Growth of a Man. Mazo de la Roche
last time Shaw had seen the purse was when his mother was buying her railway ticket. He had stood close by her at the wicket, his eyes raised to her face bent anxiously over the coins that the station agent counted out in change. Shaw’s heart had sunk when he saw her hand three dollars in at the wicket. His grandfather had stayed outside on the platform. Shaw knew why! His grandfather knew that he should be paying for the ticket and he felt mean! That was why he stayed outside.
Shaw walked round the attic room in a dazed way. His brain felt so confused all of a sudden that he did not know what he was doing. Then he saw the last of the books in his arms and dropped to his knees before the bottom drawer to arrange them. His mind turned to his great-grandfather and he tried to recall all that his mother had told him. She herself had not known a great deal, but she questioned her father when she had found him in an easy mood and so collected a store of facts to draw on for Shaw’s pleasure. This was a funny little boy of hers, but she was sure he was clever and she did all she could for him.
This great-grandfather, Shaw Gower,—the boy was glad that he had been named for him,—had come as a young man to this thinly settled district from Warwickshire. He had got some land but he had read more than he had worked. He had even written poetry, in a small irregular hand, with violet ink that had faded so that only words here and there were decipherable. Shaw had seen the poems laid away in the family Bible and had made out words like “bower” and “flowery dell” and “whither.”
This great-grandfather had had yellow side whiskers and had loved books. Constantly Shaw compared him to his grandfather, who spoke through a big beard and read nothing but the local paper, who scarcely knew what poetry was. How could such a father have had such a son?
Shaw Gower had not been long in the country before he had met the founder of a religious sect, the Children of Peace, and fallen under his spell. He had joined the sect and brought his imagination and poetic longings to their worship and the building of their Temple.
The founder, David Willson, was a man of strong frame and domineering mind. He was steeped in the writings of the Old Testament. He felt himself born to be a patriarch and a leader and was convinced that the field for his work lay in this sequestered, richly wooded part of the country. He had come from the United States, not poor, but possessed of oxen and money, rumbling over the corduroy roads till he found the very place he sought and believed he was led there by divine guidance. There he had met the young Englishman, Shaw Gower—his Jonathan he called him.
David Willson gathered the pioneers about him and preached to them under the open sky. The autumn weather was benign, the crops had been bountiful. He stood there, dominant and strong, pouring out the noble words of the Old Testament, words of promise, of might, of peace. He was the prophet of peace and his object was to form a body, called the Children of Peace, of which he was to be the head.
Young Gower stood by his side, and after the exhortation he sang the Twenty-third Psalm in a tenor voice of quality more beautiful than any of these pioneers had heard. The two combined could not be withstood. The lonely, isolated pioneers surged forward to place themselves under David Willson’s banner.
Peace with each other; peace with the world; a life of purity, of liberty, of spiritual beauty; not austere, for there were to be feasts and processions. There was nothing of the Puritan about David Willson. When their work was over they would sing, and rejoice in the love that would bind them together.
All were of one mind in their desire to have a place of worship, a centre for their spiritual world. Without delay the foundations of a Temple were laid. The forest trees were felled. David Willson and young Gower sat with the open Bible before them drawing plans. They planned to build the Temple in three cubes, one standing above the other, and on the topmost cube a golden ball was to be raised and sheltered beneath a cupola. The Temple was to be painted white for purity. It was to have light from windows on every side, typifying Reason and Truth. Inside there were twelve pillars bearing the names of the Twelve Apostles. In the very centre, beneath the golden sphere, was a Holy of Holies, containing a model of the Ark which was only brought out on feast days.
What a day of rejoicing was the opening of the Temple! From all the farms and near-by hamlets the Children of Peace came at dawn of a summer day. The women and maidens carrying garlands, the men dressed in snow-white linen suits, the children with wreaths of flowers on their hair. The Temple stood shining in its purity against the dark trees. Before the door David Willson waited to greet his flock. The summer air echoed his sonorous words, tears of joy filled his eyes as he declared that he and his followers were but a handful of pioneers of Peace, the great army of which would, in time to come, drive all war from the troubled world.
At the end of his address Shaw Gower, clad in pure white, his golden hair and whiskers shining in the sunrise, was raised by ropes to the very top of the Temple. He unveiled the great golden ball and, poised beside it, sang, in a voice like an angel’s, a hymn of dedication, of which he had composed both words and music. The words were still preserved in the family Bible and were more legible than his poems.
SHAW GOWER’S HYMN FOR PEACE
I am a seeker after Thy peace, O Lord,
With the rising sun in my face;
I stand holding my soul like a goblet
To be filled with Thy grace.
I see spreading about me the fertile fields
We have claimed from the wild woodland;
I see upturned faces of men who pray
To be blessed by Thy hand.
Give us peace! Let strife be unknown to our babes!
Let the hearts of our wives be calm!
Let death come to us, not in its terror,
But in trust and in balm!
I came as a pilgrim from an old sad land—
I came as a hart from the chase—
I found refuge and joy in this Temple
And I found my Lord’s grace!
The door of the Temple was flung wide by two youths and the congregation marched in, singing the Doxology as they marched. The women laid their garlands at the base of the pillars. The rising sun filled the Temple with sacred fire. The men who had hoisted Shaw Gower to the top of the building remained behind to lower him again to the ground.
As the congregation were taking their seats these five young men, with the singer in their midst, came with free steps into the Temple and sat on the front bench beneath the dais where the leader and patriarch stood, his hands upraised. Dressed in white as they were, their cheeks flushed by exertion, their hair waving bright over their proud heads, they did indeed look like the sons of God.
The daughters of men had a mind to them, and before the year was out all five were married or betrothed. Shaw Gower married the daughter of a Yorkshire schoolmaster who had lately come to the Province. The friendship between him and David Willson remained, but they had doctrinal differences. Shaw Gower did not bow his head to the patriarch’s opinion. His wife’s influence was strong and she never became one of the Children of Peace. She adhered to the Church of England, which, about this time, erected a church. But Shaw Gower always took a prominent part in the feast days. His golden voice was raised in praise at the Autumn Feast when the great Feast Cake, made of the purest and richest butter and eggs, white and delicate, was eaten in the open, and a bonfire sent up its smoke for incense.
These Children of Peace had music in them. In their peaceful pursuits their thoughts turned toward singing and playing on instruments as the joyous outward expression of their inner life. Many of the women had clear sweet voices, and a choir was formed of these which sang on feast days, even in the Temple itself. A small organ was installed and David Willson played the accompaniments with all the fervor he threw into his religion. Shaw Gower not only had the finest voice in the community, but he had a good understanding of music. He got together a band whose fame spread throughout the Province. The instruments were of silver, polished till they reflected the glowing colors of the landscape.
On