Chapter 32

SUNDAY IN THE FOREST.

Linda soon learned to hail it with delight. For the overwhelming labours of the other six days were suspended during this bright first: the woodman's axe lay quietly in its niche by the grindstone, the hoe hung idly in the shed; Robert shook off sundry cares which were wont to trouble his brotherly brow from Monday till Saturday, and almost to obscure the fact of his loving little sister to his brotherly eyes; and was able to enjoy that rarity in bush-life, an interval of leisure.

She found a considerable development in these brothers of hers. From coping with the actual needs and stern realities of existence, from standing and facing fortune on their own feet, so to speak, they had mentally become more muscular. The old soft life of comparative dependence and conventionality was not such as educates sturdy characters or helpful men. This present life was just the training required. Linda discovered that Robert and Arthur were no longer boys to be petted or teased, as the case might be; but men in the highest attributes of manhood--forethought, decision, and industry. It was on Sunday that she got glimpses of their old selves, and that the links of family affection were riveted and brightened; as in many a home that is not Canadian.

For the rest; these Sundays were barren days. The uncommon toil of the past week was not favourable to spirituality of mind; and which of all the party could become teacher to the others? Mr. Wynn had some volumes of sermons by old orthodox divines, brought out indeed in his emigration with a view to these Sabbath emergencies. When prayers were read, and the usual psalms and lessons gone through, he would mount his silver spectacles, fix himself in a particularly stately attitude in his high-backed chair, and commence to read one of the discourses (taking out a paper mark beforehand) in a particularly stately voice. It is not exceeding the truth to say that George oftentimes was driven to frantic efforts to keep himself awake; and even Arthur felt the predisposition of Eutychus come stealing over him.

Sometimes the Davidsons came down. The sturdy Scotchman had all his national objections to 'the paper;' and when convinced that it was better to hear a printed sermon than none at all, he kept a strict outlook on the theology of the discourse, which made Mr. Wynn rather nervous. A volume of sermons was altogether interdicted as containing doctrine not quite orthodox; as he proved in five minutes to demonstration, the old gentleman having fled the polemic field ignominiously.

'Robert, in all your dreams for a settlement, have you ever thought of the church there ought to be?'

'Thought of it?--to be sure, and planned the site. Come along, and I'll show it to you--just where the tinned spire will gleam forth prettily from the woods, and be seen from all sides of the pond. Come; I'll bring you an easy way through the bushes:' and as she was leaning on his arm for an afternoon stroll, with the other dear brother at her left hand, of course she went where he wished.

'When I was out with Argent last winter,' observed Arthur, we came to a lot of shanties, called by courtesy a village (with some grand name or other, and intending, like all of them, to be some day at least a capital city), where they were beginning to build a church. It was to be a very liberal-minded affair, for all sects were to have it in turn till their own places were built: and on this understanding all subscribed. Odd subscriptions! The paper was brought to Argent and me, he gave a few dollars; most people gave produce, lumber, or shingles, or so many days' work, or the loan of oxen, and so on.'

'And as they do everything by "bees," from building a house down to quilting a counterpane, I suppose they had a bee for this,' said Linda.

'Exactly so. But it seemed a great pull to get it on foot at all. New settlers never have any money--like ourselves,' jauntily added Arthur. 'I never thought I could be so happy with empty pockets. Don't be deceived by that jingling--it is only a few keys which I keep for purposes of deception. Haven't I seen Uncle Zack's eyes glisten, and I am certain his mouth watered, when he thought the music proceeded from red cents!'

'But why must our church have a tin spire?' asked Linda by and by. 'It would remind me of some plaything, Bob.'

'Because it's national,' was the reply. 'But you needn't be afraid; if we have a shed like a whitewashed barn for the first ten years, with seats of half-hewn logs, we may deem ourselves fortunate, and never aspire to the spire. Excuse my pun.'

'Oh, did you intend that for a pun?' asked Linda innocently. 'I beg your pardon for not laughing in the proper place. But how about the minister of these bush churches, Bob?'

'Well, as the country opens up and gets cleared, we may reckon on having some sort of minister. I mean some denomination of preacher, within twenty-five or thirty miles of us; and he will think nothing of riding over every Sunday. It's quite usual.'

'He's a zealous man that does it in the bitter winter, with the weather some degrees below zero,' remarked Arthur.

'How happy he must feel to be able to deny himself, and to suffer for Jesus' sake,' said Linda softly. 'Robert, I often think could _we_ do nothing down in that wretched place they call the "Corner," where nobody appears to know anything about God at all? Couldn't we have a Sunday school, or a Bible class, or something of that sort? It hardly appears right to be Christians, and yet hold our tongues about our Saviour among all these dark souls.'

The thought had been visiting Robert too, during some of his Sundays; but had been put aside from a false timidity and fear of man. 'How holy must be my life, how blameless my actions, if I set up to teach others?' was one deterring consideration. As if he could not trust his God's help to keep him what a Christian ought to be!

'We will think over it, Linda,' he said gravely.

An opening seemed to come ere next Sabbath. On the Saturday arrived at the 'Corner' the worthy itinerant preacher who occasionally visited there, and was forthwith sent up to the Wynns' shanty for entertainment by Zack Bunting; who, however willing to enjoy the eclat of the minister's presence, was always on the look-out for any loophole to save his own purse; and had indeed been requested by Mr. Wynn to commit the pastor to his hospitality when next he came round. Little of the cleric in appearance or garb was about this man of God. A clear-headed, strongly convictioned person, with his Bible for sole theologic library, and a deep sense of the vast consequence of his message at his heart, he dismounted from the sturdy Canadian horse which his own hands were used to attend, and entered the emigrant's dwelling with apostolic salutation--'Peace be to this house.'

'Very unlike our old-country ministers, my dear,' said gentle Mrs. Wynn to her daughter; 'and I fear I never could get reconciled to that blanket-coat and top-boots; but he's a good man--a _very_ good man, I am sure. I found him speaking to Andy Callaghan in the kitchen about his soul; and really Andy looked quite moved by his earnestness. It seems he makes it a rule never to meet any person without speaking on the subject: I must say I highly approve of that for a minister.'

What a strange congregation was gathered in Zack Bunting's large room next noon! All sorts of faces, all sorts of clothes. Mrs. Zack and Almeria in rainbow garments; the Davidsons in sensible homespun; the Wynns in old-country garb, were prominent. News had gone far and near that preaching was to be enjoyed that Sabbath at the 'Corner;' and from daybreak it had made a stir along the roads. Ox-sleds, waggons, mounted horses, came thither apace by every available path through the woods. Old men and maidens, young men and matrons and children, crowded before the preacher, as he spoke to them from the verse--'Peace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ _in sincerity_.'

Now an emphasis was laid on those last two words that might well make hypocrites wince. And Zack Punting had been singing with considerable fervour various hymns totally unsuited to his state of soul; as proprietor of the meeting-place, it became him to set an example of devotion--besides, was not religion a highly respectable thing? Among other hymns had been that beautiful outpouring of individual faith and love,--

Jesus, my all, to heaven is gone, He whom I fix my hopes upon.'

All this had Zack sung unflinchingly, as though one syllable of it were true for _him_!

The preacher dealt with the evil faithfully. He told his hearers that the common words repeated continually and often thoughtlessly, 'Our Lord Jesus Christ,' contained in themselves the very essence of God's glorious salvation. 'Jesus,' Saviour--He whose precious blood was shed to take away the sin of the world, and who takes away our sins for ever, if only we believe in Him: 'Christ,' the Divine title, whose signification gave value inconceivable to the sacrifice on Calvary; the Anointed One, the Prince of the kings of the earth; 'Our Lord,' our Master--the appropriation clause which makes Him and all the blessings of His gospel truly ours for ever, by faith in His name. In simpler words than are written here it was told; and the grand old story of peace, the good news of all the ages, that which has gladdened the hearts of unnumbered millions with the gladness which death does not extinguish, but only brighten into celestial glory--how God can be 'just, and yet the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus;' how there is no preparation needed for the reception of this vast boon of pardon, but simply the prerequisite of being a sinner and needing a Saviour; how all present might there, that hour, become forgiven souls, children of the royal family of heaven, heirs of God, and joint heirs of Christ, by means no more laborious than believing on Jesus as the Pardoner, coming to Him in prayer for His great gift of forgiveness, and taking it, being sure of it from His hands, as a beggar takes alms for no deservings of his own. The preacher spoke all this with soul-felt earnestness; it was the message of his life.

Even when the motley congregation drifted away down the creaking narrow stairs and into the open sunny air, where their motley vehicles stood among the stumps waiting, they could not at once shake off the impression of those earnest words. In amidst their talk of fall wheat, and burning fallow, and logging-bees, would glide thoughts from that sermon, arresting the worldliness with presentations of a mightier reality still; with suggestions of something which perhaps indeed was of deeper and more vital interest than what to eat, or what to drink, or wherewithal to be clothed.

Plenty of invitation had the pastor as to his further progress. Few settlers but would have deemed it an honour to have his shanty turned for the nonce into a church. Many there were accustomed to the means of grace weekly at home, who pined unavailingly for the same blessings in the bush. Ah, our English Sabbaths, how should we thank God for them!

Robert plucked up heart, and asked two or three seriously disposed young men to meet him every Sunday afternoon in the cottage of Jacques Dubois, for the purpose of reading the Bible together. Linda's plan of a Scripture class for girls was rather slower of realization, owing partly to a certain timidity, not unnatural in a gently nurtured girl, which made her shrink from encountering the quick-witted half-republican, and wholly insubordinate young ladies of the 'Corner.'