The Infidel: A Story of the Great Revival

"He has been travelling about England with me – and only came to London last October. I know, madam, that his respect for your person is only less than his grief at your unhappy opinions."

"We cannot change the fabric of our minds, sir."

"We cannot; but God can."

"You believe in instantaneous conversions – in a single act of faith that can make a Christian in a moment?"

"The Scriptures warrant that belief, madam. All the conversions related in the Gospel were instantaneous. Yet I will own that I was once unwilling to believe in the miracle of Christian perfection attained by a single impulse of the soul. But in the long course of my ministry I have seen so many blessed examples that I can no longer doubt that the Divine Spirit works wonders as great in this degenerate age as on that day of Pentecost, the birthday of the Christian Church. Instead of the miracle of fiery tongues, we have the miracle of changed hearts."

"And you think that Christian perfection attained in a moment will stand the wear and tear of life, and be strong enough to resist the world, the flesh, and the devil?" Antonia asked, with an incredulous smile.

"Nay, madam, I dare not affirm that all who think themselves justified are secure of salvation. These sudden recruits are sometimes deserters. I do not hold the tenets of the Moravians, who declare that the converted sinner cannot fall away, whereas, after our justification by faith, we are every moment pleasing or displeasing unto God according to our works, according to the whole of our present inward tempers and outward behaviour. But I have never despaired of a sinner, madam; nor can I believe that a spirit so bright as yours will be lost eternally. Long or late the hour of sanctifying Grace must come."

"Perhaps, Mr. Wesley, had you been reared as I was – taught to doubt the existence of a God before I was old enough to read the Gospel – you would be no less a sceptic than I am."

"I was indeed more fortunate – for I was born into a household of faith. Yet I have never hardened my heart against the man or woman whose education has only taught them to doubt, for I have sometimes thought, with unspeakable fear, that, had I given my mind to the study of mathematics or geometry, I too might have been one of those nice philosophers who will accept no creed that cannot be demonstrated like a proposition in Euclid. I thank God that I learnt to love Him, and to walk in His ways, before I learnt to pry into the mysteries of His Being or to question His dealings with mankind."

"No doubt that is happiest, sir – to shut one's mind against facts and believe in miracles."

And then, gradually won to fullest confidence by his quick sympathy, Antonia told John Wesley much of her life story, only avoiding, with an exquisite delicacy, all those passages which touched the secrets of a woman's heart. She told him how she had been left alone in the world with all the power that riches can give to a young woman, how she had tried all the resources of wealth, and found all wanting, even her experience of mission work among the outcast poor.

"I doubt you were happier engaged in that work than you have ever been in the mansions of the great," he said.

"No, Mr. Wesley, I will not pretend as much. While the pleasures of the great world were new I loved them dearly; but a third season brought satiety, and I sickened of it all. I know not why I sickened of my visits to the poor, for my heart was ever touched by their sufferings, and sometimes by their patience. It may be that it was because I was alone, and without an adviser, after Mr. Stobart left England."

"Will you resume that work now, madam? I doubt you are familiar with the parable of the talents, and know that to have youth and wealth, intellect and energy, and not to use them for others' good – "

"Oh, it is hateful! Be sure, sir, I know what a wretch I am. I spent last summer in Ireland, where the poor love me; but I hardly ever went near them. I did not let them starve. My steward and my waiting-woman carried them all they wanted, while I dawdled in my rose-garden or yawned over a novel. I was discouraged somehow. Those poor creatures are all Roman Catholics. They would talk to me of a creed which I had been taught to despise. There was a gulf between us."

"But you will resume your charitable work in London, where the people's religion need not offend you, since they are mostly heathens."

"Not at Lambeth! I cannot go back to Lambeth Marsh."

She knew that Stobart was spending all his days in the old places. Not for worlds could she go back to the work which she had shared with him, and which had once been so full of innocent happiness.

"Your ladyship can choose your district. The field is wide enough. Will you visit the sick poor in this neighbourhood, and will you accept my help and counsel?"

"With a glad heart, sir. I sorely need a friend."

"But you will not go as a heathen among heathens? You will carry the Gospel with you."

"Yes, sir. If it will help your views that I should read the New Testament to your people, I would as leave do so as not. Indeed, I have read the Gospel to those who have asked me; and be sure I have never been so foolish as to obtrude my opinions upon them. 'Tis only by close questioning they have ever discovered my barren creed." And then she went on with a sigh, "Ah, sir, if you knew how I envy you the faith which opens new worlds, now that I have lost all interest in this one."

"Do not despair of yourself, madam. I do not despair of you. The Lady Kilrush I had pictured to myself was an arrogant unbeliever, possessed by a devil of pride, and glorying in her infidelity. There is hope for the sceptic who has discovered how poor a thing this life is when we think it is all."

She rose to take leave, and Wesley conducted her to the street, where a hackney coach was in waiting. He begged her to call upon him as often as she pleased during his stay in London, which would not be long; and he promised to send her the names and addresses, and particulars as to character and necessities, of the invalids whom he would advise her to visit.

"On second thoughts I will not send you amongst the unconverted," he said, "but to some faithful Christians whose piety I doubt you will admire, however you may despise their simplicity."

He went back to his study full of thought. Antonia's conversation had surprised and interested him. Unlucky as he had been in his own too hasty choice of a wife, he was a shrewd judge of women, and he felt assured that this was a good woman. Would it not then be a hard measure were he to come between George Stobart and an attachment which death had legitimatised? And what better chance could there be for this woman's conversion than her union with an honest, believing Christian? The Society's stringent rule had been inspired by the evil wrought by women of a very different stamp from this one.

And yet was not this avowed infidel, so beautiful, so winning in her proud gentleness, only the Philistine Delilah in a new guise? The temptress, the lying spirit that betrayed the strong man of old, was there, perhaps, waiting to ensnare George Stobart's soul.

"I must see of what spirit she is," Wesley told himself, "and if she may yet be numbered among the children of light."

A new phase of Antonia's life began after her interview with John Wesley. All that she had done in the past, in those dens of misery and crime by the Marsh, was as nothing compared with her work under his direction. At Lambeth she had but exercised a fine lady's capricious benevolence, obeying the whim of the moment: a creature of impulse, too lavish where her heart was touched, too easily revolted by the ugliness of vice. In the squalid regions that lay around the Foundery her charities were administered upon a different system. One of Mr. Wesley's best gifts was the faculty of order, and all things done under his direction were done with an admirable method and proportion. His Loan Society, which made advances of twenty shillings and upwards to the respectable poor – to be repaid in weekly instalments – his Dispensary, his day and night-classes all testified to his power of organization. From the days when a poor scholar at Oxford, he lived like an anchorite of the desert in order that he might feed starving prisoners and rescue fallen women, he had been experienced in systematic charity. From him, in the hours he could spare her before starting on his northern pilgrimage, she learnt how to distribute her alms with an unfailing justice, and how to make the best use of her time. Her visits in those homes of sickness and penury, which might have been hopelessly dreary without his directing spirit, became full of interest in the light of his all-comprehending mind.

She sold three of her dress carriages and dismissed her second coachman. A hackney coach carried her to Moorfields every day, and she employed the greater part of the day in visiting the poor. She was often among Wesley's hearers at the evening service at the Foundery. His sermons touched her heart and almost convinced her reason. His simplicity of style and force of argument impressed her more than Whitefield's dramatic oratory. Mr. Wesley had no deep-drawn "Oh!" for Garrick to envy. His action was calm and pleasing, his voice clear and manly. He appealed to the heart and mind of his hearers by no studied effects, no flights of rhetoric, yet he never failed to hold them in the spell of that simple eloquence.

Antonia was interested in the congregation as well as in the preacher. She was moved by the spectacle of all those fervent worshippers – mostly in the lower ranks of life – men and women of scantiest leisure, who gave much when they spent their evenings in the chapel; instead of at the playhouse, or by the fireside in the cosy parlour with cards and congenial company. For the first time she began to understand what the religious life meant, the life in which all earthly things are secondary. The earnest faces, the voices of a vast concourse singing Charles Wesley's exquisite hymns, moved her deeply.

Her work took her mostly among the humble members of that Methodist Society which had begun twenty years before by the gathering together of eight or ten awakened souls, yearning for help and counsel, groaning under the burden of sin, and which was now so widespread a multitude. In the garrets and cellars, where she sat beside the bed of the sick and the dying, she found a fervour of unquestioning faith that startled and touched her. For these sufferers the Gospel she read was no history of things long past and done with, no story of a vanished life. It was the message of a living Friend, a Redeemer waiting to give them welcome in the Kingdom of the just made perfect, the world where there is no death. He who had promised the penitent thief a dwelling in Paradise was at the door of the death chamber; and to die was to pass to a life more beautiful than a child's dream of heaven.

As the days and weeks went by, that Gospel story read so often under such solemn influences, with death hovering near, took a deeper hold upon Antonia's imagination. The message that she carried to others was for her also. She learnt to love the wise Teacher, the beneficent Healer, the Saviour of mankind. That name of Saviour pleased her. From the theologian's point of view she was, perhaps, no more a Christian than she had ever been. She dared not tell John Wesley, whom she revered, and who now accepted her as a brand snatched from the burning, that her faith was not his faith, that she was neither convinced of sin nor assured of Grace.

Her awakening had been no sudden act, like the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost, but a gradual change in her whole nature, the widening of her sympathies, the growth of pity and of love. It was not of Christ the Sacrifice she thought, not of His atoning blood; but of Jesus the Great Exemplar, of Jesus who went about doing good. She would not question how it came to pass, but she believed that, in the dim long-ago, Divinity walked among mankind and wore the shape of man; to what end, except to make men better, she knew not. In all her conversation with Wesley's converts, however exalted their ideas might be, that earthly image was in her mind, Jesus, human and compassionate, the Comforter of human sorrows, the Sinless One who loved sinners.

Wesley rejoiced with exceeding joy in her conversion. He had met her from time to time in the dwellings of the poor, had sat with her beside the bed of the dying, had seen her often among his congregation; and he believed that the work of Grace had begun, and that it needed but good influences to ensure her final perseverance and justification by faith. He wrote to George Stobart the night before he left London for the North.

"You have passed through a fiery trial, dear friend, and I admire your fortitude in renouncing a passion that was stronger than all things, except your hope of salvation. The lady you love has become my friend and fellow-worker, and I dare venture to believe that she has escaped from darkness into light, and that you may now enjoy her society without peril to your soul. Let me hear by-and-by how your suit prospers. Her ladyship is a woman of rare gifts, and of a noble character.

    "Yours in Christ,
    "J. W."

CHAPTER XIX.

"CHOOSE OF TWO LOVES."

Wesley's letter came upon George Stobart like the sudden opening of a gate into Paradise. It was a year since he had seen Antonia's face. For a year he had been the martyr of obedience to his spiritual guide, had surrendered every hope of earthly happiness, and had submitted to regard his life on earth only as an apprenticeship to the life to come.

And in a moment he was free, free to hope, free to behold the face, to hear the voice he loved. Free to win her, if he could. There was the question! He had never yet presumed, in his more thoughtful moods, to believe his love returned. How coldly she had bidden him adieu when last they met! Her manner had been without resentment, and without kindness. It seemed as if, when he offended her by his shameless addresses, he had ceased to exist. Her goodness to his wife had no relation to her friendship for him.

How could he approach her? Not in her own house, till he had some ground for hoping that her door would not be closed against him. He would steal upon her path unawares, and endeavour to regain her confidence by gentle means. He hurried to the Foundery to answer Wesley's letter in person, and found that good man busy with his preparations for leaving London. From him he heard of Antonia's progress in good works, and in her attendance at Wesley's services.

"That heart which you thought adamant has melted, George, and the Redeemer's saving Grace will be exemplified in this ransomed soul. She is so fine a creature, so generous, charitable, compassionate, that it wrung my heart to hear her, in this room, less than three months ago, boldly confess herself an infidel."

He told Stobart all that Antonia had done for his poor, and, at his request, gave him the addresses of some of the people she visited.

"They have all learnt to love her," he said, "which has not been always the case when I have sent women of exalted piety upon such missions. Her high-bred manner has a genial charm that wins them unawares. She does not attempt to teach, but she reads the Gospel to them; and I may tell you that she has an exquisite voice, and is a most accomplished reader. It was but the other day I approved of a female preacher, the first we have ever had, whose work so far has prospered. Should Lady Kilrush continue in well-doing, I should like her occasionally to address a room full of working women. A woman should know best how to reach women's hearts."

Stobart smiled at the suggestion. Antonia, the Voltairean, the friend of Lady Bolingbroke, the avowed sceptic, the woman of fashion, preaching the Gospel to a crowd of tatterdemalions in a Whitechapel kitchen! If Wesley could bring her to that pass he was indeed a miracle-worker. Could it be that she had cast a spell around the leader of the Methodists, and that his belief in her conversion was but the delusion of a kind heart, willing to think the best of so beautiful and gracious a creature?

Stobart was not an ardent believer in sudden conversions, though, in the course of his field preaching, it had been a common thing for him to see men and women fling themselves on their knees and declare that they were "saved," convinced of sin, justified, sanctified, on the instant, by one single operation of the Holy Spirit. He had seen something of the convulsionists of Bristol. The miracle of Pentecost had, in a lesser degree, been often repeated before his eyes; and among these instantaneous conversions he knew of some that had been the beginning of changed and holy lives. But he could not picture Antonia amongst Wesley's easily won converts. Had he not wrestled again and again with that stubborn spirit of unbelief, in the days when they were friends, and when he never spared hard words? All his arguments, all his pleadings, had failed to change her.

He did not allow for the influence of time, satiety, Weltschmerz, the aching void of a life without love.

He rode with Wesley as far as Barnet, on the first stage of his Northern journey, heard him preach there in the evening to a closely-packed audience, and rode back to London next morning. It was late in the afternoon, a mild spring afternoon, when, after visiting several houses in the neighbourhood of Moorfields, he discovered Lady Kilrush in an underground kitchen, seated by the sick-bed of a cobbler, a young man with a wife and two children, dying of a consumption. The wife sat on one side of the bed, her husband's hand clasped in hers, Antonia on the other side reading the Gospel of St. John, in those thrilling tones which Wesley had noted. She looked up as Stobart entered the kitchen, and her cheek crimsoned as she recognized him; but when she spoke her voice was cold as at their parting.

"I thought it was Mr. Wesley," she said. "Has he sent you to see our poor Morris? This gentleman is one of Mr. Wesley's helpers, Morris."