BABYLON.
The journey to Mainbridge, the manufacturing town in question, took
place within a few days. With eager cordiality the minister and his
family were welcomed in the house of one of the chief men of the church
and of the place, and made very much at home. It was a phasis of social
life which Diana had hardly touched ever before. Wealth was abounding
and superabounding; the house was large, the luxury of furnishing and
fitting, of service and equipage, was on a scale she had never seen.
Basil was amused to observe that she did not seem to see it now; she
took it as a matter of course, and fitted in these new surroundings as
though her life had been lived in them. The dress of the minister's
wife was very plain, certainly; her muslins were not costly, and they
were simply made; yet nobody in the room looked so much dressed as she.
It was the dignity of her beauty that so attired her; it was beauty of
mind and body both; and both made the grace of her movements and the
grace of her quiet so exquisite as it was. Basil smiled--and sighed.
But there was no doubt Diana saw the mill people. The minister and his
wife were taken to see the mills, of course, divers and various--silk
mills, cotton mills, iron mills. The machinery, and the work done by
it, were fascinating to Diana and delightful; the mill people, men,
women, and children, were more fascinating by far, though in a far
different way. She watched them in the mills, she watched them when she
met them in the street, going to or from work.
"Do they go to church?" she asked once of Mr. Brandt, their
entertainer. He shook his head.
"They are tired with their week's work when Saturday night comes, and
want to rest. Sunday was given for rest," he said, looking into Diana's
face, which was a study to him.
"Don't you think," she said, "rest of body is a poor thing without rest
of mind?"
"_My_ mind cannot rest unless my body does," he answered, laughing.
"Take it the other way--don't you know what it is to have rest of mind
make you forget weariness of body?"
"No--nor you either," said he.
"Then I am sorry for you; and I wish I could get at the mill people."
"Why?"
"To tell them what I know about it."
"But you could not get at them, Mrs. Masters. They are in the mills
from seven till seven--or eight, and come out tired and dirty; and
Sunday, as I told you, they like to stay at home and rest and perhaps
clean up."
"If there is no help for that," said Diana, "there ought to be no
mills."
"And no manufacturers?"
"What are silk and iron, to the bodies and souls of men? Basil, does
that passage in the Revelation mean _that?_"
"What passage?" said Mr. Brandt. "Here is a Bible, Mrs. Masters;
perhaps you will be so good as to find the place. I am afraid from your
expression, it is not a flattering passage for us millowners. What are
the words you refer to?"
I think he wanted to draw out Diana much more than the meaning of
Scripture. She took the Bible a little doubtfully and glanced at Basil.
He was smiling at her in a reassuring way, but did not at all offer to
help. Diana's thoughts wandered somewhat, and she turned the leaves of
the Bible unsuccessfully. "Where is it, Basil?"
"You are thinking of the account of the destruction of Babylon. It is
in the eighteenth chapter."
"But Babylon!" said the host. "We have nothing to do with Babylon. That
means Rome, doesn't it?"
"Here's the chapter," said Diana. "No, it cannot mean Rome, Mr. Brandt;
though Dean Stanley seems to assume that it does, in spite of the fact
which he naively points out, that the description don't fit."
"What then?"
"Basil, won't you explain?"
"It is merely an assumption of old Testament imagery," said Basil. "At
a time when lineal Israel stood for the church of God upon earth,
Babylon represented the head and culmination of the world-power, the
church's deadly opponent and foe. Babylon in the Apocalypse but means
that of which Nebuchadnezzar's old Babylon was the type."
"And what is that?"
"The power of this world, of which Satan is said to be the prince."
"But what do you mean by the _world_, Mr. Masters? We cannot get out of
the world--it is a pretty good world, too, I think, take it for all in
all. People talk of being worldly and not worldly;--but they do not
know what they are talking about."
"Why not?" Diana asked.
"Well, now, ask my wife," Mr. Brandt answered, laughing. "She thinks it
is 'worldly' to have a cockade on your coachman's hat; it is not
worldly to have the coachman, or the carriage, and she don't object to
a coat with buttons. Then it is not worldly to give a party,--but it is
worldly to dance; it is very worldly to play cards. There's
hair-splitting somewhere, and my eyes are not sharp enough to see the
lines."
Diana sat with her book in her hand, looking up at the speaker; a look
so fair and clear and grave that Mr. Brandt was again moved by
curiosity, and tempted to try to make her speak.
"Can _you_ make it out?" he said, smiling.
"Why, yes!" said Diana; "but there is no hair-splitting. It is very
simple. There are just two kingdoms in the world, Mr. Brandt; and
whatever does not belong to the one, belongs to the other. Whatever is
not for God, is for the world."
"Then your definition of the 'world' is?"--
"All that is not God's."
"But I am not clear yet. I don't see how you draw the line. Take my
mills, for example; they belong to this profane, work-a-day world; yet
I must run them. Is that worldly?"
"Yes, if you do not run them for God."
Mr. Brandt stared a little.
"I confess I do not see how that is to be done," he owned.
"The business that you cannot do for God, you had better not do at
all," said Diana gently.
"But spinning cotton?"--
"Spinning cotton, or anything else that employs men and makes money."
"How?"
"You can do it for God, cannot you?" said Diana in the same way. "You
can employ the men and make the money for his sake, and in his service."
"But that is coming pretty close," said the millowner. "Suppose I want
a little of the money for myself and my family?"
"I am speaking too much!" said Diana, with a lovely flush on her cheek,
and looking up to her husband. "I wish you would take the word, Basil."
"I hope Mr. Masters is going to be a little more merciful to the
weaknesses of ordinary humanity," said Mr. Brandt, half lightly. "So
tremendous a preacher have I never heard yet."
Basil was silent, and Diana looked down at the volume in her hand.
"Won't you go on, Mrs. Masters?" said her host. "What do you find for
me there?"
"I was looking for my quotation," said Diana; "I had not got it quite
right."
"How is it?"
"Here is a list of the luxuries in which Babylon traded:--'The
merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls,
and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood,
and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most
precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, and cinnamon, and
odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine
flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, _and
slaves_, _and souls of men_.'"
"Sounds for all the world like an inventory of the things in my house,"
said Mr. Brandt. "Pray what of all that? Don't you like all those
things?"
"'--For in one hour so great riches is come to nought.'"
"But what harm in these things, or most of them, Mrs. Masters?"
Diana glanced up at Basil and did not answer. He answered.
"No harm--so long as business and the fruits of business are kept
within the line we were speaking of; so long as all is for God and to
God. If it is not for him, it is for the 'world.'"
"O my dear Mrs. Masters!" cried Mrs. Brandt, running in,--"here you
are. I was looking for you.--I came to ask--shall I order the landau
for five o'clock, to drive to the lake?"
Diana was glad to have the conversation broken up. When the hour for
the drive came, and she sank into the luxurious, satiny depths of the
landau, her thoughts involuntarily recurred to it. The carriage was so
very comfortable! It rolled smoothly along, over good roads, drawn by
well-trotting horses; the motion was delightful. Diana's thoughts
rolled on too. Suddenly Mr. Brandt leaned over towards her.
"Is this carriage a 'worldly' indulgence, Mrs. Masters?"
Diana started. "I don't know," she said.
"Ah," said the other, laughing at her startled face,--"I am glad to see
that even you may have a doubt on that subject. You cannot blame less
etherealized persons, like my wife and me, if we go on contentedly,
with no doubts."
"But you mistake me,"--said Diana.
"You said, you did not know."
"Because I don't know you."
"What has that to do with it?"
"If I knew you well, Mr. Brandt, I should know whether this carriage is
the Lord's or not."
The expression of the gentleman's face upon this was hardly agreeable;
he sat back in his seat and looked at the prospect; and so Diana tried
to do, but for a time the landscape to her was indistinguishable. Her
thoughts went back to the mills and the mill people; pale, apathetic,
reserved, sometimes stern, they had struck her painfully as a set of
people who did not own kindred with other classes of their
fellow-creatures; apart, alone, without instruction, without sympathy;
not enjoying this life, nor on the way to enjoy the next. The marks of
poverty were on them too, abundantly. Diana's mind was too full of
these people to allow her leisure for the beauties of nature; or if she
felt these, to let her feel them without a great sense of contrast.
Then she did not know whether she had spoken wisely. Alone in her room
at night with Basil she began to talk about it. She wished that he
would begin; but he did not, so she must.
"Basil,--did I say too much to Mr. Brandt to-day?"
"I guess not."
Diana knew by the tone of these words that her husband was on this
subject contented.
"What do you think of the mill people?"
"I am very curious to find out what impression they make on you."
"Basil," said Diana, her voice trembling, "they break my heart!"
"What's to be done in that case?"
"I don't know. Nothing follows upon that. But how do you feel?"
"Very much as if I would like to prove the realizing of that old
prophecy--'To whom he was not spoken of, they shall see; and they that
have not heard shall understand.'"
"That is just how I feel, Basil. But they do not go to church, people
say; how could you get at them?"
"We could look them up at their own homes; we could arrange meetings
for them that they would like; we could work ourselves into their
affections, by degrees, and _then_ the door would be open for us to
bring Christ in. We could give them help too, where help is needed."
"_We_, Basil?"
"Don't you feel as I do? You said so," he answered with a grave smile.
"O, I do!" said Diana. "I cannot think of anything lovelier than to see
those faces change with the knowledge of Christ."
"Then you would be willing to leave our present field of work?"
"It does not seem to want us as this does--not by many fold."
"Would your mother leave Pleasant Valley?"
"No."
"How, then, Di, about you?
"The first question is duty, Basil."
"I think mine is to come here."
"Then it must be mine," said Diana, with a sort of disappointment upon
her that he should speak in that way.
"And would it be your pleasure too?"
"Why, certainly. Basil, I cannot _imagine_ pleasure to be apart from
duty."
"Thank you," he said gently. "And I thank God, who has brought you so
far in your lesson-learning as to know that."
Diana said no more. She was ready to cry, with the feeling that her
husband thought himself to have so little to do with her pleasure.
Tears, however, were not much in her way, and she did not shed any, but
she speculated. _Had_ he really to do with her pleasure? It was
different certainly once. She had craved to be at a distance from him;
she could remember the time well; but the time was past. Was it
reasonable to expect him to know that fact? He had thoroughly learned
the bitter truth that her heart was not his, and could never be his;
what should tell him that the conditions of things were changed. _Were_
they changed? Diana was in great confusion. She began to think she did
not know herself. She did not hate Mr. Masters any more; nay, she
declared to herself she never had hated him; she always had liked him;
only then she had loved Evan Knowlton, and now that was gone. She did
not love anybody. There was no reason in the world why Mr. Masters
should not be contented. "I think," said Diana to herself, "I give him
enough of my heart to content him. I wonder what would content him? I
do not care two straws for anybody else in all the world. He would say,
if I told him that, he would say it is a negative proposition. Suppose
I could go further"--and Diana's cheeks began to burn--"suppose I
could, I could not possibly stand up and tell him so. I cannot. He
ought to see it for himself. But he does not. He ought to be
contented--I think he might be contented--with what I give him, if it
isn't just"--
Diana broke off with her thoughts very much disturbed. She thought she
did not love her husband, but things were no longer clear; except that
Basil's persistent ignorance of the fact that they had changed, chafed
and distressed her.