Gilead

“ Is there no balm in Gilead, Sir Charleroy? If thou and she have been great sinners, He’s a great Savior, and more, a patient one. Hast thou thought how He lingered near His followers in an overplus of love, lured from the triumphs of heaven, to personally deal, all comfortingly, all encouragingly, peculiarly with individuals? For thirty-three years in the flesh he wandered about, doing good, healing all those oppressed of the devil; but the finest hours of all His life lay in those forty days between the resurrection and the ascension. ”

“ And the children of Israel assembled themselves together, and encamped in Mizpah.
18 And the people, the princes of Gilead, said one to another, What man is he that will begin to fight against the children of Ammon? he shall be head over all the inhabitants of Gilead.
Chapter 11 1 Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valor, and he was the son of a harlot: and Gilead begat Jephthah.
2 And Gilead's wife bare him sons; and when his wife's sons grew up, they drove out Jephthah, and said unto him, Thou shalt not inherit in our father's house; for thou art the son of another woman. ”

“ A brief silence succeeded her agonized cry, during which Gilead battled with his emotions. It was not so much the anguish, perhaps, as the heart-moving tone of its utterance which stirred the very bowels, so to speak, of his official circumspection. He made but a feeble attempt to assert his independence. This story, on the face of it, seemed to him one of the most pitifully tragic to which he had ever listened. That a man should be so cast down and trampled on in the name of fond humanity appeared to him monstrous. ”

“ Again she stopped. “Reason, I hope,” said Gilead gently. “I try to practise it. Sympathy and help, unless given in reason, are likely to defeat their own objects, are they not?”
“Yes,” said the visitor forlornly; and she seemed to droop a little.
“Does that discourage you?” asked the young man.
She raised her head.
“Is it in reason,” she said, “to expect one, however merciful, however pitiful, to save another from the just consequences of his own misdeeds?”
“That depends,” said Gilead, “whether or not mercy to the sinner entails a wrong to the sinned against.” ”

“ Our vision may be at fault, but not their radiance and undying glory. The Being "not confined to temples made with hands," who met this wrestler of old in the forest of Gilead, and poured better than Gilead's balm into his bosom, is the same now as He was then. And if thou art a wrestler too, He seems through the moaning of the storm to say, "Though thou fall, yet shalt thou not be cast down utterly, for the Lord upholdeth thee with his right hand." ”

“ WINSOM WYLLIE! Those who have followed the career of our young philanthropist will not have forgotten the name of that detestable scoundrel, the persecutor of the beautiful amanuensis. It was peculiar, one must admit—a name not likely to be borne by more than a single person in the world. So thought Gilead, as, with a deep sigh, he struggled out of his stupefaction and reread the lines. ”

“ How different is the rough Prophet of Gilead, the ascetic, in his sheepskin mantle and leathern girdle, who can live for months on a little water and meal baked with oil! [790] In him we see the grandeur of manhood reduced to its simplest elements; we see the dignity of man as simply man towering over all the adventitious circumstance of royalty. One who, like Elijah, has no earthly desires, has no real fears. If he flies from Jezebel to save his life, it is only because he is not justified in flinging it away ”

“ It was Mr Desmund who spoke, art expert and valuer to a well-known firm of print and book sellers. He had accompanied Gilead round the room, booking his bids—an unwearying resourceful man, with a drooping light moustache, a bright complexion, and pale blue eyes, tired but interested. He wore a loose blue serge suit with a bright tie; his shoulders were bent a trifle beneath their load of specialised knowledge; he was a busy soul, but never too busy for enthusiasm in the right directions or to the right people. ”

“ The momentary shock of which Gilead was conscious did not escape her observation. She laughed musically.
“O!” she said; “it was only a try, but a pretty forlorn one. You are satisfied with virtue for its own sake, aren’t you? The worse for the girls, for you are a jolly good-looking fellow.” ”

“ The horses seem restless in their stamping; the dogs keep up their barking; the room is dark; I hear the heavy breathing of those about me; a lone star peeps in through the small window; and I try to compose myself for the rest that I so much need. "Is there no balm in Gilead?" Yes. I thought that I was lying down to a night of restlessness and fever, but never on couch of down has my rest been sweeter.
I am awakened at dawn by some one moving about in the room, and I see a man pick up a gun and pass quickly out. The dogs are barking savagely throughout the village. ”

“ Verse 11
Iniquity in Gilead - Gilgal and Gilead are equally iniquitous, and equally idolatrous. Gilead, which was beyond Jordan, had already been brought under subjection by Tiglath-Pileser. Gilgal, which was on this side Jordan, shall share the same fate; because it is now as idolatrous as the other.
Their altars are as heaps - They occur everywhere. The whole land is given to idolatry. ”

“ He held the girl by the elbow, and Gilead saw her face for the first time. It was youth stricken into instant age, white, stunned, breathless. She made no effort to speak or escape—indeed she could not. The strung nerves had snapped at a touch, and she was paralyzed.
“I’ll make myself responsible for her,” said Gilead. “Quick, we mustn’t let a crowd gather.”
The constable, prompt man, bent down to the half blind, half deaf young face.
“You’re took bad, Missy,” he said; “you aren’t yourself. Now you just go with this gentleman, who’ll do you more good than all the doctors in the world.” ”

“ She ran out—a slight anæmic girl, a sempstress by her pallor, soberly dressed, but elaborate as to her head and low as to her neck—and, with a wondering stare at Gilead, sped on her way towards the tram terminus hard by. Regarding her retreat an instant, Gilead turned to see the figure of a man standing conning him from the shop-door. ”

“ The emotion was essentially feminine, and Gilead had surely despised himself for even succumbing to it. He could not be such a woman as to pet a grievance before it was justified. There was no grievance at all to justify itself; with his eyes set to the truth he told himself so, and he had the will to believe it. Suspicion was a germ that once admitted destroyed the reason; only that strong will had power to keep it out. ”

“ Neither did the figure of the girl, now with its back to Gilead, make the least movement. The boat, with the way on it, continued to float up-stream; the face of the staring man grew smaller and less distinct; but it was always to Gilead a stiff blotch of yellow, like the face of a rigid corpse. ”

“ Gilead saw that he had to conciliate a perversity, and he lent himself to the task with all the humour and tact of which he was capable. One could regard life from Flushing, he perceived, with as much worldly acumen as from London. ”

“ But there was another, and even more attractive side to the picture; and that was the mysteries his quest would penetrate, and of which the Agony Column of the Daily Post afforded some potential examples. How might not one gratify here one’s loving-kindness and one’s romanticism in a breath! The imaginative prospect was quite captivating to Gilead. ”

“ Nothing else. Vague surmises, shadowy charges—what was there in them all? Gilead was worldling enough to know that there was never yet a disappointed legatee who did not hint darkly of undue influences or mental irresponsibility. That a testator did not do what was expected of him was no ground for action in the eye of the law.
Did this chivalrous spirit, therefore, shrink at the last from its self-imposed Quest? Not for a moment. The Law to Gilead was nothing but a sifter of evidence. ”

“ One day, weeks later, Gilead had occasion to motor with a friend to the city. It was a dusty morning, and the two wore goggles. At the Bank of England the car drew up by the kerb while the friend entered the building. He was gone so long that Gilead had ample time to study the endless types of humanity that drifted beside him. They were all intent on business and money-making, and he wondered if there was one in all the confused throng capable of properly appreciating his feelings over his lost Haronobu. ”

“ Gilead put up a gentle hand.
“Spare yourself the pain. She was good, she was desperate—I understand—and as a final resource she decided to implore the help of strangers through the public press. The barrenness of the result, the inhuman silence, drove her in the end to her last chance of escape through self-destruction. I hold the child a heroine. Great God, the stony indifference of the world to her appeal!—no wonder it killed her heart. This man is a particular scoundrel. He shall bleed, Miss Halifax, he shall bleed, I promise you.” ”

“ As he approached, Gilead accosted him, and, after greetings and a commonplace or two, remarked pleasantly:—
“That was mistaken charity, you know, Robson. You should have insisted on your matchbox in exchange.”
The other stared a moment, gathered, and laughed.
“O, that!” he said. “It’s one’s instinctive homage, I suppose, to a lovely face and a soft voice—the two best things in nature.” ”

“ It was upon the Agony Column of the Daily Post that Gilead was wont to whet his appetite for the emotional truths of life.
We all know this Agony Column. It is unique amongst its Daily fellows—more stirring, more motley, more shrill with the personal note than any other. ”

“ She chaffed the shipping clerk demurely, and plied him with her eyes in a way which dreadfully embarrassed that susceptible youth, who was obviously torn between his admiration for so much beauty and liveliness and an almost irresistible desire to respond in kind, and his respectful awe of the young plutocrat whose steps he attended. Gilead, in short, was glad when the journey had come to an end, and they stepped out upon the platform at Sheerness. ”

“ They crowded round him, and eyed him reverentially, and brought him little gifts and remembrances, and emulating Annie Eliza, audibly enlarged on the size and strength of his muscles, and the wonder of his circus tricks, and even allowed that Plato was the handsomest horse in Chamboro, and conceded Gilead to be the gentlest and most innocent animal that ever browsed on a flower-bed. ”

“ It shamed Gilead to think of his seeking to take the bread out of the mouth of any poverty so mean and forlorn; only his sense of desperate necessity urged him into competition with it. It were surely better that one pride should hunger than that a villain should go unmasked, a problematic murderer be allowed to pursue his nefarious course with impunity. ”

“ On the night in question Gilead, after attending the meeting, had dined en famille with a Cabinet Minister in sympathy with its objects. He left early, purposing to pay a visit to the Agency—long-closed, of course—in order to consult some papers bearing on the matter. As, nodding to the porter who admitted him, he climbed the long stairs to his private room, a queer sense of something accompanying seized upon him all in an instant. ”

“ Money is no object to me.”
The little old man bent forward, and eagerly scanned his visitor.
“If that is so,” he said, “fortune could not have sent me a better coadjutor. You are dispassionate, disinterested, whole-hearted?”
“Entirely,” said Gilead.
The old man rubbed his palms gleefully together.
“It is a providence,” he said. “It is to demonstrate a truth, a momentous truth, that I advertised for an agent.”
“May I ask,” said Gilead, “what truth.”
“Hush-sh-sh!” said Mr Judex, putting a finger to his lips with exaggerated gravity. ”

“ He was a meaty youth of some twelve summers, with an imbecile self-satisfied face and porky eyes; but his stylish white flannels and little Oxford-blue blazer with the yellow badge on its pocket spoke him quite the riverside dandy.
Gilead fell into pace with the two, and the little girl kept peeping up at him from the other side of her cavalier. She was the dearest charmer of nine, dressed in a sort of sweet Directory frock with heliotrope sprays; and the shepherd’s straw hat on her head had its mauve ribbon poked full of real daisies. ”

“ The apparition’s was the reassuring one of the two.
Suddenly, as he looked, the rower resumed his sculls; but he paddled slowly, his eyes on the figure on the bridge all the while. Not until the boat had vanished round a bend were they, Gilead felt, withdrawn, releasing him to his own thoughts.
Those were strange enough in all conscience—compact of wonder and perplexity. It was a certain comfort to him to find his theory vindicated; that he had run his quarry actually to earth—or water. ”

“ He rose, frowning, in the sternness of his anger, and the dealer, in the very effort at a protest, cowered and shrunk silent before him.
“Perhaps, sir,” said Gilead, “it may have occurred to you by now that the nature of the task I have set myself brings me acquainted with the secrets of many underhand dealings. This morning was fortunate in revealing to me the destined victim of a piece of quite unexampled cupidity and baseness—your own. ”

“ Gilead then placed himself on the throne of Coriantumr, and both commanders busied themselves in gathering men to strengthen their respective armies. Gilead, who had the sympathy of some of the secret combinations, received great strength during the two years they were thus engaged, but he was slain by his own high priest as he sat on the throne ”