On Sunday, the third day after his arrival in Ballymoy, Hyacinth went to
church. He could hardly have avoided doing so, even if he had wanted to,
for Mrs. Quinn invited him to share her pew. There was no real necessity
for such hospitality, for the church was never, even under the most
favourable circumstances, more than half full. The four front seats were
reserved for a Mr. Stack, on whose property the town of Ballymoy stood.
But this gentleman preferred to live in Surrey, and even when he came
over to Ireland for the shooting rarely honoured the church with his
presence. A stone tablet, bearing the name of this magnate’s father, a
Cork pawnbroker, who had purchased the property for a small sum under
the Encumbered Estates Court Act, adorned the wall beside the pulpit.
The management of the property was in the hands of a Dublin firm, so
the parish was deprived of the privilege of a resident land agent. The
doctor, recently appointed to the district, was a Roman Catholic of
plebeian antecedents, which reduced the resident gentry of Ballymoy
to the Quinns, a bank manager, and the Rector, Canon Beecher. A few
farmers, Mr. Stack’s gamekeeper, and the landlady of the Imperial Hotel,
made up the rest of the congregation.
The service was not of a very attractive or inspiriting kind. Canon
Beecher--his title was a purely honorary one, not even involving the
duty of preaching in the unpretending building which, in virtue of
some forgotten history, was dignified with the name of Killinacoff
Cathedral--read slowly with somewhat ponderous emphasis. His thirty
years in Holy Orders had slightly hardened an originally luscious Dublin
brogue, but there remained a certain gentle aspiration of the _d’s_ and
_t’s_, and a tendency to omit the labial consonants altogether. He read
an immense number of prayers, gathering, as it seemed to Hyacinth, the
longest ones from the four corners of the Prayer-Book. At intervals he
allowed himself to be interrupted with a hymn, but resumed afterwards
the steady flow of supplication. The eldest Miss Beecher--the Canon had
altogether two daughters and three sons--played a harmonium. The other
girl and the three boys, with the assistance of an uncertain bass from
Mr. Quinn, gave utterance to the congregation’s praise. Hyacinth tried
to join in the first hymn, which happened to be familiar to him, but
quavered into silence towards the end of the second verse, discovering
that the eyes of Mrs. Beecher from her pew, of the Canon from the
reading-desk, of the vocal Miss Beecher and her brothers, were fixed
upon him. The sermon proved to be long and uninteresting. It was about
Melchizedek, and was so far appropriate to the Priest and King that it
had no recognisable beginning and need not apparently have ever had an
end. Perhaps no one, unless he were specially trained for the purpose,
could have followed right through the quiet meanderings of the Canon’s
thought. This kind of sermon, however, has the one advantage that
the listener can take it up and drop it again at any point without
inconvenience, and Hyacinth was able to give his attention to some
sections of it. There was no attempt at eloquence or any kind of
learning displayed, but he understood, as he listened, where the Quinns
got their religion, or at least how their religion was kept alive.
Certain very simple things were reiterated with a quiet earnestness
which left no doubt that the preacher believed exactly what he said, and
lived by the light of his faith.
One evening shortly afterwards Canon Beecher called upon Hyacinth. The
conversation during the visit resolved itself into a kind of catechism,
which, curiously enough, was quite inoffensive. The Canon learnt by
degrees something of Hyacinth’s past life, and his career in Trinity
College. He shook his head gravely over the friendship with Augusta
Goold, whom he evidently regarded as almost beyond the reach of the
grace of God. Hyacinth was forced to admit, with an increasing sense of
shame, that he had never signed a temperance pledge, did not read the
organ of the Church Missionary Society, was not a member of a Young
Men’s Christian Association, or even of a Gleaners’ Union. He felt, as
he made each confession sorrowfully, that he was losing all hope of the
Canon’s friendship, and was most agreeably surprised when the interview
closed with a warm invitation to a mid-day dinner at the Rectory on the
following Sunday. Mrs. Quinn, who took a sort of elder sister’s interest
in his goings out and comings in, was delighted when she heard that he
was going to the Rectory, and assured him that he would like both Mrs.
Beecher and the girls. She confided afterwards to her husband that the
influence of a Christian home was likely to be most beneficial to the
‘poor boy.’
The Rectory displayed none of the signs of easy comfort which had
charmed Hyacinth in the Quinns’ house. The floor of the square hall was
covered with a cheap, well-worn oilcloth. Its walls were damp-stained,
and the only furniture consisted of a wooden chair and a somewhat
rickety table. In the middle of the wall hung a large olive-green card
with silver lettering. ‘Christ is the unseen Guest in this house,’
Hyacinth read, ‘the Sharer in every pleasure, the Listener to every
conversation.’ A fortnight before, he would have turned with disgust
from such an advertisement, but now, since he had known the Quinns
and listened to the Canon’s wandering sermons, he looked at it with
different eyes. He felt that the words might actually express a fact,
and that a family might live together as if they believed them to be
true.
‘Yes,’ said the Canon, who had come in with him, and saw him gaze at it,
‘these motto-cards are very nice. I bought several of them last time I
was in Dublin, and I think I have a spare one left which I can give
you if you like. It has silver letters like that one, but printed on a
crimson ground.’
Evidently the design and the colouring were what struck him as
noticeable. The motto itself was a commonplace of Christian living, the
expression of a basal fact, quite naturally hung where it would catch
the eye of chance visitors.
In the drawing-room Mrs. Beecher and her two daughters, still in their
hats and gloves, stood round a turf fire. They made a place at once for
Hyacinth, and one of the girls drew forward a rickety basket-work chair,
covered with faded cretonne. He was formally introduced to them. Miss
Beecher and Miss Elsie Beecher had both, the latter very recently,
reached the dignity of young womanhood, and wore long dresses. The three
boys, who were younger, were made known afterwards.
When they went into the dining-room the Canon selected the soundest of
a miscellaneous collection of chairs for Hyacinth, and seated him beside
Mrs. Beecher. Then the elder girl--Miss Beecher’s name, he learnt, was
Marion--entered in a long apron carrying a boiled leg of mutton followed
by her sister with dishes of potatoes and mashed parsnips.
‘You see,’ said Mrs. Beecher, and there was no note of apology in her
voice as she made the explanation, ‘my girls are accustomed to do a good
deal of the house-work. We have only one servant, and she is not very
presentable when she has just cooked the dinner.’
Hyacinth glanced at Marion Beecher, who smiled at him with frank
friendliness, as she took her seat beside her father. He saw suddenly
that the girl was beautiful. He had not noticed this in church. There he
had no opportunity of observing the subtle grace with which she
moved, and the half-light left unrevealed the lustrous purity of her
complexion, the radiant red and white which only the warm damp of the
western seaboard can give or preserve. Her eyes he had seen even in the
church, but now first he realized what unfathomable gentleness and what
a wonder of frank innocence were in them. The Canon looked round the
table at his children, and there was a humorous twinkle in his eye when
he turned to Hyacinth and quoted:
‘“Your sons shall grow up as young plants, and your daughters shall be
as the polished corners of the temple.”’
Perhaps nine-tenths of civilized mankind would regard five children as
five misfortunes under any circumstances, as quite overwhelming when
they have been showered on a man with a very small income, who is
obliged to live in a remote corner of Ireland. Apparently the Canon
did not look upon himself as an afflicted man at all. There was
an unmistakable sincerity about the way in which he completed his
quotation:
‘“Lo! thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord.”’
It dawned on Hyacinth that quite possibly the Canon’s view of the
situation might be the right one. It was certainly wonderfully pleasant
to see the girls move through the room, and it seemed to him that they
actually realized the almost forgotten ideal of serviceable womanhood.
The talk at dinner turned first on the ailments of an old woman who was
accustomed to clean the church, but was now suspected of being past
her work; then, by an abrupt transition, on the new hat which the
bank-manager’s wife had brought home from Dublin; and, finally, the
connection of thought being again far from obvious, on the hymns which
had been sung that morning. It was at this point that Hyacinth was
included in the conversation. Marion Beecher announced that one of the
hymns was a special favourite of hers, because she remembered her mother
singing the younger children to sleep with it when they were babies. She
caught Hyacinth looking at her while she spoke, and said to him:
‘Do you sing, Mr. Conneally?’
‘I do a little.’
‘Oh, then you must come and help us in the choir.’ ‘Choir’ seemed a
grandiose name for the four Beechers and Mr. Quinn, but Marion, who had
little experience of anything better, had no misgivings. ‘I hope you
sing tenor. I always long to have a tenor in my choir. Why, we might
have one of Barnby’s anthems at Easter, and we haven’t been able to sing
one since Mr. Nash left the bank.’
Hyacinth had never sung a part in his life, and could not read music,
but he grew bold, and, professing to have an excellent ear, said he
was willing to learn. The prospect of a long series of choir practices
conducted by Marion Beecher seemed to him just then an extremely
pleasant one.
After dinner, while the two girls cleared away the plates and dishes,
Canon Beecher invited Hyacinth to smoke.
‘I never learnt the habit myself,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t so much the
fashion in my young days as it is now, but I have no objection whatever
to the smell.’
Hyacinth lit a cigarette apologetically. It seemed to him almost a
wicked thing to do, but his host evidently wished him to be comfortable.
Their talk after the girls had left the room turned on politics.
Hyacinth’s confession of his friendship with Augusta Goold had impressed
the Canon, and he delivered himself of a very kindly little lecture on
the duty of loyalty and the sinfulness of contention with the powers
that be. His way of putting the matter neither irritated Hyacinth, like
the flamboyant Imperialism of the Trinity students, nor drove him into
self-assertion, like Dr. Henry’s contemptuous reasonableness. Still, he
felt bound to make some sort of defence of the opinions which were still
his own.
‘Surely,’ he said, ‘there must be some limit to the duty of loyalty. If
a Government has no constitutional right to rule, is a man bound to be
loyal to it?’
‘I think,’ said the Canon, ‘that the question is decided for us. Is it
not, Mr. Conneally? “Render unto Caesar”--you remember the verse. Even if
the Government were as unconstitutional as you appear to think, it would
not be more so than the Roman Government of Judaea when these words were
spoken.’
Hyacinth pondered this answer. It opened up to him an entirely new way
of looking at the subject, and he could see that it might be necessary
for a Christian to acquiesce without an attempt at resistance in any
Government which happened to exist.
He remembered other verses in the New Testament which could be quoted
even more conclusively in favour of this passive obedience. Yet he felt
that there must be a fallacy lurking somewhere. It was, on the face of
it, an obvious absurdity to think that a man, because he happened to
be a Christian, was therefore bound to submit to any form of tyranny or
oppression.
‘Suppose,’ he said--‘I only say suppose--that a Government did immoral
things, that it robbed or allowed evil-disposed people to rob, would it
still be right to be loyal?’
‘I think so,’ said the Canon quietly.
Hyacinth looked at him in astonishment.
‘Do you mean to say that you yourself would be loyal under such
circumstances?’
‘I prefer not to discuss the question in that personal way, but the
Church to which you and I belong is loyal still, although the Government
has robbed us of our property and our position, and although it is now
allowing our people to be robbed still further.’
‘You mean by the Disestablishment and the Land Acts?’
‘Yes. I think it is our great glory that our loyalty is imperishable,
that it survives even such treatment as we have received and are
receiving.’
‘That is very beautiful,’ said Hyacinth slowly. ‘I see that there is a
great nobility in such loyalty, although I do not even wish to share it
myself. You see, I am an Irishman, and I want to see my country great
and free.’
‘I suppose,’ said the Canon, ‘that it is very natural that we should
love the spot on earth in which we live. I think that I love Ireland
too. But we must remember that our citizenship is in heaven, and it
seems to me that any departure from the laws of the King of that country
dishonours us, and even dishonours the earthly country which we call our
own.’
Hyacinth said nothing. There flashed across him a recollection of
Augusta Goold’s hope that some final insult would one day goad the
Irish Protestants into disloyalty. Clearly, if Canon Beecher was to be
regarded as a type, she had no conception of the religious spirit of the
Church of Ireland. But was there anyone else like this clergyman? He did
not know, but he guessed that his friends the Quinns would think of the
matter in somewhat the same way. It seemed to him quite possible that in
scattered and remote parishes this strangely unreasonable conception of
Christianity might survive. After a pause the Canon went on:
‘You must not think that I do not love Ireland too. I look forward to
seeing her free some day, but with the freedom of the Gospel. It will
not be in my time, I know, but surely it will come to pass. Our people
have still the simple faith of the early ages, and they have many very
beautiful virtues. They only want the dawn of the Dayspring from on
high to shine on them, and then Ireland will be once more the Island of
Saints--_insula sanctorum_.’ He dwelt tenderly on the two words. ‘I do
not think it will matter much then what earthly Government bears rule
over us. But come, I see that you have finished your smoke, and I must
go to my study to think over my sermon.’
When Hyacinth entered the drawing-room the girls surrounded him, asking
him for answers to a printed list of questions. It appeared that the
committee of a bazaar for some charity in which it was right to be
interested had issued a sort of examination-paper, and promised a prize
to the best answerer. The questions were all of one kind: ‘What is the
Modern Athens--the Eternal City--the City of the Tribes? Who was the
Wizard of the North--the Bulwark of the Protestant Faith? The earlier
names on the list presented little difficulty to Hyacinth. Marion
took down his answers, whilst Elsie murmured a pleasant chorus of
astonishment at his cleverness. Suddenly he came to a dead stop. ‘Who
was the Martyr of Melanesia?’
‘I have never heard of him,’ said Hyacinth.
‘Never heard of the Martyr of Melanesia!’ said Elsie. ‘Why, we knew that
at once.’
‘Yes,’ said Marion, ‘there was an article on him in last month’s
_Gleaner_. Surely you read the _Gleaner_, Mr. Conneally?’
Hyacinth felt Marion’s eyes fixed on him with something of a reproach
in them. He wrestled with a vague recollection of having somewhere
heard the name of the periodical. For a moment he thought of risking
cross-questioning, and saying that he had only missed the last number.
Then he suddenly remembered the card with silver lettering which
hung above his coat in the hall, and told the truth with even a quite
unnecessary aggravation.
‘No, I never remember seeing a copy of it in my life. I don’t even know
what it is about.’
‘Oh!’ said the girls, round-eyed with horror. ‘Just think! And we all
have collecting-boxes.’
‘It is a missionary periodical,’ said Marion. ‘It has news in it
from every corner of the mission-field, and every month a list of the
stations that specially need our prayers.’
Hyacinth left the Rectory that night with three well-read numbers of the
_Gleaner_ in his pocket.
Afterwards he had many talks with Canon Beecher and the Quinns about
the work of the missionary societies. He learnt, to his surprise, that
really immense sums of money were subscribed every year by members of
the Church of Ireland for the conversion of the heathen in very remote
parts of the world. It could not be denied that these contributions
represented genuine self-denial. Young men went without a sufficiency
of tobacco, and refrained from buying sorely-needed new tennis-racquets.
Ladies, with the smallest means at their command, reared marketable
chickens, and sold their own marmalade and cakes. In such ways, and not
from the superfluity of the rich, many thousands of pounds were gathered
annually. It was still more wonderful to him to discover that large
numbers of young men and women, and these the most able and energetic,
devoted themselves to this foreign service, and that their brothers and
sisters at home were banded together in unions to watch their doings
and to pray for them. He found himself entirely untouched by this
enthusiasm, in spite of the beautiful expression it found in the lives
of his new friends.
But it astonished him greatly that there should be this potent energy
in the Irish Church. The utter helplessness of its Bishops and clergy in
Irish affairs, the total indifference of its people to every effort at
national regeneration, had led him to believe that the Church itself was
moribund. Now he discovered that there was in it an amazing vitality,
a capacity of giving birth to enthusiastic souls. The knowledge brought
with it first of all a feeling of intense irritation. It seemed to him
that all religions were in league against Ireland. The Roman Church
seized the scanty savings of one section of the people, and squandered
them in buying German glass and Italian marble. Were the Protestants
any better, when they spent £20,000 a year on Chinamen and negroes? The
Roman Catholics took the best of their boys and girls to make priests
and nuns of them. The Protestants were doing the same thing when they
shipped off their young men and young women to spend their strength
among savages. Both were robbing Ireland of what Ireland needed
most--money and vitality. He would not say, even to himself, that all
this religious enthusiasm was so much ardour wasted. No doubt the Roman
priest did good work in Chicago, as the Protestant missionary did in
Uganda; only it seemed to him that of all lands Ireland needed most the
service and the prayers of those of her children who had the capacity of
self-forgetfulness. Afterwards, when he thought more deeply, he found a
great hope in the very existence of all this altruistic enthusiasm. He
had a vision of all that might be done for Ireland if only the splendid
energy of her own children could be used in her service. He tried more
than once to explain his point of view. Mr. Quinn met him with blank
disbelief in any possible future for Ireland.
‘The country is doomed,’ he said. ‘The people are lazy, thriftless, and
priest-ridden. The best of them are flying to America, and those that
remain are dying away, drifting into lunatic asylums, hospitals, and
workhouses. There is a curse upon us. In another twenty years there
will be no Irish people--at least, none in Ireland. Then the English and
Scotch will come and make something of the country.’
From Canon Beecher he met with scarcely more sympathy or understanding.
‘Yes,’ he admitted, ‘no doubt we ought to make more efforts than we do
to convert our fellow-countrymen. But it is very difficult to see how we
are to go to work. There is one society which exists for this purpose.
Its friends are full of the very kind of enthusiasm which you describe.
I could point you out plenty of its agents whose whole souls are
in their work, but you know as well as I do how completely they are
failing.’
‘But,’ said Hyacinth, ‘I do not in the least mean that we should start
more missions to Roman Catholics. It does not seem to me to matter much
what kind of religion a man professes, and I should be most unwilling to
uproot anyone’s belief. What we ought to do is throw our whole force and
energy into the work of regenerating Ireland. It is possible for us to
do this, and we ought to try.’
‘Well, well,’ said the Canon, ‘I must not let you make me argue with
you, Conneally; but I hope you won’t preach these doctrines of yours to
my daughters. I think it is better for them to drop their pennies into
missionary collecting-boxes, and leave the tangled problems of Irish
politics to those better able to understand them than we are.’