Part 36 (1/2)
”You will make me the laughing-stock of this town!”
For the first time in their life together there was the heat of real anger in his voice. Yet she did not seem to hear.
”Yes--that last terrible Gratcher can't hurt me now.”
He frowned, with a sulky a.s.sumption of that dignity which he felt was demanded of him.
”I don't understand you!”
Still the unseeing eyes played about him, yet she heard at last.
”But _he_ will--_he_ will!” she cried exultingly, and her eyes were wet with an unexplained gladness.
CHAPTER XIX
A MERE BIT OF GOSSIP
The Ministers' Meeting of the following Tuesday was pleasantly enlivened with gossip--retained, of course, within seemly bounds. There was absent the Reverend Dr. Linford, sometime rector of St. Antipas, said lately to have emerged from a state of spiritual chrysalis into a world made new with truths that were yet old. It was concerning this circ.u.mstance that discreet expressions were oftenest heard during the function.
One brother declared that the Linfords were both extremists: one with his absurdly radical disbelief in revealed religion; the other flying at last to the Mother Church for that authority which he professed not to find in his own.
Another a.s.serted that in talking with Dr. Linford now, one brought away the notion that in renouncing his allegiance to the Episcopal faith he had gone to the extreme of renouncing marriage, in order that the Mother Church might become his only bride. True, Linford said nothing at all like this;--the idea was fleeting, filmy, traceable to no specific words of his. Yet it left a track across the mind. It seemed to be the very spirit of his speech upon the subject. Certainly no other reason had been suggested for the regrettable, severance of this domestic tie.
Conjecture was futile and Mrs. Linford, secluded in her country home at Edom, had steadfastly refused, so said the public prints, to give any reason whatsoever.
His soup finished, the Reverend Mr. Whittaker unfolded the early edition of an evening paper to a page which bore an excellent likeness of Dr.
Linford.
”I'll read you some things from his letter,” he said, ”though I'll confess I don't wholly approve his taste in giving it to the press.
However--here's one bit:
”'When I was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church I dreamed of wielding an influence that would tend to harmonise the conflicting schools of churchmans.h.i.+p. It seemed to me that my little life might be of value, as I comprehended the essentials of church citizens.h.i.+p. I will not dwell upon my difficulties. The present is no time to murmur.
Suffice it to say, I have long held, I have taught, nearly every Catholic doctrine not actually denied by the Anglican formularies; and I have accepted and revived in St. Antipas every Catholic practice not positively forbidden.
”But I have lately become convinced that the Anglican orders of the ministry are invalid. I am persuaded that a priest ordained into the Episcopal Church cannot consecrate the elements of the Eucharist in a sacrificial sense. Could I be less than true to my inner faith in a matter touching the sacred verity of the Real Presence--the actual body and blood of our Saviour?
”After conflict and prayer I have gone trustingly whither G.o.d has been pleased to lead me. In my humble sight the only spiritual body that actually claims to teach truth upon authority, the only body divinely protected from teaching error, is the Holy, Catholic and Roman Church.
”For the last time I have exercised my private judgment, as every man must exercise it once, at least, and I now seek communion with this largest and oldest body of Christians in the world. I have faced an emergency fraught with vital interest to every thinking man. I have met it; the rest is with my G.o.d. Praying that I might be adorned with the splendours of holiness, and knowing that the prayer of him that humbleth himself shall pierce the clouds, I took for my motto this sentence from Huxley: 'Sit down before fact as a little child; be prepared to give up every preconceived notion; follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses Nature leads.' Presently, G.o.d willing, I shall be in communion with the See of Rome, where I feel that there is a future for me!”
The reader had been absently stabbing at his fish with an aimless fork.
He now laid down his paper to give the food his entire attention.
”You see,” began Floud, ”I say one brother is quite as extreme as the other.”
Father Riley smiled affably, and begged Whittaker to finish the letter.
”Your fish is fresh, dear man, but your news may be stale before we reach it--so hasten now--I've a presentiment that our friend goes still farther afield.”