“as labourers in thy vineyard,
send us out, christ, to be,
content to bear the burden
of weariness for thee.
“we ask no other wages
when thou shalt call us home,
but to have shared the travail
which makes thy kingdom come.”
it is popularly supposed that surnames only came into existence with the reign of king john. this is not quite an accurate assertion. they existed from the conquest, but were chiefly personal, and apart from the great feudal families, only began at that date to consolidate and crystallise into hereditary names. so far as common people were concerned, in the reign of henry the second, a man’s surname was usually restricted to himself. he was named either from one of his parents, as john william-son, or john fitz-mildred; from his habitation, as john by the brook; from his calling, as john the tanner; from some peculiarity in his costume, as john whitehood,—in his person, as john fairhair,—in his mind, as john lovegood,—in his tastes, as john milk-sop,—or in his habits, as john drinkdregs. if he removed from one place to another, he was likely to change his name, and to become known, say at winchester, as john de nottingham; or if his father were a priest who was a well-known person, he would not improbably be styled john fiz-al-prester. (note 1.) it will readily be seen that the majority of these names were not likely to descend to a second generation. the son of john william-son would be henry john-son, or henry alice-son; he might or might not retain the personal name, or the trade-name; but the place-name he probably would inherit. this explains the reason why so large a majority of our modern surnames are place-names, whether in respect of a town, as nottingham, debenham, brentwood: or of a country locality, as brook, lane, hill, etcetera. now and then a series of johns in regular descent would fix the name of johnson on the family; or the son and grandson pursuing the same calling as the father, would turn the line into tanners. all surnames have arisen in such a manner.
our friends in kepeharme lane knew nothing of surnames otherwise than personal, apart from the great territorial families of norman immigration, who brought their place-names with them. manning brown was so termed from his complexion; his elder son, not being specially remarkable, was known merely as romund fitz-manning; but the younger, in his boyhood of a somewhat impetuous temper, had conferred on him the epithet of haimet escorceueille, or burntown. the elder brother of manning was dubbed gilbert cuntrevent, or against-the-wind; and his two sons, of whom one was the head porter, and another a watchman, at the castle, were called osbert le porter and stephen esueillechien, or watchdog,—the last term evidently a rendering of english into dog-french. our forefathers were apt hands at giving nicknames. their epithets were always direct and graphic, sometimes highly satirical, some very unpleasant, and some very picturesque. isel, who was recognised as a woman of a complaining spirit, was commonly spoken of as isel the sweet; while her next neighbour, who lorded it over a very meek husband, received the pungent appellation of franna gillemichel. (note 2.)
the day after the arrival of the germans, the porter’s wife came down to see her kindred.
“what, you’ve got some of those queer folks here?” she said in a loud whisper to isel, though gerhardt was not present, and his wife and sister could not understand a word she spoke.
“ay, they seem decentish folks,” was the reply, as isel washed her eel-like lampreys for a pie—the fish which had, according to tradition, proved the death of henry the first.
“oh, do they so? you mind what you are after. osbert says he makes no account of them. he believes they’re jews, if not worse.”
“couldn’t be worse,” said isel sententiously. “nothing of the sort, anania. they say their prayers oftener than we do.”
“ay, but what to? just tell me that. old turguia has some in her house, and she says they take never a bit of notice of our lady nor saint helen, that she has upstairs and down; they just kneel down and fall a-praying anywhere. what sort of work do you call that?”
“i don’t know as i wish to call it anything in particular, without you’re very anxious,” replied isel.
“but i am anxious about it, aunt. these folks are in your house, and if they are witches and such like, it’s you and the girls who will suffer.”
“well, do you think it’s much matter?” asked isel, putting aside the lampreys, and taking up a bushel basket of kentish pearmains. “if our lady could hear me in one corner, i reckon she could hear me in another.”
“but to turn their backs on them!” remonstrated anania.
“well, i turn mine on her, when i’m at work, many a time of a day.”
“work—ay. but not when you’re at prayer, i suppose?”
“oh, it’ll be all right at last, i hope,” said isel a little uneasily.
“hope’s poor fare, aunt. but i tell you, these folks are after no good. why, only think! five of them got taken in by those rascals of jews—three in benefei’s house, and two at jurnet’s. they’d never have taken them in, depend on it, if they hadn’t known they weren’t so much better than they should be.”
agnes and ermine understood none of these words, though they saw readily enough that the looks anania cast upon them were not friendly. but derette spoke up for her friends.
“they’re much better than you, cousin anania!” said that downright young woman.
“keep a civil tongue in your head,” replied anania sharply.
“i’d rather have a true one,” was the child’s answer; “and i’m not sure they always go together.”
“osbert says,” pursued anania, ignoring derette, “that he expects there’ll be a stir when my lord comes to hear of them. much if they don’t get turned out, bag and baggage. serve ’em right, too!”
“they haven’t got any bags,” said literal derette. “i don’t think they’ve any of them any clothes but what they wear. only gerard’s got a book.”
“a book! what is it about?” cried anania. “is he a priest?—surely not!”
only a priest or monk, in her eyes, could have any business with a book.
“oh no, he’s no priest; he’s a weaver.”
“then what on earth is he doing with a book? you get hold of it, aunt! i’ll warrant you it’s some sort of wickedness—safe to be! black spells to turn you all into ugly toads, or some such naughty stuff—take my word for it!”
“i’d rather not, cousin anania, for you haven’t seen it, so your word isn’t much good,” said derette calmly.
“it’s not like to do us much good when we do see it,” observed isel, “because it will be in their own language, no doubt.”
“but if it’s a witch-book, it’s like to have horoscopes and all manner of things in it!” said anania, returning to the charge.
“then it is not, for i have seen it,” said flemild. “it is in a foreign language; but all in it beside words is only red lines ruled round the pages.”
“he read me a piece out of it,” added derette; “and it was a pretty story about our lady, and how she carried our lord away when he was a baby, that the wicked king should not get hold of him. it wasn’t bad at all, cousin anania. you are bad, to say such things when you don’t know they are true.”
“hush, child!” said her mother.
“i’ll hush,” responded derette, marching off to agnes and the baby: “but it’s true, for all that.”
“that girl wants teaching manners,” commented anania. “i really think it my duty, aunt, to tell you that nearly every body that knows you is talking of that child’s forward manners and want of respect for her betters. you don’t hear such remarks made, but i do. she will be insufferable if the thing is not stopped.”
“oh, well, stop it, then!” said isel wearily, “only leave me in peace. i’m just that tired!—”
“i beg your pardon, aunt! derette is not my child. i have no right to correct her. if i had—”
anania left it to be understood that the consequences would not be to her little cousin’s taste.
“she’ll get along well enough, i dare say. i haven’t time to bother with her,” said isel.
“she will just be a bye-word in the whole town, aunt. you don’t know how people talk. i’ve heard it said that you are too idle to take any pains with the child.”
“idle?—me!” cried poor isel. “i’m up long before you, and i don’t get a wink of sleep till the whole town’s been snoring for an hour or more: and every minute of the time as full as it can be crammed. i’ll tell you what, anania, i don’t believe you know what work means. if you’d just change with me for a week, you’d have an idea or two more in your head at the end of it.”
“i see, aunt, you are vexed at what i told you,” replied anania in a tone of superior virtue. “i am thankful to say i have not my house in the mess yours is, and my children are decently behaved. i thought it only kind to let you know the remarks that are being made: but of course, if you prefer to be left ignorant, i don’t need to stay. good morrow! pray don’t disturb yourself, flemild—i can let myself out, as you are all so busy. you’ll be sorry some day you did not take advice. but i never obtrude my advice; if people don’t want it, i shall not trouble them with it. it’s a pity, that’s all.”
“oh deary, deary!” cried poor isel, as anania sailed away with her head held rather higher than usual. “why ever did she come to plague me, when i’ve got my hands as full already!—and what on earth does she mean, calling me names, and derette too? the child’s good enough—only a bit thoughtless, as children always are. i do wonder why folks can’t let a body alone!”
for three days the germans rested peacefully in their new quarters. at the end of that time, gerhardt called on all his little company, and desired them to meet him early on the following morning on a piece of vacant ground, a few miles from the city. they met as agreed, eighteen men and eleven women, of all ages, from young conrad whose moustache was little more than down, to old berthold who carried the weight of threescore and fifteen years.
“my friends,” said gerhardt, “let us speak to our god, before we say anything to each other.”
all knelt, and gerhardt poured forth a fervent prayer that god would be with them and aid them in the work which they had undertaken; that he would supply them with bread to eat, and raiment to put on; that he would keep the door of their lips, that they should speak neither guile, discourtesy, nor error, yet open their mouths that with all boldness they might preach his word; that none of them might be ashamed to confess the faith of christ crucified, nor seek to hide the offence of the cross for the sake of pleasing men. a whole-hearted amen was the response from the group around him.
they rose, and gerhardt repeated by heart three psalms—the fifteenth, the forty-sixth, and the ninetieth—not in latin, but in sonorous german, many of his compatriots taking up the words and repeating them with him, in a style which made it plain that they were very familiar. then gerhardt spoke.
“i will but shortly remind you, my friends,” he said, “of the reason for which we are here. hundreds of years ago, it pleased god to send to us germans a good english pastor, who name was winfrid, when we were poor heathens, serving stocks and stones. he came with intent to deliver us from that gloomy bondage, and to convert us to the faith of christ. god so blessed his efforts that as their consequence, germany is christian at this day; and he, leaving his english name of winfrid, the peace-conqueror (though a truer name he could never have had), is known among us as boniface, the doer of good deeds. since his day, four hundred years have passed, and the church of christ throughout the world has woefully departed from the pure faith. we are come out, like the apostles, a little company,—like them, poor and unlearned,—but rich in the knowledge of god, and of jesus our lord; we are come to tread in their steps, to do the work they did, and to call the world back to the pure truth of the earliest days of christendom. and we come here, because it is here that our first duty is due. we come to give back to england the precious jewel of the true faith which she gave to us four hundred years ago. let every one of us clearly understand for what we are to be ready. we tread in our master’s steps, and our master was not flattered and complimented by the world. he came bringing salvation, and the world would none of it, nor of him. so, if we find the world hates us, let us be neither surprised nor afraid, but remember that it hated him, and that as he was, so are we in this world. let us be prepared to go with him, if need be, both into prison and to death. if we suffer with him, we shall reign. brethren, if we seek to reign, we must make account first to suffer.”
“we are ready!” cried at least a dozen voices.
“will ye who are foremost now, be the foremost in that day?” asked gerhardt, looking round upon them with a rather compassionate smile. “god grant it may be so! now, my friends, i must further remind you—not that ye know it not, but that ye may bear its importance in mind—that beyond those beliefs common to all christians, our faith confesses three great doctrines which ye must teach.
“first, that holy scripture alone containeth all things necessary to salvation; and nothing is to be taught as an article of faith but what god has revealed.
“secondly, the church of god consists of all who hear and understand the word of god. all the saved were elect of god before the foundation of the world; all who are justified by christ go into life eternal. therefore it follows that there is no purgatory, and all masses are damnable, especially those for the dead. and whosoever upholds free will—namely, man’s capacity to turn to god as and when he will—denies predestination and the grace of god. man is by nature utterly depraved; and all the evil that he doth proceeds from his own depravity.
“thirdly, we acknowledge one god and one mediator—the lord jesus christ; and reject the invocation of saints or angels. we own two sacraments—baptism and the supper of the lord; but all church observances not ordained by christ and the apostles, we reject as idle superstitions and vain traditions of men. (note 3.)
“this is our faith. brethren, do ye all stand banded together in this faith?”
up went every right arm, some quietly, some impetuously.
“furthermore,” continued the leader, “as to conduct. it is incumbent upon us to honour all secular powers, with subjection, obedience, promptitude, and payment of tribute. on the sabbath, cease ye from all worldly labours, abstain from sin, do good works, and pay your devotions to god. remember, to pray much is to be fervent in prayer, not to use many words nor much time. be orderly in all things; in attire, so far as lies in your power, avoid all appearance of either pride or squalor. we enter no trade, that we may be free from falsehood: we live by the labour of our hands, and are content with necessaries, not seeking to amass wealth. be ye all chaste, temperate, sober, meek: owe no man anything; give no reason for complaint. avoid taverns and dancing, as occasions of evil. the women among you i charge to be modest in manners and apparel, to keep themselves free from foolish jesting and levity of the world, especially in respect of falsehood and oaths. keep your maidens, and see that they wander not; beware of suffering them to deck and adorn themselves. ‘we serve the lord christ.’ ‘watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong!’ read the scriptures, serve god in humility, be poor in spirit. remember that antichrist is all that opposeth christ. ‘love not the world, neither the things of the world.’ ‘stand fast in the liberty wherewith christ hath made us free,’ and bear in mind that ye are sent forth as sheep in the midst of wolves, as under-shepherds to seek for his strayed sheep. beware that ye glorify not yourselves, but him.
“berthold, arnulph, and guelph, ye tarry in this city with me, going forth to preach in the surrounding villages, as the lord shall grant us opportunity. heinrich, otho, conrad, and magnus, ye go northward to evangelise in like manner. friedrich, dietbold, sighard, and leopold, ye to the south; albrecht, johann, and hermann, ye to the east; wilhelm, philipp, and ludwig, ye to the west. every man shall take with him wife and children that hath them. the elder women among us—cunegonde, helena, luitgarde, elisabeth, and margarethe—i especially exhort to instruct the young women, as the apostle bids, and to evangelise in such manner as women may, by modest and quiet talking with other women. once in the year let us meet here, to compare experiences, resolve difficulties, and to comfort and edify one another in our work. and now i commend you to god, and to the word of his grace. go ye forth, strong in the lord, and in the power of his might, always abounding in the work of the lord, teaching all to observe whatsoever he has commanded. for lo! he is with us always, even unto the end of the world.”
another fervent prayer followed the address. then each of the little company came up in turn to gerhardt, who laid his hand upon the head of every one, blessing them in the name of the lord. as each thus took leave, he set out in the direction which he had been bidden to take, eight accompanied by their wives, and three by children. then gerhardt, with agnes and ermine, turned back into the town; berthold, with his wife luitgarde, and his daughter adelheid, followed; while arnulph and guelph, who were young unmarried men, went off to begin their preaching tour in the villages.
the day afterwards, the priest of saint aldate’s rapped at the door of the walnut tree. it was opened by flemild, who made a low reverence when she saw him. with hand uplifted in blessing, and—“christ save all here!”—he walked into the house, where isel received him with an equally respectful courtesy.
“so i hear, my daughter, you have friends come to see you?”
“well, they aren’t friends exactly,” said isel: “leastwise not yet. may be, in time—hope they will.”
“whence come they, then, if they be strangers?”
“well,” replied isel, who generally began her sentences with that convenient adverb, “to tell truth, father, it beats me to say. they’ve come over-sea, from foreign parts; but i can’t get them outlandish names round my tongue.”
“do they speak french or english?”
“one of ’em speaks french, after a fashion, but it’s a queer fashion. as to english, i haven’t tried ’em.”
the reverend dolfin (he had no surname) considered the question.
“they are christians, of course?”
“that they are, father, and good too. why, they say their prayers several times a day.”
the priest did not think that item of evidence so satisfactory as isel did. but he had not come with any intention of ferreting out doubtful characters or suspicious facts. he was no ardent heretic-hunter, but a quiet, peaceable man, as inoffensive as a priest could be.
“decent and well-behaved?” he asked.
“as quiet and sensible as any living creature in this street,” isel assured him. “the women are good workers, and none of them’s a talker, and that’s no small blessing!”
“truly, thou art right there, my daughter,” said the priest, who, knowing nothing about women, was under the impression that they rarely did any thing but talk, and perform a little desultory housework in the intervals between the paragraphs. “so far, good. i trust they will continue equally well-behaved, and will give no scandal to their neighbours.”
“i’ll go surety for that,” answered isel rather warmly; “more than i will for their neighbours giving them none. father, i’d give a silver penny you’d take my niece anania in hand; she’ll be the death of me if she goes on. do give her a good talking-to, and i’ll thank you all the days of my life!”
“with what does she go on?” asked the priest, resting both hands on his silver-headed staff.
“words!” groaned poor isel. “and they bain’t pretty words, father—not by no manner of means. she’s for ever and the day after interfering with every mortal thing one does. and her own house is just right-down slatternly, and her children are coming up any how. if she’d just spend the time a-scouring as she spends a-chattering, her house ’d be the cleanest place in oxfordshire. but as for the poor children, i’m that sorry! whatever they do, or don’t do, they get a slap for it; and then she turns round on me because i don’t treat mine the same. why, there’s nothing spoils children’s tempers like everlasting scolding and slapping of ’em. i declare i don’t know which to be sorriest for, them that never gets no bringing up at all, or them that’s slapped from morning to night.”
“does her husband allow all that?”
“bless you, father, he’s that easy a man, if she slapped him, he’d only laugh and give it back. it’s true, when he’s right put out he’ll take the whip to her; but he’ll stand a deal first that he’d better not. biggest worry i have, she is!”
“be thankful, my daughter, if thy biggest worry be outside thine own door.”
“that i would, father, if i could keep her outside, but she’s always a-coming in.”
the priest laughed.
“i will speak to my brother vincent about her,” he said. “you know the castle is not in my parish.”
“well, i pray you, father, do tell father vincent to give it her strong. she’s one o’ them that won’t do with it weak. it’ll just run off her like water on a duck’s back. father, do you think my poor man ’ll ever come back?”
the priest grew grave when asked that question.
“i cannot tell, my daughter. bethink thee, that if he fall in that holy conflict, he is assured of heaven. how long is it since his departing?”
“it’s two years good, father—going in three: and i’m glad enough he should be sure of heaven, but saving your presence, i want him here on earth. it’s hard work for a lone woman to bring up four children, never name boys, that’s as rampageous as young colts, and about as easy to catch. and the younger and sillier they are, the surer they are to think they know better than their own mother.”
“that is a standing grievance, daughter,” said the priest with a smile, as he rose to take leave. “well, i am glad to hear so good a report of these strangers. so long as they conduct themselves well, and come to church, and give no offence to any, there can be no harm in your giving them hospitality. but remember that if they give any occasion of scandal, your duty will be to let me know, that i may deal with them. the saints keep you!”
no occasion of scandal required that duty from isel. every now and then gerhardt absented himself—for what purpose she did not know; but he left agnes and ermine behind, and they never told the object of his journeys. at home he lived quietly enough, generally following his trade of weaving, but always ready to do any thing required by his hostess. isel came to congratulate herself highly on the presence of her quiet, kindly, helpful guests. in a house where the whole upper floor formed a single bedchamber, divided only by curtains stretched across, and the whole ground-floor was parlour and kitchen in one, a few inmates more or less, so long as they were pleasant and peaceable, were of small moment. outwardly, the germans conducted themselves in no way pointedly different from their english hosts. they indulged in rather longer prayers, but this only increased the respect in which they were held. they went to church like other people; and if they omitted the usual reverences paid to the images, they did it so unobtrusively that it struck and shocked no one.
the roman church, in 1160, was yet far from filling the measure of her iniquity. the mass was in latin, but transubstantiation was only a “pious opinion;” there were invocation of saints and worship of images, prayers for the dead, and holy water; but dispensations and indulgences were uninvented, the inquisition was unknown, numbers of the clergy were married men, and that organ of tyranny and sin, termed auricular confession, had not yet been set up to grind the consciences and torment the hearts of those who sought to please god according to the light they enjoyed. without that, it was far harder to persecute; for how could a man be indicted for the belief in his heart, if he chose to keep the door of his lips?
the winter passed quietly away, and isel was—for her—well pleased with her new departure. the priest, having once satisfied himself that the foreign visitors were nominal christians, and gave no scandal to their neighbours, ceased to trouble himself about them. anania continued to make disagreeable remarks at times, but gradually even she became more callous on the question, and nobody else ever said any thing.
“i do wonder if father vincent have given her a word or two,” said isel. “she hasn’t took much of it, if he have. if she isn’t at me for one thing, she’s at me for another. if it were to please the saints to make osbert the lord king’s door-keeper, so as he’d go and live at london or windsor, i shouldn’t wonder if i could get over it!”
“ah, ‘the tongue can no man tame,’” observed gerhardt with a smile.
“i don’t so much object to tongues when they’ve been in salt,” said isel. “it’s fresh i don’t like ’em, and with a live temper behind of ’em. they don’t agree with me then.”
“it is the live temper behind, or rather the evil heart, which is the thing to blame. ‘out of the heart proceed evil thoughts,’ which grow into evil words and deeds. set the heart right, and the tongue will soon follow.”
“i reckon that’s a bit above either you or me,” replied isel with a sigh.
“a man’s thoughts are his own,” interposed haimet rather warmly. “nobody has a right to curb them.”
“no man can curb them,” said gerhardt, “unless the thinker put a curb on himself. he that can rule his own thoughts is king of himself: he that never attempts it is ‘a reed driven with the wind and tossed.’”
“oh, there you fly too high for me,” said haimet. “if my acts and words are inoffensive, i have a right to my thoughts.”
“has any man a right to evil thoughts?” asked gerhardt.
“what, you are one of those precise folks who make conscience of their thoughts? i call that all stuff and nonsense,” replied haimet, throwing down the hammer he was using.
“if i make no conscience of my thoughts, of what am i to make conscience?” was the answer. “thought is the seed, act the flower. if you do not wish for the flower, the surest way is not to sow the seed. sow it, and the flower will blossom, whether you will or no.”
“that sort of thing may suit you,” said haimet rather in an irritated tone. “i could never get along, if i had to be always measuring my thoughts with an ell-wand in that fashion.”
“do you prefer the consequences?” asked gerhardt.
“consequences!—what consequences?”
“rather awkward ones, sometimes. thoughts of hatred, for instance, may issue in murder, and that may lead to your own death. if the thoughts had been curbed in the first instance, the miserable results would have been spared to all the sufferers. and ‘no man liveth to himself’: it is very seldom that you can bring suffering on one person only. it is almost sure to run over to two or three more. and as the troubles of every one of them will run over to another two or three, like circles in the water, the sorrow keeps ever widening, so that the consequences of one small act or word for evil are incalculable. it takes god to reckon them.”
“eh, don’t you, now!” said isel with a shudder. “makes me go all creepy like, that does. i shouldn’t dare to do a thing all the days of my life, if i looked at every thing that way.”
“friend,” said gerhardt gravely, “these things are. it does not destroy them to look away from them. it is not given to us to choose whether we will act, but only how we will act. in some manner, for good or for ill, act we must.”
“i declare i won’t listen to you, gerard. i’m going creepy-crawly this minute. oh deary me! you do make things look just awful.”
“rubbish!” said haimet, driving a nail into the wall with unnecessary vehemence.
“it is the saying of a wise man, friends,” remarked gerhardt, “that ‘he that contemneth small things shall fall by little and little.’ and with equal wisdom he saith again, ‘be not confident in a plain way.’” (note 5.)
“but it is all nonsense to say ‘we must act,’” resumed haimet. “we need not act in any way unless we choose. how am i acting if i sit here and do nothing?”
“unless you are resting after work is done, you are setting an example of idleness or indecision. not to do, is sometimes to do in a most effectual way. not to hinder the doing of evil, when it lies in your power, is equivalent to doing it.”
haimet stared at gerhardt for a moment.
“what a wicked lot of folks you would make us out to be!”
“so we are,” said gerhardt with a quiet smile.
“oh, i see!—that’s how you come by your queer notions of every man’s heart being bad. well, you are consistent, i must admit.”
“i come by that notion, because i have seen into my own. i think i have most thoroughly realised my own folly by noting in how many cases, if i were endued with the power of god, i should not do what he does: and in like manner, i most realise my own wickedness by seeing the frequent instances wherein my will raises itself up in opposition to the will of god.”
“but how is it, then, that i never see such things in myself?”
“your eyes are shut, for one thing. moreover, you set up your own will as the standard to be followed, without seeking to ascertain the will of god. therefore you do not see the opposition between them.”
“oh, i don’t consider myself a saint or an angel. i have done foolish things, of course, and i dare say, some things that were not exactly right. we are all sinners, i suppose, and i am much like other people. but taking one thing with another, i think i am a very decent fellow. i can’t worry over my ‘depravity,’ as you do. i am not depraved. i know several men much worse than i am in every way.”
“is that the ell-wand by which god will measure you? he will not hold you up against those men, but against the burning snow-white light of his own holiness. what will you look like then?”
“is that the way you are going to be measured, too?”
“i thank god, no. christ our lord will be measured for me, and he has fulfilled the whole law.”
“and why not for me?” said haimet fiercely. “am i not a baptised christian, just as much as you?”
“friend, you will not be asked in that day whether you were a baptised christian, but whether you were a believing christian. sins that are laid on christ are gone—they exist no longer. but sins that are not so destroyed have to be borne by the sinner himself.”
“well, i call that cowardice,” said haimet, drawing a red herring across the track, “to want to burden somebody else with your sins. why not have the manliness to bear them yourself?”
“if you are so manly,” answered gerhardt with another of his quiet smiles, “will you oblige me, haimet, by taking up the castle, and setting it down on presthey?”
“what are you talking about now? how could i?”
“much more easily than you could atone for one sin. what do you call a man who proposes to do the impossible?”
“a fool.”
“and what would you call the bondman whose master had generously paid his debt, and who refused to accept that generosity, but insisted on working it out himself, though the debt was more than he could discharge by the work of a thousand years?”
“call him what you like,” said haimet, not wishing to go too deeply into the question.
“i will leave you to choose the correct epithet,” said gerhardt, and went on with his carving in silence.
the carving was beginning to bring in what isel called “a pretty penny.” gerhardt’s skill soon became known, and the countess of oxford employed him to make coffers, and once sent for him to the castle to carve wreaths on a set of oak panels. he took the work as it came, and in the intervals, or on the summer evenings, he preached on the village greens in the neighbourhood. his audiences were often small, but his doctrines spread quietly and beneath the surface. not one came forward to join him openly, but many went away with thoughts that they had never had before. looked on from the outside, gerhardt’s work seemed of no value, and blessed with no success. yet it is possible that its inward progress was not little. there may have been silent souls that lived saintly lives in that long past century, who owed their first awakening or their gradual edification to some word of his; it may be that the sturdy resistance of england to papal aggression in the subsequent century had received its impetus from his unseen hand. who shall say that he achieved nothing? the world wrote “unsuccessful” upon his work: did god write “blessed”? one thing at least i think he must have written—“thou hast been faithful in a few things.” and while the measure of faithfulness is not that of success, it is that of the ultimate reward, in that land where many that were first shall be last, and the last first. “they that are with” the conqueror in the last great battle, are not the successful upon earth, but the “called and chosen and faithful.”
“if any man serve me, let him follow me,”—and what work ever had less the appearance of success than that which seemed to close on calvary?
note 1. “william, son of the fat priest,” occurs on the pipe roll for 1176, unless “grossus” is to be taken as a christian name.
note 2. servant or slave of michael. the scottish gillie comes from the same root.
note 3. these are the tenets of the ancient waldensian church, with which, so far as they are known, those of the german mission agreed. (they are exactly those of the church of england, set forth in her sixth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, seventeenth, nineteenth, twentieth, twenty-second, twenty-fifth, and thirty-first articles of religion.) she accepted two of our three creeds, excluding the nicene.
note 4. ecclesiasticus nineteen 1, and thirty-two 21. the waldensian church regarded the apocrypha as the church of england does—not as inspired scripture, but as a good book to be read “for example of life and instruction of manners.”
