Book Review: The Warden

The Warden. Anthony Trollope. 1855. Oxford World's Classics. 294 pages. [Source: Bought]

First sentence: The Rev. Septimus Harding was, a few years since, a beneficed clergyman residing in the cathedral town of ––––; let us call it Barchester.

I make no secret of the fact that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Anthony Trollope. The Warden is the first in his Barchester series. And, I believe, it was the first Trollope novel I read. I first read and reviewed it in the spring of 2009.

I loved rereading it. I loved going back and visiting with these characters particularly the character of Mr. Harding. As much as I enjoy the other characters, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Mr. Harding. He's such a dear old soul.

Reasons you should read The Warden

• As one of Trollope's shorter novels, it's a great introduction to his work.
• It is the first book in a series, his Barchester series, which is FANTASTIC.
• It is all about the characters and relationships between characters. Sure, there's a plot, but, it's not an action-packed plot. It's all about ethics. Is it right or is it wrong for Mr. Harding to receive the salary he does?! 
• The writing is delightful. 

 What is it about?!

It's about one man, Mr. Harding, and his family: two daughters, one married, the other quite single. It's also about Harding's neighborhood and circle of friends. It's about the necessity of having a good reputation and a clean conscience.

Eleanor is the apple of her daddy's eye. Susan is married to an Archdeacon (Grantley). Because of his eldest daughters good fortune in marriage, Mr. Harding, has been named warden of Hiram's Hospital (alms house). The 'enemy' of Mr. Harding (and the suitor of Eleanor) is a young man named John Bold. When we are first introduced to these characters, we are learning that Bold is encouraging a law suit against Mr. Harding. He feels that Mr. Harding is in violation of the will. (Way, way, way back when (several centuries past), a man left his (quite wealthy) estate to the church. The church followed the will for the most part, but as times changed, they changed the way they carried it out. They were following it through in spirit in a way: still seeking to take care of twelve poor men (bedesman) but over time the salary of the warden increased.) Bold has stirred up the twelve bedesmen into signing a petition demanding justice, demanding more money, demanding 'fairer' distribution of funds.

The book presents this case through multiple perspectives: through two Grantleys (father and son), a few lawyers, Mr. Harding and Mr. Bold, of course, and through a handful of the twelve men involved that would profit from the change. There is one man whose voice seems louder than all the rest. And that voice comes from the newspaper, the Jupiter, one journalist writes harsh, condemning words directed at Mr. Harding--he assumes much having never met Harding personally. These words weigh heavy on the heart and soul of Mr. Harding. (And they don't sit easy on Mr. Bold either.)

Can Mr. Harding get his reputation back? What is the right thing to do? Is he in violation of the will? Is the church? What is his moral responsibility in caring for these twelve poor-and-retired men? What is his responsibility to the community?

Favorite quotes:

• Did ye ever know a poor man yet was the better for law, or for a lawyer?
• They say that faint heart never won fair lady; and it is amazing to me how fair ladies are won, so faint are often men’s hearts!
• “Why, my lord, there are two ways of giving advice: there is advice that may be good for the present day; and there is advice that may be good for days to come: now I cannot bring myself to give the former, if it be incompatible with the other.”
• ‘Everyone knows where his own shoe pinches!’
• Velvet and gilding do not make a throne, nor gold and jewels a sceptre. It is a throne because the most exalted one sits there, — and a sceptre because the most mighty one wields it.
• No established religion has ever been without its unbelievers, even in the country where it is the most firmly fixed; no creed has been without scoffers; no church has so prospered as to free itself entirely from dissent.
• “Nobody and everybody are always very kind, but unfortunately are generally very wrong.”
• Certain men are employed in writing for the public press; and if they are induced either to write or to abstain from writing by private motives, surely the public press would soon be of little value.
• “The public is defrauded,” said he, “whenever private considerations are allowed to have weight.”
• The public is defrauded when it is purposely misled. Poor public! how often is it misled! against what a world of fraud has it to contend!
• What is any newspaper article but an expression of the views taken by one side? Truth! it takes an age to ascertain the truth of any question!
• Ridicule is found to be more convincing than argument, imaginary agonies touch more than true sorrows, and monthly novels convince, when learned quartos fail to do so. If the world is to be set right, the work will be done by shilling numbers.
• It appears to us a question whether any clergyman can go through our church service with decorum, morning after morning, in an immense building, surrounded by not more than a dozen listeners. The best actors cannot act well before empty benches, and though there is, of course, a higher motive in one case than the other, still even the best of clergymen cannot but be influenced by their audience; and to expect that a duty should be well done under such circumstances, would be to require from human nature more than human power.
• What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?
• A man is the best judge of what he feels himself.
• “I have done more than sleep upon it,” said the warden; “I have lain awake upon it, and that night after night. I found I could not sleep upon it: now I hope to do so.”
• “It can never be rash to do right,” said he. 
• We fear that he is represented in these pages as being worse than he is; but we have had to do with his foibles, and not with his virtues. We have seen only the weak side of the man, and have lacked the opportunity of bringing him forward on his strong ground. That he is a man somewhat too fond of his own way, and not sufficiently scrupulous in his manner of achieving it, his best friends cannot deny. That he is bigoted in favour, not so much of his doctrines as of his cloth, is also true: and it is true that the possession of a large income is a desire that sits near his heart.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

Book Review: North and South

North and South. Elizabeth Gaskell. 1854-1855. 452 pages. [Source: Bought]

Have you read North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell? Have you watched the movie at least?!?! North and South is one of my favorite, favorite, favorite books. I first read it in May 2010. I then listened to the audio book and watched the movie. Subsequent reviews followed in 2011, 2012, and 2014.

Margaret Hale is our heroine. She has spent most of her childhood in London living with her aunt and cousin. But when the novel opens, change is fast approaching. Her cousin is getting married, and, soon Margaret will return to her own family. Mr. Hale is a vicar whose conscience is burdening him. He finds he simply can't remain in the Church of England any longer. He resigns his post much to the dismay and disappointment of his wife and daughter. (Mr. Hale doesn't make the best first impression when he leaves his daughter to break the news to his wife. He leaves a lot of unpleasant duties to his daughter.)

The Hale family moves to the North of England, to a mill town, Milton. Mr. Hale takes a job as a tutor. One of his students--in fact, the only student that we know by name--is John Thornton, a master of one of the mills in town. Margaret and John take notice of each other--for better or worse. Though if you've seen the movie, it is NOTHING AT ALL like the first meeting in the book. The movie does add drama, the book is more subtle.

Margaret befriends the Higgins family (Nicholas, Bess, and Mary). Nicholas (the father) and Bess (the oldest daughter) work in the mills. (Bess is Margaret's best friend.) Through this friendship she learns the perspective of the working class. (She "learns" the perspective of the masters/mill owners through her un-friendship with John Thornton.) Soon Margaret has formed opinions and conclusions of her own which she's not shy to voice.

But these first few years in Milton are bittersweet at best. I won't mention all the reasons why--needless to say that Margaret is given plenty of opportunities to despair and complain OR to place her hope in God and keep going.

So what do I love about this one? I love Margaret. I love, love, love, love, LOVE John Thornton. I love Nicholas, Bess, Mr. Bell and Mr. Hale. Mrs. Thornton is joy from a distance! Essentially, I really like to spend time with these characters. These characters are friends of mine. We've spent LOTS of time together through the years. I love the romance. All the scenes--or almost all the scenes--between John and Margaret. I love the focus on friendship--particularly Bess and Margaret. Bess' words have stuck with me through the years.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

My Year with Spurgeon #7

Heaven
Charles Spurgeon
1855
“As it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.”—1 Corinthians 2:9-10.

HOW very frequently verses of Scripture are misquoted! Instead of turning to the Bible, to see how it is written, and saying, “How readest thou?” we quote from one another; and thus a passage of Scripture is handed down misquoted, by a king of tradition, from father to son, and passes as current among a great number of Christian persons. How very frequently at our prayer meetings do we hear our brethren describing heaven as a place of which we cannot conceive! They say, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him;” and there they stop, not seeing that the very marrow of the whole passage lies in this—“But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.” So that the joys of heaven (if this passage alludes to heaven, which, I take it, is not quite so clear as some would suppose), are, after all, not things of which we cannot conceive; for “God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit.”

But never think that imagination can picture heaven. When it is most sublime when it is freest from the dust of earth, when it is carried up by he greatest knowledge, and kept steady by the most extreme caution, imagination cannot picture heaven. “It hath not entered the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” Imagination is good, but not to picture to us heaven.

Incarnation and Birth of Christ
Charles Spurgeon
1855
“But thou, Beth-lehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”—Micah 5:2.

It is a sweet thought that Jesus Christ, did not come forth without his Father’s permission, authority, consent, and assistance. He was sent of the Father, that he might be the Saviour of men. We are, alas! too apt to forget, that while there are distinctions as to the persons in the Trinity, there are no distinctions of honor; and we do very frequently ascribe the honor of our salvation, or at least the depths of its mercy and the extremity of its benevolence, more to Jesus Christ than we do to the Father. This is a very great mistake. What if Jesus came? Did not his Father send him? If he was made a child did not the Holy Ghost beget him? If he spake wondrously, did not his Father pour grace into his lips, that he might be an able minister of the new covenant? If his Father did forsake him when he drank the bitter cup of gall, did he not love him still? and did he not, by-and by, after three days, raise him from the dead, and at last receive him up on high, leading captivity captive? Ah! beloved, he who knoweth the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost as he should know them, never setteth one before another; he is not more thankful to one than the other; he sees them at Bethlehem, at Gethsemane, and on Calvary, all equally engaged in the work of salvation.

Big hearts never get Christ inside of them; Christ lieth not in great hearts, but in little ones.

We are free, because we are the servants of Christ; we are at liberty, because he is our ruler, and we know no bondage and no slavery, because Jesus Christ alone is monarch of our hearts.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

My Year with Spurgeon #6

The Exodus
Charles Spurgeon
1855
“And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.”—Exodus 12:41.

There is no true liberty which is not preceded by true bondage; there is no true deliverance from sin, unless we have first of all groaned and cried unto God, as did the people of Israel when in bondage in Egypt.

Our sins makes slaves of us while we are in Egypt, and when God the Holy Spirit stirs them up against us, how do they beat us with cruel lashes, till our soul is worn with extreme bondage; but those very sins, by God’s grace, are made the means of driving us to the Saviour.

Once, beloved, our sins kept us from Christ; but now every sin drives us to him for pardon.

Oh! the precious blood of Christ! I love it when I think it saves one sinner; but oh! to think of the multitude of sinners that it saves! Beloved, we do not think enough of our Lord Jesus Christ; we have not half such an estimation of his precious person as we ought to have.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

My Year with Spurgeon #5

Christ Our Passover
Charles Spurgeon
1855
“For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.”—1 Corinthians 5:7

THE more you read the Bible, and the more you meditate upon it, the more you will be astonished with it. He who is but a casual reader of the Bible, does not know the height, the depth, the length and breadth of the mighty meanings contained in its pages.

You will find the Scriptures enlarge as you enter them; the more you study them the less you will appear to know of them, for they widen out as we approach them.

One of the most interesting points of the Scriptures is their constant tendency to display Christ; and perhaps one of the most beautiful figures under which Jesus Christ is ever exhibited in sacred writ, is the Passover Paschal Lamb. It is Christ of whom we are about to speak to-night.

If he gave his all to me, which was much, should I not give my little all to him?

O beloved! you have only to study the Scriptures to find out wondrous things in them; you have only to search deeply, and you stand amazed at their richness. You will find God’s Word to be a very precious word; the more you live by it and study it, the more will it be endeared to your minds.

We derive benefit from the death of Christ in two modes: first, by having his blood sprinkled on us for our redemption; secondly, by our eating his flesh for food, regeneration and sanctification.

The first aspect in which a sinner views Jesus is that of a lamb slain, whose blood is sprinkled on the door-post and on the lintel. Note the fact, that the blood was never sprinkled on the threshold. It was sprinkled on the lintel, the top of the door, on the side-post, but never on the threshold, for woe unto him who trampleth under foot the blood of the Son of God!

But his blood must be on our right hand to be our constant guard, and on our left to be our continual support. We want to have Jesus Christ sprinkled on us. As I told you before, it is not alone the blood of Christ poured out on Calvary that saves a sinner; it is the blood of Christ sprinkled on the heart.

It is not enough to say “he loved the world, and gave his Son,” you must say, “He loved me, and gave himself for me.

Is not Jesus Christ thy daily food? And even with the bitter herbs, is he not sweet food?

What the Christian lives on is not Christ’s righteousness, but Christ; he does not live on Christ’s pardon, but on Christ; and on Christ he lives daily, on nearness to Christ. Oh! I do love Christ- preaching. It is not the doctrine of justification that does my heart good, it is Christ, the justifier; it is not pardon that so much makes the Christian’s heart rejoice, it is Christ the pardoner; it is not election that I love half so much as my being chosen in Christ ere worlds began; ay! it is not final perseverance that I love so much as the thought that in Christ my life is hid, and that since he gives unto his sheep eternal life, they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of his hand. Take care, Christian, to eat the Paschal Lamb and nothing else.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

My Year with Spurgeon #4

The Glorious Habitation
Charles Spurgeon
1855
Lord thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations
Psalm 90:1

Have you ever known what it is to have God for your dwelling-place in the sense of comfort?

The Christian knows no change with regard to God. He may be rich to-day, and poor to-morrow; he may be sickly to-day and well to-morrow; he may be in happiness to-day, to-morrow he may be distressed; but there is no change with regard to his relationship to God. If he loved me yesterday he loves me to-day. I am neither better nor worse in God than I ever was. Let prospects be blighted, let hopes be blasted, let joy be withered, let mildews destroy every thing, I have lost nothing of what I have in God. He is my strong habitation whereunto I can continually resort. The Christian never becomes poorer, and never grows richer with regard to God. “Here,” he can say, “is a thing that never can pass away or change. On the brow of the Eternal there is never a furrow; his hair is unwhitened by age; his arm is unpalsied by weakness; his heart does not change in its affections; his will does not vary in its purpose; he is the immutable Jehovah, standing fast and forever. Thou art our habitation! As the house changes not, but stands in the same place, so have I found thee from my youth up.

You will never find rest except in God; there is no refuge but in him. Oh! what rest and composure are there in him! It is more than sleep, more than calm, more than quiet; deeper than the dead stillness of the noiseless sea in its utmost depths, where it is undisturbed by the slightest ripple, and winds can never intrude.

Ah! my beloved, do you ever find yourself in God to be at home? Have you been with Christ, and told your secrets in his ear, and found that you could do so without reserve? We do not generally tell secrets to other people, for it we do, and make them promise that they will never tell them, they will never tell them except to the first person they meet. Most persons who have secrets told them, are like the lady of whom it is said she never told her secrets except to two sorts of persons—those that asked her and those that did not. You must not trust men of the world; but do you know what it is to tell all your secrets to God in prayer, to whisper all your thoughts to him?

With God you can be always at home, you need be under no restraint. The Christian at once gives God the key of his heart, and lets him turn every thing over. He says, “There is the key of every cabinet; it is my desire that thou wouldst open them all. If there are jewels, they are thine; and if there be things that should not be there, drive them out. Search me, and try my heart.” The more God lives in the Christian, the better the Christian loves him; the oftener God comes to see him, the better he loves his God. And God loves his people all the more when they are familiar with him. Can you say in this sense, “Lord, thou hast been my dwelling place?”

O God! though I sometimes wander, yet I love thee in my wanderings, and my heart is fixed on thee.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

My Year With Spurgeon #3

Conversion
Charles Spurgeon
1855
Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth; and one convert him; Let him know that he which converteth sinner from the error of his way, shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.
James 5:19-20

Next to our own salvation, I am sure, as Christians, we shall always prize the salvation of other people; we shall always desire that what has been so sweet to our own taste, may also be tasted by others; and what has been of so inestimably precious a value to our own souls, may also become the property of all those whom God may please to shall unto everlasting life. I am sure, beloved, now that I am about to preach concerning the conversion of the ungodly, you will take as deep an interest in it as if it were something that immediately concerned your own souls, for, after all, such were some of you once.

Our text has in it, first of all, a principle involved—that of instrumentality.—“Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; let him know that he who converteth a sinner from the error of his way, shall save a soul from death.” Secondly, here is a general fact stated:—“He who converteth a sinner from the error of his way, shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.” And thirdly, there is a particular application of this fact made. “Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth and one convert him,”—that is the same principle as when a sinner is converted “from the error of his way.”

Secondly, we make another remark, which is, that instrumentality is very honorable to God, and not dishonorable. One would think, perhaps, at first sight, that it would reflect more glory to God, if he effected all conversions himself, without the use of men; but that is a great mistake. It is as honorable to God to convert by means of Christians and others, as it would be if he should effect it alone.

The true motive for which we should always labor, is the glory of God in the conversion of souls; and building up of God’s people; but let us never lose sight of the great end. Let God be glorified; and he will be, if we preach his truth faithfully and honestly.

Again, you may be the means of conversion by a letter you may write. Many of you have not the power to speak or say much; but when you sit down alone in your chamber you are able, with God’s help, to write a letter to a dear friend of yours. Oh! I think that is a very sweet way to endeavor to be useful. I think I never felt so much earnestness after the souls of my fellow-creatures as when I first loved the Saviour’s name, and though I could not preach, and never thought I should be able to testify to the multitude, I used to write texts on little scraps of paper and drop them anywhere, that some poor creatures might pick them up, and receive them as messages of mercy to their souls. There is your brother. He is careless and hardened. Sister, sit down and write a letter to him, when he receives it, he will perhaps smile, but he will say, “Ah, well! it is Betsy’s letter after all!” And that will have some power. I knew a gentleman, whose dear sister used often to write to him concerning his soul. “I used,” said he, “to stand with my back up against a lamp-post, with a cigar in my mouth, perhaps at two o’clock in the morning, to read her letter. I always read them; and I have,” said he, “wept floods of tears after reading my sister’s letters. Though I still kept on the error of my ways, they always checked me, they always seemed a hand pulling me away from sin; a voice crying out,” Come back! come back!’” And at last a letter from her, in conjunction with a solemn providence, was the means of breaking his heart, and he sought salvation through a Saviour.

Again. How many nave been converted by the example of true Christians. Many of you feel that you cannot write or preach, and you think you can do nothing. Well, there is one thing you can do for your Master—you can live Christianity.

And then how many souls may be converted by what some men are privileged to write and print.

Oh! to think that we may write and print books which shall reach poor sinners’ hearts.

Oh! men and women, how can ye better spend your time and wealth than in the cause of the Redeemer? What holier enterprise can ye engage in than this sacred one of saving souls from death, and hiding a multitude of sins?

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

My Year With Spurgeon #2

Repentance Unto Life
Charles Spurgeon
1855
Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life
Acts 11:18

“Repentance” is a grace. Some people preach it as a condition of salvation. Condition of nonsense! There are no conditions of salvation. God gives the salvation himself; and he only gives it to those to whom he will. He says, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy “If, then, God has given you the least repentance, if it be sincere repentance, praise him for it, and expect that repentance will grow deeper and deeper as you go further on. Then this remark I think, ought to be applied to all Christians. Christian men and women, you feel that you have not deep enough repentance. You feel that you have not faith large enough. What are you to do? Ask for an increase of faith, and it will grow. So with repentance. Have you ever tried to get deep repentance?

And now you say, what are the signs of true “repentance” in the sight of God? First, I tell you, there is always sorrow with it. No man ever repents of sin without having some kind of sorrow with it. More or less intense, it may be, according to the way in which God calls him, and his previous manner of life, but there must be some sorrow. We do not care when it comes, but at some time or other it must come, or it is not the repentance of the Christian. 

No man can come to Christ and know his pardon without feeling that sin is a hateful thing, for it put Jesus to death.

There must be in this repentance, I think, not only sorrow, but there must be practice—practical repentance.

Every sinner hates his sin when he comes near to the mouth of hell; every murderer hates his crime when he comes to the gallows; I never found a child hate its fault so much as when it was going to be punished for it.

“Repentance,” my dear friends, is the gift of God. It is one of those spiritual favors which ensure eternal life. It is the marvel of divine mercy that it not only provides the way of salvation, that it not only invites men to receive grace, but that it positively makes men willing to be saved. God punished his Son Jesus Christ for our sins, and therein he provided salvation for all his lost children. He sends his minister; the minister bids men repent and believe, and he labors to bring them to God. They will not listen to the call, and they despise the minister. But then another messenger is sent, a heavenly ambassador who cannot fail. He summons men to repent and turn to God. Their thoughts are a little wayward, but after he, the Divine Spirit, pleads with them, they forget what manner of men they were, and they repent and turn.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

My Year with Spurgeon #1

The Death of The Christian
Charles Spurgeon
1855
Thou shall come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in his season
Job 5:26

A Christian has nothing to lose by death. You say he has to lose his friends. I am not so sure of that. Many of you have may more friends in heaven than on earth; some Christians have more dearly beloved ones above than below. ~ Charles Spurgeon, The Death of The Christian

A “full age” is whenever God likes to take his children home. ~ Charles Spurgeon, The Death of The Christian

There are two mercies to a Christian. The first is that he will never die too soon; and the second, that he will never die too late. ~ Charles Spurgeon, The Death of The Christian

I think the most honourable and glorious thing we shall ever behold, next to Christ’s entrance into heaven, and his glory there, is the entrance of one of God’s people into heaven. I can suppose it is made a holiday whenever a saint enters, and that is continually, so that they keep perpetual holiday. ~ Charles Spurgeon, The Death of the Christian

Oh! methinks there is a shout that cometh from heaven whenever a Christian enters it, louder than the noise of many waters. ~ Charles Spurgeon, The Death of the Christian

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible