SERMON ON GOD AND MAMMON.
I never asked questions about the private affairs of any of my
parishioners, except of themselves individually upon occasion of their
asking me for advice, and some consequent necessity for knowing more
than they told me. Hence, I believe, they became the more willing that
I should know. But I heard a good many things from others,
notwithstanding, for I could not be constantly closing the lips of the
communicative as I had done those of Jane Rogers. And amongst other
things, I learned that Miss Oldcastle went most Sundays to the
neighbouring town of Addicehead to church. Now I had often heard of the
ability of the rector, and although I had never met him, was prepared
to find him a cultivated, if not an original man. Still, if I must be
honest, which I hope I must, I confess that I heard the news with a
pang, in analysing which I discovered the chief component to be
jealousy. It was no use asking myself why I should be jealous: there
the ugly thing was. So I went and told God I was ashamed, and begged
Him to deliver me from the evil, because His was the kingdom and the
power and the glory. And He took my part against myself, for He waits
to be gracious. Perhaps the reader may, however, suspect a deeper cause
for this feeling (to which I would rather not give the true name again)
than a merely professional one.
But there was one stray sheep of my flock that appeared in church for
the first time on the morning of Christmas Day—Catherine Weir. She did
not sit beside her father, but in the most shadowy corner of the
church—near the organ loft, however. She could have seen her father if
she had looked up, but she kept her eyes down the whole time, and never
even lifted them to me. The spot on one cheek was much brighter than
that on the other, and made her look very ill.
I prayed to our God to grant me the honour of speaking a true word to
them all; which honour I thought I was right in asking, because the
Lord reproached the Pharisees for not seeking the honour that cometh
from God. Perhaps I may have put a wrong interpretation on the passage.
It is, however, a joy to think that He will not give you a stone, even
if you should take it for a loaf, and ask for it as such. Nor is He,
like the scribes, lying in wait to catch poor erring men in their words
or their prayers, however mistaken they may be.
I took my text from the Sermon on the Mount. And as the magazine for
which these Annals were first written was intended chiefly for Sunday
reading, I wrote my sermon just as if I were preaching it to my unseen
readers as I spoke it to my present parishioners. And here it is now:
The Gospel according to St Matthew, the sixth chapter, and part of the
twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth verses:—
“‘YE CANNOT SERVE GOD AND MAMMON. THEREFORE I SAY TO YOU, TAKE NO
THOUGHT FOR YOUR LIFE.’
“When the Child whose birth we celebrate with glad hearts this day,
grew up to be a man, He said this. Did He mean it?—He never said what
He did not mean. Did He mean it wholly?—He meant it far beyond what the
words could convey. He meant it altogether and entirely. When people do
not understand what the Lord says, when it seems to them that His
advice is impracticable, instead of searching deeper for a meaning
which will be evidently true and wise, they comfort themselves by
thinking He could not have meant it altogether, and so leave it. Or
they think that if He did mean it, He could not expect them to carry it
out. And in the fact that they could not do it perfectly if they were
to try, they take refuge from the duty of trying to do it at all; or,
oftener, they do not think about it at all as anything that in the
least concerns them. The Son of our Father in heaven may have become a
child, may have led the one life which belongs to every man to lead,
may have suffered because we are sinners, may have died for our sakes,
doing the will of His Father in heaven, and yet we have nothing to do
with the words He spoke out of the midst of His true, perfect
knowledge, feeling, and action! Is it not strange that it should be so?
Let it not be so with us this day. Let us seek to find out what our
Lord means, that we may do it; trying and failing and trying
again—verily to be victorious at last—what matter WHEN, so long as we
are trying, and so coming nearer to our end!
“MAMMON, you know, means RICHES. Now, riches are meant to be the
slave—not even the servant of man, and not to be the master. If a man
serve his own servant, or, in a word, any one who has no just claim to
be his master, he is a slave. But here he serves his own slave. On the
other hand, to serve God, the source of our being, our own glorious
Father, is freedom; in fact, is the only way to get rid of all bondage.
So you see plainly enough that a man cannot serve God and Mammon. For
how can a slave of his own slave be the servant of the God of freedom,
of Him who can have no one to serve Him but a free man? His service is
freedom. Do not, I pray you, make any confusion between service and
slavery. To serve is the highest, noblest calling in creation. For even
the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, yea,
with Himself.
“But how can a man SERVE riches? Why, when he says to riches, ‘Ye are
my good.’ When he feels he cannot be happy without them. When he puts
forth the energies of his nature to get them. When he schemes and
dreams and lies awake about them. When he will not give to his
neighbour for fear of becoming poor himself. When he wants to have
more, and to know he has more, than he can need. When he wants to leave
money behind him, not for the sake of his children or relatives, but
for the name of the wealth. When he leaves his money, not to those who
NEED it, even of his relations, but to those who are rich like himself,
making them yet more of slaves to the overgrown monster they worship
for his size. When he honours those who have money because they have
money, irrespective of their character; or when he honours in a rich
man what he would not honour in a poor man. Then is he the slave of
Mammon. Still more is he Mammon’s slave when his devotion to his god
makes him oppressive to those over whom his wealth gives him power; or
when he becomes unjust in order to add to his stores.—How will it be
with such a man when on a sudden he finds that the world has vanished,
and he is alone with God? There lies the body in which he used to live,
whose poor necessities first made money of value to him, but with which
itself and its fictitious value are both left behind. He cannot now
even try to bribe God with a cheque. The angels will not bow down to
him because his property, as set forth in his will, takes five or six
figures to express its amount It makes no difference to them that he
has lost it, though; for they never respected him. And the poor souls
of Hades, who envied him the wealth they had lost before, rise up as
one man to welcome him, not for love of him—no worshipper of Mammon
loves another—but rejoicing in the mischief that has befallen him, and
saying, ‘Art thou also become one of us?’ And Lazarus in Abraham’s
bosom, however sorry he may be for him, however grateful he may feel to
him for the broken victuals and the penny, cannot with one drop of the
water of Paradise cool that man’s parched tongue.
“Alas, poor Dives! poor server of Mammon, whose vile god can pretend to
deliver him no longer! Or rather, for the blockish god never pretended
anything—it was the man’s own doing—Alas for the Mammon-worshipper! he
can no longer deceive himself in his riches. And so even in hell he is
something nobler than he was on earth; for he worships his riches no
longer. He cannot. He curses them.
“Terrible things to say on Christmas Day! But if Christmas Day teaches
us anything, it teaches us to worship God and not Mammon; to worship
spirit and not matter; to worship love and not power.
“Do I now hear any of my friends saying in their hearts: Let the rich
take that! It does not apply to us. We are poor enough? Ah, my friends,
I have known a light-hearted, liberal rich man lose his riches, and be
liberal and light-hearted still. I knew a rich lady once, in giving a
large gift of money to a poor man, say apologetically, ‘I hope it is no
disgrace in me to be rich, as it is none in you to be poor.’ It is not
the being rich that is wrong, but the serving of riches, instead of
making them serve your neighbour and yourself—your neighbour for this
life, yourself for the everlasting habitations. God knows it is hard
for the rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven; but the rich man
does sometimes enter in; for God hath made it possible. And the greater
the victory, when it is the rich man that overcometh the world. It is
easier for the poor man to enter into the kingdom, yet many of the poor
have failed to enter in, and the greater is the disgrace of their
defeat. For the poor have more done for them, as far as outward things
go, in the way of salvation than the rich, and have a beatitude all to
themselves besides. For in the making of this world as a school of
salvation, the poor, as the necessary majority, have been more regarded
than the rich. Do not think, my poor friend, that God will let you off.
He lets nobody off. You, too, must pay the uttermost farthing. He loves
you too well to let you serve Mammon a whit more than your rich
neighbour. ‘Serve Mammon!’ do you say? ‘How can I serve Mammon? I have
no Mammon to serve.’—Would you like to have riches a moment sooner than
God gives them? Would you serve Mammon if you had him?—‘Who can tell?’
do you answer? ‘Leave those questions till I am tried.’ But is there no
bitterness in the tone of that response? Does it not mean, ‘It will be
a long time before I have a chance of trying THAT?’—But I am not driven
to such questions for the chance of convicting some of you of
Mammon-worship. Let us look to the text. Read it again.
“‘YE CANNOT SERVE GOD AND MAMMON. THEREFORE I SAY UNTO YOU, TAKE NO
THOUGHT FOR YOUR LIFE.’
“Why are you to take no thought? Because you cannot serve God and
Mammon. Is taking thought, then, a serving of Mammon? Clearly.—Where
are you now, poor man? Brooding over the frost? Will it harden the
ground, so that the God of the sparrows cannot find food for His sons?
Where are you now, poor woman? Sleepless over the empty cupboard and
to-morrow’s dinner? ‘It is because we have no bread?’ do you answer?
Have you forgotten the five loaves among the five thousand, and the
fragments that were left? Or do you know nothing of your Father in
heaven, who clothes the lilies and feeds the birds? O ye of little
faith? O ye poor-spirited Mammon-worshippers! who worship him not even
because he has given you anything, but in the hope that he may some
future day benignantly regard you. But I may be too hard upon you. I
know well that our Father sees a great difference between the man who
is anxious about his children’s dinner, or even about his own, and the
man who is only anxious to add another ten thousand to his much goods
laid up for many years. But you ought to find it easy to trust in God
for such a matter as your daily bread, whereas no man can by any
possibility trust in God for ten thousand pounds. The former need is a
God-ordained necessity; the latter desire a man-devised appetite at
best—possibly swinish greed. Tell me, do you long to be rich? Then you
worship Mammon. Tell me, do you think you would feel safer if you had
money in the bank? Then you are Mammon-worshippers; for you would trust
the barn of the rich man rather than the God who makes the corn to
grow. Do you say—‘What shall we eat? and what shall we drink? and
wherewithal shall we be clothedl?’ Are ye thus of doubtful mind?—Then
you are Mammon-worshippers. “But how is the work of the world to be
done if we take no thought?—We are nowhere told not to take thought. We
MUST take thought. The question is—What are we to take or not to take
thought about? By some who do not know God, little work would be done
if they were not driven by anxiety of some kind. But you, friends, are
you content to go with the nations of the earth, or do you seek a
better way—THE way that the Father of nations would have you walk in?
“WHAT then are we to take thought about? Why, about our work. What are
we not to take thought about? Why, about our life. The one is our
business: the other is God’s. But you turn it the other way. You take
no thought of earnestness about the doing of your duty; but you take
thought of care lest God should not fulfil His part in the goings on of
the world. A man’s business is just to do his duty: God takes upon
Himself the feeding and the clothing. Will the work of the world be
neglected if a man thinks of his work, his duty, God’s will to be done,
instead of what he is to eat, what he is to drink, and wherewithal he
is to be clothed? And remember all the needs of the world come back to
these three. You will allow, I think, that the work of the world will
be only so much the better done; that the very means of procuring the
raiment or the food will be the more thoroughly used. What, then, is
the only region on which the doubt can settle? Why, God. He alone
remains to be doubted. Shall it be so with you? Shall the Son of man,
the baby now born, and for ever with us, find no faith in you? Ah, my
poor friend, who canst not trust in God—I was going to say you
DESERVE—but what do I know of you to condemn and judge you?—I was going
to say, you deserve to be treated like the child who frets and
complains because his mother holds him on her knee and feeds him
mouthful by mouthful with her own loving hand. I meant—you deserve to
have your own way for a while; to be set down, and told to help
yourself, and see what it will come to; to have your mother open the
cupboard door for you, and leave you alone to your pleasures. Alas!
poor child! When the sweets begin to pall, and the twilight begins to
come duskily into the chamber, and you look about all at once and see
no mother, how will your cupboard comfort you then? Ask it for a smile,
for a stroke of the gentle hand, for a word of love. All the full-fed
Mammon can give you is what your mother would have given you without
the consequent loathing, with the light of her countenance upon it all,
and the arm of her love around you.—And this is what God does
sometimes, I think, with the Mammon-worshippers amongst the poor. He
says to them, Take your Mammon, and see what he is worth. Ah, friends,
the children of God can never be happy serving other than Him. The
prodigal might fill his belly with riotous living or with the husks
that the swine ate. It was all one, so long as he was not with his
father. His soul was wretched. So would you be if you had wealth, for I
fear you would only be worse Mammon-worshippers than now, and might
well have to thank God for the misery of any swine-trough that could
bring you to your senses.
“But we do see people die of starvation sometimes,—Yes. But if you did
your work in God’s name, and left the rest to Him, that would not
trouble you. You would say, If it be God’s will that I should starve, I
can starve as well as another. And your mind would be at ease. “Thou
wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed upon Thee, because
he trusteth in Thee.” Of that I am sure. It may be good for you to go
hungry and bare-foot; but it must be utter death to have no faith in
God. It is not, however, in God’s way of things that the man who does
his work shall not live by it. We do not know why here and there a man
may be left to die of hunger, but I do believe that they who wait upon
the Lord shall not lack any good. What it may be good to deprive a man
of till he knows and acknowledges whence it comes, it may be still
better to give him when he has learned that every good and every
perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.
“I SHOULD like to know a man who just minded his duty and troubled
himself about nothing; who did his own work and did not interfere with
God’s. How nobly he would work—working not for reward, but because it
was the will of God! How happily he would receive his food and
clothing, receiving them as the gifts of God! What peace would be his!
What a sober gaiety! How hearty and infectious his laughter! What a
friend he would be! How sweet his sympathy! And his mind would be so
clear he would understand everything His eye being single, his whole
body would be full of light. No fear of his ever doing a mean thing. He
would die in a ditch, rather. It is this fear of want that makes men do
mean things. They are afraid to part with their precious lord—Mammon.
He gives no safety against such a fear. One of the richest men in
England is haunted with the dread of the workhouse. This man whom I
should like to know, would be sure that God would have him liberal, and
he would be what God would have him. Riches are not in the least
necessary to that. Witness our Lord’s admiration of the poor widow with
her great farthing.
“But I think I hear my troubled friend who does not love money, and yet
cannot trust in God out and out, though she fain would,—I think I hear
her say, “I believe I could trust Him for myself, or at least I should
be ready to dare the worst for His sake; but my children—it is the
thought of my children that is too much for me.” Ah, woman! she whom
the Saviour praised so pleasedly, was one who trusted Him for her
daughter. What an honour she had! “Be it unto thee even as thou wilt.”
Do you think you love your children better than He who made them? Is
not your love what it is because He put it into your heart first? Have
not you often been cross with them? Sometimes unjust to them? Whence
came the returning love that rose from unknown depths in your being,
and swept away the anger and the injustice! You did not create that
love. Probably you were not good enough to send for it by prayer. But
it came. God sent it. He makes you love your children; be sorry when
you have been cross with them; ashamed when you have been unjust to
them; and yet you won’t trust Him to give them food and clothes! Depend
upon it, if He ever refuses to give them food and clothes, and you knew
all about it, the why and the wherefore, you would not dare to give
them food or clothes either. He loves them a thousand times better than
you do—be sure of that—and feels for their sufferings too, when He
cannot give them just what He would like to give them—cannot for their
good, I mean.
“But as your mistrust will go further, I can go further to meet it. You
will say, ‘Ah! yes’—in your feeling, I mean, not in words,—you will
say, ‘Ah! yes—food and clothing of a sort! Enough to keep life in and
too much cold out! But I want my children to have plenty of GOOD food,
and NICE clothes.’
“Faithless mother! Consider the birds of the air. They have so much
that at least they can sing! Consider the lilies—they were red lilies,
those. Would you not trust Him who delights in glorious colours—more at
least than you, or He would never have created them and made us to
delight in them? I do not say that your children shall be clothed in
scarlet and fine linen; but if not, it is not because God despises
scarlet and fine linen or does not love your children. He loves them, I
say, too much to give them everything all at once. But He would make
them such that they may have everything without being the worse, and
with being the better for it. And if you cannot trust Him yet, it
begins to be a shame, I think.
“It has been well said that no man ever sank under the burden of the
day. It is when to-morrow’s burden is added to the burden of to-day,
that the weight is more than a man can bear. Never load yourselves so,
my friends. If you find yourselves so loaded, at least remember this:
it is your own doing, not God’s. He begs you to leave the future to
Him, and mind the present. What more or what else could He do to take
the burden off you? Nothing else would do it. Money in the bank
wouldn’t do it. He cannot do to-morrow’s business for you beforehand to
save you from fear about it. That would derange everything. What else
is there but to tell you to trust in Him, irrespective of the fact that
nothing else but such trust can put our heart at peace, from the very
nature of our relation to Him as well as the fact that we need these
things. We think that we come nearer to God than the lower animals do
by our foresight. But there is another side to it. We are like to Him
with whom there is no past or future, with whom a day is as a thousand
years, and a thousand years as one day, when we live with large bright
spiritual eyes, doing our work in the great present, leaving both past
and future to Him to whom they are ever present, and fearing nothing,
because He is in our future, as much as He is in our past, as much as,
and far more than, we can feel Him to be in our present. Partakers thus
of the divine nature, resting in that perfect All-in-all in whom our
nature is eternal too, we walk without fear, full of hope and courage
and strength to do His will, waiting for the endless good which He is
always giving as fast as He can get us able to take it in. Would not
this be to be more of gods than Satan promised to Eve? To live
carelessly-divine, duty-doing, fearless, loving, self-forgetting
lives—is not that more than to know both good and evil—lives in which
the good, like Aaron’s rod, has swallowed up the evil, and turned it
into good? For pain and hunger are evils, but if faith in God swallows
them up, do they not so turn into good? I say they do. And I am glad to
believe that I am not alone in my parish in this conviction. I have
never been too hungry, but I have had trouble which I would gladly have
exchanged for hunger and cold and weariness. Some of you have known
hunger and cold and weariness. Do you not join with me to say: It is
well, and better than well—whatever helps us to know the love of Him
who is our God?
“But there HAS BEEN just one man who has acted thus. And it is His
Spirit in our hearts that makes us desire to know or to be another
such—who would do the will of God for God, and let God do God’s will
for Him. For His will is all. And this man is the baby whose birth we
celebrate this day. Was this a condition to choose—that of a baby—by
one who thought it part of a man’s high calling to take care of the
morrow? Did He not thus cast the whole matter at once upon the hands
and heart of His Father? Sufficient unto the baby’s day is the need
thereof; he toils not, neither does he spin, and yet he is fed and
clothed, and loved, and rejoiced in. Do you remind me that sometimes
even his mother forgets him—a mother, most likely, to whose
self-indulgence or weakness the child owes his birth as hers? Ah! but
he is not therefore forgotten, however like things it may look to our
half-seeing eyes, by his Father in heaven. One of the highest benefits
we can reap from understanding the way of God with ourselves is, that
we become able thus to trust Him for others with whom we do not
understand His ways.
“But let us look at what will be more easily shown—how, namely, He did
the will of His Father, and took no thought for the morrow after He
became a man. Remember how He forsook His trade when the time came for
Him to preach. Preaching was not a profession then. There were no
monasteries, or vicarages, or stipends, then. Yet witness for the
Father the garment woven throughout; the ministering of women; the
purse in common! Hard-working men and rich ladies were ready to help
Him, and did help Him with all that He needed.—Did He then never want?
Yes; once at least—for a little while only.
“He was a-hungered in the wilderness. ‘Make bread,’ said Satan. ‘No,’
said our Lord.—He could starve; but He could not eat bread that His
Father did not give Him, even though He could make it Himself. He had
come hither to be tried. But when the victory was secure, lo! the
angels brought Him food from His Father.—Which was better? To feed
Himself, or be fed by His Father? Judge yourselves, anxious people, He
sought the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and the bread was
added unto Him.
“And this gives me occasion to remark that the same truth holds with
regard to any portion of the future as well as the morrow. It is a
principle, not a command, or an encouragement, or a promise merely. In
respect of it there is no difference between next day and next year,
next hour and next century. You will see at once the absurdity of
taking no thought for the morrow, and taking thought for next year. But
do you see likewise that it is equally reasonable to trust God for the
next moment, and equally unreasonable not to trust Him? The Lord was
hungry and needed food now, though He could still go without for a
while. He left it to His Father. And so He told His disciples to do
when they were called to answer before judges and rulers. ‘Take no
thought. It shall be given you what ye shall say.’ You have a
disagreeable duty to do at twelve o’clock. Do not blacken nine and ten
and eleven, and all between, with the colour of twelve. Do the work of
each, and reap your reward in peace. So when the dreaded moment in the
future becomes the present, you shall meet it walking in the light, and
that light will overcome its darkness. How often do men who have made
up their minds what to say and do under certain expected circumstances,
forget the words and reverse the actions! The best preparation is the
present well seen to, the last duty done. For this will keep the eye so
clear and the body so full of light that the right action will be
perceived at once, the right words will rush from the heart to the
lips, and the man, full of the Spirit of God because he cares for
nothing but the will of God, will trample on the evil thing in love,
and be sent, it may be, in a chariot of fire to the presence of his
Father, or stand unmoved amid the cruel mockings of the men he loves.
“Do you feel inclined to say in your hearts: ‘It was easy for Him to
take no thought, for He had the matter in His own hands?’ But observe,
there is nothing very noble in a man’s taking no thought except it be
from faith. If there were no God to take thought for us, we should have
no right to blame any one for taking thought. You may fancy the Lord
had His own power to fall back upon. But that would have been to Him
just the one dreadful thing. That His Father should forget Him!—no
power in Himself could make up for that. He feared nothing for Himself;
and never once employed His divine power to save Him from His human
fate. Let God do that for Him if He saw fit. He did not come into the
world to take care of Himself. That would not be in any way divine. To
fall back on Himself, God failing Him—how could that make it easy for
Him to avoid care? The very idea would be torture. That would be to
declare heaven void, and the world without a God. He would not even
pray to His Father for what He knew He should have if He did ask it. He
would just wait His will.
“But see how the fact of His own power adds tenfold significance to the
fact that He trusted in God. We see that this power would not serve His
need—His need not being to be fed and clothed, but to be one with the
Father, to be fed by His hand, clothed by His care. This was what the
Lord wanted—and we need, alas! too often without wanting it. He never
once, I repeat, used His power for Himself. That was not his business.
He did not care about it. His life was of no value to Him but as His
Father cared for it. God would mind all that was necessary for Him, and
He would mind the work His Father had given Him to do. And, my friends,
this is just the one secret of a blessed life, the one thing every man
comes into this world to learn. With what authority it comes to us from
the lips of Him who knew all about it, and ever did as He said!
“Now you see that He took no thought for the morrow. And, in the name
of the holy child Jesus, I call upon you, this Christmas day, to cast
care to the winds, and trust in God; to receive the message of peace
and good-will to men; to yield yourselves to the Spirit of God, that
you may be taught what He wants you to know; to remember that the one
gift promised without reserve to those who ask it—the one gift worth
having—the gift which makes all other gifts a thousand-fold in value,
is the gift of the Holy Spirit, the spirit of the child Jesus, who will
take of the things of Jesus, and show them to you—make you understand
them, that is—so that you shall see them to be true, and love Him with
all your heart and soul, and your neighbour as yourselves.”
And here, having finished my sermon, I will give my reader some lines
with which he may not be acquainted, from a writer of the Elizabethan
time. I had meant to introduce them into my sermon, but I was so
carried away with my subject that I forgot them. For I always preached
extempore, which phrase I beg my reader will not misinterpret as
meaning ON THE SPUR OF THE MOMENT, OF WITHOUT THE DUE PREPARATION OF
MUCH THOUGHT.
“O man! thou image of thy Maker’s good,
What canst thou fear, when breathed into thy blood
His Spirit is that built thee? What dull sense
Makes thee suspect, in need, that Providence
Who made the morning, and who placed the light
Guide to thy labours; who called up the night,
And bid her fall upon thee like sweet showers,
In hollow murmurs, to lock up thy powers;
Who gave thee knowledge; who so trusted thee
To let thee grow so near Himself, the Tree?
Must He then be distrusted? Shall His frame
Discourse with Him why thus and thus I am?
He made the Angels thine, thy fellows all;
Nay even thy servants, when devotions call.
Oh! canst thou be so stupid then, so dim,
To seek a saving[1] influence, and lose Him?
Can stars protect thee? Or can poverty,
Which is the light to heaven, put out His eye!
He is my star; in Him all truth I find,
All influence, all fate. And when my mind
Is furnished with His fulness, my poor story
Shall outlive all their age, and all their glory.
The hand of danger cannot fall amiss,
When I know what, and in whose power, it is,
Nor want, the curse of man, shall make me groan:
A holy hermit is a mind alone.
* * * *
Affliction, when I know it, is but this,
A deep alloy whereby man tougher is
To bear the hammer; and the deeper still,
We still arise more image of His will;
Sickness, an humorous cloud ’twixt us and light;
And death, at longest, but another night.”
[1] Many, in those days, believed in astrology.
I had more than ordinary attention during my discourse, at one point in
which I saw the down-bent head of Catherine Weir sink yet lower upon
her hands. After a moment, however, she sat more erect than before,
though she never lifted her eyes to meet mine. I need not assure my
reader that she was not present to my mind when I spoke the words that
so far had moved her. Indeed, had I thought of her, I could not have
spoken them.
As I came out of the church, my people crowded about me with
outstretched hands and good wishes. One woman, the aged wife of a more
aged labourer, who could not get near me, called from the outskirts of
the little crowd—
“May the Lord come and see ye every day, sir. And may ye never know the
hunger and cold as me and Tomkins has come through.”
“Amen to the first of your blessing, Mrs Tomkins, and hearty thanks to
you. But I daren’t say AMEN to the other part of it, after what I’ve
been preaching, you know.”
“But there’ll be no harm if I say it for ye, sir?”
“No, for God will give me what is good, even if your kind heart should
pray against it.”
“Ah, sir, ye don’t know what it is to be hungry AND cold.”
“Neither shall you any more, if I can help it.”
“God bless ye, sir. But we’re pretty tidy just in the meantime.”
I walked home, as usual on Sunday mornings, by the road. It was a
lovely day. The sun shone so warm that you could not help thinking of
what he would be able to do before long—draw primroses and buttercups
out of the earth by force of sweet persuasive influences. But in the
shadows lay fine webs and laces of ice, so delicately lovely that one
could not but be glad of the cold that made the water able to please
itself by taking such graceful forms. And I wondered over again for the
hundredth time what could be the principle which, in the wildest, most
lawless, fantastically chaotic, apparently capricious work of nature,
always kept it beautiful. The beauty of holiness must be at the heart
of it somehow, I thought. Because our God is so free from stain, so
loving, so unselfish, so good, so altogether what He wants us to be, so
holy, therefore all His works declare Him in beauty; His fingers can
touch nothing but to mould it into loveliness; and even the play of His
elements is in grace and tenderness of form.
And then I thought how the sun, at the farthest point from us, had
begun to come back towards us; looked upon us with a hopeful smile; was
like the Lord when He visited His people as a little one of themselves,
to grow upon the earth till it should blossom as the rose in the light
of His presence. “Ah! Lord,” I said, in my heart, “draw near unto Thy
people. It is spring-time with Thy world, but yet we have cold winds
and bitter hail, and pinched voices forbidding them that follow Thee
and follow not with us. Draw nearer, Sun of Righteousness, and make the
trees bourgeon, and the flowers blossom, and the voices grow mellow and
glad, so that all shall join in praising Thee, and find thereby that
harmony is better than unison. Let it be summer, O Lord, if it ever may
be summer in this court of the Gentiles. But Thou hast told us that Thy
kingdom cometh within us, and so Thy joy must come within us too. Draw
nigh then, Lord, to those to whom Thou wilt draw nigh; and others
beholding their welfare will seek to share therein too, and seeing
their good works will glorify their Father in heaven.”
So I walked home, hoping in my Saviour, and wondering to think how
pleasant I had found it to be His poor servant to this people. Already
the doubts which had filled my mind on that first evening of gloom,
doubts as to whether I had any right to the priest’s office, had
utterly vanished, slain by the effort to perform the priest’s duty. I
never thought about the matter now.—And how can doubt ever be fully met
but by action? Try your theory; try your hypothesis; or if it is not
worth trying, give it up, pull it down. And I hoped that if ever a
cloud should come over me again, however dark and dismal it might be, I
might be able, notwithstanding, to rejoice that the sun was shining on
others though not on me, and to say with all my heart to my Father in
heaven, “Thy will be done.”
When I reached my own study, I sat down by a blazing fire, and poured
myself out a glass of wine; for I had to go out again to see some of my
poor friends, and wanted some luncheon first.—It is a great thing to
have the greetings of the universe presented in fire and food. Let me,
if I may, be ever welcomed to my room in winter by a glowing hearth, in
summer by a vase of flowers; if I may not, let me then think how nice
they would be, and bury myself in my work. I do not think that the road
to contentment lies in despising what we have not got. Let us
acknowledge all good, all delight that the world holds, and be content
without it. But this we can never be except by possessing the one
thing, without which I do not merely say no man ought to be content,
but no man CAN be content—the Spirit of the Father.
If any young people read my little chronicle, will they not be inclined
to say, “The vicar has already given us in this chapter hardly anything
but a long sermon; and it is too bad of him to go on preaching in his
study after we saw him safe out of the pulpit”? Ah, well! just one
word, and I drop the preaching for a while. My word is this: I may
speak long-windedly, and even inconsiderately as regards my young
readers; what I say may fail utterly to convey what I mean; I may be
actually stupid sometimes, and not have a suspicion of it; but what I
mean is true; and if you do not know it to be true yet, some of you at
least suspect it to be true, and some of you hope it is true; and when
you all see it as I mean it and as you can take it, you will rejoice
with a gladness you know nothing about now. There, I have done for a
little while. I won’t pledge myself for more, I assure you. For to
speak about such things is the greatest delight of my age, as it was of
my early manhood, next to that of loving God and my neighbour. For as
these are THE two commandments of life, so they are in themselves THE
pleasures of life. But there I am at it again. I beg your pardon now,
for I have already inadvertently broken my promise.
I had allowed myself a half-hour before the fire with my glass of wine
and piece of bread, and I soon fell into a dreamy state called REVERIE,
which I fear not a few mistake for THINKING, because it is the nearest
approach they ever make to it. And in this reverie I kept staring about
my book-shelves. I am an old man now, and you do not know my name; and
if you should ever find it out, I shall very soon hide it under some
daisies, I hope, and so escape; and therefore, I am going to be
egotistic in the most unpardonable manner. I am going to tell you one
of my faults, for it continues, I fear, to be one of my faults still,
as it certainly was at the period of which I am now writing. I am very
fond of books. Do not mistake me. I do not mean that I love reading. I
hope I do. That is no fault—a virtue rather than a fault. But, as the
old meaning of the word FOND was FOOLISH, I use that word: I am
foolishly fond of the bodies of books as distinguished from their
souls, or thought-element. I do not say I love their bodies as DIVIDED
from their souls; I do not say I should let a book stand upon my
shelves for which I felt no respect, except indeed it happened to be
useful to me in some inferior way. But I delight in seeing books about
me, books even of which there seems to be no prospect that I shall have
time to read a single chapter before I lay this old head down for the
last time. Nay, more: I confess that if they are nicely bound, so as to
glow and shine in such a fire-light as that by which I was then
sitting, I like them ever so much the better. Nay, more yet—and this
comes very near to showing myself worse than I thought I was when I
began to tell you my fault: there are books upon my shelves which
certainly at least would not occupy the place of honour they do occupy,
had not some previous owner dressed them far beyond their worth, making
modern apples of Sodom of them. Yet there I let them stay, because they
are pleasant to the eye, although certainly not things to be desired to
make one wise. I could say a great deal more about the matter, pro and
con, but it would be worse than a sermon, I fear. For I suspect that by
the time books, which ought to be loved for the truth that is in them,
of one sort or another, come to be loved as articles of furniture, the
mind has gone through a process more than analogous to that which the
miser’s mind goes through—namely, that of passing from the respect of
money because of what it can do, to the love of money because it is
money. I have not yet reached the furniture stage, and I do not think I
ever shall. I would rather burn them all. Meantime, I think one
safeguard is to encourage one’s friends to borrow one’s books—not to
offer individual books, which is much the same as OFFERING advice. That
will probably take some of the shine off them, and put a few
thumb-marks in them, which both are very wholesome towards the
arresting of the furniture declension. For my part, thumb-marks I find
very obnoxious—far more so than the spoiling of the binding.—I know
that some of my readers, who have had sad experience of the sort, will
be saying in themselves, “He might have mentioned a surer antidote
resulting from this measure, than either rubbed Russia or dirty
GLOVE-marks even—that of utter disappearance and irreparable loss.” But
no; that has seldom happened to me—because I trust my pocketbook, and
never my memory, with the names of those to whom the individual books
are committed.—There, then, is a little bit of practical advice in both
directions for young book-lovers.
Again I am reminded that I am getting old. What digressions!
Gazing about on my treasures, the thought suddenly struck me that I had
never done as I had promised Judy; had never found out what her aunt’s
name meant in Anglo-Saxon. I would do so now. I got down my dictionary,
and soon discovered that Ethelwyn meant Home-joy, or Inheritance.
“A lovely meaning,” I said to myself.
And then I went off into another reverie, with the composition of which
I shall not trouble my reader; and with the mention of which I had,
perhaps, no right to occupy the fragment of his time spent in reading
it, seeing I did not intend to tell him how it was made up. I will tell
him something else instead.
Several families had asked me to take my Christmas dinner with them;
but, not liking to be thus limited, I had answered each that I would
not, if they would excuse me, but would look in some time or other in
the course of the evening.
When my half-hour was out, I got up and filled my pockets with little
presents for my poor people, and set out to find them in their own
homes.
I was variously received, but unvaryingly with kindness; and my little
presents were accepted, at least in most instances, with a gratitude
which made me ashamed of them and of myself too for a few moments. Mrs.
Tomkins looked as if she had never seen so much tea together before,
though there was only a couple of pounds of it; and her husband
received a pair of warm trousers none the less cordially that they were
not quite new, the fact being that I found I did not myself need such
warm clothing this winter as I had needed the last. I did not dare to
offer Catherine Weir anything, but I gave her little boy a box of
water-colours—in remembrance of the first time I saw him, though I said
nothing about that. His mother did not thank me. She told little Gerard
to do so, however, and that was something. And, indeed, the boy’s
sweetness would have been enough for both.
Gerard—an unusual name in England; specially not to be looked for in
the class to which she belonged.
When I reached Old Rogers’s cottage, whither I carried a few yards of
ribbon, bought by myself, I assure my lady friends, with the special
object that the colour should be bright enough for her taste, and pure
enough of its kind for mine, as an offering to the good dame, and a
small hymn-book, in which were some hymns of my own making, for the
good man—
But do forgive me, friends, for actually describing my paltry presents.
I can dare to assure you it comes from a talking old man’s love of
detail, and from no admiration of such small givings as those. You see
I trust you, and I want to stand well with you. I never could be
indifferent to what people thought of me; though I have had to fight
hard to act as freely as if I were indifferent, especially when upon
occasion I found myself approved of. It is more difficult to walk
straight then, than when men are all against you.—As I have already
broken a sentence, which will not be past setting for a while yet, I
may as well go on to say here, lest any one should remark that a
clergyman ought not to show off his virtues, nor yet teach his people
bad habits by making them look out for presents—that my income not only
seemed to me disproportioned to the amount of labour necessary in the
parish, but certainly was larger than I required to spend upon myself;
and the miserly passion for books I contrived to keep a good deal in
check; for I had no fancy for gliding devil-wards for the sake of a few
books after all. So there was no great virtue—was there?—in easing my
heart by giving a few of the good things people give their children to
my poor friends, whose kind reception of them gave me as much pleasure
as the gifts gave them. They valued the kindness in the gift, and to
look out for kindness will not make people greedy.
When I reached the cottage, I found not merely Jane there with her
father and mother, which was natural on Christmas Day, seeing there
seemed to be no company at the Hall, but my little Judy as well,
sitting in the old woman’s arm-chair, (not that she used it much, but
it was called hers,) and looking as much at home as—as she did in the
pond.
“Why, Judy!” I exclaimed, “you here?”
“Yes. Why not, Mr Walton?” she returned, holding out her hand without
rising, for the chair was such a large one, and she was set so far back
in it that the easier way was not to rise, which, seeing she was not
greatly overburdened with reverence, was not, I presume, a cause of
much annoyance to the little damsel.
“I know no reason why I shouldn’t see a Sandwich Islander here. Yet I
might express surprise if I did find one, might I not?”
Judy pretended to pout, and muttered something about comparing her to a
cannibal. But Jane took up the explanation.
“Mistress had to go off to London with her mother to-day, sir, quite
unexpected, on some banking business, I fancy, from what I—I beg your
pardon, sir. They’re gone anyhow, whatever the reason may be; and so I
came to see my father and mother, and Miss Judy would come with me.”
“She’s very welcome,” said Mrs Rogers.
“How could I stay up there with nobody but Jacob, and that old wolf
Sarah? I wouldn’t be left alone with her for the world. She’d have me
in the Bishop’s Pool before you came back, Janey dear.”
“That wouldn’t matter much to you, would it, Judy?” I said.
“She’s a white wolf, that old Sarah, I know?” was all her answer.
“But what will the old lady say when she finds you brought the young
lady here?” asked Mrs Rogers.
“I didn’t bring her, mother. She would come.”
“Besides, she’ll never know it,” said Judy.
I did not see that it was my part to read Judy a lecture here, though
perhaps I might have done so if I had had more influence over her than
I had. I wanted to gain some influence over her, and knew that the way
to render my desire impossible of fulfilment would be, to find fault
with what in her was a very small affair, whatever it might be in one
who had been properly brought up. Besides, a clergyman is not a moral
policeman. So I took no notice of the impropriety.
“Had they actually to go away on the morning of Christmas Day?” I said.
“They went anyhow, whether they had to do it or not, sir,” answered
Jane.
“Aunt Ethelwyn didn’t want to go till to-morrow,” said Judy. “She said
something about coming to church this morning. But grannie said they
must go at once. It was very cross of old grannie. Think what a
Christmas Day to me without auntie, and with Sarah! But I don’t mean to
go home till it’s quite dark. I mean to stop here with dear Old
Rogers—that I do.” The latch was gently lifted, and in came young
Brownrigg. So I thought it was time to leave my best Christmas wishes
and take myself away. Old Rogers came with me to the mill-stream as
usual.
“It ’mazes me, sir,” he said, “a gentleman o’ your age and bringin’ up
to know all that you tould us this mornin’. It ’ud be no wonder now for
a man like me, come to be the shock o’ corn fully ripe—leastways yallow
and white enough outside if there bean’t much more than milk inside it
yet,—it ’ud be no mystery for a man like me who’d been brought up hard,
and tossed about well-nigh all the world over—why, there’s scarce a
wave on the Atlantic but knows Old Rogers!”
He made the parenthesis with a laugh, and began anew.
“It ’ud be a shame of a man like me not to know all as you said this
mornin’, sir—leastways I don’t mean able to say it right off as you do,
sir; but not to know it, after the Almighty had been at such pains to
beat it into my hard head just to trust in Him and fear nothing and
nobody—captain, bosun, devil, sunk rock, or breakers ahead; but just to
mind Him and stand by halliard, brace, or wheel, or hang on by the
leeward earing for that matter. For, you see, what does it signify
whether I go to the bottom or not, so long as I didn’t skulk? or
rather,” and here the old man took off his hat and looked up, “so long
as the Great Captain has His way, and things is done to His mind? But
how ever a man like you, goin’ to the college, and readin’ books, and
warm o’ nights, and never, by your own confession this blessed mornin’,
sir, knowin’ what it was to be downright hungry, how ever you come to
know all those things, is just past my comprehension, except by a
double portion o’ the Spirit, sir. And that’s the way I account for it,
sir.”
Although I knew enough about a ship to understand the old man, I am not
sure that I have properly represented his sea-phrase. But that is of
small consequence, so long as I give his meaning. And a meaning can
occasionally be even better CONVEYED by less accurate words.
“I will try to tell you how I come to know about these things as I do,”
I returned. “How my knowledge may stand the test of further and severer
trials remains to be seen. But if I should fail any time, old friend,
and neither trust in God nor do my duty, what I have said to you
remains true all the same.”
“That it do, sir, whoever may come short.”
“And more than that: failure does not necessarily prove any one to be a
hypocrite of no faith. He may be still a man of little faith.”
“Surely, surely, sir. I remember once that my faith broke down—just for
one moment, sir. And then the Lord gave me my way lest I should
blaspheme Him in thy wicked heart.”
“How was that, Rogers?”
“A scream came from the quarter-deck, and then the cry: ‘Child
overboard!’ There was but one child, the captain’s, aboard. I was
sitting just aft the foremast, herring-boning a split in a spare jib. I
sprang to the bulwark, and there, sure enough, was the child, going
fast astarn, but pretty high in the water. How it happened I can’t
think to this day, sir, but I suppose my needle, in the hurry, had got
into my jacket, so as to skewer it to my jersey, for we were far south
of the line at the time, sir, and it was cold. However that may be, as
soon as I was overboard, which you may be sure didn’t want the time I
take tellin’ of it, I found that I ought to ha’ pulled my jacket off
afore I gave the bulwark the last kick. So I rose on the water, and
began to pull it over my head—for it was wide, and that was the easiest
way, I thought, in the water. But when I had got it right over my head,
there it stuck. And there was I, blind as a Dutchman in a fog, and in
as strait a jacket as ever poor wretch in Bedlam, for I could only just
wag my flippers. Mr Walton, I believe I swore—the Lord forgive me!—but
it was trying. And what was far worse, for one moment I disbelieved in
Him; and I do say that’s worse than swearing—in a hurry I mean. And
that moment something went, the jacket was off, and there was I feelin’
as if every stroke I took was as wide as the mainyard. I had no time to
repent, only to thank God. And wasn’t it more than I deserved, sir? Ah!
He can rebuke a man for unbelief by giving him the desire of his heart.
And that’s a better rebuke than tying him up to the gratings.”
“And did you save the child?”
“Oh yes, sir.”
“And wasn’t the captain pleased?”
“I believe he was, sir. He gave me a glass o’ grog, sir. But you was a
sayin’ of something, sir, when I interrupted of you.”
“I am very glad you did interrupt me.”
“I’m not though, sir. I Ve lost summat I’ll never hear more.”
“No, you shan’t lose it. I was going to tell you how I think I came to
understand a little about the things I was talking of to-day.”
“That’s it, sir; that’s it. Well, sir, if you please?”
“You’ve heard of Sir Philip Sidney, haven’t you, Old Rogers?”
“He was a great joker, wasn’t he, sir?”
“No, no; you’re thinking of Sydney Smith, Rogers.”
“It may be, sir. I am an ignorant man.”
“You are no more ignorant than you ought to be.—But it is time you
should know him, for he was just one of your sort. I will come down
some evening and tell you about him.”
I may as well mention here that this led to week-evening lectures in
the barn, which, with the help of Weir the carpenter, was changed into
a comfortable room, with fixed seats all round it, and plenty of
cane-chairs besides—for I always disliked forms in the middle of a
room. The object of these lectures was to make the people acquainted
with the true heroes of their own country—men great in themselves. And
the kind of choice I made may be seen by those who know about both,
from the fact that, while my first two lectures were on Philip Sidney,
I did not give one whole lecture even to Walter Raleigh, grand fellow
as he was. I wanted chiefly to set forth the men that could rule
themselves, first of all, after a noble fashion. But I have not
finished these lectures yet, for I never wished to confine them to the
English heroes; I am going on still, old man as I am—not however
without retracing passed ground sometimes, for a new generation has
come up since I came here, and there is a new one behind coming up now
which I may be honoured to present in its turn to some of this grand
company—this cloud of witnesses to the truth in our own and other
lands, some of whom subdued kingdoms, and others were tortured to
death, for the same cause and with the same result.
“Meantime,” I went on, “I only want to tell you one little thing he
says in a letter to a younger brother whom he wanted to turn out as
fine a fellow as possible. It is about horses, or rather, riding—for
Sir Philip was the best horseman in Europe in his day, as, indeed, all
things taken together, he seems to have really been the most
accomplished man generally of his time in the world. Writing to this
brother he says—”
I could not repeat the words exactly to Old Rogers, but I think it
better to copy them exactly, in writing this account of our talk:
“At horsemanship, when you exercise it, read Crison Claudio, and a book
that is called La Gloria del Cavallo, withal that you may join the
thorough contemplation of it with the exercise; and so shall you profit
more in a month than others in a year.”
“I think I see what you mean, sir. I had got to learn it all without
book, as it were, though you know I had my old Bible, that my mother
gave me, and without that I should not have learned it at all.”
“I only mean it comparatively, you know. You have had more of the
practice, and I more of the theory. But if we had not both had both, we
should neither of us have known anything about the matter. I never was
content without trying at least to understand things; and if they are
practical things, and you try to practise them at the same time as far
as you do understand them, there is no end to the way in which the one
lights up the other. I suppose that is how, without your experience, I
have more to say about such things than you could expect. You know
besides that a small matter in which a principle is involved will
reveal the principle, if attended to, just as well as a great one
containing the same principle. The only difference, and that a most
important one, is that, though I’ve got my clay and my straw together,
and they stick pretty well as yet, my brick, after all, is not half so
well baked as yours, old friend, and it may crumble away yet, though I
hope not.”
“I pray God to make both our bricks into stones of the New Jerusalem,
sir. I think I understand you quite well. To know about a thing is of
no use, except you do it. Besides, as I found out when I went to sea,
you never can know a thing till you do do it, though I thought I had a
tidy fancy about some things beforehand. It’s better not to be quite
sure that all your seams are caulked, and so to keep a look-out on the
bilge-pump; isn’t it, sir?”
During the most of this conversation, we were standing by the
mill-water, half frozen over. The ice from both sides came towards the
middle, leaving an empty space between, along which the dark water
showed itself, hurrying away as if in fear of its life from the white
death of the frost. The wheel stood motionless, and the drip from the
thatch of the mill over it in the sun, had frozen in the shadow into
icicles, which hung in long spikes from the spokes and the floats,
making the wheel—soft green and mossy when it revolved in the gentle
sun-mingled summer-water—look like its own gray skeleton now. The sun
was getting low, and I should want all my time to see my other friends
before dinner, for I would not willingly offend Mrs Pearson on
Christmas Day by being late, especially as I guessed she was using
extraordinary skill to prepare me a more than comfortable meal.
“I must go, Old Rogers,” I said; “but I will leave you something to
think about till we meet again. Find out why our Lord was so much
displeased with the disciples, whom He knew to be ignorant men, for not
knowing what He meant when He warned them against the leaven of the
Pharisees. I want to know what you think about it. You’ll find the
story told both in the sixteenth chapter of St Matthew and the eighth
of St Mark.”
“Well, sir, I’ll try; that is, if you will tell me what you think about
it afterwards, so as to put me right, if I’m wrong.”
“Of course I will, if I can find out an explanation to satisfy me. But
it is not at all clear to me now. In fact, I do not see the connecting
links of our Lord’s logic in the rebuke He gives them.”
“How am I to find out then, sir—knowing nothing of logic at all?” said
the old man, his rough worn face summered over with his child-like
smile.
“There are many things which a little learning, while it cannot really
hide them, may make you less ready to see all at once,” I answered,
shaking hands with Old Rogers, and then springing across the brook with
my carpet-bag in my hand.
By the time I had got through the rest of my calls, the fogs were
rising from the streams and the meadows to close in upon my first
Christmas Day in my own parish. How much happier I was than when I came
such a few months before! The only pang I felt that day was as I passed
the monsters on the gate leading to Oldcastle Hall. Should I be
honoured to help only the poor of the flock? Was I to do nothing for
the rich, for whom it is, and has been, and doubtless will be so hard
to enter into the kingdom of heaven? And it seemed to me at the moment
that the world must be made for the poor: they had so much more done
for them to enable them to inherit it than the rich had.—To these
people at the Hall, I did not seem acceptable. I might in time do
something with Judy, but the old lady was still so dreadfully repulsive
to me that it troubled my conscience to feel how I disliked her. Mr
Stoddart seemed nothing more than a dilettante in religion, as well as
in the arts and sciences—music always excepted; while for Miss
Oldcastle, I simply did not understand her yet. And she was so
beautiful! I thought her more, beautiful every time I saw her. But I
never appeared to make the least progress towards any real acquaintance
with her thoughts and feelings.—It seemed to me, I say, for a moment,
coming from the houses of the warm-hearted poor, as if the rich had not
quite fair play, as it were—as if they were sent into the world chiefly
for the sake of the cultivation of the virtues of the poor, and without
much chance for the cultivation of their own. I knew better than this
you know, my reader; but the thought came, as thoughts will come
sometimes. It vanished the moment I sought to lay hands upon it, as if
it knew quite well it had no business there. But certainly I did
believe that it was more like the truth to say the world was made for
the poor than to say that it was made for the rich. And therefore I
longed the more to do something for these whom I considered the rich of
my flock; for it was dreadful to think of their being poor inside
instead of outside.
Perhaps my reader will say, and say with justice, that I ought to have
been as anxious about poor Farmer Brownrigg as about the beautiful
lady. But the farmer had given me good reason to hope some progress in
him after the way he had given in about Jane Rogers. Positively I had
caught his eye during the sermon that very day. And, besides—but I will
not be a hypocrite; and seeing I did not certainly take the same
interest in Mr Brownrigg, I will at least be honest and confess it. As
far as regards the discharge of my duties, I trust I should have
behaved impartially had the necessity for any choice arisen. But my
feelings were not quite under my own control. And we are nowhere, told
to love everybody alike, only to love every one who comes within our
reach as ourselves.
I wonder whether my old friend Dr Duncan was right. He had served on
shore in Egypt under General Abercrombie, and had of course, after the
fighting was over on each of the several occasions—the French being
always repulsed—exercised his office amongst the wounded left on the
field of battle.—“I do not know,” he said, “whether I did right or not;
but I always took the man I came to first—French or English.”—I only
know that my heart did not wait for the opinion of my head on the
matter. I loved the old man the more that he did as he did. But as a
question of casuistry, I am doubtful about its answer.
This digression is, I fear, unpardonable.
I made Mrs Pearson sit down with me to dinner, for Christmas Day was
not one to dine alone upon. And I have ever since had my servants to
dine with me on Christmas Day.
Then I went out again, and made another round of visits, coming in for
a glass of wine at one table, an orange at another, and a hot chestnut
at a third. Those whom I could not see that day, I saw on the following
days between it and the new year. And so ended my Christmas holiday
with my people.
But there is one little incident which I ought to relate before I close
this chapter, and which I am ashamed of having so nearly forgotten.
When we had finished our dinner, and I was sitting alone drinking a
class of claret before going out again, Mrs Pearson came in and told me
that little Gerard Weir wanted to see me. I asked her to show him in;
and the little fellow entered, looking very shy, and clinging first to
the door and then to the wall.
“Come, my dear boy,” I said, “and sit down by me.”
He came directly and stood before me.
“Would you like a little wine and water?” I said; for unhappily there
was no dessert, Mrs Pearson knowing that I never eat such things.
“No, thank you, sir; I never tasted wine.”
“I did not press him to take it.
“Please, sir,” he went on after a pause, putting his nand in his
pocket, “mother gave me some goodies, and I kept them till I saw you
come back, and here they are, sir.”
Does any reader doubt what I did or said upon this?
I said, “Thank you, my darling,” and I ate them up every one of them,
that he might see me eat them before he left the house. And the dear
child went off radiant.
If anybody cannot understand why I did so, I beg him to consider the
matter. If then he cannot come to a conclusion concerning it, I doubt
if any explanation of mine would greatly subserve his enlightenment.
Meantime, I am forcibly restraining myself from yielding to the
temptation to set forth my reasons, which would result in a half-hour’s
sermon on the Jewish dispensation, including the burnt offering, and
the wave and heave offerings, with an application to the ignorant
nurses and mothers of English babies, who do the best they can to make
original sin an actual fact by training children down in the way they
should not go.