The minister resumed his interrupted speech. Nobody had ventured to cheer him; but during this last pause, seeing that he himself waited, and by way of cheering up their own troubled hearts, a few feeble and timid plaudits rose from the further end of the room. Mr. Vincent hurriedly resumed to stop this, with characteristic impatience. “Wait before you applaud me,” said the Nonconformist. “I have said nothing that calls for applause. I have something more to tell you—more novel than what I have been saying. I am going to leave Carlingford. It was you who elected me, it is you who have censured me, it was you last night who consented to look over my faults and give me a new trial. I am one of those who have boasted in my day that I received my title to ordination from no bishop, from no temporal provision, from no traditionary church, but from the hands of the people. Perhaps I am less sure than I was at first, when you were all disposed to praise me, that the voice of the people is the voice of God; but, however that may be, what I received from you I can but render up to you. I resign into your hands your pulpit, which you have erected with your money, and hold as your property. I cannot hold it as your vassal. If there is any truth in the old phrase which calls a church a cure of souls, it is certain that no cure of souls can be delegated to a preacher by the souls themselves who are to be his care. I find my old theories inadequate to the position in which I find myself, and all I can do is to give up the post where they have left me in the lurch. I am either your servant, responsible to you, or God’s servant, responsible to Him—which is it? I cannot tell; but no man can serve two masters, as you know. Many of you have been kind to me—chief among all,” said Vincent, turning once round to look in Tozer’s anxious face, “my friend here, who has spared no pains either to make me such a pastor as you wished, or to content me with that place when he had secured it. I cannot be content. It is no longer possible. So there remains nothing but to say goodbye—goodbye!—farewell! I will see you again to say it more formally. I only wish you to understand now that this is the decision I have come to, and that I consider myself no longer the minister of Salem from this night.”
Vincent drew back instantly when he had said these words, but not before half the people on the platform had got up on their feet, and many had risen in the body of the room. The women stretched out their hands to him with gestures of remonstrance and entreaty. “He don’t mean it; he’s not going for to leave us; he’s in a little pet, that’s all,” cried Mrs. Brown, loud out. Phoebe Tozer, forgetting all about the text and the evergreens, had buried her face in her handkerchief and was weeping, not without demonstration of the fact. Tozer himself grasped at the minister’s shoulder, and called out to the astonished assembly that “they weren’t to take no notice. Mr. Vincent would hear reason. They weren’t a-going to let him go, not like this.” The minister had almost to struggle through the group of remonstrant deacons. “You don’t mean it, Mr. Vincent?” said Mrs. Tozer; “only say as it’s a bit o’ temper, and you don’t mean it!” Phoebe, on her part, raised a tear-wet cheek to listen to the pastor’s reply; but the pastor only shook his head, and made no answer to the eager appeals which assailed him. When he had extricated himself from their hands and outcries, he hastened down the tumultuous and narrow passage between the benches, where he would not hear anything that was addressed to him, but passed through with a brief nod to his anxious friends. Just as Vincent reached the door, he perceived, with eyes which excitement had made clearer than usual, that his enemy, Pigeon, had just got to his feet, who shouted out that the pastor had spoken up handsome, and that there wasn’t one in Salem, whatever was their inclination, as did not respect him that day. Though he paid no visible attention to the words, perhaps the submission of his adversary gave a certain satisfaction to the minister’s soul; but he took no notice of this nor anything else, as he hurried out into the silent street, where the lamps were lighted, and the stars shining unobserved overhead. Not less dark than the night were the prospects which lay before him. He did not know what he was to do—could not see a day before him of his new career; but, nevertheless, took his way out of Salem with a sense of freedom, and a thrill of new power and vigour in his heart.
Behind he left a most tumultuous and disorderly meeting. After the first outburst of dismay and sudden popular desire to retain the impossible possession which had thus slid out of their hands—after Tozer’s distressed entreaty that they would all wait and see if Mr. Vincent didn’t hear reason—after Pigeon’s reluctant withdrawal of enmity and burst of admiration, the meeting broke up into knots, and became not one meeting, but a succession of groups, all buzzing in different tones over the great event. Resolutions, however, were proposed and carried all the same. Another deputation was appointed to wait on Mr. Vincent. A proposal was made to raise his “salary,” and a subscription instituted on the spot to present him with a testimonial. When all these things were concluded, nothing remained but to dismiss the assembly, which dispersed not without hopes of a satisfactory conclusion. The deacons remained for a final
