His family helped the young student get his first living at Cullybackey in Co. Antrim. The apprentice minister was introduced to the elders in a low wooden church with a red galvanize roof. Only one masonic banner hung from the wall. He had chosen as his homily the powerful line – to give some form to that which cannot be uttered. It proved an unfortunate choice. For the minute he started to preach that which he had feared happened – he was possessed of such a feeling of disorientation that his chin and wrists shook uncontrollably. The joy the congregation did not see stirred in his soul, but elation did not reach his lips.

Words refused to come to him. Meaning departed.

“I would like to begin . . .” he hesitated, and then became trapped in a set of thoughts which were denoted by the pronoun “I”. “I,” he said again and stopped. To say “I” implied a thinking subject, and yet he suddenly realized: I know nothing of myself. To whom does this “I” refer? He tried desperately to get hold of some valid point of principle for his assertions, but a void opened. A tremor ran through him.

“Abraham,” he said, “stands at the head of one dispensation; Moses at . . .” He steadied his hands. “David at the head of a third. John the Baptist . . .” He had seen it coming, this failure to preach, throughout all the weeks – the years – of preparation, and yet could do nothing about it. The sermon was a disaster. The arrangement of his thoughts spilled over into foolishness once he was confronted with that one word, that super-confident assumption of experience – “I”. And although he was greeted with sympathy, the young Jonathan Adams could not believe that joy would come in the morning.

They had tried to teach him to read distinctly, but, in the eyes of the doctors he proved “a mean reader”. No matter how much he perused beforehand the chapters and homilies to be read in public, the words came out disjointed and led only to misunderstandings among the listeners. The pause they had instilled in him as a prerequisite for delivering sermons turned into a long embarrassing silence. If he lifted his head for a moment from the text, he found himself unable to find his place again. He’d stand transfixed before the eyes of the doctors and students and hear this remote foolish monotone issuing uncontrollably from his lips.

“Perhaps you might consider scholastic teaching,” he was advised.

“Never.”