male and female. Sometimes the way that is shown is for him to adopt feminine clothing.”
“Speaking of the history of religions, how is the course going?” Bothwell queried. Angela, like several of the Chase faculty, had to double in brass and offer the seminary’s few courses in an academic field other than her specialized area of ethics and moral theology.
“I like doing it. I had done a good bit of work in the field at Duke because anthropology offers so much evidence for the sociology of knowledge, which, as you know, is my main methodological interest. Still, something happened in class today that I found a little disturbing.”
“What was that?”
“As is usual at the beginning of the semester, we were talking about assignments and appropriate topics for term papers. Sebastian Seymour wanted to do a paper about the use of hallucinogens to induce religious experience.”
“I don’t find that too surprising in the light of the interest of young people today in drugs.”
“No, that’s not the point of my concern. I made some of the obvious bibliographical suggestions: Castaneda and Meyerhoff’s book on the peyote cult, that sort of thing. But he said that he wasn’t interested in merely reading a lot of books. He wanted to move the whole issue to a much more scientific basis with controlled experiments. Apparently he subscribes to that new journal that Timothy Leary has started and was hoping to do something that could be published there.”
“I see. That certainly should be discouraged.”
“Yes. I’m afraid I sounded very much like an ethicist and talked about the morality of experiments on human beings using substances the impact of which we know so little. I know that LSD in light doses is not supposed to do any permanent psychological damage to emotionally healthy people, but we don’t always know how stable someone is. I’ve seen people on bad trips, and I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. And we don’t really know about chromosome damage. Not to mention the legal issue.”
“Yes, I can imagine the Dean’s reaction if he thought it might get into the papers that seminarians were using drugs. And, as pleasant as it is to contemplate his apoplexy, I would have grave concerns myself over the effect on the students. Nor would it be to our advantage to offend those who support us financially.”
Angela continued, “To make matters worse, it wasn’t other students Sebastian was thinking of experimenting on. I had the distinct impression that he had in mind using some of the student wives who have accepted him as a spiritual director. And I don’t think that I am the only one who got that impression. Some of the students began to look grim, especially those whose wives could be involved. Our Mr. Seymour could be playing with fire. I would not want someone like Seth Clarke, for instance, to have it in for me. How many ways do they say Green Berets are taught to kill with their bare hands? Thirty-one?” Bothwell had no answer, and they walked on in reflective silence.
By this time they had walked beyond the block of the seminary’s public buildings and into the next block devoted to faculty housing. Pleasant frame dwellings representing the architectural styles of Indiana farm houses in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries faced to the inside of the block so that they shared a long open court instead of having separate lawns between them and a street. The block was enclosed on the south by the Charles Addams deanery, which faced the chapel across a long mall. Coming to her sidewalk, Angela turned to Bothwell and said in parting, “I’ve got to fix myself a sandwich, and I’m sure that Katrina has something scrumptious for you.”
4
When Katrina showed Fred Andrews into Canon Bothwell’s study on Friday afternoon, the professor was seated at his rolltop desk writing out a book review in his neat italic hand. He rose to welcome the senior sacristan, leaving on his desk the latest scholar’s injudicious conclusions about the Elizabethan Settlement and his own listing of them.
“Come in, Fred, come in, and have a seat. How is the busiest man on campus? I’ve always said that one of the nicest things about serving on a seminary faculty is that you don’t have to know how to do anything liturgically. Sacristans treat clergy like appliances that have only to be plugged in for performing their part. It’s very spoiling. Last summer I took Sunday duty at Danville so the rector could go on vacation, and I had to find all the lessons myself. I really felt quite lost. You do a fine job of training.”
“Thank you, Father. I’d feel more flattered if all of this weren’t coming from the man who teaches us liturgics.” He sat down on the wingtip chair in which Seth had sat a few days earlier. “And that brings me to what I needed to see you about. It’s time for me to recommend someone for you to nominate to the Dean as Junior sacristan. He needs to know the ropes well enough for me to retire after Easter and get a little studying in before graduation. I’ll tell you, GOE’s hit me so hard that I wish the new guy had already taken over. I’d like to go away somewhere and have a nice quiet nervous breakdown.”
“Now, Fred, don’t tell me they were that bad. You know I’m on the General Board of Examining Chaplains and helped write the exams, so I know what was on them. And let me tell you, this new system of standardized national pre-ordination examinations is much fairer than the old system by which each man was given canonicals in his own diocese. While most of the examining chaplains did keep up in the fields they examined in and were fair in what they expected, there were always a few dioceses that treated canonicals as a form of pre-ordination hazing. Some also made them an orthodoxy check according to their own highly personalized standards of true faith. But let’s get away from unpleasant subjects. Which of the Juniors do you recommend?”
“Father, it’s difficult. I know who is running hardest for it—Cyril Johnson. He’s something of a sacristy rat and confidently expects to be made bishop some day because he already knows all of the ceremonial for bishops—when to take off a miter and when to put it on, and whether it should be precious or plain.”
“Does he? Then I’m sure that puts him several steps ahead of the bishop of this diocese. All this bishop knows is how to be a faithful pastor, a sound administrator, and a teacher of God’s people. Too bad he is not really qualified.”
Fred smiled at Bothwell’s irony and continued, “While Cyril is very fond of all the church’s millinery, I’m afraid that he doesn’t have the dependability and practicality that make a good sacristan. The job is not really all that aesthetic. It mainly consists in seeing that a dozen petty details are taken care of so a service can go smoothly. If it were simply a matter of dependability, I’d recommend Seth Clarke.”
“That would be an interesting sight, wouldn’t it—a Green Beret laying out vestments.”
“He’s always done a careful job when assigned, but I guess it does take a little flair to be a good sacristan, and, for all his other abilities, liturgy is not his bag. Oddly enough, it’s not Sebastian Seymour’s either. He’s fussy enough for it, but it’s too corporate and too tame for him. He prefers something exotic in which he can be the star. Would you believe, I have gone into the chapel a couple of times around midnight to make sure that everything was ready for the next day, and I have found him there in the dark going through strange gyrations in front of the altar.”
“Nothing that would constitute sacrilege, I hope.”
“No, nothing like that. Just bobbing around. I guess he would call it meditative positions. Mainly I’ve seen him in a deep bow, weaving a little from side to side. But, to get back to the subject, I believe Harvey Stanford would do the best job. He is not outstanding, but he would be competent.”
“On the
