Chapter X: What Is Forgiveness?

Skilful alike with tongue and pen,
He preached to all men everywhere
The Gospel of the Golden Rule,
The new commandment given to men,
Thinking the deed, and not the creed,
Would help us in our utmost need.
With reverent feet the earth he trod,
Nor banished Nature from his plan,
But studied still with deep research
To build the Universal Church,
Lofty as is the love of God,
And ample as the wants of man.
_Tales of a Wayside Inn_. LONGFELLOW.

As he walked home, Donovan thought a good deal of the scene he had just left, and for the first time it struck him that the sermon had been rather an unusual one for such a congregation. Charles Osmond seemed to take it for granted that his people thought; the congregation was chiefly composed of working men and women and tradespeople, but he by no means preached down to what some would have considered their level. He entered into all the questions of the day freely and fearlessly, took as much pains with his sermons as if they were to be preached before the most searching critics in the country, and avoided only the use of many-syllabled words--speaking, indeed, in almost pure Saxon-English, the "tongue understanded of the people."

How he came to be in such a place was another question which perplexed Donovan. Had he known the reason, he would have been doubly attracted to the man; but it was some time before he found out.

Charles Osmond's history was a strange one. He was exceedingly clever, an original sort of man, full of resources, intensely conscious of latent power which he might probably never have time or opportunity for bringing into exercise. But the strength of the man was in his extraordinary gift of insight; there was something almost uncanny about his power of reading people. He would have made a good diplomatist, a first-rate detective, had not his power of sympathy been quite as strong as his power of insight. He had that gift of "magnetism" which Donovan had ascribed to Raeburn; almost all who had anything to do with him were attracted, they scarcely knew why or how. He had a way of treating each individual as if for the time being his only desire was to get nearer to him, and, although he was the most wide-minded of men, he could so concentrate his world-wide sympathy as to bring its full power to bear on one heart. His influence was simply marvellous! he was like a sort of sun; the coldest, most frozen, icebound natures melted in his genial presence. He could draw out the most reserved people in a way astonishing to themselves. He spoke little of "souls" in the lump, never obtruded the conventional red-tapism of clerical life, but each individual was to him a wonderful and absorbing study. He rarely even in thought massed them together as "his parish," but took them as his inner circle of brothers and sisters, a tiny fragment of the one great family.

Of course, he was almost worshipped by those who knew him, but with a certain class of character he could make no way. He had one great fault--a fault which repelled some people, generally the "unco guid or rigidly righteous," or those comfortable people who feel no need or desire for sympathy. His fault was this--he was too conscious of his influence; he knew that he had exceptional gifts, and all his life long he had been struggling with that deadliest of foes, conceit. He had the exquisite candour to call his fault by its true name, a very rare virtue; and few things angered him more than to hear conceit confounded with self-respect or proper pride of independence. Conceit was conceit pure and simple; the word pride had lost its objectionable meaning. To tell a man that he was proud would make him feel almost gratified, would give him a sense of dignity, but to tell him he was conceited would be sure to give him a hard home-thrust. So he went on in his straightforward way, struggling with his deadly hindrance, daily--almost hourly--checking himself, pulling himself up, as he drifted into the all too natural habit of self-approval. He had not crushed his foe as yet, but he had risen immensely by the effort. It had helped greatly to increase the manliness, the honesty, the large-minded tolerance which characterized him. Intensely conscious that he had not "already attained, neither was already perfect," he was a thousand times more helpful to those in need than many of his brethren who looked down on him, blandly content with their own progress in righteousness--at any rate, convinced that Charles Osmond's very apparent fault must unfit him for his work. Certainly it did prevent his ever assuming the conventional tone of priest to penitent; he never felt himself on a higher platform than his congregation, but perhaps for that very reason he succeeded in attracting, by his brotherliness rather than his priestliness, those whom no one else could attract.

The reason that he was still to be found toiling away in an obscure parish in one of the poor parts of London was not without its pathos. Very few were aware of the real cause. Naturally he was not without a good deal of ambition, and at a certain time in his life his advances had been rapid. He had written a series of articles which had brought him into notice, and almost at the same time two offers were made to him. The one was the offer of a living in London worth perhaps £300 a year, the other was to a position of great responsibility, invariably made the stepping-stone to high places. Charles Osmond was human; it cost him a great deal to give up the prospect of rapid and honourable preferment, and in refusing the offer he gave up many other things which he much desired--the opportunity of mixing with his equals, the chance of intellectual society, the greater ease of speaking to a highly educated congregation. In many respects he was, and knew that he was, admirably fitted for such a position, but, weighing it all in his honest mind, he came to the conclusion that he could not trust himself to accept it. His power, his influence, his worldly position would be immensely raised; he did not feel himself sufficiently strong to resist such increased temptations.

So the chance of promotion was honourably rejected, and Charles Osmond settled down to terribly up-hill work in London. Life never could be easy to such a man; he was too sensitive, too wide-minded, too entirely saturated with the spirit of Christ to be ever without his share of Christ's burden--the burden of the suffering, the sinning, the doubting. He was, too, in a certain sense an isolated man; all through his life he had been greatly misunderstood. By one set he was stigmatized as "High Church," by another as "dangerously Broad," by a third as "almost a Dissenter." Attacked thus from all points, his life would have been almost intolerable had it not been for the growing love and devotion of his own particular people. His church became a sort of Cave of Adullam--a refuge for numbers of the distressed; and as years went by, the work began to tell, and a real improvement could be noted. This alone was almost enough to make up for the hostility which he encountered in other quarters, though he was not the sort of man to whom persecution could ever be otherwise than painful. He had lately incurred great odium by urging in public that Raeburn, the atheist, ought to be treated with as much justice, and courtesy, and consideration as if he had been a Christian. The narrow-minded were thereby much scandalized; the atheists began to believe that it was _possible_ for a clergyman to be honest and unprejudiced.

The walk home after Sunday evening service was generally the part of the day's work which Brian dreaded most for his father. He knew it was then that the burden pressed most heavily on him, for the sin and evil were fearfully apparent in those back streets, and Charles Osmond keenly alive to it all, wearied with the exertions of the day, and aware of his inability to cope with the immense wickedness around, often fell a prey to the haunting consciousness of failure and to blank depression.

This evening, however, as they parted from Donovan at the church door, he seemed quite unusually brisk and animated, and though generally too tired to care to speak an unnecessary word, he had not walked a hundred yards before he began to question his son.

"So that is your new friend?"

"Yes," returned Brian, "what do you think of him?"

"I think he's a friend worth having."

"I knew you would like him," said Brian, triumphantly, "if it were only because he is of your 'seeps.' Is there an honest atheist in the world whom you don't like, I wonder!"

"I hope not," said Charles Osmond, with a touch of quiet humour in his tone.

"I wouldn't say much about Farrant before you had seen him, for he's not the sort of fellow to be known at second hand, and I was determined you should somehow meet him. Odd that such a chance as that girl's illness should have brought you together after all."

"Just as well," said Charles Osmond. "He is a fellow to be led, not driven, or to be driven only by the One who knows when to use the snaffle, when the curb."

"Yes, one is afraid of pushing him the wrong way rather," said Brian, "even, I mean, in chance talk without any intention of pushing at all."

"That we always must feel in speaking to those whom the world has held at arm's length. I should like to know what helped to bring that fellow to atheism, have you any idea?"

"The un-Christlikeness of Christians, I fancy--and something he said of injustice with which he had been treated, but he has only once spoken of it at all and then merely because he grew hot at the mention of Raeburn."

Charles Osmond sighed heavily, it was another instance added to the hundreds he already knew of the harm caused by injustice and want of charity. He fell into a sorrowful reverie, but roused himself after a time to ask what his son knew of Donovan's history.

"I know very little," said Brian, "he seems to be alone in the world, and he is very poor. We are of the same year; he came up at October two years ago and got a scholarship at once. He's by far the cleverest fellow we have, no one else has a chance while he's there; any amount of brains, you know, and works furiously--as if it were the only thing he cared for."

"I thought as much," observed Charles Osmond. "There's the dog though--wonderful to see the devotion between those two; no man in the world, as the old saying goes, who can't find a dog and a woman to love him. Who is the 'old man of the sea' you spoke of?"

"The queerest old fellow you ever saw who has come to live with him, an old captain something, I forget the name. Quite of another grade to Farrant, and trying to live with I should fancy, for he's a regular old tippler, but he's devoted to 'Donovan,' as he always calls him."

"Oh! that's his name, is he connected with the Donovans of Kilbeggan, I wonder? grannie has their family tree by heart."

"There's nothing Irish about Farrant," said Brian.

"I'm not so sure of that, I fancy there's a good deal of humour in him, stifled by circumstances perhaps, and I'll stake my reputation as an observer that somewhere in his ancestry you'll find an Italian?"

Brian laughed; his father was very fond of tracing the tokens of differing nationalities and had many theories on the subject; sometimes his theories fell wide of the mark, however, and Brian was inclined to think he had made a bad shot this time, for to him Donovan seemed entirely--almost typically--English.

A few days after this Donovan was induced to dine with the Osmonds, not without much persuasion from Brian, who was now sufficiently his friend to be comfortably rude to him.

"You'll grow into a bear, a misanthrope, if you never go anywhere," he urged, as Donovan pleaded his want of time. "You'll addle your brains, knock up before the exam, grow into the 'dull boy' of the proverb. I can see that this unmitigated grind is beginning to tell on you already; you look as old again as you did before the October term."

Donovan flushed a little at this, said abruptly that he would come, and gave a rapid turn to the conversation.

The Osmonds lived in Bloomsbury, in an old house which had belonged to Charles Osmond's grandfather in the days when Bloomsbury was a fashionable region. It was a comfortable, roomy house, not too far from the parish to be inconvenient, and all the better for being far removed from West End gaieties, as the Osmonds were something of Bohemians, dined at an unpardonably early hour, and rather set at naught the conventionalities of life.

Donovan was shown into a charming, old-fashioned drawing-room, not old-fashioned according to the recent high art revival of spindle-legged forms and Queen Anne uncomfortableness, but such a room as might have been found at the beginning of the century. Everything was massive and good of its kind. There were capacious arm-chairs and most restful sofas covered with the real old chintz worth any number of modern cretonnes, an old-fashioned Erard piano that had seen good service, beautifully inlaid tables, some good oil paintings, and a delightful array of books in long, low bookcases, bound in old yellow calf and that everlasting morocco which was somehow procurable in the good old times when book-binding was an art, not a trade. A few modern knick-knacks here and there relieved the stiffness of the furniture, while a faint smell of dried roses was wafted from old china bowls and vases which would have awakened the envy of anyone suffering from the china mania.

Mrs. Osmond, Brian's grandmother, just completed the old-world picture. Donovan fell in love with her at once. She was indeed a very beautiful old lady, her silvery hair, her mild, blue eyes, her peculiarly sweet smile were all in their way perfect, but it was the exquisite courtesy, the delicate grace of the past day that attracted everyone so irresistibly, that beautiful, old-fashioned sweetness of manner which has somehow perished in the heat and struggle--the "hurrying life" of the nineteenth century. She made him a charming, gracious, little curtsey, then held out her hand, and Donovan, Republican though he was, did not shake it, but, acting as he occasionally did by impulse, bent low and kissed it.

The old lady seemed touched and gratified; she at once introduced the names of her old friends the Donovans of Kilkeggan, and there ensued an animated discussion as to the younger branches of the family, resulting in the oft-made discovery that the world is smaller than we think, and that Donovan's grandfather, General Donovan, had been Mrs. Osmond's old playfellow. The gong sounded, and the dear, old, stately lady went down to dinner on Donovan's arm, still talking of her young days in Ireland, then drifting on to the London life of long ago, dwelling in the loving, tender way of the old on the celebrities of her time, the Kembles, Jenny Lind, Grisi, Sontag, Miss Stephens, and Braham; then on to the Chartist rising of '48, when Charles Osmond took his turn and spoke of the "Christian Socialism" scheme, from which they passed to the Radicalism of to-day, a subject which Donovan himself would not have ventured to introduce in a clergyman's house, but which he found discussed with perfect fairness. Indeed, though Charles Osmond rarely meddled with politics, his work lay so entirely among "the people" that he was really able to see matters from their point of view, and in the main he was ready to agree with Donovan.

About the house, or rather the home, there was the same atmosphere as at Porthkerran, the same wideness of sympathy, the same loving regard for the work and interests of others, the same "one and all" principle carried into beautiful practice. The parish was not made a bore to the other members of the family, Brian's work was not obtruded in a tiresome way, nor Mrs. Osmond's manifold feminine occupations; all was well balanced, well regulated, and Donovan realised how perfect a home can be in which are the three generations. Past, present, and future, when really united, do make the strongest threefold cord, and perhaps no house is quite complete without the quick perception of the young, the steady judgment of the middle-aged, the golden experience of the old.

Part of the evening Donovan spent alone with Charles Osmond in his study, a comfortable room, methodically arranged, and lined with books, theological, anti-theological, and scientific. Judged by his books, it might perhaps have; been hard to say which of Charles Osmond's abusers were right; whether he was really high, broad, or half a dissenter; perhaps he was a little of all three, or perhaps he had reached above and beyond those earthly distinctions.

However this might be, as the two sat that evening over their coffee, Donovan fairly forgot he was speaking to that, to him, obnoxious being--a clergyman. Not even to Dr. Tremain had he ever talked with such perfect openness. Those dog-like eyes, with their constant appeal, "let us come nearer," were utterly irresistible. He found himself almost thinking aloud, and as his thinking meant great questioning, the possibility of having a being outside himself capable of listening, sympathising, and answering was a rare delight. And because he was conscious of Charles Osmond's unasserted but very real superiority, he cared not what he said, felt no restriction, no fear of going too far, or of giving too much confidence. The really clever, really great, really good, inspire trust, where the mediocre inspire dread.

As they talked, a little of Donovan's private history, which Charles Osmond had speculated about, was revealed. They had been speaking of Mill's notable allowance that, on the whole, men could not do better than try to imitate the life of Christ.

"But," urged Donovan, "however much one may resolve to do so, I find endless difficulties when it comes to actual practice. Take this, for instance--I wish to find what is Christ's law of forgiveness, and am met with such contradictions as these: I am first told to offer the other cheek, to let my cloak follow my coat, not to resist evil. I am told another time to bring the matter before witnesses, before the church, and, if all is of no avail, to let my enemy be to me as a heathen man and a publican. How do you explain that?"

"I think the first referred to injuries received by a Christian from an unbeliever, the second to injuries received from a fellow-Christian," said Charles Osmond.

"Then what is an atheist to do when injured by a Christian?" asked Donovan. "I will tell you the actual case, and then you will see the difficulty. A certain cousin of mine has defrauded me of my property. I have actual proof, though unfortunately not legal proof, that he destroyed my father's last will; he then married my mother, and when I came of age coolly turned me out of the house without a farthing. He now lives on my estate, spends my money, enjoys himself thoroughly, as far as I know, and kindly condescends to make me an allowance of £100 a year, though the wretch knows that I know of his villainy."

"You can't bring an action against him?"

"Unfortunately not. It is too great a risk. There is only one living witness of the destroyed will, and the expenses of a lawsuit would be enormous. Now, what I want to know is, what you expect me to feel towards that man?"

"It is a hard case," said Charles Osmond. "I should like to know what you do feel."

"All I have been able to do is to will to think of him as little as possible. When I do think of him, I confess that I often get red-hot with indignation. Happily, I've plenty of work and need not dwell on it, so that except twice a year, when his beggarly cheques come in, I nearly forget his existence. If this is letting him be to me a heathen and a publican, I have so far fulfilled the Christian law, but----"

"Ah! yes, I'm glad you put in a but," said Charles Osmond. "For though, after you have done all in your power to reconcile and win back your enemy, you are told to leave him, and have no more to do with him, you must remember that that command pre-supposes that you are a Christian, and therefore one who loves all men, who recognizes the universal brotherhood, who tries to imitate the One who makes his sun to shine on the evil as well as on the good. The very first principles of Christianity show that you must love this man, though he is your enemy, and though it may be best for you to have no personal communication with him."

"You mean I must love Ellis Farrant? It is impossible. You've no conception what a scoundrel he is. I could horsewhip him with the greatest pleasure."

"Then, of course, you have not forgiven him?"

"No, I have not," said Donovan, emphatically. "And I don't see how you can expect me to while every day the fellow is adding to his sin, while every day he's defrauding me of my own."

"You must not think me hard on you," said Charles Osmond. "Your feeling is exceedingly natural, and I think perhaps you can't get much further than this until you believe in God. It was Christ who taught us what real forgiveness is. Now you tell me that although you do not believe in God, and regard Christ merely as a very good man, yet you consider the ideal God as a very beautiful ideal."

"Yes," said Donovan.

"Well, then, just listen to me while I put your words as though they were spoken by the ideal God. 'This man is mine, I caused him to be, gave him all that he possesses, he owes me love and obedience, for years he has defrauded me of both, defrauded me of my due, and he has done it wilfully. I am full of indignation, and I will not to think of him any more. To love him is impossible, he is a perfect scoundrel, and every day he is adding to his sin.' The God in whom I believe did not speak like this; you will allow that if He had thus spoken He would not have been an ideal God at all. Instead of thinking of the rights of which He had been defrauded, He thought first of the child of His who was defrauding Him, how miserable his existence was in reality, how everything was distorted to his view so that he had even lost sight of their original relationship, and regarded his Father as an angry tyrant. Somehow the child must be made to understand that although it had sinned, its Father, being its Father, was only longing to forgive it, to break down the barrier which had risen between them. He revealed His wonderful love in such a way that the simplest could not fail to see it, His forgiveness was there, waiting for all who would take it. It was not a forgiveness to be obtained after much pleading, it was there as a free gift for all who had the least real and honest wish to be reconciled. That is the forgiveness of God, and the example which you must follow."

"It is impossible," said Donovan, with sad emphasis.

"Perhaps it may be until you have realised what God has forgiven you."

"But how am I to love what is hateful?"

"I never asked you to."

"The man is utterly hateful, a lying, deceitful, hypocritical knave."

"No man is altogether evil, there is latent good in him that you cannot perceive. I don't ask you to love the evil in him, but to love him because he is a man. He is your brother whether you will or not, and if you want to imitate Christ you must love him."

Donovan shook his head, and sighed.

"It's no good, I can hardly make myself even wish to love him; it's somehow against one's sense of justice."

"'Though justice be thy plea, consider this, that in the course of justice none of us should see salvation,'" quoted Charles Osmond, smiling. "But don't think I am speaking easily of the thing, forgiveness is hard, in a case like yours it is frightfully hard. I have merely told you what I consider ideal forgiveness, if you aim at the highest you will often and often fall short of the mark."

"The worst of it is this struggling to copy the life of Christ is such frightfully discouraging work," said Donovan. "The more one tries the harder it gets, and one is always coming to some new demand which it is almost impossible to meet."

"Did you ever climb in Alp?" asked Charles Osmond. "As you get higher you find it harder work, the air is more rarefied, the way more abrupt; but when you reach the summit, what do you care for all the labour? The work was weary, but the end was worth all! When the full vision breaks upon us----" he paused, and there was a minute's silence, but the light in his face was more eloquent than words.

"If there be a summit and a vision," said Donovan, in a low voice.

"Though it tarry, wait for it," was Charles Osmond's answer.

After that they passed to matters nearer the surface, and before long Brian came down, and tae three drew in their chairs to the fire, and sat smoking and talking till late in the evening. Charles Osmond had, in spite of his harassing life, kept a wonderful reserve fund of high spirits, and just now in the relief of having to do with one so honest and high-minded as Donovan he forgot the hundred and one cares of his parish, and was the life of the party. His comical anecdotes, told in the raciest way imaginable, drew forth shouts of laughter from the listeners, and, feeling convinced that Donovan did not often exercise his lungs in that way, he kept up an almost ceaseless flow of the very wittiest talk. A great love of fun and a certain absence of conventional decorum proved the nationality of the Osmonds, but it was with something far beyond the sense of good fellowship that Donovan went home that night; he was cheered and amused certainly, but the home-like reception at the clergyman's house had already widened him and softened his clerical antipathies, while his growing admiration for Charles Osmond did him a world of good.

Who does not know the absolute delight of intercourse with a greater mind, the enthusiasm which springs from the mere fact of looking up to another, the inspiriting sense of being bettered, raised, stimulated to fresh exertion?

Cut off by his act of self-sacrifice from the Tremain household, and with poor old Rouge Frewin for his sole companion, Donovan was in great need of friends whom he could revere as well as love; the Osmonds were exactly fitted to meet his need, and perhaps for that reason the friendship deepened and strengthened very rapidly,

After he had left that evening the father and son lingered over the fire, indulging a little in that general habit of discussing the departed guest.

"Wasn't it rare to hear him laugh?" said Brian. "I'd no idea he'd such a lot of fun in him. His hatred of the clergy will die a natural death now that he has got to know you! It was the biggest joke to see the way in which every now and then he chanced to notice your tie, and received a sort of shock realising that you actually were one of the hated class."

"It is hardly to be wondered at," said Charles Osmond. "We clergy are terribly apt to forget that we must follow St. Paul and try to be 'all things to all men.' I should like to know how many parsons have said so much as a kind word to that fellow, who must have been nominally under the charge of some one all his life. Our beautiful parochial system is fearfully apt to degenerate into a mere skeleton."

"What do you think? will he come round? or will he always be an agnostic?"

"I cannot tell," said Charles Osmond, with a sigh, "he seems to be living with all his might up to the light he has, but he is not the sort of man to change rapidly, and his private history is all against it. An atheist shamefully wronged by those who call themselves Christians cannot but feel that he has a strong case against Christianity."

"But he will never rest satisfied with what he has got," said Brian. "His very face tells that he knows he is incomplete."

"Yes, he knows that," said Charles Osmond. "In talking to him to-night I couldn't help thinking of Browning's description of the grand old ship dismasted and storm-battered, but still bearing on, with something in her infinite possibilities which raised her above the mere lifeboats,

"Make perfect your good ship as these,
And what were her performances!"

"And yet you doubt whether he will be perfected?" said Brian.

"Never!" exclaimed Charles Osmond, warmly. "I never said so! That he will be the grand character he was meant to be I have not a doubt, but whether he will be anything but an agnostic in _this_ world God only knows."

No more was said. Brian fell to thinking of all the contradictory statements about the Eternities, his father returned to the almost ceaseless intercession which was the undercurrent of his exceedingly practical life. Highly illogical, according to Raeburn, and a great mistake according to others, as most of the intercessions were for those whom a righteously indignant Christian once denounced as "_past_ praying for"! But to him it was a necessity of life; one of the world's sin-bearers, he would long ago have sunk under the burden if he had tried to bear it alone. As it was, how _could_ he be intolerant, how _could_ he be uncharitable? For were not the nineteenth century "publicans and sinners" among the strongest of his bonds of union with the Unseen? He was one of those who cannot help caring more for the lost sheep than for the ninety and nine in the fold, and though he was by no means inclined weakly to condone sin, or to make light of it, no one had ever heard him denounce a sinner, or speak a harsh word of any whom society had condemned.