Chapter Twenty One.

Finale, at Cricketty Hall.

The letter and offer of Lady Morville poured a flood of sunshine into Jane’s heart, and helped to hasten her restoration to perfect health. Most thankfully did she accept the situation offered her by her former mistress, which restored her to an honourable position, and enabled her to earn her own living in a way suited to her abilities, experience, and strength. She wrote at once her earnest thanks, and her grateful acceptance of the proposed post, and it was arranged that she should leave her home for Monksworthy in the beginning of August. But Thomas Bradly had set his heart on having a special temperance demonstration before her departure; so it was put before Mr Maltby, and a grand temperance tea-party and open-air meeting at Cricketty Hall was announced for the second Saturday in July.

It soon got whispered about that something more than usual was to be expected in the speeches after the tea; and as every one knew that “Tommy Tracks” could get up a capital meeting, there was a good deal of attention drawn to the subject among the operatives and people generally in the town and neighbourhood. Bills of a large size had been duly posted, and small handbills left at every house; and a prayer-meeting had been held on the Wednesday evening previous, to seek a special blessing on the coming gathering, so that its promoters looked hopefully for a fine day, and were not disappointed.

Tea was to begin at 5 p.m., and the meeting as near half-past six as could be accomplished. Crossbourne human nature, like the human nature in most English manufacturing districts, had a great leaning to tea-parties and fêtes, the latter name being sometimes preferred by the younger men as being more imposing. On the present occasion there was an abundance of interested and willing helpers, so that early in the Saturday afternoon the road to Cricketty Hall was all alive with comers and goers, more or less busy with band and tongue; while carts of many shapes and sizes were conveying the eatables and drinkables up to the old ruin. The tea-tickets had sold well, and there was evidently much expectation in the minds of the public generally.

About half-past three o’clock the Temperance and Band of Hope members came flocking into the market place, Bradly being there to keep order, with Foster and Barnes as his helpers. The last of these had charge of a small basket, which he now and then glanced at with a grin of peculiar satisfaction. Then the band mustered in full force—a genuine temperance band, which never mingled its strains of harmony with streams of alcohol. And oh, what a noble drum it boasted of!—could musical ambition mount higher than to be permitted the privilege of belabouring thundering sounds out of its parchment ends? Such clearly was the view of two of the youngest members of the Band of Hope, who were gazing with fond and awed admiration at the big drum itself and its highly favoured bearer.

Shortly before four o’clock the vicar and his sister made their appearance; and then, in a little while, the procession, with appropriate banners flying, large and small, was on its way, Mr and Miss Maltby marching at the head, and Thomas Bradly bringing up the rear. In front of the procession was the band, which struck up a lively air as all stepped forward, the drum being particularly emphatic at every turning. Just at the outskirts of the town an open carriage joined the long line: there were in it Mrs Maltby and her daughter, who had returned from the seaside a few days before, and Jane Bradly, who was not yet equal to much exertion.

On, on they marched, bright and happy, conscious that their cause was a good one, and that their enjoyment would not be marred by any excesses. The day was charming; there had been just enough rain during the preceding night to lay the dust and freshen up the vegetation, while the ardent rays of the sun were tempered from time to time by transient screens of semi-transparent clouds. As the procession neared Cricketty Hall, a cooling breeze from the west sprang up, just enough to ruffle out the banners, as they were carried proudly aloft, without distressing their bearers. Then the band, which had been silent for a while, put on the full power of lungs and muscle in one prolonged outburst of boisterous harmony; and just at five minutes to five the whole body of the walkers, old and young, was drawn up in due order in front of the ruined gateway.

It was just the right spot for such a summer’s gathering. Far away towards the south sloped the fields, disclosing on either hand many a snug farm-house amidst its ripening crops, and to the extreme east an undulating range of dim, blue, shadowy hills. Facing a spectator, as he stood with his back to the ruined gateway, was the town of Crossbourne, with its rougher features softened down by the two miles of distance; its tall chimneys giving forth lazy curls of smoke, as though pausing to rest after the ceaseless labours of a vigorous working week. The noble railway viaduct, spanning the wide valley, was rendered doubly picturesque by its nearest neighbours of houses being hidden on one side by a projecting hill; while the greater part of the old church was visible, seeming as though its weather-beaten tower were looking down half sternly, half kindly on the eager thousands, who were living, too many of them, wholly for a world whose glory and fashion were quickly passing away. And now, till a bandsman should give a trumpet-signal for tea, all the holiday-makers, both old and young, dispersed themselves among the ruins, and through the wood, and over the rising ground in the rear.

Strange contrast! Those crumbling stones, that time-worn archway, those shattered windows, that rusty portcullis, all surely, though imperceptibly, corroding under the ceaseless waste of “calm decay,” and sadly suggestive of wealth, and power, and beauty all buried in the dust of bygone days; and, on the other hand, the lusty present, full of vigour, energy, and bustling life, to be seen in the gaily-decked visitors swarming amidst the ruins in every direction, and to be heard in the loud shouts and ringing laughter of children, and of men and women too, who had sprung back into their childhood’s reckless buoyancy for a brief hour or two.

And now the shrill blast of the trumpet called the revellers to tea. This was set out in rough but picturesque form, in the centre of what had once been the great hall. New-planed planks, covered with unbleached calico, and supported on trestles, formed the tables; while the tea-making apparatus had been set up in what had originally been the kitchen, near to which there welled up a stream of the purest water.

When as many were seated as could be accommodated at once, the vicar was just about to give out the opening grace, when a young man decorated with an exceedingly yellow waistcoat, and as intensely blue a temperance bow, came hastily up to him, and whispered mysteriously in his ear. The smile with which this communication was received showed that there was nothing amiss. Having asked the assembled company to wait for a minute, Mr Maltby hastened out of the building, and quickly returned, leading in Dr and Mrs Prosser. A shout of surprised and hearty welcome greeted the entrance of the new guests.

“This is not to me,” said the vicar, “an altogether unexpected pleasure; but I would not say anything about the doctor’s coming, as, though I had invited him, he left it very doubtful whether his engagements would allow him to be here, and I had pretty well given him up. But I am sure we are all rejoiced to see him among us on this happy occasion.”—There could be no doubt of that, and the doctor and his wife being accommodated with places, grace was sung, and the tea began in earnest.

If you want thoroughly to appreciate a good tea, be in the habit of drinking nothing stronger, take a moderate walk on a bright, blowy summer’s afternoon, have a scramble with a lot of little children till all your breath is gone for the time being, and then sit down, if you are privileged to have the opportunity, in the open-air, to such a meal as was spread before the temperance holiday-makers of Crossbourne. Dr Prosser and his wife thought they had never enjoyed anything more in their lives, and looking round saw a sparkling happiness on every face, the result in part, at any rate, of partaking of that most gentle, innocent, and refreshing of stimulants—tea.

But even the most importunate tea-cup must rest at last; and so, while the first division, having been fully satisfied, gave way to a second, the band struck up a torrent of music, and in due time sat down themselves with those whom they had helped to cheer with their enlivening strains. And now the last cup of tea had been emptied, and the most persevering of the Band of Hope boys had reluctantly retired, leaving an unfinished plate of muffins master of the field.

The fragments were gathered up, the tables and trestles removed, and the trumpeter, invigorated by his inspiriting meal, poured forth a blast loud and long to recall the stragglers. It was close upon half-past six, and all began now to assemble, pouring in from all quarters into the central open space. A few chairs had been brought, and were appropriated to the ladies and speakers. Two large cake-baskets turned on their ends, with two stout planks across them, served for a table, which was placed in front of a huge fragment of a buttress, beneath which irregular masses of fallen moss-covered stone made very fairly comfortable seats for some of the more special friends and supporters; while the audience generally were seated all up and down within hearing distance, forming a most picturesque congregation, as they sat, or stood, or lay down, as proved most convenient. By the time the vicar was ready to commence the proceedings, the space all round him was rapidly filling with men and women from the town, who had not been at the tea, but were drawn by interest or curiosity to be present at the after-meeting.

All were very silent as the vicar, after the usual preliminary hymn and prayer, rose, and began as follows:—

“I make no apology, dear friends, for being about to occupy a portion of your time by addressing you this evening; but I shall not detain you long. Still, what I have to say is of deep importance to you all, and, therefore, I must ask your earnest and patient attention.

“Without further preface, then, I do earnestly desire to impress upon you all this truth, that there can be no real peace, no solid happiness in this world, unless we are consciously seeking to live to the glory of God. I look around me, and see with alarm, in these days of increased knowledge and intelligence, how entirely many thoughtful people are living without God in the world; I mean, without having any conscious communion or connection with him.

“This is so very dangerous a feature of our times, because there is at the same time a very widely spread respect for religion. Coarse abuse and reviling of religion and religious people are frowned upon now by all persons of education and refinement as vulgar and illiberal. But yet, with this respect for religion and its followers, there seems to be growing up a conviction or impression that people can be good, and happy, and profitable in their day without any religion at all. If you are religious, well and good, no one should meddle with you; and if you are consistent, all should respect you, and it would be exceedingly bad taste to quarrel with you for your opinions. But then, if you are not religious, well and good too, no one should meddle with you, and it would be very uncharitable, and in very bad taste, to quarrel with you about your creed or views. Religion, in fact, is becoming with many a matter of pure indifference—a matter of taste; you may do well with it, and you may do as well, or nearly as well, without it.

“Hence it has come to pass that there are to be found men of science and learning who never trouble themselves about religion at all. They would certainly never care to abuse it; but then they plainly think that science, and the world, and society can get on perfectly well without it.

“And what is worse still, even professedly religious people are being carried down this stream of opinion, without being fully or perhaps at all conscious whither it has been leading them. Thus, even ladies professing godliness are being entangled by the intellectual snares of the day, and are so pursuing the shadows of this world—its honours, its prizes, its mind-worship—as to become by degrees almost wholly separated from God and thoughts of him. And thus, while they do not outwardly neglect the ordinances of religion, they have ceased to meet God in them; they hear in them a pleasing sound rather than a living voice, and find themselves offering to God, when they join in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, rather a mere musical accompaniment than the intelligent melody of a heart that believes and loves.

“Oh, don’t be deceived, dear friends, any of you. You who go to the mills, or are engaged in any other manual labour, don’t think, because you may be spending your evenings and leisure in mechanics’ institutes, or in attending science classes, or in working up scientific subjects, that in these pursuits you can find real peace, without religion and without God; that religion is no matter of necessity, but only a comfortable and creditable superfluity; or that, at any rate, by using outward attendance on religious ordinances, as a sort of make-weight, you can be solidly happy while your hearts are far from God. It cannot be. You are not thus disgracing our common humanity like the drunkards and profligates, but, then, you are not fulfilling the true law of your being; you cannot be doing so while you are travelling all your lives in a circle which keeps you ever on the outside of the influence of the love and of the grace of that God who made you and that Saviour who redeemed you.

“Don’t mistake me, dear friends; I rejoice with all my heart to see progress of every kind amongst you, so long as it is real. Some people say that we ministers of the gospel are foes to education and to intellectual progress. Nay, it is not so. I will tell you what we are foes to, and unflinching foes; we are foes to all that is false and hollow, and we assert that nothing can be sound and true which puts the God who made us out of his place, and thrusts him down from his rightful throne in our hearts. Study science by all means, cultivate your intellects, elevate your tastes, refine your pursuits. But then, remember that you are, after all, not your own in any of these things, for Christ has purchased you for himself. Begin with him, and he will give you peace, and an abiding blessing upon all that you do; but never suppose that you can be really living as you ought to live,—that is, as God made you and meant you to live,—while you are feeding your intellects and starving your souls.

“And now I will only add how happy I am to meet you all here. We are about soon to part with one who is well-known to many of you,—Jane Bradly. It is partly in connection with the Lord’s wonderful dealings with her, as you will hear shortly from her brother Thomas, that we have set on foot this happy gathering. It is one cheering sign of real progress in Crossbourne that our Temperance Society and Band of Hope are so nourishing. You know the rock on which we have founded them; I mean, on love to the Lord Jesus Christ. May these societies long flourish! I trust we shall gain some members to-night; for Thomas, I know, has got the pledge-book with him. And now I have much pleasure in calling on William Foster to address you.”

When Foster rose to speak there was a deep hush, a silence that might be felt.

“If I had come to a gathering like this a year ago,” began the speaker, “it would have been as a mocker or a spy. But how different are things with me to-day! I am now one of yourselves, a total abstainer upon principle, an unfeigned believer in the Bible, and a loyal though very unworthy disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have good cause to remember these old ruins, as you all know; but you do not many of you know how I used to spend Sabbath after Sabbath here in gambling; and yet the good Lord bore with me. And it is not long since that he gave me a wonderful deliverance, not far from the spot where I now stand. But I am not going to refer any more to that, except to say, let by-gones be by-gones. I bear no ill-will to those who have shown themselves my enemies. What I want to do now, for the few minutes that I shall stand here, is just to give you my experience about the Bible.

“When I was professedly an unbeliever, I thought I knew a great deal about the Bible, and I used to lay down the law, and talk very big about this inconsistency and that inconsistency in the Scriptures, and I just read those books which supplied me with weapons of attack. But I was in utter ignorance of what the Bible really was; and had I read it from beginning to end a thousand times over,—which I never did, nor even once,—it would have been all the same, for I should not have read it in a candid spirit—I should not have wanted to know what it had to tell me.

“It’s just perfectly natural. I remember that two of our men went up to London some time ago, and they strolled together into the Kensington Museum. When they came back, we asked them what they had seen there, and what they liked best. One of them had seen a great number of rich and curiously inlaid cabinets, but he could call to mind nothing else, though he had spent hours in the place, and had been all over it upstairs and downstairs. As for the other man, he couldn’t for the life of him remember anything, but he could tell you all about the dinner they had together at a chop-house afterwards,—what meat, what vegetables, what liquor they had, and how much it cost to a penny. You see it was what their mind was set on that really engrossed their attention.

“And so it is in going through the Bible: you’ll not get a word of instruction from it, if you go in at Genesis and come out at Revelation, if you go in with an unteachable mind. God would have us ask him humbly, but not dictate to him. Or you may notice in the Bible just such things as you want to notice, and not see anything else, though it’s as plain as daylight. So it was with me, and so it has been and will be with thousands of sceptics. I just looked into a Bible now and then to find occasion for cavilling and scoffing, and I found what I wanted. But I missed all the love, and the mercy, and the promises, and the holy counsel, and never so much as knew they were there, though my eyes passed over them continually.

“But now the Bible is a new book to me altogether. I can truly say, in its own words, ‘The law of thy mouth is dearer unto me than thousands of gold and silver.’ The more I read, the more I wonder: often and often, when I come to some marvellous passage, I am constrained to stop and bow my head in astonishment and adoration. There’s nothing like studying the book itself—asking God, of course, to give one the guidance of his Holy Spirit. The more I read, the more I find verses that just as exactly fit into my own experience as if they had been penned especially in reference to the history, circumstances, character, and wants of William Foster; and no doubt they were, for that’s a most wonderful thing about the Bible, and shows that it is God’s book,—I mean that it as much suits each individual man’s case as if it had been originally written for that man only.

“I remember there was an American in our country some years ago, who said he would open any lock you could bring him; and so I believe he did, by making ingenious picks that would get into the most complicated locks. But that’s nothing to the Bible; for without any force or difficulty it comes as one universal key that will unlock every heart, and open up its most secret thoughts and feelings, and then throw light and peace into the darkest corners. This is what the Bible has been and is to me; it shows me daily more of myself, and more of Christ and his love, and more of a heaven begun on earth.

“Now I would just advise and urge you all to take up this blessed book in a humble and teachable spirit, and you’ll find it to be to you what God in his mercy has made it to me. And I’ll tell you how to deal with difficulties, and hard places, and so on. Now, mind, I’m only just giving you a leaf out of my own experience. I’m not setting myself up as a teacher. I’m not saying a word to disparage God’s ministers, for they are specially appointed by him to study, and unfold, and expound the Word; and I can only say with sincere thankfulness that I come home with new light on the Bible from every sermon which I hear from our earnest and deeply taught clergyman. But, as regards our own private reading, just let me say, if you come to a hard place, read it again; and if you don’t understand it then, read it again; and if you don’t understand it then, why, read somewhere else in the book, and you’ll find that the more you study the Word throughout, the more one passage will throw light upon another, the more your mind and heart will expand and embrace and understand truths which were wholly hidden or only imperfectly seen before. This, at any rate, is my own happy experience, and my dear wife’s also. May God make it the experience of every one of you.”

He sat down again amidst the profoundest silence, and then all joined heartily in the hymn beginning,—

“Holy Bible, book divine,
Precious treasure, thou art mine.”

The vicar then called upon James Barnes to speak.

“Well, I don’t know,” began Jim, starting up, and plunging headlong into his address; “I don’t feel at all fit to stand up in such a company as this, and yet I’ve got summat to say, and it’s a good deal to the point too, I think. At our last public temperance meeting, the first I’d the pleasure of speaking at, we had a noisy set of fellows trying to put me down, and now we’re all as quiet as lambs.

“Well, William Foster’s just been giving you his experience about the Bible, and I can say amen to all he’s been a-saying; I mean this, that the good book’s been doing for him and me just what he says. It’s been and made a changed man of him, there’s no doubt about that. He’s been a kind friend to me, and he’s been a kind friend to many as has often had nothing but hard words for him. I like to see a man live up to what he professes.

“Perhaps you’ll say, ‘Jim, why don’t you set us an example?’ Well, I’m trying, and I hopes to do better by-and-by. But there’s no mistake about William. He aren’t like a chap I heard talk of the other day. A friend of mine were very much taken up with him.—‘Eh! You should hear him talk,’ he says. ‘You never heard a man talk like him; he’d talk a parrot dumb, he would.’—‘Very likely,’ says I; ‘but does he practise what he preaches?’—‘Why, they reckon not,’ says my friend. Now that sort don’t suit me; and it oughtn’t to suit any of us, I’m sure. We temperance people aren’t like that.

“Ah! It’s a fine thing is this temperance, if you only get hold of it by the Bible end. See what it’s been and done for me and mine. Look at my wife Polly there, sitting on that big stone—(Nay, Polly, ’tain’t no use your shaking your head and winking; I must have it out)—just look at her: you wouldn’t believe as she’s the same woman if you’d only seen her at our old house a year ago. I can scarce believe myself as she’s the same sometimes. I has to make her stand at the other end of the room now and then to get a long view of her, to be sure she’s the same. She’s like a new pin now, bright and clean, with the head fixed on in the right place.

“Ah! You may laugh, friends, but it’s nothing but the plain truth. There’s a deal of difference in pins. You just take up a new one, as shines all over like silver, and it’ll stand hard work, and it’s just as if it were all of a piece—that’s like my wife now. But you get hold of an old yaller crooked pin, with point bent down to scratch you, and when you try to make use of it, the head’s in the wrong place, it’s got slipped down, and the thick end of the pin runs into your finger, and makes you holler out—that’s like what my wife was. But she’s not a bit like that now; she’s like the new pin, bless her; and it’s been Tommy Tracks—I begs his pardon—it’s been Mr Thomas Bradly, and the Bible, and the temperance pledge as has been and gone and done it all.

“And then there’s the children. Why, they used to have scarce a whole suit of clothes between ’em, and that were made of nearly as many odd pieces and patches as there’s days in the year. And as for boots, why, when they’d got to go anywheres, one on ’em, on an errand, and wanted to look a bit respectable, he were forced to put on the only pair of boots as had got any soles to ’em, and that pair belonged to the middlemost, but they fitted the eldest middlin’ well, as they let in plenty of air at the toes. And what’s the case now? Why, on a Saturday night you can see a whole row of boots standing two and two by the cupboard door, and they shines so bright with blacking, the cat’s fit to wear herself out by setting up her back and spitting at her own likeness in ’em. It’s the gospel and temperance as has done this.

“But that ain’t all. I’ve knowed two of our lads fight over a dirty crust as they’d picked out of the gutter, for their mother hadn’t got nothing for them to eat,—how could she, poor thing, when the money had all gone down my throat? It’s very different now. We’ve good bread and butter too on our table every day, with an onion or two, or a red herring to give it a relish, and now and then a rasher of bacon, or a bit of fresh meat; and before so very long I’ve good hopes as we shall have a pig of our own. Eh! Won’t that be jolly for the children? I told ’em I thought of getting one soon. Says our little Tom, ‘Daddy, how do they make the pig into bacon?’ ‘They rub it with salt,’ says I. Next day, at dinner-time, I watched him put by a little salt into a small bag, and next day too, and so on for a week. So at last I says, ‘What’s that for, Tommy?’ ‘Daddy,’ says he, ‘I’m keeping it for the new pig. Eh! Won’t I rub it into him, and make bacon of him, as soon as he comes?’

“But I ax your pardon, friends, for telling you all this.—‘Go on,’ do you say? Well, I’ll go on just for a bit. So you see what a blessing the giving up the drink has been to me and my family. And, what’s better still, it’s left room for the gospel to enter. It couldn’t get in when the strong drink blocked up the road. I’m not going to boast; I should get a tumble, I know, if I did that. It ain’t no goodness of mine, I’m well aware of that. It’s the Lord’s doing, and his blessing on Thomas Bradly’s kindness and care for a poor, wretched, ruined sinner like me. But here’s the fact: we has the Bible out now every night in our house, and I reads some of the blessed book out loud, and then we all kneels us down and has a prayer; and we goes to church on Sundays, and it’s like a little heaven below. Rather different that from what it used to be on the Sabbath-day, when I were singing and drinking with a lot of fellows, and it were all good fellowship one minute, and perhaps a kick into the street or a black eye the next. Ay, and there’s many of the old lot as knows the change, and what the Lord’s done for me, and they’re very mad, some on ’em; but that don’t matter, so long as they don’t make a madman of me.

“But just a word or two for you boys and girls of the Band of Hope afore I sit down.—Now, I’ve brought with me, by Mr Bradly’s leave, something to show you.” So saying, he beckoned to a young man, who handed him a small basket. He opened it, and produced a small jar with a brush in it. A half-suppressed murmur of merriment ran through the crowd. “Ah! You know what this is, I see,” continued James Barnes. “’Tain’t the first time as this has made its appearance in Cricketty Hall. Now, I’m not going to say anything ill-natured about it. As William Foster has said, ‘let by-gones be by-gones.’ It’s very good of him to say so, and I only mean to give you a word or two on the subject. This little jar has got tar in it, and tar’s a very wholesome and useful thing in its proper place. Now, a few months ago them as shall be nameless meant to daub William all over with this, and feather him afterwards, because he wouldn’t break his pledge. A cowardly lot they was to deal so with one man against a dozen of ’em; but that’s neither here nor there. I only want you, boys and girls, to take example by William, and stick to your pledge through thick and thin. See how the Lord protected him, and how his worst enemy were caught in his own trap. He were just winding a cord round his own legs when he thought he’d got William’s feet fast in the snare. Now, boys and girls, when you’re tempted to break the pledge, just think of this jar of tar, and offer up a prayer to be kept firm. ’Twouldn’t be a bad thing—specially if you’re much in the way of temptation—just to get a jar like this of your own, and hang it up in the wash-house, and put some good fresh tar in it, and, just before you go to your work of a morning, take a good long sniff at the tar—it’s a fine healthy smell is tar—and maybe it’ll be a help to you the whole day. There, I’ve done.”

And he sat down as abruptly as he had risen, amid the hearty cheers and laughter of his hearers.

The vicar then introduced Dr Prosser, remarking that he was sure that those who had heard him lecture last April would be delighted to listen to his voice again. The doctor, who was vociferously cheered, stood forward and said:—

“I have the greatest pleasure in being with you, dear friends, to-day. I have heard a great deal of what has been going on from your excellent vicar, and have now listened with the deepest interest to the characteristic speeches which have just been made. I shall be glad now to say a few words, and to add my testimony to the importance of certain truths which need enforcing in our day. Thomas Bradly is to follow me, and I feel sure that his homely eloquence and plain practical good sense will be a fit termination to this most truly interesting meeting.

“What I would now urge upon you all is this,—the unspeakable importance in these days of grasping realities instead of hunting shadows. I have been, I fear, till lately, more or less of a shadow-hunter myself. I used to sympathise with the cry,—

“‘For names and creeds let senseless bigots fight—
He can’t be wrong whose life is in the right.’

“But I don’t think this now. We men of science are too apt to deal with abstractions, and to follow out favourite theories, till we are in danger of forgetting that we have hearts and souls as well as heads; that, as has been beautifully said, ‘The heart has its arguments as well as the understanding;’ and that, as God’s Word tells us, ‘The things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.’ I am more and more strongly persuaded of this every day. We are living in times of immense energy and surprising intellectual activity, but, at the same time, are surrounded with unrealities or half-realities. We want something to grasp that will never deceive us, never fly from us. Anything—like mere vague generalities will never satisfy beings constituted as you and I are; and thus it is that we cannot do without something real in our religion, something definite. We want to come into real communion with a personal Being, whom we can consciously, though spiritually, approach, love, and reverence. We want a real person such as ourselves, and yet infinitely above ourselves; and such an one we have in the Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour—one who is like us as man, yet infinitely above us as God—one who can smile on us, because he is human, and can watch over us, guide us, and bear with us, because he is divine.

“Be sure of this, dear friends,—and I am speaking to you now as persons of intelligence, who can thoughtfully weigh what I say,—science can never be true science, knowledge can never be real knowledge which sets aside the God who is the fountain of all truth and every kind of truth. If we are to learn anything aright and thoroughly, we must learn it as believers in Him in whom ‘we live, and move, and have our being,’ who has given us all our faculties, and placed us in the midst of that universe all of whose laws are of his own imposing and maintaining. Depend upon it, you cannot acquire any sound and useful knowledge aright, if you try and keep up an independence of that God who is the author and upholder of all things physical and spiritual. At the Cross we must learn the only way of peace for our souls; and, in dependence on the grace and wisdom of Him who is in every sense the Light of the world, we must seek to make real advance in every field of knowledge, content to know and feel our own ignorance, and thankful to gain light in all our investigations from Him who can at the same time baffle the searchings of the wisest, and unfold to the humble yet patient and persevering inquirer treasures of knowledge and wisdom otherwise unattained and unattainable. In a word, as the whole universe belongs to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and was made by him what it is, if we would pursue any branch of knowledge, any science whatever, with the truest and fullest prospect of success, we must do it as Christians, as in dependence on Him ‘in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.’

“This, I am well aware, is not the tendency of the age, which is rather to seek knowledge apart from God, and to treat science and religion as distant and cold acquaintances, instead of loving and inseparable friends.—But now I gladly give way to my old friend Thomas Bradly, who has, I know, something to tell us which will do us good, if we will only carry it away with us.”

“Yes,” said Bradly, slowly and thoughtfully, as he took the speaker’s place, by the vicar’s invitation, “it is true, dear friends, that I have something of moment to say to you. This has truly been a happy day to me so far. I rejoice in the presence of so many dear friends; and it is indeed kind of Dr Prosser to be at the trouble to come among us, and give us those words of weighty counsel which we have just heard. I have listened to the other speeches also with very great satisfaction. I think we’re got on the right foundation, and we only wants to stick there.

“Well now, dear friends, I’ve got something to show you here. Look at this little book; it ain’t got much outward show about it, but it’s got the old-fashioned words of God’s truth inside. It was my mother’s Bible afore she were married, and a blessed book it were to her, and to her children too. I think I can see her now, sitting of a summer’s evening, after the day’s work were done, under an old apple tree, on a seat as my father had made for her. She would get us children round her, and be so happy with her little Bible, reading out its beautiful stories to us, and telling us of the love of Jesus. She always read the Bible to us with a smile, unless we’d any of us been doing anything wrong, and then she read to us what the Bible tells us about sin, and she looked grave indeed then.

“Well, when she died, the little book were left to our Jane—her mother wished it so—and Jane prized it more than gold, and used to mark her favourite verses with a line of red-ink under ’em; it were her way, and helped to bring the passages she wished particularly to remember more quickly to her eye. But the Lord was ordering and overruling this marking for his own special purposes. Look at the book again; you can many of you see the red lines.

“Now, it’s some years ago as me and mine was living a long way off from here. Jane were in service at a great house, and the butler and lady’s-maid, who hated the truth and poor Jane, because she loved it and stood up for it, managed to take away her character in the eyes of her mistress; but the Lord has graciously opened her mistress’s eyes at last, and that cloud is passed away for ever. I only mention this just to bring in this little book. The butler, to vex poor Jane, had taken away her Bible from her before he took away her character; but what happened? Why, when she had left the place, he goes to his drawer and takes out the Bible when he were looking for summat else; for he’d quite forgot as he’d hid it there. He sees the red lines, and reads the verses over them, and they make him think, and he’s brought to repentance.

“The little book’s beginning to do great things. He wants to restore the book, and make amends to Jane, does the butler; but he’s been such a rogue, he’s obliged to take himself away into foreign parts somewhere. But I don’t doubt but what he’ll come right in the end; the Word’ll not let him alone till it’s brought him to the foot of the cross. As he’s on his way abroad, he leaves the Bible at the station here to be taken to our house; but it manages to get lost on the way, and turns up at last in the tap-room of a public-house. Now, just mark this. If the Bible had come straight to our house, it would have helped to clear Jane’s character with her mistress, and no more; but there were other work for it to do. The publican’s daughter gets hold of it, and sees the red lines. She sees the verses above ’em, and they pricks her conscience. She don’t like this, and she resolves to get rid of the book. Yes, yes; but the little book has taken good aim at her heart, and shot two or three arrows into it, and she can’t get ’em out; it’s been doing its work, or rather the Lord’s work. So she takes it with her in the dark, and drops it into William Foster’s house, of all places in Crossbourne.

“Just fancy any one leaving a Bible in that house ten months ago. But it came at the very nick of time. William’s wife were in great trouble, and she’d tried a great many sticks to lean upon, but they’d all snapped like glass when she leaned her weight on ’em—she found nothing as’d ease the burden of an aching heart. It were just at the right time, then, as the little Bible fell into her room. She took it up, noticed the red lines, and some precious promises they was scored under, and by degrees she found peace.—Eh, but William must know nothing of this; how he would scoff if he found his wife reading the Bible!—But what’s this? William finds his missus quite a changed woman; she’s twice the wife to him she was, and his home ain’t like the same place. What’s the secret of this change? He don’t like to ask; but he watches, and he finds the worn old Bible hidden in the baby’s cradle. He reads it secretly; he prays over it; the scales fall from his eyes; he becomes a changed man; he comes out boldly and nobly for Christ; he and his wife rejoice together in the Lord.

“But the little homely book hadn’t quite done its work yet. Foster one night asks me to help him in a little trouble which the words of the book had got him into. Strange that, isn’t it? No, ’tain’t strange; ’cos there’s deep things, wonderful things, and terrible things in that blessed book; but then there’s light too to help you past these deep pits, if you’ll only use the Word as God’s lamp. I takes up the Bible to help William to a bright text or two, and I sees my mother’s name in the cover. Here was our long-lost Bible; its work so far were done, and now it’s got back to its rightful owner. But after we’d got it back we’d some time to wait; but waiting-times are blessed times for true Christians. At last the full evidence, of which Jane’s Bible were one little link, came up, and my dear sister’s character were cleared of every spot and stain as had been cast upon it by her fellow-servants.

“Now, what I want you to notice, dear friends, is just this—how wonderfully the Lord has worked in this matter. If my dear sister had not suffered in the first instance from the tongue of the slanderer, that blessed book’d never have done all this good, as far as we can see. The butler wouldn’t have been convinced of sin; the publican’s daughter wouldn’t have been brought to repentance and praise; William and his wife wouldn’t have been made happy and rejoicing believers. And indeed, though I can’t explain all now, neither, as far as we can tell, would Jim Barnes have been what he now is, with his missus like a new pin, nor would poor Ned Taylor have died a humble penitent. All these precious fruits have growed and ripened out of the loss of my dear sister’s Bible. And she herself—well, it’s been a sore trial, but it’s yielded already the peaceable fruit of righteousness. She’s lost nothing in the end but a little dross, and her sorrow has helped to bring joy to many.

“Now, I ask you all to cling to the grand old book; to use it as a sword and a lamp,—a sword against your spiritual enemies, and a lamp to guide you to heaven. We’ve heard a good deal just now of the special dangers of our own times, how people are getting wise above what’s written. Ah! But ‘the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.’ Dr Prosser’s a man of science, and you’ve heard his experience. You see he finds he can’t get on without the old-fashioned gospel. A religion without a regular creed’s no use at all. He’s found out as religion without a real human and divine Saviour’s only moonshine; nay, it’s no shine at all; it’s just darkness, and nothing else. There’s a striking verse in the prophet Jeremiah as just suits these days. It’s this, and I’m reading it out of Jane’s Bible. You’ll find it in Jeremiah, the eighth chapter and the ninth verse: ‘The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the Lord; and what wisdom is in them?’ Well, but do you cling to the old Bible—there’s nothing like it. There’s many a showy life just now as looks well enough outside; but if you want a life as’ll wear well you must fashion it by God’s Word.

“Now, afore I sits down, I’m just a-going to tell you about Dick Trundle’s house-warming.—Dick were one of them chaps as are always for making a bit of a show, and making it cost as little as possible. He were a hard-working man, and didn’t spend much in drink, so he managed to get a little money together, and he puts up half-a-dozen houses. The end one were bigger than the rest, and had a bow-window to it.—Well, Dick were a bachelor, and had an old housekeeper to do for him. When his new houses were built, and he were just ready to go into his own, he resolves to have a house-warming, and he invites me and three other chaps to tea and supper with him. We’d some of us noticed as he’d been sending a lot of things to the house for days past.—When the right day was come, we goes to the front door, ’cos it looked more civil, and we knocks. Dick himself comes to the door, and says through the keyhole, ‘I must ask you to go round, for the door sticks, and I can’t open it.’ So we goes round.—There were a very handsome clock in the passage, in a grand mahogany case. ‘Seven o’clock!’ says I, looking at it; ‘surely we can’t be so late.’ ‘Oh no,’ says he, ‘the clock stands. I got it dirt cheap, but there’s something amiss with the works. But it’s a capital clock, they tell me, entirely on a new principle.’—We was to have tea in the best parlour. ‘Dear me,’ says one of my mates, ‘what a smell of gas!’ ‘Yes,’ says Dick; ‘ain’t them beautiful gas-fittings? I got ’em second-hand for an old song, but I’m afraid they leak a bit.’—We should have been pretty comfortable at tea, only the window wouldn’t shut properly, and there came in such a draught as set us all sneezing. ‘I’m sorry,’ says Dick, ‘as you’re inconvenienced by that draught; it’s the builder’s fault. Of course I took the lowest estimate for these houses, and the rascal’s been and put me in green wood; but the carpenter shall set it all right to-morrow.’—But the worst of all was, the gas escaped so fast it had to be turned off at the meter. ‘Ah!’ says he, ‘that won’t matter for to-night, for I’ve bought a famous lamp, a new patent. I got it very reasonable, because the man who wanted to part with it were giving up housekeeping and going abroad.’ So we had the lamp in, and a splendid looking thing it were; but I thought I saw a crack in the middle, only I didn’t like to say so. Well, all of a sudden, just in the middle of the supper, the lamp falls right in two among the dishes, and the oil all pours out over my neighbour’s clothes. Such a scene there was! I tried to keep from laughing, but I couldn’t stop, though I almost choked myself.—Dick, you may be sure, weren’t best pleased. It were a bad job altogether; so we bade good-night as soon as it were civil to do so. But I shall never forget Dick Trundle’s house-warming, nor the lesson it taught me.

“What we want, dear friends, is, not what’s new, cheap, and showy, but what’s solid, and substantial, and thoroughly well made. Will it wear well? That’s the question after all. Dick’s fine things was just got up for show; they’d no wear in ’em—they was cheap and worthless. Now there’s a deal of religion going in our day as is like Dick Trundle’s house and purchases; it’s quite new, it makes a great show, it looks very fine, till you come to search a little closer into it. But it ain’t according to the old Bible make: it don’t get beyond the head; it can’t satisfy the heart. What we want is a religion that’s real—just the religion of the gospel, as puts Jesus Christ and his work first and foremost. If you haven’t got that, you’ve got nothing as you can depend on it’ll fail you when you most want it. It may be called very wide, and very intelligent, and very enlightened, but it won’t act in the day of trouble, and when the conscience gets uneasy.

“Well, now, we’ve got a happy company here to-night; we’re many of us total abstainers on principle and most of us, I hope, Bible Christians on principle, after the old fashion; for, if we haven’t Christ and his Word for our foundation, we haven’t got that as’ll stand the test. No, friends, take the word of Tommy Tracks—and you’ve got what’ll confirm what I say all round you in this meeting to-night—the life as is begun, continued, and ended in the fear of God, and with the Bible for its guide, and Jesus for its example, is the life that’s just what you and I were meant to live by the God who made us and redeemed us, and it’s plainly and unmistakably the life that wears best.”