The Way of All Flesh

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The worst of it was that she had so often proved to be right. Boys and
young men are violent in their affections, but they are seldom very
constant; it is not till they get older that they really know the kind of
friend they want; in their earlier essays young men are simply learning
to judge character. Ernest had been no exception to the general rule.
His swans had one after the other proved to be more or less geese even in
his own estimation, and he was beginning almost to think that his mother
was a better judge of character than he was; but I think it may be
assumed with some certainty that if Ernest had brought her a real young
swan she would have declared it to be the ugliest and worst goose of all
that she had yet seen.

At first he had not suspected that his friends were wanted with a view to
Charlotte; it was understood that Charlotte and they might perhaps take a
fancy for one another; and that would be so very nice, would it not? But
he did not see that there was any deliberate malice in the arrangement.
Now, however, that he had awoke to what it all meant, he was less
inclined to bring any friend of his to Battersby. It seemed to his silly
young mind almost dishonest to ask your friend to come and see you when
all you really meant was "Please, marry my sister." It was like trying
to obtain money under false pretences. If he had been fond of Charlotte
it might have been another matter, but he thought her one of the most
disagreeable young women in the whole circle of his acquaintance.

She was supposed to be very clever. All young ladies are either very
pretty or very clever or very sweet; they may take their choice as to
which category they will go in for, but go in for one of the three they
must. It was hopeless to try and pass Charlotte off as either pretty or
sweet. So she became clever as the only remaining alternative. Ernest
never knew what particular branch of study it was in which she showed her
talent, for she could neither play nor sing nor draw, but so astute are
women that his mother and Charlotte really did persuade him into thinking
that she, Charlotte, had something more akin to true genius than any
other member of the family. Not one, however, of all the friends whom
Ernest had been inveigled into trying to inveigle had shown the least
sign of being so far struck with Charlotte's commanding powers, as to
wish to make them his own, and this may have had something to do with the
rapidity and completeness with which Christina had dismissed them one
after another and had wanted a new one.

And now she wanted Towneley. Ernest had seen this coming and had tried
to avoid it, for he knew how impossible it was for him to ask Towneley,
even if he had wished to do so.

Towneley belonged to one of the most exclusive sets in Cambridge, and was
perhaps the most popular man among the whole number of undergraduates. He
was big and very handsome--as it seemed to Ernest the handsomest man whom
he ever had seen or ever could see, for it was impossible to imagine a
more lively and agreeable countenance. He was good at cricket and
boating, very good-natured, singularly free from conceit, not clever but
very sensible, and, lastly, his father and mother had been drowned by the
overturning of a boat when he was only two years old and had left him as
their only child and heir to one of the finest estates in the South of
England. Fortune every now and then does things handsomely by a man all
round; Towneley was one of those to whom she had taken a fancy, and the
universal verdict in this case was that she had chosen wisely.

Ernest had seen Towneley as every one else in the University (except, of
course, dons) had seen him, for he was a man of mark, and being very
susceptible he had liked Towneley even more than most people did, but at
the same time it never so much as entered his head that he should come to
know him. He liked looking at him if he got a chance, and was very much
ashamed of himself for doing so, but there the matter ended.

By a strange accident, however, during Ernest's last year, when the names
of the crews for the scratch fours were drawn he had found himself
coxswain of a crew, among whom was none other than his especial hero
Towneley; the three others were ordinary mortals, but they could row
fairly well, and the crew on the whole was rather a good one.

Ernest was frightened out of his wits. When, however, the two met, he
found Towneley no less remarkable for his entire want of anything like
"side," and for his power of setting those whom he came across at their
ease, than he was for outward accomplishments; the only difference he
found between Towneley and other people was that he was so very much
easier to get on with. Of course Ernest worshipped him more and more.

The scratch fours being ended the connection between the two came to an
end, but Towneley never passed Ernest thenceforward without a nod and a
few good-natured words. In an evil moment he had mentioned Towneley's
name at Battersby, and now what was the result? Here was his mother
plaguing him to ask Towneley to come down to Battersby and marry
Charlotte. Why, if he had thought there was the remotest chance of
Towneley's marrying Charlotte he would have gone down on his knees to him
and told him what an odious young woman she was, and implored him to save
himself while there was yet time.

But Ernest had not prayed to be made "truly honest and conscientious" for
as many years as Christina had. He tried to conceal what he felt and
thought as well as he could, and led the conversation back to the
difficulties which a clergyman might feel to stand in the way of his
being ordained--not because he had any misgivings, but as a diversion.
His mother, however, thought she had settled all that, and he got no more
out of her. Soon afterwards he found the means of escaping, and was not
slow to avail himself of them.




CHAPTER XLIX


On his return to Cambridge in the May term of 1858, Ernest and a few
other friends who were also intended for orders came to the conclusion
that they must now take a more serious view of their position. They
therefore attended chapel more regularly than hitherto, and held evening
meetings of a somewhat furtive character, at which they would study the
New Testament. They even began to commit the Epistles of St Paul to
memory in the original Greek. They got up Beveridge on the Thirty-nine
Articles, and Pearson on the Creed; in their hours of recreation they
read More's "Mystery of Godliness," which Ernest thought was charming,
and Taylor's "Holy Living and Dying," which also impressed him deeply,
through what he thought was the splendour of its language. They handed
themselves over to the guidance of Dean Alford's notes on the Greek
Testament, which made Ernest better understand what was meant by
"difficulties," but also made him feel how shallow and impotent were the
conclusions arrived at by German neologians, with whose works, being
innocent of German, he was not otherwise acquainted. Some of the friends
who joined him in these pursuits were Johnians, and the meetings were
often held within the walls of St John's.

I do not know how tidings of these furtive gatherings had reached the
Simeonites, but they must have come round to them in some way, for they
had not been continued many weeks before a circular was sent to each of
the young men who attended them, informing them that the Rev. Gideon
Hawke, a well-known London Evangelical preacher, whose sermons were then
much talked of, was about to visit his young friend Badcock of St John's,
and would be glad to say a few words to any who might wish to hear them,
in Badcock's rooms on a certain evening in May.

Badcock was one of the most notorious of all the Simeonites. Not only
was he ugly, dirty, ill-dressed, bumptious, and in every way
objectionable, but he was deformed and waddled when he walked so that he
had won a nick-name which I can only reproduce by calling it "Here's my
back, and there's my back," because the lower parts of his back
emphasised themselves demonstratively as though about to fly off in
different directions like the two extreme notes in the chord of the
augmented sixth, with every step he took. It may be guessed, therefore,
that the receipt of the circular had for a moment an almost paralysing
effect on those to whom it was addressed, owing to the astonishment which
it occasioned them. It certainly was a daring surprise, but like so many
deformed people, Badcock was forward and hard to check; he was a pushing
fellow to whom the present was just the opportunity he wanted for
carrying war into the enemy's quarters.

Ernest and his friends consulted. Moved by the feeling that as they were
now preparing to be clergymen they ought not to stand so stiffly on
social dignity as heretofore, and also perhaps by the desire to have a
good private view of a preacher who was then much upon the lips of men,
they decided to accept the invitation. When the appointed time came they
went with some confusion and self-abasement to the rooms of this man, on
whom they had looked down hitherto as from an immeasurable height, and
with whom nothing would have made them believe a few weeks earlier that
they could ever come to be on speaking terms.

Mr Hawke was a very different-looking person from Badcock. He was
remarkably handsome, or rather would have been but for the thinness of
his lips, and a look of too great firmness and inflexibility. His
features were a good deal like those of Leonardo da Vinci; moreover he
was kempt, looked in vigorous health, and was of a ruddy countenance. He
was extremely courteous in his manner, and paid a good deal of attention
to Badcock, of whom he seemed to think highly. Altogether our young
friends were taken aback, and inclined to think smaller beer of
themselves and larger of Badcock than was agreeable to the old Adam who
was still alive within them. A few well-known "Sims" from St John's and
other colleges were present, but not enough to swamp the Ernest set, as
for the sake of brevity, I will call them.

After a preliminary conversation in which there was nothing to offend,
the business of the evening began by Mr Hawke's standing up at one end of
the table, and saying "Let us pray." The Ernest set did not like this,
but they could not help themselves, so they knelt down and repeated the
Lord's Prayer and a few others after Mr Hawke, who delivered them
remarkably well. Then, when all had sat down, Mr Hawke addressed them,
speaking without notes and taking for his text the words, "Saul, Saul,
why persecutest thou me?" Whether owing to Mr Hawke's manner, which was
impressive, or to his well-known reputation for ability, or whether from
the fact that each one of the Ernest set knew that he had been more or
less a persecutor of the "Sims" and yet felt instinctively that the
"Sims" were after all much more like the early Christians than he was
himself--at any rate the text, familiar though it was, went home to the
consciences of Ernest and his friends as it had never yet done. If Mr
Hawke had stopped here he would have almost said enough; as he scanned
the faces turned towards him, and saw the impression he had made, he was
perhaps minded to bring his sermon to an end before beginning it, but if
so, he reconsidered himself and proceeded as follows. I give the sermon
in full, for it is a typical one, and will explain a state of mind which
in another generation or two will seem to stand sadly in need of
explanation.

"My young friends," said Mr Hawke, "I am persuaded there is not one of
you here who doubts the existence of a Personal God. If there were, it
is to him assuredly that I should first address myself. Should I be
mistaken in my belief that all here assembled accept the existence of a
God who is present amongst us though we see him not, and whose eye is
upon our most secret thoughts, let me implore the doubter to confer with
me in private before we part; I will then put before him considerations
through which God has been mercifully pleased to reveal himself to me, so
far as man can understand him, and which I have found bring peace to the
minds of others who have doubted.

"I assume also that there is none who doubts but that this God, after
whose likeness we have been made, did in the course of time have pity
upon man's blindness, and assume our nature, taking flesh and coming down
and dwelling among us as a man indistinguishable physically from
ourselves. He who made the sun, moon and stars, the world and all that
therein is, came down from Heaven in the person of his Son, with the
express purpose of leading a scorned life, and dying the most cruel,
shameful death which fiendish ingenuity has invented.

"While on earth he worked many miracles. He gave sight to the blind,
raised the dead to life, fed thousands with a few loaves and fishes, and
was seen to walk upon the waves, but at the end of his appointed time he
died, as was foredetermined, upon the cross, and was buried by a few
faithful friends. Those, however, who had put him to death set a jealous
watch over his tomb.

"There is no one, I feel sure, in this room who doubts any part of the
foregoing, but if there is, let me again pray him to confer with me in
private, and I doubt not that by the blessing of God his doubts will
cease.

"The next day but one after our Lord was buried, the tomb being still
jealously guarded by enemies, an angel was seen descending from Heaven
with glittering raiment and a countenance that shone like fire. This
glorious being rolled away the stone from the grave, and our Lord himself
came forth, risen from the dead.

"My young friends, this is no fanciful story like those of the ancient
deities, but a matter of plain history as certain as that you and I are
now here together. If there is one fact better vouched for than another
in the whole range of certainties it is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ;
nor is it less well assured that a few weeks after he had risen from the
dead, our Lord was seen by many hundreds of men and women to rise amid a
host of angels into the air upon a heavenward journey till the clouds
covered him and concealed him from the sight of men.

"It may be said that the truth of these statements has been denied, but
what, let me ask you, has become of the questioners? Where are they now?
Do we see them or hear of them? Have they been able to hold what little
ground they made during the supineness of the last century? Is there one
of your fathers or mothers or friends who does not see through them? Is
there a single teacher or preacher in this great University who has not
examined what these men had to say, and found it naught? Did you ever
meet one of them, or do you find any of their books securing the
respectful attention of those competent to judge concerning them? I
think not; and I think also you know as well as I do why it is that they
have sunk back into the abyss from which they for a time emerged: it is
because after the most careful and patient examination by the ablest and
most judicial minds of many countries, their arguments were found so
untenable that they themselves renounced them. They fled from the field
routed, dismayed, and suing for peace; nor have they again come to the
front in any civilised country.

"You know these things. Why, then, do I insist upon them? My dear young
friends, your own consciousness will have made the answer to each one of
you already; it is because, though you know so well that these things did
verily and indeed happen, you know also that you have not realised them
to yourselves as it was your duty to do, nor heeded their momentous,
awful import.

"And now let me go further. You all know that you will one day come to
die, or if not to die--for there are not wanting signs which make me hope
that the Lord may come again, while some of us now present are alive--yet
to be changed; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised
incorruptible, for this corruption must put on incorruption, and this
mortal put on immortality, and the saying shall be brought to pass that
is written, 'Death is swallowed up in victory.'

"Do you, or do you not believe that you will one day stand before the
Judgement Seat of Christ? Do you, or do you not believe that you will
have to give an account for every idle word that you have ever spoken? Do
you, or do you not believe that you are called to live, not according to
the will of man, but according to the will of that Christ who came down
from Heaven out of love for you, who suffered and died for you, who calls
you to him, and yearns towards you that you may take heed even in this
your day--but who, if you heed not, will also one day judge you, and with
whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning?

"My dear young friends, strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which
leadeth to Eternal Life, and few there be that find it. Few, few, few,
for he who will not give up ALL for Christ's sake, has given up nothing.

"If you would live in the friendship of this world, if indeed you are not
prepared to give up everything you most fondly cherish, should the Lord
require it of you, then, I say, put the idea of Christ deliberately on
one side at once. Spit upon him, buffet him, crucify him anew, do
anything you like so long as you secure the friendship of this world
while it is still in your power to do so; the pleasures of this brief
life may not be worth paying for by the torments of eternity, but they
are something while they last. If, on the other hand, you would live in
the friendship of God, and be among the number of those for whom Christ
has not died in vain; if, in a word, you value your eternal welfare, then
give up the friendship of this world; of a surety you must make your
choice between God and Mammon, for you cannot serve both.

"I put these considerations before you, if so homely a term may be
pardoned, as a plain matter of business. There is nothing low or
unworthy in this, as some lately have pretended, for all nature shows us
that there is nothing more acceptable to God than an enlightened view of
our own self-interest; never let anyone delude you here; it is a simple
question of fact; did certain things happen or did they not? If they did
happen, is it reasonable to suppose that you will make yourselves and
others more happy by one course of conduct or by another?

"And now let me ask you what answer you have made to this question
hitherto? Whose friendship have you chosen? If, knowing what you know,
you have not yet begun to act according to the immensity of the knowledge
that is in you, then he who builds his house and lays up his treasure on
the edge of a crater of molten lava is a sane, sensible person in
comparison with yourselves. I say this as no figure of speech or bugbear
with which to frighten you, but as an unvarnished unexaggerated statement
which will be no more disputed by yourselves than by me."

And now Mr Hawke, who up to this time had spoken with singular quietness,
changed his manner to one of greater warmth and continued--

"Oh! my young friends turn, turn, turn, now while it is called to-day--now
from this hour, from this instant; stay not even to gird up your loins;
look not behind you for a second, but fly into the bosom of that Christ
who is to be found of all who seek him, and from that fearful wrath of
God which lieth in wait for those who know not the things belonging to
their peace. For the Son of Man cometh as a thief in the night, and
there is not one of us can tell but what this day his soul may be
required of him. If there is even one here who has heeded me,"--and he
let his eye fall for an instant upon almost all his hearers, but
especially on the Ernest set--"I shall know that it was not for nothing
that I felt the call of the Lord, and heard as I thought a voice by night
that bade me come hither quickly, for there was a chosen vessel who had
need of me."

Here Mr Hawke ended rather abruptly; his earnest manner, striking
countenance and excellent delivery had produced an effect greater than
the actual words I have given can convey to the reader; the virtue lay in
the man more than in what he said; as for the last few mysterious words
about his having heard a voice by night, their effect was magical; there
was not one who did not look down to the ground, nor who in his heart did
not half believe that he was the chosen vessel on whose especial behalf
God had sent Mr Hawke to Cambridge. Even if this were not so, each one
of them felt that he was now for the first time in the actual presence of
one who had had a direct communication from the Almighty, and they were
thus suddenly brought a hundredfold nearer to the New Testament miracles.
They were amazed, not to say scared, and as though by tacit consent they
gathered together, thanked Mr Hawke for his sermon, said good-night in a
humble deferential manner to Badcock and the other Simeonites, and left
the room together. They had heard nothing but what they had been hearing
all their lives; how was it, then, that they were so dumbfoundered by it?
I suppose partly because they had lately begun to think more seriously,
and were in a fit state to be impressed, partly from the greater
directness with which each felt himself addressed, through the sermon
being delivered in a room, and partly to the logical consistency, freedom
from exaggeration, and profound air of conviction with which Mr Hawke had
spoken. His simplicity and obvious earnestness had impressed them even
before he had alluded to his special mission, but this clenched
everything, and the words "Lord, is it I?" were upon the hearts of each
as they walked pensively home through moonlit courts and cloisters.

I do not know what passed among the Simeonites after the Ernest set had
left them, but they would have been more than mortal if they had not been
a good deal elated with the results of the evening. Why, one of Ernest's
friends was in the University eleven, and he had actually been in
Badcock's rooms and had slunk off on saying good-night as meekly as any
of them. It was no small thing to have scored a success like this.




CHAPTER L


Ernest felt now that the turning point of his life had come. He would
give up all for Christ--even his tobacco.

So he gathered together his pipes and pouches, and locked them up in his
portmanteau under his bed where they should be out of sight, and as much
out of mind as possible. He did not burn them, because someone might
come in who wanted to smoke, and though he might abridge his own liberty,
yet, as smoking was not a sin, there was no reason why he should be hard
on other people.

After breakfast he left his rooms to call on a man named Dawson, who had
been one of Mr Hawke's hearers on the preceding evening, and who was
reading for ordination at the forthcoming Ember Weeks, now only four
months distant. This man had been always of a rather serious turn of
mind--a little too much so for Ernest's taste; but times had changed, and
Dawson's undoubted sincerity seemed to render him a fitting counsellor
for Ernest at the present time. As he was going through the first court
of John's on his way to Dawson's rooms, he met Badcock, and greeted him
with some deference. His advance was received with one of those ecstatic
gleams which shone occasionally upon the face of Badcock, and which, if
Ernest had known more, would have reminded him of Robespierre. As it
was, he saw it and unconsciously recognised the unrest and
self-seekingness of the man, but could not yet formulate them; he
disliked Badcock more than ever, but as he was going to profit by the
spiritual benefits which he had put in his way, he was bound to be civil
to him, and civil he therefore was.

Badcock told him that Mr Hawke had returned to town immediately his
discourse was over, but that before doing so he had enquired particularly
who Ernest and two or three others were. I believe each one of Ernest's
friends was given to understand that he had been more or less
particularly enquired after. Ernest's vanity--for he was his mother's
son--was tickled at this; the idea again presented itself to him that he
might be the one for whose benefit Mr Hawke had been sent. There was
something, too, in Badcock's manner which conveyed the idea that he could
say more if he chose, but had been enjoined to silence.

On reaching Dawson's rooms, he found his friend in raptures over the
discourse of the preceding evening. Hardly less delighted was he with
the effect it had produced on Ernest. He had always known, he said, that
Ernest would come round; he had been sure of it, but he had hardly
expected the conversion to be so sudden. Ernest said no more had he, but
now that he saw his duty so clearly he would get ordained as soon as
possible, and take a curacy, even though the doing so would make him have
to go down from Cambridge earlier, which would be a great grief to him.
Dawson applauded this determination, and it was arranged that as Ernest
was still more or less of a weak brother, Dawson should take him, so to
speak, in spiritual tow for a while, and strengthen and confirm his
faith.