"For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will
also forgive you: but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither
will your Father forgive your trespasses."
John Wesley laid his Bible down beside him on the rustic seat under
the filbert-tree, and leaned back against the trunk with half-closed
eyes. By and by he frowned, and the frown, instead of passing, grew
deeper. His sermons, as a rule, arranged themselves neatly and
rapidly, when once the text was chosen: but to-day his thoughts ran
by fits and starts, and confusedly--a thing he abhorred.
In truth they kept harking back to the text, "For if ye forgive men
their trespasses. . . ." He had chosen it with many searchings of
heart, for he knew that if he preached this sermon it would
exasperate his father. Had he any right, knowing this, to preach it
from his father's pulpit? After balancing the _pro's_ and
_contra's_, he decided that this was a scruple which his Christian
duty outweighed. He was not used to look back upon a decision once
taken: he had no thought now of changing his mind, but the prospect
of a breach with his father unsettled him.
While he pondered, stabbing the turf with his heel, Molly came
limping along the garden-path. Her face was white and drawn.
She had been writing for two hours at her father's dictation, and
came now for rest to the seat which she and Hetty had in former days
made their favourite resort.
Seeing it occupied, she paused in the outer shade of the great
branches.
"You are thinking out your sermon?" she asked, smiling.
He nodded. "You seem tired," he remarked, eyeing her; but he did not
rise or pick up his Bible to make room for her.
"A little," she confessed; "and my ears are hot. But Charles very
good-naturedly left his _De Oratore_--on which I heard him say he was
engaged--to relieve me. Johnny Whitelamb had to finish colouring a
map."
"I don't think Charles needs much persuasion just now to leave his
studies."
"He will not require them if he is to be an Irish squire."
"You count upon his choosing that?" John's frown grew deeper.
"Not if you dissuade him, Jack."
"I have not even discussed it with him. Once or twice on our way
down he seemed to be feeling his way to a confidence and at the last
moment to fight shy. No doubt he knows my opinion well enough.
'What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his
own soul?' But why should my opinion have so much weight with him?"
For a moment Molly considered her brother's cold and handsome young
face. She put out a hand, plucked a twig from a low drooping bough,
and peeling the gummy rind, quoted softly:
"'Why do you cross me in this exigent?'
'I do not cross you; but I will do so.'"
"If I remember," mused John, "that is what Shakespeare makes Octavius
say to Mark Antony before Pharsalia."
She nodded. "Do you know that you always put me in mind of Octavius.
You are so good-looking, and have the same bloodless way of following
your own path as if you carried all our fates. Sometimes I think you
_do_ carry them."
"I thank you." He made her a mock bow.
"And I still think it was kind of Charles to come to my rescue; for I
was tired." She glanced at the seat and he picked up his book.
"No; you are composing a sermon and I will not interrupt you.
But you must know that father expected you to help him this morning,
and was put out at hearing that you had walked off."
"He and I have not agreed of late, and are likely to agree still less
if I preach this sermon--as I shall."
"What is the subject?"
"I have not thought of a title yet; but you may call it 'Universal
Charity,' or (better perhaps) 'The Charity due to wicked persons.'"
"You mean Hetty?" She limped close to him. "Hetty may have done
wickedly, but she is _not_ a wicked person, as you might have
discovered had you let Universal Charity alone and practised it in
particular, for once, by going to visit her. It is now close on four
months that you and Charles have been home, and from here to Lincoln
is no such great distance."
"You are a sturdy champion," he answered, eyeing her up and down.
"As a matter of fact you are right, though you assert it rashly.
How are you sure that I have not visited Hetty, seeing that three
times I have been absent from home and for some days together?"
Molly winced. "The worse reproach to all of us, that her only
champion was the weakling whom you all scorn! You do not understand
weakness, Jack. As for my knowing that you had not visited her,
Johnny Whitelamb took his holiday a fortnight ago and trudged to
Lincoln to see her. She is living behind a dingy little shop with
her husband, and his horrible old father, who drinks whatever he can
filch from the till. They wink at it so long as he does not go too
far; but William is trying to find him lodgings at Louth, which was
his old home, and hopes to sell up the business and move to London
with Hetty, to try his fortune. Uncle Matthew has written to her,
and will help them to move, I believe. And there was a baby coming,
but mercifully something went wrong, poor mite! All this news she
sent by Johnny, who reports that she is brave and cheerful and as
beautiful as ever--more beautiful than ever, he said--but she talked
long of you and Charles, and is said to have seen neither of you."
"So Whitelamb is in the conspiracy? Since you have so much of his
confidence, you might warn him to be careful. Doubts of our father's
wisdom must unsettle him woefully. I do not ask to join the
alliance, but it may please you to know that in my belief Hetty has
been treated too fiercely for her deserts, and in my sermon I intend
to hint at this pretty plainly."
Molly stared. "Dear Jack, it--it is good to have you on our side.
But what good can a sermon do?"
"Not much, I fear. Still a testimony is a testimony."
"But the folks will know you are speaking of her."
"I mean them to."
"But--but--" Molly cast about, bewildered.
"I am venturing something," John interrupted coldly, "by testifying
against my father. It is not over-pleasant to stand up and admit
that in our own family we have sinned against Christ's injunction to
judge not."
"I should think not, indeed!"
"Then you might reasonably show a little more pleasure at finding me
prepared, to that extent, to take your side."
Molly gasped. His misunderstanding seemed to her too colossal to be
coped with. "It will be a public reproach to father," she managed to
say.
"I fear he may consider it so; and that is just my difficulty."
"But what good can it do to Hetty?"
"I was not, in the first instance, thinking of Hetty, but rather
using her case as an example which would be fresh in the minds of all
in the building. Nevertheless, since you put the question, I will
answer, that my argument should induce our mother and sisters, as
well as the parish, to judge her more leniently."
"The parish!" murmured Molly. "I was not thinking of _its_
judgment, And I doubt if Hetty does."
"You are right. The particular case--though unhappily we cannot help
dwelling on it--is merely an illustration. We, who have duties under
Christ to all souls in our care, must neglect no means of showing
them the light, though it involve mortifying our own private
feelings."
Molly, who had been plucking and twisting all this while the twig
between her fingers, suddenly cast it on the ground and hobbled away.
John gazed after her, picked up the book and set it down again.
The sermon came easily now.
Having thought it out and arranged the headings in his mind, he
returned to the house and wrote rapidly for two hours in his bedroom.
He then collected his manuscript, folded it neatly, scribbled a note,
and called down the passage to the servant, Jane, whom he heard
bustling about the parlour and laying dinner. To her he gave the
note and the sermon, to be carried to his father; picked up a crust
of bread from the table; and a minute later left the house for a long
walk.
Returning a little before supper-time, he found the manuscript on the
table by his bedside. No note accompanied it; there were none of the
usual pencil-marks and comments in the margin. The Rector had
restored it without a word.
For a moment he was minded to go and seek an interview; but decided
that, his resolution being fixed, an interview would but increase
pain to no purpose. He washed and went down to the parlour, walking
past the door of the study, in which his father supped alone.
Next morning being Saturday, Mr. Wesley walked over to Epworth, to a
room above a chandler's shop, where he and John lodged in turn as
they took Epworth duty on alternate Sundays. The Rectory there was
closed for the time and untenanted, the Ellisons having returned some
months before to their own enlarged and newly furnished house.
There, to be sure, a lodging might have been had at no cost, and
Sukey offered it as in duty bound. She knew very well, however, that
neither her father nor John could stomach being a guest of Dick's.
The invitation was declined, and she did not press it.
So on Sunday, August 28th, Mr. Wesley took the services at Epworth
while John stayed at home and preached his sermon in Wroote church.
From the pulpit he looked straight down into the tall Rectory pew,
and once or twice his eyes involuntarily sought its occupants.
Once, indeed, he paused in his discourse. It was after the words--
"We are totally mistaken if we persuade ourselves that Christ was
lenient towards sin. He made no hesitation in driving the
money-changers from His Father's temple even with a whip. But He
discriminated between the sin and the sinner. The fig-tree He
blasted was one which, bearing no fruit, yet made a false show of
health: the Pharisees He denounced were men who covered rottenness
with a pretence of religion; the sinners He consorted with had a
saving knowledge of their vileness. Sin He knew to be human and
bound up in our nature: all was pardonable save the refusal to
acknowledge it and repent, which is the sin against the Holy Ghost
testifying within us. If we confess our sins not only is He faithful
and just to forgive them, but He promises more joy in Heaven over our
repentance than over ninety-and-nine just persons which need no
repentance. And why? Because, as David foretold, a broken spirit is
God's peculiar sacrifice: 'a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou
wilt not despise.' Yet we in this parish have despised it.
With sorrow I admit before you that in the household to which you
should reasonably look for example and guidance, it has been
despised. What then? Are we wiser than Christ, or more absolute?"
He paused. His mother sat stiff and upright with her eyes bent on
the ground. Only Charles and Molly looked up--she with a spot of red
on either cheek, he with his bright pugnacious look, his nostrils
slightly distended scenting battle with delight. Emilia and Patty
were frowning; Kezzy, who hated all family jars, fidgeted with her
prayer-book.
The sermon ended and the benediction pronounced, he fetched from the
vestry the white surplice in which he had read the prayers, and came
back to the pew in which the family waited as usual for the rest of
the congregation to leave the church. Mrs. Wesley took the surplice,
as she invariably took her husband's, to carry it home and hang it in
the wardrobe. They walked out. A fortnight before, his sisters had
begun to discuss his sermon and rally him upon it as soon as they
found themselves in the porch. To-day they were silent: and again at
dinner, though John and his mother made an effort to talk of trivial
matters, the girls scarcely spoke. Charles only seemed in good
spirits and chattered away at ease, glancing at his brother from time
to time with a droll twinkle in his eye.
Early next morning John set out for Epworth, having promised to
relieve his father and visit the sick and poor there during the week.
At Scawsit Bridge he met the Rector returning. The two shook hands
and stood for a minute discussing some details of parish work: then
each continued on his way. Not a word was said of the sermon.