THE GARDENER'S LESSON
OLD Jonathan's home was a picture worth studying. It consisted of two
small rooms, one over the other, in the little round house which stood
at the entrance to Oaklands. Its name, "The Lodge," seemed given in
irony. Passers-by often wondered why such a crazy old tenement should
be allowed to remain on the boundary of so fine an estate; for it
was more like a battered old pepper-pot than anything else, with its
rounded roof and sides, and its cracked slates, which often, parting
company in a high gale, left holes for the wind and rain to enter, thus
making the resemblance more painfully exact.
Yet the old man loved his dilapidated cottage, and could never have
felt at home in a new lodge, though faultless it might be within and
without. How tenderly he would twine the tendrils of the vine still
higher each year, and encourage the merciful ivy to creep up and up, to
cover all defects, and shield the cracked walls from rude blasts, which
sometimes threatened to shake them down!
"Let us crumble away together," was old Jonathan's speech to the
proprietor of Oaklands whenever there was any talk of a new house. "It
would break my heart, dear master, to have a stone of her touched. Let
be, let be. Don't ye touch a stone till I am gone. One of the many
mansions in glory will be my new home. I don't want any other till I go
there."
And so Jonathan always had his own way, for his kind-hearted employer
could not resist such pathetic pleading.
The aged pilgrim and his house were indeed a match for each other;
and as he went in and out through the rustic porch day after day,
the tender green tints of vine and Virginian creeper deepened and
crimsoned, and grew golden with happy autumn tints, until they
fluttered away on the wings of a wintry wind.
Robin often crossed the threshold, and the ideas of order and neatness
which he found so useful in after life were chiefly gained from
his observations in the old man's home. For here was a place for
everything, and everything in its place. All was neatly arranged and
scrupulously clean; and on the round table in the window was the great
Bible that had belonged to Jonathan's mother, with the silver-rimmed
spectacles beside it.
There was a small lean-to room behind, which was full of gardening pots
and tools; also boxes with divisions, to keep the bulb roots and flower
seeds separate. Knots of bass and twine hung from the wall, for tying
up stray branches, and a great pair of scissors sat astride on a nail
above. There were also bunches of dried and sweet-smelling herbs, of
which Jonathan well knew the properties. His practical knowledge of
simple remedies he was often called upon to use on behalf of his humble
neighbours, who all looked up to him as an authority on most matters.
The villagers wondered how he could live there all alone from year
to year, doing everything for himself. Only a few of the oldest
inhabitants remembered the sad story he brought with him of the
fever-stricken town he had fled from, a widower and childless. His
Maggie would never grow old. She had gone away to the better land with
her two little ones, just at the beginning of the life-journey which
both husband and wife had thought would be such a long one together.
Not many knew why he brushed away the tear that was ready to fall on
the golden-haired child he would take upon his knee, as the little ones
crowded round the porch of his house on their way home from school.
There were three locks of hair in the old Bible, and sprigs of rosemary
and lavender beside them. They were laid upon the page that told of a
happy spring-time: "My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my
love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain
is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the
singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our
land. The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the
tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come
away." (Cant. ii. 10-13).
Those withered tokens were the old man's only "in memoriam." But they
kept his heart tender and child-loving as now and then he touched them
reverently, and thought how long it was since his loved ones had gone
to dwell in the presence of the King.
It was in spring-time his great life-sorrow had touched him; yet he
always seemed to love that season best. Keenly alive to the beauties of
Nature, he would study her ways minutely in trees and flowers, birds
and insects. The fruit trees in spring were as a poem to the aged man
in their lovely blossoming.
One day Robin found him looking lovingly at some pale almond flowers
flushed with faint pink. He was reading a lesson from their delicate
petals.
"Isn't it beautiful?" said Jonathan as he bent the blossom-laden branch
towards Robin. "Aaron's rod must have looked like that, my boy, when it
brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms. What a wonderful lesson for
the Christian heart!"
"I don't remember about that, Mr. Jonathan. Is it in the Bible?"
"Ay, that it is; and you may read it for yourself, my lad, when you
get home. Find out the 17th chapter of Numbers, and there you will get
the whole account. There were twelve rods laid before the Lord, but
only one was chosen—the one that belonged to the priest. Christ is
our Priest, and He is the Ark of Safety, where we, as lost and guilty
sinners, may hide ourselves and be safe in Him; then He decks us in His
robe of righteousness, which is far more beautiful than these lovely
perishing flowers, and we not only blossom, but bear fruit."
"But what is meant by 'bearing fruit,' Mr. Jonathan?"
"Well, my boy, I think kind words and looks, and struggles against sin,
are fruits that God likes to see in us. When we give up doing what we
like, and try to please God and everybody around us, I think He smiles
and says, 'There is fruit, pleasant fruit on that tree.' But we must
keep the branch inside the Ark; there the east wind of sin can never
blight its fair promise. Out of that shelter, the blossoms must fall
and perish, and there will be no fruit. 'Abide in Me, and I in you. As
the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no
more can ye, except ye abide in Me.'
"'They who in appointed duty
Live most secretly with God,
Shall come forth in fullest beauty,
Blossoming like Aaron's rod.
Plants can flourish in the dark,
If within the Golden Ark.'"
Robin never forgot that lesson, learned among the fragrant trees. The
old man was delighted to have so interested a listener beside him, as
day after day he sought to open Nature's book before the boy in the
light of God's revelation. The fig tree and the vine each had their
instructive story as the work of cutting and pruning or dressing went
on.
"Even the thorny bramble in the wood puts us to shame," said Robin's
kind teacher, one September day; "for, look! How glad it makes the
children as it offers its ripe blackberries to them as they pass. Can
we do as much as that poor prickly thing? Or is it only thorns we have
to offer?"
Jonathan's teaching was all given by parable and allegory, and Robin
was only one of the many who benefited by it. The children of his
beloved master shared in its happy influence as they played beside him
or worked in their garden plots. Every opportunity was turned into a
golden one, and much seed sown that for the time seemed trampled down,
but which was destined hereafter to spring up and have its blossoming
and fruitage in hearts that would bless the friend who had sown and
watered with such loving careful patience.
The good man connected everything around him in some way with God's
truth; and this it was that made his lessons so real and living. The
children of Oaklands could never read about the wearied Saviour and the
woman of Samaria without recalling the moss-grown well in the corner of
the garden, with its rusty chain and buckets, where Jonathan had told
that sweet story of old as he filled his water-cans.
The water of life, that in its freshness slakes all thirst for ever,
had its earthly illustration in the dark depths of their own spring-fed
well, and it was a life-long association.
But my readers will like to hear how it happened that Robin was able to
be with his kind friend and teacher so constantly. After that sunny day
of primrose gathering in the wood, the master of Oaklands had a long
conversation with Jonathan about Robin.
The under gardener had been suddenly dismissed the previous week, and
as the place was now vacant, there was an opportunity for saying a good
word for the widow's son.
"I would like to find someone trustworthy, who would grow up under my
eye and take my place when I am gone," the old man had said. "I am not
so young as I once was, and the rheumatics, especially in winter, tell
me the old tree must come down some day. But as in the forest I never
mark a tree for felling without first planting a sapling beside it, so
I would now like to find one of a good stock who will grow up faithful
to your service, sir, when these hands can no longer work for you and
yours."
Jonathan's advice was taken, and Robin duly installed in his new post.
What a big man he felt the first time he put his week's wages into
his mother's hand! He was to be the bread-winner of the family now,
and mother could afford to pay a smaller boy to fetch and carry the
clothes from the various houses. At church the following Sunday, who
felt happier or more elated than Robin, dressed in the new suit given
him by his master? Ah! how many good things grew out of Corrie's happy
Christmas! It had certainly turned a bright page in the history of
Robin's life.
Jonathan's words awakened many new thoughts in the boy's heart as day
by day he listened to them in the garden at Oaklands. But Robin's
youthful inexperience made some of the things uttered by his wise
teacher hard to be understood, and roused doubts and questions which
had not existed before.
One day he had been hearing much about the inborn corruption of the
human heart, described in Scripture as "deceitful above all things, and
desperately wicked." Robin remembered more than once having paused on
the threshold of the lodge on hearing the prayer of faith being poured
forth within; and he thought it strange that such agonising pleadings
against sin should have such a prominent place in his friend's petition.
Jonathan seemed perfect in the boy's eyes; good, kind, generous, and
a never-failing friend. There might be wicked people in the world;
but it would be easy to keep separate from them. Could not Robin look
with complacent satisfaction on his own life? Was he not a good son
and loving brother, taking home his earnings on Saturday night with
a punctuality that never failed? The public-house, with its crowd of
idlers going in and out, had no attraction for him, thanks to the
earnest and careful training of his good mother. He knew that not a
more sober industrious lad could be found in the whole parish than he
was.
But he had yet to learn that he carried the world in his heart, and
that it was on this battlefield that he must war against its trinity of
evil, "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of
life." Robin began to think old Jonathan was over-conscientious in the
discharge of duty, and over-strict about little faults.
Why had he spoken so sharply to him that very day about the watering
of a few plants? "I did not mean to forget them," ought to have been
a sufficient plea to justify him. Was forgetting a sin? A slip in the
memory was surely to be excused. Why should Jonathan say the narrow
path was thickly hedged with thorns, ready to prick on the right hand
and on the left? It seemed such an easy thing to be a Christian!
What did old Jonathan mean by the east wind of sin coming to nip the
early buds? Robin found the answer to his questions in a bitter and
most painful experience.