They drove him forth as beast and not as man
Till seven times had pass'd. At last he came
Back to his Babylon, but not the same.
Nay! For he now had learn'd of Lips on high,
Herded with cattle, 'neath a dewy sky,
How patience cannot fail where passion can.
But we, war's wehr-wolves, we than wolves more
fain.
(Grace-harden'd, deaf to Gospel, blind to Rood),
Fain to seek night-long horrors of the wood
Where the blood-trail is red, the blood-scent hot,
Shall we return in time? God, were it not
Best for Thy world we should not come again?
But he was to come again, for all his reluctance and shrinking
from a return. He was to come through that campaign all right,
and back to our part of Africa that he loved so dearly.
'We shall have him back, I hope, before the end of this month,'
the Superintendent of Missions told me. 'The Bishop seems willing
to ordain him before Christmas. He's not likely to need a long
diaconate, is he? Our Bishop agrees with me that he's had just
the kind of training for his priesthood that was most to be
desired.' I nodded dubiously.
We were sitting in the Superintendent's well-ordered study, which
he preferred to call his office. Its big window took a discreet
peep at the veld, but it was not the untamed veld, only Rosebery
Commonage. I searched in my pockets, and after uneasy gropings,
unearthed a crumpled letter begrimed and tobacco-dusty. 'This
doesn't look much like his coming up for ordination,' I said. I
read an extract: 'Please give that Chinde boy in the College at
Cape Town a message from me. I was glad to hear from you how well
he was doing. I always liked that boy extraordinarily, and I
think I had a sort of glimmer of his pastoral destiny quite
early, soon after he came our way as a straying sheep. Now, from
what you say, he bids fair to be a quite respectable candidate
for the native ministry. Will you please offer him two or three
more years at the College to enable him to qualify, should that
be his own wish. I am quite prepared to be at charges for him.
It's a happy augury that his baptismal name happens to be
Solomon, even as it was rather a tragic one that mine happened to
be David. I don't see my way to building up God's House on the
old farm now, either literally or metaphorically, in the way a
priest should.
I look on your boy at Cape Town as a likely substitute.
Vicariously I hope to offer by his hands, since mine are now too
stained to offer to my own satisfaction. I'll do David's part,
please God, and help him to build up the House, in both senses,
the house I might have built with my own hands, had they been
otherwise occupied than they have been these last months. I am
quite resigned now. It is all for the best, doubtless.'
'What does he mean?' The Superintendent's rather assured face
grew quite indeterminate and puzzled.
'What he says, probably,' I hazarded. 'He's got a scruple an
old-world scruple.'
I picked up the Superintendent's khaki-covered Bible, and turned
over hastily the red, blue, and white edges.
'Here's the passage,' I said. 'Listen to what his namesake, the
other David, said: "But God said unto me, 'Thou shalt not build
an house for My Name, because thou hast been a man of war, and
hast shed blood."'
'Oh, that text!' said the Superintendent not very reverentially.
'I don't think that it's particularly relevant.'
'Isn't it what he thinks that matters?' I asked. 'No, make your
mind up to it. When he followed your own advice and went off to
the war, he decided. He decided to remain a layman to the end of
his earthly days. Some of us have got our scruples. His took
shape that way.'
'I don't see why,' said the Superintendent rather piteously. He
was genuinely disappointed. I liked him for the unconscious
tribute he was paying to him whom we discussed.
'Be consoled,' I said with a twinkle. 'His farm promises to be a
real lay centre of Christian influence. May we not rest assured
of that? Trust him to encourage native industries and native
ideas; Trust him to believe in the veld. Trust him to read to his
veld-dwellers the Sermon on the Mount; trust him to live it
rather. Trust him to deprecate, by example, as well as precept,
excessive care for food and raiment. Our missions are apt to be
rather over-ecclesiastical, aren't they? Far too much of an urban
and Europeanized type, don't you think? Be consoled, his lay
settlement may be trusted to teach us a lot. God grant that his
native priest-designate he has chosen to be his Solomon, may soon
come along! Be consoled!'
The Superintendent looked slightly aghast. 'I don't see where the
consolation comes in,' he groaned.