New truth is too often printed in very worn-out type, but the promoters of "The Dawn" had wisely remembered how hard truth is to read, and had given it good clear type, and generally made it a very comely and attractive little paper. It bore a motto that sounded almost like a threat, "We come to stay,"--a boast which it manfully kept for several years. As I lift my eyes from this paper, they rest on no less than ten great half-yearly volumes, which flash "The Dawn"--"The Dawn"--along a darksome folio shelf, as they have flashed it week after week across darkest Coalchester; and "The Dawn" ceased, at length, not from lack of power and encouragement to continue, but because the world had grown sadder by then, and it had lost the will to go on living.
In spite of this hardy existence, I suppose "The Dawn" will win no record of itself in the histories of the press, though merely as spirited journalism it deserves to do so; while in the history of the human spirit at Coalchester it demands a grateful celebration such as it will, again, most surely not receive from the literary and philosophical historian of the town. At all events, honoured or forgotten as it may be, should you ever come across its strange young pages, I know you will agree with me that it was a wonderful little paper. It was not, you may suspect, conservative, being, as it was, very alive and very young. In fact, its radiant radicalism brings tears to one's eyes to-day, when so many of the noble ideals it championed, to the length and strength of its little angry arm, are lying smashed beneath the iron blows of the capitalism that has outlived even the noble eloquence of Theophilus Londonderry.
Like all young people, it was all for the young, the new; and I think you will be astonished, if you do ever turn over its pages, at the remarkable instinct for the crescent life possessed by these young men; and, were it worth while, I could easily prove that several of the more exquisite continental writers, now the fashion this many a year, first found a humble welcome in that quaint little organ of New Zion.
Yes! it was a triumph for New Zion too. This modest and hitherto obscure corner of the town suddenly found itself, comparatively, in a blaze of publicity, for a column headed "Work at New Zion," evidently meant to be weekly, left no doubt from what quarter of the town the dawn was to be looked for. This was perhaps the most delightful thing about the paper,--its calm assumption that the real aristocracy of the town was to be found in that little back street, and that, if Coalchester was to have any spiritual or intellectual life, it must seek it there. In Zion Street, and nowhere else in Coalchester, were the angels descending into the waters. And the best part of the joke was that the assumption was literally true.
CHAPTER X
HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS OF A MORRIS WALL-PAPER TO COALCHESTER
Coalchester was too much taken by surprise by "The Dawn" to pretend to ignore it, and its first recognition was appropriately made in a ludicrously abusive article in "The Argus,"--"the one-eyed Argus," as it was mockingly nicknamed in the next week's issue of the new paper. The joke was one that was lost on Coalchester, which had never dreamed of expecting a hundred eyes in its "Argus," which to it was but the usual name for a sleeping newspaper. It was, however, to do them justice, seen and chuckled over by one or two members of the Literary and Philosophical Society. "The young beggars know their--classical dictionary, at all events," said one of them maliciously, which was quite bright for a Lit-and-Phil.
One tangible result of the little paper was the almost immediate doubling of the attendance at New Zion. Curiosity had been aroused in this militant young minister with the strange ideas, and Theophilus Londonderry wished for nothing better than to gratify it. In the oxygen of success even the dullest metals will scintillate, and it needed but such small beginnings of his future to make Theophilus as nearly irresistible as natural gifts and success together can make a man.
Some people go to chapel to worship, a few to learn, but most, odd as it may sound, to be entertained. A vivid and magnetic preacher is as near as many will allow themselves to approach the theatre. Theophilus was a born actor--of himself; a part so few can or dare play. He gave you good stimulating truth; but it was not so much in the newness of the ideas which he passed on from his books to his hearers, as in the newness of himself, that of course the charm lay. A few people, not many or important, disliked him; but all had to listen, and a good many came to New Zion again. Above all, the women heard him gladly; and to this sure sign of a future Theophilus was far from blind. "He has women at his back, he cannot fail," was a phrase he sometimes recalled out of his favourite Brand. Yes, and had he not one little angel-woman at his side?