Читать книгу Vacation Rambles - Thomas Smart Hughes - Страница 24

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I have just come away from hearing a very remarkable sermon at the Protestant church here, of which I should like to give you some idea before it goes out of my head. The preacher was a M. Bevel, a native of Dieppe, now a minister at Amsterdam, where he has a high reputation. He is here visiting his mother, which visit I should say is likely to be cut short if he goes on preaching such sermons as he gave us to-day, or else a liberty is allowed in the pulpit in France which is not to be had elsewhere. The service began with a hymn. Then a layman read out the Commandments at a desk. Then we sang part of Psalm xxv.; one of the verses ran:

Qui craint Dieu, qui veut bien,

Jamais ne s’égarera,

Car au chemin qu’il doit suivre

Dieu même le conduira—

À son aise et sans ennui

Il verra le plus long âge,

Et ses enfans après lui

Auront la terre en partage.

Good healthy doctrine this, and an apt introduction to the sermon. While we were singing, M. Revel mounted the pulpit. He is a man of thirty-five or thereabouts; middlesized, bald, dark; with a broad brow, large gray eyes, and sharp, well-cut features. After two short extempore prayers—almost the only ones I have ever heard in which there was nothing offensive—he began his sermon on a text in Ecclesiastes. As it had little bearing on the argument, and was never alluded to again, I do not repeat it.

“There is much talk,” M. Revel began, “in our day about an order of nature. All acknowledge it; as science advances it is found more and more to be unchangeable. We ought to rejoice in this unchangeableness of the order of nature, for it is a proof of the existence of a God of order. Had we found the earth all in confusion it would have been a proof that there could be no such God. But this God has established a moral order for man as unchangeable as the order of nature. It was recognised by the heathen who worshipped Nemesis. The whole of history is one long witness to this moral order, but we need not go back far for examples. Look at Poland, partitioned by three great monarchs, and at what is happening and will happen there. Look at America, the land of equality, of freedom, of boundless plenty, and what has come on her for the one great sin of slavery. Look at home, at the story of the great man who ruled France at the beginning of our new era, the man of success—‘qui éblouissait lui-même en éblouissant les autres,’ who answered by victory upon victory those who maintained that principle had still something to say to the government of the world, and remember his end on the rock in mid-ocean.

“Be sure, then, that there is an unchangeable moral order, and this is the first law of it, ‘Qui fait du mal fait du malheur.’ The most noticeable fact in connection with this moral order which our time is bringing out is the solidarité of the human race. The solidarité of the family and the nation was recognised in old times. Now, commerce and intercourse are breaking down the barriers of nations. A rebellion in China, a war in America, is felt at once in France, and the full truth is dawning upon us that nothing but a universal brotherhood will satisfy men. But you may say that punishment follows misdoing so slowly that the moral order is virtually set aside. Do not believe it. ‘Qui fait du mal fait du malheur.’ The law is certain; but if punishment followed at once, and fully, on misdoing, mankind would be degraded. On the other hand, ‘Qui fait du bon fait du bonheur,’ and this law is equally fixed and unchangeable in the moral order of the world.

“You may wonder that I have scarcely used the name of Christ to you to-day; but what need? I have spoken of humanity; He is the Son of Man, of a universal brotherhood which has no existence without Him, of which He is the founder and the head.”

As we came out of church it was amusing to hear the comments of the audience, at least of the English portion. Some called it rank Socialism, others paganism, others good sound Christian teaching; but all seemed to agree that it was very stirring stuff, and that this would be the last time that M. Bevel would be allowed to address his old fellow-townsmen from the pulpit. Indeed, his sketch of Napoleon I. was much too true to be acceptable to Napoleon III., and though his doctrine of universal brotherhood may be overlooked, I should scarcely think that his historical views can be. I was utterly astonished myself to hear such a sermon in a French pulpit. I had never heard M. Bevel before; but his reputation, which seems to be very great, is thoroughly deserved. The sermon of which I have tried to give you a skeleton lasted for fifty minutes, and never flagged for a moment. Sometimes he was familiar and colloquial, sometimes impassioned, sometimes argumentative, but always eloquent. He spoke with his whole body as well as with his voice, which last organ was managed with rare skill; and, indeed, every faculty of the man was thoroughly trained for his work, and so well trained, that notwithstanding my English dislike to action or oratory in a pulpit, I never felt that it was overdone or in bad taste. In short, I never heard such scientific preaching, and came away disabused of the notion that extempore sermons must be either flat, or vulgar, or insincere. I only wish our young parsons would take the same pains in cultivating their natural gifts as M. Revel has done, and hope that any of them who may chance to read this will take an opportunity the next time they are at Amsterdam of going to hear M. Revel, and taking a lesson. I have been trying to satisfy myself for the last three days what it is which makes this town so wonderfully different from any English provincial town of the same size. I do not mean the watering-place end of it next the sea, which is composed of the crystal palace known as the établissement des bains, great hotels, and expensive lodging-houses,—this quarter is inhabited by strangers of all nations, and should be compared to Brighton or Scarborough,—but the quiet old town behind, which has nothing in common with the watering-place, and is as hum-drum a place as Peterborough. As far as I can make out, the difference lies in the enjoyment which these Dieppois seem to take in their daily business. We are called a nation of shopkeepers now by all the world, so I suppose there must be some truth in the nickname. But certainly the Englishman does his shopkeeping with a very bad grace, and not the least as if he liked it. He sits or stands at his counter with grim, anxious face, and it requires an effort, after one has entered his trap and asked a question as to any article, to retire without buying. The moment his closing time comes, up go the shutters, and he clears out of the shop, and takes himself off out of sight and hearing of it as fast as he can. But here in Dieppe (and the rule holds good, I think, in all French towns) the people seem really to delight in their shops, and by preference to live in them, and in the slice of street in front of them, rather than in any other place. In fact, the shops seem to be convenient places opened to enable their owners to causer with the greatest possible number of their neighbours and other people, rather than places for the receipt of custom and serious making of money. I doubt if any man is a worse hand at shopping than I, and yet I can go boldly into any shop here, and turn over the articles, and chaffer over them, and then go out without buying, and yet feel that I have conferred a benefit rather than otherwise on the proprietor of the establishment. And as to closing time, there is no such thing. The only difference seems to be that after a certain hour, if you choose to walk into a shop, you will probably find yourself in a family party. No one turns off the gas until he goes to bed, so as you loiter along you have the advantage of seeing everything that is going on, and the inhabitants have what they clearly hold to be an equivalent, the opportunity of looking at and talking about you. The master of the shop sits at his ease, sometimes reading his journal, sometimes still working at his trade in an easygoing way, as if it were a pleasure to him, and chatting away as he works. His wife is either working with her needle or casting up the accounts of the day, but in either case is ready in a moment to look up and join in any talk that may be going on. The younger branches of the family disport themselves on the floor, or play dominoes on the counter, or flirt with some neighbour of the opposite sex who has dropped in, in the further corners. The pastrycooks’ seem favourite social haunts, and often you will find two or three of the nearest shops deserted, and the inmates gathered in a knot round the sleek, neatly-shaved citizens who preside in spotless white caps, jackets, and aprons, over these temples of good things. In short, the life of the Dieppe burgher is not cut into sharp lengths as it would be with us, one of which is religiously set apart for trade and nothing else. Business and pleasure seem with him to be run together, and he surrounds the whole with a halo of small-talk which seems to make life run off wonderfully easily and happily to him. Whether his method of carrying on trade results in as good articles as with us I cannot say, for the Dieppois is by no means guileless enough to part with his wares cheap, so that I have had very little experience of them. But certainly the general aspect of his daily life, so much more easy, so much more social than that of his compeer in England, has a good deal of fascination about it. On better acquaintance very possibly the charm might disappear, but at first one is inclined strongly to wish that we could take a leaf out of his book, and learn to take things more easily. The wisdom which has learnt that there are vastly few things in this world worth worrying about will, I fear, be a long time in leavening the British nation.

The people of Dieppe are a remarkably well-conducted and discreet folk in every way—wonderfully so when one considers their close neighbourhood to the richest and most fashionable crowd which frequents any French watering-place. Of these, and their amusements, and habits, and wonderful costumes in and out of the sea, I have no room to speak in this letter. They are now gone, or fast going, and this is the time for people of moderate means and quiet tastes, who wish to enjoy the deliciously exciting air and pretty scenery of this very charming old sea town, which furnished most of the ships for the invasion of England eight hundred years ago, and will well repay the costs of a counter invasion. Only let the English invader take care when he sets his foot on the Norman shore, unless he thinks it worth while to be fleeced for the honour and glory of being under the same roof with French dukes, Russian princes, and English milords, to give a wide berth to the Hotel Royal. I am happy to say I do not speak from personal experience, but only give voice to the universal outcry against the extortion of this huge hotel, the most fashionable in Dieppe. The last story is that an English nobleman travelling with a courier, who arrived late one evening, did not dine, and left early the next morning, had to pay a bill of 75 francs for his entertainment. The bill must have been a work of-high art.

I hope in another letter to give you some notions of the watering-place life, which is very quaint and amusing, and as unlike our seaside doings as the old town is unlike our ordinary towns.