Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich

by Stephen Leacock

  CHAPTER SIX: The Rival Churches of St. Asaph and St. Osoph

  The church of St. Asaph, more properly call St. Asaph's in the Fields,stands among the elm trees of Plutoria Avenue opposite the university,its tall spire pointing to the blue sky. Its rector is fond of sayingthat it seems to him to point, as it were, a warning against the sinsof a commercial age. More particularly does he say this in his Lentenservices at noonday, when the businessmen sit in front of him in rows,their bald heads uncovered and their faces stamped with contrition asthey think of mergers that they should have made, and real estate thatthey failed to buy for lack of faith.

  The ground on which St. Asaph's stands is worth seven dollars and ahalf a foot. The mortgagees, as they kneel in prayer in their longfrock-coats, feel that they have built upon a rock. It is a beautifullyappointed church. There are windows with priceless stained glass thatwere imported from Normandy, the rector himself swearing out theinvoices to save the congregation the grievous burden of the customsduty. There is a pipe organ in the transept that cost ten thousanddollars to install. The debenture-holders, as they join in the morninganthem, love to hear the dulcet notes of the great organ and to reflectthat it is as good as new. Just behind the church is St. Asaph's SundaySchool, with a ten-thousand dollar mortgage of its own. And below thatagain on the side street, is the building of the Young Men's Guild witha bowling-alley and a swimming-bath deep enough to drown two young menat a time, and a billiard-room with seven tables. It is the rector'sboast that with a Guild House such as that there is no need for anyyoung man of the congregation to frequent a saloon. Nor is there.

  And on Sunday mornings, when the great organ plays, and the mortgageesand the bond-holders and the debenture-holders and the Sunday schoolteachers and the billiard-markers all lift up their voices together,there is emitted from St. Asaph's a volume of praise that ispractically as fine and effective as paid professional work.

  St. Asaph's is episcopal. As a consequence it has in it and about itall those things which go to make up the episcopal church--brasstablets let into its walls, blackbirds singing in its elm trees,parishioners who dine at eight o'clock, and a rector who wears a littlecrucifix and dances the tango.

  On the other hand, there stands upon the same street, not a hundredyards away, the rival church of St. Osoph--presbyterian down to itsvery foundations in bed-rock, thirty feet below the level of theavenue. It has a short, squat tower--and a low roof, and its narrowwindows are glazed with frosted glass. It has dark spruce trees insteadof elms, crows instead of blackbirds, and a gloomy minister with ashovel hat who lectures on philosophy on week-days at the university.He loves to think that his congregation are made of the lowly and themeek in spirit, and to reflect that, lowly and meek as they are, thereare men among them that could buy out half the congregation of St.Asaph's.

  St. Osoph's is only presbyterian in a special sense. It is, in fact,too presbyterian to be any longer connected with any other bodywhatsoever. It seceded some forty years ago from the original body towhich it belonged, and later on, with three other churches, it secededfrom the group of seceding congregations. Still later it fell into adifference with the three other churches on the question of eternalpunishment, the word "eternal" not appearing to the elders of St.Osoph's to designate a sufficiently long period. The dispute ended in asecession which left the church of St. Osoph practically isolated in aworld of sin whose approaching fate it neither denied nor deplored.

  In one respect the rival churches of Plutoria Avenue had had a similarhistory. Each of them had moved up by successive stages from the lowerand poorer parts of the city. Forty years ago St. Asaph's had beennothing more than a little frame church with a tin spire, away in thewest of the slums, and St. Osoph's a square, diminutive building awayin the east. But the site of St. Asaph's had been bought by a brewingcompany, and the trustees, shrewd men of business, themselves risinginto wealth, had rebuilt it right in the track of the advancing tide ofa real estate boom. The elders of St. Osoph, quiet men, but illuminedby an inner light, had followed suit and moved their church rightagainst the side of an expanding distillery. Thus both the churches, asdecade followed decade, made their way up the slope of the City tillSt. Asaph's was presently gloriously expropriated by the street railwaycompany, and planted its spire in triumph on Plutoria Avenue itself.But St. Osoph's followed. With each change of site it moved nearer andnearer to St. Asaph's. Its elders were shrewd men. With each move oftheir church they took careful thought in the rebuilding. In themanufacturing district it was built with sixteen windows on each sideand was converted at a huge profit into a bicycle factory. On theresidential street it was made long and deep and was sold to amoving-picture company without the alteration of so much as a pew. As alast step a syndicate, formed among the members of the congregationthemselves, bought ground on Plutoria Avenue, and sublet it tothemselves as a site for the church, at a nominal interest of five percent per annum, payable nominally every three months and secured by anominal mortgage.

  As the two churches moved, their congregations, or at least all thatwas best of them--such members as were sharing in the rising fortunesof the City--moved also, and now for some six or seven years the twochurches and the two congregations had confronted one another among theelm trees of the Avenue opposite to the university.

  But at this point the fortunes of the churches had diverged. St.Asaph's was a brilliant success; St. Osoph's was a failure. Even itsown trustees couldn't deny it. At a time when St. Asaph's was not onlypaying its interest but showing a handsome surplus on everything itundertook, the church of St. Osoph was moving steadily backwards.

  There was no doubt, of course, as to the cause. Everybody knew it. Itwas simply a question of men, and, as everybody said, one had only tocompare the two men conducting the churches to see why one succeededand the other failed.

  The Reverend Edward Fareforth Furlong of St. Asaph's was a man whothrew his whole energy into his parish work. The subtleties oftheological controversy he left to minds less active than his own. Hiscreed was one of works rather than of words, and whatever he was doinghe did it with his whole heart. Whether he was lunching at theMausoleum Club with one of his church wardens, or playing theflute--which he played as only the episcopal clergy can playit--accompanied on the harp by one of the fairest of the ladies of hischoir, or whether he was dancing the new episcopal tango with theyounger daughters of the elder parishioners, he threw himself into itwith all his might. He could drink tea more gracefully and play tennisbetter than any clergyman on this side of the Atlantic. He could standbeside the white stone font of St. Asaph's in his long white surpliceholding a white-robed infant, worth half a million dollars, looking asbeautifully innocent as the child itself, and drawing from every matronof the congregation with unmarried daughters the despairing cry, "Whata pity that he has no children of his own!"

  Equally sound was his theology. No man was known to preach shortersermons or to explain away the book of Genesis more agreeably than therector of St. Asaph's; and if he found it necessary to refer to theDeity he did so under the name of Jehovah or Jah, or even Yaweh in amanner calculated not to hurt the sensitiveness of any of theparishioners. People who would shudder at brutal talk of the olderfashion about the wrath of God listened with well-bred interest to asermon on the personal characteristics of Jah. In the same way Mr.Furlong always referred to the devil, not as Satan but as Su or Swa,which took all the sting out of him. Beelzebub he spoke of asBehel-Zawbab, which rendered him perfectly harmless. The Garden of Edenhe spoke of as the Paradeisos, which explained it entirely; the floodas the Diluvium, which cleared it up completely; and Jonah he named,after the correct fashion Jon Nah, which put the whole situation (hisbeing swallowed by Baloo or the Great Lizard) on a perfectlysatisfactory footing. Hell itself was spoken of as She-ol, and itappeared that it was not a place of burning, but rather of what onemight describe as moral torment. This settled She-ol once and for all:nobody minds moral torment. In short, there was nothing in thetheological system of Mr
. Furlong that need have occasioned in any ofhis congregation a moment's discomfort.

  There could be no greater contrast with Mr. Fareforth Furlong than theminister of St. Osoph's, the Rev. Dr. McTeague, who was also honoraryprofessor of philosophy at the university. The one was young, the otherwas old; the one could dance the other could not; the one moved aboutat church picnics and lawn teas among a bevy of disciples in pink andblue sashes; the other moped around under the trees of the universitycampus with blinking eyes that saw nothing and an abstracted mind thathad spent fifty years in trying to reconcile Hegel with St. Paul, andwas still busy with it. Mr. Furlong went forward with the times; Dr.McTeague slid quietly backwards with the centuries.

  Dr. McTeague was a failure, and all his congregation knew it. "He isnot up to date," they said. That was his crowning sin. "He don't goforward any," said the business members of the congregation. "That oldman believes just exactly the same sort of stuff now that he did fortyyears ago. What's more, he preaches it. You can't run a church thatway, can you?"

  His trustees had done their best to meet the difficulty. They hadoffered Dr. McTeague a two-years' vacation to go and see the Holy Land.He refused; he said he could picture it. They reduced his salary byfifty per cent; he never noticed it. They offered him an assistant; buthe shook his head, saying that he didn't know where he could find a manto do just the work that he was doing. Meantime he mooned about amongthe trees concocting a mixture of St. Paul with Hegel, three parts toone, for his Sunday sermon, and one part to three for his Mondaylecture.

  No doubt it was his dual function that was to blame for his failure.And this, perhaps, was the fault of Dr. Boomer, the president of theuniversity. Dr. Boomer, like all university presidents of today,belonged to the presbyterian church; or rather, to state it morecorrectly, he included presbyterianism within himself. He was ofcourse, a member of the board of management of St. Osoph's and it washe who had urged, very strongly, the appointment of Dr. McTeague, thensenior professor of philosophy, as minister.

  "A saintly man," he said, "the very man for the post. If you should askme whether he is entirely at home as a professor of philosophy on ourstaff at the university, I should be compelled to say no. We are forcedto admit that as a lecturer he does not meet our views. He appears tofind it difficult to keep religion out of his teaching. In fact, hislectures are suffused with a rather dangerous attempt at moral teachingwhich is apt to contaminate our students. But in the Church I shouldimagine that would be, if anything, an advantage. Indeed, if you wereto come to me and say, 'Boomer, we wish to appoint Dr. McTeague as ourminister,' I should say, quite frankly, 'Take him.'"

  So Dr. McTeague had been appointed. Then, to the surprise of everybodyhe refused to give up his lectures in philosophy. He said he felt acall to give them. The salary, he said, was of no consequence. He wroteto Mr. Furlong senior (the father of the episcopal rector and honorarytreasurer of the Plutoria University) and stated that he proposed togive his lectures for nothing. The trustees of the college protested;they urged that the case might set a dangerous precedent which otherprofessors might follow. While fully admitting that Dr. McTeague'slectures were well worth giving for nothing, they begged him toreconsider his offer. But he refused; and from that day on, in spite ofall offers that he should retire on double his salary, that he shouldvisit the Holy Land, or Syria, or Armenia, where the dreadful massacresof Christians were taking place, Dr. McTeague clung to his post with atenacity worthy of the best traditions of Scotland. His only internalperplexity was that he didn't see how, when the time came for him todie, twenty or thirty years hence, they would ever be able to replacehim. Such was the situation of the two churches on a certain beautifulmorning in June, when an unforeseen event altered entirely the currentof their fortunes.

  * * * * *

  "No, thank you, Juliana," said the young rector to his sister acrossthe breakfast table--and there was something as near to bitterness inhis look as his saintly, smooth-shaven face was capable ofreflecting--"no, thank you, no more porridge. Prunes? no, no, thankyou; I don't think I care for any. And, by the way," he added, "don'tbother to keep any lunch for me. I have a great deal of business--thatis, of work in the parish--to see to, and I must just find time to geta bite of something to eat when and where I can."

  In his own mind he was resolving that the place should be the MausoleumClub and the time just as soon as the head waiter would serve him.

  After which the Reverend Edward Fareforth Furlong bowed his head for amoment in a short, silent blessing--the one prescribed by the episcopalchurch in America for a breakfast of porridge and prunes.

  It was their first breakfast together, and it spoke volumes to therector. He knew what it implied. It stood for his elder sisterJuliana's views on the need of personal sacrifice as a means of grace.The rector sighed as he rose. He had never missed his younger sisterPhilippa, now married and departed, so keenly. Philippa had hadopinions of her own on bacon and eggs and on lamb chops with watercressas a means of stimulating the soul. But Juliana was different. Therector understood now exactly why it was that his father had exclaimed,on the news of Philippa's engagement, without a second's hesitation,"Then, of course, Juliana must live with you! Nonsense, my dear boy,nonsense! It's my duty to spare her to you. After all, I can always eatat the club; they can give me a bite of something or other, surely. Toa man of my age, Edward, food is really of no consequence. No, no;Juliana must move into the rectory at once."

  The rector's elder sister rose. She looked tall and sallow andforbidding in the plain black dress that contrasted sadly with thecharming clerical costumes of white and pink and the broad episcopalhats with flowers in them that Philippa used to wear for morning workin the parish.

  "For what time shall I order dinner?" she asked. "You and Philippa usedto have it at half-past seven, did you not? Don't you think that rathertoo late?"

  "A trifle perhaps," said the rector uneasily. He didn't care to explainto Juliana that it was impossible to get home any earlier from the kindof _the dansant_ that everybody was giving just now. "But don't troubleabout dinner. I may be working very late. If I need anything to eat Ishall get a biscuit and some tea at the Guild Rooms, or--"

  He didn't finish the sentence, but in his mind he added, "or else areally first-class dinner at the Mausoleum Club, or at the Newberrys'or the Rasselyer-Browns'--anywhere except here."

  "If you are going, then," said Juliana, "may I have the key of thechurch."

  A look of pain passed over the rector's face. He knew perfectly wellwhat Juliana wanted the key for. She meant to go into his church andpray in it.

  The rector of St. Asaph's was, he trusted, as broad-minded a man as anAnglican clergyman ought to be. He had no objection to any reasonableuse of his church--for a thanksgiving festival or for musical recitalsfor example--but when it came to opening up the church and using it topray in, the thing was going a little too far. What was more, he had anidea from the look on Juliana's face that she meant to pray for _him_.This, for a clergy man, was hard to bear. Philippa, like the good girlthat she was, had prayed only for herself, and then only at the propertimes and places, and in a proper praying costume. The rector began torealize what difficulties it might make for a clergyman to have areligious sister as his house-mate.

  But he was never a man for unseemly argument. "It is hanging in mystudy," he said.

  And with that the Rev. Fareforth Furlong passed into the hall took upthe simple silk hat, the stick and gloves of the working clergyman andwalked out on to the avenue to begin his day's work in the parish.

  The rector's parish viewed in its earthly aspect, was a singularlybeautiful place. For it extended all along Plutoria Avenue, where thestreet is widest and the elm trees are at their leafiest and the motorsat their very drowsiest. It lay up and down the shaded side streets ofthe residential district, darkened with great chestnuts and hushed in astillness that was almost religion itself. There was not a house in theparish assessed at less than twenty-five thou
sand, and in very heart ofit the Mausoleum Club, with its smooth white stone and its Grecianarchitecture, carried one back to the ancient world and made one thinkof Athens and of Paul preaching on Mars Hill. It was, all considered, asplendid thing to fight sin in such a parish and to keep it out of it.For kept out it was. One might look the length and breadth of the broadavenue and see no sign of sin all along it. There was certainly none inthe smooth faces of the chauffeurs trundling their drowsy motors; nosign of it in the expensive children paraded by imported nursemaids inthe chequered light of the shaded street; least of all was there anysign of it in the Stock Exchange members of the congregation as theywalked along side by side to their lunch at the Mausoleum Club, theirsilk hats nodding together in earnest colloquy on Shares Preferred andProfits Undivided. So might have walked, so must have walked, the veryFathers of the Church themselves.

  Whatever sin there was in the City was shoved sideways into the roaringstreets of commerce where the elevated railway ran, and below thatagain into the slums. Here there must have been any quantity of sin.The rector of St. Asaph's was certain of it. Many of the richer of hisparishioners had been down in parties late at night to look at it, andthe ladies of his congregation were joined together into all sorts ofguilds and societies and bands of endeavour for stamping it out anddriving it under or putting it into jail till it surrendered.

  But the slums lay outside the rector's parish. He had no right tointerfere. They were under the charge of a special mission orauxiliary, a remnant of the St. Asaph's of the past, placed under thecare of a divinity student, at four hundred dollars per annum. Hischarge included all the slums and three police courts and two musichalls and the City jail. One Sunday afternoon in every three months therector and several ladies went down and sang hymns for him in hismission-house. But his work was really very easy. A funeral, forexample, at the mission, was a simple affair, meaning nothing more thanthe preparation of a plain coffin and a glassless hearse and thedistribution of a few artificial everlasting flowers to women crying intheir aprons; a thing easily done: whereas in St. Asaph's parish, whereall the really important souls were, a funeral was a large event,requiring taste and tact, and a nice shading of delicacy indistinguishing mourners from beneficiaries, and private grief frombusiness representation at the ceremony. A funeral with a plain coffinand a hearse was as nothing beside an interment, with a casketsmothered in hot-house syringas, borne in a coach and followed byspecial reporters from the financial papers.

  It appeared to the rector afterwards as almost a shocking coincidencethat the first person whom he met upon the avenue should have been theRev. Dr. McTeague himself. Mr. Furlong gave him the form of amiable"good morning" that the episcopal church always extends to those inerror. But he did not hear it. The minister's head was bent low, hiseyes gazed into vacancy, and from the movements of his lips and fromthe fact that he carried a leather case of notes, he was plainly on hisway to his philosophical lecture. But the rector had no time to museupon the abstracted appearance of his rival. For, as always happened tohim, he was no sooner upon the street than his parish work of the daybegan. In fact, he had hardly taken a dozen steps after passing Dr.McTeague when he was brought up standing by two beautiful parishionerswith pink parasols.

  "Oh, Mr. Furlong," exclaimed one of them, "so fortunate to happen tocatch you; we were just going into the rectory to consult you. Shouldthe girls--for the lawn tea for the Guild on Friday, you know--wearwhite dresses with light blue sashes all the same, or do you think wemight allow them to wear any coloured sashes that they like? What doyou think?"

  This was an important problem. In fact, there was a piece of parishwork here that it took the Reverend Fareforth half an hour to attend tostanding the while in earnest colloquy with the two ladies under theshadow of the elm trees. But a clergyman must never be grudging of histime.

  "Goodbye then," they said at last. "Are you coming to the Browning Clubthis morning? Oh, so sorry! but we shall see you at the musicale thisafternoon, shall we not?"

  "Oh, I trust so," said the rector.

  "How dreadfully hard he works," said the ladies to one another as theymoved away.

  Thus slowly and with many interruptions the rector made his progressalong the avenue. At times he stopped to permit a pink-cheeked infantin a perambulator to beat him with a rattle while he inquired its ageof an episcopal nurse, gay with flowing ribbons. He lifted his hat tothe bright parasols of his parishioners passing in glistening motors,bowed to episcopalians, nodded amiably to presbyterians, and evenacknowledged with his lifted hat the passing of persons of graver formsof error.

  Thus he took his way along the avenue and down a side street towardsthe business district of the City, until just at the edge of it, wherethe trees were about to stop and the shops were about to begin, hefound himself at the door of the Hymnal Supply Corporation, Limited.The premises as seen from the outside combined the idea of an officewith an ecclesiastical appearance. The door was as that of a chancel orvestry; there was a large plate-glass window filled with Bibles andTestaments, all spread open and showing every variety of language intheir pages. These were marked, Arabic, Syriac, Coptic, Ojibway, Irishand so forth. On the window in small white lettering were the words,HYMNAL SUPPLY CORPORATION, and below that, HOSANNA PIPE AND STEAM ORGANINCORPORATED, and Still lower the legend BIBLE SOCIETY OF THE GOODSHEPHERD LIMITED.

  There was no doubt of the sacred character of the place. Here labouredMr. Furlong senior, the father of the Rev. Edward Fareforth. He was aman of many activities; president and managing director of thecompanies just mentioned, trustee and secretary of St. Asaph's,honorary treasurer of the university, etc.; and each of his occupationsand offices was marked by something of a supramundane character,something higher than ordinary business. His different officialpositions naturally overlapped and brought him into contact withhimself from a variety of angles. Thus he sold himself hymn books at aprice per thousand, made as a business favour to himself, negotiatedwith himself the purchase of the ten-thousand-dollar organ (making aprice on it to himself that he begged himself to regard asconfidential), and as treasurer of the college he sent himself aninformal note of enquiry asking if he knew of any sound investment forthe annual deficit of the college funds, a matter of some sixtythousand dollars a year, which needed very careful handling. Anyman--and there are many such--who has been concerned with businessdealings of this sort with himself realizes that they are moresatisfactory than any other kind.

  To what better person, then, could the rector of St. Asaph's bring thequarterly accounts and statements of his church than to Mr. Furlongsenior.

  The outer door was opened to the rector by a sanctified boy with such aface as is only found in the choirs of the episcopal church. In anouter office through which the rector passed were two sacredstenographers with hair as golden as the daffodils of Sheba, copyingconfidential letters on absolutely noiseless typewriters. They weremaking offers of Bibles in half-car-load lots at two and a half percent reduction, offering to reduce St. Mark by two cents on conditionof immediate export, and to lay down St. John f.o.b. San Francisco forseven cents, while regretting that they could deliver fifteen thousandRock of Ages in Missouri on no other terms than cash.

  The sacred character of their work lent them a preoccupation beautifulto behold.

  In the room beyond them was a white-haired confidential clerk,venerable as the Song of Solomon, and by him Mr. Fareforth Furlong wasduly shown into the office of his father.

  "Good morning, Edward," said Mr. Furlong senior, as he shook hands. "Iwas expecting you. And while I think of it, I have just had a letterfrom Philippa. She and Tom will be home in two or three weeks. Shewrites from Egypt. She wishes me to tell you, as no doubt you havealready anticipated, that she thinks she can hardly continue to be amember of the congregation when they come back. No doubt you felt thisyourself?"

  "Oh, entirely," said the rector. "Surely in matters of belief a wifemust follow her husband."

  "Exactly; especially as Tom's uncle
s occupy the position they do withregard to--" Mr. Furlong jerked his head backwards and pointed with histhumb over his shoulder in a way that his son knew was meant toindicate St. Osoph's Church.

  The Overend brothers, who were Tom's uncles (his name being TomOverend) were, as everybody knew, among the principal supporters of St.Osoph's. Not that they were, by origin, presbyterians. But they wereself-made men, which put them once and for all out of sympathy withsuch a place as St. Asaph's. "We made ourselves," the two brothers usedto repeat in defiance of the catechism of the Anglican Church. Theynever wearied of explaining how Mr. Dick, the senior brother, hadworked overtime by day to send Mr. George, the junior brother, toschool by night, and how Mr. George had then worked overtime by nightto send Mr. Dick to school by day. Thus they had come up the businessladder hand over hand, landing later on in life on the platform ofsuccess like two corpulent acrobats, panting with the strain of it."For years," Mr. George would explain, "we had father and mother tokeep as well; then they died, and Dick and me saw daylight." By whichhe meant no harm at all, but only stated a fact, and concealed thevirtue of it.

  And being self-made men they made it a point to do what they could tolessen the importance of such an institution as St. Asaph's Church. Bythe same contrariety of nature the two Overend brothers (their businessname was Overend Brothers, Limited) were supporters of the dissentientYoung Men's Guild, and the second or rival University Settlement, andof anything or everything that showed a likelihood of making trouble.On this principle they were warm supporters and friends of the Rev. Dr.McTeague. The minister had even gone so far as to present to thebrothers a copy of his philosophical work "McTeague's Exposition of theKantian Hypothesis." and the two brothers had read it through in theoffice, devoting each of them a whole morning to it. Mr. Dick, thesenior brother, had said that he had never seen anything like it, andMr. George, the junior, had declared that a man who could write thatwas capable of anything.

  On the whole it was evident that the relations between the Overendfamily and the presbyterian religion were too intimate to allow Mrs.Tom Overend, formerly Miss Philippa Furlong, to sit anywhere else of aSunday than under Dr. McTeague.

  "Philippa writes," continued Mr. Furlong "that under the circumstancesshe and Tom would like to do something for your church. She wouldlike--yes, I have the letter here--to give you, as a surprise, ofcourse, either a new font or a carved pulpit; or perhaps a cheque; shewishes me on no account to mention it to you directly, but to ascertainindirectly from you, what would be the better surprise."

  "Oh, a cheque, I think," said the rector; "one can do so much more withit, after all."

  "Precisely," said his father; he was well aware of many things that canbe done with a cheque that cannot possibly be done with a font.

  "That's settled then," resumed Mr. Furlong; "and now I suppose you wantme to run my eye over your quarterly statements, do you not, before wesend them in to the trustees? That is what you've come for, is it not?"

  "Yes," said the rector, drawing a bundle of blue and white papers fromhis pocket. "I have everything with me. Our showing is, I believe,excellent, though I fear I fail to present it as clearly as it might bedone."

  Mr. Furlong senior spread the papers on the table before him andadjusted his spectacles to a more convenient angle. He smiledindulgently as he looked at the documents before him.

  "I am afraid you would never make an accountant, Edward," he said.

  "I fear not," said the rector.

  "Your items," said his father, "are entered wrongly. Here, for example,in the general statement, you put down Distribution of Coals to thePoor to your credit. In the same way, Bibles and Prizes to the SundaySchool you again mark to your credit. Why? Don't you see, my boy, thatthese things are debits? When you give out Bibles or distribute fuel tothe poor you give out something for which you get no return. It is adebit. On the other hand, such items as Church Offertory, Scholars'Pennies, etc., are pure profit. Surely the principle is clear."

  "I think I see it better now," said the Rev. Edward.

  "Perfectly plain, isn't it?" his father went on. "And here again.Paupers' Burial Fund, a loss; enter it as such. Christmas Gift toVerger and Sexton, an absolute loss--you get nothing in return. Widows'Mite, Fines inflicted in Sunday School, etc., these are profit; writethem down as such. By this method, you see, in ordinary business we cantell exactly where we stand: anything which we give out without returnor reward we count as a debit; all that we take from others withoutgiving in return we count as so much to our credit."

  "Ah, yes," murmured the rector. "I begin to understand."

  "Very good. But after all, Edward, I mustn't quarrel with the mere formof your accounts; the statement is really a splendid showing. I seethat not only is our mortgage and debenture interest all paid to date,but that a number of our enterprises are making a handsome return. Inotice, for example, that the Girls' Friendly Society of the church notonly pays for itself, but that you are able to take something out ofits funds and transfer it to the Men's Book Club. Excellent! And Iobserve that you have been able to take a large portion of the SoupKitchen Fund and put it into the Rector's Picnic Account. Very goodindeed. In this respect your figures are a model for church accountsanywhere."

  Mr. Furlong continued his scrutiny of the accounts. "Excellent," hemurmured, "and on the whole an annual surplus, I see, of severalthousands. But stop a bit," he continued, checking himself; "what'sthis? Are you aware, Edward, that you are losing money on your ForeignMissions Account?"

  "I feared as much," said Edward.

  "It's incontestable. Look at the figures for yourself: missionary'ssalary so much, clothes and books to converts so much, voluntary andother offerings of converts so much why, you're losing on it, Edward!"exclaimed Mr. Furlong, and he shook his head dubiously at the accountsbefore him.

  "I thought," protested his son, "that in view of the character of thework itself--"

  "Quite so," answered his father, "quite so. I fully admit the force ofthat. I am only asking you, is it worth it? Mind you, I am not speakingnow as a Christian, but as a businessman. Is it worth it?"

  "I thought that perhaps, in view of the fact of our large surplus inother directions--"

  "Exactly," said his father, "a heavy surplus. It is precisely on thatpoint that I wished to speak to you this morning. You have at present alarge annual surplus, and there is every prospect under Providence--infact, I think in any case--of it continuing for years to come. If I mayspeak very frankly I should say that as long as our reverend friend,Dr. McTeague, continues in his charge of St. Osoph's--and I trust thathe may be spared for many years to come--you are likely to enjoy thepresent prosperity of your church. Very good. The question arises, whatdisposition are we to make of our accumulating funds?"

  "Yes," said the rector, hesitating.

  "I am speaking to you now," said his father "not as the secretary ofyour church, but as president of the Hymnal Supply Company which Irepresent here. Now please understand, Edward, I don't want in any wayto force or control your judgment. I merely wish to show youcertain--shall I say certain opportunities that present themselves forthe disposal of our funds? The matter can be taken up later, formally,by yourself and the trustees of the church. As a matter of fact, I havealready written to myself as secretary in the matter, and I havereceived what I consider a quite encouraging answer. Let me explainwhat I propose."

  Mr. Furlong senior rose, and opening the door of the office,

  "Everett," he said to the ancient clerk, "kindly give me a Bible."

  It was given to him.

  Mr. Furlong stood with the Bible poised in his hand.

  "Now we," he went on, "I mean the Hymnal Supply Corporation, have anidea for bringing out an entirely new Bible."

  A look of dismay appeared on the saintly face of the rector.

  "A new Bible!" he gasped.

  "Precisely!" said his father, "a new Bible! This one--and we find itevery day in our business--is all wrong."

  "All wr
ong!" said the rector with horror in his face.

  "My dear boy," exclaimed his father, "pray, pray, do not misunderstandme. Don't imagine for a moment that I mean wrong in a religious sense.Such a thought could never, I hope, enter my mind. All that I mean isthat this Bible is badly made up."

  "Badly made up?" repeated his son, as mystified as ever.

  "I see that you do not understand me. What I mean is this. Let me tryto make myself quite clear. For the market of today this Bible"--and hepoised it again on his hand, as if to test its weight, "is too heavy.The people of today want something lighter, something easier to gethold of. Now if--"

  But what Mr. Furlong was about to say was lost forever to the world.

  For just at this juncture something occurred calculated to divert notonly Mr. Furlong's sentence, but the fortunes and the surplus of St.Asaph's itself. At the very moment when Mr. Furlong was speaking anewspaper delivery man in the street outside handed to the sanctifiedboy the office copy of the noonday paper. And the boy had no soonerlooked at its headlines than he said, "How dreadful!" Being sanctified,he had no stronger form of speech than that. But he handed the paperforthwith to one of the stenographers with hair like the daffodils ofSheba, and when she looked at it she exclaimed, "How awful!" And sheknocked at once at the door of the ancient clerk and gave the paper tohim; and when he looked at it and saw the headline the ancient clerkmurmured, "Ah!" in the gentle tone in which very old people greet thenews of catastrophe or sudden death.

  But in his turn he opened Mr. Furlong's door and put down the paper,laying his finger on the column for a moment without a word.

  Mr. Furlong stopped short in his sentence. "Dear me!" he said as hiseyes caught the item of news. "How very dreadful!"

  "What is it?" said the rector.

  "Dr. McTeague," answered his father. "He has been stricken withparalysis!"

  "How shocking!" said the rector, aghast. "But when? I saw him only thismorning."

  "It has just happened," said his father, following down the column ofthe newspaper as he spoke, "this morning, at the university, in hisclassroom, at a lecture. Dear me, how dreadful! I must go and see thepresident at once."

  Mr. Furlong was about to reach for his hat and stick when at thatmoment the aged clerk knocked at the door.

  "Dr. Boomer," he announced in a tone of solemnity suited to theoccasion.

  Dr. Boomer entered, shook hands in silence and sat down.

  "You have heard our sad news, I suppose?" he said. He used the word"our" as between the university president and his honorary treasurer.

  "How did it happen?" asked Mr. Furlong.

  "Most distressing," said the president. "Dr. McTeague, it seems, hadjust entered his ten o'clock class (the hour was about ten-twenty) andwas about to open his lecture, when one of his students rose in hisseat and asked a question. It is a practice," continued Dr. Boomer,"which, I need hardly say, we do not encourage; the young man, Ibelieve, was a newcomer in the philosophy class. At any rate, he askedDr. McTeague, quite suddenly it appears; how he could reconcile histheory of transcendental immaterialism with a scheme of rigid moraldeterminism. Dr. McTeague stared for a moment, his mouth, so the classassert, painfully open. The student repeated the question, and poorMcTeague fell forward over his desk, paralysed."

  "Is he dead?" gasped Mr. Furlong.

  "No," said the president. "But we expect his death at any moment. Dr.Slyder, I may say, is with him now and is doing all he can."

  "In any case, I suppose, he could hardly recover enough to continue hiscollege duties," said the young rector.

  "Out of the question," said the president. "I should not like to statethat of itself mere paralysis need incapacitate a professor. Dr. Thrum,our professor of the theory of music, is, as you know, paralysed in hisears, and Mr. Slant, our professor of optics, is paralysed in his righteye. But this is a case of paralysis of the brain. I fear it isincompatible with professorial work."

  "Then, I suppose," said Mr. Furlong senior, "we shall have to think ofthe question of a successor."

  They had both _been_ thinking of it for at least three minutes. "Wemust," said the president. "For the moment I feel too stunned by thesad news to act. I have merely telegraphed to two or three leadingcolleges for a _locum tenens_ and sent out a few advertisementsannouncing the chair as vacant. But it will be difficult to replaceMcTeague. He was a man," added Dr. Boomer, rehearsing in advance,unconsciously, no doubt, his forthcoming oration over Dr. McTeague'sdeath, "of a singular grasp, a breadth of culture, and he was able, asfew men are, to instil what I might call a spirit of religion into histeaching. His lectures, indeed, were suffused with moral instruction,and exercised over his students an influence second only to that of thepulpit itself."

  He paused.

  "Ah yes, the pulpit," said Mr. Furlong, "there indeed you will misshim."

  "That," said Dr. Boomer very reverently, "is our real loss, deep,irreparable. I suppose, indeed I am certain, we shall never again seesuch a man in the pulpit of St. Osoph's. Which reminds me," he addedmore briskly, "I must ask the newspaper people to let it be known thatthere will be service as usual the day after tomorrow, and that Dr.McTeague's death will, of course, make no difference--that is to say--Imust see the newspaper people at once."

  * * * * *

  That afternoon all the newspaper editors in the City were busy gettingtheir obituary notices ready for the demise of Dr. McTeague.

  "The death of Dr. McTeague," wrote the editor of the _Commercial andFinancial Undertone_, a paper which had almost openly advocated theminister's dismissal for five years back, "comes upon us as anirreparable loss. His place will be difficult, nay, impossible, tofill. Whether as a philosopher or a divine he cannot be replaced."

  "We have no hesitation in saying," so wrote the editor of the_Plutorian Times_, a three-cent morning paper, which was able to take abroad or three-cent point of view of men and things, "that the loss ofDr. McTeague will be just as much felt in Europe as in America. ToGermany the news that the hand that penned 'McTeague's ShorterExposition of the Kantian Hypothesis' has ceased to write will comewith the shock of poignant anguish; while to France--"

  The editor left the article unfinished at that point. After all, he wasa ready writer, and he reflected that there would be time enough beforeactually going to press to consider from what particular angle the blowof McTeague's death would strike down the people of France.

  So ran in speech and in writing, during two or three days, the requiemof Dr. McTeague.

  Altogether there were more kind things said of him in the three daysduring which he was taken for dead, than in thirty years of hislife--which seemed a pity.

  And after it all, at the close of the third day, Dr. McTeague feeblyopened his eyes.

  But when he opened them the world had already passed on, and left himbehind.