Faces in the Fire Part 4

'This place! _this place_! THIS PLACE!' said Jacob.

And so he journeyed on towards his iron gate, pitifully ignorant of the meaning of the golden dream. Life's ecstasies are warnings, premonitions, danger-signals. Even in the experience of the Holiest, the open heavens and the voice from the excellent glory immediately preceded the grim struggle with the tempter in the wilderness. Paul had his vision; he saw the Man of Macedonia; and he followed the gleam--to bonds, stripes, and imprisonment. Bunyan knew what he was doing when he placed the Palace Beautiful, with all its sweet hospitalities and delightful ministries, immediately before that dark Valley of Humiliation in which Christian struggled with Apollyon. When we hear angels' voices speaking, when we find our fetters falling, when we see our jail doors opening, be very sure that outside, outside, there is a dark night and an iron gate!

IV

But there is always this about it. Although the radiant vision is a premonition of the coming struggle, it is also an augury concerning that struggle. Opening doors are an earnest of opening gates. It is inconceivable that I shall be miraculously delivered from my dungeon, with its guards and its chains, and then be baulked by an iron gate out there in the blackness of the night. It is inconceivable that here, at the Communion Service, G.o.d should draw so near to the spirit of this young housemaid, and then leave her to face alone the drudgery of Monday morning. If Mary is half as wise as I take her to be, she will answer the scream of the clock with a song. She went to bed singing; why not get up singing? She crooned to herself on retiring the hymn that had followed her from the Communion Table. Let her sing in the morning quite another tune:

His love, in time past, forbids me to think He'll leave me at last in trouble to sink, Each sweet Ebenezer I have in review Confirms His good pleasure to help me quite through.

The voice of the angel, the falling of fetters, and the opening of doors are all designed to brace us for the dark night and the iron gate.

V

'The iron gate opened to them.' Of course it did. Who could suppose that the prison doors had been opened by angel's hands, only that the prisoner might be caught like a rat in a trap outside? 'The iron gate opened to them _of its own accord_.' It did look like it. During my twelve years at Mosgiel, I often went through the great woollen factory.

The machines were marvellous--simply marvellous. As you watched the needles slip in and out, or stood beside the loom and saw the pattern grow, it really looked as though the things were bewitched. They seemed to be doing it all 'of their own accord.' But one day the manager said, 'Would you care to see the power-house?' And he took me away from the busy looms to another building altogether, and there I saw the huge engines that drove everything. Neither looms nor needles really work 'of their own accord.' Nor do iron gates. A few minutes after the gates had opened, and the angel had vanished, Peter 'came to the house of Mary, the mother of Mark, where many were gathered together praying.' And then Peter understood by what power the iron gates had opened, just as I understood, when I saw the engine-room, how the great looms worked.

The prayer-meeting may not be artistic. For the matter of that I saw very little in the power-room of the factory that appealed to the sense of the aesthetic within me; but when angels visit prisons, and iron gates swing open of their own accord, there must be a driving-force at work somewhere. And Peter only discovered it when he suddenly broke in upon a midnight prayer-meeting.

IX

SHORT CUTS

We dearly love a short cut. Even in childhood we resolved the discovery of short cuts into a kind of juvenile science. There was the gap in the hedge, or the low part of the wall, by which we could pa.s.s, by means of a squeeze or a clamber, into the romantic territory of our next-door neighbour. With what fine scorn we inwardly derided the ridiculous behaviour of our parents when, in visiting that selfsame neighbour, they marched with solemn mien out through the front gate, along the public highway and in through the front gate of the house next door! It took _them_ five mortal minutes to reach a spot that, by a stoop or a bound, _we_ could have reached in as many seconds! Then there was the dusty track through the bush to the jetty; and the footpath across the fields to the church. And with what wild excitement we hailed a short cut to school! When some adventurous spirit discovered that, by going up a certain right-of-way, and climbing a certain fence, we could approach the school playground from a new and undreamed-of direction, our transports knew no bounds. It was not the lazy gratification of having invented a labour-saving device; it was the stately joy of the explorer.

Half the romance of life was bound up with those short cuts. The trysts of courts.h.i.+p were kept at the stiles by which those surrept.i.tious footways were intersected. The most delightful walks we ever enjoyed were the strolls along those uncharted by-paths. It may have been for the sake of brevity and a smart pa.s.sage that they were first brought into existence; yet it was not to their brevity, in the last resort, that they owed their peculiar charm. The gap through the hedge; the clamber over the wall; the track through the bush to the jetty; the footpath across the fields to the church; and the right-of-way by which we took the school in the rear--these appealed to a certain deep human instinct that a.s.serted itself within us; and, dissemblers as we were, we just made-believe that we pursued these courses in order to conserve our energies and to save our time.

And thus we got into the habit. Whether it was a good habit or a bad habit depends largely upon the realm to which we applied it. In my own case, it worked disastrously--at least at times. Since I left school, for instance, I have always been considered good at figures. Generally speaking, you have but to state your problem, and I can furnish you with the solution. In business--commercial and ecclesiastical--this faculty has served me in excellent stead. But at school it was of very little use to me. And I find it of very little use when I undertake to coach my children in antic.i.p.ation of approaching examinations. For at school the teacher not only propounded the problem, and received my answer; he went another step. He asked me how I had arrived at that conclusion; and at that stage of the ordeal I invariably collapsed. He was there to teach me the rules; and I had as much contempt for the rules as I had for the route by which my grave and reverend parents made their way to our neighbour's door. I was content to squeeze through the gap or to jump over the wall. The teacher was there to show me the road to the jetty; I scorned the road, and approached the jetty by the track through the bush. I could see no sense in either roads or rules if you could reach your destination more expeditiously without them. But, to pa.s.s abruptly from the microscopic to the magnificent, history furnishes me with a quite dramatic and most convincing demonstration of my point. In his _Up From Slavery_, Mr. Booker Was.h.i.+ngton ill.u.s.trates this tendency again and again. The slaves were freed. But it is one thing to be free, and quite another thing to be worthy of the rights of freemen. With one voice the black people cried out for education. 'This experience of a whole race going to school for the first time presents,' says Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton, 'one of the most interesting studies that has ever occurred in connexion with the development of any race.' But many of the people were advanced in years. To begin at the beginning and attain to knowledge gradually seemed a tedious process. It was like the round-about path from our front door to that of our next-door neighbour. The black people woke up late to the consciousness of their racial possibilities; and, like most people who wake up late, they spent the morning of their freedom in a desperate hurry. Here is a young coloured man, 'sitting down in a one-room cabin, with grease on his clothing, filth all around him, and weeds in the yard and garden, engaged in studying a French grammar!' On another occasion, Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton 'had to take a student who had been studying cube-root and banking and discount and explain to him that the wisest thing for him to do first was thoroughly to master the multiplication-table!' There is much more to the same effect. The black race made a frantic effort to run before it had learned to walk. 'I felt,' says Mr. Booker Was.h.i.+ngton, 'that the conditions were a good deal like those of an old coloured man, during the days of slavery, who wanted to learn how to play on the guitar. In his desire to take guitar lessons he applied to one of his young masters to teach him; but the young man, not having much faith in the ability of the slave to master the guitar, sought to discourage him by saying, "Uncle Jake, I will give you guitar lessons; but, Jake, I will have to charge you three dollars for the first lesson, two dollars for the second lesson, and one dollar for the third lesson. But I will charge you only twenty-five cents for the last lesson." To which Uncle Jake answered, "All right, boss, I hires you on dem terms. But, boss, I wants yer to be sure an' give me dat las' lesson first!"' Here we have the imposing spectacle, not by any means dest.i.tute of pathos, of an entire race seeking to reach its destiny by a short cut.

But it is a mistake. For that ebullition of juvenile depravity which disfigured my school-days I do now repent in dust and ashes. I was wrong; there can be no doubt about that. There is a place in this world for rules and roads as well as for gaps and tracks. I know now that my parents were right in approaching our neighbour's door by way of the public thoroughfare. Life has taught me, among other things, that short cuts have their perils. It is the old story of the Gordian knot over again. The Phrygians, as everybody knows, were in grave perplexity, and consulted the oracle. The oracle a.s.sured them that all their troubles would cease as soon as they chose for their king the first man they met driving in his chariot to the temple of Jupiter. Leaving the sacred building, they set out along the road and soon met Gordius, whom they accordingly elected king. Gordius drove on to the temple, to return thanks for his elevation, and to consecrate his chariot to the service of the G.o.ds. When the chariot stood in the temple courts it was observed that the pole was fastened to the yoke by a knot of bark so artfully contrived that the ends could not be seen. The oracle then declared that whosoever should untie this Gordian knot should be ruler over Asia.

Alexander the Great approached, but, finding himself unable to untie the knot, he drew his sword and cut it. And the ancients said that it was because he had cut the knot instead of untying it that his dominion was so transitory and so brief. I fancy that, if we look into it a little, we shall find that half our troubles arise from our bad habit of cutting the knots that we ought to patiently untie.

Take our politics, by way of example. It is much more easy to sit back in our chairs and pour the vials of our criticism on the powers-that-be than to make any sensible contribution to the well-being of the State. A case in point occurs in Mark Rutherford's _Clara Hopgood_. Baruch and Dennis are discussing those old social problems that men have discussed since first this world began. Dennis was enlarging upon the inequalities and iniquities of social and industrial life, when Baruch broke in with the pertinent and practical question: 'But what would you do for them?'

'Ah, that beats me!' replied Dennis. 'I would hang somebody, but I don't know who it ought to be!'

Precisely! To _cut_ the knot with a sword is so easy--and so ineffective; to _untie_ it is so difficult--and so rich in consequence.

The politics that consist of sentencing to summary execution statesmen from whom we differ are within the intellectual reach of most of us; and in that particular brand of politics, therefore, most of us occasionally indulge. But the politics that consist in really grappling with the knotty problems, with a view to discovering some means of ameliorating human misery, provide us with a much more formidable task. Who has intellect sufficiently clear, and fingers sufficiently deft, to essay the untying of the Gordian knot? The empire of the world awaits the coming of that patient and persistent man.

Or look at another example. I often feel that very little of the oratory expended on Protestant platforms really touches the mark. It gets nowhere. The real question at issue is most pitifully begged. It may, of course, be diplomatic to keep people well informed concerning the social evils that thrive in Roman Catholic countries. It may, perhaps, be permissible to emphasize the abuses that exist within the pale of the Roman Catholic Church. But a devout and intelligent Roman Catholic, listening to such an utterance, would, after making a reasonable allowance for rhetorical exaggeration admit the truth of all that had been said, and go home to weep, and, perhaps, to pray over it. Many of those who have pa.s.sed over from Protestant communions to the Roman Catholic Church have travelled very widely and observed very closely.

They are not ignorant. Newman sobbed over the seamy side of Romanism before he made the plunge. 'I have never disguised,' he wrote, 'that there are actual circ.u.mstances in the Church of Rome which pain me much; we do not look toward Rome as believing that its communion is infallible.' Then, with his eyes wide open to all the facts on which our orators dilate so luridly, he took the fatal step. And again he wrote, 'There is a divine life among us, clearly manifested, in spite of all our disorders, which is as great a note of the Church as any can be.'

Now what was that divine note? Everything hinges upon that. And unless our Protestant speakers are prepared to face _that_ issue they may as well remain by their own firesides, lounge in their cosiest chairs, wear their warmest slippers, and enjoy the latest novels. It is only at this point that sincere and groping minds can be helpfully influenced. The whole question is one of Authority. We dearly love a lord. There is no escaping that fundamental fact. Every day Protestant sheep stray into Roman Catholic pastures because there they can actually see the shepherd and actually feel his crook. The Roman Church, with its h.o.a.ry traditions, its encrusted ritual, and its antique a.s.sociations, crystallizes itself into a single voice. It possesses an enthroned incarnation. It has a Pope. Romanism is like a pine-tree. It towers to a pinnacle. All its branches converge upon the topmost bough.

Protestantism is like a palm. Its summit consists of a great cl.u.s.ter of graceful fronds, but no one is uppermost. Romanism is the adoration of the topmost twig. In the person of the highest official, confused ears catch the accent of authority for which they hunger. Here they find the music of majesty. And they nestle their aching heads in the lap of a Church that will sternly command their trustfulness and firmly insist upon implicit obedience. Thereafter they need think no more. 'In the midst of our difficulties,' wrote Newman, 'I have one ground of hope, just one stay, but, as I think, a sufficient one. It serves me in the stead of all arguments whatever; it hardens me against criticism; it supports me if I begin to despond; and to it I ever come round. It is the decision of the Holy See; Saint Peter has spoken.' Here the weary brain finds rest. Here is the Gordian knot, so trying to the fingers, cut swiftly with a sword. Here is the discovery of a short cut that may save the tired feet many a long and dreary trudge.

The temptation meets us at every turn. And it is because that temptation is so general that it figures so prominently in the Temptation in the wilderness. He was tempted in all points like as we are; and therefore He was tempted to take short cuts. This is the essence of that weird and terrible story. It is notable that all the three things that Jesus was tempted to acquire were good things, things to be desired, things that He was destined to possess. But the whole point of the record is that He was tempted to make His way to the bread and the angels and the kingdoms by means of short cuts. Now this is vastly significant. It is significant because, when you come to think of it, nearly all the things that _we_ are tempted to acquire are good things. The temptation consists in the suggestion that we should possess ourselves of those good things prematurely or illicitly. We are urged to make short cuts to our legitimate goal. Jesus was tempted to cut the Gordian knot, and to thus obtain an immediate but fleeting hold on the objects of His just desire. He rejected the proposal. He preferred patiently to untie the knot, and thus to make Himself king of all kingdoms for ever and for ever.

Of the perils attending short cuts John Bunyan is our chief expositor.

Wherever a dangerous but alluring footpath breaks off from the high-road, a statue of Mr. Worldly Wiseman ought to be erected. For it was Mr. Worldly Wiseman that first got the poor pilgrim into such sore trouble. Mr. Worldly Wiseman knew a short cut to the Celestial City.

Christian took that short cut--the footpath over the hills and through the village of Morality--and dearly did he pay for his folly. And yet it is difficult to blame him. Poor Christian was heavily burdened, and every inch that could be saved was a consideration. Evangelist had clearly directed him, it is true; but then, if Mr. Worldly Wiseman knew a short cut, why not take it? 'Let him who has no such burden as this poor pilgrim had cast the first stone at Christian; I cannot,' says Dr.

Alexander Whyte. 'If one who looked like a gentleman came to me to-night and told me how I could on the spot get to a peace of conscience never to be lost again, and how I could get a heart to-night that would never any more plague and pollute me, I should be mightily tempted to forget what all my former teachers had told me, and try this new gospel.'

Exactly! The temptation to cut the Gordian knot is very alluring. The advice to get-rich-quick, or to get-good-quick, or to get-there-quick, is very acceptable. But by his story of the short cut, and the anguish that followed, Bunyan has taught us that the longest way round is often the shortest way home. There is sound sense in the song that bids us 'take time to be holy.' The short cut that avoids the wicket-gate and the Cross is merely a blind lane from which we shall return sooner or later with blistered feet and broken hearts.

PART II

I

THE POSTMAN

I must say a good word for the postman. He occupies so large a place in most of our lives that, as a matter of common courtesy, the least we can do is to recognize his value and importance. Others may not feel as I do, but I confess that I bless the postman every day of my life. Not that I am so fond of receiving letters, for I bless him with equal fervency whether he calls or whether he pa.s.ses. I know that in this respect I am hopelessly illogical. If I am pleased to see the postmen pa.s.s the gate, I ought, if strictly logical, to be sorry to see him enter it. And, contrariwise, if the sight of the postman coming up the path affords me gratification, the spectacle of his pa.s.sing my gate ought to fill me with disappointment. But I am _not_ logical, never was, and never shall be. The best things in the world are hopelessly illogical--motherhood for example. A mother sits in the arm-chair by the fire, even as I write. She is chattering away to her baby. She knows perfectly well that the baby doesn't understand a word she says. Knowing that she would, if she were logical, give up talking to the child. But, just because she is so hopelessly illogical, she prattles away as though the baby could understand every word. It is a way mothers have, and we love them all the better for it. An illogical lady is a very lovable affair; but who ever fell in love with a syllogism? Robert Louis Stevenson is the most lovable of all our English writers, and the most illogical. Here is an entry from his diary, by way of ill.u.s.tration. 'A little Irish girl,' he writes, 'is now reading my book aloud to her sister at my elbow. They chuckle, and I feel flattered; anon they yawn, and I am indifferent; such a wisely conceived thing is vanity.' Just so.

And why not? There is a higher wisdom than the wisdom of logic. If Stevenson had been logical, he would have felt elated by the chuckles and crushed by the yawns. But he knew better, and so do I. If the postman pa.s.ses my door, I heave a sigh of relief that I have no letters to answer; it is almost as good as being granted a half-holiday. Am I therefore to be angry when the postman enters the gate, and accept his letters with a grunt? Not at all. In that case I throw my logic over the hedge for the edification of my next-door neighbour, and feel pleased that some of my friends are thinking of me. I greet the postman with a smile, and try to make him feel that he has rendered me an appreciable service, as indeed he has.

I am writing on the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Anthony Trollope, and I fancy that it is the thought of Trollope and his extraordinary work that has set me scribbling about the postman. For Trollope was much more than a novelist. He was, in a sense, the prince of British postmen, and the forerunner of Rowland Hill and Henniker Heaton. To a far greater extent than we sometimes dream, we owe the efficiency of our modern postal service to Anthony Trollope. But before he died he became the victim of serious misgivings. He feared that we were losing the art of letter-writing. He produced a bundle of his mother's love-letters. 'In no novel of Richardson's or Miss Burney's,'

he declared, 'is there a correspondence so sweet, so graceful, and so well expressed. What girl now studies the words with which she shall address her lover, or seeks to charm him with grace of diction?' And this lamentation was penned, mark you, years and years ago, before cheap telegrams and picture post cards had become the normal means of communication!

I suppose the real trouble is that we have allowed the amazing development of our commercial correspondence to corrupt the character of our private letter-writing. We indite all our letters in the phraseology of the business college. We write briefly, tersely, pointedly, and, most abominable of all, by return of post. I should like to write a separate chapter in vigorous denunciation of the prompt reply. Private letters should never be hastily answered. If my friend replies instantly to my long, familiar letter, he gives me the painful impression that he wants to be rid of me, and is unwilling to have on his mind the thought of the letter he owes me. One of these days I shall start a new society to be called the 'Wait a Week Society.' Its members will be solemnly pledged to wait at least a week before replying to their private letters. There are strong and subtle reasons for taking such a vow. First of all, private letters should be easy, leisurely, chatty, and should only be written when one is in the mood, or when, for some reason, the person to whom it is addressed is specially in one's thoughts. To this, it may be replied that one is never so much in the mood to write to a friend as when he has just received a letter from that friend. But the argument is fallacious. He is a very happy letter-writer indeed who can write me a long, free, chatty letter without saying anything that will rub me the wrong way or with which I shall disagree. During the first twenty-four hours after receiving his letter, _those_ are the things that are most emphatically impressed upon my mind. If I reply within twenty-four hours, my letter to my friend will deal largely with those disputatious and controversial points, and the inevitable result will be that _the whole_ of my letter will grate upon him just as _part_ of his letter has grated upon me. But if, as president of my own society, I wait a week before replying to his letter, I shall see things in their true perspective, and write him a long and breezy letter in which the things that vexed me find no place at all. I am often asked, What is the unpardonable sin? The only sin that I can never pardon is the sin of writing angry letters. I can forgive a man for _speaking_ hastily; I have a temper myself. But to deliberately commit one's spite to paper is to become guilty of an amazing atrocity and to degrade at the same time the postman's high and solemn office.

I bless the postman because he can do for me, and do better than I could do, so many delicate things. I regard the postman as a faithful and indispensable a.s.sistant. It often falls to a minister's lot to approach people, and especially young people, on the most delicate and important subjects. Upon their decisions much of their future happiness and usefulness will depend. I must therefore go about the business with the utmost care. But if I go to that young man and abruptly introduce the matter to him, I at once put him in a false position, and greatly imperil my chance of success. We are face to face; I have spoken to him, and he, in common decency, must speak to me. It would be a thousand times better if, having opened my heart to him, I could withdraw before he uttered a single word. But as it is, I have forced him into a position in which he must say something. His judgement is not ripe, his mind is not made up, the whole subject is new to him, and yet my indiscretion has placed him in such a position that he is compelled to commit himself. He must say something without due consideration; I stand there, like a highway-robber, with my pistol pointed at his brow, and he must give me _words_. I may not want his words immediately; and he may wish he need not give his words immediately; but we are both the victims of a situation which I have foolishly precipitated. He speaks; and however he may guard his utterance, his final decision will inevitably be compromised by those hasty and immature sentences.

The evidence must be perfectly overwhelming that will lead a man to reverse a decision once made. And here am I, his would-be friend and helper, forcing him into a position from which he will find it very difficult to extricate himself. I meant to do him good, and I have done him incalculable harm. I meant to be his friend, and I have become his enemy. So true is it that evil is wrought from want of thought as well as want of heart.

Now see how much better the postman manages the matter. I sit down at my desk and write exactly what I want to say. I am not under any necessity to complete a sentence until I can do so to my own perfect satisfaction. I can pause to consider the exact word that I wish to employ. And if, when it is written, my letter does not please me, I can tear it up without his being any the wiser, and write it all over again.

I am not driven to impromptu utterance or careless phraseology. I am free of the inevitable effect upon my expression produced by the presence of another person. I am not embarra.s.sed by the embarra.s.sment that he feels on being approached on so vital a theme. I am cool, collected, leisurely, and free. And the advantages that come to me in inditing the letter are shared by him in receiving it. He is alone, and therefore entirely himself. He is not disconcerted by the presence of an interviewer. He owes nothing to etiquette or ceremony. He has the advantage of having the case stated to him as forcefully and as well as I am able to state it. He can read at ease and in silence without the awkward feeling that, in one moment, he must make some sort of reply. If he is vexed at my intrusion into his private affairs, he has time to recover from his displeasure and to reflect that I am moved entirely by a desire for his welfare. If he is flattered at my attention, he has time to fling aside such superficial considerations and to face the issue on its merits. The matter sinks into his soul; becomes part of his normal life and thought; and, by the time we meet, he is prepared to talk it over without embarra.s.sment, without personal feeling, and without undue reserve. In such matters--and they are among the most important matters with which a minister is called to deal--the postman is able to render me invaluable a.s.sistance.

There is something positively sacramental about the postman. For the letters that he carries have no value in themselves; they are simply paper and ink. They are precious only so far as they reveal the heart of the sender to the heart of the receiver. Here, for instance, is a letter for a young lady. She is at the door before the bell has ceased its ringing. She greets the postman with a smile, and blushes as she glances at the familiar handwriting. As soon as the postman has closed the gate after him, she hurries down to the summer-house, her favourite retreat, to read her letter. But she is not alone. Bruno, her big collie, goes bounding after his mistress. She reads the first pages of the letter, and allows the sheet to slip from her lap to the ground, whilst she proceeds to devour the following pages. And as the fluttering missive lies upon the floor of the summer-house, Bruno examines it. A dog's eyes are sharper than a girl's eyes; yet how little the dog sees! He sees a piece of white paper covered with black marks--sees perhaps more in that respect than she does--yet he sees nothing, and less than nothing, for all that. For she sees, not the black marks on the white paper, but the very heart of one who wors.h.i.+ps her. She is gazing so intently into the soul of her lover that she does not notice whether the 't's' are crossed, or the 'i's' dotted. To her the letter is a sacramental thing; its value lies not in itself, but in the revelation that it makes to her.

And it is because the postman spends his whole life among just such sacramental things that we welcome and honour him. We have an amiable way of transferring to the messenger the welcome that we accord to the message. Jessie Pope describes the joy of a mother on receiving a wire from her soldier-boy that he will soon be back again from the front.

'_Home at six-thirty to-day._'

Oh, what a tumult of joy!

Growing suspense flies away, G.o.d bless that telegraph-boy!

_G.o.d bless that telegraph-boy!_ Exactly. And that is why we honour the postman. The messenger always shares in the welcome given to the message How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! We ministers often share in the postman's benediction. We are welcomed and honoured and loved, not so much for our own sake as for the sake of the great, glad message that we bear. The heart leaps up to the message and blesses the messenger. G.o.d bless the telegraph-boy! G.o.d bless the postman!