第55章

A love-feast at nine in the morning opened the public services of a Sunday still memorable in the annals of Octavius Methodism.

This ceremony, which four times a year preceded the sessions of the Quarterly Conference, was not necessarily an event of importance.It was an occasion upon which the brethren and sisters who clung to the old-fashioned, primitive ways of the itinerant circuit-riders, let themselves go with emphasized independence, putting up more vehement prayers than usual, and adding a special fervor of noise to their "Amens!" and other interjections--and that was all.

It was Theron's first love-feast in Octavius, and as the big class-room in the church basement began to fill up, and he noted how the men with ultra radical views and the women clad in the most ostentatious drabs and grays were crowding into the front seats, he felt his spirits sinking.

He had literally to force himself from sentence to sentence, when the time came for him to rise and open the proceedings with an exhortation.He had eagerly offered this function to the Presiding Elder, the Rev.Aziel P.Larrabee, who sat in severe silence on the little platform behind him, but had been informed that the dignitary would lead off in giving testimony later on.So Theron, feeling all the while the hostile eyes of the Elder burning holes in his back, dragged himself somehow through the task.

He had never known any such difficulty of speech before.

The relief was almost overwhelming when he came to the customary part where all are adjured to be as brief as possible in witnessing for the Lord, because the time belongs to all the people, and the Discipline forbids the feast to last more than ninety minutes.He delivered this injunction to brevity with marked earnestness, and then sat down abruptly.

There was some rather boisterous singing, during which the stewards, beginning with the platform, passed plates of bread cut in small cubes, and water in big plated pitchers and tumblers, about among the congregation, threading their way between the long wooden benches ordinarily occupied at this hour by the children of the Sunday-school, and helping each brother and sister in turn.They held by the old custom, here in Octavius, and all along the seats the sexes alternated, as they do at a polite dinner-table.

Theron impassively watched the familiar scene.The early nervousness had passed away.He felt now that he was not in the least afraid of these people, even with the Presiding Elder thrown in.Folks who sang with such unintelligence, and who threw themselves with such undignified fervor into this childish business of the bread and water, could not be formidable antagonists for a man of intellect.

He had never realized before what a spectacle the Methodist love-feast probably presented to outsiders.

What must they think of it!

He had noticed that the Soulsbys sat together, in the centre and toward the front.Next to Brother Soulsby sat Alice.

He thought she looked pale and preoccupied, and set it down in passing to her innate distaste for the somber garments she was wearing, and for the company she perforce found herself in.Another head was in the way, and for a time Theron did not observe who sat beside Alice on the other side.When at last he saw that it was Levi Gorringe, his instinct was to wonder what the lawyer must be saying to himself about these noisy and shallow enthusiasts.

A recurring emotion of loyalty to the simple people among whom, after all, he had lived his whole life, prompted him to feel that it wasn't wholly nice of Gorringe to come and enjoy this revelation of their foolish side, as if it were a circus.There was some vague memory in his mind which associated Gorringe with other love-feasts, and with a cynical attitude toward them.Oh, yes! he had told how he went to one just for the sake of sitting beside the girl he admired--and was pursuing.

The stewards had completed their round, and the loud, discordant singing came to an end.There ensued a little pause, during which Theron turned to the Presiding Elder with a gesture of invitation to take charge of the further proceedings.The Elder responded with another gesture, calling his attention to something going on in front.

Brother and Sister Soulsby, to the considerable surprise of everybody, had risen to their feet, and were standing in their places, quite motionless, and with an air of professional self-assurance dimly discernible under a large show of humility.They stood thus until complete silence had been secured.Then the woman, lifting her head, began to sing.The words were "Rock of Ages," but no one present had heard the tune to which she wedded them.

Her voice was full and very sweet, and had in it tender cadences which all her hearers found touching.

She knew how to sing, and she put forth the words so that each was distinctly intelligible.There came a part where Brother Soulsby, lifting his head in turn, took up a tuneful second to her air.Although the two did not, as one could hear by listening closely, sing the same words at the same time, they produced none the less most moving and delightful harmonies of sound.

The experience was so novel and charming that listeners ran ahead in their minds to fix the number of verses there were in the hymn, and to hope that none would be left out.

Toward the end, when some of the intolerably self-conceited local singers, fancying they had caught the tune, started to join in, they were stopped by an indignant "sh-h!" which rose from all parts of the class-room;and the Soulsbys, with a patient and pensive kindliness written on their uplifted faces, gave that verse over again.

What followed seemed obviously restrained and modified by the effect of this unlooked-for and tranquillizing overture.