And yet he knew that he could do nothing.Once before there had been something of the kind in Skeaton and he had tried with others to stop it.He had failed utterly; the civic authorities in Skeaton seemed almost to approve of these horrors.He looked at the thing once more and then turned hack towards home.Something must be done...Something must he done...but, as on so many earlier occasions in his life, he could face no clear course of action.
That Saturday evening he tried to change his sermon.He had determined to deliver a very fine address on "Brotherly Love" and then, most fortunately, he had discovered a five-years' old sermon that would, with a little adaptation, exactly fit the situation.
To-night he was sick of his adaptation.The sermon had not been a good one at the first, and now it was a tattered thing of shreds and patches.He tried to add to it some sentences about the approaching "Revival." No sentences would come.What a horrible fortnight it had been! He looked back upon his district visiting, his meetings, his choir-practices with disgust.Something had come in between himself and his people.Perhaps the relationship had never been very real?
Founded on jollity.An eagerness to accept anybody's mood for one's own if only that meant jollity.What had he thought, standing in the puddle that afternoon? That they were all dead, he and his congregation and God, all dead together? He sank into his chair, picked up the Church Times, and fell asleep.
Next morning as he walked into the choir this extraordinary impression that his congregation was dead persisted.As he recited the "Confession" he looked about him.There was Mr.Maxse, and there Miss Purves.Every one was in his and her appointed place; old Colonel Rideout with the purple gills not kneeling because of his gout; young Edward Walter, heir to the sugar factory, not kneeling because he was lazy; sporting Mr.Harper, whose golf handicap was +3, not kneeling because to do so would spoil the crease of his trousers; old Mrs.Dean with her bonnet and bugles, the worst gossip in Skeaton.her eyes raised to heaven; the Quiller girls with their hard red colour and their hard bright eyes; Mr.Fortinum, senior, with his County Council stomach and his J.P.neck; the dear old Miss Fursleis who believed in God and lived accordingly; young Captain Trent, who believed in his moustache and lived accordingly...Oh yes, there they all were--and there, too, were Grace and Maggie kneeling side by side.