A Man of the Moors

by Halliwell Sutcliffe

In the middle of his troublous time, there came a strange preacher to the Ling Crag chapel, to conduct the anniversary services there. He was known throughout the country, the Rev. Abel Bell, as a powerful mover of men's hearts, and the Ling Crag folk expected great things of him. Nor were they disappointed; the stranger, at the end of half a dozen sentences, had put himself out of reach of the captious criticism to which the villagers were wont to treat their superiors in godliness; before they had recovered from this unwonted sense of inability to carp, they were snared into enthusiasm. There was a meeting of the class-leaders after morning service, and they unanimously decided to ask the new preacher to stay for a few days and conduct a series of "Revival" services. Gabriel Hirst was ripe for any wildness when Wednesday came. The three Sunday services, with the evening calls to the unconverted on Monday and Tuesday, had already wrought him to a high pitch of nervous tension; contact with Greta and that growing sense of his unworthiness combined to bring him up to fever heat.

The "Revival" enthusiasm spreads like a contagion when once it is set going. From Ling Crag and Marshcotes and the scattered farms for miles around, the people came. On Wednesday evening there was not a seat to be had; the pews were full, the long wooden benches were full, and there was scarce standing room for those at the back of the chapel. Near the front sat Griff Lomax, who had not witnessed a "Revival" for years, and who felt a purely irreligious and unbiassed interest in proceedings which were calculated to draw the naked hearts out of his usually taciturn neighbours.

The Rev. Abel Bell mounted into the pulpit, and talked with homely vigour. No simile was too wild, no illustration too commonplace, so long as he held captive the imagination of his hearers. Divinity, he held, had once walked in rough mortal garb, and in rough mortal metaphor only could the Divine truth be understood by men. The subtle fire ran in and out among the congregation. Hearts that were wont to keep within the limits of their own hardened shells leaped out to one another; as they had been strong in restraint, so they were strong in abandonment now that the fitting time had come. Each man looked at his neighbour, and yearned over him, and prayed that salvation might reach all present. The minister grew frenzied.

"The Devil is trembling!" he shouted, with a voice that seemed to be tearing at the lining of his throat. "Heaven and Hell are fighting for the souls of men. The Devil is trembling—Heaven is winning. Into the fight, brothers; give the Devil a oner! ('Praise the Lord!' 'Glory!' 'Hallelujah!') Into the thick of it, friends, and smite with the arm of God! ('Hallelujah!')" He pointed with his hand to the chapel door. "See him there—see the Devil scuttering out with his tail between his legs! Angels are rejoicing; the battle is won. The gates of Heaven stand open—one and all, come in." ("Praise the Lord!" "Glory!" "Hallelujah!" reiterated the congregation.)

His voice fell to a pleading quietness, but mounted and mounted till it rang like a trumpet-call.

"Heaven, my brothers and sisters—if you knew what was meant by Heaven, there's none here to-night but would search for Jesus till he found Him. We are blinded by folly and sin, but we've got eyes that can see the sky, which is the window of Heaven. When the earth wants warming, out comes the sun, and laughs over moors and woods and fields. When the earth gapes with thirst, then God Almighty sends the blessed rain-clouds—packed up ready, carriage paid, free of charge. ('Glory! Glory!') This night we must gather the sinners in to the Lord—gather them in ('Hallelujah!'). There's a table spread in the courts of Heaven, and all that are saved can sit down to it. Ask for what you will, and you've only to pass up your plates—and all the while the golden harps will be playing, and the cymbals clashing, and God will be there at the top of the table, ready to smile on one and all and send them down whatever they ask for. Why will the sinners stay on the wrong side of the Golden Gates? It's cold out there, and it's wet, with a keen east wind that cuts you to the bone. Will you come in to the Lord, friends, out of the cold, out of the wet? Think what it means! if once you let the Gates be shut on you, from the cold you'll be hurried away to the Burning Lake, and you'll burn there for ever and ever. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Unstop the ears of the hardened, Lord; conquer their deafness; gather them into Thy bosom. Glory, glory!"

When the sermon was finished, the minister and the class-leaders went in and out among the congregation, exhorting them to effort, aiding them in the desperate struggle to "find Jesus." Groans and cries went up on every hand. The agony of doubt was bitterly real, the swift flash of belief a true and priceless blessing. Griff was the only one present who looked on the proceedings from a dispassionate, outside standpoint. There had been a little—just a little—pitying contempt at the bottom of his interest in the Revival; but now that he was in the thick of it, now that the cries of "Hallelujah!" "Found pardon!" "Glory, glory!" came thick and fast, drowning the anxious calls for aid, now that the uncouthness of his neighbours was lost in their strenuous sincerity, Griff knew that he had been minded to scoff at what was above and beyond cheap raillery; the thrill of contact with this seething enthusiasm shot through his nerves and gripped him with awed amazement.

A rude bench was carried to the foot of the communion-table. Those who had found salvation rose, one by one, and went to the bench and knelt with their arms on it, to wrestle with the remnants of their unbelief. Class-leaders and minister went busily to and fro, like bees at heather-time, arguing, pleading, praying with those whose hearts would not be softened unto grace. Surely, if man's whole prayerful effort, man's utmost power of will, could bring a Presence from the Unknown Without, then God was in this little moorside chapel.

But Gabriel Hirst was not forward with exhortation, as of old. He stood in a shadowed corner, his arms folded on his breast, his eyes wild with a battle of terror and determination. Griff, glancing up with an uneasy consciousness that some one was looking through and through him, met the preacher's eyes. In a flash it came to him what Gabriel was finding heart to do; he made a movement as if to cross to him, but stopped. What could he say or do to keep back this confession of a deed that was finished with long ago? He could do nothing, save watch the preacher move forward to the front, and listen to his stumbling words of introduction. Then Gabriel, finding his manhood, faltered no more, but walked steadily up the pulpit steps. His voice was low and firm; only the piteous working of his face betrayed his torment. He told how, upon a certain day, the seed of a thorn-tree was dropped in the cleft of a quarry-face; he described the breaking of the seed-shell, the growth of the sapling; he brought before the eyes of those present the picture of a merciful God watering the tree, tending it with jealous watchfulness. Then he talked of another seed, the seed of jealousy and hate. Years were needed to measure the growth of God's handiwork; but the evil in man increased by days, by hours, by minutes.

Then, on a sudden, his voice went deeper. He leaned over the pulpit and looked across the sea of anxious faces to the place where Griff was sitting.