“i have sowed, and you have reaped; and the day is coming when ‘both he that soweth and they that reap shall rejoice together:’ that is, if you hold out; ‘for in due season ye shall reap, if ye faint not.’”—pilgrim’s progress.
a few days after, as mr. ewart entered the room in which mark, or rather ernest, as we must now call him, was sitting in an armchair, propped up by cushions, and looking exceedingly pale, charles, who was looking over the back of the chair, addressed his tutor playfully with the words, “i am so much disappointed, mr. ewart; here’s a young nobleman to whom i have been telling all sorts of good news, and he looks as grave as a judge upon them all.”
“i feel so bewildered,” said ernest, pressing his pale brow; “i think that it must all be a dream.”
“it is no dream,” said mr. ewart, seating himself by his side; “all is true that your brother has told you.”
“brother!” exclaimed ernest, fixing his moistened eyes upon charles, “oh, my lord!”
[123]
“he is so wilful,” laughed charles; “we shall never get him to sign himself fontonore.”
“i do not wish to be a lord,” said ernest, gravely; “i am not fit to be a lord. i know next to nothing. i have hardly read a book but the bible. oh, do you be the nobleman, and let me be your brother! you shall have the fortune, and the estates, and all that—i never could bear to deprive you of them!”
“you have no choice, ernest,” said mr. ewart; “you can no more help being a noble than you can help being your father’s son: you cannot avoid receiving the ten talents; your care now must be to make a right use of them. both ann and lawless have publicly confessed.”
“i hope that they are not to suffer on account of me,” said ernest; “especially my mo—— she whom i once thought my mother. it would imbitter the whole of my life.”
“lawless is committed to trial for forgery (a purse of base coin was found on his person); ann, for her conduct towards you. i will try to do all in my power, as it is your wish, to make the sentence of the law fall lightly on the woman.”
“and my brothers?” said ernest.
“what of me?” interrupted charles. “oh, i see that you intend to disown me already,” he added, playfully; “you will neither believe nor acknowledge me, so i shall
[124]
leave you to the management of mr. ewart,” and so saying he left the apartment.
“i am going to ask what i fear you will think a strange question,” said ernest to the clergyman, as soon as they were alone; “i know that i am to have a very large fortune, but—but—shall i have any of it to spend as i like now?”
“you will doubtless have the same allowance that has been given to charles,” replied mr. ewart, naming the sum.
“so much!” exclaimed ernest in surprise; “and lord fontonore—i mean my brother?”
“what he may receive will depend upon his uncle. poor charles! he has nothing of his own.”
“half of mine at least shall be his. let him have it without knowing from whom it comes.”
mr. ewart smiled, and pressed the boy’s hand.
“and those unhappy children with whom i have been brought up, now separated from their parents, and helpless and friendless—tell me, sir, what can i do for them?”
“there are some excellent charities in london, where such are received, brought up to an honest trade, and instructed in the principles of religion. but there is considerable expense in keeping children at such asylums, unless they have been admitted by votes, which in the present case would be very difficult to procure.”
[125]
“would the remaining half of my allowance be enough?”
“you would leave yourself nothing, my dear boy. i honour your motives and feelings, but generosity must be tempered by prudence. the little girl you might place at an asylum.”
“and the boys?”
“let me think what could be done with them. it seems to me,” said the clergyman, after a minute’s consideration, “that mr. hope might allow them, if such were really your desire, to be brought up under the gardener at the castle.”
“that is an excellent plan!” cried ernest, clapping his hands; “there they would always be under your eye; you would teach them also the narrow way to heaven!”
“there might be some objections to the plan,” said mr. ewart, reflecting; “it might place you uncomfortably to have those near the castle who had known you in such a different position.”
“it will be good for me,” said ernest, with animation. “if i ever am tempted to be lifted up with pride, i shall have but to look at them and remember what i was; and if anything can humble me, that will. will you kindly write to mr. hope directly?”
“there is no need to do that,” replied the clergyman; “i have heard from him to-day, and came now to tell
[126]
you that it is his wish that as soon as you are equal to moving, you and your brother should start at once for the castle.”
“oh, i am ready for anything!” cried ernest; “i mean that i am ready to travel,” he added, correcting himself, “for my new situation i fear that i am not ready.”
“the two best introductions to any new sphere of life are—trust in god, and mistrust of ourselves.”
“do you think that i shall have many dangers now, i mean as a pilgrim?” asked ernest.
“you will have dangers still, though of a different kind. your battle-field is changed, but not your enemy. the good seed in your heart was in peril before from the hot sun of trial beating upon it; now god grant that the cares, riches, and pleasures of this world may not spring up as thorns to choke it! your great refuge must be self-examination and prayer; with these, by god’s grace, you will safely walk still on the slippery high path before you.”
“i trust that nothing will make me forget that i am a pilgrim,” said ernest.
“i will give you this book, which i look upon as a valuable chart of the way you must tread,” replied mr. ewart, placing in the hand of ernest a copy of bunyan’s pilgrim’s progress. “in this book you will see the christian’s path, over part of which you yourself have travelled.
[127]
you will recognize some spots that are familiar to you, some people with whom you have had to deal; and you will see, as if a curtain were drawn up before you, much that you are likely to meet with in the future.”
“oh, thanks! this must indeed be a most wonderful book! but i cannot understand how it can tell me about things that have happened or will happen to myself, the paths of people through life are so many.”
“the paths of men are many—the christian has but one. our circumstances, indeed, are very various; to some the hill difficulty comes through bitter poverty, to some from unkind relations, to some from broken health. some pass through the gloomy valley in sunshine, and see but little of its horrors; some are helped, some hindered on their way to heaven by those amongst whom they live. but there are certain points in the pilgrimage which every christian must know. we all set out from the city of destruction—we are all by nature born in sin. even children must flee from the wrath to come, turning from—that is, repenting of their unrighteousness. even children must come to the one strait gate—faith in our lord jesus christ; must knock by prayer, and having once entered in, must press on in the way leading unto life! even children bear a burden of sin, though the sooner they come to the cross of the saviour the lighter that burden must be; but were it only the burden of one unholy word, one sinful thought, nothing but the
[128]
blood of the lord jesus christ could take even that away! even children are beset by spiritual foes—must, if pilgrims, know something of the battle within; even children must wear the whole armour of god; and to the youngest, the weakest, is offered the crown which the lord has prepared for them that love him!”
“what a wonderfully wise and learned man he must have been who wrote such a book as you say that this is!”
“it was written by a man who had very little learning except what he gained from the word of god itself. the wisdom which he possessed came from above, and the men of the world deemed it foolishness. the author of that book was a tinker, named bunyan, a man who supported himself by the labour of his hands, and who for twelve years, only on account of his religion, was confined in bedford jail.”
“were men put in prison for being religious?” exclaimed ernest, in surprise.
“at all times the world has been an enemy to holiness, and religion has been liable to persecution; but this persecution has at different times taken very different shapes. the early christians were tortured, beaten, thrown to wild beasts, till so many people had adopted their holy faith that the civilized world began to call itself christian. then the evil one, seeing that he could not put out the light, heaped up a thousand superstitions
[129]
around it, so that sinners might be prevented from seeing it. yet, doubtless, even through the dark ages, as they are called, god had always some faithful believers upon earth, whom the world would hate because they were not of it; and persecute, though not always openly. at length the time of the reformation arrived; brave men and holy forced a way through the mass of superstitions which had hidden the precious light of truth; and then, indeed, there was a fearful struggle, and persecution bathed its sword in the blood of martyrs. many were the stakes raised in england, germany, and france, where saints yielded up their souls in the midst of flames. but no persecution could tread out the light which god himself had kindled. as blows upon gold but make it spread wider, so the very efforts of the wicked to suppress the truth, made it more extensively known.”
“and was it then that bunyan was imprisoned?”
“not then, but more than a century after, in the reign of an unworthy monarch, charles ii., when the light which had shone so brightly was becoming obscured again by superstition and worldly policy. bunyan was confined for preaching the word; was separated from the family of whom he was the support. that which most deeply wounded his heart was the helpless position of his poor blind child, who so much needed the protecting care of a father.”
[130]
“and they imprisoned him for twelve years? how cruel! what a tedious, weary trial it must have been to him!”
“god honoured the prisoner far above the prince; he made the jail a nobler dwelling than a palace! it was there that the despised and persecuted tinker composed his wonderful book. bright, holy thoughts were his pleasant companions. while his worldly judges were passing through life, surrounded by cares, business, and amusements, seeing, perhaps, nothing beyond this fleeting scene, the prisoner was tracing the pilgrim’s progress, copying from his own heart the pilgrim’s feelings, noting from his own life the pilgrim’s trials, and describing from his own hopes the pilgrim’s reward. and when his book was finished—when, with humble faith, he laid it as an offering before him who had given him the power to write it—how little could the despised bunyan have anticipated the honour which god would put upon that book! it has been read by thousands and hundreds of thousands—generation after generation have delighted in it—the high and the low, the rich and the poor, all have welcomed the chart of the pilgrim. it has been translated into many foreign tongues; from east to west, from north to south, in all the four quarters of the globe, it has directed sinners to the one strait gate, and guided them along the one narrow path. i believe,” added mr. ewart, laying his hand upon the volume, “that next to
[131]
the bible, from which it is taken, that this book has been the most widely circulated of any ever written; and never shall we know, till the last great day, how many a saved and rejoicing spirit may trace its first step in the heavenward way to reading bunyan’s pilgrim’s progress.”
