Chapter V: Lessons From Rags

"MR. JASPER, are you there?" and Rob peered anxiously into the shed, where his friend was generally to be found.

"Yes, Rob, of course; and in want of a boy to help me pick over this lot of stuff that I bought yesterday; come along."

Rob was delighted, and making his way to the back of the shed, found Jonas stooping over a heap of bottles, rags, rusty iron, bits of rope, and every other indescribable rubbish.

"Dear me, Mr. Jasper, what are you going to do with all this?"

"Sort it, Rob, and then see what can be done with it. Now just you put all the bits of iron there, and the bottles together, and the rags by themselves there, in the corner. Now we'll get to work."

For some time both were busily engaged, and too engrossed even to talk.

Jonas was the first to break the silence. "Dear me," he said, "my old back isn't so fond of stooping as it used to be; it begins to cry out now. I must rest a few minutes."

Rob looked up. "I suppose, Mr. Jasper, you are getting old."

"I suppose I am, Rob; I shall never see seventy-nine again."

The child opened his eyes. "Seventy-nine? Why, Mr. Jasper, I should think you'll soon have to die, won't you?"

"Bless the child! where do you get your talk from? Die? No. Why, there's lots of folks live to be ninety and more. Of course there's no knowing. I shall have to go when my time comes;" and as he said the words an uneasy look came over his face, that had often been there lately. Supposing he did live to be ninety or more, why, it was only putting off, not getting rid of, that meeting with God, that must come to each one sooner or later. He had not yet forgotten what Phil said about the stain that every sin left on the heart, and many an uncomfortable thought had he had about it. Once or twice he had been on the point of taking down his old Bible; but the remembrance of Phil's remarks that God's Word "showed us up," and the inner conviction of his own conscience that it would do so, made him hesitate; and so, whilst dreading its warnings, he missed its precious promises of comfort, missed the loving messages of the loving Father, who, while hating sin, yet loved the sinner, and longed to pardon and to save.

"Ah, Rob, that won't do;" and the old man woke up from his reverie. "You mustn't mix those rags. Put the white ones by themselves here, and the coloured ones in the corner."

Rob looked up astonished. "Why, Mr. Jasper, they're all so dirty and torn they can't be any good."

"Yes, they are, though; those white ones will be made into paper."

"Paper?"

"Yes, beautiful white writing paper."

This was a new idea, and stopping his work Rob sat down and looked at Jasper. "Tell me how," he said.

"Ah, that's more than I can do, Rob; only I know I sell them to a man down in High Street, and he sends them to a paper-mill, and they do all the work there. But it doesn't look as if they could come to much, does it now?"

"Would you like to know how they do it?" And a voice from the entry of the shed startled the two rag-pickers, as Forbes the policeman made his way in. "I've been watching you two," he said with a smile, "and listening to you; but you were both so busy you didn't see me."

Jasper laughed. "Rob's doing the work, and I'm doing the looking on part; but sit down, Forbes, if you can find a seat."

"I can't stay now, Jasper—my wife will have my dinner ready; but when I heard you both wondering how those dirty old rags could ever be made into clean white paper, I thought I'd step in a minute, for my father was foreman at a paper-mill, and many's the time I've gone all over the place with him, and seen how 'twas done. Just such stuff as you've got there in that heap of Rob's they take it, and break it into little tiny bits, and put it into some strong stuff—caustic, or acid, or something—and they get all the dirt out, and boil, and boil, and boil it until it's quite soft and white, and you'd never know it had been so dirty. I can't tell you all about it now, but it always sets me thinking of what the Lord will do with a sinner. Filthy as we are, He can just take us and wash away all our filth, and soften our hard hearts, and make something altogether new out of us. 'Tis very wonderful, and I don't know that we can quite understand how He does it; but you see, like the rags in the mill, the master undertakes to do it all, and he knows how and he does it, and so the Lord will undertake to wash the blackest sinner white; and He'll do it too, if we'll only let Him; and when the Lord takes a man in hand it's astonishing what He can make of him, no matter how worthless he seems to be. Like your text says that you learnt at Sunday School yesterday, Rob; can you mind it now?" And the tall policeman looked down at the little lad crouched at his feet.

Rob thought for a moment, and then clapping his hands said, "I've got it. I can say it. 'Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.'"

"There now, that's just it, isn't it? Good-bye, and may we all be washed in the precious blood of Jesus!" And away walked the worthy man, with an earnest prayer in his heart that Jasper might know the cleansing power of the Saviour's blood.

Of course he had known the old man for years, but Rob's prattle about him had awakened a special interest in his heart, and often, if "on duty" in the neighbourhood, he would drop in and try to say a word or two for his Master, that might go home to Jasper's conscience. And indeed he had done so to-day; and for a long time Jasper sat, gazing at the rags, that brought such a lesson to his heart. Filthy? so was he; apparently worthless? so was he; unable to get rid of the filth? so was he. But what the rags couldn't do, and what he couldn't do, another could.

"What was that you said, Rob?"

"'Twas our text in school yesterday, Mr. Jasper."

"Is it out of the Bible?"

"Why, yes."

"Whereabouts is it, then?"

Rob shook his head. "I don't know," he said, "but perhaps I could find it;" and jumping up he reached down the old dusty book from the shelf, and opened its pages, turning them over and over, but in vain. After some minutes he put it down wearily, saying, "'Tis such a lot of reading, and I can't find it; but Phil will know, and I'll ask him, and be sure to tell you."

"All right, Rob! But anyhow you're sure it's there?"

"Oh yes, because teacher read it out of his Bible, and then he chalked it on the board for us to learn; but Phil always finds the verses himself as well. You see, he's so clever, and then he's five years older than me." And with this excuse for his inferior capacities, Rob set to work at his rags again, and Jasper to his thoughts.

Then, after all, the Bible wasn't all against a man; anyhow Rob's verse wasn't. Perhaps he needn't be afraid to read it? He'd have a look by-and-by when the child was gone, and see for himself. But now he must set to work again.

"Dear me, Rob, you're getting on first-rate, and making that big heap look quite foolish; but how about the time? Is there any dinner going for you at home, child?"

"Oh yes; soup to-day. Mr. Armstrong gave us tickets yesterday, and Phil went to fetch it when I came here; so 'tis ready now, and I'll have to go; and then it will be school time. But after, if father doesn't want me, I shall come in and finish my work."

"Father want you, eh? That doesn't happen very often, does it?"

"No, Mr. Jasper; I don't think he ever wants me myself, but you know sometimes when Phil and I go out singing, we get quite a nice bit of money given us, and father likes that. One night he made us go into a public-house, and we got more than five shillings there. But Phil says he'll never go again; and he and father had a row about it, but Phil wouldn't give in, though father said he'd thrash him. But of course we do go into the squares and terraces, and some of the people are so kind to us; and I think, you know, Mr. Jasper, that Jesus tells them we are poor and hungry, because, you see, we tell Him about it, and then He tells them; so we always get something. But, oh! I like being here best of all;" and rubbing his cheeks against the old man's knee, by way of a farewell, the child ran quickly out of the shed, and up Preece's Place, to his own home, where, as he expected, he found Phil and the soup.

Not again that day did he visit his friend; so Jasper finished his sorting alone, and then clearing up his place a bit, and shutting his doors earlier than usual (for these December nights were sharp and cold), he drew his chair close to the stove, put his lamp on the shelf just behind, and with almost trembling hands took down the Bible.

It was long years since he had opened it, and its pages were yellow and brown, not, indeed, from use, but from age; for it had been his father's before him. The book was open just as Rob had left it after his fruitless search, and surely it was not by accident, but by God's own loving arrangement, that Jasper, when he had put on his glasses, and glanced down at its pages, read, "The Book of the Prophet Isaiah."

A verse or two at the beginning he read, and murmuring, "I can't make anything of this," was just going to turn over when his eye caught the words, "Wash you, make you clean," and for a moment he stopped. "The same old story again," he muttered, but almost in the same breath there came an explanation, for there, just below, were the very words Rob had repeated, "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." With almost a nervous clutch he held the book nearer to the lamp, to make quite sure. Yes, there they were; Rob was right, and glancing up for a moment, as if to try and think it out, his eyes fell once more on the text Rob had brought him two or three weeks before: "He careth for you."

"Well, really it seems like it," he said to himself, "if He'll do so much for anybody as to make 'em clean;" and for a long time he sat lost in thought over these two wonderful messages from God to him. "But I can't see how it comes about: I'm down here in my old shed, and the Lord's up in heaven, a mighty way away; and yet those boys often tell me He's here! Anyhow, it don't seem much like it! I wish I knew things rightly;" and Rob's words came back to him, "I suppose, Mr. Jasper, you'll soon have to die?"

It was a terrible thought; but he faced it then. "Yes; I shall have to die, and I daresay I shall be all alone in this dark place when I do die; and I'm afraid of the thought, I'm afraid to meet God; and why? Because of sin."

Yes, he knew it now; it had come to him he hardly knew how. Partly by the boys' talk, maybe; partly by God's Spirit working in his heart; and as he sat there by the dying fire and the fading light, a great fear came over him, a fear that must come to every man who thinks of God apart from Christ, and knows not that the God who hates sin is the God who so loved the sinner as to give His only begotten Son, that all through Him might be saved. Yes; the God that Jasper feared, as he sat thinking late into the night, was the God who was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.