Chapter X: In the Mission Room

MRS. LIVESEY'S deputy promised to be a very efficient one. Adam and the children found everything in order when tea-time came, and to the little people, the sight of a young face had a great attraction. That of Sarah Evans might well have a charm for the small Liveseys, for, as we know, the mother who scrubbed from morning till night for the common good was very chary of praise or caresses. Too often the toil was accompanied by sharp words and fretful complaints, because her little namesake's hands were less skilful, her movements less quick, than were her own.

Sarah Evans, on the contrary, found much to praise. She told Adam that the children were "just wonderful for putting things in their places when they came in. Mrs. Livesey must have taken a world of pains with them," she said; "and it's a deal harder to get little ones in such neat ways, than to right up after them."

Adam assented, and said his missis was very clever in her way. Then he expressed his gratification at seeing that the very little ones had taken to Sarah so nicely.

"We shall get on all right, no fear. Maggie's quite a little woman, and can tell me where everything is, and what mother does when she's at home."

Sarah amazed the children by calling them "darlings," and, instead of bidding them sharply "do this or that," she said, "Maggie, dear, please shut the door," and so on.

It was evident that a kind word would go as far and produce as immediate obedience as a sharp one.

After tea, Adam strolled out by himself. He was not in the mood for company, and the little people were happily employed at home. Sarah Evans was telling nursery rhymes to the three youngest, and the eldest two were learning their lessons for the morrow.

Their father's mind was full of the parting with his wife, and the words which had preceded it. It had set him pondering whether they had not both missed their way somehow, and got off on a wrong track.

He certainly had with regard to Maggie, who, in spite of her sharp temper, had kept the warmest corner in her heart for him alone.

Who could doubt her love for the children? And yet she often called them "the plagues of her life."

How nice she could be when she had her best side out! If she were always, or even often like what she had been during those few precious minutes in the railway carriage, what a little heaven their home might be! Was there no way of bringing about such a state of things?

Thus mused Adam, and then it seemed as if the words of Richard Evans and the testimony of Mr. Drummond came with fresh force. Both of these ascribed the brightness of their lives to religion. They were happy men, of this there could be no doubt.

Finally, Adam, whose feet had all the while been tending towards Aqueduct Street, made up his mind to enter the Mission Room and see if he could get any light on the subject that was perplexing him. He had no idea how to make a start on the new road, and he thought it was best to try and find out during his wife's absence. She was against this sort of thing, and he remembered a remark made by her that very morning, as she unfolded her one carefully preserved stuff gown, and smoothed out its creases. "See, Adam, it looks almost as good as new. I am glad I never started going to church on Sundays. If I had, this gown would have been worn out, and I should not have one decent to go in now."

Adam was in good time, and he at first stood near the Mission Room door, then ventured inside, and waited until some one invited him to take a seat. "You can go where you like," he was told, so he placed himself where he could get a clear view of the platform. He had made up his mind to hear all he could, and if he felt in any way the better for his new experiences, to tell Maggie when she came home. If not, he would be silent.

Adam was not quite prepared to see Mr. Drummond. Indeed, he heard his voice before he did see him, for the manager came in along with the mission preacher, Mr. Kennedy. As they passed towards the upper end of the room, Mr. Drummond came close to Adam, and at sight of the striker's earnest face, his own brightened. He stopped for an instant to shake hands, and to tell Adam that he was glad he had not forgotten the invitation given on the previous Saturday.

"My wife's mother is ill, and she's gone to see her, I felt lonely, so I thought I'd come here for a bit," said Adam, as if his presence needed an excuse. Then he noticed how the manager went forward and talked to first one and another of the homely-looking men, such as himself, meeting them as if there were no social differences. In the group near the platform, he saw the two who had called at his door on the Saturday evening, and he observed how all their faces seemed to brighten as they exchanged greetings.

"And yet," thought Adam, "though Mr. Drummond makes himself of no account here, he's not the man to be trifled with at Rutherford's. What he says has got to be done. The place was never better ordered than it is now, but nobody ever says he isn't fair to everybody."

Adam's musings were interrupted by the giving out of a hymn, and at the same moment, a book was put into his hand, with the place found for him. He was not much given to singing, but he had a great love for music, and we know the charm his wife's voice had exercised over him in their early married days. It was a delight to him to find that the children "were so tuneable," though they sang more out of doors than in, because the mother complained that she could not bear the racket; it made her head ache.

Everybody knows how the little folks catch the tunes and words of popular hymns, though they often sing them with no knowledge of their real meaning, and Adam's were no exception. The moment he heard the tune, he recognised it as one that his children sang sometimes, but he had never noticed the words. Now he read them.

"I am so glad that our Father in heaven
Tells of His love in the Book He has given:
Wonderful things in the Bible I see
This is the dearest, that Jesus loves me."

Then uprose the rejoicing chorus, in which, however, Adam took no part. How could he? What did he know of that love they were singing about? What of the Book which told the story of the love of Jesus?

The man was only sensible of an inner longing that nothing within his own life and experience could satisfy. In his heart was that yearning after God, that sense of void which, at one time or other, is felt instinctively by every human soul, and which must remain until He who first implanted it also satisfies it. He who has made of one blood all nations of men has ordained "that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us. For in Him we live and move and have our being."

Poor Adam was beginning to feel after Him, though only as one who gropes in the dark.

Again rose the words,—

"Though I forget Him, and wander away,
Still He doth love me wherever I stray;
Back to His dear loving arms do I flee,
When I remember that Jesus loves me."

So on, through all the verses to the end, and still Adam's lips were closed. He was too true a man to say or sing words that had no meaning for him. These, though English words, spoke in an unknown tongue to Adam Livesey.

The mission preacher did not ask the people to kneel down at once, but, keeping the hymn-book open in his hand, said:

"I hope you who sang these words just now felt as well as uttered them. I mean those which speak of your love for Jesus. You are right about His love for you. He loves the sinner, the forgetful, the wanderer, the wilful, the disobedient. He would have the worst and vilest to be saved, and to come to a knowledge of the truth. It was love that brought the Son of God from heaven to redeem your souls and mine. It was love which made the Father willing to bestow on us His most precious gift. It was love that made Jesus die on the tree, to save us everlastingly. It was love which brought the Holy Spirit to show the sinner his need, and to lead him to Jesus.

"No doubt about all these things. They are true, for they come from Him who is the Truth. In believing them is life, for faith lays hold on Christ, who is our Life, and makes us one with Him.

"If you have found Christ you have also found the way to peace, joy, happiness, and to a new service and a new master. You have found the way to heaven, for Jesus is the new and living Way.

"All right to sing about His love. But how about yours? Are you carried away with the music with its joyful chorus? Or can you say from your hearts, 'Jesus loves me, and I know I love Him?' If there were doubts in your minds that kept you from joining, thank God that you kept silent. If you felt your hearts sink within you as you heard other voices take up the words, whilst you could only sigh and say within yourself, 'Oh, how I wish I could feel the love and the assurance that brings sweetest rest,' thank God for that. Your heart is no longer quite dead; there are stirrings of life in it. You are not wholly asleep, for the Holy Spirit has awakened you to a sense of want, and is striving with you now. You are beginning to feel after God."

Here the preacher paused, and said, "Let us pray, dear friends, that every soul in this place to-night may not only seek but find."

It seemed to Adam that Mr. Kennedy might have been enabled to look into his very thoughts, so exactly had he described his feelings during the singing of that hymn.

In all his life, Adam had never realised that he had much to be thankful for. On the contrary, he had been apt to look on himself as an ill-used man, and to say that things had always been against him. But when he heard the preacher begin, not by asking for fresh gifts, but by expressing his thankfulness for those already bestowed, Adam's thoughts were a sort of running comment on his words.

Mr. Kennedy thanked God for life and breath, for health and strength to work, for the rest and food which renewed his powers from day to day, for air and light, for the pure water, the sunshine and rain, for the love and kindness of earthly friends. Not for his own share alone, but on behalf of all who possessed these common every-day mercies.

To Adam Livesey the thanksgiving was a revelation. Why, even he had all these things, and had never thought of being thankful for them, and yet how would it be with him if any of them were taken away?

After all, such gifts were of more account than money.

But the preacher went to heights and depths which Adam could not follow. He thanked God for all who had been enabled to receive the blessed message of the gospel, and prayed that, having heard the word, they might keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience. He poured out supplications for those who were still afar off, that they might be brought nigh through the precious blood of Jesus, and know the blessedness of those "who have the Lord for their God."

Adam had a dim sense that he was being prayed for amongst the rest and, though he could not see the meaning of the prayer, or the advantages that were to follow, there was a sort of inward pleading that in some way good might come of it to him and his.

Then there was another hymn, which began—

"Lord, I hear of showers of blessing,
Thou art scattering full and free—
Showers the thirsty land refreshing;
Let some droppings fall on me—
Even me!

"Pass me not, O gracious Father!
Sinful though my heart may be;
Thou might'st leave me, but the rather
Let Thy mercy fall on me."

Again Adam's voice was silent, but his desires were eloquent. He felt that these words, and the verses that followed, were more in harmony with his sense of need than was the joyful song of confidence in the love of Jesus with which the worship had been begun. He did plead for "even me" to have a portion in those blessings of which many around him seemed to know the value, and he waited with eager expectancy for the preacher to say something which should enable him to understand it too.