1.07.10. Book 7: 10. The Stairways of Desire
10. THE STAIRWAYS OF DESIRE
ABOUT this time he had the cheer of Allnutt’s company. But Allnutt was ill, and Ragland just then was down-hearted and bothered by the duties and formalities of a formal age, so the weeks were foggy. Still the friends talked and read together, and often, Allnutt says, the clouds were cleared away by the brightness of their kind Lord’s presence. At last they had to part: Allnutt was ordered home.
It was a wild day, heavy seas broke on the shore, and the surf flag went up, to signal that it was dangerous or impossible to cross from the beach to the ship. One poor lady had to give up the attempt, and saw the ship with her baggage sail without her. Ragland stuck to his friend through the excitement of the hour. Could Allnutt go or not? If he could go to the ship at all, so could Ragland; and it was done. Together they pitched across the surf in the little surf-boat. A wave lifted them above the deck, to drop them below the lowest step of the ship’s ladder, while the crew yelled themselves hoarse, as is their pleasing custom. For a moment it seemed as if they must be swallowed up. Then the boat lifted. Allnutt sprang up and on to the ladder. Ragland followed. For a second they stood together, and in that second Ragland said, "Unto Him that loved us"-"Amen!" they both exclaimed; Ragland leaped into the plunging boat, Allnutt climbed the ladder. And the spray sprang up between.
Quite evidently Ragland had been plainly told that he was not suitable for the glories of what was then termed "a work of high emprise." And his sensitive soul shrank into itself: "I have much to thank God for in the little chillings I occasionally meet with from dear Christian friends," is his final gentle summary. The sheer goodness of the man makes him add, "I believe they were frequently creatures of my imagination."
Japan being too great for him, that hope must end, and he turned humbly to the poorer English-speaking folk of the city, the little congregation in Black Town, who cheered his heart by loving him and listening to his words. He was tired of the big mission-house with its comings and goings, the many servants who had to be looked after, the time that had to be spent as it seemed to no profit at all. He would live in an outhouse in the compound, with one servant, two small rooms would suffice for him, there would be the less to look after.
"What if I were to say to the Society, I will be your Secretary for the next twelve months; but then, whether you have found a person or not, I must resign, and I will work in one of the churches of Black Town on my own resources?"
He broke this new madness to the Madras Committee. And who that has seen that discreet Committee sitting round its table but can imagine the scene? The inevitable minute disapproving the suggestion was drawn up and went home. The Home Committee, still more august and surprised, "was averse to the proposed change." As Secretary, it said, he was using his administrative talents for the good of the whole mission. In Black Town he would be laying them up in a napkin.
It was all perfectly wise and right, as will presently appear; God had something else for His son to do. But for the moment it was a bitter blow: "I clomb the dreadful stairways of desire." It was verily that. "My soul lay stabbed by all the swords of sense." It was that too. The heart that burned with the longings of a lover froze under the cool hand of disappointment, and the man to whom the freedom of the unsown fields, or even the crowded streets of the city, was nothing less than a mystic gate that opened into life indeed, stood outside it sorrowfully:
It will not open! Through the bars I see The glory and the mystery Wind upward ever. And here again we meet and touch. Which of us in the hour of our greatest decision or of our sharpest disappointment looked upon it as a little thing?