Robert Falconer. George MacDonald
Hence it was even in justification of God himself that a party arose to say that a man could believe without the help of God at all, and after believing only began to receive God's help—a heresy all but as dreary and barren as the former. No one dreamed of saying—at least such a glad word of prophecy never reached Rothieden—that, while nobody can do without the help of the Father any more than a new-born babe could of itself live and grow to a man, yet that in the giving of that help the very fatherhood of the Father finds its one gladsome labour; that for that the Lord came; for that the world was made; for that we were born into it; for that God lives and loves like the most loving man or woman on earth, only infinitely more, and in other ways and kinds besides, which we cannot understand; and that therefore to be a man is the soul of eternal jubilation.
Robert consequently began to take fits of soul-saving, a most rational exercise, worldly wise and prudent—right too on the principles he had received, but not in the least Christian in its nature, or even God-fearing. His imagination began to busy itself in representing the dire consequences of not entering into the one refuge of faith. He made many frantic efforts to believe that he believed; took to keeping the Sabbath very carefully—that is, by going to church three times, and to Sunday-school as well; by never walking a step save to or from church; by never saying a word upon any subject unconnected with religion, chiefly theoretical; by never reading any but religious books; by never whistling; by never thinking of his lost fiddle, and so on—all the time feeling that God was ready to pounce upon him if he failed once; till again and again the intensity of his efforts utterly defeated their object by destroying for the time the desire to prosecute them with the power to will them. But through the horrible vapours of these vain endeavours, which denied God altogether as the maker of the world, and the former of his soul and heart and brain, and sought to worship him as a capricious demon, there broke a little light, a little soothing, soft twilight, from the dim windows of such literature as came in his way. Besides The Pilgrim's Progress there were several books which shone moon-like on his darkness, and lifted something of the weight of that Egyptian gloom off his spirit. One of these, strange to say, was Defoe's Religious Courtship, and one, Young's Night Thoughts. But there was another which deserves particular notice, inasmuch as it did far more than merely interest or amuse him, raising a deep question in his mind, and one worthy to be asked. This book was the translation of Klopstock's Messiah, to which I have already referred. It was not one of his grandmother's books, but had probably belonged to his father: he had found it in his little garret-room. But as often as she saw him reading it, she seemed rather pleased, he thought. As to the book itself, its florid expatiation could neither offend nor injure a boy like Robert, while its representation of our Lord was to him a wonderful relief from that given in the pulpit, and in all the religious books he knew. But the point for the sake of which I refer to it in particular is this: Amongst the rebel angels who are of the actors in the story, one of the principal is a cherub who repents of making his choice with Satan, mourns over his apostasy, haunts unseen the steps of our Saviour, wheels lamenting about the cross, and would gladly return to his lost duties in heaven, if only he might—a doubt which I believe is left unsolved in the volume, and naturally enough remained unsolved in Robert's mind:—Would poor Abaddon be forgiven and taken home again? For although naturally, that is, to judge by his own instincts, there could be no question of his forgiveness, according to what he had been taught there could be no question of his perdition. Having no one to talk to, he divided himself and went to buffets on the subject, siding, of course, with the better half of himself which supported the merciful view of the matter; for all his efforts at keeping the Sabbath, had in his own honest judgment failed so entirely, that he had no ground for believing himself one of the elect. Had he succeeded in persuading himself that he was, there is no saying to what lengths of indifference about others the chosen prig might have advanced by this time.
He made one attempt to open the subject with Shargar.
'Shargar, what think ye?' he said suddenly, one day. 'Gin a de'il war to repent, wad God forgie him?'
'There's no sayin' what fowk wad du till ance they're tried,' returned Shargar, cautiously.
Robert did not care to resume the question with one who so circumspectly refused to take a metaphysical or a priori view of the matter.
He made an attempt with his grandmother.
One Sunday, his thoughts, after trying for a time to revolve in due orbit around the mind of the Rev. Hugh Maccleary, as projected in a sermon which he had botched up out of a commentary, failed at last and flew off into what the said gentleman would have pronounced 'very dangerous speculation, seeing no man is to go beyond what is written in the Bible, which contains not only the truth, but the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, for this time and for all future time—both here and in the world to come.' Some such sentence, at least, was in his sermon that day, and the preacher no doubt supposed St. Matthew, not St. Matthew Henry, accountable for its origination. In the Limbo into which Robert's then spirit flew, it had been sorely exercised about the substitution of the sufferings of Christ for those which humanity must else have endured while ages rolled on—mere ripples on the ocean of eternity.
'Noo, be douce,' said Mrs. Falconer, solemnly, as Robert, a trifle lighter at heart from the result of his cogitations than usual, sat down to dinner: he had happened to smile across the table to Shargar. And he was douce, and smiled no more.
They ate their broth, or, more properly, supped it, with horn spoons, in absolute silence; after which Mrs. Falconer put a large piece of meat on the plate of each, with the same formula:
'Hae. Ye s' get nae mair.'
The allowance was ample in the extreme, bearing a relation to her words similar to that which her practice bore to her theology. A piece of cheese, because it was the Sabbath, followed, and dinner was over.
When the table had been cleared by Betty, they drew their chairs to the fire, and Robert had to read to his grandmother, while Shargar sat listening. He had not read long, however, before he looked up from his Bible and began the following conversation:—
'Wasna it an ill trick o' Joseph, gran'mither, to put that cup, an' a siller ane tu, into the mou' o' Benjamin's seck?'
'What for that, laddie? He wanted to gar them come back again, ye ken.'
'But he needna hae gane aboot it in sic a playactor-like gait. He needna hae latten them awa' ohn tellt (without telling) them that he was their brither.'
'They had behaved verra ill till him.'
'He used to clype (tell tales) upo' them, though.'
'Laddie, tak ye care what ye say aboot Joseph, for he was a teep o' Christ.'
'Hoo was that, gran'mither?'
'They sellt him to the Ishmeleets for siller, as Judas did him.'
'Did he beir the sins o' them 'at sellt him?'
'Ye may say, in a mainner, 'at he did; for he was sair afflickit afore he wan up to be the King's richt han'; an' syne he keepit a hantle o' ill aff o' 's brithren.'
'Sae, gran'mither, ither fowk nor Christ micht suffer for the sins o' their neebors?'
'Ay, laddie, mony a ane has to do that. But no to mak atonement, ye ken. Naething but the sufferin' o' the spotless cud du that. The Lord wadna be saitisfeet wi' less nor that. It maun be the innocent to suffer for the guilty.'
'I unnerstan' that,' said Robert, who had heard it so often that he had not yet thought of trying to understand it. 'But gin we gang to the gude place, we'll be a' innocent, willna we, grannie?'
'Ay, that we will—washed spotless, and pure, and clean, and dressed i' the weddin' garment, and set doon at the table wi' him and wi' his Father. That's them 'at believes in him, ye ken.'
'Of coorse, grannie.—Weel, ye see, I hae been thinkin' o' a plan for maist han' toomin' (almost emptying) hell.'
'What's i' the bairn's heid noo? Troth, ye're no blate, meddlin' wi' sic subjecks, laddie!'
'I didna want to say onything to vex ye, grannie. I s' gang on wi' the chapter.'
'Ow,