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life grew beautiful—full of music and the scent of
roses. To the young preacher, the tap-room of the
tavern became transformed to a southern
pleasure-garden; olives and grapes hung above him, marble
columns gleamed through thick foliage, poets and
philosophers strolled and conversed under the palm
trees.
No! the preacher in that pulpit knew that life
without drink was unbearable in that isolated part
of the world. All his hearers knew it too, yet they
had come to condemn him.
They meant to tear away his priestly gown,
because he had come a drunkard to the house of their
God. Oh, the hypocrites, had they, did they really
think they had, any other God than their drink?
He had finished the opening prayer, and now
knelt to say “Our Father.”
There was breathless silence in the church.
Suddenly he clutched with both hands the band that
held his gown in place; for it seemed to him that
all the congregation, with the Bishop at their head,
were creeping silently up the pulpit steps, intent on
tearing it from his shoulders. He was on his knees
and did not turn his head, but it seemed to him that
he felt them pulling, and he saw them so distinctly—the
Bishop and the dean, all the rectors and
the vestry-men, pressing forward, and he pictured
how they would all fall, one over the other, when the
clasp gave way—even those who had not reached
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