"That's a comfort," said the organist, looking more pleased than the occasion seemed to warrant. But he was not a vain man; he merely supposed that the gentleman's reply promised criticism worth hearing.
"Oh, yes, after a fashion. I play the organ. It isn't the best situation for hearing. I thought it decent. Particularly the _Gloria in Excelsis_. I was most anxious about that. How did it sound to you, sir?"
"But, after all, they didn't understand it."
"The meaning. It opens with the song of the angels, you know. 'Glory be to God on high; on earth, peace, good will toward men.' They couldn't tell, coherently, what the Peace and Good Will meant. That's the worst of it. How can they sing what they don't understand?"
"Why don't I teach them!" exclaimed the organist. "I'm not a brain-maker; that's the reason, I suppose."
For a minute Summerman seemed vexed by this question; but for no longer than a minute.
"What's the use? what's the use?" he said to himself, and his answer to the question was a laugh.
The laugh, though neither loud nor boisterous, but merely a mild evidence of good-nature that was not to be clouded by vexations, had a disagreeable sound to Redman Rush. He looked contemptuous, and felt more than he looked, so that it was really surprising to see him linger for such conversation as this of the organist, and to hear him ask,
"How do you teach your choir? Whose fault is it that they cannot learn?"
"Their own fault," answered Summerman. "They've got to learn more than the notes. So they complain. You can't make a singer out of a note-book. I've tried that enough. Now I try to show them that peace means a riddance of selfishness, and that selfishness is the devil's device for holding the world together. Not God's; for his idea is love, and was in the beginning. Wasn't the world given to understand, that the life which was born was the love, truth, and beauty of the world, and that by Him all truth and beauty must live? They can't see it. I can't make a man or woman understand that an idea must be the centre around which the life will revolve. They come to practise, not to hear preaching, they say."
It seemed as if at this, and because of this announcement, Redman Rush drew himself apart and up, loftily, and with a gloomy defiance looked around him. When Summerman's eyes turned toward him, he seemed gazing into distance, and gave no indication that he had heard a word of what had been said. The organist was disappointed. He had hoped again for criticism; but he went on, perhaps with some suspicion of the correctness of his convictions--at least he had not said all he wished to say.