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A SUNDAY EVENING.
When I went in to see Constance the next Sunday morning before going to
church, I knew by her face that she was expecting the evening. I took care
to get into no conversation with her during the day, that she might be
quite fresh. In the evening, when I went into her room again with my Bible
in my hand, I found all our little company assembled. There was a glorious
fire, for it was very cold, and the little ones were seated on the rug
before it, one on each side of their mother; Wynnie sat by the further side
of the bed, for she always avoided any place or thing she thought another
might like; and Dora sat by the further chimney-corner, leaving the space
between the fire and my chair open that I might see and share the glow.
"The wind is very high, papa," said Constance, as I seated myself beside
her.
"Yes, my dear. It has been blowing all day, and since sundown it has blown
harder. Do you like the wind, Connie?"
"I am afraid I do like it. When it roars like that in the chimneys, and
shakes the windows with a great rush as if it would get into the house
and tear us to pieces, and then goes moaning away into the woods and
grumbles about in them till it grows savage again, and rushes up at us with
fresh fury, I am afraid I delight in it. I feel so safe in the very jaws of
danger."
"Why, you are quite poetic, Connie," said Wynnie.
"Don't laugh at me, Wynnie. Mind I'm an invalid, and I can't bear to be
laughed at," returned Connie, half laughing herself, and a little more than
a quarter crying.
Wynnie rose and kissed her, whispered something to her which made her laugh
outright, and then sat down again.
"But tell me, Connie," I said, "why you are afraid you enjoy hearing the
wind about the house."
"Because it must be so dreadful for those that are out in it."
"Perhaps not quite so bad as we think. You must not suppose that God has
forgotten them, or cares less for them than for you because they are out in
the wind."
"But if we thought like that, papa," said Wynnie, "shouldn't we come to
feel that their sufferings were none of our business?"
"If our benevolence rests on the belief that God is less loving than we, it
will come to a bad end somehow before long, Wynnie."
"Of course, I could not think that," she returned.
"Then your kindness would be such that you dared not, in God's name, think
hopefully for those you could not help, lest you should, believing in his
kindness, cease to help those whom you could help! Either God intended that
there should be poverty and suffering, or he did not. If he did not
intend it--for similar reasons to those for which he allows all sorts of
evils--then there is nothing between but that we should sell everything
that we have and give it away to the poor."
"Then why don't we?" said Wynnie, looking truth itself in my face.
"Because that is not God's way, and we should do no end of harm by so
doing. We should make so many more of those who will not help themselves
who will not be set free from themselves by rising above themselves. We are
not to gratify our own benevolence at the expense of its object--not to
save our own souls as we fancy, by putting other souls into more danger
than God meant for them."
"It sounds hard doctrine from your lips, papa," said Wynnie.
"Many things will look hard in so many words, which yet will be found
kindness itself when they are interpreted by a higher theory. If the one
thing is to let people have everything they want, then of course everyone
ought to be rich. I have no doubt such a man as we were reading of in the
papers the other day, who saw his servant girl drown without making the
least effort to save her, and then bemoaned the loss of her labour for the
coming harvest, thinking himself ill-used in her death, would hug his own
selfishness on hearing my words, and say, 'All right, parson! Every man for
himself! I made my own money, and they may make theirs!' You know that is
not exactly the way I should think or act with regard to my neighbour. But
if it were only that I have seen such noble characters cast in the mould of
poverty, I should be compelled to regard poverty as one of God's powers in
the world for raising the children of the kingdom, and to believe that it
was not because it could not be helped that our Lord said, 'The poor ye
have always with you.' But what I wanted to say was, that there can be no
reason why Connie should not enjoy what God has given her, although he has
not thought fit to give as much to everybody; and above all, that we shall
not help those right whom God gives us to help, if we do not believe that
God is caring for every one of them as much as he is caring for every one
of us. There was once a baby born in a stable, because his poor mother
could get no room in a decent house. Where she lay I can hardly think. They
must have made a bed of hay and straw for her in the stall, for we know the
baby's cradle was the manger. Had God forsaken them? or would they not have
been more comfortable, if that was the main thing, somewhere else? Ah! if
the disciples, who were being born about the same time of fisher-fathers
and cottage-mothers, to get ready for him to call and teach by the time he
should be thirty years of age--if they had only been old enough, and had
known that he was coming--would they not have got everything ready for him?
They would have clubbed their little savings together, and worked day and
night, and some rich women would have helped them, and they would have
dressed the baby in fine linen, and got him the richest room their money
would get, and they would have made the gold that the wise men brought into
a crown for his little head, and would have burnt the frankincense before
him. And so our little manger-baby would have been taken away from us. No
more the stable-born Saviour--no more the poor Son of God born for us all,
as strong, as noble, as loving, as worshipful, as beautiful as he was poor!
And we should not have learned that God does not care for money; that if he
does not give more of it it is not that it is scarce with him, or that he
is unkind, but that he does not value it himself. And if he sent his own
son to be not merely brought up in the house of the carpenter of a little
village, but to be born in the stable of a village inn, we need not suppose
because a man sleeps under a haystack and is put in prison for it next day,
that God does not care for him."
"But why did Jesus come so poor, papa?"
"That he might be just a human baby. That he might not be distinguished
by this or by that accident of birth; that he might have nothing but a
mother's love to welcome him, and so belong to everybody; that from the
first he might show that the kingdom of God and the favour of God lie not
in these external things at all--that the poorest little one, born in the
meanest dwelling, or in none at all, is as much God's own and God's care
as if he came in a royal chamber with colour and shine all about him. Had
Jesus come amongst the rich, riches would have been more worshipped
than ever. See how so many that count themselves good Christians honour
possession and family and social rank, and I doubt hardly get rid of them
when they are all swept away from them. The furthest most of such reach is
to count Jesus an exception, and therefore not despise him. See how, even
in the services of the church, as they call them, they will accumulate
gorgeousness and cost. Had I my way, though I will never seek to rouse
men's thoughts about such external things, I would never have any vessel
used in the eucharist but wooden platters and wooden cups."
"But are we not to serve him with our best?" said my wife.
"Yes, with our very hearts and souls, with our wills, with our absolute
being. But all external things should be in harmony with the spirit of his
revelation. And if God chose that his Son should visit the earth in homely
fashion, in homely fashion likewise should be everything that enforces and
commemorates that revelation. All church-forms should be on the other side
from show and expense. Let the money go to build decent houses for God's
poor, not to give them his holy bread and wine out of silver and gold and
precious stones--stealing from the significance of the content by the
meretricious grandeur of the continent. I would send all the church-plate
to fight the devil with his own weapons in our overcrowded cities, and in
our villages where the husbandmen are housed like swine, by giving them
room to be clean and decent air from heaven to breathe. When the people
find the clergy thus in earnest, they will follow them fast enough, and the
money will come in like salt and oil upon the sacrifice. I would there were
a few of our dignitaries that could think grandly about things, even as
Jesus thought--even as God thought when he sent him. There are many of
them willing to stand any amount of persecution about trifles: the same
enthusiasm directed by high thoughts about the kingdom of heaven as within
men and not around them, would redeem a vast region from that indifference
which comes of judging the gospel of God by the church of Christ with its
phylacteries and hems."
"There is one thing," said Wynnie, after a pause, "that I have often
thought about--why it was necessary for Jesus to come as a baby: he could
not do anything for so long."
"First, I would answer, Wynnie, that if you would tell me why it is
necessary for all of us to come as babies, it would be less necessary for
me to tell you why he came so: whatever was human must be his. But I would
say next, Are you sure that he could not do anything for so long? Does a
baby do nothing? Ask mamma there. Is it for nothing that the mother lifts
up such heartfuls of thanks to God for the baby on her knee? Is it nothing
that the baby opens such fountains of love in almost all the hearts around?
Ah! you do not think how much every baby has to do with the saving of the
world--the saving of it from selfishness, and folly, and greed. And for
Jesus, was he not going to establish the reign of love in the earth? How
could he do better than begin from babyhood? He had to lay hold of
the heart of the world. How could he do better than begin with his
mother's--the best one in it. Through his mother's love first, he grew into
the world. It was first by the door of all the holy relations of the family
that he entered the human world, laying hold of mother, father, brothers,
sisters, all his friends; then by the door of labour, for he took his share
of his father's work; then, when he was thirty years of age, by the door of
teaching; by kind deeds, and sufferings, and through all by obedience unto
the death. You must not think little of the grand thirty years wherein he
got ready for the chief work to follow. You must not think that while he
was thus preparing for his public ministrations, he was not all the time
saving the world even by that which he was in the midst of it, ever laying
hold of it more and more. These were things not so easy to tell. And you
must remember that our records are very scanty. It is a small biography we
have of a man who became--to say nothing more--the Man of the world--the
Son of Man. No doubt it is enough, or God would have told us more; but
surely we are not to suppose that there was nothing significant, nothing
of saving power in that which we are not told.--Charlie, wouldn't you have
liked to see the little baby Jesus?"
"Yes, that I would. I would have given him my white rabbit with the pink
eyes."
"That is what the great painter Titian must have thought, Charlie; for he
has painted him playing with a white rabbit,--not such a pretty one as
yours."
"I would have carried him about all day," said Dora, "as little Henny
Parsons does her baby-brother."
"Did he have any brother or sister to carry him about, papa?" asked Harry.
"No, my boy; for he was the eldest. But you may be pretty sure he carried
about his brothers and sisters that came after him."
"Wouldn't he take care of them, just!" said Charlie.
"I wish I had been one of them," said Constance.
"You are one of them, my Connie. Now he is so great and so strong that he
can carry father and mother and all of us in his bosom."
Then we sung a child's hymn in praise of the God of little children, and
the little ones went to bed. Constance was tired now, and we left her with
Wynnie. We too went early to bed.
About midnight my wife and I awoke together--at least neither knew which
waked the other. The wind was still raving about the house, with lulls
between its charges.
"There's a child crying!" said my wife, starting up.
I sat up too, and listened.
"There is some creature," I granted.
"It is an infant," insisted my wife. "It can't be either of the boys."
I was out of bed in a moment, and my wife the same instant. We hurried on
some of our clothes, going to the windows and listening as we did so. We
seemed to hear the wailing through the loudest of the wind, and in the
lulls were sure of it. But it grew fainter as we listened. The night was
pitch dark. I got a lantern, and hurried out. I went round the house till I
came under our bed-room windows, and there listened. I heard it, but not so
clearly as before. I set out as well as I could judge in the direction of
the sound. I could find nothing. My lantern lighted only a few yards around
me, and the wind was so strong that it blew through every chink, and
threatened momently to blow it out. My wife was by my side before I knew
she was coming.
"My dear!" I said, "it is not fit for you to be out."
"It is as fit for me as for a child, anyhow," she said. "Do listen."
It was certainly no time for expostulation. All the mother was awake in
Ethelwyn's bosom. It would have been cruelty to make her go in, though she
was indeed ill-fitted to encounter such a night-wind.
Another wail reached us. It seemed to come from a thicket at one corner of
the lawn. We hurried thither. Again a cry, and we knew we were much nearer
to it. Searching and searching we went.
"There it is!" Ethelwyn almost screamed, as the feeble light of the lantern
fell on a dark bundle of something under a bush. She caught at it. It gave
another pitiful wail--the poor baby of some tramp, rolled up in a dirty,
ragged shawl, and tied round with a bit of string, as if it had been a
parcel of clouts. She set off running with it to the house, and I followed,
much fearing she would miss her way in the dark, and fall. I could hardly
get up with her, so eager was she to save the child. She darted up to her
own room, where the fire was not yet out.
"Run to the kitchen, Harry, and get some hot water. Take the two jugs
there--you can empty them in the sink: you won't know where to find
anything. There will be plenty in the boiler."
By the time I returned with the hot water, she had taken off the child's
covering, and was sitting with it, wrapped in a blanket, before the fire.
The little thing was cold as a stone, and now silent and motionless. We
had found it just in time. Ethelwyn ordered me about as if I had been a
nursemaid. I poured the hot water into a footbath.
"Some cold water, Harry. You would boil the child."
"You made me throw away the cold water," I said, laughing.
"There's some in the bottles," she returned. "Make haste."
I did try to make haste, but I could not be quick enough to satisfy
Ethelwyn.
"The child will be dead," she cried, "before we get it in the water."
She had its rags off in a moment--there was very little to remove after the
shawl. How white the little thing was, though dreadfully neglected! It was
a girl--not more than a few weeks old, we agreed. Her little heart was
still beating feebly; and as she was a well-made, apparently healthy
infant, we had every hope of recovering her. And we were not disappointed.
She began to move her little legs and arms with short, convulsive motions.
"Do you know where the dairy is, Harry?" asked my wife, with no great
compliment to my bumps of locality, which I had always flattered myself
were beyond the average in development.
"I think I do," I answered.
"Could you tell which was this night's milk, now?"
"There will be less cream on it," I answered.
"Bring a little of that and some more hot water. I've got some sugar here.
I wish we had a bottle."
I executed her commands faithfully. By the time I returned the child was
lying on her lap clean and dry--a fine baby I thought. Ethelwyn went on
talking to her, and praising her as if she had not only been the finest
specimen of mortality in the world, but her own child to boot. She got her
to take a few spoonfuls of milk and water, and then the little thing fell
fast asleep.
Ethelwyn's nursing days were not so far gone by that she did not know where
her baby's clothes were. She gave me the child, and going to a wardrobe
in the room brought out some night-things, and put them on. I could not
understand in the least why the sleeping darling must be indued with little
chemise, and flannel, and nightgown, and I do not know what all, requiring
a, world of nice care, and a hundred turnings to and fro, now on its little
stomach, now on its back, now sitting up, now lying down, when it would
have slept just as well, and I venture to think much more comfortably,
if laid in blankets and well covered over. But I had never ventured to
interfere with any of my own children, devoutly believing up to this
moment, though in a dim unquestioning way, that there must be some hidden
feminine wisdom in the whole process; and now that I had begun to question
it, I found that my opportunity had long gone by, if I had ever had one.
And after all there may be some reason for it, though I confess I do
strongly suspect that all these matters are so wonderfully complicated
in order that the girl left in the woman may have her heart's content of
playing with her doll; just as the woman hid in the girl expends no end of
lovely affection upon the dull stupidity of wooden cheeks and a body of
sawdust. But it was a delight to my heart to see how Ethelwyn could not be
satisfied without treating the foundling in precisely the same fashion as
one of her own. And if this was a necessary preparation for what, should
follow, I would be the very last to complain of it.
We went to bed again, and the forsaken child of some half-animal mother,
now perhaps asleep in some filthy lodging for tramps, lay in my Ethelwyn's
bosom. I loved her the more for it; though, I confess, it would have been
very painful to me had she shown it possible for her to treat the baby
otherwise, especially after what we had been talking about that same
evening.
So we had another child in the house, and nobody knew anything about it but
ourselves two. The household had never been disturbed by all the going and
coming. After everything had been done for her, we had a good laugh over
the whole matter, and then Ethelwyn fell a-crying.
"Pray for the poor thing, Harry," she sobbed, "before you come to bed."
I knelt down, and said:
"O Lord our Father, this is as much thy child and as certainly sent to us
as if she had been born of us. Help us to keep the child for thee. Take
thou care of thy own, and teach us what to do with her, and how to order
our ways towards her."
Then I said to Ethelwyn,
"We will not say one word more about it tonight. You must try to go to
sleep. I daresay the little thing will sleep till the morning, and I am
sure I shall if she does. Good-night, my love. You are a true mother. Mind
you go to sleep."
"I am half asleep already, Harry. Good-night," she returned.
I know nothing more about anything till I in the morning, except that I had
a dream, which I have not made up my mind yet whether I shall tell or not.
We slept soundly--God's baby and all.
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