Powderell.
"But in my judgment it behoves us, as Directors, to consider whether
we will regard it as our whole business to carry out propositions
emanating from a single quarter. Will any member of the committee
aver that he would have entertained the idea of displacing the
gentleman who has always discharged the function of chaplain here,
if it had not been suggested to him by parties whose disposition
it is to regard every institution of this town as a machinery
for carrying out their own views? I tax no man's motives:
let them lie between himself and a higher Power; but I do say,
that there are influences at work here which are incompatible
with genuine independence, and that a crawling servility is
usually dictated by circumstances which gentlemen so conducting
themselves could not afford either morally or financially to avow.
I myself am a layman, but I have given no inconsiderable attention
to the divisions in the Church and--"
"Oh, damn the divisions!" burst in Mr. Frank Hawley, lawyer and
town-clerk, who rarely presented himself at the board, but now looked
in hurriedly, whip in hand. "We have nothing to do with them here.
Farebrother has been doing the work--what there was--without pay,
and if pay is to be given, it should be given to him. I call it
a confounded job to take the thing away from Farebrother.
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