The Little Minister | Page 9

"May you never
turn from Him as I often did when I was a lad like you."
As this aged minister, with the beautiful face that God gives to all who
love Him and follow His commandments, spoke of his youth, he
looked wistfully around the faded parlour.
"It is like a dream," he said. "The first time I entered this room the
thought passed through me that I would cut down that cherry- tree,
because it kept out the light, but, you see, it outlives me. I grew old
while looking for the axe. Only yesterday I was the young minister, Mr.
Dishart, and to-morrow you will be the old one, bidding good-bye to
your successor."
His eyes came back to Gavin's eager face.
"You are very young, Mr. Dishart?"
"Nearly twenty-one."
"Twenty-one! Ah, my dear sir, you do not know how pathetic that

sounds to me. Twenty-one! We are children for the second time at
twenty-one, and again when we are grey and put all our burden on the
Lord. The young talk generously of relieving the old of their burdens,
but the anxious heart is to the old when they see a load on the back of
the young. Let me tell you, Mr. Dishart, that I would condone many
things in one-and-twenty now that I dealt hardly with at middle age.
God Himself, I think, is very willing to give one-and-twenty a second
chance."
"I am afraid," Gavin said anxiously, "that I look even younger."
"I think," Mr. Carfrae answered, smiling, "that your heart is as fresh as
your face; and that is well. The useless men are those who never
change with the years. Many views that I held to in my youth and long
afterwards are a pain to me now, and I am carrying away from Thrums
memories of errors into which I fell at every stage of my ministry.
When you are older you will know that life is a long lesson in
humility."
He paused.
"I hope," he said nervously, "that you don't sing the Paraphrases?"
Mr. Carfrae had not grown out of all his prejudices, you see; indeed, if
Gavin had been less bigoted than he on this question they might have
parted stiffly. The old minister would rather have remained to die in his
pulpit than surrender it to one who read his sermons. Others may blame
him for this, but I must say here plainly that I never hear a minister
reading without wishing to send him back to college.
"I cannot deny," Mr. Carfrae said, "that I broke down more than once
to-day. This forenoon I was in Tillyloss, for the last time, and it so
happens that there is scarcely a house in it in which I have not had a
marriage or prayed over a coffin. Ah, sir, these are the scenes that make
the minister more than all his sermons. You must join the family, Mr.
Dishart, or you are only a minister once a week. And remember this, if
your call is from above, it is a call to stay. Many such partings in a
lifetime as I have had to- day would be too heartrending."

"And yet," Gavin said, hesitatingly, "they told me in Glasgow that I had
received a call from the mouth of hell."
"Those were cruel words, but they only mean that people who are
seldom more than a day's work in advance of want sometimes rise in
arms for food. Our weavers are passionately religious, and so
independent that they dare any one to help them, but if their wages
were lessened they could not live. And so at talk of reduction they
catch fire. Change of any kind alarms them, and though they call
themselves Whigs, they rose a few years ago over the paving of the
streets and stoned the workmen, who were strangers, out of the town."
"And though you may have thought the place quiet to-day, Mr. Dishart,
there was an ugly outbreak only two months ago, when the weavers
turned on the manufacturers for reducing the price of the web, made a
bonfire of some of their doors, and terrified one of them into leaving
Thrums. Under the command of some Chartists, the people next
paraded the streets to the music of fife and drum, and six policemen
who drove up from Tilliedrum in a light cart were sent back tied to the
seats."
"No one has been punished?"
"Not yet, but nearly two years ago there was a similar riot, and the
sheriff took no action for months. Then one night the square suddenly
filled with soldiers, and the ringleaders were seized in their beds, Mr.
Dishart, the people are determined not to be caught in that way again,
and ever since the rising