There let the pealing organ blow,
To the full-voiced quire below,
In service high and anthems clear,
As may with sweetness through mine ear
Dissolve me into ecstasies,
And bring all heaven before mine eyes.
MILTON.
The affliction of the good parson of Cheddar at the strange and
painful conduct of his son Cuthbert was heavy to bear. However, from a
sense of duty to his weaker partner, he made great efforts to preserve
his wonted serenity and composure in her presence; but when alone he
was bowed down in the dust.
Nothing could possibly present a greater contrast to the tone of
religious profession which was, at this period, obtaining a wide
reception among men than that in which old Noble lay prostrate in his
closet before his God.
He had ever been a meek and cheerful Christian; but there were depths
of humiliation which he had not as yet fathomed; and he would have
fainted at the waves of trouble, which his prescient eye saw rolling
onward, if he had not felt the hand, which led him down into the deep,
was that of a heavenly Father, if he had not heard a voice that
whispered in his ear, “_It is I, be not afraid_.”
In vain did he exhaust his heart in sound, pious, and affectionate
remonstrances, meditated and penned in the spirit of prayer, that he
might recall his dear and wandering child to the bosom of the church,
or, at all events, so far recover him from gross delusions as to see
him join that upright and devout portion of the community, which,
though differing from the discipline of the church, maintained a pure
and practical doctrine.
In vain did he press the return of Cuthbert to Cheddar, by every
argument which parental love could suggest.
The letters of Noble and his wife were replied to in the words of
love; but the fruit of his new persuasion was an obstinate self-will;
and while he implored them, at great length, to consider his views,
and urged the danger of despising them, he evinced to others, what was
not perhaps suspected by himself, a degree of spiritual pride only to
be exceeded by the strength of his delusion.
He had adopted the notions of those fanatics who were styled
Fifth-monarchy Men, and who ranged themselves where, indeed, any sect,
however extravagant, might have found a place, under the banner of the
Independents.
It was some consolation to these troubled parents to hear from the
Philips’s, their relations, and also from other friends, that the life
and the conduct of Cuthbert were, as regarded all moral and social
duties, a credit to any theory, and such as became the pure precepts
of the Gospel.
His intellect was clear upon every other subject, except on that
which, if it be rashly touched, seems to be guarded by invisible
angels, who put forth their hands and smite the daring intruder with
madness. “Oppression,” saith the preacher, “will make a wise man
mad;”--a truth abundantly proved by the events, which, leading first
to a secret and salutary reform, ended at last in a bloody revolution
and an iron rule.
It may be added, that he who seeketh to meddle with the hidden
mysteries of unfulfilled prophecy is often smitten with blindness and
confusion for his presumption. Thus it was with Cuthbert:--sensible,
amiable, and affectionate in all the relations of life, he was now the
subject of a monomania, and turned a deaf ear to the voice of truth
and wisdom, though it spoke with all the authority and all the
earnestness of a father.
These were not times in which a minister could leave his parish for a
distant journey, nor, indeed, was it at all likely that the presence
of his parents would have effected that change in the sentiments or
the course of Cuthbert, which their admirable and Christian letters
had failed to produce.
Time wore on gloomily enough, even in the peaceful parsonage at
Cheddar. Many a time as old Noble paced his garden amid sunbeams and
flowers, praising that “mercy which endureth for ever,” his
thanksgivings ended in tears and lamentations, not for his domestic
troubles, but for the great evils which he feared and expected would
befall the church and the nation.
Laud was already paying the penalty of his mistaken, but certainly
conscientious, severity, in a prison, from whence it might be plainly
foretold he would at length be conducted to the block. The bishops’
votes in parliament were taken away, and the deans and chapters were
already voted against in the Commons, although their spoliation had
not yet taken place, neither were the cathedral services as yet
discontinued. As regularly, therefore, as the Thursday came round,
Noble, if not prevented by a special call of duty at home, made his
weekly visit to the fair city of Wells; where he in the first instance
always bent his steps to the cathedral, and joined the congregation
assembled for morning service.
It was on a saint’s day, in the summer of 1641, that, as usual, he
proceeded to that venerable and glorious temple, and took his seat in
the vacant stall which it was his wont to occupy. Directly opposite he
observed a tall uncouth man of harsh features and a sour countenance,
sitting very upright, and glancing a severe and restless eye at the
organ, the first tones of which were pealing through the long aisles,
as the dean, the prebends, and other officers of the choir, preceded
by the vergers with their maces, slowly entered, and reverently took
their seats.
The service began, and was conducted with that solemn decency, and
with those clear fine chants, which dispose most hearts to a subdued
feeling of intense devotion.
There is a something in sacred music which does wonderfully compose
the mind, and cleanse it of all earthly-rooted cares. Upon the
stranger above mentioned, however, it produced no such effect. He sat
erect, cold, and contemptuous: he put aside the Book of Common Prayer
with a rude thrust; and taking a small volume from his pocket opened
it with ostentatious gravity, and, not joining in the worship that he
witnessed, either by response, gesture, or any conformity of posture
with those around him, sat, now casting his eyes on the page of his
book, now severely around, and now raising them to Heaven after a
manner that left nothing but the jaundiced whites visible.
This strange conduct disturbed, irritated, or amused the observers,
according to the impression that was made upon them. Some of the
prebends and vicars choral looked red and angry. The dean was greatly
distressed, and knew not what to do. At first he called the verger,
with a design to remove the intruder; but, upon second thoughts, he
feared that a yet greater interruption and indecency might take place
if such a course was attempted, he therefore commanded his feelings
with as much dignity as he could. But his grave frowns were totally
without power upon the youthful choristers, whose laughter would have
been loud and audible, but for the thick folds of the surplice with
which they stuffed their rebellious and aching jaws.
Noble himself was mournfully agitated, and prayed in the spirit with
that deep and melancholy fervour which hath no outward expression but
the abased eyes.
By degrees, the congregation recovered their composure, and never was
an anthem performed with more earnest solemnity, or a sweetness more
touching to the inmost soul, than the “_Ne Irascaris_,” the “Be not
Wroth,” or “Bow thine Ear” of the famous composer Bird. At the words
“Sion, thy Sion is wasted and brought low,” which are set to a tender
and solemn passage, and are sung very soft and slow, the effect was
sublime. Moved by the deep pathos of the expression, the cheeks of
Noble, as of a few others present, were bathed in tears.
But the stranger remained in his seat without rising, and perused his
book with a kind of resolved and insulting inattention to it all.
The service was not permitted to close without this mysterious
personage marking his contempt of it yet farther, by rising suddenly,
while all the congregation were on their knees, and stalking slowly
down the middle of the aisle with a loud and measured stamp of his
great thick boots.
He wore by his side a long heavy-looking sword, and had certainly the
air of a man who could use it, if he chose, with little fear and no
favour.
Noble joined the clergy in the chapter-room directly after the morning
prayers were ended, and there learned that there had been a riot the
night before in the streets, excited by some mischievous emissary from
London; and that some of the rabble had burned a bishop in effigy, in
the close just under the windows of the dean. It seemed, however, that
this outrage had been committed by a band of low persons, who had come
up from Bristol to attend a fair, and had brought with them sundry
printed papers and ribald songs to distribute in the lanes and alleys
of the city: the object of which was to bring the church and clergy
into public contempt.
However, it so happens that, for the most part, the inhabitants of a
cathedral town take a great pride in the edifice itself, whatever may
be their indifference to religion. Those magnificent structures are
the first wonders upon which the eyes of the human beings, born and
suckled beneath their shadow, are taught to gaze. They are noble and
solemn features in the scene of early life; and are printed so
indelibly on the mind, that, let the native of a cathedral city wander
where he will, the recollection of the venerable temple goes with him,
associated, in his memory, with his birthplace, his holydays, his
truant hours, with the merry music of festival bells, with the pride
of having often seen strangers and travellers, both of high and low
degree, walk about its walls, and linger in its spacious aisles, with
pleasure and admiration.
Therefore a party among the common people was easily roused to take up
sticks and stones against the insulting mischief-makers, who were thus
at last driven away from the city with great tumult.
It was the very day following this riot that the offensive adventure
in the cathedral, which we have just related, occurred. As no doubt
existed in the minds of the clergy assembled in the chapter-room that
the extraordinary person, who had just committed so gross and indecent
an outrage in a place of public worship, was, in some measure,
connected with the disturbance of the preceding day, they resolved to
make an immediate complaint to the Mayor of Wells, that the obnoxious
individual might be taken up, and committed to prison, or otherwise
punished for his offence.
Some little time had been lost in their consultations; and they came
forth from the cathedral in a body, with the intention of despatching
two of the prebends, already deputed for that purpose, to wait upon
the mayor, when, to their surprise and mortification, they saw the
object of their anger approaching them on horseback. As he drew near,
it was evident that the opportunity of arresting him was already lost.
He rode a very powerful young horse of generous breed and fine
action--and he sat upon him as on a throne.
“Look ye,” said he, as he drew up close to the astonished
group,--“Look ye, Scribes and Pharisees! hypocrites!--ye love
greetings in the market-place--take mine:--the time is come to set
your houses in order--even now the decree is gone forth--the sword is
now sharpening that shall pass through the land:--it glitters, look
ye.” So saying, with a grim smile he drew the blade of his own half
out of the scabbard, and let it fall again with a forcible rattle.
The dean, who was a bold and athletic man, disregarding this fierce
action, made an active effort to seize the bridle of the Puritan’s
steed; but the wary rider with a jerk of the reins threw up the
animal’s head, and at the same moment touching his flank with the spur
made him give a plunge forward that scattered the frightened priests a
few yards on either side. Nevertheless, the dean remonstrated in very
angry terms against his insulting abuse; as did others, who were, like
himself, courageous. They did not, however, succeed either in stopping
the fanatic or in driving him away:--a small mob was gathering in the
cathedral yard, and the fiery zealot continued his address.
“What mean ye, ye priests of Baal, by your silks, and your satins, and
your hoods, and your scarfs, and your square caps, and your surplices,
and all your fooleries? what mean your boy choristers that bleat like
young kids, and your men choristers that bellow like oxen? what means
your grunting organ? Is it thus you worship God, as though he were an
idol and an abomination, and his temple like that of the heathen? It
should be a house of prayer, and ye have made it a den of thieves, and
all its services vain and lewd mummeries. I cry, Fie upon you!--Wo,
wo, wo!--Ye shall see me again when the blast of the trumpet soundeth,
and mine eye shall not pity. I will smite, I will not spare you. Have
ye not preached blasphemies? have ye not broken and polluted the holy
Sabbath with your sports and your harlotries? have ye not shed the
blood of God-fearing men? yea, verily. Now hear my warning:--come out
of her, come out of her, my people. There are among you, even among
your priests, some whom the Lord hath chosen:--yet again I call to
you, Come out of her, come out of Babylon, that ye perish not with
her. To me is appointed this cry:--every where I must lift up my voice
thus, till the day of vengeance come. Wo shall be the portion of those
who hear me not!”
An insane delight gleamed in his dark eyes, a convulsive energy
distorted his features, and seemed to affect and agitate his whole
form. The crowd drew closer to him: the resolute dean beckoning them
forward, again advanced with the intention of seizing him, when he
suddenly gave his horse the head; and touching the high spirited beast
with both spurs, he was borne out of their sight at a few rapid
bounds, and was very soon beyond all danger of pursuit.
Several of the mob ran round the corner after him jeering and
cheering; but the clergy went their ways, by twos and threes, and
talked over the uncomfortable though diseased words of the fanatic
with much gravity and discomposure.
Many painful extravagancies of a fanatic character had been already
committed in various parts of the country; and in London many
scandalous scenes had been enacted, expressive of a contempt for the
Established Church and her ministers.
The prelates and dignitaries were the especial marks of popular
hatred; but, hitherto, nothing approaching to the indecency and
outrage above recorded had occurred in the neighbourhood and under the
eye of Noble.
Again he could have wished Cuthbert to have been present, as he had
formerly wished that he could have witnessed the unmannerly and
unchristian bearing of Master Daws, the morose and designing curate,
whose interview with Noble we have in a former part of this story
related.
“Surely,” thought the mild man of peace,--“Surely such things would
open his eyes to the spirit that is abroad, and to the aim and end of
these violent men, who would purify our venerable church as with fire,
and wash away her few stains with the blood and the tears of her
faithful children.”
After partaking of a dinner, with little appetite, in the house of his
friend, where the party assembled formed but a sad society, and where
the time passed in the discussion of more grave and anxious matters
than those upon which they were commonly engaged in these innocent
weekly meetings, the worthy parson mounted his old mare, and rode back
slowly to Cheddar. His thoughts were so profoundly and mournfully
absorbed by reflections on the very startling occurrences of the
morning, that he saw not the clouds which were gathering overhead,
until he was awakened to observe them by a sudden and loud clap of
thunder. The sunshine was suddenly obscured by a deep gloom. A few
heavy rain drops fell upon him, and were soon followed by a thick and
rushing deluge of such rain as falls in summer tempests. The sky was
covered with a mass of clouds black as a funeral pall. Every moment
flashes of angry lightning passed across it in vivid and arrowy forms;
while thunder followed, peal after peal rolling in quick and troubled
succession. Noble had just entered the defile or pass by which Cheddar
is approached; and as the narrow road lies in the bottom of a chasm,
on either side of which the rocks rise many hundred feet with a
terrific grandeur, the horrid gloom--the lurid and ghastly
lights--and the prolonged echoes with which the roar of the thunder
was borne from crag to crag--gave a tenfold awfulness to the storm,
and sublimely shadowed forth the power of Jehovah.
Amid this war of elements the meek parson felt almost happy:--his
frightened beast had stopped beneath a rock that inclined somewhat
over the road, though not sufficiently to afford any shelter from the
rain. He was drenched to the skin himself, and as he could not urge
his animal forward he dismounted; but the wet and the delay were
forgotten, were disregarded. There are moments of communion with the
Deity, which, when they are accorded to his feeble children, cause
their spirits to be rapt in seraphic love. The adoration that is born
of a faith trembling yet holding fast is the sublimest human
worship:--“the firmest thing in this inferior world is a believing
soul.” And he that can lift up his voice with the Psalmist, and, amid
the horrors of a tempest, can say, “Praise the Lord, O my soul; and
all that is within me praise his holy name,” hath, as it were, a
sublime foretaste of that great and terrible day of the Lord, when the
Christian shall witness the final and everlasting triumph of his
Redeemer over sin and death,--and shall behold his salvation draw
nigh.