“The shadow had passed from her heart and brow,
And a deep calm filled her breast;
For the peace of God was her portion now,
And her weary soul found rest.”
Lays of Me Kirk and Covenant.
The Duncans walked home from the East Port in thoughtful silence, which Mary Wigton did not feel inclined to disturb. Her own heart was full of new strange feelings, which she could not as yet understand or arrange; but they filled her with joy, and with a love which seemed to pour itself forth on every one around. She could not join in Janet’s lamentations over the spare meal that awaited their return, for was it not provided by that heavenly Father of whose love she had just heard, and would he not send whatever they really needed? To her it was a feast; and she quietly enjoyed the luxury of a clandestine transfer of more than half her own portion to poor Archie, who, being a healthy, growing boy, suffered keenly from the want of sufficient food.
At length they began to discuss the sermon; it was little Effie, the youngest of the party, who introduced the siihiect “Didna you man on the gate speak brave words o’ the guid Lord Jesus?” she said, addressing Jamie, who was very fond of her.
“I didna ken ye were minding him, bairnie.”
“On ay, I minded every word. I never heard the like before.”
“There’s mair than you can say that, Effie, dear,” added Mary, with a beaming face. “God be thankit for thae guid words. Mony’s the sair heart they’ll hae healed the day.”
“Weel,” said Janet, “I dinna think se muckle on’t. He seemed to jalouse we were a by ordinar sinfu’ folk; and, se far as I ken, we’re nae waur than the lave. What do you say, Jamie?”
Thus directly appealed to, Jamie answered oracularly, ―
“He’s a Draw preacher, Janet; but he’s a muckle heretic.”
Nor could he be induced to commit himself to any more explicit opinion.
He manifested, however, an extraordinary desire to hear the “muckle heretic” on every possible occasion. When, a short time afterward, he was fortunate enough to be taken back by his former master, who set a high value on his uprightness and industry, he announced the fact to Janet with the following commentary―
“It was no that easy to settle between mister and me; for he’s unco keen after the preaching himsel, and didna like to leave the shop; but I gared him promise to shut it up the while, though I hae tint a trifle wages thereby.”
“Oh, Jamie lad, wasna that a silly thing, wi’ se mony mouths to fill, and the meal se dear?”
“Tut, lassie, wad ye no let a man pleasure himsel whiles?”
And so not one of the very frequent preachings from the East Port was missed by any of the Duncan family, or by Mary Wigton. All loved to go, though from different motives. Mary, as a newborn babe, desired the sincere milk of the word, that she might grow thereby. She was very ignorant, not only of the doctrines of the Christian faith, but even of the great facts that underlie those doctrines. She could not read; and had she been able to do so, she had never so much as seen any portion of the Word of God in her own tongue. She was therefore entirely dependent, both for instruction and edification, upon the sermons of Wishart; and she valued those precious means of grace perhaps more highly than those can conceive who are surrounded with churches and Bibles, with Christian friends and religious books. She soon learned that prayer was not the vain repetition of words she could not understand, but the lifting up of the heart to a reconciled God and Father; and she found the way into his presence opened to her through the merits of Him in whom alone she trusted. When perplexities arose in her path (and to the thinking mind, whether educated or ignorant, they surely will arise), she either prayed over them until they vanished, or the preacher took them up and solved them for her in one or other of his discourses. But she was saved from many difficulties by the simple, childlike faith with which she had been led to receive the word of God, and in a lesser degree by the fact that religion had previously been with her merely the sentiment of a naturally devout and amiable character. She had not been either deeply acquainted with, or strongly attached to, the peculiar tenets of Popery; and she game them up almost without a struggle, when convinced, less by the reformer’s eloquence than by the instincts of her own renewed heart, that they were dishonoring to the Saviour she loved.
With James Duncan it was far different. The battle between the old faith and the new had to be fought out step by step in his slow but thoughtful mind. The good words of the gospel, its free invitations and promises of mercy, seemed every day more suited to his need, and more grateful to his longing heart. But he found that this pure and lofty faith could not be made to harmonize with the creed to which he was still so strongly attached. In his soul that which letteth would let until it was taken out of the way. He was sometimes roused to vigorous, even bitter opposition, by the preacher’s powerful though temperate exposure of Romish superstition. To the mass, to purgatory, to the invocation of saints, he clung almost with the energy of a drowning man; but he felt them, as it were, dragged one by one from his unwilling hands by a moral force greater than his own.
But no doctrine irritated him so much as that of justification by faith only, which Wishart, who was lecturing on the Epistle to the Romans, set forth with all the power and clearness for which the reformers were so peculiarly remarkable. Yet even when he was most opposed to it there was a voice within him that witnessed to its truth; and sometimes he was not very far from suspecting that the secret of the peace he longed for lay in the doctrine he despised.
As for Janet, the preaching did not, in the first instance, either perplex her mind or touch her heart, but it troubled her conscience. She did not hear it as a bigoted Romanist, nor yet as a candid inquirer after the truth, but as a sinner, who had hitherto lived in careless security, without God in the world. She grew miserable, and at one time would gladly have discontinued her attendance; but she would not refuse to accompany her brother, and besides she was herself not insensible to the fascination which the preacher exercised. She could not speak of what she felt; and, fearing to betray herself, she joined energetically in Jamie’s condemnation of his heresies, while, in fact, she scarcely understood in what they consisted.
The children loved to attend sermon almost as much as their elders. Archie, while he remained utterly indifferent to the doctrines taught by Wishart, contracted a boy’s first enthusiasm for his person; and little Effie always liked to go where she might hear “mair o’ the guid Lord Jesus.”
Upon one occasion Jamie returned from the East Port in a state of more than usual apparent irritation, but real doubt and perplexity. They had just heard a very full and luminous exposition of the way of the sinner’s acceptance before God.
“It’s ill to ken what a man suld think,” he said. “Naebody does what he preaches, or preaches what he does. Maister Wishart and the priests are like enoo; there’s nae muckle to choose between them.”
“What gars ye se sic a thing?” asked Archie indignantly. “Maister Wishart’s no like the priests; he proves a’ he says, frae his wee book.”
“Do ye no mind that the priests are aye and aye telling us to do guid warks for our puir souls? And they never do ane themsels that I hae seen; while Maister Wishart, wha does a hantle guid warks himsel, tells folk they’re nae manner o’ use.”
“Ye may weel say he does guid warks,” said Archie, who preferred the concrete to the abstract, and was glad to escape from a theological discussion to a matter of fact. “A’ the town says he does naething in the warld (when he’s no preaching) but gang up and doun amang the sick folk, wi’ neither fear nor care for his ain life, telling them the guid words, and gieing them a’ the comfort he can, for their puir bodies as weel as their souls. I hae heard that whiles, when he’s got nae mair Biller, he’s gien his vera claes awa’.”
“Mair’s the wonner what he can be thinking on, to tell us its nae use our doing warks ava', and that we hae nocht to do but just believe. It’s ower easy ganging to heaven that gait.”
“Ye’re wrang, Jamie,” said Janet, turning suddenly round on him. “It’s no easy ava’, but ower hard, the way he puts it. Does he no say we maun love the Lord better than father, or mither, or brither? an’ that we maunna gie up his Word, aince we ken it in our hearts, no, not to save our vera lives? It’s ower muckle that for flesh and bluid, say I.”
Mary, who had not spoken before, now quietly put in a word.
“Ay, Janet, ye’d be rlcht enoo, gin we had to do it oursels. But the guid Lord wha loved us, and gied his ain bluid for our sins, forbye a’ that, he gies us the heart to do what he bids.”
“Then,” said Jamie quickly, “we maun do what He bids, and no just believe and nae main”
Mary was a little puzzled, not exactly for thoughts, but for words in which to clothe them. At last she said―
“Ane couldna believe and nae main Aebody wha kens the guid Lord loved and forgave them, maun just be trying the haill day Lang to do bits o’ things by way o’ thanks to him. But gin he didna make us free to the love and forgiveness first, what wad become of us ava’, puir sinners that we are?”
She said this with much feeling; for it was with her as with many others whose hearts are opened to receive the word immediately and with gladness. Conviction rather followed conversion than preceded it; and she grew day by day, as well in the knowledge of her own sin as in that of her Saviour’s grace.
She was about to leave the room, and Jamie asked her whither she went.
“But to the guidwife wha bides in the top back room. Her wee bairnie’s vera ill the day.”
“God grant it’s no the sickness.”
“Na, na; but she couldna gang to the preaching, se I hae promised to tell her the sermon.”
“Nae harm in that,” said Janet. “But ye maunna bide wi’ her the haill nicht, to help caring the bairn.” “Did ye do that, Mary lass?” asked Jamie.
“Ay, did she, twice over,” said Janet.
“Neel, the puir thing was sair troubled and forfoughten. And she has naebody to fend for her; her guidman’s at the sea.”
When she was gone, Janet remarked to her brother―
“Wad ye think, Jamie, it was the same lass that used to sit at you wheel a wee while ago, like a puir dead thing, wi’ neither wish nor care for hersel or onybody else?”
Jamie shook his head.
“I wonner,” he said, “how ane can keep sic’ a bricht face and happy heart in the midst of a’ this fear and trouble.”
“It’s naebut she frets hersel whiles, because she’s sorning upon us, as she says.”
“Hoot awa’ I” cried Jamie indignantly. “Ye’re no worth a plack, Janet woman, gin ye let the lassie think that. She has brought us naught but comfort and blessing.”
“That’s ower true, Jamie; forbye she’s unco quick and handy in fending for the bairns, and sic’ like. Sin’ the time she cheered up se wonnerfu’ hersel, she’s no had a thocht but to save and help us a’ she could. And it’s clear she maun bide wi’ us, for she couldna find a service the noo, let her seek as she may.”
Jamie expressed his entire acquiescence, even more by his looks than by his words.
“Ony ither time idle folk might hae their clavers, ye ken,” Janet added, with a little hesitation.
“What care I for that?” said Jamie. “Not ane bodle. Forbye, the hand o’ God is upon us; and the folk wha he has brought thegither, to help and comfort ane anither in this sair distress, maun just be thankfu’ an’ bide as he pleases. Gin he send us better days―” But here he stopped abruptly, either because he was a man of few words, and had already said more than his wont, or because some purpose was stirring in his heart, to which as yet he did not choose to give words at all.