Part 4

Family prayers were about to be conducted at the Manse. Baby Jean was on mother's knee, and Harold's chair was close to father's. Just before kneeling the good wife said quietly: "Please remember George, papa." There were tears in her eyes when the petition was offered "for those who have failed," and a whispered "Amen" followed each clause that was uttered in behalf of George.

The following morning George made his way to the Manse and attended to the pantry doors. When the work was finished, Mrs. Lamb led the way through the dining-room to the front door. Her hand rested on the door-knob, and she seemed in no hurry to let George out. It was evident she wanted to say something, but the words did not easily come.

At last George broke the silence, and his voice quivered with penitence as he looked for a moment into Mrs. Lamb's sympathetic eyes. "I suppose you've heard all about it, Mrs. Lamb, and the mess I've made of things?"

"Yes, George, I know, and I'm so sorry; but you are going to win yet: God's going to help you win. Perhaps, George, you trusted too much in your own strength, and you forget how weak we all are when we stand alone. You know the hymn that says--'Christ will hold me fast'? You cannot get along without Him, George. Tell Him all about it, when you and He are alone, and ask forgiveness, and, George, I know God can and will make you a good, strong, true man; He loves you, and we love you."

"You are going to win yet," and "He loves you, and we love you," were sentences that gave the man, overtaken in a fault, new hope. Deep yearnings were in his heart as he walked back to the shop. He believed his better moments were his truest moments, and yet it seemed to him that no one except Mrs. Lamb credited him with noble aspirations. He knew very well that there were Christian people who were suspicious and unsympathetic toward him, and so his better nature seemed to retire in their presence.

Later on he told how he used to feel like saying, "Why won't you believe in me, and stand by me, and give me a fighting chance?" Often he felt like a man who had been injured, and who needed support until he could reach a place of safety; and yet few did more than look with disgust on him, and think it unlikely that he could make the journey without falling. But, despite his weakness and his sin, George believed there were possibilities of noble living even for him.

The following Sabbath he was back in his place in church, a humble, penitent man. The sermon that day was different from the ones the people were used to hearing; not that it was better, for all Mr. Lamb's sermons were of a high order, but it had an element that was unusual, an element of great tenderness. The text was: "Go, tell His disciples and Peter." Peter's past, traitorous conduct was graphically pointed out, but so also was his weeping. "We cannot think too harshly of our sins," said the preacher, "but we may think too exclusively of them. Peter thought of his sins, but he also thought of His Saviour, and when he saw his Risen Lord, the erring but penitent disciple said: 'Thou knowest that I love Thee,' and the Master forgave all and sent him out to service."

The God whom the Minister was accustomed to preach about was a splendid, strong, but rather pitiless Being; now they heard of a loving, pitiful Father who was ever seeking those who had turned from Him, and who was more than ready to receive them as they turned again home. All He wanted was to hear from their own lips, "Father, I have sinned." That confession opened Heaven's wardrobe for the man made disreputable by wandering.

At the close of the evening service George accepted Mrs. Lamb's invitation to "slip in and have a cup of cocoa." "Just the three of us," she added. "You know the way; walk right in." Hurriedly she passed on to give kindly greetings to a few strangers she had noticed.

For nearly two hours George and the Minister sat in the glow of the firelight. It was a great relief to the disheartened man to be with those who knew all, and who yet loved him, and who, by their faith in him, gave him a little more faith in himself and in God.

Referring to his drinking habit, he said, "Sometimes I feel I'd rather drop dead in my tracks than touch it again; and then there are other days when it seems as if some slumbering devil had awakened within me, and I'm so crazy for it that I'd give the whole of Canada, if I had it, for another drink." Then, after a pause, he continued, "I suppose a man shouldn't try to blame his sin on others, but one of the earliest things I can remember, Mr. Lamb, is being held in my mother's arms and putting my hands around the beer jug while she gave me a drink. Many a night, when I was 'knee-high to a grasshopper' as we say, I have clung to her skirt, as she dragged me from bar to bar, around High Street and George Street in old Glasgow. I guess my father and mother were drunk every Saturday night for five years. One night I can remember as clear as if it was only yesterday. It was the time of the Glasgow Fair, and I was wishing they'd go home. I must have been about six years old, and my sister Janet was two years younger, and then there was a baby they called Bobbie. Mother had Bobbie fastened around her with an old shawl. She and father had been on a spree all the evening. Father was leaning against a lamp-post, just drunk enough to say the fool things that amuse some of them folks who don't think anything about the big price somebody is paying for that kind of fun. Maybe you think it's queer of me to talk that way, when God knows I've been guilty enough myself. Well! let me finish my story, anyway. My mother was dead drunk, sitting on the curbstone near him, and maybe Bobbie was stupefied with liquor like I had been many a time. Once in a while she'd rouse up, and press her hands against her maddened head and shriek all kinds of curses. Police! why, Mr. Lamb, the Glasgow police couldn't have handled the crowds that was drunk them days. I've seen hundreds of drunken men and women in one night around Rotten Row and Shuffle Lane, and other streets near the corner of George and High Streets: so long as they didn't get too awful bad the police let them alone. Mother was a very devil when she got fighting. I've heard father brag about what she could do in that line. When she used to roll up her sleeves for a fight, she was like a maddened beast. I tell you, there isn't much in the fighting line I haven't seen; but it makes me kind of shudder yet when I think of how she'd punch, and kick, and scratch, and all the time she'd be using language that would make a decent man's blood run cold. You were saying something about 'sacred memories around the word "mother"' in one of your sermons, but that was the kind of mother I had, Mr. Lamb.

"It must have been near Sunday morning when somebody helped to get us home. Janet and me had been sleeping in the gutter, and I can remember the time they had getting father and mother up the stairs in the 'Close.' Somebody slipped near the top, and there was a heap of us jammed against the wall at the turning of the stairs. But we children were used to bruises, and we learned to keep quiet, or we'd only get more for our trouble. I likely cried myself to sleep on the rotten old floor, and I suppose I'd never have remembered any more about it if it hadn't been for Bobbie. In the morning the poor wee chap was dead. He must have died through neglect; pretty close to murder I call it. Did the death make any difference to the parents? Not likely! At least I never remember them any different. I was ten years old when my mother died, and she died through stumbling in a drunken fight; her head struck the curb-stone, and she never spoke again. After her death I was taken care of in one of the Orphanages until I was sent to Canada, But what I often wonder about, Mr. Lamb, is whether God will be hard on those of us who've had parents like that, and who've been brought up where we didn't get a fair chance. God only knows what we kids had to see and hear and suffer. People don't make any allowance for bad blood, and bad food, and bad treatment, except in cattle. I wonder if God does? Yes, I know I'm having a chance now, and yet God must pity even me when He knows how I've been handicapped for these years; but some of those boys live and die right there, and they don't get even the chance I've had. It's easy for folks who know nothing about it to say the people should get out of such places; but some of them are like heathen, they don't know there's anything better. What did I know about a different kind of life? Where could I have gone? Who would have wanted me? How could a street youngster get out of the place, where a good many of his meals were picked off the streets and out of the ash-barrels, and he never had two coppers ahead? And there were thousands like I was. I think about these things once in a while, when I'm alone in the shop, and I've sometimes thought it was well-nigh a crime to allow children to be born in such hell-like places. And there are some people have no right to be fathers and mothers at all."

It was only rarely that George unburdened his mind to such an extent; but Mr. Lamb gave him "right-of-way" that night, and many perplexities were expressed with a candour that gave the Minister a larger sympathy with the handicapped man, and a resolve to deal more tenderly with men of George's type who had such terrific battles to keep the body under.

At the close of the conversation the evening prayer especially commended George to the Father's care, and while the encouraged man was walking back to his dwelling-place with thankful heart, Mr. and Mrs. Lamb were kneeling together, and in earnest petition were placing their home and all they might ever possess at the service of the One in whose hands things commonplace may be mighty with blessing.

The missioner has been permitted to visit again the Manse where George did a bit of carpentering. It was a great pleasure to find that George was one of those invited to the evening meal. During the after-supper conversation he spoke confidentially to the visitor of the mistress of the Manse. "She's the greatest little woman in this country. God knows I'd have still been on the down-grade but for her; she never let me go. She told me one night how she'd told God that she couldn't go to heaven and leave me outside, and thank God He's taking her at her word."

The midnight chat which ministers are accustomed to have on such occasions revealed the story of George's many and sore temptations and hard battles, and of how the unfailing faith and patience of one in the Manse had heartened the discouraged man, had led him into active service, and had brought a new sense of responsibility and possibility to many of the church members who were beginning to practise Paul's injunction: "If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted."

THE SUPERINTENDENT'S VISIT

"Hope to visit your field Wednesday, February nineteenth--arrive M---- Station midnight, eighteenth. Andrew Ransom."

The Western minister had been "house-cleaning" his study, and in separating the valued from the useless he ran across the above telegram, which had been buried away for several years. He handled it almost reverently and then put it away in his Home Mission folder for future reference. The story connected with it was told one night as the missioner sat after the evening's service in the quiet of the prairie manse, exchanging reminiscences of one of the greatest and best loved men that ever crossed the prairie provinces--Andrew Ransom, the great Home Missionary Superintendent.

Within fifteen minutes from the time the student missionary received the above message, the people in McLean's general store, in Stevenson's boarding-house, and in Mallagh's blacksmith's shop had heard the good news, and all knew that Wednesday the nineteenth would be a great day for those whose homes the old Doctor could visit, and for the people who could get into the little church at night.

Those who had met and heard Dr. Ransom before, vied with each other in recalling events connected with his former visits. They remembered his appeal for their "fair share" of money to help build the little church. Everybody said the amount could not be raised until Dr. Ransom came, but after he had painted his word-picture of their glorious heritage--after he had pleaded that that heritage should never become "the wild and woolly West"--after he had shown the Gospel as the "antiseptic influence" in the life of the great Westland--after he told them what they got their land for and what it was worth that day, and after that strong voice, with its downright sincerity, had been lifted in prayer, everybody in the dining-room of the boarding-house knew the amount was raised.

And then that hand-clasp, and that identification of himself with the poorest settler's problems, and sorrows--who could forget these things?

"D'ye mind," said Dick McNabb, "the time he was here just after Alex. McLaren's son was killed on the railway? Well, sir, I'll never forget seeing them two old men standing with hands clasped. The Doctor looked as if it might 'a been his own boy what was killed. "McLaren," he said, "I'm sorry for you. I once lost a boy, and I know what it means;" then he whispered something, and Alex. wiped away the tears as he still clung to the old Doctor's hand, and I guess they stood that way for two or three minutes."

"Well, sir, you bet Grant Sinclair won't miss Wednesday night," put in Dan McLean from behind the counter. "D'ye mind when Dr. Ransom was here, Grant couldn't walk at all! Say! will I ever forget that day in the Fall when he fell off the fence on to the scythe he was carrying? The gash was a foot long, and there was no doctor within thirty miles, and the road wasn't as good as it is now, and it ain't anything to write home about even yet. Bill Grayson was the only one who had the grit to sew the gash up, and it was fourteen hours before the doctor got here. Nobody thought Grant would get over it; he lost so much blood. He'd been on his back about two months, I mind, when Dr. Ransom came. It was one of them dirty days when it don't know whether to snow or rain, but the old Doctor had heard about Grant and was bound to get out there. The folks said he did him more good than the regular doctor did. Jim Sinclair and the boys had rigged up a pair of crutches so's to get Grant a-moving around, but they didn't make a very swell job of it. Well, sir, about three weeks later the slickest pair of crutches you ever set eyes on come out here with some express of mine. They was addressed to Grant and marked 'Rush.' Mind you, they come from Toronto, and they fitted Grant as if he'd been measured for them. Jimmy said after they got the crutches he remembered the old Doctor kind o' spanning the quilt along Grant's side while he was talking, but he never paid no particular attention to it, but he says that's how he must 'a got the measure."

The days between the thirteenth and the nineteenth were spent by Mr. Stewart, the student missionary, in covering the district, so that all the scattered settlers should know of Dr. Ransom's visit. On Tuesday morning he borrowed an extra robe, and, hitching up his team of bronchos, started on his journey to M---- Station. The roads were heavy, and twenty-five miles was a hard journey through the unpacked snow. By mid-afternoon he reached the railway, and soon had his ponies comfortably stabled in a near-by barn.

About midnight he tramped through the deep snow to the dimly-lighted station. The night operator reported the train as an hour late, with the additional information that she would probably lose a little more time on the grade which lay about ten miles away.

Shortly before two o'clock the welcome whistle was heard, and in a minute or two the midnight express slowed down for M----. The tall figure of the Superintendent was behind the brakeman, on the steps of the day-coach, and there was a wave of recognition before the cordial hand-clasp and words of greeting could be given. "We'll just wait till she pulls out," said the Superintendent, as Mr. Stewart started to move away after the exchange of greetings. "Yon operator has the tongue." His duties performed at the baggage car, the operator returned to the office dragging a heavy trunk along the plank platform. "Man! but that's a great muscle you have," said the Doctor genially, and in less than a five-minute conversation he knew the man's name, Old Land home, length of time in Canada, and church relationship. As he gripped the hand in bidding good-night, he got in a message that the operator has never forgotten. In recalling the visit to the writer many months later, he said, "He's a gran' man that: he'd be a wechty man gin he lived in Edinburgh. He mak's you think."

"Well, Doctor," said Mr. Stewart as they neared the place where a bed had been prepared, "you'll be glad enough to get right to rest."

"How far are we from your field, Mr. Stewart?"

"About twenty-five miles," was the reply.

"Well, then, if your team is fit, I think we'll not bother about bed just now, but get out there." Despite the protests that were made in the Doctor's interests, there was a kindly insistence that resulted in the bronchos being immediately harnessed for the return journey. In the month of February, with deep snow and zero weather, a twenty-five mile drive between 3 and 8 a.m. is by no means a pleasure trip. As the little animals ploughed their way through the drifts, the Superintendent every now and again raised his mouth above his coat collar to express his admiration. "A gr-reat team that--a gr-reat team."

The day was dawning as on Wednesday the 10th the student missionary and the eagerly-looked-for visitor, frost-covered and shivering, drove up to Mackenzie's barn. Mackenzie and his wife were just getting on the fires, and were not a little surprised at the early arrival of their distinguished guest. Embarrassment could not, however, remain long in any home where Dr. Ransom entered. Everybody but the indolent admired and loved him, and there seemed to be no circumstance or combination of circumstances but he could adapt himself to.

After breakfast Mr. Stewart was ready enough to get a few hours' rest, and having conferred with Mrs. Mackenzie regarding the readiness of the spare room for the Superintendent, he invited the latter to retire. "Did you think I came out here to get a sleep, my boy? When would we visit the field? No! no! thank you." Protests were again futile. "I have to meet two Committees on Saturday, in Winnipeg, and you must get me back to M---- Station in time for the 11.30 to-morrow morning. What about a horse? Can we get right away?"

"Ain't the old Doctor a horse to work," said MacKenzie to Stewart while hitching up his best driver.

Hurried but helpful and purposeful calls were made until it was time to return for the evening service. The visit that stands out most clearly in the Missionary's memory was one made at the noon-hour. Alex. McDonald's place was the one spot in the whole district where no man who had any respect for his stomach would ever dream of dining. Few, indeed, cared even to enter the dirty little shack. And so it was not to be wondered at that the Missionary was planning to pass McDonald's on the up trip, and to reach one of those bright, clean centres of hospitality that are usually to be found in even the most isolated district. But "the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley."

"Who lives in the shack on the hillside?" asked the Superintendent.

"A family named McDonald," was the reply, "but they never enter a church---they live like pigs, and I think we had better leave calling there until we see how our time holds out."

"We'll go there for dinner," was the almost brusque response of the Superintendent. Stewart laughed incredulously.

"I don't think you could swallow a homoeopathic pill in that shack, Doctor."

"We'll go there for dinner, Mr. Stewart. It'll do them good."

"No finer missionary stands in shoe-leather than Caven Stewart" was a testimony that all who knew him heartily agreed with, but Stewart had an absolute horror of dirt, and it was with feelings of distressful anticipation that he dragged open McDonald's rickety apology for a gate, and drove across the rough swamp to the dilapidated shack on the hillside.

The barking of the dog brought faces to the little four-paned window. "Drive slowly! Give them time, give them time," said the Superintendent, as the faces quickly disappeared. A few fowls fluttered from within the shack, and a family pet in the shape of a pig grunted disapproval at being forced to take an outside berth. For fully three minutes there was such a house-cleaning as the old shack had not known for many a month.

Alex. McDonald, pulling a dirty corduroy coat around him, sauntered over to where the visitors were getting out of the cutter. He "guessed" that the Superintendent and the student could find accommodation for their horse, and a bite for themselves during the noon hour. "We ha'ena got much of a place," he said, as the Superintendent lowered his head to enter the miserable shack.

Each member of the family received a cheery greeting from the magnetic superintendent, who never seemed at a loss to say the fitting word. Mrs. McDonald was profuse in explanations and apologies. "We wesna expectin' onybody, and these dark mornings it seems to be noon afore you can get turned round." The visitors entered sympathetically into the various reasons why things "wesna just straight."

To this day Caven Stewart remembers the deepened convictions that came to him of the Superintendent's possibilities, as he watched him enjoy his dinner. By various excuses Stewart had reduced his own portion to the minimum when the pork and potatoes were dished up, and even then more food went to his pocket than to his mouth. But not so with the Superintendent. Not only did he have a liberal first supply, but actually passed back his plate for more, meantime complimenting McDonald on the gr-reat potatoes he grew and the fine pork he raised, and incidentally remarking that the best potatoes and the finest pork were easily spoiled in the hands of an incompetent cook. When he told Mrs. McDonald that the dinner was just as he liked it--well-cooked and plain--his place in her highest esteem was fixed. That he was a man of excellent judgment she had no doubt.

McDonald's Old Land home was well-known to the Superintendent, and as scenes familiar to both were recalled, geniality prevailed.

At the close of the meal the Doctor asked for "The Book." Anxious looks were exchanged by the occupants of the shack, and ere long three members of the family were uniting in the search. When at last, to the great relief of the searchers, a dusty but unworn Bible was produced, the Superintendent held it reverently in his outstretched hand. Looking squarely at the head of the home, he said with a yearning that no man could miss, "Eh, mon, but I'm sorry--sorry it's not worn more. It's the best piece of furniture you have in the house. If any man ought to have a well-worn Bible it's a Highland Scotsman." A few verses were impressively read, and then for the first time in its history the miserable shack contained a group kneeling in the attitude of prayer.