On Christmas Day In The Evening | Page 9

almost from the beginning. He read it in the rich and cultivated voice of his training, but quite simply. Then Margaret sang, to the slender accompaniment of the little organ, the same solo which a famous soprano had sung that morning at the service at St. John's--and her brother William, listening from the pulpit, thought she sang it better. There was the quality in Margaret's voice which reaches hearts--a quality which somehow the famous soprano's notes had lacked. And every word could be heard, too--the quiet throughout the house was so absolute--except when Asa Fraser cleared his throat loudly in the midst of one of the singer's most beautiful notes. At the sound Mrs. George Tomlinson gave him a glance which ought to have annihilated him--but it did not. She could not know that the throat-clearing was a high tribute to the song--coming from Asa Fraser.
"How silently, how silently, The wondrous gift is given; So God imparts to human hearts The blessing of His heaven.... O Holy Child of Bethlehem! Descend to us, we pray; Cast out our sin, and enter in, Be born in us to-day."
Then William Sewall made a prayer. Those who had been looking to see old Elder Blake take this part in the service began to wonder if he had been asked into the pulpit simply as a courtesy. They supposed he could pray, at least. They knew he had never ceased doing it--and for them. Elder Blake had not an enemy in the village. It seemed strange that he couldn't be given some part, in spite of his extreme age. To be sure, it was many years since anybody had asked him to take part in any service whatsoever, even a funeral service--for which, as is well understood, a man retains efficiency long after he has ceased to be of use in the pulpit, no matter how devastating may be the weather. But that fact did not seem to bear upon the present situation.
A number of people, among them Miss Jane Pollock, were beginning to feel more than a little indignant about it, and so lost the most of Sewall's prayer, which was a good one, and not out of the prayer-book, though there were phrases in it which suggested that source, as was quite natural. The city man meant to do it all, then. Doubtless he thought nobody from the country knew how to do more than to pronounce the benediction. Doubtless that was to be Elder Blake's insignificant part--to pronounce the----
Miss Jane Pollock looked up quickly. She had been staring steadily at the back of Maria Hill's mink collar, in front of her, through the closing sentences of the prayer. But what was this? Elder Blake had risen and was coming forward. Was he going to read a hymn? But he had no book. And he had taken off his spectacles. He could see better, as was known, without his spectacles, when looking at a distance.
William Sewall's prayer was not ended. He could no longer be heard by the people, but in his seat, behind the drooping figure of the old man, he was asking things of the Lord as it seemed to him he had never asked anything before. Could His poor, feeble, "superannuated" old servant ever speak the message that needed to be spoken that night? William Sewall felt more than ever that he himself could not have done it. Could Ebenezer Blake?
"Make him strong, O God,--make him strong," requested William Sewall, fervently. Then, forgetting even a likeness to prayer-book phrase, he added, with fists unconsciously tight-clenched, in the language of the athletic field where a few years back he himself had taken part in many a hard-fought battle-- "Help him to buck up!"

VIII
They talk about it yet, in North Estabrook, though it happened a year ago. Nobody knew how it was that from a frail old man with a trembling voice, which, in its first sentences, the people back of the middle of the church could hardly hear, there came to stand before them a fiery messenger from the skies. But such was the miracle--for it seemed no less. The bent figure straightened, the trembling voice grew clear and strong, the dim eyes brightened, into the withered cheeks flowed colour--into the whole aged personality came slowly but surely back the fires of youth. And once more in a public place Ebenezer Blake became the mouthpiece of the Master he served.
[Illustration: There was flesh and blood in the message he gave them, and it was the message they needed]
Peace and good will? Oh, yes--he preached it--no doubt of that. But it was no milk-and-water peace, no sugar-and-spice good will. There was flesh and blood in the message he gave them, and it was the message they needed. Even his text was