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Chapter XX.

Before going into the subject of this chapter, it might be as well to become more particularly acquainted with the lives and characters of those two whom the Great Master had chosen as recipients of his precious burden.

Mrs. Remay needs no further analysis than that the reader has already formed. She was good. What higher praise can woman wish for. She was infinitely above the heroine style, for hers was an inherent goodness, that was so natural, so unassuming, so free from selfish gain.

Mr. Remay was slightly odd. His character was a queer contradiction. Consolation was his hobby. Many were the times he had been heard to commend the qualities of Barnabas: often placing him above his fellow labourer, Paul. Once he had actually asked that on his tombstone the word Barnabas might be engraved. Unlike the general character of Scotchmen, whose kindliness and compassion are hidden beneath a grotesque exterior, Mr. Remay passed the whole day in the sunshine of benevolence. From the extremity of strength to the extremity of weakness was his habitual course; never would be pause half-way between. By this it may be understood that Mr. Remay often got himself into scrapes, from which all his wife's ingenuity was required to pull her foolish husband. Yet this was done with such discretion, such womanly tact, that few were aware of the severe battles fought in Mrs. Remay's drawing-room or kitchen. In the immediate neighbourhood, and, indeed, for miles around, the Remay's were known and respected; only page 239the stable really understood Mr. Remay's weakness, for there the husband reigned supreme in an undivided region. "Remay's tricks," was a byword, and incited a smile from all who heard it. And many a vagabond poor Jock had to frighten away by threats of the police, "For," as he declared one day, "Master would fill the stable with all the lowest blackguards in the town, if I were not to use my fists. Law, as if one man was not enough to mind one hoss." But if Mr. Remay was easily imposed upon, he was also firmly consistent. To win his friendship was to win a friend: and with a friend, neither life nor death, nor principalities, nor power, could wrench that bond asunder. In reality he had few friends, but those few were trustworthy. The very simplicity of his own noble nature was his shield against himself. It would be a very wicked person indeed who would defraud Mr. Remay. His boyhood had been spent in Scotland, where he had studied for church; been ordained as a Presbyterian minister; married the sweetest of Scotch lassies; buried three little daughters, and one little son. Health and circumstances combined had forced the two bereaved ones to leave their home, and seek a milder climate. They emigrated for New Zealand, landed at Dunedin, and there took up their abode. At first Mr. Remay officiated as a country minister, then as a small town minister, now as a city minister. Changes had come to them, as they will come to all, and five years before we became acquainted with them, they left their old home in the South for one in the North. While journeying from one place to the other, they encountered a terrific gale; the steamer was carried past her desired haven, and into the nearest harbour of refuge. In those early days all ports did not offer shelter to the weather bound vessel. On their return they, at least Mrs. Remay, called in at Bonsby, and it was during this short visit that she made the acquaintance of our little friend. The sea beach was their trysting place, page 240and every afternoon of that short visit those two would be seen together. Their meeting, according to some, was accidental; according to others, a part of a divine plan. Mrs. Remay was sitting looking at the frolicsome children, and the whispering waves, when her attention was arrested by a little figure scantily clad, standing alone, and ankle deep in the water. Presently the child, for Nellie was a child then, turned; something in the round dark eyes, as they were upraised to the lady's face, appealed to her womanly instinct. From that day they, unknown to Nellie, were friends. "There is a queer mixture of childishness and womanishness in the girl," Mrs. Remay afterwards remarked to her husband, who had not broken his journey at Bonsby, and consequently had not seen Nellie. "She has the ways of a child, but the thoughts of a woman."

In that one week Mrs. Remay, with her motherly tact, understood the little visionary waif, better than did Nellie's own mother. It is a great loss to the young when their parents neglect to study their children's characters. Instead of selfishly consulting their own feelings, and doing that which satisfies their present humour, let parents panse a moment and consider. "Is that to correct my child for his good, or is it to relieve my own feelings." Remember there is a difference between punishment and chastisement, as well as between sin and failing; and there is such a thing as using the wrong lesson in the wrong place. Do not impute to failings the attributes of sin, and punish where chastisement is the proper treatment. Do not use the knowledge vice versa. When Mrs. Remay left Bonsby, her interest in her little friend did not abate, and unknown to Nellie she kept herself posted up in her movements. With her previous knowledge of the girl's character, she knew just when to step forward and declare that friendship: she was now to reap what she had sown. Hitherto, husband and wife had lived a life page 241almost unalloyed by sorrow, except as we have already mentioned, the loss of their children. Even the sting of that loss had been converted into meet for gratitude; and now that they had grown resigned, God opened a new door, and led them into a new room of joyful happiness. A daughter He had given them, one He had reared on his own responsibility, and one no human parent had tampered with. Nellie became a comfort and solace to the two old people, and many were the times they would wonder how they lived so long without the sunshine in their home. Not that Nellie was boisterous or gay, a strange silence had fallen upon her heart, but she was always cheerful, always near, always there to love, and to love them. The quiet harmony of their lives was never disturbed by careless words or laughter; the melody in their hearts was atuned afresh by the sacred sadness in Nellie's. They would go forth on the day's routine, encouraged by a loving smile from two dark brown eyes, they would return to their quiet evenings, filled with joyous anticipations of Nellie's gentle caress.

Thus the life flowed on in one calm steady flow, and the days and weeks and months ran into years, no one counting the past, no one surmising the future. The present they enjoyed—the present they lived in. One evening, about six months after Nellie had taken up her sojourn with them, Mrs. Remay repaired to her husband's study for a "quiet chat with the old man." He seemed entangled in some mysterious problem, and like a sensible woman, she took her accustomed seat without saying a word. Looking up as if to see beyond the paper he was studying, Mr. Remay caught his wife's eyes bent amusingly upon him, and be laughed.

"Read that Mary," he said, passing some closely-written foolscap to her.

"Nellie's writing, Nole!" A merry twinkle came into th blue eyes, and a roguish look was cast at her husband. "I page 242knew that she was in the habit of reviewing your sermons, but I did not know she ever wrote them."

"Neither does she, Mrs. Becky Sharp. That is not a sermon of mine, it is one of Nellie's own. She gave it to me to explain more clearly her meaning. The little witch coolly informed me I was wrong; set to, and pulled down one of my pet theories. She began at the foundation, disclosed one false stone, then another, until what with bad material and bad workmanship, the whole thing collapsed. I have a good mind not to let Miss Nellie see my next theory-castle. It is not the pleasantest of sensations to feel that you have been using insufficiently seasoned material, and unqualified workmen for so many years." Mr. Remay laughed again as he thought of his recent discomfiture and defeat.

"Dear girl," said his wife, "I wonder how she is enjoying herself to-night. You have no idea what a trouble I had to make her promise to go." She read down the first page of writing, then handed the papers back to her husband.

"I am afraid you will have to explain, Nole, I am a little dense. Besides, you have not told me what is the subject of your sermon."

"I intended to touch upon several subjects; but the one I wished to particularize was the habit of meeting trouble half way.

"An old old theme. Could you not find something new? But where is the room in that for a diversity of opinion?"

"I begin to think that the merit of one's discernment is in discovering new truths out of old themes. However, Nellie certainly points out that there is another channel of thought, besides the every-day one, of the meeting trouble half-way. She declares it wrong to wholly disregard trouble until it is upon us. That trouble being not imaginary, but real, requires its due consideration. That they who close their eyes and deliberately refuse to see the approaching monster, are page 243cowards. I may tell you that the circumstance which occasioned the suggestion of these thoughts was the reading of that beautiful poem, 'The shadow of the Cross.' If you have not read the poem, Mary, I advise you to do so. It is well worth the trouble. However, seeing an advertisement in the paper, which offered a prize for the best original essay, Nellie determined to put her thoughts into words. Her efforts were fruitless, and disheartened by failure, she threw the papers into her box, and there they remained until my opposition to her opinions released them from their disgrace"

Mr. Remay took off his spectacles, wiped them carefully with the corner of his pocket handkerchief, readjusted them on his nose, cleared his throat, took up the papers, began to read.

Mrs. Remay leaned back in her chair, folded her hands, put her feet on the edge of the fender, closed her eyes, and began to listen.

"She disagrees with Sir Edmond Arnold in several things, especially where he calls the shadow of Christ's cross "a Ghost and Ghoul of a glittering light." Yet excuses him with the charity of a fellow feeling, and even allows that she may not be faultless in her opinion, since he does not deny the existence of Light altogether. The subject takes three principal parts—Shadow, Ray, Light. It is to the shadow part we are indebted for an explanation regarding the necessity of becoming familiar with trouble before it actually takes place. 'A shadow,' she says, is the form of a body which intercepts the rays of light, and a ghost is a spectre, a breath, a something having the appearance, but not the actual form of a body. The difference between the two meanings is her criterion for saying that Sir Edmund wrongly named the shadow of Christ's cross a 'Ghost and Ghoul of a glittering light.'"

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Mr. Remay turned over the first page and commenced to read: "'If a shadow be not real, it requires at least three realities to make one shadow. One reality to form the shadow itself; another that which the shadow falls upon; the third the light by which the body intercepting the shadow may be seen By analyzing Holeman Hunt's picture, and Sir Edmund Arnold's description of it, we discover the shadow to be the real—the circumstances connected with the shadow, spectres. It is therefore advisable to know something about a shadow. When those two men depicted their thoughts—the one by the brash, for the perception of sight, the other by the pen, for the perception of hearing—the shadow had become a reality, the cross had been borne. The Virgin was not the only one who saw it, neither was it confined to the walls of a carpenter's shop. That Cross had become, and is, visible to thousands, and its light, not its shadow, falls, and continues to fall upon every part of the world. Taking these evidences as their standard, they have constructed the theorem, and left the lesson for us to reason out and learn. This is their proposition, but we have exercises to do as well. As the result is in the one, so it is in all. A shadow is cast upon the earth, we look up and see the cloud. A shadow falls across our lives, we look back and behold the cause. Had the picture been shown us before we would have declared the shadows myths, the figures realities. Now we know figures, places, occupations, are all transitory—the shadows reflections of great realities. Understand the shadows, and be careful of your dealings with them, then when they cross your path you will not so often be taken unawares; you will not look back and say, "Oh that I had taken more notice of those warnings! "Truly it may be said, "Shadows are heralds of coming realities."'" Mr. Remay paused a moment, and Mrs. Remay exclaimed, "That explains what Nellie meant last night, when she said: 'I do think people get warnings, if they page 245would only understand and listen to them. Not superstitions warnings of dread, but God's warnings of preparations. Aunt, I was warned about our trouble before it came upon us, but I did not prepare myself. I let the warning go, and stood alone in my proud self-sufficiency. I look back upon it now and mourn my blindness.' Nole, when she spoke I felt as if a spirit shed a misty light around her head and into her deep, dark eyes. 'God sent one of his spirit-messengers to warn me, aunt,' she said 'Do you know what a spirit-messenger is? It is a rushing, noiseless presence in the untraceable atmosphere of our filiation. It comes to our mortal reflections from a nothingness, and dies away into a nothingness again. Not a real nothingness, but a nothingness to us, because we know not what is beyond or before. It comes to warn, but not to guide; to move, but not to speak. There is an unmistakable light about it which speaks of the infinity beyond, and which separates it from the glittering baubles of our coarser beings. Its form is as definite as it is indefinite. These are the times when we are ungrateful to our Heavenly Father, for, seizing the holy sacredness of that spirit's visitation, we hasten back to our earthly sympathies, forgetful of the purpose of Him who sent that warning spirit.'"

"Were it not that I have heard Nellie ridicule every kind of superstition, and visionary fears, I would be tempted to call her a spiritualist," said Mr. Remay, eyeing his wife gravely.

"I fancy she would say she was one, if you were to mention it to her, Nole. But she would add, "Having come in contact with the true spirit, I recognise the fraud: having understood that God alone deals with spirits, I despise man's tom-foolery. But read on Nole, I am anxious to hear the rest of that remarkable essay."

"She now takes the Ray, and strange to say, separates the Ray from the Light. Her explanation is laid out after the plan of Euclid, and she begins with the general enuncia-page 246tion, "A ray is a line of light." She says that while searching for truths in the Shadow Theorem, she passed a subject branching off in the same direction, but producing opposite effect. She presents the ray to us in the form of a problem, and adds to the general, the particular enunciation, "A dark form produces a shadow; light reveals it." On this basis the ray problem is constructed, and the proof given."

"With the pen of thought, join truth and reason, then the figure formed is the required ray. For because the effect ray is opposite to the effect shadow, so their causes must be opposite, and because they two are in the same direction, therefore their causes must also be in the same direction." Upon closer inspection we learn to regard the ray, not merely as an effect, but also as a force. The molecules, of which it is composed, vibrate slowly and surely. Minor rays branch off from the standard, but they are only temporary. Like life in oxygen gas these minor rays burn brightly and fiercely for a short time, but soon die out, leaving the charred remains. Perhaps, lured by the brilliancy of that false ray, the intellect has been enticed into following, but the inevitable darkness descends, and the shrinking shrivelled traveller declares the ray without meaning or substance. The very force of its demolishing power should show the deluded the meaning and substance of a ray. The failure was because the intellect bent downward toward the reflection, instead of upward toward the cause of that reflection. Darkness cannot be endured for ever. Grope ye about. Find ye an exit. Look, the forsaken standard-ray appears. It gently chides, it kindly leads the way back. Are you not ashamed of the hills of pride, and the pits of false humility you had formed during your wilful straying? Start ye out afresh! Learn the lesson of permanent and temporary. Go forward in every investigation, with the fixed determination to reach the source of every truth.

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Force exists not so much in displayed energy, as in shielded purpose. Success lies almost wholly within oneself. The way that leads to light is very narrow, very straight, and very unprepossessing to all, save he who seeks the solid truth. And should it be otherwise? No. To enter into the brightest places, one must pass through the deepest darkness. Yet, as has been said, "Even in the womb of darkness throbs the promise of the dawn." At every advancing footstep the soul is drawn nearer to the "Light"; while through the dark shadow may be seen the glowing ripple beyond. What do they say? We are privileged to reflect the ray, privileged to add a lustre to that line of light. The sun's rays striking upon the moon, is deflected on earth. The Saviour's rays striking upon the darkened intellects, light them up with reflections of the Saviour Sun. Thus, as we, Rays, travel on in our journey to our Sun, we become strengthened by our own reflections. We cannot say with Sir Edmund Arnold, "Our sun's shine out to show crosses and thorns on times old wall." Our faith teaches us to look beyond the wall, and to grasp the sunlight. On, on, pause not to wrestle with sponge and reed. They have been wrestled with, and conquered: our object is the conqueror, the glorious, light formed, Shadow. Light, Light, mystery unending, unchanging. The flashes from thy vast hereafter, unveil the eyes of earth's darkling, show mortal his own mortality, thine own Immortality. A question:—Expound unto us thy knowledge of light. The knowledge thou hast obtained by personal investigation. An answer:—Light I discover to be the greatest force in the universe. The Majesty of all the Majesties. It is the means whereby I am enabled to perform my allotted task, the task That Light ordains. It shows me the manner of my walking, where I must go, what I must do. All these also That Light provides. Without light, life here and hereafter, would be impossible. page 248In the dawn I could but faintly see my Sun, my Light; but as the day advance, I learned to know and love its power. The night approaches, the night of earthly rest, I see no darkness in the tomb, the light is with me still. I have been miserly with my noonday, and a double supply awaits me in my shadowy hours. Ah! then, earth's lost light will be transferred to Heaven, and ere I enter the darkness of death, Dawn, the dawn of a new life's day, bursts upon my immortal sight. Lo, from before birth, ages before creation, to life, ages and eternities of ages after consummation, Light, Mysterious Light, was, and is, and ever shall be."

A question. Ah! fine speech, wide imagination, but is not all a delusion? Carried I away by impulse or sentiment, you create in your imagination a substance you call Light.

In contempt, the questioned turned to gaze upon the questioner, and lo, he was blind. It is ever so with many. Born in blindness they cannot see the light, although they daily draw from it their substance. The objects of our visions are foreign to them; they are imaginary. Blessed, blessed imagination, if such you be. Imagination to draw such pictures of Holiness and Truth; to relieve our weary thoughts, and give us glimpses of Perfect Purity; is it nothing that we, by imagination, rend the veil between us and our Creator; that we stand on the frontiers of mental territories, and gaze into the infinite beyond, with undazzled eyes. That we obtain mastery over every knowledge; every power; that we worship truth? O Christ, to worship Thee is imagination? And thy throne, our home, the angels gathered around, the Heavenly music, the prophets and martyrs of ancient and modern days, that vision our beloved dead, are all these fruits of imagination?

They say it is wrong to filch from Heaven fragments of a knowledge that will some day be all our own, to pry into the secrets of the Invisible. To my thinking there can be no page 249filching, no prying into secrets of the Invisible, with the true disciple of the Invisible. Is not Christ the distributor of light, as well as light itself? Trust Him, and press on: not in the capacity of an inquisitive observer, but of an earnest aspiring, hungering, searcher of truth.

"Thus, link by link, we have formed a chain, from Shadow, through Ray, into Light. We join the ends together and form a circle, the circumference of which encloses a part of life's area. At the end we have learned the beginning, in the beginning we have been guided to the end—and the sum total of all is a search and a satisfaction. O Wonderful and Wisest, guide us we beseech thee, beyond the Higher, into the very Highest."

Mr. Remay put down the papers, and looked at his wife—"What do you say to that Mary?"

"That has done all the saying, there is nothing left for me to say. What do you say?"

"That has done all the saying, there is everything left for me to say, and I am going to say everything to-morrow. After that it may be someone shall consider that worth publishing."

Mrs. Remay laughed, more at her husband's expression than at his words. "I shall warn Nellie to keep her essays out of your reach. Your charges upon literature are rather formidable."

And so, after all, the despised essay was not lost, but proclaimed in the pulpit. Is that not a more honourable proclamation than is the narrow sphere of criticism, and the selfish pleasure of a prize. They who truly win rewards seldom receive them after the manner of their own petty desires.