"Yes," said he again, "I am the real moral leader here."
At this I saw Mrs. Minister nodding her head vigorously.
"It's you," she said, "and not Mr. Nash, who should lead this community."
How a woman loves concrete applications. She is your only true pragmatist. If a philosophy will not work, says she, why bother with it?
The minister rose quickly from his chair, threw back his head, and strode quickly up and down the room.
"You are right," said he; "and I WILL lead it. I'll have my farmers' meetings as I planned."
It may have been the effect of the lamplight, but it seemed to me that little Mrs. Minister, as she glanced up at him, looked actually pretty.
The minister continued to stride up and down the room with his chin in the air.
"Mr. Nash," said she in a low voice to me, "is always trying to hold him down and keep him back. My husband WANTS to do the great things"--wistfully.
"By every right," the minister was repeating, quite oblivious of our presence, "I should lead these people."
"He sees the weakness of the church," she continued, "as well as any one, and he wants to start some vigorous community work--have agricultural meetings and boys' clubs, and lots of things like that--but Mr. Nash says it is no part of a minister's work: that it cheapens religion. He says that when a parson--Mr. Nash always calls him parson, and I just LOATHE that name --has preached, and prayed, and visited the sick, that's enough for HIM."
At this very moment a step sounded upon the walk, and an instant later a figure appeared in the doorway.
"Why, Mr. Nash," exclaimed little Mrs. Minister, exhibiting that astonishing gift of swift recovery which is the possession of even the simplest women, "come right in."
It was some seconds before the minister could come down from the heights and greet Mr. Nash. As for me, I was never more interested in my life.
"Now," said I to myself, "we shall see Christian meet Apollyon."
As soon as Mrs. Minister lighted the lamp I was introduced to the great man. He looked at me sharply with his small, round eyes, and said:
"Oh, you are the--the man who was in church this afternoon."
I admitted it, and he looked around at the minister with an accusing expression. He evidently did not approve of me, nor could I wholly blame him, for I knew well how he, as a rich farmer, must look upon a rusty man of the road like me. I should have liked dearly to cross swords with him myself, but greater events were imminent.
In no time at all the discussion, which had evidently been broken off at some previous meeting, concerning the proposed farmers' assembly at the church, had taken on a really lively tone. Mr. Nash was evidently in the somewhat irritable mood with which important people may sometimes indulge themselves, for he bit off his words in a way that was calculated to make any but an unusually meek and saintly man exceedingly uncomfortable. But the minister, with the fine, high humility of those whose passion is for great or true things, was quite oblivious to the harsh words.
Borne along by an irresistible enthusiasm, he told in glowing terms what his plan would mean to the community, how the people needed a new social and civic spirit--a "neighbourhood religious feeling" he called it. And as he talked his face flushed, and his eyes shone with the pure fire of a great purpose. But I could see that all this enthusiasm impressed the practical Mr. Nash as mere moonshine. He grew more and more uneasy. Finally he brought his hand down with a resounding thwack upon his knee, and said in a high, cutting voice:
"I don't believe in any such newfangled nonsense. It ain't none of a parson's business what the community does. You're hired, ain't you, an' paid to run the church? That's the end of it. We ain't goin' to have any mixin' of religion an' farmin' in THIS neighbourhood."
My eyes were on the pale man of God. I felt as though a human soul were being weighed in the balance. What would he do now?
What was he worth REALLY as a man as well as a minister?
