The Unhallowed Harvest/Chapter 10
If any parishioner of Christ Church comforted himself with the thought that the Reverend Robert Farrar had wisely decided to forego his animadversions on the self-constituted privileges of wealth in the Church, or his appeals for social equality in the House of God, he was destined to experience a rude awakening. For, not only did the rector resume his protests and appeals from the pulpit, but he inaugurated and carried on a personal campaign among his people for the adoption of his revolutionary ideas. They were revolutionary indeed. He preached social justice, and Christian socialism. And while a critical analysis of his sermons would doubtless have failed to unearth a single unorthodox phrase, nevertheless he advocated a doctrine which learned commentators had hitherto failed to discover in the written Word of God, and which the pious and profound compilers of the Book of Common Prayer had certainly never contemplated. He dwelt much, as had been his custom, on the lowly origin and humble environment of the Saviour of mankind. He did not minimize the spiritual significance of His mission, as have some professed followers of the Nazarene in order that they might magnify Him as a social prophet. Nor had he great sympathy with those materialistic adherents of the Master who hold that the purpose of His teaching was not so much to point the way to spiritual regeneration as to arouse the Galilean peasants, by parable and precept, to a sense of their economic wrongs, and to instill into their minds a hearty desire to free themselves from the yoke of the Roman oppressor and the hard ecclesiasticism of the Jewish priesthood. He never sought to rob the Christ of any of the spiritual adornment or any of the divine attributes with which the Church from time immemorial has clothed Him. But he loved to dwell on His passion for the poor.
The rector's gospel of social equality was rejected and resented, or accepted and cherished, according to the personal view-point of those to whom it was presented. The parish was sharply divided. There were few lukewarm adherents to either side in the controversy. Those who were not with him were against him, and against him unequivocally. Some of them went so far as to request that their names be stricken from the parish roll. Others, less impulsive and more worldly-wise, contented themselves with voluntary absence from the services of the church. Still others, and these constituted the greater part of those opposed to the new régime, unwilling to forego the privileges and customs of many years, went, with apprehensive minds, to listen to unwelcome sermons, and came away troubled and depressed.
But the congregations grew in size. Pews given up by former parishioners did not remain vacant for want of occupants. Pewholders in sympathy with the rector's views doubled up with each other or threw their sittings open freely to the public. In one way and another room was found for all the common people who came and who heard gladly the new gospel that was being preached to them.
It is true that the roll of regular supporting parishioners was not greatly lengthened; but the prospects were bright for many additions, and there was abundance of hope for large results in the future.
It is true also that while the cost of caring for the newcomers in all the activities of church life materially increased the amount of necessary expenditure, the church revenues began, at the same time, to show a marked falling off.
But these things did not greatly disturb the rector. He knew that his first duty was to obey the mandates of the religion in which he believed, and to continue his efforts to reclaim and regenerate the hundreds of hitherto churchless and unwelcome poor who were now turning tired feet toward the portals of Christ Church. Matters of finance must and would adjust themselves to any situation which might result from his efforts in this behalf.
And he had defenders, plenty of them. He had helpers by the score, and companions by the hundred. At least two members of his vestry, Emberly and Hazzard, were outspoken and enthusiastic adherents to his cause. All of his humbler parishioners, new and old, save those few who chanced to be under the domination of men and families of wealth, were with him heartily in his crusade. Class was arrayed against class. To the observant and disinterested onlooker the struggle formed a most illuminating chapter in the record of modern sociological activity.
Among his few supporters in what was considered to be the exclusive social set, Ruth Tracy was by far the most ardent and uncompromising. Here, there, everywhere, she proclaimed the righteousness and justice of the rector's cause. Her faith in him was unbounded, and her faith was fully evidenced by her works. Her mother was scandalized, her father was indifferent, her lover was in despair. To seek to restrain from unwise and unseemly activity a woman who is actuated by religious motives is a delicate and dangerous task, and Westgate was not equal to it. He was ready to cross swords with any legal opponent, to face any legal proposition that might come to his office, to persuade or oppose, to construct or crush, as occasion might demand, but he had no skill or persuasion or power to turn this girl whom he loved aside from the hard path she had deliberately chosen. He had exhausted logic and entreaty, without avail. There was left to him but one recourse, and that he was not yet ready to adopt.
One afternoon, in the heart of the city, a half dozen of the vestrymen of Christ Church met, informally, to discuss the situation which, in their judgment, had become acute. All but one of them were in favor of drastic action, let the action take what form it would. That one was Westgate. Again he appeared as a conservative. The others demanded that immediate steps be taken to oust the offending clergyman from his pulpit. Westgate pleaded for delay. He asked for a length of time within which he might, as a friend, approach the rector and urge upon him the advisability, if not the necessity, of a quiet, dignified, unsensational resignation, and relinquishment of his office. Since the night of the Tracy dinner he had abandoned any idea that he might have had that the clergyman would listen to reason or to good advice. His only hope now was that a vacancy in the pulpit might be brought about without a bitter and unseemly conflict. His fellow-vestrymen did not agree with him in his view of the case. They maintained that the Reverend Mr. Farrar was not entitled to so much consideration as Westgate proposed to show him. But they finally yielded, with the explicit understanding that this was to be the last proposal for peace. If it should not be accepted they would at once resort to hostile measures.
Westgate was to see Mr. Farrar at the earliest opportunity, and report the result of his visit. But it was not until two days later that he was able to go forth on his unhappy mission. He found the minister at home. On his face, as he welcomed his visitor, there was no look of apprehension or surprise. He was calm, self-assured, quietly expectant. He appeared to know, by intuition, the purport of the call. Westgate indulged in no prologue, nor did he make any excuses or apologies. In courteous phrases, with the deep concern of a friend, he went at once to the heart of his errand.
The rector heard him through without interruption, apparently unperturbed.
"I cannot resign," was his answer.
"Why not?" asked Westgate.
"I will tell you. In the first place it would be a tacit admission that I am in the wrong. I cannot admit that, for I believe that I am indubitably right. In the next place, to resign would be breaking faith with the hundreds of humble folk to whom I have promised the privileges of Christ Church, and who are even now, in a sense, receiving them. Were I to leave your pulpit they would be as sheep without a shepherd. I do not speak in self-aggrandizement. I simply know that no one whom your vestry would be likely to call to succeed me could fill, or would try to fill, the place which I now hold in their hearts and confidence. Were I to go the respect that these people now have for the Church would disappear, the religious sensibility that has been awakened in them would be destroyed, they would go back to their old, churchless, hopeless, irreligious life, unreconciled either to God or man. I tell you, Westgate, I cannot resign."
"Do you think that an interest, or even a religion based on a mere personal relation to a pastor, is likely to become an enduring or a fundamental thing in any man's life?"
"Yes; if it is accompanied and followed by conditions which make the gospel that is being preached to him real and satisfying."
"But you should know that the people who are flocking to Christ Church now are merely seeking new sensations. They are improving an opportunity to gratify class resentment against the rich and the well-to-do. They have no thought of attaching themselves permanently to the Church. When the novelty of the thing has worn off they are certain to drift away."
"You say that because you do not know them and do not believe in them. Give me one year to make Christ Church what I would have it to be, and I will show you such a permanent turning to righteousness in this city on the part of those who hitherto have had no use for religion, as will astound the unbelievers in my methods."
His face glowed and his eyes shone with enthusiasm. No one, looking on him in that moment, could have doubted his intense earnestness. But to Westgate's practical and logical mind the rector's words carried no conviction. He was still calm and deliberate as he replied:
"Mr. Farrar, I did not come to argue with you concerning your theories or your conduct. The time for argument has passed, because your mind is irretrievably set. I came to make a simple request; that you should resign. I ask it for the good of Christ Church."
"I believe I am acting for the best good of Christ Church in refusing."
"That being your final answer there is no doubt but that the vestry as a body will demand your removal as rector."
The ultimatum had come at last, but it brought no surprise nor dismay. The rector smiled.
"That announcement," he said, "is not unexpected, nor does it disturb me in the least. I know what my rights are under the constitution and canons of the Church, and I shall seek to maintain them. I know also what my obligations are to the people to whom I minister, and to the Church to which I have made my ordination vows. Those obligations will not permit me either to abandon or to let myself be driven from the post to which God in His wisdom has seen fit to assign me."
"Then I am to carry back to the gentlemen who are associated with me your refusal and your defiance?"
"My regret rather, and my determination. I am sorry. These men have been more than kind to me in the past. But—I cannot change my mind."
"Very well. I said to you once that I should oppose you openly in the course you were pursuing. I have done so, but I have at the same time tried to protect you. That protection is at an end. I say now, frankly, that I shall use my best effort to force you from the pulpit of this church, for I believe you are driving the church straight to disaster."
The rector smiled again, sadly, but his purpose was in no wise shaken.
"You are kind to be so frank with me," he said. "You have always been kind to me, and I have been fond of you. I shall still be fond of you, because I believe you to be honest and sincere, though mistaken. We may be adversaries; we cannot be enemies."
Westgate made no reply. He had reached a point where he could not share the friendly feeling of the rector. He could not be fond of a man who recklessly and obstinately, however conscientiously, refused to forego his determination to make Christ Church the forfeit in his game of Christian socialism. Moreover—
"There is one other thing I want to speak of at this time," said Westgate, "a personal matter."
Both men had risen to their feet and had been moving slowly toward the door of the study. The lawyer stopped and faced the minister. It was evident that the "personal matter" was one which lay near to his heart, for his face had paled and his jaws were set with determination.
"It is this," he said. "Ruth Tracy has become the chief worker for your cause in the parish. I assume that it has been your direct influence that has produced her present abnormal state of mind. She is under the spell of a powerful personality. She is my fiancée. I have a right to protect her, and to conserve my own happiness. What you have had power to do, you have power to undo. I ask you now to relinquish your control of her conscience and judgment, and to refuse to carry her farther with you in a course which can only lead her into deep sorrow and great humiliation."
The Reverend Mr. Farrar did not at once reply. A phase of the situation had been presented to him which had not before crossed his mind. He had met, and had solved to his own satisfaction, every problem in the controversy which he could foresee. This one was entirely new. But his clear vision and quick judgment went at once to the heart of it.
"I have used no persuasion on Miss Tracy," he said at last. "Her absorption in this crusade has been entirely due to her own innate sense of righteousness and of social justice. For me to seek now to dissuade her from any continuance in this work would be to shake her faith, and to discredit my own sincerity of purpose. I cannot do what you ask."
Westgate was annoyed. For the first time in all this unhappy controversy he felt that forbearance was no longer a virtue.
"Then you insist," he said, "in making selfish use of her to advance your own peculiar propaganda, regardless of her happiness, or her mother's peace of mind, or of my rights as her affianced lover?"
"I insist on giving her free rein, so far as I am concerned, to work out the impulses of a noble mind and heart. She has high ideals. I shall assist her, so far as I am able, to attain them."
"Even though in doing so you blast her happiness and wreck her life?"
"That is an absurd and irreligious supposition, Westgate. I repeat that I shall make no attempt to dissuade her from carrying out her high purpose, and you, even as her affianced lover, have no right to ask it."
"I do not ask it any longer, I demand it. I demand that you, as an honest man, and as a minister of God, unseal that woman's eyes that she may see."
"As an honest man and a minister of God I shall do all that lies in my power to blind her eyes to any less worthy object than the advancement of Christ's Kingdom on earth."
A point had been reached beyond which words were vain. With men in whom the animal instinct predominates, blows would have been next in order. To these gentlemen it was simply apparent that the interview was at an end.
Westgate opened the study door to pass out into the hall, but, facing him, blocking his way, the rector's wife stood, white-faced and trembling. She had heard the high-pitched voices, the demand and the refusal. Unreasoning fear possessed her. She threw herself into her husband's arms.
"Oh, Robert!" she cried. "What awful thing has happened now?"
He laid his hand on her head soothingly.
"Don't be frightened, dear. It is simply another desertion. Mr. Westgate definitely joins our enemies."
She looked apprehensively at Westgate, and he went up to her and took her hand.
"I am not your enemy, Mrs. Farrar," he said. "I never shall be. Whatever happens you shall have sympathy and friendship, both from my mother and from me, and such help and comfort as we may be permitted to give to you."
"Thank you, Mr. Westgate! You and your mother have always been good to us."
"And we shall continue to be to the best of our ability. Good-bye!"
When Westgate had gone she turned again to her husband and demanded that he tell her what had happened. He did so. He told her plainly of the request for his resignation, and of his refusal to consider it.
"Oh, why didn't you do what they asked of you?" she wailed. "It would have been so much better than keeping up this horrid fight. I am so sick and tired of it. If we could only get away from this dreadful place!"
"It's a splendid place, Alice. It's the field of Armageddon for us. The Lord's battle is on. Would you have me branded as a deserter?"
"I don't know, Robert. I only know that I'm so miserable. If we could only live somewhere, in any little place, at peace, and let some one else do the fighting. You said, one day, that I shouldn't have married a minister. It hurt me then, but I've thought a good deal about it since,—and now I know it's true. I'm such a hopeless drag on you."
"You're a very great comfort to me, dear."
It was not true, and he knew in his heart that it was not true; but he could say no less and be a Christian gentleman.
"Thank you, Robert! And I've thought a good many times since then that if you only had a wife like Ruth Tracy, what a help and blessing she'd be to you."
This reflection of his own tenuous dream fell upon him so unexpectedly, struck him so gruesomely, that, for the moment, he could make no reply. And before he did find his tongue her thought was diverted into a new channel. She suddenly remembered something that she had heard at the door.
"Oh, Robert, what woman's eyes were they that Mr. Westgate wanted unsealed? Were they mine?"
"No, dear, they were not yours."
"Whose then?"
"Ruth Tracy's."
She backed away a little and looked at him inquiringly.
"Ruth—Tracy's? I don't understand. What did he mean?"
"Why, he appears to think that I have cast some sort of a hypnotic spell over Miss Tracy to induce her to go along with me in my fight."
"That's just what Jane Chichester says that so many people are saying. She told me so yesterday. They say that Miss Tracy must be hypnotized, the way she's sacrificing herself in your interest."
He became a little impatient at that.
"I wish you wouldn't take so seriously what Miss Chichester says. She's hardly to be depended upon where gossip is concerned."
"But you haven't, have you, Robert? You haven't cast any spell over her?"
She was entirely serious. So serious that he was moved to mirth.
"No," he replied, after a moment. "I do not possess hypnotic powers. Whatever Miss Tracy is doing, she is doing entirely of her own free will."
"She has been a very great help to you, hasn't she?"
"She has been my strongest champion and ablest worker."
"If she could only have been your wife!"
Many times that day and in the days that followed, his wife's wish concerning Ruth Tracy crossed the rector's mind. He did not dwell so much on the spirit of self-abnegation which the wish displayed as he did upon the contemplation of a woman like Ruth Tracy, with her steady helpfulness, her unfailing courage, her splendid optimism, being a part of his daily life. It was a gracious vision, indeed; warp and woof of idealism, with no thread of selfishness running through it, nor of disloyalty to the woman whom he had really married, and with whom he was still genuinely in love.
Westgate went back to the gentlemen of the vestry and reported the result of his errand. They had the pleasure of saying, "I told you so," and set about at once to consider ways and means of ridding the pulpit of Christ Church, in the speediest and most effective manner, of its ungracious and unworthy incumbent.
"I am with you, gentlemen," said Westgate, "in any action you may see fit to take, however drastic. The time for compromise has gone by. It must be a fight now to the finish."
They applauded him, and announced that they were ready to take the first step, and asked him what it should be. He advised them that the first step was the sending of a letter of information from the vestry to the bishop. This would require the formal action of the vestry as a body, the next regular meeting of which would be held the coming Friday evening. It was decided to bring the matter up at that time. Lest any charge should lie against them of unfairness or lack of good faith, they had a notice sent to each member of the vestry, and to the rector, to the effect that a resolution would be offered at that meeting having for its purpose an application to the ecclesiastical authority of the diocese for the dissolution of the pastoral relation between the incumbent minister and the parish of Christ Church.
At the hour fixed for the meeting every member of the vestry was present. They were there with anxious and apprehensive minds, dreading yet not avoiding the issue which they knew would arise.
The rector was chairman of the meeting as usual. It was his right, under the canons, to act as chairman. But, when the customary business had been disposed of, he called the senior warden, Judge Bosworth, to the chair.
"I do this," he explained, "in order that none of you may be embarrassed in any formal action you may see fit to take concerning me."
When the substitution had been made, Westgate arose and said that he desired to offer a resolution which he had prepared at the request of certain members of the vestry. His resolution, which he then read, was as follows:
"Whereas, by the XXVI article of our established religion it becomes the duty of those having knowledge of the offenses of ministers of the Church to present that knowledge to those in authority:
"And Whereas, the members of this vestry believe that the Reverend Robert Bruce Farrar, minister of Christ Church, has violated certain canons of the Church, and certain rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer, in that he has held and taught publicly, privately and advisedly, doctrines contrary to those held by the Church; and has officiated at the burial of the dead and administered the holy communion in a manner contrary to that ordered by the said rubrics:
"Therefore, be it Resolved that we, the vestry of Christ Church, desire a separation and dissolution of the pastoral relation now existing between the said minister and the parish of Christ Church, and that we present a notice in writing to that effect to the Right Reverend, the Bishop of this diocese, and pray his judgment accordingly."
"I move the adoption of the resolution," said Mr. Hughes.
"I second the motion," added Mr. Cochrane.
Emberly was on his feet in an instant; but before he could speak the rector had risen.
"If my friend Mr. Emberly will pardon me," he said, "and permit me to interrupt him, I desire to say that it is my preference that there shall be no controversy over this resolution. I am informed that a majority of the members of the vestry have already pledged themselves to its support. Argument, therefore, which might lead to harsh words and unfriendly thoughts, and would be a mere waste of the time occupied in making it, had better be avoided. However, lest there should be any possible doubt as to my attitude, let me say now that I deny absolutely the charges made against me in the preamble to this resolution, and that, at the proper time and in the proper place, I will defend myself against them."
Through the tact and good sense of the rector a scene had been avoided. The gentlemen of the vestry, relieved of apprehension, breathed more freely, and Westgate called for the question.
The resolution was adopted without argument. Emberly and Hazzard were the only ones who voted against it, old Mr. Ray, greatly disturbed in mind over the unhappy affair, declining to vote.
Those who had voted "aye" then attached their signatures to the resolution, and the next day it was forwarded to the bishop of the diocese for his godly consideration. When his reply came it was to the effect that inasmuch as he intended to make his annual visitation to the parish early in February, he would postpone a hearing on the charges until that time. What he wrote privately to the rector, if he wrote at all, was never disclosed.
No attempt was made to keep secret the action taken by the vestry at the Friday evening meeting. The whole city knew of it the next morning and was accordingly aroused. The newspapers which, as a matter of journalistic policy, had fought shy of the controversy in its earlier stages, now blazoned forth to the public, under scare head-lines, the news of the climax of the trouble in Christ Church. Whenever two men of the parish met each other on the street, or in any business or social place, the matter was not only mentioned but often freely discussed. Women went far out of their way to gossip about it. Jane Chichester had not found such absorbing occupation, either for her feet or her tongue, in many a day.
Not only the parish, but the whole city was soon divided into two hostile camps. Old friendships were strained, old relations were severed, and many a gap was opened between those who had theretofore walked side by side. In the barroom of the Silver Star saloon a heated controversy over the matter resulted in a fierce brawl, bruised bodies, battered faces, and a police-court episode the following day.
And Mephistopheles drew his red cloak about him, concealed his cloven hoofs therein, sat down in the shadow of an age-old olive tree, and smiled in sinister content.