“Ouida Angelo should now die happy. She has been outrageously criticised by the scribblers of a subsidized press until they have absolutely won for her a niche in the temple of fame, and now, to cap the climax, she has at length antagonized the church. A noted preacher has set all tongues wagging, and blood-tingling murders, shipwrecks, are forgotten in a universal discussion over a piece of marble statuary. The learned doctor says the artist is sensational, and yet he proceeds to undignify the church by bettering her instruction. He says she is vulgar, yet he vulgarizes a noble theme by becoming offensively personal. No one can quarrel with his right to say what he pleases about a work which has become public property. But he has no more right to discuss what he pleases to term her private life, than he has to attack the character of the richest member of his congregation. Who authorizes him to set himself up as a judge and executioner of the character of his fellows? Among people of all classes there is a growing disrespect for the mere ecclesiastic, and such sermons are aiding to bring the church into public contempt. This is gravely to be regretted, especially in this instance, as Dr. Nugent was rapidly forging to the front as a liberal and intelligent public speaker, and this ill-considered effort will undoubtedly tend to lessen his great influence as a public speaker.”
The preacher sat alone in his study, a prey to many conflicting emotions. He had read all the journalistic comments on his sermon, and was filled with mighty discontent. For months he had known the woman he condemned, and in his inner being there had been aroused for her, a strange interest. To him, she had unfolded many of her artistic dreams, but he did not comprehend, for he had been nurtured in a narrow school, and had embraced in his smooth and successful career, but few of fierce experiences. Nor was he completely assured of the sincerity of his motive. A dim, shadowy belief was slowly forcing its way through his consciousness that he had spoken for other purposes than the mere desire to uplift and purify public taste. He had learned to realize, inconsistent as it may seem, that the woman was really noble of heart and character, but his education and environment made him believe that she was debasing the noble gifts with which Nature had endowed her, and he was preaching as much to the individual woman as he had apparently been preaching to the public mind. The complex nature of his attitude to the great question troubled him, and a furrowed brow and anxious eye told a tale of mental agony. Now that he had spoken, he was filled with a grave doubt as to the righteousness of his conduct, and he was paying the penalty of all men who are sensitively moulded. Then the thought came to him that he was using his pulpit, not for mankind but for himself, and he questioned his right to such a course of action. He could not, and would not, deny to himself that the artist possessed for him an enormous attraction. A vague dream had often come to him that he could breathe into her soul nobler and purer dreams, but he put it away each time with a weaker struggle against the passion that slowly made its inroads into his soul. She was a Bohemian. She broke all links in the chain of custom and established precedent. She exhibited a reckless freedom in the comradeship of men, that maddened and frenzied him, yet he was speechless. He would crush this out of her, drive her from this insane, voluptuous life, and uplift her to his higher sphere, where her true nobility of character might be exercised, freed from the Bacchanalian influences of her mad life. Gradually, as he thought, he was ashamed to think how much of personal longing had crept into a sermon which should have been delivered in the honest work of his sacred profession.