PART I

Produced by David T. Jones, Roger Frank, Al Haines, Sue

Clark & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team

at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

RUBBLE AND ROSELEAVES

And Things of That Kind

BY

F. W. BOREHAM

[Illustration]

THE ABINGDON PRESS

NEW YORK CINCINNATI

Copyright, 1923, by

F. W. BOREHAM

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Part I

I. OLD ENVELOPES 11

II. 'WHISTLING JIGS TO MILESTONES' 22

III. THE FRONT-DOOR BELL 35

IV. THE GREEN CHAIR 46

V. LIVING DOGS AND DEAD LIONS 57

VI. NEW BROOMS 67

VII. A GOOD WIFE AND A GALLANT SHIP 78

Part II

I. ODD VOLUMES 91

II. O'ER CRAG AND TORRENT 101

III. THE PRETENDER 113

IV. ACHMED'S INVESTMENT 124

V. SATURDAY 134

VI. THE CHIMES 145

VII. 'BE SHOD WITH SANDALS' 156

Part III

I. WE ARE SEVEN 169

II. THE FISH-PENS 181

III. EDGED TOOLS 192

IV. OLD PHOTOGRAPHS 202

V. A BOX OF BLOCKS 214

VI. PIECRUST 226

VII. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL 235

BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION

Every man has a genius for something or other. I have a genius for a

comfortable armchair and a blazing fire. Add to these two ingredients

what Bob Cratchit would call a _circle_ of congenial companions

(meaning, as his considerate creator points out, a _semi-circle_) and I

am as destitute of envy as the Miller of the Dee. I stipulate, however,

that my companions shall be so very much to my taste that, when in the

mood, I can talk to my heart's content without seeming garrulous, and,

when in the mood, can remain as silent as the Sphinx without appearing

sullen.

This outrageous spasm of autobiography is necessitated as an explanation

of _Rubble and Roseleaves_. The contents are neither essays nor sermons

nor anything of the kind. The inexhaustible patience of my readers has

lured me into the habit of talking on any mortal—or immortal—subject

that takes my fancy. I have merely set down here a few wayward notions

that have, in the course of my wanderings, occurred to me. But, in

self-defense, let me add that these outbursts have been punctuated by

whole infinitudes of silence. The silences are eloquently represented by

the gaps between the chapters.

Frank W. Boreham.

Armadale, Melbourne, Australia.

Easter, 1923.

PART I

I—OLD ENVELOPES

Three envelopes, cruelly torn and sadly crumpled, look reproachfully up

at me from the yawning abyss of my waste-paper basket. There is a heavy,

pompous envelope, of foolscap size, who evidently feels that I have

affronted his dignity by casting him to the void in this unceremonious

way. There is a thin, blue envelope who seems to be barking out

something about an account that ought to be paid. And there is a dainty

little square envelope, delicately perfumed, and addressed in a lady's

flowing hand. This pretty piece of stationery keeps asking, in a

plaintive voice, if the age of chivalry is dead.

'_Why_,' these envelopes want to know, '_why are the letters that we

brought laid so respectfully on your desk whilst we, to whom you are so

much indebted, are crushed and mangled and tossed disdainfully aside?

Isn't an envelope as good as a letter any day?_'

There is justice in their contention, and I take up my pen that I may

tender them an apology. A letter will tell you much; but the envelope

will often tell you more. I remember sitting with John Broadbanks one

autumn afternoon on the broad verandah of the Mosgiel Manse. Some

important meetings were to be held next day, and he had driven over to

help me in my preparations for them. He had, moreover, arranged to stay

the night. As we made our way through the various papers that would have

to be dealt with next day, the gate swung open and the postman placed a

budget of letters in my hand.

'Hullo!' I exclaimed, 'an English mail!' And, excusing myself from the

business on hand, I lost myself in the letters from Home.

I noticed that, when we returned to the agenda paper and reports, John

did not seem as keen as usual. He went through the documents

mechanically, languidly, perfunctorily, allowing several matters to pass

that, ordinarily, he would have questioned. He gave me the impression of

having something on his mind, and it was not until we all sat round the

tea-table that I grasped the situation. Then he opened his heart to us.

'I am very sorry,' he said, 'but if you'll let me, I think I had better

return to Silverstream this evening after all. The arrival of the

English mail makes all the difference. You have your letters; mine are

waiting for me at the Manse. When I last heard from Home, my mother was

very ill; I have spent an anxious month waiting for the letter that has

evidently arrived to-day; and I do not feel that I can settle down to

to-morrow's business until I have seen it.'

The announcement was greeted with demonstrations of general

disappointment. John was a universal favorite; he was the nearest

approach to a relative that the children had ever known; and the

prospect of having him in the house until bedtime, and of finding him

still on the premises when they awoke in the morning, had occasioned the

wildest excitement. And now the beautiful dream was about to be

shattered!

'I tell you what, John,' I said, going to the window and looking out,

'it's going to be a perfect moonlight night. Spend an hour with the

children after tea, and then I'll drive over to Silverstream with you.

If all's well, we can return together. If not, we shall understand.'

When, after a sharp cold drive in the moonlight, we reached the

Silverstream Manse, things took an unexpected turn.

'Mrs. Broadbanks has gone out,' the maid explained. 'The English mail

arrived this afternoon and she said you would be anxious to get your

Home letter. She took it with her and said that she would try to get it

posted this evening so that you would get it first thing in the morning.

And I think she intended to look in at Mrs. Blackie's before she

returned and inquire about Alec's broken leg. I know she took some

jellies with her.'

It was now John's turn to be disappointed. He had had his journey for

nothing; indeed, as things now stood he would be nearer to the letter at

Mosgiel than at Silverstream. Then an idea occurred to him.

'Did Mrs. Broadbanks get letters from _her_ home?' The maid thought that

she did. She knew, at least, that, after the arrival of the mail, her

mistress had spent some time in the bedroom by herself. John hurried to

the bedroom.

'Hurrah!' he cried, a moment later. 'Here's the envelope! It is

addressed in my mother's handwriting, and the postmark shows that it

left England on March 16. The last letter left on February 17 and the

envelope was addressed by my sister. So all's serene! Let's get back to

Mosgiel!' John wrote a hurried note for Lilian; left it on the bed; and,

in a few minutes, we were once more startling the rabbits on the road.

It is wonderful how often the envelope tells us all that we wish to

know. I always feel sorry for the Postmaster-General. No man on the

planet is under so great an illusion as is he. I can never read his

annual report without amusement. It is a stirring romance; but the

romance is, to some extent, the romance of _fiction_ rather than the

romance of _fact_. I know that it is a thankless task to rob a man of an

illusion that makes him happy; but the interests of truth sometimes

demand it. They do in this case. For it is not the Postmaster-General

alone who has been tricked by the witchery of appearances; the fallacy

is shared by all the members of his enormous staff. Every individual in

the department, from the Minister down to the messenger-boy, is equally

deceived. The annual report proves it. For, in this annual report, the

Postmaster-General tells you how many millions of letters he and his

subordinates have handled during the year. But have they? As a matter of

fact, they have handled no letters at all—except dead letters, and dead

things don't count. The Postmaster-General handles envelopes; that is

all. Let him correct the statement in his next report.

It will involve him in no loss of prestige, for, as these three

envelopes in the basket plead so plaintively, and as John Broadbanks

discovered that moonlight night at Silverstream, envelopes have a

significance of their own. The postman knows that. He never sees the

_letters_; but the _envelopes_ whisper to him a thousand secrets. He

knows the envelopes that contain circulars, and he hands them to you

with a look that is a kind of apology for having troubled you to answer

the door. He knows the official envelopes that contain demands for

rates, income taxes, and the like. If you are in his good books, he

hands them to you sympathetically; if not, he secretly enjoys the fun.

Here is an envelope marked 'Urgent'; here is one with a deep black

border; here is one with silver edges! He cannot be quite deaf to all

that these envelopes say. And here is one, addressed very neatly, to a

young lady at the house at the corner. He brings an exactly similar

envelope to the same fair recipient every other morning. On the morning

on which he brings the envelope, she invariably scampers along the hall

in order personally to receive the letters; on the alternate mornings

her father or her sister usually respond to his ring. He never sees her

letters; but he knows, he knows! The envelopes chatter to him all the

way down the street. Envelopes are great gossips. They talk to the

sorter; they talk to the collector; they talk to the postman; they talk

to the receiver; and they even go on talking—like the trio that set me

scribbling—after they have been tossed disdainfully into the

waste-paper basket.

The letter may be interesting in its way; but the envelope reveals the

essential things. When a man writes to me, he does not tell me what kind

of a man he is; but, recognizing that it is of the utmost importance to

me that this information should be placed at my disposal, he is good

enough to impart it on the envelope. He smothers the envelope with

hieroglyphs and signs which are more revealing than a photograph. It

frequently happens that my reply is determined more by these signs than

by anything that he says in the letter. The letter is probably stiff,

formal, lifeless—like a tailor's model. But the envelope reveals

individuality, character, life! The envelope's the thing! You find all

sorts of things in envelopes; you never find any mock modesty there.

Envelopes are never shy; they never stand on ceremony; they wait for no

introduction; they begin to talk as soon as they arrive. The envelope

tells me, by means of its postmark, of the locality from which it has

come and of the length of time that it has spent upon the road. Then,

swiftly establishing itself on friendly terms, it becomes personal,

communicative, confidential. It tells me that the writer of the letter

that I am about to read is a tidy man or a slovenly man, as the case may

be. Sometimes an envelope will tell me that it was addressed by a

feverish, impulsive, excitable man; another will assure me, proudly,

that it was sent to me by a leisurely, composed, methodical man. 'I

come,' boasts one envelope, 'from a painstaking and accurate man who is

scrupulously careful to cross every "_t_" and dot every "_i_."' 'And I,'

murmurs the envelope lying against it, 'come from a man who doesn't care

a rap whether the "_i's_" have dots, or, for that matter, whether the

dots have "_i's_"!' Here is an envelope that tells me that it has been

sent to me by a very dilatory man! The letter is dated March 2; the

postmark is dated March 6; he was four days in posting it! This envelope

contains a letter earnestly requesting me to oblige the writer by

speaking at a meeting which he is organizing, and he is kind enough to

speak of the great value which he attaches to my services. But the good

man has not the heart to deceive me. So, lest I should take the contents

of the letter seriously, he tells me that he has not even troubled to

find out how I spell my name or what initials I am pleased to bear. I

recognize, of course, that the information imparted by the envelope is

not to be implicitly trusted. A notorious gossip must always be heard

with the greatest caution. But most people with much experience of

correspondence, before answering a letter, like to hear what the

envelope has to say about it.

Nature, I notice, is very careful about the envelopes in which she sends

us her letters. The architecture of an orange is a marvel of symmetry

and compactness; but who has not admired the color and formation of the

peel? Is there anything on earth more delicate and ingenious than the

wrappings of a maize-cob? The husks and rinds and pods and shells that

we toss upon the rubbish-heap are masterpieces of design and execution.

As a small boy, I found among my treasures three things that filled me

with ceaseless wonder and admiration—the skin of horse-chestnuts, the

cocoons of my silkworms and the shells of the birds' eggs that I brought

home from the lane. I knew little about Nature in those days; but I

instinctively based my first impressions on the envelopes that she sent;

and, judging her by that sure standard, I felt that she must be

wonderfully wise and good and beautiful.

It is considered correct, I understand, to say that one should not judge

by outward appearances; but how can you help it? Envelopes will talk! I

can never forget a tremendous impression made upon my mind a few weeks

after I went to live in London. I was barely seventeen. I was feeling

horribly lonely, and, on all sorts of subjects, I was desperately

groping my way. One wet night, in passing down the Strand, I saw

hundreds of people crowding into Exeter Hall. Moved by a sudden impulse,

I followed. The adventure promised a new experience, and I was

specializing in novelties. Then came the impression! It was not created

by the arguments of the speakers, for, as yet, not one of them had

spoken. It was created by their personal appearance. The chair was

occupied by Sir Stevenson Arthur Blackwood—'Beauty Blackwood,' as he

was called—and addresses were delivered by the Revs. Newman Hall,

Donald Fraser, Marcus Rainsford and Archibald G. Brown. I could imagine

nothing more picturesque than those five knightly figures—tall,

dignified and stately. The spectacle completely captivated me. I gazed

spellbound. While the great audience sang the opening hymn, my eyes

roved from one handsome form to another, bestowing upon each the silent

homage of boyish hero-worship. This happened more than thirty years ago;

yet I am confident that I could easily write out a full and accurate

report of each of the speeches delivered that night. So favorably had

the envelopes impressed my mind! And so effectively had they prepared me

for the letters they contained!

In every department of life it is the envelope that becomes emphatic. In

describing at night the people with whom we have met during the day, we

refer to 'the lady in the fur coat,' 'the girl in the red hat,' and 'the

man in the grey suit.' The lady, the girl and the man—these are

letters. The fur coat, the red hat and the grey suit are merely

envelopes. Yet we feel that to speak of 'a lady,' 'a girl' or 'a man'

is, in effect, to say nothing. It conveys no concrete idea. It lacks

vividness, force, reality. But 'a lady _in a fur coat_,' 'a girl _in a

red hat_,' 'a man _in a grey suit_'—these are pictures! The envelope

makes all the difference.

We often say by way of the envelope what we cannot say so well in the

body of the letter. Charles Dickens knew that; so did John Bunyan; so

did the Greatest Master of all.

Dickens knew it. Indeed, somebody has as good as said that Dickens is

all envelopes; he gives us the barrister's wig in mistake for the

barrister, the beadle's cocked hat in mistake for the beadle, and so on.

But if it is true, on the one hand, that Dickens is too fond of

envelopes, it must be confessed, on the other, that he knows how to use

them. Who can forget the night when David Copperfield and Mr. Peggotty

set out together on one of those dreadful journeys that stood connected

with the loss of little Emily? Before starting, Mr. Peggotty entered

Emily's room. 'Without appearing to notice what he was doing,' said

David Copperfield, 'I saw how carefully he adjusted the little room and

finally took out of a drawer one of her dresses, neatly folded, and

placed it on a chair. He made no allusion to these clothes, neither did

I. There they had been waiting for her, many and many a night, no

doubt.' Mr. Peggotty could not express in so many words all that he

felt; but Emily, if she came, would see the dress lying ready for her,

and would understand that everything was to be just as it always was.

She would see the envelope; and the envelope would say more than any

letter could possibly do.

Bunyan knew it. The first thing that impressed the people of Vanity

Fair, as they gazed upon Christian and Faithful, was that 'the pilgrims

were clothed with such kind of raiment as was diverse from the raiment

of any that traded in that fair.'

And Jesus knew it. The most searching and terrible of all His parables

was the parable of the man who, seated at the king's feast, had not a

wedding garment. And, even more notably, when the prodigal came home,

the father knew of _no words_ in which he could adequately welcome his

son. But, if he could not write a satisfactory letter, he could at least

express himself by means of the envelope! Away with the rags! On with

the robes! Bring forth _the best robe_ and put it on him, and put _a

ring_ on his hand and _shoes_ on his feet!

And even when the Bible attempts to depict the felicities of the world

to come, it does it, not in the phraseology that we employ in letters,

but in the symbolism that we employ in the use of envelopes. It speaks

of robes and palms and crowns, for it knows that the wise will

understand.

II—'WHISTLING JIGS TO MILESTONES'

I

Blueberry Creek! Blueberry Creek! Where in the world was Blueberry

Creek? It was all very well for Conference to resolve—in the easy and

airy fashion that is so charmingly characteristic of Conferences—that

John Broadbanks and I should be appointed '_to visit and report upon the

affairs of the congregation at Blueberry Creek_'; but how on earth were

we to get there? On that point, the Conference, in its wisdom, had given

no directions: it had not even condescended to take so mundane a detail

into its consideration. A fearful and wonderful thing is a Conference. A

Conference is capable of ordering an inquiry into the state of the

inhabitants of Mars; and it would appoint its commissioners without

giving a thought to the ways and means by which they were to proceed to

the scene of their investigations. It was altogether beneath the dignity

of that august body to reflect that Blueberry Creek is as near to the

Other End of Nowhere as any man need wish to go; that it is many miles

from a railway station or a decent road; and that the only approach to

it is by means of a grassy track that, winding in and out among the

great brown hills, is, during a large part of the year, impassable. The

only indication of the track's existence consisted of a suspicion of

wheelmarks among the tussock.

When, at the close of the session, we met on the steps outside the hall,

John and I stared at each other in a lugubrious bewilderment. Then,

seeing, as he never failed to do, the humor of the situation, he burst

into peals of laughter.

'Blueberry Creek!' he roared, as though the very name were a joke, 'and

how are we to get to Blueberry Creek?'

Still, while we admired the complacent audacity with which the

Conference had saddled us with the responsibility of finding—or

making—a road to Blueberry Creek, _we_ felt, as _it_ felt, that

somebody ought to go. Allan Gillespie, a young minister, who, for seven

years, had done excellent work there, had resigned without any apparent

reason. The people, whose confidence, esteem and affection he had

completely won, were depressed and disheartened; and the work stood in

imminent peril. John used to say that, if you leave a problem long

enough, it will solve itself. The way in which the problem of getting to

Blueberry Creek solved itself certainly seemed to vindicate his

philosophy.

'I've been making inquiries,' said Mr. Alexander Mitchell, a man of few

words but of great practical sagacity, as he met me in the porch on the

last day of the Conference. 'I've been making inquiries about that

appointment of yours. I find that a motor has been through to Blueberry.

If _one_ can do it, _another_ can. I have a sturdy little car that will

get there if it is possible for four wheels to do it. My business will

take me as far as Crannington next week, so that I shall then be

two-thirds of the way to Blueberry. If you and Mr. Broadbanks care to

accompany me, we will do our best to get through. I expect we shall have

a rough passage, but I am willing to take all the risks if you are.'

Truth to tell, the project was very much to our taste. In order that we

might make an early start on the Tuesday, we arranged that John should

spend Monday night as our guest at Mosgiel. He came, and we both awoke

next morning on the best of terms with ourselves. Civilization was

quickly left behind. We followed the road as far as Crannington; had

lunch there; and then plunged into the hills. For the next few hours Mr.

Mitchell's motor—whose sturdiness he had by no means exaggerated—was

crashing its way through scrub and fern; clambering over rocky boulders;

gliding down precipitous gradients; edging its course along shelves cut

in the hillside; and splashing through the stream whose tortuous folds

awaited us in every hollow. At about five o'clock we emerged upon a

great plain covered with tussock; we made out a cluster of cottages in

the distance; and we knew that, at last, we had come to Blueberry Creek.

'Why, here is Allan!' exclaimed John, as he pointed to a solitary

horseman who, dashing along a track that intersected ours, was evidently

hurrying to join us.

We were soon at the manse. Allan was not married; his mother kept house

for him. 'My father died of consumption,' he used to say, 'and so did my

grandfather: I must make sure that I am a _citizen_ of this planet, and

not merely a _visitor_, before I let any pretty girl make eyes at me!'

Our mission was quite unavailing. John and I had a long talk with Allan

after tea.

'No,' he said at last, rising from his chair and pacing the room under

the stress of strong emotion. His shock of fair wavy hair fell about his

forehead when he was excited, and he brushed it back impatiently with

his hand. His pale blue eyes burned at such times as though a fire were

blazing behind them. 'No; I feel that I am _whistling jigs to

milestones_! I am preaching to people, who, while they are very good to

me, make no response of any kind to my message. They see to it that

Mother and I want for nothing; they bring us all kinds of little

dainties from the farms and stations; they share with us whatever's

going as the seasons come around; and they welcome me into their homes

as though I really belonged to them. They are great church people, too;

they attend the services magnificently, although they have to come long

distances along bad roads in all sorts of weather. They even compliment

me on my sermons, just as a sleeper, roused at midnight by the alarm of

fire, might, without rising, praise the dramatic ability of the friend

who had awakened him. I've stood it as long as I can,' he cried, his lip

quivering and his face pale with passion, 'and now I must give it up.

You needn't try to find me another church; I have no wish to repeat the

experience. I shall preach my last sermon on Sunday week, and I have

chosen my theme. I shall preach,' he said, coming right up to us and

transfixing us with eyes whose glowing fervor seemed to scorch us, 'I

shall preach on the _Unpardonable Sin_! I shall preach as gently and as

persuasively, but as powerfully, as I know how. But _that_ will be my

subject. For the Unpardonable Sin is to tamper with your oracle, to be

disloyal to your vision, to play fast and loose with the truth!'

Allan had an appointment that evening. Mr. Mitchell, exhausted by his

long drive, retired early. John and I excused ourselves and set off for

a walk across the plain. For a while we journeyed in silence, enjoying

the sunset, the song of the birds and the evening air. Allan's words,

too, had taken a strong hold upon us.

'There's a lot in what he says,' John remarked at length, 'especially in

his exposition of the Unpardonable Sin. Strangely enough, I was looking

into the subject only a few days ago. The popular interpretation is, of

course, absurd upon the face of it. You remember George Borrow's story

of Peter Williams. Peter, as a boy of seven, came upon the passage

'about the Unpardonable Sin and took it into his head that he could

dispose of religion for the rest of his life by the simple process of

committing that deadly transgression. Arising from his bed one night, he

went out into the open air, had a good look at the stars, and then,

stretching himself upon the ground and supporting his face with his

hands, the little idiot poured out such a hideous torrent of blasphemy

as, he believed, would destroy his soul for ever. For years the memory

of that solemn act of spiritual self-destruction darkened all his days

and haunted all his nights. He tormented himself, as Bunyan did, with

the conviction that he had committed the sin for which there is no

forgiveness. It ended as it did with Bunyan, and as it always does.

Chrysostom says that it is notorious that men who imagine that they have

committed the sin against the Holy Ghost invariably become Christians

and lead exemplary lives.'

We came at that moment to the banks of the creek; the waters were

sparkling in the moonlight; we instinctively seated ourselves among the

ferns.

'Allan's interpretation,' John went on, 'is much nearer the mark. The

words were addressed in the first instance to men who declared that

Christ cast out devils by the prince of the devils. The thing is

ridiculous; it is a contradiction in terms. Why should the prince of the

devils occupy himself with casting out devils? The men who said such a

thing were simply talking for the sake of talking. They were putting no

brain into it. They were stultifying reason; and the man who stultifies

his reason is darkening his own windows. He is, as Allan put it,

tampering with his oracle; he is playing fast and loose with the truth.

A fellow may behave in the same way towards his conscience or towards

any other means of moral or spiritual illumination. As soon as he does

that kind of thing, he shuts the door in his own face; he puts himself

beyond the possibility of salvation. And, when I was dipping into the

matter at Silverstream a few nights since, I came to the conclusion that

the passage about the Unpardonable Sin simply means this: the men who,

in the old Galilean days, distorted the evidence of the miracles and

rejected the testimony of the Son of Man, were guilty of a serious

offence; but it was a venial offence: for, after all, it was not easy to

realize that a Nazarene peasant was the Son of God. But those to whom

the fullness of the Gospel has come, and upon whom the light of the ages

has shone, how shall they be made the recipients of the divine grace if

they deliberately block every channel by which that grace may approach

them? If they stultify their reasons and harden their hearts; if, as

Allan says, they tamper with their oracles and play fast and loose with

the truth, what hope is there for them? I am sorry to see poor old Allan

taking the apathy of his congregation so much to heart: but most of us

would make better ministers if we took it to heart a little more.'

We discussed the matter for an hour or so, our conversation punctuated

by the splashing of the trout in the creek; and then, feeling that it

was getting chilly, we rose and walked back to the manse. Allan, to our

surprise, was already there.

'Now, look,' he said, as he seated himself in his armchair, and began to

poke the fire, 'you two men have come up here to talk me out of my

decision; and I'm delighted to see you. But tell me this. A few years

ago nobody could talk about the things of which I speak every Sunday

without moving people to deep emotion. I have been reading the records

of Wesley and Whitefield and Spurgeon. Why, bless me, it was nothing for

those men to see a whole audience bathed in tears. Whitefield would have

the Kingswood miners crying like babies. Why do I never see any evidence

of deep feeling? that's what I want to know. You may say that it's

because I don't preach as Wesley and Whitefield and Spurgeon preached. I

thought until lately that _that_ was the explanation. But I've given up

that theory: it won't work. Livingstone has a story about old Baba, a

native chief, who bore the most excruciating torture without the flicker

of an eyelid or the contraction of a muscle. Yet, when Livingstone read

to him the story of the crucifixion, he was melted to tears. No flights

of rhetoric, mark you! Just the reading of the New Testament, without

note or comment! Now I've read that same story to my people; and who was

much affected by it? Then look at Spurgeon! Why, Spurgeon, anxious to

test the acoustic properties of his new Tabernacle, entered the pulpit,

believing the building to be empty, and exclaimed, '_Behold the Lamb of

God that taketh away the sin of the world!_' A workman, concealed among

the empty pews, heard the words, listened, heard them repeated, and was

profoundly stirred by them. He laid down his tools, sought an interview

with Spurgeon, and was led into a life of useful and happy service. No

sermon, mark you; just a text! Why, _I've_ quoted that same text scores

of times, and who came to _me_ enquiring the way of salvation? I shall

say all this in my farewell sermon. I shall say it as kindly as I can,

for the people have been wonderfully good to me; but it is my duty to

say it. And I'm going to recite a few verses of poetry. Would you like

to hear them? I haven't memorized them yet. I only came upon them

yesterday.'

He slipped off to another room and returned with a volume of poems by

Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Opening it, he read to us some verses entitled _The

Two Sunsets_. They tell how a young fellow, of pure heart and simple

ways, saw a sunset and heard a song. As the sinking sun filled the

western sky with crimson and gold—

He looked, and as he looked, the sight,

Sent from his soul through breast and brain

Such intense joy, it hurt like pain.

His heart seemed bursting with delight.

So near the unknown seemed, so close

He might have grasped it with his hand.

He felt his inmost soul expand,

As sunlight will expand a rose.

And after the story of the sunset we have the story of the song:

One day he heard a singing strain—

A human voice, in bird-like trills,

He paused, and little rapture-rills

Went trickling downward through each vein.

And then the years went by. Queen Folly held her sway. She fed his flesh

and drugged his mind; he trailed his glory in the mire. And, after a

long interval, he revisited his boyhood's home, beheld another sunset

and heard another song:

The clouds made day a gorgeous bed;

He saw the splendor of the sky

With _unmoved heart_ and _stolid eye_;

_He only knew the West was red_.

Then, suddenly, a fresh young voice

Rose, bird-like, from some hidden place;

He did not even turn his face,

_It struck him simply as a noise_!

He saw the sunset that once filled him with ecstasy; but he saw it

'_with unmoved heart and stolid eye_'! He heard the song that once

sounded to him like the voice of angels, and '_it struck him simply as a

noise_!'

'_That's_ the Unpardonable Sin!' exclaimed Allan, gathering fervor as he

proceeded. He sprang from his chair and stood facing us, his back to the

fire. '_That's_ the Unpardonable Sin! Miss Wilcox as good as says so.

Listen!

O! worst of punishments, that brings

A blunting of all finer sense,

A loss of feelings keen, intense,

And dulls us to the higher things.

O! shape more hideous and more dread,

Than Vengeance takes in Creed-taught minds,

This certain doom that blunts and blinds,

And strikes the holiest feelings dead!

This vehement recital brought on a violent fit of coughing and he left

the room. When he returned we made no attempt to reply to him. We felt

that the case did not lend itself to argument. We fondly wished that we

could have retained him for the ministry. His burning passion would have

glorified any pulpit. But what could we say?

We were astir early next morning. Mr. Mitchell was up soon after dawn

getting the car ready for the road. After breakfast, John led us all in

family worship. Very graciously and very feelingly he committed the

young minister to the divine guidance and care. He specially pleaded

that the closing days of his ministry might be a season in which rich

fruit should be gathered and lasting impressions made. 'And,' he

continued, 'may the tears that he sheds as he takes farewell of his

people soften his heart towards them and wash from his eyes the vision

of their indifference. And may he be astonished in the Great Day at the

abundant response which their hearts have made to the Word that he has

preached among them.' Half an hour later we were again speeding towards

the hills, Allan and his mother waving to us from the gate.

III

Allan was as good as his word; after leaving Blueberry he never preached

again. 'I must have a rest for a month or two,' he said. 'I saved a

little money at Blueberry, and I can afford to take life easily for a

while and think things over.' The next that I heard of him was in a

letter, which some years later I received from John Broadbanks. 'Poor

old Allan Gillespie has gone,' he told me. 'His lungs went all to pieces

after he left Blueberry; the tonic air of the hills kept him alive up

there. He went to the Mount Stewart Sanatorium; but it was too late. He

died there three weeks later. I always felt that his fervent spirit made

too heavy a demand upon so frail a frame. His mother was much touched by

the letters she received from Blueberry. Crowds of young people wrote to

say that they could never forget the things that, in public and in

private, Allan had said to them; they owed everything, some of them

added, to his intense devoted ministry. It looks as if they were not so

irresponsive as they seemed.'

I suspect that this is usually so. People are not so adamantine as they

like to look. Still, John and I will always feel that Allan taught us to

take our work a little more seriously. Whenever we are tempted to lower

our ideals, or to settle down complacently to things as they are, his

great eyes—so full of solicitude and passion—seem to pierce our very

souls and sting us to concern.

III—THE FRONT-DOOR BELL

A fearful and wonderful contrivance is a front-door bell. The wire

attached to my front-door bell is the line of communication between me

and the universe. The universe knows it—and so do I. The front-door

bell is the one thing about a private dwelling that is public property.

If a stranger walked in at the front gate and began to push or pull at

anything else, I should instantly send for the police; but if, with all

the confidence of proprietorship, he walks straight to the front-door

bell, and begins to push or pull at _it_, I regard the position as

perfectly normal. No man living may enter my gate in order to inspect

the roses, to admire the view or to stroke the cat. But any one has a

perfect right to walk boldly up the path and ring the front-door bell. A

man may do what he will with his own; and the bell is _his_. It is more

his than mine. It is perfectly true that I ordered the bell to be put

there, and that I paid for it; but it is also true that I am the only

person on the planet to whom it is of no use at all. A visitor from

Mars, seeing the bellhangers working to my order, might be pardoned for

supposing that I was gratifying in this way my insatiable passion for

music. Not at all. In giving the order for the bell, I was actuated by

no selfish motive. The bell at my front door is not my bell. It is

everybody's bell—everybody's, that is to say, but mine.

That is why such a thrill runs through the house when the bell rings. It

is one of the sensations of the commonplace. A ring at the front-door

bell is a bolt from the blue, a call from the vast, a message from out

of the infinite. It presents to the imagination such a boundless range

of possibilities. There are fifteen hundred million people on the

planet, and this may be any one of them. It may be a hawker with the

inevitable cake of soap—a cake of soap that he, poor man, appears to

need so much more than I do. It may be the telegraph-boy with some

startlingly pleasant or poignantly painful message. It may be the very

man I want to see or the very man I don't. Or, then again, it may be

'only Sam.' Everybody knows the accents of ineffable disdain in which it

is announced that the ringer of the bell is simply a member of the

family circle. It may be anybody; that is the point. When the front-door

bell rings, you are prepared for anything. You feel, as you await the

announcement, that you have suddenly dipped your hand into the lucky-bag

of the universe, and you are in a flutter of curiosity as to what you

are about to draw. Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor; rich man, poor man,

beggar man, thief; why is the girl so long in returning from the door?

Smiles, frowns, laughter tears; they may any of them come with the

ringing of the front-door bell. When the bell rings, you are eating your

dinner, or reading the paper, or romping with the children, or chatting

easily beside the fire. The atmosphere is perfectly tranquil; all the

wheels are running smoothly; life is without a thrill. The bell rings;

all eyes are lifted; each member of the household glances inquiringly at

all the others; is anybody expecting anybody? We vaguely feel, when the

bell rings, that life is about to enter upon a fresh phase. Whether the

change will be for weal or for woe, for better or for worse, we cannot

tell. We only know that things are not likely to be quite the same

again. Somebody will come in, or somebody will be called out, or

something fresh will have to be done. The cards of life are all shuffled

and dealt afresh at the ringing of the front-door bell.

But it was not of my own bell that I set out to write. My own bell is

not my own bell; why, then, should I write of it? I prefer to write of

the bells that _do_ belong to me. The next-door bell is my bell; and the

bell of the house beyond that; and so on to the end of space. For, if it

is humiliating to reflect that the bell at my own door is not mine, it

is extremely gratifying to be reminded that, beyond my door, there are

millions and millions of bells that I can proudly call my own. I am not

generally considered musical; but I spend a good deal of my time in

bell-ringing. And I propose to describe one or two instruments on which,

at some time or other, I have performed.

I

To begin with, there is _the bell that is not working_. To all outward

appearance, the mechanism may be complete. You press the neat little

button and then airily turn your back upon it, happy in the conviction

that you have sent a delicious flutter through every soul on the

premises. In point of fact you have done nothing of the kind. Things

within are going on just as they were when you opened the gate; nobody

has the slightest suspicion that you are cooling your heels on the

doormat. The electric battery is exhausted. Beyond a scarcely

perceptible click when your fingers pressed the button, you made no

noise at all. That is the worst of life's most tragic collapses. There

is nothing to indicate the break-down. The failure does not advertise

itself. 'Samson said, I will go out as at other times and shake myself;

and _he wist not that the Lord was departed from him_.' The button and

the bell were there; how was he to know that the current had vanished?

The preacher enters his pulpit as of old; who could have suspected that

the invisible force, without which everything is so pitifully

ineffective, had forsaken him. The worker is still in his place; who

would have dreamed that, having lost his old power, his influence now

counts for so little? Lots of people fancy that a button and a bell

complete the requisites of life. Because the external appliances are in

good order, they take it for granted that everything is working

satisfactorily. It is a woeful blunder. The button may be there; and the

bell may be there; yet the entire outfit may be destitute of all

practical utility. I called at a house last week. Outside there was a

button and inside there was a bell. I pressed the button several times

and only discovered afterwards that the mechanism to which it was

attached gave the lady of the house no intimation of my presence at her

door. The bell was not working.

A bell that is out of action represents a broken line of communication

between the individual and the universe. Some time ago my bell broke

down. I heard every day of people who had called and gone away, fancying

that nobody was at home. I wondered every night what I had missed during

the day through being out of touch with the world. The broken bell had

turned me into a hermit, an exile, a recluse. People might want me never

so badly; they could not get at me. I might want them never so badly;

they left the door without my seeing them.

The saddest case of this kind that ever came under my notice occurred at

Hobart. A gentleman called one day and made it clear that his business

was marked by gravity and urgency.

'My name,' he said, 'is McArthur. My mother is lying very ill at the

Homeopathic Hospital. It would be a great comfort to us all, and to her,

if you could run up and see her. She has often asked us to send for you;

but we have always put it off. It seemed like encouraging her in the

notion that her days were few. But now we shall be very glad if you will

go. I ought to tell you, though, that my mother is very deaf. You will

not be able to make her hear. But you will find a slate and pencil at

the bedside. If you write on it whatever you wish to say, she will be

able to read it and reply to you.'

I went at once. When I told the matron that I had come to see Mrs.

McArthur, a strange look overspread her face and she drew me into her

private room.

'Is she dead?' I asked, 'or unconscious?'

'Oh, no,' the matron replied, 'she is alive and quite conscious. But

during the last few hours her sight has failed her. She can only see us

like shadows between herself and the window. I don't know how you will

be able to communicate with her.'

I never felt so helpless in my life. As I stood by her bedside she

seemed so near, yet so very far away. I stroked her forehead and she

smiled; but that was all. I was standing on the doormat pressing the

button; but the bell was not working. I could not establish

communication with the soul within. It is a way that bells have. The

current becomes exhausted sooner or later. It is clearly intended that,

while we are in touch with the universe, we should learn all that the

universe can teach us, so that, when the line of communication

collapses, we shall be independent of the universe and need its messages

no more.

Then there is _the bell that, when I press the button, rings without my

hearing it_. One day last week I called at a house in Winchester Avenue.

I pressed the button several times, listening intently. I could hear no

sound within. I tapped; but still everything was silent. I was just

stooping to slip my card under the door when, suddenly, I heard a rush

and a commotion within, and in a moment, Mrs. Finch, full of charming

apologies, stood before me. She had heard the bell each time; but her

maid was out; she was herself completing her toilet; she was dreadfully

ashamed to have kept me waiting.

We are too apt to suppose that our pressure of the button is awakening

no response. We fancy that our words fall upon deaf ears. People appear

to take no notice. Perhaps, if we knew all, we should discover that

while we press, and listen, and hear nothing, we are all unconsciously

throwing some gentle spirit into a perfect fever of agitation.

I pressed the button at my neighbor's door;

But, when I heard no sound, I turned and stood

Irresolute. If I had moved a bell

I must have heard it. Should I rap, or go?

But in a moment more my neighbor came.

'The bell is far, and very small,' he said.

'You may not catch it for the walls between

But rest assured, each time you push the knob

We cannot choose but hear the bell inside.'

And what they told me of my neighbor's bell

Has cheered me when I knocked at some hard heart

And caught no answer. Now and then

I poured my soul out in a hot appeal

And had no sign from lip, or hand, or eye,

That he I would have saved had even heard.

And I have sighed and turned away; and then

My neighbor's words came back: 'We cannot choose

But hear inside.'

And after many days

I have had an answer to a word I spoke

In ears that seemed as deaf as dead men's ears.

I was twelve years at Mosgiel in New Zealand. I always felt that the men

and women, and especially the old people, were attached to me; but,

somehow, I was never as successful with the children as I should like to

have been. I was very fond of them; I loved to meet them, play with

them, talk with them; but I saw them grow up to be young men and women

without being impressed in any way by any word of mine. That was the

bitterest ingredient in my sorrow when, fifteen years ago, I left that

little country town.

During the past three years I have traveled Australia from end to end.

In a railway journey of seven thousand miles I have crossed and

recrossed the entire continent. And one of the most delightful

experiences of this great trip was to meet my old Mosgiel boys and girls

at every turn. One girl came, with her husband, a hundred miles to spend

five minutes with me at the railway station; others traveled with me for

twenty or thirty miles just for the sake of the talk in the train.

Without an exception, they were all well and happy and living useful

lives. In every case they reminded me of things that I had said and done

in the old days—things that, as I fancied, had made no impression at

all. And when I returned to the quiet of my own home, and reviewed all

these happy reunions, I felt ashamed of having suspected these young

people of being irresponsive. The bell often rings without _our_ hearing

it.

III

On the other hand, it does occasionally happen that, when I press the

button, the bell rings; I myself, standing on the doormat, distinctly

hear it; _yet it is not heard by those upon whom I have called_.

'I am so sorry,' exclaimed Mrs. Wilson, as she left the church last

evening. 'I took my book on Thursday afternoon and strolled down to the

summer-house at the foot of the garden; I must have become absorbed in

the story; I did not hear the bell; and, when I came in, I found your

card under the door.'

'I say,' cried Harry Blair, 'I am awfully sorry. I must have been at

home when you called. But the bell is at the front of the house, and we

happened to be at the back. The children were making such a din that we

never heard you.'

Precisely! There are those whose bells we ring in vain. In the days in

which I made up my mind to be a minister, I fell under the influence of

the Rev. James Douglas, M.A., of Brixton, a most devout and scholarly

man. He often took me for a walk on Clapham Common, and said things to

me that I have never forgotten.

'When you are a minister,' he said one day, as we sat under the shelter

of a giant oak, 'when you are a minister, you will find, wherever you

go, that there are a certain number of people whom you are not fitted to

influence. It is largely a matter of personality and temperament. Don't

break your heart over it. Satisfy your conscience that you have done

your duty by them, and then leave it at that!'

It was wise counsel. There are a certain number of bells that, rung by

us, are not heard within.

IV

And, last and saddest of all, there is _the bell that we did not ring_.

We half thought of it; we heard afterwards how welcome a call would have

been; but the contemplated visit was not paid.

Around the corner I have a friend,

In the great city that has no end.

Yet days go by and weeks rush on,

And before I know it a year is gone;

And I never see my old friend's face,

For life is a swift and terrible race.

He knows I love him just as well

As in the days when I rang his bell

And he rang mine. We were younger then,

And now we are busy, tired men—

Tired with playing a foolish game,

Tired with trying to make a name.

'To-morrow,' I say, 'I will call on Jim,

Just to show that I'm thinking of him.'

But to-morrow comes and to-morrow goes,

And the distance between us grows and grows,

Around the corner—yet miles away. . . .

'Here's a telegram, sir.' 'Jim died to-day!'

And that's what we get and deserve in the end—

Around the corner a vanished friend.

I really intended to have pressed the button at Jim's door; but the good

intentions did not ring the bell; and I am left to nurse my lifelong

remorse.

I really intended to have answered the door when a Visitor Divine stood

gently knocking there; but the good intention did not let Him in; He

turned sadly and wearily away; and I am left to my shame and my

everlasting regret.

IV—THE GREEN CHAIR

I

The green chair was never occupied. It stood—according to Irving

Bacheller—in the home of Michael Hacket; and Michael Hacket is the most

lovable schoolmaster in American literature. Michael Hacket possessed a

violin and a microscope. The romps that he led with the one, and the

researches that he conducted with the other, represented the two sides

of his character; for he was the jolliest soul in all that countryside,

and the wisest. But, in addition to the violin and the microscope,

Michael Hacket possessed a green chair; and the green chair was even

more valuable, as a revelation of the schoolmaster's character, than

either the microscope or the violin. Barton Baynes, the hero of the

story, went as a boarder to Mr. Hacket's school; and the green chair

deeply impressed him. When the family assembled at table, the green

chair, always empty, was always there. Before he took his own seat, Mr.

Hacket put his hand on the back of the green chair and exclaimed:

'A merry heart to you, Michael Henry!'

It was a rollicking meal, that first meal at which Barton was present;

the schoolmaster was full of quips and jests; and his clever sallies

kept everybody bubbling with laughter. Then, when all had finished, he

rose and took the green chair from the table, exclaiming:

'Michael Henry, God bless you!'

'I wondered at the meaning of this,' says Barton, 'but I dared not ask.'

Shortly afterwards, however, he summed up courage to do so. Mr. Hacket

had gone out.

'I've been all day in the study,' the schoolmaster had said; 'I must

take a walk or I shall get an exalted abdomen. One is badly beaten in

the race of life when his abdomen gets ahead of his toes. Children, keep

Barton happy till I come back, and mind you, don't forget the good

fellow in the green chair!'

He had not been long gone when the children differed as to the game that

they should play. A dispute was threatening.

'Don't forget Michael Henry!' said Mrs. Hacket, reprovingly.

'Who _is_ Michael Henry?' asked Barton.

'Sure,' replied Mrs. Hacket, 'he's the child that has never been born.

He was to be the biggest and noblest of them all—kind and helpful and

cheery-hearted and beloved of God above all the others. We try to live

up to him.'

'He seemed to me,' said Barton, 'a very strange and wonderful

creature—this invisible occupant of the green chair. Michael Henry was

the spirit of their home, an ideal of which the empty chair was a

constant reminder.'

When a conversation threatened to become too heated, it was always

Michael Henry whose ears must not be offended by harsh and angry tones;

it was Michael Henry who had begged that a culprit might be forgiven

just this once: it was Michael Henry who was always suggesting little

acts of courtesy and kindness.

'I like to think of Michael Henry,' the schoolmaster would say. 'His

food is good thoughts and his wine is laughter. I had a long talk with

Michael Henry last night when you were all abed. His face was a chunk of

merriment. Oh, what a limb he is! I wish I could tell you all the good

things he said!'

But he couldn't; and we all know why.

There was no Michael Henry! And yet Michael Henry—the occupant of the

green chair—pervaded like a perfume and ruled like a prince the gentle

schoolmaster's delightful home!

II

We are very largely ruled by empty chairs. In support of this contention

let me call two or three witnesses. The first is Clarence Shadbrook.

Clarence was well on in life when I first met him. He struck me as being

reserved, taciturn, unsociable. It took me several years, I grieve to

say, to understand him. It was on the occasion of his wife's death that

I first caught glimpses of unsuspected depths of tenderness and

sentiment within him. Hannah Shadbrook was one of our most excellent

women. She had a kind thought for everybody. She was the heart and soul

of our ladies' organizations. In every good cause her hand was promptly

outstretched to help. She was especially tactful in her dealings with

the young people: to many of the girls she was a second mother. She was

tall and spare, with a slight stoop at the shoulders; her eyes were soft

and gray; and her face was illumined by a look of wonderful intelligence

and sweetness. She was the sort of woman to whom one could tell

anything.

Somehow, I had always imagined that, at home, she was unappreciated. I

cannot recall anything that I ever heard or saw that can have given me

so false and unfortunate an impression. But there it was! And it was,

therefore, with a shock of surprise that, at the time of her death, I

found the strong and silent man so utterly broken and disconsolate.

'Ah,' he sobbed, when, in a few halting words, I referred to the

affection in which his wife was held at the church, 'I dare say. But it

was at home that she was at her best. Nobody will ever know what she was

to me and to the children who have married and gone.'

But it was not until two years later that he opened his heart more

thoroughly. I heard on a certain Sunday evening that he was ill; and

next day I made my way to the cottage. He was in bed. I stepped across

to the window and laid my hand upon a chair, intending to transfer it to

the bedside.

'Excuse me,' he said, 'but don't take that one. Would you mind having

the chair over by the wardrobe instead?'

If the request struck me as strange, the thought only lingered for a

moment. I replaced the chair that I was holding; took the one indicated;

and dismissed the matter from my mind.

'I dare say you are wondering why I asked you not to take the chair by

the window,' he said presently, after we had discussed the weather, the

news, and his prospects of a speedy recovery. 'There's a story about

that chair that I've never told to anybody, except to her'—glancing at

a portrait—'but if you'd like to hear it, I don't mind telling you.'

'Well,' he went on, assured of my interest, 'I took a fancy to that

chair nearly fifty years ago. I was learning wood-carving; I thought

that it would suit my purpose: and I bought it. It was the first piece

of furniture that I ever possessed. I remember laughing to myself as I

carried it to my little room. It stood beside the bed there for a year

or two. Then I met Hannah. At first I felt a little bit afraid of her.

She seemed far too good for me. But then, I thought to myself, she is

far too good for anybody. And so our courtship began, and one night I

came home tremendously excited. We were engaged! I lay awake for hours

that night, sometimes painting wonderful pictures of the happy days to

be, and sometimes lecturing myself as to the kind of man I must become

in order to be worthy of the treasure about to be confided to my care.

And I comforted myself with the reminder that I should have her always

beside me to restrain the worst and encourage the best that was in me.

And, thinking such thoughts, I at length fell asleep. But, sleeping, I

went on dreaming. I thought that, coming home tired from the shop, I

entered my little room at the top of the stairs (the room in which I was

actually sleeping) and was surprised to find it occupied. A man was

sitting in the chair beside the bed—the chair over there by the window.

But I could not be angry, for he looked up and welcomed me with a smile

that disarmed my suspicions and made me feel that all was well. I felt

instantly and powerfully drawn to him. He seemed to magnetize me. His

face realized my ideal of manly strength, tempered by an indefinable

charm and courtesy. Then, as I gazed, it occurred to me that there was,

about his countenance and bearing, something strangely familiar. What

could it mean? Whom could it be? And then the truth flashed upon me. It

was _myself_! Yes, it was myself as I should be in the years to come

under Hannah's gentle and gracious influence! It was myself

transfigured! I awoke and found myself staring fixedly at the empty

chair beside the bed—the chair that you were about to remove from the

window there. I made up my mind that day that the chair should never be

used. It is dedicated to the ideal self of whom I caught a glimpse in my

boyish dream. And, even now, the shadowy visitor of that memorable night

seems to be still sitting there; and I never approach the chair without

mentally comparing myself with its silent occupant.'

Who would have supposed that, beneath the rugged exterior of Clarence

Shadbrook, there dwelt so rich a vein of poetry and romance? I almost

apologized to him for my earlier judgment. It only shows that, like the

first Australian explorers, we may tread the gold beneath our feet

without suspecting its existence.

III

My second witness is Harold Glendinning. Harold was the minister at Port

Eyre, a little seaside town close to the harbor's mouth. He had

frequently asked me to exchange pulpits with him, and at last he had

coaxed me to consent.

'Come early on Saturday,' he wrote, 'so that we may have an hour or two

together here before I have to leave.'

Like Clarence Shadbrook, Harold was a widower. But, unlike Clarence, he

was still young. His wife had faded and died after three short years of

married life. His mother kept house for him at the manse.

I reached Port Eyre early on the Saturday. We went for a walk round the

rocky coast before dinner; and in the afternoon Harold made preparations

for departure.

'But, dear me,' he exclaimed, 'I haven't shown you your room. Come with

me!' And he led me out into the hall and up the stairs.

The room was obviously his own. Photographs of his young wife were

everywhere. Her presence pervaded it. The window commanded a noble view

of the bay, and we stood for a minute or two admiring the prospect. We

then turned towards the door.

'Treat the place as though it belonged to you,' he said. 'Make yourself

perfectly at home. You're welcome to everything except—' He half-closed

the door again.

'You'll understand, I know,' he went on, 'but don't use the armchair

over there in the corner.' I glanced in the direction indicated by his

gaze. A comfortable chair stood beside a small occasional table on which

a lovely bowl of roses had been placed.

'It's _her_ chair,' he explained. 'It used to stand by the fireplace in

the dining-room. She sat there every evening, reading or sewing, with

her feet resting on her campstool.' I noticed now that a folded

campstool stood near the chair. 'Somehow,' he continued, 'the chair

seemed to become a part of her. And after—afterwards—I couldn't bear

to leave it there for anybody to occupy who happened to call; so I

brought it up here. And, somehow, with the chair there, she doesn't seem

so very far away. I'll show you something else,' he said; and, diving

into a drawer near his hand, he produced an old magazine.

'I only found this afterwards,' he explained. 'At least I only noticed

the marked passage. I saw it in her lap several times during the last

week or two, and, in an off-hand way, I picked it up and glanced through

it. But it was only after—afterwards—that I noticed that faint

pencil-mark beside this poem.' He handed me the magazine, and, surely

enough, I detected a mark, so faint as to be scarcely visible, beside

some lines by L. C. Jack.

When day is done and in the golden west

My soul from yours sinks slowly out of sight,

And you alone enjoy the warmth and light

That once had seemed of all God's gifts the best;

When roses bloom and I not there to name,

When thrushes sing and I not there to hear,

When rippling laughter breaks upon your ear

And friends come flocking as of old they came;

I pray, dear heart, for sweet Remembrance sake

You pluck the rose and hear the songful thrush.

With laughter meet once more the merry jest

And great familiar faces still awake,

For I, asleep in the eternal Hush,

Would have you ever at your golden best.

'You may think it strange,' he concluded, as we turned to leave the

room, 'but I often fancy that the chair in the corner makes it a little

more easy for me to live in the spirit of those lines.'

IV

I had intended calling several other witnesses; but I must be content

with one. Alec Fraser was a little old Scotsman, who lived about seven

miles out from Mosgiel. I heard one day that he was very ill, and I

drove over to see him. His daughter answered the door, showed me in, and

placed a chair for me beside the bed. I noticed, on the other side of

the bed, another chair. It stood directly facing the pillow, as if its

occupant had been in earnest conversation with the patient.

'Ah, Alec,' I exclaimed, on greeting him, 'so I'm not your first

visitor!'

He looked up surprised, and, in explanation, I glanced at the tell-tale

position of the chair.

'Oh,' he said, with a smile, 'I'll tell ye aboot the chair by-and-by;

but how are the wife and the weans and the kirk?'

I found that he was far too ill, however, to be wearied by general

conversation. I read to him the Shepherd's Psalm; I led him to the

Throne of Grace; and then I rose to go.

'Aboot the chair,' he said, as I took his hand, 'it's like this. Years

ago I found I couldna pray. I fell asleep on my knees, and, even if I

kept awake, my thochts were aye flittin'. One day, when I was sair

worried aboot it, I spoke to Mr. Clair Mackenzie, the meenister at Broad

Point. We hadna a meenister o' oor ain at Mosgiel then. He was a guid

auld man, was Mr. Mackenzie. And he telt me not to fash ma heed aboot

kneeling down. "Jest sit ye down," he said, "and pit a chair agen ye for

the Lord, and talk to Him just as though He sat beside ye!" An' I've

been doin' it ever since. So now ye know what the chair's doin',

standing the way it is!'

I pressed his hand and left him. A week later his daughter drove up to

the manse. I knew everything, or almost everything, as soon as I saw her

face.

'Father died in the night,' she sobbed. 'I had no idea that death was so

near, and I had just gone to lie down for an hour or two. He seemed to

be sleeping so comfortably. And, when I went back, he was gone! He

didn't seem to have moved since I saw him last, except that _his hand

was out on the chair_. Do you understand?'

I understood.

V—LIVING DOGS AND DEAD LIONS

I

Mosgiel was in the throes of an anniversary. As part of the programme,

John Broadbanks and I were exchanging pulpits. In order to be on the

spot when Sunday arrived, I was driven over to Silverstream on the

Saturday evening. When I awoke on Sunday morning, and looking out of the

Manse window, found the whole plain buried deep in snow, I was glad that

I had taken this precaution. At breakfast we speculated on the chances

of my having a congregation. Later on, however, the buggies began to

arrive, and by eleven o'clock most of the homesteads were represented.

But what about Sunday school in the afternoon? I told the teachers to

feel under no obligation to come. 'I shall be here,' I said, 'and if any

of the children put in an appearance, I shall be pleased to look after

them.' When the afternoon came, there were three scholars present—Jack

Linacre, who had ridden over on his pony from a farm about two miles

away; Alec Crosby, a High School boy, who lived in a large house just

across the fields; and little Myrtle Broadbanks—Goldilocks, as we

called her—who had accompanied me from the Manse. I decided to return

with my three companions to the Manse and to hold our Sunday school by

the fireside.

'Well,' I said, as soon as we were all cosily seated, 'I was reading

this morning in the Bible about a living dog and a dead lion. Which

would you rather be?' There was a pause. Jack was the first to speak.

'Oh, I'd rather be the living dog,' he blurted out; 'it's better to be

alive than dead any day!'

'Oh, I don't know!' exclaimed Alec. Alec was a thoughtful boy who had

already carried off two or three scholarships. He had been weighing the

matter carefully while Jack was giving us the benefit of his first

impressions. 'I don't know. A dead lion has been a living lion, while

the living dog will be a dead dog some day. I think I'd rather be the

dead lion.'

'Well, Goldilocks,' I said, turning to the little maiden at my side,

'and what do _you_ think about it?'

'Oh,' she said, 'I think I'd like a little of both. I'd like to be _a

lion_ like the one and _alive_ like the other!'

This all happened many years ago. Jack Linacre now owns the farm from

which he then rode over; Alec Crosby is a doctor with a large practice

in Sydney; and I heard of Goldilocks' wedding only a few weeks ago. I

expect they have forgotten all about the snowy afternoon that we spent

by the fireside at Silverstream; but I smile still as I recall the

answers that they gave to the question that I set them.

II

There is something to be said for Jack's way of looking at things. Our

love of life is our master-passion. It animates us at every point. It is

because we are in love with life that we see so much beauty in the

dawning of a new day and find so wealthy a romance in the unfolding of

the Spring. We feel that, among the myriad mysteries of the universe,

there is no mystery so elusive and so sublime as this one. A living moth

is a more wonderful affair than a dead moon. Indeed, we only recognize

the strength of the hold that life has upon us when there is some

question of its extinction. Let a man stand on the seashore, and, unable

to help, watch an exhausted swimmer struggle for his life in the

seething waters; let him look up and follow the movements of a

steeplejack as he climbs a dizzy spire; let him visit a circus and see

an artist hazard his life in the course of some sensational performance;

and, for the moment, he will find his heart in his mouth. The blood will

forsake his face; he will be filled with trepidation and palpitation; he

can scarcely breathe! And why? The people in peril are nothing to him.

For him, life would go on in just the same way whether they live or die.

Yet their danger fills him with uncontrollable excitement! Or look, if

you will, in quite another direction.

I was in a tramcar yesterday afternoon. In the corner opposite was a

lad—probably an errand-boy—curled up with a book. His sparkling eyes

were glued to the pages; his face was flushed with excitement; he was

completely lost to his immediate surroundings. I rose to leave the car.

The movement evidently aroused him. He glanced out of the window, and

then, with a start, shut the book and sprang up to follow me.

'Have you passed your proper corner?' I asked when, side by side, we

reached the pavement.

'Yes, sir,' he said, 'I was reading the book and never noticed.'

'Exciting, was it?' I inquired, reaching out my hand for the volume. On

the cover was a picture of a Red Indian galloping across the prairie,

with a white girl thrown across the front of his saddle.

'My word, it was!' he replied. 'It's about a fellow who was flying for

his life from the Indians and took refuge in a cave. And, when he got

back into the dark part of the cave, he felt something warm and then

heard the growl of a bear. My! I thought he was dead that time!'

And what did it matter? It was nothing to this errand-boy whether this

hero of his—a mere frolic of an author's fancy—lived or died. And yet

the life or death of that hero was of such moment to him that, for the

time being, his mind lost its hold upon realities in order that it might

concentrate itself upon a fight among shadows! It is our intense, our

persistent, our unquenchable love of life that explains the fascination

of all tales of romance and adventure. 'With man as with the animals,'

says Dr. James Martineau, 'death is the evil from which he himself most

shrinks, and which he most deplores for those he loves; it is the utmost

that he can inflict upon his enemy and the maximum which the penal

justice of society can award to its criminals. It is the fear of death

which gives their vivid interest to all hairbreadth escapes, in the

shipwreck or amid the glaciers or in the fight; and it is man's fear of

death that supplies the chief tragic element in all his art.' When we

find ourselves following with breathless interest the movements of the

traveller, the hunter or the explorer, we fancy that our emotion arises

from a solicitude for the man himself. As a matter of fact, it arises

from nothing of the kind. It arises from our love of

_life-for-its-own-sake_.

In his _Lavengro_, George Borrow describes an open-air service which he

attended on a large open moor. The preacher—a tall, thin man in a plain

coat and with a calm, serious face—was urging his hearers not to love

life overmuch and to prepare themselves for death. 'The service over,'

Borrow says, 'I wandered along the heath till I came to a place where,

beside a thick furze, sat a man, his eyes fixed intently on the red ball

of the setting sun.' It looked like his old comrade, Jasper Petulengro,

the gipsy.

'Is that you, Jasper?'

'Indeed, brother!'

'And what,' enquired the newcomer, sitting by the gipsy's side, 'what is

your opinion of death, Jasper?'

'Life is sweet, brother!'

'Do you think so?'

'Think so! There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon

and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the

heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?'

I need say no more in order to show that there is a good deal to be said

for Jack Linacre's way of looking at things.

How beautiful it is to be alive!

To wake each morn as if the Maker's grace

Did us afresh from nothingness derive

That we might sing 'How happy is our case!

How beautiful it is to be alive!'

From Jack's point of view there can be no doubt that one living dog is

worth all the dead lions that ever were or will be!

III

Alec Crosby, however, is not so sure. 'A dead lion,' he points out, 'has

been a living lion, while the living dog will be a dead dog some day.'

There is something in that. He means, if I rightly catch the drift of

his philosophy, that you can pay too much for the privilege of being

alive. Everything else has its price, and most of us buy our goods on

too high a market. One man pays too much for popularity; he sells his

conscience for it. Another pays too much for fame; it costs him his

health. A third buys his money too dearly; in gaining the whole world he

loses his own soul. And in the same way, a man may pay too much even for

life itself. The dog, as Alec Crosby probably knew, is usually employed

in Oriental literature as an emblem of the contemptible; the dog in our

modern sense—Rover, Carlo and the rest—is unknown. The lion, on the

other hand, is invariably the symbol of the courageous. Alec thinks

that, all things considered, it is better to be a dead hero than a

living coward. Alec reminds me of Artemus Ward. On the day of a general

election, Artemus entered a polling-booth and began to look about him in

evident perplexity. The returning officer approached and offered to help

him.

'For whom do you desire to vote?' he asked.

'I want to vote for Henry Clay!' replied Artemus Ward.

'For Henry Clay!' exclaimed the astounded officer, 'why, Henry Clay has

been dead for years!'

'Yes, I know,' replied Artemus Ward, 'but I'd rather vote for Henry Clay

dead than for either of these men living!'

Alec Crosby could easily call a great host of witnesses to support his

view of the matter. Let me summon two—one from martyrology and one from

fiction.

My first witness shall be Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. For

his fidelity to the truth, Cranmer was sentenced to die at the stake.

But every day during his imprisonment he was offered life and liberty if

only he would sign the deed of recantation. Every morning the document

was spread out before him and the pen placed in his hand. Day after day,

he resisted the terrible temptation. But, as Jasper says, life is very

sweet; the craving to live was too strong; Cranmer yielded. But, as soon

as the horror of a cruel death had been removed, he felt that he had

bought the boon of life at too high a price. The death with which he had

been threatened was the death of a lion; the life that he was living was

the life of a dog! He held himself in contempt and abhorrence. He

cowered before the faces of his fellow men! Life on such terms was

intolerable. He made a recantation of the recantation. As a token of his

remorse, he burned to a cinder the hand with which he signed the

cowardly document. And then, at peace with his conscience, he embraced a

fiery death with a joyful heart. He felt that it was a thousand times

better to be a dead lion than a living dog.

My witness from fiction is introduced to me by Maxwell Gray. In _The

Silence of Dean Maitland_, he shows that life may be bought at too high

a price. Cyril Maitland had committed a murder; yet all the

circumstances pointed to the guilt of his innocent friend, Henry

Everard. Maitland felt every day that it was his duty to confess; but

the lure of life was too strong for him; and, besides, he was a

minister, and his confession would bring shame upon his sacred office!

And so the years went by. While Everard languished in jail, having been

sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment, Maitland advanced in popularity

and won swift preferment. He became a dean. But his life was a torture

to him. He felt that death—even the death that he had dreaded—would

have been infinitely preferable. And, after suffering agonies such as

Everard in prison never knew, he at last made a clean breast of his

guilt and laid down the life for which he had paid too much. Thomas

Cranmer and Dean Maitland would both take sides with Alec Crosby.

IV

But it was Goldilocks that, on that snowy afternoon at Silverstream, hit

the nail on the head.

'I think I'd like a little of both,' she said. 'I'd like to be _a lion_

like the one and _alive_ like the other!'

Precisely! With her feminine facility for putting her finger on the very

heart of things, Goldilocks has brushed away all irrelevancies and got

to bedrock. For, after all, the question of life and death does not

really concern us. A dog, living or dead, can be nothing other than a

dog; a lion, living or dead, can be nothing other than a lion. The dead

lion, as Alec Crosby says, was a living lion once; the living dog will

be a dead dog some day. Goldilocks helps us to clear the issue. The real

alternative is not between life and death; for life and death come in

turn to dog and lion alike. The real question is between the canine and

the leonine. Shall I live contemptibly or shall I live courageously?

'And I looked,' says the last of the Biblical writers, 'and behold, a

lion—_the Lion of the tribe of Juda_!'

Like a lion He lived! With the courage of a lion He died! And in leonine

splendor He moves through all the world above. Goldilocks had evidently

made up her mind, in life and in death, to model her character and

experience upon His!

VI—NEW BROOMS

New brooms, they say, sweep clean. The statement is scarcely worth

challenging. It is ridiculous upon the face of it. How can new brooms

sweep clean? New brooms do not sweep at all. If they sweep, they are not

new brooms: they have been used; the dealer will not receive them back

into stock; they are obviously second-hand. But I need not stress that

point. My antagonism to the ancient saw rests on other grounds.

New brooms, they say, sweep clean. It is invariably a cynic who says it.

He seizes the proverb as he would seize a bludgeon; and, with it, he

makes a murderous attack on the first young enthusiast he happens to

meet. It is a barbarous weapon, and can be wielded by an expert with

deadly effects. It is a thousand times worse than a shillalah, a

tomahawk, a baton, or a club; with either of these a man can break your

head; but with the saying about the new broom he can break your heart. I

well remember the public meeting at which I was formally welcomed to

Mosgiel. Among the speakers was an old minister of the severely

conservative type, with whom I subsequently grew very intimate. But at

that stage, as he himself told me afterwards, he deeply resented my

coming. He regarded it as an intrusion. He said, in the course of his

speech, that he confidently expected to hear, during the next few

months, the most glowing accounts of the work at the Mosgiel Church.

That, he cruelly observed, was the usual thing. A young minister's first

year among his people is, he remarked, a year of _admiration_; the

second is a year of _toleration_; and the third, a year of

_abomination_. New brooms, he said, sweep clean. The jest, I dare say,

rolled from the memories of the people like water from a duck's back. I

doubt if they gave it a second thought. They probably remarked to one

another as they drove back to their farms that the old gentleman was in

a droll humor. But, to me, his words were like the thrust of a sword; he

stabbed me to the quick. There was never a day during those first three

years at Mosgiel, but the wound ached and smarted. Long afterwards, I

reminded the old gentleman of his jest; and he most solemnly assured me

that he had not the slightest recollection of ever having uttered it.

Which only proves that our thoughtless thrusts are often just as painful

as our malicious ones. I have long since forgiven my old friend. Indeed,

I do not know that I have much to forgive. For, after all, his stinging

jibe only made me resolve to prove its falsity. For more than a thousand

mornings I rose from my bed vowing that at the end of three years, and

at the end of thirty, the broom should be sweeping as cleanly as ever.

The old minister has been in his grave for many years now; and I have

nothing but benedictions to heap upon his honored name.

The cult of the new broom is a most pernicious one. No heresy has done

more harm. The woman who really believes that new brooms sweep clean

will endeavor to keep the broom new as long as she possibly can. And

that is not what brooms are for. Brooms are to use; and, as soon as you

begin to use them, they cease to be _new_ brooms. The point is a vital

one. About three hundred years ago, one of the choicest spirits in

English history was passing away. George Macdonald says of him that one

of the keenest delights of the life to come will be the joy of seeing

the face of George Herbert 'with whom to talk humbly will be in bliss a

higher bliss.' As George Herbert lay dying, he drew from beneath his

pillow the roll of manuscripts that contained the poems that are now so

famous. 'Deliver this,' he said, 'to my dear brother, Nicholas Ferrar,

and tell him that he will find in it a picture of the many spiritual

conflicts that passed between God and my soul before I could subject my

will to the will of Jesus my Master.' The verses were published, and

have come to be esteemed as one of the priceless possessions of the

Church universal. And among them, strangely enough, I find a striking

reference to this matter of new brooms. 'What wretchedness,' George

Herbert asks,

'What wretchedness can give him any room

Whose house is foul while he adores the broom?'

And here is George Herbert telling us on his death-bed that this

reflects some deep spiritual conflict between God and his own soul! What

can he mean? He means, of course, that it is possible to be so much in

love with your new dress that you are afraid to wear it. You may be so

enamored of your new spade that you shrink from soiling it. You may—to

return to the poet's imagery—so adore your new broom that you allow all

your floors to become dusty and foul.

And herein lies one of life's cardinal sins. In his lecture on _The

Valley of Diamonds_, John Ruskin discusses the nature of covetousness.

What is covetousness? Wherein does it differ from the legitimate desire

for wealth? Up to a certain point the desire for riches is admirable. It

develops intellectual alertness in the individual, and, in the

aggregate, builds up our national prosperity. If nobody wished to be

rich, the resources of the country would never be exploited. Why should

men trouble to clear the bush or sink mines or erect factories or

cultivate farms? Apart from the lure of wealth we should be a people of

sluggish wit and savage habits. Viewed in this light, the desire for

wealth is not only pardonable; it is admirable. At what point does it

curdle into covetousness and threaten our undoing? Ruskin draws the line

sharply. The desire for wealth is good, he argues, as long as we have

_some use_ for the riches that we acquire; it deteriorates into mere

covetousness as soon as we crave to possess it for the sheer sake of

possessing it and apart from any _use_ to which we propose to put it.

'Fix your desire on anything useless,' he says, 'and all the pride and

folly of your heart will mix with that desire; and you will become at

last wholly inhuman, a mere, ugly lump of stomach and suckers, like a

cuttlefish.' John Ruskin's vigorous prose throws a flood of light on

George Herbert's cryptic poetry. So far as I have it in my heart to use

my new broom for the cleansing of my home and the comfort of my fellows,

my new broom may be a means of grace to me and them; but, so far as I

view the new broom merely as a possession, and irrespective of the

service in which it should be worn out, my pride in it is bad as bad can

be.

John Ruskin reminds me of Le Sage. 'Before reading the story of my

life,' he makes Gil Blas to say, 'listen to a tale I am about to tell

thee!' And then he tells of the two tired and thirsty students who,

travelling together from Pennafiel to Salamanca, sat down by a roadside

spring. Near the spring they noticed a flat stone, and on the stone they

soon detected some letters. The inscription was almost effaced, partly

by the teeth of time and partly by the feet of the flocks that came to

water at the fountain. But, after washing it well, they were able to

make out the words '_Here is interred the soul of the Licentiate Peter

Garcias_.' The first of the students roared with laughter and treated

the affair as purely a joke. 'Here lies a _soul_!'—what an idea! A soul

under a stone! The second, however, took it more seriously and began to

dig. He at length came upon a leather purse containing a hundred ducats,

and a card, on which was written in Latin the following sentence: '_Thou

who hast had wit enough to discover the meaning of the inscription,

inherit my money, and make a better use of it than I have!_'

'The _soul_ of the Licentiate Peter Garcias!'

'Make _a better use_ of it than I have!'

Poor Peter Garcias felt that his shining ducats had been a curse and not

a blessing, because he had loved them for their own sake instead of for

the sake of the use to which they could be put. 'Make _a better use_ of

them than I have!' he implored. Peter Garcias would have understood

exactly what George Herbert meant by the worship of the new broom.

But I need not have gone abroad for my illustration. It is a far cry

from George Herbert to George Eliot; yet George Eliot has furnished us

with the most telling exposition of George Herbert's recondite remark.

For George Eliot has given us _Silas Marner_. Indeed, she has given us

two Silas Marners. We have Silas Marner the miser, gloating greedily

over the guineas that he afterwards lost; and, later on, we have Silas

Marner, strong, unselfish, tender-hearted, rejoicing in the wealth that

he has now regained. Let us glance, first at the one and then at the

other.

We peep at him as he appears in the second chapter. 'So, year after

year, Silas Marner had lived in this solitude, his guineas rising in the

iron pot, and his life narrowing and hardening itself more and more into

a mere pulsation of desire and satisfaction that had no relation to any

other being. His life had reduced itself to the functions of weaving and

hoarding, _without any contemplation of an end towards which the

functions tended_. Marner's face shrank; his eyes that used to look

trusting and dreamy now looked as if they had been made to see only one

kind of thing for which they hunted everywhere; and he was so withered

and yellow that, although he was not yet forty, the children always

called him "Old Master Marner."'

This was Silas Marner the miser! Then followed the loss of the money;

the hoarded guineas were all stolen, and Silas was like a man demented!

Then little Eppie stole into his home and heart. When he saw her for the

first time, curled up on the hearth, the flickering firelight playing on

her riot of golden hair, he thought his long-lost guineas had come back

in this new form, and he loved _her_ as he had once loved _them_. He

would take her on his knee and tell her wonderful stories, and, in the

long summer evenings, would stroll out into the meadows, thick with

buttercups, and would make garlands for her hair and teach her to

distinguish the songs of the birds. And so the years go by till Eppie is

a bonny girl of eighteen—always in trouble about her golden hair, for

no other girl of her acquaintance has hair like it, and, smooth it as

she may, it will not be hidden under her pretty brown bonnet. And then

comes the great discovery. The pond in the Stone Pit runs dry, and in

its slimy bed are found the skeleton of the thief and—the long-lost

guineas! That evening Silas and Eppie sat together in the cottage.

George Eliot describes the transfiguration which his love for Eppie had

effected in the countenance of Silas. 'She drew her chair towards his

knees, and leaned forward, holding both his hands, while she looked up

at him.' On the table near them, lit by a candle, lay the recovered

gold—the old long-loved gold, ranged in orderly heaps, as Silas used to

range it in the days when it was his only joy. He had been telling her

how he used to count it every night, and how his soul was utterly

desolate till she was sent to him.

'Eh, my precious child,' he cried, 'if you hadn't been sent to save me,

I should ha' gone to the grave in my misery. The money was taken away

from me in time; and you see it's been kept—kept till it was wanted for

you. It's wonderful—our life is wonderful!'

It is indeed! But the wonderful thing for us at this moment is the

contrast between these two Silas Marners. They are both rich. But the

first is rich and wretched; the second is rich and happy. And the

secret! The secret is that, in his first possession of the guineas, he

loved them for their own sake, irrespective of any use to which they

could be put; in his subsequent possession of the self-same guineas he

loved them for the sake of the happiness that they could purchase for

Eppie.

The _first_ Silas Marner knew the wretchedness that George Herbert

describes—the wretchedness of the man 'whose house is foul while he

adores his broom'; the _second_ Silas Marner was willing that the broom

should be worn out in sweeping all the obstacles and difficulties out of

Eppie's path.

In telling her story, George Eliot remarks incidentally that wiser men

than Silas Marner often repeat his mistake. The only difference is that,

while Silas Marner amassed _money_ without considering the uses to which

it could be put, these wiser misers accumulate _knowledge_ in the same

aimless way. They abandon themselves to some erudite research, some

ingenious project or some well-knit theory; and it brings them little

joy because it stands related to no actual need. It is a new broom and

will remain a new broom; it will never brush away any of the world's

sorrows or sweep together any of its long-lost treasures. Knowledge,

like money, is a noble thing. But, as with money, so with knowledge, it

derives its nobleness from the ends which it is designed to compass.

Every nation has a right to rejoice in its universities. The university

is the glory of civilization. But, unless we keep both eyes wide open,

the university may come to resemble the hole in the cottage floor in

which Silas Marner hoarded his gold. Let the student of engineering

remember that he is accumulating knowledge, not that he may possess more

of it than his rivals and competitors, but that he may do more than they

towards surmounting the obstacles that block the path of human progress.

Let the medical student remember that he is amassing knowledge, not that

he may flourish the academic distinctions he has won, but that he may

lessen the sum of human anguish and save human life. And let the

theological student reflect that he is winning for himself a scholarly

renown, not that he may rejoice in his attainments and distinctions for

their own sake, but that, by means of them, he may the more effectively

and skillfully lead all kinds and conditions of men into the kingdom and

service of his Lord.

And so I come back to my starting-point. The broom that sweeps clean is

not a new broom. After commencing this chapter I happened to pick up a

report of the British and Foreign Bible Society. On one of its pages I

find a story told by the society's colporteur at Port Said. He boarded

an incoming steamer, and, on the lower deck, found a German sailor

sweeping out a cabin. The man was greatly depressed. In the course of

conversation, each claimed to be a greater sinner than the other.

'What!' exclaimed the sailor, 'why, you are the first man to tell me

that he is a greater sinner than I am!'

He took a Gospel from the colporteur's hands and began to read.

'Ah,' he sighed, 'that I were a little child again and could read it

with a clean heart!'

The remark was overheard by some of his shipmates.

'Is that _you_, Jansen?' they asked; 'what wonder has happened to you?'

'No wonder at all,' the man replied. '_I want to sweep out my heart, and

I am buying a broom!_'

The broom that he bought is by no means a new one, but it sweeps

wonderfully clean for all that!

VII—A GOOD WIFE AND A GALLANT SHIP

I

Why is a good wife like a gallant ship? This is not a riddle; it is a

sincere and earnest inquiry. An ancient philosopher in the East and a

modern poet in the West have both remarked upon the resemblance between

the two. Solomon spent nearly half his life thinking about ships. He was

the only Jewish king who felt much enthusiasm for maritime affairs.

Solomon reminds me of Peter the Great. Those who have perused

Waliszewski's biography of that monarch are scarcely likely to forget

the passage in which the historian describes the finding, by the boy

Peter, of the broken boat. It was only an old, half-rotten wooden skiff,

thrown to the scrap-heap with some useless lumber in the little village

of Ismailof; but, captivating the boy's fancy, and stirring his

imagination, he could not take his eyes from it. It changed the whole

current of his life. He is destined to rule over a great continental

people who have no access to the sea. Yet, from that day, he dreams of

nothing but brave ships and romantic voyages. He comes to England to

learn shipbuilding. He returns to Russia and builds useless navies. He

claps his hands in delirious ecstasy as he launches his huge toys on his

inland lakes. He is like a caged eagle; the passion of the infinite

throbs in his veins, yet he is cribbed, cabined, and confined in this

cruel way!

Solomon was in a very similar case. He ruled over a people who regarded

the sea with distrust and disdain. Yet he himself heard in his soul the

challenging call of the mighty waters. The ships! The ships that bring

the food! The merchant ships! The ships that lie becalmed in the oily

seas of the tropics; the ships that get caught in the ice-pack at the

poles; the ships that fight their way doggedly through howling gales and

icy blizzards round the cape! Those stately ships, with their dizzy

masts and shapely bows, captivated his imagination; and when he desired

to speak of the virtuous and faithful housewife in terms of superlative

appreciation, the only image that seemed worthy of her was the gallant

ship riding at anchor in the bay. '_Who can find a virtuous woman?_' he

asks, '_for her price is far above rubies. She is like the merchant

ships; she bringeth her food from afar._'

II

So much for the Eastern philosopher; now for the Western bard!

Longfellow likens a good wife to a gallant ship; and, in order that we

may see how much alike the two are, he places them side by side. He

describes the old shipbuilder who has resolved to build one more ship,

his last and his best. He comes down to the yards, his eyes sparkling

with enthusiasm, carrying the model in his hand. He approaches his

assistant, shows him the model, and confides to him his dream. The

younger man, a stalwart and fiery youth, has a dream of his own. He

aspires to marry his master's daughter. The two are engrossed in

conversation, the elder man depicting to the younger the stately ship

that is to be. He will build a vessel that shall laugh at all disaster,

and with wave and whirlwind wrestle. And he concludes his eager

communication by promising that 'the day that giveth her to the sea

shall give my daughter unto thee.' The younger man starts at the radiant

prospect.

And as he turned his face aside

With a look of joy and a thrill of pride.

Standing before her father's door

He saw the form of his promised bride.

The sun shone on her golden hair

And her cheek was glowing fresh and fair

With the breath of morn and the soft sea air.

Like a beauteous barge was she——

And so on. All through the poem, right up to the wedding on the ship's

deck on the day of her launching, Longfellow draws the analogy between

the shapely vessel, the bride of the ocean, and the fair maiden, the

bride of the proud young builder.

'_She is like the merchant ships!_' says the ancient Eastern sage.

'_Like a beauteous barge was she!_' exclaims the Western poet.

It is difficult to resist the testimony of two such witnesses.

III

Neither the good wife nor the gallant ship need resent the analogy. If

the good wife does not like being compared to a ship, let her sit down

for five minutes and think, and it will occur to her that, of all our

ingenious inventions and bewildering contrivances, a ship is the only

one that has a divine origin and a divine authority. The ark was the

first ship; and its plans and specifications were divinely dictated.

Moreover, it is obvious that, since the Lord God divided His world into

islands and continents, with vast expanses of ocean rolling between, and

commanded that all those scattered territories should be peopled and

developed, He contemplated the existence of the ships. The ships were

part of the original programme. The ships were to be the instruments of

those distributive and mediative ministries on which the history of the

world was to be based.

Or, if instead of thinking abstract thoughts, the good wife prefers to

read, let her reach down Rudyard Kipling's ballad of the _Big Steamers_.

'Oh, where are you going to, all you Big Steamers,

With England's own coal, up and down the salt seas?'

'We are going to fetch you your bread and your butter.

Your beef, pork, and mutton, eggs, apples, and cheese,

For the bread that you eat, and the biscuits you nibble,

The sweets that you suck and the joints that you carve,

They are brought to you daily by all us Big Steamers,

And if anyone hinders our coming you'll starve!'

The ships, then, represent the indispensabilities of life, the things

without which we cannot live. I am writing here in Australia. And even

here in Australia, with our immense open spaces, spaces in which we can

grow almost anything, how dependent we are upon the coming of the ships!

We need the ships; ships to bring us our supplies from the great looms

and factories of the old world; ships to take the produce of our

boundless plains to the congested populations of the other hemisphere;

ships to bring the letters for which our hearts are hungry, and to take

the letters for which distant friends are waiting. Even here in

Australia the ships are the light of our eyes and the breath of our

nostrils. Even here in Australia, the good wife, when she spreads her

table in the morning, brings her food from afar. For none of these

dainties that tempt my appetite and nourish my frame are _native_ foods.

They were not here until the ships began to come. The wheat is not

indigenous; the meat is not native meat. The corn and the cattle and the

coffee came to Australia on the ships. And, but for the ships, we

ourselves could never have been here. Let a man register a vow that he

will not eat, drink, wear or use anything that has—in a remote or in an

immediate sense—been upon a ship; and he will be reduced to abject

wretchedness in no time. God has built His world in such a way that the

ship is the foundation of everything.

Each climate needs what other climes produce,

And offers something to the general use;

No land but listens to the common call,

And, in return, receives supplies from all.

The Great Weaver stands continually at His loom working out an intricate

and beautiful pattern. The nations are the threads that run up and down,

up and down, not far apart, yet never meeting. The gallant ship is the

shuttle, the busy shuttle, that flies to and fro, to and fro, weaving

them all into one compact and wonderful whole. The web depends entirely

on the shuttle; the world depends entirely on the ships.

IV

I never see a great ship come into port at the end of a long voyage

without feeling a sense of admiration, amounting almost to awe, at the

masterly achievement. To say nothing of the perils to which she has been

exposed at sea, it seems an amazing thing that, after having been for

months on the trackless waters, she can pick up the heads as easily as

though she had been following a well-blazed trail. There is a famous

story on record in the _Memoirs of Captain Basil Hall_. It tells how the

erudite commander once brought his vessel round Cape Horn on a voyage

from San Blas to Rio de Janeiro. Without any other observations than

those of the sun and moon, he laid his vessel, in a thick fog, outside

what he believed to be the entrance to the harbor. The fog cleared, and

the land slowly loomed up through it—the first that had been seen for

more than three months. It was Rio! The sailors were electrified at the

accuracy of their commander's calculations, and, rushing to the bridge,

greeted him, by way of congratulation, with three ringing cheers! I

suppose no man ever watched a brave ship drop anchor in the bay at the

end of her voyage without some such feeling as this. And certainly no

man ever looked into the face of his bride on his wedding day without

being conscious of some such emotion. '_She is like the merchant ship;

she bringeth her food from afar._' It seems so wonderful to the

bridegroom that she should have reached his side in safety. The chances

against her safe arrival were a million to one. She is the daughter of a

thousand generations. For countless centuries her ancestors were

fighting men. If, in that long chain of warring progenitors, only one

had fallen before he mated, she could never have been born. Time after

time, in those rude days, the earth was desolated by war, pestilence,

and famine; yet the line of genealogy that led to _her_ remained

unbroken! More than once whole nations were depopulated by the plague.

But still her ancestry was unaffected. The providence that guards the

good ship on the seething waters, bringing it safely through storm and

tempest to its desired haven, watched over her as she floated down the

restless ages to her husband's side. She was like the ark, upborne by

the very waters that destroyed everything beside; or, to return to

Solomon's simile, '_she is like the merchant ships; she bringeth her

food from afar_.' Her safe arrival seems a miracle, and a golden miracle

at that. It seems to her husband that, threatened by such perils as she

has braved, only an escort of angels could have brought her safely to

his side. And he bows his head in wondering gratitude.

V

We owe everything to the ships. All our food comes from afar. Yes, all

of it, including food for thought. The school, the college, the

university; they all resemble the virtuous housewife spreading her

table. They bring food from afar. Only this afternoon I was shown over

Dennington College. The Principal, Miss Gertrude Milman, B.A., took me

into a class-room in which a geography lesson was in progress. The

teacher was giving her pupils food from afar. Hardy adventurers and

patient explorers sailed across unknown seas, charted unknown lands, and

returned with the priceless results of their hazardous investigations.

And those results, brought home by the ships, were being dispensed in

the class-room at Dennington College. Miss Milman herself teaches

philosophy. But she owes it all to the ships. Far away over the sea,

Plato and Aristotle and Socrates wrestled with the problems of the

universe in the old days; and far away over the sea Kant and Hegel and

Bergson pondered those same problems in a later time; and the ships have

brought us the wealthy fruitage of their profound cogitations. 'And

here,' Miss Milman told me, 'the girls assemble in the morning for the

scripture lesson.' I do not know exactly how that half-hour is spent;

but I am certain that, even then, Miss Milman sets before her pupils

food from afar. The Bible itself has come to us across the ocean. The

world is only rolling into light because the ships, with their white

sails, have dotted every sea. 'The prayers you offer,' says J. M. Neale,

'the prayers you offer, the hymns you sing, the books of devotion you

use, how far, far hence in _time_, how far, far hence in _distance_, do

their sources lie? Perhaps from some quaint mediæval German house, with

its surrounding fields and lanes and gardens buried deep in snow, you

get a prayer which we use at Christmastide. Perhaps from the dog days of

an Andalusian Convent, with its orange trees and its pomegranates and

its fountains, you get such music as that lovely introit, "Like as the

hart desireth after the waterbrooks." Perhaps from the tomb of a martyr

you get such a hymn as "O God, Thy soldiers' crown and guard." Prayers,

music, hymns; they are all the same. They come from afar, from afar. I

left Dennington College feeling that, after all, Miss Milman is very

much like Solomon's housewife; she is entirely dependent on the ships;

she bringeth her food from afar.

VI

Now that I come to look a little more closely at the comely features of

this virtuous woman—the woman who is like the merchant ships—I fancy

that I recognize her. For she is none other than the Bride, the Lamb's

wife. When the Church spreads her white cloth, and sets her wondrous

table, she invariably decks it with food from afar. Listen as she

invites you to partake of her heavenly fare!

'_The body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for thee, preserve

thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this in

remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on Him in thy heart by

faith with thanksgiving._'

And listen again:

'_The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve

thy body and soul unto everlasting life. Drink this in remembrance that

Christ's blood was shed for thee and be thankful._'

Food from afar! Food from afar! She is like the merchant ships; she

bringeth her food from afar! Such viands can have been procured from no

earthy source. This Bread was made from wheat that grew in no earthly

field; this Wine was pressed from clusters that hung on no earthly vine.

The happy guests who sit at the Church's table find that, as they

partake of her sacred hospitalities, there is ministered to them a

comfort that wipes all tears from all faces, a hope that transfigures

with strange radiance every unborn day, and a peace that passeth all

understanding. They know, as they taste this delectable fare, that such

fruits grew in no earthly garden. And then, with faces that shine like

the faces of the angels, they remember at whose table they are seated,

and they say one to another, '_She is like the merchant ships; she

bringeth her food from afar._' And that golden testimony is true.