Grace wept that night over the saddest of all the ironies of life—a sacrifice which was a mistake and which had no reward.
AN EVANGELIST
His private business was lard, which he bought for the rise and sold for the fall—being a bull or a bear without prejudice—and with a success so distinguished that his name was mentioned in highly complimentary terms on the American market When the famous lard corner of 1887 had been wound up, and every man had counted his gains (or losses), old man Perkins, of Chicago, did justice to his chief opponent, like the operator of honour that he was.
“No, sir, I ain't a slouch, and the man who says that I don't know lard is a mining expert; but Elijah Higginbotham, of Victoria Street, Liverpool, Great Britain, has come out on top: he's a hustler from way back, is Elijah.”
Mr. Perkins' opinion, which was a deduction based on the results of at least six first-class encounters, was generally accepted on both sides of the Atlantic, and it was conceded that what Mr. Elijah Higginbotham did not know about that capricious and volatile instrument of speculation was not knowledge. As a matter of principle he was opposed to gambling, and denounced it with much eloquence and perfect sincerity at conferences of a religious character,—warning his audience, composed mainly of old ladies, against the Derby,—but if this evil and ruinous spirit should happen to enter his market, where it seemed quite at home, Elijah was prepared to overthrow gambling with its own weapons, and on such occasions it was worldly wisdom to bet on Elijah's side. His ideas regarding the date of unfulfilled prophecy might be crude, but his foresight regarding the future of lard was an instinct.
His public business was religion, and especially the work of an evangelist, and to this Elijah gave himself with incredible courage and diligence. When he was not manipulating lard or asleep, he was inquiring into the condition of his neighbour's soul, and none could escape him. It was freely told on 'Change how he had fallen on an alderman, who had responded too generously to the loyal toasts at a municipal banquet, and so impressed him with the shortness of life and the awfulness of the future, that the worthy man was bathed in tears, and promised if spared to join the Plymouth Brethren next day. Bishops of the Church, who are awful beings to ordinary people, and with whom some of us hardly dare to speak about the weather, were to Elijah a chosen prey in railway carriages, so that he would hunt a train to travel with one for a long journey, and he has been known to reduce one pompous prelate to the verge of apoplexy by showing before a (secretly) delighted company of “firsts” that this successor to the Apostles did not really know wherein conversion consisted, and, by not very indirect inference, that the Bishop was himself still unconverted. Unto Elijah belongeth also the doubtful and perilous distinction of having been the unwilling and (as he would himself say) unworthy means of stopping a London express when going at full speed. It was, of course, an old and perhaps over-nervous gentleman who actually pulled the cord and waved to the guard, and it was Elijah who offered immediate and elaborate explanations; but Elijah's fellow-passenger held a strong position when he laid the blame on the evangelist.
“It's well enough for him to say that he was speaking spiritually, but he told me plainly that I was going to Hell, and not to London, and I put it to you, guard,”—by this time there was a large jury of interested passengers,—“when the only other man in the compartment uses language of that kind, and he much younger and stronger, whether I wasn't justified in calling for assistance.”
Quiet men, not prone to panics, just breaking upon their luncheon at the Club, rose and fled when Elijah sat down at the same table, knowing well that not only would a forbidding silence be no protection, but that even ingenious and ensnaring allusions to the critical condition of the lard market would be no protection against personal inquiries of the most searching character. He was always provided with portable religious literature of a somewhat startling character, and was in this way able to supply his fellow-passengers in the evening 'bus; and it was stimulating to any one with a sense of humour to see commercial magnates handling one of Elijah's tracts as if it were dynamite, and late-comers taking in the interior at a glance from the step, and hurriedly climbing to the top—willing to risk bronchitis rather than twenty minutes of Elijah. His conscientious opinion was that the limited number of persons who held his particular opinions would go to heaven, and the large number who did not would go elsewhere, and in these circumstances no one could blame him for being urgent No doubt Elijah—for indeed this was almost an official title—was very insistent, and had no tact; but then when you are pulling people out of fires, and handing them out of burning houses—these were his favourite illustrations of the situation—one does not pay much attention to ceremony or even manners. It was often said that he alienated people from religion, and so defeated his own ends; but I suppose that his reply would be that he left them no worse than he found them, and if it was asserted that he influenced no one, he very likely had some cases of success among that class of persons who are never utterly persuaded until they are felled by a blow between the eyes. Very likely he was not concerned about success or failure, approval or disapproval, but simply was determined to do his duty, which was to hold back as many of his neighbours as he could from going to Hell. This duty he discharged with all his might and with undeniable courage, and Elijah had his reward by universal consent in that no one accused him of canting, for he never said anything he did not believe with the marrow of his bones, or of hypocrisy, for he certainly made no gain of godliness.