Chapter VIII: Callers and Cogitations

MR. KENNEDY, the mission preacher, had found out long before his visit to Millborough that those who would rouse spiritual sleepers to anxiety about the well-being of their souls, must carry the gospel invitation to their very doors. For this work messengers were needed. Moreover, these required special qualifications. The message must be lovingly delivered by persons who had themselves experienced its importance and knew its preciousness.

There were doubtless many such who were longing to be of use, and willing to carry it into the dark lanes and alleys of Millborough; but mere willingness was not enough, neither was the experimental knowledge alluded to. Both these things were indispensable, but more was wanted. There must be love for the souls of others, as well as thankfulness for personal salvation. There must be readiness of speech, pleasant looks and manners that would manifest good-will and bespeak a hearing, courage that would not fail under difficulties and disagreeables, and the charity that "suffereth long and is kind, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked."

There were a few such, and the two that called at Adam Livesey's door were of the number. They were of the sort to whom the roughest found it hard to give a rude reply.

When tea was over, Adam took up the little handbill left by the visitors, and read what was printed thereon.

"Why?" he exclaimed. "This preacher must be the one Mr. Drummond told me about. The name is Kennedy, the room is in Aqueduct Street. They're having meetings all next week, beside to-morrow and the Sunday after."

"They're welcome to have 'em for a month o' Sundays for me," said Maggie, promptly. "I've enough to do without going to such places. How would the dinner be got ready, and the house cleaned, and the washing done, to say nothing of the children being seen to, if I were to be running off to meetings morn, noon, and night, as some of 'em do?

"There's Mrs. Jackson, she goes to some meeting or another nearly every day, and she's always talking about her soul, while she's neglecting her home and her husband's body. It's a good job she has no children, but poor George came home this very day just before you did. The house was all in a litter, dinner things on the table, fire out, and no kettle a-boil. I believe she was off to this very room in Aqueduct Street. Poor George came across here with a little teapot in his hand, to beg a drop of boiling water, because he had to go back, and would be working till eleven."

"New boiler," jerked in Adam. "Rutherford's made it."

"Yes, he said so. And there he had to sit down in that kitchen, with everything on heaps, and drink his drop of tea and eat his bread with hardly a scrape o' butter. She hadn't had time to buy any before she went off to the meeting. He left his wages for me to give her, all but a shilling, and I was to tell her he would be late, and he would get a threepenny pie for his supper. He gets half as much more wages as you do, Adam, and not a bit o' comfort out of them, though there's only two to keep."

Adam shook his head in sorrowful sympathy, remarking, "George is a skilled mechanic. He gets twice what I do, as a regular thing."

"More shame for Sarah Jackson to serve him as she does. If you'd been at home, you should have asked him to bring his tea and have it here."

"You might ha' asked him, Maggie."

"Not I," she returned, with some severity of speech. "You don't catch me having other folk's husbands here unless their wives are with 'em, or you are at home. I don't believe in giving gossiping tongues anything to talk about. I took George Jackson's key and the money from him on the doorstep, and when Sarah came, I passed them on to her. I did not ask her in, any more than her husband. I can tell you, Adam, if that woman had begun talking about her 'beautiful meeting,' I should have said something to her that wouldn't have sounded very beautiful, so I cut her off short."

Maggie did not trouble herself to wait for any comment from Adam, but bustled off to begin her preparations for the "tubbing process," which would take some time. Her husband's thoughts were, however, busy enough, though they did not find vent in words.

Adam had often heard his wife rail against Sarah Jackson, who was to be found, as a rule, anywhere but by her own fireside. He had heard her speak of other women too, who went from meeting to meeting, "for the sake of what they could get." Maggie believed they had no better motive than to meet with neighbours in the class-rooms, to pass an idle hour or two, to gossip on the road, to be brought into company with ladies, and be made pets of by them. There were many attractions in connection with such gatherings, and Mrs. Livesey's firm conviction was, that some of her neighbours put up with the Bible readings and lecturings, because of sundry substantial helps, and the annual trips and tea-meetings.

No doubt she was right in her judgment in a few cases. She saw some who never seemed to be the better for what they were taught, and who made attendance at various religious ordinances an excuse for the neglect of their homes and families. Her standing sample of the class was her near neighbour, Sarah Jackson, and she regarded her with unmeasured contempt.

"If that woman was worth her salt, she'd have her house like a little palace, and save a fortune out of what he gives her! It's a wonder the man's alive, the way he has to scramble for his meals," Maggie would say, as she looked with pardonable pride on her own surroundings.

These sayings were, however, all reserved for Adam's ear, not proclaimed from the threshold or to her neighbours.

"They can see for themselves, without me telling them. Besides, there's George to think about. He has enough on his mind without any dinning from outside."

It was Maggie's misfortune that she should have been brought into contact with a sham Christian instead of a real one, an idle, who had learned the letter of the gospel message, but whose heart and life had not been reached by it. Maggie knew, for others had told her, that Sarah Jackson had been heard to express regrets at Mrs. Livesey's darkness and hardness of heart. As in duty bound, she had invited her to many "means of grace," and offered to be her companion, but always in vain.

No wonder Maggie regarded Mrs. Jackson's invitations as uncalled-for meddling, and an insult to her own common sense. At each renewal she would say to Adam, "That hypocrite's been at me again, but I think I've settled her for a bit. I was cleaning my windows when she began at me, and I looked straight at hers, that you can't see through for dirt, and said I didn't know how she found time. I had to be on the go all the while, to keep straight. I shouldn't like my windows to be made up so that if I wanted to see who was passing, I must come outside. Then I came in and shut the door."

In spite, however, of all this talk on Maggie's part, and the fact that Mrs. Jackson's example had done both husband and wife harm, Adam was not satisfied that it was fair to judge by one only.

Every person, whether man or woman, who talks glibly about religion, the soul's need, and the Saviour's all-sufficiency, without showing a life influenced and purified by the spiritual experience spoken of, must cause the enemies of the gospel to triumph, and the doubter or indifferent to remain so. But, while Adam listened to Maggie, it was only in a half-hearted way.

He thought of the two men whose pleasant words and manners had left a favourable impression, along with the printed handbill. He remembered words uttered by that old workman at Rutherford's, who had long been a professed follower of the Lord Jesus, and who was one of the happiest men he knew. This individual had said that for a long time he had walked one way and his wife the other, but that now they were agreed, and he thanked God for it. It was a happy day for him, he said, when a neighbour had persuaded the wife to go to a Bible class with her.

"I'd asked her many a time, but she wouldn't go for me. The neighbour had sat up o' nights with our lad when he was ill, and she couldn't say her nay. She went that once to please her, and she has gone with me ever since. I was going to say to please herself, but she wants to serve One that's higher now, and please Him."

Adam had felt constrained to ask whether she did her household work as well as before, and the old man had replied, with moistening eyes, that she did everything better for being a disciple of Jesus.

"We've no little ones now, but there are the lads and me. She has work enough, but when she wants to go to a meeting in daytime she gets up sooner in the morning, and if it's at night, we all go together."

It was plain to Adam that there must be something in religion, and that there were real and sham Christians. Some of the old workman's words stuck to his memory.

"Thou'rt diligent in business, Adam, always. I wish I could see thee happy in serving the Lord, too. There's naught like it for lightening labour and brightening life."

Then there was Mr. Drummond. He professed to be a religious man. What difference did this make in him as a manager?

Adam had worked at Rutherford's from his boyhood; but while he respected his employers for fair dealing, and knew what sort of work they sent out, he had known little of them, as man to man. "Our Mr. John" had been the most popular of all, for he had a very winning way with him. Many a time a joke of his had made the whole smithy ring with laughter.

He had been kind, too, in sending money help to needy widows of improvident workmen, and had done many a kindness in a quiet, unpretending way. He would be very much missed, would Mr. John, and he would be welcomed back with open arms when he returned.

But never had one of the great Rutherfords been known to take a personal interest in a man's eternal welfare, or spoken to him in the way that Mr. Drummond had done that afternoon. And it seemed religion was at the bottom of that. The manager was not ashamed to say so, or to own that it had given a joy and brightness to his life that neither worldly success nor position had been able to do.

Adam half wished that he had responded more pleasantly to Mr. Drummond's advances; for what was it to him how a poor labouring chap spent his Sundays unless he thought there might be a change for the better? He felt just a little glad that these services in Aqueduct Street were not drawing to a close. There were eight days before him yet. Maybe—

"Adam, just carry baby up to bed, will you, whilst I wash Jack?" cried Maggie, interrupting Adam's meditations.

Baby's bath was over, and it was the usual thing for Adam to convoy the little ones to their beds.

The youngest three, being half the sum total of his olive branches, were thus seen to. The elders scrambled off by themselves. Adam rose at once to perform this duty, and thus his cogitations were brought to an end for the time.

It seemed that there was a conspiracy to upset the habits of the Liveseys, for little Maggie revealed to her mother that two of her schoolfellows had been asking her if she would go with them to Sunday school.

The child would not have ventured to say anything but for the fact that these children were always cited by Mrs. Livesey as examples of neatness and "pretty behaviour." Compelled to send her three eldest to a day school, though she parted with Maggie very unwillingly, the mother was very particular in her instructions as to the company they were to keep.

"Mind you don't go with any of 'em that are rude and say bad words. And keep away from such as are dirty. You never know what you may get. I want you to have clean ways, and to behave so as, if your grandmother ever does see you, she may know that I've done my best."

The mention of her mother always caused a double feeling in poor Mrs. Livesey's mind—resentment that she had been so left to herself, and pain that Mrs. Allison could do it. She had not visited Millborough since she left it six years before, and her daughter could not go to her. Two or three letters a year, and as many parcels of partially-worn clothing from the well-to-do sister, near whom she had taken up her abode, were all that told Mrs. Livesey that she was not quite forgotten by her mother.

Still she thought, "Surely she will want to see me some day, and I should like to show her the children."

Every mother longs to exhibit her children to their grandparents, and somehow the thought of what grandmother would think of them when they did meet, was often in Mrs. Livesey's mind.

Little Maggie, having been trained to endurance and obedience, soon became a favourite at school. She had a good deal of her father's longing for learning, so found favour with the teachers; and her cleanliness of person and clothing prevented the poverty of her garments from being noticed, and won her the companionship of the little girls above mentioned. Their homes lay in the same direction, and they became inseparable companions on the road. Mrs. Livesey was pleased that two of the nicest children in the school "had taken up with Maggie," and she would not have liked to interfere with such a friendship.

Naturally the children wished to be together at the Sunday as well as the day school, and Maggie, having been urged thereto by her friends, preferred her request on the Saturday night, though in much fear and trembling.