Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/348

342 acknowledge an aristocracy, but it is one neither of birth nor of intellect nor of wealth."

"What is there besides to make one?"

"Something I hope to find before long. What if there be indeed a kingdom and an aristocracy of life and truth? Will you or will you not go with me to hear this schoolmaster?"

"I will go anywhere with you, if it were only to be seen with such a beauty," said Florimel, throwing her arms round her neck and kissing her.

Clementina gently returned the embrace, and the thing was settled.

The sound of their wheels, pausing in swift revolution with the clangor of iron hoofs on rough stones at the door of the chapel, refreshed the diaconal heart like the sound of water in the desert. For the first time in the memory of the oldest the dayspring of success seemed on the point of breaking over Hope Chapel. The ladies were ushered in by Mr. Marshal himself, to Clementina's disgust and Florimel's amusement, with much the same attention as his own shop-walker would have shown to carriage-customers. How could a man who taught light and truth be found in such a mean entourage? But the setting was not the jewel: a real stone might be found in a copper ring. So said Clementina to herself as she sat waiting her hoped-for instructor.

Mrs. Catanach settled her broad back into its corner, chuckling over her own wisdom and foresight. Her seat was at the pulpit end of the chapel, at right angles to almost all the rest of the pews — chosen because thence, if indeed she could not well see the preacher, she could get a good glimpse of nearly every one that entered. Keen-sighted both physically and intellectually, she recognized Florimel the moment she saw her. "Twa doos mair to the boody-craw?" she laughed to herself. "Ae man thrashin', an' twa birdies pickin'?" she went on, quoting the old nursery nonsense. Then she stooped and let down her veil. Florimel hated her, and therefore might know her. "It's the day o' the Lord wi' auld Sanny Grame!" she resumed to herself as she lifted her head. "He's stickit nae mair, but a chosen trumpet at last. Foul fa' 'im for a wearifu' cratur, for a' that! He has nowther balm o' grace nor pith o' damnation. Yon laad Flemin', 'at preached i' the Baillies' Barn aboot the dowgs gaein' roon' an' roon' the wa's o' the New Jeroozlem, gien he had but hauden thegither an' no gane to the worms sae sune, wad hae dung a score o' 'im. He garred my skin creep to hear 'im. But Sanny angers me to that degree 'at but for rizzons — lik yon twa — I wad gang oot i' the mids o' ane o' 's palahvers, an' never come' back, though I hae a haill quarter o' my sittin' to sit oot yet, an' it cost me dear an' fits the auld back o' me no that ill."

When Mr. Graham rose to read the psalm, great was Clementina's disappointment: he looked altogether, as she thought, of a sort with the place — mean and dreary, of the chapel very chapelly — and she did not believe it could be the man of whom Malcolm had spoken. By a strange coincidence, however — a kind of occurrence as frequent as strange — he read for his text that same passage about the gold ring and the vile raiment, in which we learn how exactly the behavior of the early Jewish churches corresponded to that of the later English ones; and Clementina soon began to alter her involuntary judgment of him when she found herself listening to an utterance beside which her most voluble indignation would have been but as the babble of a child. Sweeping, incisive, withering, blasting denunciation, logic and poetry combining in one torrent of genuine eloquence, poured confusion and dismay upon head and heart of all who set themselves up for pillars of the Church without practising the first principles of the doctrine of Christ — men who, professing to gather their fellows together in the name of Christ, conducted the affairs of the Church on the principles of hell — men so blind and dull and slow of heart that they would never know what the outer darkness meant until it had closed around them — men who paid court to the rich for their money, and to the poor for their numbers — men who sought gain first, safety next, and the will of God not at all — men whose presentation of Christianity was enough to drive the world to a preferable infidelity.

Clementina listened with her very soul. All doubt as to whether this was Malcolm's friend vanished within two minutes of his commencement. If she rejoiced a little more than was humble or healthful in finding that such a man thought as she thought, she gained this good notwithstanding — the presence and power of a man who believed in righteousness the doctrine he taught. Also she perceived that the principles of equality he held were founded on the infinite possibilities of the individual, and of the race only through the individual, and that he held these principles with an absoluteness, an 