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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 17

Washed Away

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Washed Away.

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Sir Edwin Landseer has painted a very spirited picture representing the rising of a sudden flood : the country is covered with water, and there is nothing to be seen but the roof of a dog-kennel, and an old Newfoundland standing on the top of it, while the young puppies are swimming round about, and struggling to climb upon the roof. The old dog is giving mouth with the energy of desperation, but it is clear enough the struggles of the swimmers must soon be over, and the baying of the parent dog must soon be stifled by the water. There is a story told about a dispute between a man and his wife, which like most connubial disagreements, turned upon a trifle, but which grew serious before it ended. The matter in question was whether a certain string had been cut with a knife or with a pair of scissors, the gentleman sticking to the point of the knife, and the lady to the point of the scissors. It was clearly war to the knife, or to the scissors, as might happen. The husband at length threw his wife into the mill-pond, and told her that he would take her out if she would confess it was a knife. But as she rose to the surface for the first time she shrieked out "scissors!" and then sank again. Again she floated to the top, and looking spitefully at her husband, she gasped out "scissors!" A third time she rose, and he could see page 4 her lips move, and hear her whisper, "scissors!" She came up no more; but the last thing the husband saw above the surface of the pool, was a hand with a wedding ring upon it moving its fingers like a pair of scissors, and the silver cord was snipped in twain by a pair of scissors. Now you and I in this Bath to-day, are a little like the group in Sir Edwin Landseer's picture, giving mouth to the last, till we are drowned out. Nor does our position defy comparison with that of the obstinate woman who stuck to her text to the last. Stupid and immovable to the end, we will not be bullied, we will not be taught. Nothing but the rising flood can wash us away. A short, and easy method of dissolving a meeting is to turn the gas off: so that if the speakers are giving too long metre, they may be regulated by aid of the gas meter. But as the gas which we exhale here is so dense that it even will not burn, there is nothing for it but to wash us away. What the spite of "our own correspondent," the midnight oil of "the practised hand," the wet towel round the fuddled head of "the shadow," who is "nothing if not critical," but whose condition is very critical indeed; what all these mighty engines have failed to accomplish, in ten weeks, the thumb and finger of the parish turn-cock will achieve in ten seconds. The local censors have done their best to send us packing, but here we are high and dry still. "Very dry indeed!" some of them would say, perhaps. But we are not to be high and dry much longer. The water-man will send us scurrying to our several Ararats, and the tender doves who have dipped their quills in honey to encourage us, will bring a birch instead of an olive-branch behind us in their gentle beaks. Therefore, although we should doubtless get on swimmingly if we were to remain here, there are divers reasons wherefore we should retire for the present, leaving Professor Beck with in page 5 possession to strike out another kind of entertainment. During the summer, this spacious tank in which you stand will be devoted to undress receptions, and people will dispense with their tailors that they may take headers." Should we be spared until another winter, either here or elsewhere, we may meet again, by kind permission of the shadow.

But before we are washed away, it would be well if we could say something which will not be flushed and sluiced away by the incoming water: something which will float by its levity, and yet which may sink into your hearts by its specific gravity. On Derwentwater in Cumberland, there are several beautiful islands, on one of which a handsome villa stands, with lawns sloping down towards the water; and yachts and rowing craft are moored in its little creeks and inlets. Rich foliage is reflected from the tall trees which grow upon these islands, down in the clear water; and picnic parties disembark, and dine, and romp among the ferns and underwood. But there is another island far more curious, though not so beautiful as these, called the floating island. I remember when I heard of this island, I asked a boatman to take me to it. "It is not up, sir," he replied, "it hasn't been up this season." It had a strange sound as applied to an island, to say it was not up; but it was a fact; it was down at the bottom of the lake, and had not risen to the surface since the autumn. "It is not up!" I don't know whether the same thing might not be said of this little "isle of the sea" we call Great Britain : for we sometimes act in public policy and in social life as if we were asleep and had not got up. But this lake island is a sort of reef of bog, weeds, moss, and rushes, massed together, which sinks down sometimes to the bottom, and now and then rises to the top, exposing nearly half an acre of marshy sward to view. I expect page 6 some of our legislators wish that the Green Isle, which we call Ireland, could be dipped in the same way. But there are better means of washing away Erin's wrongs than that. When I have looked at this Derwentwater island, and compared it with the other solid islands round, I have sometimes thought the contrast was not a bad illustration of different human experiences and hopes. This floating island is so soft, you cannot stand on it without a plank or raft, while the other islands are so solid that tall trees grow firmly there, and a squire has built a mansion upon one of them. And so it is with the prospects and the plans of men and women. Some are firm fabrics of the judgment; others are ephemeral visions of the fancy; while some are the wrecked structures of misconduct. Some are sunk by our own faults, some by the faults of others. That floating island looks sometimes green and charming at a distance. I have seen it with its tall reeds bending to the breeze, and water-birds playing amongst its flags, and swallows swinging on its rushes, while the evening sun has touched its green into bright emerald, with the silvery water rippling round it. And so has the picture which many a man has painted to the fancy of some thoughtless woman, looked beautiful and inviting as its details were sketched in. A picture of love and of home comfort, like a fairy story in its charm. But when she has got into the boat to row to the island, it has proved a floating, and often a sinking foothold. There is nothing solid. The love smile is drowned into a sodden leer, and what seemed to be a garden is nothing but a swamp. It is a picture painted by an intemperate and deceitful man, and so all its pretty details are washed away by the flood of selfishness, and violence, and vice. May I speak to the young women a moment? I feel bashful about it, not being a lady's man; but still I should like to say page 7 to you, "beware." There are plenty of touters with their boats calling you to come on board. Be careful how you choose. Don't get into that man's boat with a bottle under the seat; nor into the boat of that smiling sculler with a flask sticking out of his pilot jacket; nor yet into the craft of that red-nosed skipper with a short pipe in his mouth, and a damp quid in his cheek; but get into that boat, where the healthy-looking young fellow with the broad chest, and strong arm, and open face, is shaking up the cushions; he looks steady, as if he knew his business, and honest, as if he meant to act fairly by you. I like the name of his boat, too, "the Homely Mary;" it sounds better than the "Saucy Jane," and the "Romping Mopsey," or the "Buxom Bess," and seems as if it were chartered for the solid island with a house upon it, and not for the floating swamp which sinks to the bottom every six months. Look ahead. Take counsel of judgment, before you yield to fancy; a sail over the lake is a very pleasant thing, no doubt, but a voyage to the bottom is not so exhilarating. Before you get into any man's boat, tell him to bale it out, and keep it dry; you don't want a rolling, pitching, leaky craft, but one which will dance over the waves, and behave well in a storm as well as in calm weather : so look out for a life-boat, with honesty at the helm, with industry at the oar, and temperance at the prow; otherwise the hopes with which you set sail are destined to be washed away.

There is no need now to elaborate the old tale of how hope, honour, pleasure, home itself, are washed away by drink. Walk round about this place in a circuit of a quarter of a mile, and there will be elaboration enough of that grim fact. It will appeal to each of your five senses in turn, and to all at once. It will offend one sense with the close stench of squalor, another page 8 with the contact of filth, another with the savour of impurity, another with the sights of misery, and another with the jargon of debasement. Hard by where we are now, there stands a handsome building, with a noble cupola, and a fine garden, and a splendid entrance, and all the rest of it. But the garden has a high wall, and every window has thick bars; and in some of the rooms there are soft cushions lining the walls, that the inmates may not rashly dash themselves against the masonry. Here you will find a puling idiot, and there a raving maniac; and the whole scene is one of reason wrecked, hope havocked, and humanity dethroned. I don't say that all the poor creatures who have been driven to that hospital, have been driven thither by their own immediate vices; but I do say that the mania which culminates in there, is breeding in the streets outside, that the feeders of those cells are the ginshops, and the drinking kens within a stone's throw of the place. I do say that if you could pull down nine out of every ten of these centres of drunkenness, you might soon pull down the madhouses, and clip the wings of Bedlam, Hanwell, and Colney Hatch. Down through degenerate loins is the fever being transmitted, and by the vices of this hour, the hopes of generations yet unborn are being washed away. It would be a libel upon many a hapless captive of that hospital to say that he had brought himself thither. So far from that, we know that the cause of many of their ills is the overwrought rather than the debased manhood, and that the spring of the mischief is intellectual and not animal. But there would be little insanity if there were no intemperance. Aberration is very often the legacy of a besotted ancestry. Yet, whatever be the cause which fills our asylums with their inmates, and however piteous the sight which they present, there are self-made maniacs loose page 9 upon the streets, whose madness is as terrible and as sad as their's. O would that we could do as the Parisian revolutionists are so prone to do, barricade the streets and keep the monster of Intemperance from passing through. When fever breaks out malignantly in any neighbourhood, the district is proscribed, and remedies and disinfectants are plied and used, till the pestilence has been washed away. In the time of the Plague, they used to hang a black flag at the end of the street, with a skull and cross-bones on its fabric, to warn the passenger from venturing near. Alas! what a host of black flags would wave in London, blocking up three-fourths of the thoroughfares on the map, if every district were proscribed where the plague of drunkenness was rife! That Juggernaut has driven his car down our lanes and by-ways, rutting them deep with his accursed wheels, crushing down hopes, and hearts, and homes beneath them at each turn. Young, blythe and hopeful manhood has fallen down before it; woman's beauty and chastity have been ground under its weight; the grey hairs of old age are sticking to its axles; and infancy itself becomes the pavement for its course. Buds and flowers, and full-ripened fruit, have all alike been crushed beneath it. The strong arm has been broken; the trusting heart has been riven; the bright smile has been quenched as its infernal track has lengthened. Tears, blood, and death, have ever accompanied its course. The equerries of hell have been its outriders; the wail of broken hearts has formed the music of the cortege; and the dust of ruined homes has been the smoke of its devouring holocaust, as it has flung its brands where its wheels could not destroy. Then, sons of temperance and truth, to arms! Lay hold upon the axe with which this chariot of death shall be hewn asunder. Throw up the barricades against the page 10 cursed cavalcade, and while you smite the monster hip and thigh, open the sluices of education and religion, that the purifying waves may run through our cities like a river, that the burning fire-trail may be quenched, and the stain of the monster may be washed away.

If the sound of my words should reach the ear, or the sight of them, the eye, of any victim of this enthralling vice, or of any other vice, may God grant that they may have an arresting power! No man pursues a career of sin long without finding out that he is making a mistake. He very soon begins to discover, more or less distinctly, that the wages of sin is death. And the only reason why he goes on is, that he persuades himself that he has gone too far to stop, or if not too far to stop, at least too far to atone for what is past. Ah! yes, you are right there, you have gone too far to make atonement for the past. But what then? Are you on that account to go on, accepting perdition as a certainty, and taking hell as the inevitable bourne? Never! you cannot atone. And there is no need for it. The atonement is already made. An atonement sufficient for the worst of you. There is not a drunkard, or a debauchee among men, there is not a Magdalene, or a harlot amongst women, for whom the blood of Jesus will not suffice. The sea of misfortune may be deep, but the sea of His love is deeper. No matter how complete the shipwreck of your life and hope which you have made, Christ can repair it all. When the "Royal Charter" was wrecked in 1859, off the coast of North Wales, many poor sailors who were drowned were washed ashore: and on the arms of several there was found a picture of the cross tattooed into the skin. Some had a figure of the Saviour on the Cross, worked into the arm. Some had the initials I. H. S. printed below the cross; and one had page 11 the Saviour bearing the cross upon His shoulder, tattooed over his heart, upon the breast. What a solemn, touching, and yet hopeful sight must have been those stark forms stretched out upon the shore, when the silver moon rose in the evening and lighted up these simple designs! Ah! brothers and sisters, it may be that waves of sin and wrong more fierce than those which beat that noble vessel into spars, and whelmed her treasure and her crew, have beaten over and wrecked your life; but if you have but the cross near to your heart, you may hope and rejoice yet. Heal up the quarrels of a divided home, and forgive each other as you take the assurance that Jesus has forgiven you. In a few days, this place will be full of those who come to wash their bodies in water. Would that it might be filled to-day with those who came to wash their souls in blood! For—

"There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel's veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
Loose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see
That fountain in his day;
And there may you, though vile as he,
Wash all your sins away."

We have not been together here long enough to excuse any lingering over our adieus; and our effort has been too humble to call for it. But I may be perhaps permitted to say, that I am glad to have had these nine weeks of simple intercourse with those who have met me here, that I do not close the labour without regret, and that I hope at least that no harm has been done, and that some good has been achieved. There is no permanent and abiding good in any teaching which does not go beyond the issues of this life and bear on those of eternity; so page 12 that any teaching which has not Christ crucified as its burden, falls short of an abiding testimony. The intent of the more fugitive strains of these addresses needs no repeated statement. It is clear enough. If it needs defence in the opinion of some; it would probably need it just as much in the opinion of the same people after I had defended it. Nothing, in their view, can extenuate what they call "levity" on the Sabbath. I confess I can't see it. The disciples of Jesus were continually being criticised for being natural upon the Sabbath day, but their Master always defended them. For myself, I fancy we shall have to make up our minds to take things as we find them, if we want to mend them where they are wrong. We find men who won't come to Chapel, but who will come to the Lambeth Baths. Well, if they won't come to us; is it wrong for us to come to them? And if they won't listen to us unless we run on "from grave to gay, and from lively to severe," and become "everything by turns, and nothing long," is it very blameworthy in us if we accommodate ourselves a little to the state of the case, provided our aims are towards man's better temporal, and highest spiritual good? If we try to make men sober, thoughtful, and religious, is it quite inexcusable that we talk a little in defiance of the canons of severe criticism both in style and matter now and then? I shall ever be thankful to those who will show me a more excellent way. But meanwhile, I am not ashamed of myself, or of my little effort. The faults of both are countless. I ask God, not man, to pardon these. And in saying, "God bless you," and "farewell," I thank you for the numbers in which you have turned out, and for the patience with which you have listened; and if any one has listened to good purpose, and any heart is lighter, or any home happier for these addresses, let God's be all the praise.

Conclusion of Series.

Passmore and Alabaster, Steam Printers, 31, Little Britain.