But what Phillip had intended as only a brief walkabout before he settled into a room at The Sun met an abrupt change when he reemerged onto St. Andrew’s street and ran almost bodily into a figure from his past. “Thomas Thornton!” Phillip clasped the man’s arm as much to steady him from their near collision as in greeting. “Are you still in Cambridge?”
Thornton had been a close friend of Percy Chalmers whom Phillip served at Emmanuel. Phillip’s newly met acquaintance blinked. “Ferrar, isn’t it?” He gave a jerk of a nod. “Yes, I went into the family firm of solicitors in Newmarket.”
Thornton looked Phillip up and down. “See by your garb you took orders. Seems I recall you had Methody tendencies—didn’t become a Jacobite or anything crackbrained, did you?” Thornton glanced over his shoulder as if he didn’t want to be seen in suspect company should the answer be wrong.
“Oh, I assure you I’m anything but a political rebel. Long Live King George. I am with the Methodist Society, however.”
Thornton nodded. “Meeting tonight, but then I suppose that’s what you’re here for.”
Phillip assured him he had no idea what he was talking about.
“Big Methody meeting on Christ’s Pieces, some Welch fellow preaching—Harris, I think his name is. Thought I might look in on the doings. Should be good fun. Care to come along?”
Phillip started to refuse. He’d planned on an early evening and riding on at dawn the next morning. But his conscience smote him. In his intense desire to reach Ely, he had forgotten his stated intentions of holding meetings in the area. Certainly he should go with his old acquaintance and lend his support to the preacher.
They arrived at the open green field at the end of Emmanuel Street just as the crowd began singing. It was a new experience for Phillip to stand at the back of such a gathering, and he found the perspective most interesting as he surveyed the farmers and housewives still carrying their baskets of vegetables from the Cambridge market. In spite of a few catcalls, they seemed an unusually peaceable group—until the leader began the third song and complaints started. “What’s a’ matter—preacher afeared to speak?”
“Yeah, Parson—cat got yer tongue?”
“What is this ’ere? Some ’oity-toity musical society?”
“We want preachin’!”
And then the rumor spread through the crowd—Howell Harris had not arrived as scheduled. It was certain the local vicar would not under any circumstances preach in an open field. A sizeable crowd had gathered—and there was no one to share the Word of God with them. Phillip knew what he must do.
“Seems I’ll have to take leave of your company,” he bowed to Thornton. “They need a preacher and that’s my calling.”
He didn’t wait for the startled expression to leave his companion’s face. “I daresay, field preaching—?”
As Phillip pushed his way through the throng he breathed a prayer, “O Lord, show me what to say to these people.”
The crowd made way for him and he met no obstacle until he reached the wooden platform that the Society had dragged onto the grass to make a speaker’s platform. In the very front was a surly young clergyman who would not give way.
Phillip faced the man squarely. “My Brother, since these good people seem to be in want of a preacher I have come to offer my services. But I see that you precede me. Perhaps you would like to address this congregation. I should be happy to be numbered among your hearers.”
The cleric gave Phillip a haughty look. “You jest, sir.” He stepped aside just enough to allow Phillip to pass. The distressed song leader was more than relieved to introduce the preacher newly arrived from London. Phillip gave only the briefest thought to the tomatoes and peaches he saw in many market baskets before he announced his topic. Arriving as he did without notes or preparation, he had only his Bible with him; but that was enough to carry him through his favorite sermon on 1 John 5:12, “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.”
The crowd was remarkably well-behaved and the few tomatoes and dirt clods that were thrown were poorly aimed. One juicy peach, however, landed squarely on the head of the arrogant clergyman who was standing so as to block as much of Phillip’s access to his audience as possible.
Next morning Phillip put Cambridge and its memories behind him as he set out for Ely. Although he had made a later start than hoped for, by midday the path across the flat fenland brought him in sight of the cathedral standing on its island like a lighthouse on a hill. Even at this time of day mists from the surrounding waters rose around the building, emphasizing the fact that it was bordered on all sides by wild and treacherous marsh. A hundred years before, Cromwell had completed the plans begun by Charles I to drain the fens and thereby brought hundreds of square miles of land under the plough. So now the fens produced crops of flax, wheat, and hay through which Phillip rode.
For much of the twenty-some mile journey Phillip had meditated on his forthcoming interview and prayed that this would be the answer to his waiting. But then, as Jezreel’s hooves clattered over one of the many wooden bridges spanning the drains that crisscrossed the fens, and Phillip saw the eels swimming in the water, his thoughts turned to his surroundings and he gave a smile for the legend which lent the town its name. These eels and all those populating the streams of East Anglia were believed to be the descendants of the monks of the tenth century who had taken wives and were punished by the reformer St. Dunstan by being turned into eels.
The whimsy of the tale bolstered Phillip’s flagging spirits, and he sat even taller than usual in the saddle as he rode past the great cathedral and on to the Bishop’s Palace. The Bishop’s chaplain answered Phillip’s knock.
For a moment Phillip couldn’t believe what he saw. Just in time he checked his impulse and bestowed a broad smile on the man before him. It was the contemptuous cleric from last night’s meeting.
“Phillip Ferrar. I believe My Lord Bishop is expecting me.” Phillip offered his letter of introduction from Vincent Perronet.
“Please wait here.” The chaplain turned and Phillip noted his hair and clothes were scrubbed clean of any traces of the peaches thrown at the meeting. He ushered Phillip into a richly appointed gallery where he saw a portrait of a dour-looking Bishop in a black velvet cape. In contrast to the luxuriousness of the furnishings, the severe austerity of the attitudes around him chilled Phillip. He dared not think what his future held if he met yet another refusal.
The sound of the chaplain’s quick step on the polished wooden floor told Phillip he wouldn’t have long to wait. “His Lordship will see you now.” The chaplain’s lips curled in a cross between a smirk and a smile, but his eyes were hard.
The Bishop sat at his desk, light from the leaded window beside him falling on his white hair. A wave of his ringed hand told Phillip to take a seat. The Bishop looked at the papers on his desk and went straight to the heart of the matter.
“You seek appointment to the vicarage of Grantchester. Mr. Perronet is most warm in his support. Why did you leave your curacy in Midhurst?”
The unpleasant facts of the matter must be brought into the open sooner or later. Phillip was glad to have it be sooner. “I was dismissed for teaching Jesus Christ and Him crucified, My Lord.”
The ringed hand waved the statement aside. “And what have you been doing since that time?”
“I have been doing itinerant preaching.”
“Ah, yes. I have heard of your unseemly enterprise last night. Grantchester is a quiet, well-behaved parish. I do not believe an enthusiastic vicar would best suit their needs.”
The thrust came so rapidly and with such understatement that at first Phillip was not aware of the pain from its cut.
“I thank you for the courtesy of your call. But do not let me detain you any longer.” Dr. Gooch rose and rang the bell on his desk with barely a flick of his wrist. When the chaplain appeared in the doorway, the Bishop added, “Mr. Flagg will give you a glass of madeira on your w
ay out.”
Phillip rose, made a mechanical bow to the Bishop, and left the palace without the support of the offered glass of wine. The complete interview, upon which his entire future hung, had lasted less than five minutes.
Twenty-one
AS IF OF THEIR OWN VOLITION, his feet carried him across the grass to the cathedral. He continued his sleepwalk down the great nave until he stood beneath the glory of the cathedral—one of the wonders of medieval engineering and carpentry—Ely’s lantern. Arching his head back, he looked up into the glorious aureola formed from the light shafting downward through the high traceried windows of the octagonal tower. As he looked at the display of pure light which spread from the lantern over the wooden ceiling and throughout the whole church, it seemed that some of that same light touched his soul. The warmth of the luminescence thawed just a drop of all that was frozen within him. Only a drop, but it was enough to allow the Word of God to speak through his numbness, “Cause me to hear Thy lovingkindness… for in Thee do I trust; cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto Thee.”
It seemed he had come to the end of the path. But then he looked up into the light and his Guide was there to lead him through the uncharted way. In the great cathedral, Phillip knelt with the light from the magnificent lantern of the tower shining on him like a benediction. And in his pain, he thought of another who had been denied all he had worked for and hoped for, because he did what he believed to be right. Perhaps it was his recent visit to Emmanuel College that brought William Law so strongly to Phillip’s mind as he prayed.
Soon Phillip realized he was no longer praying, but instead meditating on Law’s life and feeling a great kinship with this man who, after achieving the goal for which he had worked and studied—after becoming a Fellow of Emmanuel College, had it taken from him just five years later when he refused to swear the Oath of Allegiance to the new line of German kings after having already sworn fidelity to the old sovereign.
Though a priest of the Church of England, though a man with the highest sense of the responsibilities of the clerical office and the duties of his order, Law gave up all right to conduct a service or to celebrate Holy Communion, or to preach a sermon, and chose instead to live in seclusion; studying, praying, and guiding souls through his writing and his charities.
As the light from the lantern spread throughout the cathedral along the vaulted arches, so the light of God’s leading spread through Phillip’s heart and mind. He knew what he would do. He rose to his feet with a much lighter spirit than he brought in with him. He would go to King’s Cliffe. William Law would be his counselor.
It was a long ride the next day on across the fenland and finally through the edge of Rockingham Forest to the tiny village where Law lived. It was not until the three symmetrical chimney stacks of the Hall Yard House came into view that Phillip doubted his inspiration to make the trip. What if Law were away from home? What if he were home, but had no inclination to receive an intruder? What if…
Jezreel drew up before the comfortable house built of the local freestone, roofed with greenish slates, and announced their arrival with a whinny. The noise attracted the attention of a black-suited, stout man with broad shoulders and round face who was escorting a bent, ragged man carrying a clean shirt and basket of fresh vegetables across the courtyard. “I shall see you again, my dear Friend. Meditate on the words of our Lord.” The merry-countenanced man held the gate for the beggar, then turned to Phillip who dismounted with some chagrin at coming so abruptly into the presence of the esteemed William Law.
Phillip introduced himself, but found it impossible to explain the purpose of his visit, since he didn’t understand it himself. Law, however, seemed to find nothing in the least unusual about having a caller he had not seen for more than five years arrive at his gate in search of counsel and comfort.
“Come in, come in, my dear friend. You have had a long ride? I believe our distribution of food and raiment is done for the day. If any other comes one of my house friends can see to it. You have come from London? You must stop here for a time. We get so little word from the great city.”
He led the way through the courtyard and into an old wainscotted hall. “My study is upstairs.” He waved his hand at an ascending staircase. “But let us go through here first; I should like you to meet my companions.” The parlor was unoccupied, so Law went through the back door and into the garden. “Ah, we’ve found you at last,” he called to two women sitting on a garden bench. “Mr. Ferrar, Mrs. Hutcheson and Miss Gibbon, my companions and spiritual pupils.”
The ladies put aside their books and came forward to welcome Phillip, and in a moment he was being given as complete a tour of Law’s property as if he were expected to take up residence there. “…and on the other side of the paddock,” pretty, lace-capped Miss Gibbon said, “is the footbridge over Willow Brook. Beyond that are the schools and almshouses which Mr. Law and Mrs. Hutcheson erected and endowed.”
“We now have fourteen girls receiving instruction and clothing in our school,” the small, plump Mrs. Hutcheson said.
“And there is my oak tree,” Miss Gibbon pointed to a small green sprout. “I planted that when I came to reside here, 1744 that was, so it’s just an infant yet, but someday it will shade the paddock.” Law’s grey eyes and ruddy complexion glowed as he looked at the field washed in the golden light of evening. “It is my habit to take an hour’s walk in my fields before supper. Would you care to join me?”
Phillip begged time to stable Jezreel, then joined his host with pleasure. They walked along a footpath bordered on one side with a field of waist-high, dark green grain, and on the other with a brambled hedgerow, lush with ripening berries and vibrant with birdsong. “My favorite form of vesper,” Law said, after they had walked for some time with the birds’ arias as the only accompaniment to the rustle of their footsteps in the long grass. “You have sought me out for counsel?” Law asked.
And suddenly Phillip found it so easy, so natural to talk to this man. He told briefly of his curacy and rejection, and now his work with the Methodist Society. But through all his words rang clearly his desire for a call from God to a place of ministry—a settled, peaceful place to shepherd a flock. And he told of his latest refusal by the Bishop.
“And would you have acted differently in Cambridge had you foreseen the results?” Law asked.
Phillip thought carefully before he answered. Would he have refused the stirring he felt to address the crowd? If it had meant the difference in his securing a position? “Fifteen souls sought the Saviour that night. I could do no other, so help me God.”
Law nodded, and his open, agreeable countenance took on an expression of nostalgia. “Relinquishing my college Fellowship for conscience sake was a melancholy affair, but had I done what was required of me to avoid it, I should have thought my condition much worse. The benefits of my education seemed at an end, but yet the same education had been more miserably lost, had I not learnt to fear something more than misfortunes.
“If I were not happier now for that earlier trial, I am persuaded it would be my own fault. Had I brought myself into troubles by my own folly, they would have been very trying; but, I thank God, I can think of them without dejection.”
A smile broke across his face. “I recall writing something of the like to my brother George shortly after the occurrence. I remember that my most pressing concern was for my mother. I feared she would be overcome in her concern for me. But the Lord was faithful to sustain those dear to me also.”
The bell ringers of King’s Cliffe church began their ancient custom of pealing the hours of the day as the men turned their steps back toward the house.
“It has always been so. I have found the Lord ever faithful. As we are faithful in our devotion to Him, He supplies our need for others to minister to. That is the key to happiness, meeting the needs of others.”
When they returned to the house Law ushered Phillip into a long, low-ceilinged di
ning room where the table stood by a bow window looking onto the garden. Supper was the simplest meal imaginable, consisting of a few biscuits, cheese, and wine. The household servants then joined Law, his guest, and the ladies for evening prayer and Law’s reading of Scripture before the household retired to bed at nine o’clock.
Alone in his room with only the light of the moon shining through his window, Phillip thought of the light that had shone on him at Ely and led him to this house, to this counselor. He was reminded of the Scripture that referred to coming out of the darkness into His wonderful light and he felt assured that William Law would be instrumental in shedding God’s light in his life. Perhaps the first spark had been struck.
He thought back over their evening stroll in the fields and recalled Law’s words of the importance of filling others’ needs with oneself. Thinking on this, Phillip felt light and warmth and comfort sink into his soul. He had been so very much alone all his life—isolated in a crowded orphanage. He saw in his own mind the child he had been—the repressed, quiet, good little boy. And he saw the man that little boy had become—quiet, withdrawn, alone, not opening himself to anyone, nor allowing anyone close enough to reach his needs.
Catherine was the nearest to his heart he had admitted anyone. But the thought of allowing her to come closer and then abandon him was too painful to be borne. But here in the Hall Yard House he had found sanctuary.
And the peace of King’s Cliffe, the peace William Law practiced with his fellowmen and before his God, permeated Phillip’s soul in the following days. Phillip had long known peace in solitude, in the ability to withdraw and be comfortable with himself and with God. But this was a new kind of peace Law practiced, as he lived his devout and holy life in a complete giving of himself.
Where Love Begins (Where There is Love Book 1) Page 16
