Mellor

“ All unknown to Mellor, Phil had been following at a distance, sure that something unusual was at work in his father's mind, and wondering what would come of it. When he saw the swing door of the White Horse open, and his father go in, something very like a sob came from him, and sitting down on a doorstep he buried his face in his hands and burst into tears. Poor lad! His father's promise to go to the Hall had made him quite hopeful all day; but now,—'twas the old story—drink, drink, drink. Oh, would things never be different? Was life always to be as now? ”

“ To him and Phil had come one great joy. Ever since Jasper's death their mother had gone with them every Sunday evening to their much-loved Mission Hall; she was getting quite known there now, and some of the folk had been to see her.
But one day who should come but Mr. Armstrong himself! Neither Phil nor Rob was at home—much to their grief, when they heard he had been; but it was Mrs. Mellor he wanted, and after a few words of kindly inquiry he made known the purport of his visit.
"Mrs. Forbes is finding the work up at the Hall too much," he said. ”

“ One great feature of the work carried on there was a free breakfast, given every Sunday morning to a certain number of destitute people, who were expected, and indeed almost obliged, to remain for a short gospel meeting afterwards. It was Forbes who first told the Mellor boys about it. Finding them asleep in an entry one Sunday morning, as he was going home from "night duty," he roused them, and soon heard from Phil how father and mother had "gone away yesterday, and locked the door," so that the poor lads were obliged to sleep where they could. ”

“ I don't quite know how we are going to get all we want; but I'm sure that we shall. It's the clothes are the trouble; rent and food I can manage, and mother says I can get a deal more for my money than she can; only, you see, clothes cost such a lot. But I'm not afraid, and perhaps some day, sir, I shall be your shopman instead of your errand boy (for I mean to stay with you, Mr. Cross) ; and then when I'm dressed so respectably, you'll forget how shabby poor little Phil Mellor was."
Mr. Cross laughed; like every one else, he had been irresistibly attracted by the lad ”

“ He's all safe up at the Infirmary, and they can go up as soon as they like. I've left word round at their place; but maybe they'll drop in here first."
But ill news travels fast, and as Phil and Rob were together distributing circulars in quite another part of Helmstone, the tidings reached them of their father's accident. One of the Mission Hall folk, who had seen Mellor knocked down, met the boys and told them. ”

“ Education will teach you, Bernard, what you ought to think about the things which must concern you—about your position, your duties, your feelings. At present you see but dimly into your heart and conscience. And I, who am accustomed to question myself on all subjects and to discipline my life, how can I take for master a man governed by instinct and guided by chance? ”

“ I met on the physical plane a man of great enthusiasm and of the most saintly character, one who believed thoroughly in the existence of the Masters, and devoted his life to the one object of qualifying himself for Their service. He seemed to me a man in every way so entirely suitable for discipleship, so obviously better than myself in many ways, that I could not understand how it was that he was not already accepted ”

“ Lend a hand, good Master,"—and the pupil becomes self-deprecatory. "Flint has fire within, which comes out only when struck; so the light of knowledge exists by nature in human minds, but a teacher is needed to knock it out."
"It is easy," responds the Master, "to show you wisdom's path, if only you will pursue it for the sake of God, for the sake of the soul's purity and to learn the truth, and also for its own sake, and not for human praise and honor." ”

“ A representation was made by my master, that he saw in me, indications of qualities and talents which pointed to some better station, than that of a village apothecary, and he recommended the sphere of my education to be enlarged; that I should be removed to a great school, and finally to the university. Whether I should have been more useful to the world, or intrinsically more happy in myself, if the humbler path had been pursued which was first chalked out for me, He only knows from whom no secrets are hid. ”

“ But you have just revealed to me what so enraptures me in this Möllner. Yes! it is nothing else than what we admire as the highest attribute of humanity--a noble, genuine manhood. I think I have read in some poet, 'Take him for all in all, he was a man!' But this man is more; he is what I have never in my life seen before,--a virtuous man. This, my good little professor, is his charm, his advantage over monarchs even,--enabling him to buy what is his now and forever,--my heart! ”

“ When a student hears all this there naturally arises in his mind the question, “How can I become the pupil of a Master? What can I do that will attract His attention?” As a matter of fact it is quite unnecessary that we should try to attract His attention, for the Masters are ever watching for those whom They can help to be of use to Them in the great work which They have to do, and we need not have the slightest fear that we shall be overlooked. ”

“ When half-a-dozen of you fall out by the ears, it seems that mother earth can give birth to no other rulers. Does your qualification lie in the superior knowledge of men which accepts, courts, and puffs this man? Or, if you are competent to judge aright the signs I never fail to show you when he appears among you, is your superior honesty your qualification?’ Two rather ugly questions these, always going about town with Mr Merdle ”

“ Mr. Melrose did not check them; he merely stood and waited with a smile on his face, wondering, as he looked at the wildly cheering mob, if any one of them would have been as meek under burdens as had been the gentle soul whose memory they were so vigorously honouring. ”

“ Respected sir, have I not already informed you that the quite new method, the strictly philosophical one, on which our office is founded, has led me and my associates to an enlarged study of mankind. It was my fault, if I did not, likewise, hint, that these studies directed always to the scientific procuring of good servants of all sorts, boys included, for the kind gentlemen, our patrons—that these studies, I say, have been conducted equally among all books of all libraries, as among all men of all nations. ”

“ Beloved instructors, it is character not less than intellect that you have striven to develop. As we stand at the end of our college course, and turn our eyes toward the scenes forever past—as our memories linger on the words of wisdom which have fallen from your lips, we are more and more deeply impressed with the true conception of duty which you have ever shown. You have sought not to trim the lamp of genius until the light of morality is paled by its dazzling brilliance, but to encourage and strengthen both. ”

“ Y. Book. 'Tis true, madam, I owe it all to fortune; neither your kindness nor my industry had any share in't. Thus am I still as wretched as I was, for this happiness I so much prize had doubtless been refused my want of merit.
Pen. It has very soon, you see, lost what you valued in it; but I find you and I, sir, have a different sense; for, in my opinion, we enjoy with most pleasure what we attain with least merit. Merit is a claim, and may pretend justly to favour; when without it what's conferred is more unexpected, and therefore more pleasing. ”

“ I would now give the character of my instructor, but as I wish my secret not to be disclosed, I am aware that I must use no common circumspection. I do not now indeed dread the lightning of his eye, the thunder of his voice, or the weight of his arm; but I do not wish the bonds of complacency and civility, so long established between us, to be broken. If any one therefore shall think he can individually apply what follows, be it at his peril, not mine.
[22]
My master then, be it known, was a most extraordinary personage; not less distinguished in literature than in politics. ”

“ It is well enough known, that the best productions of the best human intellects, are generally regarded by those intellects as mere immature freshman exercises, wholly worthless in themselves, except as initiatives for entering the great University of God after death. ”

“ LUCY. Of thy most vile cogitations—thou poor, conceited wretch, how wert thou valuing thyself upon thy master’s employment? For he’s the head pimp to Mr. Bellmour.
SETTER. Good words, damsel, or I shall—But how dost thou know my master or me?
LUCY. Yes; I know both master and man to be—
SETTER. To be men, perhaps; nay, faith, like enough: I often march in the rear of my master, and enter the breaches which he has made. ”

“ He lords it over those below him, while lorded over himself by his superiors. It is as if with one hand a school-boy snapped his fingers at a dog, and at the same time received upon the other the discipline of the usher's ferule. ”

“ Well, they went to a great many masters, but all said that they could make the lad as good as they were themselves, but better than that they could not make him. When the man came home to the old woman with this answer, she said, 'I shall be equally well pleased whatever you do with him ; but this I do say, that you are to have him made a master over all masters.' Then she once more put some food and a roll of tobacco into the bag, and the man and his son had to set out again. ”

“ When this stage is reached he usually comes under the influence of a Master; indeed often his first clear consciousness of anything outside himself is his touch with that Master. The tremendous power of the Master's influence magnetises him, draws his vibrations into harmony with its own, and multiplies manyfold the rate of his development. It rays upon him like sunshine upon a flower, and he evolves rapidly under its influence. ”

“ The Professor turned his eyes upwards to the starry heavens, and a sense came over him of the eternity and the immensity of Nature, and the demonstrable absence of any intelligence that guided, it. These reflections naturally brought home to him with more vividness the stupendous and boundless importance of Man. ”

“ Those youths who wished to pass up from the lower to the high-school had to undergo an examination. The student, when he had passed it, could choose a master from among the learned of the higher grades, who undertook to be his philosophical guide, and to whom he remained attached all his life through, as a client to his patron. ”

“ We congratulated ourselves that we had had the courage to be among the number, for all my expectations fell far short of the splendour, the brilliance, the overwhelming eloquence of this extraordinary orator.
Her lecture was upon the nature of true knowledge, and it contained little that could be objected to, by any sect or party; it was intended as an introduction to the strange and startling theories contained in her subsequent lectures, and could alarm only by the hints it contained that the fabric of human wisdom could rest securely on no other base than that of human knowledge. ”

“ This then is what is meant by being an accepted pupil of the Master — that the man becomes a kind of outpost of that Master's consciousness, so that the strength of the Great Ones may be poured out through him, and the world may be definitely the better for his presence in it. The pupil is so closely in touch with the Master' s thought that he can at any time see what that thought is upon any given subject, and in that way he is often saved from error. ”

“ In every rank of life, in the lowest, as frequently as in the highest, characters are to be found, overflowing with the milk of human kindness, breathing love towards God and man; and though without those peculiar powers of mind called talents, evidently holding a higher rank in the scale of beings, than many who possess them. ”

“ A too great consciousness of innate worth gave me a too great degree of pride, but the endeavours of my instructor to inspire humility were not all lost; and habitual reading, well-timed praise, and the pleasures flowing from science, made the labours of study at length my recreation. ”

“ That saying about levelling upward, and not downward, may seem very fine to those who cannot see its self-involved absurdity. But the truth is, that, to gain the true level, in some things, we must cut downward ”

“ There was too often a paralysis of dulness4 in the old lecture, or, rather, in the old lecturer; and written lectures, like history and fashion in dress, have an inveterate tendency to repeat themselves; but, on the contrary, there was often a wealth of power also in the studied discourse of strong men. Masters bent upon instructing and inspiring—and there were many such—had to penetrate that central secret of literature and spoken utterance—the secret of style. ”

“ And in this vain knowledge, which they go so far to fetch, they know nothing of the soup of which I stand in need. My servants all wish to be learned, in order to please you; and all alike occupy themselves with anything but the work they have to do. ”

“ Like timid children, we have peered into the schoolhouse--afraid of the unknown master. If we will but enter we shall find that the Master is our Father, and that he has fitted up this house, out of his own infinite wisdom, skill, and love, that we may be like him in wisdom and power as well as in love. ”