Sometimes words are inadequate but we have nothing better. Nobody knows this better than a good-hearted person who is not at home with words we use all the time but has a sense of compassion. Dorothy Winthrop is one of them. In ‘Silas Marner’ the novelist George Eliot gives her a starring role. Tentatively, Dolly gives expression to her compassion by presenting Silas with lard-cakes. She has only the slightest understanding of a God of love. ‘Them up above’ is her term for whatever a divine entity may be but the lard-cakes speak for her. Her comment on Silas’s misfortune was: ‘… if Them above had done the right thing by you, They’d never ha’ let you be turned out for a wicked thief when you was innicent.’ No skill with words there, no clever conception of the being or nature of God, but a woman whose heart was in the right place.
The cakes come with mysterious letters imprinted on them: ‘I H S’. Dolly had no idea what they signified but they were to be found in the church, on the pulpit-cloth and they had always been stamped on to lard-cakes. But the words didn’t matter. It was the desire to give comfort that counted. There was trustful acceptance in her actions, even if explanation was absent.
George Eliot had the discernment to read Dolly Winthrop. Wordsworth had a similar insight when he spoke of ‘thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.’ It was as though he was amplifying this tentative understanding as he prefaced his words by others: ‘years that bring the philosophic mind’
Edith Cavell famously said: ‘Patriotism is not enough.’ We might say the same about words. However, we cannot do without them and we see them supremely doing their job in the hands of a poet, for poetry is language used with an unusual intensity. It gives a local habitation and a name to things we cannot otherwise grasp. John Carey puts it succinctly: ‘Poetry relates to language as music relates to noise. It is language made special, so that it will be remembered and valued.’
We have to pause a moment here and consider the biblical documents. They are composed of words. They do not always take the form of poetry. There are words in the Bible that have a legal form and a legal purpose. There are words that are similar to historical narrative. We have to be aware of the purpose the words are serving. We may conclude that we have more than an inkling of what Dolly failed to comprehend but we should recognise that words, useful as they are in opening our understanding, can go only so far. For all her unawareness, Dolly has something to teach us. We should be wise not to ignore it.
THE BRONTES’ HOME
If Dolly Winthrop gives us cause to be grateful to George Eliot, Haworth turns out thoughts to the Brontes. Patrick Bronte was Rector and Grimshaw was a notable curate who scoured the parish for worshippers and had them taking their place in their parish church. The present Rector of Haworth and Cross Roads is Peter Mullins. Since 2011 £600,000 has been spent on the restoration of the parish church.
TWO SINGULARITIES?
St John’s church, Great Horton, Bradford has two features that may well be unique. One is a service every Sunday in Nepali. The other is its ‘Captivated Women’s Breakfast’ taking place on the last Saturday of each month. John Bavington leads a ministry team including a mission apprentice.
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