The Clock-Cleaner’s Advice

I got light and blessing from that conversation with Abel Hughes in the parlour. I saw it was possible that one could be religiously brought up from childhood, could take an interest in chapel matters, derive some enjoyment from the ordinances of the Gospel, aye, be of service thereto, and yet not have been aroused to the great questions of eternal life. Furthermore, I understood from Abel’s words—and up to now I have had no reason to think him mistaken—that there was a particular juncture in the life of every believer, whether religiously brought up or not, when the spiritual light flashed upon his mind, causing him to see himself and all around him in an entirely new aspect. I understood also, and afterwards learned the fact by experience, that the more a man contemplates himself, and the deeper he penetrates the secrets of his own heart, the more sad and despairing does he become, the less likely to be of use either to himself or anybody else; and furthermore that the only medicine for one really awakened to his condition, one who has found that the depths of his soul contain but darkness and terror, is the fixing of his contemplations upon the glorious Person, spotless life and atoning death of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I recollect a remark of Abel’s, made a long while after our talk in the parlour.

“Were you troubled with biliousness,” he said, “is it by staying in your bedroom, looking at your tongue in the glass and wondering at its nasty fur coating, that you’d expect to get well? Not a bit of it. I know you’d have sense enough to take to your old walks again, and if that did not work a cure, you would call your companions together for a climb to the top of Moel Fammau, to get a view of the far-famed Vale of Clwyd. And I’ll warrant you the fresh air of old Moel would shift every grain of bile from your stomach, and that you would not turn up your nose at your dinner on your return. It’s the same thing exactly with religion. I have told you many times that you’ll never do any good by looking too much into yourself. Go out into the highways and fields of the Gospel. Muster your friends for a climb to the top of that hill on which the gentle Lamb suffered under nails of steel, and you shall find yourself healthier, purer and lighter spirited. Do you know what? There is a world of meaning in those words of old Dr. Johnson: ‘Gentlemen, let’s take a walk down Fleet Street.’ Johnson had many memories full of a revivifying charm connected with Fleet Street; so, when wearied of himself or the company, he would get up and say, ‘Gentlemen, let’s take a walk down Fleet Street.’ The old Doctor’s words have been as good as a verse for me, hundreds of times. The Gospel has its Fleet Street for the believer, fascinating and full of bittersweet recollections. Scores of times, when tired of the shop, cloyed with grey calico a groat a yard, brown holland at tenpence, and trifles like that, have I left everything and taken, with your mother or someone else, ‘a walk down Fleet Street.’ In going to chapel old Johnson’s saying was as often as any in my mind, ‘Gentlemen, let’s take a walk down Fleet Street.’”

I endeavoured to act upon my master’s advice, and succeeded to such a degree that I soon got to look something better than a roosting hen, with head under wing. I set to work to forget myself, to think more of Christ and his words, and to look at the bright side of the Gospel. I wondered I had not found out, before Abel told me, that herein lay the secret of my mother’s happiness.

“Think of your mother,” he said. “Do you know of anyone who met with so much trouble? And, for all that, did you ever see anyone enjoying so much real happiness? Where did her happiness come from? Was it from looking within? I don’t believe it a bit. She had learned to look at One worth the looking on. It always struck me that the greater her trouble the greater her happiness. Her poverty only made her think of the riches that are in Christ, while the ill-treatment she received at the hands of your inhuman father but made her revel in the Saviour’s gentleness and love. Don’t be angry with me, but the truth is, when I used to hear that your mother was in trouble, I would laugh and say, ‘Well, that’s another feast for Mary Lewis.’ Do you know what? You ought to be a brave lad, for you had a noble mother. I never saw one like her who could subsist so entirely upon the promises of her religion. In a manner of speaking, she had no business to die when she did. She was neither old nor diseased. ‘Abel,’ she said to me, when she went to live at Thomas Bartley’s, ‘there is no reason, is there, why one who has everything should live upon the parish? I’ll never take a penny from the parish, that’s the truth.’ No more did she, as you know. I have thought a great deal about her. When she saw she would be obliged shortly to depend upon parish relief, it affected her as the husks did the prodigal son. I fancied hearing her say, ‘Hold on, relieving officer! I That kind of food is an insult to my family; I will arise and go to my Father.’ I sometimes think that hers was a sort of insistence upon death, in order to prove the truth of tho promise that the righteous shall not be forsaken. Thomas Bartley must have been of the same opinion, although Thomas, I know, did not understand the philosophy of tho thing. I heard him say he ‘craved like a cripple’ for her not to die, but that die she would. I do not praise your mother for this, But there is something, you see, in religion of the best sort which makes one dreadfully independent of this world and its things. Try and get a religion like your mother’s.”

I have already said it was but little Abel spoke to me during the first years I was with him; no more than was absolutely necessary between master and servant. But after I had made a clean breast of it, his conduct entirely changed. His kindness and tenderness were boundless. On every opportunity he spoke freely and affably. After shutting shop he was constantly bringing some subject or other under my notice, and after examining me thereon, he would deliver his mind fully and lucidly. He would mention the books he had read, and point out their excellences and their defects. He spoke of the old preachers, described their appearance, dress and mode of delivery. He would repeat portions of their sermons in a manner which made me sometimes regret I had not been allowed to come into the world earlier. Abel appeared as if determined to break down every barrier, annihilate every distance between him and me. Since a lad I had entertained the greatest respect for him, and had regarded him as a model deacon; so that his condecension in thus noticing me, the trouble he took to teach me and to guide me in the paths of knowledge and religion, together with his frank and unostentatious generosity, made me love him, and feel wholly happy in his household. Miss Hughes rejoiced at my having been the means of making her brother so communicative and sociable; “instead of being,” as she expressed it, “with his nose in his book, or his head in the chimney all day long.” In a word, the old man had, in his latter days, found a son, and this gave him both the tongue and the heart of a father. Happiness smiled upon me once more. I took fresh delight, and a deeper and truer than ever, in the things of religion and the ordinances of the Gospel.

But I felt some uneasiness at the thought that I had not dealt decently by my old companion in mischief and iniquity, Will Bryan. I had never told him definitely why I shunned his company; and I had a notion that a thing of that sort was not gentlemanly, or what his friendship really deserved. I determined, therefore, to avail myself of the first opportunity I got to notify him that my mind had undergone a complete change, and that I wished to try, through the help of God, to become a good boy. From the bottom of my heart came the whisper, “Can I possibly win Will over to the same resolve?” I say it honestly, there was nothing on earth I would have desired better than to be able to persuade Will to leave his old ways; for I could not conceal from myself the fact that, although a church member of some sort, he was distinctly an ungodly youth. My soul clave unto him as Jonathan’s did to David, and the idea of breaking my connection with him was a terribly painful one. He had a large heart and a generous, and I could not forget his fidelity and kindness to me in days gone by. As I stated at the beginning of this history, when we were lads there was a great difference of station between us. I was poor and needy, Will in the midst of plenty; although never, even by a look, did he show himself conscious of the difference. Scores of times did he keep the wolf from my door; and, knowing my proud spirit, did so with an unstudied delicacy which left my feelings unhurt. At school I was weak and fragile; Will strong and hardy, the strength being always at my service to save me from wrong. Was it gentlemanly to forget all this? Was it right to break off the acquaintance? I was certain that after what I had lately gone through I could not hold communication with him without injury to my eternal welfare. Unable to bear the idea that Will should think meanly of me, I resolved to reveal myself to him at the first opportunity. All the same, I feared the encounter, because I knew him to be the stronger-minded. Truth to tell, he was chock full of natural talent; a fact which made me commiserate his absence from the right path. What, I uneasily reflected, if he took to jeer me? Well, there was nothing for it but to take the roasting quietly. I was anxious that our meeting should appear wholly accidental. And so it actually happened, for I came across him quite unexpectedly. His face wore its usual cheerfulness, and I saw that my conduct towards him had not made the slightest inroad upon his frank good nature.

“Holloa! old millenium!” he cried, extending his hand. “How be, these centuries? I was just beginning to think you’d gone to heaven, only I knew you wouldn’t leave without saying good bye to your old chum. Honour bright, now;—is it a fact that you’ve had a reformation, visitation, or whatever they call it. Know what? I too am quite ready to go to heaven or list a soldier—don’t care which; I’m clean tired of home. There’s been a deuce of a row yonder this week, for nothing at all, or nearly; and I’m not going to put up with much more humbug.”

“What was the bother about, Will?” I asked, taking up step with him.

You know that old eight day clock in the kitchen?” he said. “It had got to lose a bit lately—a fault by the way,” he added (in English, for whose accuracy or inaccuracy I do not hold myself responsible), not entirely unknown amongst other orders of superior creatures. I always fancied,” he went on, in Welsh, “I could mend it if I only had the time; for, though I had never tried my hand at clock cleaning, still, I ain’t stupid at such things, as you know. Well, the old people went to Wrexham fair, with [relapsing into English again] strict injunctions that Will in the meantime should diligently apply himself to weighing and wrapping sugar, which occupation the said Will considered unworthy of his admitted abilities; and the said Will, following his more congenial inclination, betook himself to clock-cleaning, thinking that thereby he did not waste valuable time by putting the time-keeper to rights. But [in Welsh] it was a bigger job than I had bargained for, my boy. In pulling the old arrangement to pieces, I had to make notes of where each piece came from, and what it belonged to. After cleaning the lot, and rubbing a little butter into every wheel, screw and bar—there was no oil in the house—it had got far into the afternoon, notwithstanding I had gone without my dinner, so as not to lose a minute. It was high time now to begin putting the pieces together if I wanted to finish before the gaffer came home. So far—good. But when I went to set my old Eight-Day to rights, and to consult my notes—you never saw such a mess. Exactly like Parson Brown, I couldn’t make out what I had written. But I learnt this much—that a man who takes to cleaning clocks, like the man who goes to preach, should be able to do the job without notes. You can’t imagine the fix I was in. You must remember that I was labouring under great disadvantages, all the tools I had being a knife and a shoemaker’s awl. I was sweating like a pig for fear old Pilgrim’s Progress should return from the fair before I got that precious article together. However, I worked like a nigger, and slapped up the affair some fashion. But when it was all over, I found myself with a wheel to spare which I didn’t know in the blessed world what to do with; so I put it in my pocked. Here it is.”

Will showed the wheel.

“Surely to goodness, I put old Eight back in his place, and wound him up; but first thing my nabs did was to strike, and strike, and keep on striking until the weights got to the bottom, and he could strike no longer. It struck thousands upon thousands did that blessed bell, and the sound of it got into my head and made me quite stupid. It made such a row that I feared the neighbours would think the Hall owner’s daughter was going to get married. After striking all it could, the next thing my beautiful must do was to stand stock still. As long as I kept shoving the pend’lum it went on pretty well, but directly I stopped shoving he stopped going. To tell you the truth, I laughed till I was ready to split. I could not have stopped if someone was to kill me. So here endeth a true account of the clock cleaning. But wait a bit. Presently, my boy, our ancient pilgrims came home, and the first thing they did, of course, was to go and look at the time. I had tried to guess it as near as I could, and placed the hands where they should be, so I thought. But the old woman spotted the clock to be on stop. ‘What’s the matter with this here clock, William?’ she asked. ‘Has it stopped? said I. ‘Looks like it, these two hours,’ she replied, jogging the pend’lum. I was nearly bursting with laughter. ‘What’s-the-matter-with-the-old-thing?’ said the dame fiercely, giving it a shake such as you’ve seen people give a drunken man who has fallen asleep by the road side. In order to get an excuse for laughing, I said, ‘I rather fancy, mother, he must have ruptured himself, like the Hall owner’s hunter, and that we must either open or shoot him.’ But the servant girl comes up at this point and lets on that I’ve been engaged all day cleaning old Eight. You never heard such a flustration! Mother bust up; the guv’nor went mad. I half believe the old man would like to have given me a licking, only he knew he couldn’t do it. This child subsided into his boots, Next day they sent in great haste for Mr. Spruce, the watchmaker, to set old Eight a-going. But I knew he couldn’t, for I had one of the wheels in my pocket. So did Will have revenge. ‘I give it up,’ said old Mainspring. But when this chap sees the old folk’s backs turned for six hours he’s bound to work a miracle on the old Eight Day. There! I I’ve told you my trouble. But, honour bright now, is it a fact that you’ve been born again?”

“Will,” replied I, “don’t you think it time we should both turn over a new leaf? I am not able to tell clearly whether I have been born again or not; but I’ll say this much—my mind has undergone a wonderful change of late. I have got to look upon everything in a different light, and I’m certain I can never again find any enjoyment in the old ways. Hell, another world, and the things of religion have been constantly in my mind for months past, and I couldn’t drive them out though I tried. I wanted to tell you I had resolved to become a good boy, if I shall have help to do so. And there is nothing on earth I would like better than for you to take the same resolution. You have always been a great friend of mine, and if our mode of life differs so much that we are obliged to part, it will be a most painful thing to me. You know as well as I, and better, that it won’t do to go on as we have done; it is sure to end badly. Do you not think of that, sometimes, Will?”

“Go on with your sermon. Say: ‘we will observe, secondly,’” returned Will.

“No sermon at all, Will,” said I. ‘Only a friendly conversation.”

“Well, if it isn’t a sermon, I’ve heard many worse,” he remarked. ‘‘But to be serious. I had for some time seen that you had gone on that line, and I said so, didn’t 1? To tell the truth, I didn’t much wonder at it, because religion comes natural to your family, barring your father—no offence, mind. If I’d been brought up like you, p’r’aps there’d be a touch of religion about me too; but you never saw less of that sort of thing anywhere than yonder, except the bit we get on Sunday. Though not quite a pattern of morality myself, still I think I know what religion is. If I hadn’t been acquainted with your mother, old Abel, ‘Old Waterworks,’ and some half a dozen others, I should have thought, for certain, they were hypocrites, the whole bag of tricks.”

“It isn’t proper in you, Will, to speak lightly of your parents,” I observed.

“I don’t speak lightly of them,” he rejoined. “It’s of their religion I’m talking; and man and his religion are two different things entirely. As a man of business, clever at a bargain, as a money-maker, and one who takes care to find plenty of grub for a chap, the gaffer is A 1. But I’ll take my oath he can’t repeat two verses of Scripture correctly, any more than myself. He never looks at the Bible except for a couple of minutes before going to school on the Sunday. It is as good as new now—the Bible he had presented him on his marriage; not like your mother’s, all to smithereens. I believe, though, that if his day-book and ledger caught fire to night, the old man would be able to copy them out pretty correctly next morning. It’s a fact, Sir. Do you think I don’t know what religion is? He puts down four shillings a month for mother, four shillings for himself, and a shilling for me, regularly, on the Society book. But do you s’pose credit is given for that in the ledger up above? It’s all my eye, lad. I know how things should be done, right enough, even if I don’t do them myself. If the gaffer fancies he can shut his conscience up in that way, I’m wide awake enough to know we can’t cheat the Almighty. I’m as certain as anybody that it is necessary to live religiously three hundred and sixty five days in the year, and not fifty two. Father and mother would make proper honorary members of a church if there were any. But there are none, I know, and so it’ll be no go with them in the end.”

“Your responsibility is so much the greater, Will; knowing what you ought to do and not doing it,” said I.

“Do you think you’re telling me anything new?” he asked. “I learnt all that when I was a kid. I am only speaking of the kind of rearing I’ve had, and what I have seen at home. ‘It is enough for the disciple that he be as his father.’ There’s a verse of that sort, isn’t there?”

“As his master,’” said I,

“Quite so,” quoth Will. “It’s very odd I can never repeat a verse without making some mistake, although I know hundreds of comic songs, right off the reel. But, with reference to religion, father and master, it’s all the same; and perhaps it may be father in the original, as they say. But to the point at issue. I know what a professor should be, both on Sunday and on Monday; but I’ve seen so much humbug, fudge and hypocrisy carried on that it’s made my heart quite hard, and filled my pockets with wild oats, which I am bound to go and sow, I fancy. Do you know what? I am quite ashamed to stay in the Society. Everybody must be aware I’m not fit to be there, and the Great King knows that my father, who compels me to belong to it, is just as fit to be there as myself. As a family, there is no more religion in us than in a milestone; nor as much, for that does answer the purpose for which it was made. You know I’m not a bad sort, by nature. I myself have often wondered how I’m so good. I’ve sometimes thought if I’d been son to some one like Abel Hughes, I should—well how do you know what I’d have been? But ‘to be or not to be, that is the question,’ says Shakspeare; ‘what is, is, and there’s an end of it,’ say I.”

“You’re in error, Will,” I remarked. ‘You know you can and ought to be something different to what you are. You have brilliant talents, and it is a pity you should use them in the service of the devil.”

“You may just as well stop it there,” said Will. ‘You can’t tell me anything I don’t know already. “I’would be sheer hypocrisy for me to say I’m turnip-headed. But, with religion, look you, brains without grace are good for nothing; and grace, you know, is not a thing you can buy in a shop, like a pound of sugar. It must either come straight from the head office or not at all.”

“Why don’t you go to the ‘head office’ to fetch it, then?” I asked.

“I knew you’d say that,” he replied; “but easier said than done. Something keeps telling me—I will not say it’s Satan, because William the Coal has laid quite enough blame on him already—something tells me I’ve not had my innings. Old Abel, or someone, has bowled you out, and I’m very glad it is so. But up to now I’m at the wicket; although, perhaps, I shall be ‘well caught’ or ‘spread-eagled’ some day. I hope so, because I shouldn’t care to carry my bat out, you know. I too would like to find religion, only it must be one of the right sort. ‘Beware of imitations’ is a motto for every man. P’r’aps you think Will is more hardened than he really is. Hold on a bit! I’m not quite like Spanish iron yet. You never saw me cry, did you? But many a night, when I have failed to sleep, and something within me kept telling me I was a wicked boy, I’ve had a right good cry. But by the morning I hardened again, and something would tell me I had let private apartments in my heart to some little devil who had become my master. I never got the least help from father and mother to turn him out. I much think it was to him your mother used to allude; only she called him the ‘old man.’ The Bible speaks, doesn’t it, of some bad sorts of them who won’t go out without fasting and prayer? Well, I can’t for the life of me pray—you can’t possibly get them in the humour for that, over yonder—and I can’t sham. Talk of fasting, why, I give my devil a dozen meals a day sometimes. I’ll take oath he’s as fat as mud by now. But to tell you the truth, I’d like to put him on one meal and starve him. I have studied a little of human nature, and I knew you felt shy of meeting me. You thought I meant to make fun of you. Far from it. I’m real glad you’ve been converted. You want to become a preacher, don’t you? You needn’t shake your head, it’s a preacher you will be. I knew it since you were a kid. That’s what your mother wanted you to be, and if she has asked it of the Almighty, He is bound to oblige her. P’r’aps you won’t believe me, but I’ll take oath I’ve often felt uncomfortable at the thought that I have done you harm. However, since you’ve had a turn, you’ll make a better preacher than if you’d always kept on the straight line. You know no one can play whist unless he is able to tell how many cards of any particular suit are out. I never saw any of these milk and water fellows—those who have never done wrong—making much of a mark at preaching. They don’t know the ins and outs, you see. They preach well, but nothing extra. Mark what I tell you: if you hear a man preaching extra good, and take the trouble to look up his history, you’re bound to find he has been, some time or another, off the rails. Did Peter never go off the rails? Yes, and what is more his engine went to smash as well. But he made a stunning preacher afterwards. Boss of the lot, wasn’t he? Well, if you’re for becoming a preacher—you needn’t shake your head, I tell you again, you’re bound to be—I’ll give you a word of advice. P’r’aps this ’ll be the last chance I shall have, because if there isn’t a change of policy over yonder very shortly, this chap will be heard saying, ‘Adieu! my native land, adieu!’ You’re cleverer than I am in Scripture, but p’r’aps I’ve noticed some things that you haven’t, and I may be able to give you a bit of advice which you won’t get in the Monthly Meeting, Well, remember to be true to nature. After you’ve begun preaching don’t change your face and your voice and your coat, all within the fortnight. If you do I shall be bound to chaff you. It’s God’s work, I know, your change of heart; but if your throat and voice change, that’ll be your work. And there’s no necessity for it—they’ll do very well as they are. Don’t try to be somebody else, or you’ll be nobody at all. D’ye know what? Some preachers are like ventriloquists. In the house each remains himself, but directly he gets into the pulpit, you might swear he was some other man, that other man being the poorer of the two, because he is not true to nature. Don’t go droning your reasons to the congregation, like one who isn’t in his senses; for the fact that you are in the pulpit doesn’t give you a license to be sillier than you are anywhere else. If you were to carry on a sing-song argument with a man in the street, or in the house, or before the magistrates, they’d cart you off to the asylum, right away. To hear a preacher tuning it, for all the world as if he were at a concert, one minute, and the next breaking off, sharp, and talking like anybody else, makes me think it’s all a dodge, and turns my heart to stone. When praying, don’t open your eyes. I’ll never believe anyone to be religious who looks up to see what o’clock it is, in the middle of prayer. I’ve seen men do that, and it has spoiled the pudding for me. When you are a preacher—as you are bound to be, so you needn’t shake your head—don’t take on you to be holier than you really are, or else you’ll make the children all afraid of you. D’ye know what? We had a preacher lodging at our house last Monthly Meeting, of whom I was afraid in my heart. He was in good health, and ate heartily, but kept on groaning at meals as if he had an everlasting toothache. It was just as if he wore a coffin plate upon his breast; I felt like being at a funeral, as long as he stayed there. I’d have been bolder, I swear, with the Apostle Paul, or Christ himself, had they visited us. It wasn’t true to nature, you know. If you want to give yourself airs of that sort, just you keep them till you get back to the house whose rent you pay. Be honourable, always. Don’t forget to give the girl at your lodgings sixpence, even if you haven’t another in your pocket; for she’ll never believe a word of your sermon if you don t. If you smoke—and all great preachers smoke—remember it is your own tobacco you use, or there’ll be grumbling after you’ve gone. You know I’m fond of a bit of nonsense; but, if you preach seriously, don’t tell funny stories after getting back to the house, or someone is sure to think you a humbug. I like the preacher who is true to nature, both in the pulpit and at home; but to hear one who has almost made me cry in chapel, afterwards quite make me laugh in the house, spoils the sermon for me. When preaching, don’t beat too long about the bush; come to the point, hit the nail upon the head and have done with it. Don’t talk too much about the law and things like that, for what do I and my sort know about the law come to the point—Jesus Christ. If you can’t make everyone in chapel listen to you, give it up as a bad job and take to selling calico. If you go to college— and I know you will—don’t be like the rest of them. They tell me the students are as much alike as postage stamps. Try and be an exception to the rule. Don’t let the deacons announce you as ‘a young man from Bala.’ Preach till it be sufficient to say, ‘Rhys Lewis,’ without mentioning where you come from. When in college, whatever else you learn, be sure you study nature, literature and English, for those will pay you for their keep, some day. If you get on well—and you’re bound to—don’t swallow the poker and forget old chums. Don’t wear specs to try and make people believe you’ve ruined your sight by study, and to give yourself an excuse for not remembering old friends; because everybody’ll know it’s all fudge. If you are ordained, don’t begin to wear a white neckerchief on the very next Sunday. If you never wore one it wouldn’t matter, for I shan’t believe Paul and his companions did—they had no time to wait to get them starched. Never break an engagement for the sake of better pay, or you’ll make far more infidels than Christians. Whatever you do, don’t become stingy, or christen yourself a saving man. Honour bright! I hope I shall never hear that about you; I’d rather hear of your going on the spree than that you had become a miser. I’ve never known a miser change, but I’ve seen scores of drunken men turning sober. It is stranger than fiction to me, but if you went on the spree only once they’d stop you from preaching; although if you were the biggest miser in the country you’d be allowed to go on just the same. Old fellow! don’t you think this is pretty good advice, considering who I am? Monthly Meeting will tell you all you want to know with respect to prayer and so on but it hasn’t the courage to give you the counsels I have given. Give us your paw and wire in, old boy!”

And Will left me before I could put in a word.