LivingstoneDAVID LIVINGSTONE.(From the Painting in the possession of the London Missionary Society.)
DAVID LIVINGSTONE.(From the Painting in the possession of the London Missionary Society.)
DAVID LIVINGSTONE.
(From the Painting in the possession of the London Missionary Society.)
Two illustrious philanthropists belong to this month. Thomas Clarkson—still another Cambridge man—was born on March 26th, 1760. Whilst at the University he won the Vice-Chancellor's prize for a dissertation on the question, "Is it lawful to make slaves of men against their will?" Working at this essay, he became so impressed with the duty of fighting the slave-trade that he resolvedto give himself up to the work. He lived to see his ends attained as regards Great Britain. There is a natural link between Clarkson's work for the African, and the life-work of David Livingstone (born March 19th, 1813). Livingstone was very far from being merely an explorer, or an explorer with missionary instincts; he knew that to kill the slave-trade in Africa the country must be opened up, and he gave his life to another side of the same work which Clarkson had toiled for.
LincolnABRAHAM LINCOLN.JEFFERSON DAVIS.(Two Notable Americans.)
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.JEFFERSON DAVIS.(Two Notable Americans.)
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.JEFFERSON DAVIS.
(Two Notable Americans.)
March is a great month in the independent history of the United States, and in the official lives of its Presidents. It has its sad memories, too, though memories that no longer appeal to passion. It was in March, 1861, that Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln found the North and the South just on the brink of open war. It was in March also, in the year 1852, that Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was first published. That is one of the few literary anniversaries that will always be connected with political history.
HarrietMRS. BEECHER STOWE.(At the time she wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin.")
MRS. BEECHER STOWE.(At the time she wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin.")
MRS. BEECHER STOWE.
(At the time she wrote "Uncle Tom's Cabin.")
India offers us two memorable names. John Lawrence, Henry's younger brother, was born on March 24th, 1811. One of the wisest of Indian administrators, he would have been great had the Mutiny never occurred. As it is, other achievements are forgotten in the promptitude and skill which marked his conduct then. He is buried in Westminster Abbey, and near him lies Sir James Outram, "the Bayard of India," who died on March 11th, 1863.
bustBUST OF LORD LAWRENCE IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
BUST OF LORD LAWRENCE IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
BUST OF LORD LAWRENCE IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
So much for men; now for organisations. On March 8th, 1698-99, was founded the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. On March 13th, 1701, the Lower House of Canterbury Convocation appointed the committee to "inquire into ways and means for promoting the Christian religion in our foreign plantations," which led to the founding of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The British and Foreign Bible Society was founded on March 7th, 1804. On March 4th, 1824, at a meeting held at the London Tavern, under the presidency of Archbishop Manners-Sutton, "The Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Ship-wreck" was launched. Its present title, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, was adopted in 1854.
foreign(Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd.)BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY'S PREMISES.
(Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd.)BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY'S PREMISES.
(Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd.)
BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY'S PREMISES.
By E. S. Curry, Author of "The Twins," Etc.
INora was putting on her hat in her own room; Christopher, her little son, was being dressed in the nursery to accompany her; Christabel, his twin sister, was in her own pertinacious way arguing with her mother. The Twins, known as Punch and Judy, had reached the age of two. Each had a will, and a method of making it known—though in this respect Judy caused most perplexity to her young parents. She was now asserting it.
Nora was putting on her hat in her own room; Christopher, her little son, was being dressed in the nursery to accompany her; Christabel, his twin sister, was in her own pertinacious way arguing with her mother. The Twins, known as Punch and Judy, had reached the age of two. Each had a will, and a method of making it known—though in this respect Judy caused most perplexity to her young parents. She was now asserting it.
"Me go too, mummie," in a decided tone, for the sixth time.
"No, Judy—not this time. Your turn next," Nora said cheerfully.
She did not like separating the twins, but one was as much as she could reasonably take to an afternoon tea party. They must learn some time to be divided, she thought sadly, after reflecting on the woes of the world.
"Me s'all go, mummie," in beautifully clear accents, with a charming smile.
"Shall you, dear? Yes, next time," Nora said, bending over the vivid little face, just the height of her dressing-table.
"If we're not back when father comes in," she went on, suggesting solace, "will you take care of him, Judy, and love him?"
"Yuv father," murmurously assented the baby, busy with a knot in her pink pinafore.
"And don't take off your pinafore, Judy," said her mother.
"Goin' out to tea," responded Judy. "Off!" releasing one little white serge shoulder from the enclosing cotton.
Nora moved about her room for a few more minutes before she went to the nursery to pick up her little son. Judy, trotting after, was kissed at the top of the staircase, and, with a sombre fire in her brilliant eyes, watched the descent of Christopher. His air of triumph as he stamped his booted feet on every stair was no doubt aggravating.
It was a cold March day, and, as she noted his gaitered legs, Judy glanced down at her own bare toes. At the sight of his hat, firmly set upon the soft fair curls, Judy lifted her chubby hands to her own bare head—bare but for its clustering brown waves with their tips of gold. A deep sense of unfair treatment, of unjust neglect, flitted across the baby's mind. A great determination filled it.
Nurse went through the open nursery door in a busy manner. It was Jane's afternoon out, and there was a good deal to tidy up. In two minutes Judy, after a fashion of her own, was at the bottom of the wide staircase, a lonely little figure, standing for a moment on the rug before the log fire. Finding the hall door shut and the drawing-room door open, the baby stepped into the conservatory, and was soon trotting down the drive. Her shoulders were set sturdily to a great effort. No one seeing her could possibly mistake their expression. She was going out to tea.
Outside the gates, left open for the exit of a carriage, Judy paused. Just before her, four roads crossed. Three she knew well—one led to the village, the other two were the routes of daily outings. The fourth was forbidden to the nurses because of a big public-house a quarter of a mile away—a rendezvous of trippers from London. Along this road the little figure turned.
A bicyclist rang his bell and startled her, whizzing close by her, as she did not move from the middle of the road. A man in a cart evaded her, pausing to look down with interest at the bare-headed little traveller.
"My! she's a little 'un to be about alone," he thought, turning in his seat to look after the purposeful little figure. He scratched his head and thought of his own baby, about the same size, and for a moment was tempted to turn his cart and go after her.
"She hadn't ought to have been let go out by herself," he thought, indignant with some neglectful guardian. "A little gipsy child, p'raps—never taught not to run in the middle of the road."
Unwitting of the kindly thought that followed her, Judy ran on—now and then pausing for a second to glance about her, her bare feet and uncovered head seeming to reck nothing of the cold spring wind. A timber waggon, drawn by three huge horses, and guided by a carter cracking his whip, made her flit in momentary tremor, with hunched shoulders, to the side of the road, from which security she, however, surveyed their passage with sparkling eyes. Holding out her arms in ecstatic approval, she urged shrilly. "Gee-gee—go,go"; and the carter glanced at her bright face, under its touzled waves of hair, admiringly.
"She's a spirit of her own," he thought, bestowing a momentary wonder on her lone condition as he passed.
The dust from the grinding wheels settled, and Judy pursued her way. Who can tell what thoughts were directing her progress, or whether she ever wondered where the tea she was in search of was to come from? She went on.
Presently a wayside inn, withdrawn a little from the road, with its sign-post shaking and creaking in the wind before it, came into view. Judy stopped and put her finger in her mouth, considering. This was a house. Here was tea.
In a doorway stood a man, round and red-faced. He had no coat, and his waistcoat had seen better days, whilst a battered felt hat was on his head. He was gazing into space, with little sharp eyes set under overhanging, beetling brows.
Judy drew nearer. Something in his appearance fascinated her. Possibly its untidy dishevelment touched a fellow-feeling and appealed to her reckless mood. At that moment nothing was doing, and the potman was smoking a dirty pipe when Judy drew near and surveyed him. For a moment or so the two looked at each other in silence. Judy spoke first.
"Tea!" she demanded imperiously.
"Tea!" he repeated, amazed. And then he stooped and touched the velvet of her cheek softly with his hand, and lifted the waves of her overshadowing hair. "Who are you?" he asked.
"Tea," answered Judy, and a little appeal had crept into her tone and into the beautiful dark eyes. The potman's resemblance to her friend the gardener was not so great, on nearer acquaintance, as she had at first thought.
"You want your tea, missy? Is that it?"
And, receiving a little nod and a charming smile, he lifted himself and scratched his head.
"There ain't no tea—but there's some milk" (his face suddenly brightening), "and one of them big buns. It's a bit stale—but if she's hungry."
He disappeared, and Judy, after a second's pause of indecision, elected not to follow him. The interior into which he had vanished was not inviting. There was a little porch to the closed front door, with wooden seats on either side, and these now caught Judy's vision. Trotting thither, she essayed to climb.
little"My! she's a little 'un to be about alone."
"My! she's a little 'un to be about alone."
"My! she's a little 'un to be about alone."
"Up," she demanded, when the potman returned, carrying a mug of milk and a very large scone.
Safely seated, with the mug beside her,and the scone held carefully in both hands, she remarked in cheerful accents—"Out to tea," looking at him for corroboration.
"Out to tea? Yes, missy—where do you come from?" he answered. "What's yer mother thinking of to let yer out alone?" he asked.
Judy opened her mouth and fastened her little white teeth into the big stale bun, condescending no answer to inconvenient questions. The potman sat down opposite her and proceeded in his attempts.
"What's yer name, missy?" he asked again. "Ain't yer got one?" as Judy, disregarding him, seemed bent on demolishing the bun. She nibbled all round it, holding it with both hands, serenely callous to her companion's beguilements.
"Doody," at last she vouchsafed, in a pause for rest, looking interestedly at the pattern she had vandyked.
"That's a funny name. Ain't you got another?" he inquired.
A reminiscent smile broke over the vivid face.
"Daddy's Kistabel," she murmured softly, removing her eyes from his face and considering another bite.
"An' yer daddy might do worse nor kiss you, I reckon," admiringly; "but it's a rummy one, too."
The flash of the dark eyes opposite was irresistible. It awoke good thoughts in the potman's mind.
"You've runned away, I reckon?" he observed, bending forward.
Judy looked all over the ugly face thus presented to her immediate vision. Its corrugated surface fascinated her. Stretching one hand out, she softly touched the knobbly nose and laughed aloud, hunching her shoulders in glee.
Her own flower-like face was an equal attraction to the potman.
"Lilies an' roses ain't in it with her," he murmured admiringly. "An' eyes as big as plums and as dark as—stout."
"Where do yer live?" he next essayed.
"D'ink," said Judy, occupied with the problem of what was to be done with the bun whilst she drank from the mug beside her. "'Old!" she commanded, holding out the bun, as she realised that her own dangling legs made a very unstable, insufficient knee.
"Bless yer, missy, look at my 'ands!" the potman answered.
Judy looked, bending her dainty face with keen interest above the members, encrusted with dirt and neglect, held out before her.
"Dirty!" she exclaimed delightedly, lifting sympathetic eyes to the equally dirty face, and she laughed again in keen enjoyment. Dirt always commanded Judy's suffrages.
"'Old!" she commanded again, undaunted by the sight presented to her; and with sweet and dainty curvings of her soft fingers she pressed the nibbled scone upon the greasy palms. Then the potman handed her the mug and Judy drank.
"Out to tea?" she said again, a little doubtfully, as, her draught finished, she recovered her scone.
But the rosy mouth paused half-open, and Judy's eyes fixed themselves observantly on an advancing figure.
"Man," she said, directing the potman's gaze to the road. It was a policeman passing by, and the potman stood up alertly.
"Here," he called, "here's a little gel." And the two men stood solemnly regarding Judy. "I 'xpect she's lost," he suggested slowly.
The policeman's eyes fixed themselves on the dainty embroidery of Judy's little petticoat, visible under her lifted skirt—a contrast to the bare and dusty ankles it enclosed. The dragged-aside cotton pinafore, from which one arm was freed, revealed the elaborate smocking with which nurse was wont to ornament the simple frock. Lastly, Judy's face came in for careful scrutiny.
"How did you pick her up?" he asked.
"She come."
"Which direction?"
"Along the road, trotting along all by herself."
"Then I'll take her back. Seems to me she is uncommon like one of a pair I sometimes see—beauties, both of them; though how the mischief——Come with me, missy," he wheedled, stooping and holding out his arms.
"Out to tea," said Judy.
"Yes, so you are. You been out to tea, ain't you?" he sympathised. And Judy, satisfied, holding out her arms, allowed herself to be annexed.
But she was not carried off without a little scene.
In the policeman's arms a sudden recollection of her "manners" flashed across her mind.
"Bye, bye," she said, holding out one hand in a dignified fashion to the potman. With the other she still retained the bun.
"Bye, bye, missy," he responded, much gratified.
"Bye, bye," Judy repeated; and then, her vivid face all dimpling into smiles, she flung herself forward and clasped her arms round his neck. What to Judy were dirt and knobbliness? Both were fascinating, both were associated with the delight of having her own way. With a fervid embrace and a wet kiss Judy bestowed her gratitude.
There was weeping and wringing of hands and the rush of petticoats up and down and in and out, and flying figures darting about, when the policeman, with Judy in charge, arrived at the gates of Mount Royal. Judy's father had just come from the train, and was trying to find out from his agitated household what was the matter, when the tall, dark figure with the little pink one in his arms appeared.
"Oh, Judy!" reproached nurse, pallid to her lips, snatching her charge from the policeman's arms and agitatedly examining all her limbs. "Such a disgrace!" she exclaimed, looking angrily at the policeman.
"I thought I knew her, miss," he said politely, grinning. Nurse had haughtily snubbed him once or twice in her walks.
bye"Bye, bye," she said.
"Bye, bye," she said.
"Bye, bye," she said.
"Out to tea," Judy said triumphantly, as she was caught up into her father's embrace.
* * * * * *
Christopher, breaking away from nurse's attentions, on his return home, stamped loudly round the nursery floor to attract the envious attention of Judy.
Judy's attire had been remodelled throughout, as a prelude to the hour in the drawing-room before bed-time; and she was now sitting on the window seat in a mood of subdued and passive triumph. "Go agen," she had murmured softly two or three times to herself, too much occupied with the sweets of memory to heed, as she otherwise would have done, Punch's aggravations.
Stamping round being deprived of its attraction, Punch paused and approached his sister.
"Poor Doody," he said pityingly.
Judy's eyes flashed in the manner which always made Punch conscious of wonder that he had felt called upon to speak. He hastened to appease her.
"Punch's boots a-comin' off," he said.
"Doody don't want no boots," she said shrilly; "never don't want no boots, Doody don't."
"No," agreed Punch, in the tone of one who humours. "Ain't been out to tea," he suggested.
"Has!" screamed Judy. "Doody has!"
The blue eyes looked searchingly into the dark ones, and, with a qualm of disappointment, Punch felt the force of truth.
"Cake?" he asked presently, after silently observing her.
Judy shook her head violently, the violence intended to hide the mortification of having to confess the absence of the delicacy.
"Punch did," he said. "Cake, an' tea, an'——"
"Bun?" burst in Judy; and then it was Punch's turn to look disappointed. Buns had not been provided at his entertainment.
"Doody did," went on Judy; "an' milk, an'——"
"Punch had tea," interrupted Christopher.
"An' man," went on Judy, with immense emphasis.
Christopher looked at her solemnly, as he dived into the recesses of his memory; not a man had graced his tea-party!
"Man?" persisted Judy, searching his eyes with her blazing orbs.
There was a silence.
"Punch are goin' to muvver," the boy then announced cheerfully, freeing his legs from Judy's petticoats with a vigorous kick.
"Man!" shrieked Judy after his retreating figure, too much taken by surprise to lift herself so suddenly. Then she, too, got up, shook herself, and with a dash was through the nursery door.
"Out to tea agen," she sang out, trotting fast along the corridor.
But alas! for Judy. All the doors and gates were fast, and for a week they were kept carefully closed.
Man"Man!" shrieked Judy.
"Man!" shrieked Judy.
"Man!" shrieked Judy.
cost(Photo: H. S. Mendelssohn, Pembridge Crescent, W.)
(Photo: H. S. Mendelssohn, Pembridge Crescent, W.)
(Photo: H. S. Mendelssohn, Pembridge Crescent, W.)
By the Rev. C. Silvester Horne, M.A.
"When His disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor."—St. Matthewxxvi. 8, 9.
"When His disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste? For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor."—St. Matthewxxvi. 8, 9.
IBlessed is the love that counteth not the cost of sacrifice! Thus I read the meaning of the Master's recognition of this act of homage—the form in which a devout and eager spirit of reverence found expression and articulation. This woman, by surrendering herself to the impulse of adoration and affection, laid herself open to the criticisms of the self-constituted champions of common sense, utility, and philanthropy. We shall see, as we look at her story, how, in the regard of Heaven, what I might venture to call a genuine and spontaneous extravagance ranks higher than a legal and mechanical economy.
Blessed is the love that counteth not the cost of sacrifice! Thus I read the meaning of the Master's recognition of this act of homage—the form in which a devout and eager spirit of reverence found expression and articulation. This woman, by surrendering herself to the impulse of adoration and affection, laid herself open to the criticisms of the self-constituted champions of common sense, utility, and philanthropy. We shall see, as we look at her story, how, in the regard of Heaven, what I might venture to call a genuine and spontaneous extravagance ranks higher than a legal and mechanical economy.
There is a truth we have not anything like exhausted yet in the great words of Christ, "He who saves [or hoards] his life shall lose it." Parsimony, if we knew it, impoverishes as well as extravagance. If the prodigal had turned miser, he would have remained just as far from the father's house. We do not accuse the disciples for a moment of selfishness or greed. If they misconstrued Mary's motive, let us beware lest we misconstrue theirs. Say they were honest and genuine, but that they lacked insight and that emancipation from the commercial spirit which saves men from estimating all precious and lovely things at their market value.
We need the lesson. No century has needed it more. While love in self-forgetfulness and holy passion is spending itself in the tenderest offices that an overflowing heart has suggested, the disciples are engaged in problems of valuation, working out calculations in arithmetic—so much ointment at so much per pound. But that would have been condemned by many who would yet ask themselves seriously whether their main contention was not right. Their blunt and rude interruption showed lack of feeling; it was vulgar and inexcusable. Granted. But if they had quietly sympathised with the good intention, and yet afterwards had clearly represented that here love had loved "not wisely but too well," and had done better if it had selected some more practical method in which to exhibit its reality, would they not have commanded a very general assent? Would not nine out of every ten have said that she could have laid out the money to better advantage, and that it was a holier thing to clothe and feed the persons of the poor than even to anoint the person of the Christ?
Now let me say that I do not think we canunderstand our Saviour's commendation of this deed of love, and this apparent disregard of principles of utility and practical philanthropy, unless we take at once a large and a deep view of life—its purpose and the methods of its education. The pressure of the material necessities is constant and urgent, I know; but God does not mean us to believe that the supreme questions of life are "What shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?"
When Christ propounded His query to the multitudes on the mount, "Is not the life more than meat, and the body than the raiment?" He demanded in reality their assent to the proposition that the spiritual life is the supremely important. The fact of the matter is, God has never treated man as if he were made to eat and drink because to-morrow he must die. The world is not designed simply to promote our physical well-being, and conducted on purely utilitarian principles, as if it were some sort of gigantic store in which all men were shareholders, and the sole business of which was to produce certain annual profits. That mode of regarding the universe is popular, but false.
Have you ever asked yourselves the question, "What do the spring flowers mean?" I have sometimes tried to fancy men gloomily riding to the city and sulkily pointing to the wealth of ephemeral beauty that has glorified the world, and demanding, "To what purpose is this waste?" There the flowers bloom, so fragile, so delicate, so short-lived; here to-day, and faded and gone to-morrow: to-day, a quivering point of beauty and fragrance, to-morrow touched by the withering finger of decay. And so "they bloom their hour and fade," and we say in wonder, "To what purpose was this waste?" What did it all mean? One sudden, genuine gush of sacred feeling; one burst of almost overpowering glory that shone steadfast for one brief hour and then faded into nothingness. Why lavish such wealth of colour and sweetness on fabrics so short-lived as the flowers of spring? Ah, why, indeed! Long years before man brake the first poor spikenard vessel of worship and adoring love at the feet of the Eternal, God poured His precious gifts of bloom and scent in bewildering profusion and prodigality upon the listless sons of earth.
I have sometimes wondered whether man might not have gone on conceiving of the world as no more than so much food, and clothing, and shelter, if God had not startled him by this annual miracle of spring to ask the question, "To what purpose is this waste?" Just so soon as man found himself appealed to in the higher faculties and senses, did he begin to suspect himself above the brute; did he begin to discover beneath the form of things a gracious and bountiful Spirit, whose attitude to him found voice in these tender and winsome words of Nature's lips.
Flowers "born to blush unseen and waste their sweetness on the desert air"—to what purpose are they? Surely, surely (as Mary's offering of sweet spikenard) they are God's approach to man, if only we would accept them as such. That is the inner meaning of this sudden gush of sacred feeling; that is the purpose of this "waste."
We are reaching, then, this conclusion, that if love is the soul of life, you must expect no mere dead level of respect, but occasional inevitable outbursts of feeling, love's sweet surprises; times when the ordinary prescribed channels through which habitual affection flows are inadequate, and when there must be room for the sweet extravagances of love. The strong, deep love of a father may no doubt be felt in the steadfast care that provides food and clothing, and shelter, and all things necessary for his child. But, after all, home would not be home if there were not room for the rarer gifts, and the moments of sublimeabandon, when all the love of the heart breaks forth in unconstrained demonstration of affection.
Life that is love cannot be reduced to formalities; there must be a place in it for the spontaneous, the unpremeditated, the irresistible impulse. Love cannot live and thrive amid conventions merely. It has an etiquette of its own. It must be allowed to make its own proprieties. If you cannot appoint to it an object, and command one mortal to love another, neither can you prescribe the manner of its operation. You cannot control its whims, and freaks, and fancies. It has ten thousand devices that are all enigmas to the uninitiate.
"Love only knoweth whence they came, and comprehendeth love."
Its sanities are stark madness to the matter-of-fact man of affairs. He curtly denominates nonsense what to love is inspiration. He stares in blank incredulity at the simple and magnificent prodigalities of love, and begins to wonder whether he is himself quite sane to-day, and to ask in sheer stupor, "To what purpose is this waste?"
It would not do, perhaps, to make too searching a scrutiny into private personal histories, or it might transpire that, after all, behind even the most stolid of demeanours there lay experiences which memory treasures still, and which are the vindication to them of Mary's sublime extravagance. Yes, perhaps those you leastsuspect—the level-headed men who are feared for their hard thinking and steely, immovable stolidity, have secret drawers somewhere, with strangely unintelligible relics of a yesterday that was the greatest day of their life—and the least defensible day on any rationalistic view of it! On that day they lost either their head or their heart, or both, and love and reverence found expression; and the spikenard that they broke that day is theoneprecious memory in what people with unconscious irony are calling a successful career. Yes, the one thing they are proud to have done, the one thing they sometimes think may stand them in stead in a world where wealth and fame will be as nothing, is a thing which none could justify on commercial principles—which stands in conflict with the great aims and efforts of their lives—an action that sprang inevitably from a spendthrift love, and of which the world in which they move might well demand, "To what purpose is this waste?" I venture to say that by that very chapter of their history the possibility is proved that, some day, they may discover a more amazing loveliness and a more overpowering love; and may offer even nobler offerings of life and treasure at His feet, and go forth again, not in shame, but in holy pride and devout thanksgiving that at last they have learned to love with a love that counteth not the cost of sacrifice.
I have seen this exquisite story quoted as a defence of mere ritual. The method is obvious. The hardened lover of simplicity is represented as one of the disciples; and beholding the beauty of architecture, and the stateliness of the ceremonial, and listening to the superb eloquence of the liturgy and grandeur of the music, he asks, "To what purpose is this waste?"
There is a superficial justification for such teaching. But it is only superficial. For if from this incident it be attempted to establish a precedent for permanent elaborate ritual of worship, it must be said this incident goes to prove its impossibility. For ask yourselves, What gave this deed its peculiar and unrivalled power and influence? There is only one answer. It lies in its solitariness. It was spontaneous. It was unique. It could not bear repetition. To repeat it were to rob it of its bloom.
We repudiate, then, the idea that the form of this deed can become the basis of Christian worship. But we are now able to consider the truth that, when love realises itself thus in deeds of worship, it often receives assurances that it has done more than it knew. God interprets our poor intentions so liberally, so largely. He reads into our broken speech such divine meanings. It is ever so. We give a cup of cold water to a thirsty bairn; and lo! we have done itunto Him! We utter our coarse earthly strains of music; and, one day, He bids us hearken! Then there falls upon our ears ravishing heavenly music; and when we could fall down and worship, He tells us it is our own.
Heaven's great melodies are perhaps no more than earth's poor ones, composed in pure love and praise of God, redeemed from their limitations and imperfections in the home of all true worship. So Mary struck her trembling chord, and waited fearful; broke her spikenard, and then marvelled at her own daring; and while, when love had spent itself, a colder mood began to question the propriety, and to strike fear to her woman's heart, Jesus spake and said, "In that she hath poured this ointment on Me, she hath done it for My burial."
Would she ever have dreamed, think you, that she was doing what He said? Would she ever have dared to entertain the thought that He would bear to the grave the incense of her adoration, and that with the final victory of His resurrection her love and worship would have eternal association? Would she ever have dreamed, here in Simon's house, where she was esteemed so meanly and treated so basely—here, amid the splendour of a rich man's entertainment—that in the days when the world had no feasts for Him, but only a cross and a tomb, that then the perfume of her love, the fragrance of her offerings, would surround His form and sweeten His resting-place. Never; but so it was, for the Divine Love caught up the simple act of worship, and gave it eternal distinction. Yea, He who had come to seek the love of men deigned to associate with the time of His own immortal sacrifice this sacrifice of hers.
It were, perhaps, to require too much of this story to make it convey the great truth that in Christ's sacrifice all our sacrifices have a place. Yet, verily, every true sacrifice hath association with His. Every death to self is an anointing of the Holy One to His burial. He gathers up the perfume of all simple deeds of lowly sacrifice; for this is His reward. Only from the great Love does our love flow. We love because He loved. His sacrifice is the basis of all sacrifice; and all true sacrifice of ours hath this relation to His own. We did not think when we did it of anything but that we must do it unto Him; and in grace He showed us afterwards that we had indeed anointed Him—we had in our own poor way honoured the Divine sacrifice.
It would but mar the solemn influence of such a sacred reflection to deduce the obvious and inevitable lessons. I forbear to treat it thus. I can only say, let us pray and let us strive to love Him with the love that counteth not the cost of sacrifice.
Green
One is pretty safe to address a man in Skye as Macdonald! If that fails, then try MacLeod, and if this produces no result, then there is still Nicolson to fall back on. An error in all three is next door to an impossibility! But Ishbel had not any of these three names, though she lived with her maternal grandfather, who was a MacLeod.
Ishbel was a changeling. Anyone would tell you so in Skye—if, perhaps, one or two smiled in the telling. Her grandmother, Catriona MacLeod, said so, and Catriona had the second sight, and saw more than most people. She was held in Skye to see, indeed, beyond that veil which mercifully hides the future. Catriona had early said the girl was a changeling. Her daughter, poor Kirstie, died at the baby's birth, her father Roderick McNeill, was drowned—tragedy and sorrow surrounded the baby, and then the little green folk stole it, and Ishbel was the changeling popularly supposed to be left in its place.
She was always an odd child, Catriona said, with ruddy tawny locks, and sloe-eyes, elfish and silent, doing queer, uncanny, unaccountable things, with moods of sadness and moods of mirth. She grew up in Skye, and would never leave it, though she had her chance to do so.
Ishbel lived with Catriona till she was nineteen, and helped her with her spinning and knitting; she also milked the cows, and worked about the house. The girl's head was full of her grandmother's teaching; she believed in the fairies, though she rarely spoke of them. Her cousin Duncan often found her seated in the fairy-ring on the knowe, above the sheiling, picking the green grass absently, and gazing "frae her."
Some day, she thought, she would hear the tap of fairy feet in their revels, hear a tiny voice which would beckon her to an entrancing world, very different even from lovely Skye. Very often she thought she had been on the brink of meeting the little green folk, and then someone had come and interrupted her. There was that night coming home over the muir from Portree—the stream, richly brown with the peat over which it gurgled, the air heather-scented, the mountains fading into the lovely purple of the night's embrace—everything hushed, save her own footfall. Ishbel had seemed to hear a voice calling her then, and had wandered up amongst the heather, her face eager and expectant. And there above her on the heather knoll, "the wee folks' knowe," seeming to float between the grey lichen-covered boulders—surely these were tiny white figures, beckoning to her?
She almost ran, in her eagerness, but, just as she approached, Duncan's voice hailed her from the high road. What was she doing there? And was that the way home?
Ishbel almost wept as she descended. For she could see nothing near the boulders thenbut waving cotton-grass amongst the bog and heather. It was lovely September now, and the hill-sides were a glory of tawny colouring, the fading heather and bracken, purple and brown, and orange, and gold, and dusky indescribable grey. Sunset came early, and tinged and stained the loch, the Cuchillans stood out sharply in their lovely serrated outline, against a background of pure gold—they were almost friendly and neighbourly, and approachable; it was in winter that they lowered and sulked in the mist, or frowned blackly from amongst the lashing swirls of rain.
Ishbel had gone to fetch fodder for the cows, and the fodder was a great pile of pale yellow bracken, which she bound together and fastened on her back. Carrying this, she passed up the road, pausing now and then to lean her load on one of the rough dykes which bordered the muir. It was nearing evening, and shadows were creeping over the heather—the burn, amber-coloured under the sun, looked dark and sullen-brown now, and had begun its hoarse night-song, for it only sings in the dark. The deer hear and love this song as they creep down cautiously, light-footedly, turning startled graceful heads from side to side, and they pause a moment, poised with listening ear, before they bury thirsty soft noses into the cool rushing water. The deer did not mind Ishbel! But it was scarcely dark enough for the deer to come yet. There was still a chance of the passing tourist from Sligachan, coming from Coruisk, the far-famed. Ishbel, pausing to rest the high load of bracken on the dyke—the crushed yellow fern making a lovely setting to her tawny locks and black sloe-eyes—suddenly perceived two men approaching, and waited for their coming with something of the deer's startled look. One was Duncan MacLeod, her cousin, short, swarthy, black-browed, with a twinkle of cunning in his grey eyes, and a Highland sing-song voice; and the other? Yes, yes, she had seen the other at the Portree games, and he had tossed the caber further than even Colin MacNeil, and his name was Rory MacPhee! Ishbel remembered him very well, and a little smile melted over her red lips, and lurked in the depths of her lovely eyes as Duncan made him known to her. Rory had rented the small farm next to Catriona's, and he was coming to supper. It was time she, Ishbel, was home.
Duncan did not offer to take the fodder from her, though he thought he was in love with Ishbel, and meant to marry her. Women were used to burdens in Skye. But Rory MacPhee, saying nothing, began to untie the rope at the girl's waist, and he swung the mass lightly over his own shoulders.
"Och! that is not needful," Duncan said. And what he thought was "Amadan!" (stupid!)
"It is too heavy for a lass."
That was all; but Rory and Ishbel did not meet each other's eyes, and they walked home silent through the creeping dusk.
By the red peat-glow in the cottage she looked lovelier than ever; MacPhee ate little, and his mind was in a curious turmoil. Catriona's remarks, and Duncan's slow efforts at conversation—for the Highlander is desperately cautious at making friends, and Rory came from as far away as above Portree, seven miles off—fell on strangely dull ears.
What had come to him?
Rory asked himself the question all next day, for, amidst even the sordid duties of examining the new byres and out-houses, there floated before his mind only one picture—a girl's slim figure in a short faded green skirt, leaning against a dyke, with her small head crushed against a background of faded fern, and the shy lovely eyes looking into his face.
Ishbel! They said she was a changeling.
Well, changeling and all, he loved her!
"It is no use at all to go against the lass. I hef said so before now. And there are many lasses in Skye, as good as she, and with, maybe, a cow or two, or a few pounds to bring with her. There is Sheila Macdonald—Sheila will hef as much as three hundred pounds!"
"As if I would look at a squinting woman"—and Duncan threw down the fishing-rod he held, furiously—"I will hef none but Ishbel, and if she will not hef me, I will do someone an injury!"
His mother went on peeling potatoes, deliberately.
"Rory MacPhee is stronger and bigger than you," she remarked. "And he has the eye of a hawk, and his fist is like iron. You will never take Ishbel from him by force. But perhaps, now, there might be a little plan—chust a little plan."
He picked up the rod. His cunning eyes grew intent. Catriona resumed, in her high-pitched voice, speaking without a pause in her occupation: "The best thing would be that they would quarrel. And I will tell you a way. He does not like to hear that they are all saying she is a changeling; and he does not like her to talk of the good folk. When she told him the story of the kelpie that followed Ross MacRae over the muir, anddrowned him at last in the Rowan Pool, he was angry, and called it all nonsense, and said that she should not repeat such folly. And Ishbel did not like that. She was asking me about the Cave of Gold only yesterday, and when it was that anyone might see the fairies dancing, and if the tide would suit to go. So I told her it was on Midsummer's Night at twelve o'clock, and she is just mad to go! Chust as mad! But Rory was there, too, and I was listening at the door, after, and I heard him say that it was all just talk and folly, and that he would not have her go; that it was too late, and that squalls came on, and our boat was not good at all. She begged and prayed that he would take her, and he said, 'No'! Chust always, 'No'!"
"Very well, then," Duncan cried impatiently, as she paused, "I suppose she is so mad with love that she gave it up."
"She is pretty mad with the love," his mother agreed, "and so she gave in. 'And I am going to Portree, Ishbel,' I heard him say, 'to see what Mr. Campbell, the agent, is wishing to say to me, and you will promise not to go when I am away?—for it is not good for a lass like you to be out so late. And you will promise me?' And she promised. He said he would bring her a new brooch—like a claymore, that the man at Oban is making with the Iona pebbles—and they kissed, and he is gone."
"Very well, what then?" Duncan cried irately. "I hear they are to be married when he comes back. What else, mother?"
Catriona had dropped her potatoes into the pot, and she swung it over the open peats, glowing redly in the dark little cottage.
"Well, if I were you, Duncan, I would get out the boat, and I would offer to take her to the cave. And I will be telling her more stories to-night, when we are spinning. The lass is a changeling, sure enough, and she will go. When Rory comes back, he will hear, and he will be mad with her, and they will quarrel. You can go over to Uig that day" ("Discretion being the better part of valour," evidently, in Catriona's eyes). "They will quarrel, and will break it off, and she will come to you, in time."
Duncan considered the plan slowly. Yes, it suited him excellently well. He wanted no noisy quarrel, no measuring of strength. He, too, remembered Rory's muscles at the Portree games. But this secret working in the dark, in MacPhee's absence, was quite to his taste.
He made up his mind now that his mother was a woman of much wisdom. He graciously told her he approved, and she should have a little present on his next trip to Portree. Her stories to Ishbel of the cave were to be many and enticing!
"Duncan, Duncan, but I hef promised!" It was the next night, and Ishbel stood before the cottage in her dark wincey skirt and green cotton jacket, her face turned up to her cousin's. All last night, all through the day, old Catriona's stories had haunted her. The old woman had gone cunningly to work. She began, in a rambling way, once they were both seated at the spinning-wheel, by remarking that to-morrow would be Midsummer's Night, and the fairies would be holding high frolic in the Cave of Gold. She herself was old, and frail, and feeble, else how gladly would she have gone! She had the second sight—she would perhaps see what no other could! For, with a branch of rowan—and she had a branch of dry rowan in her kist, ready for her burial—or a naked dagger—Duncan's big knife would do—there was no danger! To see the little green folk dancing! And—here her voice fell, and she glanced into all the dark shadows of the kitchen, and up by the oak settle near the window—perhaps to hear the faint and far-off skirl of Angus Macdonald's pipes! They said that sound was heard still. At first Ishbel had risen uneasily, saying she would go and see if there were enough oat-cakes for supper—or was that anyone in the barn?
But Catriona bade her be seated, sharply—the girl should not escape her thus—and then she asked if she (Catriona) had ever told Ishbel the story of Angus Macdonald and the Cave of Gold? No, Ishbel answered unwillingly, and sat down again, the wheel idle, the soft grey carded wool lying in her lap. Catriona, spinning fast—with the low dirl of the wheel acting as a sort of accompaniment to her voice—told the story. She spoke in Gaelic, of course, and it is difficult to put in English the creeping, insidious fear and mystery of the tale.
How the piper, Angus Macdonald, loved a MacLeod of Dunvegen, a follower of the great MacLeod, and how this lady-love's father would have none of him, but set him some of those foolish and impossible tasks so dear to the story-teller of all ages and climes and nationalities.
One task bade him enter the Cave of Gold at midnight, on Midsummer's Night, and play "MacLeod of Dunvegen," passing through the little dancing folk, and penetrating far into the mystery of the cave's windings, where no Skye man had ever been. Macdonald, of course, took up the challenge, and with his tartan ribbands waving wildly from the pipes, and the mouth-piece at his lips, he was seen standing at the shingly edge of the cave, his kilt tossing against his brown knees in the sudden gust of wind. The men who rowedhim up saw this, and heard the first wild pealing notes. Thus, playing proudly and happily, he entered the cave with his dog at his heels. They waited and watched, and listened, and at last heard one awful cry! Then there was silence. He had passed the fairies, but—
"Never home came he!"
Then, changing her tone, Catriona told of the only woman who had ever caught sight of the wee green folk, and how, ever after, riches and wealth were hers, and she had never a wish unsatisfied! It was the going on into the inner caves that had undone the piper! The lass who had seen the fairies was a certain Eilidh Macdonald, and she married a chief, and went to live far away in Oban, and all her days she was clad in green silk. Yes, all her days!
"How did she go?" Ishbel cried.
"In a boat, with a man. It is easy, if the man is strong, and you hef the rowan with you. Last of all, Eilidh died, and she wished to be buried beside Flora Macdonald's granite cross at Kilmuir, and they granted her even that! She lies near the great Flora, who saved the Prince. And all through seeing the wee green folk in the Cave of Gold!"
"Grandmother, would you lend me the rowan branch if—if I were to go?" Ishbel whispered in the dusk. "Would you, grandmother?"
Her own voice seemed to terrify her then, and Rory's face rose up before her; but the old woman got up without a word, and, going to her kist, took something, rolled in a fine kerchief, from it, with the smell of bog-myrtle in its folds, and she laid the brown faded leaves and the red, dry berries on Ishbel's lap.
"There it is! But you will give it me back safe?—or else ill will befall us all!"
"I will give it you back," Ishbel whispered.
She had the rowan in her pocket as she stood with Duncan, tampering with her conscience and her promise now.
"It was a very foolish thing to promise," he said craftily. "Besides, Rory was afraid of the squalls, that is all—and there will be no squalls at all! You can come with me, and see if there is anything, and if my mother's stories are true. If not, there is no harm done. It is a lovely cave whateffer."
Ishbel yielded, as Catriona knew she would yield. Would she see anything? Would the wee folk be there?