I
The doctor was the worst man in Bartown, and that was saying a good
deal. For Bartown had the reputation of being 'the wickedest little hole
in all England.' It is Harold Begbie who, in _The Vigil_, tells its
story. Dr. Blund, he assures us, spent most of his time drinking gin and
playing billiards at 'The Angel.' In a professional point of view, only
one person in the little seaside town believed in him, and that was the
broken and bedraggled little woman whose whole life had been darkened by
his debauchery. Mrs. Blund was never tired of singing the doctor's
praises. When she introduced him to a newcomer, and told of his wondrous
cures and amazing skill, he listened like a man in a dream. 'Dr.
Blund,'--so runs the story--'Dr. Blund was twitching with excess of
alcohol, and only muttered and frowned as his wife talked of his powers.
The terrible old doctor, with his hairy, purple face and his sunken
eyes, seemed to think that his wife was doing him the most dreadful
dis-service. It was wonderful that this little woman, instead of
shrinking from exhibiting her husband, should have so pathetic a faith
in the dreadful-looking rogue that she evidently fancied that he had but
to be seen to be chosen as medical adviser.'
Thus the story opens. It could scarcely be expected that such a wreck
could hold together for long. Exactly half-way through the book I find
Mr. Rodwell, the young rector, standing at the street-corner talking to
Mr. Shorder, the wealthy manufacturer. They are interrupted. Mrs. Blund
comes hurrying breathlessly round the corner.
'Mr. Rodwell,' she pants, 'please come at once! Dr. Blund! He's asking
for you! I've been to the vicarage, I've been everywhere, hunting for
you. Don't delay a moment, please!'
Richard Rodwell was an earnest young clergyman, who had ideas of his own
about things; and the task to which he was now summoned was very little
to his taste. He saw in Blund a man who had lived hideously and was now
concerned to avert his just punishment. He tried to believe that there
was some hope for such a wretch; but the attempt was not altogether
successful. He bent over the dying man and talked of mercy and
repentance and forgiveness. But the words did not come from his own
soul, and they did not comfort the soul of the man to whom they were
addressed.
'There's something else!' he gasped.
'There is nothing outside the mercy of God,' replied the vicar.
'It's in the Bible, what I mean,' returned the dying man.
'What is it?' asked Rodwell soothingly.
'It's a text, "Except a man be _born again_----" You know the words,
_Born again_. What does that mean?'
The doctor, in his professional capacity, had often seen a child draw
its first breath, and had been impressed by its utter pastlessness. It
had nothing to regret, nothing to forget. Everything was before it;
nothing behind. And here was a text that seemed to promise such an
experience a second time! To be _born again_! What was it to be _born
again_? The dying doctor asked his insistent question repeatedly, but
the vicar was out of his depth. He floundered pitifully. At last the
doctor, to whom every moment was precious beyond all price, lost
patience with the hesitating minister and changed the form of his
question. Looking fixedly into his visitor's eyes, he exclaimed:
'Tell me, have _you_ been _born again_?' Rodwell hung his head in
silence, and the voice from the bed went on.
'Have you ever known in your life,' he asked, 'a moment when you felt
that a great change happened to you? Are you pretending? Have you ever
been conscious of _a new birth_ in your soul?'
The vicar fenced with the question, but it was of no avail. The dying
man raised himself suddenly on an elbow. 'You can't help me!' he cried
angrily. He seized Rodwell's wrist and held it tightly, fiercely. As he
spoke, the fingers tightened their grasp, and he bent Rodwell's hand
down to the bed, as it were for emphasis.
'You don't know,' he cried. 'You're pretending. The words you say are
words for the living. I am a dying man. Have you the same message for
the living and the dying? Have I a lifetime before me in which to work
out repentance? You can't help me! You don't know! You have never been
_born again_!'
Such a rebuke smites a minister like the sudden coming of the Day of
Judgment. After his conversion John Wesley wrote a terrible letter to
his old counselor, William Law. 'How will you answer to our common
Lord,' he asks, 'that you, sir, never led me into light? Why did I
scarcely ever hear you name the _name of Christ_? Why did you never urge
me to _faith in His blood_? I beseech you, sir, to consider whether the
true reason of your never pressing this salvation upon me was not
this--_that you never had it yourself_!'
'It was a terrible discovery to make,' says Mr. Begbie. 'To think that
he--Richard Rodwell, Vicar of Bartown--knew so little of the nature of
God that he could say no single word that had significance for this
dying soul! He was dumb. The words on his lips were the words of the
Church. Out of his own heart, out of his own soul, out of his own
experience, he could say nothing.'
'Forgive me,' he said, as he bent over the form on the bed, 'forgive me
for failing you. It is not Christ who has failed; it is I.' He turned to
go. The dying man opened his eyes and looked at Rodwell sadly and
tragically.
'Try to learn what those words mean,' he muttered. '_Born again!_ It's
the bad man's only chance.'
They parted, never to meet again; and from another minister's lips the
doctor learned the secret for which he craved.