i. AND Hl^T •-- Religious No ttons ■ - - - ■ 1 k 1 i ■ ■ ■ ■ o Rkv. Ma rkGvy Pea rse THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Ex Lihris < ISAAC FOOT < 4 b w M - DANIEL QUOEM, AND HIS RELIGIOUS NOTIONS. =». . o Oo-C IH l)-i There, bending over his lapstone, hammering, stitching, always busy, sat j3rother pan'elj ever, TOO, WITH A BOOK BEFORE HIM. — See ]>■'■'•■ DANIEL QUOEM. AND HIS RELIGIOUS NOTIONS. BY MARK GUY PEARSE, AUTHOR OF " MISTER HORN AND HIS FRIENDS," ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES TRESIDDER. I 111 II THOUSAND. "£ o n b o it : WB8LBYAN OONFBBBNOB OFFICE, EtOADj i: u row. 1 H7 5, s LONDON: CRINTED BY HAYMAN BROTHERS AND LILLY, 10. CROSS ST.. HATTON GARDEN. EX. WHOSE LIFE HAS MOST ENDEARED ALL THAT IS TRUEST AND BRIGHTEST AND BEST IN THESE PAGES, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK. f R E F A C E. My old friend Daniel Quomr, of Penwinnin, is a good specimen of one service that Methodism has rendered to this country, a service that of late has come to be more generally acknowledged. In all the Methodist system there perhaps is nothing that has aided her more than her power to develop the gifts of her lowliest members; finding some sphere in which to turn to advantage the various abilities of her people. The .thoughtful miner, the prayerful ploughman, the godly labourer, the work- ing men of every class have always been amongst her most successful Leaders and Local-preachers. In hundreds of towns and villages, men of the humblest position are doing the highest work of the Church, in the Sunday-school, in the Pulpit, and in the Society-class. The scantiest acquaintance with Methodism makes one Eamiliar with many such. Who that lias read anything of this people but has heard of Silas Told the slayer's boy, and his work at Newgate; or who has not been stirred up to start afresh by the story of tho good CarVO of Who has not beard Of the village philosopher, Samuel Drew, mending shoes and working out his thoughts upon the immortality of the soul j of him who as a prince Vlll PREFACE. had power with God and men and prevailed, — the village blacksmith, Sammy Hick; of Billy Dawson, the wonderful Yorkshire farmer, who could sway the people like the summer breeze that swept over his own golden corn, whose words could play with cloud and sunshine across the listening hosts, and who, thrusting in the sickle, saw hundreds of sheaves gathered safely for the Lord with shouts of harvest home ; of the Lincolnshire thrasher, dear good old Richardson, who could so deftly ply the flail in the service of the Heavenly Master ? The ranks even of the ministry — in this like the Church of Rome — have been perhaps most richly adorned by men of humble origin. Dan' el's beloved mother Methodism is much troubled just now by a host of physicians who would persuade her that she is ill. Some have written learned prescriptions for her in proper professional form. Many others shake their heads with gloomy foreboding and prescribe their home-made remedies, foretelling her speedy decease unless she will swallow their simples. They say that she has lost her vigour, (she used to get up at five in the morning) — that her mind is not so clear as it was, that her tongue is getting out of order, that her heart suffers from weakness if not from actual disease. Some say that she wraps herself up more than she did, has a daintier appetite and takes too much care of herself; others, that she is not particular enough with whom she associates, and that she should live more as becomes her very respectable position ; others talk PREFACE. IX of old age, that her sight is growing dim, her hand becoming feeble, and her natural force abated. Bless her, the dear old mother ! why if she had not more common-sense than many of her physicians she would have taken to her bed and made her last will and testament. Let her alone. She wants from her children, not the presumption that wearies her with good advice, but their hearty love, theii- confidence, and their devotion. Let her alone — give her only room for plenty of exercise, and let her sons cleave to her good old-fashioned ways — to the old-fashioned simple faith in Christ, the old-fashioned entire consecration to God, the old- fashioned burning love for souls — and her most glorious days are yet to come. She knows, as well as ever she did, how to use the talents that God entrusts her with, and cares very little about posi- tion or rank or wealth so long as her sons can wield with a strong arm the hammer of the Word. She mi anwithered faith in the Sword of the Spirit. Some perhaps may daintily inscribe it with chaste ornamentation ; some may set it with flashing diamonds and costly work ; some may enrich it with golden hilt, and Labour to make it glisten with an exquisite polish, and Bhe thanks God 'for t! "cunning workmen ;" but Bhe holds them as worth very little who cannol grasp it with a mighty gra |», and with b keen eye and 8 quick hand thrust it up to the biH and force the enemies t<> cry for mi rcy in the dust. po N T E N T S. I. Brother Quorm . . PAGE 1 II. 8 III. "My Mother's Bible" 15 IV. Brother Quorm's Prejudice .... 25 V. Brother Quorm at Class 30 VI. Brother Dan'el on " Slow and Sure " . 37 VII. "It's the Lord's Will, you know" 42 VIII. " Catchin' 'em with guile " 57 IX. "Prayin* breath is never spent in vain" C2 X. "A TALK TO THE LAMBS " .... 72 XI. " Trustin' Him where we cannot trace Him " 83 XII. Dan'el's Notion of a Class-meeting 103 XIII. Dan'el's Notions about Searching the Scrir- 112 XIV. On Two Ways to Heaven .... 128 XV. 144 XVI. 157 DANIEL QUOEM. I. BTirotbcr djuorm. Y old friend Daniel Quorin, — Brother Dan'el, as lie was always called — was the village shoemaker, the Methodist " Class- leader/' and the j "Society-steward." | As hard-headed as tho rounded lap- stone on which he hammered all day Long, as sharp and ■S z ' ' • quick as Ids shin- awl, us obstinate in holding Ids own as his tied shoe-leather; yet, withal, Brother Dan'el had a hi i kind, 01 o true, that like the hammer it only beal to do good, and like hie awl and thread it. was always trying to i v ngthen some r soul that had gol worn i:i the rongh ways of DANIEL QUORM. life. By some process not yet discovered, the very tools that lay about him had come somehow to partake of their master's character. Dan' el lived in the village of Penwinnin, a cluster of miners' cottages some three miles from the Circuit- town ; nor would it be difficult to trace in a hundred features of the place all the chief points that struck one about Brother Dan' el. You passed high heaps of stones on either side the way, the refuse of the mine workings, giving to all a wild and desolate look. You stepped across little streaming rivulets that had just been pumped from great depths and were yet warm. (Our poor world has a heart in it, they say. Alas ! that it should be so far down.) You went under clanking chains, that stretched from the engine-house away to the shaft, and thence down in the mysterious gloom. You met men dressed in suits of flannel stained a dull ochreish red, with a candle hanging from the shoulder, and another stuck in front of the hard canvas hat, ready to light them on their perilous journey. Now and then there were breaks in these stony heaps and one caught a glimpso of the steep cairn that rose beyond, purple with heather and brilliant with the fragrant furze, and, like an old weather- beaten castle, a pilo of granite rocks crowned the summit. Or else on the other side, the break gave BROTHER QUORM. a peep at the valley and its red river, winding its way to the blue Atlantic that stretched beyond the headland. Everybody in the place could tell you where Dan'el Quorm lived. You reached the little thatched cottage, crowned by luxuriant masses of the yellow stone-wort, and all girt about with fuchsias, while the dainty little " Mother-of-millions " crept over the stone fence that enclosed it. Here, without board or writing, a hundred "signs" proclaimed the shoemaker's. The window-sash was filled with all that belongs to the art and mystery of cobbling, while in the seat below wero crowded odds and ends in ili.it confusion which is dear to the true worker, lit proverbial philosophy say what it will. There the lasts .- j 1 1 < 1 awls, the heel-taps and leather parings, the hobnails and sprigs, the cobbler's wax. ami th.it mysterious half of a cocoa-nut shell with tli^ little bil "!' grease t bat never got more or less. There, bending over his lapstone, hammering, stitching, always ba Brother Dan'elj ever, with a book before him. We could almost title, for the stock is limited, and the reading is a slow pr carefully digesting each it comes. The out-and-oul favourite <>f all, Sunday and week-day, is We ley. There the volm 'ind upon :i shelf above Hi" door the ," the " Sermons," the "Journals/' i ' V. J DANIEL QUORM. boside them two or three odd volumes of the " Christian Library." Jeremy Taylor's "Holy living and Dying," is the most enriched with traces of soiled thumb and forefinger. There, too, is "Josephus," and Treffry's "Eternal Sonship," relieved by smaller volumes of Methodist biography. They have passed away now, that old race of preachers, and a passionate devotion to their memory mspires thousands of the English-speaking race the wide world over. We recall them for a moment that we may render tribute to one phase of their work that is specially to be remembered in these days of demand for national education. Not so many years ago, in country towns and villages, the chief supply of books of every sort was through the preacher. The monthly book-parcel was quite an event. With saddle-bags well filled the preachers went their rounds, eagerly greeted in homes to which tiny brought the only reading. From this source it was that Dan' el obtained his select libraiy, and his knowledge of many scores of books that he had never seen, but of which he had heard from the preacher. Here, then, aproned, and in shirt sleeves, sits Brother Dan' el. A face that we can recall as easily as if we had but just left the shoemaker's shop, — as entirely original as his opinions. We see it still: that round bullet-head with its thick hair, which BROTIIER QUORU. would not be smoothed down over his forehead, but stood persistently on end in an unruly and altogether un-Methodistical fashion; that forehead, straight and narrow, seamed and furrowed with deep wrinkles ; the bristling eyebrows, and under them the broad- rimmed spectacles, covering on one side a green patch, (an accident in boyhood had hopelessly finished the work of that eye,) while on the other ride peered the surviving partner, generally half over the broad silver rim, — a sharp quick busy eye, that looked as if it were perfectly aware that it had to do business for two, and meant to do it thoroughly; the short broad nose, " tip-tilted," perhaps, but by no means "like the petal of a flower; "the long upper lip, and then the little mouth pursed together as if it were always going to whistle, and lengthwise on each side ran the deep furrows draining into themselves the shallower rivulets and rills of wrinkles that crossed the Eace in every direction. \Vli:it a life of consistent devotion lie lived! His religion was certainly theological; fiercely so souiitiiiii-, as even Fletcher could be in his polemi a garrisoned city, full of defences and sharp defini- tions, of points and proof.-. Yet it was as certainly the unswerving service of God, us that which was dearer than life; it was the hearty cleaving of his whole nature to the Redeemer, and a quiet joy in ■Him; as if within the buttressed walls there lay a DANIEL QUORM. garden of the Lord, well kept and dressed, wherein grew the Tree of Life, and where often "the voice of the Lord " was heard walking, in " the cool of the day." What a world of quiet humour lay in him, and what a world of shrewd common-sense ! Now and then there was perhaps a tinge of bitterness, a tono of sarcasm. Most folks readily forgave it, and as readily accounted for it. Betsey Quorm, his wife, was dead. She had never become more than plain Betsey Quorm ; not good enough to be " sister," not respected enough to be " Mrs.," she had lived, and died, and was buried, as her tombstone testified, plain Betsey Quorm. And a thorn in the flesh she had been to Dan'el almost all the days of their wedded life. Perhaps that was the worst of it, — that she was only a thorn in the flesh, — that without doing or saying any great harm that one could take hold of, all she said and did somehow pricked, and fretted, and rankled, and festered, in a very unpleasant fashion. Only a thorn ! Why, is there anything else that can compare with it ? A man may be a very master of all sword-practice, a champion with the quarter-staff and the cudgel, but what are these against a thorn ? The law redresses injury and wrong, but what legal skill can touch a thorn ? A coat of mail may defy the tough lance that thrusteth sure, but what defence has a man BROTHER QUORM. against a thorn in the flesh ? Little wonder that her influence lingered yet in a flavour of bitterness that betrayed itself at times, especially upon some topics. " Wives," said Dan'el, " be like pilchards ; when they be good they be only middlm 1 ; but when they be bad, they be bad, sure 'nough." «fw$p s^ II. %\t Clock. w^m ^^w HE old clock stood in the corner of the cobbler's shop, and was, with but one exception, the iHis most precious bit of furniture that he possessed. The little shelf of books was very dear, but Wesley 's works would have gone, " Notes," and " Sermons," and all, before the clock. Indeed there was only one thing that would have had any chance beside it. That was an old green-baize covered Bible, with loose leaves ; dear, as the Book of precious promises from which every day Dan' el drew strength and peace and hope, it was dearer because on the fly leaf, amongst many THE OLD CLOCK. family names and sundry accounts and entries, came the writing in a large straggling hand : " My Mother's Bible. July, 1832." Away in the quiet little churchyard was a grave, carefully tended, made beautiful with simple flowers ; and at its head a stone that explained this date. Here rested John Quorm "of this parish," who died 1820. Here also slept Margery Quorm, wife of the above, who departed this life July lGth, 1832 ; and underneath this name was the text : " I bowed down heavily, ax one that mourneth for his mother." Little wonder that the Bible was dear. But what could there be in a clock ? It was an old-fashioned clock in a tall wooden case, that solemnly ticked in the corner, — slowly and solemnly ticked the minutes through, duly " giving warning " five minutes before the hour ; striking deliberately, as if it stayed to count each stroke, and then sot tling down for nnother solemn hour's work. Yet solemn as it was, and much above all trifling, there was a age little bit of humour on tho very face of it. A round, chubby face with two round ryes was intended to represent the moon, and had been formerly connected with workings that marked tin- lunar changes and quarterings ; but by some mishap it, had slipped down, ami one eye now peeped out of the corner with a cunning look, that seemed to say : ' You think mo an old Bober-sides who has not a 10 DANIEL QUORM. bit of fan in him, but that's all you know about it." And one almost expected to see a sly wink half shut that cunning little eye. But these things, — its solemn ticking and its sly peeping, — however noteworthy they may have been, could not explain how it came to have such a place in Dan' el's heart of hearts. This was its story. Daniel was about seventeen years of age when his father died. " Of course," said everybody, " of course old Mrs. Quorm will leave the place now. Pity but what young Dan' el was a few years older." Old Mrs. Quorm's relatives had actually gone to the length of making arrangements for her removal. •But it had never crossed Dan'el's mind; and when he heard of it he simply stared with the one little sharp eye, and asked, " Whatever for ? " and looked so amazed, and asked it with such angry surprise, that the relatives took a little longer time to think of it, in which* time Daniel settled the matter in his own way. He at once took upon his young shoulders all the care and toil of manhood. Ho never questioned how he should do, but just sat down in his father's place, and rose early and sat late, and worked away with a will that would have discovered the North-West I* •_•■•, much leas sufficed to keep the old roof over the dear mother's head. It was a constant joy to THE OLD CLOCK. 1 1 him that she whom he loved so dearly, was so de- pendent on his thrift and industry. The very tools caught the impulse of such a generous motive. The hammer never rang so merrily in the old man's time ; even the tough leather, and the hard lapstone might have had a heart in them somewhere, and never did their part so well — so all Penwinnin declared. One night Dan'el sat, long after every other worker in the village was fast asleep, busying that one little eye that seemed never to tire. As ho bored, and stitched, and hammered, his mind dwelt upon his Esther's death, and many thoughts began to stir thai had of ten come and gone with no very visible result — thoughts of death and immortality, memories of words and events that had impressed him in his very childhood, and now woko up from their long slumber with strange force; how th;it he, too, must pass away, and whither should he go ? Suddenly the old clock in the corner took up the message with its slow and solemn ticking. In that still hour it kept repeating with measured beat, and age monotony, its brief sentenci — For ever, — wliere? Fob byes, — whebb? Fob bveb, — whebb? Without a pause for a moment, without ;i break, it ticked on its dreadful question. Every other Bound Imi bed, and In the lonely stillness the ticking clock seemed to become almost unbearably Loud. It 12 DANIEL QUORM. was troublesome, and Daniel hammered more vigor- ously ; but the ticking 1 only grew louder; the question was pressed home only the more closely. Distinct and incessant it repeated itself, For ever, — where ? For ever, — where ? Daniel's deepest feelings began to be stirred. The memory of his father's last words broke upon him, — " Good-bye, Daniel, but not for ever." And again, slow and solemn, the old clock took up its strain, — " For ever, — where ? For ever, — where?" Daniel could bear it no longer, lie rose, laid down his work, and resolved to stop this persistent messenger. He walked over to it, and opened the narrow door. More loudly the question began, " For ever," but before it could be finished Daniel put his finger on the pendulum. At once all was still, and he returned to his work. But the silence was more impressive than the slow ticking, and from within himself a voice began to say some plain things. " Dan'el," it whispered, "thou art a coward and a fool." " So I am," he cried aloud, as he flung down his work, and as the tears gathered in his eyes. " Stopping the clock won't stop the time. The moments are going all the same, whether I hear them or not. And am I going with them, for ever, — vjhere ? for ever, — where ? No ; I'll set it agoing again, for it does no good to stop it." Bravely he set it off once more. But the work TffB OLD CLOCK. 13 lay at his feet, and with clasped hands and head hung down, he gave himself up to thoughts that impressed him so deeply : the thought of God, of His claims, of His goodness, of His righteousness, grew upon him ; of sin, of its horribleness and its awful peril. All the sins of his life began to rise up before him, especially the one great sin of neg- lecting and forgetting God ; and amidst it all came every now and then that slow, solemn ticking : For ever, — where? Forever, — where? His distress be- came unbearable. He flung himself upon his knees, and cried, " O God, be merciful to me a sinner ! " Long ho wrestled in earnest prayer; but all was in vain. No help, no light, no peace came. In despair he ceased to pray, and buried his face in his hands. "For ever, — where? For ever, — where?" rang again from tho clock, in that lonely silence. What could he do ? Goaded and driven on by that dreadful i go, whither could holly? All he could do was to fall, as a poor helpless sinner, into the Saviour's arms. Tho tears fell faster as h I Bang himself helplessly on tho stool, and groaned : "Oh Lord, a broken hear! Thou wilt not de pi el Look at mine. Broken and crashed, have, mercy aponme, and we me." That moment lighl dawned upon him. II" ret bed apon < Ihri .t, his crucified it-, u< r" .... ***** There were other texts thus made to chronicle principal incidents; one or two thai Dan'el 24 DANIEL QU0R3I. might have been less willing to explain. But as notable events in his life, and as a faithful historian of them they were duly recorded in his Mother's Bible. One was dated in August of the next year, when things at home had come to be in much need of a gentle hand and of a woman's care. Together with much amused talk amongst the neighbours in which Dan'el's name was first associated with that of Betsey Crocker, there appeared four emphatic lines around the verse, "It is not good that the man should be alone." " Betsey knew what she was a-doin' of ! " was the uncharitable opinion of the village gossips. An opinion that had very little other ground for its uncharitableness than this, that Betsey happened to be twelve years older than her beau. Within six months of the wedding came another entry. Suffice it to say that it completed this portion of his history : lines were drawn about the passage : " Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife." Perhaps the fault was not altogether on his wife's side. Dan'el had an ideal of womanhood so lofty and pure, that very few could have attained to it, and poor blundering Betsey was always measured by the vivid memory of what his mother had been. IY. grdljcr (Quorm's JJrcjubice. BOVE every- thing- else my friend Dan'el was a Class - leader. He was good at making shoes or mending them; good at doing the bit of garden in front of his place ; good at an argu- ment, and many a man dropped into tin- shoemaker's ••'' ,•; for a talk ; good mon, a i appeared from his appointment that huge Circuit-plan. Bat it was as a Class-leader that yon had Dan'el at, his best. M. two Classes had more than mxty members, a f.iir halt' of that flourishing Bocietj at I Vn winiiin. lien- it was, at these Classes, that Dan VI camo VII 26 DANIEL QUORM. out strong. Pithy, plain, common-sensed, with a depth of pity and tenderness in his soul, here perhaps Dan'el was at his best. So wise, so simple, so practical. But here, too, it was that Dan'el's prejudice betrayed itself. There were moments when he would come out in a sharp, hasty way, and run full tilt against some notion that he sought to demolish. Dan' el was a man to whom nothing was so intolerably offensive as a, proverb. All that a pun was to Doctor Johnson, and worse, a proverb was to him. " The embodiment of a nation's wisdom/' " the simplest expression of life's philosophy," " the most compact summing-up of universal expe- rience," as others called them, to Dan'el they were the grossest delusions — "half truths and all lies." And making some allowance for Daniel's preju- dice, it must be owned that not many things are more provoking to an earnest man than to find one's careful arguments evaded or overthrown by some pet proverb, " like as if 'twas the Gospel itself " as he used to say ; or when a point is clearly established by some irresistible instance, to find it all coolly pooh-poohed by the ready saying tli;it, " it's only the exception that proves the rule." If anything might vex an argumentative and logical saint Dan'el thought that this was of all things the most likely to produce such a result. BROTHER QU0R1TS PREJUDICE 27 " They that made 'ein had enough mother-wit for to see and know what they do mean/' he would explain to sympathizing listeners, " but as for most o' them there that use 'em, they have'n't got sense enough for to see when they be true and when they be lies." Yet even such inconveniences as these Dan'el could have endured. The evil became unbearable when it assumed a religious form. The habitual phrases in which people contentedly excused them- selves, and under which they took shelter from every duty, these most provoked his ire. 01« 1 Farmer Gribble, who lived in the village, was a ready example of Dan'el's point. "There's Muster Gxibble into the farm in here, — like a snail drags hisself back, homS an J all, into his shell ; or, like to a dew-worm that hears you a comin' an* starts back into his hole in a minute, that be just how he'll hide up in a proverb. i id to him the other day, ' Farmer you've had pita! harvest. 1 want you to give me some- t lii i our .Mi- aions.' "'Missions!' he cries out, "Missions! No, 'el, 1 hold with Paul, that charity begin home.' Then when I tell him that Paul knew better than to write such Donseo 9, and thai there's no such thing in the Bible, says he, in his drawlin' way : — 28 DANIEL QUORM. ' ^ •kS'**S \~s \^- . " ' Well, if it ben't there, Dan'el, it ought to he there, for Pve a heard it almost so often ! * " That's the way with lots of 'em. There's poor Bob Byles, the drunken backslider, keeps sayin' what wonderful comfort he finds in that there passage, ' "Fis a long lane that han't got no turnw? ; ' like as if it were a sure promise that he'll come right some day. Now and then people ventured to speak in de- fence of such sayings, and of the good they did,- — as when the man who was tempted to stay from the Class-meeting through the rough weather, thought of the words, " Faint heart never won fair lady," and broke through the snare. Dan'el would look up at you with his one little eye, and nod his rough head : " Why there never was a bad thing yet that didn't do some good. The Devil hisself have sometimes worritted me into prayin' and watchin'. There, look 'pon that there," he said one day, when arguing the matter thus, and pointed through the window to a dilapidated rook that was tied to a stick, and swung in the breeze of the April day, scaring his comrades from the young green wheat. ' ' That old fellow sometimes eat grubs and insects, but Farmer Gribble shot him for eatin' his corn. They do some good ; but it's to stop their doin' harm that I should like to hang 'em up. Tinker Tim, who went to prison the other day, was a rare BROSRER QVORH'S PkEJUDICE. 29 good hand at grindin' of razors and knives, but he was sent across the seas for settin' corn stacks a-fire. Why there wouldn't be any harm in the world if it wern't done by things that be some good." How Dan'el met many of these sayings we need not stay to tell; but how he dealt with the pro- verbial phrases of the Class-meetings and of religious talk, is worthy of being recorded. Words with him were ammunition — flung out in a sharp, jerky style, like an irregular fire of musketry. Now they were grape shot, stinging and effective ; now bullets, sharp and silencing ; now cannon balls, sweeping with thunder; now shells bursting into atoms fine fancies, and the tall talk of some real or imaginary opponent. An artillery used with most manifest pleasure to demolish these refuges of idle and men- dicant souls. For words to be abused in proverbs thus was to Dan'el much as it had been to some sturdy old puritan had he seen honest bullets beaten into roofing for the shelter of traitors and rebels. Never did the one little eye twinkle with such Rashes of indignation and joyous humour, or the porsed-np month so fling out its words, ;i- when he demolished such religious phrases, — good in them- selves, but made false and harmful by those who used them. V. JBroifoer Cjuorm at Class. ROTHER Quorm had two Classes ; and, as we have said, had alto- gether on his books more than half the Society at lVnwinnin. The larger and more popular Class met at eight o'clock on the Sunday morning. They met in what was calledby cour- tesy, ' the parlour ' — really the sanded front-kitchen — at Thomas Toms'. Next to the leader's own name, was that of Sally Toms, or " Granny," as everybody called her, who had her bed in that room, and always lay there. An old woman bordering upon a hundred, she had been in the Society for eighty years, and BROTHER QUORU AT CLASS. 31 declared that she should " take her death " if she " did'n go to mittin' regular/' — which was scarcely accurate, as the meeting always came to her. There she lay, with the thin withered fingers clasped on the clean white sheet ; the face, with its clear ruddy complexion, bordered by the hair of such bleached softness, and framed by the cap that gathered round and set it off like a picture. Cut off as she was from all other services, this united singing and prayer, the faces of her old friends, and the talk about " good things," was her solace and strength. There was no doubt about it : it did her good, as she said, "Body and soul, bless the Lord ! — body and soul." And to those who came, it was aa good as a sermon — better than some lone perhaps — to look at her. Altogether it was an arrangement to meet the of an old member, such as might well be imitated in thousands of places; an arrangemenl too by which the Church secured those holy in- fluences and ripe utterances which she can least afford to lose. If the mountain can't come to Mahomet, there is jus! one other expedienl — let Mahomet go to the mountain. Take the C| meeting to the old sick members ; if do! alwaj once or twice in the quarter. Tin's is better thai] having the oa ues run on page after page, till some day dropped as unknown by a new 'leader — 32 DAHIEL QUOMI. cutting off from membership some of the saintliest heirs of glory. There was much grace, and much wisdom, and much gain every way, in that kindly little arrangement. And how cosy and snug the place used to feel ! A vestry has not any homeliness in it, somehow. You feel that folks don't live there, and you can't readily make yoajr self quite " at home " in it. There, at Thomas Toms,' was the canary hanging in the window, that always began to sing when the hymn was given out, just as if he had been a regular member of the Class. But he was summarily ex- pelled from Society by having an anti-macassar flung over the cage; an indignity against which he mildly protested by the utterance of an occasional mournful note. There, over the mantel-piece, were the shining brasses and pans ; and on the walls figured the quaint old over-coloured drawings of the Noah's Ark, and other scriptural subjects. And at the week-day Class were homelier touches that made men talk about religion in a simple, every-day tone, the like of which it is hard to get in a vestry. Why there was the pan of bread set down before the fire to " plumb ;" or the savoury baking of "the pasties " proclaimed itself delicately from the oven ; and on the hearth-rug .lay a pair of little shoes and socks. .'•I uch of that strong social union to which Methodism has been- so greatly indebted, and which in old time BROTHER QUORZI AT CLASS. 33 she so carefully fostered, came from the fact that the people went from "house to house; " the Class- meetings and the prayer-meetings were in the houses of the people, and the Church itself was not un- frequently a " Church in the house." You could not have been long in Brother Dan' el's Class, without seeing how much they all owed to the presence of old " Granny " Toms. There she lay like a beautiful picture of the faith that could comfort and guide and sustain them ; a voice on before bidding them fear not, and a radiant face turning as if to let them know what light, and peace, and joy were on there. Dan'el used perpetually to clench his argument and point his moral by reference to Granny. When young members began to talk of their fears and of hindrances, how the one sharp little eye would look towards the old saint, uttering a dozen notes of exclamation all at once. " Hindrances ! ! ! Hindrances ! ! Aw, my dear ! Begin to talk about hindrances, and mother here '11 tell a story about hindrances. Granny can mind hearin' 'em ring the Church bells 'cause they'd clean drove the Methodists out o' the parish." Granny would have confirmed it with words, but thai Dan'el knew her habit of entering with mach minuteness into the pedigree and circumstances <>f everybody concerned — so ho only waited for her D 34 DANIEL QUORM. preliminary nod, and then hurried on again before she had time to begin. " Hindrances, my dear ! Why she can mind heai-in' 'em talk of how a man down to Penzance was put to prison for blasphemy 'cause he said the Lord had forgiven his sins. Why, my dear, doan't let us go talkin' about it — we be goin' to heaven in silver slippers. Why, mother, you used to walk sixteen miles 'pon the Sunday." " Rain or fine," said Granny with a nod. " Iss, we be goin' in silver slippers," and then as a merry twinkle played about that sharp little eye, and it rested a moment upon the smart ribbons or flowered bonnet — " In silver slippers ! — and that be the hindrance. We do make our own hindrances. It be easier to go barefoot than in tight shoes. And silver slippers is poor things for any journey, but most of all for going to the Celestial City. No wonder that we go limpin', and talk about making little progress and about our hindrances. Folks with tight shoes '11 get corns, — and serve 'em right too, — and then every road is hard to travel, and every bit of a rise is a mountain. Rain now-a-days is a hindrance; but in mother's time it wasn't. For iu the old times the big bonnets and long cloaks were like umbrella and everything else, and f cats an' dogs' weren't a hindrance then. But now we go wearin such fine feathers an' things, that a BROTHER QUORM AT CLASS. 35 sprinkle of rain an' they 're spoiled. And I wish they were all that was spoiled, for it wouldn't be any great matter if a good deal of 'em was washed away. But it spoils the temper, and it vexes and worrits all the grace out o' folks ; and then ever so much time goes in trying to get it right again. Talk about temptations an' hindrances ! Why I don't see how it can be much other. The old enemy goes driviu' about like Jehu in his chariot, and he can see us in a minute with all this finery, and he comes poisonin' such folks with pride an' conceit. He's sent many, I'll warrant to the dogs, like Jezebel, all through their tired heads and furbelows, -who 'd have been all right if they had just gone along plain and simple. 0' course anybody can put as much pride into old mother's cap here as into anything else. Seemin' to mo 'tis best to go in what other folks '11 take least notice of either way ; Cpr then we shan't think much of ourselves, an' slippin' along in the crowd the enemy isn't so Likely to single ns oat. I've seen it advertised very often in tli*- papers—' tourists 4 suits.' Well, bhey may be ver I ; but for our journey I don't believe there's anything that's so good, or bo comfortable what ['ve read of Bomewhere else fcis J bomespun, and you can'1 buy it anywhere, so we musl all learn B\ clothed with humility. A hindrance it IS, BUre 'aOUghj in a good many ways. Polks I"' 36 DANIEL QUORM. kept so long a- f tidivatin' o' thcirselves that they're sure to get to meetin' ton minutes late ; an' that's all the worse because they take so long a-gettin' ready that they're sure not to have a minute for a bit o' prayer afore they start. I've heard tell about a man who preached from them words — ' There appeared a great wonder in Heaven — a woman. 3 But he ought to ha' gone on an' finished it — ' a woman clothed ivith the sun and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.' Now seemin' to me the wonder was that anybody dressed so shinin' an' glitterin' ever got to Heaven, and it will be a wonder if some folks manage to get there with their heads all covered over with feathers an' flowers an' all the rest of it. " No, we hardly know what hindrances be now-a- days, and the few there are don't come from heaven above, or earth beneath ; but they come out of our own pride and folly, or out of our neglect. They, too, are home-made, every one of 'em, home-made." VI. rather Q:xncl on "Slata mtfr Sure." KjSJ HERE inside the I door of Thomas J, Toms' parlour sat /, Jim Tregoning — a well - meaning kind of a man, whom people [ spoke of as "poor fellow ;" and said how unfortunate '^ ho was. He had tried everything, from driving a Van to selling patent medicines and hawking Looks. Thorn he sat with an unmean- ing smile upon his face, and largo eyes looking on one place all through tho hour, but never seeming to sco anything. He was perpetually folding liis red cotton handkerchief into a largo pad, with which froked his hair down over his forehead, and 38 DANIEL QVOKM. then began to remake the pad. When his turn came he spoke with a sigh. " How was he gettin' on ? Well, he feared he was only a slow traveller heavenward. But there — he had many troubles and trials — fightin's without and fears within — and he hoped that his motter was slow an' sure, sloiu an' sure; for the race wasn't to the wise nor yet to the strong, but it were to the sure. If he could'nt fly he must walk, and if he couldn't walk he must creep ; and if he wasn't so fast a traveller as some folks, he hoped he were just as sure." The little eye twinkled — and yet there was a tone of pain and grief in the reply. " La, Jim, whatever do 'e mean ! ' Slow and sure, slow and sure.' Always the same. Never no forwarder, never no back warder, but always a stickin' in the same place. I'll tell 'o what Jim. You ' slow and sure ' folks be just like a faggot o' green furze 'pon the fire. You don't blaze nor burn ; you do nothing but only steam, and fizz, and go fillin' the house with smeach and smoke. Do 'e get out o' this here way. Strive to enter in at the strait gate ; but goin' along so slow you'll be sure not to get through un. Slow an' sure ! Iss, suro to be too late ! 'Tis what the folks said when they was a comin' to the Ark ; but the floods camo quick and sure 'pon them before they got to the Ark, and slow an' sure was drowned. Serve him right, too. The " SLOW AND SURE." 39 virgins was slow and sure when they were a-gone to buy oil for their lamps, and when they come back the door was shut. Slow an' sure ! 'Tis damp powder that do burn like that there, Jim, — it'll choke 'e all with smoke, but it won't ever heave a rock in two, or do anybody a morsel o' good. "I've heard em' say that horses that be stumblers be a'most sure to come down if you let 'em go along with a creepin' kind of a jog-trot. And that's how Christian folks fall in general ; going along so slow an' sleepy, down they come all of a heap, knockin' theirselves all to bits a'most before they know where they are. " An' then troubles an' trials — of course you do have them — heaps of 'em. What else can anybody expect ? Slow and sure ! Why, 'tis 'xactly like when I bo walkin' to Redburn on a fair-day, and every van and cart and lumberin' waggon, and donkeys, and all tin; rill-raff and sharpers — they do all overtake me. But when you get in the train you whi/./.ing over their heads, and leave 'em behind, every one oi 'em. "Go creepm* along! Why o' course there's never a trouble or trial but it conies up <<> you. Spread your mugs, Jim, spread your wings out, and fly I * They that wait upon the Lord shall renew ' their strength ; * and Bhall mount mount, Jim; — * they thai I mount up with wings as eagles.' Old 40 DANIEL Ql'OEM. care is a black-winged, croaking old raven ; but his croakin' can't get up so high as the eagle, it's down, down ever so far below ; down under the clouds ; and the eagle is up above 'em all, in the floods o' sunshine. ' They shall mount up with wings as eagles ; they shall run s and not be weary ; they shall walk, and not faint.' " My dear Jim, there ben't no such thing as this slow and sure o' yours. When the top do spin slow he's sure to come down. 'Tisn't the way the angels told Lot. Escape for thy life ; tarry not in all the plain ; and I don't think wo shall get off easier than he did. And, 'tisn't the way Paul knew anything about ; for says he, Bun the race set before you. He don't say anything about creepin', and it be best to stick to the Word, Jim. " ' Slow an' sure' ! — seem to me that everything be the other way about. The old Tempter, what- ever other failin's he've got, ha'nt got that there — he do go about like a great roarin' lion, seeking whom he may devour, an' if we go creepin' along he's sure to come springin' out 'pon us all unawares — an' serve us right for we tempt 'en even if he could have had enough afore we come by. Time is swift and sure, Jim ; and death is swift and sure. And then the love of Jesus is swift and sure. Ah ! bless the Lord, how swift and sure that is you know, Jim, as well as the rest ! ' When " SLOW AND SURE." 41 he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and, ran, — ran." — And Daniel's voice spoke with a tenderness that brought the tears to every eye. — " No creepin' then, or walkin' either. He 'ran, and fell on his neck, and hissed him.' Ah, bless the Loi'd ; that's His way always — and His way be always best ! " And he brushed away the tears as he finished — " Come friends, let us sing a hymn, — 'My soul through my It- 'Isomer's care, Saved from the second death I feel, My '-yes from tears of dark despair, My feet from falliDg into hell. " Second verse, — ' When-fore to Him my feet shall run ;' " That's it,— run. 1 My eyes on TTis perfections gaze • My soul shall live for God alone ; And all within me shout His praise, i n VII. u It's the f orb's Mill, r>ou hnoto," T was at the Class- meeting on the Tuesday night. . The wild west wind came sweep- ing round the house fierce and furious — now rat- tling at the win- dow, and roaring : in the chimney, J then sinking into a low moan, whin- ing at the key- hole as if its blustering had failed, and it had taken to entreaty instead ; then suddenly it grew enraged again, as if ashamed of its weakness, and seemed to make the very ground tremble as it roared and thundered away up the wild hill-side. Here in the sanded front-room at Thomas Toms', "ITS THE LORD'S WILL, YOU KNOW." 43 sat thG members of Brother Quorm's Class. Only a few to-night, for many lived across the moors, and some a mile away over the fields ; and even Dan'el could excuse those who tarried at home on such a night as this. The storm itself had nothing to do with the talk of that evening, only it came somehow to be inseparably bound up with the memories of it. The meeting had opened quietly enough with a " trumpet metre," followed by a hearty prayer. Two or three had spoken, but it was not until \\ idowPascoe's turn came that the memorable talk of that evening began. There she sat, in a huge bonnet of rusty black, the very capacious widow's cap gathered about a face which was always "in mourning/' That mouth of itself rendered crape altogether superfluous, — the long thin lips drawn down at the corners, and tucked away under the wrinkles and furrows, as if to keep it, in its place. The languidly-closed eyes, the solemn shake of the head, the deep sigh, and then the long-drawn melan- choly Words in which sin- told of her troubles and trials, were unfailing characteristics of her experience; and to-night her hi von rite phrases kept coining in continually— " submit to His will/' "done and Buffered Bis will." No belief was ever more deeply wrought into any heart th.m this into the widow's — th.it it we - the win of the Eeavenly Father that she 44 DANIEL QUORX. should be always in trouble j to-day was given only that she might find in it some new sorrow ; each hour came only to lay another burden upon her, and to-morrow already hinted at some threatening evil. She would almost have doubted her religion if she could not find in everything something to sigh over. With her the truest sign of grace was " to walk mournfully/' Heaven itself to her mind was a sort of compensation paid to those who endured the hurts and damages of religion in this life. As the widow finished, Dan'el looked up at her almost fiercely with his one little eye. But im- mediately a sad expression crept over it. "' Submit to His will/ ' Suffer His will.' Is that all that the will of God is for, that we may endure it, and suffer it ! " And Dan'el sighed a great pitiful sigh. After a long pause, in which the wild storm outside seemed to burst with more fury, he went on in a gentler tone : " Bless His holy Name, He is our loving Father ; and we go asking for grace to submit to His will, and go talking about suffering His will ! " Dan' el suddenly broke off his remarks, as if he had no hope of ever setting the widow right ; and, with another pitiful sigh, he passed on to the next. Now it happened that the next was John Trundle, the busy village shopkeeper. A man with whom business was the great end of life, and religion a "IT'S THE LORD'S WILL, YOU KNOW." 45 very advisable precaution, in case of emergency ; much as a man thinks it prudent to insure his life. Indeed religion was to him just that — a Prudential Assurance ; and the Class-meeting was only the agency through which he paid his insurance money, a quarterly account. His little fortune had been invested in some adjoining Wheal Gambler, — a miuo in which he was to find prodigious wealth ; but the golden visions slowly faded, and the mine was given up, haying afforded only a deep, dark grave in which Mr. Trundle had buried most of his savings. Vexa- tion and disappointment had brought him more regularly to Class; at least for a little while. Perhaps it was the moaning wind outside, or perhaps it was Sister Pascoe's mournfulness, or perhaps, and prob- ably, it was the prevailing thought of his mind, that led him at once to allude to his recent losses. Ho had been going through deep waters, he said, had been called to pass through severe trials ; " but there/' said ho, " it bo the Lord's will, you know/' and he hoped he should have the grace to boar it. Bi fore John Trundle had finished, it was evident th.it something was moving Dan'el's bouI to its depths. The little eye opened with astoni hmenl ; the month was parsed up as if it were going to whistle with amazement, the round 1 > 1 1 1 1 < • L. head oodded sharply, and at last the words were jerked out Bomewhal Bercely. 46 VANIEL QUORM. " Umph ! ' The Lord's will, you know ! ' Well, I must say I don't know it, John, and I don't think it, either. Not a hit of it. The Lord's will ! I went over the moors t'other night, without a lantern, and tumbled in a big hole, and I said, ' Dan'el, you are an old stoopid for to go wi'out your lantern. serve you rigid.' But I didn't think it was the Lord's will, John, and I hope I shouldn't be so foolish again." Then he stopped suddenly as if a new idea had shot across his mind, and passing over the next two or three he turned to an old man who sat in the corner of the room by the fire. It was dear old Frankey Vivian. There he sat in the ruddy glow of the firelight, with the deep shadows of the corner behind him. Very feeble, weakness had given him an appearance of age much beyond his years ; and as he leaned there upon his stick in this light, he looked like some old patriarch who had turned his back upon the shadows of tha world, and was standing on the threshold of the celestial city, waiting only for the summons to come in. His case was too common in those mining districts before the recent improvements had been introducsd. Climbing up the ladders by which men came from immense depths below; coming from the hot air underground in wet clothes, and stepping at once into the keen winds that swept "up to grass," "ITS THE LORD'S WILL, TOV KXOW." 47 as the surface was called — poetically, for scarce a blade was to be found in all the stony waste of the mine ; — these things had done their work upon a naturally weak constitution, and now he was in the last stage of asthmatic consumption. Unable to work, and having a large family to be cared for somehow, his was a sad story. He lived so near by that he could easily slip in " to the meetin''," and very rarely was his corner vacant even on such a night as this. With a touch of tenderness, and with a very evident relief, Dan'el turned to him. " The Lord bless thee, dear Frankey. Come, tell us what the Lord's will is to thee." The pale, wasted face moved with deep feeling; the thin white hands passed to and fro over the handle of the stick nervously ; the tears gathered in his eyes : " The Lord's will ! " gasped the old man. " Why this, my dear leader, this — ' Goodness and mercy shall /"Huiii me all the days o' my life; and I will dwell in the house <>' II" L >rd for evert* Bless I! h >ly Name — that, nothing else bul that. Why there wraa only la-t Saturday afternoon : 1 was very poorly; my cough shook me all '•<> bits, and J was lying 'pou my bed. Yei my soul was lull o' praise to G"il for all His goodness. Bless His Name, 1 , why this here Bhakin' cough !"• only hi." tin' j'.ltin' (/ the van over the nil s and Stones BS il be a 48 DANIEL QVOnM. carryin' us home. And some day it'll give the last jolt and stop right afore the door o' my Father's house, and, bless Him, He'll come out to take His child into His arms, and I shall be home for ever and ever. To think of it ! liome ! ay, and with breath for to praise my Lord too. I was a sayin' over them words, ' Bless the Lord, ye His angels, that excel in strength/ Excel in strength. And I thought how I would be a-flyin? in a little while, and how I would sweep the harp, and how swift I would go for my dear Lord, a sailin' along 'pon a pair o' glorious wings, how grand it would be ! My soul was all full of it, when up come my wife, and she sat down at the foot o' the bed, and she flings her hands all helpless like down before her. " ' Frankey,' says she, a'most a chokin/ f Frankey, whatever shall us do. There ben't a bit o' bread in the house agen the children come home.' " ' What shall us do, my dear ? ' I says. ' Why think of the Blessed Father Who tells us to call upon Him in the day of trouble, and He will hear us. And He will too, I know.' " ' Seemin' to me He must have forgot us,' says she, bursting out a-cryin'. " ' Forgot us, wife ! ' I says. ' Forgot us ! Bless His holy Name, it wouldn't be like Him. He don't ever forget. He has been round and about •'ITS THE LORD'S WILL, TOU KNOW." 49 us, our Friend and Helper these twenty years, and it wouldn't be like Him to leave us now, just when we want Him most. That isn't the way He does/ And I began to say over the hundred and forty- sixth Psalm that I do dearly love. ' Wlule I live I will praise the Lord : I will sing praises unto my while I have any being. . . . Hapjty is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God. There, wifie, isn't that pretty music now. Which Teeepeth truth for ever. Hear th.it/ I says. f Kecputh truth for ever. Which thfood to the hungry. Bless Him, why it's put re a-purposc for you and me.' '"Well/ says she, wipin' her eyes with her apron, ' I s'poso it be the Lord's will, and wo must bear it.' "The tears came in my eyes then. f O, my ! Don't *e talk like that,' I says, 'don't 'o . like that there, now. It bo no moro the will ourble I Father that onr children should want ■ I than it bo your will or mine. It do hurt me 60 hear folks talk like that about my Lord. It is 'It- will of / liter which is vn hea/ven, tltot i I ' ■ ■ littl • sh mid y rill, that be the .. '.' I ■ Like as a Father pitieth hit children, so tl / / pitieth them (hat ft vt Him. Why, the l hill of it, and we ought not! taUrin' about our Bh i Father like that.' E 50 DANIEL QUOIUI. (( Well, just then there came a double knock to the door. It ben't very often that we do have a letter, so the wife jumps up and runs down stairs. In a minute she shouts up to me, " ' Frankey, here's a letter from our boy in Australia.' And then in a minute more she comes runnin' up to me, and cries out — 'Why, there's a five-pound note in it. Bless his dear heart ! ' And tears of joy ran down our cheeks. " Ah, wine," says I, holdin' up the note, " look here; that be the Lord's will, and we must bear it. Bless His holy Name, Ho ' keepeth truth for ever.' " Every eye was dimmed as Frankey finished his simple story. Dan' el now had a fair field, and all the gathering feeling3 and thoughts of the evening broke out with a triumph. " That's it, Frankey," he cried. " Sure enough that's just it. The Lord's will isn't starving children. f Wldch executeth judgment for tlw. oppressed ; which giveth food to the hungry. ' The Lord's will, you know.' Why people don't stop to think what they mean when they talk about it. The words, perhaps, are right enough by theirselves, but folks use 'em to wrap up more nonsense and more sin than any other five words in the world. There's poor Jem Polsue, lives up to Bray. I dropt in to see him a few days a-gone. "ITS THE LORD'S WILL, TOU ENOW." 51 He lost his wife of fever; and he himself wasn't expected to get over it. I went in and prayed with him, and saw how the little place had been stripped by want, and I know'd what a long spell he would have of it yet. " Jem/' I says, ' I'm very sorry for 'e, and I must try to help 'e a bit/ " ' Well, we musn't be sorry, Dan' el,' say& he. 'It be the Lord's will, you know, and we must bear it.' " It made me quite short-tempered to hear it. ' What ! ' says I, f God's will that your landlord should let you live in a place like this, with these dniins about here, poisonin' you with the stench, :m' poisonin' the water you drink! It be very different from God's will, Jem. I've just a-como up over the hill side, and all the air was sweet with If is own breath, furze blossoms and flowers ; and then up iu the clear blue sky a lark was singing lovely as ever you heard, and everything was bo pretty :is the Almighty Himself could make it. An' then I come in here, and I see this slimy pond, and this black drain, and I couldn't help thinkin' how different the Lord wrald have it. It ben'l His I will that landlords should \»- misers and fool8, :mil Dexl door 1" murderer: , Jem ; and all tin' religion in the world wouldn't make me own to that.'" B 2 52 DANIEL QUORM. Widow Pascoo actually opened her eyes, and half opened her mouth ; a sufficient evidenco of her amazement at such an extraordinary statement. That dirt and wretchedness were not the will of God : it smacked of heresy ! Dan' el went on again fiercely : " I can't abide to hear folks talkin' about it ; puttin' down every- thing that is sad, and bad, and misei'able, to be the Lord's will." The little eye turned its sharp glance full upon Brother Trundle. " It ben't the Lord's will, but just our own folly very often that makes the Lord deal with us a bit hardly. Fancy Eve a-comin' out of Paradise, and when the earth begins to get covered with thorns and briers, and Adam has to go earnin' his daily bread by the sweat o' his brow, she says, 'Well, you know, its the Lord's will, and we must bear it.' Not a bit of it. They knew that the Lord's will was Paradise. The Lord's will was all the fruit, and flowers, and beauty of Eden. It was right against the will of their Father that there should come these thorns and things, and weariness and sorrow ; only it was just what their sins forced the Lord to do. When I was a little chap my father had to give me a thrashin' one day, and sent mo up in the garret to finish the day on dry bread and water. Do you think I said, 'It's my father's will, and I must bear it.' No ; I knew too much about myself to do "ITS THE LORD'S WILL, YOU KNOW." 53 anything like that. His will ! Why I can mind now how his lip quivered, and how grieved he looked, and I knew it was all along o' my own fooling and it just served me right. " And if a man goes a-forgettin' his Heavenly Father and neglectin' the means in rnakin' money, and is cornin' to love it till it be a' most chokin' the grace out of him, the Lord is forced to take some of it away, or to let him go and fling it away, which comes to just the same thing. And then tho man begins to talk quite religious about suffer in' the Lord's will ! By all means let him suffer the Lord's will, which to my thinkin' is this here, — that he shouldn't love what he has got left, and should make a better use o' what he earns another day. Why when the poor old Squire tumbled down in a fir, and tho doctor bled him to bring him to his lie didn't talk about bearin' the doctor's will. Everybody knew that tho doctor took his blood to save his life. An' secniin' t<> me 'twould as :i heap o' folly if wo were so wise in our jion ;h folks In' about everything else a'most. "lint this isn't the worst of it, cither. I wouldn't mind so much if people put in the other Bide :i hit; hut they won't do that. No; 'lis only wh:r ht and dismal, and ugly* — t li.it, bo tho Lord's will. If :i 111:111 ho laid 'pOU his bed in :i : - Eever, that's the Lord's will ; hut it the Ei 5 i DANIEL QUORM. don't come near to him nor to anybody else, why that's nothing at all. Poor old Uncle Jan Kevern be doubled up a'most with rheumatics ; that's the Lord's will, you know. But I can stick to my last all day, and mako a pair o' shoes, and nobody ever thinks that that is the will of our Blessed Father. I do dearly love that hundred and fourth psalm : ' My meditation of Him shall be sweet/ says David. But our meditations of Him be all that is doleful and dull. David sang about the will of the Lord when he saw the man going forth to his work, and to his labour unto the evening. Sang about it too. But we sigh about the Lord's will only when a man be kept homo all day, or when he be a-going to die, and leave a widow and half a score o' little children. Why, bless the Lord ! His will has got quite as much to do with health as with sickness, an' more too." " Bless Him, that it have, dear leader ! " res- ponded Frankey from his corner, with much fervour. Dan'el went on again, without fierceness now ; with a gentleness and tenderness that came from his heart. " Aw, my dear fz-iends, I often think about it when I be a-doin' up my bit o' garden down to my place. People talk as if the Blessed Master only got fruit out of us with a prunin' "knife; always standin' over us, an' a cuttin' here, ••ITS THE LORD'S WILL, YOU KNOW." 55 and a loppin' there. Why, bless His Name, sun- shine and showers, and the gentle south winds, have a deal more to do with a bunch of grapes than prunin' knives have. We do want a bit o' prunin' now an' then, I dare say, but don't 'e go a-thinkin' about the dear Lord as only standin' over us for that. A standin' there with all his kindness and care — why He is trainin' the branches, and is watching over us, and wardin' off blights, and keepin' off enemies, — slugs, and snails, and such like, that do harbour in a man's soul; and His gentleness and loving care have a deal more to do with the fruit than the knife has. " 0, don't let us always bo a-talking about bearin' His will, and sufferin' His will. Let's talk about enjoyin' His will. When tho baby is pinin' away and sickly, an' dyin', that bo His will, perhaps ; but that be His will, too, when tho baby be a great big tlmmpin' boy, and thrives uncommon. It bo God's will, perhaps — if it ben't our own can is — when the houso bo burnt down, ami we escape with our lives. But it bo tho Lord's will, too, all the days that wo come ami go, and find all safe ami sound. The Father's will isn't, that wo should I'" out- in a Far country perisliin' with hunger. Hi w ill is the be t robe ami the fatted calf; the comin' home, and tho bcin,"- merry. 'My meditation of Him shall be sweet? You may say 56 DANIEL QUORM. what you liko about sufferin' the Lord's "will ; I shall talk about enjoying it, and delighting in it." " So will I, bless Him," said Frankey. Even Widow Pascoe looked as if a little light had come across her mourning face, as that evening finished with tho hymn — " God of my life, through .ill my days, My grateful powers shall sound Thy praise : My song shall wake with opening light, And cheer the dark and silent night. ■&' " The cheerful tribute will I give, Long as a deathless soul shall live A work so sweet, a theme so high, Demands and crowns eternity." VIII. «< F all tlie good folks in tho little village of Penwin- nin nono was a greater favourite with Dan'el than young Cap'n Joe. His presence "at Class " had much influence on the p> "religious no- ■3ggp tions," and Ins •HrE story was one 1 li.it, ' Dan'el used to tell 'f/1 , with unfailing pleasure. He had began life as a poor lad, without any advantage of education or position ; rather, indeed, with all the disadvantages that could gather about him. Elis Bather was a dissolute man, whose wit had once been the life of the public-house; but Chat 58 DANIEL QVOBM. light had long since been quenched, and there was left only a bloated half-drunk idler, loafing about the public-house for any odd job that might turn up. The half-starved wife and mother lived in a wretched home, trying to bring up this only child as best she could. But as a little lad Joe had taken a very practical view of his own case. He had nobody else to help him, and by that circumstance seemed only impelled to do so much the more to help himself. Reading and writing were soon mastered, and there early appeared the promise of what he would be. Daniel's quick eye had seen him in the Sunday- school ; and the little cobbler's shop became in time a sort of night-school, where Joe learnt many a lesson, and picked up much good advice. He had begun as a common miner, but rose in the confidence of those about him, until now ho was dignified as Cap'n Joe, an under manager of the mine, and had left his old teacher behind him in all but shrewdness and common sense. Dan' el used to tell with much glee how young Cap'n Joe had done the Purser of the mine, — a hard, snappish, sour old screw, whose delight was in grinding everybody down. " He came in here laughin' one evening," said Dan'el, and the little bright eye flashed with a joyous humour over the broad-rimmed spectacles. "CATCniX' 'EM WITH GUILE." 59 "' Catch Iil' 'em with guile be scriptural, Dan'el, ben't it ? ' he began, and I knew there was something queer coming but couldn't guess what it was. " ' Depends what kind o' guile it is, and what it be a-goin' to do/ I answered, — cautious, for I didn't know what was comin'. " ' Why the men up to mine have wanted a dryin'-room for ever so long, you know : coinin' up hot and damp as they do ; it be enough for to give 'em their death o' cold to go out ever so far in the wind and rain/ says Cap'n Joe, lookin' just as queer as he did at first. " ' That it be, Joe/ I says, ' but men be only men, you know. The Pharisees might pull out a sheep or an ox, but then they were worth something. But men are such common kind o' creatures, and so different. If they were only horses, or pigs even, folks would tako some care of 'em; but they bo only men, and you can't sell them, at least in this hero country. Will, Joe?' "'Well, what I do say about it bo nothing at all; for the Purser will have it all his own way. Ee'd y " Yea" just contrairy like, If I Bald "No." Be belike tin- "hob" to the engine, that do dip down just becan e the othi r end do tip up/ says the young ' ':i|>'n. "'Well, but/ says I, 'you might speak your mind about if, -loo. It would be a comfort to give GO DANIEL QUORM. your testimony to what bo right, even if nobody don't receive it. Besides, you can't shake the dust of your feet agen 'em till you have done that much.' ' ' ' No, Dan'el, it would only harden him, and make him more determined. I've had to catch him with guile.' " ' You have ? ' I cried, quite curious to hear about it." And Dan'el lifted his spectacles on to his fore- head as he told of it, as if his curiosity always revived at this point by some subtle law of associa- tion. " So then Joe told me about it," said Dan'el. " ' You see,' he says, ' the men kep' on comin' to me about it : 'twas always the same thing. Till last of all, I says to 'em, " Well, look here, 'tis no good to keep tellin' me about it, men. The Purser must give the orders. But now, 'spose I say you shan't have a dryin'-room, and I won't let 'e have it, and you go up and tell the Purser what I've said." So three of 'em goes up to the office, and sees the Purser. He was oncommon cross and gruff, even for him, and so soon as they began for to speak about a dryin'-room, he gets into a rage. " Dryin'- room ! " he halloos out, " I dare say you do. TJmph ! You'll want dinner provided next, and a champagne luncheon, I s'pose. Certainly, certainly ! What next will you want, I wonder." " CATCHI2T 'EM WITH GUILE." 61 " ' Well, Sir,' says the men, ' we spoke to young Cap'n Joe about it.' " ' 0, you spoke to him. did you ? And what did he say ? ' " ' Why, he said as he wasn't a-goin' to speak to you about it at all, but would speak right off ou his own authority, and that we shouldn't have it, — thai we shouldn't.' " ' The men say as he got into a towerin' rage. " Be said you shouldn't ! " he cries out. " Cap'n . indeed ! Who's he, I should like to know ? I'll let him know who's master up here — the young upstart. Go down and tell him that I said you should have it, — / said so, and tell him to see about it at once." And they said that he went on niut- i' -i-in' about it for an hour after.' "'Well done, Joe,' says I, laughing out loud. ' A •■•.-, 'i--, my dear, 'iss, it be quite lawful for to catch 'em with guile.' " IX. " IJntmn' foraflj is ncbcr spcnl m bain " A ! what's that, my dear? 'Prayin breath neverspent in vain ! ' " And there was a long pause in ; which tho little , bullet head shook itself, and tho keen little eye peered over the broad - rimmed spectacles ; and |§ the honest man '^sC^JiJP^ \& who had thus completed his experience looked up in some amaze- ment that such a common phrase could be anything but Gospel. " That ben't in the Scriptures, my dear ; though I believe many folks do reckon it be. But it isn't there, and if folks would look for it they would •'PRATIN' BREATH IS NEVER SPENT IN VAIN." 63 find something a deal truer. They would find this — ' Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ash amiss.' Now I do reckon that there's a good half of the prayin' breaths as be spent in vain. Half ! why, nearer ninety out of every hundred. What with one thing and another that be amiss, it's well if one out a hundred be worth anything at all. It be only another o' them common sayings that be lies that would have gone rotten and been flung away long ago, only that there's just a grain o' the salt o' truth in 'em to keep 'em alive. " Why, now, whenever we fray for what toe don't want, neither needin* it, nor desirin' to have it, that's a prayin' breath spent in vain. And that's more than half our prayers. I overtook a young fellow the other day, a good sort of a young man, too, and I says, ' Well, John, and how's the soul prospering " ' Don't know,' says he in a melancholy kind of :i way : and the way a man talks about his soul is more than what ho says very often. Its like feelin* tin- pulse and tolls more than lookiti' into his Eace. 1 Don't know; reckon it bo busy-all/ says ho, 'to along.' "'Well, now/ [said, 'just Let me a b yon one question tli chin it all, — Eow do you pray, John?' "MY.'iy, DunVl,' ho says, wonderin', ' why the samcas other people do, to bo sure — 'pon my km C-l DANIEL QUORM. " ' Of course you do, John/ I says ; ( but what do 'e say now ? ' For my dear friends it be no good a-goin' huminin' and haa-in' about it. I do reckon a Class-leader be like a doctor, and he must find out what be wrong, and if he can't do it one way he must another. And he must go lookin' and listenin' and tryin' till he have found out, and then he'll have a chance o' curin'. So I says, 'Now what do 'e say ?' " ' Well/ he says quite innocent, ' my mother taught me a prayer when I was a little lad, and I do say that.' " ' Why, my dear boy/ I says, ' no wonder you don't get along ! Why, I expect the first thing my mother taught me to say was, " Please for a bit o' bread." Now, however should I have got along, do you think, if I'd always gone on sayin' " Please for a bit o' bread." If I wanted leather, or brad- awls, flower-seeds, or lap-stones, coats or bricks, or money, or anything else, and I'd always gone sayin' " Please for a bit o' bread." ' " ' ! ' says he, c Dan'el that bo very different, o' course/ " ' How different ? I can't see that it's any different. I want things from folks about me, and I go and tell them what I want, and I stare if I don't get 'em. But I go to the Heavenly Father and, never mind what I want, I just go sayin' over "PRAYIW BREATH IS NEVER SPENT IN VAIN." 65 and over the same things, and then I talk all dole- ful about my not gettin' on ! Why whatever else can we expect ? ' " John was quiet for a minute or two, and then says he, in his slow way, as if his words came out in drops because he was afraid to turn the tap, ' Well, Dan'el, I never thought o' that afore/ And he turned in over the fields. " Now I got home, thinkin' that I had let a bit o' daylight in upon him, and then I soon found myself trippin' and came down in the dust. I was kneelin 1 down at prayer, and my thoughts began to go away to John again, my lips goin' on all the time. And when my thoughts came back again there was \ going over an old sentence about for- givin' the sins o' the day. J stopped. ' 0, Dan'el/ I says out lond, ' 3 on be a pretty kind of a teacher to talk to Other people about prayin' for what they want! Physician, heal thyself I Wha1 sins do you want forgiven? and if you want 'mi forgiven, do yon believe yon are goin* to get it by saying a phrase like that, as smooth and pal aa anythii ' Lord forgive me/ I says with all my heart. And I li'LTan to look jiboiil through the day to find what I did want. And I oon found it, my friends, a deal sooner than I though! I should. About eleven o'clock in the nioniin' it u;i-; I mind it quite well, — there wai a pair 0' shoes to be done for a man r 06 DANIEL QUORM. that was g^i"' away t<~> California, and things had been goin' wrong all day, and I had to send down to Redburn for something, and the boy kept me waitin' and then brought back all wrong, and I got in a temper with him and spoke out shai-p, and said a deal more than I ought to have said, and felt a good deal more than come out. ' There, Dan' el,' I says, ' you need forgiveness for that. Repent and pray about that.' Why it was like another thing then. It began to hurt me, and the tears began to flow, and I meant it then when I got down before the Lord and prayed that I might be forgiven. And I got forgiven, too ; and the next day when I came down I called the boy over to me and I told him that I was ashamed of myself for the way I had gone on the day before, an' I hoped he'd forgive me for I was very sorry. As to the* boy, why I never knew a boy change so in my life as that changed him : seeinin' to mo as if he can't ever be thoughtful and steady enough now. Ah, my friends, that be the kind of breath that ben't spent in vain ! When a man feels it, and can put his hand right upon the spot and say, 'Lord, '^'.s- amiss just there, and 'tis hurting me and plagum'more than lean bear, — Lord, do it good.' Then that goes right up to heaven." " We can manage that when we feel anything deeply, my dear leader," said young Cap'n Joe, from his place. " Jacob prayed like that when he " PRATIN' BREATH IS NEVER SPENT IN VAIN." G7 was a-goin' to meet Esau. But I've wondered how lie prayed next day when it was all quiet again and there was nothing particular hangin' over him ! " " Yes, yes, Cap'n Joe," said Dan'el thoughtfully, " there be a deal in that. Well, Frankey, my dear, till us how you do manage," and Dan'el turned with a loving reverence to the old man. " Me, my dear leader, why I ha'an't got much to tell. Seemin' to me 'tis like this here. When I do kneel down, I do think, and feel it too, — Well, here be another day, an' I don't know what'll hap- pen, hut right over it all there be the wings o' my Father in Heaven, and all day long I shall be in under them there wings, and no harm can't come to me in then — bless liis holy Name. And my heart do begin to sing again and goes on singin' all day long. An' tin 11 when the night be come again I do think, and feel too, like as if the wings was fohlin' in round me, and 1 put myself in under them, and 1 ■ el such a blei sed rest in under fcherer— like ;is if re so Bafe and bo warm and so comfortable, — uothing couldn' burl me, in there, ne'er man nor ; . Bli in li"l-. Name !" Well, Frankey, I > think you've go\ hold "' the righl thing after nil. Thinkin' about il before- hand, f nr thoughts 'pon it. Wny, we pray like we don'1 do anything el e in tin' world. There . :i- bootin'— poppin' .-it the i 2 C8 DANIEL QUORM. larks, an' blackbirds, and thrushes, like as if they didn't sing for their supper an* more than pay for all the harm they do. But I never heard tell of a fool who fired his gun without any aim ; fired it off anyhow and anywhere, and then expected to see the bird fall. But that be just like we pray. We don't take aim. We don't think beforehand. Frankey here, have explained it, 'xactly, seemin' to me. Now, suppose to-morrow mornin' we kneel down, and begin to think : To-day where am I goin' to ? what shall I be a-doin' of ? What grace shall I need ? Where'll the devil be lying-wait for me ? Thoughts '11 come — they '11 come, and we shall begin to find out needs enough to pray about. Why, I could a'most pray now as I come to think about it. Why there be that Particular Baptist who comes droppin' in 'pon a Wednesday, and we begin a argufyin' 'pon Calvinism, and Wesley and Fletcher, and I do a'most always get hot and angry and vexed with myself — I'll aim straight at him to-morrow, that I will ! That is it, my friends. Think what you do want beforehand, and then you won't go a-wasting your breath in prayin' for what you don't want. " Then there be another prayin' breath that be spent in vain. When we go a-prayin' for what we don't expect. That be in vain — and that'll cover a'most the other half of our prayers. ' Believin' ye "PRATIN" BREATH IS NEVER SPENT IN VAIN." C9 receive,' — that be the pith and marrow o' prayer, in my thinkin'. But we pray, and don't ever look for it to come down ; like a man takin' aim and shoot- ing, but never goin' in to pick up what he's shot. ' I will direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up.' That be the way David prayed. He took aim and expected to see the blessings come down. We don't expect to get our prayers answered." K Like as if He didn't mean what He said in all the precious promises : bless Him ! " came fervently from dear old Frankcy in the corner. " I've often thought how folks would stare, sometimes, if their prayers were answered," said young Cap'n Joe. Dan'el smiled, as if some slumbering memory woke up suddenly within him. He nodded the little head, and tho merry wrinkles gathered round the comer of tho bright eye, and tho pursed-up mouth. " They would, sure 'nough, Cap'n Joe. I hap- pened once to be stayin' with a gentleman, — a long way from here, — a very religious kind of a man lie ; and in tho mornin' ho began the < lay with a long family prayer that we might be kep J from sin, and might have a Christ-like spirit, and the mind that was also in Christ Jesus; and thai we might have tin- love of Gk)d shod abroad in our hearts by tin' Holy Ghost given unto II-. A beautiful prayer it WB8, and thinks 1, what :i good kind of a man 70 DANIEL QUOEV. you must be. But about an hour after I happened to be comin' along the farm, and I heard him hol- lerin' and scoldin' and goin' on findin' fault with everybody and everything. And when I came into the house with 'en he began again. Nothing was right, and he was so impatient and so quick-tem- pered. ' 'Tis very provokin' to be annoyed in this way, Dan'el. I don't know what servants in these times be good for but to worry and vex one, with their idle, slovenly ways.' " I didn't say nothing for a minute or two. And then I says, ' You must be very much disappointed, Sir.' " ' How so, Dan' el ? Disappointed ? " ' I thought you were expecting to receive a very valuable present this morning, Sir, and I see it hasn't come.' " ' Present, Dan'el,' — and he scratched his head, as much as to say, ' whatever can the man be talkin' about.' " ' I certainly heard you speakin' of it, Sir/ I says, quite coolly. " ' Heard me speak of a valuable present. Why, Dan'el you must be dreamin.' I've never thought of such a thing.' " ' Perhaps not, Sir, but you've talked about it ; and I hoped it would come whilst I was here, for I should dearly like to see it.' "PRAYI2T BREATH IS NEVER SPENT IN VAIN." 71 " He was gettin' angry with, rue now, so I thought I would explain. " ' You know, Sir, this mornin' you prayed for a Christ-like spirit, and the mind that was in Jesus, and the love of God shed abroad in your heart.? " ' 0, that's what you mean is it ! ' and he spoke as if that weren't anything at all. " ' Now, Sir, wouldn't you be rather surprised if your prayer was to be answered ? If you were to feel a nice, gentle, lovin' kind of a spirit comin' down upon you, all patient, and forgiviu' and kind ? AYliy, Sir, wouldn't you come to be quite frightened like ; and you'd come in and sit down all in a faint, and reckon as you must be a-goin' to die, because you felt so heavenly-minded ? ' "lie didn't like it very much," said Dan'el, "but I delivered my testimony, and learnt a lesson for myself too. You're right, Cap'n Joe; you're right. Wo should stare very often if the Lord was to answer our prayer. Thai savin' won't bold water no more than any o' the rest, — a prayin breath be \cry often Bpent in vain." X. 4* & ialh io Are Jambs." fe T must not be thought that my dear '/>. old friend was always on the look- ' out for these religious proverbs, | having no eyes or cars for anything else — like a cat watching for the unsuspecting mouse, and then springing upon it to tear it to pieces. True he treated these phrases in this style, and with a manifest relish ; but many an evening passed without any such destruction of the prey, " A TALK TO THE LAMBS." 73 when there was just as much homely common-sense and helpful advice. To the young and to the old there was a peculiar tenderness, perhaps especially to the old folks. " Seemin' to me that the two dearest things in all the world to our Heavenly Father be a little child and an old saint," was a favourite saying with Dan' el ; a saying to which dear old Frankey Vivian usually responded in a look beaming with joy, and a fervent " Bless His dear Name for that ! " The previous winter had brought many additions to Dan'el's Classes, mostly of young folks, whom he welcomed very heartily, and made them feel as much at home as anybody else. Dear old Granny Toms herself was sometimes pulled up when she was running on too long, with a hint that she must leave time for "a word to the young uns." Widow Pascoe was sometimes startled by tho question if she had something bright to give them to encourage tho lambs, — a question which Beemed to give her "quite a turn;" but the folded hands and the tucked-down mouth regained their propriety, and in a moment she recovered her Belf-possession. The word exactly hits it, — self-possession was Widow I' <»e's ruin, as it, is the ruin (if thousands of us. " P< I of the devil was a misfortune and to be pita I," Baid I >.in VI one day as we talked of it, "but possessed of ourselves is a curse ami a, mi 74 DANIEL QVORM. that bcn't much above it. There is only one pos- session that God's people should know anything about, and that is Christ in us, the hope of glory." He very seldom asked these younger members to speak. " God lets the children learn to live a bit and to walk a bit by theirselves before He lets 'em talk/' was his explanation. Hurrying through the rest of the Class, or contenting himself with speak- ing to three or four of the members, he would reserve a quarter of an hour for " a word to the lambs." It was an evening in May when the setting sun flung in its ruddy light upon the happy company at Thomas Toms'. Stretching the neck you could look over the muslin blind that cut the window in two, and catch sight of Farmer Gribble's fields beyond, with the sheep and lambs luxuriating in the rich green grass and golden buttercups. The scene may have suggested the talk of that evening. " Ah ! young folks, you've got a blessed Saviour, you have. When I begin to think about it I a'most wish that I could go back and be a little child again. Why you know He carries the lambs in His bosom. Wonderful, but true. Carries them ! It doesn't matter much what the road is when we are carried, — highway or by-way, field- path or muddy lane, it be all as one to them that are being carried, and it don't matter how weak " A TALK TO TEE LAMBS." 75 you are, or how foolish ; you can't get tired, and you can't miss the way when you're being carried. He — that's your Saviour — carries the lambs — that's you, your very self — in His bosom. "Now think about yourselves as lambs — young uns — who don't know the way, an' don't know the dangers, an' go a-friskin' out o' the way a'most before you know you're in it ; lambs that can't keep up with the old ones, and it ben't natural as you should ; lambs so easily frightened that you're scared when the shepherd comes to count you and see that you are all right, and yet so ignorant that you'll go rubbin' your noses against the butcher's greasy knee when he comes to buy you. And so the devil comes a-whisperin', an' says he, ' Pooh, you're a-settin' out for the kingdom, and hopin' t<> get to heaven. You can't do it, a little silly Iamb like you. Wait; there's no need to hurry. Wait till you are grown up a steady-going old Bheep. Why there's the rest o' the lambs a-friskin' about among the buttercups ami dai I as happy as tin; day is long, ami hern you'll bo goin' to Class-meeting a-mopin' about amo] the nettles, and trying to look solemn and to cry lik<- an old ewe that has lost her little one, and to be so proper as if you're much too good to jump about and enjoy yourself . Yon wait till you bo grown up.' That's how he talks, the old liar. 76 DATSIEL QUORM. " * Then/ says he, ' there's the wolf that's about, and he may have you ; and how the folks '11 talk about it, — you settin' yourself up for a member, like as if you'd be so much better than everybody else, and the wolf gettin' you after all, just the same as if you'd been a wild wanderin' lamb all the time/ "That's how he talks. I do hate 'en, for coinin' so to you young ones. If he'd come and have a bout with an old soldier like me it wouldn't be so bad, but to come a-bullyin' and a-frightenin' you — it is such a bit o' ghastly old cowardice as anybody else would be ashamed of. But theare, it be like 'en all over. And he comes round pratin' again : ' It be a hard road to go uj), and choke-full o' troubles and trials. And the devil will set snares an' traps and pitfalls for 'e; an' there be gloomy woods, an' desert places, and swellin's o' Jordan, and great cities wall'd up to heaven, and ugly great sons of Anak.' Poor little lamb, I don't wonder that thee'rt most afeared to set out. But don't listen to him. Don't take one bit o' notice o' what he says. See, here is thy tender Shepherd standin' over thee, and lookin' down upon thee with all His pitiful love. ' Poor little lamb,' He saith, 1 fear not, I will carry thee in My bosom.' And he puts His hand in under thee, and He lifts thee up into His arms, and He carries the lamb in His bosom. "A TALK TO THE LAMBS." 77 There's pretty ridin' for thee now, little one. Bless His dear Name ! What now of mopin' among the nettles ? What now of the wolf ? I see him go sneakin' off with his tail between his legs, and his eyes glistenin' green with sick envy. He can't touch thee there, in thy Saviour's bosom. What now o' desert places, and gloomy woods, and mountains o' difficulty. Ho carries the lambs. ' Wait till thou art grown up ! ' Why that would be to lose it all. Thou art so blest because thou art so little ; thou art so safe because thou art so weak. He carries the lambs." " Bless Thy dear Name/' came from Frankey's corner, where tho shadows of evening now began to gather thickly. "But, that be not all, though it bo a good deal," Dan'el went on again. " He carries them in Hi* bosom — in His bosom. You know tho man who had a hundred sheep and lost ono of them, went after it, — I daresay with his dog that scented it oat and found it in the ditch, bramble-torn and wasted, and that barked at it, ami gobbed at its wool, and drove it roughly to the shepherd. And the shepherd laid it on His shoulders — on His sl,i,nl ,-,:. When an old shi'cj) • bray— one of us old 11 ti i, the flood Shepherd has His watch dog to Eetch us Karl; again. Ee sends a snappish sorrow to bite ns, or b Bharp-toothed loss to shake 78 DANIEL QUORM. us up a bit and to drive us out of the ditch into which we had wandered." Dan'el's little eye shot its glance across to John Trundle, who shook his head as much as to say — " That's true." Widow Pascoe sighed deeply. "And serve us right too," Dan'el went on, " serve us right. Old sheep like we are — what do wo want, goin' astray and tumblin' into ditches. Serve us right. We ought to know better, and deserve that the watch-dog should give us a bite that'll be a warnin' to us for all the rest of our days. And the shepherd lays the runaway on his shoulder. It wasn't a very comfortable position, held on by the legs, with his head danglin' down, and all the rest of the sheep comin' round him, thinkin' what a figure he looked. That be the way the Lord carries us old sheep when we go astray. He brings us back makin' us feel uncomfortable, and very much ashamed of ourselves. But the lambs He carries in His bosom — in IBs bosom. The shoulder is not for them but the bosom. There they lie, with His arms folded about them — there, where His kind eye can keep its glance upon them. In His bosom — where they can feel the great full heart bcatin' in its love, where He can hear the first mutter o' their fear, and they can catch the gentlest whisper of His lovin' care. He carries the "A TALK TO THE LAMBS." 79 lambs in His bosom. Keep close to Him — lie down in His arms, an' you're safe enough. " Don't go thinkin' about yourself — you're weak, of course you are — you're ignorant, of course you are. And so the Shepherd will take all the more care of you for that. Don't let that scare us, or let it scare us only into our Saviour's arms. I was down under the cliffs the other day, and there was a man there with his two boys and a little girl. The boys were strong lusty fellows, who could run down the steep path and leap over the rocks like young goats. But the little maid was lame. And you should have seen that father help in* her because Bhe was lame. How carefully he led her along, an' how he lifted her over tho stones, and how gently he brought her on step by step till at last ho set her to .sit upon a rock, ;uid she leaned against him. Then as she Looked out upon the blue ocean, and on the cliffs, on 5 the white gulls whcelin' up above her, an' the ships Ear out at sea — she enjoyed it all so much thai tears <>' very joy came into the Bather's eyes. Ah, bless the Lord, that be just like Him I The strong lusty ones can get on perhaps — though II" won't lei them out of His Bight. But the lame and the weak, ami tho little on---, how gently ll« I "I them, how He takes them on a step at a time — how tenderly He lifts them over the rough places, and then bow He delights to lead as to 80 DANIEL QUORM. some cleft in the rock and there to make all His goodness to pass before us ! " Dan'el paused. The tenderness and touching way in which he had spoken had more to do with it perhaps than the words themselves, but there was not a heart there that had not been moved to tears. And the general feeling found a relief in dear old Frankey's fervent words : " Bless His dear Name ! It be true, my dear leader, every word of it. Bless Him ! And not only for the lambs of the flock. I've been a-thinkin' o' them words : ' Even to your old age I am lie ; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you.'" But Dan'el had not finished his talk, and quietly went on again. " And yet mind you're lambs. Though you be in the dear Lord's bosom you're lambs — not old sober-sided sheep that have got no friskin' in them. God made the lambs to leap about, you know. And you are His lambs. Don't think that it is a sin to laugh or to play or to be as happy and as merry as lambs in the fields. I am quite sure that God's people are very often the devil's shepherds, — without knowin' it of course, — and do a deal o' harm to the lambs o' the fold. I know that about a fortnight after I had found the love of God to me in Christ Jesus, one day my soul was full o' love an' joy an' gratitude, and I was workin' away as "A TALK TO THE LAMBS." 81 happy as could be, when the devil came to me and whispers, — 'Dan'el, if you go on like this, you'll die and go to heaven like such good people always do, and then what'll come to your mother and who'll keep the place over her head ? ' "I was foolish enough to listen to him for a minute or two, but that was enough. I jumped up from my work and rolled my apron around my waist, and I ran across the road. There before me was old Farmer Gribble's gate — a five-barred gate. So I took a run and leaped over that half-a-dozen times, and the last time I tumbled over it and bruised my shin. So I came back limpin' to my work and sat down again. 'Theare,' I said, 'that'll settle that anyhow: who ever heard of anybody dyin' while they could jump over a five-barred gate like that, or who ever went to heaven while he could bruise his shin in that style?' " Well, I thought that was a pretty way o' jumpm* out o' the Bnare. But I found that I'd only jumped out o' the fryin'-pan into the fire. For the Qext day 1 went to Class, and an old man — in heaven now — began rjiiitc solemn, and turnin' a look upon me thai made me fee] dreadfully guilty, — 'How some folks Call make a profession "' religion, an' do as they do, be more 'an I can understand, goin' and jnmpin 1 over b five-barred Idee as it' 'twas the whole t < n oomman'mentfi 82 DANIEL QUORM. at a stride. An' not once, nor yet twice, but agen an' agen, till last of all the judgments o' heaven come down an' a' most broke his leg ! ' " I went home thinkin' myself a dreadful sinner, and if my dear mother hadn't had so much sense I should have given up in despair, and have thought that there was no chance for anybody so wicked as I was. When I told her about it she smiled, — ah ! I think I can hear her still in her gentle, quiet way, — ( I am glad thee can jump so well, Dan'el,' she says; 'but to-morrow go and jump a gate where the old man can't see thee, for we must not offend the conscience of a weak brother you know, — and see that thou does n' bruise thy shin so badly next time/ " You're lambs, you young folks, you're lambs, and don't go tryin' to be old sheep. You're lambs — only lambs — though He does carry you in His bosom." XL " Srusfm' Sim tobcrc toe tuvtxiat km Minx." HUS Widow Pas- coe had finished her doleful state- ment. She had picked , out all the myste- ries and perplexi- ties of her lot. She had sighed, with a sigh that spoke volumes, over a list of her '- troubles and trials. t She had through gone a very dismal catalogue ol the ills of the past. She had Imt her eyes, aa it' by way of adding to that darkness which was to her- the emblem of true i bad shaken her head very solemnly over the fears Of the future. Aj tO love and joy and deliverance, she bad do! b word from beginning (. 2 84 DANIEL QUORM. to end. Of Him Who always " causeth us to briwm/ph;" through Whom Ave are "more than conquerors," there was just one word at the last : in a tone of despair she wound up by saying, she hoped she should trust Him where she could not trace Him. Then her mouth returned to its sour pro- pi"iety, drawn down at the corners and tucked in under the folds that kept it in its place. Poor Dan'el ! More than once he had rushed at this sentence, and hacked and hewed it till he hoped it was past recovery ; but here it was, growing luxuriant as ever in the garden, or rather in the graveyard of. Widow Pascoe's soul. Again Dan'el gathered his strength to demolish it. Yet it was with much tenderness, and almost sadness, that he began, — " Trust Him where ? Trust Him where you cannot trace Him ! Why, of course, of course : you know you can't trust Him anywhere else. You didn't mean any harm, I know. Folks mostly never do mean any harm ; but they do it for all that. One way not to do any harm, is not to say any harm. If we thought more about what we said, we shouldn't do so much fefciin by a good deal. " Trust Him where you cannot trace Him ! Why he's a very poor creature amongst us that you can't say that much of. If you haven't got any confidence in a man, you can't say much worse of "TRVSTiyr HOT WHERE WE CANNOT TRACE HIM." 85 him than this — ' I'll trust him as far as I can see.' The other day a neighbour of mine was a hit hard up, and he came in to my place, and told me of it. Well, I knew that he was a good kind of a man, so I let him have a sovereign. I gave him the money and away he went. Now suppose that as soon as he had turned his back I began to think about my money. Come, I say to myself, I'll trust him where I cannot trace him : but where I can trace him, what should I trust him for? So I slip out after him. He goes down the road, and I am at his heels: he turns in over the fields, and I am after him : he goes up the lane, and I keep my eye upon him ; and then he turns into his house, and shuts the door. So I sit down on the doorstep, and Die myself with the saying, ' Well, I can't trace him any furl In r, so now I must trust him.' There I sit hour after hour tmistm' him. By-and-by he out and finds me there. " ' Why, Dan'el, what are you a-doin' of here?' ■ . " ' I I .' I , quite coolly, ' trustin' th< •■li- bour, trnstin 1 thee where I cannol traoe thee.' "Now wouldn'1 he gel very angry, and cry out, ' f : ; • what yon call trnstin' me I a-followin* me about in that fashion ''. Sere, take the sovereign baci [ can si rvej bul 1 can't be doubted and l.' 8G DANIEL QUORM. " Why, it's about a8 bad as you can serve any- body, only to trust 'em because you cannot trace them. And to hope for grace to treat our lovin' Father like that ! You didn't mean it, I'm sure. Bless His holy Name ; it hurts me somehow to think anything like that about my blessed Father, and much more to hear people keep sayin' it. " Trudiii,' Him where we cannot trace Him ! Why, it be a poor kind o' trust that only trusts because it is blind, and not because it has got any faith in them that lead it ; to go on wonderin' and doubtin' and fearin', a-reaching out the hand, and a-feelin' with the foot, as if them that lead haven't a bit more eyesight than the blind man himself. When I was a little lad I remember once I'd gone up to spend the day with my grandmother. About sunset, when I ought to be goin' home, there came a tremendous thunderstorm, and the rain came down in torrents. Of course I couldn't start when it was like that, so my old grandmother said : ' Dan'el, my lad, however wilt thee get home?' And just as she was talkin', in came my father, drippin' wet. He had on a great long blue cloak, like they used to wear in those times. So when we started to come away, he said, ' Now, Dan'el, come in under here;' and he put me inside the long cloak. I got in under there, and took hold of his hand, and away we went. It was pitch dark in there, o' course, " TRUSTI2T Hiaf WHERE WE CANXOT TRACE HIX." 87 and outside I could hear the thunder crashin' about among the hills, and every now and then I took hold of his hand tighter, for somehow I could see the blaze o' the lightnin' right in under the cloak. I went splashin' on through the puddles and the mud, all right because I'd got hold of his hand. Now shouldn't I have been a little stupid if I'd kept a-sayin', ' I don't know where I'm goin' to, and I can't tell where I am, and I can't see the way, and it's very dark, and I must trust my father where I cannot trace him/ ""Why I didn't grumble at the darkness; it would be like grumblin' at my father's cloak that wrapped me from the storm. I knew that he knew the way right enough. He looked out, and managed to see the road somehow. And at last we stopped at our door ; and they flung back the cloak, and there I was in front o' the blazin' fire, with mother gettin' us all sorts o' dry things, and tho supper wait in', and all lookin such a welcome, — like only a lad's mother can give him. Of course he led me hoiiH-: win-re clsf should ho lead me too? An' ■eemin 1 to me that be just the way it ought to be with our Eeavenly Father." "Under the very shadow o' Hi^ win'.--, di leader. Ee do love to coveruswith Eh feathers, bless Him." said old Frankey Eervently. Ondir lli^ wing, my dear Fraukey. And in (( 88 DANIEL QUORM. there we don't mind the dark a bit. It's so safe, an' so warm; so snug. We can take His hand, and then go 'long our way rejoicin'. What of a few splashy puddles under-foot ; and a bit of a storm now and then ! Why we'll only take hold of His hand all the tighter. Of course we don't know the way, and don't want to either. Oar Father looks out all along the way ; and He leads us right. Aye, and by-and-by we'll get to the door ; an' then we'll step out into the light, and be safe home, leavin' all the wild storms and darkness outside for ever and ever : and what more can anybody want than that ? Goin' a-tracin' Him, like as if He didn't know; or like as if we weren't quite sure that He was takin' us right. Where else will the Father lead us but to the Father's house, I should like to know ? " " Bless His dear Name," cried Frankey ; " straight home, o' course, straight home ; " and the fire-light glistened in the tears of joy, and made his face yet more radiant. " Seemin' to me that trust, — that be worth the name of trust, — don't think about itself one bit : it just feels so safe that it don't think of askin' any questions about it. When my neighbour had my sovereign, if I hadn't trusted him I should have gone thinkin' about it, and hopin' it was all right ; but because I did trust him, I sat down and went «' TRVSTnr HIM WHERE WE CANNOT TRACE HIM." 89 on hainrnerin' and stitchin' as if he had never come. O, dear folks, let us give ourselves right up to the good Lord, once for all ; and then be so sure of His love an' care that we go singin' on all day long, doin' nothing else but lovin' and servin' Him with all our hearts ! If we trust Him at all we shall trust Him so much that we shan't think about it enough to try and trace Him." So Dan' el had finished. But the topic was a favourite one, and was taken up again and again. B roely a member but had some incident to tell ; some deliverance wrought ; some joy brightened by trust in ih" Lord. And when it came to dear old Frankey's turn, his pale worn face was lit up with holy joy and rapture. " You've been talkin' about trustin' in the Lord win -re we cannot trace Him. Well, bless His dear Name, I don't know anything about tracin' Him, and I never thought anything about that. But I do love to think a hunt / rust in' Him, and I do know something about that, bless Him. I bo a poor ignorant scholar, and always seem to be down t i the bottom of the class in a good many things. But, bless Him, I've bad enough, I reckon, fco make me a'mosi the top o' the class in fcrustin J Eim. Ah, dear Leader, it be 'zackly as yon been a-sayin', — so thai you don't think 'pan it: just Kin' down in II arms, without a morsel o* care or Erettin', but 90 DANIEL QVORM. feeling so sure that everything be as right as it can be, an* never a shadow o' fear come creepin' up between His sunshine and me. Why if heaven be any better than that, then heaven must be a wonderful place sure 'nough. It come to my mind a week or two ago, so full an' sweet an' precious, that I can hardly think o' anything else. It was during them cold North-east winds; they had made my cough very bad, and I was shook all to bits, and felt very ill. My wife was sittin' by my side ; and once when I'd had a sharp fit of it, she put down her work and looked at me till her eyes filled with tears, and says she, c Frank ey, Frank ey, whatever will become of us when you be gone ! ' " She was makin' a warm petticoat for the little maid ; so after a minute or two I took hold of it, and I says — ' What are 'e makin' my dear V " She held it up without a word ; her heart was too full to speak. " 'For the little maid?' I says — 'and a nice warm thing too. How comfortable it will keep her. Does she know about it ?' " ' Know about it ! why o' course not,' said the wife wondering. ' What should she know about it for ?' " I waited another minute, and then I said^ ' What a wonderful mother you must be, wifie, to think about the little maid like that.' "'Wonderful, Frankey ? Why it would be "TRVSTIX- imt WSERE WE CJ.XXOT TRACE Mlii:' 91 more like wonderful if I forgot that the cold weather was a-coniin', and that the little maid would be a-wantin' something warm/ " So then, you see, I had got her, my friends/' and Frankey smiled. " ' 0, wifie/ says I, ' do you think you be goin' to care for the little maid like that, and your Father in Heaven be a-goin' to forget you al- together ! Come now, bless Him, isn't He as much to be trusted as you are ? And do you think He'd see the winter comin' up sharp and cold, and not have something waitin' for you, and just what you want too? And I know, dear wife, that you wouldn't like to hear the little maid go a-frettin' and sayin' ' There, the cold winter be a-comin', and whatever shall I do if my mother should forget me.' AVliy you'd bo hurt and grieved that she should doubt you like that. She knows that you care for her, and what more does she need to know — that's enough to keep her from frettin' about anything. >'•"/• Heavenly Father hnoweth that ye have /""/ "f nil fh'-sn f hinge. That be put down in Eifl book for yon, wine, and a-purpose for you, and y.,u grieve and hurl Him when you L r o a-frettin' about the future and doubtin' Bis love.' "'.Mi, Frankey, I wish I had your faith/ says she. And I lot her go on with her work, hopin J she would think it over. 92 DANIEL QUORM. " When the little maid came home from school that afternoon, she had a bit of a sick headache. She went frettin' about the kitchen whilst her mother was gettin' the tea, and couldn' rest quiet for a minute together. But when the wife sat down, the little maid came and laid herself in her mother's arms, and put her head on her bosom ; and her mother began to sing a quiet kind o' hymn to her. Then the little maid forgot her frettin', and sank down all snug and comfortable, and in a few minutes she was gone off to sleep. ' Frankey,' I says to myself as I looked at it, ' there's a lesson for thee. Sometimes the children o' the Heavenly Father get all fretful and sickly, and they go here and there and can't find a comfortable place any- where, but are all nervous and fidgety. Here's what thou must do, Frankey. Thou must come and lay thyself down in the everlastin' Arms, and lean thy tired head upon the bosom of thy dear Lord, and draw His love in all round thee ; and a'most before thou know it, all thy fears and troubles shall be hushed off to sleep, and thou'lt hear nothing but a quiet kind o' singin' in thy soul tellin' of His love.' Ah, it be more than true, truer than any words can tell or anybody can think for — Mice as a father (or a mother either) pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. " It be a poor thing to go a tracin' Him. But "TRVSTIN' HIM WHERE WE CANNOT TRACE Hilt." 93 it be a blessed thing, sure 'nough, to put your trust iu Him. And I can't understand how any- body can help a-doin' of it. Why, when things have come to the worst, and I do know what that be — when the money been done, and the cupboard been empty, and I have'nt seen a way out of my trouble, and the devil has come a temptin ' — for he do love to hit a man when he's down — I've gone 'pon my knees, just like as if I got down under the Cross for a bit o' shelter from the storm. An' whichever way the wiud blow, a man can get shelter there. Well, let me lift my eyes to Jesus, and see Him there for me, with the crown of thorns, an' the nails in His blessed hands and feet, and very soon my heart be so full as ever it can hold. ' Eh, Frankey/ I cry out, ' the King o' glory died fur thee — died like that. One drop of His precious liluod is moro than all worlds, but for thee His heart emptied itself. He gave Himself for me.'" The old man's voice grew hoarse with deep emotion he went on: " Why I kiss those bleeding feet, and every hit, <>' life and strength in me eries out '.My dear Lord, I can starve, I can suffer, I can die. Bttl there he one I line/ I can never do ', never — never — never. My Lord, / can never doubt Thy /,,,-, .' " I'rankcy's deep feeling filled every heart — as if indeed It were more than full, the Eeeling of the 94 DANIEL QUORM. little company seemed almost naturally to overflow in the words which Dan' el gave out. " Let us sing a verse or two, and we will go on again. ' I rest beneath the' Almighty's shade : My griefs expire, my troubles cease : Thou, Lord, on Whom my soul is stay'd, Wilt keep me still in perfect peace. ' Me for Thine own Thou lov'st to take, In time and in eternity : Thou never, never wilt forsake A helpless worm that trusts in Thee.' " The Lord bless thee, Frankey," cried Dan' el. " I'm a'most glad that you're shut up as you are with nothing to do but to think over His love, and to come and tell us about it. You've done my heart good, anyhow. But I've had my say. Come, Cap'n Joe, thou hast been thinkin' over it a bit, an' we must have a word from thee." "Well, friends," said young Cap'n Joe in his brave, outspoken manner and with his riuging bass voice, like some sturdy David giving testimony after an old silver-haired Samuel, "I've been re- minded of two or three things while I've been listenin' to-night. I've been thinkin' how much people lose by trying to trace the Lord instead of trusting Him. The other day I was on the other side of Redburn and I overtook a man who wanted to know the way. I told him I was going in sight "TRUSTiy HHf TFHEKE WE CANNOT TRACE HIM." 95 of the place, and would show him the nearest path to it. We turned off the high-road through the wood and over the downs. The day was beautiful, and as wu came along under the trees 1 thought I had never seen anything more lovely — the sun coming: in through the leaves here and there on the branches and trunks of the trees, and lighting up the flowers, and the birds singing all about us, and the rabbits kept running across the mossy path. But that man didn't see a bit of it; not a bit. The path went winding along, and he kept putting his head first on this side and then on that to see it, and when the trees seemed to block it in, he stopped and said quite timidly: 'I'm afraid we're wrong \ the pathway ends here.' I laughed at his foolishness. 'Why, I've been along here many times/ I said. 'You needn't be distressed.' But he was as nervous as ever. Then we left the wood and came out on the downs. And when we came to the top I stayed to look away over the furze and the old granite rocks to the sea. 'There's Sain I, Michael's Mount/ I said, pointing away in the distance. ' Isn't this a fine view ?' But he looked about quite timidly and said, 'I hope wo are right.' ■ I thought it. was no good trying to interest him in the Bcenerjj and I showed him the smoke of Redburn just down under us, and lie thanked me 96 DANIEL QUORM. and went away down the valley. I came along thinking how much these poor timid souls do lose, and how foolish it was for him to be so afraid when I'd been over the path scores of times. And I said to myself, ' That's the way with hundreds of folks going heavenwards. They forget that their Lord has led thousands of pilgrims to the Celestial City, and they come all along the way wondering if they're right, and when they stand upon the Delectable Mountains and have the stretch of beautiful scenery about them, they are timidly fearing lest they should have lost the way. I'm sure that it is a poor unhappy kind of religion — this tracing kind. Frankey's is the right sort — trust, simple trust, that feels so safe that it never thinks about it/ "It might cure us to think what a set of ignorant creatures we are, and what mistakes we keep making when we think we can trace Him — mistakes that I reckon will be almost enough to spoil heaven itself when we wake up and find out how we've wronged our Blessed Father. There was Jacob, he tried his hand at tracing the Lord, and a mess he made of it, making himself and every- body else miserable for half a life time : going away now and then to the secret place where he kept the coat of many colours : taking it out all stained with faded marks of blood ; going over the story again, "TRUSTS mil WHERE WE CANNOT TRACE Em." 97 shaking his head and saying bitterly, 'Doubtless some evil beast hath devoured him. I'll go sorrowing down to my grave.' And the old man goes in and out, refusing to be comforted, tearing the wound open again when it did begin to heal, and loving to ■ it festering. And there all the time his Father in heaven was preparing to feed them all and keep them alive in time of famine. If Jacob like me, I know he'd feel dreadfully ashamed of himself when he got down to the land of Goshen and found his son there, the great man of the land, and he would go grieving then that he had gone grumbling before. " That is what comes of tracing the Lord, and it must always bo so, I think, for wo see only ono side of it — we can't see the Lord's side. Here's the coat we wanted to wrap Joseph in — right before OUT eyes; but wo don't sec the line linen and the 1 robefl that arc being woven down yonder in pt. Here's the empty chair" — for a moment ' •'• .1 ' voice faltered ; the grave was not yet d in which he had laid his bright-eyed eldest " Ei : ' 'ii" empty chair/' he went on, "and the place where he used to Bit-, bnl we can'l Bee the throne tint God is Leading him up to. It is so with all tl 'l takes away. Our eyes are upon our lost, and we think of what is gone, but wo don't see that God has taken them away only to 98 DANIEL QUORM. enrich them and enrobe them with majesty and splendour, and one day to give them back to us exalted and enriched as kings and priests. We can't afford to go tracing the Lord : we make such bungling work of it. " And talking about Jacob brings to my mind the way people go wondering what they'll do if all kinds of troubles come upon them — losses and sorrows and death. Jacob had lessons enough, as Frankey says, to teach him the blessedness of trusting the Lord. There was Esau coming up to him with a great company of armed men. He was dreadfully frightened, for the fierce hunter had been cruelly and foully wronged, and now he would surely avenge himself. And Jacob began to trace things. He couldn't have seen anything else than this, look as long as he would : his flocks and herds seized, his sons earned into slavery, and himself slain. And at last here they were right before him, the hundreds of spearmen, fierce fellows whose eyes shone at the sight of so much plunder. And Jacob came up bowing and trembling and saying, ' My lord ' and ' my lord.' But Esau ran, generous man that he was, and fell on his brother's neck and kissed him, and wept with very joy and pressed him to come and dwell with him in his own country. Where Jacob traced destruction he found loving welcome and blessing; where he traced loss and "TRUSTiy HIM WHERE WE CANNOT TRACE HIM." 99 death, he found a brother's love and a wonderful deliverance. That's the way with us. We can only see the fierce Esaus, armed and angry that are coming to slay us. But the Lord can touch the heart with his finger ; and turned in a moment, it is all love and peace and blessing. We can't afford to go tracing Him ; we can't afford to do anything else but trust in Him. " Besides, when we go tracing Him, there's one tiling we never see, and that makes all the differ- ence in the world : we never see the special grace our ijood Lord will give for special seasons. Seeming to me that these people that are always won keep on won ■ whal they'll do in the future La just as if yon were to meei a man going bo work with a . of Hour "ii hia back, and a atone of meat, and ii humil<- of cl'tthcH. ' You know,' ho .-ays, 'I shall M 2 100 DANIEL QVORM. be hungry in three months' time, and I shall war:i food and clothes then, so I carry it all with me.' Now nobody was ever mazed enough to do that. The man just takes his day's dinner with him and goes to his day's work; and he believes that where to-day's meal came from, to-morrow's will too. And that is what wo want. The Lord gives us one day's grace for one day's need ; and to-morrow's supply will come out of the same fulness, and what more can anybody want ! " Dan'el finished the talk of the evening. "Well, friends, 'tis a pity that the time be gone ; but I must tell 'e a little story I heard the other day. Cap'n Joe been talkin' about tempta- tions. Why, however we can listen to the devil when he do come round temptin' of us to doubt our Father's love and care, is wonderful. It bo such impudence, — such down-right, brazen-faced impu- dence." " Just like 'en though, my dear leader," put in Frankey. " But I was goin' to tell the story that I heard from dear old Billy Bray. Ho was prcachin' about temptations, and this is what he said : — "Friends, last week I was a-diggin' up my 'taturs. It was a wisht poor yield, sure 'nough : there was hardly a sound one in the whole lot. An' while I was a-diggin' the devil come to me, and "TRUSTIHT HIM WHERE WE CANNOT TRACE HIM." 101 he says, ' Billy, do you tliink your Father do love you?' " I should reckon He do," I says. "'Well, I don't/ says the ould tempter in a minute. If I'd thought about it I shouldn't ha' listened to 'en, for his 'pinions ben't worth the leastest bit o' notice. ' I don't,' says he, ' and I tell 'ee what for : if your Father loved you, Billy Bray, He'd give you a pretty yield o' 'taturs ; so much as ever you do want, and ever so many of 'em, and every one of 'em as big as your fist. For it bcn't no trouble for your Father to do anything; and He could just as easy give you plenty as not. An' if He loved you, He would, too/ " Of course I wasn't goin' to let he talk o' my Father like that, so I turned round 'pon en: f Pray, Sir/ says I, 'who may you happen to be, comin' to me a-talkin' like this hero? If I ben't mistaken, L >W you, Sir; and I know my Father, too. And to think o' your comin' a-sayiu' Ho don't lovo me I Why I'vo got your written character homo to ; and it do Fay, Sir, that you bo a liar from the beginnin'. An' I'm sorry to add thai I I to have :i personal acquaintance with you some iuee, .-Hid I -crved you faithful aS 6VI IT any fcch COuld : and all you gavo me was nothing but rags to my back, and a wretched home, and an a< liin' head, — an' no iaiuiv, — and the Eear o' 102 DANIEL QVOEH. liell-fire to finish up with. And here's my dear Father in heaven. I've been a poor servant of His, off and on, for thirty years. And He's given me a clean heart, and a soul full o' joy, and a lovely suit o* white as '11 never wear out ; and He says that He will make a king of me before He 've done, and that He'll take me home to His palace to reign with Him for ever and ever. And now you come up here a-talkin' like that.' "Bless 'e, my dear friends, he went off in a minute, like as if he'd been shot — I do wish he had — and he never had the manners to say good mornin'." A hearty laugh followed Dan' el's story. Even Widow Pascoe had to twitch her mouth into its propriety. XII. /-r « im g anil's Jetton of a (Mass-mteimg. WHAD dropt in to see Dan' el one evening before the service. It was in the late Autumn, and the days were "drawing in," so . Dan'el looked up I from his work . with a smile of - relief as well as of kindly gi'eet- \ ing. Ho lifted the broad-rimmed spectacles on to hit forehead, and laid down hia work with the air man who could not do much more, and would enjoy half -an-hour's chat with a pleasanl conscious- doI wa i ing hia time. It happened thai jusi then local circumstances had dir ■• I attention to tho Class-meeting. A 10t DANIEL QUORM. coiTespondence in the papers was the talk of the uneventful month, rather because there was nothing else to talk of than because of any anxiety that was felt on the matter. It afforded a ready topic ; so giving my old friend plenty of line, and encourag- ing him by a question here and there, — with which I need not break the narrative now, — I managed to get some notions that have not lost their value to-day. " Class-meetin's be like awls and needles — they'll go so long as ever you can keep 'em bright ; but when they get dull they'll rust, and then it be hard work. There was my old leader that I used to meet with, he was enough to kill any Class- meetin'. " I was a young lad, so full o' joy as ever I could live, and my heart singin' to God all day long. And then I used to go up to Class, and it took all the music out o' me, like Granny's finery over the canary, and I couldn't do more than squeak a bit instead of singing at all. Why first of all he'd give out a hymn — one o' them for ' mourners ' — like this, — > ' Woe is me ! what tongue can tell My sad afflicted state ! Who my anguish can reveal, Or all my woes relate ! ' And then they'd sing it to ' Josiah,' so slow as if DAN'EL'S NOTION OF A CLASS-UEEHNG. 1 05 they was to a berrin'.* Or else it used to be that hymn — ' Ah ! whither should I go, Burden'd and sick and faint ; To whom should I my troubles show, And pour out my complaint ! ' Then he had what he called a bit o' prayer. But there wasn't a bit o' prayer in it froih beginnin' to end. It was all a groan about how bad we were, and what miserable sinners we were. He never thanked G^d for anything at all but this, — thatHchad not swept us away with the f besom o' destruction.' " And then he used to speak — it was all dismal an' mournin' about this ' howlin' wilderness/ — till I couldn't stand it any longer. I tried at first to I so dull, and to speak so melancholy as he did. l'>ut it was no good my tryin' — not a bit. The Lord had put a new song into my mouth, and I couldn't help singin' it. So I thought I might as will speak out my mind about it, for all I was only :i young lad. 1 can remember it quite well. 'Twas in the spring-time, and 1M been rejoicin' in all the D< aiity <»' the world as I came along. "'Well, my young brother, and how bo you a-gettin' on?' hi , in his slow way. "S , I aid, ' My dear Leader, I don'i know how ii \b } I. Mt I can't feel like yon do, for the life o' me ° A funeral— at which bymni are frequently Bong in Cornwall. 106 DANIEL QUORM. I can't. I don't feel any more like you do, than the day do feel like the night. Seemin' to me I must sing because my heart be so full. 'Tis like the spring down in the valley that be so full it must flow over. And if the Lord has made my heart to rejoice, I don't believe I ought to try and make myself feel any other. I've been and washed my robes and made 'em white in the blood o' the Lamb, and now I don't like to think that they are not white ; it seem to me like insultin' my dear Lord for to go callin' 'em filthy rags. If mf Lord has wrapt me up in the weddin' garment — and bless His dear Name He have ! — it ben't right, and it ben't grateful, and it ben't true for me to go callin' 'em sackcloth and ashes. An' if I be drest for a weddin' — specially for the Marriage Supper o' the Lamb — I don't want to feel like as if I was a-goin' to a bemn'. I may be wrong, but I do think that the world be a brave deal more like God's world when the flowers be out, and the May be 'pon the hedges, an' the trees be all green and beautiful, an' the birds be a-singin' everywhere, than when it be all dead and shiverin' with the cold, an' the trees all stript naked, and lif tin' up their arms to heaven, like as if they were askin' for pity. " Howlin' wilderness " it may be, till the Blessed Lord come to us ; then the wilderness do begin to bud and blossom as the rose, and rejoice with joy an' singin'. And it says DAyEUS NOTION OF A CLASS-MEETING. 107 that " the ransomed o' the Lord shall return, and come to Zi'/n ivith songs and everlastin' joy 'pon their Is : they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sor- row an' sighvn' shall flee aivay." Bless the Lord, my dear leader, I be His child ! He has ransomed me, and now I can't help it — and I don't want to, neither — my heart be singin' all day long. I joy in Him by "Whom I have now received the atonement. Why, I be a child of God, dear leader, an' I can't help walkin' about so happy as a king; for it be my Father's world, and there ben't a thing in it any where but is workin' together for my good. s the Lord, that's how I be gettin' along : it may be right, or it may be wrong, but that's 'zactly how it be.' "I didn't mean to say so much, but I felt it, and when once I open my mouth it be hard work to shut en' again till it be all said. The old leader didn't like it. Ho turned quite red, and gave me ,i sly rap OT two. Bui he wasn't a bad sort of a man, only a hit hasty in his temper for all he had so little lire in lii^ hone-. Before the week was over lie went to the minister and told him that though T young he thought I might have a ('la -i I. and " • ne in. , for he Was gettin' old, and couldn't do as he used tOj and we two were all right after that. Nobody rejoiced more when I began to pick up a lew members than lie did. 108 DANIEL QUORM. "But talk about Class-meetin's, and people not comin to 'em : why the reason is pretty much the same as I was a-tellin' Bob Byles's wife the other day, — that it wasn't all his fault that he was home so little, and at the public-house so often. If she kept a bright fireplace, and a snug corner, and a pleasant smile for him at home, he would be tempted oftener to stay at home. We leaders must keep the place bright and cheerful and attractive if we want to keep the members. Why, I should every bit as soon think o' goin to Class with the t#ix an' the grease on my hands, as soon think o* goin' with my apron on and in my shirt sleeves, as think o' takin' all my cares and worries. I get away first of all and lose all my own fears and troubles in the lovin' care of my Heavenly Father. I get my own heart put into tune, and then the rest '11 take the right pitch from me. And then with the fire burnm* I get away to meetin'. We always begin with a good, cheerful hymn — one o' them that do stir up your soul, and a good old tune that you can sing without thinkin' about it, because you do know it so well. Give me a ' trumpet metre * to 'Arise my soul, arise ! ' or dear old ' Jerusalem,' to the hymn — 1 My God, the spring of all my joys, The life of my delights, The glory of my brightest days, And comfort of my nights ! ' DAWEL'S NOTION OF A CLASS-MEETFNG. 1 09 " Bless 'e, why, by the time you're gone through that, and had a bit o' downright earnest prayer, the fire is burnin' in every heart, and you're all aglow with holy joy. No fear o' freezing the tender lambs to death then : more likely to warm the old ones up to shoutin' pitch. When I hear some folks talk about the Class-meetin's as they do, I wonder what- ever the leaders can have been about for to let 'em get such notions as they have got. I know faults are thick when the love is thin ; and standin' water '11 breed ptenty o' nasty things without anybody goin' nigh it. The old mill-wheel '11 creak and grurnblo win 'it the river be low. But you can't wonder that folks don't like Class-meetin's if there bo nothing for 'em when they do come: neither meat, nor think, nor fire, nor a nice hearty welcome. " I was down to the Infirmary the other day, and while I was waitin' there, they were all a-tcllin' (.' tin ir ailin's and f'ailin's. One had a cough, and another had a pain lure and a weakness there, and another had a crushed hand, and another a l>a wonder so many go about cryin' ' My lean- , my Leanness/ and arc bo weak that you can • m down with a feather or trip 'em up with . And a plague they arc too. Talk about endurin' hardi r a mighty palace, 'tis all thai man inters into the joy of his Lord. heaven. " No wonder poor Low-h uelia bo dull — the only 13C DANIEL QUORM. wonder would bo if lie were anything else. He carries himself about with him like a great pair o' blinkers that shut out the view and shut him up in the dark. But High-level gets up on the top o' the delectable mountains an' gets out his spy- glass, and forgets himself, because he sees so much o' the love an' wisdom an' power an' glory of his Blessed Lord ; and he begins to praise Him with all his heart, because he can't help it. How can he do anything else but praise Him when he sees how good an' kind an' wise He is ? And how can any- body be any other than dismal and dull when he keeps his thoughts always 'pon his own self ? He'll have to look a long time before he sees much to sing about there. If we don't want dull thoughts to come we must keep 'em away like I keep the weeds out o' my bit o' garden. I fill the bed so full o' flowers that there isn't any room for weeds. Let a man live where he can keep his mind stayed 'pon his Lord, and he won't have much room for dismal old thoughts and fears about his own self. ' The op'ning heavens around me shine, With beams of sacred bliss, If Jesus shows His mercy mine, And whispers 1 am Ilis.' "Depend 'pon it 'tis just like this here: if we come to the Father only for what we can get, OX TlfO WATS TO RjZAVEX. 137 askin' for the portion o' goods, well, we shall have it because we are sons. But we shall always want something else. We shall never feel so full o' satis- faction that it'll have to run over into a bit o' singing like the brook up to Carwinnin. "lis when we come to feel that the portion o' goods is very little — nothin' at all in comparison — but that the Father is everything, then our hearts begin to sing. Why, with the Father's blessed voice in our ears, and His arms about our necks, an' His love in our hearts, we can't help ourselves — we must begin to be merry. " Paul went along the high-level because ho died to his own self, and lived only for Christ. Pain and loss and trouble and death were nothing to Paul if he could only serve his Blessed Lord. But folks that go along the low-level are always wantin' the Lord to wait 'pon them with health and prosperity, sunshine an' best robes. I do dearly lovo to read an' think about Paul and his way to heaven. \\ hy, my dear friends, we should hardly know ourselves it' we went to livo up there where Paul lived. Pve heard folks who've come home from California Bay that out there the air is so pun' that you can mih- an' mil'-, everything is SO clear; and 'tis all •till thai you ran hear singin' miles oil', an' 'tis always like Bummer over there, so thai the I" don't lay up any honey because 1 here's no winter and lo8 DANIEL QUOEM. no need for it. Now that's the high-level to heaven, 'zactly. 'lis up where you can see ever so far, where you can always catch sight o' the golden gates, an' see the shinin' o' the Father's House, and when 'tis very still you can a'most hear the singm' inside. I wonder we don't emigrate right off to once, 'tis such a pretty country, an' no rates nor taxes. And like the bees, you've got honey up there all the year round, no great black clouds o' care comin' about like a hurricane, and no ugly old fears keep a whisperin' about the winter, an' whatever we shall do to get along then. Why 'tis down here for us as well as up there, if we would only have it:— ' There everlasting Spring abides And never-withering flowers.' And if you like to ask why we don't live there, the answer is plain enough, ' Self, like a narrow sea, divides This heavenly land from ours.' " Seemin' to me that Paul made short work of self. He gave self notice to quit, an' gave up the freehold to his Blessed Lord. And I mean to try and follow his example and to say to my own self, ' Dan'el I won't have you for a tenant any longer : you're more trouble to me than all the world besides. You're so hard to please, an' so uncertain that if ON TWO WATS TO HEAVEN. 139 you happen to be all right to-day, there's no knowin' what you'll be like to-morrow. I shall turn 'e out, neck an' crop with all your goods and chattels.' That's what I want for my own self, friends. My heart cries out, ' My Lord, come in and live in this house, not like a great visitor for me to entertain, and ask a favour of now and then ; but come in an' be the Master and I'll be the servant, an' all I am shall wait upon Thee.' That's what I want for myself ; ;uid then when anybody knocked to the door an' said — ' Dan'el Quorm live here, — does he?' I should dearly love to say, Dan'el's gone away and li. •' . an 5 buried: ' Nevertheless I Hue; yet not I, but Christ lirrlk in me.' " Paul gives us a good many short cuts across from /A-- low-level to the high. There's ono in the twelfth chapter o 5 Romans and in the first verse '/ beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies <> limn' sacrifice, holy, accepta- ble unto God, which is your reasonable service* Now, ■ •iiiin' to me, that's plain enough for anybody. tli" hou e, a three-storeyed house, consistin' body, soul and spirit. You go on month after month, an J year aft r year, savin' whal you'd like what yon mean to do. I've heard scores .,' sermons about this text, an' heard it talked about hundreds o* times, and I'v heard folk in their praye*rs thai they de ired fco do it. Bui hearin' 140 VANIEL QUORM. about it, an' talkin' about it, and prayin' about it, like that isn't a morsel o' good. Here, take the key, and go right away and give it up to the Lord once for all, and have done with it. We go dilly- dallying about it year after year, till the old walls fall in and there's nothing left but a heap o' rubbish. 'Present your bodies,' says Paul. Go in before the Lord, and say here I am, Lord take me, altogether, Thine and Thine for evermore. Give Him the house an' let us just sweep the rooms an' keep it so nice as ever we can for Him. The Lord help us, every one, to be high-level Christians." So Dan'el finished, and a hearty Amen came from most of the members. For a moment there was silence, for Dan'el often broke through the set form and routine of speaking, and encouraged a conversation. Then it was that young Cap'n Joe struck in. " Well, friends, I don't know how 'tis with you, but there isn't a subject in the world that has been more in my thoughts lately than this that our leader has been talking about ; only it seems to me as if he thought the bit of a climb was just nothing at all, and that a man could be up on the high-level in a minute. You talk about it as a path in a field, but to me 'tis something very different from that. I was down to Portreath the other day when the tide was out, and as I was walking along on the ON TWO WATS TO HEAVEN. 141 pier, I saw an old friend of mine on the sands below me. I leaned over and said in a joke, — ' Come up here ! ' he looked up ; it was only twenty feet or so above him, ( Ah, I wish I could/ he said. It was twenty feet of granite wall without a foot- hold in it, and he had to go back a loug way over the sands before he could get up. Now what you call a path in a field, is a good deal more like the face of a granite wall to me. I've tried to climb it till I'm ready to give up in despair, and sometimes it quite frets and vexes me to hear people talkin' about it as they do, for I've tried ever so hard, .and !• seemed to me to bo so far away as I am -night, for all my trying." It was plain that young Cap'n Joe had hit a difficulty that was shared by many. Eyes met each other, and beads nodded in sympathy, and earnest • were thrust forward to catch the reply. A happy smile came over Dan 'el's rugged faco a: — "Ah, Cap'n Joe, I'm glad lo hear i thou ' id. I 'm fine an' glad that th< that. We'. to Learn thai let on a'most before every step in religion— thai we can't a bit in our own strength, but that 'tis -din' to OUT faith. Why now, didn't yen come to J i aa a poor sinner with the great burd i your back? Yon wanted to gel rid of it. HOW you tried to, till your fingers were a'uio-t 142 DANIEL QUORM. worn away, and you hadn't got any strength left. And when you couldn't do anything else, you came an' cast yourself 'pon the Blessed Saviour, an' prayed Him to do it all for you. Then when you trusted Him like that, your load fell off, and you wondered you hadn't come to Him long, long before. And so 'tis again here, dear friends. We want to be saved clean out of our sins, an' right out of our failins' an right up out of our ownselves. Well, we been tryin' to do it, and we can't; and now shall we give it all up in despair ? No, no, we won't let the devil get the upper hand of us like that there. We do every one of us know too much about the dear Lord to do that. Come, we'll cast ourselves 'pon Him, an' take Him as all that our hearts are a-longin' after. Our Saviour from all sins ; our Saviour from sinnin' ; from our weak- nesses an' hindrances an' failin's ; accordin' to our faith it shall be to us again, just like 'twas at first. " I picked up a lesson down to Redburn t'other day that I shan't forget in a hurry ; 'twas back in the winter. They had a soup-kitchen, you know, down there. An' one day when I was comin' along I saw them comin' for their soup. There was the boys and girls with their mugs and their jugs ; and, in amongst them came up an old grandmother who looked as if she'd plenty o' little hungry mouths at home, an' she brought a great big pitcher. I waited OX TWO WATS TO BEATEN, lio to see her come out again. The mugs were filled, and the jugs were filled; so I says to myself, f I wonder if she'll get her pitcher full/ Yes there it full to the brim, as much as she could cany with both hands. So I came home thir.kin' about it. ' 'Tis a lesson for thee, Dan'el,' I says. ' Why thou'rt old enough to learn it too. Thou hast gone u ; i to thy Lord's storehouse with a mug, and thou mightest ha' gone with a jug. A jug ? 'iss, thou might'st ha' gone with a pitcher an' it would ha' been full. An' a pitcher needn't ha' been all. If thou wilt go with ;i faith so big as a horse an' cart thou shalt have as much as thoucan'st carry.' Come, my friends, let us hive a bigger faith, so big that it shall come to take the Blessed Lord as our All in all, fillin' all the heart an' all the mind, an' all tho house. Tie too hard Eor as — but according to our faith it Bhall be onto as." ':/'■■ ■ ■ - ' ; •. V.. v XV. (Dn Minmng Souls. TRA^GELY enough, it was Widow Pascoe who most commonly sug- gested this topic. Partly by the selfishness of her sentiments, partly by her dismal looks and tones, but still more by the impression that all about her made on one's mind. Though she never said it in so many words, there were a hundred things about her that kept saying ON WINNING SOULS. 145 it over and over again — " The Lord's people are a peculiar people, a little flock. You only know that the way Lads to Heaven if a very few there be that find it. Therefore receive all new comers with cold suspicion. Most likely they are hypocrites, and if not, they will probably be back in the world again in a month. Keep the way as much as you possibly can to yourself." In her thinking, the road to Heaven was not "lily as gloomy and uncomfortable as you could make it, but it was walled tip like the cities of Anak ; and plenty of broken glass on the top of the walla \v«.uld have been a peal consolation to her mind. She would have had the entrance gate covered with spikes, and surrounded with notices of spring-guns and man-traps, and warnings that trespassers would be prosecnted with the utmost rigour of the law. A for "the grave and beantiful Damsel, named ration," whom Pilgrim found at the gate. Widow would have given thai fair maiden " notice," and have improved matters very much, in her own [nation, by installing herself as d keeper. ; I instantly provoked by it into plain ■peaking, and nobody else in the Class had a particle ympathywith a nature bo ice-bound and narrow. Bui thai was Widow I'., ... ' comfort. To be mis- nnd( to find thai nobody agreed with her, i" have no encouragement and no sympathy, was i. 146 DANIEL QUOIiZI. 11 a good time " to Widow Pascoe ; all this was the most satisfactory evidence of her religion. It was meal-time to her when she could come hither and dip her parched com in the vinegar — then she did eat } . and was sufficed, and left. Dan'el listened with a sigh, and spoke slowly and sadly, — " Well, if we don't take care, I'm 'f raid some of us '11 never get to Heaven." This was threatening : it even disturbed Widow Pascoe's composure for a moment. Dan'el continued, as if explaining what had gone before, — " Or if we get there it won't be like the Lord Jesus went. You remember that Jesus wouldn't go to Heaven alone, even He took a soul with Him, and said: 'To-day shalt thou he with me in Paradise.' An' the only safe way foi us is to go like the Blessed Master went." Another pause followed, in which the little eye regained its humorous expression, and a ripple of playful roguishness came over Dan'el's face. " You know, my dear sister, you '11 never get anybody to go along such a dismal old road as you make of it, never. An' what '11 you do if you get up to the golden gate all by yourself ? You know the Lord wouldn't let the beasts go into the ark one by one — not even the unclean beasts; not a cat or a dog could go in by itself. An' if 'tis anything like that, what will folks do who've never ON WINNING SOULS. 147 got a soul to go to Heaven with 'em. Besides, it would be a'most impudence to knock to the door an' ask the glorious great Archangel to open it just to let in one. When I was up to E once, I went in to see the Cathedral ; and the man came up with a bunch o' big keys, and says he, ' You must wait a bit till somebody else come, for we don't show it to less than two at a time — it ben't worth while/ An' then when there was two of us, be opened all the doors, an' took us upon top o' the tower, ami showed us about everywhere. Beemin' to me 'twould serve us 'zactly right if we was to go up an' knock to the golden gate o' tin- cele8tial City, and the Archangel was to say, 'You should ha' found somebody else to come in witli 'e,' — an' if he was to keep us waitin' out.~i«I<- till somebody else come up. "An' it isn't a matter thai we can please ourselves about either. The Lord Jesus fells as that we are the lights <>/ the world, an' if that do mean anything at all, it do mean that BOmewhere somebody in the world is bein' cheered an' guided and helped • things Out there in the dark, by what we an- a doin' of, or by how we are linn'. And tic I. ord tills us that, we are the sail -.' //,,■ earth. An' if we an- not helpin' to keep some i an' clean, an 1 to preserve it unto everlastin' life, why I can't, Bee much difference between that ] 48 DANIEL QVOHM. an' salt that has lost its savour : one doesn't do any good, and the other is good for nothing. And like everything else in God's world that is good for nothing, it shall be cast forth and ' trodden under foot.' "Why I meet lots o' the Lord's people who think it don't matter a bit how they let their lights shine, so long as they shine somehow. Some of 'em '11 flash it out and frighten anybody with it, like the glare of a policeman's bull's eye. I can mind an old gentleman who used to come to see my father : he'd take hold o' me by the collar o' my coat an' frown at me, an' say in a great gruff voice, 'Now be a good boy and do what you're told, or you'll go to the devil.' That never did me any good ; I don't believe it would do anybody any good. And then there aro others of 'em — why you might think they had to pay for it, an' was always afeared o' wastin' the gas. They '11 turn it up 'pon a Sunday an' 'pon the prayer-meetin' night, an' they'll have ever so big a glare then ; but so soon as ever they do get home, they '11 turn it down so low that the children an' the neighbours think it be gone out altogether. Now seemin' to me the only kind o' light that '11 do the world any good is a uumin' light — f a burnin' an' a shinin' light.' Some folks be like glow- worms, that shine without burnin' ; but they won't ON WINNING SOULS. 149 do muck good. We must burn, friends, burn an' then we shall shine. Let 's long to win souls, an' feel the Ion gin' burnin' in us, an' then wo shall do it. Only let our hearts catch fire, then the world '11 see the light an' feel the warmth, an' some poor perishin' mortal or other '11 be sure to come up to get a bit o' life. But if we don't burn, we shan't shine much. That be the only kind o' light that's worth anything, 'a burn in' and a shinin' light.' " An' the beauty of it is that every one of us can do it, whether we got one talent or whether jot fcwo. Furze boshes and brambles ben't no good f<>r lmihlin' 0' the Lord's House, — you must have greal cedars o' Lebanon for that, — nor yet for a inakin' tin' furniture out of; but set 'em a firo, :m' they'll li<_ r lit up the country for miles ;ni' miles. r mind though you I"- reckoned nothin' in God's world but weeds an' rubbish, yon can burn 10 a ve Light in the dark. Dear old granny here can't do much, but 'pon a dark night she can begin to think about the Folks that have got ■ he moors, an' t hal may be si raj in' away an' gettin' down some old -haft or oilier ; an' she can tell 'em to sweep up the hearth an' get a nice bright fire an J to (mil up the blind, and let the candle shine right out 'pon the road. Some- body '11 !><• guided a bit, and get a bit o' warmth 150 DANIEL QVOim. an' cheerfulness out there in the dark. An' I ofteu think about it when I rake out my fire just aforo goin' to bed. This here fire do burn away like that, and come to nothing but ashes ; but they that begin to burn an' shine, tryin' to ' turn many to righteous- ness,' shall never go out — they shall shine like ' the stars for ever and ever.' 'Tisn't enough to be called the light o' the world an' the salt o' the earth, my friends. We must set about it the right way to do it. Folk3 may be the salt o' the earth : but they won't do much good if they come to you with a great mouthful of it that '11 be a sickener for many a day, an' perhaps spoil your relish for it altogether. There's lots o' people who want to save souls, but 'tis ' they that be wise' that 'shall shine as the hr'ujldness of the firmament.' " Now seemin' to me that the first thing is to set ourselves to do it. 'Tis just like everything else, — it wants doin'. It won't do it to be always talkin' about it, an' desirin' it, an' prayin' that we may be useful. We must get up an' do it. Simon said, 'I go a-fishin'.' And he might have talked about it, and prayed about it all his life, — he never would have caught anything till ho went. We keep sayin', ' Dear brethren, let us go a-fishin' •/ or, 'You know we really must go a-fishin'.' We talk of how very right an' proper it is, an' how wo desire to do it, an' wo go prayin' that we may be stirred ON WINNING SOULS. 151 up to go a-fishin'. But Simon gets out his bait- box, an' his cross-lines, an' he shoulders the oars an' he shoves off the boat, an' settlin' down he calls out to the rest of 'em, 'I go a-fishhi'. Then the . who perhaps had been talkin' about it, shoved oif their boats too, an' said, ' We also go with thee.' An' that's the way in fishin' for souls, you must set about it. Why we stand in on the shore loungin' about the quay with our hands in our pockets, thinkin' that if the fish are to be caught the i will send 'em to us. If we want them, we must go Or-finihing. " And then there's another thing I like about ■ it — he didn't mind goin' alone. I'm 'fraid a good many of us would have seen Simon goin' out in his boat, an' never have said what the did. We should have kept our hands in our pockets, and have said, 'Quite right an' proper: called to the work;' or we should have said, '0, he's a lead (i- ; ho ought to go!' — or we should • said— "There ;_ r o<-s Simon again: what as gift h" li ■ for it !' Pack o' atuff an' nonsense. A gift f<.r it ! Why he had b hook an' a line an' a bit (»' bail ; and so he went out to do whal he could. That w;h his gift for it, and lhat wa - his Callin' bOO. I want for i rinc of us to say, ' / f kings. Depend 'pon it, that's how the world Jin - '_ r "t to be converted. Everybody who Lovee the Lord Jesns Christ must try, for His • . win somebody else, and must stick to it till tli "Then there's jus! one thing more abonl this '/ a'moat so good for ouwliu-s us •<• try in same. There's nothing else, I eve, thai 'II make a man so watchful an' so :ul abonl all he an' di this will. When I u ELshin' with a rod and line an' - : • -lit of a big li-h nnder the bank, why I could k a mou " for half a dag . < Ither 156 DANIEL QUORM. times we might run about on the bank, an' jump about so much as we liked. But now a shadow mustn't fall 'pon the water; there mustn't be a sound ; only just lettin' the bait drop in, so gentle and quiet. Ah, you go an' try to catch a soul if you want to be watchful ! No hasty words then ; that would scare the soul away in a minute. No bit o' quick temper or angry ways ; that would spoil it all. " Pick out your soul, an' begin to pray for it ; set to work to catch it, an' we shall do it. Only set to work the right way. It isn't those who try, but those who try the right way — the ivise — that shall shine as the stars. An' as for wisdom, for all it is the rarest thing in the world, bless the Lord we can get so much of it as ever we mind to, and all for nothing. c If any of you •* never mind how dull a scholar he is, or how big a fool ; ' if any of you lack wisdom, let him ash of God, that giveth to -ill men liberally, and upbraideth not ; and it shall be given him.' So let us all say as Simon did, an' mean it too, by the Lord's help, I go a-jishin'. " XVI. 0n P caving the Mori). ''VE heard folks say — 'The c li i Id's 1 b e father o' the m a n,' — and tin re's more truth in that tli:ui there is in mht I iiirmy *H ^^fe'\ thin that ^ ^_ ,^ I folks say. Now ^p 1 I I've been a- thinkm' that Sunday is the father o* the the week 'II take after the in' if anybody wants to have a good week I Sunday. I don't know bo with you, friends, bul like the ol I i lock that's b e bo my plaoe — I'm hine that wants windin' up once 158 DANIEL QUORM. a week, an' if I don't got wound up 'pon a Sunday I'm run down all the week. I've seen the farmers down to Redburn 'pon the market day pullin' out their watches an' settin' 'em by the old church clock, turnin' the hands a bit forwarder or a bit backwarder. But it isn't a bit o' good settin' 'em light if they forget to wind 'em up. Now I believe there's lots o' folks that'll come to the House of God 'pon a Sunday an' they'll set their feelings right ; they '11 get very nice and religious for a bit, an' be all so good an' perfect just then ; but they don't get wound up at all, so they don't go on bein' right, and so soon as they come out they're just as wrong as ever. Sunday, if 'tis what it ought to be, is a kind o' windin'-up day. " I like to think that 'tis the first day o' the week ; an' depend 'pon it, my friends, there's a deal depends 'pon the beginning o' things. Folks say sometimes, 'All's well that ends well;' and they patch up all kinds of ugly old sores with that plaster. I don't believe it one bit. If a thing don't begin well and go on well 'tisn't all well whatever kind of endin' it got. I s'pose the peni- tent thief ended well — he went to heaven ; but that did'nt pay back what he had stolen, and it didn't mend all the harm he'd done. I'd rather have the ' well ' at the other end too ; I would. There'd be some truth if folks said, 'Well begun is half OX HEARING THE WORD. 159 well done/ If you've got a good Sunday, you've got half a good week, I reckon. The old Sabbath u' the Jews wis 'pon the last day o' the week, like as if they couldn't anyhow keep the law, an' so they finished up the week with all their sacrifices an' prayers. But now we Christians have got a Saviour Whose Name is called Jesus because He can 'save His people from their sins.' An' so we come up 'pon the first day o' the week to get help aii' _rth to go through it all right — like ;is if we took hold o s that Blessed One Who is able to ii- from falling. " Now good Sundays, like every thing else that is goo. I, don'l 0OZQ6 o' their own accord. 'Tis only Is an' Crabfl an' 1 .ramble-bushes that'll grow if j alone. If you want Glowers an' fruit- you niu-t dig an' plant an' work for 'em: and nobody [fl fool enough to expect 'cm without. But in religion folks are fools enough a'most for any- thing, an' • to pick ap pearls o J greaJ price without divin' for 'em, an' to gel Eftl with. nit rutin' 1 1 ■■«{ Sundays don'l come anyhow , they that are made. An' every man lias got V'.u can't order 'em ready-made «.' t " I reckon tfa much o* what the l II i. ' /' / / howye />■ ■'/■.' Wh . an' what. \. r it don'l mean, it 160 I)ANIEL QVORM. means this plain enough — Don't hear anyhow. You see that was the way with the ground that didn't prosper — it took the seed all anyhow. There was the way-side : it let the seed come just as it could, and o' course it all got trodden underfoot or was eaten up by the fowls, an' not a grain was left. An' then I daresay Brother Way-side went com- plainin' that he couldn't get any good under that preacher. There was the weedy-ground, too, let it fall in anyhow among the thorns an' thistles, an' they grew up an' choked it. An' I shouldn't wonder but Sister Weedy -ground whispered to Brother Way-side very piously, that for her part she did wish they had a preacher that would stir them up. Then there was Mister Stony-ground who liked it very much, an' nodded to everybody over the nice sermon, but when the sun was up, that is when dinner-time came, he could hardly remember the text. They all heard : but they were anyhow hearers. But there was dear old Father Good-ground, whenever he heard the Word it got in an' went down an' took root and sprang up an' bare fruit an' brought forth a hundred fold — such wonderful crops o' love an' joy an' peace that set all the folks a-scratchin' their heads how- ever he could manage it ! Yet it was no such great secret ; he got ready beforehand, — that was all. He prepared for the seed. He'd have been weedy- OS lIBASDfG THE WORD. 161 ground, too, only he had been down on his knees an' pulled up the chokin' cares an* Saturday's worries ; he had picked out the stones an' had ploughed up tho field an' had given the seed a chance, that was all, an' so he got a harvest. You there was the same Sower, an' the same seed, an' vet it was only the ground that was got ready beforehand that got any good. " So, friends, if we don't take heed about it we shall be one o' these anyhow lioarers. Ah ! I'm 'fraid I shall hold up the lookin'-glass to a good many if 1 begin to tell what he's like. Well, he begins t h<- Sunday an hour later than any other day, because 'tis the Lord's day. Other days are own, an' he would bo ashamed to take an hour out <>' them; but the Lord's day he may flu \vh:it he likes with, because it isn't his own. Then 'tis all a Bcramble to dress an 1 have breakfast, an' be off to chapel. He conies along wonderin' if he's very late. If he were in time he mighl \i r, for everybody el-e would. Or perhaps he fa hardened to mind I hat, bo he come along thinkin' o' nothing in particular. Then he place ready to li iten, if t he preacher Mention, but ju i o ready tO dream balf-an-hour — that is, if 1m- don'1 sleep it, away,- B 1( tlin' 1 go flit t in' over fche li-. ii-.- o* God, pitchin 1 here an' there for a minute, M 1C>2 DANIEL QUOUV. an' then off again, like a butterfly. I often meet him when I'm goin' home, an* he '11 sigh as if he ought to be pitied more than scolded about it, an* complain that he was so troubled with wanderin' thoughts. Why o' course he was — what else could he expect? That, or something else, would be sure to spoil all the good, for he had not taken any heed about it. His mind was all full o' thorns an' thistles, — how could he expect to gather grapes an' figs ? " I really can't abide to hear folks talk about it as they do. ' Ah,' they say, ' it's natural, you know, for me to be so anxious.' Or else it is — ' I really am so wearied, and you must make allowances for dispositions an' folks' nature. Pooh ! nature an' natural ! Why, if it hadn't been natural to hear anyhow, the Lord would never have told us to take heed. A gentleman comes up to his gar- dener expectin' a pretty show o' flowers an' fruits, but he finds the place all covered over with weeds an' things. An' so soon as ever he begins to talk to the gardener about it, the man sets off sighin', — ' Please, Sir, 'tis quite natural for it to be so, and you must make allowances for nature.' Then the master can't stand it any longer, — t'was bad enough before, but this is too bad. ' Natural ;' he says, ' o' course 'tis natural. And just because it would'nt go right of it's own self, I put you ON HEARING THE WORD. 163 to look after it/ Friends, things won't come right without being made to ; an' we must make 'em to, or else we shall find ourselves out in the darkness, with the rest o' the wicked and unprofit- able servants. O' course, there 'd be things the lener couldn't help ; blight an' frosts an' drought ; an' old an' tired folks '11 go to sleep, specially if the preachers help 'em to. If folks [> when I'm a preachin', I say to myself ' Come, Dan'el, wake up ;' for if the man in the pulpit Lb asleep, they in the pews '11 soon follow. " But for all that, there arc things we can do, an' we must. I do believe the first thing is this here, Gome in time. Do you remember what is be down in the Gospel o' Luke, in the eighth chapter an' the fortieth verse ? There's a secret for hi-arin' well. ' The 'people gladly received Him : all wa/Uing for Him.' That's it: 'they all waii in' for Him.' They didn't come ruflhin' in after Ee had come, makin' everybody lose a word while they turned round to see who it vras, tin' the mind <>' that Blessed Preacher. That's the first 'take heed/ if yon wanl to bear well : take heed an' oome in time. H yon come in 're l" (ran to sing, yonll 1"' like John Trundle when he's late with bis fiddlr; he's too ] .■ 1 1 . • to screw it an' scrape it into tune with * 1 1 * - rest, dismal all through the service, and M 1 164 DANIEL QUORM. puts everybody else out o' tune too. 0* course you would'nt come in dui'in' prayer : that's a real sin, I do count — when all the rest is tryin' to lift their thoughts up to Heaven, for somebody to come in a-draggin' 'em all down to earth again, an' making 'cm forget the King o' Glory for to open their eyes an' see who 'tis come pattorin' into the place ! If the devil was to come to chapel, (an' I b'lieve he do come now an' then,) I'm sure he'd come in while they were prayin' an' he'd push past everybody up to his own corner, an' if he could knock over a hat or a pair o' pattens 'twould please 'en all the more. " I don't believe in forms an' ceremonies ; not a bit. A little bit o' heart is a fine passle better than a place full o' dead forms, though you sing 'em lovely. But I'm sure our Father in Heaven cares for the looks o' things. He wouldn't make a tree good for food without makin' it 'pleasant to the eyes.' The Book says, ' Strength and Beauty are in His sanctuary. And now seemin' to me like as if this comin' late and lookin' all about, an' hearin' anyhow is a sort o' chippin' off the beauty an' spoilin' it all. An' then we spoil the beauty for ourselves more than for anybody else. Why some of us, my friends, would think that it was a new preacher come if instead o' hurryin' and scurryin' iip to chapel, we'd only start from home a quarter ON HEARING THE WOUD. 165 of an hour sooner, an' come along the road a- thinkin' about the Lord. " Then when he is come into the place, let a man liave a bit o' prayer for his own self, aud askin' the Lord to bless the preacher. It '11 do more good than whisperin' to your neighbour or starin' all about the place. When I got a cold in my head, singin' do seem to be all out o' tune, an' flowers haven't got a bit o' smell, an' I can't taste any- thing. I fancy the fault is in the things theirselves till the cold is gone ; then I can see that it was all in my own-self. Let us only take lord about it, an' 'tis wonderful how different it '11 be ! There's a fair half o' right hearin' in that they e gladly ,ved Him ; for they were all wait-in' for Jlim.' " Another ' take heed' that will help us is this : a man take he<' the foirls. There's all sorts an' Bizes. There's times when ono kind do mischief, an' there's times when another kind come plagnin' us. You know there's some that follow the sower while he is sowin', close to bis heel an' sparrows ; an' a little farther back the r are busy, eatin' np the Beeda'mosl sown, All, we must beware <>' thi Lake when Abraham was bringin' his sacrifice befoi G l, they come down upon our service, • . : ' drive them away, mall birds do every bil so much mischief a any. Bo y Little things! they poil many a good on. There are lots o' folks, if they can only I opon a word or a thought of the preach 168 DANIEL QVORM. that they don't quite agree with or that isn't quite right, all the good is eaten up in a moment. All they think of is nothing but that, an' they '11 go talkin' about it more than all the good things put together. Now this is worse than the fowls, for they never do like that. They'll scrape over a bushel o' dirt to find a grain o' corn, but these people '11 fling away a bushel o' good seed if they can but find a bit o' grit ; and they '11 hold it up an' show to everybody an' crow over it like a young bantam that's just a-feelin' his spurs. Other folks can't get any good if the preacher's manner isn't up to the latest fashion. But 'tis a sure sign o' weakness and bad health when folks are so dainty about their meat that their appetite's upset by the pattern o' the plates an' dishes. " Then there's other fowls that come when the sower is gone. Fowls by the wayside ; fowls out in the streets and on the way home. The Egyptian baker dreamt that the fowls eat the baked meats off his head as he went along. Now, if he had gone loitering along, hangin' about for a word with everybody, folks might have called him a nice friendly follow, but I don't wonder that his master hanged him for a bad baker. And we shan't carry much o' the baked meats home with us unless we take heed o' the fowls. If the devil happened to be busy, we should tempt him to steal by our ON HEARING THE WORD. 160 talkin' about everybody and everything all the way home. Put up your scare-crow to drive off these fowls. Anything will do for that ; only let us try to keep them off, and they'll fly. " Then there are the weeds : the chokin' weeds. Sunday, 'tis all going to be so nice an* beautiful, like my little bit of a garden when I've just done it up. Monday, 'tis all thick with weeds an' choked with wild stuff, like a place that hadn't been touched for a year. 'Tis like when I've been ridin' along in the train, an' I could look out o' the window, an' see the trees and the fields and now and then a glimpse o' the sea, and you're just a-thinkin' how pretty it all is when up comes a bank right in front and shuts all out, an' there's nothing there but • uttin' o' rock an' earth, if 'tisn't a dark tunnel. Well, I find the best way is to come homo tryin' to find something to do in the sermon; something to be prayed for, or prayed against,' or to be thought it : !'"!• after all, friends, God's truth Is worth to nly wli.it we do with it. Seed is hard an' dead till you bow it. And the Truth is dead words till it one. A man may till me all about the road to Penzance an' all about, the things that happened there, an' about the great loll..- win, live along ide of it. \'>u\ that won't take mo there. I must ii]) and walk. "Now, i'ri< ad ■, if wo can do this here, seen in' N 170 DANIEL QUOIiM. to me, it '11 be all well then. For we shall come up ready to hear — we shall go on to hear for our own selves ; and we shall come home again to try and do what we have heard. Now let a man have a Sunday like that, and he'll be a long way on for having a good week. I can mind, when I was up to London, I was goin' along the noisy streets with crowds o' people about me, an' the roar an' rattle o' carts an' things, when all of a sudden there in the din and bustle I came to a lovely little garden. The flowers were growin' there beautiful, and a fountain was playin' makin' rainbows in the sun- shine, and the trees were fresh and green, and the birds chirped to each other, an' flow about the place. c Ah,' I said to myself, ' they can keep all this right here in the heart o' the busy city !' A.nd that's just how we can carry Sunday with us, friends, all through the week. Cares an' worries and busy work will come about us, and keep a comin' ; but for all that, in the heart we can keep a little garden o' the Lord, where the good seed bears sweet fruit, and the trees o' the Lord's own plantin' grow — planted by the rivers o' waters ; an' where the singin' o' birds is heard, an' where very often the voice o' the Lord God Himself is heard, walkin' even in the heat o' our busy day." UAYMAN BROTHERS AND LILLY, CROSS ST., HATTON CAi.iEK, LO.NDOH. WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. MISTER HORN AND HIS FRIENDS; or, GlVEES AND GIVING. 18mo. Price One Shilling. " It has seldom fallen to our lot to read a little book so fresh, so vigorous, so racy. "We do not know whether to admire most its combined humour and pathos, the perfect naturalness of the narrative, or its sound and wholesome moral. For pungent, pithy plainness of speech, it is quite equal to Mr. Spurgeon's most popular work, 'John Ploughman's Talk.' the book is written to enforce and illustrate the maxim o man ought to think as much about giving as about getting. It would be difficult to name a volume so likely to make men of this opinion as ' Mister Horn and his Friends.' " — C/mV «ny. " This is a spicy book on giving, and is written with admirable point, humour, and pungency. It is the very best thing of its class we have ever seen, including two or three of no ordinary power bv our American cousins. If you know a stingy professor, who wants enlargement of mind and of heart, send him a copy of this book. If it does not prove an effective cure, you may give him up as absolutely hopeless. This book deserves a v, Ide i irrul.it:.. n." — Irian I JOHN TREGENOWETH; HIS MARK. A Cornish Story. Royal lGmo. With Illustrations. Price One Shilling. " The story of John Tregenoweth is a very touching one, and is told with greai pathos and power The history of the hero powerfully e nfor ce! the great lesson of temperance It is a capital book for our younir folk." — Methodixt Temperance Magazine. " This is a most touching story, admirably told, and worthy to rank with 1 .!••--.. I i ii t Prayer,' ' Little Meg,' and other books which will always be favourites as long as the fount of human feeling remains undried iii human hearts. Then the story powerfully enforces that great lesson of tom- peranoe which was never so much needed in England as now. This story would be a capital 'Heading' fox 8 Band of Hope, or Bunday-Sdhoo] Entertainment, and it should he given away in large numbers by those who are anxious to promote the spread of true t eiiijieranee and healthy litera- ture amongst the people."- Cn/U&ren's Ainocate. CAN I BE SAVED? Demy Ifimo, 32pp., with Illus- tration h. Fortieth Thousand. Price One Penny. " Here if tie- rerj thing for wayside distrihut ion on road and rail and river. \\'e are pleased to hear thai ten thou and of them irere distributed at the Bora] Agricultural Show at Bedford." — Thtlttthodi t. THE STORY OF BILLY BRAY. 16 pp, Price i . pei LOO. A GOOD OLD PRESCRIPTION: A GUBB iort i.. 8 pp. Price 2a. per 100. WHAT THE LARK SANG TO ROBERT MORLEY. B'pp. Price 2s. per 100. LETTING SAVED: A TBAOT TOH IHOSB WHO LBB ! .'. < 'heist. 8 pp. Price 2s. per 100. MY OLD FRIEND JOHN. 8 pp. Price 2s. per 100. LONDON: WBSLEYAN 0ONFBRBNOH OFFICE, 2, CASTLE st i:i i t . | n J ttOAD, AND 86, PATEBNOSTEB BOW. OPINIONS OF THE PRESS, ABOUT Daniel Quorm, and his Religious Notions." "There is a reality and freshness about the book that will be sure to render it a favourite wherever it is known. . . . We heartily thank the author for this fresh, and readable book." — Cltristian Age. " Rich in Cornish anecdotes and passages from the simple annals of the poor, Mr. Pearse' s book must be popular, and being full of Gospel truth cannot fail to be useful." — Sword and Trowel. " This is what our American friends would call a ' live' book. It has, too, not only plenty of ' go' in it, butits'exuberant vitality is of a most infectious kind. The reader could hardly fall asleep over it if he would! The racy illustrations of Mr. Tresidder are every way worthy of the text, and that is saying a good deal." — The Baptist. " Mr. Pearse can describe character and scenery with equal precision and power ; and in the present volume his efforts are well supported by numerous illustrations. The portraits of Daniel himself, and of his humble friends, are very life-like, both in the pages of the author, and in the pictures of the artist." — LaiUj Free Press. " Daniel Quorm is a Cornish Methodist Class-leader and a village shoe- maker. . . . it is not a preposterous exaggeration to say that Daniel Quorm, as Mr. Pearse has made him, has a way of setting forth the religion of fail h which might well be envied by professional men. . . . Daniel Quorm can be as smart in the Class-room as in the market ; because the topics of the Class-room are to him as lull of life and immediate interest as the topics of the market. . . .Mr. Peayse's charming book is illustrated by a brother Cornishmau, Mr. Charles Tresidder, with admirable skill." — The Empire. "' Daniel Quorm' is a worthy companion to ' Mister Horn.' 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