David Fleming's Forgiveness

by Margaret M. Robertson

No man could have every gift, it was said, and whatever Mr Maxwell might seem to lack as to social qualities, he was a preacher. All agreed that his sermons were wonderful. It was the elaborately prepared discourses of his seminary days, that the young man moved by a vague, but awful dread of breaking down, gave to his people first. It was well that the learned professor’s opinion of them and of their author had come to Gershom before him. There could be no doubt as to the sermons after that testimony, so it was no uncertain sound that went forth about his first pulpit efforts.

They were clear, they were logical, they were profound. Above all, they were pronounced by the orthodox North Gore people to be “sound.” It is true he read them, but even that did not spoil them; and it was a decided proof that these people were sincere in their admiration, and in earnest in their desire for union and “the healing of breaches” that this was the case. In old times, that is, in the time of old Mr Grant, and old Mr Sangster, to be a “proper minister” was in their opinion to be a “dumb dog that could not bark,” and such a one had ever been an object of compassion, not to say of contempt among them. But Mr Maxwell’s sermons were worth reading, they said, and they waited. And so the first months were got safely over.

Safely, but, alas! not happily, for the young minister; scarcely recovered from severe illness, weak in body and desponding in mind, he had no power to accommodate himself to the circumstances toward which all the preparation and discipline of his life had been tending. Over a time of sickness and suffering he looked back to days of congenial occupation and companionship, with a regret so painful that the future seemed to grow aimless and hopeless in its presence. As men struggle in dreams with unseen enemies, so he struggled with the sense of unfitness for the work he had so joyfully chosen, and for which he had so earnestly prepared, with the fear that he had mistaken his calling, and that he might dishonour, by the imperfect fulfillment of his duty, the Master that he loved.

He despised himself for the weakness which made it a positive pain for him to come in contact with strangers with whom he had no power to make friends. He began to regard the hopes that had sustained him during the time of preparation, the pleasure he had taken in such remnants of other people’s work in the way of preaching as had fallen to him as a student; and the encouragement which had been given to him as to his gifts and talents, as so many temptations of Satan. It was this sense of unfitness for his work that made him fall back at first on the sermons of his student days, and which made the pulpit services, praised by his hearers, seem to him like a mockery. It was a miserable time to him. He distrusted himself utterly, and at all points; which would not have been so bad a thing if he had not also distrusted his Master.

But such a state of things could not continue long. It must become either worse or better, and better it was to be. As Mr Maxwell’s health improved, he became less despondent, and more capable of enjoying society. Clifton Holt was at home again, but no one, not even Miss Elizabeth, could have anticipated that he would be almost the first one in Gershom to put the minister for the moment at his ease.

Clifton had gone back to his college examinations at the appointed time; and had so far retrieved his character for steadiness and scholarship, that he was permitted to start fair another year, the last in his college course. He was now at home for the regular vacation, and was proving the sincerity and strength of his good resolutions to his sister’s satisfaction, by remaining in Gershom, and contenting himself with the moderate enjoyments of such pleasures as village society, and the neighbouring woods and streams afforded.

Miss Elizabeth had seconded Jacob’s rather awkward attempts to bring her brother and the young minister together, taking a vague comfort in the idea that the intercourse must do Clifton good. But as a general thing Clifton kept aloof a little more decidedly than she thought either kind or polite, so that it was a surprise to her, as well as a pleasure, when one night they came in together; and they had not been long in the house, before she saw that whether the minister was to do her brother good or not, her brother had already done good to the minister. They were dripping wet from a summer shower, that had overtaken them; but Mr Maxwell looked a good deal more like other people, Miss Elizabeth thought, than ever she had seen him look before.

“Mr Maxwell was in despair at the thought of venturing with muddy boots into Mrs Jacob’s ‘spick and span’ house, so I brought him here,” said Clifton. “We have been down at the Black Pool, and I have been taking a lesson in fly-fishing. We have earned our tea, and we are ready for it.”

“And you shall have it. But I thought we were to—well, never mind. Go up-stairs and make yourselves comfortable, and tea will be ready when you come down.”

“No one knows how to do things quite so well as Lizzie,” said Clifton to himself, when they came down to find the tea-table laid, not in the great chilly dining-room, but in the smaller sitting-room, on the hearth of which a bright wood-fire was burning. The old squire had been examining their fish, and listened with almost boyish interest to his son’s description of their sport. In the effort he made to entertain the old gentleman Mr Maxwell looked still more like other people, and Clifton’s coat, which he wore, helped to the same effect.