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.