Chapter 7

'Let's show mercy, lads! Noan o' us con howd up aar yeds baat it. Him as has put us here expects us to show yon lass o' Stott's same as He's shown to us Hissel'. There's one bit o' readin' i' th' New Testament as noan o' yo' has had owt to say abaat--I mean where th' Lord tells o' th' two debtors. Th' fust geet let off; but when he wouldn't let his mate off, it were a sore job for him. Durnd yo' think as th' Almeety cares as mich abaat us as we care for aar childer? I somehaa thinks He does. Didn't him as played on th' harp say, "Like as a faither pitieth his childer, so th' Lord pitieth them that fear Him"? An' him as said that had a bad lad an' o'--an' didn't he say he'd raither ha' deed than th' lad? Aw welly think as th' Almeety con find room for Amanda, and if He con, I think we mud be like to thrutch (push) her into Rehoboth. Let's mak' room for her, hoo'l happen not want it so long; and when hoo's gone we's noan be sorry we took her in; who knows but what we shall be takin' in the Lord Hissel? I'm no scholard, but I've read abaat 'em takin' in angels unawares; and th' Lord said if we took onybody in ut wur aat i' th' cowd, we wur takin' Him in. If we shut Amanda out we's mebbe shut Him aat, and if He's aatside, them as is inside will be on th' wrang side. Coome, lads, let's show mercy.'

There were other voices, however, besides Enoch's, and speakers as apt at quotation from the Scriptures as he. Indeed, the Bible was torn into shreds of texts, and--the letter so re-patched as to destroy the pattern wrought by its great principles of mercy and love. The grand words--righteousness, grace, law, were clashed, and wildly rung, like sweet bells jangled out of tune, and the court of souls resembled the vindictiveness of Miltonic demons rather than the seat of those who claimed to represent Him who said: 'I will have mercy and not sacrifice.' When the vote was taken the door was shut against Amanda.

Passing out of the dimly-lighted chapel into the blackness of the night, Dr. Hale took the arm of the young minister, saying:

'Let me guide you, Mr. Penrose. I know these roads by instinct.'

'Yes, doctor, I not only need your guidance, but that of someone else. Black as the night is, it isn't so black as the souls of those benighted inquisitors we've left behind us. There are stars behind those clouds; but there are none hidden behind the murky creed of the deacons of Rehoboth. Do they expect me, doctor, to carry their decision to Mrs. Stott and her daughter?'

'I believe they do. Hard messages, you know, must be delivered both by ministers and doctors. It is my lot sometimes to tell people that their days are numbered, when I would almost as soon face death myself.'

'Well, I have made up my mind, doctor, to face the resignation of Rehoboth rather than carry their heartless decision to Amanda.'

'Wait until morning, and then come on to my house and consult with old Mr. Morell; he is staying with me for a day or two. You never met with him. Perhaps he can guide, or at any rate help you. Wisdom lies with the ancients, you know.'

'But are not the men who have refused admission to Amanda the spiritual children of Mr. Morell? If his preaching has brought about what we have seen and heard to-night, what guidance or help can I get from him?'

'Just so,' said the doctor. 'I was not thinking of that. It's true he was pastor here for over forty years, and our deacons are his spiritual offspring. For all that, the old man's heart is right if his head is wrong; and, after all, it's the heart that rules the life.'

'Nay! no heart could thrive on a creed such as Rehoboth's. Why, God's heart would grow Jean on it.'

'But Mr. Morell's heart is not lean, Mr. Penrose. It is not, I assure you,' emphasized the doctor, as his companion uttered a sceptical grunt. 'He is tenderness incarnate. You know _one_ good thing came out of Nazareth, despite the scepticism of the disciple.'

'Certainly a good thing did come out of Nazareth; but Nazareth, bad as it was, was not a Calvinistic creed. I very much question whether the creed of Rehoboth can preserve a tender heart.'

'Come and see,' laconically replied Dr. Hale.

'Very well, then, I'll treat my scepticism honestly. I will come and see. To-night the hour is too late. I will look in to-morrow morning.'

Mr. Penrose continued his homeward walk, conscious of the first symptoms of the reaction which follows hours of tension such as those through which he had just passed. He was limp. Morally as well as physically his nerve was gone. He thought of the Apostle who fought with beasts at Ephesus, and envied him his combatants. His fretful impatience with those who differed from him theologically rose to a tide of insane hatred, and he lost himself in a passion against his deacons as bitter as that which they had shown towards Amanda Stott and himself.

Entering his lodgings, and lighting his lamp, he threw himself on the couch, resenting in bitterness of spirit the limitations of creeds, and the exactions imposed on men who, like himself, were called to minister to brawling sects. Thrice he sat down at his desk; thrice he wrote out his resignation, and thrice he committed it to the flames. Then, recalling the words of an old college professor who often used to tell his students that the second Epistle of the Corinthians was the ministerial panacea in the hour of depression, he took up his Testament and read:

_'Ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distress ... by pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by love unfeigned, by the Holy Ghost, by the word of truth, by the power of God.'_

And there came on the young pastor a spirit of power, and of love, and of a new mind, and he slept.

IV.

THE OLD PASTOR.

On the following morning Mr. Penrose set out to call on the old pastor at the house of Dr. Hale, conjuring up as he went pictures of the man whom he knew only by report, and, as he deemed, exaggerated report too. To Rehoboth people Mr. Morell was a prodigy--a veritable prophet of the Most High; and his successor's sojourn was not a little embittered by the disparaging contrasts so frequently drawn between the old order and the new. To be for ever told the texts from which Mr. Morell used to preach, to hear in almost every house some pet saying or scrap of philosophy wont to fall from his lips, to be asked, if not bidden, by the deacons to tread in the footprints of one who was believed to wear the seven-league boots, became intolerable; and had not discretion guarded the speech of Mr. Penrose, many a time his language of retort would have been strange to covenanted lips. Often, too, he asked himself what manner of man he must be who nursed and reared this narrow sect of the hills--a sect setting judgment before mercy, and law before love--a sect narrowing salvation to units, and drawing the limit line of grace around a fragment of mankind.

On his arrival at Dr. Hale's, however, a surprise greeted him, and as he responded to the old pastor's outstretched hand, he knew he met with one in whom firm gentleness and affable dignity were the chief charm of character. There was not, as he anticipated, coarse, crass assertiveness--a semi-cultured man whose narrow creed joined hands with barren intelligence. Far otherwise; he stood before one whose presence commanded reverence, one at whose feet he felt he must bow.

Mr. Morell was tall and erect, with a fine Greek head whose crown of snowy hair lent dignity to a face sunny with the light of kindness, while every line of expression, those soul-inscriptions written by the years on the plastic flesh, told of thought and culture. The accent, too, was finished, and every gesture betrayed refinement and ease.

At first the conversation was restrained, for both men instinctively felt that between them lay a gulf which it would be difficult to bridge; but, as Dr. Hale played well the part of middleman, the ministers were drawn out towards each other, and in a little while struck mutual chords in one another's hearts.

During the morning the two men talked of art, of philosophy, and of history, the discussion of these calling out a light of intelligence and rapture on the old man's face. When, however, the graver questions of theology were broached, his voice became hard and inflexible, a shadow fell, and the radiancy of the man and scholar became lost in the gloom of the divine.

Whenever Mr. Penrose ventured to hint on some phase of the broader theology, the old man was provoked to impatience; and when he went so far as to quote Browning, and declare that--

'The loving worm within its clod Were diviner than a loveless god Amid his worlds,'

a gleam of fire shot from the mild eye of Mr. Morell, significant as a storm-signal across a sea of glass.

The younger man was often taken at disadvantage, for, while he was in touch with modern thought, he did not possess the old dialectician's skill. Once, as Mr. Penrose remarked that science was modifying theology, Mr. Morell, detecting the flaw in his armour, thrust in his lance to the hilt by replying that science and Calvinism were logically the same, with the exception that, for heredity and environment, the Calvinist introduced grace.

Whereupon Mr. Penrose cried with some vehemence:

'No, no, Mr. Morell! that will not do. I cannot accept your statement at all.'

'Can't you?' said the old man, rising from his chair, the war spirit hardening his voice and flaming in his eye. 'Can't you? What says science of the first hundred men which will pass you, if you take your stand in the main thoroughfare of the great city over the hills yonder? Watch them; one is drunk, another is linked arm in arm with his paramour, a third is handcuffed, and you can see by the conduct of him who follows that he is as reckless of life as though the years were for ever. Why these? Ask science, and it answers _election_--the election of birth and circumstance. Ask Calvinism, and it, too, answers election--the election of decrees.'

'But science does not do away with will, Mr. Morell.'

'Well, then, it teaches its impotence, and that is the same thing. It bases will on organization, and traces conduct to material sources. Huxley tells us the salvation of a child is to be born with a sound digestion, and Calvinism says the salvation of a child is to be born under the election of grace. Logically, the basis of both systems is the same; the sources of life differ, that is all. One traces from matter, the other from mind--from the mind and will of the Eternal.'

'But science fixes it for earth only--you fix it for eternity,' suggestively hinted the younger man.

'Yes, you are right, Mr. Penrose; we do.'

'Then a man is lost because he cannot be saved, and punished for things over which he had no control?'

'Ask science,' was the curt reply.

'Well, Mr. Morell, I will ask science, and science will yield hope. Science says, take a hundred men and a hundred women, and let them live on a fruitful island and multiply, and in four generations you will have an improved stock--a stock freer from atavism, hysteria, anomalies, and insanities. Science holds out hope; you don't. You say God's will and decrees are eternal, and what they were a thousand ages since they will be a thousand ages to come. Science does eventually point to a new heaven and new earth, but Calvinism throws no light across the gloom.'

The old man quietly shifted his ground by asking his opponent if he ever asked himself why he did, and why he did not, do certain things.

'I suppose the reason is because of my choice, is it not?'

'And what governs choice--or, if you like, will?'

'I do, myself.'

'Who are you, and what part of you governs it? Will cannot govern Will, can it? And can you divorce will from personality?'

'Tennyson answers your question, Mr. Morell.

'"Our wills are ours, we know not how,"

that is the mystery of existence.

'"Our wills are ours, to make them Thine,"

that is the mystery of salvation.'

'Then, Mr. Penrose, I ask you--why don't we make our wills God's?'

Mr. Penrose was silent, and then he made a slip, and played into his opponent's hands by saying:

'My faith in a final restitution meets that difficulty. We shall all be God's some time; His love is bound to conquer.'

'Suppose what you call Will defies God's love, what then?'

'It cannot.'

'Then it is no longer will.'

'Cannot you conceive of Will winning Will?'

'I can conceive of Will, as you define it, defying Will, and that for ever. But we escape your contradictions; we accept the fact that some men are under a Divine control they cannot resist--'

'Then you both agree as to the principle,' broke in Dr. Hale; 'you are both Calvinists, with this difference: you, Mr. Morell, say only the few will be called; Mr. Penrose, here, says all will be called. Let us go in for the larger hope.'

'You are right, doctor. I am a Calvinistic Universalist,' cried Mr. Penrose in triumph.

And Mr. Morell was bound to admit the doctor had scored.

It was not long, however, before Mr. Penrose found a spring of tenderness hidden beneath the crust of Calvinism that lay around the old man's soul, and on which were written in fiery characters the terrors of a merciless law. And the rod that smote this rock and tapped the spring was none other than the story of Amanda's return and repentance, told in part by Dr. Hale and in part by the young pastor himself.

As the story was unfolded, the old man evinced much feeling, often raising his hand to shade fast-filling eyes, or to brush away the tears that fell down his furrowed face. They told him of Amanda's silence as to the past, and he commended her for it, remarking to Mr. Penrose that the true penitent seldom talked of the yesterdays of sin; they told him how she counted herself unworthy of home and of love, seeking blame and not welcome from the mother to whom she had returned, and he declared it to be a token of her call; they told him of the great light and peace that fell on her as she rested on the goodness of God, and they heard from him the echo of his Master's words over Mary--'She hath loved much, for she hath had much forgiven'; and then they told him of her desire for the restoration of her name on the Rehoboth register, and he was silent--and for some minutes no sound disturbed his reverie.

That silence was God's speaking hour. Within the old pastor's soul a voice was whispering before which the thunderings of the creed of a sect were hushed. He, poor man, knew full well that it was a voice which had long striven to make itself heard--a still, small voice that would neither strive nor cry--a haunting voice, a voice constant in its companionship during his later years. How often he would fain have listened to it! But he dared not, for was it not a contradictory voice? Did it not traverse the letter which he had sworn to uphold and declare? What if the voice were the voice of God? No! It could not be. God spoke in His Book. It was plain. Wayfaring men might read, and fools had no need to err. But was God's voice for ever hushed? Had He had no message since the seal was fixed to the Canon of Scripture? What if that which he heard was one of those messages concerning which Christ said, 'I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.' Had the _now_ in his life passed? Had the _then_ come when a fuller revelation was about to be vouchsafed? Nay! even the Apostle--the man inspired--only knew in part. Why should he, then, try to pry into the clouds and darkness that were round about the awful throne? And yet in Him who sat on that throne was no darkness at all. Supposing the feelings struggling in his heart now were rays of light from Him--rays seeking to pierce the clouds, and bring more truth--truth which, in his highest moments, he had dreamed of, but never dared to follow. Was not Dr. Hale right after all? Was it not better to trust what we knew to be best in us, and follow the larger rather than the lesser hope?

And so, in the silence, the two voices reasoned in the soul of Mr. Morell.

In a little while Mr. Morell, roused from his reverie, turned to the young pastor, and said:

'Your poet is right, Mr. Penrose. The loving worm within its clod is diviner than a loveless god amid his worlds. Let us go as far as the chapel.'

As they walked along the narrow, winding roadways, broken by projecting gables, and fenced by irregular rows of palisades, the old pastor began to re-live the long-departed days. Objects, once familiar, on which his eye again rested, restored faded and forgotten colours, and opened page after page in the books of the past. Many cottages mutely welcomed him, their time-stained walls memorials of generations with whom he held sacred associations. There was the Old Fold Farm, with its famous fruit-trees, on which, in spring evenings, he used to watch the blanching blossoms blush beneath the glowing caress of the setting sun; and Alice o' th' Nook's garden, with its beds of camomile, the scent of which brought back, as perfumes are wont to, forms and faces long since summoned by the 'mystic vanishers.' There, too, stood the old manse--now tenantless--so long the temple of his studies and domesticities, the shrine of joys and sorrows known to none save himself. How the history of a life lay hidden there, each wall scored with fateful characters, decipherable only to the eye of him who for so many ears sought the shelter which they gave.

On the summit of the hill in front of him was the chapel, its sagging roof silhouetted against the blue of the morning sky, the tombstones, irregular and rude, rising from the billowy sea of grave-mounds that lay around their base. Beyond him, in grandly distant sweeps, rose the moors. How well he knew all their contours, their histories, their names! How familiar he used to be with all their moods--moods sombre and gladsome--as now they were capped with mist, now radiant in sunlight, their sweeps dappled with cloud shadows, moving or motionless, or white in the broad eye of day. Thus it was, within the distance of a half-mile walk, his past life, like an open scroll, lay before him; and he remarked to Mr. Penrose that he had that morning found the book of memory to be a book of life and a book of judgment also.

As the three men passed through the chapel-gates they were met by old Joseph, who was hearty in his welcome of Mr. Morell.

'Eh! Mr. Morell,' he said, grasping his hand in a hard and earthy palm, 'aw'm some fain to see yo'. We've hed no gradely preachin' sin yo' left Rehoboth. This lad here,' pointing to Mr. Penrose, 'giz us a twothree crumbs betimes; but some on us, I con tell yo', are fair clamming for th' bread o' life. None o' yo'r hawve-kneyded duf (dough), nor your hawve-baked cakes, wi' a pinch o' currants to fotch th' fancy tooth o' th' young uns. Nowe, but gradely bread, yo' know.'

Mr. Morell tried to check the brutal volubility and plain-spokenness of Joseph, but in vain. He continued the more vehemently.

'It's all luv naa, and no law. What mak' o' a gospel dun yo' co it when there's no law, no thunerins (thunderings), Mr. Morell, no leetnins? What's th' use o' a gospel wi'out law? No more use nor a chip i' porritch. Dun yo' remember that sarmon yo' once preached fro' "Jacob have I luved, but Esau have I hated"? It wur a grand un, and Owd Harry o' th' Brig went straight aat o' th' chapel to th' George and Dragon and geet drunk, 'cose, as he said, he mud as well ged drunk if he wor baan to be damned, as be damned for naught. Amos Entwistle talks abaat that sarmon naa, and tells bits on it o'er to th' childer i' th' catechism class, and then maks 'em ged it off by heart.'

How long old Joseph would have continued in this strain it is hard to say, had not Mr. Morell, who did not seem to care to hear more of his pulpit deliverance of other days, silenced him by demanding the vestry keys.

As the three men entered the vestry a close, damp atmosphere smote them--an atmosphere pervading all rooms long shut up from air, and with foundations fed by fattened graves.

Nor was the vestry itself more inviting. Gloomy and low-ceiled, the plaster of its walls, soddened and discoloured from the moisture of the moors, lay peeling off in ragged strips, while its oozing floor of flags seemed to tell of sweating corpses in their narrow beds beneath.

Through a small window, across which a spider had woven its web, a shaft of sunlight lay tremulous with the dance of multitudinous motes; and, falling on the dust-covered table, lighted up with its halo a corroded pen and stained stone jar, half filled with congealed ink.

On the right of this window stood a cupboard, with its panels of dark oak, behind which lay the parchments and papers of the Rehoboth Church--parchments and papers whose inscriptions were fast fading, whose textures were fast rotting--companioning in their decay the decay of the creeds they sought to preserve and proclaim.

It was to this cupboard Mr. Morell turned, taking therefrom two time-stained, leather-bound volumes--the one a record of the interments of the past hundred years, the other containing the roll of Rehoboth communicants since the establishment of the Church. Laying the former aside, he took up the latter with a tenderness and devoutness becoming one who was touching the sacred books of some fetish of the East. It was, indeed, to him a book to be reverenced; and as he slowly and sadly turned over its time-stained pages, his eye rested on many names entered in his own small handwriting--names which carried him back to companionship with lives for ever past. Some he had known from birth to death, blessing them in their advent, and committing them at the grave to Him who is the sure and certain hope. There were those, too, whom he piloted along the rocky coasts of youth--those with whom he once wept in their shadowed homes, and from whom he never withheld his joy in their hour of triumph. As name after name met his eye, it was as though he travelled the streets of a ruined city--a city with which in the days of its glory he had been familiar. Memories--nothing but memories--greeted him. He heard voices, but they were silent; he saw forms, but they were shadowy.

As he turned over page after page he read as never before the record of his half-century's pastorate--his moorland ministry among an ever-changing people, and there passed before him the pageant of a life--not loud in blare, nor brilliant in colour--but sombre, stately, and true.

Continuing to turn over the pages, he came to where a black line was drawn across the name of Amanda Stott, and where against the cancelled name a word was written as black as the ink with which it was inscribed.

Again there came a pause. Long and tearfully the old pastor looked at that name disfigured, as she, too, who bore it had been, by the hand of man. Then, taking up the corroded pen and filling it, he re-wrote the name in the space between the narrow blue-ruled lines, and, looking up with smiling face, said:

'Yet there is room.'

And the shaft of sunlight that fell in through the cobwebbed window of the Rehoboth vestry lay on the newly-inscribed name, as though heaven sealed with her assent the act of the old man who felt himself the servant of the One who said, 'I will in no wise cast out.'

IV.

SAVED AS BY FIRE