The Imperialist by Sara Jeannette Duncan

events in the annals of Judah and of Israel were astounding. Yet he kept a sharp eye upon the daily paper, and his reference to current events would often give his listeners an audacious sense of up-to-dateness which might have been easily discounted by the argument they illustrated. The survivors of a convulsion of nature, for instance, might have learned from his lips the cause and kind of their disaster traced back forcibly to local acquiescence in iniquity, and drawn unflinchingly from the text, “Vengeance is mine; Iwill repay, saith the Lord.” The militant history of his Church was a passion with him; if ever he had to countenance canonization he would have led off with Jenny Geddes. “A tremendous Presbyterian” they called him in the town. To hear him give out a single psalm, and sing it with his people, would convince anybody of that. There was a choir, of course, but to the front pews, at all events, Dr. Drummond’s leading was more important than the choir’s. It was a note of dauntless vigour, and it was plain by the regular forward jerk of his surpliced shoulder that his foot was keeping time:
    “Where the
assemblies
of the just
        And congre
ga
tions are.”
    You could not help admiring, and you could not help respecting; you were compelled by his natural force and his unqualified conviction, his tireless energy and his sterling sort.
    It is possible to understand, however, that after sitting for twenty-five years under direction so unfailing and so uncompromising, the congregation of Knox Church might turn with a moderate curiosity to the spiritual indications of the Reverend Hugh Finlay. He was a passionate romantic, and his body had shot up into a fitting temple for such an inhabitant as his soul. He was a great long fellow, with a shock of black hair and deep dreams in his eyes; his head was what people called a type, a type I suppose of the simple motive and the noble intention, the detached point of view and the somewhat indifferent attitude to material things, as it may be humanly featured anywhere. His face bore a confusion of ideals; he had the brow of a Covenanter and the mouth of Adonais, the flame of religious ardour in his eyes and the composure of perceived philosophy on his lips. He was fettered byan impenetrable shyness; it was in the pulpit alone that he could expand, and then only upon written lines, with hardly a gesture, and the most perfunctory glances, at conscientious intervals, towards his hearers. A poor creature, indeed, in this respect, Dr. Drummond thought him – Dr. Drummond, who wore an untrammelled surplice which filled like an agitated sail in his quick tacks from right to left. “The man loses half his points,” said Dr. Drummond. I doubt whether he did, people followed so closely, though Sandy MacQuhot was of the general opinion when he said that it would do nobody any harm if Mr. Finlay would lift his head oftener from the book.
    Advena Murchison thought him the probable antitype of an Oxford don. She had never seen an Oxford don, but Mr. Finlay wore the characteristics these schoolmen were dressed in by novelists; and Advena noted with delight the ingenuity of fate in casting such a person into the pulpit of the Presbyterian Church in a young country. She had her perception of comedy in life; till Finlay came she had found nothing so interesting. With his arrival, however, other preoccupations fell into their proper places.
    Finlay, indeed, it may be confessed at once, he, and not his message, was her engrossment from the beginning. The message she took with reverent gentleness; but her passionate interest was for the nature upon which it travelled, and never for the briefest instant did she confuse these emotions. Those who write, we are told, transcribe themselves in spite of themselves; it is more true of those who preach, for they are also candid by profession, and when they are not there is the eye and the voice to help to betray them. Hugh Finlay,