The worst has been told.Beginning in utter blackness, this third year, in the second month, brought a change as welcome as it was unlooked for.An elderly and important citizen of Tyre, by name Abram Beekman, whom Theron knew slightly, and had on occasions seen sitting in one of the back pews near the door, called one morning at the parsonage, and electrified its inhabitants by expressing a desire to wipe off all their old scores for them, and give them a fresh start in life.As he put the suggestion, they could find no excuse for rejecting it.He had watched them, and heard a good deal about them, and took a fatherly sort of interest in them.He did not deprecate their regarding the aid he proffered them in the nature of a loan, but they were to make themselves perfectly easy about it, and never return it at all unless they could spare it sometime with entire convenience, and felt that they wanted to do so.As this amazing windfall finally took shape, it enabled the Wares to live respectably through the year, and to leave Tyre with something over one hundred dollars in hand.
It enabled them, too, to revive in a chastened form their old dream of ultimate success and distinction for Theron.
He had demonstrated clearly enough to himself, during that brief season of unrestrained effulgence, that he had within him the making of a great pulpit orator.He set to work now, with resolute purpose, to puzzle out and master all the principles which underlie this art, and all the tricks that adorn its superstructure.He studied it, fastened his thoughts upon it, talked daily with Alice about it.
In the pulpit, addressing those people who had so darkened his life and crushed the first happiness out of his home, he withheld himself from any oratorical display which could afford them gratification.He put aside, as well;the thought of attracting once more the non-Methodists of Tyre, whose early enthusiasm had spread such pitfalls for his unwary feet.He practised effects now by piecemeal, with an alert ear, and calculation in every tone.
An ambition, at once embittered and tearfully solicitous, possessed him.
He reflected now, this morning, with a certain incredulous interest, upon that unworthy epoch in his life history, which seemed so far behind him, and yet had come to a close only a few weeks ago.The opportunity had been given him, there at the Tecumseh Conference, to reveal his quality.
He had risen to its full limit of possibilities, and preached a great sermon in a manner which he at least knew was unapproachable.He had made his most powerful bid for the prize place, had trebly deserved success--and had been banished instead to Octavius!
The curious thing was that he did not resent his failure.
Alice had taken it hard, but he himself was conscious of a sense of spiritual gain.The influence of the Conference, with its songs and seasons of prayer and high pressure of emotional excitement, was still strong upon him.
It seemed years and years since the religious side of him had been so stirred into motion.He felt, as he lay back in the chair, and folded his hands over the book on his knee, that he had indeed come forth from the fire purified and strengthened.The ministry to souls diseased beckoned him with a new and urgent significance.He smiled to remember that Mr.Beekman, speaking in his shrewd and pointed way, had asked him whether, looking it all over, he didn't think it would be better for him to study law, with a view to sliding out of the ministry when a good chance offered.It amazed him now to recall that he had taken this hint seriously, and even gone to the length of finding out what books law-students began upon.
Thank God! all that was past and gone now.The Call sounded, resonant and imperative, in his ears, and there was no impulse of his heart, no fibre of his being, which did not stir in devout response.He closed his eyes, to be the more wholly alone with the Spirit, that moved him.
The jangling of a bell in the hallway broke sharply upon his meditations, and on the instant his wife thrust in her head from the kitchen.
"You'll have to go to the door, Theron!" she warned him, in a loud, swift whisper."I'm not fit to be seen.
It is the trustees."
"All right," he said, and rose slowly from sprawling recumbency to his feet."I'll go.""And don't forget," she added strenuously; "I believe in Levi Gorringe! I've seen him go past here with his rod and fish-basket twice in eight days, and that's a good sign.
He's got a soft side somewhere.And just keep a stiff upper lip about the gas, and don't you let them jew you down a solitary cent on that sidewalk.""All right," said Theron, again, and moved reluctantly toward the hall door.
