The Towers of Trebizond Read Free Page B

hostile contempt, that the Seventh Day Adventists were the busiest missionaries in Turkey and the Levant, and met, he feared, with only too much success. But none of the principal Anglican missionary societies worked much, it seemed, in Turkey; nor, he believed, was the Italian Mission very active. When Father Chantry-Pigg said "Italian Mission", a look of particular malevolence slightly distorted his finely arranged features: the same look, only worse, that was apt to disturb and distort the fleshier and more good-humoured Irish countenance of Father Murphy, the priest of St. Brigid's, when the St. Gregory's clergy and choir filed in chanting, incense-swinging, saint-bearing processions out of their church door and round the square which both churches served. Father Chantry-Pigg took the view that it was emissaries from St. Brigid's who had made a habit of defacing his church notices, and sometimes entered his church in order to make disagreeable remarks and scatter spiteful leaflets, though some of this was-done from a very Low church in a neighbouring street, and some of the leaflets had "Catholic Commandos" printed on them, and others "Protestant Storm Troopers" and Father Chantry-Pigg did not know which of these two bands of warriors he disliked most. When he put a notice on his church door containing the words Eucharist, or Mass, or even Priest (particularly if the priest was going to hear confessions), these words would be struck out by ardent representatives of one or another of these guerrilla armies, or perhaps by both and the Catholic Commandos would write over it "You have no Mass", (or Eucharist, or priests, as the case might be), and, referring to confession, "Why? He has no power to absolve", and the Storm Troopers would correct Mass to the Lord's Supper, and alter the bit about confession to "The Minister will be in church to give counsel", and cross out Benediction, so that, after both sets of workers had been busy with the notices, there was not much of them left and they had to be re-Written. As Father Chantry-Pigg said, the Commandos belonged to the Catholic underworld and the Storm Troopers to the Protestants, and underworlds everywhere are pretty much like one another in manners, even when they hold differing views. Anyhow these underworlds, he said, were two minds (if minds they could be called) with but a single thought (if thought it could be called) about the section of the Anglican Church to which he belonged, and that thought was one of powerful hostility. Both underworlds were, of course strongly disapproved of by the higher minded and better mannered of their respective religious parties.
    From time to time the Storm Troopers (who were the more destructive of the two) would enter St. Gregory's and overturn the altar candlesticks and extinguish the sanctuary lamp and cover up the crucifix and the reredos, and had once even removed the tabernacle, so that since then the Blessed Sacrament had had to be locked in an aumbry when no one was on guard, and they left a placard saying "This is the Lord's Table, and not for idolatry", and the Commandos would leave a placard to the same effect, saying "This is not an altar, for you have no Mass and no Sacrament and no priests to offer the Holy Sacrifice."
    Usually these raids would be made on different days, so that the two sets of raiders did not as a rule meet, but one evening after Benediction they both came in, while Father Chantry-Pigg was hearing confessions in the south aisle and a curate in the north aisle, and the Commando went to the south aisle and the Storm Trooper to the north, and the Commando asked, "What do you think you are doing, and by what right?" and no doubt the Storm Trooper was putting similar enquiries to the curate. Father Chantry-Pigg got up and said, "Leave this church immediately, or I shall call the police and have you evicted and given in charge for brawling." Meanwhile the curate, who was young and strong, was pushing the Storm