"The kneeling people lifted their wet faces ... But the chancel was empty"
THE
SUPPLY AT SAINT AGATHA'S
BY
ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
E. BOYD SMITH AND MARCIA OAKES WOODBURY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1896
Copyright, 1896,
BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD AND
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
All rights reserved.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
THE SUPPLY AT SAINT AGATHA'S.
At the crossing of the old avenue with the stream of present traffic,in a city which, for obvious reasons, will not be identified by thewriter of these pages, there stood—and still stands—the Church ofSaint Agatha's.
The church is not without a history, chiefly such as fashion and sectcombine to record. It is an eminent church, with a stately date uponits foundation stone, and a pew-list unsurpassed for certain qualitiesamong the worshipers of the Eastern States. Saint Agatha's has longbeen distinguished for three things, its money, its music, and itssoundness.
When the tax-list of the town is printed in the daily papers once ayear, the wardens and the leading parishioners of Saint Agatha's standfar upwards in the score, and their names are traced by slow, grimyfingers of mechanics and strikers and socialists laboriously reading onSaturday nights.
The choir of Saint Agatha's, as all the world knows, is superior. Hersoprano alone (a famous prima donna) would fill the house. Womenthrong the aisles to hear the tenor, and musical critics, hat in hand,and pad on hat, drop in to report the anthem and the offertory for theMonday morning press.
In ecclesiastical position, it is needless to add, Saint Agatha's hasalways been above reproach. When did Saint Agatha's question a canon?When did she contend with a custom? When did she criticise a creed?Why should she contest a tradition? She accepts, she conforms, sheprospers.
In one particular Saint Agatha's has been thrust into an attitude oforiginality foreign to her taste. Her leading men feel called uponoccasionally to explain how the eternal feminine came—a littlecontrary to the fashion of our land—to be recognized in the name ofthe church. Saint Agatha's first pastor, one should know, was a veryyoung man of enthusiastic and unconventional temperament. He did notlive long enough to outgrow this—for a clergyman—unfortunate trend ofnature, having died, full of dreams and visions, in the teeth of alowering conflict with his wardens; but he lived long enoug