Читать книгу A Book of Quaker Saints - L. V. Hodgkin - Страница 4

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'What is a Saint? How I do wish I knew!'

A little girl asked herself this question a great many years ago, as she sat looking up at a patch of sunset cloud that went sailing past the bars of her nursery window late one Sunday afternoon; but the window was small and high up, and the cloud sailed by quickly.

As she watched it go, little Lois wished that she was back in her own nursery at home, where the windows were large and low down, and so near the floor that even a small girl could see out of them easily. Moreover, her own windows had wide window-sills that she could sit on, with toy-cupboards underneath.

There were no toy-cupboards in this old-fashioned nursery, where Lois was visiting, and not many toys either. There was a doll's house, that her mother used to play with when she was a little girl; but the dolls in it were all made of wood and looked stiff and stern, and one hundred years older than the dolls of to-day, or than the children either, for that matter. Besides, the doll's house might not be opened on Sundays.

So Lois turned again to the window, and looking up at it, she wished, as she had wished many times before on this visit, that it was rather lower down and much larger, and that the window ledge was a little wider, so that she could lean upon it and see where that rosy cloud had gone.

She ran for a chair, and climbed up, hoping to be able to see out better. Alas! the window was a long way from the ground outside. She still could not look out and see what was happening in the garden below. Even the sun had sunk too far down for her to say good-night to it before it set. But that did not matter, for the rosy cloud had apparently gone to fetch innumerable other rosy cloudlets, and they were all holding hands and dancing across the sky in a wide band, with pale, clear pools of green and blue behind them.

'What lovely rainbow colours!' thought the little girl. And then the rainbow colours reminded her of the question that had been puzzling her when she began to watch the rosy cloud. So she repeated, out loud this time and in rather a weary voice, 'Whatever is a Saint? How I do wish I knew! And why are there no Saints on the windows in Meeting?'

No answer came to her questions. Lois and her nurse were paying a visit all by themselves. They spent most of their days up in this old nursery at the top of the big house. Nurse had gone downstairs a long time ago, saying that she would bring up tea for them both on a tea-tray, before it was time to light the lamps. For there was no gas or electric light in children's nurseries in those days.

If Lois had been at home she would herself have been having tea downstairs in the dining-room at this time with her father and mother. Then she could have asked them what a Saint was, and have found out all about it at once. Father and mother always seemed to know the answers to her questions. At least, very nearly always. For Lois was so fond of asking questions, that sometimes she asked some that had no answer; but those were silly questions, not like this one. Lois felt certain that either her father or her mother would have explained to her quite clearly all about Saints, and would have wanted her to understand about them. Away here there was nobody to ask. Nurse would only say, 'If you ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies.' Somehow whenever she said that, Lois fancied it meant that nurse was not very sure of the answer herself. She had already asked Aunt Isabel in church that same morning, when the puzzle began; and Aunt Isabel's answer about 'a halo' had left the little girl more perplexed than ever.

Lois had heard of people 'going to church' before, but she had never understood what it meant until to-day. At home on Sundays she went to Meeting with father and mother. She liked walking there, in between them, holding a hand of each, skipping and jumping in order not to step on the black lines of the pavement. She liked to see the shops with their eyes all shut tight for Sunday, and to watch for the naughty shops, here and there, who kept a corner of their blinds up, just to show a few toys or goodies underneath. Lois always thought that those shops looked as if they were winking up at her; and she smiled back at them a rather reproving little smile. She enjoyed the walk and was sorry when it came to an end. For, to tell the truth, she did not enjoy the Meeting that followed it at all.

Long before the hour was over she used to grow very tired of the silence and of the quiet room, tired of kicking her blue footstool (gently of course, but still kicking it) and of counting her boot buttons up and down, or else watching the hands of the clock move slowly round its big calm face. 'Church' was a more interesting place than Meeting, certainly; but then 'Church' had disadvantages of its own. Everything there was strange to Lois. It had almost frightened her, this first time. She did not know when she ought to stand up, or when she ought to kneel, and when she might sit down. Then, when the organ played and everybody stood up and sang a hymn, Lois found to her surprise that her throat was beginning to feel tight and choky. For some reason she began to wonder if father and mother were sitting in Meeting alone, and if they had quite forgotten their little girl. Two small tears gathered. In another minute they might have slipped out of the corners of her eyes, and have run down her cheeks. They might even have fallen upon the page of the hymn-book she was carefully holding upside down. And that would have been dreadful!

Happily, just in time, she looked up and saw something so beautiful above her that the two tears ran back to wherever it was they came from, in less time than it takes to tell.

For there, above her head, was a tall, pointed, glass window, high up on the wall. The glass in the window was of wonderful colours, like a rainbow:—deep purple and blue, shining gold, rich, soft red, and glowing crimson, with here and there a green that twinkled like young beech-leaves in the woods in spring. Best of all, there was one bit of purest white, with sunlight streaming through it, that shone like dazzling snow. At first Lois only noticed the colours, and the ugly black lines that separated them. She wondered why the beautiful glass was divided up into such queer shapes. There are no black lines between the colours in a real rainbow.

Gradually, however, she discovered that all the different colours meant something, that they were all part of a picture on the window, that a tall figure was standing there, looking down upon her—upon her, fidgety little Lois, kicking her scarlet hassock in the pew. But Lois was not kicking her hassock any longer. She was looking up into the grave, kind face above her on the window. 'Whoever was it? Who could it be? Was it a man or a woman? A man,' Lois thought at first, until she saw that he was wearing a robe that fell into glowing folds at his feet. 'Men never wear robes, do they? unless they are dressing-gowns. This certainly was not a dressing-gown. And what was the flat thing like a plate behind his head?' Lois had never seen either a man or a woman wear anything like that before. 'If it was a plate, how could it be fastened on? It would be sure to fall off and break. … '

The busy little mind had so much to wonder about, that Lois found it easy to sit still, until the sermon was over, as she watched the sunlight pour through the different colours in turn, making each one more beautiful and full of light as it passed.

At length the organ stopped, and the last long 'AH-MEN' had been sung. 'Church sings "AH-MEN" out loud, and Meeting says "Amen" quite gently; p'raps that's what makes the difference between them,' Lois thought to herself wisely. As soon as the last notes of music had died away, she nestled close to Aunt Isabel's side and said in an eager voice, 'What is that lovely window up there? Who is that beautiful person? I do like his face. And is it a He or a She?'

'Hush, darling!' her aunt whispered. 'Speak lower. That is a Saint, of course.'

'But what is a Saint and how do you know it is one?' the little girl whispered earnestly, pointing upwards to the tall figure through which the sunshine streamed. Aunt Isabel was busy collecting her books and she only whispered back, 'Don't you see the halo?' 'I don't know what a halo can be, but a Saint is a kind of glass window, I suppose,' thought Lois, as she followed her aunt down the aisle. Afterwards on her way home, and at dinner, and all the afternoon, there had been so many other things to see and to think about, that it was not until the rosy patch of cloud sailed past the nursery window-pane at sunset that she was reminded of the beautiful colours in church, and of the puzzle about Saints and haloes that till then she had forgotten.

'At least, no, I didn't exactly forget', she said to herself, 'but I think p'raps I sort of disremembered—till the sunset colours reminded me. Only I haven't found out what a Saint is yet, or a halo. And why don't we have them on our Sunday windows in Meeting?'

Just at that moment the door opened, and nurse, who had been enjoying a long talk downstairs in the kitchen, came in with the tea-tray. 'How dark you are up here!' nurse exclaimed in her cheerful voice. 'We shall have to light the lamp after all, or you will never find the way to your mouth.'

So the lamp was lighted. The curtains were drawn. The sunset sky, fast fading now, was hidden. And Lois' questions remained unanswered.

A few days later, the visit came to an end. The next Sunday, Lois was at home again, 'chattering like a little magpie,' as her mother said, about everything she had seen and done. She had so much to think about, that even Meeting did not seem as long as usual, though she thought the walls looked plainer than ever, and the glass windows very empty, till the sight of them reminded her that she could find out more about Saints now. At home in the afternoon she began. Drawing her footstool close to the big arm-chair, she put her elbows on her father's knee and looked up searchingly into his face. 'Father, please tell me, if you possibly can,' pleaded an earnest little voice, 'for I do very badly want to find out. Do you know what a Saint is?' Her father laughed. 'Know what a Saint is? I should think I did! No man better!' he answered. Lois wondered why he glanced across to the other side of the fire where her mother was sitting; and why she glanced back at him and shook her head, meeting his eyes with a happy smile. Then her father jumped up, and from the lowest shelf of one of his book-cases he fetched a fat, square volume, bound in brown leather and gold. This he put carefully on a table, and drawing Lois on to his knee and putting his arm round her, he showed her a number of photographs. Lambs were there, and running fountains, and spangly stars, and peacocks, and doves. But those pages he turned over quickly, until he came to others: photographs of men and women dressed in white, carrying palms and holding crowns in their hands.

He told Lois that these people were 'Saints,' that they formed a long procession on the walls of a big church at Ravenna, far away in Italy; and that they were made of little pieces of a sort of shining glass called 'mosaic.' 'Saints have something to do with glass then. But these photographs are not a bit like my beautiful window,' Lois thought to herself, rather sadly. 'There are no colours here.' She turned over the photographs without much interest, until her father, exclaiming, 'There, that is the one I want!' showed her one portrait of a little girl standing among all the grown-up people, carrying just as big a palm and crown as any of the others. He told Lois that these crowns and palms were to show that the people who carried them had all been put to death or 'martyred,' because they would not worship heathen gods. He made Lois spell out the letters 'SCA. EULALIA' written on the halo around the little girl's head, 'That is Saint Eulalia,' her father explained. 'She was offered her freedom and her life if she would sacrifice to idols just one tiny grain of corn, to show that she renounced her allegiance to Jesus Christ; but when the corn was put into her hands she threw it all back into the Judge's face. After that, there was no escape for her. She was condemned to die, and she did die, Lois, very bravely, though she was only a little girl, not much older than you.' Here Lois hid her face against her father's coat and shivered. 'But after that cruel death, when her little body was lying unburied, a white dove hovered over it, until a fall of snowflakes came and hid it from people's sight. So you see, Lois, though Eulalia was only twelve years old when she was put to death, she has been called Saint Eulalia ever since, though it all happened hundreds of years ago. Children can be Saints as well as grown-up people, if they are brave enough and faithful enough.'

'Saints must be brave, and Saints must be faithful,' Lois repeated, as she shut up the big book and helped to carry it back to its shelf. 'But lots of other children have died since Sancta Eulalia was killed and her body was covered by the snow. Surely some of those children must have been brave and faithful too, even though they are not called Saints? They don't stand on glass windows, or wear those things that father calls haloes, and that I call plates, round their heads, with their names written on them. So Saints really are rather puzzling sort of people still. I do hope I shall find out more about them some day.'

Thus Lois went on wondering, till, gradually, she came to find out more of the things that make a Saint—not purple robes, or shining garments, or haloes; not even crowns and palms; but other things, quite different, and much more difficult to get.

'It is enough to vex a Saint!' her kind nurse exclaimed when Lois spilled her jam at tea, all down her clean white frock. Or, on other days, 'Oh dear! my patiences is not so good as they once were!' and, 'These rheumatics would try the patience of a Saint!' nurse would say, with a weary sigh.

'Then the reason my Nanny isn't a Saint is because she gets vexed when I'm naughty, and because she isn't patient when she has a pain,' reasoned Lois. 'What a number of things it does seem to take to make a Saint! But then it takes eggs and milk and butter and sugar and flour and currants and raisins too to make a cake. Saints must be brave and faithful; never get vexed; have patience always. Mother said patience was the beginning of everything, when I stamped my foot because I broke my cotton. Do Saints have to begin with patience too? If only I could see a real live one with my own eyes and find out!'

Yet, strange to say, when Lois was told that she was looking at a 'real live Saint' at last, the little girl did not even wish to believe it. This happened one Saturday afternoon. She was walking with her governess to a beautiful wooded Dene, through which a clear stream hurried to join the big black river that flowed past the windows of Lois' home. On the way to the Dene they passed near a broad marsh with stepping-stones across it. Close to the river Lois saw, in the distance, the roofs of some wretched-looking cottages. Evidently on her way to these cottages, balancing herself on the slippery stepping-stones, was a little old lady in a hideous black bonnet with jet ornaments that waggled as she moved, and shiny black gloves screwed up into tight corkscrews at the finger ends. She carried a large basket in one hand, and held up her skirts with the other, showing that she wore boots with elastic sides, which Lois particularly disliked.

'Look there!' her governess said to Lois, 'actually crossing the marsh to visit that den of fever! Old Miss S … may not be a beauty, but she certainly is a perfect Saint!'

'Oh no, she's not!' cried Lois with much vehemence. 'At least, I mean I hope she isn't,' she added the next minute. 'You see,' she went on apologetically, 'I have a very special reason for being interested in Saints; I don't at all want any of my Saints to look ugly like that. And, what is more, I don't believe they do!'

Many months passed before the time came, when she was least expecting it, that Lois saw, she actually did see, a 'real live Saint' for herself.

How did she know it was a Saint? Lois could not tell how she knew; but from the very first moment that she found herself looking up into one of the kindest, most loving faces that she had ever seen, she was perfectly sure that she had found a Saint at last. She saw no halo—at least no golden halo; but the white hair that tenderly framed the white face looked almost like a halo of silver, the little girl thought. It was not a beautiful face; at any rate not what Lois would have called beautiful beforehand. It had many wrinkles though the skin was fresh and clear. The eyes looked, somehow, as if they had shed so many tears long ago, that now there were no tears left to shed; nothing remained but smiles. Perhaps that was the reason they were nearly always smiling. As Lois looked up and saw that gentle old face bending over her, it gave her the same sort of mysterious feeling that she had when she gazed up into the cloudless blue sky at noonday, or into a night sky full of stars. She seemed to be looking up, as high as ever she could, into something infinitely far above her; and yet to be looking down into something as well, deep down into an endless depth. Or rather, she felt that she was neither looking up nor down, but that she was looking through. …

'Why, Saints are a sort of window after all,' Lois said to herself, as she gave a jump of joy—'real windows! Only not the glass kind! I have found out at last what makes a Saint, and what real live Saints look like. It is not being killed only; though I suppose they must always be ready to be killed. It is not being made of all the difficult things inside only; though, of course, they must always be full of them. It certainly isn't wearing ugly clothes or anything horrid. I know now what really and truly, and most especially, makes a Saint, and that is

LETTING THE SUNLIGHT THROUGH!'

So Lois had found out something for herself at last, had she not? Those are always the best sort of discoveries; but there are a great many more things to find out about Saints that Lois never thought of, in those days long ago. Most interesting things they are! That is one comfort about Saints—they are always interesting, never dull. Dull is the one thing that real Saints can never be, or they would stop being Saints that very minute. Even when Saints are doing the dullest, dreariest, most difficult tasks, they themselves are always packed full of sunshine inside that cannot help streaming out over the dull part and making it interesting.

This is one thing to remember about Saints; but there are many other things to discover. See if you can find out some of them in the stories that follow.

Only a few Saint stories are written here. You will read for yourself, by and by, many others: stories of older Saints, and perhaps of brighter Saints, or it may be even of saintlier Saints than these. But in this book are written the stories of some of the Saints who did not know that they were Saints at all: they thought that they were just quite ordinary men and women and little children, and that makes them rather specially comforting to us, who are just quite ordinary people too.

Moreover, these Quaker Saints never have been, never will be put on glass windows, or given birthdays or haloes or emblems of their own, like most of the other Saints. They have never even had their stories told before in a way that it is easy for children to understand.

That is why these particular stories have been written now, in this particular book

FOR YOU.