CHAPTER III

THE CALL

It was the Trust Anniversary at the Sytch Chapel, and two sermons were to be delivered by the Reverend Dr. Simon Quain; during fifteen years none but he had preached the Trust sermons.  Even in the morning, when pillars of the church were often disinclined to assume the attitude proper to pillars, the fane was almost crowded.  For it was impossible to ignore the Doctor.  He was an expert geologist, a renowned lecturer, the friend of men of science and sometimes their foe, a contributor to the ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica,’ and the author of a book of travel.  He did not belong to the school of divines who annihilated Huxley by asking him, from the pulpit, to tell them, if protoplasm was the origin of all life, what was the origin of protoplasm.  Dr. Quain was a man of genuine attainments, at which the highest criticism could not sneer; and when he visited Bursley the facile agnostics of the town, the young and experienced who knew more than their elders, were forced to take cover.  Dr. Quain, whose learning exceeded even theirs—­so the elders sarcastically ventured to surmise—­was not ashamed to believe in the inspiration of the Old Testament; he could reconcile the chronology of the earth’s crust with the first chapter of Genesis; he had a satisfactory explanation of the Johannine gospel; and his mere existence was an impregnable fortress from which the adherents of the banner of belief could not be dislodged.  On this Sunday morning he offered a simple evangelical discourse, enhanced by those occasional references to palaeozoic and post-tertiary periods which were expected from him, and which he had enough of the wisdom of the serpent to supply.  His grave and assured utterances banished all doubts, fears, misgivings, apprehensions; and the timid waverers smiled their relief at being freed, by the confidence of this illustrious authority, from the distasteful exertion of thinking for themselves.

The collection was immense, and, in addition to being immense, it provided for the worshippers an agreeable and legitimate excitement of curiosity; for the plate usually entrusted to Meshach Myatt was passed from pew to pew, and afterwards carried to the communion rails, by a complete stranger, a man extremely self-possessed and well-attired, with a heavy moustache, a curious dimple in his chin, and melancholy eyes, a man obviously of considerable importance somewhere.  ‘Oh, mamma,’ whispered Milly to her mother, who was alone with her in the Stanway pew, ‘do look; that’s Mr. Twemlow.’  Several men in the congregation knew his identity, and one, a commercial traveller, had met him in New York.  Before the final hymn was given out, half the chapel had pronounced his name in surprise.  His overt act of assisting in the offertory was favourably regarded; it was thought to show a nice social feeling on his part; and he did it with such distinction!  The older people remembered that his father had always been a collector; they were constrained now to readjust their ideas concerning the son, and these ideas, rooted in the single phrase, ran away from home, and set fast by time, were difficult of adjustment.  The impressiveness of Dr. Quain’s sermon was impaired by this diversion of interest.