Add files from ibiblio as of 2025-03-08 04:37:01HEADmain

1 files changed, 0 insertions, 5957 deletions

diff --git a/42105-8.txt b/42105-8.txt
deleted file mode 100644
index 0c0c2e6..0000000
--- a/42105-8.txt
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,5957 +0,0 @@
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Faces in the Fire, by Frank W. Boreham
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
-
-
-Title: Faces in the Fire
-       And Other Fancies
-
-Author: Frank W. Boreham
-
-Release Date: February 16, 2013 [EBook #42105]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FACES IN THE FIRE ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by David Wilson and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
-produced from images generously made available by The
-Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
-
-Original scans are taken from: http://archive.org/details/facesinfireother00boreiala
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-FACES IN THE FIRE
-
-
-
-
-  FACES IN THE FIRE
-  and
-  OTHER FANCIES
-
-
-  BY F. W. BOREHAM
-
-
-  AUTHOR OF 'THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HILL,' 'THE SILVER SHADOW,'
-  'MUSHROOMS ON THE MOOR,' 'THE GOLDEN MILESTONE,' 'MOUNTAINS
-  IN THE MIST,' 'THE LUGGAGE OF LIFE,' ETC., ETC.
-
-
-
-
-  THE ABINGDON PRESS
-  NEW YORK    CINCINNATI
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS
-
-
-PART I
-
-  CHAP.                                    PAGE
-
-     I. THE BABY AMONG THE BOMBSHELLS        13
-
-    II. STRAWBERRIES AND CREAM               24
-
-   III. THE CONQUEST OF THE CRAGS            36
-
-    IV. LINOLEUM                             46
-
-     V. THE EDITOR                           57
-
-    VI. THE PEACEMAKER                       68
-
-   VII. NOTHING                              79
-
-  VIII. THE ANGEL AND THE IRON GATE          89
-
-    IX. SHORT CUTS                           98
-
-
-PART II
-
-     I. THE POSTMAN                         113
-
-    II. CRYING FOR THE MOON                 123
-
-   III. OUR LOST ROMANCES                   134
-
-    IV. A FORBIDDEN DISH                    144
-
-     V. AN OLD MAID'S DIARY                 153
-
-    VI. THE RIVER                           163
-
-   VII. FACES IN THE FIRE                   172
-
-  VIII. THE MENACE OF THE SUNLIT HILL       184
-
-    IX. AMONG THE ICEBERGS                  196
-
-
-PART III
-
-     I. A BOX OF TIN SOLDIERS               207
-
-    II. LOVE, MUSIC, AND SALAD              216
-
-   III. THE FELLING OF THE TREE             227
-
-    IV. SPOIL!                              237
-
-     V. A PHILOSOPHY OF FANCY-WORK          247
-
-    VI. A PAIR OF BOOTS                     256
-
-   VII. CHRISTMAS BELLS                     265
-
-
-
-
-BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION
-
-
-It 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.
-
-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 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!
-
-  FRANK W. BOREHAM.
-
-  Hobart, Tasmania.
-
-
-
-
-PART I
-
-
-
-
-I
-
-THE BABY AMONG THE BOMBSHELLS
-
-
-Everything 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 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 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 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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 _Frolic_ 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 contrive to retain unspoiled that childish capacity for
-wonder!
-
-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 may recapture the glorious
-amazements of the baby among his bombshells.
-
-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!' 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.
-
-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.
-
-'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.
-
-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.
-
-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. 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.
-
-
-
-
-II
-
-STRAWBERRIES AND CREAM
-
-
-Strawberries 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 _strawberries_ nor on _cream_, but on _strawberries and
-cream_. 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.
-
-'Come in here,' my companion suggested, pointing to a café near by,
-'and have a cup of afternoon tea.'
-
-'No, thank you,' I replied, 'I had a cup not long ago.'
-
-'Well, strawberries and cream, then?'
-
-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.
-
-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 another phase of the wonder which
-suggested the nursery rhyme:
-
-  Flour of England, fruit of Spain,
-  Met together in a shower of rain.
-
-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
-_ententes_, and _rapprochements_, and international conferences take
-place every day among the plates and dishes that adorn our tables!
-
-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 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 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 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.
-
-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.
-
-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 that he sometimes discovers within
-the recesses of his own soul. 'I remember,' Rudyard Kipling makes the
-Thames to say:
-
-  ... I remember, like yesterday,
-  The earliest Cockney who came my way,
-  When he pushed through the forest that lined the Strand,
-  With paint on his face and a club in his hand.
-  He was death to feather and fin and fur,
-  He trapped my beavers at Westminster,
-  He netted my salmon, he hunted my deer,
-  He killed my herons off Lambeth Pier;
-  He fought his neighbour with axes and swords,
-  Flint or bronze, at my upper fords,
-  While down at Greenwich for slaves and tin
-  The tall Phoenician ships stole in.
-
-Men of the island caves mixed their blood with men of the great
-continental forests. It was an extraordinary agglomeration.
-
-  Norseman and Negro and Gaul and Greek
-  Drank with the Britons in Barking Creek,
-  And the Romans came with a heavy hand,
-  And bridged and roaded and ruled the land,
-  And the Roman left and the Danes blew in--
-  And that's where your history books begin!
-
-Is it any wonder that sometimes I feel, mingling with the emotions
-inspired by a recent communion service, 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 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 _and_ cream as of
-_strawberriesandcream_.
-
-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
-_strawberriesandcream_. One of the oldest and one of the silliest
-mistakes that men have made is their everlasting inclination to divide
-_strawberries-and-cream_ into strawberries _and_ 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 _or_ 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 _and_ female: it is _maleandfemale_, just as it is
-_strawberriesandcream_. 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
-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.
-
-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 line. I only know that I
-thoroughly enjoyed the _strawberriesandcream_.
-
-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 _King Henry the Fifth_. 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:
-
-  The breath no sooner left his father's body
-  But that his wildness, mortified in him,
-  Seemed to die, too. Yea, at that very moment.
-  Consideration like an angel came,
-  And whipped the offending Adam out of him.
-  Leaving his body as a paradise,
-  To envelop and contain celestial spirits.
-
-To which the Bishop of Ely replies:
-
-  The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
-  And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best,
-  Neighboured by fruit of baser quality.
-
-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.
-
-
-
-
-III
-
-THE CONQUEST OF THE CRAGS
-
-
-I was 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
-_Bogland Studies_, makes one of her characters say:
-
-  What use is one's life widout chances? Ye've always a chance
-    wid the tide;
-  For ye never can tell what 'twill take in its head to strew
-    round on the shore;
-  Maybe driftwood, or grand bits of boards that come handy for
-    splicing an oar,
-  Or a crab skytin' back o'er the shine o' the wet; sure,
-    whatever ye've found,
-  It's a sort of diversion them whiles when ye've starvin' and
-    strelin' around.
-
-Absorbed in so delightful an occupation the passage of time escaped my
-attention, until suddenly 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
-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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 _Red Morn_. '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 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.
-
-'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.
-
-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. 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.
-
-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 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.'
-
-It is always the gentle things of life that conquer us. 'The moving
-waters'--to quote Keats' beautiful phrase--
-
-  The moving waters at their priest-like task
-  Of pure ablution round earth's human shores'
-
-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 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 _The Rosary_, 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 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.
-
-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 _Call
-of the Wild_ 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 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.
-
-
-
-
-IV
-
-LINOLEUM
-
-
-True 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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. 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, _there_, one star differeth from another star
-in glory. But on the linoleum they do nothing of the sort.
-
-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 that having looked at
-_this_ rose, I am the more eager to see _that_ one; having admired
-_this_ chrysanthemum, I am the more curious to mark the variety
-presented by _the next_. 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 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.
-
-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.
-
-  Maud, with her venturous climbings and tumbles and childish escapes,
-  Maud, the delight of the village, the ringing joy of the Hall,
-  Maud, with her sweet purse-mouth when my father dangled the grapes,
-  Maud, the beloved of my mother, the moon-faced darling of all.
-
-But later on Maud was regular--and as unattractive as linoleum.
-
-  ... Maud, she has neither savour nor salt,
-  But a cold and clear-cut face, as I found when her carriage passed,
-  Perfectly beautiful: let it be granted her: where is the fault?
-  All that I saw (for her eyes were downcast, not to be seen)
-  Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null,
-  Dead perfection, no more.
-
-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.
-
-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
-_Robert Falconer_, 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.
-
-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 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.'
-
-  Yes, warm, sweet, tender, even yet
-    A present help is He;
-  And faith has yet its Olivet,
-    And love its Galilee.
-
-_'Warm'_ ... _'love'_ ... here are words that touch my soul to tears.
-'We love Him because _He first loved us_.' The monotony and frigidity of
-the linoleum have given way to the beauty and the brightness of flowery
-fields all bathed in summer sunshine.
-
-
-
-
-V
-
-THE EDITOR
-
-
-I approach 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 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 _their_ 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.
-
-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 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, 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.
-
-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, 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.
-
-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 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
-
-  That nothing walks with aimless feet;
-    That not one life shall be destroyed,
-    Or cast as rubbish to the void,
-  When God hath made the pile complete;
-
-  That not a worm is cloven in vain;
-    That not a moth with vain desire
-    Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire,
-  Or but subserves another's gain.
-
-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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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,
-_when I appear_? 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 _when we appear_ 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.
-
-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.
-
-'Dad may be here when you wake up in the morning, Charlie!' his mother
-said to him one night.
-
-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. 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 _when I appear_ in the
-morning.
-
-
-
-
-VI
-
-THE PEACEMAKER
-
-
-Things 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, _be ye reconciled to
-God_.' I used to wonder what he can possibly have meant; but now I think
-I understand.
-
-
-I
-
-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, 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 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, _be ye
-reconciled to God_.' 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.
-
-
-II
-
-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 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 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.
-
-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. _I feel reconciled to God_.' That is
-a fine saying. '_I feel reconciled to God_.' But poor Polonius and Phebe
-could as yet enter no such 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, _be ye reconciled to
-God_.' 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:
-
-  Renew my will from day to day;
-  Blend it with Thine; and take away
-  All that now makes it hard to say,
-        'Thy will be done!'
-
-And, like Andrew Fuller and his wife at Kettering, Polonius and his wife
-at Corinth were able to say, '_I feel reconciled to God_.'
-
-
-III
-
-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. 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.
-
-From the very first the soul of Amplius prospered. He was like those
-trees of which the psalmist sings 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. 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.
-
-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, _reconciled to God_.' Mr. Grey Hazelrigg 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, _be ye reconciled to God_.' And,
-like Lady Hazelrigg, Julia made her peace with God, and her son adorned
-the Christian ministry for many a long day.
-
-
-IV
-
-'_Be ye reconciled to God_'--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. '_Be ye reconciled to God_,' 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 and mine, there exists
-some embarrassing estrangement? '_Be ye reconciled to God_,' 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.
-
-
-
-
-VII
-
-NOTHING
-
-
-Nature, 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?
-
-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.
-
-'Hullo, sonny,' I exclaimed,'what's the matter?'
-
-'_Oh, nothing_!' he replied, between his sobs.
-
-'Then what on earth are you crying for?'
-
-'_Oh, nothing_!' he repeated.
-
-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.
-
-'And what was this for?' I asked.
-
-'_Oh, nothing_!' he answered, with a blush.
-
-'But, my dear fellow, you must have done something to deserve it!'
-
-'_Oh, it was nothing_!' 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.
-
-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. When the critical moment arrived, the preacher
-opened the sealed packet, and found it--_blank_! 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.
-
-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 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 _Decline and Fall_--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 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 _Farthest North_. 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; _but peace_!--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.
-
-One would have supposed that, after this heart-breaking affair with
-Doing-Nothing, the Church 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.
-
-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 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 _Serious Call_ 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.
-
-And now it suddenly comes home to me that I am playing on the very verge
-of a tremendous 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.
-
-But for the greatest illustration of my present theme I must betake me
-to Mark Rutherford. The incident occurred at the most sunless and
-joyless stage of Mark's career. From all his wretchedness he sought
-relief in Nothing. 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 _gazing gloomily
-into dark emptiness_, till all life became nothing for me.' _Gazing into
-emptiness_, 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 _gazing into emptiness_. 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.'
-
-'Any means which Nature devises.' We are back to Nature again.
-
-'Nature abhors a vacuum'; it was at that point that we set out.
-
-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 _Some One_; and until I find _Him_ my restless soul calls
-down all the echoing corridors of Nothingness, 'Oh that I knew _where I
-might find Him_!'
-
-
-
-
-VIII
-
-THE ANGEL AND THE IRON GATE
-
-
-It 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 _executioner_, there came an _angel_! 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.
-
-'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.'
-
-There is a sharp ring at the bell. She starts.
-
-'Something tells me,' she continues, 'that this is a message to say
-that the ship is lost, and that I shall never see my boy again.'
-
-Even whilst she speaks the door is opened, and her last syllable is
-scarcely uttered before she is folded in the sailor's arms.
-
-The principle holds true to the very end. It is a sick-room, and the
-pale wan face of the patient looks very weary.
-
-'Oh, how I dread death!' she says; 'I cannot bear to think that I must
-die.'
-
-An hour later the door of the unseen opens to her, and there stands on
-the threshold, not Death, but _Life Everlasting_!
-
-Peter very, very often waits for the executioner, and welcomes an angel.
-
-
-I
-
-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 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:
-
-  O Love, that will not let me go,
-  I rest my weary soul in Thee;
-  I give Thee back the life I owe,
-  That in Thine ocean depths its flow
-        May richer, fuller be.
-
-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 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.
-
-
-II
-
-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 _the
-angel over your shoulder_. 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 _hills_, but He is not God of the _valleys_,"
-therefore will I deliver all this great multitude into thine hand, 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.
-
-
-III
-
-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 in
-_this place_! How dreadful is _this place_! _This_ is none other but the
-house of God, and _this_ is the gate of heaven! And he called the name
-of _that place_ 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 _all places_
-whither thou goest.'
-
-'_All places_!' said the Vision.
-
-'This place! _this place_! THIS PLACE!' said Jacob.
-
-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!
-
-
-IV
-
-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:
-
-  His love, in time past, forbids me to think
-  He'll leave me at last in trouble to sink,
-  Each sweet Ebenezer I have in review
-  Confirms His good pleasure to help me quite through.
-
-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.
-
-
-V
-
-'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 _of its own accord_.' 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.
-
-The prayer-meeting may not be artistic. For 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.
-
-
-
-
-IX
-
-SHORT CUTS
-
-
-We 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
-_them_ five mortal minutes to reach a spot that, by a stoop or a bound,
-_we_ 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 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.
-
-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 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 _Up
-From Slavery_, 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 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
-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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 _Clara Hopgood_. Baruch and
-Dennis are discussing those old social problems that men have discussed
-since first this world began. Dennis was enlarging upon the
-inequalities and iniquities of social and industrial life, when Baruch
-broke in with the pertinent and practical question: 'But what would you
-do for them?'
-
-'Ah, that beats me!' replied Dennis. 'I would hang somebody, but I don't
-know who it ought to be!'
-
-Precisely! To _cut_ the knot with a sword is so easy--and so
-ineffective; to _untie_ 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.
-
-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 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.'
-
-Now what was that divine note? Everything hinges upon that. And unless
-our Protestant speakers are prepared to face _that_ issue they may as
-well remain by their own firesides, lounge in their cosiest chairs, wear
-their warmest slippers, 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 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.
-
-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 _we_ 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 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-
-
-
-PART II
-
-
-
-
-I
-
-THE POSTMAN
-
-
-I must 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 _not_ 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 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. 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.
-
-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!
-
-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 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, _those_ 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 with those disputatious
-and controversial points, and the inevitable result will be that _the
-whole_ of my letter will grate upon him just as _part_ 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 _speaking_ 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.
-
-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 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 _words_. 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.
-
-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.
-
-Now see how much better the postman manages 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 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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.
-
-  '_Home at six-thirty to-day._'
-    Oh, what a tumult of joy!
-  Growing suspense flies away,
-    God bless that telegraph-boy!
-
-_God bless that telegraph-boy!_ 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 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!
-
-
-
-
-II
-
-CRYING FOR THE MOON
-
-
-Let 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 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-'I don't want to go in, dad,' he cried appealingly; 'it's cold, and I'm
-cold, and I don't like it!'
-
-'It will make you grow up into a big man, sonny!' his father replied
-persuasively.
-
-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.
-
-'Will it really, dad; honour bright?' he asked anxiously, carefully
-scrutinizing his father's face.
-
-'It will indeed, sonny; that is why the doctor ordered it.'
-
-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.
-
-'Why, whatever's the matter, Jack? What are you crying for?'
-
-'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!'
-
-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 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.
-
-In justice to John I am bound to say that, as 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 _The Lilies_, 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 garden.' There is a good
-deal in the chapter that will have a special interest for my poor
-self-castigated friend.
-
-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.
-
-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 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
-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.
-
-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 Pauline Epistles
-were written; and it is a mercy for John that he was not born some
-centuries earlier.
-
-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 _said that it was
-raining_, 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 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.
-
-
-
-
-III
-
-OUR LOST ROMANCES
-
-
-There 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. 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.
-
-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,' 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 treasure-trove. When
-they go, they leave nothing behind them. When we lose them, we lose
-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.
-
-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, 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 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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, '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.
-
-
-
-
-IV
-
-A FORBIDDEN DISH
-
-
-I
-
-I was 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 _Kenilworth_, 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 thrilling interest were left far behind, and I was flying along
-an entirely new track. And here are the words that so adroitly changed
-the current of my thought:
-
-'"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--_it is a seething of the kid in the mother's milk_."'
-
-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.
-
-
-II
-
-_'Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk!'_ 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;
-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,
-'_Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk_.' 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, 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 _Kenilworth_.
-
-
-III
-
-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 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. _It is a seething of the kid in the mother's milk!_'
-
-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 _Tales from
-Shakespeare_, 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 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.
-_Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk._
-
-
-IV
-
-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 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.
-
-
-V
-
-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:
-
-        Indeed I know
-  Of no more subtle master under heaven
-  Than is the maiden passion for a maid,
-  Not only to keep down the base in man,
-  But to teach high thoughts and amiable words,
-  And courtliness, and the desire for fame,
-  And love of truth, and all that makes a man.
-
-Lord Lytton illustrates this magic force in his _Last Days of Pompeii_.
-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.
-
-
-VI
-
-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. '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.
-
-
-
-
-V
-
-AN OLD MAID'S DIARY
-
-
-_Christmas Eve, 1973._ 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; 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-_Tuesday, October 5, 1915._ 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 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.
-
-
-_Wednesday, October 6, 1915._ 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 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?
-
-
-_Thursday, October 7, 1915._ 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
-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.
-
-
-_Friday, October 8, 1915._ 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 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.
-
-
-_Saturday, October 9, 1915._ 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 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!
-
-
-_Sunday, October 10, 1915._ 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, 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.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-_Christmas Eve, 1973._ 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 _was_ a war, and the fatal shell
-_did_ burst, and my white-haired boy and I never met, _never met_. 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, 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, _I know now_. And God knows; I pillow my poor tired old
-head on that, God knows, _God knows_! 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!
-
-
-
-
-VI
-
-THE RIVER
-
-
-It 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 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.'
-
-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 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 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.
-
-It is recorded of the Right. Hon. John Burns 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, '_that_, sir, is
-liquid history, _liquid history_!' Yes, Mr. Burns is quite right. 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 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 _The Making of
-To-morrow_, 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.
-
-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 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 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.
-
-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.
-
-  I remember the bat-winged lizard birds,
-  The Age of Ice and the mammoth herds;
-  And the giant tigers that stalked them down
-  Through Regent's Park into Camden Town;
-  And I remember like yesterday
-  The earliest Cockney who came my way,
-  When he pushed through the forest that lined the Strand,
-  With paint on his face and a club in his hand.
-
-But I forgave Kipling for not having repaired the omission of the older
-poets when I read _Kim_. _Kim_ 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 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.
-
-
-
-
-VII
-
-FACES IN THE FIRE
-
-
-It 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 '_I remember once----_.' 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. 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?
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-In _The Call of the Wild_, 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 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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 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 '_I remember once----_,' has been the
-key-note of the evening's gossip.
-
-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, 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 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.
-
-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
-the remotest, stateliest antiquity. Surely that was the idea in
-Macaulay's mind when he wrote 'Horatius':
-
-  And in the nights of winter,
-    When the cold north winds blow,
-  And the long howling of the wolves
-    Is heard amidst the snow;
-  When round the lonely cottage
-    Roars loud the tempest's din,
-  And the good logs of Algidus
-    Roar louder yet within;
-
-  When the oldest cask is opened,
-    And the largest lamp is lit;
-  When the chestnuts glow in the embers,
-    And the kid turns on the spit;
-  When young and old in circle
-    Around the firebrands close;
-  When the girls are weaving baskets,
-    And the lads are shaping bows;
-
-  When the goodman mends his armour,
-    And trims his helmet's plume;
-  When the goodwife's shuttle merrily
-    Goes flashing through the loom,--
-  With weeping and with laughter
-    Still is the story told,
-  How well Horatius kept the bridge
-    In the brave days of old.
-
-Now, when I come to think of it, is it any wonder that the days of auld
-lang syne, and the old familiar 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!
-
-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 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?
-
-
-
-
-VIII
-
-THE MENACE OF THE SUNLIT HILL
-
-
-I am 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. 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, '_The divine_!' 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 _Inferno_, 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.
-
-
-I
-
-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 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:
-
- 'Enoch, poor man, was cast away and lost!'
-  He, shaking his grey head pathetically,
-  Repeated, muttering, 'Cast away and lost!'
-  Again in deeper inward whispers, 'Lost!'
-
-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!
-
-  In the midway of this our mortal life,
-  I found me in a gloomy wood, astray,
-  Gone from the path direct: and e'en to tell
-  It were no easy task, how savage wild
-  That forest, how robust and rough its growth,
-  Which to remember only, my dismay
-  Renews, in bitterness not far from death.
-
-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 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.
-
-
-II
-
-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, '_I found me_,' 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 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 _temporal felicity_ 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.
-
-
-III
-
-Suddenly the Vision Beautiful breaks upon him. He stumbles blindly
-through the forest until he arrives at the base of a sunlit mountain:
-
-  ... a mountain's foot I reached, where closed
-  The valley that had pierced my heart with dread.
-  I looked aloft, and saw his shoulders broad
-  Already vested with that planet's beam
-  Who leads all wanderers safe through every way.
-
-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 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 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.
-
-
-IV
-
-And such beasts! Trouble seemed to succeed trouble; difficulty followed
-on the heels of difficulty; peril came hard upon peril.
-
-          Scarce the ascent
-  Began, when, lo! a panther, nimble, light,
-  And covered with a speckled skin, appeared,
-  Nor when it saw me, vanished, rather strove
-  To check my onward going; that ofttimes
-  With purpose to retrace my steps I turned.
-
-He had scarcely recovered from the shock, and driven this peril from his
-path, when
-
-  ... a new dread succeeded, for in view
-  A lion came, 'gainst me, as it appeared,
-  With his head held aloft and hunger-mad.
-  That e'en the air was fear-struck. A she-wolf
-  Was at his heels, who in her leanness seemed
-  Full of all wants, and many a land hath made
-  Disconsolate ere now. She with such fear
-  O'erwhelmed me, at the sight of her appalled,
-  That of the height all hope I lost.
-
-The panther, the lion, and the wolf; that is very suggestive, and we
-must look into this striking symbolism a little more closely.
-
-
-V
-
-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 _Lust_, the lion to represent _Pride_, and the wolf to
-represent _Avarice_. 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 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.
-
-
-VI
-
-The three creatures differed in character. The panther was _beautiful_;
-the lion was _terrible_; the wolf was _horrible_. 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,
-
-  The hour was morning's prime, and on his way.
-  Aloft the sun ascended with those stars
-  That with him rose, when Love divine first moved
-  Those its fair works; so that with joyous hope
-  All things conspire to fill me, the gay skin
-  Of that swift animal, the matin dawn.
-  And the sweet season.
-
-The lion, on the other hand, is the symbol of majesty and terror. But
-the lean she-wolf was positively 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
-survived his struggle with the beauteous panther and the terrible lion,
-a man of such mettle should yield to a lean and ugly wolf!
-
-
-VII
-
-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,
-
-  Alas, how easily things go wrong!
-  A sigh too deep, or a kiss too long,
-  There follows a mist and a weeping rain.
-  And life is never the same again.
-
-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
-_panther_--beware of the _lion_ and the _wolf_. And, still more
-imperatively, let him that thinketh he standeth--having vanquished both
-the _panther_ and the lion--take heed lest he fall at last to the grim
-and frightful persistence of the lean _she-wolf_. 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.
-
-
-
-
-IX
-
-AMONG THE ICEBERGS
-
-
-Not 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. '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.
-
-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.
-
-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! 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.
-
-  In the mellow summer sun,
-  The icebergs, one by one,
-  Caught a spark of quickening fire,
-  Every turret smoked a censer,
-  Every pinnacle a pyre.
-
-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'?
-
-  And now there came both mist and snow,
-    And it grew wondrous cold,
-  And ice, mast high, came floating by
-    As green as emerald.
-
-  And through the drifts, the snowy clifts
-    Did send a dismal sheen,
-  Nor shapes of men, nor beasts we ken.
-    The ice was all between.
-
-  The ice was here, the ice was there,
-    The ice was all around,
-  It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
-    Like noises in a swound.
-
-Or Tennyson's lovely simile, wherein he says that we ourselves are like
-
-  Floating lonely icebergs, our crests above the ocean,
-  With deeply submerged portions united by the sea.
-
-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.
-
-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 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 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. _An
-iceberg of a minister_ has been floated in among them, and they have
-cooled down to something below zero.' '_An iceberg of a minister!_' 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! '_An iceberg of a minister!_'
-God, in His great mercy, save me from being such a minister as that!
-
-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 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.
-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--_the greater part of them is out of
-sight_!'
-
-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.
-
-Yes, they will have melted! And that reminds me of another famous saying
-of the great Dr Thomas 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!
-
-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.
-
-
-
-
-PART III
-
-
-
-
-I
-
-A BOX OF TIN SOLDIERS
-
-
-No 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 expressions of disappointment in
-certain supposititious cases, and of unbounded delight in others, was
-quite affecting.
-
-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 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!
-
-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. 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. 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.
-
-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, 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 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.
-
-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, 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?
-
-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?
-
-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, 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 _Conquest_ and to the innate love of _Command_. 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 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.
-
-'Teach me what those forces are that I have to _conquer_,' he seems to
-say, 'then teach me what forces I have to _command_, and I will spend
-all my days in the Holy War.'
-
-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.
-
-
-
-
-II
-
-LOVE, MUSIC, AND SALAD
-
-
-It 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 _The Moonstone_, '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, "_We have got
-three things left, sir--Love, Music, and Salad_"'? 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 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.
-
-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.
-
-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 _The Evolution of Language_; but
-from my present standpoint it is sadly disappointing. From first to last
-Drummond works on the assumption that 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, anger, together with their
-appropriate actions, and the murmur of a mother to her beloved child,
-are more expressive than any words.'
-
-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. They are the same in castle as in 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.
-
-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.
-
-Music, then, is the natural concomitant of Love. 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.
-
-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 _impression_ without giving that impression an adequate and
-commensurate _expression_. If you go to a 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-  The merry homes of England!
-    Around their hearths by night,
-  What gladsome looks of household love
-    Meet in the ruddy light!
-  There woman's voice flows forth in song,
-    Or childhood's tale is told;
-  Or lips move tunefully along
-    Some glorious page of old.
-
-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. 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 love enters. And there is no true love
-apart from the highest love of all.
-
-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.
-
-
-
-
-III
-
-THE FELLING OF THE TREE
-
-
-I was 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 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.
-
-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 notices at last the first slow movement of the
-glorious tree.
-
-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 _them_? Did they feel that the coming
-of those strange vessels up the bay sealed 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.
-
-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 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.
-
-Those who have read Gene Stratton Porter's _Harvester_ know what wonders
-lurk in the woods. The Harvester lived away in the forest, and from
-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.
-
-'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!'
-
-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. 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 _Golden
-Bough_ 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 _Israel's Ideal_, 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 _Tales for Children_, 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.
-
-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, 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!
-
-It is really not surprising that this haunting sense of sanctity in the
-woods should lead Man to worship there. Even Emerson felt that--
-
-  The Gods talk in the breath of the woods,
-  They talk in the shaken pine.
-
-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 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 _Practice of
-the Presence of God_ 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.
-
-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.
-
-        In heaven the trees
-  Of life ambrosial fruitage bear, and vines
-  Yield nectar.
-
-And, having all this in mind, is it not pleasant to notice that the very
-last chapter of the Bible tells 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 _that_ tree are for the healing of the
-nations.
-
-
-
-
-IV
-
-SPOIL!
-
-
-We 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.
-
-'Run along, Wroxie, dear, it's past bedtime!' a maternal voice from the
-opposite chair suddenly expostulated.
-
-'But, mother, I _must_ do my Scripture-lesson, and I've _nearly_
-finished!'
-
-'What have you to do, Wroxie?' I inquired, appointing myself arbitrator
-on the instant.
-
-'I have to learn these eight verses of the hundred and nineteenth
-Psalm!'
-
-'Well, read them aloud to us, and then run off to bed!' I commanded.
-
-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: '_I rejoice at Thy
-Word as one that findeth great spoil_.' 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 _spoil_' ... 'findeth great _spoil_' ... 'great
-_spoil_.' That one word '_spoil_' supplied me with the magic key. I
-applied it; the door flew open; and I saw _that_ 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.
-
-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. '_Spoil_!'--at the sound of that magic word the doors of truth
-swung open as the great door of the robbers' dungeon in _The Forty
-Thieves_ 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; _spoil_; SPOIL! 'I rejoice at Thy Word as _one that findeth great
-spoil_!'
-
-
-I
-
-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 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 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 aspiring student with such pitiless and
-unsympathetic pertinacity.
-
-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.
-
-
-II
-
-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.
-
-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.
-
-
-III
-
-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.' _Spoil_! 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 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!'
-
-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 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.
-
-
-
-
-V
-
-A PHILOSOPHY OF FANCY-WORK
-
-
-'"What course of lectures are you attending now, ma'am?" said Martin
-Chuzzlewit's friend, turning again to Mrs. Jefferson Brick.
-
-'"The Philosophy of the _Soul_, on Wednesdays," replied Mrs. Brick.
-
-'"And on Mondays?"
-
-'"The Philosophy of _Crime_."
-
-'"On Fridays?"
-
-'"The Philosophy of _Vegetables_."
-
-'"You have forgotten Thursdays; the Philosophy of _Government_, my
-dear," observed a third lady.
-
-'"No," said Mrs. Brick, "that's Tuesdays."
-
-'"So it is!" cried the lady. "The Philosophy of _Matter_ on Thursdays,
-of course."
-
-'"You see, Mr. Chuzzlewit, our ladies are fully employed," observed his
-friend.'
-
-They were indeed; but for the life of me I cannot understand why, amidst
-so many philosophies, the Philosophy of _Fancy-work_ was so cruelly
-ignored. I should have thought it quite as suitable and profitable a
-study for Mrs. Jefferson Brick and her lady friends as some of the
-subjects to which they paid their attention.
-
-'Whatever are you making now, dear?' asked a devoted husband of his
-spouse the other evening.
-
-'Why, an antimacassar, George, to be sure; can't you see?'
-
-'And what on earth is the good of an antimacassar, I should like to
-know?'
-
-'Stupid man!'
-
-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.
-
-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, 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 _Catherine Furze_. 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.' 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.
-
-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 drugs and doctors' bills are certainly no more ornamental.
-
-In his essay on _Tedium_, 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.
-
-  Silent is the house. I sit
-  In the firelight and knit.
-  At my ball of soft grey wool
-  Two grey kittens gently pull--
-  Pulling back my thoughts as well,
-  From that distant, red-rimmed hell,
-  And hot tears the stitches blur
-  As I knit a comforter.
-
-  'Comforter' they call it--yes,
-  Such it is for my distress,
-  For it gives my restless hands
-  Blessed work. God understands
-  How we women yearn to be
-  Doing something ceaselessly.
-  Anything but just to wait
-  Idly for a clicking gate!
-
-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 _A Tale of Two Cities_. 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, 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.
-
-'"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 _we_ always be able to decipher it--or, I ought
-to say, _will she_?"
-
-'"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."'
-
-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. 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.
-
-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 is told in the phraseology of
-fancy-work. 'And it came to pass that the soul of Jonathan was _knit_ 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.
-
-
-
-
-VI
-
-A PAIR OF BOOTS
-
-
-There 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.
-
-  Don't--don't--don't--don't--look at what's in front of you;
-  Boots--boots--boots--boots--moving up and down again;
-  Men--men--men--men--men go mad with watching 'em.
-    An' there's no discharge in the war.
-
-  Try--try--try--try--to think o' something different--
-  Oh--my--God--keep--me from going lunatic!
-  Boots--boots--boots--boots--moving up and down again
-    An' there's no discharge in the war.
-
-  We--can--stick--out--'unger, thirst, an' weariness,
-  But--not--not--not--not the chronic sight of 'em--
-  Boots--boots--boots--boots--moving up and down again!
-    An' there's no discharge in the war.
-
-  'Tain't--so--bad--by--day because o' company,
-  But--night--brings--long--strings o' forty thousand million
-  Boots--boots--boots--boots--moving up and down again!
-    An' there's no discharge in the war.
-
-A soldier sees enough pairs of boots in a ten-mile march to last him
-half a lifetime.
-
-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 has a spark of chivalry left in it, it will offer a most abject
-apology to its boots.
-
-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
-_Thinking Black_, 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:
-
-    Ingeresa, who slept on the waves,
-  Welcome him, for he hath no toes!
-  Welcome him, for he hath no toes!
-
-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 _boots_, 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 contemptible, they now appear
-positively continental. I am surprised that the subject has never
-appealed to me before.
-
-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.'
-
-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 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 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.
-
-Bunyan speaks of the amazing exhibition of footgear that Christian
-beheld in the armoury as '_shoes that will not wear out_.' 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 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.
-
-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.
-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.
-
-
-
-
-VII
-
-CHRISTMAS BELLS
-
-
-It 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--'_The Word was made
-flesh_.' And the 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 _I_ 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.'
-
-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 _him_!
-
-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 and mystery; but there is
-humanness and tenderness as well.
-
-'_The Word_ was made flesh.' Words are wonderful things, to say nothing
-of '_the_ Word'--whatever _that_ may prove to be. This selfsame
-Archbishop Trench, whose sermon at Cambridge proved such a universal
-disappointment, has written a marvellous book _On the Study of Words_.
-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 _words_ that they
-have coined. 'When I feel inclined to read poetry,' says Oliver Wendell
-Holmes, 'I take down _my dictionary_! 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.
-
-'The Word _was made flesh_.' We never grasp the Word until it is. Let me
-illustrate my meaning. 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
-_teacher_. Make the word flesh, and he will soon have it all off by
-heart!
-
-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.
-
-'Time for bed, sonny!' says mother at length.
-
-'But, mother, I haven't done my home lessons, _and I can't_.'
-
-'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.
-
-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.
-
-Five more years pass away. He is sixteen, and a perfect book-worm.
-Looking up from the story he is reading, he exclaims impatiently:
-
-'I can't think why they want to work these silly _love-stories_ into all
-these books. A fellow can't pick 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!
-
-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 _love_ 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 _they are made flesh_; 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.'
-
-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?
-'_The_ Word was made flesh.' There was no other way of saying GOD
-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 GOD, and the Word was _made flesh_.' I can grasp that
-great word now. Bethlehem and Olivet, Galilee and Calvary, have made it
-wonderfully plain. The word GOD 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:
-
-  And so the Word had breath, and wrought
-    With human hands the creed of creeds
-    In loveliness of perfect deeds,
-  More strong than all poetic thought;
-
-  Which he may read that binds the sheaf,
-    Or builds the house, or digs the grave,
-    And those wild eyes that watch the wave
-  In roarings round the coral reef.
-
-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. GOD is JESUS, and JESUS is
-GOD! 'The Word was made flesh.'
-
-The same principle dominates all religious experience and enterprise.
-Generally speaking, you cannot make a man a Christian by giving him a
-Bible or posting him a tract. The New Testament lays it down quite
-clearly that the Christian _man_ must accompany the Christian _message_.
-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 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, _made flesh_, is thus
-pronounced with an accent and an eloquence which are simply
-irresistible.
-
-'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:
-
-  The dear Lord's best interpreters
-    Are humble human souls;
-  The gospel of a life like his
-    Is more than books or scrolls.
-
-  From scheme and creed the light goes out,
-    The saintly fact survives;
-  The blessed Master none can doubt,
-    Revealed in holy lives.
-
-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 _made flesh_.
-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.
-
-
-
-Transcriber's Notes
-
-Inconsistent hyphenation left as printed: heart-breaking/heartbreaking,
-over-wrought/overwrought.
-
-
-
-
-
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Faces in the Fire, by Frank W. Boreham
-
-*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FACES IN THE FIRE ***
-
-***** This file should be named 42105-8.txt or 42105-8.zip *****
-This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
-        http://www.gutenberg.org/4/2/1/0/42105/
-
-Produced by David Wilson and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
-produced from images generously made available by The
-Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
-
-
-Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
-will be renamed.
-
-Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
-one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
-(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
-permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
-set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
-copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
-protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
-Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
-charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
-do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
-rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
-such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
-research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
-practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
-subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
-redistribution.
-
-
-
-*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
-
-THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
-PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
-
-To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
-distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
-(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
-Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
-Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
-http://gutenberg.org/license).
-
-
-Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic works
-
-1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
-and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
-(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
-the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
-all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
-If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
-terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
-entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
-
-1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
-used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
-agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
-things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
-even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
-paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
-and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
-works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
-
-1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
-or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
-collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
-individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
-located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
-copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
-works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
-are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
-Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
-freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
-this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
-the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
-keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
-Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
-
-1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
-what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
-a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
-the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
-before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
-creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
-Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
-the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
-States.
-
-1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
-
-1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
-access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
-whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
-phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
-Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
-copied or distributed:
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
-
-1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
-from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
-posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
-and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
-or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
-with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
-work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
-through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
-Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
-1.E.9.
-
-1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
-with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
-must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
-terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
-to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
-permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
-
-1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
-work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
-
-1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
-electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
-prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
-active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm License.
-
-1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
-compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
-word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
-distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
-"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
-posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
-you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
-copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
-request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
-form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
-
-1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
-performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
-unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
-
-1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
-access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
-that
-
-- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
-     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
-     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
-     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
-     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
-     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
-     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
-     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
-     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
-     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
-     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
-     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
-
-- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
-     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
-     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
-     License.  You must require such a user to return or
-     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
-     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
-     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
-
-- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
-     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
-     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
-     of receipt of the work.
-
-- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
-     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
-
-1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
-electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
-forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
-both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
-Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
-Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
-
-1.F.
-
-1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
-effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
-public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
-collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
-works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
-"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
-corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
-property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
-computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
-your equipment.
-
-1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
-of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
-Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
-Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
-liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
-fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
-LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
-PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
-TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
-LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
-INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
-DAMAGE.
-
-1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
-defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
-receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
-written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
-received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
-your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
-the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
-refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
-providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
-receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
-is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
-opportunities to fix the problem.
-
-1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
-in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
-WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
-WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
-
-1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
-warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
-If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
-law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
-interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
-the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
-provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
-
-1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
-trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
-providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
-with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
-promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
-harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
-that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
-or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
-work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
-Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
-
-
-Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
-electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
-including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
-because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
-people in all walks of life.
-
-Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
-assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
-goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
-remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
-Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
-and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
-To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
-and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
-and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
-
-
-Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
-Foundation
-
-The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
-501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
-state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
-Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
-number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
-http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
-Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
-permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
-
-The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
-Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
-throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
-809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
-business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
-information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
-page at http://pglaf.org
-
-For additional contact information:
-     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
-     Chief Executive and Director
-     gbnewby@pglaf.org
-
-
-Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
-Literary Archive Foundation
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
-spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
-increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
-freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
-array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
-($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
-status with the IRS.
-
-The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
-charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
-States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
-considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
-with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
-where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
-SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
-particular state visit http://pglaf.org
-
-While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
-have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
-against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
-approach us with offers to donate.
-
-International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
-any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
-outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
-
-Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
-methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
-ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
-To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
-
-
-Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
-works.
-
-Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
-concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
-with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
-Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
-
-
-Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
-editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
-unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
-keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
-
-
-Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
-
-     http://www.gutenberg.org
-
-This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
-including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
-Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
-subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.