"That is one of your very prettiest stories, Ditto," cried Maggie when
he stopped.
"Yes," said Flora, "I think so."
"It must be a good story that can be listened to here," said Mr.
Murray,--"and I have been listening with great attention. I have been
thinking, while I was looking out over all this beauty and receiving so
much by my ears of another kind of beauty,--I have been thinking and
rejoicing to myself over the fact, how good our God is. 'Mountains, and
all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars; young men and maidens; old
men and children: let them praise the name of the Lord.'"
"Uncle Eden," said Maggie meditatively, "how _can_ hills praise the
Lord?--or trees?"
"Don't they?"
"How, Uncle Eden?"
"_Don't_ they, I ask?"
"But they could not hear anybody tell them to praise."
"You are a literalist. How can 'the trees of the field clap their
hands'?"
"Does the Bible say they do?"
"It says they will. And it says 'Let the floods clap their hands; let
the hills be joyful together before the Lord; for He cometh!'--"
"But that is very strange too," said Flora. "'He cometh to judge the
earth;' I know the chant; but it seems solemn and dreadful, and it is
sung in the minor key."
"I know," said Mr. Murray. "The composer did not understand the
rejoicing either."
"But how can any one, Mr. Murray?"
"Those 'that love His appearing,' Miss Flora?"
"I suppose I am very bad, Mr. Murray; but I tell you just how I feel.
That seems to me the most awful of times, and nothing but awful."
"Perfectly correct, Miss Flora, and just as it is described in the
Bible. When the kings and the great men and the rich men will say to the
mountains and to the rocks, 'Fall on us, and hide us!'--"
"But you talk of being glad?" said Flora, looking a good deal troubled.
"Ay, but I was thinking of the other party," said Mr. Murray
gravely,--"from whom will go up a very different cry, a shout of
gladness--'Lo, this is our God! we have waited for Him, and He will save
us.'"
"Save them from what?"
"From all the oppressions and miseries inflicted upon them by the rulers
of this world; and more, from all the evils under which humanity has
been groaning ever since the fall. Then will strike the hour of the
world's freedom. That will be the time when the bridegroom cometh, and
they that are ready will go in with him to the marriage. Don't you think
they will be glad, who have been waiting in darkness and weariness for
so long? Then comes the marriage supper, and the everlasting union
between Christ and His Church. Should not the Church be glad!"
"You said, 'they that are ready.'"
"Yes."
"Who are they?"
"Do you remember the parable of the marriage supper? Don't you
recollect, one man had not on a wedding garment?"
"But what _is_ the wedding-garment?" said Flora, who looked as if she
had some difficulty to keep her composure.
"Shall I answer you in the words of one of old time?--'I will greatly
rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He hath
clothed me with the garments of salvation, He hath covered me with the
robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments,
and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.'"
"Then it is something given," said Flora slowly.
"Given, by the King to the guests; a free gift, Miss Flora, to all who
accept the King's invitation."
Flora asked no more, but lay still on her couch of pine branches,
looking out on the calm and glorified hills. Nobody else broke the
silence; I think Fenton was gone to sleep; and the others were quiet.
"The shadows are going the wrong way," said Flora at last. "I wish this
day would last longer!"
"'A thing of beauty is a joy for ever,'" said Meredith.
"Don't quote such a dreadfully hackneyed sentiment!" said his sister.
"How comes it, Mr. Murray, that beautiful things in nature never grow
hackneyed?"
"They are always fresh. No two days in one's experience are just like
each other."
"There never was a day in my experience like this one," said Flora.
"Ditto, aren't you going to read some more?"
"It will be a variety, if I do."
"We are made to like variety--as Mr. Murray has just reminded you."
Meredith guessed that his sister cared more about putting off the hour
of departure than about the reading in the abstract; and he opened his
book again, for nobody else made any objection to Flora's proposal.
"I shall read you," said he, "the story of a pastor and a farmer."
"Those are the people your stories are generally about," said Flora. "I
hope the variety will lie in the treatment. Go on. I don't care what you
read."
"'In a certain country, that I am not going to name, there is a parish
village. In the parsonage lives a pastor; it is not I, however. This
pastor faithfully serves our beloved church with the Word of God, which
he preaches in truth, and with the holy sacraments, which he administers
as he ought. And wherever this is done, the fruit will not be wanting;
for God has promised it, and He keeps His word still, although among
men there is little truth or faith any longer to be found.
"'With temporal goods, however, this pastor is not specially well
provided; and were it not that he has a living God in the heavens, he
must many a time grow anxious and dispirited; which in truth he does not
always escape, as he himself humbly confesses. For if you have a small
benefice, a large family, and a couple of children at school to boot,
sometimes that gives even a believer the headache; though indeed there
is no need for that, were faith but strong and prayer simple enough. Now
there are cultivated fields belonging to the living; but as the pastor
cannot drive the plough spiritual and the plough agricultural both at
once, he hires out his ground; that he may give himself the more
diligently to the cultivation of hearts. From these hired-out acres
comes not a small part of his scanty means, and therefore it becomes a
very desirable thing that he should dispose of his ground suitably. With
most of his fields, indeed, this is not difficult, for they are fruitful
and favourably situated and easy to get a good tenant for them. But one
of his pieces of ground, and a pretty large one, lies on the slope of a
hill which is wooded at the top; this field nobody will take, because in
great rains loose earth and stones come rolling down over the slope from
the hill above, and in this way the whole crop may easily be destroyed.
It comes to my mind that the fault probably lies at the door of the
beloved Enclosings. In the course of them it might well happen that too
much wood has been cleared from the hill and sold. By that means the
soil has been laid bare and the rain floods can wash it off anywhere
they come. At any rate, nobody wants the field; and it always gives the
pastor a stab in the heart when he comes past it; and he does not
content himself with thinking, but he prays too, and promises that he
will give to the Lord Jesus, for the mission, a portion of the hire of
the field, if only a tenant may be found for it.
"'And He in the heavens has heard the pastor's prayer. Not long after,
there comes a man of the parish, who is not in possession of ground
enough to make his farming suffice for the wants of his family, and who
therefore would willingly hire some more acres. He offers to take the
neglected field off the pastor's hands. The upright pastor does not hide
from him the reason why the field has hitherto found no tenant. But this
man, who loves the Lord Jesus, and who therefore is a hearty friend of
his pastor, declares that he has already quietly considered all that;
and he has thought among other things that it must be very important to
the pastor to let out this field, for to be sure the boys cost money;
and it is very desirable for himself to hire a field, since he also has
a great many mouths to feed. So both of them would be the better off.
The Lord must have the care of the thing, and that He is well able for;
he himself also would pray the Lord faithfully to this end, and he would
make it the one stipulation with his beloved pastor, that he would stand
by him and help him in faithful prayer. The two men gave each other the
hand upon that. The man hiring the ground had also told the Lord that he
would give Him a portion of the produce of the field for the conversion
of the heathen, and that all the same whether the produce were much or
little. But the man had said nothing about this to his pastor, and he
again on the other side had said nothing to the man about his own
contract with the Lord; so that each of them had thus kept in his heart
a secret for himself, which was known to the Lord alone. But surely I
know that the Lord thereupon looked kindly on both the men.
"'Now in the autumn the farmer sets himself vigorously to work to get
the field in order; and the Lord gives His blessing upon it; up comes
the seed merrily, and the winter does it no hurt; the Lord has
graciously sheltered it. With a wet summer the corn really shoots up,
and stands so fine that it is magnificent to see. Both pastor and farmer
are heartily glad at the sight, and both at the same time have a secret
recollection of their vow, and are still more glad. But many of the
peasants, who are not lovers of the Lord, and therefore also not lovers
of their good pastor, and of the good farmer as little, feel no
pleasure, but a regular hateful grudge in their hearts; for indeed there
is everywhere a plenty of envy and spite to be found among unbelievers,
because they make their god out of what is earthly, and that is all they
care about. However they comfort themselves with the thought that when
the thunder-showers once come with their violent rain-pours, then surely
there will be stones and soil enough rolling down upon the field from
off the hill in the end to destroy all that is standing upon it. Verily
that is not a godly sort of satisfaction, but a true Satanic delight,
for Satan rejoices when any evil happens to people.
"'And at last, the wish of the peasants seems to be fulfilled. There
comes up an uncommonly violent thunder-storm; the rain pours down from
heaven in streams, as if the clouds had burst; so that regular brooks
are flowing down the village streets. Then the envious people triumph;
there is no mistake about it, the field lying so exposed on the slope of
the hill must be thoroughly laid waste. Those two men, it may well be,
tremble too, for the storm is too frightful; but lose heart they do not;
on the contrary, the need drives them to more ardent prayer: "Lord,
help, and do not let the field be spoiled. Thou art the strong, almighty
God of Sabaoth, and Thy hand is not shortened, but Thine arm is
stretched out still." So they prayed; and when the storm was past they
went confidently up to the field, a good many accompanying them; and as
they were going, and while the many who went along could hardly hide
their delight, they were singing in their hearts the hymn--
"Was mein Gott will gescheh allzeit,
Sein Wille ist der beste;
Zu helfen ist Er dem bereit,
Der an Ihn glauebet feste."'"
"Ditto, we don't understand that."
"It means about this. 'The will of my God be done always. His will is
the best. He is always ready to help them who rest on Him in firm
faith.'"
"'With that they are able to look up cheerfully and they are of good
courage. And when they arrive at the field, what do they see? The entire
field is unharmed. The stalks of grain lift their heads up bravely, as
if they too would give thanks for the beautiful rain which has so
refreshed them. But on both sides of the field a whole stream has poured
down from the hill, and nothing is to be seen but a wild mass of rocks
and stones. Whose is the strong hand which seized the rain flood, and
parted it just before it came to the field, and so gently led it down on
both sides of the field? Moved to the depth of their hearts, our two
friends were constrained to cry out--"The Lord, He is the God! The Lord,
He is the God! Give our God the glory." And it is to be hoped that many
of the unbelievers, if not aloud, yet quietly joined in the prayer with
them.
"'And now, when the harvest was finished, and the farmer brought to the
pastor what he had promised to give the Lord of the produce of the
field, and then also the pastor's vow was made known to the farmer, the
two fell upon their knees again and thanked the Lord for His goodness,
because His mercy endureth for ever. Must not such gifts to the heathen
go with God's special blessing resting upon them?'"
"Is that all?" said Maggie.
"That is all," said Meredith smiling.
"I do not know what to make of that story," said Flora.
"Why?"
"Storms come from natural causes."
"Oh, do they?" said Meredith. "You do not believe then what the psalm
says--'He commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind'"----
"But that is poetry."
"So is this," said Mr. Murray,--"'Who hath divided a watercourse for the
overflowing of waters; or a way for the lightning of thunder; to cause
it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein is
no man; to satisfy the desolate and waste ground; and to cause the bud
of the tender herb to spring forth?'"
"Well," said Flora a little abashed, "isn't it poetry?"
"I do think, Flo," said her brother, "you have forgotten all our talks
around the breakfast table in Florida and elsewhere."
"Here again," said Mr. Murray,--"'He saith to the snow, Be thou on the
earth; likewise to the small rain, and to the great rain of His
strength.' It won't do, Miss Flora, to resist the fact. And I would
remark, that the highest poetry is the highest truth also."
"But do you think, Mr. Murray, if it is so, that God will change His
arrangements just for men's asking Him."
"I don't _think_, I know it, Miss Flora. It is precisely the Lord's way.
But we cannot stop to talk about that now. My friends, do you see where
the sun is?"
"Oh, must we go?" cried they all.
"It is a pity, isn't it? But this would hardly do for a night's
lodgings; and if we are to sleep at home, we must take the necessary
steps."
Slowly they gathered themselves up from their pine bushes, and shook
themselves; literally and figuratively, I might say.
"What are you going to do with your oyster shells, Fenton?" his uncle
demanded.
"I don't want to do anything with them," said the boy.
"You always want to be a gentleman."
"What has that to do with it?"
"A gentleman never needlessly annoys anybody."
"Nobody comes here," said Fenton grumblingly. But they all laughed so at
him that he pocketed his ill-humour and took his share in carrying the
wrecks of the feast down to the creek side.
Then with the tide they swept up the river. I can never tell you how
pretty it was. The day had kept its character of clear quiet beauty
without change; and now as the sun began to get lower in the western
sky, and shadows stretched along under the shore on the river and fell
in lengthening patches or lines from hill-tops and trees, it did not
grow cold. Quiet and sweet the air was, even on the water; and the
rowers dipped and raised their oars in steady time, and in silence.
Nobody wanted to talk. They passed the island or promontory a little
above Fort Montgomery, passed on and on, keeping the mid-stream now,
passed Gee's Point, saw the boat-house looming up before them,--and were
at home.
The very next day it rained.
THE END.
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON