Twenty miles out of London. The sun is shining, and the train glides along by green fields, hedges of hawthorn, and blossoming trees. England looks to be the huge, well-cared-for farm of a very rich man. This may be explained by the fact that England is an old country, having been plowed and planted and harrowed for close on to a thousand years before America was discovered. This long period of cultivation gives the country-side a mellowness and well-groomed look. The vaporous sunlight softens all the outlines, hides the harsh features, and gives the landscape its dreamy, far-away, misty loveliness. There seems to be no angles in the scene; field melts into field, and hedge into hedge, with here and there a ribbon of a road which seems to join them rather than to separate them. The houses are of brick or of stone, many partly hidden under the climbing ivy or roses.
Chester Lawrence is accompanying Elder Malby eastward from London through Kent to Margate and Ramsgate on the coast. Elder Malby is to attend to some Church duties, and Chester, by invitation, was glad to accompany him. It was the young man's policy to keep in touch as much as possible with the elders and their work, and he was getting somewhat of the missionary spirit himself. He was greatly enjoying this ride through the beautiful country.
"It's really wonderful," said Chester, looking out of the car window, "this coming from London into the country. Where are all the people? Are they all in town? Some cows are browsing in the pastures, and sheep scurry about as the train flies by, but where are the people who have made this great garden?"
"You must remember," explained Chester's companion, "all this has not been done hurriedly by many people within a short time. What the Englishman doesn't do today he can do tomorrow; and so centuries of work by a few men has produced what we see."
"Well, I do occasionally see a few slow-moving men and women, somberly clad in grays and browns. These, I suppose, are the sturdy supporters of their country."
"Here is something I clipped from an American magazine," said Elder Malby, "which impressed me with its peculiar truth." He read:
"'England is London says one, England is Parliament says another, England is the Empire says still another; but if I be not much mistaken, this stretch of green fields, these hills and valleys, these hedges and fruit trees, this soft landscape, is the England men love. In India and Canada, in their ships at sea, in their knots of soldiery all over the world, Englishmen must close their eyes at times, and when they do, they see these fields green and brown, these hedges dusted with the soft snow of blossoms, these houses hung with roses and ivy, and when the eyes open, they are moist with these memories. The pioneer, the sailor, the soldier, the colonist may fight, and struggle and suffer, and proclaim his pride in his new home and possessions, but these are the love of a wife, of children, of friends; that other is the love, with its touch of adoration, that is not less nor more, but still different, that mysterious mingling of care for, and awe of, the one who brought you into the world.
"'This is the England, I take it, that makes one feel his duty to be his religion, and the England that every American comes to as to a shrine. When this is sunk in the sea, or trampled over by a host of invading Germans, or mauled into bankruptcy by pandering politicians and sour socialists, one of the most delightful spots in the whole world will have been lost, and no artist ever be able to paint such a picture again, for nowhere else is there just this texture of canvas, just this quality if pigment, just these fifteen centuries of atmosphere.' I think this sums it up nicely," commented Elder Malby.
"Ireland is a pretty fine country, too," said Chester, with far-away tone, still gazing out of the window.
Elder Malby laughed heartily, in which his companion joined. Chester had told him his Irish experiences.