Æt. 31.] Reads Writings of the Jansenists. 161 and who the Israelites were!" An ignorance not so unusual as some might suppose. "Visited old Mrs. Sayers, who lives with two unmarried sons. She is ninety; they both over sixty. She said: 'I boxed Joe's ears the other day, and sent him up to bed, as the boy was troublesome. There,' she said, 'I forgot they are growing up.'' "Mr. Dear has left me his Jansenist engravings and books; I became intensely interested in them." The reading of these books seems to have revealed to Hannington the fact that high-souled purpose and true spirituality of mind are to be found among men who belong to widely differing schools of thought. He found much in the writings of Pascal and the Port-Royalists that delighted him. He could not but recognize that they too had been taught of God. He says: "I think that many of my opinions were slightly modified, and my sympathies were enlarged." "Very much exercised about preaching the same truths Sunday after Sunday. My mind was afterwards directed to a doctor who uses the same medicines for the same diseases all the year round; and, again, to the fact that we eat and drink the same things day after day and year after year." I On November 23rd he conducted a mission at D——. "Tremendous cautions about what I was to do, and what not to do. Above all things not to be excitable. was shown the church, and went up into the pulpit. I took hold of it with a strong hand, to try whether the desk and sides would stand much knocking about. I perceived, to my intense amusement, that all this was carefully noted, and produced a feeling of terror as to what I was going to do when I preached; and many further hints were given." "Dec. 26th.-Gave a Christmas party to men, to keep About sixty came. drunkards out of the public-house. After prayer and hymns we spent the evening in looking at books, microscope, and magic lantern." "Jan. 1st, 1879.—I make no resolutions for the coming year. I pray for more earnestness, more love, more diligence, greater regularity, and entire consecration to the service of the Lord." "On Christmas Day old W. D. was converted, to the best of my belief, by the reading of the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel." "15th.-The Rector has decided to have a Mission, and I have written to Ernest Boys." "23rd.-Brighton, to meet the Bishop on the question of the Mission. Praise God, the Bishop has helped us much." "Mar. 1st.-Mission commenced. The Bishop administered the Holy Communion to the workers, and in the afternoon gave a splendid address, full of Evangelical truth." "All through the Mission the services were densely crowded. On Sunday evening every corner of the church was packed, and many went away." "Mar. 19th.-Called on Arthur Garbett. He told me that the archdeacon was dying, but transcendently peaceful." "April 9th.-Introduced to Canon Garbett, who preached at the parish church. A splendid disquisition, but far above the heads of a country congregation." April 13th.-Easter Day. Piercingly cold, and ground covered with snow, which contrasted strangely with the Easter decorations. 58 communicants." CHAPTER XI. HOME MISSION WORK AND PERSONAL DIARY (continued). (1879-82.) "But, good my brother, Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, SHAKESPEARE. MR. SCRIVEN came to Hurstpierpoint in May of 1879, and spent some time with Hannington, during which they made together some interesting architectural tours in the neighbourhood. Mr. Scriven is an enthusiastic architect, and he found in his former pupil an untiring and intelligent listener. Everything of this sort interested Hannington. He was full of information obtained by his acquisitive mind, and stored up by a retentive memory in the course of his wanderings. His knowledge of folklore, of the geological peculiarities, of the flora and fauna, and of the local traditions of almost every place through which he had passed, made him the best of companions. He returned with Mr. Scriven as far as Sherborne, where the two visited the Abbey Church, and, being joined by his old friend and fellow cliff-climber and egg-hunter, Mr. F. May, crossed over to Lundy Island to spend there his summer holiday. And here again we notice how in the midst of his play Hannington never seems to have forgotten what some would have called his work. The business of seeking to influence souls in behalf of Christ was apparently never alien to any of his moods. His diary makes it abundantly clear that this was not merely the work of his life, but the delight of it. It did not occur to him that to talk on the subject of religion was "talking shop." It was the most natural thing in the world to him to converse about those truths which were to himself as meat and drink. In the midst of jottings of architectural trips and Lundy Island clamberings we find such entries as the following: "The Lord has led me to speak to Harry G., and has brought him to the knowledge of the truth. Edwin A., too, has been gradually led to believe in Jesus." There are some excellent persons whose society becomes oppressive, and their conversation a source of nervous apprehension to everybody. They always appear to be lying in wait for an opportunity. Whatever may be the theme of discussion, whether weighty or light, everyone instinctively knows that they will turn it by and by into a "profitable" channel. Their companion for the time being is made to feel that they lie at the catch. Whatever he may say will, he is sure, be used as a handle upon which to fasten some argument which makes for religion. He is put upon the defensive. These good people are, he suspects, only affecting to take an interest in his sports, pursuits, opinions, or general affairs in order that they may bring the conversation round to the "one thing needful," and spring upon him the question whether or not he is saved. Hannington was not one of this kind. slipped round the corner when they saw trembled when they found that they were The boys never him coming, or committed to a Et. 31.] A Man among Men. 165 tête-à-tête with him, lest he should take them at a disadvantage and pin them with some question which they were ill-disposed to contemplate and wholly unprepared to answer. At Mission times, when everybody knew what to expect from him, he would, no doubt, endeavour, both openly and by strategy, to get to close quarters with the consciences of young and old, rich and poor. A friend might even find himself unceremoniously pushed into the presence of the Missioner to be "dealt with." But, as a rule, Hannington was full of real wisdom in his intercourse with the world. His interest in the sports of the lads and lassies was quite sincere and unaffected; he made them feel that he was a big boy himself, and loved fun for fun's sake. So also with the elders, he came among them not merely as a prophet, but as a man to whom nothing that pertained to men was indifferent. There was no need for him to pull in the subject of religion, as it were, by the shoulders, and consciously and painfully lead every subject of conversation up to it. All his life, his amusement as well as his labour, was permeated by his faith in the Unseen. "He had perceived the presence and the power They lay like substances, and almost seemed Thus it came quite naturally to him, without preaching, to speak to another of the eternal world, and of that City of which he was himself a citizen. And men, too, in stress of soul, would come to him, not as to a mentor, but as to a brother, who having passed through similar times of per *Wordsworth. |
