The Man from Glengarry: A Tale of the Ottawa

by Ralph Connor

“It is not much he cares for the Bible class, whatever,” he confided to Don, who was sitting beside him.

But more remarkable and disturbing to Ranald than the presence of Aleck McRae, was that of a young man sitting between Hughie and Maimie in the minister's pew. He was evidently from the city. One could see that from his fine clothes and his white shirt and collar. Ranald looked at him with deepening contempt. “Pride” was written all over him. Not only did he wear fine clothes, and a white shirt and collar, but he wore them without any sign of awkwardness or apology in his manner, and indeed as if he enjoyed them. But the crowning proof of his “pride,” Don noted with unutterable scorn.

“Look at him,” he said, “splits his head in the middle.”

Ranald found himself wondering how the young fop would look sitting in a pool of muddy water. How insufferable the young fellow's manners were! He sat quite close to Maimie, now and then whispering to her, evidently quite ignorant of how to behave in church. And Maimie, who ought to know better, was acting most disgracefully as well, whispering back and smiling right into his face. Ranald was thoroughly ashamed of her. He could not deny that the young fellow was handsome, hatefully so, but he was evidently stuck full of conceit, and as he let his eyes wander over the congregation assembled, with a bold and critical stare, making remarks to Maimie in an undertone which could be heard over the church, Ranald felt his fingers twitching. The young man was older than Ranald, but Ranald would have given a good deal for an opportunity to “take him with one hand.”

At this point Ranald's reflections were interrupted by Mrs. Murray rising to open the class.

“Will some one suggest a Psalm?” she asked, her cheek, usually pale, showing a slight color. It was always an ordeal for her to face her class, ever since the men had been allowed to come, and the first moments were full of trial to her. Only her conscience and her fine courage kept her from turning back from this, her path of duty.

At once, from two or three came responses to her invitation, and a Psalm was chosen.

The singing was a distinct feature of the Bible class. There was nothing like it, not only in the other services of the congregation, but in any congregation in the whole county. The young people that formed that Bible class have long since grown into old men and women, but the echoes of that singing still reverberate through the chambers of their hearts when they stand up to sing certain tunes or certain Psalms. Once a week, through the long winter, they used to meet and sing to John “Aleck's” sounding beat for two or three hours. They learned to sing, not only the old psalm tunes but psalm tunes never heard in the congregation before, as also hymns and anthems. The anthems and hymns were, of course, never used in public worship. They were reserved for the sacred concert which John “Aleck” gave once a year. It was in the Bible class that he and his fellow enthusiasts found opportunity to sing their new Psalm tunes, with now and then a hymn. When John “Aleck,” a handsome, broad-shouldered, six-footer, stood up and bit his tuning-fork to catch the pitch, the people straightened up in their seats and prepared to follow his lead. And after his great resonant voice had rolled out the first few notes of the tune, they caught him up with a vigor and enthusiasm that carried him along, and inspired him to his mightiest efforts. Wonderful singing it was, full toned, rhythmical and well balanced.

With characteristic courage, the minister's wife had chosen Paul's Epistle to the Romans for the subject of study, and to-night the lesson was the redoubtable ninth chapter, that arsenal for Calvinistic champions. First the verses were repeated by the class in concert, and the members vied with each other in making this a perfect exercise, then the teaching of the chapter was set forth in simple, lucid speech. The last half hour was devoted to the discussion of questions, raised either by the teacher or by any member of the class. To-night the class was slow in asking questions. They were face to face with the tremendous Pauline Doctrine of Sovereignty. It was significant that by Macdonald Dubh, his brother, and the other older and more experienced members of the class, the doctrine was regarded as absolutely inevitable and was accepted without question, while by Yankee and Ranald and all the younger members of the class, it was rejected with fierce resentment. The older men had been taught by the experience of long and bitter years, that above all their strength, however mighty, a power, resistless and often inscrutable, determined their lives. The younger men, their hearts beating with conscious power and freedom, resented this control, or accepting it, refused to assume the responsibility for the outcome of their lives. It was the old, old strife, the insoluble mystery; and the minister's wife, far from making light of it, allowed its full weight to press in upon the members of her class, and wisely left the question as the apostle leaves it, with a statement of the two great truths of Sovereignty and Free Will without attempting the impossible task of harmonizing these into a perfect system. After a half-hour of discussion, she brought the lesson to a close with a very short and very simple presentation of the practical bearing of the great doctrine. And while the mystery remained unsolved, the limpid clearness of her thought, the humble attitude of mind, the sympathy with doubt, and above all, the sweet and tender pathos that filled her voice, sent the class away humbled, subdued, comforted, and willing to wait the day of clearer light. Not that they were done with Pharaoh and his untoward fate; that occupied them for many a day.

The class was closed with prayer and singing. As a kind of treat, the last singing was a hymn and they stood up to sing it. It was Perronet's great hymn sung to old Coronation, and when they came to the refrain, “Crown him Lord of all,” the very rafters of the little church rang with the mighty volume of sound. The Bible class always closed with a great outburst of singing, and as a rule, Ranald went out tingling and thrilling through and through. But tonight, so deeply was he exercised with the unhappy doom of the unfortunate king of Egypt, from which, apparently, there was no escape, fixed as it was by the Divine decree, and oppressed with the feeling that the same decree would determine the course of his life, he missed his usual thrill. He was walking off by himself in a perplexed and downcast mood, avoiding every one, even Don, and was nearly past the minister's gate when Hughie, excited and breathless, caught up to him and exclaimed: “Oh, Ranald, was not that splendid? Man, I like to hear John 'Aleck' sing 'Crown him' that way. And I say,” he continued, “mother wants you to come in.”