Mrs. Lynn Linton, daughter of a vicar of Crosthwaite, was born at
Keswick, England, Feb. 10, 1822. At the age of three-and-twenty
she embarked on a literary career, and as a journalist,
magazine contributor, and novelist wrote vigorously for over
fifty years. Before her marriage, in 1858, to W.J. Linton, the
eminent wood-engraver, who was also a poet, she had served on
the staff of the "Morning Chronicle," as Paris correspondent.
Later, she contributed to "All the Year Round," and to the
"Saturday Review." After nine years of married life, the
Lintons parted amicably. In 1872 Mrs. Lynn Linton published
"The True History of Joshua Davidson," a powerfully simple
story that has had much influence on working-class thought.
"Christopher Kirkland," a later story, is largely
autobiographical. Mrs. Linton died in London on July 14, 1898.
She was a trenchant critic of what she regarded as tendencies
towards degeneration in modern women.
_I.--A Cornish Christ_
Joshua Davidson was the only son of a village carpenter, born in the
small hamlet of Trevalga, on the North Cornwall coast, in the year 1835.
There was nothing very remarkable about Joshua's childhood. He was
always a quiet, thoughtful boy, and from his earliest years noticeably
pious. He had a habit of asking why, and of reasoning out a principle,
from quite a little lad, which displeased people, so that he did not get
all the credit from the schoolmaster and the clergyman to which his
diligence and good conduct entitled him.
He was never well looked on by the vicar since a famous scene that took
place in the church one Sunday. After catechism was over, Joshua stood
out before the rest, just in his rough country clothes as he was, and
said very respectfully to the vicar, "Mr. Grand, if you please I would
like to ask you a few questions."
"Certainly, my lad. What have you to say?" said Mr. Grand rather
shortly.
"If we say, sir, that Jesus Christ was God," said Joshua, "surely all
that He said and did must be real right? There cannot be a better way
than His?"
"Surely not, my lad," Mr. Grand made answer.
"And His apostles and disciples, they showed the way, too?" said Joshua.
"And they showed the way, too, as you say; and if you come up to half
they taught you'll do well, Joshua."
The vicar laughed a little laugh as he said this, but it was a laugh,
Joshua's mother said, that seemed to mean the same thing as a "scat"--
our Cornish word for a blow--only the boy didn't seem to see it.
"Yes; but, sir, if we are Christians, why don't we live as Christians?"
said Joshua.
"Ah, indeed, why don't we?" said Mr. Grand. "Because of the wickedness
of the human heart; because of the world, the flesh, and the devil."
"Then, sir, if you feel this, why don't you and all the clergy live like
the apostles, and give what you have to the poor?" cried Joshua,
clasping his hands and making a step forward, the tears in his eyes.
"Why do you live in a fine house, and have grand dinners, and let Peggy
Bray nearly starve in that old mud hut of hers, and Widow Tregellis
there, with her six children, and no fire or clothing for them? I can't
make it out, sir!"
"Who has been putting these bad thoughts into your head?" said Mr. Grand
sternly.
"No one, sir. I have been thinking for myself. Michael, out by Lion's
Den, is called an infidel--he calls himself one. And you preached last
Sunday that no infidel can be saved. But Michael helped Peggy and her
child when the orphan fund people took away her pension; and he worked
early and late for Widow Tregellis and her children, and shared with
them all he had, going short for them many a time. And I can't help
thinking, sir, that Christ would have helped Peggy, and that Michael,
being an infidel and such a good man, is something like that second son
in the parable who said he would not do his Lord's will when he was
ordered, but who went all the same------"
"And that your vicar is like the first?" interrupted Mr. Grand angrily.
"Well, yes, sir, if you please," said Joshua quite modestly, but very
fervently.
There was a stir among the ladies and gentlemen when Joshua said this;
and some laughed a little, under their breath, and others lifted up
their eyebrows and said, "What an extraordinary boy!" But Mr. Grand was
very angry, and said, in a severe tone, "These things are beyond the
knowledge of an ignorant lad like you, Joshua. I consider you have done
a very impertinent thing to-day, and I shall mark you for it!"
"I meant no harm. I meant only the truth and to hear the things of God,"
repeated Joshua sadly, as he took his seat among his companions, who
tittered.
And so Joshua was not well looked on by the clergyman, who was his
enemy, as one may say, ever after.
"Mother," said Joshua, "I mean, when I grow up, to live as our Lord and
Saviour lived when He was on the earth."
"He is our example, lad," said his mother. "But I doubt lest you fall by
over-boldness."
_II.--Faith That Moveth Mountains_
Joshua did not leave home early. He wrought at his father's bench, and
was content to bide with his people. But his spirit was not dead if his
life was uneventful. He gathered about him a few youths of his own age,
and held with them prayer-meetings and Bible readings, either at home in
his father's house, or in the fields when the throng was too great for
the cottage.
No one ever knew Joshua tell the shadow of a lie, or go back from his
word, or play at pretence. And he had such an odd way of coming right
home to us. He seemed to have felt all that we felt, and to have thought
all our thoughts.
The youths that Joshua got together as his friends were as
well-conditioned a set of lads as you would wish to see--sober,
industrious, chaste. Their aim was to be thorough and like Christ.
Joshua's great hope was to bring back the world to the simplicity and
broad humanity of Christ's acted life, and he could not understand how
it had been let drop.
He was but a young man at this time, remember--enthusiastic, with little
or no scientific knowledge, and putting the direct interposition of God
above the natural law. Wherefore, he accepted the text about faith
removing mountains as literally true. And one evening he went down into
the Rocky Valley, earnest to try conclusions with God's promise, and
sure of proving it true.
He prayed to God to grant us this manifestation--to redeem His promise.
Not a shadow of doubt chilled or slacked him. As he stood there in the
softening twilight, with his arms raised above his head and his face
turned up to the sky, his countenance glowed as Moses' of old. He seemed
inspired, transported beyond himself, beyond humanity.
He commanded the stone to move in God's name, and because Christ had
promised. But the rock stood still, and a stonechat went and perched on
it.
Another time he took up a viper in his hand, quoting the passage, "They
shall take up serpents." But the beast stung him, and he was ill for
days after.
"Take my advice," said the doctor. "Put all these thoughts out of your
head. Get some work to do in a new part of the country, fall in love
with some nice girl, and marry as soon as you can make a home for her.
That's the only life for you, depend upon it."
"God has given me other thoughts," said Joshua, "and I must obey them."
The doctor said afterwards that he was quite touched at the lad's
sweetness and wrong-headedness combined.
The failure of these trials of faith perplexed us all, and profoundly
afflicted Joshua. "Friends," he said at last, "it seems to me--indeed, I
think we must all see it now--that His Word is not to be accepted
literally. The laws of nature are supreme, and even faith cannot change
them. Can it be," he then said solemnly, "that much of the Word is a
parable--that Christ was truly, as He says of Himself, the corner-stone,
but not the whole building--and that we have to carry on the work in His
spirit, but in our own way, and not merely to try and repeat His acts?"
It was after this that we noticed a certain restlessness in Joshua. But
in time he had an offer to go up to London to follow his trade at a
large house in the City, and got me a job as well, that I might be
alongside of him. For we were like brothers. A few days before he went,
Joshua happened to be coming out of his father's workshop just as Mr.
Grand was passing, driving the neat pair-horse phaeton he had lately
bought.
"Well, Joshua, and how are you doing? And why have you not been to
church lately?" said the parson, pulling up.
"Well, sir," said Joshua, "I don't go to church, you know."
"A new light on your own account, hey?" and he laughed as if he mocked
him.
"No, sir; only a seeker."
"The old path's not good enough for you?"
"I must answer for my conscience to God, sir," said Joshua.
"And your clergyman, appointed by God and the state to be your guide,
what of him? Has he no authority in his own parish?"
"Look here, sir," said Joshua, quite respectfully; "I deny your
appointment as a God-given leader of souls. The Church is but the old
priesthood as it existed in the days of our Lord. I see no sacrifice of
the world, no brotherhood with the poor----"
"The poor!" interrupted Mr. Grand disdainfully. "What would you have,
you young fool? The poor have the laws of their country to protect them,
and the Gospel preached to them for their salvation."
"Why, sir, the poor of our day are the lepers of Christ's, and who among
you Christian priests consorts with them? Who ranks the man above his
station, or the soul above the man?"
"Now we have come to it!" cried Mr. Grand. "I thought I should touch the
secret spring at last! And you would like us to associate with you as
equals--is that it, Joshua? Gentlemen and common men hob-and-nob
together, and no distinctions made? You to ride in our carriages, and
perhaps marry our daughters?"
"That's just it, sir. You are gentlemen, as you say, but not the
followers of Christ. If you were, you would have no carriages to ride
in, and your daughters would be what Martha and Mary and Lydia and
Dorcas were, and their title to ladyhood founded on their degrees of
goodness."
"Shall I tell you what would be the very thing for you," said Mr. Grand,
quite quietly.
"Yes, sir; what?" asked Joshua eagerly.
"This whip across your shoulders! And, by George, if I were not a
clergyman, I would lay it there with a will!" cried the parson.
No one had ever seen Joshua angry since he had grown up. His temper was
proverbially sweet, and his self-control was a marvel. But this time he
lost both.
"God shall smite thee, thou white wall!" he cried with vehemence. "You
are the gentleman, sir, and I am only a poor carpenter's son; but I
spurn you with a deeper and more solemn scorn than you have spurned me!"
He lifted his hand as he said this, with a strange and passionate
gesture, then turned himself about and went in, and Mr. Grand drove off
more his ill-wisher than before. He also made old Davidson, Joshua's
father, suffer for his son, for he took away his custom from him, and
did him what harm in the neighbourhood a gentleman's ill word can do a
working man.
_III.--Is Christ's Way Livable?_
In London a new view of life opened to Joshua. The first thing that
struck him in our workshop was the avowed infidelity of the workmen.
Distrust had penetrated to their inmost souls. Christianity represents
to the poor, not Christ tender to the sinful, visiting the leprous, the
brother of publicans, at Whose feet sat the harlots and were comforted,
but the gentleman taking sides with God against the poor and oppressed,
an elder brother in the courts of heaven kicking the younger out of
doors.
At this time Joshua's mind was like an unpiloted vessel. He was beset
with doubts, in which the only thing that kept its shape or place was
the character of Christ. For the rest, everything had failed him. During
this time he did not neglect what I suppose may be called the secular
life. He attended all such science classes as he had time for, and being
naturally quick in study, he picked up a vast deal of knowledge in a
very short time; he interested himself in politics, in current social
questions, specially those relating to labour and capital, and in the
condition of the poor.
So his time passed, till at last one evening, "Friends," he said, "I
have at last cleared my mind and come to a belief. I have proved to
myself the sole meaning of Christ: it is humanity. The modern Christ
would be a politician. His aim would be to raise the whole platform of
society. He would work at the destruction of caste, which is the vice at
the root of all our creeds and institutions. He would accept the truths
of science, and He would teach that a man saves his own soul best by
helping his neighbour. Friends, the doctrine I have chosen for myself is
Christian Communism, and my aim will be, the life after Christ in the
service of humanity."
It was this which made him begin his "night school," where he got
together all who would come, and tried to interest them in a few homely
truths in the way of cleanliness, health, good cooking, and the like,
with interludes, so to speak, of lessons in morality.
We lodged in a stifling court, Church Court, where every room was filled
as if cubic inches were gold, as indeed they are to London house-owners,
if human life is but dross. Opposite us lived Mary Prinsep, who was what
the world calls lost--a bad girl--a castaway--but I have reason to speak
well of her, for to her we owe the life of Joshua. Joshua fell ill in
our wretched lodgings, where we lived and did for ourselves, and I was
obliged to leave him for twelve hours and more at a stretch; but Mary
Prinsep came over and nursed him, and kept him alive. We helped her all
we could, and she helped us. This got us the name of associating with
bad women.
Among the rest of the doubtful characters with which our court abounded
was one Joe Traill, who had been in prison many a time for petty larceny
and the like. He was one of those who stink in the nostrils of cleanly,
civilised society, and who are its shame and secret sore. There was no
place for Joe in this great world of ours. He said to Joshua one night
in his blithe way that there was nothing for him but to make a running
fight for it, now up, now down, as his luck went.
"Burglary's a bad trade," said Joshua.
"Only one I've got at my fingers' ends, governor," laughed the thief;
"and starvation is a worse go than quod."
"Well, till you've learned a better, share with us," said Joshua. So now
we had a reformed burglar and a reformed prostitute in our little
circle.
"It is what Christ would have done," said Joshua, when he was
remonstrated with.
But the police did not see it. Wherefore, "from information received,"
Joshua and I were called up before the master, and had our dismissal
from the shop, and we found ourselves penniless in the wilds of London.
But Joshua was undisturbed. He told both Joe and Mary that he would not
forsake them, come what might.
It was a hard time, and, bit by bit, everything we possessed passed over
the pawnbroker's counter, even to our tools. But when we were at the
worst Joshua received a letter enclosing a five-pound note, "from a
friend." We never knew where it came from, and there was no clue by
which we could guess. Immediately after both Joshua and I got a job, and
Joe and Mary still bided with us.
Joshua's life of work and endeavour brought with it no reward of praise
or popularity. It suffered the fate of all unsectarianism, and made him
to be as one man in the midst of foes. He soon began to see that the
utmost he could do was only palliative and temporary. So he turned to
class organisation as something more hopeful than private charity. When
the International Workingmen's Association was formed, he joined it as
one of its first members; indeed, he mainly helped to establish it. And
though he never got the ear of the International, because he was so
truly liberal, he had some little influence, and what influence he had
ennobled their councils as they have never been ennobled since.
One evening Joe Traill, who had been given a situation, came into the
night school staggering drunk, and made a commotion, and though Joshua
quieted him, after being struck by him, the police, attracted by the
tumult, came up into the room and marched Joshua and myself off to the
police station, where we were locked up for the night. As we had to be
punished, reason or none, we were both sent to prison for a couple of
weeks next morning.
Well, Christ was the criminal of his day!
Such backslidings and failures at that of Joe Traill were among the
greatest difficulties of Joshua's work. Men and women whom he had
thought he had cleansed and set on a wholesome way of living, turned
back again to the drink and the deviltry of their lives, and the various
sectarians who came along all agreed that the cause of his failures
was--Joshua was not a Christian!
Next a spasmodic philanthropist, Lord X., struck up a friendship with
Joshua, who, he said, wanted, as a background, a man of position. This
led to Joshua's first introduction into a wealthy house of the upper
classes, and the luxury and lavishness almost stupefied him. Lady X.
liked Joshua, and felt he was a master-spirit, but when she came to
Church Court, and found out what Mary had been, she went away offended,
and we saw her no more.
_IV.--The Pathway of Martyrdom_
Sometimes Joshua went as a lecturer to various towns, for his political
associates were willing to use his political zeal, though they did not
go in for his religious views. He insisted on the need of the working
classes raising themselves to a higher level in mind and circumstance,
and on the right of each man to a fair share of the primary essentials
for good living. His discourses roused immense antagonism, and he was
sometimes set upon and severely handled by the men to whom he spoke. I
have known swindlers and murderers more gently entreated. When, after
the war between France and Prussia the Commune declared itself in Paris,
Joshua went over to help, as far as he could, in the cause of humanity.
I went with him, and poor, loving, faithful Mary followed us. But there,
notwithstanding all that we and others of like mind could do, blood was
shed which covered liberty with shame, and in the confusion that
followed Mary was shot as a pétroleuse while she was succouring the
wounded. We buried her tenderly, and I laid part of my life in her
grave.
On our return Joshua was regarded as the representative of social
destruction and godless licence, for the very name of the Commune was a
red rag to English thought.
At last we came to a place called Lowbridge, where Joshua was announced
to lecture on Communism in the town hall. Grave as he always was, that
night he was grave to sadness, like a martyr going to his death. He
shook hands with me before going on the platform, and said, "God bless
you, John; you have been a true friend to me."
In the first row in front of him was the former clergyman of Trevalga,
Mr. Grand, who had lately been given the rich living of Lowbridge and
one or two stately cathedral appointments. At the first word Joshua
spoke there broke out such a tumult as I had never heard in any public
meeting. The yells, hisses, cat-calls, whoopings, were indescribable. It
only ceased when Mr. Grand rose, and standing on a chair, appealed to
the audience to "Give him your minds, my men, and let him understand
that Lowbridge is no place for a godless rascal like him."
I will do Mr. Grand the justice to say I do not think he intended his
words to have the effect they did have. A dozen men leaped on the
platform, and in a moment I saw Joshua under their feet. They had it all
their own way, and while he lay on the ground, pale and senseless, one,
with a fearful oath, kicked him twice on the head. Suddenly a whisper
went round, they all drew a little, way off, the gas was turned down,
and the place cleared as if by magic. When the lights were up again, I
went to lift him--and he was dead.
The man who had lived the life after Christ more exactly than any human
being ever known to me was killed by the Christian party of order. So
the world has ever disowned its best when they came.
The death of my friend has left me not only desolate but uncertain. Like
Joshua in earlier days, my mind is unpiloted and unanchored. Everywhere
I see the sifting of competition, and nowhere Christian protection of
weakness; everywhere dogma adored, and nowhere Christ realised. And
again I ask, Which is true--modern society in its class strife and
consequent elimination of its weaker elements, or the brotherhood and
communism taught by the Jewish Carpenter of Nazareth? Who will answer
me? Who will make the dark thing clear?
* * * * *