| CHAPTER I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI. |
AN AUTUMN SOWING
BY
E. F. BENSON
LONDON: 48 PALL MALL
W. COLLINS SONS & CO. LTD.
GLASGOW MELBOURNE AUCKLAND
| Copyright | ||
| First | Impression, | November, 1917 |
| Second | ” | November, 1917 |
| Third | ” | October, 1919 |
CHAPTER I
Mr Keeling had expected an edifying half-hour when Dr Inglis gave out ashis text, ‘There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth,’ and as thediscourse proceeded, he felt that his anticipations were amplyjustified. Based on this unshakable foundation, and buttressed by otherstalwart pronouncements, the doctrine of eternal damnation wore a verysafe and solid aspect. It was the justice of it that appealed to MrKeeling. Mankind had been warned in a perfectly unmistakable manner thatif they persisted in certain courses of action and in certaininabilities to believe, they would be punished for ever and ever. Thatwas fair, that was reasonable: rules were made to be obeyed. If you weretruly sorry for having disobeyed them, a secondary principle, calledmercy, came to the succour of the repentant. But Dr Inglis did not sayso much about that. He was concerned with the inflexibility of his text.
It is said that a man’s conduct is coloured and inspired by hisreligion, but it is equally true to say of another and more numerousclass that their religion is coloured and inspired by their conduct.{2}Certainly that was the case with Mr Keeling. His life did not so muchspring out of his religion, as his religion out of his life; and what hefelt every Sunday morning and evening in church was the fruit, the sternhoney distilled, so to speak, from the mental and moral integrity whichhad pervaded him from Monday till Saturday inclusive. All the week thebees collected that store of provender which was transmuted into theframe of mind which was equivalent in him to religion. It did not in thesmallest degree enter into his week-day life: his week-day life secretedit, and he found it very well expressed for him in the sermon of DrInglis and the fiercer of King David’s psalms. The uprightness, honesty,and industry which he demanded from himself he demanded also fromothers; but it was not his religion that inspired those excellentqualities. They inspired it.
Mr Keeling sat at one end of the varnished pitch-pine pew with hischildren in a row betwe