Scenes of Clerical Life

"But," said Janet, "I can feel no trust in God. He seems always to have left me

  to myself. I have sometimes prayed to Him to help me, and yet everything has

  been just the same as before. If you felt like me, how did you come to have hope

  and trust?"

  "Do not believe that God has left you to your-self. How can you tell but that

  the hardest trials you have known have been only the road by which He was

  leading you to that complete sense of your own sin and helplessness, without

  which you would never have renounced all other hopes, and trusted in His love

  alone? I know, dear Mrs Dempster, I know it is hard to bear. I would not speak

  lightly of your sorrows. I feel that the mystery of our life is great, and at

  one time it seemed as dark to me as it does to you." Mr Tryan hesitated again.

  He saw that the first thing Janet needed was to be assured of sympathy. She must

  be made to feel that her anguish was not strange to him; that he entered into

  the only half-expressed secrets of her spiritual weakness, before any other

  message of consolation could find its way to her heart. The tale of the Divine

  Pity was never yet believed from lips that were not felt to be moved by human

  pity. And Janet's anguish was not strange to Mr Tryan. He had never been in the

  presence of a sorrow and a self-despair that had sent so strong a thrill through

  all the recesses of his saddest experience; and it is because sympathy is but a

  living again through our own past in a new form, that confession often prompts a

  response of confession. Mr Tryan felt this prompting, and his judgment too told

  him that in obeying it he would be taking the best means of administering

  comfort to Janet. Yet he hesitated; as we tremble to let in the day-light on a

  chamber of relics which we have never visited except in curtained silence. But

  the first impulse triumphed, and he went on. "I had lived all my life at a

  distance from God. My youth was spent in thoughtless self-indulgence, and all my

  hopes were of a vain worldly kind. I had no thought of entering the Church; I

  looked forward to a political career, for my father was private secretary to a

  man high in the Whig Ministry, and had been promised strong interest in my

  behalf. At college I lived in intimacy with the gayest men, even adopting

  follies and vices for which I had no taste, out of mere pliancy and the love of

  standing well with my companions. You see, I was more guilty even then than you

  have been, for I threw away all the rich blessings of untroubled youth and

  health; I had no excuse in my outward lot. But while I was at college that event

  in my life occurred, which in the end brought on the state of mind I have

  mentioned to you?the state of self-reproach and despair, which enables me to

  understand to the full what you are suffering; and I tell you the facts, because

  I want you to be assured that I am not uttering mere vague words when I say that

  I have been raised from as low a depth of sin and sorrow as that in which you

  feel yourself to be. At college I had an attachment to a lovely girl of

  seventeen: she was very much below my own station in life, and I never

  contemplated marrying her; but I induced her to leave her father's house. I did

  not mean to forsake her when I left college, and I quieted all scruples of

  conscience by promising myself that I would always take care of poor Lucy. But

  on my return from a vacation spent in travelling, I found that Lucy was

  gone?gone away with a gentleman, her neighbours said. I was a good deal

  distressed, but I tried to persuade myself that no harm would come to her. Soon

  afterwards I had an illness which left my health delicate, and made all

  dissipation distasteful to me. Life seemed very wearisome and empty, and I

  looked with envy on every one who had some great and absorbing object?even on my

  cousin who was preparing to go out as a missionary, and whom I had been used to

  think a dismal, tedious person, because he was constantly urging religious

  subjects upon me. We were living in London then; it was three years since I had

  lost sight of Lucy; and one summer evening about nine o'clock, as I was walking

  along Gower Street, I saw a knot of people on the causeway before me. As I came

  up to them, I heard one woman say, 'I tell you, she's dead.' This awakened my

  interest, and I pushed my way within the circle. The body of a woman, dressed in

  fine clothes, was lying against a door-step. Her head was bent on one side, and

  the long curls had fallen over her cheek. A tremor seized me when I saw the

  hair: it was light chesnut?the colour of Lucy's. I knelt down and turned aside

  the hair; it was Lucy?dead?with paint on her cheeks. I found out afterwards that

  she had taken poison?that she was in the power of a wicked woman?that the very

  clothes on her back were not her own. It was then that my past life burst upon

  me in all its hideousness. I wished I had never been born. I couldn't look into

  the future. Lucy's dead painted face would follow me there, as it did when I

  looked back into the past?as it did when I sat down to table with my friends,

  when I lay down in my bed, and when I rose up. There was only one thing that

  could make life tolerable to me; that was, to spend all the rest of it in trying

  to save others from the ruin I had brought on one. But how was that possible for

  me? I had no comfort, no strength, no wisdom in my own soul; how could I give

  them to others? My mind was dark, rebellious, at war with itself and with God."

  Mr Tryan had been looking away from Janet. His face was towards the fire, and he

  was absorbed in the images his memory was recalling. But now he turned his eyes

  on her, and they met hers, fixed on him with the look of rapt expectation with

  which one clinging to a slippery summit of rock, while the waves are rising

  higher and higher, watches the boat that has put from shore to his rescue.

  "You see, Mrs Dempster, how deep my need was. I went on in this way for months.

  I was convinced that if I ever got help and comfort, it must be from religion. I

  went to hear celebrated preachers, and I read religious books. But I found

  nothing that fitted my own need. The faith which puts the sinner in possession

  of salvation seemed, as I understood it, to be quite out of my reach. I had no

  faith; I only felt utterly wretched, under the power of habits and dispositions

  which had wrought hideous evil. At last, as I told you, I found a friend to whom

  I opened all my feelings ?to whom I confessed everything. He was a man who had

  gone through very deep experience, and could understand the different wants of

  different minds. He made it clear to me that the only preparation for coming to

  Christ and partaking of His salvation, was that very sense of guilt and

  helplessness which was weighing me down. He said, You are weary and heavy laden;

  well, it is you Christ invites to come to Him and find rest. He asks you to

  cling to Him, to lean on Him; He does not command you to walk alone without

  stumbling. He does not tell you, as your fellow-men do, that you must first

  merit His love; He neither condemns nor reproaches you for the past, He only

  bids you come to Him that you may have life:
He bids you stretch out your hands,

  and take of the fulness of His love. You have only to rest on Him as a child

  rests on its mother's arms, and you will be upborne by His divine strength. That

  is what is meant by faith. Your evil habits, you feel, are too strong for you;

  you are unable to wrestle with them; you know beforehand you shall fall. But

  when once we feel our helplessness in that way, and go to Christ, desiring to be

  freed from the power as well as the punishment of sin, we are no longer left to

  our own strength. As long as we live in rebellion against God, desiring to have

  our own will, seeking happiness in the things of this world, it is as if we shut

  ourselves up in a crowded stifling room, where we breathe only poisoned air; but

  we have only to walk out under the infinite heavens, and we breathe the pure

  free air that gives us health, and strength, and gladness. It is just so with

  God's spirit: as soon as we submit ourselves to His will, as soon as we desire

  to be united to Him, and made pure and holy, it is as if the walls had fallen

  down that shut us out from God, and we are fed with His spirit, which gives us

  new strength."

  "That is what I want," said Janet; "I have left off minding about pleasure. I

  think I could be contented in the midst of hardship, if I felt that God cared

  for me, and would give me strength to lead a pure life. But tell me, did you

  soon find peace and strength?"

  "Not perfect peace for a long while, but hope and trust, which is strength. No

  sense of pardon for myself could do away with the pain I had in thinking what I

  had helped to bring on another. My friend used to urge upon me that my sin

  against God was greater than my sin against her; but?it may be from want of

  deeper spiritual feeling ?that has remained to this hour the sin which causes me

  the bitterest pang. I could never rescue Lucy; but by God's blessing I might

  rescue other weak and falling souls; and that was why I entered the Church. I

  asked for nothing through the rest of my life but that I might be devoted to

  God's work, without swerving in search of pleasure either to the right hand or

  to the left. It has been often a hard struggle?but God has been with me?and

  perhaps it may not last much longer."

  Mr Tryan paused. For a moment he had forgotten Janet, and for a moment she had

  forgotten her own sorrows. When she recurred to herself, it was with a new

  feeling.

  "Ah, what a difference between our lives! you have been choosing pain, and

  working, and denying yourself; and I have been thinking only of myself. I was

  only angry and discontented because I had pain to bear. You never had that

  wicked feeling that I have had so often, did you? that God was cruel to send me

  trials and temptations worse than others have."

  "Yes, I had; I had very blasphemous thoughts, and I know that spirit of

  rebellion must have made the worst part of your lot. You did not feel how

  impossible it is for us to judge rightly of God's dealings, and you opposed

  yourself to His will. But what do we know? We cannot foretell the working of the

  smallest event in our own lot: how can we presume to judge of things that are so

  much too high for us? There is nothing that becomes us but entire submission,

  perfect resignation. As long as we set up our own will and our own wisdom

  against God's, we make that wall between us and His love which I have spoken of

  just now. But as soon as we lay ourselves entirely at His feet, we have enough

  light given us to guide our own steps; as the footsoldier who hears nothing of

  the councils that determine the course of the great battle he is in, hears

  plainly enough the word of command which he must himself obey. I know, dear Mrs

  Dempster, I know it is hard?the hardest thing of all, perhaps?to flesh and

  blood. But carry that difficulty to Christ along with all your other sins and

  weaknesses, and ask Him to pour into you a spirit of submission. He enters into

  your struggles; He has drunk the cup of our suffering to the dregs; He knows the

  hard wrestling it costs us to say, 'Not my will, but Thine be done.'"

  "Pray with me," said Janet?"pray now that I may have light and strength."

  CHAPTER XIX.

  Before leaving Janet, Mr Tryan urged her strongly to send for her mother.

  "Do not wound her," he said, "by shutting her out any longer from your troubles.

  It is right that you should be with her."

  "Yes, I will send for her," said Janet. "But I would rather not go to my

  mother's yet, because my husband is sure to think I am there, and he might come

  and fetch me. I can't go back to him ... at least, not yet. Ought I to go back

  to him?"

  "No, certainly not, at present. Something should be done to secure you from

  violence. Your mother, I think, should consult some confidential friend, some

  man of character and experience, who might mediate between you and your

  husband."

  "Yes, I will send for my mother directly. But I will stay here, with Mrs

  Pettifer, till something has been done. I want no one to know where I am, except

  you. You will come again, will you not? you will not leave me to myself?"

  "You will not be left to yourself. God is with you. If I have been able to give

  you any comfort, it is because His power and love have been present with us. But

  I am very thankful that He has chosen to work through me. I shall see you again

  to-morrow?not before evening, for it will be Sunday, you know; but after the

  evening lecture I shall be at liberty. You will be in my prayers till then. In

  the mean time, dear Mrs Dempster, open your heart as much as you can to your

  mother and Mrs Pettifer. Cast away from you the pride that makes us shrink from

  acknowledging our weakness to our friends. Ask them to help you in guarding

  yourself from the least approach of the sin you most dread. Deprive yourself as

  far as possible of the very means and opportunity of committing it. Every effort

  of that kind made in humility and dependence is a prayer. Promise me you will do

  this."

  "Yes, I promise you. I know I have always been too proud; I could never bear to

  speak to any one about myself. I have been proud towards my mother, even; it has

  always made me angry when she has seemed to take notice of my faults."

  "Ah, dear Mrs Dempster, you will never say again that life is blank, and that

  there is nothing to live for, will you? See what work there is to be done in

  life, both in our own souls and for others. Surely it matters little whether we

  have more or less of this world's comfort in these short years, when God is

  training us for the eternal enjoyment of His love. Keep that great end of life

  before you, and your troubles here will seem only the small hardships of a

  journey. Now I must go."

  Mr Tryan rose and held out his hand. Janet took it and said, "God has been very

  good to me in sending you to me. I will trust in Him. I will try to do

  everything you tell me."

  Blessed influence of one true loving human soul on another! Not calculable by

  algebra, not deducible by logic, but mysterious, effectual, mighty as the hidden

  process by which the tiny seed is quick
ened, and bursts forth into tall stem and

  broad leaf, and glowing tasselled flower. Ideas are often poor ghosts; our

  sun-filled eyes cannot discern them; they pass athwart us in thin vapour, and

  cannot make themselves felt. But sometimes they are made flesh; they breathe

  upon us with warm breath, they touch us with soft responsive hands, they look at

  us with sad sincere eyes, and speak to us in appealing tones; they are clothed

  in a living human soul, with all its conflicts, its faith, and its love. Then

  their presence is a power, then they shake us like a passion, and we are drawn

  after them with gentle compulsion, as flame is drawn to flame.

  Janet's dark grand face, still fatigued, had become quite calm, and looked up,

  as she sat, with a humble childlike expression at the thin blond face and

  slightly sunken grey eyes which now shone with hectic brightness. She might have

  been taken for an image of passionate strength beaten and worn with conflict;

  and he for an image of the self-renouncing faith which has soothed that conflict

  into rest. As he looked at the sweet submissive face, he remembered its look of

  despairing anguish, and his heart was very full as he turned away from her. "Let

  me only live to see this work confirmed, and then ..."

  It was nearly ten o'clock when Mr Tryan left, but Janet was bent on sending for

  her mother; so Mrs Pettifer, as the readiest plan, put on her bonnet and went

  herself to fetch Mrs Raynor. The mother had been too long used to expect that

  every fresh week would be more painful than the last, for Mrs Pettifer's news to

  come upon her with the shock of a surprise. Quietly, without any show of

  distress, she made up a bundle of clothes, and, telling her little maid that she

  should not return home that night, accompanied Mrs Pettifer back in silence.

  When they entered the parlour, Janet, wearied out, had sunk to sleep in the

  large chair, which stood with its back to the door. The noise of the opening

  door disturbed her, and she was looking round wonderingly, when Mrs Raynor came

  up to her chair, and said, "It's your mother, Janet."

  "Mother, dear mother!" Janet cried, clasping her closely. "I have not been a

  good tender child to you, but I will be?I will not grieve you any more."

  The calmness which had withstood a new sorrow was overcome by a new joy, and the

  mother burst into tears.

  CHAPTER XX.

  On Sunday morning the rain had ceased, and Janet, looking out of the bedroom

  window, saw, above the house-tops, a shining mass of white cloud rolling under

  the far-away blue sky. It was going to be a lovely April day. The fresh sky,

  left clear and calm after the long vexation of wind and rain, mingled its mild

  influence with Janet's new thoughts and prospects. She felt a buoyant courage

  that surprised herself, after the cold crushing weight of despondency which had

  oppressed her the day before: she could think even of her husband's rage without

  the old overpowering dread. For a delicious hope?the hope of purification and

  inward peace?had entered into Janet's soul, and made it spring-time there as

  well as in the outer world.

  While her mother was brushing and coiling up her thick black hair?a favourite

  task, because it seemed to renew the days of her daughter's girl-hood ?Janet

  told how she came to send for Mr Tryan, how she had remembered their meeting at

  Sally Martin's in the autumn, and had felt an irresistible desire to see him,

  and tell him her sins and her troubles.

  "I see God's goodness now, mother, in ordering it so that we should meet in that

  way, to overcome my prejudice against him, and make me feel that he was good,

  and then bringing it back to my mind in the depth of my trouble. You know what

  foolish things I used to say about him, knowing nothing of him all the while.

  And yet he was the man who was to give me comfort and help when everything else

  failed me. It is wonderful how I feel able to speak to him as I never have done