The forty-year-old pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Winesburg. Hartman is “quiet and unpretentious” and is a dedicated minister who is well-liked by the townspeople. Despite this, he feels limited in his role at the church and wishes that he could connect more freely and openly with God. Hartman develops an obsession with the young schoolteacher Kate Swift and is thrown into a crisis of faith over his sexual temptation. After deciding that he will give himself over to sin, he has a change of heart when he sees Kate naked and praying in her bedroom. This experience results in a spiritual epiphany for Hartman, who declares to a confused George Willard that Kate is an “instrument of God.”