THE PREACHER AND THE SEA
This morning as I walked by the sea, a man was preaching on the sands to about a dozen people, and I stopped for a few minutes to listen. He told us that we were lying under the wrath of G.o.d, that we might die at any moment, and that if we did not believe in the Lord Jesus we should be d.a.m.ned everlastingly. "Believe in the Lord," he shouted, "believe or you will be lost; you can do nothing of yourselves; you must be saved by grace alone, by blood, without blood is no remission of sins. Some of you think, no doubt, you are good people, and you may be, as the world goes, but your righteousness is as filthy rags, you are all wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; the devil will have you if you don"t turn to the Lord, and you will go down to the bottomless, brimstone pit, where shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth for ever and ever. Believe,"
he roared, "now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation."
Sunny clouds lay in the blue above him, and at his feet summer waves were breaking peacefully on the sh.o.r.e, the sound of their soft, musical plash filling up his pauses and commenting on his texts.
CONVERSION
In 1802 Lady B. was living at M--- Park. She was a proud, handsome, worldly woman about fifty-five years old, a widow with no children, but she had a favourite nephew who was at the Park for the larger part of the year and was the heir to her property. She had been gay in her youth, was the leader of society in her county, and when she pa.s.sed middle life still followed the hounds. She was a good landlord, respected and even beloved by her tenantry, and a staunch Tory in politics. The new evangelical school of Newton and Romaine she detested bitterly, as much in fact as she detested Popery. The nephew, however, came under Newton"s influence and was converted.
His aunt was in despair. She could not conquer her affection for him, but she almost raved when she reflected that the inheritor of her estates was a pious Methodist, as she called him. She had a good-looking, confidential maid who had lived with her for years.
In one of her fits she told this maid that she would give half of what she possessed if her nephew were like other young men. "I don"t want him to be a sot or to gamble away my money," she cried, "but there"s not much else I should mind if he were but a man."
A few days afterwards she spoke to her maid again. "Look you here, Jarvis, I shall go distracted. This morning he began to speak to me about my soul--the brave boy that he used to be, talking of my soul to ME! Listen to what I tell you and be reasonable. I know perfectly well, and so do you, that before he took up with this sickening cant he was in love with you and you were in love with him. I saw it all and said nothing. I understand there"s no more flirting now. Ah, well, his blood is red yet; I"ve not forgotten what five-and-twenty is, and he"ll come if you whistle. You can"t marry him, of course, but you can and shall live comfortably afterwards for all that, and when he has done what all other young fellows do there will be an end to the prayer-meetings."
The girl was a little staggered, but after a time her mistress"s suggestion ceased to shock her, for the nephew was a handsome fellow capable of raising pa.s.sion in a woman. What the aunt had said was really true. She now threw the girl in his way. She was sent to him with messages when he was alone, and one evening when he had gone over to a prayer-meeting in the town about two miles away, she was directed to go there on an errand, to contrive to be late, and to return with him. She had half an hour to spare and was curious to know what the prayer-meeting was like. She stood close to the inner door, which was slightly ajar, and heard her master praying earnestly. He rose and spoke to the little congregation for five minutes. When he had finished she started for home, and he came up with her before she had pa.s.sed the last house. It was nearly dark, but he recognised her by a light from a window, and asked her what she was doing in the town at that hour. She excused herself by unexpected detention, and they went on together. About half a mile further at the top of the hill was the stile of the pathway that was a short cut to the park. From that point there was an extensive view over the plain eastwards, and the rising moon was just emerging from a line of silvered clouds. They were both struck with the beauty of the spectacle and stood still gazing at it.
Suddenly she dropped on her knees and with violent sobbing called upon G.o.d to help her. He lifted her up, and when she was calmer she told him everything. They went on their way in silence. Now comes the remarkable part of the story. It was he who would have been the tempter and she had saved him. When they reached the Park he found his aunt ill, and in a fortnight she was dead. In less than two years nephew and maid were married. His strict evangelicalism relaxed a little, but they were both faithful to their Friend.
Lovers also they were to the last, and they died in the same month after each of them had pa.s.sed seventy-five years.
I fancy I read a long while ago somewhere in Wesley"s Journal that an attempt was made to ruin him or one of his friends with a woman, but I think she was a bad woman. If there is anything of the kind in the Journal it shows that Lady B"s plot is not incredible.
JULY
It is a cool day in July, and the shaded sunlight slowly steals and disappears over the landscape. There are none of those sudden flashes which come when the clouds are more sharply defined and the blue is more intense. I have wandered from the uplands down to the river. The fields are cleared of the hay, and the bright green of the newly mown gra.s.s increases the darkness of the ma.s.sive foliage of the bordering elms. The cows are feeding in the rich level meadows and now and then come to the river to drink. It is overhung with alders, and two or three stand on separate little islands held together by roots. The winter floods biting into the banks have cut miniature cliffs, and at their base grow the forget-me-not, the willow-herb, and flowering rush. A brightly-plumaged bird, too swift to be recognised--could it be a kingfisher?--darts along the margin of the stream and disappears in its black shadows. The wind blows gently from the west: it is just strong enough to show the silver sides of the willow leaves. The sound of the weir, although so soft, is able to exclude the clacking of the mill and all intermittent, casual noises. For two hours it has filled my ears and brought a deeper repose than that of mere silence. It is not uniform, for the voices of innumerable descending threads of water with varying impulses can be distinguished, but it is a unity.
Myriads of bubbles rise from the leaping foam at the bottom, float away for a few yards and then break.
It is the very summit of the year, the brief poise of perfection.
In two or three weeks the days will be noticeably shorter, the harvest will begin, and we shall be on our way downwards to autumn, to dying leaves and to winter.
A SUNDAY MORNING IN NOVEMBER
The walk from the high moorland to the large pond or lake lies through a narrow gra.s.sy lane. About half-way down it turns sharply to the left; in front are the bluish-green pine woods. Across the corner of them, confronting me, slants a birch with its white bark and delicate foliage, light-green and yellow in relief against the sombre background. Fifty yards before I reach the wood its music is perceptible, something like the tones of an organ heard outside a cathedral. In another minute the lane enters: it is dark, but the ruddy stems catch the sun, and in open patches are small beeches responding to it with intense golden-brown. Along the edge of the path, springing from the mossy bank they grow to a greater height.
A pine has pushed itself between the branches of one of them as if on purpose to show off the splendour of its sister"s beauty. It is stiller than it was outside; the murmur descends from aloft. There was a frost last night and the leaves will soon fall. A beech leaf detaches itself now and then and flutters peacefully and waywardly to the ground, careless whether it finds its grave in the bracken or on the road where it will be trodden underfoot. The bramble is beginning to turn to blood. It is strange that leaves should show such character. Here is a corner on which there are not two of the same tint, but they spring from the same root, and the circ.u.mstances of light and shade under which they have developed are almost exactly similar.
It is eleven o"clock, and with the mounting sun the silence has become complete save when it is broken by the heavy, quick flap of the wood-pigeon or the remonstrance of a surprised magpie. Service is just beginning all over England in churches and the chapels belonging to a hundred sects. In the village two miles away the Salvation Army drum is beating, but it cannot penetrate these recesses. Stay! a faint vibration from it comes over the hill, but now it has gone. A fox, unaware of any human being, walks from one side of the lane to the other, stopping in the middle. There is a breath of wind and the low solemn song begins again above me.
UNDER BEACHY HEAD: DECEMBER
At the top of the hill the north-westerly wind blows fresh, but here under the cliffs the sun strikes warm as in June. There is not a cloud in the sky, and behind me broken, chalk pinnacles intensely white rise into the clear blue, which is bluer by their contrast.
In front lies the calm, light-sapphire ocean with a glittering sun- path on it broadening towards the horizon. All recollection of bare trees and dead leaves has gone. The tide is drawing down and has left bare a wide expanse of smooth untrodden sand through which ridges run of chalk rock black with weed. The sand is furrowed by little rivulets from the abandoned pools above, and at its edge long low waves ripple over it, flattening themselves out in thin sheets which invade one another with infinitely complex, graceful curves.
I look southward: there is nothing between me and the lands of heat but the water. It unites me with them.
It is wonderful that winter should suddenly abdicate and summer resume her throne. On a morning like this there is no death, the sin of the world is swallowed up; theological and metaphysical problems cease to have any meaning. Men and books make me painfully aware of my littleness and defects, but here on the sh.o.r.e in silence complete save for the music of the ebbing sea, they vanish.
When I am again in London and at work the dazzling light will not be extinguished, and will illuminate the dreary darkness of the city.
24TH DECEMBER
My housekeeper and her husband have begged for a holiday from this morning till Boxing-day, and I could not refuse. I can do without them for so short a time. I might have spent the Christmas with one of my children, but they live far away and travelling is now irksome to me. I was seventy years old a month past. Besides, they are married and have their own friends, of whom I know nothing. I have locked the door of my cottage and shall walk to No-man"s Corner.
It is a dark day; the sky is covered evenly with a thick cloud.
There is no wind except a breath now and then from the north-east.
It is not a frost, but it is cold, and a thick mist covers the landscape. It is no thicker in the river bottom than on the hills; it is everywhere the same. The field-paths are in many places a foot deep in mud, for the autumn has been wet. They are ploughing the Ten Acres, and the plough is going along the top ridge so that horses and men are distinctly outlined, two men and four horses, but the pace is slow, for the ground is very heavy. I can just hear the ploughman talking to his team. The upturned earth is more beautiful in these parts than I have seen it elsewhere--a rich, reddish brown, for there is iron in it. The sides of the clods which are smoothed by the ploughshare shine like silver even in this dull light. I pa.s.s through the hop-garden. The poles are stacked and a beginning has just been made with the weeds. A little further on is the farmhouse. It lies in the hollow and there is no road to it, save a cart-track. The nearest hard road is half a mile distant. The footpath crosses the farmyard. The house is whitewashed plaster and black-timbered, and surrounded by cattle-pens in which the oxen and cows stand almost up to their knees in slush. A motionless ox looks over the bar of his pen and turns his eyes to me and my dog as we pa.s.s. It is now twelve, and it is the dinner-hour. The horses have stopped work and are steaming with sweat under the hayrick. The men are sitting in the barn. Leaving the farmyard I go down to the brook which steals round the wood and stop for a few minutes on the foot-bridge. I can hear the little stream in the gully about twenty feet below, continually changing its note, which nevertheless is always the same. In the wood not a leaf falls. O eternal sleep, death of the pa.s.sions, the burial of failures, follies, bitter recollections, the end of fears, welcome sleep!
DREAMING
During the retreat from Moscow a French soldier was mortally wounded. His comrades tried to lift him into a waggon. "No bandages, no brandy!" he cried; "go, you cannot help me." They hesitated, but seeing that he could not recover, and knowing that the enemy was hard upon them in pursuit, they left him. For half an hour he was alive and alone. The Emperor, whom he worshipped, was far away; his friends had fled; to remain would have been folly, and yet! It was late in the afternoon and bitterly cold. He looked with dim and closing eyes over the vast, dreary, snowy and silent plain. What were the images which pa.s.sed before them? Were they of home, of the Emperor and the retreating army, of the crucifix and the figure thereon? Who can tell? Death is preceded by thoughts which life cannot antic.i.p.ate. Perhaps his herald was a simple longing to be at rest, joy at his approach blotting out all bitterness and regret. Who can tell? But I dream and dream; the dying, wintry day, the dark, heavily-clouded sky, the snow, and the blood. A Cossack came up and drove his lance through him.
OURSELVES
Lord Bacon says that "To be wise by rule and to be wise by experience are contrary proceedings; he that accustoms himself to the one unfits himself for the other." It is singular how little attention, in the guidance of our lives, we pay to our own needs.
It is a common falsehood of these times that all knowledge is good for everybody, the truth being that knowledge is good only if it helps us, and that if it does not help us it is bad. "Whatever knowledge," to quote from Bacon again, "we cannot convert into food or medicine endangereth a dissolution of the mind and understanding." We ought to turn aside from what we cannot manage, no matter how important it may seem to be. David refused Saul"s helmet of bra.s.s and coat of mail. If he had taken the orthodox accoutrements and weapons he would have been enc.u.mbered and slain.
He killed Goliath with the rustic sling and stone. No doubt if we determine to be ignorant of those things with which the world thinks it necessary that everybody should be familiar we shall be thought ill-educated, but our very ignorance will be a better education, provided it be a principled ignorance, than much which secures a local examination certificate or a degree. At the same time, if any study fits us, it should be pursued unflaggingly. We must not be afraid of the imputation of narrowness. Our subject will begin to be of most service to us when we have pa.s.sed the threshold and can think for ourselves. If we devote ourselves, for example, to the works and biography of any great man, the pleasure and moral effect come when we have read him and re-read him and have traced every thread we can find, connecting him with his contemporaries. It is then, and then only, that we understand him and he becomes a living soul. Flesh and blood are given by details.
We are misled by heroes whom we admire, and the greater the genius the more perilous is its influence upon us if we allow it to be a dictator to us. It is really of little consequence to me what a saint or philosopher thought it necessary to do in order to protect and save himself. It is myself that I have to protect and save.
Every man is p.r.o.ne to lean on some particular side and on that side requires special support. Every man has particular fears and troubles, and it is against these and not against the fears and troubles of others that he must provide remedies. A religion is but a general direction, and the real working Thirty-nine Articles or a.s.sembly"s Catechism each one of us has to construct on his own behalf.