<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<h2 class="pushdown" title=""><SPAN name="p000" id="p000"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>iii<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>FACES IN THE FIRE</h2>
<div class="tp">
<SPAN name="p001" id="p001"></SPAN>
<h1 title="Faces in the Fire and other fancies"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>v<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>FACES IN THE FIRE</big><br/><small>AND</small><br/>OTHER FANCIES</h1>
<p class="author"><b>BY<br/><big>F. W. BOREHAM</big></b><br/><small>AUTHOR OF<br/>‘THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL,’ ‘THE SILVER SHADOW,’ ‘MUSHROOMS ON THE<br/>MOOR,’ ‘THE GOLDEN MILESTONE,’ ‘MOUNTAINS IN THE<br/>MIST,’ ‘THE LUGGAGE OF LIFE,’<br/>ETC., ETC.</small></p>
<ANTIMG src="images/publisherdevice.jpg" alt="" title="Publisher’s device" />
<p class="publisher">THE ABINGDON PRESS<br/><small>NEW <span class="biggap">YORK CINCINNATI</span></small></p>
</div>
<h2 title="Contents"><SPAN name="p003" id="p003"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>7<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>CONTENTS</h2>
<table summary="Table of Contents">
<tr><td colspan="3" class="ctr"><big><SPAN href="#p007">PART I</SPAN></big></td></tr>
<tr><th><small class="allsc">CHAP.</small></th><th> </th><th><small class="allsc">PAGE</small></th></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">I.</td>
<td>THE BABY AMONG THE BOMBSHELLS</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p009">13</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">II.</td>
<td>STRAWBERRIES AND CREAM</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p020">24</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">III.</td>
<td>THE CONQUEST OF THE CRAGS</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p032">36</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">IV.</td>
<td>LINOLEUM</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p042">46</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">V.</td>
<td>THE EDITOR</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p053">57</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">VI.</td>
<td>THE PEACEMAKER</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p064">68</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">VII.</td>
<td>NOTHING</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p075">79</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">VIII.</td>
<td>THE ANGEL AND THE IRON GATE</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p085">89</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">IX.</td>
<td>SHORT CUTS</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p094">98</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="3" class="ctr"><big><SPAN href="#p107">PART II</SPAN></big></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">I.</td>
<td>THE POSTMAN</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p109">113</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">II.</td>
<td>CRYING FOR THE MOON</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p119">123</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">III.</td>
<td>OUR LOST ROMANCES</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p130">134</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">IV.</td>
<td>A FORBIDDEN DISH</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p140">144</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">V.</td>
<td>AN OLD MAID’S DIARY</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p149">153</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">VI.</td>
<td>THE RIVER</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p159">163</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">VII.</td>
<td>FACES IN THE FIRE</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p168">172</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">VIII.</td>
<td>THE MENACE OF THE SUNLIT HILL</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p180">184</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">IX.</td>
<td>AMONG THE ICEBERGS</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p192">196</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="3" class="ctr"><big><SPAN name="p004" id="p004"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>8<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><SPAN href="#p201">PART III</SPAN></big></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">I.</td>
<td>A BOX OF TIN SOLDIERS</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p203">207</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">II.</td>
<td>LOVE, MUSIC, AND SALAD</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p212">216</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">III.</td>
<td>THE FELLING OF THE TREE</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p223">227</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">IV.</td>
<td>SPOIL!</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p233">237</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">V.</td>
<td>A PHILOSOPHY OF FANCY-WORK</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p243">247</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">VI.</td>
<td>A PAIR OF BOOTS</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p252">256</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class="chap">VII.</td>
<td>CHRISTMAS BELLS</td>
<td class="right"><SPAN href="#p261">265</SPAN></td></tr>
</table>
<SPAN name="p005" id="p005"></SPAN>
<h2 title="By way of introduction"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>9<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION</h2>
<p><span class="smc">It</span> was a chilling experience, that first glimpse of
New Zealand! Hour after hour the great ship held
on her way up the Cook Straits amidst scenery that
made me shudder and that scowled me out of countenance.
Rugged, massive, inhospitable, and bare,
how sternly those wild and mountainous landscapes
contrasted with the quiet beauty that I had surveyed
from the same decks as the ship had dropped down
Channel! I shaded my eyes with my hands and
swept the strange horizon at every point, but nowhere
could I see a sign of habitation—no man;
no beast; no sheltering roof; no winding road;
no welcoming column of smoke! And when, in
the twilight of that still autumn evening, I at length
descended the gangway, and set foot for the first
time on the land of my adoption, I found myself—twelve
thousand miles from home—in a country
in which not a soul knew me, and in which I knew
no single soul. It was not an exhilarating sensation.</p>
<p>That was on March 11, 1895—twenty-one years
ago to-night. Those one-and-twenty years have been
almost evenly divided between the old manse at
Mosgiel, in New Zealand, and my present Tasmanian
<SPAN name="p006" id="p006"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>10<span class="ns">]
</span></span>home. As I sit here, and let my memory play
among the years, I smile at the odd way in which
these southern lands have belied that first austere
impression. In my fire to-night I see such crowds
of faces—the faces of those with whom I have
laughed and cried, and camped and played, and
worked and worshipped in the course of these one-and-twenty
years. There are fancy-faces, too;
the folk of other latitudes; the faces I have never
seen; the friends my pen has brought me. I cannot
write to all to-night; so I set aside this book as
a memento of the times we have spent together.
If, by good hap, it reaches any of them, let them
regard it as a shake of the hand for the sake of
auld lang syne. And if, in addition to cementing
old friendships, it creates new ones, how doubly
happy I shall be!</p>
<p class="rtindent">FRANK W. BOREHAM.</p>
<p class="ltindent"><small class="smc">Hobart, Tasmania.<!-- TN: original has comma --></small></p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p007" id="p007"></SPAN>
<h2 class="pushdown" title="Part I"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>11<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>PART I</h2>
<SPAN name="p009" id="p009"></SPAN>
<h3 title="I. The baby among the bombshells"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>13<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>I</big><br/>THE BABY AMONG THE BOMBSHELLS</h3>
<p><span class="smc">Everything</span> depends on keeping up the supply
of bombshells. It will be a sad day for us all when
there are no more bombs to burst, no more shocks
to be sustained, no more sensations to be experienced,
no more thrills to be enjoyed. Fancy being condemned
to reside in a world that is bankrupt of
astonishments, a world that no longer has it in its
power to startle you, a world that has nothing up
its sleeve! It would be like occupying a seat at a
conjuring entertainment at which the conjurer had
exhausted all his tricks, but did not like to tell you
so! When I was a small boy I used to be mildly
amused by the antics of a performing bear that
occasionally visited our locality. A sickly-looking
foreigner led the poor brute by a string. Its claws
were cut, and its teeth drawn. By dint of a few
kicks and cuffs it was persuaded to dance a melancholy
kind of jig, and then shamble round with a
basket in search of a few half-pence. I remember
distinctly that, as I watched the unhappy creature’s
dismal performance, I tried to imagine what the
animal would have looked like had no cruel captor
<SPAN name="p010" id="p010"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>14<span class="ns">]
</span></span>removed him from his native lair. The mental
contrast was a very painful one. Yet it was not
half so painful as the contrast between the world
as it is and a world that had run out of bombshells.
A world that could no longer surprise us would be
a world with its claws cut and its teeth drawn.
Half the fun of waking up in the morning is the
feeling that you have come upon a day that is
brand new, a day that the world has never seen before,
a day that is certain to do things that no other day
has ever done. Half the pleasure of welcoming
a new-born baby is the absolute certainty that here
you have a packet of amazing surprises. An
individuality is here; a thing that never was before;
you cannot argue from any other child to this one;
the only thing that you can predict with confidence
about this child is that it will do things that were
never done, or never done in the same way, since
this old world of ours began. Here is novelty,
originality, an infinity of bewildering possibility.
Each mother thinks that there never was a baby like
her baby; and most certainly there never was.
As long as the stock of days keeps up, and as long
as the supply of babies does not peter out, there
will be no lack of bombshells. I visited the other
day the ruins of an old prison. I saw among other
things the dark cells in which, in the bad old days,
prisoners languished in solitary confinement. Charles
<SPAN name="p011" id="p011"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>15<span class="ns">]
</span></span>Reade and other writers have told us how, in those
black holes, convicts adopted all kinds of ingenious
expedients to secure themselves against losing their
reason in the desolate darkness. They tossed buttons
about and groped after them; they tore up their
clothes and counted the pieces; they did a thousand
other things, and went mad in spite of all their
pains. Now what is this horror of the darkness?
Let us analyse it. Wherein does it differ from
blindness? Why did insanity overtake these solitary
men? The horror of the darkness was not fear.
A child dreads the dark because he thinks that
wolves and hobgoblins infest it. But these men
had no such terrors. The thing that unbalanced
them was the maddening monotony of the darkness.
Nothing happened. In the light something happens
every second. A thousand impressions are made
upon the mind in the course of every minute. Each
sensation, though it be of no more importance
than the buzz of a fly at the window-pane, the
flutter of a paper to the floor, or the sound of a
footfall on the street, represents a surprise. It is
a mental jolt. It transfers the attention from one
object to an entirely different one. We pass in
less than a second from the buzz of the fly to the
flutter of the paper, and again from the flutter of
the paper to the sound of the footfall. Any man
who could count the separate objects that occupied
<SPAN name="p012" id="p012"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>16<span class="ns">]
</span></span>his attention in the course of a single moment
would be astonished at their variety and multiplicity.
But in the dark cell there are no sensations.
The eye cannot see; the ear cannot hear.
Not one of the senses is appealed to. The mind
is accustomed to flit from sensation to sensation
like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower,
but infinitely faster. But in this dark cell it languishes
like a captive butterfly in a cardboard box.
If you hold me under water I shall die, because my
lungs can no longer do the work they have always
been accustomed to do. In the dark cell the mind
finds itself in the same predicament. It is drowned
in inky air. The mind lives on sensations; but
here there are no sensations. And if the world
gets shorn of its surprise-power, it will become a
maddening place to live in. We only exist by being
continually startled. We are kept alive by the
everlasting bursting of bombshells.</p>
<p>I am not so much concerned, however, with the
ability of the world to afford us a continuous series
of thrills as with my own capacity to be surprised.
The tendency is to lose the power of astonishment.
I am told that, in battle, the moment in which a
man finds himself for the first time under fire is a
truly terrifying experience. But after awhile the
new-comer settles down to it, and, with shells bursting
all around him, he goes about his tasks as calmly
<SPAN name="p013" id="p013"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>17<span class="ns">]
</span></span>as on parade. This idiosyncrasy of ours may be
a very fine thing under such circumstances, but
under other conditions it has the gravest elements
of danger. As I sit here writing, a baby crawls
upon the floor. It is good fun watching him. He
plays with the paper band that fell from a packet
of envelopes. He puts it round his wrist like a
bracelet. He tears it, and lo, the bracelet of a
moment ago is a long ribbon of coloured paper.
He is astounded. His wide-open eyes are a picture.
The telephone rings. He looks up with approval.
Anything that rings or rattles is very much to his
taste. I go over to his new-found toy, and begin
talking to it. He is dumbfounded. My altercation
with the telephone completely bewilders him.
Whilst I am thus occupied, he moves towards my
vacant chair. He tries to pull himself up by it,
but pulls it over on to himself. The savagery of
the thing appals him; he never dreamed of an attack
from such a source. In what a world of wonder is
he living! Bombs are bursting all around him all
day long. A baby’s life must be a thrillingly
sensational affair.</p>
<p>But the pity of it is that he will grow out of it.
He may be surrounded with the most amazing
contrivances on every hand, but the wonder of it
will make little or no appeal to him. He will be
like the soldier in the trenches who no longer notices
<SPAN name="p014" id="p014"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>18<span class="ns">]
</span></span>the roar and crash of the shells. When Livingstone
set out for England in 1856, he determined to take
with him Sekwebu, the leader of his African escort.
But when the party reached Mauritius, the poor
African was so bewildered by the steamers and
other marvels of civilization that he went mad,
threw himself into the sea, and was seen no more.
I only wish that an artist had sketched the scene
upon which poor Sekwebu gazed so nervously as
he stood on the deck of the <i>Frolic</i> that day sixty
years ago. I suspect that the ‘marvels of civilization’
that so terrified him would appear to us to
be very ramshackle and antiquated affairs. We
lie back in our sumptuous motor-cars and yawn
whilst surrounded on every hand with astonishments
compared with which the things that Sekwebu
saw are not worthy to be compared. That is the
tragic feature of the thing. In the midst of marvels
we tend to become blasé. It is not that we are
occupying a seat at a conjuring entertainment at
which the conjurer has exhausted all his tricks, and
does not like to tell you so. On the contrary, it is
like occupying a seat at a conjuring entertainment
and falling fast asleep just as the performer is getting
to his most baffling and masterly achievements.
I like to watch this baby of mine among his bombshells.
The least thing electrifies him. What a
sensational world this would be if I could only
<SPAN name="p015" id="p015"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>19<span class="ns">]
</span></span>contrive to retain unspoiled that childish capacity
for wonder!</p>
<p>I shall be told that it is the baby’s ignorance that
makes him so susceptible to sensation. It is nothing
of the kind. Ignorance does not create wonder;
it destroys it. I walked along a track through the
bush one day in company with two men. One was
a naturalist; the other was an ignoramus. Twenty
times at least the naturalist swooped down upon
some curious grass, some novel fern, or some rare
orchid. The walk that morning was, to his knowing
eyes, as sensational as a hair-raising film at a cinematograph.
But to my other companion it was
absolutely uneventful, and the only thing at which
he wondered was the enthusiasm of our common
friend. When Alfred Russel Wallace was gathering
in South America his historic collection of botanical
and zoological specimens, the natives of the Amazon
Valley thought him mad. He paid them handsomely
to catch creatures for which they could discover no
use at all. To him the great forests of Bolivia and
Brazil were alive with sensation. They fascinated
and enthralled him. But the black men could not
understand it. They saw no reason for his rapture.
Yet his wonder was not the outcome of ignorance;
it was the outcome of knowledge. Depend upon
it, the more I learn, the more sensational the world
will become. If I can only become wise enough I
<SPAN name="p016" id="p016"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>20<span class="ns">]
</span></span>may recapture the glorious amazements of the baby
among his bombshells.</p>
<p>Now let me come to a very practical application.
Half the art of life lies in possessing effective explosives
and in knowing how to use them. In the
best of his books, Jack London tells us that the
secret of White Fang’s success in fighting other dogs
was his power of surprise. ‘When dogs fight there
are usually preliminaries—snarlings and bristlings,
and stiff-legged struttings. But White Fang omitted
these. He gave no warning of his intention. He
rushed in and snapped and slashed on the instant,
without notice, before his foe could prepare to
meet him. Thus he exhibited the value of surprise.
A dog taken off its guard, its shoulder slashed open,
or its ear ripped in ribbons before it knew what was
happening, was a dog half whipped.’ Here is the
strategy of surprise in the wild. Has it nothing
to teach me? I think it has. I remember going
for a walk one evening in New Zealand, many years
ago, with a minister whose name was at one time
famous throughout the world. I was just beginning
then, and was hungry for ideas. I shall never
forget that, towards the close of our conversation,
my companion stopped, looked me full in the face,
and exclaimed with tremendous emphasis, ‘Keep
up your surprise-power, my dear fellow; the pulpit
must never, never lose its power of startling people!’
<SPAN name="p017" id="p017"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>21<span class="ns">]
</span></span>I have very often since recalled that memorable
walk; and the farther I leave the episode across the
years behind me the more the truth of that fine
saying gains upon my heart.</p>
<p>Let me suggest a really great question. Is it
enough for a preacher to preach the truth? In
a place where I was quite unknown, I turned into
a church one day and enjoyed the rare luxury of
hearing another man preach. But, much as I
appreciated the experience, I found, when I came
out, that the preacher had started a rather curious
line of thought. He was a very gracious man;
it was a genuine pleasure to have seen and heard
him. And yet there seemed to be a something
lacking. The sermon was absolutely without surprise.
Every sentence was splendidly true, and
yet not a single sentence startled me. There was
no sting in it. I seemed to have heard it all over
and over and over again; I could even see what
was coming. Surely it is the preacher’s duty to
give the truth such a setting, and present it in such
a way, that the oldest truths will appear newer than
the latest sensations. He must arouse me from
my torpor; he must compel me to open my eyes and
pull myself together; he must make me sit up and
think. ‘Keep up your surprise-power, my dear
fellow,’ said my companion that evening in the
bush, speaking out of his long and rich experience.</p>
<p><SPAN name="p018" id="p018"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>22<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>‘The pulpit,’ he said, ‘must never, never lose its
power of startling people!’ The preacher, that is
to say, must keep up his stock of explosives. The
Bishop of London declared the other day that the
Church is suffering from too much ‘dearly beloved
brethren.’ She would be better judiciously to mix
it with a few bombshells.</p>
<p>And yet, after all, I suppose it was largely my
own fault that the sermon of which I have spoken
seemed to me to be so ineffective. There are
tremendous astonishments in the Christian evangel
which, however baldly stated, should fire my sluggish
soul with wonder, and fill it with amazement.
The fact that I listened so blandly shows that I
have become blasé. I am like the soldier in the
trenches who no longer notices the bursting shells
about him. I am like the auditor who occupies a
seat at the conjuring entertainment, but has fallen
asleep just as the thing is getting sensational.</p>
<p>In one of his latest books, Harold Begbie gives
us a fine picture of John Wyclif reading from his
own translation of the Bible to those who had never
before listened to those stately and wonderful
cadences. The hearers look at each other with
wide-open eyes, and are almost incredulous in their
astonishment. Every sentence is a sensation.
They can scarcely believe their ears. They are like
the baby on the floor. The simplicities startle them.
<SPAN name="p019" id="p019"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>23<span class="ns">]
</span></span>If only I can renew the romance of my childhood,
and recapture that early sense of wonder, the world
will suddenly become as marvellous as the prince’s
palace in the fairy stories, and the ministry of the
Church will become life’s most sensational sensation.</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p020" id="p020"></SPAN>
<h3 title="II. Strawberries and cream"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>24<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>II</big><br/>STRAWBERRIES AND CREAM</h3>
<p><span class="smc">Strawberries</span> are delicious, as every one knows.
‘It may be,’ says Dr. Boteler, a quaint old English
writer, ‘it may be that God could make a better
berry than a strawberry, but most certainly He
never did.’ Yes, strawberries are delicious; but
I am not going to write about strawberries. Cream
is also very nice, very nice indeed; but nothing
shall induce me to write about cream. I have
promised myself a chapter, neither on <em>strawberries</em>
nor on <em>cream</em>, but on <em>strawberries and cream</em>. The
distinction, as I shall endeavour to show, is a vitally
important one. Now the theme was suggested on
this wise. I was walking through the city this
afternoon, when I met a gentleman from whom,
only this morning, I received an important letter.
We shook hands, and were just plunging into
the subject-matter of his letter when a tall
policeman reminded us of the illegality of loitering
on the pavement. Yet it was too hot to walk
about.</p>
<p>‘Come in here,’ my companion suggested, pointing
<SPAN name="p021" id="p021"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>25<span class="ns">]
</span></span>to a café near by, ‘and have a cup of afternoon
tea.’</p>
<p>‘No, thank you,’ I replied, ‘I had a cup not long
ago.’</p>
<p>‘Well, strawberries and cream, then?’</p>
<p>The temptation was too strong for me; he had
touched a vulnerable point; and I succumbed.
The afternoon was very oppressive; the restaurant
looked invitingly cool; a quiet corner among the
ferns seemed to beckon us; and the strawberries
and cream, daintily served, soon completed our
felicity.</p>
<p>Strawberries and cream! It is an odd conjunction
when you come to think of it. The gardener goes
off to his well-kept beds and brings back a big basket,
lined with cabbage leaves, and filled to the brim
with fine fresh strawberries. The maid slips off
to the dairy and returns with a jug of rich and
foamy cream. To what different realms they belong!
The gardener lives, moves, and has his being in
one world; the milkmaid spends her life in quite
another. The cream belongs to the animal kingdom;
the strawberries to the vegetable kingdom. But
here, on these pretty little plates in the fern-grot
are the gardener’s world and the milkmaid’s world
beautifully blended. Here, on the table before us,
are the animal and the vegetable kingdom perfectly
supplementing and completing each other. It is
<SPAN name="p022" id="p022"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>26<span class="ns">]
</span></span>another phase of the wonder which suggested the
nursery rhyme:</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>Flour of England, fruit of Spain,</div>
<div>Met together in a shower of rain.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>Empires confront each other within the compass
of a plum-pudding; continents salute each other
in a tea-cup; the great subdivisions of the universe
greet each other in a plate of strawberries and
cream. What <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">ententes</i>, and <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">rapprochements</i>, and
international conferences take place every day
among the plates and dishes that adorn our
tables!</p>
<p>It is a thousand pities that we have no authentic
record of the discoverer of strawberries and cream.
For ages the world enjoyed its strawberries, and for
ages the world enjoyed its cream. But strawberries
and cream was an unheard-of mixture. Then
there dawned one of the great days of this planet’s
little story, a day that ought to have been carefully
recorded and annually commemorated. History,
as it is written, betrays a sad lack of perspective.
It has no true sense of proportion. There came a
fateful day on which some audacious dietetic adventurer
took the cream that had been brought from
his dairy, poured it on the strawberries that had
been plucked from his garden, and discovered with
delight that the whole was greater than the sum
<SPAN name="p023" id="p023"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>27<span class="ns">]
</span></span>of all its parts. Yet of that memorable day the
historian takes no notice. With the amours of
kings, the intrigues of courts, and the squabbles
of statesmen he has filled countless pages; yet only
in very rare instances have these things contributed
to the sum of human happiness anything comparable
to the pleasures afforded by strawberries and cream.
We have never done justice to the intellectual
prowess of the men who first tried some of the
mixtures that are to us a matter of course. Salt
and potatoes, for example. I heard the other day
of a little girl who defined salt as ‘that which makes
potatoes very nasty if you have none of it with them.’
It is not a bad definition. But, surely, something
is due to the memory of the man who discovered
that the insipidity might be removed, and the potato
be made a staple article of diet, by the simple addition
of a pinch of salt! Then, too, there are the men
who found out that horseradish is the thing to eat
with roast beef; that apple sauce lends an added
charm to a joint of pork; that red currant jelly
enhances the flavour of jugged hare; that mint
sauce blends beautifully with lamb; that boiled
mutton is all the better for caper sauce; and that
butter is the natural corollary of bread. ‘The man
of superior intellect,’ says Tennyson, in vindication
of his weakness for boiled beef and new potatoes,
‘knows what is good to eat.’ And George Gissing
<SPAN name="p024" id="p024"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>28<span class="ns">]
</span></span>in a reference to these selfsame new potatoes, adds
a corroborative word. ‘Our cook,’ he says, ‘when
dressing these new potatoes, puts into the saucepan
a sprig of mint. This is genius. Not otherwise
could the flavour of the vegetable be so perfectly,
yet so delicately, emphasized. The mint is there, and
we know it; yet our palate knows only the young
potato.’ There have been thousands of statues
erected to the memory of men who have done far
less to promote the happiness of mankind than did
any of these. Every great invention is preceded
by thousands and thousands of fruitless attempts.
Think of the nauseous conglomerations that must
have been tried and tasted, not without a shudder,
before these happy combinations were at length
launched upon the world. Think of the jeers of
derision that greeted the first announcement of
these preposterous concoctions! Imagine the guffaws
when a man told his companions that he had been
eating red currant jelly with jugged hare! Imagine
the nameless dietetic atrocities that that ingenious
epicure must have perpetrated before he hit upon
his ultimate triumph! I have not the initiative
to attempt it. I lack the splendid daring of the
pioneer. In a thousand years’ time men will smack
their lips over all kinds of mixtures of which I
should shudder to hear. I am content to go on
eating this by itself and that by itself, just as for
<SPAN name="p025" id="p025"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>29<span class="ns">]
</span></span>ages men were content to eat strawberries by themselves
and cream by itself, never dreaming that this
thing and that thing as much belong to each other
as do strawberries and cream.</p>
<p>Now this genius for mixing things is one of the
hall-marks of our humanity. Strawberry leaves
are part of the crest of a duchess; but strawberries
and cream might be regarded as a suitable crest for
the race. Man is an animal, but he is more than an
animal; and he proves his superiority by mixing
things. His poorer relatives of the brute creation
never do it. They eat strawberries, and they are
fond of cream; but it would never have occurred
to any one of them to mix the strawberries with the
cream. An animal, even the most intelligent and
domesticated animal, will eat one thing and then
he will eat another thing; but the idea of mixing
the first thing with the second thing before eating
either never enters into his comprehension.</p>
<p>The strawberries and cream represent, therefore,
in a pleasant and attractive way, our human genius
for mixing things. There is nothing surprising
about it. Indeed, it is eminently fitting and characteristic.
For we are ourselves such extraordinary
medlies. Let any man think his way back across
the ages, and mark the ingredients that have woven
themselves into his make-up, and he will not be
surprised at the extraordinary miscellany of passions
<SPAN name="p026" id="p026"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>30<span class="ns">]
</span></span>that he sometimes discovers within the recesses of
his own soul. ‘I remember,’ Rudyard Kipling makes
the Thames to say:</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry" style="width: 24em;"><!-- to align this with the following poem -->
<div class="stanza">
<div>... I remember, like yesterday,</div>
<div>The earliest Cockney who came my way,</div>
<div>When he pushed through the forest that lined the Strand,</div>
<div>With paint on his face and a club in his hand.</div>
<div>He was death to feather and fin and fur,</div>
<div>He trapped my beavers at Westminster,</div>
<div>He netted my salmon, he hunted my deer,</div>
<div>He killed my herons off Lambeth Pier;</div>
<div>He fought his neighbour with axes and swords,</div>
<div>Flint or bronze, at my upper fords,</div>
<div>While down at Greenwich for slaves and tin</div>
<div>The tall Phoenician ships stole in.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>Men of the island caves mixed their blood with men
of the great continental forests. It was an extraordinary
agglomeration.</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry" style="width: 24em;"><!-- to align with the poem above -->
<div class="stanza">
<div>Norseman and Negro and Gaul and Greek</div>
<div>Drank with the Britons in Barking Creek,</div>
<div>And the Romans came with a heavy hand,</div>
<div>And bridged and roaded and ruled the land,</div>
<div>And the Roman left and the Danes blew <span class="nw">in—</span></div>
<div>And that’s where your history books begin!</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>Is it any wonder that sometimes I feel, mingling with
the emotions inspired by a recent communion service,
<SPAN name="p027" id="p027"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>31<span class="ns">]
</span></span>the savagery of some long-forgotten caveman ancestor?
Civilization is so very young, and barbarism
was so very old, that it is not surprising that I
occasionally hark back involuntarily to the days to
which my blood was most accustomed. I am
an odd mixture considered from any point of view.
‘There are very few human actions,’ says Mark
Rutherford, ‘of which it can be said that this or
that, taken by itself, produced them. With our
inborn tendency to abstract, to separate mentally
the concrete into factors which do not exist separately,
we are always disposed to assign causes which
are too simple. Nothing in nature is propelled or
impeded by one force acting alone. There is no
such thing, save in the brain of the mathematician.
I see no reason why even motives diametrically
opposite should not unite in one resulting deed.’
Of course not! It is my duty, that is to say, to
take myself to pieces as little as possible. It does
not really matter how much of my present temperament
I got from the communion service, and how
much I got from the caveman with the club in his
hand. Here I am, a present entity, with the caveman,
the tribesman, the Roman, and the Dane all mixed
up together in me; and it is my business, instead of
taking the complex mechanism to pieces, to make it,
as a united and harmonious whole, do the work for
which I have been sent into the world. I am not
<SPAN name="p028" id="p028"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>32<span class="ns">]
</span></span>to talk one moment of the strawberries on my plate,
and then, in the next breath, to speak of the cream.
It is not so much a matter of strawberries <em>and</em>
cream as of <em>strawberriesandcream</em>.</p>
<p>There is, I fancy, a good deal in that. We are
too fond of taking the cream from the strawberries,
and the strawberries from the cream. I have on
my plate here, not two things, but one thing; and
that one thing is <em>strawberriesandcream</em>. One of the
oldest and one of the silliest mistakes that men have
made is their everlasting inclination to divide
<em>strawberries-and-cream</em> into strawberries <em>and</em> cream.
Think of the toothless chatter concerning the sexes.
Have men or women done most for the world?
Is the husband or is the wife most essential to the
home? It will be quite time enough to attempt to
answer such ridiculous questions when the waitresses
at the restaurants begin to ask us whether we will
have strawberries <em>or</em> cream! In the beginning, we
are told, God created man in His own image, male
and female created He them. It is not so much
a matter of male <em>and</em> female: it is <em>maleandfemale</em>,
just as it is <em>strawberriesandcream</em>. The thing takes
other forms. Which do you prefer—summer or
winter? As though we should appreciate summer
if we never had a winter, or winter if we never had
a summer! Is song or speech the most effective
evangelistic agency? As though there would be
<SPAN name="p029" id="p029"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>33<span class="ns">]
</span></span>anything to sing about if the gospel had never
been preached! Or anything worth preaching if the
gospel had never set anybody singing! It is so
very ridiculous to try to separate the strawberries
from the cream. Miss Rosaline Masson, in commenting
upon Wordsworth’s beautiful sonnet on
Westminster Bridge, says that it is the outcome
of Dorothy Wordsworth’s divine power of perception
and her brother’s divine power of expression. But
who would dare to take the sonnet to pieces and say
how much is Dorothy’s, and how much is William’s?
It is Dorothy’s and William’s. It is strawberries
and cream.</p>
<p>I always feel extremely sorry for the man who
tries to move a vote of thanks at the close of a
pleasant and successful function. Not for worlds
could I be persuaded to attempt it. It is a most
difficult and complicated business, and I should
collapse utterly. It consists in taking the whole
performance to pieces and allocating the praise.
So much for the decorators; so much for the singers;
so much for the elocutionists; so much for the
speakers; so much for the chairman; so much for
the pianist; so much for the secretary; and so on.
To me it would be like furnishing a statistical table
on leaving the restaurant showing how much of
my enjoyment I owed to the strawberries and how
much to the cream. Dissection is not in my
<SPAN name="p030" id="p030"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>34<span class="ns">]
</span></span>line. I only know that I thoroughly enjoyed the
<em>strawberriesandcream</em>.</p>
<p>In selecting strawberries and cream as emblems
of the mixed things of life, I fancy that my choice
is a particularly happy one. That cream must
be mixed with other foods goes without saying; and
in Shakespeare’s most notable reference to strawberries
it is the same peculiarity that seems to have
impressed him. He has a very pleasing allusion
to the facility with which the strawberry mixes
with other things. The passage occurs at the
beginning of <cite>King Henry the Fifth</cite>. The Archbishop
of Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely are discussing
the new king. They are astonished at the change
which has overtaken him since his accession. As
a prince he was wild and dissolute, and broke his
father’s heart. But, as soon as he became king,
he instantly sent for his boon-companions, told
them that he intended by God’s good grace to live
an entirely new life, and begged them to follow his
example. As the Archbishop of Canterbury puts it:</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry" style="width: 20em;"><!-- to align with the poem below -->
<div class="stanza">
<div>The breath no sooner left his father’s body</div>
<div>But that his wildness, mortified in him,</div>
<div>Seemed to die, too. Yea, at that very moment.</div>
<div>Consideration like an angel came,</div>
<div>And whipped the offending Adam out of him.</div>
<div>Leaving his body as a paradise,</div>
<div>To envelop and contain celestial spirits.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p><SPAN name="p031" id="p031"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>35<span class="ns">]
</span></span>To which the Bishop of Ely replies:</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry" style="width: 20em;"><!-- to align with the poem above -->
<div class="stanza">
<div>The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,</div>
<div>And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best,</div>
<div>Neighboured by fruit of baser quality.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>It is a suggestive passage, considered from any
point of view We live mixed lives in a mixed
world, and we do not come upon the strawberries
by themselves or all at once. We may find strawberries
to-morrow where we can discover nothing
but stinging-nettles to-day ‘Madcap Harry’ was
not the only son whose life at first yielded nothing
but nettles that stung and lacerated his father’s
soul, and yet afterwards produced strawberries
that were the delight, not only of the Church, but
of the world at large.</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p032" id="p032"></SPAN>
<h3 title="III. The conquest of the crags"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>36<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>III</big><br/>THE CONQUEST OF THE CRAGS</h3>
<p><span class="smc">I was</span> strolling one still evening along a lonely
New Zealand shore, when I made a grim discovery
that has often set me thinking. I had been walking
along the wet and crinkled sands, the tide being out,
and had amused myself with the shells and the
seaweed that had been left lying about by the
receding waters. There is always a peculiar charm
about such a stroll. It holds such infinite possibilities.
One seems to be exploiting the surprise-packet of
the universe. Jane Barlow, in her <cite>Bogland Studies</cite>,
makes one of her characters say:</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>What use is one’s life widout chances? Ye’ve always a
chance wid the tide;</div>
<div>For ye never can tell what ’twill take in its head to
strew round on the shore;</div>
<div>Maybe driftwood, or grand bits of boards that come
handy for splicing an oar,</div>
<div>Or a crab skytin’ back o’er the shine o’ the wet;
sure, whatever ye’ve found,</div>
<div>It’s a sort of diversion them whiles when ye’ve starvin’
and strelin’ around.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>Absorbed in so delightful an occupation the passage
of time escaped my attention, until suddenly
<SPAN name="p033" id="p033"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>37<span class="ns">]
</span></span>I noticed that twilight was rapidly falling, and I
thought of my return. Before retracing my steps,
however, I sat down for a moment’s rest among
the sand-dunes. The possibility of making a discovery
among those arid mounds did not occur
to me. But, as I sat absent-mindedly poking the
soft sand with my stick, I suddenly struck something
hard. I proceeded to dig it out, and found a couple
of human skulls. They adorn the top shelf of my
book-case before me at this moment. They always
look down upon me as I write. I often catch
myself leaning back in my chair, staring up at them,
and trying to read their secret. Who were they,
I wonder, these two bony companions of mine?
Two Maoris finishing, among the lonely dunes,
their last fierce fatal feud? Two travellers, hopelessly
lost, who threw themselves down here to die?
A couple of sailors, whose ship had struck the cruel
reefs out yonder, and whose bodies were tossed up
here by the pitiless waves? A pair of lovers trapped
by the treacherous tide? I cannot tell. What a
tantalizing mystery they seem to hold, as they
grin down at me from this high shelf of mine!
It is part of the ghostly sense of mystery that
always haunts the sea and its tragedies. On the
land, when disaster occurs, all the wreckage is left
to tell its own tale; but on the ocean Fate instantly
obliterates all her tracks. The magnificent vessel
<SPAN name="p034" id="p034"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>38<span class="ns">]
</span></span>lurches over, plunges with a roar into the deep,
and the waves close over the frightful ruin. Compared
with the silence of the sea, the Sphinx is
voluble. The deep, dark, icy ocean-bed guards its
secrets, and guards them well.</p>
<p>Sometimes, however, it is more easy to read the
riddle. Here in Tasmania, within easy reach of
this quiet study of mine, there is a battle-field that
I love to visit. It extends for miles and miles,
and the whole place is strewn with the wreckage
that tells of the titanic conflict. I do not mean
that the place is littered with dead men’s bones.
It was a far finer and a far fiercer fight than men
could have waged, and it lasted longer than any
war recorded in the annals of history. It is the
battle-field on which the land fought the sea. It is
a rocky and precipitous coast. Sometimes I like
to walk along the top of the cliff, and look down upon
the pile of massive boulders that lie tumbled in
picturesque and bewildering confusion about the
beach below. Or, at low tide, I like to make my
way among those monstrous piles of broken rock
that lie, higgledy-piggledy, all along the shore.
What a fight it was, day and night, summer and
winter, year in and year out, age after age! Occasionally
the attack slackened down, and the rippling
waters merely lapped softly against the rocks.
But there was no real truce. The sea was only
<SPAN name="p035" id="p035"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>39<span class="ns">]
</span></span>gathering up its forces in secret for the majestic
assault that was to come. Then the great breakers
came rushing in, like regiments of cavalry in full
career, and each huge wave hurled itself upon the
crags with such fury that the spray dashed up
sky high.</p>
<p>It was a titanic struggle, and the waters won.
That is the extraordinary thing—the waters won.
The water seems so soft, so yielding, so fluid, and
the rocks seem so impregnable, so adamantine,
so immutable. Yet the waters always win. The
land makes no impression on the sea; but the
sea grinds the land to powder. I know that the sea
is often spoken of as the natural emblem of all that
is fickle and changeful; but it is a pure illusion.
There are, of course superficial variations of tone
and tint and temper; but, as compared with the
kaleidoscopic changes that overtake the land, the
ocean is eternally and everywhere the same. It,
and not the rocks, is the symbol of immutability.
‘Look at the sea!’ exclaims Max Pemberton, in
<cite>Red Morn</cite>. ‘How I love it! I like to think that
those great rolling waves will go leaping by a thousand
years from now. There is never any change
about the sea. You never come back to it and say,
“How it’s changed!” or “Who’s been building
here?” or “Where’s the old place I loved?” No;
it is always the same. I suppose if one stood here
<SPAN name="p036" id="p036"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>40<span class="ns">]
</span></span>for a million years the sea would not be different.
You’re quite sure of it, and it never disappoints you.’
The land, on the contrary, is for ever changing.
Man is always working his transformations, and
Nature is toiling to the same end.</p>
<p>‘When the Romans came to England,’ says
Frank Buckland, the naturalist, ‘Julius Caesar
probably looked upon an outline of cliff very different
from that which holds our gaze to-day. First
there comes a sun-crack along the edge of the cliff;
the rain-water gets into the crack; then comes the
frost. The rain-water in freezing expands, and by
degrees wedges off a great slice of chalk cliff; down
this tumbles into the water; and Neptune sets his
great waves to work to tidy up the mess.’ No
man can know the veriest rudiments of geology
without recognizing that it is the land, and not the
sea, that is constantly changing. We may visit
some historic battle-field to-day, and, finding it a
network of bustling streets and crowded alleys,
may hopelessly fail to repeople the scene with the
battalions that wheeled and charged, wavered and
rallied, there in the brave days of old. But when,
from the deck of a steamer, I surveyed the blue and
tossing waters off Cape Trafalgar, I knew that I
was gazing upon the scene just as it presented
itself to the eye of Nelson on the day of his immortal
victory and glorious death more than a century ago.</p>
<p><SPAN name="p037" id="p037"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>41<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>Now, beneath this triumph of the ocean—the
triumph that leaves the land in fragments whilst
the sea itself sustains no injury—there lies a deeper
significance than at first appears. Job saw it.
No elusive secret, lurking in the universe around
him, escaped his restless eye. ‘The waters wear
the stones!’ he cried, and it was a shout of victory
that rose from his heart when he said it. ‘The
waters wear the stones,’ he exclaimed, ‘and Thou
washest away the things which grow out of the dust
of the earth.’ It is the death-knell of the material.
It is the triumph of the eternal. A little child looks
upon the great granite cliffs, and it seems impossible
that the lapping waves can ever pound them to
pieces. But they do.<!-- TN: period invisible in original --> And in the same way, Job
says, man seems so impregnable, and the world so
mighty, that it appears a thing incredible that God
can finally prevail. But He shall. The quiet
waters conquer the frowning cliffs at length. The
walls of Jericho fall down. This is the victory that
overcometh the world.</p>
<p>And so here on this battle-field where the land
and the sea fought for mastery, I find Job sitting,
and he interprets for me the paean that the waves
are singing. It is the laughter of their triumph.
‘The waters wear away the stones.’ That was the
heartening message that gave to Spain one of her
very greatest teachers. St. Isidore of Seville was
<SPAN name="p038" id="p038"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>42<span class="ns">]
</span></span>only a boy at the time. He found his lessons hard
to learn. Study was a drudgery, and he was tempted
to give up. The huge obstacles against which he,
like the waves at the base of the cliff, was beating
out his life seemed adamantine. So he ran away
from school. But in the heat of the day he sat down
to rest beside a little spring that trickled over a rock.
He noticed that the water fell in drops, and only one
drop at a time; yet those drops had worn away a
large stone. It reminded him of the tasks he had
forsaken, and he returned to his desk. Diligent
application overcame his dullness, and made him
one of the first scholars of his time. He never
forgot the drops of water, dripping, dripping, dripping
on the rock that they were conquering. ‘Those
drops of water,’ says his biographer, ‘gave to Spain
a brilliant historian, and to the Church a famous
doctor.’</p>
<p>It is always the gentle things of life that conquer
us. ‘The moving waters’—to quote Keats’ beautiful
<span class="nw">phrase—</span></p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>The moving waters at their priest-like task</div>
<div>Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores’</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>wear down the towering cliffs along the coast.
It is Aesop’s fable of the North Wind and the sun
over again. The North Wind, with its violence
and bluster, only makes the traveller button his
<SPAN name="p039" id="p039"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>43<span class="ns">]
</span></span>coat the tighter. It is the genial warmth of the
sun that makes him take it off. It is always by
gentleness that the adamantine world is mastered.
That is one of life’s most lovely secrets. We are not
ruled as much as we think by parliaments and commandments
and enactments. The proportion of our
lives that is governed by such things is very small.
But the proportion that is dominated by gentler
and more winsome forces is very great. The voices
that sway us with a regal authority are soft and
tender voices, the voices of those whose genial
goodness compels us to love them. The imperial
tones to which we capitulate unconditionally are
very rarely stern official tones. Who does not
remember how, in <cite>The Rosary</cite>, the Hon. Jane
Champion asks Garth Dalmain why he does not
marry? And Garth tells her of old Margery, his
childhood’s friend and nurse, now his housekeeper
and general mender and tender—old Margery,
with her black satin apron, lawn kerchief, and
lavender ribbons. ‘No doubt, Miss Champion,
it will seem absurd to you that I should sit here on
the duchess’s lawn and confess that I have been
held back from proposing marriage to the women
I most admired because of what would have been
my old nurse’s opinion of them.’ Yet so it invariably
is. Our servants are often our masters. Life’s
loftiest authorities never derive their sanctions
<SPAN name="p040" id="p040"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>44<span class="ns">]
</span></span>from rank, office, or station. The soul has enthronements
and coronations of its own. A little
child often leads it. A Carpenter becomes its king.
Out of Nazareth comes the Conqueror of the World.
The pure and cleansing waters wear down the giant
crags at the last.</p>
<p>But with purity and gentleness must go patience.
The lapping waters do not reduce the rocky strata
at a blow. It is always by means of patience that
the finest conquests are won. Who that has read
Jack London’s <cite>Call of the Wild</cite> will ever forget the
great fight at the end of the book between Buck,
the dog hero, and the huge bull-moose? ‘Three
hundredweight more than half a ton he weighed,
the old bull; he had lived a long, strong life, full
of fight and struggle, and at the end he faced death
at the teeth of a creature whose head did not reach
beyond his great knuckled knees!’ How was it
done? ‘There is a patience in the wild,’ Jack
London says, ‘a patience dogged, tireless, persistent
as life itself’; and it was by means of this patience
that Buck brought down his stately antlered prey.
‘Night and day, Buck never left him, never gave
him a moment’s rest, never permitted him to browse
on the leaves of the trees or the shoots of the young
birch or willow. Nor did he give the old bull one
single opportunity to slake his burning thirst in the
slender, trickling streams they crossed.’ For four
<SPAN name="p041" id="p041"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>45<span class="ns">]
</span></span>days Buck hung pitilessly at the huge beast’s heels,
and at the end of the fourth day he pulled the bull-moose
down. Buck looked so little, but he wore
the monarch out. The waters seem so feeble, but
they beat the rocks to powder. It is thus that the
foolish things of this world always confound the
wise; the weak things conquer the mighty; and the
things that are not bring to naught the things that
are.</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p042" id="p042"></SPAN>
<h3 title="IV. Linoleum"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>46<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>IV</big><br/>LINOLEUM</h3>
<p><span class="smc">True</span> love is never utilitarian. I am well aware that,
in novels and in plays, the fair heroine considerately
falls in love with the brave man who, at a critical
moment, saves her from a watery grave or from the
lurid horrors of a burning building. It is very
good of the lady in the novel. I admire the gratitude
which prompts her romantic affection, and, nine
times out of ten, my judgement cordially approves
her taste. I know, too, that, in fiction, the sick
or wounded hero invariably falls desperately in
love with the devoted nurse whose patient and
untiring attention ensures his recovery. It is very
good of the hero. Again I say, I admire his gratitude
and almost invariably endorse his choice. But it
must be distinctly understood that this sort of
thing is strictly confined to novels and theatricals.
In real life, men and women do not fall in love out of
gratitude. As a matter of fact, I am much more
likely to fall in love with somebody for whom I have
done something than with somebody who has done
something for me.</p>
<p><SPAN name="p043" id="p043"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>47<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>I was talking the other day with a nurse in a
children’s hospital. It is a heartbreaking business,
she told me. ‘You get into the way of nursing
them, and comforting them, and playing with them,
and mothering them, until you feel that they belong
to you. And then, just as you have come to love
the little thing as though he were your own, out he
goes. And he always goes out with his father or
his mother, clapping his hands for very joy at the
excitement of going home, and you are left with a
big lump in your throat, and perhaps a tear in
your eye, at the thought that you will never see
him again!’ Clearly, therefore, we do not fall in
love as a matter of gratitude. The people who
cling to us and depend upon us are much more
likely to win our hearts than the people who have
placed us under an obligation to them. If, instead
of telling us that the heroine fell in love with the
man who had saved her from drowning, the novelist
had told us that the man who risked his life by plunging
into the river fell in love with the white and
upturned face as he laid it gently on the bank;
or if, instead of telling us that the patient fell in
love with the nurse, he had told us that the nurse
fell in love with the patient upon whom she had
lavished such beautiful devotion, he would have
been much more true to nature and to real life.
It is indisputable, of course, that, the rescuer having
<SPAN name="p044" id="p044"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>48<span class="ns">]
</span></span>fallen in love with the rescued, she may soon discover
his secret, and, since love begets love, reciprocate
his affection. It is equally true that, the nurse
having conceived so tender a passion for her patient,
he may soon read the meaning of the light in her
eye and of the tone in her voice, and feel towards
her as she first felt towards him. But that is
quite another matter, and is beside our point at
present. Just now, I am only concerned with
challenging the novelist’s unwarrantable assumption
that we fall in love out of gratitude. We do nothing
of the kind. Love, I repeat, is never utilitarian.
We may fall hopelessly in love with a thing that is of
very little use to us; and we may feel no sentimental
attractions at all towards a thing that is almost
indispensable. If any man dares to dispute these
conclusions, I shall simply produce a roll of linoleum
in support of my arguments, and he will be promptly
crushed beneath the weight of argument that the
linoleum will furnish.</p>
<p>The linoleum is the most conspicuous feature of the
domestic establishment. It is impertinent, self-assertive,
and loud. If you visit a house in which there is
a linoleum, the thing rushes at you, and you see it
even before the front door has been opened. Every
minister who spends his afternoons in knocking at
people’s doors knows exactly what I mean. The
very sound of the knock tells you a good deal. Such
<SPAN name="p045" id="p045"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>49<span class="ns">]
</span></span>sounds are of three kinds. There is the echoing and
reverberating knock that tells you of bare boards;
there is the dead and sombre thud that tells of linoleum
on the floor; and there is the softened and muffled
tap that tells of a hall well carpeted. And so I say
that the linoleum—if there be one—rushes at you,
and you seem to see it even before the door has been
opened. Perhaps it is this immodesty on its part
that prevents your liking it. It is always with
the coy, shy, modest things that we fall in love
most readily.</p>
<p>But however that may be, the fact remains.
Since this queer old world of ours began, men and
women have fallen in love with all sorts of strange
things; but there is no record of any man or woman
yet having really fallen in love with a roll of linoleum.
Of everything else about the house you get very fond.
I can understand a man shedding tears when his
arm-chair has to go to the sale-room or the scrap-heap.
Robert Louis Stevenson once told the story
of his favourite chair until he moved his schoolboy
audience to tears! And everybody knows how
Dickens makes you laugh and cry at the drollery
and pathos with which, in all his books, he invests
chairs, tables, clocks, pictures, and every other
article of furniture. I fancy I should feel life to be
less worth living if I were deprived of some of the
household odds and ends with which all my felicity
<SPAN name="p046" id="p046"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>50<span class="ns">]
</span></span>seems to be mysteriously associated. But I cannot
conceive of myself as yielding to even a momentary
sensation of tenderness over the sale, destruction,
or exchange of any of the linoleums. I feel perfectly
certain that neither Stevenson nor Dickens would
ever have felt an atom of sentiment concerning
linoleum. Yet why? Few things about the house
are more serviceable. I could point offhand to a
hundred things no one of which has earned its right
to a place in the home one-hundredth part as nobly
as has the linoleum. Yet I am very fond of each
of those hundred things, whilst I am not at all fond
of the linoleum. I appreciate it, but I do not love
it. So there it is! Said I not truly that love is
never utilitarian? We grow fond of things because
we grow fond of things; we never grow fond of things
simply because they are of use to us.</p>
<p>But we cannot in decency let the matter rest at
that. There must be some reason for the failure
of the linoleum to stir my affections. Why does
it alone, among my household goods and chattels,
kindle no warmth within my soul? The linoleum
is both pretty and useful; what more can I want?
Many things pretty, but not useful, have swept
me off my feet. Many things useful, but not pretty,
have captivated my heart. And more than once
things neither pretty nor useful have completely
enslaved me. Yet here is the linoleum, both pretty
<SPAN name="p047" id="p047"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>51<span class="ns">]
</span></span>and useful, and I feel for it no fondness whatsoever;
I remain as cold as ice, and as hard as adamant.
Why is it? To begin with, I fancy the pattern has
something to do with it. I do not now refer to any
particular pattern; but to all the linoleum patterns
that were ever designed.<!-- TN: period invisible in original --> Those endless squares
and circles and diamonds and stars! Could anything
be more repelling? Here, for instance, on the
linoleum, I find a star. I know at once that if I
look I shall see hundreds of similar stars. They
will all be in perfectly straight lines, not one a
quarter of an inch out of its place. They will all
be mathematically equidistant; they will be of
exactly the same size, of identically the same colour,
and their angles will all point in precisely the same
direction. If the stars in the firmament above
us were arranged on the same principle, they would
drive us mad. The beauty of it is that, <em>there</em>,
one star differeth from another star in glory. But
on the linoleum they do nothing of the sort.</p>
<p>Or perhaps the pattern is a floral one. It thinks
to coax me into a feeling that I am in the garden
among the roses, the rhododendrons, or the chrysanthemums.
But it is a hopeless failure. Whoever
saw roses, rhododendrons, or chrysanthemums,
all of exactly the same size, of precisely the same
colour, and hanging in rows at mathematically
identical levels? The beauty of the garden is
<SPAN name="p048" id="p048"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>52<span class="ns">]
</span></span>that having looked at <em>this</em> rose, I am the more
eager to see <em>that</em> one; having admired <em>this</em> chrysanthemum,
I am the more curious to mark the variety
presented by <em>the next</em>. No two are precisely the
same. And because this infinite diversity is the
essential charm both of the heavens above and of
the earth beneath, I am shocked and repelled by
the monotony of the pattern on the linoleum. In
the old days it was customary to plaster the walls,
even of sick-rooms, with papers of patterns equally
pronounced, and many a poor patient was tortured
almost to death by the glaring geometrical abominations.
The doctor said that the sufferer was to be
kept perfectly quiet; yet the pattern on the wall
is allowed to scream at him and shout at him from
night until morning, and from morning until night.
He has counted those awful stars or roses, perpendicularly,
horizontally, diagonally, from right to
left, from left to right, from top to bottom, and from
bottom to top, until the hideous monstrosities are
reproduced in frightful duplicate upon the fevered
tissues of his throbbing brain. He may close his
eyes, but he sees them still. It was a form of torture
worthy of an inquisitor-general. The pattern on
the linoleum is happily not quite so bad. When we
are ill we do not see it; and when we are well we may
to some extent avoid it. Not altogether; for even
if we do not look at it, we have an uncanny feeling
<SPAN name="p049" id="p049"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>53<span class="ns">]
</span></span>that it is there. Between the hearthrug and the
table I catch sight of the bright flaunting head of
a scarlet poppy, or of the tossing petals of a huge
chrysanthemum, and my imagination instantly
flashes to my mind the horrible impression of tantalizing
rows of exactly similar blossoms running
off with mathematical precision in every conceivable
direction.</p>
<p>For some reason or other we instinctively recoil
from these monotonous regularities. I once heard
a friend observe that the average woman would
rather marry a man whose life was painfully irregular
than a man whose life was painfully regular. It
may have been an over-statement of the case;
but there is something in it. We fall in love with
good people, and we fall in love with bad people;
but with the man who is ‘too proper,’ and the woman
who is ‘too straight-laced,’ we very, very rarely
fall in love. It is the problem of Tennyson’s ‘Maud.’
As a girl Maud was irregular—and lovable.</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>Maud, with her venturous climbings and tumbles and
childish escapes,</div>
<div>Maud, the delight of the village, the ringing joy of the
Hall,</div>
<div>Maud, with her sweet purse-mouth when my father dangled
the grapes,</div>
<div>Maud, the beloved of my mother, the moon-faced darling
of all.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p><SPAN name="p050" id="p050"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>54<span class="ns">]
</span></span>But later on Maud was regular—and as unattractive
as linoleum.</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>... Maud, she has neither savour nor salt,</div>
<div>But a cold and clear-cut face, as I found when her
carriage passed,</div>
<div>Perfectly beautiful: let it be granted her: where is the
fault?</div>
<div>All that I saw (for her eyes were downcast, not to be
seen)</div>
<div>Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null,</div>
<div>Dead perfection, no more.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>Shall I be told that this is high doctrine, and
hard to bear, this doctrine of the lovableness of
irregularity? I think not. Towering above all
our biographies, as snowclad heights tower above
dusty little molehills, there stands the life-story of
One who, alone among the sons of men, was
altogether good. It is the most charming and
the most varied life-story that has ever been
written since this little world began. Its lovely
deeds and graceful speech, its tender pathos
and its awful tragedy, have won the hearts
of men all over the world, and all down the ages.
But find monotony there if you can! It is like a
sky full of stars or a field of fairest flowers. The
life that repels, as the linoleum repels, by the very
severity of its regularity, has something wrong with
it somewhere.</p>
<p><SPAN name="p051" id="p051"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>55<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>If I have outraged the sensibilities of any well-meaning
champion of a geometrical and mathematical
and linoleum-like regularity, let me hasten to conciliate
him! I know that even regularity—the regularity
of the linoleum pattern—may have its advantages.
Dr. George MacDonald, in <cite>Robert Falconer</cite>, says that
‘there is a well-authenticated story of a notorious
convict who was reformed by entering, in one of the
colonies, a church where the matting along the aisle
was of the same pattern as that in the church to
which he had gone with his mother as a boy.’ Bravo!
It is pleasant, extremely pleasant, to find that even
monotony has its compensations. Let me but get
to know my ‘too proper’ and ‘straight-laced’
friends a little better, and I shall doubtless discover
even there a few redeeming features.</p>
<p>But, for all that, the linoleum is cold; and we do
not fall in love with cold things. A volcano is a
much more dangerous affair than an iceberg;
but it is much more easy to fall in love with the
things that make you shudder than with the things
that make you shiver. That was the trouble with
Maud, she was so chilly and chilling; her ‘cold and
clear-cut face, faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly
null!’ And that is precisely the trouble
with every system of religion, morality, or philosophy—save
one—that has ever been presented to the
minds of men. Plato and Aristotle and Marcus
<SPAN name="p052" id="p052"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>56<span class="ns">]
</span></span>Aurelius were splendid, simply splendid; but they
were frigid, frigid as Maud, and their counsels
of perfection could never have enchained my heart.
Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed—the stars of the
East—were wonderful, but oh, so cold! I turn from
these icy regularities to the lovely life I have already
mentioned. And, to use Whittier’s expressive word,
it is ‘warm.’</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>Yes, warm, sweet, tender, even yet</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>A present help is He;</div>
<div>And faith has yet its Olivet,</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>And love its Galilee.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>‘<em>Warm</em>’ ... ‘<em>love</em>’ ... here are words that touch
my soul to tears. ‘We love Him because <em>He first
loved us</em>.’ The monotony and frigidity of the
linoleum have given way to the beauty and the
brightness of flowery fields all bathed in summer
sunshine.</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p053" id="p053"></SPAN>
<h3 title="V. The Editor"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>57<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>V</big><br/>THE EDITOR</h3>
<p><span class="smc">I approach</span> my present theme with considerable
diffidence, for reasons obvious and for reasons
obscure. For one thing, I was for some years an
editor myself, and I cannot satisfy myself that the
experiment was even a moderate success. Everything
went splendidly, so far as I was concerned, as long
as I wrote everything myself; but I was terribly
pestered by other people. They worried me year
in and year out, morning, noon, and night. They
would insist on sending me manuscripts that I had
neither the grace to accept nor the courage to decline.
They wrote the most learned treatises, the most
pathetic stories, and the most affecting little sonnets.
The latter, they explained, were for Poet’s Corner.
They actually deluged me with letters, intended
for publication, dealing with all sorts of subjects
in which I took not the slightest glimmer of interest.
They sometimes even presumed, in some carping
or captious way, to criticize or review things that
I had myself written—as though such things were
open to question! At other times they wrote to
applaud the sentiments I had expressed—as though
<SPAN name="p054" id="p054"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>58<span class="ns">]
</span></span>I needed their corroboration! They were an awful
nuisance. The stupid thing was only a monthly,
and how they imagined that there would be any
room for <em>their</em> contributions, by the time I had been
a whole month writing, passes my comprehension.
Then came the awakening, and it was a rude one.
I suddenly realized that I was a fraud, a delusion,
and a snare. I was not an editor at all. I was
simply masquerading, playing a great game of
bluff and make-believe. As a matter of fact, I
was nothing more than an objectionably garrulous
contributor who had gained possession of the editor’s
sanctum, usurped the editor’s authority, and commandeered
the editor’s chair. I felt so ashamed
of myself that I precipitately fled, and, although I
have several times since been invited to assume
editorial responsibilities, I have shown my profound
respect for journalism by politely but firmly declining.
It does not at all follow that, because a man can
make a few bricks, he can therefore build a mansion.
A chemist may be very clever at making up prescriptions,
but that does not prove his ability to
prescribe.</p>
<p>During the years to which I have referred, that
paper really had no editor. An editor would have
done three things. He would have written a few
wise words himself. He would have pitilessly
repressed my unconscionable volubility. And he
<SPAN name="p055" id="p055"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>59<span class="ns">]
</span></span>would have given the public the benefit of some of
those carefully prepared contributions which I,
with savage satisfaction, hurled into the waste-paper
basket. It would have been a good thing for the
paper if the editorials had been so few and so brief
that people could have been reasonably expected to
read them. They would then have attached to them
the gravity and authority that such contributions
should normally carry. And it would have been
good for the world in general, and for me in particular,
if liberal quantities of my manuscript had been
substitutionally sacrificed in redemption of some of
those rolls of paper, whose destruction I now deplore,
which I consigned to limbo with so light a heart.
Since then I have had a fairly wide experience of
editors, and the years have increased my respect.
‘O Lord,’ an up-country suppliant once exclaimed
at the week-night prayer-meeting, ‘O Lord, the
more I sees of other people the more I likes myself!’
I do not quite share the good man’s feeling, at any
rate so far as editors are concerned. The more I
have seen of the ways of other editors the less am I
pleased with the memory of my own attempt.
The way in which these other editors have treated
my own manuscript makes me blush for very shame
as I remember my editorial intolerance of such
packages. Very occasionally an editor has found
it necessary to delete some portion of my contribution,
<SPAN name="p056" id="p056"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>60<span class="ns">]
</span></span>and, nine times out of ten, I have admired the
perspicacity which detected the excrescence and
strengthened the whole by removing the part. I
say nine times out of ten; but I hint at the tenth
case in no spirit of resentment or bitterness. I am
young yet, and the years may easily teach me that,
even in the instances that still seem doubtful to
me, I am under a deep and lasting obligation to the
editorial surgery.</p>
<p>The editor is the emblem of all those potent,
elusive, invisible forces that control our human
destinies. We are clearly living in an edited world.
We may not always agree with the editor; it would
be passing strange if we did. We may see lots of
things admitted that we, had we been editor, would
have vigorously excluded. The venom of the cobra,
the cruelty of the wolf, the anguish of a sickly babe,
and the flaunting shame of the street corner; had
I been editor I should have ruthlessly suppressed
all these contributions. But my earlier experience
of editorship haunts my memory to warn me. I
was too fond of rejecting things in those days.
I was too much attached to the waste-paper basket.
And I have been sorry for it ever since. And perhaps
when I have lived a few aeons longer, and have had
experience of more worlds than one, I shall feel
ashamed of my present inclination to doubt the
editor’s wisdom. Knowing as little as I know,
<SPAN name="p057" id="p057"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>61<span class="ns">]
</span></span>I should certainly have rejected these contributions
with scorn and impatience. The fangs of the viper,
the teeth of the crocodile, and all things hideous
and hateful, I should have intolerantly excluded.
And, some ages later, with the experience of a few
millenniums and the knowledge of many worlds to
guide me, I should have lamented my folly, even
as I now deplore my old editorial exclusiveness.</p>
<p>And, on the other hand, we sometimes catch a
glimpse of the editor’s waste-paper basket, and the
revelation is an astounding one. The waste of the
world is terrific. And among these rejected manuscripts
I see some most exquisitely beautiful things.
The other day, not far from here, a snake bit a
little girl and killed her. Now here was a curious
freak of editorship! On the editor’s table there lay
two manuscripts. There was the snake—a loathsome,
scaly brute, with wicked little eyes and venomous
fangs, a thing that made your flesh creep to look at it.
And there was the little girl, a sweet little thing with
curly hair and soft blue eyes, a thing that you
could not see without loving. Had I been there,
I should have tried to kill the snake and save the
child. That is to say, I should have accepted the
child-manuscript, and rejected the snake-manuscript.
But the editor does exactly the opposite. The
snake-manuscript is accepted; the horrid thing
glides through the bush at this moment as a
<SPAN name="p058" id="p058"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>62<span class="ns">]
</span></span>recognized part of the scheme of the universe. The
child-manuscript is rejected; it is thrown away;
have we not seen it, like a crumpled poem, in the
editor’s waste-paper basket? How differently I
should have acted had I been editor! And then,
when I afterwards reviewed my editorship, as I
to-day review that other editorship of mine, I
should have seen that I was wrong. And that reflection
makes me very thankful that I am not the
editor. We shall yet come to see, in spite of all
present appearances to the contrary, that the
editor adopted the kindest, wisest, best course with
each of the manuscripts presented. We shall see</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>That nothing walks with aimless feet;</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>That not one life shall be destroyed,</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>Or cast as rubbish to the void,</div>
<div>When God hath made the pile complete;</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div><br class="ns"/>That not a worm is cloven in vain;</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>That not a moth with vain desire</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire,</div>
<div>Or but subserves another’s gain.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>Everybody feels at liberty to criticize the Editor;
but, depend upon it, when all the information is
before us that is before Him, we shall see that our
paltry judgement was very blind. And we shall
recognize with profound admiration that we have
been living in a most skilfully edited world.<!-- TN: period invisible in original --></p>
<p><SPAN name="p059" id="p059"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>63<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>For, after all, that is the point. The Editor knows
so much more than I do. He has eyes and ears in
the ends of the earth. His sanctum seems so remote
from everything, and yet it is an observatory from
which He beholds all the drama of the world’s
great throbbing life. When I was a boy I was very
fond of a contrivance that was called a camera-obscura.
I usually found it among the attractions
of a seaside town. You paid a penny, entered a
room, and sat down beside a round white table.
The operator followed, and closed the door. The
place was then in total darkness; you could not see
your hand before you. It seemed incredible that
in this black hole one could get a clearer view of all
that was happening in the neighbourhood than was
possible out in the sunlight. Yet, as soon as the
lens above you was opened, the whole scene appeared
like a moving coloured photograph on the white table.
The waves breaking on the beach; the people strolling
on the promenade; everything was faithfully depicted
there. Not a dog could wag his tail but there,
in the darkness, you saw him do it. An observer
who watched you enter, and saw the door close after
you, could be certain that now, for awhile, you were
cut off from everything. And yet, as a fact, you
only went into the darkness that you might see
the whole scene in the more perfect perspective.
What is this but the editor’s sanctum? He enters
<SPAN name="p060" id="p060"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>64<span class="ns">]
</span></span>it and, to all appearances, he leaves the world behind
him as he does so. But it is a mere illusion. He
enters it that he may see the whole world more
clearly from its quiet seclusion.</p>
<p>In the same way, when I look round upon the
world, and see the things that are allowed to happen,
the Editor seems fearfully aloof. He seems to have
gone into His heaven and closed the door behind
Him. ‘Clouds and darkness are round about Him,’
says the psalmist. And if clouds and darkness are
round about Him, is it any wonder that His vision
is obscure? If clouds and darkness are round
about Him, is it any wonder that He acts so strangely?
If clouds and darkness are round about Him, is it
any wonder that He rejects the child-manuscript
and accepts the snake-manuscript? And yet, and
yet; what if the darkness that envelops Him be the
darkness of the camera-obscura? The psalmist
declares that it is just because clouds and darkness
are round about Him that righteousness and judgement
are the habitation of His throne. It is a
darkness that obscures Him from me without in
the slightest degree concealing me from Him.</p>
<p>So there the editor sits in his seclusion. Nobody
is so unobtrusive. You may read your paper, day
after day, year in and year out, without even discovering
the editor’s name. You would not recognize
him if you met him on the street. He may be young
<SPAN name="p061" id="p061"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>65<span class="ns">]
</span></span>or old, tall or short, stout or slim, dark or fair,
shabby or genteel—you have no idea. There is
something strangely mysterious about the elusive
individuality of that potent personage who every
day draws so near to you, and yet of whom you know
so little. One of these days I shall be invited to
preach a special sermon to editors, and, in view of
so dazzling an opportunity, I have already selected
my text. I shall speak of that Ideal Servant of
Humanity of whom the prophet tells. ‘He shall
not scream, nor be loud, nor advertise Himself,’
Isaiah says, ‘but He shall never break a bruised
reed nor quench a smouldering wick.’ That would
make a great theme for a sermon to editors. There
He is, so mysterious and yet so mighty; so remote
and yet so omniscient; so invisible and yet so
eloquent; so slow to obtrude Himself and yet so
swift to discern any flickering spark of genius in
others. He shall not advertise Himself nor quench
a single smouldering wick.</p>
<p>There are two great moments in the history of a
manuscript. The first is the moment of its preparation;
the second is the moment of its appearance.
And in between the two comes the editor’s censorship
and revision. I said just now that I had noticed
that editorial emendations are almost invariably
distinct improvements. The article as it appears is
better than the article as it left my hands. Now
<SPAN name="p062" id="p062"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>66<span class="ns">]
</span></span>let me think. I spoke a moment ago of the child-manuscript
and the snake-manuscript; but what
about myself? Am not I too a manuscript, and shall
I not also fall into the Editor’s hands? What about
all the blots, and the smudges, and the erasures,
and the alterations? Will they all be seen when I
appear, <em>when I appear</em>? The Editor sees to that.
The Editor will take care that none of the smudges
on this poor manuscript shall be seen when I appear.
‘For we know,’ says one of the Editor’s most intimate
friends, ‘we know that <em>when we appear</em> we shall be
like Him—without spot or wrinkle or any such
thing!’ It is a great thing to know that, before I
appear, I shall undergo the Editor’s revision.</p>
<p>Charlie was very excited. His father was a
sailor. The ship was homeward bound, and dad
would soon be home. Thinking so intently and
exclusively of his father’s coming, Charlie determined
to carve out a ship of his own. He took a block of
wood, and set to work. But the wood was hard,
and the knife was blunt, and Charlie’s fingers were
very small.</p>
<p>‘Dad may be here when you wake up in the morning,
Charlie!’ his mother said to him one night.</p>
<p>That night Charlie took his ship and his knife to
bed with him. When his father came at midnight
Charlie was fast asleep, the blistered hand on the
counterpane not far from the knife and the ship.<!-- TN: period invisible in original -->
<SPAN name="p063" id="p063"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>67<span class="ns">]
</span></span>The father took the ship, and, with his own strong
hand, and his own sharp knife, it was soon a trim
and shapely vessel. Charlie awoke with the lark
next morning, and, proudly seizing his ship, he
ran to greet his father; and it is difficult to say which
of the two was the more proud of it. It is an infinite
comfort to know that, however blotted and blurred
this poor manuscript may be when I lay down my
pen at night, the Editor will see to it that I have
nothing to be ashamed of <em>when I appear</em> in the
morning.</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p064" id="p064"></SPAN>
<h3 title="VI. The peacemaker"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>68<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>VI</big><br/>THE PEACEMAKER</h3>
<p><span class="smc">Things</span> had come to a pretty pass up at Corinth,
when Paul felt it incumbent upon him to write to
the members of the Church, imploring them to be
reconciled to God. ‘Now then,’ Paul said to those
recalcitrant believers, ‘now then, we are ambassadors
for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us,
we pray you, in Christ’s stead, <em>be ye reconciled
to God</em>.’ I used to wonder what he can possibly
have meant; but now I think I understand.</p>
<h4 title="">I</h4>
<p>Claudius was wealthy. He dwelt in a beautiful
house on the top of a hill, on the eastern side of the
city of Corinth. From his spacious balconies he
looked down upon the blue, blue waters of the
Adriatic as they lapped caressingly the sands of the
bay on the one side, and on the spreading sapphire of
the island-studded Aegean gleaming most charmingly
upon the other. Away in the distance he commanded
a magnificent prospect, and could clearly
make out the towers and domes of Athens as they
pierced the sky on the far horizon. The Acropolis
could be seen distinctly. It was a delightful home,
<SPAN name="p065" id="p065"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>69<span class="ns">]
</span></span>delightfully situated. Claudius was a member of
the Church; but he was not very happy about it.
Claudius had prospered amazingly of late years,
and his prosperity had involved him in commercial
and social entanglements from which it would be
very difficult now to escape. The life that Claudius
had set before himself in the early days of his spiritual
experience seemed to him later on like a beautiful
dream. That is to say, it seemed to him like a dream
when he thought about it; but he did not think
about it more often than he could help. Claudius
knew perfectly well that the life of which he used
to dream was worth some sacrifice; and he knew
that he was really the poorer, and not the richer, for
having abandoned that radiant ideal. He occasionally
attended the assembly of worshippers, it is true;
but he derived small satisfaction from the exercise.
It seemed like exposing his poor withered, emaciated
soul to the limelight; and he saw with a start how
starved and famished it had become. And so the
inner experience of poor Claudius became a perpetual
battle-ground. At times the old dream seemed
within an ace of being victorious. He was more
than half inclined to break away from all his later
entanglements, and to renew the ardour of his
youthful aspirations. But he had scarcely reached
this devout determination when the glamour of
his later life once more began to dazzle him. Alluring
<SPAN name="p066" id="p066"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>70<span class="ns">]
</span></span>invitations, temptingly phrased, poured in upon
him. It is horrid to be discourteous! How could
he bring himself to offend people from whom he
had received nothing but kindness? Surely a man
owes something to the proprieties of life! And so
the fight went on. But in the depths of his secret
soul Claudius knew that that fight was a fight between
Claudius on the one hand and God on the other.
He knew, too, that in that stern conflict Claudius
was altogether wrong, and God was altogether right.
And he knew that, if he persisted in the unequal
struggle, nothing but shame and humiliation awaited
him. Claudius knew it, and Paul knew it. Paul
knew it, and proffered his good offices as mediator.
‘Now then,’ he wrote, with Claudius in his eye,
‘now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though
God did beseech you by us, we pray you, in Christ’s
stead, <em>be ye reconciled to God</em>.’ And the words
brought to the heart of poor Claudius just such a
surge of vehement emotion as a lover feels at the
prospect of once more embracing the beloved form
with which he had so angrily and hastily parted.</p>
<h4 title="">II</h4>
<p>Polonius and Phebe were in a very different
case. Polonius dwelt close to the city in order to
be near his work, and his windows commanded
no view of any kind. He was not a slave, but
<SPAN name="p067" id="p067"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>71<span class="ns">]
</span></span>sometimes he said bitterly that the slaves were as
happy as he. The world had gone hardly with
Polonius. The stars in their courses seemed to be
fighting against him. He had tried hard to be
brave, but circumstances sometimes conspire against
courage. Polonius, in spite of the most commendable
endeavours, was poor; yet if poverty had been his
only misfortune he could have borne it with a smile.
But, in addition to poverty, troubles came thick
and fast upon him. Like Claudius, he was a member
of the church at Corinth; and it was in connexion
with his labours of love for the sanctuary that he
had first met Phebe. She was young and fair in
those days, and her loveliness was glorified by her
devotion. But his love for her had fallen upon her
tender spirit like a malediction. It was as though
his fondness for his sweet young wife had woven a
malignant spell about her early womanhood. He
would have died a thousand deaths to make her
happy; yet since first they linked their lives they
had known nothing but incessant struggle and
ceaseless grief. Phebe herself had been ill again
and again. Four little children had stolen like
sunbeams into their home; only, like sunbeams,
to vanish again, and give place to tempests of tears.
Then came a long blank; and they fancied they
were doomed to spend the rest of their sad lives
childlessly. But, at length, to their unspeakable
<SPAN name="p068" id="p068"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>72<span class="ns">]
</span></span>delight, their little home once more resounded with
the shout of baby merriment and the patter of baby
footsteps. It was as if the four children who had
perished had bequeathed to this new treasure all
the affection that they had excited in the breasts of
their poor parents. And then, after seven happy
years, it too faded and died. Polonius and Phebe
were broken-hearted. Never again, they said, would
they go to the assembly at Corinth. How could
they believe in the love of God after this? And
so their hearts grew hard, and their souls were
soured, and all sweetness departed from their spirits.</p>
<p>There is a story very like this in our own literature.
In the old house at Kettering, Andrew Fuller was
lying ill in one room, whilst his only surviving
daughter—a child of six—lay at the point of death
in the next. He tried hard to reconcile himself
and his poor wife to the impending calamity.
But their spirits revolted. The thought that, after
having buried first one child and then another,
this one too might be snatched from them was more
than they could bear. But, ‘on Tuesday, May 30,’
says Fuller in his diary, ‘on Tuesday, May 30, as
I lay ill in bed in another room, I heard a whispering.
I inquired, and all were silent! All were silent!—but
all is well. <em>I feel reconciled to God</em>.’ That is
a fine saying. ‘<em>I feel reconciled to God</em>.’ But poor
Polonius and Phebe could as yet enter no such
<SPAN name="p069" id="p069"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>73<span class="ns">]
</span></span>brave words in their domestic record. ‘Wherefore,’
writes Paul, with a thought, perhaps, of Polonius
and Phebe, ‘wherefore we are ambassadors for
Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we
pray you, in Christ’s stead, <em>be ye reconciled to God</em>.’
And when Polonius and Phebe heard that touching
appeal they resolved no longer to kick against the
pricks. ‘Renew my will,’ they prayed, anticipating
the language of a later hymn:</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>Renew my will from day to day;</div>
<div>Blend it with Thine; and take away</div>
<div>All that now makes it hard to say,</div>
<div class="indent6"><span class="ns"> </span>‘Thy will be done!’</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>And, like Andrew Fuller and his wife at Kettering,
Polonius and his wife at Corinth were able to say,
‘<em>I feel reconciled to God</em>.’</p>
<h4 title="">III</h4>
<p>To the south of Corinth, just where the great main
road begins to ascend the ridge of the mountains,
lived Julia. Julia was a widow, comfortably circumstanced.
Her husband had died years before,
leaving her with the charge of their one young son.
And as the days had gone by, and time had sprinkled
strands of silver into Julia’s hair, she had built her
hopes more and more upon the future of her boy.
<SPAN name="p070" id="p070"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>74<span class="ns">]
</span></span>Julia’s husband had died before either he or she had
so much as heard the name of Jesus. But after his
death Paul came over from Athens to Corinth in the
course of that first memorable visit to Europe, and
Julia had been among his earliest converts. After
her conversion Julia often thought of her husband,
and was ill at ease. But, like a wise woman, she
determined to work for the things that remained
rather than to weep over those that were lost to her.
And so she devoted all her love, and all her thought,
and all her energy, and all her time to her little son.
When Paul’s first letter to the Christians at Corinth
was read to the church, she caught a phrase about
being ‘baptized for the dead.’ She did not quite
know what Paul meant by the words; but at any
rate she would try to instil into the heart of her boy
the lovely faith that she felt certain her husband
would cheerfully have embraced. And wonderfully
she succeeded. The boy listened with eyes wide
open to the tender stories that Julia told him, and
his heart acknowledged their profound significance.
At the same age at which Jesus went with Mary to
the Temple, and was found in the midst of the
doctors, young Amplius went with Julia up to the
church at Corinth, and was found in the midst of
the deacons.</p>
<p>From the very first the soul of Amplius prospered.
He was like those trees of which the psalmist sings
<SPAN name="p071" id="p071"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>75<span class="ns">]
</span></span>which, ‘planted in the courts of the Lord, flourish in
the house of our God.’ From the time of his baptism
and reception into the sacred fellowship, the child
Amplius grew, like the child Jesus, and waxed strong
in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God
was upon him. Then, after about six years of happy
Christian experience, Amplius confided a wonderful
secret to Julia. He told her that he had resolved,
with her consent, to devote himself to the sacred
office of the ministry. And at that word the soul
of Julia died within her. She knew what those
early preachers and teachers had suffered. She
knew of the martyrdom of all those first apostles.
She had heard that even Paul himself had been ‘in
journeyings often, in perils of rivers and in perils
of robbers, in perils by his own countrymen and
in perils of the heathen, in perils of the city and in
perils of the desert, in perils of the sea and in perils
among false brethren.’ And Julia’s heart failed
her as she thought of Amplius faced by such dangers.
Moreover, Julia had other plans for Amplius. She
had fondly dreamed of him as holding a great place
in the city of Corinth. When she had seen rulers and
governors performing exalted functions on State
occasions, she had said within herself, ‘Some day,
perhaps, Amplius will wear those robes,’ or ‘Some
day, perhaps, Amplius will make that speech.’
And now all such dreams were rudely shattered.
<SPAN name="p072" id="p072"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>76<span class="ns">]
</span></span>Her son would fain be a minister, an outcast, perhaps
even a martyr. And at that thought the soul of
Julia rebelled, and she began to fight against God.</p>
<p>There is a case like this, also, in our own literature.
Grey Hazelrigg was the only child of Lady Hazelrigg,
of Carlton Hall. Her ladyship intended her son for
the army, but he failed to pass the tests. She then
sent him to Cambridge University. There he came
under deep religious influences. He began, as
opportunities presented themselves, to preach the
gospel. His efforts met with immediate acceptance,
and he wrote to his astonished mother to say that
he desired to become a minister of the old Strict
Baptist Communion! The request struck Carlton
Hall like a thunderbolt, and the spirit of Lady
Hazelrigg rose in instant revolt. But Grey prayed
in secret, and preached in public, and pleaded with
his mother whenever a suitable opportunity occurred.
Then came an experience of which, the Rev. W. Y.
Fullerton says, he spoke with sparkling eyes seventy
years afterwards. He was on a journey when his
mind was suddenly and strangely arrested by the
words of Jeremiah, ‘Verily, it shall be well with
Thy remnant.’ He took it to refer to Lady Hazelrigg’s
opposition to his call; and, surely enough, ‘the
very next letter that he received from his mother
bore the joyful tidings that she was, as she herself
phrased it, <em>reconciled to God</em>.’ Mr. Grey Hazelrigg
<SPAN name="p073" id="p073"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>77<span class="ns">]
</span></span>lived to be nearly a hundred, and his work, both as
a writer and a preacher, will be remembered in
England with thankfulness for many a day to come.
There can be no doubt, therefore, that, in those
earlier days, Lady Hazelrigg was fighting against
God. And there can be no doubt, either, that, in
those early days, Julia was fighting against God.
And therefore Paul wrote as he did, perhaps with
Julia specially in mind. ‘Now then,’ he said, ‘we
are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did
beseech you by us, we pray you, in Christ’s stead,
<em>be ye reconciled to God</em>.’ And, like Lady Hazelrigg,
Julia made her peace with God, and her son adorned
the Christian ministry for many a long day.</p>
<h4 title="">IV</h4>
<p>‘<em>Be ye reconciled to God</em>’—Paul the Peacemaker
wrote to the Christians at Corinth. It is vastly
important. We so easily drift away from early
attachments and early friendships; and even the
divine friendship is not immune from this cruel and
heartless treatment. We drift away from it, and
must needs be reconciled. ‘<em>Be ye reconciled to God</em>,’
says Paul the Peacemaker ‘for unless you yourselves
are reconciled to God, how can you reconcile to God
those who are without?’ How can I reconcile hearts
that are alienated if, between either of those hearts
<SPAN name="p074" id="p074"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>78<span class="ns">]
</span></span>and mine, there exists some embarrassing estrangement?
‘<em>Be ye reconciled to God</em>,’ said Paul the
Peacemaker to the church at Corinth, for he knew
that the Church’s ministry of reconciliation would
stand stultified and useless so long as the Church
herself was out of touch with her Lord.</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p075" id="p075"></SPAN>
<h3 title="VII. Nothing"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>79<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>VII</big><br/>NOTHING</h3>
<p><span class="smc">Nature</span>, they say, abhors a vacuum. For the life
of me, I do not know why. But then, for the matter
of that, I do not know why I myself love many
of the things that I love, and loathe many of the
things that I abhor. Nature, however, is not usually
capricious. Some deep policy generally prompts
her strange behaviour. I must go into this matter
a little more carefully. First of all, what is a
vacuum? What is Nothing?</p>
<p>I was at a prize distribution not long ago, and as
I came out into the street I came upon a little chap
crying as though his heart would break. He was
quite alone. His parents had not thought it worth
their while to accompany him to the function, and
thus show their interest in his school life. Perhaps
it was owing to the same lack of sympathy on their
part that he was among the few boys who were
bearing home no prize.</p>
<p>‘Hullo, sonny,’ I exclaimed,‘what’s the matter?’</p>
<p>‘<em>Oh, nothing!</em>’ he replied, between his sobs.</p>
<p>‘Then what on earth are you crying for?’</p>
<p>‘<em>Oh, nothing!</em>’ he repeated.</p>
<p><SPAN name="p076" id="p076"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>80<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>I respected his delicacy, and probed no farther
into the cause of his discomfiture, but I had collected
further evidence of my contention that there is
more in Nothing than you would suppose. Nor
had I gone far before still further corroboration
greeted me. For, at the top of the street, I came
upon a group of lads in the centre of which was a
boy with a very handsome prize. I paused and
admired it.</p>
<p>‘And what was this for?’ I asked.</p>
<p>‘<em>Oh, nothing!</em>’ he answered, with a blush.<!-- TN: period invisible in original --></p>
<p>‘But, my dear fellow, you must have done something
to deserve it!’</p>
<p>‘<em>Oh, it was nothing!</em>’ he reiterated, and it was
from his companions that I obtained the information
that I sought. But here again it was made clear
to me that there is a good deal in Nothing. Nothing
is worth thinking about. It is a huge mistake to
take things at their face value. Nothing may sometimes
represent a modest contrivance for hiding
everything; and we must not allow ourselves to
be deceived.</p>
<p>An old tradition assures us that, on the sudden
death of one of Frederick the Great’s chaplains,
a certain candidate showed himself most eager for
the vacant post. The king told him to proceed to
the royal chapel and to preach an impromptu sermon
on a text that he would find in the pulpit on arrival.
<SPAN name="p077" id="p077"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>81<span class="ns">]
</span></span>When the critical moment arrived, the preacher
opened the sealed packet, and found it—<em>blank</em>!
Not a word or pen-mark appeared! With a calm
smile the clergyman cast his eyes over the congregation,
and then said, ‘Brethren, here is Nothing.
Blessed is he whom Nothing can annoy, whom
Nothing can make afraid or swerve from his duty.
We read that God from Nothing made all things.
And yet look at the stupendous majesty of His
infinite creation! And does not Job tell us that
Nothing is the foundation of everything? “He
hangeth the world upon Nothing,” the patriarch
declares.’ The candidate then proceeded to elaborate
the wonder and majesty of that creation that
emanated from Nothing, and depended on Nothing.
I need scarcely add that Frederick bestowed upon
so ingenious a preacher the vacant chaplaincy. And
in the years that followed he became one of the
monarch’s most intimate friends and most trusted
advisers.</p>
<p>We must not, however, fly to the opposite extreme,
and make too much of Nothing. For the odd thing
is that, twice at least in her strange and chequered
history, the Church has fallen in love with members
of the Nothing family, and, after the fashion of
lovers, has completely lost her head over them.
On the first occasion she became deeply enamoured
of Doing Nothing, and on the second occasion
<SPAN name="p078" id="p078"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>82<span class="ns">]
</span></span>she went crazy over Having-Nothing. I must tell
of these amorous exploits one at a time. The adoration
of Doing-Nothing had a great vogue at one
stage of the Church’s history. Who that has once
read the thirty-seventh chapter of Gibbon’s <cite>Decline
and Fall</cite>—the chapter on ‘The Origin, Progress,
and Effects of the Monastic Life’—will ever cease
to be haunted by the weird, fantastic spectacle
therein presented? Men suddenly took it into their
heads that the only way of serving God was by doing
nothing. They swarmed out into the deserts, and
lived solitary lives. They took vows of perpetual
silence, and ceased to speak; they ate only the most
disgusting food; they lived the lives of wild beasts.
‘Even sleep, the last refuge of the unhappy, was
rigorously measured; the vacant hours rolled heavily
on, without business and without pleasure; and,
before the close of each day, the tedious progress
of the sun was repeatedly accursed.’ Here was an
amazing phenomenon. It was, of course, only a
passing fancy, the merest piece of coquetry on the
Church’s part. It is unthinkable that she thought
seriously of Doing-Nothing, and of settling down
with him for the rest of her natural life. The glamour
of this casual flirtation soon wore off. The Church
discovered to her mortification that there was nothing
in Nothing. Saint Anthony, of Alexandria, who felt
that the life of the city was too full of incitement to
<SPAN name="p079" id="p079"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>83<span class="ns">]
</span></span>frivolity and pleasure, fled to the desert, to escape
from these temptations. He became a hermit.
But he gave it up, and returned to Alexandria.
The abominable imaginations that haunted his
mind in the solitude were far more loathsome and
degrading than anything he had experienced in
the busy city. Fra Angelico, who also fell in love
with Doing-Nothing, says that he heard the flapping
of the wings of unclean things about his lonely cell.
And Francis Xavier has told us of the seven terrible
days that he spent in the tomb of Thomas at Malabar.
‘All around me,’ he says, ‘malignant devils prowled
incessantly, and wrestled with me with invisible
but obscene hands.’ It is the old story, there is
nothing in Nothing; and he who falls in love with
any member of that family will live to regret the
adventure. I remember being greatly impressed
by a sentence or two in Nansen’s <cite>Farthest North</cite>.
He is describing the maddening monotony of the
interminable Arctic night. ‘Ah!’ he exclaims
suddenly, ‘life’s peace is said to be found by holy
men in the desert. Here indeed is desert enough;
<em>but peace!</em>—of that I know nothing. I suppose
it is the holiness that is lacking.’ The explorer
was simply discovering that there is nothing in
Nothing but what you yourself take into it.</p>
<p>One would have supposed that, after this heart-breaking
affair with Doing-Nothing, the Church
<SPAN name="p080" id="p080"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>84<span class="ns">]
</span></span>would have been on her guard against all members
of the Nothing family. But no! she was deceived a
second time—in this instance by the wiles of Having-Nothing.
I allude, of course, to the story of the
Mendicant Orders. We all know how Francis
d’Assisi fell in love with Poverty. One day, to
the consternation of his friends, they received a
letter from the gay young soldier, telling them of
his intention to lead an entirely new life. ‘I am
thinking of taking a wife more beautiful, more rich,
more pure than you could ever imagine.’ The wife
was the Lady Poverty; and Giotto, in a fresco at
Assisi, has represented Francis placing the ring on
the finger of his bride. The feminine figure is
crowned with roses, but she is arrayed in rags, and
her feet are bruised with stones and torn with
briars. Francis borrowed the tattered and filthy
garments of a beggar, and sought alms at the street
corners that he might enter into the secret of poverty;
and then he and Dominic founded those orders of
mendicant monks which became one of the most
potent missionary forces of the Middle Ages.</p>
<p>But once again the Church found out that her
affections were being played with. There is no
more virtue in Having-Nothing than in Doing-Nothing.
They are both good-for-nothing. It may
be that some of us would be better men if we had less
money; but then, others of us would be better men
<SPAN name="p081" id="p081"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>85<span class="ns">]
</span></span>if we had more. It may be that, here and there,
you may find a Silas Marner who has been saved by
sudden poverty from miserly greed and hardening
self-absorption. But, for one such case, it would
be easy to point to hundreds of men who have been
driven by poverty from the ways of honour, and to
hundreds of women who have been forced by poverty
from the paths of virtue. It all comes back to this:
there is nothing in Nothing. Doing-Nothing and
Having-Nothing are deceivers—the pair of them;
and the Church must not be beguiled by their blandishments.
Work and money are both good things.
Even William Law saw that. His <cite>Serious Call</cite>
has often almost made a monk of me, but a sudden
flash of common sense always breaks from the page
just in time. ‘There are two things,’ he says in
his fine chapter on ‘The Wise and Pious Use of an
Estate,’ ‘there are two things which, of all others,
most want to be under a strict rule, and which are
the greatest blessings both to ourselves and others,
when they are rightly used. These two things are
our time and our money. These talents are the
continual means and opportunities of doing good.’
Beware, that is to say, of Doing-Nothing, of Having-Nothing,
and of the whole family of Nothings.
It is not for nothing that Nature abhors them.</p>
<p>And now it suddenly comes home to me that I
am playing on the very verge of a tremendous
<SPAN name="p082" id="p082"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>86<span class="ns">]
</span></span>truth. There is nothing in Nothing. Let me
remember that when next I am at death-grips
with temptation! Cupid is said to have complained
to Jupiter that he could never seize the
Muses because he could never find them idle.
And I suppose that our everyday remark that
‘Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to
do’ has its origin in the same idea. John Locke,
the great philosopher, used to say that, in the hour
of temptation, he preferred any company rather than
his own. If possible, he sought the companionship
of children. Anything rather than Nothing. It
reminds us of Hannibal. The great Carthaginian
led his troops up the Alpine passes, but he found that
the heights were strongly held by the Romans.
Attack was out of the question. Hannibal watched
closely one night, however, and discovered that,
under cover of darkness, the enemy withdrew for
the night to the warmer valley on the opposite slope.
Next night, therefore, Hannibal led his troops to the
heights, and, when the Roman general approached
in the morning, he found that the tables had been
turned upon him. There is always peril in vacancy.
The uncultivated garden brings forth weeds. The
unoccupied mind becomes the devil’s playground.
The vacant soul is a lost soul. There is nothing in
Nothing.</p>
<p>But for the greatest illustration of my present
<SPAN name="p083" id="p083"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>87<span class="ns">]
</span></span>theme I must betake me to Mark Rutherford. The
incident occurred at the most sunless and joyless
stage of Mark’s career.<!-- TN: period invisible in original --> From all his wretchedness
he sought relief in Nothing.<!-- TN: period invisible in original --> He kept his own
company, wandered about the fields, abandoned
himself to moods, and lost himself in vague and
insoluble problems. But one day a strange thing
happened. ‘I was walking along under the south
side of a hill, which was a great place for butterflies,
when I saw a man, apparently about fifty years old,
coming along with a butterfly net.’ They soon
chummed up. ‘He told me that he had come seven
miles that morning to that spot, because he knew that
it was haunted by one particular species of butterfly;
and, as it was a still, bright day, he hoped to find a
specimen.’ At first Mark Rutherford felt a kind of
contempt for a man who could give himself up to so
childish a pastime. But, later on, he heard his story.
Years before he had married a delicate girl, of whom
he was devotedly fond. She died in childbirth,
leaving him completely broken. And, by some
inscrutable mystery of fate, the child grew up to be
a cripple, horribly deformed, inexpressibly hideous,
as ugly as an ape, as lustful as a satyr, and as ferocious
as a tiger! The son, after many years, died in a
mad-house; and the horror of it all nearly consigned
his poor father to a similar asylum. ‘During those
dark days,’ he told Mark Rutherford, ‘I went on
<SPAN name="p084" id="p084"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>88<span class="ns">]
</span></span><em>gazing gloomily into dark emptiness</em>, till all life became
nothing for me.’ <em>Gazing into emptiness</em>, mark you!
Then there swept across this aching void of nothingness
a beautiful butterfly! It caught his fancy,
interested him, filled the gap, and saved his reason
from uttermost collapse. He began collecting butterflies.
He was no longer <em>gazing into emptiness</em>.
And the moral of the incident is stated in a single
sentence. ‘Men should not be too curious in
analysing and condemning any means which Nature
devises to save them from themselves, whether it be
coins, old books, curiosities, fossils, or butterflies.’</p>
<p>‘Any means which Nature devises.’ We are
back to Nature again.</p>
<p>‘Nature abhors a vacuum’; it was at that point
that we set out.</p>
<p>I see now that Nature is right, after all. I can
never be saved by Nothing. The abstract will
never satisfy me. I want something; aye, more,
I want <em>Some One</em>; and until I find <em>Him</em> my restless
soul calls down all the echoing corridors of Nothingness,
‘Oh that I knew <em>where I might find Him</em>!’</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p085" id="p085"></SPAN>
<h3 title="VIII. The angel and the iron gate"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>89<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>VIII</big><br/>THE ANGEL AND THE IRON GATE</h3>
<p><span class="smc">It</span> is of no use arguing against an iron gate. There
it stands—chained and padlocked, barred and bolted—right
across your path, and you can neither coax
nor cow it into yielding. So was it with Peter on the
night of his miraculous escape from prison. ‘Herod,’
we are told, ‘killed James with the sword, and,
because he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded
to take Peter also.’ There he lay, ‘sleeping between
two soldiers, bound with chains, whilst the keepers
before the door kept the prison.’ He expected
that his next visitor would be the headsman;
and whilst he waited for the <em>executioner</em>, there
came an <em>angel</em>! This sort of thing happens
fairly often. They are sitting round the fire,
and the lady in the arm-chair is talking of her
sailor-son.</p>
<p>‘Ah!’ she says, ‘I haven’t heard of him for over
a year now, and I begin to think that I shall never
hear again.’</p>
<p>There is a sharp ring at the bell. She starts.</p>
<p>‘Something tells me,’ she continues, ‘that this
<SPAN name="p086" id="p086"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>90<span class="ns">]
</span></span>is a message to say that the ship is lost, and that
I shall never see my boy again.’</p>
<p>Even whilst she speaks the door is opened, and
her last syllable is scarcely uttered before she is
folded in the sailor’s arms.</p>
<p>The principle holds true to the very end. It
is a sick-room, and the pale wan face of the patient
looks very weary.</p>
<p>‘Oh, how I dread death!’ she says; ‘I cannot
bear to think that I must die.’</p>
<p>An hour later the door of the unseen opens to her,
and there stands on the threshold, not Death, but
<em>Life Everlasting</em>!</p>
<p>Peter very, very often waits for the executioner,
and welcomes an angel.</p>
<h4 title="">I</h4>
<p>During the next few moments Peter scarcely
knew whether he was in the body or out of the body.
Was he alive or was he dead? Was he waking or
was he dreaming? ‘He wist not that it was true
which was done by the angel, but thought he saw
a vision.’ He walked like a man with his head
in the clouds. Doors were opening; chains were
falling; he seemed to be living in a land of enchantment,
a world of magic. But the iron gate put an
end to all illusion. ‘They came to the iron gate,’
and, as I said a moment ago, an iron gate is a very
<SPAN name="p087" id="p087"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>91<span class="ns">]
</span></span>difficult thing to argue with. The iron gate represents
the return to reality. After our most radiant
spiritual experiences we come abruptly to the
humdrum and the commonplace. It was Mary’s
Sunday evening out. Mary, you must know, is a
housemaid in a big boarding establishment, and her
life is by no means an easy one. But Mary is also
a member of the Church. On Sunday she was in
her favourite seat. Perhaps it was that she was
specially hungry for some uplifting word, or perhaps
it was that the message was peculiarly suitable to
her condition; but, be that as it may, the service that
night seemed to carry poor Mary to the very gate
of heaven. The Communion Service that followed
completed her ecstasy, and Mary seemed scarcely
to touch the pavement with her feet as she hurried
home. She fell asleep crooning to herself the hymn
with which the service closed:</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>O Love, that will not let me go,</div>
<div>I rest my weary soul in Thee;</div>
<div>I give Thee back the life I owe,</div>
<div>That in Thine ocean depths its flow</div>
<div class="indent6"><span class="ns"> </span>May richer, fuller be.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>She knew nothing more until, in the chilly dark of
the morning, the alarum clock screamed at her to
jump up, clean the cold front steps, dust the great
silent rooms, and light the copper-fire. ‘And she
<SPAN name="p088" id="p088"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>92<span class="ns">]
</span></span>came to the iron gate.’ There come points in life
at which poetry merges into the severest prose;
romance yields to reality; the miracle of the open
prison is succeeded by the menace of the iron gate.</p>
<h4 title="">II</h4>
<p>As long as Peter had an iron gate before him,
he had an angel beside him. It was not until the
iron gate had been safely negotiated that ‘forthwith
the angel departed from him.’ Mary made a mistake
when she fancied that she had left all the glory behind
her. The angel is with us more often than we think.
A devout Jew, in bidding you farewell, will always
use a plural pronoun. And if you ask for whom,
besides yourself, his blessing is intended, he will
reply that it is for you and for <em>the angel over your
shoulder</em>. We are too fond of fancying that the
angel is only with us when the chains are miraculously
falling from off our feet, and when the doors are
miraculously opening before our faces. We are too
slow to believe that the angel is still by our side
when we emerge into the night and come to the
iron gate. It is a very ancient heathen superstition.
‘There came a man of God, and spake unto the
king of Israel, and said, Thus saith the Lord, because
the Syrians have said, “The Lord is God of the
<em>hills</em>, but He is not God of the <em>valleys</em>,” therefore
will I deliver all this great multitude into thine hand,
<SPAN name="p089" id="p089"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>93<span class="ns">]
</span></span>and ye shall know that I am the Lord.’ We are
always assuming that He is the God of the mountaintops,
and that He leaves us to thread the darksome
valleys alone; and our assumption is a cruel and
unjust one. As long as Peter had an iron gate
before him, he had an angel beside him.</p>
<h4 title="">III</h4>
<p>The converse, however, is equally true. As long
as Peter had an angel beside him, he had an iron
gate ahead of him. Angels do not walk by our
sides for fun. ‘Are they not all ministering spirits,
sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs
of salvation?’ If there is an angel by my side,
depend upon it, there is work that only an angel can
do in front of me. Mary’s radiant experience that
Sunday evening was directly and intimately related
with the brazen yell of the alarum clock on Monday
morning. It was not intended as a mere temporary
elevation of the spirit, but as an assurance of a
gracious presence—a presence that should never
be withdrawn as long as a need existed. It is part
of the infinite pathos of life that we misinterpret
our visions. Jacob beheld his staircase leading
from earth to heaven, with angels ascending and
descending upon it. And straightway, as he prepared
to leave, he began to say good-bye to the
angels! ‘Surely,’ he exclaimed, ‘the Lord is
<SPAN name="p090" id="p090"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>94<span class="ns">]
</span></span>in <em>this place</em>! How dreadful is <em>this place</em>! <em>This</em>
is none other but the house of God, and <em>this</em> is the
gate of heaven! And he called the name of <em>that
place</em> Bethel!’ And thus he missed the whole
meaning of the beatific vision. The vision was to
warn him of the perils that awaited him, and to
assure him that ‘behold, I am with thee in <em>all
places</em> whither thou goest.’</p>
<p>‘<em>All places!</em>’ said the Vision.</p>
<p>‘This place! <em>this place!</em> <span class="smc">This Place</span>!’ said Jacob.</p>
<p>And so he journeyed on towards his iron gate,
pitifully ignorant of the meaning of the golden
dream. Life’s ecstasies are warnings, premonitions,
danger-signals. Even in the experience of the
Holiest, the open heavens and the voice from the
excellent glory immediately preceded the grim
struggle with the tempter in the wilderness. Paul
had his vision; he saw the Man of Macedonia;
and he followed the gleam—to bonds, stripes, and
imprisonment. Bunyan knew what he was doing
when he placed the Palace Beautiful, with all its
sweet hospitalities and delightful ministries, immediately
before that dark Valley of Humiliation in
which Christian struggled with Apollyon. When we
hear angels’ voices speaking, when we find our
fetters falling, when we see our jail doors opening,
be very sure that outside, outside, there is a dark
night and an iron gate!</p>
<h4 title=""><SPAN name="p091" id="p091"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>95<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>IV</h4>
<p>But there is always this about it. Although the
radiant vision is a premonition of the coming struggle,
it is also an augury concerning that struggle. Opening
doors are an earnest of opening gates. It is inconceivable
that I shall be miraculously delivered from
my dungeon, with its guards and its chains, and
then be baulked by an iron gate out there in the
blackness of the night. It is inconceivable that here,
at the Communion Service, God should draw so
near to the spirit of this young housemaid, and then
leave her to face alone the drudgery of Monday
morning. If Mary is half as wise as I take her to
be, she will answer the scream of the clock with a
song. She went to bed singing; why not get up
singing? She crooned to herself on retiring the
hymn that had followed her from the Communion
Table. Let her sing in the morning quite another
tune:</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>His love, in time past, forbids me to think</div>
<div>He’ll leave me at last in trouble to sink,</div>
<div>Each sweet Ebenezer I have in review</div>
<div>Confirms His good pleasure to help me quite through.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>The voice of the angel, the falling of fetters, and the
opening of doors are all designed to brace us for
the dark night and the iron gate.</p>
<h4 title=""><SPAN name="p092" id="p092"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>96<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>V</h4>
<p>‘The iron gate opened to them.’ Of course it did.
Who could suppose that the prison doors had been
opened by angel’s hands, only that the prisoner
might be caught like a rat in a trap outside? ‘The
iron gate opened to them <em>of its own accord</em>.’ It did
look like it. During my twelve years at Mosgiel,
I often went through the great woollen factory.
The machines were marvellous—simply marvellous.
As you watched the needles slip in and out, or stood
beside the loom and saw the pattern grow, it really
looked as though the things were bewitched. They
seemed to be doing it all ‘of their own accord.’
But one day the manager said, ‘Would you care to
see the power-house?’ And he took me away
from the busy looms to another building altogether,
and there I saw the huge engines that drove everything.
Neither looms nor needles really work ‘of
their own accord.’ Nor do iron gates. A few minutes
after the gates had opened, and the angel had
vanished, Peter ‘came to the house of Mary, the
mother of Mark, where many were gathered together
praying.’ And then Peter understood by what
power the iron gates had opened, just as I understood,
when I saw the engine-room, how the great
looms worked.</p>
<p>The prayer-meeting may not be artistic. For
<SPAN name="p093" id="p093"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>97<span class="ns">]
</span></span>the matter of that I saw very little in the power-room
of the factory that appealed to the sense of
the aesthetic within me; but when angels visit
prisons, and iron gates swing open of their own accord,
there must be a driving-force at work somewhere.
And Peter only discovered it when he suddenly
broke in upon a midnight prayer-meeting.</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p094" id="p094"></SPAN>
<h3 title="IX. Short cuts"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>98<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>IX</big><br/>SHORT CUTS</h3>
<p><span class="smc">We</span> dearly love a short cut. Even in childhood we
resolved the discovery of short cuts into a kind of
juvenile science. There was the gap in the hedge,
or the low part of the wall, by which we could pass,
by means of a squeeze or a clamber, into the romantic
territory of our next-door neighbour. With what
fine scorn we inwardly derided the ridiculous behaviour
of our parents when, in visiting that selfsame
neighbour, they marched with solemn mien
out through the front gate, along the public highway
and in through the front gate of the house next
door! It took <em>them</em> five mortal minutes to reach a
spot that, by a stoop or a bound, <em>we</em> could have
reached in as many seconds! Then there was the
dusty track through the bush to the jetty; and the
footpath across the fields to the church. And with
what wild excitement we hailed a short cut to
school! When some adventurous spirit discovered
that, by going up a certain right-of-way, and climbing
a certain fence, we could approach the school playground
from a new and undreamed-of direction,
our transports knew no bounds. It was not the
<SPAN name="p095" id="p095"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>99<span class="ns">]
</span></span>lazy gratification of having invented a labour-saving
device; it was the stately joy of the explorer.
Half the romance of life was bound up with those
short cuts. The trysts of courtship were kept at
the stiles by which those surreptitious footways
were intersected. The most delightful walks we
ever enjoyed were the strolls along those uncharted
by-paths. It may have been for the sake of brevity
and a smart passage that they were first brought
into existence; yet it was not to their brevity, in
the last resort, that they owed their peculiar charm.
The gap through the hedge; the clamber over the
wall; the track through the bush to the jetty;
the footpath across the fields to the church; and
the right-of-way by which we took the school in
the rear—these appealed to a certain deep human
instinct that asserted itself within us; and, dissemblers
as we were, we just made-believe that we
pursued these courses in order to conserve our
energies and to save our time.</p>
<p>And thus we got into the habit. Whether it
was a good habit or a bad habit depends largely upon
the realm to which we applied it. In my own case,
it worked disastrously—at least at times. Since
I left school, for instance, I have always been considered
good at figures. Generally speaking, you
have but to state your problem, and I can furnish
you with the solution. In business—commercial
<SPAN name="p096" id="p096"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>100<span class="ns">]
</span></span>and ecclesiastical—this faculty has served me in
excellent stead. But at school it was of very little
use to me. And I find it of very little use when I
undertake to coach my children in anticipation of
approaching examinations. For at school the teacher
not only propounded the problem, and received my
answer; he went another step. He asked me how
I had arrived at that conclusion; and at that stage
of the ordeal I invariably collapsed. He was there
to teach me the rules; and I had as much contempt
for the rules as I had for the route by which my grave
and reverend parents made their way to our neighbour’s
door. I was content to squeeze through the
gap or to jump over the wall. The teacher was there
to show me the road to the jetty; I scorned the
road, and approached the jetty by the track through
the bush. I could see no sense in either roads or
rules if you could reach your destination more
expeditiously without them. But, to pass abruptly
from the microscopic to the magnificent, history
furnishes me with a quite dramatic and most convincing
demonstration of my point. In his <cite>Up
From Slavery</cite>, Mr. Booker Washington illustrates
this tendency again and again. The slaves were
freed. But it is one thing to be free, and quite
another thing to be worthy of the rights of freemen.
With one voice the black people cried out for education.
‘This experience of a whole race going to
<SPAN name="p097" id="p097"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>101<span class="ns">]
</span></span>school for the first time presents,’ says Mr. Washington,
‘one of the most interesting studies that has
ever occurred in connexion with the development
of any race.’ But many of the people were advanced
in years. To begin at the beginning and attain to
knowledge gradually seemed a tedious process.
It was like the round-about path from our front
door to that of our next-door neighbour. The
black people woke up late to the consciousness of
their racial possibilities; and, like most people who
wake up late, they spent the morning of their
freedom in a desperate hurry. Here is a young
coloured man, ‘sitting down in a one-room cabin,
with grease on his clothing, filth all around him,
and weeds in the yard and garden, engaged in
studying a French grammar!’ On another occasion,
Mr. Washington ‘had to take a student who had
been studying cube-root and banking and discount
and explain to him that the wisest thing for him to
do first was thoroughly to master the multiplication-table!’
There is much more to the same effect.
The black race made a frantic effort to run before
it had learned to walk. ‘I felt,’ says Mr. Booker
Washington, ‘that the conditions were a good deal
like those of an old coloured man, during the days
of slavery, who wanted to learn how to play on the
guitar. In his desire to take guitar lessons he applied
to one of his young masters to teach him; but the
<SPAN name="p098" id="p098"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>102<span class="ns">]
</span></span>young man, not having much faith in the ability
of the slave to master the guitar, sought to discourage
him by saying, “Uncle Jake, I will give you guitar
lessons; but, Jake, I will have to charge you three
dollars for the first lesson, two dollars for the second
lesson, and one dollar for the third lesson. But I
will charge you only twenty-five cents for the last
lesson.” To which Uncle Jake answered, “All
right, boss, I hires you on dem terms. But, boss, I
wants yer to be sure an’ give me dat las’ lesson first!”’
Here we have the imposing spectacle, not by any
means destitute of pathos, of an entire race seeking
to reach its destiny by a short cut.</p>
<p>But it is a mistake. For that ebullition of
juvenile depravity which disfigured my school-days
I do now repent in dust and ashes. I was
wrong; there can be no doubt about that. There
is a place in this world for rules and roads as well
as for gaps and tracks. I know now that my
parents were right in approaching our neighbour’s
door by way of the public thoroughfare. Life
has taught me, among other things, that short
cuts have their perils. It is the old story of
the Gordian knot over again. The Phrygians,
as everybody knows, were in grave perplexity,
and consulted the oracle. The oracle assured
them that all their troubles would cease as soon
as they chose for their king the first man they
<SPAN name="p099" id="p099"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>103<span class="ns">]
</span></span>met driving in his chariot to the temple of Jupiter.
Leaving the sacred building, they set out along
the road and soon met Gordius, whom they accordingly
elected king. Gordius drove on to the temple,
to return thanks for his elevation, and to consecrate
his chariot to the service of the gods. When the
chariot stood in the temple courts it was observed
that the pole was fastened to the yoke by a knot
of bark so artfully contrived that the ends could
not be seen. The oracle then declared that whosoever
should untie this Gordian knot should be
ruler over Asia. Alexander the Great approached,
but, finding himself unable to untie the knot, he
drew his sword and cut it. And the ancients said
that it was because he had cut the knot instead
of untying it that his dominion was so transitory
and so brief. I fancy that, if we look into it a
little, we shall find that half our troubles arise
from our bad habit of cutting the knots that we
ought to patiently untie.</p>
<p>Take our politics, by way of example. It is
much more easy to sit back in our chairs and pour
the vials of our criticism on the powers-that-be
than to make any sensible contribution to the
well-being of the State. A case in point occurs
in Mark Rutherford’s <cite>Clara Hopgood</cite>. Baruch and
Dennis are discussing those old social problems that
men have discussed since first this world began.
<SPAN name="p100" id="p100"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>104<span class="ns">]
</span></span>Dennis was enlarging upon the inequalities and
iniquities of social and industrial life, when Baruch
broke in with the pertinent and practical question:<!-- TN: colon incomplete in original -->
‘But what would you do for them?’</p>
<p>‘Ah, that beats me!’ replied Dennis. ‘I would
hang somebody, but I don’t know who it ought to
be!’</p>
<p>Precisely! To <em>cut</em> the knot with a sword is so
easy—and so ineffective; to <em>untie</em> it is so difficult—and
so rich in consequence. The politics that
consist of sentencing to summary execution statesmen
from whom we differ are within the intellectual
reach of most of us; and in that particular brand
of politics, therefore, most of us occasionally indulge.
But the politics that consist in really grappling
with the knotty problems, with a view to discovering
some means of ameliorating human misery, provide
us with a much more formidable task. Who has
intellect sufficiently clear, and fingers sufficiently
deft, to essay the untying of the Gordian knot?
The empire of the world awaits the coming of that
patient and persistent man.</p>
<p>Or look at another example. I often feel that
very little of the oratory expended on Protestant
platforms really touches the mark. It gets nowhere.
The real question at issue is most pitifully begged.
It may, of course, be diplomatic to keep people
well informed concerning the social evils that thrive
<SPAN name="p101" id="p101"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>105<span class="ns">]
</span></span>in Roman Catholic countries. It may, perhaps,
be permissible to emphasize the abuses that exist
within the pale of the Roman Catholic Church.
But a devout and intelligent Roman Catholic,
listening to such an utterance, would, after making
a reasonable allowance for rhetorical exaggeration
admit the truth of all that had been said, and go
home to weep, and, perhaps, to pray over it. Many
of those who have passed over from Protestant
communions to the Roman Catholic Church have
travelled very widely and observed very closely.
They are not ignorant. Newman sobbed over the
seamy side of Romanism before he made the
plunge. ‘I have never disguised,’ he wrote, ‘that
there are actual circumstances in the Church of
Rome which pain me much; we do not look toward
Rome as believing that its communion is infallible.’
Then, with his eyes wide open to all the facts on
which our orators dilate so luridly, he took the
fatal step. And again he wrote, ‘There is a divine
life among us, clearly manifested, in spite of all
our disorders, which is as great a note of the Church
as any can be.’</p>
<p>Now what was that divine note? Everything
hinges upon that. And unless our Protestant
speakers are prepared to face <em>that</em> issue they may
as well remain by their own firesides, lounge in
their cosiest chairs, wear their warmest slippers,
<SPAN name="p102" id="p102"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>106<span class="ns">]
</span></span>and enjoy the latest novels. It is only at this
point that sincere and groping minds can be helpfully
influenced. The whole question is one of
Authority. We dearly love a lord. There is no
escaping that fundamental fact. Every day Protestant
sheep stray into Roman Catholic pastures
because there they can actually see the shepherd
and actually feel his crook. The Roman Church,
with its hoary traditions, its encrusted ritual, and its
antique associations, crystallizes itself into a single
voice. It possesses an enthroned incarnation. It
has a Pope. Romanism is like a pine-tree. It
towers to a pinnacle. All its branches converge
upon the topmost bough. Protestantism is like
a palm. Its summit consists of a great cluster
of graceful fronds, but no one is uppermost.
Romanism is the adoration of the topmost twig.
In the person of the highest official, confused ears
catch the accent of authority for which they hunger.
Here they find the music of majesty. And they
nestle their aching heads in the lap of a Church
that will sternly command their trustfulness
and firmly insist upon implicit obedience. Thereafter
they need think no more. ‘In the midst
of our difficulties,’ wrote Newman, ‘I have one
ground of hope, just one stay, but, as I think, a
sufficient one. It serves me in the stead of all
arguments whatever; it hardens me against
<SPAN name="p103" id="p103"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>107<span class="ns">]
</span></span>criticism; it supports me if I begin to despond;
and to it I ever come round. It is the decision of
the Holy See; Saint Peter has spoken.’ Here the
weary brain finds rest. Here is the Gordian knot,
so trying to the fingers, cut swiftly with a sword.
Here is the discovery of a short cut that may save
the tired feet many a long and dreary trudge.</p>
<p>The temptation meets us at every turn. And
it is because that temptation is so general that it
figures so prominently in the Temptation in the
wilderness. He was tempted in all points like as
we are; and therefore He was tempted to take short
cuts. This is the essence of that weird and terrible
story. It is notable that all the three things that
Jesus was tempted to acquire were good things, things
to be desired, things that He was destined to possess.
But the whole point of the record is that He was
tempted to make His way to the bread and the
angels and the kingdoms by means of short cuts.
Now this is vastly significant. It is significant
because, when you come to think of it, nearly all
the things that <em>we</em> are tempted to acquire are good
things. The temptation consists in the suggestion
that we should possess ourselves of those good
things prematurely or illicitly. We are urged to
make short cuts to our legitimate goal. Jesus was
tempted to cut the Gordian knot, and to thus
obtain an immediate but fleeting hold on the objects
<SPAN name="p104" id="p104"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>108<span class="ns">]
</span></span>of His just desire. He rejected the proposal. He
preferred patiently to untie the knot, and thus to
make Himself king of all kingdoms for ever and for
ever.</p>
<p>Of the perils attending short cuts John Bunyan
is our chief expositor. Wherever a dangerous but
alluring footpath breaks off from the high-road, a
statue of Mr. Worldly Wiseman ought to be erected.
For it was Mr. Worldly Wiseman that first got the
poor pilgrim into such sore trouble. Mr. Worldly
Wiseman knew a short cut to the Celestial City.
Christian took that short cut—the footpath over the
hills and through the village of Morality—and dearly
did he pay for his folly. And yet it is difficult to
blame him. Poor Christian was heavily burdened,
and every inch that could be saved was a consideration.
Evangelist had clearly directed him, it
is true; but then, if Mr. Worldly Wiseman knew
a short cut, why not take it? ‘Let him who has
no such burden as this poor pilgrim had cast the
first stone at Christian; I cannot,’ says Dr. Alexander
Whyte. ‘If one who looked like a gentleman
came to me to-night and told me how I could on the
spot get to a peace of conscience never to be lost
again, and how I could get a heart to-night that
would never any more plague and pollute me, I
should be mightily tempted to forget what all my
former teachers had told me, and try this new
<SPAN name="p105" id="p105"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>109<span class="ns">]
</span></span>gospel.’ Exactly! The temptation to cut the
Gordian knot is very alluring. The advice to get-rich-quick,
or to get-good-quick, or to get-there-quick,
is very acceptable. But by his story of the
short cut, and the anguish that followed, Bunyan
has taught us that the longest way round is often
the shortest way home. There is sound sense in the
song that bids us ‘take time to be holy.’ The short
cut that avoids the wicket-gate and the Cross is
merely a blind lane from which we shall return
sooner or later with blistered feet and broken
hearts.</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p107" id="p107"></SPAN>
<h2 class="pushdown" title="Part II"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>111<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>PART II</h2>
<SPAN name="p109" id="p109"></SPAN>
<h3 title="I. The postman"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>113<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>I</big><br/>THE POSTMAN</h3>
<p><span class="smc">I must</span> say a good word for the postman. He occupies
so large a place in most of our lives that, as a
matter of common courtesy, the least we can do is
to recognize his value and importance. Others
may not feel as I do, but I confess that I bless the
postman every day of my life. Not that I am so
fond of receiving letters, for I bless him with equal
fervency whether he calls or whether he passes.
I know that in this respect I am hopelessly illogical.
If I am pleased to see the postmen pass the gate,
I ought, if strictly logical, to be sorry to see him
enter it. And, contrariwise, if the sight of the
postman coming up the path affords me gratification,
the spectacle of his passing my gate ought to fill
me with disappointment. But I am <em>not</em> logical,
never was, and never shall be. The best things in
the world are hopelessly illogical—motherhood for
example. A mother sits in the arm-chair by the
fire, even as I write. She is chattering away to
her baby. She knows perfectly well that the baby
doesn’t understand a word she says. Knowing
that she would, if she were logical, give up talking
<SPAN name="p110" id="p110"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>114<span class="ns">]
</span></span>to the child. But, just because she is so hopelessly
illogical, she prattles away as though the baby
could understand every word. It is a way mothers
have, and we love them all the better for it. An illogical
lady is a very lovable affair; but who ever fell
in love with a syllogism? Robert Louis Stevenson
is the most lovable of all our English writers, and
the most illogical. Here is an entry from his diary,
by way of illustration. ‘A little Irish girl,’ he
writes, ‘is now reading my book aloud to her sister
at my elbow. They chuckle, and I feel flattered;
anon they yawn, and I am indifferent; such a
wisely conceived thing is vanity.’ Just so. And
why not? There is a higher wisdom than the
wisdom of logic. If Stevenson had been logical, he
would have felt elated by the chuckles and crushed
by the yawns. But he knew better, and so do I.
If the postman passes my door, I heave a sigh of
relief that I have no letters to answer; it is almost
as good as being granted a half-holiday. Am I
therefore to be angry when the postman enters the
gate, and accept his letters with a grunt? Not at
all. In that case I throw my logic over the hedge
for the edification of my next-door neighbour, and
feel pleased that some of my friends are thinking
of me.<!-- TN: period invisible in original --> I greet the postman with a smile, and try
to make him feel that he has rendered me an appreciable
service, as indeed he has.</p>
<p><SPAN name="p111" id="p111"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>115<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>I am writing on the hundredth anniversary of the
birth of Anthony Trollope, and I fancy that it is
the thought of Trollope and his extraordinary
work that has set me scribbling about the postman.
For Trollope was much more than a novelist. He
was, in a sense, the prince of British postmen, and
the forerunner of Rowland Hill and Henniker
Heaton. To a far greater extent than we sometimes
dream, we owe the efficiency of our modern postal
service to Anthony Trollope. But before he died
he became the victim of serious misgivings. He
feared that we were losing the art of letter-writing.
He produced a bundle of his mother’s love-letters.
‘In no novel of Richardson’s or Miss Burney’s,’
he declared, ‘is there a correspondence so sweet,
so graceful, and so well expressed. What girl now
studies the words with which she shall address her
lover, or seeks to charm him with grace of diction?’
And this lamentation was penned, mark you, years
and years ago, before cheap telegrams and picture
post cards had become the normal means of communication!</p>
<p>I suppose the real trouble is that we have allowed
the amazing development of our commercial correspondence
to corrupt the character of our private
letter-writing. We indite all our letters in the
phraseology of the business college. We write
briefly, tersely, pointedly, and, most abominable
<SPAN name="p112" id="p112"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>116<span class="ns">]
</span></span>of all, by return of post. I should like to write
a separate chapter in vigorous denunciation of
the prompt reply. Private letters should never
be hastily answered. If my friend replies instantly
to my long, familiar letter, he gives me the
painful impression that he wants to be rid of
me, and is unwilling to have on his mind the
thought of the letter he owes me. One of these
days I shall start a new society to be called
the ‘Wait a Week Society.’ Its members will
be solemnly pledged to wait at least a week
before replying to their private letters. There are
strong and subtle reasons for taking such a vow.
First of all, private letters should be easy, leisurely,
chatty, and should only be written when one is in
the mood, or when, for some reason, the person to
whom it is addressed is specially in one’s thoughts.
To this, it may be replied that one is never so much
in the mood to write to a friend as when he has just
received a letter from that friend. But the argument
is fallacious. He is a very happy letter-writer
indeed who can write me a long, free, chatty letter
without saying anything that will rub me the wrong
way or with which I shall disagree. During the
first twenty-four hours after receiving his letter,
<em>those</em> are the things that are most emphatically
impressed upon my mind. If I reply within twenty-four
hours, my letter to my friend will deal largely
<SPAN name="p113" id="p113"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>117<span class="ns">]
</span></span>with those disputatious and controversial points,
and the inevitable result will be that <em>the whole</em>
of my letter will grate upon him just as <em>part</em> of his
letter has grated upon me. But if, as president of
my own society, I wait a week before replying to
his letter, I shall see things in their true perspective,
and write him a long and breezy letter in which the
things that vexed me find no place at all. I am
often asked, What is the unpardonable sin? The
only sin that I can never pardon is the sin of writing
angry letters. I can forgive a man for <em>speaking</em>
hastily; I have a temper myself. But to deliberately
commit one’s spite to paper is to become guilty of
an amazing atrocity and to degrade at the same
time the postman’s high and solemn office.</p>
<p>I bless the postman because he can do for me,
and do better than I could do, so many delicate
things. I regard the postman as a faithful and
indispensable assistant. It often falls to a minister’s
lot to approach people, and especially young people,
on the most delicate and important subjects. Upon
their decisions much of their future happiness and
usefulness will depend. I must therefore go about
the business with the utmost care. But if I go to
that young man and abruptly introduce the matter
to him, I at once put him in a false position, and
greatly imperil my chance of success. We are face
to face; I have spoken to him, and he, in common
<SPAN name="p114" id="p114"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>118<span class="ns">]
</span></span>decency, must speak to me. It would be a thousand
times better if, having opened my heart to him, I
could withdraw before he uttered a single word.
But as it is, I have forced him into a position in
which he must say something. His judgement
is not ripe, his mind is not made up, the whole
subject is new to him, and yet my indiscretion has
placed him in such a position that he is compelled
to commit himself. He must say something without
due consideration; I stand there, like a highway-robber,
with my pistol pointed at his brow, and he
must give me <em>words</em>. I may not want his words
immediately; and he may wish he need not give
his words immediately; but we are both the victims
of a situation which I have foolishly precipitated.
He speaks; and however he may guard his utterance,
his final decision will inevitably be compromised
by those hasty and immature sentences.</p>
<p>The evidence must be perfectly overwhelming that
will lead a man to reverse a decision once made.
And here am I, his would-be friend and helper,
forcing him into a position from which he will find
it very difficult to extricate himself. I meant to
do him good, and I have done him incalculable harm.
I meant to be his friend, and I have become his
enemy. So true is it that evil is wrought from want
of thought as well as want of heart.</p>
<p>Now see how much better the postman manages
<SPAN name="p115" id="p115"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>119<span class="ns">]
</span></span>the matter. I sit down at my desk and write exactly
what I want to say. I am not under any necessity
to complete a sentence until I can do so to my own
perfect satisfaction. I can pause to consider the
exact word that I wish to employ. And if, when
it is written, my letter does not please me, I can tear
it up without his being any the wiser, and write it
all over again. I am not driven to impromptu
utterance or careless phraseology. I am free of the
inevitable effect upon my expression produced
by the presence of another person. I am not
embarrassed by the embarrassment that he feels
on being approached on so vital a theme. I am
cool, collected, leisurely, and free. And the advantages
that come to me in inditing the letter are
shared by him in receiving it. He is alone, and
therefore entirely himself. He is not disconcerted
by the presence of an interviewer. He owes nothing
to etiquette or ceremony. He has the advantage
of having the case stated to him as forcefully and as
well as I am able to state it. He can read at ease
and in silence without the awkward feeling that,
in one moment, he must make some sort of reply.
If he is vexed at my intrusion into his private affairs,
he has time to recover from his displeasure and to
reflect that I am moved entirely by a desire for his
welfare. If he is flattered at my attention, he has
time to fling aside such superficial considerations
<SPAN name="p116" id="p116"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>120<span class="ns">]
</span></span>and to face the issue on its merits. The matter
sinks into his soul; becomes part of his normal life
and thought; and, by the time we meet, he is
prepared to talk it over without embarrassment,
without personal feeling, and without undue reserve.
In such matters—and they are among the most
important matters with which a minister is called
to deal—the postman is able to render me invaluable assistance.</p>
<p>There is something positively sacramental about
the postman. For the letters that he carries have
no value in themselves; they are simply paper and
ink. They are precious only so far as they reveal
the heart of the sender to the heart of the receiver.
Here, for instance, is a letter for a young lady.
She is at the door before the bell has ceased its
ringing. She greets the postman with a smile,
and blushes as she glances at the familiar handwriting.
As soon as the postman has closed the gate
after him, she hurries down to the summer-house,
her favourite retreat, to read her letter. But
she is not alone. Bruno, her big collie, goes bounding
after his mistress. She reads the first pages of
the letter, and allows the sheet to slip from her
lap to the ground, whilst she proceeds to devour the
following pages. And as the fluttering missive
lies upon the floor of the summer-house, Bruno
examines it. A dog’s eyes are sharper than a
<SPAN name="p117" id="p117"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>121<span class="ns">]
</span></span>girl’s eyes; yet how little the dog sees! He sees a
piece of white paper covered with black marks—sees
perhaps more in that respect than she does—yet
he sees nothing, and less than nothing, for all
that. For she sees, not the black marks on the
white paper, but the very heart of one who worships
her. She is gazing so intently into the soul of her
lover that she does not notice whether the ‘t’s’
are crossed, or the ‘i’s’ dotted. To her the letter
is a sacramental thing; its value lies not in itself,
but in the revelation that it makes to her.</p>
<p>And it is because the postman spends his whole
life among just such sacramental things that we
welcome and honour him. We have an amiable
way of transferring to the messenger the welcome
that we accord to the message. Jessie Pope describes
the joy of a mother on receiving a wire from
her soldier-boy that he will soon be back again
from the front.</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>‘<em>Home at six-thirty to-day.</em>’</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>Oh, what a tumult of joy!</div>
<div>Growing suspense flies away,</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>God bless that telegraph-boy!</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p><em>God bless that telegraph-boy!</em> Exactly. And that
is why we honour the postman. The messenger
always shares in the welcome given to the message
How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of
<SPAN name="p118" id="p118"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>122<span class="ns">]
</span></span>him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth
peace! We ministers often share in the postman’s
benediction. We are welcomed and honoured and
loved, not so much for our own sake as for the sake
of the great, glad message that we bear. The heart
leaps up to the message and blesses the messenger.
God bless the telegraph-boy! God bless the
postman!</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p119" id="p119"></SPAN>
<h3 title="II. Crying for the moon"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>123<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>II</big><br/>CRYING FOR THE MOON</h3>
<p><span class="smc">Let</span> it be distinctly understood that nothing that I
shall now say is addressed to the crowd. To the
crowd it would probably do more harm than good.
It is intended only for a single individual; and he, I
think, will understand. I am told that there is a
unique secret by means of which a wireless message
from the British Navy can be transmitted to the
Admiralty Office without risk of interception. At
the Admiralty a superlatively sensitive and superlatively
secret instrument is most carefully attuned
to the instrument of the battleship from which the
message is expected. Then, when all is ready,
every wireless operator in the Grand Fleet pulls out
all the stops and bangs on all the keys of his instrument,
and the inevitable result is the creation of a
din that is almost deafening to all listeners at
ordinary receivers. But through the crash and the
tumult the specially delicate instrument at the
Admiralty Office can distinctly hear its mate, and
the priceless syllables penetrate the thunder of
senseless sound without the slightest loss or leakage.
I am about to attempt a similar experiment. I
<SPAN name="p120" id="p120"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>124<span class="ns">]
</span></span>have a message for a certain man. It is important
that he, and he alone, should get it. It would do
untold damage if it were heard at other receivers.
Let him therefore take some pains to attune his
instrument to mine.</p>
<p>Now it is usual, and it is altogether good, to encourage
people to entertain lofty ambitions, high ideals,
and great expectations. It is a most necessary
injunction, and I have not a word to say against it.
It stirs the blood like a trumpet-blast. It rouses us
like a challenge. But, however excellent the medicine
may be, it cannot be expected to suit every
ailment. No one drug is a panacea for all our
human ills. And even the stimulating tonic to
which I have referred does not at all meet the need
of the man for whom I am now prescribing. John
Sheergood is a friend of mine, and a really capital
fellow. But I should not call him a happy man.
His trouble is that his ambitions are too lofty, his
expectations too great, and his ideals, in a sense,
too high. He is crying for the moon, and breaking
his heart because he can’t get it. I am profoundly
sorry for this morbid friend of mine, and should
dearly like to comfort him. His ideal is perfection,
nothing less; and whenever he falls short of it he is
in the depths of despair. If, as a student, he entered
for a competition, he felt that he was in disgrace
unless he secured the very first place. If he sat for
<SPAN name="p121" id="p121"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>125<span class="ns">]
</span></span>an examination, he counted every mark short of
the coveted hundred per cent. as an indelible stain
upon his character. He is in abject misery unless
he can strike twelve at every hour of the day. I
both admire him and pity him at the same time.
His parents once told me that when he was a very
small boy he contracted measles. The illness went
hardly with him, and left him frail and debilitated.
The doctor ordered a prolonged holiday by the
seaside, with plenty of good food, plenty of fresh air,
and, above all, plenty of bathing. He was only a
little fellow, and when he approached the bathing-sheds
for the first time his father accompanied him.</p>
<p>‘I don’t want to go in, dad,’ he cried appealingly;
‘it’s cold, and I’m cold, and I don’t like it!’</p>
<p>‘It will make you grow up into a big man, sonny!’
his father replied persuasively.</p>
<p>Now this touched Jack on a very tender spot,
for, although his father was tall, and he himself
cherished an inordinate admiration for tall men, he
was himself almost ridiculously small. He had
several times contrasted himself with other small
boys of the same age, and had felt shockingly
humiliated.</p>
<p>‘Will it really, dad; honour bright?’ he asked
anxiously, carefully scrutinizing his father’s face.</p>
<p>‘It will indeed, sonny; that is why the doctor
ordered it.’</p>
<p><SPAN name="p122" id="p122"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>126<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>Poor little Jack submitted with a wry face to the
process of disrobing, and, with a shiver, bravely
approached the water. Summoning all his reserves
of courage, he waded in until the water was up to
his knees, to his waist, and at last to his neck. The
excruciating part of the ordeal was by this time
over; and, for the sake of the benefit so confidently
promised him, he tolerated the caress of the waves
for the next five minutes. Then he rushed out of
the water. As soon as he was beyond the reach of
the foam he stopped abruptly, surveyed himself
carefully from top to toe, and straightway burst
into tears. His mother, who was sitting knitting
on the beach, at once ran to his assistance.</p>
<p>‘Why, whatever’s the matter, Jack? What
are you crying for?’</p>
<p>‘Oh, mum, just look how wee I am! And dad
said that if I went into the water it would make a
big man of me!’</p>
<p>He has often since joined in the laugh, whenever
the story of his childish adventure has been related
in his hearing. But it is worth recording as being
so eminently characteristic of him. He has never
outgrown that boyish peculiarity. He is always
setting his heart on instantaneous maturity. He
seems to think that the world should have been
built on a sort of Jack-and-the-beanstalk principle.
He is continually sowing seeds overnight, and
<SPAN name="p123" id="p123"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>127<span class="ns">]
</span></span>feeling depressed if he cannot gather the fruit as
soon as he wakes in the morning. Many of us have
watched the Indian conjurer sow the seed of a
mango-tree; throw a cloth over the pot; mutter
mysterious charms and incantations; and then hit
the cloth. And, behold, a full-grown mango-tree!
He replaces the cloth, mutters further incantations,
again removes the covering, and, lo, the mango-tree
is in full flower! And when a third time he uncovers
the plant, the mango-tree stands forth,
every bough freighted with a heavy load of fruit!
I have no idea as to how the trick is done. I only
know that poor John Sheergood seems to be everlastingly
lamenting the misfortune that ordained him
to any existence other than that of an Indian conjurer.
He is grievously disappointed, not because
he was born with no silver spoon in his mouth, but
because he was born with no magic wand in his
hand. His mango-trees come to fruition very,
very slowly. John believes in quick returns and
lightning changes; and he is irritated and annoyed
by the tardiness of that old-fashioned process
called growth. It is good for a man to have lofty
ideals; but I am sure that John Sheergood would be
a happier man, and make us all more happy, if he
would only break himself of his inveterate habit of
crying for the moon.</p>
<p>In justice to John I am bound to say that, as
<SPAN name="p124" id="p124"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>128<span class="ns">]
</span></span>on the sands years ago, his principal disappointment
is with himself. I have done my best to persuade
him that a man should be infinitely patient with
himself. Nothing is to be gained by getting out of
temper with yourself. You may scold yourself
and scourge yourself unmercifully; but I doubt
if it does much good. A man must win his self-respect;
and you can only learn to respect yourself
by being very gentle and very considerate and very
patient with yourself. A man’s self-culture is his
first and principal charge; and he will never succeed
unless he both loves himself and treats himself
lovingly. A man should be as gentle with himself
as a gardener is with his orchids; as a nurse is with
her patient; as a mother is with her troublesome
child. A gardener who lost all patience with his
delicate plants; a nurse who treated her poor patient
peevishly; or a mother who met ill-temper with
ill-temper could only expect to fail. I have urged
John Sheergood to treat himself with a softer hand,
and to greet himself with a smile. I lent him
Henry Drummond’s lovely essay on <cite>The Lilies</cite>,
taking the precaution, before doing so, to underline
the following sentences: ‘Growth must be spontaneous.
A boy not only grows without trying,
but he cannot grow if he tries. The man who
struggles in agony to grow makes the church into
a workshop when God meant it to be a beautiful
<SPAN name="p125" id="p125"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>129<span class="ns">]
</span></span>garden.’ There is a good deal in the chapter that
will have a special interest for my poor self-castigated
friend.</p>
<p>But, although his lash falls principally upon his
own back, he is not the only sufferer. I shall never
forget when, as a young fellow, he joined the church.
His conversion was a very radiant experience, and,
in the ecstasy of it all, he formed a brightly rose-tinted
conception of what the fellowship of the
church must be. The idea of being admitted to
the society of numbers of people as happy as himself!
They would be able to tell of experiences as glorious
as his own; they would be sure to congratulate him
on his inexpressible joy, and to help him in relation
to the difficulties that beset his daily path. They
would encourage him by their sympathy and
stimulate him by their example. Their conversation
would illumine for him the sacred page;
their vivid testimonies to answered prayer would
give him greater confidence in approaching the
Throne of Grace; the very atmosphere that he
expected to breathe would, he felt sure, inflame
his own devotion to the highest and holiest things.</p>
<p>He has often since told me of his disillusionment.
It happened to be a wet night when he was received
into membership, and there were fewer members
present than were usually there. As soon as the
service was over they broke up into knots. He
<SPAN name="p126" id="p126"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>130<span class="ns">]
</span></span>overheard one group discussing a wedding; and
heard a man with a strident voice say that it was
a beastly night to be out without an umbrella.
But nobody took any notice of John, and he left
the building. To complete his discomfiture he
mistook the step as he passed out of the church and
stumbled awkwardly into the street. ‘The whole
thing was an awful come-down,’ he told me afterwards,
‘the greatest surprise I had ever known. I
felt as if the bottom had dropped out of everything.’
He got over it, of course; and learned by happy
experience that the people who treated him so
coyly on that memorable night are not half as bad
as they seemed. Many of them are now among
his dearest and most intimate friends; whilst even
with the man who growled at the weather he has
since spent some really delightful times. One of
the oddest things in life is the dread that some
people feel of appearing as good as they really are.
And John has found out now that, in spite of the
cold douche administered to him that night, there
is in the church a glow of genuine enthusiasm and
a wealth of spirituality that in those days he never
suspected. But it did not reveal itself all at once.
The best things never do. And because the church
did not put on her beautiful garments as soon as
he entered, John was mortified and confounded.
He felt just as he felt that day on the sands when he
<SPAN name="p127" id="p127"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>131<span class="ns">]
</span></span>discovered with disgust that, under the spell of the
sea, he had not immediately assumed gigantic
proportions. As I say, he has got over it now, and
smiles at it, just as he smiles when his adventure
by the seaside is recounted.</p>
<p>He was a great favourite in the church, but his
ingrained peculiarity betrayed itself with unfailing
regularity in one particular direction. Oddly
enough, in view of his own experience, he was a
little severe with new members. I do not mean
that he treated them coldly or distantly; nobody
was more genial. But he expected too much of
them. He was disappointed unless the convert
of yesterday proved himself the full-blown saint
of to-day. To satisfy him, they had to be raw
recruits one day and hardened veterans the next.
It was merely another phase of his Jack-and-the-beanstalk
philosophy. It was the magician and
the mango-tree over again. In a way it was very
fine to see how he grieved over the slightest lapse
on the part of these new members. The smallest
inconsistency in their behaviour filled him with
remorse, and he was afflicted with the gravest
suspicions as to our wisdom in welcoming such
people into fellowship. He failed, it seemed to me,
to distinguish between the raw material and the
finished article. The Church evidently had some
very raw material in her membership when the
<SPAN name="p128" id="p128"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>132<span class="ns">]
</span></span>Pauline Epistles were written; and it is a mercy for
John that he was not born some centuries earlier.</p>
<p>John afterwards left us and entered the ministry.
We were exceedingly sorry to lose him. A man more
generally honoured, respected, and beloved I
have seldom seen. The church was distinctly
poorer after he left, although we were all glad that
he had given himself to so great a work. But he
carried his old characteristic up the pulpit steps
with him. He has often told me the story of that
first sermon and the way it was received. Such
confidences between one minister and another are
sacred, and I shall not betray this one. But I never
hear John refer to that experience without thinking
of Mark Rutherford. In his Autobiography, Mark
Rutherford tells how, on settling at his first pastorate,
he put all his soul into his first sermon. He was
elated by the solemnity and grandeur of his calling,
and spoke out of the very depths of his heart.
‘After the service was over,’ he says, ‘I went down
into the vestry. Nobody came near me but the
chapel-keeper, who <em>said that it was raining</em>, and
immediately went away to put out the lights and
shut up the building. I had no umbrella, and there
was nothing for it but to walk home in the wet.
When I got to my lodgings I found that my supper,
consisting of bread and cheese, was on the table,
but there was no fire. I was overwrought, and paced
<SPAN name="p129" id="p129"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>133<span class="ns">]
</span></span>about for hours in hysterics. All that I had been
preaching seemed the merest vanity.’ And so on.
John Sheergood’s experience was not unlike it.
It was the sudden descent from the glowingly
romantic ideal to the brutally prosaic reality. It
nearly killed John just as it nearly killed Mark
Rutherford. But he is getting over it. He is
learning gradually, I think, that a minister can only
get the best out of his people by being very patient
with them, just as the people can only get the
best out of their minister by being very patient
with him. The world has evidently been built
that way. Jack and the beanstalk is only a fairy-story
and the mango-tree is a piece of Oriental
trickery; there is no room for such prodigies in a
world like this. Like the lilies, we begin in a very
modest way, and grow very slowly; we must
therefore exercise infinite patience with each other.
I have fancied lately that some inkling of this has
at length entered into the mind even of John Sheergood,
and he has seemed a very much happier man
in consequence.</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p130" id="p130"></SPAN>
<h3 title="III. Our lost romances"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>134<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>III</big><br/>OUR LOST ROMANCES</h3>
<p><span class="smc">There</span> are few days in a girl’s life more critical than
the day on which the sawdust streams from the
mangled carcase of her dearest doll. It is a day
of bitter disillusionment, a day in which a philosophy
of some kind is painfully born. The doll came into
the home amidst all the excitements of a birthday.
It was instantly invested with every attribute of
personality. The task of naming it was as solemn
a function as the business of naming a baby. And
when the choice had been made, and the name
selected, that name was as unalterable as though
it had been officially recorded at Somerset House.
By that name it was greeted with delight every
morning; by that name it was hushed to sleep every
night; by that name it was introduced to other
dolls, as well as to less important people; and by
that name it was addressed a hundred times a day.
The doll has suffered accidents and illnesses after
the fashion of fleshier folk; but such misadventures,
as is the way with humans, has only rendered her
more dear. But now an accident has happened,
surpassing in seriousness all previous misfortunes.
<SPAN name="p131" id="p131"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>135<span class="ns">]
</span></span>The thing has come to pieces! The girl has a
shapeless rag in her hand; the floor is all powdered
with sawdust; and her face is a spectacle for men
and angels. I say again that this is an extremely
critical day in a girl’s life, and upon the way in
which she negotiates this passage in her history a
good deal will eventually depend.</p>
<p>I do not quite know why I have made the feminine
element so prominent in my introduction. Boys
are just the same. They affect to deride a girl’s
ridiculous weakness in cherishing so great a tenderness
for a doll; but, for all their supercilious
airs, they have illusions of their own. Dr. Samuel
Johnson has told us how, as a boy, he consulted
the oracle as to his future fortunes. If some issue
were hanging in the balance—a game to be played,
or an examination to be taken—he would endeavour
to wrest from the unseen the secret that it held.
He would note a particular stick or stone on the
path before him; and then, with face turned skywards,
he would walk towards it. If he trod on the
object which he had chosen, he took it as a sign that
he would win the game or pass the examination
that was causing him such uneasiness. If, on the
other hand, he stepped clean over it, he interpreted
it as a sinister prediction of disaster. Dr. Oliver
Wendell Holmes confesses to a similar weakness.
‘As for all manner of superstitious observances,’
<SPAN name="p132" id="p132"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>136<span class="ns">]
</span></span>says the autocrat of the Breakfast Table, ‘I used
to think I must have been peculiar in having such
a list of them; but I now believe that half the children
of the same age go through the same experience.
No Roman soothsayer ever had such a catalogue
of omens as I found in the Sibylline leaves of my
childhood. That trick of throwing a stone at a
tree and attaching some mighty issues to hitting or
missing, which you will find mentioned in one or
more biographies, I well remember.’ And Dr.
Holmes goes on to give us a good deal more in the
same strain.</p>
<p>But, although they do not record it, there must
have come to both Dr. Johnson and Dr. Holmes
a day very similar to that on which the sawdust
streamed from the mutilated doll. What about
the day on which young Samuel Johnson, his
scrofulous face and screwed-up eyes turned skywards,
strode along the path towards the selected talisman,
stepped plump upon it, and then lost the game that
followed after all? And what about the day on
which young Oliver Wendell Holmes, impatiently
awaiting his father’s return from Boston, wondered
if his parent would bring him the pocket-knife for
which he had so long and loudly clamoured? But
there, not fifty yards away, was a tree; and here,
at his feet, was a stone. ‘If I hit it, he’ll bring it;
if I miss it, he won’t!’ he cried; and, taking more
<SPAN name="p133" id="p133"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>137<span class="ns">]
</span></span>than usually careful aim, he threw the stone, and
missed! But the pocket-knife was in his father’s
handbag all the same! Boys or girls, men or women,
it matters not; there come into our lives great and
memorable days when we have to take farewell of
our illusions. Our romances leave us. There comes
a Christmas Day on which, to our uttermost bewilderment,
we discover the secret history of Santa Claus.
And very much will depend upon the way in which
we face such sensational and eye-opening experiences.</p>
<p>We go through life leaving these shattered romances
behind us. Our track is marked by the spatter of
burst bubbles. What then? And in answer to
that ‘What then?’ the obvious temptation is
the temptation to cynicism. Since the doll has
turned out to be a mere matter of sawdust and
rags, since the talisman on the footpath told a lie,
since the oracle of tree and stone deceived us, we
make up our minds to fling to the scrap-heap such
cherished beliefs as we still retain. We go in for
a severe weeding out of everything that is imaginative,
everything that is mystical, everything that
is romantic. Life resolves itself into a dreary wilderness
of matter-of-fact, an arid desert of common
sense. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was wiser.
Referring to his oracular stone-throwing and the
rest of it, he says, ‘I won’t swear that I have not
some tendency to these unwise practices even at
<SPAN name="p134" id="p134"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>138<span class="ns">]
</span></span>this present date. With these follies mingled sweet
delusions, which I loved so well that I would not
outgrow them, even when it required a voluntary
effort to put a momentary trust in them.’ It is a
pity to sweep all our rainbow-tinted romances out
of life simply because one of them has been reduced
to the terms of rag and sawdust.</p>
<p>There stands before me as I write Sir John Millais’
great picture of ‘Bubbles.’ Both the picture and
the experience that it portrays are wonderfully
familiar. The curly head; the upturned face;
the entire absorption of the little bubble-blower
in the shining balls that he is hurling into space;
the half-formed hope that this one, at least, may not
sputter out and become an unbeautiful splash of
soapsuds on the floor; the wistful half-expectancy
that now, at last, he has created a lovely globe
that shall float on and on, like a little fairy-world,
for ever and for evermore. It is all in the picture,
as every beholder has observed; and it is all in life.
It is the first tragedy of infancy; it is the last tragedy
of age. Bubbles; bubbles; bubbles; and yet
what would the world be without bubbles? They
burst, of course; but we are the happier for having
blown them! Our dreams may never come true;
but it’s lovely to dream! Illusions are part of
life’s<!-- TN: "l" missing in original --> treasure-trove. When they go, they leave
nothing behind them. When we lose them, we lose
<SPAN name="p135" id="p135"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>139<span class="ns">]
</span></span>everything. It is almost better to become criminal
than to become cynical. To be criminal implies an
evil hand; but to be cynical reveals a very evil
heart. It is a thousand times better to be blowing
bubbles that, though fragile, are very fair than to
move sulkily about the world telling all the blowers
of bubbles that their beautiful bubbles must burst.
‘I want to forget!’ cried the poor little ‘Lady of
the Decoration.’ ‘I want to begin life again as a
girl with a few illusions!’ Every fool knows that
bubbles must burst. The man who feels it necessary
to tell this to everybody proves, not that he possesses
the gift of prophecy, but that he lacks the
saving grace of common sense. The world would
clearly be very much the poorer, and not one scrap
the richer, if no bubbles were left in it. It is altogether
wholesome to have a fair stock of illusions.</p>
<p>But at this point two serious questions press for
answer. If illusions are so good, why do they fail us?
Why are our bubbles permitted to burst? The
question answers itself. If all the bubbles that had
ever been blown were still floating about the world,
there would be nothing so commonplace as bubbles.
That is why the era of miracles ceased. It was a
very romantic phase in the Church’s childhood, and
it answers to the superstitious element in our own.
But we may easily exaggerate its value. If the
age of miracles had been indefinitely lengthened,
<SPAN name="p136" id="p136"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>140<span class="ns">]
</span></span>the effect would have been the same as if all the
bubbles became everlasting. If all the bubbles
that had ever been blown were with us still, who
to-day would want to blow bubbles? And if
miracles had once become commonplace, their
charm and significance would have instantly vanished.
‘I am persuaded,’ Martin Luther sagely declares,
‘that if Moses had continued his working of miracles
in Egypt for two or three years, the people would
have been so accustomed thereunto, and would have
so lightly esteemed them, that they would have
thought no more of the miracles of Moses than we
think of the sun or the moon.’ It would not be
hard to prove that even the miracles of the New
Testament tended to lose their effect. The amazement
of the disciples at beholding what they took
to be a ghost on the water is attributed to the fact
that ‘they considered not the miracle of the loaves’
which had taken place a few hours earlier. A
miracle was already so much a matter of course
that the memory no longer treasured it as something
phenomenal. No pains were taken to investigate
its significance. It would have been a tragedy
unspeakable if the miraculous element in the faith
had become universally contemptible. As the eagle
carefully builds the nest in which her eaglets are to
see the light, and afterwards as carefully destroys
it so that they may be forced to fly, so our illusions
<SPAN name="p137" id="p137"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>141<span class="ns">]
</span></span>are made for our enjoyment, and then dashed to
pieces under our very eyes. Our childhood was
enriched beyond calculation by the fine romances
that gave it such bright colours; and, in exactly
the same way, the childhood of the Church was
glorified by the wonder-workings of a Hand Invisible.</p>
<p>And the other question is this: What shall we
do when our illusions leave us? When the doll
turns out to be sawdust and rag, when the youthful
oracle speaks falsely, when the bubble bursts, what
then? And again the answer is obvious. Why,
to be sure, if one romance fails us, we must get a
better, that is all! Any man who has not been
soured by cynicism will confess that the romantic
tints in the skein of life have deepened, rather than
faded, as the years passed on. Surely, surely,
the romance of youth was a lovelier thing than the
romance of childhood! When a girl feels how silly
it is to play with dolls, she begins to think of other
things that will more appreciate her fondling.
When a boy sees that it is senseless to throw stones
at trees as a means of deciding his destiny, he takes
to tossing precious stones and pretty trinkets in
quite other directions, but with pretty much the
same end in view. And so the romance of life—if
life be well managed—increases with the years,
until, by the time we become grandfathers and
grandmothers, the world seems too wonderful for
<SPAN name="p138" id="p138"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>142<span class="ns">]
</span></span>us, and we stand and gaze bewildered at all its
abounding surprises. Everything depends on filling
up the gaps. As soon as the sawdust streams
out of the doll, as soon as the futility of the oracle
stands exposed, we must make haste to fill the
vacant place with something better.</p>
<p>Long, long ago there were a few Jewish Christians
who felt just as a girl feels when the component parts
of her dearest doll suddenly fall asunder, just as
Samuel Johnson felt when the talisman prophesied
falsely, just as Oliver Wendell Holmes felt when he
saw that he could trust his oracle no more. They
felt—those Hebrew believers—that everything had
gone from them. ‘To how great splendour,’ says
Dr. Meyer, ‘had they been accustomed—marble
courts, throngs of white-robed Levites, splendid
vestments, the state and pomp of symbol, ceremonial
and choral psalm! And to what a contrast were
they reduced—a meeting in some hall, or school,
with the poor, afflicted, and persecuted members
of a despised and hated sect!’ But the writer
of the epistle addressed to them makes it his—or her—principal
aim to point out that it is all a mistake.
Just as a girl’s richest romance follows upon the
disillusionment of the terrible sawdust, so the
wealthiest spiritual heritage of these Jewish Christians
comes to them in place of the things that they
were inclined to lament. ‘For,’ says the writer,
<SPAN name="p139" id="p139"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>143<span class="ns">]
</span></span>‘ye have come unto Mount Sion, and unto the city
of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to
an innumerable company of angels, to the general
assembly and church of the firstborn, which are
written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all
and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to
Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the
blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than
that of Abel.’ And whoever finds himself the heir
of so fabulous a wealth can well afford to smile at
all his earlier disappointments.</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p140" id="p140"></SPAN>
<h3 title="IV. A forbidden dish"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>144<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>IV</big><br/>A FORBIDDEN DISH</h3>
<h4 title="">I</h4>
<p><span class="smc">I was</span> at Wedge Bay. It was raining. Wondering
what I should do, I remembered the great caves
along the shore. For ages the waves had been at
work scooping out for me a place of refuge for such
a day as this. I put on my coat, slipped a novel
in the pocket, and set off along the sands. I soon
found a sheltered spot in which I was able to defy
the weather, and to watch the waves or read my
book just as the fancy took me. As a matter of
fact, I had not much to read. The book was
Sir Walter Scott’s <cite>Kenilworth</cite>, and the bookmark
was already near the end. I read therefore until,
in the very climax of the tragic close, I suddenly
came upon a text. Or perhaps it was less a text
than a reference to a text, casually uttered in a
moment of great excitement by one of the principal
characters in the story. But it acted on my mind
as the lever at the switch acts upon the oncoming
railway train. In a flash, the novel and all its
<!-- TN: line "railway train. In a flash, the novel and all its" duplicated in original -->
thrilling interest were left far behind, and I was
<SPAN name="p141" id="p141"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>145<span class="ns">]
</span></span>flying along an entirely new track. And here are
the words that so adroitly changed the current of
my thought:</p>
<p>‘“Oh, if there be judgement in heaven, thou hast
well deserved it,” said Foster, “and wilt meet it!
Thou hast destroyed her by means of her best
affections—<em>it is a seething of the kid in the mother’s
milk</em>.”’</p>
<p>Almost involuntarily I closed the book, slipped
it back into my pocket, and sat looking out to sea
lost in a brown but interesting study.</p>
<h4 title="">II</h4>
<p>‘<em>Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk!</em>’
The striking prohibition occurs three times—twice
in the Book of Exodus, and once in the Book of
Deuteronomy. I do not know on what principle
we assess the relative value and importance of texts;
but, surely, a great commandment, thrice emphatically
reiterated, ought not to be treated as beneath
our notice. I find that the interdict applies primarily
to an ancient Eastern custom. All nations
have their own idea as to the special delicacy of
certain viands. We British people fancy lamb and
sucking-pig, and feel no shame in destroying the
tiny creatures as soon as they are born. The
predilection of the Arab was for a new-born kid;
<SPAN name="p142" id="p142"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>146<span class="ns">]
</span></span>and when he wished to adorn his table with a particularly
toothsome morsel, it was his habit to serve
up the kid boiled in milk taken from the mother.
It was against this favourite and familiar dish that
the stern and repeated prohibition was launched.
I do not know if there was any practical or utilitarian
reason, based on hygienic or medical grounds, for
the emphatic decree. Perhaps, or perhaps not.
Some of the old commandments relating to animals
seem to have been framed for no other purpose
than to inculcate a certain gentleness and courtesy
in our attitude towards these poorer relatives of
ours. ‘Thou shalt not kill a cow and her calf on
the same day’; ‘Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that
treadeth out the corn’; and so on. It is difficult
to see any real reason why the ewe and her lamb,
or the cow and her calf, should not go to the shambles
together. But it was strictly forbidden. And
similarly, ‘<em>Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s
milk</em>.’ The finer feelings are certainly shocked at
the thought of the cow and the calf going together
to the slaughter, and at the idea of boiling the newly
born and newly slain kid in the milk of its mother;
and the most obvious moral seems to be that we
are not to treat the creatures of the field and the
forest in any way that grates and jars upon those
finer instincts. As I sat watching the foam playing
with the strands of seaweed, it seemed to me that,
<SPAN name="p143" id="p143"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>147<span class="ns">]
</span></span>if ever I am asked to preach in support of the Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, I should
have here a theme all ready to my hand. And I
felt glad that I had read <cite>Kenilworth</cite>.</p>
<h4 title="">III</h4>
<p>But the prohibition goes much farther than that.
It enshrines a tremendous principle, a principle
that is nowhere else so clearly stated. Sir Walter
Scott evidently saw that; and no exposition could
be clearer than his. The circumstances were,
briefly, these. The Countess of Leicester was a
prisoner. Just outside her room at the castle
was a trapdoor. It was supported by iron bolts;
but it was so arranged that even if the bolts were
drawn, the trapdoor would still be held in its place
by springs. Yet the weight of a mouse would cause
it to yield and to precipitate its burden into the vault
below. Varney and Foster decided to draw these
bolts so that, if the Countess attempted to escape,
the trap would destroy her. Later on, Foster
heard the tread of a horse in the court-yard, and
then a whistle similar to that which was the Earl’s
usual signal. The next moment the Countess’s
chamber opened, and instantly the trapdoor gave
way. There was a rushing sound, a heavy fall,
a faint groan, and all was over! At the same
instant Varney called in at the window, ‘Is the
<SPAN name="p144" id="p144"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>148<span class="ns">]
</span></span>bird caught? Is the deed done?’ Deep down
in the vault Foster could see a heap of white clothes,
like a snowdrift. It flashed upon him that the noise
that he had heard was not the Earl’s signal at all,
but merely Varney’s imitation, designed to deceive
the Countess and lure her to her doom. She had
rushed out to welcome her husband, and had miserably
perished. In his indignation, Foster turned
upon Varney. ‘Oh, if there be judgement in
heaven, thou hast deserved it,’ he said, ‘and wilt
meet it! Thou hast destroyed her by means of
her best affections. <em>It is a seething of the kid in the
mother’s milk!</em>’</p>
<p>At that touchstone the inner meaning of the
interdict stands revealed. The mother’s milk is
Nature’s beautiful provision for the life and sustenance
of the kid. Thou shalt not pervert that which
was intended to be a ministry of life into an instrument
of destruction. The wifely instinct that led
the Countess to rush forth to welcome her lord was
one of the loveliest things in her womanhood, and
Varney used it as the agency by which he destroyed
her. She was lured to her doom by means of her
best affections. Charles Lamb points out, in his
<cite>Tales from Shakespeare</cite>, that Iago compassed the
death of the fair Desdemona in precisely the same
way. ‘So mischievously did this artful villain
lay his plots to turn the gentle qualities of this
<SPAN name="p145" id="p145"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>149<span class="ns">]
</span></span>innocent lady into her destruction and make a net
for her out of her own goodness to entrap her!’ It
is this that the prohibition forbids. Thou shalt
not take the most sacred things in life and apply
them to base and ignoble ends. <em>Thou shalt not
seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.</em></p>
<h4 title="">IV</h4>
<p>The possibilities of application are simply infinite.
There is nothing high and holy that cannot be
converted into an engine of destruction. A girl
is fond of music. The impulse is a lofty and admirable
one. But it may easily be used to lure her
away from the best things into a life of frivolity,
voluptuousness, and sensation. A boy is fond of
Nature. He loves to climb the mountain, row on
the river, or scour the bush. Nothing could be
better. But if it leads him to forsake the place of
worship, to forget God, to fling to the winds the
faith of his boyhood, and to settle down to a life of
animalism and materialism, he has been destroyed
by means of his best affections. Or take our love
of society and of revelry. There are few things more
enjoyable than to sit by the fireside, or on the
beach, with a few really congenial companions,
to talk, and tell stories, and recall old times; to
laugh, to eat, and to drink together. Talking and
<SPAN name="p146" id="p146"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>150<span class="ns">]
</span></span>laughing and eating and drinking seem inseparable
at such times. And yet out of that human, and
therefore divine, impulse see the evils that arise!
Look at our great national drink curse, with its
tale of squalor and misery and shame! Did these
men mean to be drunkards when first they entered
the gaily lit bar-room? Nothing was farther from
their minds. They were following a true instinct—the
desire for companionship and congenial society.
They have been lured to their doom, like Sir Walter
Scott’s heroine, by means of their best affections.</p>
<h4 title="">V</h4>
<p>And what about Love? Love is a lovely thing,
or why should we be so fond of love-stories? The
love of a man for a maid, and the love of a maid
for a man, are surely among the very sweetest and
most sacred things in life. No story is so fascinating
as the story of a courtship. And that is good,
altogether good. Every man who has won the
affection of a true, sweet, beautiful girl feels that
a new sanction has entered into life. He is conscious
of a new stimulus towards purity and goodness.
And every girl who has won the heart of a good,
brave, great-hearted man feels that life has become
a grander and a holier thing for her. As Shakespeare
says:</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="indent6"><SPAN name="p147" id="p147"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>151<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><span class="ns"> </span>Indeed I know</div>
<div>Of no more subtle master under heaven</div>
<div>Than is the maiden passion for a maid,</div>
<div>Not only to keep down the base in man,</div>
<div>But to teach high thoughts and amiable words,</div>
<div>And courtliness, and the desire for fame,</div>
<div>And love of truth, and all that makes a man.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>Lord Lytton illustrates this magic force in his
<cite>Last Days of Pompeii</cite>. He tells us that Glaucus,
the Athenian, ‘had seen Ione, bright, pure, unsullied,
in the midst of the gayest and most profligate
gallants of Pompeii, charming rather than awing
the boldest into respect, and changing the very
nature of the most sensual and the least ideal as,
by her intellectual and refining spells, she reversed
the fable of Circe, and converted the animals into
men.’ Here, then, is something altogether good.
It is clearly designed to minister new life to all who
come beneath its spell. And yet the sordid fact
remains that, through the degradation of this
same high and holy impulse, thousands of young
people make sad shipwreck.</p>
<h4 title="">VI</h4>
<p>But of all things designed to minister life to the
world, the Cross is the greatest and most awful.
Its possibilities of regeneration are simply infinite;
and in its case the danger is therefore all the greater.
<SPAN name="p148" id="p148"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>152<span class="ns">]
</span></span>‘We preach Christ crucified,’ wrote Paul, ‘unto the
Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks
foolishness, but unto them which are called, both
Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the
wisdom of God.’ It is the most urgent and insistent
note of the New Testament that a man may convert
into the instrument of his condemnation and destruction
that awful sacrifice which was designed for
his redemption. It is the sin of sins; the sin unpardonable;
the sin so impressively forbidden by that
ancient and thrice reiterated commandment whose
significance Sir Walter Scott pointed out to me in
the cave by the side of the sea.</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p149" id="p149"></SPAN>
<h3 title="V. An old maid’s diary"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>153<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>V</big><br/>AN OLD MAID’S DIARY</h3>
<p><span class="oldmaid"><i>Christmas Eve, 1973.</i></span
> Christmas-time once more!
The season strangely stirs the memory, and the
ghosts of Christmases long gone by haunt my
solitary soul to-night. Somehow, a feeling creeps
over me that this Christmas will be my last. Am
I sorry? Yes, one cannot help feeling sorry, for
life is very sweet. On the whole, I have been happy,
and have, I think, done good. But oh, the loneliness!
And every year has made it more unbearable.
The friends of my girlhood have married, or gone
away, or died, and each Christmas has made this
desperate loneliness more hard to endure. Did
God mean women to come into the world, to feel
as I have felt, to long as I have longed, and then,
after all, to die as I must die? None of the things
for which women seem to be made have come to me.
And now I have no husband to shelter me; no
daughters to close my eyes; no tall sons to bear
this poor body to its burial. I have pretended to
satisfy myself by mothering other people’s children;
but it was cruel comfort, and often only made my
heart to ache the more. And now it is nearly over;
<SPAN name="p150" id="p150"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>154<span class="ns">]
</span></span>I have come to my very last Christmas. I have
always loved to sit by the fire for a few minutes
before lighting the lamp; and to-night as I do so
something reminds me of the old days long gone by.</p>
<p>This little room, neat and cosy, but so quiet and
so lonely, somehow brings back to my mind a dream
that I had as a girl. Was it one dream, or was it
several? Dear me, how the memory begins to
piece it all together when once it gets a start! I
wonder if I can trace it in my journal? I have
always kept a journal—just for company. It
runs into several big volumes now, and the handwriting
has strangely altered with the years. I
shall tear them all up and burn them to-morrow; it
will be one way of spending my last Christmas!
I have said things to this old journal of mine that a
woman could not say to any soul alive. It has done
me good just to tell these old books all about it.
But my dream or dreams; when did they come?
It must be sixty years ago, although, despite
my loneliness, it really does not seem so long. But
it can be no less, for it was in the days of the Great
War. The war broke out in 1914—I was eighteen
then!—but my dream came months afterwards
when things were at their worst. It must have
been in 1915. I remember that I had been watching
the men in khaki. Everybody seemed to be going to
the front. My brothers went; the tradesmen who
<SPAN name="p151" id="p151"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>155<span class="ns">]
</span></span>called for orders; the men who served us in the
shops; everybody was enlisting. All our menfolk
had become soldiers. And, thinking about all this,
I dreamed. I wonder if I entered it in my journal?
And, if so, I wonder if I can find it? Yes; here it is.
Ah, I thought so. It was a series of dreams;
night after night for a week, Sunday alone excepted.
I don’t know why no dream came on Sunday. I
will copy these six entries here, so that I can destroy
the old volumes with their secrets without making
an end of this. The dreams began on Monday.</p>
<p class="stars">* * * * *</p>
<p class="tbafter"><span class="oldmaid"><i>Tuesday, October 5, 1915.</i></span
> I had such a strange
dream last night. I thought I was at the front.
Whether I was a nurse or not I have no idea; but
you never know such things in dreams. Anyhow,
I was there. I saw Fred and Charlie in the trenches
as plainly as I have ever seen anything, and Tom
the butcher-boy, and the young fellow who used to
bring the groceries. And with them, and evidently
on the best of terms with them, I saw a tall fellow
with fair hair—such a gentlemanly fellow!—and
after I had seen him I seemed to have no eyes for
the others. If I looked to Fred, he only pointed to
the boy with the fair hair. If I turned to Charlie,
he nodded to the lad with the fair hair. Tom and
the grocer’s assistant did the same. And then the
<SPAN name="p152" id="p152"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>156<span class="ns">]
</span></span>fellow with the fair hair looked up, and I saw his
face—such a handsome face! He smiled—such
a lovely smile!—and I felt myself blush. My
confusion awoke me; and I knew it was a dream.</p>
<p class="tbafter"><span class="oldmaid"><br class="ns"/><i>Wednesday, October 6, 1915.</i></span
> Would you believe
it, you credulous old journal, I dreamed of my
white-haired boy again last night! Isn’t it silly?
He was home from the war, wounded, but well again.
And we were being married; only think of it!
I can see it all now as plainly as I can see the white
page before me as I write. The commotion at
home; the drive to the church; the church itself;
the ceremony; how plain it all was! Fred was
best man; my white-haired boy evidently had no
brothers. Jessie, my own sweet little sister, was
my bridesmaid, although she looked a good deal
older. It seemed funny to see her with her hair
up, and with long skirts. The church seemed full
of soldiers. Everybody who had known him, served
with him, camped with him, or fought with him,
simply worshipped him. At weddings I have always
looked at the bride, and taken very little notice of
the bridegroom. But at our wedding everybody
was looking at my white-haired boy—so tall, so
handsome, so fine—like a knight out of one of the
tales of chivalry. And I was glad that they were
all looking at him. And I was so happy, oh, so
<SPAN name="p153" id="p153"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>157<span class="ns">]
</span></span>very, very happy! I was happy to think that
everybody was so proud of my white-haired boy.
And I was still more happy to think that my white-haired
boy was mine, my very, very own. I was
so happy that I cried, cried as though my heart
would break for joy and pride and thankfulness.
And my crying must have awakened me, for when
I sat up and stared round my old bedroom in surprise
there were tears in my eyes still. I wonder if I
shall ever dream of my bridegroom again?</p>
<p class="tbafter"><span class="oldmaid"><br class="ns"/><i>Thursday, October 7, 1915.</i></span
> I did; I really did!
I dreamed of him again! I saw the home in which
we lived, a beautiful, beautiful home. I do not
mean that it was big, but that it was sweet and
comfortable, and everything so nice! I thought
that he was walking with me on the lawn. He
was older, a good bit older; I should think twice
as old as when I first saw him in the trenches. But
he was still the same, still tall, still fair, and oh, such
a perfect gentleman! What care he took of me!
How proud and devoted he seemed! And how he
gloried in the children! For I thought we had
children, five of them! The eldest and the youngest
were boys, Arthur, so like his father as I saw him
first, and the youngest, Harry, such a romp! The
three girls, too, were the light of his eyes and the
brightness of his life. What times we all had
<SPAN name="p154" id="p154"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>158<span class="ns">]
</span></span>together! I saw him once scampering across the
fields with the children, whilst I sat among the
cowslips knitting and awaiting the return of my
merry madcaps. I saw him sitting with the rest of
us around the fire in winter, whilst he told tales
of the things that he did at the war. How the boys
listened, almost worshipping! And again I saw
him on the Sunday at the church. He sat next the
aisle. I was so happy in being beside him, with
the children on my right. What more, I wondered,
could any woman want to fill her cup up to the
brim? And, wondering, I awoke.</p>
<p class="tbafter"><span class="oldmaid"><br class="ns"/><i>Friday, October 8, 1915.</i></span
> My dreams are getting
to be like parts of a serial story. How real my
white-haired boy seems to be! He has come into
my life, and I cannot believe that he is only a
dream-thing. I went for a walk yesterday with
mother and Jessie, and they said I was silent and
absent-minded. The truth was that I was thinking
about him, yet how could I tell them? Nobody
knows but my journal and myself. And last night—it
seems scarcely possible—I saw him again!
It was not quite so nice, for I thought we were very
old. He was no longer tall and erect, but slightly
bent, though stately still. And I leaned heavily
upon his arm. And the children came, and brought
their children—such a lot of them there seemed to
<SPAN name="p155" id="p155"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>159<span class="ns">]
</span></span>be. He grew as young as ever in playing with
these troops of happy little people. And for them
there was no fun like a game with grandpapa. And
as I sat and watched them, I liked to think that all
these boys and girls would have something of him
about them, and would grow up to cherish his dear
memory as their ideal of all that a Christian gentleman
should be. And sometimes I thought of their
children, and their children’s children, till I saw,
floating before my fancy, hundreds and thousands
of children yet to be; and I speculated idly as to
how far his fine influence would carry down these
coming generations. And once more I awoke.</p>
<p class="tbafter"><span class="oldmaid"><br class="ns"/><i>Saturday, October 9, 1915.</i></span
> Oh, my journal, my
journal! I dreamed of my white-haired boy again!
How I wish I never had! If only I had always been
able to think of him as I saw him on Wednesday
night and Thursday! I was once more at the
war. You know what funny things dreams are.
In the trenches I again saw Fred and Charlie and
Tom the butcher-boy, and the young fellow who
used to bring the groceries. But this time they were
all in action; when I saw them before they were
resting. The air was heavy with battle-smoke;
the great guns roared and reverberated; shells
screamed and burst about me. It was like night,
although I knew that it was daytime. As I stood
<SPAN name="p156" id="p156"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>160<span class="ns">]
</span></span>and watched—looking for somebody—four Red
Cross men passed me. They were bearing a stretcher,
and on the stretcher was a mangled form. His
face was hidden by his arm, half lying across his
eyes. A strange impulse seized me. I sprang
forward, raised his arm in the semi-darkness;
there was a sudden flash caused by I know not
what, and in the light of that fearful and revealing
flash I recognized my white-haired boy! I trudged
beside the stretcher to the hospital, knowing neither
what I did nor what I said. And when we reached
the hospital, my white-haired boy was dead! My
white-haired boy, my white-haired boy, my white-haired
boy was dead! Oh that I had never
dreamed again!</p>
<p><span class="oldmaid"><br class="ns"/><i>Sunday, October 10, 1915.</i></span
> I dreamed once more,
but not of my white-haired boy. I dreamed of
myself; pity me that I had nothing better to dream
of! I am only a girl; but in my dream I saw myself
an old woman, old and lonely! Oh, so very, very
lonely! I was sitting, I thought, in the dusk
beside a bright and cheery fire in a neat and cosy
little room. Neat and cosy, but oh, so lonely;
and I felt sorry for myself, very sorry. For the
self that I saw in my dream was a sad old self, a
disappointed old self, a self that had fought bravely
against being soured, but a self that had, after all,
<SPAN name="p157" id="p157"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>161<span class="ns">]
</span></span>only partly succeeded. It was not a nice dream;
the nice dreams that I had earlier in the week will
never come again. No, it was not a nice dream, and
I awoke feeling uneasy and unhappy; and my head
was aching.</p>
<p class="stars">* * * * *</p>
<p><span class="oldmaid"><i>Christmas Eve, 1973.</i></span
> And so, with a shaky,
withered hand, I have copied into the last pages of
my journal the entries that I made in the first of
these old volumes. What did they mean, those
dreams that came to me so long ago? Was there a
white-haired boy at the war, a white-haired boy
who, if there had been no war, or if just one cruel
shell had failed to explode, would have been the
glory of my life and the father of my children?
But there <em>was</em> a war, and the fatal shell <em>did</em> burst,
and my white-haired boy and I never met, <em>never
met</em>. The five happy children—those two fine
boys and the three lovely girls—will never now
gladden these dim old eyes of mine. Those troops
of grandchildren, and those hosts of unborn generations
that I saw in my happy fancy, will never leave
the land of dreams and alight on this old world.
In the days of the war, I remember how people wept
with the widows, and sorrowed with the mothers
whose brave sons were stricken down. And, God
knows, none of that sympathy was wasted. Oh,
<SPAN name="p158" id="p158"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>162<span class="ns">]
</span></span>it was heart-breaking to see the lusty women who
would never see their husbands again; and the
broken mothers who would never even have the
poor consolation of visiting the graves of their fallen
sons. And I was only a girl, a girl of nineteen.
And nobody wept with me. I did not even weep
for myself. Nobody knew about my white-haired
boy. I did not know. But I know now. Yes,
<em>I know now</em>. And God knows; I pillow my poor
tired old head on that, God knows, <em>God knows</em>!
And so this, then, is to be my last Christmas!
Ah, well, so be it! And perhaps—who can tell?—perhaps,
in a world where we women shall know
neither wars, nor weddings, nor widowhood, I shall
before next Christmas have found the face of my
girlish dreams!</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p159" id="p159"></SPAN>
<h3 title="VI. The river"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>163<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>VI</big><br/>THE RIVER</h3>
<p><span class="smc">It</span> is my great good fortune to dwell on the green
and picturesque banks of a broad and noble river.
‘Rivers,’ says an old Spanish proverb which Izaak
Walton quotes with a fine smack of approval,
‘rivers were made for wise men to contemplate
and for fools to pass by without consideration.’
Let us beware lest we fall beneath the Spaniard’s
lash. For myself, I can at least affirm that I never
saunter beside these blue, fast-flowing waters without
feeling that the lines have fallen unto me in pleasant
places. It is wonderful how, after awhile, the
winding river seems to weave itself into the very
texture and fabric of one’s life. You stroll by it,
bathe in it, row on it, fish in it, until every rock and
every bank, every crag and every cliff, every twist
and every bay, every deep and every shallow, takes
its place among the intimacies and fond familiarities
of life. It is one of the wonders of the world that
this little island in the southern seas should pour into
the Pacific so many fine majestic streams. And
here, beside the lordliest of them all, I have made
<SPAN name="p160" id="p160"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>164<span class="ns">]
</span></span>my home. It is good to stand on these green banks,
to survey the great expanse of gleaming waters,
and to see the stately ships glide in and out. I
often think of that early morning when John Forster
found Carlyle standing beside the Thames at Chelsea,
lost in an evident reverie of admiration. ‘I
should as soon have thought of assaulting him as
of addressing him,’ says Forster. To be sure! We
do lots of things in this life of which we have no
reason to be ashamed, things that are indeed altogether
to our credit, yet in the performance of which
we do not care to be discovered. It would be a
sad old world, for example, if love-making went out
of fashion; but no man cares to be caught in the
act, for all that. Carlyle was caught making love
to the Thames, as I have often made love to the
Derwent, and he keenly resented the intrusion.
‘He abruptly turned away,’ adds the offender,
‘and moved across the roadway toward Cheyne Row,
with that curious slow shuffle habitual with him,
and I saw him no more.’</p>
<p>Why, my very Bible seems a new book as I ponder
its pages by the banks of the Derwent. What a
different story the Old Testament would have had
to tell if Jerusalem<!-- TN: original reads "Jesusalem" --> had stood by the side of a river
like this! The Jews never forgave the frowning
Providence that denied to their fair city a river.
They heard how Babylon stood proudly surveying
<SPAN name="p161" id="p161"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>165<span class="ns">]
</span></span>the shining waters of the Euphrates, how Nineveh
was beautified by the lordly Tigris, how Thebes
glittered in stately grandeur on the Nile, and how
Rome sat in state beside the Tiber; and they were
consumed with envy because no broad river protected
them from their foes, and bore to their gates
the wealthy merchandise of many lands. I never
noticed until I dwelt by these blue waters how all
the Psalms and prophecies are coloured by this
phase of Judean life. The prophets were for ever
dreaming of the river; the psalmists were for ever
singing of the river. Nothing delighted the people
like a vision, such as visited Ezekiel, of a broad river
rushing out from Jerusalem. No greater or more
glowing message ever reached the disconsolate and
riverless people than when Isaiah proclaimed,
‘The glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad
rivers and streams, wherein shall go no galley with
oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby!’
Jehovah, that is to say, shall impart to Jerusalem
all the advantages of a river without any of its
attendant dangers. Many a faithless river, by
bearing the destroyer on its bosom to the city
gates, had proved the undoing of the people
after all. But no such fate shall overwhelm
Jerusalem. And, hearing this, the riverless city
was comforted.</p>
<p>It is recorded of the Right. Hon. John Burns
<SPAN name="p162" id="p162"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>166<span class="ns">]
</span></span>that, in the days when he was President of the Local
Government Board, he found himself strolling on
the Terrace of the House of Commons, surveying,
with all the transports of a born Londoner, the
shining waters of the Thames. His reverie was,
however, rudely interrupted by a supercilious
American who was inclined to regard with scornful
contempt the object of Mr. Burns’ ecstatic admiration.
‘After all,’ the American demanded, ‘what is
it but a ditch compared with the Missouri or the
Mississippi?’ This was more than even a Cabinet
Minister could be expected to stand. ‘The Missouri
and the Mississippi!’ Mr. Burns exclaimed in a fine
burst of patriotic indignation. ‘The Missouri and
the Mississippi are water, sir, and nothing but water;
but that,’ pointing to the Thames, ‘<em>that</em>, sir, is liquid
history, <em>liquid history</em>!’ Yes, Mr. Burns is quite
right<!-- TN: original reads "light" -->. The Thames has a glory of its own among
the world’s historic streams, although it is only a
matter of degree. All rivers are liquid history.
The records of the world’s great rivers constitute
themselves, to all intents and purposes, the history
of the race. To take a single illustration, it is
obvious that the student who has mastered the
history and hydrography of the Niger, the Congo,
the Zambesi, the Orange, and the Nile has little
more to learn about Africa. From the times of
which Herodotus writes, when Cyrus lost his temper
<SPAN name="p163" id="p163"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>167<span class="ns">]
</span></span>with the Tigris, and turned it out of its channel for
drowning one of his sacred white horses, rivers have
loomed very largely in the annals of human history.
Indeed, Professor Shailer Mathews, in <cite>The Making
of To-morrow</cite>, says that there never was, until
recent times, a nation that did not paddle or sail
its way into history. Civilization, he says, got its
first start on water. ‘In the early days rivers were
thoroughfares, and they continued to be thoroughfares
until the middle of last century. Even the
United States was born on water. It was easier to
get to New Orleans from Montreal by way of the
Mississippi than overland.’ One has only to conjure
up the wealthy historical traditions that cluster
about the names of the Euphrates and the Nile,
the Indus and the Volga, the Rhine and the Danube,
the Tiber and the Thames, in order to convince
himself that the records of the world’s great waterways
are inextricably interwoven with the annals
of the human race.</p>
<p>We cannot, however, disguise from ourselves the
fact that the affection that we feel for our rivers is
not based solely, or even primarily, on utilitarian
considerations. Nobody supposes that it is the
navigable qualities of the Ganges that have led the
Hindus to believe that to die on its banks, or to drink
before death of its waters, is to secure to themselves
everlasting felicity. Yet, when we attempt to
<SPAN name="p164" id="p164"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>168<span class="ns">]
</span></span>account in so many words for the fascination of
the river, the task becomes intricate and difficult.
Macaulay spent his thirty-eighth birthday on the
banks of the Rhone, and transferred his impressions
to his journal. ‘I was delighted,’ he says, ‘by my
first sight of the blue, rushing, healthful-looking
river. I thought, as I wandered along the quay,
of the singular love and veneration which rivers
excite in those who live on their banks; of the
feeling of the Hindus about the Ganges, of the
Hebrews about the Jordan, of the Egyptians about
the Nile, of the Romans about the Tiber, and of
the Germans about the Rhine. Is it that rivers have,
in a greater degree than almost any other inanimate
object, the appearance of animation, and something
resembling character? They are sometimes slow
and dark-looking; sometimes fierce and impetuous;
sometimes bright, dancing, and almost flippant.’
However that may be, the fact itself remains;
and it is surprising that our literature does not
more adequately reflect this marked peculiarity.
Macaulay himself felt the lack, and dreamed of
writing a great epic poem on the Thames. ‘I
wonder,’ he said, ‘that no poet has thought of writing
such a poem. Surely there is no finer subject of
the sort than the whole course of the river from
Oxford downwards.’ But a century has gone by
and the poem has not been penned. Shakespeare
<SPAN name="p165" id="p165"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>169<span class="ns">]
</span></span>dwelt beside the Avon; Goethe loved to stroll
among the willows on the banks of the Lahn;
Coleridge was born, and spent the most impressionable
years of his life in the beautiful valley of the
Otter. And one of the tenderest idylls of our
literary history is the picture of Wordsworth wandering
hand in hand with Dorothy among the
most delightful river scenery of which even
England can boast. Yet, beyond a few sonnets
and snippets, nothing came of it all. Neither the
laughing little streams nor the more majestic
and historic waterways have ever yet found their
laureates.</p>
<p>But there are compensations. If the bards have
been strangely and unaccountably irresponsive to
the music of the waters, our great prose writers
have caught its murmur and its meaning. Two particularly,
John Bunyan and Rudyard Kipling, have
given us the classics of the river. Bunyan’s river—the
river that all the pilgrims had to cross—is too
familiar to need more than the merest mention.
And as for Mr. Kipling, he, like Bunyan, is
a writer of both poetry and prose. As a poet
he has failed to do justice to the river, as all
the poets have failed. He has given us a
snippet, as all the poets have done. He makes
the Thames tells its own tale, and a wonderful
tale it is.</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div><SPAN name="p166" id="p166"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>170<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>I remember the bat-winged lizard birds,</div>
<div>The Age of Ice and the mammoth herds;</div>
<div>And the giant tigers that stalked them down</div>
<div>Through Regent’s Park into Camden Town;</div>
<div>And I remember like yesterday</div>
<div>The earliest Cockney who came my way,</div>
<div>When he pushed through the forest that lined the Strand,</div>
<div>With paint on his face and a club in his hand.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>But I forgave Kipling for not having repaired the
omission of the older poets when I read <cite>Kim</cite>. <cite>Kim</cite>
is the greatest story of a river that has ever been
written. Who can forget the old lama and his long,
long search for the River? Buddha, he thought,
once took a bow and fired an arrow from its string,
and, where that arrow fell, there sprang up a river
‘whose nature, by our Lord’s beneficence, is that
whoso bathes in it washes away all taint and speckle
of sin.’ And so, through Mr. Kipling’s four hundred
vivid pages, there wanders the old lama, through
city and rice-fields, over hills and across plains,
asking, always asking, one everlasting question:
‘The River; the River of the Arrow; the River that
can cleanse from Sin; where is the River? Where,
oh, where is the River?’ All India, all the world
seems to enter into that ceaseless cry. It is the
deepest, oldest, latest cry of the universal heart:
‘The River; the River of the Arrow; the River
<SPAN name="p167" id="p167"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>171<span class="ns">]
</span></span>that can cleanse from Sin; where is the River?
Where, oh, where is the River?’ And it is the
Church’s unspeakable privilege to take the old lama’s
hand and to point his sparkling eyes to the cleansing
fountains.</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p168" id="p168"></SPAN>
<h3 title="VII. Faces in the fire"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>172<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>VII</big><br/>FACES IN THE FIRE</h3>
<p><span class="smc">It</span> was half-past ten! I had no idea it was so late!
Our little camp was pitched about four miles up
Captain’s Gully, under the massive shelter of Bulman’s
Ridge. It had been a perfect, cloudless day;
all our excursions—fishing, shooting, botanizing,
and the rest—had been crowned with delightful
success; and after supper we sat round the great
camp fire, talking. We talked, of course, of the
only things ever discussed around camp fires—old
times and old faces. I was struck with the number
of sentences that began ‘<em>I remember <span class="nw">once——</span></em>.’
Then, one by one, the others stole away to their
tents—those little white tents that had looked
like stray snowflakes in a wilderness of bush whenever
we caught sight of them from the hills in the
daytime, yet which seemed all the world to us at
night. One by one, with a ‘Here’s off!’ or a ‘So
long!’ the others had slipped quietly away, and the
fire and I were at last left to ourselves. How
still it all was! Now and then I heard the queer
cry of a mopoke up the gully; and once there was
the swish of a bough beneath the leap of a ’possum.
<SPAN name="p169" id="p169"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>173<span class="ns">]
</span></span>But, save for these, I could hear no sound but the
subdued hissing and rumbling of the logs as they
crumpled up in the fire before me. I remained for
awhile, looking into the glowing embers; and there,
in the dying fire, the faces of my companions all came
back to me. And not theirs alone; for I saw, too,
the old familiar faces of which we had been chatting,
and a hundred others as well. It was then that I
was startled by the ’possum in the branches overhead.
I looked at my watch; it was half-past ten;
and I too turned my back on the fire that had
revealed so much. And I wondered, as I moved
away to my tent, why, by the side of the fire, we
always think of the Past, dream of the Past, talk
of the Past. Why do our yesterdays all spring to
new and glorious life when the flickering flames are
lighting up our faces?</p>
<p>Our camp broke up a day or two later; and all such
thoughts seemed to have died with the fire that gave
them birth. But, oddly enough, they returned to
me this morning. For, when I arose, I was conscious
of a distinct snap of winter in the atmosphere;
and when I entered the study I discovered that the
divinity who presides over such matters had lit
the first fire of another year. I saluted it with
pleasure, not merely for the sake of the comfort it
promised me, but for its own sake. I greeted it as
one greets an old and trusted friend. On this side
<SPAN name="p170" id="p170"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>174<span class="ns">]
</span></span>of the world we scarcely know what winter means,
and we are therefore in danger of underestimating
the historic value of the fire. We can produce nothing
in Australia worthy of comparison with those
stern winters with which Northern and Western
writers have made us so familiar. We are accustomed
to a literature which pours in upon us from
high Northern latitudes, and which describes, with
a picturesque realism that evokes a sympathetic
shiver, the glacial snowdrifts that, for weeks on
end, lie deep along the hedgerows; the hapless bird
that falls, frozen to death, from the leafless bough;
the rabbit that perishes of slow starvation in its
wretched burrow; and the fish that floats in stupor
beneath the very ice that furnishes the skater’s
paradise. But whilst, to us, snow and ice are things
of imagination or of memory, I felt thankful this
morning, as I knelt down like some old fire-worshipper
and warmed my numb hands at the cheerful
blaze, that this Tasmanian winter of ours has just
enough sting in it to preserve in me a lively appreciation
of this ancient and honourable institution.</p>
<p>For the fireside is sanctified by a great and glorious
tradition. It enshrines all that is most mystical
and most wonderful in our civilization. In his
pictures of the forest, Jack London again and again
emphasizes the magic effect of the fireside even on
the creatures of the wild. When White Fang, the
<SPAN name="p171" id="p171"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>175<span class="ns">]
</span></span>wolf, saw the tongues of flame and clouds of smoke
that arose from beneath the Indian’s hands, he was
mystified. It seemed to him a sign of some divinity
in man of which he knew nothing. It drew him as
by some mesmeric influence. ‘He crawled several
steps towards the flame. His nose touched it.’ And
when he felt the pain it seemed as if an angry deity
had smitten him.</p>
<p>In <cite>The Call of the Wild</cite>, Jack London returns to
the same idea. Buck, the great dog, was a creature
of the wild, and sometimes the yearning for the wild
swept over him with almost irresistible authority.
What was it that kept him from bounding off into
the forest and shaking the dust of civilization from
his paws for ever? It was because ‘faithfulness and
devotion, things born of fire and roof,’ had been
developed within him. He had sprawled on the
hearth before John Thornton’s fire; had looked
up hungrily into John Thornton’s face; had learned
to love his master more than life itself; and to the
fireside of his master he was bound by invisible
chains that he could not snap. ‘Deep in the forest,’
says Jack London, ‘a call was sounding, and as
often as he heard this call, mysteriously thrilling and
luring, he felt compelled to turn his back upon the fire
and the beaten earth around it, and to plunge into
the forest, and on and on, he knew not where or
why; nor did he wonder where or why, the call
<SPAN name="p172" id="p172"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>176<span class="ns">]
</span></span>sounding imperiously, deep in the forest. But as
often as he gained the soft unbroken earth and the
green shade, the love for John Thornton drew him
back to the fire again.’ The fire; it is always the
fire. The fire seems, even to the brutes, to be the
emblem of the genius of our humanity.</p>
<p>For the triumph of humanity is the creation of
home; and the soul of the home is the fireside.
The luxurious summer evenings, with their wide
range of out-of-door allurements, tend to discount
the attractions of the home, and to depreciate the
value of domestic intercourse. We return from
business and rush out again for recreation. But
winter furnishes a salutary corrective. When the
day’s work is done, and the home is once reached,
everything conspires to enhance its seductive charms.
Outside, the dark and the cold, the bleak wind and
the driving rain, threaten multiple discomforts to
the gadabout who dares to venture forth; whilst
within, the blazing fire, the cheerful hum of table
talk, and the genial hospitalities of home make their
most resistless appeal amidst the wintriest conditions.
Was it not for this reason that the fire came to be
regarded for centuries as the natural emblem of
domestic felicity? In the days before matches were
invented, when the lighting of a fire was a much
more laborious business than it is to-day, the first
fire in the home of a newly married pair was started
<SPAN name="p173" id="p173"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>177<span class="ns">]
</span></span>by the bearing of a burning brand from each of
the homes from which bride and bridegroom came.
It was intended as a kind of ritual. The communication
of the flame from the old hearths which they
had left to the new one which they had established
was designed to symbolize the perpetuation of all
that was worthiest and most sacred in the homes
from which the young people had come. It was
the transfer of the Past—that radiant and tender
Past that saluted me from the glowing embers of
my camp fire in the gully—to the roseate and
unborn future.</p>
<p>But although it was in my solitude that the fire
in Captain’s Gully spoke to me, the fire is no lover
of loneliness. It is the very emblem of hospitality,
and there are few graces more attractive. We boast
that an Englishman’s home is his castle, and we do
all that legislation can accomplish to make that
castle impregnable and inviolate. We close the
door, and draw the blinds, and we feel that we have
effectually shut the whole world out. And yet
when a friend looks in, we suddenly discover that
our happiness consists, not in barring and bolting
the heavy front door, but in flinging it wide open.
We seat him in the best chair; we bring out the
best dainties from the cupboard, the best books
from the shelves, and the best stories from the
treasure-house of memory. The fire crackles, cheeks
<SPAN name="p174" id="p174"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>178<span class="ns">]
</span></span>glow, and eyes sparkle as the genial conversation
grows in interest and surprise. Nor is the pleasure
by any means the monopoly of the host; the guest
shares it to the full. What is more exhilarating
or satisfying than an evening spent round a good
fire with a few kindred spirits in whose company
one is perfectly at home? You can speak or be
silent, just as the mood takes you. You have not
to labour to be entertaining if you feel that you have
nothing to say; nor need you struggle to restrain
yourself if you feel in the humour to talk. You have
not to weigh every word as you instinctively do in
the presence of less familiar or less trusted companions.
You eat the fruit that is handed round, or
decline it, just as the whim of the moment dictates,
feeling under no obligation either way. You are
entirely at your ease. Sometimes the one conversation
holds the entire group, and the semi-circle
listens, interested or amused, to the tale that one
member of the cluster is telling. At other times
the party automatically divides itself into knots;
the gentlemen, it may be, breaking into politics
or business, and the ladies comparing notes on more
enticing themes. The fire blazes; the buzz of conversation
rises and falls, sinks and swells. Occasionally
the attention is so concentrated on the
subdued voice of one speaker that scarcely a sound
is audible outside the door; a moment later the
<SPAN name="p175" id="p175"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>179<span class="ns">]
</span></span>argument is so exciting, or the laughing so boisterous,
that everybody seems to be shouting at the same
time. The gramophone, and all such adventitious
aids to the tolerable passage of a leaden evening,
are never so much as thought of. Even the piano
is left out in the cold. Every moment is crowded
with the flush of unalloyed delight. And when the
last guest has vanished, and the house seems silent
and empty, it suddenly occurs to you that the great
chief guest whom you have been entertaining, or
who has been entertaining you, was the Past, the
radiant and glorified Past. The phrase that we
heard so often in Captain’s Gully, the ‘<em>I remember
<span class="nw">once——</span></em>,’ has been the key-note of the evening’s
gossip.</p>
<p>For the fact is that the fireside, whether in Captain’s
Gully in summer-time or at home in dead of
winter, is a sort of magic observatory, a kind of
camera-obscura. Outside, the world is wrapped
in impenetrable darkness. But the kindly glow of
the fire stimulates the memory, spurs the imagination,
and brings back all our lost loves and all our
veiled landscapes in a beautified and idealized form.
The lonely man sees faces in the fire; but there are
other things as well. The springs and summers
that haunt our fancy as we talk of them beside
a roaring fire are the blithest and gayest seasons that
the world has ever known. Never was sky so blue,
<SPAN name="p176" id="p176"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>180<span class="ns">]
</span></span>or earth so fair, or sun so bright, or air so sweet as
the sky and the earth, the sun and the air, that we
contemplate from our coign of vantage<!-- TN: OED gives Shakespeare as the source of this phrase --> by the side
of the fire. The fragrance of the hawthorn in the
hedgerow; the humming of the bees along the
bank; the carolling of birds in the tree-tops;
the bleating of the lambs across the meadows,—these
never appear so alluring as when we view them
from the wonderful observatory at the fireside.
Dean Hole tells with what sadness he used to
pluck the last roses of summer. And then, he says,
‘the chill evenings come, curtains are drawn, and
bright fires glow. Then who is so happy as the
rose-grower with the new catalogues before him?’
He sits by his fire and talks lovingly of the roses
that he grew in the summer that has vanished,
and his eyes light up with enthusiasm as he thinks
of the still fairer blossoms of the summer that will
soon be here. And so two summer-times sit by his
hearth at mid-winter, and he revels in the company
of each of them.</p>
<p>It is ever so. The crackling of the logs wakes up
the slumbering Past, and it all comes back to us.
As soon as a man gets his feet on the fender he
instinctively thinks of old times and old companions.
The flames have destroyed much; but they also
revive much. They bring back to us our yesterdays;
they bring back, indeed, the lordly yesterdays of
<SPAN name="p177" id="p177"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>181<span class="ns">]
</span></span>the remotest, stateliest antiquity. Surely that
was the idea in Macaulay’s mind when he wrote
‘Horatius’:</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>And in the nights of winter,</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>When the cold north winds blow,</div>
<div>And the long howling of the wolves</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>Is heard amidst the snow;</div>
<div>When round the lonely cottage</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>Roars loud the tempest’s din,</div>
<div>And the good logs of Algidus</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>Roar louder yet within;</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div><br class="ns"/>When the oldest cask is opened,</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>And the largest lamp is lit;</div>
<div>When the chestnuts glow in the embers,</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>And the kid turns on the spit;</div>
<div>When young and old in circle</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>Around the firebrands close;</div>
<div>When the girls are weaving baskets,</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>And the lads are shaping bows;</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div><br class="ns"/>When the goodman mends his armour,</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>And trims his helmet’s plume;</div>
<div>When the goodwife’s shuttle merrily</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>Goes flashing through the <span class="nw">loom,—</span></div>
<div>With weeping and with laughter</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>Still is the story told,</div>
<div>How well Horatius kept the bridge</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>In the brave days of old.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>Now, when I come to think of it, is it any wonder
that the days of auld lang syne, and the old familiar
<SPAN name="p178" id="p178"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>182<span class="ns">]
</span></span>faces, should all come back in the flames? For the
scientists tell me that this study-fire of mine is
simply the radiance of far-back ages suddenly
released for my present comfort. Long before a
single black-fellow prowled about these vast Australian
solitudes, the sun bathed this huge continent
in apparently superfluous brightness. But the sun
knew what it was doing. The coalbeds gathered up
and stored that sunshine through centuries of centuries.
The black men came; and the white men
came; and here at last am I! I need that sunshine
of ages long gone by. The miner digs for it; brings
it to the surface; sends it to my study; and, lo,
I am this very morning warming my numb fingers
at its genial glow!</p>
<p>And so the match with which I light a fire, either
in the camp away up in the bush, or in this quiet
study at home, is nothing less than the wand of a
magician! At the barred and bolted doors of the
irrecoverable Past I tap with that small wand and
cry, ‘Open, Sesame!’ And, lo, a miracle is straightway
wrought! The doors that have been closed
for years, perhaps for ages, swing suddenly open,
and the sunshine comes streaming out! That
match liberates the imprisoned brightness. The
scientists say so, and I can easily believe it. For
this is the essential glory of the fireside. All the
sunniest memories rush to mind as we cluster round
<SPAN name="p179" id="p179"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>183<span class="ns">]
</span></span>the hearth. All the sunniest experiences of the
dead and buried years spring to vigorous life once
more. All the sunniest faces—the dear, familiar
faces of the long ago—smile at us again from out
the glowing embers. And perhaps—who shall say?—perhaps
some thought like this haunted the minds
of a prophet of the Old Testament and an apostle
of the New when, greatly daring, they declared that
‘our God is a consuming fire!’ Did they mean
that, when we see Him as He is, all the holiest and
sweetest and most precious treasure of the Past will
be more our own? Did they mean that in Him
the sunshine of all the ages will again salute us?</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p180" id="p180"></SPAN>
<h3 title="VIII. The menace of the sunlit hill"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>184<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>VIII</big><br/>THE MENACE OF THE SUNLIT HILL</h3>
<p><span class="smc">I am</span> writing on the six hundred and fiftieth anniversary
of the birth of Dante. The poet was born
in 1265; I am writing in 1915. Six hundred and
fifty years represent a tremendous slice of history;
and these six hundred and fifty years span a chasm
between two specially notable crises in the annals
of this little world. Dante was born in a year of
battle and of tumult, of fierce dissension and of
bitter strife. It was a year that decided the destinies
of empires and changed the face of Europe.
Such a year, too, is this in which I write, and, writing,
look down the long, long avenue of the centuries
that intervene. This morning, however, I am not
concerned with the story of revolution and of
conflict, of political convulsions and of nations at
war. Such a study would have fascinations of its
own; but I deliberately leave it that I may contemplate
the secret history of a great, a noble, and a
tender soul. Edward FitzGerald tells us that he
and Tennyson were one day looking in a shop window
in Regent Street. They saw a long row of busts,
among which were those of Goethe and Dante.<!-- TN: period invisible in original -->
<SPAN name="p181" id="p181"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>185<span class="ns">]
</span></span>The poet and his friend studied them closely and
in silence. At last FitzGerald spoke. ‘What is it,’
he asked, ‘which is present in Dante’s face and
absent from Goethe’s?’ The poet answered, ‘<em>The
divine!</em>’ Now how did that divine element come
into Dante’s life? He has himself told us. Has
the spiritual autobiography of Dante, as revealed
to us in the introductory lines of his <cite>Inferno</cite>, ever
taken that place among our devotional classics
to which it is justly entitled? Surely the pathos,
the insight, and the exquisite simplicity of that
first page are worthy of comparison with the choicest
treasures of Bunyan or of Wesley, of Brainerd or
of Fox. Let us glance at it.</p>
<h4 title="">I</h4>
<p>I have heard many evangelists preach on such
texts as: ‘The Son of Man is come to seek and to
save that which is lost.’ It was necessary, of course,
that they should explain to their audiences what
they meant by this lost condition. Wisely enough,
they have usually had recourse to illustration.
The child lost in a London crowd; the ship lost on
a trackless sea; the sheep lost among the lonely
hills; the traveller lost in the endless bush,—all
these have been exploited again and again. From
literature, one of the best illustrations is the moving
story of Enoch Arden. When poor Enoch returns
<SPAN name="p182" id="p182"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>186<span class="ns">]
</span></span>from his long sojourn on the desolate island, he
finds that his wife, giving him up for dead, has
married Philip, and that his children worship their
new father. It is the garrulous old woman at the
inn who tells him, never dreaming that she is speaking
to Enoch. Says she:</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>‘Enoch, poor man, was cast away and lost!’</div>
<div>He, shaking his grey head pathetically,</div>
<div>Repeated, muttering, ‘Cast away and lost!’</div>
<div>Again in deeper inward whispers, ‘Lost!’</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>But none of these illustrations are as good as Dante’s.
He opens by describing the emotions with which,
at the age of thirty-five, his soul awoke. He was
lost!</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>In the midway of this our mortal life,</div>
<div>I found me in a gloomy wood, astray,</div>
<div>Gone from the path direct: and e’en to tell</div>
<div>It were no easy task, how savage wild</div>
<div>That forest, how robust and rough its growth,</div>
<div>Which to remember only, my dismay</div>
<div>Renews, in bitterness not far from death.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>Neither Bunyan’s pilgrim in his City of Destruction,
nor his City of Mansoul beleaguered by fierce foes,
is quite so human or quite so convincing as this
weird scene in the forest. The gloom, the loneliness,
the silence, and the absence of all hints as to a
<SPAN name="p183" id="p183"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>187<span class="ns">]
</span></span>way out of his misery; these make up a scene that
combines all the elements of adventure with all
the elements of reality. Dante was lost, and knew
it.</p>
<h4 title="">II</h4>
<p>The poet cannot tell us by what processes he
became entangled in this jungle. ‘How first I
entered it I scarce can say.’ But it does not very
much matter. The way by which he escaped is
the thing that concerns us; and to this theme he
bravely addresses himself. In his description of
his earliest sensations in the dark forest, several
things are significant. He clearly regarded it as
a very great gain, for example, to have discovered
that he was lost. ‘I found me,’ he says, ‘I found
me in a gloomy wood, astray.’ Those three words,
‘<em>I found me</em>,’ remind us of nothing so much as the
record of the prodigal, ‘And he came to himself.’
I am pleased to notice that it is of the incomparable
story of the prodigal that Dante’s opening confession
reminds most of his expositors. Thus, Mr. A. G.
Ferress Howell, in his valuable little monograph
on Dante, observes that this finding of himself
‘shows that he has got to the point reached by
the prodigal son when he said, “I will arise and go
to my father.” He found, that is to say, that he
had altogether missed the true object of life. The
<SPAN name="p184" id="p184"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>188<span class="ns">]
</span></span>wild and trackless wood,’ Mr. Howell goes on to
observe, ‘represents the world as it was in 1300.
Why was it wild and trackless? Because the
guides appointed to lead men to <em>temporal felicity</em>
in accordance with the teachings of Philosophy, and
to eternal felicity in accordance with the teachings
of Revelation—the Emperor and the Pope—were
both of them false to their trust.’ So here was
poor Dante, only knowing that he was hopelessly
lost; and unable to discover among the undergrowth
about him any suggestion of a way to safety.</p>
<h4 title="">III</h4>
<p>Suddenly the Vision Beautiful breaks upon him.
He stumbles blindly through the forest until he
arrives at the base of a sunlit mountain:</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>... a mountain’s foot I reached, where closed</div>
<div>The valley that had pierced my heart with dread.</div>
<div>I looked aloft, and saw his shoulders broad</div>
<div>Already vested with that planet’s beam</div>
<div>Who leads all wanderers safe through every way.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>The hill is, of course, the life he fain would live—steep
and difficult, but free from the mists of the
valley and the entanglements of the wood. And
is it not illumined by the Sun of Righteousness—‘Who
leads all wanderers safe through every
<SPAN name="p185" id="p185"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>189<span class="ns">]
</span></span>way’? He stepped out from the valley and
cheerfully commenced the ascent. And then his
troubles began. One after the other, wild beasts
barred his way and dared him to persist. His
path was beset with the most terrible difficulties.
Now here, if anywhere, the poet betrays that
spiritual insight, that flash of genuine mysticism,
that entitles him to rank with the great masters. For
whilst he wandered in the murky wood no ravenous
beasts assailed him. There, life, however unsatisfying,
was at least free from conflict. But as soon
as he essayed to climb the sunlit hill his way was
challenged. It is a very ancient problem. The
psalmist marvelled that, whilst the wicked around
him enjoyed a most profound and unruffled tranquillity,
his life was so full of perplexity and trouble.
John Bunyan was arrested by the same inscrutable
mystery. Why should he, in his pilgrim progress,
be so storm-beaten and persecuted, whilst the
people who abandoned themselves to folly enjoyed
unbroken ease? I have often thought of the
problem when out shooting. The dog invariably
ignores the dead birds and devotes all his energy
to the fluttering things that are struggling to escape.
In the stress of the experience itself, however, such
comfortable thoughts do not occur to us, and it
seems passing strange that, whilst our days in the
wood were undisturbed by hungry eyes or gleaming
<SPAN name="p186" id="p186"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>190<span class="ns">]
</span></span>fangs, our attempt to climb the sunlit hill should
bring about us a host of unexpected enemies.
Many a young and eager convert, fancying that
the Christian life meant nothing but rapture, has
been startled by the discovery of the beasts of prey
awaiting him.</p>
<h4 title="">IV</h4>
<p>And such beasts! Trouble seemed to succeed
trouble; difficulty followed on the heels of difficulty;
peril came hard upon peril.</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="indent8"><span class="ns"> </span>Scarce the ascent</div>
<div>Began, when, lo! a panther, nimble, light,</div>
<div>And covered with a speckled skin, appeared,</div>
<div>Nor when it saw me, vanished, rather strove</div>
<div>To check my onward going; that ofttimes</div>
<div>With purpose to retrace my steps I turned.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>He had scarcely recovered from the shock, and
driven this peril from his path, when</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>... a new dread succeeded, for in view</div>
<div>A lion came, ’gainst me, as it appeared,</div>
<div>With his head held aloft and hunger-mad.</div>
<div>That e’en the air was fear-struck. A she-wolf</div>
<div>Was at his heels, who in her leanness seemed</div>
<div>Full of all wants, and many a land hath made</div>
<div>Disconsolate ere now. She with such fear</div>
<div>O’erwhelmed me, at the sight of her appalled,</div>
<div>That of the height all hope I lost.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p><SPAN name="p187" id="p187"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>191<span class="ns">]
</span></span>The panther, the lion, and the wolf; that is very
suggestive, and we must look into this striking
symbolism a little more closely.</p>
<h4 title="">V</h4>
<p>The three fierce creatures that challenged Dante’s
ascent of the sunlit hill represent evils of various
kinds and characters. If a man cannot be deterred
by one form of temptation, another will speedily
present itself. It is, as the old prophet said, ‘as
if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him;
or went into the house, and leaned his hand on
the wall, and a serpent bit him.’ If one form of
evil is unsuccessful, another instantly replaces it.
If the panther is driven off, the lion appears; and
if the lion is vanquished, the lean wolf takes its
place. But there is more than this hidden in the
poet’s parable. Did Dante intend to set forth no
subtle secret by placing the three beasts in that
order? Most of his expositors agree that he meant
the panther to represent <em>Lust</em>, the lion to represent
<em>Pride</em>, and the wolf to represent <em>Avarice</em>. Lust is
the besetting temptation of youth, and therefore
the panther comes first. Pride is the sin to which
we succumb most easily in the full vigour of life.
We have won our spurs, made a way for ourselves
in the world, and the glamour of our triumph is
too much for us. And Avarice comes, not exactly
<SPAN name="p188" id="p188"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>192<span class="ns">]
</span></span>in age, but just after the zenith has been passed.
The beasts were not equidistant. The lion came
some time after the panther had vanished; but the
wolf crept at the lion’s heels. What a world of
meaning is crowded into that masterly piece of
imagery! Assuming that this interpretation be
sound, two other suggestions immediately confront
us; and we must lend an ear to each of them in
turn.</p>
<h4 title="">VI</h4>
<p>The three creatures differed in character. The
panther was <em>beautiful</em>; the lion was <em>terrible</em>; the
wolf was <em>horrible</em>. Although the poet knew full
well the cruelty and deadliness of the crouching
panther’s spring, he was compelled to admire the
creature’s exquisite beauty. ‘The hour,’ he says,</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>The hour was morning’s prime, and on his way.</div>
<div>Aloft the sun ascended with those stars</div>
<div>That with him rose, when Love divine first moved</div>
<div>Those its fair works; so that with joyous hope</div>
<div>All things conspire to fill me, the gay skin</div>
<div>Of that swift animal, the matin dawn.</div>
<div>And the sweet season.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>The lion, on the other hand, is the symbol of majesty
and terror. But the lean she-wolf was positively
<SPAN name="p189" id="p189"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>193<span class="ns">]
</span></span>horrible. Her hungry eyes, her gleaming fangs,
her panting sides, filled the beholder with loathing.
‘Her leanness seemed full of all wants.’ The poet
says that the very sight of her o’erwhelmed and
appalled him. Dante himself confessed that, of
the three, he regarded the last as by far the worst of
these three brutal foes. Now I fancy that, in the
temptations that respectively assail youth, maturity,
and decline, I have noticed these same characteristics.
As a rule, the sins of youth are beautiful sins. The
appeals to youthful vice are invariably defended on
aesthetic grounds. The boundary-line that divides
high art from indecency is a very difficult one to
define. And it is so difficult to define because the
blandishments to which youth succumbs are for the
most part the blandishments of beauty. Like the
panther, vice is cruel and pitiless; yet the glamour
of it is so fair that it ‘blends with the matin dawn
and the sweet season.’ The sins that bring down
the strong man, on the other hand, are not so much
beautiful as terrible. The man in his prime goes
down before those terrific onslaughts that the forces
of evil know so well how to organize and muster.
They are not lovely; they are leonine. And is it not
true that the temptations that work havoc in later
life are as a rule unalluring, hideous, and difficult
to understand? The world is thunderstruck. It
seems so incomprehensible that, after having
<SPAN name="p190" id="p190"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>194<span class="ns">]
</span></span>survived his struggle with the beauteous panther and
the terrible lion, a man of such mettle should yield
to a lean and ugly wolf!</p>
<h4 title="">VII</h4>
<p>The other thing is this: there is a distinction in
method, a difference in approach, distinguishing
these three beasts. The panther crouches, springs
suddenly upon its unsuspecting prey, and relies on
the advantage of surprise. Such are the sins of
youth. ‘Alas,’ as George Macdonald so tersely
says,</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>Alas, how easily things go wrong!</div>
<div>A sigh too deep, or a kiss too long,</div>
<div>There follows a mist and a weeping rain.</div>
<div>And life is never the same again.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>The lion meets you in the open, and relies upon his
strength. The wolf simply persists. He follows
your trail day after day. You see his wicked eyes,
like fireflies, stabbing the darkness of the night.
He relies not upon surprise or strength, but on
wearing you down at the last. Wherefore, let him
that thinketh he standeth—having beaten off the
<em>panther</em>—beware of the <em>lion</em> and the <em>wolf</em>. And, still
more imperatively, let him that thinketh he standeth—having
vanquished both the <em>panther</em> and the
lion—take heed lest he fall at last to the grim
<SPAN name="p191" id="p191"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>195<span class="ns">]
</span></span>and frightful persistence of the lean <em>she-wolf</em>. It
is just six hundred and fifty years to-day since
Dante was born; but, as my pen has been whispering
these things to me, the centuries have fallen away
like a curtain that is drawn. I have saluted across
the ages a man of like passions with myself, and his
brave spirit has called upon mine to climb the sunlit
hill in spite of everything.</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p192" id="p192"></SPAN>
<h3 title="IX. Among the icebergs"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>196<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>IX</big><br/>AMONG THE ICEBERGS</h3>
<p><span class="smc">Not</span> so very long ago, and not so very far from this
Tasmanian home of mine, I beheld a spectacle that
took me completely by surprise, and even now baffles
my best endeavours to describe it. I was on board
a fine steamship four days out from Hobart. In
the early afternoon, as I was rising from a brief
siesta, I was startled by a voice exclaiming excitedly,
‘Oh, do come and see such a splendid iceberg!’
I confess that at first I entertained the notion with a
liberal allowance of caution. I was afflicted with
very grave suspicions. At sea, folk are apt to forget
the calendar, and every day in the year has an
awkward way of getting itself mistaken for the first
of April. But the manifest earnestness of my informant
bore down before it all base doubts, and I was
sufficiently convinced to hurry up to the promenade
deck. I looked eagerly far out to port, and then to
starboard, but nothing was to be seen! It was the
old story of ‘water, water everywhere!’ My
suspicions returned in an aggravated form. Indignantly
I sought out my informant, and peremptorily
demanded production of the promised iceberg.
<SPAN name="p193" id="p193"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>197<span class="ns">]
</span></span>‘It’s dead ahead,’ he replied calmly, ‘and can
therefore only be seen as yet from the bows.’ To
the bows I accordingly hastened, and there I found
a crowd, comprising both passengers and crew,
already congregated.</p>
<p>And surely enough, I then and there beheld the
most magnificent and awe-inspiring natural phenomenon
upon which these eyes ever rested. Right
ahead of the ship there loomed up on the far horizon
what appeared, under an overcast, leaden sky, to
be a fair-sized island, with a high and rocky coast.
In the distance stood a tall, rugged peak, as of a
mountain towering up like a monarch coldly proud
of his desolate island realm. The whole stood out
strikingly gloomy and forbidding against the distant
eastern skyline. But, hey, presto! even as we
watched it, in less time than it takes to tell, a wonderful
transformation scene was enacted before our
eyes. Suddenly, from over the stern, the sun shone
out, flinging all its radiant splendours on the colossal
object of our undivided attention.</p>
<p>In the twinkling of an eye, as if by magic, that
which but a second ago might have passed for a
barren rocky island was transformed into a
brilliant mass of dazzling whiteness. Everything
seemed to have been transfigured. A fairyland
of pearly palaces, flashing with diamonds and
emeralds, could not have eclipsed its glories now!
<SPAN name="p194" id="p194"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>198<span class="ns">]
</span></span>There it still stood, indescribably terrible and grand,
right in our track, as though daring us to approach
any nearer to its gleaming purities. And as the
sunlight refracted about it, all the colours of the
rainbow seemed to play around its brow. Moreover,
the genial warmth produced another wonder. For,
under its benign influence, the glittering peaks gave
off columns of vapour. They seemed to smoke
like volcanoes.</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>In the mellow summer sun,</div>
<div>The icebergs, one by one,</div>
<div>Caught a spark of quickening fire,</div>
<div>Every turret smoked a censer,</div>
<div>Every pinnacle a pyre.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>The wonder grew upon us as we watched. And
yet, straight on, our good ship held her way, her
course unaltered and her speed unabated, as if,
fascinated by the majestic beauty before her, she
were eager to dash herself to pieces at the feet of
such pure and awful loveliness. Ever greater and
ever more splendid it appeared as the distance
lessened between us and it, until we really seemed
to be approaching an almost perilous proximity.
Then, of a sudden, the ship swerved to the north-ward,
and we ran by within a few hundred yards of
the icy monster. Who could help recalling the
adventure of Coleridge’s ‘Ancient Mariner’?</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div><SPAN name="p195" id="p195"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>199<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>And now there came both mist and snow,</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>And it grew wondrous cold,</div>
<div>And ice, mast high, came floating by</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>As green as emerald.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div><br class="ns"/>And through the drifts, the snowy clifts</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>Did send a dismal sheen,</div>
<div>Nor shapes of men, nor beasts we ken.</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>The ice was all between.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div><br class="ns"/>The ice was here, the ice was there,</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>The ice was all around,</div>
<div>It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>Like noises in a swound.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>Or Tennyson’s lovely simile, wherein he says that
we ourselves are like</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>Floating lonely icebergs, our crests above the ocean,</div>
<div>With deeply submerged portions united by the sea.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>Then once again the fickle sun veiled his face,
and that which had appeared at first as a rocky
island in mid-ocean, and afterwards as a flashing
palace of crystals, now assumed a dulled whiteness
as of one huge mass of purest chalk.</p>
<p>The heavy southern seas were dashing angrily
against it, seeming jealously to resent its escape from
their own frozen dominions. And the great clouds
of spray which, as a consequence, were hurled into
mid-air gave an added grandeur to a spectacle that
seemed to need no supplementary charms. For
miles around, the sea was strewn with enormous
<SPAN name="p196" id="p196"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>200<span class="ns">]
</span></span>masses of floating ice, some as large as an ordinary
two-story house, and all of the most fantastic
shapes, which had apparently swarmed off from the
main berg. One long row of these, stretching out
from the monster right across the ship’s course,
looked for a moment not unlike a great ice-reef
connected with the berg, and caused no little anxiety
until the line of apparent peril had been safely
negotiated. When we were clean abreast, a gun
was fired from the bridge of the steamer, in order,
I understand, to ascertain from the rapidity and
volume of the echo the approximate distance, and,
by deduction, the size of our polar acquaintance.
Nor were there wanting those who were sanguine
enough to expect that the atmospheric vibration
set in operation by the explosion might finish the
work of dislocation which any cracks or fissures
had already begun, and bring down at least some
tottering peaks or pinnacles. Sir John Franklin,
in one of his northern voyages, saw this feat accomplished.
But, if any of my companions expected
to witness a similar phenomenon, they had reckoned
without their host. The unaffected dignity of the
sullen monster mocked our puny effort to bring
about his downfall. Hercules scorned the ridiculous
weapons of the pigmies! The dull booming of the
gun started a thousand weird echoes on the desolate
ice. They snarled out their remonstrance at our
<SPAN name="p197" id="p197"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>201<span class="ns">]
</span></span>intrusion upon their wonted solitude, and then again
lapsed sulkily into silence. The temperature dropped
instantly, and I recalled a famous saying of Dr.
Thomas Guthrie’s, whose life I had just been reading.
In one of his speeches, before the Synod of Angus
and Mearns, he said, ‘I know of churches that
would be all the better of some little heat. <em>An
iceberg of a minister</em> has been floated in among them,
and they have cooled down to something below
zero.’ ‘<em>An iceberg of a minister!</em>’ I think of the
nipping air on board when our ship was in the midst
of the ice; and the memory of it makes me shiver!
‘<em>An iceberg of a minister!</em>’ God, in His great
mercy, save me from being such a minister as that!</p>
<p>The long-sustained excitement to which these
events had given rise had scarcely begun to subside
when the cry arose, ‘An iceberg on the starboard
bow!’ This, in its turn, was speedily succeeded
by ‘Another!’ Then, ‘An iceberg on the port
bow!’ And yet once more ‘Another!’ till we
were literally surrounded by icebergs. At tea-time
we could peep through the saloon portholes at no
fewer than five of these polar giants. Although
most of them were larger than our first acquaintance—at
least one of them being about three miles in
length—none of these later appearances succeeded
in arousing the same degree of enthusiasm as that
with which we hailed the advent of the first. For
<SPAN name="p198" id="p198"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>202<span class="ns">]
</span></span>one thing, the charm of novelty had, of course,
begun to wear off. And, for another, they were
of a less romantic shape, most of them being perfectly
flat, as though some great polar plain were
being broken up and we were being favoured with
the superfluous territory in casual instalments.
And, by the way, speaking of the shape of icebergs,
I am told that the icebergs of the two hemispheres
are quite different in shape, the Arctic bergs being
irregular in outline, with lofty pinnacles and glittering
domes, while the Antarctic bergs are, generally
speaking, flat-topped, and of less fantastic form.
The delicate traceries of the far North do not reflect
themselves in the sturdier and more matter-of-fact
monsters of the South. The appearance of icebergs
in such numbers, of such dimensions, in these
latitudes, and at this time of the year, constitutes,
I am credibly informed, a very unusual if not,
indeed, a quite unique experience. The theory
was freely advanced that some volcanic disturbance
had visited the polar regions and had dislodged
these massive fragments. However that may be, we
were not at all sorry that it had fallen to our happy
lot to behold a spectacle of such sublimity. And
when we reflected that less than one-tenth of each
mass was visible above the water-line, we were able
to form a more adequate appreciation of the stupendous
proportions of our gigantic neighbours.
<SPAN name="p199" id="p199"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>203<span class="ns">]
</span></span>Reflecting upon this aspect of the matter, I remembered
to have heard, in my college days, a popular
London preacher make excellent use of this phenomenon.
‘When,’ he said impressively, ‘when
you are tempted to judge sin from its superficial
appearance, and to judge it leniently, remember
that sins are like icebergs—<em>the greater part of them
is out of sight</em>!’</p>
<p>A certain amount of anxiety was felt, I confess,
by most of us as night cast her sable mantle over
sea and ice. To admire an iceberg in broad daylight
is one thing; to be racing on amidst a crowd of
them by night is quite another. Ice, however,
casts around it a weird, warning light of its own,
which makes its presence perceptible even in the
darkest night. So all night long the good ship sped
bravely on her ocean track, and all night long the
captain himself kept cold and sleepless vigil on the
bridge. When morning broke, three fresh icebergs
were to be seen away over the stern. But we had
now shaped a more northerly course; and we therefore
waved adieu to these magnificent monsters
which we were so delighted to have seen, and scarcely
less pleased to have left. They will doubtless have
melted from existence long before they will have
melted from our memories.</p>
<p>Yes, they will have melted! And that reminds
me of another famous saying of the great Dr Thomas
<SPAN name="p200" id="p200"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>204<span class="ns">]
</span></span>Guthrie, a saying which is peculiarly to the point
just now. ‘The existence,’ he said, ‘of the Mohammedan
power in Turkey is just a question of time.
Its foundations are year by year wearing away,
like that of an iceberg which has floated into warm
seas, and, as happens with that creation of a cold
climate, it will by-and-by become top-heavy, the
centre of gravity being changed, and it will topple
over! What a commotion then!’ Ah! what
a commotion, to be sure!</p>
<p>They will have melted! Silly things! They
grew weary of that realm of white and stainless
purity to which they once belonged; they broke
away from their old connexions and set out upon their
long, long drift. They drifted on and on towards
the milder north; on and on towards warmer seas;
on and on towards the balmy breath and ceaseless
sunshine of the tropics. And, in return, the sunshine
destroyed them. Yes, the sunshine destroyed
them. I have seen something very much like it in
the Church and in the world. ‘Therefore,’ says a
great writer, who had himself felt the fatal lure of
too-much-sunshine, ‘therefore let us take the more
steadfast hold of the things which we have heard,
lest at any time we drift away from them.’ It is a
tragedy of no small magnitude when, like the iceberg,
a man is lured by sparkling summer seas to his own
undoing.</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p201" id="p201"></SPAN>
<h2 class="pushdown" title="Part III"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>205<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>PART III</h2>
<SPAN name="p203" id="p203"></SPAN>
<h3 title="I. A box of tin soldiers"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>207<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>I</big><br/>A BOX OF TIN SOLDIERS</h3>
<p><span class="smc">No</span> philosophy is worth its salt unless it can make
a boy forget that he has the toothache; and the
philosophy which I am about to introduce has
triumphantly survived that exacting ordeal. That
Jack had the toothache everybody knew. The
expression of his anguish resounded dismally through
the neighbourhood; the evidence of it was visible
in his swollen and distorted countenance. Poor
Jack! All the standard cures—old-fashioned and
new-fangled—had been tried in vain; all but one.
It was that one that at last relieved the pain, and it
is of that one that I now write. It happened that
Jack was within a week of his birthday. His
parents, who are busy people, might easily have
overlooked that interesting circumstance had not
Jack chanced to allude to it at every opportune
and inopportune moment during the previous month
or so. Indeed, to guard against accidents, Jack had
enlivened the conversation at the breakfast-table
morning by morning with really ingenious conjectures
as to the presents by which his personal friends might
conceivably accompany their congratulations. His
<SPAN name="p204" id="p204"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>208<span class="ns">]
</span></span>expressions of disappointment in certain supposititious<!-- TN: OK (OED) -->
cases, and of unbounded delight in others,
was quite affecting.</p>
<p>Now Jack’s father is afflicted by a wholesome
dread of shopping. If a purchase must needs be
made, Jack’s mother has to make it. But Jack’s
mother labours under one severe disability. As Jack
himself often tells her—and certainly he ought to
know—she doesn’t understand boys. The difficulty
is therefore surmounted on this wise. Jack’s
mother visits the emporium; carefully avoids all
those goods and chattels of which she has heard her
son speak with such withering disdain; selects
eight or ten of the articles that he has chanced to
mention in tones of undisguised approval; orders
these to be sent on approval at an hour at which
Jack will be sure to be at school; and leaves to her
husband the responsibility of making the final
decision. Now this unwieldy parcel was still lying
under the bed in the spare room on that fateful
morning when Jack became smitten with toothache.
Every other nostrum having failed, the mind of
Jack’s mother strangely turned to the toys beneath
the bed. A woman’s mind is an odd piece of
mechanism, and works in strange ways. No doctor
under the sun would dream of prescribing a box of
tin soldiers as a remedy for toothache; yet the mind
of Jack’s mother fastened upon that box of tin
<SPAN name="p205" id="p205"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>209<span class="ns">]
</span></span>soldiers. It was just as cheap as some of the other
remedies to which they had so desperately resorted;
and it could not possibly be less efficacious. And
there would still be plenty of toys to choose from
for the birthday present. Out came the box of
soldiers, and off went Jack in greatest glee. Half an
hour later his mother found him in the back garden.
He had dug a trench two inches deep, piling up the
earth in protective heaps in front of it. All along the
trench stood the little tin soldiers heroically defying
the armies of the universe. And the toothache was
ancient history!</p>
<p>Jack managed to get his little tin soldiers into a
tiny two-inch trench; but, as a matter of serious
fact, those diminutive warriors have occupied a
really great place in the story of this little world.<!-- TN: period invisible in original -->
Bagehot somewhere draws a pathetic picture of
crowds of potential authors who, having the time,
the desire, and the ability to write, are yet unable
for the life of them to think of anything to write
about. Let one of these unfortunates bend his
unconsecrated energies to the writing of a book on the
influence of toys in the making of men. Only the
other day an antiquarian, digging away in the
neighbourhood of the Pyramids, came upon an old
toy-chest. Here were dolls, and soldiers, and
wooden animals, and, indeed, all the playthings that
make up the stock-in-trade of a modern nursery.
<SPAN name="p206" id="p206"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>210<span class="ns">]
</span></span>It is pleasant to think of those small Egyptians in the
days of the Pharaohs amusing themselves with the
selfsame toys that beguiled our own childhood.
It is pleasant to think of the place of the toy-chest
in the history of the world from that remote time
down to our own.</p>
<p>But I must not be deflected into a discussion of
the whole tremendous subject of toys. I must
stick to these little tin soldiers. And these small
metallic warriors cut a really brave figure in our
history. Some of the happiest days in Robert
Louis Stevenson’s happy life were the days that he
spent as a boy in his grandfather’s manse at Colinton.
‘That was my golden age!’ he used to say. He
never forgot the rickety old phaeton that drove into
Edinburgh to fetch him; the lovely scenery on either
side of the winding country road; or the excited
welcome that always awaited him when he drove
up to the manse door. But most vividly of all he
remembered the box of tin soldiers; the marshalling
of huge armies on the great mahogany table; the
play of strategy; the furious combat; and the final
glorious victory. The old gentleman sat back in
his spacious arm-chair, cracking his nuts and sipping
his wine, whilst his imaginative little grandson in
his velvet suit controlled the movements of armies
and the fates of empires. The love of those little
tin soldiers never forsook him. Later on, at Davos,
<SPAN name="p207" id="p207"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>211<span class="ns">]
</span></span>an exile from home, fighting bravely against that
terrible malady that had marked him as its prey,
it was to the little tin soldiers that he turned for
comfort. ‘The tin soldiers most took his fancy,’
says Mr. Lloyd Osbourne, ‘and the war game was
constantly improved and elaborated, until, from a
few hours, a war took weeks to play, and the critical
operations in the attic monopolized half our thoughts.
On the floor a map was roughly drawn in chalks of
different colours, with mountains, rivers, towns,
bridges, and roads in two colours. The mimic
battalions marched and countermarched, changed
by measured evolutions from column formation into
line, with cavalry screens in front and massed supports
behind in the most approved military fashion
of to-day. It was war in miniature, even to the
making and destruction of bridges; the entrenching
of camps; good and bad weather, with corresponding
influence on the roads; siege and horse artillery,
proportionately slow, as compared with the speed
of unimpeded foot, and proportionately expensive
in the upkeep; and an exacting commissariat added
the last touch of verisimilitude.’ Those little tin
soldiers marched up and down the whole of Robert
Louis Stevenson’s life. They were with him in
boyhood at Colinton; they were with him in maturity
at Davos; and they were in at the death. For, in
the familiar house at Vailima, the house on the
<SPAN name="p208" id="p208"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>212<span class="ns">]
</span></span>top of the hill, the house from which his gentle
spirit passed away, there was one room dedicated to
the little tin soldiers. The great coloured map
monopolized the floor, and the tiny regiments
marched or halted at their frail commander’s will.</p>
<p>One could multiply examples almost endlessly.
We need not have followed Robert Louis Stevenson
half-way round the world. We might have visited
Ireland and seen Mr. Parnell’s box of toys. Everybody
knows the story of his victory over his sister.
Fanny commanded one division of tin soldiers on
the nursery floor; Charles led the opposing force.
Each general was possessed of a popgun, and swept
the serried lines of the enemy with this terrible
weapon. For several days the war continued
without apparent advantage being gained by either
side. But one day everything was changed. Strange
as it may seem, Fanny’s soldiers fell by the score and
by the hundred, while those commanded by her
brother refused to waver even when palpably hit.
This went on until Fanny’s army was utterly annihilated.
But Charles confessed, an hour later, that,
before opening fire that morning, he had taken
the precaution to glue the feet of his soldiers to the
nursery floor! Did somebody discover in those
war games at Colinton, Davos, and Vailima a
reflection, as in a mirror, of the adventurous spirit
of Robert Louis Stevenson? Or, even more clearly,
<SPAN name="p209" id="p209"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>213<span class="ns">]
</span></span>did somebody see, in that famous fight on the nursery
floor at Avondale, a forecast of the great Irish
leader’s passionate fondness for outwitting his
antagonists and overwhelming his bewildered foe?</p>
<p>Then let us glance at one other picture, and we
shall see what we shall see! We are in Russia now.
It is at the close of the seventeenth century. Yonder
is a boy of whom the world will one day talk till its
tongue is tired. They will call him Peter the Great.
See, he gathers together all the boys of the neighbourhood
and plays with them. Plays—but at what?
‘He plays soldiers, of course,’ says Waliszewski,
‘and, naturally, he was in command. Behold him,
then, at the head of a regiment! Out of this
childish play rose that mighty creation, the Russian
army. Yes,’ our Russian author goes on to exclaim,
‘yes, this double point of departure—the
pseudo-naval games on the lake of Pereislavl, and
the pseudo-military games on the Preobrajenskoie
drill-ground—led to the double goal—the Conquest
of the Baltic and the Battle of Poltava!’ Yes, to
these, and to how much else? When Jack cures
his toothache with a box of soldiers, who knows what
world-shaking evolutions are afoot?</p>
<p>And now the time has come to make a serious
investigation. Why is Jack—taking Jack now as
the federal head and natural representative of
Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Stewart Parnell,<!-- TN: comma invisible in original -->
<SPAN name="p210" id="p210"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>214<span class="ns">]
</span></span>Peter the Great, and all the boys who ever were,
are, or will be—why is Jack so inordinately fond of
a box of soldiers? By what magic have those tiny
tin campaigners the power to exorcise the agonies of
toothache? Now look; the answer is simple, and it
is twofold. The small metallic warriors appeal to
the innate love of <em>Conquest</em> and to the innate love of
<em>Command</em>. And in that innate love of Conquest is
summed up all Jack’s future relationship to his foes.
And in that innate love of Command is summed
up all his future relationship to his friends. For
long, long ago, in the babyhood of the world, God
spoke to man for the first time. And in that
very first sentence, God said, ‘Subdue the earth and
have dominion!’ ‘Subdue!’—that is Conquest;
‘have dominion!’—that is Command. And since
the first man heard those martial words, ‘Subdue
and have dominion!’ the passions of the conqueror
and the commander have tingled in the blood of
the race. They have been awakened in Jack by
the box of soldiers. He feels that he is born to
fight, born to struggle, born to overcome, born to
triumph, born to command. And that fighting instinct
will never really desert him. It will follow him,
as it followed Stevenson, from infancy to death.
He may put it to evil uses. He may fight the
wrong people, or fight the wrong things. But that only
shows how vital a business is his training. A naval
<SPAN name="p211" id="p211"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>215<span class="ns">]
</span></span>officer has to spend half his time familiarizing himself
with the appearance of all our British battleships,
in all lights and at all angles, so that he may never
be misled, amidst the confusion of battle, into opening
fire upon his comrades. As Jack looks up to us
from his little two-inch trenches, his innocent eyes
seem to appeal eloquently for similar tuition.</p>
<p>‘Teach me what those forces are that I have to
<em>conquer</em>,’ he seems to say, ‘then teach me what
forces I have to <em>command</em>, and I will spend all my
days in the Holy War.’</p>
<p>And, depend upon it, if we can show Jack how
to bend to his will all the mysterious forces at his
disposal, and to recognize at a glance all the alien
forces that are ranged against him, we shall see him
one day among the conquerors who, with songs of
victory on their lips and with palms in their hands,
share the rapture of the world’s last triumph.</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p212" id="p212"></SPAN>
<h3 title="II. Love, music, and salad"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>216<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>II</big><br/>LOVE, MUSIC, AND SALAD</h3>
<p><span class="smc">It</span> seems an odd mixture at first glance; but it
isn’t mine. Mr. Wilkie Collins is responsible for
the amazing hotch-potch. ‘What do you say,’
he asks in <cite>The Moonstone</cite>, ‘what do you say when
our county member, growing hot, at cheese and
salad time, about the spread of democracy in
England, burst out as follows: “If we once lose our
ancient safeguards, Mr. Blake, I beg to ask you, what
have we got left?” And what do you say to Mr.
Franklin answering, from the Italian point of view,
“<em>We have got three things left, sir—Love, Music,
and Salad</em>”’? I confess that, when first I came
upon this curious conglomeration, I thought that
Mr. Franklin meant Love, Music, and Salad to stand
for a mere incomprehensible confusion, a meaningless
jumble. I examined the sentence a second time,
however, and began to suspect that there was at
least some method in his madness. And now that
I scrutinize it still more closely, I feel ashamed of
my first hasty judgement. I can see that Love,
Music, and Salad are the fundamental elements of
<SPAN name="p213" id="p213"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>217<span class="ns">]
</span></span>the solar system; and, as Mr. Franklin suggests,
so long as they are left to us we can afford to smile
at any political convulsions that may chance to
overtake us.</p>
<p>Love, Music, and Salad are the three biggest
things in life. Mr. Franklin has not only outlined
the situation with extraordinary precision, but he
has placed these three basic factors in their exact
scientific order. Love comes first. Indeed, we
only come because Love calls for us. We find it
waiting with outstretched arms on arrival. It
smothers our babyhood with kisses, and hedges our
infancy about with its ceaseless ministry of doting
affection. Love is the beginning of everything;
I need not labour that point. Where there is no
love there is neither music nor salad, nor anything
else worth writing about.</p>
<p>Mr. Franklin was indisputably right in putting
Love first, and immediately adding Music. You
cannot imagine Love without Music. I am hoping
that one of these days one of our philosophers will
give us a book on the language that does not need
learning. There is room for a really fine volume
on that captivating theme. Henry Drummond
has a most fascinating and characteristic essay on
<cite>The Evolution of Language</cite>; but from my present
standpoint it is sadly disappointing. From first
to last Drummond works on the assumption that
<SPAN name="p214" id="p214"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>218<span class="ns">]
</span></span>human language is a thing of imitation and acquisition.
The foundation of it all, he tells us, is in the
forest. Man heard the howl of the dog, the neigh
of the horse, the bleat of the lamb, the stamp of the
goat; and he deliberately copied these sounds. He
noticed, too, that each animal has sounds specially
adapted for particular occasions. One monkey,
we are told, utters at least six different sounds to
express its feelings; and Darwin discovered four or
five modulations in the bark of the dog. ‘There is
the bark of eagerness, as in the chase; that of
anger, as well as growling; the yelp or howl of despair,
as when shut up; the baying at night; the
bark of joy, as when starting on a walk with his
master; and the very distinct one of demand or
supplication, as when wishing for a door or window
to be opened.’ Drummond appears to assume that
primitive man listened to these sounds and copied
them, much as a child speaks of the bow-wow, the
moo-moo, the quack-quack, the tick-tick, and the
puff-puff. But in all this we leave out of our reckoning
one vital factor. The most expressive language
that we ever speak is the language that we never
learned. As Darwin himself points out, there
are certain simple and vivid feelings which we
express, and express with the utmost clearness,
but without any kind of reference to our higher
intelligence. ‘Our cries of pain, fear, surprise,
<SPAN name="p215" id="p215"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>219<span class="ns">]
</span></span>anger, together with their appropriate actions, and
the murmur of a mother to her beloved child, are
more expressive than any words.’</p>
<p>Is not this a confession of the fact that the soul,
in its greatest moments, speaks a language, not of
imitation or of acquisition, but one that it brought
with it, a language of its own? The language that
we learn varies according to nationality. The
speech of a Chinaman is an incomprehensible jargon
to a Briton; the utterance of a Frenchman is a mere
riot of sound to a Hindu. The language that we
learn is affected even by dialects, so that a man in
one English county finds it by no means easy to
interpret the speech of a visitor from another.
It is even affected by rank and position; the speech
of the plough-boy is one thing, the speech of the
courtier is quite another. So confusing is the
language that we learn! But let a man speak in
the language that needs no learning; and all the
world will understand him. The cry of a child in
pain is the same in Iceland as in India, in Hobart as
in Timbuctoo! The soft and wordless crooning of
a mother as she lulls her babe to rest; the scream
of a man in mortal anguish; the sudden outburst
of uncontrollable laughter; the sigh of regret; the
titter of amusement; and the piteous cry of a broken
heart,—these know neither nationality nor rank
nor station.<!-- TN: period invisible in original --> They are the same in castle as in
<SPAN name="p216" id="p216"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>220<span class="ns">]
</span></span>cottage; in Tasmania as in Thibet; in the world’s
first morning as in the world’s last night. The most
expressive language, the only language in which the
soul itself ever really speaks, is a language without
alphabet or grammar. It needs neither to be
learned nor taught, for all men speak it, and all
men understand.</p>
<p>Was that, consciously or subconsciously, at the
back of Mr. Franklin’s mind when he put Music next
to Love? Certain it is that, in that unwritten language
which is greater than all speech, Music is the
natural expression of Love. Why is there music in
the grove and the forest? It is because love is
there. The birds never sing so sweetly as during the
mating season. For awhile the male bird hovers
about the person of his desired bride, and pours out
an incessant torrent of song in the fond hope of one
day winning her; and when his purpose is achieved,
he goes on singing for very joy that she is his. And
afterwards he ‘gallantly perches near the little
home, pouring forth his joy and pride, sweetly
singing to his mate as she sits within the nest,
patiently hatching her brood.’ Both in men and
women it is at the approach of the love-making age
that the voice suddenly develops, and it is when the
deepest chords in the soul are first struck that the
richest and fullest notes can be sung.</p>
<p>Music, then, is the natural concomitant of Love.
<SPAN name="p217" id="p217"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>221<span class="ns">]
</span></span>That is why most of our songs are love-songs. If a
man is in love he can no more help singing than a
bird can help flying. You cannot love anything
without singing about it. Men love God; that is
why we have hymn-books. Men love women; that
is why we have ballads. Men love their country;
that is why we have national anthems and patriotic
airs.</p>
<p>But the stroke of genius in Mr. Franklin lay in the
addition of the Salad. If he had contented himself
with Love and Music, he would have uttered a
truth, and a great truth; but it would have been a
commonplace truth. As it is, he lifts the whole thing
into the realm of brilliance—and reality. For, after
all, of what earthly use are Love and Music unless
they lead to Salad? When to Love and Music
Mr. Franklin shrewdly added Salad, he put himself
in line with the greatest philosophers of all time.
Bishop Butler told us years ago that if we allow
emotions which are designed to lead to action to
become excited, and no action follows, the very
excitation of that emotion without its appropriate
response leaves the heart much harder than it was
before. And, more recently, our brilliant Harvard
Professor, Dr. William James, has warned us that it
is a very damaging thing for the mind to receive an
<em>impression</em> without giving that impression an adequate
and commensurate <em>expression</em>. If you go to a
<SPAN name="p218" id="p218"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>222<span class="ns">]
</span></span>concert, he says, and hear a lovely song that deeply
moves you, you ought to pay some poor person’s
tram fare on the way home. It is a natural as well
as a psychological law. The earth, for example,
receives the impression represented by the fall of
autumn leaves, the descent of sap from the bough,
and the widespread decay of wintry desolation.
But she hastens to give expression to this impression
by all the wealth and plenitude of her glorious spring
array.</p>
<p>The New Testament gives us a great story which
exactly illustrates my point. It is a very graceful
and tender record, full of Love and Music, but
containing also something more than Love and
Music. For when Dorcas died all the widows stood
weeping in the chamber of death, showing the coats
that Dorcas had made while she was yet with them.
Dorcas was a Jewess. At one time she had been
taught to regard the name of Jesus as a thing to be
abhorred and accursed. But later on a wonderful
experience befell her. Could she ever forget the
day on which, amidst a whirl of spiritual bewilderment
and a tempest of spiritual emotion, she had
discovered, in the very Messiah whom once she had
despised, her Saviour and her Lord? It was a day
never to be forgotten, a day full of Love and Music.
How could she produce an expression adequate to
that wonderful impression? Not in words; for
<SPAN name="p219" id="p219"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>223<span class="ns">]
</span></span>she was not gifted with speech. Yet an expression
must be found. It would have been a fatal thing for
the delicate soul of Dorcas if so turgid a flood of
feeling had found no apt and natural outlet. And in
that crisis she thought of her needle. She expressed
her love for the Lord in the occupation most familiar
to her. It was a kind of storage of energy. Dorcas
wove her love for her Lord into every stitch, and a
tender thought into every stitch, and a fervent prayer
into every stitch. And that spiritual storage escaped
through warm coats and neat garments into the hearts
and homes of these widows and poor folk along the
coast, and they learned the depth and tenderness
of the divine love from the deft finger-tips of
Dorcas.</p>
<p>Salad is the natural and fitting outcome of Love
and Music. I have already confessed that when first
I came upon the triune conjunction I thought it
rather an incongruous medley, a strange hotch-potch,
an ill-assorted company. That is the worst
of judging things in a hurry. The eye does the
work of the brain, and does it badly. It is a common
failing of ours. Look at the torrent of toothless
jokes that have been directed at the contrast between
the romance of courtship and the domestic realities
that follow. The former, according to the traditional
estimate, consists of billing and cooing, of fervent
protestations and radiant dreams, of romantic
<SPAN name="p220" id="p220"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>224<span class="ns">]
</span></span>loveliness and honeyed phrases. The latter, according
to the same traditional view, consists of struggle
and anxiety, of drudgery and menial toil, of broken
nights with tiresome children, of nerve-racking
anxiety and an endless sequence of troubles. He
who looks at life in this way makes precisely the
same mistake that I myself made when I first saw
Mr. Franklin’s Love, Music, and Salad, and thought
it a higgledy-piggledy hotch-potch. It is nothing
of the kind. Love naturally leads to Music; and
Love and Music naturally lead to Salad. Courtship
leads to the cradle and the kitchen, it is true;
but both cradle and kitchen are glorified and consecrated
by the courtship that has gone before.
Our English homes, take them for all in all, are the
loveliest things in the world.</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>The merry homes of England!</div>
<div class="indent8"><span class="ns"> </span>Around their hearths by night,</div>
<div>What gladsome looks of household love</div>
<div class="indent8"><span class="ns"> </span>Meet in the ruddy light!</div>
<div>There woman’s voice flows forth in song,</div>
<div class="indent8"><span class="ns"> </span>Or childhood’s tale is told;</div>
<div>Or lips move tunefully along</div>
<div class="indent8"><span class="ns"> </span>Some glorious page of old.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>Here is a picture of Love, Music, and Salad in perfect
combination. And what a secret lies behind it!
The fact is that the heathen world has nothing
at all corresponding to our English sweethearting.
<SPAN name="p221" id="p221"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>225<span class="ns">]
</span></span>Men and women are thrown into each other’s arms
by barter, by compact, by conquest, and in a
thousand ways. In one land a man buys his bride;
in another he fights as the brutes do for the mate
of his fancy; in yet another he takes her without
seeing her, it was so ordained. Only in a land that
has felt the spell of the influence of Jesus would
sweethearting, as we know it, be possible. The
pure and charming freedom of social intercourse;
the liberty to yield to the mystic magnetism that
draws the one to the other, and the other to the
one; the coy approach; the shy exchanges; the
arm-in-arm walks, and the heart-to-heart talks;
the growing admiration; the deepening passion;
culminating at last in the fond formality of the
engagement and the rapture of ultimate union;
in what land, unsweetened by the power of the
gospel, would such a procedure be possible? And
the consequence is that our homes stand in such
striking contrast to the homes of heathen peoples.
‘There are no homes in Asia!’ Mr. W. H. Seward,
the American statesman, exclaimed sadly, fifty
years ago. It is scarcely true now, for Christ is
gaining on Asia every day; and the missionaries
confess that the greatest propagating power that
the gospel possesses is the gracious though silent
witness of the Christian homes. Human life is
robbed of all animalism and baseness when true
<SPAN name="p222" id="p222"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>226<span class="ns">]
</span></span>love enters. And there is no true love apart from
the highest love of all.</p>
<p>Salad may seem a prosaic thing to follow on the
heels of Love and Music; but the salad that has been
prepared by fingers that one thinks it heaven to kiss
is tinged and tinctured with the flavour of romance.
All through life, Love makes life’s Music. All
through life, Love and Music lead to Salad. And,
all through life, Love and Music glorify the Salad to
which they lead. They transmute it by this magic
into such a dish as many a king has sighed for all
his days, but sighed in vain.</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p223" id="p223"></SPAN>
<h3 title="III. The felling of the tree"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>227<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>III</big><br/>THE FELLING OF THE TREE</h3>
<p><span class="smc">I was</span> strolling with some friends up a lovely avenue
in the bush this afternoon, when a quite unexpected
experience befell us. On either side of the narrow
track the tall trees jostled each other at such close
quarters that, when we looked up, only a ribbon of
sky could be seen above our heads. The tree-tops
almost arched over us. Straight before us was a
hill surmounted by a number of gigantic blue-gums,
only one or two of which were visible in the limited
section of the landscape which the foliage about us
permitted us to survey. As we sauntered leisurely
along the leafy path, thinking of anything but the
objects immediately surrounding us, we were suddenly
startled by a loud and ominous creaking and
straining. Looking hastily up, we saw one of the
giant trees falling, and describing in its fall an
enormous arc against the clear sky ahead of us.
What a crash as the toppling monster strikes the
tree-tops among which it falls! What a thud as the
huge thing hits the ground! What a roar as it rolls
over the hill, bearing down all lesser growths before
it! Our first impression was that the tree had
<SPAN name="p224" id="p224"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>228<span class="ns">]
</span></span>been reduced by natural forces; but we soon discovered
that it had been deliberately destroyed!
The men were already at work upon a second
magnificent fellow; and we waited until he too was
prostrate.</p>
<p>Nothing in the solar system suggests such a
mixture of emotion as the felling of a great tree.
In a way, it is pleasant and exhilarating, or why
was Mr. Gladstone so fond of the exercise? And
why were we so eager to stay until the second tree
was down? Richard Jefferies, who hated to destroy
things, and often could not bring himself to pull
the trigger of his gun, nevertheless felt the fascination
of the axe. ‘Much as I admired the timber about
the Chace,’ he says, ‘I could not help sometimes
wishing to have a chop at it. The pleasure of
felling trees is never lost. In youth, in manhood,
so long as the arm can wield the axe, the enjoyment
is equally keen. As the heavy tool passes over the
shoulder, the impetus of the swinging motion
lightens the weight, and something like a thrill
passes through the sinews. Why is it so pleasant
to strike? What secret instinct is it that makes the
delivery of a blow with axe or hammer so exhilarating?’
What indeed! For certainly a wild
delight makes the heart beat faster, and sends the
blood bounding through the veins, as one sees the
axes flash, the chips fly, the gash grow deeper, and
<SPAN name="p225" id="p225"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>229<span class="ns">]
</span></span>notices at last the first slow movement of the glorious
tree.</p>
<p>And yet I confess that, mixed with this pungent
sense of pleasure, there was a still deeper emotion.
The thing seems so irreparable. It is easy enough
to destroy these monarchs of the bush, but who
can restore them to their former grandeur? It
must have been this sense of sadness that led
Beaconsfield—Gladstone’s famous protagonist—to
ordain in his will that none of his beloved trees at
Hughenden should ever be cut down. How long
had these trees stood here, these two giants that had
been in a few moments reduced to humiliating
horizontality? I cannot tell. They must have
been here when all these hills and valleys were
peopled only by the aboriginals. They saw the
black man prowl about the bush. From the hill
here, overlooking the bay, they must have seen
Captain Cook’s ships cast anchor down the stream.
They watched the coming of the white men; they
saw the convict ships arrive with their dismal
freight of human wretchedness; they witnessed
the swift and tragic extermination of the native
race; they beheld a nation spring into being at their
feet! Did the great trees know that, as the white
men exterminated the black men, so the white men
would exterminate <em>them</em>? Did they feel that the
coming of those strange vessels up the bay sealed
<SPAN name="p226" id="p226"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>230<span class="ns">]
</span></span>their own doom? Before the new-comers could
build their homes, or lay out their farms, or plant
their orchards, they must make war on the trees
with fire and axe. Homes and nations can only be
built by sacrifice, and the trees are the innocent
victims.</p>
<p>I suppose that the sadness arises partly from the
fact that the forest is Man’s oldest and most faithful
friend, and one towards whom he is inclined to turn
with ever-increasing reverence and affection as the
years go by. With the advance of the years we all
turn wistfully back to the things that charmed our
infancy, and the race obeys that selfsame primal
law. Almost every nation on the face of the earth
traces its history back to the forest primaeval.
From the forest we sprang; and by the forest we
were originally sustained. And even when at length
the primitive race issued from those leafy recesses
and devoted itself to agriculture and to commerce,
men still regarded their ancient fastnesses as the
storehouse from which they drew everything that
was essential to their progress and development.
Man found the forest his warehouse, his factory,
his armoury, his all. With logs that he felled in
the bush he built his first primitive home; out of
branches that he tore from the trees he fashioned
his first implements and tools; and when the tranquillity
that brooded over his pastoral simplicity
<SPAN name="p227" id="p227"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>231<span class="ns">]
</span></span>was broken by the shout of discord and the noise
of tumult, it was to those selfsame woods that he
rushed for his first crude weapons of defence.
Architecture, agriculture, invention, and military
ingenuity have each of them made enormous strides
since then; but it was in the bush that each of these
potent makers of our destiny was born. And did
not John Smeaton confess that he borrowed from
the graceful curve of the oak as it rises from the
ground the main idea that characterized the construction
of the Eddystone lighthouse? Whenever the
architect, the farmer, the inventor, or the soldier
desires to visit the scenes amidst which his craft
spent its earliest infancy, it will be to the forest
primaeval that he will turn his steps. Of medicine,
too, the same may be said; for, in those long and
leisured days of sylvan quiet, men learned the secrets
of the bark and discovered the healing virtues that
slept in the swaying leaves; and straightway the
forest became a pharmacy. When, exhausted by his
labour, or enervated by unaccustomed conditions,
his health failed him, Man resorted for his first drugs
and tonics to his ancient home among the trees.
Indeed, he still returns to the forest to be nursed and
tended in his hour of sickness.</p>
<p>Those who have read Gene Stratton Porter’s
<cite>Harvester</cite> know what wonders lurk in the woods.
The Harvester lived away in the forest, and from
<SPAN name="p228" id="p228"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>232<span class="ns">]
</span></span>bark and gum and sap and leaf he collected the
tonics and anodynes and stimulants that he sold to
the chemists in the great cities. And after awhile
every tree that he felled seemed to him such a
wealthy store of healing virtue that, when he began
to think of his dream-girl and his future home, he
could scarcely bring himself to build his cabin out
of logs that were so overflowing with medicinal
properties. He was in love, and all the tumultuous
emotions awakened by that great experience were
surging through his veins; and yet it seemed to
him an act of sacrilege to cut chairs and tables out
of such sacred things as trees! He apologetically
explained the delicacy of the situation to each oak
and ash before lifting his axe against it.</p>
<p>‘You know how I hate to kill you!’ he said to
the first one he felled. ‘But it must be legitimate,
you know, for a man to take enough trees to build
a home. And no other house is possible for a creature
of the woods but a cabin, is it? The birds use the
material they find here; and surely I have a right
to do the same. Nothing else would serve, at least
for me. I was born and reared here, and I’ve
always loved you!’</p>
<p>But for all that, he felt, as the fragrant chips flew
in all directions, just as a man might feel who killed
a pet lamb for the table; and the Harvester could
scarcely reconcile himself to his iconoclastic work.
<SPAN name="p229" id="p229"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>233<span class="ns">]
</span></span>In Medicine Woods he had learned the awful sanctity
of the forest, the forest that was the home and nurse
and mother of us all, and it seemed to him a dreadful
thing to slay a tree. Frazer tells us in his <cite>Golden
Bough</cite> that the Ojibwa Indians very rarely cut down
green or living trees; they fancy that it puts the
poor things to such pain. And some of their
medicine men aver that, with their mysterious powers
of hearing, they have heard the wailing and the
screaming of the trees beneath the axe. Mr.
Adams, too, in his <cite>Israel’s Ideal</cite>, has reminded us
that, in Eastern Africa, the destruction of the
cocoanut-tree is regarded as a form of matricide,
since that tree gives men life and nourishment as
a mother does her child. The early Greek philosophers,
Aristotle and Plutarch, watching the rustling
of the leaves and the swaying of the graceful branches,
came to the conclusion that trees are sentient things
possessed of living souls. And, in his <cite>Tales for
Children</cite>, Tolstoy makes as pathetic a scene out of the
death of a great tree as many a novelist makes out
of the death of a gallant hero.</p>
<p>Now it must have been out of this strange feeling—this
dim consciousness of a sacredness that haunted
the leafy solitudes—that Man came to regard the
forest with superstitious gratitude and veneration.
The bush represented to him the source of all his
supplies, the reservoir that met all his demands,
<SPAN name="p230" id="p230"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>234<span class="ns">]
</span></span>the means of all healing, and the very fountain of
life. And so he plunged into the depths of the
forest and erected his temples there; in its shady
groves he reared his solemn altars; in its leafy
glades he built his shrines; and the imagery of the
forest wove itself into the vocabulary of his devotion.
The representation of a sacred tree occurs repeatedly,
carved upon the stony ruins of Egyptian, Assyrian,
and Phoenician temples, and Herodotus more than
once remarks upon the frequency of tree-worship
among the ancient peoples. Pliny, too, marvelled
at the reverence which the Druids felt for the oak,
and, in a scarcely less degree, for the holly, the ash,
and the birch. And what stirring passages those are
in which George Borrow describes the weird rites
and dark symbolism of the gipsies as they worshipped
at dead of night in the fearsome recesses of the
pine forests of Spain!</p>
<p>It is really not surprising that this haunting sense
of sanctity in the woods should lead Man to worship
there. Even Emerson felt <span class="nw">that—</span></p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>The Gods talk in the breath of the woods,</div>
<div>They talk in the shaken pine.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>And the Harvester himself found the forest to be
instinct with moral and spiritual potencies. ‘You
not only discover miracles and marvels in the woods,’
he said, ‘but you get the greatest lessons taught
<SPAN name="p231" id="p231"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>235<span class="ns">]
</span></span>in all the world ground into you early and alone—courage,
caution, and patience.’ Here, then, we have
the trees as teachers and preachers, and many a man
has learned the deepest lessons of his life at the feet
of these shrewd and silent philosophers. What
about Brother Lawrence, whose <cite>Practice of the
Presence of God</cite> has become one of the Church’s
classics? ‘The first time I saw Brother Lawrence,’
writes his friend, ‘was upon August 3, 1666. He
told me that God had done him a singular favour
in his conversion at the age of eighteen. It happened
in this way. One winter morning, seeing a tree
stripped of its leaves, and considering that within
a little time the leaves would be renewed, and that
after that the flowers and fruit would appear, he
received a high view of the providence and power
of God, which has never since been effaced from his
soul.’ What God could do for the leafless tree, he
thought, He could also do for him.</p>
<p>Milton tells us that the forest, which has played
so large a part in the development of this world, will
flourish also in the next.</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="indent6"><span class="ns"> </span>In heaven the trees</div>
<div>Of life ambrosial fruitage bear, and vines</div>
<div>Yield nectar.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>And, having all this in mind, is it not pleasant to
notice that the very last chapter of the Bible tells
<SPAN name="p232" id="p232"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>236<span class="ns">]
</span></span>of the tree that waves by the side of the river of
life? There is something sacramental about trees.
George Gissing says that Odysseus cutting down the
olive in order to build for himself a home is a picture
of man performing a supreme act of piety. ‘Through
all the ages,’ he says, ‘that picture must retain its
profound significance.’ The trees of Medicine Woods
yielded up their life to the Harvester’s axe, that he
and his dream-girl might dwell in security and bliss.
And, on a green hill far away without a city wall,
another tree was cut down years ago, that it might
represent to all men everywhere the means of grace
and the hope of glory. And even more than all the
other trees, the leaves of <em>that</em> tree are for the healing
of the nations.</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p233" id="p233"></SPAN>
<h3 title="IV. Spoil!"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>237<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>IV</big><br/>SPOIL!</h3>
<p><span class="smc">We</span> were sitting round the fire last night when a
boy came rushing up the street shouting, ‘The latest
war news.’ I went to the door, bought a paper,
and settled down again to read it. All at once the
word ‘siege’ caught my eye, and, after glancing over
the cablegram to which it referred, I lay back in the
chair and allowed my mind to roam among the
romantic recollections that the great word had
suggested. I thought of the Siege of Lucknow in
the East, of the Siege of Mexico in the West, and
of the Siege of Londonderry midway between.
Who that has once read the thrilling narratives
of these famous exploits can resist the temptation
occasionally to set his fancy free to revisit the scenes
of those tremendous struggles? My reverie was
rudely interrupted.</p>
<p>‘Run along, Wroxie, dear, it’s past bedtime!’
a maternal voice from the opposite chair suddenly
expostulated.</p>
<p>‘But, mother, I <em>must</em> do my Scripture-lesson, and
I’ve <em>nearly</em> finished!’</p>
<p><SPAN name="p234" id="p234"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>238<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>‘What have you to do, Wroxie?’ I inquired,
appointing myself arbitrator on the instant.</p>
<p>‘I have to learn these eight verses of the hundred
and nineteenth Psalm!’</p>
<p>‘Well, read them aloud to us, and then run off
to bed!’ I commanded.</p>
<p>She read. I am afraid I had no ears for any of
the later verses. For among the very first words
that she read were these: ‘<em>I rejoice at Thy Word
as one that findeth great spoil</em>.’ I had read those
familiar words hundreds of times, but it was like
passing a closed door. But to-night my memories
of the great historic sieges supplied me with the key.
‘As one that findeth great <em>spoil</em>’ ... ‘findeth
great <em>spoil</em>’ ... ‘great <em>spoil</em>.’ That one word
‘<em>spoil</em>’ supplied me with the magic key. I applied
it; the door flew open; and I saw <em>that</em> in the text
which I had never seen before. The lesson came to
an end; the girlish tones subsided; the reader kissed
me good-night, and scampered off to bed, her mother
leaving the room in her company; and I was left
once more to my own imaginings.</p>
<p>But my fancy flew in quite a fresh direction.
The text had done for my imprisoned mind what
Noah did for the imprisoned dove. It had opened
a window of escape, and I was at liberty to go where
I had never been before. ‘<em>Spoil!</em>’—at the sound of
that magic word the doors of truth swung open as
<SPAN name="p235" id="p235"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>239<span class="ns">]
</span></span>the great door of the robbers’ dungeon in <cite>The Forty
Thieves</cite> yielded to the sound of ‘Open, Sesame!’
A landscape may be mirrored in a dewdrop;
and here, in this arresting phrase, I suddenly discovered
all the picturesque colour and stirring
movement of a great siege. I saw the bastions and
the drawbridges; the fortified walls and the frowning
ramparts; the lofty parapets and the stately towers.
I watched the fierce assault of the besiegers and the
tumultuous sally of the garrison. I heard the clash
and din of strife. I marked the long, grim struggle
against impending starvation. And then, at last,
I saw the white flag flown. The proud city has
fallen; the garrison has surrendered; the gates are
thrown open to the investing forces; and the conqueror
rides triumphantly in to seize his splendid
prize! His followers fall eagerly upon their booty,
and grasp with greedy hands at every glint of
treasure that presents itself to their rapacious
eyes. Spoil; <em>spoil</em>; <span class="smc">Spoil</span>! ‘I rejoice at Thy
Word as <em>one that findeth great spoil</em>!’</p>
<h4 title="">I</h4>
<p>Now the most notable point about this metaphor
is that the city only yields up its treasure after long
resistance. The besieger does not find the city
waiting with open gates to welcome him. It slams
<SPAN name="p236" id="p236"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>240<span class="ns">]
</span></span>those gates in his face; bars, bolts, and barricades
them; and settles down to keep him at bay as long
as possible. The stubbornness of its brave resistance
lends an added sweetness to the final triumph of its
conqueror; but, whilst it lasts, that resistance is
very baffling and vexatious. All the best things in
life follow the same strange law. See how the soil
resists the farmer! It stiffens itself against his
approach, so that only in the sweat of his brow
can he plough and harrow it. It garrisons itself with
swarms of insect pests, so that his attempts to
subjugate it shall be rendered as ineffective and
unfruitful as possible. It extends eager hospitality
to every noxious seed that falls upon its surface.
It encourages all the farmer’s enemies, and fights
against all his allies. Labour makes the harvest
sweeter, it is true; but whilst it is in progress it is
none the less exhausting. It is only by breaking down
the obstinate resistance of the unwilling soil that
the farmer achieves the golden triumph of harvest-time.
The miner passes through the same trying
experience. The earth has nothing to gain by
holding her gold and her diamonds, her copper and
her coal, in such a tight clutch. Yet she makes the
work of the miner a desperate and dangerous
business. He takes his life in his hand as he descends
the shaft. The peril and the toil add a greater
value to the booty, I confess; but the work of the
<SPAN name="p237" id="p237"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>241<span class="ns">]
</span></span>dark mine is none the less trying on that account.
He who would grasp the treasures that lie buried in
the bowels of the earth must first break down the most
determined and dogged resistance. And the treasures
of the mind also follow this curious law. There is
no royal road to learning. Knowledge resists the
intruder. It presents an exterior that is altogether
revolting, and only the brave persist in the attack.
The text-books of the schools are rarely set to music;
they do not tingle with romance. They look as
dry as dust, and they are often even more arid than
they look. I remember that, in my college days,
the student who sat next to me on the old familiar
benches suddenly died. He was brilliant; I was
not. And when I heard that he had gone, the first
thought that occurred to me was a peculiar one.
Had all his knowledge perished with him? I asked
myself. I thought of the problems that he had
mastered, but with which I was still grappling.
Could he not have bequeathed to me the fruits of
his patient and hard-won victories? No; it could
not be. The city must be patiently besieged and
gallantly stormed before it will surrender. The
coveted diploma may be all the sweeter afterwards
as a result of so long and persistent a struggle; but
that fact does not at the time relieve the tedium or
lessen the intolerable drudgery. Knowledge seems
so good and so desirable a thing; yet it resists the
<SPAN name="p238" id="p238"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>242<span class="ns">]
</span></span>aspiring student with such pitiless and unsympathetic
pertinacity.</p>
<p>Even love behaves in the same way. The lady
keeps her lover at arm’s length. She would rather die
than not be his, but she must guard her modesty
at all hazards. She must not make herself too cheap.
She assumes a frigidity that is in hopeless conflict
with the warmth of her real sentiments. Her
apparent indifference and repeated rebuffs nearly
drive her poor wooer to distraction. Her kisses are
all the sweeter later on when she is delightfully and
avowedly his own; but whilst the siege of her
affections lasts the torment almost wrecks his
reason. It is really no hypocrisy on her part. It
is the recognition of a true instinct. All the best
things resist us, and their resistance has to be
overcome. And the psalmist declares that even the
divine Word treated him in the selfsame way. It
did not entice, allure, fascinate; that is usually the
policy of evil things. No; it repelled, resisted, dared
him! And it was not until he had conquered that
hostility that he entered into his triumph. It was
in the carcase of the fierce lion he had previously
destroyed that Samson found the honey that was
so sweet to his taste. We generally find our spoil
in the cities that slammed their great gates in our
faces.</p>
<h4 title=""><SPAN name="p239" id="p239"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>243<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>II</h4>
<p>But the city capitulates for all that. It may hold
out stubbornly, and for long, but it always yields
at the last. It was so ordained. The soil was
meant to resist the farmer; but it was also meant
to yield to the farmer at length, and to furnish him
with his proud and delightful prize. The minerals
are hidden so cleverly, and buried so deeply, not
that they may successfully elude the vigilance and
skill of the heroic miner, but in order that he may
justly prize the precious metals when they fall at
last into his hands. The student’s tedious struggle
after knowledge is made so painful a process, not
to deter or defeat him, but so that, side by side with
the acquisition of learning, he may develop those
faculties of brain and intellect which can alone
qualify him to wield with wisdom the erudition that
he is now so laboriously amassing. The lady treats
her poor lover with such seeming disdain, not by
any means to dishearten him, but that she may
make quite sure that his ardour is no mere passing
whim, but a deep and enduring attachment. In each
case capitulation is agreed upon if only the besieger
is sufficiently gallant and persistent. The best
things, and even the holiest things, ‘hold us off
that they may draw us on’—to use Tennyson’s
expressive phrase.</p>
<p><SPAN name="p240" id="p240"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>244<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>To cite a single example, what a wonder-story
is that of the Syro-Phoenician woman! The Master
conceals Himself from her; treats her anguish with
apparent indifference; preserves a frigid silence in
face of her passionate entreaty; and offers exasperating
rebuffs in reply to her desperate arguments!
But did He design to destroy her faith? Let us
see! Like a gallant besieger, she sat down before the
city with indomitable courage and patience. Beaten
back at one gate, she instantly stormed another.
Resisted at one redoubt, she mustered all her
forces in the effort to reduce a second. And at
last ‘Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman,
great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou
wilt!’ The capitulation was a predetermined
policy; but the courage and pertinacity of the
besieger must be tested to the utmost before the
gates can be finally thrown open.</p>
<h4 title="">III</h4>
<p>And then the victors fly upon the spoil! The
repelling Word yields, and is found to contain wealth
beyond the dreams of avarice. ‘I rejoice at Thy
Word as one that findeth great spoil.’ <em>Spoil!</em>
We have all felt the thrill of those tremendous pages
in which Gibbon describes the sack of Rome by the
all-victorious Goths. We seem to have witnessed
<SPAN name="p241" id="p241"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>245<span class="ns">]
</span></span>with our own eyes the glittering wealth of the queenly
city poured at the feet of the rapacious conqueror.
Or, in Prescott’s stately stories, we have watched the
fabulous hoards of Montezuma, and the heaped-up
gold of Atahuallpa, piled at the feet of Cortes and
Pizarro. Or if, forsaking the shining spoils of the
Goths in Europe and the gleaming argosies which
the Spaniards brought from the West, we turn to a
later date and an Eastern clime, we instinctively
recall the glowing periods of Macaulay in his story
of the conquests of Clive. After his amazing victory
at Plassey, ‘the treasury of Bengal was thrown
open to him. There were piled up, after the usage
of Indian princes, immense masses of coin. Clive
walked between heaps of gold and silver, crowned
with rubies and diamonds, and was at liberty to
help himself. He accepted between two and three
hundred thousand pounds.’ He was afterwards
accused of greed. He replied by describing the
countless wealth by which he was that day surrounded.
Vaults piled with gold and with jewels
were at his mercy. ‘To this day,’ he exclaimed,
‘I stand astonished at my own moderation!’</p>
<p>Here, then, is the magic key that opens to us the
secret in the psalmist’s mind. ‘I rejoice at Thy
Word as one that findeth great spoil.’ The besiegers
pour into the city. Every house is ransacked. In
the most unlikely places the citizens have concealed
<SPAN name="p242" id="p242"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>246<span class="ns">]
</span></span>their treasures, and in the most unlikely places,
therefore, the invaders come upon their spoils.
Out from queer old drawers and cupboards, out
of strange old cracks and crannies, the precious
hoard is torn. As the besiegers rush from house to
house you hear the shout and the laughter with
which another and yet another find is greeted.
So was it with his conquest of the Word, the psalmist
tells us. At first it resisted and repelled him. But
afterwards its gates were opened to his challenge.
He entered the city and began his search for spoil.
And, lo, from out of every promise and precept,
out of every innocent-looking clause or insignificant
phrase, the treasures of truth came pouring, until
he found himself possessed at length of a wealth
compared with which the pomp of princes is the
badge of beggary.</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p243" id="p243"></SPAN>
<h3 title="V. A philosophy of fancy-work"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>247<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>V</big><br/>A PHILOSOPHY OF FANCY-WORK</h3>
<p>‘“<span class="smc">What</span> course of lectures are you attending now,
ma’am?” said Martin Chuzzlewit’s friend, turning
again to Mrs. Jefferson Brick.</p>
<p>‘“The Philosophy of the <em>Soul</em>, on Wednesdays,”
replied Mrs. Brick.</p>
<p>‘“And on Mondays?”</p>
<p>‘“The Philosophy of <em>Crime</em>.”</p>
<p>‘“On Fridays?”</p>
<p>‘“The Philosophy of <em>Vegetables</em>.”</p>
<p>‘“You have forgotten Thursdays; the Philosophy
of <em>Government</em>, my dear,” observed a third lady.</p>
<p>‘“No,” said Mrs. Brick, “that’s Tuesdays.”</p>
<p>‘“So it is!” cried the lady. “The Philosophy
of <em>Matter</em> on Thursdays, of course.”</p>
<p>‘“You see, Mr. Chuzzlewit, our ladies are fully
employed,” observed his friend.’</p>
<p>They were indeed; but for the life of me I cannot
understand why, amidst so many philosophies, the
Philosophy of <em>Fancy-work</em> was so cruelly ignored.
I should have thought it quite as suitable and
profitable a study for Mrs. Jefferson Brick and her
<SPAN name="p244" id="p244"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>248<span class="ns">]
</span></span>lady friends as some of the subjects to which they
paid their attention.</p>
<p>‘Whatever are you making now, dear?’ asked
a devoted husband of his spouse the other
evening.</p>
<p>‘Why, an antimacassar, George, to be sure;
can’t you see?’</p>
<p>‘And what on earth is the good of an antimacassar,
I should like to know?’</p>
<p>‘Stupid man!’</p>
<p>Stupid man, indeed! But there it is! And for
the crass stupidity of their husbands, Mrs. Jefferson
Brick and her philosophical friends have only
themselves to blame. If they had included the
Philosophy of Fancy-work in their syllabus of
lectures, they might have acquired such a grasp of
a great and vital subject that they would have been
able to convince their husbands that there is nothing
in the house quite so useful as an antimacassar.
The pots and the pans, the chairs and the tables,
are nowhere in comparison. The antimacassar is
the one indispensable article in the establishment.
Let no man attempt to deride or belittle it.</p>
<p>As it is, however, Mrs. Jefferson Brick and her
friends have never really studied the Philosophy of
Fancy-work, and have never therefore been in a
position to enlighten the darkened minds of their
benighted husbands. As an inevitable consequence,
<SPAN name="p245" id="p245"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>249<span class="ns">]
</span></span>those husbands continue to regard the busy
needles as an amiable frailty pertaining to the sex
of their better halves. In writing thus, I am thinking
of the better-tempered husbands. Husbands of the
other variety regard fancy-work as an unmitigated
nuisance. Mark Rutherford has familiarized us
with a husband who so regarded his wife’s delicate
traceries and ornamentations. I refer, of course,
to <em>Catherine Furze</em>. We all remember Mrs. Furze’s
parlour at Eastthorpe. ‘There was a sofa in the
room, but it was horse-hair with high ends both
alike, not comfortable, which were covered with
curious complications called antimacassars, that
slipped off directly they were touched, so that anybody
who leaned upon them was engaged continually
in warfare with them, picking them up from the
floor or spreading them out again. There was also
an easy chair, but it was not easy, for it matched
the sofa in horse-hair, and was so ingeniously contrived
that, directly a person placed himself in it,
it gently shot him forwards. Furthermore, it had
special antimacassars, which were a work of art,
and Mrs. Furze had warned Mr. Furze off them.
“He would ruin them,” she said, “if he put his
head upon them.” So a Windsor chair with a
high back was always carried by Mr. Furze into
the parlour after dinner, together with a common
kitchen chair, and on these he took his Sunday nap.’
<SPAN name="p246" id="p246"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>250<span class="ns">]
</span></span>The reader is made to feel that, on these interesting
occasions, Mr. Furze wished his wife and her antimacassars
at the bottom of the deep blue sea;
and one rather admires his self-restraint in not
explicitly saying so. Mr. Furze is the natural
representative of all those husbands who see no
rhyme or reason in fancy-work. If only Mrs.
Jefferson Brick had included that phase of
philosophy on her programme, and had passed
on the illumination to some member of the
sterner sex! But let us indulge in no futile
regrets.</p>
<p>That there is a Philosophy of Fancy-work goes
without saying. To begin with, think of the relief
to the overstrung nerves and the over-wrought
emotions, at the close of a trying day, in being able
to sit down in a cosy chair, and, when the eyes are
too tired for reading, to finger away at the needles,
and get on with the antimacassar. Our grandmothers
went in for antimacassars instead of
neurasthenia. ‘It is astonishing,’ exclaimed the
‘Lady of the Decoration,’ ‘how much bad temper
one can knit into a garment!’ An earlier generation
of wonderfully wise women made that discovery,
and worked all their discontents, and all their evil
tempers, and all their quivering nervousness into
antimacassars. On the whole it is cheaper than
working them into drugs and doctors’ bills, and
<SPAN name="p247" id="p247"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>251<span class="ns">]
</span></span>drugs and doctors’ bills are certainly no more
ornamental.</p>
<p>In his essay on <cite>Tedium</cite>, Claudius Clear deals with
that particular form of tedium that arises from leaden
hours. And he thinks that in this respect women
have an immense advantage over men. Men have
to wait for things, and they find the experience
intolerable. But a woman turns to her fancy-work,
and is amused at her husband’s uncontrollable
impatience. The antimacassar, he believes, gives
just enough occupation to the fingers to make absolute
tedium impossible. The war has led to a
remarkable revival of knitting and of fancy-work.
My present theme was suggested to me on Saturday.
I took my wife for a little excursion; she took her
knitting, and we saw ladies working everywhere.
Two were busy in the tram; we came upon one
sitting in a secluded spot in the bush, her deft
needles chasing each other merrily. And on the
river steamer eleven ladies out of fifteen had their
fancy-work with them. I could not help thinking
that, in not a few of these cases, the workers must
derive as much comfort from the occupation as the
wearers will eventually derive from the garments.
Many a woman has woven all her worries into her
fancy-work, and has felt the greatest relief in consequence.
One such worker has borne witness to
the consolation afforded her by her needles.</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div><SPAN name="p248" id="p248"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>252<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>Silent is the house. I sit</div>
<div>In the firelight and knit.</div>
<div>At my ball of soft grey wool</div>
<div>Two grey kittens gently <span class="nw">pull—</span></div>
<div>Pulling back my thoughts as well,</div>
<div>From that distant, red-rimmed hell,</div>
<div>And hot tears the stitches blur</div>
<div>As I knit a comforter.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div><br class="ns"/>‘Comforter’ they call it—yes,</div>
<div>Such it is for my distress,</div>
<div>For it gives my restless hands</div>
<div>Blessed work. God understands</div>
<div>How we women yearn to be</div>
<div>Doing something ceaselessly.</div>
<div>Anything but just to wait</div>
<div>Idly for a clicking gate!</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>We must, however, be perfectly honest; and to
deal honestly with our subject we must not ignore
the classical example, even though that example may
not prove particularly attractive. The classical
example is, of course, Madame Defarge. Madame
Defarge was the wife of Jacques Defarge, who kept
the famous wine-shop in <cite>A Tale of Two Cities</cite>.
When first we are introduced to the wine-shopkeeper
and his wife, three customers are entering the
shop. They pull off their hats to Madame Defarge.
‘She acknowledged their homage by bending her
head, and giving them a quick look. Then she
glanced in a casual manner round the wine-shop,
<SPAN name="p249" id="p249"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>253<span class="ns">]
</span></span>took up her knitting with great apparent calmness
and repose of spirit, and became absorbed in it.’
Everybody who is familiar with the story knows
that here we have the stroke of the artist. Madame
Defarge, be it noted, took up her knitting with
apparent calmness and repose of spirit, and became
absorbed in it. As a matter of fact, Madame
Defarge was absorbed, not in the knitting, but in the
conversation; and all that she heard with her ears
was knitted into the garment in her hands. The
knitting was a tell-tale register.</p>
<p>‘“Are you sure,” asked one of the wine-shopkeeper’s
accomplices one day, “are you sure that no
embarrassment can arise from our manner of keeping
the register? Without doubt it is safe, for no one
beyond ourselves can decipher it; but shall <em>we</em>
always be able to decipher it—or, I ought to say,
<em>will she</em>?”</p>
<p>‘“Man,” returned Defarge, drawing himself up,
“if Madame, my wife, undertook to keep the register
in her memory alone, she would not lose a word of
it—not a syllable of it. Knitted, in her own stitches,
and her own symbols, it will always be as plain to
her as the sun. Confide in Madame Defarge. It
would be easier for the weakest poltroon that lives
to erase himself from existence than to erase one
letter of his name or crimes from the knitted register
of Madame Defarge.”’</p>
<p><SPAN name="p250" id="p250"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>254<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>Oh those tell-tale needles! Up and down, to and
fro, in and out they flashed and darted, Madame
seeming all the time so preoccupied and inattentive!
Yet into those innocent stitches there went the
guilty secrets; and when the secrets were revealed
the lives and deaths of men hung in the balance!
Here, then, is a philosophy of fancy-work that will
carry us a very long way. The stitches are always
a matter of life and of death, however innocent or
trivial they may seem. Whether I do a row of
stitches, or drive a row of nails, or write a row of
words, I am a little older when I fasten the last
stitch, or drive the last nail, or write the last
word, than I was when I began. And what does
that mean? It means that I have deliberately
taken a fragment of my life and have woven it
into my work.<!-- TN: period invisible in original --> That is the terrific sanctity of the
commonest toil. It is instinct with life. ‘Greater
love hath no man than this, that a man lay down
his life for his friend,’ and whenever I drive a nail,
or write a syllable, or weave a stitch for another, I
have laid down just so much of my life for his sake.</p>
<p>But when we begin to exploit the possibilities of
a Philosophy of Fancy-work, we shall find our feet
wandering into some very green pastures and beside
some very still waters. Fancy-work will lead us to
think about friendship, than which few themes are
more attractive. For the loveliest idyll of friendship
<SPAN name="p251" id="p251"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>255<span class="ns">]
</span></span>is told in the phraseology of fancy-work. ‘And it
came to pass that the soul of Jonathan was <em>knit</em>
to the soul of David.’ Knitting, knitting, knitting;
up and down, to and fro, in and out, see the needles
flash and dart! Every moment that I spend with
my friend is a weaving of his life into mine, and of
my life into his; and pity me, men and angels, if I
entangle the strands of my life with a fabric that
mars the pattern of my own! And pity me still
more if the inferior texture of my life impairs the
perfection and beauty of my friend’s! Into the sacred
domain of our sweetest friendships, therefore, has
this unpromising matter of fancy-work conveyed us.
But it must take us higher still. For ‘there is a
Friend that sticketh closer than a brother,’ and the
web of my life will look strangely incomplete at the
last unless the fabric of my soul be found knit
and interwoven with the fair and radiant colours
of His.</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p252" id="p252"></SPAN>
<h3 title="VI. A pair of boots"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>256<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>VI</big><br/>A<!-- TN: "A" invisible in original --> PAIR OF BOOTS</h3>
<p><span class="smc">There</span> seems to be very little in a pair of boots—except,
perhaps, a pair of feet—until a great crisis
arises; and in a great crisis all things assume new
values. When the war broke out, and empires
found themselves face to face with destiny, the
nations asked themselves anxiously how they were
off for boots. When millions of men began to
march, boots seemed to be the only thing that
mattered. The manhood of the world rose in its
wrath, reached for its boots, buckled on its sword,
and set out for the front. And at the front, if
Mr. Kipling is to be believed, it is all a matter of
boots.</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>Don’t—don’t—don’t—don’t—look at what’s in front of you;</div>
<div>Boots—boots—boots—boots—moving up and down again;</div>
<div>Men—men—men—men—men go mad with watching ’em.</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>An’ there’s no discharge in the war.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div><SPAN name="p253" id="p253"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>257<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><br class="ns"/>Try—try—try—try—to think o’ something <span class="nw">different—</span></div>
<div>Oh—my—God—keep—me from going lunatic!</div>
<div>Boots—boots—boots—boots—moving up and down again</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>An’ there’s no discharge in the war.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div><br class="ns"/>We—can—stick—out—’unger, thirst, an’ weariness,</div>
<div>But—not—not—not—not the chronic sight of <span class="nw">’em—</span></div>
<div>Boots—boots—boots—boots—moving up and down again!</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>An’ there’s no discharge in the war.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div><br class="ns"/>’Tain’t—so—bad—by—day because o’ company,</div>
<div>But—night—brings—long—strings o’ forty thousand million</div>
<div>Boots—boots—boots—boots—moving up and down again!</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>An’ there’s no discharge in the war.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>A soldier sees enough pairs of boots in a ten-mile
march to last him half a lifetime.</p>
<p>Yet, after all, are not these the most amiable
things beneath the stars, the things that we treat
with derision and contempt in days of calm, but
for which we grope with feverish anxiety when the
storm breaks upon us? They go on, year after
year, bearing the obloquy of our toothless little
jests; they go on, year after year, serving us
none the less faithfully because we deem them
almost too mundane for mention; and then, when
they suddenly turn out to be a matter of life and
death to us, they serve us still, with never a word
of reproach for our past ingratitude. If the world
<SPAN name="p254" id="p254"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>258<span class="ns">]
</span></span>has a spark of chivalry left in it, it will offer a most
abject apology to its boots.</p>
<p>It would do a man a world of good, before putting
on his boots, to have a good look at them. Let him
set them in the middle of the hearthrug, the shining
toes turned carefully towards him, and then let
him lean forward in his arm-chair, elbows on knees
and head on hands, and let him fasten on those boots
of his a contrite and respectful gaze. And looking
at his boots thus attentively and carefully he will
see what he has never seen before. He will see
that a pair of boots is one of the master achievements
of civilization. A pair of boots is one of
the wonders of the world, a most cunning and
ingenious contrivance. Dan Crawford, in <cite>Thinking
Black</cite>, tells us that nothing about Livingstone’s
equipment impressed the African mind so profoundly
as the boots he wore. ‘Even to this
remote day,’ Mr. Crawford says, ‘all around Lake
Mweru they sing a “Livingstone” song to
commemorate that great “path-borer,” the good
Doctor being such a federal head of his race
that he is known far and near as Ingeresa, or
“The Englishman.” And this is his memorial
song:</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>Ingeresa, who slept on the waves,</div>
<div>Welcome him, for he hath no toes!</div>
<div>Welcome him, for he hath no toes!</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p><SPAN name="p255" id="p255"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>259<span class="ns">]
</span></span>That is to say, revelling in paradox as the negro
does, he seized on the facetious fact that this wandering
Livingstone, albeit he travelled so far, had
no toes—that is to say, had <em>boots</em>, if you please!’
Later on, Mr. Crawford remarks again that the
barefooted native never ceases to wonder at the
white man’s boots. To him they are a marvel and
a portent, for, instead of thinking of the boot
as merely covering the foot that wears it, his idea
is that those few inches of shoe carpet the whole
forest with leather. He puts on his boots, and, by
doing so, he spreads a gigantic runner of linoleum
across the whole continent of Africa. Here is a
philosophical way of looking at a pair of boots!
It has made my own boots look differently ever
since I read it. Why, these boots on the hearthrug,
looking so reproachfully up at me, are millions of
times bigger than they seem! They look to my
poor distorted vision like a few inches of leather;
but as a matter of fact they represent hundreds of
miles of leathern matting. They make a runner
paving the path from my quiet study to the front
doors of all my people’s homes; they render comfortable
and attractive all the highways and byways
along which duty calls me. Looked at through a
pair of African eyes, these British boots assume
marvellous proportions. They are touched by
magic and are wondrously transformed. From being
<SPAN name="p256" id="p256"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>260<span class="ns">]
</span></span>contemptible, they now appear positively continental.
I am surprised that the subject has never appealed
to me before.</p>
<p>Now this African way of looking at a pair of boots
promises us a key to a phrase in the New Testament
that has always seemed to me like a locked casket.
John Bunyan tells us that when the sisters of the
Palace Beautiful led Christian to the armoury he
saw such a bewildering abundance of boots as surely
no other man ever beheld before or since! They
were shoes that would never wear out; and there
were enough of them, he says, to harness out as
many men for the service of their Lord as there be
stars in the heaven for multitude. Bunyan’s prodigious
stock of shoes is, of course, an allusion to
Paul’s exhortation to the Ephesian Christians concerning
the armour with which he would have them
to be clad. ‘Take unto you the whole armour of
God ... and your feet shod with the preparation
of the gospel of peace.’</p>
<p>Whenever we get into difficulties concerning this
heavenly panoply, we turn to good old William
Gurnall. Master Gurnall beat out these six verses
of Paul’s into a ponderous work of fourteen hundred
pages, bound in two massive volumes. One hundred
and fifty of these pages deal with the footgear
recommended by the apostle; and Master Gurnall
gives us, among other treasures, ‘six directions for
<SPAN name="p257" id="p257"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>261<span class="ns">]
</span></span>the helping on of this spiritual shoe.’ But we must
not be betrayed into a digression on the matter of
shoe-horns and kindred contrivances. Shoemaker,
stick to thy last! Let us keep to this matter of
boots. Can good Master Gurnall, with all his
hundred and fifty closely printed pages on the subject,
help us to understand what Paul and Bunyan
meant? What is it to have your feet shod with the
preparation of the gospel of peace? What are the
shoes that never wear out? Now the striking thing
is that Master Gurnall looks at the matter very much
as the Africans do. He turns upon himself a perfect
fusillade of questions. What is meant by the gospel?
What is meant by peace? Why is peace attributed
to the gospel? What do the feet here mentioned
import? What grace is intended by that ‘preparation
of the gospel of peace’ which is here compared
to a shoe and fitted to these feet? And so on. And
in answering his own questions, and especially
this last one, good Master Gurnall comes to the
conclusion that the spiritual shoe which he would
fain help us to put on is ‘a gracious, heavenly, and
excellent spirit.’ And his hundred and fifty crowded
pages on the matter of footwear give us clearly to
understand that the man who puts on this beautiful
spirit will be able to walk without weariness the
stoniest roads, and to climb without exhaustion the
steepest hills. He shall tread upon the lion and
<SPAN name="p258" id="p258"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>262<span class="ns">]
</span></span>adder; the young lion and the dragon shall he
trample under feet. In slimy bogs and on slippery
paths his foot shall never slide; and in the day when
he wrestles with principalities and powers, and with
the rulers of the darkness of this world, his foothold
shall be firm and secure. ‘Thy shoes shall be iron
and brass, and as thy days so shall thy strength
be.’ Master Gurnall’s teaching is therefore perfectly
plain. He looks at this divine footwear much as
the Africans looked at Livingstone’s boots. The
man whose feet are shod with the preparation of
the gospel of peace has carpeted for himself all the
rough roads that lie before him. The man who knows
how to wear this ‘gracious, heavenly, and excellent
spirit’ has done for himself what Sir Walter Raleigh
did for Queen Elizabeth. He has already protected
his feet against all the miry places of the path ahead
of him. If good Master Gurnall’s ‘six directions
for the helping on of this spiritual shoe’ will really
assist us to be thus securely shod, then his hundred
and fifty pages will yet prove more precious than
gold-leaf.</p>
<p>Bunyan speaks of the amazing exhibition of
footgear that Christian beheld in the armoury as
‘<em>shoes that will not wear out</em>.’ I wish I could be quite
sure that Christian was not mistaken. John Bunyan
has so often been my teacher and counsellor on all
the highest and weightiest matters that it is painful
<SPAN name="p259" id="p259"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>263<span class="ns">]
</span></span>to have to doubt him at any point. The boots may
have looked as though they would never wear out;
but, as all mothers know, that is a way that boots
have. In the shoemaker’s hands they always look
as though they would stand the wear and tear of
ages; but put them on a boy’s feet and see what they
will look like in a month’s time! I am really afraid
that Christian was deceived in this particular.
Paul says nothing about the everlasting wear of
which the shoes are capable; and the sisters of the
Palace Beautiful seem to have said nothing about it.
I fancy Christian jumped too hastily to this conclusion,
misled by the excellent appearance and
sturdy make of the boots before him. My experience
is that the shoes do wear out. The most ‘gracious,
heavenly, and excellent spirit’ must be kept in
repair. I know of no virtue, however attractive,
and of no grace, however beautiful, that will not
wear thin unless it is constantly attended to. My
good friend, Master Gurnall, for all his hundred and
fifty pages does not touch upon this point; but I
venture to advise my readers that they will be wise
to accept Christian’s so confident declaration with a
certain amount of caution. The statement that ‘these
shoes will not wear out’ savours rather too much of
the spirit of advertisement; and we have learned from
painful experience that the language of an advertisement
is not always to be interpreted literally.</p>
<p><SPAN name="p260" id="p260"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>264<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>One other thing these boots of mine seem to say
to me as they look mutely up at me from the centre
of the hearthrug. Have they no history, these
shoes of mine? Whence came they? And at this
point we suddenly invade the realm of tragedy.
The voice of Abel’s blood cried to God from the
ground; and the voice of blood calls to me from
my very boots. Was it a seal cruelly done to death
upon a northern icefloe, or a kangaroo shot down in
the very flush of life as it bounded through the
Australian bush, or a kid looking up at its slaughterer
with terrified, pitiful eyes? What was it that gave
up the life so dear to it that I might be softly and
comfortably shod? And so every step that I take
is a step that has been made possible to me by the
shedding of innocent blood. All the highways and
byways that I tread have been sanctified by sacrifice.<!-- TN: period invisible in original -->
The very boots on the hearthrug are whispering
something about redemption. And most certainly
this is true of the shoes of which the apostle wrote,
the shoes that the pilgrims saw at the Palace Beautiful,
the shoes that trudge their weary way through
Master Gurnall’s hundred and fifty packed pages.
These shoes could never have been placed at our
disposal apart from the shedding of most sacred
blood. My feet may be shod with the preparation
of the gospel of peace; but, if so, it is only because
the sacrifice unspeakable has already been made.</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="p261" id="p261"></SPAN>
<h3 title="VII. Christmas bells"><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>265<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span><big>VII</big><br/>CHRISTMAS BELLS</h3>
<p><span class="smc">It</span> is an infinite comfort to us ordinary pulpiteers to
know that even an Archbishop may sometimes have
a bad time! And, on the occasion of which I
write, the poor prelate must have had a very bad
time indeed. For—tell it not in Gath, publish it
not in the streets of Askelon!—none of his hearers
knew what he had been talking about! They could
make neither head nor tail of it! ‘I have not been
able to find one man yet who could discover what it
was about,’ wrote one of his auditors to a friend.
It is certainly most humiliating when our congregations
go home and pen such letters for posterity
to chuckle over. And yet the ability of the preacher
at this particular service, and the intelligence of
his hearers, are alike beyond question. For the
preacher was the famous Richard Chenevix Trench,
D.D., Professor of Theology at King’s College,
Dean of Westminster, and afterwards Archbishop
of Dublin. The sermon was preached in the classical
atmosphere of Cambridge University, principally to
students and undergraduates. The theme was the
Incarnation—‘<em>The Word was made flesh</em>.’ And the
<SPAN name="p262" id="p262"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>266<span class="ns">]
</span></span>young fellow who wrote the plaintive epistle from
which I have quoted was Alfred Ainger, afterwards
a distinguished litterateur and Master of the Temple.
He could make nothing of it. ‘The sermon, I am
sorry to say, was universally disappointing. I have
not been able to find one man yet who could discover
what it was about. It is needless to say <em>I</em> could not.
He chose, too, one of the grandest and deepest texts
in the New Testament. He talked a great deal
about St. Augustine, but any more I cannot tell you.’</p>
<p>Now Christmas will again come knocking at our
doors, and many of us will find ourselves preaching on
this selfsame theme. And we have a wholesome
horror of sending our hearers home in the same
fearful perplexity. ‘What on earth was the minister
talking about?’ All the cards and the carols, the
fun and the frolic, the pastimes and the picnics will
be turned into dust and ashes, into gall and wormwood,
into vanity and vexation of spirit to the poor
preacher who suspects that his Christmas congregation
returned home in such a mood. His Christmas
dinner will almost choke him. There will be no
merry Christmas for <em>him</em>!</p>
<p>But let no minister be terrified or intimidated by
the Archbishop’s unhappy experience. His ‘bad
time’ may help us to enjoy a good one. We must
take his text, and wrestle with it bravely. It is the
ideal Christmas greeting. There is certainly depth
<SPAN name="p263" id="p263"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>267<span class="ns">]
</span></span>and mystery; but there is humanness and tenderness
as well.</p>
<p>‘<em>The Word</em> was made flesh.’ Words are wonderful
things, to say nothing of ‘<em>the</em> Word’—whatever
<em>that</em> may prove to be. This selfsame Archbishop
Trench, whose sermon at Cambridge proved
such a universal disappointment, has written a
marvellous book <cite>On the Study of Words</cite>. Here are
seven masterly chapters to show that words are
fossil poetry, and petrified history, and embalmed
romance, and that all the ages have left the record
of their tears and their laughter, of their virtues and
their vices, of their passion and their pain, in the
<em>words</em> that they have coined. ‘When I feel inclined
to read poetry,’ says Oliver Wendell Holmes, ‘I
take down <em>my dictionary</em>! The poetry of words is
quite as beautiful as that of sentences. The author
may arrange the gems effectively, but their shape
and lustre have been given by the attrition of age.
Bring me the finest simile from the whole range of
imaginative writing, and I will show you a single word
which conveys a more profound, a more accurate,
and a more elegant analogy.’ Words, then, are
jewel-cases, treasure-chests, strong-rooms; they are
repositories in which the archives of the ages are
preserved.</p>
<p>‘The Word <em>was made flesh</em>.’ We never grasp the
Word until it is. Let me illustrate my meaning.
<SPAN name="p264" id="p264"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>268<span class="ns">]
</span></span>Here is a bonny little fellow of six, with sunny face
and a glorious shock of golden hair. His father
hands him his first spelling-book, with the alphabet
on the front page, and little two-letter monosyllables
following. But what can he make of even such
small words? He will never learn the A.B.C. in
that way. But give him a <em>teacher</em>. Make the word
flesh, and he will soon have it all off by heart!</p>
<p>Five years pass away. The lad is in the full
swing of his school-days now. But to-night, as
he pores over his books, the once sunny face is
clouded, and the wavy hair covers an aching head.</p>
<p>‘Time for bed, sonny!’ says mother at length.</p>
<p>‘But, mother, I haven’t done my home lessons,
<em>and I can’t</em>.’</p>
<p>‘What is it all about, my boy?’ she asks, as
she draws her chair nearer to his, and, putting her
arm round his shoulder, reads the tiresome problem.</p>
<p>And then they talk it over together. And, somehow,
under the magic of her interest, it seems fairly
simple after all. In her sympathetic voice, and
fond glance, and tender touch, the word becomes
flesh, and he grasps its meaning.</p>
<p>Five more years pass away. He is sixteen, and a
perfect book-worm.<!-- TN: period invisible in original --> Looking up from the story he
is reading, he exclaims impatiently:</p>
<p>‘I can’t think why they want to work these silly
<em>love-stories</em> into all these books. A fellow can’t pick
<SPAN name="p265" id="p265"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>269<span class="ns">]
</span></span>up a decent book but there’s a love-story running
through it. It’s horrid!’ He has come upon the
greatest word in the language; but it has no meaning
for him!</p>
<p>But five years later he understands! He has been
captivated by a pure and radiant face, by a charming
and graceful form, by lovely eyes that answer
to his own. That great word <em>love</em> has been made
flesh to him, and it simply gleams with meaning.
And so, all through the years, as life goes on, he
finds the great key-words expounded to him through
infinite processes of incarnation. ‘Ideas,’ says
George Eliot, ‘are often poor ghosts; our sun-filled
eyes cannot discern them; they pass athwart us
in their vapour and cannot make themselves felt.
But sometimes <em>they are made flesh</em>; they breathe upon
us with warm breath, they touch us with soft
responsive hand, they look at us with sad sincere
eyes, and speak to us in appealing tones; they are
clothed in a living human soul, with all its conflicts,
its faith, and its love. Then their presence is a
power, then they shake us like a passion, and we are
drawn after them with gentle compulsion, as flame
is drawn to flame.’</p>
<p>And if this be so with other words, how could the
greatest, grandest, holiest word of all have been
expressed except in the very selfsame way? ‘<em>The</em>
Word was made flesh.’ There was no other way of
<SPAN name="p266" id="p266"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>270<span class="ns">]
</span></span>saying <span class="smc">God</span> intelligibly. I should never, never,
never have understood mere abstract definitions
of so august a term. And so—‘In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was <span class="smc">God</span>, and the Word
was <em>made flesh</em>.’ I can grasp that great word now.
Bethlehem and Olivet, Galilee and Calvary, have
made it wonderfully plain. The word <span class="smc">God</span> would
have frightened me if it had never been expressed
in the terms of ‘a Face like my face’—as Browning
puts it—and a heart that beats in sympathy with
my own. And so Tennyson says:</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>And so the Word had breath, and wrought</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>With human hands the creed of creeds</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>In loveliness of perfect deeds,</div>
<div>More strong than all poetic thought;</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div><br class="ns"/>Which he may read that binds the sheaf,</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>Or builds the house, or digs the grave,</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>And those wild eyes that watch the wave</div>
<div>In roarings round the coral reef.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>And thus the most awful, the most terrible, and the
most incomprehensible word that human lips could
frame has become the most winsome and charming
in the whole vocabulary. <span class="smc">God</span> is <span class="smc">Jesus</span>, and <span class="smc">Jesus</span>
is <span class="smc">God</span>! ‘The Word was made flesh.’</p>
<p>The same principle dominates all religious experience
and enterprise. Generally speaking, you
cannot make a man a Christian by giving him a
<SPAN name="p267" id="p267"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>271<span class="ns">]
</span></span>Bible or posting him a tract. The New Testament
lays it down quite clearly that the Christian <em>man</em>
must accompany the Christian <em>message</em>. The Word
must be presented in its proper human setting.
Our missionaries all over the planet tell of the resistless
influence exerted by gracious Christian homes,
and by holy Christian lives, in winning idolators<!-- TN: spelling OK (OED) -->
from superstition. I was reading only this morning
a touching instance of a young Japanese who trudged
hundreds of miles to inquire after the secret of ‘the
beautiful life’—as he called it—which he had seen
exemplified in some Christian missionaries. The
Word, <em>made flesh</em>, is thus pronounced with an accent
and an eloquence which are simply irresistible.</p>
<p>‘I said, and I repeat,’ says Mr. Edwin Hodder,
in his biography of Sir George Burns, the founder of
the Cunard Steamship Company, ‘I said, and I
repeat, that if the Bible were blotted out of existence,
if there were no prayer-book, no catechism, and no
creed, if there were no visible Church at all, I could
not fail to believe in the doctrines of Christianity
while the living epistle of Sir George Burns’ life
remained in my memory.’ That was Whittier’s
argument:</p>
<div class="poetry-container">
<div class="poetry">
<div class="stanza">
<div>The dear Lord’s best interpreters</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>Are humble human souls;</div>
<div>The gospel of a life like his</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>Is more than books or scrolls.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div><br class="ns"/><SPAN name="p268" id="p268"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"><span class="ns">[</span>272<span class="ns">]<br/></span></span>From scheme and creed the light goes out,</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>The saintly fact survives;</div>
<div>The blessed Master none can doubt,</div>
<div class="indent2"><span class="ns"> </span>Revealed in holy lives.</div>
</div></div>
</div>
<p>We have reached a very practical aspect now of
the message that the Christmas bells will soon be
ringing. The thoughts of men are only intelligibly
communicable by means of words; and the words of
men only become pregnant with passion and with
power when they are <em>made flesh</em>. And, in the same
way, the thoughts of God to men are only eloquent
when they are so expressed. Revelation became
sublimely rhetorical at Bethlehem, and we can only
perpetuate its eloquence through the agency of
lives transfigured.</p>
</div>
<div class="tnote">
<h2>Transcriber’s Notes</h2>
<p>Inconsistent hyphenation left as printed:
heart-breaking/heartbreaking,
over-wrought/overwrought.</p>
</div>
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