“What work can it be?”
“You are my rector,” said Prince gently.
“But I have not conducted half a dozen services since I was ordained. This living is mine because my father had it. I fear I have been a poor, woefully formal Christian.”
“Christ loves the poor in spirit, brother Starky, and did not a certain prayer convince you of His power?”
“Yes! I believe your prayer cured me in body and soul. Before it, the slightest unexpected chill induced pulmonary qualms, fever and coughing that kept me in bed for weeks at a time. You have made a new man of me. . ”
“Not I,” said Henry. “The Spirit through me gave you a new and cleaner birth.”
“And you say it has work for us here?”
“The Spirit has work in Charlinch for us both,” said Henry, with total certainty.
24: THE GROWTH OF THE SPIRIT
Next Sunday the young rector’s return to his parish ensured a large church attendance. The rectory pew that had stood empty since Martha left held that morning Mrs Starky and Julia. Henry James Prince sat before the pulpit at a desk formerly used by a parish clerk who had announced hymns, psalms and led the singing. As usual Henry wore the black Doctor of Divinity gown with white neckbands, worn throughout the eighteenth century and still favoured at Lampeter; but Oxford divines were making Roman vestments fashionable again so Starky, though Cambridge educated, emerged from the vestry dressed as his congregation had never before seen, in a flowing white surplice over a dark ankle-length cassock, both of which suited his tall, fine figure and statuesque head. He chanted prayers and led responses in tones as gentlemanly as Prince had used but more monotonous. Unlike Prince he preached his sermon from notes, sometimes pausing to look down at the pew where his wife and sister gazed back with ardent, approving smiles and the desk where Henry sat staring hard at the floor between his boots. Before the final blessing he announced, “Our dearly belovéd brother in Christ, Henry James Prince, will on Tuesday evening hold his usual Bible study group in the rectory and on Friday evening his usual prayer meeting. I cannot too strongly exhort all who care for the welfare of their souls to attend these meetings.”
Walking back to the rectory Starky said gloomily, “The service went well on the whole, but I am a poor preacher.”
“You should not have used notes,” said Henry mildly.
“I could not have spoken without them — I would have dried up.”
“Spiritual dryness is a condition the Spirit recognizes. Such dryness invites the Spirit to water it. Preaching from notes shuts the Spirit out.”
“You really think so?”
“I really do.”
“Henry may be right about that, Sam,” said Julia, “I think I see what he means.”
“Please Henry,” Starky pled, “let me use notes again at the evening service — I would fear to enter the pulpit without that prop.”
“You must do as you will, my dear brother Starky,” said Henry sadly. At the evening service Starky preached very haltingly, but the Tuesday evening study group was joined by a milkmaid, a road mender and a farmer who, with the three Starkys, trebled Henry’s audience and the fervour of its mood. The farmer was the one who had refused to threaten the stiff-necked labourer with dismissal. He said, “I was wrong not to do as you bid sir. I see I was wrong, but it’s too late now for me to do right. Brackley’s daughters are dead and gone to Hell I suppose. He is mainly to blame but I too am damnable, I suppose. I should have tried to make a way for you, and I did not.”
“But you are contrite!. That is a blesséd thing, it means you are at last on the right path. You make me very happy,” said Henry, warmly shaking his hand.
At the next Sunday morning service Starky announced the text for his sermon, stood chewing his lower lip for a while then said unhappily, “I confess to all here that I, Samuel Starky, am a sinner like yourselves, of the Earth, earthly. In this church you should hear nothing speak but God’s Holy Spirit. Alas, alas, Sam Starky’s words are not fit for your ears so I will now pray silently that the Holy Spirit descend and use my voice as its instrument. I know at least nine souls who will also pray for that, and I humbly beg the rest of you to pray for that also.” He clasped hands and closed eyes. Those in the rectory pew and six others in the church did the same. A majority looked at each other in perplexity and as minutes passed started whispering in voices that grew to a conversational hum. At last Starky opened his eyes and said brokenly, “The Holy Ghost has not accepted my petition. I will petition Him again at the evening service.”
After removing their robes in the vestry Starky and Prince joined Mrs Starky and Julia and then went outside through a loudly gossiping throng, some puzzled, some amused. Most fell silent as the rector and his company emerged leaving the voice of an old man with his back to them declaiming, “Boy and man I have happily slept through a parcel of sermons so I don’t like this dumb parson who why is you nudgin’ me?. . Ah.”
On entering the rectory Starky said, “O please, Brother Henry, please conduct the evening service! I am not able, indeed I am not.”
“Dear Brother Starky, I will not conduct the evening service because your inability to preach is more effective than anything I could say.”
“Impossible!”
“Not impossible — certain. Before you returned here my sermons were heard without unease and without murmuring. I spoke to them honestly, but The Spirit did not dictate my words as it does when I speak to willing ears. I should have publicly awaited The Spirit’s coming as you are doing, but now your silence in the pulpit is more effective than mine will ever be.” “And tonight, Sam, you may have better luck,” said Mrs Starky. “O no dear! Luck is a pagan deity!” said Julia, “We must continue to invoke God’s help through prayer.”
She looked to Henry who rewarded her with a smile and nod.
The evening service passed like the morning one, except that Starky’s distress was greater. But attendance at Prince’s Bible study group rose from nine (counting the Starkys) to seventeen, and nineteen attended the Friday prayer meeting. At the next Sunday service Starky, having announced the sermon’s text, sobbed aloud then begged concerned Christians to follow him across to the rectory and help him pray that he receive the power of the Holy Spirit. Over thirty of the congregation followed him there while Henry conducted the traditional service, minus sermon, to just before the final blessing, then paused and waited. Soon after Starky and his followers rejoined the congregation and Starky, in a stoical, monotonous voice, brought the service to the traditional end. “How brave you were dear,” said Mrs Starky as they returned to the rectory.
“Heroic! That is the word,” said Julia.
“The Lord chastens who He loveth,” said Henry calmly, “He is chastening you, Sam! Be assured, dear Brother Samuel, that The Spirit cannot desert one as humbled as you have become. It is biding its time, which must now be very, very near.”
A miserable smile was Starky’s only reply.
Next Sunday the congregation was swelled by an influx of curious visitors from neighbouring parishes. Some were dissenters who had heard that a Church of England rector was about to turn Methodist, Baptist or Quaker, others wanted to enjoy the antics of a mad parson. In the morning service Starky’s plea for the Holy Spirit to descend on him was a despairing yell answered from the back of the church by jeers, laughter and clapping, along with many indignant shushing sounds from elsewhere.