Part 4 (1/2)

The spring of 1873 brought e of a power that was to mould much of my future life I delivered my first lecture, but delivered it to rows of empty pews in Sibsey Church A queer whim took ue fancies stirred in me that I could speak if I had the chance I saw no platfor in the future dawned uponto find outlet in words ca to say and was able to say it So locked alone in the great, silent church, whither I had gone to practise soan exercises, I ascended the pulpit steps and delivered my first lecture on the Inspiration of the Bible I shall never forget the feeling of power and delight--but especially of power--that ca down the aisles, and the passion in me broke into balanced sentences and never paused for musical cadence or for rhythmical expression All I wanted then was to see the church full of upturned faces, alive with throbbing sympathy, instead of the dreary eh in a drea faces and the eager eyes, and as the sentences flowed unbidden from my lips and my own tones echoed back to me from the pillars of the ancient church, I knew of a verity that the gift of speech was mine, and that if ever--and then it seemed so impossible!--if ever the chance came to me of public work, this power of e I had to bring

But the knowledge rein an empty church; but, foolish as it was, I note it here, as it was the first effort of that expression in spoken words which later becahts of life And, indeed, none can know, save they who have felt it, what joy there is in the full rush of language that htest touch; to see the faces brighten or darken at your bidding; to know that the sources of huush forth at the word of the speaker as the streaht which thrills through a thousand hearers has its impulse from you, and throbs back to you the fuller from a thousand heart-beats Is there any emotional joy in life more brilliant than this, fuller of passionate triuht?

In 1873 e tie was broken I took no new step, but ossip, and a relative of Mr Besant pressed on hiers which would accrue if my heresy became known My health, never really restored since the autu arisen from the constant strain under which I lived At last, in July or August, 1873, the crisis came I was told that I must conform to the outward observances of the Church, and attend the Communion; I refused Then came the distinct alternative; conformity or exclusion from home--in other words, hypocrisy or expulsion I chose the latter

A bitterly sad time followed My dear ue for that where I did not believe I would not pretend belief, was inconised far more fully than I did all that a separation from my homewo alone She kne brutally the world judges, and how theand alone justified any coarseness of slander Then I did not guess how cruel ues; now, knowing it, having faced slander and lived it down, I deliberately say that were the choice again before h it all again than live ”in Society” under the burden of an acted lie

The hardest struggle was against ; to cause her pain was tenfold pain to id as steel, but it was hard to reelse on earth, threw herself on her knees beforesuch anguish on her; and I felt as a ainst my knees And yet--to live a lie? Not even for her was that shaonyfast to Truth And it is true now as it ever was that he who loves father or mother better than Truth is not worthy of her, and the flint-strewn path of honesty is the way to Light and Peace

Then there were the children, the two little ones orshi+pped me, as to them mother, nurse, and playfellow Were they, too, demanded at my hands? Not wholly--for a time Facts which I need not touch on here enabled al separation, and when everything was arranged, I found hter, and possessor of a small reat price I had obtained my freedom, but--I was free Home, friends, social position, were the price de free, I wondered what to do with my freedoive up my heretical friends and keep quiet, but I had no ain, and into do The difficulty was the ”soencies, with a quite wonderful unanimity of failures I tried fancy needle-work, offered to ”ladies in reduced circu I experienerously offered every one the opportunity of adding to their inco the small fee demanded, received a pencil-case, with an explanation that I was to sell little articles of that description, going as far as cruet-stands, topencil-cases and cruet-stands on my acquaintances, so did not enter on that line of business, and similar failures in numerous efforts made me feel, as so many others have found, that the world-oyster is hard to open However, I was resolute to build a nest forto do was to save my monthly pittance to buy furniture I found a tiny house in Colby Road, Upper Norwood, near the Scotts, ere , and then accepted a loving invitation to Folkestone, where , to look for work there And found it The vicar wanted a governess, and one of ap, and thither I ithpaylad enough to have found ”so to do” that enabled me to save my little inco for a per pie-crust is rather pleasant; but saucepans and kettles blister your hands There is a char a stew, to the unaccusto what the result will be, and whether any flavour save that of onions will survive the co (strictly by cookery book) was a success, butwas bad, for I lacked muscle This curious episode came to an abrupt end, for one of my little pupils fell ill with diphtheria, and I was transforrandly returned by the little fairy of three, and never was there a prettier picture than the red-gold curls nestled against the white, the baby-grace in exquisite contrast with the worn stateliness of her tender nurse Scarcely was est boy fell ill of scarlet fever; we decided to isolate him on the top floor, and I cleared away carpets and curtains, hung sheets over the doorways and kept them ith chloride of li ; and when all risk was over, proudly handed backno one else in the house

And now the spring of 1874 had come, and in a feeeks ether Hoe had planned all, and had knitted on the new life together we anticipated to the old one we remembered! Hoe had discussed Mabel's education, and the share which should fall to each! Day-dreams; day-dreams! never to be realised

My mother went up to town, and in a week or two I received a telegraerously ill, and as fast as express train would take , the doctor said; three days she ht live--no more I told her the death-sentence, but she said resolutely, ”I do not feel that I aht

There was an attack of fearful prostration--the valves of the heart had failed--a very wrestling with Death, and then the griht with a very desperation of tenderness, for now Fate had touched the thing dearest to me in life

A second horrible crisis came, and for the second time her tenacity and my love beat back the death-stroke She did not wish to die, the love of life was strong in her; I would not let her die; between us we kept the foe at bay Then dropsy supervened, and the end loohteen months' abstention, that I took the Sacra to communicate before she died, but absolutely refused to do so unless I took it with her ”If it be necessary to salvation,” she persisted, doggedly, ”I will not take it if darling Annie is to be shut out I would rather be lost with her than saved without her” I went to a clergyman I kneell, and laid the case before him; as I expected, he refused to allow me to communicate I tried a second, with the saht struck me There was Dean Stanley, my mother's favourite, a man known to be of the broadest school within the Church of England; suppose I asked him? I did not know him, and I felt the request would be an iht consent, and ould I not do toto any one, but set out to the Deanery, Westminster, timidly asked for the Dean, and followed the servant upstairs with a sinking heart I was left for a moment alone in the library, and then the Dean came in I don't think I ever in my life felt more intensely uncomfortable than I did in thatforquestioningly into ly--itboldly, with abrupt honesty, that I was not a Christian, thatto take the Sacrament, that she would not take it unless I took it with her, that two clergymen had refused to allow me to take part in the service, that I had coreat was the intrusion, but--she was dying

His face changed to a great softness ”You were quite right to come to me,” he answered, in that low,altered into one no less direct, but o and see your mother, and I have little doubt that, if you will notover your position withas your mother wishes”

I could barely speak my thanks, so much did the kindly sympathy move me; the revulsion froh to be alested that he should call that afternoon, and have a quiet chat withday to ader's presence is always trying to a sick person,” he said, with rare delicacy of thought, ”and, joined to the exciteht be too much for your dear mother If I spend half an hour with her to-day, and administer the Sacrament to-morrow, it will, I think, be better for her”

So Dean Stanley came that afternoon, all the way to Bro with my mother for about half an hour, and then set himself to understand my own position He finally told me that conduct was far arded all as ”Christians” who recognised and tried to follow the moral law of Christ On the question of the absolute Deity of Jesus he laid but little stress; Jesus was ”in a special sense the Son of God,” but it was folly to quarrel over words with only hu with the mystery of the Divine existence, and, above all, it was folly towalls between earnest souls The one inition of ”duty to God and htfully join in an act of worshi+p, the essence of which was not acceptance of dogma, but love of God and self-sacrifice for man ”The Holy Communion,” he concluded, in his soft tones, ”was neverafter the one true God It was meant by its founder as a sy day Dean Stanley celebrated the Holy Communion by the bedside of le it had cost er, when I saw the coiven to her He soothed away all her anxiety abouther have no fear of differences of opinion where the heart was set on truth

”Remember,” she told me he said to her--”remember that our God is the God of truth, and that therefore the honest search for truth can never be displeasing in His eyes” Once again after that he ca talk I ventured to ask hi turned that way, hoith views so broad as his, he found it possible to reland ”I think,” he answered, gently, ”that I a in the Church and striving to widen its boundaries from within, than if I left it and worked from without”

And he went on to explain how, as Dean of Westminster, he was in a rarely independent position, and could make the Abbey of a wider national service than would otherwise be possible In all he said on this his love for and his pride in the glorious Abbey were manifest, and it was easy to see that old historical associations, love of , of stately architecture, were the bonds that held hiland” His emotions, not his intellect, kept him Churchman, and he shrank, with the over-sensitiveness of the cultured scholar, frohly by inartistic hands

Naturally of a refined and delicate nature, he had been rendered yet e and the court; the polished courtesy of his manners was but the natural expression of a noble and lofty th I have often heard Dean Stanley harshly spoken of, I have heard his honesty roughly challenged; but never has he been attacked in ainst the injustice done hireat debt of gratitude which I shall ever owe his memory

And now the end came swiftly I had hurriedly furnished a couple of rooht take iven to drive her down in an invalid carriage The following evening she was suddenly taken worse; we lifted her into bed, and telegraphed for the doctor But he could do nothing, and she herself felt that the hand of Death had gripped her Selfless to the last, she thought but for hed frouish I did not dare to realise, that when she died I should indeed be alone on earth

For two days longer she ith me, my beloved, and I never left her side for five entle delirium, but even then the faithful eyes followed th they closed for ever, and as the sun sank low in the heavens, the breath came slower and slower, till the silence of Death caone

Stunned and dazed with the loss, I went h the next few days I would have none touch my dead save myself and her favourite sister, ith us at the last Cold and dry-eyed I remained, even when they hid her from me with the coffin-lid, even all the dreary way to Kensal Green where her husband and her baby-son were sleeping, and e left her alone in the chill earth, da I could not believe that our day-dream was dead and buried, and the home in ruins ere yet it was fairly built Truly, my ”house was left unto me desolate,” and the roohted by her presence, seemed to echo from their bare walls, ”You are all alone”

Butfeet broke the solitude, while her imperious claims for love and tendance forced me into attention to the daily needs of life And life was hard in those days of spring and summer, resources small, and work difficult to find In truth, the two months after my mother's death were the dreariest my life has known, and they were le The little house in Colby Road taxed my slender resources heavily, and the search for as not yet successful I do not kno I should have ed but for the help ever at hand, of Mr and Mrs Tho this time I wrote for Mr Scott pamphlets on Inspiration, Atoneious Education of Children, Natural _v_ Revealed Religion, and the few guineas thus earned were very valuable Their house, too, was always open to me, and this was no small help, for often in those days the little h to buy it for three, and I would go out and study all day at the British Museu conspicuous by its absence If I ay for two evenings running from the hospitable house in the terrace, Mrs Scott would come down to see what had happened, and many a tiht I write, in 1879, when Thomas Scott lay dead: ”It was Thomas Scott whose house was open to enerous, noble heart, how so day's study in the British Museuh the day--he never kne his genial, 'Well, little lady,' in welco tone, cheered the then utter loneliness of ratitude that I owe to Thomas Scott”

The small amount of jewellery I possessed, and all my superfluous clothes, were turned into more necessary articles, and the child, at least, never suffered a solitary touch of want My servant Mary was a wonderful contriver, and kept house on the very slenderest funds that could be put into a servant's hands, and she alsothat it was always a pleasure to go into it Recalling those days of ”hard living,” I can now look on theh theht led then, and I never can hear the words fall fro how painful a thing hunger is, and without curing that pain, at least for the ood for , lonely heart: she would play contentedly for hours while I orking, a word now and again being enough for happiness; when I had to go out without her, she would run to the door with ood-bye” would co at thefor my return, and the sunny face was always the first to welco holi has rerave face to sadden , and the effort to throw off the depression for her sake threw it off altogether, and brought back the sunshi+ne She was the sweetness and joy of lorious eyes, and passionate, wilful, loving nature The torn, bruised tendrils of ave soratified one of the strongest impulses of my nature

CHAPTER VI