Complete Works of Howard Pyle

by Howard Pyle

Some few of those to whom these addresses were sent did not respond, but nearly all who received invitations to the meeting were present. Dr. Caiaphas was a very notable, even a famous man, and the invitation was a compliment to every divine who received it.

  Nearly all who were present were strangers to the place, and it was an interesting study of human nature to see the different ways in which the different men bore themselves. Those who were not strangers perhaps assumed an air of intimate acquaintance with their surroundings. One young man, for instance, a fashionable clergyman of the day, who had not been in the house a half-dozen times, stood with his back to the fire smoking a cigar with an air of perfect and authoritative ease. “What did you do with the little Rembrandt that used to hang yonder, doctor?” he called across the room.

  The doctor laughed. He understood the workings of the young clergyman’s mind. “Oh, that hangs in the upper hall now,” he said.

  Others who were strangers to the place gazed about them, at the cases of beautifully bound books, at the walls covered with paintings and water-colors, some with a sort of half-furtive curiosity, others assuming a studied and obvious air of indifference to the richness and exquisite taste of everything, others evidently honestly impressed with the superabundance of beautiful things, one or two ill at ease–some few even overawed at the magnificence of their surroundings.

  The meeting resulted in a rather rambling sort of talk; there were other things spoken of besides John the Baptist–mostly general topics of the same sort–discursive discussions of various heresies. The relation of the classes was talked about, and even politics. But still Dr. Caiaphas held the discussion pretty steadily to the topic in hand. Some who were present regarded the matter as serious enough; others were inclined to permit themselves a sort of clerical jocularity concerning it; he himself tried to throw into the talk the weight he felt it deserved. Maybe a series of addresses from the pulpit would be the better way of reaching the attention of the people, he said. Such a series of addresses might be delivered simultaneously in all the churches. “Oh, if it’s a matter of preaching a sermon,” said Mr. Munjoy, a minister of another denomination–”if it’s a matter of preaching a sermon, why I’m right there. To tell you the honest truth”–here he whispered broadly–”I’m sometimes so close pushed for a theme to preach about that I’m only too glad to have one suggested to me.”

  Some of those present laughed. Dr. Caiaphas smiled faintly. “I don’t think that we are exactly in search of a theme to preach about,” he said. “I take it we are rather called together here to consider some mutual effort in defence of God’s truth.”

  Mr. Munjoy laughed and helped himself to another cigar.

  “What impresses me,” said Mr. Bold, a young clergyman with strong revolutionary tendencies, “is that we shall never be able to treat this subject as we should treat it unless we see with our own eyes what is being done at these baptisms, and hear with our own ears what the man has to say. I don’t believe in sitting in a room and imagining how a thing might be, and then combating the notion. For instance, I was reading your sermon reported in the Aurora this morning,” he said, addressing himself directly to Mr. Lovejoy, a mild-mannered, fashionable clergyman, “about the lost woman, you know. It impressed me you were talking about something you imagined rather than about something you had really seen. Now, did you ever happen to study intimately the life of a real harlot?” Mr. Lovejoy looked ineffably shocked, and a sudden silence fell upon all, while Mr. Bold, in spite of his self-assurance, felt uncomfortably that he had expressed himself unfortunately, and that he had not been understood. “What I mean,” he said, “is that unless you really know something about what you attack from the pulpit, I fail to see how your attack is going to amount to anything. Now, I wonder how many of us have heard this man preach.”

  “I’m sure I’ve not,” said Mr. Munjoy. And there was not one of all of them who had thought it worth while to go to John the Baptist to hear what he really had to say.

  “Then,” said Mr. Bold, “how are you going to attack what he has to say if you don’t know what he does say?”

  “There’s a good deal of truth in what our friend says,” said Dr. Caiaphas, after a moment or two of thoughtful silence.

  “And how would you propose to approach the matter so as to deal with it knowledgeably?” asked Dr. Kimberly, a minister of still another denomination.

  “I don’t know,” said Dr. Caiaphas. “I’m sure the conference is open to suggestions.”

  “How would it do to send down a committee of five to interview him, and to ask him what he has to say for himself?” said Mr. Munjoy, jocularly. And then there was a murmur of laughter.

  “Really, though,” said Mr. Bold, after the laugh had subsided, “I don’t know that that is a half bad suggestion.”

  “Bad!” said Mr. Munjoy. “I should hope not. I hope you don’t think that a minister of my denomination would suggest anything that was bad.” And then there was another laugh.

  The idea of the committee had been proposed in jest, but before the meeting closed it was considered seriously, and was finally adopted. There was still a general feeling of half-repressed jocularity about it all, but, nevertheless, the committee was duly appointed. Mr. Munjoy, as the proposer of the committee, was nominated for chairman, but he declined in a very witty and amusing speech, proposing Dr. Caiaphas in his stead. Dr. Caiaphas was not at all pleased with the sense of levity that pervaded the meeting. It seemed to him that the subject was very serious, and he replied to what Mr. Munjoy had said in a very serious manner. He wished, he said, that some younger man had been chosen. Without at all desiring to shift the burden from his own shoulders, he must say that he really felt that his time was so much taken up with the work of the investigation committee appointed to examine into the police department that it would be almost impossible for him to give to this matter that consideration which it seemed to him to deserve. Nevertheless, if it was the will of those present that he should act as chairman, he would so act to the best of his poor powers.

  IV. WHAT WENT YE DOWN FOR TO SEE?

  IT WAS A lovely, balmy day–that upon which our priests and Levites went down to the baptisms of John. It was yet early in March, but the day was as soft and as warm as a day in May.

  When the clergymen descended from the train they found the platform crowded with those who had come over from the camp to meet arriving friends, and everywhere arose a confused and inarticulate hubbub of voices. The committee almost forced its way across the platform to where the hacks and carriages of all sorts and kinds stood drawn up in a row, and whence the voices of hackmen dominated loudly all the bustle and noise, adding their quota to the bewildering confusion. The crowd struggled and pushed, and through the ceaseless noise and hubbub there sounded the thin, keen wail of a crying baby.

  Mr. Bold chose a ‘bus, the committee filled it almost more than full, and it was driven off immediately, among the first to quit the station. A cloud of dust surrounded them as they rattled along the level road, leaving farther and farther behind them the still ceaseless tumult of the crowded platform, above which loomed the locomotive, smoking and hissing gigantically.

  The owner of the ‘bus stood on the steps behind clinging to the door-frame. “Be you ministers?” said he.

  “Yes,” said one of the party.

  “Come to the baptism?”

  The minister laughed. “No, not exactly.”

  “But, talking of baptism,” said Mr. Munjoy, “I wish very much we could find a basin of water and a cake of soap somewhere; it was very dusty coming down.”

  The hackman leaned to one side and spat into the dusty road that sped away behind. “Yes,” he assented; “you see, we ‘ain’t had no rain now for above two weeks.”

  “Pretty bad look-out for salvation, I should say, if the dry weather holds,” observed Mr. Munjoy.

  Dr. Caiaphas sat quiet and impassive. The uncomfortable feeling had been growing upon him ever since he left home that
he was upon a grotesque fool’s errand.

  The road over which they were now passing was heavy and sandy. The sun shone down upon it warmly, and, early as was the season, the fresh grass had begun to show itself in irregular patches of light and dark-green. The sky overhead was blue. In the sunshine it was warm, but those on the shady side of the coach drew their overcoats closer about them. Every now and then the hack would pass little groups or single figures, all plodding along in the direction of the camp. Sometimes there were larger groups of men and women and some children or half-grown girls. Some of the men carried their overcoats over one arm. One group which they passed consisted of three women, one man, and three children. One of the women–thin and frail-looking–carried a young baby, and the two other tired children dragged themselves along, holding each by a hand of another of the women. All these people were of the commoner sort. Some appeared to be working-men with their wives, others appeared not even to be laboring men, but of that great, underlying, nameless class that is still lower in the scale of social existence than the class of producers. Most of these people were evidently dressed in their best clothes, as though for a holiday.

  After riding for maybe a mile, the hack turned a bend in the road, and from the summit of a little sandy rise of ground the committee came within sudden sight of the camp.

  Every one of them was surprised at the extent of the encampment. As they looked down upon it, it stretched away like a great town of tents and huts. In some places the tents and frame sheds were clustered in a confused mass, in other places they were separated into streets and avenues. Upon the outskirts–the suburbs of this nondescript town–were everywhere clustering groups of carts and wagons and restless crowds of people which grew thicker and thicker in the camp, becoming here and there congested into restless, moving ganglia of humanity. These disconnected groups of people gathered most thickly along the banks of the stream, and far away in the distance was a greater crowd surrounding some central point of interest. The visitors surmised that John the Baptist was the centre of that crowd. Beyond the stream were a few scattered huts, and beyond that a level, green marsh. An inlet from the sea made in part a broken, sandy headland. Beyond that, in the distance, was a wide, sparkling stretch of water with the far, blue line of the farther shore. Above all was the windy arch of sky looking down peacefully and calmly upon the clustered, restless masses of human beings below. There was an indefinable odor of salt in the air, and the wind came across from over the marsh, fresh and cool.

  The hack rattled down the road and into the camp in a cloud of dust. It was about noon and many of the people were eating their mid-day meal. Everywhere there were clusters of men and women, sitting in farm wagons or carts munching their food and talking among themselves.

  The driver drove for some little distance into the camp, checking his horses every now and then and hallooing to the men and women in his road, who scattered right and left to make way for the rather headlong rate at which he drove. At last he stopped in front of a big frame shed with a rude sign above the doorway, informing the passers that there refreshment was to be had at a cheap and popular price. The shed was open at one end, and within you could see rows of benches and long deal tables. Here the committee got out, one by one, and stood looking about them.

  Along the wide, street-like space there fronted a long, disjointed line of huts and tents of all sorts and kinds. The air was full of an indescribable odor as of raw boards and crushed grass. The street was full of a restless, passing stream of men and women and boys, and everywhere was the ceaseless buzz of talking, now and then dominated by the call of some one hallooing to a distant comrade.

  The visiting clergymen had no doubt whither to bend their steps. All the crowd seemed to drift and centre in one direction, and they knew that thither they would find him whom they sought. As they passed down along the front of the different tents and huts and shanties, they heard everywhere the clatter of dishes and smelt the odor of cooking. Here and there a hut bore a sign indicating that there lodging was to be had. At one place they passed by where a man, evidently stupefied with drink, lay in the sun by the side of a little frame hut with a canvas cover. A thin, bony woman was cooking a meal of food at a stove behind the hut, and the combined smell of the smoke and frying food filled the air. Two little children came around the side of the hut and stood looking at the committee as it passed.

  The motley, restless crowd grew thicker and thicker as the committee approached the spot where they knew John must be found, and at last they had some difficulty in pushing their way through the congested groups. As they elbowed their way, the crowd would look at them and then, seeing they were ministers, would make way for them. Suddenly they came upon the Baptist, almost before they had expected to find him. He was eating a meal of indescribable food, sitting upon the ground, holding the plate upon his knees. He was, indeed, a shaggy, wild-looking figure, thin-faced, sallow, with filmy, restless eyes and a black, coarse mat of hair and beard. He wore the same dress of hairy cloth that the picture in the public journal had represented. The heavy brogans were wet and soaked with water, his legs, showing above the shoe-tops, were lean and hairy. A little cluster of his disciples, or attendants, surrounded him; some of them were eating their food, others, who had finished, were lying stretched upon the ground talking in an undertone. They were all rough, common-looking men, several of them apparently fishermen. Surrounding this group, and at a little distance, the people stood in a crowd looking intently at the Baptist. The committee also stood for a while looking at him; then Dr. Caiaphas came forward.

  As the priest approached, the Baptist looked towards him with vacant, lustreless eyes. The sun suddenly came out from behind a passing cloud and shone full upon his face, but he did not wink his eyes nor shade them from the glare.

  “My friend,” said the rector of the Church of the Advent, “my name is Theodore Caiaphas. I do not know whether you have heard of me or not, but I have heard of you. I am, as you see, an ordained priest. I and my friends”–here he indicated the others of the committee–”have come down to learn just what it is you preach, just what your opinions are, and just what you advocate. Will you tell me, first of all, who you are?”

  John sat looking intently but vacantly at him. He did not speak for a little while. Then he said, in a sudden, loud voice, “I am not the Christ.”

  “So I understand,” said Dr. Caiaphas. “But are you a prophet–such a one, for instance, as Elijah?”

  “I am not,” said the fanatic, still in the same loud voice.

  “Ah! Then you are not even a prophet?” said Dr. Caiaphas.

  “No.”

  “Who are you, then?” said Dr. Caiaphas; “and what are you? Tell us who you are, that we may give an answer to them that sent us.” He tried not to feel the absurdity of the situation, but some of the other clergymen laughed.

  John turned up his face and looked almost directly into the dazzling light of the sun above. He raised his lean arms, with his hands outspread and his fingers stretched wide open. “I am,” he cried, in a loud voice, “the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Make straight the way, as said Isaiah, the prophet.”

  Again two or three of the committee laughed. The disciples of John looked sullenly at them, but the Baptist himself paid no attention to them.

  “Then, let me understand,” said Dr. Caiaphas, speaking also in a loud voice so that all might hear–”then, let me understand just what it is you have to say for yourself. Let me hear just what is your claim, for it is for that reason that we have come hither. What I want to understand, and what all these poor people here should clearly understand, is this: If you are not the Christ–and you yourself say you are not–nor such a one as Elijah, nor one having authority to preach, as the saints of the Church had authority–if you are only a voice preaching in the wilderness, by what right do you, then, baptize and grant remission of sins? By what authority do you, then, forgive men their sins?”

  John, still with eyes
uplifted and with hands outspread, cried out: “I baptize with water, but in the midst of you there stands one whom you know not, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear.” Other words he uttered, as uncomprehendable to the clergymen as these. He still held his arm upraised and his hand outspread for a little. Then he ended suddenly, and as suddenly let his hand fall from his knee, and sat looking about him as though to see what effect his words had upon those who heard them. One of the committee laid his hand upon Dr. Caiaphas’s arm. “Do you not see that it is useless to waste time here?” said he. “What good can come of it, doctor? It is plain to me that the man is mad. Any one with eyes to see and ears to hear may see and hear that for himself. Mr. Hicks tells us that the up-train will be due in twenty-five minutes. We have just comfortable time to make it. If we miss it, we’ll have to wait till five o’clock, and not get into town till after dark. I am sure that I, for one, have seen enough to convince me of the man’s insanity without listening any further to what he has to say.”

  Dr. Caiaphas looked at his watch. “Well,” he said, reluctantly, “I suppose we might as well return. I would like to have heard him preach to the multitude, though, and to see how he baptizes them. However, I quite agree with you that he is not right in his mind, and I suppose it would be only a mere matter of curiosity to remain longer.”

  If Dr. Caiaphas had on his way down from New York feared that he was on a fool’s errand, he was, indeed, certain of it now. He did not say anything until the committee was on its way back to the station in the hack. Then he spoke.

  “I am sorry, gentlemen, that I should have brought you all the way down here only for this. I am afraid”–with a smile–”that the committee did not get much satisfaction from the interview.”

  Mr. Munjoy laughed. “I am sure,” he said, “that we are all very glad to have suffered a little inconvenience to have satisfied Dr. Caiaphas.”