The Dakotas (TV Series)

Sanctuary at Crystal Springs (1963)

Charles Irving: Reverend Spencer

Quotes 

• Deputy Del Stark : To come in here, how do I justify that? How do I say to myself, it was one of those things, Del. And forget about it?

  Reverend Spencer : Is that what you want? To blot it from your memory, as if it had never happened?

  Deputy Del Stark : I want to feel good again. About myself, about my work. Instead I feel...

  Reverend Spencer : You feel damned.

  Deputy Del Stark : Am I damned, reverend? Am I!

  Reverend Spencer : I don't believe you are.

  Deputy Del Stark : Well, how do I know?

  Reverend Spencer : Do you want to be forgiven? I can forgive you. But when you start asking me for proof

  [shakes his head] 

  Deputy Del Stark : Then you offer me nothing.

  Reverend Spencer : I offer you all that there is. Faith.

  Deputy Del Stark : Faith doesn't tell me it was right to shoot up a church. I need a sign.

  Reverend Spencer : Oh, a miracle?

  Deputy Del Stark : If you want to call it that. I have to know.

  Reverend Spencer : The answer is still the same.

  Deputy Del Stark : Faith? In God? Well, I have faith in God, reverend. The question in my mind is - how does He feel about me?

• Pat Gilroy : Those men have defiled...

  Reverend Spencer : You have defiled, sir, you have profaned! Or do you think godliness begins on Sunday morning and ends outside on the church steps with a handshake and a courteous 'good sermon, reverend?'

  Pat Gilroy : I did what I thought was right.

  Reverend Spencer : You have publicly bared the soul of another human being.

  Pat Gilroy : Is that wrong?

  Reverend Spencer : When you find only the evil you went looking for, yes. And when you manufacture that evil for the sake of selling a few newspapers, it is more than wrong, Mr. Gilroy. You have committed the true sacrilege.

  Pat Gilroy : This is my church!

  Reverend Spencer : And I am your minister. And I tell you that a church is wood, and bricks, and mortar. It can be built and destroyed and built again. And it has been destroyed, and built again, since time began, and it has survived. Because a church belongs to the people, Mr. Gilroy. But the soul of a man belongs to God - and it is sacred.