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Rev. Percy Ferguson

by Edgar Lee Masters

The Rev. Percy Ferguson, patrician

Vicar of Christ, companion of the strong,

And member of the inner shrine, where men

Observe the rituals of the golden calf;

A dilettante, and writer for the press

Upon such themes as optimism, order,

Obedience, beauty, law, while Elenor Murray's

Life was being weighed by Merival

Preached in disparagement of Merival

Upon a fatal Sunday, as it chanced,

Too near to doom's day for the clergyman.

For, as the word had gone about that waste

In lives preoccupied this Merival,

And many talked of waste, and spoke a life

Where waste had been in whole or part - the pulpit

Should take a hand, thought Ferguson. And so

The Reverend Percy Ferguson preached thus

To a great audience and fashionable:

"The hour's need is a firmer faith in Christ,

A closer hold on God, belief again

In sin's reality; the age's vice

Is laughter over sin, the attitude

That sin is not!" And then to prove that sin

Is something real, he spoke of money sins

That bring the money panics, of the beauty

That lust corrupts, wound up with Athen's story,

Which sin decayed. And touching on this waste,

Which was the current talk, what is this waste

Except a sin in life, the moral law

Transgressed, God mocked, the order of man's life,

And God's will disobeyed? Show me a life

That lives through Christ and none shall find a waste.

This clergyman some fifteen years before

Went on a hunt for Alma Bell, who taught

The art department of the school, and found

Enough to scare the school directors that

She burned with lawless love for Elenor Murray.

And made it seem the teacher's reprimand

In school of Elenor Murray for her ways

Of strolling, riding with young men at night,

Was moved by jealousy of Elenor Murray,

Being herself in love with Elenor Murray.

This clergyman laid what he found before

The school directors, Alma Bell was sent

Out of the school her way, and disappeared....

But now, though fifteen years had passed, the story

Of Alma Bell and Elenor Murray crept

Like poisonous mist, scarce seen, around LeRoy.

It had been so always. And all these years

No one would touch or talk in open words

The loathsome matter, since girls grown to women,

And married in the town might have their names

Relinked to Alma Bell's. And was it true

That Elenor Murray strayed as a young girl

In those far days of strolls and buggy rides?

But after Percy Ferguson had thundered

Against the inquest, Warren Henderson,

A banker of the city, who had dealt

In paper of the clergyman, and knew

The clergyman had interests near Victoria,

Was playing at the money game, and knew

He tottered on the brink, and held to hands

That feared to hold him longer - Henderson,

A wise man, cynical, contemptuous

Of frocks so sure of ways to avoid the waste,

So unforgiving of the tangled moods

And baffled eyes of men; contemptuous

Of frocks so avid for the downy beds,

Place, honors, money, admiration, praise,

Much wished to see the clergyman come down

And lay his life beside the other sinners.

But more he knew, admired this Alma Bell,

Did not believe she burned with guilty love

For Elenor Murray, thought the moral hunt

Or Alma Bell had made a waste of life,

As ignorance might pluck a flower for thinking

It was a weed; on Elenor Murray too

Had brought a waste, by scenting up her life

With something faint but ineradicable.

And Warren Henderson would have revenge,

And waited till old Jacob Bangs should fix

His name to paper once again of Ferguson's

To tell old Jacob Bangs he should be wary,

Since banks and agencies were tremulous

With hints of failure at Victoria.

So meeting Jacob Bangs the banker told him

What things were bruited, and warned the man

To fix his name no more to Ferguson's paper.

It was the very day the clergyman

Sought Jacob Bangs to get his signature

Upon a note for money at the bank.

And Jacob Bangs was silent and evasive,

Demurred a little and refused at last.

Which sent the anxious clergyman adrift

To look for other help. He looked and looked,

And found no other help. Associates

Depending more on men than God, fell down,

And in a day the bubble burst. The Times

Had columns of the story.

In a week,

At Sunday service Percy Ferguson

Stood in the pulpit to confess his sin,

The Murray jury sat and fed their joy

For hearing Ferguson confess his sin.

This is the way he did it:

"First, my friends,

I do not say I have betrayed the trust

My friends have given me. Some years ago

I thought to make provision for my wife,

I wished to start some certain young men right.

I had another plan I can't disclose,

Not selfish, you'll believe me. So I took

My savings made as lecturer and writer

And put them in this venture. I'm ashamed

To say how great those savings were, in view

Of what the poor earn, those who work with hands!

Ashamed too, when I think these savings grew

Because I spoke the things the rich desired.

And squared my words with what the strong would have -

Therein Christ was betrayed. The end has come.

I too have been betrayed, my confidence

Wronged by my fellows in the enterprise.

I hope to pay my debts. Hard poverty

Has come to me to bring me back to Christ."

"But listen now: These years I lived perturbed,

Lest this life which I grew into would mould

Young men and ministers, lead them astray

To public life, sensation, lecture platforms,

Prosperity, away from Christ-like service,

Obscure and gentle. To those souls I owe

My heart's confession: I have loved my books

More than the poor, position more than service,

Office and honor over love of men;

Lived thus when all my strength belonged to thought,

To work for schools, the sick, the poor, the friendless,

To boys and girls with hungry minds. My friends,

Here I abase my soul before God's throne,

And ask forgiveness for the pious zeal

With which I smote the soul of Alma Bell,

And smudged the robe of Elenor Murray. God,

Thou, who has taken Elenor Murray home,

After great service in the war, O grant

Thy servant yet to kneel before the soul

Of Elenor Murray. For who am I to judge?

What was I then to judge? who coveted honors,

When solitude, where I might dwell apart,

And listen to the voice of God was mine,

By calling and for seeking. I have broken

The oath I took to take no purse or scrip.

I have loved money, even while I knew

No servant of Christ can work for Christ and strive

For money. And if anywhere there be

A noble boy who would become a minister,

Who has heard me, or read my books, and grown

Thereby to cherish secular ideas

Of Christ's work in the world, to him I say:

Repent the thought, reject me; there are men

And women missionaries, here, abroad,

And nameless workers in poor settlements

Whose latchets to stoop down and to unloose

I am unworthy."

"Gift of life too short!

O, beautiful gift of God, too brief at best,

For all a man can do, how have I wasted

This precious gift! How wasted it in pride,

In seeking out the powerful, the great,

The hands with honors, gold to give - when nothing

Is profitable to a servant of the Christ

Except to shepherd Christ's poor. O, young men,

Interpret not your ministry in terms

Of intellect alone, forefront the heart,

That at the end of life you may look up

And say to God: Behind these are the sheep

Thou gavest me, and not a one is lost."

"As to my enemies, for enemies

A clergyman must have whose fault is mine,

Plato would have us harden hearts to sorrow.

And Zeno roofs of slate for souls to slide

The storm of evil - Christ in sorrow did

For evil good. For me, my prayer is this,

My faith as well, that I may be perfected

Through suffering."

That ended the confession.

Then "Love Divine, All Love Excelling" sounded.

The congregation rose, and some went up

To take the pastor's hand, but others left

To think the matter over.

For some said:

"He married fortunate." And others said:

"We know through Jacob Bangs he has investments

In wheat lands, what's the truth? In any case

What avarice is this that made him anxious

About the comfort of his wife and family?

The thing won't work. He's only middle way

In solving his soul's problem. This confession

Is just a poor beginning." Others said:

"He drove out Alma Bell, let's drive him out."

And others said: "you note we never heard

About this speculation till it failed,

And he was brought to grief. If it had prospered

The man had never told, what do you think?"

But in a year as health failed, Ferguson

Took leave of absence, and the silence of life

Which closes over men, however noisy

With sermons, lectures, covered him. His riffle

Died out in distant waters.

There was a Doctor Burke lived at LeRoy,

Neurologist and student. On a night

When Merival had the jury at his house,

Llewellyn George was telling of his travels

In China and Japan, had mutual friends

With Franklin Hollister, the cousin of Elenor,

And son of dead Corinne, who hid her letters

Under the eaves. The talk went wide and far.

For David Borrow, sunny pessimist,

Thrust logic words at Maiworm, the juryman;

And said our life was bad, and must be so,

While Maiworm trusted God, said life was good.

And Winthrop Marion let play his wit,

The riches of his reading over all.

Thus as they talked this Doctor Burke came in.

"You'll pardon this intrusion, I'll go on

If this is secret business. Let me say

This inquest holds my interest and I've come

To tell of Elenor's ancestry." Thus he spoke.

"There'll be another time if I must go."

And Merival spoke up and said: "why stay

And tell us what you know, or think," and so

The coroner and jury sat and heard: -