Bart Toyner was more than thirty years old when the period of his
reformation came. His father had grown old and foolish. It was the
breaking down of his father's clear mind that first started and shocked
Bart into some strong emotion of filial respect and love; then came
another agonising struggle on his part to free himself from his evil
habits. In this fit of sobriety he went a journey to the nearest city
upon his father's business, and there, after a few days, he took to
drinking harder than ever, ceased to write home, lost all the
possessions that he had taken with him, and sank deep down into the mire
of the place.
The first thing that he remembered in the awakening that followed was
the face of another man. It stood out in the nebulous gathering of his
returning self-consciousness like the face of an angel; there was the
flame of enthusiasm in the eyes, a force of will had chiselled handsome
features into tense lines; but in spite of that, or rather perhaps
because of it, it was a gentle, happy face.
It is happiness that is the culmination of sainthood. You may look
through the pictures of the saints of all ages and find enthusiasm and
righteousness in many and the degree of faith that these imply; but
where you find joy too, there has been the greatest faith, the greatest
saintliness.
Bart found himself clothed and fed; he felt the warm clasp of a human
hand in his, and some self-respect came back to him by the contact. The
face and the hand belonged to a mission preacher, and Bart arose and
followed his friend to a place where there was the sound of many feet
hurrying and a great concourse of people was gathered in a wood without
the town.
It was only with curiosity that Bart looked about him at the high trees
that stretched their green canopy above, at the people who ranged
themselves in a hollow of the wood--one of nature's theatres. Curiosity
passed into strong emotion of maudlin sentiment when the great
congregation sang a hymn. He sat upon a bench at the back and wept tears
that even to himself had neither sense nor truth. Yet there was in them
the stirring of something inarticulate, incomprehensible, like the
stirring that comes at spring-time in the heart of the seed that lies
below the ground. After that the voice of the preacher began to make its
way slowly through the dull, dark mind of the drunkard.
The preacher spoke of the wonderful love of God manifested in a certain
definite offer of salvation, a certain bargain, which, if closed with,
would bring heaven to the soul of every man.
The preacher belonged to that period of this century when the religious
world first threw off its contempt for the present earthly life and
began to preach, not a salvation from sin's punishment so much as a
salvation from sin.
It was the old cry: "Repent, believe; for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand." The doctrine that was set forth had not only the vital growth of
ages in it, but it had accreted the misunderstanding of the ages also;
yet this doctrine did not hide, it only limited, the saving power of
God. "Believe," cried the preacher, "in a just God and a Saviour." So he
preached Christ unto them, just as he supposed St. Paul to have done,
wotting nothing of the fact that every word and every symbol stand for
a different thought in the minds of men with every revolution of that
glass by which Time marks centuries.
It mattered nothing to Bart just now all this about the centuries and
the doctrines; the heart of the preaching was the eternal truth that has
been growing brighter and brighter since the world began--God, a living
Power, the Power of Salvation. The salvation was conditioned, truly; but
what did conditions matter to Bart! He would have cast himself into sea
or fire to obtain the strength that he coveted. He eagerly cast aside
the unbelief he had imbibed from books. He accepted all that he was told
to accept, with the eager swallowing of a man who is dying for the
strength of a drug that is given to him in dilution.
At the end of the sermon there was a great call made upon all who
desired to give up their sins and to walk in God's strength and
righteousness, to go forward and kneel in token of their penitence and
pray for the grace which they would assuredly receive.
This public penance was a very little thing, like the dipping in Jordan.
It did not seem little to Toyner. He was thoroughly awake now, roused
for the hour to the power of seeking God with all his mind, all his
thought, all his soul. The high tide of life in him made the ordeal
terrible; he tottered forward and knelt where, in front of the rostrum,
sweet hay had been strewn upon the ground. A hundred penitents were
kneeling upon this carpet.
There was now no more loud talking or singing. Silence was allowed to
spread her wings within the woodland temple. Toyner, kneeling, felt the
influence of other human spirits deeply vivified in the intensity of
prayer. He heard whispered cries and the sound of tears, the prayer of
the publican, the tears of the Magdalene, and now and then there came a
glad thanksgiving of overflowing joy. Toyner tried to repeat what he
heard, hoping thereby to give some expression to the need within him;
but all that he could think of was the craving for strong drink that he
knew would return and that he knew he could not resist.
He heard light footsteps, and felt a strong arm embracing his own
trembling frame. The preacher had come to kneel where he knelt, and to
pray, not for him, but with him.
"I cannot," said Bart Toyner, "I can't, I can't."
"Why not?" whispered the preacher.
"Because I know I shall take to drink again."
"Which do you love best, God or the drink?" asked the preacher. "If you
love the drink best, you ought not to be here; if you love God best,
you need have no fear."
"God." The word embodied the great new idea which had entered Toyner's
soul, the idea of the love that had power to help him.
"I want to get hold of God," he said; "but it isn't any use, for I shall
just go and get drunk again."
"Dear, dear fellow," said the young preacher, his arm drawing closer
round Bart, "He is able and willing to keep you; all you have to do is
to take Him for your Master, and He will come to you and make a new man
of you. He will take the drink crave away. He knows as well as you do
that you can't fight it."
"I don't believe it," said Toyner.
Then the young preacher turned his beautiful face toward the blue above
the trees and whispered a prayer: "Open the eyes of our souls that we
may see Thee, and then we shall know that Thou canst not lie. Thy honour
is pledged to give Thy servants all they need, and this man needs to
have the craving for drink taken out of his body. He has come at Thy
call, willing to be Thy slave; Thou canst not go back on Thy promises.
We know Thou hast accepted him, because he has come to Thee. We know
that Thou wilt give him what he needs,"--so the short sentences of the
whispered prayer went on in quick transition from entreaty to
thanksgiving for a gift received. Suddenly, before the conclusion had
come, Bart stood up upon his feet.
"What is it, my brother?" asked the preacher. He too had risen and stood
with his hand on Toyner's shoulder.
They were alone together, these two. The great crowd of the congregation
had already gone away; those that remained were each one so intensely
occupied with prayer or adoration that they paid no heed to others.
"I feel--light," said Toyner.
"Dear fellow," said the preacher, "the devil has gone out of you. You
are free now because you are the slave of Christ. Begin your service to
him by praising God!"
Toyner stayed a week longer in the place, lodging with the young
preacher. Day and night they were close together. A change had come to
Toyner. It was a miracle. The young preacher believed in such miracles,
and because he believed he saw them often.
Toyner trembled and hoped, and at length he too believed. He believed
that as long as he willingly obeyed God his old habits would not triumph
over him. The physical health which so often comes like a flood and
replaces disease at the shrines of idol temples, of Romish saints, or,
at the many Protestant homes for faith-healing, had undoubtedly come to
Bart Toyner. The stomach that had been inflamed and almost useless, now
produced in him a regular appetite for simple nourishing food. The
craving for strong drink had passed away, and with his whole mind and
heart he threw himself into such service as he believed to be acceptable
to God and the condition upon which he held his health and his freedom.
At the end of the week Toyner went home to face the old life again with
no safe-guard but the new inward strength. No one there believed in his
reformation. He had lost money for his father in his last debauch; the
man who was virtually a partner would not trust him again. He had a
nominal business of his own, an agency which he had heretofore
neglected, and now he worked hard, living frugally, and for the first
time in his life earned his own living. The rules of conduct which the
preacher had laid down for him were simple and broad. He was to see God
in everything, accepting all events joyfully from His hand; he was so to
preach Him in life and word that others would love Him; he was to do all
his work as unto a God who beheld and cared for the minutest things of
earth; he was to abstain, not only from all sin, but from all things
that might lead to evil. At first he saw no contradiction in this rule
of life; it seemed a plain path, and he walked, nay ran, upon it for a
long distance.
Between Toyner and his old friends the change of his life and thoughts
had made the widest breach. That outward show of companionship remained
was due only to patient persistence on his part and the endurance of the
pain and shame of being in society where he was not wanted and where he
felt nothing congenial. There was a Scotch minister who, with the people
of his congregation, had received and befriended the reformed man; but
because of Toyner's desire to follow the most divine example, and also
because of his love to Ann Markham, he chose the other companionship. It
was a high ideal; something warred against it which he could not
understand, and his patience brought forth no mutual love.
When six months had passed away, Toyner had gained with his neighbours a
character for austerity in his personal habits and constant
companionship with the rough and the poor. The post of constable fell
vacant; Toyner's father had been constable in his youth; Toyner was
offered the post now, and he took it.
The constable in such villages as Fentown was merely a respectable man
who could be called upon on rare occasions to arrest a criminal. Crime
was seldom perpetrated in Fentown, except when it was of a nature that
could be winked at. Toyner had no uniform; he was put in possession of a
pair of hand-cuffs, which no one expected him to use; he was given a
nominal income; and the name of "constable" was a public recognition
that he was reformed.
Toyner had had many scruples of mind before he took this office. The
considerations which induced him to accept it were various. The austere
demand of law and the service of God were very near together in his
mind; nor are they in any strong mind ever separated except in parable.
Bart Toyner, who had for years appeared so weak and witless, possessed
in reality that fine quality of brain and heart which is so often a
prey to the temptation of intoxicants. He was now working out all the
theory of the new life in a mind that would not flinch before, or shirk
the gleams of truth struck from, sharp contact of fact with fact as the
days and hours knocked them together. For this reason it could not be
that his path would remain that plain path in which a man could run
seeing far before him. Soon he only saw his way step by step, around
there was darkness; but through that darkness, except in one black hour,
he always saw the mount of transfiguration and the light of heaven.