* * *
Later that day old Mr. Norris informed Forester that if he wanted a seat he would have to be there an hour before the time for service, because the little church on the rocks was well filled on Sundays at all times of the year. In summer, when the visitors were in Hildick it was, he said, full to overflowing. The doctor took this information with a large grain of salt, but he thought he would go down the hill and sit on the rocks near the church until the last bell began to ring.
However, he found a stream of people pouring into the tiny church as soon as the doors were opened, and on second thoughts he decided to follow them.
It was well he did, for the church was already full, and chairs were being let down by a rope from a trapdoor in the bell tower to fill up the tiny aisle. He saw his friend Rupert Norris in the choir, and the Mainwarings, Sinclairs, and Somervilles were sitting near the door. Leonard Norris and several other boys were placed in a row on the steps of the chancel, in order to make more room for the adults.
A chair was put for the doctor by a tall man who he concluded was the verger, and he found himself between Don Mainwaring and little Joyce Sinclair. Joyce smiled at him as he sat down, and then took him under her wing during the service, letting him look over her hymnbook, finding the places for him with great determination, and pushing her footstool towards him so that he could share it with her.
The singing was grand -- at least, he thought so. He surmised that a critically musical ear would no doubt detect many notes out of tune, and discover mistakes and faults of manifold kinds. But he did not profess to be musical, and the thorough heartiness of the congregation charmed him beyond measure. Everyone was singing; men, women, and children were all taking their part; and it would have been difficult for anyone in the church to resist the infectious earnestness which seemed to pervade the whole place.
When Jack went into the pulpit, a hush fell on the little congregation as he rose from the prayer and stood to give out his text. There was a moment's pause while Jack was rallying his forces. He was finding it a trying ordeal to stand up and preach to his mother, to his brother and sisters, to his uncle who was sitting all attention just in front of him, and above all to Norman Forester, his schoolfellow and friend, who had always been far more clever than he was.
That feeling was only for a moment. In the next, Jack Mainwaring had forgotten everyone in the church, and only remembered the presence of the One whose servant he was, the Lord and Master in whose strength and for whose sake he was going to speak, whose consecrated message of love he had been sent to deliver.
There was no trembling in Jack's voice when he began. Clearly and distinctly the words of his text fell on Forester's ear and rang through the old church.
"'We have known and believed the love that God hath to us.'"
It was a simple sermon based on 1 John 4:16, with no pretence to eloquence or flowery speech. But its simplicity, its downright earnestness, carried his hearers with him throughout it all. He began by quoting two lines of a hymn which, he said, his family all loved, and had known since they were children:
And with my God to guide my way,
'Tis equal joy to go or stay.
He spoke of the great depth of the sea, and of the mystery of the mighty waters which in places no man had fathomed or explored. He showed how, in like manner, the love of God had depths of which none of them knew anything; mysteries of mercy and goodness and loving-kindness which no one could explain in this life, nor possibly in the life to come.
And then Jack suddenly changed his simile, and he made them see the love of God as a cable sent to draw them into the everlasting glory above. He showed them that the cable was a threefold cord, composed of three distinct and wonderful strands.
"The first strand is the love of God the Father, who, seeing us without a chance of anything in the future except reaping the consequences of sin, looks down on us with infinite pity, and loves us with such mighty love that He gives His Son, His only Son, for us.
"The second strand is the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, who for us men and for our salvation left the throne for the manger, the adoration of angels for the contempt of sinful man; and who, after being despised and rejected by the ones He came to save, actually laid down His life to pay the penalty of our sin.
"The third strand is the love of the Holy Spirit, striving with us day by day, bearing with us in all our disobedience, doing His utmost to bring us to see the love of the Father, to accept the love of the Son."
Jack reminded them that a threefold cord cannot be broken, and that this cable of love, the love of Father, Son, and Spirit, is an Almighty cable -- able to rescue, able to save, able to draw each one of them into eternal glory.
But it was the end of the sermon which seemed to go straight to Forester's heart.
"The verse says, 'We have known and believed the love.' Have we?" Jack asked. "Have I? Have you? Can you change the pronoun and say, I have known; I have believed? By my own personal experience I have tested that love and found it unfailing. I have known and believed the love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."
A final hymn and then the congregation dispersed quietly. They came out to find a beautiful sunset sky, and everyone went down to the shore and walked along the water's edge. The Sinclairs, Mainwarings, and Somervilles all formed one party, and Forester joined them.
They seemed quite a crowd as they started together on the beach, but it is in the nature of crowds to disperse, and soon they were scattered all over the shore -- the younger ones far ahead, and the others coming at a more leisurely pace behind.
Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair had begun their married life in India, and as Mr. Somerville, Doris's father, had also lived there for many years, they found that they had several friends in common. Jack, who was a great lover of children, had gone up the hill with little Joyce to fetch her dogs, so that they could have a run on the sands before being shut up for the night. The rest of the young people walked on quickly together to the other side of the bay.
The tide was coming in fast, and washing to land a variety of things: long pieces of sugar-cane, old bottles, seaweed of many different kinds, driftwood, shells and sea urchins were coming to shore on the busy waves. Doris stopped to watch a curious object floating a little way out on the tide.
"It looks like a shoe," she said.
It was a sabot, a wooden shoe thrown overboard from some French boat. Forester stopped with her, and they waited patiently, until at last with a merry laugh she pulled it out of the water.
"I wonder who wore that old thing," she said. "Isn't it quaint? I shall take it home as a curiosity."
Forester carried it for her, and they went on towards the cliffs at the head of the bay. By this time the others were considerably ahead of them, so once more he found himself alone with Doris.
"You were quite right," he said.
"What, about that being a shoe?"
"No, about Jack's sermon. I forgot all about Jack himself."
"I knew you would," she answered.
"Doris, I feel tonight as if I would give all I possess to change places with Jack."
"Do you?" she said. "I wonder if you would really change with him. Do you know where Jack lives? I went once to see him. We found him in a bleak back street. He has to live there to be near his own people. And his landlady! Such a slovenly woman. She can cook a chop fairly well, but nothing else, I believe."
Norman Forester looked thoughtful. "Tell me more," he said.
"His room is small and dark, and looks out on a blank wall. In there Jack grinds away at his sermons, and is at the beck and call of all the people round. He can never take off his boots in the evening and settle into a chair by the fire and feel that work is done. They come to him at all hours of the day and night. Now it's a baby to be baptized, now a dying person to be visited, now somebody out of work who wants a character reference written, or somebody else who wants new boots or something of that sort."
"Not a very enjoyable sort
of life, I would imagine."
"No, you wouldn't think so, but Jack is lively enough. I never saw anyone enjoy life more. He is in the best of spirits the whole time, and won't let any of us say that it's a hard life."
"In fact," said Forester, laughing, "that verse I was trying to remember is an exact description of me and of Jack. The first two lines are Norman Forester: 'While place we seek or place we shun, the soul finds happiness in none.' And the last two lines are Jack Mainwaring: 'But with my God to guide my way, 'tis equal joy to go or stay.'"
Doris did not answer, but asked him how he liked the Hildick singing, and the conversation drifted into other channels. The others soon turned round, forming one party again, and as it was fast growing dark they hurried homewards.