Egholm and his God. Buchholtz Johannes
and smite the host of sin!
Here at hand
Still doth stand
One who can all powers command!’”
Egholm had lost patience. As the hymn concluded, he sprang up and roared across the hall:
“Look here, do you mean to say I’m Satan?”
There was a stir as all in the hall turned round. Fru Westergaard’s chair rocked suddenly, and a bench crashed down, but after that followed a moment of icy silence, cleft immediately by Karlsen’s angel trumpet:
“Guilty conscience, Egholm?”
A new silence, Egholm stammering and gurgling, but finding no appropriate answer. Then the Evangelist let loose a shower of insulting laughter. Strangely enough, this had the effect of bringing Egholm to his senses.
“I was the first to ask; it’s your place to answer. D’you mean to say I’m Satan?”
And before any of the Elders on the platform could pull themselves sufficiently together, he went on:
“Do you know this book here? It’s an old one, and the title-page is missing. You think, perhaps, it’s St. Cyprian, but I can tell you, it’s the Holy Scripture. Yes, that’s what it is. And what I have to say to you now is just the words of the Scriptures, and no more. Holy Scripture, pure and undefiled. I’ll read it out, and you can judge for yourselves. I tell you, you haven’t got a shepherd at all; you’ve a butcher!”
At the first exchange of words, the congregation had been confused and uneasy, quivering this way and that like a magnetic needle exposed to intermittent current. Now, Egholm had, it is true, most of them facing his way, but many looked up to the Elders, and especially to the Angel, partly to see the effect of Egholm’s words, and partly to gain some hint as to which way their own feeling should tend. The congregation was thus divided, but Egholm wanted it united. Accordingly, he left his place between Deaf Maren and the stove, and advanced by jerks, still speaking, up towards his foes.
Yes, he knew it was a serious thing to call Angel Karlsen – Egholm shook a little at the venerable words – a butcher. But it was plain to him now, after what had passed, that Angel Karlsen was not acting in good faith as regards the point in dispute: whether tithe should be paid, or if tithe had been abolished by God’s own word, and was consequently foolish – nay, wicked. But if the Angel knew God’s will, and did not act upon it, and open the eyes of the Brotherhood to the same, then no words could be too strong.
Egholm spoke for twenty minutes. He had got right to the front, and stepped up on to the first of the beer boxes, making, as it were, an act drop of his body in front of those on the platform. The audience could only see their shadows, and hear a slight sound when the Copenhagen Prophet cleared his throat. Once young Karlsen tried his devilish laugh, but was sternly suppressed by his venerable sire. There was no real disturbance of any sort; the congregation made but one listening, eager face. The Elders were exorcised already. Victory – victory!
But at the very moment when the thought first thrilled him, Egholm’s eloquence suddenly ran dry. With a spasm of dread he realised that he could say no more. The source within him, that he had imagined endless, had ceased. He had not firmness enough to begin again, and the texts and parables he had chosen for his purpose had been rehearsed so often in his mind for the occasion that he could not now remember what he had actually said and what he could still use.
The emptiness that followed was almost physically oppressive – Egholm gasped once or twice as if the very air about him were gone. Then came the voice of the Angel, calm and firm:
“Have you any more to say?”
“No,” said Egholm, paling as he spoke. “I hope now you have understood.”
And with that he stepped down from his elevation, sighed, wiped his forehead nervously, and leaned up against the wall at the side.
Old Karlsen delivered a prayer longer and more powerful than ever before. It gathered like a cloud above the congregation, gradually obscuring all that Egholm had said. Not until he noticed that the cloud had condensed here and there to a mild rain of tears did the Angel pass over imperceptibly to mention of Egholm’s onslaught.
“And now, now – well, you have heard the leader of your flock, the shepherd and Angel of the Brotherhood, referred to as a butcher. Here, in our own house, and out of the mouth of one whom we regarded as a brother. Why do I not lift up my hand against him, and drive him forth, even as the Master drove out those from the Temple who defiled its holy places? No! For it is written: Blessed are the meek.”
The Angel’s prayer had opened the hearts of the flock. Thereupon Finck the Prophet stepped forward. He wore a reddish-brown beard, his eyebrows were bushy, and his eyes glittered behind his glasses. It seemed as if he had hitherto affected lordly indifference, but was now so moved that he could no longer control his emotion, and his anger burst forth in a torrent.
“In days gone by,” he began, “when I realised that the Established Church of Denmark was being suffered to drift like a ship without a compass, I declined to stay on board. And before leaving, I warned my fellow-travellers, and the captain and the mate. I told them in plain, bold words that they were drifting towards shipwreck. Many believed that my words were over-bold. A conflict raged about my name, as some of you may perhaps remember. But, now, we have heard a man whose words were not bold, but only brutal and coarse – a man who, I think I am qualified to say, lacks the very rudiments of ability to understand what he reads. This ignoramus takes upon himself to pick out a verse here and a verse there, and then adds them together in a fashion of his own. We may compare him with the man who read one day in his Bible: ‘Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him’ – and the next: ‘Go thou and do likewise.’…”
The sum and essence of Finck’s oration was that the rendering of tithe was a jewel of price reserved for the Brotherhood of St. John apart from all others. To cast away that jewel now would be sheer madness.
Egholm stood quivering with impatience to answer. His mind was clear now as to what he should say. And as soon as Finck had ended, he sprang forward.
“It seems to me that Hr. Finck, the Prophet, in spite of all his claims to learning, and his libellous attack…”
“Silence, man!” roared Finck, his voice echoing roundly from the walls. “We will hear no more. You have said your last word here. Go!”
“My turn now,” said young Karlsen, with a swaggering fling of his shoulders.
But the venerable Angel could not find it in his heart to deny Egholm a last word. He found it preferable to let him wreak his own destruction. And with his keen perception of the feeling among the congregation, he was confident that this would be the result.
“Beloved Brethren,” he said, “there is but a quarter of an hour left us – one poor quarter of an hour. I had endeavoured to secure the hall for another hour, but other and more worldly matters intervened. I think, then, we should let Egholm say what his conscience permits him, and then conclude with the old hymn: ‘All is in the Father’s hand.’”
“I should just like to ask Prophet Finck,” said Egholm furiously, “how he would interpret and explain…”
“What’s that?” said Finck loftily.
“The leading point, the essence of the whole thing, namely, the text found by me in the Epistle to the Hebrews – you have not said a word about that, really. I am firmly convinced that I am right, but, all the same, I should like to hear how you propose to explain away…”
“Write it down,” broke in Finck sharply.
Egholm obeyed involuntarily. He found a stump of lead pencil in his waistcoat pocket, and began scrawling on the faded paper at the back of his Bible. He was a facile writer ordinarily, but in his present state of emotion he could hardly frame his question. Two or three times he struck out what he had written and began again. Suddenly he heard young Karlsen clearing his throat, and then:
“Now, then, we’d better…”
“No,