: The Supply at Saint Agatha's by Phelps Elizabeth Stuart Smith E Boyd Elmer Boyd Illustrator Woodbury Marcia Oakes Illustrator - Short stories; Clergy Fiction; Churches Fiction

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art in the audience-room was compelled to respond.

The preacher began quietly. He reminded his hearers in a few words of the true nature of the Christian religion, whose interests he was there to represent. One felt that he spoke with tact, and with the kind of dignity belonging to the enthusiast of a great moral movement. It occurred to one, perhaps for the first time, that it was quite manly in a Christian preacher to plead his cause with as much ardor as the reformer, the philanthropist, the politician, or the devotee of a mystical and fashionable cult. One became really interested in the character and aims of the Christian faith; it did not fall below the dignity of a Browning society, or a study in theosophy or hypnotism. The attention of the audience--from the start definitely respectful--became reverent, and thus absorbed.

It was not until he had his hearers thoroughly in his power that the preacher's manner underwent the remarkable change of which Saint Agatha's talks in whispers to this day. He spoke entirely without manuscript or note, and he had not left the lectern. Suddenly folding his hands upon the great Bible, he paused, and, as if the audience had been one man, he looked it in the eye.

Then, like the voice of the living God, his words began to smite them. What was the chancel of Saint Agatha's? The great white throne? And who was he who dared to cry from it, like the command of the Eternal? Sin! Sinners! Shame! Guilt! Disgrace! Punishment! What words were these for the delicate ears of Saint Agatha's? What had these silken ladies and gilded men to do with such ugly phrases? Smiles stiffened upon refined, protesting faces. The haughty under lip of the vestryman's wife, and a hundred others like it, dropped. A moral dismay seized the exclusive people whom the preacher called to account like any vulgar audience. But the shabby woman in the "poor" seats humbly wept, and the young reporter who lost his position cast his eyes upon the ground, for the tears that sprang to them. From the delicate fingers of the vestryman's wife the smelling-salts fell upon the cushioned seat; she held her feathered fan against her face. Her husband did not even notice this. He sat with head bowed upon the rail before him, as a good man does when reconsecrating himself at the communion hour.

The choir rustled uneasily in their seats. The soprano covered her eyes with her well-gloved hand, and thought of the follies and regrets that beset the musical temperament. But the tenor turned his face away, and thought about his wife. Down the avenue, in the room of the "shut-in" woman, where the telephone carried the preacher's voice, a pathetic cry was heard:

"Forgive! Forgive! Oh, if suffering had but made me better!"

But now the preacher's manner of address had changed again. Always remembering that it is now impossible to quote his language with any accuracy, we may venture to say that it ran in some such way as this:

The Son of God, being of the Father, performed his Father's business. What do ye who bear his name? What holy errands are ye about? What miracles of consecration have ye wrought? What marvels of the soul's life have ye achieved upon the earth since he left it to your trust?

He came to the sinful and the unhappy; the despised and rejected were his friends; to the poor he preached the Gospel; the sick, and overlooked, and cast-out, the unloved and forgotten, the unfashionable and unpopular, he selected. These to his church on earth he left in charge. These he cherished. For such he had lived. For them he had suffered. For them he died. People of Saint Agatha's, where are they? What have ye done to his beloved? Thou ancient church, honored and privileged and blessed among men, where are those little ones whom thy Master chose? Up and down these godly aisles a man might look, he said, and see them not. Prosperity and complacency he saw before him; poverty and humility he did not see. In the day when habit cannot reply for duty, what account will ye give of your betrayed trust? Will ye say: "Lord, we had a mission chapel. The curate is responsible for the lower classes. And, Lord, we take up the usual collections; Saint Agatha's has always been called a generous church"?

In the startled hush that met these preposterous words the preacher drew himself to his full height, and raised his hand. He had worn the white gown throughout the day's services, and the garment folded itself about his figure majestically. In the name of Christ, then, he commanded them: Where were those whom their Lord did love? Go, seek them. Go, find the saddest, sickest souls in all the town. Hasten, for the time is short. Search, for the message is of God. Church of Christ, produce his people to me, for I speak no more words before their substitutes!

Thus and there, abruptly, the preacher cast his audience from him, and disappeared from the chancel. The service broke in consternation. The celebrated choir was not called upon to close the morning's worship. The soprano and the tenor exchanged glances of neglected dismay. The prayer-book remained unopened on the sacred desk. The desk itself was empty. The audience was, in fact, authoritatively dismissed--dismissed without a benediction, like some obscure or erring thing that did not deserve it.

The people stared in one another's faces for an astounded moment, and then, without words, with hanging heads, they moved to the open air and melted out of the church.

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