The world, the church, and the devil

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Travelers 7

II. The Call 17

Chapter I Travelers

/^HANGE for Millerton, Barry, Morn- ^-^ingside and Mapleton; this car goes to Port Huron and Chicago,” sang out the brakesman on the fast express that came rushing into Safford Junction from the East. He had scarcely pronounced these words when a young man dressed in black, seated near the center of the car, leaned over and hurriedly thrusting a manuscript he had been reading into his grip with his large muscular fingers snapped it shut. It was a chill morning in the month of November and as he stepped off the car and quickly moved across the platform he was followed by a large squarely built man and two ladies who leisurely made their way in the same direction. As they moved over to where the young man was standing a local train of three cars backed slowly alongside. “Here is our train, Alice/’ said Dr. Maclaren to his wife, as she drew near to where he was standing. “This is our last change and we will soon be home.” “I am sure I am not sorry,” replied his wife, “although we’ve had a lovely trip, but you know I’m just dying to see the children. I hope they will be at the station to meet us.” “You may be sure they will. I phoned Duncan last night from Toronto that he could make ready for that operation this afternoon. He wired me to the steamer at Quebec to hurry up, as David Bruce was home at his father’s and that the only chance of prolonging his life was an immediate operation.”

“I hope you will be able to help him,” replied his wife — then, dropping her voice, added, “poor boy, he has just about broken his mother’s heart. Of course, he was a bit wild, but I always liked him and I think most of the neighbors did also. While he was reckless and never went to church, yet in many ways he seemed to be the best of their boys. He was manly and above board and not a bit like his brother Dick, whom I always thought more pious than righteous. But the old man, who was never done finding fault

T ravelers with David, could see nothing but good in Dick — he always went to church with him.”

“All aboard for Millerton, Barry, Morningside, Mapleton and Glencoe,” shouted the trainman, and Dr. Maclaren and his wife, after beckoning to Miss St. Claire, who had started down the pita form, hastily took their chairs in the parlor car. Some seats in front of them they spied the young man in black whom they had observed the day before in the dining car between Montreal and Toronto. He was rather distinguished in appearance. The sort of man that one might look twice at. And Mrs. Maclaren, catching her husband’s eye, whispered, “I wonder who that man is; he looks like a preacher. Perhaps he is going to Mapleton.”

“Oh, yes,” replied the Doctor, “I happened to meet Dugald Thomson last night at the Queens and he told me that they were expecting a minister for Sunday, a young man of more than ordinary ability ; they are still hearing candidates, you know.”

Dr. Maclaren was known far and wide as one of the most skilful surgeons in Ontario, and his absence from Mapleton for the unusual period of two months had been due to the fact that his well-known professional skill, coupled with the io The World, the Church and the Devil

high respect for his splendid manhood, which had been universally accorded him, had conspired to effect his election as representative of the Ontario Medical Society at the Congress of the British Medical Association, which had just concluded its sessions in the City of Glasgow. On this trip abroad he had been accompanied by his wife and by the daughter of the late Dr. St. Claire, to whose practise he had some years previously succeeded. In the mind of Mrs. Maclaren it was still an open question whether the learned thesis of her distinguished husband or the charming personality of Jean St. Claire had provoked the greater sensation among the younger members of that convention.

As the train drew into Barry Station, Jean, who had been monopolized since leaving Safford Junction by an elderly lady, Mrs. MacGregor, who had been her mother’s friend, came forward.

“I see you have just been chatting with Mrs. MacGregor,” said the Doctor. “She is a good old soul. What’s the news from Mapleton?”

“She is just a dear,” replied Jean, “and is returning home from Galt; but if I did not love her so much I would be inclined to laugh at her, for her first and last topic of conversation was the Church. They haven’t got a minister settled yet

T ravelers ii in St. Giles, but Mrs. MacGregor tells me that they expect to hear a young man on Sunday who has just returned from Edinburgh and who is said to be a great preacher.”

“I hope your interest in him will not be other than theological, Jean,” said Mrs. Maclaren, with a smile. “You know that after the Medical ball in Glasgow, young Dr. MacLeod, who claimed you for so many dances, told me that he was contemplating a trip to Canada next summer. The Scotch are such proverbial travelers, you know, and then he seemed strangely agitated when he missed meeting you again at the closing banquet. It was too amusing for anything, the way he acted. When I told him you had gone up to London the night before with Mrs. Dr. Webster and that you would not be back, but would join us at Liverpool, his eyes stared straight ahead of him for a moment and then he said that he could wish Mrs. Dr. Webster had gone to Heaven and gone alone; and then you know the flowers!” This sally of Mrs. Maelaren’s caused the color to flush Jean's face and to mount up under the wavy brown hair that caressingly encircled her temples, and turning quickly to Dr. Maclaren, with a suppressed smile, she asked him if he knew that W. G. Hale of Mapleton was in the next car.

“No, but I will go through and see him. He will know all about the sensational flight of Dilicum to the United States. Your brother had about five thousand dollars on deposit at his bank and he has lost it all. That man Dilicum is surely a crook. Why, he even accepted a twelve-hundred-dollar deposit from Bob ten minutes before the Bank closed on Wednesday and on Thursday it did not open its doors. Dilicum was gone — nobody knew where — and it was said that the only man who was wise was Lawyer Sharp, the Bank’s attorney.”

“He was a good brother mason, wasn’t he, John?” exclaimed his wife.

“Perhaps he was, Alice,” replied the Doctor, “but you must not forget that St. Giles Church people were also taken in, and the minister simply had to get another church — he was badly deceived by Dilicum. That man was a proper hypocrite — used to attend prayer meeting, and his pious prayers fairly hypnotized the preacher and elders, while the ladies of the Foreign Missionary Society all thought he was just inspired, the fervent way he used to plead the cause of the benighted heathen. He told them at the annual church meeting, a year ago, that the churches had been playing with the missionary problem for long

T ravelers enough and that it was about time they applied business methods to the missionary movement. Mrs. Lawrence almost became hysterical when he added that at every tick of the clock one thousand heathen souls dropped into Hell. The whole church got busy after that and a personal canvass of every member was made and as a result last March they reported $5,000 as the missionary collection for the year. They never had more than eight hundred dollars a year before — and to think that all this missionary money was on deposit in his bank. Then old David Bruce, the elder, had deposited the savings of his life-time with DilicunTs bank also, and indeed I don’t know how many more of the Church people.

“What caught old David was DilicunTs strict orthodoxy. W. G. Hale quit going to church and the church people felt rather sore when he gave up his pew, and some of them called him a skeptic, but I don’t know. W. G. would never say much about his reasons, and I for one do not think he had lost his faith in God, for he has, on different occasions, invited the Salvation Army to conduct their meetings on his lawn. He told me one day that he believed they were sincere and were actually accomplishing more good than all the churches put together and that while he liked our last minister as a man, he could not stand his preaching, for he always felt while listening to him that he avoided striking right home — perhaps he did,” continued the Doctor. “His specialty was opiates, and the majority of the cases called for a surgical operation, but I must now go and see W. G.”

Jean St. Claire remained silent for some time after the Doctor had gone, while Mrs. Maclaren busied herself arranging her handbag.

“Jean, you are surely in a brown study. I fear your thoughts are far away in Glasgow with ”

“No, indeed, I was just thinking of the awful distress at Mapleton among the mill hands occasioned by this Dilicum bank crash. To think, that that man had the callousness to decamp with all their hard-earned savings !”

“It is too bad, indeed,” said Mrs. Maclaren, “and the Government ought to exercise a stricter supervision over all these private banks. The Doctor was telling me yesterday that two other private bankers in the province of Quebec had also gone wrong and that Edward Arnold’s private bank in Mapleton had closed its doors.”

“No — surely not!” exclaimed Jean; “and he was steward of the Methodist Church.”

T ravelers

“Well, his case was not quite so bad as Dilicum’s,” replied Mrs. Maclaren, “after the Dilicum smash the air was electric with panic and old Ed. Arnold, realizing that his bank was in no condition to weather a storm, made over all his assets to the Canadian Bank, and the following morning when the depositors stormed his bank door they read the notice:

“ ‘this bank has transferred

ALL ITS BUSINESS TO THE CANADIAN BANK.

ALL PERSONS HAVING BUSINESS WITH THIS BANK WILL HAVE

THEIR ACCOUNTS SETTLED AT ITS OFFICE ON WALLACE STREET.'

“The next morning as the Methodist minister walked down town he ran into his trusty steward and upon inquiring about his affairs, which were the talk of the town, Ed replied with his usual unctuousness, ‘Yes, pastor, I have gone out of the banking business and now I’m going to live nearer to my God !’ ”

As Mrs. Maclaren pronounced the words “to my God,” the air-brakes were applied to the train and a grinding noise, like the creaking of a great furnace door turning upon its angry hinges, was heard beneath the car.

“Mapleton — Mapleton,” shouted the trainman.

Chapter II The Call

TAMES MUIR was sitting alone in his small ** room on the third story of a stone front house, which crowded itself against the pavement of Hudson Bay Hill in the City of Mere des Villes. On the right-hand side of the massive oak door which opened from the street might be read in black enameled letters impressed upon a square brass plate the name, John Hutchinson, Dentist. The row of buildings of which this house marked the center had half a century before been the fashionable homes of the best blue blood of Mere des Villes, but that City had changed with the years and the sides of Mount Allan had allured the families who were known by the historic names at one time familiar upon these doors. Two massive churches still lingered upon either side of the Hill thoroughfare, standing like sentinels, casting a solemn glance upon the passers-by — and they mostly passed by, for at this time in the City of Mere des Villes neither the Church of John Knox nor the Church of James Martineau any longer cast the spell over the people that had been their wont in days gone by and the glory also of the gray stone front houses above them had departed. These houses were now almost entirely given over to Doctors’ offices and Florists’ shops — not that there was any reason to infer that the Florists’ business was promoted by the Doctors who dealt out pills and plasters to their patients in the adjoining houses. It had just happened that way.

When James Muir had returned to Mere des Villes from pursuing his Post-Graduate studies in Edinburgh, as he said himself, his head was full but his pocketbook had become correspondingly empty, and big-hearted John Hutchinson, the dentist, had invited him to make himself as comfortable as might be in the attic room of his house, at a figure sufficiently small to suit the young preacher’s attenuated pocketbook and at the same time large enough not to offend his Scotch pride.

James Muir had just finished reading the evening paper when a knock was heard at the door and into his room walked the dentist’s servant man, extending in his hand a large blue envelope and saying with a rich Irish brogue, “Letther fur you, sor — yer signature, plase — shure, an’ its reggisturred. ,,

“Registered, Patrick !” exclaimed Muir. ‘I wonder who can be sending me so much money.”

“Shure, sor, an’ don’t they reggisturr sommonses as well as money in this counthree?” And then added, with a twinkle in his eye, “it’s most loikley a sommons, sor.”

“Or perhaps a call, Patrick” said Muir, with a smile. “Thank you, Patrick.”

“You’re welcome, sor.”

Opening the envelope and taking in his hand a long document on which there were scores of signatures in as many different hand-writings, Muir observed that a sheet of note paper had fallen to the floor. Picking it up, he read the following words written in a very careful hand :

“Dear Mr. Muir:

“I am enclosing to you the ‘Call’ which has been unanimously and heartily extended to you by the Congregation of St. Giles’ Church, Mapleton. While two other names were offered in nomination, the ballot resulted in 146 votes in your favor, with only 5 votes divided between the other two candidates, and these votes represented only two families. That these people had no objection to yourself is indicated by the fact that when the ballot had been announced on motion of a gentleman representing one of these families and seconded by the representative of the other, this ‘Call’ in your favor was made unanimous. It is not 1 usual in our Presbytery for a Congregation as large and influential as St. Giles to call so young a minister as yourself, but this is apparently the will of the people, and I would very heartily congratulate you. You will find a great work to do in Mapleton, and the Presbytery, earnestly hoping that you would accept this call regarding it as a call from God, has provisionally on your acceptance of the same set the date for your Ordination and Induction upon the third of next month at four o’clock in the afternoon. On that day the Presbytery will meet in special session within the vestry of the Church at two o’clock for your Ordination Trials.

“Yours faithfully,

“A. G. Ross,

“Clerk of Safford Presbytery .”

Laying this letter aside, Muir proceeded to examine the “Call” — the first “Call” that he had received, and with deepening interest, line by line, he read the solemn words :

“We, office-bearers and members of the Congregation of St. Giles’ Church, Mapleton, Ontario, being communicants, desirous of promoting the glory of God and the good of His Church, being destitute of a fixed pastor, and being satisfied by our experience of the piety, literature, ministerial abilities and prudence, and also to the suitableness to our edification of the gifts of you, Reverend James Muir, B.A., B.D., have agreed to invite as we by these presents do invite and call you, and on your acceptance of this our ‘Call,’ we promise you due respect, encouragement and obedience in the Lord and further engage to contribute to your suitable maintenance as God may prosper us.

“In Witness whereof we have subscribed this Call on this the fifth day of January in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and ninety-three .” 1

The winter twilight was fading into darkness as Muir finished reading these words — indeed, it was now too dark for him to decipher the long list of names appended. Leaning back in his chair, and still holding the Call in his hand, he closed his eyes. He was deeply moved; something had told him that this was the voice of God commanding him to launch out into the deep, and that this command he must obey. The opportunity for which throughout all his college years he had sought to qualify himself, and which had been both desired and dreaded by him, had now at length appeared. His thoughts wandered back through the halls of memory, and he gazed again upon the old familiar scenes of his boyhood.

Years before, when seated in the old Scotch Kirk of his boyhood, “St. Columba’s of the Chateauguay,” he had heard a voice which had penetrated to the very depths of his soul, and he had beheld a vision that had disturbed his former contentment.

1 From “Rules and Forms of Procedure.”

That Congregation had, the week previously, been strangely moved by the burning message of Robertson of Erromanga. Sunday evening came, and as the venerable minister, Reverend David Williamson, faced his congregation his noble features glowed with a light that was strangely impressive, and the congregation was more than ordinarily attentive as he announced the words of his text,

“The Harvest is great and the Laborers are few.”

With chaste, yet moving eloquence, he pictured the vast needs of the world and the lamentable scarcity of ministers. In the course of his earnest discourse he related a story in the life of the great Scottish Reformer, John Knox. He vividly described the ancient Cathedral of St. Andrews and that never-to-be-forgotten Sunday upon which John Knox, as he sat in the congregation, was startled and abashed by the direct appeal of John Rough, who summoned him publicly to come forth as a preacher of the Holy Evangel, saying: “J°h n Knox, in the name of God and of His Son Jesus Christ and in the name of those here present who call you by my mouth, I charge you that you refuse not this holy vocation, but that you tender the glory of God, the increase of Christ’s Kingdom, the edification of your brethren, and the comfort of me, whom you understand well enough to be oppressed with the multitude of labors, that you take upon you the public office and charge of preaching, even as you look to avoid God’s heavy displeasure and desire that He shall multiply His Graces with you.” And then the Reverend David Williamson added, with a solemnity never to be forgotten : “ Would to God that this night the Spirit of the Living God might by the memory of these words, and by the vastness of the world’s need, incline some young man to answer the call of God as did John Knox, the great founder of our Scottish Presbyterian Church”; and, repeating his text, “The Harvest is great and the Laborers are few,” he earnestly prayed that God would send forth laborers into His vineyard, and then announced as the closing psalm the familiar words so often sung by Scottish congregations —

“My closed lips, O Lord, by Thee Let them be opened.

Then shall thy praises by my mouth Abroad be published.”

After the benediction had been pronounced,

James Muir, who had been deeply moved, sought the solitude of the fields, and, coming home to the Manse at a late hour, he found that house in darkness. A huge oak tree, whose giant size testified that it had guarded the Manse for many a year while successive ministers had come and gone, offered him a retreat as dark and silent as a cloister beneath its wide branches. Standing beside it, James Muir kept repeating to himself the words of the evening Text and Psalm,

“The Harvest is great!

The Laborers are few!

My closed lips!”

and then, looking up through the sheltering branches, whose trembling leaves, under the breath of the night air, seemed to symbolize the moving of the Spirit of God, he repeated again and again,

“The Harvest is great!

The Harvest is great!

The Laborers are few !

The Laborers are few !

My closed lips !

My closed lips!”

and then, just as the moon shot its beams through the clouds and covered the greensward with its peaceful light, falling down on his knees upon the cold earth as with a complete abandonment, he poured out his soul, crying aloud :

“O Lord, open thou my lips and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise.”

James Muir, like John Knox, had answered the call, and the mystery of discipleship was once again repeated as he that night resolved to leave all and follow Christ.

Up to that period in his life his thoughts had been set on journalism, in which he had already, though only a lad, given evidences of more than ordinary ability; but now he had heard a voice and seen a vision, and the current of his life had been changed, as it were, by a miracle — the miracle of an answered prayer — a prayer prayed by a woman, his mother, who, on the night of her death, after looking upon the blue-eyed, flaxen-haired babe of her agony, had committed her child, so soon to be orphaned, to the Father of the fatherless, and had prayed that he might be kept from evil like the child Samuel of old, and that in the years to come he might by the grace of God become a mighty prophet of the Most High.

At length James Muir, rising from his knees, sought his room within the Manse. His limbs were stiff, for he had long been kneeling on the ground; the night was far spent, the morning was at hand, and now at last it was light.

After devoting years to study and preparation, the seal of God had been set to this call of the Spirit by the recent action of the congregation of St. Giles.

Rising, and putting on his overcoat, he went out, but not to the restaurant where he usually dined. Taking the car uptown to Sherwood Street, he made his way to the home of a wealthy New York family whom business reasons had compelled to reside in the City of Mere des Villes.

“Oh, Muir, come in! Glad to see you, dominee! But you look as if you had seen a ghost. Come and join us in the dining room/’ And when the coffee had been served and the children had retired, Muir related the news of his “Call/’ and, taking from his pocket the large blue envelope, he handed it to the host.

“Orthodox blue, all right, Muir,” said the host. “Ordination Trials at 2 P. M. Ahem! Take care, Muir — these preachers will scalp you — verbal inspiration, you know — Methuselah lived to be 999 years old, and all that sort of thing! Ha, ha! You’ll have to swallow it all, confession of faith included. Well, make one big gulp of it — that’s what Ranny of Glasgow, I understand, advised young Foran to do — swallow it whole, just as you would an oyster!”

“Why, Carl!” reprovingly exclaimed his wife, whose orthodoxy was only surpassed by the kindness of her heart. “You are simply incorrigible. I do wish you would read Doctor Payson’s book on the 'Fundamentals of our Christian Faith.’ ” At which words Carl Klemperer uttered a laugh.

“You need not laugh, Carl,” insisted his wife. “I myself always enjoy Doctor Payson’s books. His arguments are always logical, and he supports so strongly the point of view mother always believed in.”

Carl Klemperer was too much of a gentleman to reply that to his way of thinking the said Dr. Payson was an old fossil, the sort of mechanical genius who would have made a firstclass defender of the Ptolemaic theory of the universe. So he simply replied : “Well, Muir, I wish you all sorts of luck. I had hoped that you might have decided to go into business, but I fancy the die is set now. All the same, I fear you will find out that nowadays people are more interested in things than in ideas. If you are short of cash, drop into the office any day between one and two. People, you know, are always liable to be economical when the matter of their souls is concerned.”

“Oh, well,” replied Muir, “if the good people see that the preachers never get too much the good Lord will see that they never get too little.”

“Let us go up to the library,” said Klemperer, and, as he led the way, he added : “Mulner’s new German work on the miracles has just come in, and it knocks many of the old orthodox theories higher than a kite.”

Chapter III

T N February, 18 — , the long cold spell that had -■-held all nature for weeks as in a vise, had broken and a mild night was followed by a springlike morning. Towards noon the sky became overcast, and great, soft flakes of snow, which dissolved as soon as they touched the pavement, were falling as the members of Safford Presbytery made their way to St. Giles’ Church.

Muir entered the vestry promptly at two o’clock, alone. Among all the clerical faces which eyed him critically as he walked to a chair in the far end of the room there was only one with which he was familiar, and the presence of that one strong, friendly countenance, which shot a quick, encouraging glance in his direction as he took his seat, restored to him his usual composure.

This man was one of the most outstanding educationists in Canada, and had been for many 29 years Principal of the Theological College located in the City of Mere des Villes. Through his classes Muir had passed with high honors prior to his post-graduate studies in Edinburgh.

After the Court had been called to order by two sharp taps on the table, the Moderator rose and saying reverently, “Let us pray,” offered the following Invocation :

“Almighty and everlasting God, who by thy holy Spirit didst preside at the first meeting of the Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem, and dost still inhabit the whole company of the faithful; mercifully regard, we beseech Thee, thy servants chosen and gathered before Thee at this time as a Court of Thy Church. Shed down upon them all heavenly wisdom and grace; enlighten them with the true knowledge of thy word; inflame them with a pure zeal for thy glory; and so order all their doings through thy good Spirit that unity and peace shall prevail among them; that truth and righteousness shall flow from them; and that, by their endeavors, all Thy ministers and churches shall be established and comforted, Thy Gospel everywhere purely preached and truly followed, Thy Kingdom among men extended and strengthened and the whole body of Thine elect people grow up into Him who is the Head over all things to the Church, Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.” 1

1 Prayer from “Presbyterian Forms of Service.” Issued by Devotional Service Association in connection with the United Presbyterian Church. Edinburgh: MacNiven and Wallace, 1899.

When the “Amen” had been pronounced the Moderator and other members of the Court, who had been standing during the prayer, resumed their seats; whereupon, the Moderator addressing the Court said :

“Fathers and Brethren, we are assembled here to-day for the purpose of taking on Trial for Ordination to the Office of the Ministry our young brother, Mr. James Muir, and should his Trial be sustained of Ordaining and Inducting him minister of St. Giles. Mr. Muir is now present with us, and I take pleasure in presenting him to this Court.”

At this point in the proceedings, Muir rose respectfully from his chair:

“Thank you, Mr. Muir; please be seated. Fathers and Brethren, what is your pleasure?”

After a moment’s pause the Reverend Malcolm McLennan of Zorra Church, Safford, rose and, addressing the Moderator, said : “Moderator, I move you that, inasmuch as the candidate has already been licensed to preach the Gospel within the bounds of our Church by the Presbytery of Mere des Villes and is widely known for his intellectual attainments, we therefore dispense with the formality of an examination, authorize his Ordination, and proceed to take up the other items on the docket.”

“A wud second that motion, Moderator,” said the senior elder of St. Giles.

Upon this, there was a murmur heard around the vestry and the Reverend Fulton Small, who himself had been an unsuccessful candidate for the pulpit of St. Giles, and whose clerical collar rather than his features suggested that he also was a minister, rose abruptly and said, with a thin metallic tone in his voice, “Moderator, I would like to remind Mr. McLennan that the examination of a candidate who appears before any of our Presbyteries is no formality. It is an old and honored custom in our church and dates back to the Reformation times. I would also remind our brother that after the Reformation in Scotland Theological students were compelled to go abroad to the Continent for their course in Divinity. The Colleges of that time in Scotland only taught the humanities and the founders of our great and honored church very properly appointed Ordination Trials for every Theological graduate of Geneva or other Continental schools who returned to Scotland to enter upon the active ministry of the Church.