polly and i resolve to be "very religious"—dr. pepjohn—the alms-box—the blind beggar
i must not forget to speak of an incident which had a considerable influence on my character at this time. the church which my uncle and his family "attended," as it was called, was one of those most dreary places of worship too common at that time, in london and elsewhere. it was ugly outside, but the outside ugliness was as nothing compared with the ugliness within. the windows were long and bluntly rounded at the top, and the sunlight was modified by scanty calico blinds, which, being yellow with age and smoke, toned the light in rather an agreeable manner. mouldings of a pattern one sees about common fireplaces ran everywhere with praiseworthy impartiality. but the great principle of the ornamental work throughout was a principle only too prevalent at the date when this particular church was last "done up." it was imitations of things not really there, and which would have been quite out of place if they had been there. for instance, pillars and looped-up curtains painted on flat walls, with pretentious shadows, having no reference to the real direction of the light. at the east end some hebrew letters, executed as journeymen painters usually do execute them, had a less cheerful look than the highly-[53]coloured lion and unicorn on the gallery in front. the clerk's box, the reading-desk, and the pulpit, piled one above another, had a symmetrical effect, to which the umbrella-shaped sounding-board above gave a distant resemblance to a chinese pagoda. the only things which gave warmth or colour to the interior as a whole were the cushions and pew curtains. there were plenty of them, and they were mostly red. these same curtains added to the sense of isolation, which was already sufficiently attained by the height of the pew walls and their doors and bolts. i think it was this—and the fact that, as the congregation took no outward part in the prayers except that of listening to them, polly and i had nothing to do—and we could not even hear the old gentleman who usually "read prayers"—which led us into the very reprehensible habit of "playing at houses" in uncle ascott's gorgeously furnished pew. not that we left our too tightly stuffed seats for one moment, but as we sat or stood, unable to see anything beyond the bombazine curtains (which, intervening between us and the distant parson, made our hearing what he said next to impossible), we amused ourselves by mentally "pretending" a good deal of domestic drama, in which the pew represented a house; and we related our respective "plays" to each other afterwards when we went home.
wrong as it was, we did not intend to be irreverent, though i had the grace to feel slightly shocked when after a cheerfully lighted evening service, at which the claims of a missionary society had been enforced, polly confided to me, with some triumph in her tone, "i pretended a theatre, and when the man was going round with the box upstairs, i pretended it was oranges in the gallery."[54]
i had more than once felt uneasy at our proceedings, and i now told polly that i thought it was not right, and that we ought to "try to attend." i rather expected her to resent my advice, but she said that she had "sometimes thought it was wrong" herself; and we resolved to behave better for the future, and indeed really did give up our unseasonable game.
few religious experiences fill one with more shame and self-reproach than the large results from very small efforts in the right direction. polly and i prospered in our efforts to "attend." i may say for myself that, child as i was, i began to find a satisfaction and pleasure in going to church, though the place was hideous, the ritual dreary, and the minister mumbling. when by chance there was a nice hymn, such as, "glory to thee," or "o god, our help in ages past," we were quite happy. we also tried manfully to "attend" to the sermons, which, considering the length and abstruseness of them, was, i think, creditable to us. i fear we felt it to be so, and that about this time we began to be proud of the texts we knew, and of our punctilious propriety in the family pew, and of the resolve which we had taken in accordance with my proposal to polly—
"let us be very religious."
one saturday miss blomfield was a good deal excited about a certain clergyman who was to preach in our church next sunday, and as the services were now a matter of interest to us, polly and i were excited too. i had been troubled with toothache all the week, but this was now better, and i was quite able to go to church with the rest of the family.
the general drift of the sermon, even its text,[55] have long since faded from my mind; but i do remember that it contained so highly coloured a peroration on the day of judgment and the terrors of hell, that my horror and distress knew no bounds; and when the sermon was ended, and we began to sing, "from lowest depths of woe," i burst into a passion of weeping. the remarkable part of the incident was that, the rest of the party having sat with their noses in the air quite undistressed by the terrible eloquence of the preacher, aunt maria never for a moment guessed at the real cause of my tears. but as soon as we were all in the carriage (it was a rainy evening, and we had driven to church), she said—
"that poor child will never have a minute's peace while that tooth's in his head. thomas! drive to dr. pepjohn's."
polly did say, "is it very bad, regie?" but aunt maria answered for me—"can't you see it's bad, child? leave him alone."
i was ashamed to confess the real cause of my outburst, and suffered for my disingenuousness in dr. pepjohn's consulting-room.
"show dr. pepjohn which it is, regie," said my aunt; and, with tears that had now become simply hysterical, i pointed to the tooth that had ached.
"just allow me to touch it," said dr. pepjohn, inserting his fat finger and thumb into my mouth. "i won't hurt you, my little man," he added, with the affable mendaciousness of his craft. fortunately for me it was rather loose, and a couple of hard wrenches from the doctor's expert fingers brought it out.
"you think me very cruel, now, don't you, my little man?" said the jocose gentleman, as we were taking leave.[56]
"i don't think you're cruel," i answered, candidly; "but i think you tell fibs, for it did hurt."
the doctor laughed long and loudly, and said i was quite an original, which puzzled me extremely. then he gave me sixpence, with which i was much pleased, and we parted good friends.
my father was with us on the following sunday, and he did not go to the church aunt maria went to. i went to the one to which he went. this church was very well built and appropriately decorated. the music was good, the responses of the congregation hearty, and the service altogether was much better adapted to awaken and sustain the interest of a child than those i had hitherto been to in london.
"you know we couldn't play houses in the church where papa goes," i told polly on my return, and i was very anxious that she should go with us to the evening service. she did go, but i am bound to confess that she decided on a loyal preference for the service to which she had been accustomed, and, like sensible people, we agreed to differ in our tastes.
"there's no clerk at your church, you know," said polly, to whom a gap in the threefold ministry of clerk, reader, and preacher, symbolized by the "three-decker" pulpit, was ill atoned for by the chanting of the choir.
in quite a different way, i was as much impressed by the sermons at the new church as i had been by that which cost me a tooth.
one sermon especially upon the duties of visiting the sick and imprisoned, feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked, made an impression on me that years did not efface. i made the most earnest resolutions to be active in deeds of kindness "when[57] i was a man," and, not being troubled by considerations of political economy, i began my charitable career by dividing what pocket money i had in hand amongst the street-sweepers and mendicants nearest to our square.
i soon converted polly to my way of thinking; and we put up a money-box in the nursery, in imitation of the alms-box in church. i am ashamed to confess that i was guilty of the meanness of changing a sixpence which i had dedicated to our "charity-box" into twelve half-pence, that i might have the satisfaction of making a dozen distinct contributions to the fund.
but, despite all its follies, vanities, and imperfections (and what human efforts for good are not stained with folly, vanity, and imperfection?), our benevolence was not without sincerity or self-denial, and brought its own invariable reward of increased willingness to do more; according to the deep wisdom of the poet—
"in doing is this knowledge won:
to see what yet remains undone."
we really did forego many a toy and treat to add to our charitable store; and i began then a habit of taxing what money i possessed, by taking off a fixed proportion for "charity," which i have never discontinued, and to the advantages of which i can most heartily testify. when a self-indulgent civilization goads all classes to live beyond their incomes, and tempts them not to include the duty of almsgiving in the expenditure of those incomes, it is well to remove a due proportion of what one has beyond the reach of the ever-growing monster of extravagance; and, being decided upon in an unbiased and calm moment, it is the less likely to[58] be too much for one's domestic claims, or too little for one's religious duty. it frees one for ever from that grudging and often comical spasm of meanness which attacks so many even wealthy people when they are asked to give, because, among all the large "expenses" to which their goods are willingly made liable, the expense of giving alms of those goods has never been fairly counted as an item not less needful, not less imperative, not less to be felt as a deduction from the remainder, not less life-long and daily, than the expenses of rent, and dress, and dinner-parties.
we had, as i say, no knowledge of political economy, and it must be confessed that the objects of our charity were on more than one occasion most unworthy.
"oh, regie, dear," polly cried one day, rushing up to me as she returned from a walk (i had a cold, and was in the nursery), "there is such a poor, poor man at the corner of —— street. i do think we ought to give him all that's left in the box. he's quite blind, and he reads out of a book with such queer letters. it's one of the gospels, he says; so he must be very good, for he reads it all day long. and he can't have any home, for he sits in the street. and he's got a ticket on his back to say 'blind,' and 'taught at the blind school.' and as i passed he was reading quite loud. and i heard him say, 'now barabbas was a robber.' oh, he is such a poor man! and you know, regie, he must be good, for we don't sit reading our bibles all day long."
i at once gave my consent to the box being emptied in favour of this very poor and very pious man; and at the first opportunity polly took the money to her protégé.[59]
"he was so much pleased!" she reported on her return. "he seemed quite surprised to get so much. and he said, 'god bless you, miss!' i wish you'd been there, regie. i said, 'it's not all from me.' he was so much pleased!"
"how did he know you were a miss, i wonder?" said i.
"i suppose it was my voice," said polly, after a pause.
as soon as i could go out, i went to see the blind man. as i drew near, he was—as polly told me—reading aloud. the regularity and rapidity with which his fingers ran over line after line, as if he were rubbing out something on a slate, were most striking; and as i stood beside him i distinctly heard him read the verse, "now barabbas was a robber." it was a startling coincidence to find him still reading the words which polly overheard, especially as they were not in any way remarkably adapted for the subject of a prolonged meditation.
much living alone with grown-up people had, i think, helped towards my acquiring a habit i had of "brown studying," turning things over, brewing them, so to speak, in my mind. i stood pondering the peculiarities of the object of our charity for some moments, during which he was elaborately occupied in turning over a leaf of his book. presently i said—
"what makes you say it out loud when you read?"
he turned his head towards me, blinking and rolling his eyes, and replied in impressive tones—
"it's the pleasure i takes in it, sir."
now as he blinked i watched his eyes with mingled terror, pity, and curiosity. at this moment a stout and charitable-looking old gentle[60]man was passing, between whom and my blind friend i was standing. and as he passed he threw the blind man some coppers. but in the moment before he did so, and when there seemed a possibility of his passing without what i suspect was a customary dole, such a sharp expression came into the scarcely visible pupils of the blind man's half-shut eyes that (never suspecting that his blindness was feigned, but for the moment convinced that he had seen the old gentleman) i exclaimed, without thinking of the absurdity of my inquiry—
"was it at the blind school you learnt to see so well with your blind eyes?"
the "very poor man" gave me a most unpleasant glance out of his "sightless orbs," and taking up his stool, and muttering something about its being time to go home, he departed.
some time afterwards i learnt what led me to believe that he had the best possible reason for being able to "see so well with his blind eyes." he was not blind at all.
