"Question!" "Question!" came from different quarters.
"It is moved and seconded that the resolution before the meeting be
adopted," said the minister formally. "All those in favour will say ay." He
waited for a distinct space, but there was no response; Mr. Gerrish himself
did not vote. The minister proceeded, "Those opposed will say no."
The word burst forth everywhere, and it was followed by laughter and
inarticulate expressions of triumph and mocking. "Order! order!" called the
minister gravely, and he announced, "The noes have it."
The electric light began to suffer another syncope. When it recovered, with
the usual fizzing and sputtering, Mr. Peck was on his feet, asking to be
relieved from his duties as moderator, so that he might make a statement to
the meeting. Colonel Marvin was voted into the chair, but refused formally
to take possession of it. He stood up and said, "There is no place where we
would rather hear you than in that pulpit, Mr. Peck."
"I thank you," said the minister, making himself heard through the
approving murmur; "but I stand in this place only to ask to be allowed to
leave it. The friendly feeling which has been expressed toward me in the
vote upon the resolution you have just rejected is all that reconciles
me to its defeat. Its adoption might have spared me a duty which I find
painful. But perhaps it is best that I should discharge it. As to the
sermon which called forth that resolution it is only just to say that I
intended no personalities in it, and I humbly entreat any one who felt
himself aggrieved to believe me." Every one looked at Gerrish to see how
he took this; he must have felt it the part of self-respect not to change
countenance. "My desire in that discourse was, as always, to present the
truth as I had seen it, and try to make it a help to all. But I am by
no means sure that the author of the resolution was wrong in arraigning
me before you for neglecting a very vital part of Christianity in my
ministrations here. I think with him, that those who have made an open
profession of Christ have a claim to the consolation of His promises,
and to the support which good men have found in the mysteries of faith;
and I ask his patience and that of others who feel that I have not laid
sufficient stress upon these. My shortcoming is something that I would not
have you overlook in any survey of my ministry among you; and I am not here
now to defend that ministry in any point of view. As I look back over it,
by the light of the one ineffable ideal, it seems only a record of failure
and defeat." He stopped, and a sympathetic dissent ran through the meeting.
"There have been times when I was ready to think that the fault was not in
me, but in my office, in the church, in religion. We all have these moments
of clouded vision, in which we ourselves loom up in illusory grandeur above
the work we have failed to do. But it is in no such error that I stand
before you now. Day after day it has been borne in upon me that I had
mistaken my work here, and that I ought, if there was any truth in me, to
turn from it for reasons which I will give at length should I be spared
to preach in this place next Sabbath. I should have willingly acquiesced
if our parting had come in the form of my dismissal at your hands. Yet I
cannot wholly regret that it has not taken that form, and that in offering
my resignation, as I shall formally do to those empowered by the rules of
our society to receive it, I can make it a means of restoring concord among
you. It would be affectation in me to pretend that I did not know of the
dissension which has had my ministry for its object if not its cause; and I
earnestly hope that with my withdrawal that dissension may cease, and that
this church may become a symbol before the world of the peace of Christ. I
conjure such of my friends as have been active in my behalf to unite with
their brethren in a cause which can alone merit their devotion. Above all
things I beseech you to be at peace one with another. Forbear, forgive,
submit, remembering that strife for the better part can only make it the
worse, and that for Christians there can be no rivalry but in concession
and self-sacrifice."