Stephen Grattan's Faith: A Canadian Story

by Margaret M. Robertson

He had not forgotten Stephen Grattan’s letter; but he said to himself that it would be time enough to present it when he had found work and a settled place of abode. But now, weary in mind and in body, and nearly benumbed with the cold, when he found himself in the neighbourhood of the great hardware establishment in which Stephen’s friend was employed, he determined to deliver it at once.

Stephen had prepared his friend Muir beforehand for Morely’s coming. He had written to him how “the Lord had most surely given him this brand to pluck from the burning,—this poor soul to save from the roaring lion that goeth about seeking whom he may devour;” and, reading it, his friend never doubted that Stephen’s words were the words of Stephen’s Master; and from the moment that Morely stood before him, pale and weary, and shivering with the cold, he looked upon himself as indeed his brother’s keeper.

Muir took him to his home that night; and when he saw how weak he was, how little able to struggle by himself against his enemy, he kept him there; for he knew all the dangers which might beset him in most of the places where he might be able to find a temporary home. From that time, for the next few months, all things were ordered there with reference to Morely. It was a poor place enough, for Muir’s wages were not large; but it was neat and comfortable. His mother was his housekeeper,—a querulous old body, with feeble health, one who little needed any additional burden of household care. But when she knew that in a poor home, far away, a mother of little children was waiting, hoping and praying for the well-doing of this man whom her son had set his heart on helping, she did what she could to help him too. That is, she fretted a little at “her Sam” for thus thoughtlessly adding to her cares, and murmured a little when, giving up his own room to Morely, he betook himself to the garret; but all the same she was putting herself about, and doing her best to make the stranger feel at home with them. None knew better than she how much help was needed; for thirty of the threescore years she had lived had been made anxious, and many of them wretched, by the same enslaving power that had its grasp on Morely. Her husband had lived a drunkard’s life; and that he had not died a drunkard’s death was owing to the fact that excess had left him helpless and bedridden for years, a burden on his wife and son. To save another woman from the misery of such a life as hers had been, was a good work to help in; and she gave herself to it, in her weak, complaining way, as entirely and as successfully as did her son.

As for Sam, many things united to make this labour of love not a light one to him. He looked upon himself as a rising man, as indeed he was, in a small way. He had entered the employment of the great firm of Steel and Ironside as errand-boy, and had gradually risen to occupy a situation of trust. Topham, the head clerk, kept the key of the safes where the books and papers of the firm were stored; but to him was entrusted the key of the great establishment itself; and there was no reason—at least, he saw none—why he might not one day stand in Topham’s place. Nay, he might even be a partner: why not? The present chief of the firm had, long ago, been errand-boy in such an establishment; and it really did not seem to him to be presumptuous to suppose that, some time hence, he might be a merchant too, as well as Mr Steel.

By dint of constant and earnest attendance at evening schools, and no less constant and earnest efforts at home, he had learned a great deal that would help him in his career.

With all his good qualities of mind and heart, he was a little vain: nay, it may be said of him at this time of his life that he was very vain. His boyhood had lasted more years than boyhood generally does. Hard times, the force of circumstances, his father’s evil life, had kept him down till lately; and he was now, at twenty-three, going through all the feverish little attacks with regard to dress and appearance, and other personal considerations, that sensible boys usually get over before they are eighteen. He liked to be seen walking with the clerks of the establishment, who considered themselves a step above him in the social ladder, and took pleasure in the success he had enjoyed of late in the frequent evening entertainments given among his friends.

Yet, in spite of this weakness, he was a true Christian, not in name, but in reality—one who knew himself to have been bought at an infinite price; and, knowing this, he realised something of the value of the poor soul whom he might help to save from the ruin that threatened him, and he knew himself to be honoured in that he was permitted to do so great a work. But being, as has been said, vain and, in a small way, ambitious, it did come into his mind that to have such a man as this Morely living in his house—a man who could not be trusted to take care of himself, a man who in his best days was only, as he thought, a common workman, earning daily wages by the labour of his hand,—if did come into his mind that all this would not help him in his upward social way. To be seen in his company, to walk with him in the streets, to make the poor man’s interests his own, to care for him and watch over him as he must do if he was really to help to save him, to win him to live a new life—might—indeed, must—place him in circumstances not to be desired—awkward and uncomfortable, as far as some of his friends were concerned. Being, as we said, a Christian, and having a sincere, true heart, he did not hesitate because of all this; but being vain, and in some things foolish, his labour of love, which could in no case have been light, was made all the heavier.

This was only a first experience. Afterwards all this went out of his mind, as if it had never been there. He gave himself to the work with a devotion that was worthy of the holy cause. What one man may do to save another, Samuel Muir did for John Morely. Holidays were rare and precious to him at this time; but he devoted more than one that fell to him in going here and there with him in search of work; and when work was found, he spoke of him to the employers and to the workmen in words that none but the utterly debased could hear in vain, entreating them that they would not make the work of reform more difficult to the poor broken man by placing temptation in his way. Many a morning and evening when he had little time or strength to spare from his own duties, he went far out of his way to see him past temptation, at times when he knew that the agony of desire was strong upon him, and that left to himself he must fall.

Many a pleasant invitation he refused at such times, rather than leave the poor homesick wretch to get through the long, dreary evening alone. Sometimes—not often, however—he beguiled him into some quiet pleasure-taking out of the house, to while away the time. Having given up his own room for the garret, he now gave up his garret—a matter of greater self-denial—to share his own room with Morely, that the garret might be made a place for evening work. He purchased, at the price of some self-denial in the way of outward adornment, a set of tools for the finer sort of cabinet-work; and in the long winter evenings applied himself to learn to use them, that his friend might have something to do in teaching him.

It would take long to tell all the ways in which this young man carried on the labour of love he had undertaken. He watched over him, cared for him, denied himself on his account, bore alike with his petulance and his despondency, sheltered him from temptation from without, strengthened him to resist temptation from within—in short, laboured, as in God’s sight, to turn this sinner from the error of his way, to lead him in faith to the blood of Christ, which cleanseth from all sin; knowing that he was thus “striving to save a soul from death, and to hide a multitude of sins.”