Laddie, and Miss Toosey's mission

by Evelyn Whitaker

On one occasion there was a revival at Martel, and meetings were held at the schoolroom, one of which Miss Toosey attended. There was much heat and hymn-singing and excitement; and Miss Toosey was agitated and hysterical and impressed; but when the presiding clergyman, in an impassioned manner, invited all those who were conscious of conversion to remain and the rest to leave, Miss Toosey, without a moment's hesitation, went out and found her way home, sobbing and broken-hearted.

Then, too, the doctrine of assurance troubled her sorely, feeling (as she did) sure only of her own weakness and God's great mercy. And so she grew very nervous and uncomfortable when people began to talk of their religious experiences, which seemed so much more satisfactory than her own.

You must not, however, suppose that Miss Toosey was at all High Church; on the contrary, she had a horror of Puseyites and of the opinions which she fondly imagined them to hold; such, for example, as works being the only means of salvation, without the faintest mixture of faith, which, as Miss Toosey said, is so directly opposite to the teaching of the Bible. She also spoke of the danger of the "multiplication of ordinances," a well-sounding sentence which Mr. Glover was rather fond of; and Miss Toosey always gave a little triumphant sniff after saying it, for it is not every one who can make use of abstruse, theological expressions of many syllables. It is true that she went to church herself whenever there was an opportunity, and would have done so if Mr. Peters had largely increased the services, but that, of course, was different. She also regarded with suspicion the efforts of some of the young ladies of the parish, who had "high" tendencies, to introduce crosses surreptitiously into the decorations at Christmas, cunningly disguised with evergreens, and of odd and ornamental shapes. She was firmly persuaded that the emblem of our faith had something Romish about it, and that it was safer to keep to circles and anchors and triangles; indeed, she distrusted the decoration excitement among the young ladies altogether, and looked back with regret to the days when the pew-opener used to put sprigs of holly in the windows, and fasten bushes of the same to the lamps in the chancel.

CHAPTER II.

Now I must tell you about Miss Toosey's Mission, and I think it will surprise you to hear that her Mission was the conversion of the heathen,—not the heathen at Martel, though there were enough and to spare, even in that favored spot; not the heathen in London, or our great towns even; but the heathen in foreign parts, real bona fide black heathen, with war-paint and feathers, and strings of beads, and all the rest of it. Her Mission began in this manner: A missionary Bishop came to preach at Martel. I do not know quite how it happened, as he certainly did not pronounce "Shibboleth" with the same distinct and unctuous intonation which was deemed essential at Martel; but I have been told that he met Mr. Peters out at dinner, and that the rector, always good-natured, offered his pulpit, red-velvet cushion and all, for the Bishop's use on the following Sunday evening.

The Bishop gladly accepted the offer. He was not quick to see microscopic differences of opinion; the cut of a coat, a posture, or the use of a cant word, did not seem to him of such vital importance as he found attached to them among Churchmen at home; and he was fairly puzzled at the hot blood and animosity that arose from them, bidding fair even at times to rend the woven garment without seam. He had been used to a clearer, simpler atmosphere, a larger horizon, a wider span of heaven overhead, than we can get in our streets and lanes, making it easier, perhaps, to look up steadfastly, as those should whose lives are ever teaching them how far, how terribly "far, the heaven is from the earth," where the earth lies in darkness and idolatry. To one who was used to the difference between Christian and heathen, the difference between Churchman and Churchman seemed unutterably small; so that he was fain to say with Abraham, "Let there be no strife between us, I pray, for we are brethren."

He had come home with his heart burning within him with the urgency of the work he left behind, confident that he could not fail to find help and sympathy in happy, rich Christian England. In his waking thoughts, as well as in his dreams, there always stood by him a man of Macedonia, the Macedonia of his far-off labors, saying, "Come over and help us;" and he found that the love of many had waxed cold, and that indifference and scarcely concealed weariness received him wherever he went.

So he was glad to accept Mr. Peters's invitation, and thought Mr. Malone looked rather sourly at him in the vestry, and even the rector was not quite so cordial to him as he had been at the dinner-party, still he scaled the heights of the pulpit with alacrity, to the enlivening strain of "From Greenland's Icy Mountains," which not even the "Mitre Hymn-book" and the Martel choir can rob of its charms.

The text which Miss Toosey found out in her little brown Bible was from St. John, the 6th chapter and 9th verse: "There is a lad here with five barley loaves and two small fishes; but what are they among so many?" The Bishop began by describing the scene where the miracle occurred,—the barren hillside; the blue sea of Galilee; the towns in the distance, with their white, flat-roofed houses, nestling in the green valley like "a handful of pearls in a goblet of emerald;" the sun setting behind the purple Galilean hills, and the soft evening light touching the mountain-tops with gold, and casting long shadows on the quiet sea, where the fishing-boats were going forth to their nightly work. And then he told of the weary, foot-sore crowd, gathered on the slope of the hill, far from home, and hungry and fainting,—women and little children, as well as men,—many of whom had come from far-away Capernaum and Cæsarea, skirting the north side of the lake for many a weary mile, on foot, to meet the ship that bore our Lord across the sea.