And so it came to happen in Cullybackey: his powerlessness was carried from the finite to the infinite. He looked up after the first line and saw his father out there being taken by a muscular spasm, and replied with one of his own. He found the next line, and then it happened again. The old RIC man was urging his son on with his eyes, but the shame of being an evangelical preacher who could not preach overtook Jonathan Adams. Look at the text, hear it in your head, it will reveal itself. Commence! These orders from the past issued more strongly through his mind than the words he intended to say.

He had dreamed of this moment – the first sermon he would give – and now it was here. He had sought to prepare a text that would be lofty, indignant, mournful, eloquent; but when he looked at his father his sermon turned into a sorry performance bereft of definite views and strong convictions. His learning had turned to blather. “To give some form to that which cannot be uttered,” he repeated, blushing, in a false dramatic climax. At that moment he would not have minded being borne away to the great audit. The kirk greeted his finale with embarrassed silence. And afterwards the same nervousness afflicted him as he supped tea with his family and the congregation.

After that first terrifying experience his heart quailed at the thought of having to perform at another public service.

If he could only enter their interior without words! If even words could be swept away!

His dreams of becoming another Wycliffe, Huss or Patrick Hamilton were shattered. Instead of his first sermon bringing him peace it had seemed as if he had returned to Cullybackey to answer an indictment. He felt like Knox before Queen Mary in the palace of Holyrood. But unlike Knox, he had acquitted himself badly. He had earned his family’s shame, his father’s rancour. As the doctors had foreseen, Jonathan Adams proved a poor preacher, unlike his brother Willy who was established in a living as a successful Evangelical minister in Tyrone. The mortification Jonathan Adams felt at the money wasted on him by his parents was increased when Willy left after the service without speaking to him. Over the following months he attended Synods, Presbyteries, Assemblies, but could offer no discourse.

The elders who accompanied him tried steering him towards a clear strong delivery but his words on behalf of his congregation never rose above a whisper. Soon his stipend would come under question. He worked at becoming approachable, friendly, but only succeeded in creating greater distances between himself and those who wished him well; he tried to throw off his learning, but only succeeded in sounding condescending. Eventually the chore of being a churchman proved too much.

He went to his father.

“I think I must leave the Church,” he said.

“Per-sev-ere!” his father replied staunchly.