The brain of each single unit of the human race is exactly what he has made it by a long series of habits and thoughts directed to one object. It is not more wonderful that the sot and low-minded man cannot appreciate beautiful music or perfect scenery than it is that the self-centred intellect is unable to accept the evidence for the unseen or realize that this life is but a phantom that will pass away.
Both the article of Eric Black and that written by the editor of the Sunday Friend finally summed up the difference that the arrival of Joseph in the Modern Babylon had made to existing conditions.
The theatres of the bad sort, which pandered to the lower instincts of those who patronized them, were almost empty. Several of them were closed, "for the production of a new play." A strong agitation was going on in Parliament to make it prohibitive for women to be employed in the drinking saloons and bars of London. In vast areas the preachers of the Brotherhood had reduced the gambling evil among the poorer classes to a most appreciable extent.
The working man was being taught by the direct agency of the Holy Spirit, as manifested in Joseph's followers, and by the inexorable law of quiet logic and common-sense, to turn his attention from the things of to-day and the immediate amusement of the moment, to the future of his soul. The greatest work of all was, perhaps, accomplished in this direction, and it was found that once the ordinary intelligence was convinced of the existence of a future state, the ordinary intelligence saw immediately the necessity for preparing for eternity during this short and finite life.
London, day by day, hour by hour almost, was growing more serious. The churches were filling once more, especially and markedly those in which there was a daily celebration of the Eucharist. A great wave of religious feeling was sweeping over the metropolis. And on all sides the cry of the ignorant and the desirous was heard —
"What shall we do to be saved?"
Some two days after the month which had elapsed since the murder of Sir Augustus, Sir Thomas Ducaine sat in his library, talking earnestly to Hampson the journalist.
Ever since the first night when the two strangely opposite natures had met at the Frivolity Theatre the friendship between the millionaire baronet and the humble journalist had grown and strengthened. Then had come Sir Thomas' conversion to the truth, his public confession of Christ, which had welded the bond of friendship between the two men into something that only death itself could end in this world, but to renew it in the next.
Lady Kirwan had retired to the great family country-house in Hertfordshire, a broken and unhappy woman. She had refused to see Joseph or even Sir Thomas Ducaine again, persisting in her attitude of absolute hostility to the Teacher and all his friends. Marjorie Kirwan had become quietly engaged to the Duke of Dover.
Lady Kirwan – and this was the worst of all – had turned against her niece, Mary Lys. The will of Sir Augustus had come as an enormous surprise to the world. No one had realized how wealthy the financier was, and his testamentary dispositions had startled everybody. Trustees were placed in the possession of a million of money, which was to be handed over to his daughter upon her marriage. Lady Kirwan had a life interest in almost an equal sum. When she died this vast property was to go to her niece, Mary Lys, without any conditions whatever. Two hundred thousand pounds had been left to the influential committee of trustees which now administered the great sums of money which had been given or left to Joseph and his brethren.
The position of Mary was, therefore, a very strange one. She had become one of the greatest heiresses in England, she was engaged to Sir Thomas Ducaine, but nothing would induce her aunt to see her or hold any communication with her. At first the poor girl had thought of returning to the hospital in the East End for a time, but another way had been found out of the difficulty.
Lady Susan Wells, an elderly spinster, a daughter of the Earl of Fakenham, and aunt to Sir Thomas Ducaine, had asked Mary to live with her at her house in Belgrave Square. The plan had been adopted, and Mary was still able, owing to this arrangement, to actively assist in Joseph's work, and carry on her life of sweet self-sacrifice and help.
Sir Thomas and Hampson sat on each side of the library fire.
"Joseph ought to be here now," Hampson remarked.
Sir Thomas nodded and said:
"I feel to-night as if something very important were going to happen. Neither of us have seen Joseph for four days now. Nobody, in fact, has seen him, and nobody knows what he has been doing. One of his strange disappearances and withdrawals from the rush of life has taken place again. When that occurs we always know something is going to happen."
"He has been communing with God," Hampson answered gravely, and even as he spoke the butler opened the door, and the tall figure of the Master entered.
Joseph looked very thin and pale. He seemed a man who had but lately come through days of deep suffering.
Sir Thomas rose.
"Ah, my friend," he said, "we were speaking of you at this moment, and wondering what you had to tell us. We got your letter, of course, and we knew that you had some very important thing to say. Come and tell us what it is."
"My brothers," Joseph answered, his face beaming with love and sadness as he looked upon them both, "I come to tell you of the end!"
CHAPTER XXIV
SUPREME MOMENTS
The dawn came.
The sun rose over the still, grey sea, and the first rays which flashed out over the brim of the world shone in through the open window of the little bedroom.
It was a simple cottage room. The walls were whitewashed, the appointments were primitive, and the fresh light of morning fell upon the little truckle-bed in which a young man lay sleeping.
One arm rested behind his head, another was flung carelessly over the counterpane. The sun touched a strong, clean-shaven face, a face clear-cut as a cameo, with resolution in every line, and with a curious happiness lying upon it, even as the sunlight touched it.
Thomas Ducaine was sleeping in the little cottage room of the Welsh village, where he had come for the great day of his life.
As the sun touched the young and noble face, the head moved a little, and the firm mouth parted in a happy smile. As they will in dreams, towards the end of both sleep and dreaming, the events of the last day or two were summing themselves up in the sub-conscious brain, just before consciousness itself was about to return, and the eyes open upon the happy day.
Over the sea the sun rose, the sea-birds winged above the smooth water with shrill, joyous voices, the little ozone-laden breeze eddied upon the fore-shore, and found its way into the room of the sleeping man.
Then, as day began to move and stir, and all the happy world of Wales prepared to greet it, Sir Thomas Ducaine opened his eyes and awoke.
For a moment or two he lay looking round him with eyes which still held part of the deep mystery of sleep, and then at last everything came back to him. He sat up in the bed, the color mounted to his cheeks, and as he turned his face towards the window and saw the brilliant but still sleeping glory of the early-rising sun and quiet sea, he buried his face in his hands and prayed.
For this was the morning of his life, the morning of all mornings; there would never be another morning like this.
A week ago Joseph had come to him in the night. Pale, wan, and wearied, yet still with the inextinguishable fires of the Spirit shining through his eyes, informing all his movements and words, Joseph had come to him with a solemn message.
The Master had told him that, despite all that had happened, although to the world of society and convention he and Mary were still in the depths of mourning, it was necessary that they should put all these material and social considerations on one side, and that their love should be sealed and signed by the blessing of the Church – that the time of the singing of the birds had come, that wedlock awaited them.
And so, without further questioning, Thomas and Mary obeyed the voice of the man who had had so stupendous an influence upon their lives, and gave the direction of their actions into his keeping. Both of them were certain that what their beloved Teacher ordained for them was just and right. Nay, more than that, they knew that the words of Joseph, which ordered their doings, were more than the words of a mere man; that, as always, the Holy Spirit informed them.
The sun poured into the humble room, filling it with amber light and the fresh breeze of the dawn.
Thomas Ducaine leapt from his bed, and went to the low window. Leaning his arms upon the sill, he breathed in the gracious, welcoming air, and looked out over the ocean to the far horizon, with eyes that were dim with happy gratitude and gracious tears.
Yes, this, indeed, was the day of days. The morning of all mornings had come!
Leaning out of the window, he saw the curve of little whitewashed houses which fringed the bay. The fishers' boats rocked at anchor beyond the granite mole, and far at the end of the village his eyes fell upon another whitewashed cottage. As he saw it once more, he placed his hands before his face and sent up a deep and fervent petition to the Almighty that he might indeed be worthy of the precious and saintly maiden whom he knew was sleeping there in her sweet innocence.
This was the morning of mornings!
When the sun had risen higher in the heavens, he would walk to the little granite-walled, slate-roofed church. Mary would meet him there, and Joseph and the brethren who had accompanied the Teacher from London back to their old beloved home. And there, without pomp or ceremony, noise of publicity, or the rout and stir of a great company, he would place his hand in the hand of the girl he loved, and the old village priest would make them one for ever in this world and the next, and afterwards give them the Body and Blood of Our Lord.
Behind the cottages the great mountains towered up into the sky. One purple peak, still covered at the summit by a white curtain of cloud, was the mountain where Lluellyn Lys, the brother of Mary, lay in sleep.
Thomas could see the mountain from the cottage, and as his eyes traveled up the green and purple sides to the mysterious cap which hid the top, he remembered all that he had heard about it, and looked upward with an added interest and awe.
For this was the mountain upon which Joseph had first met the mysterious recluse of the hills who had changed him from what he had been to what he was. This was the modern Sinai, where the Master had communed with God. Here he had gathered together his disciples, had preached to them with the voice which the Holy Spirit had given him, and blessed them, and led them to the conquest of London, to the Cross.
Yes, it was there, on those seemingly inaccessible heights, that the great drama of Joseph's life had begun, and it was there that the drama of his life – the life of Thomas Ducaine – was to receive its seal and setting.
After the marriage and the simple feast, which was to be held in the village, they were all to climb the heights, and there, up in the clouds, Joseph was to bless them and give them, so it was said, whispered, and understood, a special message.
The bridegroom left the window, knelt down at his bedside, and prayed. This complex, young, modern gentleman – a product of every influence which makes for subtlety and decadence of brain and body – knelt down and said his prayers with the simplicity of a child. Despite his vast wealth, his upbringing as a young prince of modern England, Thomas Ducaine had lived a life far more pure and unspotted than almost any of his contemporaries. It was that fact, so patent in his face and manner, which had first attracted Hampson to him, when the two had met in the Frivolity Theatre – how long ago that seemed now!
So the young man with great possessions said the Lord's Prayer in the fresh morning light, and then prayed most earnestly that he might be worthy of the gift that God had given him – the love of the sweetest, purest, and loveliest lady in the land.
He prayed that God would be pleased to bless their union at the supreme moment which was now so imminent, and for ever afterwards. His whole heart and soul went up to the throne of the Most High in supplication for himself and the girl who was to be his wife. That they might live together in godly and righteous wedlock; that they might spend their lives, and the wealth which had been given them, for the good of others and for the welfare of the world; that at the last they might be gathered up in the company of the elect, might tread the shining pavements of Heaven, and see the face of God – these were the prayers of the young man as, like a knight of old, he kept the vigil before the Sacrament which was to come.
He went down to the little sleeping cove and bathed in the fresh, clear water of the sea. The right arm rose and fell forcefully, conquering an element, as rejoicing in his strength, rejoicing in the glory of the morning, rejoicing in the sense that God was with him, and that His blessing was upon his doings, he swam out into the sea, laughing aloud with holy rapture at what was, what was to come, and what would be.
Then, once more, he re-entered the little cottage, and found the old Welsh woman who was his hostess preparing the simple breakfast meal. She put the griddle cakes, fresh eggs and milk before him, but he stood, looking down upon the board, and, turning to her, refused to eat.
"No," he said, "I will go fasting to my wedding. I will eat no earthly food until I take the Body and Blood of Jesus from the priest's hand. It will be afterwards that the feast comes."
"Oh, my dear," she answered, in her broken English – "my dear, that's right of ye, though indeed and indeed I should wish you would take something. But you are right – my dear, go to your love fasting, and you will never fast more."
Another door, opening into the little raftered kitchen, was pushed aside, and Hampson entered.
His face was white and pinched. All night long the little man had been wrestling with the last remnants of the old Adam which remained within him. From the moment when the gracious lady who was about to become the bride of his dear friend had saved him from death, the journalist had loved Mary with a dog-like fidelity and adoration. He knew, as he had known at that moment when he had been with her upon the roof of England's great cathedral, and seen the white cross hanging over London, that she could never, under any possible circumstances, have been his.
He had known this and realized it always, but upon this last night of her maidenhood, when she was about to finally and irrevocably join her life to another's, there had been mad hours of revolt, of natural, human revolt, in his brain.
Now it was all over. He had passed through the Valley of the Shadow, and the morning was come.
For Mr. Hampson also the morning of all mornings was come, the morning when he had finally and utterly laid down his own desires at the foot of the Cross, had bowed to the will of the Almighty, and found himself filled with sacred joy in the joy of the two people he loved better than any one else in the world, save only his dear Master, Joseph.
In his hand the little man held a book bound in crimson leather. It was the Revised Version of the New Testament, the latest product of the University Press, and a very beautiful specimen of typography and binding.
He came up to his friend and shook him warmly by the hand. Then he gave him the book.
"Thomas," he said, "there is nothing that I can give you that you have not got. And, of course, it would be silly of me to give you anything of material value, because all those things you have had from your youth up. But here is my little offering. It is only the New Testament. I have written something upon the fly-leaf, and if you will use it constantly instead of any other copy that you may have, it will be a great joy to me. Indeed, my dear fellow," he continued with a smile, "I can give you nothing more valuable than this."
There was a moment of tense emotion, which was broken, and fortunately broken, by the voice of the old Welsh woman.
"Now then, my dear," she said, "you are not going to be married this morning, so you will take your breakfast – indeed, you must an' all. The bells will be ringing soon, but not for you, and so you must keep your body warm with food."
Hampson sat down to the simple meal.
Thomas Ducaine, carrying the crimson volume in his hand, went out into the sunlight, which was now becoming brilliant and strong. He walked down the silent village street, his feet stirring up the white dust as he went, for it had been long since rain had fallen in the Welsh village, and strolled to the end of the mole which stretched out into the blue sea. Standing there, he breathed in the marvellous invigorating air of the morning, and his whole young, fresh body responded to the appeal which nature made.
This was the morning of mornings!
In a few short hours – how short, how blissfully short! – Mary would come to him… There were no words in which to clothe his thoughts or in which to voice his thankfulness and joy. He surveyed his past life rapidly and swiftly. It passed before him in a panoramic vista, full of color, but blurred and unimportant until the wonderful night when, as he stood at the door of his house in Piccadilly with Hampson, the tall figure of the Teacher had suddenly appeared out of the night, and had entered into his house with blessing and salvation.
From that time onwards, the vista of happenings was more detailed, more definitely clear. He realized that he owed, not only his present material felicity – the fact that all his hopes and desires were to be consummated in the little village church before the sun had reached his midday height – but also all the new spiritual awakening, the certainty of another life, the hope of eternal blessedness, to one cause, to one personality.
It was at this moment to Joseph that his thoughts went, to that strange force and power – more force and power, indeed, than that of mere human man – which, or who, had changed his life from a dull and hopeless routine – how he realized that now! – to this beatitude of morning light, of love to the world, and thankfulness to God.
Joseph was somewhere in the neighborhood, that he knew. Where exactly the Teacher was he could not say. Mary was staying at the little cottage which he could see as he sent his eyes roving round the semicircle of white houses which fringed the bay, with her aunt, Lady Susan Wells. Hampson was to be "best man." Bridesmaids there were none. It was to be the simplest of all ceremonies.
This prince of modern London was to be married to one of the greatest heiresses in England, and a member of one of the oldest families in the United Kingdom, as Colin might marry Audrey – happily, quietly, and far from the view of the world.
Whether Joseph himself would be present at the ceremony even Ducaine himself was not quite certain. That after the wedding-feast – the simple wedding-feast – they were all to meet Joseph upon the mountain-top, he was well aware. It had been arranged, and he thrilled with anticipation of some further and more wonderful revelation of the designs of the Almighty than had ever been vouchsafed to him before. But at the church – he hoped the Teacher would be present in the little village church when he and Mary were made one.
He turned to walk back to the cottage, when down the granite pier he saw that a little flaxen-haired girl was walking. In all the sleeping semicircle of the village Thomas and the little girl seemed alone to be awake.
The blue wood-smoke was rising from the chimneys of the cottages, but as yet no one was stirring in the outside air.
The little girl came tripping and laughing along the granite isthmus between the waters, and in her hand she held a folded piece of paper.
With the confiding innocence of childhood, she came straight up to the tall young man, and stretching out her tiny arm, looked into his face.
"You are Thomas, aren't you?" she said.
"Yes," he answered, "I am Thomas."
"Then this is for you, Thomas," she replied. "This letter an' all. Dadda was up in the mountain this morning, and William Rees, whateffer, met dadda, and gave him this letter, which Mr. Joseph had given him. The Teacher is staying up in the little house in the mountain-top where Lluellyn Lys used to live, and he gave this to William Rees, and William Rees gave it to dadda, and dadda told me to find you and give it to you, Thomas."
Ducaine opened the letter. These were the words
"I shall not be with you in body when you and Mary are made one. But I shall be with you in the spirit, my dear friend. When you have made your communion and kept the feast come up with the Brethren to the mountain-top. There I will bless you. And now, farewell!"
"Therefore, if any man can show any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace."
"… I pronounce that they be man and wife together, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen… God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, bless, preserve, and keep you; the Lord mercifully look upon you, and so fill you with all spiritual benediction and grace, that ye may so live together in this life, that in the world to come ye may have life everlasting."
Arm in arm they went out from the little church, joined together, man and wife, for ever and a day – the goodly young man and the girl with the face of an angel.
The fiddlers who were waiting set up a merry tune, as, surrounded by their humble friends, they walked to the tithe-barn in which the marriage feast was to be.
As they all stood waiting till the signal to fall-to should be given, Thomas Ducaine took his wife's hand in his, bowed over it, and kissed it in gracious chivalry.
Then he drew her to him and kissed her on the lips.
The music broke out once more as all the company sat down. It was a short and merry feast, yet not untainted with the Celtic sadness which all the Welsh folk feel at happy moments.
One and all, from bride and bridegroom down to the humblest worker there, knew that there were more stirring and awful things to come; that a trumpet was sounding on the mountain summit; that they were to climb as if into the presence of the Almighty.
Old David Owen, Joseph's trusted lieutenant, lifted on high a great goblet of the pure mountain water, in which he pledged the newly married pair.
"I pledge you," he said, "Mary and Thomas, brother and sister in the Lord, followers of our dear Teacher – I pledge you and call upon all that are present here to join me in the toast. May your life together be one long song of happiness! May you, with all the opportunities that God has given you, always remain true to the trust reposed in you, and follow the banner of Jesus, and once more plunge into the battle for the winning over of Babylon to the Lord!"
Then the old man paused, and, setting down his glass, placed his hands upon the table, and leaning forward, spoke very earnestly and quietly, rather to the assembled company than to the married pair.
"The Master," he said, "is not with us now; but we are going to meet him, and I doubt not we are all to receive another signal proof of the Lord's favor. To some of us it has been a grief that Joseph was not in the church when the marriage was made of the two we love. But Joseph's ways are not our ways, and he is led as we are not led. But I would say this to you, dear brethren and sisters. I see around me those who a long time ago – it seems a very long time ago – accompanied the Master from these hills to the great Modern Babylon of our time. There is no one here who does not remember the saint of the mountain, Lluellyn Lys. There is no one here who has not known the circumstances under which our dear Teacher first came down to these parts. I mind well that I was one of those who carried him up to the mountain, ill and crippled as he was. And it was through that strange fellowship of Joseph and Lluellyn that the things have come to pass. We all assembled on the mountain-top, where we are going soon, to bury Lluellyn, and we all heard our Master as he took on the mantle of Elijah and called us to rally round the standard of Jesus with him as leader. And now we are all going once more to that sacred spot on the top of Pendrydos, and God grant that we may hear inspiring and edifying things there. I have just pledged Thomas and Mary as our brother and our sister in the fight we are waging, and have still to wage, against the sins of the great city so far away from here. I pledge them in the name of you all, and as our brother and our sister. But it would ill become me not to say a word upon another part of the question. We must remember that Thomas, our brother, is also Sir Thomas Ducaine, a man of great fortune and of high lineage. We must also remember that Mary, our sister, was Miss Mary Lys, the sister of Lluellyn Lys, and the descendant of the old kings of Wales who ruled these parts. Just as they are leaders of our band in Christ, so also are they leaders in the great things of this world, and we owe them a double loyalty."
