THE REVEREND EMANUEL CREAMWELL STOPS THE WAY.
The parish of Stapleton, of which the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell was
pastor, was situated a very few miles from London, and contained,
it is to be presumed (and not to do violence to the science of
divine things), an equal number of human bodies and souls. The
number--reckoning the two as one--was not large, and the tithes were
small, a circumstance which it is waste of time to mention, for what
minister loves his emoluments better than his church? And yet in
common minds a mean suspicion is sometimes engendered as to the
comparative value of one and the other in the eyes of the clergy.
Without indorsing this suspicion--rejecting it, indeed, as the vilest
of calumnies--it is curious to observe that, when a minister has a
"call," the summons from heaven generally holds out the promise of an
increased earthly income. It is a proof of the base depths of which
the mind is capable, and the fact of the divine summons being very
generally joyfully responded to, should engender a tittle of
suspicion. But unfortunately there are in the world men to whose moral
perception purity of motive is a human impossibility; to such men the
flesh-pots of Egypt contain the most powerful argument it is possible
to conceive.
Stapleton was a tumble-down little parish, and bore unmistakable signs
of being badly off. Everything in it and about it had been crumbling
away for many generations. Magnates there were in it of course--most
of them elderly gentlemen, with puffy faces and big stomachs, at whom
the poor children of the parish, in dirty pinafores, their large eyes
staring upwards, and their hands behind them, would gaze in worship.
The predecessors of these great men were crumbling away in the
picturesque old churchyard, making the soil rich for buttercups and
daisies, with which the dirty children played and pelted one another.
There were many picturesque bits of scenery about Stapleton;
notwithstanding its poverty, it was not an undesirable living for a
clergyman, and the patching-up and medicining of souls--which,
according to doctrinal teaching, are always lame and diseased, coming
into the world so, and so remaining--went on pretty much in the same
way and quite as unsuccessfully as in most other parishes. Doctors for
bodies and doctors for souls are so abundant, and increase and
multiply so amazingly, that the human machine on two legs which walks
the earth, and which Leigh Hunt's fish so very properly laughed at,
may be said to be in a very bad state indeed.
Such, at all events, the preaching of the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell
went to prove. According to his pulpit-doctrine, corruption was the
normal state of man--and woman also, of course. This condition was bad
enough in all conscience, but it was a miserable thing to be compelled
to believe that it could never be bettered. The conviction was forced
upon them by their pastor; his utterings were destructive of hope. He
had preached to them a library of sermons, and middle-aged sinners of
his congregation had grown old during his term. Inevitable time was
pushing them nearer and nearer to the grave; but there was no more
hope for them now than there had been long ago, when there were many
years of life before them. Sinners then, sinners now. How was
salvation to be obtained? They went to church, and listened to their
pastor's words, but found no consolation in them. The refrain of his
sermon was the same now as it had been the first day on which he
ascended the pulpit, and preached to them not salvation but the other
thing. As he and the members of his flock grew older, he grew more
stern, and they more disconsolate. The time for them for reaching
grace was getting very short, and still corruption held them fast,
would not let them go indeed. When the Sabbath service was ended, they
wended their way home, depressed and in the saddest of moods. For
their pastor hurt and bruised the miserable sinners without mercy. He
said, "This shall ye do out of fear of the Lord;" and no suggestion of
love brought light to the benighted ones. He told them to cleanse
their souls; he had told them to do this any time for twenty years,
but he did not supply them with the divine soap and water necessary
for the operation. He spoke in parables, and left them to draw the
moral. He presented problems to them, hard nuts of divinity which they
found it impossible to crack. He used the Bible like a catapult, and
from this engine he, week after week, hurled terrible inflictions at
their hands, until some impressionable souls grew to believe that God
was a very dreadful creature, and that it would have been better for
them if they had never been introduced into this world of sorrow,
which was to be followed by another full of penalties.
Not one of his parishioners loved him. But they thought he was a good
man, notwithstanding--so good, indeed, that goodness became
disagreeable in their eyes, and some of them deemed that it must be
exceedingly pleasant to be naughty. The fact of this man having the
charge of many precious souls (to use the stereotyped vernacular), and
preaching the highest and holiest lessons for years to persons who did
not, could not love him, was one of the strangest of anomalies. In his
exhortations he seemed to declare, "I am sent to bruise, not to heal;
here is a stone for you; here are vinegar and salt for your wounds;
here are shadows and awful images to appal you, and to make your
death-bed agonising; here are the waters of grace--taste them, and
find them bitter!" After such exhortation, how could they love
God?--how could they love His minister? Prisoners do not love their
gaolers. And this man, having the charge of souls, held them in grim
custody with the hard spirit of a gaoler.
They writhed and suffered in his grasp, but they had no word to say
against him. He was an eminently respectable man; had never been seen
to smile; and they touched their hats to him, and paid him every
deference. But it was remarkable that no person had ever been known to
utter a word in praise of him. Women--especially women in humble
life--did not like him; and he produced a curious effect upon
children. Sometimes they cried when they saw him, and sometimes they
stood aside as he passed, with a kind of fear on them--petrified as it
were. The effect was something similar to that which Medusa's head
might have produced upon them.
His home was like his preaching. There was no light in it. It was dark
and sombre. All the furniture was of dark wood; the paper on the walls
of every room was dark. In the whole house, from roof to basement,
there was nothing graceful in form or colour. The ornaments on the
mantelshelf were ugly figures in dark wood and stone. Flowers were
never seen in the house. The gas was never lighted until night had
completely fallen. Nothing more oppressive can be conceived than the
effect which this gloomy house and the gloomy fashion in which it was
conducted would produce after a time upon a sensitive spirit. In the
eyes of many, all this added to his respectability as a man of God.
What wanted he with pomps and vanities? It was his mission to preach
against them. Should he, then, indulge in them?
How many are there who exhibit an outward pride in living thus--who
raise their eyes and hands against harmless enjoyments--whose words
would rob life of its sunshine and flowers and tender feeling, and who
grudge to the hungry every sweet morsel that kind impulse and kinder
nature hold out to them with pitying hand! If the inner and private
lives of these moralists were laid bare, what kind of lesson would
they teach?
It must not be supposed that this reflection in any way touches the
Reverend Emanuel Creamwell. There was not a visible stain upon him;
the breath of slander had never been raised against him; he was above
reproach. He may have been a little stiff and uncompromising, a little
too severe in his notions of this and that, but his morality and
goodness were not to be questioned. As for his judgment there were at
least two persons in the parish who relied implicitly upon it.
These two men were Justices of the Peace. Their names, unlike
themselves, are of no consequence. It would be hard to give any other
reason for their being appointed Justices of the Peace than that one
was a retired colonel and the other a retired sugar-baker; and
doubtless it would be a distinct libel to declare that they knew as
much of law as the man in the moon. Undoubtedly they must have been
worthy; undoubtedly they must have been just. What is known as
"Justices' Justice" has been a theme for satire and rebuke as long as
we can remember, and it is a blessing to live in a land where it
would not be tolerated that one in power having committed a gross
injustice--having, perhaps, helped to make infamous what might have
been made beneficial--should be permitted to retain an authority which
is only used to be abused. So perfect are our institutions, that it
would be next to impossible that one who had proved himself by his
acts to be unworthy of the distinction should be allowed to sit in
judgment on his fellows year after year, to dispense unequal and
merciless justice. It would be monstrous otherwise.
The Reverend Emanuel Creamwell was to these two Justices as a staff to
lean upon--a staff that would not yield or bend, however great the
pressure. He frequently sat upon the Bench with one or the other, or
with both, and prompted and advised them, and indeed directed their
verdicts; so that it might almost be said that they spoke out of his
mouth. Dressed in his little brief authority, the retired colonel or
the retired sugar-baker would sit in state pompously, with his
reverend counsellor by his side, and strike terror to the heart of the
hardened criminal. As thus:
A boy of tender years, in the employ of a baker, was charged with
stealing a pound of flour, valued at twopence, from his master. The
facts of the case were somewhat singular. The master discovered the
theft, and in hot temper sent for a policeman, who straightway locked
up the ferocious thief. Then the master repented of his hasty action,
made inquiries, and from what he learned, deemed that the boy was more
deserving of pity than of blame. When he made his appearance in court,
he stated that he was anxious not to prosecute, and he begged that the
boy might be discharged with a caution.
"But he stole the flour?" asked the Justice, prompted by his reverend
counsellor.
"It wasn't worth twopence," was the evasive reply; "and I have learned
since----"
"We don't want to know what he learned since," remarked the Reverend
Mr. Creamwell to the Justice. "Did the boy steal the flour, or did he
not?"
"Yes," echoed the parrot Justice; "we don't want to know what you have
learned since. Did the boy steal the flour, or did he not?"
"He did," replied the tradesman; "but----"
"What have 'buts' to do with facts?" exclaimed the wise administrator.
"The boy is a thief, and he must--eh? yes, certainly; quite proper--he
must go to prison for three months, with hard labour."
So the criminal (whose first offence it was, and who had never been
known to steal before) was sent to prison, where, surrounded by gentle
associates and humanising influences, he learnt some salutary lessons.
Or thus:
One very cold winter evening, a poor woman--so poor that she could not
afford to buy two-penny-worth of coal--was walking to her cheerless
home. The sharp wind pierced to her very marrow, and the prospect
before her made the cold colder. She was a charwoman, and had been
unsuccessful in obtaining work during the day. Jane Plummer was her
name. Her toes peeped out of her boots. Hapless Jane Plummer! She had
to pass by the side of a wood which belonged to wealthy Mr. Icicle,
and she saw a few rotten branches on the ground. They had dropped in
the autumn, and had been soddened into the earth by many rains. Think
of a sick man who for weeks had been debarred the blessings of sun and
sweet air--primroses could not have gladdened his sight more than
these ugly sticks gladdened the sight of Jane Plummer; fresh violets
could not have been more welcome and refreshing to him than these
black bits of wood were to her. They held out the hope of light and
warmth. They were temptingly within reach. She stooped and picked them
up, and put them into her apron, the humble badge of the Order of the
Poor. Unfortunate Jane Plummer! Behind her was a policeman with a true
policeman's spirit. He was off duty, but the ruling passion for taking
people into custody was strong within him, and he never missed a
chance. Besides, he yearned for promotion; he looked forward to being
a sergeant. Animated by this blessed hope, he was as zealous a
subordinate as could be found in the ranks. He knew Jane Plummer; knew
that she was the poorest of the poor; knew that she had no fire, and
no money to buy fuel; knew the meaning of her hesitating gait and
wistful looks as the fatal branches came into view. What, now, if at
this point he had turned and fled? Pooh, not to be thought of. He
waited cunningly until the sticks were in her apron, and she was
shuffling along with them; then he pounced upon her, and bade her come
along with him. She trembled, and dropped the rotten sticks. He made
her pick them up again. She sobbed and implored--unavailingly. The
heart of the zealous policeman was not to be touched. Side by side
they marched; he with his dreadful hand upon her arm, she holding with
reluctant fingers the corners of the apron which contained the proofs
of her crime. Jane Plummer passed that night in the police-station,
and the next morning was brought face to face with Justice. The
policeman, with modest triumph, gave his evidence.
"Taken red-handed," observed the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell to the
dummy by his side, who nodded with the wisdom of an owl, and asked the
prisoner what she had to say for herself.
Tremblingly and with sobs, Jane Plummer said,
"If you please, your worship, it was bitter cold, and I had no fire at
home, and no money to buy coal; and as I was passing by Mr. Icicle's
wood, I gathered a few sticks to boil my kettle. There is a path
through the wood, and I picked up the sticks by the side of the path.
I didn't think there was any harm in it; the sticks ain't worth a
ha'penny!"
"Had prisoner any money upon her, policeman?"
"A penny and a farthing, your worship."
Thereupon the Reverend Emanuel Creamwell remarked that the rights of
property must be respected; and the sapient Justice of the Peace,
having property, read Jane Plummer a lecture upon her offence, and,
looking at some writing on a paper handed to him by his reverend
counsellor, passed sentence--two shillings and sixpence fine, and
three shillings and sixpence costs, or seven days' imprisonment.
"And I hope," added the law's administrator, with more owl's wisdom,
"that this will be a caution to you never to touch sticks in
gentlemen's woods again."
Jane Plummer sobbed that she would never, never, never do so again and
went to prison to brood upon her sin.
These are but two cases out of many which the Reverend Emanuel
Creamwell was instrumental in deciding. No doubt that, being actuated
by a love for justice presumably more merciful (in these enlightened
times) than the old Mosaic law of eye for eye and tooth for tooth, he
often had to wrestle with his tender feelings; but he overcame them,
as Jacob did the angel. And this mention of Jacob suggests the vision
of his ladder. Say that the steps of the ladder by which the Reverend
Emanuel Creamwell was to ascend to heaven were to be formed by good
and just actions, surely such sentences as those he was instrumental
in passing upon the baker's boy and hapless Jane Plummer would not be
forgotten. If this thought ever occurred to him, it must have afforded
him much consolation.