There came more of these sentences. The spark had caught; the furnace was beginning to glow. George gazed at the preacher with his own face alight. His surroundings were forgotten.... If this was the kind of preaching that had brought Dr. Merrow his great reputation, then he understood its appeal, and was himself moved by it. It came from something beyond creeds, far beyond differences in methods of worship. It had been heard in all ages of the Church, amidst the splendours of mediæval superstition, as in the crude barrenness of modern revivalism. The spirit moved on the face of the waters; the stagnancy of mere words was broken; there was life and healing in them.
The words came faster. The voice grew stronger, and took on a different tone, as if on an organ a touch of reed had been added to diapason. The slightly bent figure became straighter, the worn face younger. The preacher began to use his hands—thin, flexible, nervous hands, which seemed to clutch at deep truths, and fling them out for the world to take hold of. Soon the burning words came in a torrent, as of a rushing mass of water of irresistible force, yet bound within its directing channel. Every now and then they sank to a deep calm, but were still infused with the same concentrative power. Such words had stirred men's minds and souls in long past ages. Spoken on bare hillsides underneath the symbol of faith, they had converted kingdoms. Flung forth over throngs of rough fighting men, they had turned bloodshed and rapine into righteous crusades. Their power was older than that of Christianity itself. In the dim ages of religious history it had singled out Aaron for the priesthood, and put him above Moses, the warrior leader. Later, it had burst the bonds of the priesthood itself, and winged the utterances of great prophets.
Every page that we turn in this extraordinary book lessens the distance not only in time but in sympathy between the Rector and the Pastor. The orthodox evangelical chapel orator is drawn with just the insight one would superficially not expect from a man of Mr. Marshall's birth, breeding, and environment. He is certainly the author's finest achievement, even finer than Squire Clinton, for he is more difficult to draw. The Rev. Dr. Merrow must be added to Chaucer's Poore Persoun and to Goldsmith's Village Preacher as one more permanent clerical figure in imaginative literature.
Lesser personages in this story are given with the same care in detail, until we feel their presence as personal friends. The curate, the Rev. George Barton, so completely misunderstood by Mrs. Merrow, is an almost flawless portrait. His healthy, athletic outdoor nature and the development of his inner life are both presented with subtle, delicate strokes of the pen possible only to an artist of distinction.
It is interesting to contemplate side by side in the reader's mind the wife of the Rector and the wife of the Pastor. Both are good women—their only similarity. Lady Ruth, a born aristocrat, with a "temperamental inability to comport herself as the busy wife of a busy clergyman" is one of the most gracious and lovely figures created by our novelist, which means that her charm is irresistible. The less admirable, but more energetic wife of Dr. Merrow is so perfect a representative of the busy city pastor's helpmate that we can only wonder how it is possible to put on paper any creation so real. There is not a false touch in this picture. William Allingham wrote in his diary after reading one of Browning's poems, "Bravo, Browning!" Upon finishing The Greatest of These, which I confidently call a great novel, I could hardly refrain from a shout of applause.
IX
Mr. Marshall is a twentieth century novelist, because he is happily yet alive, and because he writes of twentieth century scenes and characters; but he is apart from the main currents of twentieth century fiction, standing indeed in the midst of the stream like a commemorative pillar to Victorian art. He has never written historical romance, which dominated the novel at the beginning of our century; he has never written the "life" novel—beginning with the hero's birth and travelling with plotless chronology, the type most in favour since the year 1906; he has never written a treatise and called it a novel, as so many of his contemporaries have done. Every one of his novels, except the two unfortunate burlesques, is a good story, with a good plot and living characters; and he has chosen to write about well-bred people, because those are the people he knows best.
It is also well to remember, that although his best novels are parochial, he himself is a citizen of the world. He has seen the North Cape, he has lived in the Australian bush, in various European cities, and has traveled extensively in America. One reason why he can describe English country life so clearly is because he sees it in the proper perspective. He is at home in any community on earth.