CHAPTER FIVEThe Moving Spirit
SO Mr. Trimblerigg went to college to learn tribal divinity as falsely taught by the Free Evangelicals; and his Uncle Phineas paid for it.
He went there as a True Believer; and his fellow-students viewed with wonder so coming-on a disposition confined to so strait and narrow an interpretation of things spiritual. For at that time a great wave of Liberalism had entered the larger bodies of the Free Church Movement, and the Free Evangelicals led the way. They had even gone so far as to admit women students to their University and to its theological studies, though not of course to the ministry; and because of this and similar tendencies, the wider and easier interpretation of Scripture concerned them greatly.
In this large and tolerant atmosphere, where modernism was beginning to lift its head, Mr. Trimblerigg stood all alone. It was a challenge that delighted him. He had no illusions as to the lack of a future outlook afforded by adherence to the strict tenets of True Belief: but he had the sense to realize that what a student believes, or thinks he believes, in his teens under the unavoidable influence of the parental upbringing, matters nothing to his future career. Only when he comes to man’s estate, and the full and free possession of his faculties do his opinions and pronouncements begin to measure his qualification for advancement. In the meantime he could sharpen his wits, acquire knowledge, and develop his resources for dialectic and for oratory just as well by maintaining the improbable side of the argument as the probable; what better test indeed for his powers? Convictions could come later,what he wanted now was training; and though as yet unconvinced himself, he might on the way convince others, if only a few, even of the truth of tenets which he meant presently to discard.
There were three hundred students at the college, fifty of them women, and he himself the only ‘True Believer,’ with the additional drawback that in most of the points distinguishing his branch of the Free Church body from others he did not truly believe. Yet he never doubted that in free debate he could profess a belief that would sound plausible, and put up at least an attractive fight even though eventual defeat awaited him.
But though his calculating mind gave a silver lining to the cloud which hung over him, it was, I maintain, an act of courage when he stepped so buoyantly into the arena to face a three-years’ process of defeat, and by defeat to learn the ways of victory. And though presently the buffetings which he had to endure were tremendous, he was able in letters, and in conversation when he went home, to convey to his uncle the impression that True Belief was not only holding its own, but winning its way in the strongholds of infidelity. Had he not already made converts, for proof? Three of the students, two male, one female, had become True Believers.
One day he brought them over and exhibited them to his uncle, and when his uncle had examined them thoroughly in their new-found faith his trust in Mr. Trimblerigg became almost complete. But still not quite. Uncle Phineas was a cautious character, and not for nothing had caution, assisted by revelation, been his companion for eighty-four years.
It was at this time that he re-made his will, re-made it ina curious way and let the family know of it. He executed two wills on the same day with the same witnesses; and laying both by, waited for time to decide which of the two should survive him.
‘I have great hopes of you, Jonathan,’ he said. ‘I’m watching you, often when you don’t think; and when I’m not quite clear in my own mind the Book tells me.’
That was Uncle Phineas’s strong point in his reading of character: the Book could not lead him astray. It was upon that point that Mr. Trimblerigg felt himself most vulnerable. He might trace and traverse to stand in his uncle’s good graces, he might abundantly deserve his confidence and all that should go with it or follow from it after his death; but nothing that he could do would prevent the Book opening in the wrong place at the last critical moment, or prevent Phineas from believing that whatever it then told him was true.
And so though Mr. Trimblerigg did in those three years by all his contemporary acts if not by his calculations, deserve that his uncle should think well of him, he could never be quite sure.
During his second year he heard from Davidina that she had fallen out of her uncle’s favour,—an event which, having the two wills in mind he did not disapprove; but when he heard later that a hitherto unconsidered great-niece had appeared upon the scene and was keeping house for his uncle, his mind grew troubled. This was a cousin whom he had never seen, named Caroline; the circumstance that she had lately become an orphan made her available as a house-companion for one who, needing an arm to lean on, did not yet require a nurse. She was olderthan Jonathan by three years, and had managed from her mother’s side to be of fair complexion.
Davidina nicknamed her ‘the dream-cow’; and when Mr. Trimblerigg saw her for the first time on his return home during vacation he had to admit that the name suited. She was a large creamy creature, slightly mottled with edges of pink; vague, equable, good-tempered, taking things as they came; rather stupid to talk to, but not uncomely to look upon.
As he gazed on her at their first meeting, Mr. Trimblerigg’s calculating mind got ahead of him before he could prevent; and ‘Shall I have to marry her?’ was the thought which suddenly presented itself. With equal suddenness came another, ‘If I do, what will Isabel Sparling say? There’ll be trouble.’
Isabel Sparling was the woman student whom he had converted to True Belief; and the conversion had been of an emotional character.
She was an ardent believer in the ministry of women, and having the prophetess of Scripture upon her side—Huldah the prophetess who dwelt in the college at Jerusalem for one, as Mr. Trimblerigg was quick to remember—had no difficulty in persuading him that the ministry of women was compatible with ‘True Belief.’
Mr. Trimblerigg had seized on it, indeed, with avidity as a forward point for him to score in discussions which forced him generally to take the reactionary line. There was also among True Believers a more obvious opening for women than elsewhere. The ministry of the connection was diminishing together with its funds; and there does come a point, in spiritual work as well as industry, when what cannot support a man will support awoman. In exchange, therefore, for the allegiance of a new convert for theological debates which left him so often in a minority of one, Mr. Trimblerigg blithely gave in his adherence to the ministry of women; and in the College debate on the subject, which took place in his second year, they won an unexpected victory, all but three of the women students, and more than a third of the men students voting in the affirmative.
It is symptomatic, however, that of this particular victory over the powers of evil Mr. Trimblerigg said not a word to his Uncle Phineas. It was a point over which he apprehended that True Believers of the older school might differ from the new. Uncle Phineas, sedentary in a small hill-side village and a chapel of which he himself was the proprietor, was scarcely in a position to appreciate the claim of women to spiritual equality; in the field of politics Mr. Trimblerigg knew that he was decisively against them; nor was Cousin Caroline, his house-companion, the sort of person to suggest a quiver of revolt.
And so, while pledged to Isabel Sparling and her fellow-aspirants to become their champion when membership of the Synod should give him a voice, Mr. Trimblerigg for the present allowed the question to sleep. In his own time and in his own way he would make it his policy, but not probably so long as his Uncle Phineas was alive, and his own financial future unassured. He must first himself become a minister.
It was during his third vacation that Uncle Phineas showed faith, by an overt sign, in his future qualification for the calling. Jonathan was invited, at the next Wednesday meeting, to put up a prayer, and give an address. The invitation was made on the Sunday, giving him half aweek’s notice; and announcement was made to the congregation.
Local interest in the preaching ability of Mr. Trimblerigg had already been roused. Word had come down from College that in the debates he had become a shining light, and there was regret among the Free Evangelicals that the burning oratory of which he gave promise should become the exclusive possession of the narrowest and most disunited connection in the union of the Free Churches. In the course of the next two days many told him that they were coming to hear him.
This helped to make the occasion important; for if he could fill the chapel and continue filling it on future occasions, Uncle Phineas’s recognition of his vocation would become more assured. Mr. Trimblerigg was now eighteen, his uncle was eighty-six; and he could not regard as unpropitious this timing by Providence of their respective lives. Two or three more years in the propaganda of True Belief would not unduly hold up a career for which wider spheres were waiting. Suppose he could, for a couple of years or so, kindle True Believers into new life, make himself indispensable: and then—!
He began to see why possibly he had been called to devote himself temporarily to so narrow a field of service. If he could come bringing his sheaves with him, he would count in the Evangelical world more than if he had merely started as one among many, with no spiritual adventure to single him from the crowd.
Thus his sanguine mind addressed itself to Wednesday’s meeting and the possibilities which lay beyond.
It would be doing him an injustice to say that, in regarding the occasion as propitious, he did not also regard it asa solemn one. He made preparation for it—I might indeed say that we made preparation for it together—with frequency and assiduity; and what I was supposed to hear for the first time on Wednesday evening, I heard in various stages of development more times than a few, during the two days preceding. Davidina, it appeared, heard it also: not, I think, by a wilful listening at keyholes, but with a general awareness that rehearsals were taking place. She paid him the compliment of coming to hear ‘how he got on’, which was her matter-of-fact way of putting it. All the rest of the family did the same: the meeting was well attended.
Mr. Trimblerigg, in spite, or perhaps because, of previous rehearsal, managed to deliver himself with a great air of spontaneity. He got to the point when he knew that he was making a success of it, and was then sufficiently moved and uplifted to launch out into parentheses which were not only unpremeditated but quite happily expressed.
People pray in different ways; some moan, some become tremulous, some voluble, some halting and inarticulate, some repeat themselves many times as though they suspected one of inattention to their requests. There are very few who say what they want to say in the fewest possible words. I wish they did.
Mr. Trimblerigg was not one of the few; but his prayer had undeniable merit; it was quick, spirited, cheerful, a little shrill and high-flown in a few of its passages, and in its peroration there was a touch of poetry. He said yea, several times instead of yes; a trick which later grew into a habit whenever poetry was his aim; but in spite of small drawbacks it was a highly creditable performance well-pleasingto both of us; and that it was so Mr. Trimblerigg knew as well as I or anyone else.
At the porch-gathering afterwards many praised him; Uncle Phineas had said little, not praising him at all, but Jonathan had been told that he might take Wednesday meeting till further notice. Cousin Caroline had looked at him with her mild dewy eyes, saying nothing but meaning much, as much, at least, as so indeterminate a character could mean. Only Davidina, impenetrable of look, gave him no inkling of what was in her mind.
On the way home, in order to show a proper attitude of detachment from praise for a gift that was spiritual, and perhaps also indifference to her blighting silence, Mr. Trimblerigg inquired airily what they were going to have for supper; whereupon Davidina replied in a dry indifferent tone: ‘Same as we’ve just had in chapel, bubble-and-squeak warmed up again.’
It was the sort of thing to which there was no answer; it was true, yet it was so unjust; no doubt she intended it for his soul’s health, but can anything so cruel be also sanitary? ‘Bubble-and-squeak,’ he could not fail to see, in caricature, the likeness to his ebullient enthusiasm which had so moved and uplifted the hearts of his hearers, his own also; and as he let the wound go home he felt (without counting) how many times he could have killed her!
And yet, if I can see truly into Davidina’s mind, all that she meant was that Jonathan’s prayers would be made much better by his not preparing them.
I am not sure that she was right; I have heard both; and I do not think that there was much to choose. Prepared and unprepared alike they always moved his audiences more than they moved me.