The Rector of St. Marks

The Rector of St. Mark's, by
Mary J. Holmes

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Title: The Rector of St. Mark's
Author: Mary J. Holmes
Release Date: November 2, 2006 [EBook #19702]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration]

RECTOR OF ST. MARKS
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE RECTOR OF ST. MARK'S
BY
MRS. MARY J. HOLMES
AUTHOR OF "DORA DEANE," "MAGGIE MILLER," "LENA
RIVERS," "THE ENGLISH ORPHAN," ETC.
M. A. DONOHUE & CO., CHICAGO.
* * * * *

THE RECTOR OF ST. MARK'S
CHAPTER I.
FRIDAY AFTERNOON.
The Sunday sermon was finished, and the young rector of St. Mark's
turned gladly from his study-table to the pleasant south window where
the June roses were peeping in, and abandoned himself for a few
moments to the feeling of relief he always experienced when his week's
work was done. To say that no secular thoughts had intruded
themselves upon the rector's mind, as he planned and wrote that sermon,
would not be true; for, though morbidly conscientious on many points
and earnestly striving to be a faithful shepherd of the souls committed
to his care, Arthur Leighton possessed the natural desire that those who
listened to him should not only think well of what he taught but also of
the form in which the teaching was presented. When he became a
clergyman he did not cease to be a man, with all a man's capacity to

love and to be loved, and so, though he fought and prayed against it, he
had seldom brought a sermon to the people of St. Mark's in which there
was not a thought of Anna Ruthven's soft, brown eyes, and the way
they would look at him across the heads of the congregation. Anna led
the village choir, and the rector was painfully conscious that far too
much of earth was mingled with his devotional feelings during the
moments when, the singing over, he walked from his armchair to the
pulpit and heard the rustle of the crimson curtain in the organ loft as it
was drawn back, disclosing to view the five heads of which Anna's was
the center. It was very wrong, he knew, and to-day he had prayed
earnestly for pardon, when, after choosing his text, "Simon, Simon,
lovest thou me?" instead of plunging at once into his subject, he had,
without a thought of what he was doing, idly written upon a scrap of
paper lying near, "Anna, Anna, lovest thou me, more than these?" the
these, referring to the wealthy Thornton Hastings, his old classmate in
college, who was going to Saratoga this very summer, for the purpose
of meeting Anna Ruthven and deciding if she would do to become Mrs.
Thornton Hastings, and mistress of the house on Madison Square. With
a bitter groan at the enormity of his sin, and a fervent prayer for
forgiveness, the rector had torn the slips of paper in shreds and given
himself so completely to his work that his sermon was done a full hour
earlier than usual, and he was free to indulge in reveries of Anna for as
long a time as he pleased.
"I wonder if Mrs. Meredith has come," he thought, as, with his feet
upon the window-sill, he sat looking across the meadow-land to where
the chimneys and gable roof of Captain Humphreys' house was visible,
for Captain Humphreys was Anna Ruthven's grandfather, and it was
there she had lived since she was three years old.
As if thoughts of Mrs. Meredith reminded him of something else, the
rector took from the drawer of his writing table a letter received the
previous day, and, opening to the second page, read again as follows:
"Are you going anywhere this summer? Of course not, for so long as
there is an unbaptized child, or a bed-ridden old woman in the parish,
you must stay at home, even if you do grow as rusty as did Professor

Cobden's coat before we boys made him a present of a new one. I say,
Arthur, there was a capital fellow spoiled when you took to the
ministry, with your splendid talents, and rare gift for making people
like and believe in you.
"Now, I suppose you will reply that for this