The church had been slowly filling, the choir filed into their places, the organ stopped playing Cavalleria Rusticana, a hush fell over the place and Doctor Leslie, his white hair and black gown passing through the changing lights of the windows, came slowly out of the vestry and up to the pulpit. He was an old man now, but a vigorous one, and his sermons were still strong and full of the fire of his earlier years. He had never walked quite so smartly, nor spoken with quite his old vim since the day he had been left alone in the Manse. But through his bereavement his eye had grown a little kindlier, his handshake a little more sympathetic, his voice a little more tender.
As he stood up and opened the Book of Praise to announce the first hymn, his glance involuntarily travelled, as it always did at the beginning of the service, to where old Angus's white head shone in the amber light of the window, as though a halo of glory were about it. Old Angus had long ago learned to look for that glance, and returned it by a glow from his deep eyes. Whenever they sang the 112th psalm in Algonquin Presbyterian church,
"How blest the man who fears the Lord,
And makes His law his chief delight,"
the minister looked down and thought how well the words described the sunny-faced old saint, and Angus looked up and felt how aptly they fitted his pastor.
Dr. Leslie had had Angus in his mind this morning when he chose the 111th psalm for their opening praise, knowing how the old man's heart would be lifted to his God this morning.
"Praise ye the Lord; with my whole heart
The Lord's praise I'll declare."
They sang it to "Gainsborough," the favourite tune of the old folk, for it gave an opportunity for restful lingering on every word, and had in it all those much-loved trills and quavers that made up the true accompaniment of a Scottish psalm. They sang it spiritedly, as Algonquin Presbyterians always sang; the choir and the organ on one side, the congregation on the other, each striving to gain the greater volume and power. For many years the choir had won out, for Lawyer Ed was leader, and the whole congregation would have been no match for him alone. But lately he had handed the leadership over to a young man whom he had trained up from the Sunday-school, and gone down to the opposition, where he sometimes gave the organist and the choir all they could do to be heard. And this morning, in his happiness over Roderick's home-coming, he was at his best.
There was only one little rift in the harmony of the whole congregation. In spite of Mr. McPherson's objections, Lawyer Ed and J. P. Thornton had succeeded in putting the "Amen" at the end of the psalms, as well as the hymns, and when the objectionable word came this morning, Jock sat down as he always did, heavily and noisily, exactly on the last word of the psalm proper, and pulled Mrs. Jock's silk wrap to make her give a like condemnation to the bit of popery. Lawyer Ed sat in the pew opposite Jock and heard the protesting creak of Jock's seat when he descended and, in a spirit of mischief, he turned round till he faced the McPherson and rolled out the "Amen" directly at its objector. It was shocking conduct for an elder, as J. P. said afterwards, but then every one knew that though he should become Moderator of the General Assembly, Lawyer Ed would never grow up.
The sermon was to young people. It was a call to them to give their lives in their morning to the true Master and Lord of life. Dr. Leslie took for his text the scene enacted on that great morning when two young fishermen had heard across the shining water that call which, once truly heard by the heart's ear, cannot be resisted, "Come ye after Me." There were young people in the church that morning who heard it as truly as the fisher lads that far gone morning on Galilee, and as truly obeyed it. Helen Murray listened, struggling with tears. She had grown up in a Christian home where the influence of father and mother were such that it was inevitable that she should early become a disciple of the Master they served. But she had faltered in her service since her griefs had come upon her in such a flood. She would never have allowed herself to grow selfish over her joys but sorrow had absorbed her. She did not realise, until this morning, that she was growing selfish over her trouble. The tender call came again—"Come ye after Me," sounding just as sweetly and impelling in the night of sorrow and stress as it ever did in the joyous morning.
Roderick McRae was listening to the sermon too, but he did not hear the Voice. For in his young, eager ears was ringing the siren song of success. He had gone to church regularly in his absence from home, because he knew that the weekly letter to his father would lose half its charm did the son not give an account of the sermon he had heard the Sabbath before. But much listening to sermons had bred in the young man the inattentive heart, even though the ear was doing its duty. Roderick accepted sermons and church-going good-naturedly, as a necessary, respectable formality of life. That it must have a bearing on all life or be utterly meaningless he did not realise. His plans for life had nothing to do with church, and the divine call fell upon his ears unheeded.