Free In the Beauty of the Lilies by John Updike Page B

less than a whisper, a dry web stuck in his throat. The faces of those looking to him for faith pressed upon his chest in a hushed throng. Their paper fans had stopped beating.
    For moments that approached eternity he hung there, in the pulpit, his milk-blue eyes protruding, his mouth ajar, until Stella from her front pew leaped up, turned to face the congregation, and with a smile and in her sweet-pouring unabashed Southern accent recited what came by second nature after a lifetime of observant Sunday mornings: “Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen. Mr. Wilmot has been battling just the most terrible catarrh. Now let us all join in singing hymn number three seven seven, ‘Soldiers of Christ, Arise’!” The organist, Miss Miriam Showalter, glanced over at Clarence questioningly, and at his nod hit the first chord, and the congregation with a thin and ragged shuffle stood and sang,
    “Soldiers of Christ, arise,
    And put your armor on,
    Strong in the strength which God supplies
    Through His Eternal Son.”
    The hymn had six verses; as they unfolded in these manifold healthy throats, Stella sidled around the altar rail, as expertly as if dodging around her kitchen table, and conferred with Clarence in whispers: “Apostles’ Creed or Nicene?”
    He nodded, irritably. She should know that the Nicene was said only on Communion Sundays. “Apostles’,” he silently replied. His lips were able to move even in the midst of this curious disgrace, this oubliette that had risen up around him with its slippery invisible walls. His cheeks felt hot, but hisfingertips felt cold, and a shiver kept passing uncontrollably across his chest.
    “Which prayer of thanksgiving?”
    “You choose,” he mouthed, exasperated. In the midst of this grotesque affliction, he was expected to worry about details. She had the book of worship in her hands; she had been at a thousand services; she could lead these sheep out the door. He wanted only to be alone with his miserable miracle, his glaringly clarified condition. The hymn concluded,
    “From strength to strength go on;
    Wrestle, and fight, and pray;
    Tread all the powers of darkness down,
    And win the well-fought day.”
    The congregation, more rustlingly and coughingly than usual, seated itself, and Stella stepped forward to the rail and called into the varnished depths of the ill-attended church, “With gladness, let us present the offering of our life and labor to the Lord.” The two ushers, bumping together at the back, launched themselves with tentative, mismatching footsteps down the aisle. Stella looked at Clarence with a wild dark glance and then dartingly about the chancel, her composure shaken; languidly, in a daze of ironic impotence, he stepped to the side bench where the felt-bottomed collection plates reposed and presented them to the ushers, with a grave nod meant to soothe the disquiet in their faces. Kindly, long-chinned Mr. McDermott was one, and Mr. Cyrus Terhune, the stout proprietor of a Market Street dry-goods emporium, the other. Behind Clarence, as he gave the two men the briefest of ceremonial bows, Stella ringingly declaimed, “Remember the words of the Lord Jesus: It is more blessedto give than to receive.” She seemed, to his ear, to be overacting.
    In view of the sparse size of the summer choir, the organ was supposed to accompany the collection with a solo, but Miriam Showalter’s hands were still, as if they had been stricken along with his throat. The wooden plates floated through the hushed pews eerily, hand to hand, the drop of coins dulled by the felt. The plates came forward with the ushers; Clarence took them—the wood felt warm from their grips—and turned and lifted them up to the stained-glass Jesus, Who was darkly ascending, with gracefully upturned hands and uprolled eyes and unweighted toes pointing downward and the hem of his robes a-flutter, between the two ranks of