Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

daughter come in. He turned round sharply, and there on the floor of the room, curtseying to the ladies, stood the ex-barmaid of the Choughs. His first impulse was to hurry away-she was looking down, and he might not be recognised; his next, to stand his ground, and take whatever might come. went up to her and took her hand, saying that she could not go away without coming to see her. Patty looked up to answer, and, glancing round the room, caught sight of him.

Mary

He stepped forward, and then stopped and tried to speak, but no words would come. Patty looked at him, dropped Mary's hand, blushed up to the roots of her hair as she looked timidly round at the wondering spectators, and, putting her hands to her face, ran out of the back door again.

"Lawk a massy! what ever can ha' cum to our Patty?" said Mrs. Gibbons, following her out.

"I think we had better go," said Mr. Porter, giving his arm to his daughter, and leading her to the door. "Good bye, Katie; shall we see you again at Barton?"

"I don't know, uncle," Katie answered, following with Mrs. Porter in a state of sad bewilderment.

Tom, with his brain swimming, got out a few stammering farewell words, which Mr. and Mrs. Porter received with marked coldness as they stepped into their carriage. Mary's face was flushed and uneasy, but at her he scarcely dared to steal a look, and to her was quite unable to speak a word.

Then the carriage drove off, and he turned, and found Katie standing at his side, her eyes full of serious wonder. His fell before them.

"My dear Tom," she said, "What is all this? I thought you had never seen Martha ?"

"So I thought-I didn't know-I can't talk now-I'll explain all to you -don't think very badly of me, Katie -God bless you!" with which words he strode away, while she looked after him with increasing wonder and then turned

He hastened away from the Rectory and down the village street, taking the road home mechanically, but otherwise wholly unconscious of roads and men. David, who was very anxious to speak to him about Harry, stood at his door making signs to him to stop in vain, and then gave chase, calling out after him, till he saw that all attempts to attract his notice were useless, and so ambled back to his shop-board much troubled in mind.

The

The first object which recalled Tom at all to himself was the little white cottage looking out of Englebourn copse towards the village, in which he had sat by poor Betty's death-bed. garden was already getting wild and tangled, and the house seemed to be uninhabited. He stopped for a moment and looked at it with bitter searchings of heart. Here was the place where he had taken such a good turn, as he had fondly hoped-in connexion with the then inmates of which he had made the strongest good resolutions he had ever made in his life perhaps. What was the good of his trying to befriend anybody? His friendship turned to a blight; whatever he had as yet tried to do for Harry had only injured him, and now how did they stand? Could they ever be friends again after that day's discovery? To do him justice, the probable ruin of all his own prospects, the sudden coldness of Mr. and Mrs. Porter's looks, and Mary's averted face, were not the things he thought on first, and did not trouble him most. He thought of Harry, and shuddered at the wrong he had done him as he looked at his deserted home. The door opened and a figure appeared. It was Mr. Wurley's agent, the lawyer who had been employed by farmer Tester in his contest with Harry and his mates about the pound. The man of law saluted him with a smirk of scarcely concealed triumph, and then turned into the house again and shut the door, as if he did not consider further communication necessary or safe. Tom turned with a muttered imprecation on him and his master, and hurried away along the

Lynch lay above him, and he climbed the side mechanically and sat himself again on the old spot.

He sat for some time looking over the landscape, graven on his mind as it was by his former visit, and bitterly, oh, how bitterly did the remembrance of that visit, and of the exultation and triumph which then filled him, and carried him away over the heath with a shout towards his home, come back on him. He could look out from his watch-tower no longer, and lay down with his face between his hands on the turf, and groaned as he lay.

But his good angel seemed to haunt the place, and soon the cold fit began to pass away, and better and more hopeful thoughts to return. After all, what had he done since his last visit to that place to be ashamed of? Nothing. His attempts to do Harry service, unlucky as they had proved, had been honest. Had he become less worthy of the love which had first consciously mastered him there some four weeks ago? No; he felt, on the contrary, that it had already raised him, and purified him, and made a man of him. But this last discovery, how could he ever get over that? Well, after all, the facts were just the same before; only now they had come out. It was right that they should have come out; better for him and for every one that they should be known and faced. He was ready to face them, to abide any consequences that they might now bring in their train.

His

heart was right towards Mary, towards Patty, towards Harry-that he felt sure of. And, if so, why should he despair of either his love or his friendship coming to a bad end?

And so he sat up again, and looked

out bravely towards Barton, and began to consider what was to be done. His eyes rested on the rectory. That was the first place to begin with. He must

set himself right with Katie-let her know the whole story. Through her he could reach all the rest, and do whatever must be done to clear the ground and start fresh again.

At first he thought of returning to her at once, and rose to go down to Englebourn. But anything like retracing his steps was utterly distasteful to him just then. Before him he saw light, dim enough as yet, but still a dawning; towards that he would press, leaving everything behind him to take care of itself. So he turned northwards, and struck across the heath at his best pace. The violent exercise almost finished his cure, and his thoughts became clearer and more hopeful as he neared home. He arrived there as the household were going to bed, and found a letter waiting for him. It was from Hardy, saying that Blake had left him, and he was now thinking of returning to Oxford, and would come for his long-talked-of visit to Berkshire, if Tom was still at home and in the mind to receive him.

Never was a letter more opportune. Here was the tried friend on whom he could rely for help and advice and sympathy-who knew all the facts too from beginning to end! His father and mother were delighted to hear that they should now see the friend of whom he had spoken so much; so he went up stairs, and wrote an answer, which set Hardy to work packing his portmanteau in the far west, and brought him speedily to the side of his friend under the lee of the Berkshire hills.

To be continued.

THE LOST EXPEDITION.

BY THOMAS HOOD.

LIFT-lift, ye mists, from off the silent coast, Folded in endless winter's chill embraces; Unshroud for us awhile our brave ones lost!

In vain the North has hid them from our sight;
The snow their winding sheet,-their only dirges
The groan of ice-bergs in the polar night

Racked by the savage surges.

No Funeral Torches with a smoky glare

Shone a farewell upon their shrouded faces ;-
No monumental pillar tall and fair

Towers o'er their resting-places.

But Northern Streamers flare the long night through
Over the cliffs stupendous, fraught with peril,
Of ice-bergs, tinted with a ghostly hue

Of amethyst and beryl.

No human tears upon their graves are shed-
Tears of Domestic Love, or Pity Holy;
But snow-flakes from the gloomy sky o'erhead,
Down-shuddering, settle slowly.

Yet History shrines them with her mighty dead,
The hero-seamen of this isle of Britain,
And, when the brighter scroll of Heaven is read,
There will their names be written!

THE ENGLISH EVANGELICAL CLERGY.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

they collectively assume towards the rest of the Church; and what are the prospects of the party which is under their direction. It is in the existence of a healthy republic of intellect that much of the freedom of a nation lies; and that it contributes to this, by appealing to the judgment of the laity, is the benefit, and the only benefit, which the polemic warfare of the clergy can bestow.

For, in regard of its original principles, those which gave it power and success, the Evangelical party seems at first sight to have outlived its work. It started with certain ideas, proposed certain springs of action, of which it would not be entirely true to say that it is not still in possession, but of which it is undeniable that it has no longer a monopoly. The impulse has spread; the waves have widened till their centre has faded from view. If now an artificial attempt be made to retain the influence which was then so beneficial, and which, having served its legitimate use, has to some extent decayed, the attempt must fail, as will fail all other attempts

to procure or keep power on false pretences; nor will the case be better, if any new principles are set up as substitutes for the old, and props for a falling party. The principles of which the Evangelical school was at first the expositor were chiefly two: it gave prominence to the intimate individual relation of each person to the unseen world; and it insisted strongly on the distinction between membership of the visible. Church and the inner and mysterious communion within and independent of it. It was with these two subjects that all sermons were then filled, all social unions coloured, all missions inspired; and it was by them that men's hearts were excited to a new and wonderful life. There were then no tests of orthodoxy, no signing of articles, no appeal to the sentence of the multitude; even on the most serious topics, as whenever a great cause is being promoted, there was not unanimity of thought. They had then no journals of sectarian warfare, no shibboleths of personal adherence; it was the spirit, and not the letter, that made alive. The memoirs of Wesley, Grimshaw, and Wilberforce are full indeed of questions of doctrine; but it was on those greater realities that all the questions hung. Venn, of Huddersfield, says, in a letter dated August 12, 1778: "But never, on any account, "dispute. Debate is the work of the "flesh. No one is ever found disputing "about such external matters" (the question was one of baptism) "till 66 sorrow for sin, till love for Christ, and "communion with Him, .. are de

66

It is

parted from the heart entirely, or very "much enfeebled." Even Simeon, in 1829, writes, "I have neither taste nor "talent for controversy; nor do I on "the whole envy those by whom such "taste and talent are possessed." important to observe this feature of the new sect, which worked its way by the innate strength of its principles, not by the force of its associations, the nobility of its chairmen of meetings, or the circulation of its Thersitean prints. There are many now who remember its later

of neglect and hatred Cecil and Newton made men young again with visions of great aims and destinies, and Wilberforce spoke bravely and calmly of the strange experiences of the new life.

How has this spirit prevailed? How far has it altered? How far has it been supplanted by forms, and its motives of action petrified into prejudices? It is a sad and strange law which makes the second generation invariably seize on the accidents, instead of the substance, of the things which ennobled the first. It is true, indeed, that the one principle of individual religious life did assert itself so thoroughly that, while no party has lost it, all have gained much of its influence beyond this, what has the present Evangelical party to show which will distinctively exhibit its character, and give it a right to perpetuate itself to the disunion of the Church? party is remarkable at present chiefly for three things;-its social theories, its polemic organization, and its philanthropic activity. Besides this, it takes a very marked line on intellectual subjects, and pretends to a severity of conservatism on points of doctrine. each of these topics it may be interesting to trace, where it is still traceable, the results of the original motive power, especially with regard to the attitude of the clergy, before offering a judgment on the position of the party collectively.

The

In

Perhaps that fatal law of the petrifaction of a principle into a canon is nowhere more evident than in the social theories of the Evangelical party. With them separation from "the world" was at first recommended, as it was to the early Christians, not as a valuable rule of life, but as almost a necessity of their being. It was not asceticism; it was not Puritanism; it was not a code of behaviour binding clergy chiefly, laity partially. Macaulay's keen remark on the objection of the Puritans to bullbaiting is well known: they objected, not because it gave pain to the bull, but because it gave pleasure to the spectator. But it was a different principle from this which animated Romaine, and Berridge,

to where to draw the line between carnal and lawful amusements,-between "worldly vanity" and necessary intercourse with men. They simply felt that they were a peculiar people, and their life was a sanctified one. Such a principle as this must, at the first attempt to reduce it to a code, result in utter failure. Wesley could well say, and without affectation, to his followers, "You have no more business to be gentlemen than to be dancing-masters." Cecil writes, "It is a snare to a minister "when in company to be drawn out to converse largely on the state of the "funds and the news of the day;" and urges that such conversation "gives a consequence to these pursuits which "does not belong to them." This is the very spirit of the apostles; in our own day it appears only in a setting of external ordinances, and such advice as that of Mr. Ryle,-"A minister ought "not to spend a whole evening in speaking merely of politics. . I do not

66

[ocr errors]

66

mean to say we ought to be preaching "in every room we enter; but," &c. What now remains of that old spirit is simply a set of practical rules directed against some of the most popular amusements of the day, and enforced with an arbitrary severity of which the rest of the community is little aware. It is thought wrong, for example, for those who profess a religious life to cultivate the drama in any form, except that of reading Shakspeare; to attend horseraces-regattas are allowed-or evening parties where there is dancing, there being no objection to "at homes." Some out of door games are lawful: clergymen, however, must not play cricket or follow game. One of Lord Palmerston's bishops, it is stated in a weekly journal, not long ago refused to admit a candidate to orders until he gave a distinct pledge to give up shooting. In the evening, all may play chess, or minor games of chance; but the more intellectual rubber is strictly forbidden. The Rev. W. Mackenzie, in his sketch of Bickersteth's life, expresses this curiously enough: "It could not be said "that either father or mother was a

"person of spiritual religion; indeed "the father had no scruple about a

66

game at cards, and the mother," &c. All Evangelical people may drink wine; but clergymen, at all events, must not smoke. Works of fiction are to some extent countenanced, though under protest. With respect to music, opinion is not accurately formed. The oratorio is the debated ground; and a dignitary of the Church was loudly attacked a few years since for having attended Exeter Hall in the evening. The chief religious organ of the party is constantly engaged in publishing the names of clergymen, and even the families of clergymen, who have lately been present at balls, a practice in which it is not pleasant to be obliged to confess. that some leading Evangelical ministers are little behind it. "Do you find there the godly?" says one, alluding to balls; "I think not." (Sermon on Gal. vi. 15.) Now it would clearly be of no use here. to argue that to create an artificial separation between one part of the Church and the rest is a system totally opposed to the constitution of man and the idea of Christianity; that it is directly contrary to the custom of the early Church, and the precepts of the apostles; that it creates vast ill-feeling, and still vaster jealousy and censoriousness. It would be of still less use to prove that it is entirely repugnant to the principles of the Church service, and inconsistent with the very words of the Liturgy. But, in looking at the present position of the body which professes these views, it is impossible not to see that it is in this code of ordinances, more than in any other point, that they exhibit a falling off from their original moving force; that they conciliate least respect, and secure most enemies; that they do least good to others, and produce most disloyalty amongst those of their own number who obey in practice the laws against which in their hearts they rebel.

The creed of social intercourse of which we have been speaking is sustained partly by the inherent vitality which seems to attach most signally to all formal legislation when the spirit

« ZurückWeiter »