St. Cuthberts | Page 7

with the larger
one which decked their pulpit like a crown.
Even when the collection was taken up they maintained their loftiness
of poise. It had been often told me that Scotch folk contribute to an
offering with the same heroism wherewith their ancestors opened their
unshrinking veins, doling forth their money, like their blood, with a
martyr's air. But although I remarked that some Scottish eyes followed
their departing coins with glances of parental tenderness, there was yet
a solemn stateliness about the operation which greatly won me, even
those who dedicated the homeliest copper doing it unabashedly, as if to
the Lord, and not unto men.

We closed with the penitential psalm which Mr. Blake had asked, and
its great words seemed charged with the strong reality of men who
believed in sin with the same old-fashioned earnestness as marked their
faith in God, the two answering the one to the other as deep calleth
unto deep, eternally harmonious as they are.
The congregation swayed slowly down the aisle, Scottishly cold and
still, like the processional of the ice in the spring-time. They reminded
me of noble bergs drifting through the Straits of Belle Isle. It was a
Presbyterian flood, and every man a floe. But I suspected mightily that
they were nevertheless the product of the spring, and somehow felt that
they dwelt near the confines of the summer. The fire which warmed
their hearts had touched my own, and in that very moment wherein
they turned their backs upon me, I pursued them with surrendering
tenderness, and coveted for my own the rugged faithfulness which hath
now enriched these many golden years.
One or two turned to glance at me, but when their gaze met mine they
despatched their eyes on some impartial quest, as if caressing their
noble church or looking for some lingering friend.
The precentor, whose place was in a kind of songster's pulpit just below
me, was wreathed in the complacent air of a man who has discharged a
lofty duty and has done it well. He had borne himself throughout as the
real master of the entire service, and as one who had ruled from an
untitled throne. He cast me one or two swift glances, such as would
become an engineer who had brought his train or a pilot who had
brought his ship to the desired haven. I returned his overture with a
look of humble gratitude, and he thereupon relaxed as one well content
with what was his hard-earned due, but nothing more. I have well
learned since then that by so much as one values one's peace, by that
much must one reverence the precentor.
When I regained the vestry I found it peopled with six or seven elders
(a great and sweltering population), but no word of favour or approval
escaped a single Scottish lip. Their hour had not yet come; but I knew it
not, and was proportionately cast down by what seemed to me a silent
rhetoric of scorn. But it was the will of heaven to somewhat set aside

what I unknowingly estimated to be the verdict of indifference. The
beadle, as one with whom I had had a past, beckoned me without,
whispering that a "wumman body," a stranger, desired to speak with me
in an adjoining room.
Her story was short and sad; her request, the sobbing entreaty of a
broken heart that I would pray for her darling and her prodigal, her
first-born, wandering in that farthest of all countries which lies beyond
the confines of a mother's ken. I answered her with a glance which
owned the kinship of her tears, and pledged it with a hand which, thank
God, has ever found its warmest welcome in the hand of woe. Then I
went back to the vestry unafraid. "For what," thought I, "can these
elders do either for me or against me, if I am really a priest unto God
for one mother's son? This woman has evidently forgotten that I am a
candidate of St. Cuthbert's, and has remembered only that I am a
minister of God."

IV
OUR MUTUAL VERDICT
The evening service was like unto that of the morning, the only
difference being that I saw this sturdy folk, mountain-like, in the light
of the setting, instead of the rising sun. But still no word or hint
revealed to me the favour or disfavour with which my efforts had been
received by the people of St. Cuthbert's, save only that one man
ventured to remark that I had brought him in mind of Thomas
Chalmers.
I hurriedly exclaimed, "Is that so?" in a tone which all too plainly
implored him to go on.
"Yes," said he. "When ye blawed yir nose, if ma een had been