The Hope by James Lovegrove Page A

watch her , and Angel is both thrilled and terrified. Her shoes are pinching, a pin at the back of the dress is threatening to come loose, and she fears she will forget everything. Then they are away, the man leading, and Angel will feel dizzy and dislocated, just as she felt when she first arrived at the upper deck and she saw the ballroom. But the learning and the lessons will take over. The music will rise and swell and fall and rise again. The audience will sigh as they observe her first unsteady steps and her blossoming confidence, and something like hope will find its way into their old quick-beating hearts.
    Gabrielle, the woman of smiles, will smile.

FAITH, HOPE, CHARITY
     
    The Reverend Chartreuse was a great man, a greater preacher.
    “‘Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal…’ What was Saint Paul telling us? What? I’ve lain awake many a night, listening to the people passing to and fro, and felt the engines of this … great … ship, and I have asked myself that very question. Have not we all? What is charity? Some people have interpreted it as meaning love. What nonsense! Charity is simply charity, the giving to the less fortunate.
    “So I pray to God and I say, ‘Look, Lord, I have given money to the poor of this ship, to the homeless, the stoppers, the disenfranchised children – the children , Lord – and I have done your works and been guided by your mighty hand, slow to chide. And what of it? What of this charity, Lord? Does it profit me ?’
    “And you, good people, you place your offerings in our collection boxes at the end of the service, don’t you? From the love in your hearts and your love for the Lord of Hosts, you do, and expect no return, bless you. But does it profit your souls? Does it profit … your … souls? Paul would have us believe that throwing off all worldly goods, all the trappings of earthly life, is not charity! He says, ‘And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, I profiteth me nothing.’
    “Good people, Paul is misled, Paul is confused, Paul is wrong .
    “But he lived in primitive, less enlightened times. We have seen supreme acts of charity in our day. I’m thinking of the Philanthropist who built this … great … ship, a man who loved his dream even unto death. I can tell you, I have it on good authority that his soul is in hell right now, even as I speak, in Satan’s parlour where all suicides are destined to go. Charity profited that man’s soul? I say no.
    “And so we must not take the Bible at face value. We must shift its focus to suit our times. Man should ever seek the truth, the truth between the lines. I take it upon myself to enlarge upon Paul’s words, to see them in the way of the Hope .
    “For we have set forth on a voyage, a long voyage, as the Pilgrim Fathers did many, many years ago, with no certainty that any of us here this morning will live to see the other shore, no consolation that we are anything but links in a chain of generations stretching across the ocean to the promised land of better things, milk and honey. It is a role that we do not cherish but one that we can accept in Christ and the Lord, if Christ and the Lord so wish it. We need faith in the Lord, good people, and I know that we have faith in the Lord. Your presence here, at the Lord’s altar, in my chapel, proves to me your faith. But more than faith, we must live in hope, hope for that promised land, hope for those better things!
    “I leave you, then, with this: ‘And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these … is … hope.’
    “We will now sing, ‘Eternal Father, strong to save, Whose arm doth bind the restless wave’.”
    Arthur Wade the organist was so entranced by the Reverend’s sermon that he began pounding out the wrong tune.
    When the service was over the congregation