Chapter II
The Preaching
About a quarter to seven there was an unusual appearance of
excitement in the village of Hayslope, and through the whole
length of its little street, from the Donnithorne Arms to the
churchyard gate, the inhabitants had evidently been drawn out of
their houses by something more than the pleasure of lounging in
the evening sunshine. The Donnithorne Arms stood at the entrance
of the village, and a small farmyard and stackyard which flanked
it, indicating that there was a pretty take of land attached to
the inn, gave the traveller a promise of good feed for himself and
his horse, which might well console him for the ignorance in which
the weather-beaten sign left him as to the heraldic bearings of
that ancient family, the Donnithornes. Mr. Casson, the landlord,
had been for some time standing at the door with his hands in his
pockets, balancing himself on his heels and toes and looking
towards a piece of unenclosed ground, with a maple in the middle
of it, which he knew to be the destination of certain grave-
looking men and women whom he had observed passing at intervals.
Mr. Casson's person was by no means of that common type which can
be allowed to pass without description. On a front view it
appeared to consist principally of two spheres, bearing about the
same relation to each other as the earth and the moon: that is to
say, the lower sphere might be said, at a rough guess, to be
thirteen times larger than the upper which naturally performed the
function of a mere satellite and tributary. But here the
resemblance ceased, for Mr. Casson's head was not at all a
melancholy-looking satellite nor was it a "spotty globe," as
Milton has irreverently called the moon; on the contrary, no head
and face could look more sleek and healthy, and its expression--
which was chiefly confined to a pair of round and ruddy cheeks,
the slight knot and interruptions forming the nose and eyes being
scarcely worth mention--was one of jolly contentment, only
tempered by that sense of personal dignity which usually made
itself felt in his attitude and bearing. This sense of dignity
could hardly be considered excessive in a man who had been butler
to "the family" for fifteen years, and who, in his present high
position, was necessarily very much in contact with his inferiors.
How to reconcile his dignity with the satisfaction of his
curiosity by walking towards the Green was the problem that Mr.
Casson had been revolving in his mind for the last five minutes;
but when he had partly solved it by taking his hands out of his
pockets, and thrusting them into the armholes of his waistcoat, by
throwing his head on one side, and providing himself with an air
of contemptuous indifference to whatever might fall under his
notice, his thoughts were diverted by the approach of the horseman
whom we lately saw pausing to have another look at our friend
Adam, and who now pulled up at the door of the Donnithorne Arms.
"Take off the bridle and give him a drink, ostler," said the
traveller to the lad in a smock-frock, who had come out of the
yard at the sound of the horse's hoofs.
"Why, what's up in your pretty village, landlord?" he continued,
getting down. "There seems to be quite a stir."
"It's a Methodis' preaching, sir; it's been gev hout as a young
woman's a-going to preach on the Green," answered Mr. Casson, in a
treble and wheezy voice, with a slightly mincing accent. "Will
you please to step in, sir, an' tek somethink?"
"No, I must be getting on to Rosseter. I only want a drink for my
horse. And what does your parson say, I wonder, to a young woman
preaching just under his nose?"
"Parson Irwine, sir, doesn't live here; he lives at Brox'on, over
the hill there. The parsonage here's a tumble-down place, sir,
not fit for gentry to live in. He comes here to preach of a
Sunday afternoon, sir, an' puts up his hoss here. It's a grey
cob, sir, an' he sets great store by't. He's allays put up his
hoss here, sir, iver since before I hed the Donnithorne Arms. I'm
not this countryman, you may tell by my tongue, sir. They're
cur'ous talkers i' this country, sir; the gentry's hard work to
hunderstand 'em. I was brought hup among the gentry, sir, an' got
the turn o' their tongue when I was a bye. Why, what do you think
the folks here says for 'hevn't you?'--the gentry, you know, says,
'hevn't you'--well, the people about here says 'hanna yey.' It's
what they call the dileck as is spoke hereabout, sir. That's what
I've heared Squire Donnithorne say many a time; it's the dileck,
says he."
"Aye, aye," said the stranger, smiling. "I know it very well.
But you've not got many Methodists about here, surely--in this
agricultural spot? I should have thought there would hardly be
such a thing as a Methodist to be found about here. You're all
farmers, aren't you? The Methodists can seldom lay much hold on
THEM."
"Why, sir, there's a pretty lot o' workmen round about, sir.
There's Mester Burge as owns the timber-yard over there, he
underteks a good bit o' building an' repairs. An' there's the
stone-pits not far off. There's plenty of emply i' this
countryside, sir. An' there's a fine batch o' Methodisses at
Treddles'on--that's the market town about three mile off--you'll
maybe ha' come through it, sir. There's pretty nigh a score of
'em on the Green now, as come from there. That's where our people
gets it from, though there's only two men of 'em in all Hayslope:
that's Will Maskery, the wheelwright, and Seth Bede, a young man
as works at the carpenterin'."
"The preacher comes from Treddleston, then, does she?"
"Nay, sir, she comes out o' Stonyshire, pretty nigh thirty mile
off. But she's a-visitin' hereabout at Mester Poyser's at the
Hall Farm--it's them barns an' big walnut-trees, right away to the
left, sir. She's own niece to Poyser's wife, an' they'll be fine
an' vexed at her for making a fool of herself i' that way. But
I've heared as there's no holding these Methodisses when the
maggit's once got i' their head: many of 'em goes stark starin'
mad wi' their religion. Though this young woman's quiet enough to
look at, by what I can make out; I've not seen her myself."
"Well, I wish I had time to wait and see her, but I must get on.
I've been out of my way for the last twenty minutes to have a look
at that place in the valley. It's Squire Donnithorne's, I
suppose?"
"Yes, sir, that's Donnithorne Chase, that is. Fine hoaks there,
isn't there, sir? I should know what it is, sir, for I've lived
butler there a-going i' fifteen year. It's Captain Donnithorne as
is th' heir, sir--Squire Donnithorne's grandson. He'll be comin'
of hage this 'ay-'arvest, sir, an' we shall hev fine doin's. He
owns all the land about here, sir, Squire Donnithorne does."
"Well, it's a pretty spot, whoever may own it," said the
traveller, mounting his horse; "and one meets some fine strapping
fellows about too. I met as fine a young fellow as ever I saw in
my life, about half an hour ago, before I came up the hill--a
carpenter, a tall, broad-shouldered fellow with black hair and
black eyes, marching along like a soldier. We want such fellows
as he to lick the French."
"Aye, sir, that's Adam Bede, that is, I'll be bound--Thias Bede's
son everybody knows him hereabout. He's an uncommon clever stiddy
fellow, an' wonderful strong. Lord bless you, sir--if you'll
hexcuse me for saying so--he can walk forty mile a-day, an' lift a
matter o' sixty ston'. He's an uncommon favourite wi' the gentry,
sir: Captain Donnithorne and Parson Irwine meks a fine fuss wi'
him. But he's a little lifted up an' peppery-like."
"Well, good evening to you, landlord; I must get on."
"Your servant, sir; good evenin'."
The traveller put his horse into a quick walk up the village, but
when he approached the Green, the beauty of the view that lay on
his right hand, the singular contrast presented by the groups of
villagers with the knot of Methodists near the maple, and perhaps
yet more, curiosity to see the young female preacher, proved too
much for his anxiety to get to the end of his journey, and he
paused.
The Green lay at the extremity of the village, and from it the
road branched off in two directions, one leading farther up the
hill by the church, and the other winding gently down towards the
valley. On the side of the Green that led towards the church, the
broken line of thatched cottages was continued nearly to the
churchyard gate; but on the opposite northwestern side, there was
nothing to obstruct the view of gently swelling meadow, and wooded
valley, and dark masses of distant hill. That rich undulating
district of Loamshire to which Hayslope belonged lies close to a
grim outskirt of Stonyshire, overlooked by its barren hills as a
pretty blooming sister may sometimes be seen linked in the arm of
a rugged, tall, swarthy brother; and in two or three hours' ride
the traveller might exchange a bleak treeless region, intersected
by lines of cold grey stone, for one where his road wound under
the shelter of woods, or up swelling hills, muffled with hedgerows
and long meadow-grass and thick corn; and where at every turn he
came upon some fine old country-seat nestled in the valley or
crowning the slope, some homestead with its long length of barn
and its cluster of golden ricks, some grey steeple looking out
from a pretty confusion of trees and thatch and dark-red tiles.
It was just such a picture as this last that Hayslope Church had
made to the traveller as he began to mount the gentle slope
leading to its pleasant uplands, and now from his station near the
Green he had before him in one view nearly all the other typical
features of this pleasant land. High up against the horizon were
the huge conical masses of hill, like giant mounds intended to
fortify this region of corn and grass against the keen and hungry
winds of the north; not distant enough to be clothed in purple
mystery, but with sombre greenish sides visibly specked with
sheep, whose motion was only revealed by memory, not detected by
sight; wooed from day to day by the changing hours, but responding
with no change in themselves--left for ever grim and sullen after
the flush of morning, the winged gleams of the April noonday, the
parting crimson glory of the ripening summer sun. And directly
below them the eye rested on a more advanced line of hanging
woods, divided by bright patches of pasture or furrowed crops, and
not yet deepened into the uniform leafy curtains of high summer,
but still showing the warm tints of the young oak and the tender
green of the ash and lime. Then came the valley, where the woods
grew thicker, as if they had rolled down and hurried together from
the patches left smooth on the slope, that they might take the
better care of the tall mansion which lifted its parapets and sent
its faint blue summer smoke among them. Doubtless there was a
large sweep of park and a broad glassy pool in front of that
mansion, but the swelling slope of meadow would not let our
traveller see them from the village green. He saw instead a
foreground which was just as lovely--the level sunlight lying like
transparent gold among the gently curving stems of the feathered
grass and the tall red sorrel, and the white ambels of the
hemlocks lining the bushy hedgerows. It was that moment in summer
when the sound of the scythe being whetted makes us cast more
lingering looks at the flower-sprinkled tresses of the meadows.
He might have seen other beauties in the landscape if he had
turned a little in his saddle and looked eastward, beyond Jonathan
Burge's pasture and woodyard towards the green corn-fields and
walnut-trees of the Hall Farm; but apparently there was more
interest for him in the living groups close at hand. Every
generation in the village was there, from old "Feyther Taft" in
his brown worsted night-cap, who was bent nearly double, but
seemed tough enough to keep on his legs a long while, leaning on
his short stick, down to the babies with their little round heads
lolling forward in quilted linen caps. Now and then there was a
new arrival; perhaps a slouching labourer, who, having eaten his
supper, came out to look at the unusual scene with a slow bovine
gaze, willing to hear what any one had to say in explanation of
it, but by no means excited enough to ask a question. But all
took care not to join the Methodists on the Green, and identify
themselves in that way with the expectant audience, for there was
not one of them that would not have disclaimed the imputation of
having come out to hear the "preacher woman"--they had only come
out to see "what war a-goin' on, like." The men were chiefly
gathered in the neighbourhood of the blacksmith's shop. But do
not imagine them gathered in a knot. Villagers never swarm: a
whisper is unknown among them, and they seem almost as incapable
of an undertone as a cow or a stag. Your true rustic turns his
back on his interlocutor, throwing a question over his shoulder as
if he meant to run away from the answer, and walking a step or two
farther off when the interest of the dialogue culminates. So the
group in the vicinity of the blacksmith's door was by no means a
close one, and formed no screen in front of Chad Cranage, the
blacksmith himself, who stood with his black brawny arms folded,
leaning against the door-post, and occasionally sending forth a
bellowing laugh at his own jokes, giving them a marked preference
over the sarcasms of Wiry Ben, who had renounced the pleasures of
the Holly Bush for the sake of seeing life under a new form. But
both styles of wit were treated with equal contempt by Mr. Joshua
Rann. Mr. Rann's leathern apron and subdued griminess can leave
no one in any doubt that he is the village shoemaker; the
thrusting out of his chin and stomach and the twirling of his
thumbs are more subtle indications, intended to prepare unwary
strangers for the discovery that they are in the presence of the
parish clerk. "Old Joshway," as he is irreverently called by his
neighbours, is in a state of simmering indignation; but he has not
yet opened his lips except to say, in a resounding bass undertone,
like the tuning of a violoncello, "Sehon, King of the Amorites;
for His mercy endureth for ever; and Og the King of Basan: for His
mercy endureth for ever"--a quotation which may seem to have
slight bearing on the present occasion, but, as with every other
anomaly, adequate knowledge will show it to be a natural sequence.
Mr. Rann was inwardly maintaining the dignity of the Church in the
face of this scandalous irruption of Methodism, and as that
dignity was bound up with his own sonorous utterance of the
responses, his argument naturally suggested a quotation from the
psalm he had read the last Sunday afternoon.
The stronger curiosity of the women had drawn them quite to the
edge of the Green, where they could examine more closely the
Quakerlike costume and odd deportment of the female Methodists.
Underneath the maple there was a small cart, which had been
brought from the wheelwright's to serve as a pulpit, and round
this a couple of benches and a few chairs had been placed. Some
of the Methodists were resting on these, with their eyes closed,
as if wrapt in prayer or meditation. Others chose to continue
standing, and had turned their faces towards the villagers with a
look of melancholy compassion, which was highly amusing to Bessy
Cranage, the blacksmith's buxom daughter, known to her neighbours
as Chad's Bess, who wondered "why the folks war amakin' faces a
that'ns." Chad's Bess was the object of peculiar compassion,
because her hair, being turned back under a cap which was set at
the top of her head, exposed to view an ornament of which she was
much prouder than of her red cheeks--namely, a pair of large round
ear-rings with false garnets in them, ornaments condemned not only
by the Methodists, but by her own cousin and namesake Timothy's
Bess, who, with much cousinly feeling, often wished "them ear-
rings" might come to good.
Timothy's Bess, though retaining her maiden appellation among her
familiars, had long been the wife of Sandy Jim, and possessed a
handsome set of matronly jewels, of which it is enough to mention
the heavy baby she was rocking in her arms, and the sturdy fellow
of five in kneebreeches, and red legs, who had a rusty milk-can
round his neck by way of drum, and was very carefully avoided by
Chad's small terrier. This young olive-branch, notorious under
the name of Timothy's Bess's Ben, being of an inquiring
disposition, unchecked by any false modesty, had advanced beyond
the group of women and children, and was walking round the
Methodists, looking up in their faces with his mouth wide open,
and beating his stick against the milk-can by way of musical
accompaniment. But one of the elderly women bending down to take
him by the shoulder, with an air of grave remonstrance, Timothy's
Bess's Ben first kicked out vigorously, then took to his heels and
sought refuge behind his father's legs.
"Ye gallows young dog," said Sandy Jim, with some paternal pride,
"if ye donna keep that stick quiet, I'll tek it from ye. What
dy'e mane by kickin' foulks?"
"Here! Gie him here to me, Jim," said Chad Cranage; "I'll tie hirs
up an' shoe him as I do th' hosses. Well, Mester Casson," he
continued, as that personage sauntered up towards the group of
men, "how are ye t' naight? Are ye coom t' help groon? They say
folks allays groon when they're hearkenin' to th' Methodys, as if
they war bad i' th' inside. I mane to groon as loud as your cow
did th' other naight, an' then the praicher 'ull think I'm i' th'
raight way."
"I'd advise you not to be up to no nonsense, Chad," said Mr.
Casson, with some dignity; "Poyser wouldn't like to hear as his
wife's niece was treated any ways disrespectful, for all he mayn't
be fond of her taking on herself to preach."
"Aye, an' she's a pleasant-looked un too," said Wiry Ben. "I'll
stick up for the pretty women preachin'; I know they'd persuade me
over a deal sooner nor th' ugly men. I shouldna wonder if I turn
Methody afore the night's out, an' begin to coort the preacher,
like Seth Bede."
"Why, Seth's looking rether too high, I should think," said Mr.
Casson. "This woman's kin wouldn't like her to demean herself to
a common carpenter."
"Tchu!" said Ben, with a long treble intonation, "what's folks's
kin got to do wi't? Not a chip. Poyser's wife may turn her nose
up an' forget bygones, but this Dinah Morris, they tell me, 's as
poor as iver she was--works at a mill, an's much ado to keep
hersen. A strappin' young carpenter as is a ready-made Methody,
like Seth, wouldna be a bad match for her. Why, Poysers make as
big a fuss wi' Adam Bede as if he war a nevvy o' their own."
"Idle talk! idle talk!" said Mr. Joshua Rann. "Adam an' Seth's
two men; you wunna fit them two wi' the same last."
"Maybe," said Wiry Ben, contemptuously, "but Seth's the lad for
me, though he war a Methody twice o'er. I'm fair beat wi' Seth,
for I've been teasin' him iver sin' we've been workin' together,
an' he bears me no more malice nor a lamb. An' he's a stout-
hearted feller too, for when we saw the old tree all afire a-
comin' across the fields one night, an' we thought as it war a
boguy, Seth made no more ado, but he up to't as bold as a
constable. Why, there he comes out o' Will Maskery's; an' there's
Will hisself, lookin' as meek as if he couldna knock a nail o' the
head for fear o' hurtin't. An' there's the pretty preacher woman!
My eye, she's got her bonnet off. I mun go a bit nearer."
Several of the men followed Ben's lead, and the traveller pushed
his horse on to the Green, as Dinah walked rather quickly and in
advance of her companions towards the cart under the maple-tree.
While she was near Seth's tall figure, she looked short, but when
she had mounted the cart, and was away from all comparison, she
seemed above the middle height of woman, though in reality she did
not exceed it--an effect which was due to the slimness of her
figure and the simple line of her black stuff dress. The stranger
was struck with surprise as he saw her approach and mount the
cart--surprise, not so much at the feminine delicacy of her
appearance, as at the total absence of self-consciousness in her
demeanour. He had made up his mind to see her advance with a
measured step and a demure solemnity of countenance; he had felt
sure that her face would be mantled with the smile of conscious
saintship, or else charged with denunciatory bitterness. He knew
but two types of Methodist--the ecstatic and the bilious. But
Dinah walked as simply as if she were going to market, and seemed
as unconscious of her outward appearance as a little boy: there
was no blush, no tremulousness, which said, "I know you think me a
pretty woman, too young to preach"; no casting up or down of the
eyelids, no compression of the lips, no attitude of the arms that
said, "But you must think of me as a saint." She held no book in
her ungloved hands, but let them hang down lightly crossed before
her, as she stood and turned her grey eyes on the people. There
was no keenness in the eyes; they seemed rather to be shedding
love than making observations; they had the liquid look which
tells that the mind is full of what it has to give out, rather
than impressed by external objects. She stood with her left hand
towards the descending sun, and leafy boughs screened her from its
rays; but in this sober light the delicate colouring of her face
seemed to gather a calm vividness, like flowers at evening. It
was a small oval face, of a uniform transparent whiteness, with an
egglike line of cheek and chin, a full but firm mouth, a delicate
nostril, and a low perpendicular brow, surmounted by a rising arch
of parting between smooth locks of pale reddish hair. The hair
was drawn straight back behind the ears, and covered, except for
an inch or two above the brow, by a net Quaker cap. The eyebrows,
of the same colour as the hair, were perfectly horizontal and
firmly pencilled; the eyelashes, though no darker, were long and
abundant--nothing was left blurred or unfinished. It was one of
those faces that make one think of white flowers with light
touches of colour on their pure petals. The eyes had no peculiar
beauty, beyond that of expression; they looked so simple, so
candid, so gravely loving, that no accusing scowl, no light sneer
could help melting away before their glance. Joshua Rann gave a
long cough, as if he were clearing his throat in order to come to
a new understanding with himself; Chad Cranage lifted up his
leather skull-cap and scratched his head; and Wiry Ben wondered
how Seth had the pluck to think of courting her.
"A sweet woman," the stranger said to himself, "but surely nature
never meant her for a preacher."
Perhaps he was one of those who think that nature has theatrical
properties and, with the considerate view of facilitating art and
psychology, "makes up," her characters, so that there may be no
mistake about them. But Dinah began to speak.
"Dear friends," she said in a clear but not loud voice "let us
pray for a blessing."
She closed her eyes, and hanging her head down a little continued
in the same moderate tone, as if speaking to some one quite near
her: "Saviour of sinners! When a poor woman laden with sins, went
out to the well to draw water, she found Thee sitting at the well.
She knew Thee not; she had not sought Thee; her mind was dark; her
life was unholy. But Thou didst speak to her, Thou didst teach
her, Thou didst show her that her life lay open before Thee, and
yet Thou wast ready to give her that blessing which she had never
sought. Jesus, Thou art in the midst of us, and Thou knowest all
men: if there is any here like that poor woman--if their minds are
dark, their lives unholy--if they have come out not seeking Thee,
not desiring to be taught; deal with them according to the free
mercy which Thou didst show to her Speak to them, Lord, open their
ears to my message, bring their sins to their minds, and make them
thirst for that salvation which Thou art ready to give.
"Lord, Thou art with Thy people still: they see Thee in the night-
watches, and their hearts burn within them as Thou talkest with
them by the way. And Thou art near to those who have not known
Thee: open their eyes that they may see Thee--see Thee weeping
over them, and saying 'Ye will not come unto me that ye might have
life'--see Thee hanging on the cross and saying, 'Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do'--see Thee as Thou wilt come
again in Thy glory to judge them at the last. Amen."
Dinah opened her eyes again and paused, looking at the group of
villagers, who were now gathered rather more closely on her right
hand.
"Dear friends," she began, raising her voice a little, "you have
all of you been to church, and I think you must have heard the
clergyman read these words: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.'
Jesus Christ spoke those words--he said he came TO PREACH THE
GOSPEL TO THE POOR. I don't know whether you ever thought about
those words much, but I will tell you when I remember first
hearing them. It was on just such a sort of evening as this, when
I was a little girl, and my aunt as brought me up took me to hear
a good man preach out of doors, just as we are here. I remember
his face well: he was a very old man, and had very long white
hair; his voice was very soft and beautiful, not like any voice I
had ever heard before. I was a little girl and scarcely knew
anything, and this old man seemed to me such a different sort of a
man from anybody I had ever seen before that I thought he had
perhaps come down from the sky to preach to us, and I said, 'Aunt,
will he go back to the sky to-night, like the picture in the
Bible?'
"That man of God was Mr. Wesley, who spent his life in doing what
our blessed Lord did--preaching the Gospel to the poor--and he
entered into his rest eight years ago. I came to know more about
him years after, but I was a foolish thoughtless child then, and I
remembered only one thing he told us in his sermon. He told us as
'Gospel' meant 'good news.' The Gospel, you know, is what the
Bible tells us about God.
"Think of that now! Jesus Christ did really come down from
heaven, as I, like a silly child, thought Mr. Wesley did; and what
he came down for was to tell good news about God to the poor.
Why, you and me, dear friends, are poor. We have been brought up
in poor cottages and have been reared on oat-cake, and lived
coarse; and we haven't been to school much, nor read books, and we
don't know much about anything but what happens just round us. We
are just the sort of people that want to hear good news. For when
anybody's well off, they don't much mind about hearing news from
distant parts; but if a poor man or woman's in trouble and has
hard work to make out a living, they like to have a letter to tell
'em they've got a friend as will help 'em. To be sure, we can't
help knowing something about God, even if we've never heard the
Gospel, the good news that our Saviour brought us. For we know
everything comes from God: don't you say almost every day, 'This
and that will happen, please God,' and 'We shall begin to cut the
grass soon, please God to send us a little more sunshine'? We
know very well we are altogether in the hands of God. We didn't
bring ourselves into the world, we can't keep ourselves alive
while we're sleeping; the daylight, and the wind, and the corn,
and the cows to give us milk--everything we have comes from God.
And he gave us our souls and put love between parents and
children, and husband and wife. But is that as much as we want to
know about God? We see he is great and mighty, and can do what he
will: we are lost, as if we was struggling in great waters, when
we try to think of him.
"But perhaps doubts come into your mind like this: Can God take
much notice of us poor people? Perhaps he only made the world for
the great and the wise and the rich. It doesn't cost him much to
give us our little handful of victual and bit of clothing; but how
do we know he cares for us any more than we care for the worms and
things in the garden, so as we rear our carrots and onions? Will
God take care of us when we die? And has he any comfort for us
when we are lame and sick and helpless? Perhaps, too, he is angry
with us; else why does the blight come, and the bad harvests, and
the fever, and all sorts of pain and trouble? For our life is
full of trouble, and if God sends us good, he seems to send bad
too. How is it? How is it?
"Ah, dear friends, we are in sad want of good news about God; and
what does other good news signify if we haven't that? For
everything else comes to an end, and when we die we leave it all.
But God lasts when everything else is gone. What shall we do if
he is not our friend?"
Then Dinah told how the good news had been brought, and how the
mind of God towards the poor had been made manifest in the life of
Jesus, dwelling on its lowliness and its acts of mercy.
"So you see, dear friends," she went on, "Jesus spent his time
almost all in doing good to poor people; he preached out of doors
to them, and he made friends of poor workmen, and taught them and
took pains with them. Not but what he did good to the rich too,
for he was full of love to all men, only he saw as the poor were
more in want of his help. So he cured the lame and the sick and
the blind, and he worked miracles to feed the hungry because, he
said, he was sorry for them; and he was very kind to the little
children and comforted those who had lost their friends; and he
spoke very tenderly to poor sinners that were sorry for their
sins.
"Ah, wouldn't you love such a man if you saw him--if he were here
in this village? What a kind heart he must have! What a friend
he would be to go to in trouble! How pleasant it must be to be
taught by him.
"Well, dear friends, who WAS this man? Was he only a good man--a
very good man, and no more--like our dear Mr. Wesley, who has been
taken from us?...He was the Son of God--'in the image of the
Father,' the Bible says; that means, just like God, who is the
beginning and end of all things--the God we want to know about.
So then, all the love that Jesus showed to the poor is the same
love that God has for us. We can understand what Jesus felt,
because he came in a body like ours and spoke words such as we
speak to each other. We were afraid to think what God was before--
the God who made the world and the sky and the thunder and
lightning. We could never see him; we could only see the things
he had made; and some of these things was very terrible, so as we
might well tremble when we thought of him. But our blessed
Saviour has showed us what God is in a way us poor ignorant people
can understand; he has showed us what God's heart is, what are his
feelings towards us.
"But let us see a little more about what Jesus came on earth for.
Another time he said, 'I came to seek and to save that which was
lost'; and another time, 'I came not to call the righteous but
sinners to repentance.'
"The LOST!...SINNERS!...Ah, dear friends, does that mean you and
me?"
Hitherto the traveller had been chained to the spot against his
will by the charm of Dinah's mellow treble tones, which had a
variety of modulation like that of a fine instrument touched with
the unconscious skill of musical instinct. The simple things she
said seemed like novelties, as a melody strikes us with a new
feeling when we hear it sung by the pure voice of a boyish
chorister; the quiet depth of conviction with which she spoke
seemed in itself an evidence for the truth of her message. He saw
that she had thoroughly arrested her hearers. The villagers had
pressed nearer to her, and there was no longer anything but grave
attention on all faces. She spoke slowly, though quite fluently,
often pausing after a question, or before any transition of ideas.
There was no change of attitude, no gesture; the effect of her
speech was produced entirely by the inflections of her voice, and
when she came to the question, "Will God take care of us when we
die?" she uttered it in such a tone of plaintive appeal that the
tears came into some of the hardest eyes. The stranger had ceased
to doubt, as he had done at the first glance, that she could fix
the attention of her rougher hearers, but still he wondered
whether she could have that power of rousing their more violent
emotions, which must surely be a necessary seal of her vocation as
a Methodist preacher, until she came to the words, "Lost!--
Sinners!" when there was a great change in her voice and manner.
She had made a long pause before the exclamation, and the pause
seemed to be filled by agitating thoughts that showed themselves
in her features. Her pale face became paler; the circles under
her eyes deepened, as they did when tears half-gather without
falling; and the mild loving eyes took an expression of appalled
pity, as if she had suddenly discerned a destroying angel hovering
over the heads of the people. Her voice became deep and muffled,
but there was still no gesture. Nothing could be less like the
ordinary type of the Ranter than Dinah. She was not preaching as
she heard others preach, but speaking directly from her own
emotions and under the inspiration of her own simple faith.
But now she had entered into a new current of feeling. Her manner
became less calm, her utterance more rapid and agitated, as she
tried to bring home to the people their guilt their wilful
darkness, their state of disobedience to God--as she dwelt on the
hatefulness of sin, the Divine holiness, and the sufferings of the
Saviour, by which a way had been opened for their salvation. At
last it seemed as if, in her yearning desire to reclaim the lost
sheep, she could not be satisfied by addressing her hearers as a
body. She appealed first to one and then to another, beseeching
them with tears to turn to God while there was yet time; painting
to them the desolation of their souls, lost in sin, feeding on the
husks of this miserable world, far away from God their Father; and
then the love of the Saviour, who was waiting and watching for
their return.
There was many a responsive sigh and groan from her fellow-
Methodists, but the village mind does not easily take fire, and a
little smouldering vague anxiety that might easily die out again
was the utmost effect Dinah's preaching had wrought in them at
present. Yet no one had retired, except the children and "old
Feyther Taft," who being too deaf to catch many words, had some
time ago gone back to his inglenook. Wiry Ben was feeling very
uncomfortable, and almost wishing he had not come to hear Dinah;
he thought what she said would haunt him somehow. Yet he couldn't
help liking to look at her and listen to her, though he dreaded
every moment that she would fix her eyes on him and address him in
particular. She had already addressed Sandy Jim, who was now
holding the baby to relieve his wife, and the big soft-hearted man
had rubbed away some tears with his fist, with a confused
intention of being a better fellow, going less to the Holly Bush
down by the Stone-pits, and cleaning himself more regularly of a
Sunday.
In front of Sandy Jim stood Chad's Bess, who had shown an unwonted
quietude and fixity of attention ever since Dinah had begun to
speak. Not that the matter of the discourse had arrested her at
once, for she was lost in a puzzling speculation as to what
pleasure and satisfaction there could be in life to a young woman
who wore a cap like Dinah's. Giving up this inquiry in despair,
she took to studying Dinah's nose, eyes, mouth, and hair, and
wondering whether it was better to have such a sort of pale face
as that, or fat red cheeks and round black eyes like her own. But
gradually the influence of the general gravity told upon her, and
she became conscious of what Dinah was saying. The gentle tones,
the loving persuasion, did not touch her, but when the more severe
appeals came she began to be frightened. Poor Bessy had always
been considered a naughty girl; she was conscious of it; if it was
necessary to be very good, it was clear she must be in a bad way.
She couldn't find her places at church as Sally Rann could, she
had often been tittering when she "curcheyed" to Mr. Irwine; and
these religious deficiencies were accompanied by a corresponding
slackness in the minor morals, for Bessy belonged unquestionably
to that unsoaped lazy class of feminine characters with whom you
may venture to "eat an egg, an apple, or a nut." All this she was
generally conscious of, and hitherto had not been greatly ashamed
of it. But now she began to feel very much as if the constable
had come to take her up and carry her before the justice for some
undefined offence. She had a terrified sense that God, whom she
had always thought of as very far off, was very near to her, and
that Jesus was close by looking at her, though she could not see
him. For Dinah had that belief in visible manifestations of
Jesus, which is common among the Methodists, and she communicated
it irresistibly to her hearers: she made them feel that he was
among them bodily, and might at any moment show himself to them in
some way that would strike anguish and penitence into their
hearts.
"See!" she exclaimed, turning to the left, with her eyes fixed on
a point above the heads of the people. "See where our blessed
Lord stands and weeps and stretches out his arms towards you.
Hear what he says: 'How often would I have gathered you as a hen
gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!'...and
ye would not," she repeated, in a tone of pleading reproach,
turning her eyes on the people again. "See the print of the nails
on his dear hands and feet. It is your sins that made them! Ah!
How pale and worn he looks! He has gone through all that great
agony in the garden, when his soul was exceeding sorrowful even
unto death, and the great drops of sweat fell like blood to the
ground. They spat upon him and buffeted him, they scourged him,
they mocked him, they laid the heavy cross on his bruised
shoulders. Then they nailed him up. Ah, what pain! His lips are
parched with thirst, and they mock him still in this great agony;
yet with those parched lips he prays for them, 'Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do.' Then a horror of great
darkness fell upon him, and he felt what sinners feel when they
are for ever shut out from God. That was the last drop in the cup
of bitterness. 'My God, my God!' he cries, 'why hast Thou
forsaken me?'
"All this he bore for you! For you--and you never think of him;
for you--and you turn your backs on him; you don't care what he
has gone through for you. Yet he is not weary of toiling for you:
he has risen from the dead, he is praying for you at the right
hand of God--'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they
do.' And he is upon this earth too; he is among us; he is there
close to you now; I see his wounded body and his look of love."
Here Dinah turned to Bessy Cranage, whose bonny youth and evident
vanity had touched her with pity.
"Poor child! Poor child! He is beseeching you, and you don't
listen to him. You think of ear-rings and fine gowns and caps,
and you never think of the Saviour who died to save your precious
soul. Your cheeks will be shrivelled one day, your hair will be
grey, your poor body will be thin and tottering! Then you will
begin to feel that your soul is not saved; then you will have to
stand before God dressed in your sins, in your evil tempers and
vain thoughts. And Jesus, who stands ready to help you now, won't
help you then; because you won't have him to be your Saviour, he
will be your judge. Now he looks at you with love and mercy and
says, 'Come to me that you may have life'; then he will turn away
from you, and say, 'Depart from me into ever-lasting fire!'"
Poor Bessy's wide-open black eyes began to fill with tears, her
great red cheeks and lips became quite pale, and her face was
distorted like a little child's before a burst of crying.
"Ah, poor blind child!" Dinah went on, "think if it should happen
to you as it once happened to a servant of God in the days of her
vanity. SHE thought of her lace caps and saved all her money to
buy 'em; she thought nothing about how she might get a clean heart
and a right spirit--she only wanted to have better lace than other
girls. And one day when she put her new cap on and looked in the
glass, she saw a bleeding Face crowned with thorns. That face is
looking at you now"--here Dinah pointed to a spot close in front
of Bessy--"Ah, tear off those follies! Cast them away from you,
as if they were stinging adders. They ARE stinging you--they are
poisoning your soul--they are dragging you down into a dark
bottomless pit, where you will sink for ever, and for ever, and
for ever, further away from light and God."
Bessy could bear it no longer: a great terror was upon her, and
wrenching her ear-rings from her ears, she threw them down before
her, sobbing aloud. Her father, Chad, frightened lest he should
be "laid hold on" too, this impression on the rebellious Bess
striking him as nothing less than a miracle, walked hastily away
and began to work at his anvil by way of reassuring himself.
"Folks mun ha' hoss-shoes, praichin' or no praichin': the divil
canna lay hould o' me for that," he muttered to himself.
But now Dinah began to tell of the joys that were in store for the
penitent, and to describe in her simple way the divine peace and
love with which the soul of the believer is filled--how the sense
of God's love turns poverty into riches and satisfies the soul so
that no uneasy desire vexes it, no fear alarms it: how, at last,
the very temptation to sin is extinguished, and heaven is begun
upon earth, because no cloud passes between the soul and God, who
is its eternal sun.
"Dear friends," she said at last, "brothers and sisters, whom I
love as those for whom my Lord has died, believe me, I know what
this great blessedness is; and because I know it, I want you to
have it too. I am poor, like you: I have to get my living with my
hands; but no lord nor lady can be so happy as me, if they haven't
got the love of God in their souls. Think what it is--not to hate
anything but sin; to be full of love to every creature; to be
frightened at nothing; to be sure that all things will turn to
good; not to mind pain, because it is our Father's will; to know
that nothing--no, not if the earth was to be burnt up, or the
waters come and drown us--nothing could part us from God who loves
us, and who fills our souls with peace and joy, because we are
sure that whatever he wills is holy, just, and good.
"Dear friends, come and take this blessedness; it is offered to
you; it is the good news that Jesus came to preach to the poor.
It is not like the riches of this world, so that the more one gets
the less the rest can have. God is without end; his love is
without end--
Its streams the whole creation reach,
So plenteous is the store;
Enough for all, enough for each,
Enough for evermore.
Dinah had been speaking at least an hour, and the reddening light
of the parting day seemed to give a solemn emphasis to her closing
words. The stranger, who had been interested in the course of her
sermon as if it had been the development of a drama--for there is
this sort of fascination in all sincere unpremeditated eloquence,
which opens to one the inward drama of the speaker's emotions--now
turned his horse aside and pursued his way, while Dinah said, "Let
us sing a little, dear friends"; and as he was still winding down
the slope, the voices of the Methodists reached him, rising and
falling in that strange blending of exultation and sadness which
belongs to the cadence of a hymn.
