The Reverend Bernard Oliphant, rector of Waterland, was a man of good
family and moderate fortune. At the time when this tale opens he had
held the living eighteen years. He had three sons and one daughter.
The eldest son, Hubert, was just three-and-twenty, and, having finished
his course at Oxford with credit, was spending a year or two at home
previously to joining an uncle in South Australia, Abraham Oliphant, his
father's brother, who was living in great prosperity as a merchant at
Adelaide. Hubert had not felt himself called on to enter the ministry,
though his parents would have greatly rejoiced had he seen his way clear
to engage in that sacred calling. But the young man abhorred the
thought of undertaking such an office unless he could feel decidedly
that the highest and holiest motives were guiding him to it, and neither
father nor mother dared urge their son to take on himself, from any
desire to please them, so awful a responsibility. Yet none the less for
this did Hubert love his Saviour, nor did he wish to decline his
service, or shrink from bearing that cross which is laid on all who make
a bold and manly profession of faith in Christ Jesus. But he felt that
there were some who might serve their heavenly Master better as laymen
than as ministers of the gospel, and he believed himself to be such a
one. His two younger brothers, not feeling the same difficulties, were
both preparing for the ministry. Hubert had a passionate desire to
travel; his parents saw this, and wisely judged that it would be better
to guide his passion than to combat it; so, when his uncle proposed to
Hubert to join him in Australia, they gave their full consent. They
knew that a strong expression of dissuasion on their part would have led
him to abandon the scheme at once; but they would not let any such
expression escape them, because they felt that they were bound to
consult _his_ tastes and wishes, and not merely their own. They knew
that his faith was on the Rock of Ages; they could trust his life and
fortunes to their God. For Bernard Oliphant and his wife had but one
great object set before them, and that was to work for God. The rector
was warm and impulsive, the fire would flash out upon the surface, yet
was it under the control of grace; it blazed, it warmed, but never
scorched, unless when it crossed the path of high-handed and determined
sin. _She_ was all calmness and quiet decision; yet in _her_ character
there ran a fire beneath the surface, sending up a glow into every
loving word and deed. She had never been beautiful, yet always
beautified by the radiance of true holiness. In her, seriousness had no
gloom, because it was the seriousness of a holy love. She made even
worldly people happy to be with her, because they felt the reality and
singleness of her religion--it was woven up with every hour's work, with
every duty, with every joy. She lived for heaven not by neglecting
earth, but by making earth the road to heaven. Her religion was pre-
eminently practical, while it was deeply spiritual; in fact, it was the
religion of sanctified common sense. The true grace of her character
gained the admiration which she never sought. As some simple unadorned
column rising in the midst of richly-carved sculptures arrests attention
by its mere dignity of height and grace of perfect proportion, so in the
unassuming wife of Bernard Oliphant there was a loftiness and symmetry
of character which made people feel that in her was the true beauty of
holiness.
And the children trod in the steps of their parents. Mary Oliphant was
the youngest; she was now just eighteen--slight in make, and graceful in
every movement. Her perfect absence of self-consciousness gave a
peculiar charm to all that she said and did; she never aimed at effect,
and therefore always produced it. You could not look into her face
without feeling that to her indifference and half-heartedness were
impossible things; and the abiding peace which a true faith in Christ
alone can give, was on those lovely features in their stillness. Such
was the family of the Reverend Bernard Oliphant.
Waterland was a rural parish in one of the midland counties. The
rectory stood near one end of the village, which was like a great many
other country villages. There were farm-houses, with their stack-yards
and clusters of out-buildings, with their yew-trees and apple-orchards.
Cottages, with low bulging white-washed walls and thatched roofs, were
interspersed among others of a more spruce and modern build, with slated
roofs, and neat little gardens. Then there were two or three shops
which sold all things likely to be wanted in everyday village life,
eatables and wearables nestling together in strange companionship; and,
besides these, were houses which would not have been known to be shops,
but for a faded array of peppermints and gingerbread, which shone, or
rather twinkled, before the eyes of village children through panes of
greenish glass. Of course there was a forge and a wheel-wright's shop;
and, equally of course, a public-house--there had been two, there was
now but one, which could readily be known by a huge swinging sign-board,
on which was the decaying likeness of a "Dun Cow," supposed to be
feeding in a green meadow; but the verdure had long since melted away,
and all except the animal herself was a chaos of muddy tints. The "Dun
Cow," (a sad misnomer for a place where milk was the last beverage the
visitors would ever think of calling for), was to many the centre both
of attraction and detraction, for here quarrels were hatched and
characters picked to pieces. The landlord had long since been dead, of
the usual publican's malady--drink fever. The landlady carried on the
business which had carried her husband off, and seemed to thrive upon
it, for there was never lack of custom at the "Dun Cow." Just a
stone's-throw from this public-house, on the crest of the hill along
which wound the village street, was the church, a simple structure, with
a substantial square tower and wide porch. It had been restored with
considerable care and taste by the present rector, the internal
appearance being sufficiently in accordance with the proprieties of
ecclesiastical architecture to satisfy all but the over-fastidious, and
yet not so ornamental as to lead the mind to dwell rather on the earthly
and sensuous than on the heavenly and spiritual. Behind the church was
the rectory, a quaint old building, with pointed gables, deep bay-
windows, and black beams of oak exposed to view. It had been added to,
here and there, as modern wants and improvements had made expansion
necessary. The garden was lovely, for every one at the rectory loved
flowers: they loved them for their own intrinsic beauty; they loved them
as God's books, full of lessons of his skill and tender care; they loved
them as resting-places for the eye when wearied with sights of disorder
and sin; they loved them as ministering comfort to the sick, the aged,
and the sorrowful to whom they carried them.
Such was the village of Waterland. The parish extended two miles north
and south of the church, a few farms and labourers' cottages at wide
intervals containing nearly all the rest of the population that was not
resident in the village.
It has been said that there were once two public-houses in Waterland,
but that now there was but one. This was not owing to any want of
success in the case of the one which had become extinct; on the
contrary, the "Oldfield Arms" had been the more flourishing
establishment of the two, and was situated in the centre of the village.
Its sign, however, had long since disappeared; and it was now in the
hands of the rector, its principal apartment having been transformed
into a reading-room, and place for holding meetings. And how was this
brought about? Simply thus. When Bernard Oliphant first came to
Waterland, he found the "Oldfield Arms" doing a most excellent business;
so far as _that_ can be an excellent business which builds the
prosperity of one upon the ruin of hundreds. People grumbled at the
lowness of wages; wives were unable to procure money from their husbands
for decent dress; children were half-starved and two-thirds naked;
disease and dirt found a home almost everywhere; boys and girls grew up
in ignorance, for their parents could not afford to send them to school;
the men had no tidy clothes in which to appear at church. Yet, somehow
or other, the "Oldfield Arms" was never short of customers; and
customers, too, who paid, and paid well, sooner or later, for what they
consumed. So the rector went among the people, and told them plainly of
the sin of drunkenness, and pointed out the misery it brought, as their
own eyes could see. They confessed the truth--such as he could manage
to get hold of--and drank on as before. He was getting heart-sick and
miserable. Preach as he might--and he did preach the truth with all
faithfulness and love--the notices of ale, porter, and spirits, set up
in flaming colours in the windows and on the walls of the "Oldfield
Arms," preached far more persuasively in the cause of intemperance.
One day he came upon a knot of men standing just at the entrance of the
yard that led to the tap-room. They were none of them exactly drunk;
and certainly none were exactly sober. There were some among them whom
he never saw at church, and never found at home. He was grieved to see
these men in high discussion and dispute, when they ought to have been
busily engaged in some lawful calling. He stopped, and taking one of
them aside whose home was specially miserable, he said,--
"James, I'm grieved to see you here, when I know how sadly your poor
wife and children are in need of food and clothing."
The man looked half angry, half ashamed, but hung down his head, and
made no reply. The rest were moving off.
"Nay, my friends," said the rector, kindly, "don't go. I just want a
word with you all. I want to say a few words of love and warning to
you, as your clergyman. God has sent me here to teach and guide you;
and oh, do listen to me now."