The Revolution in Tanner’s Lane · Chapter 24 (2/2)

Next Saturday a report of the scene appeared in the county newspaper, giving full particulars, considerably exaggerated; and Mr. Broad read all about it to Mrs. Broad on Saturday afternoon, in the interval between the preparation of his two sermons. He had heard the story on the following day; but here was an authentic account in print. Mrs. Broad was of opinion that it was shocking; so vulgar, so low; her poor dear Priscilla, and so forth. Mr. Broad’s sullen animosity was so much stimulated that it had overcome his customary circumspection, and on the Sunday evening he preached from the text, “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” Mr. Broad remarked that the Apostle James made no mention here of the scheme of redemption; not because that was not the chief part of religion, but because he was considering religion in the aspect⁠—he was very fond of this word “aspect”⁠—which it presented to those outside the Church. He called upon his hearers to reflect with him for a few moments, in the first place, upon what religion was not; secondly, upon what it was; and thirdly, he would invite their attention to a few practical conclusions. He observed that religion did not consist in vain strife upon earthly matters, which only tended towards divisions in the Body of Christ. “At such a time as this, my brethren, it is important for us to remember that these disputes, especially if they are conducted with unseemly heat, are detrimental to the interests of the soul and give occasion to the enemy to blaspheme.” When Mr. Broad came to the secondly, and to that subdivision of it which dealt with freedom from worldly spots, he repeated the words with some emphasis, “ ‘Unspotted from the world.’ Think, my friends, of what this involves. Spots! The world spots and stains! We are not called upon to withdraw ourselves from the world⁠—the apostle does not say that⁠—but to keep ourselves unspotted, uncontaminated he appears to mean, by worldly influence. The word unspotted in the original bears that interpretation⁠—uncontaminated. Therefore, though we must be in the world, we are not to be of the world, but to set an example to it. In the world! Yes, my brethren, we must necessarily be in the world; that is the condition imposed upon us by the Divine Providence, because we are in a state of probation; we are so constituted, with a body, and with fleshly appetites, that we must be in the world; but we must be separate from it and its controversies, which are so unimportant compared with our eternal welfare.”

Mr. Bushel sat on high at his desk, where he gave out the hymns, and coughed every now and then, and looked straight at the pew where the Allens and George sat. Mr. Bushel knew well enough that, although he was just as ardent on the other side, the sermon was not meant for him, and not one of Mr. Broad’s remarks touched him. He thought only of the Allens, and rejoiced inwardly. George walked home with Priscilla in silence. At suppertime he suddenly said:

“I think your father might have found something better to do than preach at me.”

Priscilla was shocked. She had never heard a criticism on her father before.

“Really, George, what are you thinking of to talk in that way about a sermon, and on a Sunday night too?”

“He did preach at me; and if he has anything to say against me, why doesn’t he come and say it here or at the shop?”

“O George, this is dreadful! Besides, mamma did come and talk to me.”

“What has that got to do with it? Well, what did your mother say?”

“Why, she told me all about this meeting, and how you fought a man and nearly killed him, and you a member at Tanner’s Lane, and how you oughtn’t to have been there at all, and what Mr. Bushel was going to do.”

“Oughtn’t to have been there at all? Why not? I don’t believe you know any more than this table why I was there.”

“Oh yes, I do. You never tell me anything, but Mrs. Bushel told me. You want to get them all turned out of their farms.”

“Bosh! There you are again!⁠—the pains I took the other night again to make you comprehend what Free Trade meant. I knew you didn’t understand a word about it; and if you did understand, you wouldn’t believe me. You never take any notice of anything I say; but if Mrs. Bushel or any other blockhead tells you anything, you believe that directly.”

Priscilla’s eyes filled; she took out her handkerchief, and went upstairs. George sat still for a while, and then followed her. He found her sitting by the baby’s cradle, her head on her hands and sobbing. It touched him beyond measure to see how she retreated to her child; he went to her; his anger was once more forgotten, and once more he was reconciled with kisses and self-humiliation. The next morning, however, as he went to the square, the conversation of the night before returned to him. “What does it all mean?” he cried to himself. “Would to God it were either one thing or another! I could be happy if I really cared for her, and if I hated her downright I could endure it like any other calamity which cannot be altered; but this is more than I can bear!”

The Allens, father and mother, held anxious debate whether they should take any notice of the attack by their pastor, and in the end determined to do nothing. They considered, and rightly considered, that any action on their part would only make George’s position more difficult, and he was the first person to be considered.

Next Saturday there was some business to be done in London, and George went, this time by himself. On the Sunday morning he called on the Colemans, and found Zachariah at home, but Pauline away. Mr. Bradshaw, too, was not to preach that day. It was wet, and Zachariah and George sat and talked, first about the election, and then about other indifferent subjects. Conversation⁠—even of the best, and between two friends⁠—is poor work when one of the two suffers from some secret sorrow which he cannot reveal, and George grew weary. Zachariah knew what was the matter with him, and had known it for a long while, but was too tender to hint his knowledge. Nevertheless, remembering his own history, he pitied the poor boy exceedingly. He loved him as his own child, for his father’s sake, and loved him all the more for an experience so nearly resembling another which he recollected too well.

“How is it Mr. Bradshaw is not preaching today?” said George.

“He is ill; I am afraid he is breaking up; and latterly he has been worried by the small attacks made upon him by people who are afraid to say anything distinctly.”

“What kind of attacks?”

“Well, they insinuate that he is Arian.”

“What is that?”

Zachariah explained the case as well as he could, and George was much interested.

“Arian or not, I tell you one thing, Mr. Coleman, that Mr. Bradshaw, whenever I have heard him, seems to help me as Mr. Broad never does. I never think about what Mr. Broad says except when I am in chapel, and sometimes not then.”

“Bradshaw speaks from himself. He said a thing last Sunday which stuck by me, and would have pleased a country lad like you more than it did three parts of his congregation, who are not so familiar with country life as he is. He told us he was out for a holiday, and saw some men hoeing in a field⁠—‘Hoeing the charlock,’ he said to himself; but when he came nearer he found they were hoeing turnips⁠—hoeing up the poor plants themselves, which lay dying all around; hoeing them up to let the other plants have room to grow.

“I have known men,” added Zachariah after a pause, “from whose life so much⁠—all love, for example⁠—has been cut out; and the effect has been, not ruin, but growth in other directions which we should never have seen without it.”

Zachariah took down a little book from his shelf, and wrote George’s name in it.

“There, my boy, it is not much to look at, but I know nothing better, and keep it always in your pocket. It is the Imitation of Christ. You will find a good deal in it which will suit you, and you will say, as I have said a thousand times over it, that other people may write of science or philosophy, but this man writes about me.”

He put it on the table, and George opened it at the sentence, “He that can best tell how to suffer will best keep himself in peace. That man is conqueror of himself, and lord of the world, the friend of Christ, and the heir of heaven.” He turned over the leaves again⁠—“He to whom the Eternal Word speaketh is delivered from a world of unnecessary conceptions.” Zachariah bent his head near him and gently expounded the texts. As the exposition grew George’s heart dilated, and he was carried beyond his troubles. It was the birth in him⁠—even in him, a Cowfold ironmonger, not a scholar by any means⁠—of what philosophers call the idea, that Incarnation which has ever been our Redemption. He said nothing to Zachariah about his own affairs, nor did Zachariah, as before observed, say anything to him; but the two knew one another, and felt that they knew one another as intimately as if George had imparted to his friend the minutest details of his unhappiness with his wife.

Towards the end of the afternoon Pauline returned, and inquired how the battle went in Cowfold.

“I am afraid we shall be beaten. Sometimes I don’t seem to care much about it.”

“Don’t care! Why not?”

“Oh, we talk and talk, father and I, and somehow people’s minds are made up without talking, and nobody ever changes. When we have our meetings, who is it who comes? Does Bushel come? Not a bit of it. We only get our own set.”

“Well,” said Zachariah, the old man’s republican revolutionary ardour returning, “this is about the only struggle in which I have felt much interest of late years. I should like to have cheap bread, and what is more, I should like to deprive the landlords of that bit of the price which makes the bread dear. I agree with you, my boy. Endless discussion is all very well⁠—forms ‘public opinion,’ they say; but I wish a stop could be put to it when it has come round to where it began; that one side could say to the other, ‘You have heard all our logic, and we have heard all yours;’ now then, let us settle it. ‘Who is the strongest and best drilled?’ I believe in insurrection. Everlasting debate⁠—and it is not genuine debate, for nobody really ranges himself alongside his enemy’s strongest points⁠—demoralises us all. It encourages all sorts of sophistry, becomes mere manoeuvring, and saps people’s faith in the truth. In half an hour, if two persons were to sit opposite one another, they could muster every single reason for and against Free Trade. What is the use of going on after that? Moreover, insurrection strengthens the belief of men in the right. A man who voluntarily incurs the risk of being shot believes ever afterwards, if he escapes, a little more earnestly than he did before. ‘Who is on the Lord’s side, let him come unto me,’ says the flag. Insurrection strengthens, too, the faith of others. When a company of poor men meet together and declare that things have got to such a pass that they will either kill their enemies or die themselves, the world then thinks there must, after all, be some difference between right and wrong.”

“Father, that is all past now. We must settle our quarrels in the appointed way. Don’t say anything to discourage Mr. Allen. Besides, people are not so immovable as you think. How they alter I don’t know; but they do alter. There is a much larger minority in favour of Free Trade than there was ten years ago.”

“All past now, is it? You will see one of these days.”

It was time for tea, and Pauline left to get the tea-things. In the evening they strolled out for a walk through Barnsbury and up Maiden Lane, then a real and pretty lane stretching northwestwards through hedges to Highgate. After they had gone a few hundred yards Zachariah went back; he had forgotten something, and George and Pauline walked on slowly together. The street was crowded, for it was just about church time, but on the opposite side of the road George saw somebody whom he knew, but who took no notice of him.

“How odd!” he said to Pauline; “that is Tom Broad! What is he doing here, I wonder?”

Pauline made no answer, and at that moment Zachariah rejoined them.

The reason for Mr. Thomas Broad’s appearance in that quarter will be best explained by the following letter, which he had received the day before from his father:⁠—

My dear Thomas⁠—I was very glad to hear of your success at Mr. Martin’s chapel, at Hackney, on Sunday afternoon. Although it was nothing more than an afternoon service, you must remember that it is the first invitation to a metropolitan pulpit which you have received. It would be as well if you were to call on Mr. Martin at your earliest convenience, and also on Mr. Chandler, in Leather Lane, whom you mentioned to me, and who, I believe, is a prominent deacon. The choice of your subject was judicious, although it is not so easy to fix the character of a discourse for the afternoon as for the morning or evening. “I will give him a white stone” is a text I have used myself with great profit. A young minister, I need hardly say, my dear Thomas, ought to confine himself to what is generally accepted, and not to particularise. For this reason he should avoid not only all disputed topics, but, as far as possible, all reference to particular offences. I always myself doubted the wisdom, for example, of sermons against covetousness, or worldliness, or hypocrisy. Let us follow our Lord and Master, and warn our hearers against sin, and leave the application to the Holy Spirit. I only mention this matter now because I have found two or three young students err in this direction, and the error, I am sure, militates against their usefulness.

Your dear mamma and Tryphosa are both quite well. Not so Priscilla. I grieve to say she is not well. George’s conduct lately has been very strange. I am afraid that he will be a trouble not only to us, but to the Church of Christ. Both he and his father have kindled strife amongst us in this unhappy election contest, for which, as a minister of God’s Word, I have held aloof. For one or two Sundays the Allens have absented themselves from Divine service in the evening, and we know that there has been no sickness in the house. I feel certain that before long they will withdraw their subscription. I have good reason to believe that their friend, Mr. Coleman, exercises a very baleful influence upon them. However, God’s will be done! These are the trials which His servants who minister to His flock must expect. Goodbye, my dear Thomas. Mamma and Tryphosa send their love. Give diligence to make your calling and election sure.⁠—Your affectionate father,

Mr. Thomas Broad had his own reasons for complying with his father’s request. He hated the Colemans and George with as much active malignity as was possible to his heavy unctuous nature. Why he should hate the Colemans is intelligible, and his hatred to George can also be explained, partly through sympathy between father and son, and partly because the hatred of a person like Thomas Broad to a person like George Allen needs no explanation.