“True,” said he, “most true. Well, sir, there we were, waiting in anxious expectation for the stopping of the little tinkling bell, and the arrival of the clergyman, for no one thought of sitting down till he appeared. At length he advanced, with a grave face, and placid countenance, bowing slightly to all as he passed, but with his eyes fixed right before him till he reached the little altar, over the rails of which hung the surplice. This was reverently placed on his shoulders by a man almost as old and grey-headed as himself, and evidently dressed in some of the minister’s old raiment. The effect of this robing in the sight of the congregation was very impressive. You saw as it were with your eyes the putting off of the man and the putting on of the minister. The world was lost for a time, and shrouded by the clean white robe of the messenger of God. I have often thought that vestries, in and out of which the minister of a large town church pops as in a play, destroy the effect which was certainly produced on my mind by this robing of Robert Walker in the sight of the people. The service began with a psalm, selected and given out by Walker himself. His voice was rather thin from age, but clear and distinct, for he had lost none of his teeth, and his reading of the lines was like the sound of an instrument of music. He read each verse separately, and separately they were sung. The lines which he chose were the following from the Old Version of the Psalms, which he always used not only as being more near the original and more devotional in their spirit than the new, but as consisting mainly of words of one syllable, and expressly adapted to the plain-song of congregational singing. When shall I forget the musical cadences with which he gave out the following simple lines from the 34th psalm?
‘Come neare to me my children deare,
And to my words give eare:
I shall ye teach the perfect way
How ye the Lord shall feare.‘Who is the man that would live long,
And lead a blessed life?
See thou refraine thy tongue and lips
From all deceit and strife.‘Turn back thy face from doing ill,
And do the godly deed:
Inquire for peace and quietnesse,
And follow it with speed.‘For why? the eyes of God above
Upon the just are bent:
His eares likewise do heare the plaint
Of the poor innocent.’
“I wish, sir, you had heard the way in which the giving out of the first verse of this psalm was responded to by the congregation! There was no praising God by deputy—no leaving this delightful part of the service to a few women in pink bonnets, and men in well-curled locks, stuck up in a gallery in front of a conceited organist, mincing God’s praise in softly warbled tones, and ready to sing to-morrow with just the same zeal and devotion in a Roman Catholic Chapel or an Italian Concert Hall, if they are equally well paid for their professional services. No, sir! every man, woman, and child sung for themselves, lustily, and with a right good will. They sung the air in a minor key, as is always the case among the inhabitants of mountain districts, perhaps because they learn to pitch their notes to the echoes of their native valleys; but it had from that circumstance a more solemn and devotional effect. It was taken up by those without the doors with the same zeal as by those within, for all knew the air as familiarly as their own names. Here was a strict compliance with David’s precept, ‘Young men and maidens, old men and children, praise ye the name of the Lord.’ The mighty sound rushed down the vale of Ulpha like the bursting of a mountain cataract; nor, for aught I can tell, was it checked in its onward course till it had scaled the heights of the surrounding mountains, and died away at last, in a gentle whisper, on the lonely summit of Black Comb! Died away, did I say? Forgive me, sir, the lowly thought! Far higher than the cliffs of Helvellyn did that holy psalm ascend; nor stayed it in its upward flight till it approached, as a memorial of sweet incense, the throne of God—there to be heard again when earthly sound shall be no more!”
There was a single tear on the old man’s withered cheek as he said this, and a twitching about the rigid muscles of his mouth, which showed that his iron frame could still vibrate to the gentle recollections of his youth. He paused in his narrative; and there was a solemn silence between us of some minutes’ duration. At length he resumed—
“The saying of the Church Service followed with the same calm solemnity and devotion with which it began. It was clear that the object of the priest was to forget himself, and lead the worshippers to forget him, in the high service in which both were engaged; and in this he fully succeeded. It was not till the worship prescribed by the Church was ended, and the last Amen had died on the ear, that a sensation of curiosity seemed to run through the assembly, and those without began to crowd nearer the door, as though something unusual was about to take place, and they were anxious to catch words less familiar to their ears than the well-known language of the Prayer Book. There was little preparation necessary for the sermon. The preacher did not leave his place to change his sacred vestments for a black gown, as is now the general fashion. His place of prayer was also his place of preaching. I should explain that what we call the reading-desk was placed in the north-east corner of the little chapel, having two ledges for his books, one looking to the south, and the other (which also formed the door) to the west. On the former rested the Prayer Book, and on the latter the Bible; so that when he prayed, he naturally turned to the altar,—when he read the Scriptures, towards the people. When he began to preach, therefore, he simply turned to the people as when he had read the lessons, resting his sermon on the Bible—no bad foundation, you will say,” added the old man with a smile, “for a scriptural discourse! His text was a very short and simple one but had he sought the whole Bible through, he could not have found one better adapted to my state of mind than the one he chose—my disposition being at that time, as I before observed, to take a somewhat gloomy and severe view of the Gospel; it was ‘God is love.’ All my dark fears vanished at the sound; and I waited not to hear the reasons to be convinced that the essence of the Gospel is indeed ‘glad tidings’ to mankind. There was an unwonted appearance of excitement about the preacher as he gave forth his text, and turned over the leaves of the manuscript which lay before him, looking first at it, and then at the crowd of upturned and expecting faces before him with an expression which I did not at first comprehend. He paused before he commenced his sermon, as if he could hardly read his own hand-writing, and yet nothing could be plainer or more distinct than his penmanship, even to the end of his days. At last he seemed to have made up his mind. He closed his sermon with a force which seemed to shew that he had come to a final determination, and deliberately put it into the pocket of his cassock; he then cleared his voice, paused for an instant, and commenced as follows. You will not expect me to remember every word of the discourse; indeed, perhaps you will be surprised that I should remember it at all; but the substance of it, and often the very words and looks of the preacher still cling to my memory, with a firmness of which nothing can deprive them but the coming grave!”
CHAPTER XI.
Even such a man (inheriting the zeal
And from the sanctity of elder times
Not deviating,—a priest, the like of whom,
If multiplied, and in their stations set,
Would o’er the bosom of a joyful land
Spread true religion and its genuine fruits)
Before me stood that day.The Excursion.
“‘My brethren,’ said the priest, resting his hand on the Bible, and looking round upon the anxious audience with an expression which showed some degree of agitation of mind, mixed with his habitual calmness and self-possession,—‘My dear brethren, I am about to do what is quite unusual, and, I fear, wrong in me;—I am about to address you in language which I have not first carefully considered, and, word for word, committed to paper. Though I have preached the blessed Gospel of our Lord to you and your fathers, from this place, for the long period of fifty years, I have never ventured to do this before. I have had too much fear both for myself and you—too much anxiety that not a word should drop from me which was not agreeable to the language and spirit of the Gospel, to trust myself to unarranged thoughts, and unconsidered words. But fifty years have given confidence to my mind, that nothing which is not of God can slip from me in this house, even in the warmth and heat of a moment like this; and thoughts arise now in my mind which seem fitted for the occasion, and yet which had not occurred to me in the silent meditation of my closet. And surely I have experienced too long the full enjoyment of that holy truth that “God is love,” to shrink from speaking of it, (and especially before you, my children,) without shame, and without fear! I call you my children; for many as are the grey heads that I now see before me, there is hardly one who has been born again into the blessed kingdom of our Lord without the ministration of these hands, unworthy as indeed they are to be made the instruments of so divine a thing! There is one, indeed, now present,’—here his eye naturally turned to the seat almost close beside him, in which sat the venerable partner of his joys and cares, (sorrows, I believe, in the worldly sense, he was too good a man to have any,) in her little black silk quaker-like bonnet, and neat white cap; retaining on her cheeks much of the bloom and some of the beauty which had made her, between sixty and seventy years ago, the admiration of the parish:—‘There is one, indeed,’ he repeated; his voice faltered, and it was clear that he would have some difficulty in proceeding with his discourse: and here it was beautiful to observe what happened. The old lady, seeing how matters stood, looked up to him from under her bonnet with a quiet smile, conveying at once an expression of kind encouragement and gentle rebuke, which is quite indescribable. The effect was immediate. A slight flush of shame crossed the old man’s brow, and he at once resumed his wonted composure. There was something in that smile which had reminded him of the days of their youth—when she was the buxom maiden and he the gallant lover—and he doubtless felt some shame that he should not show himself at least as firm and as youthful as his dame; and so his face naturally took up an expression in quiet harmony with hers, and he became at once himself again. Sir, it was beautiful! I would not have missed observing it for the world. Doubtless, these were mere human feelings intruding themselves into the house of God, but I cannot believe they were sinful. It was like a gleam of earthly sunshine streaming through the painted windows of the chancel of a cathedral, glancing upon, and not polluting, the holy pavement of the sanctuary!”—The old man paused as if pleased with his own thoughts, and then proceeded with his recollections of the sermon.
“‘You,’ said the preacher, ‘have been my scholars, and sometimes, I confess, my teachers, for many a year; for while you have learned from me the truths of the Gospel, I have often drawn from you—your patience, your cheerfulness, your submission to the will of God—a lesson as to the right way of putting the Gospel into practice. Much, too, have I learned from your sins, your negligences, and ignorances. But all combines,—strength and weakness, life and death, the works of God and the Word of God,—to teach us all the great, the essential doctrine of the text, “God is love!” See how He has shown it in our creation and our redemption, in the world around us, and in the world within us—the kingdom of earth, and the kingdom of heaven! How like, too, are His bounties and loving-kindnesses in both these kingdoms! It is indeed “the same God, that worketh all in all.” Look around you, as I have often before told you to do, on human life, and especially on your own life, and the blessings which each of you possess. God is with you in spiritual and temporal things, always turning upon you the same face of love. He has given you an earthly world in which you are to live here below. He gave you breath to begin life, and strength to continue it. He gives you food in health, medicine in sickness, parents and friends to guard and instruct you in youth, companions in middle life, and children to be a comfort in old age. He surrounds you with beauty to cheer your hearts on every side; sunshine and shadow, the fruitful plains and the everlasting hills, the fertilizing streams, and the bright and silent stars. God, in short, shows Himself to you in love and beauty, through every stage of your mortal life; and so it is with your spiritual life,—that life which He has given you in His dear Son. Love rules in grace as well as in nature. Love brought down the Saviour to die for you when you were dead—all dead—in trespasses and sins. Love sent down the Holy Spirit to earth, by Whom ye were born again into the kingdom of Christ, as ye were born into this world by the breath of the same Spirit when ye were but insensible dust. And your spiritual life is surrounded with love and kindness like your natural life, from its beginning on earth to its consummation in heaven. God’s Bible, like His world, is full of love and beauty. It tells you to whom you are to listen, namely, His ministers; through what you are to seek grace, namely, His sacraments; through Whom alone you are to be saved, namely, His Son.’
“He then proceeded to show more especially how this love was shown in the institution of the rite of Confirmation, by which careful training of the youth of Christ’s Church in faith and practice was secured, and all ages taught how they must act together in furthering the common good, the older being bound to teach the young, and the young to listen to the old; while both learned to feel their submission to the rule of the Church, in having to submit to the Bishop, as its head, the test of their mutual obedience to her laws. ‘But,’ he added, ‘I will not now dwell more on the rite of Confirmation, as the older have already had their instruction in it, and that of the younger will soon follow. I wish to say a word to you all on another matter, which I confess weighs heavily on my mind, and no occasion may again occur on which I can do it so properly as at present. You are surrounded with spiritual enemies on every side, and it is my particular duty to warn you of your danger. God be thanked, the foe has not yet scaled the walls of this parish, but he is loudly battering at its ramparts! Look at all the various kinds of dissent from the Church’s unity, which now stalk abroad with shameless front! Now all dissent is sin, less or more. If it differs not from the truth, it is the more unpardonable for its schism—if it does differ, so far as it differs it is the more sinful. Look at popery, which is dissent in the mask of unity—error the more dangerous for boasting itself to be the truth. Look, again, at infidelity—the blasphemies of Tom Paine; beware, my children, of this sin, for I hear it has come nigh you, even to your doors.’ (Here a sensation of wondering horror ran through the assembled crowd.) ‘Do you ask me for a safeguard against these snares? I answer, meddle not with them! He that toucheth pitch will be defiled. To be tempted of the devil is trial enough for poor mortals to endure, but to tempt the devil himself, is of all follies the most unpardonable! It is not my duty, for it is impossible for me, to answer all the forms of error; but it is my duty to warn you against them all; and I do so by giving you one simple safeguard, which will apply to them all alike: it is this—take my word for it, that your Church is true.—Somebody’s word you must take, for you are too unlearned to judge of these deep matters for yourselves, and why not mine? Have I any interest, have I any wish to deceive you? Does not my salvation rest upon my securing your own? Have I not given my nights and my days to the study of the truth? Has not the Bishop, my spiritual head, commissioned me to preach it to you? Have I any thing in this world that I can desire in comparison with the salvation of your souls? Do not my hoary locks, and shrinking frame, proclaim that here I have no continuing city, but must soon give an account of my stewardship to Him that sent me? Has not the Bible been my companion, and the wisest and best of all ages its interpreters for me, for nearly a century? If these things cannot be spoken against, take my word for it, till you have that of one whom you have more reasons for believing, that if you take the Bible as your law, and the Prayer Book as your practical rule of life, living up to both with a good conscience, then, my life for yours—my eternal life for yours—you will at last find the path I now point out to you,—the path that leads to heaven!’