VII

ON SWALLOWING FAGGOTS CROSSWISE

'You will have to learn to swallow faggots cross-wise!' said the veteran to the raw recruit. The raw recruit, as it happens, was Charles Haddon Spurgeon; the veteran was an old Cambridgeshire minister to whom he had confided his intention of entering the ministry. The words clung to Mr. Spurgeon as long as he lived. Words spoken under such circumstances usually do. I went one day to consult an old doctor. As I sat in the waiting-room his door opened, and, to my surprise, a young fellow whom I had known some years before as a medical student, came out. He greeted me cordially.

'It does a fellow good to have a talk with the old boy,' he exclaimed, not disrespectfully. 'I was going to try a scheme on one of my patients, thinking that it was brand new and startlingly original; but I find that our old friend here tried it thirty years ago. It didn't come up to expectations, it seems, but it led him to a line of action that brought a cure, and he has given me one or two excellent wrinkles.' He hurried off on the best of terms with himself. A few minutes later the nurse in attendance called my name.

'Ah,' exclaimed the old man, genially, 'you've caught me in a good humor. Young Winterton has just been in. It does an old man a world of good to keep in touch with these young sparks. He was telling me of some of the latest experiments he saw in Edinburgh--'; and so on. I could see that the conversation between the two doctors had been a source of delight and inspiration to both of them. Each felt as if he had caught a breath from the hills. So was it in the case that I have cited. Mr. Spurgeon never forgot the veteran's quaint remark, and, although I have no data to go upon, I am absolutely certain that, for some time after the interesting and enthusiastic youth had left the house, the old man sat chuckling and rubbing his hands, his face all wreathed in smiles and sunshine.

'A minister!' exclaimed the old man, warningly, 'you are going to be a minister! Well, well, Charles, you will have to learn to swallow faggots cross-wise!'

I am not sure that the expressive phrase will bear a very searching examination; like so many of our proverbs and epigrams, the saying must be judged, not by the actual words that it contains, but by the impression that it conveys. I see quite clearly what the good man means; and the speaker who can effectively communicate his meaning, whether by accurate or inaccurate terminology, is not to be despised. I have known men use the most exquisitely polished phrases and leave their hearers in a state of abject mystification. 'It was very beautiful,' they say, as they make their way back to their homes, 'but "what on earth did he meant' Young Spurgeon was in no such perplexity as he left the old minister's house. The veteran's meaning was as plain as a pike-staff-which, as everybody knows, is the plainest of all plain things. He meant, not that a minister must swallow faggots crosswise, but that he must acquire the habit of so turning with his tongue the faggots that are placed crosswise in his teeth, that he will be able to swallow them with the utmost ease. And seeing that he makes his meaning so perfectly clear, I frankly forgive everything else. Besides, if the makers of our poetry shelter themselves behind poetic license, why should not the makers of our proverbs shelter themselves behind proverbial license! So be it, then! The old man leaves the court without a. stain upon his character,

I wonder what suggested the strange expression to his mind. But why should I wonder? Let me hazard a conjecture! I have already conjured up a picture of the, old man as his daughter saw him after his young visitor had gone. Why should I not indulge in a similar flight of fancy as to the things that happened before his visitor arrived? I have a notion that he knew that young Spurgeon was coming. In the nature of the case, it is not likely to have been a chance call. An. Appointment was almost certainly made. The old gentleman knows that, in an hour's time, a young fellow is coming to seek his advice about entering the ministry. Very well! What more natural than that he should allow his mind to play around those classical sentences that every minister so often ponders-the sentences in which the first great ministerial charge was uttered? 'Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves; be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves,' and so on. A phrase like this naturally sets the old man thinking.

'As wise as serpents!' What can it mean? Are serpents wise? And, if so, in what does their wisdom consist? In a word, What has a minister to learn from a snake? The old man is perplexed, and I can sympathize with him in his perplexity. I have never yet seen a satisfactory exposition of the passage. The commentators are, obviously, all at sea. In an oracular kind of way, they make a few sagacious remarks upon the passage; but they leave you exactly where they found you. They look upon the serpent with his glittering coils, his forked-tongue, his cruel fangs, his flattened head and his wicked little bead-like eyes, and they try to regard him as a ministerial model; but it is never a success. I am not surprised, therefore, at the old gentleman's bewilderment.

'As wise as serpents!' he says to himself, wrinkling his brows as he repeats it. 'As wise as serpents!' And then he suddenly remembers that, among a lot of old books that, years ago, he bought at a sale, there is a volume that may throw some light on the troublesome problem. After careful search he espies the dusty old tome slumbering-as it has slumbered for years untold-on the very topmost shelf. But how is he to get it? He sees a huge faggot lying in the garden just under his window. If it were only inside he could clamber on it and reach down the book! He calls his daughter; she jumps on a chair; takes down the volume and, woman-like, dusts it; whereupon he settles down to its perusal.

'As wise as serpents!' he murmurs again. In what way can a minister sit at the feet of a snake, if, that is to say, a snake had feet? He opens the volume; it is Rogers On Reptiles. He turns to the chapter on Serpents. Snakes, Mr. Rogers tells him, are of the order of vertebrates; but the spine is so delicate, so pliant and so extremely fragile that it is easily fractured. No clue as yet; it will never do to suggest to the young minister that backbone is a non-essential. Snakes, our learned author goes on to say, are possessed of brains so small that many eminent authorities have regarded them as altogether brainless. Still no clue. The old man reads on; he notes the conical teeth, the lidless eyes, the innumerable ribs, and all the other oddities of the hideous creatures; but he can find nothing that he can conscientiously commend to the emulation of the youth who will shortly enjoy his company. At length, however, he comes upon this: 'the digestive system includes a distensible gullet. Many serpents subsist on prey much thicker than themselves. They are able to swallow it by reason of the fact that the throat and body are capable of great dilation:' The old gentleman thinks that this aspect of serpentine nature is worth pondering. He lays Rogers on Reptiles on the table; takes off his glasses and places them carefully on the open book; and then lies back in the chair to think things over.

The exertion has, however, been too much for him. His eyes close; his head nods gently once or twice; and then he drops into a peaceful sleep. And in his sleep he dreams. He dreams that, in one respect at least, he is as wise as the serpent at last. He too, has a distensible gullet: his throat and body are capable of almost infinite dilation! He can swallow anything! He swallows Rogers on Reptiles-reptiles and all! He swallows the chair on which his daughter stood! He swallows the table on which he laid his book and spectacles! He swallows the faggot under the window and swallows it crosswise! And, then, just as he is about to attempt a still more prodigious feat, he. awakes with a start to find his daughter ushering the chubby-cheeked young Spurgeon into his room. And it was with this grotesque and fantastic vision in mind-always provided that my flight of fancy has the sanction of historical accuracy-that the old gentleman gave to the ruddy youth the sage counsel that, to his dying day, that distinguished youth never forgot.

'Well, well, Charles,' he said, 'so you are going to be a minister! You will have to learn to swallow faggots crosswise!'

It was excellent advice. A distensible gullet is an absolutely essential item in a ministerial outfit. I do not mean that a minister is called upon to perform greater gastronomic feats than other people. That may or may not be so; I do not know. Most people have at times to swallow extremely awkward things, and no man is the worse for a little elasticity in the region of the throat. The man who, on occasion, can gulp down a faggot or two, and smile as they descend into his dilatable interior, is likely to live to a hearty old age. I have known many a man lose a night's rest through his inability to swallow something or other; but Rogers on Reptiles points out, with a good deal of perspicacity, that, after swallowing a creature greater than itself, a distended serpent will go away and sleep for an indefinite period. That is a fact in natural history which is worth the careful attention of all those unfortunate mortals who are troubled with chronic, or even occasional, insomnia.

The minister is not called upon to swallow more- or bigger-faggots than the butcher, the baker, or the candlestick-maker. It is well that he should remind himself of this important circumstance when he finds himself wrestling with a particularly unsavory mouthful, or when the jagged edges of the faggot persist in sticking in his throat. The old gentleman's sage counsel is particularly applicable to the minister's case, however, for the simple but sufficient reason that greater interests may be jeopardized by his refusal to gulp the unshapely comestible. The doctor has some very awkward things said to him at times; but he finds it best. to smile and pass on. The draper has to endure a good deal at the hands of his customers; but he quickly discovers that his truest wisdom-the wisdom of the serpent-the wisdom of the distensible gullet-lies in saying: 'Certainly, madam!' or 'We shall attend to that, miss!' and in letting it go at that. He swallows it! But anybody can see at a glance why the old gentleman in Cambridgeshire lays special stress upon his quaint counsel in addressing a young minister. If his wise words apply, as they certainly do, to doctors and drapers, they apply very much more pointedly to ministers. For, if the doctor or the draper find themselves unable to gulp down the unappetizing indignities that are offered them, nobody suffers but themselves. The doctor is perfectly free to tell his querulous patient that, if he thinks that he understands his ailment better than his medical adviser, he had better write out the prescription himself. In which case the patient replies with something equally unpalatable and they part-for ever. The draper is quite at liberty to tell his fastidious customer that he is tired to death of her freaks and foibles. But, if he does so, it will simply mean that she will darken the door of his shop no more. The doctor will have lost a good patient and the draper a good customer, that is all. But if the minister develops a too rigid and inflexible gullet, he may shatter the tranquillity and wreck the prosperity of an entire congregation. Men are but mortal. (I have heard it whispered that the same is true even of women!) They say and do the most awkward things, never meaning the things that they say and do to be as awkward as they seem-and are. It is so easy to stiffen the gullet and refuse to swallow. 'I shall report this to the officers!' 'I shall lay this matter before the church!' 'I shall resign!' Hoity-toity! What a pity! Why not relax the gullet just a little, and swallow it?

I sometimes recall an experience which marked my early days at Mosgiel. We had in the congregation a tall, angular woman, of expressionless face, who prided herself on her perfect candor. Like most people of that type, she often made remarks that stuck in the throat like faggots swallowed crosswise. One Wednesday evening, as I stood at the door to shake hands with the people who had attended the midweek service, this woman made a remark that brought all my blood to my cheek. On my way home, I confided my vexation to one of the good old men who served on the diaconate of the church. He only laughed.

'Qh, take no notice of it," he said. 'She means well; she says ugly things; but she wouldn't hurt you for worlds.'

Although it was early, I went straight to bed. I wanted to be alone. But it is one thing to go to bed .and quite another thing to go to sleep. At last, in desperation, I got up and went for a walk. It was fairly late by this time; but there was a light in the kitchen window of the cottage in which my angular friend lived. Something prompted me to go across. I heard a heavy tread within. I tapped at the door. Her son answered my knock.

'Mother's just gone out,' he said. 'Mrs. Ardmore's baby is very ill and mother has gone to sit up with it. She said that Mrs. Ardmore had had no sleep this week, and it was time she went to bed.'

Now I had known of the child's serious sickness: I had called and inquired and spoken consolingly and hopefully to the mother. But it had never occurred to me to ask if there was anything that I could do to make the poor woman's long vigil more tolerable. This angular woman with the clumsy tongue had, however, hurried to the exhausted mother's succour. I chatted with the boy for a minute or two, and then returned to my bed and slept like a top. And, during the years that followed-years that brought to the manse heavy troubles and great anxieties-the woman who nursed the sick baby on that memorable night was one of our most constant comforters. The thought of her has often saved me in a moment of peril. During a ministry that is now getting fairly extensive I have never once seen trouble caused through a throat being too distensible; but, again and again, I have seen the inflexible gullet inflict upon its owner, and upon everybody else, incalculable misery.

VII

ON SWALLOWING FAGGOTS CROSSWISE

'You will have to learn to swallow faggots cross-wise!' said the veteran to the raw recruit. The raw recruit, as it happens, was Charles Haddon Spurgeon; the veteran was an old Cambridgeshire minister to whom he had confided his intention of entering the ministry. The words clung to Mr. Spurgeon as long as he lived. Words spoken under such circumstances usually do. I went one day to consult an old doctor. As I sat in the waiting-room his door opened, and, to my surprise, a young fellow whom I had known some years before as a medical student, came out. He greeted me cordially.

'It does a fellow good to have a talk with the old boy,' he exclaimed, not disrespectfully. 'I was going to try a scheme on one of my patients, thinking that it was brand new and startlingly original; but I find that our old friend here tried it thirty years ago. It didn't come up to expectations, it seems, but it led him to a line of action that brought a cure, and he has given me one or two excellent wrinkles.' He hurried off on the best of terms with himself. A few minutes later the nurse in attendance called my name.

'Ah,' exclaimed the old man, genially, 'you've caught me in a good humor. Young Winterton has just been in. It does an old man a world of good to keep in touch with these young sparks. He was telling me of some of the latest experiments he saw in Edinburgh--'; and so on. I could see that the conversation between the two doctors had been a source of delight and inspiration to both of them. Each felt as if he had caught a breath from the hills. So was it in the case that I have cited. Mr. Spurgeon never forgot the veteran's quaint remark, and, although I have no data to go upon, I am absolutely certain that, for some time after the interesting and enthusiastic youth had left the house, the old man sat chuckling and rubbing his hands, his face all wreathed in smiles and sunshine.

'A minister!' exclaimed the old man, warningly, 'you are going to be a minister! Well, well, Charles, you will have to learn to swallow faggots cross-wise!'

I am not sure that the expressive phrase will bear a very searching examination; like so many of our proverbs and epigrams, the saying must be judged, not by the actual words that it contains, but by the impression that it conveys. I see quite clearly what the good man means; and the speaker who can effectively communicate his meaning, whether by accurate or inaccurate terminology, is not to be despised. I have known men use the most exquisitely polished phrases and leave their hearers in a state of abject mystification. 'It was very beautiful,' they say, as they make their way back to their homes, 'but "what on earth did he meant' Young Spurgeon was in no such perplexity as he left the old minister's house. The veteran's meaning was as plain as a pike-staff-which, as everybody knows, is the plainest of all plain things. He meant, not that a minister must swallow faggots crosswise, but that he must acquire the habit of so turning with his tongue the faggots that are placed crosswise in his teeth, that he will be able to swallow them with the utmost ease. And seeing that he makes his meaning so perfectly clear, I frankly forgive everything else. Besides, if the makers of our poetry shelter themselves behind poetic license, why should not the makers of our proverbs shelter themselves behind proverbial license! So be it, then! The old man leaves the court without a. stain upon his character,

I wonder what suggested the strange expression to his mind. But why should I wonder? Let me hazard a conjecture! I have already conjured up a picture of the, old man as his daughter saw him after his young visitor had gone. Why should I not indulge in a similar flight of fancy as to the things that happened before his visitor arrived? I have a notion that he knew that young Spurgeon was coming. In the nature of the case, it is not likely to have been a chance call. An. Appointment was almost certainly made. The old gentleman knows that, in an hour's time, a young fellow is coming to seek his advice about entering the ministry. Very well! What more natural than that he should allow his mind to play around those classical sentences that every minister so often ponders-the sentences in which the first great ministerial charge was uttered? 'Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves; be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves,' and so on. A phrase like this naturally sets the old man thinking.

'As wise as serpents!' What can it mean? Are serpents wise? And, if so, in what does their wisdom consist? In a word, What has a minister to learn from a snake? The old man is perplexed, and I can sympathize with him in his perplexity. I have never yet seen a satisfactory exposition of the passage. The commentators are, obviously, all at sea. In an oracular kind of way, they make a few sagacious remarks upon the passage; but they leave you exactly where they found you. They look upon the serpent with his glittering coils, his forked-tongue, his cruel fangs, his flattened head and his wicked little bead-like eyes, and they try to regard him as a ministerial model; but it is never a success. I am not surprised, therefore, at the old gentleman's bewilderment.

'As wise as serpents!' he says to himself, wrinkling his brows as he repeats it. 'As wise as serpents!' And then he suddenly remembers that, among a lot of old books that, years ago, he bought at a sale, there is a volume that may throw some light on the troublesome problem. After careful search he espies the dusty old tome slumbering-as it has slumbered for years untold-on the very topmost shelf. But how is he to get it? He sees a huge faggot lying in the garden just under his window. If it were only inside he could clamber on it and reach down the book! He calls his daughter; she jumps on a chair; takes down the volume and, woman-like, dusts it; whereupon he settles down to its perusal.

'As wise as serpents!' he murmurs again. In what way can a minister sit at the feet of a snake, if, that is to say, a snake had feet? He opens the volume; it is Rogers On Reptiles. He turns to the chapter on Serpents. Snakes, Mr. Rogers tells him, are of the order of vertebrates; but the spine is so delicate, so pliant and so extremely fragile that it is easily fractured. No clue as yet; it will never do to suggest to the young minister that backbone is a non-essential. Snakes, our learned author goes on to say, are possessed of brains so small that many eminent authorities have regarded them as altogether brainless. Still no clue. The old man reads on; he notes the conical teeth, the lidless eyes, the innumerable ribs, and all the other oddities of the hideous creatures; but he can find nothing that he can conscientiously commend to the emulation of the youth who will shortly enjoy his company. At length, however, he comes upon this: 'the digestive system includes a distensible gullet. Many serpents subsist on prey much thicker than themselves. They are able to swallow it by reason of the fact that the throat and body are capable of great dilation:' The old gentleman thinks that this aspect of serpentine nature is worth pondering. He lays Rogers on Reptiles on the table; takes off his glasses and places them carefully on the open book; and then lies back in the chair to think things over.

The exertion has, however, been too much for him. His eyes close; his head nods gently once or twice; and then he drops into a peaceful sleep. And in his sleep he dreams. He dreams that, in one respect at least, he is as wise as the serpent at last. He too, has a distensible gullet: his throat and body are capable of almost infinite dilation! He can swallow anything! He swallows Rogers on Reptiles-reptiles and all! He swallows the chair on which his daughter stood! He swallows the table on which he laid his book and spectacles! He swallows the faggot under the window and swallows it crosswise! And, then, just as he is about to attempt a still more prodigious feat, he. awakes with a start to find his daughter ushering the chubby-cheeked young Spurgeon into his room. And it was with this grotesque and fantastic vision in mind-always provided that my flight of fancy has the sanction of historical accuracy-that the old gentleman gave to the ruddy youth the sage counsel that, to his dying day, that distinguished youth never forgot.

'Well, well, Charles,' he said, 'so you are going to be a minister! You will have to learn to swallow faggots crosswise!'

It was excellent advice. A distensible gullet is an absolutely essential item in a ministerial outfit. I do not mean that a minister is called upon to perform greater gastronomic feats than other people. That may or may not be so; I do not know. Most people have at times to swallow extremely awkward things, and no man is the worse for a little elasticity in the region of the throat. The man who, on occasion, can gulp down a faggot or two, and smile as they descend into his dilatable interior, is likely to live to a hearty old age. I have known many a man lose a night's rest through his inability to swallow something or other; but Rogers on Reptiles points out, with a good deal of perspicacity, that, after swallowing a creature greater than itself, a distended serpent will go away and sleep for an indefinite period. That is a fact in natural history which is worth the careful attention of all those unfortunate mortals who are troubled with chronic, or even occasional, insomnia.

The minister is not called upon to swallow more- or bigger-faggots than the butcher, the baker, or the candlestick-maker. It is well that he should remind himself of this important circumstance when he finds himself wrestling with a particularly unsavory mouthful, or when the jagged edges of the faggot persist in sticking in his throat. The old gentleman's sage counsel is particularly applicable to the minister's case, however, for the simple but sufficient reason that greater interests may be jeopardized by his refusal to gulp the unshapely comestible. The doctor has some very awkward things said to him at times; but he finds it best. to smile and pass on. The draper has to endure a good deal at the hands of his customers; but he quickly discovers that his truest wisdom-the wisdom of the serpent-the wisdom of the distensible gullet-lies in saying: 'Certainly, madam!' or 'We shall attend to that, miss!' and in letting it go at that. He swallows it! But anybody can see at a glance why the old gentleman in Cambridgeshire lays special stress upon his quaint counsel in addressing a young minister. If his wise words apply, as they certainly do, to doctors and drapers, they apply very much more pointedly to ministers. For, if the doctor or the draper find themselves unable to gulp down the unappetizing indignities that are offered them, nobody suffers but themselves. The doctor is perfectly free to tell his querulous patient that, if he thinks that he understands his ailment better than his medical adviser, he had better write out the prescription himself. In which case the patient replies with something equally unpalatable and they part-for ever. The draper is quite at liberty to tell his fastidious customer that he is tired to death of her freaks and foibles. But, if he does so, it will simply mean that she will darken the door of his shop no more. The doctor will have lost a good patient and the draper a good customer, that is all. But if the minister develops a too rigid and inflexible gullet, he may shatter the tranquillity and wreck the prosperity of an entire congregation. Men are but mortal. (I have heard it whispered that the same is true even of women!) They say and do the most awkward things, never meaning the things that they say and do to be as awkward as they seem-and are. It is so easy to stiffen the gullet and refuse to swallow. 'I shall report this to the officers!' 'I shall lay this matter before the church!' 'I shall resign!' Hoity-toity! What a pity! Why not relax the gullet just a little, and swallow it?

I sometimes recall an experience which marked my early days at Mosgiel. We had in the congregation a tall, angular woman, of expressionless face, who prided herself on her perfect candor. Like most people of that type, she often made remarks that stuck in the throat like faggots swallowed crosswise. One Wednesday evening, as I stood at the door to shake hands with the people who had attended the midweek service, this woman made a remark that brought all my blood to my cheek. On my way home, I confided my vexation to one of the good old men who served on the diaconate of the church. He only laughed.

'Qh, take no notice of it," he said. 'She means well; she says ugly things; but she wouldn't hurt you for worlds.'

Although it was early, I went straight to bed. I wanted to be alone. But it is one thing to go to bed .and quite another thing to go to sleep. At last, in desperation, I got up and went for a walk. It was fairly late by this time; but there was a light in the kitchen window of the cottage in which my angular friend lived. Something prompted me to go across. I heard a heavy tread within. I tapped at the door. Her son answered my knock.

'Mother's just gone out,' he said. 'Mrs. Ardmore's baby is very ill and mother has gone to sit up with it. She said that Mrs. Ardmore had had no sleep this week, and it was time she went to bed.'

Now I had known of the child's serious sickness: I had called and inquired and spoken consolingly and hopefully to the mother. But it had never occurred to me to ask if there was anything that I could do to make the poor woman's long vigil more tolerable. This angular woman with the clumsy tongue had, however, hurried to the exhausted mother's succour. I chatted with the boy for a minute or two, and then returned to my bed and slept like a top. And, during the years that followed-years that brought to the manse heavy troubles and great anxieties-the woman who nursed the sick baby on that memorable night was one of our most constant comforters. The thought of her has often saved me in a moment of peril. During a ministry that is now getting fairly extensive I have never once seen trouble caused through a throat being too distensible; but, again and again, I have seen the inflexible gullet inflict upon its owner, and upon everybody else, incalculable misery.

Wisps of Wildfire