"It was all very fine and sounded very pretty," said Martha, "but I would
like to know, Brother Matthews, where does the church come in?"
CHAPTER XX.
COMMON GROUND
"'But we will find common ground,' he exclaimed. 'Look here, we have
already found it! This garden--Denny's garden!'"
The following Tuesday morning Dan was at work bright and early in Denny's
garden. Many of the good members of Memorial Church would have said that
Dan might better have been at work in his study.
The ruling classes in this congregation, that theoretically had no ruling
classes, were beginning to hint among themselves of a humiliation beyond
expression at the spectacle, now becoming so common, of their minister
working with his coat off like an ordinary laboring man. He should have
more respect for the dignity of the cloth. At least, if he had no pride
of his own, he should have more regard for the feelings of his
membership. Besides this they did not pay him to work in anybody's
garden.
The grave and watchful keepers of the faith, who held themselves
responsible to the God they thought they worshiped, for the belief of the
man they had employed to prove to the world wherein it was all wrong and
they were all right, watched their minister's growing interest in this
Catholic family with increasing uneasiness.
The rest of the church, who were neither of the class nor of the keepers,
but merely passengers, as it were, in the Ark of Salvation, looked on
with puzzled interest.
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