The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Quiver, by Anonymous
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Title: The Quiver 3/1900
Author: Anonymous
Release Date: September 6, 2013 [EBook #43658]
Language: English
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The Quiver 3/1900
[Illustration: (_Drawn by Percy Tarrant._)
EASTER BLOSSOMS.]
THE CENTENARY OF THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY.
By the Rev. A. R. Buckland, M.A., Morning Preacher at the Foundling
Hospital.
At "The Castle and Falcon," in Aldersgate Street, on April 12th,
1799, there met, in all the solemnity of a public gathering, sixteen
clergymen and nine laymen.
They founded there and then the Church Missionary Society for
Africa and the East. That Society keeps its Centenary this month;
no longer an inconspicuous organisation expressing the hopes of a
godly few, but a great Society which has girdled the earth with
its missions. When, in November, 1898, its Estimates Committee
surveyed its position, they found that its roll included the names
of 802 European missionaries, of whom 295 were ladies, whilst, of
the 802, no fewer than eighty-four were serving altogether or in
part at their own expense. Some of them represented the missionary
enthusiasm of Australia and Canada; a fair proportion were duly
qualified medical workers, men and women.
[Illustration: MRS. J. A. BAILEY.
(_The first lady missionary of the Society._)]
With the exception of South America, there is no considerable
quarter of the globe in which they are not represented. They may be
found ministering to Esquimaux within the Arctic Circle, and to the
Indians of the vast expanses of Canada; they are shepherding the
Maoris of New Zealand; in India their stations may be discovered
alike amongst the wild tribes of the northern frontier, the strange
aboriginals found here and there in the continent, and the milder
races of the south; in Africa the Society begins in Egypt, but
goes no farther south than Uganda, though it is both on the east
coast and the west; it is strongly represented along the coasts of
China, as well as in the inland province of Sze-Chuen; it works both
amidst the Japanese themselves and that strange people the hairy
Ainu; it is domiciled in Ceylon and Mauritius; it has not forgotten
Persia. From Madagascar it has retired, and it has shown a wise
indisposition to enter upon new fields whilst the old are still
insufficiently manned. It has ever been known for the strictness
with which it observes the comity of missions; and it may fairly be
said that the zeal with which its friends have worked in behalf of
foreign missions has reacted on all the missionary agencies which
have their origins in Great Britain, as well as upon some which
express the zeal of America and the Colonies.
From Greenland's icy mountains,
From India's coral strand
Where Afric's sunny fountains
Roll down their golden sand,
From many an ancient river
From many a palmy plain
They call us to deliver
Their land from error's chain
What though the spicy breezes
Blow soft o'er Ceylon's Isle
Though every prospect pleases
And only man is vile?
In vain, with lavish kindness,
The gifts of God are strown
The heathen in his blindness
Bows down to woods and stone!
[Illustration: BISHOP HEBER'S MISSIONARY HYMN.
(_Facsimile of part of the Original MS._)]
The Church Missionary Society was really one of the fruits of the
Evangelical Revival, though when the Society was born that movement
was no longer young. Its first leaders had passed to their rest;
it was their successors amongst whom the Church Missionary Society
took its origin. They were, as history judges them, no mean persons,
though in their own day they fell, for their religious zeal, under
the condemnation of polite society, whether ecclesiastical or social.
[Illustration: THE BOARD ROOM AT THE MISSION HOUSE.]
That meeting in Aldersgate Street did not include some of those to
whom the foundation of the Church Missionary Society must directly
be referred; but, if we look at the circle they represented, we
shall find that it was one of rare distinction in the religious
history of the country. It included William Wilberforce, Zachary
Macaulay, Charles Grant, James Stephen, and Henry Thornton on the
lay side; Charles Simeon, John Newton, Thomas Scott, Richard Cecil,
and William Goode amongst the clergy. The impulse which moved
them was moving others, for the Baptist Missionary Society had
been founded by Carey in 1793, and the London Missionary Society
in 1795. The Religious Tract Society also began its existence in
this year 1799, and the Bible Society was founded in 1804. It was
a fruitful epoch. Yet it has to be remembered that it began under
ecclesiastical discouragement, and amidst such popular contempt of
missions to the heathen as was reflected in Sydney Smith's essay.
I do not propose to trace in detail the history of the Church
Missionary Society: within the space of a magazine article such an
attempt could do little more than produce a list of names and dates.
It may be more useful, as well as more interesting, to look at some
of the Society's great workers at home, at some of its heroes in
the mission-field, and at some of the romances which diversify its
history.
[Illustration: THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY'S MISSION HOUSE,
SALISBURY SQUARE.]
Of the men who helped to found the Church Missionary Society the
first place must be given to Charles Simeon. He was not at "The
Castle and Falcon" meeting, but it was he who, at the gathering of
the Eclectic Society in March of the same year, when missionary
plans were again under discussion, urged immediate action. "There
is not a moment to be lost," he said; "we have been dreaming these
four years, while all Europe is awake." The precise old bachelor,
fellow of his college at Cambridge, and incumbent of Holy Trinity
Church in that town, was not a person easily daunted by obstacles.
As an Evangelical he had had to face the most strenuous opposition
in his own parish. But he had been deeply stirred by plans and hopes
for missionary work in India; he was the friend and mentor of Henry
Martyn. He was able in time to wield at Cambridge an influence
which the late Bishop Christopher Wordsworth compared to that of
Newman at Oxford. Later generations somehow came to think of him
as something other than a Churchman; but they were quite wrong. A
careful scrutiny of Simeon's works, letters, and diaries will show
that he was consistently loyal to his Church and her formularies.
Of his influence upon foreign missions it is difficult to speak in
exaggeration; but one or two illustrations may serve to show its
extent. Henry Martyn was the first Englishman who offered to go
out under the Church Missionary Society. But Simeon was especially
anxious about India, and so Martyn went there as "Chaplain." His
brief work in Persia, the example of his singularly beautiful
character, and the swift end of so promising a career, still
influence the minds of young and old. And the influence of Martyn,
is, in a sense, the influence of Simeon. Less popularly known than
Henry Martyn, but in some respects of wider power, were the others
of the famous "Five Chaplains" who went out to India, the fruits of
Simeon's zeal for that land. These men left an indelible mark upon
the English in India during their time, and did much to prepare
the way of the missionary. Thus Claudius Buchanan helped more than
any other man to create the public opinion which opened India to
missionaries, and led to the consecration of the first bishop for
all India, the Bishop of Calcutta. Thomas Thomason was the father
of James Thomason, who, as Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West
Provinces, ruled (and taught others to rule) in the fear of God, and
with the warmest sympathy for missionary enterprise. Through him,
when the Punjab was annexed in 1849, it felt the influence which had
flowed from the rooms of Charles Simeon at Cambridge.
[Illustration: SECRETARIES of the CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY
REV THOMAS SCOTT 1799-1802
(L. COSSÃ pinxt)
REV. JOSIAH PRATT 1802-1824
(H. WYATT pinxt)
REV. E. BICKERSTETH 1824-1830
(ALEX. MOSSES pinxt)
REV. WILLIAM JOWETT 1832-1840
REV HENRY VENN 1841-1872
(G RICHMOND R. A. pinxt)
REV HENRY WRIGHT
1872-1880
REV F E WIGRAM 1880-1895
(PHOTO ELLIOTT & FRY)
REV H E FOX appointed 1895
(PHOTO ELLIOTT & FRY)
Robert A Shield 99
]
The name of Edward Bickersteth seems a natural succession to that of
Simeon. The influence of both is still unexhausted. When the Church
Missionary Society kept its second Jubilee in November, 1898, the
sermon was preached by Bishop E. H. Bickersteth, the son of Edward
Bickersteth. And the influence had been wider than the limits of
any one Society, for Bishop Edward Bickersteth, of Japan, who died
in 1897, represented another generation in this line of truly
apostolic succession.
Edward Bickersteth had been a solicitor in prosperous circumstances
when zeal for missions led him to take holy orders, and join the
Church Missionary Society as Assistant Secretary in 1816. Almost
at once he was sent to examine the Society's work at Sierra Leone.
There he admitted the Society's first African converts to the Holy
Communion. In 1824 he succeeded Josiah Pratt in the Secretaryship
of the Society. He was never an autocrat in the sense that Henry
Venn was; but his work for the Society in the country was enormous.
It has ceased to be the kind of work which is mainly done by the
Honorary Secretary of the Society, but at that period it was work
which was of inestimable value. It was the more important because
public opinion at home still presented a front of mingled contempt
and indifference to missions, whilst abroad the outlook was far from
hopeful.
[Illustration:
ZENANA WORK. BIBLE SELLING IN EASTERN BAZAARS.
TEACHING THE YOUNG.
LECTURING TO CHINESE HELPERS. ITINERATING THROUGH THE VILLAGES.
SOME METHODS OF WORK.
]
A greater figure than that of Edward Bickersteth in the annals of
the Church Missionary Society is that of Henry Venn. Here, too,
the name appears in more than one generation. The first Henry
Venn belongs, with Wesley, Whitfield, Romaine and others, to the
beginnings of the Evangelical Revival. Then comes John Venn,
who took the chair at "The Castle and Falcon" meeting. Then, in
1834, Henry Venn the younger, the son of John Venn and grandson
of the first Henry Venn, began regularly to attend the Society's
Committee. He was Hon. Secretary in 1841, and held office for
thirty-one years. He is the standard by which, doubtless, for
generations to come, Hon. Secretaries of the Church Missionary
Society will be compared. He was a strong man in every sense; a
statesman and an autocrat. But, like some other autocrats, he clung
to his work too long. He resigned only a few months before his
death, and left the Society in a condition of discouragement, from
the failure both of candidates for the mission field and of means
for carrying on the work. Under his successor, Henry Wright (who
was drowned in Coniston Lake in 1880), the Society began almost at
once to enter upon new life and activity. Here again the hereditary
influence, so manifest in the work of the Church Missionary Society,
is evident, for four of his children went to the mission field.
His successor, Frederic Wigram, was one of the most munificent
benefactors the Society ever had. He died, after resigning office,
worn out by its responsibility and toil. He, too, has sent children
to the mission-field. In his successor, the Rev. H. E. Fox, the
hereditary impulse is manifest again. Mr. Fox's father was one of
the founders of the Society's Telugu mission, and one of the most
devoted of its workers in the foreign field.
And now let us glance for a moment at some of the Society's agents
abroad. The task of selection is difficult. There are names on
the list that all men who care for missions have heard of. Samuel
Marsden, Samuel Crowther, Valpy French, Pfander, John Horden, James
Hannington, Alexander Mackay--these, to name but a few, and many
others, are familiar far outside the limits of the Society's own
friends. But there are more, less widely known, whose work deserves
not a whit less to be had in remembrance.
[Illustration: (_From Photo: supplied by the Church Missionary
Society._)
CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY'S TRAINING COLLEGE AT AGRA.
(_With students in foreground._)]
Amongst these was William Johnson, one of the first missionaries to
Sierra Leone. He went out in 1816, and began an extraordinary work
amongst the slaves released by British cruisers and landed at Sierra
Leone. He died on the voyage home to England at the early age of
thirty-four. Those were the days in which to face work in Sierra
Leone meant facing a peril so imminent that each volunteer needed
the courage of those who go upon a forlorn hope.
There was William Williams, first a surgeon and then, after
graduating at Oxford, ordained for work in the Colonies. He went
to New Zealand in 1825, when its people were a race of cannibals,
not one of whom professed Christianity. He lived to see the whole
country more or less fully evangelised. His wife died as recently as
1896, and his son, baptised in 1829 with the children of one of the
most savage of the Maori chiefs, became Bishop of Waiapu in the land
the father did so much to open up. William Williams had a brother,
Henry Williams, who preceded him in the field. So great was the
influence he won that, on the news of his death reaching two Maori
camps, in which rival tribes were preparing to meet in battle, they
at once proclaimed a truce, attended his funeral, and settled their
differences in peace.
[Illustration: (_Photo: G. P. Abraham, Keswick._)
MR. EUGENE STOCK.
(_Editorial Secretary of the Society._)]
[Illustration: (_From Photo: supplied by the Church Missionary
Society._)
THE LIBRARY AT THE MISSION HOUSE.]
There was Ludwig Krapf, whose name, with that of John Rebmaun,
should ever be joined with the origins of our growing empire
in Eastern Equatorial Africa. He began his missionary work in
Abyssinia, had to leave as the result of French intrigues, sailed
down the East African coast in an Arab boat, and in 1844 settled
at Mombasa. From the knowledge of the interior gained by Krapf and
his companion, came the chain of African discovery which issued,
as long afterwards as 1875, in the publication, through Mr. H. M.
Stanley, of Mtesa's appeal for missionaries for Uganda. How little
could Krapf ever have dreamed of the vast results, political as well
as spiritual, that would flow from that early disappointment, his
expulsion from Abyssinia!
There was David Hinderer, who, upon the other side of Africa, did
so striking a work in the Yoruba country. The prosperity of his
evangelistic labours, the virtual imprisonment in which he and his
wife--half-starved and in deadly peril--were for five years in the
town of Ibadan, and the ultimate discovery that their work stood the
severe tests of isolation and persecution, go to make up one of the
most interesting chapters in the history of African missions.
There was George Maxwell Gordon, the pilgrim-missionary of the
Indian frontier, a pioneer who saw little direct fruit of his
labours, yet left missions where none had been. Acting as chaplain
to the British forces shut up in Kandahar, he was killed, when
seeking to succour the wounded, in August, 1880.
But this is a list that might be almost indefinitely extended, and
still would seem invidious. Let us come to some striking pages in
the Society's history; again, of necessity, passing by many of the
most impressive as well as some of the most familiar.
The city of Peshawur, upon the Afghan frontier, has long been a
centre of missionary work. The fanaticism of the people when it
was first occupied by British troops seemed to make missionary
enterprise impossible. One Commissioner--he afterwards fell by
the hand of an assassin--refused permission for missionaries to
come, on the ground that they would excite the fanaticism of the
people to a dangerous pitch. The arrival of Herbert Edwardes
changed the situation. A meeting of English people, military and
civil, was called in Peshawur itself; a sum of £3,000 was raised, a
memorial sent to the Church Missionary Society, and, in response,
missionaries provided. Here is an example of what is so often
forgotten by critics of Indian missions, that they in a large
measure owe their origin and support to men actually or formerly
engaged in the administration of India. The Church Missionary
Society has been peculiarly happy in the number of men of high
distinction in the Army and the Civil Service who have served on
its Committee. Now from the Punjab men are pushing still farther
afield; Quetta has long been occupied, and the medical missionary
has found a welcome from the Afridis themselves.
Let us take another mission founded in answer to an appeal from
without, and that an appeal from a layman. People who recall the
missionary meetings of a generation ago will remember that no
more thrilling story was told at them than the history of William
Duncan's early work amongst the Tsimshean Indians of the North
Pacific coast. It was a marvellous example of courage, tact, and
patience, rewarded by the conversion of savages of a singularly
unapproachable type. It was a naval officer, Captain Prevost, who
suggested that mission to the Society, carried Mr. Duncan thither,
and landed him at Fort Simpson in 1857. In ten years' time he had
baptised nearly three hundred adult converts. In 1862 the Christian
community was moved to Metlakahtla, where the spectacle of a
cannibal and violent people living in peace and industry was long
deemed one of the marvels of missionary enterprise.
I pass by such striking histories as those of Uganda, of the attempt
of J. A. Robinson and Graham Wilmot Brooke to reach the Soudan from
the Niger, and of the massacre of English women at Hwa-Sang in
Fuh-kien, to recall romances of another kind. What could be more
moving than the careers of some of the Society's converts? Is there
any more striking history of its kind than that of the Rev. Dr.
Imad-ud-din, a learned Mohammedan, who had sought the peace of God
by every available means, and at last found it in Christ? Or what
would they who distrust converts say to the career of that once
notorious Border bandit, Dilawar Khan, baptised in 1858, who served
as an officer in the Guides, and died in Chitral whilst in the
service of the British Government?
But it is time to leave these things and to speak of some aspects of
the Society's work which concern all missionary enterprise.
[Illustration: "IN THE UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE EARTH."
(_The peoples amongst whom the C.M.S. Missionaries are now
working._)]
Twice in its career the Church Missionary Society has definitely
committed itself to a policy of faith as it has committed itself to
sending out all who offer and are found qualified. It is a policy
which, judged by the most secular standard, must be accounted
a success. The growth of its staff in recent years, under this
system, has been most striking. The Society has had its periods
of stagnation and disappointment; at times its directors have
felt driven to retrenchment. Thus in 1859 the number of European
missionaries on its roll was 226; ten years later it was only 228.
But, whereas in 1889 the number was 360, in 1898 it had risen to
802. During the first ten years the Society sent out five agents;
in the ten years ending with its Jubilee the number was 119; in
the nine years ending 1898 it reached 719. The income of 1848 was
£92,823; the income of 1898 was £331,598. Its latest statistics show
that there are about 240,000 natives associated with its missions,
and of late it would seem that its clergy baptise on an average
about twenty adult converts every day.
[Illustration: (_Photo: A. G. Carlile, Exmouth._)
SIR JOHN H. KENNAWAY, M.P.
(_President of the Church Missionary Society._)]
In this month of April all round the world--from North-West Canada
to New Zealand, from Palestine to Japan, from Central Africa to the
Indian frontier--men will be keeping the centenary of that meeting
at "The Castle and Falcon," in Aldersgate Street. For a hundred
years of work, considered in relation to the power and the wealth
and the responsibilities of our nation, there may be little to show;
but, for such as there is, men of many races, and once of many
creeds, will, with one accord, give thanks to God.
[Illustration: THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY'S MAP OF THE WORLD.
(_The shaded portions indicate the present-day fields of work._)]
[Illustration: THE MASTERFUL YOUNG MAN]
_A COMPLETE STORY._
By Margaret Westrup, Author of "They Furriners," Etc.
He stopped in the shade of the high old wall and listened.
A smile shone in his blue eyes as the sweet, childish voice sounded
clear and high in the still, scented air.
"What now, Jeannette, shall the mistress of Ancelles fall in love
like an ordinary mortal, then?"
There was mischief in the pretty voice, but there was pride, too.
"But yes, mamzelle! Love comes to all--high and low--and spares no
one its pangs."
"Pangs? Ah, bah! it shall have no pangs for me!"
"Ah, mamzelle! do not be rash."
"How will it take me, Jeannette? Tell me, that I may be prepared.
Will it come like a fiery dart to my bosom, bringing a light to my
eyes, and a colour of roses to my cheeks? Or will it take me sadly,
rendering my cheek pale and my spirits low? Tell me, Jeannette."
"Not the last way, mamzelle"--the voice was slow now--"for you are
too proud."
"You are right, Jeannette, I am too proud! 'Tis not I who must be
pale and afraid. 'Tis the other. Love must come to me humble and
suing--to be glad or sorry at my will. Is it not so, Jeannette?"
"How should I know, mamzelle?"--sadly--"I dread its coming at all."
"Bah! what matters it? And why should it come? I, for one, do not
want---- Ah! do not scream so, Jeannette--it is a man--he is hurt."
The man scrambled to his feet, and tried to bow, but his face was
ghastly.
"I beg your--pardon----"
"You are hurt, monsieur. Do not try to apologise. Jeannette, help
him to the house. Follow me."
The man leant on Jeannette's stout shoulder, and followed the
stately little figure through the sunny, twisting paths, sweet and
rich with their wealth of roses, up to the old château with its
narrow windows gleaming in the sunshine.
"Here, Jeannette," said the little mistress of the roses and the
château. "Monsieur, you will rest on the sofa."
He obeyed the wave of the small white hand and lay down.
"Jeannette, send for Dr. Raunay."
Jeannette departed.
The man opened his blue eyes.
"I am so sorry----"
"You must not speak," eyeing him with grave, dark eyes. "You will
keep quiet till the doctor comes."
He submitted.
Jeannette returned immediately.
"Are you thirsty?" asked his little hostess gently.
"No--thank you."
"You want for nothing?"
"No, thank you."
She sat down and waited.
Then later--"Jeannette, lower the blinds. Make no noise."
"Thank you," said the man.
"Do not speak!"--frowning.
He smiled a little.
"Mamzelle, suppose he dies?"
"Jeannette, how _dare_ you?"
"But his face is white; and"--her suspicions bursting out--"how came
he to fall into mamzelle's garden?"
"Jeannette, leave the room!"
"That I will not! No, I will not! Jeannette knows what is owing to
her mistress, and to leave----"
"Well, well"--quickly--"but do not dare to utter another word."
Jeannette mumbled rebelliously, but retired to a corner vanquished.
The man opened his eyes as a soft wave of air was wafted across his
face.
A pair of soft, dark eyes looked down pityingly into his.
He shut his own with a murmured word of thanks, and let her fan him.
Jeannette came ponderously across the room.
"Mamzelle, it is not fitting----"
"Did I not forbid you to speak?" said the haughty young voice.
"Yes, but Jeannette knows what is due to mamzelle, and----"
"Mademoiselle also knows."
Something in the tone stopped the old servant's words, and once more
she retired vanquished.
The man smiled to himself.
Dr. Raunay came and pronounced a bad sprain of the left arm to be
the only injury the man had received.
The doctor's sharp, black eyes were full of questions, but
Mademoiselle Stéphanie met his gaze calmly, indifferently, and he
dared not put one question into words.
"Monsieur, of course, will be our guest," she said when the doctor
had taken his departure.
The man reddened slowly under his tan.
"I--really----" He raised himself on his right elbow.
Jeannette eyed him with sharp suspicion.
"Of course, you will stay," said mademoiselle, with her little
imperious air.
"But I am quite well enough to go to an inn----"
"There is not one within five miles, and that--well----" A little
expressive wave of the small hands and a whimsical smile finished
her sentence.
"I do not like to trespass----"
"It is not trespassing," with pretty warmth; "indeed, monsieur, you
must accept of our hospitality."
"Then thank you very much."
"And--your luggage? Is it with friends? They will be anxious--we
will send----"
She was too courteous to ask with whom he was staying. Yet she
wondered much, for, beyond poor cottages, there were no dwellings
within many miles of Ancelles.
"I am alone," he answered; "I have walked from B---- to-day."
Jeannette snorted. She plainly did not believe him. B---- was thirty
and more miles distant. The suspicion in her stare grew deeper.
"Oh," said Stéphanie.
"My luggage----" He hesitated; yet what could he do without it?
"It is only a small bag--it is--er--outside your garden wall," he
finished desperately.
"Jeannette, please see that it is fetched at once."
No faintest spark of surprise appeared in his hostess's small face.
She seemed quite used to having strangers tumble over her wall into
her garden, quite used to luggage being left outside the wall.
The man was distinctly amused, but he was touched too.
An old manservant, with a faint, indescribable old-world air, that
fitted in with the château and the garden and the roses somehow,
brought food to the stranger, and, after he had eaten, showed him to
his room.
The stranger looked round him with interest.
It was a large apartment, large and bare and old--but everything at
Ancelles was old.
But the curtains to the bed, faded now, had once been rich and
handsome. The tapestry across the door of a smaller room leading
from the other, was still beautiful though worn with age.
Hugh Michelhurst shivered a little as he stood there, in the dim,
dark, old-world chamber. There was something pathetic in the tale it
told of bygone splendour, something sad and forlorn.
Then his eye fell on a bowl of vivid red roses standing on his
dressing-table, and he smiled.
They at least were not old. Their splendour was undimmed. There was
nothing faded in their fresh, glowing beauty; and who had put them
there?
He went closer; he bent over them and drank in their sweet scent.
And as he did it the old, sunny garden rose before him again. The
little twisting paths, the roses so thick and luxuriant that they
trespassed forward from their beds; the old broken fountain, with
the water nymph bending eternally in graceful readiness to dive, and
amongst them--the roses, the sunshine, the queer paths, and the old
fountain--the little mistress of them all, slim, childish, with soft
dark eyes, with pretty lips made for laughter, with the sun caught
in the waves of her brown hair. His hands wandered gently over the
roses as he stood and thought what a gracious little hostess she
was! How sweetly she had welcomed him, asking no questions!
A wave of colour surged over his white face.
But he smiled as he sank down on to a chair.
His entry into the sweet, old-world garden had been supremely
ridiculous. Moreover, he was terribly ashamed of himself as well as
rueful.
But his sense of humour was strong enough to save either feeling
from overpowering him. His arm began to pain him badly again. He
shut his lips tightly and sat still.
Outside he heard a gay young voice. "It is a pity, Jeannette, that
the sun does not shine into his room now. See how glorious is its
setting to-night."
A pause.
Hugh Michelhurst guessed how the pause was filled by his little
hostess's mocking answer:
"Why, Jeannette, how cross you are! And, anyway, in the morning the
sun will wake him."
"It may rain, mamzelle."
"Rain?" with a little burst of prettiest laughter. "Why, where are
your eyes, Jeannette? Rain? With that sky--that sunset? All, no!
Even _ma tante_ would not say that, and she always predicts rain,
you know."
"It is her rheumatism, mamzelle; she feels it in her bones."
"Yes," carelessly. "Jeannette, he will need assistance--how careless
I am! It is that I am so unused to entertaining a guest, and yet
once Ancelles was noted for its hospitality----"
The pretty voice died away into the distance, and a few minutes
later there was a discreet tap at the stranger's door, and the faded
old manservant appeared, and, with an air, offered monsieur his
humble services.
* * * * *
Two mornings had Stéphanie's prophecy been fulfilled. Two mornings
the sun had wakened her guest, and now he was wondering if he dared
stay and let it wake him a third.
"Madame ma tante" had put in an appearance once. She had welcomed
the stranger with a stiff yet courteous stateliness that was as
old-worldly as the garden and the château and everything pertaining
thereto.
She was a confirmed invalid, and, till she sallied forth to welcome
her niece's guest (Ancelles belonged to Stéphanie), had not left her
room for nearly two years.
Hugh Michelhurst was duly presented, and made a favourable
impression on "Madame ma tante." In half an hour the impression had
faded. In an hour it was gone. "Madame ma tante" had forgotten his
existence.
He was sitting now on the old, worn steps leading to the second
terrace. His right arm rested on the step above, close by his
hostess's dainty little feet.
The air was sunny and warm, and sweet with the scent of roses.
He wondered dreamily what had become of the world----
[Illustration: She smiled softly at his words.
G. G. Manton]
A little breeze came and scattered the rose leaves in her lap--the
soft, fragrant heap that she had gathered for _pot-pourri_--and
roused the man.
He stooped to gather them up, but she stayed him.
"There are plenty more," she said.
"Yes," he said; "what a lovely old garden it is!"
He watched the pink deepen in her cheek, and the little dimples come
and go as she smiled softly at his words.
Then he sighed.
"My arm is better," he said. "I"--doubtfully--"must go to-day."
"Must you? Will you not stay a little longer? It"--wistfully--"is
nice to have a guest."
He looked up at her with his blue eyes full of love.
"It is good of you to say so," he said earnestly.
"Ancelles cannot offer much," she said, with a little stately air,
"but it offers you a true welcome, monsieur, and one that will never
fail you so long as you will stay with us."
"I have never," he said slowly, "had such a true welcome before."
His eyes made her restless.
She crushed the rose leaves in her hand, and scattered them abroad.
He picked them up and kept them.
"Do you never wonder," he said, "how I came to fall into your
garden?"
"We are only glad that monsieur so fell, except for the sprained
arm," answered the little mistress of Ancelles.
"I heard your voice," he said, looking up into her face. "I stood
and listened, and then--I wanted to see the owner of the voice, and
I climbed to the top of the wall and then--I fell."
"I thought only schoolboys behaved so," she said, but her pretty
lips parted and her eyes smiled, in spite of herself.
"If I had been a schoolboy I should not have fallen."
"Why?"
"Because a schoolboy does not lose his head as I did, mademoiselle."
"And your footing, monsieur."
"The one was an outcome of the other."
She looked away across the sweet, smiling sunshine.
"Monsieur"--suddenly bending her gaze upon his face--"how came you
to lose your head?"
He glanced at her in swift surprise. He was no chicken-heart, yet
something in the proud little face made him hesitate.
But he was proud, too.
"Because directly my eyes fell upon you I loved you," he said
steadily.
Stéphanie started to her feet.
"Monsieur, you outrage my hospitality," she said haughtily.
He got up and faced her.
"Never!" he cried. "I did not mean to say it--yet, but----"
"You insult me, monsieur!"
"Pardon me, mademoiselle"--his tone was cool as hers now--"but the
offer of a man's heart and home can never be an insult!"
"An honour, perhaps?" mockingly.
"It is at least his best, mademoiselle."
"And seemly within a two-days' acquaintanceship, monsieur?"
Her pride, the haughty little smile curling her pretty lip, maddened
him.
He bent towards her.
"Seemly or unseemly," he said in low, tense tones, "you shall love
me!"
Her dark eyes flashed.
"I shall not, monsieur!" she cried, and shut her small teeth closely.
With a haughty inclination of her pretty head, she left him--left
him amongst the roses, in the sunshine, but cold at heart at what he
had done.
* * * * *
He wooed her persistently. He was persistent by nature, and all his
life he had never wanted anything as he wanted her. He bore the
discomforts of the little inn without a murmur, and every day the
roses on the little twisting paths found him among them.
Mademoiselle was proud and cold; mademoiselle was proud and
mocking, proud and wilful, proud and laughing, proud and
non-comprehending--every mood in the world, one after another, was
mademoiselle, but proud always--proud with them all. And at last he
lost heart.
So there came a day when the scent of the roses sickened him, when
the twisting paths maddened him, and he stood before the little
mistress of them all, white, stern, beaten.
"I have come to say good-bye," he said, and the tone of his voice
had changed.
"Good-bye?" she repeated, and she gave him her hand without another
word.
"I would like to thank you for your kindness to me," he said dully;
"but--well, perhaps some day you will understand what I feel now. I
know you are too good for me. I don't see why you should ever have
cared for me; but oh! my little Stéphanie, you are just all the
world to me----"
His voice broke, and he turned away down one of the little sunny
paths. But there amongst the roses love came to him at last; for
Stéphanie, with a sudden radiance in her face which sent all the
pride away, ran after him, and he, seeing the radiance, straightway
took her into his arms, and the scent of the roses grew sweet to him
again.
And all the explanation mademoiselle ever saw fit to give of her
many unkind moods was--"You were so masterful, monsieur. You
hammered out love, love, love, and 'you must,' and 'you shall'--till
that day--then you wooed me as I would that I should be wooed."
And he, remembering the words he had overheard when he stood beneath
the garden wall, smiled and thought he understood.
Not all peace was his wooing even now.
His little mistress still had her moods, and was tantalisingly chary
of her soft words and caresses. Moreover, she possessed a will
that had never been thwarted, and she did not understand the words
"shall" and "must," never having had them said to her.
So that, sweet as he found his wooing, at times his brow grew dark;
for he too had a strong will, and it irked him to have to make it
give way to hers.
And at last there came a matter in which he would not yield, and so
they parted.
For mademoiselle declared that always must Ancelles be her home.
"When you are my wife," he said, "you must come with me to my house
in town--in London, you know. What a change it will be for you,
_petite_!"
And then mademoiselle, her eyes kindling, declared that never would
she live elsewhere than at Ancelles.
He was aghast. For to a man, strong of limb and strong of brain, the
life that was a dream amongst the roses could not suffice.
In vain he urged his views upon her. She rebelled against his tone
of authority. At last she stood before him with head erect, and
eyes that flashed on him from under their long lashes.
"Choose," she said peremptorily: "London or me."
"But, child, hear me----"
"I will not hear you. Pray choose at once."
"I would have both----"
With a little scornful laugh she bade him begone.
"Stéphanie----"
She waved her white hand towards the gates of Ancelles.
"You have chosen. Adieu!"
She turned away with a scornful smile on her lips.
He sprang forward.
"Stéphanie, you must--you _shall_ give way to me in this----"
Her small hand clenched.
"Monsieur, allow me to pass!"
He stood aside.
"You will repent," he said.
For an instant she turned her great eyes dark with pride on him.
"_Never!_" she said, and walked away.
* * * * *
At Ancelles the roses still blossomed, the sun still shone, though
not so hotly, on the little twisting paths, the water nymph still
bent gracefully for her dive, and amongst them all flitted their
little mistress. In and out, gayer, more restless, swifter of foot
than even of yore, she wended her way--a laugh ever on her lips,
merry words tripping from her tongue, and hovering near--Jeannette.
"Life is good, Jeannette," cried mademoiselle, and gaily she made
herself a crown of roses.
"Life with love--yes, mamzelle," murmured Jeannette, for she was
getting desperate over the problem as to how long a young girl could
live eating nothing, or next to nothing.
"Love? Bah! Jeannette, what an old sentimentalist you are!"
Yet Jeannette had heard the sharp, indrawn breath that preceded the
mocking words.
And why did mamzelle have to rest half-way up to her room now?
Jeannette had seen her again and again, yet never with
mademoiselle's knowledge.
For if Jeannette were with her, then, setting her little white teeth
closely, mademoiselle did the flights of stairs without a pause;
but Jeannette saw how the small hand, once so disdainful of the
balusters, now clung to the support. She saw how the pretty throat
throbbed, how her bosom heaved, and how the colour left her face;
and, seeing, Jeannette's own face grew grey and lined with care.
"It is a merry world," cried mademoiselle, setting the crown of
roses on her pretty head, "and love is superfluous."
"So is pride, mamzelle."
Up went the small crowned head.
"Pride superfluous, Jeannette?" haughtily. "Nay, it is but proper
and right for those of Ancelles."
Jeannette moistened her dry lips.
"It can be bought too dearly, mamzelle."
"I--do not understand, Jeannette. Surely you are forgetting
yourself?"
The eyes were dangerous, the lips haughty, but Jeannette's love for
her charge overcame the long reserve and terror of those last months.
"Mamzelle, mamzelle, listen to me! He is a good man, and he loves
you well. Without him you will pine a----"
"Pine, Jeannette? _Pine?_" Suddenly she caught the old servant's
wrists between her small, hot hands. "Jeannette," she whispered
passionately, "never speak so again! Do you hear? _I_ pine--_I!_ Am
I sad, Jeannette? Answer me! Are my spirits low?"
"N--no, mamzelle."
"Do I not work and read and play as always?"
"Y--yes, mamzelle."
"Do I ever droop?"
"No----"
"Or sigh?"
"No----"
"Or weep?"
"No----"
"Then what made you speak so, Jeannette?"
"I--I do not know, mamzelle."
Stéphanie dropped her wrist. Her eyes were burning, her cheeks
flushed.
"Then never dare to speak so again," she said, and turned haughtily
away.
And almost directly she burst into a gay little song; and Jeannette,
standing listening, felt the slow tears of age dropping one by one
down her cheeks.
* * * * *
In London Hugh Michelhurst shouldered his way amongst the busy
throng in Piccadilly, and in the fog his thoughts turned to the old
sunny garden at Ancelles. He sighed, then frowned as if such sighing
displeased him. His mouth took a bitter curve as his thoughts
wandered back to the last time he had stood on the little sunny
paths amongst the roses, with Stéphanie at his side.
[Illustration: G. G. Manton
She turned away with a scornful smile.]
Perhaps it was because his thoughts so often wandered in that
direction that his face seemed to have grown harder, his mouth
sterner.
"Four months!" he murmured, "twelve months in a year--say, forty
years--long years! Forty years like these last four months!"
"Forty years, forty years!" rang mockingly in his ears.
Suddenly he paused.
"Forty or a hundred, I will never give in!" he said, and his mouth
looked almost cruel in its set sternness.
* * * * *
Spring had come. A soft, warm, early spring that brought all the
tender flowers peeping out before their time.
And in the warm, trying spring Hugh Michelhurst fell ill of a low
fever.
At the end of May he rose from his sick bed, and refused to be an
invalid any longer.
But his strength was gone from him.
One day he walked out into the country, and his love was strong
on him, so that he bowed his head, and felt weak as a child. And
suddenly a scent was wafted to him on the breeze. He stood and
lifted his head to meet it, and his face worked. On a little cottage
red roses glowed before their time. He had seen none since he was in
the old garden at Ancelles. He stretched out his arms. "I give in,"
he said, and he turned and retraced his steps the way he had come.
* * * * *
In a little sunny path amongst the roses he found her.
"My darling--my darling--I will live here always--only live with
me----"
His voice broke; he could say no more.
With a little fond cry she nestled close to him.
"No, no," she whispered, "I will come away to your London as you
wish."
They sat on the steps leading to the second terrace, and the water
nymph seemed to smile down on them as she bent to take her dive.
They sat side by side, and mademoiselle's pretty head rested against
his shoulder.
[Illustration: G. G. Manton
With a little cry she nestled close to him.]
"But, _petite_, you love your home so----"
"My home is wherever you are, monsieur."
"You did not think so once, _chérie_."
"Ah! but then you were 'shall' and 'must'"--pouting--"and now--now
you are different."
He smiled tenderly. He thought he understood now.
"We will live part of the year here and part in London. There, my
little one--will that do?"
"Ah, yes, perfectly!"
"Come now for a little walk," he said, for he had something in his
mind.
He stopped in one of the twisting paths down which they had so often
wandered, and looked at the old château.
"That ivy is too thick to be healthy," he said, "but" (sighing),
"you like it--it must stop."
Now that same ivy had been the cause of their biggest quarrel before
that last biggest one of all.
"It shall be cut," cried mademoiselle, smiling up at him, "and at
once!"
He looked down into her eyes adoringly.
The scent of the roses wrapped them round with softest sweetness.
He smiled at her tenderly.
Yes, he understood now. He had found the way to rule her.
GREAT ANNIVERSARIES.
_IN APRIL._
April claims an anniversary which all Englishmen are presumed to
honour. April 23rd is St. George's Day, and St. George is the patron
saint of England. Yet he was not, so far as we know, an Englishman.
He is said to have been a centurion in the army of Diocletian, and
to have been roasted alive for pulling down a copy of the decree
ordering the infamous persecution associated with Diocletian's name.
That distinction is disputed in the interests of another person; but
the fact remains that St. George was held in conspicuous honour by
the early Church. His particular place as the patron of the English
dates from the Crusades. The story of George and the Dragon has no
relation to the incident which couples him to the English. Some
authorities have identified this St. George with a certain George
of Cappadocia, Arian Bishop of Alexandria; but Mr. Baring-Gould
rejects with indignation the proposal to confound the patron saint
of England with a heretic. We are on the ground, not of legend, but
of history, in recalling St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, who
was born about 1033. His day is April 21st.
[Illustration: (_Photo: A. F. Colbourne, Canterbury._)
ST. ANSELM'S CHAPEL, CANTERBURY.]
[Illustration: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
(_The Stratford-on-Avon Portrait._)]
[Illustration: WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
(_From the Tablet in Grasmere Church._)]
St. George's Day has memories of other people than the legendary
slayer of the dragon. On April 23rd, 1564, William Shakespeare was
born; on April 23rd, 1616, he died. These, then, are anniversaries
which cannot be overlooked by any person who values literature. Our
pride is qualified by the thought that all the world of intelligence
has taken hold of Shakespeare; he is the possession of educated
mankind. Cervantes does not come of our stock, but in passing it may
be permitted to remember that he died on the same day of the same
year as Shakespeare. It was on St. George's Day, 1850, too, that
William Wordsworth, poet laureate, died. The body of John Keble, the
poet of the Oxford Movement, was laid to rest in Hursley churchyard
on April 6th, 1866. He was deeply influenced by Wordsworth, but
his name still more definitely suggests another English poet--the
saintly George Herbert. He, too, belongs to this month, for he was
born on April 3rd, 1593.
[Illustration: GEORGE HERBERT.]
[Illustration: ROBERT RAIKES.]
George Herbert was related to Lord Herbert of Cherbury, whose
friends included Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesbury, one of the most
distinguished of English philosophers. Hobbes was born on April 5th,
1588. The philosophy afterwards associated with the names of Locke,
Hume, and Priestley owed much to Hobbes. Hume himself--philosopher,
historian, and servant of the State--was born at Edinburgh on April
26th, 1711. Charles Darwin, philosopher and naturalist, died this
month (April 19th, 1882). Few Englishmen have attained to wider
fame; few have ever more profoundly influenced human thought.
[Illustration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.]
Robert Raikes, in virtue of his work in prisons and his share in the
foundation of Sunday schools, deserves long to be held in memory.
Born at Gloucester, he died there suddenly on April 5th, 1811. Could
Raikes have looked into the future, with what astonishment and joy
he would have marked the development in the extent and spirit of
this work, which is indicated by the existence of THE QUIVER Medal
Fund and its rewards to veteran Sunday-school workers! A more modern
and a greater philanthropist also belongs to April. Anthony Ashley
Cooper, seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, was born in Grosvenor Square
on April 28th, 1801. In and out of Parliament, with a zeal which
no opposition and no disappointment could repress, "the good Earl"
worked for the cause of the oppressed, the poor, the sick, the
sinful. He did much directly; perhaps more by the stimulus of his
example.
[Illustration: THE LATE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY.
(_Photo: Russell & Sons, Baker Street, W._)]
Of institutions associated with the month of April, the Royal
Academy is one of the most conspicuous. The Society of Incorporated
Artists held their first exhibition at the Society of Arts, Adelphi,
on April 21st, 1760. From this there sprang the Royal Academy. The
first exhibition of the Academicians was held in Pall Mall on April
26th, 1769. The British Museum has its association with this month,
for it was on April 5th, 1753, that Parliament granted the sum of
£20,000 to the daughters of Sir Hans Sloane, in return for the
collections which were the basis of the museum's vast treasures.
The National Gallery also has its link with April, for it was on
April 9th, 1838, that the present building in Trafalgar Square was
completed and opened.
April has many memories for citizens of the United States. On April
17th, 1790, died Benjamin Franklin, politician, economist, and
natural philosopher; in April, 1861, began the long struggle between
the Northern and Southern States; and on April 14th, 1865, Abraham
Lincoln, perhaps the most striking personality hitherto produced by
the great democracy, was shot by John Wilkes Booth.
[Illustration: A VIEW OF THE NATIONAL GALLERY.]
[Illustration: BROUGHT AGAIN FROM THE DEPTHS.]
_AN EASTERTIDE ADDRESS._
By the Very Rev. W. Lefroy, D.D., Dean of Norwich.
"Thou, which hast showed me great and sore troubles, shalt
quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of
the earth."--PSALM lxxi. 20.
Human history had seen but its infancy when the
announcement was made that man was "born unto trouble, as the
sparks fly upward." And ever since the home of the Arab chief was
devastated; ever since the day that Job's heart was broken by the
intelligence of the Sabean slaughter of his sons and daughters,
followed by a conflagration which stripped him of property, and
made a pauper of a prince; ever since, the dreary wail of woe rends
the air, and the requiem of life sobs and sighs like Eliphaz the
Temanite, "Man is born unto trouble."
Nor can we allow ourselves to question the dictum. The infant's wail
precedes the infant's weal. The cry of helplessness is heard in the
cradle. The child's deep sigh anticipates the child's sweet smile.
And although sunny childhood sometimes passes as if the pitiless law
of hereditary trouble were suspended, yet no serious thinker can
hesitate to accept the proposition, that trouble is in the ratio in
which life's meaning and purpose are experienced, or divine love
accepted and enjoyed. If a man has no trouble, it is because he has
not yet practically realised the significance of existence. He is
still free from those social, domestic, and personal influences, the
derangement of any of which brings agony by day and sleeplessness
by night. Or, again, it may be because he has learnt the loftiest
and yet the lowliest lesson from his Lord, by accepting the Gospel
of Gethsemane, "Thy will be done." But excepting the persons so
classified by social isolation or spiritual resignation, there is
not on earth an exception to the law of the human race being "born
unto trouble." Yea, more. Constituted as we are, we live in the
presence of the grim enigma, that the object which gave us the
highest joy can give us the most excruciating sorrow. Nor can that
existence be anything else than mournful whose happiness or misery
depends upon any earthly object.
This statement may be illustrated by every condition in
life--domestic, physical, intellectual. The genius across whose
mental firmament the lights and shadows of history travelled, and
by whom they were arrested, analysed, and grouped in their course;
the great brain of the great worker whose intrepid excursions into
the realms of the past and the present, with a view to tabulating
the rise of civilisation--the patient and profound Mr. Buckle, is
absorbed by mental enjoyment. He lives, and moves, and has his being
in men and manners, among maps and manuscripts. He makes a grand
discovery. He keeps the secret for twenty years. He repairs to
Damascus to recruit for literary service. He is stricken with fever,
and dies with the words of his intellectuality on his parched lips,
"My book, my book! I shall never finish my book!" Here his highest
joy was his keenest sorrow. So in physical life. There have been
men who seemed at one time as if they were created without nerves.
Their arms were brawny, muscular, and mighty. Their limbs were firm
and fine. They seemed God's highest type of organic life. They
rejoiced in their strength and in their youth. But disease assailed,
or dissipation punished, and retribution appeared in feebleness,
exhaustion, and debility. Youthful feats were forbidden. The sports
of the past recalled a youth of virtue and purity; and then came
the sigh which told that, even physically, the source of our joy
becomes the spring of our sorrow. And need I elaborate details to
establish the place of this doctrine in domestic life? Do we not
know this from the gloomy history of the orphan child, the widowed
mother, the bereaved sister, brother, friend? You know that to love
dearly means to have a skeleton in your house. The object of your
love causes a thousand smiles to play in your eye, and to break
on your countenance; but the shade of that object is mocking your
mirth, and is only waiting a few rounds of the clock to compensate
mirth with misery.
Nor is this all. There are sorrows far more terrible than those of
sickness or the cemetery. A living sorrow defies rivalry. It has a
fearful pre-eminence in woe. A wayward, wild, debauched youth; an
estranged husband; an embittered, irascible, worldly wife; a stormy,
or, what is far worse, a sullen home; these are amongst the darkest
illustrations of the doctrine, that our sighs are in the track of
our smiles; our delights become our dangers; yea, it sometimes seems
as if affection became idiotic, and then, like the raving maniac, we
laugh and cry together. So we are "born to trouble." This being so,
it is important to listen to testimony concerning the remedy which
troubled souls have found efficacious. If we have one such man, able
and willing to give his fellow-sufferers a cure for care, it is
surely prudent to hear what he has to say. Accordingly, let me ask
you to follow me while I try to establish a cure for all afflicted
souls from the experience, conviction, and anticipation of a royal
mourner. I invite you to come with me to the side of a man like one
of us. Listen to him struggling up the great altar-stairs of faith
sustained by love, and, as he peers into the Unseen, he speaks as if
to one warm with life, charged with ardent sympathy, and he says,
"Oh, what troubles and adversities hast Thou shown me; and yet didst
Thou turn and refresh me!"
The first step in this study is to be clear as to the nature of
the troubles God showed David. There was, then, the personal and
the spiritual trouble of backsliding, consequent upon his murder
of Uriah for his base purpose. And here we must discriminate. The
trouble of David about Bathsheba was not sent by God; God permitted
it; but in the heartless and cold-blooded plot in the tyrannical
insolence and diabolical dastardliness of its execution--in the
coarse, callous, and criminal height of its succeeding guilty
rapture--it was of Satan, of sin, of David. For three-quarters of
a year David played fast and loose with God and conscience; and it
was when Nathan scared him that God showed him the trouble. Then
came anguish, remorse, penitence. Then came the sorrowful sighing of
the soul--all the greater in the awakening because it had slept so
soundly and so long. Then came that lamentation over lost virtue,
the penitential Fifty-first Psalm. It is the expression of a man
lacerated by conscience. He seems to bleed at every pore. The
agitation and alarm and agony are piteous beyond description. He
appears in this psalm to look in every direction, and the ghost of
his crime haunts him. Within, without, above, below, behind, beyond,
he can see the furies of justice as the embassied troublers of his
life. Original depravity, actual outrage, a heart black with the
Egyptian darkness of fostered treachery, the warrior slaughtered
by his mandate, the blood-guiltiness staining his soul, and then
the wail ringing in the ears of God, "Cast me not away from Thy
presence; and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me"--all these may be
compared to a spiritual chamber of horrors, in which David found
himself after the startling visit of Nathan.
These were some of the troubles God showed him. And their cause
introduced more of a domestic, not to say of a political, kind. The
sin brought scandal and reproach on the Church of God. The enemies
blasphemed. Then Jehovah, vindicating His character for justice
before the world, avenging the atrocious murder of Uriah, sent a
series of domestic afflictions upon David unparalleled in human
experience. One scene--a nameless scene--has its miserable match
in the brutal bestiality of the Empire, when the sceptre of Rome
was in the hands of a corpse. But the other experiences are easily
related. They are as the outcome of a curse which hung heavily on
the royal house. Amnon, the eldest son, was slain by young Absalom,
who waited two years for an opportunity. This severed Absalom from
home for three years. He then, by a singular artifice, returned,
and won the hearts of the people by his consummate and accomplished
address, his handsome presence, and adroit demeanour. His aged
and royal father's statesmen proved false to the king, and one in
particular advised the murder of David and a revolution. At length
the conspiracy grew in defiance and dimension. David was obliged
to flee from the capital. His flight was far more humiliating than
that of the French emperor from Paris. Napoleon had not to mourn
over the treason of his son as the cause of his exile. This was
David's anguish. He ascended the Mount of Olives and looked back
upon the city of palaces he had founded and ornamented--the seat
for a generation of his power, his glory, his happiness. He was
leaving it a miserable fugitive, driven forth by the nation he had
established and the child he had reared. He could not, he did not,
disguise his sorrow. With bared head and uncovered feet the exile
began his pilgrimage, and every step the old king took recalled the
crime and sin of earlier years, while it remained for one Shimei
to load him with the bitterest and most contemptuous execrations.
Then came the crisis. Such of the army as remained loyal engaged in
battle with the revolutionary forces attracted to Absalom. David
begged that his unhappy son might be spared in the conflict. The war
began and issued in the success of the royalists. The first question
of the venerable monarch was, "Is the young man Absalom safe?"
He then learnt that order was re-established, but at the cost of
Absalom's life. He was accidentally hanged, and while hanging he was
speared by David's commander-in-chief.
These are amongst the troubles--political, domestic, and
spiritual--which God permitted to fall upon David; and yet this
very David has courage amid the havoc of holiness, the misery of
exile, the torture of outraged parental affection, and political
insurrection. That courageous confidence is in a person: he
realises God. This conviction is unshaken amid his chequered life
and history; indeed, all through the din of revolution, the grief
of a homeless and worse than childless existence, there is one
ever-recurring belief: "God my help," "God my refuge," "God my
shield." In this belief he brings back to God every trouble God
sent to him. Hence we have these psalms, written by David, as agony
after agony swept in upon his soul. Nor did it seem to signify how
different one sorrow might be from another. The old cry, the same
cry, is raised to a personal God. When Saul sought his life through
jealousy; when Jonathan was slain in battle; when he himself had
fallen into sin, and then was aroused--now by the whisperings of
reclaiming grace, now by the booming billows of divine justice; when
he bowed his head in shame, and the fierce light that beat about
his court gleamed on his dark soul; when he tottered up the heights
of Olivet, an impotent outcast, betrayed by his courtiers, deserted
by his troops, and exiled by the unnatural rebellion and heartless
perfidy of his son--in these experiences, so fearful, overwhelming,
and varied, he saw God showing him the trouble. As the hand that
sent it was ever the same, so from the heart that received it there
arose ever and anon the same plea--"Have mercy upon me, O Lord";
"Make haste to help me"; "O Lord, make no long tarrying"; "I am
poor and needy"; "O be not Thou far from me, for trouble is near
at hand." And then, as if realising the apostasy, desertion, and
faithlessness of his friends and forces, he adds, "There is none to
help."
We know how these earnest and anxious entreaties were heard: "Thou
didst turn and refresh me"; "Through Thee have I been holden up
ever since I was born"; "My mouth shall speak of Thy salvation
all the day long; for I know no end thereof." But further.
This acknowledgment of God as a "very present help in trouble"
is followed by a prophecy, and that of nothing less than the
resurrection--"Thou shalt bring me up again from the depths of the
earth"; so that David's sorrow, when brought humbly and heartily
to God, was followed by divine refreshment then, and hope of
resurrection hereafter. And a well-founded hope it was, because the
trouble sent by God produced a grand moral result when laid before
Him Who sent it. It had a purifying influence which made his mind
speed on to the resurrection day. In its anticipation he was but
yielding to the influence of a life higher than that he lived before
his sorrow, and which sought enjoyment and exercise loftier and
still loftier. This he, by faith, foresaw, in the anticipation of
that rest to which his trouble sent him, and for the appreciation of
which his trouble purified him.
So we have here in the spiritual world an instructive and
encouraging illustration of what frequently occurs in the physical.
We have purification by pain; refreshment out of ruin. So have I
seen this grand law asserting the governance of its God in those
Alpine crags on which the stars seem to pause. There on those
storm-scalped peaks the climber feasts on the panorama spread by
God's own hand, in winding river, sapphire lake, everlasting hill,
sentinelled by a forest of pines, dressed in the matchless sombre
of Alpine green or shrouded by the spotless snows of heaven. I have
witnessed the troubles of the atmosphere. The bursting rain-cloud
hangs low, the light recedes, the darkness deepens, the wind moans;
and then the full-toned thunder roars, and the long lines of fire,
angular and electric, leap from fissures in the firmament. The
artillery of the elements is deafening, and its echoes rumble
in the distance like the mutterings of imprisoned spirits. The
storm is over. The calm succeeds. The clouds become brighter and
brighter still. The sun peeps out here and there in a rift of the
heavens. The air is fresh and keen and pure. The vegetation is
bright and green. The rivulets and mountain torrents ripple and rush
rejoicing. As we see this, we are reminded of the analogies of God's
government; yea, if we could put a preacher on every peak, a tongue
in every valley, Nature would minister to grace, and from each would
come the response of the royal poet to the call of God. The world
physical would raise the ecstatic antiphon to the world spiritual:
"O what great troubles and adversities hast Thou showed me, and yet
didst Thou turn and refresh me!"
But these words have a still richer meaning in their bearing upon
the religious fortunes of the Hebrew race, the Messianic glory of
the Redeemer, and the present and future position of His believing
people. I believe that Israel's troubles are to issue in Israel's
refreshment, and even in national resurrection. Her captivities
and dispersions, her degradation and exile, are but the preludes
to her rise, return, and splendour. God has sworn it; His word is
bound to it. His promise is as certain as though it were performed.
But we may merely mention this as a conviction, in order to pass
on and recognise in these words the history of Jesus Christ. From
that cradle and cottage home; from that carpenter's bench where
He toiled; from that country, with its hills and dales, and lanes
and lakes, where He preached; from the Temple which He glorified
and abrogated; from the cross where He died; from the tomb which
He vacated; from the throne of mediation, where He sympathises,
intercedes and governs; from earth below, and heaven above, the
voice of Jesus sounds o'er land and sea, filling angelic souls with
adoration, and human hearts with hope, announcing, "O what great
troubles and adversities hast Thou showed Me!" He was betrayed,
despised, and rejected. He looked for some to have pity on Him,
but there was no man; neither found He any to comfort Him. He was
maligned and misunderstood. The malice of His enemies omitted but
one sin in their resolve to blacken His character, and it remained
for the patronising blasphemy of Renan to insinuate that one as
possible. He was accused of deceit, though infallible; He was
slandered as a drunkard, though immaculate; yea, the detraction
of His foes did not spare Him the agony of being charged with the
commission of a sin as disgusting as it is brutal--that of gluttony.
He was arraigned as a felon, and died as an impostor. But beyond
all was the sin of which these were but the symptoms. This was the
trouble, "great and sore," which God showed Him. This was the agony
of agonies to the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. Its fell pressure
is the meaning of the tradition that Jesus was often seen to weep,
but never once to smile. To this trouble we trace the overpowering
experiences of the fainting, prostrate Christ in the garden; of
the wailing and woe-bearing Christ on the cross. Yet there was the
refreshment; there was behind it all the unchangeable love of God
the Father--"Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down
My Life that I might take it again." There was the satisfaction of
His soul, in saving the race He died to redeem by representation;
there was, above all, the guarantee of that redemption in being
brought "from the depths of the earth again."
And if we were to follow the history of His Church, that history
would be a living commentary on the experience of David and of
David's Lord: divinely sent trouble, divinely sought and divinely
sent refreshment, issuing in spiritual resurrection. Is not this
the account many have to give of sorrow, succour, and salvation?
You were weak: you are now strong. You were "choked with cares,"
and sought relief in a flood of tears: you are now able to leave
the burden of your cares with Him Who "careth for you"; while your
eyes, once red with agony, are now bright with praise, gratitude,
and hope. Remembering what you were, and now recognising what you
are, you may adopt the language of David, "I am become a wonder
unto many, but my sure trust is in Thee"; or, taking a fuller view
and a finer tone, you will ring out the litany of deliverance, and
chant the song of praise and blessing, "O what great troubles and
adversities has Thou showed me; and yet didst Thou turn and refresh
me."
This present refreshment is a prophecy of future resurrection. It
leads all the afflicted children of God on to the grand climax in
sin, sorrow, and all the trouble to which we are born. Then the cup
of universal affliction shall be full. The waters of our pilgrimage
shall be sweetened, and changed into the bright, clear, rosy wine of
immortality. Then farewell, sorrow; farewell, weakness; agony, ache,
desolation, and sin, we bid you a final and a glad farewell. Then
shall rise upon this scene of change and uncertainty, where pain
and pleasure are so intermingled and combined, the sun that knows
no setting, the everlasting day that knows no night. Then shall the
children of God, the "children of the resurrection," gathered from
every known and unknown region, race, and age, rise to the rapture
of the saints, and, defying the immeasurable weight of all the
ocean's pressure--for the sea shall give up its dead--shattering
the manacles with which corruption had long bound the germ of
incorruption, they shall "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,"
greet the Saviour Who loved them, with a greeting worthy the Lamb
that was slain; worthy the grandest event in the annals of earth
and heaven; while high above the din of the last crash of worlds,
yea, louder than the storm which marches on the ruins of creation,
shall rise the anthem of royal and even wretched and relieved
experience--"Thou hast brought me from the depths of the earth
again."
[Illustration: FOR THE SAKE OF HER CHILD]
By Scott Graham, Author of "The Link between Them," Etc.
CHAPTER VII.
_The Pity of It._
On Saturday night, in that same week, Harold sallied
forth at dusk, with a bulky brown-paper parcel under his arm,
containing a pair of boots which he was taking by stealth to a
humble cobbler in a back alley to mend.
Just because he fervently desired not to meet anybody he knew, as he
turned a corner he almost ran into the arms of May Burnside; who,
on seeing him, appeared confused. He stopped and tried to conceal
his parcel as well as he could, whilst talking volubly; and May
stammered and fidgeted, like one detected in a guilty enterprise.
Her aunt had that day presented her with half-a-crown; and, wishing
to make a frock for Doris, she was on her way to buy some wonderful
material she had seen marked fourpence three-farthings in a cheap,
common shop she would not have cared to enter by daylight. Miss
Waller would have fainted at the idea of her niece being seen going
into Whittaker's, where everything was ticketed "Alarming Sacrifice!"
So, the boots weighing on his uneasy conscience, and the fourpence
three-farthings on hers, they continued to blush and stammer until
Harold summoned up courage to say that it was rather late, and, if
Mrs. Burnside was going home, he would escort her, if she wished.
She hesitated, loth to lose the chance of bargain, and then said--
"My aunt is dining out, so I need not hurry back; and I wanted to
go to a shop--Whittaker's, do you know it? I buy rubbish there
occasionally."
He did know the shop, which was close to the alley wherein dwelt his
old cobbler. "If you don't mind," he said eagerly, "I'll leave you a
moment, whilst I do an errand hard by, and meet you when you've done
your shopping."
So he went off, delighted at solving the problem of the boots; for
no man appears to advantage when hugging a clumsy parcel. Having
duly effected her purchase, May rejoined him, and, as they strolled
towards Victoria Square, informed him that they were starting for
London on Monday. "I know I shall hate it!" she added, with a sigh.
He sighed too; but what could he say or do, bound as he was, hand
and foot? "July _is_ rather hot for London," he answered discreetly.
"Lulu wrote yesterday, and may I suggest, if you have leisure, she
would be delighted if you called to see her? I will give you her
address. The flat is very tiny, of course, but----"
"But infinitely preferable, I am sure, to Victoria Square!" retorted
May bitterly. The burden of life seemed intolerable that evening.
"Are you, then, so unhappy there?" he asked, startled. "How I
wish----"
He checked himself hastily, and May stifled a sob which rose in her
throat. "Very few people are quite happy, it seems to me," she said,
trying to speak calmly. "There is always something."
"Yes, but you--_you_ ought to be happy, if there were any justice
in the world!" he burst out impetuously. "You deserve a sunny,
sheltered life, free from worry and care. Will you believe it is
the hardest of my trials to be able to offer you nothing but barren
sympathy?"
"It is very good of you to sympathise with me," May murmured
gratefully. "So few people do. They look at my clothes, and decide
that anybody dressed as I am, and living in Victoria Square, _must_
be happy. 'Lucky Mrs. Burnside!' they call me."
He remembered how enviable, in the early days of their acquaintance,
May had seemed to him, and thought how mistaken are the judgments of
this world. A great pity swelled his heart as she said "Good-bye";
and he tramped back to his dreary rooms doubly depressed, both on
her account and his own. How he longed to be able to free her from
her shackles, and offer her a happy home, independent of Miss Waller!
* * * * *
"I must say, May, nobody would think you were going to London to
enjoy yourself. Do, for goodness' sake, try to look a little more
cheerful!" said Miss Waller sharply, as they took their seats in
a reserved first-class carriage on the Monday. Mr. Lang, to May's
great relief, had returned to town three days before, so they were
spared his company. "You are the most ungrateful girl I ever knew."
[Illustration: "Do try to look a little more cheerful!"]
"I'm sorry you think so, aunt, but----"
"It would serve you right if I washed my hands of you entirely,"
continued the irate spinster. "But I am too kind-hearted; my sense
of duty restrains me. I should be better off now, if I'd been more
selfish and less considerate for others. But I'm well aware it's
useless to expect gratitude in _this_ world."
And, with a heartfelt sigh for the wickedness of this generation,
Miss Waller arranged the air-cushion more comfortably at her back,
and, placing her daintily shod feet on the opposite seat, commenced
to study a newspaper. May sat watching the deep-green summer
landscape flit by, with pretty much the same feelings as a convict
might experience while going down to Portland guarded by warders.
The knowledge that Mr. Lang awaited them at the end of the journey
took all the colour out of the blue sky; and the sleek cattle
standing knee-deep in water beneath the willows, seemed to mock her
by their animal freedom from care. For herself, she cared little;
but there was Doris to consider, and the thought of her helpless
child harassed her throughout that miserable journey.
CHAPTER VIII.
_The Recluse._
Enforced idleness is, to an active mind, the greatest misery
conceivable. Harold Inglis had in him a vast capacity for work, and
therefore found it doubly bitter to have to spend his days lounging
about, waiting for the patients who never came. He was afraid to go
out lest he should miss a summons, and unable to sit down to read
or write, so continually did he find himself listening for a ring
at the bell and Ann's voice announcing a patient. He could not even
tranquillise himself with tobacco, for he had given up smoking on
account of the expense.
He returned from an errand one afternoon to find an elderly
manservant waiting with the intimation that Sir Edward Vane, of The
Towers, was ill, and would like to see him. He knew Sir Edward by
name as a wealthy and eccentric recluse, who lived alone in a big
house just outside the town, and was liberal in doctors' fees. Not
a little flattered, he promised to come immediately, and was about
to turn in at the lodge gate at The Towers, when he encountered Dr.
Selwyn, another local medical man, with whom he was acquainted.
"Been sent for by Sir Edward, eh?" asked Selwyn, with a broad grin.
"Yes."
"Wish you joy. You may not know it, but he's already tried every
doctor in Beachbourne, and quarrelled with them all in succession. I
wouldn't attend him again for any money. Good-bye, and good luck to
you!"
In some trepidation, Harold knocked, and was admitted through a
handsome hall into a spacious sitting-room, littered with almost
every conceivable object. On a sofa reclined a grey-haired man
about sixty, whose tanned face, speaking of long residence in the
tropics, was disfigured by a look of fretful ill-health. A retired
Anglo-Indian, distinguished in the Civil Service, Sir Edward had
seen more of the world than most men.
"You're not in partnership with anybody here, are you?" he asked,
when Harold had examined him carefully.
"No."
"All the better. A more wretched lot of impostors than the
Beachbourne doctors I never came across. For years they've been
tinkering at me, and, after all, I'm worse, instead of better. What
are doctors for, if they can't cure one?"
Harold was discreetly silent. Sir Edward had a complication of
maladies, beyond any medical skill to remedy.
"My father lived to be ninety," continued the invalid. "And why
can't I?"
"I don't think, for my part, I should wish to be so old as that,"
diffidently returned Harold. "It must be so sad to outlive all one's
friends."
"I have no friends," was the grim reply. "Only some greedy
relations, eager for my money. I've a good deal to leave," he added,
looking keenly at Harold. "And when I take a fancy to people,
I'm liberal----They say here that I'm always quarrelling with my
doctors; but it's the doctors who quarrel with me, and will air
their own particular fads, instead of trying to cure me. Are you
married?" he asked abruptly.
"No."
"A good thing, too; you've more time to attend to your patients.
Hewett used to bore me talking by the hour about that ugly wife of
his. Do you understand fossils, and such things? My room's in an
awful mess, as you see, and I should like to have the specimens
arranged a bit; but I can't trust the servants."
The place was indeed crammed with all sorts of curios, many
exceedingly valuable. By continually asking for one possession after
another, Sir Edward had ended by accumulating all his treasures
in this one room, which he never left, save for his bedchamber
adjoining. A most untidy place it was; the curiosities being heaped
on chairs, shelves, and the floor, without any method.
"I am very fond of fossils; and if you wish them arranged, it would
give me great pleasure to help."
"Hewett wanted me to make a clean sweep of them; interfered with the
flow of his precious fresh air. Like his ignorance! Did he think I
wanted to sit and stare at an ugly wall-paper all day when I was
tired of reading?"
"Do you read much?"
"Yes; chiefly Sanskrit. In _my_ day, Indian officials had to be not
only gentlemen but scholars. Well," as Harold rose to go, "I'll have
your prescription made up, and shall expect you again to-morrow."
"I will come, and hope the pain will be easier then." He detailed
the treatment he desired, and was giving a few final directions when
the manservant opened the door. "Miss Geare has called, sir. Will
you see her?"
"Oh dear!" pettishly exclaimed Sir Edward. "She'll stay an hour,
prosing about her dogs. For mercy's sake, don't go!" detaining
Harold. "Help me to entertain her, and get her away soon! She was to
have been my sister-in-law, having been engaged to my brother Adrian
years ago; and since in an evil hour I settled at Beachbourne, I've
been fairly persecuted by her."
In another minute the little lady tripped smilingly in.
"Well, Edward dear, how are you now? I heard you were not well, so I
just came to inquire."
"I'm better now, thank you," returned Sir Edward gruffly. "I've
given Hewett the sack, and this is my new doctor--Dr. Inglis. Do you
know him?"
"Oh, yes, he has been attending me. I'm sure he has done me good,
and I hope you'll benefit also, Edward. You can't _think_ how kind
Dr. Inglis was to my darling Bijou when he broke his leg!"
"Having attended Bijou, it, of course, follows that Dr. Inglis will
cure me," sneered Sir Edward. "How is the amiable Miss Pepper?"
"She's waiting outside with the dogs, as you said you wouldn't have
her here. She's a faithful creature; I wish you liked her a little
better, Edward dear."
"I never was fond of vinegar, Catherine."
"Oh, don't be so sarcastic, Edward! I never was clever; but you make
me feel like a little girl again, when my governess scolded me."
There were tears in the watery blue eyes; but they did not seem to
touch Sir Edward. "The remedy, my dear Catherine, is exceedingly
simple," he blandly rejoined. "I know I'm a curmudgeon, unfit to
associate with such an angel as you. Why then should you inflict
upon yourself the unpleasantness of coming here? Why not stay away,
to enjoy the more congenial society of Miss Pepper and the dogs?"
"So you don't want me, Edward? I think you're very unkind," returned
Miss Geare, evidently wounded, but with a patient dignity Harold had
not expected. He noticed that ever since she entered her gaze had
wandered, at intervals, to an oil-painting of a fine-looking young
man in uniform which hung over the mantelpiece. "But I know better
than to take you at your word. You are all I have left--my dear
Adrian's brother--and----" She broke down, and wiped the slow tears
of age from her eyes.
Sir Edward gave an impatient sigh, and Harold interposed. "Allow me
to remind you, Miss Geare, that my patient has had a very severe
attack, and the quieter he is the better. Everything depends on
that. I must go home now; and may I request the pleasure of your
company to the gate, if you are ready?"
"Yes, do go home to Bijou!" fretfully murmured the invalid. And Miss
Geare, after bestowing an affectionate farewell on the unresponsive
Sir Edward, allowed Harold to politely conduct her to the lodge gate.
"Poor Edward!" she began, as they went down the drive, "he allows
illness to sour his temper, and it's such a pity! But I take no
notice--he's my dear Adrian's only brother, and I can't bear
to stay away from the house. Did you see the portrait over the
mantelpiece?--that was my Adrian. I was young, and pretty too, in
those days, though you mayn't believe it----"
"I quite believe it," said Harold kindly, touched by the spectacle
of this forlorn old age.
"Adrian was so proud of Edward. He was so much thought of in India,
and is very, very clever--but not equal to my Adrian--oh, no; nobody
ever could be as handsome and noble as he was! When I heard he was
killed in the Mutiny, I thought I should die too; I think it must
have killed something inside me, for I've never been the same since.
I get confused, and I can't remember things----Yes, I'm coming.
Very sorry to have kept you waiting."
The humble apology was to Miss Pepper, who, with a most unamiable
countenance, was standing just outside the gate. Miss Geare hastily
said farewell, and Harold could hear her companion scolding her
vigorously as they went down the road. But, as he thought of the
faded, antique love story which had ended so tragically, he could
not but feel sorry for poor little eccentric Miss Geare--it was so
evident that the best part of her had been buried in her lover's
grave. Her eyes must have been rather like May's, he thought, before
sorrow had given them that vacant expression; and then he wondered,
for the hundredth time, what Mrs. Burnside was doing in London, and
whether she thought of him as often as he did of her.
CHAPTER IX.
_Vanitas Vanitatum._
Arrived in London, all May's worst anticipations were realised; for
Mr. Lang accompanied them everywhere, and she had not a minute to
call her own. He assumed an air of proprietorship which made her
blood boil. "You ought to do this, Mrs. Burnside--you should see
that," he repeated from morning till night; and, as Miss Waller
invariably pronounced all his suggestions charming, it was useless
for May to rebel.
So London proved the same weary old story over again--a life of
outward glitter and show, of softly rolling carriages, of sumptuous
dinners, and reserved seats; and within, dust and ashes, and Dead
Sea fruit! May talked and smiled, but it was mechanically; her heart
was far away.
She asserted herself sufficiently, however, to declare her intention
of calling upon the Inglis girls in their flat in West Kensington.
She had written to Lulu, who sent her a pressing invitation to come
on Saturday afternoon, when they were at leisure.
Miss Waller instantly denounced the scheme as a wild-goose chase,
asserting that May was certain to lose her way. They were still
discussing it when Mr. Lang came in from Palace Gardens, as he
usually did first thing in the morning, ostensibly to ask what they
wished to do, but really to order them about at his sovereign will
and pleasure. "Well, ladies, what's the programme for to-day?" he
began.
May turned round from the window of the handsome drawing-room for
which her aunt was paying a small fortune, thinking, as the morning
sunlight fell upon his podgy figure, that Mr. Lang grew uglier and
more common-looking every day. "I have promised to go and see my
friends the Inglises this afternoon," she announced firmly.
[Illustration: "This is my new doctor--Dr. Inglis."--_p. 509._]
"And who may the Inglises be?"
"Some girls who live at West Kensington," returned May, colouring at
his lordly tone.
"Their brother is a doctor--a very unsuccessful one at Beachbourne,"
put in Miss Waller irritably. "They are very poor, and live in a
poky flat. What May can see in them I can't imagine; and I'm sure
she'll get lost if she goes alone."
"I can take a cab, aunt." By a perfect miracle she had a few
shillings in her pocket.
"I'll tell you what," pompously proclaimed Mr. Lang. "You shall go
in a cab, Mrs. Burnside, if you really must, and I'll call and bring
you back in my carriage. Eh, Miss Waller?"
"Oh, what a splendid idea!" gushed the spinster, brightening; and,
though May protested earnestly against troubling Mr. Lang, he
was resolute. Then he carried them off to inspect a picture in a
Bond Street shop which took his fancy--a seapiece, with violently
ultramarine waves tumbling about the canvas. May considered it
a most irritating production, and boldly said so; for, despite
her aunt's frowns, she refused to flatter Mr. Lang. He took her
criticism very good-naturedly, however, and insisted on their coming
to luncheon with him at a fashionable Regent Street restaurant,
where only African millionaires and suchlike could afford to go.
But at length May's ordeal was over, and she drew a great breath of
relief as the lift deposited her at No. 18, Windermere Mansions.
Lulu herself admitted her, evidently delighted to see her, and
announced that just then she was alone.
"Esther isn't back yet, but I expect her every minute," she
explained. "Mabel, our chum, has gone to see some friends. We don't
keep a servant, but a charwoman comes morning and evening. Our flat
is a mere cupboard, as you see; but, such as it is, you are very
welcome."
She conducted May over it, and tiny it certainly was; only one
sitting-room, a speck of a kitchen, three small bedrooms, and a
bathroom. But it was very comfortable and homelike; and, though many
of the articles were merely of wicker and bamboo, it was furnished
with a taste which betrayed the instincts of gentlewomen.
"How I envy you!" exclaimed May, as she sank into a chair in the
cosy little sitting-room. And then, to Lulu's consternation and to
her own intense disgust, she burst into tears.
Lulu looked quite alarmed; for the modern girl reserves all such
exhibitions for the privacy of her own apartment, and tears and
hysterics are as much out of fashion nowadays as poke bonnets and
sandalled shoes. It is not that the new girl can't feel, but that
she considers it undignified to cry.
[Illustration: To Lulu's consternation ... she burst into tears.]
"Forgive me," apologised May, blushing furiously. "I'm
overtired--I've been doing too much in this heat. I feel quite
ashamed to be so foolish."
"We'll have tea directly Esther comes; that will revive you,"
replied Lulu cheerfully and she proceeded to light a dainty
spirit-kettle which formed part of a most inviting tea equipage. May
watched her enviously, thinking how sweet and homelike it all was.
She had never known a real home since leaving her father's house.
Her married life was a horrible nightmare, and Victoria Square
was little better; and if she yielded to pressure and married Mr.
Lang----But no! that would not bear thinking of!
"There's Esther!" cried Lulu eagerly, as a latch-key clicked in the
hall door.
May had expected to find Miss Inglis handsome; but she was not
prepared for such a young goddess as now swept into the room,
with a stride of long, well-knit limbs which made the place seem
ludicrously small. Esther Inglis would have attracted notice
anywhere, with her splendid, keen-cut, dark face and stately poise
of head; and her family might well be proud of her.
She was better dressed than Lulu, in a plain but well-fitting gown
which was very becoming.
"Tired, dear?" asked Lulu affectionately, as her sister, after
greeting May, reclined her tall figure in a basket-chair.
"Rather; that is, I've a Saturday afternoon kind of feeling.
The office was very hot, and the new man can't quite manage the
telephone. Where's Mabel?"
"Gone to see her friends at Richmond. Give me your hat, dear."
She removed her sister's outdoor garb with a deft motherliness which
charmed May. Miss Inglis was clearly accustomed to being waited
upon; but it seemed quite natural, with her splendid face and figure.
CHAPTER X.
_Mr. Lang meets his Match._
"And how is Harold, Mrs. Burnside?" Esther asked as they sipped
their tea.
May gave as favourable an account of his progress as she could,
to which Miss Inglis listened thoughtfully. "I'm afraid he has an
uphill struggle before him, poor old fellow! Without capital, it
seems to me, you can do nothing nowadays? Are there many doctors at
Beachbourne?"
"A good many; and, of course, it takes time to make a practice."
"It's always the same old story--want of money!" sighed Esther
pessimistically. "Nowadays the competition is something dreadful;
and what will it be for the next generation?"
"Why, Esther, you seem in rather a croaking mood!" remonstrated Lulu.
"Well, my dear, going about daily in trains and omnibuses, and
having to run the gauntlet of every man who thinks that because a
girl works for her living she can't possibly be a lady, doesn't tend
to sweeten one's view of life."
"I suppose there are annoyances in every lot," diffidently put in
May. "But there are--there really are--worse things than being
obliged to earn one's living. You must be so happy here, able to do
just as you like, with nobody to worry you."
Esther's brow cleared. "Yes, it's something to be independent,
nowadays. And it's too bad to bore you with my grumbles, Mrs.
Burnside. I don't often indulge in complaints, do I, Lulu? We three
really have a jolly time here; and my salary is to be raised twenty
pounds a year, beginning from next month."
"Oh, Esther, how splendid!"
"Yes, we must go on the river, or have some dissipation to celebrate
it. Oh! who can that be?" as a loud knock resounded at the outer
door.
"My aunt thought I might get lost, and a friend of ours--Mr.
Lang--offered to call for me," said May, flushing. "He is earlier
than I expected--I hope you don't mind his coming?"
"Oh, dear, no!" nonchalantly responded Esther, as Lulu bustled
out to admit Mr. Lang, who entered with his usual bumptious
self-confidence. But when his eyes fell upon the superb figure of
Esther, he was palpably surprised.
May introduced him; but, while Lulu gave him a friendly greeting,
Esther barely condescended to acknowledge his existence. Miss
Inglis, late of Mallowfield Hall, was not to be put down by a vulgar
plutocrat.
"I must apologise for coming rather early, Mrs. Burnside," he began,
"but I didn't quite know how long it would take to get here; I never
was in this neighbourhood before. Don't you find it rather out of
the way?" he continued, addressing Esther.
"It _is_ rather inconvenient, especially as we don't keep a
carriage," she coolly returned. A keen observer of human nature, she
had taken Mr. Lang's measure in one haughty glance.
"Nice little place, though," he added patronisingly, intending to be
very polite. "That drapery over the mantelpiece is a good idea. Did
Liberty do it?"
"I did it myself, with a few yards of cheap cretonne and an ounce of
tin-tacks."
"Really! How clever!" he exclaimed, not perceiving that Esther was
covertly laughing at him. "Old miniatures, too! Are you a collector?
I am; I've got some lovely Cosways."
"Oh, dear, no! these are only some of our ancestors. My father has
the best ones, down in Cornwall."
"I've rather a good collection at my house in Palace Gardens. You've
seen them, haven't you, Mrs. Burnside? It would give me great
pleasure to show them to your young friends, if they care to call
some day."
"Thank you; my sister and I are working all day, and have very
little time. I am not specially interested in miniatures, except
those belonging to our family," replied Esther coldly. May inwardly
rejoiced at seeing Mr. Lang meet his match for once.
"I believe you have a brother out in South Africa?" presently asked
Mr. Lang, turning to Lulu.
"Yes, at Johannesburg. He's on the staff of the Victorina Mine."
"I believe I've met him somewhere. Rather good-looking, with dark
hair, isn't he? He must know me; I'm so well known out there
in connection with the Springkloof Mine. Have you heard of the
Springkloof, Miss Inglis?"
"Yes," answered that superb young lady, fixing her eyes steadily on
him. "I have heard a good deal about it from Jack. He was over in
England last summer."
"I'm often going backwards and forwards to Johannesburg," continued
Mr. Lang; "I should be glad at any time to take charge of any
parcels or letters for your brother, if you will let me know. This
is my London address," and he laid his card on the table.
"Thank you, we couldn't think of troubling you."
"No trouble, I assure you. I should be very glad to oblige any--any
of Mrs. Burnside's friends."
May crimsoned beneath his significant glance and the scarcely veiled
scorn on Esther's fine face. How these girls must despise her for
associating with this horrible man! Unable to bear it any longer,
she rose to take leave.
"I hope we shall meet again before you go," Lulu said wistfully;
but May dared not press them to come and see her aunt, knowing they
would only meet a chilly reception from Miss Waller. "I will write
and let you know," she answered hurriedly.
"Perhaps you young ladies might like a drive in the Park
occasionally?" suggested Mr. Lang. "I'd be very happy to send my
carriage."
"Thank you," responded Esther, who appeared to be spokeswoman on all
occasions. "My sister and I work for our living, and have no time
for such dissipations. I am employed in a City office."
"Then it's a shame you should have to work--that's all I can say,"
warmly rejoined Mr. Lang. "A woman's place is at home, in a handsome
drawing-room, with every comfort about her--not jostling about in
the crowd with men."
"Handsome drawing-rooms and an idle life are not within the reach of
every woman, nowadays, Mr. Lang," coldly responded Esther, as they
shook hands; and the next minute the door closed behind them.
"Horrid man!" cried Esther wrathfully, when the visitors had gone.
"Didn't his insufferable patronage make your blood boil? He might
well ask if we knew him by name; of course, we do--too well, for,
according to Jack, the Springkloof Mine was a byword on the Randt,
from the way in which the original owners were cheated out of the
property by Mr. Lang and his syndicate. I remember he mentioned this
Lang as a man who was well known at Johannesburg to have mixed in
many shady transactions."
"What a pity that nice Mrs. Burnside should be obliged to associate
with him! He evidently admires her; but, to tell you a secret,
Esther, there's somebody who admires her even more--and that's
Harold."
"Poor Harold! How can he ever afford to marry? Mrs. Burnside is
dependent on her aunt for everything, isn't she?"
"Yes, and her aunt intends her to marry Mr. Lang. Poor thing! I can
see she is simply miserable at the idea of it."
Esther took up Mr. Lang's card, to read the address. "He might well
say West Kensington was out of the way! If he ever comes again--I
don't mean to be at home." And she tore it into the smallest
fragments.
CHAPTER XI.
_On the Island._
"This is what I call perfectly delightful," pronounced Miss Waller
solemnly. She looked meaningly at May, who stood near, looking her
best in pale blue, with a big white hat, but her niece pretended not
to hear.
A week had elapsed since Mrs. Burnside's visit to the Inglis
girls; and it was again Saturday afternoon. It had been a week of
absolutely tropical heat, exhausting to a degree; and Mr. Lang,
noticing May's pale cheeks, had proposed a trip up the river in his
steam-launch. So, with their mutual friends the Wingates, and some
other people, they were now bound for an island some distance above
Kingston, where they intended to land and have tea.
After the scorching and crowded streets, the river, with its green,
tree-shaded banks, was indeed a pleasant change; and, had she been
free from care, May would have greatly enjoyed watching the numerous
gay boats and launches filled with happy holiday-makers. But the
presence of Mr. Lang--vulgar, fussy, and pretentious--spoiled
everything, and she avoided him as much as possible, greatly to her
aunt's disgust.
The island at which they presently arrived was very small; and
so crowded with people that at another time the scene would have
amused May. They landed with some difficulty, amid the crowd of
skiffs, punts, and canoes, which were moored to the banks; and had
to walk warily, not to tread upon their late occupants, who were
now grouped round every variety of tea equipage, arrayed in every
kind of costume. One or two people, ostentatious like themselves,
were attended by liveried servants to turn the whole thing into
a burlesque; but the great mass had spread their tea with their
own hands, and it was comical to see how their ideas of a picnic
varied. Here would be a homely meal with thick enamelled tea-things,
huge chunks of bread-and-butter, and shrimps or watercress for a
relish. Next door would be an aristocratic party with a silver
teapot, fairy-like china, expensive cakes, and fruit on artistic
dessert plates. Here a stout materfamilias, purple with the heat,
struggled to satisfy her hungry brood of eight with hastily buttered
rolls; there a pair of lovers, oblivious of all else, sat partaking
of nectar and ambrosia, in imagination a thousand miles away.
Everywhere was good humour, laughter, and happiness.
At last, after his usual bustle, Mr. Lang contrived to secure a
vacant spot for his party; though not without an angry argument
with some plainly dressed people who, with scant respect for
African millionaires, declined to move their common delft
tea-service to make way for his costly Dresden. Whilst the footman
spread the cloth May sat abstractedly gazing over the sunlit river,
when suddenly she caught a glimpse in an approaching boat of a
figure which made her heart leap. Surely that stalwart young man in
flannels, rowing two girls towards the island, was Harold Inglis!
With consummate skill he steered his cockleshell craft to the bank,
then helped his sisters out, and, carrying a basket, came to find a
place to sit down.
"What a handsome girl!" murmured more than one of Mr. Lang's party
as Esther advanced with her queenly gait. May, delighted, rose to
greet her. "How wonderful to meet you here!" exclaimed Miss Inglis.
"Harold had to come up to town on business, and we persuaded him to
bring us up the river."
"So glad to see you again, Mrs. Burnside," said the young doctor as
they shook hands; his honest English face flushing as his glance
met hers. That glance and that handclasp seemed to throw a flood
of light upon the secret places of May's soul; for suddenly she
realised that she loved him better than her life. He was, and always
must be, the one man in the world to her.
Miss Waller was not pleased at this addition to their party; but
she could not interfere when Mr. Lang pressed the Inglises to join
the circle assembled at tea. Nor could they well refuse: though
independent Esther insisted on making use of the provisions they
had brought with them. Harold stationed himself beside May, as a
matter of course, and contrived, under cover of the lively chatter
of the rest, to tell her about the new patients he had secured at
Beachbourne, and hear what she had been doing in London. It was a
very harmless, matter-of-fact conversation, but it drew down many
jealous glances from Mr. Lang, which May perceived, but did not
heed. Why should she not enjoy this brief moment of happiness?
"Shall I see you again before I leave? I'm going back on Monday,"
Harold observed wistfully, when the tea-things had been packed up
for the return journey.
[Illustration: "If he ever comes again!"]
But she shook her head, knowing it was useless to invite him to call
upon her aunt; nor could she promise to visit Windermere Mansions.
"We shall be returning the end of next week, I hope," she answered
hurriedly, sorry to seem so inhospitable. "I shall be so glad to
leave London!"
"Now, Mrs. Burnside," interrupted Mr. Lang, bustling up, "your
aunt's invited me to dine with you at eight; and if I'm to be back
in time to dress, we must look sharp. Sorry to have to say good-bye
to you, Miss Inglis," he added, turning to stately Esther with his
most patronising air. "I wish I could ask you to come back in the
launch with us; but there's so little room."
"Thank you, I prefer a rowing-boat. I thoroughly disapprove of
steam launches on a crowded river like the Thames," calmly responded
she; whilst Miss Waller gasped, open-mouthed, at such effrontery.
Imagine a beggarly girl in an office daring to address such
criticism to the great Mr. Lang!
The lovers had perforce to separate, for the rowing-boat would, of
course, be soon left behind by the launch. May took her seat with
a sinking heart at the prospect of Mr. Lang's company for the rest
of the day; and Harold was so silent all the way home that Esther
commented on it as they disembarked.
"So this is the end of my little treat in honour of my rise of
salary!" she ruefully remarked. "I thought it would be pleasant on
the river; but I feel almost sorry we came. Certainly, Mrs. Poyser
was right in her opinion of 'pleasuring-days.'"
CHAPTER XII.
_Reprieved._
"Now, May," began Miss Waller in her most portentous tone, on Monday
morning, "I must have an explanation with you. I'm going home this
week, for it's ruinously expensive being here; and to-day Mr. Lang
is coming for his answer. Without any beating about the bush, I
expect you to marry him."
"Oh, aunt, don't--_don't_!" entreated May, wringing her hands. "I
cannot marry Mr. Lang."
"What childish nonsense! Fancy refusing a house in Palace Gardens,
and all that money!"
"I can't and won't marry him."
"Very well, then, you and Doris must find another home. I have
pinched myself to keep you in luxury; but if you will be so wickedly
blind to your plain duty, I wash my hands of you."
"I don't care one bit for myself, aunt; I could earn a living,
I'm sure, and I'd gladly do it. Let me try," pleaded May, "I will
promise never to cost you another penny, if you will only be so kind
as to give Doris a home until I am able to keep her myself."
"Which will not be till Doomsday. Talk of earning your living--what
rubbish! Why, you haven't even one decent accomplishment. No, if
you leave my house, Doris goes, too; I won't have the little spoilt
monkey left on my hands."
"But, aunt----"
"Besides, think what advantages you could give Doris if you
married Mr. Lang--the best possible education, horses, carriages,
Continental trips, everything! If you really cared at all for your
child, you couldn't hesitate for a minute."
It was a clever argument, and it made May waver as nothing else
could; and Miss Waller did not know whether to be glad or sorry that
just then Mr. Lang himself was announced.
"Don't go, Miss Waller," he began, as the spinster, after a few
casual observations, was about to leave the room. "I've nothing to
say to Mrs. Burnside you may not hear as well. Your niece knows by
this time that I am anxious to have her for my wife. I want to marry
and settle down now, and I can promise you," he added, turning to
face May for the first time, "a most luxurious home--you've seen
it--both for yourself and your little girl. Your aunt wishes it, I
know; and I hope, Mrs. Burnside--May--you'll make me very happy by
saying you'll be my wife before Christmas."
He came closer, and would have taken her hand; but she started
back. Her aunt's basilisk eyes were fixed on her, to add to her
discomfiture; but she said as firmly as she could, "I am very
grateful for your kindness, Mr. Lang; nevertheless, I must refuse
your offer, for I do not love you, and I could not marry any man
unless I did."
"Now, really, Miss Waller," remonstrated the plutocrat, turning with
an injured air to the wrathful spinster, "I call this too bad! It
was understood between us that you would prepare Mrs. Burnside, so
that it might all be plain sailing. I'm not accustomed to ask and be
refused, I can tell you."
"May must have lost her senses to reject such an offer, Mr. Lang,"
returned Miss Waller, with an annihilating glance at her niece. "She
is an ungrateful, undutiful girl; and if she refuses you, I will
have nothing more to do with her."
"Well," rejoined Mr. Lang, with a gulp, as if swallowing something
very nauseous to the taste, "I must confess I didn't expect to be
sent to the right-about like this. However, young ladies often
change their minds; and perhaps, when Mrs. Burnside thinks my offer
quietly over, she may alter her opinion. I've great faith in your
persuasions, Miss Waller. I've just had a telegram, saying a fall of
rock has damaged the machinery at the Springkloof, and I'm wanted
out there, so I must sail for the Cape at once. I expect to be away
some months; by November I shall probably be back in England. I give
Mrs. Burnside until then to consider my offer; I won't look upon
this as a final rejection. I'm sure, when she thinks of all I'm in a
position to offer, she can't be so foolish as to refuse."
"How kind--how generous!" exclaimed Miss Waller, as May stood in
stony silence. "I promise in my niece's name that when you come back
she will accept you. I hope we shall see you again before you leave?"
"Well, no, for I've a lot to do before I go. But I'll write to you;
and as soon as I possibly can I shall return for Mrs. Burnside's
answer."
[Illustration: "How wonderful to meet you here!"--_p. 513._]
As if in a sick dream, with this threat ringing in her ears, May
mechanically tendered him her limp hand in farewell. When they were
once more alone her aunt said in crisp, dry tones:
"I shall return to Beachbourne on Wednesday, and make arrangements
for spending August and September in visiting amongst our friends in
the country. We have plenty of invitations. I have said all I need
say on the subject of Mr. Lang. Meanwhile, you can choose between
Palace Gardens and every luxury, and a life of starvation and
beggary for you and Doris."
Despite the apparent calm with which Mr. Lang had taken May's
rejection of his flattering offer, he was nevertheless in a very bad
temper when he left the house and jumped into his victoria. He was
not accustomed to rebuffs--which made the fact that he had just been
rejected by a penniless widow, only saved from actual want by her
aunt's charity, doubly galling.
"I'm mad to care so much about a pale-faced girl with nothing to say
for herself; and I really ought to do better. I could easily marry a
lady of title, or anybody I choose; and it would serve her right if
I went straight off and proposed to somebody else, just to show her
that rich husbands don't grow on every bush!"
Revenge is always the first thought of a mean mind which is smarting
from a sense of injury. Mr. Lang chuckled over this idea for some
time, and the result was, that when Esther Inglis entered their
one sitting-room about half-past five that day, she found Mr. Lang
seated in the most comfortable chair, awaiting her.
She instantly assumed her thorny manner; but it had no more effect
than it would have had upon a rhinoceros. "I've come to say good-bye
for the present, Miss Inglis," he airily remarked, as if his visit
were a matter of course. "I leave to-morrow for Johannesburg on
business; and as I shall probably see your brother, it would give me
great pleasure to take charge of anything you may wish to send him."
Esther's handsome face relaxed. Really it was very kind and
thoughtful of Mr. Lang, who, with his influence, might prove a
valuable friend to Jack.
"It is very good of you, and in his last letter Jack asked us to
send him some collars and ties; they are such a fearful price at
Johannesburg, and not good. But they are not bought yet, and you say
you leave to-morrow?"
"Yes, but the shops will not be closed for some time, and my
victoria is at the door, if you will honour me by using it to go
where you wish."
Esther hesitated a moment; but the opportunity of saving expensive
and troublesome postage, besides serving Jack, was too good to lose.
Mr. Lang rose, and indicated a box lying on the table.
[Illustration: "Oh, don't thank me."]
"I've brought you a little fruit, Miss Inglis, just sent to me from
my country place near Dorking. My head-gardener prides himself on
his peaches and nectarines; but I must leave you to judge."
"Oh, thank you!" cried Esther, with sparkling eyes; for she had not
tasted a nectarine since leaving Mallowfleld. In a moment she had
undone the satin ribbon which tied down the lid, and was feasting
her eyes on such peaches as she had seldom seen.
"As you seem fond of fruit, I'll give orders to my gardener to send
you a box periodically," observed Mr. Lang. "Oh, don't thank me;
I shall be away, and somebody may as well enjoy it. And if you'll
have the parcel and letters ready, my footman shall call for them
to-morrow morning."
He accompanied Esther down to the street, where his beautifully
appointed carriage was waiting; and it must be confessed she enjoyed
finding herself seated behind a spruce coachman and footman once
more. "You will take this lady's orders," pompously commanded Mr.
Lang. "Keep the carriage as long as you like, Miss Inglis, and I'll
not forget about the parcel."
So manifest was his desire to propitiate, that Esther could do no
less than bid him a civil farewell, with the hope that he might have
a pleasant journey. Then she rolled away, looking so much at home in
the smart carriage that Mr. Lang gazed after her admiringly.
"By Jove, how well she sets the whole thing off! Looks like a lady
used to carriages all her life. May Burnside really isn't a patch
upon Esther Inglis; there is no mistake about that!"
Had Miss Waller only been there to hear him, she might well have
trembled for the success of her darling scheme of marrying May to a
rich man.
[END OF CHAPTER TWELVE.]
[Illustration: EASTER EGG ROLLING IN WASHINGTON]
"Going to Mr. President's!"
That is what the hundreds of little boys and girls will tell you any
Easter Monday morning, should you chance to stop them and ask their
destination as they go toddling along the streets of Washington with
baskets of eggs hanging on their arms and a glad delight shining in
their eyes.
They make up a very "mixed" crowd, these children! There is the
dainty little miss in richly embroidered frock and wide silk sash,
with one tiny hand held tightly in the grasp of a big negro nurse
and the other hand clasping lovingly a basket of pretty coloured
eggs; there is another little girl in a very clean but much-faded
gingham or print apron, trotting along at her mother's side--the
mother dressed, perchance, in shabby black, belonging to the class
known in the Southern part of the States as the "poor whites"; there
is also the trio of little "darkey" girls, dancing merrily along the
sidewalk, swinging their egg-baskets as though with intention of
spilling the eggs over passers-by, yet never quite dropping them,
and singing the while as they keep step--
"Tra la la la, tra la la la,
Easter Monday morning!"
There are nice, smart-looking little boys, strutting along proudly
in their first pair of knickerbockers, with pockets bulging out with
Easter eggs, their black nurses walking just a few steps behind
them; there are the poor white boys whose clothes are patched and
boots worn with toes protruding. On other days they sell newspapers,
black boots, and do "odd jobbs" to earn a few cents, but on Easter
Monday morning they somehow get together a collection of coloured
eggs and go to see the President. Then there are the little black
boys, some smartly dressed (for many of the coloured people of
Washington are well-to-do), and others as shabby as shabby can be.
But no matter. Are they not provided with Easter Monday eggs and
going up to the White House to see "Mr. President," who every Easter
Monday gives over his beautiful lawn to as many little boys and
girls as like to go and see him, and roll their eggs over the grassy
slopes that look out over the Potomac River?
[Illustration: Lester Ralph.
THE INVASION OF THE PRESIDENT'S LAWN.]
On no other day during the year does Washington present so
interesting and picturesque an appearance as on Easter Monday,
and it is the happiest day of all the year with the children of
the Capitol City. In England, of course, Easter Monday is always
a Bank Holiday, but not so in the United States. In New York and
other large American cities banks and shops and schools are open
as usual; but in the district of Columbia, where Washington is
situated, it is a legal holiday. That in itself makes it a happy
time for the children. Then, add to the joy of having no lessons to
learn the fact that they are allowed to take dozens of coloured
eggs to the White House lawn and play the games of "egg-picking" and
"egg-rolling" as the specially invited guests of the President of
the United States, and it will be easily understood how festive an
occasion is Easter Monday to the children of Washington.
Not even the oldest inhabitants of Washington can remember the time
when the boys and girls of the city did not celebrate Easter Monday
by "egg-rolling," although the children of fifty years ago rolled
their eggs down Capitol Hill, under the shadow of the magnificent
Capitol building, instead of on the White House lawn. Year after
year the children of former generations trudged up the great hill
with their egg-baskets over their arms and had the happiest times
imaginable with their Easter games.
One Easter Monday, however, about twenty years ago, hundreds of
boys and girls went to Capitol Hill with their eggs just as they
had done in previous years, when they were astonished to be hustled
off the grounds by special messengers and policemen from the Senate
and House of Representatives, who declared that the distinguished
Senators and Congressmen in convention assembled had made up their
minds that their "door-yard" was no longer to be disfigured for days
after Easter Monday with broken eggs and vari-coloured shells! They
were weary of having their highly polished boots smeared with yolks
of eggs, and Easter Monday "egg-rolling" in Washington was to be
ended!
Then there went up all about the precincts of the nation's Capitol a
loud wail of anguish and wrath from hundreds of childish throats, in
which the numerous nurses and attendants joined. Many boys and girls
gathered on the steps of the building, sobbing in disappointment,
some of the larger boys throwing out direful hints of vengeance
to be wreaked on the heads of the nation's law-makers; but the
stately Senators remained stony-hearted, in spite of it all. In the
midst of the tearful hubbub the President's carriage drove past,
and President Hayes (the then head of the nation) drew up near the
portico to inquire why the children wept instead of rolling their
eggs on Easter Monday.
A chorus of voices informed him that the "nasty Senators wouldn't
let them play any more because they messed up the grounds"; and then
again from the throng of little ones confronting the President there
arose fresh outbursts of grief and indignation.
[Illustration: Lester Ralph.
"GOING TO MR. PRESIDENT'S."]
"Never you mind, children," said President Hayes soothingly. "You
may come right up to my house and play in my back yard."
Then the mourning was turned to rejoicing. Every child knew that in
all the city of Washington there was not so wonderful a "back yard"
as that which belonged to the White House. Its beautifully kept
slopes were ideal places for "egg-rolling," and then there was the
great fountain in the middle of the lawn! So when the President's
carriage started to return to the White House, it was followed by
several hundred boys and girls swinging their egg-baskets, and
singing and shouting out their gratitude to the President of the
United States, who was going to let them play in his garden. I doubt
if ever an American President had an escort of which he had such
cause to feel proud as that which accompanied President Hayes to the
White House gates on that memorable Easter Monday.
[Illustration: Lester Ralph.
ON THE WAY TO THE WHITE HOUSE.]
Outside the gates they were kept waiting for about an hour, while
the President gave his hurried instructions to the gardeners to put
the place in readiness. At eleven o'clock the gates swung open, and
from that time till six o'clock the children rolled their eggs.
Ever since then Washington children have gone regularly every Easter
Monday to play in the President's "back yard," each of President
Hayes's successors having kept up the custom of inserting in the
Washington papers each year an invitation to all the children
residents of the town to spend the day rolling eggs on the lawn.
In President Hayes's time his own children joined in the sport, and
during the last term of President Cleveland the President's little
girls, who were considered too young to roll eggs with the elder
children, were kept on the back portico with their mother or their
nurse, where they could watch the progress of the games.
Two years ago, on Easter Monday, I spent the day on the White House
lawn, watching the big "Presidential children's party," as it is
called. The gates were opened at a little after ten o'clock, and
during the day there were several thousand children playing in the
grounds. Many of the children, besides carrying their baskets of
eggs, carried also their luncheon-baskets, and when tired of games
they sat about on the grass, picnic-fashion, eating bread-and-butter
and cakes and hard-boiled eggs. I should here mention that, although
the President does not consider it necessary to make any rules for
the preservation of order among his young guests--it being taken
for granted that all children invited to the President's garden
will behave in their very best style--he always requests that those
who accept his invitation to roll their eggs on his lawn will
be particular to bring with them only eggs that are thoroughly
hard boiled, for in the game of "egg-picking" the use of raw or
soft-boiled eggs would be, to say the least, most inconvenient!
The game of "egg-picking" is a very simple one, although it is
entered into most enthusiastically by the boys and girls. The
children separate themselves into groups of eight or ten, then seat
themselves on the grass at the top of the slopes and roll their eggs
down to the bottom. The eggs that make the descent without getting
cracked or "picked" may be brought back and re-rolled, until they
do get cracked or until the game is over, while those that get
"picked" are placed back in the baskets. The boy who can hit his
neighbour's egg and "pick" it without "picking" his own is looked
upon as something of a hero. Of course, toward the end of the game
many of the players drop out, all of their eggs having got "picked."
Very often the players are reduced to two who show themselves
particularly expert, and then there is great excitement watching for
the winner.
Besides the game of "egg-picking" there are egg-ball games, egg
croquet games; but plain "egg-rolling," which consists of rolling
eggs down the slopes, going after them, and rolling them again and
again, seems to be the favourite amusement. Then, too, the children
engage in "jumping the rope" and other similar amusements.
Although many of the children spend the entire day on the lawn,
numbers of them remain for a couple of hours only. By this means
the grounds are not kept so crowded as they would otherwise be. The
hours between three and five o'clock, however, are considered the
most enjoyable, as during that time the President always arranges to
have the Marine Baud to entertain the children with music, and it
is at that time also that the President makes his appearance out on
the back portico to greet the children. It is, of course, thoroughly
understood that so busy a man as the President cannot spend his
whole day with his young visitors. He entertains them by turning
over his grounds to them, and they enjoy themselves in their own way
without molestation.
On the afternoon of the Easter Monday which I spent in Washington
President McKinley came out on the portico at about half-past three.
He took off his hat and waved it to the children, who all gathered
as near as possible about the portico and shouted out--
"Howdy do, Mr. President? Howdy do, howdy do?"--the boys taking off
their caps and the little girls waving their handkerchiefs.
"How do you do, children? Glad to see you, and hope you are having a
good time!" shouted back the President.
[Illustration: Lester Ralph.
PRESIDENT McKINLEY GREETING HIS YOUNG VISITORS.]
"Splendid time, Mr. President, and thank you for your invitation,"
called back the delighted little guests.
"That's right!" returned the President, laughing. "I hope you'll all
come again next Easter Monday."
"Thank you, Mr. President. Good-bye, good-bye!" shouted the
children. Then President McKinley went back to his duties of State
and the children returned to their egg-rolling. Mrs. McKinley
sat on the portico most of the afternoon watching the merriment.
Occasionally a little boy or girl would edge up to the portico, and
push a blue or red egg through the railings, saying:
"Please, Mrs. President, I've brought you one of my eggs to keep!"
Mrs. McKinley accepted the little presents with the sweetest of
smiles and a "Thank you."
At about two o'clock in the afternoon the White House lawn looked
like a large picnic ground. Some of the children had brought napkins
to lay upon the grass when they should be ready to eat their
luncheon, and on the napkins they spread their boiled eggs and
bread-and-butter. One little girl, when I complimented her on her
daintiness, explained:
"I does it so I won't get eggshells on Mr. President's grass! My
mamma told me I must be careful, cos it wouldn't be very nice if the
President of the 'Nited States had to go round to-morrow picking up
eggshells after me!"
During the afternoon there were several slight accidents at the
fountain. Some of the children delighted in digging all the meat
from their eggs through the smallest possible aperture and then
floating the empty shells in the lower basin of the fountain where
the water was undisturbed. In trying to keep their improvised ships
from sailing away, two little girls fell into the water, but they
were quickly rescued by their nurses and taken home to be dried.
At five o'clock the crowd began to disperse, and at a little past
six the small guests of the President had all left the lawn and
were on their way to their various homes. Such a variety of homes,
indeed, they went to! Some to magnificent mansions on Connecticut
Avenue. Their fathers were high Government officials, Senators,
members of the Cabinet, and their mothers well-known society
women. Other little boys and girls went to very humble homes and
minded their little baby brothers and sisters while their mothers
got supper; and then there were the homes in the localities given
over almost entirely to the negro population. Before the War their
parents and grandparents had been slaves, little dreaming that their
descendants would ever be invited along with the children of the
aristocratic whites to play in the President's "back yard"!
By the way, what a sight that "back yard" did present on the morning
following Easter Monday! There were four gardeners busily at work
with rakes and brooms and baskets. They were gathering up the litter
of eggshells, breadcrumbs, bits of paper, lost playthings, and tiny
bits of muslin and calico that had somehow got torn off the dresses
of some of the children. At the fountain one of the gardeners was
fishing out pieces of string and floating shells. It was four
o'clock when the garden was finally "picked up" and shorn of its
festive appearance. It was then absolutely "spick and span," and
no one could ever have guessed that the day before it had been a
playground for several thousand children!
ELIZABETH L. BANKS.
[Illustration: decorative]
FORGIVENESS.
Within a spacious hall, before a fire
Whose flick'ring light danced weirdly on his brow,
Stood Peter mutely brooding o'er his vow
To die with Christ, though thousands should conspire
To wreak their vengeance, profitless and dire,
On Christ and all who faith in Him avow.
With sin the soul of Peter struggled now,
When, "Known, or not, to Jesus?" men inquire.
"I know Him not"--thus, falsely, thrice he swore;
And think you that because this weak man fell
The God-Man would deny him evermore?
Christ looked upon him, and that look did spell:
"For thee My soul shall on the Cross be riven,
And, therefore, Peter, is thy sin forgiven!"
LOUIS H. VICTORY.
[Illustration: OUR ROLL OF HEROIC DEEDS
The above picture records a brave attempted rescue on the part of
Private Frederick Lakeman Banks, of the London Rifle Brigade. When
on the way to the Rainham Rifle Range some time ago, Banks and
several of his companions were attracted to this spot by the cries
of some bystanders, who stated that a child had fallen into the
thick muddy water of the tidal creek and had disappeared. Banks
immediately threw off his coat, plunged into the filthy water,
and after a three minutes' search succeeded in finding the boy.
Unhappily, the child was past help; but, all the same, the gallantry
displayed by the rescuer was rewarded by the bestowal of the Bronze
Medal of THE QUIVER Heroes' Fund.]
[Illustration: MISS LUCRETIA'S NEW IDEA.
H V Brock]
_A COMPLETE STORY._
By M. H. Cornwall Legh, Author of "The Steep Ascent," Etc.
I.
"So poor Annie is dead!" Miss Lucretia repeated as she
laid down the black-edged letter which she had just read through for
the third time and wiped her eyes with a handkerchief already damp
and flabby. "Poor Annie! So soon after poor Edward's death too! And
now I wonder what will become of poor little Amy?"
She repeated the adjective which seemed most appropriate as often as
she liked, for she was only speaking to herself.
Miss Lucretia lived alone in a very small house, which was one of
a row, all just alike, with a bow-window apiece for their glory,
and a little bit of garden and a fence and a gate. They were called
Primrose Cottages, despite the fact that there were no primroses
about them.
Thirlambury was a very dull, behind-the-age little town, and people
thought Miss Lucretia a very dull, behind-the-age little lady. She
thought so herself; for she had always taken life meekly.
Lucretia was the only one of the three sisters--of whose happy
girlhood together the old maid was thinking as she wiped away
her tears--who had been at all meek. Constantia and Ann had both
been strong-charactered, masterful girls, in accordance with the
traditions of their family. With Constantia this decided turn had
met with the happiest development. It had enabled her to manage to
perfection a husband and family, and it was with pardonable pride
that she now looked at her six successful sons and daughters,
all brought up just as they should have been, physically,
intellectually, and morally; of whom the last had just left the
nursery for the school-room.
With Ann the family characteristics had gone in the wrong direction.
Her strong will had led her to marry a very unsatisfactory little
man, whom his family finally exported to New Zealand, with her and
their four children, rejoicing over the happy riddance. Out there
Constantia did not like to say, providentially, though that was the
adverb which suggested itself--the four children took diphtheria,
and every one of them died.
When the grass had grown green on those four graves, another
child was born--little Amy--and Aunt Lucretia was asked to be its
godmother. And now, there was this child of five years old left
without either parent. They had not been first-class parents,
but Miss Lucretia did not think of that; her heart being of too
old-fashioned make for such philosophy.
"An orphan, poor little dear!" she said to herself, and her
handkerchief became damp again at the thought.
"Constantia has arranged already about her being brought to
England," Miss Lucretia soliloquised. (Being alone, she had got into
the way of soliloquising.) "How prompt Constantia always is! And now
what will become of the child?"
It was not an idle speculation. Miss Lucretia was revolving
something in her mind--an idea so new, so absorbing, that over it
her eyes dried, and she put back the letter into its envelope with
untrembling fingers.
"I am sure I could do it!" she said at last, speaking aloud this
time, and with a great deal of determination. "A child of five
cannot cost much to keep, and there are many little ways in which
I could reduce my expenditure." Then she relapsed into silent
thought again. She was making deep calculations, wondering how an
income which just sufficed for her and her faithful Fanny could
be stretched at the four corners so as to cover the expenses of
one more member of humanity. Such a little member that in a large
household she could be received and fed and clothed for some years
to come without any perceptible difference in the outgoings; but
this was a very small household, and the matter had to be considered.
Miss Lucretia's income was of the kind described as modest; but she
was a careful manager, and, as everybody knew how poor she was,
nothing was expected of her in the way of entertaining beyond a
quiet cup of afternoon tea, and the promoters of charity lists went
away from her door contented if she only gave half-a-crown.
She always did give the half-crown, and a penny to the organ-grinder
who came round weekly, and sixpence each to the butcher's boy, the
baker's boy, and the grocer's boy at Christmas; the same every year,
not allowing herself any wild excursions of charity till the regular
subscriptions had been provided for.
But it was not in her philanthropies that Miss Lucretia proposed
making her substantial reductions. There were a great many little
luxuries which could be curtailed.
Regarding food, people would have said that no one was more
economical than Miss Lucretia, but Miss Lucretia herself knew
better. It was true that there never was any waste in this little
establishment. A pound of meat was never ordered when three-quarters
of a pound would do; and every scrap of food was eaten. But the
meat and the milk and the butter ordered for 4, Primrose Cottages
were always of the very best. The eggs must be newlaid, and not
selected. The pot of jam--"preserves," Miss Lucretia called it,
with old-fashioned elegance--in which she and Fanny indulged once
a fortnight, must be of whole fruit in syrup; not the marvels of
cheapness in two-pound jars.
"Why," thought Miss Lucretia now to herself, "should I buy butter
at eighteenpence a pound, when they say the Normandy butter, or
the Brittany, is really excellent? And it does seem a sinful waste
to give two shillings for tea when one can get it quite good,
the Vicar's wife tells me, at sixteen-pence. Indeed, I have seen
phenomenal tea at a shilling." And so on.
The little lady proceeded with her reductions till she was quite
convinced that Amy's coming need make no real difference in Fanny's
comfort--the question which had pressed most upon her mind.
Then there were Amy's clothes to be thought of. Well, they would not
cost much. There was a gown hanging up now in the cupboard which
might be cut up for her.
Then there was a crimson merino dress which Miss Lucretia had
bought last summer for the Vicarage garden-party--not without some
misgivings as to the choice of so unwearing a colour, but with the
solace to her conscience of knowing it could be dyed.
That would make a sweet little frock and cloak for Amy; for the
dress had only been worn twice, and its wearer had held it up very
carefully out of the dust.
Miss Lucretia went up to the little box-room opening out of her
bedroom, and turned out a number of old treasures--things she had
kept ever since her girlhood, carefully folded, wrong side out,
and covered with tissue-paper. Here was her bridesmaid's dress for
Constantia's wedding--that would cut up into a lovely Sunday frock;
and here was a piece of china silk which had never been made up till
Miss Lucretia grew too old for white dresses; and other things that
would all come in. Yes, she would have no difficulty in dressing
little Amy, and making her look just as smart as the children at
Beaconsfield Mansion when occasion arose for it. She hoped the
occasions would arise, that her child would be asked to parties,
like other children, and with a new interest the old woman thought
of the different families of her acquaintance.
And now about a room for Amy. The little box-room must be cleared
out, and that would make a charming nest for her. The old chintz
with the rosebuds on it Miss Lucretia had just taken from its paper
would be the very thing for curtains. A little bed would just
fit here behind the door, and a washstand there, and so on. Miss
Lucretia planned it all out with absorbing interest. The question
was, where was the money to come from for buying the furniture?
There were certain things in the box-room which could be sold. Miss
Lucretia's harp; she never played on it now, and harping was out of
fashion, so it would not be wanted for Amy. And that portfolio of
engravings--and---- She had soon marked out enough of her treasures
to make the furnishing of the little room an easy matter.
Then she went downstairs and divulged her great project to Fanny.
Her co-operation was very necessary, and her mistress approached her
a little timidly.
"Fanny, I am thinking of having a child to live with me."
"Bless us! ma'am, a child?"
"Yes, my poor sister's little orphan."
Fanny's heart was warm. She listened to Miss Lucretia's plans and
wishes without any crushing comment, but at the end she remarked,
"Well, I should have thought as Mrs. Dalrymple would have taken her;
she is so rich and with that big place and all; but if she don't
feel disposed that way, and you do, ma'am, well, I suppose the poor
little soul had best come to us." That was quite enough, and now
Miss Lucretia hurried out of the house, and into the High Street, to
inquire about the price of children's beds. It was early in the day,
of course, to enter into such details, but then, the whole affair
was so interesting that they could not be put off till to-morrow.
As Miss Lucretia walked down the High Street, she was attracted by
a toyshop, and found herself straying into it to inquire the price
of a doll in the window. It would be very silly to buy one so soon,
and before any of the necessaries of life were provided for. But the
temptation proved too strong for her. She went in and bought it--the
first present she would give to _her child_.
Miss Lucretia spent an hour in the furniture shop. She had to
arrange first with the proprietor about the sale of her own
belongings, and then to choose the furniture for the room. She
found she wanted only the prettiest, nicest things for Amy, though
the cheapest for their solid value would have been her main object
if for herself. Then there was a lovely paper, with nursery rhyme
pictures all over it, which so fascinated her that she ordered
half-a-dozen pieces of it to come on approval.
Altogether, it was a most exciting afternoon, and Miss Lucretia
came home with a springing step, and radiant eyes, and a general
bearing of youthfulness, such as she had not known for the last
twenty years. A bright golden glow had suddenly overspread the grey
landscape of her life, such as the sun sometimes throws at sunset,
when it looks out from under a cloud at the end of a long grey day.
Before the post went out, she wrote a letter to Constantia,
announcing her intention of taking Amy for her own, which gave a
delightful seal of finality to her decision.
II.
"I could not have believed that Lucretia would be so foolish. Just
fancy! she wants to adopt Amy!" was Mrs. Dalrymple's comment, as
she read her sister's letter; and everyone at the breakfast table
exclaimed.
"It is a very generous idea," remarked Mr. Dalrymple mildly. He had
always been a mild sort of man, and marriage with Constantia had not
made him less so.
"Generous! yes. Lucretia is always generous. You know the difficulty
I had in stopping her giving expensive presents to the children; but
it is so very foolish. I shall write her a letter, of course, and
tell her that we intend to have Amy ourselves. Poor Lucretia! Fancy
her with the charge of a child!"
So Constantia wrote her letter. It contained about a quarter of
the words that Lucretia had used, and was very sensible, kind and
decided. There was no answer required to it.
Great was Mrs. Dalrymple's surprise, therefore, when by return of
post came a reply, not of acquiescence, but setting forth the other
aunt's superior claim as godmother, an idea which, as Constantia
remarked, was simply absurd.
"I shall have to go to Thirlambury myself," she said: "though it
is not very convenient." It was often not very convenient to go to
Thirlambury.
[Illustration: Then she divulged her great project to Fanny.
H V Brock]
In the meantime, Miss Lucretia had been indulging in her new
day-dream, till every bit of her life had been remodelled in
anticipation, and brought into harmony with her coming work and
responsibility as an adopted mother. Already she attached to herself
that beautiful title, the missing of which had been the sole sorrow
of her life. As a young girl, Lucretia's day-dreams had not been of
lovers, but of marriage; the joys of children clinging round her
neck, the merry voices about the house, the little feet pattering up
and down.
And now she counted the days to the one coming so near, when
she should feel the real warm arms of little Amy clasped round
"godmamma's" neck, and fold the child in her own with the new
wonderful joy of possession. She felt that she could hold up her
head again among women, and that the life which a week ago had
seemed to hold nothing more except advancing infirmities was full of
new possibilities and ever-increasing interest. Miss Lucretia lived
again.
Miss Lucretia actually bought the bed, which the shopman had urged
her to purchase at once, or it might be gone, as he had no other
bedstead for a child.
As Miss Lucretia relinquished one after another of her own comforts
and conveniences, the blessedness of giving grew more and more
apparent to her. Nothing in life had ever given her a joy like the
joy of this sacrifice.
Four days had passed so, and Miss Lucretia was just planning which
plot of the small garden space allowed to a Primrose cottage might
be spared from beans and cauliflowers to make a flowerbed for Amy,
when a ring was heard at the door-bell. Miss Lucretia answered it
herself, as Fanny was out, and there stood Constantia!
[Illustration: There stood Constantia!]
Miss Lucretia was always delighted to see her sister, and made the
most of her rather infrequent visits. But to-day a kind of misgiving
came over her at the unexpected sight of Constantia's smiling face;
and a sensation of defeat as Constantia uttered, in her brisk,
cheerful voice, the words, "And how are you, Lucretia? You didn't
expect to see me?"
Lucretia welcomed her, as usual, and took her into the little
parlour, which was drawing-room or dining-room according to the time
of day. It was drawing-room now, and the dining-table stood folded,
with a cloth and some ornaments on it, in a corner; everything was
as neat and carefully arranged as it always was; each chair in that
particular spot which experience had proved to be the best for it.
"How nice and tidy you always look, Lucretia," was Mrs. Dalrymple's
first remark, as she sat down with a genial laugh in the visitor's
arm-chair. "You must be struck with the difference when you come to
The Towers. With six children, it is impossible to keep everything
in its place!"
Miss Lucretia asked after the six children, categorically, staving
off the subject which she knew very well had brought her sister to
Thirlambury.
"The girls are as well as possible," answered their mother, massing
them, for brevity; "and they are all looking forward so much to
having Amy." Mrs. Dalrymple was a person who took bulls by their
horns. She always knew exactly what she intended to do with the
bull--the great secret of success in life--and was quite sure about
its being the best thing that could be done.
"But I intended to have Amy," answered Miss Lucretia, in almost as
firm a voice, but putting herself at a disadvantage at once by her
slip of the past tense.
"Yes, I know you did. You wrote me all about it. It was exceedingly
kind and good of you to think of such a thing, but, of course, it
was quite out of the question. As I told you when I wrote, we intend
to take her."
"Didn't you get my second letter?"
"Yes, and I saw by that you did not quite understand mine to you. I
wrote in a hurry, and I suppose I did not make myself clear."
Constantia Dalrymple was under the impression that she was the most
truthful of women.
"You made yourself perfectly clear," answered Lucretia, with a
quiet dignity which was not usual with her. "But before you spoke
of taking the child, I had made up my mind to do so. I have spoken
to Fanny about it, and she is perfectly willing to accept the extra
economies we shall have to practise, and any trouble Amy will give
her. Of course, I shall take charge of her myself."
"How good of Fanny! I have always thought she must have enough to do
with the whole work of your house, and she works a good deal in the
garden, too, does she not?"
Miss Lucretia looked a trifle uncomfortable.
"I think Fanny will enjoy having a young life about the house," she
replied, rather hurriedly; "just as I shall myself."
Constantia smiled. It was not exactly a nice smile, but perhaps she
did not know that.
"I do not think either you or Fanny have had much to do with
children," she said. "It is all very well to have them with you for
a few hours at a time, when they are in their best frocks and on
their best behaviour, and you have nothing to do with them except
amuse them. But when you have the whole responsibility of a child,
and are obliged to look after her from morning till night, it is a
very different thing."
"Of course it is," said Miss Lucretia.
It was that very fact, comprising as it did the constant demand
on time and thought and labour, with all the rich reward of
corresponding affection from the child in its dependence, that
made the sweetness of this dream of motherhood. But Lucretia could
not put this into words. She was never very fluent with her deeper
ideas, which were, perhaps, instincts rather than formulated
notions, and she was least fluent of all with Constantia.
"And how could you ever afford it?" went on Mrs. Dalrymple.
Lucretia explained her scheme of retrenchment, and all her little
plans.
"But you won't be able to go on dressing Amy with your old things
for ever," said Constantia. "And, then, there will be hats and boots
and shoes.
"She may be ill, too; children have to go through measles and
whooping-cough, and that sort of thing: how will you afford to pay
the doctor?"
Lucretia was silent for a moment; Constantia had such a very
convincing way of saying things, and making all that was unpractical
and visionary appear so; but she was not really vanquished.
"I think one must trust for that----" she began, at which Constantia
smiled again.
"How about schooling, too? A girl's education is a very expensive
thing nowadays. I am sure Edie and Gwendoline have cost us as much
as the boys."
"Amy is only five now, and for some years to come I think of
teaching her myself." The present tense this time, for she was on
her mettle. "You know we were very thoroughly grounded by Miss Cox."
"That is a long time ago, Lucretia!"
"Yes, it is a long time, but I suppose the principles of grammar and
arithmetic are the same, and I have not forgotten how to read!"
It surprised Mrs. Dalrymple to see her sister pluck up so much
spirit, but this defiant attitude did not affect her. There was in
her such a certainty of being in the right, and of causing the right
to prevail, that she was able to take all Lucretia's opposition very
quietly. It was obstinate of her sister to hold out like this--weak
people always were obstinate--and it was extremely foolish, but her
surrender was only a matter of time.
Lucretia went on talking, urging her suit in a way that would have
struck some people as pathetic, but Constantia was not much given
to seeing the pathos in life; her view of things in general was
optimistic, and unless a sorrow was thrust before her she did not
look at it.
Constantia let Lucretia talk on until she naturally ceased, after
repeating herself a good many times, in the way that peculiarly
weakens a cause. Then she brought up her reserve force.
"But do you think it would be good for the child to be by herself,
just with you and old Fanny?"
Fanny was ten years younger than her mistress, and Lucretia realised
how very old fifty-nine must be.
Constantia paused a moment. Then she went on to point out all the
drawbacks of a bringing-up such as Amy must have with two old
maids--not using the term, but dwelling on the characteristics
implied in it.
"What would you do with the child if she were naughty?" Mrs.
Dalrymple asked by way of a test question. "She is sure to have a
strong will of her own; you know what poor Ann was."
Miss Lucretia could not answer the question, naughtiness seeming to
her as multi-form a thing as illness, and the treatment for either
depending upon its form and cause. She replied that her idea was to
bring the child up on a system of love; a vague answer which did not
satisfy her sister.
"Bringing up children is not such an easy and simple matter as
people might think who have had no experience." Here Constantia
herself stood on a firm foundation. "And it is much more difficult
to bring up one child by itself than when there are others for it to
consort with."
Then Mrs. Dalrymple proceeded to dilate on the smallness of Primrose
Cottage, which was certainly a very poor little place compared with
The Towers. There Amy would have the grounds to play about in; she
would share the girls' governess, ride on Gwendoline's pony, and
Nurse, who had been so splendid with Bertram and Edie, would only be
too pleased to have a child again.
"It always makes her and me quite unhappy to look at the empty
nursery," said Mrs. Dalrymple, "though the children have only flown
into the schoolroom."
There was a weight of truth in every sentence Constantia uttered,
which made it strike like a battering-ram against the walls of Miss
Lucretia's airy castle. At last she gave a little cry--a cry in
words:
"Oh, don't tell me that I mustn't have Amy!"
"I do not say that you must not have her," answered Constantia. "As
you say, you are the child's godmother, and the elder of us two. I
leave it for you to decide. Only, I want you to think which would
really be best for Amy."
Released thus, suddenly and unexpectedly, from the paws of the
cat, the little mouse of Miss Lucretia's soul ran trembling into a
corner, while the cat smiled, sweetly enough this time, as those may
who have won the game. It was a good cat, too, which had only been
doing its duty.
At this moment, Fanny came in, bringing tea, and Mrs. Dalrymple
greeted her with her usual warmth and kindness, rejoicing in the
anticipation of eating some of that delicious home-made cake which
was always so much better than they could get their cook at The
Towers to make; asking with sympathy after Fanny's rheumatism, and
giving her an abundance of those smiles which were so taking; while
Lucretia sat, looking old and small and withered, with a face that
seemed as if it would never smile again.
She had come to her hour of sacrifice; the great sacrifice of her
life. Even with Lucretia the age was not past when sacrifices may be
lit up by a golden halo of romance. There had been a halo round the
sacrifice of all her little comforts which she had already made in
will for Amy. The love that prompted it had turned the self-denial
into a part of the joy of her prospective guardianship.
But round this sacrifice there hovered no such brightness. It was
only like herself, a poor, common-place, drab-coloured thing.
No sense of heroism could attend it; common-sense demanded it,
so Constantia had proved, but, even with Constantia's provings,
Lucretia could not have offered up her precious sacrifice upon the
altar of common-sense. But the other altar, which stood hard by,
the altar of love, was one that she could not thus disdain. The
result of the pitiful struggle was certain, or Constantia would not
have given the game into Lucretia's hands; but Lucretia was not
sharp enough to see that. To her the whole brunt of choosing was
as real, the action of her will as decided, as if a long habit of
unselfishness had not made any other course impossible.
It was better for Amy that she should go to Constantia. Then to
Constantia she must go.
"I suppose you are right," she said at last, in words as commonplace
as befitted her unheroic sacrifice.
"I was sure you would agree with me when you came to think about
it," Constantia answered, gently now, for it was part of her system,
the one, perhaps, which had made it so successful with her children,
never to use unnecessary force. "I am sure a month hence you will
feel very glad that you have not a child turning your peaceful life
and your pretty cottage upside down."
There was no use trying to make Constantia understand; and, if she
could have understood, it would have made no difference.
Miss Lucretia said nothing. It was time now for Mrs. Dalrymple to
go, and, finishing her second cup of tea, she wished her sister an
affectionate good-bye, with the promise of a hamper of game from The
Towers, where they were just going to have one of their "big shoots."
[Illustration: She had come to the great sacrifice of her life.
H V Brock]
"Perhaps I might have done it more kindly," Constantia thought, as
she drove in her cab to the station. "But it was such a foolish
idea. I am glad Lucretia saw it for herself in the end."
Miss Lucretia went upstairs with slow, old footsteps, after her
sister had gone. The last red glow had faded from her landscape, and
everything was grey again, a shade deeper grey now, as it must go on
growing deeper, till the night. She went into the little room, and,
as she looked at the little bed which was never to hold her child, a
tear came up into each of her eyes and trickled down her cheeks.
The doll lay on the bed, wrapped up in the white muslin that was to
have made its underclothes, looking like a tiny corpse. It seemed to
Lucretia like her dream of motherhood as it was now, the dead body
of something that had never really lived.
She went to the window and looked out on the grey, darkening
landscape, and over it there twinkled one faint star. She stood
watching, and the star grew brighter, then another came out, and
then another. For a long time Lucretia looked up: then she knelt
down, looking up still.
The far-off light from the stars seemed to be shining on her face as
she turned it to Fanny, when that faithful woman came up at last to
bring her mistress down to supper.
"Miss Amy is going to Mrs. Dalrymple," she said, quietly, and with a
little smile. "My sister left it to me to decide whether she should
go to The Towers or come here, and I gave her up to them, Fanny. I
am glad she is going to my sister. She will be happier there."
[Illustration: SOME FAMOUS EASTER HYMNS]
There can be no two opinions as to the most famous Easter hymn.
In almost every church throughout the land, and in most chapels
too, there arises, every Easter morning, the well-known strains of
"Jesus Christ is risen to-day, Alleluia!" There may be an occasional
difference in the wording of a line here and there, as the hymn
appears in various hymnals, but practically it is the one hymn which
binds all Christian congregations together on Easter morning. It
is our Easter greeting one to another, in the joy and hope of that
blessed day, like the greeting of the pious Russian on the same
morn, who salutes every passer-by with the words "Christ is risen!"
[Illustration: (_Photo: W. and D. Downey, Ebury Street, S.W._)
THE REV. S. BARING-GOULD.]
[Illustration: (_Facsimile of part of the original manuscript of Mr.
Baring-Gould's Easter Hymn._)]
On the Resurrection Morning
Soul & Body meet again,
No more sorrow, no more weeping,
No more pain.
Here awhile they must be parted
And the Flesh its Sabbath keep,
Waiting, in a holy stillness
Fast asleep.
* * * *
O the beauty! O the gladness
Of that Resurrection Day,
Which shall never, thro' long ages,
Pass away.
On that happy Easter morning
All the graves their dead restore,
Father, sister, child & Mother
Meet once more.
S. Baring Gould.
It is strange, therefore, that no one has even an indistinct
notion as to who wrote this famous hymn. Its author is, and long
has been, unknown; and, equally strange, there is almost the same
to be said of the composer of its famous tune. For the tune is as
great a favourite as the words, and, in fact, whilst the words do
occasionally alter, as stated, the tune is ever the same one we know
so well. The honour of being its composer has by some been ascribed
to Henry Carey, but there are no certain grounds for the assumption,
fine musician though he was. So completely has this tune associated
itself, however, with the hymn that few people are aware that some
collections of hymns have alternative tunes to the great song of
praise for Easter Day. But even Monk's tune to it in "Hymns Ancient
and Modern," takes quite an inferior place; it is seldom, or never,
used.
[Illustration: (_Photo: Elliott and Fry, Baker Street, W._)
DR. E. H. TURPIN.]
Possibly the immense popularity of "Jesus Christ is risen to-day"
depends on two things. Firstly, the words are extremely simple--a
little child can understand them; secondly, the tune is one of the
very best "congregational" ones of any collection.
Were I asked to name the next favourite Easter hymn, I should
certainly give the palm to one of the most beautiful hymns of
the Church of Christ--a hymn which has solaced and sustained the
hearts of thousands in their dark hours of grief for the loss of
their loved ones, just as it has rejoiced the hearts of so many
loving servants of the Master at their Easter festivals. I refer to
Baring-Gould's touching hymn "On the Resurrection morning."
The comfort derived from the sweet words of hope and promise in this
hymn by members of the Church militant here on earth will never be
known till that "Resurrection morning."
The Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould has kindly given me, for THE QUIVER,
a copy of the manuscript of this hymn, and a few notes about it
which cannot but prove interesting. It was composed on May Day, in
1864, he says; and, certainly, that is appropriate enough, for do
not all poets sing of May Day as a special day for the awakening
and rejoicing of nature? Horbury, that robust Yorkshire village
where Mr. Baring-Gould was then the curate, was the birthplace of
"On the Resurrection morning," as it was of what has proved one of
the six most "popular" hymns of the world, viz. "Onward, Christian
soldiers." So Horbury enjoys no mean fame. No one speaks more
lovingly of Horbury than does its former curate, now so famous; and
Horbury--church, chapel, and "non-connected"--is proud to a degree
of Sabine Baring-Gould and of the fame he has for ever given its
name by these and other noted hymns.
[Illustration: "ON THE RESURRECTION MORNING."
(_Facsimile of Dr. Turpin's Musical Setting._)]
It will be noticed that there is a word or two slightly different
in the author's copy from those of the usually printed text. In one
case his manuscript is not perhaps the better. "Which shall never,
through long ages, pass away," is not, in the writer's opinion,
grander than "Which shall not, through endless ages, pass away."
Dr. E. H. Turpin's fine tune to "On the Resurrection morning" has
the merit of exactly suiting it. All can sing it, and that makes
it so popular. The composer, with great kindness, has also allowed
me to reproduce his manuscript of it here; and it is only fair to
say that did the renown of the celebrated organist, as a composer,
depend only on this one tune, so linked to the hymn, it would not
easily perish whilst joyful hearts on Easter Day, and sad hearts at
the graveside of loved ones, join in singing "On the Resurrection
morning."
[Illustration: _Come, ye faithful, raise the strain._
_S. John Damascene._ _Arthur Henry Brown._
FACSIMILE OF THE COMPOSER'S ORIGINAL SETTING.]
To the Rev. J. M. Neale, who died about the time when Baring-Gould
wrote the hymn just spoken of, the Christian world is indebted for
three splendid Easter hymns. Of these it is difficult to say which
is the finest, though perhaps, being quite original, we should give
that honour to the well-known "The foe behind, the deep before."
Every section of the Church of Christ sings with deep and solemn
pathos those beautiful lines--
"No longer must the mourners weep,
Nor call departed Christians dead;
For death is hallow'd into sleep,
And every grave is but a bed"--
following so closely on the joyful strain of "Christ is risen!" in
the preceding verse.
[Illustration: (_Photo: William Gill, Colchester._)
_Arthur H. Brown._]
To this hymn innumerable tunes have been composed by musical people
of various degrees of ability; but it has always seemed to me that
by far the best are the two tunes given to it in the Wesleyan
hymn-book, and, curious to relate, the composers are both ministers,
the Rev. Olinthus R. Barnicott and the Rev. Sidney J. P. Dunman.
And it may safely be said that the singing by an average Wesleyan
congregation of this fine hymn, to either of these fine tunes, will
not be easily forgotten by the person who hears it for the first
time.
The two other famous Easter hymns of Dr. Neale's composition were
really translations from the Greek. Nevertheless, they are grand
translations, if one may say so. "The Day of Resurrection"--best
recognised when sung to the tune composed by Berthold Tours, the
celebrated composer is a regular favourite at Easter-tide; but even
more famous is the other hymn from the Greek--
"Come, ye faithful, raise the strain
Of triumphant gladness."
This hymn may safely be placed amongst the most popular of Easter
favourites, and, like so many others, whilst excellent in its
words, it owes not a little of its fame to its fine tune. This
latter was composed by Mr. Arthur Henry Brown, of Brentwood, and
was called "St. John Damascene," under which name it still figures
in the various Church hymn-books. Mr. Brown told me that the tune
was composed in less than a quarter of an hour! But he also told
me that even that was eclipsed by the tune "St. Anatolius"--does
any hymn-lover not know it?--to "The day is past and over," which
was composed in five minutes! Truly that was an "inspired" five
minutes, for which the Christian Church has reason to be thankful!
To the late Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. Christopher Wordsworth--who that
knew the saintly old man did not love him?--the world is indebted
for the ever-popular
"Alleluia! Alleluia!
Hearts to Heav'n and voices raise,"
which always goes with "a good swing" on Easter morn. Its tone is
"victory" from beginning to end, and there are few more beautiful
Easter verses than the first one of this hymn.
Sir Arthur Sullivan composed its tune--the one best known, "Lux
Eoi"--and the very lilt of the music seems somehow to suggest the
work of the great musician who gave us similar "swinging" tunes for
"Onward, Christian soldiers" ("St. Gertrude") and for "The Jubilee
Hymn." But Sir Arthur tells me that "Lux Eoi" was not composed
especially for this hymn, but for another one less famous. The
rapidity of Sir Arthur's composition is only equalled by that of
Arthur H. Brown, already mentioned. The gifted composer of _The
Golden Legend_ thinks long before he puts pen to paper, and often
defers doing this "till the last minute," as we say; but when he
_does_ get started, he goes at it as few composers can, and will
polish off the introduction to an oratorio in a night!
[Illustration: (_Photo: Elliott and Fry, Baker Street, W._)
THE LATE BISHOP WORDSWORTH.]
"When I survey the wondrous Cross," that splendid old hymn of that
splendid old divine, Dr. Isaac Watts, is probably one of our very
oldest hymns that is at all well known to-day. Everybody sings it,
for everybody knows both words and tune: Englishman, native African,
Brother Jonathan, converted Chinese, all sing alike from the heart,
after they have felt the real significance and power of that death
and resurrection--
"Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my life, my soul, my all!"
"Rockingham," the tune to which this hymn is eternally wedded,
was composed by Dr. Edward Miller. There is a magnificent roll
and stateliness about it which suits the words perfectly, and the
wonderful magnetic force which comes over one as one listens to six
thousand people--led by, say, Mr. Ira D. Sankey, singing "When I
survey the wondrous Cross"--was well described by the nameless slave
in America, who, hearing it thus sung by a crowd, and being reproved
for humming the tune as the people sang, said, "Massa, it no use; me
_must_ jine in!"
[Illustration: (_Photo: J. C. Schaarwächter, Berlin._)
SIR ARTHUR SULLIVAN.]
A living hymn-writer of no small fame--the present Archbishop of
York--has given us one of the very finest of the hymns for this
season. Though not popular in the sense that Dr. Watts' celebrated
hymn is, yet there are few more charmingly beautiful lines,
suggestive of Good Friday and Easter thoughts, than are found in Dr.
Maclagan's hymn, "Lord, when Thy Kingdom comes, remember me!"
This hymn is one of the best-known of the Archbishop's, though, of
course, his most famous one is the ever-beautiful "The Saints of
God, their conflict past."
We cannot pass by without notice the Rev. John Ellerton's "Welcome,
happy morning," and the Rev. F. W. Faber's very sweetly sad "O come
and mourn with me awhile," which, of course, is a hymn for Good
Friday. The tune to this was written by the celebrated Durham man
to whom the Church of England (and all denominations) will ever
be in debt for some of the sweetest hymn-tunes the world has ever
known--Dr. J. B. Dykes. And it was fitting that he who composed the
beautiful tune to "Our blest Redeemer," for Whitsuntide, should then
give us another ever-famous tune to Faber's grand words.
[Illustration: (_Photo: T. Heaviside, Durham._)
THE LATE DR. J. B. DYKES.]
Let me close this brief account of some of our finest Easter hymns
by just recalling one or two of our finest Easter anthems. Of
course, the first, _par excellence_, is the immortal "I know that my
Redeemer liveth"; and equally with it, from the same "oratorio of
oratorios," is the "Hallelujah" Chorus. Of these what shall be said?
Shall it be told again how Handel thought he was in heaven when he
wrote them? Or shall we note that the "Hallelujah" Chorus is one of
the three pieces of music in the world on hearing which every Briton
stands up and doffs his hat? These are the National Anthem, the
"Dead March" in _Saul_, and the "Hallelujah" Chorus. In the first he
pays his tribute to his earthly sovereign; in the second he pays his
last tribute to the venerated dead; in the third he acknowledges the
tribute due to his Almighty Lord, the Sovereign of Heaven.
[Illustration: (_Photo: Hills and Saunders, Oxford._)
_John Stainer_]
Apart from these two masterpieces of Handel, the prettiest and most
beautiful Easter anthem is that of Dr. Stainer, composed for the
cantata _The Raising of Jairus' Daughter_. In a wide experience of
cathedral music and anthem-singing by our best choirs, I doubt if
there is any much finer musical treat than to listen to the choir of
St. Paul's, or that of York Minster, as there rolls forth that most
beautiful of anthems, words and music--"Awake, thou that sleepest,
and arise from the dead, and God shall give thee light." This is,
indeed, a noble song for "Easter's bright morning," and well may its
words be taken as our special Easter thought; for to all of us, in
some way or other, they must have a special meaning.
[Illustration: SELF-HEALING.]
By The Rev. Hugh Macmillan, D.D., L.L.D.
"Physician, heal thyself."--ST. LUKE iv. 23.
We are accustomed to think that the healing virtue there
is in herbs and trees was meant only for man; that herbs and trees
were created with these virtues in them for the special purpose of
curing our human diseases and ministering to our human wants, and
for nothing else; that God had man in view in the beginning when He
gave these medicinal qualities to plants, and apart from man's use
of them they serve no other purpose.
Now this, which is a common, widespread idea, is an altogether
erroneous one. For if God meant these vegetable qualities and
products exclusively for man's use, the questions may be pertinently
asked, Why were they so long undiscovered; and why do they occur in
places often remote from human habitation, and waste themselves upon
the desert air?
It is true indeed that God designed them as remedies for man's
ailments, that He prepared beforehand the cures of human ills long
previous to the necessity for these cures arising. But this law of
mercy was a comprehensive one, and had a two-fold object in view.
God in the first place created the plant complete in itself, adapted
to its own circumstances and requirements; and in the second place,
it is through this perfect adaptability to its own wants that it
becomes generally useful in nature, and ministers to the necessities
of other created things. It is because the plant heals itself first
by the remedy which it grows and produces by its own powers that it
becomes a medicine to the animal world, when any members of that
world are placed in similar circumstances and exposed to a similar
disease.
Why, for instance, does the Peruvian bark tree produce the bitter
principle in its bark from which we have prepared the valuable
medicine called quinine? Is it not because that bitter principle
is necessary to preserve the health of the tree itself in the wet,
malarial districts where it grows? The Peruvian bark tree grows its
own quinine, and administers it to itself, as it were, in order to
prevent a disease in itself caused by the marshy places where it
is found, similar to fever in the human subject. The willow grows
beside rivers and streams which are apt to cause exhalations and
breed influences that are noxious to the well-being of the tree. It
has therefore developed in its own bark a febrifuge called salicin,
which protects it from these noxious influences and maintains its
trunk and branches and foliage in vigorous health and beauty. And
it is because the quinine is good for the tree itself in malarial
places that it is good for the fever which human beings take in such
places; and it is because the salicin of the willow guards the tree
from the injurious exhalations of marshes and river banks that it
is a specific for rheumatism in man, which is produced by the same
causes.
The same benefit which the medicinal principle developed by itself
works in its own constitution it confers upon man when subjected
to the same evil. And so it is with all the herbal medicines. They
have a purpose to serve in the economy of the plant that yields them
before they can minister to human sickness and disease. Sugar was
not meant in the first instance to sweeten man's cup, but to store
up food for the plant in order to enable it to flower. Tannin is
created in the bark of the oak tree, in the first instance, not for
the purpose of helping to make leather for man's shoes, but for
the purpose of preventing mildew and fungous growths from settling
on the bark of the tree and so decaying it. Scent is produced
in flowers and shrubs that grow in watery places, not for man's
gratification in the first instance, but in order to deodorise the
air and make it fit for these scented flowers and shrubs to breathe
and to preserve their vitality and vigour. Aromatic fragrance is
yielded by the grey shrubs and herbs of the dry desert, not that the
garments of the human passer-by might smell pleasantly of it, but
that it might regulate the temperature, and keep the plants cool in
the burning heat of the noonday and warm in the freezing cold of the
night air.
Such instances might be multiplied indefinitely. Indeed, it may
be regarded as a rule of nature without exception that, whatever
properties plants possess that are useful to man, these properties,
in the first instance, are not only useful but indispensable to
themselves. And it is because they serve necessary uses in their own
economy that they are found so necessary in the economy of man. Each
plant that grows in circumstances where it is likely to be injured
by the soil or climate develops within itself the antidotes and
remedies against these unfavourable circumstances. It is a physician
that heals itself first of all, that adapts itself as perfectly as
possible to the peculiarities of its own place of growth. Nature
and it are harmonious: they help each other. The qualities that
are beneficial to itself are equally in the same way beneficial to
other creatures; and it helps the world because it has first helped
itself. It imparts health all around because it looks first after
its own health.
All this is obvious. The plant could not exist at all did it not
develop those qualities which would minister to its welfare and
adjust it perfectly to its environment. But in human economy we
fancy somehow that the law is less strict and more irregular, and
can be violated at times with impunity. We think that a man can
perform the part of a physician, and cure others, although he cannot
cure a trouble that afflicts himself; that he can restore others
to health while he himself is unhealthy. We can separate between a
man's skill and his personality; and, indeed, there are many cases
where a physician who is dying slowly of some incurable disease
can yet, by his knowledge and cleverness, so treat his patients
that he may heal their diseases and restore them to health and
strength. But we are usually suspicious of a doctor endeavouring
to cure others when he himself labours under an uncured disease.
We reason naturally that his first concern should be himself; and
if he fails in doing good to himself by his skill and medicine,
when his interests are most of all concerned and the motive for
healing strongest, how can he hope to succeed in the case of others,
strangers and comparatively indifferent to him? We should not accept
with implicit confidence a so-called remedy for baldness forced
upon our notice by a person whose own head was in that condition.
We should expect him to operate upon himself in the first instance
with success, and then we should feel disposed to venture upon a
similar use of it. The proverb says that "He who drives fat cattle
must himself be fat"; and upon the principle involved in that common
saying he who would heal others must himself be a specimen of that
active, vigorous health to which he wishes to restore others. In no
work, indeed, is the personal equation of more consequence than in
the work of the physician. Three-fourths of the elements that enter
into all diseases are spiritual, and three-fourths of the remedies
that must be used for them must also be spiritual. The personal
appearance, character, and manner of the physician himself are most
important factors in the cure of disease. Confidence in the doctor
is more than half the cure; and therefore what the doctor is in
himself is of great consequence.
In the spiritual sphere the physician can only heal others as he
heals himself. He himself must be an exemplification of the saving
health of God's countenance if he is to do good to others. It is
just as true in the affairs of the human soul as it is in the
case of the plant--that the quality which is beneficial to the
soul itself is equally beneficial to the world. It is noticeable,
however, that there are exceptions to the rule in the spiritual
world as there are exceptions in the natural human world. Just as
there are cases of physicians healing bodily diseases in others
while their own disease is unhealed, so there are cases where a man
is the means of saving others while he himself is unsaved.
It is not, indeed, a matter of supposition, but of certainty, that
a man may do good while he is not good. Hundreds of instances could
be given, in which persons have been the means of quickening,
comforting, and building up souls in the Lord, while all the time
they themselves were strangers to the power of truth and ignorant
of the love of Christ in their hearts. Ministers have preached the
Gospel for years, and have been wise in bringing souls to Christ,
and yet have themselves been castaways in the end. Members of
churches have been zealous in every good work, and yet have known
nothing of godliness but the form. The very commonness of this
thing increases its sadness. We think the case of Moses leading
the Israelites to the border of the Promised Land while he himself
was forbidden to enter peculiarly pathetic; but its pathos is in
reality far less touching than the case of the man who brings others
to the fountain of life while he himself is perishing of thirst, who
is like a guide-post pointing the way of salvation to others while
unable himself to take a single step.
But though instances have unquestionably occurred in which signal
beneficial results have followed the preaching of the Gospel by
ungodly men, this is not the normal order of the Divine procedure.
It is personal experience of religion as an inward life, as a living
power in the heart, that imparts unction to active Christian effort,
that adds conviction and power to testimony and commendation. He
is the man to do spiritual good to others who is able to say with
the Apostle, "That which we have heard, which we have seen with our
eyes, and our hands have handled, of the word of life, declare we
unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us." He is the man
to say to others, "O taste and see that the Lord is good," who has
himself tasted, and from his own enjoyment can say, "Blessed is the
man that trusteth in Him."
It is an unchangeable law and constitution of our nature that we
cannot desire blessings for others which we do not really desire for
ourselves, the blessedness of which we have not known ourselves.
When we feel the value of our own souls, and not till then, we
shall feel the value of the souls of others. When we see the Lord
ourselves, and not till then, we shall desire that every child of
man shall see Him.
It is on this account that our Lord says to Peter, "When thou art
converted, strengthen thy brethren." "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest
thou Me? Feed My sheep; feed My lambs." If we are saved ourselves,
we shall be best fitted to save and benefit others. There is a
virtue in true holiness, there is a secret charm in the wisdom that
cometh from above, which wins our hearts, and inclines us to embrace
a religion which yields such blessed fruits. The man who eminently
possesses and constantly exhibits these qualities becomes quick and
powerful in acting upon the minds of those around him.
The best way, then, to do good is to be good, and to have such a
Christian character as will of itself communicate good. Be yourself
what you wish your family, your friends and neighbours, to be.
"Physician, heal thyself." God needs physicians, many physicians;
for there are many destroyers spreading the influence of their
ungodly life--a deadly infection--around, and adding to the disease
and misery which man's sin first brought upon the world. Let us act
as fellow-workers with the Good Physician in bringing back health
and strength and beauty to a plague-stricken world; and for this
purpose let us qualify ourselves more thoroughly. Let us apply the
Gospel remedies anew to our own case which we recommend to others,
that our own profiting and healing by these may be made manifest to
all. Let us ask God to search us and see if there be anything that
would prevent us from doing all the good that we might, any defect
of manner or disposition of heart that might cause the way of truth
so far as we are concerned to be evil spoken of; and let us ask the
help of the Divine Spirit to get it healed. So that thus being made
every whit whole ourselves, we may diffuse a healthy atmosphere
around us and make others partakers of our saving health.
The Sabbath is the best day for healing. Jesus asked the Jews, "Is
it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?" The reply might have been,
"Is it lawful to do anything else but heal on the Sabbath day?"
That day is set apart for healing the diseases of the world. It is
the day of recreation--re-creating us and fitting us anew by its
rest and refreshment of worship for the toil and travail of our
weekday life. Let us bring to Jesus on this Sabbath day all the old
infirmities and disabilities which have been a hindrance to the
growth of the work of grace in the midst of us, and He will deliver
us from them, and make us new creatures; and so--set free in newness
of health and strength, with our palsied frame invigorated, our
withered hand restored, our lame feet made swift in the way of God's
commandments, and our world-bound spirit loosed from its infirmity
and covetousness, and enabled to look upward where our true treasure
is--let us seek to free others from their infirmities and diseases,
and to make all around us strong in faith and health in the new life
of God's service.
Let the tonic that has restored our own spiritual constitution be
in all our words and deeds and looks, to restore the spiritual
constitution of others. Let the perfume that neutralises the drought
and cold of the world be exhaled from all our character and conduct,
so that it may be the means of enabling all with whom we come in
contact to resist the aridity and the coldness of the world too.
Let each of us be so full of Christ's healing and saving power, so
saturated with His salvation, as it were, that we ourselves may be
Christ's best medicines. Let the words "Physician, heal thyself" be
in the very forefront of our profession and of our life throughout
all the years; and we ourselves in such a case will be among the
most potent influences for good in the world.
[Illustration: PLEDGED.]
By Katharine Tynan, Author of "A Daughter of Erin," Etc.
CHAPTER XVI.
"GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART."
Beside the Wishing Well stood Anthony Trevithick, pale
and moody. His eyes were on the ground, and an old childish habit of
biting his nails when he was perplexed or in trouble had come back
to him.
"I beg your pardon," said Lord Glengall at his elbow. "I have
returned for some things Miss Graydon left behind her."
"These?" asked the young fellow, pointing with his foot to the
little heap of trinkets on the moss. But even in his anger he
blushed for the unhappiness of the position.
Lord Glengall stooped and picked up the things, and stuffed them
into one of the pockets of his rough coat. He turned as if to go
away. Then he hesitated an instant and came back.
"There is no reason why we should be enemies," he said, advancing a
step nearer.
"No?" replied Anthony Trevithick, lifting his moody eyes. "That
depends."
"On what, sir?"
"On--a great many things," stammered the young man.
"You mean on whether I am prepared to stand aside and to sacrifice
everything that you may have your will. I know the state of affairs,
you see."
"I meant to seek you out and tell you, Lord Glengall. I ought to
say, perhaps, that Miss Graydon is without reproach in this matter."
"Neither of us is likely to wrong her in our thoughts, I hope," said
Lord Glengall. "The question is, whether _you_ are without reproach."
"By what right----" began the younger man.
"Hush!" said the other, with a dignity that was more compelling than
his words. "We are speaking as man to man. Miss Graydon has told
me something of how affairs lay between you and her, but not all.
Why did you leave her in the first instance in the position of a
half-engaged girl?"
"Are you her ambassador?"
"She is dearer to me, I dare swear, than she is to you, though you
will not believe it. There is no use in beating about the bush. If I
think you can make her happier than I can, I am prepared to give her
back her promise."
"Lord Glengall!"
A gesture silenced the words on his lips.
"Don't say anything, please. If I do it, I do it for her. And I
shall only give her up to you if I am sure you are worthy."
"I don't say I am worthy, but I have a fairly clean record. As for
that matter, I will explain. I was unwise, but I was not altogether
to blame. My mother has a greatly loved young cousin. She has been
in the house with us since her mother died some years ago. It was a
scheme of my mother's that we should marry, though it was not openly
expressed. I did not oppose it. I had no idea what love meant till I
saw Pamela; but I had fetched and carried for Lady Kitty. Probably
a great number of people thought we were engaged; and it seemed to
me that I ought to set the matter straight before I was formally
engaged to Pamela."
"It would have been better to have let Pamela alone till you were
quite free."
"Yes, I know, but----"
"There; you are young. You can't be expected to be as deliberate as
an older man. You meant to act straight by her?"
"I meant to come back in a week a free man. When I was called away
to my uncle's sick bed, my mother made me promise not to speak, not
to try to clear up things with Lady Kitty, till I returned. I did
write to Mr. Graydon, but the letter never reached him." He blushed
hotly and paused.
"Yes, I know," interrupted Lord Glengall. "When you came back?"
"When I came back, I found--Pamela engaged to you, and my cousin
engaged to a great friend of mine. As it proved, she had never
thought of me in that way; but her affection for my mother prevented
her from speaking out."
"You should have written again to Mr. Graydon. You made Pamela
unhappy."
"I thought he had not written because I said I would come as soon as
I could. Then I was kept week after week, till the time turned into
months. I am deeply sorry that I caused her unhappiness."
"This is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"
"It is absolutely the truth, and nothing else."
"Very well, Sir Anthony, I believe you. If you had not been
straight, I should have held her to the letter of her bond against
you and the world, even against herself. Now--in her heart she has
chosen you, and you are a fitter mate for her than I--I resign her
to you."
"Lord Glengall!"
"I do not ask your thanks, sir. Make her happy--that is all. For the
rest, I have one word of advice for you."
"Whatever it is, I shall act upon it."
"Go back to-night to England."
"Without a word to Pamela?"
"Let her be. I will say what is necessary. You will have to win her
again, young sir. She is not the girl to change her lovers like her
frocks."
"Perhaps you are right, sir," with hesitation.
"Go," said Lord Glengall, waving him away, "go! If you speak to her
in her present mood, you will be sorry. Let her be free of both of
us for a while."
"You, too, will leave her?"
"I shall leave her till all this is forgotten. It will be nothing
new for me to set out for the ends of the earth at an hour's notice."
"You are, as Pamela says, the best man living."
"Stop!" said Lord Glengall, with a gesture as if he could not endure
the praise. "Good-bye!"
"Good-bye," repeated Sir Anthony, turning away.
Several times as he went homeward Lord Glengall stooped to pat the
shaggy coat of the terrier who still trotted by him.
[Illustration: Pointing with his foot to the little heap of
trinkets.]
"You don't know poetry, old fellow," he said once aloud, "but there
was a poet named Shakespeare who wrote something about people coming
back 'to push us from our stools.' I am not good at remembering
poetry; but that young gentleman we have just left has come back to
push us from our stools--to push us from our stools."
The dog, as if he understood, thrust a sympathetic nose into his
companion's hand.
When Lord Glengall reached Carrickmoyle, he went straight to Mr.
Graydon's room. Mary was sitting by her father, stitching a piece of
fine white stuff in the twilight.
"Ah! Glengall," said the invalid briskly. "Have you come in to smoke
a last pipe with me? Come and tell me what prices were like at the
fair to-day. Run away, Molly child, and rest your eyes, and let
Glengall have your seat."
The two men lit up soberly, and smoked away for a while, discussing
prices and cattle and crops in a desultory fashion.
At last Lord Glengall knocked out the ashes from his stumpy clay
against the top bar of the grate, and stuffed the pipe into his
pocket.
"I wanted to talk to you about Pam, Graydon," he said.
"What about Pam?"
"Only that I did the child an injustice in wanting to marry her. I
am too old."
"Does Pam say this? Are you speaking for her?"
"Poor little Pam! There were some love-passages, Graydon, between
her and your pupil Trevithick."
"I guessed as much, but how far the thing went I have no idea. I
don't believe in probing into those things, Glengall. It is better
to let them die."
"Had you any idea that the young fellow might possibly ask for her?"
"I hoped so once, not because it would be a good marriage for Pam,
or anything of that sort, but because I thought him a good lad, and
I believed in his father's son. I was disappointed that he turned
out so different from my expectations."
"Would you be surprised to hear that he wrote to you about Pam
immediately after he left, and that his mother intercepted the
letter?"
"His mother!"
"Yes; she had other views for him."
"I wonder why she came here, why she troubled our peace, and forced
her hospitality on Pam, who didn't want it?" said Mr. Graydon
musingly.
"To make a parting between the lad and Pam more certain. She told
Pam he was engaged to his cousin; and in other ways made the child's
visit miserable."
"My poor Pam! I remember she hated to go."
"I am sorry the boy has such a mother."
"Yet I remember her a very noble-looking girl. I don't think she
was made for mean things."
"Ah! well, we can let her be. She is sufficiently punished, poor
woman, by her son's scorn. That must be a terrible thing to endure."
"And she is a proud woman."
"However, Graydon, we are not concerned with her. The state of the
case is this: The young people were in love with each other, and
were parted by a fraud. Under a total misapprehension, Pamela has
engaged herself to me. Now that the misapprehension is removed, what
is the clear course for me to take?"
"I should ask Pamela, Glengall."
"Pamela is at this moment in a mood in which it would not be safe to
take her at her word. The only thing for me to do is to step down
and out."
"Glengall!" said Mr. Graydon, laying a hand on his.
"Don't pity me just now, Graydon. Frankly, I'm not equal to it."
"Have you told Pam?"
"I shall tell her. Afterwards I shall go away till the nine days'
wonder is forgotten."
"Glengall, I wish this had not happened."
"There is one way in which you can atone to me for its bitterness--I
don't mind confessing to you that it is bitter."
"And that way?"
"You must borrow from me what will take you abroad. You must; it is
for their sakes."
"Very well; if there is no other way. I shall repay you, I hope."
"You have plenty of time before you to grow rich in. When you come
back next spring, you must finish your _magnum opus_."
Mr. Graydon rubbed his hands in boyish cheerfulness.
"I shall feel equal to tackling it after a change. I'm afraid I've
been vegetating, and the mosses and mildew have grown upon me. You
have lived, Glengall, while I was growing into a worthless old
block."
"It is you who have lived," said Lord Glengall. "You have lived
naturally. When I die, it is the end of my line, and I shall have no
one to close my eyes."
When he found Pam in the drawing-room alone, a little later, he drew
her to him, and kissed her hair where it clustered over the white
forehead.
"I have brought your pretty things, Pam," he said, fumbling in his
pocket.
"And you have forgiven me?"
"I have forgiven you, dear."
He fastened the little chain about her neck and the bracelet on her
wrist.
"You will wear them for me, Pam?" he said. "I should not know what
to do with them."
"And my ring?" said Pam, wondering.
"I have taken back the ring. You are free, Pam; free as air."
[Illustration: "You are free, Pam; free as air."]
"But I don't want to be free."
"You did yesterday, Pam, and you will to-morrow. I have seen Sir
Anthony, Pam. He is guiltless, and will come again."
"I do not want him to come," cried Pam with a great sob.
"I sent him away because I was afraid if he came to you now you
would make him and yourself unhappy. He hated to go, but he went. He
will come again. You will be good to him, Pam, because you love him.
Now, good-bye, my dear. I shall come back when you are married."
Pamela's hands were over her eyes, and she was crying quietly.
"Another thing, Pam," he said. "I have arranged with your father. He
is to winter abroad."
"Sylvia will see to that," she answered. "Miss Spencer has made it
easy for her. At least, we need not take that from you."
"You have given me great happiness," he repeated. "And now,
good-bye, my dear, good-bye."
A day or two later Carrickmoyle was startled by the news that Lord
Glengall had sailed for Australia.
CHAPTER XVII.
"THOUGH 'TWERE TEN THOUSAND MILE."
"I wish something would happen," said Sylvia; "it is the longest
summer I have ever known."
Sylvia was wearing black for Miss Spencer, who had passed away
peacefully a few weeks after that talk with Pamela. When the
legal formalities were completed, Sylvia would be _châtelaine_ of
Dovercourt; but her interest in her inheritance seemed very slight.
"By-and-by," she had said, "I shall be glad to know that I have
money to do things with; but just at present I can only remember
what it is that has made me rich."
[Illustration: "I thought you were going to marry him, Bridget."]
"Why not have Mr. Baker or Mr. St. Quintin to tea quietly?"
suggested Pam. "I am sure they are longing to come, and they would
cheer you up."
But Sylvia would not. She preferred to wander from the house to the
garden with the dogs at her heels, or to stray from one room to
another, having a desultory chat with her father, who was now up and
about, or with Mary, cheerfully sewing her bridal clothes, usually
ending up with a visit to Bridget in the kitchen.
Bridget quite agreed with Sylvia about the dulness of the house, and
suggested the same remedy for it as Pamela had done.
"Have a bit of company, child," she said. "Sure, her that's gone
(the heavens be her bed!) 'ud be the last to grudge the young what's
natural to the young, let alone that I hear young Mr. St. Quintin's
that mopy that they say 'tis to horse-racin' he's took, wid the
design of breakin' his neck by way of divarsion."
"Don't talk such nonsense, Bridget," said Sylvia languidly. "The
horse is not born that could unseat Mr. St. Quintin. He can stick
on like grim death. But I don't feel that company, such company as
I could get, would be any good to me. I don't like young people,
Bridget."
"Well, sorra such a house I ever was in," said Bridget, scandalised.
"Never mind, Bridget dear," said Sylvia, who had temporarily lost
her taste for sharp argument with Bridget. "I suppose I was born
old."
"Listen to her," cried Bridget, "an' she wid the lightest feet, aye,
an' the purtiest face in the barony! Between you and Miss Pamela,
me heart's fairly bruk. There's Miss Pamela, that ought to be goin'
to be married a week from next Tuesday, goin' round as mopy as a
chicken wid the pip. I never seen such goin's on anywhere I was."
"It certainly _is_ time," said Sylvia again, "that something should
happen, and, short of marrying myself, Bridget, I'll do anything to
bring it about."
"Indeed, then Mr. St. Quintin's a pleasant young gentleman," said
Bridget, broadly smiling, "though an imp of mischief. 'Tis meself'll
not forget in a hurry how he whipped the steps from undher Grady
whin he was pickin' the morello cherries, an' never purtended he
heard him bawlin' melia murther, an' the ould rogue, as he was
contrivin' to slip down by the trunk, caught by a twig in his
breeches an' held there! As I said to Mr. St. Quintin, I hoped he
thought then on poor Mary that's gone, that often he made suffer,
the crathur!"
"I thought you were going to marry him, Bridget," said Sylvia, with
the same languid interest.
"Och, then, heaven forgive you, Miss Sylvia. Sure them was only my
jokes. Not but what he axed me. 'The mischief bother you, man,' says
I. 'Is it havin' me commit murther you'd be? Why, sure I couldn't
keep me hands off you if I was lookin' at you every day, an' then
I'd be tried an' hung for it, maybe.'"
"Well, I'm glad you're not going to marry him under the
circumstances," said Sylvia. "But, all the same, it is time some of
us made a stir."
And even then one thing that was to disturb the current of their
lives was on its way.
The very morning after Sylvia's conversation with Bridget there was
a large square envelope for Mr. Graydon, which somewhat exercised
his youngest daughter's imagination.
"Come here, dad," she said, when at last he arrived at the
breakfast-table. "I've been longing for something to happen, and I
believe this is really a happening at last."
"It is my uncle's writing," said Mr. Graydon, as he took the letter
and opened it. As he read it his face grew graver and graver.
"Poor old Uncle Charles!" he said, when he had finished. "His boy is
dead."
Lord Downshire's letter was very characteristic:--
"MY DEAR ARCHIE,--I will not say you have scored again, but at
least I have failed with the last card I held against you. My boy
is dead. I don't ask for your sympathy or your pity. You, with your
healthy girls, cannot appreciate what I suffer. I am racked in the
spirit and the body, and I shall be very glad to leave a world that
has lost savour for me. I heard indirectly that you were ill after
you had been here; but, you see, _you_ have recovered, and it is
my boy that is dead. You are my heir now, and I am too sick of it
all to make another attempt to frustrate you. And there is no use
continuing in enmity against you, so I shall make you an allowance
proportionate to the condition of my heir. I shall not ask to see
you, but Messrs. Lees and Saunders, of Lincoln's Inn--you will
remember Saunders; Lees died last year--have my instructions."
Mr. Graydon put the letter into his pocket when he had read it.
"Something has happened, Sylvia," he said sorrowfully. "I am Lord
Downshire's heir once more; and yet I would a thousand times rather
be as I was, and the old man's little son living."
But the happenings of the day were not over.
Sylvia, going her pilgrimage to Miss Spencer's new grave, was
aware of a tall young figure, which had something familiar about
it, swinging along towards her. Presently she recognised Anthony
Trevithick.
"Miss Sylvia," he said, "I am so glad I met with you. I want to see
Pamela."
"Pamela!" with oddly upraised eyebrows.
"Yes--Pamela. I have stayed away as long as I could. I promised Lord
Glengall I would give her time."
"Oh! that is how it is, is it?"
"Yes; didn't you know?"
"I guessed, of course, but Pam is not the old Pam. She has been as
solemn as an owl, and as secretive, ever since.... When was it?... I
really think it began about the time of your going away. She used to
be the best of good company."
"What is this for, Miss Sylvia?" said the young man, touching her
black frock.
"Ah! You do not know. Miss Spencer died a month ago."
"I am sorry," he said, with a sympathy which at once made Sylvia his
friend.
"Does Pam know you are coming?" she asked.
"No. I was afraid to announce myself. Perhaps she will show me the
door."
"Perhaps she won't, Sir Anthony. She's fond of you, you see."
"Oh, Miss Sylvia!" cried Anthony Trevithick, flushing delightedly
through his tan.
"Oh, yes! she's fond of you. I'm not going to talk about her
secrets, but I know how it is. I knew all along. That is why I was
so vexed with her--when---- Never mind. You want to see Pamela,
then? Well, just wait for me a minute outside this gate. I will come
back with you then, and find Pamela for you."
"You are awfully good."
"Perhaps I'm glad to get rid of Pam. She's prettier than I am,
though some people don't think so. Perhaps I'm afraid of her
stealing my admirers."
"I believe it is only your goodness to me."
"And to Pam. She's not the same Pam she was a year ago. If you make
her like her old self, I shall forgive you even that you left us
forlorn and unsquired at that famous festivity for which you should
have returned."
"Oh! Miss Sylvia, I shan't believe that."
She did not try Anthony Trevithick's patience by keeping him waiting
long at the churchyard gate. She was gone only a minute or two
before she returned, her basket empty of its flowers, and her face,
which had gained so much in character and sweetness during the
year, a little overshadowed.
When they reached Carrickmoyle, she brought Anthony Trevithick
through the sunny hall where the door stood, as ever, hospitably
open, and into the big drawing-room. "Stay here till I find Pam,"
she said. She went upstairs two steps at a time in the boyish way he
remembered. He listened with a smile on his face till the sound of
the footsteps died away. Then he began to walk up and down nervously.
Pam sat in the window of her own little room with her chin in her
hands, gazing over the summer-dark landscape, her air listless, and
her eyes apathetic.
"It is lonely, Sylvia," she said, scarcely turning her head as her
sister entered.
"You never used to find it so," said Sylvia. "I remember the time
when Carrickmoyle held all the delights for you."
"That was when we were little girls in short frocks, and led poor
Mick into scrapes."
"Many a year ago," said Sylvia. "When you struck Anthony Trevithick
with the sun-bonnet that was intended for the red cock----"
Pamela's heightened colour assured Sylvia of what she wanted to know.
"Pam," she said, "why don't you make it straight with Anthony
Trevithick?"
"How do you know there is anything to make straight?"
"Rubbish!" said Sylvia, with quiet scorn.
"Oh, Sylvia!" said Pamela, "you don't understand. I am tired of love
and lovers. I only want to be let alone. I have suffered too much."
"If you have, it's your own fault. You'd no business to take poor
dear Glengall when you were in love with someone else, though how
you could look at others in the same day with Glengall fairly
bothers me. And now, why don't you write and ask Anthony Trevithick
to come back?"
"I don't want him to come back."
"Yes, you do; you're crying your eyes out for him every night.
Yes, you are. And why you let all this muddle go on without doing
anything to prevent it I don't know. I could shake you, Pam!"
"What would you have done, Sylvia?"
"Well, supposing I was in love with a man and knew him to be in love
with me, and supposing he went away and didn't write, I'd never
think anything except that the letter was lost. If I could get at
him, I'd write and ask him what it meant. If I couldn't, I'd go on
believing in him, maybe till I was old and grey, and till I died, as
some have done--if I really loved him, mind you."
"Perhaps you are right, Sylvia."
"There's no doubt about it, Madam Faint-Heart."
"But come," she said, after a benevolent scrutiny of Pamela; "come,
you look very nice, unless you'd like to put on the pink sun-bonnet.
Anthony Trevithick is in the drawing-room."
"Sylvia!"
"Yes, I know I ought to have mentioned it before, instead of talking
nonsense. The poor young man's on tenter-hooks."
"Sylvia! I _can't_ go down."
"Yes, you can. You shall, even if I have to use force."
"Very well, Sylvia," said Pam, rising and trembling a little.
"Come, don't think about it. Do it quickly, as we used to take our
cod-liver oil long ago. Let us run down the stairs. There, you poor
little thing! your hands are cold. The run will warm them."
And, half-resisting, Pamela was pulled by force down the stairs.
Nevertheless, she entered the room with her head high.
"How do you do, Sir Anthony?" she began.
"Ah, Pam darling!" cried the young man, coming to meet her. "Don't
give me any more cold words or cold looks. I haven't deserved them,
and if you've nothing else for me I shall go away for ever."
"No, surely," said Pam, and her sweet voice had a little surprise in
it. "You didn't really deserve any blame at all."
"But you did, for I asked you to trust me, Pam. I asked you to trust
me, and your faith was brittle."
"So it was," said Pam.
"Well," said Sylvia, as she went out and closed the door. "It is
plain these recriminations are not meant for me. Heigho! I wish Mr.
Baker would come along just now, that I might have the satisfaction
of refusing him. It is easy to see that Glengall is as completely
forgotten as if he had never existed."
No one could say that Mr. Graydon's youngest daughter was not loyal
to the absent.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A PROPOSAL.
Pamela Graydon had been Pamela Trevithick for three years, when one
day in late summer Sylvia, still Sylvia Graydon, was entertaining a
visitor in her London drawing-room.
It was Lord Glengall, a shade greyer, a shade leaner, but looking
well nevertheless, and brown with southern suns.
"And so," he said, "we shall travel back to Ireland together."
"It will be a delightful and unexpected pleasure to have your
company."
"You are glad to return, Sylvia?"
"Glad! It is no word for it. I am hungry for the velvety wind that
blows across the mountains. I am so tired of these glaring streets,
of parties, and dinners and luncheons, and functions of all kinds."
Lord Glengall laughed.
"To tell you the truth, I am amazed and amused to find your father
in the midst of it all."
[Illustration: Half-resisting, Pamela was pulled by force.]
"Papa! Oh, papa is the veriest Piccadilly lounger. He has returned
to it all as freshly as if he had never left it. He discovered
troops of old friends--without a misgiving--as soon as ever he came
in for the title."
"He doesn't pine for Carrickmoyle?"
"Now and again. When the desire becomes very strong, he and I slip
away to Euston some evening, forgetting all our engagements, and,
for a few days, our new circumstances, at Carrickmoyle, where
Bridget cooks our chops and makes us potato-cakes just as of old."
"I am glad to hear Bridget is still to the fore."
"She is not a day older."
"She never carried out her threat of marrying my gardener?"
"Mr. Grady is still a widdy-man, as they used to say in the dear
country."
"But to return to your father. The _magnum opus_ has become an
accomplished fact. You see, I haven't been so far out of the world
as not to have heard that."
"Yes. It has been a great success. He is as much in request at
learned societies and conversaziones as he is in fashionable
drawing-rooms. To think of the years he vegetated at Carrickmoyle!"
"Happy years, Sylvia."
"I could hardly hope for happier."
"He will be in soon, Sylvia?"
"About half-past five," consulting a little watch fastened to her
gown. "You can endure my company till then."
"I shall try to. But am I not keeping you from afternoon calls or
something? I saw a carriage at the door as I came in."
"I have sent it away. I was rejoiced to do it. Papa will be simply
wild with delight at your falling from the clouds like this."
"He hasn't forgotten me, then?"
"How should he? The only drawback about Carrickmoyle has been that
we could see from it the cold chimneys of Glengall."
"Ah! we shall warm them," said Lord Glengall, beaming at her. "We
shall have fine jinks if only you and your father will spend six
months of the year at Carrickmoyle. I am no Londoner, and never
shall be. But I shall be able to endure six months of solitude if I
know I am going to have you for the remainder of the year."
"You will not long be left solitary. You cheated the country the
last time by disappearing again before it had had time to rejoice
over you. Your return will flutter the dovecotes for thirty miles
around."
"You are very kind, Sylvia," said Lord Glengall simply. "But you
have not told me half the news," he went on. "How is Molly?"
"Flourishing. Mick has got his company. He wouldn't leave the
service on any consideration, and I think he was right. They are as
much in love with each other as ever; and they have a beautiful boy."
"Ah! that is right. Molly deserved to be happy."
"She did, and so did Mick. Mick is a dear old fellow."
"And Pam, Sylvia?"
There was no consciousness in his voice.
"Pam, too, is a success. She has been a beauty for three seasons,
strange to say."
"And it is a happy marriage?"
"Perfectly happy. They are ideally well suited."
"I am glad of that. How does Pam get on with her mother-in-law?"
"Fairly well, I believe. Lady Jane keeps herself to herself, which
is lucky for Pam. I never took to that lady. But she is devoted
to the heir. She wouldn't strike you, somehow, as a grandmotherly
person, but it is so."
"There is an heir?"
"Yes; he is two years old, and he has a baby sister of seven months."
"Ah! how you young people have been making history since I left. I
shall not know this new world of your making."
"You find me changed?"
"Lovelier, Sylvia."
"It is nice to have you say that."
"Still greedy for conquest, even though it is only an old fogey?"
"Ah!"--with more intensity than he thought the occasion
demanded--"you never can be that!"
"You are always kind, little girl. When I look into your eyes, I
fancy it is the old Sylvia I am talking to, and not a fine lady."
"It is the old Sylvia."
"The Sylvia I knew would never have worn this"--touching a fold of
her dress.
"She would, if she could. It is only a Paris tea-gown. She was
happier in the prints at sixpence a yard from Guirk's shop in
Lettergort."
"Happier, Sylvia? What have you been doing with yourself since?"
"Growing old and faded with trying to occupy several houses at once
and doing a great many things I detest."
She laughed at him from where she sat in her youth and beauty, and
he laughed in answer.
"Where are the lads who used to be in love with you?"
"All married, except Algy St. Quintin; but he has long given up
asking me. We are good comrades."
"No more than that, Sylvia?"
"No more than that. I wouldn't lose sight of him for anything. He
is just the same imp of mischief, as Bridget used to call him. His
coolness is phenomenal, and his impudence so deliciously incongruous
with his cherubic boy's face."
"There is no one else, Sylvia?"
"There is no one else."
"Ah! you are so hard-hearted, child. Or is it that you will stay
with your father?"
"Not altogether that. I've seen no one here I would marry."
"Yet you have met all sorts and conditions of men."
"All sorts and conditions, but not the right one."
"The right one will come."
"He might come--he may have come, and not have found me the right
woman."
She looked at him an instant; then she suddenly blushed hotly, and
her eyes fell and rested on the jewelled fingers in her lap. So full
was her attitude of yielding and submission that it might well make
the heart of a lover leap.
A sudden, bewildering idea came to the man before her. For an
instant he was dazed with the shock of it. Then he stood up and
paced the room in great agitation.
"Sylvia," he said at last, pausing before her where she still sat, a
lovely image of submission, "Pamela was right when she did not marry
me."
"She was right because she did not love you."
"How could she love me? I might have been her father."
"That is no reason. Love does not take count of such things."
"Ah, Sylvia! What has love to do with grey hairs?"
"If there is love, they are better than gold."
"Sylvia, do you know what madness you are putting into my head?"
"I cannot know unless you tell me."
Sylvia's eyes were raised to his with a flash of the old audacity.
"Perhaps I dare not tell you."
"Ah, do!"
"If I were a young man and you would do it, you might turn this
work-a-day earth to Paradise for me."
"And why not now?"
[Illustration: He made a step towards her.--_p. 552._]
"Ah! child, you do not know what you are saying. What could you, a
beauty and an heiress, see in me?"
"I am glad I am beautiful to you. But why should that and the other
things stand between me and my happiness?"
"Your happiness, Sylvia?"
"Ah, yes! You wouldn't see it, but I always thought there was no
one in the world like you. You chose Pam before me, and even then I
accepted your will, but I loved you still."
"I chose Pam because she was unhappy, because there seemed no other
way. It did not break my heart to give her up, though it was a blow.
It does not hurt me now to hear of her as Lady Trevithick. But I
dare not risk the same thing with you."
"Why?"
"Because it would be so easy to forget my years, and love you with a
young man's ardour, and more than a young man's faith."
"Then why not love me?"
"Ah! Sylvia, it is your kindness, your compassion. I could not
endure to be thrown over now, even though I am well on in my
forties."
"I shall not throw you over. Look at me, and you will see."
He looked at her, and made a step towards her.
"Then you will make the world over again for me?"
"And you for me?"
"Ah, Sylvia!"
"Yes. How hard it was to persuade you. There will be lots of people
who will want to marry you once it is known you have come back. You
might have liked someone better than me. And I have waited for three
years."
"You fairy princess, what do you mean by condescending to a mortal's
grey hairs?"
"We shall be so happy, you and I and papa. We shall lead the country
life, though he'll have to come to London now and again for his
serious 'frivolities.' And I shall make you care for me. Now you do
not care for me nearly so much as I do for you."
"You bewilder me, Sylvia."
"Ah! yes, you will care for me. I shall not let you cheat me."
"You talk as if my youth were not flown, you lovely child."
"It is not flown. You do not mean to say you used up your youth
during those hard years that lined your face and sowed grey hairs in
your head? Ah! no, you were saving it up for me."
"It is _too_ incredible!"
"Take time, then, to think, good gentleman," said Sylvia, with
laughter dancing bewitchingly about her mouth; but her eyes were
tender.
"If I take time, all this will take wings like a dream and fly away."
"Then keep it," said Sylvia.
"My life--what remains of it--will be devoted to you."
"It is time you should say that. You have been going after false
fires, while I have been true all the time."
"You to me, Sylvia!"
"I to you. But if I had not almost asked you, you would have left me
to single blessedness. Ah! there is papa's ring. He will be glad."
"He will think it folly, Sylvia."
"Ah! no, he won't. Dear, wise papa, he was always anxious for you to
marry one of his daughters."
[Illustration: THE END]
TIRED.
On the weary waves of the world
To and fro
This tired life of mine has been whirled!
In the flow
And ebb of every dangerous tide
My thoughts have drifted far and wide,
As on a bleak and bare hill-side
Drifts the snow.
I sought for rest afar, afar,
But found it not;
I dreamed sweet dreams, if such things are
Sweet which we wot
Are false. I woke again to know
The weight of an unceasing woe,
And journeyed onward, bending low
To a hard lot.
At length to my weary soul I said,
"Soul of mite,
The empty restless life thou hast led,
In shade and shine,
In winter's cold and angry beat,
In summer's languid parching heat--
Poor soul!" I said, "It is not meet
Such fate be thine.
"There is a rest, oh! my tired soul,
Far away,
We soon may reach that happy goal
Beyond to-day.
Far, far beyond those darkening skies
There is a Land which Rest supplies--
Peace, endless peace, that never dies.
Come away!"
H. BROOKE DAVIES.
LIGHT THROUGH DULL PANES.
_A VISIT TO THE EARLSWOOD ASYLUM._
(_Illustrated from Photographs by Cassell and Co., Ltd._)
[_This is the first of a special series of illustrated articles
on representative philanthropic institutions. Each article will
describe the scope and work of the institution concerned, and
will in addition contain detailed information as to the methods
of admission, with special reference to the "voting" system._]
The young Queen Victoria had been ten years on the
throne of England. In this decade the wheel of philanthropy seemed
to turn with increased impetus. It had been set in motion before
the dawn of the nineteenth century, for then asylums for the
blind, the deaf and dumb, and lunatic had been established. Now
various institutions and schemes of benevolence were springing into
existence in aid of other classes of sufferers. There was still
something wanting, a lady maintained to Dr. Andrew Reed--a powerful
friend of the afflicted and needy; she asked him to help the
feeble-minded. He demurred; he doubted whether there were sufficient
cases to call for a special institute. If she could find six in six
days, he promised to take up the matter. Six days produced twenty
eligible from their poverty and infirmity, and the well-known
philanthropist kept his word. The National Asylum for Idiots
was inaugurated at the Mansion House in October, 1847, and was
established at Highgate in January, 1848. Since then it has received
upwards of 3,000 cases, and the institution now at Earlswood has
served as a model for others in different parts of Europe and our
colonies.
[Illustration: IN THE PRINTING OFFICE AT EARLSWOOD.]
The need of such asylums encircles the world; for wherever humanity
has spread children may be born with inherent infirmity, or the
"heart ache and a thousand natural shocks which flesh is heir to"
may cloud the brightest intelligence. The poor and sick in mind
must ever appeal for help to the rich and strong and capable.
The mysterious "something wanting" in intellect is a grievous
calamity, even when good friends and wealth can procure all
possible compensations. In a family where the necessities of life
depend on the power to work, it reduces existence to a miserable
burden. It was especially for the poor that the National Asylum was
established. The pleasant building standing on the breezy uplands
above Redhill can accommodate nearly 700 patients; and twice a
year, on the last Thursday in the months of April and October,
needy cases, from five years old and upwards, are elected on the
foundation by the votes of subscribers. There are generally from 130
to 150 applicants, though funds only allow the admission of about
one-fifth of the number. Presentations for life may be secured, but
it is a happiness to know that the term of five years, which is the
rule in election, is sometimes sufficient to teach a boy a trade,
or a girl to make herself useful in housework, needlework, or a
laundry. Patients entered for five years may be re-elected. Lately
one of them wrote to his friends, "It will be soon time to get me in
again for another five years. I hope that it will be all right; I
like Earlswood."
[Illustration: A VIEW OF THE DINING HALL.]
Why should a boy able to write and to take thought for his own
affairs be in an asylum for imbeciles? A visit to Earlswood would be
the most effectual answer to the question. It is hard to know where
idiocy begins and ends. There are skilled workmen in the printers',
tailors', carpenters', and other departments, who, to a casual
observer, betray nothing wanting.
Many of their exhibits, as well as specimens of the girls' and
women's needlework, were sold at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition at
Lancaster in 1897, where a section was open to institutions for
imbeciles, and seventeen prizes were awarded to Earlswood. But there
are other patients whose limited intelligence renders them oblivious
of their own infirmity or their own names; between the two extremes
there is every degree of feebleness of mind. Those who consciously
suffer least are likely to call out the greatest compassion. It is
natural to turn away and try to forget the sight of a human creature
going on all-fours, or of great helpless babies, without the charm
or sweetness of infancy, sitting up with bibs on, waiting for the
meal for which they cannot ask.
[Illustration: IN HIS OWN WORKSHOP.]
"It must be sad and painful to a visitor," the matron said, "to have
a passing glance at the worst cases, but to live amongst them, as
she had done for eleven years, was full of interest. Nearly all were
capable of some improvement."
A home where everything is done to promote their health and
happiness is, for the weak-minded, a new world. To be taken from
conditions of continual disadvantage, and placed under the charge of
guardians whose first duty is to work and watch for the awakening
of soul and mind, brings hope and comfort into their life. A poor
constitution is often added to the disadvantages of the imbecile;
and in families where their friends cannot constantly protect them
they are often exposed to teasing, and driven into fits of fury,
ending in chronic bad temper, by the mischief or malice of their
companions.
[Illustration: A VIEW OF THE ASYLUM.]
"No one is allowed to tease them here," a nurse remarked, in
speaking of the patients' affection and their general disposition
to get on well together. They are classified, so that they
meet companions on equal terms. The lowest have not the spirit
or independence to defy lawful authority; to the highest but
refractory, degradation to a class below is the most salutary
punishment that can be inflicted. They soon try by their conduct to
rise to their former level. Anyone in charge giving a patient a blow
would be liable to criminal prosecution. The vicious or dangerous
cases are not admitted, and the authorities do not encourage the
re-election of those who give absolutely no promise of improvement.
The vacancies ought to be filled by candidates to whom care and
treatment will be of use. In the great busy world outside Earlswood
are muscular limbs dwindling or growing stiff for want of exercise,
and hands framed for skill which are only filled with mischief by
the active spirit against whom Dr. Watts left an immortal warning.
They need not remain idle, for special training can supply much that
Nature has denied.
[Illustration: AT SCHOOL.]
It requires a great deal of patience to teach this class of pupils
a useful calling, as more than one instructor remarked when the
doctor conducted a visitor through the various workshops. Some
are unwilling to learn; in Earlswood, as in all communities, each
variety of disposition is represented, as well as every degree of
lack of ability.
"You can't make me work, you know, doctor," one patient maintained,
"for I am only an imbecile."
Happily, in this little world which, in spite of its limitations,
manufactures and supplies for itself most of the necessaries of
life, all are not ready to make capital out of their infirmity. The
master-carpenter lamented the loss of a former diligent pupil, who
had been worth one pound a week to the institution, and he showed
with pride the doors and panels of another, who he said might now
earn his own living anywhere. This clever young carpenter had been
at Earlswood for three years, and in the workshop for two. He bore a
high character, and was so attached to the asylum that, when he was
at home for a summer holiday, he came back for a day. Yet before his
admission his relations had been unable to manage him.
The master-tailor called one of his "best boys" to show the
waistcoat he was making. A good-looking middle-aged man descended
with alacrity from the table--where, in the time-honoured custom
of his trade, he worked in an attitude calculated to cause persons
of other callings violent cramp in the legs--and shook hands all
round with great warmth and friendliness. Directly he had displayed
a piece of work, in which his instructor took pardonable pride,
he returned with renewed diligence to his needle and thread. This
man's interest in tailoring is so keen that when he, in his turn,
does duty in the kitchen, he returns to his cloth and his favourite
attitude for every available moment. Seated together with the
first-class workmen are others, smiling over their attempts to learn
stitching or to make button-holes. They may possibly never get
beyond samplers, but time will show.
In the shoemakers' shop similar degrees of skill and industry were
manifest. One man held in his hand a finished boot that he had made
from the beginning, whilst others could only be trusted to black
and polish. So it was with the rest of the twenty-five trades and
callings in which last year 198 men and boys were employed, each
according to his several ability. Perhaps the highest attainments
are seen in the printing department--the only one that undertakes
outside work. Besides the necessary printing for Earlswood and the
London office, 232 private orders were sent out last year, and
a profit was made of £150. On the occasion of my visit, a young
compositor was not quite ready to show his proof to the doctor, who
inquired what he was doing. He had just set up the programme for a
patients' party, and had made it conclude with "Musicle Chairs"; he
wanted to correct the spelling before it was inspected.
One elderly man, deaf, with an impediment in his speech and
afflicted in mind, had his own workshop. All around him were
evidences of his artistic skill. He looked tenderly at his own
drawings, but the objects of his special admiration were the various
magnifiers and reflectors he had designed and made to help him in
fine carving. H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, who is interested in
Earlswood, has lately presented him with some elephant tusks. It
was a pleasure to this artist to display the lightness of an ivory
landscape brooch. A piece of tortoise-shell at the back, with a
judicious arrangement of the golden and dark blotches, made it a
transparency. When held up on one side to the light, it was a sunny
scene; whilst on the other it was dark, with a full moon.
[Illustration: A CORNER OF THE KITCHEN.]
In spite of gentle manners and artistic skill, this man would
probably be unable to live or turn his talents to account outside
an asylum. He belongs to a class who for practical purposes never
outgrow mental childhood. Years roll by. Time brings them grey
hairs and other signs of his flight, but never carries them beyond
the need of fatherly care. Many with far less intelligence seem to
realise this.
It is pathetic to hear in some wards the cry of "Mother!" and
see a smile of fancied recognition when a stranger appears.
One middle-aged woman who called out "Mamma, mamma!" had some
information, cheerful but incoherent, to impart. Then the name of
"George" suddenly arrested her flow of trivialities, and her face
puckered into a grotesque expression of distress. She raised her
hand and pointed upward, saying, "George up there." The sorrowful
remembrance was, however, transient; the next instant she was all
smiles. The eddy on the surface of her smooth life soon caught
the sunshine, but its presence was sufficient to call out fresh
compassion for the poor souls whose wits may have been lost under a
weight of trouble heavier than they could bear.
The sad pages in the life-history of some of the most helpless are,
however, blotted out of their memory, or only dimly recalled by a
fragmentary remark. The sound of laughter in the recreation-room,
sitting-rooms, and playground is almost constant. If it shows the
vacant mind, it also bespeaks content. Pleasure and enjoyment are
circumscribed, but so also is the capacity for suffering in mind
and body. The patients have almost as little temptation to anxious
thought for the morrow as the ravens or lilies.
In a narrow sphere a trifling event assumes great dimensions, and
the day may be easily filled with pleasures. The delight with which
one middle-aged patient said that she was going to have a new dress
had all the innocent glee of childhood. A lad who called out "Tick,
tick!" at the sight of the doctor was immediately made happy by
being allowed to listen to his watch.
[Illustration: THE CHILDREN AT DRILL IN THE RECREATION-ROOM.]
Various little treats are planned as rewards for good conduct.
In the winter, those who do well are invited once a week to join
in games in the recreation-room. Yet the Head Governess is of
opinion that the little ones are never happier than when they are
at lessons. According to their ability, they go through the course
usually adopted in elementary schools, and have the same physical
exercises. The elder girls are employed in housework or in the
laundry. Many, no doubt, enjoy the new experience of being usefully
employed, and industry and willingness are rewarded by an afternoon
walk to the town, a small amount of pocket-money, and a reward at
the New Year.
[Illustration: MAT-MAKING.]
The sense of right and wrong, and of responsibility, develops with
exercise. Of the many letters received last year at Earlswood from
the patients or their relations acknowledging the good results
of training, the Resident Physician looked upon one from a man
discharged five years ago as the most satisfactory. But for a course
of treatment the writer would probably have remained all his life as
a burden on his relations. He is now earning ten shillings a week in
a grocery business. After making this satisfactory announcement, he
continues: "I belong to a Bible-class. I am also in a club, so, if
I am ill, my mother gets ten shillings and sixpence per week, and
my doctor's bill paid." With inquiries after old friends, special
love to two, this patient remains a "loving friend." How many men
with all their faculties do more? And how many others fall below his
standard of duty and gratitude! In days of old, one out of ten to
whom the same miracle of mercy brought new life and health returned
to the great Healer and gave glory to God, and he belonged to a
class from whom least might have been expected. A good proportion
of the strangers to many privileges, as the feeble-minded must
ever remain, often live as examples of doing their best. A man is
accepted according to that he hath.
[Illustration: SOME BASKET-WORKERS.]
The highest and the only certain principle of good conduct is kept
before all who enter the asylum. Twice a day they meet for prayers,
and before and after meals grace, sung in the great hall to the
accompaniment of a fine organ, fills the corridors with music,
in which many of the patients delight. The resident Religious
Instructor last year found a note slipped into his hand, addressed,
"Mr. Small, from me." A patient wrote:
"DEAR SIR, I wish to ask you, in a nice kind way or other, to have
two of my hymns on the 5th of February, which is Saturday. Please
have them in the evening--Nos. 500 and 532--and you may quite expect
a nice pocket-book from me.--Your friend, PERCY."
It is not unusual for boys to ask that their birthdays may be
celebrated by singing their favourite hymns.
Their teacher finds that lessons on the life and miracles of our
Lord always have a charm for the patients. Even those unable to read
or intelligently follow the prayers can enjoy Sunday; then they
receive pictures illustrating Bible incidents, and can, at least,
hear the hymns at the evening service, which in summer is held
under the trees. Methods of teaching must be adapted to the varied
capacity, but the lesson of the compassion of our Lord for every
infirmity is common to the 600 patients whom Earlswood now shelters,
whilst 130 are waiting for admission.
One class may enter by payment, which varies according to the
circumstances and requirements. The lowest payment is sixty-five
guineas a year, and it includes entire maintenance and clothing
for twelve months. There are no vacations, unless the friends
desire it. Private patients do not mix with those on the foundation
either at meals or in the recreation-room. Some have their own
sitting-rooms and special attendants.
Another class of patients may enter by part-payment. They are
elected from a list of candidates whose friends fill a position that
would preclude their gaining free admission, but who are unable to
make the ordinary payment. The minimum sum of fifteen guineas is
required annually so long as the child remains in the asylum.
A large number of subscribers' votes, 700 at least, are required to
place a candidate for ordinary election on the foundation. Before
canvassing, a form must be obtained from the office, 36, King
William Street, London Bridge, E.C., in order to see if the case
is deemed eligible by the Board, whether for free or part-payment
election. For the well-being of the community in general, rules
cannot be broken. Great disappointment and trouble are sometimes
occasioned by an attempt to canvass before ascertaining that a
candidate will be approved by the Board. The receipt of parish
relief at any time disqualifies a candidate. Certain regulations,
the result of experience, have been made regarding receiving and
maintaining the large family whom the authorities have taken under
their care, and Earlswood is subject to the inspection of the
Commissioners in Lunacy.
During fifty years the supporters of this institution have, in
a very literal sense, obeyed the injunction to "comfort the
feeble-minded." In spite of limp limbs and slouching gait, the
weakest among the imbecile bear the image of their Creator. Can
it be doubted that they are as precious to Him as the conies who,
though "but a feeble folk," find, under His providence, a refuge in
the stony rocks? In their helplessness and dependence, the afflicted
in mind find a place in the heart and affection of their guardians;
and who can tell how many have learnt, through them, to hide
themselves with all their infirmities in the Rock of Ages?
D. L. WOOLMER.
[Illustration: IN THE SHOEMAKING ROOM.]
[Illustration: MOTHER-HOOD]
By Lina Orman Cooper, Author of "Our Home Rulers," Etc.
"There is many an arrow in my quiver, full of speech to
the wise, but for the many they need interpreters."
So wrote Pindar long, long ago; and I, having gathered many arrows
of help and knowledge from the quiver of books around me, would
fain pass them on. In this paper I string these barbs to the bow of
motherhood, and trust they may pierce to the joints of the harness.
Perhaps there is no subject absorbing more attention at the present
time than that of motherhood and heredity. Never has the cult of
maternity been better formulated--never has the practice of it
been more carefully studied. "In these days of pressure," writes
Lyttleton, "it is a mother's first duty to her children to secure
for them a full seven years of passive life." "The best and first
service a mother can do her children," says another writer, "is to
maintain the standard of her own life at its highest--
"'Allure to brighter worlds, and _lead the way_.'"
"It is a mother's first duty to provide for each newborn soul
an environment which will foster its highest development," says
another. "To praise is a part of a mother's first work in the world
on behalf of her children," adds a fourth. "I consider it to be the
first and most important part of the education of childhood to lead
them early to think" is Froebel's opinion.
The importance of a mother's influence during the first few years of
existence is repeated in Lord Macaulay's well-known aphorism, "Give
me the first seven years of a child's life, and let who will take
the rest"; and by Froebel, when he says, "The most important period
of human education is before the child is seven years old."
We mothers, who are God's special servants--His instruments, as it
were, for the particular purpose of carrying out His will for the
wee individuals confided to us--are apt to think too little about
those first years of a child's life. Our children, from two to five,
are often left to self-education. Very little scientific care is
expended on them. Yet beauty of body and soul would not be so seldom
met with, or so transient as it is apt to be with us, if we truly
educated persons took our children in hand from their _babyhood_,
instead of leaving them to the most ignorant class of the community.
"It is usual to speak of the Greeks," writes Peabody in his "Primary
School," "as if they were of exceptional organisation. Their
organisation was only exceptional because it was more carefully
treated in _infancy_ than ours is apt to be."
"The laws which govern the growth of the human mind are as definite
and as general in their application as those which apply to the
material universe," and we know the basis of all development is
a _good foundation_. This must be laid in early youth, both as
regards the body and as regards the mind. "It is so fatally easy
to do mischief" in those first seven years. The limbs of a sapling
are not more easily bent than the budding desires of the infant.
"The soul instinctively expects love" from the first, and only a
mother's exclusively cherishing tenderness ought to be the rule in a
nursery. "The true educational instinct is but the mother's instinct
and method clearly understood in all its bearings and carried out
intelligently."
This last word opens out a wonderful vista. "Parents should make
the care of their children an object to study physiology and
psychology," says Peabody; and thus we find education is always
mutual. According to Goethe, "the child teaches the parent what the
parents omit to teach him"; and, as Plato adds, "man cannot propose
(or woman either) a higher or loftier object for his study than
education and all that pertains thereto."
Before leaving this branch of the subject, it is well for all
mothers clearly to understand the difference between education and
instruction. The former (training of the heart) belongs exclusively
to the parent. The latter (training of the intellect) to the
governess. As Renan puts it, "Instruction is given in the school.
Education takes place in the father's house; the masters are the
mothers and sisters."
Well for us if we remember that education is always going on,
whether we will it or not. Our life, our morals, are affecting our
children for weal or woe, whether we realise or shirk the fact.
"Every human life is lifted or lowered by the home it is born
into." That magic and omnipotent gift of a mother's influence "is
an hourly, unconscious, emanating force" exercised on those around.
"We always know when we are instructing. We do not always know when
we are educating." The realisation of this amazing power is enough
to stagger the bravest heart. "A mother has to be convinced that
the great function of motherhood is not only to guard her child, to
exhort him, to train him, but to live her life in the presence of
that child as a pattern of what the child should aspire to become."
A mother's influence should certainly be at its strongest during
the early years of life. It "depends on what she is, and only in a
subordinate way on what she does." Therefore, she can carry altruism
too far. A mother is of as much value in the sight of God as is
her child, and "the path in which she has to walk is plainly that
of self-sanctification for the sake of" that child. This implies
seasons for culture, rest, prayer, and the preservation of her body
in health. To quote Miss Mason on this point, "Health is a duty, and
any trifling with health, either vicious or careless, is really in
the nature of suicide, because life is held in trust from a supreme
Authority."
Will the years be wasted if we spend them mastering the science of
education in our nurseries? Nay! even our personal charms will be
amplified by the most entrancing study in the world. "The perfect
loveliness of a woman's countenance can only consist in that
majestic peace which is founded in memory of happy and useful years
full of sweet records" (Ruskin). Verily we shall have our reward.
[Illustration: Remembrance.
_Words by_ JAMES MONTGOMERY.
_Music by_ GORDON SAUNDERS, Mus.D. Oxon.
1. According to Thy gracious Word, In meek humility
This will I do, my dying Lord--I will remember Thee.
2. When to the cross I turn mine eyes, And rest on Calvary,
O Lamb of God, my sacrifice, I must remember Thee.
Amen
]
[Illustration: THE TEN LITTLE INDIANS]
A FAIRY PARABLE.
By Howard Angus Kennedy.
Once upon a time there were ten little Red Indians,
and they lived in a school-house built of logs on the banks of the
River Saskatchewan; and, if you cannot pronounce the river's name,
just try till you can. The reason they lived in a school-house was
that their fathers had gone hunting in the woods, and their mothers
were dead, so the wigwams were very lonely; but the children were as
happy as they could be, and enjoyed their schooling as much as any
white children enjoy their holidays. The teacher was a sweet white
lady from down beyond, who mothered them all so well that they never
even thought of being bad. At least, only two of them did; and they
never got beyond thinking about it, as long as the teacher was with
them.
Down at the bottom of the river, in a deep, deep hole, there
lived a wicked wizard; and one morning very early he was prowling
along by the shore, with just the tip of his nose above water,
sniff-sniff-sniffing for the scent of anyone good to eat. Now it
happened that that morning the teacher had got up very early, and
was sitting on a stone by the riverside, trying to think of new
story-lessons to tell the children; and the wizard put up his long
snaky arm out of the water and caught her by the neck and dragged
her down to his cave. Then he tied her hands and feet, and waited
for her to drown; but drown she would not. So he thought she must
have a Testament in her pocket to act as a charm. The Testament was
really in her heart, which was a great deal better. So when he saw
she would not drown, he was a little frightened, and offered to let
her go if she would give him one of the children instead.
"You wicked wizard," said she, "not one of them shall you have!"
"We shall see about that," said the wizard; and out he went, leaving
the teacher tied fast at the bottom of the hole.
Now, when the children came down, they were very much surprised
to find no teacher; but they took their morning dip in the river,
as she had taught them to do. Just as they were coming out to dry
themselves, a great grey fish put his head out of the water and
said--"Children, the wizard that lives in the hole has caught your
teacher, and he's coming to catch you."
The children jumped out of the water in a great fright. "What shall
we do? What _shall_ we do?" they all began to cry.
"Put on your clothes," said the fish, after he had gone down for a
moment to breathe.
That was soon done, for they had very few clothes to put on.
"Now get on our backs," said the great grey fish, who had come up
this time with nine others as like him as could be. Then the ten
fishes humped up their great grey backs, just keeping their heads
under water to breathe with and their tails to swim with; and the
ten children got on, and the fishes carried them across the big
river in a twinkling.
"Now, children," said the chief of the fishes, "strike into the
wood as straight as you can go till you come to the old brown bear,
and he'll tell you the way to Fruity Hollow, where you'll get your
dinner; but don't speak to the grizzly bear, for he's the wizard's
son. Then go on till you come to the old grey wolf, and she'll tell
you the way to the otters' cave; but don't say a word to the red
wolf with the squint, for she's the wizard's daughter."
The fish was quite out of breath when he got to the end of this
speech, and disappeared in a hurry.
Then the ten little Indians marched off into the woods, Indian file;
and they all kept close together, one behind the other, except the
two little boys that sometimes wished they did not have to do what
they ought; and they dawdled behind. Pretty soon the children got to
where the poplars end and the pinewoods begin, and there they saw
the grizzly bear sitting on his haunches beside the path, with his
arms folded smugly across his chest and his cruel face trying to
smile.
"Welcome, little darlings!" the grizzly bear said, in a voice as
sweet as honey. "Would you like me to take you to Fruity Hollow?"
The children shut their mouths tightly, and went straight on, and
the grizzly gritted his teeth in disappointment; but when the two
bad little Indians came straggling along he sat up again and put on
his smirkiest smile and said--
"You poor little dears! What a shame it was for the others to leave
you behind! How hungry you must be! Would you like me to show you
the way to Fruity Hollow?"
"That I should, indeed!" said one of the boys. And the grizzly bear
sprang upon him, and caught him up, and hugged him till the breath
was nearly out of his body, and strode off with him; and the other
boy ran on as fast as he could to catch up his companions.
Meanwhile the eight little Indians marched steadily on till they
came to the old brown bear; and he was so fast asleep they could
only wake him by pulling his fur, but they took care to pull it
respectfully.
"All right," said the old brown bear in a mumbly voice, "I know what
you want. First turning on the right, over the big tree that blew
down last winter." Then he went to sleep again before they could say
"Thank you, sir."
When they came to a big tree lying with its roots in the air, but
with its needles still green, they scrambled over it and followed a
winding path down into a narrow valley just full of wild raspberry-
and gooseberry- and currant-bushes, and they picked and ate and
picked and ate till they could eat no more. Then they made baskets
of big leaves and twigs, and filled them with berries for supper,
and climbed back over the big tree and trudged along up the path.
Soon afterwards they came upon the squinting red wolf, straddling
right across the track.
"Here we are, you sweet little redskins," said she, with a grin two
feet long. "The otters have asked me to show you the way to their
cave."
The little redskins turned almost white with fear, but they shut
their mouths tightly and pushed right on, and the wicked red wolf
had to jump out of the way in a hurry, for she did not dare to touch
children who remembered and obeyed. Presently the dawdler came up,
very hungry and tired--for the brown bear had been much too fast
asleep to tell him about Fruity Hollow--and burst out at once,
without thinking, "Please can you tell me the way to the otters'
cave?" Then the red wolf leapt upon him, and knocked him down, and
picked him up by the back of his clothes and carried him off at a
trot through the scratching brambles.
Just where the pinewoods end and the poplars begin again, the eight
little Indians came upon the old grey wolf, curled up with her nose
on her tail; and she put up her head for the children to scratch her
neck. "Across the meadow and round the slough," she said when she
had been scratched enough; "and down the stony creek."
So when they got to the edge of the wood they struck right across
the meadow, wading knee-deep in the long rich grass; and then they
found a path leading through another patch of poplar wood to a wide
green slough--or "sloo," as they call it in Canada--half-lake and
half-swamp; and they trod lightly round the narrow edge till they
found the place where the water oozed out into the creek. Down the
creek they went, with the stream purring beside their feet like a
kitten in the sun, and the mosquitoes humming over their heads, and
the silly loose-leaved poplars rustling all around them, wind or no
wind.
"Listen!" said the biggest little Indian. And through all the
purring and humming and rustling came the long low swishing sound of
a big river. Then the eight little pairs of feet climbed out of the
creek-bed, and crossed a corner of land till they stood almost on
the edge of the river's earthen-cut bank.
There was a bustling and a scurrying under foot, and then a row of
furry brown little heads popped up from the edge of the bank. "Come
in!" barked all the otters in chorus; and, scrambling down the bank,
the children followed the otters into their cave. There was plenty
of room, though the door was rather small, and a big bed of prairie
hay was spread on the floor.
"We've been expecting you, you see," said the mother otter, when
the eight little Indians were squatting on their hunkers and eating
berries. "The fishes told us to look out for you about this time."
"Have you made friends with the fishes, then?" asked the biggest boy.
"No, we're not exactly friends, only allies. We hate the wizard more
than we hate each other, so we've joined to fight him. But I wish
it was all over, so that we could go fishing again. Gophers are
dreadfully dry food, and they do burrow in such dusty holes."
After supper the eight little Indians lay down in a row, and all
the little otters spread themselves out into a big fur counterpane
to keep the children warm. But the big otters sharpened their teeth
as soon as it was dark, and swam down and down and down, with fiery
eyes, till they came into the River Saskatchewan; and then they swam
up and up and up till they came near the wizard's pit; and there
they climbed out and hid just under the edge of the bank.
Presently they felt a heavy silent somebody tramping over the grass
from the wood, and they knew that the grizzly bear was coming, and
one of them slipped down to the water's edge to tell the great grey
fishes, who were lying just inside the river.
"Well," said the greatest of the fishes, "what do you want us to
do?" For he knew that the otters must take the lead when fighting
had to be done.
"You must pretend to be the wizard," said the otter, "and tell the
grizzly to come into the river up to his waist. We can fight much
better in the water, you know."
So the fish put up his head, and called out, imitating the wizard's
voice as well as he could, "Is that you, my son?"
"Of course it's me," grumbled the bear; "and a precious hard run
I've had with this little wretch. I'd a good mind to stop on the way
and eat him myself."
"Never mind, my dear," said the sham wizard. "I'll pay you well.
Just bring him in, will you? The water won't come above your middle."
The grizzly grumbled something about the water being cold, and he
thought his father might as well have come ashore; but he waded in,
all the same, and the otters dived and swam after him. And when the
water was up to his middle the fishes swam in between his legs and
nibbled his toes, and hit him hard on the legs with their great
tails, and toppled him right over; but still he held on to the boy
with one arm, while he clawed savagely at the fishes with the other.
Then the otters sprang at his shoulders, and bit right through the
fur and the flesh, so that he dropped the boy in the water; and
the fishes and otters kept up such a splashing and a jumping and a
biting that the bear could not see a foot in front of him, and the
boy dashed back to the shore and huddled shivering under the bank.
"Help, help, help!" yelled the grizzly. "They've stolen the boy!
They're cutting off my toes! They're tearing off my ears! They're
flaying me alive!"
[Illustration: "Help, help, help!" yelled the grizzly.]
Then the wizard awoke, and leapt out of his hole, and came flying to
the rescue, raking the water and the air with his long snaky arms,
and screeching horribly. But before he got to where the grizzly was
rolling over and over in a whirlpool of mad otters and fishes and
foam, he heard the voice of his daughter, the red wolf, who had just
arrived and was calling out (as well as she could with a little
Indian's clothes in her mouth) to ask what was the matter.
"If I've lost one, I'll make sure of the other," the wizard thought;
and he seized the boy from his daughter's mouth and plunged down
into the pit, leaving his grizzly son to look after himself.
"We must save the boy!" cried the head otter.
"He's not worth saving," said the fishes; "haven't we done enough
for one night?"
The otters did not condescend to answer, but swam hotly after the
wizard, and the fishes followed without another word, leaving the
grizzly to hobble ashore and lick his wounds.
None of the otters had ever dared to descend the wizard's pit
before, and none of the fishes had ever ventured within a hundred
feet of its mouth; but now the otters' blood was up, and they dived
like a flash, and caught up the wizard before he got to the bottom,
and fastened on his heels, and dug their teeth into his calves. The
wizard flung himself round and gripped an otter in each hand; but
they gnawed his wrists till their teeth met in the sinews, and the
rest of the otters swarmed round his neck and cut his head right off.
"The boy is drowned, all the same," said the head fish, who swam
bravely down into the pit when he heard the otters' scream of
victory.
"Not a bit of it," said the head otter; "it's only his badness
that's drowned; the boy will be righter than ever if you hurry
ashore with him."
So the fishes pushed him up to the air and rolled him ashore; though
it was rather difficult, as he had not the sense to hold on, and
they had no arms to hold him by.
Meanwhile the otters had gone down to the very bottom of the pit,
and bitten through the teacher's cords; and she kissed their wet
foreheads and left her dark prison, and the rising sun flung her
a rosy welcome as she stepped out on to dry ground. The squinting
wolf shut her eyes and howled, and fled into the wood with her tail
between her legs.
The eight little Indians were having a fine romp with the little
otters when the big otters came back, tired and wounded, but proud
with glorious news. As soon as the story was told, the head otter
said--"Now, children, it's time to go home, and the fishes are
waiting. No going through the woods this time!"
As he spoke, the fishes humped up their great grey backs, and the
children took their seats, and the procession never stopped till
it came to the little school-house, where the best of all teachers
stood smiling welcomes at the door and two shamefaced little Indians
pretended to be very busy at their sums inside.
[Illustration: The procession never stopped till it came to the
school-house.]
Then there was a great hugging and kissing and laughing and crying
for joy, while the little otters turned flying somersaults over the
desks and played catch on the grass outside, and the fishes looked
on through their water-window, till the children were tired of play
and begged for lessons to begin.
TEMPERANCE NOTES AND NEWS.
By a Leading Temperance Advocate.
A MODEL TOWN.
"Could we but do away with intemperance, the conditions
of living would become so changed that we should hardly know
ourselves," said John Bright on a memorable occasion. What would
the country be like without public-houses? We can form some idea of
the altered state of affairs by taking a trip to the model town of
Bessbrook in the county of Armagh. Here we shall find a thriving,
populous community without any public-house or place for the sale
of intoxicating liquor. It owes its origin to the philanthropic
prescience of the late John Grubb Richardson, a wealthy member of
the Society of Friends. In the early 'sixties he purchased an estate
of some sixty thousand acres, and there erected the factory which is
now world-famed as the Bessbrook Flax Spinning Mills. Approaching
the town from Newry, the spinning mills form the most prominent
feature in the view. The immense range of lofty buildings is of
noble proportions, and for massive elegance compares very favourably
with similar erections in the Lancashire and Yorkshire factory
districts. When the mills are in full work, occupation is afforded
for about five thousand hands. The chief feature of the model town
is a handsome square. There are several shops in addition to the
co-operative stores, and the houses are well built, varying in size,
every family being accommodated with three to six rooms, according
to the number of its members. There is an institute with a capital
library, a recreation room, a dispensary, excellent schools under
the supervision of the National Board of Education, a savings bank,
and half-a-dozen places of worship, the respective congregations
supporting the current expenses. The sale of intoxicating liquors
is entirely prohibited, and, as a consequence, there is not only an
absence of drunkenness, but a general freedom from the legion of
evils which seem inseparable from the liquor traffic. There is no
resident police officer, and it is only quite recently that there
has been any police perambulation of the model town, this latter
being due more to political disturbances in the near neighbourhood
than to any outbreak of crime on the part of the inhabitants of
Bessbrook itself. The North of Ireland thus furnishes an excellent
example of how to make the working classes thrifty, sober,
industrious, happy and prosperous.
[Illustration: THE TOWN HALL, BESSBROOK.]
[Illustration: (_Photo: Cuwell and Co., Ltd._)
A VIEW OF BESSBROOK.]
A VILLAGE EXPERIMENT.
The Rev. W. E. Bolland, M.A., vicar of Embleton, Northumberland,
has, in conjunction with some friends, launched a scheme for a
model club and hall for the village. The plan contains some novel
features, inasmuch as it embraces a working men's club, a public
hall available for meetings, entertainments, etc.; a café and
refreshment rooms, specially catering for cyclists and visitors;
bedrooms for summer visitors, and also a public laundry. The
catering will exclude the provision of intoxicants, and it will
be seen from the illustration that the architect has planned a
very attractive looking house. This village scheme will be closely
watched, and, if it should succeed, there can be no doubt that the
enterprising vicar of Embleton will have many followers.
[Illustration: THE PROPOSED TEMPERANCE CLUB FOR EMBLETON.]
THE BLUECOAT BOYS.
In a very short time London will be deprived of one of its most
picturesque sights--namely, the tramp of its seven hundred or more
Bluecoat boys to the Mansion House on Easter Tuesday to pay their
respects to the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, and receive a monetary
gift, and a bun and a glass of wine. The Grecians are given a
sovereign and a shilling each; the junior Grecians a half-sovereign
and a sixpence; the monitors half-a-crown; and the other boys a
shilling each. The removal of this famous school to the country will
possibly put an end to the function. The glass of wine has become a
diminishing quantity in recent years; for, thanks to the activity of
a friend at court, lemonade was introduced as an alternative a few
years back, and now the teetotal boys have no hesitation in availing
themselves of this beverage. The preacher of the Spital sermon this
year is to be a life-long abstainer, the Bishop of Carlisle.
COMING EVENTS.
The programmes for the May meetings are now nearing completion.
The Church of England Temperance Society announces as speakers the
Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Chichester, the Bishop of
Thetford, and the Rev. Dr. Ridgeway; the National Temperance League
relies upon the Archbishop of Canterbury, Mr. T. W. Russell, M.P.,
Mr. John Colville, M.P., the Rev. George Hanson, B.D., and Miss
Agnes Weston; while Sir George Williams will preside for the United
Kingdom Band of Hope Union. The annual meetings of the Scottish
Temperance League will be held in Glasgow on April 17th; the annual
meeting of the Sussex Band of Hope Union will take place at Lewes
on April 26th; a social meeting of the Young Men's Auxiliary of the
National Temperance League will be held in Sion College on April
21st; the Hackney and East Middlesex Band of Hope Union will give
a reception in honour of its new President, the Dowager Countess
of Errol, on April 20th. The usual open-air demonstrations in the
London parks, promoted by the United Temperance Council will take
place on Saturday, June 17th. The Rev. F. B. Meyer will preach the
annual sermon of the Congregational Total Abstinence Society. The
Archbishop of Canterbury and Mrs. Temple will give a Garden Party
at Lambeth Palace on July 1st to meet the official advocates of the
temperance movement. The Norwich Diocesan temperance anniversary
will be held at Norwich from October 17th to October 24th inclusive.
[Illustration: (_Photo: Russell and Sons, Baker Street, W._)
THE BISHOP OF LLANDAFF.]
TOTAL ABSTAINING BISHOPS.
A few weeks ago the Lord Bishop of Llandaff agreeably surprised the
temperance workers of Cardiff by announcing that he had definitely
decided to try total abstinence. It may not be generally known that
the Right Rev. H. J. Foss, who has recently been consecrated Bishop
of Osaka, is an abstainer, and has been an active temperance worker
during the whole of his twenty years' residence in Japan. The Bishop
of Islington and the Bishop of Southampton are also total abstainers.
[Illustration: (_Photo: Cassell and Co., ltd._)
THE BRADFORD TEMPERANCE HALL.]
THE FIRST TEMPERANCE HALL IN THE WORLD.
The city of Bradford claims to possess the first Temperance Hall
in the world. The foundation stone was laid on Monday, March 13th,
1837, and the building was opened on February 27th, 1838, by the
Bishop of Ripon, Dr. Longley (who in succession became Bishop of
Durham, Archbishop of York, and Archbishop of Canterbury). This
famous building is still in regular use, the Bradford Temperance
Society being one of the most vigorous associations in the country.
A unique feature of the hall is a very handsome painted window
in memory of the late John Priestman. It is a four-light window,
and contains four female figures robed in mediæval costumes, and
representing "Religion," "Temperance," "Health," and "Prosperity."
Above the central light is an effective portrait of Mr. Priestman.
Mr. George Field in his interesting "Historical Survey of the
Bradford Temperance Society," says:--
"The hall of this, the first temperance society in England, has
been a battle-field for many conflicts with drink, and some of the
greatest orators have made its walls re-echo with their oratory.
It has had amongst its friends and workers some of the best men
and women of Bradford. By its agency many a degraded sot has been
rescued and restored to respectability in society, but while the
curse of drink remains the work will have to go on."
SCRIPTURE LESSONS FOR SCHOOL & HOME INTERNATIONAL SERIES
With Illustrative Anecdotes and References.
APRIL 16TH.--=Jesus Teaching Humility.=
_To read--St. John xiii. 1-17. Golden Text--Ver. 15._
So far have had Christ's _active_ life coupled with His
teachings. Come now to His _passive_ life just before the close.
To-day's lesson--a sort of active parable--teaching His giving up
Himself for man.
=I. The Washing= (1-11). _The time._ Just before Christ's last
Passover. Supper being "at hand" (Revised Version); washing taking
place before a meal (St. Mark vii. 3). Always known as the "Last
Supper" or Passover Feast. His "hour" for showing Himself fully as
the Saviour was now come.
_The cause_ (ver. 1). Love passing all knowledge (Eph. iii.
19). Shown by its _greatness_--loved to the uttermost; its
_comprehensiveness_--including even Judas; its _lowliness_--doing a
servant's work.
_The act._ Disciples began to dispute which should be the greatest
(St. Luke xxii. 24). Christ shows by His action what His opinion is.
The greatest in His kingdom are they who serve most. Takes towel,
water, basin; washes feet of each in turn. Who declines to accept
the act of service? But unless Peter submits to Christ, can have no
part with Him. He dreads separation from Him, therefore is eager now
to be wholly washed. Christ tells him two things--
(_a_) He cannot understand meaning of this act but will
hereafter--will add to his faith, virtue (or valour), and knowledge
(2 Pet. i. 3).
(_b_) He who is washed, _i.e._ bathed (Greek), in Christ's atoning
blood (Zech. xiii. 1) needs only to "wash" or be washed from daily
sin to be kept clean and holy.
=II. The Meaning= (12-17). _Equality_ in Christ's service. He is
their Master, but delights to serve them. Followers must copy His
example.
_Service._ The spirit of His example to be followed--feeding hungry,
teaching ignorant, visiting the sick and sad (St. Matt. xxv. 35, 36).
_Knowledge._ Life's mysteries to be cleared up hereafter. Duties
now, rewards future.
=Lesson.= Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?
Kindness to the Poor.
The great general, Sir William Napier, once met a little girl
in a country lane sobbing over a broken bowl. She had dropped
it after taking her father's dinner, and expected to be beaten
for her carelessness. Suddenly a gleam of hope seemed to
cheer her. "You can mend it, sir," she said, "can't you?" Sir
William explained that he could not mend it, but could give
her sixpence to buy another. It chanced, however, that he had
no money with him, so he promised to meet her at the same time
and place the next day with a sixpence. On his return home, he
found an invitation to dinner the next day to meet someone whom
he specially wished to see. What was he to do? He could not do
both; but the child had trusted him. He must do his duty to the
poor before thinking of his own pleasure. So he declined the
invitation and helped, as he had promised, Christ's little one.
APRIL 23RD.--=Jesus the Way, Truth, and Life.=
_To read--St. John xiv. 1-14. Golden Text--Ver. 6._
Discourse with disciples at Last Supper continued. Peter, boasting
of his steadfastness, been warned of his coming fall, that very
night (xiii. 38), but comforted by thought of heaven to all who come
to God by Him for pardon.
=I. The Many Mansions.= What they are? Abiding places (Greek). This
world passes away--heaven endures. They are many in number--room
for all. Also prepared by Christ for all who believe in Him. Christ
by His death opened heaven to man, and waits there to receive His
people.
=II. The Way to Heaven= (4-7). _Christ the Way._ Came to reveal
this. None else could make atonement. God's holy Son alone could, by
dying for sin, open way to heaven for sinners. He alone lifted up,
gives eternal life (iii. 14, 15).
_Christ the Truth._ Yet charged that night with blasphemy, worst of
all falsehoods, making Himself God (xix. 7). Yet was the perfect
truth. Exposed hypocrisy of chief priests, hollowness of Scribes
and Pharisees (St. Luke xi. 39, 44). Taught the spirit of the
commandments in Sermon on Mount (St. Matt. v. 21, 22, 28, 39, etc.).
Acted truth in His own perfect life. Taught God's truth to men.
_Christ the Life_, though put to death day following. Author of
life; the world made by Him. Gave natural life once more to three
dead persons. Gave spiritual life to Nicodemus, who became disciple;
Samaritan who accepted His teaching (iv. 42). Raised Himself from
the dead, and gives eternal life to as many as believe.
=Lesson.= He that believeth in Me shall not die.
=III. The Father Revealed= (8-14). Cannot be seen by mortal eye (i.
18), but is seen in person of His Son. Christ reveals the person of
the Father full of love and pity to those in need; full of anger
against hypocrites, liars, etc. (viii. 44). Christ also reveals
works of God, miracles of mercy. Same, and even greater, power of
working miracles promised to His disciples after His departure. Also
answers to prayer made to the Father in His name.
So the revelation of the Father shows Him as a loving Person, a
Giver of power, a Hearer of prayer. What more can Philip need?
=Lesson.= "Thou art coming to a King,
Large petitions with thee bring."
"Is that All?"
A wounded soldier in a hospital was visited by a clergyman,
who saw that his life was fast ebbing out. "Young man," said
he, "you are soon to die; are you saved from sin?" "No, sir,"
was the reply; "what must I do?" "'Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and thou shalt be saved.'" "Say that again," said the
soldier. It was repeated. Steadily looking at the minister, the
soldier said, "Is that all?" "Yes, that is all. No man goeth to
the Father but by Him." Closing his eyes for a few moments, the
young soldier opened them again and, raising his right hand,
exclaimed, "Lord Jesus, I surrender." Instantly his face shone
with brightness, and in a few days the new-born soul went home
to God.
APRIL 30TH.--=The Comforter Promised.=
_To read--St. John xiv. 15-27. Golden Text--Ver. 16._
Christ continues to comfort and teach His disciples ready for the
time when He must leave them.
=I. The Comforter= (15-17). See the order in the spiritual life.
First faith to believe in Him (ver. 1), then love to cling to Him,
then obedience to work for Him. He will help them. He must leave
them, but will not forget them. Will send Another to be with them
always--the Comforter.
_His person._ Divine in nature; equal to the Father and Son (Acts v.
3, 4).
_His name._ Holy Ghost, or Holy Spirit of God.
_His work._ To aid Christ's people. How does He do so? By helping
their prayers (Rom. viii. 26). By giving counsel, _e.g._ showing how
to speak to adversaries (St. Matt. x. 19, 20), of which Stephen is
an example (Acts vi. 10). By strengthening their souls to do right;
hence called the Comforter or Strengthener. Also by revealing the
things of God.
=11. The Result= (18-27). Consolations of Christ's people. _Comfort_
by His continual presence. _Life_ present and future because of
union with Him.
=Lessons.= 1. Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace.
2. If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of His.
MAY 7TH.--=The Vine and the Branches.=
_To read--St. John xv. 1-16. Golden Text--Ver. 5._
This parable one of two only in this Gospel. Spoken in court of
Temple after leaving Passover Feast.
=I. The Parable= (1-8). _The Vine_ itself must be good and true,
planted in soil prepared for it. Husbandman places, cares for, and
watches over it. Unfruitful branches must be cut off, fruitful ones
purged--to produce more fruit--dead ones burned. Much fruit redounds
to glory of husbandman.
_The meaning._ Christ Himself is the true ideal Vine, doing always
such things as please God. The husbandman is God, who placed Him in
the world (iii. 16) and watched over Him (St. Matt. iii. 17). The
branches are believers joined to Him by living faith. Fruit--the
graces of a Christian life.
What are results of union with Christ the Vine? _Life_ to the
soul from life of Christ. _Fruit_ outward result of inward life.
_Answers_ to prayer. Christ and His people alike heard. _Glory_ to
God the Father.
=II. Results of Union= (9-16). Metaphor dropped. Christ urges
disciples to continue in His love. Then they will have _full joy_;
_love_ to all arising from love to Him; _friendship_ of Christ as
evidenced by His death for them; _knowledge_ because of revelation
of Father. _Permanence_ of results.
=Lesson.= Are we truly joined to Christ? What fruit is seen in our
lives?
Joy through Faith.
Bunyan, in "The Pilgrim's Progress," pictures Christiana as
saying to Mercy, "What was the matter that you did laugh in your
sleep last night?" And Mercy said, "But are you sure I laughed?"
When she told her dream, Christiana said, "Laugh, ay, well you
might to see yourself so well." She laughed because she dreamed
that she had been welcomed into glory. To faith this is no
dream. Saved by grace, adopted by the Father, united to the Son,
taught by the Spirit, we have joy in the soul now and a good
hope of glory hereafter.
MAY 14TH.--=Christ Betrayed and Arrested.=
_To read--St. John xviii. 1-14. Golden Text--Is. liii. 3._
Christ's hour now come--has finished teachings--must go forth to
die. Path of sorrow to be trod--He does not shrink.
=I. Christ Betrayed= (1-11). _The place._ The garden or olive
orchard of Gethsemane. Note that Christ went forth of His own will,
knowing all before Him. Also He went not for concealment, but for
prayer.
_The band._ Judas, His disciple, their leader. A band of Roman
soldiers to prevent a tumult, and officers of the Temple police
supplied by chief priests. Also chief priests and elders, and a
mixed rabble (St. Luke xxii. 52). All had common hatred of Jesus of
Nazareth.
_The incidents._ Jesus comes forth with His three disciples,
Peter, James, John. He asks, "Whom seek ye?" Soldiers fall back in
surprise. He asks again--they answer. He asks that disciples may
go their way. Request granted; He lost none. St. Peter with sword
wounds Malchus. Christ heals his ear (St. Luke xxii. 51) and rebukes
Peter. Note the forbearance and majesty of Christ; the loving
impetuosity of St. Peter; the malice of Judas and the gratified
hatred of chief priests.
=II. Christ a Prisoner= (12-14). The soldiers close in. Prisoner
bound because of attempt to rescue. The captain secures Christ,
leads Him to Annas, chief of priests and president of Jewish
Sanhedrim.
=Lessons.= _From Judas._ Beware of covetousness.
_From St. Peter._ The weapons of our warfare are not carnal.
_From Christ._ He loved me and gave Himself for me. What have I
given Him?
Christ Loved Best.
A martyr was going to be burned for Christ's sake. His friends
brought out his wife and young children, and made them kneel in
a long row and ask their father, for their sakes, to deny the
faith and live. But as he kissed them one by one he said, "I
would do anything for your sakes that I might live with you, but
since it is for Christ my Lord's sake, I must tear myself away
even from you." So he went to the stake.
[Illustration: SHORT ARROWS]
NOTES OF CHRISTIAN LIFE AND WORK.
A Remarkable Church Doorway.
Clonfert Cathedral, in County Galway, can boast a very remarkable
and ancient doorway, which is regarded as one of the finest
specimens of Hiberno-Romanesque work now in existence. The shafts
and piers present an astonishing variety of decoration; every inch
of its surface has been worked by the sculptor's tool. Above the
rounded archway rises a triangular space filled with many carvings,
while the archway itself consists of several decorated semicircles,
one within the other. Norman and Romanesque porches may be found of
grander proportions; but Brash, in his "Ecclesiastical Architecture
of Ireland," declares that "in point of design and execution" he
had not seen this beautiful porch "excelled by any similar features
in these islands," and specially mentions its beauty of design and
fertility of invention. The Cathedral itself has had a long and
interesting history. It was founded by St. Brendan in the year
558, and suffered greatly from the Danes. It was burnt six times
between 744 and 1179, and was plundered thrice between 949 and
1065. In 1541 it was almost destroyed. Repaired by Bishop Wolley
in 1664, it was subsequently altered and improved to some extent,
but no general work of restoration was done, and consequently it is
in great need of repair. To this work Canon McLarney, the present
rector of Clonfert, has set his hand. Though small, the building is
very beautiful, and is now used as the parish church, the parish of
Clonfert being very large and measuring twenty-seven Irish miles in
circumference. The work of restoration is proceeding in sections
as funds are provided by the public. The chancel has already been
restored, and Canon McLarney hopes to collect a thousand pounds to
complete the work on the nave. One need not leave the British Isles
to see very ancient and interesting structures, and a writer lately
said it would be worth a pilgrimage to Connaught to see Clonfert
doorway alone.
[Illustration: (_Photo: Mr. A. C. White, Clonskea, Dublin._)
A TWELFTH-CENTURY DOORWAY.]
The Westminster Choir Boys.
Nowhere in England do the trained voices of a choir seem to
harmonise more perfectly with the surroundings than in Westminster
Abbey. Architecture, as an old German philosopher once described
it, is but "frozen music" after all. The noble anthems that rise
soaring upwards amongst the fluted columns and giant arches, the
hymns of praise that roll through the long aisles seem, as we listen
to the sacred music, not only to give thanks to Him who "made the
earth so bright," but to Him who gave England such men as lie
in the sculptured tombs around us. Not far from the Abbey--some
three minutes' walk, in fact, through Dean's Yard--stands a
tall, red-brick building. It is the choir school, where live the
twenty-four boys of the choir under the headmastership of Mr.
Arthur Hore. To gain admission, a boy must be at least eight years
of age, possessing a good voice and the knowledge of the rudiments
of music; he will also be expected to read and write fairly. His
examination on these points will be conducted by the master of the
choristers, Sir J. Frederick Bridge, or someone appointed by him. If
he passes satisfactorily, he will become a probationer, paying £10
a year towards his expenses; at the end of three years, however, he
will become a recognised member of the Abbey choir, and no further
charge will be made. The internal arrangements of the choir house
are excellent. On the ground floor are the big class-room and the
dining-room. To see the youngsters attacking a joint of roast beef
is a conclusive proof that the boy who sings like a young seraph
is, nevertheless, far from being the wishy-washy individual that he
is often represented to be in some poems and sentimental novels. On
the second floor is another big class-room containing the school
library. Walter Scott is there, and rows of well-thumbed volumes
of Henty. Many years ago Princess Alice gave a present of books to
the school. For some time they were kept ceremoniously shut up in a
glass case. The present headmaster, however, recognising that the
kind donor would have strongly objected to such a foolish use being
made of the volumes, placed them in the library for general use. On
the third floor are the plain, clean dormitories with their rows of
little iron beds and the regulation striped rugs over all.
[Illustration: (_Photo: Russell and Sons, Baker Street, W._)
DR. BRIDGE AND THE WESTMINSTER CHOIR BOYS.]
A Chinese Y.M.C.A.
Amid the discouragements which the recent revolution in Pekin
has occasioned to those concerned in China's welfare--for the
movement in question is manifestly anti-reform, anti-foreign,
and consequently anti-Christian--there are many signs that such
opposition cannot radically hinder this country's enlightenment.
Such a sign is the progress of the Y.M.C.A. movement among Chinese
youths, which is assuming considerable importance, especially in
connection with mission schools. It was found desirable to invite
from America an experienced worker in this department; and though
it will be some time before this gentleman can speak Chinese,
there is no difficulty in the matter of interpreters, native or
foreign. Yesterday in our large Shanghai mission church--says a
correspondent--there were gathered 200 Chinese boy-scholars from
various mission stations in and near Shanghai, all of whom were
either members of the local Y.M.C.A. or willing to join it. Earnest
addresses were given and prayers offered, both in English and
Chinese, the English addresses being admirably translated by a
Christian Chinaman; while the bright hymn-singing of these strong
young voices was a delightful sound. At the close of the morning
meeting papers were distributed to the boys containing questions to
be answered in writing, and a form, of Christian engagement to be
signed. At the afternoon service many of these were returned most
satisfactorily and intelligently filled in. Such assemblies have
recently been held with much interest and zeal, and apparently solid
results, at Nanking and other centres of missionary work.
The "Metal Man."
At Tramore, near Waterford, a place where the Atlantic breakers
dash with sublime fury against the rocks, there are on one of the
headlands three towers, and on the middle one stands what is called
"The Metal Man." This is a figure made of metal, and painted to
resemble a sailor. With his finger he points to some very dangerous
rocks that are to be shunned. There are rocks in life's troublesome
sea that are ready to shipwreck the bodies and souls of the young.
These we should point out to them with as much diligence as does the
metal man when God has saved us from being shipwrecked upon them.
[Illustration: (_Photo: A. H. Poole and Co., Waterford._)
THE "METAL MAN," TRAMORE.]
A Saint's Rest.
Richard Baxter was all his long life physically weak, and for
fourteen years had scarcely a waking hour free from pain. He felt
himself continually "at the door of eternity." At the close of his
life he said, "Weakness and pain helped me to study how to die; I am
going now to see that for which I have lived and studied." His death
was a fitting end to a life of pain and patience--a fulfilment of
his own words: "After the rough and tempestuous day we shall at last
have the quiet, silent night--light and rest together; the quietness
of the night without its gloom."
The Quiver Pictures.
The six beautiful plates which the readers of THE QUIVER have the
opportunity of acquiring, and the last coupon for which is contained
in this number, are representative examples of the work of some
of the most notable exponents of sacred art among modern British
painters. The names of Leighton and Millais are now familiar in
every household, and great interest attaches to the works from
their hands included in this series of pictures. "The Star of
Bethlehem," by Lord Leighton, was painted in 1862, when the artist
was thirty-two years of age, and four years before his election
as Associate of the Royal Academy. The main figure represents one
of the magi on the terrace of his house, gazing at the miraculous
light which led him and his fellows to search out Him, "who was
born King of the Jews." "Christ in the House of His Parents" is one
of the most wonderful pictures painted by Sir John Millais. It was
exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1850, when the artist was but
twenty years of age, and, as related in the article on "Pictorial
Sermons" in our last number, aroused a storm of discussion among
the critics. The work is a veritable parable in paint, and, as its
allegories are all fully explained in the article referred to, we
need not repeat them here. The picture has great interest, apart
from this, as being one of the best specimens of the work of the
artist's Pre-Raphaelite period. "Christ Washing Peter's Feet," by
Ford Madox Brown, which was presented to the nation by a body of
subscribers; and now hangs in the Tate Gallery at Millbank, is a
typical painting, and one of the most beautiful examples of this
artist's work. Exquisite in colour, it is a perfect specimen of what
a picture dealing with a sacred subject should be. Full of reverence
and piety, it yet illustrates the subject fully; the rugged figure
of the apostle, expressing withal the penitence produced by the
rebuking words, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me,"
contrasts strongly with the humility of the Master kneeling to
His self-imposed task. "The Remorse of Judas," by the late Edward
Armitage, R.A., is another picture to be seen at Millbank, and is,
perhaps, one of the strongest works produced by this artist. The
terror of remorse is expressed in every line of the face of the
betrayer, while the cold indifference of the priests, now that their
work is accomplished, is admirably portrayed. "The Raising of the
Widow's Son of Nain," by W. C. T. Dobson, R.A., was shown at the
Academy in 1868, and fully explains itself. The joy of the mother
and the surprise of the beholders of the miracle are well rendered;
but the main interest of the picture, of course, centres in the
boy. His gaze is fixed upon Him whose voice has recalled him from
the "valley of the shadow." The last picture of the series, by W.
Dyce, R.A., was recently added to the national collection, and was
removed from Trafalgar Square to Millbank when the new gallery was
completed. It represents the Apostle John taking Mary to his own
home after the death of their Lord. Mary carries on her arm the
crown of thorns, and in the background may be seen Nicodemus and
Joseph of Arimathea, who are just leaving the garden which contains
the sepulchre. Mary Magdalene and the "other Mary" are seen seated
at the mouth of the grave. The picture was painted in 1860.
Public Charity.
According to a recent calculation, the amount given during
the previous year by Churchmen towards Christian work of all
kinds, such as Church Building, Home Missions, Foreign Missions,
Education, etc., was over £5,750,000. The various Presbyterian
Churches contributed during the same time for similar work a sum of
£1,600,000, and the Wesleyans gave over £500,000; the Calvinistic
Methodists about £228,500; the Baptists over £200,000; and the
Primitive Methodists over £100,000. Of the Congregationalists and
the "Friends" no such statistics are available, and it is estimated
that other branches of the Christian Church in England gave an
aggregate of not less than £150,000 towards the same work. Generally
speaking, all the different bodies contribute in a fairly equal
proportion, directly or indirectly, to the different kinds of
Christian work--at any rate, sufficiently so for the comparison we
wish to make here. So, taking the Church of England's returns as
our standard, we find that these proportions are nearly as follows,
1 being our unit:--Church Building and Repairs, 35; Home Missions,
7; Foreign Missions, 10; Educational Work of all kinds, 20; various
Charitable Works of other kinds, 6.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM ILLUSTRATING PUBLIC CHARITY.]
_The church_ (1) _represents the money spent in building
places of worship._
_The mission room_ (2) " " " _home mission work._
_The native hut_ (3) " " " _foreign
mission work._
_The school_ (4) " " " _educational work._
_The hall_ (5) " " " _other general
charitable work._
A New Quiver Heroine.
The latest recipient of the Bronze Medal of THE QUIVER Heroes Fund
is Annie Healand, a servant in the employ of Mr. Frederick Latham,
of Sledmere. On the afternoon of January 28th last, two little boys
and a girl were suddenly immersed beneath the ice whilst sliding
on a pond. On hearing of this, Annie Healand, who is herself but
fifteen years of age, immediately rushed to the rescue, and,
plunging in, succeeded in bringing the little girl to the bank. She
then endeavoured to find the two boys, who were still under the ice,
but was at last reluctantly compelled to give up the search, through
being overcome by the intense cold. The bodies of the lads were
afterwards found, and the coroner congratulated the brave girl for
the very plucky manner in which she had rescued one of the party and
attempted to save the others.
International League of Peace.
We are still daily receiving the names of numbers of new members,
and one roll of signatures which has just come to hand measures
thirty feet in length. Any number of blank forms will be gladly
sent, post free, to those requiring them. We may take this
opportunity of announcing that the first member to send in a
thousand signatures is Mr. John N. Munro, of 50, Park Road, Glasgow,
to whom a cheque for Ten Pounds has been sent, in accordance with
our offer.
ROLL OF HONOUR FOR SUNDAY-SCHOOL WORKERS.
The =Special Silver Medal= and =Presentation Bible= offered for the
longest known Sunday-school service in the county of =Devonshire=
(for which applications were invited up to February 28th, 1899) have
been gained by
LOUISA JANE LARGE,
Cross Street, Northam, Bideford,
who has distinguished herself by =sixty-two= complete years' service
in Northam Church Sunday School.
As already announced, the next territorial county for which claims
are invited for the Silver Medal is
KENT,
and applications, on the special form, must be received on or before
March 30th, 1899. We may add that =Cheshire= is the following county
selected, the date-limit for claims in that case being April 30th,
1899. This county, in its turn, will be followed by the territorial
county of =Somersetshire=, for which the date will be one month
later--viz. May 31st, 1899.
AN INTERESTING LETTER.
The following letter, received from the Devonshire Silver Medallist,
of whom particulars are given above, will doubtless be interesting
to all our readers, and especially to Sunday school workers:--
"In sending the enclosed certificates I should like to add that
I began my career as a Sunday school teacher at the age of ten,
with a class of four little girls, and proud enough I was. That
was some time in the year 1836. From that date to the present
(1899), I have been teaching continuously in the same school,
except when occasional illness or absence from home for a few
Sundays made a break. I am now teaching the grandchildren of
former scholars. Many changes have I seen; such a difference
in the teaching and general management of Sunday schools since
1836! Only two or three individuals are now living who were with
us when I began my work."
THE QUIVER FUNDS.
The following is a list of contributions received from February
1st, 1899, up to and including February 28th, 1899. Subscriptions
received after this date will be acknowledged next month:--
For _"The Quiver" Waifs' Fund_: J. J. E. (135th donation),
5s.; Anglo-Indian, 5s.; M. R. B., Ipswich, 4s. 2d.; C. E. H.,
3s. 6d.; A Glasgow Mother (105th donation), 1s.; E. A. W.,
Petersfield, 2s. 6d.
For _Dr. Barnardo's Homes_: An Irish Girl, £1; E. J. L.,
Glenageary, 10s.; X. J., 10s. 6d. The following amounts have
been sent direct:--A Well-Wisher, £2; Lila Noel, £1; G. C., 8s.;
P. P. O., 5s.; Ruth L., £1.
For _The Hospital for Women_: A Thank-Offering, 1s.
For _The Leper's Mission Fund_: Two Jersey QUIVER Readers, 4s.
6d.
[Illustration: decorative]
THE QUIVER BIBLE CLASS.
(BASED ON THE INTERNATIONAL SCRIPTURE LESSONS.)
QUESTIONS.
61. What did our Lord do as a rebuke to His Apostles when they
disputed among themselves as to who should be the greatest?
62. In the discourse at the Last Supper, what did our Lord say is to
be the distinctive mark of all His disciples? Quote passage.
63. In what words did Jesus warn St. Peter of the temptation which
awaited him?
64. By what promise did our Lord seek to comfort His Apostles on the
eve of His crucifixion?
65. Which of the Apostles seems to have been very slow in
comprehending the divinity of our Lord?
66. Quote some words from our Lord's answer to St. Philip in which
He clearly declares His Godhead?
67. What does our Lord say is the true test of our love to Him?
68. What is the great blessing Christ gives as the result of the
influence of the Holy Spirit in our hearts?
69. What is the general purport of our Lord's parable of the Vine?
70. What does our Lord give as the greatest proof of true love?
71. What was the position of the garden of Gethsemane?
72. From what circumstances do we gather that the Jews expected
great difficulty in arresting our blessed Lord?
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON PAGE 480.
49. In the parable of the Sheepfold our Lord speaks of a porter who
had charge of the door, and of a thief climbing over a fence (St.
John x. 1-3).
50. St. John x. 9.
51. Our Lord speaks of Himself as the Good Shepherd, who giveth His
life for the sheep, while the Jewish teachers, as hirelings, cared
not for them (St. John x. 11-14).
52. St. John vii. 15.
53. St. John v. 39.
54. Turning the water into wine and healing the nobleman's son (St.
John ii. 1-11 and iv. 46-54).
55. The fact that the body had been buried three days.
56. That it was done to increase the faith of the Apostles by
showing them that there was no limitation to the power of Christ
(St. John xi. 15).
57. So many Jews believed in Christ that the chief priests thought
of killing Lazarus as well as Jesus (St. John xi. 47-53 and xii. 10,
11).
58. Because it would seem that Martha was hostess at the house of
Simon the Leper, where Mary, her sister, anointed our Lord with the
precious ointment of spikenard (compare St. John xii. 1-3 with St.
Mark xiv. 3).
59. St. John tells us that Judas Iscariot acted as treasurer for our
Lord and His disciples, but that he was a thief (St. John xii. 6 and
xiii. 29).
60. Caiaphas prophesied that Jesus should die (St. John xi. 39).
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).
Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.
Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as
printed.
Missing page numbers are page numbers that were not shown in the
original text.
Mismatched quotes are not fixed if itâs not sufficiently clear where
the missing quote should be placed.
The cover for the eBook version of this book was created by the
transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
The hymns are handwritten on pages 483, 534, 535 and 536. There are
handwritten signatures by Arthur H. Brown on page 536, and John
Stainer on page 538.
Page 508 and following: The chapter titles in the section "For the
Sake of the Child" are in handwritten script.
Page 559: "in the evening--Nos. 500 and 532--and"--the number 500 is
unclear.
Page 560: "must be obtained from the office, 36,"--the number 36 is
unclear.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Quiver, by Anonymous
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