Nature’s lenient mother-heart tries to protect all her children—these gifts seem to be the birthright of the poor. Alas! instead of being used as a defence they are too often upraised in offensive menace.
Beneath the eloquent imagery, the deep human sympathy, the tender lovingness of Sidney’s words, the old workman pierced—and found nothing.
Within the sanctuary of Sidney’s soul there was no benignant Christ—only the vague splendour of altruistic ideals.
And yet—he held up before his congregation this mask of formulated faith and tricked them as the priests, hidden in the hollow images, tricked the credulous people thousands of years ago.
A man of the most lofty mental integrity, this mummery wrung his heart.
“Oh,” he said within himself, “if he would only, only once declare the truth—even now if he would cast away these mummy cloths of deception which swathe his spirit. If he would once, only _once_ speak and redeem himself for ever.”
He looked at Sidney, an agony of entreaty in his eyes, hoping against hope, he looked upon him steadfastly, and suddenly Sidney’s voice faltered, a vague expression dimmed his eyes, he repeated himself, hesitated, then in utter silence his eyes roved over his congregation, here and there, as if seeking something definitely defined; and after an interval which keyed up the already tense regard of his hearers almost unendurably, Sidney found the face he sought, and with the unquestioning, unreasoning gladness of a child, he relinquished his eyes to the piteous entreaty in the workman’s.
His congregation, whose prejudices had not withstood his eloquence, stirred and wondered, but Sidney heeded not, for the crisis in his life had come.
In vain the scientist with scalpel and microscope pries and peers, these subtleties puzzle and delude him. For by some curious telepathy, untranslatable in the symbols of spoken speech, Sidney’s mind received the impression of the other man’s great grief, whose only hope translated itself into a great cry, “Be true; be true.”
For, fixing the attention of his congregation with a gesture as of one who confesses before his judges, he began to speak. And in words of surpassing and subtle eloquence he laid bare every secret of his soul to them. With eyes exalted and glorified he spoke of his love for Vashti Lansing; he told how she had entreated him, how he had hesitated, “but,” he said, “her beauty and her goodness stole my soul and I promised to be Minister of Dole.”