“Do you know God?” the preacher asked at the riverside on Sunday afternoon and Edward Dundas could not honestly say that he did. Upstream the river cascaded under a bridge and flowed noisily past back gardens on one side of the village but down here in the riv
er bottoms it moved sluggishly, flooding its rushy banks and submerging low lying winter meadows. Edward followed the river downstream from the village that Sunday afternoon to the field where a congregation gathered to listen to a tramp preacher who came to call them to salvation. “Do you know God?” the preacher asked and Edward knew that he did not.
For five years he had served his time, diligently and honestly, to Mr Bert Johnston, grocer and general merchant of Derrygonnelly. Mr and Mrs Johnston were satisfied with his hard work and good character. “A young man who has passed through a village as sinful as Derrygonnelly without a stain on his character is a young man who can go anywhere,” Mrs Johnston said. It was the day Mr Johnston announced that Edward, having served his time satisfactorily, would in future receive a wage of seven shillings a week.
But was it enough to be blameless? Was that enough to secure salvation? Edward asked the rector of the village church. “You think too deeply,” the rector said. “Why don’t you buy yourself a raquet and join the badminton club? Thursday night. Eight o’clock in the hall. You’ll meet other young people. That will keep you from brooding.”
Edward bought a raquet and a pair of white canvas shoes. He quickly mastered the art of sending a shuttlecock flying over a net and was soon being invited to partner various young ladies to play foursomes. However his misgivings persisted.
He would have asked Mr Johnston for advice except that he doubted Mr Johnston knew the road to salvation. He was a God fearing Presbyterian who read daily in his Bible and rarely missed church on Sunday but he had the defect, common among businessmen, that he kept religious belief separate from his business practices. Edward could not have accused Mr Johnston of dishonest dealing yet it was on his instructions that he filled tea and sugar into bags before weighing them so that paper bags could be sold at the same price per pound as tea and sugar. When farmers’ wives came into the shop to sell their butter, Mr Johnston directed Edward to unwrap butter from its wrapping of greaseproof paper wrapping and place it into a clean dish that weighed five and a half ounces. When the weight of the dish was subtracted from the total weight of butter and dish, Mr Johnston paid for the exact weight of butter, but not for any weight of greaseproof paper.
Mrs Johnston was generally called into the shop at that point, to taste the butter. If it was tainted or tasted of a poorly scalded churn, there was a deduction of a penny from the price per pound. In wintertime butter was pale because cows were being foddered with hay instead of grazing on grass and there was a further deduction of a halfpenny per pound from housewives who neglected to add grated carrot to the churn to colour the butter. It might have been a fair and honest arrangement if the selling price reflected these deductions but it did not. Instead, the butter was stacked indiscriminately on a slate slab in the cool store and customers paid the same price for butter, no matter what its colour or taste.
Besides Mr Johnston and Mrs Johnston were worldly. Mr Johnston came from behind the counter to greet customers who were wealthy and proud. Mrs Johnston mocked the poverty of women from the thatched cottages on the edge of the village who sometimes asked for a loaf of bread or two ounces of tea on account. When Mr Johnston caught Edward lending a shilling out of his own pocket to a woman who came with a raggle taggle of children hanging at her skirts to ask for credit, he took him aside and reprimanded him. “Don’t encourage the likes of them. If it gets out that you’ve lent that one a shilling we’ll be overrun with the whole trash of the countryside. We don’t want that, do we?”
Perhaps not. Nevertheless, Edward felt it was not how Jesus Christ would have run a general grocery and hardware store.
Each night he knelt at his bedside in the small back bedroom he occupied above the store and asked God to reveal himself. Night after night God ignored his request. December came and he worked late in the shop, wrapping Christmas gifts for giving to customers. He used colourful Christmas paper to wrap tins of biscuits for superior customers. They were people who spent money thoughtlessly on luxuries such as canned sardines or jars of chutney or exotic fruits and ginger crystallized and packed in pretty boxes. He used plain white paper to make up pokes of sweets for the farmers’ wives who came to the shop to buy tea, sugar and flour, the things that they could not produce themselves, on their farms. Mr and Mrs Johnston said goodnight and went to bed but Edward decided to work until midnight, when the Sabbath would begin.
Although he was tired when at last he went upstairs, he did not forget to kneel in prayer at his bedside. It was the night of solstice, the darkest hour of the deep midnight of the year. To Edward it seemed that his soul struggled against a darkness deeper than the night. What if he were to die in that moment? What if he died without ever knowing God? “Help me,” he called out, forgetful of Mr and Mrs Johnston alseep in the front bedroom. “Lord help me,” he cried aloud out of the dark loneliness of his soul.
A voice answered. It said, “Come to me.”
“Lord?” Edward trembled. He did not dare raise his bowed head.
“Come, my son,” the voice said.
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
Light filled the small back bedroom. Edward raised his head and looked at the light. It poured over him like a baptism and God took possession of his heart. “Do you know me now?” God asked.
“Yes, Lord, I know you.”
For five years he had served his time, diligently and honestly, to Mr Bert Johnston, grocer and general merchant of Derrygonnelly. Mr and Mrs Johnston were satisfied with his hard work and good character. “A young man who has passed through a village as sinful as Derrygonnelly without a stain on his character is a young man who can go anywhere,” Mrs Johnston said. It was the day Mr Johnston announced that Edward, having served his time satisfactorily, would in future receive a wage of seven shillings a week.
But was it enough to be blameless? Was that enough to secure salvation? Edward asked the rector of the village church. “You think too deeply,” the rector said. “Why don’t you buy yourself a raquet and join the badminton club? Thursday night. Eight o’clock in the hall. You’ll meet other young people. That will keep you from brooding.”
Edward bought a raquet and a pair of white canvas shoes. He quickly mastered the art of sending a shuttlecock flying over a net and was soon being invited to partner various young ladies to play foursomes. However his misgivings persisted.
He would have asked Mr Johnston for advice except that he doubted Mr Johnston knew the road to salvation. He was a God fearing Presbyterian who read daily in his Bible and rarely missed church on Sunday but he had the defect, common among businessmen, that he kept religious belief separate from his business practices. Edward could not have accused Mr Johnston of dishonest dealing yet it was on his instructions that he filled tea and sugar into bags before weighing them so that paper bags could be sold at the same price per pound as tea and sugar. When farmers’ wives came into the shop to sell their butter, Mr Johnston directed Edward to unwrap butter from its wrapping of greaseproof paper wrapping and place it into a clean dish that weighed five and a half ounces. When the weight of the dish was subtracted from the total weight of butter and dish, Mr Johnston paid for the exact weight of butter, but not for any weight of greaseproof paper.
Mrs Johnston was generally called into the shop at that point, to taste the butter. If it was tainted or tasted of a poorly scalded churn, there was a deduction of a penny from the price per pound. In wintertime butter was pale because cows were being foddered with hay instead of grazing on grass and there was a further deduction of a halfpenny per pound from housewives who neglected to add grated carrot to the churn to colour the butter. It might have been a fair and honest arrangement if the selling price reflected these deductions but it did not. Instead, the butter was stacked indiscriminately on a slate slab in the cool store and customers paid the same price for butter, no matter what its colour or taste.
Besides Mr Johnston and Mrs Johnston were worldly. Mr Johnston came from behind the counter to greet customers who were wealthy and proud. Mrs Johnston mocked the poverty of women from the thatched cottages on the edge of the village who sometimes asked for a loaf of bread or two ounces of tea on account. When Mr Johnston caught Edward lending a shilling out of his own pocket to a woman who came with a raggle taggle of children hanging at her skirts to ask for credit, he took him aside and reprimanded him. “Don’t encourage the likes of them. If it gets out that you’ve lent that one a shilling we’ll be overrun with the whole trash of the countryside. We don’t want that, do we?”
Perhaps not. Nevertheless, Edward felt it was not how Jesus Christ would have run a general grocery and hardware store.
Each night he knelt at his bedside in the small back bedroom he occupied above the store and asked God to reveal himself. Night after night God ignored his request. December came and he worked late in the shop, wrapping Christmas gifts for giving to customers. He used colourful Christmas paper to wrap tins of biscuits for superior customers. They were people who spent money thoughtlessly on luxuries such as canned sardines or jars of chutney or exotic fruits and ginger crystallized and packed in pretty boxes. He used plain white paper to make up pokes of sweets for the farmers’ wives who came to the shop to buy tea, sugar and flour, the things that they could not produce themselves, on their farms. Mr and Mrs Johnston said goodnight and went to bed but Edward decided to work until midnight, when the Sabbath would begin.
Although he was tired when at last he went upstairs, he did not forget to kneel in prayer at his bedside. It was the night of solstice, the darkest hour of the deep midnight of the year. To Edward it seemed that his soul struggled against a darkness deeper than the night. What if he were to die in that moment? What if he died without ever knowing God? “Help me,” he called out, forgetful of Mr and Mrs Johnston alseep in the front bedroom. “Lord help me,” he cried aloud out of the dark loneliness of his soul.
A voice answered. It said, “Come to me.”
“Lord?” Edward trembled. He did not dare raise his bowed head.
“Come, my son,” the voice said.
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
Light filled the small back bedroom. Edward raised his head and looked at the light. It poured over him like a baptism and God took possession of his heart. “Do you know me now?” God asked.
“Yes, Lord, I know you.”
1 comment:
Hallelujah Jones woz 'ere thinkin' about Edward Dundas
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