Читать книгу Shaken by the Wind - Ray Strachey - Страница 4

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All memory of the visit to the Shaker village had long since faded away. Sarah and Thomas had been married six years, and a multitude of other impressions had crowded upon them. Edmund, their son, had been born and was already five years old. Thomas was in the family business and Sarah was active in good works. They had not realized all their dreams, they had indeed fallen rather rapidly out of love, but they were nevertheless a contented and successful couple, neither of whom wished to change their lot.

There was one matter, however, in which they were not satisfied, and that was their religion. Both of them, from their different standpoints, had grown uneasy in the quiet humdrum of their Congregational Church, and both together they had wandered out into the bewildering mazes of religious experiment. To Thomas the chief attraction had been the excitement of a new emotion, the rapture of Conversion and Reconversion, the pleasant sense of being the centre of the stage. He was always an excellent penitent. To Sarah’s more genuine soul the driving force had been her longing to understand more of the ways of God. She was forever seeking for something which she had not yet found, and hoping for a real and reliable guidance. She had followed Thomas gladly in all his new theories, never feeling so secure as to be unwilling to move on, and yet, with each experience storing up more devotion and more true piety in her heart. There was something to be learnt from every group of earnest believers, she felt. “Where ever two or three are gathered together in My name——” And though as yet she had not been able to find absolute satisfaction, she believed it to lie somewhere on earth. It was the great business of life to seek it. Once she thought she had found it; that was in the period when she had joined the Methodists, and the belief had only been strengthened by the indignation of their more conservative friends. The actual faith had faded away, but the experience had given Sarah a freedom from religious convention which was very precious to her. This stage had really been broken off because both Sarah and Thomas had found the shouting and the groaning somewhat distasteful, but it had left behind it a great fervour for Sunday Schools and Bible Classes which had lasted longer. This, in its turn, had moderated, and then had come the anxiety as to Baptism, which had culminated in the immersion of both of them in the cold little tank under the floor of the Baptist Chapel.

Anna and James, on the other hand, had made no religious experiments at all. As time went on, indeed, they seemed to settle down into coldness, and although Anna, at any rate, remained as true a believer as ever, she seemed somehow to have lost her sense of the excitement of doctrinal affairs. “It will be all right whatever we do,” she once said to her sister. “God doesn’t mind much what we say. He knows we’re only children.” It was a soothing thought, and satisfied her conscience, but it did nothing to quiet Sarah.

“I can’t believe in that kind of a distant God,” she said; “one who doesn’t know or think enough about us to signify. You know, Anna, the Bible says He counts the hairs on our heads. And what are we in the world for, if not to find Him out?” And when Anna only smiled and shook her head, her sister grieved, and prayed for her, and suspected that it was James who was leading her astray.

While Sarah and Thomas were in the Baptist stage the great Revival of 1831 came their way. It had begun in New York with the rise of the Millerites, foretelling the date of the Second Coming; and, spreading in different forms, it swept over the Northern States. Connecticut was known as a “burnt district,” in which hardly a village escaped the conflagration, and the power of the Lord was plainly manifest. The full blast of the Revival had spent its force before it came towards Pennsylvania, but curious side winds of the movement were still blowing at that time, and one of these, the Perfect or Pauline teaching, found its way into Delaville township.

The missionary who brought the gospel was a young man of the name of John Andrew Norris, an eager, lean, young man, with a look of hard thinking and obvious ability about him. He came into the city with a letter of introduction to Thomas Sonning, and as a matter of course he was invited to stay at his house. And the natural consequence of this was that before many days had passed he had entirely converted his hosts.

In a very short time the religious circles of the city were in a whirl. Preaching was held daily, and then almost hourly. John Andrew Norris was in great demand, and earnest souls from the surrounding villages poured into the town. The Sonnings’ house, which sheltered the chief missionary, became crowded with guests, and the ordering and buying of food for such a concourse of people put a great strain on Sarah’s household resources. Everything mundane, however, faded out before the great light of the new Revelation, and Sarah, drinking in the Perfectionist doctrine, thought nothing of being over-worked. If sinless perfection was, as Norris maintained, a gift from God, and easily attainable in this life, then she, Sarah Sonning, was going to have it. Housekeeping should not stand in the way of so infinitely important an offer.

One of the remarkable things which the young preacher said was that he himself had become perfect, and that he could do no wrong. Curiously enough this claim, which would have seemed fantastic at any other time, passed unquestioned amid the revival fervour. It was not only Norris, but any one of them who could attain that blessed state. They had but to stretch out their hands! What wonder that converts were made?

After a short time, however, it became clear that these Perfectionist doctrines, remarkable as they were, were not the whole of the new faith. There was, it seemed, a still newer and more sacred revelation, which was the very kernel of it all. This secret doctrine could only be unfolded to the initiated, it was said, and many were the speculations which went about. There were reported to be but six of the initiated in Delaville, but many were full of hope. Two young girls, Dorcas and Flavilla, who lodged at the Sonnings’ house, were said to be among the six, and both Sarah and Thomas believed that their own call was at hand. They longed impatiently for its coming, and little knew in what a strange fashion it was to be made plain.

It was dark in the upper corridor of the Sonnings’ house, and only a very faint gleam of light came up the stairs from the hall below. The two girls who stood barefooted outside their bedroom door were frightened of the darkness; the inner light which was guiding them was not sufficient to dispel it. Not that either of them doubted for an instant the necessity for pushing on. Had they not received word from the Lord that they must do this thing? Did not they know that it was their duty to run the risk of misunderstanding, of scandal even, in the service of their Master? But all the same it was awesome, out there in the silent house—what was that creaking?

With whispers of fear and of encouragement, and with intense excitement they shut their door behind them, and stepped softly along the corridor. Their host and hostess slept in there—past the quiet room they went, and on, round the corner, towards the room where He lodged; He, the teacher, the man who had been chosen, marked out for their experiment.

It was a week now that they had been in this hospitable house. How long it seemed! The two girls had had time to forget their homes, and all the traditions in which they had been brought up; or, if not to forget, at least to discard them. In the wonder of these new doctrines how should they not? For they were in the inmost circle of disciples, and to-night they would be able to put their faith to the test.

As they slipped along in the dark they did not really think of anything. It was the cold touch of the floor, the fright, the pang of excitement, and the horrid feeling that it was too late to turn back which engrossed them. Flavilla’s heart was pumping so hard that she could feel its motion. Dorcas was uncomfortably dry at the throat, and yet she did not dare to swallow; they were both dreadfully alarmed. The door was just before them; an out-stretched hand feeling along the wall had touched its handle. All was dark and silent within.

They crept into the young man’s room, and then Flavilla made a light. The sudden flare showed the square room, the large bed, the young man sleeping upon it, and—oh, how terrible—his clothes, actually his trousers, crumpled and lying anyhow across a chair.

In the next instant the light went down, burning dim, as candles do when first lighted, and all the shadows bounded out again from the corners of the room, and the dark corridor outside was filled with terrors. The girls clutched each other again, and the candle slanted perilously in Flavilla’s shaking hand. But the flame burned up, and the candle was righted. It would not do to turn back now, especially as with the increased light things looked better. How innocently handsome John Andrew looked in his sleep!

With solemn faces the two girls advanced to the bed and sat down upon it. They were there to prove their freedom from carnal sin and carnal thoughts, and to establish once and for all the spiritual nature of the bond which united the brothers and sisters of the Lord. It was midnight, and this was the way it was done.

Half an hour later Thomas woke, wondering what noise it could be which disturbed him. Between the room he occupied and that of his principal guest there was a communicating door, shut and locked indeed, and with a heavy wardrobe before it, but still a door, with a crack at the top. Through this crack came a faint yellow light, and also, as Thomas soon realized, a faint unmistakable sound. People were moving and talking in the preacher’s room.

Thomas did not care to do things alone; he roused Sarah, and the two of them went out together into the same quiet corridor along which the girls had passed. There was no darkness for them, for Thomas carried a candle, but there was a sense of strangeness and uneasiness, even of alarm. They thought their guest must have been taken ill, and Sarah’s practical mind flew to hot water, mustard plasters and the like. She had thought him looking worn and pale; poor fellow, he worked too hard.

It was not illness, however, which seemed to be the matter. The opening door displayed a wholly unexpected scene, and indeed revealed the young man in the act of kissing Flavilla upon the cheek, his arm meanwhile encircling Dorcas as she sat upon his pillow. The two girls were fully wrapped up in dressing gowns, though their feet were bare. The young man was sitting up in his bed, his nightshirt imperfectly covered over with his jacket. The faces of all three were shining with a holy joy.

Thomas and Sarah were amazed at the sight. For an appreciable time they stared, not knowing what to do. Then Thomas, the fluent, began to speak. And Thomas was very angry. It was a scandal, he said, a monstrosity. “I can’t have such goings on in my house.” He would make it all known to the brethren, declare it on the housetops, publish it abroad. “A scandal, a shame and a disgrace.”

The culprits were perfectly unashamed. “We are doing no wrong, and you should think none,” they affirmed. “It is a trial of our chastity; we have been led thereto by the Lord.” But the girls got off the bed as they spoke.

The young preacher, sitting in his bed where he was, confirmed their strange words. They had meant no harm, and had done none. If Thomas knew all he would understand. He begged them to sit down and listen to the truth.

They sat down. Sarah noticed that Flavilla hesitated before lifting the trousers off the chair nearest to her, but she did it in the end, and they all gathered round the bed. John Andrew still sat among his sheets and blankets. He had nothing on his legs, and must perforce keep them in bed. But Sarah was the only one who thought of this. There was so much to be said!

Strange as the scene was, it quickly ceased to be awkward. The three Perfectionists were so sure of their doctrine, so earnest-minded! To Sarah also there seemed to be much good reason in what they were urging. An old memory of the visit to the Shakers flashed into her mind. Sarah was half converted already.

The doctrine which John Andrew unfolded was this: that when the Lord granted sinlessness to any soul He granted at the same time the Great Reward. And this reward was the power of forming holy and purified spiritual affinities which should take the place of all wicked earthly sensuality. Everything which was according to the flesh was sinful, as the Chosen knew. Even the bonds of matrimony were accursed, but there was a holy, spiritual mating which the Lord loved. Just as of old the Apostles had worked and travelled with “sisters” who were not their wives, so now, in this newly apostolic age, the perfect men and women would find a sacred union. How blissful and satisfying to the soul it was, none but the Chosen could know; but indeed it was as a pearl above price.

When Sarah asked what was the sign of this companionship, and how it was to be known, the young man turned eagerly towards her. Familiarities, he explained, which in others would be carnal wickedness would feel innocent to the Brethren of the Lord. Indeed, the possibility of caresses without danger, of love without passion, was the mark and sign of these spiritual bridals. And it had been the search for this treasure which had led, and very properly led, the two girls to the preacher’s room. They had not known which, if either of them, was his spiritual bride. But now they knew, without a doubt, that it was Flavilla. Henceforward he and she would be companions in innocence and in labour for the Lord.

This, then, was the great secret, the special revelation of the new Pauline Church. Those to whom it was vouchsafed were henceforth workers in the Lord’s vineyard. A few, as yet only a very few, had been enlightened, but the Lord was working fast. Chance, or rather the hand of the Lord, had opened it up before the eyes of Thomas and Sarah. They must now take or reject their opportunity.

These explanations unfolded slowly, and the dawn came to fade out the glimmer of their candles before all was properly said. They parted, agreed at any rate in the desire to conceal what had been going on from the servants. It was evidently a matter which needed much prayerful thought before it could be fully understood.