The Quiver 3/1900
[Illustration: (_Drawn by Percy Tarrant._)
EASTER BLOSSOMS.]
THE CENTENARY OF THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY.
By the Rev. A. R. Buckland, M.A., Morning Preacher at the Foundling
Hospital.
At "The Castle and Falcon," in Aldersgate Street, on April 12th,
1799, there met, in all the solemnity of a public gathering, sixteen
clergymen and nine laymen.
They founded there and then the Church Missionary Society for
Africa and the East. That Society keeps its Centenary this month;
no longer an inconspicuous organisation expressing the hopes of a
godly few, but a great Society which has girdled the earth with
its missions. When, in November, 1898, its Estimates Committee
surveyed its position, they found that its roll included the names
of 802 European missionaries, of whom 295 were ladies, whilst, of
the 802, no fewer than eighty-four were serving altogether or in
part at their own expense. Some of them represented the missionary
enthusiasm of Australia and Canada; a fair proportion were duly
qualified medical workers, men and women.
[Illustration: MRS. J. A. BAILEY.
(_The first lady missionary of the Society._)]
With the exception of South America, there is no considerable
quarter of the globe in which they are not represented. They may be
found ministering to Esquimaux within the Arctic Circle, and to the
Indians of the vast expanses of Canada; they are shepherding the
Maoris of New Zealand; in India their stations may be discovered
alike amongst the wild tribes of the northern frontier, the strange
aboriginals found here and there in the continent, and the milder
races of the south; in Africa the Society begins in Egypt, but
goes no farther south than Uganda, though it is both on the east
coast and the west; it is strongly represented along the coasts of
China, as well as in the inland province of Sze-Chuen; it works both
amidst the Japanese themselves and that strange people the hairy
Ainu; it is domiciled in Ceylon and Mauritius; it has not forgotten
Persia. From Madagascar it has retired, and it has shown a wise
indisposition to enter upon new fields whilst the old are still
insufficiently manned. It has ever been known for the strictness
with which it observes the comity of missions; and it may fairly be
said that the zeal with which its friends have worked in behalf of
foreign missions has reacted on all the missionary agencies which
have their origins in Great Britain, as well as upon some which
express the zeal of America and the Colonies.
From Greenland's icy mountains,
From India's coral strand
Where Afric's sunny fountains
Roll down their golden sand,
From many an ancient river
From many a palmy plain
They call us to deliver
Their land from error's chain
What though the spicy breezes
Blow soft o'er Ceylon's Isle
Though every prospect pleases
And only man is vile?
In vain, with lavish kindness,
The gifts of God are strown
The heathen in his blindness
Bows down to woods and stone!
[Illustration: BISHOP HEBER'S MISSIONARY HYMN.
(_Facsimile of part of the Original MS._)]
The Church Missionary Society was really one of the fruits of the
Evangelical Revival, though when the Society was born that movement
was no longer young. Its first leaders had passed to their rest;
it was their successors amongst whom the Church Missionary Society
took its origin. They were, as history judges them, no mean persons,
though in their own day they fell, for their religious zeal, under
the condemnation of polite society, whether ecclesiastical or social.
[Illustration: THE BOARD ROOM AT THE MISSION HOUSE.]
That meeting in Aldersgate Street did not include some of those to
whom the foundation of the Church Missionary Society must directly
be referred; but, if we look at the circle they represented, we
shall find that it was one of rare distinction in the religious
history of the country. It included William Wilberforce, Zachary
Macaulay, Charles Grant, James Stephen, and Henry Thornton on the
lay side; Charles Simeon, John Newton, Thomas Scott, Richard Cecil,
and William Goode amongst the clergy. The impulse which moved
them was moving others, for the Baptist Missionary Society had
been founded by Carey in 1793, and the London Missionary Society
in 1795. The Religious Tract Society also began its existence in
this year 1799, and the Bible Society was founded in 1804. It was
a fruitful epoch. Yet it has to be remembered that it began under
ecclesiastical discouragement, and amidst such popular contempt of
missions to the heathen as was reflected in Sydney Smith's essay.
I do not propose to trace in detail the history of the Church
Missionary Society: within the space of a magazine article such an
attempt could do little more than produce a list of names and dates.
It may be more useful, as well as more interesting, to look at some
of the Society's great workers at home, at some of its heroes in
the mission-field, and at some of the romances which diversify its
history.
[Illustration: THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY'S MISSION HOUSE,
SALISBURY SQUARE.]
Of the men who helped to found the Church Missionary Society the
first place must be given to Charles Simeon. He was not at "The
Castle and Falcon" meeting, but it was he who, at the gathering of
the Eclectic Society in March of the same year, when missionary
plans were again under discussion, urged immediate action. "There
is not a moment to be lost," he said; "we have been dreaming these
four years, while all Europe is awake." The precise old bachelor,
fellow of his college at Cambridge, and incumbent of Holy Trinity
Church in that town, was not a person easily daunted by obstacles.
As an Evangelical he had had to face the most strenuous opposition
in his own parish. But he had been deeply stirred by plans and hopes
for missionary work in India; he was the friend and mentor of Henry
Martyn. He was able in time to wield at Cambridge an influence
which the late Bishop Christopher Wordsworth compared to that of
Newman at Oxford. Later generations somehow came to think of him
as something other than a Churchman; but they were quite wrong. A
careful scrutiny of Simeon's works, letters, and diaries will show
that he was consistently loyal to his Church and her formularies.
Of his influence upon foreign missions it is difficult to speak in
exaggeration; but one or two illustrations may serve to show its
extent. Henry Martyn was the first Englishman who offered to go
out under the Church Missionary Society. But Simeon was especially
anxious about India, and so Martyn went there as "Chaplain." His
brief work in Persia, the example of his singularly beautiful
character, and the swift end of so promising a career, still
influence the minds of young and old. And the influence of Martyn,
is, in a sense, the influence of Simeon. Less popularly known than
Henry Martyn, but in some respects of wider power, were the others
of the famous "Five Chaplains" who went out to India, the fruits of
Simeon's zeal for that land. These men left an indelible mark upon
the English in India during their time, and did much to prepare
the way of the missionary. Thus Claudius Buchanan helped more than
any other man to create the public opinion which opened India to
missionaries, and led to the consecration of the first bishop for
all India, the Bishop of Calcutta. Thomas Thomason was the father
of James Thomason, who, as Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West
Provinces, ruled (and taught others to rule) in the fear of God, and
with the warmest sympathy for missionary enterprise. Through him,
when the Punjab was annexed in 1849, it felt the influence which had
flowed from the rooms of Charles Simeon at Cambridge.
[Illustration: SECRETARIES of the CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY
REV THOMAS SCOTT 1799-1802
(L. COSSÉ pinxt)
REV. JOSIAH PRATT 1802-1824
(H. WYATT pinxt)
REV. E. BICKERSTETH 1824-1830
(ALEX. MOSSES pinxt)
REV. WILLIAM JOWETT 1832-1840
REV HENRY VENN 1841-1872
(G RICHMOND R. A. pinxt)
REV HENRY WRIGHT
1872-1880
REV F E WIGRAM 1880-1895
(PHOTO ELLIOTT & FRY)
REV H E FOX appointed 1895
(PHOTO ELLIOTT & FRY)
Robert A Shield 99
]
The name of Edward Bickersteth seems a natural succession to that of
Simeon. The influence of both is still unexhausted. When the Church
Missionary Society kept its second Jubilee in November, 1898, the
sermon was preached by Bishop E. H. Bickersteth, the son of Edward
Bickersteth. And the influence had been wider than the limits of
any one Society, for Bishop Edward Bickersteth, of Japan, who died
in 1897, represented another generation in this line of truly
apostolic succession.
Edward Bickersteth had been a solicitor in prosperous circumstances
when zeal for missions led him to take holy orders, and join the
Church Missionary Society as Assistant Secretary in 1816. Almost
at once he was sent to examine the Society's work at Sierra Leone.
There he admitted the Society's first African converts to the Holy
Communion. In 1824 he succeeded Josiah Pratt in the Secretaryship
of the Society. He was never an autocrat in the sense that Henry
Venn was; but his work for the Society in the country was enormous.
It has ceased to be the kind of work which is mainly done by the
Honorary Secretary of the Society, but at that period it was work
which was of inestimable value. It was the more important because
public opinion at home still presented a front of mingled contempt
and indifference to missions, whilst abroad the outlook was far from
hopeful.
[Illustration:
ZENANA WORK. BIBLE SELLING IN EASTERN BAZAARS.
TEACHING THE YOUNG.
LECTURING TO CHINESE HELPERS. ITINERATING THROUGH THE VILLAGES.
SOME METHODS OF WORK.
]
A greater figure than that of Edward Bickersteth in the annals of
the Church Missionary Society is that of Henry Venn. Here, too,
the name appears in more than one generation. The first Henry
Venn belongs, with Wesley, Whitfield, Romaine and others, to the
beginnings of the Evangelical Revival. Then comes John Venn,
who took the chair at "The Castle and Falcon" meeting. Then, in
1834, Henry Venn the younger, the son of John Venn and grandson
of the first Henry Venn, began regularly to attend the Society's
Committee. He was Hon. Secretary in 1841, and held office for
thirty-one years. He is the standard by which, doubtless, for
generations to come, Hon. Secretaries of the Church Missionary
Society will be compared. He was a strong man in every sense; a
statesman and an autocrat. But, like some other autocrats, he clung
to his work too long. He resigned only a few months before his
death, and left the Society in a condition of discouragement, from
the failure both of candidates for the mission field and of means
for carrying on the work. Under his successor, Henry Wright (who
was drowned in Coniston Lake in 1880), the Society began almost at
once to enter upon new life and activity. Here again the hereditary
influence, so manifest in the work of the Church Missionary Society,
is evident, for four of his children went to the mission field.
His successor, Frederic Wigram, was one of the most munificent
benefactors the Society ever had. He died, after resigning office,
worn out by its responsibility and toil. He, too, has sent children
to the mission-field. In his successor, the Rev. H. E. Fox, the
hereditary impulse is manifest again. Mr. Fox's father was one of
the founders of the Society's Telugu mission, and one of the most
devoted of its workers in the foreign field.
And now let us glance for a moment at some of the Society's agents
abroad. The task of selection is difficult. There are names on
the list that all men who care for missions have heard of. Samuel
Marsden, Samuel Crowther, Valpy French, Pfander, John Horden, James
Hannington, Alexander Mackay--these, to name but a few, and many
others, are familiar far outside the limits of the Society's own
friends. But there are more, less widely known, whose work deserves
not a whit less to be had in remembrance.
[Illustration: (_From Photo: supplied by the Church Missionary
Society._)
CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY'S TRAINING COLLEGE AT AGRA.
(_With students in foreground._)]
Amongst these was William Johnson, one of the first missionaries to
Sierra Leone. He went out in 1816, and began an extraordinary work
amongst the slaves released by British cruisers and landed at Sierra
Leone. He died on the voyage home to England at the early age of
thirty-four. Those were the days in which to face work in Sierra
Leone meant facing a peril so imminent that each volunteer needed
the courage of those who go upon a forlorn hope.
There was William Williams, first a surgeon and then, after
graduating at Oxford, ordained for work in the Colonies. He went
to New Zealand in 1825, when its people were a race of cannibals,
not one of whom professed Christianity. He lived to see the whole
country more or less fully evangelised. His wife died as recently as
1896, and his son, baptised in 1829 with the children of one of the
most savage of the Maori chiefs, became Bishop of Waiapu in the land
the father did so much to open up. William Williams had a brother,
Henry Williams, who preceded him in the field. So great was the
influence he won that, on the news of his death reaching two Maori
camps, in which rival tribes were preparing to meet in battle, they
at once proclaimed a truce, attended his funeral, and settled their
differences in peace.
[Illustration: (_Photo: G. P. Abraham, Keswick._)
MR. EUGENE STOCK.
(_Editorial Secretary of the Society._)]
[Illustration: (_From Photo: supplied by the Church Missionary
Society._)
THE LIBRARY AT THE MISSION HOUSE.]
There was Ludwig Krapf, whose name, with that of John Rebmaun,
should ever be joined with the origins of our growing empire
in Eastern Equatorial Africa. He began his missionary work in
Abyssinia, had to leave as the result of French intrigues, sailed
down the East African coast in an Arab boat, and in 1844 settled
at Mombasa. From the knowledge of the interior gained by Krapf and
his companion, came the chain of African discovery which issued,
as long afterwards as 1875, in the publication, through Mr. H. M.
Stanley, of Mtesa's appeal for missionaries for Uganda. How little
could Krapf ever have dreamed of the vast results, political as well
as spiritual, that would flow from that early disappointment, his
expulsion from Abyssinia!
There was David Hinderer, who, upon the other side of Africa, did
so striking a work in the Yoruba country. The prosperity of his
evangelistic labours, the virtual imprisonment in which he and his
wife--half-starved and in deadly peril--were for five years in the
town of Ibadan, and the ultimate discovery that their work stood the
severe tests of isolation and persecution, go to make up one of the
most interesting chapters in the history of African missions.
There was George Maxwell Gordon, the pilgrim-missionary of the
Indian frontier, a pioneer who saw little direct fruit of his
labours, yet left missions where none had been. Acting as chaplain
to the British forces shut up in Kandahar, he was killed, when
seeking to succour the wounded, in August, 1880.
But this is a list that might be almost indefinitely extended, and
still would seem invidious. Let us come to some striking pages in
the Society's history; again, of necessity, passing by many of the
most impressive as well as some of the most familiar.
The city of Peshawur, upon the Afghan frontier, has long been a
centre of missionary work. The fanaticism of the people when it
was first occupied by British troops seemed to make missionary
enterprise impossible. One Commissioner--he afterwards fell by
the hand of an assassin--refused permission for missionaries to
come, on the ground that they would excite the fanaticism of the
people to a dangerous pitch. The arrival of Herbert Edwardes
changed the situation. A meeting of English people, military and
civil, was called in Peshawur itself; a sum of £3,000 was raised, a
memorial sent to the Church Missionary Society, and, in response,
missionaries provided. Here is an example of what is so often
forgotten by critics of Indian missions, that they in a large
measure owe their origin and support to men actually or formerly
engaged in the administration of India. The Church Missionary
Society has been peculiarly happy in the number of men of high
distinction in the Army and the Civil Service who have served on
its Committee. Now from the Punjab men are pushing still farther
afield; Quetta has long been occupied, and the medical missionary
has found a welcome from the Afridis themselves.
Let us take another mission founded in answer to an appeal from
without, and that an appeal from a layman. People who recall the
missionary meetings of a generation ago will remember that no
more thrilling story was told at them than the history of William
Duncan's early work amongst the Tsimshean Indians of the North
Pacific coast. It was a marvellous example of courage, tact, and
patience, rewarded by the conversion of savages of a singularly
unapproachable type. It was a naval officer, Captain Prevost, who
suggested that mission to the Society, carried Mr. Duncan thither,
and landed him at Fort Simpson in 1857. In ten years' time he had
baptised nearly three hundred adult converts. In 1862 the Christian
community was moved to Metlakahtla, where the spectacle of a
cannibal and violent people living in peace and industry was long
deemed one of the marvels of missionary enterprise.
I pass by such striking histories as those of Uganda, of the attempt
of J. A. Robinson and Graham Wilmot Brooke to reach the Soudan from
the Niger, and of the massacre of English women at Hwa-Sang in
Fuh-kien, to recall romances of another kind. What could be more
moving than the careers of some of the Society's converts? Is there
any more striking history of its kind than that of the Rev. Dr.
Imad-ud-din, a learned Mohammedan, who had sought the peace of God
by every available means, and at last found it in Christ? Or what
would they who distrust converts say to the career of that once
notorious Border bandit, Dilawar Khan, baptised in 1858, who served
as an officer in the Guides, and died in Chitral whilst in the
service of the British Government?
But it is time to leave these things and to speak of some aspects of
the Society's work which concern all missionary enterprise.
[Illustration: "IN THE UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE EARTH."
(_The peoples amongst whom the C.M.S. Missionaries are now
working._)]
Twice in its career the Church Missionary Society has definitely
committed itself to a policy of faith as it has committed itself to
sending out all who offer and are found qualified. It is a policy
which, judged by the most secular standard, must be accounted
a success. The growth of its staff in recent years, under this
system, has been most striking. The Society has had its periods
of stagnation and disappointment; at times its directors have
felt driven to retrenchment. Thus in 1859 the number of European
missionaries on its roll was 226; ten years later it was only 228.
But, whereas in 1889 the number was 360, in 1898 it had risen to
802. During the first ten years the Society sent out five agents;
in the ten years ending with its Jubilee the number was 119; in
the nine years ending 1898 it reached 719. The income of 1848 was
£92,823; the income of 1898 was £331,598. Its latest statistics show
that there are about 240,000 natives associated with its missions,
and of late it would seem that its clergy baptise on an average
about twenty adult converts every day.
[Illustration: (_Photo: A. G. Carlile, Exmouth._)
SIR JOHN H. KENNAWAY, M.P.
(_President of the Church Missionary Society._)]
In this month of April all round the world--from North-West Canada
to New Zealand, from Palestine to Japan, from Central Africa to the
Indian frontier--men will be keeping the centenary of that meeting
at "The Castle and Falcon," in Aldersgate Street. For a hundred
years of work, considered in relation to the power and the wealth
and the responsibilities of our nation, there may be little to show;
but, for such as there is, men of many races, and once of many
creeds, will, with one accord, give thanks to God.
[Illustration: THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY'S MAP OF THE WORLD.
(_The shaded portions indicate the present-day fields of work._)]
[Illustration: THE MASTERFUL YOUNG MAN]
_A COMPLETE STORY._
By Margaret Westrup, Author of "They Furriners," Etc.
He stopped in the shade of the high old wall and listened.
A smile shone in his blue eyes as the sweet, childish voice sounded
clear and high in the still, scented air.
"What now, Jeannette, shall the mistress of Ancelles fall in love
like an ordinary mortal, then?"
There was mischief in the pretty voice, but there was pride, too.
"But yes, mamzelle! Love comes to all--high and low--and spares no
one its pangs."
"Pangs? Ah, bah! it shall have no pangs for me!"
"Ah, mamzelle! do not be rash."
"How will it take me, Jeannette? Tell me, that I may be prepared.
Will it come like a fiery dart to my bosom, bringing a light to my
eyes, and a colour of roses to my cheeks? Or will it take me sadly,
rendering my cheek pale and my spirits low? Tell me, Jeannette."
"Not the last way, mamzelle"--the voice was slow now--"for you are
too proud."
"You are right, Jeannette, I am too proud! 'Tis not I who must be
pale and afraid. 'Tis the other. Love must come to me humble and
suing--to be glad or sorry at my will. Is it not so, Jeannette?"
"How should I know, mamzelle?"--sadly--"I dread its coming at all."
"Bah! what matters it? And why should it come? I, for one, do not
want---- Ah! do not scream so, Jeannette--it is a man--he is hurt."
The man scrambled to his feet, and tried to bow, but his face was
ghastly.
"I beg your--pardon----"
"You are hurt, monsieur. Do not try to apologise. Jeannette, help
him to the house. Follow me."
The man leant on Jeannette's stout shoulder, and followed the
stately little figure through the sunny, twisting paths, sweet and
rich with their wealth of roses, up to the old château with its
narrow windows gleaming in the sunshine.
"Here, Jeannette," said the little mistress of the roses and the
château. "Monsieur, you will rest on the sofa."
He obeyed the wave of the small white hand and lay down.
"Jeannette, send for Dr. Raunay."
Jeannette departed.
The man opened his blue eyes.
"I am so sorry----"
"You must not speak," eyeing him with grave, dark eyes. "You will
keep quiet till the doctor comes."
He submitted.
Jeannette returned immediately.
"Are you thirsty?" asked his little hostess gently.
"No--thank you."
"You want for nothing?"
"No, thank you."
She sat down and waited.
Then later--"Jeannette, lower the blinds. Make no noise."
"Thank you," said the man.
"Do not speak!"--frowning.
He smiled a little.
"Mamzelle, suppose he dies?"
"Jeannette, how _dare_ you?"
"But his face is white; and"--her suspicions bursting out--"how came
he to fall into mamzelle's garden?"
"Jeannette, leave the room!"
"That I will not! No, I will not! Jeannette knows what is owing to
her mistress, and to leave----"
"Well, well"--quickly--"but do not dare to utter another word."
Jeannette mumbled rebelliously, but retired to a corner vanquished.
The man opened his eyes as a soft wave of air was wafted across his
face.
A pair of soft, dark eyes looked down pityingly into his.
He shut his own with a murmured word of thanks, and let her fan him.
Jeannette came ponderously across the room.
"Mamzelle, it is not fitting----"
"Did I not forbid you to speak?" said the haughty young voice.
"Yes, but Jeannette knows what is due to mamzelle, and----"
"Mademoiselle also knows."
Something in the tone stopped the old servant's words, and once more
she retired vanquished.
The man smiled to himself.
Dr. Raunay came and pronounced a bad sprain of the left arm to be
the only injury the man had received.
The doctor's sharp, black eyes were full of questions, but
Mademoiselle Stéphanie met his gaze calmly, indifferently, and he
dared not put one question into words.
"Monsieur, of course, will be our guest," she said when the doctor
had taken his departure.
The man reddened slowly under his tan.
"I--really----" He raised himself on his right elbow.
Jeannette eyed him with sharp suspicion.
"Of course, you will stay," said mademoiselle, with her little
imperious air.
"But I am quite well enough to go to an inn----"
"There is not one within five miles, and that--well----" A little
expressive wave of the small hands and a whimsical smile finished
her sentence.
"I do not like to trespass----"
"It is not trespassing," with pretty warmth; "indeed, monsieur, you
must accept of our hospitality."
"Then thank you very much."
"And--your luggage? Is it with friends? They will be anxious--we
will send----"
She was too courteous to ask with whom he was staying. Yet she
wondered much, for, beyond poor cottages, there were no dwellings
within many miles of Ancelles.
"I am alone," he answered; "I have walked from B---- to-day."
Jeannette snorted. She plainly did not believe him. B---- was thirty
and more miles distant. The suspicion in her stare grew deeper.
"Oh," said Stéphanie.
"My luggage----" He hesitated; yet what could he do without it?
"It is only a small bag--it is--er--outside your garden wall," he
finished desperately.
"Jeannette, please see that it is fetched at once."
No faintest spark of surprise appeared in his hostess's small face.
She seemed quite used to having strangers tumble over her wall into
her garden, quite used to luggage being left outside the wall.
The man was distinctly amused, but he was touched too.
An old manservant, with a faint, indescribable old-world air, that
fitted in with the château and the garden and the roses somehow,
brought food to the stranger, and, after he had eaten, showed him to
his room.
The stranger looked round him with interest.
It was a large apartment, large and bare and old--but everything at
Ancelles was old.
But the curtains to the bed, faded now, had once been rich and
handsome. The tapestry across the door of a smaller room leading
from the other, was still beautiful though worn with age.
Hugh Michelhurst shivered a little as he stood there, in the dim,
dark, old-world chamber. There was something pathetic in the tale it
told of bygone splendour, something sad and forlorn.
Then his eye fell on a bowl of vivid red roses standing on his
dressing-table, and he smiled.
They at least were not old. Their splendour was undimmed. There was
nothing faded in their fresh, glowing beauty; and who had put them
there?
He went closer; he bent over them and drank in their sweet scent.
And as he did it the old, sunny garden rose before him again. The
little twisting paths, the roses so thick and luxuriant that they
trespassed forward from their beds; the old broken fountain, with
the water nymph bending eternally in graceful readiness to dive, and
amongst them--the roses, the sunshine, the queer paths, and the old
fountain--the little mistress of them all, slim, childish, with soft
dark eyes, with pretty lips made for laughter, with the sun caught
in the waves of her brown hair. His hands wandered gently over the
roses as he stood and thought what a gracious little hostess she
was! How sweetly she had welcomed him, asking no questions!
A wave of colour surged over his white face.
But he smiled as he sank down on to a chair.
His entry into the sweet, old-world garden had been supremely
ridiculous. Moreover, he was terribly ashamed of himself as well as
rueful.
But his sense of humour was strong enough to save either feeling
from overpowering him. His arm began to pain him badly again. He
shut his lips tightly and sat still.
Outside he heard a gay young voice. "It is a pity, Jeannette, that
the sun does not shine into his room now. See how glorious is its
setting to-night."
A pause.
Hugh Michelhurst guessed how the pause was filled by his little
hostess's mocking answer:
"Why, Jeannette, how cross you are! And, anyway, in the morning the
sun will wake him."
"It may rain, mamzelle."
"Rain?" with a little burst of prettiest laughter. "Why, where are
your eyes, Jeannette? Rain? With that sky--that sunset? All, no!
Even _ma tante_ would not say that, and she always predicts rain,
you know."
"It is her rheumatism, mamzelle; she feels it in her bones."
"Yes," carelessly. "Jeannette, he will need assistance--how careless
I am! It is that I am so unused to entertaining a guest, and yet
once Ancelles was noted for its hospitality----"
The pretty voice died away into the distance, and a few minutes
later there was a discreet tap at the stranger's door, and the faded
old manservant appeared, and, with an air, offered monsieur his
humble services.
* * * * *
Two mornings had Stéphanie's prophecy been fulfilled. Two mornings
the sun had wakened her guest, and now he was wondering if he dared
stay and let it wake him a third.
"Madame ma tante" had put in an appearance once. She had welcomed
the stranger with a stiff yet courteous stateliness that was as
old-worldly as the garden and the château and everything pertaining
thereto.
She was a confirmed invalid, and, till she sallied forth to welcome
her niece's guest (Ancelles belonged to Stéphanie), had not left her
room for nearly two years.
Hugh Michelhurst was duly presented, and made a favourable
impression on "Madame ma tante." In half an hour the impression had
faded. In an hour it was gone. "Madame ma tante" had forgotten his
existence.
He was sitting now on the old, worn steps leading to the second
terrace. His right arm rested on the step above, close by his
hostess's dainty little feet.
The air was sunny and warm, and sweet with the scent of roses.
He wondered dreamily what had become of the world----
[Illustration: She smiled softly at his words.
G. G. Manton]
A little breeze came and scattered the rose leaves in her lap--the
soft, fragrant heap that she had gathered for _pot-pourri_--and
roused the man.
He stooped to gather them up, but she stayed him.
"There are plenty more," she said.
"Yes," he said; "what a lovely old garden it is!"
He watched the pink deepen in her cheek, and the little dimples come
and go as she smiled softly at his words.
Then he sighed.
"My arm is better," he said. "I"--doubtfully--"must go to-day."
"Must you? Will you not stay a little longer? It"--wistfully--"is
nice to have a guest."
He looked up at her with his blue eyes full of love.
"It is good of you to say so," he said earnestly.
"Ancelles cannot offer much," she said, with a little stately air,
"but it offers you a true welcome, monsieur, and one that will never
fail you so long as you will stay with us."
"I have never," he said slowly, "had such a true welcome before."
His eyes made her restless.
She crushed the rose leaves in her hand, and scattered them abroad.
He picked them up and kept them.
"Do you never wonder," he said, "how I came to fall into your
garden?"
"We are only glad that monsieur so fell, except for the sprained
arm," answered the little mistress of Ancelles.
"I heard your voice," he said, looking up into her face. "I stood
and listened, and then--I wanted to see the owner of the voice, and
I climbed to the top of the wall and then--I fell."
"I thought only schoolboys behaved so," she said, but her pretty
lips parted and her eyes smiled, in spite of herself.
"If I had been a schoolboy I should not have fallen."
"Why?"
"Because a schoolboy does not lose his head as I did, mademoiselle."
"And your footing, monsieur."
"The one was an outcome of the other."
She looked away across the sweet, smiling sunshine.
"Monsieur"--suddenly bending her gaze upon his face--"how came you
to lose your head?"
He glanced at her in swift surprise. He was no chicken-heart, yet
something in the proud little face made him hesitate.
But he was proud, too.
"Because directly my eyes fell upon you I loved you," he said
steadily.
Stéphanie started to her feet.
"Monsieur, you outrage my hospitality," she said haughtily.
He got up and faced her.
"Never!" he cried. "I did not mean to say it--yet, but----"
"You insult me, monsieur!"
"Pardon me, mademoiselle"--his tone was cool as hers now--"but the
offer of a man's heart and home can never be an insult!"
"An honour, perhaps?" mockingly.
"It is at least his best, mademoiselle."
"And seemly within a two-days' acquaintanceship, monsieur?"
Her pride, the haughty little smile curling her pretty lip, maddened
him.
He bent towards her.
"Seemly or unseemly," he said in low, tense tones, "you shall love
me!"
Her dark eyes flashed.
"I shall not, monsieur!" she cried, and shut her small teeth closely.
With a haughty inclination of her pretty head, she left him--left
him amongst the roses, in the sunshine, but cold at heart at what he
had done.
* * * * *
He wooed her persistently. He was persistent by nature, and all his
life he had never wanted anything as he wanted her. He bore the
discomforts of the little inn without a murmur, and every day the
roses on the little twisting paths found him among them.
Mademoiselle was proud and cold; mademoiselle was proud and
mocking, proud and wilful, proud and laughing, proud and
non-comprehending--every mood in the world, one after another, was
mademoiselle, but proud always--proud with them all. And at last he
lost heart.
So there came a day when the scent of the roses sickened him, when
the twisting paths maddened him, and he stood before the little
mistress of them all, white, stern, beaten.
"I have come to say good-bye," he said, and the tone of his voice
had changed.
"Good-bye?" she repeated, and she gave him her hand without another
word.
"I would like to thank you for your kindness to me," he said dully;
"but--well, perhaps some day you will understand what I feel now. I
know you are too good for me. I don't see why you should ever have
cared for me; but oh! my little Stéphanie, you are just all the
world to me----"
His voice broke, and he turned away down one of the little sunny
paths. But there amongst the roses love came to him at last; for
Stéphanie, with a sudden radiance in her face which sent all the
pride away, ran after him, and he, seeing the radiance, straightway
took her into his arms, and the scent of the roses grew sweet to him
again.
And all the explanation mademoiselle ever saw fit to give of her
many unkind moods was--"You were so masterful, monsieur. You
hammered out love, love, love, and 'you must,' and 'you shall'--till
that day--then you wooed me as I would that I should be wooed."
And he, remembering the words he had overheard when he stood beneath
the garden wall, smiled and thought he understood.
Not all peace was his wooing even now.
His little mistress still had her moods, and was tantalisingly chary
of her soft words and caresses. Moreover, she possessed a will
that had never been thwarted, and she did not understand the words
"shall" and "must," never having had them said to her.
So that, sweet as he found his wooing, at times his brow grew dark;
for he too had a strong will, and it irked him to have to make it
give way to hers.
And at last there came a matter in which he would not yield, and so
they parted.
For mademoiselle declared that always must Ancelles be her home.
"When you are my wife," he said, "you must come with me to my house
in town--in London, you know. What a change it will be for you,
_petite_!"
And then mademoiselle, her eyes kindling, declared that never would
she live elsewhere than at Ancelles.
He was aghast. For to a man, strong of limb and strong of brain, the
life that was a dream amongst the roses could not suffice.
In vain he urged his views upon her. She rebelled against his tone
of authority. At last she stood before him with head erect, and
eyes that flashed on him from under their long lashes.
"Choose," she said peremptorily: "London or me."
"But, child, hear me----"
"I will not hear you. Pray choose at once."
"I would have both----"
With a little scornful laugh she bade him begone.
"Stéphanie----"
She waved her white hand towards the gates of Ancelles.
"You have chosen. Adieu!"
She turned away with a scornful smile on her lips.
He sprang forward.
"Stéphanie, you must--you _shall_ give way to me in this----"
Her small hand clenched.
"Monsieur, allow me to pass!"
He stood aside.
"You will repent," he said.
For an instant she turned her great eyes dark with pride on him.
"_Never!_" she said, and walked away.
* * * * *
At Ancelles the roses still blossomed, the sun still shone, though
not so hotly, on the little twisting paths, the water nymph still
bent gracefully for her dive, and amongst them all flitted their
little mistress. In and out, gayer, more restless, swifter of foot
than even of yore, she wended her way--a laugh ever on her lips,
merry words tripping from her tongue, and hovering near--Jeannette.
"Life is good, Jeannette," cried mademoiselle, and gaily she made
herself a crown of roses.
"Life with love--yes, mamzelle," murmured Jeannette, for she was
getting desperate over the problem as to how long a young girl could
live eating nothing, or next to nothing.
"Love? Bah! Jeannette, what an old sentimentalist you are!"
Yet Jeannette had heard the sharp, indrawn breath that preceded the
mocking words.
And why did mamzelle have to rest half-way up to her room now?
Jeannette had seen her again and again, yet never with
mademoiselle's knowledge.
For if Jeannette were with her, then, setting her little white teeth
closely, mademoiselle did the flights of stairs without a pause;
but Jeannette saw how the small hand, once so disdainful of the
balusters, now clung to the support. She saw how the pretty throat
throbbed, how her bosom heaved, and how the colour left her face;
and, seeing, Jeannette's own face grew grey and lined with care.
"It is a merry world," cried mademoiselle, setting the crown of
roses on her pretty head, "and love is superfluous."
"So is pride, mamzelle."
Up went the small crowned head.
"Pride superfluous, Jeannette?" haughtily. "Nay, it is but proper
and right for those of Ancelles."
Jeannette moistened her dry lips.
"It can be bought too dearly, mamzelle."
"I--do not understand, Jeannette. Surely you are forgetting
yourself?"
The eyes were dangerous, the lips haughty, but Jeannette's love for
her charge overcame the long reserve and terror of those last months.
"Mamzelle, mamzelle, listen to me! He is a good man, and he loves
you well. Without him you will pine a----"
"Pine, Jeannette? _Pine?_" Suddenly she caught the old servant's
wrists between her small, hot hands. "Jeannette," she whispered
passionately, "never speak so again! Do you hear? _I_ pine--_I!_ Am
I sad, Jeannette? Answer me! Are my spirits low?"
"N--no, mamzelle."
"Do I not work and read and play as always?"
"Y--yes, mamzelle."
"Do I ever droop?"
"No----"
"Or sigh?"
"No----"
"Or weep?"
"No----"
"Then what made you speak so, Jeannette?"
"I--I do not know, mamzelle."
Stéphanie dropped her wrist. Her eyes were burning, her cheeks
flushed.
"Then never dare to speak so again," she said, and turned haughtily
away.
And almost directly she burst into a gay little song; and Jeannette,
standing listening, felt the slow tears of age dropping one by one
down her cheeks.
* * * * *
In London Hugh Michelhurst shouldered his way amongst the busy
throng in Piccadilly, and in the fog his thoughts turned to the old
sunny garden at Ancelles. He sighed, then frowned as if such sighing
displeased him. His mouth took a bitter curve as his thoughts
wandered back to the last time he had stood on the little sunny
paths amongst the roses, with Stéphanie at his side.
[Illustration: G. G. Manton
She turned away with a scornful smile.]
Perhaps it was because his thoughts so often wandered in that
direction that his face seemed to have grown harder, his mouth
sterner.
"Four months!" he murmured, "twelve months in a year--say, forty
years--long years! Forty years like these last four months!"
"Forty years, forty years!" rang mockingly in his ears.
Suddenly he paused.
"Forty or a hundred, I will never give in!" he said, and his mouth
looked almost cruel in its set sternness.
* * * * *
Spring had come. A soft, warm, early spring that brought all the
tender flowers peeping out before their time.
And in the warm, trying spring Hugh Michelhurst fell ill of a low
fever.
At the end of May he rose from his sick bed, and refused to be an
invalid any longer.
But his strength was gone from him.
One day he walked out into the country, and his love was strong
on him, so that he bowed his head, and felt weak as a child. And
suddenly a scent was wafted to him on the breeze. He stood and
lifted his head to meet it, and his face worked. On a little cottage
red roses glowed before their time. He had seen none since he was in
the old garden at Ancelles. He stretched out his arms. "I give in,"
he said, and he turned and retraced his steps the way he had come.
* * * * *
In a little sunny path amongst the roses he found her.
"My darling--my darling--I will live here always--only live with
me----"
His voice broke; he could say no more.
With a little fond cry she nestled close to him.
"No, no," she whispered, "I will come away to your London as you
wish."
They sat on the steps leading to the second terrace, and the water
nymph seemed to smile down on them as she bent to take her dive.
They sat side by side, and mademoiselle's pretty head rested against
his shoulder.
[Illustration: G. G. Manton
With a little cry she nestled close to him.]
"But, _petite_, you love your home so----"
"My home is wherever you are, monsieur."
"You did not think so once, _chérie_."
"Ah! but then you were 'shall' and 'must'"--pouting--"and now--now
you are different."
He smiled tenderly. He thought he understood now.
"We will live part of the year here and part in London. There, my
little one--will that do?"
"Ah, yes, perfectly!"
"Come now for a little walk," he said, for he had something in his
mind.
He stopped in one of the twisting paths down which they had so often
wandered, and looked at the old château.
"That ivy is too thick to be healthy," he said, "but" (sighing),
"you like it--it must stop."
Now that same ivy had been the cause of their biggest quarrel before
that last biggest one of all.
"It shall be cut," cried mademoiselle, smiling up at him, "and at
once!"
He looked down into her eyes adoringly.
The scent of the roses wrapped them round with softest sweetness.
He smiled at her tenderly.
Yes, he understood now. He had found the way to rule her.
GREAT ANNIVERSARIES.
_IN APRIL._
April claims an anniversary which all Englishmen are presumed to
honour. April 23rd is St. George's Day, and St. George is the patron
saint of England. Yet he was not, so far as we know, an Englishman.
He is said to have been a centurion in the army of Diocletian, and
to have been roasted alive for pulling down a copy of the decree
ordering the infamous persecution associated with Diocletian's name.
That distinction is disputed in the interests of another person; but
the fact remains that St. George was held in conspicuous honour by
the early Church. His particular place as the patron of the English
dates from the Crusades. The story of George and the Dragon has no
relation to the incident which couples him to the English. Some
authorities have identified this St. George with a certain George
of Cappadocia, Arian Bishop of Alexandria; but Mr. Baring-Gould
rejects with indignation the proposal to confound the patron saint
of England with a heretic. We are on the ground, not of legend, but
of history, in recalling St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, who
was born about 1033. His day is April 21st.
[Illustration: (_Photo: A. F. Colbourne, Canterbury._)
ST. ANSELM'S CHAPEL, CANTERBURY.]
[Illustration: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
(_The Stratford-on-Avon Portrait._)]
[Illustration: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
(_From the Tablet in Grasmere Church._)]
St. George's Day has memories of other people than the legendary
slayer of the dragon. On April 23rd, 1564, William Shakespeare was
born; on April 23rd, 1616, he died. These, then, are anniversaries
which cannot be overlooked by any person who values literature. Our
pride is qualified by the thought that all the world of intelligence
has taken hold of Shakespeare; he is the possession of educated
mankind. Cervantes does not come of our stock, but in passing it may
be permitted to remember that he died on the same day of the same
year as Shakespeare. It was on St. George's Day, 1850, too, that
William Wordsworth, poet laureate, died. The body of John Keble, the
poet of the Oxford Movement, was laid to rest in Hursley churchyard
on April 6th, 1866. He was deeply influenced by Wordsworth, but
his name still more definitely suggests another English poet--the
saintly George Herbert. He, too, belongs to this month, for he was
born on April 3rd, 1593.
[Illustration: GEORGE HERBERT.]
[Illustration: ROBERT RAIKES.]
George Herbert was related to Lord Herbert of Cherbury, whose
friends included Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesbury, one of the most
distinguished of English philosophers. Hobbes was born on April 5th,
1588. The philosophy afterwards associated with the names of Locke,
Hume, and Priestley owed much to Hobbes. Hume himself--philosopher,
historian, and servant of the State--was born at Edinburgh on April
26th, 1711. Charles Darwin, philosopher and naturalist, died this
month (April 19th, 1882). Few Englishmen have attained to wider
fame; few have ever more profoundly influenced human thought.
[Illustration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.]
Robert Raikes, in virtue of his work in prisons and his share in the
foundation of Sunday schools, deserves long to be held in memory.
Born at Gloucester, he died there suddenly on April 5th, 1811. Could
Raikes have looked into the future, with what astonishment and joy
he would have marked the development in the extent and spirit of
this work, which is indicated by the existence of THE QUIVER Medal
Fund and its rewards to veteran Sunday-school workers! A more modern
and a greater philanthropist also belongs to April. Anthony Ashley
Cooper, seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, was born in Grosvenor Square
on April 28th, 1801. In and out of Parliament, with a zeal which
no opposition and no disappointment could repress, "the good Earl"
worked for the cause of the oppressed, the poor, the sick, the
sinful. He did much directly; perhaps more by the stimulus of his
example.
[Illustration: THE LATE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY.
(_Photo: Russell & Sons, Baker Street, W._)]
Of institutions associated with the month of April, the Royal
Academy is one of the most conspicuous. The Society of Incorporated
Artists held their first exhibition at the Society of Arts, Adelphi,
on April 21st, 1760. From this there sprang the Royal Academy. The
first exhibition of the Academicians was held in Pall Mall on April
26th, 1769. The British Museum has its association with this month,
for it was on April 5th, 1753, that Parliament granted the sum of
£20,000 to the daughters of Sir Hans Sloane, in return for the
collections which were the basis of the museum's vast treasures.
The National Gallery also has its link with April, for it was on
April 9th, 1838, that the present building in Trafalgar Square was
completed and opened.
April has many memories for citizens of the United States. On April
17th, 1790, died Benjamin Franklin, politician, economist, and
natural philosopher; in April, 1861, began the long struggle between
the Northern and Southern States; and on April 14th, 1865, Abraham
Lincoln, perhaps the most striking personality hitherto produced by
the great democracy, was shot by John Wilkes Booth.
[Illustration: A VIEW OF THE NATIONAL GALLERY.]
[Illustration: BROUGHT AGAIN FROM THE DEPTHS.]
_AN EASTERTIDE ADDRESS._
By the Very Rev. W. Lefroy, D.D., Dean of Norwich.
"Thou, which hast showed me great and sore troubles, shalt
quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of
the earth."--PSALM lxxi. 20.
Human history had seen but its infancy when the
announcement was made that man was "born unto trouble, as the
sparks fly upward." And ever since the home of the Arab chief was
devastated; ever since the day that Job's heart was broken by the
intelligence of the Sabean slaughter of his sons and daughters,
followed by a conflagration which stripped him of property, and
made a pauper of a prince; ever since, the dreary wail of woe rends
the air, and the requiem of life sobs and sighs like Eliphaz the
Temanite, "Man is born unto trouble."
Nor can we allow ourselves to question the dictum. The infant's wail
precedes the infant's weal. The cry of helplessness is heard in the
cradle. The child's deep sigh anticipates the child's sweet smile.
And although sunny childhood sometimes passes as if the pitiless law
of hereditary trouble were suspended, yet no serious thinker can
hesitate to accept the proposition, that trouble is in the ratio in
which life's meaning and purpose are experienced, or divine love
accepted and enjoyed. If a man has no trouble, it is because he has
not yet practically realised the significance of existence. He is
still free from those social, domestic, and personal influences, the
derangement of any of which brings agony by day and sleeplessness
by night. Or, again, it may be because he has learnt the loftiest
and yet the lowliest lesson from his Lord, by accepting the Gospel
of Gethsemane, "Thy will be done." But excepting the persons so
classified by social isolation or spiritual resignation, there is
not on earth an exception to the law of the human race being "born
unto trouble." Yea, more. Constituted as we are, we live in the
presence of the grim enigma, that the object which gave us the
highest joy can give us the most excruciating sorrow. Nor can that
existence be anything else than mournful whose happiness or misery
depends upon any earthly object.
This statement may be illustrated by every condition in
life--domestic, physical, intellectual. The genius across whose
mental firmament the lights and shadows of history travelled, and
by whom they were arrested, analysed, and grouped in their course;
the great brain of the great worker whose intrepid excursions into
the realms of the past and the present, with a view to tabulating
the rise of civilisation--the patient and profound Mr. Buckle, is
absorbed by mental enjoyment. He lives, and moves, and has his being
in men and manners, among maps and manuscripts. He makes a grand
discovery. He keeps the secret for twenty years. He repairs to
Damascus to recruit for literary service. He is stricken with fever,
and dies with the words of his intellectuality on his parched lips,
"My book, my book! I shall never finish my book!" Here his highest
joy was his keenest sorrow. So in physical life. There have been
men who seemed at one time as if they were created without nerves.
Their arms were brawny, muscular, and mighty. Their limbs were firm
and fine. They seemed God's highest type of organic life. They
rejoiced in their strength and in their youth. But disease assailed,
or dissipation punished, and retribution appeared in feebleness,
exhaustion, and debility. Youthful feats were forbidden. The sports
of the past recalled a youth of virtue and purity; and then came
the sigh which told that, even physically, the source of our joy
becomes the spring of our sorrow. And need I elaborate details to
establish the place of this doctrine in domestic life? Do we not
know this from the gloomy history of the orphan child, the widowed
mother, the bereaved sister, brother, friend? You know that to love
dearly means to have a skeleton in your house. The object of your
love causes a thousand smiles to play in your eye, and to break
on your countenance; but the shade of that object is mocking your
mirth, and is only waiting a few rounds of the clock to compensate
mirth with misery.
Nor is this all. There are sorrows far more terrible than those of
sickness or the cemetery. A living sorrow defies rivalry. It has a
fearful pre-eminence in woe. A wayward, wild, debauched youth; an
estranged husband; an embittered, irascible, worldly wife; a stormy,
or, what is far worse, a sullen home; these are amongst the darkest
illustrations of the doctrine, that our sighs are in the track of
our smiles; our delights become our dangers; yea, it sometimes seems
as if affection became idiotic, and then, like the raving maniac, we
laugh and cry together. So we are "born to trouble." This being so,
it is important to listen to testimony concerning the remedy which
troubled souls have found efficacious. If we have one such man, able
and willing to give his fellow-sufferers a cure for care, it is
surely prudent to hear what he has to say. Accordingly, let me ask
you to follow me while I try to establish a cure for all afflicted
souls from the experience, conviction, and anticipation of a royal
mourner. I invite you to come with me to the side of a man like one
of us. Listen to him struggling up the great altar-stairs of faith
sustained by love, and, as he peers into the Unseen, he speaks as if
to one warm with life, charged with ardent sympathy, and he says,
"Oh, what troubles and adversities hast Thou shown me; and yet didst
Thou turn and refresh me!"
The first step in this study is to be clear as to the nature of
the troubles God showed David. There was, then, the personal and
the spiritual trouble of backsliding, consequent upon his murder
of Uriah for his base purpose. And here we must discriminate. The
trouble of David about Bathsheba was not sent by God; God permitted
it; but in the heartless and cold-blooded plot in the tyrannical
insolence and diabolical dastardliness of its execution--in the
coarse, callous, and criminal height of its succeeding guilty
rapture--it was of Satan, of sin, of David. For three-quarters of
a year David played fast and loose with God and conscience; and it
was when Nathan scared him that God showed him the trouble. Then
came anguish, remorse, penitence. Then came the sorrowful sighing of
the soul--all the greater in the awakening because it had slept so
soundly and so long. Then came that lamentation over lost virtue,
the penitential Fifty-first Psalm. It is the expression of a man
lacerated by conscience. He seems to bleed at every pore. The
agitation and alarm and agony are piteous beyond description. He
appears in this psalm to look in every direction, and the ghost of
his crime haunts him. Within, without, above, below, behind, beyond,
he can see the furies of justice as the embassied troublers of his
life. Original depravity, actual outrage, a heart black with the
Egyptian darkness of fostered treachery, the warrior slaughtered
by his mandate, the blood-guiltiness staining his soul, and then
the wail ringing in the ears of God, "Cast me not away from Thy
presence; and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me"--all these may be
compared to a spiritual chamber of horrors, in which David found
himself after the startling visit of Nathan.
These were some of the troubles God showed him. And their cause
introduced more of a domestic, not to say of a political, kind. The
sin brought scandal and reproach on the Church of God. The enemies
blasphemed. Then Jehovah, vindicating His character for justice
before the world, avenging the atrocious murder of Uriah, sent a
series of domestic afflictions upon David unparalleled in human
experience. One scene--a nameless scene--has its miserable match
in the brutal bestiality of the Empire, when the sceptre of Rome
was in the hands of a corpse. But the other experiences are easily
related. They are as the outcome of a curse which hung heavily on
the royal house. Amnon, the eldest son, was slain by young Absalom,
who waited two years for an opportunity. This severed Absalom from
home for three years. He then, by a singular artifice, returned,
and won the hearts of the people by his consummate and accomplished
address, his handsome presence, and adroit demeanour. His aged
and royal father's statesmen proved false to the king, and one in
particular advised the murder of David and a revolution. At length
the conspiracy grew in defiance and dimension. David was obliged
to flee from the capital. His flight was far more humiliating than
that of the French emperor from Paris. Napoleon had not to mourn
over the treason of his son as the cause of his exile. This was
David's anguish. He ascended the Mount of Olives and looked back
upon the city of palaces he had founded and ornamented--the seat
for a generation of his power, his glory, his happiness. He was
leaving it a miserable fugitive, driven forth by the nation he had
established and the child he had reared. He could not, he did not,
disguise his sorrow. With bared head and uncovered feet the exile
began his pilgrimage, and every step the old king took recalled the
crime and sin of earlier years, while it remained for one Shimei
to load him with the bitterest and most contemptuous execrations.
Then came the crisis. Such of the army as remained loyal engaged in
battle with the revolutionary forces attracted to Absalom. David
begged that his unhappy son might be spared in the conflict. The war
began and issued in the success of the royalists. The first question
of the venerable monarch was, "Is the young man Absalom safe?"
He then learnt that order was re-established, but at the cost of
Absalom's life. He was accidentally hanged, and while hanging he was
speared by David's commander-in-chief.
These are amongst the troubles--political, domestic, and
spiritual--which God permitted to fall upon David; and yet this
very David has courage amid the havoc of holiness, the misery of
exile, the torture of outraged parental affection, and political
insurrection. That courageous confidence is in a person: he
realises God. This conviction is unshaken amid his chequered life
and history; indeed, all through the din of revolution, the grief
of a homeless and worse than childless existence, there is one
ever-recurring belief: "God my help," "God my refuge," "God my
shield." In this belief he brings back to God every trouble God
sent to him. Hence we have these psalms, written by David, as agony
after agony swept in upon his soul. Nor did it seem to signify how
different one sorrow might be from another. The old cry, the same
cry, is raised to a personal God. When Saul sought his life through
jealousy; when Jonathan was slain in battle; when he himself had
fallen into sin, and then was aroused--now by the whisperings of
reclaiming grace, now by the booming billows of divine justice; when
he bowed his head in shame, and the fierce light that beat about
his court gleamed on his dark soul; when he tottered up the heights
of Olivet, an impotent outcast, betrayed by his courtiers, deserted
by his troops, and exiled by the unnatural rebellion and heartless
perfidy of his son--in these experiences, so fearful, overwhelming,
and varied, he saw God showing him the trouble. As the hand that
sent it was ever the same, so from the heart that received it there
arose ever and anon the same plea--"Have mercy upon me, O Lord";
"Make haste to help me"; "O Lord, make no long tarrying"; "I am
poor and needy"; "O be not Thou far from me, for trouble is near
at hand." And then, as if realising the apostasy, desertion, and
faithlessness of his friends and forces, he adds, "There is none to
help."
We know how these earnest and anxious entreaties were heard: "Thou
didst turn and refresh me"; "Through Thee have I been holden up
ever since I was born"; "My mouth shall speak of Thy salvation
all the day long; for I know no end thereof." But further.
This acknowledgment of God as a "very present help in trouble"
is followed by a prophecy, and that of nothing less than the
resurrection--"Thou shalt bring me up again from the depths of the
earth"; so that David's sorrow, when brought humbly and heartily
to God, was followed by divine refreshment then, and hope of
resurrection hereafter. And a well-founded hope it was, because the
trouble sent by God produced a grand moral result when laid before
Him Who sent it. It had a purifying influence which made his mind
speed on to the resurrection day. In its anticipation he was but
yielding to the influence of a life higher than that he lived before
his sorrow, and which sought enjoyment and exercise loftier and
still loftier. This he, by faith, foresaw, in the anticipation of
that rest to which his trouble sent him, and for the appreciation of
which his trouble purified him.
So we have here in the spiritual world an instructive and
encouraging illustration of what frequently occurs in the physical.
We have purification by pain; refreshment out of ruin. So have I
seen this grand law asserting the governance of its God in those
Alpine crags on which the stars seem to pause. There on those
storm-scalped peaks the climber feasts on the panorama spread by
God's own hand, in winding river, sapphire lake, everlasting hill,
sentinelled by a forest of pines, dressed in the matchless sombre
of Alpine green or shrouded by the spotless snows of heaven. I have
witnessed the troubles of the atmosphere. The bursting rain-cloud
hangs low, the light recedes, the darkness deepens, the wind moans;
and then the full-toned thunder roars, and the long lines of fire,
angular and electric, leap from fissures in the firmament. The
artillery of the elements is deafening, and its echoes rumble
in the distance like the mutterings of imprisoned spirits. The
storm is over. The calm succeeds. The clouds become brighter and
brighter still. The sun peeps out here and there in a rift of the
heavens. The air is fresh and keen and pure. The vegetation is
bright and green. The rivulets and mountain torrents ripple and rush
rejoicing. As we see this, we are reminded of the analogies of God's
government; yea, if we could put a preacher on every peak, a tongue
in every valley, Nature would minister to grace, and from each would
come the response of the royal poet to the call of God. The world
physical would raise the ecstatic antiphon to the world spiritual:
"O what great troubles and adversities hast Thou showed me, and yet
didst Thou turn and refresh me!"
But these words have a still richer meaning in their bearing upon
the religious fortunes of the Hebrew race, the Messianic glory of
the Redeemer, and the present and future position of His believing
people. I believe that Israel's troubles are to issue in Israel's
refreshment, and even in national resurrection. Her captivities
and dispersions, her degradation and exile, are but the preludes
to her rise, return, and splendour. God has sworn it; His word is
bound to it. His promise is as certain as though it were performed.
But we may merely mention this as a conviction, in order to pass
on and recognise in these words the history of Jesus Christ. From
that cradle and cottage home; from that carpenter's bench where
He toiled; from that country, with its hills and dales, and lanes
and lakes, where He preached; from the Temple which He glorified
and abrogated; from the cross where He died; from the tomb which
He vacated; from the throne of mediation, where He sympathises,
intercedes and governs; from earth below, and heaven above, the
voice of Jesus sounds o'er land and sea, filling angelic souls with
adoration, and human hearts with hope, announcing, "O what great
troubles and adversities hast Thou showed Me!" He was betrayed,
despised, and rejected. He looked for some to have pity on Him,
but there was no man; neither found He any to comfort Him. He was
maligned and misunderstood. The malice of His enemies omitted but
one sin in their resolve to blacken His character, and it remained
for the patronising blasphemy of Renan to insinuate that one as
possible. He was accused of deceit, though infallible; He was
slandered as a drunkard, though immaculate; yea, the detraction
of His foes did not spare Him the agony of being charged with the
commission of a sin as disgusting as it is brutal--that of gluttony.
He was arraigned as a felon, and died as an impostor. But beyond
all was the sin of which these were but the symptoms. This was the
trouble, "great and sore," which God showed Him. This was the agony
of agonies to the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. Its fell pressure
is the meaning of the tradition that Jesus was often seen to weep,
but never once to smile. To this trouble we trace the overpowering
experiences of the fainting, prostrate Christ in the garden; of
the wailing and woe-bearing Christ on the cross. Yet there was the
refreshment; there was behind it all the unchangeable love of God
the Father--"Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down
My Life that I might take it again." There was the satisfaction of
His soul, in saving the race He died to redeem by representation;
there was, above all, the guarantee of that redemption in being
brought "from the depths of the earth again."
And if we were to follow the history of His Church, that history
would be a living commentary on the experience of David and of
David's Lord: divinely sent trouble, divinely sought and divinely
sent refreshment, issuing in spiritual resurrection. Is not this
the account many have to give of sorrow, succour, and salvation?
You were weak: you are now strong. You were "choked with cares,"
and sought relief in a flood of tears: you are now able to leave
the burden of your cares with Him Who "careth for you"; while your
eyes, once red with agony, are now bright with praise, gratitude,
and hope. Remembering what you were, and now recognising what you
are, you may adopt the language of David, "I am become a wonder
unto many, but my sure trust is in Thee"; or, taking a fuller view
and a finer tone, you will ring out the litany of deliverance, and
chant the song of praise and blessing, "O what great troubles and
adversities has Thou showed me; and yet didst Thou turn and refresh
me."
This present refreshment is a prophecy of future resurrection. It
leads all the afflicted children of God on to the grand climax in
sin, sorrow, and all the trouble to which we are born. Then the cup
of universal affliction shall be full. The waters of our pilgrimage
shall be sweetened, and changed into the bright, clear, rosy wine of
immortality. Then farewell, sorrow; farewell, weakness; agony, ache,
desolation, and sin, we bid you a final and a glad farewell. Then
shall rise upon this scene of change and uncertainty, where pain
and pleasure are so intermingled and combined, the sun that knows
no setting, the everlasting day that knows no night. Then shall the
children of God, the "children of the resurrection," gathered from
every known and unknown region, race, and age, rise to the rapture
of the saints, and, defying the immeasurable weight of all the
ocean's pressure--for the sea shall give up its dead--shattering
the manacles with which corruption had long bound the germ of
incorruption, they shall "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,"
greet the Saviour Who loved them, with a greeting worthy the Lamb
that was slain; worthy the grandest event in the annals of earth
and heaven; while high above the din of the last crash of worlds,
yea, louder than the storm which marches on the ruins of creation,
shall rise the anthem of royal and even wretched and relieved
experience--"Thou hast brought me from the depths of the earth
again."
[Illustration: FOR THE SAKE OF HER CHILD]
By Scott Graham, Author of "The Link between Them," Etc.
CHAPTER VII.
_The Pity of It._
On Saturday night, in that same week, Harold sallied
forth at dusk, with a bulky brown-paper parcel under his arm,
containing a pair of boots which he was taking by stealth to a
humble cobbler in a back alley to mend.
Just because he fervently desired not to meet anybody he knew, as he
turned a corner he almost ran into the arms of May Burnside; who,
on seeing him, appeared confused. He stopped and tried to conceal
his parcel as well as he could, whilst talking volubly; and May
stammered and fidgeted, like one detected in a guilty enterprise.
Her aunt had that day presented her with half-a-crown; and, wishing
to make a frock for Doris, she was on her way to buy some wonderful
material she had seen marked fourpence three-farthings in a cheap,
common shop she would not have cared to enter by daylight. Miss
Waller would have fainted at the idea of her niece being seen going
into Whittaker's, where everything was ticketed "Alarming Sacrifice!"
So, the boots weighing on his uneasy conscience, and the fourpence
three-farthings on hers, they continued to blush and stammer until
Harold summoned up courage to say that it was rather late, and, if
Mrs. Burnside was going home, he would escort her, if she wished.
She hesitated, loth to lose the chance of bargain, and then said--
"My aunt is dining out, so I need not hurry back; and I wanted to
go to a shop--Whittaker's, do you know it? I buy rubbish there
occasionally."
He did know the shop, which was close to the alley wherein dwelt his
old cobbler. "If you don't mind," he said eagerly, "I'll leave you a
moment, whilst I do an errand hard by, and meet you when you've done
your shopping."
So he went off, delighted at solving the problem of the boots; for
no man appears to advantage when hugging a clumsy parcel. Having
duly effected her purchase, May rejoined him, and, as they strolled
towards Victoria Square, informed him that they were starting for
London on Monday. "I know I shall hate it!" she added, with a sigh.
He sighed too; but what could he say or do, bound as he was, hand
and foot? "July _is_ rather hot for London," he answered discreetly.
"Lulu wrote yesterday, and may I suggest, if you have leisure, she
would be delighted if you called to see her? I will give you her
address. The flat is very tiny, of course, but----"
"But infinitely preferable, I am sure, to Victoria Square!" retorted
May bitterly. The burden of life seemed intolerable that evening.
"Are you, then, so unhappy there?" he asked, startled. "How I
wish----"
He checked himself hastily, and May stifled a sob which rose in her
throat. "Very few people are quite happy, it seems to me," she said,
trying to speak calmly. "There is always something."
"Yes, but you--_you_ ought to be happy, if there were any justice
in the world!" he burst out impetuously. "You deserve a sunny,
sheltered life, free from worry and care. Will you believe it is
the hardest of my trials to be able to offer you nothing but barren
sympathy?"
"It is very good of you to sympathise with me," May murmured
gratefully. "So few people do. They look at my clothes, and decide
that anybody dressed as I am, and living in Victoria Square, _must_
be happy. 'Lucky Mrs. Burnside!' they call me."
He remembered how enviable, in the early days of their acquaintance,
May had seemed to him, and thought how mistaken are the judgments of
this world. A great pity swelled his heart as she said "Good-bye";
and he tramped back to his dreary rooms doubly depressed, both on
her account and his own. How he longed to be able to free her from
her shackles, and offer her a happy home, independent of Miss Waller!
* * * * *
"I must say, May, nobody would think you were going to London to
enjoy yourself. Do, for goodness' sake, try to look a little more
cheerful!" said Miss Waller sharply, as they took their seats in
a reserved first-class carriage on the Monday. Mr. Lang, to May's
great relief, had returned to town three days before, so they were
spared his company. "You are the most ungrateful girl I ever knew."
[Illustration: "Do try to look a little more cheerful!"]
"I'm sorry you think so, aunt, but----"
"It would serve you right if I washed my hands of you entirely,"
continued the irate spinster. "But I am too kind-hearted; my sense
of duty restrains me. I should be better off now, if I'd been more
selfish and less considerate for others. But I'm well aware it's
useless to expect gratitude in _this_ world."
And, with a heartfelt sigh for the wickedness of this generation,
Miss Waller arranged the air-cushion more comfortably at her back,
and, placing her daintily shod feet on the opposite seat, commenced
to study a newspaper. May sat watching the deep-green summer
landscape flit by, with pretty much the same feelings as a convict
might experience while going down to Portland guarded by warders.
The knowledge that Mr. Lang awaited them at the end of the journey
took all the colour out of the blue sky; and the sleek cattle
standing knee-deep in water beneath the willows, seemed to mock her
by their animal freedom from care. For herself, she cared little;
but there was Doris to consider, and the thought of her helpless
child harassed her throughout that miserable journey.