^ G. K. Chesterton, Tremendous Trifles,
\
GENESIS IV. 9 137
is intense, deep, oppressive — a thing that can be felt. The roll of the city is all unheard, the roar of the sea, the hubbub of our busy life — all is silenced. But startling in its suddenness comes sometimes the shrill cry of a child. Ah ! the things that God does not hear: the things that do not go up to heaven — the empty prayers; the pretences and pride of us men and women and ten thousand other things. But the thousands of girls — almost every one of them having to tell a bitter story of betrayal, an anguish of shame, a hell of despair — their cry goes up to Heaven! The cry of the downtrodden, the wronged and injured, the overworked and underpaid. Listen to the words of St. James — " Go to now, ye rich men, weep, howl. Your gold is cankered, your garments are moth-eaten. Behold the hire of the labourers who have reaped your fields is kept back, and the cries of them have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth."!
IF Outside the Bible no one has interpreted this great principle more splendidly than Victor Hugo in his wonderful portrait of Jean Valjean. For nineteen years the State held Jean Valjean between its palms as a boy holds a butterfly, and when the palms were parted there had been no change of character. For nineteen years the State held him a criminal in the galleys as a boy holds the humble-bee in the sweet cup of the hollyhock. And when the penitentiary doors opened and the State parted its fingers, and the criminal buzzed out into society again, the sting was as sharp and the poison as virulent as ever. The reason was that character cannot be changed by outside pressure alone. Jean Valjean went out into the world with his heart full of hate and bitterness, and in that spirit he came to the door of a friend of Jesus Christ. The good bishop, Hugo tells us, had a great heart. He was not a great thinker. He felt that the world was suffering from a cruel disease. He felt the fever, he heard the sobbing, of the patient. He did not spend his time trying to find out how sin came, nor why ; but he tried to help a little. So he opened the door to this wicked man and welcomed him. While the bishop slept the criminal in the man awoke, and he stole the silver from the bishop's house and escaped. The next morning he was brought back again by the police, and the bishop saved him and sent the police away. And when they were gone he looked into the poor, astonished man's face, and said, " Jean Valjean, my brother ! I have bought your soul from you. I have drawn it from black thoughts that lead to perdition. I have given it to goodness." And the man, redeemed by the
1 M. G. Pears*.
138 AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER?
words, "My brother," by the quick tear of sympathy, by the Christ in the heart-throb of this large-hearted man, went out to lead a new life. And Jean Valjean became Father Madeleine.^
I closed my hands upon a moth, And when I drew my palms apart,
Instead of dusty, broken wings, I found a bleeding human heart.
I crushed my foot upon a worm That had my garden for its goal,
But when I drew my foot aside, I found a dying human soul.*
4. For every man therefore the question is, What is the best thing that I can do ? Whether in the city or in the country, I, in my little sphere, with my limited ability, have my life to live, and how am I to answer God's question ? Well, if we live in the city ; let us not lose ourselves in the thought of its vastness. The great world of London is so apt to swallow one up, to paralyze one with a sense of helplessness. We listen to its statistics, and they appal us if we take them in, which most of us do not. Thank God for the men who have problems and theories for its salvation, but they are and must be subjects of controversy. The one thoroughly good thing we can do is to know the Lord Jesus Christ, to call Him Lord, and then, looking into His face, to say. Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do ?
1[ If every one who professes to care about the poor would make himself the friend of one poor person, there would soon be no insoluble problem of "the masses," and London would be within measurable distance of becoming a city of happy homes.*
It is not much
To give a gentle word or kindly touch
To one gone down
Beneath the world's cold frown.
And yet — who knows
How great a thing from such a little grows?
O, oftentimes.
Some brother upward climbs,
' L. A. Bankg. ' Dora Sig«r8on Shorter. ' Canon Bamett.
GENESIS IV. 9 139
And hope again
Uplifts its head, that in the dust had lain,
And sorrow's night
Gives place to morning's light.
Because of hands
Outstretched to help — a heart that understands,