Of all the true friends of "Tommy Tracks" none valued and loved him more
than the Reverend Ernest Maltby, vicar of Crossbourne. There is a
peculiar attraction in such men to one another, which cements their
friendship all the more strongly from the very dissimilarity of their
social positions. For each feels dependent on the other, and that the
other possesses gifts or powers of which he himself is destitute. The
refined Christian scholar, while in perfect spiritual accord with the
man of rougher mould and scanty learning, feels that his humbler brother
is able to _get at_ his fellow-workmen for good, as being on the same
level with them, in a way denied to himself. While, on the other hand,
the man of inferior education and position is conscious that all real
increase in knowledge is increase in power, and that his brother of
higher-station and more extensive reading can grasp and deal effectually
with topics of interest and importance, which could not be done justice
to by his own less skilful and less intelligent handling. And thus, as
each leans in a measure on the other, being in entire sympathy as they
are on highest things, the force of their united action on the hearts
and lives of others is powerful indeed. Such was the case in
Crossbourne. The combined work of the vicar and Thomas Bradly, both for
the salvation of souls and the rescue and reformation of the
intemperate, was being felt by the enemies of the truth to be a work of
power: they were therefore on the watch to hinder and mar that work by
every means within their reach; for Satan will not lose any of his
captives without setting his own agents on a most determined and
vigorous resistance.
The vicar himself was just the fitting man for his position. Gently yet
not luxuriously nurtured, and early trained in habits of self-denial and
consideration for the feelings of others, he had entered the ministry,
not only with a due sense of the solemnity of his responsibilities, and
under a conviction that he was truly called to his profession by the
inward voice of the Holy Spirit, but also with a loving self-
forgetfulness, while he sought earnestly the truest welfare of all
committed to his charge. And when he passed, after some years'
experience in the ministerial Work, to the important post of vicar of
Crossbourne, he had come to take a peculiar interest in the study of
individual character, and to delight in gathering around him workers of
various temperaments and habits of thought. Rugged enough were some of
these in their general bearing and their way of expressing themselves;
but he knew well, when he had broken through the outer surface, what a
firm-grained material he had to work upon in the hearts of such, and how
he would be sure to win from them, in due time, by force and consistency
of character, respect and affection as abiding as they were sincere.
It was his happiness also to be united to a wife like-minded with
himself in views and work. On one point alone they had differed, and
that was as to the mental training of their only child, a daughter.
Clara Maltby was now eighteen. She had been brought up by the united
teaching and example of both parents "in the nurture and admonition of
the Lord." Naturally thoughtful and retiring, and fond of learning, she
had mastered the lessons taught her in her earliest years with an ease
which awoke in her mother's heart an ambition that her child, when she
grew old enough, should gain some intellectual distinction. And as
Clara herself was never happier than when she had a book in her hand,
all that her parents had to do was to choose for her such branches of
study as she was best calculated to shine in. Nor did she disappoint
her teachers, but threw herself into her lessons with an energy and
interest which made it certain that she would rise to eminence among
competitors for the prizes of learning proposed to her own sex. And
thus it was that what might have been a rational thirst after knowledge,
and have led to the acquirement of stores of information which would
have made their possessor an ornament to her home and to the society in
which she moved, grew into an absorbing passion.
She came at length to live in and for her studies. All her other
pursuits and occupations were made to be subordinate to these, and were
by degrees completely swallowed up by them. Not that she was unaware
that there were duties which she ought to fulfil in her home and in her
father's parish, which could not be done justice to without shortening
her hours of study. She saw this plainly enough, and deplored her
neglect; but she had come to persuade herself that success in her
intellectual pursuits was the special end at which she was to aim for
the present; and she believed that her mother, at any rate, held the
same view.
And yet her conscience was not at ease on the matter. Home and parish
work which used to fall to her was either left undone or transferred to
others. "Mother," she would say, "I am so sorry not to be of more use;
I ought to help you, and to take my share of work in the parish; but
then you know how it is--you see that I have no time." Once her class
in the Sunday-school had been her delight, and the object of many an
anxious thought and earnest prayer, while each individual scholar had a
place in her heart and her supplications. But by degrees the
preparation for the Sunday lessons became irksome and too much for her
already overworked brain. She must make the Sabbath a day of absolute
rest from all mental exertion, except such as was involved in a due
attendance on the services in the house of God, which her conscience
would not allow her to absent from.
As for week-day work in the parish, such as taking her turn in visiting
the girls' day-school, undertaking a district as visitor, looking up and
tending the sick and the sorrowful in conjunction with her father and
mother, the excuse of "no time" was pleaded here also; so that she who
was once welcomed in every home in the parish, and carried peace by her
loving words and looks to many a troubled and weary heart, was now
becoming daily more and more a stranger to those who used to love and
value her. Indeed, she seldom now stirred from home, except when
snatching for health's sake a hasty walk, in which she would hurry from
the vicarage and back again along roads where she was least likely to
meet with interruption from the greetings of friends or neighbours.
Light, purer light, the light of God's truth, had indeed shone into her
heart, but that light was suffering a gradual and deepening eclipse
through the shadow cast by the idol of intellectual ambition, which had
usurped for a while the place where once her Saviour reigned supreme.
And the poor body was suffering, for the overstrained mind was sapping
the vigour of all its powers. And then there came a resort to that
remedy, the stimulant which spurs up the flagging energies to
extraordinary and spasmodic exertion, only to leave the poor deluded
victim more prostrate and exhausted than ever.
The vicar had never been satisfied with his daughter's course. Life, in
his view, was too short and eternity too near to justify any one in
pursuing even the most innocent and laudable object in such a manner as
to unfit the soul for keeping steadily in view its highest interests,
and to engross the mind and life so entirely as to shut all the doors of
loving and Christian usefulness. While acknowledging the value of
storing, cultivating, and enlarging the mind, he became daily more and
more convinced that such mental improvement was becoming a special snare
to the young and enthusiastic; beguiling them into the neglect of
manifest duty, and into a refined and subtle self-worship, which, in the
case of those who had set out on the narrow way, was changing the
substance for a shadow, and destroying that peace which none can truly
feel who rob their Saviour of the consecration of all that they have and
are to his glory.
But deeply as he deplored the change in his daughter's habits, and her
withdrawal from first one good work and then another, he had not fully
realised how it had come about, and the mischief it was doing to the
body, mind, and soul of the child he loved so dearly. It was only
gradually that she had relinquished first one useful occupation, and
then another; and circumstances seemed at the time to make such
withdrawal necessary.
Then, too, his wife's reluctance to see that, after all, she had
mistaken the path on which she should have encouraged her daughter to
travel, had led her to make as light as possible of the evil effects,
which were only too plain to others not so nearly interested in her
child's well-being. She could not bear to think that, after all,
Clara's pursuit of intellectual distinction was physically, morally, and
spiritually a huge mistake, and that she was purchasing success at the
cost of health and peace. "There was nothing seriously amiss with her,"
she would tell her husband, when he expressed his misgivings and fears;
"she only wanted a little change; that would set her up: there was no
real cause for anxiety. It would never do for Clara to be behind the
rest of the girls of her age in intellectual attainments: it would be
doing her injustice, for she was so manifestly calculated to shine; and
if God had given her the abilities and the tastes, surely they ought to
be cultivated. She could return by-and-by to her work in the Sunday-
school and the parish. And then, how much better it was that she should
be acquiring really solid and useful knowledge, which would be always
valuable to her, than be spending her energies on any of the worldly or
frivolous pursuits which were entangling and spoiling so many well-
disposed girls in our day."
Alas! The poor mother, whose own heart and conscience were not really
satisfied with these reasonings, had forgotten, or failed to see, that
the same devotion to study which kept her daughter out of the ensnaring
ways of worldliness and frivolity, equally kept her from treading that
path of shining usefulness along which all must walk who would fulfil
the great purpose for which God has put us into this land of probation
and preparation for our eternal home.
Thomas Bradly saw plainly how matters were, and when the vicar hinted at
his difficulties connected with his daughter's pursuits, as they were
talking together over Sunday-school and parochial work, spoke out his
mind plainly and faithfully.
"Well, Thomas," said Mr Maltby, "you see a little how I am situated.
My dear child is, I trust and believe, a true Christian; but I am free
to confess that I am sadly disappointed at the turn which things have
taken about her studies."
"I can well believe it, sir," was Bradly's reply, "and I feel for you
with all my heart. And I'm disappointed myself about Miss Clara, and
so's scores more in the parish. The Sunday-school ain't the same as it
was--no, nor the parish neither, now that she don't come among us as she
used to do. But there's a twist somewheres in people's views about the
education of young ladies in our day. 'Tain't so much in my way, sir,
it's true, as it is in yours, to notice these things; but sometimes them
as is standing a little way off gets a better view of how things really
are than them as is quite close by."
"Quite so, Thomas," said the other. "Tell me, then, candidly what you
think about this matter."
"I'll do so, sir, as I know you'll not misunderstand me; and you know
that I love you and yours with all my heart. Well, sir, it seems to me
as they're beginning at the wrong place altogether, in filling young
ladies' heads, as they do, with all sorts and sizes of knowledge."
"How do you mean, Thomas?"
"Just this way, sir. I were in Sheffield for a day or two last June,
and as I were a-staring in at one of the cutlers' shops, I caught sight
of a strange-looking article stuck upon a stand right in the middle of
the window. It were all blades and points, like the porcupine as I used
to read about at the national school when I were a boy. It was
evidently meant for a knife; but who would ever think of buying such a
thing as that, except merely as a curiosity? There must have been some
fifty or sixty blades, and these were all sorts of shapes and sizes,
just, I suppose, to show the skill of the workman as contrived to fasten
such a lot of them together; but they would have been no earthly use to
a man as wanted a real working article. Now, as far as I can see and
hear, the young ladies in these days is being got up something like one
of 'em fancy knives. It seems to be the great wish of these young
ladies' parents or friends to put into their heads a lot of learning of
all sorts--so many languages, so many sciences, so many accomplishments,
as they calls 'em, as thick as they can stand together. And what's the
end of it all? Why, folks wonder at 'em, no doubt, and say a great many
fine things to 'em and about 'em; but they're not turned out a real
serviceable article, either for their homes or for the great Master's
work as he'd have them to do it."
"It is too true, dear friend," said the vicar with a sigh.
"Ay! And if I'm not too bold in speaking my mind," proceeded the other,
"that ain't the worst of it. You'll excuse my homely way of talking,
sir, but I can't help thinking of Timothy Pinches' donkey-cart when I
reads or hears of these young ladies with their science classes, and
their Oxford and Cambridge local examinations, and their colleges, and
what not. Timothy Pinches were an old neighbour of mine when I didn't
live in these parts--that were several years ago as I'm talking of. Now
Timothy had a donkey, a quiet and serviceable animal enough, and he'd
got a cart too, which would carry a tidy lot of things, yet at the same
time it weren't none of the strongest. He used to cart my coals for me,
and do an odd job for me here and there. Well, one day I met Timothy
with a strange load in his cart; there was a lot of iron nails and bars
for the blacksmith, two or three bags of potatoes, a sack of flour, a
bottle or two of vinegar, a great jar of treacle, a bale of calico for
one of the shops, a cask of porter, and a sight of odds and ends
besides. And they was packed and jammed so tight together, I could see
as they were like to burst the sides of the cart through. `Timothy,'
says I, `you'll never get on with that load; it's too much for the
donkey, and it's too much for the cart.' `All right,' says he, `we'll
manage.' `Nay,' says I, `it's too much for the poor beast; make two
journeys of it, and you'll do it comfortably.' `Can't afford the time,'
says he. But he _could_ afford the time to keep the poor donkey often
standing before the door of the public for an hour and more together.
But just then he'd had an extra glass, and he wasn't in a mood to be
spoken with. So he gives the poor beast a fierce kick, and a pull at
his jaw, by way of freshening him up, and the cart goes creaking on up a
hill by a winding road. I could hear it as I went on by a footpath as
took me a short cut into the road again. Then the noise stopped all of
a sudden; and when I'd got to the end of the path, there was Timothy
Pinches looking anything but wise or pleasant, and cart and donkey had
both come to grief. The side of the cart was burst right out; the
donkey had fallen down and cut his knees badly; the potatoes was rolling
down the hill; the flour had some of it come out of the sack in a great
heap, and the vinegar and treacle was running slowly through it. When I
looked at poor Timothy's face, and then at the break-down, I couldn't
help laughing at him; but I gave him a helping hand, and I hope he
learnt a useful lesson. You see, sir, it don't do to overtask a willing
beast, nor to load a cart with more goods than it's meant to carry,
specially if it ain't over strong. But they're making this very mistake
with many of the young ladies just now--I don't mean anything
disrespectful to them in likening them to a donkey-cart, but it's true.
These young ladies themselves are overtasking their constitutions which
God gave them, and they're loading their brains with more than them
brains was designed to carry. The Lord hasn't given them, as a rule,
heads fit to bear the strain as men's heads were made to stand. I'm
sure of it; it's the opinion, too, of Dr Richardson, who has the best
right of any man, perhaps, to speak on this subject, as he's studied it,
I should think, as much or more than any man living. Now, sir, just
look at your own dear child, Miss Clara,--why, it makes my heart sore
every time I look at her; she ain't got the right healthy look in her
face; her mind has got more to bear than ever her Maker meant it to
have; and there's no reason, surely, why she shouldn't be as cheerful as
a lark and as bright as the flowers in May."
"Most true! Most true!" said the vicar sorrowfully. "I only wish Mrs
Maltby and my daughter could see things in this light; but when I
express my fears and misgivings on this subject, they tell me that I
must not take a gloomy view of things, nor alarm myself needlessly. But
perhaps, dear friend, you may be able to put in a word, I know your
plain, homely good sense and observation will have weight with both
mother and daughter."
"I'll make bold to say a word or two to them on the subject," replied
Thomas Bradly, "when next I get an opportunity."