A Charming Fellow Volume Ii Part 21

"Well, there's no harm in all that, Brother Jackson?" said Gladwish, looking round.

"Harm!" echoed Gibbs. "Why, Mr. Gladwish, if you could but have seen the faces of the people! And then presently he began to call sinners to repentance with such power as I never witnessed--no, not when he was preaching in our chapel two years ago. He spoke of wrath and judgment until the whole field was full of the sound of crying and groaning. But he seemed continually strengthened, and went on, until first one fell, and then another. They dropped down just like dead when the arrows of conviction entered their souls. And the cries of some of them were awful to hear. Then there was weeping, and a kind of hard breathing and panting from b.r.e.a.s.t.s oppressed with the weight of sin; and then, mixed with those sounds, the rejoicing aloud of believers and those who received a.s.surance. But through all the preacher's voice rose above the tumult, and it seemed to me almost a manifest miracle that he should be able to make himself heard so clearly."

"Aye," said Joel, "it was like a s.h.i.+p on the top of the stormy waves; now high, now low, but always above the raging waters."

There was a short silence. Those present looked first at each other and then at old Max, who sat motionless and grim, with his elbow on the table, and his chin resting on his clenched hand.

"And did you really see any of the poor creeturs as was took?" asked Mrs. Gladwish of the widow Thimbleby.

"Took, ma'am?"

"Took with fits, or whatever it was."

"Oh! yes; I see several. There was a fine fresh-coloured young man, which is a butcher out Duckwell way--Mr. Seth'll likely know him--and he dropped down just like a bullock. And then he stamped, and struggled, and grew an awful dark red colour in the face, and tore up the gra.s.s with his hands; such was the power of conviction. And at last he lay like a log, and 'twas an hour, or more, before he come to. But when he did, he had got peace and his burthen was taken away, thanks be!"

"And there was a girl, too, very poor and sickly-looking," said Joel.

"And when the power of the Lord came upon her she went into a kind of trance. Her eyes were open, but she saw nothing. Tears were falling down her cheeks, but they were tears of joy; for she kept on saying, 'How Thou hast loved sinners!' over and over again. And there was such a smile on her face! When we go to Heaven, I expect we shall see the angels smile like that!"

"And the man himself--the preacher--did he seem filled with joy and peace?" asked Jackson, covertly malicious.

"Why, that is the strange thing!" returned Richard Gibbs, with frank simplicity. "Although he was doing this great work, and witnessing the mercies of the Lord descend on the people like manna, yet Mr. Powell had such a look of deep sorrow on his face as I never saw. It was a kind of a fixed, hopeless look. He said, 'I speak to you out of a dark dungeon, but you are in the light. Give thanks and rejoice, and hasten to make your calling and election sure. Those who dwell in the blackness of the shadow could tell you terrible things.'"

Mrs. Thimbleby wiped away a tear with the corner of her shabby black shawl. "Ah!" she sighed, "it do seem a hard dispensation and a strange one, as him who brings glad tidings to so many shouldn't get peace himself. And a more angelic creetur' in his kindness to the afflicted never walked this earth. Yet he's a'most always bowed down with heaviness of spirit. It do seem strange!"

Jonathan Maxfield struck the table with his fist so hard that the candlesticks standing on it rocked. "Strange!" he cried, "it would be strange indeed to see anything else! Why this is the work of the enemy as plain as possible. Don't tell me! Look at all the years I've been a member of Christian congregations in Whitford--whether in chapel or church, it is no matter--and tell me if ever there was known such ravings, and fits, and Bedlam doings? And yet I suppose there were souls saved in my time too! I say that Satan is busy among you, puffing up one and another with sperritual pride."

"Lord forgive you!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Richard Gibbs, in a tone of such genuine pity and conviction as startled the rest.

"Lord forgive me, sir!" echoed old Max, turning slowly round upon the speaker, and glaring at him from under his grey eyebrows.

There was an awe-stricken silence.

"Our good friend, Richard Gibbs, meant no offence, Mr. Maxfield," said Jackson, looking everywhere except into Gibbs's face.

"I say," cried Maxfield, addressing the rest of the company, and entirely ignoring the rash delinquent Gibbs, "that these things are a snare and a delusion, and the work of the devil. And when them of more wisdom and experience than me comes forward to speak on the matter, I shall be glad to show forth my reasons."

"Why, but, Brother Maxfield, I don't know now. I don't feel so sure,"

said Gladwish, on whom the accounts of Powell's preaching had produced a considerable effect. "There have been cases, you know, in the early times of Methodism; and John Wesley himself, you know, was ready to believe in the workings of grace, as manifested in similar ways."

"Don't tell me of your David Powells!" returned old Max, declining to discuss the subject on wide or general grounds, but doggedly confining himself to the particulars immediately before him. "Don't tell me of a man as is blown out with pride and vain glory like a balloon. Did I, or did I not, say more'n two years ago, that David Powell was getting puffed up with presumptuousness?"

There was a low murmur of a.s.sent. Brother Jackson closed his eyes and uttered a deep, long-drawn "A-a-ah!" like a man reluctantly admitting a painful truth.

"Did I, or did I not, say to many members of the Society, 'This man is dangerous. He has fallen from grace. He is hankering after new-fangled doctrine, and is ramping with red-hot over-bearingness?'"

"Yon did, sir," answered a stout, broad-faced man named Blogg, who looked like a farmer, but was a linendraper in a small way of business.

"You said so frequently; I remember your very words, and can testify to 'em."

(This speech appeared to produce a considerable effect. Mrs. Thimbleby began to cry; and, not having an ap.r.o.n at hand, threw the corner of her shawl over her face.)

"Did I, or did I not, say that if things went on at this kind of rate, I should withdraw from the Society? And did I, or did I not, withdraw from it accordin'?"

"Sir," said Mr. Blogg, "I saw you with my own eyes a-coming out of the parish church of St. Chad's, at ten minutes to one o'clock in the afternoon of the Sunday next following your utterance of them identical expressions; and cannot deny or evade the truth, but must declare it to the best of my ability, with no regard to any human respects, but for the ease and liberation of my conscience as a sincere though humble professor."

There was a general feeling that, in some conclusive though mysterious way, the linendraper had brought a crus.h.i.+ng weight of evidence to bear against David Powell; and even the preacher's best friends would find it difficult to defend him after that!

Old Max looked round triumphantly, and proceeded to follow up the impression thus made. "And then I'm to be told," said he, "that the lunatic doings on Whit Meadow are the work of Heavenly powers, eh? Come, Gladwish--you're a man as has read theologies and controversies, and are acquainted with the history of Wesleyan Methodism as well as most members in Whitford--I should like to know what arguments you have to advance against plain facts--facts known to us all, and testified to by Robert Blogg, linendraper, now present, and for many years a respected cla.s.s-leader in this town?"

"Well, but we have plain facts to bring forward too," said Richard Gibbs, with anxious earnestness.

"I ask you, Gladwish, what arguments you have to bring forward,"

repeated Maxfield, determinedly repressing any outward sign of having heard the presumptuous Gibbs.

"If this be not Satan's doing, I have no knowledge of the words of the devil, and I suppose I shall hardly be told that, after regular attendance in a congregation of Wesleyan Methodists for fifty odd years, man and boy! But," continued the old man, after a short silence, which none of those present ventured to break, "there's no knowing, truly.

These are new-fangled days. I cannot say but what I may live to hear it declared that I know nothing of Satan, nor cannot discern his works when I see them!"

"Nay, father," said Seth Maxfield, speaking now for the first time, in deprecation of so serious a charge against the "new-fangled days," on which Whitford had fallen. "Nay, no man will say that, nor yet think it.

But my notion is, that it may neither be Heaven nor t'other place that has much to do with these kind of fits and screechings. I believe it to be just as Dr. Evans said--and he a Welshman himself, you'll remember--when he first heard of these doings of David Powell in Wales.

Says he, 'It's a epidemic,' says the doctor. 'A catching kind of nervous disease, neither more nor less. And you may any of you get it if you go to hear and see the others. Though forewarned is forearmed in such cases,' says the doctor. 'And the better you understand the real natur'

of the disorder, the safer you'll be from it.'"

Seth was of a materialistic and practical turn of mind, and he offered this hypothesis as an explanation which had approved itself to his own judgment (not because he thoroughly comprehended Dr. Evans's statements, but rather because of the inherent repugnance of his mind to accept a supernatural theory about any phenomenon, when a natural theory might be subst.i.tuted for it), and also as a neutral ground of conciliation, whereon the opposing celestial and diabolic partisans might meet half way. But it speedily appeared that he had miscalculated in so doing.

Neither the friends nor the opponents of David Powell would for an instant admit any such rationalistic suggestion. It was scouted on all hands. And Seth, who had no gift of controversy, speedily found himself reduced to silence.

"Well," said he, quietly, when he and his father rose to go away, "think what you please, but I know that if one of my reapers was to fall down in the field that way, let him be praying or cursing, I should consider it a hospital case."

"Good night, Gladwish," said old Max. "Good night, Mrs. Gladwish. I am glad, for the sake of all the decent, sober, G.o.dly members of the Society, as this firebrand had left it before things came to this pa.s.s.

And I only wish you'd all had the gift of clear-sightedness to see through him long ago, and cut yourselves off from him as I did."

Richard Gibbs advanced towards the old man with outstretched hand. "I hope, Mr. Maxfield," he said, humbly, "that you'll not think I meant any offence to you just now. But I was so full of conviction, and you know we can but speak the truth to the best of our power. I hope you, nor any other Christian man, will be in wrath with me, because we don't see things just alike. I know Mr. Powell is always for making peace, for he says we many a time fancy we're fighting the Lord's battles, when, in truth, we are only desiring victory for our own pride. Anyway, I know he would bid me ask pardon for a hasty word, if any offence had come by it.

And so I hope you'll shake hands."

Jonathan Maxfield took no notice of the proffered hand, neither did he make any answer directly. But as he reached the door he turned round and said, "Well, Mr. Jackson, you have your work cut out for you with some of your flock, I doubt. Like to like. I expect that ranting Welshman will draw some away from decent chapel-going. But them as admires such doings are best got rid of, and that speedily." With that he walked off.

"I think Maxfield was rather hard on poor d.i.c.ky Gibbs," said Mr.

Gladwish to his spouse when they were alone together. "He might ha'

shook hands. d.i.c.ky came forward in a real Christian spirit. Maxfield was very hard in his wrath."

"Well," returned the virtuous matron, "I can't so much wonder. Having the Lord's forgiveness called down on his head in that way! And I don't know, Gladwish, as we should like it ourselves!"

CHAPTER XVII.

Minnie Bodkin had not dismissed from her mind the rumours about Algernon Errington, which she had heard from the widow Thimbleby. After some consideration she resolved to speak to him directly on the subject, and decided on the manner of doing so.

"I will not try to speak to him in the presence of other people," she thought. "He would wriggle off and slip through my fingers if he found the conversation had any tendency to become disagreeable. And then, too, it might be difficult to speak to him without interruption."