Character Analysis
The minister is a bit of a Johnny-Come-Lately in this book, seeing as how he only shows up in the last hundred pages. But once he arrives, he becomes a mentor to many of the people in Spring Creek, who have been starving for spiritual guidance.
The first thing the minister does is reassure the people that they have done their best to be moral without a spiritual leader. While talking to Per Hansa, for example, the minister says,
"The Lord has certainly laid a heavy cross upon you! But remember, He will remove it in His own good time!" (2.3.4.84)
But even though the minister is confident at first, he has moments of doubt when he gives a sermon to the settlers and realizes that he doesn't have anything worthwhile to say. As he thinks to himself,
"If I'm not careful […] I will break down completely; I'm not saying a thing that is worthwhile!" (2.3.7.16)
In the end, it's only by getting away from big ideas and talking about important, everyday things that he's able to set himself back on a sturdy foundation. As he realizes at the end of the sermon,
"It occurred to the minister that he had come down to very commonplace things—yet he spoke straight out, from the fullness of his heart." (2.3.7.25)
It seems as though the minister would be an even better character if he were in the story from the start. But then again, Beret might not have had her religious crisis to begin with and the story wouldn't have had enough conflict to be interesting. Sigh. Literature seems pretty sadistic sometimes, doesn't it?