He went in the strength of dependence
To tread where his Master trod,
To gather and knit together The Family of God.
With a conscience freed from burdens,
And a heart set free from care,
To minister to every one
Always and everywhere.
Author of Chronicles of the Schonberg Cotta Family
After this came a happy, uneventful week at the manor. Erica often thought of the definition of happiness which Charles Osmond had once given her “Perfect harmony with your surroundings.” She had never been so happy in her life. Waif, who was slowly recovering, grew pathetically fond of his rescuer. The children were devoted to her, and she to them. She learned to love Gladys very much, and from her she learned a good deal which helped her to understand Donovan's past life. Then, too, it was the first time in her life that she had ever been in a house where there were little children, and probably Ralph and Dolly did more for her than countless sermons or whole libraries of theology could have done.
Above all, there was Donovan, and the friendship of such a man was a thing which made life a sort of wordless thanksgiving. At times even in those she loved best, even in her father or Charles Osmond, she was conscious of something which jarred a little, but so perfect was her sympathy with Donovan, so closely and strangely were their lives and characters linked together, that never once was the restfulness of perfect harmony broken Nature and circumstances had, as it were turned them to each other. He could understand, as no one else could understand, the reversal of thought and feeling which she had passed through during the last few months.
He could understand the perplexities of her present position, suddenly confronted with the world of wealth and fashion and conventional religion, and fresh from a circle where, whatever the errors held and promulgated, the life was so desperately earnest, often so nobly self-denying. He knew that Mr. Fane-Smith, good man as he was, must have been about the severest of trials to a new-born faith. He understood how Mr. Cuthbert's malice would tend to reawaken the harsh class judgment against which, as a Christian, Erica was bound to struggle. He could fully realize the irritated, ruffled state she was in she was overdone, and wanted perfect rest and quiet, perfect love and sympathy. He and his wife gave her all these, took her not only to their house, but right into their home, and how to do this no one knew so well as Donovan, perhaps because he had once been in much the same position himself. It was his most leisure month, the time he always devoted to home and wife and children, so that Erica saw a great deal of him. He seemed to her the ideal head of an ideal yet real home. It was one of those homes and thank God there are such! where belief in the Unseen reacts upon the life in the seen, making it so beautiful, so lovable, that, when you go out once more into the ordinary world you go with a widened heart, and the realization that the kingdom of Heaven of which Christ spoke does indeed begin upon earth.
It is strange, in tracing the growth of spontaneous love, to notice how independent it is of time. Love annihilates time with love, as with God, time is not. Like the miracles, it brings into use the aeonial measurement in which “one day is a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day.” A week, even a few hours, may give us love and knowledge and mutual sympathy with one which the intercourse of many years fails to give with another.
The week at Oakdene was one which all her life long Erica looked back to with the loving remembrance which can gild and beautify the most sorrowful of lives. It is surely a mistake to think that the memory of past delights makes present pain sharper. If not, why do we all so universally strive to make the lives of children happy? Is it not because we know that happiness in the present will give a sort of reflected happiness even in the saddest future? Is it not because we know how in life's bitterest moments, its most barren and desolate paths, we feel a warmth about our heart, a smile upon our lips, when we remember the old home days with their eager childish interests and hopes, their vividly recollected pleasures, their sheltered luxuriance of fatherly and motherly love? For how many thousands did the poet speak when he wrote
“The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual
benediction.”
A benediction which outlives the cares and troubles of later life which we may carry with us to our dying day, and find perfected indeed in that Unseen, where
“All we have willed, or hoped, or dreamed of good shall
exist, Not its semblance, but itself.”
There was only one bit of annoyance during the whole time; it was on the Sunday, the day before Erica was to go back to Greyshot. Gladys was not very well and stayed at home, but Donovan and Erica went to church with the children, starting rather early that they might enjoy the lovely autumn morning, and also that they might put the weekly wreaths on two graves in the little church yard. Donovan himself put the flowers upon the first, Ralph and Dolly talking softly together about “little Auntie Dot,” then running off hand in hand to make the “captain's glave plitty,” as Dolly expressed it. Erica, following them, glanced at the plain white headstone and read the name: “John Frewin, sometimes captain of the 'Metora.'”
Then they went together into the little country church, and all at once a shadow fell on her heart; for, as they entered at the west end, the clergy and the choristers entered the chancel, and she saw that Mr. Cuthbert was to take the service. The rector was taking his holiday, and had enlisted help from Greyshot.
Happily no man has it in his power to mar the Church of England service, but by and by came the sermon. Now Mr. Cuthbert cordially detested Donovan; he made no secret of it. He opposed and thwarted him on every possible occasion, and it is to be feared that personal malice had something to do with his choice of a subject for that morning's sermon.
He had brought over to Oakdene a discourse on the eternity of punishment. Perhaps he honestly believed that people could be frightened to heaven, at any rate he preached a most ghastly sermon, and, what was worse, preached it with vindictive energy. The poor, mangled, much-distorted text about the tree lying as it falls was brought to the fore once again, and, instead of bearing reference to universal charity and almsgiving as it was intended to do, was ruthlessly torn from its context and turned into a parable about the state of the soul at death. The words “damned” and “damnation,” with all their falsely theologized significance, rang through the little church and made people shudder, though all the time the speaker knew well enough that there were no such words in the New Testament. Had he been there himself to see he could not have described his material hell more graphically. Presently, leaning right over the pulpit, his eyes fixed on the manor pew just beneath him, he asked in thundering tones “My brethren, have you ever realized what the word LOST means?” Then came a long catalogue of those who in Mr. Cuthbert's opinion would undoubtedly be “lost,” in which of course all Erica's friends and relatives were unhesitatingly placed.
Now to hear what we sincerely believe to be error crammed down the throats of a congregation is at all times a great trial; but, when our nearest and dearest are remorselessly thrust down to the nethermost hell, impatience is apt to turn to wrath. Erica thought of her gentle, loving, unselfish mother, and though nothing could alter her conviction that long ere now she had learned the truths hidden from her in life, yet she could not listen to Mr. Cuthbert's horrible words without indignant emotion. A movement from Donovan recalled her. Little Dorothy was on his knees fast asleep; he quietly reached out his hand, took up Erica's prayer book which was nearest to him, and wrote a few words on the fly leaf, handling the book to her. She read them. “Definition of LOST: not found yet.” Then the anger and grief and pain died away, and, though the preacher still thundered overhead, God's truth stole into Erica's heart once more by means of one of his earliest consecrated preachers a little child. Once more Dolly and her father were to her a parable; and presently, glancing away through the sunny south window, her eye fell upon a small marble tablet just below it that she had not before noticed, and this furnished her with thoughts which outlasted the sermon.
At the top was a medallion, the profile of the same fine, soldierly
looking man whose portrait hung in Donovan's study, and which was
so wonderfully like both himself and little Ralph. Beneath was the
following inscription:
“In loving Memory of RALPH FARRANT,
Who died at Porthkerran, Cornwall,
May 3, 18—, Aged 45
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and
cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no
variableness, neither shadow of turning.”
The date was sixteen years back, but the tablet was comparatively new, and could not have been up more than six years at the outside. Erica was able partly to understand why Donovan had chosen for it that particular text, and nothing could more effectually have counteracted Mr. Cuthbert's sermon than the thoughts which it awoke in her.
Nevertheless, she did not quite get over the ruffled feeling, which was now in a great measure physical, and it was with a sense of relief that she found herself again in the open air, in the warmth, and sunshine, and gladness of the September day. Donovan did not say a word. They passed through the little church yard, and walked slowly up the winding lane; the children, who had stopped to gather a fine cluster of blackberries, were close behind them. In the silence, every word of their talk could be distinctly heard.
“I don't like God!” exclaimed Ralph, abruptly.
“Oh, you naughty!” exclaimed Dolly, much shocked.
“No, it isn't naughty. I don't think He's good. Why, do you think father would let us be shut up in a horrid place for always and always? Course he wouldn't. I 'spects if we'd got to go, he'd come, too.”
Donovan and Erica looked at each other. Donovan turned round, and held out his hand, at which both children rushed.
“Ralph,” he said, “if any one told you that I might some day leave off loving you, leave off being your father what would you do?”
“I'd knock them down!” said Ralph, clinching his small fist.
Donovan laughed a little, but did not then attempt to prove the questionable wisdom of such a proceeding.
“Why would you feel inclined to knock them down?” he asked.
“Because it would be a wicked lie!” cried Ralph. “Because I know you never could, father.”
“You are quite right. Of course I never could. You would never believe any one who told you that I could, because you would know it was impossible. But just now you believed what some one said about God, though you wouldn't have believed it of me. Never believe anything which contradicts 'Our Father.' It will be our father punishing us now and hereafter, and you may be sure that He will do the best possible for all His children. You are quite sure that I should only punish you to do you good, and how much more sure may you be that God, who loves you so much more, will do the same, and will never give you up.”
Ralph looked hard at his bunch of blackberries, and was silent. Many thoughts were working in his childish brain. Presently he said, meditatively:
“He did shout it out so loud and horrid! I s'pose he had forgotten about 'Our Father.' But, you see, Dolly, it was all a mistake. Come along, let's race down the drive.”
Off they ran. Erica fancied that Donovan watched them rather sadly.
“I thought Ralph was listening in church,” she said. “Fancy a child of his age thinking it all out like that!”
“Children think much more than people imagine,” said Donovan. “And a child invariably carries out a doctrine to its logical conclusion. 'Tis wonderful the fine sense of justice which you always find in them!”
“Ralph inherits that from you, I should think. How exactly like you he is, especially when he is puzzling out some question in his own mind.”
A strange shadow passed over Donovan's face. He was silent for a moment.
“'Tis hard to be brave for one's own child,” he said at last. “I confess that the thought that Ralph may have to live through what I have lived through is almost unendurable to me.”
“How vexed you must have been that he heard today's sermon,” said Erica.
“Not now,” he replied. “He has heard and taken in the other side, and has instinctively recognized the truth. If I had had some one to say as much to me when I was his age, it might have saved me twenty years of atheism.”
“It is not only children who are repulsed by this,” said Erica. “Or learned men like James Mill. I know well enough that hundreds of my father's followers were driven away from Christianity merely by having this view constantly put before them. How were they to know that half the words about it were mistranslations? How were they to study when they were hard at work from week's end to week's end? It seems to me downright wicked of scholars and learned men to keep their light hidden away under a bushel, and then pretend that they fear the 'people' are not ready for it.”
“As though God's truth needed bolstering up with error!” exclaimed Donovan. “As though to believe a hideous lie could ever be right or helpful! There's a vast amount of Jesuitry among well-meaning Protestants.”
“And always will be, I should think,” said Erica. “As long as people will think of possible consequences, instead of the absolutely true. But I could forgive them all if their idea of the danger of telling the people were founded on real study of the people. But is it? How many of the conservers of half truths, who talk so loudly about the effect on the masses, have personally known the men who go to make up the masses?”
“Yes, you are right,” said Donovan. “As a rule I fancy the educated classes know less about the working classes than they do about the heathen, and I am afraid, care less about them. You have an immense advantage there both as a writer and a worker, for I suppose you really have been brought into contact with them.”
“Yes,” said Erica, “all my life. How I should like to confront Mr. Cuthbert with a man like Hazeldine, or with dozens of others whom I could name!”
“Why?” asked Donovan.
“Because no one could really know such men without learning where the present systems want mending. If Hazeldine could be shut into Mr. Cuthbert's study for a few hours, and induced to tell the story of his life, I believe he would have the effect of the ancient mariner on the wedding guest. Only, the worst of it is, I'm afraid the very look of Mr. Cuthbert would quite shut him up.”
“Tell me about him,” said Donovan.
“It is nothing at second hand,” said Erica. “He is a shoe maker, as grand-looking a fellow as you ever saw, fond of reading, and very thoughtful, and with more quiet common sense than almost any I ever met. He had been brought up to believe in verbal inspiration that had been thoroughly crammed down his throat; but no one had attempted to touch upon the contradictions, the thousand and one difficulties which of course he found directly he began to study the Bible. So he puzzled and puzzled, and got more and more dissatisfied, and never in church heard anything which explained his difficulties. At last one day in his workshop a man lent him a number of the 'Idol Breaker,' and in it was a paper by my father on the Atonement. It came to him like a great light in his darkness; he says he shall never forget the sudden conviction that the man who wrote that article understood every one of his difficulties, and would be able to clear them right away. The next Sunday he went to hear my father lecture. I believe it would make the veriest flint cry to hear his account of it, to see the look of reverent love that comes over his face when he says, 'And there I found Mr. Raeburn ready to answer all my difficulties, not holding one at arm's length and talking big and patronizing for all he was so clever, but just like a mate.' That man would die for my father any day hundreds of them would.”
“I can well believe it,” said Donovan. Then, after a pause, he added, “To induce Christians to take a fair, unprejudiced look at true secularism and to induce secularists to take a fair, unprejudiced view of true Christ-following, seems to me to be the great need of today.”
“If one could!” said Erica, with a long-drawn sigh.
“If any one can, you can,” he replied.
She looked up at him quickly, awed by the earnestness of his tone. Was she a young girl, conscious of so many faults and failings, conscious of being at the very threshold herself to dare even to attempt such a task? Yet was it a question of daring to attempt? Was it not rather the bit of work mapped out for her, to undertake, perhaps to fail in, but still bravely to attempt? He heart throbbed with eager yearning, as the vision rose before her. What was mere personal pain? What was injustice? What was misunderstanding? Why, in such a cause she could endure anything.
“I would die to help on that!” she said in a low voice.
“Will you live for it?” asked Donovan, with his rare, beautiful smile. “Live, and do something more than endure the Lady Carolines and Mr. Cuthberts?”
Few things are more inspiriting that the realization that we are called to some special work which will need our highest faculties, our untiring exertions which will demand all that is good in us, and will make growth in good imperative. With the peacefulness of that country Sunday was interwoven a delicious perception that hard, beautiful work lay beyond. Erica wandered about the shady Mountshire woods with Gladys and the children, and in the cool restfulness, in the stillness and beauty, got a firm hold on her lofty ideal, and rose about the petty vexations and small frictions which had been spoiling her life at Greyshot.
The manor grounds were always thrown open to the public on Sunday, and a band in connection with one of the temperance societies played on the lawn. Donovan had been much persecuted by the Sabbatarians for sanctioning this; but, though sorry to offend any one, he could not allow what he considered mistaken scruples to interfere with such a boon to the public. Crowds of workingmen and women came each week away from their densely packed homes into the pure country; the place was for the time given up to them, and they soon learned to love it, to look upon it as a property to which they had a real and recognized share.
Squire Ward, who owned the neighboring estate, grumbled a good deal at the intrusion of what he called the “rabble” into quiet Oakdene.
“That's the worst of such men as Farrant,” he used to say. “They begin by rushing to one extreme, and end by rushing to the other. Such a want of steady conservative balance! He's a good man; but, poor fellow, he'll never be like other people, never!”
Mrs. Ward was almost inclined to think that he had been less obnoxious in the old times. As a professed atheist, he could be shunned and ignored, but his uncomfortably practical Christianity had a way of shaking up the sleepy neighborhood, and the neighborhood did not at all like being shaken!
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