Esther | Page 4

said the professor;
"every Christian emblem about the church is superlatively correct, but
paleontologically it is a fraud. Wharton and Hazard did the emblems,
and I supplied them with antediluvian beasts which were all right when
I drew them, but Wharton has played the devil with them, and I don't
believe he knows the difference between a saurian and a crab. I could
not recognize one of my own offspring."

"And how did it suit you, Esther?"
"I am charmed," replied his daughter. "Only it certainly does come just
a little near being an opera-house. Mr. Hazard looks horribly like
Meyerbeer's Prophet. He ordered us about in a fine tenor voice, with his
eyes, and told us that we belonged to him, and if we did not behave
ourselves he would blow up the church and us in it. I thought every
moment we should see his mother come out of the front pews, and have
a scene with him. If the organ had played the march, the effect would
have been complete, but I felt there was something wanting."
"It was the sexton," said the professor; "he ought to have had a
medieval costume. I must tell Wharton to-night to invent one for him.
Hazard has asked me to come round to his rooms, because he thinks I
am an unprejudiced observer and will tell him the exact truth. Now
what am I to say?"
"Tell him," said the aunt, "that he looked like a Christian martyr
defying the beasts in the amphitheater, and George, you are one of
them. Between you and your Uncle William I wonder how Esther and I
keep any religion at all."
"It is not enough to save you, Aunt Sarah," replied the professor. "You
might just as well go with us, for if the Church is half right, you haven't
a chance."
"Just now I must go with my husband, who is not much better than
you," she replied. "He must have his luncheon, church or no church.
Good-by."
So she departed, notifying Esther that the next day there was to be at
her house a meeting of the executive committee of the children's
hospital, which Esther must be careful to attend.
When she was out of the room the professor turned to his uncle and
said: "Seriously, Uncle William, I wish you knew Stephen Hazard. He
is a pleasant fellow in or out of the pulpit, and would amuse you. If you
and Esther will come to tea some afternoon at my rooms, I will get

Hazard and Wharton and Aunt Sarah there to meet you."
"Will he preach at me?" asked Mr. Dudley.
"Never in his life," replied the professor warmly. "He is the most
rational, unaffected parson in the world. He likes fun as much as you or
any other man, and is interested in every thing."
"I will come if Esther will let me," said Mr. Dudley. "What have you to
say about it, Esther?"
"I don't think it would hurt you, father. George's building has an
elevator."
"I didn't mean that, you watch-dog. I meant to ask whether you wanted
to go to George's tea party?"
"I should like it of all things. Mr. Hazard won't hurt me, and I always
like to meet Mr. Wharton."
"Then I will ask both of them this evening for some day next week or
the week after, and will let you know," said George.
"Is he easily shocked?" asked Mr. Dudley. "Am I to do the old-school
Puritan with him, or what?"
"Stephen Hazard," replied the professor, "is as much a man of the
world as you or I. He is only thirty-five; we were at college together,
took our degrees together, went abroad at the same time, and to the
same German university. He had then more money than I, and traveled
longer, went to the East, studied a little of every thing, lived some time
in Paris, where he discovered Wharton, and at last some few years ago
came home to take a church at Cincinnati, where he made himself a
power. I thought he made a mistake in leaving there to come to St.
John's, and wrote him so. I thought if he came here he would find that
he had no regular community to deal with but just an Arab horde, and
that it was nonsense to talk of saving the souls of New Yorkers who
have no souls to be saved. But he thought it his duty to take the offer.

Aunt Sarah hit it right when she called him a Christian martyr in the
amphitheater. At college, we used to call him St. Stephen. He had this
same idea that the church was every thing, and that every thing
belonged to the church. When I told him that