The hymn over, the minister read a psalm and repeated the Lord's Prayer.
The congregation listened with lengthening faces. In fact, the disapprobation was mutual. In the first place, they were shocked that the candidate for their pulpit should travel on the Lord's day; in the next place, his looks and manners were too little like those of their former pastor, the Rev. Jabez True; thirdly, they had never before had the Our Father foisted on them for a prayer. They were accustomed to hear a long and explicit address to the Deity, in which their wishes and thoughts were explained to him, and their praises and thanks duly meted out—a prayer which they could talk about afterward. Elder True had been gifted in prayer, and would sometimes pray half an hour without a moment's hesitation. It was certainly a very shabby thing to put them off with the Lord's Prayer.
Then came the sermon. Only two persons present knew that the text was from the Koran. It was a story of a certain good man who had a plantation of palm-trees, to which he used to call the poor, and give them such fruit as the knife missed or the wind blew off. He died; and his sons felt too poor to give anything away. So they agreed to come early in the morning, and gather the fruit when the poor could not know. But in laying their plans, they omitted to add, "If it please God!" In the night a storm passed over the garden, and in the morning it was as one where the fruit had all been gathered.
There are various ways in which such a text could be treated. Our speaker, changing his plan at the last minute, irritated by the cold and unsympathizing faces about him, and by his personal discomforts, chose to enforce this thought: there are those who fancy that all the fruits of grace are theirs, that they are the elect, and that those outside of their walls shall perish with hunger while they are feasting. Behold, the whirlwind of the wrath of God shall sweep away the good they only seem to have, and leave them poorer than Lazarus. It was a forced interpretation; but the speaker was dextrous, and made himself appear consecutive even when he rambled most. With passionate vehemence, he denounced those sanctimonious souls who mistake a curvature of the spine for humility, and a nasal twang for an evidence of grace. "I love not," he said, "those cold and heavy souls that never take a generous fire. One wonders if they ever will burn—under any future circumstances. They flatter themselves that they are good and just and reasonable because they are emotionless. It is not so. No heart is pure that is not passionate; no virtue safe that is not enthusiastic. Is the diamond less fine because it is brilliant? Has the sea no depth because it sparkles on the surface? Would the cannon-ball go further flung by the hand than it does when shot from the cannon's mouth? Is truth always a mountain crowned with snow? It may be a volcano. A strong and sweet thinker has said, 'The wildest excess of passion does not injure the soul so much as respectable selfishness does;' and he says rightly. I protest against the apotheosis of phlegm. There are many phases of good, and each has his way; but, for my part, I prefer the faults of heat to the faults of cold. The former are often generous faults, the latter never so. The faults of the former are on the surface, and can neither be denied nor hidden; those of the latter are deep-rooted, and may be and often are mistaken for virtues. Who were the great saints? Look at the reckless Magdalen, the vehement St. Paul, the hasty St. Peter. St. John of the Cross quotes as an axiom in theology the saying that God moves all things in harmony with their constitution; and the history of the world shows that, when he wanted to kindle a grand and holy conflagration, he took for workers combustible men and women. Among the apostles, the only one who was cold and calculating enough to count money and think of the purse when the Lord was near enough to set all their hearts on fire was Judas, and not the worst Judas in the world either. For since his time many a pretended follower has weighed the Holy One in a balance, and sold him for a price, and has lacked the after-grace to hang himself."
"Let us pray!"
It was only when Miss Yorke and her brother rose, that the astonished and scandalized congregation understood that the sermon was really over, and they were to stand up and listen to a prayer.
The minister spoke in a voice yet vibrating with excitement: "O Lord God of morning and evening, of storm and sunshine, of the dew that bathes the violet and the frost that cracks the rock—God of the east and the west, and all that lies between them—God of our souls and our bodies, of bliss and of anguish—O God, who alone rewardest failure, who for thy mantle, which eludes our grasp, givest us thy hand to clasp—may all thy creatures adore thee! Our praise goes up like the note of the small bird in the branches; but thou hast made us weak. All power is thine! Our hearts swell and break at thy feet as the waves break upon the shore; but thou hast set our limit. Space is in the hollow of thy hand! We lift our eyes toward thee, and their gaze is baffled; but thou, who seest all things, hast sealed their vision. Glory and honor and power be unto thee, inscrutable Wisdom, for ever and ever. Amen!"
"And he calls that a prayer!" thought the congregation.
"Why, it is like a Catholic prayer!" whispered Melicent to her brother. "And he quotes St. John of the Cross, and the Koran, and Ecce Homo. He must be an eclectic minister."
The congregation went out with very glum faces, and scattered to their various homes. Only the deacon waited in the porch, as in duty bound, to invite the minister home to dinner.