RUBBLE AND ROSELEAVES

And Things of That Kind

BY

F. W. BOREHAM

THE ABINGDON PRESS

NEW YORK CINCINNATI

Copyright, 1923, by

F. W. BOREHAM

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Part I

Part II

Part III

BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION

Every man has a genius for something or other. I have a genius for a comfortable armchair and a blazing fire. Add to these two ingredients what Bob Cratchit would call a circle of congenial companions (meaning, as his considerate creator points out, a semi-circle) and I am as destitute of envy as the Miller of the Dee. I stipulate, however, that my companions shall be so very much to my taste that, when in the mood, I can talk to my heart's content without seeming garrulous, and, when in the mood, can remain as silent as the Sphinx without appearing sullen.

This outrageous spasm of autobiography is necessitated as an explanation of Rubble and Roseleaves. The contents are neither essays nor sermons nor anything of the kind. The inexhaustible patience of my readers has lured me into the habit of talking on any mortal—or immortal—subject that takes my fancy. I have merely set down here a few wayward notions that have, in the course of my wanderings, occurred to me. But, in self-defense, let me add that these outbursts have been punctuated by whole infinitudes of silence. The silences are eloquently represented by the gaps between the chapters.

Frank W. Boreham.

Armadale, Melbourne, Australia.

Easter, 1923.

PART I

I—OLD ENVELOPES

Three envelopes, cruelly torn and sadly crumpled, look reproachfully up at me from the yawning abyss of my waste-paper basket. There is a heavy, pompous envelope, of foolscap size, who evidently feels that I have affronted his dignity by casting him to the void in this unceremonious way. There is a thin, blue envelope who seems to be barking out something about an account that ought to be paid. And there is a dainty little square envelope, delicately perfumed, and addressed in a lady's flowing hand. This pretty piece of stationery keeps asking, in a plaintive voice, if the age of chivalry is dead.

'Why,' these envelopes want to know, 'why are the letters that we brought laid so respectfully on your desk whilst we, to whom you are so much indebted, are crushed and mangled and tossed disdainfully aside? Isn't an envelope as good as a letter any day?'

There is justice in their contention, and I take up my pen that I may tender them an apology. A letter will tell you much; but the envelope will often tell you more. I remember sitting with John Broadbanks one autumn afternoon on the broad verandah of the Mosgiel Manse. Some important meetings were to be held next day, and he had driven over to help me in my preparations for them. He had, moreover, arranged to stay the night. As we made our way through the various papers that would have to be dealt with next day, the gate swung open and the postman placed a budget of letters in my hand.

'Hullo!' I exclaimed, 'an English mail!' And, excusing myself from the business on hand, I lost myself in the letters from Home.

I noticed that, when we returned to the agenda paper and reports, John did not seem as keen as usual. He went through the documents mechanically, languidly, perfunctorily, allowing several matters to pass that, ordinarily, he would have questioned. He gave me the impression of having something on his mind, and it was not until we all sat round the tea-table that I grasped the situation. Then he opened his heart to us.

'I am very sorry,' he said, 'but if you'll let me, I think I had better return to Silverstream this evening after all. The arrival of the English mail makes all the difference. You have your letters; mine are waiting for me at the Manse. When I last heard from Home, my mother was very ill; I have spent an anxious month waiting for the letter that has evidently arrived to-day; and I do not feel that I can settle down to to-morrow's business until I have seen it.'

The announcement was greeted with demonstrations of general disappointment. John was a universal favorite; he was the nearest approach to a relative that the children had ever known; and the prospect of having him in the house until bedtime, and of finding him still on the premises when they awoke in the morning, had occasioned the wildest excitement. And now the beautiful dream was about to be shattered!

'I tell you what, John,' I said, going to the window and looking out, 'it's going to be a perfect moonlight night. Spend an hour with the children after tea, and then I'll drive over to Silverstream with you. If all's well, we can return together. If not, we shall understand.'

When, after a sharp cold drive in the moonlight, we reached the Silverstream Manse, things took an unexpected turn.

'Mrs. Broadbanks has gone out,' the maid explained. 'The English mail arrived this afternoon and she said you would be anxious to get your Home letter. She took it with her and said that she would try to get it posted this evening so that you would get it first thing in the morning. And I think she intended to look in at Mrs. Blackie's before she returned and inquire about Alec's broken leg. I know she took some jellies with her.'

It was now John's turn to be disappointed. He had had his journey for nothing; indeed, as things now stood he would be nearer to the letter at Mosgiel than at Silverstream. Then an idea occurred to him.

'Did Mrs. Broadbanks get letters from her home?' The maid thought that she did. She knew, at least, that, after the arrival of the mail, her mistress had spent some time in the bedroom by herself. John hurried to the bedroom.

'Hurrah!' he cried, a moment later. 'Here's the envelope! It is addressed in my mother's handwriting, and the postmark shows that it left England on March 16. The last letter left on February 17 and the envelope was addressed by my sister. So all's serene! Let's get back to Mosgiel!' John wrote a hurried note for Lilian; left it on the bed; and, in a few minutes, we were once more startling the rabbits on the road.

It is wonderful how often the envelope tells us all that we wish to know. I always feel sorry for the Postmaster-General. No man on the planet is under so great an illusion as is he. I can never read his annual report without amusement. It is a stirring romance; but the romance is, to some extent, the romance of fiction rather than the romance of fact. I know that it is a thankless task to rob a man of an illusion that makes him happy; but the interests of truth sometimes demand it. They do in this case. For it is not the Postmaster-General alone who has been tricked by the witchery of appearances; the fallacy is shared by all the members of his enormous staff. Every individual in the department, from the Minister down to the messenger-boy, is equally deceived. The annual report proves it. For, in this annual report, the Postmaster-General tells you how many millions of letters he and his subordinates have handled during the year. But have they? As a matter of fact, they have handled no letters at all—except dead letters, and dead things don't count. The Postmaster-General handles envelopes; that is all. Let him correct the statement in his next report.

It will involve him in no loss of prestige, for, as these three envelopes in the basket plead so plaintively, and as John Broadbanks discovered that moonlight night at Silverstream, envelopes have a significance of their own. The postman knows that. He never sees the letters; but the envelopes whisper to him a thousand secrets. He knows the envelopes that contain circulars, and he hands them to you with a look that is a kind of apology for having troubled you to answer the door. He knows the official envelopes that contain demands for rates, income taxes, and the like. If you are in his good books, he hands them to you sympathetically; if not, he secretly enjoys the fun. Here is an envelope marked 'Urgent'; here is one with a deep black border; here is one with silver edges! He cannot be quite deaf to all that these envelopes say. And here is one, addressed very neatly, to a young lady at the house at the corner. He brings an exactly similar envelope to the same fair recipient every other morning. On the morning on which he brings the envelope, she invariably scampers along the hall in order personally to receive the letters; on the alternate mornings her father or her sister usually respond to his ring. He never sees her letters; but he knows, he knows! The envelopes chatter to him all the way down the street. Envelopes are great gossips. They talk to the sorter; they talk to the collector; they talk to the postman; they talk to the receiver; and they even go on talking—like the trio that set me scribbling—after they have been tossed disdainfully into the waste-paper basket.

The letter may be interesting in its way; but the envelope reveals the essential things. When a man writes to me, he does not tell me what kind of a man he is; but, recognizing that it is of the utmost importance to me that this information should be placed at my disposal, he is good enough to impart it on the envelope. He smothers the envelope with hieroglyphs and signs which are more revealing than a photograph. It frequently happens that my reply is determined more by these signs than by anything that he says in the letter. The letter is probably stiff, formal, lifeless—like a tailor's model. But the envelope reveals individuality, character, life! The envelope's the thing! You find all sorts of things in envelopes; you never find any mock modesty there. Envelopes are never shy; they never stand on ceremony; they wait for no introduction; they begin to talk as soon as they arrive. The envelope tells me, by means of its postmark, of the locality from which it has come and of the length of time that it has spent upon the road. Then, swiftly establishing itself on friendly terms, it becomes personal, communicative, confidential. It tells me that the writer of the letter that I am about to read is a tidy man or a slovenly man, as the case may be. Sometimes an envelope will tell me that it was addressed by a feverish, impulsive, excitable man; another will assure me, proudly, that it was sent to me by a leisurely, composed, methodical man. 'I come,' boasts one envelope, 'from a painstaking and accurate man who is scrupulously careful to cross every "t" and dot every "i."' 'And I,' murmurs the envelope lying against it, 'come from a man who doesn't care a rap whether the "i's" have dots, or, for that matter, whether the dots have "i's"!' Here is an envelope that tells me that it has been sent to me by a very dilatory man! The letter is dated March 2; the postmark is dated March 6; he was four days in posting it! This envelope contains a letter earnestly requesting me to oblige the writer by speaking at a meeting which he is organizing, and he is kind enough to speak of the great value which he attaches to my services. But the good man has not the heart to deceive me. So, lest I should take the contents of the letter seriously, he tells me that he has not even troubled to find out how I spell my name or what initials I am pleased to bear. I recognize, of course, that the information imparted by the envelope is not to be implicitly trusted. A notorious gossip must always be heard with the greatest caution. But most people with much experience of correspondence, before answering a letter, like to hear what the envelope has to say about it.

Nature, I notice, is very careful about the envelopes in which she sends us her letters. The architecture of an orange is a marvel of symmetry and compactness; but who has not admired the color and formation of the peel? Is there anything on earth more delicate and ingenious than the wrappings of a maize-cob? The husks and rinds and pods and shells that we toss upon the rubbish-heap are masterpieces of design and execution. As a small boy, I found among my treasures three things that filled me with ceaseless wonder and admiration—the skin of horse-chestnuts, the cocoons of my silkworms and the shells of the birds' eggs that I brought home from the lane. I knew little about Nature in those days; but I instinctively based my first impressions on the envelopes that she sent; and, judging her by that sure standard, I felt that she must be wonderfully wise and good and beautiful.

It is considered correct, I understand, to say that one should not judge by outward appearances; but how can you help it? Envelopes will talk! I can never forget a tremendous impression made upon my mind a few weeks after I went to live in London. I was barely seventeen. I was feeling horribly lonely, and, on all sorts of subjects, I was desperately groping my way. One wet night, in passing down the Strand, I saw hundreds of people crowding into Exeter Hall. Moved by a sudden impulse, I followed. The adventure promised a new experience, and I was specializing in novelties. Then came the impression! It was not created by the arguments of the speakers, for, as yet, not one of them had spoken. It was created by their personal appearance. The chair was occupied by Sir Stevenson Arthur Blackwood—'Beauty Blackwood,' as he was called—and addresses were delivered by the Revs. Newman Hall, Donald Fraser, Marcus Rainsford and Archibald G. Brown. I could imagine nothing more picturesque than those five knightly figures—tall, dignified and stately. The spectacle completely captivated me. I gazed spellbound. While the great audience sang the opening hymn, my eyes roved from one handsome form to another, bestowing upon each the silent homage of boyish hero-worship. This happened more than thirty years ago; yet I am confident that I could easily write out a full and accurate report of each of the speeches delivered that night. So favorably had the envelopes impressed my mind! And so effectively had they prepared me for the letters they contained!

In every department of life it is the envelope that becomes emphatic. In describing at night the people with whom we have met during the day, we refer to 'the lady in the fur coat,' 'the girl in the red hat,' and 'the man in the grey suit.' The lady, the girl and the man—these are letters. The fur coat, the red hat and the grey suit are merely envelopes. Yet we feel that to speak of 'a lady,' 'a girl' or 'a man' is, in effect, to say nothing. It conveys no concrete idea. It lacks vividness, force, reality. But 'a lady in a fur coat,' 'a girl in a red hat,' 'a man in a grey suit'—these are pictures! The envelope makes all the difference.

We often say by way of the envelope what we cannot say so well in the body of the letter. Charles Dickens knew that; so did John Bunyan; so did the Greatest Master of all.

Dickens knew it. Indeed, somebody has as good as said that Dickens is all envelopes; he gives us the barrister's wig in mistake for the barrister, the beadle's cocked hat in mistake for the beadle, and so on. But if it is true, on the one hand, that Dickens is too fond of envelopes, it must be confessed, on the other, that he knows how to use them. Who can forget the night when David Copperfield and Mr. Peggotty set out together on one of those dreadful journeys that stood connected with the loss of little Emily? Before starting, Mr. Peggotty entered Emily's room. 'Without appearing to notice what he was doing,' said David Copperfield, 'I saw how carefully he adjusted the little room and finally took out of a drawer one of her dresses, neatly folded, and placed it on a chair. He made no allusion to these clothes, neither did I. There they had been waiting for her, many and many a night, no doubt.' Mr. Peggotty could not express in so many words all that he felt; but Emily, if she came, would see the dress lying ready for her, and would understand that everything was to be just as it always was. She would see the envelope; and the envelope would say more than any letter could possibly do.

Bunyan knew it. The first thing that impressed the people of Vanity Fair, as they gazed upon Christian and Faithful, was that 'the pilgrims were clothed with such kind of raiment as was diverse from the raiment of any that traded in that fair.'

And Jesus knew it. The most searching and terrible of all His parables was the parable of the man who, seated at the king's feast, had not a wedding garment. And, even more notably, when the prodigal came home, the father knew of no words in which he could adequately welcome his son. But, if he could not write a satisfactory letter, he could at least express himself by means of the envelope! Away with the rags! On with the robes! Bring forth the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet!

And even when the Bible attempts to depict the felicities of the world to come, it does it, not in the phraseology that we employ in letters, but in the symbolism that we employ in the use of envelopes. It speaks of robes and palms and crowns, for it knows that the wise will understand.

II—'WHISTLING JIGS TO MILESTONES'

I

Blueberry Creek! Blueberry Creek! Where in the world was Blueberry Creek? It was all very well for Conference to resolve—in the easy and airy fashion that is so charmingly characteristic of Conferences—that John Broadbanks and I should be appointed 'to visit and report upon the affairs of the congregation at Blueberry Creek'; but how on earth were we to get there? On that point, the Conference, in its wisdom, had given no directions: it had not even condescended to take so mundane a detail into its consideration. A fearful and wonderful thing is a Conference. A Conference is capable of ordering an inquiry into the state of the inhabitants of Mars; and it would appoint its commissioners without giving a thought to the ways and means by which they were to proceed to the scene of their investigations. It was altogether beneath the dignity of that august body to reflect that Blueberry Creek is as near to the Other End of Nowhere as any man need wish to go; that it is many miles from a railway station or a decent road; and that the only approach to it is by means of a grassy track that, winding in and out among the great brown hills, is, during a large part of the year, impassable. The only indication of the track's existence consisted of a suspicion of wheelmarks among the tussock.

When, at the close of the session, we met on the steps outside the hall, John and I stared at each other in a lugubrious bewilderment. Then, seeing, as he never failed to do, the humor of the situation, he burst into peals of laughter.

'Blueberry Creek!' he roared, as though the very name were a joke, 'and how are we to get to Blueberry Creek?'

Still, while we admired the complacent audacity with which the Conference had saddled us with the responsibility of finding—or making—a road to Blueberry Creek, we felt, as it felt, that somebody ought to go. Allan Gillespie, a young minister, who, for seven years, had done excellent work there, had resigned without any apparent reason. The people, whose confidence, esteem and affection he had completely won, were depressed and disheartened; and the work stood in imminent peril. John used to say that, if you leave a problem long enough, it will solve itself. The way in which the problem of getting to Blueberry Creek solved itself certainly seemed to vindicate his philosophy.

'I've been making inquiries,' said Mr. Alexander Mitchell, a man of few words but of great practical sagacity, as he met me in the porch on the last day of the Conference. 'I've been making inquiries about that appointment of yours. I find that a motor has been through to Blueberry. If one can do it, another can. I have a sturdy little car that will get there if it is possible for four wheels to do it. My business will take me as far as Crannington next week, so that I shall then be two-thirds of the way to Blueberry. If you and Mr. Broadbanks care to accompany me, we will do our best to get through. I expect we shall have a rough passage, but I am willing to take all the risks if you are.'

Truth to tell, the project was very much to our taste. In order that we might make an early start on the Tuesday, we arranged that John should spend Monday night as our guest at Mosgiel. He came, and we both awoke next morning on the best of terms with ourselves. Civilization was quickly left behind. We followed the road as far as Crannington; had lunch there; and then plunged into the hills. For the next few hours Mr. Mitchell's motor—whose sturdiness he had by no means exaggerated—was crashing its way through scrub and fern; clambering over rocky boulders; gliding down precipitous gradients; edging its course along shelves cut in the hillside; and splashing through the stream whose tortuous folds awaited us in every hollow. At about five o'clock we emerged upon a great plain covered with tussock; we made out a cluster of cottages in the distance; and we knew that, at last, we had come to Blueberry Creek.

'Why, here is Allan!' exclaimed John, as he pointed to a solitary horseman who, dashing along a track that intersected ours, was evidently hurrying to join us.

We were soon at the manse. Allan was not married; his mother kept house for him. 'My father died of consumption,' he used to say, 'and so did my grandfather: I must make sure that I am a citizen of this planet, and not merely a visitor, before I let any pretty girl make eyes at me!'

Our mission was quite unavailing. John and I had a long talk with Allan after tea.

'No,' he said at last, rising from his chair and pacing the room under the stress of strong emotion. His shock of fair wavy hair fell about his forehead when he was excited, and he brushed it back impatiently with his hand. His pale blue eyes burned at such times as though a fire were blazing behind them. 'No; I feel that I am whistling jigs to milestones! I am preaching to people, who, while they are very good to me, make no response of any kind to my message. They see to it that Mother and I want for nothing; they bring us all kinds of little dainties from the farms and stations; they share with us whatever's going as the seasons come around; and they welcome me into their homes as though I really belonged to them. They are great church people, too; they attend the services magnificently, although they have to come long distances along bad roads in all sorts of weather. They even compliment me on my sermons, just as a sleeper, roused at midnight by the alarm of fire, might, without rising, praise the dramatic ability of the friend who had awakened him. I've stood it as long as I can,' he cried, his lip quivering and his face pale with passion, 'and now I must give it up. You needn't try to find me another church; I have no wish to repeat the experience. I shall preach my last sermon on Sunday week, and I have chosen my theme. I shall preach,' he said, coming right up to us and transfixing us with eyes whose glowing fervor seemed to scorch us, 'I shall preach on the Unpardonable Sin! I shall preach as gently and as persuasively, but as powerfully, as I know how. But that will be my subject. For the Unpardonable Sin is to tamper with your oracle, to be disloyal to your vision, to play fast and loose with the truth!'

Allan had an appointment that evening. Mr. Mitchell, exhausted by his long drive, retired early. John and I excused ourselves and set off for a walk across the plain. For a while we journeyed in silence, enjoying the sunset, the song of the birds and the evening air. Allan's words, too, had taken a strong hold upon us.

'There's a lot in what he says,' John remarked at length, 'especially in his exposition of the Unpardonable Sin. Strangely enough, I was looking into the subject only a few days ago. The popular interpretation is, of course, absurd upon the face of it. You remember George Borrow's story of Peter Williams. Peter, as a boy of seven, came upon the passage 'about the Unpardonable Sin and took it into his head that he could dispose of religion for the rest of his life by the simple process of committing that deadly transgression. Arising from his bed one night, he went out into the open air, had a good look at the stars, and then, stretching himself upon the ground and supporting his face with his hands, the little idiot poured out such a hideous torrent of blasphemy as, he believed, would destroy his soul for ever. For years the memory of that solemn act of spiritual self-destruction darkened all his days and haunted all his nights. He tormented himself, as Bunyan did, with the conviction that he had committed the sin for which there is no forgiveness. It ended as it did with Bunyan, and as it always does. Chrysostom says that it is notorious that men who imagine that they have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost invariably become Christians and lead exemplary lives.'

We came at that moment to the banks of the creek; the waters were sparkling in the moonlight; we instinctively seated ourselves among the ferns.

'Allan's interpretation,' John went on, 'is much nearer the mark. The words were addressed in the first instance to men who declared that Christ cast out devils by the prince of the devils. The thing is ridiculous; it is a contradiction in terms. Why should the prince of the devils occupy himself with casting out devils? The men who said such a thing were simply talking for the sake of talking. They were putting no brain into it. They were stultifying reason; and the man who stultifies his reason is darkening his own windows. He is, as Allan put it, tampering with his oracle; he is playing fast and loose with the truth. A fellow may behave in the same way towards his conscience or towards any other means of moral or spiritual illumination. As soon as he does that kind of thing, he shuts the door in his own face; he puts himself beyond the possibility of salvation. And, when I was dipping into the matter at Silverstream a few nights since, I came to the conclusion that the passage about the Unpardonable Sin simply means this: the men who, in the old Galilean days, distorted the evidence of the miracles and rejected the testimony of the Son of Man, were guilty of a serious offence; but it was a venial offence: for, after all, it was not easy to realize that a Nazarene peasant was the Son of God. But those to whom the fullness of the Gospel has come, and upon whom the light of the ages has shone, how shall they be made the recipients of the divine grace if they deliberately block every channel by which that grace may approach them? If they stultify their reasons and harden their hearts; if, as Allan says, they tamper with their oracles and play fast and loose with the truth, what hope is there for them? I am sorry to see poor old Allan taking the apathy of his congregation so much to heart: but most of us would make better ministers if we took it to heart a little more.'

We discussed the matter for an hour or so, our conversation punctuated by the splashing of the trout in the creek; and then, feeling that it was getting chilly, we rose and walked back to the manse. Allan, to our surprise, was already there.

'Now, look,' he said, as he seated himself in his armchair, and began to poke the fire, 'you two men have come up here to talk me out of my decision; and I'm delighted to see you. But tell me this. A few years ago nobody could talk about the things of which I speak every Sunday without moving people to deep emotion. I have been reading the records of Wesley and Whitefield and Spurgeon. Why, bless me, it was nothing for those men to see a whole audience bathed in tears. Whitefield would have the Kingswood miners crying like babies. Why do I never see any evidence of deep feeling? that's what I want to know. You may say that it's because I don't preach as Wesley and Whitefield and Spurgeon preached. I thought until lately that that was the explanation. But I've given up that theory: it won't work. Livingstone has a story about old Baba, a native chief, who bore the most excruciating torture without the flicker of an eyelid or the contraction of a muscle. Yet, when Livingstone read to him the story of the crucifixion, he was melted to tears. No flights of rhetoric, mark you! Just the reading of the New Testament, without note or comment! Now I've read that same story to my people; and who was much affected by it? Then look at Spurgeon! Why, Spurgeon, anxious to test the acoustic properties of his new Tabernacle, entered the pulpit, believing the building to be empty, and exclaimed, 'Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world!' A workman, concealed among the empty pews, heard the words, listened, heard them repeated, and was profoundly stirred by them. He laid down his tools, sought an interview with Spurgeon, and was led into a life of useful and happy service. No sermon, mark you; just a text! Why, I've quoted that same text scores of times, and who came to me enquiring the way of salvation? I shall say all this in my farewell sermon. I shall say it as kindly as I can, for the people have been wonderfully good to me; but it is my duty to say it. And I'm going to recite a few verses of poetry. Would you like to hear them? I haven't memorized them yet. I only came upon them yesterday.'

He slipped off to another room and returned with a volume of poems by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Opening it, he read to us some verses entitled The Two Sunsets. They tell how a young fellow, of pure heart and simple ways, saw a sunset and heard a song. As the sinking sun filled the western sky with crimson and gold—

He looked, and as he looked, the sight,

Sent from his soul through breast and brain

Such intense joy, it hurt like pain.

His heart seemed bursting with delight.

So near the unknown seemed, so close

He might have grasped it with his hand.

He felt his inmost soul expand,

As sunlight will expand a rose.

And after the story of the sunset we have the story of the song:

One day he heard a singing strain—

A human voice, in bird-like trills,

He paused, and little rapture-rills

Went trickling downward through each vein.

And then the years went by. Queen Folly held her sway. She fed his flesh and drugged his mind; he trailed his glory in the mire. And, after a long interval, he revisited his boyhood's home, beheld another sunset and heard another song:

The clouds made day a gorgeous bed;

He saw the splendor of the sky

With unmoved heart and stolid eye;

He only knew the West was red.

Then, suddenly, a fresh young voice

Rose, bird-like, from some hidden place;

He did not even turn his face,

It struck him simply as a noise!

He saw the sunset that once filled him with ecstasy; but he saw it 'with unmoved heart and stolid eye'! He heard the song that once sounded to him like the voice of angels, and 'it struck him simply as a noise!'

'That's the Unpardonable Sin!' exclaimed Allan, gathering fervor as he proceeded. He sprang from his chair and stood facing us, his back to the fire. 'That's the Unpardonable Sin! Miss Wilcox as good as says so. Listen!

O! worst of punishments, that brings

A blunting of all finer sense,

A loss of feelings keen, intense,

And dulls us to the higher things.

O! shape more hideous and more dread,

Than Vengeance takes in Creed-taught minds,

This certain doom that blunts and blinds,

And strikes the holiest feelings dead!

This vehement recital brought on a violent fit of coughing and he left the room. When he returned we made no attempt to reply to him. We felt that the case did not lend itself to argument. We fondly wished that we could have retained him for the ministry. His burning passion would have glorified any pulpit. But what could we say?

We were astir early next morning. Mr. Mitchell was up soon after dawn getting the car ready for the road. After breakfast, John led us all in family worship. Very graciously and very feelingly he committed the young minister to the divine guidance and care. He specially pleaded that the closing days of his ministry might be a season in which rich fruit should be gathered and lasting impressions made. 'And,' he continued, 'may the tears that he sheds as he takes farewell of his people soften his heart towards them and wash from his eyes the vision of their indifference. And may he be astonished in the Great Day at the abundant response which their hearts have made to the Word that he has preached among them.' Half an hour later we were again speeding towards the hills, Allan and his mother waving to us from the gate.

III

Allan was as good as his word; after leaving Blueberry he never preached again. 'I must have a rest for a month or two,' he said. 'I saved a little money at Blueberry, and I can afford to take life easily for a while and think things over.' The next that I heard of him was in a letter, which some years later I received from John Broadbanks. 'Poor old Allan Gillespie has gone,' he told me. 'His lungs went all to pieces after he left Blueberry; the tonic air of the hills kept him alive up there. He went to the Mount Stewart Sanatorium; but it was too late. He died there three weeks later. I always felt that his fervent spirit made too heavy a demand upon so frail a frame. His mother was much touched by the letters she received from Blueberry. Crowds of young people wrote to say that they could never forget the things that, in public and in private, Allan had said to them; they owed everything, some of them added, to his intense devoted ministry. It looks as if they were not so irresponsive as they seemed.'

I suspect that this is usually so. People are not so adamantine as they like to look. Still, John and I will always feel that Allan taught us to take our work a little more seriously. Whenever we are tempted to lower our ideals, or to settle down complacently to things as they are, his great eyes—so full of solicitude and passion—seem to pierce our very souls and sting us to concern.

III—THE FRONT-DOOR BELL

A fearful and wonderful contrivance is a front-door bell. The wire attached to my front-door bell is the line of communication between me and the universe. The universe knows it—and so do I. The front-door bell is the one thing about a private dwelling that is public property. If a stranger walked in at the front gate and began to push or pull at anything else, I should instantly send for the police; but if, with all the confidence of proprietorship, he walks straight to the front-door bell, and begins to push or pull at it, I regard the position as perfectly normal. No man living may enter my gate in order to inspect the roses, to admire the view or to stroke the cat. But any one has a perfect right to walk boldly up the path and ring the front-door bell. A man may do what he will with his own; and the bell is his. It is more his than mine. It is perfectly true that I ordered the bell to be put there, and that I paid for it; but it is also true that I am the only person on the planet to whom it is of no use at all. A visitor from Mars, seeing the bellhangers working to my order, might be pardoned for supposing that I was gratifying in this way my insatiable passion for music. Not at all. In giving the order for the bell, I was actuated by no selfish motive. The bell at my front door is not my bell. It is everybody's bell—everybody's, that is to say, but mine.

That is why such a thrill runs through the house when the bell rings. It is one of the sensations of the commonplace. A ring at the front-door bell is a bolt from the blue, a call from the vast, a message from out of the infinite. It presents to the imagination such a boundless range of possibilities. There are fifteen hundred million people on the planet, and this may be any one of them. It may be a hawker with the inevitable cake of soap—a cake of soap that he, poor man, appears to need so much more than I do. It may be the telegraph-boy with some startlingly pleasant or poignantly painful message. It may be the very man I want to see or the very man I don't. Or, then again, it may be 'only Sam.' Everybody knows the accents of ineffable disdain in which it is announced that the ringer of the bell is simply a member of the family circle. It may be anybody; that is the point. When the front-door bell rings, you are prepared for anything. You feel, as you await the announcement, that you have suddenly dipped your hand into the lucky-bag of the universe, and you are in a flutter of curiosity as to what you are about to draw. Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor; rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief; why is the girl so long in returning from the door? Smiles, frowns, laughter tears; they may any of them come with the ringing of the front-door bell. When the bell rings, you are eating your dinner, or reading the paper, or romping with the children, or chatting easily beside the fire. The atmosphere is perfectly tranquil; all the wheels are running smoothly; life is without a thrill. The bell rings; all eyes are lifted; each member of the household glances inquiringly at all the others; is anybody expecting anybody? We vaguely feel, when the bell rings, that life is about to enter upon a fresh phase. Whether the change will be for weal or for woe, for better or for worse, we cannot tell. We only know that things are not likely to be quite the same again. Somebody will come in, or somebody will be called out, or something fresh will have to be done. The cards of life are all shuffled and dealt afresh at the ringing of the front-door bell.

But it was not of my own bell that I set out to write. My own bell is not my own bell; why, then, should I write of it? I prefer to write of the bells that do belong to me. The next-door bell is my bell; and the bell of the house beyond that; and so on to the end of space. For, if it is humiliating to reflect that the bell at my own door is not mine, it is extremely gratifying to be reminded that, beyond my door, there are millions and millions of bells that I can proudly call my own. I am not generally considered musical; but I spend a good deal of my time in bell-ringing. And I propose to describe one or two instruments on which, at some time or other, I have performed.

I

To begin with, there is the bell that is not working. To all outward appearance, the mechanism may be complete. You press the neat little button and then airily turn your back upon it, happy in the conviction that you have sent a delicious flutter through every soul on the premises. In point of fact you have done nothing of the kind. Things within are going on just as they were when you opened the gate; nobody has the slightest suspicion that you are cooling your heels on the doormat. The electric battery is exhausted. Beyond a scarcely perceptible click when your fingers pressed the button, you made no noise at all. That is the worst of life's most tragic collapses. There is nothing to indicate the break-down. The failure does not advertise itself. 'Samson said, I will go out as at other times and shake myself; and he wist not that the Lord was departed from him.' The button and the bell were there; how was he to know that the current had vanished? The preacher enters his pulpit as of old; who could have suspected that the invisible force, without which everything is so pitifully ineffective, had forsaken him. The worker is still in his place; who would have dreamed that, having lost his old power, his influence now counts for so little? Lots of people fancy that a button and a bell complete the requisites of life. Because the external appliances are in good order, they take it for granted that everything is working satisfactorily. It is a woeful blunder. The button may be there; and the bell may be there; yet the entire outfit may be destitute of all practical utility. I called at a house last week. Outside there was a button and inside there was a bell. I pressed the button several times and only discovered afterwards that the mechanism to which it was attached gave the lady of the house no intimation of my presence at her door. The bell was not working.

A bell that is out of action represents a broken line of communication between the individual and the universe. Some time ago my bell broke down. I heard every day of people who had called and gone away, fancying that nobody was at home. I wondered every night what I had missed during the day through being out of touch with the world. The broken bell had turned me into a hermit, an exile, a recluse. People might want me never so badly; they could not get at me. I might want them never so badly; they left the door without my seeing them.

The saddest case of this kind that ever came under my notice occurred at Hobart. A gentleman called one day and made it clear that his business was marked by gravity and urgency.

'My name,' he said, 'is McArthur. My mother is lying very ill at the Homeopathic Hospital. It would be a great comfort to us all, and to her, if you could run up and see her. She has often asked us to send for you; but we have always put it off. It seemed like encouraging her in the notion that her days were few. But now we shall be very glad if you will go. I ought to tell you, though, that my mother is very deaf. You will not be able to make her hear. But you will find a slate and pencil at the bedside. If you write on it whatever you wish to say, she will be able to read it and reply to you.'

I went at once. When I told the matron that I had come to see Mrs. McArthur, a strange look overspread her face and she drew me into her private room.

'Is she dead?' I asked, 'or unconscious?'

'Oh, no,' the matron replied, 'she is alive and quite conscious. But during the last few hours her sight has failed her. She can only see us like shadows between herself and the window. I don't know how you will be able to communicate with her.'

I never felt so helpless in my life. As I stood by her bedside she seemed so near, yet so very far away. I stroked her forehead and she smiled; but that was all. I was standing on the doormat pressing the button; but the bell was not working. I could not establish communication with the soul within. It is a way that bells have. The current becomes exhausted sooner or later. It is clearly intended that, while we are in touch with the universe, we should learn all that the universe can teach us, so that, when the line of communication collapses, we shall be independent of the universe and need its messages no more.

Then there is the bell that, when I press the button, rings without my hearing it. One day last week I called at a house in Winchester Avenue. I pressed the button several times, listening intently. I could hear no sound within. I tapped; but still everything was silent. I was just stooping to slip my card under the door when, suddenly, I heard a rush and a commotion within, and in a moment, Mrs. Finch, full of charming apologies, stood before me. She had heard the bell each time; but her maid was out; she was herself completing her toilet; she was dreadfully ashamed to have kept me waiting.

We are too apt to suppose that our pressure of the button is awakening no response. We fancy that our words fall upon deaf ears. People appear to take no notice. Perhaps, if we knew all, we should discover that while we press, and listen, and hear nothing, we are all unconsciously throwing some gentle spirit into a perfect fever of agitation.

I pressed the button at my neighbor's door;

But, when I heard no sound, I turned and stood

Irresolute. If I had moved a bell

I must have heard it. Should I rap, or go?

But in a moment more my neighbor came.

'The bell is far, and very small,' he said.

'You may not catch it for the walls between

But rest assured, each time you push the knob

We cannot choose but hear the bell inside.'

And what they told me of my neighbor's bell

Has cheered me when I knocked at some hard heart

And caught no answer. Now and then

I poured my soul out in a hot appeal

And had no sign from lip, or hand, or eye,

That he I would have saved had even heard.

And I have sighed and turned away; and then

My neighbor's words came back: 'We cannot choose

But hear inside.'

And after many days

I have had an answer to a word I spoke

In ears that seemed as deaf as dead men's ears.

I was twelve years at Mosgiel in New Zealand. I always felt that the men and women, and especially the old people, were attached to me; but, somehow, I was never as successful with the children as I should like to have been. I was very fond of them; I loved to meet them, play with them, talk with them; but I saw them grow up to be young men and women without being impressed in any way by any word of mine. That was the bitterest ingredient in my sorrow when, fifteen years ago, I left that little country town.

During the past three years I have traveled Australia from end to end. In a railway journey of seven thousand miles I have crossed and recrossed the entire continent. And one of the most delightful experiences of this great trip was to meet my old Mosgiel boys and girls at every turn. One girl came, with her husband, a hundred miles to spend five minutes with me at the railway station; others traveled with me for twenty or thirty miles just for the sake of the talk in the train. Without an exception, they were all well and happy and living useful lives. In every case they reminded me of things that I had said and done in the old days—things that, as I fancied, had made no impression at all. And when I returned to the quiet of my own home, and reviewed all these happy reunions, I felt ashamed of having suspected these young people of being irresponsive. The bell often rings without our hearing it.

III

On the other hand, it does occasionally happen that, when I press the button, the bell rings; I myself, standing on the doormat, distinctly hear it; yet it is not heard by those upon whom I have called.

'I am so sorry,' exclaimed Mrs. Wilson, as she left the church last evening. 'I took my book on Thursday afternoon and strolled down to the summer-house at the foot of the garden; I must have become absorbed in the story; I did not hear the bell; and, when I came in, I found your card under the door.'

'I say,' cried Harry Blair, 'I am awfully sorry. I must have been at home when you called. But the bell is at the front of the house, and we happened to be at the back. The children were making such a din that we never heard you.'

Precisely! There are those whose bells we ring in vain. In the days in which I made up my mind to be a minister, I fell under the influence of the Rev. James Douglas, M.A., of Brixton, a most devout and scholarly man. He often took me for a walk on Clapham Common, and said things to me that I have never forgotten.

'When you are a minister,' he said one day, as we sat under the shelter of a giant oak, 'when you are a minister, you will find, wherever you go, that there are a certain number of people whom you are not fitted to influence. It is largely a matter of personality and temperament. Don't break your heart over it. Satisfy your conscience that you have done your duty by them, and then leave it at that!'

It was wise counsel. There are a certain number of bells that, rung by us, are not heard within.

IV

And, last and saddest of all, there is the bell that we did not ring. We half thought of it; we heard afterwards how welcome a call would have been; but the contemplated visit was not paid.

Around the corner I have a friend,

In the great city that has no end.

Yet days go by and weeks rush on,

And before I know it a year is gone;

And I never see my old friend's face,

For life is a swift and terrible race.

He knows I love him just as well

As in the days when I rang his bell

And he rang mine. We were younger then,

And now we are busy, tired men—

Tired with playing a foolish game,

Tired with trying to make a name.

'To-morrow,' I say, 'I will call on Jim,

Just to show that I'm thinking of him.'

But to-morrow comes and to-morrow goes,

And the distance between us grows and grows,

Around the corner—yet miles away. . . .

'Here's a telegram, sir.' 'Jim died to-day!'

And that's what we get and deserve in the end—

Around the corner a vanished friend.

I really intended to have pressed the button at Jim's door; but the good intentions did not ring the bell; and I am left to nurse my lifelong remorse.

I really intended to have answered the door when a Visitor Divine stood gently knocking there; but the good intention did not let Him in; He turned sadly and wearily away; and I am left to my shame and my everlasting regret.

IV—THE GREEN CHAIR

I

The green chair was never occupied. It stood—according to Irving Bacheller—in the home of Michael Hacket; and Michael Hacket is the most lovable schoolmaster in American literature. Michael Hacket possessed a violin and a microscope. The romps that he led with the one, and the researches that he conducted with the other, represented the two sides of his character; for he was the jolliest soul in all that countryside, and the wisest. But, in addition to the violin and the microscope, Michael Hacket possessed a green chair; and the green chair was even more valuable, as a revelation of the schoolmaster's character, than either the microscope or the violin. Barton Baynes, the hero of the story, went as a boarder to Mr. Hacket's school; and the green chair deeply impressed him. When the family assembled at table, the green chair, always empty, was always there. Before he took his own seat, Mr. Hacket put his hand on the back of the green chair and exclaimed:

'A merry heart to you, Michael Henry!'

It was a rollicking meal, that first meal at which Barton was present; the schoolmaster was full of quips and jests; and his clever sallies kept everybody bubbling with laughter. Then, when all had finished, he rose and took the green chair from the table, exclaiming:

'Michael Henry, God bless you!'

'I wondered at the meaning of this,' says Barton, 'but I dared not ask.' Shortly afterwards, however, he summed up courage to do so. Mr. Hacket had gone out.

'I've been all day in the study,' the schoolmaster had said; 'I must take a walk or I shall get an exalted abdomen. One is badly beaten in the race of life when his abdomen gets ahead of his toes. Children, keep Barton happy till I come back, and mind you, don't forget the good fellow in the green chair!'

He had not been long gone when the children differed as to the game that they should play. A dispute was threatening.

'Don't forget Michael Henry!' said Mrs. Hacket, reprovingly.

'Who is Michael Henry?' asked Barton.

'Sure,' replied Mrs. Hacket, 'he's the child that has never been born. He was to be the biggest and noblest of them all—kind and helpful and cheery-hearted and beloved of God above all the others. We try to live up to him.'

'He seemed to me,' said Barton, 'a very strange and wonderful creature—this invisible occupant of the green chair. Michael Henry was the spirit of their home, an ideal of which the empty chair was a constant reminder.'

When a conversation threatened to become too heated, it was always Michael Henry whose ears must not be offended by harsh and angry tones; it was Michael Henry who had begged that a culprit might be forgiven just this once: it was Michael Henry who was always suggesting little acts of courtesy and kindness.

'I like to think of Michael Henry,' the schoolmaster would say. 'His food is good thoughts and his wine is laughter. I had a long talk with Michael Henry last night when you were all abed. His face was a chunk of merriment. Oh, what a limb he is! I wish I could tell you all the good things he said!'

But he couldn't; and we all know why.

There was no Michael Henry! And yet Michael Henry—the occupant of the green chair—pervaded like a perfume and ruled like a prince the gentle schoolmaster's delightful home!

II

We are very largely ruled by empty chairs. In support of this contention let me call two or three witnesses. The first is Clarence Shadbrook.

Clarence was well on in life when I first met him. He struck me as being reserved, taciturn, unsociable. It took me several years, I grieve to say, to understand him. It was on the occasion of his wife's death that I first caught glimpses of unsuspected depths of tenderness and sentiment within him. Hannah Shadbrook was one of our most excellent women. She had a kind thought for everybody. She was the heart and soul of our ladies' organizations. In every good cause her hand was promptly outstretched to help. She was especially tactful in her dealings with the young people: to many of the girls she was a second mother. She was tall and spare, with a slight stoop at the shoulders; her eyes were soft and gray; and her face was illumined by a look of wonderful intelligence and sweetness. She was the sort of woman to whom one could tell anything.

Somehow, I had always imagined that, at home, she was unappreciated. I cannot recall anything that I ever heard or saw that can have given me so false and unfortunate an impression. But there it was! And it was, therefore, with a shock of surprise that, at the time of her death, I found the strong and silent man so utterly broken and disconsolate.

'Ah,' he sobbed, when, in a few halting words, I referred to the affection in which his wife was held at the church, 'I dare say. But it was at home that she was at her best. Nobody will ever know what she was to me and to the children who have married and gone.'

But it was not until two years later that he opened his heart more thoroughly. I heard on a certain Sunday evening that he was ill; and next day I made my way to the cottage. He was in bed. I stepped across to the window and laid my hand upon a chair, intending to transfer it to the bedside.

'Excuse me,' he said, 'but don't take that one. Would you mind having the chair over by the wardrobe instead?'

If the request struck me as strange, the thought only lingered for a moment. I replaced the chair that I was holding; took the one indicated; and dismissed the matter from my mind.

'I dare say you are wondering why I asked you not to take the chair by the window,' he said presently, after we had discussed the weather, the news, and his prospects of a speedy recovery. 'There's a story about that chair that I've never told to anybody, except to her'—glancing at a portrait—'but if you'd like to hear it, I don't mind telling you.'

'Well,' he went on, assured of my interest, 'I took a fancy to that chair nearly fifty years ago. I was learning wood-carving; I thought that it would suit my purpose: and I bought it. It was the first piece of furniture that I ever possessed. I remember laughing to myself as I carried it to my little room. It stood beside the bed there for a year or two. Then I met Hannah. At first I felt a little bit afraid of her. She seemed far too good for me. But then, I thought to myself, she is far too good for anybody. And so our courtship began, and one night I came home tremendously excited. We were engaged! I lay awake for hours that night, sometimes painting wonderful pictures of the happy days to be, and sometimes lecturing myself as to the kind of man I must become in order to be worthy of the treasure about to be confided to my care. And I comforted myself with the reminder that I should have her always beside me to restrain the worst and encourage the best that was in me. And, thinking such thoughts, I at length fell asleep. But, sleeping, I went on dreaming. I thought that, coming home tired from the shop, I entered my little room at the top of the stairs (the room in which I was actually sleeping) and was surprised to find it occupied. A man was sitting in the chair beside the bed—the chair over there by the window. But I could not be angry, for he looked up and welcomed me with a smile that disarmed my suspicions and made me feel that all was well. I felt instantly and powerfully drawn to him. He seemed to magnetize me. His face realized my ideal of manly strength, tempered by an indefinable charm and courtesy. Then, as I gazed, it occurred to me that there was, about his countenance and bearing, something strangely familiar. What could it mean? Whom could it be? And then the truth flashed upon me. It was myself! Yes, it was myself as I should be in the years to come under Hannah's gentle and gracious influence! It was myself transfigured! I awoke and found myself staring fixedly at the empty chair beside the bed—the chair that you were about to remove from the window there. I made up my mind that day that the chair should never be used. It is dedicated to the ideal self of whom I caught a glimpse in my boyish dream. And, even now, the shadowy visitor of that memorable night seems to be still sitting there; and I never approach the chair without mentally comparing myself with its silent occupant.'

Who would have supposed that, beneath the rugged exterior of Clarence Shadbrook, there dwelt so rich a vein of poetry and romance? I almost apologized to him for my earlier judgment. It only shows that, like the first Australian explorers, we may tread the gold beneath our feet without suspecting its existence.

III

My second witness is Harold Glendinning. Harold was the minister at Port Eyre, a little seaside town close to the harbor's mouth. He had frequently asked me to exchange pulpits with him, and at last he had coaxed me to consent.

'Come early on Saturday,' he wrote, 'so that we may have an hour or two together here before I have to leave.'

Like Clarence Shadbrook, Harold was a widower. But, unlike Clarence, he was still young. His wife had faded and died after three short years of married life. His mother kept house for him at the manse.

I reached Port Eyre early on the Saturday. We went for a walk round the rocky coast before dinner; and in the afternoon Harold made preparations for departure.

'But, dear me,' he exclaimed, 'I haven't shown you your room. Come with me!' And he led me out into the hall and up the stairs.

The room was obviously his own. Photographs of his young wife were everywhere. Her presence pervaded it. The window commanded a noble view of the bay, and we stood for a minute or two admiring the prospect. We then turned towards the door.

'Treat the place as though it belonged to you,' he said. 'Make yourself perfectly at home. You're welcome to everything except—' He half-closed the door again.

'You'll understand, I know,' he went on, 'but don't use the armchair over there in the corner.' I glanced in the direction indicated by his gaze. A comfortable chair stood beside a small occasional table on which a lovely bowl of roses had been placed.

'It's her chair,' he explained. 'It used to stand by the fireplace in the dining-room. She sat there every evening, reading or sewing, with her feet resting on her campstool.' I noticed now that a folded campstool stood near the chair. 'Somehow,' he continued, 'the chair seemed to become a part of her. And after—afterwards—I couldn't bear to leave it there for anybody to occupy who happened to call; so I brought it up here. And, somehow, with the chair there, she doesn't seem so very far away. I'll show you something else,' he said; and, diving into a drawer near his hand, he produced an old magazine.

'I only found this afterwards,' he explained. 'At least I only noticed the marked passage. I saw it in her lap several times during the last week or two, and, in an off-hand way, I picked it up and glanced through it. But it was only after—afterwards—that I noticed that faint pencil-mark beside this poem.' He handed me the magazine, and, surely enough, I detected a mark, so faint as to be scarcely visible, beside some lines by L. C. Jack.

When day is done and in the golden west

My soul from yours sinks slowly out of sight,

And you alone enjoy the warmth and light

That once had seemed of all God's gifts the best;

When roses bloom and I not there to name,

When thrushes sing and I not there to hear,

When rippling laughter breaks upon your ear

And friends come flocking as of old they came;

I pray, dear heart, for sweet Remembrance sake

You pluck the rose and hear the songful thrush.

With laughter meet once more the merry jest

And great familiar faces still awake,

For I, asleep in the eternal Hush,

Would have you ever at your golden best.

'You may think it strange,' he concluded, as we turned to leave the room, 'but I often fancy that the chair in the corner makes it a little more easy for me to live in the spirit of those lines.'

IV

I had intended calling several other witnesses; but I must be content with one. Alec Fraser was a little old Scotsman, who lived about seven miles out from Mosgiel. I heard one day that he was very ill, and I drove over to see him. His daughter answered the door, showed me in, and placed a chair for me beside the bed. I noticed, on the other side of the bed, another chair. It stood directly facing the pillow, as if its occupant had been in earnest conversation with the patient.

'Ah, Alec,' I exclaimed, on greeting him, 'so I'm not your first visitor!'

He looked up surprised, and, in explanation, I glanced at the tell-tale position of the chair.

'Oh,' he said, with a smile, 'I'll tell ye aboot the chair by-and-by; but how are the wife and the weans and the kirk?'

I found that he was far too ill, however, to be wearied by general conversation. I read to him the Shepherd's Psalm; I led him to the Throne of Grace; and then I rose to go.

'Aboot the chair,' he said, as I took his hand, 'it's like this. Years ago I found I couldna pray. I fell asleep on my knees, and, even if I kept awake, my thochts were aye flittin'. One day, when I was sair worried aboot it, I spoke to Mr. Clair Mackenzie, the meenister at Broad Point. We hadna a meenister o' oor ain at Mosgiel then. He was a guid auld man, was Mr. Mackenzie. And he telt me not to fash ma heed aboot kneeling down. "Jest sit ye down," he said, "and pit a chair agen ye for the Lord, and talk to Him just as though He sat beside ye!" An' I've been doin' it ever since. So now ye know what the chair's doin', standing the way it is!'

I pressed his hand and left him. A week later his daughter drove up to the manse. I knew everything, or almost everything, as soon as I saw her face.

'Father died in the night,' she sobbed. 'I had no idea that death was so near, and I had just gone to lie down for an hour or two. He seemed to be sleeping so comfortably. And, when I went back, he was gone! He didn't seem to have moved since I saw him last, except that his hand was out on the chair. Do you understand?'

I understood.

V—LIVING DOGS AND DEAD LIONS

I

Mosgiel was in the throes of an anniversary. As part of the programme, John Broadbanks and I were exchanging pulpits. In order to be on the spot when Sunday arrived, I was driven over to Silverstream on the Saturday evening. When I awoke on Sunday morning, and looking out of the Manse window, found the whole plain buried deep in snow, I was glad that I had taken this precaution. At breakfast we speculated on the chances of my having a congregation. Later on, however, the buggies began to arrive, and by eleven o'clock most of the homesteads were represented. But what about Sunday school in the afternoon? I told the teachers to feel under no obligation to come. 'I shall be here,' I said, 'and if any of the children put in an appearance, I shall be pleased to look after them.' When the afternoon came, there were three scholars present—Jack Linacre, who had ridden over on his pony from a farm about two miles away; Alec Crosby, a High School boy, who lived in a large house just across the fields; and little Myrtle Broadbanks—Goldilocks, as we called her—who had accompanied me from the Manse. I decided to return with my three companions to the Manse and to hold our Sunday school by the fireside.

'Well,' I said, as soon as we were all cosily seated, 'I was reading this morning in the Bible about a living dog and a dead lion. Which would you rather be?' There was a pause. Jack was the first to speak.

'Oh, I'd rather be the living dog,' he blurted out; 'it's better to be alive than dead any day!'

'Oh, I don't know!' exclaimed Alec. Alec was a thoughtful boy who had already carried off two or three scholarships. He had been weighing the matter carefully while Jack was giving us the benefit of his first impressions. 'I don't know. A dead lion has been a living lion, while the living dog will be a dead dog some day. I think I'd rather be the dead lion.'

'Well, Goldilocks,' I said, turning to the little maiden at my side, 'and what do you think about it?'

'Oh,' she said, 'I think I'd like a little of both. I'd like to be a lion like the one and alive like the other!'

This all happened many years ago. Jack Linacre now owns the farm from which he then rode over; Alec Crosby is a doctor with a large practice in Sydney; and I heard of Goldilocks' wedding only a few weeks ago. I expect they have forgotten all about the snowy afternoon that we spent by the fireside at Silverstream; but I smile still as I recall the answers that they gave to the question that I set them.

II

There is something to be said for Jack's way of looking at things. Our love of life is our master-passion. It animates us at every point. It is because we are in love with life that we see so much beauty in the dawning of a new day and find so wealthy a romance in the unfolding of the Spring. We feel that, among the myriad mysteries of the universe, there is no mystery so elusive and so sublime as this one. A living moth is a more wonderful affair than a dead moon. Indeed, we only recognize the strength of the hold that life has upon us when there is some question of its extinction. Let a man stand on the seashore, and, unable to help, watch an exhausted swimmer struggle for his life in the seething waters; let him look up and follow the movements of a steeplejack as he climbs a dizzy spire; let him visit a circus and see an artist hazard his life in the course of some sensational performance; and, for the moment, he will find his heart in his mouth. The blood will forsake his face; he will be filled with trepidation and palpitation; he can scarcely breathe! And why? The people in peril are nothing to him. For him, life would go on in just the same way whether they live or die. Yet their danger fills him with uncontrollable excitement! Or look, if you will, in quite another direction.

I was in a tramcar yesterday afternoon. In the corner opposite was a lad—probably an errand-boy—curled up with a book. His sparkling eyes were glued to the pages; his face was flushed with excitement; he was completely lost to his immediate surroundings. I rose to leave the car. The movement evidently aroused him. He glanced out of the window, and then, with a start, shut the book and sprang up to follow me.

'Have you passed your proper corner?' I asked when, side by side, we reached the pavement.

'Yes, sir,' he said, 'I was reading the book and never noticed.'

'Exciting, was it?' I inquired, reaching out my hand for the volume. On the cover was a picture of a Red Indian galloping across the prairie, with a white girl thrown across the front of his saddle.

'My word, it was!' he replied. 'It's about a fellow who was flying for his life from the Indians and took refuge in a cave. And, when he got back into the dark part of the cave, he felt something warm and then heard the growl of a bear. My! I thought he was dead that time!'

And what did it matter? It was nothing to this errand-boy whether this hero of his—a mere frolic of an author's fancy—lived or died. And yet the life or death of that hero was of such moment to him that, for the time being, his mind lost its hold upon realities in order that it might concentrate itself upon a fight among shadows! It is our intense, our persistent, our unquenchable love of life that explains the fascination of all tales of romance and adventure. 'With man as with the animals,' says Dr. James Martineau, 'death is the evil from which he himself most shrinks, and which he most deplores for those he loves; it is the utmost that he can inflict upon his enemy and the maximum which the penal justice of society can award to its criminals. It is the fear of death which gives their vivid interest to all hairbreadth escapes, in the shipwreck or amid the glaciers or in the fight; and it is man's fear of death that supplies the chief tragic element in all his art.' When we find ourselves following with breathless interest the movements of the traveller, the hunter or the explorer, we fancy that our emotion arises from a solicitude for the man himself. As a matter of fact, it arises from nothing of the kind. It arises from our love of life-for-its-own-sake.

In his Lavengro, George Borrow describes an open-air service which he attended on a large open moor. The preacher—a tall, thin man in a plain coat and with a calm, serious face—was urging his hearers not to love life overmuch and to prepare themselves for death. 'The service over,' Borrow says, 'I wandered along the heath till I came to a place where, beside a thick furze, sat a man, his eyes fixed intently on the red ball of the setting sun.' It looked like his old comrade, Jasper Petulengro, the gipsy.

'Is that you, Jasper?'

'Indeed, brother!'

'And what,' enquired the newcomer, sitting by the gipsy's side, 'what is your opinion of death, Jasper?'

'Life is sweet, brother!'

'Do you think so?'

'Think so! There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?'

I need say no more in order to show that there is a good deal to be said for Jack Linacre's way of looking at things.

How beautiful it is to be alive!

To wake each morn as if the Maker's grace

Did us afresh from nothingness derive

That we might sing 'How happy is our case!

How beautiful it is to be alive!'

From Jack's point of view there can be no doubt that one living dog is worth all the dead lions that ever were or will be!

III

Alec Crosby, however, is not so sure. 'A dead lion,' he points out, 'has been a living lion, while the living dog will be a dead dog some day.' There is something in that. He means, if I rightly catch the drift of his philosophy, that you can pay too much for the privilege of being alive. Everything else has its price, and most of us buy our goods on too high a market. One man pays too much for popularity; he sells his conscience for it. Another pays too much for fame; it costs him his health. A third buys his money too dearly; in gaining the whole world he loses his own soul. And in the same way, a man may pay too much even for life itself. The dog, as Alec Crosby probably knew, is usually employed in Oriental literature as an emblem of the contemptible; the dog in our modern sense—Rover, Carlo and the rest—is unknown. The lion, on the other hand, is invariably the symbol of the courageous. Alec thinks that, all things considered, it is better to be a dead hero than a living coward. Alec reminds me of Artemus Ward. On the day of a general election, Artemus entered a polling-booth and began to look about him in evident perplexity. The returning officer approached and offered to help him.

'For whom do you desire to vote?' he asked.

'I want to vote for Henry Clay!' replied Artemus Ward.

'For Henry Clay!' exclaimed the astounded officer, 'why, Henry Clay has been dead for years!'

'Yes, I know,' replied Artemus Ward, 'but I'd rather vote for Henry Clay dead than for either of these men living!'

Alec Crosby could easily call a great host of witnesses to support his view of the matter. Let me summon two—one from martyrology and one from fiction.

My first witness shall be Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. For his fidelity to the truth, Cranmer was sentenced to die at the stake. But every day during his imprisonment he was offered life and liberty if only he would sign the deed of recantation. Every morning the document was spread out before him and the pen placed in his hand. Day after day, he resisted the terrible temptation. But, as Jasper says, life is very sweet; the craving to live was too strong; Cranmer yielded. But, as soon as the horror of a cruel death had been removed, he felt that he had bought the boon of life at too high a price. The death with which he had been threatened was the death of a lion; the life that he was living was the life of a dog! He held himself in contempt and abhorrence. He cowered before the faces of his fellow men! Life on such terms was intolerable. He made a recantation of the recantation. As a token of his remorse, he burned to a cinder the hand with which he signed the cowardly document. And then, at peace with his conscience, he embraced a fiery death with a joyful heart. He felt that it was a thousand times better to be a dead lion than a living dog.

My witness from fiction is introduced to me by Maxwell Gray. In The Silence of Dean Maitland, he shows that life may be bought at too high a price. Cyril Maitland had committed a murder; yet all the circumstances pointed to the guilt of his innocent friend, Henry Everard. Maitland felt every day that it was his duty to confess; but the lure of life was too strong for him; and, besides, he was a minister, and his confession would bring shame upon his sacred office! And so the years went by. While Everard languished in jail, having been sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment, Maitland advanced in popularity and won swift preferment. He became a dean. But his life was a torture to him. He felt that death—even the death that he had dreaded—would have been infinitely preferable. And, after suffering agonies such as Everard in prison never knew, he at last made a clean breast of his guilt and laid down the life for which he had paid too much. Thomas Cranmer and Dean Maitland would both take sides with Alec Crosby.

IV

But it was Goldilocks that, on that snowy afternoon at Silverstream, hit the nail on the head.

'I think I'd like a little of both,' she said. 'I'd like to be a lion like the one and alive like the other!'

Precisely! With her feminine facility for putting her finger on the very heart of things, Goldilocks has brushed away all irrelevancies and got to bedrock. For, after all, the question of life and death does not really concern us. A dog, living or dead, can be nothing other than a dog; a lion, living or dead, can be nothing other than a lion. The dead lion, as Alec Crosby says, was a living lion once; the living dog will be a dead dog some day. Goldilocks helps us to clear the issue. The real alternative is not between life and death; for life and death come in turn to dog and lion alike. The real question is between the canine and the leonine. Shall I live contemptibly or shall I live courageously?

'And I looked,' says the last of the Biblical writers, 'and behold, a lion—the Lion of the tribe of Juda!'

Like a lion He lived! With the courage of a lion He died! And in leonine splendor He moves through all the world above. Goldilocks had evidently made up her mind, in life and in death, to model her character and experience upon His!

VI—NEW BROOMS

New brooms, they say, sweep clean. The statement is scarcely worth challenging. It is ridiculous upon the face of it. How can new brooms sweep clean? New brooms do not sweep at all. If they sweep, they are not new brooms: they have been used; the dealer will not receive them back into stock; they are obviously second-hand. But I need not stress that point. My antagonism to the ancient saw rests on other grounds.

New brooms, they say, sweep clean. It is invariably a cynic who says it. He seizes the proverb as he would seize a bludgeon; and, with it, he makes a murderous attack on the first young enthusiast he happens to meet. It is a barbarous weapon, and can be wielded by an expert with deadly effects. It is a thousand times worse than a shillalah, a tomahawk, a baton, or a club; with either of these a man can break your head; but with the saying about the new broom he can break your heart. I well remember the public meeting at which I was formally welcomed to Mosgiel. Among the speakers was an old minister of the severely conservative type, with whom I subsequently grew very intimate. But at that stage, as he himself told me afterwards, he deeply resented my coming. He regarded it as an intrusion. He said, in the course of his speech, that he confidently expected to hear, during the next few months, the most glowing accounts of the work at the Mosgiel Church. That, he cruelly observed, was the usual thing. A young minister's first year among his people is, he remarked, a year of admiration; the second is a year of toleration; and the third, a year of abomination. New brooms, he said, sweep clean. The jest, I dare say, rolled from the memories of the people like water from a duck's back. I doubt if they gave it a second thought. They probably remarked to one another as they drove back to their farms that the old gentleman was in a droll humor. But, to me, his words were like the thrust of a sword; he stabbed me to the quick. There was never a day during those first three years at Mosgiel, but the wound ached and smarted. Long afterwards, I reminded the old gentleman of his jest; and he most solemnly assured me that he had not the slightest recollection of ever having uttered it. Which only proves that our thoughtless thrusts are often just as painful as our malicious ones. I have long since forgiven my old friend. Indeed, I do not know that I have much to forgive. For, after all, his stinging jibe only made me resolve to prove its falsity. For more than a thousand mornings I rose from my bed vowing that at the end of three years, and at the end of thirty, the broom should be sweeping as cleanly as ever. The old minister has been in his grave for many years now; and I have nothing but benedictions to heap upon his honored name.

The cult of the new broom is a most pernicious one. No heresy has done more harm. The woman who really believes that new brooms sweep clean will endeavor to keep the broom new as long as she possibly can. And that is not what brooms are for. Brooms are to use; and, as soon as you begin to use them, they cease to be new brooms. The point is a vital one. About three hundred years ago, one of the choicest spirits in English history was passing away. George Macdonald says of him that one of the keenest delights of the life to come will be the joy of seeing the face of George Herbert 'with whom to talk humbly will be in bliss a higher bliss.' As George Herbert lay dying, he drew from beneath his pillow the roll of manuscripts that contained the poems that are now so famous. 'Deliver this,' he said, 'to my dear brother, Nicholas Ferrar, and tell him that he will find in it a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that passed between God and my soul before I could subject my will to the will of Jesus my Master.' The verses were published, and have come to be esteemed as one of the priceless possessions of the Church universal. And among them, strangely enough, I find a striking reference to this matter of new brooms. 'What wretchedness,' George Herbert asks,

'What wretchedness can give him any room

Whose house is foul while he adores the broom?'

And here is George Herbert telling us on his death-bed that this reflects some deep spiritual conflict between God and his own soul! What can he mean? He means, of course, that it is possible to be so much in love with your new dress that you are afraid to wear it. You may be so enamored of your new spade that you shrink from soiling it. You may—to return to the poet's imagery—so adore your new broom that you allow all your floors to become dusty and foul.

And herein lies one of life's cardinal sins. In his lecture on The Valley of Diamonds, John Ruskin discusses the nature of covetousness. What is covetousness? Wherein does it differ from the legitimate desire for wealth? Up to a certain point the desire for riches is admirable. It develops intellectual alertness in the individual, and, in the aggregate, builds up our national prosperity. If nobody wished to be rich, the resources of the country would never be exploited. Why should men trouble to clear the bush or sink mines or erect factories or cultivate farms? Apart from the lure of wealth we should be a people of sluggish wit and savage habits. Viewed in this light, the desire for wealth is not only pardonable; it is admirable. At what point does it curdle into covetousness and threaten our undoing? Ruskin draws the line sharply. The desire for wealth is good, he argues, as long as we have some use for the riches that we acquire; it deteriorates into mere covetousness as soon as we crave to possess it for the sheer sake of possessing it and apart from any use to which we propose to put it. 'Fix your desire on anything useless,' he says, 'and all the pride and folly of your heart will mix with that desire; and you will become at last wholly inhuman, a mere, ugly lump of stomach and suckers, like a cuttlefish.' John Ruskin's vigorous prose throws a flood of light on George Herbert's cryptic poetry. So far as I have it in my heart to use my new broom for the cleansing of my home and the comfort of my fellows, my new broom may be a means of grace to me and them; but, so far as I view the new broom merely as a possession, and irrespective of the service in which it should be worn out, my pride in it is bad as bad can be.

John Ruskin reminds me of Le Sage. 'Before reading the story of my life,' he makes Gil Blas to say, 'listen to a tale I am about to tell thee!' And then he tells of the two tired and thirsty students who, travelling together from Pennafiel to Salamanca, sat down by a roadside spring. Near the spring they noticed a flat stone, and on the stone they soon detected some letters. The inscription was almost effaced, partly by the teeth of time and partly by the feet of the flocks that came to water at the fountain. But, after washing it well, they were able to make out the words 'Here is interred the soul of the Licentiate Peter Garcias.' The first of the students roared with laughter and treated the affair as purely a joke. 'Here lies a soul!'—what an idea! A soul under a stone! The second, however, took it more seriously and began to dig. He at length came upon a leather purse containing a hundred ducats, and a card, on which was written in Latin the following sentence: 'Thou who hast had wit enough to discover the meaning of the inscription, inherit my money, and make a better use of it than I have!'