The auditorium was filled with the buzz of many voices, but as the pastor of All People's advanced down the aisle, this hum gradually ceased, and every eye was turned upon the man, who tall and grave, with features slightly wasted, nevertheless wore a look serenely confident and even happy.
This expression in itself was instant occasion for wonder and surprise. Was this man really unbreakable? Knowing nothing of what had happened in the day to encourage its pastor and make him strong, his congregation was much better prepared to see him as Bessie had found him three hours before than as he now appeared.
There were glances also for the faithful Rose, pale and worn, but bearing herself with true Hampstead dignity; for aggressive, wizened Dick, and for Tayna, emotional and ready, as usual, for tears or laughter. But there were more than glances for the lady who walked at the pastor's side proudly, with a possessive air as if she owned him and were glad to own him. There was searching scrutiny and attempt at appraisal.
All People's had never seen this woman before. She looked young; yet bore herself like a person of consequence. She was beautiful, but the dignity of her beauty was detracted from by dimples. Yet with the dimples went a masterful self-possession and a chin that was a trifle square and to-night just a trifle thrust out, while her head was a little tilted back and her blue eyes were a little aglint with shafts of a light something like defiance, as if to say: "Hurt him at your peril. Take him from me if you can!"
Who was she? No one knew. Everybody asked; but no one answered.
After standing in the aisle before his family pew, while Rose, Dick, Tayna, and Bessie filed in before him, the minister stood for a moment surveying the scene. As he looked, the serenity upon his features gave way to pain. The situation saddened him inexpressibly. He was like a refugee who returns to find his home ruined by the ravages of war. How peaceful and how helpful had been the atmosphere of All People's! How happily he had seen its walls rise and its pews fill! How many good impulses had been started there! What a pity that the note of inquisition and of persecution should now be sounded. How sad that strife should come! And over him of all beings! He had often looked upon a congregation torn by dissensions concerning its pastor, and he had said that no church should ever undo itself over him. When his time came to go, he would go quietly.
Yet now he was not going quietly, but that was because he felt it was not himself that was involved; instead it was a principle. Either this congregation existed to mediate love, helpfulness, and a charitable spirit to the world, or it had no reason for existence at all. It had better be disrupted, this gallery fall, this altar crumble, these walls collapse, these people be scattered to the winds, than All People's become a society for the advancement of pharisaism.
He noted that the gallery was packed, but on the main floor empty spaces stared at him from the central tier of pews. Half of All People's members must have remained away. John realized with new emotion what this meant: that there were men and women in his congregation who could not see their pastor arraigned like this, who could not bear to witness the rising waves of bitterness, the charges and the counter-charges, the incriminations, the malicious spirit of partisanship which invariably breaks out in times like these. But it meant too that these same soft-hearted folk were also soft in the spine; unwilling to take a stand with him; unwilling to be recorded pro or con upon a great issue like this; people for whom he had done a service so great that they could not now turn down their thumbs against him, yet lacking in the strength of character either to sit as his judges or to cast a vote in his favor.
From this thought of jelly-fish the minister turned, almost with relief to where, stretching widely behind the Burbeck pew, was a mass of close-packed faces, with super-heated resolution depicted upon their features. The bearing of these partisans in itself reflected how they had been solicited, inflamed, and organized. They were there like an army to follow their leader.
Good people, too, some of them! Doctor Hampstead's very best people. Yet to recognize them and their mood gave him a sense of personal power. He believed that he could walk over there and talk to these people ten minutes, and they would break like sheep from the leadership of Brother Burbeck. They would come pressing around him with tears and expressions of confidence. But it was not in John's purpose to do that. He was on trial. If on the record of his life among them, these people could condemn and oust him, his work had been a failure. It was as well to know it.