Master and Servant

A full, frank, unreserved confession of the truth, a scouring out of every dirty corner of the conscience, even though it were made before man, gives a kind of strength to the penitent. The unlocking of the heart’s doors, and throwing them wide open, so that the pure fresh air may enter, brings health to the soul. The making another, as it were, a partaker of one’s consciousness is to shift one end of the burden on to his shoulders, Why are we so anxious to hear that the condemned murderer has admitted his guilt? One reason is because we know it will make him stronger to face his dreadful doom; and there is also, possibly, a something else which we do not care to acknowledge, namely, a secret desire to share the load on his conscience. He who makes complete confession of his sin, though it were black as hell, partakes, in a measure, of the man’s strength who tells the truth. He strikes the devil in the forehead, and lifts himself in the scale of being infinitely higher than the hypocrite. The father can use the rod with some degree of relish across that boy’s back who is a sneak; but to beat the bad, mischievous lad, who openly confesses his guilt. excites a paternal rheumatism of the shoulder-blade which puts off the punishment—for ever. Why does God want to hear us confess our sins? Is it because He does not know them already? No, but because He wants to hear us tell the truth, even were that truth the ugly one of rebellion against Himself. There are natural sneaks, and there are spiritual; both equally abominable in the sight of God. Tell the truth though you be crucified for it, is His command. Truth in all its hard and hideous deformity is more acceptable unto Him than the simulating lie, hidden by groans and tears. To the hypocrite and the sanctimonious He will say: “If it is the darkness thou lovest, if it is thine own caves thou likest best to live in, I will take care thou art provided with a congenial dwelling place, where never gleam of light shall enter, save that of the inverted lamp of thy conscience.”

Having, as it were, turned myself inside out to my master, although my condition was not more hopeful, nor my future one atom the clearer, I felt strengthened. It was as if I had repudiated the name hypocrite, and had summoned up sufficient courage to tell the naked truth about myself, so that, supposing I must go to perdition, I should not march thither under the banner of heaven. At eight o’clock the previous evening Abel Hughes and his sister knew next to nothing of the wickedness and sin of which I had been guilty. Descending the stairs on the morrow after a sleepless night, I reflected that the two knew almost as much of my personal history as I did myself; and yet I felt I could look them in the face more straightly and honestly than I had done for years. What gave me this confidence? For one thing, I was no longer the skulking cur I had been. For another, I believed both were truly religious, loved God, and on that account loved man, even though he happened to be in the gutter. Had I not been sure they were religious, would I have made them the full confession I did? I fancy not. Had I mistaken Abel Hughes’s real character, into whose hands would he have committed me after I had admitted all my faults? Heaven knows. Abel Hughes! thy name is enshrined in my heart and memory! Thy rectitude and austerity were as severe as Sinai’s own; but thy heart of hearts was saturated with the forgiving principle and appeasing blood of Calvary. I knew in whom I had trusted, though in fear. At breakfast I marvelled greatly at the courtesy and kindness displayed by Abel and his sister. I felt -abashed and undeserving of such treatment. My feelings nearly overcame, my food nearly choked me. I could not help the notion that there was something God-like in the forgiveness and the courtesy of pious people. I fancied morning service had an unusual unction about it; of a truth I enjoyed Abel’s prayer as I had not for long previously done. At the same time I felt unhappy and in disgrace, and I made up my mind to ask the master to have me expelled the church —which I believed he would do, whether I asked him or not.

Abel came into the shop shortly after me, and having cast his eye over an invoice, bade Jones check it, adding—“Jones, should someone inquire for me, say I’ll be here directly; but don’t come to fetch me, because I have a bit of business on hand. Rhys, you’d better come and help me.”

He walked into the parlour and I followed him. He locked the door directly, and bade me be seated. He sat down opposite me. My heart beat like a newly caught bird’s. I feared I had mistaken my master’s real character after all, and had been foolish in confessing my every fault to him, And yet, I was not sorry I had done so, whatever the consequences might be. These and many other thoughts flashed through my mind in the course of a very few seconds. For a moment or two before breaking silence he looked me earnestly in the face, I making an effort honestly to return the gaze. Before he had said a word I fancied I saw beyond the seriousness of his countenance a back ground of mercy and forgiveness. I have thought, by the way, that some good, like most bad men, have two faces. Beneath the rough, frowning aspect you often find the tender, merciful one, or the man himself, just as you may discern under the hypocrite’s smiles the Devil standing on his head. I fancied I saw the merciful man beneath the clouded brow of Abel Hughes, just before he began speaking thus:—

“Your mother, who is to-day, I am pretty sure, in heaven —she and I were great friends; and I promised her, before her death, I would take care of you and do my best for you. She had a high opinion of you—too high, I fear; but I warrant me she was judging you would turn out as you should have done, after all the care she took of you—all the religious instruction she gave you, and all her prayers on your behalf. When you were telling me your story last night, I felt very thankful that your mother was in her grave. I never remember meeting one who could possess her soul in patience under the bitterest trials like your mother; and, as you know, she had an abundance of them. But I firmly believe if she had lived to see your debasement—and she surely would have seen it, because she was sharper sighted than I—it would be more than even she could have borne. It would have broken her heart. I recollect, at this minute, how she used to tell me, with brightening face, what a help she got in forgetting all her trouble with your father, all her poverty and hardship, from seeing you grow up in the way she liked; how you would learn chapters from the Bible unasked and could repeat parts of sermons while you were yet a mere child. When you were not within hearing, she would talk about you by the hour; and often did she ask me whether I thought you would ever make a preacher. Were she alive to-day she would a thousand times have preferred to hear that you had died of starvation by the roadside, than that you had fallen off to the extent you have done. But she was spared all this, and went to her grave believing her only son would not disgrace her teaching. Well, I must say I have been sadly deceived in you. I believe, however, you have made an honest confession, And, mark this—I believe you. If you thought I did not, you would be doing yourself a great wrong. I am pretty certain you have told me the truth. But have you told me the whole?”

“Yes, the whole, I think,” replied I.

“Very well. Have you spoken to anyone besides my sister and myself?”

“Not a word to any living soul,” was my answer.

“Better still. You have made a clean breast of it, and I do not see that any good can come of your telling anybody else. These things might be cast in your teeth to the end of your days; because it often happens that man is reproached for old faults by his fellows, years after God has forgiven him. If I had not myself known something, from experience, of the depravity of heart of fallen humanity, possibly I might have looked differently upon your confession. But I do know something of the struggle against temptation and being once and again overcome, and I trust I know something also of coming out of the fight victorious. Perhaps there may be those who’ll say my duty is to turn you out of doors, proclaim your faults to the world and expel you from the church; and they might think me merciful for not doing more. But I shall do neither the one thing nor the other. Why should I? I am a great sinner myself. I reflected last night, after you had gone to bed, that if we were each to make full and complete confession of our faults, what strangers we should become to one another! I thought, also, how small is the real difference between the best and the worst of us. Tell me honestly, now—but, for that matter, I know you will not do otherwise—have you declared eternal war against the devil and the depravity of your own heart? Are you resolved, with the help of God, either to conquer or die in the strife?”

“I have nothing to conceal,” replied I. “I hate myself, but I have no one in my own stead to dote upon. I hate my actions and my evil habits of old, but I find no pleasure in any other. The truth is, I have no love for myself or for anything outside myself, which is the same, I fear, as to say I hate everything.”

“So,” said Abel. “It would be vain for me to give you those counsels which are given every day to all men—those you have heard hundreds of times from the pulpit and in the Society, and which have, to a great extent, become meaningless by this time, both to those who give and those who are given them. But did you ever before feel as you have felt for the last few weeks? “Try and call to mind, now.”

“No, for certain,” I replied.

“Good. Do you remember a time when you were tolerably contented in spirit, when you enjoyed the service in chape and were able to go to bed at night undisturbed by fears and the admonitions of conscience?”

“I do very well. Such was the case with me for many years,” I answered.

“Now,” said Abel, “can you tell me what constituted your happiness at that time? Was it your own purity; or was it because you had never given yourself a thought? Was it because you knew God, because you had caught a glimpse of His divine majesty, His stainless sanctity, His hate of every appearance of evil? Was it because you had felt His infinite love in giving His Son to death for us, had rested your soul upon Christ’s atonement and sacrifice, and enjoyed the peace which is in the Gospel in consequence? Was it that which made you happy?”

“I do not know,” replied I.

I. “Try and think. We will wait a minute or two, for you may consider,” said Abel. -

“I fancy,” I presently observed, “that my former happiness consisted in an utter absence of a right knowledge of myself, together with the fact that I had not realised a single great truth concerning God and his ordinances. In other words, now I come to think of it, I believe it was my ignorance of myself and of God that made up my happiness.”

“Just so,” remarked Abel. “But one question more. You recollect a time, do you not, before you had committed those sins to which you referred last night? Good. When you began committing them, I know it was the least heinous of them—if it is right I should say so—you committed first, was it not? Now in committing the first, how did you feel? Did you feel as if you were travelling some new road, or as if you were merely on an old one which had deteriorated? Did you feel you had made a ‘right about face,’ as these volunteers say?”

“No, I think not,” I replied. “I believe I was always in the same road, only I found it becoming worse as I walked.”

“I guessed as much,” said Abel. “Now, taking your own account, do you not see there is greater hope of your salvation to-day than ever there was? Even during your best period you never seem to have realised your condition as a sinner, nor to have had any just comprehension of that God whom, in seeming, you worshipped. Your ignorance was your castle of bliss. You were on the way to destruction from your birth. But now, here is God in His mercy raising a storm about you and casting a tree athwart your path. You must return to the cross-road and take an entirely new turning. And, observe— this happens in the life of every man who is saved.”

“How am I to do it? I fear God will not hearken unto me,” I said.

“Have you tried Him? Have you told Him the whole story of the old way, and asked him to direct you into the new?” asked Abel.

“I have asked Him hundreds of times for His guidance, but I have never told Him all my history. To what purpose? God knows it better than I do myself,” replied I.

“It is there you are mistaken,” returned Abel. “According to your reasoning there would be no necessity for prayer at all, because He knows the heart’s deepest and most secret thoughts and desires. But remember, He will not hear your prayer, or mine either, while we keep back anything we know to be faulty in us, and do not tell it to Him—not publicly, but in the privacy of our own room, I mean. You may be certain that the publican had gone over all the particulars before entering the temple. I do not believe Christ would have answered the prayer of the thief in such few words but that He was pinched for time. There never was any good of doing things by halves. Open out your heart before Him, and make a full and minute confession of your faults. You need not fear you will bore Him with tediousness to whom a thousand years are as one day. Although the sins are an abomination unto Him, He is not displeased to hear the sinner confess them, if in his heart he be truly repentant, and show a sincere desire for forgiveness and a complete escape from their influence.”

Abel paused a minute or so at this point, as if anxious to ascertain whether his words had any effect upon me. I felt profoundly all that had been said, but could find no other words for reply than: “I thank you from my heart, master; but my sins are great and manifold.”

“They are,” he rejoined, “greater and more numerous by far than you have yet imagined; and so are mine. We both —we all, for that matter—are in the same unlucky boat. You, I know, have read more than the generality of boys hereabouts, and so I don’t mind telling you a bit of my experience, since it is relating experiences we are. I never told this experience in the Society, and if you live to my age, you too will have experiences which you will never divulge either to the church or your greatest friend, and will have feelings which you cannot convey in words, even to yourself. When I was a youth a little older than you are, the incarnation of the Son of God appeared to me to be unreasonable, improbable and beyond belief. I had not your religious rearing; but I received a little day school, and was fond of reading and study. For all that, I wallowed in the vilest sin. I used, occasionally, to go and hear the Gospel, and took some sort of interest in the preacher. Like Zacchæus of old I would climb to the top of a tree for a good view of preacher and congregation; but, contrary to him, Salvation did not come to my house. In course of time there happened that great religious revival of which your mother was ever and always talking, when I and hundreds of others were convinced of our sins. In the frightful sight of my guilt then given me I perceived the reason for the incarnation. And, if you have noticed, you have never found one who, having been awakened to the enormity of his sin, has doubted any longer the coming of Christ in the flesh. It is those who have loose notions of sin who are the exceptions, Call to mind the old religionists—those of the great revival, your mother called them. Did you ever see their like for the intensity of their love towards Jesus, a love that annihilated every obstacle in its way? What was the reason for this? They were people who had had a vision of sin such as is not often got, I fear, in these days. But this is what I was saying: If you have seen your condition in its true light—and I believe that to some extent you have—do you not begin to perceive the reason for the incarnation? Do you not see there is something in your despair and in the depth of your wretchedness which shows that His errand to the world has not been in vain? Solomon, if you remember, in thinking of his insignificance and misery, almost doubted whether God dwelt with man on earth. But, for my part, I do not see there is anything in man save his terrible wretchedness, which could have moved the bowels of God’s infinite compassion, nor any object grand and deserving enough to call for His appearance in the flesh but that. I am now an old man, and an old sinner, and am prouder of the name than if I were an angel, because I feel I am an item, an atom, in that great scheme whereby God was, as it were, made to come out of Himself. It is here, my son, that your salvation lies, if you are ever to find any. To me the existence, the sin and the misery of man are inexplicable, save in the glow of that accursed death upon the Cross. In the darkness prevailing from the sixth until the ninth hour alone do I see what of light and hope it is possible for man in his condition to find. It is the old story, you see, that I, too, have to tell; but were it not for this same old story the country would not have asylums enough to hold its madmen. And there is no other story worth repeating, in your case—no other name under heaven wherein it will pay you to confide. Have you ever wondered at the silence of God? If you have not, you will, assuredly, have some feeling of the kind, some day. When I was a young man the thought of it used to oppress me greatly. I often walked the night alone, especially if the heavens were clear. The appearance of moon and stars made me melancholy, How far, how old and how silent they were, methought! They were fixed now in the firmament just as they were when my father, grandfather and great-grandfather gazed up at them. I marvelled to think how many generations of men, now in the dust, had looked at them, as I did, in the same spot which they had occupied in the time of the Druids, the time of Paul, the time of Moses, Abraham, Noah and Adam. And yet how silent, ever! How vast the experience they must have gathered! And yet they never told me anything to calm my restless mind! In vain did I ask what was beyond them; they but twinkled, voicelessly, down upon me, creating within me uneasiness and doubt and thoughts unspeakable even unto myself. Many times did I look up, and for long, expecting some extraordinary manifestation, but in vain. All went on as usual. And did you and I go out to-night after dark we should find everything just the same as when Isaac meditated in the field. Well, thoughts like these made me gloomy. There was something in the depth of my soul which ‘asked a sign.’ I recalled the story of the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, and fancied there was some sense in that; something which man could see and be certain about. I remembered, also, Joshua in the Valley of Gibeon commanding, in God’s name, the sun to stand still, and it did so. There was something noble in that; something to bring peace to the uneasy mind of man. And then I would ask myself why had we been deprived of all such signs for centuries, why had ages been passed in most painful silence? I felt, somehow, as if God had gone from home, and left everything and every place empty and mute. At times I had such a strange, overwhelming desire to see God marching to the front from the distances to which He had retired, that I would have willingly been witness to another general Deluge, whatever my fate therein might be! What gave my mind unrest? I believe it was the original aspirations implanted in the soul after a knowledge of God’s purpose and intent with regard to man and his future that had been seriously disturbed. But this is what I was leading up to: I never had a moment’s peace and quiet for my mind until I got to believe, with all my heart, the great fact of the Lord’s appearance in the flesh. Though I knew the story already, I had not believed it, believed it with an object, until I came to feel the depth of my depravity, and was made conscious of the elements of wretchedness, evergrowing and immeasurable, within my own being. Beyond the belief of Christ’s coming in the flesh, there is but the silence of the grave for me, everywhere; there is no clear answer to one single question of my perturbed soul. But the life, teaching, death, atonement and resurrection of our Saviour defy the soul to put a question which cannot be satisfactorily answered.

“Now, my son, I will not ask you whether you know the story; I know you do, as well as I. But do you believe it, wholly, unhesitatingly and for ever? I do not expect from you a decisive answer. For my own part, I do not attach much weight to the instant belief which some people talk of. My own experience teaches me that man does not gain it except by hard study, deep and constant meditation, and prayer without ceasing. My great desire is to set you on the way to begin the work of seriously seeking the help of the Spirit to guide you aright. And if you but apply yourself assiduously, the day will surely come when you will be thankful for your present misery; when the eye of your mind will have been opened to see His love who remembered us in our low estate. Is there anything you would like to ask me?”

“I feel, sir,” I replied, “that there are a great many things I would like to ask you; but I cannot give them form. I feel some great want, but I cannot give it words, and I am not sure I know its nature. I had thought there never was another who had felt as I did, but you have given much of the history of my own heart. I am conscious of a void which requires filling, and that that which would fill it is far removed from me. How am I to satisfy my want and find the peace which you have found?”

“Man’s heart is by nature empty,” replied Abel, “but once awakened, it constantly aspires. There is a danger, however— especially to him who has read and studied a little—there is a danger, I say, of his living upon the dreams of his heart, and taking those for religion. Guard yourself carefully against it. In many instances this makes the religion of the sceptic; because, as a rule, it is not amongst the illiterate, ignorant classes you will find a sceptic, but amongst the studious and well-read. How is this? Well, this is how I see it. Reading and study awaken the heart to its wants, cause it to question itself; and once the questioning begins, there is plenty of work to do. The sceptic keeps up the process of self-inquiry without getting an answer to one of his great questions. At first the questions are his great things; but in the end his great thing becomes his inability to answer. Little by little he satisfies himself with, sometimes boasts of, his want of knowledge. It being his own heart and understanding he appeals to, he is obliged to sum up his belief in the two words—Don’t know. I make no pretence to being a philosopher, but I am certain I have a restless heart and soul that are asking questions ever. Well, if I couldn’t reach higher ground and a better creed than that contained in the ‘Don’t know,’ I should be the most wretched creature living. Better I were an elephant, or an ass, or a monkey, than a man. Were I certain, in my own mind, that the utmost I could attain to by investigation and study is ‘Don’t know,’ I should take my hat off to every donkey I met, and call him Blessed! But, thank God! we have a revelation. To me two facts are plain. One is that man’s heart, once awakened, keeps questioning ceaselessly; the other, that the experience of the cleverest men the world ever saw is that the heart’s only answer to its own questions is, ‘Don’t know.’ Now, if the Bible answers the profoundest and most abstruse questions of my heart—if it can explain my existence, my wretchedness and my future—if it can direct me to One able to allay the uneasiness of my soul—I shall believe that Book has emanated from God. If it were not so, why not show me its equal, nay its superior? I challenge any man, any nation, aye, the pick of all the nations under heaven, to produce anything like it that is not indebted to the Bible itself for both thought and matter.

“But where am I wandering to, pray? What I was talking of was the danger of your living on the dreams of your heart and fancying that to be religion. Some people linger within themselves in melancholy, sentimental study, their high places being groans and tears. That is not religion. Religion is something more practical than that. It is a constant going out of yourself, is religion. ‘The kingdom of God within you,’ that’s religion, sure enough; but its ‘goings forth,’ like its Author, ‘have been from of old, from everlasting.’ You will get more good for your soul in one day from looking to Christ and endeavouring to do his commandments, than from a hundred years of looking into yourself. Do you know it is when you lose yourself in the desire to do the ordinary duties of life as a service to God that you become most religious? Behind the counter, serving a customer conscientiously and to the best of your ability, do you know you are pleasing God as well as when you are upon your knees in the privacy of your own apartment? Amidst all our stupidity, ignorance and darkness there appear some things of which we can be certain. You are sure in your mind that it is right to tell the truth; tell the truth, then, under every circumstance. You are sure that to live honestly is the proper thing; live, therefore, so honestly that conscience cannot raise a finger at you. Remember that whatever borders on shabbiness and meanness is detestable in the sight of God; and that the more of the gentleman there is in your conduct all the higher in the world will you stand in His esteem. Strive to keep your heart as pure as God’s own. You will discover directly—indeed I shall believe you have found it out already—that you can do nothing as you ought to do it, without His help and guidance. Every attempt of yours to lead a Godly life will awaken and set in motion some conflicting tendency of your nature, which will, I hope, bring you to the only One who can help you to overcome them all. Try and believe that God sympathises deeply with you in your degradation, darkness and impotence; otherwise He would not have sent His Son to die for you. But, believe also, that He has no sympathy with you when you give in to your weaknesses. It is only when you are fighting energetically against sin that His strength and sympathy will go forth unto you. At the beginning of your religious career—and I believe you are really beginning it only now—I would deeply impress upon you that religion is not a matter of shilly-shally. You know there are several in church with us, like William the Coal, who frequently fall into evil, and afterwards ere deeply affected by the sermon, cry in the Society, and lay the blame on Satan for their sins, as I have heard that that mischievous lad, Will Bryan, taunts our friend with doing. They believe the feeling under sermon and the crying in the Society are real religion. I do not know what to think of them. I hope God has some bye-law for their salvation. No, my son, it is not after the fall, religion’s bitterest tears are shed; it is in the struggle, in the fight, that the loud cry and the tears come, Perhaps I have spoken too much. You have, as you know, sinned against me; but I forgive you from the bottom of my heart, believing you are sorry for your transgression. If I, encompassed by weakness, can do this, how much more will He who is infinite in pity blot out your untruth, if you are truly repentant? Now, go back to your work, like a man, and remember that from this time forth I shall expect you to conduct the family worship alternately with myself.”

Abel unlocked the door and walked out, leaving me as if in a dream, although not in so dark a dream as some I had been in Previously. I trembled at Abel’s last words. Thenceforth, however, I looked upon him not as a master, but as a father.