CHAPTER XL.

AN EPISODE IN A METHODIST LOVE-FEAST.

“While listening to the tale Her spirits faltered and her cheeks turned pale; While her clasped hands descended to her knee, She, sinking, whispered forth, ‘O God! ’tis he!’

* * * * *

The long-lost found, the mystery cleared, What mingled transports on her face appeared! The gazing veteran stood with hands upraised-- ’Art thou indeed my son? then God be praised!’”

_Blomfield._

The opening services were continued for three successive Sundays, and one noteworthy feature in the course was the holding of a love-feast; that peculiarly Methodistic institution which was so rich a blessing to the Church in the earlier days, and is yet, in the places which have maintained their primitive simplicity, and into which the cold criticisms of lethargic respectability and the frosty influences of a stately formality, have not found their mischievous and unwelcome way. In those old times the love-feast was not relegated to a brief half-hour after the evening service, when the jaded congregation is glad to get out of a spent and oppressive atmosphere, and when a careful examination of the tickets of membership, once a precious certificate of union with the Church, and a passport to peculiar privileges of spiritual intercourse, is rendered all but impracticable. Then, the love-feast was held in the afternoon, each member showed his ticket at the door, and those who came without that token had to go to the minister for a written “permit.” A few kindly and serious words spoken to the applicants often resulted in their decision for Christ, and their connection with His people.

At the Nestleton love-feast there was a full gathering of members, not only from the village, but the region round about. After singing and prayer, “Grace before Meat” was sung, and then the time-honoured custom of eating bread and drinking water together was observed. There are those, even among Methodists, who speak jocosely and slightingly of this usage, as one which “might be very well spared.” They are degenerate children, who sadly underrate and misunderstand its meaning, and are recreant and disloyal to the spiritual mother that bore them. They forget that Methodism has for one of its main elements of strength, one of its most effective equipments for moral service, a principle and bond of brotherhood, a family relationship such as belongs to no other Christian Church on earth. The breaking of bread together is the sign and token of that moral freemasonry, and has done much to make the Methodists at home with each other, wherever their lot is cast. In an Australian hut or Indian bungalow, an American shanty or a Canadian log-house, on a South Sea Island or a Western prairie, as well as in an English rural homestead or an urban villa, two Methodist hearts, hitherto strangers, will beat in unison, and the hand-grasp that follows betokens a welding power in the Methodist polity which it will be stark, staring madness either to weaken or destroy. Besides this, the cultivation of the family bond by such means as the love-feast is an effective means of checking feuds, jealousies, coolnesses, and of re-twisting the brotherly bonds that friction with the outside world tends to loosen, to the serious loss of spiritual power. He is the most loyal Methodist who will heartily conserve all those rules and usages which tend to bind its world-wide constituency into one homogeneous, harmonious, and resistless whole.

“Grace after Meat” was sung, and then Mr. Clayton, who conducted the service, related his own experience of the saving and sustaining grace of God. Then the meeting was thrown open, and one after another stood up to tell “what God had done for their souls.” There was no unwillingness to bear this godly witness. Young men and maidens, old men and children--youthful Samuels and aged Simeons--all spoke briefly and feelingly of their new-found or time-tested faith in Jesus. The old wept tears of joy to hear the lispings of the young, the young listened with interest to the “wisdom spoken by years.” Once only was the current of grateful love and joy broken in upon by another kind of testimony. A good brother, who was sadly given to doubts and fears, and generally to an unsatisfactory and discontented view of things, spoke in such a sighing, doubting fashion as to cause quite a depressing influence to fall upon the meeting. He was instantly followed by Adam Olliver, who seemed to regard that sort of thing as a libel on the goodness and grace of God.

“Ah think,” said he, “’at Brother Webster, ’at’s just sitten doon, lives i’ Grumblin’-street. Ah lived there mysen yance; but ah nivver had good ’ealth. T’ air was bad, an’ t’ watter was bad, an’ t’ sun nivver shined frae Sunday mornin’ te Setterday neet. Sae ah teeak a hoose i’ Thenksgivin’-street, an’ ivver since then things ez been quite different; t’ air’s feyn an’ bracin’, an’ t’ watter’s pure and refreshin’, an’ t’ sun shines like summer, an’ t’ bods sing, an’ ah can’t help bud sing mysen. Ah recommend Brother Webster te flit. It’ll deea him a wolld o’ good, an’ ah sall be varry glad te get a new neighbour. Te-day ah thenk the Lord ’at me’ peeace floas like a river; an’ though ah’s nobbut a poor aud sheep ’at can’t forage for mysen, an’ isn’t worth tentin’, ‘the Lord is mi’ Shippard, an’ ah sall nut want. He mak’s me te lig doon i’ green pasthers beside still watters, an’ leads ma’ i’ t’ paths ov righteousness for His neeame’s seeak.’”

He was followed by Judith, who spoke in clear and joyous language of her calm repose on the bosom of infinite love, and of her hope of heaven, which she said was brighter than ever.

“I sall soon be there,” said the ripe old saint. “I can’t say as Jacob did to Pharaoh, ‘few and evil have the days of the years of my life been,’ for I seems to hev had nothing but mercies all t’ way through. As Adam says, we’ve lived i’ Thanksgiving-street, an’ though there’s been trials and cares, they’ve all been swallowed up in a multitude of blessings. Now I feel that I’s getten to be a poor totterin’, old woman, but I’m going home to Jesus.

‘There all the ship’s company meet Who sailed with the Saviour beneath.’

I had a hope ’at I should see my lad again, that’s been ower t’ sea for monny a year. I fair pines sometimes to hev another look at his dear face. But he’s in the Lord’s hands. He’s found t’ pearl of great price, thank God, an’ if I don’t see him on earth, I shall meet him i’ heaven.”

By-and-bye there rose up just behind her a tall, fine-looking man, about thirty years of age, whose brown and weather-beaten face was “bearded like the pard.” To him Mr. Clayton had given a “permit” on the strength of a “note of removal,” which, unlike many careless Methodists of nomadic habits, who neglect this duty and so slip out of Church fellowship, he had taken care to bring along with him.

“I’m glad to be here to-day,” said he; “I have only just arrived in your beautiful little village, but as I know something of this religion, and have the love of God shed abroad in my heart, I cannot resist the opportunity of telling you what God has done for my soul. I was a wild, harum-scarum lad when I left my home to seek my fortunes in a foreign land. My parents were two as godly Christians as were to be found out of heaven; but the restraints of a Christian home, and the hum-drum life of a country village were more than my wilful spirit and roaming tendencies could bear, so I left home somewhat suddenly and much against my parents’ will. A long, rough, and tedious voyage across the sea partly cured me of my roving desires, and I felt half inclined to come home again, especially as I had left my mother in tears and my father sad at heart. When I landed, however, I made up my mind not to go home until I had earned what it was worth my while to carry back. For a long time I led a wandering life, not bettering my condition, and I’m sorry to say not much better myself. At last the tide turned; I settled down and made money very fast. I could never forget, however, that the dear old folks at home were praying for me. One night I was away on business, and found my way to a Methodist chapel, for there’s plenty of them yonder as well as here. It was only a prayer-meeting, but I heard them sing the old hymns to the old tunes, so familiar to my boyhood, and when a plain-spoken old man began to pray it reminded me so much of my father’s voice that I burst into tears. My wild and careless life condemned me all at once, and I could not help crying out, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner!’ They gathered round me and prayed with me. I was in an agony of trouble, and cried loudly for mercy, and at last the Lord spoke peace to my soul.”

During the last two sentences the speaker’s voice had faltered, and under the influence of deep feeling he spoke in tones such as can never be mistaken by a mother’s ear. They fell like a revelation on Judith Olliver; rising from her seat she turned fully round, looked the speaker in the face, and crying, “It’s mah Pete! mah bairn!” flung her arms around her boy, and buried her grey head upon his shoulder, murmuring the endearing words she used long years ago when she held him on her knee. The congregation rose upon their feet in strong excitement; Mr. Clayton, who was in the secret, brushed aside his tears, and Old Adam Olliver, pale and silent with excess of joy, walked across the chapel floor to greet his long absent son.

“Adam!” said the mother, smiling through her tears, “thoo said he would come, an’ here he is!”

The old hedger took the hand of his stalwart son, and shook it a long while in an eloquent silence, his face working, his lips quivering in his earnest efforts to keep back the gush of feeling, but all in vain, it would come; throwing himself up on his boy’s brawny breast, he burst into tears of joy. Recovering himself, he said,--

“God bless tha’, mah lad! God bless tha’!” Then lifting up his hands, he said, amid the hush which waited on his words, “‘Noo, Lord, lettest Thoo Thi’ sarvant depayt i’ peeace, for me ees hae seen Thi’ salvaytion!”

Mr. Clayton gave out the “Doxology,” which was sung as only they can sing who feel every word of it. He offered an earnest thanksgiving for the wanderer’s safe return, and commended the people to the Divine keeping, and so ended the memorable love-feast which is remembered and spoken of in Nestleton to this day.

Farmer Houston was standing by the door to welcome Pete, and to congratulate his parents on their boy’s return.

“Maister,” said Old Adam, “you see Pete was i’ t’ ‘pattern’ all t’ tahme, an’ we didn’t knoa; ‘This is the Lord’s deein’, an’ it’s marvillous i’ wer ees.’”