Evelyn Everett-Green - For the Faith - A Story of the Young Pioneers of Reformation in Oxford

But he had been first aroused by seeing the light in Freda's eyes as these questions had been discussed in the hearing of her and her sister. From the first moment of his presentation to Dr. Langton's family Dalaber had been strongly attracted by the beautiful sisters, and especially by Freda, whose quick, responsive eagerness and keen insight and discrimination made a deep impression upon him. The soundness of her learning amazed him at the outset; for her father would turn to her to verify some reference from his costly manuscripts or learned tomes, and he soon saw that Latin and Greek were to her as her mother tongue.

When she did join in the conversation respecting the interpretation or translation of the Holy Scriptures, he had quickly noted that her scholarship was far deeper than his own. He had been moved to a vivid admiration at first, and then to something that was more than admiration. And the birth and growth of his spiritual life he traced directly to those impulses which had been aroused within him as he had heard Freda Langton speak and argue and ask questions.

That was how it had started; but it was Clarke's teaching and preaching which had completed the change in him from the careless to the earnest student of theology. Clarke's spirituality and purity of life, his singleness of aim, his earnest striving after a standard of holiness seldom to be found even amongst those who professed to practise the higher life, aroused the deep admiration of the impulsive and warm-hearted Dalaber. He sought his rooms, he loved to hear his discourses, he called himself his pupil and his son, and was the most regular and enthusiastic attender of his lectures and disputations.

And now he had taken a new and forward step. Suddenly he seemed to have been launched upon a tide with which hitherto he had only dallied and played. He was pushing out his bark into deeper waters, and already felt as though the cables binding him to the shores of safety and ease were completely parted.

It was in part due to the magnetic personality of Garret that this thing had come to pass. When Dalaber left Oxford it was with no idea that it would be a crisis in his life. He wished, out of curiosity, to be present at the strange ceremony to be enacted in St. Paul's Churchyard; and the knowledge that Clarke was going to London for a week on some private business gave the finishing touch to his resolution.

But it was not until he sat with Thomas Garret in his dark lodgings, hearing the rush of the river beneath him, looking into the fiery eyes of the priest, and hearing the fiery words which fell from his lips, that Dalaber thoroughly understood to what he had pledged himself when first he had uttered the fateful words, "I will be a member of the Association of Christian Brothers."

True, Clarke had, on their way to town, spoken to him of a little community, pledged to seek to distribute the life-giving Word of God to those who were hungering for it, and to help each in his measure to let the light, now shrouded beneath a mass of observances which had lost their original meaning to the unlettered people, shine out in its primitive brilliance and purity; but Dalaber had only partially understood the significance of all this.

Clarke was the man of thought and devotion. His words uplifted the hearts of his hearers into heavenly places, and seemed to create a new and quickened spirituality within them. Garret was the man of action. He was the true son of Luther. He loved to attack, to upheave, to overthrow. Where Clarke spoke gently and lovingly of the church, as their holy mother, whom they must love and cherish, and seek to plead with as sons, that she might cleanse herself from the defilement into which she had fallen, Garret attacked her as the harlot, the false bride, the scarlet woman seated upon the scarlet beast, and called down upon her and it alike the vials of the wrath of Almighty God.

And the soul of Dalaber was stirred within him as he listened to story after story, all illustrative of the corruption which had crept within the fold of the church, and which was making even holy things abhorrent to the hearts of men. He listened, and his heart was hot as he heard; he caught the fire of Garret's enthusiasm, and would then and there have cast adrift from his former life, thrown over Oxford and his studies there-and flung himself heart and soul into the movement now at work in the great, throbbing city, where, for the first time, he found himself.

But when he spoke words such as these Garret smiled and shook his head, though his eyes lighted with pleasure.

"Nay, my son; be not so hot and hasty. Seest thou not that in this place our work for the time being is well-nigh stopped?

"Not for long," he added quickly, whilst the spark flew from his eyes-"not for long, mind you, ye proud prelates and cardinal. The fire you have lighted shall blaze in a fashion ye think not of. The Word of God is a consuming fire. The sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, pierces the heart and reins of man; and that sword hath been wrested from the scabbard in which it has rusted so long, and the shining of its fiery blade shall soon he seen of all men.

"No," added the priest, after a moment's pause to recover himself and take up the thread of his discourse; "what was done at Paul's Cross yesterday was but a check upon our work. The last convoy of books has been burnt-all, save the few which we were able to save and to bide beneath the cellar floor. The people have been cowed for a moment, but it will not last. As soon seek to quench a fire by pouring wax and oil upon it!"

"You will get more books, then? The work will not cease?"

"It will not cease. More books will come. Our brave Stillyard men will not long be daunted. But we must act with care. For a time we must remain quiet. We may not be reckless with the holy books, which cost much in money and in blood-or may do, if we are rash or careless. But nothing now can stop their entrance into a land where men begin to desire earnestly to read them for themselves. Not all, mind you. It is strange how careless and apathetic are the gentry of the land-they that one would have thought to be most eager, most forward. They stand aloof; and the richer of the trades' guilds will have little to say to us. But amongst the poor and unlettered do we find the light working; and in them are our chiefest allies, our most earnest disciples."

"Yet we have many at Oxford, learned men and scholars, who would gladly welcome changes and reforms in the church; and there are many amongst the students eager after knowledge, and who long to peruse the writings of Luther and Melancthon, and see these new versions of the Scriptures."

"Ay, I know it. I was of Oxford myself. It is but a few years that I left my lodging in Magdalen College. I love the place yet. The leaven was working then. I know that it has worked more and more. Our good friends Clarke and Sumner have told as much. Is not your presence here a proof of it? Oh, there will be a work-a mighty work-to do in Oxford yet; and you shall be one of those who shall be foremost in it."

"I?" cried Dalaber, and his eyes glowed with the intensity of his enthusiasm. "Would that I could think it!"

"It shall be so," answered Garret. "I read it in your face, I hear it in your voice. The thought of peril and disgrace would not daunt you. You would be faithful-even unto death. Is it not so?"

"I would! – I will!" cried Dalaber, stretching out his hand and grasping that of Garret. "Only tell me wherein I can serve, and I will not fail you."

"I cannot tell you yet, save in general terms; but the day will come when you shall know. Oxford must have books. There will soon be no doubt as to that. And when we have books to scatter and distribute there, we want trusty men to receive and hide them, and sell or give them with secrecy and dispatch. It is a task of no small peril. Thou must understand that well, my son. It may bring thee into sore straits-even to a fiery death. Thou must count the cost ere thou dost pass thy word."