Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/407

. 4, 1862.] Yes, he was surely by me, bending lower and lower, nearer and nearer, till I fancied I felt his breath on my forehead, and I stretched out my hands, and sprang upward to meet him. Alas! my arms grasped only the hollow air, and the sound of a coal falling on the hearth awoke me more thoroughly.

No one was there—the room was empty—my chair was in its old position, and the hat I had flung aside on my return from the village, was lying at my feet.

I raised my eyes to where I had beheld the vision, and there was the picture in the oval frame,—the thorn-encircled Head, and an expression of Divine Compassion in those sorrowful eyes. “Je t’ai aimé d’un amour éternel,” spake from the scroll like the voice of an angel.

Conviction rushed upon me. I bowed down my head, and wept those tears which are at once prayers and the seed of a Higher Life. Like Peter of old, I wept bitterly because I had denied my Lord.

Through my tears I glanced up again, but my eyes were hazy, and I could not see distinctly. Try as I would, the portrait faded before me, the pitying gaze seemed averted; as I watched breathlessly, eagerly, it seemed to change, and no longer to regard me with love and compassion.

In the place of that picture of a crucified Saviour, there rose the pinched, careworn face of that little child to whose appeal I had lately turned a deaf ear. She was looking at me through the mist, haunting me with her hollow, reproachful eyes,—had she not urged me “for the love of God?”

I writhed in agony. A moment ago, hope and comfort had come to me from a Divine Source, now they were obscured by the very memory of my own sin. Where was that text which had spoken to me of God’s love? What was it? I could remember nothing, no text whatsoever, save one which said: “Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me.”

I started on to my feet; I faced the real picture. I told myself it was a dream, the delusion of a fevered brain; but for all that, I could not divest myself of the impression it had made. I was glad to see, through the window, the real beggar-child stealing up to the house to ask charity, glad for once in my life to go down and relieve the afflicted.

All this happened years ago, but I have never forgotten my Dream of Love! 2em

I spoke of the distress in Lancashire, six weeks ago, that distress has so far spread and deepened as to rouse and frighten a part of the public out of the apathy and optimism, which then appeared more strange to thoughtful people than the calamity itself can appear to the most inconsiderate. If there are persons everywhere who think the alarm a bore, or who smile and say they have lived through many panics, and do not find Old England at an end yet, there are also persons everywhere who feel their daily life clouded by the thought of the depression, hunger, and destitution of a whole population which was lately the pride of the country for its high spirit, industry, and intelligence. As in times of plague and famine there are always persons who cannot believe that half their acquaintance will die, or that they shall ever see their neighbours actually hungry unto death, so there are now many who cannot perceive what they have to do with Lancashire distress, and who settle the business in their own minds and in their own houses by saying, that all industries have seasons of trouble, and that Lancashire will get over it somehow.

Many, again, choose to insist that it is an affair for the Lancashire gentry to manage. It is the business of the landowners; it is the business of the millowners. There is a great deal to be said about this: but we know better now than we did a month ago, that the sufferers cannot wait till it is agreed who should relieve them. We must help them first, and settle the doctrine of incidence afterwards. In the same way, we still hear it objected that the rates in Lancashire are yet not so high, as what some of us are paying in both town and country; but many more are ready with the answer than a month ago. The answer is, that if we leave it to the rates to deal with the distress, Lancashire will be like a submerged country, where all is destruction and ruin except a few scattered hills which stand above the flood. Whole classes would crumble and slide down into pauperism, till none would be left to pay the rates but a sprinkling of rich men. Many see now that it is better not to talk about the rates in self-excuse. The practical point, in fact, is to spare the rates to the last moment, and to the last farthing, for the sake of saving the poorer rate-payers.

Such points are better understood than they were: but still we have not got half-way towards that general consent to uphold and carry through our cotton operatives which we must attain by calamity, if we cannot by our own good sense. We still hear Members of Parliament talking of a possible time coming when others than Lancashire men must do something. We still see gentlemen and ladies giving shillings where they should send pounds, and pounds when they should give hundreds or thousands.

Among those whose eyes are open, however, the action is beautiful. Noble actions abound from day to day. Some of the millowners are generous and wise, and many are willing,—however the body generally have fallen below expectation, and their former repute for public spirit. But no extent of liberality in any of that class can exceed the expectation of society, because the wealth of the manufacturers ought always to be regarded as responsible for effectual aid to the operatives by whose industry, in conjunction with the employer’s capital, that wealth was created. As the capitalist profits most in prosperous times, he cannot reasonably or fairly leave the heaviest weight of adversity to be borne by his partners, the labourers. Thus the utmost liberality of the millowners is a simple fulfilment of obligation. The same thing is true of the landowners whose estates have become more and more valuable, through the growth of wealth and numbers in