“I have a mandate from the Bishop to withdraw your licences to preach unless you, Mr Starky, stop excluding any of your own parishioners, and Mr Prince leaves Charlinch forthwith.
What do you say to that?”
“But!” pleaded Starky, “But! But does the Bishop not know the strength of Belovéd Brother Prince’s following? The Lampeter Brethren are not a negligible body. If our Belovéd is excommunicated by the Church of England, others too may leave.”
“Bishop Law threatens no one with excommunication. Mr Prince is free to seek more useful work in a different parish, if it is also in a different diocese. Will he do so?”
Henry said gloomily, “Does the Bishop really want Charlinch church to be a place where people once again come for a nap on Sundays?”
“I will not answer that question. I insist on you answering mine — will you leave Charlinch?”
Starky looked appealingly to Prince who said, “Before answering I must consult with The Spirit in prayer.”
“Do so. I will call for the answer tomorrow. Good day.”
Henry sat silent for a long time not responding to Starky’s few, timidly spoken words: “The Church of England, I fear, is governed by very worldly men. . If The Spirit wishes, of course, my family connections can easily place you in another parish. . Or will it command us, Belovéd, to defy the Bishop and leave the Church of England?. . If it does we will surely be able to continue in the rectory for a while because my father built it. . Several Anglicans have left the Church recently by turning Catholic. . Of course the incomes of me, my wife and sister will easily support us all, that is certainly a comfort and yet. . Many Scottish ministers so detest the patronage of landlords that they threaten to break away and found a Free Church. .”
“I must pray for guidance alone, Brother Starky,” said Henry, and went to his room.
The Starkys had never doubted that Henry’s amazingly unruffled composure came from God. He had told them his strange life story: that his mother in God had been a Catholic who taught him to love Jesus from the Bible; that she had persuaded his bodily mother of his priestly vocation; that four years ago she had become Anglican and joined him in holy wedlock before suffering at his side in this then faithless parish. They knew Martha’s death must have disturbed him more deeply than he had shown, and when he joined them in the drawing room later his air of wild distraction frightened them.
“My brother and sisters in Christ! O how I need your help,” he cried, weeping, “Is it possible that I am the most selfish, the most deluded of men? Can Satan — not the Holy Spirit — have led me into troubling this peaceful English parish? Has my inordinate pride deluded me and you and half a respectable Christian congregation? O say it is not so! Or else say, say, say that it is!”
He knelt down and raised clasped hands looking from Starky to the women and back. They clustered round him with soothing sounds from the women soon silenced by Starky’s ringing words: “Do not torment yourself, Belovéd! It is now my turn to reprove your lack of faith. By their fruits ye shall know them, declare the Scriptures. How can the fruits you have borne through the Lampeter Brethren and through me be Satan’s work? Satan cannot bring infidels to God, or heal the sick, or make active, experimental Christians out of worldly, formal ones. Remember that you are a Branch of the Tree of Life — that man called Branch whose fruit gives eternal life. Has the death of your belovéd Martha made you doubt your divine vocation? But she loved you and had faith in you, a faith you must not betray. Please get up.”
“I want to believe you dear, dear Sam,” sobbed Henry, still kneeling, “But The Spirit has commanded something so unexpected and strange — so outrageous to what worldly people think right — that I fear it cannot be obeyed.”
His listeners stared at each other, bewildered. Starky said, “The Spirit is surely not asking you to commit a crime!”
“Not a crime, no. What it commands breaks no human law and it is surely not sinful in the eyes of God.”
“Then who will it harm?”
“None, but a great many will be shocked.”
“If what the Spirit commands is not sinful, the Spirit must be obeyed,” said Starky, “What does it command?”
In a strangely timid voice Henry asked the women, “Do you agree with Brother Samuel?”
They agreed vehemently. Henry whispered, “Julia, the Spirit commands me to marry you.”
Julia’s mouth fell open. For several seconds, as the others gazed, the blood left her cheeks very pale, then returned in a blush that spread to her throat, ears and forehead. At last she nodded and said, “Since the Spirit commands us, yes, Henry. Yes my belovéd Henry. Yes, my belovéd Prince.”
He sighed deeply, said, “You have removed a great burden from me,” stood up and began drying his face with a handkerchief. Mrs Starky said faintly, “But I suppose the wedding need not take place very soon? Need it? There will be the usual year or so of mourning before it is solemnised.”
Henry said, “Dear sister — dear all of you, I am tired. The Spirit has wrought mightily in a feeble body. For the past week I have hardly slept. Tomorrow morning we will talk of what should be done in light of the Bishop’s mandate. It may be, indirectly, a message from God who requires me — having planted the seed of The Word in Charlinch — to sow it elsewhere. But now I must rest.”
He was about to leave but something in Julia’s face made him pause and raise her right hand to his mouth by the fingertips. He touched the back of it very slightly with his lips then said, “You realize that our marriage will not be of the flesh, but pure, and of The Spirit?”
Julia, blushing again, murmured, “Yes — O yes.” He went to bed.
25: STOKE, BRIGHTON, WEYMOUTH
Henry and Julia’s wedding very soon after Martha’s death shocked or amazed many and amused some (though Sam Starky conducted it). The couple bore these reactions meekly as they had married for the glory of God, not for earthly profit. One of Starky’s relations gave Henry the parish of Stoke in Suffolk, where his Father in God was Dr Allen of Ely, a bishop friendlier than Law of Bath and Wells toward a new breed of evangelical clergy. Meanwhile Starky remained rector of Charlinch and obtained as his new curate George Thomas, one of the early Lampeter Brethren.
Two years later Henry, with Julia’s support, had raised such a storm of annoyance in Stoke that Dr Allen summoned Henry to the episcopal palace and said, “What are we to do with you, Mr Prince?”
“Who does Your Lordship signify when he says we?”, murmured Henry.
“By we I signify the Church of England by Law Established, the Church you have studied to join, and which has made me your unhappy Father in God.”
He sighed. Henry waited. Dr Allen pointed to a desk saying, “That heap of letters contains more complaints than I can properly answer. Once again you are promoting domestic and social strife.” “May I remind Your Lordship of Christ’s own words? He said Think not that I come to send peace on earth: I come not to send peace; but a — ”
“Yes yes! May I remind you of Shakespeare’s words? The devil may cite the scriptures to his advantage.”
“Is it devilish of me to prefer the words of Christ to Shakespeare’s, Your Lordship?”
“No, but I assure you Christ’s words nowhere entitle a priest to exclude Christians from his services.”
“A Christian, Your Lordship, is someone who does more than chant words in unison. Services are a senseless mockery if not performed by hearts experiencing new birth through The Spirit, after which, says Jesus, the wheat must be divided from the chaff, the sheep from the goats.”