"Haggard, H Rider- The Wizard" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haggard H. Rider)

CHAPTER I

THE DEPUTATION

Has the age of miracle quite gone by, or is it still possible to the
Voice of Faith calling aloud upon the earth to wring from the dumb
heavens an audible answer to its prayer? Does the promise uttered by
the Master of mankind upon the eve of the end--"Whoso that believeth
in Me, the works that I do he shall do also . . . and whatsoever ye
shall ask in My name, that will I do"--still hold good to such as do
ask and do believe?

Let those who care to study the history of the Rev. Thomas Owen, and
of that strange man who carried on and completed his work, answer this
question according to their judgment.

*****

The time was a Sunday afternoon in summer, and the place a church in
the Midland counties. It was a beautiful church, ancient and spacious;
moreover, it had recently been restored at great cost. Seven or eight
hundred people could have found sittings in it, and doubtless they had
done so when Busscombe was a large manufacturing town, before the
failure of the coal supply and other causes drove away its trade. Now
it was much what it had been in the time of the Normans, a little
agricultural village with a population of 300 souls. Out of this
population, including the choir boys, exactly thirty-nine had elected
to attend church on this particular Sunday; and of these, three were
fast asleep and four were dozing.

The Rev. Thomas Owen counted them from his seat in the chancel, for
another clergyman was preaching; and, as he counted, bitterness and
disappointment took hold of him. The preacher was a "Deputation," sent
by one of the large missionary societies to arouse the indifferent to
a sense of duty towards their unconverted black brethren in Africa,
and incidentally to collect cash to be spent in the conversion of the
said brethren. The Rev. Thomas Owen himself suggested the visit of the
Deputation, and had laboured hard to secure him a good audience. But
the beauty of the weather, or terror of the inevitable subscription,
prevailed against him. Hence his disappointment.

"Well," he thought, with a sigh, "I have done my best, and I must make
it up out of my own pocket."

Then he settled himself to listen to the sermon.

The preacher, a battered-looking individual of between fifty and sixty
years of age, was gaunt with recent sickness, patient and
unimaginative in aspect. He preached extemporarily, with the aid of
notes; and it cannot be said that his discourse was remarkable for