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Old Church Clock

<h3>CHAPTER XI.</h3> <blockquote>Even such a man (inheriting the zeal And from the sanctity of elder times Not deviating,—a priest, the like of whom, If multiplied, and in their stations set, Would o’er the bosom of a joyful land Spread true religion and its genuine fruits) Before me stood that day. The Excursion. </blockquote> “‘My brethren,’ said the priest, resting his hand on the Bible, and looking round upon the anxious audience with an expression which showed some degree of agitation of mind, mixed with his habitual calmness and self-possession,—‘My dear brethren, I am about to do what is quite unusual, and, I fear, wrong in me;—I am about to address you in language which I have not first carefully considered, and, word for word, committed to paper.  Though I have preached the blessed Gospel of our Lord to you and your fathers, from this place, for the long period of fifty years, I have never ventured to do this before.  I have had too much fear both for myself and you—too much anxiety that not a word should drop from me which was not agreeable to the language and spirit of the Gospel, to trust myself to unarranged thoughts, and unconsidered words.  But fifty years have given confidence to my mind, that nothing which is not of God can slip from me in this house, even in the warmth and heat of a moment like this; and thoughts arise now in my mind which seem fitted for the occasion, and yet which had not occurred to me in the silent meditation of my closet.  And surely I have experienced too long the full enjoyment of that holy truth that “God is love,” to shrink from speaking of it, (and especially before you, my children,) without shame, and without fear!  I call you my children; for many as are the grey heads that I now see before me, there is hardly one who has been born again into the blessed kingdom of our Lord without the ministration of these hands, unworthy as indeed they are to be made the instruments of so divine a thing!  There is one, indeed, now present,’—here his eye naturally turned to the seat almost close beside him, in which sat the venerable partner of his joys and cares, (sorrows, I believe, in the worldly sense, he was too good a man to have any,) in her little black silk quaker-like bonnet, and neat white cap; retaining on her cheeks much of the bloom and some of the beauty which had made her, between sixty and seventy years ago, the admiration of the parish:—‘There is one, indeed,’ he repeated; his voice faltered, and it was clear that he would have some difficulty in proceeding with his discourse: and here it was beautiful to observe what happened.  The old lady, seeing how matters stood, looked up to him from under her bonnet with a quiet smile, conveying at once an expression of kind encouragement and gentle rebuke, which is quite indescribable.  The effect was immediate.  A slight flush of shame crossed the old man’s brow, and he at once resumed his wonted composure.  There was something in that smile which had reminded him of the days of their youth—when she was the buxom maiden and he the gallant lover—and he doubtless felt some shame that he should not show himself at least as firm and as youthful as his dame; and so his face naturally took up an expression in quiet harmony with hers, and he became at once himself again.  Sir, it was beautiful!  I would not have missed observing it for the world.  Doubtless, these were mere human feelings intruding themselves into the house of God, but I cannot believe they were sinful.  It was like a gleam of earthly sunshine streaming through the painted windows of the chancel of a cathedral, glancing upon, and not polluting, the holy pavement of the sanctuary!”—The old man paused as if pleased with his own thoughts, and then proceeded with his recollections of the sermon. “‘You,’ said the preacher, ‘have been my scholars, and p. 62sometimes, I confess, my teachers, for many a year; for while you have learned from me the truths of the Gospel, I have often drawn from you—your patience, your cheerfulness, your submission to the will of God—a lesson as to the right way of putting the Gospel into practice.  Much, too, have I learned from your sins, your negligences, and ignorances.  But all combines,—strength and weakness, life and death, the works of God and the Word of God,—to teach us all the great, the essential doctrine of the text, “God is love!”  See how He has shown it in our creation and our redemption, in the world around us, and in the world within us—the kingdom of earth, and the kingdom of heaven!  How like, too, are His bounties and loving-kindnesses in both these kingdoms!  It is indeed “the same God, that worketh all in all.”  Look around you, as I have often before told you to do, on human life, and especially on your own life, and the blessings which each of you possess.  God is with you in spiritual and temporal things, always turning upon you the same face of love.  He has given you an earthly world in which you are to live here below.  He gave you breath to begin life, and strength to continue it.  He gives you food in health, medicine in sickness, parents and friends to guard and instruct you in youth, companions in middle life, and children to be a comfort in old age.  He surrounds you with beauty to cheer your hearts on every side; sunshine and shadow, the fruitful plains and the everlasting hills, the fertilizing streams, and the bright and silent stars.  God, in short, shows Himself to you in love and beauty, through every stage of your mortal life; and so it is with your spiritual life,—that life which He has given you in His dear Son.  Love rules in grace as well as in nature.  Love brought down the Saviour to die for you when you were dead—all dead—in trespasses and sins.  Love sent down the Holy Spirit to earth, by Whom ye were born again into the kingdom of Christ, as ye were born into this world by the breath of the same Spirit when ye were but insensible dust.  And your spiritual life is surrounded with love and kindness like your natural life, from its beginning on earth to its consummation in heaven.  God’s Bible, like His world, is full of love and beauty.  It tells you to whom you are to listen, namely, His ministers; through what you are to seek grace, namely, His sacraments; through Whom alone you are to be saved, namely, His Son.’ “He then proceeded to show more especially how this love was shown in the institution of the rite of Confirmation, by which careful training of the youth of Christ’s Church in faith and practice was secured, and all ages taught how they must act together in furthering the common good, the older being bound to teach the young, and the young to listen to the old; while both learned to feel their submission to the rule of the Church, in having to submit to the Bishop, as its head, the test of their mutual obedience to her laws.  ‘But,’ he added, ‘I will not now dwell more on the rite of Confirmation, as the older have already had their instruction in it, and that of the younger will soon follow.  I wish to say a word to you all on another matter, which I confess weighs heavily on my mind, and no occasion may again occur on which I can do it so properly as at present.  You are surrounded with spiritual enemies on every side, and it is my particular duty to warn you of your danger.  God be thanked, the foe has not yet scaled the walls of this parish, but he is loudly battering at its ramparts!  Look at all the various kinds of dissent from the Church’s unity, which now stalk abroad with shameless front!  Now all dissent is sin, less or more.  If it differs not from the truth, it is the more unpardonable for its schism—if it does differ, so far as it differs it is the more sinful.  Look at popery, which is dissent in the mask of unity—error the more dangerous for boasting itself to be the truth.  Look, again, at infidelity—the blasphemies of Tom Paine; beware, my children, of this sin, for I hear it has come nigh you, even to your doors.’  (Here a sensation of wondering horror ran through the assembled crowd.)  ‘Do you ask me for a safeguard against these snares?  I answer, meddle not with them!  He that toucheth pitch will be defiled.  To be tempted of p. 64the devil is trial enough for poor mortals to endure, but to tempt the devil himself, is of all follies the most unpardonable!  It is not my duty, for it is impossible for me, to answer all the forms of error; but it is my duty to warn you against them all; and I do so by giving you one simple safeguard, which will apply to them all alike: it is this—take my word for it, that your Church is true.—Somebody’s word you must take, for you are too unlearned to judge of these deep matters for yourselves, and why not mine?  Have I any interest, have I any wish to deceive you?  Does not my salvation rest upon my securing your own?  Have I not given my nights and my days to the study of the truth?  Has not the Bishop, my spiritual head, commissioned me to preach it to you?  Have I any thing in this world that I can desire in comparison with the salvation of your souls?  Do not my hoary locks, and shrinking frame, proclaim that here I have no continuing city, but must soon give an account of my stewardship to Him that sent me?  Has not the Bible been my companion, and the wisest and best of all ages its interpreters for me, for nearly a century?  If these things cannot be spoken against, take my word for it, till you have that of one whom you have more reasons for believing, that if you take the Bible as your law, and the Prayer Book as your practical rule of life, living up to both with a good conscience, then, my life for yours—my eternal life for yours—you will at last find the path I now point out to you,—the path that leads to heaven!’ “The venerable preacher gave utterance to these words with a passionate earnestness which went to the hearts of all present, and very few who heard them will ever forget either their sound or their meaning.  He then proceeded more calmly to press on his hearers their several duties to God and to each other, and dismissed the vast assembly with his blessing, given with all the dignity of a patriarch.  I need not relate to you how crowded was his mid-day meal,—how attentively listened to his evening sermon.  Suffice it to say, that we were instructed in every point of the solemn vow which we were about to take, on our own behalf, before the Bishop, in such a manner as might be expected from Robert Walker.  I must, however, mention two events more, connected with this little history of our Confirmation, the one very ridiculous, the other almost sublime; because they have each their proper moral attached to them.  Among the other candidates for Confirmation was our old friend Tom Hebblethwaite, whom I have long since forgiven for the sound beating he gave me at Hawkshead, but whom I never can forgive for cutting off the old cock’s tail!  Tom was stupid and sullen as usual, but at the same time, thanks to old Bowman’s birch, had acquired information enough about his catechism to prevent Mr. Walker from absolutely refusing him his ticket.  Accordingly, he was one of the party who started off together from Yewdale to Ulverston on the morning on which the confirmation was to be held in the church of that town, by the Lord Bishop of Chester.  We were a sober and steady young party, attended by our parents, and one or two god-fathers and god-mothers who knew their duty; and the mirth, which generally attends such meetings of the youth of both sexes, was sobered down into quiet and decorous conversation by the seriousness of the occasion which had brought us together.  All except Tom, who, generally dull and stupid enough, seemed excited into a kind of perverse and ungainly liveliness, which increased into boisterous folly with every rebuke from those older than himself.  At length we arrived at Penny-Bridge, just below Mr. Machell’s house, when the stream was then crossed, (I know not how it is now,) not by a bridge, as one might expect from its name, but what are there called ‘hipping-stones,’ large blocks of rock placed at intervals, so that the passenger had to skip from one to another in order to cross the water.  Tom challenged his companions to go over on one leg,—a feat which many there could have performed, had they not one and all felt themselves restrained from such a childish frolic by the solemnity of the occasion.  Now it is a strange trait in human nature that the very feelings which held back the really brave, seemed to give a momentary courage to the coward; and Tom undertook to perform to-day what nobody would give him credit for ever thinking of on any other day in the year.  But the fate of all such rash adventurers—and which every one hoped rather than expected—on this occasion befell Tom Hebblethwaite.  Just when he came to the largest stone, and the deepest hole in the river, Tom’s courage and foot gave way together, and down he soused over head and ears into the water, nothing being seen of him, for a moment, but his hat, which, being the lightest part about him, (it was a new one for the occasion,) refused to sink with the rest of his body, and soon commenced a voyage towards Peel Castle and the Pile of Foudrey,—a voyage which nobody present seemed inclined to interrupt.  Tom himself, however, was kindly fished up out of an element which seemed to have been of service neither to his body nor to his mind; for, without staying to thank his deliverers, he immediately commenced a rapid retreat homewards, and, I dare say, remains unconfirmed, (except in his sullenness and obstinate temper,) to the present hour!  It was some time before we could recover our composure, which had been ruffled by this ludicrous event; but the sight of the assembly around the church and church-yard of Ulverston effectually sobered the thoughts of even the most volatile of our party; for there can be no sight more solemn than that of a Confirmation in a fine open country, and in a church situated like that of Ulverston, surrounded by scattered and towering hills, with the broad ocean in the distance.  There were the rural shepherds at the head of their flocks, hastening to present their young lambs to the Lord, that they might receive His blessing from the hands of His chief minister on earth.  Our own beloved pastor was already at his post, standing waiting for us at the church-door in his well-known gown and cassock, and ready to head us up to the rails of the altar.  Way was made for him by his younger brethren of the clergy, as he advanced steadily up the aisle, followed by his children; and what was our surprise and delight to see the Bishop himself, in his white robes, advance two or three steps to meet him, p. 67and shake him most affectionately by the hand.  There was a smile of approbation on the faces of the surrounding clergy as they witnessed this scene, which showed that no feeling of jealousy was excited in their minds by this kindness on the part of the Bishop, but that they all looked upon it in its true light—as a just reward of pious and unpretending merit.  How proud we all were at that moment of belonging to the flock of Robert Walker!  We each felt as if we had a personal share in his distinction, and many of us resolved then, I doubt not, to do nothing which should bring disgrace upon a teacher so honoured among his brethren as ours!  This, sir, I have learned since to believe, is a wrong feeling; we ought to follow the right path from higher motives than a feeling of pride, either in ourselves or others.  But surely our human passions may sometimes justly be employed for good ends.  What is it but taking one of the Devil’s strongest and most wiry snares, and twisting it into a three-fold cord to bind us faster to the altar?” <ANTIMG alt="Ulverstone Church" title= "Ulverstone Church" src="images/p64.jpg" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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