Faces in the Fire Part 11

exclaimed the 'Lady of the Decoration,' 'how much bad temper one can knit into a garment!' An earlier generation of wonderfully wise women made that discovery, and worked all their discontents, and all their evil tempers, and all their quivering nervousness into antimaca.s.sars. On the whole it is cheaper than working them into drugs and doctors' bills, and drugs and doctors' bills are certainly no more ornamental.

In his essay on _Tedium_, Claudius Clear deals with that particular form of tedium that arises from leaden hours. And he thinks that in this respect women have an immense advantage over men. Men have to wait for things, and they find the experience intolerable. But a woman turns to her fancy-work, and is amused at her husband's uncontrollable impatience. The antimaca.s.sar, he believes, gives just enough occupation to the fingers to make absolute tedium impossible. The war has led to a remarkable revival of knitting and of fancy-work. My present theme was suggested to me on Sat.u.r.day. I took my wife for a little excursion; she took her knitting, and we saw ladies working everywhere. Two were busy in the tram; we came upon one sitting in a secluded spot in the bush, her deft needles chasing each other merrily. And on the river steamer eleven ladies out of fifteen had their fancy-work with them. I could not help thinking that, in not a few of these cases, the workers must derive as much comfort from the occupation as the wearers will eventually derive from the garments. Many a woman has woven all her worries into her fancy-work, and has felt the greatest relief in consequence. One such worker has borne witness to the consolation afforded her by her needles.

Silent is the house. I sit In the firelight and knit.

At my ball of soft grey wool Two grey kittens gently pull-- Pulling back my thoughts as well, From that distant, red-rimmed h.e.l.l, And hot tears the st.i.tches blur As I knit a comforter.

'Comforter' they call it--yes, Such it is for my distress, For it gives my restless hands Blessed work. G.o.d understands How we women yearn to be Doing something ceaselessly.

Anything but just to wait Idly for a clicking gate!

We must, however, be perfectly honest; and to deal honestly with our subject we must not ignore the cla.s.sical example, even though that example may not prove particularly attractive. The cla.s.sical example is, of course, Madame Defarge. Madame Defarge was the wife of Jacques Defarge, who kept the famous wine-shop in _A Tale of Two Cities_. When first we are introduced to the wine-shopkeeper and his wife, three customers are entering the shop. They pull off their hats to Madame Defarge. 'She acknowledged their homage by bending her head, and giving them a quick look. Then she glanced in a casual manner round the wine-shop, took up her knitting with great apparent calmness and repose of spirit, and became absorbed in it.' Everybody who is familiar with the story knows that here we have the stroke of the artist. Madame Defarge, be it noted, took up her knitting with apparent calmness and repose of spirit, and became absorbed in it. As a matter of fact, Madame Defarge was absorbed, not in the knitting, but in the conversation; and all that she heard with her ears was knitted into the garment in her hands. The knitting was a tell-tale register.

'"Are you sure," asked one of the wine-shopkeeper's accomplices one day, "are you sure that no embarra.s.sment can arise from our manner of keeping the register? Without doubt it is safe, for no one beyond ourselves can decipher it; but shall _we_ always be able to decipher it--or, I ought to say, _will she_?"

'"Man," returned Defarge, drawing himself up, "if Madame, my wife, undertook to keep the register in her memory alone, she would not lose a word of it--not a syllable of it. Knitted, in her own st.i.tches, and her own symbols, it will always be as plain to her as the sun. Confide in Madame Defarge. It would be easier for the weakest poltroon that lives to erase himself from existence than to erase one letter of his name or crimes from the knitted register of Madame Defarge."'

Oh those tell-tale needles! Up and down, to and fro, in and out they flashed and darted, Madame seeming all the time so preoccupied and inattentive! Yet into those innocent st.i.tches there went the guilty secrets; and when the secrets were revealed the lives and deaths of men hung in the balance! Here, then, is a philosophy of fancy-work that will carry us a very long way. The st.i.tches are always a matter of life and of death, however innocent or trivial they may seem. Whether I do a row of st.i.tches, or drive a row of nails, or write a row of words, I am a little older when I fasten the last st.i.tch, or drive the last nail, or write the last word, than I was when I began. And what does that mean?

It means that I have deliberately taken a fragment of my life and have woven it into my work. That is the terrific sanct.i.ty of the commonest toil. It is instinct with life. 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend,' and whenever I drive a nail, or write a syllable, or weave a st.i.tch for another, I have laid down just so much of my life for his sake.

But when we begin to exploit the possibilities of a Philosophy of Fancy-work, we shall find our feet wandering into some very green pastures and beside some very still waters. Fancy-work will lead us to think about friendship, than which few themes are more attractive. For the loveliest idyll of friendship is told in the phraseology of fancy-work. 'And it came to pa.s.s that the soul of Jonathan was _knit_ to the soul of David.' Knitting, knitting, knitting; up and down, to and fro, in and out, see the needles flash and dart! Every moment that I spend with my friend is a weaving of his life into mine, and of my life into his; and pity me, men and angels, if I entangle the strands of my life with a fabric that mars the pattern of my own! And pity me still more if the inferior texture of my life impairs the perfection and beauty of my friend's! Into the sacred domain of our sweetest friendships, therefore, has this unpromising matter of fancy-work conveyed us. But it must take us higher still. For 'there is a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother,' and the web of my life will look strangely incomplete at the last unless the fabric of my soul be found knit and interwoven with the fair and radiant colours of His.

VI

A PAIR OF BOOTS

There seems to be very little in a pair of boots--except, perhaps, a pair of feet--until a great crisis arises; and in a great crisis all things a.s.sume new values. When the war broke out, and empires found themselves face to face with destiny, the nations asked themselves anxiously how they were off for boots. When millions of men began to march, boots seemed to be the only thing that mattered. The manhood of the world rose in its wrath, reached for its boots, buckled on its sword, and set out for the front. And at the front, if Mr. Kipling is to be believed, it is all a matter of boots.

Don't--don't--don't--don't--look at what's in front of you; Boots--boots--boots--boots--moving up and down again; Men--men--men--men--men go mad with watching 'em.

An' there's no discharge in the war.

Try--try--try--try--to think o' something different-- Oh--my--G.o.d--keep--me from going lunatic!

Boots--boots--boots--boots--moving up and down again An' there's no discharge in the war.

We--can--stick--out--'unger, thirst, an' weariness, But--not--not--not--not the chronic sight of 'em-- Boots--boots--boots--boots--moving up and down again!

An' there's no discharge in the war.

'Tain't--so--bad--by--day because o' company, But--night--brings--long--strings o' forty thousand million Boots--boots--boots--boots--moving up and down again!

An' there's no discharge in the war.

A soldier sees enough pairs of boots in a ten-mile march to last him half a lifetime.

Yet, after all, are not these the most amiable things beneath the stars, the things that we treat with derision and contempt in days of calm, but for which we grope with feverish anxiety when the storm breaks upon us?

They go on, year after year, bearing the obloquy of our toothless little jests; they go on, year after year, serving us none the less faithfully because we deem them almost too mundane for mention; and then, when they suddenly turn out to be a matter of life and death to us, they serve us still, with never a word of reproach for our past ingrat.i.tude. If the world has a spark of chivalry left in it, it will offer a most abject apology to its boots.

It would do a man a world of good, before putting on his boots, to have a good look at them. Let him set them in the middle of the hearthrug, the shining toes turned carefully towards him, and then let him lean forward in his arm-chair, elbows on knees and head on hands, and let him fasten on those boots of his a contrite and respectful gaze. And looking at his boots thus attentively and carefully he will see what he has never seen before. He will see that a pair of boots is one of the master achievements of civilization. A pair of boots is one of the wonders of the world, a most cunning and ingenious contrivance. Dan Crawford, in _Thinking Black_, tells us that nothing about Livingstone's equipment impressed the African mind so profoundly as the boots he wore. 'Even to this remote day,' Mr. Crawford says, 'all around Lake Mweru they sing a "Livingstone" song to commemorate that great "path-borer," the good Doctor being such a federal head of his race that he is known far and near as Ingeresa, or "The Englishman." And this is his memorial song:

Ingeresa, who slept on the waves, Welcome him, for he hath no toes!

Welcome him, for he hath no toes!

That is to say, revelling in paradox as the negro does, he seized on the facetious fact that this wandering Livingstone, albeit he travelled so far, had no toes--that is to say, had _boots_, if you please!' Later on, Mr. Crawford remarks again that the barefooted native never ceases to wonder at the white man's boots. To him they are a marvel and a portent, for, instead of thinking of the boot as merely covering the foot that wears it, his idea is that those few inches of shoe carpet the whole forest with leather. He puts on his boots, and, by doing so, he spreads a gigantic runner of linoleum across the whole continent of Africa. Here is a philosophical way of looking at a pair of boots! It has made my own boots look differently ever since I read it. Why, these boots on the hearthrug, looking so reproachfully up at me, are millions of times bigger than they seem! They look to my poor distorted vision like a few inches of leather; but as a matter of fact they represent hundreds of miles of leathern matting. They make a runner paving the path from my quiet study to the front doors of all my people's homes; they render comfortable and attractive all the highways and byways along which duty calls me. Looked at through a pair of African eyes, these British boots a.s.sume marvellous proportions. They are touched by magic and are wondrously transformed. From being contemptible, they now appear positively continental. I am surprised that the subject has never appealed to me before.

Now this African way of looking at a pair of boots promises us a key to a phrase in the New Testament that has always seemed to me like a locked casket. John Bunyan tells us that when the sisters of the Palace Beautiful led Christian to the armoury he saw such a bewildering abundance of boots as surely no other man ever beheld before or since!

They were shoes that would never wear out; and there were enough of them, he says, to harness out as many men for the service of their Lord as there be stars in the heaven for mult.i.tude. Bunyan's prodigious stock of shoes is, of course, an allusion to Paul's exhortation to the Ephesian Christians concerning the armour with which he would have them to be clad. 'Take unto you the whole armour of G.o.d ... and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.'

Whenever we get into difficulties concerning this heavenly panoply, we turn to good old William Gurnall. Master Gurnall beat out these six verses of Paul's into a ponderous work of fourteen hundred pages, bound in two ma.s.sive volumes. One hundred and fifty of these pages deal with the footgear recommended by the apostle; and Master Gurnall gives us, among other treasures, 'six directions for the helping on of this spiritual shoe.' But we must not be betrayed into a digression on the matter of shoe-horns and kindred contrivances. Shoemaker, stick to thy last! Let us keep to this matter of boots. Can good Master Gurnall, with all his hundred and fifty closely printed pages on the subject, help us to understand what Paul and Bunyan meant? What is it to have your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace? What are the shoes that never wear out? Now the striking thing is that Master Gurnall looks at the matter very much as the Africans do. He turns upon himself a perfect fusillade of questions. What is meant by the gospel? What is meant by peace? Why is peace attributed to the gospel? What do the feet here mentioned import? What grace is intended by that 'preparation of the gospel of peace' which is here compared to a shoe and fitted to these feet? And so on. And in answering his own questions, and especially this last one, good Master Gurnall comes to the conclusion that the spiritual shoe which he would fain help us to put on is 'a gracious, heavenly, and excellent spirit.' And his hundred and fifty crowded pages on the matter of footwear give us clearly to understand that the man who puts on this beautiful spirit will be able to walk without weariness the stoniest roads, and to climb without exhaustion the steepest hills. He shall tread upon the lion and adder; the young lion and the dragon shall he trample under feet. In slimy bogs and on slippery paths his foot shall never slide; and in the day when he wrestles with princ.i.p.alities and powers, and with the rulers of the darkness of this world, his foothold shall be firm and secure. 'Thy shoes shall be iron and bra.s.s, and as thy days so shall thy strength be.' Master Gurnall's teaching is therefore perfectly plain. He looks at this divine footwear much as the Africans looked at Livingstone's boots.

The man whose feet are shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace has carpeted for himself all the rough roads that lie before him. The man who knows how to wear this 'gracious, heavenly, and excellent spirit' has done for himself what Sir Walter Raleigh did for Queen Elizabeth. He has already protected his feet against all the miry places of the path ahead of him. If good Master Gurnall's 'six directions for the helping on of this spiritual shoe' will really a.s.sist us to be thus securely shod, then his hundred and fifty pages will yet prove more precious than gold-leaf.

Bunyan speaks of the amazing exhibition of footgear that Christian beheld in the armoury as '_shoes that will not wear out_.' I wish I could be quite sure that Christian was not mistaken. John Bunyan has so often been my teacher and counsellor on all the highest and weightiest matters that it is painful to have to doubt him at any point. The boots may have looked as though they would never wear out; but, as all mothers know, that is a way that boots have. In the shoemaker's hands they always look as though they would stand the wear and tear of ages; but put them on a boy's feet and see what they will look like in a month's time! I am really afraid that Christian was deceived in this particular.

Paul says nothing about the everlasting wear of which the shoes are capable; and the sisters of the Palace Beautiful seem to have said nothing about it. I fancy Christian jumped too hastily to this conclusion, misled by the excellent appearance and st.u.r.dy make of the boots before him. My experience is that the shoes do wear out. The most 'gracious, heavenly, and excellent spirit' must be kept in repair. I know of no virtue, however attractive, and of no grace, however beautiful, that will not wear thin unless it is constantly attended to.

My good friend, Master Gurnall, for all his hundred and fifty pages does not touch upon this point; but I venture to advise my readers that they will be wise to accept Christian's so confident declaration with a certain amount of caution. The statement that 'these shoes will not wear out' savours rather too much of the spirit of advertis.e.m.e.nt; and we have learned from painful experience that the language of an advertis.e.m.e.nt is not always to be interpreted literally.

One other thing these boots of mine seem to say to me as they look mutely up at me from the centre of the hearthrug. Have they no history, these shoes of mine? Whence came they? And at this point we suddenly invade the realm of tragedy. The voice of Abel's blood cried to G.o.d from the ground; and the voice of blood calls to me from my very boots. Was it a seal cruelly done to death upon a northern icefloe, or a kangaroo shot down in the very flush of life as it bounded through the Australian bush, or a kid looking up at its slaughterer with terrified, pitiful eyes? What was it that gave up the life so dear to it that I might be softly and comfortably shod? And so every step that I take is a step that has been made possible to me by the shedding of innocent blood. All the highways and byways that I tread have been sanctified by sacrifice.

The very boots on the hearthrug are whispering something about redemption. And most certainly this is true of the shoes of which the apostle wrote, the shoes that the pilgrims saw at the Palace Beautiful, the shoes that trudge their weary way through Master Gurnall's hundred and fifty packed pages. These shoes could never have been placed at our disposal apart from the shedding of most sacred blood. My feet may be shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; but, if so, it is only because the sacrifice unspeakable has already been made.

VII

CHRISTMAS BELLS

It is an infinite comfort to us ordinary pulpiteers to know that even an Archbishop may sometimes have a bad time! And, on the occasion of which I write, the poor prelate must have had a very bad time indeed.

For--tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon!--none of his hearers knew what he had been talking about! They could make neither head nor tail of it! 'I have not been able to find one man yet who could discover what it was about,' wrote one of his auditors to a friend. It is certainly most humiliating when our congregations go home and pen such letters for posterity to chuckle over. And yet the ability of the preacher at this particular service, and the intelligence of his hearers, are alike beyond question. For the preacher was the famous Richard Chenevix Trench, D.D., Professor of Theology at King's College, Dean of Westminster, and afterwards Archbishop of Dublin. The sermon was preached in the cla.s.sical atmosphere of Cambridge University, princ.i.p.ally to students and undergraduates. The theme was the Incarnation--'_The Word was made flesh_.' And the young fellow who wrote the plaintive epistle from which I have quoted was Alfred Ainger, afterwards a distinguished litterateur and Master of the Temple. He could make nothing of it. 'The sermon, I am sorry to say, was universally disappointing. I have not been able to find one man yet who could discover what it was about. It is needless to say _I_ could not. He chose, too, one of the grandest and deepest texts in the New Testament. He talked a great deal about St.

Augustine, but any more I cannot tell you.'

Now Christmas will again come knocking at our doors, and many of us will find ourselves preaching on this selfsame theme. And we have a wholesome horror of sending our hearers home in the same fearful perplexity. 'What on earth was the minister talking about?' All the cards and the carols, the fun and the frolic, the pastimes and the picnics will be turned into dust and ashes, into gall and wormwood, into vanity and vexation of spirit to the poor preacher who suspects that his Christmas congregation returned home in such a mood. His Christmas dinner will almost choke him. There will be no merry Christmas for _him_!

But let no minister be terrified or intimidated by the Archbishop's unhappy experience. His 'bad time' may help us to enjoy a good one. We must take his text, and wrestle with it bravely. It is the ideal Christmas greeting. There is certainly depth and mystery; but there is humanness and tenderness as well.

'_The Word_ was made flesh.' Words are wonderful things, to say nothing of '_the_ Word'--whatever _that_ may prove to be. This selfsame Archbishop Trench, whose sermon at Cambridge proved such a universal disappointment, has written a marvellous book _On the Study of Words_.

Here are seven masterly chapters to show that words are fossil poetry, and petrified history, and embalmed romance, and that all the ages have left the record of their tears and their laughter, of their virtues and their vices, of their pa.s.sion and their pain, in the _words_ that they have coined. 'When I feel inclined to read poetry,' says Oliver Wendell Holmes, 'I take down _my dictionary_! The poetry of words is quite as beautiful as that of sentences. The author may arrange the gems effectively, but their shape and l.u.s.tre have been given by the attrition of age. Bring me the finest simile from the whole range of imaginative writing, and I will show you a single word which conveys a more profound, a more accurate, and a more elegant a.n.a.logy.' Words, then, are jewel-cases, treasure-chests, strong-rooms; they are repositories in which the archives of the ages are preserved.

'The Word _was made flesh_.' We never grasp the Word until it is. Let me ill.u.s.trate my meaning. Here is a bonny little fellow of six, with sunny face and a glorious shock of golden hair. His father hands him his first spelling-book, with the alphabet on the front page, and little two-letter monosyllables following. But what can he make of even such small words? He will never learn the A.B.C. in that way. But give him a _teacher_. Make the word flesh, and he will soon have it all off by heart!

Five years pa.s.s away. The lad is in the full swing of his school-days now. But to-night, as he pores over his books, the once sunny face is clouded, and the wavy hair covers an aching head.

'Time for bed, sonny!' says mother at length.

'But, mother, I haven't done my home lessons, _and I can't_.'

'What is it all about, my boy?' she asks, as she draws her chair nearer to his, and, putting her arm round his shoulder, reads the tiresome problem.

And then they talk it over together. And, somehow, under the magic of her interest, it seems fairly simple after all. In her sympathetic voice, and fond glance, and tender touch, the word becomes flesh, and he grasps its meaning.

Five more years pa.s.s away. He is sixteen, and a perfect book-worm.