Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

No language can declare more explicitly than that of St. Paul that the Church, the Body of Christ, the company of the baptised, is not a confused assemblage of members, each and all equally capable of filling any place, discharging any functions. It is a highly organised body, in a very real sense, the parts of which are fitted one to the other, and have not the same office.' One may indeed perform the outward act pertaining to the office of another, but the spiritual function is not discharged.

.

And Christ is the Head of this Body, which is, spiritually, as much a part of Himself, as a man's body is of himself; and by the Holy Ghost, He personally lives, and should be able to rule, speak, and act, in every part, using His hands, His feet, all His members, as He will, to carry on His work.

Now indeed, as we see her, the Church is rent with schisms and unhappy divisions, and never, since the first, has the world therefore seen the full testimony to the truth. 'That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us; that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me.' But this prayer of our Lord's cannot for ever remain unanswered, and surely the first step towards unity is the recognition by all of their own share in the sin (as being the sin of the whole body), and of the fact that, though outwardly divided, the baptised are still actually one, living, so far as they are living at all, by the same Life, for there is 'one body and one Spirit.'

Some of the members may indeed be more or less diseased, maimed, even paralysed; but if the life-blood flows at all in them, however feebly, they are still of the body'; and let us remember too that 'when one member suffers, all the members suffer with it,' all are concerned, all share the burthen. Christ looks upon His Church, His Body, as a whole; as a body He will present it to Himself, as a body He will present it to the Father.

6

In these pages we have dwelt upon the Holy Ghost, as He is the Life of the Church, the living water. In the last chapter of the Revelation we read, And He showed me a pure river of water of life clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb;' and in Ezekiel xlvii., 'Behold, waters issued out from under the threshold of the house eastward. . . . These waters issue out toward the east country, and go down into the desert, and go into the sea; which being brought forth into the sea' (the Dead Sea) 'the waters shall be healed. . . and everything shall live whither the river cometh.' 'If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you."

By Him, as the Spirit of life, we have received in our spirits a new principle of life; but we have the 'treasure' as yet in earthen vessels,' for while our spirits are thus born again, regenerated, our

Rom. viii. 11.

[ocr errors]

bodies are still mortal, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body.' But they are waiting, and waiting in hope; and the hope of glory' is Christ in us,* by His Spirit. As yet indeed,

'The radiant glories of our second birth

Are hidden from our eyes.

And Thou hast left us in this world of strife,
To witness in Thy Name till Thou appear,
Thy chosen records of a better life,
Thy faithful remnant here.'

I am

But the resurrection, begun in our spirits, shall not end there. crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me,' are S. Paul's words;† and again, 'Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory.'‡

'And if Christ be truly living in us, He will live His own life there,' and men will behold Christ risen indeed, in the new life lived by His Church,' shining already through the earthen vessels until at last they too are transformed, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.'§

[ocr errors]

In the Eastern Church the octave of Pentecost is called the 'Sunday of all Saints'; in the Western, Trinity Sunday;' but in both the Roman and Greek calendars the Sundays following are 'Sundays after Pentecost.' And the appropriateness of this is obvious, if we consider the Church's calendar; for it is a miniature representation of the whole Christian dispensation, beginning with the Nativity and preparatory season of Advent, and then following the Lord's life on earth, His public ministry, His Death, Resurrection and Ascension, and the consequent giving of the Holy Ghost; this is succeeded by the life of the Church, corresponding with the unmarked weeks after Pentecost, and lasting until the Second Advent. It corresponds also with the New Testament Canon. First we have the ministry of the Lord's forerunner, and then the history of His Life, Death, and Resurrection, as told in the Gospels. The book of the Acts tells of the birth and growth of the Church; the Epistles show u the manner of her life, and are followed by the Book of the Revelation, the keynote of which is: Behold! I come quickly.'

* Col. i. 27.

[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

THE MANOR FARM.

THE farmhouse is not far from the river-a small, one-storied house, whitewashed, with outside shutters painted chocolate, and attic windows in the roof, a wooden porch before the door, and the whole front covered with a thick growing vine, which trails round the windows, and lets its straggling tendrils fall across them. It is very pleasant in summer to wake up early in the long mornings, and look out through the vine leaves at the pale blue sky, and see the sun shine on the fresh elm leaves. Through the open windows the swallows fly in and out with their sharp tweet-tweet, and overhead in the roof the young starlings keep up an incessant clamouring. In front of the house is a grass patch, and two great elms growing close together, so close that you can easily swing a hammock from bough to bough, and defy the hottest sun. Across the grass patch you look out on to the allotment gardens, and then across hedges and cornfields to a few cottages on the outskirts of the village, then more fields, and low chalk hills with scanty trees upon them which stand out against the sky. To the right is a fruit and vegetable garden, with a few standard rose bushes, and a row of elms which divide it from the meadows. Apricots, peaches, and nectarines are trained against the wall of the cart-shed, which abuts on the garden, and faces towards the south.

The yard is at the back of the house, populous with turkeys, geese, and poultry, ducks and guineafowl, and resonant with all the noises of a farm. The tabby cat sunning herself on the ridge of the cowsheds is an undoubted poacher, as her shortened tail, clipped by a mowing machine among the barley far from the homestead, declares too surely. Now she is lazily watching the sparrows fluttering about their ragged nests in the chinks of the barn, whose high-pitched roof, irregular with age, its red tiles overgrown with moss and yellow lichens, shows brightly in the sunshine above the tarred wood work of its walls. The great doors swing uneasily on their rusted hinges, and from inside you look upwards to the dim twilight of the roof, broken by rays of light streaming through the chinks, and crossed with rough oaken beams. Here, from the door that opens on the orchard, the sound of the flail comes across the meadows as they thresh out the corn that is raked up too late for the stacks after the wheat is carried.

The orchard is finely sheltered from all the rough quarters. On the north is a tall, unclipped hedge, with two large spindle bushes in it, behind this is a row of oaks, then a plantation, which belongs to

the Manor House, a paradise for birds, and, in the spring, full of snowdrops and daffodils; to the east are the barn and farm buildings, and again, on the south side, a long clunch wall, tiled at the top, and whitewashed, which forms one side of the stackyard.

At the corner of the wall is a pond, where moorhens build in the spring, and where, in winter, you may see an occasional snipe. Between this and the hedge is a scattered row of chestnut trees and sycamores. In this sheltered orchard are several aged apple trees, twisted into uncouth shapes, but still bearing good fruit. Long-eared bats hide in their hollow trunks during the daytime. I once, out of curiosity, extracted over forty from one tree with the help of a bent stick and a landing net. The farm labourers say that they suck the cows' breath, and kill them when they get a chance. In the early mornings you may sometimes see a great green woodpecker, crimsoncrested, flying among the trees, but I have never found his nest. Besides the ancient apple trees, there are damson bushes, and rows of young trees newly planted, and of newer stocks, but the glory of the orchard are five great walnut trees which stand together in the corner near the house, and throw a pleasant shade in summer. They are splashed twice a year in accordance with the ancient jingle—

A woman, a whelp, and a walnut-tree,

The more you beat them the better they be.

The first splashing is of the green nuts in summer for pickling, the second in October when the fruit is ripe. The farm boys climb into the trees with long poles, and thresh the nuts down. It is certainly great fun, but as many of next year's buds are knocked off in the process, it is not clear how the tree is benefited. However, the farmer assured me that when he first came to the farm, the trees bore no nuts, so he set to one autumn, and splashed them thoroughly, and next had a wonderful crop.

year

A wicket gate between the hedge and the plantation lets you into the long meadow, a splendid sight in early summer when it is a blaze of golden buttercups. The meadow is a mile long if you follow the pollard willows along the windings of the river, and about three quarters in a straight line from end to end, where it narrows down and joins a plantation of larches. In June, when the buttercups have paled, and the grass is three parts grown, the roses bloom. In the hedges, and beside the river bank, and along the ditch which crosses the meadow, the wild briars clamber in the hawthorns and about the willow-stems, or stand by themselves in ragged thickets, their straggling, thorny sprays made beautiful with thousands of wild roses. When the dew is on them, there is no bud or flower that is so fresh or delicate. There is nothing prettier, at this time, than to see a long briar trailing downwards to the water from a slanting pollard. You stand in the deep meadow grass, and look down the vista of the river. Along the banks, a belt of rushes and all kinds

of water-loving plants, docks and arrowheads, water-plantains, delicate meadowsweet, dense willow herbs and loosestrife not yet in blossom, the broad-ribbed leaves of the butter-burr, tall nettles, square stalked fig-worts, and close by a bunch of blue forget-me-nots, these wreathe the wizened trunks of the old pollards, which stretch towards one another from either bank, and build a long-drawn aisle, vaulted with the tracery of their grey green leaves. At your feet is a pool, and on the opposite side, a dark hawthorn grows across the water, paved along the edge with lily leaves. In the hawthorn, a moorhen has her nest, and the cock is coasting outside the lily pads, he moves his quick head to and fro, and cocks his tail at every stroke, glancing about him with his bright eye. In the shallows below the pool the slender reeds keep nodding with the motion of the stream, the flies are on the water, dace and chub are lazily feeding as they bask in the sun, and there, shrined in these green leaves against the shadow of the hawthorn, hangs from the crown of a grey pollard a briar starred with freshest roses.

There is an old boat on the river built one winter in the carpenter's shop, by an American who was out of work, on the lines of a scow. It is exactly like a small Thames punt, with a dry well in the centre, and slightly tapering towards the ends. Punting is an art which requires much time to learn; when acquired it seems the perfection of simplicity. The river is narrow, and never straight for more than a hundred yards. In places it bends almost at an acute angle to itself. The hawthorns stretch across the water from either bank, here and there is a fallen willow or an old snag, half embedded in the mud. The reaches vary in depth, at the sharper corners the river widens into deep pools which you cannot bottom with the pole, and in summer the shallows are choked with weeds, with only a narrow channel left in the centre or along the banks. There is always sufficient current to complicate the steering, or a wind to blow the boat's head round. Among these difficulties of navigation, the skilful punter is at his ease, he knows the river, every inch, and can place his pole on the exact spot; the punt obeys his slightest movement, he shaves the corners without grazing the banks, and in the holes knows how to use his punt pole as a paddle. With the novice, it is different. All that he can do at first, is to make the boat go round and round, then he drives the nose on to the low banks or swings broadside across the stream. The water runs up his sleeves off the pole, he gets scratched in every hawthorn, and scrapes acquaintance with every dangling briar; presently he leaves the pole sticking in the mud, and stern-foremost drifts helplessly down the current. This is not all; in the holes he gets caught in the eddy, and stays there unable to move among the water lilies, till he extricates himself by hauling on the willow branches; presently, when he reaches the shallows he shoves his hardest, loses his balance, and pitches head first into the water. Those who persevere are well

« НазадПродовжити »