Aubrey Leigh was a man who had chosen his own way of life, and, as a
natural consequence of this, had made for himself an independent and
original career. Born in the New World of America he had been very
highly educated,--not only under the care of a strict father, and an
idolising mother, but also with all the advantages one of the finest
colleges in the States could give him. Always a brilliant scholar, and
attaining his successes by leaps and bounds rather than by close and
painstaking study, the day came,--as it comes to all finely-tempered
spirits,--when an overpowering weariness or body and soul took
possession of him,--when the very attainment of knowledge seemed
absurd,--and all things, both in nature and art, took on a sombre
colouring, and the majestic pageant of the world's progress appeared no
more than a shadow too vain and futile to be worth while watching as it
passed. Into a Slough of Despond, such as Solomon experienced when he
wrote his famous "Ecclesiastes," Aubrey sank unconsciously, and,--to do
him justice,--most unwillingly. His was naturally a bright, vivacious,
healthy nature--but he was over-sensitively organised,--his nerves did
not resemble iron so much as finely-tempered steel, which could not but
suffer from the damp and rust in the world's conventionalities. And
some "little rift within the lute" chanced to him, as it often chances
to many, so that the subtle music of his soul jarred into discord with
the things of life, making harsh sounds in place of melody. There was
no adequate cause for this,--neither disappointed love nor balked
ambition shadowed his days;--it was something altogether indefinable--a
delicate, vague discontent which, had he known it, was merely the first
stirring of an embryo genius destined one day to move the world. He did
not know what ailed him,--but he grew tired--tired of books--tired of
music--tired of sifting the perplexing yet enchanting riddles of
science--tired of even his home and his mother's anxious eyes of love
that watched his moods too closely for his peace,--and one day, out of
the merest boyish impulse, he joined a company of travelling actors and
left America. Why he did this he could never tell, save that he was a
student and lover of Shakespeare. Much to his own surprise, and
somewhat to his disgust, he distinguished himself with exceptional
brilliancy on the stage,--his voice, his manner, his physique and his
bearing were all exceptional, and told highly in his favour,--but
unfortunately his scholarly acumen and knowledge of literature went
against him with his manager. This personage, who was densely ignorant,
and who yet had all the ineffable conceit of ignorance, took him
severely to task for knowing Shakespeare's meanings better than he
did,--and high words resulted in mutual severance. Aubrey was hardly
sorry when his theatrical career came thus untimely to an end. At first
he had imagined it possible to become supreme in histrionic art,--one
who should sway the emotions of thousands by a word, a look or a
gesture,--he had meant to be the greatest Shakespearean actor of his
day; and with his knowledge of French, which was as perfect as his
knowledge of English, he had even foreseen the possibility of taking
the French stage as well as the English by storm. But when he gradually
came to discover the mean tricks and miserable treacheries used by his
fellow-actors to keep a rising comrade down,--when he felt to the core
of his soul the sordidness and uncleanness of his surroundings,--when
he shudderingly repulsed the would-be attentions of the painted drabs
called "ladies of the stage",--and above all, when he thought of the
peace and refinement of the home he had, for a mere freak,
forsaken,--the high tone of thought and feeling maintained there, the
exquisite gracefulness and charm of womanhood, of which his mother had
been, and was still a perfect embodiment, some new and far stronger
spirit rose up within him, crying--"What is this folly? Am I to sink to
the level of those whom I know and see are beneath me? With what I have
of brain and heart and feeling, are these unworthy souls to drag me
down? Shall I not try to feel my wings, and make one bold dash for
higher liberty? And if I do so, whither shall I fly?"
He had come to England at this period,--and in the small provincial
town where his final rupture with the illiterate theatrical manager had
taken place, there was a curious, silent contest going on between the
inhabitants and their vicar. The vicar was an extremely unpopular
person,--and the people were striving against him, and fighting him at
every possible point of discussion. For so small a community the
struggle was grim,--and Aubrey for some time could not understand it,
till one day an explanation was offered him by a man engaged in
stitching leather, in a dirty evil-smelling little hole of a shop under
a dark archway.
"You see, sir, it's this way," he said, "Bessie Morton,--she wor as
good a girl as ever stepped--bright and buxom and kind hearted--yes,
that was Bessie, till some black scoundrel got her love at a soft
moment, and took the better of her. Well!--I suppose some good
Christian folk would say she wor a bad 'un--but I'll warrant she worn't
bad at heart, but only just soft-like--and she an orphan, with no one
to look after her, or say she done ill or well. And there was a little
child born--the prettiest little creature ye ever saw--Bessie's own
copy--all blue eyes and chestnut hair--and it just lived a matter of
fower year, and then it took sick and died. Bessie went nigh raving
mad; that she did. And now, what do you think, sir? The passon refused
to bury that there little child in consecrated ground, cos'twas born
out of wedlock! What d'ye think of that for a follower of Jesus with
the loving heart? What d'ye think of that?"
"Think!" said Aubrey indignantly, with an involuntary clenching of his
hand, "Why, that it is abominable--disgraceful! I should like to thrash
the brute!"
"So would a many," said his informant with an approving chuckle, "So
would a many! But that's not all--there's more behind--and worse too--"
"Why, what can be worse?"
"Well, sir, we thinks--we ain't got proofs to go on--for Bessie keeps
her own counsel--but we thinks the passon hisself is the father of that
there little thing he winnot lay in a holy grave!"
"Good God!" cried Aubrey.
"Ay, ay--you may say 'Good God!' with a meaning, sir," said the
leather-seller--"And that's why, as we ain't got no facts and no power
with bishops, and we ain't able to get at the passon anyhow, we're just
making it as unpleasant for him in our way as we can. That's all the
people can do, sir, but what they does, they means!"
This incident deeply impressed Aubrey Leigh, and proved to be the
turning point in his career. Like a flash of light illumining some
divinely written scroll of duty, he suddenly perceived a way in which
to shape his own life and make it of assistance to others. He began his
plan of campaign by going about among the poorer classes, working as
they worked, living as they lived, and enduring what they endured.
Disguised as a tramp, he wandered with tramps. He became for a time one
of the "hands" in a huge Birmingham factory. After that he worked for
several months at the coal pits among the lowest of the men employed
there. Then he got a "job" in a dock-yard and studied the ways of
shipping and humanity together. During this time of self-imposed
probation, he never failed to write letters home to Canada, saying he
was "doing well" in England, but how this "doing well" was brought
about he never explained. And the actual motive and end of all his
experiences was as yet a secret locked within his own heart. Yet when
it was put into words it sounded simple enough,--it was merely to find
out how much or how little the clergy, or so-called "servants of
Christ", obeyed their Master. Did they comfort the comfortless? Were
they "wise as serpents, and harmless as doves"? Were they
long-suffering, slow to wrath, and forbearing one to the other? Did
they truly "feed the sheep"? Did they sacrifice themselves, their
feelings, and their ambitions to rescue what was lost? All these and
sundry other questions Aubrey Leigh set himself to answer,--and by and
by he found himself on an endless path of discovery, where at every
step some new truth confronted him;--some amazing hypocrisy burned
itself in letters of flame against the splendour of church
altars;--some deed of darkness and bigotry and cruelty smirched the
white robes of the "ordained to preach the Gospel". Gradually he became
so intently and vitally interested in his investigations, and his
sympathy for the uncomforted people who had somehow lost Christ instead
of finding Him, grew so keen that he resolved to give up his entire
life to the work of beginning to try and remedy the evil. He had no
independent means,--he lived from hand to mouth earning just what he
could by hard labour,--till one day, when the forces in his own soul
said "Ready!" he betook himself to one small room which he hired in a
fisherman's cottage on the coast of Cornwall, and there sat down to
write a book. Half the day he wrote, and half the day he earned his
bread as a common fisherman, going out with the others in storm and
shine, sailing through sleet and hail and snow, battling with the
waves, and playing with Death at every turn of the rocks, which, like
the teeth of great monsters, jagged the stormy shore. And he grew
strong, and lithe, and muscular--his outward life of hard and changeful
labour, accompanied by the inward life of intelligent and creative
thought, gradually worked off all depression of soul and effeminacy of
body,--his experience of the stage passed away, leaving no trace on his
mind but the art, the colour and the method,--particularly the method
of speech. With art, colour, and method he used the pen;--with the same
art, colour, and method he used his voice, and practised the powers of
oratory. He would walk for miles to any lonely place where he could be
sure of no interruption,--and there he would speak aloud to the roaring
waves and wide stretches of desolate land, and tell them the trenchant
things he meant one day to thunder into human ears. Always of a fine
figure, his bearing grew more dauntless and graceful,--the dangers of
the sea taught him self-control,--the swift changes of the sky gave him
the far-off rapt expression and keen flash of his eyes,--the pitiful
sorrows of the poor, in which, as he had elected to be one of them, he
was bound to share, had deepened the sympathetic lines round his
delicate mouth, and had bestowed upon his whole countenance that look
which is seldom seen save in the classic marbles--the look of being one
with, and yet above mankind. All the different classes of people with
whom he had managed to associate had called him "gentleman", a name he
had gently but firmly repudiated. "Call me a Man, and let me deserve
the title!" he would say smilingly, and his "mates" hearing this would
eye each other askance, and whisper among themselves "that he WAS a
gentleman for all that, though no doubt he had come down in the world
and had to work for his living. And no shame to him as he gave himself
no airs, and could turn a hand to anything." And so the time moved on,
and he remained in the Cornish fishing village till his book was
finished. Then he suddenly went up to London;--and after a few days'
absence came back again, and went contentedly on with the fishing once
more.
A month or so later, one night when the blackness of the skies was so
dense that it could almost be felt, it chanced that he and his
companions were far out at sea in their little smack, which lay
becalmed between two darknesses--the darkness of the rolling water, and
the darkness of the still heaven. Little waves lapped heavily against
the boat's side, and the only glimpse of light at all was the yellow
flicker of the lamp that hung from the mast of the vessel, casting a
tremulous flicker on the sombrous tide, when all at once a great noise
like the crash of thunder, or the roll of cannon, echoed through the
air, and a meteor more brilliant than an imperial crown of diamonds,
flared through the sky from height to depth, and with a blazing
coruscation of flying stars and flame, dropped hissingly down into the
sea. The fishermen startled, all looked up--the heavy black nets
dropped from their brown arms just as they were about to pull in.
"A sign of strife!" said one.
"Ay, ay! We shall hev a war maybe!"
Aubrey leaned far over the boat's side, and looked out into the dense
blackness, made blacker than ever by the sudden coming and going of the
flaming sky-phenomenon,--and half unconsciously he murmured, "Think not
that I am come to send peace on earth,--I come not to send peace, but a
sword!" And he lost himself in dreams of the past, present, and
future,--till he was roused to give a hand in the dragging up of the
nets, now full of glistening fish with silvery bodies and ruby
eyes,--and then his thoughts took a different turn and wandered off as
far back as the Sea of Galilee when the disciples, fishing thus, were
called by the Divine Voice, saying "Follow me, and I will make you
fishers of men!" And in silence he helped to row the laden boat
homewards, for there was no wind to fill the sail,--and the morning
gradually broke like a great rose blooming out of the east, and the sun
came peering through the rose like the calyx of the flower,--and still
in a dream, Aubrey walked through all that splendour of the early day
home to his lodging,--there to find himself,--like Byron,--famous. His
book was in everyone's hand--his name on everyone's tongue. Letters
from the publisher whom his visit to London had made his friend,
accompanied by a bundle of the chief newspapers of the day, informed
him that he had in one bound taken his place at the very head and front
of opinion,--and, finest proof of power, the critics were out like the
hounds in full cry, and were already baying the noble quarry. The
Church papers were up in arms--indignant articles were being added to
the "weeklies" by highly respectable clergymen with a large feminine
"following", and in the midst of all these written things, which in
their silent print seemed literally to make a loud clamour in the quiet
of his room, Aubrey, in his sea-stained fisherman's garb, with the
sparkle of the salt spray still glittering on his closely curling
bright hair, looked out at the clear horizon from which the sun had
risen up in all its majesty, and devoutly thanked God!
"I have written part of my message," he said to himself, "And now
by-and-by I shall speak!"
But he lived on yet for a time in the remote fishing village,
waiting,--without knowing quite what he waited for,--while the great
Gargantuan mouth of London roared his name in every imaginable key,
high and low, and gradually swept it across the seas to America and
Australia, and all the vast New World that is so swiftly rising up,
with the eternal balance of things, to overwhelm the Old. And presently
the rumour of his fame reached those whom he had left behind in the
quiet little town of his birth and boyhood,--and his mother, reading
the frantic eulogies, and still more frantic attacks of the different
sections of press opinion, wept with excitement and tenderness and
yearning; and his father, startled at the strange power and authority
with which this new Apostle of Truth appeared to be invested, trembled
as he read, but nevertheless held himself more erect with a pride in
his own old age that he had never felt before, as he said a hundred
times a day in response to eager questioners--"Yes,--Aubrey Leigh is my
son!" Then mother and father both wrote to Aubrey, and poured out their
affectionate hearts to him and blessed him, which blessing he received
with that strange heaving of the heart and contraction of the throat,
which in a strong man means tears. And still he waited on, earning his
bread in the humble village which knew nothing of him, save as one of
themselves,--for the inhabitants of the place were deaf and blind to
the ways of the world, and read little save old and belated newspapers,
so that they were ignorant of his newly celebrated personality,--till
one day the Fates gave him that chance for which, though he was
unconscious of it, he had been holding himself back, and counting the
slow strokes of time;--time which seems to beat with such a laggard
pulse when one sees some great thing needing to be done, and while
feeling all the force to do it, yet has to control and keep back that
force till the appointed hour strikes for action.
There had been a terrific storm at sea, and a herring smack had gone
down within sight of land, sinking eight strong men with it, all
husbands and fathers. One after the other, the eight bodies were thrown
back from the surging deep in the sullen grey morning on the day after
the catastrophe,--one after the other they were borne reverently up
from the shore to the village, there to be claimed by shrieking women
and sobbing children,--women, who from more or less contented,
simple-hearted, hard-working souls, were transformed into the grandly
infuriated forms of Greek tragedy--their arms tossing, their hair
streaming, their faces haggard with pain, and their eyes blind with
tears. Throughout the heart-rending scene, Aubrey Leigh worked silently
with the rest--composing the stiff limbs of the dead, and reverently
closing the glared and staring eyes; gently he had lifted fainting
women from the corpses to which they clung,--tenderly he had carried
crying children home to their beds,--and with sorrowful eyes fixed on
the still heaving and angry billows, he had inwardly prayed for ways
and means to comfort these afflicted ones, and raised their thoughts
from the gloom of the grave to some higher consummation of life. For
they were inconsolable,--they could neither see nor understand any
adequate cause for such grief being inflicted on them,--and the entire
little population of the village wore a resentful attitude towards God,
and God's inexorable law of death. When the funeral day came, and the
bodies of the eight unfortunate victims were committed to the earth, it
happened, as fate would have it, that the rector of the parish, a
kindly, sympathetic, very simple old man, who really did his best for
his parishoners according to the faint perception of holy things that
indistinctly illumined his brain, happened to be away, and his place
was taken by the assistant curate, a man of irritable and hasty temper,
who had a horror of "scenes," and who always put away all suggestions
of death from him whenever it was possible. It was very disagreeable to
him to have to look at eight coffins,--and still more disagreeable to
see eight weeping widows surrounded by forlorn and fatherless
children--and he gabbled over the funeral service as quickly as he
could, keeping his eyes well on the book lest he should see some
sobbing child looking at him, or some woman dropping in a dead faint
before he had time to finish. He was afraid of unpleasant
incidents--and yet with all his brusque and nervous hurry to avoid
anything of the kind, an unpleasant incident insisted on manifesting
itself. Just as the fourth coffin was being lowered into the ground, a
wild-haired girl rushed forward and threw herself upon it.
"Oh, my man, my man!" she wailed, "My own sweetheart!"
There was a moment's silence. Then one of the widows stepped out, and
approaching the girl, laid her hand on her arm.
"Are ye making a mock of me, Mary Bell?" she said, "Or is it God's
truth ye're speaking to my husband lying there?"
The distraught creature called Mary Bell looked up with a sudden
passion glowing in her tear-wet eyes.
"It's God's truth!" she cried, "And ye needn't look scorn on me!--for
both our hearts are broken, and no one can ever mend them. Yes! It's
God's truth! He was your husband, but my sweetheart! And we'll neither
of us see a finer man again!"
The curate listened, amazed and aghast. Was nothing going to be done to
stop this scandalous scene? He looked protestingly from right to left,
but in all the group of fisher-folk not a man moved. Were these two
women going to fight over the dead? He hummed and hawed--and began in a
thin piercing voice--"My friends--" when he was again interrupted by
the passionate speech of Mary Bell.
"I'm sorry for ye," she said, lifting herself from the coffin to which
she clung, and turning upon the widow of the drowned man, "and ye can
be just as sorry for me! He loved us both, and why should we quarrel! A
man is ever like that--just chancy and changeful--but he tried his
honest hardest not to love me--yes, he tried hard!--it was my fault!
for I never tried!--I loved him!--and I'll love him, till I go where he
is gone! And we'll see who God'll give his soul to!"
This was too much for the curate.
"Woman!" he thundered, "Be silent! How dare you boast of your sin at
such a time, and in such a place! Take her away from that coffin, some
of you!"
So he commanded, but still not a man moved. The curate began to lose
temper in earnest.
"Take her away, I tell you," and he advanced a step or two, "I cannot
permit such a scandalous interruption of this service!"
"Patience, patience, measter," said one of the men standing by, "When a
woman's heart's broke in two ways it ain't no use worrying her. She'll
come right of herself in a minute."
But the curate, never famous for forbearance at any time, was not to be
tampered with. Turning to his verger he said,
"I refuse to go on! The woman is drunk!"
But now the widow of the dead man suddenly took up the argument in a
shrill voice which almost tore the air to shreds.
"She's no more drunk than you are!" she cried passionately, "Leave her
alone! You're a nice sort of God's serving man to comfort we, when
we're all nigh on losing our wits over this mornin' o' misery, shame on
ye! Mary Bell, come here! If so be as my husband was your sweetheart,
God forgive him, ye shall come home wi' me!--and we'll never have a
word agin the man who is lying dead there. Come wi' me, Mary!"
With a wild cry of anguish, the girl rushed into her arms, and the two
women clung together like sisters united in the same passionate grief.
The curate turned a livid white.
"I cannot countenance such immorality," he said, addressing the verger,
though his words were heard by all present, "Enough of the service has
been said! Lower the coffins into the earth!" and turning on his heel
he prepared to walk away. But Aubrey Leigh stopped him.
"You will not finish the service, sir?" he asked civilly, but with
something of a warning in the flash of his eyes.
"No! The principal part of it is over. I cannot go on. These women are
drunk!"
"They are not drunk, save with their own tears!" said Aubrey, his rich
voice trembling with indignation. "They are not mad, except with grief!
Is it not your place to be patient with them?"
"My place! My place!" echoed the curate indignantly, "Man, do you know
to whom you are talking?"
"I think I do," answered Aubrey steadily, "I am talking to a professed
servant of Christ,--Christ who had patience and pardon for all men! I
am talking to one whose calling and vocation it is to love, to forgive,
and to forbear--whose absolute protestation has been made at the altar
of God that he will faithfully obey his Master. Even if these unhappy
women were drunk, which they are not, their fault in conduct would not
release you from the performance of your duty,--or the reverence you
are bound to show towards the dead!"
Trembling with rage, the curate eyed him up and down scornfully.
"How dare you speak to me about my duty! You common lout! Mind your own
business!"
"I will," said Aubrey, fixing his eyes full upon him, "And it shall be
my business to see that you mind yours! Both your rector and bishop
shall hear of this!"
He strode off, leaving the curate speechless with fury; and joining the
little crowd of mourners who had been startled and interrupted by this
unexpected scene, drew a prayer book from his pocket, and without
asking anyone's permission read with exquisite gravity and pathos the
concluding words of the funeral service,--and then with his own hands
assisted the grave-diggers to lay the coffined dead tenderly to rest.
Awestruck, and deeply impressed by his manner the fisher-folk
mechanically obeyed his instructions, and followed his movements till
all the sad business was over, and then they lingered about the
churchyard wistfully watching him, while he in turn, standing erect and
bare-headed near the open graves, looked at them with a strange pity,
love and yearning.
"It'll be all right when our owld passon comes back," said one of the
men addressing him, "It's just this half eddicated wastrel of a chap as
doesn't know, and doesn't care for the troubles of common folk like we."
Aubrey was silent for a space. "Common folk like we!" The words were
full of pathetic humility, and the man who spoke them was a hero of no
mean type, who had often buffeted the winds and waves to save a human
life at the risk of his own. "Common folk like we!" Aubrey laid his
hand gently on his "mate's" shoulder.
"Ben, old boy, there are no common folk in God's sight," he said, "Look
there!" and he pointed to the graves that were just beginning to be
filled in, "Every creature lying there had as much of God in him as
many a king, and perhaps more. In this majestic universe there is
nothing common!"
Ben shuffled one foot before the other uneasily.
"Ay, ay, but there's few as argify the way o' life in they lines!" he
said, "There's a many that think--but there's a main few that speak."
"That is true," said Aubrey, still keeping his hand on Ben's shoulder,
"there's a main few that speak! Now, _I_ want to speak, Ben,--I want to
have a talk to you and the rest of our mates about--well!--about the
dangers of the sea and other things. Will you meet me on the shore this
evening near the quay and listen to a word or two?"
Ben looked surprised but interested, and a puzzled smile came into his
eyes.
"Be ye a goin' to preach to us like the passon?" he said, "Or like the
fellers in the porter's caps as calls themselves Salvationists?"
Aubrey smiled.
"No! I only want to say a few parting words to you all."
"Parting words!" echoed Ben with a stupefied air.
"Yes--I am going away to-morrow--going for good. I have got some other
work to do. But I shall not forget you all . . . and you will hear of
me often,--yes, you will hear of me!--and some day I will come back.
But to-night . . . I should just like to say good-bye."
Ben was secretly much distressed. "Gentleman Leigh" as he was sometimes
called, had greatly endeared himself to their little community, and
that he should leave them was not at all a desirable thing, and would,
as Ben well knew, cause universal regret. But there was no time just
now for either argument or protestation, so Ben accepted the blow as he
accepted all buffetings of fate, and merely said,
"All right! We'll be there to-night for sure!" And then Aubrey, gravely
content, walked slowly out of the little churchyard still bare-headed,
his eyes dark with thought,--and the reluctant sun came out of the gray
sky and shone on his pale face and bright hair--and one or two of the
widowed women timidly touched his arm as he passed, and murmured, "God
bless you!" And Mary Bell, the sorrowful and sinning, clinging to the
waist of the woman she had wronged, looked up at him appealingly with
the strained and hunted gaze of a lost and desperate creature, and as
he met her eyes, turned shudderingly away and wept. And he, knowing
that words were useless, and that even the kindliest looks must wound
in such a case, passed on in silence, and when he reached his own
lodging took some of the newspapers which spoke of himself and his
book, and after marking certain passages, tied them up in a packet and
sent them to the curate with whom he had crossed swords that morning,
accompanied by a note which briefly ran thus:--
"You asked me how I 'dared' to speak to you about your duty. I
reply--By the force of truth and the power of the pen I dare!--and I
shall be ready to answer to God for it, as you must answer to him for
leaving any part of YOUR duty undone.
"AUBREY LEIGH."
And the day passed on, half in drifting clouds, half in glimpses of
sunshine, till late afternoon, when the sky cleared altogether, and the
waves sank to a dead calm;--and with the night a shield-like moon, all
glistening pearl and silver, rose up out of the east with a royal air
of white and wondering innocence, as though she proclaimed her entire
blamelessness for any havoc wrought by storm. And in the full radiance
of that silvery splendour Aubrey Leigh, leaning against the sea-weed
covered capstan of the quay, round which coils of wet rope glistened
like the body of a sleeping serpent, told to an audience of human
hearers for the first time the story of his life, and adventures, and
the varied experiences he had gone through in order to arrive at some
straight and clear comprehension of "the Way, the Truth, and the Life"
of the Gospel of Love and Mutual Labour. His practised voice, perfect
in all modulation, inflexion, and expression, carried each simple,
well-chosen word home to the hearts of his hearers,--not one so
ignorant as not to understand him--not one so blind as not to see the
beauty of work and creative effort as he depicted them,--not one so
insensate as not to feel the calm, the grandeur, and repose of the
strong soul of a man in complete sympathy with his fellow-men. They
listened to him almost breathlessly--their bronzed weather-beaten faces
all turned towards his; forgetting to smoke, they let their pipes die
out and drop from their hands--and no interruption broke the even flow
and cadence of his earnest language, save the slow ripple of the water
beating against the quay, and the faint, occasional sigh of a stirring
wind. Silhouetted black against the radiant sky were the masts of the
fishing fleet, and the roofs of the fishermen's cottages--dwellings so
often made desolate by death--and as Aubrey noted the fascinated
attention with which these rough men heard him, his heart grew strong.
"If a few listen, so will many," he said to himself, "The Master of our
creed first taught His divine ethics to a few fishermen,--to them the
message was first given . . . and by them again delivered,--and it is
through our having departed from the original simplicity of utterance
that all the evil has crept in. So let me be content with this night's
work and await the future with patience." Then lifting up his voice
once more he said,--
"You think your lot a hard one--you, friends and brothers, who set the
brown sails out to sea on a night of threatening storm, and bid
farewell to your homes built safe upon the shore. You must meet all the
horror of white foam and cloud-blackness, to drag from the sea its
living spoil, and earn the bread to keep yourselves and those who are
dependent upon you,--you MUST do this, or the Forces of Life will not
have you,--they will cast you out and refuse to nourish you. For so is
your fate in life, and work ordained. Then where is God?--you cry, as
the merciless billows rise to engulf your frail craft,--why should the
Maker of man so deliberately destroy him? Why should one human unit,
doing nothing, and often thinking nothing, enjoy hundreds of pounds a
day, while you face death to win as many pence? Is there a God of Love
who permits this injustice? Ah, stop there, friends! There is no such
thing as injustice! Strange as it sounds to this world of many
contradictions and perplexities, I repeat there is no such thing as
injustice. There is what SEEMS injustice--because we are all apt to
consider the material side of things only. That is where we make our
great mistake in life and conduct. We should all remember that this
world, and the things of this world, are but the outward expression of
an inward soul--the Matter evolved from Mind--and that unless we are
ourselves in harmony with the Mind, we shall never understand the
Matter. Your millionaire is surrounded with luxuries,--your fishermen
has dry bread and herring,--your millionaire dies, with a famous doctor
counting his pulse-beats, and a respectable clergyman promising him
heaven on account of the money he has left to the church in his will;
your fisherman goes down in a swirl of black water, without a
prayer--for he has no time to pray--without leaving a penny behind him,
inasmuch as he has no pence to leave; and for both these different
creatures we judge the end is come? No,--the end is NOT come! It is the
beginning only! If the millionaire has died with a thousand selfish
sores in his mind,--if his life's privileges have been wasted in high
feeding and self-indulgence,--if he has thought only of himself, his
riches, his pride, his position, or his particular form of
respectability, he will get the full result of that mental attitude! If
the fisherman has been content with his earnings, and thanked God for
them,--if he has been honest, brave, true, and unselfish, and has
shared with others their joys and sorrows, and if at the last he goes
down in the waves trying to save some other life while losing his
own,--depend upon it he will rise to the full splendour of THAT mental
attitude! For both millionaire and fisherman are but men, made on the
same lines, of the same clay, and are each one, personally and
separately responsible to God for the soul in them,--and when both of
them pass from this phase of being to the next, they will behold all
things with spiritual eyes, not material ones. And then it may be that
the dark will be discovered to be the bright, and the fortunate prove
to be the deplorable, for at present we 'see through a glass darkly,
but then, face to face.' The friends whom we have buried to-day are not
dead,--for death is not Death, but Life. And for those who are left
behind it is merely a time of waiting, for as the Master said, 'There
shall not a hair of your head perish. In your patience possess ye your
souls.'"
He paused a moment,--the moon rays illumined his delicate features, and
a half sorrowful smile rested on his lips.
"I am no clergyman, my friends! I have not been 'ordained'. I am not
preaching to you. I will not ask you to be good men, for there is
something effeminate in the sound of such a request made to brawny,
strong fellows such as you are, with an oath ready to leap from your
lips, and a blow prepared to fly from your fists on provocation. I will
merely say to you that it is a great thing to be a Man!--a Man as God
meant him to be, brave, truthful, and self-reliant, with a firm faith
in the Divine Ordainment of Life as Life should be lived. There is no
disgrace in work;--no commonness,--no meanness. Disgrace, commonness,
and meanness are with those who pretend to work and never do anything
useful for the world they live in. The king who amuses himself at the
expense and ruin of his subjects is the contemptible person,--not the
labourer who digs the soil for the planting of corn which shall help to
feed his fellows. And the most despicable creature of our time and
century, is not the man who doubts Christ, or questions God--for Christ
was patient with the doubter, and God answers, through the medium of
science, every honest question--it is the man who pretends to believe
and lives on the pretence, while his conduct gives the lie to his
profession! That is why you--and why thousands of others like you, are
beginning to look upon many of the clergy with contempt, and to treat
their admonitions with indifference. That is why thousands of the
rising generation of men and women will not go to church. 'The parson
does not do anything for me,' is a common every-day statement. And that
the parson SHOULD do something is a necessary part of his business. His
'doing' should not consist in talking platitudes from the pulpit, or in
sending round a collection plate. And if he has no money, and will not
'sell half that he has and give to the poor' as commanded, he can at
any rate give sympathy. But this is precisely what he chiefly lacks.
The parson's general attitude is one of either superiority or
servility,--a 'looking down' upon his poor parishoners--a 'looking up'
to his rich ones. A disinterested, loving observation of the troubles
and difficulties of others never occurs to him as necessary. But this
was precisely the example Christ gave us--an unselfish example of
devotion to others--a supreme descent of the Divine into man to rescue
and bless humanity. Now I know all your difficulties and sorrows,--I
have worked among you, and lived among you--and I feel the pulse of
your existence beating in my own heart. I know that when a great
calamity overwhelms you all as it has done this week, you have no one
to comfort you,--no one to assure you that no matter how strange and
impossible it seems, you have been deprived of your associates for some
GOOD cause which will be made manifest in due season,--that they have
probably been taken to save them from a worse fate than the loss of
earth-consciousness in the sea. For that, scientifically speaking, is
all that death means--the loss of earth-consciousness,--but the gain of
another consciousness, whether of another earth or a heaven none can
say. But there is no real death--inasmuch as even a grain of dust in
the air will generate life. We must hold fast to the Soul of
things--the Soul which is immortal, not the body which is mortal. 'What
shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own
soul!' That is what each man of us must find, and hold, and keep,--his
own soul! Apart from all creeds, and clergy, forms and rituals--that is
the vital matter. Stand clear of all things,--all alone if need be,
surrounded by the stupendous forces of this great universe,--let us
find,--each man of us--his own soul; find and keep it brave, truthful,
upright, and bound straight on for the highest,--the highest always!
And the very stars in their courses will help us--storms will but
strengthen us--difficulties but encourage us--and death itself shall
but give us larger liberty."
He ceased, and one by one the men drew closer to him, and thanked him,
in voices that were tremulous with the emotion he had raised in them.
The instinct which had led them to call him "Gentleman Leigh" had
proved correct,--and there was not a man among them all who did not
feel a thrill of almost fraternal pride in the knowledge that the
dauntless, hard-working "mate" who had fronted tempests with them, and
worked with them in all weathers, had without any boast or loquacious
preparation, made his name famous and fit for discussion in the great
world of London far away, a world to which none of them had ever
journeyed. And they pressed round him and shook his hand, and gave him
simple yet hearty words of cheer and goodwill, together with unaffected
expressions of regret that he was leaving them,--"though for that
matter," said one of them, "we allus felt you was a scholard-like, for
all that you was so handy at the nets. For never did a bit of shell or
weed come up from the sea but ye was a lookin' at it as if God had
throwed it to yer for particular notice. And when a man takes to
obsarvin' common things as if they were special birthday presents from
the Almighty, ye may be pretty sure there's something out of the
ordinary in him!"
Aubrey smiled, and pressed the hand of this roughly eloquent
speaker,--and then they all walked with him up from the shore to the
little cottage where he had lived for so many months, and at the gate
of which he bade them farewell.
"But only for a time," he said, "I shall see you all again. And you
will hear of me!"
"Ay, ay, we'll hear of ye--for we'll take the papers in just for news
of yer!" said Ben, with a rough laugh which covered his deeper
feelings, "And mebbe ye'll come back afore we's all drownded!"
And so with a few more kindly words they left him, and he stood at the
gate watching their stalwart figures disappear down the different
windings of the crooked and picturesque little street.
"God bless them all!" he murmured, "They have taught me many a grand
lesson!"
The next day he took his quiet departure in the early morning before
the village folks were up and stirring,--and a month later he addressed
a large meeting in one of the poorest and most densely populated
districts of London on "The Ethics of Christ versus the Clergy", which
attracted universal attention and created an enormous sensation. His
book began to sell in thousands where it had previously sold in
hundreds, and he earned sufficient from the profits of the sale to keep
him going in the simple fashion of clothes and food to which he had
strictly disciplined himself, so that he felt free to plunge into the
thick of the fight. And he straightway did so. His name became a terror
to liars, and a clarion sound of alarm in the ears of social
hypocrites. He wrote another book which obtained even a larger hearing
than the first--and he spoke to the people on an average once a week,
wherever he could assemble them together. All his addresses were made
gratuitously, and he soon resembled a sort of blazing torch in the
darkness, to which the crowds rushed for light and leading. In the
midst of the sensation his writings and orations were creating, a noble
lord, with several Church livings in his gift, asked him to stand for
Parliament, and offered to pay the expenses of his election. At first
Aubrey was sufficiently tempted by the offer to pause hesitatingly on
the verge of acceptance, but twenty-four hours' hard thinking promptly
pulled him together. "No," he said--"I see what you mean! You and your
party wish to tie my hands--to gag my mouth, and make me as one of
yourselves--no, I will not consent to it. I will serve the people with
all my life and soul!--but not in YOUR way!"
And to avoid further discussion he went straight out of England for a
time, and travelled through Europe, making friends everywhere, and
learning new phases of the "Christian Dispensation" at every turn in
his road. Paris had held him fascinated for a long while, not only
because he saw her doom written like that of Babylon in letters of
fire, and Ruin, like a giant bird of prey hovering over her with beak
and claw prepared to pick the very flesh from her bones,--but also
because he had met Angela Sovrani, one of the most rarely-gifted types
of womanhood he had ever seen. He recognised her genius at once, and
marvelled at it. And still more did he marvel at her engagement of
marriage with Florian Varillo. That such a fair, proud creature so
splendidly endowed, could consent to unite herself to a man so vastly
inferior, was an interesting puzzle to him. He had met Varillo by
chance in Naples one winter before he ever saw Angela, and knew that
half his claim to the notice of the social world there was the fact of
his betrothal to the famous "Sovrani." And moved by a strange desire to
follow out this romance, and also because he was completing his studies
of the Roman Church viewed as a "moral support to the education and
elevation of man," he, after leaving Paris, and paying a brief visit to
Florence on a matter of business which could not be attended to
otherwise than personally, went on as though drawn by some invisible
magnet to Rome. He had only been twenty-four hours in the city, when
chance had led him under the balcony where the sculptured angels
fronted the moon, and from whence the sweet voice of Sylvie Hermenstein
had floated towards him with the words,--
"Ti voglio ben assai, E tu non pensi a me."
And he who had faced crowds without a tremor, and had flung
thunderbolts of splendid defiance at shams, with the manner of a young
Ajax defying the lightning, now found himself strangely put out and
disturbed in his usual composure by the innocent aspect, and harmless
perfume of a rose,--a mere little pink petalled thing, with not even a
thorn on its polished green stalk! He had placed it in a glass of water
on his writing table, and his eyes rested upon it the morning after he
had received it with almost a reproachful air. What was its
golden-hearted secret? Why, when he studied it, did he see the soft hue
of a fair cheek, the flash of a bright eye, the drooping wave of a
golden web of hair, the dainty curve of a white arm on which the
sparkle of diamonds gleamed? How was it that he managed to perceive all
this in the leaves of a rose? He could not tell; and he was angry with
himself for his inability to explain the puzzle. He reminded himself
that he had business in Rome--"business," he repeated sternly to his
own conscience,--the chief part of which was to ascertain from some one
of the leading spirits at the Vatican the view taken by the Papacy of
the Ritualistic movement in England.
"If you can gauge correctly the real feeling, and render it in plain
terms, apart from all conventional or social considerations," wrote his
publisher in a letter which had just reached him--"that is, if you dare
to do so much--and I think you will scarcely hesitate--you will
undoubtedly give great and lasting help to Christian England." As he
read this over for the second or third time he remembered that he had
an appointment with a certain powerful personage, known as Monsignor
Gherardi, that morning at eleven.
"And you," he said, apostrophising the rose with a protesting shake of
his head, "were nearly making me forget it!" He lifted the flower out
of the water and touched it with his lips. "She was a fair
creature,--the woman who wore you last night!"--he said with a smile as
he put it carefully back again in its glass, "In fact, she was very
much like you! But though I notice you have no thorns, I dare say she
has!" He paused a moment, lost in thought, the smile still giving
warmth and light to his features; then with a quick movement of
impatience at his own delaying, threw on his coat and hat and left the
room, saying, "Now for Gherardi!"