Psalm
The Lord loves those who hate evil; he guards the lives of his faithful; he rescues them from the hand of the wicked.
Light dawns for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart.
Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous, and give thanks to his holy name!
Psalm 97:10-12

Meditation
There is nothing theoretical in the faith recommended in the scriptures. It is wholly of a practical nature, and demonstrates its genuineness by its effects. In purifying the heart, and reconciling us to God and by means of these virtues enabling us to overcome the world, faith is most triumphant and victorious.
Walter Scott, The Gospel Restored, 295-296

Scripture
And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”
Matthew 17:18-21

Prayer
Jesus, I believe but increase my faith. May I live faithfully this day, trusting you to guard me.

Psalm
God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.
Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises.
For God is the king of all the earth; sing praises with a psalm.
Psalm 47:5-7
Meditation
But his saints will glorify and extol his great name and hold him in eternal admiration. He will be admired by all them that believe.
Walter Scott, The Gospel Restored, 569

Scripture
And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and inside. Day and night without ceasing they sing, “Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty, who was and is and is to come.” And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to the one who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall before the one who is seated on the throne and worship the one who lives forever and ever; they cast their crowns before the throne, singing, “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”
Revelation 4:8-11
Prayer
Holy God, I look forward to that day when I see you face to face and glorify you forever. Even now, grant that I might catch a glimpse of your glory and live this day in praise.

Lawson, Gilchrist

Although Sir Walter Scott…was surrounded by a library of 40,000 books on his death-bed he said…”Bring me the Book.”  When asked what book…he replied “There is only ONE Book…” - Greatest Thoughts About the Bible (Cincinnati: The Standard Publishing Co, 1918), 29.

Thomas Campbell

The following is a transcript of Flavil Yeakley’s talk this past week at the College Church of Christ in Searcy, AR.

Dr. Yeakley is a friend, and I appreciate what he has to say:

Last Sunday we noted the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the College Church of Christ. It is good for a congregation to reflect on its roots. If we forget our history, we are in danger of losing our identity. We need to remember that we are warming ourselves beside fires we did not build. We are drinking from wells we did not dig. We owe a great debt of gratitude to those who have gone before us. Did you know that a short person can see farther than a giant-if the short person stands on the shoulders of the giant. We stand today, as it were, on the shoulders of the giants of yesterday.

One of the giants we should remember was Thomas Campbell. And this year marks the 200th anniversary of what many regard as his greatest contribution. Thomas Campbell was the principle author of a document called the Declaration and Address published in the fall of 1809. Imbedded in this document are some ideas that contributed significantly to what most of us have called the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement. Historically, Churches of Christ in the United States, are heirs of that movement. So are the Christian Churches and the Disciples of Christ.

Considered together, these Restoration Movement heirs in the United States have almost 22,000 congregations with 3.2 million members and 4.1 million adherents (counting members and their children). The only denominations in America that claim more members are the Catholics, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, and Mormons. The heirs of this Restoration Movement clearly constitute one of America’s largest indigenous religious movements. And it grew out of ideas Thomas Campbell expressed in the Declaration and Address.

But to understand his contributions, we really need to go back and look at the conditions among those who claimed to be followers of Jesus Christ in that period of history. Thomas Campbell was born in 1763 in Northern Ireland. Protestants and Catholics were fighting even back then. There were long years of war throughout Europe in which Catholics and Protestants were
killing each other. And Protestants were persecuting other Protestants. The Catholic Church and most Protestant churches were highly sectarian at that time. Each claimed that it was the one and only true church and that all other believers were lost. Each claimed that it had all the truth or preached only the truth.

A sectarian spirit says “The only true church is made up of me and all the others who agree with me on all issues that I define as being important.” The sectarian spirit causes one to draw the fellowship circle smaller and smaller until finally it is like the man who said that the only ones going to heaven were “Me, my wife, our son John, and his wife-us four and no more.” Or like the old Quaker who said to his wife, “Me and thee are the only righteous souls in all the earth and oft times I have serious doubts about thee.”

Both Thomas and Alexander Campbell belonged to the Anti-Burgher, Seceder branch of the Presbyterian church of Scotland. Church members had to be examined by the minister to make sure that they were right on all doctrinal issues before they were allowed to take communion. Thomas Campbell and his son Alexander Campbell independently came to the conclusion that such sectarian division was wrong. The rejection of sectarianism was a central theme in the Declaration and Address.

What we now believe and teach and practice in Churches of Christ reflects many of those principles imbedded in the Declaration and Address. Eventually most Protestant denominations came to share the view that sectarianism was wrong. But their “solution” was often to still push their peculiar doctrines and settle for fellowship with others but with little unity. On the other hand, there developed an Ecumenical Movement that sought the merger of denominational organizations while ignoring the doctrinal differences of the people involved.

The view of Thomas Campbell and those who came after him was that doctrine is important, the Bible is essential, but man-made creeds and man-made denominations are not. From Thomas Campbell’s ideas came such slogans as these: “Speak where the Bible speaks and remain silent where the Bible is silent.”

“In matters of faith, unity; in matters of opinion, liberty; and in all things, charity.”

“Go back to the Bible – Restore the Christianity of the New Testament.”

Doing that produced these characteristics shared by most heirs of this Restoration Movement:

• Immersion for the forgiveness of sins; baptism for believers only-no infant baptism;
• Weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper;
• Rejection of man-made creeds and a call for unity on the basis of the Bible as the final authority;
• The responsibility for each one of us to study the Bible for ourselves and submit only to what they understand the Bible to teach.

Over the years, brethren added some expedient things to this list, which future generations began to be considered mandatory and essential for fellowship. As we remember Thomas Campbell and the pioneering work he did in writing the Declaration and Address, there may be a tendency for some Restoration Movement heirs to remember his Back to the Bible plea and overlook Jesus’ plea for unity. They require uniformity not only of practice but of thought. Among others, the focus is on what he said about unity and neglect his Back to the Bible plea for the restoration of revealed Christianity. We need to remember both. While Campbell’s plea for unity was to be Bible based rather than on traditional creeds of the times, the plea for unity among believers goes back much more than 200 years. It goes back 2,000 years to Paul’s plea that “There be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.” It goes back to the prayer of Jesus that all who would believe in him would be one, in perfect unity. It is an elusive goal. Each must have the mind of Christ.

Unity starts in each local congregation. We must learn to love and respect one another in spite of our differences. We must not confuse unity with complete uniformity of belief and practice. It didn’t happen in New Testament churches, and can never happen unless one person does all the thinking and deciding. We must realize that erring brethren are the only kind of brethren we have. There are no infallible ones among us. That is just the human condition and it includes each one of us. It is a limitation imposed on us by God. He is God and we are not. But we can differ without dividing. We can have discussion without having discord. We can have dialogue without digression. We can disagree without being disagreeable. We can have diversity without having division. It is good for us to honor the memory of such giants as Thomas and Alexander Campbell, Barton Stone, Walter Scott and other pioneers from that first generation of the Restoration Movement-and more recent heroes such as David Lipscomb, James A. Harding, and J.N. Armstrong. But we would not be true to them, to ourselves, or to our God if we blindly followed these men instead of doing as they did and search the Scriptures as our guide. They encouraged us to do the same. But we can be inspired by the example of what they did, even though each of us may not fully agree with everything that any of these men did and taught. The ones who followed these restoration principles wanted to be Christians only. It never dawned on them to think of themselves as being the only Christians.

The Restoration Movement is not over. It is a process that must continue in each generation until the Lord returns.

I agree with his last line depending on what you mean by “Restoration Movement.”

Jesus is definately in the business of restoration!

The real Robert Roy McGregor ended his life in peace, although there had been so much violence around him. The film starring Liam Neeson is about other episodes from his life than those in Walter Scott’s novel. The novel is somewhat difficult to read because of the Scottish dialect. I like to hear it spoken, but reading it in transcription not that much. I leave the last word to Andrew Fairservice, the worthy countryman:

Our ain reek’s better than other folk’s fire.

Our own smoke is better than the fire of others. There is no place like home.  It is Friday night, and soon I will put my TV on to watch the crime series  “Taggart” – from Scotland!

Psalm
Rise up, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand; do not forget the oppressed.
Why do the wicked renounce God, and say in their hearts, “You will not call us to account”?
But you do see! Indeed you note trouble and grief, that you may take it into your hands;
the helpless commit themselves to you; you have been the helper of the orphan.
Psalm 10:12-14

Meditation
Let us now look at this beautiful creation by the Spirit, when emancipated from the frailty of death, the travail and groans of the present order of things, and ushered into the glorious liberty of the angels, being now both children of God and of the resurrection.
Walter Scott, The Gospel Restored, 567

Scripture
They were all weeping and wailing for her; but he said, “Do not weep; for she is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. But he took her by the hand and called out, “Child, get up!” Her spirit returned, and she got up at once. Then he directed them to give her something to eat. Her parents were astounded; but he ordered them to tell no one what had happened.
Luke 8:52-56

Prayer
God of life, as you gave this young girl new life through the power of Jesus, so let me by the power of the Spirit be born anew, looking forward to the resurrection of my body.

“I beg a truce to your terrors in the present case, Andrew, and I wish to
know whether you can direct me the nearest way to a town in your country
of Scotland, called Glasgow?”

“A town ca’d Glasgow!” echoed Andrew Fairservice. “Glasgow’s a ceety,
man.–And is’t the way to Glasgow ye were speering if I ken’d?–What suld
ail me to ken it?–it’s no that dooms far frae my ain parish of
Dreepdaily, that lies a bittock farther to the west. But what may your
honour be gaun to Glasgow for?”

“Particular business,” replied I.

From Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott,  vol II chapter 1.

I am reading it right now, and sure it brings memories!

We have all seen it before: author writes breakout bestseller and then proceeds to dwindle back into anonymity after his/her second book fails to capture the public imagination in the way the first did. I think this is often considered a modern phenomenon, as authors are under more pressure to perform the second time around (or there may be no third time) and as publishers become more concerned with making a profit after big advances. Just to think of a two examples, the hype surrounding Dan Brown’s latest Langdon nonsense (admittedly, not simply his second book, but still) and the articles about Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love follow-up troubles are enough to show that the second book syndrome (if you will) is definitely a problem still plaguing the writers among us.

But what about authors of “classics” whose current and long-lasting success in relation to one of their books has caused us modern readers to forget all the duds that came before and after that one classic? I’m thinking Rob Roy (Sir Walter Scott’s follow-up to Waverly) or The Black Arrow (Robert Louis Stevenson’s “other book” after Treasure Island) or even all of Arthur Conan Doyle’s post-Holmes “historical novels” (Micah Clarke, Rodney Stone, and Sir Nigel to name a few fairly forgotten ones).

Thinking about this and also perusing used book shops and fairs resulted in me purchasing The Black Arrow by the aforementioned Stevenson and giving it a go despite my misgivings about Rob Roy.

While I have not finished the book yet and Stevenson seems entirely too prone to the frustrating habit of writing out accents (also like Rob Roy, but in this case substituting almost every instance of “the” or “you” with “ye” and “thou”), I must say I am thus far pleased with Stevenson’s sophomore outing for a few reasons. Firstly, there is Stevenson’s own self-deprecating introduction wherein he frets about people not liking Arrow as much as they loved Treasure Island. His awareness of the second book syndrome at first worried me, since that would suggest pressure on Arrow and perhaps produce a lesser novel, but then I decided I liked that he acknowledged where his readers were coming from rather than ignoring the elephant in the room (Treasure Island). He recognized that it was an iconic work and hoped that, all the same, people would still read and appreciate Arrow apart from Treasure Island.

Secondly, there is the wonderful historic coincidence that Stevenson based his characters and story on the Paston Letters! Having read Helen Castor’s book about the Pastons, I was thrilled to discover a fictionalized account of that story. I’m also extremely happy that an author such as Stevenson discovered them and realized the narrative potential of the family.

Those two aspects of the book aside, so far I am enjoying the rather ambling, boy-adventure story that Stevenson so clearly excels at writing (as he would later once again prove with Kidnapped). The Black Arrow may not be his classic work, but I think it is still very good and I look forward to what will undoubtedly be a climatic conclusion. At this moment in my readings, Stevenson is definitely winning over Dan Brown, Doyle, and Scott, but I’ll keep you posted!

Psalm
I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness, and sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.
Psalm 7:17

Meditation
The presence of God in the soul is like the presence of God in heaven—full of glory and joy. Our life is divine only as we dwell in his presence and walk in him—the invisible God. Our religious character resolves itself into our mental devotion in the first instance, which will be characterized by poverty or fullness according to the nature of our faith.
Walter Scott, The Messiahship, 354

Scripture
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.
Titus 2:11-14

Prayer
Loving God, may I be aware of your presence today so that I might live a self-controlled, upright, and godly life.

The story that got me hooked on G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown detective works is called “The Strange Crime of John Boulnois.”  Here are some of the reasons I like this story: the hero is a professional philosopher; it features a murder committed with a rapier with big red jewels in the hilt; and it has a seductive sense of landscape.

The picture at left is from a book referred to in the Chesterton story, The Bride of Lammermoor. One of the characters in the Scott book is Edgar, Master of Ravenswood.  I mention this only because it gives a tiny bit of background to aid in reading the following passage.  The scene takes place in the evening at the estate of Pendragon Park just as the murder is about to occur. A character named Calhoun Kidd is walking into the estate.

And turning the corner by the the open lodge-gates, he set off, stumping up the long avenue of black pine-woods that pointed in abrupt perspective towards the inner gardens of Pendragon Park.  The trees were as black and orderly as plumes upon a hearse; there were still a few stars.  He was a man with more literary than direct natural associations; the word “Ravenswood” came into his head repeatedly.  It was partly the raven colour of the pine-woods; but partly also an indescribable atmosphere almost described in Scott’s great tragedy: the smell of something that died in the eighteenth century; the smell of dank gardens and broken urns, of wrongs that will never now be righted; of something that is none the less incurably sad because it is strangely unreal.

Aw, I love this stuff.

(A natural stone arch on Mackinaw Island, Michigan)

The Immutable Kingdom – Part 66

By Scott A. Klaft

Moses E. Lard continued

His curiosity already piqued, someone placed in his hands a copy of the book, Gospel Restored by Walter Scott. Moses Lard devoured it. A few years later, Scott made a trip to Missouri, and Lard met him for the first time. He immediately threw his arms around Scott, exclaiming, “Brother Scott, you are the man who first taught me the gospel.”

Lard was immersed and preached his first sermon in Clay County. He was soon given preaching engagements in Richmond and Lexington, Missouri, all the while, practicing his trade as a tailor. It was in Lexington that he became acquainted with Jacob and Ruth Riffe, who had a daughter, Mary, who possessed his very sincere interest. The two were soon married; and, by 1845, the Lard family happily had two children.

At the time, education was costly. With his responsibilities of a wife and children to support, to think of going to school seemed out of the question. Nevertheless, at Richmond, Lard had become good friends with General Alexander W. Doniphan, one of Missouri’s most prominent citizens and a devoted Christian. The General encouraged Lard to make the sacrifice and begin schooling at Bethany College (founded by Alexander Campbell). On March 4, 1845, he determined to enroll.

The structure of the school proved advantageous to Lard because he discovered that the students “are not restricted to a fixed routine of classes requiring attendance at College a certain number of years, without regard to age or proficiency.” The more mature minds could make rapid progress without being held longer because of class orientation; and, therefore, a man could enter the College later in life; and, by determination and proper application of his efforts, he could complete the requirements in much less time. Lard turned a four-year course into three. While holding down a job in physical labor, he graduated as valedictorian of his class.

From the tremendous depths of his heart, Lard wrote to Alexander Campbell, expressing his gratitude for all that had been done for him:

“Four years and four months ago, strange, homeless, penniless, and untaught, I landed a stranger at Bethany College. It was my fixed purpose, though encumbered with the responsibilities of a family, to qualify myself for more extended and enlightened usefulness. This object, the first and nearest to my heart, I wanted the means to accomplish.”

He continues in reference to the letter sent to him by Alexander Campbell that finally brought him to the school:

“For which, and for the disinterested and cordial manner in which you have so often aided me when want bore heavy on me, I owe you the gratitude which I have no power to express.”

For a man of his communicative skill, that was saying a great deal. He continued:

“To my friends and brethren in Christ, W. K. Pendleton and J. O. Ewing, I am under the strongest obligations. Friends, they proved themselves to be when I needed friends. They have untied their purse-strings and tendered me their gentlemanly aid at times and in ways of which I cannot think without the tear of grateful remembrance starting in my eye.”

Between 1848 and 1850, he moved his family back to Missouri, changing locations several times, but in the meantime, developing his skills as a preacher. Like all young preachers, he made several blunders and received many criticisms. Jacob Warrinner was the older preacher who proved a true friend; with a pat on the shoulder and a word of encouragement: “Go on, my son, you have done well, be thoughtful and persevere; and when I am gone, you will be a man.”

Nearly all preachers owe some portion of their success to the encouragement, whether great or small, from some older preacher. No one had farther to go in development than Lard. Yet, he trudged his course by the encouragement of the Lord as well as others who saw the potential that lay within him for greatness, coupled with the adamant determination of his own spirit.

(Continued next week)

Margaret Oliphant (1828-97)

Dear Friends,

For a few weeks now I’ve been sustained by two books, sometimes reading them at night, sometimes in the car as I sit next to Jim while he drives. One, Margaret Drabble’s The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws, I’ve written about on Reveries under the Sign of Austen as having to do with the 18th century (she even quotes Austen on jigsaw puzzles centrally).
The other, Margaret Oliphant’s Phoebe, Junior, a final Chronicle of Carlingford (1876) I’ll write about here as the first of a (I hope) few postings on Oliphant as a great Victorian author.

Tonight I mean to recommend Phoebe Junior, the last of her Carlingford novels, a series of cyclical books written partly in imitatio of Anthony Trollope’s Barchester novels, and then set the novels against the background of her other remarkable books.

Cover illustration for Virago edition of Phoebe Junior: Victor Corcos (1859-1933), In a Garden

The novel swirls around the lives of several groups of characters connected through their religion, family, and place. They may be grouped by age, class status, and whether they are dissenters or church of England (establishment). The major figure is the young woman Phoebe Beecham (junior); her mother was Phoebe Tozer. Phoebe “junior” is a young woman brought up to be genteel since her mother got out of Carlingford and married a rising clergyman, rising in dissenter circles. Phoebe Junior is highly intelligent, discreet, and ambitious, at once kind and worldly, strong, capable of highly unconventional behavior. She is the alter ago for Oliphant herself.

The story begins when Phoebe’s grandmother Tozer falls very ill in Carlingford. Despite Phobe Senior’s strong reluctance to return her daughter to her lower class origins as the grandchild of storekeepers, rather than allow a sister-in-law and brother to get close to this grandmother and thus inherit needed money, Phoebe senior sends her Phoebe Junior back to Carlingford. Phoebe Junior is to nurse said Grandmother and live with said Grandfather — and keep other grasping relatives at a distance. By living with these shopkeepers (gasp!), Phoebe is coming down in the world and may not be visited by upper class people; she may end up isolated, and have no where to wear all the lovely clothes her mother can now provide for her.

We discover Phoebe Junior is a strong-minded young woman and can withstand having to go live with older people totally out of sympathy with her. She has strong self-esteem, but the theme here is one that appeals much to me: Oliphant makes it explicit: Says Mrs Sam Hurst (one of the older women characters in Carlingford itself): “That is all you know girls” [to the Mays], you don’t know the plague of relations, and how people have got to humble themselves to keep money in the family, or keep up appearances, espeically people that have risen in the world” (Virago ed, p 98).

Oliphant shows the elder Tozers to be irritating, continually nagging or bothering Phoebe to dress in ways she knows are inferior, never once convinced or moved out of their narrow thoughts. How she endures this I don’t know except that the social life elsewhere supposedly higher is not much fun either.

I would not call this satire, but rather hard depiction of realities and I’m not sure that one does have to humble oneself. Phoebe need not have gone. Her mother said so. They might have lost the money and could have done without it. Phoebe goes as a challenge; after all, like Lucilla (Miss Majoribanks, another of the Carlingford novels which I read half-way through) Phoebe hasn’t got much to do.

A second set of young women are the Mays: Ursula and Janey, and the interest (fascination) there is while they are members of the Church of England, by culture they are not very genteel, or no more genteel than the dissenters. In fact (though Ursula and Janey are unaware of it), they are on the edge of economic disaster. Ursula is very ordinary in understanding, even a bit dull, but most of the time well-meaning enough. She is not idealized either, not a bad sort, but imperceptive and egoistic. Ursula is decent to her younger sister, Janey, not out and thus cut off from any pleasure. Austen’s Elizabeth’s comment on the practice of not allowing young women who are the second in age to be “out” is germane here. It does not encourage sisterly feeling, but we see Janey and Ursula rise above jealousy. Oliphant is still making the same point about the unfairness of this.

In an opening sequence, at an assembly Ursula (all in white) and Phoebe (in black) to to a party set up and paid for by the wealthy dissenting older couple, the Copperheads. Phoebe and Ursula end up vying for the attention of Clarence Copperhead who is tall, heavy, and much duller than the other central young heroines and heroes of the novel, but, as is true in the world, sensitive enough about his own ego and pride, out to get what advantages, power, money, enjoyment he can out of life. Clarence perceives that Phoebe would make him the best wife. He is being sent by his father, Mr Copperhead for improvements in education to Ursula and Janey’s father, a Church of England Minister, Mr May.

Oliphant’s characterization of May and development of his character is the most powerful in the book. Cultivated, intelligent when it comes to books, an establishment gentleman, May doesn’t make enough money to support his genteel upper class lifestyle, and continually overspends. So he has been getting on for years by maneuvring someone beneath him, dependent on him, to sign his bills, and who is it but the wealthy grocer Tozer and another tradesman who needs his business and contacts, Cotsdean. May is actually nasty, narrow, and sordid in his human appetites, and only plausible in company (he pretends to respect and like Phoebe and fools her about this). Mrs Sam Hurst would be willing to marry this horror of a man. So would many another woman in the novel.

What Mr May has done is forge Tozer’s signature to a bill Cotsdead took for him to the bank. Like in Austen’s fiction, he is no ogre, and someone utterly in tune with the rest of social life (Phoebe doesn’t suspect anything of what his real mind and characters are). His crime recalls what Trollope’s Josiah Crawley is accused of but did not do.

Mr May has driven his son, Reginald, to take a position which is very like that of Trollope’s Mr Harding. Reginald will be a warden of six old man with a (smaller) sinecure. Reginald, handsome, perceptive, cultivated like his father, is the first of our young heroes. We see how difficult it is for a young gentleman to place in a way Trollope doesn’t quite bring home because Trollope usually doesn’t take us into this level of desperation and jockeying for position most of the time. (We do see it in The Three Clerks.) Reginald falls in love with Phoebe — a man of the church, in love with a female dissenter. But their educational level is the same, though Reginald is not as bright as

Horace Northcote, our second hero. Northcote is a brilliant honest dissenting young man, working for radical causes (the Liberation society) and has attacked Reginald for taking one of these sinecures, but his real target is the established church itself. He is better off financially than Reginald, but when we go for a walk with them to a beautiful church on the warden’s grounds we are made to see or feel the advantage Reginald has in sense of security and meaning to be placed in a world of centuries old art and tradition. Even if Reginald’s way of spending his days is among the ignorant individual poor, while Northcote seems to do higher political things, Northcote’s life is diminished by his not having connection to this tradition.

Now Northcote feels for Ursula; he sees her father, Mr May, bullying and harassing and embarrassing her by complaining about the meals he insists she concoct up for his resident pupil, Clarence Copperhead. Northcote feels such sympathy for Ursula. He is so attracted to her sweetness, he thinks he is in love with her, and begins to court her to her surprize, fear, and delight. Ursula does not love him equally in return because she is not capable of this, but she is alive to the power of the man’s mind and handsomeness, and possibility of a happy life with him.

Class issues are very painful in this novel, and they intersect with gender ones.

Cover illustration for Penguin edition of Miss Marjoribanks: James Tissot (1836-1902), The Rivals

The Copperheads are where we begin the story, with the assembly party they throw for other dissenters and which establishment people will come. Mr Copperhead, a bully of a man who has made huge sums, coarse, show-offy, vulgar, and determined to make everyone admire him for his money which in fact most do. He buys art to show the price he paid for it. He sends his son Clarence to be educated by May, and the son is taken in because May is desperate for the fee and possibilities of further money through the connection.

Mrs Copperhead’s wife is miserable with him: she is sensitive, perceptive and lives an isolated life with no outlet for a real friend. Her best moments are with her son, Clarence who dull as he is, does love her. She is kind and buys things for the May girls, but it’s shown that she gets a good deal out of buying said stuff. No one does anything just like this out of the goodness of their hearts even if they have more than another. Mr Copperhead was very irritated by Clarence dancing with Ursula and Phoebe all evening as neither have the high rank or big money he wants for his son.

A final set of characters fills out the triangulations Oliphant works with. The Dorsets, upper class establishment people who don’t have quite enough money to live wealthily but just manage. Mr Dorset does not forge or embezzle; he prefers to live within his straitened means and we see how this hurts his pride and yet how his pride makes him look down on the Copperheads, Mays (who are lower in rank) and certainly all the dissenters.

There are two young women in the Dorset family: Anne and Sophy Dorset. They live in London, are well educated and perceptive, sophisticated in outlook. With their parents, they are willing to be patronized by the Copperheads (go to their parties, accept their invitations); Mr Copperhead of course despises them, and they dismiss him in their hearts. Anne, who is not going to marry, is the best or nicest person in the story thus far, 30 years old. We see her devoting her hours to a niece and nephew sent from India and her brother’s children, partly because she needs to be needed. She has the best values of anyone in the story and is probably the most exploited in a daily hourly way. Sophy her younger sister (say around 28) was jilted when a young man she loved discovered her father, Mr Dorset had not cultivated his connections and has minimal means. She has not gotten over this. Anne is very kind to Ursula when Ursula comes to visit, and Ursula is aware of this, grateful and sticks up for Anne when anyone denigrates her. It’s at such moments we see Ursula at her best.

Oliphant is strongly anti-romantic (she made fun of Jane Eyre) and her heroine, Phoebe, chooses to marry for money and ambition rather than love. In so doing she helps save Mr May to whom she is grateful for having her in his house where she meets and is courted by both Clarence Copperhead and Reginald May. There too she makes friends with Ursula, Janey and Northcote.

Oliphant puts a hard truthful view of social life before us. It’s what I am loving this novel for this time round. What I objected to in Miss Majoribanks (and it made me unable to finish it) was the value put on it by Lucilla who we are to find dislikable — even if satirized Oliphant wouldn’t write a book about it if she didn’t value it at some level and sympathize with Lucilla’s aspirations to petty tyrannnies and power. (It’s an Emma novel.)

What I like in Phoebe Junior is there is a much larger perspective, with at at the same time I think actually more alienation as Oliphant really shows us how some people have better things in them that make them suffer so and also the larger social monsters responsible (Mr May, Mr Copperhead).

In this Carlingford series Oliphant had the idea of doing for the level below the gentry and church of England what Trollope did for them in Barsetshire. We rarely have shopkeepers’ as major characters, much less their daughters. We do not see dissenters in this way at all — there is no harsh satire on their religion, and they seem to like pleasure as much as the next person (something Trollope will not allow). But like say Anna Barbauld and Elizabeth Gaskell, she shows how social circumstances and a lack of respect drives the dissenters to change their attitude to their religion and emulate upper class ways of worship and attitudes.

Cover illustration for Virago edition of Salem Chapel: John Callcott Horsley (1817-1903), Madame se chauffe

So three young women: Phoebe Beecham, Ursula May and (probably) Sophy Dorset, all delineated psychologically so as to suggest how they cope and how they have gotten to the point where they have probably fates. I at first thought Clarence Copperhead would go for Sophy though he seems to care more for his mother and food than anything else; and predicted the bully vulgar Mr Copperhead may stop it if Sophy doesn’t refuse, or the father may be charmed by the high status, hard to say as money is what he values. If Sophy does marry him, it will not be for love but to have a husband with money and means for her and her sister In fact Copperhead goes for and wins Phoebe, rather easily due to his money and status). Three young men: Reginald May, Horace Northcote, Clarence Copperhread, carefully delineated so as to project psychological, social, economic, humane themes. As men they are plugged or can be directly in to the society; the women must plug into the men. Fascinating older people: Mr May, Mr Copperhead, Mrs Beecham (Phoebe’s mother), Mrs Copperhead (poor woman), the elderly dull lower class vulgar Tozers (grandparents). And the single woman, Anne Dorset reminding me of Trollope’s Priscilla Stanbury (the wonderfully intelligent spinster of strong integrity in He Knew He Was Right) only much sweeter and not going to end up in a miserable cottage since her father has status and enough to keep her.

I love Oliphant’s truthfulness. No one in the novel is imagined as altruistic really beyond what is in their interests; momentarily they can be kind, and they can be sexually attracted or admire someone for something they want, but not beyond that.

And the psychological portraiture is candid: Copperhead is the son of a fantastically rich man, and not a total fool, but no sensitive insightful gentleman; his looks are commonplace, even dull from the outside (this is very Trollopian — I remember John Ball in Miss Mackenzie).

There are some strongly feminist passages in the book too. Take Phoebe’s sarcasm to the young man’s complacent assumption of their superiority:

‘To be sure,’ said Phoebe, ‘we are not so clever as you are, and can’t do so many things. We know no Latin or Greek to keep our minds instructed; we acknowledge our infirmity; and we couldn’t play football to save our lives. Football is what you do in this season, when you don’t hunt, and before the ice is bearing? We are poor creatures; we can’t parcel out our lives, according as it is time for football or cricket. You must not be so severe upon girls for being so inferior to you.’

But as stronger impulse is showing the coldness, selfishness, pragmaticism, value of status, money, and prestige in all human nature. Here’s what Phoebe thinks when she decides to marry Copperhead:

Phoebe had nothing to appeal to Heaven about, or to seek counsel from Nature upon, as sentimental people might do. She took counsel with herself, the person most interested. What was the thing she ought to do? Clarence Copperhead was going to propose to her. She did not even take the trouble of saying to herself that he loved her; it was Reginald who did that, a totally different person, but yet the other was more urgent. What was Phoebe to do? She did not dislike Clarence Copperhead, and it was no horror to her to think of marrying him. She had felt for years that this might be on the cards, and there were a great many things in it which demanded consideration. He was not very wise, nor a man to be enthusiastic about, but he would be a career to Phoebe. She did not think of it humbly like this, but with a big capital Career. Yes; she could put him into parliament, and keep him there. She could thrust him forward (she believed) to the front of affairs. He would be as good as a profession, a position, a great work to Phoebe. He meant wealth (which she dismissed in its superficial aspect as something meaningless and vulgar, but accepted in its higher aspect as an almost necessary condition of influence), and he meant all the possibilities of future power. Who can say that she was not as romantic as any girl of twenty could be? only her romance took an unusual form. It was her head that was full of throbbings and pulses, not her heart.

Instead of dreaming of prince charming (no matter how poor you see), Phoebe dreams of marrying a man who will give her a place, prestige, and work in the world as a society and politicizing wife — in the way Lady Glencora Palliser tries to be in The Prime Minister. Oliphant knows this kind of aspiration is not one conventionally acceptable. The above tone is not sardonic, but rather earnest. Merryn Williams, one of Oliphant’s biographers, says many readers would find Phoebe’s lack of idealism and romance unpleasant — and choice of husband.

And Oliphant does not slide over the boredom of choosing to live with a stupid man:

He was stupid – but he was a man, and Phoebe felt proud of him, for the moment at least” and “He was a blockhead, but he was a man…

It’s even suggested that, although Clarence is a fool, Phoebe finds him quite physically attractive – he is said to be large and “not without good looks”, and there are descriptions of him putting his arms around her waist and lifting her up in the air.

I hope I have conveyed what is the peculiar strength and value of Oliphant’s Phoebe Junior.

Albert Goodwin (1845-1932), The Old Mill, near Winchester

I have written about Oliphant on the World Wide Web before: she wrote one of the best critical essays on Austen in the 19th century: her review of Austen’s nephew’s memoir, while unkindly mocking him, presented Austen for the first time as the satirical acid feminine presence D. W. Harding recognized her to be. She is also a writer of masterpieces in the ghost story kind, e.g., The Beleaguered Cityy= and “The Library Window”.

On Women Writers through the Ages, we read her great novel set in England, Hester (1883) where I wrote weekly about it. The heroine here is an older business woman and the hero her nephew. On my own I went onto her remarkable Scots novels, The Ladies Lindores (1883) and Kirsteen (1890). Her Autobiography as published by her niece (Mrs Harry Coghill), together with her letters to the Blackwell’s is one of the most powerful life-writings of the 19th century. She does not wear her heart on her sleeve, but as you read her candid account of her hard-working literary-art life you see how original a being she was. I wrote essays on these works too, so compelled did I feel to work out their meaning and urge others to read them too.

Mary Cassatt (1844-1926), Lydia on the Terrace Crocheting

In general, there is a distinction between the presence Oliphant puts before us in her English, Scots and the ghost story-gothic novellas and short fiction. The irony in the English books (and that means the Carlingford) is distinctly pragmatic and concerned intensely with class and money — only Hester makes gender and romance as central and it’s the most powerful I think of all I’ve read thus far in Oliphant’s English mode.

In her Scots novels, she’s ironic and realistic or anti-romantic about different things. She places the books in Scots tradition (and herself is writing to critique and replace what she conceives of as Scott’s romancing and sentimentality about the lower classes in Scotland). She presents more landscape, more delving into culture and, more about women trying to achieve independence. There is dramatization of dangerous sexualities and murderous or atavistic violent impulses because she conceives they have more play in the less populated areas of the UK.

The ghost and gothics are not ironic in these ways at all. She lets loose and we are in a realm of the uncanny and she soars into poetry that is frightening and metaphysical. You might say they have dramatic irony as a structure.

Finally, her Autobiography is pure open poignancy, candour about her inner life, creative faculty, difficult career as a woman, and tragic loss of her husband, sons, nephew. Her literary criticism about her era and the 18th century is as insightful as you will find; she is an independent thinking deep feeling woman who survived by working long and hard (she wrote 126 novels). The end of her life was tragic in that those she loved all predeceased her, and the last line of her autobiography shows her breaking off, writing “I can no more.”

Illustration for Oliphant’s haunted and haunting “The Library Window”

Ellen

Psalm
But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me.
Psalm 49:15

Meditation
There is, therefore, an amazing concatenation of miracles drawn out in the gospel to keep before the public the person of whom it was said, “Behold my Son;” miracle after miracle follows each other in rapid succession, surprisingly diversified in manner, kind, and form, till the mighty chain terminates in that amazing wonder of his resurrection from the dead—a miracle, which, for its transcendent peculiarities, the apostle (Eph. 1:19) singles out as affording the most illustrious display of the mighty power of God.
Walter Scott, The Gospel Restored, 180

Scripture
A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
Mark 4:37-41

Prayer
Jesus, my teacher, grant this day that I might trust in your power over all the forces that threaten me. Keep me form fear. Increase my faith.

Psalm
God is king over the nations; God sits on his holy throne.
Psalm 47:8

Meditation
Could we ascend to the summit of glory and the universe, whether the stupendous and unparalleled miracles of his glorification and the Apocalyptic worship would impel us to go—could we, like the blessed Lord, enshrined in glory which no one can see, look down from the eternal throne, and behold the principalities, dominations, and powers of the universe, and the universe itself laid at our feet, we might, if our souls did not expire under the greatness of the scene, acquire, perhaps, some adequate idea of the boundless, ineffable, and otherwise incomprehensible and eternal greatness, grandeur, and glory to which our Lord was elevated when his Almighty Father set him at his own right hand in the heavens.
Walter Scott, The Messiahship, 218

Scripture
Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.” So then, each of us will be accountable to God.
Romans 14:10-12

Prayer
Lord Jesus, may I bow the knee to you today, as all eventually will bow. Let my tongue give you all praise this day!

Psalm
Why do the nations conspire, and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and his anointed, saying,
“Let us burst their bonds asunder, and cast their cords from us.”
Psalm 2:1-3

Meditation
Ought it not to be sacredly remembered by all who serve God in the gospel that “the cross of Christ” is that power which is to “slay” the natural “enmity” of the sinner’s heart to God and to his law? With what holy reverence, then, ought Christ and him crucified to be preached to the world! What solemn themes are these! Ought they not be bathed in “many tears” by him whose sacred office it is to announce them?
Walter Scott, The Messiahship 182,

Scripture
It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Having said this, he breathed his last. When the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God and said, “Certainly this man was innocent.”
Luke 23:44-47

Prayer
With holy reverence, with tears, and with awe, I contemplate the cross of Christ today. Lord Jesus, you have given yourself for the world! Live in me, so I may bear your cross this day.

When I get back to Scotland, don’t know when but I certainly will, I wish to spend sensible time in Edinburgh, which I failed to do two years ago, because I had too much trouble getting to Rosslyn. I knew there were buses, but I didn’t know there were three bus companies running at the same poles, that was confusing! The Walter Scott Monument is fascinating though, even from behind. Inside the Rosslyn Chapel photographing is now prohibited, which it was not in 2007.

Dan Brown is a liar, but a very entertaining one. I like both the book and the film a lot.

Scott Monument, originally uploaded by Tokenhippygirl.

Scottish monument to Sir Walter Scott in the Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh, Scotland. Pretty impressive structure actually. All gothic and sort of menacing. Very cool.

Psalm
You who live in the shelter of the Most High,
who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress;
my God, in whom I trust.’
Psalm 91:1-2

Meditation
But when our meditations overleap the negative, and by the Transfiguration ascend into the positive of eternal life, all is sunshine, unclouded glory, and eternal day. The problem of humanity is solved. Humans are immortal; and the principle end of our existence is “to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.”
Walter Scott, The Messiahship, 249

Scripture
Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him.
Luke 9:28-30

Prayer
Lord Jesus, may I this day meditate on your glory. Reveal yourself to me as you did to those disciples, so I may praise you alone.

In the earliest known work of literary fiction, The Epic of Gilgamesh (2700 BC), jeweled trees figure.  The hero’s journey begins at a grove of cedars, which are guarded by the monster Humbaba, and ends at the otherworldly trees that bear rare jewels for fruit.  These marvellous trees exist in a garden at the end of the tunnel from the sun, which  Gilgamesh enters alone.  The two types of trees—cedar and jeweled—represent the boundaries of the physical world.

Who can forget one’s first experience with Ovid?  Whether it was in the unit on Greek and Roman mythology in Year 5 or the magical Humphries translation of Metamorphoses widely assigned in universities.  All those fantastic stories about women (and sometimes men) in flight, calling for help and getting it by way of transformation.  Remember Daphne, a young woman with a beautiful face who prefers woodland sports over sporting with men, and Apollo, who is seized with love for her?  Quite naturally, a chase ensues.  And just as Apollo is about to catch her, she calls out:  “Help me, open the earth to enclose me, or change my form, which has brought me into this danger!”   With that plea, her skin becomes bark, her hair turns into leaves, her arms are transformed into branches, and her feet grow into the ground.  Apollo embraces the branches, but even they shrink from him.  Grieving, Apollo calls on his powers of eternal youth to ensure Daphne will never die.  This dramatic story is offered as a poetic explanation for why the leaves of the Bay Laurel tree are ever green.

In Paradise Lost, Milton describes the ‘Tree of Life’ in this lush way: “High eminent, blooming Ambrosial Fruit Of vegetable Gold… Flours of all hue…the mantling vine Layes forth her purple Grape, and gently creeps Luxuriant”.  Later, he chides Satan for turning himself into a cormorant and using the highest branch of the ‘tree of life’ as a perch from which he might devise the death of others, ignoring the gifts and riches of eternal life.

Sir Walter Scott’s novel Guy Mannering (1815) features a ‘Dule’ tree, which was also known as the ‘justice’ tree, the ‘gallows’ tree, and the tree of ‘lamentation and grief’.  Highland Chieftains regularly hanged enemies, traitors and common criminals from Dule trees.   Such trees were located on high ground at busy thoroughfares, where the rotting bodies hung for a considerable time as a warning to all who passed by.

Coverdale, the narrator of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s exquisite novel The Blithedale Romance (1852), climbs halfway up a white pine in which a wild grapevine had “twined and twisted itself up into the tree, and after wreathing the entanglement of its tendrils around almost every bough, had caught hold of three or four neighboring trees, and married the whole clump with a perfectly inextricable knot of polygamy.”  From this airy chamber, Coverdale composes verse, shirks work, and spies on other members of the commune.  (Blithedale is based on Brook Farm, a 19^th century utopian experiment in communal living inspired by American transcendentalist writings.  Interestingly, major figures like Emerson, Thoreau and Poe questioned the community’s idealism and values.  The experiment failed within seven years.)

In the shade of the house, in the sunshine of the riverbank near the boats, in the shade of the Sal-wood forest, in the shade of the fig tree is where Siddhartha grew up, the handsome son of the Brahman, the young falcon, together with his friend Govinda, son of a Brahman. The sun tanned his light shoulders by the banks of the river when bathing, performing the sacred ablutions, the sacred offerings. In the mango grove, shade poured into his black eyes, when playing as a boy, when his mother sang, when the sacred offerings were made, when his father, the scholar, taught him, when the wise men talked. Thus begins Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, An Indian Tale (1922).

The four books of The Faraway Tree series by Enid Blyton (published between 1939 and 1951) are beloved children’s stories that feature one of the wildest fictional trees of all time.  It’s inhabited by a crazy assortment of magical creatures, all with unusual visages, habits and predilections.  But the most interesting thing about the tree is that at the top there is a ladder that leads to a magical land.   Each time the children visit, the land is different: sometimes awful, like the Land of Dame Slap, ruled by a cruel schoolteacher; sometimes enjoyable, like the Land of Take-What-You-Want.

In 1767, the twelve year old Baron Cosimo Piavosco di Rondo refuses to eat his dinner of snails and in a tantrum takes to the trees, where he lives out the rest of his life.  He doesn’t live in only one tree, but in a Europe more heavily forested than today, he travels long distances from tree to tree never placing his feet on the ground.  A whimsical novel steeped in history and philosophy, Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees was first published in 1957.

In The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s Eye View of the World (2002), Michael Pollan looks at the social history of the apple tree and reveals the truth behind the Johnny Appleseed legend—it was all to do with moonshine.

One of my favourite recent novels is Eucalyptus (1998) by Murray Bail, which won both the Miles Franklin Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 1999. Set up like a fairy tale, Ellen Holland’s unusual beauty causes her father much concern until he devises a contest: the man who can name all the eucalyptus species on his rambling property will win her hand in marriage.  Many try, a few come close, and just as it looks as though one will succeed,  Ellen’s true love arrives with the crush of eucalyptus leaves under his boots and an inarguable solution.