The First Soprano by Mary Hitchcock
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Mary Hitchcock >> The First Soprano
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12 THE FIRST SOPRANO
by
MARY HITCHCOCK
Author of _One Christmas_
Union Gospel Press
Cleveland, Ohio
1912
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I IN THE CHURCH
II THE HOUSE OF GRAY
III THE CONFESSION
IV ADELE
V IS GOD DEMONSTRABLE?
VI MR. FROTHINGHAM AND THE CHOIR REHEARSAL
VII A NEW SUNDAY
VIII "NOT OF THE WORLD"
IX "TWO OF ME"
X THE CHURCH SOCIAL
XI MR. BOND'S LECTURE
XII THE SOUL HEARS A CAUSE
XIII EXPERIENCE
XIV A "WITLESS, WORTHLESS LAMB"
XV "SELL THAT YE HAVE"
XVI THE MISSIONARY MEETING
XVII LET THE DEAD BURY THEIR DEAD
XVIII GOD, MY EXCEEDING JOY
CHAPTER I
IN THE CHURCH
It was Sunday morning in a church at New Laodicea. The bell had ceased
pealing and the great organ began its prelude with deep bass notes that
vibrated through the stately building. The members of the choir were
all in their places in the rear gallery, and prepared in order their
music in the racks before them. Below the worshipers poured in steady,
quiet streams down the carpeted aisles to their places, and there was a
gentle murmur of silk as ladies settled in their pews and bowed their
heads for the conventional moment of prayer. Exquisitely stained
windows challenged the too garish daylight, but permitted to enter
subdued rays in azure, violet and crimson tints which fell athwart the
eastern pews and garnished the marble font and the finely carved
pulpit. They fell upon the silvering hair of the Reverend Doctor
Schoolman as he pronounced the invocation and read the opening hymn,
but they failed to reach the young stranger, seated behind, who
accompanied him this morning.
Faultlessly in their usual current ran the services until the time for
the anthem by the choir, and then the people settled themselves
comfortably in their pews with expectant faces and ears slightly turned
to catch every strain from the well-trained voices in the gallery
behind. This time the selection was from Mendelssohn and a soprano
voice began alone:
"Oh, for the wings, for the wings of a dove!
Far away, far away would I rove!"
Clear, pure and true, the sweet voice floated through the church. With
dramatic sympathy it yielded to the spirit of the melody and the pathos
of the words. It touched hearts with a sense of undefined sorrow and
longing. Madame Chapeau, the French milliner, who rented a sitting in
the church of her patrons, sat with eyes filled with tears that
threatened to plough pale furrows through the roses of her cheeks.
"In the wilderness build me a nest,"
suggested the sweet voice. Two weeks in a lonely country place had
been far too long the summer before for Madame, and a wilderness was
the last place she desired. But the plaintive song touched a
sentimental chord and answered every purpose. Mr. Stockman, who sat
midway of the center aisle, grasping his gold-headed cane, suffered the
keen business lines of his face to relax and looked palpably pleased.
He recalled the money contributed to the expense of the choir, and
reflected that he would not withdraw a dollar of it. To be sure, he
remembered that the services of this soprano, daughter of Robert Gray,
the iron merchant and elder of the church, were gratuitous; but still
he was glad to associate the thought of his money with the choir that
could render such music. And presently the chorus joined in the song,
and many voices added their harmony, to the increasing passion of the
cry:
"In the wilderness build me a nest,
And remain there forever at rest!"
Sensitive souls thrilled to the music, which unquestionably always
added the capstone to the aesthetic enjoyment of this, the most elegant
church at New Laodicea. The minister sat with a studied expression of
approbation and subdued enjoyment. The young stranger at his side sat
with eyes shaded by his hand.
The choir seated themselves with pleased relief, for there had been no
noticeable flaw in the production. The leader's sensitive face looked
as nearly satisfied as it ever became over any performance. The
organist slid off his bench and dropped into his chair to listen to the
sermon--or, perhaps not to listen. But he had done his part well,
faithfully filling in all the interstices of time between numbers of
the program, so that the congregation had been bored by no moments of
silence nor thrust back upon the necessity of meditation.
There were a few words of introduction, and it was found that the
stranger was to speak. He was just a trifle surprising in appearance,
for his coat had no ministerial cut, and was even a bit more suggestive
of business than of the profession of divinity. But he was soon
forgiven this; for his voice was even and pleasant, and he looked at
his congregation with a pair of frank blue eyes, while he spoke with
the simplicity of a man who has somewhat to say to his fellowmen and
says it honestly. His text excited no curiosity, for it was this:
"_The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship
the Father in spirit and in truth_."
In the choir Miss Winifred Gray had composed herself to listen.
Fortunately she was at the rear of her admiring hearers and had not to
confront their faces as she sat down. She had enjoyed her part
exceedingly. She loved her music, and the greater its pathos the
keener her enjoyment in rendering it. There was a subtle sense of
power, too, which she did not analyze, in moving a whole congregation
to admiration and sympathy. With her whole heart she had entered into
her musical work, in which the church divided attention with the
drawing-room and an occasional concert. She sat now in pleased triumph
and had no ears for the opening words of the young man's sermon. But
it dawned upon her gradually that he was speaking from the words, "in
spirit and in truth." He spoke of the former worship which dealt with
externals of place and method--with "carnal ordinances imposed until a
time of reformation"; and then of a new era of worship which Christ had
brought in, wherein true worshipers draw nigh to God, not with sensuous
offerings, but "in spirit and in truth."
Winifred could not follow all that he said, for it seemed a new and
strange language for the most part, but she gathered this: that somehow
Christ had opened the way for all believers into the very spiritual
presence of God, into a holy place not made with hands (and the more
real because it was not, being God-made and eternal), and that there
worshipers stood before eyes of perfect discernment, unclothed by
outward semblance, and offered "spiritual sacrifices" unto Him. It was
a beautiful picture, but awful. Winifred shuddered as she thought of
the august Presence that inhabited the Holiest of All that the minister
spoke of, and wondered if she would dare approach it. To stand in
naked spirit before eyes of flame and to be read through and through,
daring to speak no unmeant word, but only that which the heart
designed, in absolute sincerity! Was worship in spirit such a real
thing as that? Was she a true worshiper? Why was she there that
morning? She glanced about the building, with its arches and columns,
its stained windows, and almost perfect arrangement of form and color.
But the minister was saying:
"This material structure is not the house of God. No longer is God
localized to our faith as in the days of symbol and shadow, when surely
Jerusalem was 'the place where men ought to worship.' For the symbol
has given place to the 'truth,' and in that, 'in spirit,' men worship.
But while in every place, or, better still, without reference to
place--'neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem'--true worshipers
shall find Him, still His spiritual people form a temple for His
manifestation, wherever they are gathered, and there is He. 'In the
midst' He takes His rightful place, and that place we must accord
Him--the center of our heart's attention and worship."
Winifred resumed her question. Why had she come? Was it to meet that
One, to gaze in spirit upon His pierced hands and side, as the minister
was saying, and to rejoice in Him as the risen Lord? She did not quite
know what he meant. She went back over the morning's experience,
beginning with her dressing-room, when before her mirror she donned her
new and very pretty silk dress and arranged all her faultless toilet,
adjusting the modish hat that became so well her own type of beauty,
fitted on the fresh, dainty gloves that should clasp her beloved music
when she should open her throat and sing like a glad bird, delighting
in its song, however plaintive. And then she had gone. Had she
thought of Him in all this? Winifred's honest soul said, No. But
church? She had thought of "church," with all that it stood for of
building, and congregation, and set order of things, and there had been
a sort of subconscious satisfaction in the fact that going to church
was a religious thing to do, and that to sing in the choir (especially
for no pay, as she did) was very meritorious. But was it so?
The minister was saying:
"If worship is not sincere, it becomes, spiritually, an abomination.
If, for instance, our singing, instead of being a true sacrifice of
praise to God degenerates into the sensuous enjoyment of a 'concourse
of sweet sounds,' it is no longer worship, and it is not even an
innocent employment. However fine it may be as a musical
entertainment, if offered as a _substitute for worship_ it may be
likened to the offering of 'strange fire,' which met such instant
judgment in the time of Moses."
Winifred winced under the clear, bold words. There was a little
well-bred stir in the congregation. Doctor Schoolman's disciplined
countenance betrayed a startled moment and then relapsed into an
expression of bland, but non-committal interest. Winifred glanced
about to see how her neighbors were taking it. She looked first at
George Frothingham, for he and she were unusually good friends. His
handsome face showed only abstraction, and she knew he had not heard a
word that was said. She glanced warily back toward the organ and saw
the player in his chair, but he was indulging in a few winks of sleep.
His duties at the theater the night before had illy prepared him for
very wakeful attention to the sermon, and other influences were telling
upon him, too, for the man of music knew the taste of wines. The
leader of the choir was listening. His penetrating eyes were fixed
upon the calm-faced man in the pulpit, and an unconscious scowl bent
his dark brows. Yet it was not an angry frown, but simply intent. He
looked half defensive, half convicted.
The minister went on:
"I fear that this is an unusual way of looking at it, and that we are
all too accustomed to pass unchallenged our professed worship. Vice
may be so habitual and under such common sanction as to be mistaken for
virtue. But surely in the most vital matter of our intercourse with
God we do well to let every act be tested by the truth. It shall be so
tested eventually, whether we will or no; and even now in the midst of
the churches the Son of Man is walking, still with eyes of flame, and
still He is saying: 'I know thy works.'"
Winifred's next excursion in thought away from the sermon led her to
review her part of the morning program, and she wondered if the
minister thought of it too. The hymns?--she had forgotten what they
were. But the anthem--was it unto the Lord she sang her part? Was
there an atom of sincerity in the sentiment she sang? The words were
from a Psalm, she thought, and she did not really understand what David
meant. Had she any clearer ideas as to what Winifred Gray might mean?
She surely did not wish the wings of a dove, literally, nor to fly away
into the wilderness. She loved her home and many friends and had no
desire to escape from them or her surroundings. If it meant to fly
away to heaven--? Surely she did not wish that! The world and "the
things that are in the world" were very attractive to the young
soprano. She had no wish for heaven save as an alternative from hell.
What did it mean? Was it a heart-rest that David longed for? But she
had been conscious of no unrest--until just now. Honestly, the truth
was that she had not meant anything! Was it worship? But her friends
would tell her she sang it with feeling, she argued defensively, and
then asked herself candidly, what sort of feeling? She had sung
Mignon's song with equal sympathy the night before. She confessed the
truth; it was dramatic instinct that led her in both songs, and the
Spirit of God in neither.
"I am a hypocrite," she cried within herself, "and no true worshiper!"
Then she thought of the positive side of her action. While there was
no offering to God, she had received in her own heart the subtle
incense of the people's praise. Enveloped in its cloud she had sat
until the sermon disturbed her. She wished the young stranger had not
come to preach. Doctor Schoolman's sermons were nice, and learned, and
elevating, and never gave her such uncomfortable thoughts! Had he
preached this morning all might have gone on as before so pleasantly.
And now?--should it not go on? Could she think for a moment of
stopping it all? Impossible! But to go on with it was--"abomination!"
That was what the preacher said. Perhaps he was wrong, or she
misunderstood. Doctor Schoolman would know. But what said her own
conscience? After all, she knew the battle must be fought out there.
Was it not sin to take sacred words on her lips and not mean them? How
many times had she taken God's name in vain, pouring out pretended
invocation to Him, while her heart addressed only the congregation for
their approval! But it had been so thoughtless! He would surely
forgive. But now she had thought about it, and it could never be the
same again.
By this time Winifred was thoroughly miserable. She pondered over and
again what she should do, at times in imagination resigning her
position in the choir; then saying:
"Impossible! It is absurd! Who ever heard of its being wicked to sing
in the choir? How could I explain myself?"
Then she reflected that she would study to be earnest, that she would
school herself to think of Him and sing to Him. She took her hymn-book
and found the place of the last hymn, resolved to put sincerity in
practice at once. It was chosen, without reference to the unexpected
sermon, and was the well-known psalm of love and longing which earnest
souls have sung for many years:
"For thee, O dear, dear country,
Mine eyes their vigils keep;
For very love, beholding
Thy happy name they weep.
The mention of Thy glory
Is unction to the breast,
And medicine in sickness,
And love, and life, and rest."
"I cannot sing it!" Winifred almost sobbed to herself. "It is not
true--to me."
Then she read on. Before, she would have been carried away with the
rhythm and the graceful thought. But now as she read:
"Oh, sweet and blessed country That eager hearts expect!"
"It's not true--it's not true!" she thought. "I cannot sing these
songs. I know nothing of their sentiment. I am not a true worshiper
of the Father. I do not believe I know Him!"
Then Winifred covered her eyes with her hand. "'Thou desirest truth in
the inward parts,'" the preacher was quoting.
The words sent a pang through her heart. "God has found no truth in
me," she thought, "I have been a lie."
Then she sat in wretchedness, fighting back the tears that struggled to
escape--tears of shame, remorse, wounded self-love, and grief that her
favorite idol, a god whom she did know and had served well, was to be
taken down from its niche in the house of the Lord and cast out. She
heard little of the remainder of the sermon, and what she heard added
to her misery; for it told of the joy of true worshipers when at last
they should stand face to face with Him whom, having not seen, they
love,--
"All rapture through and through
In God's most holy sight."
The sense of isolation, of exclusion from it all, was very painful; and
Winifred did not know that this very knowledge of exclusion, and its
grief, were harbingers of eternally better things. She stood with the
others as they sang the closing hymn, and her own silence was
unobserved, as she did not always join the chorus. She had recovered
her composure by the time the benediction was pronounced and the organ
was yielding an unusually lively postlude to whose strains she and
George Frothingham descended the stairs together.
"The old chap is almost waltzing us out to-day," that gentleman
remarked, referring to the organist. "Winifred, you outdid yourself
to-day on that lovely thing."
Winifred smiled faintly. "Did you hear the sermon to-day, George?" she
asked.
"Did I hear it? Well, that's good. Do I hear sermons when I go to
church? But I confess to a little absentmindedness; not to equal that
of our friend at the organ, however," and George laughed. Then he
caught sight of a group of people in the vestibule below and exclaimed:
"Hello! There's your father and the preacher! I believe he is going
to take him home to dinner. Don't look for me under your hospitable
roof to-day, Winifred."
"Why?" she began.
"I have no taste for parsons. He'll talk the backs off the chairs.
See if he doesn't. Good-by." And the young man strode carelessly away.
Winifred joined her mother in the vestibule, and they held a whispered
consultation as to the probabilities of the young minister's going home
with them. It seemed evident that Mr. Gray had taken him captive.
"Take him in the carriage and let me walk, mother," Winifred said, "I
would much rather." So she slipped away and did not meet the minister
until dinner.
Hubert Gray, Winifred's only brother, had also been at church that
morning. This was somewhat unusual, for Hubert was a sceptic, and he
did not like to appear what he was not. But occasionally he went to
hear what might be said and turn it over in his questioning brain. He
was a young man of strong aversions, and one of his special dislikes
happened to be the unfortunate Doctor Schoolman.
"I hate cant," he declared. "His very tones are studied and unnatural.
His voice quavers to order, and if I should see tears on his face I
should think he had pumped them up someway for effect. I don't like to
be practiced on. I should like a man to believe something earnestly
and say it honestly."
And so he stayed away for the most part, but like many a man who is a
sceptic, found that the subject of the Christ would not down, and he
could not let it alone. So after absences he would go again to hear,
though it should be only to gain fresh occasion for his doubts or
cynical criticisms. To-day he was the first to arrive at home and met
Winifred in the hall as she came in.
"The spiritual priesthood did very well to-day, Winnie," he said, by
way of greeting. "I hope you all sang 'with grace in your hearts unto
the Lord.' I am sure Frothingham did. I saw him--eh, Winnie, what's
the matter?"
For Winifred had turned a quivering face toward her brother.
"I didn't, Hubert," she said. "There was no grace in my heart." And
then she hastened up the stairs to her room.
"Hm-m!" said Hubert reflectively, and repeated the observation at
intervals until dinner was served.
CHAPTER II
THE HOUSE OF GRAY
The family gathered for dinner with its usual decorum. Winifred sat
opposite the young minister, and Hubert was beside him. Mr. Robert
Gray carved the turkey with his usual skill and the sharpest of knives.
He began his anticipated discussion with the preacher:
"Your sermon fitted pretty closely to-day, Mr. Bond," he said, as he
separated a joint successfully.
"Did it really?" said Mr. Bond, with a smile that lit up a singularly
pleasant face. "I am glad to hear it. That is what sermons are for, I
believe?"
"Just so," said Mr. Gray, and he added with a little chuckle of
enjoyment, "I like it--I like it. We need it, I assure you. There is
no question about that. Why, Winnie, not a bit of the fowl? You are
losing your appetite, child. Yes, sir, we need to be stirred up. If
there is anything I believe in, it is sincerity. But now, don't you
think, Mr. Bond, that you put it just a little grain too stiff?"
"In what way, Mr. Gray?"
"Well, now, I say the Apostles' Creed. I know it by heart. I don't
know how many hundreds of times I have said it. It says itself.
Perhaps that is why I don't always stop to think what it does say. But
I do not suppose there is a word in it that I do not believe. Now if
my mind happens to wander while I am, saying it--if it happens, mind
you--"
"Father, Julia is waiting for Mr. Bond's plate," interposed Mrs. Gray
softly from the other end of the table.
"I beg your pardon." Then, as the delinquent plate went to its
destination, "If my mind happens to wander to some little matter of
business, or something or other, while I say the Creed--_am I a
hypocrite_?"
The merchant propounded the question with a note of triumph, as though
the bold-spoken minister were rather cornered now. Mr. Bond answered
respectfully, but with subdued amusement:
"I think, Mr. Gray, that the Lord would recognize the absence of
insincere intent, but that so far as worship goes, you might as well
set some Tibetan prayer-wheels going."
A gleam of enjoyment shot from Hubert's eyes, and a laugh almost
escaped him.
"Ah, just so--just so!" said Mr. Gray, a little discomfited. "But
would it be better not to say it?"
"It would be better to mean it," said Mr. Bond.
"He parries well," thought Hubert.
"Winifred," said Mrs. Gray, off whose smooth nature these discussions
rolled harmlessly, "the music was very fine this morning."
Winifred, who would have preferred almost any subject to this, cast an
appealing glance at her mother, but it was unheeded. She had hoped Mr.
Bond would not recognize her as the singer.
Mrs. Gray went on: "Mrs. Butterworth, who sits just the other side of
the partition from us, you know, was quite carried away. She looked
volumes at me, but she just whispered 'heavenly!' She said after
church she hoped you would come to her party next week and bring your
songs. You have such a gift, she said."
And Mrs. Gray herself sighed religiously at the thought of Winnie's
"gift." Winnie could have sighed, too, but it was with torture.
Mrs. Gray was a comfortable lady, absorbed in the quiet machinery of a
conventionally proper life. She loved her family, her church, and a
moderate amount of society. She loved things. Quiet satisfaction
beamed from the gentle eyes on the choice silver of the dining-room, on
her blue antique china, on the costly, tasteful accessories of the
drawing-room, and, indeed, on all the well chosen appointments of the
quietly elegant home. Interest in her own person and its adornment had
been gradually diverted toward Winifred, whose beauty, grace of manner,
and accomplishments, were an unfailing joy. Now she sighed in quiet
gratitude to the vague deity known as Providence for Winifred's
peculiarly sweet gift. As to the sermon of the morning, she was one of
those hearers in whose mind a sermon and its application do not
necessarily go together.
Winifred felt two pairs of eyes upon her from across the table as her
mother talked to her in a voice not intended to interrupt the gentlemen
in their conversation. There were Hubert's eyes of darker brown than
her own and very searching, and the preacher's blue eyes that looked
inquiringly through rimless eye-glasses. She could think of no answer
to her mother, and so bent her eyes silently upon her plate, while a
flush rose to her temples. Mrs. Butterworth's rapturous "heavenly" was
in strong contrast to the conviction of godless insincerity which
filled her own heart.
Mercifully to her embarrassment her father began again:
"But do you not think, Mr. Bond, that we must take things as they are?
Granted that there is a great deal of unreality in the church, what are
we going to do about it? Can one man who sees the point work a
revolution in the whole church? Must we not just take conditions as
they are and make the best of them?"
"Perhaps we may not hope to revolutionize a whole church," replied Mr.
Bond, "but," and his face grew stern with an expression that told of a
battlefield already fought for and won, "he may refuse to add one unit
to the aggregation of untrue worshipers, or to uphold an organized
system of unreality. I sometimes fear, Mr. Gray," and there was a ring
of sadness in his voice, "that we too readily take conditions as they
are, and make the worst of them!"
"Yes, I am afraid you are right--you are right," said the merchant
slowly. Then he added, "but so far you have given us only a negative
remedy. My son here could go so far with you. He washes his hands of
the whole matter."
Mr. Bond turned to Hubert inquiringly.
"Really?" he questioned.
"Yes," said Hubert, thus thrust unwillingly into the discussion, "I am
no worshiper at all."
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