There Had Been Some Very Strong Language And Straightforward Observations
At The Chapel Meetings, The Private Vestry Of The Managers;
The elder
being one of the founders, and his name on the deed could not be
excluded - gall and wormwood
- Without his signature nothing could be done.
Bitterer still, the chapel was heavily in debt to him. Had he chosen, in
American phrase, he could have 'shut up the shebang in mighty sudden
time.' The elder was tall; the elder was strong; the elder was grim; the
elder was a man who could rule hundreds of the roughest labourers; the
elder was a man who would have his say, and said it like throwing down a
hod full of bricks. With the irresistible logic of figures and documents
he demonstrated the pastor to be a liar, and told him so to his face.
With the same engines he proved that two or three of the other managers
were hypocrites, and told them so. Neither could pastor nor managers
refute it, but stood like sheep. Then he told them what he had done for
the chapel and for its minister, and no one could deny him. Indeed, the
minister had been heard to weakly confess that the elder had once been a
good friend to him. Perhaps his partisans, as is often the case, had
taken up the pastor's cause with more violence than he himself desired,
and by their vehemence had driven him into a position which he himself
would have avoided. Most likely he would have made peace himself; but the
blot on all chapel systems of government is that the minister is but the
mouthpiece of his congregation. Having thrown down his load of bricks
thump, the elder stalked out with his memoranda and with his cheque-book,
leaving them to face the spectre of bankruptcy. At least once a week the
elder, out of sheer British determination to claim his rights, stepped
into the chapel rooms with his private key, just to walk round. They put
another lock which his key did not fit, but he heaved the door open with
a crowbar, and their case must have been feeble indeed when they could
not even bring an action for trespass against him.
The historian knoweth not all things, and how this schism arose is hidden
from view. Very likely, indeed, it may have arisen out of the very
foundation of the chapel itself, such buildings and land being usually
held in some manner by a body of managers or trustees - a sort of
committee, in fact - a condition which may easily afford opportunities for
endless wrangling. In this particular the Established Church has a great
advantage, the land and building being dedicated 'for ever,' so that no
dispute is possible. Tales there were of some little feminine
disagreement having arisen between the wives of the two men, magnified
with the assistance of a variety of tabbies, a sort of thing by no means
impossible among two hundred relations. Such affairs often spring from a
grain of mustard seed, and by-and-by involve all the fowls of the air
that roost in the branches. Idle tales circulated of a discussion among
the ministers (visitors) which happened one evening over the pipes and
three-star bottles, when the elder, taking down a celebrated volume of
sermons, pointed out a passage almost word for word identical with what
the pastor had said in his sermon on the previous Sunday - a curious
instance of parallel inspiration. Unkind people afterwards spread the
gloss that the elder had accused the minister of plagiarism. Mere
fiction, no doubt. After a thing has happened people can generally find
twenty causes. The excommunication, however, was real enough, and ten
times more effectual because the sentence was pronounced not by the
pastor but by the congregation.
Still nothing disturbed the dignity of the elder. He worked away as
usual, always with tools in his hands. He would tear away with a plane at
a window-frame or a coffin-lid, and tell the listener his wrongs, and how
he had been scorned and insulted by people whom he had helped for years,
and how they had reversed the teaching of the gospel in their bearing
towards him - heavier blows and longer shavings - as if there were no such
thing as true religion. And, indeed, he would say, in his business
transactions, he had over and over again found that men who were not
'professors' - - i.e. - who did not claim to be 'saved' - were more truthful
and more to be depended on in their engagements than those who constantly
talked of righteousness. For all that - with a tremendous shaving - for all
that, the gospel was true.
So he planed and hammered, and got a large contract on a building estate
near a great town, busy as busy, where it was necessary to have a tramway
and a locomotive, or 'dirt-engine,' to drag the trucks with the earth
from the excavations. This engine was a source of never-failing amusement
to the steady, quiet farmers whose domains were being invaded; very
observant people, but not pushing. One day a part of the engine was tied
up with string; another day it was blowing off steam like a volcano, the
boiler nearly empty and getting red-hot, while the men rushed to fetch
water with a couple of buckets; finally, the funnel rusted off and a
wooden one was put up - a merry joke! But while they laughed the
contractor pushed ahead in Yankee style, using any and every expedient,
and making money while they sighed over the slow plough. They must have
everything perfect, else they could do nothing; he could do much with
very imperfect materials. He would make a cucumber frame out of a church
window, or a church window out of a cucumber frame. One of the residents
on the new building estate found his cupboard doors numbered on the
panels two, six, eight, in gilt figures inside, and in fact they were
made of pew doors which the contractor had got out of some old church he
had ransacked and turned topsy-turvy to the order of the vicar.
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