WHAT IS FORGIVENESS?
Skilful alike with tongue and pen,
He preached to all men everywhere
The Gospel of the Golden Rule,
The new commandment given to men,
Thinking the deed, and not the creed,
Would help us in our utmost need.
With reverent feet the earth he trod,
Nor banished Nature from his plan,
But studied still with deep research
To build the Universal Church,
Lofty as is the love of God,
And ample as the wants of man.
_Tales of a Wayside Inn_. LONGFELLOW.
As he walked home, Donovan thought a good deal of the scene he had
just left, and for the first time it struck him that the sermon had
been rather an unusual one for such a congregation. Charles Osmond
seemed to take it for granted that his people thought; the
congregation was chiefly composed of working men and women and
tradespeople, but he by no means preached down to what some would
have considered their level. He entered into all the questions of
the day freely and fearlessly, took as much pains with his sermons as
if they were to be preached before the most searching critics in the
country, and avoided only the use of many-syllabled words--speaking,
indeed, in almost pure Saxon-English, the "tongue understanded of the
people."
How he came to be in such a place was another question which
perplexed Donovan. Had he known the reason, he would have been
doubly attracted to the man; but it was some time before he found out.
Charles Osmond's history was a strange one. He was exceedingly
clever, an original sort of man, full of resources, intensely
conscious of latent power which he might probably never have time or
opportunity for bringing into exercise. But the strength of the man
was in his extraordinary gift of insight; there was something almost
uncanny about his power of reading people. He would have made a good
diplomatist, a first-rate detective, had not his power of sympathy
been quite as strong as his power of insight. He had that gift of
"magnetism" which Donovan had ascribed to Raeburn; almost all who had
anything to do with him were attracted, they scarcely knew why or
how. He had a way of treating each individual as if for the time
being his only desire was to get nearer to him, and, although he was
the most wide-minded of men, he could so concentrate his world-wide
sympathy as to bring its full power to bear on one heart. His
influence was simply marvellous! he was like a sort of sun; the
coldest, most frozen, icebound natures melted in his genial presence.
He could draw out the most reserved people in a way astonishing to
themselves. He spoke little of "souls" in the lump, never obtruded
the conventional red-tapism of clerical life, but each individual was
to him a wonderful and absorbing study. He rarely even in thought
massed them together as "his parish," but took them as his inner
circle of brothers and sisters, a tiny fragment of the one great
family.
Of course, he was almost worshipped by those who knew him, but with a
certain class of character he could make no way. He had one great
fault--a fault which repelled some people, generally the "unco guid
or rigidly righteous," or those comfortable people who feel no need
or desire for sympathy. His fault was this--he was too conscious of
his influence; he knew that he had exceptional gifts, and all his
life long he had been struggling with that deadliest of foes,
conceit. He had the exquisite candour to call his fault by its true
name, a very rare virtue; and few things angered him more than to
hear conceit confounded with self-respect or proper pride of
independence. Conceit was conceit pure and simple; the word pride
had lost its objectionable meaning. To tell a man that he was proud
would make him feel almost gratified, would give him a sense of
dignity, but to tell him he was conceited would be sure to give him a
hard home-thrust. So he went on in his straightforward way,
struggling with his deadly hindrance, daily--almost hourly--checking
himself, pulling himself up, as he drifted into the all too natural
habit of self-approval. He had not crushed his foe as yet, but he
had risen immensely by the effort. It had helped greatly to increase
the manliness, the honesty, the large-minded tolerance which
characterized him. Intensely conscious that he had not "already
attained, neither was already perfect," he was a thousand times more
helpful to those in need than many of his brethren who looked down on
him, blandly content with their own progress in righteousness--at any
rate, convinced that Charles Osmond's very apparent fault must unfit
him for his work. Certainly it did prevent his ever assuming the
conventional tone of priest to penitent; he never felt himself on a
higher platform than his congregation, but perhaps for that very
reason he succeeded in attracting, by his brotherliness rather than
his priestliness, those whom no one else could attract.
The reason that he was still to be found toiling away in an obscure
parish in one of the poor parts of London was not without its pathos.
Very few were aware of the real cause. Naturally he was not without
a good deal of ambition, and at a certain time in his life his
advances had been rapid. He had written a series of articles which
had brought him into notice, and almost at the same time two offers
were made to him. The one was the offer of a living in London worth
perhaps £300 a year, the other was to a position of great
responsibility, invariably made the stepping-stone to high places.
Charles Osmond was human; it cost him a great deal to give up the
prospect of rapid and honourable preferment, and in refusing the
offer he gave up many other things which he much desired--the
opportunity of mixing with his equals, the chance of intellectual
society, the greater ease of speaking to a highly educated
congregation. In many respects he was, and knew that he was,
admirably fitted for such a position, but, weighing it all in his
honest mind, he came to the conclusion that he could not trust
himself to accept it. His power, his influence, his worldly position
would be immensely raised; he did not feel himself sufficiently
strong to resist such increased temptations.
So the chance of promotion was honourably rejected, and Charles
Osmond settled down to terribly up-hill work in London. Life never
could be easy to such a man; he was too sensitive, too wide-minded,
too entirely saturated with the spirit of Christ to be ever without
his share of Christ's burden--the burden of the suffering, the
sinning, the doubting. He was, too, in a certain sense an isolated
man; all through his life he had been greatly misunderstood. By one
set he was stigmatized as "High Church," by another as "dangerously
Broad," by a third as "almost a Dissenter." Attacked thus from all
points, his life would have been almost intolerable had it not been
for the growing love and devotion of his own particular people. His
church became a sort of Cave of Adullam--a refuge for numbers of the
distressed; and as years went by, the work began to tell, and a real
improvement could be noted. This alone was almost enough to make up
for the hostility which he encountered in other quarters, though he
was not the sort of man to whom persecution could ever be otherwise
than painful. He had lately incurred great odium by urging in public
that Raeburn, the atheist, ought to be treated with as much justice,
and courtesy, and consideration as if he had been a Christian. The
narrow-minded were thereby much scandalized; the atheists began to
believe that it was _possible_ for a clergyman to be honest and
unprejudiced.
The walk home after Sunday evening service was generally the part of
the day's work which Brian dreaded most for his father. He knew it
was then that the burden pressed most heavily on him, for the sin and
evil were fearfully apparent in those back streets, and Charles
Osmond keenly alive to it all, wearied with the exertions of the day,
and aware of his inability to cope with the immense wickedness
around, often fell a prey to the haunting consciousness of failure
and to blank depression.
This evening, however, as they parted from Donovan at the church
door, he seemed quite unusually brisk and animated, and though
generally too tired to care to speak an unnecessary word, he had not
walked a hundred yards before he began to question his son.
"So that is your new friend?"
"Yes," returned Brian, "what do you think of him?"
"I think he's a friend worth having."
"I knew you would like him," said Brian, triumphantly, "if it were
only because he is of your 'seeps.' Is there an honest atheist in
the world whom you don't like, I wonder!"
"I hope not," said Charles Osmond, with a touch of quiet humour in
his tone.
"I wouldn't say much about Farrant before you had seen him, for he's
not the sort of fellow to be known at second hand, and I was
determined you should somehow meet him. Odd that such a chance as
that girl's illness should have brought you together after all."
"Just as well," said Charles Osmond. "He is a fellow to be led, not
driven, or to be driven only by the One who knows when to use the
snaffle, when the curb."
"Yes, one is afraid of pushing him the wrong way rather," said Brian,
"even, I mean, in chance talk without any intention of pushing at
all."
"That we always must feel in speaking to those whom the world has
held at arm's length. I should like to know what helped to bring
that fellow to atheism, have you any idea?"
"The un-Christlikeness of Christians, I fancy--and something he said
of injustice with which he had been treated, but he has only once
spoken of it at all and then merely because he grew hot at the
mention of Raeburn."
Charles Osmond sighed heavily, it was another instance added to the
hundreds he already knew of the harm caused by injustice and want of
charity. He fell into a sorrowful reverie, but roused himself after
a time to ask what his son knew of Donovan's history.
"I know very little," said Brian, "he seems to be alone in the world,
and he is very poor. We are of the same year; he came up at October
two years ago and got a scholarship at once. He's by far the
cleverest fellow we have, no one else has a chance while he's there;
any amount of brains, you know, and works furiously--as if it were
the only thing he cared for."
"I thought as much," observed Charles Osmond. "There's the dog
though--wonderful to see the devotion between those two; no man in
the world, as the old saying goes, who can't find a dog and a woman
to love him. Who is the 'old man of the sea' you spoke of?"
"The queerest old fellow you ever saw who has come to live with him,
an old captain something, I forget the name. Quite of another grade
to Farrant, and trying to live with I should fancy, for he's a
regular old tippler, but he's devoted to 'Donovan,' as he always
calls him."
"Oh! that's his name, is he connected with the Donovans of Kilbeggan,
I wonder? grannie has their family tree by heart."
"There's nothing Irish about Farrant," said Brian.
"I'm not so sure of that, I fancy there's a good deal of humour in
him, stifled by circumstances perhaps, and I'll stake my reputation
as an observer that somewhere in his ancestry you'll find an Italian?"
Brian laughed; his father was very fond of tracing the tokens of
differing nationalities and had many theories on the subject;
sometimes his theories fell wide of the mark, however, and Brian was
inclined to think he had made a bad shot this time, for to him
Donovan seemed entirely--almost typically--English.
A few days after this Donovan was induced to dine with the Osmonds,
not without much persuasion from Brian, who was now sufficiently his
friend to be comfortably rude to him.
"You'll grow into a bear, a misanthrope, if you never go anywhere,"
he urged, as Donovan pleaded his want of time. "You'll addle your
brains, knock up before the exam, grow into the 'dull boy' of the
proverb. I can see that this unmitigated grind is beginning to tell
on you already; you look as old again as you did before the October
term."
Donovan flushed a little at this, said abruptly that he would come,
and gave a rapid turn to the conversation.
The Osmonds lived in Bloomsbury, in an old house which had belonged
to Charles Osmond's grandfather in the days when Bloomsbury was a
fashionable region. It was a comfortable, roomy house, not too far
from the parish to be inconvenient, and all the better for being far
removed from West End gaieties, as the Osmonds were something of
Bohemians, dined at an unpardonably early hour, and rather set at
naught the conventionalities of life.
Donovan was shown into a charming, old-fashioned drawing-room, not
old-fashioned according to the recent high art revival of
spindle-legged forms and Queen Anne uncomfortableness, but such a
room as might have been found at the beginning of the century.
Everything was massive and good of its kind. There were capacious
arm-chairs and most restful sofas covered with the real old chintz
worth any number of modern cretonnes, an old-fashioned Erard piano
that had seen good service, beautifully inlaid tables, some good oil
paintings, and a delightful array of books in long, low bookcases,
bound in old yellow calf and that everlasting morocco which was
somehow procurable in the good old times when book-binding was an
art, not a trade. A few modern knick-knacks here and there relieved
the stiffness of the furniture, while a faint smell of dried roses
was wafted from old china bowls and vases which would have awakened
the envy of anyone suffering from the china mania.
Mrs. Osmond, Brian's grandmother, just completed the old-world
picture. Donovan fell in love with her at once. She was indeed a
very beautiful old lady, her silvery hair, her mild, blue eyes, her
peculiarly sweet smile were all in their way perfect, but it was the
exquisite courtesy, the delicate grace of the past day that attracted
everyone so irresistibly, that beautiful, old-fashioned sweetness of
manner which has somehow perished in the heat and struggle--the
"hurrying life" of the nineteenth century. She made him a charming,
gracious, little curtsey, then held out her hand, and Donovan,
Republican though he was, did not shake it, but, acting as he
occasionally did by impulse, bent low and kissed it.
The old lady seemed touched and gratified; she at once introduced the
names of her old friends the Donovans of Kilkeggan, and there ensued
an animated discussion as to the younger branches of the family,
resulting in the oft-made discovery that the world is smaller than we
think, and that Donovan's grandfather, General Donovan, had been Mrs.
Osmond's old playfellow. The gong sounded, and the dear, old,
stately lady went down to dinner on Donovan's arm, still talking of
her young days in Ireland, then drifting on to the London life of
long ago, dwelling in the loving, tender way of the old on the
celebrities of her time, the Kembles, Jenny Lind, Grisi, Sontag, Miss
Stephens, and Braham; then on to the Chartist rising of '48, when
Charles Osmond took his turn and spoke of the "Christian Socialism"
scheme, from which they passed to the Radicalism of to-day, a subject
which Donovan himself would not have ventured to introduce in a
clergyman's house, but which he found discussed with perfect
fairness. Indeed, though Charles Osmond rarely meddled with
politics, his work lay so entirely among "the people" that he was
really able to see matters from their point of view, and in the main
he was ready to agree with Donovan.
About the house, or rather the home, there was the same atmosphere as
at Porthkerran, the same wideness of sympathy, the same loving regard
for the work and interests of others, the same "one and all"
principle carried into beautiful practice. The parish was not made a
bore to the other members of the family, Brian's work was not
obtruded in a tiresome way, nor Mrs. Osmond's manifold feminine
occupations; all was well balanced, well regulated, and Donovan
realised how perfect a home can be in which are the three
generations. Past, present, and future, when really united, do make
the strongest threefold cord, and perhaps no house is quite complete
without the quick perception of the young, the steady judgment of the
middle-aged, the golden experience of the old.
Part of the evening Donovan spent alone with Charles Osmond in his
study, a comfortable room, methodically arranged, and lined with
books, theological, anti-theological, and scientific. Judged by his
books, it might perhaps have; been hard to say which of Charles
Osmond's abusers were right; whether he was really high, broad, or
half a dissenter; perhaps he was a little of all three, or perhaps he
had reached above and beyond those earthly distinctions.
However this might be, as the two sat that evening over their coffee,
Donovan fairly forgot he was speaking to that, to him, obnoxious
being--a clergyman. Not even to Dr. Tremain had he ever talked with
such perfect openness. Those dog-like eyes, with their constant
appeal, "let us come nearer," were utterly irresistible. He found
himself almost thinking aloud, and as his thinking meant great
questioning, the possibility of having a being outside himself
capable of listening, sympathising, and answering was a rare delight.
And because he was conscious of Charles Osmond's unasserted but very
real superiority, he cared not what he said, felt no restriction, no
fear of going too far, or of giving too much confidence. The really
clever, really great, really good, inspire trust, where the mediocre
inspire dread.
As they talked, a little of Donovan's private history, which Charles
Osmond had speculated about, was revealed. They had been speaking of
Mill's notable allowance that, on the whole, men could not do better
than try to imitate the life of Christ.
"But," urged Donovan, "however much one may resolve to do so, I find
endless difficulties when it comes to actual practice. Take this,
for instance--I wish to find what is Christ's law of forgiveness, and
am met with such contradictions as these: I am first told to offer
the other cheek, to let my cloak follow my coat, not to resist evil.
I am told another time to bring the matter before witnesses, before
the church, and, if all is of no avail, to let my enemy be to me as a
heathen man and a publican. How do you explain that?"
"I think the first referred to injuries received by a Christian from
an unbeliever, the second to injuries received from a
fellow-Christian," said Charles Osmond.
"Then what is an atheist to do when injured by a Christian?" asked
Donovan. "I will tell you the actual case, and then you will see the
difficulty. A certain cousin of mine has defrauded me of my
property. I have actual proof, though unfortunately not legal proof,
that he destroyed my father's last will; he then married my mother,
and when I came of age coolly turned me out of the house without a
farthing. He now lives on my estate, spends my money, enjoys himself
thoroughly, as far as I know, and kindly condescends to make me an
allowance of £100 a year, though the wretch knows that I know of his
villainy."
"You can't bring an action against him?"
"Unfortunately not. It is too great a risk. There is only one
living witness of the destroyed will, and the expenses of a lawsuit
would be enormous. Now, what I want to know is, what you expect me
to feel towards that man?"
"It is a hard case," said Charles Osmond. "I should like to know
what you do feel."
"All I have been able to do is to will to think of him as little as
possible. When I do think of him, I confess that I often get red-hot
with indignation. Happily, I've plenty of work and need not dwell on
it, so that except twice a year, when his beggarly cheques come in, I
nearly forget his existence. If this is letting him be to me a
heathen and a publican, I have so far fulfilled the Christian law,
but----"
"Ah! yes, I'm glad you put in a but," said Charles Osmond. "For
though, after you have done all in your power to reconcile and win
back your enemy, you are told to leave him, and have no more to do
with him, you must remember that that command pre-supposes that you
are a Christian, and therefore one who loves all men, who recognizes
the universal brotherhood, who tries to imitate the One who makes his
sun to shine on the evil as well as on the good. The very first
principles of Christianity show that you must love this man, though
he is your enemy, and though it may be best for you to have no
personal communication with him."
"You mean I must love Ellis Farrant? It is impossible. You've no
conception what a scoundrel he is. I could horsewhip him with the
greatest pleasure."
"Then, of course, you have not forgiven him?"
"No, I have not," said Donovan, emphatically. "And I don't see how
you can expect me to while every day the fellow is adding to his sin,
while every day he's defrauding me of my own."
"You must not think me hard on you," said Charles Osmond. "Your
feeling is exceedingly natural, and I think perhaps you can't get
much further than this until you believe in God. It was Christ who
taught us what real forgiveness is. Now you tell me that although
you do not believe in God, and regard Christ merely as a very good
man, yet you consider the ideal God as a very beautiful ideal."
"Yes," said Donovan.
"Well, then, just listen to me while I put your words as though they
were spoken by the ideal God. 'This man is mine, I caused him to be,
gave him all that he possesses, he owes me love and obedience, for
years he has defrauded me of both, defrauded me of my due, and he has
done it wilfully. I am full of indignation, and I will not to think
of him any more. To love him is impossible, he is a perfect
scoundrel, and every day he is adding to his sin.' The God in whom I
believe did not speak like this; you will allow that if He had thus
spoken He would not have been an ideal God at all. Instead of
thinking of the rights of which He had been defrauded, He thought
first of the child of His who was defrauding Him, how miserable his
existence was in reality, how everything was distorted to his view so
that he had even lost sight of their original relationship, and
regarded his Father as an angry tyrant. Somehow the child must be
made to understand that although it had sinned, its Father, being its
Father, was only longing to forgive it, to break down the barrier
which had risen between them. He revealed His wonderful love in such
a way that the simplest could not fail to see it, His forgiveness was
there, waiting for all who would take it. It was not a forgiveness
to be obtained after much pleading, it was there as a free gift for
all who had the least real and honest wish to be reconciled. That is
the forgiveness of God, and the example which you must follow."
"It is impossible," said Donovan, with sad emphasis.
"Perhaps it may be until you have realised what God has forgiven you."
"But how am I to love what is hateful?"
"I never asked you to."
"The man is utterly hateful, a lying, deceitful, hypocritical knave."
"No man is altogether evil, there is latent good in him that you
cannot perceive. I don't ask you to love the evil in him, but to
love him because he is a man. He is your brother whether you will or
not, and if you want to imitate Christ you must love him."
Donovan shook his head, and sighed.
"It's no good, I can hardly make myself even wish to love him; it's
somehow against one's sense of justice."
"'Though justice be thy plea, consider this, that in the course of
justice none of us should see salvation,'" quoted Charles Osmond,
smiling. "But don't think I am speaking easily of the thing,
forgiveness is hard, in a case like yours it is frightfully hard. I
have merely told you what I consider ideal forgiveness, if you aim at
the highest you will often and often fall short of the mark."
"The worst of it is this struggling to copy the life of Christ is
such frightfully discouraging work," said Donovan. "The more one
tries the harder it gets, and one is always coming to some new demand
which it is almost impossible to meet."
"Did you ever climb in Alp?" asked Charles Osmond. "As you get
higher you find it harder work, the air is more rarefied, the way
more abrupt; but when you reach the summit, what do you care for all
the labour? The work was weary, but the end was worth all! When the
full vision breaks upon us----" he paused, and there was a minute's
silence, but the light in his face was more eloquent than words.
"If there be a summit and a vision," said Donovan, in a low voice.
"Though it tarry, wait for it," was Charles Osmond's answer.
After that they passed to matters nearer the surface, and before long
Brian came down, and tae three drew in their chairs to the fire, and
sat smoking and talking till late in the evening. Charles Osmond
had, in spite of his harassing life, kept a wonderful reserve fund of
high spirits, and just now in the relief of having to do with one so
honest and high-minded as Donovan he forgot the hundred and one cares
of his parish, and was the life of the party. His comical anecdotes,
told in the raciest way imaginable, drew forth shouts of laughter
from the listeners, and, feeling convinced that Donovan did not often
exercise his lungs in that way, he kept up an almost ceaseless flow
of the very wittiest talk. A great love of fun and a certain absence
of conventional decorum proved the nationality of the Osmonds, but it
was with something far beyond the sense of good fellowship that
Donovan went home that night; he was cheered and amused certainly,
but the home-like reception at the clergyman's house had already
widened him and softened his clerical antipathies, while his growing
admiration for Charles Osmond did him a world of good.
Who does not know the absolute delight of intercourse with a greater
mind, the enthusiasm which springs from the mere fact of looking up
to another, the inspiriting sense of being bettered, raised,
stimulated to fresh exertion?
Cut off by his act of self-sacrifice from the Tremain household, and
with poor old Rouge Frewin for his sole companion, Donovan was in
great need of friends whom he could revere as well as love; the
Osmonds were exactly fitted to meet his need, and perhaps for that
reason the friendship deepened and strengthened very rapidly,
After he had left that evening the father and son lingered over the
fire, indulging a little in that general habit of discussing the
departed guest.
"Wasn't it rare to hear him laugh?" said Brian. "I'd no idea he'd
such a lot of fun in him. His hatred of the clergy will die a
natural death now that he has got to know you! It was the biggest
joke to see the way in which every now and then he chanced to notice
your tie, and received a sort of shock realising that you actually
were one of the hated class."
"It is hardly to be wondered at," said Charles Osmond. "We clergy
are terribly apt to forget that we must follow St. Paul and try to be
'all things to all men.' I should like to know how many parsons have
said so much as a kind word to that fellow, who must have been
nominally under the charge of some one all his life. Our beautiful
parochial system is fearfully apt to degenerate into a mere skeleton."
"What do you think? will he come round? or will he always be an
agnostic?"
"I cannot tell," said Charles Osmond, with a sigh, "he seems to be
living with all his might up to the light he has, but he is not the
sort of man to change rapidly, and his private history is all against
it. An atheist shamefully wronged by those who call themselves
Christians cannot but feel that he has a strong case against
Christianity."
"But he will never rest satisfied with what he has got," said Brian.
"His very face tells that he knows he is incomplete."
"Yes, he knows that," said Charles Osmond. "In talking to him
to-night I couldn't help thinking of Browning's description of the
grand old ship dismasted and storm-battered, but still bearing on,
with something in her infinite possibilities which raised her above
the mere lifeboats,
"Make perfect your good ship as these,
And what were her performances!"
"And yet you doubt whether he will be perfected?" said Brian.
"Never!" exclaimed Charles Osmond, warmly. "I never said so! That
he will be the grand character he was meant to be I have not a doubt,
but whether he will be anything but an agnostic in _this_ world God
only knows."
No more was said. Brian fell to thinking of all the contradictory
statements about the Eternities, his father returned to the almost
ceaseless intercession which was the undercurrent of his exceedingly
practical life. Highly illogical, according to Raeburn, and a great
mistake according to others, as most of the intercessions were for
those whom a righteously indignant Christian once denounced as
"_past_ praying for"! But to him it was a necessity of life; one of
the world's sin-bearers, he would long ago have sunk under the burden
if he had tried to bear it alone. As it was, how _could_ he be
intolerant, how _could_ he be uncharitable? For were not the
nineteenth century "publicans and sinners" among the strongest of his
bonds of union with the Unseen? He was one of those who cannot help
caring more for the lost sheep than for the ninety and nine in the
fold, and though he was by no means inclined weakly to condone sin,
or to make light of it, no one had ever heard him denounce a sinner,
or speak a harsh word of any whom society had condemned.