Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 327, January, 1843

"And I have tried," continued she, "as far as I was able, to please the God who made me."

"Did you never think yourself the vilest of the vile?"

"Bless you! never, sir. How could I? If I had been, you may be sure Mr Clayton and the visiting ladies would never have been so kind to me and Thomas as they have—and how could we expect it? I was only thinking, sir, before you came up, that if I had been wicked when I was young, I would never have been so easy under blindness. Now, it doesn't give me one unquiet hour."

"Margaret, I would you were more anxious."

"It wouldn't do, sir, for the blind to be anxious," she replied. "They must do nothing, sir, but wait with patience. Besides, Thomas and I need no anxiety at all. God gives us more than we require, and it would be very wicked to be restless and unquiet."

"Margaret," I said impressively, "there is heaven!"

"Yes," she answered quickly, "that I'm sure of. I read of it before I lost my eyes; and since my blindness I have seen it often. God is very good to the afflicted, and none but the afflicted know how He makes up for what He takes away. I have seen heaven, sir, though I have not sight enough to know your face. Do you play dominoes, Mr—what did you say your name was, sir?"

"You trifle, Margaret."

"Oh, no indeed, sir. But how wonderful and quick my touch has got, and how kind is heaven there, sir! I can see the dominoes with my fingers—touch is just as good as sight. Just think how many hours a poor blind creature has, that must be filled up some way or another! I like to keep to myself, and think, and think; but not always—and sometimes I want Thomas to read to me; and when that's over, I feel a want of something else. I'll tell you what it is—my eyes they want to open. When that's the case, I always play at dominoes, and then the feeling goes away. Thomas can tell you that, for he plays with me."

I continued the conversation for an hour, and with the same result. I grew annoyed and irritated—not with the deluded sinner, as I deemed her, but with myself, the feeble and unequal instrument. For a second time I had attempted to comply with the instructions of my master, and for a second time had I been foiled, and driven back in melancholy discomfiture. The imperturbability and easy replies of the woman harassed and tormented me in the extreme. I had been too recent a pupil to be thoroughly versed in all the subtleties and mysteries of my office. Silence was painful to me, and reply only accumulated difficulty and vexation. She seemed so happy, too; in the midst of all her heresy and error there existed an unaffected tranquillity and repose which I would have purchased at any cost or sacrifice. I blushed and grew ashamed, and for a moment forgot that the bereaved creature was unable to behold the confusion with which defeat and exposure had covered me. At length I spoke imperfectly, loosely, and at random. The woman detected me in an untenable position—checked me—and in her artless manner, laid bare the fallacy of an inconsiderate assertion. In an instant I was aware of my conviction, I retracted my expression, and involved myself immediately in fresh dilemma. Again, and as gently as before, she made the unsoundness of a principle evident and glaring. How I closed the argument—the conversation and the interview—and escaped from her, I know not. Burning with shame, despising myself, and desirous of burying both my disgrace and self deep in the earth, where both might be forgotten, I was sensible of hurrying homeward. I reached it in despair, satisfied that I had become a coward and a renegade, and that I was lost, hopelessly and utterly here upon earth, and eternally in heaven!

I had resolved, upon the day succeeding this adventure, to restore to my benefactor the credentials with which be had been pleased to entrust me. Satisfied of the truth of my commission, I could only deplore my inability to execute it faithfully. In spite of what had passed at the cottage-door, the doctrines which I had advocated there lost none of their character and influence upon my own mind. Falling from the lips of others, they dropped with conviction into my own soul. Nothing could shake my own unbounded reliance on their saving efficacy and heavenly origin. It was only when I spoke of them, when I attempted to expound and teach them, that clouds came over the celestial truths, and the sun's disk was dimmed and troubled. The moment that I ceased to speak, light unimpaired, and bright effulgence, were restored. It was enough that I could feel this. Grace and a miracle had made the startling fact palpable and evident. This assurance followed easily. No oral communication could have satisfied me more fully of the importance and necessity of an immediate resignation of my trust. It was a punishment for my presumption. I should have rested grateful for the interposition which had rescued me from the jaws of hell, and left to others, worthy of the transcendent honour, the glorious task of saving souls. What was I, steeped in sin, as I had been up to the very moment of my conversion—what was I, insolent, pretending worm, that I should raise my grovelling head, and presume upon the unmerited favour that had been showered so graciously upon me? It remained for those—purest and best of men, whose lives from childhood onward had been a lucid exposition of the word of truth—whose deeds had given to the world an assurance of their solemn embassy; it was for them to feel the strength the countenance, and support of heaven, and to behold with gratitude and joy their labours crowned with a triumphant issue and success. This was the new train of feeling suggested by new circumstances. I resigned myself to its operation as quickly as I had adopted my previous sentiments; and, a few days before, I was not more anxious to commence my sacred course than I was now miserable and uneasy until I turned from it once and for ever. Mr Clayton had placed in my hands a list of individuals whom he transferred to my care. It was oppressive to know that I possessed it, and my first step was to place it again at his disposal. The interview which I obtained for this purpose was an important one—important in itself—marvellous and astounding in its consequences.

Mr Clayton spent many hours daily in a small room, called a study. It was a chamber sacred to the occupation followed there. I had not access to it—nor had any stranger, with the exception of two ill-favoured men, whom I had found, for weeks together, constant attendants upon my benefactor. For a month at a time, not a single day elapsed during which they were not closeted for a considerable period with the divine. A three weeks' interval of absence would then take place; Mr Clayton prosecuted his studies alone and undisturbed, and no strange foot would cross the threshold until the ill-looking men returned, and passed some five weeks in the small sanctuary as before. Who could they be? I had never directly asked the question, curious as I had been to know their history and the purpose of their visits. Had I not learned from Mr Clayton the impropriety and sinfulness of judging humanity by its looks, I should have formed a most uncharitable opinion of their characters. They were hard-featured men, sallow of complexion, rigid in their looks. I knew that, attached to the church of Mr Clayton, were two missionaries—men of rare piety, and some of humble origin—small boot-makers, in fact; sometimes I believed that the visiters and they were the same individuals. Circumstances, however, unfavourable to this idea, arose, and I turned from one conjecture to another, until I reposed, at length, in the belief that they were sinners—sinners of the deepest dye—such as their ill-omened looks betrayed—and that they sought the kind and ever-ready minister to obtain his counsel, and to share his prayers. At all events, this was a subject upon which I received no enlightening from their confidant. Once I took occasion to make mention of it; but, in an instant, I perceived that my enquiry was not deemed proper to be answered. It was to this forbidden closet—the scene of so much mystery—that, to my great surprize, I found myself invited by my benefactor, when I implored him to release me from the obligation in which I had too hastily involved myself.

"Be seated, Caleb," said Mr Clayton, as we entered the room in company. "Be seated, and be tranquil. You are excited now."

I was, in truth, and not more so than deeply mortified and humbled.

"You alarm me, dear young friend," continued the good minister. "You alarm and grieve me. I tremble for you, when I behold your versatility. Tell me, how is this? Can you not trust yourself? Can I trust you?"

I did not answer.

"I have been careful in not thwarting your own good purposes. I have been most anxious to give your feelings their full bent. Has your conversion been too sudden to endure? Have you so soon regretted the abandonment of the great world and all its pleasures—such as they were to you? Has a life of usefulness and peace no charms? Alas! I had hoped otherwise."

I assured my friend that he had mistaken the motive which had compelled me to forsake, at least for the present, the intention that I had entertained honestly—though, I felt, erroneously—for the last few days. Nothing was further from my thoughts than a desire to mix again in a world of sinfulness and trouble. His precepts and bright example had won me from it; and I prayed only to be established in the principles, in the true knowledge of which I knew my happiness to consist. I was not equal to the task which I had proposed to myself, and he had kindly permitted me to assume. I wished to be his meanest disciple—to acquire wisdom from his tuition—and, by the labour of years, to prepare myself finally for that reward which he had so often announced to me as the peculiar inheritance of the faithful and the righteous. I ceased. My auditor did not answer me immediately. He sat for some minutes in silence, and closed his eyes as if absorbed in thought. At length, he said to me—

"You do not surprize me, Caleb. I am prepared for this. I perceived your difficulties from afar. It was inevitable. Self-confidence has placed you where you are. Be happy, and rejoice in your weakness—but turn now to the strong for strength. The work that has begun in your heart must be completed. It shall be so—do not doubt it."

The minister hesitated, looked hard at me, and endeavoured, as I imagined, to find, in the expression of my countenance, an index to my thoughts. I said nothing, and he proceeded.

"There are the appointed means. His way is in the sanctuary. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd. There is but one refuge for the outcast. I have but one alleviation to offer you. It is all and every thing. Are you prepared to accept it?"

"You are my friend, my guardian, and my father," I replied.

"You have wandered long in the wilderness," continued the minister. "You have fed with the swine and the goats. You have found no nourishment there. All was bleak, and barren, and desolate there. The living waters were dried up, and the bread of life was denied to the starving wayfarer."

"What must be done, sir?"

"You MUST ENTER THE FOLD—and have communion with the chosen people of the Lord. Are you content to do it?"

"Oh, am I worthy," I exclaimed, "to be reckoned in the number of those holy men?"

"I cannot doubt it; but your own spirit shall bear witness to your state. To-morrow is our next church-meeting. There, if it be your wish, I will propose you; messengers will be appointed to converse with you. They will come to you, and gather, from your experience, the evidences of your renewed, regenerated character."

"What shall I say, sir?" I asked in all simplicity.

"What says the drowning man to the hand that brings him to the shore? Your beating heart will be too ready to acknowledge the mighty work that has been already done on your behalf. Have you forgotten the way you have been led? Point it out to them. Have you been plucked as a brand from the burning? Acknowledge it to them in strains of liveliest gratitude. Does not your soul at this moment overflow at the vivid recollection of all the Lord has done for it and you? Will it not yearn to sing aloud His praise when strangers come to listen to the song? Then speak aloud to them. Do you not feel, have not a hundred circumstances all concurred to prove, that you exist a vessel chosen to show forth His praise? Show it to them, and let them carry back the certain proofs of your redemption—let them convey the sweet intelligence of a brother's safety—and let them bid the church prepare to welcome him with hymns of praise into her loving bosom."

Within a week of the above conversation, two respectable individuals called upon me at Mr Clayton's house—the accredited messengers of the church in which my eternal safety was about to be secured. One was a thickset man, with large black whiskers and corresponding eyebrows. His countenance had a stern expression—the eye especially, which lay couched like a tiger beneath its rugged overhanging brow. You did not like to look at it, and you could not meet it without unpleasantness and awe. The gentleman was very tall and sturdy—evidently a hairy person; he was unshaven, and looked muscular. Acting under the feeling which led him to despise all earthly grandeur and distinction, and which, no doubt influenced his conduct throughout life, he was remarkable for a carelessness and uncleanness of attire, as powerful and striking as the odour which exhaled from his broad person, and which explained the profession of the gentleman to be—a working blacksmith. His companion was thin, and neat, and dapper. There was an air about him that could not have been acquired, except by frequent intercourse with the polished and the rich. He was delicacy itself, incapable of a strong expression, and happier far when he could hint, and not express his sentiments. Had I been subject only to his examination, my ordeal would not have been severe. It was the blacksmith whom I found hard and unimpressible as his own anvil, dark as his forge, and as unpitying as its flames. The thin examiner held the high office of deacon of the church. Whether it was the particularly dirty face of his friend that set him off to such advantage, or whether he had inherent claims to my respect, I cannot tell; well I know, throughout the scrutiny that soon took place, many times I should have fallen beneath the blacksmith's hammer, but for the support and mild encouragement that I found in him. He was most becomingly dressed. He wore a white cravat, and no collar. He had light hair closely cut, and his face was as smooth as a woman's. His shirt was whiter than any shirt I have ever seen before or since, and it was made of very fine material. He carried an agreeable smirk upon his countenance, and he disinterred, now and then, some very long and extraordinary word from the dictionary, when he was particularly desirous either to make himself understood or conceal his meaning. I had almost omitted to add, that he was a ladies' haberdasher.

I received the deputation with a trembling and apprehensive heart. I knew my faith to be sincere, and I believed it to be correct, according to the views of the church of which my revered friend was the minister and organ. Still, I could not be insensible to the importance of the step which I was about to take, and to the high tone of piety which the true believers demanded from all who joined their ranks and partook of their exclusive privileges.

It will not be necessary to repeat in detail the course of my examination. At the close of two hours it was concluded, and I am at this moment willing to confess that it was, upon the whole, satisfactory. I mean to myself—for by my questioners, and by the little haberdasher more particularly, the conference was pronounced most gratifying and comforting in every way. I say upon the whole, for I could not, even at that early period of my initiation, and with all my excitement and enthusiasm, prevent the intrusion of some disturbing thoughts—some painful impressions that were not in harmony with the general tenor of my feelings. I had prepared myself to meet and deal with the appointed delegates of heaven, and I had encountered men, yes, and men not entitled to my reverence and regard, except as the chosen ambassadors of the church. One was low, ignorant, and vulgar. He took no pains to conceal the fact; he rather gloried in his native and offensive coarseness. The other was a smoother man, scarcely less destitute of knowledge, or worthier of respect. Looking back, at this distance of time, upon this strange interview, I am indeed shocked and grieved at the part which I then and there permitted myself to undertake. The scene has lost the colours which gave it a false and superficial lustre, and I gaze on the melancholy reality chidden, and, let me say, instructed by the sight. I can now better appreciate and understand the self-confident tone which pronounced upon my state in the eye of heaven—the canting expressions of brotherly love—the irreverent familiarity with which Scripture was quoted, garbled, and tortured to justify dissent, and render disobedience holy—the daring assumption of inquisitorial privileges, and the scorn, the illiberality and self-righteousness, with which my angry, bigoted, and vulgar questioners decided on the merits of every institution that eschewed their fanciful vagaries and most audacious claims. I do not wonder that, overtaken in a career of misery, the consequence of my own imprudence, I should have been arrested by the voice, and smitten by the eloquence, of Mr Clayton. I do not wonder that I listened to his arguments, and observed his conduct, until I was reduced to passiveness, and my mind was willing to be moulded to his purposes. But I do wonder and lament that any obscuration of my judgment, any luxuriance of feeling, should have permitted my youthful understanding for an instant to believe that to such men as my examiners the keys of heaven were entrusted, and that on them, and on their voice, depended the reception of a broken-hearted penitent at the mercy-seat of God.

A few words from the haberdasher-deacon, at the breaking up of the convocation, or whatever else it might be termed, were satisfactory, in so far as they showed that my temporal prospects were not entirely neglected by those who had become so deeply interested in my spiritual welfare. The blacksmith had hardly brought to a close a somewhat lengthy and very ungrammatical exhortation, that wound up the day's proceedings, when the dapper Jehu Tomkins, jumping at once from the carnival to the revel, shook me cordially by the hand, and most kindly suggested to me that, under the patronage of so important and religious a connexion as that into which I was about to enter, I could not fail to succeed, whatever might be the plan which I had laid down for my future support.

"I have heard all about you," added Jehu, "from our respected minister, and you'll soon get into something now. It's a good congregation, sir—wealthy and influential. I should say we have richer people in our connexion than in any about London. Mr Clayton is a very popular man, sir—very good, and speaks the truth."

"He is good indeed," I answered.

"Sir, grace is sure to follow you now. It is fifteen years since I first sat under Mr Clayton! Ah, I remember the night I was converted, as if it were yesterday. I always felt, up to that very time, the need of something better than I had got. Business had gone wrong ever since I opened shop, and my mind was quite unsettled. Satan tried very hard at me, but it wouldn't do. Sometimes, when my boy had gone home, and shop was shut up, the Tempter would whisper in my ears words like these—'Jehu, you're insured, over and over again, for your stock; let a spark fall on the shavings, and your fortune's made.' Well, sir, once or twice—will you believe it?—the Devil had nearly got it all his own way; but grace prevented, and I was saved. I owe it all to Mr Clayton. I was told by one or two of my customers to go and hear him, but somehow or other I never did. Satan kept me back. At last the gentleman as was the deacon—him as built the chapel—Mrs Jehu Tomkin's father—comes to my shop with his daughter, Mrs Jehu as is now, and spoke to me about the minister. Well, I heard the old gentleman was very rich and pious, and I went the next Sabbath-day as was, with his family, into his pew. I never went any where else after that. He seemed to hit the nail just on the head, and I was convinced—oh, quite wonderful!—all on a sudden. I was married to Mrs Jehu before that day twelvemonth. So you see grace followed me throughout, as it will you, my dear brother, if you only mind what you are about, and don't be a backslider."

"Mr Clayton," said I, "has kindly promised to procure employment for me."

"Ah! and he'll do it, if he says so," rejoined Mr Tomkins. "That's your man. You stick to him, and you won't hurt. He's a chosen vessel, if ever there was one. What do you say, brother Buster?"

Brother Buster simply groaned his assent, and scowled. He had been for some time anxious to depart, and he now took his leave without further ceremony.

"You wouldn't think that man was a saint to look at him, would you?" asked the deacon, as soon as his friend was gone. "He is though. He is riper in spiritual matters than any man I know. Ah! the Establishment would give something for a few like him. He'll be taken from us, I fear. We make a idol of him, and that's sure to be punished. It's wonderful what he knows; and how it has come to him we can't tell."

I received a pressing invitation from Mr Tomkins to visit his "small and 'appy family," as he was pleased to call it, on any evening after eight o'clock, which was his latest business hour. "Mrs Jehu," I was assured, "was just like her father, and his four small Jehus as exactly like their grandfather, and he wished to say no more for them. After business his family enjoyed invariably a little spiritual refreshment, and that and a hymn made the time pass very agreeably till supper-time at nine, when he had a 'ot collation, at which he should be most proud to see me."

To all the charges that have been at various times, with more or less virulence and disinterestedness, brought against the Church of England, that of assuming to itself the divine attribute of searching the secret heart of many has, I believe, never been superadded. It has remained for men very far advanced indeed in spiritual knowledge and perfection, to assert the bold prerogative, and to venture, unappalled, beneath the frown of heaven. The close scrutiny, on the part of Mr Buster, proper as it was as a step preliminary, was by no means sufficient to procure for me an easy and unquestioned admission into the church which the blacksmith had so ably represented. There was yet another trial to ensue, and another jury to pronounce upon the merits of the anxious candidate. He had yet to prove to the perfect satisfaction of the self-constituted junto, that styled itself a church, how God had mercifully dealt with him—to detail, with historic accuracy, the method and procedure of his regeneration, and to find evidence of a spiritual change, that carried on its front the proof of his conversion and his accepted state. All this was to be done before I could be entitled to the privileges which Messrs Buster, Tomkins, and the rest, had it in their power to bestow. The manner in which this delicate investigation was carried on, its indecorum and profaneness, I never can forget; nor can I, in truth, remember it without humiliation and deep sorrow. Against the indiscreet, illegal exhibition, I set off my ignorance, simplicity, and desire of serving heaven; and in these I place my hope of pardon for the share I had in such proceedings.

I received, in due form, a requisition to appear before the body of the church, at its general meeting. I appeared. The chapel was thronged, the majority of members being women. In the hands of nearly every third person was a printed paper. I was not then aware of its contents; if I had been, the ceremony would, in all probability, have concluded with my entrance. Will it be believed, that this paper contained a printed formula of the questions which were to test the quality of my faith, and to pronounce upon the vitality and worth of my spiritual pretensions! Any person present was at liberty to address me, and to form his own opinion of my case from the manner and the matter which their ingenuity elicited. At the suggestion of Mr Tomkins, who, in his capacity of deacon, was remarkably active on this occasion, it was deemed proper that I should enter upon my "experience" at once. My heart fluttered as I rose to comply with the demand, and the chapel was hushed. It will be sufficient to say, that I repeated my entire history, and secured the attention of my auditory until I had spoken my last word. There were parts of the narrative which I could, with a glance, perceive to be peculiarly piquant and acceptable. As these occurred, a rustling and a murmur expressed the subdued applause. When, for instance, I mentioned the disgust which I had conceived for the University upon losing the scholarship, and the uneasiness which I afterwards felt as long as I continued a member of that community, a few of the most acute looked at one another, and shrugged mysteriously, as who should say, "How wondrous are the ways of Providence!" and when I arrived at the point of my deliverance by the hand of their own minister, there would have been, I thought, no end to the gesticulations, expressions of gratitude and joy, that burst from the "church," in spite of the praiseworthy efforts of the minister to control and keep them down. When I had concluded, and whilst the half-suppressed rejoicing still buzzed in the chapel, the stern Buster rose, and presented to me the unmitigated force of his unpleasant eye. Silence prevailed immediately.