A SUNDAY EVENING.
When I went in to see Constance the next Sunday morning before going to
church, I knew by her face that she was expecting the evening. I took
care to get into no conversation with her during the day, that she
might be quite fresh. In the evening, when I went into her room again
with my Bible in my hand, I found all our little company assembled.
There was a glorious fire, for it was very cold, and the little ones
were seated on the rug before it, one on each side of their mother;
Wynnie sat by the further side of the bed, for she always avoided any
place or thing she thought another might like; and Dora sat by the
further chimney-corner, leaving the space between the fire and my chair
open that I might see and share the glow.
"The wind is very high, papa," said Constance, as I seated myself
beside her.
"Yes, my dear. It has been blowing all day, and since sundown it has
blown harder. Do you like the wind, Connie?"
"I am afraid I do like it. When it roars like that in the chimneys, and
shakes the windows with a great rush as if it _would_ get into the
house and tear us to pieces, and then goes moaning away into the woods
and grumbles about in them till it grows savage again, and rushes up at
us with fresh fury, I am afraid I delight in it. I feel so safe in the
very jaws of danger."
"Why, you are quite poetic, Connie," said Wynnie.
"Don't laugh at me, Wynnie. Mind I'm an invalid, and I can't bear to be
laughed at," returned Connie, half laughing herself, and a little more
than a quarter crying.
Wynnie rose and kissed her, whispered something to her which made her
laugh outright, and then sat down again.
"But tell me, Connie," I said, "why you are _afraid_ you enjoy hearing
the wind about the house."
"Because it must be so dreadful for those that are out in it."
"Perhaps not quite so bad as we think. You must not suppose that God
has forgotten them, or cares less for them than for you because they
are out in the wind."
"But if we thought like that, papa," said Wynnie, "shouldn't we come to
feel that their sufferings were none of our business?"
"If our benevolence rests on the belief that God is less loving than
we, it will come to a bad end somehow before long, Wynnie."
"Of course, I could not think that," she returned.
"Then your kindness would be such that you dared not, in God's name,
think hopefully for those you could not help, lest you should,
believing in his kindness, cease to help those whom you could help!
Either God intended that there should be poverty and suffering, or he
did not. If he did not intend it--for similar reasons to those for
which he allows all sorts of evils--then there is nothing between but
that we should sell everything that we have and give it away to the
poor."
"Then why don't we?" said Wynnie, looking truth itself in my face.
"Because that is not God's way, and we should do no end of harm by so
doing. We should make so many more of those who will not help
themselves who will not be set free from themselves by rising above
themselves. We are not to gratify our own benevolence at the expense of
its object--not to save our own souls as we fancy, by putting other
souls into more danger than God meant for them."
"It sounds hard doctrine from your lips, papa," said Wynnie.
"Many things will look hard in so many words, which yet will be found
kindness itself when they are interpreted by a higher theory. If the
one thing is to let people have everything they want, then of course
everyone ought to be rich. I have no doubt such a man as we were
reading of in the papers the other day, who saw his servant girl drown
without making the least effort to save her, and then bemoaned the loss
of her labour for the coming harvest, thinking himself ill-used in her
death, would hug his own selfishness on hearing my words, and say, 'All
right, parson! Every man for himself! I made my own money, and they may
make theirs!' _You_ know that is not exactly the way I should think or
act with regard to my neighbour. But if it were only that I have seen
such noble characters cast in the mould of poverty, I should be
compelled to regard poverty as one of God's powers in the world for
raising the children of the kingdom, and to believe that it was not
because it could not be helped that our Lord said, 'The poor ye have
always with you.' But what I wanted to say was, that there can be no
reason why Connie should not enjoy what God has given her, although he
has not thought fit to give as much to everybody; and above all, that
we shall not help those right whom God gives us to help, if we do not
believe that God is caring for every one of them as much as he is
caring for every one of us. There was once a baby born in a stable,
because his poor mother could get no room in a decent house. Where she
lay I can hardly think. They must have made a bed of hay and straw for
her in the stall, for we know the baby's cradle was the manger. Had God
forsaken them? or would they not have been more _comfortable_, if that
was the main thing, somewhere else? Ah! if the disciples, who were
being born about the same time of fisher-fathers and cottage-mothers,
to get ready for him to call and teach by the time he should be thirty
years of age--if they had only been old enough, and had known that he
was coming--would they not have got everything ready for him? They
would have clubbed their little savings together, and worked day and
night, and some rich women would have helped them, and they would have
dressed the baby in fine linen, and got him the richest room their
money would get, and they would have made the gold that the wise men
brought into a crown for his little head, and would have burnt the
frankincense before him. And so our little manger-baby would have been
taken away from us. No more the stable-born Saviour--no more the poor
Son of God born for us all, as strong, as noble, as loving, as
worshipful, as beautiful as he was poor! And we should not have learned
that God does not care for money; that if he does not give more of it
it is not that it is scarce with him, or that he is unkind, but that he
does not value it himself. And if he sent his own son to be not merely
brought up in the house of the carpenter of a little village, but to be
born in the stable of a village inn, we need not suppose because a man
sleeps under a haystack and is put in prison for it next day, that God
does not care for him."
"But why did Jesus come so poor, papa?"
"That he might be just a human baby. That he might not be distinguished
by this or by that accident of birth; that he might have nothing but a
mother's love to welcome him, and so belong to everybody; that from the
first he might show that the kingdom of God and the favour of God lie
not in these external things at all--that the poorest little one, born
in the meanest dwelling, or in none at all, is as much God's own and
God's care as if he came in a royal chamber with colour and shine all
about him. Had Jesus come amongst the rich, riches would have been more
worshipped than ever. See how so many that count themselves good
Christians honour possession and family and social rank, and I doubt
hardly get rid of them when they are all swept away from them. The
furthest most of such reach is to count Jesus an exception, and
therefore not despise him. See how, even in the services of the church,
as they call them, they will accumulate gorgeousness and cost. Had I my
way, though I will never seek to rouse men's thoughts about such
external things, I would never have any vessel used in the eucharist
but wooden platters and wooden cups."
"But are we not to serve him with our best?" said my wife.
"Yes, with our very hearts and souls, with our wills, with our absolute
being. But all external things should be in harmony with the spirit of
his revelation. And if God chose that his Son should visit the earth in
homely fashion, in homely fashion likewise should be everything that
enforces and commemorates that revelation. All church-forms should be
on the other side from show and expense. Let the money go to build
decent houses for God's poor, not to give them his holy bread and wine
out of silver and gold and precious stones--stealing from the
significance of the _content_ by the meretricious grandeur of the
_continent_. I would send all the church-plate to fight the devil with
his own weapons in our overcrowded cities, and in our villages where
the husbandmen are housed like swine, by giving them room to be clean
and decent air from heaven to breathe. When the people find the clergy
thus in earnest, they will follow them fast enough, and the money will
come in like salt and oil upon the sacrifice. I would there were a few
of our dignitaries that could think grandly about things, even as Jesus
thought--even as God thought when he sent him. There are many of them
willing to stand any amount of persecution about trifles: the same
enthusiasm directed by high thoughts about the kingdom of heaven as
within men and not around them, would redeem a vast region from that
indifference which comes of judging the gospel of God by the church of
Christ with its phylacteries and hems."
"There is one thing," said Wynnie, after a pause, "that I have often
thought about--why it was necessary for Jesus to come as a baby: he
could not do anything for so long."
"First, I would answer, Wynnie, that if you would tell me why it is
necessary for all of us to come as babies, it would be less necessary
for me to tell you why he came so: whatever was human must be his. But
I would say next, Are you sure that he could not do anything for so
long? Does a baby do nothing? Ask mamma there. Is it for nothing that
the mother lifts up such heartfuls of thanks to God for the baby on her
knee? Is it nothing that the baby opens such fountains of love in
almost all the hearts around? Ah! you do not think how much every baby
has to do with the saving of the world--the saving of it from
selfishness, and folly, and greed. And for Jesus, was he not going to
establish the reign of love in the earth? How could he do better than
begin from babyhood? He had to lay hold of the heart of the world. How
could he do better than begin with his mother's--the best one in it.
Through his mother's love first, he grew into the world. It was first
by the door of all the holy relations of the family that he entered the
human world, laying hold of mother, father, brothers, sisters, all his
friends; then by the door of labour, for he took his share of his
father's work; then, when he was thirty years of age, by the door of
teaching; by kind deeds, and sufferings, and through all by obedience
unto the death. You must not think little of the grand thirty years
wherein he got ready for the chief work to follow. You must not think
that while he was thus preparing for his public ministrations, he was
not all the time saving the world even by that which he was in the
midst of it, ever laying hold of it more and more. These were things
not so easy to tell. And you must remember that our records are very
scanty. It is a small biography we have of a man who became--to say
nothing more--the Man of the world--the Son of Man. No doubt it is
enough, or God would have told us more; but surely we are not to
suppose that there was nothing significant, nothing of saving power in
that which we are not told.--Charlie, wouldn't you have liked to see
the little baby Jesus?"
"Yes, that I would. I would have given him my white rabbit with the
pink eyes."
"That is what the great painter Titian must have thought, Charlie; for
he has painted him playing with a white rabbit,--not such a pretty one
as yours."
"I would have carried him about all day," said Dora, "as little Henny
Parsons does her baby-brother."
"Did he have any brother or sister to carry him about, papa?" asked
Harry.
"No, my boy; for he was the eldest. But you may be pretty sure he
carried about his brothers and sisters that came after him."
"Wouldn't he take care of them, just!" said Charlie.
"I wish I had been one of them," said Constance.
"You are one of them, my Connie. Now he is so great and so strong that
he can carry father and mother and all of us in his bosom."
Then we sung a child's hymn in praise of the God of little children,
and the little ones went to bed. Constance was tired now, and we left
her with Wynnie. We too went early to bed.
About midnight my wife and I awoke together--at least neither knew
which waked the other. The wind was still raving about the house, with
lulls between its charges.
"There's a child crying!" said my wife, starting up.
I sat up too, and listened.
"There is some creature," I granted.
"It is an infant," insisted my wife. "It can't be either of the boys."
I was out of bed in a moment, and my wife the same instant. We hurried
on some of our clothes, going to the windows and listening as we did
so. We seemed to hear the wailing through the loudest of the wind, and
in the lulls were sure of it. But it grew fainter as we listened. The
night was pitch dark. I got a lantern, and hurried out. I went round
the house till I came under our bed-room windows, and there listened. I
heard it, but not so clearly as before. I set out as well as I could
judge in the direction of the sound. I could find nothing. My lantern
lighted only a few yards around me, and the wind was so strong that it
blew through every chink, and threatened momently to blow it out. My
wife was by my side before I knew she was coming.
"My dear!" I said, "it is not fit for you to be out."
"It is as fit for me as for a child, anyhow," she said. "Do listen."
It was certainly no time for expostulation. All the mother was awake in
Ethelwyn's bosom. It would have been cruelty to make her go in, though
she was indeed ill-fitted to encounter such a night-wind.
Another wail reached us. It seemed to come from a thicket at one corner
of the lawn. We hurried thither. Again a cry, and we knew we were much
nearer to it. Searching and searching we went.
"There it is!" Ethelwyn almost screamed, as the feeble light of the
lantern fell on a dark bundle of something under a bush. She caught at
it. It gave another pitiful wail--the poor baby of some tramp, rolled
up in a dirty, ragged shawl, and tied round with a bit of string, as if
it had been a parcel of clouts. She set off running with it to the
house, and I followed, much fearing she would miss her way in the dark,
and fall. I could hardly get up with her, so eager was she to save the
child. She darted up to her own room, where the fire was not yet out.
"Run to the kitchen, Harry, and get some hot water. Take the two jugs
there--you can empty them in the sink: you won't know where to find
anything. There will be plenty in the boiler."
By the time I returned with the hot water, she had taken off the
child's covering, and was sitting with it, wrapped in a blanket, before
the fire. The little thing was cold as a stone, and now silent and
motionless. We had found it just in time. Ethelwyn ordered me about as
if I had been a nursemaid. I poured the hot water into a footbath.
"Some cold water, Harry. You would boil the child."
"You made me throw away the cold water," I said, laughing.
"There's some in the bottles," she returned. "Make haste."
I did try to make haste, but I could not be quick enough to satisfy
Ethelwyn.
"The child will be dead," she cried, "before we get it in the water."
She had its rags off in a moment--there was very little to remove after
the shawl. How white the little thing was, though dreadfully neglected!
It was a girl--not more than a few weeks old, we agreed. Her little
heart was still beating feebly; and as she was a well-made, apparently
healthy infant, we had every hope of recovering her. And we were not
disappointed. She began to move her little legs and arms with short,
convulsive motions.
"Do you know where the dairy is, Harry?" asked my wife, with no great
compliment to my bumps of locality, which I had always flattered myself
were beyond the average in development.
"I think I do," I answered.
"Could you tell which was this night's milk, now?"
"There will be less cream on it," I answered.
"Bring a little of that and some more hot water. I've got some sugar
here. I wish we had a bottle."
I executed her commands faithfully. By the time I returned the child
was lying on her lap clean and dry--a fine baby I thought. Ethelwyn
went on talking to her, and praising her as if she had not only been
the finest specimen of mortality in the world, but her own child to
boot. She got her to take a few spoonfuls of milk and water, and then
the little thing fell fast asleep.
Ethelwyn's nursing days were not so far gone by that she did not know
where her baby's clothes were. She gave me the child, and going to a
wardrobe in the room brought out some night-things, and put them on. I
could not understand in the least why the sleeping darling must be
indued with little chemise, and flannel, and nightgown, and I do not
know what all, requiring a world of nice care, and a hundred turnings
to and fro, now on its little stomach, now on its back, now sitting up,
now lying down, when it would have slept just as well, and I venture to
think much more comfortably, if laid in blankets and well covered over.
But I had never ventured to interfere with any of my own children,
devoutly believing up to this moment, though in a dim unquestioning
way, that there must be some hidden feminine wisdom in the whole
process; and now that I had begun to question it, I found that my
opportunity had long gone by, if I had ever had one. And after all
there may be some reason for it, though I confess I do strongly suspect
that all these matters are so wonderfully complicated in order that the
girl left in the woman may have her heart's content of playing with her
doll; just as the woman hid in the girl expends no end of lovely
affection upon the dull stupidity of wooden cheeks and a body of
sawdust. But it was a delight to my heart to see how Ethelwyn could not
be satisfied without treating the foundling in precisely the same
fashion as one of her own. And if this was a necessary preparation for
what, should follow, I would be the very last to complain of it.
We went to bed again, and the forsaken child of some half-animal
mother, now perhaps asleep in some filthy lodging for tramps, lay in my
Ethelwyn's bosom. I loved her the more for it; though, I confess, it
would have been very painful to me had she shown it possible for her to
treat the baby otherwise, especially after what we had been talking
about that same evening.
So we had another child in the house, and nobody knew anything about it
but ourselves two. The household had never been disturbed by all the
going and coming. After everything had been done for her, we had a good
laugh over the whole matter, and then Ethelwyn fell a-crying.
"Pray for the poor thing, Harry," she sobbed, "before you come to bed."
I knelt down, and said:
"O Lord our Father, this is as much thy child and as certainly sent to
us as if she had been born of us. Help us to keep the child for thee.
Take thou care of thy own, and teach us what to do with her, and how to
order our ways towards her."
Then I said to Ethelwyn,
"We will not say one word more about it tonight. You must try to go to
sleep. I daresay the little thing will sleep till the morning, and I am
sure I shall if she does. Good-night, my love. You are a true mother.
Mind you go to sleep."
"I am half asleep already, Harry. Good-night," she returned.
I know nothing more about anything till I in the morning, except that I
had a dream, which I have not made up my mind yet whether I shall tell
or not. We slept soundly--God's baby and all.