SUNDAY.
I was produced on Sunday before the whole settlement; more strictly
speaking, they produced themselves before me. The villagers were in
the village, for the first time, at my hour of rising. There was an
absolute cessation from labour, but there was hardly rest. They were
in a flutter of joyous excitement, and ran from cottage to cottage, as
though they were spreading good news. Yet there was no news, for who
could need telling that it was Sunday, and that the sky was blue? For
that matter, they needed no excuse to make free of each other’s houses.
Property in their own roofs seemed the merest accident among them. One
man’s arm-chair was another man’s arm-chair. They walked in and out,
by the open doors--often into unguarded dwellings, when the owners
were on a visit elsewhere--read the books, smelt the flowers, touched
the harmonium, if they could, or cared, and came away. When you sought
a man, you went into the nearest cottage; you never thought of going
first to his own, unless it lay in your path. There was more of this
curious house to house visiting to-day, because there was more time for
it, and because there was a greater intensity of childlike happiness in
movement and communion--that was all.
There seemed to be much borrowing and lending of the Sabbath finery of
cleanliness. If you had no better coat for the day, why, your neighbour
might have one to spare, and you asked him for it. Victoria lent two
loose gowns, a kind of _robe de chambre_ worn on state occasions over
the scanty costume of the women. At the same time, she went into a
neighbour’s garden, and helped herself freely to flowers for her hair,
our own stock having suffered from the movements of some four-footed
intruder during the night. If Proudhon had lived here, he would have
written ‘property is vanity,’ the innermost truth. Victoria was very
smart--a new ribbon for the navy button, beside the blossoms inwoven
with her shining locks.
The church was a hut. I have seen St. Peter’s, too, yet I give this
one the preference for majesty, taking its surroundings into account.
For St. Peter’s, as the best thing in its quarter, all else meaner,
leads nowhere beyond itself, while this island fane, backed first by a
stately tropic grove, then by a towering cone of mountain, then by the
clouds, carried the eye from height to height of beauty and of wonder,
right up to Heaven.
We were rather late, and it was all the better, for now I could take
in the whole population of the island at a glance. They were mostly
of superb physique, men and women, and Victoria was but one finest
example of them. Reuben, the young giant, who had helped me on the day
of landing, was another. Among the women, however, some foolish hat,
or trailing skirt, of civilisation here and there departed from the
classic simplicity of Victoria’s dress. Most of the men wore shoes, in
honour of the day; a few, like the Ancient, long trousers, instead of
the loose knee-breeches of their working suits. Trousers seemed to
be a sign of authority, or of the beginning of years. The priest, or
ministrant, wore them, and indeed he might have been entitled to wear
two pairs, for, I think, he was schoolmaster as well. The types varied
from Victoria’s front of Western Europe to almost pure Tahiti, but
always they had their point of unity in the large soft eyes.
For the service, never had I seen such fervour, such passion of prayer
and praise! It was the Church of England form, I believe, but form of
any kind was hardly to be recognised in the melting heat of their zeal.
The poor old Litany seemed like a veritable audience at the throne
of God. The Commandments came as His voice from our own mountain,
thundering from the summit of the cone. Our hymns soared after Him to
the very farthest heaven as He retired. One boy’s note, I think, must
have got there first, so clear was it, so clean and pure and true, with
nought of earth to keep it from the skies. It was a living faith, no
mere specimen of what once had lived, dried for keeping, and not even
dried in the sun. Here were the true Primitives, the joyous band of
Galilean vagabonds, exulting in that new conception of the brotherhood
of man whose secret we have for ever lost. Solemnity, as we understand
it, seemed far from them; devoutness was swallowed up in joy. Often
they laid their hands affectionately on each other’s shoulders as they
sang: once I saw two children kiss after a prayer.
I had been completely ignored during the service, but, when it was
over, my turn came. As we trooped back towards the village, I was
the centre of a questioning crowd. I had come from England--that was
enough, for England is their great archetype of power, wisdom, and
beauty of life. Needless to say they have not seen it; I mean, of
course, that circumstance has bound them to their rock. All that they
know as best comes from England, from the great war ship, which they
regard with almost the wonder of Indians, down to the harmonium in the
cottage. It is not much to know, but a generous imagination easily does
the rest. England has been good to them: England, then, is goodness.
She is visibly strong: then she is strength. She has sent them Bibles;
ah! she must be the Word made Flesh.
So it was one long bewildering inquisition. Would I tell them of the
great churches, the great wonders manifold of that far-off Isle of
the Saints? What of the rulers and statesmen, of the bishops, those
captains of captains of the thousands of God, of the choirs of the
faithful--five thousand strong, as they had heard--hymning Handel under
a crystal dome? They seemed to see human life not at all as a mere
struggle, but as a great race for a crown of virtue, in which Britain
was first, and their poor island so decidedly nowhere that she could
afford to sink rivalry in unqualified admiration. I winced, and winced,
and winced again.
‘We are but poor things here, and we know it,’ said the schoolmaster.
‘You will improve,’ I said kindly.
‘Well, sir, we are always ready to learn; perhaps you would like to
take a service yourself next Sunday? You are not in orders, but you
have heard the Archbishop of Canterbury, I dare say.’
‘No, only a bishop now and then.’
‘Oh, what opportunities!’ said Victoria sadly. ‘We once had a
navy-chaplain here, but it was four years ago. Though, of course, that
is no excuse for our not being better than we are.’
‘They say he has fifteen thousand a year to spend on the poor,’ said
the schoolmaster, returning to the Primate.
‘Yes, he has fifteen thousand a year.’
‘How much would that be in potatoes, let’s see?’ murmured Reuben, and
he withdrew for an operation in mental arithmetic.
‘I’ve heard of a lady who has made fifty thousand people happy, all by
herself,’ said one of the women. ‘She’s a baroness.’
‘And that’s not the highest,’ said another, ‘there’s duchesses who must
be richer. Oh, what a country for the poor!’
‘It’s the big churches I’m thinking of,’ observed the schoolmaster.
‘Why, there’s one that holds six thousand people. Six thousand people,
twice a day! Think of the spread of it!’
‘Them’s the things I want to see,’ said Reuben, returning, not
unoppressed, I thought, by his weight of potatoes, ‘the big things--St.
Paul’s, the Railway.’
‘You should use the plural form, Reuben,’ urged the schoolmaster
gently, ‘the railways. There are dozens of them. Why, there are three
great lines running to Birmingham! I’ve got a map of it.’
‘And how about the Parliament?’ struck in the Ancient, pre-occupied,
and not unnaturally, with the question of legislation. ‘Over a thousand
people to make the laws; and at it day and night, too! The moment
anything goes wrong anywhere, there they are, waiting on the premises,
as you may say, to put it right. We’ve nothing like that here. Not that
we want it either; I only make the remark.’
This touching disposition to take us in good faith had no limits. In
their quaint conception of our corporate life, all things existed to
that great end of the crown of virtue. Nothing was merely neutral or
indifferent. To talk of making people virtuous by Act of Parliament
would, for them, have had none of the significance of a sneer. What
else were Acts of Parliament for? So, churches were to promote
brotherhood and love, with no reserves for a Pickwickian sense; armies,
to suppress the wicked. Rank and riches, as we have just seen, were
mere equivalents for more opportunity; if a baroness made fifty
thousand people happy, what might not a duchess do? The islanders
simply multiplied our means by their own yearnings, and the product was
a colossal sum in good. Everything seemed to count; from a question the
Ancient put to me as to the number of cabs and omnibuses in the British
capital, I more than suspect that these, too, contributed to his grand
total. The drivers were obliging persons whose chief concern was to
give tired Righteousness a lift.
‘I want to see St. Paul’s and the railways,’ murmured Reuben again, in
an amended version, as he wandered away from the group.
Victoria’s wistful gaze went after him: ‘Poor fellow!’
‘Is anything the matter with him, Victoria?’
‘Yes, but he daren’t tell anyone but me; he wants to go.’
‘To go where?’
‘Out there,’ she said, with a gesture that was meant to indicate the
world at large. ‘He wants to see it all; he can never rest here.
These things our people talk about with strangers trouble him. He’s
venturous; he must see and know. He was always like that: he dived two
fathoms lower than anyone else--off the Point, and brought up a watch
from the old ship. No one can follow him on the rocks. He discovered
an island once--over there. I went to see it: I’ll take you one day.
Now it’s England. He can never rest here. But, oh! how I dread it! and,
besides, you know, they will never let him go.’
‘Did he find so much in the first island, then, that he longs to try
the other?’
‘No; only some dry bones in a cave. But England will be different, of
course.’
They prayed and praised, in the exultant fashion of the morning, all
day long--with due intervals for refreshment. There were five services,
I think, big and little. If there were not six, it was only because
this Sunday did not happen to fall on the longest day.
‘I hope it is because we love God,’ said Victoria, ‘but I think it is
just as much because we love one another. Or perhaps it is to bring
Him nearer, so that we may love Him like the rest. He must not be too
far off. I think that is why some of the poor wild people we read of
take so long to convert. You must show them something, and let them
feel the strong arm, and see the face of human love. They always want
to worship the missionary first. Why not let them; and then pass it on,
when they get stronger? Do you know, in spite of all my advantages, I
could sometimes just fall down and say my prayers to a child, to things
even--a rose-tree? It’s the old wickedness in our blood, I suppose. But
mind, don’t you dare tell anybody; I should die of shame!’
I had begged to be excused from attendance at the remaining four
services, on the ground that I preferred an open-air rite; and, on
my assurance that this mode of devotion had the sanction of British
custom, Victoria had consented to join me. We were wandering, talking,
musing in long silences, picking wild-flowers, breathing the balmy air,
basking in the warm light.
In one of these reveries I caught a strange gleam in Victoria’s eyes.
‘Tell me about the blessed Sabbaths in England,’ she murmured, placing
her hand in mine.
O my England, my England! why cannot I speak of a thing we all must
honour so? why, rather, do I pray for strength to keep the secret
of thy Sabbaths well? Dread day of the division of classes, weekly
vision of the Judgment, in its utter separation of the social sheep
and goats, never one flock, alas! at any time, but now so clearly
two. In this dark hour of remembrance, I hear the hoarse clappers of
thy meeting-houses, vainly fanning the stagnant air in cities of the
spiritual dead. I see thy funereal processions of the elect, wending
to or from the conventicles, past groups of coster-boys, who wait for
the opening of the houses, and expectorate on the pavement in patterns
of the dawn of decorative art. It is all before me, the dingy squalor
of thy miles of shuttered marts, the crying contrasts of thy Sunday
finery, more hurtful to the eye than thy week-day rags! I hear thy
muffin-bells in the deep silences, and thy hawkers’ wail; and, amid
this worst of all spiritual destitution, the destitution of beauty, I
ask myself, what is it that we have lost; what is it these little ones
have found?