Part 34 (1/2)

”I sent you to schule, lad, I sent you to schule. Ye wad na be ruled by me.

Ye tuk me for a puir doited auld misanthrope; an' I thocht to gie ye the meat ye l.u.s.ted after, an' fill ye wi' the fruit o' your ain desires. An'

noo that ye've gane doon in the fire o' temptation, an' conquered, here's your reward standin' ready. Special prawvidences!--wha can doot them? I ha'

had mony--miracles I might ca' them, to see how they cam' just when I was gaun daft wi' despair.”

And then he told me that the editor of a popular journal, of the Howitt and Eliza Cook school, had called on me that morning, and promised me work enough, and pay enough, to meet all present difficulties.

I did indeed accept the curious coincidence, if not as a reward for an act of straightforwardness, in which I saw no merit, at least as proof that the upper powers had not altogether forgotten me. I found both the editor and his periodical, as I should have wished them, temperate and sunny--somewhat clap-trap and sentimental, perhaps, and afraid of speaking out, as all parties are, but still willing to allow my fancy free range in light fictions, descriptions of foreign countries, sc.r.a.ps of showy rose-pink morality and such like; which, though they had no more power against the raging ma.s.s of crime, misery, and discontent, around, than a peac.o.c.k's feather against a three-decker, still were all genial, graceful, kindly, humanizing, and soothed my discontented and impatient heart in the work of composition.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE TOWNSMAN'S SERMON TO THE GOWNSMAN.

One morning in February, a few days after this explosion, I was on the point of starting to go to the dean's house about that weary list of subscribers, which seemed destined never to be filled up, when my cousin George burst in upon me. He was in the highest good spirits at having just taken a double first-cla.s.s at Cambridge; and after my congratulations, sincere and hearty enough, were over, he offered to accompany me to that reverend gentleman's house.

He said in an off-hand way, that he had no particular business there, but he thought it just as well to call on the dean and mention his success, in case the old fellow should not have heard of it.

”For you see,” he said, ”I am a sort of _protege_, both on my own account and on Lord Lynedale's--Ellerton, he is now--you know he is just married to the dean's niece, Miss Staunton--and Ellerton's a capital fellow--promised me a living as soon as I'm in priest's orders. So my cue is now,” he went on as we walked down the Strand together, ”to get ordained as fast as ever I can.”

”But,” I asked, ”have you read much for ordination, or seen much of what a clergyman's work should be?”

”Oh! as for that--you know it isn't one out of ten who's ever entered a school, or a cottage even, except to light a cigar, before he goes into the church: and as for the examination, that's all humbug; any man may cram it all up in a month--and, thanks to King's College, I knew all I wanted to know before I went to Cambridge. And I shall be three-and-twenty by Trinity Sunday, and then in I go, neck or nothing. Only the confounded bore is, that this Bishop of London won't give one a t.i.tle--won't let any man into his diocese, who has not been ordained two years; and so I shall be shoved down into some poking little country-curacy, without a chance of making play before the world, or getting myself known at all. Horrid bore! isn't it?”

”I think,” I said, ”considering what London is just now, the bishop's regulation seems to be one of the best specimens of episcopal wisdom that I've heard of for some time.”

”Great bore for me, though, all the same: for I must make a name, I can tell you, if I intend to get on. A person must work like a horse, now-a-days, to succeed at all; and Lynedale's a desperately particular fellow, with all sorts of _outre_ notions about people's duties and vocations and heaven knows what.”

”Well,” I said, ”my dear cousin, and have you no high notions of a clergyman's vocation? because we--I mean the working men--have. It's just their high idea of what a clergyman should be, which makes them so furious at clergymen for being what they are.”

”It's a queer way of showing their respect to the priesthood,” he answered, ”to do all they can to exterminate it.”

”I dare say they are liable, like other men, to confound the thing with its abuses; but if they hadn't some dim notion that the thing might be made a good thing in itself, you may depend upon it they would not rave against those abuses so fiercely.” (The reader may see that I had not forgotten my conversation with Miss Staunton.) ”And,” thought I to myself, ”is it not you, and such as you, who do so incorporate the abuses into the system, that one really cannot tell which is which, and longs to shove the whole thing aside as rotten to the core, and make a trial of something new?”

”Well, but,” I said, again returning to the charge, for the subject was altogether curious and interesting to me, ”do you really believe the doctrines of the Prayer-book, George?”

”Believe them!” he answered, in a tone of astonishment, ”why not? I was brought up a Churchman, whatever my parents were; I was always intended for the ministry. I'd sign the Thirty-nine Articles now, against any man in the three kingdoms: and as for all the proofs out of Scripture and Church History, I've known them ever since I was sixteen--I'll get them all up again in a week as fresh as ever.”

”But,” I rejoined, astonished in my turn at my cousin's notion of what belief was, ”have you any personal faith?--you know what I mean--I hate using cant words--but inward experience of the truth of all these great ideas, which, true or false, you will have to preach and teach? Would you live by them, die for them, as a patriot would for his country, now?”

”My dear fellow, I don't know anything about all those Methodistical, mystical, Calvinistical, inward experiences, and all that. I'm a Churchman, remember, and a High Churchman, too; and the doctrine of the Church is, that children are regenerated in holy baptism; and there's not the least doubt, from the authority both of Scripture and the fathers, that that's the--”

”For Heaven's sake,” I said, ”no polemical discussions! Whether you're right or wrong, that's not what I'm talking about. What I want to know is this:--you are going to teach people about G.o.d and Jesus Christ. Do you delight in G.o.d? Do you love Jesus Christ? Never mind what I do, or think, or believe. What do you do, George?”

”Well, my dear fellow, if you take things in that way, you know, of course”--and he dropped his voice into that peculiar tone, by which all sects seem to think they show their reverence; while to me, as to most other working men, it never seemed anything but a symbol of the separation and discrepancy between their daily thoughts and their religious ones--”of course, we don't any of us think of these things half enough, and I'm sure I wish I could be more earnest than I am; but I can only hope it will come in time. The Church holds that there's a grace given in ordination; and really--really, I do hope and wish to do my duty--indeed, one can't help doing it; one is so pushed on by the immense compet.i.tion for preferment; an idle parson hasn't a chance now-a-days.”

”But,” I asked again, half-laughing, half-disgusted, ”do you know what your duty is?”

”Bless you, my good fellow, a man can't go wrong there. Carry out the Church system; that's the thing--all laid down by rule and method. A man has but to work out that--and it's the only one for the lower cla.s.ses I'm convinced.”