"Nay, it is certain you will not. And as for your reasons, they do not matter: they may be good, but G.o.d has better, who decides for you. Yet deal gently with the old man, for you are denying the dearest wish of his heart."
"May I tell him that you will come?"
"I will come when he sends for me."
Mr. Wesley"s message did not arrive until a good fortnight later, during which time John Whitelamb had fallen back upon his own sorrow.
He resumed his duties, but with no heart. From the hour of his wife"s death he sank gradually into the rut of a listless parish priest--a solitary man, careless of his dress as of his duties, loved by his parishioners for the kindness of his heart. They said that sorrow had broken him; but the case was worse than this. He had lost a.s.surance of G.o.d"s goodness.
He could not, with such a doubt in his heart, go to his wife"s family for comfort. He loved them as ever; but he could not trust their love to deal tenderly with his infidelity. No Wesley would ever have let a human sorrow interfere with faith: no Wesley (it seemed to him) would understand such a disaster. It was upon this thought that he had called John a hard man. He recognised the truth and that he was but brittle earthenware beside these hammered vessels of service.
Nevertheless, when in obedience to Mr. Wesley"s message he presented himself at Epworth, he was surprised by the calm everyday air with which the old man received him. He had expected at least some word of his grief, some fatherly pressure of the hand. There was none.
He knew, to be sure, that old age deadened sensibility. But, after all, his dear Molly had been this man"s child, if not the best-beloved.
"Son Whitelamb, my hand is weary, and there is much to write.
Help me to my dearest wish on earth--the only wish now left to me: help me that Jack may inherit Epworth cure when I am gone. Hear what he objects: "The question is not whether I could do more good there or here in Oxford, _but whether I could do more good to myself_; seeing wherever I can be most holy myself, there I can most promote holiness in others. But I can improve myself more at Oxford than at any other place." The lad must think I forget my logic. See you, he juggles me with identical propositions! First it is no question of doing good to others, but to himself; and anon when he does most good to himself he will do most good to others. Am I a dead dog, to be pelted with such sophisms? Son Whitelamb, is your pen ready?"
"Of what avail is it?" John Whitelamb asked himself. "These men, father and son, decide first, and, having decided, find no lack of arguments. It is but pride of the mind in which they clothe their will. Moreover, if there be a G.o.d, what a vain conflict am I aiding!
seeing that time with Him is not, and all has been decided from the beginning."
Yet he took down the answer with his habitual care, glancing up in the pauses at the old face, gray and intense beneath the dark skull-cap. The letter ended:
"If you are not indifferent whether the labours of an aged father for above forty years in G.o.d"s vineyard be lost, and the fences of it trodden down and destroyed; if you have any care for our family, which must be dismally shattered as soon as I am dropped; if you reflect on the dear love and longing which this dear people has for you, whereby you will be enabled to do G.o.d the more service; and the plenteousness of the harvest, consisting of near two thousand souls, whereas you have not many more scholars in the University; you may perhaps alter your mind, and bend your will to His, who has promised, if in all our ways we acknowledge Him, He will direct our paths."
CONCLUSION.
CHAPTER I.
"Unto him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the unG.o.dly, his faith is counted to him for righteousness."
All the world has heard how John Wesley rode, eight years later, into Epworth; and how, his father"s pulpit having been denied to him, he stood outside upon his father"s tomb and preached evening after evening in the warm June weather the gospel of Justification by Faith to the listening crowd. Visitors are shown the grit slab, now recut and resting on a handsome structure of stone, but then upon plainest brickwork; and are bidden to notice, in the blank s.p.a.ce below the words "Their works do follow them," two rough pieces of ironstone which mark where the preacher"s feet rested.
Eight evenings he preached from it, and on the third evening chose for his text these words: "Unto him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the unG.o.dly, his faith is counted to him for righteousness."
Under a sycamore by the churchyard wall at a little distance from the crowd a man stood and listened--a clergyman in a worn black gown, a man not old in years but with a face prematurely old, and shoulders that already stooped under the burden of life--John Whitelamb.
He watched between fear and hope to be recognised. When the preacher mounted the slab, stroked back his hair and, turning his face towards the sycamore, fixed his eyes (as it seemed) upon the figure beneath it, he felt sure he had been recognised: a moment later he doubted whether that gaze had pa.s.sed over him in forgetfulness or contempt.
He felt himself worthy of contempt. They had been too hard for him, these Wesleys. They had all departed from Epworth, years before, and left him, who had been their brother, alone with his miserable doubts. No letters, no message of remembered affection or present good will, ever came from them. He had been unfaithful to his religion: they had cast him off. For seven years he had walked and laboured among the men and women here gathered in the midsummer dusk: but the faces to which he had turned for comfort were faces of the past--some dead, others far away.
So the preacher"s voice came to him as one rending the sepulchre.
"Son of man, can these bones live?" Yes, the bones of Christ"s warrior beneath the slab--laid there to rest in utter weariness--were stirring, putting forth strength and a voice that pierced his living marrow. Ah, how it penetrated, unlocking old wells of tears!
He listened, letting his tears run. Only once did he withdraw his eyes, and then for a moment they fell on John Romley, loitering too, on the outskirts of the crowd by the churchyard gate and plainly in two minds about interfering. Romley was curate of Epworth now, delegate of an absentee sporting rector: and had in truth set this ball rolling by denying John Wesley his pulpit. He had miscalculated his flock; this stubborn English breed, so loyal in enmity, loving the memory of a foe who had proved himself a man. He watched with a loose-lipped sneer; too weak to conquer his own curiosity, far too weak to a.s.sert his authority and attempt to clear the churchyard of that "enthusiasm" which he had denounced in his most florid style last Sunday, within the church.
John Whitelamb"s gaze travelled back to the preacher. Up to this he had heard the voice only, and the dead man in his grave below speaking through that voice. Now he listened to the words. If the dead man spoke through them, what a change had death wrought--what wisdom had he found in the dust that equals all! What had become of the old confident righteousness, the old pride of intellect?
They were stripped and flung aside as filthy rags. "Apart from faith we do not count. We _are_ redeemed: we _are_ saved. Christ has made with us no bargain at all except to believe that the bargain is concluded. What are we at the best that He should make distinctions between us? We are all sinners and our infinitesimal grades of sin sunk in His magnificent mercy. Only acknowledge your sin: only admit the mercy; and you are healed, pardoned, made joint heirs with Christ--not in a fair way to be healed, not going to be pardoned in some future state; but healed, pardoned, your sins washed away in Christ"s blood, actually, here and now."
He heard men and women--notorious evil-livers, some of them--crying aloud. Ah, the great simplicity of it was beyond him!--and yet not perhaps beyond him, could he believe the truth, in the bygone years never questioned by him, that Jesus Christ was very G.o.d.
He waited for the last word and strode back to his lonely home with a mind unconvinced yet wondering at the power he had witnessed, a heart bursting with love. He sat down to write at once: but tore up many letters. With Christ, to believe was to be forgiven. If Christ could not be tender to doubt, how much less would John Wesley be tender? It was not until Friday that he found courage to dispatch the following:
Dear Brother,--I saw you at Epworth on Tuesday evening.
Fain would I have spoken to you, but that I am quite at a loss to know how to address or behave to you.
Your way of thinking is so extraordinary that your presence creates an awe, as if you were an inhabitant of another world.
G.o.d grant you and your followers may always have entire liberty of conscience. Will you not allow others the same?
Indeed I cannot think as you do, any more than I can help honouring and loving you. Dear sir, will you credit me?
I retain the highest veneration and affection for you.
The sight of you moves me strangely. My heart overflows with grat.i.tude; I feel in a higher degree all that tenderness and yearning of bowels with which I am affected towards every branch of Mr. Wesley"s family. I cannot refrain from tears when I reflect, This is the man who at Oxford was more than a father to me; this is he whom I have heard expound, or dispute publicly, or preach at St. Mary"s, with such applause; and--oh, that I should ever add--whom I have lately heard preach at Epworth, on his father"s tombstone!
I am quite forgot. None of the family ever honour me with a line. Have I been ungrateful? I have been pa.s.sionate, fickle, a fool; but I hope I never shall be ungrateful.
Dear sir, is it in my power to serve or oblige you in any way?
Glad I should be that you would make use of me. G.o.d open all our eyes and lead us into truth wherever it be!
John Whitelamb.
The answer was delivered to him that same evening. It ran:
Dear Brother,--I take you at your word, if indeed it covers permission to preach in your church at Wroote on Sunday morning next. I design to take for text--and G.o.d grant it may be profitable to you and to others!--"Ask, and it shall be given you."
CHAPTER II.
From Epworth John Wesley rode on to Sheffield, and then southward through Coventry, Evesham and Painswick to Bristol, preaching as he went, sometimes thrice a day: from Bristol to Cardiff and back; and so, on Sunday evening, July 18th, towards London. On Tuesday morning he dismounted by the door of the Foundry, having left it just two months before.
To his surprise it was opened by Hetty: but at once he guessed the reason.
"Mother?"
"Hist! The end is very near--a few hours perhaps." She kissed him.
"I have been with her these five days, taking turns with the others.
They are all here--Emmy and Sukey and Nancy and Pat. Charles cannot be fetched in time, I fear."
"He was in North Wales when he last wrote."
"Listen!"--a sound of soft singing came down the stairway.
"They are singing his hymn to her: she begs us constantly to sing to her."
"Jesu, Lover of my soul, Let me to thy bosom fly While the nearer waters roll--"