Love and Money (21 page)

“Mr. Aquile is a man I am proud to serve under,” said the Sunday School Superintendent emphatically. Perhaps only those who know Sunday School Superintendents will realise the full magnitude of this tribute.

All the Sunday School children, young and old, loved him dearly, in different ways, of course, according to their different capacities.

In a word, all Resmond Street rejoiced in their new pastor—until one Sunday morning towards the end of the year.

It does not matter what exactly he uttered in the pulpit that morning. We are not concerned with conflicting points of doctrine, and certainly not to decide which, if either, is right, but only to depict the havoc, the anguish, which divergent ideals can cause in persons of conscience, even in Annotsfield. It is enough to say that in the middle of his discourse Mr. Aquile made some statement not quite in accordance with the principles laid down in the Trust Deed. A barely perceptible stir, a very slight ripple, among the older members of the congregation, greeted it. Mr. Aquile, who like all good speakers felt every reaction amongst his audience instantly, imagined that he had not been properly understood, and reiterated his statement, expounding and expanding it so that the blood of some of his stricter hearers quite froze with horror. Old Mr. Tolefree was not present on that occasion, having been ordered to bed by his doctor
for a few days' rest. Accordingly Alderman Brigg took it upon himself to go up to Mr. Aquile at the close of the service and say bluntly:

“You were rather off your line this morning, Mr. Aquile.”

His tone was gruff, curt and condescending, and anyone not born in Yorkshire might be forgiven for finding it offensive.

“I don't understand you, sir,” said the young minister proudly, flushing.

“Perhaps we had better leave the matter to Mr. Tolefree, Alderman,” put in William Thomas Brigg hastily at his elbow.

Mr. Aquile glanced from one to the other of the two Trustees—both short, solid, swarthy, high-coloured, bearded men clad in costly black broadcloth from Annotsfield looms, with thick gold watch-chains (costing a pound a link in days when a pound was thought a good weekly wage) displayed across their massive abdomens. The minister was genuinely perplexed as to the cause of the Alderman's criticism, but felt that an affront was intended which he was not minded to accept.

“Perhaps that would be best,” he said coldly.

It says much for the strength of Mr. Aquile's personality, and the dominance he had achieved over his congregation, that Alderman Brigg merely snorted and turned away without further protest. He visited Mr. Tolefree's bedside that very afternoon, however, and laid the matter before him forcefully. He seemed to consider Mr. Tolefree in some way to blame, and this the old minister resented.

“You can't deny you wanted him as assistant—you recommended him.”

“I recommended him because I thought his ministry would be fruitful to Resmond Street, and so it has proved.”

“You vouched for him being all right by the Deed.”

“I did nothing of the kind.”

“Well, we took it for granted like that he was all right, since you recommended him.”

“Then you had no right to do so,” said Mr. Tolefree sternly. “It is you Trustees who are responsible for the administration of the Deed, not I.”

“That's all very well,” persisted Alderman Brigg, taking however a lower tone as he saw his pastor's unyielding face: “But what are we going to do about it, eh? His appointment comes up for renewal next month, you know. I for one shan't vote for him unless he's all right by the Deed, and I know plenty of others that won't either, Mr. Tolefree. Yet it'd be a pity to lose him.”

“It would be a great pity to lose him,” said Mr. Tolefree, pronouncing his words with great precision.

“Will you speak to him then, eh?”

“I will tell him what you say,” said Mr. Tolefree.

A few days later the pastor, now sitting by the fire downstairs with a rug over his knees, informed his assistant of the objections lodged to his doctrine by one of the Trustees. Mr. Aquile listened in grave astonishment.

“But I have heard nothing of this Deed, nothing of these provisions,” he said.

Mr. Tolefree handed him a copy of the Deed which Alderman Brigg had left in his hands.

“This matter will require much consideration,” said Mr. Aquile thoughtfully, turning its pages. “Some of these clauses, if literally interpreted, seem to me not merely narrow, but positively wrong, contrary to the spirit of Christ's teaching, cold and inhumane.”

“Your appointment comes up for renewal next month,” said Mr. Tolefree drily.

“How providential that this matter has been raised before the Deacons' meeting!” exclaimed Mr. Aquile. “We shall at least all know where we stand.”

“I fear we must lose you. I am very sorry,” said Mr. Tolefree.

“Have these clauses been assented to by all the Resmond Street members?” enquired Mr. Aquile. “Are they habitually used as a test of membership, I mean?”

“Not of late years,” said Mr. Tolefree.

“Is it your view that a majority of the church members would adhere to all the clauses?” Mr. Tolefree hesitated.

“Not a majority, I think,” he said. “No—probably not a majority. I understand,” he continued, “that before consenting to renew your appointment the Trustees will demand a declaration from you about the Deed.”

“I will seek a decision in prayer,” said Mr. Aquile. “And now I must not tire you further. Good afternoon.”

Mr. Tolefree rang a small handbell which stood on the table at his side—it was a thoughtful little gift from his assistant pastor—and Lucy came into the room.

“Mr. Aquile is leaving, Lucy.”

“Will you not stay to tea?” said Lucy.

“I fear I must not give myself that pleasure, Miss Lucy,” said Aquile in his gentle courteous tones. He bowed gravely and allowed her to precede him from the room.

When she had ushered him from the house Lucy returned and stood before her uncle, her eyes downcast, her long hands clasped loosely in front of her.

It was a pity, thought her uncle, that dear Lucy had not inherited any of the personal attractions of her father, Mr. Tolefree's youngest brother, an ethereally handsome schoolteacher before he coughed his lungs out and died, leaving no savings and a wife and four children. Lucy, whom Mr. Tolefree and his wife had brought up since childhood, was a true Christian, a most tender and affectionate nurse and very dear to him, but alas, he thought sadly, she was small, plain and insignificant in appearance. Her russet eyebrows were too thick, her features too strongly marked, her mane of brown hair too plainly dressed, drawn back from her forehead to a knot in the nape of her neck, to reach any standard of feminine beauty known to Mr. Tolefree. She was nearing her thirties and would probably never marry, and what she would do after his death sometimes troubled her uncle. Her dress of plain dark stuff was very suitable for a minister's spinster niece, thought Mr. Tolefree, eyeing it now, but not in the least becoming. The truth was that Lucy's dress was
perhaps a little older, a little less fashionable, a little more mended, than it had need to be. Since Lucy had not a penny of her own, her dresses depended on the benefactions of her uncle; Mr. Tolefree, unworldly, puritanic, theological, did not perhaps always notice quite soon enough his niece's requirements in this respect, and Lucy was the last woman in the world to remind him of them.

“Well, my dear,” said Mr. Tolefree kindly, for he was truly fond of Lucy: “Are we to have our tea?”

“Uncle,” said Lucy quietly, raising her eyes to his—they were, thought Mr. Tolefree with something of a shock, fine eyes, large, brown and at present very lustrous—“Uncle, it lies on my conscience to tell you I disagree with you in this matter.”

“What matter, my dear?” said Mr. Tolefree, surprised— Lucy had never disagreed with him before.

“The matter of the Deed and Mr. Aquile's sermon.” Mr. Tolefree was quite astounded.

“You have heard of it?” he said. (Of course it no more entered his head that Lucy had been listening to his conversation with Mr. Aquile than it had entered Lucy's to do so.)

“All Annotsfield has heard of it.”

“You exaggerate, my dear,” said Mr. Tolefree. “But I am sorry the matter should be generally canvassed in this way. About what do you disagree?”

“Mr. Aquile's ministry is a noble one.”

“I grant that very freely,” said Mr. Tolefree, sadly shaking his head. “I do not hesitate to say that I love John Aquile as if he were my son, and I shall be very loth to part from him.”

“It seemed to me from his manner when leaving that you had advised him to quit Resmond Street.”

“The ministry at Resmond Street is bound by the Trust Deed,” began Mr. Tolefree.

“Are we to be bound by dead hands to do what we think wrong?”

“Wrong! Lucy, bethink yourself what you are saying,” said Mr. Tolefree sternly. “But certainly we are not so
bound. Mr. Aquile must judge for himself. Only, if Mr. Aquile thinks the Trust Deed doctrines wrong, then he can no longer preach from the Resmond Street pulpit.”

“Is it not a pastor's duty to denounce what is wrong and preach what is right?”

“The Resmond Street ministry is legally bound by the provisions of the Trust Deed,” cried Mr. Tolefree in a loud angry tone, banging his stick on the floor. He was angry because in fact he was uncertain; his head pulling one way and his heart the other.

“The letter killeth, the spirit giveth life,” said Lucy firmly.

Mr. Tolefree was as dumbfounded as if his quiet domestic tabby had turned and bit him.

“You will oblige me by not referring to the matter again, Lucy,” he said after a moment in a quavering tone—the argument had thrown his poor old heart into a gallop.

“As you wish, uncle,” said Lucy gravely. “I merely thought it right not to leave you in ignorance of my views.”

Mr. Tolefree gave an uneasy sigh, the harbinger of many to come.

That Lucy's view was shared by many of the Resmond Street congregation appeared at the meeting of the Deacons in the following week, when Mr. Aquile's appointment as co-pastor, his year's probation being successfully completed, was proposed. That Alderman Brigg's view was shared by some, likewise appeared, for the appointment was hotly opposed on doctrinal grounds by a considerable minority. Eventually a compromise was reached and Mr. Aquile's temporary reappointment as assistant pastor was formally recommended—this, of course, would be subject to the approval of the Trustees.

Without waiting to be tackled by the Trustees on doctrine, Mr. Aquile wrote to them himself, to make, as he said, his position clear. He believed in every item of the Christian faith as promulgated by Christ Himself, but could not hold
himself bound to the letter by the interpretations given by fallible human beings in the Trust Deed.

The Trustees—or rather a few of them; influenza was rife at the time—met, and after a long and heated discussion it was decided by the Chairman's casting vote that Mr. Aquile must categorically declare his belief in the ten dogmas named in the Trust Deed, or they could not consent to his reappointment. A letter was written to Mr. Aquile accordingly.

Mr. Aquile replied at once in a short but trenchant note. To seven of the ten doctrines named he gave unqualified acceptance. But to numbers 3, 7 and 10 as there phrased he was unremittingly opposed; he thought them distortions of Christian teaching. If, he said, the whole human race was completely and hopelessly damned to all eternity by a prearranged fate, what was the use of faith, or repentance, indeed of Christ's atonement itself? Why trouble to preach the moral law? Why struggle for regeneration since it was impossible save to a favoured few? In his view the Christian religion was a living, growing spirit; it had not halted for ever fifty years ago, it had not been perfected in Resmond Street in 1825. God did not forbid progress. He remained theirs faithfully, John Spencer Aquile.

The Trustees met again in January; this time fifteen were present.

Few occasions are more uncomfortable than the meeting of a committee—especially a Yorkshire committee—irrevocably divided into two parties. The members arrive, each in their several manners ready for a fray. They are all spruced up, in clean shirts, with well-brushed hair, bright eyes and tight lips; they greet each other with rather unusual politeness, and sign the attendance register, according to their temperament, either in an especially firm or an especially jerky hand. With apparent nonchalance they stroll about and seat themselves, when it is discovered that they are mostly grouped by their allegiance, with a few unhappy neutrals sprinkled between. The Minutes are disposed of in a trice, proposers and seconders quite barking out their resolutions to a quick chorus of
agreed.
Then the
controversial matter which divides them is reached on the agenda. There is a silence; some members fold their arms and stare down at the green baize tablecloth, others exchange significant glances; it is obvious that caballing and canvassing have been going on outside.

“I will read the reply I have received from Mr. Aquile,” said the Chairman—an old bowed man, parchment-coloured, one of the surviving original Trustees.

When he reached the concluding sentences Councillor Starbotton—who had been absent from the previous meeting on business in London—let out a subdued snort of laughter.

“He has you there,” he muttered.

“Anyone who doesn't agree with the Deed doctrines has no right to be a Trustee,” growled Alderman Brigg through his beard.

“Propose that my resignation be called for, then!” cried Councillor Starbotton, flaring up at once. “Go on, Alderman! Propose it. Let's take a vote.”

“Nay now, gentleman,” urged the Chairman. (In the 1870's there were no women on the governing body, of course.) “Let us discuss this important matter in a manner becoming to Resmond Street.”