PART II

I

THE HANDICAP

I

It was a sunny autumn afternoon. The leaves were rustling about my

feet, and the first nip of winter was in the air. It was Saturday, and

I was out for a stroll. Suddenly a crowd attracted my attention, and,

impelled by that curiosity which such a concourse invariably excites, I

drew near to see whether it meant a fire or a fight. It was neither.

As I approached I caught sight of young fellows moving in and out among

the people, wearing light many-coloured garments, and I guessed that a

race was about to be run. Almost as soon as I arrived, the men were

called up, arranged in a long line, and preparations made for the

start. At a signal two or three of them sprang out from the line and

bounded with an easy stride along the load. A few seconds later, three

or four more followed; then others; until at last only one was left;

and, after a brief period of further waiting, he also left the line and

set out in pursuit. It was a handicap, I was told, and this man had

started from scratch. It was to be a long race, and it would be some

time before any of the runners could be expected back again. The

crowd, therefore, dispersed for the time being, breaking up into knots

and groups, each of which strolled off to while away the waiting time

as its own taste suggested. I turned into a lane that led up into the

bush on the hillside, and, from that sheltered and sunny eminence,

watched for the first sign of the returning runners.

Sitting there with nothing to do, it flashed upon me that the scene I

had just witnessed was a reflection, as in a mirror, of all human

experience and endeavour. Most men are heavily handicapped; it is no

good blinking the fact. Ask a man to undertake some office or assume

some responsibility in connexion with the church, and he will silence

you at once with a narration of the difficulties that stand in his way.

Ask a man to act on some board or committee for the management of some

charitable or philanthropic enterprise, and he will explain to you that

he has not a minute to spare. Ask a man to subscribe to some most

necessary or deserving object, and he will tell you of the incessant

demands to which he is subjected. Now it is no good putting all this

down to cant. We have no right to assume that these are merely the

lame excuses of men who, in their secret souls, do not desire to assist

us. We must not hastily hurl at them the curse that fell upon Meroz

because it came not to the help of the Lord against the mighty. All

that they say is perfectly true. The difficulties that debar the first

of these men from undertaking the work to which you are calling him are

both real and formidable; the second man has every moment of his time

fully occupied; the third man, because he is known to be generous, is

badgered to death with collecting-lists from the first thing in the

morning till the last thing at night. We must not judge these men too

harshly. In the uncharitableness of our hearts we imagine that they

have given us excuses which are not reasons. The fact is that they

have done exactly the reverse; they have given us reasons which are not

excuses. We are on safer ground when we recognize frankly that it is

very difficult for many men to devote much time, much energy, and much

money to the kingdom of God. Many men are heavily handicapped.

II

'Isn't that one of the runners just coming in sight now?' a friend

asked, pointing along the road. I fancied that he was right, so we

rose and strolled down to the spot from which the race had started. We

must have been mistaken, for when we emerged from the lane there was no

sign of the competitors, I was not sorry, however, that we had returned

prematurely; for I noticed the handicapper strolling idly about, and

got into conversation with him.

'There seems to me to be very little sense in a race of this kind,' I

suggested to him. 'If those men win who started first, the honour is

very small in view of the start they received; whilst if the man who

started last fails to win, he feels it to be no disgrace, and comforts

himself with the reflection that he was too heavily handicapped. Is

that not so?'

'Oh, no,' replied the handicapper, politely concealing his pity for my

simplicity; 'it works out just the other way. It isn't fair, don't you

see, to keep those chaps that got away first always running in a class

by themselves. It does not call out the best that is in them. But

to-day it does them good to feel that they are being matched against

some of the finest runners in the State, and they will strain every

effort to try to beat the champions. And it does a man like Brown, who

started from scratch, no harm to see those fellows all getting ahead of

him at the start. He knows very well that he can beat any man in the

country on level terms, and in such races he will only put forth just

as much effort as is needed to get ahead of his opponent. But there is

nothing to show that he could not do much better still if only his

opponent were more formidable. In a race like this, however, he knows

that anything may happen. His usual rivals have all got a start of

him; if he is to defend his good name, he must beat all his previous

records and bring his utmost power into play. And so every man in the

race is put on his mettle. We consider the handicap a very useful race

indeed!'

'Perhaps so,' I said, feeling that I was beaten, but feebly attempting

to cover my retreat; 'but how do you compute the exact starts and

handicaps which the different men are to take?'

'Ah,' he said, 'now you've touched the vital question.' I was

gratified at his recognition of the good order of my retirement. 'You

see,' he went on, 'we have to look up the men's previous performances

and work out the differences in their records with mathematical

exactness. But there is something more than that. We have to know the

men. You can't adjust the handicaps by rule of three. Anybody who has

seen Jones run must have noticed that he's a bit downhearted. He has

been beaten every time, and he goes into a race now expecting to be

beaten, and is therefore beaten before he starts. He needs

encouragement, and we have to consider that fact in arranging his

handicap. Then there's Smith. He's too cocksure. He has never had

any difficulty in beating men of his own class. He needs putting on

his mettle. So we increase his handicap accordingly. It takes a lot

of working out, and a lot of thinking about, I tell you. But here they

come!'

There was no mistake this time. A batch of runners came into sight all

at once, the officials took their places, and the crowd clustered

excitedly round. As we waited, the remarks to which I had just

listened took powerful hold upon my mind. The handicaps of life may

have been more carefully calculated and more beneficently designed than

we have sometimes been inclined to suppose.

III

It was a fine finish. As the first batch of men drew nearer I was

pleased to notice that Brown, the fellow in light blue, who had started

last, was among them. Gradually he drew out from the rest, and, with a

magnificent spurt, asserted his superiority and won the race. A few

minutes later I took the tram citywards. Just as it was starting,

Brown also entered the car. I could not resist the opportunity of

congratulating him.

'It must have taken the heart out of you,' I said, 'to see all the

other fellows getting away in front of you, and to find yourself left

to the last?'

'Oh, no,' he replied, with a laugh, 'it's a bit of an honour, isn't it,

to see that they think me so much better than everybody else that they

fancy I have a sporting chance under such conditions? And, besides, it

spurs a fellow to do his best. When you are accustomed to winning

races, it doesn't feel nice to be beaten, even in a handicap, and to

avoid being beaten you've got to go for all you're worth.'

I shook hands and left him. But I felt that he had given me something

else to think about.

'It's a bit of an honour!' he had said. 'And, besides, it spurs a

fellow to do his best!'

The next time a man tells me that he cannot help me because he is so

heavily handicapped, what a tale I shall have to tell him!

IV

My Saturday afternoon experience has convinced me that, in the Church,

we have tragically misinterpreted the significance of handicaps.

'I am very heavily handicapped,' we say in the Church, 'therefore I

must not attempt this thing!'

'I am very heavily handicapped,' they say out there at their sports,

'therefore I must put all my strength into it!'

And who can doubt that the philosophy of the Churchmen is false, or

that the philosophy of the sportsmen is sound? There is a great saying

of Bacon's that every handicapped man should learn by heart.

'Whosoever,' he says, 'hath anything fixed in his person that doth

induce contempt hath also a perpetual spur in himself to rescue and

deliver himself from scorn.' Is that why so many of the world's

greatest benefactors were men who bore in their bodies the marks of

physical affliction--blindness, deafness, disease, and the like? They

felt that they were heavily handicapped, and that their handicap called

them to make a supreme effort 'to rescue and deliver themselves from

scorn.'

When speaking of the difficulty which a black boy experiences in

America in competing with his white rivals, Booker Washington tells us

that his own pathetic and desperate struggle taught him that 'success

is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in

life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to

succeed.' There is a good deal in that. I was once present at a

meeting of a certain Borough Council, at which an engineer had to

report on a certain proposal which the municipal authorities were

discussing. The engineer contented himself with remarking that there

were serious difficulties in the way of the execution of the plan.

Whereupon the Mayor turned upon the unfortunate engineer and remarked,

'We pay you your salary, Mr. Engineer, not to tell us that difficulties

exist, but to show us how to surmount them!' I thought it rather a

severe rebuke at the time, but very often since, when I have been

tempted to allow my handicaps to divert me from my duty, I have been

glad that I heard the poor engineer censured.

I was once deeply and permanently impressed by a chairman's speech at a

meeting in Exeter Hall. That noble old auditorium was crowded from

floor to ceiling for the annual missionary demonstration of the

Wesleyan Methodist Church. The chair was occupied by Mr. W. E. Knight,

of Newark. In the course of a most earnest plea for missionary

enthusiasm, Mr. Knight suddenly became personal. 'I was born in a

missionary atmosphere,' he said. 'I have lived in it ever since; I

hope I shall die in it. Over forty years ago my heart was touched with

the story of the world's needs; when I heard such men as Gervase Smith,

Dr. Punshon, Richard Roberts, G. T. Perks, and others, I said, "Lord,

here am I, send me." I came up to London forty-one years ago as a

candidate for the Methodist ministry. I offered myself, but the Church

did not see fit to accept my offer. I remember well coming up to the

college at Westminster and being told of the decision of the committee

by that sainted man, William Jackson. I went to the little room in

which I had slept with a broken heart. I despised myself. I was

rejected of men, and I felt that I was forsaken of God.' Now here is a

man heavily handicapped; but let him finish his story. 'In that moment

of darkness,' Mr. Knight continued, 'the deepest darkness of my life,

there came to me a voice which has influenced my life from then till

now. It said. "If you cannot go yourself, send some one else." I was

a poor boy then; I knew that I could not pay for anybody else to go.

But time rolled on. I prospered in business. And to-night I shall lay

on the altar a sum which I wish the committee to invest, and the

interest on that sum will support a missionary in Africa, not during my

lifetime only, but as long as capital is capable of earning interest.

And, ladies and gentlemen, I assure you that this is a red-letter day

in my life!'

Of course it was! It was the day on which he had turned his handicap

to that account for which all handicaps were intended.

'My handicap was an honour and a spur!' said the champion in the

tramcar.

'My handicap was an honour and a spur!' said the chairman at Exeter

Hall.

Both the champion and the chairman did by means of their handicaps what

they could never have done without those handicaps. There can be no

doubt about it; handicaps were designed, not as the pitiful excuses of

the indolent, but as the magnificent inspirations of the brave.

II

GOG AND MAGOG

Gog and Magog, let it be dearly understood, are the two tall

poplar-trees that keep ceaseless vigil by my gate. I state this fact

baldly and unequivocally at the very outset in order to set at rest,

once and for ever, all controversies and disputations on that

fascinating point. Historians will reach down the ponderous and dusty

tomes that litter up their formidable shelves, and will tell me that

Gog and Magog were two famous British giants whose life-sized statues,

fourteen feet high, have stood for more than two hundred years in the

Guildhall in London. But that is all that the historians know about

it! Theologians, and especially theologians of a certain school, will

remind me that Gog and Magog are biblical characters. Are they not

mentioned in the prophecy of Ezekiel and in the Book of Revelation?

And then, looking gravely over their spectacles, these learned-looking

gentlemen will ask me if I am seriously of opinion that the inspired

writers were referring to my pair of lofty poplars. I hasten to assure

these nervous and unimaginative gentlemen that I propose to commit

myself to no such heresy. Like Mrs. Gamp, I would not presume. For

ages past these cryptic titles have provided my excellent friends with

ground for interminable speculation, and for the most ingenious

exploits of interpretation. How could I have the heart to exclusively

allocate to these stately sentinels that guard my gate the titles that

have afforded the interpreters such endless pleasure? I would as soon

attempt to snatch from a boy his only peg-top, or from a girl her only

doll, as embark upon so barbarous an atrocity. How could they ever

again declare, with the faintest scrap of confidence, that Gog and

Magog represented any particular pair of princes or potentates if I

deliberately anticipate them by walking off with both labels and coolly

attaching them to my two poplar-trees? The thing is absurd upon the

face of it. And so I repeat that for the purposes of this article, and

for the purposes of this article only, Gog and Magog are the two tall

poplar-trees that keep ceaseless vigil by my gate.

Trees are very lovable things. We all like Beaconsfield the better

because he was so passionately devoted to the trees at Hughenden. He

was so fond of them that he directed in his will that none of them

should ever be cut down. So I am not ashamed of my tenderness for Gog

and Magog. There they stand, down at the gate; the one on the one

side, and the other on the other. Huge giants they are, with a giant's

strength and a giant's stature, but with more than a giant's grace.

From whichever direction I come, they always seem to salute me with a

welcome as soon as I come round the bend in the road. It is always

pleasant when home has something about it that can be seen at a

distance. The last half-mile on the homeward road is the half-mile in

which the climax of weariness is reached. It is like the last straw

that breaks the camel's back. But if there is a light at the window,

or some clear landmark that distinguishes the spot, the very sight of

the familiar object lures the traveller on, and in actual sight of home

he forgets his fatigue.

It is a very pleasant thing to have two glorious poplars at your gate.

They always seem to be craning, straining, towering upward to catch the

first glimpse of you; and they make home seem nearer as soon as you

come within sight of them. Gog and Magog are such companionable

things. They always have something to say to you. It is true that

they talk of little but the weather; but then, that is what most people

talk about. I like to see them in August, when a certain olive sheen

mantles their branches and tells you that the swallows will soon be

here. I like to see them in October, when they are a towering column

of verdure, every leaf as bright as though it has just been varnished.

I even like to see them in April, when they strew the paths with a

rustling litter of bronze and gold. They tell me that winter is

coming, with its long evenings, its roaring fires, and its insistence

on the superlative attractions of home. There never dawns a day on

which Gog and Magog are not well worth looking at and well worth

listening to.

But although I have been speaking of Gog and Magog as though they were

as much alike as two peas, the very reverse is the case. No two

things--not even the two peas--are exactly alike. When God makes a

thing He breaks the mould. The two peas do not resemble each other

under a microscope. Macaulay, in his essay on Madame D'Arblay,

declares that this extraordinary range of distinctions within very

narrow limits is one of the most notable things in the universe. 'No

two faces are alike,' he says, 'and yet very few faces deviate very

widely from the common standard. Among the millions of human beings

who inhabit London, there is not one who could be taken by his

acquaintance for another; yet we may walk from Paddington to Mile End

without seeing one person in whom any feature is so overcharged that we

turn round to stare at it. An infinite number of varieties lies

between limits which are not very far asunder. The specimens which

pass those limits on either side form a very small minority.'

So is it with trees. When you first drive up an avenue of poplars you

regard each tree as the exact duplicate of all the others. There is

certainly a general similarity, just as, in some households, there is a

striking family likeness. But just as, after spending a few days with

that household, you no longer mistake Jack for Charlie, or Jessie for

Jean, and even laugh at yourself for ever having been so stupid, so,

when you get to know the poplars better, you no longer suppose that

they are all alike. You soon detect the marks of individuality among

them; and, if one were felled and brought you, you could describe with

perfect accuracy the two trees between which it stood. That is

particularly the case with Gog and Magog. A casual visitor would

remark, as he approached the house, that we had a pair of gigantic

poplars at the front gate. It does not occur to him to distinguish

between them. For aught he knows, or for aught he cares, Gog might be

Magog, or Magog might be Gog. But to us the thing is absurd. We know

them so well that we should as soon think of mistaking one of the

children for another as of mistaking Gog for Magog, or Magog for Gog.

We salute the tall trees every morning when we rise; we pass them with

mystic greetings of our own a dozen times a day; and, before retiring

at night, we like to peep from the front windows and see their gigantic

forms grandly silhouetted against the evening sky. Gog is Gog, and

Magog is Magog; and the idea of mistaking the one for the other seems

ludicrous in the extreme. The solar system is as full of mysteries as

a conjurer's portmanteaux; but, of all the mysteries that it contains,

the mystery of individuality is surely the most inscrutable of all.

'What is the difference between Gog and Magog?' somebody wants to know;

and I am glad that somebody asked the question, for it gives me the

opportunity of pointing out that between Gog and Magog there is all the

difference in the world. There is a difference in girth; there is a

difference in height; and there is a difference in fibre. I have just

run a tape round both trees. Magog gives a measurement of just six

feet; whilst Gog puts those puny proportions to shame with a record of

seven feet six inches. I have not attempted to climb the trees; but I

can see at a glance that Gog is at least eight feet taller than his

brother. Nor do these measurements sum up the whole of Gog's

advantage. For you cannot glance at the twins without seeing that Gog

is incalculably the sturdier. In the trunk of Magog there is a huge

cavity into which a child could creep and be perfectly concealed; but

Gog is as sound as a bell. Any one who has seen two brothers grow up

side by side--the one sturdy, masculine, virile, and full of health;

the other, puny, delicate, fragile, and threatened with disease--knows

how I feel whenever I pass between these two sentries at the gate. I

am full of admiration for the glorious strength of Gog; I am touched to

tenderness by the comparative frailty of poor Magog. It is odd that

two trees of the same age, growing together under precisely identical

conditions, should have turned out so differently. There must be a

reason for it. Is there? There is!

The fact is, Gog gets all the wind. I have often watched the storm

come sweeping down on the two tall trees, and it is grand to watch

them. The huge things sway and bend like tossing plumes, and sometimes

you almost fancy that they will break like reeds before the fury of the

blast. Great branches are torn off; smaller boughs and piles of twigs

are scattered all around like wounded soldiers on a hotly contested

field; but the trees outlive the storm, and you love them all the

better for it. But, all the time, you can see that it is Gog that is

doing the fighting. The fearful onslaught breaks first upon him; and

the force of the attack is broken by the time it reaches Magog. It may

be that Gog is very fond of Magog, and, pitying his frailty, seeks to

shelter him. It certainly looks like it. But, if so, it is a mistaken

kindness. It is just because Gog has had to bear the brunt of so many

attacks that he has sent down his roots so deeply and has become so

magnificently strong. It is because Magog has always been protected

and sheltered that he is so feeble, and cuts so sorry a figure beside

his stouter brother.

And now I find myself sitting at the feet of Gog and Magog, not only

literally but metaphorically, and they begin to teach me things. It is

not half a bad thing to be living in a world that has some fight in it.

It is a good thing for a man to be buffeted and knocked about. I fancy

that Gog and Magog could say some specially comforting things to

parents. The tendency among us is to try to secure for our children

the kind of life that Magog leads, hidden, sheltered, and protected.

Yet nobody can take a second glance at poor Magog--his shorter stature,

his smaller girth, his softer fibre--without entertaining the gravest

doubts concerning the wisdom of so apparently considerate a choice. It

is perfectly natural, and altogether creditable to the fond hearts and

earnest solicitude of doting parents, that they should seek to rear

their children like hot-house plants, protected from the nipping frosts

and frigid blasts of a chilling world. But it can be overdone. A

great meeting, attended by five thousand people, was recently held in

London to deal with the White Slave question. And I was greatly struck

by the fact that one of the most experienced and observant of the

speakers--the Rev. J. Ernest Rattenbury, of the West London

Mission--declared with deep emotion and impressive emphasis that 'it is

the girls who come from _the sheltered homes_ who stand in the greatest

peril.' Perhaps I shall render the most practical service if I put the

truth the other way. Instead of dwelling so much on Magog, look at

Gog. I know fathers and mothers who are inclined to break their hearts

because their boys and girls have had to go out from the shielding care

of their homes into the rough and tumble of the great world. Look at

Gog, I say again, look at Gog!

Was it not Alfred Russel Wallace who tried to help an emperor-moth, and

only harmed it by his ill-considered ministry? He came upon the

creature beating its wings and struggling wildly to force its passage

through the narrow neck of its cocoon. He admired its fine

proportions, eight inches from the tip of one wing to the tip of the

other, and thought it a pity that so handsome a creature should be

subjected to so severe an ordeal. He therefore took out his lancet and

slit the cocoon. The moth came out at once; but its glorious colours

never developed. The soaring wings never expanded. The indescribable

hues and tints and shades that should have adorned them never appeared.

The moth crept moodily about; drooped perceptibly; and presently died.

The furious struggle with the cocoon was Nature's wise way of

developing the splendid wings and of sending the vital fluids pulsing

through the frame until every particle blushed with their beauty. The

naturalist had saved the little creature from the struggle, but had

unintentionally ruined and slain it in the process. It is the story of

Gog and Magog over again.

In my college days I used to go down to a quaint little English village

for the week-end in order to conduct services in the village chapel on

Sunday. I was always entertained by a little old lady whose face

haunts me still. It was so very human, and so very wise, and withal so

very beautiful; and the white ringlets on either side completed a

perfect picture. She dwelt in a modest little cottage on top of the

hill. It was a queer, tumble-down old place with crooked rafters and

crazy lattice windows. Roses and honeysuckle clambered all over the

porch, straggled along the walls, and even crept under the eaves into

the cottage itself. The thing that impressed me when I first went was

the extraordinary number of old Bessie's visitors. On Saturday nights

they came one after another, young men and sedate matrons, old men and

tripping maidens, and each desired to see her alone. She was very old;

she had known hunger and poverty; the deeply furrowed brow told of long

and bitter trouble. She was a great sufferer, too, and daily wrestled

with her pitiless disease. But, like the sturdier of the poplars by my

gate, she had gathered into herself the force of all the cruel winds

that had beaten so savagely upon her. And the result was that her own

character had become so strong and so upright and so beautiful that she

was recognized as the high-priestess of that English countryside, and

every man and maiden who needed counsel or succour made a beaten path

to her open door.

III

MY WARDROBE

Changing your mind is for all the world like changing your clothes.

You may easily make a mistake, especially if the process is performed

in the dark. And, as a matter of fact, a man is usually more or less

in the dark at the moment in which he changes his mind. An

absent-minded friend of mine went upstairs the other day to prepare for

a social function. To the consternation of his unhappy wife he came

down again wearing his old gardening suit. A man may quite easily make

a mistake. Before he enters upon the process of robing he must be sure

of three things: (1) He must be quite clear that the clothes he

proposes to doff are unsuitable. (2) He must be sure that his wardrobe

contains more appropriate apparel. (3) And he must be certain that the

folded garments that he takes from the drawer are actually those that

he made up his mind to wear. It is a good thing, similarly, to change

one's mind. But the thing must be done very deliberately, and even

with scientific precision, or a man may make himself perfectly

ridiculous. Let me produce a pair of illustrations, one from Boswell,

which is good; and one from the Bible, which is better.

(1) Dr. Samuel Johnson was a frequent visitor at the house of Mr.

Richardson, the famous novelist. One day, whilst Johnson was there,

Hogarth called. Hogarth soon started a discussion with Mr. Richardson

as to the justice of the execution of Dr. Cameron. 'While he was

talking, he perceived a person standing at a window in the room,

shaking his head, and rolling himself about in a strange, ridiculous

manner. He concluded that he was _an idiot_, whom his relations had

put under the care of Mr. Richardson, as being a very good man. To his

great surprise, however, this figure stalked forwards to where he and

Mr. Richardson were sitting, and all at once took up the argument. He

displayed such a power of eloquence that Hogarth looked at him with

astonishment, and actually imagined that he was _inspired_.' Thus far

Boswell.

(2) Paul was shipwrecked, as everybody knows, at Malta. He was

gathering sticks for the fire, when a viper, thawed by the warm flesh

and the fierce flame, fastened on his finger. When the natives saw the

snake hanging on his hand, they regarded it as a judgement, and said

that no doubt he was a _murderer_. But when they saw that he was none

the worse for the bite, 'they changed their minds, and said that he was

_a god_!'

Hogarth thought Johnson was a _lunatic_. He changed his mind, and said

he was _inspired_!

The Maltese thought Paul was a _murderer_. They changed their minds,

and said he was a _god_!

They were all wrong, and always wrong. It is the case of my poor

absent-minded friend over again. It was quite clear that his clothes

wanted changing, but he put on the wrong suit. It was evident that

Hogarth's verdict on Johnson wanted revising, but he rushed from Scylla

to Charybdis. It was manifest that the Maltese view of Paul needed

correcting, but they swung, like a pendulum, from one ludicrous extreme

to the opposite. In each case, the hero reappears, wearing the wrong

clothes. In each case he only makes himself ridiculous. If my mind

wants changing, I must be very cautious as to the way in which I do it.

And, of course, a man _must_ sometimes change both his clothes and his

mind--his _mind_ at any rate. How can you go to a conjuring

entertainment, for example, without changing your mind a hundred times

in the course of the performance? For a second you think that the

vanished billiard ball is _here_. Then, in a trice, you change your

mind, and conclude that it is _there_! First, you believe that,

appearances notwithstanding, the magician really has _no_ hat in his

hand. Then, in a flash, you change your mind, and you fancy he has

_two_! You think for a moment that the clever trick is done in _this_

way, and then you become certain that it is done in _that_! I once

witnessed in London a very clever artist, who walked up and down the

stage, passing midway behind a screen. And as he reappeared on the

other side, after having been hidden from sight for only a fraction of

a second, he was differently dressed. He stepped behind the screen a

soldier, and emerged a policeman. He disappeared a huntsman, he

reappeared a clergyman. He went a convict, he came again a sailor. He

wore a score of uniforms in almost as many seconds.

I began by saying that changing your mind is for all the world like

changing your clothes. It is less tedious, however. I have no idea

how my London friend managed to change his garments many times in a

minute. But many a magician has made me change my mind at a lightning

pace. Yes, many a magician. For the universe is, after all, a kind of

magic. The wand of the wizard is at its wonderful work. It is the

highest type of legerdemain. It is very weird and very wonderful, a

thing of marvel and of mystery. No man can sit down and gaze for five

minutes with wide open eyes upon God's worlds without changing his mind

at least five times. The man who never changes his mind will soon

discover to his shame that he is draped in intellectual rags and

tatters.

I rather think that Macaulay's illustration is as good as any. 'A

traveller,' he says in his essay on Sir James Mackintosh, 'falls in

with a berry which he has never before seen. He tastes it, and finds

it sweet and refreshing. He presses it, and resolves to introduce it

into his own country. But in a few minutes he is taken violently sick;

he is convulsed; he is at the point of death. He, of course, changes

his mind, pronounces this delicious food a poison, blames his own folly

in tasting it, and cautions his friends against it. After a long and

violent struggle he recovers, and finds himself much exhausted by his

sufferings, but free from chronic complaints which had been the torment

of his life. He then changes his mind again, and pronounces this fruit

a very powerful remedy, which ought to be employed only in extreme

cases, and with great caution, but which ought not to be absolutely

excluded from the Pharmacopoeia. Would it not be the height of

absurdity to call such a man fickle and inconsistent because he had

repeatedly altered his judgement?' Of course it would. A man cannot

go all through life wearing the same suit of clothes. For two reasons.

It will not always fit, and it will wear out. And, in precisely the

same way, and for identically similar reasons, a man must sometimes

change his opinions. It is refreshing to think of Augustine carefully

compiling a list of the mistakes that had crept into his writings, so

that he might take every opportunity of repudiating and correcting

them. I never consult my copies of Archbishop Trench's great works on

_The Parables_ and _The Miracles_ without glancing, always with a glow

of admiration, at that splendid sentence with which the 'Publisher's

Note' concludes: 'The author never allowed his books to be stereotyped,

in order that he might constantly improve them, and permanence has only

become possible now that his diligent hand can touch the work no more.'

That always strikes me as being very fine.

But the thing must be done methodically. Let me not rush upstairs and

change either my clothes or my mind for the mere sake of making a

change. Nor must I tumble into the first suit that I happen to

find--in either wardrobe. When I reappear, the change must commend

itself to the respect, if not the admiration, of my fellows. I do not

want men to laugh at my change as we have laughed at these Maltese

natives, at old Hogarth, and at my absent-minded friend. I want to be

quite sure that the clothes that I doff are the wrong clothes, and that

the clothes that I don are the right ones.

Mr. Gladstone once thought out very thoroughly this whole question as

to how frequently and how radically a man may change his mental outfit

without forfeiting the confidence of those who have come to value his

judgements. And, as a result of that hard thinking, the great man

reached half a dozen very clear and very concise conclusions. (1) He

concluded that a change of front is very often not only permissible but

creditable. 'A change of mind,' he says, 'is a sign of life. If you

are alive, you must change. It is only the dead who remain the same.

I have changed my point of view on a score of subjects, and my

convictions as to many of them.' (2) He concluded that a great change,

involving a drastic social cleavage, not unlike a change in religion,

should certainly occur not more than once in a lifetime. (3) He

concluded that a great and cataclysmic change should never be sudden or

precipitate. (4) He concluded that no change ought to be characterized

by a contemptuous repudiation of old memories and old associations.

(5) He concluded that no change ought to be regarded as final or worthy

of implicit confidence if it involved the convert in temporal gain or

worldly advantage. (6) And he concluded that any change, to command

respect, must be frankly confessed, and not be hooded, slurred over, or

denied.

All this is good, as far as it goes. But even Mr. Gladstone must not

be too hard on sudden and cataclysmic changes. What about Saul on the

road to Damascus? What about Augustine that morning in his garden?

What about Brother Laurence and the dry tree? What about Stephen

Grellet in the American forest? What about Luther on Pilate's

staircase? What about Bunyan and Newton, Wesley and Spurgeon? What

about the tales that Harold Begbie tells? And what about the work of

General Booth? Professor James, in his _Varieties of Religious

Experience_, has a good deal to say that would lead Mr. Gladstone to

yet one more change of mind concerning the startling suddenness with

which the greatest of all changes may be precipitated.

And this, too, must be said. Every wise man has, locked away in his

heart, a few treasures that he will never either give or sell or

exchange. It is a mistake to suppose that all our opinions are open to

revision. They are not. There are some things too sacred to be always

open to scrutiny and investigation. No self-respecting man will spend

his time inquiring as to his wife's probity and honour. He makes up

his mind as to that when he marries her; and henceforth that question

is settled. It is not open to review. He would feel insulted if an

investigation were suggested. It is only the small things of life that

we are eternally questioning. We are reverently restful and serenely

silent about the biggest things of all. A man does not discuss his

wife's virtue or his soul's salvation on the kerbstone. The martyrs

all went to their deaths with brave hearts and morning faces, because

they were not prepared to reconsider or review the greatest decision

they had ever made. There are some things on which no wise man will

think of changing his mind. And he will decline to contemplate a

change because he knows that his wardrobe holds no better garb. It is

of no use doffing the robes of princes to don the rags of paupers.

'Eighty and six years have I served Christ,' exclaimed the triumphant

Polycarp; and he mounted the heavens in wreathing smoke and leaping

flame rather than change his mind after so long and so lovely an

experience.

IV

'PITY MY SIMPLICITY!'

It was a sultry summer's day a hundred and fifty years ago, and John

Wesley was on the rocky road to Dublin. 'The wind being in my face,

tempering the heat of the sun, I had a pleasant ride to Dublin. In the

evening I began expounding the deepest part of the Holy Scripture,

namely, the First Epistle of John, by which, above all other, even

above all other inspired writings, I advise every young preacher to

form his style. Here are sublimity and simplicity together, the

strongest sense and the plainest language! How can any one that would

speak as the oracles of God use harder words than are to be found

here?' With which illuminating extract from the great man's journal we

may dismiss him, the road to Dublin, and the text from which he

preached in the Irish capital, all together. I have no further

business with any of them. The thing that concerns me is the

suggestive declaration, made by the most experienced preacher of all

time, that _sublimity_ and _simplicity_ always go hand in hand. Here,

in this deepest part of Holy Scripture, says the master, are sublimity

and simplicity together. 'By this, above all other writings, I advise

every preacher to form his style. How can any one that would speak as

the oracles of God use harder words than are to be found here?' Such

words from such a source are like apples of gold in pictures of silver,

and I am thankful that I chanced to come upon the great man that hot

July night in Dublin, and gather this distilled essence of wisdom as it

fell from his eloquent lips.

I have often wondered why we teach children to pray that their

simplicity may be pitied.

Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,

Look upon a little child!

Pity my simplicity!

Suffer me to come to Thee!

Why 'pity my simplicity'? It is the one thing about a little child

that is really sublime, sublimity and simplicity being, as we learned

at Dublin, everlastingly inseparable. Pity my simplicity! Why, it is

the sweet simplicity of a little child that we all admire and love and

covet! Pity my simplicity! Why, it is the unspoiled and sublime

simplicity of this little child of mine that takes my heart by storm

and carries everything before it. And, depend upon it, the heart of

the divine Father is affected not very differently. This soft, sweet

little white-robed thing that kneels on my knee, with its arms around

my neck, lisping its

Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,

Look upon a little child!

Pity my simplicity!

Suffer me to come to Thee!

shames me by its very sublimity. It outstrips me, transcends me, and

leaves me far behind. It soars whilst I grovel; it flies whilst I

creep. That is what Jesus meant when He took a little child and set

him in the midst of the disciples and said, 'Whosoever shall humble

himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of

heaven!' The simplest, He meant, is always the sublimest. And it was

because the great Methodist had so perfectly caught the spirit of his

great Master that he declared so confidently that night at Dublin,

'Simplicity and sublimity lie here together!'

It is always and everywhere the same. In literature sublimity is

represented by the poet. What could be more sublime than the inspired

imagination of Milton? And yet, and yet! The very greatest of all our

literary critics, in his essay on Milton, feels it incumbent upon him

to point out that imagination is essentially the domain of childhood.

'Of all people,' he says, 'children are the most imaginative. They

abandon themselves without reserve to every illusion. Every image

which is strongly presented to their mental eye produces on them the

effect of reality. No man, whatever his sensibility may be, is ever

affected by Hamlet or Lear as a little girl is affected by the story of

poor Red Ridinghood. She knows that it is all false, that wolves

cannot speak, that there are no wolves in England. Yet, in spite of

the knowledge, she believes; she weeps; she trembles; she dares not go

into a dark room lest she should feel the teeth of the monster at her

throat.' And from these premisses, Macaulay proceeds to his inevitable

conclusion. 'He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires

to be a great poet must,' he says, 'first become a little child. He

must take to pieces the whole web of his mind. He must unlearn much of

that knowledge which has perhaps constituted hitherto his chief title

to superiority. His very talents will be a hindrance to him. His

difficulties will be proportioned to his proficiency in the pursuits

which are fashionable among his contemporaries; and that proficiency

will in general be proportioned to the vigour and activity of his

mind.' Could there be any finer comment on the words of the Master?

'Simplicity and sublimity always go together!' said John Wesley that

hot July night at Dublin.

'Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same is the

greatest in the kingdom of heaven!' said the Master on that memorable

day in Galilee.

'He who aspires to be a great poet must first become a little child!'

says Lord Macaulay in his incomparable essay on Milton.

I have carefully put the Master in His old place. He is _in the

midst_, with the very greatest of our modern apostles on the one side

of Him, and the very greatest of our modern historians on the other.

But they are all three of them saying the same thing, each in his own

way. It is a pity that we teach our children that the sublimest thing

about them--their simplicity--is a thing of which they need to be

ashamed. And the way in which their tiny tongues stumble over the

great word seems to show that, following a true instinct, they do not

take kindly to that clause in their bedtime prayer.

I am told that, away beyond the Never-Never ranges, there is a church

from which the children are excluded before the sermon begins. I wish

my informant had not told me of its existence. I am not often troubled

with nightmare, my supper being quite a frugal affair. But just

occasionally I find myself a victim of the terror by night. And when I

am mercifully awakened, and asked why I am gasping so horribly and

perspiring so freely, I have to confess that I was dreaming that I had

somehow become the minister of that childless congregation. As is

usual after nightmare, I look round with a sense of inexpressible

thankfulness on discovering that it was only a horrid dream. An

appointment to such a charge would be to me a most fearsome and

terrifying prospect. I could not trust myself. In a way, I envy the

man who can hold his own under such circumstances. His transcendent

powers enable him to preserve his sturdy humanness of character, his

charming simplicity of diction, his graphic picturesqueness of phrase,

and his exquisite winsomeness of behaviour without the extraneous

assistance which the children render to some of us. But _I_ could not

do it. I should go all to pieces. And so, when I dream that I have

entered a pulpit from which I can survey no roguish young faces and

mischievous wide-open eyes, I fancy I am ruined and undone. I watch

with consternation as the little people file out during the hymn before

the sermon, and I know that the sermon is doomed. The children in the

congregation are my salvation.

I fancy that the custom to which I have referred was in vogue in the

church to which the Rev. Bruno Leathwaite Chilvers ministered.

Everybody knows Mr. Chilvers; at least everybody who loves George

Gissing knows that very excellent gentleman. Mr. Chilvers loved to

adorn his dainty discourses with certain words of strangely

grandiloquent sound. '"Nullifidian," "morbific," "renascent"--these

were among his favourites. Once or twice he spoke of "psychogenesis"

with an emphatic enunciation which seemed to invite respectful wonder.

In using Latin words which have become fixed in the English language,

he generally corrected the common errors of quantity and pronounced

words as nobody else did. He often alluded to French and German

authors in order that he might recite French and German quotations.'

And so on. Poor Mr. Chilvers! I am sure that the little children

filed out during the hymn before the sermon. No man with a scrap of

imagination could look into the dimpled face of a little girl I know

and hurl 'nullifidian' at her. No man could look down into a certain

pair of sparkling eyes that are wonderfully familiar to me and talk

about things as 'morbific' or 'renascent.' If only the little tots had

kept their seats for the sermon, it would have saved poor Mr. Chilvers

from committing such atrocities. As it is, they went and he collapsed.

Can anybody imagine John Wesley talking to his summer-evening crowd at

Dublin about 'nullifidian,' or quoting German? I will say nothing of

the Galilean preacher. The common people heard _Him_ gladly. He was

so simple and therefore so sublime. As Sir Edwin Arnold says:

The simplest sights He met--

The Sower flinging seed on loam and rock;

The darnel in the wheat; the mustard-tree

That hath its seeds so little, and its boughs

Widespreading; and the wandering sheep; and nets

Shot in the wimpled waters--drawing forth

Great fish and small--these, and a hundred such,

Seen by us daily, never seen aright,

Were pictures for Him from the page of life,

Teaching by parable.

Therein lay the sublimity of it all.

A little child, especially a little child of a distinctly restless and

mischievous propensity, is really a great help to a minister, and it is

a shame to deprive the good man of such assistance. It is only by such

help that some of us can hope to approximate to real sublimity. Lord

Beaconsfield used to say that, in making after-dinner speeches, he kept

his eye on the waiters. If they were unmoved, he knew that he was in

the realms of mediocrity. But when they grew excited and waved their

napkins, he knew that he was getting home. Lord Cockburn, who was for

some time Lord Chief Justice of Great Britain, when asked for the

secret of his extraordinary success at the bar, replied sagely, 'When I

was addressing a jury, I invariably picked out the stupidest-looking

fellow of the lot, and addressed myself specially to him--for this good

reason: I knew that if I convinced him I should be sure to carry all

the rest!' Dr. Thomas Guthrie, in addressing gatherings of ministers,

used to tell this story of Lord Cockburn with immense relish, and

earnestly commended its philosophy to their consideration. I was

reading the other day that Dr. Boyd Carpenter, formerly Bishop of Ripon

and now Canon of Westminster, on being asked if he felt nervous when

preaching before Queen Victoria, replied, 'I never address the Queen at

all. I know there will be present the Queen, the Princes, the

household, and the servants down to the scullery-maid, and _I preach to

the scullery-maid_.' Little children do not attend political dinners

such as Lord Beaconsfield adorned; nor Courts of Justice such as Lord

Cockburn addressed; nor Royal chapels like that in which Dr. Boyd

Carpenter officiated. And, in the absence of the children, the only

chance of reaching sublimity that offered itself to these unhappy

orators lay in making good use of the waiter, the stupid juryman, and

the scullery-maid. If the Rev. Bruno Leathwaite Chilvers really cannot

induce the children to abandon the bad habit in which they have been

trained, I urge him, as a friend and a brother, to adopt the same

ingenious expedient. But if he can get on the right side of a little

child, persuade him to sit the sermon out, and vow that he will look

straight into that bright little face, and say no word that will not

interest that tiny listener, I promise him that before long people will

say that his sermons are simply sublime. Robert Louis Stevenson knew

what he was doing when he discussed every sentence of _Treasure Island_

with his schoolboy step-son before giving it its final form. It was by

that wise artifice that one of the greatest stories in our language

came to be written.

The fact, of course, is that in the soul's sublimest moments it hungers

for simplicity. One of Du Maurier's great _Punch_ cartoons represented

a honeymoon conversation between a husband and wife who had both

covered themselves with glory at Cambridge. And the conversation ran

along these highly intellectual lines:

'What would Lovey do if Dovey died?'

'Oh, Lovey would die too!'

There is a world of philosophy behind the nonsense. We do not make

love in the language of the psychologist; we make love in the language

of the little child. When life approaches to sublimity, it always

expresses itself with simplicity. In the depth of mortal anguish, or

at the climax of human joy, we do not use a grandiloquent and

incomprehensible phraseology. We talk in monosyllables. As we grow

old, and draw near to the gates of the grave, we become more and more

simple. In his declining years, John Newton wrote, 'When I was young I

was sure of many things. There are only two things of which I am sure

now; one is that I am a miserable sinner, and the other that Christ is

an all-sufficient Saviour.' What is this but the soul garbing itself

in the most perfect simplicities as the only fitting raiment in which

it can greet the everlasting sublimities?

'Here are sublimity and simplicity together!' exclaimed John Wesley on

that hot July night at Dublin. 'How can any one that would speak as

the oracles of God use harder words than are to be found here? By this

I advise every young preacher to form his style!'

'He who aspires to be a great poet--as sublime as Milton--must first

become a little child!' declares the greatest of all littérateurs.

'Whosoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same is

greatest in the kingdom of heaven!' says the Master Himself, taking a

little child and setting him in the midst of them.

'_Pity my simplicity!_' pleads this little thing with its soft arms

round my neck.

'_Give me that simplicity!_' say I.

V

TUNING FROM THE BASS

I am about to say a good word for Fear. Fear is a fine thing, a very

fine thing; and the world would be a poor place without it. Fear was

one of our firmest but gentlest nurses. Terror was one of our sternest

but kindest teachers. A very wise man once said that the fear of the

Lord is the beginning of wisdom. He might have left out the august and

holy Name, and still have stated a tremendous fact; for fear is always

the beginning of wisdom.

'No fears, no grace!' said James, in the second part of the _Pilgrim's

Progress_, and Mr. Greatheart seemed of pretty much the same opinion.

They were discussing poor Mr. Fearing.

'Mr. Fearing,' said Greatheart, 'was one that played upon the bass.

Some say that the bass is the ground of music. The first string that

the musician touches is the bass, when he intends to put all in tune.

God also plays upon this string first, when He sets the soul in tune

for Himself. Only here was the imperfection of Mr. Fearing: he could

play upon no other music but this, till towards his latter end.'

Here, then, we have the principle stated as well as it is possible to

state it. You must tune from the bass, for the bass is the basis of

music. But you must rise from the bass, as a building must rise from

its foundations, or the music will be a moan and a monotone. The fear

of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; but the wisdom that gets no

farther is like music that rumbles and reverberates in one everlasting

bass.

But the finest exposition of the inestimable value of fear is not by

John Bunyan. It is by Jack London. _White Fang_ is the greatest story

of the inner life of an animal that has ever been contributed to our

literature. And Jack London, who seems to have got into the very soul

of a wolf, shows us how the wonderful character of White Fang was

moulded and fashioned by fear. First there was the mere physical fear

of Pain; the dread of hurting his tender little nose as the tiny grey

cub explored the dark recesses of the lair; the horror of his mother's

paw that smote him down whenever he approached the mouth of the cave;

and, later on, the fear of the steep bank, learned by a terrible fall;

the fear of the yielding water, learned by attempting to walk upon it;

and the fear of the ptarmigan's beak and the weasel's teeth, learned by

robbing their respective nests.

And following on the physical fear of _Pain_ came the reverential fear

of _Power_. 'His mother represented Power,' Jack London says, 'and as

he grew older he felt this power in the sharper admonition of her paw,

while the reproving nudge of her nose gave place to the slash of her

fangs. For this he respected his mother.' And afterwards, when he

came upon the Red Indians, and saw men for the first time, a still

greater fear possessed him. Here were creatures who made the very

sticks and stones obey them! They seemed to him as gods, and he felt

that he must worship and serve them. And, later still, when he saw

white men living, not in wigwams, but in great palaces of stone, he

trembled as he had never trembled before. These were superior gods;

and, as everybody knows, White Fang passed from fearing them to knowing

them, and from knowing them to loving them. And at last he became

their fond, devoted slave. It is true that fear was to White Fang only

_the beginning_ of wisdom; but that is precisely what Solomon says.

Afterwards the brave old wolf learned fearlessness; but the early

lessons taught by fear were still of priceless value, for to courage

they added caution; and courage wedded to caution is irresistible.

We are living in times that are wonderfully meek and mild; and Fear,

the stern old schoolmaster, is looked upon with suspicion. It is

curious how we reverse the fashions of our ancestors. We flaunt in

shameless abandon what they veiled in blushing modesty; but we make up

for it by hiding what they had no hesitation in displaying. Our teeth,

for example. It is considered the depth of impropriety to show your

teeth nowadays, except in the sense in which actresses show them on

post cards. But our forefathers were not afraid of showing their

teeth, and they made themselves feared and honoured and loved in

consequence. Yes, feared and honoured and loved; for I gravely doubt

if any man ever yet taught others to honour and love him who had not

first taught them on occasion to fear him.

The best illustration of what I mean occurs in the story of the Irish

movement. In the politics of the last century there has been nothing

so dramatic, nothing so pathetic, and nothing so tragic as the story of

the rise and fall of Parnell. Lord Morley's tense and vivid chapters

on that phase of modern statesmanship are far more thrilling and far

more affecting than a similar number of pages of any novel in the

English language. With the tragic fall of the Irish leader we need not

now concern ourselves. But how are we to account for the meteoric rise

of Parnell, and for the phenomenal power that he wielded? For years he

was the most effective figure in British politics. There is only one

explanation; and it is the explanation upon which practically all the

historians of that period agree. Charles Stewart Parnell made it the

first article of his creed that he must make himself feared. His

predecessor in the leadership of the Irish party was Isaac Butt. Mr.

Butt believed in conciliation. He was opposed to 'a policy of

exasperation.' He thought that, if the Irishmen in the House exercised

patience, and considered the convenience of the two great political

parties, they would appeal to the good sense of the British people and

ensure the success of their cause. And in return--to quote from Mr.

Winston Churchill's life of his father--the two great parties treated

Mr. Butt and the Irish members with 'that form of respect which, being

devoid of the element of fear, is closely akin to contempt.' Then

arose Parnell. He held that the Irishmen must make themselves the

terror of the nation. They must embarrass and confuse the English

leaders, and throw the whole political machinery of both parties

hopelessly out of gear. And in a few months Mr. Parnell made the Irish

question the supreme question in the mind of the nation, and became for

years the most hated and the most beloved personality on the

parliamentary horizon. Nobody who knows the history of that troublous

time can doubt that, but for the moral shipwreck of Parnell, a

shipwreck that nearly broke Mr. Gladstone's heart, the whole Irish

question would have been settled, for better or for worse, twenty years

ago. With the merits or demerits of his cause I am not now dealing;

but everybody who has read Lord Morley's _Life of Gladstone_ or Mr.

Barry O'Brien's _Life of Parnell_ must have been impressed by this

striking and dramatic picture of a lonely and extraordinary man

espousing an apparently hopeless cause, deliberately selecting fear as

the weapon of his warfare, and actually leading his little band of

astonished followers within sight of victory.

It is ridiculous to say that fear possesses no moral value. Whenever I

hear that contention stated, my mind invariably swings back to a great

story told by Sir Henry Hawkins in his _Reminiscences_. He is telling

of his experiences under Mr. Justice Maule, and is praising the

judicial perspicacity of that judge. In a certain murder case a boy of

eight was called to give evidence, and counsel objected to so youthful

a witness being heard. Mr. Justice Maule thought for a minute, and

then beckoned the boy to the bench.

'"I should like to know," His Honour observed, "what you have been

taught to believe. What will become of you, my little boy, when you

die, if you are so wicked as to tell a lie?"'

'"Hell-fire!" answered the boy with great promptitude.

'"But do you mean to say," the judge went on, "that you would go to

hell-fire for telling any lie?"

'"Hell-fire, sir!" the boy replied again.

'To several similar questions the boy made the same terrible response.

'"He does not seem to be competent," said the counsel.

'"I beg your pardon," returned the judge. "This boy thinks that for

every wilful fault he will go to hell-fire; and he is very likely while

he believes that doctrine to be most strict in his observance of truth.

If you and I believed that such would be the penalty for every act of

misconduct we committed, we should be better men than we are. Let the

boy be sworn!"'

Sir Henry Hawkins tells the story with evident approval, so that we

have here the valuable testimony of two distinguished judges to the

moral value of fear from a purely judicial point of view. Of course,

the value is not stable or permanent. The goodness that arises from

fear is like the tameness of a terrified tiger, or the willingness of a

wolf to leave the deer unharmed when both are flying from before a

prairie-fire. When the fear passes, the blood-lust will return. But

that is not the point. Nobody said that fear was wisdom. What the

wise man said was that fear is _the beginning_ of wisdom. And as the

beginning of wisdom it has a certain initial and preparatory value.

The sooner that the beginning is developed and brought to a climax, the

better of course it will be. But meanwhile a beginning is something.

It is a step in the right direction. It is the learning of the

alphabet. It is the earnest and promise of much that is to come.

Now if the Church refuses to employ this potent weapon, she is very

stupid. A beginning is only a beginning, but it is a beginning. If we

ignore the element of terror, we are deliberately renouncing a force

which, in the wilds and in the world, is of really first-class value

and importance. I am not now saying that the ministry would be untrue

to its high calling if it failed to warn men with gravity and with

tears. That is a matter of such sacredness and solemnity that I

hesitate to touch it here; although it is obvious that, under any

conceivable method of interpretation, there is a terrible note of

urgency in the New Testament that no pulpit can decline, without grave

responsibility, to echo. But I am content to point out here that, from

a purely tactical point of view, the Church would be very foolish to

scout this valuable weapon. The element of fear is one of the great

primal passions, and to all those deep basic human elements the gospel

makes its peculiar appeal. And the fears of men must be excited. The

music cannot be all bass; but the bass note must not be absent, or the

music will be ruined.

There are still those who, far from being cowards, may, like Noah, be

'moved with fear' to the saving of their houses. Cardinal Manning

tells in his Journal how, as a boy at Tetteridge, he read again and

again of the lake that burneth with fire. 'These words,' he says,

'became fixed in my mind, and kept me as boy and youth and man in the

midst of all evil. I owe to them more than will ever be known to the

last day.' And Archbishop Benson used to tell of a working man who was

seen looking at a placard announcing a series of addresses on 'The Four

Last Things.' After he had read the advertisement he turned to a

companion and asked, 'Where would you and I have been without hell?'

And the Archbishop used to inquire whether, if we abandoned the

legitimate appeal to human fear, we should not need some other motive

in our preaching to fill the vacant place.

I know, of course, that all this may be misconstrued. But the wise

will understand. The naturalist will not blame me, for fear is the

life of the forest. The humanitarian can say no word of censure, for

fear is intensely human. But the preacher who strikes this deep bass

note must strike it very soulfully. No man should be able to speak on

such things except with a sob in his throat and tears in his eyes. We

must warn men to flee from the wrath to come; but that wrath is the

wrath of a Lamb. Andrew Bonar one day told Murray McCheyne that he had

just preached a sermon on hell. 'And were you able to preach it with

tenderness?' McCheyne wistfully inquired. Fear is part of that

wondrous instrument on all the chords of which the minister is called

at times to play; but this chord must be struck with trembling fingers.

No mistake can be more fatal than to set off this aspect of things

against more attractive themes. All truth is related. Some years ago

in Scotland an express train stopped abruptly on a curve in the time of

a great flood. Just in front of the train was a roaring chasm from

which the viaduct had been swept away. Just behind the train was the

mangled frame of the girl who had warned the driver. _It is impossible

to understand that sacrifice lying just behind the guard's van unless

you have seen the yawning chasm just in front of the engine!_

'No fears, no grace!' said James.

'And this I took very great notice of,' said Mr. Greatheart, 'that the

Valley of the Shadow of Death was as quiet while Mr. Fearing went

through it as ever I knew it before or since; and when he came to the

river without a bridge, I took notice of what was very remarkable; the

water of that river was lower at this time than ever I saw it in all my

life. So he went over at last, not much above wet shod.'

Fear had done its work, and done it well. The bass notes had proved

the foundation of a music that blended at last with the very harmonies

of heaven. Fear, even with White Fang, led on to love; and perfect

love casteth out fear.

VI

A FRUITLESS DEPUTATION

It was in New Zealand, and I was attending my first Conference. I had

only a month or two earlier entered the Christian ministry. I dreaded

the Assembly of my grave and reverend seniors. With becoming modesty,

I stole quietly into the hall and occupied a back seat. From this

welcome seclusion, however, I was rudely summoned to receive the right

hand of fellowship from the President. Then I once more plunged into

the outer darkness of oblivion and obscurity. Here I remained until

once again I was electrified at the sound of my own name. It seemed

that the sorrows of dissension had overtaken a tiny church in a remote

bush district. One of the oldest and most revered members, the father

of a very large family and the leader of the little brotherhood, had

intimated his intention of withdrawing from fellowship and of joining

another denomination. This formidable secession had thrown the little

congregation into helpless confusion, and an appeal was made to the

courts of the denomination. The letter was read; and the secretary

stated briefly and succinctly the facts of the situation. And then, to

my amazement, he closed by moving that Mr. William Forbury and myself

be appointed a deputation to visit the district, to advise the church,

and to report to Conference. Mr. Forbury, he explained, was a father

in Israel. His grey hairs commanded reverence; whilst his ripe

experience and sound judgement would be invaluable to the small and

troubled community. So far, so good. His reasoning seemed

irresistible. But he went on to say that he had included my name

because I was an absolute stranger. I knew nothing of the internal

disputes that had rent the church. My very freshness would give me a

position of impartiality that older men could not claim. Moreover, he

argued, the visit to a bush congregation, and the insight into its

peculiar difficulties, would be a useful experience for me. I felt

that I could not decently decline; but I confidently expected that the

proposal would be challenged and probably rejected. To my

astonishment, however, it was seconded and carried. And nothing

remained but to arrange with Mr. Forbury the date of our delegation.

The day came, and we set out. It took the train just four hours to

convey us to the lonely station from which we emerged upon a wilderness

of green bush and a maze of muddy tracks. Mr. Forbury had visited the

district frequently, and knew it well. We called upon several settlers

in the course of the afternoon, taking dinner with one, and afternoon

tea with another. And then we proceeded to the home of the seceder.

The place seemed alive with young people. The house swarmed with

children.

'How are you, John?' inquired my companion.

'Ah, William, glad to see you; how are you?'

They made an interesting study, these two old men. Their forms were

bent with long years of hard and honourable toil. Their faces were

rugged and weatherbeaten, wrinkled with age, and furrowed with care.

They had come out together from the Homeland years and years ago. They

had borne each other's burdens, and shared each other's confidences,

through all the days of their pilgrimage. Their thoughts of each other

were mingled with all the memories of their courtships, their weddings,

and their earlier struggles. A thousand tender and sacred associations

were interwoven, in the mind of each, with the name of the other. When

fortune had smiled, they had delighted in each other's prosperity. In

times of shadow, each had hastened to the other's side. They had

walked together, talked together, laughed together, wept together,

and--very, very often--prayed together. They had been as David and

Jonathan, and the soul of the one was knit to the soul of the other.

Hundreds of times, before the one had come to settle in this new

district, they had walked to the house of God in company. And now a

matter of doctrine had intervened. And, with such men, a matter of

doctrine is a matter of conscience. And a matter of conscience is the

most stubborn of all obstacles to overcome. I looked into their stern,

expressive faces, and I saw that they were no triflers. A fad had no

charm for either of them. They looked into each other's faces, and

each read the truth. The breach was irreparable.

We sat in the great farm kitchen until tea-time. I felt it was no

business of mine to broach the affairs that had brought us. Several

times I thought that Mr. Forbury was about to touch the matter. But

each time it was adroitly avoided, and the conversation swerved off in

another direction. Once or twice I felt half inclined to precipitate a

discussion. Indeed, I was in the act of doing so when our hostess

brought in the tea. A snowy cloth, home-made scones, delicious

oat-cake, abundance of cream--how tempting it all was! And how

unattractive ecclesiastical controversy in comparison! We sat there in

the twilight for what seemed like an age, talking of everything under

the sun. Of everything, that is to say, save one thing only. And

there brooded heavily over our spirits the consciousness that we were

avoiding the one and only subject on which we were all really and

deeply thinking.

After tea came family worship. I was invited to conduct it, and did

so. After reading a psalm from the old farm Bible, we all kneeled

together, the flickering flames of the great log-fire flinging strange

shadows on the whitened wall and rafters as we rose and bowed

ourselves. I caught myself attempting, even in prayer, to make obscure

but fitting reference to the special circumstances that had brought us

together. But the reticence of my companion was contagious. It was

like a bridle on my tongue. The sadness of it all haunted me, and

paralysed my speech; and I swerved off again at every threatened

allusion. We sat on for awhile, they on either side of the roomy

fireplace, and I between them, whilst the good woman and her daughters

washed up the tea-things. The clatter of the dishes, and the babel of

many voices, made it impossible for us to speak freely on the subject

nearest our hearts. At length we rose to go. I noticed, on the part

of my two aged companions, a peculiar reluctance to separate. Each

longed, yet dreaded, to speak. There was evidently so much to be said,

and yet speech seemed so hopeless.

At last our friend said that he would walk a few steps with us. We

said good-bye to the great household and set off into the night.

I shall never forget that walk! It was a clear, frosty evening. The

moonlight was radiant. Every twig was tipped with silver. The

smallest object could be seen distinctly. I watched the rabbits as

they popped timidly in and out of the great gorse hedgerows. A hare

went scurrying across the field. I felt all at once that I was an

intruder. What right had I to be in the company of these two aged

brethren in the very crisis of their lifelong friendship? No

Conference on earth could vest me with authority to invade this holy

ground! I made an excuse, and hurried on, walking some distance in

front of them. But the night was so still that, even at that distance,

had a word been uttered I must have heard it. I could hear the clatter

of hoofs on the hard road two miles ahead. I could hear the dogs

barking at a farmhouse twice as far away. I could hear a rabbit

squealing in a trap on the fringe of the bush far behind us. But no

word did I hear. For none was uttered. Side by side they walked on

and on in perfect silence. I once paused and allowed them to approach.

They were crying like children. Stern old Puritans! They were built

of the stuff that martyrs are made of. Either would have died a

hundred deaths rather than have been false to conscience, or to truth,

or to the other. Either would have died a hundred deaths to save the

other from one. Neither could be coaxed or cowed into betraying one

jot or tittle of his heart's best treasure. And each knew, whilst he

trembled for himself, that all this was true of the other as well.

Side by side they walked for miles in that pale and silvery moonlight.

Not one word was spoken. Grief had paralysed their vocal powers; and

their eyes were streaming with another eloquence. They wrung each

other's hands at length, and parted without even saying good-night!

At the next Conference it was the junior member of the deputation who

presented the report. He simply stated that the delegation had visited

the district without having been able to reconcile the differences that

had arisen in the little congregation. The Assembly formally adopted

the report, and the deputation was thanked for its services. It seemed

a very futile business. And yet one member of that deputation has

always felt that life was strangely enriched by the happenings of that

memorable night. It puts iron into the blood to spend an hour with men

to whom the claim of conscience is supreme, and who love truth with so

deathless an affection that the purest and noblest of other loves

cannot dethrone it.

VII

TRAMP! TRAMP! TRAMP

I

Tramp! tramp! tramp! tramp! It was like the regular and rhythmic beat

of a great machine. File after file, column after column, I watched

the troops pass by. Tramp! tramp! tramp! tramp! On they went, and on,

and on; all in perfect time and step; tramp! tramp! tramp! tramp! It

reminded me of that haunting passage that tells us that 'all these men

of war that could keep rank came with a perfect heart to make David

king over all Israel.' _They could keep rank_! It is a suggestive

record. There is more in it than appears on the surface. _They could

keep rank_! Right! Left! Right! Left! Tramp! tramp! tramp! tramp!

All these men of war _that could keep rank_ came with a perfect heart

to make David king over all Israel.

II

Half the art of life lies in learning to keep step. It is a great

thing--a very great thing--to be able to get on with other people. Let

me indulge in a little autobiography. I once had a most extraordinary

experience, an experience so altogether amazing that all subsequent

experiences appear like the veriest commonplaces in comparison. The

fact is, I was born. Such a thing had never happened to me before, and

I was utterly bewildered. I did not know what to make of it. My first

impression was that I was all alone and that I had the solar system all

to myself. Like Robinson Crusoe, I fancied myself monarch of all I

surveyed. But then, like Robinson Crusoe, I discovered a footprint,

and found that the planet on which I had been so mysteriously cast was

inhabited.. There were two of us--myself and The Other Fellow.

As soon as I could devise means of locomotion, I set out, like Robinson

Crusoe, to find out what The Other Fellow was like. I had a kind of

instinct that sooner or later I should have to fight him. I found that

he differed from me in one essential particular. He had hundreds of

millions of heads; I had but one. He had hundreds of millions of feet;

hundreds of millions of hands; hundreds of millions of ears and eyes; I

had but two. But for all that, it never occurred to me that he was

greater than I. _Myself_ always appeared to me to be vastly more

important than _The Other Fellow_. It was nothing to me that he

starved so long as I had plenty of food. It was nothing to me that he

shivered so long as I was wrapped up snugly. I do not remember that it

ever once crossed my mind in the first six months of my existence that

it would be a bad thing if he died, with all his hundreds of millions

of heads, and left me all alone upon the planet. I was first, and he

was nowhere. I was everything, and he was nothing. Why, dear me, I

must have cut my first teeth before it occurred to me that there was

room on the planet for both of us; and I must have cut my wisdom teeth

before I discovered that the world was on the whole more interesting to

me because of his presence on it. And since then I have spent some

pains, in a blundering, unskilful kind of a way, in trying to make

myself tolerable to him. And the longer I live the more clearly I see

that, although he is an odd fellow at times, he is very quick to

respond to and reciprocate such advances. He is discovering, as I am,

that walking in step has a pleasure peculiar to itself.

III

I said a moment ago that half the air of life lies in learning to keep

step. Conversely, half the tragedy of life consists in our failure so

to do. Here are Mr. and Mrs. Cardew. All lovers of Mark Rutherford

know them well. They were both of them really excellent people; a

minister and his wife; deeply attached to one another; and yet as

wretched as wretched could be. How are you going to account for it?

It is vastly important just because it is so common. Domestic

difficulties rarely arise out of downright wickedness. Husband and

wife may be as free from all outward fault as poor Mr. and Mrs. Cardew.

Mark Rutherford thinks that Mr. Cardew was chiefly to blame, and his

verdict is probably just. A man takes a considerably longer stride

than a woman; but, for all that, it is still possible, even in these

days of hobble skirts, for man and maid to walk in step, as all true

lovers know. But it can only be managed by his moderating his ungainly

stride to her more modest one, and, perhaps, by her unconsciously

lengthening her step under the invigorating influence of his support.

Which is a parable. Mark Rutherford says that 'Mr. Cardew had not

learned the art of being happy with his wife; he did not know that

happiness is an art; he rather did everything he could do to make the

relationship intolerable. He demanded payment in coin stamped from his

own mint, and if bullion and jewels had been poured before him he would

have taken no heed of them. He did not take into account that what his

wife said and what she felt might not be the same; that persons who

have no great command over language are obliged to make one word do

duty for a dozen; and that, if his wife was defective at one point,

there were in her whole regions of unexplored excellence, of faculties

never encouraged, and an affection to which he offered no response.'

There is more philosophy in the cunning way in which those happy lovers

in the lane accommodate their strides to the comfort of each other than

we have been accustomed to suspect. It is done very easily; it is done

almost unconsciously; but they must be very careful to go on doing it

long after they have left the leafy old lane behind them.

IV

I do not mean to suggest that husbands and wives are sinners above all

people on the face of the earth. By no means. Is there a club, a

society, an office, or a church in the wide, wide world that does not

shelter a most excellent individual whose one and only fault is that he

cannot get on with anybody else? That is, of course, my way of putting

it. It is not his. He would say that nobody else can get on with him.

Which again takes our minds back to the troops. A raw Scotch lad

joined the expeditionary force, and on the first parade day his mother

and sister came proudly down to see him march. Jock, sad to say, was

out of step. At least that is my way of putting it. But it is not the

only way. 'Look, mother!' said his fond sister, 'look, they're a' oot

o' step but our Jock!' It is not for me to decide whether Jock is

right or whether the others are. But since the others are all in step

with each other, I am afraid the presumptive evidence is rather heavily

against Jock. And Jock is well known to all of us. Nobody likes him,

and nobody knows why they don't like him. In many respects he is a

paragon of goodness. He loves his church, or he would not have stuck

to it year in and year out as he has done. He is not self-assertive;

he is quite willing to efface his own personality and be invisible. He

is generous to a fault. Nobody is more eager to do anything for the

general good. And yet nobody likes him. The only thing against him is

that he has never disciplined himself to get on with other people. He

has never tried to accommodate himself to their stride. He can't keep

rank. They're a' oot o' step but our Jock! Poor Jock!

V

I know that out of all this a serious problem emerges. The problem is

this: why should Jock destroy his own personality in order to render

himself an exact replica of every other man in the regiment? Is

individuality an evil thing that must be wiped out and obliterated?

The answer to this objection is that Jock is not asked to sacrifice his

personality; he is asked to sacrifice his angularity. The ideal of

British discipline is, not to turn men into machines, but to preserve

individuality and initiative; and yet, at the same time, to make each

man of as great value to his comrades as is by any means possible. In

the church we do the same. Brown means well, but he is all gush. You

ask him to do a thing. 'Oh, certainly, with the greatest pleasure in

the world!' But you have an awkward feeling that he will undertake a

thousand other duties in the same airy way, and that the chances of his

doing the work, and doing it well, are not rosy. Smith, on the other

hand, is cautious. He, too, means well; but he is unduly scared of

promising more than he can creditably fulfil; and, as a matter of fact,

this bogy frightens him out of doing as much as he might and should.

Now here you have Brown running and Smith crawling. You know perfectly

well that Brown will exhaust himself quite prematurely, and that Smith

will never get there. And between Brown's excited scamper and Smith's

exasperating crawl the main host jogs along at a medium pace. Now

Brown's personality is a delightful thing. You can't help loving him.

His willingness is charming, and his enthusiasm contagious. And

Smith's steady persistence and extreme conscientiousness are most

admirable. They do us all good. But if, whilst preserving and

developing their personalities, we could strip them of their

angularities, and get them to walk in step at one steady and regular

pace--tramp! tramp! tramp! tramp!--we should surely stand a better

chance of making David king over all Israel!

VI

It is all a matter of discipline. The ploughman comes up from the

country with a long ungainly stride. The city man, accustomed to

crowded pavements, comes with a short and mincing step. They are

drilled for a fortnight side by side, and away they go. Right! Left!

Right! Left! Tramp! tramp! tramp! tramp! The harmony is perfect.

Jock must submit himself to the same rigid process of training. He may

be firmly convinced that the stride of the regiment is too short or too

long. But if, on that ground, he adopts a different one, nobody but

his gentle and admiring little sister will believe that he is right and

they are wrong. Jock's isolated attitude invariably reflects upon

himself. 'The whole regiment is out of step!' he declares, drawing

attention to his different stride. That is too often the trouble with

Jock. 'The members of our Church do not read the Bible!' he says. It

may be sadly true; but it sounds, put in that way, like a claim that he

is the one conscientious and regular Bible-reader among them. 'The

members of our Church do not pray!' he exclaims sadly. It may be that

a call to prayer is urgently needed; but poor Jock puts the thing in

such a light that it appears to be a claim on his part that he alone

knows the way to the Throne of Grace. 'Among the faithless faithful

only he!' 'The members of our Church are not spiritually-minded!' he

bemoans; but somehow, said as he says it, it sounds suspiciously like

an echo of little Jack Horner's 'What a good boy am I!'

In the correspondence of Elizabeth Fry there occurs a very striking and

suggestive passage. When Mrs. Fry began to meet with great success in

her work among the English prisons, some of the Quakers feared that her

triumphs would engender pride in her own soul and destroy her

spirituality. At last the thing became nauseous and intolerable, and

she wrote, 'The prudent fears that the good have for me try me more

than most things, and I find that it calls for Christian forbearance

not to be a little put out by them. I am confident that we often see

the Martha spirit of criticism enter in, even about spiritual things.

_O Lord, enable us to keep our ranks in righteousness!_'

Tramp! tramp! tramp! tramp!

VII

'And Enoch walked with God.'

'And Noah walked with God.'

'And Abraham walked with God.'

'And Moses walked with God.'

Tramp! tramp! tramp! tramp!

'All these men of war _that could keep rank_ came with a perfect heart

to make David king over all Israel.'

'O Lord, enable us to keep our ranks in righteousness!'

VIII

THE FIRST MATE

'First officers are often worse than skippers,' remarked the night

watchman in Mr. W. W. Jacobs' _Light Freights_. 'In the first place,

they know they ain't skippers, and that alone is enough to put 'em in a

bad temper, especially if they've 'ad their certificate a good many

years, and can't get a vacancy.' I fancy there is something in the

night watchman's philosophy; and I am therefore writing a word or two

for the special benefit of first mates. I am half inclined to address

it 'to first mates only,' for to second mates, third mates, and other

inferior officers I have nothing to say. But the first mate evokes our

sympathy on the ground that the night watchman states so forcibly,

'First mates know they ain't skippers, and that alone is enough to put

'em in a bad temper.' It is horribly vexatious to be next door to

greatness. An old proverb tells us that a miss is as good as a mile;

but like most proverbs, it is as false as false can be. A mile is ever

so much better than a miss.

I am fond of cricket, and am president of a certain club. I invariably

attend the matches unless the house happens to be on fire. I have

enough of the sporting instinct to be able to take defeat

cheerfully--if the defeat falls within certain limits. It must not be

so crushing as to be a positive humiliation, nor must it be by so fine

a margin as to constitute itself a tantalization. Of the two, I prefer

the former to the latter. The former can be dismissed under certain

recognized forms. 'The glorious uncertainty of cricket!' you say to

yourself. 'It's all in the game; and the best side in the world

sometimes has an off day!' But, if, after a great struggle, you lose

by a run, you go home thinking uncharitable thoughts of the bowler who

might have prevented the other fellow from making a certain boundary

hit, of the wicket-keeper who might have saved a bye, or of the batsman

who might easily have got a few more runs if he hadn't played such a

ridiculously fluky stroke. To be beaten by a hundred runs is bad, but

bearable; to be beaten by an innings and a hundred runs is humiliating

and horrible; to be beaten by a single run is exasperating and

intolerable.

The same thing meets us at every turn. A few minutes ago I picked up

the _Life of Lord Randolph Churchill_, by his son. In the very first

chapter there is a letter written by Dr. Creighton to the Duchess of

Marlborough commiserating her ladyship on the fact that Lord Randolph

had been placed in the second class at the December examinations at

Oxford. 'I must own,' the Bishop writes, 'that I was sorry when I

heard how narrowly Lord Randolph missed the first class; a few more

questions answered, and a few more omissions in some of his papers, and

he would have secured it. He was, I am told by the examiners, the best

man who was put into the second class; and the great hardship is, as

your Grace observes, that he should be in the same class with so many

who are greatly his inferior in knowledge and ability. It is rather

tantalizing to think that he came so near; _if he had been farther off

I should have been more content_.' Now that is exactly the misery of

the first mate. He is so near to being a skipper, so very near. He

even carries continually in his pocket the official papers that certify

that he is fully qualified to be a skipper. And yet, for all that, he

is not a skipper. Sometimes, indeed, he fancies that he will never be

a skipper. It is very trying. I am sorry--genuinely sorry--for the

first mate. What can I say to help him?

Perhaps the thing that he will most appreciate is a reminder of the

tremendous debt that the world owes to its first mates. I was reading

the other day Dasent's great _Life of Delane_. Among the most striking

documents printed in these five volumes are the letters that Delane

wrote from the seat of war during the struggle in the Crimea to the

substitute who occupied his own editorial chair in the office of _The

Times_. And the whole burden of those letters is to show that England

was saved in those days by a first mate. 'The admiral,' he says in one

letter, 'is by no means up to his position. The real commander is

Lyons, who is just another Nelson--full of energy and activity.' Two

days later, he says again, 'Nothing but the energy and determination of

Sir E. Lyons overcame the difficulties and "impossibilities" raised by

those who seem to have always a consistent objection to doing anything

until their "to-morrow" shall arrive. All the credit is due to him,

and to him alone, for our admiral never left his ship, which was

anchored three miles from the shore, and contented himself with sending

the same contingent of men and boats as the other ships.' And, writing

again after the landing had been effected, Delane says, 'Remember

always, that, in the great credit which the success of this landing

deserves, Dundas has no share. Lyons has done all, and this in spite

of discouragement such as a smaller man would have resented. Nelson

could not have done better, and, indeed, his case at Copenhagen nearly

resembles this.' Here, then, is a feather in the cap of the first

mate. He may often save a vital situation which, in the hands of a

dilatory skipper, might easily have been lost. The skipper is skipper,

and knows it. He is at the top of the tree, and there remains nothing

to struggle after. He is apt to rest on his laurels and lose his

energy. This subtle tendency is the first mate's opportunity. The

ship must not be lost because the skipper goes to sleep. Everything,

at such an hour, depends on the first mate.

Nor is it only in time of war and of crisis that the first mate comes

to his own. In the arts of peace the selfsame principle holds good.

What could our literature have done without the first mate? And in the

republic of letters the first mate is usually a woman. It is only

quite lately that women have, to any appreciable extent, applied

themselves to the tasks and responsibilities of authorship. Until well

into the eighteenth century, Mrs. Grundy scowled out of countenance any

intrepid female who threatened to invade the sacred domain. In 1778,

however, Miss Fanny Burney braved the old lady's wrath, published

_Evelina_, and became the pioneer of a new epoch. One of these days,

perhaps on the bi-centenary of that event, the army of women who wield

the pen will erect a statue to the memory of that courageous and

brilliant pathfinder. When they do so, two memorable scenes in the

life of their heroine will probably be represented in bas-relief upon

the pedestal. The one will portray Miss Burney, hopeless of ever

inducing a biased public to read a woman's work, making a bonfire of

the manuscripts to which she had devoted such patient care. The other

will illustrate the famous scene when Miss Burney danced a jig to Daddy

Crisp round the great mulberry-tree at Chessington. It was, her diary

tells us, the uncontrollable outcome of her exhilaration on learning of

the praise which the great Dr. Johnson bestowed on _Evelina_. 'It gave

me such a flight of spirits,' she says, 'that I danced a jig to Mr.

Crisp, without any preparation, music, or explanation, to his no small

amazement and diversion.' Macaulay declared that Miss Burney did for

the English novel what Jeremy Collier did for the English drama; and

she did it in a better way. 'She first showed that a tale might be

written in which both the fashionable and the vulgar life of London

might be exhibited with great force, and with broad comic humour, and

which should yet contain not a single line inconsistent with rigid

morality, or even with virgin delicacy. She took away the reproach

which lay on a most useful and delightful species of composition.'

Prejudice, however, dies hard; and the same writer tells us in another

essay that seventy years later, some reviewers were still of opinion

that a lady who dares to publish a book renounces by that act the

franchises appertaining to her sex, and can claim no exemption from the

utmost rigour of critical procedure.

But, however strong may have been the prejudice against a woman

becoming captain, and taking her place upon the bridge, nobody could

object to her becoming first mate; and it is as first mate that woman

has rendered the most valuable service. A few, like Fanny Burney and

Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot, may have become

skippers; but we could better afford to lose all the works of such

writers than lose the influence which women have exerted over captains

whom they served in the capacity of first mate. It was a saying of

Emerson's that a man is entitled to credit, not only for what he

himself does, but for all that he inspires others to do. To no subject

does this axiom apply with greater force than to this. It would be a

fatal mistake to suppose that the contribution of women to the republic

of letters begins and ends with the works that bear feminine names upon

their title-pages. Our literature is adorned by a few examples of

acknowledged collaboration between a man and a woman, and only in very

rare instances is the woman the minor contributor. But, in addition to

these, there are innumerable records of men whose names stand in the

foremost rank among our laureates and teachers yet whose work would

have been simply impossible but for the woman in the background. From

a host of examples that naturally rush to mind we may instance, almost

at random, the cases of Wordsworth, Carlyle, and Robert Louis

Stevenson. In the days of his restless youth, when Wordsworth was in

danger of entangling himself in the military and political tumults of

the time, it was his sister who recalled him to his desk and pointed

him along the road that led to destiny. 'It is,' Miss Masson remarks,

'in moments such as this that men, especially those who feed on their

feelings, become desperate, and think and do desperate acts. It was at

this critical moment for Wordsworth that his sister Dorothy stepped

into his life and saved him.' 'She soothed his mind,' the same writer

says again, banished from it both contemporary politics and religious

doubts, and infused instead love of beauty and dependence on faith, and

so she re-awoke craving for poetic expression.'

She, in the midst of all, preserved him still

A poet; made him seek beneath that name,

And that alone, his office upon earth.

Poor Dorothy! She accompanied her brother on more than half his

wanderings; she pointed out to him more than half the loveliness that

is embalmed in his verses; she suggested to him half his themes. As

the poet himself confessed:

She gave me eyes, she gave me ears,

And humble cares, and delicate fears;

A heart, the fountain of sweet tears;

And love, and thought, and joy.

Yes, the world owes more than it will ever know to first mates as loyal

and true and helpful as Dorothy Wordsworth. The skipper stands on the

bridge and gets all the glory, but only he and the first mate know how

much was due to the figure in the background. Think, too, of that

bright spring day, nearly fifty years ago now, when a lady, driving

through Hyde Park to see the beauty of the crocuses and the snowdrops,

was seen to lurch suddenly forward in her carriage, and a moment after

was found to be dead. 'It was a loss unspeakable in its intensity for

Carlyle,' Mr. Maclean Watt says in his monograph. 'This woman was one

of the bravest and brightest influences in his life, though, perhaps,

it was entirely true that he was not aware of his indebtedness until

the Veil of Silence fell between.' The skipper never is aware of his

indebtedness to the first mate; that is an essential feature of the

relationship. It is the glory of the first mate that he works without

thought of recognition or reward; glad if he can keep the ship true to

her course; and ever proud to see the skipper crowned with all the

glory. Carlyle's debt to his wife is one of the most tragic stories in

the history of letters. 'In the ruined nave of the old Abbey Kirk,'

the sage tells us, 'with the skies looking down on her, there sleeps my

little Jeannie, and the light of her face will never shine on me more.

I say deliberately her part in the stern battle (and except myself none

knows how stern) was brighter and braver than my own.'

And in Stevenson's case the obligation is even more marked. 'What a

debt he owed to women!' one of his biographers exclaims. 'In his puny,

ailing infancy, his mother and his nurse Cummie had soothed and tended

him; in his troubled hour of youth he had found an inspirer, consoler,

and guide in Mrs. Sitwell to teach him belief in himself; in his moment

of failure, and struggle with poverty and death itself, he had married

a wife capable of being his comrade, his critic, and his nurse.' We

owe all the best part of Stevenson's work to the presence by his side

of a wife who possessed, as Sir Sidney Colvin testifies, 'a character

as strong, interesting, and romantic as his own. She was the

inseparable sharer of all his thoughts; the staunch companion of all

his adventures; the most open-hearted of friends to all who loved him;

the most shrewd and stimulating critic of his work; and in sickness,

despite her own precarious health, the most devoted and most efficient

of nurses.'

Dorothy Wordsworth, Jane Carlyle, and Fanny Stevenson are

representatives of a great host of brave and brilliant women without

whom our literature would have been poor indeed. Some day we shall

open a Pantheon in which we shall place splendid monuments to our first

mates. At present we fill our Westminster Abbeys with the statues of

skippers. But, depend upon it, injustice cannot last for ever. Some

day the world will ask, not only, 'Was this man great?' but also, 'Who

made this man so great?' And when this old world of ours takes it into

its head to ask such questions, the day of the first mate will at last

have dawned.

One other word ought to be said, although it seems a cruel kindness to

say it. It is this. There are people who succeed brilliantly as first

mates, but who fail ignominiously as skippers. Aaron is, of course,

the classical example. As long as Moses was skipper, and Aaron first

mate, everything went well. But Moses withdrew for awhile, and then

Aaron took command. 'And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down;

for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have

corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way

which I commanded them; they have made a molten calf, and have

worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy

gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt!'

As long, I say, as Moses was skipper and Aaron first mate, Aaron did

magnificently. But when Aaron took command, he was, as Dr. Whyte says,

'a mere reed shaken with the wind; as weak and as evil as any other

man. Those forty days that Moses spent on the mount brought out, among

other things, both Moses' greatness and Aaron's littleness and weakness

in a way that nothing else could have done. "Up, make us gods, which

shall go before us; for, as for this Moses, we know not what is become

of him." And Aaron went down like a broken reed before the idolatrous

clamour of the revolted people.' The day of judgement, depend upon it,

will be a day of tremendous surprises. And not least among its

astonishments will be the disclosure of the immense debt that the world

owes to its first mates. And the first mates who never become skippers

will in that great day understand the reason why. And when they know

the reason why, they will be among the most thankful of the thankful.

It will be so much better for me to be applauded at the last as a good

and faithful first mate than to have to confess that, as skipper, I

drove the vessel on the rocks.