One of the reasons for not wishing to offend the Rev. Mr. Simpson of which Brent wrote was, as may be readily inferred, his engagement to Elizabeth. It had not yet officially become public property, but few of Dexter’s observant and forecasting people who saw them together doubted for a moment that it would be a match. Indeed, some spiteful people in the community, who looked on from the outside, said that “Mr. Simpson never thought of resigning until he saw that he could keep the place in the family.” But of course they were Baptists who said this, or Episcopalians, or Presbyterians—some such unregenerate lot.
Contrary to the adage, the course of love between the young people did run smooth. The young minister had not disagreed with the older one, so Elizabeth had not disagreed with him, because she did not have to take sides. She was active in the Sunday-school and among the young people’s societies, and Brent thought that she would make an ideal minister’s wife. Every Sunday, after church, they walked home together, and sometimes he would stop at the house for a meal. They had agreed that at the end of his first pastoral year they would be married; and both parent and guardian smiled on the prospective union.
As his beloved young friend seemed to grow more settled and contented, Eliphalet Hodges waxed more buoyant in the joy of his hale old age, and his wife, all her ambitions satisfied, grew more primly genial every day.
Brent found his congregation increasing, and heard himself spoken of as a popular preacher. Under these circumstances, it would seem that there was nothing to be desired to make him happy. But he was not so, though he kept an unruffled countenance. He felt the repression that his position put upon him. He prayed that with time it might pass off, but this prayer was not answered. There were times when, within his secret closet, the contemplation of the dead level of his life, as it spread out before him, drove him almost to madness.
The bitterness in his heart against his father had not abated one jot, and whenever these spasms of discontent would seize him he was wont to tell himself, “I am fighting old Tom Brent now, and I must conquer him.”
Thus nearly a year passed away, and he was beginning to think of asking Elizabeth to name the day. He had his eye upon a pretty little nest of a house, sufficiently remote from her father’s, and he was looking forward to settling quietly down in a home of his own.
It was about this time that, as he sat alone one evening in the little chamber which was his study and bedroom in one, Mr. Simpson entered and opened conversation with him.
For some time a rumour which did violence to the good name of Sophy Davis had been filtering through the community. But it had only filtered, until the girl’s disappearance a day or two before had allowed the gossips to talk openly, and great was the talk. The young minister had looked on and listened in silence. He had always known and liked Sophy, and if what the gossips said of her was true, he pitied the girl.
On this particular evening it was plain that Mr. Simpson had come to talk about the affair. After some preliminary remarks, he said, “You have a great chance, dear Brother Brent, for giving the devil in this particular part of the moral vineyard a hard blow.”
“I don’t clearly see why now, more than before,” returned Brent.
“Because you are furnished with a living example of the fruits of evil: don’t you see?”
“If there is such an example furnished, the people will see it for themselves, and I should be doing a thankless task to point it out to them. I would rather show people the beauty of good than the ugliness of evil.”
“Yes, that’s the milk-and-water new style of preaching.”
“Well, we all have our opinions, to be sure, but I think it rather a good style.” Brent was provokingly nonchalant, and his attitude irritated the elder man.
“We won’t discuss that: we will be practical. I came to advise you to hold Sophy Davis up in church next Sunday as a fearful example of evildoing. You needn’t mention any names, but you can make it strong and plain enough.”
Brent flushed angrily. “Are there not enough texts in here,” he asked, laying his hand upon the Bible, “that I can cite and apply, without holding up a poor weak mortal to the curiosity, scorn, and derision of her equally weak fellows?”
“But it is your duty as a Christian and a preacher of the gospel to use this warning.”
“I do not need to kick a falling girl to find examples to warn people from sin; and as for duty, I think that each man best knows his own.”
“Then you aren’t going to do it?”
“No,” the young man burst forth. “I am a preacher of the gospel, not a clerical gossip!”
“Do you mean that I am a gossip?”
“I was not thinking of you.”
“Let me preach for you, Sunday.”
“I will not do that either. I will not let my pulpit be debased by anything which I consider so low as this business.”
“You will not take advice, then?”
“Not such as that.”
“Be careful, Frederick Brent. I gave you that pulpit, and I can take it away—I that know who you are and what you come from.”
“The whole town knows what you know, so I do not care for that. As for taking my pulpit from me, you may do that when you please. You put it upon me by force, and by force you may take it; but while I am pastor there I shall use my discretion in all matters of this kind.”
“Sophy’s been mighty quiet in her devilment. She doesn’t accuse anybody. Maybe you’ve got more than one reason for shielding her.”
Brent looked into the man’s eyes and read his meaning;
