THE

CHRISTIAN SPECTATOR.

FEBRUARY, 1866.

THE ROUND TABLE.

CHAPTER II.

THE EVENING WALK-THE LANE AND THE STAR-A NEW FRIENDST. JOHN'S ROAD CHAPEL-A FIRST SERMON—A CRISIS.

WE left off, it will be remembered, just as Mr. Langston had joined the village preacher on his homeward walk.

A stranger would have almost instantly marked the altered manner of the two men. While in the desk, the preacher, though modest, had been confident, like a man who was master of the situation, and felt within himself a holy right to utter the things which he most surely believed. And while Langston had listened he had forgotten all conventional distinctions, and felt constrained to recognize in the speaker a man who, in things incomparably more important than the niceties of the Greek article, was able to be his teacher. But now, as the collegian addressed him, the preacher in his turn instinctively recognized one who in many respects was his superior, and Langston, notwithstanding his earnest solicitude, unconsciously assumed the manner that was natural to him; so that at first there was something of mutual shyness and awkwardness. But it lasted not long, for Langston was naturally frank and genial, and already felt a genuine respect for his companion, who was modest and deferential; and so before they had walked together many minutes they were conversing freely. Langston now learned that the

evening preacher was engaged in trade, a foreman at a large ironmonger's, but being one of a number who in turn "supplied" two or three village chapels in connection with the Nonconformist church he was a member of, it had devolved on him to conduct the service on the Common that evening. Mr. Langston had never fallen in with any Dissenters before, and was curious to learn the particulars of their belief and modes of worship and church action. And well pleased was Mr. Reynolds to satisfy his curiosity, "beginning," as requested, "at the beginning."

"You know, Sir," said he, "we believe, from our Lord's words to Nicodemus, that every one born into this world needs also to be born again."

"Born again? Yes, to be sure; you mean regeneration; what we call baptismal regeneration," interrupted Langston. "No, sir, begging your pardon," rejoined the other; we don't believe it is in the power of any man or any ceremony to produce a spiritual change in the heart of another. If we believed that a little water sprinkled on the face in connection with some words uttered by a priest, so called (I hope no offence, sir,) could effect such a change as is needed, we could believe in transubstantiation, or in magic."

But I must not linger on the details of that evening's talk. It must suffice to state the substance. The ironmonger's foreman was at home in the Scriptures, and quoted them freely and aptly; now and then even deviating slightly from the English version, but always with advantage, till Mr. Langston, in some surprise, asked him "if he knew Greek," when it appeared that he had acquired the rudiments of it, just enough to be able to understand in a measure the reasons of any critical emendation that he heard from his minister at the "Young Men's Bible Class." But he at once confessed that these little improvements of the text he had gathered and carefully treasured up as they had fallen from his pastor in the pulpit or class-room,

Mr. Reynolds was obliged to illustrate his belief on the subject of "the new birth" by a frank account of his own "conversion." And the other asked no end of questions, and at last said, musingly,

Well, I never heard anything just like this before; but, somehow, it does seem more like the New Testament tone than our books on Divinity Questions. And it seems also to come home to my own feelings better than they do. I feel I want something, and yet I don't know what. I feel as if something I cannot understand separated me from such men as wrote the Psalms, for instance, and the apostles of Christ, and the people who in all ages bave felt themselves so religious inwardly that

religion was enough for them, so that they could rejoice in working and even suffering for their Master. I do not feel as if God's favour and a holy life could be quite everything to me. yet, I-I-do-want-to be right, I am sure."

And

After a pause he stopped, and turned to his companion, and, putting his hand on his shoulder, said earnestly,

"Can you tell me how?"

They were standing in one of our English lanes, with high, irregular sand-banks on either side, covered with a profusion of ferns and honeysuckles and wild clematis, and in the clear sky the evening star was shining calmly. Reynolds said feelingly, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." "That does not explain it," said the other; "I have read and heard those words before. I do believe, and yet I do not feel as I wish to feel, nor am I what, according to you, I need to become. I have always believed in our Lord Jesus Christ. I was taught so from my childhood, but I am not born again, if my baptism was not regeneration."

"If Jesus Christ were here on earth now," began the other; but Langston interrupted him

"If Jesus Christ were here now, in this very lane, standing just where you stand, I would fall down on my face and clasp His feet, and ask Him to make me one of His disciples, and I would give up everything, and I would follow Him, as a spaniel does his master!'

He started as he spoke the last word, for such had been the passionateness of his utterance that he had not heard an advancing footstep, although Reynolds had just recognized the form of his own pastor, who had come in this direction for an evening stroll, and who, having involuntarily heard the young man's declaration, at the same time perceived that the other was one of his own most valued members.

"And Christ would say, 'Young man, I say unto thee, Arise, thy faith hath saved thee. Follow me.'

Langston gazed as he might have gazed on an angel suddenly become visible, when Mr. Fletcher, holding out his hand, continued :

"Pardon me, my young friend; but having involuntarily heard your earnest confession to my friend Reynolds, I could not refrain from the declaration that instinctively rose to my lips ;" and as Langston, in much emotion, took the offered hand, the stranger added:

"I do not need to ask any questions. In your frank disclosure of your inmost heart towards the Christ, who seems to you, as yet, but as an unknown Saviour, I recognize the already incipient disciple. Be comforted; He hath never said to any, 'Seek

ye my face in vain.' Thy beginning may be small, but thy latter end shall be full of blessing. There is first the dawn, and then the sunrise; first the blade, and then the ear, and after that the full corn in the ear."

The time would fail me to tell of all that followed. It was a holy hour. God's providence was in it. And after receiving a hearty invitation to visit Mr. Fletcher, and promising to do so, Langston turned back towards his now distant home. But as he walked he seemed on the confines of a new country, a new world. He had hope. That word he had spoken, in the solitude of the lane-spoken, too, so spontaneously-had seemed indeed nothing at the moment, but now seemed to have been as the narrow plank across a stream or gulf, by which one passes over to the other side. In speaking so intensely he realised more vividly than ever before the presence of the Saviour. God had sanctified and blessed the awakened and kindled imagination, till the young man all but felt that the very Lord whom he desired had suddenly come, and was then receiving his confession and his prayer. Recognizing how he should feel if Christ were there in very deed, he recognized that that was how he did therefore really feel towards Him, and also that he had actually come over to Christ's side, and a beginning had been made. That evening's return walk was such a season as he had never experienced. He felt as if he had passed from death to life, although the life was but of the faintest. This expression, however, was one that did not occur to him at the time, but only long afterwards, when retracing the event of that evening, the date of which he never forgot. Before he threw himself on his bed that night he had entered the date in a pocket Testament, and had also, on bended knee, repeated, as if to a present Christ, the prayer he had in the lane so spontaneously said he would offer if Christ were there. Words that no lesson had enabled him to understand, he now seemed to know the meaning of; and, especially, that the "faith" which had so sorely puzzled him, and which he knew not how to acquire, was just doing now mentally what the poor and miserable, and blind and leprous had once done bodily when the Saviour was on earth. And so he spoke to Christ as if he saw Him, and he seemed to know what words Christ would answer. And Christ became to him, even before he slept, such an actual living Presence as he had never before conceived of, and he said, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief."

It was a matter of course that the next Sunday morning should find him one of Mr. Fletcher's congregation; and perhaps it would not be surprising if the incident in the lane on

the previous Thursday evening gave some tone to the sermon. People were struck with the minister's manner. Always devout and calmly earnest in the pulpit, he appeared that morning, they said, to be under the influence of some unusually happy inspiration. His own faith seemed quickened. He believed more deeply in preaching, as a Divine ordinance for the accomplishment of God's gracious designs. And at the prayer-meeting on the following Wednesday evening, one after another of those who prayed referred to the previous Sunday service as a season of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. Mr. Langston listened, and became absorbed; deeply yet calmly moved, all his muscles were in a state of great tension, so that at the close of the sermon he found he had unconsciously so clenched his fingers that the effect was perceptible for some time afterwards. "Able to save unto the uttermost, to save me; and if He can He will. Yes, to be sure, He will. Why should He not? The glorious Saviour: Well might John the Baptist say he was not worthy to loose the latchet of His shoes. I will be His. I am. Cost what it may, I will be His disciple, His servant; and He shall do with me whatsoever seemeth Him good." Such was the frame of mind in which Mr. Langston left St. John's Road Chapel; such some of the things he inwardly uttered as the congregation broke up. He hastened out, unwilling to be recognized by either of his new friends just then, and spent the afternoon alone, longing for the evening service. At the close of which, as the Lord's Supper was to be administered, he took his place among the communicants, somewhat to the surprise of the good people, who looked almost as if an utter stranger among them must necessarily be an intruder. And one of the deacons quietly whispered to another, who was no other than the preacher of the previous Thursday evening-Reynolds-and he, in his turn, whispered to the minister, who gently signified that no notice was to be taken; for Mr. Fletcher was no ministerial martinet, and would never suffer "the letter" to over-ride "the spirit," either of the New Testament, or of Church action. And when the bread was handed to Mr. Langston, the minister spoke a word or two directly to the heart of the new communicant, which he himself, under the circumstances, received almost as the Galatians had received the words of the Apostle, although the rest of the people did not detect their special character.

It need hardly be said that Mr. Langston's whole future course was being very decidedly shaped by the events of those few days. He became a frequent visiter at Mr. Fletcher's; and, as he had no friends to consult, and no occupation to fix him to any particular place, he was free to pitch his tent where he