Epoch the Fourth
CHAPTER XII
THE BISHOP ACTS

THE conference that followed was one of grave apprehensions for the Reverend McCarthy. Before, he had always looked forward to this occasion with considerable anxiety. He had usually prepared himself for the battle that was a rule on such occasions. For thirty-five years he had not missed a conference; he had never come away in defeat. True, he had not risen very high, but he had, at least, always been able to hold his own.

But, for the first time in his long experience, he went to meet this conference with a feeling in his heart that he would come away defeated. That he was not to be reappointed Presiding Elder, was a foregone conclusion, but he entertained doubts about getting the appointment he had hoped to secure. Ever since the Bishop had paid him the visit, he had been uncomfortable. When the prelate bade him good-by that day, he had never been able to get out of his mind the idea that the other had convicted him in his own heart, and had purposely avoided his company. It worried him, and he had been losing flesh for two years, therefore he did not present now the same robust, striking figure as when he had met the conference heretofore year after year.

And then, moreover, he had been hounded almost to insanity by gossips. From over all his circuit it was the talk, they brought it to conference and discussed it freely and did not take the trouble to get out of his hearing to do so. Nowhere was there, as he well knew, a body that would have delighted more in his downfall than those brother preachers who met the conference that year. Always had they been ready to oppose him, but always before the Bishop had been with him. He had been able by subtle methods to place himself in the Bishop's favor, but this time that august individual artfully kept from meeting him directly. Besides, he had not the conscience to seek him, and he had not been able to meet the Bishop in the free atmosphere as before.

The charge that he had picked out was very good, and it was convenient for his needs for many reasons. Of course there were scores of others after the same charge, but with his old influence he need not have worried. However, he had not and could not see the Bishop privately long enough to secure from him a promise. And so he met the conference for the first time, unsettled as to where he was to preach the ensuing year.

Never had a conference seemed so long as that session. The week wore slowly away, and he was forced to be aware of the fact that on all sides they were discussing him, and the fact that he had been sued, and was likely to be remanded to jail as a result, since no one credited him with so large a sum as ten thousand dollars. He could see the unconcealed delight, and the malice that had always been, but which before he had been able to ignore. Affairs reached such a point until it was almost a conclusion that it mattered little as to where he was sent, for he would be unable to fill the pulpit because of the fact that he would have to go to jail shortly. It nettled him; it broke down his habitual composure, and it was a relief to him when the conference came to a close.

And not until the secretary arose to call the various charges and who had been sent thither, did he know where he was to go. So it was with a sinking of the heart when his name was reached:

“Reverend McCarthy to Mitchfield!”

"Reverend McCarthy to Mitchfield!" was the echo all through the audience. Impossible! Reverend McCarthy, one of the oldest, and regarded as one of the strongest, one of the ablest ministers to such a forsaken charge. Indeed they could hardly have sent him to a poorer charge, to a less dignified place. It seemed incredible, and the rest of the calls were almost drowned out in the consternation that followed.

Well, it was done. He had been all but silenced, and lowered as much as the Bishop dared to lower him. That was settled, and he returned to Chicago without telegraphing the fact to his family.

With resignation he made the necessary preparations for the trip, and taking Orlean with him, went to the small town. They rented a house, for the place didn't afford a parsonage, arid began the long dreary year that was to follow. It was his good fortune, however, when the school board met and decided to separate the Negro children from the whites in the public schools, that they employed his daughter to teach the colored pupils for the year. In this way they were able to get along in very good comfort in the months that followed. So the autumn passed, and also the winter. Spring came and went, and summer had set in when his attorney wrote him that the case had been called, to come into Chicago, and prepare to stand trial in the case of Jean Baptiste, plaintiff, versus Newton Justine McCarthy, defendant.