He sat through the sermon and heard it not. But some interest revived in him as the appointments were being read. He heard the president say, “It gives me pain to announce the resignation of one who has so long served in the Master’s vineyard, but our dear brother Simpson has decided that he is too old for active work, and has asked to be retired. While we do this with pain and sorrow for the loss—though we do not wholly lose him—of so able a man, we feel that we cannot do better than appoint as his successor in this charge the young man whom you have all seen so brilliantly enter into the ranks of consecrated workers, the Rev. Frederick Brent.”
A murmur of approval went round the assembly, and a few open “amens” broke forth as the unctuous old ecclesiastic sat down. It sounded to the ears of the young preacher like the breaking of waves on a far-off shore; and then the meaning of all that had happened sifted through his benumbed intellect, and he strove to rise. He would refuse to act. He would protest. He would tell them that he did not want to preach. But something held him down. He could not rise. The light went blue and green and purple before him. The church, with its sea of faces, spun round and round; his head fell forward.
“He has fainted,” said someone.
“The excitement has been too much for him.”
“Poor young man, he has been studying too hard, working for this.”
They carried him out and took him home, and one of the elders offered a special prayer for his speedy recovery, and that, being recovered, he might bear his new responsibilities with becoming meekness.
When the young minister came to himself, he was lying on the bed in his own room, and Mrs. Hodges, Eliphalet, and a doctor were bending over him.
“He’s coming round all right now,” said the medical man. “You won’t need me any longer.” And he departed.
“How are you now, Fred?” asked Mrs. Hodges.
The young man closed his eyes again and did not answer. He had awakened to a full realisation of his position, and a dull misery lay at his heart. He wished that he could die then and there, for death seemed the only escape from his bondage. He was bound, irrevocably bound.
“Poor child,” Mrs. Hodges went on, “it was awful tryin’ on his nerves. Joy is worse ’n sorrow, sometimes; an’ then he’d been workin’ so hard. I’d never ’a’ believed he could do it, ef Brother Simpson hadn’t stuck up fur it.”
“She knew it, then,” thought Fred. “It was all planned.”
“I don’t think you’d better talk, Hester,” said her husband, in a low voice. He had seen a spasm pass over the face of the prostrate youth.
“Well, I’ll go out an’ see about the dinner. Some o’ the folks I’ve invited will be comin’ in purty soon, an’ others’ll be droppin’ in to inquire how he is. I do hope he’ll be well enough to come to the table: it won’t seem hardly like an ordination dinner without the principal person. Jes’ set by him, ’Liphalet, an’ give him them drops the doctor left.”
As soon as he heard the door close behind her, Brent opened his eyes and suddenly laid his hand on the old man’s shoulder. “You won’t let anybody see me, Uncle ’Liph? you won’t let them come in here?”
“No, no, my boy, not ef you don’t want ’em,” said the old man.
“I shall have to think it all over before I see anyone. I am not quite clear yet.”
“I ’low it was unexpected.”
“Did you know, Uncle ’Liph?” he asked, fixing his eyes upon his old friend’s face.
“I know’d they was a-plannin’ somethin’, but I never could find out what, or I would have told you.”
A look of relief passed over Brent’s face. Just then Mrs. Hodges opened the door. “Here’s Elizabeth to see him,” she said.
“ ’Sh,” said the old man with great ostentation; and tiptoeing over to the door he partly drew it to, putting his head outside to whisper, “He is too weak; it ain’t best fur him to see nobody now.”
He closed the door and returned to his seat. “It was ’Lizabeth,” he said. “Was I right?”
For answer the patient arose from the bed and walked weakly over to his side.
“Tut, tut, tut, Freddie,” said Eliphalet, hesitating over the name. “You’d better
