.’ Sometimes the climate did not agree with his health. The air was too strong or too weak. Twice poor Hester’s condition demanded an immediate change. We went to Chicago to be near an eminent surgeon, who, after all, never saw her.
“I will not weary you with the details of a life such as I pray God few families know. After a few years Hester and I became hopeless of anything better. Wherever we might go, change, and the probability of disgrace, were a mere question of time. My sister never loses faith in her husband and in an overruling Power that will not forsake the righteous. For, strange as it may seem, she believes in the piety of a man whose sacred profession is a continual lie.
“Oh, Mr. Gilchrist!” the enforced monotony of her tone wavering into a cry of pain—“I think that is the worst of all! When I recollect my mother’s pure religion—when I see your mother’s beneficent life and firm faith in goodness and in God—when I know that, in spite of the seeming untruthfulness which is, she thinks, necessary to protect her husband—my sister holds fast to her love and trust in an Almighty Friend, and walks humbly with her God, I feel such indignation against a man who is the slave of passion, selfish, vain, and conscienceless, and yet assumes to show such souls the way to heaven, that I dare not enter the church where he is allowed to preach, lest I should cry out in the face of his hearers against the monstrous cheat!”
Her eyes flamed clear; the torrent of feeling swept away reserve and coldness.