Page 459 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

murmur of the waves, and the gentle rustling of the trees,
the never-ceasing clashing of irons, and the eternal click of
hammer. Was he to be for ever buried in this whitened sep-
ulchre, shut out from the face of Heaven and mankind!
The appearance of Hailes broke his reverie. ‘Here’s a book
for you,’ said he, with a grin. ‘Parson sent it.’
Rufus Dawes took the Bible, and, placing it on his knees,
turned to the places indicated by slips of paper, embracing
some twenty marked texts.
‘Parson says he’ll come and hear you to-morrer, and
you’re to keep the book clean.’
‘Keep the book clean!’ and ‘hear him!’ Did Meekin think
that he was a charity school boy? The utter incapacity of the
chaplain to understand his wants was so sublime that it was
nearly ridiculous enough to make him laugh. He turned his
eyes downwards to the texts. Good Meekin, in the fullness
of his stupidity, had selected the fiercest denunciations of
bard and priest. The most notable of the Psalmist’s curses
upon his enemies, the most furious of Isaiah’s ravings anent
the forgetfulness of the national worship, the most terrible
thunderings of apostle and evangelist against idolatry and
unbelief, were grouped together and presented to Dawes
to soothe him. All the material horrors of Meekin’s faith—
stripped, by force of dissociation from the context, of all
poetic feeling and local colouring—were launched at the
suffering sinner by Meekin’s ignorant hand. The miserable
man, seeking for consolation and peace, turned over the
leaves of the Bible only to find himself threatened with ‘the
pains of Hell’, ‘the never-dying worm’, ‘the unquenchable

For the Term of His Natural Life