“And yours too,” agreed Mary, glancing at the brown face of her friend; “perhaps he will return before you leave, Tom. I wish he may, but he is very busy just now. Father had a letter from him this morning; but it was only a short one, and full of his hopes about the new General Election, which is coming. He did not say when he would be back, but we may hope it will be soon.”
It was scarcely likely to be; for although Arthur Knight’s personal interest in his people and their well-being was great, he was even more solicitous in regard to his country. He rejoiced to know that from a thousand pulpits and platforms the imperative duty of the Church was being announced, and the need of Christian union insisted upon. To a great extent, he knew, and deplored the knowledge, that the Church had lost her hold upon the masses; and he thought that the coming contest would be a life and death struggle in more respects than one. Would she awake and put on her strength, and do the work to which God had appointed her in the emergency that was at hand? He did not know; but he hoped.
If England would send to Westminster a body of picked men, pledged not to party or to politics, but to Christ and His kingdom, determined to make short work of even high positions and vested interests if they stood in the way of righteousness and the people’s good, a body of men of high character and sound sense and iron resolution, who were afraid of nothing but the sin that disgraced the nation, a body of men chosen by the united churches, and well-tested in the places they were to represent, who would fight together under one banner, “For Christ and for the People,” then, indeed, there was hope for the world and for the Church.
But if not?
During that time of stress it was noticed that Arthur Knight’s voice rang like a clarion. He spoke as he never had spoken before, and his urgent thought and impassioned speech roused many thousands of men. There was coming to be a look of stern determination on the faces of the people that had seldom been seen during many years; and they were making a promise—which they meant to keep—to themselves and one another, and even to God. This is what it was: That they would not rest until dishonesty and cruelty, drunkenness and impurity, were put away from the high places and the low places in England.
Many sneeringly asked, “Do you hope to convert the world by Acts of Parliament?” and the reply was “No; we do not! Conversion is another matter; but we will so punish the perpetrators of these wrongs, and so restrict their power and influence, that they shall not insult the better sense of the English people as they have so long done in past years.”
Committees were formed everywhere, and meetings were held in vestries and in chapels, for the Church at last realised what her business was, and meant to do it.
In the very midst of the rush of meetings Arthur Knight stood aside for two days and let them go on without him. He disappointed many people; but he believed that he was doing something of the utmost importance while absenting himself from the meetings.
He spent those two days in listening to and talking with the Rev. Peter Macdonald.
Mr. Macdonald was the son of a Canadian farmer; and he was himself, to use his own words, “a priest of the Church of England.” His ancestors were Scotch, but they had settled in Canada before he was born. They were nearly all members of the English Episcopal Church, and young Peter early evinced a marvellous love of Church history. The result of his study was that he dreamed day and night of what the Church might become in England if only she were as great and as faithful as she might be. He grew into a young man of fervid imagination and impassioned speech; and conducted a mission in Canada which was productive of great good. Then he longed to visit England, and at length his bishop sent him over with many letters of introduction, which secured him a welcome in high places. He was “of the Church Churchy,” as some one told Knight; but he spoke as few of her sons have been gifted to speak. And the burden of his speech was this:—