[Auld Licht Idylls by J. M. Barrie]@TWC D-Link bookAuld Licht Idylls CHAPTER III 39/46
How the minister would have borne himself in the event of a member of his congregation's wanting the baptism to take place at home it is not easy to say; but I shudder to think of the public prayers for the parents that would certainly have followed.
The child was carried to the kirk through rain, or snow, or sleet, or wind, the father took his seat alone in the front pew, under the minister's eye, and the service was prolonged far on into the afternoon.
But though the references in the sermon to that unhappy object of interest in the front pew were many and pointed, his time had not really come until the minister signed to him to advance as far as the second step of the pulpit stairs.
The nervous father clenched the railing in a daze, and cowered before the ministerial heckling.
From warning the minister passed to exhortation, from exhortation to admonition, from admonition to searching questioning, from questioning to prayer and wailing.
<<Back Index Next>> D-Link book Top TWC mobile books
|