The Golden Cross

continued

Now from a side door came a teenage boy in a white cassock, carrying another cross atop a tall wooden pole. Behind him filed a black-and-white-robed choir. The congregation stood, and I noticed that as the cross passed each pew, the people bowed.

Last in the procession came the minister, taking a seat just beyond the wooden screen. A tall, elegant figure framed by that Gothic carving, he appeared to me to have been designed right along with the church. Only later in the service did we learn that this was his first Sunday at St. Mark's too.

For the next quarter hour I was busy juggling hymnal, service leaflet, and a black-bound Book of Common Prayer, which for the lady in the black straw hat seemed to open mystically at the proper place for the different responses. There were times when people stood, which we imitated, and times when they knelt, which we did not. At last the minister - "rector," the leaflet called him - mounted a handsome carved-­oak pulpit to the right of the carved screen, and we settled back for a respite from a very athletic style of worship.

"Before I begin," the Reverend Marcus Hall said, smiling down at the congregation, "I would like to dispel a rumor. I've heard it said that St. Mark's has a reputation as an unfriendly place."

John and I exchanged hopeful glances.

"From those parishioners I've already had the privilege of meeting," the rector continued, "I'm sure there's no truth to such an allegation. I would like everyone here to turn right now and shake hands with the person next to him."

From where John and I sat in the last pew, we could see the entire sanctuary. And in that whole congregation, nobody moved. Not a head turned. On all those ladies' hats, not a feather quivered.

The Reverend Hall waited for an endless painful moment, then snapped on the pulpit light and picked up his sermon notes. What was going through his mind as he faced that stone-still room, I don't know. Nor what was in the minds of those who'd declined his invitation. I only know that in the back of the church, two people rejoiced at having come to the right address.