Before the next Sunday Mr Cowie was dead; and, through some mistake or
mismanagement, there was no one to preach. So the congregation did each
as seemed right in his own eyes; and Mrs Forbes went to the missionar
kirk in the evening to hear Mr Turnbull. Kate and Alec accompanied her.
By this time Robert Bruce had become a great man in the
community--after his own judgment at least; for although, with a few
exceptions, the missionars yielded him the influence he sought, nobody
respected him; they only respected his money. He had managed to secure
one of the most fashionable pews in the chapel; and now when Mrs
Forbes's party entered, and a little commotion arose in consequence,
they being more of gentlefolk than the place was accustomed to
entertain, Bruce was the first to walk from his seat, and request them
to occupy his pew. Alec would have passed on, for he disliked the man,
but Mrs Forbes having reasons for being complaisant, accepted his
offer. Colds kept the rest of the Bruces at home, and Annie was the
only other occupant of the pew. She crept up to the top of it, like a
little shy mouse, to be as far out of the way as possible.
"Come oot, Annie," said Bruce, in a loud whisper.
Annie came out, with a warm flush over her pale face, and Mrs Forbes
entered, then Kate, and last of all, Alec, much against his will. Then
Annie re-entered, and Bruce resumed his place as Cerberus of the
pew-door. So Annie was seated next to Alec, as she had never been, in
church or chapel, or even in school, before, except on that memorable
day when they were both _kept in_ for the Shorter Catechism. But Annie
had no feeling of delight and awe like that with which Alec sat close
to his beautiful cousin. She had a feeling of pleasure, no doubt, but
the essence of the pleasure was faith. She trusted him and believed in
him as much as she had ever done. In the end, those who trust most will
find they are nearest the truth. But Annie had no philosophy, either
worldly or divine. She had only common sense, gentleness, and
faithfulness. She was very glad, though, that Alec had come to hear Mr
Turnbull, who knew the right way better than anybody else, and could
show it quite as well as Evangelist in the _Pilgrim's Progress_.
Nor was she far wrong in her judgment of the height of Mr Turnbull's
star, calculated from the horizon of Glamerton. He was a good man who
ventured to think for himself--as far as that may be possible for one
upon whose spirit have converged, even before he was born, the
influences of a thousand theological ancestors.
After reading the curses on Mount Ebal, he preached an eloquent sermon
from the text:
"Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way; yet saidst thou not
'there is no hope.'"
He showed his hearers that they had all been seeking satisfaction in
their own pursuits, in the pride of their own way; that they had been
disappointed, even to weariness; and that yet, such was their
perversity, they would not acknowledge the hopelessness of the pursuit,
and turn to that God who was ready to pardon, and in whose courts a day
would give them more delight than a thousand in the tents of
wickedness. And opening his peroration by presumptuously appropriating
the words of the Saviour, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, it shall be
more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha, in that day, than for you," the
preacher concluded with a terrible denunciation of wrath upon the
sinners who had been called and would not come. "Woe unto you, for ye
would not be warned! Woe unto you, for ye knew your Lord's will, and
yet committed things worthy of stripes! Therefore your whip shall be
one of scorpions! Woe unto you! I say; for, when the bridegroom cometh,
ye shall knock in vain at the closed door; ye shall stand without, and
listen for a brief moment to the music and dancing within--listen with
longing hearts, till the rush of coming wings overpowers the blissful
sounds, and the angels of vengeance sweep upon you, and bearing you
afar through waste regions, cast you into outer darkness, where shall
be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, to the endless ages of a
divine eternity."
With these words the preacher burst into impassioned prayer for the
souls which he saw exposed to a hell of which he himself knew not the
horrors, else he dared not have preached it; a hell the smoke of whose
torments would arise and choke the elect themselves about the throne of
God--the hell of Exhausted Mercy.
As long as the stream of eloquence flowed the eyes of the congregation
were fixed upon the preacher in breathless silence. When it ceased they
sank, and a sigh of exhaustion and relief arose. In that ugly building,
amidst that weary praying and inharmonious singing, with that blatant
tone, and, worse than all, that merciless doctrine, there was yet
_preaching_--that rare speech of a man to his fellow-men whereby in
their inmost hearts they know that he in his inmost heart believes.
There was hardly an indifferent countenance in all that wide space
beneath, in all those far-sloping galleries above. Every conscience
hung out the red or pale flag.
When Alec ventured to look up, as he sat down after the prayer, he saw
the eyes of Thomas Crann, far away in the crowd, fixed on him. And he
felt their force, though not in the way Thomas intended. Thomas never
meant to dart _personal_ reproaches across the house of God; but Alec's
conscience told him nevertheless, stung by that glance, that he had
behaved ill to his old friend. Nor did this lessen the general feeling
which the sermon had awakened in his mind, un-self-conscious as it was,
that something ought to be done; that something was wrong in him
somewhere; that it ought to be set right somehow--a feeling which every
one in the pew shared, except one. His heart was so moth-eaten and
rusty, with the moths and the rust which Mammon brings with him when he
comes in to abide with a man, that there was not enough of it left to
make the terrible discovery that the rest of it was gone. Its owner did
not know that there was anything amiss with it. What power can empty,
sweep, and garnish such a heart? Or what seven devils entering in, can
make the last state of that man worse than the first?
A special prayer-meeting having been appointed, to be held after the
sermon, Robert Bruce remained, to join in the intercession for the
wicked town and its wicked neighbourhood. He even "engaged in prayer,"
for the first time in public, and astonished some of the older members
by his gift in devotion. He had been received into the church only a
week or two before, upon profession of faith in the merits of Christ,
not in Christ himself--that would not have been definite enough for
them. But it would have been all the same to Robert Bruce, for he was
ready to believe that he believed anything advantageous.
There had been one or two murmurs against his reception, and he had
been several times visited and talked with, before the Church was
satisfied as to his conversion. But nothing was known against him
beyond the fact that "he luikit at baith sides o' a bawbee;" and having
learned many of their idioms, he had succeeded in persuading his
examiners, and had possibly persuaded himself at the same time, that he
had passed through all the phases of conversion, including conviction,
repentance, and final acceptance of offered mercy on the terms
proposed, and was now undergoing the slow and troublesome process of
sanctification; in corroboration of which he went on to produce talk,
and coppers at the chapel-door. Good people as many of those were who
thus admitted him to their communion, in the full belief that none but
conscious Christians should enjoy that privilege, his reputation for
wealth had yet something to do with it. Probably they thought that if
the gospel proved mighty in this new disciple, more of his money might
be accessible by and by for good purposes: amongst the rest, for
sending missionaries to the heathen, teaching them to divorce their
wives and wear trowsers. And now he had been asked to pray, and had
prayed with much propriety and considerable unction. To be sure Tibbie
Dyster did sniff a good deal during the performance; but then that was
a way she had of relieving her feelings, next best to that of speaking
her mind.
When the meeting was over, Robert Bruce, Thomas Crann, and James
Johnstone, who was one of the deacons, walked away together. Very
little conversation took place between them, for no subject but a
religious one was admissible; and the religious feelings of those who
had any were pretty nearly exhausted. Bruce's, however, were not in the
least exhausted. On the contrary, he was so pleased to find that he
could pray as well as any of them, and the excitement of doing so
before judges had been so new and pleasant to him, that he thought he
should like to try it again. He thought, too, of the grand Bible lying
up there on the room-table.
"Come in, sirs," he said, as they approached his door, "and tak' a
pairt in our faimily worship; and sae the day'll gang oot wi' prayer,
as it cam in wi' prayer. And the Lord'll maybe hae mercy upo' 's, and
no destroy the place, shops an' a', for the sins o' the
inhaibitants--them 'at sees, for them 'at 's blin'."
Neither of his companions felt much inclined to accede to his request:
they both yielded notwithstanding. He conducted them up-stairs,
unlocked the musty room, pulled up the blinds, and admitted enough of
lingering light for the concluding devotions of the day. He then
proceeded to gather his family together, calling them one by one.
"Mother!" he cried, from the top of the stair, meaning his wife.
"Tea, father," answered Mrs Bruce.
"Come to worship.--Robert!"
"Ay, father."
"Come to worship.--Johnnie!"
And so he went through the family roll-call, as if it were a part of
some strange liturgy. When all had entered and seated themselves, the
head of the house went slowly to the side-table, took from it
reverentially the late minister's study Bible, sat down by the window,
laid the book on his knees, and solemnly opened it.
Now a five-pound note is not thick enough to make a big Bible open
between the pages where it is laid; but the note might very well have
been laid in at a place where the Bible was in the habit of opening.
"Without an instant's hesitation, Robert slipped it away, and crumpling
it up in his hand, gave out the twenty-third psalm, over which it had
lain, and read it through. Finding it too short, however, for the
respectability of worship, he went on with the twenty-fourth, turning
the leaf with thumb and forefinger, while the rest of the fingers
clasped the note tight in his palm, and reading as he turned,
"He that hath clean hands and a pure heart--"
As soon as he had finished this psalm, he closed the book with a snap;
feeling which to have been improper, he put an additional compensating
solemnity into the tone in which he said:
"Thomas Crann, will you engage in prayer?"
"Pray yersel'," answered Thomas gruffly.
Whereupon Robert rose, and, kneeling down, did pray himself.
But Thomas, instead of leaning forward on his chair when he knelt,
glanced sharply round at Bruce. He had seen him take something from the
Bible, and crumple it up in his hand but would not have felt any
inclination to speculate about it, had it not been for the peculiarly
keen expression of eager surprise and happy greed which came over his
face in the act. Having seen that, and being always more or less
suspicious of Bruce, he wanted to know more; and was thus led into an
action of which he would not have believed it possible he should ever
be guilty.
He saw Bruce take advantage of the posture of devotion which he had
assumed, to put something into his pocket unseen of his guests, as he
believed.
When worship was over, Bruce did not ask them to slay to supper.
Prayers did not involve expense; supper did. But Thomas at least could
not have stayed longer.
He left his friends and went home pondering. The devotions of the day
were not to be concluded for him with any social act of worship. He had
many anxious prayers yet to offer before his heart would be quiet in
sleep. Especially there was Alec to be prayed for, and his dawtie,
Annie; and in truth the whole town of Glamerton, and the surrounding
parishes--and Scotland, and the world. Indeed sometimes Thomas went
further, and although it is not reported of him that he ever prayed for
the devil, as that worthiest of Scotch clergymen prayed, he yet did
something very like it once or twice, when he prayed for "the haill
universe o' God, an' a' the bein's in't, up and doon, that we ken unco
little about."