England -- Fiction; Imaginary wars and battles -- Fiction
The Canadian preachers spent only one day in many of the places they
visited. But in large centres they stayed longer, because, after the
first week of the pilgrimage, the attendances at their meetings became
unmanageably large, owing to the arrangements made by railway companies,
who ran special trains to tap the outlying parts of every district
visited. Advance agents--a hard-working band, many of whom were
well-to-do volunteers--prepared the way in every detail for the progress
of both the Canadians and ourselves, and local residents placed every
possible facility at our disposal.
Never in the history of religious revivals in England has anything been
known to equal the whole-souled enthusiasm with which the new evangel of
Duty was welcomed as the basis of our twentieth-century national life.
The facts that the Canadian preachers were rarely seen apart, and that
the teaching of each was identical with that of the other, combined with
the general knowledge that one represented the Church of England and
the other a great Nonconformist body; these things divested the
pilgrimage of any suggestion of denominationalism, and lent it the same
urgent strength of appeal for members of all sects, and members of none.
This seems natural enough to us now, ours being a Christian country. But
it was regarded then as a wonderful testimony to the virtue of the new
teaching, because at that time sectarian differences, animosities even,
were very clearly marked, and led far more naturally to opposition and
hostility between the representatives of different denominations than to
anything approaching united effort in a common cause.
It was during the day we spent in York that chance led to my witnessing
an incident which greatly affected me. My relations with my chief, John
Crondall, were not such as to call for the observance of much ceremony
between us. Accordingly, it was with no thought of interference with his
privacy that I blundered into my chief's sitting-room to announce the
number of new members we had enrolled after the meeting. John Crondall
was standing on the hearth-rug, his right hand was resting on Constance
Grey's shoulder, his lips were touching her forehead.
For an instant I thought of retreat. But the thing seemed too clumsy.
Accordingly, having turned to close the door, with deliberation, I
advanced into the room with some awkward remark about having thought my
chief was alone, and produced my figures of the enrolment of new
members. After a few moments Constance left us, referring to some errand
she had in view. I did not look at her, and John Crondall plunged at
once into working talk. As for me, I was acutely conscious that I had
seen Crondall kiss Constance; but my chief made no sign to show me
whether or not he was aware that I had seen this.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account