The First Soprano | Page 4

not sin to take sacred words on her lips and not mean them? How many times had she taken God's name in vain, pouring out pretended invocation to Him, while her heart addressed only the congregation for their approval! But it had been so thoughtless! He would surely forgive. But now she had thought about it, and it could never be the same again.
By this time Winifred was thoroughly miserable. She pondered over and again what she should do, at times in imagination resigning her position in the choir; then saying:
"Impossible! It is absurd! Who ever heard of its being wicked to sing in the choir? How could I explain myself?"
Then she reflected that she would study to be earnest, that she would school herself to think of Him and sing to Him. She took her hymn-book and found the place of the last hymn, resolved to put sincerity in practice at once. It was chosen, without reference to the unexpected sermon, and was the well-known psalm of love and longing which earnest souls have sung for many years:
"For thee, O dear, dear country, Mine eyes their vigils keep; For very love, beholding Thy happy name they weep. The mention of Thy glory Is unction to the breast, And medicine in sickness, And love, and life, and rest."
"I cannot sing it!" Winifred almost sobbed to herself. "It is not true--to me."
Then she read on. Before, she would have been carried away with the rhythm and the graceful thought. But now as she read:
"Oh, sweet and blessed country That eager hearts expect!"
"It's not true--it's not true!" she thought. "I cannot sing these songs. I know nothing of their sentiment. I am not a true worshiper of the Father. I do not believe I know Him!"
Then Winifred covered her eyes with her hand. "'Thou desirest truth in the inward parts,'" the preacher was quoting.
The words sent a pang through her heart. "God has found no truth in me," she thought, "I have been a lie."
Then she sat in wretchedness, fighting back the tears that struggled to escape--tears of shame, remorse, wounded self-love, and grief that her favorite idol, a god whom she did know and had served well, was to be taken down from its niche in the house of the Lord and cast out. She heard little of the remainder of the sermon, and what she heard added to her misery; for it told of the joy of true worshipers when at last they should stand face to face with Him whom, having not seen, they love,--
"All rapture through and through In God's most holy sight."
The sense of isolation, of exclusion from it all, was very painful; and Winifred did not know that this very knowledge of exclusion, and its grief, were harbingers of eternally better things. She stood with the others as they sang the closing hymn, and her own silence was unobserved, as she did not always join the chorus. She had recovered her composure by the time the benediction was pronounced and the organ was yielding an unusually lively postlude to whose strains she and George Frothingham descended the stairs together.
"The old chap is almost waltzing us out to-day," that gentleman remarked, referring to the organist. "Winifred, you outdid yourself to-day on that lovely thing."
Winifred smiled faintly. "Did you hear the sermon to-day, George?" she asked.
"Did I hear it? Well, that's good. Do I hear sermons when I go to church? But I confess to a little absentmindedness; not to equal that of our friend at the organ, however," and George laughed. Then he caught sight of a group of people in the vestibule below and exclaimed:
"Hello! There's your father and the preacher! I believe he is going to take him home to dinner. Don't look for me under your hospitable roof to-day, Winifred."
"Why?" she began.
"I have no taste for parsons. He'll talk the backs off the chairs. See if he doesn't. Good-by." And the young man strode carelessly away.
Winifred joined her mother in the vestibule, and they held a whispered consultation as to the probabilities of the young minister's going home with them. It seemed evident that Mr. Gray had taken him captive.
"Take him in the carriage and let me walk, mother," Winifred said, "I would much rather." So she slipped away and did not meet the minister until dinner.
Hubert Gray, Winifred's only brother, had also been at church that morning. This was somewhat unusual, for Hubert was a sceptic, and he did not like to appear what he was not. But occasionally he went to hear what might be said and turn it over in his questioning brain. He was a young man of strong aversions, and one of his special dislikes happened to be the unfortunate Doctor Schoolman.
"I hate cant," he declared. "His very tones