The sun had got low, in fact, he was dipping behind the dark line of
Eagle Hill; and everybody looked and watched. The bright ball of fiery
gold disappeared, leaving a trail of glory; lights glowed against
shadows on the hazy hill shore; little flecks of cloud in the west grew
gorgeous, and a low-lying rack of vapour in the south-east took on the
loveliest changes of warm browns and purples and greys. And as the sun
got further below the horizon, the cloud scenery became but the more
resplendent.
"Mr. Murray," Flora began, "you will think I am always taking
objections."
"Well, Miss Flora--what now?"
"Please to criticise this story Ditto has been reading. I would rather
you did it than I."
"By 'criticise' you mean, find fault?"
"If you see reason."
"Suppose I do not see reason?"
"But do you not, really?"
"Wherein?"
"Mr. Murray, I like things kept to their proper places."
"We are agreed there."
"And I think it is a pity to make religious observances, or what are
meant for them, repelling and disgusting to other people."
"Certainly. As how, for instance, Miss Flora?"
"Well, I never like to see people--I _have_ seen it--make a show of
praying at table, where no general blessing has been asked by the person
at the head of the table or a minister. It just makes them conspicuous,
and as good as says that they are the only right people there."
"That is not a pleasant impression to receive."
"No, and I did not receive it. I thought it was a mistake. And quite
ill-bred."
"But perhaps those people felt that they wanted a particular blessing,
where there was no general blessing asked as you say."
"They might ask for it quietly, secretly."
"Yes. Would they get it?"
"Why, Mr. Murray! Doesn't the Lord always hear prayer?"
"No. It is written--'He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law,
even his prayer shall be abomination.'"
"But what law is there about saying grace at meals, in public?"
"There is this, Miss Flora. 'Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him
will I also confess'"----
"But everywhere, Mr. Murray? Must we be confessing _everywhere_?"
"What places would you make the exception?"
Flora was silent.
"Public places in general?"
Still Flora was silent.
"Allow me to ask--Do you approve of the custom anywhere of asking a
blessing upon our meat?"
"Certainly--in one's own house. Papa did it always. Meredith does it."
"Then, Miss Flora, if it is a right thing to do at home, how is it not a
right thing to do abroad?"
"Everywhere, Mr. Murray? Would you do it in a restaurant?"
"If it is a right thing to do, Miss Flora?--why not in a restaurant?"
"Or in somebody else's house perhaps, where it is not the custom?"
"Why not?"
"Why it seems to me like a sort of preaching to people; like saying to
them that you are better than they are; setting one's self up."
"Pardon me--how can it be setting myself up, to thank my Father in
heaven for what He has given me, and to ask Him to let me have also a
blessing with it?"
"Why couldn't you do it quietly?"
"I should always in such places do it quietly; not aloud."
"But I mean--without letting anybody know it?"
"Why should not people know it?"
"Excuse me, Mr. Murray; but I always think it is making a show--making a
pretence."
"If it is a pretence, the worse for me, whether at home or abroad. But a
_show_ I want it to be, Miss Flora; a show that I am a child of God, and
love to own my Father's hand everywhere."
"You are very good to let me talk just what I think, without being
offended," said Flora. "You will not think me rude, Mr. Murray? I really
want to know your opinions. Don't you think that in such things there is
a tacit implied reproof of the other persons present who do not as you
do?"
"How can I help that?"
"But is that polite?"
"That question sinks before the other--Is it duty?"
"I cannot see it to be duty," said Flora.
"I have always been a little confused about it," said Meredith; "in such
cases and places, I mean."
"It makes one very disagreeably singular," Flora added.
"It is impossible to follow Christ fully, Miss Flora, and not be that
more or less."
"_Disagreeably_ singular, Mr. Murray?"
"I agree with you, I am sure, in thinking that it is disagreeable to be
singular."
"But must one? I always thought it was such bad taste."
"You perceive it is not a question of taste."
"Why then of necessity?"
"Because whoever follows the Lord fully will live in a way the very
opposite of that which is followed by the world. He will be marked out
from it--even as the Lord was Himself."
"Still, one is not to make one's self unnecessarily odd," said Meredith;
"and I have until now been in doubt whether people did not do it in
this very matter of asking a blessing at tables where nobody else
followed the practice."
"I am sure it is not unnecessary," said Mr. Murray. "I am sure that
thought is a temptation of the enemy. I am sure that the simple fact of
having, though in so small a matter, shown one's colours and confessed
Christ, is a help all through the day to go on confessing Him, as
occasion may serve."
Silence fell after this, and some of the party noticed how the sky and
clouds were changing. The sun had sunk below the actual horizon now;
long since he had dipped behind Eagle Hill; and the gold and the purple
were fading from the racks of vapour which had caught and given the
colours so brilliantly. Pale purple, pale fawn, ashes of roses, then
soft greys succeeded one another. The eastern hills had lost their
light; the shadows were gone, night was softly letting her mantle fall
on the world. Still the little party sat on the rock, and looked, and
felt the soft breath of the air, and watched the fading glory. Nobody
wanted to move, and twilight would last long enough to let them get
home; and so they waited. Fenton, I suppose, had gone home, for they
heard the rustle of his footsteps no longer. By and by, as they watched
the grey strips of vapour which had been so brilliant a little while
ago, they began to change again. The greys took on a purplish warm hue,
which brightened and brightened, and then pure carmine began to touch
the soft under folds and edges of the clouds, increasing in vividness,
until over all the sky every speck and mass of vapour was glowing in
brilliant crimson. For a few minutes this; and then it too faded, and
rapidly the crimson sank to purple and the purple back to grey, and all
knew that the reign of night and shades would be broken no more till the
sun rising. Slowly the little party got up from the rock; unwillingly
they turned their backs upon it; lingeringly they left the place which
had been so pleasant, and took their way down the hill through the
gathering dusk. The walk was still very pretty; Maggie held her uncle's
hand, the others clustered round, and they went running and skipping
till the level land was reached, then slowly again, as if loath to have
the evening quite come to an end.
It was pleasure of another sort to gather round the tea-table, bright
with lights and covered with good things.
"I do not think," Meredith observed, "that I ever enjoyed more in one
day."
"Lucky for you!" said Fenton. "I don't see the use of having Sundays,
for my part."
"How can you help having them?" said Maggie. "They must come, just like
Saturdays, or Mondays."
"That's deep!" said Fenton. "But if they must come, as you have
originally discovered, why can't one use them reasonably."
"As how?" said Mr. Murray, preventing an eager outbreak of Maggie's.
"Like other days. Why shouldn't I fish, for instance? or shoot
partridges? The fish don't know the difference. Why should one mope on
one particular day?"
"I never do," said his uncle. "I am sorry you have such a bad taste."
"As what, sir?" (fiercely).
"As to mope."
"How's a fellow to do anything else?"
"Depends on himself."
"Well, what's the use of my not fishing? Why shouldn't I fish on
Sunday?"
"Don't you know?"
"No, I don't," said Fenton. "That's just it. If I knew any good reason,
of course it would be different." And he sagely muttered something about
"priestcraft."
"There are two reasons," said Mr. Murray calmly, while Maggie flushed up
and even Esther stared at her brother.
"I never knew any," responded Fenton.
"Do you care to know them?"
"If they _are_ reasons," Fenton rejoined impudently, "it would be
unreasonable not to care."
"Very true," said Mr. Murray smiling. "I will begin with the lesser of
the two. It is found in the nature of man, Fenton. Man is so
constituted that he cannot, year in and year out, stand a seven days'
strain. Neither brain nor muscle will bear it. That has been tested and
proved. In the long run, man cannot do as much working seven days, as he
can do working only six days."
Fenton knew that what his uncle gave as a fact was likely to be a fact;
he had no answer ready at first. Then he said, "I spoke of fishing, sir;
that is play, not work."
"As you do it, I suppose it is. But we are talking of the fact of one
day in seven being set apart from the rest, and the reasons. You see one
reason."
"What's the other?"
"The other is still more difficult to deal with. It consists in
this--that God says the day is His. As Ruler and King of the world, He
lays His hand upon that seventh day and says, This is mine."
"I don't see any reason in that," said Fenton.
"No. But you see the claim and the command. Those must be met, or
disobeyed at our peril."
"What's the use?"
"One great use is, to remember and acknowledge that God _is_ Ruler and
Owner of all. So when we cross the boundary between Saturday and Sunday,
we step over on ground that is not ours."
"There is no good in being stiff and pokey," said Fenton.
"No. It is only a stranger on the ground who can be that. One who knows
the Lord and loves Him is specially at home and free on the Lord's day."
"But I thought the Jewish Sabbath was done away?" said Flora.
"The formal Jewish Sabbath. But not the spiritual. If you study the
matter, you will see that Christ made careful exceptions to the literal
rule in only three cases--where mercy, or necessity, or God's service
demand that it shall be broken."
"Don't you think a farmer ought to get in his hay on Sunday, sir, if he
saw a storm coming up?" Fenton asked.
"I dare not make any other exceptions than the Lord made," his uncle
answered.
"Don't you think trains ought to run on Sunday, Mr. Murray?" said Flora.
"I must say the same thing to you, Miss Flora."
"But in cases of sickness and accident, sir?"
"Have you the notion that Sunday trains are filled with persons who have
been summoned somewhere by telegraph?"
"No--but there are such cases."
"Yes; well. Do you think, honestly, that thousands of people ought to
break the Lord's rule every Sunday, in order to give relief here and
there to the anxiety of one?"
"I can tell you," Fenton broke out, "your doctrine is furiously
unfashionable. There is not a fellow in our school that doesn't do as he
has a mind to on Sunday."
"Other days too, I suppose."
"Of course."
"That is just what, in your sense, a Christian gives up; not on Sunday
more than on other days. That is the difference between a Christian and
another man; one does his own will and the other the will of God, which
is also his own."
Fenton muttered something to Esther, who sat next him, about an "old
foggy," but the subject of conversation was carried no further. Mr.
Murray purposely changed it, and the evening passed in very pleasant
talk, alternating with some Bible reading. Only, towards the close of
the evening Fenton started the question, "where they would go the next
day?"
"Suppose we leave that for Monday to take care of," Mr. Murray answered.
"But, sir, there might be some arrangements to make."
"To-night?"
"Perhaps; but at any rate I might want to give some orders in the
morning."
"I don't think we should have a good time, if we consulted about it
now."
"Why not, sir?"
"You forget. It is the Lord's time. And if we want Him to give us His
favour on our expedition, it seems to me we had better not offend Him
about it beforehand."
"But, sir!"----
"But, Mr. Murray!" put in Flora. "Just to _speak_ about things?"
"Time enough to-morrow, Miss Flora. And this is the Lord's time, you
know."
"But just _talking_--not doing anything?"
"Doing a good deal in imagination. What's the difference? Study the
fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah, the last two verses. Sir Matthew Hale
gave it as his testimony, that he found business concocted on Sunday did
not run off well in the week. No, we will leave the question till
to-morrow at breakfast, if you please."
"I can't understand it!" said Flora, as she went upstairs.
"Study those verses in Isaiah," said Meredith, who overheard her.