St. Cuthberts | Page 2

day at evening I found everything--books, furniture,
piano--all moved to a room upon the topmost story. I was directed
thither by the smiling landlord, more enlightened than I, and I entered
with furtive misgivings in my soul and with visions of that spacious
Southern home before my rueful eyes.
But she was there, radiant and triumphant, still flushed with exercise of
hand and heart, viewing proudly her proof of a new axiom that two or
more bodies may occupy the same space at the selfsame time.
"I am so glad you didn't come before," she said. "I wanted to be all
settled before you saw it. This is just as good as we had before, and

only half the price. Isn't it cozy? And everything just fits. And we are
away from all the noise. And look at that lovely view. And now we can
pay off that horrid note. Aren't you glad?"
"But, Emmeline, my heart breaks to see you caged like this. It is noble
of you, just like you, but I cannot forgive myself that I have brought
you to this," said I, my voice trembling with pain and joy.
"Why, dear one, how can you speak like that? We have everything here,
and each other too, and we shall be caged together."
I kissed that girlish face again and blessed the gift of heaven,
murmuring only, in tones that could not be heard, "He setteth the
solitary in families," and as we went down together I wondered if that
sudden elevation had not brought us nearer heaven than we had been
below.
It was largely owing to this lion-hearted courage that I now found
myself swiftly borne towards the vacant pulpit which yawned in stately
expectation of its weekly candidate.
The invitation "to conduct divine services in St. Cuthbert's, whose
pulpit is now vacant," had come unsought from the kirk session of that
distant temple.
St. Cuthbert's was the stately cathedral of all adjoining Presbyterianism.
It was the pride and crown of a town which stood in prosperous
contentment upon the verge of cityhood. Its history was great and
honourable; its traditions warlike and evangelical; its people intelligent
and intense. Its vast area was famed for its throng of acute and
reflective hearers, almost every man of whom was a sermon taster,
while its officers were the acknowledged possessors of letters patent to
the true ecclesiastical nobility. In my student days, medals and
scholarships were never quoted among the trophies of our divinity men
if it could be justly said of any one that he had preached twice before
the hard heads of St. Cuthbert's. This triumph was recited with the same
reverent air as when men used to say, "He preached before the Queen."

Some hundreds of miles must be traversed before I reached the place,
but only some four-and-twenty hours before I reached the time, of my
trial sermons. Therefore did I convert my car into a study and my
unsteady knee into a desk, giving myself to the rehearsal of those
discourses by which I was to stand or fall. Every weak hand thereof I
laboured to strengthen, and every feeble knee I endeavoured to confirm.
And what motley hours were those I spent on that fast-flying train! All
my reflections tended to devotion, but yet my errand was throbbing
with ambition.
Whereupon I fell into a strange and not unprofitable reverie, painfully
striving to separate my thoughts, the sheep from the goats, and to
reconcile them the one to the other. I knew well enough the human
frame to be persuaded that ambition could not altogether be cast out
from the spirit of a man, which led me to reflect upon its possible place
and purpose if controlled by a master hand beyond the hand of time. I
strove to discover my inmost motive, far behind all other aims, and
consoled myself with the hope that God might make it the dominant
and sovereign one, to which all others might be unconscious ministers,
even as all other lesser ones obey the driving wheel.
I somehow felt that the vision of that radiant face at home, for whom
ambition sprung like a fountain, was in no wise inconsistent with the
holiest work which awaited me on the morrow.
At thought of her, my ambition, earth-born though it was, seemed to be
robed in white and to be unashamedly ministering unto God. And I was
fain to believe at last that this very hope of a larger place was from
Himself, and that He was the shepherd of the sheep and of the goats
alike. Whereupon I fell upon my sermons afresh with a clearer
conscience, which means a stronger mind, and swiftly prayed, even
while I worked, that the Lord of the harvest would winnow