{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_34256/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_34256","id":"gutenberg_34256","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34256","summary":null,"tags":["Category: American Literature","Category: Novels","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Churches -- Fiction","Clergy -- Fiction","Short stories"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Frontispiece: \"_The kneeling people lifted their wet faces ... But the\nchancel was empty_\"]\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE\n\nSUPPLY AT SAINT AGATHA'S\n\n\nBY\n\nELIZABETH STUART PHELPS\n\n\n\n\n_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS_\n\nBY\n\nE. BOYD SMITH AND MARCIA OAKES WOODBURY\n\n\n\n\n\nBOSTON AND NEW YORK\n\nHOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY\n\nThe Riverside Press, Cambridge\n\n1896\n\n\n\n\nCopyright, 1896,\n\nBY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD AND\n\nHOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.\n\n\n_All rights reserved._\n\n\n\n_The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A._\n\nElectrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SUPPLY AT SAINT AGATHA'S.\n\n\n\n\nAt the crossing of the old avenue with the stream of present traffic,\nin a city which, for obvious reasons, will not be identified by the\nwriter of these pages, there stood--and still stands--the Church of\nSaint Agatha's.\n\nThe church is not without a history, chiefly such as fashion and sect\ncombine to record.  It is an eminent church, with a stately date upon\nits foundation stone, and a pew-list unsurpassed for certain qualities\namong the worshipers of the Eastern States.  Saint Agatha's has long\nbeen distinguished for three things, its money, its music, and its\nsoundness.\n\nWhen the tax-list of the town is printed in the daily papers once a\nyear, the wardens and the leading parishioners of Saint Agatha's stand\nfar upwards in the score, and their names are traced by slow, grimy\nfingers of mechanics and strikers and socialists laboriously reading on\nSaturday nights.\n\nThe choir of Saint Agatha's, as all the world knows, is superior.  Her\nsoprano alone (a famous prima donna) would fill the house.  Women\nthrong the aisles to hear the tenor, and musical critics, hat in hand,\nand pad on hat, drop in to report the anthem and the offertory for the\nMonday morning press.\n\nIn ecclesiastical position, it is needless to add, Saint Agatha's has\nalways been above reproach.  When did Saint Agatha's question a canon?\nWhen did she contend with a custom?  When did she criticise a creed?\nWhy should she contest a tradition?  She accepts, she conforms, she\nprospers.\n\nIn one particular Saint Agatha's has been thrust into an attitude of\noriginality foreign to her taste.  Her leading men feel called upon\noccasionally to explain how the eternal feminine came--a little\ncontrary to the fashion of our land--to be recognized in the name of\nthe church.  Saint Agatha's first pastor, one should know, was a very\nyoung man of enthusiastic and unconventional temperament.  He did not\nlive long enough to outgrow this--for a clergyman--unfortunate trend of\nnature, having died, full of dreams and visions, in the teeth of a\nlowering conflict with his wardens; but he lived long enough to carry\nthe day and the name for a portion of his people who desired to call\ntheir church in honor of a sweet, though rich, old lady who had put her\nprivate fortune into their beautiful house of worship, and her warm\nheart into their future success.  It had befallen this dear old lady to\nbear the name of Agatha, which, for her sake,--and, of course, in due\necclesiastical remembrance of the strictly canonical saint of similar\ncognomen,--was accordingly bestowed upon the church.\n\n\nIn the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and another numeral, which I\nam requested not to indicate, but I may not deny that it is a recent\none, the popular rector of Saint Agatha's took a winter vacation.  He\nwas an imposing and imperious man, full of years and honors, in the\nfull sway of his professional fame, when he fell a victim, like any\ncommon person, to the grippe.\n\nIn the attempt to recover from this vulgar malady, he was forced to\nobserve that his select physician had drugged him, via an exclusive\nbronchitis, into a minister's sore throat, such as any ordinary country\nparson might develop for lack of an overcoat, or a fire in his bedroom.\nWithout undue delay or reluctance, the rector of Saint Agatha's took\nship for the south of France; and in the comfortable way in which such\nthings are done in such quarters, the church was set trundling upon the\nwheels of a two-months' \"supply.\"  This was managed so gracefully by\nthe experienced vestry of Saint Agatha's that hardly a visible jar\noccurred in the parish machinery.  Many of the people did not know that\ntheir rector had gone until a canon from London sonorously filled the\npulpit one Sunday morning.  A distinguished Middle State clergyman\nfollowed the next week; the West sent her brightest and best the\nsucceeding Sunday; and so it went.\n\nEminent variety easily occupied that sacred desk.  The wardens of St.\nAgatha's have but to say, Come, and he cometh who weigheth the honor of\nministering in this aristocratic pulpit.  In brief, the most\ndistinguished men in the denomination cordially supplied.  On the\nwhole, perhaps the parish enjoyed their rector's vacation as much as he\ndid.\n\nNow, upon the vestry there chanced at that time to be one man who was\n\"different.\"  One does find such people even among the officers of\nfashionable churches.  This man (he was, by the way, a grand-nephew of\nthe old lady who built the church when Saint Agatha's was an unendowed\nexperiment) had occasional views not wholly in harmony with the policy\nof his brother officers; and, being himself a heavy rate-payer, was\nallowed, sometimes, by the courtesy of the majority,--when his notion\nwas not really in bad form, you know,--to have his way.  He did not get\nit so often but that he was glad to make the most of it when he did;\nand when his turn came to control the supply for that Sunday with which\nthis narrative has to do, he asked the privilege of being intrusted\nwith the details of the business.  This request, as from a useful man\nof certain eccentricities, was indulgently granted; and thus there\noccurred the events which I am privileged to relate.\n\n\nIt was just before Lent, and the winter had been a cold one.  One\nFriday evening in early March there came up, or came down, a drifting\nsnow-storm.  It was bad enough in town, but in the suburbs it was\nworse, and in the country it was little less than dangerous to\npassengers through the wide, wind-swept streets, the choking lanes, and\nbitter moors.\n\nAn old clergyman, the pastor of a scattered parish, sat in his study on\nthat Friday night, and thanked God that the weekly evening service was\nover, and his day's work done.  He would have regretted being called\nout again that night, for he had got quite wet in walking to church and\nback, and the cold from which he had been suffering for a week past\nmight not be benefited thereby.  This fact in itself was a matter of no\nconcern, under ordinary conditions, to the old clergyman, who, being a\nlonely man in a forlorn country boarding-house, with nobody to take\ncare of him, was accustomed to live under the shadow of a \"common\ncold,\" and who paid no more attention to his own physical discomforts\nin the face of daily duty than he paid to the latest fashion in sable\ntrimmings in the front pews at Saint Agatha's.  There was no fur\ntrimming on his overcoat, which was seven years old and pitiably thin.\nBut he had been invited to supply at Saint Agatha's next Sunday, and to\nthat unexampled honor and opportunity he gave the pathetic\nattention--half personal pleasure, half religious fervor--of an\noverlooked and devout man.  In the course of a forty-years' ministry he\nhad not been asked to preach in a city pulpit.  The event was\ntremendous to him.  He had been agitated by the invitation, which ran\nin some such way as this:\n\n[Illustration: \"_He had been invited to supply at St. Agatha's_.\"]\n\n... \"In closing, permit me to say, sir, that it would be agreeable to\nus to welcome among us the grandson of our first pastor, that young\nrector who died in the bud of his youth and Christian originality.  The\nfact of your ancestry will give to your presence a peculiar interest\nfor our people at large.  But I beg to be allowed to add on behalf of\nthe committee, that certain qualities in yourself and in your own work\nhave led us to believe that you may exert positive influences upon us\nof which we stand in need.  In your remote and rural parish your life\nhas not passed unobserved.  Your labors as a pastor, and your methods\nof preaching, have been an object of study to some of us.  We have come\nto rate you, sir, as one of the men of God.  There are not many.  In\nmeeting with our people, the writer personally hopes that you may be\nable to teach us something of the secret of your own happy and\nsuccessful experience as a minister of Christ our Lord.\" ...\n\n\nThe old clergyman sat with his feet upon the base of his little\ncylinder coal-stove.  His thin ankles shrank in the damp stockings\nwhich he had not been able to change since he came in out of the storm,\nbecause, owing to some personal preference of the laundress, he could\nnot find any dry ones.  His worn slippers flapped upon his cold feet\nwhen he moved.  But he had on his flowered dressing-gown of ancient\npattern and rustic cut; his high arm-chair was cushioned in chintz and\nexcelsior behind his aching head; the green paper shade was on his\nstudy-lamp; his best-beloved books (for the old saint was a student)\nlay within reach upon the table; piled upon them were his manuscript\nsermons; and he sighed with the content of a man who feels himself to\nbe, although unworthy, in the loving arms of luxury.  A rap at the door\nundeceived him.  His landlady put in her withered face.\n\n\"Sir,\" she said, \"the widder Peek's a-dying.  It's just like her to\ntake a night like this--but she's sent for you.  I must say I don't\ncall you fit to go.\"\n\n\"A man is always fit to do his duty,\" said the old clergyman, rising.\n\"I will go at once.  Did she send--any--conveyance?\"\n\n\"Catch her!\" retorted the landlady.  \"Why, she hain't had the town\nwater let in yet--and she wuth her fifteen thousand dollars; nor she\nwon't have no hired girl to do for her, not that none of 'em will stay\nalong of her a week, and Dobson's boy 's at the door, a drippin' and\ncussin' to get you, for he 's nigh snowed under.  She 's a wuthless old\nheathen miser, the widder Peek.\"\n\n\"Then there is every reason why I should not neglect her,\" replied the\nclergyman, in his authoritative, clerical voice.  \"Pray call the lad in\nfrom the weather, and tell him I will accompany him at once.\"\n\nHe did look about his study sadly while he was making ready to leave\nit.  The fire in the base-burner was quite warm, now, and his wet,\nmuch-darned stockings were beginning to dry.  The room looked sheltered\nand pleasant; his books ran to the ceiling, though his floor was\ncovered with straw matting, with odd pieces of woolen carpet for rugs;\nhis carpet-covered lounge was wheeled out of the draft; his lamp with\nthe green shade made a little circle of light and coziness; his Bible\nand prayer-book lay open within it, beside the pile of sermons.  He had\nmeant to devote the evening to the agreeable duty of selecting his\ndiscourse for Saint Agatha's.  His mind and his heart were brimming\nover with the excitement of that great event.  He would have liked to\nconcentrate and consecrate his thoughts upon it that evening.  As he\nwent, coughing, into the cold entry, it occurred to him that the spot\nin his lung was more painful than he had supposed; but he pulled his\nold cap over his ears, and his thin overcoat up to meet it, and tramped\nout cheerfully into the storm.\n\n\"Well, well, my lad!\" he said in his warm-hearted way to Dobson's boy;\n\"I 'm sorry for you that you have to be out a night like this.\"\n\nThe boy spoke of this afterwards, and remembered it long--for a boy.\nBut at the time he did but stare.  He stopped grumbling, however, and\nplunged on into the drifts, ahead of the old rector, kicking a path for\nhim to right and left in the wet, packed snow; for the widow Peek lived\nat least a mile away, and the storm was now become a virulent thing.\n\nWhat passed between the unloved, neglected, dying parishoner and her\npastor was not known to any but themselves, nor is there witness now to\ntestify thereof.  Neither does it in any way concern the record of this\nnarrative, except as the least may concern the largest circumstance in\nhuman story.  For, in view of what came to pass, it is impossible not\nto put the old, judicial question: Did it pay?  Was it worth while?\nWhen the miser's soul went out, at midnight, on the wings and the rage\nof that blind, black storm, did it pass gently, a subdued, forgiven\nspirit, humble to learn how to live again, for Christ's sake and his\nwho gave himself--as his Master had before him--to comfort and to save?\nDid it pay?  _Do_ such things pay?  God knows.  But as long as men do\nnot know, there will always be found a few among them who will elect to\ndisregard the doubt, to wear the divinity of uncalculating sacrifice,\nand to pay its price.\n\nFor the soul of the widow Peek the price was large, looked at in our\nmathematical way; for, when the old clergyman, having shrived her soul\nand closed her eyes, started to come home at one o'clock of the\nmorning, the storm had become a malignant force.  Already wet through\nand through his thin coats and worn flannels, weak from the exposure,\nthe watching, and the scene of death, every breath a sword athwart his\ninflamed lungs, with fire in his brain, and ice at his heart, he\nstaggered against the blizzard.\n\nDobson's boy had long since sought the shelter of his own home, and the\nold man was quite unattended.  True, the neighbor who watched with the\ndead woman suggested that he remain till morning; but the widow Peek's\nhouse was cold (she was always especially \"near\" about fuel), and he\nthought it more prudent to get back to his own stove and his bed.\n\nWhether he lost his way; whether he crossed and recrossed it, wandering\nfrom it in the dark and drift; whether he fell and lay in the snow for\na time, and rose again, and staggered on, and fell again, and so pushed\non again, cannot be known.  It is only known that at half-past two on\nSaturday morning his landlady put her wrinkled face out of the window,\nfor the twentieth time, in search of him (for she had a thought for him\nin her own hard-featured way), and saw him fallen, and feebly trying to\ncrawl on his hands and knees up the drifted steps.\n\nShe got him in to his warm study, past the chair where the flowered\ndressing-gown and old slippers awaited him, and as far as the\ncarpet-covered lounge, Beyond this he could not be taken.\n\nBy morning the whole parish rang the door-bell; the hands and hearts\nand horses, the purses, the nurses, the doctors, the watchers, the\ntears, and the prayers of the village, were his--for he was dearly\nbeloved and cherished in that parish.  But he lay on his old lounge in\nhis study among his books, and asked of them nothing at all.  The\nkerosene lamp, behind its green shade, went out; and the Bible, with\nthe pile of sermons on the table, looked large in the snow-light of a\nday when the storm ceases without sun.  He did not talk; but his\nthoughts were yet alive.  He remembered Saint Agatha's, and the sermon\nwhich he was to preach to-morrow.  He knew that not one of his people\n(ignorant of such matters) would understand how to get word to the city\nvestry.  He tried to give directions, but his voice refused his\nbidding.  He knew that he would be supposed to have failed to meet his\nappointment, perhaps to have been thwarted--a rural clergyman, old and\ntimorous, baffled in an important professional engagement--by a little\nsnow.  He was to have taken the evening train.  He was to be the guest\nof the vestryman who wrote that pleasant letter.  He was to preach in\nSaint Agatha's to-morrow.  He was to--\n\nNay,--he was not,--nay.  He was to do none of these things.  A sick\nman, mortally a sick man, past power of speech, he lay upon his carpet\nlounge, shivering under the pile of thin blankets and cotton comforters\nthat had been wrapped around him, and gently faced his fate.  He could\nnot preach at Saint Agatha's.  And he could not explain to the vestry.\nPerhaps his heart-sickness about this matter subsided a little--one\nlikes to think so--as his disease grew upon him; but there are men who\nwill understand me when I say that this was the greatest disappointment\nof his humble, holy life.\n\nAs Saturday night drew on, and the stars came out, he was heard to make\nsuch efforts to speak articulately, that one of his weeping people (an\naffectionate woman of a brighter wit than the rest) made out, as she\nbent lovingly over him, to understand so much as this:\n\n\"Lord,\" he said, \"into thy hands I commit my s-p--\"\n\n\"He commits his spirit to the Lord!\" sobbed the landlady.\n\nBut the listening parishioner raised her finger to her lips.\n\n\"Lord,\" he said again, and this time the dullest ear in the parish\ncould have heard the words--\"Lord,\" he prayed, \"into thy hands I\ncommit--my supply.\"\n\n\nSunday morning broke upon the city as cold and clear as the sword of a\nrebuking angel.  People on the way to the West End churches exchanged\nnotes on the thermometer, and talked of the destitution of the poor.\nIt was so cold that the ailing and the aged for the most part stayed at\nhome.  But the young, the _ennuye_, the imitative, and the soul-sick,\ngot themselves into their furs and carriages when the chimes rang, and\nthe audiences were, on the whole, as comfortable and as devout as usual.\n\nThe vestryman sat nervously in his pew.  He had not fully recovered\nfrom the fact that his supply had disappointed him.  Having sent his\ncoachman in vain to all the Saturday evening trains to meet his country\nparson, the vestryman had passed but an uneasy night.\n\n\"I had supposed the old man had principles about Sunday travel,\" he\nsaid to his wife, \"but it seems he is coming in the morning, after all.\nHe might at least have sent me word.\"\n\n\"Telegraphing in the country is--difficult, sometimes, I have heard,\"\nreplied the lady, vaguely.  She was a handsome, childless woman, with\nthe haughty under lip of her class.  Her husband spoke cheerily, but he\nwas not at ease, and she did not know how to make him so.\n\nThe Sunday morning train came in from the country station forty miles\nback, but the old clergyman was not among its passengers.  Now\nthoroughly alarmed, the vestryman had started for his hat and coat,\nwhen his parlor-maid brought him a message.  It had been left at the\ndoor, she said, by a messenger who brooked neither delay nor question,\nbut ordered her to tell the master of the house that the supply for\nSaint Agatha's was in the city, and would meet the engagement at the\nproper time and place.  The old clergyman, the messenger added, had\nbeen suddenly stricken with a dangerous illness, and could not be\nexpected; but his substitute would fill the pulpit for the day.  The\nvestryman was requested to feel no concern in the matter.  The preacher\npreferred retirement until the hour of the service, and would fulfil\nhis duties at the church at the appointed hour.\n\nBut when the vestryman, feeling flurried despite himself, tapped at the\ndoor of the luxurious vestry-room, gracefully refurnished that winter\nfor the rector with the sore throat who was in the south of France, he\nfound it locked; and to his unobtrusive knock no answer came.  At this\nuncomfortable moment the sexton tiptoed up to say that the supply had\nrequested not to be disturbed until the service should begin.  The\nsexton supposed that the clergyman needed extra preparation; thought\nthat perhaps the gentleman was from the country, and--ah--unused to the\naudience.\n\n\"What is his name?  What does he look like?\" asked the chairman, with\nknotted brows.\n\n\"I have not seen him sir,\" replied the sexton, with a puzzled\nexpression.\n\n\"How did you receive the message?\"\n\n\"By a messenger who would not be delayed or questioned.\"\n\nStruck by the repetition of this phrase, the chairman asked again:\n\n\"But what did the messenger look like?\"  The sexton shook his head.\n\n\"I cannot tell you, sir.  He was a mere messenger.  I paid no attention\nto him.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" said the church officer, turning away discontentedly.  \"It\nmust be all right.  I have implicit confidence in the man whose chosen\nsubstitute this is.\"\n\nWith this he ceased to try to intrude himself upon the stranger, but\nwent down to his pew, and sat beside his wife in uneasy silence.\n\nThe chimes sang and sank, and sang again:\n\n  Holy, holy, holy--\n\n\nThe air was so clear that the sound rang twice the usual distance\nthrough the snowlit, sunlit air; and the sick and the old at home\nlistened to the bells with a sudden stirring at their feeble hearts,\nand wished again that they could have gone to church.  One bed-ridden\nwoman, whose telephone connected her with Saint Agatha's, held the\nreceiver to her sensitive ear, and smiled with the quick gratitude for\ntrifling pleasures of the long sick, as she recognized the notes of the\nchime.  With a leap and a thrill as if they cast their metal souls out\nin the act, the voices of the bells rose and swelled, and ceased and\nslept, and where they paused the anthem took the word up:\n\n  Holy, holy--\n\nand carried it softly, just above the breath, with the tone which is\nneither a sigh, nor a cry, nor a whisper, but that harmony of all which\nmakes of music prayer.\n\nHe must have entered on the wave of this strain; opinions differed\nafterwards as to this: some said one thing, some another; but it was\nfound that most of the audience had not observed the entrance of the\npreacher at all.  The choir ceased, and he was; and no more could be\nsaid.  The church was well filled, though not over-crowded, and the\ndecorous rustle of a fashionable audience in the interval preceding\nworship stirred through the house.\n\nIn the natural inattention of the moment, it was not remarkable that\nmost of the people failed to notice the strange preacher until he was\namong them.\n\nBut to the church officer, whose mind was preoccupied with the supply,\nthere was something almost startling in the manner of his approach.\n\nThe vestryman's uneasy eyes were not conscious of having slipped their\nguard upon the chancel for a moment; he had but turned his head\npolitely, though a bit impatiently, to reply to some trivial remark of\nhis wife's, when, behold, the preacher stood before him.\n\nAfterwards it was rumored that two or three persons in the audience had\nnot been taken by surprise in this way, but had fully observed the\nmanner of the stranger's entrance; yet these persons, when they were\nsought, were difficult to find.  There was one shabby woman who sat in\nthe gallery among the \"poor\" seats; she was clad in rusty mourning, and\nhad a pale and patient face, quite familiar to the audience, for she\nwas a faithful church-goer, and had attended Saint Agatha's for many\nyears.  It came to be said, through the sexton's gossip or otherwise,\nthat this poor woman had seen the preacher's approach quite clearly,\nand had been much moved thereat; but when some effort was made to find\nher, and to question her on this point, unexpected obstacles\narose,--she was an obscure person, serving in some menial capacity for\nfloating employers; she was accustomed to slip in and out of the church\nhurriedly, both late and early,--and nothing of importance was added\nfrom this quarter to the general interest which attended the\neccentricities of the supply.\n\nThe stranger was a man a trifle above the ordinary height, of majestic\nmien and carriage, and with the lofty head that indicates both\nfearlessness and purity of nature.  As he glided to his place behind\nthe lectern, a hush struck the frivolous audience, as if it had been\nsmitten by an angel's wing: such power is there in noble novelty, and\nin the authority of a high heart.\n\nWhen had the similar of this preacher led the service in that venerable\nand fashionable house of worship?  In what past years had his\ncounterpart served them?\n\nWhom did he resemble of the long line of eminent clerical teachers with\nwhose qualities this elect people was familiar?  What had been his\nhistory, his ecclesiastical position, his social connections?\n\nIt was characteristic of the audience that this last question was first\nin the minds of a large proportion of the worshipers.  Whence came he?\nHis name?  His titles?  What was his professional reputation--his\ntheology?  What were his views on choirboys, confessionals, and\ncandles--on mission chapels and the pauperizing of the poor?\n\nThese inquiries swept through the inner consciousness of the audience\nin the first moment of his appearance.  But in the second, neither\nthese nor any other paltry queries fretted the smallest soul before him.\n\nThe stranger must have had an impressive countenance; yet afterwards it\nwas found that no two descriptions of it agreed.  Some said this thing,\nsome said that.  To this person he appeared a gentle, kindly man with a\npersuasive manner; to that, he looked majestic and commanding.  There\nwere some who spoke of an authoritative severity in the eye which he\nturned upon them; but these were not many.  There were those who\nmurmured that they had melted beneath the tenderness of his glance, as\nsnow before the sun; and such were more.  As to the features of his\nface, men differed, as spectators are apt to do about the lineaments of\nextraordinary countenances.  What was the color of his eyes, the\ncontour of his lips, the shape of his brow?  Who could say?\nConflicting testimony arrived at no verdict.  In two respects alone\nopinions agreed about the face of this man: it commanded, and it shone;\nit had authority and light.  The shrewdest heresy-hunter in the\ncongregation would not have dared question this clergyman's theology,\nor the tendencies of his ritualistic views.  The veriest pharisee in\nthe audience quailed before the blinding brilliance of the preacher's\nface.  It was a moral fire.  It ate into the heart.  Sin and shame\nshriveled before it.\n\nOne might say that all this was apparent in the preacher before he had\nspoken a word.  When he had opened his lips these impressions were\nintensified.  He began in the usual way to read the usual prayers, and\nto conduct the service as was expected of him.  Nothing eccentric was\nobservable in his treatment of the preliminaries of the occasion.  The\nfashionable choir, accustomed to dictate the direction of the music,\nmet with no interference from the clergyman.  He announced the hymns\nand anthems that had been selected quite in the ordinary manner; and\nthe critics of the great dailies took the usual notes of the musical\nprogramme.  In fact, up to the time of the sermon, nothing out of the\ncommon course occurred.\n\nBut having said this, one must qualify.  Was it nothing out of the\ncommon course that the congregation in Saint Agatha's should sit as the\npeople sat that day, bond-slaves before the enunciation of the familiar\nphrases in the morning's confession?\n\n\"What a voice!\" whispered the wife of the vestryman.  But her husband\nanswered her not a word.  Pale, agitated, with strained eyes uplifted,\nand nervous hands knotted together, he leaned towards the stranger.  At\nthe first articulate sentence from the pulpit, he knew that the success\nof his supply was secured.\n\nWhat a voice indeed!  It melted through the great house like burning\ngold.  The heart ran after it as fire runs through metal.  Once or\ntwice in a generation one may hear the liturgy read like that--perhaps.\nIn a lifetime no longer to be counted short, the vestryman had heard\nnothing that resembled it.\n\n\"Thank God!\" he murmured.  He put his hat before his face.  He had not\nrealized before what a strain he had endured.  Cold drops stood upon\nhis brow.  He shook with relief.  From that moment he felt no more\nconcern about the service than if he had engaged one of the sons of God\nto \"supply.\"\n\n\"Are you faint?\" asked his wife in a tone of annoyance.  She offered\nhim her smelling-salts.\n\n\nHad there existed stenographic records of that sermon, this narrative,\nnecessarily so defective, would have no occasion for its being.  One of\nthe most interesting things about the whole matter is that no such\nrecords can to-day be found.  Reporters certainly were in the gallery.\nThe journals had sent their picked men as usual, and no more.  Where,\nthen, were their columns of verbal record?  Why has so important a\ndiscourse gone afloat upon vague, conflicting rumor?  No person knows;\nthe reporters least of all.  One, it is said, lost his position for the\ndefault of that report; others received the severest rebukes of their\nexperience from their managing editors for the same cause.  None had\nany satisfactory reason to give for his failure.\n\n\"I forgot,\" said he who lost his position for his boyish excuse.  \"All\nI can say, sir, is I forgot.  The man swept me away.  I forgot that\nsuch a paper as 'The Daily Gossip' existed.  Other matters,\" he added\nwith expensive candor, \"seemed more important at the time.\"\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\"When the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?\"\n\nThe stranger announced this not unusual text with the simple manner of\na man who promised nothing eccentric in the sermon to come.  Yet\nsomething in the familiar words arrested attention.  The phrase, as it\nwas spoken, seemed less a hackneyed biblical quotation than a pointed\npersonal question to which each heart in the audience-room was\ncompelled to respond.\n\nThe preacher began quietly.  He reminded his hearers in a few words of\nthe true nature of the Christian religion, whose interests he was there\nto represent.  One felt that he spoke with tact, and with the kind of\ndignity belonging to the enthusiast of a great moral movement.  It\noccurred to one, perhaps for the first time, that it was quite manly in\na Christian preacher to plead his cause with as much ardor as the\nreformer, the philanthropist, the politician, or the devotee of a\nmystical and fashionable cult.  One became really interested in the\ncharacter and aims of the Christian faith; it did not fall below the\ndignity of a Browning society, or a study in theosophy or hypnotism.\nThe attention of the audience--from the start definitely\nrespectful--became reverent, and thus absorbed.\n\nIt was not until he had his hearers thoroughly in his power that the\npreacher's manner underwent the remarkable change of which Saint\nAgatha's talks in whispers to this day.  He spoke entirely without\nmanuscript or note, and he had not left the lectern.  Suddenly folding\nhis hands upon the great Bible, he paused, and, as if the audience had\nbeen one man, he looked it in the eye.\n\nThen, like the voice of the living God, his words began to smite them.\nWhat was the chancel of Saint Agatha's?  The great white throne?  And\nwho was he who dared to cry from it, like the command of the Eternal?\nSin!  Sinners!  Shame!  Guilt!  Disgrace!  Punishment!  What words were\nthese for the delicate ears of Saint Agatha's?  What had these silken\nladies and gilded men to do with such ugly phrases?  Smiles stiffened\nupon refined, protesting faces.  The haughty under lip of the\nvestryman's wife, and a hundred others like it, dropped.  A moral\ndismay seized the exclusive people whom the preacher called to account\nlike any vulgar audience.  But the shabby woman in the \"poor\" seats\nhumbly wept, and the young reporter who lost his position cast his eyes\nupon the ground, for the tears that sprang to them.  From the delicate\nfingers of the vestryman's wife the smelling-salts fell upon the\ncushioned seat; she held her feathered fan against her face.  Her\nhusband did not even notice this.  He sat with head bowed upon the rail\nbefore him, as a good man does when reconsecrating himself at the\ncommunion hour.\n\nThe choir rustled uneasily in their seats.  The soprano covered her\neyes with her well-gloved hand, and thought of the follies and regrets\n(she called them by these names) that beset the musical temperament.\nBut the tenor turned his face away, and thought about his wife.  Down\nthe avenue, in the room of the \"shut-in\" woman, where the telephone\ncarried the preacher's voice, a pathetic cry was heard:\n\n\"Forgive!  Forgive!  Oh, if suffering had but made me better!\"\n\nBut now the preacher's manner of address had changed again.  Always\nremembering that it is now impossible to quote his language with any\naccuracy, we may venture to say that it ran in some such way as this:\n\nThe Son of God, being of the Father, performed his Father's business.\nWhat do ye who bear his name?  What holy errands are ye about?  What\nmiracles of consecration have ye wrought?  What marvels of the soul's\nlife have ye achieved upon the earth since he left it to your trust?\n\nHe came to the sinful and the unhappy; the despised and rejected were\nhis friends; to the poor he preached the Gospel; the sick, and\noverlooked, and cast-out, the unloved and forgotten, the unfashionable\nand unpopular, he selected.  These to his church on earth he left in\ncharge.  These he cherished.  For such he had lived.  For them he had\nsuffered.  For them he died.  People of Saint Agatha's, where are they?\nWhat have ye done to his beloved?  Thou ancient church, honored and\nprivileged and blessed among men, where are those little ones whom thy\nMaster chose?  Up and down these godly aisles a man might look, he\nsaid, and see them not.  Prosperity and complacency he saw before him;\npoverty and humility he did not see.  In the day when habit cannot\nreply for duty, what account will ye give of your betrayed trust?  Will\nye say: \"Lord, we had a mission chapel.  The curate is responsible for\nthe lower classes.  And, Lord, we take up the usual collections; Saint\nAgatha's has always been called a generous church\"?\n\nIn the startled hush that met these preposterous words the preacher\ndrew himself to his full height, and raised his hand.  He had worn the\nwhite gown throughout the day's services, and the garment folded itself\nabout his figure majestically.  In the name of Christ, then, he\ncommanded them: Where were those whom their Lord did love?  Go, seek\nthem.  Go, find the saddest, sickest souls in all the town.  Hasten,\nfor the time is short.  Search, for the message is of God.  Church of\nChrist, produce his people to me, for I speak no more words before\ntheir substitutes!\n\nThus and there, abruptly, the preacher cast his audience from him, and\ndisappeared from the chancel.  The service broke in consternation.  The\ncelebrated choir was not called upon to close the morning's worship.\nThe soprano and the tenor exchanged glances of neglected dismay.  The\nprayer-book remained unopened on the sacred desk.  The desk itself was\nempty.  The audience was, in fact, authoritatively dismissed--dismissed\nwithout a benediction, like some obscure or erring thing that did not\ndeserve it.\n\nThe people stared in one another's faces for an astounded moment, and\nthen, without words, with hanging heads, they moved to the open air and\nmelted out of the church.\n\nThe sexton rushed up to the vestryman, pale with fear.\n\n\"Sir,\" he whispered, \"he is not in the vestry-room.  He has taken\nhimself away--God knows whither.  What are we to do?\"\n\n\"Trust him,\" replied the church officer, with a face of peace, \"and God\nwho sent him.  Who he may be, I know no more than you; but that he is a\nman of God I know.  He is about his Father's business.  Do not meddle\nwith it.\"\n\n\"Lord forbid!\" cried the sexton.  \"I'd sooner meddle with something I\ncan understand.\"\n\nUpon the afternoon of that long-remembered Sunday there was seen in\nSaint Agatha's the strangest sight that those ancient walls had\nwitnessed since the corner-stone was laid with a silver trowel in the\nname of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost \"whom we, this\npeople, worship.\"\n\nBefore the chimes rang for the vesper service, the house was filled.\nBefore the bronze lips of the bells were mute, the pews were packed.\nBefore the stranger reappeared, the nave and the transept overflowed.\nThe startled sexton was a leaf before the wind of the surging crowd.\nHe could not even enforce the fire-laws, and the very aisles were\njammed.  Who carried the story?  How do such wraiths of rumors fly?\n\nEvery member of that church not absent from town or known to be ill in\nhis bed sought his pew that afternoon.  Many indeed left their\nsick-rooms to be present at that long-remembered service.  But no man\nor woman of these came alone.  Each brought a chosen companion; many,\ntwo or three; some came accompanied by half a dozen worshipers: and\nupon these invited guests Saint Agatha's looked with an astonishment\nthat seemed to be half shame; for up those velvet aisles there moved an\narray of human faces at which the very angels and virtues in the\npainted windows seemed to turn their heads and stare.\n\nSuch wretchedness, such pallor, hunger, cold, envy, sickness, sin, and\nshame were as unknown to those dedicated and decorated walls as the\ninmates of hell.  Rags and disease, uncleanliness and woe and want,\ntrod the house of God as if they had the right there.  Every pew in the\nchurch was thrown open.  Tattered blanket shawls jostled velvet cloaks,\nand worn little tan-colored reefers, half concealing the shivering\ncotton blouses of last summer, rubbed against sealskin furs that swept\nfrom throat to foot.  Wretched men, called in by the throb of\nrepentance that follows a debauch, lifted their haggard eyes to the\nchancel from the pews of the wardens, and women of the town sat gently\nbeside the \"first ladies\" of the parish and of the city.  There were a\nfew ragged children in the audience, wan and shrewd, sitting drearily\nbeside mothers to whom they did not cling.  The pew of our friend, the\nvestryman, was filled to overflowing.  The wife with the under lip sat\nbeside him, and did not protest.  She had herself gone with him to the\nhospital to select their guests.  For their pew was filled with the\ncrippled and other sick who could neither walk nor afford to ride, and\nwhom their own carriage had brought to Saint Agatha's.  One of these, a\nwoman, came on crutches, and the lady helped her, not knowing in the\nleast how to do it; and a man who had not used his feet for six years\nwas lifted in by the pew-owner and his coachman and butler, and carried\nthe length of the broad aisle.\n\nThe church, as we say, was packed long before the preacher appeared.\nHe came punctually to his appointment, like any ordinary man.  It was\nmid-afternoon, and the sun was declining when he glided across the\nchancel.  Already shadows were lying heavily in the corners of the\nchurch and under the galleries on the darker side.  A few lights were\nglimmering about the chancel, but these served only to illuminate the\nstranger's form and face; they did not lighten the mass of hushed and\nappealing humanity before him.\n\nThe choir, with bowed heads, just above the breath, began to chant:\n\n  Who shall lay anything to the charge\n  Of God's Elect?\n  It is God that justifieth,\n  It is Christ that died.\n\nWhile they sang the preacher stood quite still and looked at the\npeople, that strange and motley mass, the rich and the poor, the sick\nand the well, the disgraced and the reputable, the pampered and the\nstarving, the shameful and the clean of life, the happy and the\nwretched together.  When the singing ceased, he spoke as if he talked\nright on; he read no prayers; he turned to no ritual; he did not even\nuse the great Bible of Saint Agatha's--but only spoke in a quiet way,\nlike a man who continues a thought begun:\n\n\"For the Lord,\" he said, \"is the maker of you all.\"\n\nThere was no sermon in Saint Agatha's that afternoon.  Ecclesiastically\nspeaking, there was no service.  But the preacher spoke to the people;\nand their hearts hung upon his words.  But what those words were no man\nmay tell us at this day.\n\nIt has been whispered, indeed, that what he said took different\nmeanings to the members of that strange audience.  Each heart received\nits own message.  Wide as the earth were the gulfs between those\nhearers.  But the preacher's message bridged them all.  From his\nquivering lip and melting voice each soul drank the water of life.\nAfterwards each kept its own secret, and told not of that thirst, or of\nits assuaging.\n\n\"He speaks to me,\" sighed the patrician, with bowed head.  \"How happens\nthis, for I thought no man did know that inner history?  I have never\ntold\"--\n\n\"To me!  To me!\" sobbed the pauper and the castaway--\"the preacher\nspeaks to me.  My misery, my shame--the whole world knows, but no man\never understood before.\"\n\nThe afternoon waned.  The shadows deepened under the galleries.  The\ngreat house clung like one child to the voice of the preacher.  It was\nas still as the courts of Heaven when a soul is pardoned.  The stranger\nspoke in a low but penetrating voice.  Not a word was lost by the\nremotest.  He spoke of the love of God the Father, and of the life of\nChrist the Son.  He spoke of sin and of forgiveness, of sorrow, of\nshame, and of peace.  He spoke of sacrifice, of patience, of purity,\nand of hope, and of the eternal life.\n\nNot once did he allude to the petty differences among the people who\nsat bowed and breathless before him.  Such paltry things as riches or\npoverty, or position, or obscurity, he did not recognize.  He spoke to\nmen and women, the children of God.  He spoke to sinners and to\nsufferers, and to patient saints; he said nothing about \"classes;\" he\ntalked of human beings; he rebuked them for their sins; he comforted\nthem for their miseries; he smote their hearts; he shook their souls;\nhe passed over their lives as conflagration passes, burning to ashes,\npurifying to new growth.\n\nAs he spoke, the manner of his countenance changed before them, like\nthat of any great and holy man who is charged with the burden of souls,\nand who persuadeth them.  A fine, inner light glowed through his\nfeatures, as a sacred lamp glows through alabaster or some exquisite\nshell.  His plaintive lip trembled.  His deep eyes burned and\nretreated, as if they veiled themselves.  An expression dazzling to\nbehold settled upon his face.  His white garment gathered light, and\nshone.  Suddenly pausing, he stretched forth his hands.  What delicate\narrangement of the chancel lamps illuminated them?  It was noticed by\nmany, and spoken of afterwards below the breath.  For, as he raised\nthem in benediction upon the people, there scintillated from the palms\na light.  Some said that it was reflected from the radiance of the\nman's face.  Some said that it had another cause.  Only this is sure:\nwhen he did uplift his hands to bless them, all the people fell upon\ntheir knees before him.\n\nIt was now almost dark in the church, and no man could see his\nneighbor's face.  The choir, on their knees, began to sing, \"Holy,\nholy, holy\"--  When their voices fell, the preacher's rose:\n\n\"And now may the grace of God the Father, and the love of Jesus Christ\nhis Son, your Lord, and the peace of the Holy Spirit, be upon you; for\nthere is Life Eternal; and God is the Light thereof; whose children ye\nare forever.  Amen, and Amen.\"\n\nHis voice ceased.  The hush that followed it was broken only by sobs.\n\nThe electric lights sprang out all over the church.  In the sudden\nbrilliance the kneeling people lifted their wet faces to the\nstranger's, thinking to catch a last sight of him for life-long\ntreasure.\n\nBut the chancel was empty.  As silently, as strangely, as he had come,\nthe preacher had gone.  It was the fashion of the man.  Such was his\nwill.  He was never seen at Saint Agatha's again; nor, though his name\nand fame were widely sought, were they ever learned by any.\n\nThe great, strange crowd of worshipers melted mutely away.  No man\nspoke to his neighbor; each was busy with the secret of his own soul.\nThe sick returned to their sufferings; the bereaved to their\nloneliness; the poor to their struggles; the rich to their pleasures;\nthe erring to their temptations; and God went with them.\n\nDown the avenue, in the room of the life-long invalid, the receiver\nfell from a woman's shaking hand.  All these--all they, the saddest,\nthe sorest, of them all--had been preferred before her.\n\n\"Oh, to have seen his face!\" she cried.  She held her thin hands before\nher eyes.  Then, flashing by that inner light which burns in the brain\nof the sensitive sick, the face of the stranger swam before her for an\ninstant--and was not; for she had recognized it.\n\n[Illustration: \"_The face of the stranger swam before her_\"]\n\n\nIn the Monday morning's paper, the vestryman of Saint Agatha's observed\na line or two of obituary notice tucked away in one of the spaces\nreserved for the obscure.  It set forth the fact that the old clergyman\nwho had failed to meet his appointment died on Sunday morning, of\npneumonia, after a brief illness, aged seventy-two.\n\n\n\n\n  Books by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.\n      (MRS. WARD.)\n\n  THE GATES AJAR.  78th Thousand.  16mo, $1.50.\n  BEYOND THE GATES, 30th Thousand.  16mo, $1.25.\n  THE GATES BETWEEN.  16mo, $1.25.\n\n  The above three volumes, in box, $4.00.\n\n\n  MEN, WOMEN, AND GHOSTS.  Stories.  16mo, $1.50.\n  HEDGED IN.  16mo, $1.50.\n  THE SILENT PARTNER.  16mo, $1.50.\n  THE STORY OF AVIS.  16mo, $1.50; paper, 50 cents.\n  SEALED ORDERS, and Other Stories.  16mo, $1.50.\n  FRIENDS: A Duet.  16mo, $1.25; paper, 50 cents.\n  DOCTOR ZAY.  16mo, $1.25; paper, 50 cents.\n  AN OLD MAID'S PARADISE, and BURGLARS IN PARADISE.  16mo, $1.23.\n  THE MASTER OF THE MAGICIANS.  Collaborated with\n    HERBERT D. WARD.  16mo, $1.25; paper, 50 cents.\n  COME FORTH!  Collaborated with HERBERT D. WARD.\n    16mo, $1.25; paper, 50 cents.\n  FOURTEEN TO ONE.  Short Stories.  16mo, $1.25.\n  DONALD MARCY.  16mo, $1.25.\n  A SINGULAR LIFE.  A Novel.  16mo, $1.25.\n\n  The above 16 volumes, uniform, $21.50.\n\n\n  THE SUPPLY AT ST. AGATHA'S.  Illustrated.  Square  12mo, $1.00.\n  THE MADONNA OF THE TUBS.  Illustrated.  12mo, $1.50.\n  THE SAME.  Square 12mo, boards, 75 cents.\n  JACK THE FISHERMAN.  Illustrated.  Square 12mo, boards, 50 cents.\n  THE STRUGGLE FOR IMMORTALITY.  Essays.  16mo, $1.25.\n  THE TROTTY BOOK.  Illustrated.  Square 16mo, $1.25.\n  TROTTY'S WEDDING TOUR AND STORY BOOK.  With\n    Illustrations.  Square 16mo, $1.25.\n  WHAT TO WEAR?  16mo, $1.00.\n  POETIC STUDIES.  Square 16mo, $1.50.\n  SONGS OF THE SILENT WORLD.  With Portrait.  16mo, $1.25.\n  CHAPTERS FROM A LIFE.  Illustrated.  12mo, $1.50\n\n\n  HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY,\n\n  BOSTON AND NEW YORK.","title":"The Supply at Saint Agatha's","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":8046}