13 / Sanctuary
Saundra Boone shoved open the heavy wooden door of Resurrection Cathedral and stepped inside. The door slammed shut behind her cutting off the incessant sounds of New York City. She was at the church to continue her interview with the rector, Henry McAllen, but she was early, so she took a few moments to appreciate the quietness of the sanctuary.
Sunlight filtered in through the stained glass windows on either side of the door, and dust motes swirled in the multicolored shafts. Four stained glass windows depicting scenes from the Bible adorned either side of the auditorium, but barely any light came through them, as the tall brick office buildings on either side of the church blocked out the sun’s rays. The wooden pews looked tired and worn.
Saundra swiped the screen on her iPhone and checked the time. She had ten minutes until her interview began. The rector, who was also an American history professor at Boston University, had said he would be in his office in the back of the church.
The pew groaned as Saundra sat down to review her notes from her first discussion with the rector regarding his historical research. As the new acquisitions editor of Hancock Press, Saundra spent her days reviewing book pitches sent to her by agents, commissioning writers, soliciting manuscripts, deciding which ones were good enough to publish, coordinating cover designs, and writing promotional copy. Eleven months ago, after hearing McAllen give a lecture titled “The Other Constitution” — regarding a secret convention that was held by thirteen of the dissenting delegates to the Constitutional Convention — she thought the topic intriguing enough to request a copy of his research.
“I doubt the majority of the public would be interested in such mundane history,” Henry had said as he handed her a thick manuscript detailing his discoveries. “I’m just into obscure history, that’s all. It’s in my family genes. Both my mother and father were historians.”
Saundra had just smiled at that as she thought of her mother, Ginny, who was an archaeologist and had wanted her daughter to follow in her footsteps. But, despite Henry’s modest words, Saundra found herself riveted by his research. Just the ideas he had presented could form the basis of a great story — even if it weren’t a true one, but the painstaking detail made the historical narrative Henry had fleshed out in his document ring true. On top of that, Saundra felt that the social climate in the United States made the public ripe for this kind of material. She felt she had a bestseller on her hands.
After presenting the ideas to her publishing team at Hancock, they agreed to commission Henry to shape his research into a book for publishing the following year. Now that the book was finished, Saundra was even more eager to have it released so she had bumped up the street date by three weeks. She had conducted her first in depth interview with Henry a week ago at his church which was within walking distance of the 1200 block of Avenue of the Americas where the Hancock Press headquarters were located.
Now sitting in the back pew of the empty Resurrection Cathedral, Saundra read some of Henry’s answers to her previous questions. The purpose of the interviews was to provide easy fodder for the media. One point in particular she wanted to follow up with Henry on today.
“You’d be surprised to know that the thirteen dissenters were also worried about the Constitution for religious reasons,” Henry had said. “Many of them were Christians of different stripes — some Anglicans, some Baptists, a couple Quakers, even a Catholic. They were concerned that with the union of the thirteen colonies into one nation the government would try to manipulate the various denominations or unify them into one church. The last thing they wanted was a governmental leader who was the head of the church like they had in England — and still do. They wanted a way to restore the proper separation of the government’s influence from the churches’ influence if need be. That’s part of the reason they designed the document called the Correction.”
