第166章 THE ENCHANTED GROUND(3)

went to sleep. And in my sleep one of my people came to me and asked me if I could make it quite clear and plain to him what it would be for a man like him after a communion-time to begin to walk with God. And I just wish I could make the things of the Enchanted Ground as plain to myself and to you to-night as I was able to make a walk with God plain to myself and to my visitor that night in my ministerial dream. I often wish that my business mind worked as well in my study chair and in my pulpit as it sometimes does in my bed and in my sleep. "Now, I beheld in my dream that they talked more in their sleep at this time than ever they did in all their journey. And being in a muse thereabout, the gardener said even to me: Wherefore musest thou at the matter? It is the nature of the fruit of the grapes of those vineyards to go down so sweetly as to cause the lips of them that are asleep to speak." The reason my poor lips spake so sweetly about a walk with God that night most have been because I spent all the summer evening before walking with God and with you in the vineyards of Beulah.

4. Listen to Samson, shorn of his locks, as he shakes himself off a soft and sweetly-worked couch in The Sensual Man's Arbour:

"No, no;

It fits not; thou and I long since are twain;

Nor think me so unwary or accurst To bring my feet again into the snare Where once I have been caught; I know thy trains, Though dearly to my cost, thy gins, and toils;

Thy fair enchanted cup and warbling charms No more on me have power, their force is null'd;

So much of adder's wisdom have I learnt To fence my ear against thy sorceries.

If in my flower of youth and strength, when all men Loved, honour'd, fear'd me, thou alone couldst hate me, Thy husband, slight me, sell me, and forego me;

How wouldst thou use me now, blind, and thereby Deceivable, in most things as a child, Helpless, thence easily contemn'd, and scorn'd, And last neglected? How wouldst thou insult, When I must live uxorious to thy will In perfect thraldom! How again betray me, Bearing my words and doings to the lords To gloss upon, and censuring, frown or smile!

This jail I count the house of liberty To thine, whose doors my feet shall never enter."

5. The love of money to some men is the root of all evil. There came once a youth to St. Philip Neri and, flushed with joy, told him that his parents after much entreaty had at length allowed him to study law. St. Philip was not a man of many words. "What then?" the saint simply asked the shining youth. "Then I shall become a lawyer!" "And then?" pursued Philip. "Then," said the young man, "I shall earn a nice sum of money, and I shall purchase a fine country house, procure a carriage and horses, marry a handsome and rich wife, and lead a delightful life!" "And then?"

"Then,"--the youth reflected as death and eternity arose before his eyes, and from that day he began to take care of his immortal soul.

Philip with one word snatched that young man's soul off The Rich Man's Settle.

6. The Vain Man's Settle draws down many men to shame and everlasting contempt. Praise a vain man or a vain woman aright and enough and you will get them to do anything you like. Give a vain man sufficient publicity in your paper or on your platform and he will become a spy, a traitor, and cut-throat in your service. The sorcerer's cup of praise--keep it full enough in a vain man's hand, and he will sleep in the arbour of vanity till he wakens in hell.

Madam Bubble, the arch-enchantress, knows her own, and she has, with her purse, her promotion, and her praise, bought off many a promising pilgrim.

7. And then she, by virtue of whose sorceries this whole land is drugged and enchanted, is such a bold slut that she will build a Sacred Arbour even, and will fill it full of religious enchantment for you rather than lose hold of you. She will consecrate places and persons and periods for you if your taste lies that way; she will build costly and stately churches for you; she will weave rich vestments and carve rich vessels; she will employ all the arts; she will even sanctify and set apart and seat aloft her holy men--what will she not do to please you, to take you, to intoxicate and enchant you? She will juggle for your soul equally well whether you are a country clown in a feeing-market or a fine lady of aesthetic tastes and religious sensibilities in the capital and the court. But I shall let Father Faber speak, who can speak on this subject both with authority and with attraction. "She can open churches, and light candles on the altar, and intone Te Deums to the Majesty on high. She can pass into the beauty of art, into the splendour of dress, and into the magnificence of furniture. She can sit with high principles on her lips discussing a religious vocation and praising God and sanctity. On the benches of bishops and in the pages of good books you will find her, and yet she is all the while the same huge evil creature." Yes; she is all the time the same Madam Bubble who offered to Standfast her body, her purse, and her bed.

Now, would you know for yourself, like the communicant who came to me in my sleep, how you are ever to get past all those arbours, and settles, and seats, and couches, with all their sweet sorceries and intoxicating enchantments--would you in earnest know that? Then study well the case of one Standfast. Especially the time when she who enchants this whole ground hereabouts set so upon that pilgrim.

In one word, it was this: he remembered his Lord; and, like his Lord, he fell on his face; and as his Lord would have it, His servant's lips as they touched the ground touched also the healing plant harmony and he was saved.

"A small unsightly root, But of divine effect.

Unknown, and like esteem'd, and the dull swain Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon;

And yet more med'cinal is it than that moly That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave;

He call'd it haemony, and gave it me, And bade me keep it as of sovran use 'Gainst all enchantments, mildew, blast, or damp, Or ghastly furies' apparition.

And now I find it true; for by this means I knew the foul enchantress, though disguised, Enter'd the very lime-twigs of her spells, And yet came off. If you have this about you (As I will give you when you go) you may Boldly assault the necromancer's hall:

Where if she be, with dauntless hardihood, And brandished blade, rush on her, break her glass, And shed her luscious liquor on the ground, And seize her wand."

Prayer, my sin-beset brethren, standfast prayer, is the otherwise unidentified haemony whose best habitat was the Garden of Gethsemane; and with that holy root in your heart and in your mouth, there is "no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel."