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A LESSON OF WISDOM.
In obedience to the suggestion of his wife, Mr. Sclater did what he
could to show Sir Gilbert how mistaken he was in imagining he could
fit his actions to the words of our Lord. Shocked as even he would
probably have been at such a characterization of his attempt, it
amounted practically to this: Do not waste your powers in the
endeavour to keep the commandments of our Lord, for it cannot be
done, and he knew it could not be done, and never meant it should be
done. He pointed out to him, not altogether unfairly, the
difficulties, and the causes of mistake, with regard to his words;
but said nothing to reveal the spirit and the life of them. Showing
more of them to be figures than at first appeared, he made out the
meanings of them to be less, not more than the figures, his pictures
to be greater than their subjects, his parables larger and more
lovely than the truths they represented. In the whole of his
lecture, through which ran from beginning to end a tone of reproof,
there was not one flash of enthusiasm for our Lord, not a sign that,
to his so-called minister, he was a refuge, or a delight -- that he
who is the joy of his Father's heart, the essential bliss of the
universe, was anything to the soul of his creature, who besides had
taken upon him to preach his good news, more than a name to call
himself by -- that the story of the Son of God was to him anything
better than the soap and water wherewith to blow theological bubbles
with the tobacco-pipe of his speculative understanding. The
tendency of it was simply to the quelling of all true effort after
the knowing of him through obedience, the quenching of all devotion
to the central good. Doubtless Gibbie, as well as many a wiser man,
might now and then make a mistake in the embodiment of his
obedience, but even where the action misses the command, it may yet
be obedience to him who gave the command, and by obeying one learns
how to obey. I hardly know, however, where Gibbie blundered, except
it was in failing to recognize the animals before whom he ought not
to cast his pearls -- in taking it for granted that, because his
guardian was a minister, and his wife a minister's wife, they must
therefore be the disciples of the Jewish carpenter, the eternal Son
of the Father of us all. Had he had more of the wisdom of the
serpent, he would not have carried them the New Testament as an
ending of strife, the words of the Lord as an enlightening law; he
would perhaps have known that to try too hard to make people good,
is one way to make them worse; that the only way to make them good
is to be good -- remembering well the beam and the mote; that the time
for speaking comes rarely, the time for being never departs.
But in talking thus to Gibbie, the minister but rippled the air:
Gibbie was all the time pondering with himself where he had met the
same kind of thing, the same sort of person before. Nothing he said
had the slightest effect upon him. He was too familiar with truth
to take the yeasty bunghole of a working barrel for a fountain of
its waters. The unseen Lord and his reported words were to Gibbie
realities, compared with which the very visible Mr. Sclater and his
assured utterance were as the merest seemings of a phantom mood. He
had never resolved to keep the words of the Lord: he just kept them;
but he knew amongst the rest the Lord's words about the keeping of
his words, and about being ashamed of him before men, and it was
with a pitiful indignation he heard the minister's wisdom drivel
past his ears. What he would have said, and withheld himself from
saying, had he been able to speak, I cannot tell; I only know that
in such circumstances the less said the better, for what can be more
unprofitable than a discussion where but one of the disputants
understands the question, and the other has all the knowledge? It
would have been the eloquence of the wise and the prudent against
the perfected praise of the suckling.
The effect of it all upon Gibbie was to send him to his room to his
prayers, more eager than ever to keep the commandments of him who
had said, If ye love me. Comforted then and strengthened, he came
down to go to Donal -- not to tell him, for to none but Janet could he
have made such a communication. But in the middle of his descent he
remembered suddenly of what and whom Mr. Sclater had all along been
reminding him, and turned aside to Mrs. Sclater to ask her to lend
him the Pilgrim's Progress. This, as a matter almost of course, was
one of the few books in the cottage on Glashgar -- a book beloved of
Janet's soul -- and he had read it again and again. Mrs. Sclater told
him where in her room to find a copy, and presently he had satisfied
himself that it was indeed Mr. Worldly Wiseman whom his imagination
had, in cloudy fashion, been placing side by side with the talking
minister.
Finding his return delayed, Mrs. Sclater went after him, fearing he
might be indulging his curiosity amongst her personal possessions.
Peeping in, she saw him seated on the floor beside her little
bookcase, lost in reading: she stole behind, and found that what so
absorbed him was the conversation between Christian and Worldly -- I
beg his pardon, he is nothing without his Mr. -- between Christian and
Mr. Worldly Wiseman.
In the evening, when her husband was telling her what he had said to
"the young Pharisee" in the morning, the picture of Gibbie on the
floor, with the Pilgrim's Progress and Mr. Worldly Wiseman, flashed
back on her mind, and she told him the thing. It stung him, not
that Gibbie should perhaps have so paralleled him, but that his wife
should so interpret Gibbie. To her, however, he said nothing. Had
he been a better man, he would have been convinced by the lesson; as
it was, he was only convicted, and instead of repenting was offended
grievously. For several days he kept expecting the religious gadfly
to come buzzing about him with his sting, that is, his forefinger,
stuck in the Pilgrim's Progress, and had a swashing blow ready for
him; but Gibbie was beginning to learn a lesson or two, and if he
was not yet so wise as some serpents, he had always been more
harmless than some doves.
That he had gained nothing for the world was pretty evident to the
minister the following Sunday -- from the lofty watchtower of the
pulpit where he sat throned, while the first psalm was being sung.
His own pew was near one of the side doors, and at that door some
who were late kept coming in. Amongst them were a stranger or two,
who were at once shown to seats. Before the psalm ended, an old man
came in and stood by the door -- a poor man in mean garments, with the
air of a beggar who had contrived to give himself a Sunday look.
Perhaps he had come hoping to find it warmer in church than at
home. There he stood, motionless as the leech-gatherer, leaning on
his stick, disregarded of men -- it may have been only by innocent
accident, I do not know. But just ere the minister must rise for
the first prayer, he saw Gibbie, who had heard a feeble cough, cast
a glance round, rise as swiftly as noiselessly, open the door of the
pew, get out into the passage, take the old man by the hand, and
lead him to his place beside the satin-robed and sable-muffed
ministerial consort. Obedient to Gibbie's will, the old man took
the seat, with an air both of humility and respect, while happily
for Mrs. Sclater's remnant of ruffled composure, there was plenty of
room in the pew, so that she could move higher up. The old man, it
is true, followed, to make a place for Gibbie, but there was still
an interval between them sufficient to afford space to the hope that
none of the evils she dreaded would fall upon her to devour her.
Flushed, angry, uncomfortable, notwithstanding, her face glowed
like a bale-fire to the eyes of her husband, and, I fear, spoiled
the prayer -- but that did not matter much.
While the two thus involuntarily signalled each other, the boy who
had brought discomposure into both pulpit and pew, sat peaceful as a
summer morning, with the old man beside him quiet in the reverence
of being himself revered. And the minister, while he preached from
the words, Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall,
for the first time in his life began to feel doubtful whether he
might not himself be a humbug. There was not much fear of his
falling, however, for he had not yet stood on his feet.
Not a word was said to Gibbie concerning the liberty he had taken:
the minister and his wife were in too much dread -- not of St. James
and the "poor man in vile raiment," for they were harmless enough in
themselves, but of Gibbie's pointing finger to back them. Three
distinct precautions, however, they took; the pew-opener on that
side was spoken to; Mrs. Sclater made Gibbie henceforth go into the
pew before her; and she removed the New Testament from the
drawing-room.
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