Читать книгу Rubble and Roseleaves and Things of That Kind - Frank William Boreham - Страница 4

Table of Contents

Blueberry Creek! Blueberry Creek! Where in the world was Blueberry Creek? It was all very well for Conference to resolve—in the easy and airy fashion that is so charmingly characteristic of Conferences—that John Broadbanks and I should be appointed 'to visit and report upon the affairs of the congregation at Blueberry Creek'; but how on earth were we to get there? On that point, the Conference, in its wisdom, had given no directions: it had not even condescended to take so mundane a detail into its consideration. A fearful and wonderful thing is a Conference. A Conference is capable of ordering an inquiry into the state of the inhabitants of Mars; and it would appoint its commissioners without giving a thought to the ways and means by which they were to proceed to the scene of their investigations. It was altogether beneath the dignity of that august body to reflect that Blueberry Creek is as near to the Other End of Nowhere as any man need wish to go; that it is many miles from a railway station or a decent road; and that the only approach to it is by means of a grassy track that, winding in and out among the great brown hills, is, during a large part of the year, impassable. The only indication of the track's existence consisted of a suspicion of wheelmarks among the tussock.

When, at the close of the session, we met on the steps outside the hall, John and I stared at each other in a lugubrious bewilderment. Then, seeing, as he never failed to do, the humor of the situation, he burst into peals of laughter.

'Blueberry Creek!' he roared, as though the very name were a joke, 'and how are we to get to Blueberry Creek?'

Still, while we admired the complacent audacity with which the Conference had saddled us with the responsibility of finding—or making—a road to Blueberry Creek, we felt, as it felt, that somebody ought to go. Allan Gillespie, a young minister, who, for seven years, had done excellent work there, had resigned without any apparent reason. The people, whose confidence, esteem and affection he had completely won, were depressed and disheartened; and the work stood in imminent peril. John used to say that, if you leave a problem long enough, it will solve itself. The way in which the problem of getting to Blueberry Creek solved itself certainly seemed to vindicate his philosophy.

'I've been making inquiries,' said Mr. Alexander Mitchell, a man of few words but of great practical sagacity, as he met me in the porch on the last day of the Conference. 'I've been making inquiries about that appointment of yours. I find that a motor has been through to Blueberry. If one can do it, another can. I have a sturdy little car that will get there if it is possible for four wheels to do it. My business will take me as far as Crannington next week, so that I shall then be two-thirds of the way to Blueberry. If you and Mr. Broadbanks care to accompany me, we will do our best to get through. I expect we shall have a rough passage, but I am willing to take all the risks if you are.'

Truth to tell, the project was very much to our taste. In order that we might make an early start on the Tuesday, we arranged that John should spend Monday night as our guest at Mosgiel. He came, and we both awoke next morning on the best of terms with ourselves. Civilization was quickly left behind. We followed the road as far as Crannington; had lunch there; and then plunged into the hills. For the next few hours Mr. Mitchell's motor—whose sturdiness he had by no means exaggerated—was crashing its way through scrub and fern; clambering over rocky boulders; gliding down precipitous gradients; edging its course along shelves cut in the hillside; and splashing through the stream whose tortuous folds awaited us in every hollow. At about five o'clock we emerged upon a great plain covered with tussock; we made out a cluster of cottages in the distance; and we knew that, at last, we had come to Blueberry Creek.

'Why, here is Allan!' exclaimed John, as he pointed to a solitary horseman who, dashing along a track that intersected ours, was evidently hurrying to join us.

We were soon at the manse. Allan was not married; his mother kept house for him. 'My father died of consumption,' he used to say, 'and so did my grandfather: I must make sure that I am a citizen of this planet, and not merely a visitor, before I let any pretty girl make eyes at me!'

Our mission was quite unavailing. John and I had a long talk with Allan after tea.

'No,' he said at last, rising from his chair and pacing the room under the stress of strong emotion. His shock of fair wavy hair fell about his forehead when he was excited, and he brushed it back impatiently with his hand. His pale blue eyes burned at such times as though a fire were blazing behind them. 'No; I feel that I am whistling jigs to milestones! I am preaching to people, who, while they are very good to me, make no response of any kind to my message. They see to it that Mother and I want for nothing; they bring us all kinds of little dainties from the farms and stations; they share with us whatever's going as the seasons come around; and they welcome me into their homes as though I really belonged to them. They are great church people, too; they attend the services magnificently, although they have to come long distances along bad roads in all sorts of weather. They even compliment me on my sermons, just as a sleeper, roused at midnight by the alarm of fire, might, without rising, praise the dramatic ability of the friend who had awakened him. I've stood it as long as I can,' he cried, his lip quivering and his face pale with passion, 'and now I must give it up. You needn't try to find me another church; I have no wish to repeat the experience. I shall preach my last sermon on Sunday week, and I have chosen my theme. I shall preach,' he said, coming right up to us and transfixing us with eyes whose glowing fervor seemed to scorch us, 'I shall preach on the Unpardonable Sin! I shall preach as gently and as persuasively, but as powerfully, as I know how. But that will be my subject. For the Unpardonable Sin is to tamper with your oracle, to be disloyal to your vision, to play fast and loose with the truth!'

Allan had an appointment that evening. Mr. Mitchell, exhausted by his long drive, retired early. John and I excused ourselves and set off for a walk across the plain. For a while we journeyed in silence, enjoying the sunset, the song of the birds and the evening air. Allan's words, too, had taken a strong hold upon us.

'There's a lot in what he says,' John remarked at length, 'especially in his exposition of the Unpardonable Sin. Strangely enough, I was looking into the subject only a few days ago. The popular interpretation is, of course, absurd upon the face of it. You remember George Borrow's story of Peter Williams. Peter, as a boy of seven, came upon the passage 'about the Unpardonable Sin and took it into his head that he could dispose of religion for the rest of his life by the simple process of committing that deadly transgression. Arising from his bed one night, he went out into the open air, had a good look at the stars, and then, stretching himself upon the ground and supporting his face with his hands, the little idiot poured out such a hideous torrent of blasphemy as, he believed, would destroy his soul for ever. For years the memory of that solemn act of spiritual self-destruction darkened all his days and haunted all his nights. He tormented himself, as Bunyan did, with the conviction that he had committed the sin for which there is no forgiveness. It ended as it did with Bunyan, and as it always does. Chrysostom says that it is notorious that men who imagine that they have committed the sin against the Holy Ghost invariably become Christians and lead exemplary lives.'

We came at that moment to the banks of the creek; the waters were sparkling in the moonlight; we instinctively seated ourselves among the ferns.

'Allan's interpretation,' John went on, 'is much nearer the mark. The words were addressed in the first instance to men who declared that Christ cast out devils by the prince of the devils. The thing is ridiculous; it is a contradiction in terms. Why should the prince of the devils occupy himself with casting out devils? The men who said such a thing were simply talking for the sake of talking. They were putting no brain into it. They were stultifying reason; and the man who stultifies his reason is darkening his own windows. He is, as Allan put it, tampering with his oracle; he is playing fast and loose with the truth. A fellow may behave in the same way towards his conscience or towards any other means of moral or spiritual illumination. As soon as he does that kind of thing, he shuts the door in his own face; he puts himself beyond the possibility of salvation. And, when I was dipping into the matter at Silverstream a few nights since, I came to the conclusion that the passage about the Unpardonable Sin simply means this: the men who, in the old Galilean days, distorted the evidence of the miracles and rejected the testimony of the Son of Man, were guilty of a serious offence; but it was a venial offence: for, after all, it was not easy to realize that a Nazarene peasant was the Son of God. But those to whom the fullness of the Gospel has come, and upon whom the light of the ages has shone, how shall they be made the recipients of the divine grace if they deliberately block every channel by which that grace may approach them? If they stultify their reasons and harden their hearts; if, as Allan says, they tamper with their oracles and play fast and loose with the truth, what hope is there for them? I am sorry to see poor old Allan taking the apathy of his congregation so much to heart: but most of us would make better ministers if we took it to heart a little more.'

We discussed the matter for an hour or so, our conversation punctuated by the splashing of the trout in the creek; and then, feeling that it was getting chilly, we rose and walked back to the manse. Allan, to our surprise, was already there.

'Now, look,' he said, as he seated himself in his armchair, and began to poke the fire, 'you two men have come up here to talk me out of my decision; and I'm delighted to see you. But tell me this. A few years ago nobody could talk about the things of which I speak every Sunday without moving people to deep emotion. I have been reading the records of Wesley and Whitefield and Spurgeon. Why, bless me, it was nothing for those men to see a whole audience bathed in tears. Whitefield would have the Kingswood miners crying like babies. Why do I never see any evidence of deep feeling? that's what I want to know. You may say that it's because I don't preach as Wesley and Whitefield and Spurgeon preached. I thought until lately that that was the explanation. But I've given up that theory: it won't work. Livingstone has a story about old Baba, a native chief, who bore the most excruciating torture without the flicker of an eyelid or the contraction of a muscle. Yet, when Livingstone read to him the story of the crucifixion, he was melted to tears. No flights of rhetoric, mark you! Just the reading of the New Testament, without note or comment! Now I've read that same story to my people; and who was much affected by it? Then look at Spurgeon! Why, Spurgeon, anxious to test the acoustic properties of his new Tabernacle, entered the pulpit, believing the building to be empty, and exclaimed, 'Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world!' A workman, concealed among the empty pews, heard the words, listened, heard them repeated, and was profoundly stirred by them. He laid down his tools, sought an interview with Spurgeon, and was led into a life of useful and happy service. No sermon, mark you; just a text! Why, I've quoted that same text scores of times, and who came to me enquiring the way of salvation? I shall say all this in my farewell sermon. I shall say it as kindly as I can, for the people have been wonderfully good to me; but it is my duty to say it. And I'm going to recite a few verses of poetry. Would you like to hear them? I haven't memorized them yet. I only came upon them yesterday.'

He slipped off to another room and returned with a volume of poems by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Opening it, he read to us some verses entitled The Two Sunsets. They tell how a young fellow, of pure heart and simple ways, saw a sunset and heard a song. As the sinking sun filled the western sky with crimson and gold—

He looked, and as he looked, the sight,

Sent from his soul through breast and brain

Such intense joy, it hurt like pain.

His heart seemed bursting with delight.

So near the unknown seemed, so close

He might have grasped it with his hand.

He felt his inmost soul expand,

As sunlight will expand a rose.

And after the story of the sunset we have the story of the song:

One day he heard a singing strain—

A human voice, in bird-like trills,

He paused, and little rapture-rills

Went trickling downward through each vein.

And then the years went by. Queen Folly held her sway. She fed his flesh and drugged his mind; he trailed his glory in the mire. And, after a long interval, he revisited his boyhood's home, beheld another sunset and heard another song:

The clouds made day a gorgeous bed;

He saw the splendor of the sky

With unmoved heart and stolid eye;

He only knew the West was red.

Then, suddenly, a fresh young voice

Rose, bird-like, from some hidden place;

He did not even turn his face,

It struck him simply as a noise!

He saw the sunset that once filled him with ecstasy; but he saw it 'with unmoved heart and stolid eye'! He heard the song that once sounded to him like the voice of angels, and 'it struck him simply as a noise!'

'That's the Unpardonable Sin!' exclaimed Allan, gathering fervor as he proceeded. He sprang from his chair and stood facing us, his back to the fire. 'That's the Unpardonable Sin! Miss Wilcox as good as says so. Listen!

O! worst of punishments, that brings

A blunting of all finer sense,

A loss of feelings keen, intense,

And dulls us to the higher things.

O! shape more hideous and more dread,

Than Vengeance takes in Creed-taught minds,

This certain doom that blunts and blinds,

And strikes the holiest feelings dead!

This vehement recital brought on a violent fit of coughing and he left the room. When he returned we made no attempt to reply to him. We felt that the case did not lend itself to argument. We fondly wished that we could have retained him for the ministry. His burning passion would have glorified any pulpit. But what could we say?

We were astir early next morning. Mr. Mitchell was up soon after dawn getting the car ready for the road. After breakfast, John led us all in family worship. Very graciously and very feelingly he committed the young minister to the divine guidance and care. He specially pleaded that the closing days of his ministry might be a season in which rich fruit should be gathered and lasting impressions made. 'And,' he continued, 'may the tears that he sheds as he takes farewell of his people soften his heart towards them and wash from his eyes the vision of their indifference. And may he be astonished in the Great Day at the abundant response which their hearts have made to the Word that he has preached among them.' Half an hour later we were again speeding towards the hills, Allan and his mother waving to us from the gate.