The spiritual strength that proceeds from every holy man had again
flowed in life-giving stream from the preacher to Bart Toyner. The help
was adequate. Toyner never became intoxicated again.
His father died; and for two years or more the mother, who had lived
frugally all her life, still lived frugally, although land and money had
been left to her. The mother would not trust her son, and yet gradually
she began to realise that it was he who was quietly heaping into her lap
all those joys of which she had been so long deprived. At length she
died, the happy mother of a son who had won the respect of other men.
It was after that that Toyner wedded Ann Markham. Then, when he had the
power to live a more individual life of enjoyment and effort, it began
to be known little by little that these two had committed that sin
against society so hard to forgive, the sin of having their own creed
and their own thoughts and their own ways.
Toyner was not a preacher. It was not in him to try to change the ideas
of those who were doing well with what ideas they had. All that he
desired was to live so that it might be known that his God was the God
of the whole wide round of human activity, a God who blessed the just
and the unjust. Toyner desired to be constantly blessing both the bad
and the good with the blessing of love and home which had been given to
him. It was inevitable that to carry out such an idea a man must live
through many mistakes and much failure. The ideal itself was an offence
to society. We have all heard of such offences and how they have been
punished.
One great factor in the refining of Ann's life was her lover's long
neglect; for he, in the simple belief that she must know his heart and
purpose and that she would not be much benefited by his companionship,
left her for those years that passed before he married her wholly
ignorant of his constancy. Ann was constant. Had he explained himself
she would have been content and taken him more or less at his own
valuation, as we all take those who talk about themselves. Having no
such explanation to listen to, she watched and pondered all that he did.
Before the day came in which he made his shy and hesitating offer of
marriage, she had grown to be one with him in hope and desire. Together
they made their mistakes and lived down their failure. They had other
troubles too, for the babies lived and died one by one.
There is seen to be a marvellous alchemy in true piety. Mind and sense
subject to its process become refined. Where refinement is not the
result, we may believe that there is a false note in the devotion, that
there is self-seeking in the effort toward God. Toyner's wealth grew
with the spread of the town over the land he owned. He had the good
taste to spend well the money he devoted to pleasure; yet it was not
books or pictures or music, acquired late in life, that gave to him and
to his wife the power to grow in harmony with their surroundings. It was
the high life of prayer and effort that they lived that made it possible
for God--the God of art as truly as the God of prayer--to teach them.
It is not at the best a cultured place, this backwoods town. There was
many a slip in grammar, many a broad uncouth accent, heard daily in
Ann's drawing-room; but what mental life the town had came to centre in
that room. Gradually reflecting neighbours began to learn that there was
a beneficent force other than intellectual at work there.
Young men who needed interest and pleasure, the poor who needed warmth
and food, came together to that room, and met there the drunkard in his
sober intervals, the gamester when he cared to play for mere pastime;
yes, and others, the more evil, were made welcome there. It was not
forgotten that Toyner had been a wicked man and that Ann's father had
been a murderer.
It was a strange effort this, to increase virtue in the virtuous, not by
separation from, but by friendship with, the unrepentant. To Toyner sin
was an abhorred thing. It consisted always, yet only, in failure to
tread in the foot-prints of God, as far as it was given to each man to
see God's way--in obedience to the lower motive in any moment of the
perpetual choice of life. For himself, his life was impassioned with the
belief that it was wicked to live as if God was not the God of the whole
of what we may know.
I, who have seen it, tell you that the atmosphere of that house was
always sweet. There were many young girls who came to it often, and
laughed and danced with men who were not righteous, and the girls lived
more holy lives than before. I would say this:--do not let any one
imitate the method of life which Toyner and his wife practised unless by
prayer he can obtain the power of the unseen holiness to work upon the
flux of circumstance; yet do not let those fear to imitate it who have
learned the secret of prayer. It was a strenuous life of prayer and
self-denial that these two lived until their race in this phase of
things was run.
* * * * *
_It is with this abrupt note of personal observation and reflection that
the schoolmaster's manuscript ends. He had evidently become one of
Toyner's disciples. It is well that we should know what our brothers
think, feel with their hearts for an hour, if it may not be for longer._
* * * * *
Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ltd., London and Aylesbury