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DUE PREPARATION OF MUCH THOUGHT.
"O man! thou image of thy Maker's good,
What canst thou fear, when breathed into thy blood
His Spirit is that built thee? What dull sense
Makes thee suspect, in need, that Providence
Who made the morning, and who placed the light
Guide to thy labours; who called up the night,
And bid her fall upon thee like sweet showers,
In hollow murmurs, to lock up thy powers;
Who gave thee knowledge; who so trusted thee
To let thee grow so near Himself, the Tree?
Must He then be distrusted? Shall His frame
Discourse with Him why thus and thus I am?
He made the Angels thine, thy fellows all;
Nay even thy servants, when devotions call.
Oh! canst thou be so stupid then, so dim,
To seek a saving* influence, and lose Him?
Can stars protect thee? Or can poverty,
Which is the light to heaven, put out His eye!
He is my star; in Him all truth I find,
All influence, all fate. And when my mind
Is furnished with His fulness, my poor story
Shall outlive all their age, and all their glory.
The hand of danger cannot fall amiss,
When I know what, and in whose power, it is,
Nor want, the curse of man, shall make me groan:
A holy hermit is a mind alone.
* * * *
Affliction, when I know it, is but this,
A deep alloy whereby man tougher is
To bear the hammer; and the deeper still,
We still arise more image of His will;
Sickness, an humorous cloud 'twixt us and light;
And death, at longest, but another night."
[Footnote *: Many, in those days, believed in astrology.]
I had more than ordinary attention during my discourse, at one point
in which I saw the down-bent head of Catherine Weir sink yet lower
upon her hands. After a moment, however, she sat more erect than
before, though she never lifted her eyes to meet mine. I need not
assure my reader that she was not present to my mind when I spoke
the words that so far had moved her. Indeed, had I thought of her, I
could not have spoken them.
As I came out of the church, my people crowded about me with
outstretched hands and good wishes. One woman, the aged wife of a
more aged labourer, who could not get near me, called from the
outskirts of the little crowd--
"May the Lord come and see ye every day, sir. And may ye never know
the hunger and cold as me and Tomkins has come through."
"Amen to the first of your blessing, Mrs Tomkins, and hearty thanks
to you. But I daren't say AMEN to the other part of it, after what
I've been preaching, you know."
"But there'll be no harm if I say it for ye, sir?"
"No, for God will give me what is good, even if your kind heart
should pray against it."
"Ah, sir, ye don't know what it is to be hungry AND cold."
"Neither shall you any more, if I can help it."
"God bless ye, sir. But we're pretty tidy just in the meantime."
I walked home, as usual on Sunday mornings, by the road. It was a
lovely day. The sun shone so warm that you could not help thinking
of what he would be able to do before long--draw primroses and
buttercups out of the earth by force of sweet persuasive influences.
But in the shadows lay fine webs and laces of ice, so delicately
lovely that one could not but be glad of the cold that made the
water able to please itself by taking such graceful forms. And I
wondered over again for the hundredth time what could be the
principle which, in the wildest, most lawless, fantastically
chaotic, apparently capricious work of nature, always kept it
beautiful. The beauty of holiness must be at the heart of it
somehow, I thought. Because our God is so free from stain, so
loving, so unselfish, so good, so altogether what He wants us to be,
so holy, therefore all His works declare Him in beauty; His fingers
can touch nothing but to mould it into loveliness; and even the play
of His elements is in grace and tenderness of form.
And then I thought how the sun, at the farthest point from us, had
begun to come back towards us; looked upon us with a hopeful smile;
was like the Lord when He visited His people as a little one of
themselves, to grow upon the earth till it should blossom as the
rose in the light of His presence. "Ah! Lord," I said, in my heart,
"draw near unto Thy people. It is spring-time with Thy world, but
yet we have cold winds and bitter hail, and pinched voices
forbidding them that follow Thee and follow not with us. Draw
nearer, Sun of Righteousness, and make the trees bourgeon, and the
flowers blossom, and the voices grow mellow and glad, so that all
shall join in praising Thee, and find thereby that harmony is better
than unison. Let it be summer, O Lord, if it ever may be summer in
this court of the Gentiles. But Thou hast told us that Thy kingdom
cometh within us, and so Thy joy must come within us too. Draw nigh
then, Lord, to those to whom Thou wilt draw nigh; and others
beholding their welfare will seek to share therein too, and seeing
their good works will glorify their Father in heaven."
So I walked home, hoping in my Saviour, and wondering to think how
pleasant I had found it to be His poor servant to this people.
Already the doubts which had filled my mind on that first evening of
gloom, doubts as to whether I had any right to the priest's office,
had utterly vanished, slain by the effort to perform the priest's
duty. I never thought about the matter now.--And how can doubt ever
be fully met but by action? Try your theory; try your hypothesis; or
if it is not worth trying, give it up, pull it down. And I hoped
that if ever a cloud should come over me again, however dark and
dismal it might be, I might be able, notwithstanding, to rejoice
that the sun was shining on others though not on me, and to say with
all my heart to my Father in heaven, "Thy will be done."
When I reached my own study, I sat down by a blazing fire, and
poured myself out a glass of wine; for I had to go out again to see
some of my poor friends, and wanted some luncheon first.--It is a
great thing to have the greetings of the universe presented in fire
and food. Let me, if I may, be ever welcomed to my room in winter by
a glowing hearth, in summer by a vase of flowers; if I may not, let
me then think how nice they would be, and bury myself in my work. I
do not think that the road to contentment lies in despising what we
have not got. Let us acknowledge all good, all delight that the
world holds, and be content without it. But this we can never be
except by possessing the one thing, without which I do not merely
say no man ought to be content, but no man CAN be content--the
Spirit of the Father.
If any young people read my little chronicle, will they not be
inclined to say, "The vicar has already given us in this chapter
hardly anything but a long sermon; and it is too bad of him to go on
preaching in his study after we saw him safe out of the pulpit"? Ah,
well! just one word, and I drop the preaching for a while. My word
is this: I may speak long-windedly, and even inconsiderately as
regards my young readers; what I say may fail utterly to convey what
I mean; I may be actually stupid sometimes, and not have a suspicion
of it; but what I mean is true; and if you do not know it to be true
yet, some of you at least suspect it to be true, and some of you
hope it is true; and when you all see it as I mean it and as you can
take it, you will rejoice with a gladness you know nothing about now
There, I have done for a little while. I won't pledge myself for
more, I assure you. For to speak about such things is the greatest
delight of my age, as it was of my early manhood, next to that of
loving God and my neighbour. For as these are THE two commandments
of life, so they are in themselves THE pleasures of life. But there
I am at it again. I beg your pardon now, for I have already
inadvertently broken my promise.
I had allowed myself a half-hour before the fire with my glass of
wine and piece of bread, and I soon fell into a dreamy state called
REVERIE, which I fear not a few mistake for THINKING, because it is
the nearest approach they ever make to it. And in this reverie I
kept staring about my book-shelves. I am an old man now, and you do
not know my name; and if you should ever find it out, I shall very
soon hide it under some daisies, I hope, and so escape; and
therefore, I am going to be egotistic in the most unpardonable
manner. I am going to tell you one of my faults, for it continues, I
fear, to be one of my faults still, as it certainly was at the
period of which I am now writing. I am very fond of books. Do not
mistake me. I do not mean that I love reading. I hope I do. That is
no fault--a virtue rather than a fault. But, as the old meaning of
the word FOND was FOOLISH, I use that word: I am foolishly fond of
the bodies of books as distinguished from their souls, or
thought-element. I do not say I love their bodies as DIVIDED from
their souls; I do not say I should let a book stand upon my shelves
for which I felt no respect, except indeed it happened to be useful
to me in some inferior way. But I delight in seeing books about me,
books even of which there seems to be no prospect that I shall have
time to read a single chapter before I lay this old head down for
the last time. Nay, more: I confess that if they are nicely bound,
so as to glow and shine in such a fire-light as that by which I was
then sitting, I like them ever so much the better. Nay, more
yet--and this comes very near to showing myself worse than I thought
I was when I began to tell you my fault: there are books upon my
shelves which certainly at least would not occupy the place of
honour they do occupy, had not some previous owner dressed them far
beyond their worth, making modern apples of Sodom of them. Yet there
I let them stay, because they are pleasant to the eye, although
certainly not things to be desired to make one wise. I could say a
great deal more about the matter, pro and con, but it would be worse
than a sermon, I fear. For I suspect that by the time books, which
ought to be loved for the truth that is in them, of one sort or
another, come to be loved as articles of furniture, the mind has
gone through a process more than analogous to that which the miser's
mind goes through--namely, that of passing from the respect of money
because of what it can do, to the love of money because it is money.
I have not yet reached the furniture stage, and I do not think I
ever shall. I would rather burn them all. Meantime, I think one
safeguard is to encourage one's friends to borrow one's books--not
to offer individual books, which is much the same as OFFERING
advice. That will probably take some of the shine off them, and put
a few thumb-marks in them, which both are very wholesome towards the
arresting of the furniture declension. For my part, thumb-marks I
find very obnoxious--far more so than the spoiling of the
binding.--I know that some of my readers, who have had sad
experience of the sort, will be saying in themselves, "He might have
mentioned a surer antidote resulting from this measure, than either
rubbed Russia or dirty GLOVE-marks even--that of utter disappearance
and irreparable loss." But no; that has seldom happened to
me--because I trust my pocketbook, and never my memory, with the
names of those to whom the individual books are committed.--There,
then, is a little bit of practical advice in both directions for
young book-lovers.
Again I am reminded that I am getting old. What digressions!
Gazing about on my treasures, the thought suddenly struck me that I
had never done as I had promised Judy; had never found out what her
aunt's name meant in Anglo-Saxon. I would do so now. I got down my
dictionary, and soon discovered that Ethelwyn meant Home-joy, or
Inheritance.
"A lovely meaning," I said to myself.
And then I went off into another reverie, with the composition of
which I shall not trouble my reader; and with the mention of which I
had, perhaps, no right to occupy the fragment of his time spent in
reading it, seeing I did not intend to tell him how it was made up.
I will tell him something else instead.
Several families had asked me to take my Christmas dinner with them;
but, not liking to be thus limited, I had answered each that I would
not, if they would excuse me, but would look in some time or other
in the course of the evening.
When my half-hour was out, I got up and filled my pockets with
little presents for my poor people, and set out to find them in
their own homes.
I was variously received, but unvaryingly with kindness; and my
little presents were accepted, at least in most instances, with a
gratitude which made me ashamed of them and of myself too for a few
moments. Mrs. Tomkins looked as if she had never seen so much tea
together before, though there was only a couple of pounds of it; and
her husband received a pair of warm trousers none the less cordially
that they were not quite new, the fact being that I found I did not
myself need such warm clothing this winter as I had needed the last.
I did not dare to offer Catherine Weir anything, but I gave her
little boy a box of water-colours--in remembrance of the first time
I saw him, though I said nothing about that. His mother did not
thank me. She told little Gerard to do so, however, and that was
something. And, indeed, the boy's sweetness would have been enough
for both.
Gerard--an unusual name in England; specially not to be looked for
in the class to which she belonged.
When I reached Old Rogers's cottage, whither I carried a few yards
of ribbon, bought by myself, I assure my lady friends, with the
special object that the colour should be bright enough for her
taste, and pure enough of its kind for mine, as an offering to the
good dame, and a small hymn-book, in which were some hymns of my own
making, for the good man--
But do forgive me, friends, for actually describing my paltry
presents. I can dare to assure you it comes from a talking old man's
love of detail, and from no admiration of such small givings as
those. You see I trust you, and I want to stand well with you. I
never could be indifferent to what people thought of me; though I
have had to fight hard to act as freely as if I were indifferent,
especially when upon occasion I found myself approved of. It is more
difficult to walk straight then, than when men are all against
you.--As I have already broken a sentence, which will not be past
setting for a while yet, I may as well go on to say here, lest any
one should remark that a clergyman ought not to show off his
virtues, nor yet teach his people bad habits by making them look out
for presents--that my income not only seemed to me disproportioned
to the amount of labour necessary in the parish, but certainly was
larger than I required to spend upon myself; and the miserly passion
for books I contrived to keep a good deal in check; for I had no
fancy for gliding devil-wards for the sake of a few books after all.
So there was no great virtue--was there?--in easing my heart by
giving a few of the good things people give their children to my
poor friends, whose kind reception of them gave me as much pleasure
as the gifts gave them. They valued the kindness in the gift, and to
look out for kindness will not make people greedy.
When I reached the cottage, I found not merely Jane there with her
father and mother, which was natural on Christmas Day, seeing there
seemed to be no company at the Hall, but my little Judy as well,
sitting in the old woman's arm-chair, (not that she Used it much,
but it was called hers,) and looking as much at home as--as she did
in the pond.
"Why, Judy!" I exclaimed, "you here?"
"Yes. Why not, Mr Walton?" she returned, holding out her hand
without rising, for the chair was such a large one, and she was set
so far back in it that the easier way was not to rise, which, seeing
she was not greatly overburdened with reverence, was not, I presume,
a cause of much annoyance to the little damsel.
"I know no reason why I shouldn't see a Sandwich Islander here. Yet
I might express surprise if I did find one, might I not?"
Judy pretended to pout, and muttered something about comparing her
to a cannibal. But Jane took up the explanation.
"Mistress had to go off to London with her mother to-day, sir, quite
unexpected, on some banking business, I fancy, from what I--I beg
your pardon, sir. They're gone anyhow, whatever the reason may be;
and so I came to see my father and mother, and Miss Judy would come
with me."
"She's very welcome," said Mrs Rogers.
"How could I stay up there with nobody but Jacob, and that old wolf
Sarah? I wouldn't be left alone with her for the world. She'd have
me in the Bishop's Pool before you came back, Janey dear."
"That wouldn't matter much to you, would it, Judy?" I said.
"She's a white wolf, that old Sarah, I know?" was all her answer.
"But what will the old lady say when she finds you brought the young
lady here?" asked Mrs Rogers.
"I didn't bring her, mother. She would come."
"Besides, she'll never know it," said Judy.
I did not see that it was my part to read Judy a lecture here,
though perhaps I might have done so if I had had more influence over
her than I had. I wanted to gain some influence over her, and knew
that the way to render my desire impossible of fulfilment would be,
to find fault with what in her was a very small affair, whatever it
might be in one who had been properly brought up. Besides, a
clergyman is not a moral policeman. So I took no notice of the
impropriety.
"Had they actually to go away on the morning of Christmas Day?" I
said.
"They went anyhow, whether they had to do it or not, sir," answered
Jane.
"Aunt Ethelwyn didn't want to go till to-morrow," said Judy. "She
said something about coming to church this morning. But grannie said
they must go at once. It was very cross of old grannie. Think what a
Christmas Day to me without auntie, and with Sarah! But I don't mean
to go home till it's quite dark. I mean to stop here with dear Old
Rogers--that I do." The latch was gently lifted, and in came young
Brownrigg. So I thought it was time to leave my best Christmas
wishes and take myself away. Old Rogers came with me to the
mill-stream as usual.
"It 'mazes me, sir," he said, "a gentleman o' your age and bringin'
up to know all that you tould us this mornin'. It 'ud be no wonder
now for a man like me, come to be the shock o' corn fully
ripe--leastways yallow and white enough outside if there bean't much
more than milk inside it yet,--it 'ud be no mystery for a man like
me who'd been brought up hard, and tossed about well-nigh all the
world over--why, there's scarce a wave on the Atlantic but knows Old
Rogers!"
He made the parenthesis with a laugh, and began anew.
"It 'ud be a shame of a man like me not to know all as you said this
mornin', sir--leastways I don't mean able to say it right off as you
do, sir; but not to know it, after the Almighty had been at such
pains to beat it into my hard head just to trust in Him and fear
nothing and nobody--captain, bosun, devil, sunk rock, or breakers
ahead; but just to mind Him and stand by halliard, brace, or wheel,
or hang on by the leeward earing for that matter. For, you see, what
does it signify whether I go to the bottom or not, so long as I
didn't skulk? or rather," and here the old man took off his hat and
looked up, "so long as the Great Captain has His way, and things is
done to His mind? But how ever a man like you, goin' to the college,
and readin' books, and warm o' nights, and never, by your own
confession this blessed mornin', sir, knowin' what it was to be
downright hungry, how ever you come to know all those things, is
just past my comprehension, except by a double portion o' the
Spirit, sir. And that's the way I account for it, sir."
Although I knew enough about a ship to understand the old man, I am
not sure that I have properly represented his sea-phrase. But that
is of small consequence, so long as I give his meaning. And a
meaning can occasionally be even better CONVEYED by less accurate
words.
"I will try to tell you how I come to know about these things as I
do," I returned. "How my knowledge may stand the test of further and
severer trials remains to be seen. But if I should fail any time,
old friend, and neither trust in God nor do my duty, what I have
said to you remains true all the same."
"That it do, sir, whoever may come short."
"And more than that: failure does not necessarily prove any one to
be a hypocrite of no faith. He may be still a man of little faith."
"Surely, surely, sir. I remember once that my faith broke down--just
for one moment, sir. And then the Lord gave me my way lest I should
blaspheme Him in thy wicked heart."
"How was that, Rogers?"
"A scream came from the quarter-deck, and then the cry: 'Child
overboard!' There was but one child, the captain's, aboard. I was
sitting just aft the foremast, herring-boning a split in a spare
jib. I sprang to the bulwark, and there, sure enough, was the child,
going fast astarn, but pretty high in the water. How it happened I
can't think to this day, sir, but I suppose my needle, in the hurry,
had got into my jacket, so as to skewer it to my jersey, for we were
far south of the line at the time, sir, and it was cold. However
that may be, as soon as I was overboard, which you may be sure
didn't want the time I take tellin' of it, I found that I ought to
ha' pulled my jacket off afore I gave the bulwark the last kick. So
I rose on the water, and began to pull it over my head--for it was
wide, and that was the easiest way, I thought, in the water. But
when I had got it right over my head, there it stuck. And there was
I, blind as a Dutchman in a fog, and in as strait a jacket as ever
poor wretch in Bedlam, for I could only just wag my flippers. Mr
Walton, I believe I swore--the Lord forgive me!--but it was trying.
And what was far worse, for one moment I disbelieved in Him; and I
do say that's worse than swearing--in a hurry I mean. And that
moment something went, the jacket was off, and there was I feelin'
as if every stroke I took was as wide as the mainyard. I had no time
to repent, only to thank God. And wasn't it more than I deserved,
sir? Ah! He can rebuke a man for unbelief by giving him the desire
of his heart. And that's a better rebuke than tying him up to the
gratings."
"And did you save the child?"
"Oh yes, sir."
"And wasn't the captain pleased?"
"I believe he was, sir. He gave me a glass o' grog, sir. But you was
a sayin' of something, sir, when I interrupted of you."
"I am very glad you did interrupt me."
"I'm not though, sir. I Ve lost summat I 'll never hear more."
"No, you shan't lose it. I was going to tell you how I think I came
to understand a little about the things I was talking of to-day."
"That's it, sir; that's it. Well, sir, if you please?"
"You've heard of Sir Philip Sidney, haven't you, Old Rogers?"
"He was a great joker, wasn't he, sir?"
"No, no; you're thinking of Sydney Smith, Rogers."
"It may be, sir. I am an ignorant man."
"You are no more ignorant than you ought to be.--But it is time you
should know him, for he was just one of your sort. I will come down
some evening and tell you about him."
I may as well mention here that this led to week-evening lectures
in the barn, which, with the help of Weir the carpenter, was changed
into a comfortable room, with fixed seats all round it, and plenty
of cane-chairs besides--for I always disliked forms in the middle
of a room. The object of these lectures was to make the people
acquainted with the true heroes of their own country--men great in
themselves. And the kind of choice I made may be seen by those who
know about both, from the fact that, while my first two lectures
were on Philip Sidney, I did not give one whole lecture even to
Walter Raleigh, grand fellow as he was. I wanted chiefly to set
forth the men that could rule themselves, first of all, after a
noble fashion. But I have not finished these lectures yet, for I
never wished to confine them to the English heroes; I am going on
still, old man as I am--not however without retracing passed ground
sometimes, for a new generation has come up since I came here, and
there is a new one behind coming up now which I may be honoured to
present in its turn to some of this grand company--this cloud of
witnesses to the truth in our own and other lands, some of whom
subdued kingdoms, and others were tortured to death, for the same
cause and with the same result.
"Meantime," I went on, "I only want to tell you one little thing he
says in a letter to a younger brother whom he wanted to turn out as
fine a fellow as possible. It is about horses, or rather,
riding--for Sir Philip was the best horseman in Europe in his day,
as, indeed, all things taken together, he seems to have really been
the most accomplished man generally of his time in the world.
Writing to this brother he says--"
I could not repeat the words exactly to Old Rogers, but I think it
better to copy them exactly, in writing this account of our talk:
"At horsemanship, when you exercise it, read Crison Claudio, and a
book that is called La Gloria del Cavallo, withal that you may join
the thorough contemplation of it with the exercise; and so shall you
profit more in a month than others in a year."
"I think I see what you mean, sir. I had got to learn it all without
book, as it were, though you know I had my old Bible, that my mother
gave me, and without that I should not have learned it at all."
"I only mean it comparatively, you know. You have had more of the
practice, and I more of the theory. But if we had not both had both,
we should neither of us have known anything about the matter. I
never was content without trying at least to understand things; and
if they are practical things, and you try to practise them at the
same time as far as you do understand them, there is no end to the
way in which the one lights up the other. I suppose that is how,
without your experience, I have more to say about such things than
you could expect. You know besides that a small matter in which a
principle is involved will reveal the principle, if attended to,
just as well as a great one containing the same principle. The only
difference, and that a most important one, is that, though I've got
my clay and my straw together, and they stick pretty well as yet, my
brick, after all, is not half so well baked as yours, old friend,
and it may crumble away yet, though I hope not."
"I pray God to make both our bricks into stones of the New
Jerusalem, sir. I think I understand you quite well. To know about a
thing is of no use, except you do it. Besides, as I found out when I
went to sea, you never can know a thing till you do do it, though I
thought I had a tidy fancy about some things beforehand. It's better
not to be quite sure that all your seams are caulked, and so to keep
a look-out on the bilge-pump; isn't it, sir?"
During the most of this conversation, we were standing by the
mill-water, half frozen over. The ice from both sides came towards
the middle, leaving an empty space between, along which the dark
water showed itself, hurrying away as if in fear of its life from
the white death of the frost. The wheel stood motionless, and the
drip from the thatch of the mill over it in the sun, had frozen in
the shadow into icicles, which hung in long spikes from the spokes
and the floats, making the wheel--soft green and mossy when it
revolved in the gentle sun-mingled summer-water--look like its own
gray skeleton now. The sun was getting low, and I should want all my
time to see my other friends before dinner, for I would not
willingly offend Mrs Pearson on Christmas Day by being late,
especially as I guessed she was using extraordinary skill to prepare
me a more than comfortable meal.
"I must go, Old Rogers," I said; "but I will leave you something to
think about till we meet again. Find out why our Lord was so much
displeased with the disciples, whom He knew to be ignorant men, for
not knowing what He meant when He warned them against the leaven of
the Pharisees. I want to know what you think about it. You'll find
the story told both in the sixteenth chapter of St Matthew and the
eighth of St Mark."
"Well, sir, I'll try; that is, if you will tell me what you think
about it afterwards, so as to put me right, if I'm wrong."
"Of course I will, if I can find out an explanation to satisfy me.
But it is not at all clear to me now. In fact, I do not see the
connecting links of our Lord's logic in the rebuke He gives them."
"How am I to find out then, sir--knowing nothing of logic at all?"
said the old man, his rough worn face summered over with his
child-like smile.
"There are many things which a little learning, while it cannot
really hide them, may make you less ready to see all at once," I
answered, shaking hands with Old Rogers, and then springing across
the brook with my carpet-bag in my hand.
By the time I had got through the rest of my calls, the fogs were
rising from the streams and the meadows to close in upon my first
Christmas Day in my own parish. How much happier I was than when I
came such a few months before! The only pang I felt that day was as
I passed the monsters on the gate leading to Oldcastle Hall. Should
I be honoured to help only the poor of the flock? Was I to do
nothing for the rich, for whom it is, and has been, and doubtless
will be so hard to enter into the kingdom of heaven? And it seemed
to me at the moment that the world must be made for the poor: they
had so much more done for them to enable them to inherit it than the
rich had.--To these people at the Hall, I did not seem acceptable. I
might in time do something with Judy, but the old lady was still so
dreadfully repulsive to me that it troubled my conscience to feel
how I disliked her. Mr Stoddart seemed nothing more than a
dilettante in religion, as well as in the arts and sciences--music
always excepted; while for Miss Oldcastle, I simply did not
understand her yet. And she was so beautiful! I thought her more,
beautiful every time I saw her. But I never appeared to make the
least progress towards any real acquaintance with her thoughts and
feelings.--It seemed to me, I say, for a moment, coming from the
houses of the warm-hearted poor, as if the rich had not quite fair
play, as it were--as if they were sent into the world chiefly for
the sake of the cultivation of the virtues of the poor, and without
much chance for the cultivation of their own. I knew better than
this you know, my reader; but the thought came, as thoughts will
come sometimes. It vanished the moment I sought to lay hands upon
it, as if it knew quite well it had no business there. But certainly
I did believe that it was more like the truth to say the world was
made for the poor than to say that it was made for the rich. And
therefore I longed the more to do something for these whom I
considered the rich of my flock; for it was dreadful to think of
their being poor inside instead of outside.
Perhaps my reader will say, and say with justice, that I ought to
have been as anxious about poor Farmer Brownrigg as about the
beautiful lady. But the farmer liai given me good reason to hope
some progress in him after the way he had given in about Jane
Rogers. Positively I had caught his eye during the sermon that very
day. And, besides--but I will not be a hypocrite; and seeing I did
not certainly take the same interest in Mr Brownrigg, I will at
least be honest and confess it. As far as regards the discharge of
my duties, I trust I should have behaved impartially had the
necessity for any choice arisen. But my feelings were not quite
under my own control. And we are nowhere, told to love everybody
alike, only to love every one who comes within our reach as
ourselves.
I wonder whether my old friend Dr Duncan was right. He had served on
shore in Egypt under General Abercrombie, and had of course, after
the fighting was over on each of the several occasions--the French
being always repulsed--exercised his office amongst the wounded left
on the field of battle.--"I do not know," he said, "whether I did
right or not; but I always took the man I came to first--French or
English."--I only know that my heart did not wait for the opinion of
my head on the matter. I loved the old man the more that he did as
he did. But as a question of casuistry, I am doubtful about its
answer.
This digression is, I fear, unpardonable.
I made Mrs Pearson sit down with me to dinner, for Christmas Day was
not one to dine alone upon. And I have ever since had my servants to
dine with me on Christmas Day.
Then I went out again, and made another round of visits, coming in
for a glass of wine at one table, an orange at another, and a hot
chestnut at a third. Those whom I could not see that day, I saw on
the following days between it and the new year. And so ended my
Christmas holiday with my people.
But there is one little incident which I ought to relate before I
close this chapter, and which I am ashamed of having so nearly
forgotten.
When we had finished our dinner, and I was sitting alone drinking a
class of claret before going out again, Mrs Pearson came in and told
me that little Gerard Weir wanted to see me. I asked her to show him
in; and the little fellow entered, looking very shy, and clinging
first to the door and then to the wall.
"Come, my dear boy," I said, "and sit down by me."
He came directly and stood before me.
"Would you like a little wine and water?" I said; for unhappily
there was no dessert, Mrs Pearson knowing that I never eat such
things.
"No, thank you, sir; I never tasted wine."
"I did not press him to take it.
"Please, sir," he went on after a pause, putting his nand in his
pocket, "mother gave me some goodies, and I kept them till I saw you
come back, and here they are, sir."
Does any reader doubt what I did or said upon this?
I said, "Thank you, my darling," and I ate them up every one of
them, that he might see me eat them before he left the house. And
the dear child went off radiant.
If anybody cannot understand why I did so, I beg him to consider the
matter. If then he cannot come to a conclusion concerning it, I
doubt if any explanation of mine would greatly subserve his
enlightenment. Meantime, I am forcibly restraining myself from
yielding to the temptation to set forth my reasons, which would
result in a half-hour's sermon on the Jewish dispensation, including
the burnt offering, and the wave and heave offerings, with an
application to the ignorant nurses and mothers of English babies,
who do the best they can to make original sin an actual fact by
training children down in the way they should not go.
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