CHAPTER XXX.
PEACE!
“Victory all along the lines!”
This was the triumphant report made from a thousand pulpits on the Sunday following the elections, and the Te Deum was sung in the churches with increased fervour.
“So political!” said the objectors; but since politics had now become a part of Christianity, why not?
There was great rejoicing at Scourby and Darentdale and its neighbourhood, for Mr. Whitwell was duly elected by a majority of undreamed of magnitude.
And if they could have understood it, there would have been still greater gladness in the hearts of a million of the children of the nation, for the first duty to which the members of the new Parliament were pledged to address themselves was the amelioration of their condition. Henceforth, every child’s life was to be considered sacred, and of priceless value to the State. There were to be no more little lives sacrificed to the passion of brutal men and women, for it was at last recognised that every child born in England had a soul, had its rights, its powers also, and possibilities; and if there were parents who did not desire to own it and care for it, the country did. How it was to be paid for, and who was to pay—whether it was to be housed, fed, and trained by the State, which would recoup itself by certain services rendered in the future; or whether unwilling parents should be compelled to work for their own children; also, whether it would be more easy to secure for the child the love and motherly ministrations which are absolutely essential to its well-being in the home of its parents—or in other homes, from parently, but childless, people, were details for the Government to settle. “It is your duty to solve these and other problems which are waiting,” said the people to their representatives. “It is our will that every abuse which is a national disgrace shall be swept away; and if you have not the ability to do it, or do not care to take the necessary trouble, we have made a mistake in our choice, and shall call upon you to vacate the seats which others can more worthily fill.”
So it was perfectly understood that there were to be no more days weakly and wickedly wasted by the stupid talk of obstructives, many of whom had gone to Westminster hitherto for the expressed purpose of preventing the opposite party from doing anything, since they were not strong enough to do anything themselves. It had been prophesied years before that when the Church “meant business” there would be change in many things, and the Church meant business now, and was determined that henceforth in England the Houses of Legislature should be composed of real men, with not one idiot among them. And it will be readily understood that there were, therefore, great rejoicings among all men and women who were the true patriots of the land.
But while these changes, for which, during many years, a silent preparation had been going on, began to be accomplished, there were the usual joys and sorrows in the domestic lives of the people.
Henry Harris recorded his vote early, as did also Dr. Stapleton, and then they both went away to London, the former to consult the greatest physician of the day, and the latter to accompany him, and give him such support as friendship could if he should need it.
Persons in search of the dramatic elements of our life in its reality would scarcely find them more developed than in the house of an eminent doctor. In the waiting-room, where patients gather and await their turn, what striking contrasts and vivid harmonies there are! Here is an unloved wife, who yet desperately clings to the life that has so little to offer here; and there is one so deeply loved that her husband would part with his all to buy one little year longer which they might spend together. Here is a man who might drop out of Society at once and never be missed; and there is another, of whom it is said in the town of his residence that he cannot possibly be spared, for there is no one, and even no dozen of men, who could fill his place. Yonder is one for whom his mother prays: “Oh, take him that he may do no more evil!” And here another for whom ten thousand people pray, “Oh, spare him that he may yet further bless us and glorify Thee!” And what breathless suspense there is in the consulting-room of the great man! No prisoner at the bar waits for the verdict of the jury with more consuming anxiety than does the innocent man, whose heart is full of his wife and children, as the perspiration stands in great drops on his forehead, while the sentence of hope or of doom is pronounced by the oracle. He may be wrong, and often is, this man whose fiat has such terrible power; but if he has a heart it must often know the acutest pangs of sympathy.