Robert Falconer by George MacDonald (reading fiction TXT) 📕

Paul the Apostle said it was unmeet for him to leave the preaching of the word in order to serve tables-not that the thing was beneath him, but that it was not his work so long as he could be doing more important service still.

De Fleuri was one of his chief supports. The whole nature of the man mellowed under the sun of Falconer, and over the work that Falconer gave him to do. His daughter recovered, and devoted herself to the same labour that had rescued her. Miss St. John was her superior. By degrees, without any laws or regulations, a little company was gathered, not of ladies and gentlemen, but of men and women, who aided each, other, and without once meeting as a whole, laboured not the less as one body in the work of the Lord, bound in one by bonds that had nothing to do with cobweb committee meetings or public dinners, chairmen or wine-flushed subscriptions. They worked like the leaven of which the Lord spoke.

But De Fleuri, like almost every one in the community I believe, had his own private schemes subserving the general good. He knew the best men of his own class and his own trade, and with them his superior intellectual gifts gave him influence. To them he told the story of Falconer's behaviour to him, of Falconer's own need, and of his hungry-hearted search. An enthusiasm of help seized upon the men. To aid your superior is such a rousing gladness!-Was anything of this in St. Paul's mind when he spoke of our being fellow-workers with God? I only put the question.-Each one of these had his own trustworthy acquaintances, or neighbours, rather-for like finds out like all the world through, as well as over-and to them he told the story of Falconer and his father, so that in all that region of London it became known that the man who loved the poor was himself needy, and looked to the poor for their help. Without them he could not be made perfect.

Some of my readers may be inclined to say that it was dishonourable in Falconer to have occasioned the publishing of his father's disgrace. Such may recall to their minds that concealment is no law of the universe; that, on the contrary, the Lord of the Universe said once: 'There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed.' Was the disgrace of Andrew Falconer greater because a thousand men knew it, instead of forty, who could not help knowing it? Hope lies in light and knowledge. Andrew would be none the worse that honest men knew of his vice: they would be the first to honour him if he should overcome it. If he would not-the disgrace was just, and would fall upon his son only in sorrow, not in dishonour. The grace of God-the making of humanity by his beautiful hand-no, heart-is such, that disgrace clings to no man after repentance, any more than the feet defiled with the mud of the world come yet defiled from the bath. Even the things that proceed out of the man, and do terribly defile him, can be cast off like the pollution of the leper by a grace that goes deeper than they; and the man who says, 'I have sinned: I will sin no more,' is even by the voice of his brothers crowned as a conqueror, and by their hearts loved as one who has suffered and overcome. Blessing on the God-born human heart! Let the hounds of God, not of Satan, loose upon sin;-God only can rule the dogs of the devil;-let them hunt it to the earth; let them drag forth the demoniac to the feet of the Man who loved the people while he let the devil take their swine; and do not talk about disgrace from a thing being known when the disgrace is that the thing should exist.

One night I was returning home from some poor attempts of my own. I had now been a pupil of Falconer for a considerable time, but having my own livelihood to make, I could not do so much as I would.

It was late, nearly twelve o'clock, as I passed through the region of Seven Dials. Here and there stood three or four brutal-looking men, and now and then a squalid woman with a starveling baby in her arms, in the light of the gin-shops. The babies were the saddest to see-nursery-plants already in training for the places these men and women now held, then to fill a pauper's grave, or perhaps a perpetual cell-say rather, for the awful spaces of silence, where the railway director can no longer be guilty of a worse sin than house-breaking, and his miserable brother will have no need of the shelter of which he deprived him. Now and then a flaunting woman wavered past-a night-shade, as our old dramatists would have called her. I could hardly keep down an evil disgust that would have conquered my pity, when a scanty white dress would stop beneath a lamp, and the gay dirty bonnet, turning round, reveal a painted face, from which shone little more than an animal intelligence, not brightened by the gin she had been drinking. Vague noises of strife and of drunken wrath flitted around me as I passed an alley, or an opening door let out its evil secret. Once I thought I heard the dull thud of a blow on the head. The noisome vapours were fit for any of Swedenborg's hells. There were few sounds, but the very quiet seemed infernal. The night was hot and sultry. A skinned cat, possibly still alive, fell on the street before me. Under one of the gas-lamps lay something long: it was a tress of dark hair, torn perhaps from some woman's head: she had beautiful hair at least. Once I heard the cry of murder, but where, in that chaos of humanity, right or left, before or behind me, I could not even guess. Home to such regions, from gorgeous stage-scenery and dresses, from splendid, mirror-beladen casinos, from singing-halls, and places of private and prolonged revelry, trail the daughters of men at all hours from midnight till morning. Next day they drink hell-fire that they may forget. Sleep brings an hour or two of oblivion, hardly of peace; but they must wake, worn and miserable, and the waking brings no hope: their only known help lies in the gin-shop. What can be done with them? But the secrets God keeps must be as good as those he tells.

But no sights of the night ever affected me so much as walking through this same St. Giles's on a summer Sunday morning, when church-goers were in church. Oh! the faces that creep out into the sunshine then, and haunt their doors! Some of them but skins drawn over skulls, living Death's-heads, grotesque in their hideousness.

I was not very far from Falconer's abode. My mind was oppressed with sad thoughts and a sense of helplessness. I began to wonder what Falconer might at that moment be about. I had not seen him for a long time-a whole fortnight. He might be at home: I would go and see, and if there were light in his windows I would ring his bell.

I went. There was light in his windows. He opened the door himself, and welcomed me. I went up with him, and we began to talk. I told him of my sad thoughts, and my feelings of helplessness.

'He that believeth shall not make haste,' he said. 'There is plenty of time. You must not imagine that the result depends on you, or that a single human soul can be lost because you may fail. The question, as far as you are concerned, is, whether you are to be honoured in having a hand in the work that God is doing, and will do, whether you help him or not. Some will be honoured: shall it be me? And this honour gained excludes no one: there is work, as there is bread in his house, enough and to spare. It shows no faith in God to make frantic efforts or frantic lamentations. Besides, we ought to teach ourselves to see, as much as we may, the good that is in the condition of the poor.'

'Teach me to see that, then,' I said. 'Show me something.'

'The best thing is their kindness to each other. There is an absolute divinity in their self-denial for those who are poorer than themselves. I know one man and woman, married people, who pawned their very furniture and wearing apparel to procure cod-liver oil for a girl dying in consumption. She was not even a relative, only an acquaintance of former years. They had found her destitute and taken her to their own poor home. There are fathers and mothers who will work hard all the morning, and when dinner-time comes "don't want any," that there may be enough for their children-or half enough, more likely. Children will take the bread out of their own mouths to put in that of their sick brother, or to stick in the fist of baby crying for a crust-giving only a queer little helpless grin, half of hungry sympathy, half of pleasure, as they see it disappear. The marvel to me is that the children turn out so well as they do; but that applies to the children in all ranks of life. Have you ever watched a group of poor children, half-a-dozen of them with babies in their arms?'

'I have, a little, and have seen such a strange mixture of carelessness and devotion.'

'Yes. I was once stopped in the street by a child of ten, with face absolutely swollen with weeping, asking me to go and see baby who was very ill. She had dropped him four times that morning, but had no idea that could have done him any harm. The carelessness is ignorance. Their form of it is not half so shocking as that of the mother who will tremble at the slightest sign of suffering in her child, but will hear him lie against his brother without the smallest discomfort. Ah! we shall all find, I fear, some day, that we have differed from each other, where we have done best, only in mode-perhaps not even in degree. A grinding tradesman takes advantage of the over supply of labour to get his work done at starvation prices: I owe him love, and have never thought of paying my debt except in boundless indignation.'

'I wish I had your faith and courage, Mr. Falconer,' I said.

'You are in a fair way of having far more,' he returned. 'You are not so old as I am, by a long way. But I fear you are getting out of spirits. Is to-morrow a hard day with you?'

'I have next to nothing to do to-morrow.'

'Then will you come to me in the evening? We will go out together.'

Of course I was only too glad to accept the proposal. But our talk did not end here. The morning began to shine before I rose to leave him; and before I reached my abode it was broad daylight. But what a different heart I carried within me! And what a different London it was outside of