University of Virginia Library

Last night we went to Thorshaven; and the things that I heard and saw
Of the “work” now going on there have filled me with wonder and awe.
I had been told of their meetings, and how they rarely would cease
Till many were conscience-stricken, and many were filled with peace;
How the whole village was changed—its drunkards sober and calm,
Lips that were wont to blaspheme now thrilling the air with a psalm;
Boats were launched with a prayer, and the oars were timed to a hymn;
And when the lines were set, or the ropes and the sails were trim,
Someone took up the tale of the fishers on Galilee,
And told how the Lord drew nigh to them walking over the sea.
These were the marvels I heard, and oh my heart longed to be there
Where the good Spirit was working, and grace was like dew in the air
Dropping on thirsty grass, and making it live anew.
Maybe my husband, beholding, would see that the Gospel was true;
Maybe his soul would be touched; and maybe my own dull faith
Would be refreshed and revived, for it seemed at the point of death.
The night was starry and cold, but just a night for a walk,
Brisk, in the tingling air; and at first I was fain to talk,
His coming had made me so glad then, only my thoughts would not rest,
Flitting about like the swallows that twitter around their nest,
And then skim away to the river, and dip where the shadows lie
Clear in the glassy calm, which they flick with their wings as they fly;
So would I chatter a little; and by and by thought was away
To the village perched on the cliff, and the people there gathered to pray,
So that in silence at length, arm in arm, swiftly we sped
On by the beetling crags, till we came to a low rude shed,
Roofed with the upturned hull of a wreck that had drifted ashore,
Battered by surf on the shingle there for a month and more;
Gallantly once she had ridden the waves, and the tempest braved,
And true hearts then had been lost in her; now in her wreck they were saved.
Crowds were thronging about it; there was a crowd inside
Singing a hymn that blended well with the wash of the tide—
A wail of sorrow for sin, that swelled to a yearning hope;
Then I heard some one praying, but caught not the words nor the scope,
For many were sobbing aloud; we squeezed a little way in,
Under a guttering candle stuck in a sconce of tin,
The flame blown about by the wind, and shedding uncertain light
Down on rough weather-beat faces. Clear and cold was the night;
Outside, the passionless moon and the quiet stars; but here,
Oh what a tempest of trouble and sorrow, and anguish and fear!
Oh what a peace, at last, that folded its wings on a calm
Throng of spirits entranced, and singing a grateful psalm!
He was a keen-eyed, wiry, beetle-browed man who spoke,
The pale-faced smith of our village; who pleaded loud with the folk,
His voice half saying, half singing the faithful message he bore,
Weirdly and hoarse, like the waves that were crashing down on the shore.
It was not aught that he said—he was just a plain, blunt man,
Earnest, I thought, and acquainted with God and the wonderful Plan
Of saving by surety of Him who hung for our sins on the cross,
And tasted death for our guilt, that we might have gain in His loss—
A plain, blunt man, not a scholar; sometimes his sayings were odd,
Nor could I help a smile though he spake of the great thoughts of God;
But of the fisher-folk no one smiled, let him say what he would;
It was not a season for laughter, nor were they at all in the mood.
“The strength of sin is the law,” he said; “it is like the tree
Serpents take for a purchase in lands where the serpents be;
Clean and straight is its trunk, as the law too is right in its scope,
Slippery the coils and the folds round its bark that are twined like a rope,
Crushing each bone of its victim, and grinding the life out, within;
So is the purchase of Law, for breaking the soul by its sin:
Oh how feeble and helpless we are in its terrible grip!
For the Law cannot be broken, and these knots never will slip!
Coming along the street, I saw the old serpent to-night,
Plainly as eyes could behold him—and oh 'twas a sorrowful sight!—
Coiling round old men and children, as in a statue I know,
Carved with his cunningest art by a wise Greek ages ago,
But there to save His children the Father was wrestling grim,
Here, as the serpent gripped them, they were all worshipping Him.
Yes, I have seen the old serpent, the devil, the father of lies;
And he had not a hoof or a horn, or a tail to whisk at the flies;
Old men were buying his curses, children were taking his fire
Home to their mothers in bottles, as briskly as hell could desire.
Busy he is at Thorshaven, sails in your luggers with you,
Never a boat goes to sea but the devil is one of the crew;
You carry him too in your creels, and he is defiling your way,
With swearing and lying and cheating, and breaking the Sabbath day,
And sins that I will not speak of, sins that all of you know.—
But oh the blood of the Lamb, it will wash you whiter than snow.”
Always he came back to that, the blood that was shed for sin,
Cleansing our way on the earth, and purging the soul within;
He showed to me all my guilt, he showed me the love of God
Until I wept at the plague of my heart, and the way I had trod,
And the pity that sought me out, and the grace that died for me;
And all were sobbing and swaying about like the waves of the sea.
Then one dropped on the floor, and writhed in a foaming fit;
“Glory to God,” cried the preacher, “He'll snaffle the fiend with his bit;
Let her alone; while the devil is wrestling with her we will pray;
Peace will come like the stars, and light as the dawn of the day.”
Then another was smitten, and lay there with never a breath
In her thin nostril, it seemed, and pallid and cold as death;
I thought she was gone, till at length a smile of serenest grace
Broke on her lips, and beamed all over her lovely face.
She was the first to find Peace, and she said, “I have seen my love;
He's not in the depths of the ocean, but high in the heavens above;
His head is not twined round with tangles, but wreathed with a wreath of palm,
And lo! in his hand is a harp, and loud in his mouth is a psalm.”
(Her lover was drowned last spring, and his body had never been found,
Till she saw him by faith, in her trance, robed in white raiment, and crowned.)
Thus it went on for hours, at first with the women, but then,
Ere long, the power and the wonder smote the strong hearts of the men;
Awed and amazed I stood, unable to stir from the place,
Sometimes thinking my heart might be touched by its marvellous grace,
Sometimes feeling my flesh creep at an unearthly voice,
Sometimes thrilling to hear their songs who for joy did rejoice.
At length there fell a great calm, and the lights were glimmering dim,
And the moon was low in the heaven, when we sang the parting hymn.

On the way homeward I said, “Surely the Lord was there”;
And he, “No doubt, and up in yon star too, and everywhere;
Hard to say where He is not. Wonderful? Yes, I admit;
Hard to say what is not wonderful, when you look closely at it;
Why, I have wondered for hours at a flower, or a lichened stone,
Or star-moss red on the heath, or a star-fish dry as a bone
On the grey shore, till the tide-wave brought back the pulses of life.
But does not yon queer evangelist tell a good story, dear wife?
Done them some good, you think? Ah! well, we will hope so at least;
God is a chemist who works with stuff that would sicken a priest.
I think it did good to that girl whose lover was drowned at sea,
Gave her some comfort she needed; but it would not do good to me!”
Thus I come home heavy-hearted; he always is ready to mock,
Turning from anything serious, still with a good-humoured joke.