Prisoners of Conscience Part 23

"I wish, John Priestly, that you could see Nanna, and speak comfort to her heart."

"That must be thy message, David. And be sure that thee knows well the children's portion in the Scriptures. Thee must show Nanna that _theirs is the kingdom_. What we win through great tribulation they inherit through the love of the Father. _Theirs is the kingdom_; and there is no distinction of elect or non-elect, as I read the t.i.tle."

"I count the hours now until I am able to travel. I long for the sea that stretches nor'ard to the ice, and the summer days, when the sunset brightens the midnight. No need to egg me on. I am all the time thinking of the old town growing out of the mist, and I know how I shall feel when I stand on the pier again among the fishers, when I hurry through the clean, quiet streets, while the kind people nod and smile, and call to each other, 'Here is David Borson come back again.'"

"And Nanna?"

"She is the heart of my longing."

"And thee is taking her glad tidings of great joy."

"I am that. So there is great hurry in my heart, for I like not to sit in the sunshine and know that Nanna is weeping in the dark."

"Thee must not be discouraged if she be at first unable to believe thy report."

"The hour will come. Nanna was ever a seeker after G.o.d. She will listen joyfully. She will take the cup of salvation, and drink it with thanksgiving. We shall stand together in the light, loving G.o.d and fearing G.o.d, but not afraid of him. Faith in Christ will set her free."

"But lean hard upon G.o.d's Word, David. There is light enough and help enough for every strait of life in it. Let thy creed lie at rest. There are many doors to scientific divinity, but there is only one door to heaven. And I will tell thee this thing, David: if men had to be good theologians before they were good Christians, the blessed heaven would be empty."

"Yet, John, my theology was part of my very life. Nothing to me was once more certain than that men and women were in G.o.d's hand as clay in the potter's. And as some vessels are made to honor, and some to dishonor, so some men were made for salvation and honor, and others for rejection and dishonor."

"Clay in the potter's hand! And some for honor, and some for dishonor! We will even grant that much; but tell me, David, does the potter ever make his vessels for _the express purpose of breaking them_? No, no, David! He is not willing that _any_ should perish. Christ is not going to lose what he has bought with his blood. The righteous are planted as trees by the watercourses, but G.o.d does not plant any tree for fuel."

"He is a good G.o.d, and his name is Love."

"So, then, thee is going back to Shetland with glad tidings for many a soul. What will thy hands find to do for thy daily bread?"

"I shall go back to the boats and the nets and lines."

"Would thee like to have a less dangerous way of earning thy bread?

My father has a great business in the city, and thee could drive one of the big drays that go to the docks."

"I could not. I can carry a ship through any sea a ship can live in; I could not drive a Shetland shelty down an empty street. I am only a simple sea-dog. I love the sea. Men say for sure it is in my heart and my blood. I must live on the sea. When my hour comes to die, I hope the sea will keep my body in one of her clean, cool graves. If G.o.d gives me Nanna, and we have sons and daughters, they shall have a happy childhood and a good schooling. Then I will put all the boys in the boats, and the girls shall learn to grow like their mother, and, if it please G.o.d, they shall marry good men and good fishers."

"It seems to me that the life of a fisher is a very hard one, and withal that it hath but small returns."

"Fishers have their good and their bad seasons. They take their food direct from the hand of G.o.d; so, then, good or bad, it is all right. Fishers have their loves and joys and sorrows; birth and marriage and death come to them as to others. They have the same share of G.o.d's love, the same Bible, the same hope of eternal life, that the richest men and women have. It is enough."

"And hard lives have their compensations, David. Doubtless the fisherman's life has its peculiar blessings?"

"It has. The fisher's life is as free from temptation as a life can be. He _has_ to trust G.o.d a great deal; if he did not he would very seldom go into the boats at all."

"Yet he holds the ocean 'in the hollow of his hand.'"

"That is true. I never feel so surely held in the hollow of his hand as when the waves are as high as my masthead, and my boat smashes into the black pit below. There is none but G.o.d then. Thank you, Friend John, but I shall live and die a fisherman."

"Would thee care to change Shetland for some warmer and less stormy climate?"

"Would a man care to change his own father and mother for any other father and mother? Stern and hard was my poor father, and he knew not how to love; but his memory is dear to me, and I would not break the tie between us--no, not to be the son of a king! My native land is a poor land, but I have thought of her green and purple moors among gardens full of roses. Shetland is my _home_, and home is sweet and fair and dear."

"Traveling Zionward, David, we have often to walk in the wilderness.

Thee hast dwelt in Skye and in Shetland; what other lands hast thee seen?"

"I have been east as far as Smyrna. I sat there and read the message of 'the First and the Last' to its church. And I went to Athens, and stood where St. Paul had once stood. And I have seen Rome and Naples and Genoa and Ma.r.s.eilles, and many of the Spanish and French ports. I have pulled oranges from the trees, and great purple grapes from the vines, and even while I was eating them longed for the oat-cakes and fresh fish of Shetland."

"Rome and Naples and Athens! Then, David, thee hast seen the fairest cities on the earth."

"And yet, Friend John, what h.e.l.ls I saw in them! I was taken through great buildings where men and women die of dreadful pain. I saw other buildings where men and women could eat and sleep, and could not think or love or know. I saw drinking-h.e.l.ls and gambling-h.e.l.ls. I saw men in dark and awful prisons, men living in poverty and filth and blasphemy, without hope for this world or the next. I saw men die on the scaffold. And, John, I have often wondered if this world were h.e.l.l. Are we put here in low, or lower, or lowest h.e.l.l to work out our salvation, and so at last, through great tribulation, win our weary way back to heaven?"

John Priestly was silent a few moments ere he answered: "If that were even so, there is still comfort, David. For if we make our bed in any of such h.e.l.ls,--mind, _we_ make it,--even there we are not beyond the love and the pity of the Infinite One. For when the sorrows of h.e.l.l compa.s.sed David of old, he cried unto G.o.d, and he delivered him from his strong enemy, and brought him forth into a large place.

So, then, David, though good men may get into h.e.l.l, they do not need to stay there."

"I know that by experience, John. Have I not been in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps, in that lowest h.e.l.l of the soul where I had no G.o.d to pray to? For how could I pray to a G.o.d so cruel that I did not dare to become a father, lest he should elect my children to d.a.m.nation? a G.o.d so unjust that he loved without foresight of faith or good works, and hated because it was his pleasure to hate, and to ordain the hated to dishonor and wrath?"[4]

"And yet, David?"

"In my distress my soul cried out, '_G.o.d pity me! G.o.d pity me!_' And even while I so wronged him he sent from above--he sent you, John; he took me, he drew me out of many waters,--for great was his mercy toward me,--and he delivered my soul from the lowest h.e.l.l."

----- [Footnote 4: Confession of Faith, chap. 3, secs. v-vii; chap. 16, sec. vii.]

XII

"AT LAST IT IS PEACE"

A week after this conversation David was near Lerwick. It was very early in the morning, and the sky was gray and the sea was gray, and through the vapory veiling the little town looked gray and silent as a city in a dream. During the voyage he had thought of himself always as hastening at once to Nanna's house, but as soon as his feet touched the quay he hesitated. The town appeared to be asleep; there was only here and there a thin column of peat smoke from the chimneys, and the few people going about their simple business in the misty morning were not known to him. Probably, also, he had some unreasonable expectation, for he looked sadly around, and, sighing, said:

"To be sure, such a thing would never happen, except in a dream."

After all, it seemed best that he should go first to Barbara Traill's. She would give him a cup of tea, and while he drank it he could send one of Glumm's little lads with a message to Nanna.

There was nothing of cowardice in this determination; it was rather that access of reverential love which, as it draws nearer, puts its own desire and will at the feet of the beloved one.

Barbara's door stood open, and she was putting fresh fuel under the hanging tea-kettle. The smell of the peat smoke was homely and pleasant to David; he sniffed it eagerly as he called out:

"Well, then, mother, good morning!"

She raised herself quickly, and turned her broad, kind face to him.

A strange shadow crossed it when she saw David, but she answered affectionately:

"Well, then, David, here we meet again!"

Then she hastened the morning meal, and as she did so asked question after question about his welfare and adventures, until David said a little impatiently:

"There is enough of this talk, mother. Speak to me now of Nanna Sinclair. Is she well?"

"Your aunt Sabiston is dead. There was a great funeral, I can tell you that. She has left all her money to the kirk and the societies; and a white stone as high as two men has come from Aberdeen for her grave. Well, so it is. And you must know, also, that my son has married himself, and not to my liking, and so he has gone from me; and your room is empty and ready, if you wish it so; and--"