Part 11

The Vicar, with his head buried in his hands, was absorbed in the deepest reflections, when the door of the library was opened suddenly, and Mrs. Goodman entered hurriedly, a book in her hand.

This book was a copy of the New Testament, revised and corrected by the Commission for the revision of the Holy Scriptures.

"Well, this is a pretty state of things!" cried that lady breathlessly, as she dropped into an easy chair.

----"What is the matter, my dear?" asked the Vicar.

----"What is the matter! What is the matter indeed! A pretty question to ask! The matter is that we are ruined; that before very long, thanks to the bishops and the rest, whose business it is to look after the interests of our Holy Church, the country will soon be full of materialists and infidels."

----"Come, come; what is all this about, my dear?" said the reverend gentleman quietly.

----"What is it about! Ah! my dear, it is easy to see you are paid by the State, from the way in which you take things. There, read that, and see what you think of it. It's a very pretty state of things truly! What is it coming to? Who is to be trusted? We are betrayed, swindled, lost...."

----"But, my dear, once more, who is it you are so bitter against? I cannot see what can have put you into such a state of mind."

----"Ah! really! You don't see that, instead of keeping that precious phrase that sums up Christianity: 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul,' the New Version has: 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own life'?"

----"I see it very well; but read the reference: _or his soul_. You have not looked at the foot of the page."

----"That hesitation only makes the matter worse. The translators had much better have said frankly what they mean."

----"The Greek word _psuche_ signifies _soul_ as well as _breath_, _life_."

----"Much I care for your Greek," cried Mrs. Goodman, indignant. "Do your congregation know anything about Greek? What will they think of us? That for centuries past, the Church has been deceiving them and making them pay tithes for nothing. Can't you see that this change is tantamount to saying there is no hell? Just as well say that our Saviour never spoke of the other world, that everything He said applies to the life here below, and that His precepts were only given to teach the people to be happy in this world. It is frightful to think of! We must not be surprised at anything after this. The next thing I shall expect to see, is the bishops rallying round the Unitarians and denying the divinity of Christ. That there is no such place as purgatory, I am quite ready to admit; but if there is no hell, while I am in Heaven, where will the sinners be, my poor Barty? where will the sinners be?"

This little pet name, that the worthy lady only called her husband by on great occasions, made the good Vicar feel sure that his wife had come to him to seek some consolation. He accordingly set about trying to pour balm on her wounds.

"Calm yourself, my dear wife," he said to her; "calm yourself. To tell you the truth, I attach but a secondary importance to the New Testament, and you know it; this is between ourselves. We are Christians undoubtedly; but our glorious origin, traced from the Old Testament, is a title much more sacred to us. So that we are descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that we are the chosen people of the Lord, what matters anything else to us?"

And in this matter the reverend gentleman was right. The religion of the English is more Jewish than Catholic, and it might safely be affirmed that an Englishman of the old school would sooner suffer one to speak jokingly of any of the saints than of one of the characters of the Old Testament, even though it might be Mrs. Potiphar, or one of the ladies of the Lot family.

"No, my dear," continued the Vicar; "be sure that no harm can befall us. We are the just and holy nation, the heritage of the Lord."

----"That is all very well ... for the future world," replied Mrs. Goodman; "but for the present, I do not see how you are going to explain to the congregation a change that appears to me to overturn the structure of our Church completely. If we do not maintain our precepts, we are done for. The Church should be consistent. Look at the Pope: with his dogma of infallibility, he is still on his throne."

----"After all, my dear, if one did away with hell, there would be no great harm done, and our greatest dignitaries of the Anglican Church are of this opinion, you know."

----"Do away with hell!" cried Mrs. Goodman; "if you take that line, we may as well shut up the Church."

----"You excite yourself for nothing, my dear, and you are wrong to express yourself in such a way."

----"Protest then."

----"Against whom, against what would you have me protest? The authorities of the Church have decided the alteration; we subalterns have but to bow to their decision. Besides, I shall tell my congregation that in the New Version _life_ means future life."

----"Very good, Barty; a good idea, for, be sure of it, you can't get on without any hell: it is the fear of the devil that keeps the masses in submission."

----"My dear wife, I assure you once more, that if there is a hell, it matters not to us: the House of Israel--that is to say, the British nation--will be saved to the last soul."

----"And the others?"

----"What others?"

----"Why, the French, the Germans, the Italians, the Chinese, and the rest. What will become of them? Won't there be any of them in Paradise?"

----"A few perhaps, but in very inferior places, you may be sure."

----"Who dies will see," said Mrs. Goodman.

----"Just so; make yourself comfortable; calm yourself, and have no fear for the future. And now let me finish my sermon for to-morrow."

----"Don't talk to me of your sermons; you have enough of them, there in your cupboards, to preach from, for the rest of your days."

----"My dear, it is a sermon of my own composition that I am preparing."

----"That will be a treat for the congregation! Come, put away all that, and drive me to the station; the carriage is ready."

----"It is impossible, my love; I have several letters to write."

----"You can write them to-morrow."

----"You would not have me write letters on a Sunday!" cried the Vicar.

----"Can't you date them the day before? Really, Barty, I did not think you were so simple as that."

----"Besides," added the worthy Mr. Goodman, "I have several places to go to, a lot of bills to pay: the tradesmen are bothering me...."

----"Send them some tracts to remind them that humility and patience are Christian virtues."

----"That does not pay in these days."

----"Whose fault is it? How can you expect that those people will believe in you, when you don't believe in yourselves?"

----"My dear, my dear, I beg you will not renew that subject. You give me a headache. Come, you are right to make me go out; I will drive you to the station."

* * * * *

Of all the tasks Mrs. Goodman set her husband, the one the reverend gentleman dreaded most was driving out his model wife. The thought of being able to return alone, and finish his sermon in peace, however, made him put a cheerful face upon it.

The station was four miles distant from the vicarage, and part of the journey consisted of a long steep hill to climb.

Mrs. Goodman, in her quality of member and agent of the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals, never failed to make her husband alight at the foot of the hill. "You are not going to make poor Bob drag you up?" said she: "get down and walk: you get stouter every day; a walk will do you good." The poor Vicar, heavy and asthmatical, alighted, and puffing, coughing, and breathless, he followed as best he could to the top of the hill, regretting as he went that husbands were not included among the animals protected by the Society.

Arrived at the station, he took a ticket, placed his wife comfortably in the corner of a carriage, and was about to quit the station, when that lady called out to him: "Barty, be sure you don't forget to walk when you come to the hill."

"Certainly, my dear," said the good parson, whom the sight of his wife, starting in a direction opposed to that of the vicarage, rendered facetious; "if you like, I'll put Bob in the carriage, and push behind ... and the Society for the Protection of Animals will award you a gold medal at least."

The engine whistled. The Vicar waved his hand to his wife, and returned to his carriage, promising himself to do the return journey at a good pace.

At the foot of the hill, Bob turned his head, according to his wont, to see if his load were going to obey the injunctions of his benefactrice; he even went so far as to bring up, in order to allow the Vicar to get down more comfortably; but that gentleman pretended not to understand the proceedings of the intelligent animal; he even administered to Bob two or three sharp strokes of the whip, which made him grow reflective. Mrs. Goodman's _protégé_ thought it prudent to step out a little more smartly, and in less than half an hour he had got over his four miles.

The Vicar had his horse put in the stable, the carriage in the coach-house, ordered tea to be taken to him in his library, and to his great satisfaction, was able to terminate the sermon that had been ruminating in his mind so long.

III.

In the parish of All Angels, the children of the poor went every Sunday to a Bible-class held in the church schoolroom.

The first class was under the direction of the Vicar's wife. Proceedings commenced at three with prayer; then a hymn was sung, and the classes began.

In these Sunday classes, passages of the Bible are read and explained to the children by the teacher.

On the Sunday in question, Mrs. Goodman had chosen as the subject of her lesson the twenty-eighth chapter of Isaiah. As soon as the hymn was over she began to read:

"_Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower...._

"_Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand._

"_The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet._"

"You have heard the marvellous words of the great prophet," cried the worthy lady. "Well, my dear children, Isaiah meant to say, that God would punish man's wickedness, vanity and sensuality, and all these prophecies have been fulfilled. That city of gold means Paris, the new Babylon; the crown of pride means France. The strong and mighty one is the Emperor of Germany, who, ever since the day on which he married his son to the daughter of our beloved queen, has had the blessings of the Lord showered upon him.

"This interpretation of the passage I have just read you was the one presented by the dear lamented Dr. Macleod to our gracious sovereign, and Her Majesty was pleased to consider that the words of Isaiah were quite wonderful for the way in which they seemed to describe France. What need have we of a surer authority?

"And, indeed, is it not easy to recognise at a glance that proud and perverse nation which does not even keep the Sabbath holy? Do you know, my dear children, that these Sabbath-breakers hold horse-races and go to theatres on Sundays? Yes, you can scarcely believe it--our upright, honest minds refuse to believe in such monstrous iniquity--yes, newspapers are printed, bought, and read on Sundays. I even saw once, though I could scarcely believe my eyes--I positively saw in the public gardens, on that sacred day, little boys and girls of the better classes playing with their hoops and dancing in front of their parents, who seemed to see no harm in it whatever. It is the abomination of desolation, and I do not hesitate to say it: the Jews and Mussulmans are better than such people; for, after all, if they do not worship the Saviour, at least they worship God. I prefer the savages, who worship the sun, to these infidels who worship nothing at all, and just go down on their knees before a few candles to save appearances."

----"Please, 'm," said one little maid timidly, "papa says that the French are Christians."

----"No, my child, they are papists, which is quite another thing. Most of them are nothing at all. Those who believe in the Pope give him money and receive of him, on a certain day fixed in advance, plenary indulgences that allow them, up to that time, to offend God as much and as often as they please. I am sure your papa would not apply the name of Christian to such pagans. But, make your mind easy, dear; I will go and talk with your papa one of these days.

"Then," continued Mrs. Goodman, "see what is the result: the day of vengeance and chastisement arrives. A handful of English soldiers annihilates millions of the French: the hordes of Bonaparte are overwhelmed by the few soldiers of the Duke of Wellington.

"And why?

"Ah, why! Because our noble soldiers believed in God and prayed to Him."

----"Oh! ma'am," then cried another little girl, "haven't those wicked French people any prayers?"

----"I can scarcely tell you, my dear child, but I doubt it very much. And even if they had," said the worthy lady, not in the least disconcerted, "you may be sure that the Lord has something else to do besides listening to such rubbish. For prayer to have any effect, the supplicant must have grace, that is, he must have received permission to lay his supplication at the feet of his Maker. And this grace we only,--we, a God-fearing nation, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we the chosen children of the Lord, have in abundance. We are the allies of the God of Israel who has said: 'The children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.' And again: 'Moreover also I gave them my sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them.'

"Now, I ask you, who is it that observes the Sabbath? First, there are the Jews. Then the English and Americans. As I have already explained to you, and as the Vicar has many times proved to you in the pulpit, the Americans are none other than the tribe of Manasseh, and the Jews are all that remain of the perverse tribes of Judah and Levi. The English are therefore the children of the house of Israel. Yes, my children, it is a glorious fact, and you may well be proud of it. So keep your covenant with the Lord who will always recognise you by this sign. I know wicked children who laugh and play on Sundays. Avoid their bad example, and you will one day go to the realms of the blessed, where there reigns an eternal Sabbath."

The last phrase did not produce in Mrs. Goodman's pupils the enthusiasm she looked for. Many of them grew reflective over it, as visions of scoldings, punishments, solemn silence, stern looks, and tract-reading, presented themselves to their memory and formed anything but an attractive subject of contemplation.

One little girl even went so far as to burst into a torrent of tears on reaching home.

"What is the matter, my darling?" asked her mother.

----"Oh! mamma," cried the poor child, bathed in tears, "Mrs. Goodman says in heaven it's Sunday all the week."

----"Well, what then?"

----"Oh!" sobbed the distressed innocent, "if I am a very good girl all the week, shan't I be allowed to go down to hell to play with the little devils on Saturdays?"

* * * * *

It is time I should say that Mrs. Goodman is not at all an imaginary character. I have had the pleasure of enjoying the excellent lady's company many times. On these occasions, I have had explained to me how the history of Napoleon can be plainly read in the Apocalypse of Saint John, how all the great historical events, from the battle of Hastings down to that of Tel-el-Kebir are spoken of as inevitable by Isaiah, Ezekiel, and other prophets.

You can explain everything with the help of the Bible: as its name indicates, it is the book _par excellence_. I have heard educated people, apparently in possession of their mental faculties, tell me that the victories of General Wolseley in Egypt were foretold in the third chapter of Jeremiah and the eighteenth verse. I must tell you that this was before the successes of the Mahdi.

However, among all the prophets, it is Isaiah that bears off the palm. The Vicar of All Angels passed a whole evening in showing me the French Revolution under quite a novel aspect, by the aid of the sixty-six chapters of Isaiah.

Mrs. Goodman also taught history to her Sunday School class, after the same fashion, Bible in hand.

* * * * *

It seems to me an error to seek to put the religious convictions of children to the proof. Those castles of abstractions that they build out of obedience must give way at the first shock. The thousand little fibs that are told to children, with a worthy intention, no doubt, cannot fail sometimes to sow in their souls profound impressions and doubts that are not easily uprooted. I speak from the experiences of my own childhood.

It was on a Sunday, in the month of June, 1856, at the time of the grand _fêtes_ at Cherbourg. I was to make my first communion the Sunday following! Heaven knows how I prepared for it with all the fervour of my young soul; how I prayed constantly for faith; how I returned to the tribunal of penitence twice and thrice daily, fearing lest I might have left some small peccadillo unconfessed. On the Sunday in question, we were about thirty children assembled in the church for catechism. The _curé_, who was present, begged the priest to let him say a few words to us: "My dear children," he began, "I have a great piece of news to announce to you. His Majesty the Emperor is at present in Cherbourg. Next Sunday, the day of your first communion, he will be passing through this town, and he invites you all to dine with him." We looked at each other in silence, and if we had not been in such a sacred place, we should certainly have jumped with joy. As soon as I got home, I imparted the great news to my mother. My good mother, who saw that I was almost smacking my lips in advance over the thought of the _tartes à la crême_ that the Emperor could scarcely fail to offer us, and who was always of opinion that you should never disappoint children if you would gain their confidence, merely replied: "Really? it is an extraordinary thing! After all, it is a capital idea of the Emperor's! But unfortunately, emperors are folks whose time is very much occupied, and it may happen that he should have to return to Paris before being able to keep his engagement. But, make your mind easy, we will invite your aunt, godmother, and our friends, and we will celebrate the day worthily, so that you may not forget it, I will promise you that." My dear mother knew that we had been deceived. I had swallowed the pill confidently.

On the following Thursday, we met together again for catechism. Seeing the _curé_ among us, we expected he had come with some fresh announcement, and we lent an attentive ear to what might be coming. And indeed, no sooner had we all taken our seats, than he rose, and, addressing us, said: "My dear children, I have a great and glorious piece of news to tell you to-day. I told you last Sunday that the Emperor invited you all to dine with him on the day of your first communion. Well, it is something better than that: it is not the Emperor, it is God who on Sunday next will receive you at His table."

Was it the fault of the priest, or of children eleven years old, that, at this announcement, all our little round faces lengthened visibly? We had been imposed upon. That was the idea that we dared not confess to ourselves, though it was undoubtedly present in our minds.

I remember hearing my mother say, years afterwards, that she had never forgiven that priest for sowing seeds of doubt in my mind, at an age when confidence is unlimited and deceptions so acutely felt.

XX.

APOTHEOSIS OF THE DAUGHTERS OF JOHN BULL.

(Scenes of disappointment in Paradise in the year 19..)

_Jennie._--"My dear Susie! At last! How glad I am to see you!"

_Susie._--"At last! my dear: why _at last_? I came straight up ... without any hitch, as you may imagine."

_Jennie._--"Oh! of course ... I only thought ... that is, you used to long so after Paradise ... that I began to wonder that you were so long making up your mind to leave the vale of tears and misery: ... would you believe there were moments when I used to be almost afraid you would put an end to yourself?"

_Susie._--"Well, yes: I certainly used to long to be gone. But it is so hard to be sure that one is ready. No, I used to pray that I might be permitted to serve Him long on the earth, where He has so few servants; and I would say to myself: The longer I live the more good I shall be able to do."

_Jennie._--"Yes, I quite understand you, dear ... besides, between ourselves, it is all very well to run down that poor Earth, but it has its redeeming points, you know.... By the way, I must tell you, I have such an anxiety on my mind. Do you know, I have been searching everywhere for my husband for years ... I have been into every corner of the place, and there is not a soul whom I have not asked if the poor fellow had been seen.... He has not arrived yet, that is evident; ... and I can't help telling you that I begin to be dreadfully afraid...."

_Susie._--"Your husband, my love? He is getting on capitally: he is the picture of health, and seems to grow younger every day."

_Jennie._--"You don't mean it! Is it possible! I had been told he was inconsolable, and was wasting away. Poor dear! I fancy I see him now as he stood by my bedside. 'If you go, I shall not be long for this world,' he said to me."

_Susie._--"Ah! well, my dear, make your mind easy, he is better, he has got over it."

_Jennie._--"Heaven be praised! And yet--I know it's selfishness--but I should like to have him here with me."

_Susie._--"But has nobody told you he is married?..."

_Jennie._--"Married! I don't believe a word of it."

_Susie._--"It is true enough, though. I took tea with his wife not more than a fortnight ago."

_Jennie._--"Fancy the wretch! What a set the men are to be sure!... And what woman has been mad enough to tie herself to him? the old grumbler, old tyrant, old miser ... the...."

_Susie._--"Hush, my love; remember where you are.... Besides, between ourselves, I don't believe he is over happy."

_Jennie._--"Serve him right ... the idea ... at his age too.... Perhaps he thought he was going to be married for his good looks, the idiot!"

_Susie._--"At his age! He calls himself fifty-five...."

_Jennie._--"He tells falsehoods; he is sixty, and over.... Oh! if ever I come across him here!... I...."

_Susie._--"He has married a very religious woman ... she makes him go to every service ... he is a pattern to all his townsmen."

_Jennie._--"It just serves him right! but who is the woman?"

_Susie._--"Sarah Robinson."

_Jennie._--"What! the widow of Robinson, the chemist of High Street?"

_Susie._--"Just so."

_Jennie._--"And you say she is religious! Well well, she must have changed since my time, and no mistake. Of course, you know the stories that used to be told about her.... She was no better than she should be, my dear, that is certain ... and...."

_Susie._--"Well, she is a model of piety now."

_Jennie._--"Oh! enough of this subject. There, let us talk of something else.... Let me see, when was it you arrived here?"