PART III

I—WE ARE SEVEN!

Tall, bronzed and bearded, Bruce Sinclair was a typical New Zealand

farmer. He was born in Fifeshire, it is true, but his parents had

emigrated when he was so young that he seemed to belong to the land of

his adoption. They had come out on the _John Macintyre_—one of the

first ships to bring settlers to these shores. I never saw the old

people. By the time I reached New Zealand, Bruce had laid them to rest

in the little God's-acre on the crest, and was himself farming the lands

on which they had originally settled. The homestead was up among the

foothills near Otokia—about nine miles south of Mosgiel—and Bruce

usually rode over on Sundays. One felt that something was missing, if,

on going round to the vestry door, 'Oscar,' Bruce's chestnut pony, was

not to be seen in the yard. Bruce was quiet and reserved: he seldom

spoke unless he was spoken to: but he gave an impression of depth and

stability. In his light blue eyes—eyes that seemed paler than they

really were by contrast with his sunburned and weatherbeaten

countenance—there was a subtle suggestion of secret struggle and secret

suffering. You somehow felt that the calm of his sturdy personality was

the peace that comes when mighty forces have been vanquished, and fierce

storms stilled. I had heard it whispered that in the early colonial

days—the days of his youth—Bruce had chafed under the restraints of

home and had for some years gone his own way; but except that I fancied

that I saw a look of pain in his face when he first directed my

attention to the framed portraits of his parents as they hung on either

side of the fireplace at Otokia, he had given me no hint of anything of

the kind.

One Sunday morning I missed the chestnut pony. During the week Mrs.

Sinclair called at the manse to tell me that Bruce was ill.

'But don't trouble to come,' she said. 'He couldn't see you even if you

did; and it's a long way to come for nothing. I'll let you know when

he's able to see you.'

True to her word, she at length gave me permission. But, as it happened,

I was just setting out for a distant part of the colony—a journey of a

thousand miles—and it was nearly a month before I was able to turn my

face towards the farm at Otokia. But the day to which I had so long

looked forward dawned at last. The dwelling that served Bruce as a

homestead was a plain, white box-like little cottage, nestling among the

hills about a quarter of a mile back from the road. Seated at the open

window, he had seen me enter the big gate at the farm-entrance and drive

up the track from the road to the door. Bowed, and leaning heavily upon

two sticks, he came to the doorway to greet me, a wan smile lighting up

a countenance that seemed strangely pale. I saw at a glance that he had

been very ill.

'But there, I'm better now,' he said, cheerfully, 'and shall soon be all

right again. Sit down!' and he pointed to a lounge-chair on the

verandah.

We sat there chatting for awhile, and then Mrs. Sinclair brought out the

afternoon tea. As soon as the cups had been removed, I rose as if to go.

'Oh, don't be in a hurry!' he said. 'Sit down! I want to tell you of a

strange experience I've had.' I resumed my seat.

'You see,' he went on, 'I had a birthday—my fiftieth—just as my

illness was at its worst. I had intended having a few very old friends

here to celebrate the occasion; but that, of course, was out of the

question. The idea had, however, fastened itself so firmly upon my mind

that, in my delirium, I thought I was sending out the invitations.' He

laughed; but I could see that there was a good deal of seriousness

behind it.

'You know how at such times, things get mixed up in your brain,' he went

on, 'well, my birthday invitations and the other thoughts that had come

to me in the earlier stages of my sickness got hopelessly confused. I

was in great distress because I could only think of three people whom I

wanted to invite. I wrote out invitations to _The Man I Used to Be_,

_The Man I Might Have Been_, and _The Man I Shall Be_. I remember

thinking that these were strange people to ask; and I was surprised that

the number was so small. But the odd part is to come. For, in the same

dream or in another—I cannot be sure—I thought that I was welcoming my

guests. I had set the table for the four of us—my three visitors and

myself—but, to my amazement, twice as many people came as I had

invited! I had invited _The Man I Used to Be_; but two men arrived, each

of them claiming to be the personage indicated by that description.

Exactly the same thing happened in the case of _The Man I Might Have

Been_, and again in the case of _The Man I Shall Be_. I was at first

very bewildered and confused by the arrival of so many guests; but,

excusing myself, I added three chairs to the number at the table, making

seven in all. Then, when all was ready, I ushered them in and showed

them to their places. And there we sat—the seven of us.

1. _The Man I Am_—at the head of the table.

2. _The Man I Used To Be_, No. 1 }

3. _The Man I Used To Be_, No. 2 } facing me.

4. _The Man I Might Have Been_, No. 1 }

5. _The Man I Might Have Been_, No. 2 } on my left.

6. _The Man I Shall Be_, No. 1 }

7. _The Man I Shall Be_, No. 2 } on my right.

'The first thing that struck me as I surveyed the six faces about me was

that, although they seemed arranged in pairs, no two of the same name

bore much resemblance to each other. The couples were contrasts rather

than duplicates.' Mrs. Sinclair appeared, bringing her husband's

medicine; he drank it quickly and continued his story.

'I can't help laughing as I think of it now,' he went on, 'it seems so

very fantastic and absurd; but it was a grimly serious business at the

time; and I am afraid that, considered as a birthday frolic, it was

scarcely a success. There I sat at the head of the table, my six selves

around me. In each of them I could see something of the features that I

regularly behold in the mirror; but in each case the general impression

was either disfigured or idealized. Let me describe them two by two.

'To begin with, there was _The Man I Used To Be_—the first of that

name. He was my guest, and I tried to be civil, but in my heart I could

not welcome him. I sat there wondering—you know how such things happen

in dreams—by what strange impulse I had invited him to my table. For,

truth to tell, I have always dreaded his return. Have you read Grant

Allen's story, _The Reverend John Creedy_? I have it inside there: I

will ask Mrs. Sinclair to bring it out before you go, and you shall take

it with you. I read it a few weeks before my illness, and it made a

great impression upon me. It is the story of an African boy, taken from

the hold of a slaver on the Gold Coast and carried away to England. He

is committed to a Christian home; is most carefully trained and

educated; and is denied nothing that can add to his culture and

refinement. He goes to Oxford; becomes a Bachelor of Arts; is ordained,

and is designated to return as a missionary to his native land. Before

leaving, he marries Miss Ethel Berry, a gently nurtured English lady;

and, amidst the good wishes of a great host of admiring friends, the two

sail from Southampton for Central Africa. For awhile all goes well; they

are very happy and very useful. But, amidst the old environment, the old

feelings are stirred. His blood leaps to the sound of the toms-toms; the

native feasts and dances have a singular fascination for him; he learns

to love once more the native foods and drinks. It is too much for him;

his old self masters his new self. He abandons the work; leaves his wife

to die; tears up his English clothes; and goes back to savagery. And

to-day—so Grant Allen concludes the story—to-day, the old half-caste

Portuguese rum-dealer at Butabue, can point out to any English pioneer

who comes up the river, which one, among a crowd of dilapidated negroes

who lie basking in the soft dust outside his hut, was once the Rev. John

Creedy, B.A., of Magdalen College, Oxford. This story, so recently read,

may have helped to shape my dream. At any rate, I remember sitting at

the head of the table looking into the face of _The Man I Used To Be_.

"It is bad enough," I thought to myself, "when the old life comes

rushing resistlessly back upon one as it rushed back upon John Creedy,

no bolts or bars being strong enough to keep it out; but by what folly

had I _invited_ my old self back and seated him at my table?" I felt, as

I gazed into his face, as though I had committed the unpardonable sin.

'And there, sitting beside him, was his namesake! You can imagine no

more striking contrast. For this second edition of _The Man I Used to

Be_ appeared to be not only a better man than the other, but a better

man than _The Man I Am_. I have never told you much about the past—one

does not make a song of such things—but I can tell you that it was a

wonderful experience when, nearly thirty years ago, I renounced the old

life, entered the kingdom of heaven, and joined a Christian church. As I

have said, I would not go back to the old life for anything on earth.

And yet, looking back, I can see that, in those early days, I had a few

fine qualities that are not mine to-day. I love money more now than I

did then. I love comfort more now than I did then. In those days,

wayward as I was, I would gladly have given the last coin that I

possessed to help a chum. I remember once drawing every penny of my

balance at the savings bank to get a comrade out of trouble. I would

have faced any discomfort, privation, or even death itself, in an

enterprise in which we fellows were engaged together. I am afraid that I

am now too smug to be heroic and too self-centred to be really generous.

And, strange as it may seem, as I looked across the table at _The Man I

Used To Be_—the second one—I felt heartily ashamed of _The Man I Am_.

I was reading in a book of George Eliot's that there are only two kinds

of religious people—the people who are the better for their religion

and the people who are the worse for it. I am not sure, I know that, on

the whole, I am the better for my faith; but I know, too, that before my

conversion I had some good points that I have since lost.

'I need not describe my other guests in such detail. If the contrast

between the two who answered to the name of _The Man I Used To Be_ was

great, the contrast between the two who described themselves as _The Man

I Might Have Been_ was greater still. I was ashamed to admit the first

of them to the house, and I could see that several of my guests felt

extremely uncomfortable in his presence. This is the man that I should

have been to-day had that radiant experience of nearly thirty years ago

never visited me. I saw, as I gazed into the repulsive face of this

guest, that, had I continued the career in which, until then, I had

delighted, the heroic qualities of my waywardness would soon have

vanished, and the sordid elements of that lawless life would have become

dominant and supreme. The chivalry of those early days would, in time,

have died out of my soul, just as it died out of King Arthur's Court,

and the shame and the squalor would have become more pronounced with the

years.' Even sitting on the verandah, Bruce Sinclair shuddered as he

recalled this aspect of his dream.

'The companion picture—the other edition of _The Man I Might Have

Been_—was,' he continued, 'as different as different could be. It

seemed ridiculous that they bore the same name. As I looked upon the

_first_ of this pair I felt thankful that I am as I am; but, when I

turned to the _second_, that feeling completely forsook me. For I saw,

as I gazed into that face—the face on my immediate left—what I should

have been if, jealously retaining all the magnanimous and open-hearted

qualities of my early days, I had added to them all the graces and

excellences which Christian experience and the membership of the church

have made possible to me. But I have done neither the one nor the other.

I have lost the high-spirited virtues of my youth, and, like a man who

has been walking among diamonds, but has been too indolent to pick them

up, I have failed to acquire the ripe devoutness which these later years

should have brought. It seems strange now, but on the very last Sunday

morning on which I came to church, you were preaching on _The Additions

of Grace_: "Add to your faith, virtue: and to virtue, knowledge." Do you

remember? You were saying that the art of life lies in adding virtue to

virtue as a mason adds tier to tier or as a tree adds ring to ring. I

thought a good deal about it afterwards, and it may have woven itself

into my dream. At any rate, I looked into the face beside me; I saw the

man that I should have been if only I had added to the generous

sentiments of youth the nobler attainments that Christian experience and

service offered me; and it was like turning from a masterpiece to a daub

when I once more contemplated _The Man I Am_.

'The third pair did not present so strong a contrast. They might easily

have passed for brothers, one of whom had enjoyed greater advantages,

and moved in better society than the other. The first of those who

presented himself as _The Man I Shall Be_ strongly resembled, except

that he was older, _The Man I Am_. The fact is, I suppose, that, of late

years, I have been content to take life, at least on its religious side,

pretty much as I found it. I have become complacent, easy-going,

readily-satisfied, willing to follow the drift. There was a time, twenty

years ago or more, when I used to submit myself to periodical

examinations. I tested myself; tried to ascertain whether or not I was

growing in grace; felt anxious as to whether the spirit was gaining upon

the flesh or the flesh upon the spirit. But of late years I have taken

things less seriously, and, now that I have time to think about such

matters, I can see that I have settled down to a condition that is

perilously like stagnation. Going on at the same sluggish rate for a few

more years, I cannot expect that I shall at last differ

essentially—except in age—from _The Man I Am_; and _that_, I suppose,

is why the _first_ of these two seems in some respects to resemble so

closely the man that I see each day in the mirror.

'The _second_—the guest on my immediate right—was a much finer man.

He, too, was old; but there was a grace and a sweetness and a charm

about his age that was quite absent from the person of his companion.

Indeed, but for the association of ideas suggested by the circumstances

under which we met, I should never have recognized myself in him. But he

has taught me—and I feel that life has been inestimably enriched by the

lesson—that, if I set myself to recapture the better qualities that I

have lost, and begin diligently to cultivate the graces that I have

neglected, I may yet make something of life, and stand, not altogether

confused and ashamed, before my Lord at the last.

'I am not sure,' my old friend concluded, 'I am not sure that all this

occurred to me in the course of my dream. Much of it has probably

suggested itself in my subsequent reflections. In time of sickness and

of convalescence a man sees life from a new angle. He is able to do a

little stocktaking. And I feel that, in my case, the operation—perhaps

because it was particularly necessary—has been particularly

profitable.'

Mrs. Sinclair came out to ask if he was feeling chilly. The afternoon

sun was certainly sinking; and I am afraid that I had allowed my friend

to tire himself in telling me his tale. He made an excellent recovery,

however, and, in the years that followed, was at church more frequently

than ever. And it may have been a fond illusion of my own, but somehow I

fancied that, as time went on, he became more and more like that nobler,

lovelier, kindlier self that he had so graphically described to me.

II—THE FISH-PENS

I was holiday-making at Lake King. As a matter of fact, Lake King is no

lake at all. It used to be; and, like the Church at Sardis, and like so

many of us, it bears the name that it once earned but no longer

deserves. In former days, a picturesque rampart of sand hummocks, richly

draped in native verdure, intervened between the fresh waters of the

land-locked lake and the heaving tides of the Southern Ocean. Then the

engineers arrived; and when the engineers take off their coats no man

can tell what is likely to happen next. At Panama they split a continent

in two. At Lake King they wedded the lake to the ocean. Through the

range of sand-dunes they cut a broad, deep channel by which the big

ships could pass in and out, and, as an inevitable consequence, Lake

King is a lake no longer. But it was not the big ships that interested

me. It was the trawlers. I liked to see the fishing-boats come in from

the ocean and liberate their shining spoil at the pens. On the shores of

the lake the fishermen have fenced off a sheet of water, a quarter of an

acre or so in area; and into this sheltered reserve they discharge their

daily catch. I never tired of visiting the fish-pens. As I looked down

into their clear waters they seemed to be one moving mass of beautiful

fish. Never in my life had I seen so congested an aquarium. There were

thousands upon thousands, tons upon tons, of them.

'You should row across in the early morning,' one of the fishermen was

good enough to say. 'You would see us dragging the pens and filling the

boats with the fish that we were about to pack for the market.'

I took the hint, and shall never forget the animated spectacle that I

then witnessed. The waters that had previously seemed so tranquil were a

seething tumult of commotion. The men were wading up to their thighs

dragging the nets through the crowded pens. Thousands upon thousands of

splendid fish were fighting for dear life, excitedly darting and

flapping and leaping and diving and splashing in a hopeless attempt to

escape the enmeshment of the enfolding toils. Netful after netful was

emptied into the boats. In half an hour the boats themselves were filled

to the brim with the poor stiffened creatures from which all life and

beauty had departed.

'And do the fish keep good in the pens for an indefinite period?' I

asked my fisherman friend—the man who had invited me across.

'Oh, dear, no,' he replied, 'that's the trouble. If we could keep them

here until the market suited us, we should quickly make our fortunes.

But they soon get slack and soft and flabby. The life in the pens isn't

a natural one. They haven't to work for their living and they are in no

danger of attack. The palings and wire-netting that keep them in keep

their natural enemies _out_. In the ocean they have to be active and

vigilant and spry. But here they lie at their ease; they move to and fro

sluggishly for the mere fun of the thing; and they soon go to pieces in

consequence.'

Away on the Dogger Bank the fishermen cherish a tradition which, on

suitable occasions, they recite with infinite relish. It belongs to the

heroic age that enfolded land and sea before the day of the

steam-trawler had dawned. In those unhurried times, the fishing-boats

spread their tawny sails, and, to the accompaniment of chanties and

choruses such as sailors love, crept slowly out to sea. In sleepy little

fishing-villages along the English coast, you may still see craft of

this romantic—and historic—build. One little hamlet of the sort I

often visit in my dreams. Years ago I knew every pebble on its beach.

Winds and waves have scooped out a kind of alcove in the massive cliffs.

High up, pressing closely against the rugged wall of chalk, stands a

cluster of weather-beaten cottages. In front of them the fishing-boats

are drawn up. Nets are spread out on the beach to dry, coils of rope lie

about, and piles of tackle are everywhere. If you are as fortunate as I

should like you to be, you will see, moving to and fro between his

cottage and his boat, a tall bronzed figure in a blue jersey and a

sou'wester. He is the most popular fisherman in the place. He was born

here; and, save for two years of which he does not like to think, has

spent all his days on this beach. Just once he wandered. He joined the

fleet on the Dogger Bank. He worked on the trawler that raced out and

raced round and raced back. He saw the cutters darting to and fro

between the fleet and the market. And, the more he saw of this side of

life, the less he liked it. He returned to the quiet little cove among

the cliffs. If, some day, you can catch him in one of his leisure hours,

and in one of his garrulous moods, he may be beguiled into telling you

of the tales he heard told on the Dogger. For, out there where they fish

by machinery, and use tackle of which the little hamlet never dreams,

the men like to poke fun at the old-fashioned craft on the beach. And,

when they speak of the old days and the old ways, they remind each other

that, years ago, each fishing-boat was fitted with a tank or well,

constructed with perforated sides so that the water it contained was

part and parcel of the sea through which the boat was sailing. Into

these wells the fish were transferred from the nets immediately upon

their arrival from the deep. In this new environment the graceful

creatures gave no evidence of discontent or resentment. They would live

indefinitely in their floating homes. But the fishermen found that, like

the fish in these Australian pens, the fish in the wells waxed limp and

listless. They lost their flavor and sweetness. This, according to the

tradition, happened to all the fishing-boats save one.

One fisherman, and one only, brought his fish to market in excellent

condition. He landed them at Billingsgate as healthy and brisk and firm

as though he had caught them ten minutes earlier under London Bridge.

The dealers soon learned to distinguish between the fish from his boat

and the fish from all the others. His fish brought the highest prices on

the market, and the happy fisherman rejoiced in his abounding

prosperity. His comrades marvelled at his success and vainly endeavored

to cajole his secret from him. He was not to be drawn. The matter

remained an inscrutable mystery until the day of the old fisherman's

death. Then, acting upon her father's instructions, his daughter

unfolded the secret. Her father, she said, made it a rule to keep a

catfish in the well of his boat. The catfish kept the other fish in a

ferment of agitation and alarm. They were never at rest. And, because a

catfish compelled them to live in the well under conditions that were

approximately normal, they came to market in as wholesome a state as

though they had just been dragged from the deep.

I often take myself into a quiet corner and remind myself of my visit to

the fish-pens or repeat to myself the famous tradition of the catfish. I

find myself at times in a rebellious mood. Why is life so troubled, so

agitated, so disturbed? If only I could be left alone! Why may I not

fold my hands and be quiet? I am hunted up hill and down dale; I am

driven from pillar to post. I have to work for my living—an irksome

necessity. I often have to go out when I would rather stay in, and have

to stay in when I would rather go out. I am the prey of antagonisms of

many kinds. Life is full of irritations, annoyances, mortifications, and

disappointments. I am not my own master. Like Paul, _I find a law that,

when I would do good, evil is present with me; the good that I would I

do not and the evil which I would not that I do_. Paul found it

extremely exasperating, and so do I. If only I could live without work

and without worry and without any of my present vexations! Why, oh why,

must there always be a catfish in my well?

A catfish is an animated compliment. I do not suppose that a _Dictionary

of Oceanography_ or a _Cyclopædia of Pisciculture_ would define a

catfish precisely in that way. But I prefer my own definition to that of

the encyclopædia; it is more brief and it is quite as accurate. A

catfish, I repeat, is an animated compliment. It is because the

fisherman values his fish that he puts the catfish into the well to

annoy them. 'I remember,' says Dr. James Stalker, 'I remember hearing a

celebrated naturalist describe a species of jellyfish, which, he said,

lives fixed to a rock from which it never stirs. It does not require to

go in search of food, because in the decayed tissues of its own organism

there grows a kind of seaweed on which it subsists. I thought I had

never heard of any creature so comfortable. But the eminent naturalist

who was describing it went on to say that it is one of the very lowest

forms of animal life, and the extreme comfort which it enjoys is the

badge of its degraded position.' Now this seems to throw a little light

on my own discontent. No fisherman would take any pains to preserve such

worthless things. When the fisherman drops the hideous catfish into the

well, it is his way of telling the shiny creatures that are already

there of the high esteem in which he holds them.

This leads me to Robinson Crusoe. Robinson Crusoe caught a glimpse of

this doctrine of the catfish, and it dispelled some of his most acute

perplexities. The pity of it is that, later on, when he found himself

confronted by the gravest and most baffling bewilderment of all, he

failed to apply to it the same vital principle. He saw the law at work

among his _minor_ difficulties; it did not occur to him that it might

also operate among the _major_ ones.

A day came on which Crusoe discovered that he was not, as he had

fancied, the monarch of all he surveyed. His sovereignty was disputed.

Everybody remembers the haunting passage about the footprint on the

sand. 'It happened one day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was

exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's foot on the shore. How

it came thither I knew not, nor could I in the least imagine; but after

innumerable fluttering thoughts, like a man perfectly confused and out

of myself, I came home to my fortification, not feeling, as we say, the

ground I trod upon, but terrified to the last degree, looking behind me

at every two or three steps, mistaking every bush and tree, and fancying

every stump to be a man. Nor is it possible to describe how many various

shapes my affrighted imagination represented things to me in, how many

wild ideas were found every moment in my fancy, and what strange,

unaccountable whimseys came into my thoughts by the way.' Now this story

of Crusoe and the cannibals is simply the story of the cod and the

catfish in another form. The cod would have liked the well all to

itself: it is horrified at discovering that it must share it with a

catfish!

Yet, as we have seen, the cod were the better for the catfish; and, as

Crusoe afterwards recognized, the island was enriched by the coming of

the cannibals. _Robinson Crusoe_ is essentially a story with a moral;

and Crusoe leaves you in no doubt as to the moral. He is most explicit

in that regard. 'For,' he tells us, 'I began to be very well contented

with the life that I was leading, if only I could have been secured from

the dread of the savages.' How little he thought that, so far from

hurting a single hair of his head, the savages would provide him, in the

person of his man Friday, with the most devoted servant and most

constant friend that any man could possibly possess! '_Wherefore_,' he

says, in formulating the moral to be deduced from his sensational

experience, '_wherefore it may not be amiss for all people who shall

read this story of mine to learn from it that very frequently the evil

which we seek most to shun, and which, when we are fallen into, is the

most dreadful to us, is oftentimes the very means or door of our

deliverance, by which alone we can be raised again from the affliction

into which we have fallen_.'

Now this was the _minor_ perplexity; the _major_ one came later. And the

extraordinary thing is that, confronted by that larger perplexity,

Crusoe's own maxim does not seem to have recurred to him. Crusoe has met

the cannibals; they have come and gone; and they have left Friday behind

them. Crusoe has taught Friday to speak English, and is doing his best

to store his mind with the highest knowledge of all. 'One day,' so runs

his narrative, 'I had been teaching him that the devil was God's enemy

in the hearts of men, and used all his malice and skill to defeat the

good designs of Providence, and to ruin the kingdom of Christ in the

world. "Well," replies Friday, in broken English, "but you say God is so

strong, so great; is he not much strong, much mighty as the devil?"

"Yes, yes, Friday," I replied, "God is stronger than the devil; God is

above the devil, and therefore we pray to God to tread him down under

our feet and enable us to resist his temptations and quench his fiery

darts." "But," says he again, "if God much stronger, much mighty as the

wicked devil, _why God no kill the devil_, so make him no more do

wicked?" I was strangely surprised at this question; and, after all,

though I was now an old man, yet I could not tell what to say, so I

pretended not to hear him. But Friday kept repeating his question in the

same broken words: "_Why God no kill the devil?_" I therefore diverted

the discourse by rising up hastily and sending him for something a long

way off.' It was the greatest humiliation that Robinson Crusoe sustained

during his long sojourn on the island.

'_Why God no kill the devil?_' asked Friday. It sometimes happens that

the best way of answering one question is to ask a few more. Let us try.

'_Why God no kill the devil?_' Why did the shrewd old fisherman not kill

the catfish in the well of his boat? Why did the fish in the pens grow

slack and soft and flabby as soon as the palings and wire-netting cut

them off from the assaults of their natural enemies? 'In the Louvre,'

says Professor William James, in his _Varieties of Religious

Experience_, 'in the Louvre there is a picture by Guido Reni of St.

Michael with his foot on Satan's neck. The richness of the picture is in

large part due to the fiend's figure being there. The richness of its

allegorical meaning also is due to his being there. The world, that is

to say, is _all the richer for having a devil in it_, so long as we keep

our foot upon his neck.'

It is an old story. It is the tree that is buffeted by the wind that

develops the strongest roots and the sturdiest fibre. It is in the

carcase of the lion with which he fought for his life that Samson finds

the honey. 'I did not learn to preach all at once,' says Martin Luther,

in a delightful burst of confidence. 'It was my temptations and my

corruptions that best prepared me for my pulpit. The devil has been my

best professor of exegetical and experimental divinity. Before that

great schoolmaster took me in hand, I was a sucking child and not a

grown man. It was my combats with sin and with Satan that made me a true

minister of the New Testament. It is always a great grace to me, and to

my people, for me to be able to say to them, "I _know_ this text to be

true! I know it _for certain_!" Without incessant combat and pain and

sweat and blood, no ignorant stripling of a student ever yet became a

powerful preacher.' That is the lesson that I learned at the fish-pens.

That is the secret that the wise old fisherman, of catfish fame,

bequeathed to his mystified companions. That is what Robinson Crusoe

learned in the course of his long and lonely exile. And, in the rough

and tumble of common life, there is scarcely any lesson of greater value

to be learned.

III—EDGED TOOLS

I was motoring among the semi-tropical landscapes of Queensland. We

swept past gardens that were gay with scarlet flame trees, brilliant

creepers, bright-red corals, and bougainvilleas of many gorgeous hues.

Spread out in endless panorama about us were orange groves, vineyards,

sugar plantations, and fields in which the pineapple, the banana, the

paw-paw, the mango, and the breadfruit luxuriated. And then we burst

into the bush, which only differed from the bush to which I was more

accustomed in that it was sprinkled with enormous anthills and dotted

with green clumps of prickly pear.

After several hours spent in this delightful way, the car unexpectedly

stopped, and my host and hostess prepared to alight. I peered about me

for some explanation of their behavior, but could nowhere discover one.

There was no house to be seen nor any sign of civilization or of

settlement. My first impulse was to remain in the car with the driver.

'We are going a little way into the bush,' my host explained, addressing

me; 'if you care to come with us, we shall be very pleased.'

I joined them instantly, and we were soon out of sight of the car. We

picked our way through the thick undergrowth for about a quarter of a

mile, then emerged upon a little plot carefully fenced off from the

surrounding wilderness. It was a cemetery only a few feet square; and it

contained three graves! It was evidently to the central one that our

pilgrimage had been made. My companions stood in silence for a moment

beside it, and then seated themselves on the grass near by.

'In our early days,' my host explained, 'we used to live not very far

from here. It was a lonely place and a hard life; and it had joys and

sorrows of its own. The greatest of its joys was the birth of Don, our

firstborn; and the greatest of our sorrows was his death. He was only

five when we buried him.'

'Yes,' added his wife, brushing a tear from her eye, 'and we buried him

with a broken penknife in his hand. A swagman who had sheltered for the

night in one of the out-buildings had given it to him before leaving in

the morning, and Don thought it the most wonderful thing he had ever

possessed. He was working away with it from morning to night. He would

not trust it out of his sight. He had it in his hand when, a few days

afterwards, he was taken ill. He clung to it all through his sickness.

If he dropped it in his sleep, he asked for it as soon as he woke. He

raved about it in his delirium. And it was firmly clasped in his hand

when he died. We had not the heart to take it from him, and so he went

down to his grave still holding it.'

Often since I have thought of that burial in the bush, not merely

because the incident was so touching, but because it was so intensely

characteristic. A boy's infatuation for his first pocket knife! It may

have a rusty handle and a broken blade; the edge may be as jagged as the

edge of a saw and the spring may have vanished with the days of long

ago; it makes no difference. With a knife in his hand a boy feels that

he is monarch of all he surveys. With a knife in his hand he feels

himself every inch a man. A boy's first consciousness of power, of

dominion, of authority comes to him on the day on which he grasps his

first knife. It is by means of a knife that he carves his way to

destiny.

Civilization may be said to have dawned on the day on which the first

man in the world held in his hand the first knife in the world. It was

made of stone, like the knives of all savage and primitive peoples. It

came into his possession almost by chance. He was gathering together

some huge stones, and building for himself a wall. Presently one heavy

stone slipped from his hands, fell with a crash upon another, and broke.

But it was not a clean break. There lay at that first man's feet two

large fragments of stone and a multitude of splinters. He picked up the

largest of the splinters and found that it had a keen, sharp edge. He

cut his finger as he stroked it, and the blood crimsoned the stone. He

dropped it as he would have dropped a snake that had bitten him. But, as

he nursed his smarting hand, he saw the possibilities that the

sharp-edged splinter opened to him. He remembered the toil with which he

had torn down branches of trees and shaped them to his use. The splinter

would simplify his task. He forgot his lacerated finger. He seized

another stone, dashed it against its neighbor, and, by repeating the

process, soon secured for himself a more shapely splinter—a splinter

with which he could cut down the branches less laboriously. He tried it.

He laughed as he found that, armed with the splinter, he could hack the

yielding timber to his will. He was more excited than he had ever been

before. Here was the first man with his first knife—the pioneer man

with the pioneer knife! For that first man was the father of men of many

colors, and that first knife was the father of blades of many kinds.

From it sprang the sickle and the scythe, the chisel and the saw, the

spade and the tomahawk, the rapier and the dagger, the scalpel and the

poniard, the razor and the sword.

The joy that the boy feels as he looks lovingly on his first knife is

the joy of shaping things. The world about him has suddenly become

plastic. It is a block of marble and he is the sculptor. He may make of

it what he will. Until he possessed a knife, the hard inanimate

substances about him defied him. He was the bird and they were the bars.

But now _he_ defies _them_. The knife makes all the difference. The

knife is his sceptre. He is a king and all things are subject to him.

He may, of course, abuse his power. He probably will. A boy with a knife

is very liable to carve his name in the polished walnut of the piano or

to cut notches out of the neatly-turned legs of the dining-room table.

From all parts of the world people go on pilgrimage to Westminster

Abbey. And, at the Abbey, they are shown the Coronation Chair. Seated in

it, all our English sovereigns have been crowned, and it is encrusted

with traditions that go back to the days of the patriarchs. But a boy

with a knife feels no reverence for antiquity. On the night of July 5,

1800, a Westminster schoolboy got locked in the Abbey. He curled himself

up in the Coronation Chair and made it his resting-place until morning.

And, in the morning, he thought of his pocket-knife. And, as the dawn

came streaming through the storied eastern windows, he carved deeply

into the solid oak of the seat of the chair, the notable inscription:

_P. Abbot slept in this chair, July 5, 1800._ Thus he buried his blade

in one of the noblest of our great historic treasures. It was enough to

make the illustrious dead, by whom he was everywhere surrounded, turn in

their ancient graves. George the Fourth and all his successors have

since been crowned in a Chair that bears that impertinent record! Yet,

as the chips flew, the boy felt no compunction. And, in his stolid calm,

he is the type and representative of all who abuse the authority with

which they are invested. He feels, as he wields the knife, that all

things are at his mercy; he can shape them to his liking. He forgets

that power carries its attendant obligations, and that, foremost among

those obligations, is the obligation to restraint. A boy with a knife in

his hand is merely a miniature edition of a man with a sword in his

hand. And a man with a sword in his hand is often tempted to bury his

blade in that which is even more precious than the oak of a Coronation

Chair. Piano-frames and table-legs are not the only things that cry

aloud for protection. The greatest lesson that the world has learned in

our time is that the power of the sword involves its possessor in a

responsibility that is simply frightful. The blood of brave men, the

tears of good women, and the hard-earned wealth of nations must never be

frivolously or lightheartedly outpoured.

From the moment at which, with sparkling eyes, that first man seized

that first sharp splinter, the knife has steadily grown upon the

imaginations of men. It took a thousand generations to discover its

potentialities. Indeed, our own generation is only just beginning to

realize the possibilities that it unfolds. Think of the marvels—I had

almost said the miracles—of modern surgery.

'Let nothing share your heart with your knife!' said Dr. Ferguson to

Barney Boyle, in _The Doctor of Crow's Nest_. The old doctor had just

fallen in love with Barney. He liked his looks, he liked his

temperament, and he liked his hands.

'You must be a surgeon, Barney! You've got the fingers and the nerves! A

surgeon, sir! That's the only thing worth while. The physician can't see

further below the skin than any one else. He guesses and experiments,

treats symptoms; tries one drug and then another. But the knife, my

boy!' The doctor rose and paced the floor in his enthusiasm. 'The knife,

boy! There's no guess in the knifepoint. The knife lays bare the evil,

fights it, eradicates it! The knife at the proper moment saves a man's

life. A slight incision an inch or two long, the removal of the diseased

part, a few stitches, and, in a couple of weeks, the patient's well! Ah,

boy, God knows I'd give my life to be a great surgeon. But he didn't

give me the fingers. Look at these!' and he held up a coarse, heavy

hand. 'I haven't the touch. But you have! You have the nerve and the

fingers and the mechanical ingenuity; you can be a great surgeon. You

shall have all my time and all my books and all my money; I'll put you

through! You must think, dream, sleep, eat, drink bones and muscles and

sinews and nerves! Push everything else aside!' he cried, waving his

great hands excitedly. 'And remember!'—here his voice took a solemn

tone—'_let nothing share your heart with your knife!_'

Let nothing share your heart with your knife! That is always the knife's

appeal. It is a plea for concentration. I was talking to an old gardener

the other day. He was pruning his trees. The gleaming blade was in his

hand and the path was littered with the wreckage of the branches. He

seemed to be working a shocking havoc, and I told him so. He laughed.

'Oh, they're well-meaning things, are trees!' he exclaimed. 'They are

anxious to do their best for you, but they attempt too much, far too

much. Just look at this one!' and he laughed again. 'It thought it could

cover all these branches with roses; and, if we left it alone, it would

try. But what sort of roses would they be, I should like to know? No,

no, no; it is better for them to produce fewer blossoms but to produce

good ones. We mustn't let them attempt too much!'

'Let nothing share your heart with your knife!' said old Dr. Ferguson,

as he urged Barney to do just one thing and to do that one thing well.

'We mustn't let the rose-trees attempt too much,' said the old gardener,

as he lopped off the branches with his pruning-knife.

That seems to be the lesson that the knife is always teaching. I

remember going one bright afternoon to see Gregor Fawcett of Mosgiel.

Gregor was passing through a troublous and trying time. Hard on top of

heavy business losses had come the collapse of his health. To my

delight, however, I found him in a particularly cheerful mood.

'I've been reading aboot the knife, d'ye ken?' he explained. 'It's a

bonny passage!' He took the open Bible from the table beside the bed and

pointed me to the fifteenth of John. '_Every branch in Me that beareth

not fruit, he cutteth away; and every branch that beareth fruit, he

pruneth it that it may bring forth more fruit._'

'It brought me a power o' comfort,' Gregor explained. 'For it says, ye

ken, that there are only two sorts o' wood on the tree—the _dead_ wood

and the _live_ wood. He cuts away the _dead_ wood for the sake of the

live wood that he leaves; and he cuts the _live_ wood that bears fruit

so that it may bear still more and still better fruit. Well, I thocht o'

all the losses I've had lately. I dinna ken whether the things that have

been taken were _dead_ things or _live_ things, but it doesna matter. If

they were _dead_ things, I'm better without them. And, if they were

_live_ things, they were only cut away because my life is like a tree

that bears fruit and that may yet bear more. And, in either case, the

best remains. The tree is the richer and not the poorer for the pruning.

The pruning only shows that the gardener cares. Ay, it's a bonny passage

that!' and Gregor laid the open Bible lovingly on the pillow beside him.

'After you've gone,' he said, 'I shall go over it again!'

And, from the frequency with which he quoted the words to buffeted

spirits in the days that followed, I could see that, on that further

inspection, Gregor had kissed the husbandman's knife even more

reverently and rapturously than before.

IV—OLD PHOTOGRAPHS

We badly need an Asylum for Antiquated Portraiture—a pleasant and

hospitable refuge in which all our old photographs could be carefully

preserved and reverently handled. For lack of such an institution we are

all in difficulties. People come into our lives; we become attached to

them and value their friendship; we exchange photographs; and, as soon

as we have done so, the inevitable happens. The photographs get

hopelessly out of date. Friends come and go; we come and go; but the

photographs remain. Or, if the friends themselves abide, they change;

fashions change; and, in a few years, the photographs look singularly

archaic if not positively ridiculous. They go away into a drawer or a

box. Once or twice a year a spring-cleaning or other volcanic upheaval

reminds us of their existence. 'We must really sort these out and

destroy a lot of them!' we say; but we never do it. Everybody knows why.

It seems a betrayal of old confidences, an outrage upon sentiment, a

heartless sacrilege. There should be an asylum for obsolete portraiture,

or, if that is out of the question, we should do with the photographs

what Nansen and Johansen, the Polar explorers, did with their dogs.

Neither had the heart to shoot his own; so, amid the ice and snow of the

far north, they exchanged their canine companions, and each went sadly

and silently away and shot the other's!

Such a course must, however, be regarded as a makeshift and a

subterfuge. The asylum is the thing. I am opposed, tooth and nail, to

the destruction of old photographs under any conditions. I spent an hour

yesterday afternoon down by the lake reading some of the love-letters

that Mozart wrote to his wife nearly two centuries ago. Poor Johann and

poor Stanzerl! They were so pitifully penniless that when, one bitter

winter's morning, a kindly neighbor fought his way through the deep snow

to see how the young couple were getting on, he found them dancing a

waltz on the bare boards of their narrow room. They could not afford a

fire, and this was their device for keeping warm. And now Johann is away

on a business trip. In our time a husband so situated would send his

wife a telegram to say that he had arrived safely, or, perhaps, buy her

a picture-postcard of the view from his hotel window. But Mozart wrote

the prettiest love-letters. 'Dear little wife,' he says, 'if I only had

a letter from you! If I were to tell you all that I do with your dear

likeness, how you would laugh! For instance, when I take it out of its

case, I say "God greet thee, Stanzerl, God greet thee, thou rascal,

shuttlecock, pointy-nose, nicknack, bit and sup!" And, when I put it

back, I let it slip in very slowly, saying, with each little push,

"Now—now—now!" and at the last, quickly—"Good-night, little mouse,

sleep well!"' Where is that portrait now? I dread to hazard a

conjecture! There was, alas, no asylum to which it could be fondly and

reverently entrusted. Photographs, like fashions, are capable of strange

revivals. One never knows when crinolines or hobble skirts will

reappear; and in the same way, one never knows the moment at which some

quaint old faded photograph will acquire new and absorbing interest.

'Why, bless me,' you exclaim, as you lay down the newspaper, 'here's

Charlie Brown become famous! You remember Charlie; he was the second son

of the Browns who lived opposite us at Kensington! Why, I have a

photograph of him, taken when he was a little boy; I'll run and get it!'

But alas, it has been destroyed. Or the regret may be even more

poignant.

'Dear me,' you say, 'poor old Mary Smith is dead!' The announcement

brings with it, as such announcements have a way of doing, a rush of

reminiscence. A simple old soul was Mary Smith. She was very good to us,

five and twenty years ago, when the children were all small and

sicknesses were frequent. Mary always knew exactly what to do. But we

moved away, and the years went by. Letter-writing was not in Mary's

line. With the obituary notice still before us, we talk of Mary and the

old days for awhile, and then we suddenly remember that, when we came

away, Mary gave us her photograph. It was a quaint, old-fashioned

picture; it had been taken some years earlier; but we were glad to have

it, and we put it with the others. We must slip up and get it! But it,

too, has vanished! Somehow, Mary _living_ did not seem quite so pathetic

and lovable a figure as Mary _dead_. At some spring-cleaning we must

have glanced at the creased and faded portrait, and, without pausing to

allow memory to do such vivid work as she has done to-day, we must have

tossed it out. We feel horribly ashamed. If only we could recover the

old photograph we would stand it on the mantelpiece and do it signal

honor. And to think that, in the confusion of cleaning-up, we threw it

out, perhaps tore it up, perhaps even burned it. We shudder at the

thought, and half hope that, in her new and larger life, Mary—who seems

nearer to us now than she did before we read of her passing—does not

know that we were guilty of treachery so base.

Thus there come into our lives moments when photographs assert their

worth and insist on being appraised at their true value. In the stirring

chapter in which Sir Ernest Shackleton tells of the loss of his ship

among the ice-floes, he describes an incident that must have set all his

readers thinking. In the grip of the ice, the _Endurance_ had been

smashed to splinters; and the entire party were out on a frozen sea at

the mercy of the pitiless elements. Shackleton came to the conclusion

that their best chance of eventually sighting land lay in marching to

the opposite extremity of the floe; at any rate, it would give them

something to do, and there is always solace in activity. He thereupon

ordered his men to reduce their personal baggage to two pounds weight

each. For the next few hours every man was busy in sorting out his

belongings—the treasures that he had saved from the ship. It was a

heart-breaking business. Men stole gloomily and silently away and dug

little graves in the snow, to which they committed books, letters, and

various nicknacks of sentimental value. And, when the final decisions

had to be made, they threw away their little hoards of golden sovereigns

and kept the photographs of their sweethearts and wives!

The same perplexity arises, sooner or later, in relation to the

portraits and pictures on our walls. They become obsolete; but we find

it difficult to order their removal. I had intended, long before this,

devoting an essay to the whole subject of _Pictures_. Why must we

smother our walls with pictures? To begin with, the pattern of the paper

is often a series of pictures in itself, while the dado and the border

simply add to the collection. Then, over these, we carefully arrange a

multitude of others. Paintings, engravings, and photographs hang

everywhere. Why do we cover the walls in this way? The answer is that we

cover the walls in order to cover the walls. The walls represent an

imprisonment; the pictures represent an escape. On the wall in front of

me, for example, there hangs a water-color sketch of Piripiki Gorge, our

New Zealand holiday resort. On a winter's night, when the rain is

lashing against the windows and the wind shrieking round the house, I

glance up at it, and, by some magic transition, I am roaming on a

summer's evening over the old familiar hills with my gun in my hand and

John Broadbanks by my side. Through the medium of those landscapes, how

many tireless excursions have I taken, by copse and beach and riverbank,

without so much as rising from my chair? The photographs hanging here

and there around the room transport my mind to other days and other

places. The apartment in which I sit may be extremely small, just as the

space that I occupy on the summit of a mountain may be extremely small.

But, occupying that small space upon that lofty eminence, I command a

view that loses itself in infinity; and, lounging in my comfortable

chair in this little snuggery of mine, the pictures transform it into an

observatory, and I am able to survey the entire universe. You do not

hang pictures in the cells of a jail; the reason is obvious; you do not

wish the prisoners to escape; you think it good that they should feel

the stern tyranny of those four uncompromising walls. Conversely, you

deck the dining-room with pictures because, there, you do _not_ desire

to feel imprisoned; you do _not_ wish the walls to seem tyrannical. As

Mr. Stirling Bowen sings:

Four walls enclose men, yet how calm they are!

They hang up pictures that they may forget

What walls are for in part, forget how far

They may not run and riotously let

Their laughter taunt the never-changing stars.

In circus cages wolves and tigers pace

For ever to and fro. They do not rest,

But seek so nervously the longed-for place.

Our picture-jungles would not end their quest,

Or pictures of another tiger's face.

On four square walls men have their world, their strife,

Their painted, framed endeavors, joys and pain;

And two curators known as man and wife

Hang up the sunrise, wipe the dust from rain,

And gaze excitedly on painted life.

A picture on the wall is like a window—only more so! A window looks out

on the garden or the street; a picture is an opening into infinity. The

view from my window is controlled by circumstances. I cannot, for

example, live in this Australian home of mine and command, from my

window, a view of York Minster, the Bridge of Sighs, or the Rocky

Mountains. And, even if I could, the darkness of each night would enfold

the pleasing prospect in its sombre and impenetrable veil. But the

pictures do for me what windows could never do. By means of the pictures

I cut holes in the walls and look out upon any landscape that takes my

fancy. And, when evening comes, I draw the blinds, illumine the room

from within, and the panorama that has so delighted me in the day-time

reveals fresh charms in the softer radiance of the lamps.

We all owe more to pictures than we have ever yet begun to suspect. Here

is a merry young romp of a schoolboy, of tousle-head and swarthy face;

loving the open-air and hating books like poison. A lady gives him a

ponderous volume, and he turns away with a sneer. But one day he

casually opens it. There is a colored picture. It represents Robinson

Crusoe and his man Friday in the midst of one of their most exciting

adventures. The boy—George Borrow—seized the book, carried it off, and

never rested until he had read it from cover to cover. It opened his

eyes to the possibilities of literature; and, to his dying day, he

declared that, but for that colored print, the world would never have

heard his name or read a line from his pen. Nor is this all. For it is

probable that, in infancy, our minds receive their first bias

towards—or away from—sacred things from the pictures of biblical

subjects and biblical characters that are then, wisely or unwisely,

exposed to our gaze. The Face that, in the secret chambers of our

hearts, we think of as the Face of Jesus is, in all likelihood, the Face

that we saw in the first picture-book that mother showed us.

But I fear that I have wandered. I set out to talk, not so much about

pictures, as about photographs—photographs in general and old

photographs in particular. Have photographs—and especially old

photographs—no ethical or spiritual value? Is there a man living who

has not, at some time, felt himself rebuked by eyes that looked down at

him from a frame on the wall? I often feel, in relation to the

photographs around the room, as Tennyson felt in relation to the spirits

of those whom he had loved long since and lost awhile. It is lovely to

think that those who have passed from our sight are not, in reality, far

from us. And yet—

Do we indeed desire the dead

Should still be near us at our side?

Is there no baseness we would hide?

No inner vileness that we dread?

Shall he for whose applause I strove,

I had such reverence for his blame,

See with clear eye some hidden shame

And I be lessen'd in his love?

Who has not been conscious of a similar feeling under the searching

glances of the eyes upon the wall? They seem at times to pierce our very

souls. Tennyson came at last to the comfortable assurance that the

shrinking fear with which he thought of his dead friends was not

justified. For, he reflected, those who have gone out of the dusk into

the daylight have acquired, not only a loftier purity, but a larger

charity.

I wrong the grave with fears untrue:

Shall love be blamed for want of faith?

There must be wisdom with great Death:

The dead shall look me thro' and thro'.

Be near us when we climb or fall:

Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours

With larger other eyes than ours,

To make allowance for us all.

It is pleasant to transfer that thought to the photographs around the

room. They hang there all day and every day; they hear all that we say

and see all that we do; those quiet eyes seem to read us narrowly. Yet

if, on the one hand, they see more in these secret souls of ours to

_blame_, it is possible that, on the other, they see more to _pity_. The

judgements that we most dread are the judgements of those who only

partly understand. The drunkard shrinks from the eyes of those who see

his debauchery but know nothing of his temptation. There is something

wonderfully comforting and strengthening in the clear eyes of those who

see, not a part merely, but the whole.

Charles Simeon, of Cambridge, adorned his study wall with a fine picture

of Henry Martyn. It is very difficult to say which of the two owed most

to the other. In the days when he was groping after the light, Henry

Martyn—then a student—fell under the influence of Mr. Simeon, and no

other minister helped him so much. But, later on, when Henry Martyn was

illumining the Orient with the light of the gospel, his magnetic

personality and heroic example exerted a remarkable authority over the

ardent mind of the eminent Cambridge scholar. Mr. Simeon began to feel

that, in some subtle and inexplicable way, the portrait on the wall was

influencing his whole life. The picture was more than a picture. A wave

of reverential admiration swept over him whenever he glanced up at it.

He caught himself talking to it, and it seemed to speak to him. His

biographer says that 'Mr. Simeon used to observe of Martyn's picture,

while looking up at it with affectionate earnestness, as it hung over

his fireplace: "There! see that blessed man! What an expression of

countenance! No one looks at me as he does! He never takes his eyes off

me, and seems always to be saying: _Be serious! Be in earnest! Don't

trifle! don't trifle!_" Then smiling at the picture and gently bowing,

he added: "_And I won't trifle; I won't trifle!_"' His friends always

felt that the photograph over the fireplace was one of the most profound

and effective influences in the life and work of Charles Simeon; and

nobody who treasures a few reproving and inspiring pictures of the kind

will have the slightest difficulty in believing it.

The photographs upon my wall are never tyrannical; else why should I

prefer them to the cold, imprisoning walls? But, though never

tyrannical, they are always authoritative. They speak, not harshly, but

firmly. In the nature of the case, these are the faces I revere—the

faces of those whom I have enthroned within my heart. Being enthroned,

they command. They sometimes say _Thou shalt_: they sometimes say _Thou

shalt not_. They sometimes suggest; they sometimes prohibit.

And now, before I lay down my pen, shall I reveal the circumstance that

led me to this train of thought? I am writing at Easter-time. On Good

Friday a lady presented me with an exquisitely sad but unspeakably

beautiful picture—a picture of the Thorn-crowned Face. Where am I to

hang it? It will insist, tenderly but firmly, on a suitable and

harmonious environment. Henry Drummond used to tell of a Cambridge

undergraduate whose sweetheart visited his room. She found its walls

covered with pictures of actresses and racehorses. She said nothing,

but, on his birthday, presented him with a picture like this. A year

later she again called on him at Cambridge. The Thorn-crowned Face hung

over the fireplace; and the other walls were adorned with charming

landscapes and reproductions of famous paintings. He caught her glancing

at her gift.

'It's made a great difference to the room,' he said; 'what's more, it's

made a great difference _in me_!'

That is a way our pictures have. They insist on ruling everything and

everybody. I have no right to enthrone a despot in my home; nor to exalt

a Thorn-crowned King unless I am prepared to make Him Lord of all.

V—A BOX OF BLOCKS

I

We had a birthday at our house to-day, and among the presents was a

beautiful box of blocks. Each block represented one of the letters of

the alphabet. As I saw them being arranged and rearranged upon the

table, I fell a-thinking. For the alphabet has, in our time, come to its

own. We go through life muttering an interminable and incomprehensible

jargon of initials. We tack initials on to our names—fore and aft—and

we like to see every one of them in its place. As soon as I open my eyes

in the morning, the postman hands me a medley of circulars, postcards

and letters. One of them bids me attend the annual meeting of the

S.P.C.A.; another reminds me of the monthly committee meeting of the

M.C.M.; a third asks me to deliver an address at the P.S.A. In the

afternoon I rush from an appointment at the Y.M.C.A. to speak on behalf

of the W.C.T.U.; and then, having dropped in to pay my insurance premium

at the A.M.P., I take the tram at the G.P.O., and ask the conductor to

drop me at the A.B.C. I have accepted an invitation to a pleasant little

function there—an invitation that is clearly marked R.S.V.P. And so on.

There is no end to it. Life may be defined as a small amount of activity

entirely surrounded by the letters of the alphabet.

Now the alphabet has a symbolism of its own. The man who coined the

phrase '_as simple as A.B.C._' went mad; he went mad before he coined

it. There are, it is true, a few simplicities sprinkled among the

intricacies of this old world of ours; but the alphabet is not one of

them. I protest that it is most unfair to call the alphabet simple.

Nobody likes to be thought simple nowadays; see how frantically we

preachers struggle to avoid any suspicion of the kind! Any man living

would rather be called a sinner—or even a saint—than a simpleton. Why,

then, affront the alphabet, which, as we have seen, is working a

prodigious amount of overtime in our service, by applying to it so very

opprobrious an epithet?

'_As simple as A.B.C._,' indeed! Macaulay's schoolboy may not have been

as omniscient as the historian would lead us to believe, but he at least

knew that there is nothing simple about the A.B.C. The alphabet is the

hardest lesson that a child is called upon to learn. Latin roots,

algebraic equations, and the _Pons Asinorum_ are mere nothings in

comparison. Grown-ups have short memories. They forget the stupendous

difficulties that they surmounted in their earliest infancy; and their

forgetfulness renders them pitiless and unsympathetic. Few of us

recognize the strain in which a child's brain is involved when, for the

first time, he confronts the alphabet. The whole thing is so arbitrary;

there is no clue. In his noble essay on _The Evolution of Language_,

Professor Henry Drummond shows that the alphabet is really a

picture-gallery. 'First,' he says, 'there was the onomatopoetic writing,

the ideograph, the imitation of the actual object. This is the form we

find in the Egyptian hieroglyphic. For a man a man is drawn, for a camel

a camel, for a hut a hut. Then, to save time, the objects were drawn in

shorthand—a couple of dashes for the limbs and one across, as in the

Chinese, for a man; a square in the same language for a field; two

strokes at an obtuse angle, suggesting the roof, for a house. To express

further qualities, these abbreviated pictures were next compounded in

ingenious ways. A man and a field together conveyed the idea of wealth;

a roof and a woman represented home; and so on. And thus, little by

little, our letters were evolved. But the pictures have become so

truncated, abbreviated and emasculated, in the course of this

evolutionary process, that a child, though notoriously fond of pictures,

sees nothing fascinating in the letters of the alphabet. There is

absolutely nothing about the first to suggest the sound A; nothing about

the second to suggest the sound B. The whole thing is so

incomprehensible; how can he ever hope to master it? An adult brain,

introduced to such a conglomeration for the first time, would reel and

stagger; is it any wonder that these childish cheeks get flushed or that

the curly head turns at times very feverishly upon the pillow?

The sequence, too, is as baffling as the symbols. There is every reason

why _two_ should come between _one_ and _three_; and that reason is so

obvious that the tiniest tot in the class can appreciate it. But why

must B come between A and C? There is no natural advance, as in the case

of the numerals. The letter B is not a little more than the letter A,

nor a little less than the letter C. Except through the operation of the

law of association, which only weaves its spell with the passing of the

years, there is nothing about A to suggest B, and nothing about B to

suggest C. The combination is a rope of sand. Robert Moffat only

realized the insuperable character of this difficulty when he attempted

to teach the natives of Bechuanaland the English alphabet. Each of his

dusky pupils brought to the task an observation that had been trained in

the wilds, a brain that had been developed by the years, and an

intelligence that had been matured by experience. They were not babies.

Yet the alphabet proved too much for them. Why should A be A? and why

should B be B? and why should the one follow the other? Mr. Moffat was

on the point of abandoning his educational enterprise as hopeless, when

one thick-lipped and woolly-headed genius suggested that he should teach

them to sing it! At first blush the notion seemed preposterous. There

are some things which, like Magna Charta and minute-books, cannot be set

to music. Robert Moffat, however, was a Scotsman. The tune most familiar

to his childhood came singing itself over and over in his brain; by the

most freakish and fantastic conjunction of ideas it associated itself

with the problem that was baffling him; and, before that day's sun had

set, he had his Bechuana pupils roaring the alphabet to the tune of

_Auld Lang Syne_!

So A B C

D E F G

H I J K L M

N O P Q

R S T U

V W X Y Z.

The rhyme and metre fitted perfectly. The natives were so delighted that

they strolled about the village shouting the new song at the tops of

their voices; and Mr. Moffat declares that daylight was stealing through

his bedroom window before the weird unearthly yells at last subsided. I

have often wondered whether, in a more civilized environment, any

attempt has been made to impress the letters upon the mind in the same

way.

II

The symbolism of the alphabet rises to a sudden grandeur, however, when

it is enlisted in the service of revelation. Long, long ago a startled

shepherd was ordered to visit the court of the mightiest of earthly

potentates, and to address him on matters of state in the name of the

Most High. '_And the Lord said unto Moses, Come now, therefore, and I

will send thee unto Pharaoh, and I will send thee also unto the children

of Israel. And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I am come unto them and

shall say, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you, and they shall

say What is His name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto

Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent

me unto you!_'

'_I am——!_'

'_I am_—what?'

For centuries and centuries that question stood unanswered; that

sentence remained incomplete. It was a magnificent fragment. It stood

like a monument that the sculptor had never lived to finish; like a poem

that the poet, dying with his music in him, had left with its closing

stanzas unsung. But the sculptor of _that_ fragment was not dead; the

singer of _that_ song had not perished. For, behold, He liveth for

evermore! And, in the fullness of time, He reappeared and filled in the

gap that had so long stood blank.

'_I am——!_'

'_I am_—what?'

'I am—_the Bread of Life_!' 'I am—_the Light of the World_!' 'I

am—_the Door_!' 'I am—_the True Vine_!' 'I am—_the Good Shepherd_!'

'I am—_the Way, the Truth, and the Life_!' 'I am—_the Resurrection and

the Life_!'

And when I come to the end of the Bible, to the last book of all, I find

the series supplemented and completed.

'I am—_Alpha and Omega_!' 'I am—_A and Z_!' 'I am—_the Alphabet_!'

The symbolism of which I have spoken can rise to no greater height than

that. What, I wonder, can such symbolism symbolize? I take these

birthday blocks that came to our house to-day and strew the letters on

my study floor. So far as any spiritual significance is concerned, they

seem as dead as the dry bones in Ezekiel's Valley. And yet—'_I am the

Alphabet_!' 'Come,' I cry, with the prophet of the captivity, 'come from

the _Four Winds_, O Breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may

live!' And the prayer has scarcely escaped my lips when lo, all the

letters of the alphabet shine with a wondrous lustre and glow with a

profound significance.

III

For see, the _North Wind_ breathes upon these letters on the floor, and

I see at once that they are symbols of the '_Inexhaustibility of

Jesus!_' '_I am Alpha and Omega!_' '_I am the Alphabet!_' I have

sometimes stood in one of our great public libraries. I have surveyed

with astonishment the serried ranks of English literature. I have looked

up, and, in tier above tier, gallery above gallery, shelf above shelf,

the books climbed to the very roof, while, looking before me and behind

me, they stretched as far as I could see. The catalogue containing the

bare names of the books ran into several volumes. And yet the whole of

this literature consists of these twenty-six letters on the floor

arranged and rearranged in kaleidoscopic variety of juxtaposition.

Which, I ask myself, is the greater—the literature or the alphabet? And

I see at once that the alphabet is the greater because it is so

inexhaustible. Literature is in its infancy. We shall produce greater

poets than Shakespeare, greater novelists than Dickens, greater

philosophers, historians and humorists than any who have yet written.

But they will draw upon the alphabet for every letter of every syllable

of every word that they write. They may multiply our literature a

million-million-fold; yet the alphabet will be as far from exhaustion

when the last page is finished as it was before the first writer seized

a pen.

'_I am—the Alphabet!_' He says. He means that He cannot be exhausted.

For the love of God is broader

Than the measure of Man's mind;

And the heart of the Eternal

Is most wonderfully kind.

The ages may draw upon His grace; the men of every nation and kindred

and people and tongue—a multitude that no statistician can number—may

kneel in contrition at His feet; His love is as great as His power and

knows neither measure nor end. He is inexhaustible.

IV

And when the _South Wind_ breathes upon these letters on the floor, I

see at once that they are symbols of the _Indispensability of Jesus_.

Literature, with all its hoarded wealth, is as inaccessible as the

diamonds of the moon until I have mastered the alphabet. The alphabet is

the golden key that unlocks to me all its treasures of knowledge, poetry

and romance.

'_I am—the Alphabet!_' He says; and He says it three separate times.

For the words occur thrice in the Apocalypse. In the _first_ case they

refer to the unfolding of the divine revelation; in the _second_ they

refer to the interpretation of historic experience; and in the _third_

they refer to the unveiled drama of the future. As the disciples

discovered on the road to Emmaus, I cannot understand my Bible unless I

take Him as being the key to it all; I cannot understand the processes

of historical development until I have given Him the central place; I

cannot anticipate with equanimity the unfoldings of the days to come

until I have seen the keys of the eternities swinging at His girdle.

The alphabet is, essentially, an individual affair. In order to read a

single sentence, I must learn it _for myself_. My father's intimacy with

the alphabet does not help me to enjoy the volumes on my shelves. The

alphabet is indispensable _to me_; and so is He! There is something very

pathetic and very instructive about the story that Legh Richmond tells

of _The Young Cottager_. 'The rays of the morning star,' Mr. Richmond

says, 'were not so beautiful in my sight as the spiritual lustre of this

young Christian's character.' She was very ill when he visited her for

the last time. 'There was animation in her look—there was

more—something like a foretaste of heaven seemed to be felt, and gave

an inexpressible character of spiritual beauty even in death.'

'Where is your hope, my child?' Mr. Richmond asked, in the course of

that last conversation.

'Lifting up her finger,' he says, 'she pointed to heaven, and then

directed the same finger downward to her own heart, saying successively

as she did so, "_Christ there!_" and "_Christ here!_" These words,

accompanied by the action, spoke her meaning more solemnly than can

easily be conceived.'

In life and in death He is our one indispensability. In relation to this

world, and in relation to the world that is to come, He stands to the

soul as the alphabet stands in relation to literature.

V

And when the East Wind breathes upon these letters on the floor, I see

at once that they are symbols of the _Invincibility of Jesus_. '_I am—A

and Z!_' He is at the beginning, that is to say, and He goes right

through to the end. There is nothing in the alphabet before A; there is

nothing after Z. However far back your evolutionary interpretation of

the universe may place the beginning of things, you will find Him there.

However remote your interpretation of prophecy may make the end of

things, you will find Him there. He goes right through. The story of the

ages—past, present and future—may be told in a sentence: 'Christ

first, Christ last, and nought between but Christ.' Having begun, He

completes. He is the Author and Finisher of our faith. He sets His face

like a flint. Nothing daunts, deters, or dismays Him. 'I am confident,'

Paul says, 'of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in

you will perform it unto the end.' He never halts at H or L or P or X;

he goes right through to Z. He never gives up.

VI

But the greatest comfort of all comes to me on the Wings of the _West_

Wind. For, when the West Wind breathes upon these letters on the floor,

I see at once that they are symbols of the _Adaptability of Jesus_. The

lover takes these twenty-six letters and makes them the vehicle for the

expression of his passion; the poet transforms them into a song that

shall be sung for centuries; the judge turns them into a sentence of

death. In the hands of each they mold themselves to his necessity. The

alphabet is the most fluid, the most accommodating, the most plastic,

the most adaptable contrivance on the planet. Just because, in common

with every man breathing, I possess a distinctive individuality, I

sometimes feel as no man ever felt before, and I express myself in

language such as no man ever used. And the beauty of the alphabet is

that it adapts itself to my individual need. And that is precisely the

beauty of Jesus. '_I am—the Alphabet!_' I may not have sinned more than

others; but I have sinned differently. The experiences of others never

sound convincing; they do not quite reflect my case. But, like the

alphabet, He adapts Himself to _every_ case. He is the very Saviour I

need.

VI—PIECRUST

I

'What do you say to a day or two together at the Nuggets?' asked John

Broadbanks one summer's evening. I was just returning from a long round

of visitation among the outlying farms, and, driving into Mosgiel in the

dusk, met him on his way home to Silverstream. We reined up for a moment

to exchange greetings, and he made the suggestion I have just recorded.

The prospect was certainly very alluring. We had neither of us been away

for some time. There is no wilder or more romantic bit of scenery on the

New Zealand coast; and a visit to the stately old lighthouse, perched on

its rugged and precipitous cliffs, was always a delightful and bracing

experience.

'We will drive down,' he continued, seeing by my hesitation that any

resistance on my part would be extremely feeble. 'Sidwell of Balclutha

has often urged us to spend a night at his manse. We will break our

journey there. We can slip our guns into the spring-cart, and the

driving and the shooting will be half the fun of the frolic. And we may

have time to explore the coast a bit. I should like to see the reef on

which the _Queen of the Amazons_ was wrecked last week, and, if we are

lucky enough to strike a low tide, we may be able to scramble on board.

Are you on?'

He found me very pliable, as, on such occasions, he usually did; and we

spent a memorable week together. On the Sunday, there being no service

at the Nuggets, we walked along the wet sands to Port Molyneux, and

joined a little group of settlers who met for worship in the

schoolhouse. We rested on the beach during the afternoon, and, in the

evening, set out to walk to the lighthouse. It was a glorious moonlight

night; we could see the rabbits scurrying across the road half a mile

ahead. When we reached the crest of that bold promontory on the

extremity of which the lighthouse stands, we found ourselves surveying a

new stretch of coast. The cliffs at our feet were almost perpendicular,

and, far below us, the wild waves breaking madly over her, lay all that

was left of the _Queen of the Amazons_. We spread out a coat on the edge

of the cliff, and sat for some time in silent contemplation of this

weird and romantic spectacle.

'Well,' I said at last, 'and how did you enjoy the service this

morning?'

The moon was shining full upon his face, and I could see at a glance

that he was reluctant to reply.

'I was afraid you would ask me that,' he said at length. 'Well, frankly,

I was disappointed. It may have been because I was in a holiday mood, or

perhaps our long walk on such a lovely morning had unfitted me for

thinking on the sadder side of things; but, however that may be, I found

the service depressing. It checked the gaiety of my spirit and deadened

the exhilaration which I took to it. I went in singing; I came out

sighing. I felt somehow, that the preaching was _mostly piecrust_.

Obviously, the fellow was not well, and he allowed his dyspepsia to

darken his doctrine. Indigestion was never intended to be an infectious

disease; but he made it so by sending us all away suffering from the

after-effects of his unwholesome breakfast. I usually jot down a

preacher's heads or divisions, but I didn't trouble to make a note of

his. It was, firstly, _piecrust_; and, secondly, _piecrust_; and,

thirdly, _piecrust_; and _piecrust_ all the way through!'

John was not usually a caustic critic. He saw the best in most of us and

magnified it. His outburst that night on the cliff was therefore the

more startling and the more memorable. I have quite forgotten what the

preacher said at Port Molyneux in the morning; but, as long as I live, I

shall remember what John said as we sat in the silvery moonlight that

summer's evening, looking down at the great ship being torn to pieces by

the waves on the cruel reef just below.

II

'Why, bless me,' I heard a man exclaim yesterday in the course of an

animated discussion at the street corner, 'if things go on like this, I

shan't have a soul to call my own!' As though any man had! No man living

has a soul to call his own, or a stomach to call his own. The preacher

at Port Molyneux assumed, as he sat at breakfast, that his digestive

organs were his own property, and poor John Broadbanks and I, as well as

all the other members of the school-house congregation, were penalized

in consequence. Carlyle used to argue, more or less seriously, that the

whole course of human history has been repeatedly deflected by blunders

of this kind. The world has never known a more decisive battle than the

battle of Waterloo; but why did the Duke of Wellington win it? All

authorities agree that Napoleon was the greater general. Lord Roberts

declares that the schemes of Napoleon were more comprehensive, his

genius more dazzling, and his imagination more vivid than Wellington's.

Yet on that fateful day that decided the destinies of Europe, Napoleon

descended to absolute mediocrity while Wellington rose to surpassing

brilliance. The Emperor was never so agitated; the Duke was never so

calm. Napoleon, with all the chances in his favor, perpetrated blunder

after blunder; the Duke seemed omniscient and infallible. Why? Carlyle

used to say that Napoleon threw his brain out of action by eating a

hearty breakfast of fried potatoes. In one respect, at any rate, Carlyle

knew what he was talking about. 'As a student,' he says, 'I discovered

that I was the owner of a diabolical arrangement called a stomach; and I

have never been free from the knowledge from that hour to this; and I

suppose I never shall until I am laid away in my grave.' Warned,

however, by the melancholy fate which he believed Napoleon to have

suffered, he guarded against any overflow of his distress. His readers

rarely suffer from the after-effects of his indiscreet breakfasts. We

read _Sartor Resartus_, _Heroes and Hero-worship_, and _Past and

Present_, and never once think of piecrust or of fried potatoes.

It is true, I dare say, that all the people in the school-house were not

affected as John Broadbanks was. Indeed, I heard next day of one lady

who thought the sermon very affecting. It nearly made her cry, she said;

and she felt sure that the preacher was not long for this world. I would

not on any consideration deprive this excellent creature of her

lachrymal felicity; but if her well-meant encomiums reached the

preacher's ears, I hope he did not take them too seriously. Lots of

people are fond of piecrust, but it does not follow that it is good for

them. The sort of sermon that would have stimulated the faith of John

Broadbanks might not have brought tears to the eyes of the lady who was

moved to such a compassionate ecstasy, but it might have been better for

her in the long run. John Broadbanks found the piecrust sermon

depressing; yet, to a certain type of mind, few things are more

attractive than sadness. We all remember Macaulay's observations on the

inordinate popularity of Byron. 'It is,' he says, 'without a parallel in

history. To people who are unacquainted with real calamity, nothing is

so dainty and sweet as lovely melancholy.' And he goes on to apply this

to the pessimism of Byron. 'People bought pictures of him; they

treasured up the smallest relics of him; they learned his poems by

heart; they did their best to write like him and to look like him. Many

of them practised in the glass in the hope of catching the curl of the

upper lip and the scowl of the brow which appear in his portraits. The

number of hopeful undergraduates and medical students who became things

of dark imaginings, on whom the freshness of the heart ceased to fall

like dew, and to whom the relief of tears was denied, passes all

calculation.' Clearly, this is the lady with the tears—indefinitely

multiplied.

Now, by way of contrast, turn for a moment from Byron to Browning.

Professor Phelps of Yale says that Browning was too healthy to be

popular. He was robust and vigorous, and therefore optimistic. But he is

slowly winning his way. His star waxes as Byron's wanes. People find

sooner or later that they cannot live for ever on piecrust. Mr.

Chesterton says that the bravest thing about Robert Louis Stevenson is

that he never allowed his manuscripts to smell of his medicines. The

tortures that racked his frame never passed down his pen to the paper

spread out before him. You read his sprightly and stirring romances; you

live for the time being among pirates and smugglers and corsairs; you

catch the breath of the hills and the tang of the sea; and it never

occurs to you that you are the guest of a man who is terribly ill. You

hear him laugh; you never hear him cough. You do not see his sunken

eyes, his hectic cheek, his spectral form supported by a pile of

pillows. You reflect with astonishment when you lay aside the book that

the story was written by a creature so pitifully frail that, on all the

earth's broad surface, he could only find one outlandish spot—a lonely

hilltop in the Pacific—in which he could contrive to breathe. By this

time we may hope that our preacher at Port Molyneux has read the _Life

of Stevenson_. And, as he did so, he must have resolved that, however

excruciating his dyspepsia, his congregation, at least, shall never be

infected by it.

I regret now that I did not ask the preacher's name. If only I knew his

address, I should find pleasure in posting him a copy of _The Autocrat

of the Breakfast Table_. For the autocrat knew something about piecrust.

The pie at the boarding-house looked one day particularly attractive,

and things happened in consequence. 'I took more of it than was good for

me,' says the Autocrat, 'and had an indigestion in consequence. While I

was suffering from it, I wrote some sadly desponding poems, and a

theological essay which took a very melancholy view of creation. When I

got better, I labelled them all _Piecrust_, and laid them by as

scarecrows and solemn warnings. I have a number of books on my shelves

that I should like to label with some such title; but, as they have

great names on their title-pages—Doctors of Divinity, some of them—it

wouldn't do!' I should have been tempted to mark this passage before

posting the book to Port Molyneux.

III

But the really extraordinary thing about piecrust is that the quality

with which it is most frequently taunted is its one redeeming feature,

the feature that makes it sublime. Promises, they say, are like

piecrust, _made to be broken_. Why, the most beautiful and sacred things

in life are made to be broken! Upon all ordinary things, breakage comes

as the climax of disaster; upon a select few, breakage comes as the

climax of destiny. The fountain-pen that I hold in my hand—the pen with

which, without so much as a change of nib, all my books have been

written—will lie broken before me one of these days. It was made; it

will be broken; but it was not made to be broken. The enjoyment ends

with the breakage. But with those other things, the things of the

pie-crust class, the enjoyment begins with the breakage. When I was a

small boy, I indulged in bird-nesting. And I never looked upon a cluster

of delicately-tinted, prettily-speckled eggs without feeling that each

egg was the most consummate piece of workmanship that I had ever seen.

Its shape, its color and its pattern were alike perfect. Indeed, I

silenced my conscience as I bore the nest home by amplifying this very

argument. 'If I leave the nest in the tree,' I said to myself, 'these

pretty things will all be broken! When the birds are hatched, the eggs

will be smashed! They are far too pretty for that! I will take them home

and keep them. I am really saving them by stealing them!' I know now

that I was wrong. My argument was made up of casuistry and special

pleading. In reality I destroyed the eggs by preserving them. They were

made to be broken, and I cheated destiny by preventing the breakage. I

have travelled a good many miles since then; but, every step of the way,

I have learned, in some new form, the same great lesson. And when, with

reverent footsteps, I have climbed the loftiest summits of all, the

truth that I first discovered in the English hedgerows has become most

radiantly clear. The two greatest events in the history of this planet

are the Incarnation and the Crucifixion.

It is _Christmas-time_; and we think with wonder and awe of the mystery

of that holy body's making!

It is _Easter-time_; and we think with wonder and awe of the mystery of

that holy body's breaking!

It is _Communion-time_! 'This is My body which is broken for you,' He

said.

And in the making of that body and the breaking of that body—the body

that was made to be broken—a lost world has found salvation.

VII—ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

It was a cruel winter's night; an icy wind was howling across the Plain;

a glorious fire was blazing in the dining-room grate; and, happily, I

had no engagements. To add to our felicity, the San Francisco mail had

arrived that morning, bringing our monthly budget of news from home. The

letters had, of course, been devoured upon delivery, but the papers and

magazines had been laid aside for evening consumption. We had just

opened the packages and arranged the journals in order of publication

when there came a ring at the front-door bell. We glanced at each other

meaningly and at the papers regretfully. All kinds of visions presented

themselves; visions of a garrulous visitor who, with business over,

would not go; visions of a long drive across the Plain in the biting

wind; visions of everything but an evening with each other, a roaring

fire and the English mail. As though to rebuke our inhospitable and

ungracious thoughts, however, it was only Elsie Hammond. Elsie often

dropped in of an evening; she usually brought her fancy-work; and, in

her presence, we were perfectly at our ease. Every manse has one or two

such visitors. We read, worked, or chatted when Elsie came just as we

should have done if she had not dropped in.

'Why, Elsie,' I exclaimed, as soon as, divested of her hat and cloak,

she entered the dining-room and took her usual chair, 'whatever brings

you out on a wild night like this?'

'Well,' she replied, 'I wanted to see you about the Young People's

Missionary Union. You remember that they made me Secretary last month,

and we are arranging for the annual meeting. We have invited Mr.

Harriford Johnson, of the North Africa Evangelization Society, to give

an address; and I received his reply this morning. He will be coming out

from town by the five-twenty train; and I wondered if you could let him

come to the manse to tea, and, if needs be, stay the night.'

I put Elsie at her ease by telling her that she might leave the matter

of Mr. Johnson's reception and entertainment entirely in my hands; and

then, resuming the pile of papers, we had a royal evening with the

English news.

The day of the missionary meeting arrived; and, as the clock struck

five, I set out for the station. Quite a number of people were moving in

the same direction, among them the Rev. J. M. McKerrow, my Presbyterian

neighbor. We walked towards the station together. On the platform,

however, he recognized a lady friend from a distance; he moved away to

speak to her; and, in the bustle of the train's arrival, we saw each

other no more.

I had never met Mr. Johnson, nor had any description of his personal

appearance been given me. For some reason, I had pictured to myself a

tall, cadaverous man in a severe garb, bearing upon him the signs of the

ravages wrought by a variety of tropical diseases; and, contrary to

one's usual experience, a gentleman roughly according with this

prognostication stepped from the train and began to look aimlessly about

him.

'Mr. Johnson?' I inquired, approaching him.

'Ah!' he replied, 'and you're from the manse!'

I admitted the impeachment, and we set off together for home. On the way

we chatted about the weather, the place, the crops, the people, the

church, the services, and things in general. He was a vivacious

conversationalist, and exhibited a remarkably alert and hungry mind. He

wanted to know all about everything; and when we discussed my own work,

its difficulties, and its encouragements, he showed a genuine interest

and a delightful sympathy. We had invited several of the leading

missionary spirits of the congregation to meet him at tea. In order that

the conversation at table might be generally enjoyable, I had stored my

mind with a fine assortment of questions concerning conditions in

Northern Africa which, like a quiver-full of arrows, I intended firing

at our guest as opportunity offered. But opportunity did not offer. Mr.

Johnson was so interested in the work of the various organizations

represented round the table that he made it impossible for us to inquire

about his own. Moreover, our visitor chanced to discover that one of our

guests had in his home a little boy who was afflicted with blindness. On

eliciting this information, Mr. Johnson lapsed into sudden silence, and

looked, I thought, as though he had been hurt. But, after tea, he drew

the father of the blind boy aside and explained to him that he himself

had but one child, a little girl of ten, and she was similarly

afflicted. As he spoke of her, his vivacity vanished, and a great depth

of tenderness revealed itself. I wondered, but did not care to ask, if

the blindness of his child was part of the price that he had been

compelled to pay for residence in tropical Africa. After telling us of

his little daughter, and of the comfort that she was to him, Mr. Johnson

looked at his watch.

'We have nearly an hour,' he said, 'before meeting time; may I peep into

your sanctum? I love to glance over a man's books.'

Rarely have I spent an hour in the study so delightfully. All his

enthusiasm awoke again at sight of the shelves. He took down volume

after volume, handling each with affectionate reverence, and making each

the text of a running comment of a most fascinating character. Amusing

anecdotes about the author; an outline of the singular circumstances

under which certain of the books were written; illuminating criticisms

by eminent authorities; sparkling quotations of out-of-the-way

passages—there seemed to be no end to his fund of lively and original

observations.

'But I say,' he suddenly ejaculated, 'that conversation at table was

most interesting and valuable. I had no idea that so much excellent work

was being done. I have often wondered——'

But at that moment the mistress of the manse intervened.

'Excuse me,' she said, as she opened the study door, 'but Mr. McKerrow

and another gentleman wish to see you at once in the drawing-room.'

To the drawing-room I accordingly repaired; and there I found my

companion of the afternoon, accompanied by a short, ruddy, thick-set

man, who was laughing very heartily.

'This is an extraordinary situation,' my friend began. 'You will have

discovered by this time that we jumped to conclusions too hurriedly this

afternoon. _This_ is Mr. Harriford Johnson, of the North Africa

Evangelization Society, who is, I believe, to lecture for you to-night,

and I think you must have walked off with Mr. Douglas E. Johnson, M.A.,

who is to address our teachers this evening on the kindergarten method

as applied to Sunday-school work. Mrs. McKerrow and I had invited the

superintendent of our Sunday-school and the teachers of the primary

classes to meet Mr. Johnson at tea at the manse, and we got into a

beautiful tangle. It was like playing a game of cross questions and

crooked answers. The young people were asking Mr. Johnson's advice on

technical matters connected with their classes; and Mr. Johnson was

modestly disclaiming all knowledge of the subject, and was telling us of

his experiences in Central Africa. We were all beginning to feel that

the world had suddenly turned topsy-turvy, when Mr. Johnson suddenly

asked how long ago the Young People's Missionary Union was established,

and seemed surprised that a Miss Elsie Hammond was not present. Then the

truth broke upon us, and we have all been laughing ever since.'

I cordially welcomed Mr. Johnson, and then we all three went through to

the dining-room, in which, by this time, the whole of our party was

assembled. Mr. Johnson was holding the company spell-bound. I briefly

introduced our two visitors, and explained the position. The

announcement was received with bursts of merriment, although our

tea-table guest was covered with confusion and full of apologies.

However, he quickly entered into the humor of the situation, and, after

promising to return to lunch with the African Mr. Johnson next day, he

went off with Mr. McKerrow laughing heartily.

Both meetings were a great success. The comedy of errors may have had

something to do with it. In comparing notes next morning, both speakers

declared that they felt very much at home with their audiences. The joke

had quickly spread, and created an atmosphere of sympathy and

familiarity. Henry Drummond used to say that he could never get on with

people until he had laughed with them. Both meetings opened that evening

with a bond already established between speaker and audience; and that

stands for a good deal.

We had a very happy time, too, at lunch next morning. Our visitors were

both pleased that the mistake had been made.

'It's very nice,' said Mr. Harriford Johnson, 'to have got into touch

with two ministers and two congregations instead of one. I am thankful

to have been able to say a word for Africa to the young people with whom

I had tea at Mr. McKerrow's.'

'And for my part,' added Mr. Douglas Johnson, 'I am thoroughly ashamed

of myself. The conversation at the tea-table last evening was a perfect

revelation to me. I have often heard about foreign missions, and I

suppose I ought to have interested myself in them. But one has his own

line of things, and is apt to get into grooves. I had no idea until

yesterday that the movement was so orderly and systematic nor that the

operations were so extensive. It was like being taken into the

confidence of a military commander, and shown his strategy. I go back

feeling that my mind has been fitted with a new set of windows, and I am

able to look out upon the world in a way that was impossible before. I

am delighted, too, to have met my namesake, Mr. Harriford Johnson. He

has given me'—taking a pamphlet from his pocket—'a copy of the last

annual report of the North Africa Evangelization Society, and I shall

always think more kindly of Africa because of this singular experience

at Mosgiel.'

It was years before I heard of either of our visitors again. Mr.

Harriford Johnson, it is true, posted me each year a copy of the report

of his work. In 1899, however, he enclosed the pamphlet in a note saying

that he had found some of the hints that he had picked up in his

conversation with Mr. McKerrow's kindergarten teachers very useful to

his native school. 'There is something in the idea,' he wrote, 'that

appeals to the African mind; and I am sending to London for some

literature on the subject with a view to applying the system more

extensively. The mistakes that we all made that evening at the Mosgiel

railway station have proved, to me, very profitable ones.'

I never heard directly from Mr. Douglas Johnson. But, about five years

afterwards, I noticed in an Auckland paper the announcement of the death

of his little blind girl; and, a year or two later, I saw in the annual

report of Mr. Harriford Johnson's Mission the acknowledgement of a

handsome donation from D.E.J., '_in loving memory of one who, though

spending all her days in darkness, now sees, and desires that Africa

shall have the Light of Life_.'

Of all the things that are made in a world like this, mistakes are by no

means the worst.

OTHER BOOKS BY MR. BOREHAM

A BUNCH OF EVERLASTINGS

A HANDFUL OF STARS

A REEL OF RAINBOW

FACES IN THE FIRE

MOUNTAINS IN THE MIST

MUSHROOMS ON THE MOOR

THE GOLDEN MILESTONE

THE HOME OF THE ECHOES

THE LUGGAGE OF LIFE

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL

THE SILVER SHADOW

THE UTTERMOST STAR

SHADOWS ON THE WALL