CHAPTER XI.
SERMON ON GOD AND MAMMON.
I never asked questions about the private affairs of any of my
parishioners, except of themselves individually upon occasion of
their asking me for advice, and some consequent necessity for
knowing more than they told me. Hence, I believe, they became the
more willing that I should know. But I heard a good many things from
others, notwithstanding, for I could not be constantly closing the
lips of the communicative as I had done those of Jane Rogers. And
amongst other things, I learned that Miss Oldcastle went most
Sundays to the neighbouring town of Addicehead to church. Now I had
often heard of the ability of the rector, and although I had never
met him, was prepared to find him a cultivated, if not an original
man. Still, if I must be honest, which I hope I must, I confess that
I heard the news with a pang, in analysing which I discovered the
chief component to be jealousy. It was no use asking myself why I
should be jealous: there the ugly thing was. So I went and told God
I was ashamed, and begged Him to deliver me from the evil, because
His was the kingdom and the power and the glory. And He took my part
against myself, for He waits to be gracious. Perhaps the reader may,
however, suspect a deeper cause for this feeling (to which I would
rather not give the true name again) than a merely professional one.
But there was one stray sheep of my flock that appeared in church
for the first time on the morning of Christmas Day--Catherine Weir.
She did not sit beside her father, but in the most shadowy corner of
the church--near the organ loft, however. She could have seen her
father if she had looked up, but she kept her eyes down the whole
time, and never even lifted them to me. The spot on one cheek was
much brighter than that on the other, and made her look very ill.
I prayed to our God to grant me the honour of speaking a true word
to them all; which honour I thought I was right in asking, because
the Lord reproached the Pharisees for not seeking the honour that
cometh from God. Perhaps I may have put a wrong interpretation on
the passage. It is, however, a joy to think that He will not give
you a stone, even if you should take it for a loaf, and ask for it
as such. Nor is He, like the scribes, lying in wait to catch poor
erring men in their words or their prayers, however mistaken they
may be.
I took my text from the Sermon on the Mount. And as the magazine for
which these Annals were first written was intended chiefly for
Sunday reading, I wrote my sermon just as if I were preaching it to
my unseen readers as I spoke it to my present parishioners. And here
it is now:
The Gospel according to St Matthew, the sixth chapter, and part of
the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth verses:--
"'YE CANNOT SERVE GOD AND MAMMON. THEREFORE I SAY TO YOU, TAKE NO
THOUGHT FOR YOUR LIFE.'
"When the Child whose birth we celebrate with glad hearts this day,
grew up to be a man, He said this. Did He mean it?--He never said
what He did not mean. Did He mean it wholly?--He meant it far beyond
what the words could convey. He meant it altogether and entirely.
When people do not understand what the Lord says, when it seems to
them that His advice is impracticable, instead of searching deeper
for a meaning which will be evidently true and wise, they comfort
themselves by thinking He could not have meant it altogether, and so
leave it. Or they think that if He did mean it, He could not expect
them to carry it out. And in the fact that they could not do it
perfectly if they were to try, they take refuge from the duty of
trying to do it at all; or, oftener, they do not think about it at
all as anything that in the least concerns them. The Son of our
Father in heaven may have become a child, may have led the one life
which belongs to every man to lead, may have suffered because we are
sinners, may have died for our sakes, doing the will of His Father
in heaven, and yet we have nothing to do with the words He spoke out
of the midst of His true, perfect knowledge, feeling, and action! Is
it not strange that it should be so? Let it not be so with us this
day. Let us seek to find out what our Lord means, that we may do it;
trying and failing and trying again--verily to be victorious at
last--what matter WHEN, so long as we are trying, and so coming
nearer to our end!
"MAMMON, you know, means RICHES. Now, riches are meant to be the
slave--not even the servant of man, and not to be the master. If a
man serve his own servant, or, in a word, any one who has no just
claim to be his master, he is a slave. But here he serves his own
slave. On the other hand, to serve God, the source of our being, our
own glorious Father, is freedom; in fact, is the only way to get rid
of all bondage. So you see plainly enough that a man cannot serve
God and Mammon. For how can a slave of his own slave be the servant
of the God of freedom, of Him who can have no one to serve Him but a
free man? His service is freedom. Do not, I pray you, make any
confusion between service and slavery. To serve is the highest,
noblest calling in creation. For even the Son of man came not to be
ministered unto, but to minister, yea, with Himself.
"But how can a man SERVE riches? Why, when he says to riches, 'Ye
are my good.' When he feels he cannot be happy without them. When he
puts forth the energies of his nature to get them. When he schemes
and dreams and lies awake about them. When he will not give to his
neighbour for fear of becoming poor himself. When he wants to have
more, and to know he has more, than he can need. When he wants to
leave money behind him, not for the sake of his children or
relatives, but for the name of the wealth. When he leaves his money,
not to those who NEED it, even of his relations, but to those who
are rich like himself, making them yet more of slaves to the
overgrown monster they worship for his size. When he honours those
who have money because they have money, irrespective of their
character; or when he honours in a rich man what he would not honour
in a poor man. Then is he the slave of Mammon. Still more is he
Mammon's slave when his devotion to his god makes him oppressive to
those over whom his wealth gives him power; or when he becomes
unjust in order to add to his stores.--How will it be with such a
man when on a sudden he finds that the world has vanished, and he is
alone with God? There lies the body in which he used to live, whose
poor necessities first made money of value to him, but with which
itself and its fictitious value are both left behind. He cannot now
even try to bribe God with a cheque. The angels will not bow down to
him because his property, as set forth in his will, takes five or
six figures to express its amount It makes no difference to them
that he has lost it, though; for they never respected him. And the
poor souls of Hades, who envied him the wealth they had lost before,
rise up as one man to welcome him, not for love of him--no
worshipper of Mammon loves another--but rejoicing in the mischief
that has befallen him, and saying, 'Art thou also become one of us?'
And Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, however sorry he may be for him,
however grateful he may feel to him for the broken victuals and the
penny, cannot with one drop of the water of Paradise cool that man's
parched tongue.
"Alas, poor Dives! poor server of Mammon, whose vile god can pretend
to deliver him no longer! Or rather, for the blockish god never
pretended anything--it was the man's own doing--Alas for the
Mammon-worshipper! he can no longer deceive himself in his riches.
And so even in hell he is something nobler than he was on earth; for
he worships his riches no longer. He cannot. He curses them.
"Terrible things to say on Christmas Day! But if Christmas Day
teaches us anything, it teaches us to worship God and not Mammon; to
worship spirit and not matter; to worship love and not power.
"Do I now hear any of my friends saying in their hearts: Let the
rich take that! It does not apply to us. We are poor enough? Ah, my
friends, I have known a light-hearted, liberal rich man lose his
riches, and be liberal and light-hearted still. I knew a rich lady
once, in giving a large gift of money to a poor man, say
apologetically, 'I hope it is no disgrace in me to be rich, as it is
none in you to be poor.' It is not the being rich that is wrong, but
the serving of riches, instead of making them serve your neighbour
and yourself--your neighbour for this life, yourself for the
everlasting habitations. God knows it is hard for the rich man to
enter into the kingdom of heaven; but the rich man does sometimes
enter in; for God hath made it possible. And the greater the
victory, when it is the rich man that overcometh the world. It is
easier for the poor man to enter into the kingdom, yet many of the
poor have failed to enter in, and the greater is the disgrace of
their defeat. For the poor have more done for them, as far as
outward things go, in the way of salvation than the rich, and have a
beatitude all to themselves besides. For in the making of this world
as a school of salvation, the poor, as the necessary majority, have
been more regarded than the rich. Do not think, my poor friend, that
God will let you off. He lets nobody off. You, too, must pay the
uttermost farthing. He loves you too well to let you serve Mammon a
whit more than your rich neighbour. 'Serve Mammon!' do you say? 'How
can I serve Mammon? I have no Mammon to serve.'--Would you like to
have riches a moment sooner than God gives them? Would you serve
Mammon if you had him?--'Who can tell?' do you answer? 'Leave those
questions till I am tried.' But is there no bitterness in the tone
of that response? Does it not mean, 'It will be a long time before I
have a chance of trying THAT?'--But I am not driven to such
questions for the chance of convicting some of you of
Mammon-worship. Let us look to the text. Read it again.
"'YE CANNOT SERVE GOD AND MAMMON. THEREFORE I SAY UNTO YOU, TAKE NO
THOUGHT FOR YOUR LIFE.'
"Why are you to take no thought? Because you cannot serve God and
Mammon. Is taking thought, then, a serving of Mammon?
Clearly.--Where are you now, poor man? Brooding over the frost? Will
it harden the ground, so that the God of the sparrows cannot find
food for His sons? Where are you now, poor woman? Sleepless over the
empty cupboard and to-morrow's dinner? 'It is because we have no
bread?' do you answer? Have you forgotten the five loaves among the
five thousand, and the fragments that were left? Or do you know
nothing of your Father in heaven, who clothes the lilies and feeds
the birds? O ye of little faith? O ye poor-spirited
Mammon-worshippers! who worship him not even because he has given
you anything, but in the hope that he may some future day
benignantly regard you. But I may be too hard upon you. I know well
that our Father sees a great difference between the man who is
anxious about his children's dinner, or even about his own, and the
man who is only anxious to add another ten thousand to his much
goods laid up for many years. But you ought to find it easy to trust
in God for such a matter as your daily bread, whereas no man can by
any possibility trust in God for ten thousand pounds. The former
need is a God-ordained necessity; the latter desire a man-devised
appetite at best--possibly swinish greed. Tell me, do you long to be
rich? Then you worship Mammon. Tell me, do you think you would feel
safer if you had money in the bank? Then you are Mammon-worshippers;
for you would trust the barn of the rich man rather than the God who
makes the corn to grow. Do you say--"What shall we eat? and what
shall we drink? and wherewithal shall we be clothedl?" Are ye thus
of doubtful mind?--Then you are Mammon-worshippers. "But how is the
work of the world to be done if we take no thought?--We are nowhere
told not to take thought. We MUST take thought. The question
is--What are we to take or not to take thought about? By some who do
not know God, little work would be done if they were not driven by
anxiety of some kind. But you, friends, are you content to go with
the nations of the earth, or do you seek a better way--THE way that
the Father of nations would have you walk in?
"WHAT then are we to take thought about? Why, about our work. What
are we not to take thought about? Why, about our life. The one is
our business: the other is God's. But you turn it the other way. You
take no thought of earnestness about the doing of your duty; but you
take thought of care lest God should not fulfil His part in the
goings on of the world. A man's business is just to do his duty: God
takes upon Himself the feeding and the clothing. Will the work of
the world be neglected if a man thinks of his work, his duty, God's
will to be done, instead of what he is to eat, what he is to drink,
and wherewithal he is to be clothed? And remember all the needs of
the world come back to these three. You will allow, I think, that
the work of the world will be only so much the better done; that the
very means of procuring the raiment or the food will be the more
thoroughly used. What, then, is the only region on which the doubt
can settle? Why, God. He alone remains to be doubted. Shall it be so
with you? Shall the Son of man, the baby now born, and for ever with
us, find no faith in you? Ah, my poor friend, who canst not trust in
God--I was going to say you DESERVE--but what do I know of you to
condemn and judge you?--I was going to say, you deserve to be
treated like the child who frets and complains because his mother
holds him on her knee and feeds him mouthful by mouthful with her
own loving hand. I meant--you deserve to have your own way for a
while; to be set down, and told to help yourself, and see what it
will come to; to have your mother open the cupboard door for you,
and leave you alone to your pleasures. Alas! poor child! When the
sweets begin to pall, and the twilight begins to come duskily into
the chamber, and you look about all at once and see no mother, how
will your cupboard comfort you then? Ask it for a smile, for a
stroke of the gentle hand, for a word of love. All the full-fed
Mammon can give you is what your mother would have given you without
the consequent loathing, with the light of her countenance upon it
all, and the arm of her love around you.--And this is what God does
sometimes, I think, with the Mammon-worshippers amongst the poor. He
says to them, Take your Mammon, and see what he is worth. Ah,
friends, the children of God can never be happy serving other than
Him. The prodigal might fill his belly with riotous living or with
the husks that the swine ate. It was all one, so long as he was not
with his father. His soul was wretched. So would you be if you had
wealth, for I fear you would only be worse Mammon-worshippers than
now, and might well have to thank God for the misery of any
swine-trough that could bring you to your senses.
"But we do see people die of starvation sometimes,--Yes. But if you
did your work in God's name, and left the rest to Him, that would
not trouble you. You would say, If it be God's will that I should
starve, I can starve as well as another. And your mind would be at
ease. "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed upon
Thee, because he trusteth in Thee." Of that I am sure. It may be
good for you to go hungry and bare-foot; but it must be utter death
to have no faith in God. It is not, however, in God's way of things
that the man who does his work shall not live by it. We do not know
why here and there a man may be left to die of hunger, but I do
believe that they who wait upon the Lord shall not lack any good.
What it may be good to deprive a man of till he knows and
acknowledges whence it comes, it may be still better to give him
when he has learned that every good and every perfect gift is from
above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.
"I SHOULD like to know a man who just minded his duty and troubled
himself about nothing; who did his own work and did not interfere
with God's. How nobly he would work--working not for reward, but
because it was the will of God! How happily he would receive his
food and clothing, receiving them as the gifts of God! What peace
would be his! What a sober gaiety! How hearty and infectious his
laughter! What a friend he would be! How sweet his sympathy! And his
mind would be so clear he would understand everything His eye being
single, his whole body would be full of light. No fear of his ever
doing a mean thing. He would die in a ditch, rather. It is this fear
of want that makes men do mean things. They are afraid to part with
their precious lord--Mammon. He gives no safety against such a fear.
One of the richest men in England is haunted with the dread of the
workhouse. This man whom I should like to know, would be sure that
God would have him liberal, and he would be what God would have him.
Riches are not in the least necessary to that. Witness our Lord's
admiration of the poor widow with her great farthing.
"But I think I hear my troubled friend who does not love money, and
yet cannot trust in God out and out, though she fain would,--I think
I hear her say, "I believe I could trust Him for myself, or at least
I should be ready to dare the worst for His sake; but my children
--it is the thought of my children that is too much for me." Ah,
woman! she whom the Saviour praised so pleasedly, was one who
trusted Him for her daughter. What an honour she had! "Be it unto
thee even as thou wilt." Do you think you love your children better
than He who made them? Is not your love what it is because He put it
into your heart first? Have not you often been cross with them?
Sometimes unjust to them? Whence came the returning love that rose
from unknown depths in your being, and swept away the anger and the
injustice! You did not create that love. Probably you were not good
enough to send for it by prayer. But it came. God sent it. He makes
you love your children; be sorry when you have been cross with them;
ashamed when you have been unjust to them; and yet you won't trust
Him to give them food and clothes! Depend upon it, if He ever
refuses to give them food and clothes, and you knew all about it,
the why and the wherefore, you would not dare to give them food or
clothes either. He loves them a thousand times better than you
do--be sure of that--and feels for their sufferings too, when He
cannot give them just what He would like to give them--cannot for
their good, I mean.
"But as your mistrust will go further, I can go further to meet it.
You will say, 'Ah! yes'--in your feeling, I mean, not in words,--you
will say, 'Ah! yes--food and clothing of a sort! Enough to keep life
in and too much cold out! But I want my children to have plenty of
GOOD food, and NICE clothes.'
"Faithless mother! Consider the birds of the air. They have so much
that at least they can sing! Consider the lilies--they were red
lilies, those. Would you not trust Him who delights in glorious
colours--more at least than you, or He would never have created them
and made us to delight in them? I do not say that your children
shall be clothed in scarlet and fine linen; but if not, it is not
because God despises scarlet and fine linen or does not love your
children. He loves them, I say, too much to give them everything all
at once. But He would make them such that they may have everything
without being the worse, and with being the better for it. And if
you cannot trust Him yet, it begins to be a shame, I think.
"It has been well said that no man ever sank under the burden of the
day. It is when to-morrow's burden is added to the burden of to-day,
that the weight is more than a man can bear. Never load yourselves
so, my friends. If you find yourselves so loaded, at least remember
this: it is your own doing, not God's. He begs you to leave the
future to Him, and mind the present. What more or what else could He
do to take the burden off you? Nothing else would do it. Money in
the bank wouldn't do it. He cannot do to-morrow's business for you
beforehand to save you from fear about it. That would derange
everything. What else is there but to tell you to trust in Him,
irrespective of the fact that nothing else but such trust can put
our heart at peace, from the very nature of our relation to Him as
well as the fact that we need these things. We think that we come
nearer to God than the lower animals do by our foresight. But there
is another side to it. We are like to Him with whom there is no past
or future, with whom a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand
years as one day, when we live with large bright spiritual eyes,
doing our work in the great present, leaving both past and future to
Him to whom they are ever present, and fearing nothing, because He
is in our future, as much as He is in our past, as much as, and far
more than, we can feel Him to be in our present. Partakers thus of
the divine nature, resting in that perfect All-in-all in whom our
nature is eternal too, we walk without fear, full of hope and
courage and strength to do His will, waiting for the endless good
which He is always giving as fast as He can get us able to take it
in. Would not this be to be more of gods than Satan promised to Eve?
To live carelessly-divine, duty-doing, fearless, loving,
self-forgetting lives--is not that more than to know both good and
evil--lives in which the good, like Aaron's rod, has swallowed up
the evil, and turned it into good? For pain and hunger are evils j
but if faith in God swallows them up, do they not so turn into good?
I say they do. And I am glad to believe that I am not alone in my
parish in this conviction. I have never been too hungry, but I have
had trouble which I would gladly have exchanged for hunger and cold
and weariness. Some of you have known hunger and cold and weariness.
Do you not join with me to say: It is well, and better than
well--whatever helps us to know the love of Him who is our God?
"But there HAS BEEN just one man who has acted thus. And it is His
Spirit in our hearts that makes us desire to know or to be another
such--who would do the will of God for God, and let God do God's
will for Him. For His will is all. And this man is the baby whose
birth we celebrate this day. Was this a condition to choose--that of
a baby--by one who thought it part of a man's high calling to take
care of the morrow? Did He not thus cast the whole matter at once
upor the hands and heart of His Father? Sufficient unto the baby's
day is the need thereof; he toils not, neither does he spin, and yet
he if fed and clothed, and loved, and rejoiced in. Do you remind me
that sometimes even his mother forgets him--a mother, most likely,
to whose self-indulgence or weakness the child owes his birth as
hers? Ah! but he is not therefore forgotten, however like things it
may look to our half-seeing eyes, by his Father in heaven. One of
the highest benefits we can reap from understanding the way of God
with ourselves is, that we become able thus to trust Him for others
with whom we do not understand His ways.
"But let us look at what will be more easily shown--how, namely, He
did the will of His Father, and took no thought for the morrow after
He became a man. Remember how He forsook His trade when the time
came for Him to preach. Preaching was not a profession then. There
were no monasteries, or vicarages, or stipends, then. Yet witness
for the Father the garment woven throughout; the ministering of
women; the purse in common! Hard-working men and rich ladies were
ready to help Him, and did help Him with all that He needed.--Did He
then never want? Yes; once at least--for a little while only.
"He was a-hungered in the wilderness. 'Make bread,' said Satan.
'No,' said our Lord.--He could starve; but He could not eat bread
that His Father did not give Him, even though He could make it
Himself. He had come hither to be tried. But when the victory was
secure, lo! the angels brought Him food from His Father.--Which was
better? To feed Himself, or be fed by His Father? Judg? yourselves,
jinxious people, He sought the kingdom of God and His righteousness,
and the bread was added unto Him.
"And this gives me occasion to remark that the same truth holds with
regard to any portion of the future as well as the morrow. It is a
principle, not a command, or an encouragement, or a promise merely.
In respect of it there is no difference between next day and next
year, next hour and next century. You will see at once the absurdity
of taking no thought for the morrow, and taking thought for next
year. But do you see likewise that it is equally reasonable to trust
God for the next moment, and equally unreasonable not to trust Him?
The Lord was hungry and needed food now, though He could still go
without for a while. He left it to His Father. And so He told His
disciples to do when they were called to answer before judges and
rulers. 'Take no thought. It shall be given you what ye shall say.'
You have a disagreeable duty to do at twelve o'clock. Do not blacken
nine and ten and eleven, and all between, with the colour of twelve.
Do the work of each, and reap your reward in peace. So when the
dreaded moment in the future becomes the present, you shall meet it
walking in the light, and that light will overcome its darkness. How
often do men who have made up their minds what to say and do under
certain expected circumstances, forget the words and reverse the
actions! The best preparation is the present well seen to, the last
duty done. For this will keep the eye so clear and the body so full
of light that the right action will be perceived at once, the right
words will rush from the heart to the lips, and the man, full of the
Spirit of God because he cares for nothing but the will of God, will
trample on the evil thing in love, and be sent, it may be, in a
chariot of fire to the presence of his Father, or stand unmoved amid
the cruel mockings of the men he loves.
"Do you feel inclined to say in your hearts: 'It was easy for Him to
take no thought, for He had the matter in His own hands?' But
observe, there is nothing very noble in a man's taking no thought
except it be from faith. If there were no God to take thought for
us, we should have no right to blame any one for taking thought. You
may fancy the Lord had His own power to fall back upon. But that
would have been to Him just the one dreadful thing. That His Father
should forget Him!--no power in Himself could make up for that. He
feared nothing for Himself; and never once employed His divine power
to save Him from His human fate. Let God do that for Him if He saw
fit. He did not come into the world to take care of Himself. That
would not be in any way divine. To fall back on Himself, God failing
Him--how could that make it easy for Him to avoid care? The very
idea would be torture. That would be to declare heaven void, and the
world without a God. He would not even pray to His Father for what
He knew He should have if He did ask it. He would just wait His
will.
"But see how the fact of His own power adds tenfold significance to
the fact that He trusted in God. We see that this power would not
serve His need--His need not being to be fed and clothed, but to be
one with the Father, to be fed by His hand, clothed by His care.
This was what the Lord wanted--and we need, alas! too often without
wanting it. He never once, I repeat, used His power for Himself.
That was not his business. He did not care about it. His life was of
no value to Him but as His Father cared for it. God would mind all
that was necessary for Him, and He would mind the work His Father
had given Him to do. And, my friends, this is just the one secret of
a blessed life, the one thing every man comes into this world to
learn. With what authority it comes to us from the lips of Him who
knew all about it, and ever did as He said!
"Now you see that He took no thought for the morrow. And, in the
name of the holy child Jesus, I call upon you, this Christmas day,
to cast care to the winds, and trust in God; to receive the message
of peace and good-will to men; to yield yourselves to the Spirit of
God, that you may be taught what He wants you to know; to remember
that the one gift promised without reserve to those who ask it--the
one gift worth having--the gift which makes all other gifts a
thousand-fold in value, is the gift of the Holy Spirit, the spirit
of the child Jesus, who will take of the things of Jesus, and show
them to you--make you understand them, that is--so that you shall
see them to be true, and love Him with all your heart and soul, and
your neighbour as yourselves."
And here, having finished my sermon, I will give my reader some
lines with which he may not be acquainted, from a writer of the
Elizabethan time. I had meant to introduce them into my sermon, but
I was so carried away with my subject that I forgot them. For I
always preached extempore, which phrase I beg my reader will not
misinterpret as meaning ON THE SPUR OF THE MOMENT, OF WITHOUT THE
DUE PREPARATION OF MUCH THOUGHT.
"O man! thou image of thy Maker's good,
What canst thou fear, when breathed into thy blood
His Spirit is that built thee? What dull sense
Makes thee suspect, in need, that Providence
Who made the morning, and who placed the light
Guide to thy labours; who called up the night,
And bid her fall upon thee like sweet showers,
In hollow murmurs, to lock up thy powers;
Who gave thee knowledge; who so trusted thee
To let thee grow so near Himself, the Tree?
Must He then be distrusted? Shall His frame
Discourse with Him why thus and thus I am?
He made the Angels thine, thy fellows all;
Nay even thy servants, when devotions call.
Oh! canst thou be so stupid then, so dim,
To seek a saving* influence, and lose Him?
Can stars protect thee? Or can poverty,
Which is the light to heaven, put out His eye!
He is my star; in Him all truth I find,
All influence, all fate. And when my mind
Is furnished with His fulness, my poor story
Shall outlive all their age, and all their glory.
The hand of danger cannot fall amiss,
When I know what, and in whose power, it is,
Nor want, the curse of man, shall make me groan:
A holy hermit is a mind alone.
* * * *
Affliction, when I know it, is but this,
A deep alloy whereby man tougher is
To bear the hammer; and the deeper still,
We still arise more image of His will;
Sickness, an humorous cloud 'twixt us and light;
And death, at longest, but another night."
[Footnote *: Many, in those days, believed in astrology.]
I had more than ordinary attention during my discourse, at one point
in which I saw the down-bent head of Catherine Weir sink yet lower
upon her hands. After a moment, however, she sat more erect than
before, though she never lifted her eyes to meet mine. I need not
assure my reader that she was not present to my mind when I spoke
the words that so far had moved her. Indeed, had I thought of her, I
could not have spoken them.
As I came out of the church, my people crowded about me with
outstretched hands and good wishes. One woman, the aged wife of a
more aged labourer, who could not get near me, called from the
outskirts of the little crowd--
"May the Lord come and see ye every day, sir. And may ye never know
the hunger and cold as me and Tomkins has come through."
"Amen to the first of your blessing, Mrs Tomkins, and hearty thanks
to you. But I daren't say AMEN to the other part of it, after what
I've been preaching, you know."
"But there'll be no harm if I say it for ye, sir?"
"No, for God will give me what is good, even if your kind heart
should pray against it."
"Ah, sir, ye don't know what it is to be hungry AND cold."
"Neither shall you any more, if I can help it."
"God bless ye, sir. But we're pretty tidy just in the meantime."
I walked home, as usual on Sunday mornings, by the road. It was a
lovely day. The sun shone so warm that you could not help thinking
of what he would be able to do before long--draw primroses and
buttercups out of the earth by force of sweet persuasive influences.
But in the shadows lay fine webs and laces of ice, so delicately
lovely that one could not but be glad of the cold that made the
water able to please itself by taking such graceful forms. And I
wondered over again for the hundredth time what could be the
principle which, in the wildest, most lawless, fantastically
chaotic, apparently capricious work of nature, always kept it
beautiful. The beauty of holiness must be at the heart of it
somehow, I thought. Because our God is so free from stain, so
loving, so unselfish, so good, so altogether what He wants us to be,
so holy, therefore all His works declare Him in beauty; His fingers
can touch nothing but to mould it into loveliness; and even the play
of His elements is in grace and tenderness of form.
And then I thought how the sun, at the farthest point from us, had
begun to come back towards us; looked upon us with a hopeful smile;
was like the Lord when He visited His people as a little one of
themselves, to grow upon the earth till it should blossom as the
rose in the light of His presence. "Ah! Lord," I said, in my heart,
"draw near unto Thy people. It is spring-time with Thy world, but
yet we have cold winds and bitter hail, and pinched voices
forbidding them that follow Thee and follow not with us. Draw
nearer, Sun of Righteousness, and make the trees bourgeon, and the
flowers blossom, and the voices grow mellow and glad, so that all
shall join in praising Thee, and find thereby that harmony is better
than unison. Let it be summer, O Lord, if it ever may be summer in
this court of the Gentiles. But Thou hast told us that Thy kingdom
cometh within us, and so Thy joy must come within us too. Draw nigh
then, Lord, to those to whom Thou wilt draw nigh; and others
beholding their welfare will seek to share therein too, and seeing
their good works will glorify their Father in heaven."
So I walked home, hoping in my Saviour, and wondering to think how
pleasant I had found it to be His poor servant to this people.
Already the doubts which had filled my mind on that first evening of
gloom, doubts as to whether I had any right to the priest's office,
had utterly vanished, slain by the effort to perform the priest's
duty. I never thought about the matter now.--And how can doubt ever
be fully met but by action? Try your theory; try your hypothesis; or
if it is not worth trying, give it up, pull it down. And I hoped
that if ever a cloud should come over me again, however dark and
dismal it might be, I might be able, notwithstanding, to rejoice
that the sun was shining on others though not on me, and to say with
all my heart to my Father in heaven, "Thy will be done."
When I reached my own study, I sat down by a blazing fire, and
poured myself out a glass of wine; for I had to go out again to see
some of my poor friends, and wanted some luncheon first.--It is a
great thing to have the greetings of the universe presented in fire
and food. Let me, if I may, be ever welcomed to my room in winter by
a glowing hearth, in summer by a vase of flowers; if I may not, let
me then think how nice they would be, and bury myself in my work. I
do not think that the road to contentment lies in despising what we
have not got. Let us acknowledge all good, all delight that the
world holds, and be content without it. But this we can never be
except by possessing the one thing, without which I do not merely
say no man ought to be content, but no man CAN be content--the
Spirit of the Father.
If any young people read my little chronicle, will they not be
inclined to say, "The vicar has already given us in this chapter
hardly anything but a long sermon; and it is too bad of him to go on
preaching in his study after we saw him safe out of the pulpit"? Ah,
well! just one word, and I drop the preaching for a while. My word
is this: I may speak long-windedly, and even inconsiderately as
regards my young readers; what I say may fail utterly to convey what
I mean; I may be actually stupid sometimes, and not have a suspicion
of it; but what I mean is true; and if you do not know it to be true
yet, some of you at least suspect it to be true, and some of you
hope it is true; and when you all see it as I mean it and as you can
take it, you will rejoice with a gladness you know nothing about now
There, I have done for a little while. I won't pledge myself for
more, I assure you. For to speak about such things is the greatest
delight of my age, as it was of my early manhood, next to that of
loving God and my neighbour. For as these are THE two commandments
of life, so they are in themselves THE pleasures of life. But there
I am at it again. I beg your pardon now, for I have already
inadvertently broken my promise.
I had allowed myself a half-hour before the fire with my glass of
wine and piece of bread, and I soon fell into a dreamy state called
REVERIE, which I fear not a few mistake for THINKING, because it is
the nearest approach they ever make to it. And in this reverie I
kept staring about my book-shelves. I am an old man now, and you do
not know my name; and if you should ever find it out, I shall very
soon hide it under some daisies, I hope, and so escape; and
therefore, I am going to be egotistic in the most unpardonable
manner. I am going to tell you one of my faults, for it continues, I
fear, to be one of my faults still, as it certainly was at the
period of which I am now writing. I am very fond of books. Do not
mistake me. I do not mean that I love reading. I hope I do. That is
no fault--a virtue rather than a fault. But, as the old meaning of
the word FOND was FOOLISH, I use that word: I am foolishly fond of
the bodies of books as distinguished from their souls, or
thought-element. I do not say I love their bodies as DIVIDED from
their souls; I do not say I should let a book stand upon my shelves
for which I felt no respect, except indeed it happened to be useful
to me in some inferior way. But I delight in seeing books about me,
books even of which there seems to be no prospect that I shall have
time to read a single chapter before I lay this old head down for
the last time. Nay, more: I confess that if they are nicely bound,
so as to glow and shine in such a fire-light as that by which I was
then sitting, I like them ever so much the better. Nay, more
yet--and this comes very near to showing myself worse than I thought
I was when I began to tell you my fault: there are books upon my
shelves which certainly at least would not occupy the place of
honour they do occupy, had not some previous owner dressed them far
beyond their worth, making modern apples of Sodom of them. Yet there
I let them stay, because they are pleasant to the eye, although
certainly not things to be desired to make one wise. I could say a
great deal more about the matter, pro and con, but it would be worse
than a sermon, I fear. For I suspect that by the time books, which
ought to be loved for the truth that is in them, of one sort or
another, come to be loved as articles of furniture, the mind has
gone through a process more than analogous to that which the miser's
mind goes through--namely, that of passing from the respect of money
because of what it can do, to the love of money because it is money.
I have not yet reached the furniture stage, and I do not think I
ever shall. I would rather burn them all. Meantime, I think one
safeguard is to encourage one's friends to borrow one's books--not
to offer individual books, which is much the same as OFFERING
advice. That will probably take some of the shine off them, and put
a few thumb-marks in them, which both are very wholesome towards the
arresting of the furniture declension. For my part, thumb-marks I
find very obnoxious--far more so than the spoiling of the
binding.--I know that some of my readers, who have had sad
experience of the sort, will be saying in themselves, "He might have
mentioned a surer antidote resulting from this measure, than either
rubbed Russia or dirty GLOVE-marks even--that of utter disappearance
and irreparable loss." But no; that has seldom happened to
me--because I trust my pocketbook, and never my memory, with the
names of those to whom the individual books are committed.--There,
then, is a little bit of practical advice in both directions for
young book-lovers.
Again I am reminded that I am getting old. What digressions!
Gazing about on my treasures, the thought suddenly struck me that I
had never done as I had promised Judy; had never found out what her
aunt's name meant in Anglo-Saxon. I would do so now. I got down my
dictionary, and soon discovered that Ethelwyn meant Home-joy, or
Inheritance.
"A lovely meaning," I said to myself.
And then I went off into another reverie, with the composition of
which I shall not trouble my reader; and with the mention of which I
had, perhaps, no right to occupy the fragment of his time spent in
reading it, seeing I did not intend to tell him how it was made up.
I will tell him something else instead.
Several families had asked me to take my Christmas dinner with them;
but, not liking to be thus limited, I had answered each that I would
not, if they would excuse me, but would look in some time or other
in the course of the evening.
When my half-hour was out, I got up and filled my pockets with
little presents for my poor people, and set out to find them in
their own homes.
I was variously received, but unvaryingly with kindness; and my
little presents were accepted, at least in most instances, with a
gratitude which made me ashamed of them and of myself too for a few
moments. Mrs. Tomkins looked as if she had never seen so much tea
together before, though there was only a couple of pounds of it; and
her husband received a pair of warm trousers none the less cordially
that they were not quite new, the fact being that I found I did not
myself need such warm clothing this winter as I had needed the last.
I did not dare to offer Catherine Weir anything, but I gave her
little boy a box of water-colours--in remembrance of the first time
I saw him, though I said nothing about that. His mother did not
thank me. She told little Gerard to do so, however, and that was
something. And, indeed, the boy's sweetness would have been enough
for both.
Gerard--an unusual name in England; specially not to be looked for
in the class to which she belonged.
When I reached Old Rogers's cottage, whither I carried a few yards
of ribbon, bought by myself, I assure my lady friends, with the
special object that the colour should be bright enough for her
taste, and pure enough of its kind for mine, as an offering to the
good dame, and a small hymn-book, in which were some hymns of my own
making, for the good man--
But do forgive me, friends, for actually describing my paltry
presents. I can dare to assure you it comes from a talking old man's
love of detail, and from no admiration of such small givings as
those. You see I trust you, and I want to stand well with you. I
never could be indifferent to what people thought of me; though I
have had to fight hard to act as freely as if I were indifferent,
especially when upon occasion I found myself approved of. It is more
difficult to walk straight then, than when men are all against
you.--As I have already broken a sentence, which will not be past
setting for a while yet, I may as well go on to say here, lest any
one should remark that a clergyman ought not to show off his
virtues, nor yet teach his people bad habits by making them look out
for presents--that my income not only seemed to me disproportioned
to the amount of labour necessary in the parish, but certainly was
larger than I required to spend upon myself; and the miserly passion
for books I contrived to keep a good deal in check; for I had no
fancy for gliding devil-wards for the sake of a few books after all.
So there was no great virtue--was there?--in easing my heart by
giving a few of the good things people give their children to my
poor friends, whose kind reception of them gave me as much pleasure
as the gifts gave them. They valued the kindness in the gift, and to
look out for kindness will not make people greedy.
When I reached the cottage, I found not merely Jane there with her
father and mother, which was natural on Christmas Day, seeing there
seemed to be no company at the Hall, but my little Judy as well,
sitting in the old woman's arm-chair, (not that she Used it much,
but it was called hers,) and looking as much at home as--as she did
in the pond.
"Why, Judy!" I exclaimed, "you here?"
"Yes. Why not, Mr Walton?" she returned, holding out her hand
without rising, for the chair was such a large one, and she was set
so far back in it that the easier way was not to rise, which, seeing
she was not greatly overburdened with reverence, was not, I presume,
a cause of much annoyance to the little damsel.
"I know no reason why I shouldn't see a Sandwich Islander here. Yet
I might express surprise if I did find one, might I not?"
Judy pretended to pout, and muttered something about comparing her
to a cannibal. But Jane took up the explanation.
"Mistress had to go off to London with her mother to-day, sir, quite
unexpected, on some banking business, I fancy, from what I--I beg
your pardon, sir. They're gone anyhow, whatever the reason may be;
and so I came to see my father and mother, and Miss Judy would come
with me."
"She's very welcome," said Mrs Rogers.
"How could I stay up there with nobody but Jacob, and that old wolf
Sarah? I wouldn't be left alone with her for the world. She'd have
me in the Bishop's Pool before you came back, Janey dear."
"That wouldn't matter much to you, would it, Judy?" I said.
"She's a white wolf, that old Sarah, I know?" was all her answer.
"But what will the old lady say when she finds you brought the young
lady here?" asked Mrs Rogers.
"I didn't bring her, mother. She would come."
"Besides, she'll never know it," said Judy.
I did not see that it was my part to read Judy a lecture here,
though perhaps I might have done so if I had had more influence over
her than I had. I wanted to gain some influence over her, and knew
that the way to render my desire impossible of fulfilment would be,
to find fault with what in her was a very small affair, whatever it
might be in one who had been properly brought up. Besides, a
clergyman is not a moral policeman. So I took no notice of the
impropriety.
"Had they actually to go away on the morning of Christmas Day?" I
said.
"They went anyhow, whether they had to do it or not, sir," answered
Jane.
"Aunt Ethelwyn didn't want to go till to-morrow," said Judy. "She
said something about coming to church this morning. But grannie said
they must go at once. It was very cross of old grannie. Think what a
Christmas Day to me without auntie, and with Sarah! But I don't mean
to go home till it's quite dark. I mean to stop here with dear Old
Rogers--that I do." The latch was gently lifted, and in came young
Brownrigg. So I thought it was time to leave my best Christmas
wishes and take myself away. Old Rogers came with me to the
mill-stream as usual.
"It 'mazes me, sir," he said, "a gentleman o' your age and bringin'
up to know all that you tould us this mornin'. It 'ud be no wonder
now for a man like me, come to be the shock o' corn fully
ripe--leastways yallow and white enough outside if there bean't much
more than milk inside it yet,--it 'ud be no mystery for a man like
me who'd been brought up hard, and tossed about well-nigh all the
world over--why, there's scarce a wave on the Atlantic but knows Old
Rogers!"
He made the parenthesis with a laugh, and began anew.
"It 'ud be a shame of a man like me not to know all as you said this
mornin', sir--leastways I don't mean able to say it right off as you
do, sir; but not to know it, after the Almighty had been at such
pains to beat it into my hard head just to trust in Him and fear
nothing and nobody--captain, bosun, devil, sunk rock, or breakers
ahead; but just to mind Him and stand by halliard, brace, or wheel,
or hang on by the leeward earing for that matter. For, you see, what
does it signify whether I go to the bottom or not, so long as I
didn't skulk? or rather," and here the old man took off his hat and
looked up, "so long as the Great Captain has His way, and things is
done to His mind? But how ever a man like you, goin' to the college,
and readin' books, and warm o' nights, and never, by your own
confession this blessed mornin', sir, knowin' what it was to be
downright hungry, how ever you come to know all those things, is
just past my comprehension, except by a double portion o' the
Spirit, sir. And that's the way I account for it, sir."
Although I knew enough about a ship to understand the old man, I am
not sure that I have properly represented his sea-phrase. But that
is of small consequence, so long as I give his meaning. And a
meaning can occasionally be even better CONVEYED by less accurate
words.
"I will try to tell you how I come to know about these things as I
do," I returned. "How my knowledge may stand the test of further and
severer trials remains to be seen. But if I should fail any time,
old friend, and neither trust in God nor do my duty, what I have
said to you remains true all the same."
"That it do, sir, whoever may come short."
"And more than that: failure does not necessarily prove any one to
be a hypocrite of no faith. He may be still a man of little faith."
"Surely, surely, sir. I remember once that my faith broke down--just
for one moment, sir. And then the Lord gave me my way lest I should
blaspheme Him in thy wicked heart."
"How was that, Rogers?"
"A scream came from the quarter-deck, and then the cry: 'Child
overboard!' There was but one child, the captain's, aboard. I was
sitting just aft the foremast, herring-boning a split in a spare
jib. I sprang to the bulwark, and there, sure enough, was the child,
going fast astarn, but pretty high in the water. How it happened I
can't think to this day, sir, but I suppose my needle, in the hurry,
had got into my jacket, so as to skewer it to my jersey, for we were
far south of the line at the time, sir, and it was cold. However
that may be, as soon as I was overboard, which you may be sure
didn't want the time I take tellin' of it, I found that I ought to
ha' pulled my jacket off afore I gave the bulwark the last kick. So
I rose on the water, and began to pull it over my head--for it was
wide, and that was the easiest way, I thought, in the water. But
when I had got it right over my head, there it stuck. And there was
I, blind as a Dutchman in a fog, and in as strait a jacket as ever
poor wretch in Bedlam, for I could only just wag my flippers. Mr
Walton, I believe I swore--the Lord forgive me!--but it was trying.
And what was far worse, for one moment I disbelieved in Him; and I
do say that's worse than swearing--in a hurry I mean. And that
moment something went, the jacket was off, and there was I feelin'
as if every stroke I took was as wide as the mainyard. I had no time
to repent, only to thank God. And wasn't it more than I deserved,
sir? Ah! He can rebuke a man for unbelief by giving him the desire
of his heart. And that's a better rebuke than tying him up to the
gratings."
"And did you save the child?"
"Oh yes, sir."
"And wasn't the captain pleased?"
"I believe he was, sir. He gave me a glass o' grog, sir. But you was
a sayin' of something, sir, when I interrupted of you."
"I am very glad you did interrupt me."
"I'm not though, sir. I Ve lost summat I 'll never hear more."
"No, you shan't lose it. I was going to tell you how I think I came
to understand a little about the things I was talking of to-day."
"That's it, sir; that's it. Well, sir, if you please?"
"You've heard of Sir Philip Sidney, haven't you, Old Rogers?"
"He was a great joker, wasn't he, sir?"
"No, no; you're thinking of Sydney Smith, Rogers."
"It may be, sir. I am an ignorant man."
"You are no more ignorant than you ought to be.--But it is time you
should know him, for he was just one of your sort. I will come down
some evening and tell you about him."
I may as well mention here that this led to week-evening lectures
in the barn, which, with the help of Weir the carpenter, was changed
into a comfortable room, with fixed seats all round it, and plenty
of cane-chairs besides--for I always disliked forms in the middle
of a room. The object of these lectures was to make the people
acquainted with the true heroes of their own country--men great in
themselves. And the kind of choice I made may be seen by those who
know about both, from the fact that, while my first two lectures
were on Philip Sidney, I did not give one whole lecture even to
Walter Raleigh, grand fellow as he was. I wanted chiefly to set
forth the men that could rule themselves, first of all, after a
noble fashion. But I have not finished these lectures yet, for I
never wished to confine them to the English heroes; I am going on
still, old man as I am--not however without retracing passed ground
sometimes, for a new generation has come up since I came here, and
there is a new one behind coming up now which I may be honoured to
present in its turn to some of this grand company--this cloud of
witnesses to the truth in our own and other lands, some of whom
subdued kingdoms, and others were tortured to death, for the same
cause and with the same result.
"Meantime," I went on, "I only want to tell you one little thing he
says in a letter to a younger brother whom he wanted to turn out as
fine a fellow as possible. It is about horses, or rather,
riding--for Sir Philip was the best horseman in Europe in his day,
as, indeed, all things taken together, he seems to have really been
the most accomplished man generally of his time in the world.
Writing to this brother he says--"
I could not repeat the words exactly to Old Rogers, but I think it
better to copy them exactly, in writing this account of our talk:
"At horsemanship, when you exercise it, read Crison Claudio, and a
book that is called La Gloria del Cavallo, withal that you may join
the thorough contemplation of it with the exercise; and so shall you
profit more in a month than others in a year."
"I think I see what you mean, sir. I had got to learn it all without
book, as it were, though you know I had my old Bible, that my mother
gave me, and without that I should not have learned it at all."
"I only mean it comparatively, you know. You have had more of the
practice, and I more of the theory. But if we had not both had both,
we should neither of us have known anything about the matter. I
never was content without trying at least to understand things; and
if they are practical things, and you try to practise them at the
same time as far as you do understand them, there is no end to the
way in which the one lights up the other. I suppose that is how,
without your experience, I have more to say about such things than
you could expect. You know besides that a small matter in which a
principle is involved will reveal the principle, if attended to,
just as well as a great one containing the same principle. The only
difference, and that a most important one, is that, though I've got
my clay and my straw together, and they stick pretty well as yet, my
brick, after all, is not half so well baked as yours, old friend,
and it may crumble away yet, though I hope not."
"I pray God to make both our bricks into stones of the New
Jerusalem, sir. I think I understand you quite well. To know about a
thing is of no use, except you do it. Besides, as I found out when I
went to sea, you never can know a thing till you do do it, though I
thought I had a tidy fancy about some things beforehand. It's better
not to be quite sure that all your seams are caulked, and so to keep
a look-out on the bilge-pump; isn't it, sir?"
During the most of this conversation, we were standing by the
mill-water, half frozen over. The ice from both sides came towards
the middle, leaving an empty space between, along which the dark
water showed itself, hurrying away as if in fear of its life from
the white death of the frost. The wheel stood motionless, and the
drip from the thatch of the mill over it in the sun, had frozen in
the shadow into icicles, which hung in long spikes from the spokes
and the floats, making the wheel--soft green and mossy when it
revolved in the gentle sun-mingled summer-water--look like its own
gray skeleton now. The sun was getting low, and I should want all my
time to see my other friends before dinner, for I would not
willingly offend Mrs Pearson on Christmas Day by being late,
especially as I guessed she was using extraordinary skill to prepare
me a more than comfortable meal.
"I must go, Old Rogers," I said; "but I will leave you something to
think about till we meet again. Find out why our Lord was so much
displeased with the disciples, whom He knew to be ignorant men, for
not knowing what He meant when He warned them against the leaven of
the Pharisees. I want to know what you think about it. You'll find
the story told both in the sixteenth chapter of St Matthew and the
eighth of St Mark."
"Well, sir, I'll try; that is, if you will tell me what you think
about it afterwards, so as to put me right, if I'm wrong."
"Of course I will, if I can find out an explanation to satisfy me.
But it is not at all clear to me now. In fact, I do not see the
connecting links of our Lord's logic in the rebuke He gives them."
"How am I to find out then, sir--knowing nothing of logic at all?"
said the old man, his rough worn face summered over with his
child-like smile.
"There are many things which a little learning, while it cannot
really hide them, may make you less ready to see all at once," I
answered, shaking hands with Old Rogers, and then springing across
the brook with my carpet-bag in my hand.
By the time I had got through the rest of my calls, the fogs were
rising from the streams and the meadows to close in upon my first
Christmas Day in my own parish. How much happier I was than when I
came such a few months before! The only pang I felt that day was as
I passed the monsters on the gate leading to Oldcastle Hall. Should
I be honoured to help only the poor of the flock? Was I to do
nothing for the rich, for whom it is, and has been, and doubtless
will be so hard to enter into the kingdom of heaven? And it seemed
to me at the moment that the world must be made for the poor: they
had so much more done for them to enable them to inherit it than the
rich had.--To these people at the Hall, I did not seem acceptable. I
might in time do something with Judy, but the old lady was still so
dreadfully repulsive to me that it troubled my conscience to feel
how I disliked her. Mr Stoddart seemed nothing more than a
dilettante in religion, as well as in the arts and sciences--music
always excepted; while for Miss Oldcastle, I simply did not
understand her yet. And she was so beautiful! I thought her more,
beautiful every time I saw her. But I never appeared to make the
least progress towards any real acquaintance with her thoughts and
feelings.--It seemed to me, I say, for a moment, coming from the
houses of the warm-hearted poor, as if the rich had not quite fair
play, as it were--as if they were sent into the world chiefly for
the sake of the cultivation of the virtues of the poor, and without
much chance for the cultivation of their own. I knew better than
this you know, my reader; but the thought came, as thoughts will
come sometimes. It vanished the moment I sought to lay hands upon
it, as if it knew quite well it had no business there. But certainly
I did believe that it was more like the truth to say the world was
made for the poor than to say that it was made for the rich. And
therefore I longed the more to do something for these whom I
considered the rich of my flock; for it was dreadful to think of
their being poor inside instead of outside.
Perhaps my reader will say, and say with justice, that I ought to
have been as anxious about poor Farmer Brownrigg as about the
beautiful lady. But the farmer liai given me good reason to hope
some progress in him after the way he had given in about Jane
Rogers. Positively I had caught his eye during the sermon that very
day. And, besides--but I will not be a hypocrite; and seeing I did
not certainly take the same interest in Mr Brownrigg, I will at
least be honest and confess it. As far as regards the discharge of
my duties, I trust I should have behaved impartially had the
necessity for any choice arisen. But my feelings were not quite
under my own control. And we are nowhere, told to love everybody
alike, only to love every one who comes within our reach as
ourselves.
I wonder whether my old friend Dr Duncan was right. He had served on
shore in Egypt under General Abercrombie, and had of course, after
the fighting was over on each of the several occasions--the French
being always repulsed--exercised his office amongst the wounded left
on the field of battle.--"I do not know," he said, "whether I did
right or not; but I always took the man I came to first--French or
English."--I only know that my heart did not wait for the opinion of
my head on the matter. I loved the old man the more that he did as
he did. But as a question of casuistry, I am doubtful about its
answer.
This digression is, I fear, unpardonable.
I made Mrs Pearson sit down with me to dinner, for Christmas Day was
not one to dine alone upon. And I have ever since had my servants to
dine with me on Christmas Day.
Then I went out again, and made another round of visits, coming in
for a glass of wine at one table, an orange at another, and a hot
chestnut at a third. Those whom I could not see that day, I saw on
the following days between it and the new year. And so ended my
Christmas holiday with my people.
But there is one little incident which I ought to relate before I
close this chapter, and which I am ashamed of having so nearly
forgotten.
When we had finished our dinner, and I was sitting alone drinking a
class of claret before going out again, Mrs Pearson came in and told
me that little Gerard Weir wanted to see me. I asked her to show him
in; and the little fellow entered, looking very shy, and clinging
first to the door and then to the wall.
"Come, my dear boy," I said, "and sit down by me."
He came directly and stood before me.
"Would you like a little wine and water?" I said; for unhappily
there was no dessert, Mrs Pearson knowing that I never eat such
things.
"No, thank you, sir; I never tasted wine."
"I did not press him to take it.
"Please, sir," he went on after a pause, putting his nand in his
pocket, "mother gave me some goodies, and I kept them till I saw you
come back, and here they are, sir."
Does any reader doubt what I did or said upon this?
I said, "Thank you, my darling," and I ate them up every one of
them, that he might see me eat them before he left the house. And
the dear child went off radiant.
If anybody cannot understand why I did so, I beg him to consider the
matter. If then he cannot come to a conclusion concerning it, I
doubt if any explanation of mine would greatly subserve his
enlightenment. Meantime, I am forcibly restraining myself from
yielding to the temptation to set forth my reasons, which would
result in a half-hour's sermon on the Jewish dispensation, including
the burnt offering, and the wave and heave offerings, with an
application to the ignorant nurses and mothers of English babies,
who do the best they can to make original sin an actual fact by
training children down in the way they should not go.
