Part 3

III

A CANARY AT THE POLE

YES, a canary at the Pole! Or, at least, next door to it. For the tiny songster of whom I write is the canary that I found on board the Fram. His cage hangs in the men’s quarters. Right in front of him, not more than a yard away, are the photographs of King Haakon, Queen Maud, and little Prince Olaf. All the cabins open into this diminutive saloon, so that his song can easily penetrate every chamber and cheer every man. And I was told by one of the explorers that this golden chorister, who, as his name implies, belongs to one of the softest and sunniest climates on the face of the earth, never sang with more gaiety and abandon than when the ship was in the midst of the ice. Brave little bird!

I remember visiting on three occasions the Canary Islands. I was there once in January, once in May, and once in September. But, whatever the month, it seemed always the same. Then appeared to be but one season. Summer reigned through all the year. Tropical vegetation clothed the hills. What soft, delicious skies! How balmy and luxurious the spice-laden air! How rich and voluptuous the long, lazy, starlit evenings! And this is the home of my little canary! A world which winter can never invade ; a paradise in which every breath is laden with the odour of luscious fruit and the fragrance of delicate flowers! And then to think of the South Pole! Piercing winds, nipping frosts, driving snow-storms, continents of ice, and snow-drifts that have piled themselves in glaciers and frozen into mountains! One shudders to think of it! It was all very well for sinewy Norsemen, hardened by a sterner and more rigorous climate, to steer their barque into these icy seas. They had made friends with the biting wind, the blinding sleet, and the paralysing cold. And, moreover, they could suit their wardrobe to their new conditions. What furs and wraps and strange, ungainly dresses! But a canary at the Pole! Ugh! And the beauty of it is that he sang there, and sang out bravely his very blithest songs! Like Browning’s ‘wise thrush,’ he

sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!

That is beautiful!

Here, then, is a gospel for all exiles. This tiny chorister on the Fram puts to shame the record of the captives in Babylon: ‘By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down, yea, we weft, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song: and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.” How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?’ 

It was quite otherwise with our little canary. They that carried him away into captivity required of him a song, and, in a stranger land than Babylon, amidst snow and ice, he gave them of his best.

If I had time and strength, I should like to write to all our missionaries and tell them this story of the canary at the Pole. I am sure it would help them to sing their sweetest songs in strange lands. They are lonely in the midst of the great multitudes. There is no loneliness so cruel as that. I shall never forget the day when, at the age of sixteen, I left home and found my way to the roar and rattle and din of London. I had never seen such crowds anywhere, jostling and pushing for every inch of pavement. And yet I remember standing that day in the heart of the world’s metropolis, under the very shadow of St. Paul’s, and shivering in the thick of the crowd at my own utter loneliness. Amid the hops and the clover and orchards of my Kentish home, one could often shout to his heart’s content, and never a soul would hear him. Yet that was a delicious and tranquil loneliness that one loved and revelled in, but the loneliness of that awful surging crowd seemed an intolerable thing. And it is just that loneliness, in a much more acute form, that oppresses our missionaries on cannibal islands in southern seas, among the hordes of Central Africa, in the bustling bazaars of India, and amid the myriads of inland China. Sunday comes, but the Sunday atmosphere comes not. There lies the hymn-book from which they are singing ‘Rock of Ages,’ ‘Sun of my Soul,’ and all the dear old melodies in the churches and chapels at home! But how can they sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? I would not presume, even if I could, to preach a sermon to a real live missionary! I would just tell him about the canary at the Pole. And then I fancy that, just as one bird sets all the forest singing and floods the glades with music, so my little canary would start the praise of a thousand lonely outposts. And the neglected hymn-books in the Mission stations would sooo become worn with constant use.

Not that missionaries are the only people in the world who should be told of the Fram’s canary. By no means. A young man tells me that the office in which he earns his living is such an uncongenial place for the development of the religious life. I dare say! The Pole is not particularly congenial to a canary! But he sang there for all that. A young lady tells me that it is simply impossible to be a Christian in her workroom! Really! And I should have thought it simply impossible to be a canary at the Pole! But it isn’t! And if a canary can sing a throat-splitting song at the Pole, surely a Christian can contrive to maintain his testimony in the most chilling and disheartening atmosphere.

I cannot imagine what the canary was singing about down there at the great ice barrier. I don’t know why he sang. I can only suppose that he sang just because he was a canary, and, being a canary, could not but sing. And I fancy that a Christian, just because he is a Christian, will find some way of expressing — naturally, acceptably, delightfully — the best life that is in him, even in the most nipping and chilling circumstances.

But the point is that the gaiety of our canary’s note was all the more delightful and effective because of the frigid conditions amidst which he sang. He might have split his throat in his soft and sunny northern home, and yet never have cheered a soul. But to sing in the midst of the ice! That was fine! It was heroic, and everybody blessed him. It was the one sublime opportunity of his lifetime; he seemed to know it, and he rose to the great occasion.

Of course! Any one can sing when the sun shines. But here’s a benediction on those brave spirits whose song holds on through grey and gloomy days! Any one can sing in summer; but give me the bird that can be blithe on bare and dripping boughs, surrounded by a wilderness of winter. Any flower can preserve the purity of its pretty petals when hemmed in by green lawns and well-kept walks; but the whiteness that I most admired was the snowy blossom that grew in a coal mine, where the grimy dust was flying all day long!

Yes, it is at the Pole that we most prize the song of the canary. The testimony of a gracious life is no more conspicuous in a prayer-meeting or a communion service than the note of a canary at Madeira. We accept it as our right. We take it for granted. But piety in a factory where the moral atmosphere is many degrees below zero! Devotion in an office! Holiness in a workroom! ‘Saints in Caesar’s household!’ It is under just such conditions that religion has an opportunity of becoming famous. It is at the Pole that a canary can distinguish himself. It is there that his song really tells!

​F.W. Boreham, 1914.