The Voice at Midnight

"It is the King's highway that we are in; and know this, His messengers
are on it. They who have ears to hear will hear; and He opens the eyes
of some, and they see things not to be lightly spoken of."
It was John Balmuto who said these words to me. John was a Shetlander,
and for forty years he had gone to the Arctic seas with the whale boats.
Then there had come to him a wonderful experience. He had been four days
and nights alone with God upon the sea, among mountains of ice reeling
together in perilous madness, and with little light but the angry flush
of the aurora. Then, undoubtedly, was born that strong faith in the
Unseen which made him an active character in the facts I am going to
relate.
After his marvelous salvation, he devoted his life to the service of God
by entering that remarkable body of lay evangelists attached to the
Presbyterian Church in Highland parishes, called "The Men," and he
became noted throughout the Hebrides for his labors, and for his
knowledge of the Scriptures.
Circumstances, that summer, had thrown us together; I, a young woman,
just entering an apparently fortunate life; he, an aged saint, standing
on the borderland of eternity. And we were sitting together, in the gray
summer gloaming, when he said to me, "Thou art silent to-night. What
hast thou, then, on thy mind?"
"I had a strange dream. I cannot shake off its influence. Of course it
is folly, and I don't believe in dreams at all." And it was then he said
to me, "It is the King's highway that we are in, and know this, His
messengers are on it."
"But it was only a dream."
"Well, God speaks to His children 'in dreams, and by the oracles that
come in darkness.'"
"He used to do so."
"Wilt thou then say that He has ceased so to speak to men? Now, I will
tell thee a thing that happened; I will tell thee just the bare facts; I
will put nothing to, nor take anything away from them.
"'Tis, five years ago the first day of last June. I was in Stornoway in
the Lews, and I was going to the Gairloch Preachings. It was rough,
cheerless weather, and all the fishing fleet were at anchor for the
night, with no prospect of a fishing. The fishers were sitting together
talking over the bad weather, but, indeed, without that bitterness that
I have heard from landsmen when it would be the same trouble with them.
So I gathered them into Donald Brae's cottage, and we had a very good
hour. I noticed a stranger in the corner of the room, and some one told
me he was one of those men who paint pictures, and I saw that he was
busy with a pencil and paper even while we were at the service. But the
next day I left for the Preachings, and I thought no more of him, good
or bad.
"On the first of September I was in Oban. I had walked far and was very
tired, but I went to John MacNab's cottage, and, after I had eat my
kippered herring and drank my tea, I felt better. Then I talked with
John about the resurrection of the body, for he was in a tribulation of
thoughts and doubts as to whether our Lord had a permanent humanity or
not.
"And I said to him, John, Christ redeemed our whole nature, and it is
this way: the body being ransomed, as well as the spirit, by no less a
price than the body of Christ, shall be equally cleansed and glorified.
Now, then, after I had gone to my room, I was sitting thinking of these
things, and of no other things whatever. There was not a sound but that
of the waves breaking among the rocks, and drawing the tinkling pebbles
down the beach after them. Then the ears of my spiritual body were
opened, and I heard these words, _'I will go with thee to Glasgow!'_
Instead of saying to the heavenly message, 'I am ready!' I began to
argue with myself thus: 'Whatever for should I go to Glasgow? I know not
anyone there. No one knows me. I have duties at Portsee not to be left.
I have no money for such a journey--'
"I fell asleep to such thoughts. Then I dreamed of--or I saw--a woman
fair as the daughters of God, and she said, _'I will go with thee to
Glasgow!'_ With a strange feeling of being hurried and pressed I
awoke--wide awake, and without any conscious will of my own, I answered,
'I am ready. I am ready now.'
"As I left the cottage it was striking twelve, and I wondered what means
of reaching Glasgow I should find at midnight. But I walked straight to
the pier, and there was a small steamer with her steam up. She was
blowing her whistle impatiently, and when the skipper saw me coming, he
called to me, in a passion, 'Well, then, is it all night I shall wait
for thee?'
"I soon perceived that there was a mistake, and that it was not John
Balmuto he had been instructed to wait for. But I heeded not that; I was
under orders I durst not disobey. She was a trading steamer, with a
perishable cargo of game and lobsters, and so she touched at no place
whatever till we reached Glasgow. One of her passengers was David
MacPherson of Harris, a very good man, who had known me in my
visitations. He was going to Glasgow as a witness in a case to be tried
between the Harris fishers and their commission house in Glasgow.
"As we walked together from the steamer, he said to me, 'Let us go round
by the court house, John, and I'll find out when I'll be required.' That
was to my mind; I did not feel as if I could go astray, whatever road
was taken, and I turned with him the way he desired to go. He found the
lawyer who needed him in the court house, and while they talked together
I went forward and listened to the case that was in hand.
"It was a trial for murder, and I could not keep my eyes off the young
man who was charged with the crime. He seemed to be quite broken down
with shame and sorrow. Before MacPherson called me the court closed and
the constables took him away. As he passed me our eyes met, and my heart
dirled and burned, and I could not make out whatever would be the matter
with me. All night his face haunted me. I was sure I had seen it some
place; and besides it would blend itself with the dream which had
brought me to Glasgow.
"In the morning I was early at the court house and I saw the prisoner
brought in. There was the most marvelous change in his looks. He walked
like a man who has lost fear, and his face was quite calm. But now it
troubled me more than ever. Whatever had I to do with the young man? Yet
I could not bear to leave him.
"I listened and found out that he was accused of murdering his uncle.
They had been traveling together and were known to have been at Ullapool
on the thirtieth of May. On the first of June the elder man was found in
a lonely place near Oban, dead, and, without doubt, from violence. The
chain of circumstantial evidence against his nephew was very strong. To
judge by it I would have said myself to him, 'Thou art certainly
guilty.'
"On the other side the young man declared that he had quarreled with his
uncle at Ullapool and left him clandestinely. He had then taken passage
in a Manx fishing smack which was going to the Lews, but he had
forgotten the name of the smack. He was not even certain if the boat was
Manx. The landlord of the inn, at which he said he stayed when in the
Lews, did not remember him. 'A thing not to be expected,' he told the
jury, 'for in the summer months, what with visitors, and what with the
fishers, a face in Stornoway was like a face on a crowded street. The
young man might have been there'--
"The word _Stornoway_ made the whole thing clear to me. The prisoner was
the man I had noticed with a pencil and paper among the fishers in
Donald Brae's cottage. Yes, indeed he was! I knew then why I had been
sent to Glasgow. I walked quickly to the bar, and lifting my bonnet from
my head, I said to the judge, 'My lord, the prisoner _was_ in Stornoway
on the first of June. I saw him there!'
"He gave a great cry of joy and turned to me; and in a moment he called
out: 'You are the man who read the Bible to the fishers. I remember you.
I have your likeness among my drawings.' And I said, 'I am the man.'
"Then my lord, the judge, made them swear me, and he said they would
hear my evidence. For one moment I was a coward. I thought I would hide
God's share in the deliverance, lest men should doubt my whole
testimony. The next, I was telling the true story: how I had been called
at midnight--twice called; how I had found Evan Conochie's boat waiting
for me; how on the boat I had met David MacPherson, and been brought to
the court house by him, having no intention or plan of my own in the
matter.
"And there was a great awe in the room as I spoke. Every one believed
what I said, and my lord asked for the names of the fishers who were
present in Donald Brae's cottage on the night of the first of June. Very
well, then, I could give many of them, and they were sent for, and the
lad was saved, thank God Almighty!"
"How do you explain it, John?"
"No, I will not try to explain it; for it is not to be hoped that anyone
can explain by human reason the things surpassing human reason."
"Do you know what became of the young man?"
"I will tell thee about him. He is a very rich young man, and the only
child of a widow, known like Dorcas of old for her great goodness to the
Lord's poor. But when his mother died it did not go well and peaceably
between him and his uncle; and it is true that he left him at Ullapool
without a word. Well, then, he fell into this sore strait, and it seemed
as if all hope of proving his innocence was over.
"But that very night on which I saw him first, he dreamed that his
mother came to him in his cell and she comforted him and told him,
'To-morrow, surely, thy deliverer shall speak for thee.' He never
doubted the heavenly vision. 'How could I?' he asked me. 'My mother
never deceived me in life; would she come to me, even in a dream, to
tell me a lie? Ah, no!'"
"Is he still alive?"
"God preserve him for many a year yet! I'll only require to speak his
name"--and when he had done so, I knew the secret spring of thankfulness
that fed the never-ceasing charity of one great, good man.
"And yet, John," I urged, "how can spirit speak with spirit?"
"'_How?_' I will tell thee, that word 'how' has no business in the mouth
of a child of God. When I was a boy, who had dreamed 'how' men in London
might speak with men in Edinburgh through the air, invisible and
unheard? That is a matter of trade now. Can thou imagine what subtle
secret lines there may be between the spiritual world and this world?"
"But dreams, John?"
"Well, then, dreams. Take the dream life out of thy Bible and, oh, how
much thou wilt lose! All through it this side of the spiritual world
presses close on the human side. I thank God for it. Yes, indeed! Many
things I hear and see which say to me that Christians now have a kind of
shame in what is mystical or supernatural. But thou be sure of this--the
supernaturalism of the Bible, and of every Christian life is not one of
the difficulties of our faith, _it is the foundation of our faith_. The
Bible is a supernatural book, the law of a supernatural religion; and to
part with this element is to lose out of it the flavor of heaven, and
the hope of immortality. Yes, indeed!"
This conversation occurred thirty years ago. Two years since, I met the
man who had experienced such a deliverance, and he told me again the
wonderful story, and showed me the pencil sketch which he had made of
John Balmuto in Donald Brae's cottage. He had painted from it a grand
picture of his deliverer, wearing the long black camlet cloak and
head-kerchief of the order of evangelists to which he belonged. I stood
reverently before the commanding figure, with its inspired eyes and rapt
expression; for, during those thirty years, I also had learned that it
was only those
    Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours
    Weeping upon their bed have sate,
    Who know you not, Ye Heavenly Powers.