J. C. Snaith

“ To a father, the first-born is a symbol. And there is nothing to replace an eldest son in the heart of a lonely man who lives in the memory of a great happiness. He had only to look at gifted, rare-spirited Tom to see the mother, to watch the play of her features, to behold the light of her eyes.
Of his four children he had never disguised the fact that Tom was the fine flower. Like many men of rather abrupt mental limitation, the vicar had, at bottom, a reverence for a good brain. ”

“ To a man in meridian pride of body such a prospect hardly bore thinking about. But the blow had been borne with a fortitude at which even a man so unimaginative as the vicar could only marvel. Not again would the owner of Hart’s Ghyll prune his roses, or drive a golf ball, or cast a fly, or take a pot shot at a rabbit; not again would he take his children on his knee.
Brandon had always been the least militant of men. His instincts were liberal and humane, and in the happy position of being able to live as he chose he had gratified them to the full. ”

“ A sky gloriously burnished with the presence of God alone could have winged it; and as he looked up, came the words: “And, lo, the heavens opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon him.”
Thrilled by a joy which was half fear, the vicar leaned against the stone. And as he did so a rush of wild thoughts swept his mind like a tide. His eyes grew dark as he saw again a summer twilight and a frail figure of fantasy kneeling upon the spot to which he was now rooted. ”

“ John Smith looked at the vicar with his deep eyes and then he said slowly and softly: “If my words have hurt her I am very sorry.”
This speech, in spite of its curious gentleness, added fuel to the vicar’s anger.
“The humility you affect does not lessen their offense,” he said sharply.
“Where lies the offense you speak of?” The question was asked simply, with a grave smile.
“If it is not clear to you,” said the vicar with acid dignity, “it shall not be my part to explain it. I am not here to bandy words. Nor do I intend to chop logic. You consider yourself vastly clever, no doubt. ”

“ But in spite of himself the old slumbering antagonisms were now awake in the vicar. Brandon, too, was a dangerous paradoxical man. Notwithstanding the honor and the love he bore him, Mr. Perry-Hennington felt his pulses quicken, his fibers stiffen. If ever man did, he saw his duty straight and clear. The only real problem was how to do it with the least affront to others, with the least harm to the community.
“By the way,” said Brandon, his gentle voice filling an awkward pause that had suddenly ensued, “have you ever really talked with John Smith?” ”

“ The man was John Smith. The vicar was amazed; such sheer insensibility to what was going on around was uncanny. Bareheaded, coatless, drenched to the skin, the man scorned the shelter so close at hand. The first thought that passed through the vicar’s mind was one of pity for the man’s physical and mental state. But hard upon that emotion came regret that the stubborn Joliffe was not also a spectator of the scene. Any doubts he still held as to the man’s sanity must surely have been dispelled. ”

“ Murdwell,” said the vicar solemnly, “that your theory is correct and that you are able to do all this, what do you suppose will be the future of the human race?”
Mr. Murdwell did not answer the question at once. When answer he did, it was in a voice of much gravity. “There we come up against something that won’t bear looking at. Strictly speaking, the human race has no future. Unless another spirit comes into the world the human race is doomed.”
“Undoubtedly,” said the vicar.
“Science can destroy organic life quicker than nature can replace it. ”

“ The recent visit had moved Brandon to the very depths of his being, and the longing to help John Smith escape the coil that fate was weaving now burnt in his veins a living fire. As he lay helpless and overwrought, on the verge of fever, the stupidities of the little world around him were magnified into a crime for which humanity itself would have to pay. ”

“ Brandon, startled by the sound of his own voice, had just enough courage to ask the doctor’s opinion of the play.
Dr. Thorp replied with a happy frankness: “Don’t laugh at me if I confess that to my mind it’s a sublime work.”
“You really think so?”
“I do, and I’ll tell you why. There’s such a great idea at the back of it, that I feel a better, a stronger, a saner man for having come in contact with it. That play takes one into another world. It draws aside the curtain, and gives us harassed mortals a peep into the kingdom of the Something Else. Nothing is but thinking makes it so. ”

“ Perry-Hennington was the chosen vehicle. Between the two men there had been a reconciliation. The return of health had enabled Brandon to shed much of his animosity; besides, he saw that if John Smith’s view of his mission was the true one, such a man as the vicar of Penfold could hardly be more than a humble catspaw of destiny. That good, but narrow and obtuse man, was perhaps only the unconscious means by which a second world-drama was to unfold itself. ”

“ I stand here at the apex of this world’s history, and I say to you the old way is not enough. If the spirit of Man is not to bleed in vain, if the sorrowing earth is to yield the fruits for which her sons have died, the God of Righteousness must be avenged by the God of Love.
“The Father’s kingdom is the hearts of men. And I say to you, unless the Son of Man came in vain among you, my word shall not be as Dead Sea fruit. ”

“ Brandon was secretly amused by the air of sudden perplexity. “You see I am making my soul,” he said.
The vicar was puzzled. It was hard to forbear from being gratified. But fearing the ironical spirit of the modern questioner, he kept on his guard. Brandon, he knew, had a secret armory of powerful weapons. A primitive distrust of the intellect knew better than to engage him at close quarters.
“Our friend, John Smith, has led me back to the Bible,” said Brandon, with a simplicity which Mr. Perry-Hennington greatly mistrusted. ”

“ It is not to be thought of unless a fundamental change takes place in the heart of man.”
“A change must take place,” said Lady Jane, “if the human race is to go on. Besides, doesn’t the Bible tell us that there will be a second coming of Christ, and that all wars will cease?”
“It does,” said the vicar; “but that is the millennium, you know. And I am bound to say there’s no sign of it at present. I am convinced that only one thing now can save the human race and that is a second advent. ”

“ But for his own part the vicar had neither time nor inclination for what could only be an ill-digested farrago of mystical moonshine. Unhappily nothing was left to poor Brandon now except to ease his mind as best he could. Such a mental condition was to be deplored. Yet the vicar fervently hoped that the canker would not bite too deep.
“Do let me get the poem for you to read.” Brandon’s eyes were full of entreaty.
“No, no, my dear fellow,” said the vicar gently. “I really haven’t time to give to such things just now. All one’s energies are absorbed in dealing with things as they are. ”

“ It makes one loathe one’s species. We are little, hideous, two-legged ants, flying around in foul contraptions of our own invention. And to what end? Simply to destroy.”
“In order to recreate,” said the vicar robustly.
“I don’t believe it. The pendulum of progress—blessed word!—has swung too far. Unless we can contrive a means of holding back the clock, the doom of the world is upon us.”
“It all comes of denying God, of banishing him from the planet,” said the host.
“But is he banished from the planet? Take a man like Gervase Brandon. Life gave him everything. ”

“ By all the rules of the game, at the moment the enemy of mankind fell on Europe in her sleep, France was irretrievably lost, and civilization with her. But something happened which was not in the textbooks. And in the perpetual recurrence of that Something lies the one hope for the human race.”
“Well, Mr. Murdwell”—the vicar spoke very earnestly—“as a humble servant and minister of God, I can only say that I share your belief. Whatever may happen to us, I feel that the human race could not have got as far as it has, unless a special providence had always stood behind it. ”

“ To Brandon the whole thing was like a dream. The ghostly half-light in which the speaker and his audience was wrapped, the flicker of the distant fire, the curious stillness which the soft voice seemed to enhance, [Pg 255] all added their touch of eeriness to the scene. Suddenly Brandon was stung to an imaginative intensity he had never felt before. The image of the spectrum altered, and he was completely possessed by a weird feeling that he had made the descent into Hades.
In a kind of entrancement he listened to the voice. ”

“ Brandon received no second command to Wellwood, and he had not the courage to make pilgrimage without it. But as the long months passed and he grew more secure in physical power, the impression of the dreamlike December journey remained ineffaceably vivid. Time strengthened a fervent belief in the sublime genius of John Smith, but the wild speculations to which that belief gave rise led to one inescapable conclusion which in the last resort he could not quite find the courage to embrace openly. ”

“ The vicar paused an instant, and in that instant Brandon literally devoured the subtly changing face of the man before him. “Not only did I see him, I was permitted to speak to him. Moreover, he sent you a message. You are always to remember that one unconverted believer may save the whole world.” As the vicar repeated the odd phrase, his eye met Brandon’s and a silence followed.
“I shall never forget the way he said it,” Mr. Perry-Hennington went on. ”

“ But who do you suppose is going to play a god who works miracles, who is the genius of love and laughter, who heals the wounds of the world by converting it to a religion of universal brotherhood, universal fellowship, universal joy? ”

“ It was a man’s duty to reject the carpings of science and the machinations of modern denial. He must believe where he could not prove. The vicar wrote in brackets, “It is very difficult to do that in an age of skepticism.”
“The watchers.” The vicar drew a line under his fourth subheading. All men must stand as upon a tower, their eyes fixed on the far horizon, in the hope that they might see in the eastern sky the herald of a new heaven and a new earth. And by that portent, which was the light of sublime truth, must they learn to know the Master when He came among them. ”

“ Meyer, “you do an injustice to a great people if you close all the doors against her.”
“We shall not agree about their greatness,” said Pomfret. “They are a race of barbarians, with a dangerous streak of madness.”
“That’s one side of the Teuton, I admit. But on the other he’s an idealist, a lover of the arts, an exemplary citizen. And the task of the future is to get him back to where he was. He’s got to return to the old ways. By the bye, that play has set me thinking.” Pomfret and Brandon exchanged glances, but Urban Meyer went on with a curious spontaneity, as if he were thinking aloud. ”

“ He seemed to carry equal weight at Gleave Castle, the Mount Olympus of the local cosmos, and at the board of guardians. The acid people who dissect our naïve and charming human nature might have said that it was for no better reason than that the vicar of Penfold was a born busybody, doubly blessed with a loud voice, and a total absence of humor, but the good and the credulous who take things on trust and form a working majority in every republic always declared “it was because he was such a gentleman.” ”

“ Perry-Hennington,” said Brandon in a hollow tone, “I can’t help thinking that you are making a tragic mistake.”
“The matter hardly admits of discussion I’m afraid. My duty lies before me. Cost what it may it will have to be done.”
“But what possible harm is the man doing?”
The vicar deprecated the question by spreading out his large, strong hands. “We can’t go into that,” he said in a kind tone. “We don’t see eye to eye. Believe me, a matter of this sort doesn’t admit of discussion. Besides it will only excite you. A man has to act in these things as his conscience directs.” ”

“ He listened wildly, yet he could only hear the water flowing by Burkett’s mill.
“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
The living words were spurring him to frenzy. But the soul of man, naked and shuddering, helpless and lonely, recoiled upon itself with the fear that there was none of whom to seek forgiveness. For one, Thomas Perry-Hennington, there was no means of access to the Father. By an idolatrous act, setting the state above the Highest, he had severed all communication. In bigotry, arrogance, imperfect faith he had betrayed the Master ”

“ Brandon marshaled his arguments with such skill that Pomfret, against his deepest instinct as a theatrical manager, began to weaken a little. Like all men who succeed in life, the sense of his own limitations was ever before him. He knew that there were more things in earth and heaven than were dreamed of in the philosophy of Robert Pomfret. Brandon was a poet, a scholar, a man of taste, and even if his qualities [Pg 280] had no place in a theater run on sound commercial lines, after all they stood for something. ”

“ There’s a kind of man who can’t keep out of a scrap wherever one happens to be going. And in these islands you’ve got more of that sort to the square mile than anywhere else I’ve visited, although I’ve not yet seen the Basutos. But Gervase Brandon is not of that type. War is against every instinct that man’s got. He hates it with every fiber of his nature.”
“There are many thousands like him,” said the vicar; “many thousands who have simply given their lives—and more than their lives—in a just quarrel.” ”

“ The thrust might not have been intentional, but the shadow deepened on the vicar’s face. “It is not,” he said. “Yet he is so well cared for, he is allowed such liberty, his relations with all the other inmates are so charmingly harmonious, that it is hard to see how the freedom of the outer world could add to his present happiness; that, at any rate, is Dr. Thorp’s view. His troubles, odd as it may seem, do not spring from his immediate surroundings; they spring from the present state of the world. ”