So it happened in this church.

When he was in certain spiritual--or, to be more precise,
unspiritual--moods he refused to shave, but wore the stubble on his
chin, either by way of mourning or defiance, as the case might be. On
this Sabbath he presented a ferocious chin to the congregation, after
having waited patiently for all of the resigners to take their
respective prominent places in it. He preached a short sermon with the
air of a plagued, unkempt angel; then he took up the resignations and
read them out exactly as he read the church letters of new members,
accepting each one and giving the reasons why. It was the most
sensational service ever held in that church. In the first place, to
accept their resignations was an unprecedented proceeding and the last
thing they had expected him to do. The custom had been for the
preacher to persuade them to keep their offices, which they had done
from year to year with an air of proud reluctance. But the sensation
was when he stated, literally, what each had said of the other--calling
no names, of course--and saying that he was glad that these sinners had
had the humility to give up positions of trust and honor in the church
which they were evidently unfit to fill. He hoped before the end of
the year they would be restored spiritually and worthy to perform the
services they had formerly performed. Meanwhile, there was nothing
left for him to do but to appoint a committee of sinners to attend to
the stewards' duties until these should be reclaimed from their
backslidden state. He named half a dozen young men who roosted on the
back benches after the manner of happy, young lost souls, and I do not
know whether it was astonishment or mischief that led them to accept
with such alacrity the obligations imposed upon them. But William has
always claimed since that they were the most active and effective
stewards he ever had, that it was the first year he had ever received
his salary in full, and the congregation was thoroughly cured of the
resignation habit.

The second class of obstreperous stewards is easier to manage. The
quality of their perversity is exactly that of the mule's. William
never had to move a church, get a new roof on one or an organ for it,
or even a communion table, that some well-to-do steward did not lie
back in the traces, back his official ears and begin to balk and kick
mule fashion. Often they were good men in every other particular, but
t