The SWEET SUNNY SOUTH
I was strongly inclined to accept the call. Not that I liked changes, for heart vines bleed freely when uptorn, and friendship's stocks cannot be bought on margin. But my heart was heavy, and St. Cuthbert's had been sorely wounded. Therefore, when the South Carolina church opened correspondence with me regarding their vacant pulpit, I lent an attentive ear.
All who have known sorrow in their work know how sweet sounds the voice, even the siren voice, which calls to distant scenes of toil. The world's weary heart will some day learn that no far-leading path, no journey by land or sea can separate us from the sorrow we seek to flee; because no path hath been discovered, no route devised, which shall lead us forth from our own hearts, where sorrow hath her lair.
Nevertheless, I was strongly minded to go forth from the work which had become my very life. It is nature's favourite paradox that what we love the most, the most hath power to give us pain. Could we withhold our love, no hand could wound us sorely, for it takes a friend to make an enemy worth the name. And since I loved St. Cuthbert's with that love which only sacrifice can know, I was oppressed with a corresponding fear that her frown would quench whatever glimmer of gladness still flickered in my heart. For I had almost forgotten that ever I was glad. And is it to be wondered at?
My daughter's love was fixed upon a man whom I deemed impossible, though by no fault of his. She had renounced all purpose of their immediate union in deference to her father's protest, but her love was fixed upon him still, and her father felt like one who was beating back the spring. Her mother was torn with the torment of an armed neutrality. Further, my beautiful church had been scarred by the explosive riot of that ordination day, stricken with a soul's lightning; and the whole tragedy of our home life had been laid bare to every eye.
Margaret, and her love, and her lover, and her lover's genealogy, and her father's forbiddal of their marriage, all these were daily herbs to those who loved us, daily bread to native gossip-mongers, and daily luxury to all who wished us ill. My attitude towards Margaret's lover, and whether that attitude was right or wrong, was the especial subject of debate and all New Jedboro abandoned itself to a carnival of judgment. Even the most pious and indulgent could not forego the solemn luxury, and those who denied themselves all of scandal's toothsome tidbits could not renounce this great repast.
I entertained no actual misgivings as to St. Cuthbert's permanent loyalty to me; but our self-consciousness had become raw and sore, our manse had turned suddenly to a house of glass, and the whole situation was so fraught with embarrassment that no mere man since the fall could have been free from an instinctive longing to escape.
St. Andrew's, Charleston, an ancient church of that ancient city, had offered me its pulpit. The Southerners have a taste for British blood, and they stand alone as connoisseurs of that commodity. Wherefore, the St. Andrew's folk had cast about for a British minister, preferring the second growth, hopeful that its advantage of American shade might have made its excellence complete.
Their committee ranged all Canada, finally dismounting beneath the stately steeple of St. Cuthbert's, their lasso loosed for action. Or, to change the metaphor, they informed their church at home that their eyes were fastened on their game at last; for the duty of such a committee is to tree their bird, then hold him transfixed by various well-known sounds till the congregation shall bring him down by well directed aim, bag him, and bear him off.
The Charleston Committee was composed of four, who attended St. Cuthbert's both morning and evening, when they came one Sabbath day to spy out the land.