The Inside of the Cup | Page 8

grief was real, and the beautiful English window in
the south transept of the church bears witness to it. And yet it cannot be
said that he sought solace in religion, so apparently steeped in it had he
always been. It was destiny that he should take his place on the vestry;
destiny, indeed, that he should ultimately become the vestry as well as
the first layman of the diocese; unobtrusively, as he had accomplished
everything else in life, in spite of Prestons and Warings, Atterburys,
Goodriches, and Gores. And he was wont to leave his weighty business
affairs to shift for themselves while he attended the diocesan and
general conventions of his Church.
He gave judiciously, as becomes one who holds a fortune in trust, yet
generously, always permitting others to help, until St. John's was a very
gem of finished beauty. And, as the Rothschilds and the Fuggera made
money for grateful kings and popes, so in a democratic age, Eldon Parr
became the benefactor of an adulatory public. The university, the
library, the hospitals, and the parks of his chosen city bear witness.

II
For forty years, Dr. Gilman had been the rector of St. John's. One
Sunday morning, he preached his not unfamiliar sermon on the text,
"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face," and
when the next Sunday dawned he was in his grave in Winterbourne

Cemetery, sincerely mourned within the parish and without. In the
nature of mortal things, his death was to be expected: no less real was
the crisis to be faced At the vestry meeting that followed, the problem
was tersely set forth by Eldon Parr, his frock coat tightly buttoned
about his chest, his glasses in his hand.
"Gentlemen," he said, "we have to fulfil a grave responsibility to the
parish, to the city, and to God. The matter of choosing a rector to-day,
when clergymen are meddling with all sorts of affairs which do not
concern them, is not so simple as it was twenty years ago. We have, at
St. John's, always been orthodox and dignified, and I take it to be the
sense of this vestry that we remain so. I conceive it our duty to find a
man who is neither too old nor too young, who will preach the faith as
we received it, who is not sensational, and who does not mistake
socialism for Christianity."
By force of habit, undoubtedly, Mr. Parr glanced at Nelson Langmaid
as he sat down. Innumerable had been the meetings of financial boards
at which Mr. Parr had glanced at Langmaid, who had never failed to
respond. He was that sine qua non of modern affairs, a corporation
lawyer,--although he resembled a big and genial professor of
Scandinavian extraction. He wore round, tortoise-shell spectacles, he
had a high, dome-like forehead, and an ample light brown beard which
he stroked from time to time. It is probable that he did not believe in
the immortality of the soul.
His eyes twinkled as he rose.
"I don't pretend to be versed in theology, gentlemen, as you know," he
said, and the entire vestry, even Mr. Parr, smiled. For vestries, in spite
of black coats and the gravity of demeanour which first citizens are apt
to possess, are human after all. "Mr. Parr has stated, I believe; the
requirements, and I agree with him that it is not an easy order to fill.
You want a parson who will stick to his last, who will not try
experiments, who is not too high or too low or too broad or too narrow,
who has intellect without too much initiative, who can deliver a good
sermon to those who can appreciate one, and yet will not get the church
uncomfortably full of strangers and run you out of your pews. In short,

you want a level-headed clergyman about thirty-five years old who will
mind his own business"
The smiles on the faces of the vestry deepened. The ability to put a
matter thus humorously was a part of Nelson Langmaid's power with
men and juries.
"I venture to add another qualification," he continued, "and that is
virility. We don't want a bandbox rector. Well, I happen to have in
mind a young man who errs somewhat on the other side, and who looks
a little like a cliff profile I once saw on Lake George of George
Washington or an Indian chief, who stands about six feet two.
He's a bachelor--if that's a drawback. But I am not at all sure he can be
induced to leave his present parish, where he has been for ten years."
"I am," announced Wallis Plimpton, with his hands in his pockets,
"provided the right man tackles him."

III
Nelson Langmaid's