Far below, Port o' Man nestled peacefully in its bay. A sort of toy town even in reality, from this height it appeared to the watcher as if modelled by a child in coloured clays, so remote and still and small it was. It looked no more than a thin moon of buildings between the fields and the sea. No sound came up so far, but now and again there was a sparkle on the edge of the brown rocks when the surf ran up a shade higher than usual, and in the wide expanse of sea itself, green and blue changed the one with the other perpetually. Moreover Paul's sharp eyes could detect a vivid spot of scarlet on the sands that was never still either. He knew it to be the banner of the Children's Special Service Mission, flapping in the wind.
He ought, of course, to have been there, and when he had announced to Mr. Stuart, the leader, his intention of playing truant for one whole, golden morning, he had been received with frowns. But that had not daunted Paul. It took a good deal more than a Mr. Stuart, in fact, to daunt him. And so he had risen before the sun and taken his stick and his breakfast, and departed for a long, solitary climb up South Barrule. Dick Hartley had offered to come as well, but Paul had refused. In the first place he wanted to be alone; in the second, he really did not want Dick of all people, however much he loved him, just then; and thirdly, he had still a sense of missionary responsibility, and he declined to deplete the staff for a single day by another worker.
Nevertheless, he was there himself on that day because he was rapidly reaching a frame of mind which would probably make the C.S.S.M., and many other evangelical activities, finally impossible. Mr. Stuart, for example—he reflected on Mr. Stuart. He was a nice, big, old gentleman whom parents liked. He had no visible vices of any sort. He liked a really big dinner in the midday on Sunday. He played cricket on the sands with a kindly smile and the aptitude of a rhinoceros. He told impossible school stories fifty years old when preaching on the sands, and the moral of them all was the same—the necessity for a clean heart. As for his own heart, he was quite sure that it was clean. He was Church of England, but he had only one definite theological belief—Salvation was by Faith Alone without Works. But he had one strong negation—he believed that Confirmation was unbiblical and wrong. And, instructively enough, it was over Confirmation that Paul was beginning to jib.
Possibly it is necessary, at this point, to say something as to the methods and devices of a C.S.S.M. There may yet be the uninitiated. In the first place, then, a staff of voluntary workers, female and male, is drawn together during a summer month at some popular seaside resort, which should, if possible, have sands rather than a beach, and be to some extent "select." This latter is partly due to the fact that the Mission aims more especially at the children of the better classes, but also because, whereas the C.S.S.M. can compete with the more ordinary nigger-minstrel troupe and itinerant show, nowadays these things are done, at the bigger holiday places, upon so lavish and Satanic a scale, that the funds of the Mission are scarcely large enough to provide adequate equipment for honest competition with them. However, if the staff be wisely chosen—a blue or two, or at least some men in recognised blazers, are necessary, as well as ladies with good voices—much may be done. On an ordinary day, after a prayer meeting, this staff proceeds to the sands. Some members wander up and down the seashore distributing attractive cards of invitation to children, and engaging parents in amiable conversation where possible. The others, chiefly the masculine section, throw off coats, and with hearty enthusiasm commence to build a pulpit. Some roving children will inevitably be persuaded to help, and the crowd grows as the pulpit is decorated with seaweed, flowers, shells, and stones, with a suitable text outlined upon it. "JESUS only," or "God is Love"; but occasionally the unusual is worth trying—"Ephphatha" or "Two Sparrows" or "Five Smooth Stones." And finally the banner is hoisted and the service merrily begins.
Choruses with variations play a large part—"Let the sunshine in," "Let the sunshine out," "Let the sunshine all round about"; "Step by step with Jesus"; "We are building day by day" (and there are actions in that); but the Scriptures are read to sword drill ("The Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword"), and the addresses are short and breezy. The notices always take a long while. Walks for the girls, games for the boys, sports for both—excursions, picnics, competitions; cheery exhortations to "Watch for the Banner," or "Come to the House"; and lastly, special services for boys and girls indoors in the evenings. These latter are the ultimate hook. At them, many a man and woman has accepted Christ in youth with real sincerity and determination.
Paul threw himself heart and soul into all this. He did a great part in making religion seem to the holiday-makers what it was truly and happily to himself, the central joy and inspiration of life. If any were inclined to think that attendance at a mission might be a poor way of spending a holiday, they had only to watch Paul for a while. He was in love with Christ, and he was indifferent to the world's opinion that it might be indecent to show it as brazenly as a pair of Cockney lovers on the top of a motor-bus. In which conclusion both Paul and the lovers are undoubtedly and altogether right.
And yet Paul was troubled. Mr. Stuart's bland piety was new to him; the workers' robust ignorance had him by the throat; above all the scorning of a ceremony (he would not have said a sacrament) which he had come to feel had behind it the authority of an Institution that he was finding increasingly necessary to the interpretation of the Bible, while it might be a small thing in itself, worried him. And it worried him the more because nobody else—not even Dick—was worried; while behind everything, lay the ever-deepening shadow of his father's refusal to see one particle of evidence or necessity for the Church.
But still another influence had laid fingers on Paul's life, although he knew it not yet. He had come out that morning definitely to seek something, definitely to rest himself on something. Paul had always loved nature; he had always "been one" (as his mother would have said) for a country walk; and he had written verses to chestnut-trees in May and beech-trees in Autumn. Yet for all that, the beauty of the world had ever been a secondary thing—something you enjoyed because you were satisfied. But that morning he had come to it because he was not satisfied. And he lay now, almost immovable, introspective, peering at the tiny heather-bells, taking definite note of a fragment of moss, seeing with delight the veins of colour in the small stones. Things were beautiful, he told himself, beautiful in themselves; also they were unfathomable; and the joy of them was a caress to his troubled spirit.
Presently he sighed, and rolled over on his back, staring up and away into the vast, distant blue, watching, as the minutes sped, a pin-point of white come out of nothing, gather, build itself with others, form a tiny cloud, and trail off across the sparkling sea. Paul felt himself incredibly small; saw himself, definitely, less than nothing, for the first time in his life. And was content.
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