Chapter XII: Found! (2)

"Let us see if we cannot get some breakfast first. We will make love to the head steward and ask if they will not let us have it in that little boudoir, as they call it, on the top deck. I hate going below on a morning like this, and I am just starving after my night's travel."

Mr. Carlyon was one of those men who always get things done in their own way. The beauty of the morning and the news of Mr. Carlyon's plan quite roused Miss Martin, who had now recovered from the effects of the Atlantic, and after her day's rest was disposed to bestir herself. She was quite ready even at that early hour to let Dulcie dress her, and help her up the many stairs to the upper deck; and there in the pleasant little "boudoir" was an appetising breakfast awaiting them.

That day was always like a dream to Dulcie, and, indeed, so were those that followed, for Mr. Carlyon proved himself the most charming and entertaining of companions. They had a boat ashore, and then a carriage, and they drove through the white town, and over the wide stony bed of the almost empty river to some exquisite gardens, belonging to Spanish grandees, now absent in Madrid, and wandered about them, whilst Miss Martin rested in the many arbours, seeing beautiful views and delighting in the flowers, which, if not so plentiful now as they would be later on, were fair and sweet and abundant.

On the day following they visited the grand cathedral and examined its many pictures, some of which were of no small interest, and drove out to the red buildings of the great bull-ring, and saw the curious structure and the weapons and saddles of the riders. Everything was empty and deserted at that time of year, for the bull-fights only begin in April. But Dulcie could picture the scene in all its splendour and horror, under the golden Southern sunshine, and gave a little shudder, feeling glad when her companion told her that he had never seen a bull-fight, though he had lived for a time in Spain.

"They are always on Sunday, for one thing," he said, "and I--well, I have had a rough-and-tumble life, and there have been times when Sundays have been strange days with me. But I could never bring my mind deliberately to go to such a scene on such a day; even if I could have made up my mind to witness the brutal spectacle as a matter of curiosity, or from the feeling that it was one of the sights of the country."

And Dulcie liked and respected him the more for this confession. It seemed to make a fresh link between them.

Miss Martin watched them as they paced to and fro upon the long deck at such times as they were not ashore; and sometimes a sparkle would come into her eyes as she observed the way in which Mr. Carlyon's glance would dwell upon Dulcie's bright face.

"It looks to me very much like----And really I should not be sorry. Poor child! she is so much alone in the world; and I can do nothing for her. All my money goes to Arabella and her brothers--that's the worst of being an unmarried woman; one has no control over one's money; if I had, I would have made a little provision for the child. She is a good little thing. But I don't think Janet will be best pleased. Arabella, with all her good looks, does not go off. As I tell Janet, it is her temper--she has been so spoiled. Everybody can see it; she is absolutely selfish. I did begin to think that Mr. Carlyon was attracted; but I suspect now the attraction was in another direction. Well, I only hope there won't be a terrible rumpus when they get back. They were reckoning, I know, on this trip. They meant to make him their special escort; and when they learn what has really happened! Well, they can't bully him, that is one comfort; and I'll try to protect Dulcie. But Arabella is a minx when her blood is up; and Janet knows how to make me afraid. It's ridiculous to be afraid of one's sister; but sometimes I am."

Just about sunset that evening the shore became black with hurrying forms, and the harbour was crowded with boats. The Granada party was returning to the _Auguste-Victoria_, to the strains of "Home, Sweet Home" played by the band; and Mr. Carlyon with Dulcie stood laughingly watching the embarkation of the weary, travel-stained tourists.

"I expect they have only enjoyed it very moderately; Granada would be bitterly cold at this season, April or May is the time to see it. Ah! here comes your party! They don't look very happy in their minds. I'm not sure, after all, Miss Dulcie, that we unenterprising people haven't had the best of it!"

"I have had a perfectly lovely time!" cried Dulcie with one of her sweet, direct glances; "you have been so kind to me!"

His face lighted; it was such a kind one when it did, though it could be stern, too, on occasion.

"And you must see Granada another time--at the right season."

"Ah me! I fear not!" answered Dulcie, with a little laugh. "But never mind; one can't be more than perfectly happy!"

"Dulcie, is that you? Do take my bag; I'm so tired I don't know what to do with myself. Oh, Mr. Carlyon, there you are! I wonder you have the face to speak to me again, after your base desertion in our hour of need!"

She tried to speak archly; but temper and spite were in her tone, and the gleam in the eyes that rested first on Dulcie and then on him was not at all pretty to see.

"I left you under most capable guardianship; but I found my own enthusiasm unequal to the demand made upon it. There is such a thing as making a labour of a pleasure. Old fellows like me get beyond that in time."

Arabella swept fiercely past him, carrying Dulcie with her.

"When did he join the ship again?" she asked fiercely.

"On Tuesday morning," answered Dulcie quietly.

Arabella, red and pale by turns, cross-questioned her as to every event of the past days, which Dulcie gave truthfully, though with a sense of coming trouble.

Then the storm burst. She had seen Arabella angry before; but this was a unique outburst, and before it she stood dumb.

III.

"Oh, Dulcie, my dear, we are in sad disgrace," cried Miss Martin, half laughing, but distinctly agitated as well; "really, Janet is unreasonable. As if we had anything to do with Mr. Carlyon's change of plan! As if a man like that would not have gone with Arabella if he had wanted her! But Janet can never see things fairly, and, oh! the scolding I have had! And now, my dear, there is only one thing for us to do, if we don't want our heads snapped off. We shall weigh anchor almost at once, and they say it will be rather rough when we lose the shelter of the Spanish coast. I am just going to bed quietly at once, and you are to stop down and take care of me, and not show yourself above deck at all until to-morrow midday, when everybody has got off at Algiers, and Janet has made sure of Mr. Carlyon's escort."

Dulcie's cheeks were burning; her eyes were indignant.

"What have I done that I should be mewed up like this? Of course, as long as you are ill and want me, auntie, I don't mind anything, but you are not ill yet, and I do love seeing the ship move off, and all Malaga is collecting upon the two great breakwaters to see us steam away!"

"Oh, my dear child, don't begin to argue. My nerves won't stand another scene with Janet. If we do as she says we shall have peace, and 'Peace at any price' is my motto. We shall be at Algiers to-morrow midday; they will go ashore with Mr. Carlyon. He will take them to Mustapha Supérieur, and they will all stay the night there. We can do our little sight-seeing quietly by ourselves, and be back on board and out of sight before the rest get back. The crossing to Genoa takes from Saturday evening to early Monday morning, and I shall be glad enough to lie down all that time. I am afraid it will be dull for you, poor child! but it's no good crossing your Aunt Janet. You had better keep quietly here with me, and then at Genoa, as you know, you are to take the train back to England, and we go on to the Riviera. I should have liked to keep you all the while. I shall miss you sadly; but Janet----"

Dulcie was busying herself over her aunt's belongings, to hide the tears that would come welling up. She had so looked forward to seeing something of the life on board the big boat during the days at sea in the peaceful Mediterranean; but here she was compelled to remain a prisoner in the cabin, dependent upon the port-hole for light and air; and all because----But that would scarcely bear thinking of: it was humiliating, unbearable.

Pride, however, and a sort of maidenly shame kept Dulcie below, and, as the passage to Algiers was really rather rough, she had her time taken up by attendance on her aunt. Miss Martin was not well enough to get up till they had been two hours or more at anchor, and then did not feel equal to going ashore that day.

But, at least, Dulcie could pace the almost deserted deck from end to end, and gaze her fill at the beautiful town built up and up against the side of the hill. She could see the Arab dresses of the motley crowd upon the quay and along the handsome boulevard in full view, and distinguish between the fine houses and towers and spires of the French town, and the white walls and minarets of the Arab quarter away on the right. She longed for the next day to come, when they would go ashore and explore the wonders of the place.

Miss Martin was quite recovered by the morrow, and anxious to see something of the town. They procured a carriage and a guide, and drove for many hours, and, though the elder lady did not feel equal to the exertion of walking through the native quarter, whose streets were far too steep and narrow for the carriage, she sent Dulcie with the guide, who showed it to her very well, and she gazed about her with breathless interest at the strange veiled women, and brown turbaned men, and the little dark-eyed children playing in the gutters.

Yet throughout the day Dulcie was conscious of a heaviness at heart, a sense of unsatisfied longing which she was afraid to analyse or think about. All that she saw was wonderful, much more so than what she had seen in Malaga, but to compare her pleasure in the two was impossible. One day seemed all sunshine; this other was overcast and dull by comparison. She was conscious of being always on the watch for one face--a face of which she caught no glimpse the whole day. She found herself constantly wondering what the rest were doing, and whether Arabella was finding out what a delightful guide and cicerone Mr. Carlyon could be.

They went back to the _Auguste-Victoria_ before the bulk of the passengers; for Miss Martin was really tired, and Dulcie agreed with her that it might be well for her to go to her berth before the vessel started, since there was the prospect of a mild tossing when they were once outside the harbour.

Mrs. Meredith came in presently, a good deal more gracious than before, but still a little tart in her manner towards Dulcie.

"We shall meet a head-wind when we get out of harbour," she observed. "You must take care of your aunt, Dulcie, and remain with her. With her weak heart, she should not be left alone when there is any fear of sickness coming on. When we reach Genoa, I will put you and your baggage into the hands of some competent guide or porter, who will take you to the train, and you will book yourself straight through to England."

Dulcie understood perfectly. Arabella had thought her in the way. It was a planned thing that she should not see Mr. Carlyon again, even to say good-bye. And she was quite helpless. She could not seek him out--her girlish pride and modesty alike prevented that; nor could he try to see her. He would be told that she was either laid low herself or attending upon one who was in such case. Upon that crowded boat, when its complement of passengers was on board, there would be only a remote chance of encountering him even were she to steal up for a mouthful of air. At meals she might have met him; for he was certain to sit in the same saloon with her relations, even though the pleasant "boudoir" might not now be available; but to meals she was practically forbidden to come. And, indeed, Miss Martin was sufficiently ill during the whole of the next day to keep Dulcie in pretty constant attendance upon her.

Nearly all that night Dulcie lay awake in her berth, thinking strange yearning thoughts; and wondering whether she would ever cease to feel that weary sense of heartache. Miss Martin slept soundly at last--so soundly that she heard none of the noises of the vessel's slow approach to its moorings in the magnificent harbour of Genoa; was not aware when Dulcie slipped out of her berth and dressed herself with dainty precision in her neat blue travelling costume. She slept on and on so peacefully that the girl felt no scruple in leaving her. She must get a little fresh air and have her breakfast above deck. She must watch the entrance of the stately vessel into the wonderful historic harbour. The hour was very early yet. Nobody else would be astir. It was her last chance of seeing the world. She slipped out of the cabin, ran up the many flights of steps to the promenade deck, and looked about her with wide, wondering eyes at the forest of shipping by which they were surrounded, and the buildings of the town stretching away in all directions.

"Dulcie!" She started and faced about, the colour flooding her face; he was close beside her, holding out both his hands. In his eyes there was a look of purpose she had never seen there before; her own fell before it, her heart was beating so fast she could find no voice in which to answer.

He came and took her hands in his; he bent over her and spoke in quick, vibrating tones that thrilled her through and through.

"Dulcie, forgive me if I am too hasty--too bold; but what am I to do? They have kept you away from me, child; and I have tried in vain to get speech with you. There is so little time to say what I would. I would have spoken it all so differently if I could. But yet I can say it all in a few little words. I love you, Dulcie--I love you. I cannot live my life without you. You are young, child, and I am getting old; but I think, with you beside me, I could learn to be young again. Dulcie, will you give me something to hope for? Do you think you could let me come and try to win your love?"

She looked up at him for one dazzling moment, and in that moment read the half-discovered secret of her own heart.

"I--I--love you already," she answered very simply; and then she felt herself being drawn, close, close to his side.

Was it minutes or hours later that she heard a sharp voice calling her name.

"Dulcie, Dulcie, where are you? Is your luggage ready? Have you had your breakfast? Be quick. Oh----"

Mr. Carlyon stepped forward, smiling.

"Congratulate me, Mrs. Meredith. Your niece has done me the honour to promise to be my wife. Would it be possible under the circumstances for her to remain with you at Mentone? I know Miss Martin favours that plan."

Mrs. Meredith was woman of the world enough to know when she was beaten; and, after all, was it not better to have such a man as her niece's husband than as a mere acquaintance? Besides, her hopes of securing him for a son-in-law had materially diminished during the past eight-and-forty hours.

"Dear me!" she exclaimed, "how very interesting and romantic! Dulcie, my dear, I congratulate you. Yes, certainly, you shall remain with us. I will go and speak to Mary about it. I am sure she will be pleased. Dear me--how things do turn out!"

_American Country Parsons and their Wives._

By Elizabeth L. Banks.

"The parson's coming!"

I remember well the pleasurable excitement that announcement used to cause in our farming neighbourhood. We children, sometimes swinging upon the topmost railing of the wicket gates, from which height we could espy the parson's "buggy" afar off, were often proud to be the first bearers of the tidings of his approach. But it was not always we who saw him first. There were times when, obeying the commands of our elders that we must never swing on the "front yard gate because it loosened the hinges," we felt chagrined over the fact that, though we were good, obedient children, we were denied the privilege of first noting the parson's horse round the hedge, in his slow, safe, jog-trot style--a style, by the way, that we all thought the proper equipment of a minister's horse. There were days when our fathers and our brothers and the "hired men," ploughing in the farm fields, hastily dropped their work, tying their horses to the fence-posts, and strode hurriedly to the house with the bit of always welcome news that the parson was making his quarterly round of country visits and might shortly be expected at that particular house, which must forthwith be "tidied up" most especially in his honour. Orders were straightway given that the manufacture of mud-pies in the back yard must be at once abandoned. There was a scurrying to the garden pump or the wash-basin, hands and faces were scrubbed, straying locks were plastered back from our foreheads; soiled, dark gingham aprons were exchanged for clean, stiffly starched, light print ones; and then we were led into the "parlour" and bidden to "sit still and quiet and nice and tidy" in readiness for the parson's visit. If, when the parson was espied, it was near the noon dinner-hour or the night supper-time, extra preparations were made for the approaching meal. Slices of highly valued "pound cake" were brought from the larder, the cellar was ransacked for the choicest jar of home-made jam, and, if time allowed, an unlucky chicken was chased into a corner of the barn-yard and assassinated, to help provide a feast deemed worthy to set before the parson.

The parson lived in the village, some five miles distant. He preached every Sunday morning and evening in the village church to a congregation of perhaps fifty souls, and received from them a salary of five hundred dollars a year. Once in two weeks he drove out to our school-house on the Sunday afternoon to preach to the farmers and their families, who did not attend the village church because they considered it a cruelty to horses that had worked all the week to be obliged to carry the family to church on Sunday. We in our district added one hundred dollars "and a donation party" to the minister's salary. The inhabitants of another farming district, six miles on the other side of the village, rewarded the parson in the same way for preaching to them on the alternate Sundays when he did not come to us; so the minister had, all told, seven hundred dollars a year (£140), _and_ two "donation parties"--not a large sum on which to support a family of five, yet considerably more than Goldsmith's village preacher, who was "passing rich on forty pounds a year."

Four times a year the minister visited all his country parishioners. It generally took him two or three days to go the rounds in one neighbourhood--a neighbourhood, I may say, extended over several miles. He would leave "town" (there were six hundred inhabitants in the place where he presided over the only steepled meeting-house of his three charges!) early in the morning, and reach the first house where he was to call at about ten o'clock. At noon he would have his dinner with some one of the farmer folk, being careful to select for his noon call a family with whom he had not partaken bread on his previous visit of three or six months back; for to have the parson to dinner or supper or to "put him up for the night" was an honour for which there was great rivalry, and he tried to be impartial in his distribution of such favours. During the meal hours, the minister's horse fared as sumptuously as did his good master. Apples and sugar and turnips and carrots and all the luxuries that the farm produced were given to the animal by the children of the place, while the farmer or his hired help brought out their choicest corn and bran and oats and fragrant hay. Nothing was too good for the minister and his horse. Indeed, even the "buggy" would be washed up and made "fit" during the interval of the meal hour.

Happy was that house and its dwellers with whom the minister elected to call late in the evening. The "spare bedroom," which adjoined the parlour and was only opened and aired on great occasions, was given over to him, and he slept upon the softest feather bed, amid the snowiest linen, and beneath a white-fringed canopy. In the morning the usual six o'clock breakfast would be delayed on his account until 6.30, and an hour later the minister was jogging along in his buggy to the next farmhouse.

I have written this much about the country parson with whom my own childhood was associated, because he was a typical American country parson then, and he is typical now. His round of duties and pleasures during his country visits are identical with that of hundreds of others of our country parsons. The practice of taking charge of a village church and then preaching on Sunday afternoons in the neighbouring country schoolhouses, is followed to a very great extent throughout the United States. The salary received is sometimes more, sometimes less, than what I have mentioned. What these men and their wonderful wives are able to do for themselves and their children on salaries ranging from six hundred to a thousand dollars a year is little less than miraculous. I have spoken of the "wonderful wives" of our country parsons. Here is a description of the wife of the country parson who preached in our school-house. She was not and is not unique. There are very many like her.

When she married the parson, she was a graduate of one of our best "mixed colleges." She took her diploma on the day that the man whom she afterwards married took his. She had taken the course in Greek and Latin, the higher mathematics, French, and German. When I knew her as the parson's wife, she gave lessons in French, music, and painting. The young mother of three children, she not only had no nursemaid to look after them, but she had no servants in her kitchen. She did all the housework, including the family washing and ironing, and the baking of the bread and cakes and pies. She made her children's dresses and her own. The parson's shirt front and his spotless white lawn ties were "laundered" by her. At ten o'clock in the morning she presided over the wash-tub, and at three in the afternoon she read Cicero, perhaps in the same kitchen while waiting for the bread to bake in the oven. She never looked untidy, our parson's wife! Even when hanging over the wash-tub or the bread-tray, she wore a smart-looking stuff dress, kept always clean by the donning of an immense bibbed apron. She had not an "at home" day, nor even an "at home" hour. She was always at home when she was in the house, at whatever hour of the day or night a visitor might knock at her front door. If, while in the kitchen, she heard the knocking that announced callers, the bibbed apron was thrown off, and in less than a minute later she appeared at the door, well-dressed and smiling. She was the confidante of all those in trouble; she gave advice to those married and those about to marry; she was president of the Ladies' Aid Society; she led the sewing circle, she played the church organ every Sunday morning and led the singing of the choir as well; she taught a class in the Sunday-school, and then went home and got dinner in time for her husband to start for his school-house preaching. Sunday night she presided over the young people's prayer meeting which preceded the regular preaching service. Twice a year she gave her own children a "party," to which all the other village children were invited. She formed "Bands of Mercy" in all the country round, and wrote little stories for the children to read at their meetings on the subject of kindness to dumb animals.

Her house was often the scene of weddings, for those young women who could not be married at home (church weddings were a rarity), went to the parsonage to be married. There was always cake in the parsonage, and on these occasions the lady of the house would bring forth a bit of it from the larder for the bride and groom, for whom it served as the "wedding cake."

Country parsons--indeed, I think I may say nearly all American clergymen in both city and country--give the fees they receive at weddings to their wives. It is understood that the wedding fee is the perquisite of the minister's wife. Five dollars (£1) is looked upon by the ordinary country parson as a liberal fee. The very rich village grocer or country farmer occasionally astonishes the officiating clergyman with ten dollars, but such a happening is an event that could not be expected to occur oftener than once in a country parson's lifetime. The young man for whom the parson performs the all-important ceremony usually gives what he thinks he can afford. He may give two dollars. He would scarcely give less than that amount in money.

Then there is "payment in kind." A young couple frequently drive up to the parsonage in a "lumber waggon" filled with potatoes, or turnips, or firewood, or flour, beans, pickled pork--in fact, anything of an edible nature that grows on the farm. I have a schoolgirl friend married to a village clergyman, who recently regaled me with a story of a young countryman, who, with his bride, drove up to the parsonage with a large chicken coop, full of cackling hens, which he proudly delivered over to her husband as his fee for performing the marriage ceremony, with the information that "them was as good layin' hens as ever lived, and calc'lated to pervide eggs for a year an' more!"

There are numerous instances of enthusiastic and grateful bridegrooms who have presented the officiating clergyman with live pigs as wedding fees.

But it is not only as a reward for performing the marriage ceremony that the country parson is "paid in kind." Sometimes he receives a large part of his salary in this way. The members of his congregation each subscribe a certain amount of money towards the salary that is guaranteed the minister. Farmer Brown will, he says, contribute four dollars as his share. In the winter, when Farmer Brown should hand over his four dollars to the church treasurer, he finds himself short of ready cash, but with an abundant supply of wood on hand, having in the autumn felled many trees in his forest. Nothing can be more certain than that the minister needs fuel in the winter; therefore, Farmer Brown loads his waggon with logs of wood, drives to the parsonage, and deposits it in the minister's back yard, announcing to the minister that he "reckons thar 's mor'n four dollars wirth of wood in that thar load!"

The minister can, perhaps, make use of that one load of wood very conveniently; but when, as is frequently the case, a dozen frugal farmers among his parishioners are struck with the same sort of notion--that of paying their subscriptions in wood instead of money--the unfortunate parson has more wood than he can burn for many winters to come, and his back yard is entirely taken up with it. He needs sugar, and paraffin, and rice, and butter, as well as a cheerful fireside. Did I say butter? Well, sometimes he gets more butter than he wants, too. Says the farmer to his wife: "Jane, I promised to pay three dollars towards the parson's salary. Bein' as you're makin' fine butter this summer, you jes' take him a couple o' pounds a week till you've made three dollars' worth." Two pounds of fresh yellow butter weekly from the dairy of a parishioner would be appreciated by the parson's family. They would rather have it than the stale butter from the village shop; but since butter is made on all farms, and many farmers' wives send the parson butter to pay off their subscriptions, the parson's larder overflows with butter, while many other necessaries are scarce. It is the same with potatoes and cabbages and beetroots, with eggs, and with hay for the minister's horse, which, by the way, is not forgotten when the time for paying subscriptions comes round. The minister loves his horse, and is glad to have plenty of hay and oats for it to eat; but to have in his barn enough of these articles to last a horse through several lifetimes, while the children are needing boots and coats for the present winter, is not a state of affairs that appeals to his sense of the fitness of things. Some of our country parsons, with an instinct for business, not inborn, but thrust upon them by a stern necessity, have been known to become dealers in wood, potatoes, hay, and other things of which they have an over-supply, selling their surplus stock off to their neighbours. In this way they are able to get a little ready cash with which to purchase such necessary commodities as do not "grow on the farm."

In the beginning of my article I have referred to "donation parties," and have said that some ministers are guaranteed a certain number of dollars _and_ a "donation" as a yearly salary. The donation party is, I believe, a strictly American institution, which originated about a century ago in the very thinly settled regions of the United States among the pioneers. It is still extremely popular in country towns and farming neighbourhoods. Say that a clergyman receives eight hundred dollars a year and a "donation," or it may be that he is promised two donations. That means that besides his money, he will be surprised one night or two nights in the year by fifty or a hundred, or perhaps two or three hundred, people marching into his house with bundles of every size and description. His visitors will bring with them pounds of sugar, barrels of flour, jars of pickles, bags of salt, tinned meats and vegetables, remnants of calicoes, muslins, cloths, and silks, from the village "general store," white lawn neckties, cooking utensils, bed-clothing, pictures to hang upon the wall, patent medicines (including soothing syrups for the babies), shoes and stockings, a few live chickens--in fact, everything that the minds of his parishioners can conceive of his needing. Besides all these things, a "proper" donation party is expected to carry along its own supper, during which, sometimes, a collection is taken up and a purse of money presented to the parson. A good donation party, given by a generous lot of church people, is a thing not to be despised by the recipient. Store-cupboards, cellars, and wardrobes are frequently stocked for a whole year to come, and the minister is thus able to put by, for the education of his children, a goodly sum of money out of his cash salary.

(_Bringing the parson's "stipend."_)]

But there is another kind of donation party that is by no means welcome at the parson's house. There are country churches who promise the pastor seven hundred dollars a year, without saying anything about a donation party. But in midwinter the donation party makes its appearance, the members of it bringing along anything they happen to have on hand which they do not want for themselves. Sometimes the things are useful, sometimes not. They do not bring along their own supper; instead, they eat up everything the minister has in the house, often necessitating his sending out to shops for a sufficiency of provisions. When they have enjoyed their suppers, a man who is designated as the "donation spokesman" stands on a kitchen chair, and in a loud voice "appraises the value" of each article that has been "donated": a pair of boots so much, a few yards of calico so much, a jar of jam so much, a bale of hay so much; and thus the list of things is gone through. Then the appraised values are added up and the sum deducted from the ministers salary. If the appraiser considers that one hundred dollars' worth of things have been "donated," he then and there declares that sum to have been paid on account of the salary. Perhaps an etching, handsomely framed, has been among the articles. The poor parson does not stand in particular need of an etching, yet nevertheless the picture is counted as fifteen or twenty dollars towards his salary! A clergyman's wife who, during the first years of her married life, had been the victim of such donation parties, once told me this pathetic story. A young woman invalid, a member of her husband's church, hearing that a donation party was to be given to her pastor, and not knowing of the existence of such a personage as a donation "appraiser," wove a watch-guard from her own black hair that had been cut off during her illness; the guard was mounted in gold, and sent to the minister on the evening of the donation party. It was placed among the other articles, and at the end of the evening its value was appraised at ten dollars!

(_Appraising the value of each article._)]

One of the things about our small-salaried country parsons that has always excited my surprise and admiration is the way they contrive to give their children the benefits of a college education. No matter what their own struggles, no matter that the parson's wife must be her own cook and housemaid and washerwoman, no matter that her husband wears a shiny coat and a frayed shirt-front, a little sum of money is always laid by--an "education fund"--to be devoted to the education of the boys and girls of the family. In a great many of our colleges, especially those which are known as "denominational schools," a minister's daughter is charged only half the usual yearly college fee, which, of course, greatly facilitates matters. Then, at the colleges where the domestic system prevails--that of allowing the students to pay a part of their expenses by working in the domestic department, the minister's daughter, along with the farmer's daughter and the mechanic's daughter, helps to wash and wipe dishes and thus pays a part of her own expenses.

By the Rev. R. F. Horton, M.A., D.D., Chairman of the London Congregational Union.

In the original Law of Moses it would seem that the most favoured tribe, the tribe of Levi, had no landed property. Even in that code of the law which came into operation at the end of the seventh century B.C., the regulation still ran: "The priests, the Levites, even all the tribe of Levi, shall have no portion nor inheritance with Israel: they shall eat the offerings of the Lord made by fire, and his inheritance. And they shall have no inheritance among their brethren: the Lord is their inheritance, and He hath spoken unto them." (Deut. xviii. 1-2). The Lord was their inheritance. Better than cities, and fields, and the gratifying sense of landed proprietorship, here was the notion of real property, the possession of the Eternal God, a personal part in the One Person, who is the Author and Giver of all possessions temporal and eternal. In the book of the Law this really magnificent idea is not developed. It seems rather to be a hint, a type, a suggestion for more spiritual times. The only application of it actually made, that certain parts of the sacrifices should belong to the priests (Deut. xviii. 3), a portion gradually in the process of time increased (see Lev. vii. 34, and Num. xviii. 12-24), gives but a poor and starved idea of what might be implied by "The Lord is their inheritance." As between a solid portion of the land, yielding its regular dues of corn and wine and oil, and the joints of meat, and first fruits of the crops and of the fleece, appointed for the priests, they might be pardoned for choosing the more substantial and permanent provision. But under the phrase "The Lord is their inheritance" lay hidden a mystical truth, which possibly priests and Levites as such never appropriated. It requires the Psalmist, or inspired poet, to liberate the promise from its merely official reference, and in liberating it to deepen it into a universal religious truth. In the sixteenth Psalm a far richer meaning is given to the notion that God Himself may be a portion preferable to broad acres and secured rents. This poet, some landless saint, we may surmise, in the time when the land of Israel was taken away from the people that they might learn to find a more inalienable property elsewhere, turns to his God in unreserved confidence: "I have said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord"--that is the note of personal possession--"I have no good beyond Thee"--that is the note of a sufficient and satisfying possession. "The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup; thou maintainest my lot"--that is the renunciation of outward possessions and sacraments in favour of the inward personal relation with God which suffices. This spiritual heritage is all that heart could wish; it is a prompter of blessing and thanksgiving even in the night season. Nay, more than this, in times of tumult when others are moved, and in the hour of death, when prosperity is stripped away, the saint is rejoicing with joy unspeakable, because the path of life is plain through the grave; the presence of God who is his portion cannot be taken from him, and that is joyful, and for ever (Psalm xvi. 5-11).

Here we enter upon a truth which well repays a careful study. First, we have to seek a definite meaning to the idea that the Lord is the portion of those who trust in Him. Then we have to observe how and by whom this portion is secured.

No idea is at the first blush so definite as that of property, or at least of real property. Here is a stretch of country, accurately delimited on the ordnance map; I say of it, it is mine. I may build on it or I may till it; I may grow what I will, or what the soil allows, or I may turn it into pasture. I may sell it or give it or leave it to my heirs. So definite is the idea, that a nobleman is called after his estate--he is So-and-so of So-and-so. He belongs to the land in something of the same sense that the land belongs to him, a small human entity so identified with the big estate that he becomes great; the lord, but also the product of these thousands of acres; a man with a stake in the country, a personality realising himself in this territorial way. You look at him and you see the vast and solid domain latent in him. You find it difficult or impossible to think that he and his landless valet are in any sense equal. The valet stands for six feet of flesh and blood, and his monthly wage. The lord stands for a considerable slice of the earth's surface in fee-simple, with royalty rights over what underlies of mineral or other wealth down to the centre. It is not my desire to cast any suspicion on the value or reality of this kind of property. I do not dwell on the fact that it cannot become part of the man, nor he a part of it until he is buried in the family vault at the centre of it. I do not wish even to remember that a trifling accident to his sensitive organism puts him out of possession for ever. Rather I desire to enlarge on this perfectly definite and distinct idea, which is nowhere so absolute and unquestionable as in England. We can have no difficulty in fixing the thought of a man's estate, his property, his possessions. Now we have to transfer this clear idea to God as the inheritance or portion of the soul. "The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance."

Possibly we may all have known a person, rich or poor, who has given us much the same impression of the estate in God which lies behind him as the landed proprietor gives us of his unseen spreading acres. The person may be like the poor woman who held up to Bishop Burnet the crust, exclaiming with gratitude, "All this and Christ!" Or think of David Elginbrod, or of that more real Scottish saint, the father of David Livingstone, bequeathing to his children on his deathbed no property, but the fact that in the generations of the family preserved in memory there was no dishonourable man. Such a person as I am speaking of is far more secure and serene than the owner of large estates, seems to find far more enjoyment in the beauty and interest of even this passing world, and dwells in the perpetual contemplation of an unseen domain which cannot by any possibility be taken from him. This is the person who has made the Lord his portion, and we want to realise what it is that has happened to him, the lines which have fallen to him in pleasant places. God is real to him, as landed property is to the landowner, not limited as the estate is, suggesting always a land-hunger for the fields beyond, but definite and certain. So definite and certain, that it is possible to say, "This is my God," very much as the landowner says of his estate, "This is my land."

But God presents to him also a security of salvation and of life, of progress and of joy. He finds in God a subject of endless contemplation, and a source from which he derives all things that are necessary for this world and for a world to come. God is his occupation. The will of God is his delight. The universe presents itself to him as the works of God, history as the development of a Divine thought, man as the shadow or image of God, religion as the relation between God and man, heaven as the goal of the knowledge and love which relate God to man.

If he is a thinker, like Spinoza, all things are seen in God. If he is a poet, God Himself appears the best poet, and the real is His song. If he is a man of science, he studies everything in nature, as thinking the thoughts of God after Him.

But if he is a plain man, innocent of abstract thought, none the less his business and his pleasure, his family and his friends, all present themselves as material furnished by God in which he is to work out the Divine will, and win the Divine approval. Nothing is dissociated from God, whom he recognises everywhere, and at all times. But as God who is thus all in all to him is Light and Life and Love, the problem of his own and of the world's existence is implicitly solved for him. God is all he wants, more than all in God he finds. Every question is brought up into the presence of God; in His light he sees light. Death disappears; for God is seen, the possessor of immortality, imparting life to him who possesses God. And as God is absolute love, there can be no question that all things are working together for good to those who love Him.

This sovereign presence and power of the Divine will make earthly possessions and station and success quite indifferent. They do not lose their value; but they find their value only in relation to God and His will, so that, if only a man's ways please God, and he lives in the reconciliation and obedience to the will of God, he must be sure that he has as much earthly property, as good a station, and as great a degree of success, as God thinks good for him. If all things seem taken from him, he reflects, God is my portion, and with Him I have all things. And if all things are his, he does not feel that he possesses any more than God; the things are temporary appearances within the bounds of his inheritance, which is God; they lie latent there always, appearing or disappearing as the wisdom and love of God determine.

As this portion is distinct and tangible enough, so it is obviously both larger and more satisfying than any earthly inheritance. It leaves none of the aching hunger for things beyond. It brings all things at once, and leaves to the soul the plain and endless task of developing the inexhaustible treasures that are contained in it.

But how and by whom is this portion to be obtained? In the typical arrangement of the Jewish law it fell to an order, the tribe of Levi. In the psalm it fell to one who trusted in the Lord. That furnishes the key to the new covenant, in which all that once fell to a privileged nation, or order, or office, falls to those who believe. By faith a man becomes a child of Abraham. By faith the believer becomes a priest and a king unto God. By faith the portion of this Divine inheritance is appropriated, and may be appropriated by whosoever will!

By faith, however, we are not to understand a vague and general act of the mind, which simply assumes that it has what it desires. The faith which appropriates the Divine inheritance is specific, it is faith which is in Jesus, a recognition and a reception of Christ as the Son of God entering into the sphere of human life in order to give to men God as their portion. "He that heareth My word, and believeth in Him that sent Me," said Jesus, "hath everlasting life." By faith in Jesus each of us inherits what was promised to Abraham, to Israel, to David, to Levi. Jesus has said that He will not cast out any that come to Him; and that who comes to Him comes to God. Now it is certainly remarkable--considering the universal desire for property, for real property, for lasting and inalienable property, and considering the definiteness and certainty of the possession of God, and the universality of the offer to every human being--that comparatively few persons exert themselves to become possessed of God, or bestow anything like the same energy and eagerness of endeavour on securing God as their portion which men show in the acquisition of a great earthly property. It is this remarkable fact to which Jesus alludes when He says that many are called but few are chosen, or that many walk in the broad way which leads to destruction, but few will come to Him that He may give them life.

R F Horton (hand written signature)]

But the Divine method of thus putting the great possession within the choice and reach of all, but forcing it on none, is in strict analogy with God's way of offering all other boons to men. The kingdom of Nature lies in the same way open for all who will exert themselves and take possession. The endless interest of the almost infinite variety of species is an open door which any investigator may enter. The bewitching beauty of sun and stars, of drifting cloud and summer skies, of all the changes of the earth and of the sea, is accessible to all, but it must be owned that only a few avail themselves of the opportunity. It seems to be the same with all the gifts of God, Who makes the sun to shine on the good and the evil alike. And thus His own being as the portion and inheritance of the soul is proffered--like the wonder and beauty of His creation--to all who will take and go in to possess it. It stretches away like the land of promise, a pleasant land flowing with milk and honey, a land of broad views and of fruitful fields, of vineyards and oliveyards, and of far distances, luminous in the fresh glory of sunrise, hazy with softened charm in the hot noon, transformed under the evening sky of crimson and gold at sunset, a land which one would have thought all might desire to possess; but, like the promised land, it is treated with scorn by those who will not believe (Ps. cvi. 24). To them the flesh-pots of Egypt are pleasanter; the very dearth and dreariness of the desert are preferred before it. A thousand excuses, imaginary fears, and obstinate depreciations are cited to evade the efforts of conquest. And this great inheritance, the portion of the human soul, God, remains unpossessed except by a handful of enterprising souls.

It should, however, be frankly acknowledged that entering into possession of this inheritance is by no means the matter of a single moment. We annex our property field by field and province by province. By searching we do not find out God unto perfection, though every further search gives us a greater joy and hope in the prosecution of it.

It is for want of this vigorous entrance into the possession that many have professed themselves disappointed with God as their portion. They have left their property unexplored and unrealised. They have neglected to pray--and prayer is the onward march into the promised land, the exercise by which the being and fulness of God are appropriated. They have forgotten to worship, and worship is the relish of possession, the discovery by gratitude and praise of what is given and what God still has to give. They have omitted the self-discipline by which the will is kept in harmony with God, and the thoughts and purposes of God take possession of the soul; and yet it is only by this kind of sustained discipline that one can have any feeling of apprehension, and progressive discovery, of God. They have forsaken the assembling of themselves together for worship, which is the forming of the host of invasion. They have ceased to study the Word, which is the chart of the land, showing all the approaches, the fastnesses to be taken, and the heights to be won. Or they have given up those good works of charity and helpfulness, the love of men, the love of souls, which are the very footsteps by which we come into the possession of God. It is this which explains the common discontent about that rich portion--God Himself--offered to the soul. The good land has only been surveyed for a moment from Pisgah; faith has flashed out as an intuition, or as a vision; but the actual and determined conquest of piece by piece, to which faith is intended to lead, has been overlooked. There are multitudes of persons who seemed to choose God as their portion in moments of religious excitement and apparent decision, but never arose to enter into possession; and they remain, in consequence, disinherited.