on looking through the preceding pages, i have been struck with one special shortcoming. i am painfully conscious how poor and shallow the picture here attempted will be, in any case, to those who knew my brother best. nevertheless, those for whom it was undertaken will, i trust, be able to get from it some clearer idea of the outer life of their father and uncle, but of that which underlies the outer life they will learn almost nothing. and yet how utterly inadequate must be any knowledge of a human being which does not get beneath this surface! how difficult to do so to any good purpose! for that “inner,” or “eternal,” or “religious” life (call it which you will, they all mean the same thing) is so entirely a matter between each human soul and god, is at best so feebly and imperfectly expressed by the outer life. but, difficult as it may be, the attempt must be made; for i find that i cannot finish my task with a good conscience without making it.
there is not one of you, however young, but must be living two lives—and the sooner you come to recognize the fact clearly, the better for you—the one life in the outward material world, in contact with the things which you can see, and taste, and handle, which are always changing and passing away: the other in the invisible, in contact with the unseen; with that which does not change or pass away—which is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. the former life you must share with others, with your family, your schoolfellows and friends, with everyone you meet in business or pleasure. the latter you must live alone, in the solitude of your own inmost being, if you can find no spirit there communing with yours—in the presence of, and in communion with, the father of your spirit, if you are willing to recognize that presence. the one life will no doubt always be the visible expression of the other; just as the body is the garment in which the real man is clothed for his sojourn in time. but the expression is often little more than a shadow, unsatisfying, misleading. one of our greatest english poets has written—
“the one remains, the many change and pass,
heaven’s light for ever shines, earth’s shadows fly.
time, like a dome of many coloured glass,
stains the bright radiance of eternity,
until death tramples it to fragments.”
and so you and i are living now under the dome of many-coloured[172] glass, and shall live as long as we remain in these bodies, a temporal and an eternal life—“the next world,” which too many of our teachers speak of as a place which we shall first enter after death, being in fact “next” only in the truest sense of the word; namely, that it is “nearest” to us now. the dome of time can do nothing more (if we even allow it to do that) than partially to conceal from us the light which is always there, beneath, around, above us.
“the outer life of the devout man,” it has been well said, “should be thoroughly attractive to others. he would be simple, honest, straightforward, unpretending, gentle, kindly;—his conversation cheerful and sensible: he would be ready to share in all blameless mirth, indulgent to all save sin.” and tried by this test, the best we have at command, my brother was essentially a devout man.
the last thirty years, the years of his manhood, have been a period of great restlessness and activity, chiefly of a superficial kind, in matters pertaining specially to religion. the established church, of which he was a member, from conviction as well as by inheritance, has been passing through a crisis which has often threatened her existence; faction after faction, as they saw their chance, rising up and striving in the hope of casting out those whose opinions or practices they disliked. against all such attempts my brother always protested whenever he had an opportunity, and discouraged all those with whom he had any influence from taking any part in them.
“i have no patience,” for instance, he writes at one of these crises, “with —— for mixing himself up with church politics. i believe you know what i think about them, namely, that both parties are right in some things and wrong in others, and that the truth lies between the two. i hope i shall always be able to express my dissent from both without calling names or imputing motives, and when i hear others doing so, i am always inclined, like yourself, to defend the absent. i was very sorry to hear that —— has given up his parish. i cannot understand his excessive attachment to what is, after all, only the outside of religion; but he is so good a man, so hard-working, so self-denying, that one feels what a great loss he must be.”
outside the church the same religious unrest has had several noteworthy results, perhaps the most remarkable of these being a negative one: i mean, the aggressive attitude and movement of what is popularly known as scientific thought. amongst its leaders have been, and are, some of the best, as well as the ablest, men of our time, who have had, as they deserved to have, a very striking influence. but the tone of scientific men towards religion has been uniformly impatient or contemptuous, not seldom petulant. “why go on troubling yourselves and mankind about that of which you can know nothing?” they have said. “this ‘eternal’ or ‘inner’ life of which you prate is wholly beyond your ken. we can prove to you that much of your so-called theology rests on unsound premises. be content[174] to work and learn with us in the material world, of which alone you can get to know anything certain.” that challenge has shaken the foundations of much which called itself faith in our day. i never could discover that my brother was ever seriously troubled by it. dissertations on the mosaic cosmogony, theories of the origin of species, speculations on the antiquity of man, and the like, interested, but never seemed to rouse in him any of the alarm or anger which they have excited in so many good christians. granting all that they tend to prove, they deal only with the outward garment, with the visible universe, and the life which must be lived in it, leaving the inner and real life of mankind quite untouched.
he was, however, neither so tolerant of, nor i think so fair to, the stirring of thought within the church, which has resulted in criticisms supposed to be destructive of much that was held sacred in the last generation. his keen sense of loyalty was offended by anything which looked like an attack coming from within the ranks, and so he shared the feeling so widely, and i think wrongly, entertained by english churchmen, that the right of free thought and free speech on the most sacred subjects should be incompatible with holding office in the church.
as to his own convictions on such subjects, he was extremely reserved, owing to a tendency which he believed he had detected in himself to religious melancholy, which he treated simply as a disease. but no one who knew[175] him at all could ever doubt that a genuine and deep religious faith was the basis of his character, and those who knew him best testify unanimously to its ever increasing power. “i don’t know if you were ever told,” his sister writes, “of the singular desire dying people had that george should be with them. you know how reserved he was, and he would always think that people would prefer some one who talked more to them, but i think it was his great gentleness and strength which made the dying feel him such a comfort. he never volunteered; but when sent for, as was often the case, always went to them, and read and prayed constantly with them as long as they lived. there was one poor young man who died of consumption, and george was constantly with him to the last. the father was a very disreputable character, and george seldom saw him. but some time after the young man’s death, the father met george in the fields, and threw himself on his knees to bless him for his love for his dead son. george came home much shocked that the man should have knelt to him. one old man, whom he used to go to for weeks and weeks during his long last illness, really adored him, and, when george was away for a short time, prayed that he might live till he saw him again. and george was back before he died.”
of this old man, he writes himself to his mother:—
“my old friend died on saturday morning. i mean tom pearse, for fifty years an honest labourer in this[176] parish. i am very sorry that (as he died in the short hours) i could not be with him at the last, but very glad that he died before i left offley. so was he. he prayed every day to die, not that he suffered, but he had such a strong faith that death would be much better. he said to me almost the last time i saw him, ‘i thought, sir, i should have been home before this.’ and when he was taken worse at last, he asked the nurse, ‘am i going home?’ ‘yes.’ ‘i’m so glad,’ he answered, and died soon after. what an euthanasia! all good people call death going home. ‘let me die the death of the righteous, and my last end be like his.’”
intercourse of the most sacred and intimate kind with the old, and dying, and suffering of another station in life is, however, far easier to a man of reserved temper than it is with the young and healthy. the most difficult class to reach in country villages, as in our great towns, is that which is entering life, not that which is thinking of quitting it. you may get young men together for cricket or football, or even for readings, or in a club, and attain in the process a certain familiarity with them, useful enough in its way, but not approaching the kind of intimacy which should exist between people passing their lives in the same small community. the effort to do anything more with a class just emancipated from control, full of strength and health, and as a rule suspicious of advances from those in a rank above their own, must always be an exceedingly difficult one to make for such a man as my brother, and is rarely successful. he made it, and succeeded. during all[177] the winter months, on every sunday evening the young men and the elder boys of the village were invited to his house, and quite a number of them used to come regularly. they were received by him and his wife. first he would read a passage of scripture, and explain and comment on it, and afterwards he or his wife read to them some amusing book. he used to speak with the greatest delight of the pleasure which these meetings seemed to give, and of their excellent effect on his own relations with the young men and boys who frequented them. when the time for separating came, they used all to say the apostles’ creed, the lord’s prayer, and the following short prayer, which he wrote[14] for the purpose:—
“o lord god, thou knowest all things. thou seest us by night as well as by day. we pray thee, for christ’s sake, forgive us whatever we have done wrong this day. may we be sorry for our sins, and believe in jesus christ, who died for sinners. may the holy spirit make us holy. take care of us this night, whilst we are asleep. bless our fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, and all our relations and friends, and do them good, for christ’s sake. help us to be good as long as we live, and when we die, may we go to heaven and be happy for ever, because christ died for us. amen.”
since this was printed i have heard that the prayer was not written by him, but only adapted for the use of the boys from a collection of some church society.
if i were to write a volume, i could throw no clearer light on the inner life of my brother than shines out of[178] this short, simple prayer, written for village boys, and repeated with them week by week. nor is there any other picture of him that i would rather leave on your minds than this. when i think of the help and strength which he has been to me and many more, the noble lines on all saints’ day, of the poet i have already quoted in this memoir, seem to be haunting me, and with them i will end.
“such lived not in the past alone,
but thread to-day the unheeding street,
and stairs to sin and sorrow known
sing to the welcome of their feet.
“the den they enter glows a shrine,
the grimy sash an oriel burns,
their cup of water warms like wine,
their speech is filled from heavenly urns.
“around their brows to me appears
an aureole traced in tenderest light,
the rainbow gleam of smiles thro’ tears,
in dying eyes by them made bright,
“of souls who shivered on the edge
of that chill ford, repassed no more,
and in their mercy felt the pledge
and sweetness of the farther shore.”
