The Infidel: A Story of the Great Revival

by M. E. Braddon

  CHAPTER XII.

  "SO RUN THAT YE MAY OBTAIN."

  Mrs. Stobart, yawning by the neatly swept hearth in her cottageparlour, while her husband sat silent over a book, read an account ofAntonia's party in a semi-religious newspaper, prefaced with a piousdenunciation of the worldling's extravagant luxury. She insisted onreading the description to her husband, and as she was a slow reader,bored him to extinction.

  "How fine it must have been!" she sighed at the end. "Oh, how I shouldlove to have been there! What a pity you put her off with an excusewhen she asked us to visit her!"

  "My dear Lucy, what an idle thought! Your clothes for such a partywould cost a hundred pounds; and how would you like to think that youcarried on your person the money that would feed a score of orphanchildren for the winter?"

  "Then is everybody wicked who gives such assemblies or goes to them?Sure if they all spent their superfluous wealth upon charity, insteadof fine clothes and musicians and wax candles, there need be nobodystarving or homeless in England."

  "'Tis a problem the world has not solved yet, Lucy; but for my own partI think the man who squanders his fortune upon pomp and luxury can haveno more appreciation of gospel truth than the heathen has who neverheard of a Redeemer."

  "Then you think Lady Kilrush is no better than a heathen?"

  "Alas! poor wretch, did she not confess herself so in your hearing--aninfidel, blind to the light of revelation, deaf to the message ofpardon? We can but pity her, Lucy, and pray that God's hour may comefor her as it came for you and me. She has a fine nature, and I cannotthink she will be left in outer darkness."

  "Unless she is one of those that were predestined to eternal perditionbefore they were born," said Lucy.

  "You know I have never countenanced that gospel of despair, and Ideplore that so fine a preacher as Mr. Whitefield should have taken upsuch gloomy views."

  "She might have sent us a card for her ball," murmured Lucy. "'Twouldhave been civil, even though she guessed you would not take me."

  The discontented sigh which followed the complaining speech showedGeorge Stobart that his wife was still among the unregenerate.His religion was of a stern temper, and he could not suffer thisunchristian peevishness to pass unreproved.

  "Do you think, madam, that a journeyman printer's daughter would be inher place among dukes and duchesses at a fashionable assembly? 'Twasnot for such a life I chose you."

  Lucy, who always trembled at her husband's frown, though she neverrefrained from provoking his anger, replied with her accustomedargument of tears. George saw the slim shoulders shaken by suppressedsobs, flung his book aside in a rage, and began to pace the cottageparlour, whose narrow bounds he was not yet accustomed to. In mildweather the half-glass door stood ever open, and he could pass to thegrass plot outside when his impatient mood was on; but with a Novemberrain beating against the casement there was no escape, and he felt likea caged bear.

  Finding her stifled sobs unregarded, Lucy began again, in the samecomplaining voice--

  "I thought a gentleman's wife was fit company even for dukes andduchesses; and if it comes to fathers, I have less need to be ashamedof mine, though he starved and beat me, than Lady Kilrush has of hers,who was in jail for running away with a farmer's cash-box. 'Twas all inthe evening paper when his lordship married her."

  "Good God!" cried George, "are women by nature mean and petty? Thefirst desire of a gentleman's wife, madam, should be to think and actlike a lady, and to-day you do neither. I wish we had never seen LadyKilrush, since an hour of her company has made you dissatisfied witha life for which I thought Heaven designed you. To sigh for balls anddrums--you, who never danced a step in your life! And do you think whenI left the army--the calling I loved--I meant to hang upon the skirtsof fashion, stand in doorways, or elbow and shove in supper-rooms? Irenounced all such idle pleasures when I left His Majesty's service andtook up arms for Christ, whose soldier and servant I am."

  Lucy, now entirely repentant, looked up at him with streaming eyes,shivering at his indignation, but admiring him.

  "How handsome you are when you are angry!" she cried. "You are sogood and noble, and I am so vile a sinner. 'Tis Satan temptingme. He makes me forget what a worm I am. He makes me proud andungrateful--ungrateful to you, my dear, my honoured husband; ungratefulto God who gave me your love."

  She slipped from her chair to the ground, and knelt there, weepingpassionately, her pretty auburn hair falling over her face and neck,whose delicate whiteness showed like ivory between loose locks ofburnished gold.

  Her husband had recovered his self-command, lifted her tenderly fromthe ground, and held her against his breast. How pretty she was, howartless and childlike, and how brutal it was in him to be so angry ather poor little frivolous yearnings for fine clothes and fine company,music and candlelight! He kissed her on the forehead and lips in agentle silence, led her to her chair, and then resumed his book.

  "'Tis I am the sinner, Lucy," he said after a pause, during which herneedle travelled slowly along the seam of the shirt she was making forhim. "I did very ill to be so hot and impatient about a trifle. Butthese long empty days vex me. I hope I may be of the proper stuff for aChristian; but sure I should never have done for a hermit. I want to beup and doing."

  "Indeed, George, you work too hard as it is. A long day at home shouldbe a rest for you."

  "I am not one of those who relish rest. Come, I will read to you, ifyou choose."

  "I love to hear you read."

  "Yes, and sit and dream of your baby, or your new tea-things, andscarce know whether I have been reading Milton or the Bible when I havedone," he said gently, as he might have spoken to a child.

  "You have such a beautiful voice. I love your voice better than thethings you read. But let it be 'Pilgrim's Progress,' and I will listento every word. I always think Christian is you. I can see you when Ifollow him with my thoughts."

  Her husband smiled at the gentle flattery, and brought Bunyan'sdelightful story from the modest bookcase which held but some two scoreof classics and pious works--William Law, Dr. Watts, the writers lovedand chosen by the followers of the New Light.

  "Dost remember where we left your Christian?" he asked.

  "'Twas when he was alone in the Valley of Humiliation, just beforeApollyon met him," she answered quickly, though had the book been"Paradise Lost," she would have hardly known whether 'twas beforeor after the fall when they left Adam and Eve. He read aloud tillteatime, and read to himself after tea till the hour of evening prayerand Scripture exposition, to which the little nursemaid and a stoutmaid-of-all-work were summoned; and so the long day closed at an hourwhen West End London, from Wimpole Street to Whitehall, was alive withchairs and linkmen, French horns and dancing feet. In this cottage onthe common there was a silence that made the chirp of the crickets aburden.

  * * * * *

  George Stobart was not a quietist. Religion unsupported by philanthropywould not have sufficed him for happiness. He could not spend halfhis life upon his knees in a rapture of self-humiliation--could notdevote hours to searching his own heart. Once and for all he had beenconvinced of sin, assured that the road he had been travelling was aroad that led to the gates of hell, and that in travelling it he hadcarried many weaker sinners along with him, and so had been a murdererof souls. Once and for all he had been assured of the free grace ofGod, and believed himself appointed to do good work--a brand snatchedfrom the burning, whose duty it was to snatch other brands, to compelthe lost sheep to come into the fold.

  He loved to be up and doing. He had the soldier's temper, and must befighting some one or something; nor could he keep in his chamber andwrestle with impalpable devils. He could not fight, like Luther, withthe evil that was within him till he materialized the inward tempter,saw Satan standing before him, and flung his inkpot at a visible foe.Abstract piety could not satisfy George Stobart. He caught himselfyawning over Law's "Serious Call," and "The Imitation of Christ."

 
In the beginning of the Great Revival, when the Oxford Methodistsand the Moravian Christians had been as one brotherhood in themeeting-house by Fetter Lane, an enthusiast, by name Molther, had putforward a new way of salvation, which was to be "still." Those whodesired to find faith were to give up the public means of grace. Theywere not even to pray or to read the Scriptures, nor to attempt to doany good works.

  John Wesley's fine common sense had repudiated this doctrine,whereupon there had been confusion and falling away among the FetterLane society; and the great leader had withdrawn to a chapel anddwelling-house of his own creation, in a disused foundry for cannon,near Finsbury Square. It was here that George Stobart had found faith,and it was in Wesley's strong and active crusade against sin andsuffering that he found satisfaction.

  After somewhat reluctantly entering upon his career as an itinerantpreacher, when the magnitude of the work, the multitudes eager tohear the Word of God, revealed themselves to him, John Wesley, againreluctantly, enlisted the help of lay preachers. The Church had shuther doors upon him--that Anglican Church of which he had ever been atrue and staunch apostle--and he had to do without the Church. He sawbefore him the people of England awakened from the torpor of a centuryof automatic religion, and saw that he needed more labourers in thisvast vineyard than the Church could give him.

  For the last two years George Stobart had been one of Wesley'sfavourite helpers, and had accompanied his chief in several of thoseitinerant journeys which made half England Wesleyan. He preached atBristol, rode with Wesley, preaching at every stage of the journey,from Bristol to Falmouth, where he stood shoulder to shoulder with himin one of the worst riots the Christian hero ever faced. He was withhim through the roughest encounters in Lancashire, stood beside him onthe Market Cross at Bolton, when the great wild mob surged round themand stones flew thick and fast, and where, as if by a miracle, whilemany of the rabble were hurt, the preacher remained untouched.

  In all this, in the effect of his own preaching, in the hazards andadventures of those long rides across the face of a country where mostthings were new, Stobart found unalloyed delight. He loved his missionin the streets and alleys of Lambeth, his visits to the London jails,for here he had to wrestle with the devils of ignorance and blasphemy,to preach cleanliness to men and women who had been born and reared infilth, to meet the wants of a multitude with a handful of silver, togive counsel, sympathy, compassion, where he could not give bread. Thiswas work that pleased him. Here he felt himself the soldier and servantof Christ.

  It was in the religion of the chamber that Stobart fell short of themark. He loved the Word of God when God spoke by the lips of His Son;but he had not that reverent affection for the Old Testament whichWesley had urged upon him as essential to true religion. For thegrandeur, the poetry of Holy Writ he had the highest appreciation; butthere were many pages of the sacred volume in which he looked in vainfor the light of inspiration. If he could have read his Bible in thesame inquiring spirit that Samuel Coleridge brought to it, he mighthave been better satisfied with the book and with himself; but Wesleyhad forbidden any such liberal interpretation of the Scriptures. Everyline, every word, every letter was to be accepted as the law of God.

  He was dissatisfied with himself for his coldness, for wanderingthoughts, for the dying out of that sacred fire which John Wesley'spreaching had kindled in his soul at the time of his conversion. Buthe told himself that such a fire can burn but once in a lifetime. 'Tislike the burning bush in which Moses beheld his God. That stupendousvision comes once, and once only. It has done its purifying work, andburnt out sin. But between the starting-point of the converted penitentand the Christian's crown, how long and difficult the race! GeorgeStobart had felt his footsteps flagging on the stony road. He had notlost courage. The dogged determination to win that eternal crown wasstill with him; but he had lost something of his first enthusiasm, thatromantic temper in which it had pleased him to prove his sincerity bythe sacrifice of fortune and station, and by a marriage which wouldhave seemed impossible to him in his unregenerate days.

  * * * * *

  A week after Lady Kilrush had given her great entertainment there camea letter from her, addressed to Mrs. Stobart, and the very seal uponit was as precious in the sight of the printer's daughter as if it hadbeen a jewel.

  "Look, George, what a beautiful seal--a naked boy with a helmet, andtwo snakes twisted round his cane. Who can have written to me? Why, thename is signed outside, 'Townshend.' Sure I know nobody of that name."

  "'Tis but the frank, child. The letter is from Lady Kilrush."

  "How can you tell that?"

  "I could swear to her hand among a hundred. Not the penmanship of onewoman in a thousand shows such strength of will."

  "Can one's writing show one's mind? I should never have thought it.I wonder if 'tis a card for her next assembly. Oh, George, don't beangry! I should like, once in my life, only once, to go to a party."

  Her husband sighed as he patted her shoulder, with the gentle touchthat only strong men have, and which always soothed her.

  "Read your letter," he said; "'tis no card."

  She took her scissors from her work-basket and carefully cut round theseal--loth to spoil anything so beautiful, though her heart beat fastwith expectation. George read the letter aloud over her shoulder.

  * * * * *

  "St. James's Square, November 15th.

  "DEAR MADAM,

  "I hope that neither you nor Mr. Stobart have forgot your polite promise to visit me, and that you will do me the favour of dining with me at four o'clock next Monday, when Lady Margaret Laroche, the Duchess of Portland, Mr. Townshend, and some other of my most agreeable acquaintance, will be good enough to give me their company in the evening. As you live so far off, I shall venture to send my coach to fetch you before dark, and I shall be best pleased if you will spend the night in St. James's Square, and return home at your leisure and convenience on Tuesday. Knowing Mr. Stobart's serious mind, I did not presume to send you a card for my ball last week, as I should be sorry for any invitation of mine to seem an empty compliment.

  "Pray persuade your husband, and my cousin by marriage, to gratify me by bidding you write 'Yes,' and believe me, with much respect,

  "Your sincere friend and servant,

  "ANTONIA KILRUSH."

  "Must I say no, George?" Lucy asked, with a quivering lip, ready toburst into tears.

  "Nay, child, I made you unhappy t'other day, and was miserable for twodays after at the thought I had been a brute. If it would please you tovisit her ladyship----"

  "Please me! I should feel as if I was flying over the moon."

  "But you could not fly over the moon in a grogram gown. You need notvie with her Grace of Portland, but I doubt you have no clothes fit forcompany, and my purse is empty."

  "But I have my wedding gown," she cried, clapping her hands--"the gownI bought at Clapham with the pocket-money your mother gave me, a crownpiece at a time, and that I saved till it was over three guineas. And Ibought a pearl grey silk, and your mother's woman helped me make it,and then when I told you what I had done you were vexed at my vanity,and would not let me wear it; so I was married in my old stuff gown,and the pearl grey silk has never been worn. The Duchess will not havea newer gown than mine, if you'll let me go."

  "'When I was a child I thought as a child,'" quoted George. "Well,dearest, thou shalt have thy childish pleasure. To have seen how idleand empty a thing fine company is may make thee love our serious lifebetter."