"I don't know about that. I am wicked sometimes—I say hateful things."
"But there is no bitterness in your soul."
"I don't know, but I think there is, sometimes. I know once I wished that a woman was dead; but she was the meanest thing you ever saw. And she did die not long after that and I was scared nearly to death—and I prayed and sent flowers to the funeral. Wasn't that wicked?"
The preacher admitted that it was wayward, but he could not find it in his inflamed heart to call her wicked. She was too engaging, too handsome to be wicked. Nature could not so defame herself, he thought, though he knew that there was many a beautiful flower without perfume. But while settled love condemns, love springing into life forgives. "Wayward," said the preacher, "Perhaps thoughtless would be a better word."
"No, it wasn't thoughtless, because I was thinking hard all the time. Don't you get awfully tired studying up something to preach about?"
He smiled upon her. "All work in time becomes laborious, and that is why congregations desire young men—they want freshness. An old man may continue to be fresh, but his brain must be wonderful and his soul must be a garden of flowers. The wisdom of the old man often offends the young and tires the middle-aged; human nature demands entertainment, and the preacher who entertains while he instructs is the one who makes the most friends and the one who indeed does the most good. The unpoetic preacher is doomed; the gospel itself is a poem. The practical man may not read poetry, may not understand it; but he likes it in a sermon, for it breathes the gentleness and the purity of Christ. But poetry cannot be laborious, cannot be dry with studied wisdom, and therefore, when a preacher becomes a great scholar, he forgets his simple poetry and the people begin to forget him."
"My!" exclaimed the girl, "what a sermon you have preached. And it's true, too, I think. I know we had an old man at our church—one of the best old men you ever saw—but they got tired of him. He—he couldn't hold anybody. Even the old men gaped and yawned. He was giving them dry creed. Well, a young man came along and preached for us. And it was like spring time coming in the winter. He made us laugh and cry. People like to cry—it makes them laugh so much better afterward. Well, the old man had to go."
"And after a time, the young man, grown old, will have to go. We must keep this life fresh; we must look for incentives to freshness. A preacher ought to be the most genial of men. And his wife ought to be genial; indeed, innocent mischief would not ill become her."
He looked at her, but she did not look at him. She was leaning back with her eyes half closed. "I hear Mr. Howard and Agnes coming," she said.
CHAPTER XIV.