Chapter 3 No.3

The "letter to follow" came by a late post, but it was only a fuller and politer version of the telegram. It hoped that Mr. Murray would be able to give the Upton congregation the pleasure of listening to him, it apologised for the short notice (it was then Friday), and it invited the minister to dine with the writer on Sunday. It thus gave no hint that the eye of the Upton congregation might be on Mr. Murray, but at the same time it did not completely dash the hope that it might be.

On Saturday the minister sat down and wrote one sermon expressly for the occasion, and with that and another in his pocket he set off on Sunday morning to fulfil his engagement with some trepidation.

The aspect of the Upton Chapel was itself cheerful and inspiriting. It was nearly new, and it was large and handsome in a semi-Gothic, open-raftered style; moreover, it was well filled, without being crowded. It was a complete contrast to the place where Mr. Murray usually ministered, where most of the high-backed musty pews were quite empty, where a kind of fog hung perpetually, and where the minister, perched aloft in the pulpit, was as "a voice crying in the wilderness." Then in the Upton Chapel there was a fine organ, and good singing by a well-trained choir. When the minister, therefore, rose to preach his sermon, it was with a sense of exaltation and inspiration which he had not felt for years. He delivered himself with effect, and he was listened to with wakeful attention and apparent appreciation. When the service was over, and one leader of the congregation after another came to the vestry to shake him warmly by the hand and to thank him for his "beautiful discourse," he thanked God and took courage, and wished that his Mary were with him, instead of sitting lonely and anxious in their little lodging with their sick boy.

He went in good spirits to the home of his host, who was a merchant in the city, and he sat down with the family to the ample Sunday dinner. He sat next his hostess, a gentle, motherly lady, who asked him if he was married, and if he had any children; and he told her of Mary and the child. His host was a shrewd man, of middle age, who had clearly read much and thought a good deal, and all his family (three grown sons and two daughters) were intelligent and cultivated, and took a modest, but sufficient, share in the conversation of the table, and all listened to such opinions as the minister uttered with attention and understanding. Mr. Murray, therefore, felt he was in a sociable, frank, and refined atmosphere, and he thought within himself: "What a place of brightness and pleasant endeavour this would be after my rude and stormy experience of the north and this terrible year in London! And, oh, what a haven of rest and health for my darling wife and boy!"

So it was with unaffected joy, when he walked round the large garden with his host after dinner, that he heard him say:-

"I think, Mr. Murray, absolute frankness in these matters is best. Let me ask you, if you were invited to become our minister, would you be willing? Would you like to come to us?"

"As frankly as you put the question," said Mr. Murray, "I answer that, from all I know and have seen of the Upton congregation, I should like to be your minister. Of course, it would be pleasanter for me and for all if the invitation were as nearly unanimous as may be."

"HE DELIVERED HIMSELF WITH EFFECT."

"Quite so," said his host. "I ought to say that, though I am the chairman, I have at present no authority to speak for any but myself and my family. But we have heard a good report of you, Mr. Murray, and I know that many of our people have been much impressed by you this morning." Then, unconsciously, he went on to dash somewhat the minister's lively hopes. "There is a young man-Mr. Lloyd: you may know him. No? Well-some of our people are very much taken with him. He is a brilliant, popular sort of young fellow; but he is young-he has only been some two years or so a minister-and he is unmarried, and-and well, I don't want to say anything against him-but he is just a little flighty, and we older folk doubt how we should get on with him. I am glad, however, to have your assurance that you would come if you were asked."

He put his arm within the minister's, and thus they returned into the house. And-as if that had been a sign of consent agreed upon-all the company (and there were now a good many guests assembled) beamed upon them as they entered the drawing-room.

"I am so glad," said the eldest daughter of the house, bringing Mr. Murray a cup of tea and sitting down by him, "to know that you are willing to be our minister!"

"How do you know I am?" he asked, with a smile.

"Oh," she answered with a blush and a light laugh, "we arranged for a sign from my father, so that we should all know at once. You are willing, are you not?"

"I am," he answered, "quite."

"And I hope-I do hope-you will be asked."

Presently there came to him an unknown young man, and said: "I don't often go to chapel or church, but if you often preach sermons like this morning's, I should always go to hear you, I think."

That was a flattering tribute, and the minister showed his appreciation of it.

"Well, I confess," he said, "it is at least pleasant to hear you say so."

Thus the time passed till the hour came for evening service. The gas was lit, and floor and galleries were crowded with people. The minister had chosen a simple and pathetic theme for his evening discourse: "He took little children in His arms and blessed them;" and he spoke out of the fulness of experience and with the tender feeling of the father of a sick child, insomuch that all were moved, many even to sobs and tears. There was no doubt that he carried his audience with him; and, as in the morning, he had to shake many hands and receive many thanks.

Last of all, his host of the day came and asked him to take also the services of the next Sunday; and then he hastened home by train to his wife with hopeful, grateful heart.

"ISN'T HE A JOLLY FELLOW?"

"There, Mary, my dear," said he, giving her the ￡5 note in an envelope as it had been slipped into his hand; "that's for you and Jim. I'll take you both down to Margate to-morrow-the air of Margate is the most bracing in England-and you can stay for two or three weeks at least, and the boy will begin to grow strong."

For answer Mary threw herself into her husband's arms, and sobbed upon his breast.

"Oh, how good God is, James! Let us be thankful, my dear! Oh, let us be thankful!"

Next day the minister took his wife and child to Margate, and placed them in lodgings on the breezy cliff-top. On Tuesday he returned to town; for he had much to do to prepare for his second Sunday at Upton and to fill the vacancy at the old, deserted chapel. In spite of his occupation he began, before the week was out, to feel lonely and depressed; for he and his wife had not separated before, save for a day or two, since the hour of their marriage. In the solitude of his close and dingy lodging he restlessly and morbidly meditated on his desire to go to Upton, and his chances of going. Had he any right to go, with such mercenary motives as moved him? But was the health of wife and child a mercenary motive? Was the desire to see them free from a narrow and blighting poverty a mercenary motive? And had he not other motives also-motives of truth and duty? If it was wrong to seek to go to Upton for these reasons, then God forgive him! for he could not help longing to go!

It was in something of that depressed and troubled mood that he went to fulfil his second Sunday. The congregation was larger than on the previous Sunday morning, and the minister felt that many must have come expressly to hear him; and, therefore, he had less brightness and freedom of delivery than on the Sunday before. He felt, when the service was over, that he had not acquitted himself well, and he began anew to torture himself with the thoughts of what would become of Mary and Jim if he should miss his chance of Upton.

To add discomfort to discomfort, and constraint to constraint, he was introduced in the vestry to the Reverend Mr. Lloyd-his rival, as he felt bound to consider him; and to his host for the day-a stout, loud-spoken, rather vulgar-looking man, who dropped his h's.

When they reached the home of his host (who clearly was a wealthy man, for the house was large and furnished with substantial splendour), he discovered that his rival also was to be a guest. That did not serve to put him more at his ease, the less that he perceived host and rival seemed on very friendly, if not familiar, terms. They called one another "Lloyd" and "Brown," and slapped each other on the back. "Brown" said something, and "Lloyd" flatly and boisterously contradicted and corrected him, and then "Brown" laughed loudly, and seemed to like it. Thus dinner wore away, while Mr. Murray said little save to his hostess-a pale, thin, and somewhat depressed woman, grievously overburdened, it was clear, with a "jolly" husband, and a loud and healthy young family. After dinner "Lloyd" romped and rollicked in and out of the house with the troop of noisy children, while Mr. Murray kept his hostess and her very youngest company, and the attention of his host was divided between duty and inclination-the duty of sitting by his wife and guest, and the inclination of "larking with 'Lloyd.'"

"Look at him!" he exclaimed once. "Isn't he a jolly fellow? I do think he's a capital fellow! Oh, yes; and he has a nice mind."

It was all very depressing and saddening to Mr. Murray, though he appeared only to be very quiet. For he thought: "A large congregation like this of Upton must necessarily have more people like these Browns than like my friends of last Sunday; and it must, therefore, needs be that this Mr. Lloyd-who has no harm in him, I daresay, but who is little more than a rough, noisy, presumptuous boy not long from school-it must be that he should be preferred by the majority to me. I may as well, then, give up all hope of coming here. But what then of Mary and the boy-the boy?"

He was scarcely more satisfied with himself after the evening service (though he held the attention again of a crowded congregation), and he went back to his lonely lodging with a sore and doubting heart. He wrote, however, cheerfully (he thought) to his wife; but next day she replied to his letter and showed that his assumed cheerfulness had not deceived the watchful sense of love.

"You are not in good spirits, my dear," she wrote; "don't pretend you are. If you are not better to-day I shall come home to you, though little Jim is beginning to show the benefit of the change."

"Poor little chap!" the father thought. "He is beginning to improve. They must not come back, and I must not go down to them. My glum face would frighten Mary, and I should have to tell her all my fears. Besides, I cannot afford it. Oh, that it might be settled I'm to go to Upton!"

That was the refrain of his thoughts all that day. "Oh, that I might go to Upton!" It was a kind of prayer, and surely as worthy a prayer, and springing from as pure and loving a desire as any prayer that is uttered. He could do nothing more, however, to attain the desired end; he could only wait. Monday passed, and Tuesday, and still no word from Upton. On Wednesday came a letter from his first host-the Chairman of Committee. It contained little, but that little was charged with meaning and anxiety for the minister. Nothing, it declared, was yet absolutely decided; but on Thursday evening there was to be held a certain debate in the Lecture-room, in which it had been resolved that both Mr. Murray and Mr. Lloyd should be asked to take part.

"I am not officially instructed," continued the writer, "to say this to you, but I think I ought to tell you that there is a disposition among a good many to form their final choice for you or for Mr. Lloyd, on the conclusion of the debate."