Musings and Meditations

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 8, 22 February 1908, Page 6

Musings and Meditations

By

Dog Toby

A WOODEN SHANTY.

THE great abbey was thronged with a crowd of eager worshippers. The dean had recently started a series of Sunday evening services and some of the leading preachers in England had been asked to occupy the pulpit. The congregation, if not exactly an ultra fasionable one, consisted almost entirely of the well-to-do classes. Directly the doors were open you had literally to fight your way to a seat, and black-gowned vergers stood about to keep you away from the reserved places. Some of London’s outcast poor stood outside, gazing wistfully at the light and warmth within, and unheeded by those who were elbowing each other for a place. I had got in by the north door, and soon found myself wedged in a pew close to the pulpit. We had a hymn—“Smite them by the virtue of the Lenten fast.” I wondered what the majority of the prosperous congregation knew about fasting. A portly city magnate near me was singing the hymn out of tune. He was probably looking forward to his next aldermanie dinner. I thought of a poor girl I had seen outside selling flowers. She was miserably clad; she had neither shoes nor stockings, despite the biting cold. I remember her piteous appeal to this same man. “Oh, sir, for the love of God do buy a flower. I have had no food to-day. I am starving. I would sell myself for half-a-crown.” I remembered his threat to have her arrested for begging, the coarse word that he had used, and how the girl had shrunk away into the darkness. 1 wondered whether the submerged tenth would ever rise and smite us by -virtue of their fast. Then came the rich voice of the minor canon intoning the opening sentence: “A broken heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” The choir sang the general confession; the congregation made no attempt to join in, but listened with an air of pleased content to the rich harmony of the blended voices of men and boys. As the words, “Like lost sheep” echoed along the vaulted roof, I thought of the ninety and nine in that great abbey, and- the one who was lost in the cold and the darkness outside. Ganon Duckworth read the lessons as only he could read them. Everyone listened as he recited the pathetic story of the reconciliation of Joseph with his brethren, the promise to nourish them lest they came to poverty, and the second lesson told us that as by man came death by man came also the resurrection from the dead. And then the anthem reminded us that He by whom the resurrection came had been despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. My mind went back to an account 1 had read in the paper the day before of how a young girl with her baby had been found dead under one of the arches of a bridge within a stone’s throw of the abbey, and how the doctor said they had died of cold and starvation. By inan came death, would the resurrection of London come by those who felt its sorrows and were acquainted with its griefs’ The sermon was preached by a distinguished headmaster of one of our great schools. He dealt with the relation of natural and spiritual law. He said it was a law of God that there should be rich and poor, that some should do the rough work and others the 'pleasanter tasks. We must not interfere in any way with the saeredness of property. Lent was, of course, a time'of self-denial, and it was quite tight and propbr to give to charities wljat we felt we could spare, and if would help us in the path of abstinence if we abstained from the use of meat for at least one day in the week. The congregation seemed quite in sympathy with him, though some began to look a little bored when he entered into a very learned discussion as to the possibility of prov-

ing a resurrection of the body from the analogy of evolution as learnt from geology and physics. Then we had Kahle’s evening hymn: “If some poor wandering child of thine have spurned to-day the voice divine.” Which were the wandering children —London’s outcasts selling themselves for bread, or the rich who seeing their brother in need had shut up their compassion from him. The clear, scholarly voice of the dean broke in upon my thoughts as he pronounced the Benediction, praying that we all might come to the knowledge and love of God. As we went out of the Abbey I met a man I had frequently come across at the Palace Club. He suggested that we should cross the road and have supper there. After supper he stayed and had a chat in the smoking room. “I often go to the services at the Abbey,” he said, “and I cannot help contrasting them with a very different service I once went to when I was out in New Zealand, and which marked a turning point in my career. I don’t mind telling you a little of my past. I was a regular black sheep of the family, and I was shipped out to the colony that I might go to hell my own road out of sight of my highly respectable relatives. And I got as near to my predicted destination as man can do on this earth. I had been in gaol. I lived only for drink, and when I could not cadge my food 1 took any job that would serve to get me meat and drink. When I was at my lowest a young fellow overtook me on Suiday morning as I was tramping along the road. I tried to avoid him, 1 felt out of touch with decent people. But he spoke to me quite cheerily, called me mate, and asked if I was going to church. I could have laughed at the idea. Fancy me, the drunken outcast being asked to church. However, I felt glad that someone had spoken to me. kindly, and I answered him that I couldn’t go in dungarees and bluchers, and I had nothing else to wear. But he only laughed, and said that they would all be glad to see me, that we didn’t go to church to show our clothes. He asked if I was looking for a job, if so he would try and fix me up. 1 can’t tell how it was, but I went with him to the little church. It was a small, rough building, unlined and with only a few benches and a table. As he had said, everybody welcomed me and shook hands with me. They found me a seat and a book. The singing was accompanied on a very old harmonium, but everybody joined in. They had oldfashioned hymns with very simple tunes; they were al! very simple, kindly Christian folk. The preacher told us the story of the promgul son, and how- God was always waiting for us, and how wo ought to help each, other to come to Him. And there in that little bush building, with its bare furniture and its rough boards, with its simple service and plain and homely minister. I learnt what I had never learnt in abbey or cathedral —the gospel of the grace of God. I saw my life, what it was and what it might be. Thanks to the friends I made, there I was able to turn over a new leaf, and I havs never gone back since. I don’t know why I am telling you this. but. somehow- tho service, to-night brought it back to me. We had far better music this evening than the poor little bush harmonium could pretend to, we had a congregation that would have looked on the rough that would have looked on the rough, kindiv back-hloek settlers as hopelessly uncivilised, we had a scholarly Anglican djvine who would in all probability have cjpssed the, simple unpretentious country parson as a ranter. And yet there are many that it would fail to touch, many who would exchange it all for one grasp of, the . hand of brotherhood, or for one word of the old, old story of Jesus and bis love.”