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diff --git a/15797.txt b/15797.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5e4a221 --- /dev/null +++ b/15797.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10397 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Seeker, by Harry Leon Wilson, Illustrated +by Rose Cecil O'Neill + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Seeker + + +Author: Harry Leon Wilson + +Release Date: May 8, 2005 [eBook #15797] + +Language: english + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEEKER*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Project Gutenberg Beginners Projects, +Carla McDonald, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading +Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 15797-h.htm or 15797-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/7/9/15797/15797-h/15797-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/7/9/15797/15797-h.zip) + + + + + +THE SEEKER + +by + +HARRY LEON WILSON + +Author of _The Spenders_ +_The Lions of the Lord,_ etc. + +Illustrated by Rose Cecil O'Neill + +New York +Doubleday, Page & Company + +1904 + + + + + + + +[Illustration: "My dear, Bernal is saying good-bye!"] + + + + +TO + +MY FRIEND + +WILLIAM CURTIS GIBSON + + + + +"Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one +vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?"--Holy Writ. + + "John and Peter and Robert and Paul-- + God, in His wisdom, created them all. + John was a statesman and Peter a slave, + Robert a preacher and Paul was a knave. + Evil or good, as the case might be, + White or colored, or bond or free, + John and Peter and Robert and Paul-- + God, in His wisdom, created them all." + + The Chemistry of Character. + + + + +[Illustration] + + + + + +CONTENTS + + +BOOK ONE--The Age Of Fable + +CHAPTER + + I. How the Christmas Saint was Proved + + II. An Old Man Faces Two Ways + + III. The Cult of the Candy Cane + + IV. The Big House of Portents + + V. The Life of Crime Is Appraised and Chosen + + VI. The Garden of Truth and the Perfect Father + + VII. The Superlative Cousin Bill J. + + VIII. Searching the Scriptures + + IX. On Surviving the Idols We Build + + X. The Passing of the Gratcher; and Another + + XI. The Strong Person's Narrative + + XII. A New Theory of a Certain Wicked Man + + +BOOK TWO--The Age of Reason + +CHAPTER + + I. The Regrettable Dementia of a Convalescent + + II. Further Distressing Fantasies of a Clouded Mind + + III. Reason Is Again Enthroned + + IV. A Few Letters + + V. "Is the Hand of the Lord Waxed Short?" + + VI. In the Folly of His Youth + + +BOOK THREE--The Age of Faith + +CHAPTER + + I. The Perverse Behaviour of an Old Man and a Young Man + + II. How a Brother Was Different + + III. How Edom Was Favoured of God and Mammon + + IV. The Winning of Browett + + V. A Belated Martyrdom + + VI. The Walls of St. Antipas Fall at the Third Blast + + VII. There Entereth the Serpent of Inappreciation + + VIII. The Apple of Doubt is Nibbled + + IX. Sinful Perverseness of the Natural Woman + + X. The Reason of a Woman Who Had No Reason + + XI. The Remorse of Wondering Nancy + + XII. The Flexible Mind of a Pleased Husband + + XIII. The Wheels within Wheels of the Great Machine + + XIV. The Ineffective Message + + XV. The Woman at the End of the Path + + XVI. In Which the Mirror Is Held Up to Human Nature + + XVII. For the Sake of Nancy + +XVIII. The Fell Finger of Calumny Seems to be Agreeably Diverted + + XIX. A Mere Bit of Gossip + + + + +SCENES + + +BOOK ONE--The Village of Edom + +BOOK TWO--The Same + +BOOK THREE--New York + + + +CHARACTERS + +ALLAN DELCHER, a retired Presbyterian clergyman. + +BERNAL LINFORD } +ALLAN LINFORD } his grandsons. + +CLAYTON LINFORD, Their father, of the artistic temperament, and versatile. + +CLYTEMNESTRA, Housekeeper for Delcher. + +COUSIN BILL J., a man with a splendid past. + +NANCY CREALOCK, A wondering child and woman. + +AUNT BELL, Nancy's worldly guide, who, having lived in Boston, has + "broadened into the higher unbelief." + +MISS ALVIRA ABNEY, Edom's leading milliner, captivated by Cousin Bill J. + +MILO BARRUS, The village atheist. + +THE STRONG PERSON, of the "Gus Levy All-star Shamrock Vaudeville." + +CALEB WEBSTER, a travelled Edomite. + +CYRUS BROWETT, a New York capitalist and patron of the Church. + +MRS. DONALD WYETH, an appreciative parishioner of Allan Linford. + +THE REV MR. WHITTAKER, a Unitarian. + +FATHER RILEY, of the Church of Rome. + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +"'My dear, Bernal is saying good-bye!'" (Frontispiece) + +"She could be made to believe that only he could protect her from the + Gratcher" + +"They looked forward with equal eagerness to the day when he should + become a great and good man" + +"He gazed long and exultingly into the eyes yielded so abjectly to his" + + + + * * * * * + + + + +BOOK ONE + +The Age of Fable + +[Illustration] + + + + +THE SEEKER + + +BOOK ONE--THE AGE OF FABLE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +HOW THE CHRISTMAS SAINT WAS PROVED + + +The whispering died away as they heard heavy steps and saw a line of light +under the shut door. Then a last muffled caution from the larger boy on +the cot. + +"Now, remember! There ain't any, but don't you let _on_ there ain't--else +he won't bring you a single thing!" + +Before the despairing soul on the trundle-bed could pierce the vulnerable +heel of this, the door opened slowly to the broad shape of Clytemnestra. +One hand shaded her eyes from the candle she carried, and she peered into +the corner where the two beds were, a flurry of eagerness in her face, +checked by stoic self-mastery. + +At once from the older boy came the sounds of one who breathes labouredly +in deep sleep after a hard day. But the littler boy sat rebelliously up, +digging combative fists into eyes that the light tickled. Clytemnestra +warmly rebuked him, first simulating the frown of the irritated. + +"Now, Bernal! Wide awake! My days alive! You act like a wild Indian's +little boy. This'll _never_ do. Now you go right to sleep this minute, +while I watch you. Look how fine and good Allan is." She spoke low, not to +awaken the one virtuous sleeper, who seemed thereupon to breathe with a +more swelling and obtrusive rectitude. + +"Clytie--now--_ain't_ there any Santa Claus?" + +"Now what a sinful question _that_ is!" + +"But _is_ there?" + +"Don't he bring you things?" + +"Oh, there _ain't_ any!" There was a sullen desperation in this, as of one +done with quibbles. But the woman still paltered wretchedly. + +"Well, if you don't lie down and go to sleep quicker'n a wink I bet you +anything he won't bring you a single play-pretty." + +There came an unmistakable blare of triumph into the busy snore on the +cot. + +But the heart of the skeptic was sunk. This evasion was more +disillusioning than downright confession. A moment the little boy regarded +her, wholly in sorrow, with big eyes that blinked alarmingly. Then came +his last shot; the final bullet which the besieged warrior will sometimes +reserve for his own destruction. There could no longer be any pretense +between them. Bravely he faced her. + +"Now--you just needn't try to keep it from me any longer! I _know_ there +ain't any--" One tensely tragic second he paused to gather himself--"_It's +all over town!_" There being nothing further to live for, he delivered +himself to grief--to be tortured and destroyed. + +Clytie set the candle on the bureau and came to hover him. Within the +pressing arms and upon the proffered bosom he wept out one of those griefs +that may not be told--that only the heart can understand. Yet, when the +first passion of it was spent she began to reassure him, begging him not +to be misled by idle gossip; to take not even her own testimony, but to +wait and see what he would see. At last he listened and was a little +soothed. It appeared that Santa Claus was one you might believe in or +might not. Even Clytie seemed to be puzzled about him. He could see that +she overflowed with belief in him, yet he could not make her confess it in +plain straight words. The meat of it was that good children found things +on Christmas morning which must have been left by some one--if not by +Santa Claus, then by whom? Did the little boy believe, for example, that +Milo Barrus did it? He was the village atheist, and so bad a man that he +loved to spell God with a little g. + +He mused upon this while his tears dried, finding it plausible. Of course +it couldn't be Milo Barrus, so it _must_ be Santa Claus. Was Clytie +certain some presents would be there in the morning? If he went directly +to sleep, she was. + +Hereupon the larger boy on the cot, who had for some moments listened in +forgetful silence, became again virtuously asleep in a public manner. + +But the littler boy must yet have talk. Could the bells of Santa Claus be +heard when he came? + +Clytie had known some children, of exceptional merit, it was true, who +claimed to have heard his bells on certain nights when they had gone early +to sleep. + +_Why_ would he never leave anything for a child that got up out of bed +and caught him at it? Suppose one had to get up for a drink. + +Because it broke the charm. + +But if a very, _very_ good child just _happened_ to wake up while he was +in the room, and didn't pay the least attention to him, or even look +sidewise or anything-- + +Even this were hazardous, it seemed; though if the child were indeed very +good all might not yet be lost. + +"Well, won't you leave the light for me? The dark gets in my eyes." + +But this was another adverse condition, making everything impossible. So +she chided and reassured him, tucked the covers once more about his neck, +and left him, with a final comment on the advantage of sleeping at once. + +When the room was dark and Clytie's footsteps had sounded down the hall, +he called softly to his brother; but that wise child was now truly asleep. +So the littler boy lay musing, having resolved to stay awake and solve +the mystery once for all. + +From wondering what he might receive he came to wondering if he were good. +His last meditation was upon the Sunday-school book his dear mother had +helped him read before they took her away with a new little baby that had +never amounted to much; before he and Allan came to Grandfather Delcher's +to live--where there was a great deal to eat. The name of the book was +"Ben Holt." He remembered this especially because a text often quoted in +the story said "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches." He +had often wondered why Ben Holt should be considered an especially good +name; and why Ben Holt came to choose it instead of the goldpiece he found +and returned to the schoolmaster, before he fell sick and was sent away to +the country where the merry haymakers were. Of course, there were worse +names than Ben Holt. It was surely better than Eygji Watts, whose sanguine +parents were said to have named him with the first five letters they drew +from a hat containing the alphabet; Ben Holt was assuredly better than +Eygji, even had this not been rendered into "Hedge-hog" by careless +companions. His last confusion of ideas was a wondering if Bernal Linford +was as good a name as Ben Holt, and why he could not remember having +chosen it in preference to a goldpiece. Back of this, in his fading +consciousness was the high-coloured image of a candy cane, too splendid +for earth. + +Then, far in the night, as it might have seemed to the little boy, came +the step of slippered feet. This time Clytie, satisfying herself that both +boys slept, set down her candle and went softly out, leaving the door +open. There came back with her one bearing gifts--a tall, dark old man, +with a face of many deep lines and severe set, who yet somehow shed +kindness, as if he held a spirit of light prisoned within his darkness, so +that, while only now and then could a visible ray of it escape through +the sombre eye or through a sudden winning quality in the harsh voice, it +nevertheless radiated from him sensibly at all times, to belie his +sternness and puzzle those who feared him. + +Uneasy enough he looked now as Clytie unloaded him of the bundles and +bulky toys. In a silence broken only by their breathing they quickly +bestowed the gifts--some in the hanging stockings at the fire-place, +others beside each bed, in chairs or on the mantel. + +Then they were in the hall again, the door closed so that they could +speak. The old man took up his own candle from a stand against the wall. + +"The little one is like her," he said. + +"He's awful cunning and bright, but Allan is the handsomest. Never in my +born days did I see so beautiful a boy." + +"But he's like the father, line for line." There was a sudden savage +roughness in the voice, a sterner set to the shaven upper lip and +straight mouth, though he still spoke low. "Like the huckstering, godless +fiddle-player that took her away from me. What a mercy of God's he'll +never see her again--she with the saved and he--what a reckoning for him +when he goes!" + +"But he was not bad to let you take them." + +"He boasted to me that he'd not have done it, except that she begged him +with her last breath to promise it. He said the words with great maudlin +tears raining down his face, when my own eyes were dry!" + +"How good if you can leave them both in the church, preaching the word +where you preached it so many years!" + +"I misdoubt the father's blood in them--at least, in the older. But it's +late. Good night, Clytie--a good Christmas to you." + +"More to you, Mr. Delcher! Good night!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +AN OLD MAN FACES TWO WAYS + + +His candle up, he went softly along the white hallway over the heavy red +carpet, to where a door at the end, half-open, let him into his study. +Here a wood fire at the stage of glowing coals made a searching warmth. +Blowing out his candle, he seated himself at the table where a shaded lamp +cast its glare upon a litter of books and papers. A big, white-breasted +gray cat yawned and stretched itself from the hearthrug and leaped lightly +upon him with great rumbling purrs, nosing its head under one of his hands +suggestively, and, when he stroked it, looking up at him with lazily +falling eye-lids. + +He crossed his knees to make a better lap for the cat, and fell to musing +backward into his own boyhood, when the Christmas Saint was a real +presence. Then he came forward to his youth, when he had obeyed the call +of the Lord against his father's express command that he follow the family +way and become a prosperous manufacturer. Truly there had been revolt in +him. Perhaps he had never enough considered this in excuse for his own +daughter's revolt. + +Again he dwelt in the days when he had preached with a hot passion such +truth as was his. For a long time, while the old clock ticked on the +mantel before him and the big cat purred or slept under his absent +pettings, his mind moved through an incident of that early ministry. +Clear in his memory were certain passages of fire from the sermon. In the +little log church at Edom he had felt the spirit burn in him and he had +movingly voiced its warnings of that dread place where the flames forever +blaze, yet never consume; where cries ever go up for one drop of water to +cool the parched tongues of those who sought not God while they lived. He +had told of one who died--one that the world called good, a moral man--but +not a Christian; one who had perversely neglected the way of life. How, on +his death-bed, this one had called in agony for a last glass of water, +seeming to know all at once that he would now be where no drop of water +could cool him through all eternity. + +So effective had been his putting of this that a terrified throng came +forward at his call for converts. + +The next morning he had ridden away from Edom toward Felton Falls to +preach there. A mile out of town he had been accosted by a big, bearded +man who had yet a singularly childish look--who urged that he come to his +cabin to minister to a sick friend. He knew the fellow for one that the +village of Edom called "daft" or "queer," yet held to be harmless--to be +rather amusing, indeed, since he could be provoked to deliver curious +harangues upon the subject of revealed religion. He remembered now that +the man's face had stared at him from far back in the church the night +before--a face full of the liveliest terror, though he had not been among +those that fled to the mercy-seat. Acceding to the man's request, he +followed him up a wooded path to his cabin. Dismounting and tying his +horse, he entered and, turning to ask where the sick man was, found +himself throttled in the grasp of a giant. + +He was thrust into an inner room, windowless and with no door other than +the one now barred by his chuckling captor. And here the Reverend Allan +Delcher had lain three days and two nights captive of a madman, with no +food and without one drop of water. + +From the other side of the log partition his captor had declared himself +to be the keeper of hell. Even now he could hear the words maundered +through the chinks: "Never got another drop of water for a million years +and _still_ more, and him a burning up and a roasting up, and his tongue +a lolling out, all of a _sizzle_. Now wasn't that fine--because folks said +he'd likely gone crazy about religion!" + +Other times his captor would declare himself to be John the Baptist +making straight the paths in the wilderness. Again he would quote passages +of scripture, some of them hideous mockeries to the tortured prisoner, +some strangely soothing and suggestive. + +But a search had been made for the missing man and, quite by accident, +they had found him, at a time when it seemed to him his mind must go with +his captor's. His recovery from the physical blight of this captivity had +been prompt; but there were those who sat under him who insisted that +ever after he had been palpably less insistent upon the feature of divine +retribution for what might be called the merely technical sins of +heterodoxy. Not that unsound doctrine was ever so much as hinted of him; +only, as once averred a plain parishioner, "He seemed to bear down on hell +jest a _lee-tle_ less continuously." + +As for his young wife, she had ever after professed an unconquerable +aversion for those sermons in which God's punishment of sinners was set +forth; and this had strangely been true of their daughter, born but a +little time after the father's release from the maniac's cabin. She had +grown to womanhood submitting meekly to an iron rule; but none the less +betraying an acute repugnance for certain doctrines preached by her +father. It seemed to the old man a long way to look back; and then a +long way to come forward again, past the death of his girl-wife while +their child was still tender, down to the amazing iniquity of that +child's revolt, in her thirty-first year. Dumbly, dutifully, had she +submitted to all his restrictions and severities, stonily watching her +girlhood go, through a fading, lining and hardening of her prettiness. +Then all at once, with no word of pleading or warning, she had done the +monstrous thing. He awoke one day to know that his beloved child had +gone away to marry the handsome, swaggering, fiddle-playing +good-for-nothing who had that winter given singing lessons in the +village. + +Only once after that had he looked upon her face--the face of a withered +sprite, subdued by time. The hurt of that look was still fresh in him, +making his mind turn heavily, perhaps a little remorsefully, to the two +little boys asleep in the west bedroom. Had the seed of revolt been in +her, from his own revolt against his father? Would it presently bear some +ugly fruit in her sons? + +From a drawer in the table he took a little sheaf of folded sheets, and +read again the last letter that had come from her; read it not without +grim mutterings and oblique little jerks of the narrow old head, yet with +quick tender glows melting the sternness. + +"You must not think I have ever regretted my choice, though every day of +my life I have sorrowed at your decision not to see me so long as I stayed +by my husband. How many times I have prayed God to remind you that I took +him for better or worse, till death should us part." + +This made him mutter. + +"Clayton has never in his life failed of kindness and gentleness to +me"--so ran the letter--"and he has always provided for us as well as a +man of his _uncommon talents_ could." + +Here the old man sniffed in fine contempt. + +"All last winter he had quite a class to teach singing in the evening and +three day-scholars for the violin, one of whom paid him in hams. Another +offered to pay either in money or a beautiful portrait of me in pastel. +We needed money, but Clayton chose the portrait as a surprise to me. At +times he seems unpractical, but now he has started out in _business_ +again--" + +There were bitter shakings of the head here. Business! Standing in a buggy +at street-corners, jauntily urging a crowd to buy the magic +grease-eradicator, toothache remedy, meretricious jewelry, what not! first +playing a fiddle and rollicking out some ribald song to fetch them. +Business indeed! A pretty business! + +"The boys are delighted with the Bibles you sent and learn a verse each +day. I have told them they may some day preach as you did if they will be +as good men as you are and study the Bible. They try to preach like our +preacher in the cunningest way. I wish you could see them. You would love +them in spite of your feeling against their father. I did what you +suggested to stimulate their minds about the Scriptures, but perhaps the +lesson they chose to write about was not very edifying. It does not seem +a pretty lesson to me, and I did not pick it out. They heard about it at +Sabbath-school and had their papers all written as a surprise for me. Of +course, Bernal's is _very_ childish, but I think Allan's paper, for a +child of his age, shows a _grasp_ of religious matters that is _truly +remarkable_. I shall keep them studying the Bible daily. I should tell you +that I am now looking forward with great joy to--" + +With a long sigh he laid down the finely written sheet and took from the +sheaf the two papers she had spoken of. Then while the gale roared without +and shook his window, and while the bust of John Calvin looked down at him +from the book-case at his back, he followed his two grandsons on their +first incursion into the domain of speculative theology. + +He took first the paper of the older boy, painfully elaborated with heavy, +intricate capitals and headed "Elisha and the Wicked Children--by Mr. +Allan Delcher Linford, Esquire, aged nine years and six months." + + * * * * * + +"This lesson," it began, "is to teach us to love God and the prophets or +else we will likely get into trouble. It says Elisha went up from Bethel +and some children came out of the city and said go up thou Baldhead. +They said it Twice one after the other and so Elisha got mad right away +and turned around and cursed them good in the name of the Lord and so 2 +She Bears come along and et up 42 of them for Elisha was a holy prophet of +God and had not ought to of been yelled at. So of course the mothers would +Take on very much When they found their 42 Children et up but I think that +we had ought to learn from this that these 42 Little ones was not the +Elected. It says in our catchism God having out of his mere good pleasure +elected some to everlasting life. Now God being a Presbiterian would know +these 42 little ones had not been elected so they might as well be et up +by bears as anything else to show forth his honour and glory Forever Amen. +It should teach a Boy to be mighty carful about kidding old men unless he +is a Presbiterian. I spelled every word in this right. + +"Mr. Allan Delcher Linford." + +The second paper, which the old man now held long before him, was partly +printed and partly written with a lead-pencil, whose mark was now faint +and now heavy, as having gone at intervals to the writer's lips. As the +old man read, his face lost not a little of its grimness. + +"BEARS + +"It teaches the lord thy God is baldheaded. I ask my deer father what it +teeches he said it teeches who ever wrot that storry was baldheaded. He +says a man with thik long hair like my deer father would of said o let the +kids have their fun with old Elisha so I ask my deer mother who wrot this +lesson she said God wrot the holy word so that is how we know God is +baldheaded. It was a lot of children for only two 2 bears. I liked to of +ben there if the bears wold of known that I was a good child. mabe I cold +of ben on a high fense or up a tree. I climd the sor aple tree in our back +yard esy. + +"By Bernal Linford, aged neerly 8 yrs." + +Carefully he put back both papers with the mother's letter, his dark face +showing all its intricate net-work of lines in a tension that was both +pained and humorous. + +Two fresh souls were given to his care to be made, please God, the means +of grace by which thousands of other souls might be washed clean of the +stain of original sin. Yet, if revolt was there--revolt like his +daughter's and like his own? Would he forgive as his own father had +forgiven, who had called him back after many years to live out a tranquil +old age on the fortune that father's father had founded? He mused long on +this. The age was lax--true, but God's law was never lax. If one would +revolt from the right, one must suffer. For the old man was one of the few +last of a race of giants who were to believe always in the Printed Word. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE CULT OF THE CANDY CANE + + +When the littler boy looked fairly into the frosty gray of that Christmas +morning, the trailed banner of his faith was snatched once more aloft; +and in the breast of his complacent brother there swelled the conviction +that one does ill to flaunt one's skepticism, when the rewards of belief +are substantial and imminent. For before them was an array of gifts such +as neither had ever looked upon before, save as forbidden treasure of the +few persons whose immense wealth enables them to keep toy-shops. + +The tale of the princely Saint was now authenticated delightfully. That +which had made him seem unreal in moments of spiritual laxity--the +impenetrable secrecy of his private life--was now seen to enhance manyfold +his wondrous givings. Here was a charm which could never have sat the +display before them had it been dryly bought in their presence from one of +the millionaire toy-shop keepers. For a wondering moment they looked from +their beds, sputtering, gibbering, gasping, with cautious calls one to +the other. Then having proved speech to be no disenchantment they shouted +and laughed crazily. There followed a scramble from the beds and a swift +return from the cold, each bearing such of the priceless bits as had +lain nearest. And while these were fondled or shot or blown upon or +tasted or wound up, each according to its wonderful nature, they looked +farther afield seeing other and ever new packages bulk mysteriously into +the growing light; bundles quickening before their eyes with every delight +to be imagined of a Saint with epicurean tastes and prodigal +habits--bundles that looked as if a mere twitch at the cord would expose +their hidden charms. + +The littler boy now wore a unique fur cap that let down to cover the neck +and face, with openings wonderfully contrived for the eyes, nose and +mouth--an easy triumph, surely, over the deadliest cold known to man. In +one hand he flourished a brass-handled knife with both of its blades open; +with the other he clasped a striped trumpet, into the china mouthpiece of +which he had blown the shreds of a caramel, not meaning to; and here he +was made to forget these trifles by discovering at the farther side of the +room a veritable rocking-horse, a creature that looked not only +magnificently willing, but superbly untamable, with a white mane and tail +of celestial flow, with alert, pointed ears of maroon leather nailed +nicely to the right spot. At this marvel he stared in that silence which +is the highest power of joy: a presentiment had been his that such a +horse, curveting on blue rockers, would be found on this very morning. Two +days before had he in an absent moment beheld a vision of this horse +poised near the door of the attic; but when he ran to make report of it +below, thinking to astound people by his power of insight, Clytemnestra, +bidding him wait in the kitchen where she was baking, had hurried to the +spot and found only some rolls of blue cambric. She had rather shamed him +for giving her such a start. A few rolls of shiny blue cambric against a +white wall did not, she assured him, make a rocking-horse; and, what was +more, they never would. Now the vision came back with a significance that +set him all a-thrill. Next time Clytie would pay attention to him. He +laughed to think of her confusion now. + +But here again, at the very zenith of a shout, was he frozen to silence by +a vision--this time one too obviously of no ponderable fabric. There in +the corner, almost at his hand, seemed to be a thing that he had dreamed +of possessing only after he entered Heaven--a candy cane: one of fearful +length, thick of girth, vast of crook, and wide in the spiral stripe that +seemed to run a living flame before his ravished eyes, beginning at the +bottom and winding around and around the whole dizzy height. Fearfully in +nerve-braced silence he leaned far out of his bed to bring against this +amazing apparition one cool, impartial forefinger of skeptic research. It +did not vanish; it resisted his touch. Then his heart fainted with +rapture, for he knew the unimagined had become history. + +Standing before the windows of the great, he had gazed long at these +creations. They were suspended on a wire across the window in various +lengths, from little ones to sizes too awesome to compute. On one +occasion so long had he stood motionless, so deep the trance of his +contemplation, that the winter cold had cruelly bitten his ears and toes. +He had not supposed that these things were for mere vulgar ownership. He +had known of boys who had guns and building-blocks and rocking-horses as +well as candy in the lesser degrees; but never had he known, never had he +been able to hear of one who had owned a thing like this. Indeed, among +the boys he knew, it was believed that they were not even to be seen save +on their wire at Christmas time in the windows of the rich. One boy had +hinted that the "set" would not be broken even if a person should appear +with money enough to buy a single one. And here before him was the finest +of them all, receding neither from his gaze or his touch, one as long as +the longest of which Heaven had hitherto vouchsafed him a chilling vision +through glass; here was the same fascinating union of transcendent merit +with a playful suggestion of downright utility. And he had blurted out to +Clytie that the news of there being no Santa Claus was all over town! He +was ashamed, and the moment became for him one of chastening in which he +humbled his unbelieving spirit before this symbol of a more than earthly +goodness--a symbol in whose presence, while as yet no accident had +rendered it less than perfect, he would never cease to feel the spiritual +uplift of one who has weighed the fruits of faith and found them not +wanting. + +He issued from some bottomless stupor of ecstacy to hear the door open to +Allan's shouts; then to see the opening nicely filled again by the figure +of Clytemnestra, who looked over at them with eager, shining eyes. He was +at first powerless to do more than say "Oh, Clytie!" with little impotent +pointings toward the candy cane. But the action now in order served to +restore him to a state of working sanity. There was washing and dressing +after Clytie had the fire crackling; the forgetting of some treasures to +remember others; and the conveyance of them all down stairs to the big +sitting-room where the sun came in over the geraniums in the bay-window, +and where the Franklin heater made the air tropic. The rocking-horse was +led and pushed by both boys; but to Clytie's responsible hand alone was +intrusted the more than earthly candy cane. + +Downstairs there was the grandfather to greet--erect, fresh-shaven, +flashing kind eyes from under stern brows. He seemed to be awkwardly +pleased with their pleasure, yet scarce able to be one with them; as if +that inner white spirit of his fluttered more than its wont to be free, +yet found only tiny exits for its furtive flashes of light. + +Breakfast was a chattering and explosive meal, a severe trial, indeed, to +the patience of the littler boy, who decided that he wished never to eat +breakfast again. During the ten days that he had been a member of the +household a certain formality observed at the beginning of each meal had +held him in abject fascination, so that he looked forward to it with +pleased terror. This was that, when they were all seated, there ensued a +pause of precisely two seconds--no more and no less--a pause that became +awful by reason of the fact that every one grew instantly solemn and +expectant--even apprehensive. His tingling nerves had defined his spine +for him before this pause ended, and then, when the roots of his hair +began to crinkle, his grandfather would suddenly bow low over his plate +and rumble in his head. It was very curious and weirdly pleasurable, and +it lasted one minute. When it ceased the tension relaxed instantly, and +every one was friendly and cordial and safe again. + +This morning the little boy was actually impatient during the rumble, so +eager was he to talk. And not until he had been assured by both his +grandfather and Clytie that Santa Claus meant everything he left to be +truly kept; that he came back for nothing--not even for a cane--_of any +kind_--that he might have left at a certain house by mistake--not until +then would he heave the sigh of immediate security and consent to eat his +egg and muffins, of which latter Clytie had to bring hot ones from the +kitchen because both boys had let the first plate go cold. For Clytie, +like Grandfather Delcher, was also one of the last of a race of American +giants--in her case a race preceding servants, that called itself "hired +girls"--who not only ate with the family, but joyed and sorrowed with it +and for long terms of years was a part of it in devotion, responsibility +and self-respect. She had, it is true, dreaded the coming of these +children, but from the moment that the two cold, subdued little figures +had looked in doubting amazement at the four kinds of preserves and three +kinds of cake set out for their first collation in the new home, she had +rejoiced unceasingly in a vicarious motherhood. + +Within an hour after breakfast the morning's find had been examined, +appraised, and accorded perpetual rank by merit. Grandfather Delcher made +but one timid effort to influence decisions. + +"Now, Bernal, which do you like best of all your presents?" he asked. With +a heart too full for words the littler boy had pointed promptly but shyly +at his candy cane. Not once, indeed, had he been able to say the words +"candy cane." It was a creation which mere words were inadequate to name. +It was a presence to be pointed at. He pointed again firmly when the old +man asked, "Are you quite certain, now, you like it best of +all?"--suggestively--"better than this fine book with this beautiful +picture of Joseph being sold away by his wicked brothers?" + +The questioner had turned then to the older boy, who tactfully divined +that a different answer would have pleased the old man better. + +"And what do you like best, Allan?" + +"Oh, I like this fine and splendid book best of all!"--and he read from +the title-page, in the clear, confident tones of the pupil who knows that +the teacher's favour rests upon him--"'From Eden to Calvary; or through +the Bible in a year with our boys and girls; a book of pleasure and profit +for young persons on Sabbath Afternoon. By Grandpa Silas Atterbury, the +well-known author and writer for young people." + +His glance toward his brother at the close was meant to betray the +consciousness of his own superiority to one who dallied sensuously with +created objects. + +But the unspiritual one was riding the new horse at a furious gallop, and +the glance of reproof was unnoted save by the old man--who wondered if it +might be by any absurd twist that the boy most like the godless father +were more godly than the one so like his mother that every note of his +little voice and every full glance of his big blue eyes made the old heart +flutter. + +In the afternoon came callers from the next house; Dr. Crealock, rubicund +and portly, leaning on his cane, to pass the word of seasonable cheer with +his old friend and pastor; and with him his tiny niece to greet the +grandchildren of his friend. The Doctor went with his host to the study on +the second floor, where, as a Christmas custom, they would drink some +Madeira, ancient of days, from a cask prescribed and furnished long since +by the doctor. + +The little boy was for the moment left alone with the tiny niece; to stare +curiously, now that she was close, at one of whom he had caught glimpses +in a window of the big house next door. She was clad in a black velvet +cloak and hood, with pink satin next her face inside the hood, and she +carried a large closely-wrapped doll which she affected to think might +have taken cold. With great self-possession she doffed her cloak and +overshoes; then slowly and tenderly unwound the wrappings of the doll, +talking meanwhile in low mothering tones, and going with it to the fire +when she had it uncloaked. Of the boy who stared at her she seemed +unconscious, and he could do no more than stand timidly at a little +distance. An eye-flash from the maid may have perceived his abjectness, +for she said haughtily at length, "I'm astonished no one in this house +knows where Clytie is!" + +He drew nearer by as far as he could slowly spread his feet twice. + +"_I_ know--now--she went to get two glasses from the dresser to take to my +grandfather and that gentleman." He felt voluble from the mere ease of +the answer. But she affected to have heard nothing, and he was obliged to +speak again. + +"Now--why, _I_ know a doll that shuts up her eyes every time she lies +down." + +The doll at hand was promptly extended on the little lap and with a click +went into sudden sleep while the mother rocked it. He could have ventured +nothing more after this pricking of his inflated little speech. A moment +he stood, suffering moderately, and then would have edged cautiously away +with the air of wishing to go, only at this point, without seeming to see +him, she chirped to him quite winningly in a soft, warm little voice, and +there was free talk at once. He manfully let her tell of all her silly +little presents before talking of his own. He even listened about the +doll, whose name Santa Claus had thoughtfully painted on the box in which +she came; it was a French name, "Fragile." + +Then, being come to names, they told their own. Hers, she said, was +Lillian May. + +"But your uncle, now--that gentleman--he called you _Nancy_ when you came +in." He waited for her solving of this. + +"Oh, Uncle Doctor doesn't know it yet, what my _real_ name is. They call +me Nancy, but that's a very disagreeable name, so I took Lillian May for +my real name. But I tell _very_ few persons," she added, importantly. Here +he was at home; he knew about choosing a good name. + +"Did you give up the gold-piece you found?" he asked. But this puzzled +her. + +"'A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches,'" he reminded her. +"Didn't you find a gold-piece like Ben Holt did?" + +But it seemed she had never found anything. Indeed, once she had lost a +dime, even on the way to spending it for five candy bananas and five +jaw-breakers. Plainly she had chosen her good name without knowing of the +case of Ben Holt. Then he promised to show her something the most +wonderful in all the world, which she would never believe without seeing +it, and led her to where the candy cane towered to their shoulders in its +corner. He saw at once that it meant less to her than it did to him. + +"Oh, it's a candy cane!" she said, _calling_ it a candy cane commonly, +with not even a hush of tone, as one would say "a brick house" or "a gold +watch," or anything. She, promptly detecting his disappointment at her +coldness, tried to simulate the fervour of an initiate, but this may never +be done so as to deceive any one who has truly sensed the occult and +incommunicable virtue of the candy cane. For one thing, she kept repeating +the words "candy cane" baldly, whenever she could find a place for them in +her soulless praise; whereas an initiate would not once have uttered the +term, but would have looked in silence. Another initiate, equally silent +by his side, would have known him to be of the brotherhood. Perhaps at the +end there would have been respectful wonder expressed as to how long it +would stay unbroken and so untasted. Still he was not unkind to her, +except in ways requisite to a mere decent showing forth of his now +ascertained superiority. He helped her to a canter on the new horse; and +even pretended a polite and superficial interest in the doll, Fragile, +which she took up often. Being a girl, she had to be humoured in that +manner. But any boy could see that the thing went to sleep by turning its +eyes inside out, _and its garters were painted on its fat legs_. These +things he was, of course, too much the gentleman to point out. + +When the Doctor and his host came down stairs late in the afternoon, the +little boy and girl were fairly friendly. Only there was talk of kissing +at the door, started by the little girl's uncle, and this the little boy +of course could not consider, even though he suddenly wished it of all +things--for he had never kissed any one but his father and mother. He had +told Clytie it made him sick to be kissed. Now, when the little girl +called to him as if it were the simplest thing in the world, he could not +go. And then she stabbed him by falsely kissing the complacent Allan +standing by, who thereupon smirked in sickening deprecation and promptly +rubbed his cheek. + +Not until the pair were out in the street did his man-strength come back +to him, and then he could only burn with indignation at her and at Allan. +He wondered that no one was shocked at him for feeling as he did. But, as +they seemed not to notice him, he rode his horse again. No mad gallop now, +but a slow, moody jog--a pace ripe for any pessimism. + +"Clytie!" he called imperiously, after a little. "Do you think there's a +real bone in this horse--like a _regular_ horse?" + +Clytie responded from the dining-room with a placid "I guess so." + +"If I sawed into its neck, would the saw go right into a real _bone_?" + +"My suz! what talk! Well?" + +"I know there _ain't_ any bone in there, like a regular horse. It's just a +_wooden_ bone." + +Nor was this his last negative thought of the day. It came to him then and +there with cruel, biting plainness, that no one else in the house felt as +he did toward his chief treasure. Allan didn't. He had spent hardly a +moment with it. Clytie didn't; he had seen her pick it up when she dusted +the sitting-room; there was sacrilege in her very grasp of it; and his +grandfather seemed hardly to know of its existence. The little girl who +had chosen the good name of Lillian May might have been excused; but not +these others. If his grandfather was without understanding in such a +matter, in what, then, could he be trusted? + +He descended to a still lower plane before he fell asleep that night. Even +if he had _one_ of them, he would probably never have a whole row, +graduated from a pigmy to a mammoth, to hang on a wire across the front +window, after the manner of the rich, and dazzle the outer world into +envy. The mood was but slightly chastened when he remembered, as he now +did, that on last Christmas he had received only one pretentious candy +rooster, falsely hollow, and a very uninteresting linen handkerchief +embroidered with some initials not his own. He fell asleep on a brutal +reflection that the cane could be broken accidentally and eaten. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE BIG HOUSE OF PORTENTS + + +In this big white house the little boys had been born again to a life that +was all strange. Novel was the outer house with its high portico and +fluted pillars, its vast areas of white wall set with shutters of +relentless green; its stout, red chimneys; its surprises of gabled window; +its big front door with the polished brass knocker and the fan-light +above. Quite as novel was the inner house, and quite as novel was this new +life to its very center. + +For one thing, while the joy of living had hitherto been all but flawless +for the little boys, the disadvantages of being dead were now brought +daily to their notice. In morning and evening prayer, in formal homily, +informal caution, spontaneous warning, in the sermon at church, and the +lesson of the Sabbath-school, was their excessive liability to divine +wrath impressed upon them "when the memory is wax to receive and marble +to retain." + +Within the home Clytie proved to be an able coadjutor of the old man, who +was, indeed, constrained and awkward in the presence of the younger child, +and perhaps a thought too severe with the elder. But Clytie, who had said +"I'll make my own of them," was tireless and not without ingenuity in +opening the way of life to their little feet. + +Allan, the elder, gifted with a distinct talent for memorising, she taught +many instructive bits chosen from the scrap-book in which her literary +treasures were preserved. His rendition of a passage from one of Mr. +Spurgeon's sermons became so impressive under her drilling that the aroma +of his lost youth stole back to the nostrils of the old man while he +listened. + +"There is a place," the boy would declaim loweringly, and with fitting +gesture, with hypnotic eye fastened on the cowering Bernal, "where the +only music is the symphony of damned souls. Where howling, groaning, +moaning, and gnashing of teeth make up the horrible concert. There is a +place where demons fly swift as air, with whips of knotted burning wire, +torturing poor souls; where tongues on fire with agony burn the roofs of +mouths that shriek in vain for drops of water--that water all denied. When +thou diest, O Sinner--" + +But at this point the smaller boy usually became restless and would have +to go to the kitchen for a drink of water. Always he became thirsty here. +And he would linger over his drink till Clytie called him back to admire +his brother in the closing periods. + +--"but at the resurrection thy soul will be united to thy body and then +thou wilt have twin hells; body and soul will be tormented together, each +brimful of agony, the soul sweating in its utmost pores drops of blood, +thy body from head to foot suffused with pain, thy bones cracking in the +fire, thy pulse rattling at an enormous rate in agony, every nerve a +string on which the devil shall play his diabolical tune of hell's +unutterable torment." + +Here the little boy always listened at his wrist to know if his pulse +rattled yet, and felt glad indeed that he was a Presbyterian, instead of +being in that dreadful place with Jews and Papists and Milo Barrus, who +spelled God with a little g. + +As to his own performance, Clytie found that he memorised prose with great +difficulty. A week did she labour to teach him one brief passage from a +lecture of Francis Murphy, depicting the fate of the drunkard. She bribed +him to fresh effort with every carnal lure the pantry afforded, but +invariably he failed at a point where the soul of the toper was going +"down--_down_--DOWN--into the bottomless depths of HELL!" Here he became +pitiful in his ineffectiveness, and Clytie had at last to admit that he +would never be the elocutionist Allan was. "But, my Land!" she would say, +at each of his failures, "if you only _could_ do it the way Mr. Murphy +did--and then he'd talk so plain and natural, too,--just like he was +associating with a body in their own parlour--and so pathetic it made a +body simply bawl. My suz! how I did love to set and hear that man tell +what a sot he'd been!" + +However, Clytie happily discovered that the littler boy's memory was more +tenacious of rhyme, so she successfully taught him certain metrical +conceits that had been her own to learn in girlhood, beginning with pithy +couplets such as: + + "Xerxes the Great did die + And so must you and I." + + "As runs the glass + Man's life must pass." + + "Thy life to mend + God's book attend." + +From these it was a step entirely practicable to longer warnings, one of +her favourites being: + +UNCERTAINTY OF LIFE + + "I in the burying-place may see + Graves shorter there than I. + From Death's arrest no age is free, + Young children, too, may die. + + "My God, may such an awful sight + Awakening be to me; + Oh, that by early grace, I might + For death prepared be!" + +She was not a little proud of Bernal the day he recited this to +Grandfather Delcher without a break, though he began the second stanza +somewhat timidly, because it sounded so much like swearing. + +Nor did she neglect to teach both boys the lessons of Holy Writ. + +Of a Sabbath afternoon she would read how God ordered the congregation to +stone the son of Shelomith for blasphemy; or, perhaps, how David fetched +the Ark of the Covenant from Kirjath-jearim on a new cart; and of how the +Lord "made a breach" upon Uzza for wickedly putting his hand upon the Ark +to save it when the oxen stumbled. The little boys were much impressed by +this when they discovered, after questioning, exactly what it meant to +Uzza to have "a breach" made upon him. The unwisdom of touching an Ark of +the Covenant, under any circumstances, could not have been more clearly +brought home to them. They liked also to hear of the instruments played +upon before the Lord by those that went ahead of the Ark; harps, +psalteries, and timbrels; cornets, cymbals, and instruments made of +fir-wood. + +Then there was David, who danced at the head of the procession "girded +with a linen ephod," which, somehow, sounded insufficient; and indeed, +it appeared that Clytie was inclined to side wholly with Michal, David's +wife, who looked through a window and despised him when she saw him +"leaping and dancing before the Lord," uncovered save for the presumably +inadequate ephod of linen. She, Clytie, thought it not well that a man of +David's years and honour should "make himself ridiculous that way." + +So it was early in this new life that the little boys came to walk as it +behooves those to walk who shall taste death. And to the littler boy, +prone to establish relations and likenesses among his mental images, the +big house itself would at times be more than itself to him. There was the +Front Room. Only the use of capital letters can indicate the manner in +which he was accustomed to regard it. Each Friday, when it was opened for +a solemn dusting, he timidly pierced its stately gloom from the threshold +of its door. It seemed to be an abode of dead joys--a place where they had +gone to reign forever in fixed and solemn festival. And while he could not +see God there, actually, neither in the horse-hair sofa nor the bleak +melodeon surmounted by tall vases of dyed grass, nor in the center-table +with its cemeterial top, nor under the empty horsehair and green-rep +chairs, set at expectant angles, nor in the cold, tall stove, ornately +set with jewels of polished nickel, and surely not in the somewhat +frivolous air-castle of cardboard and scarlet zephyr that fluttered from +the ceiling--yet in and over and through the dark of it was a forbidding +spirit that breathed out the cold mustiness of the tomb--an all-pervading +thing of gloom and majesty which was nothing in itself, yet a quality and +part of everything, even of himself when he looked in. And this quality or +spirit he conceived to be God--the more as it came to him in a flash of +divination that the superb and immaculate coal-stove must be like the Ark +of the Covenant. + +Thus the Front Room became what "Heaven" meant to him when he heard the +word--a place difficult of access, to be prized not so much for what it +actually afforded as for what it enabled one to avoid; a place whose very +joys, indeed, would fill with dismay any but the absolutely pure in heart; +a place of restricted area, moreover, while all outside was a speciously +pleasant hell, teeming with every potent solicitation of evil, of games +and sweets and joyous idleness. + +The word "God," then, became at this time a word of evil import to the +littler boy, as sinister as the rustle of black silk on a Sabbath +morning, when he must walk sedately to church with his hand in Clytie's, +with scarce an envious glance at the proud, happy loafers, who, +clean-shaven and in their own Sabbath finery, sat on the big boxes in +front of the shut stores and whittled and laughed and gossiped rarely, +like very princes. + +To Clytie he once said, of something for which he was about to ask her +permission, "Oh, it must be awful, _awful_ wicked--because I want to do +it very, very much!--not like, going to church." + +Yet the ascetic life was not devoid of compensation--particularly when +Milo Barrus, the village atheist, was pointed out to him among the +care-free Sabbath loafers. + +Clytie predicted most direly interesting things of him if he did not come +to the Feet before he died. "But I believe he _will_ come to the Feet," +she added, "even if it's on his very death-bed, with the cold sweat +standing on his brow. It would make a lovely tract--him coming to the +Feet at the very last moment and his face lighting up and everything." + +The little boy, however, rather hoped Milo Barrus wouldn't come to the +Feet. It was more worth while going to Heaven if he didn't, and if you +could look down and see him after it was too late for him to come. During +church that morning he chiefly wondered about the Feet. Once, long ago, +it seemed, he had been with his dear father in a very big city, and out of +the maze of all its tangled marvels of sound and sight he had brought and +made his own forever one image: the image of a mighty foot carved in +marble, set on a pedestal at the bottom of a dark stairway. It had been +severed at the ankle, and around the top was modestly chiselled a border +of lace. It was a foot larger than his whole body, and he had passed +eager, questioning hands over its whole surface, pressing it from heel to +each perfect toe. Of course, this must be one of the Feet to which Milo +Barrus might come; he wondered if the other would be up that dark +stairway, and if Milo Barrus would go up to look for it--and what did you +have to do when you got to the Feet? The possibility of not getting to +them, or of finding only one of them, began to fill his inner life quite +as the sombre shadows filled and made a presence of themselves in the +Front Room--particularly of a Sabbath, when one must be uncommonly good +because God seemed to take more notice than on week-days. + +During the week, indeed, Clytie often relaxed her austerity. She would +even read to him verses of her own composition, of which he never tired +and of which he learned to repeat not a few. One of her pastoral poems +told of a visit she had once made to the home of a relative in a +neighbouring State. It began thus: + + "New Hampshire is a pretty place, + I did go there to see + The maple-sugar being boiled + By one that's dear to me." + +Bernal came to know it all as far as the stanza-- + + "I loved to hear the banjo hum, + It sounds so very calmly; + If a happy home you wish to find, + Visit the Thompson family." + +After this the verses became less direct, and, to his mind, rather wordy +and purposeless, though he never failed of joy in the mere verbal music of +them when Clytie read, with sometimes a kind of warm tremble in her +voice-- + + "At lovers' promises fates grow merrilee; + Some are made on land, + Some on the deep sea. + Love does sometimes leave + Streams of tears." + +He thought she looked very beautiful when she read this, in a voice that +sounded like crying, with her big, square face, her fat cheeks that looked +like russet apples, her very tiny black moustache, her smooth, oily black +hair with a semicircle of tight little curls over her brow, and her +beautiful, big, rounded, shining forehead. + +Yet he preferred her poems of action, like that of Salmon Faubel, whose +bride became so homesick in Edom that she was in a way to perish, so that +Salmon took her to her home and found work there for himself. He even +sang one catchy couplet of this to music of his own: + + "For her dear sake whom he did pity, + He took her back to Jersey City." + +But the Sabbath came inexorably to bring his sinful nature before him, +just as the door of the Front Room was opened each week to remind him of +the awful joys of Heaven. And then his mind was like the desert of +shifting sands. There were so many things to be done and not done if one +were to avert the wrath of this God that made the Front Room a cavern of +terror, that rumbled threateningly in the prayer of his grandfather and +shook the young minister to a white passion each Sabbath. + +There was being good--which was not to commit murder or be an atheist like +Milo Barrus and spell God with a little g; and there was Coming to the +Feet--not so simple as it sounded, he could very well tell them; and there +was the matter of Blood. There were hymns, for example, that left him +confused. The "fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins" +sounded interesting. Vividly he saw the "sinners plunged beneath that +flood" losing all their guilty stains. It was entirely reasonable, and +with an assumption of carelessness he glanced cautiously over his own body +each morning to see if his guilty stains showed yet. But who was Immanuel? +And where was this excellent fountain? + +Then there was being "washed in the blood of the lamb," which was +considerably simpler--except for the matter of its making one "whiter +than snow." He was doubtful of this result, unless it was only +poetry-writing which doesn't mean everything it says. He meant to try +this sometime, when he could get a lamb, both as a means of grace and as +a desirable experiment. + +But plunging into the fountain filled with blood sounded far more +important and effectual--if it were only practicable. As the sinners came +out of this flood he thought they must look as Clytie did in her scarlet +flannel petticoat the night he was taken with croup and she came running +with the Magnetic Ointment--even redder! + +The big white house of Grandfather Delcher and Clytie, in short, was a +house in which to be terrified and happy; anxious and well-fed. And if its +inner recesses took on too much gloomy portent one could always fly to the +big yard where grew monarch elms and maples and a row of formal spruces; +where the lawn on one side was bordered with beds of petunias and +fuschias, tiger-lilies and dahlias; where were a great clump of white +lilacs and many bushes of yellow roses; a lawn that stretched unbrokenly +to the windows of the next big house where lived the gentle stranger with +the soft, warm little voice who had chosen the good name of Lillian May. + +Life was severely earnest but by no means impracticable. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE LIFE OF CRIME IS APPRAISED AND CHOSEN + + +It came to seem expedient to Bernal, however, in the first spring of his +new life, to make a final choice between early death and a life, of sin. +Matters came to press upon him, and since virtue was useful only to get +one into Heaven, it was not worth the effort unless one meant to die at +once. This was an alternative not without its lures, despite the warnings +preached all about him. It would surely be interesting to die, if one had +come properly to the Feet. Even coming to but one of the Feet, as he had, +might make it still more interesting. Perhaps he would not, for this +reason, be always shut up in Heaven. In his secret heart was a lively +desire to see just what they did to Milo Barrus, if he _should_ continue +to spell God with a little g on his very death-bed--that is, if he could +see it without disadvantage to himself: But then, you could save that up, +because you _must_ die sometime, like Xerxes the Great; and meantime, +there was the life of evil now opening wide to the vision with all +enticing refreshments. + +First, it meant no school. He had ceased to picture relief in this matter +by the school-house burning some morning, preferably a Monday morning, +one second after school had taken in. For a month he had daily dramatised +to himself the building's swift destruction amid the kind and merry +flames. But Allan, to whom he had one day hinted the possibility of this +gracious occurrence, had reminded him brutally that they would probably +have school in the Methodist church until a new school-house could be +built. For Allan loved his school and his teacher. + +But a life of evil promised other joys besides this negative one of no +school. In his latest Sunday-school book, Ralph Overton, the good boy, not +only attended school slavishly, so that at thirteen he "could write a +good business hand"; but he practised those little tricks of picking up +every pin, always untying the string instead of cutting it, keeping his +shoes neatly polished and his hands clean, which were, in a simpler day, +held to lay the foundations of commercial success in our republic. Besides +this, Ralph had to be bright and cheery to every one, to work for his +widowed mother after school; and every Saturday afternoon he went, +sickeningly of his own accord, to split wood for an aged and poor lady. +This lady seemed to Bernal to do nothing much but burn a tremendous lot of +stove-wood, but presently she turned out to be the long-lost cousin of Mr. +Granville Parkinson, the Great Banker from the City, who thereupon took +cheery Ralph there and gave him a position in the bank where he could be +honest and industrious and respectful to his superiors. Such was the +barren tale of Virtue's gain. But contrasted with Ralph Overton in this +book was one Budd Jackson, who led a life of voluptuous sloth, except at +times when the evil one moved him to activity. At these bad moments he +might go bobbing for catfish on a Sabbath, or purloin fruit from the +orchard of Farmer Haskins (who would gladly have given some to him if he +had but asked for it civilly, so the book said); or he might bully smaller +boys whom he met on their way to school, taking their sailor hats away +from them, or jeering coarsely at their neatly brushed garments. When +Budd broke a window in the Methodist parsonage with his slung-shot and +tried to lie it on to Ralph Overton, he seemed to have given way utterly +to his vicious nature. He was known soon thereafter to have drunk liquor +and played a game called pin-pool with a "flashy stranger" at the tavern; +hence no one was surprised when he presently ran off with a circus, became +an infidel, and perished miserably in the toils of vice. + +This touch about the circus, well-intended, to be sure, was yet fatal to +all good the tale might have done the little boy. Clytie, who read most of +the story to him, declared Budd Jackson to be "a regular mean one." But in +his heart Bernal, thinking all at once of the circus, sickened unutterably +of Virtue. To drive eight spirited white horses, seated high on one of +those gay closed wagons--those that went through the street with that +delicious hollow rumble--hearing perchance the velvet tread, or the +clawing and snarling of some pent ferocity--a leopard, a lion, what not; +to hear each day that muffled, flattened beating of a bass drum and +cymbals far within the big tent, quick and still more quickly, denoting to +the experienced ear that pink and spangled Beauty danced on the big white +horse at a deathless gallop; to know that one might freely enter that +tented elysium--if it were possible he would run off with a circus though +it meant that he had the morals of a serpent! + +Now, eastward from the big house lay the village and its churches: thither +was tame virtue. But westward lay a broad field stretching off to an +orchard, and beyond swelled a gentle hill, mellow in the distance. Still +more remotely far, at the hill's rim, was a blur of woods beyond which +the sun went down each night. This, in the little boy's mind, was the +highway to the glad free Life of Evil. Many days he looked to that western +wood when the sky was a gush of colour behind its furred edge, perceiving +all manner of allurements to beckon him, hearing them plead, feeling them +tug. Daily his spirit quickened within him to their solicitations, leaping +out and beyond him in some magic way to bring back veritable meanings and +values of the future. + +Then a day came when the desire to be off was no longer resistible. There +was a month of school yet; an especially bitter thought, for had he not +lately been out of school a week with mumps; and during that very week had +not the teacher's father died, so that he was cheated out of the resulting +three-days' vacation, other children being free while he lay on a bed of +pain--if you tasted pickles or any sour thing? Not only was it useless to +try to learn to write "a good business hand," like Ralph Overton--he took +the phrase to mean one of those pictured hands that were always pointing +to things in the newspaper advertisements--but there was the circus and +other evil things--and he was getting on in years. + +It was a Saturday afternoon. To-morrow would be too late. He knew he would +not be allowed to start on the Sabbath, even in a career that was to be +all wickedness. In the grape-arbour he massed certain articles necessary +for the expedition: a very small strip of carpet on which he meant to +sleep; a copy of "_Golden Days_," with an article giving elaborate +instructions for camping in the wilderness. He was compelled to disregard +all of them, but there was comfort and sustenance in the article itself. +Then there was the gun that came at Christmas. It shot a cork as far as +the string would let it go, with a fairly satisfying report (he would have +that string off, once he was in the woods!). Also there were three glass +alleys, two agate taws and thirty-eight commies. And to hold his outfit +there was a rather sizable box which he with his own hands had papered +inside and out from a remnant of gorgeously flowered wall-paper. + +When all was ready he went in to break the news to Clytie. She, busy with +her baking, heard him declare: + +"Now--I'm going to leave this place!" with the look of one who will not be +coaxed nor in any manner dissuaded. He thought she took it rather coolly, +though Allan ran, as promptly as he could have wished, to tell his +grandfather. + +"I'm going to be a regular mean one--_worse'n_ Budd Jackson!" he continued +to Clytie. He was glad to see that this brought her to her senses. + +"Will you stay if I give you--an orange?" + +"No, _sir;_--you'll never set eyes on _me_ again!" + +"Oh, now!--two oranges?" + +"I can't--I _got_ to go!" in a voice tense with effort. + +"All right! Then I'll give them to Allan." + +She continued to take brown loaves from the oven and to put other loaves +in to bake, while he stood awkwardly by, loath to part from her. Allan +came back breathless. + +"Grandpa says you can go as far as you like and you needn't come back till +you get ready!" + +He shifted from one foot to the other and absently ate a warm cookie from +the jarful at his hand. He thought this seemed not quite the correct +attitude to take toward him, yet he did not waver. They would be sorry +enough in a few days, when it was too late. + +"I guess I better take a few of these along with me," he said, stowing +cookies in the pockets of his jacket. He would have liked one of the big +preserved peaches all punctuated with cloves, but he saw no way to carry +it, and felt really unable to eat it on the spot. + +"Well, good-bye!" he called to Clytie, turning back to her from the door. + +"Good-bye! Won't you shake hands with me?" + +Very solemnly he shook her big, floury hand. + +"Now--could I take Penny along?" (Penny was an inconsequential dog that +had been given to Clytie by one whom she called Cousin Bill J.) + +"Yes, you'll need a dog to keep the animals off. Now be sure you write to +us--at least twice a year--don't forget!" And, brutally before his very +eyes, she handed the sniffing and virtuous Allan two of the largest, most +goldenly beautiful oranges ever beheld by man. + +Bitterly the self-exiled turned from this harrowing scene and strode +toward his box. + +Here ensued a fresh complication. Nancy, who had chosen the good name of +Lillian May, wanted to go with him. She, too, it appeared, was fresh from +a Sunday-school book--one in which a girl of her own age was so proud of +her long raven curls that she was brought to an illness and all her hair +came out. There was a distressing picture of this little girl after a just +Providence had done its work as a depilatory. And after she recovered from +the fever, it seemed, she had cared to do nothing but read the Scriptures +to bed-ridden old ladies--even after a good deal of her hair came in +again--though it didn't curl this time. The only pleasure she ever +experienced thereafter was that, by virtue of her now singularly angelic +character, she was enabled to convert an elderly female Papist--an +achievement the joys of which were problematic, both to Nancy and the +little boy. Certainly, whatever converting a Papist might be, it was +nothing comparable to driving a red-and-green-and-gold wagon in which was +caged the Scourge of the Jungle. + +But Nancy could not go with him. He told her so plainly. It was no place +for a girl beyond that hill where they commonly drove caged beasts, and no +one ever so much as thought of Coming to the Feet or washing in the blood +of the Lamb, or writing a good business hand with the first finger of it +pointing out, or anything. + +The little girl pleaded, promising to take her new pink silk parasol, her +buff buttoned shoes, a Christmas card with real snow on it, shining like +diamonds, and Fragile, her best doll. The thing was impossible. Then she +wept. + +He whistled to Penny, who came barking joyously--a pretender of a dog, if +there ever was one--and they moved off. Weeping after them went Nancy--as +far as the first fence, between two boards of which she put her head and +sobbed with a heavenly bitterness; for to the little boy, pushing sternly +on, her tears afforded that certain thrill of gratified brutality under +conscious rectitude, the capacity for which is among those matters by +which Heaven has set the male of our species apart from the female. The +sensation would have been flawless but for Allan's lack of dignity: from +the top board of the fence he held aloft in either hand a golden orange, +and he chanted in endless inanity: + + Chink, Chink Chiraddam! + Don't you wisht you had 'em? + Chink, Chink Chiraddam! + Don't you wisht you had 'em? + +Still he was actually and triumphantly off. + +And here should be recalled the saying of a certain wise, simple man: "If +our failures are made tragic by courage they are not different from +successes." For it came about that the subsequent dignity of this revolt +was to be wholly in its courage. + +The way led over a stretch of grassy prairie to a fence. This surmounted, +there came a ploughed field, of considerable extent to one carrying an +inconvenient box. At the farther end of this was another fence, and beyond +this an ancient orchard with a grassy floor, where lingered a few old +apple-trees, under which the recumbent cows, chewing and placid, dozed +like stout old ladies over their knitting. + +Nearest the fence was an aged, gnarled and riven tree, foolishly decked +in blossoms, like some faded, wrinkled dame, fatuously reluctant to leave +off girlish finery. Under its frivolous branches on the grassy sward would +be the place for his first night's halt--for the magic wood just this side +of the sun was now seen to be farther off than he had once supposed. So he +spread his carpet, arranged the contents of his box neatly, and ate half +his food-supply, for one's strength must be kept up in these affairs. As +he ate he looked back toward the big house--now left forever--and toward +the village beyond. The spires of the three churches were all pointing +sternly upward, as if they would mutely direct him aright, but in their +shelter one must submit to the prosaic trammels of decency. It was not to +be thought of. + +He longed for morning to come, so that he might be up and on. He lay down +on his mat to be ready for sleep, and watched a big bird far above, +cutting lazy graceful figures in the air, like a fancy skater. Then, on a +bough above him, a little dusty-looking bird tried to sing, but it sounded +only like a very small door creaking on tiny rusted hinges. A fat, +gluttonous robin that had been hopping about to peer at him, chirped far +more cheerfully as it flew away. + +Just at this point he suffered a real adventure. Eight cows sauntered up +interestedly and chewed their cuds at him in unison, standing +contemplative, calculating, determined. It is a fact in natural history +not widely enough recognised that the domestic cow is the most ferocious +appearing of all known beasts--a thing to be proved by any who will +survey one amid strange surroundings, with a mind cleanly disabused of +preconceptions. A visitor from another planet, for example, knowing +nothing of our fauna, and confronted in the forest simultaneously by a +common red milch cow and the notoriously savage black leopard of the +Himalyas, would instinctively shun the cow as a dangerous beast and +confidingly seek to fondle the pretty leopard, thus terminating his +natural history researches before they were fairly begun. + +It can be understood, then, that a moment ensued when the little boy +wavered under the steady questioning scrutiny of eight large and powerful +cows, all chewing at him in unison. Yet, even so, and knowing, moreover, +that strange cows are ever untrustworthy, only for a moment did he waver. +Then his new straw hat was off to be shaken at them and he heaved a fierce +"_H-a-y--y-u-p!_" + +At this they started, rather indignantly, seeming to meditate his swift +destruction; but another shout turned and routed them, and he even chased +them a little way, helped now by the inconsiderable dog who came up from +pretending to hunt gophers. + +After this there seemed nothing to do but eat the other half of the +provisions and retire again for the night. Long after the sun went down +behind the magic wood he lay uneasily on his lumpy bed, trying again and +again to shut his eyes and open them to find it morning--which was the way +it always happened in the west bedroom of the big house he had left +forever. + +But it was different here. And presently, when it seemed nearly dark +except for the stars, a disgraceful thing happened. He had pictured the +dog as faithful always to him, refusing in the end even to be taken from +over his dead body. But the treacherous Penny grew first restive, then +plainly desirous of returning to his home. At last, after many efforts to +corrupt the adventurer, he started off briskly alone--cornerwise, as +little dogs seem always to run--fleeing shamelessly toward that east +where shone the tame lights of Virtue. + +Left alone, the little boy began strangely to remember certain phrases +from a tract that Clytie had tried to teach him--"the moment that will +close thy life on earth and begin thy song in heaven or thy wail in +hell"--"impossible to go from the haunts of sin and vice to the presence +of the Lamb"--"the torments of an eternal hell are awaiting thee"-- + + "To-night may be thy latest breath, + Thy little moment here be done. + Eternal woe, the second death, + Awaits the Christ-rejecting one." + +This was more than he had ever before been able to recall of such matters. +He wished that he might have forgotten them wholly. Yet so was he turned +again to better things. Gradually he began to have an inkling of a +possibility that made his blood icy--a possibility that not even the +spectacle of Milo Barrus having interesting things done to him could +mitigate--namely, a vision of himself in the same plight with that person. + +Now it was that he began to hear Them all about him. They walked +stealthily near, passed him with sinister rustlings, and whispered over +him. If They had only talked out--but they whispered--even laughing, +crying and singing in whispers. This horror, of course, was not long to +be endured. Yet, even so, with increasing myriads of Them all about, +rustling and whispering their awful laughs and cries--it was no +ignominious rout. With considerable deliberation he folded the carpet, +placed it in the box with his other treasure, and started at a pace which +may, perhaps, have quickened a little, yet was never undignified--never +more than a moderately fast trudge. + +He wondered sadly if Clytie would get up to unlock the door for him so +late at night. As for Penny, things could never be the same between them +again. + +He was astounded to see lights burning and the house open--how weird for +them to have supper at such an hour! He concealed his box in the +grape-arbour and slunk through the kitchen into the dining-room. Probably +they had gotten up in the middle of the night, out of tardy alarm for him. +It served them right. Yet they seemed hardly to notice him when he slid +awkwardly into his chair. He looked calculatingly over the table and +asked, in tones that somehow seemed to tell of injury, of personal +affront: + +"What you having supper for at this time of night?" + +His grandfather regarded him now not unkindly, while Clytie seemed +confused. + +"It's more'n long past midnight!" he insisted. + +"Huh! it ain't only a quarter past seven," put in his superior brother. +He seemed about to say more, but a glance from the grandfather silenced +him. + +So _that_ was as late as he had stayed--a quarter after seven? He was +ready now to rage at any taunt, and began to eat in haughty silence. He +was still eating when his grandfather and Allan left the table, and then +he began to feel a little grateful that they had not noticed or asked +annoying questions, or tried to be funny or anything. Over a final dish of +plum preserves and an imposing segment of marble cake he relented so far +as to tell Clytie something of his adventures--especially since she had +said that the big hall-clock was very likely slow--that it must surely be +a lot later than a quarter past seven. The circumstances had combined to +produce a narrative not entirely perspicuous--the two clear points being +that They do everything in a whisper, and that Clytie ought to get rid of +Penny at once, since he could not be depended upon at great moments. + +As to ever sleeping under a tree, Clytie discouraged him. She knew of +some Boys that once sat under a tree which was struck by lightning, all +being Killed save one, who had the rare good luck to be the son of a +Presbyterian clergyman. The little boy resolved next time to go beyond +the trees to sleep; perhaps if he went far enough he would come to the +other one of the Feet, and so have a safeguard against lightning, foreign +cows, and Those that walk with rustlings and whisper in the lonely places +at night. + +The little boy fell asleep, half-persuaded again to virtue, because of its +superior comforts. The air about his head seemed full of ghostly "good +business hands," each with its accusing forefinger pointed at him for that +he had not learned to write one as Ralph Overton did. + +Down the hall in his study the old man was musing backward to the +delicate, quiet girl with the old-fashioned aureole of curls, who would +now and then toss them with a little gesture eloquent of possibilities +for unrestraint when she felt the close-drawn rein of his authority. Again +he felt her rebellious little tugs, and the wrench of her final defiance +when she did the awful thing. He had been told by a plain speaker that her +revolt was the fault of his severity. And here was the flesh of her +flesh--was it in the same spirit of revolt against authority, a +thousandfold magnified? Might he not by according the boy a wise liberty +save him in after years from some mad folly akin to his mother's? + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE GARDEN OF TRUTH AND THE PERFECT FATHER + + +It was a different summer from those that had gone before it. + +A little passionate Protestant had sallied out to make bed with the gods; +and the souls of such the just gods do truly take into certain shining +realms whither poor involatile bodies of flesh may not follow. The +requirement is that one feel his own potential godship enough to rebel. +For, having rebelled, he will assuredly venture beyond mortal domains into +that garden where stands the tree of Truth--this garden being that one to +the west just beyond the second fence (or whichever fence); that point +where the mortal of invertebrate soul is beset with the feeling that he +has already dared too far--that he had better make for home mighty quick +if he doesn't want Something to get him. The essence of this decision is +quite the same whether the mortal be eight years old or eighty. Now the +Tree of Truth stands just over this line at which all but the gods' own +turn to scamper back before supper. It is the first tree to the left--an +apple-tree, twisted, blackened, scathed, eaten with age, yet full of +blossoms as fresh and fertile as those first born of any young tree +whatsoever. Those able rightly to read this tree of Truth become at once +as the gods, keeping the faith of children while absorbing the wisdom of +the ages--lacking either of which, be it known, one may not become an +imperishable ornament of Time. + +But to him who is bravely faithful to the passing of that last fence, who +reclines under that tree even for so long as one aspiration, comes a +substantial gain: ever after, when he goes into any solitude, he becomes +more than himself. Then he reads the first lesson of the tree of Truth, +which is that the spirit of Life ages yet is ageless; and suffers yet is +joyous. This is no inconsiderable reward for passing that frontier, even +if one must live longer to comprehend reasons. It is worth while even if +the mortal become a mere dilettante in paradoxes and never learn even +feebly to spell the third lesson, which is the ultimate wisdom of the +gods. + +These matters being precisely so, the little boy knew quite as well as the +gods could know it, that a credit had been set down to his soul for what +he had ventured--even though what he had not done was, so far, more +stupendous than what he had, in the world of things and mere people. He +now became enamoured of life rather than death; and he studied the Shorter +Catechism with such effect that he could say it clear over to "_Every sin +deserveth God's wrath and curse both in this life and that which is to +come._" Each night he tried earnestly to learn two new answers; and glad +was he when his grandfather would sit by him, for the old man had now +become his image of God, and it seemed fitting to recite to him. Often as +they sat together the little boy would absently slip his hand into the +big, warm, bony hand of the old man, turning and twisting it there until +he felt an answering pressure. This embarrassed the old man. Though he +would really have liked to take the little boy up to his breast and hold +him there, he knew not how; and he would even be careful not to restrain +the little hand in his own--to hold it, yet to leave it free to withdraw +at its first uneasy wriggle. + +Of this shackled spirit of kindness, always striving within the old man, +the little boy had come to be entirely conscious. So real was it to him, +so dependable, that he never suspected that a certain little blow with the +open hand one day was meant to punish him for conduct he had persisted in +after three emphatic admonitions. + +"Oh! that _hurts_!" he had cried, looking up at the confused old man with +unimpaired faith in his having meant not more than a piece of friendly +roughness. This look of flawless confidence in the uprightness of his +purpose, the fine determination to save him chagrin by smiling even though +the hurt place tingled, left in the old man's mind a biting conviction +that he had been actually on the point of behaving as one gentleman may +not behave to another. Quick was he to make the encounter accord with the +child's happy view, even picking him up and forcing from himself the +gaiety to rally him upon his babyish tenderness to rough play. Not less +did he hold it true that "The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child +left to himself bringeth his mother to shame--" and with the older boy +he was not unconscientious in this matter. For Allan took punishment as +any boy would, and, indeed, was so careful that he seldom deserved it. But +the old man never ceased to be grateful that the littler boy had laughed +under that one blow, unable to suspect that it could have been meant in +earnest. + +From the first day that the little boy felt the tender cool grass under +his bare toes that summer, life became like perfectly played music. This +was after the long vacation began, when there was no longer any need to +remember to let his voice fall after a period, or to dread his lessons so +that he must learn them more quickly than any other pupil in school. There +would be no more of that wretched fooling until fall, a point of time +inconceivably far away. Before it arrived any one of a number of strange +things might happen to avert the calamity of education. For instance, he +might be born again, a thing of which he had lately heard talk; a +contingency by no means flawless in prospect, since it probably meant +having the mumps again, and things like that. But if it came on the very +last day of vacation, or on the first morning of school, just as he was +called on to recite, snatching him from the very jaws of the Moloch, and +if it fixed him so he need not be afraid in the night of going where Milo +Barrus was going, then it might not be so bad. + +Nancy, who had now discarded the good name of Lillian May for simple +Alice, disapproved heartily of being born again; unless, indeed, one could +be born a boy the second time. She was only too eager for the day when +she need not submit to having her hair brushed and combed so long every +morning of her life. Not for the world would she go through it again and +have to begin French all over, even at "_J'ai, tu as, il a_." Yet, if it +were certain she could be a boy-- + +He was too considerate to tell her that this was as good as +impossible--that she quite lacked the qualities necessary for that. +Instead, he reassured her with the chivalrous fiction that he, at least, +would like her as well as if she _were_ a boy. And, indeed, as a girl, she +was not wholly unsatisfactory. True, she played "school" (of all things!) +in preference to "wild animals," practised scales on the piano an hour +every day, wore a sun-hat frequently--spite of which she was +freckled--wore shoes and stockings on the hottest days, when one's feet +are so hungry for the cool, springy turf, and performed other acts +repugnant to a soul that has brought itself erect. But she was fresh and +dainty to look at, like an opened morning glory, with pretty frocks that +the French lady whose name was Madmasel made her wear every day, and her +eyes were much like certain flowers in the bed under the bay-window, with +very long, black lashes that got all stuck together when she cried; and +she made superb capital letters, far better than the little boy's, though +she was a year younger. + +Also, which was perhaps her chief charm, she could be made to believe that +only he could protect her from the Gratcher, a monstrous thing, half +beast, half human, which was often seen back of the house; sometimes +flitting through the grape-arbour, sometimes coming out of the dark +cellar, sometimes peering around corners. It was a thing that went on +enormous crutches, yet could always catch you if it saw you by daylight +out of its right eye, its left being serviceable only at night, when, if +you were wise, you kept in the house. Once the Gratcher saw you with its +right eye the crutches swung toward you and you were caught: it picked you +up and began to look you all over, with the eyes in the ends of its +fingers. This tickled you so that you went crazy in a minute. + +Nancy feared the Gratcher, and she became supremely lovely to the little +boy when she permitted him to guard her from it, instead of running home +across the lawn when it was surely coming;--a loveliness he felt more +poignantly at certain reflective times when he was not also afraid. For, +the Gratcher being his own invention, these moments of superiority to its +terrors would inevitably seize him. + +[Illustration: "She could be made to believe that only he could protect +her from the Gratcher."] + +Better than protecting Nancy did he love to report the Gratcher's +immediate presence to Allan, daring him to stay on that spot until it put +its dreadful head around the corner and shook one of its crutches at them. +In low throbbing tones he would report its fearful approach, stride by +stride, on the crutches. This he could do by means of the Gratcher-eye, +with which he claimed to be endowed. One having a Gratcher-eye can see +around any corner when a Gratcher happens to be coming--yet only then, not +at any other time, as Allan had proved by experiment on the first +disclosure of this phenomenon. He of the Gratcher-eye could positively not +see around a corner, if, for example, Allan himself was there; the +Gratcher-eye could not tell if his hat was on his head or off. But this by +no means proved that the Gratcher-eye did not exercise its magic function +when a Gratcher actually approached, and Allan knew it. He would stand +staunchly, with a fine incredulity, while the little boy called off the +strides, perhaps, until he announced "_Now_ he's just passed the +well-curb--_now_ he's--" but here, scoffing over an anxious shoulder, +Allan would go in where Clytie was baking, feigning a sudden great hunger. + +Nancy would stay, because she believed the little boy's protestations that +he could save her, and the little boy himself often believed them. + +"I love Allan best, because he is so comfortable, but I think you are the +most admirable," she would say to him at such times; and he thought well +of her if she had seemed very, very frightened. + +So life had become a hardy sport with him. No longer was he moved to wish +for early dissolution when Clytie's song floated to him: + + "'I should like to die,' said Willie, + If my papa could die, too; + But he says he isn't ready, + 'Cause he has so much to do!" + +This Willie had once seemed sweet and noble to him, but the words now made +him avid of new life by reminding him that his own dear father would soon +come to be with him one week, as he had promised when last they parted, +and as a letter written with magnificent flourishes now announced. + +Late in August this perfect father came--a fine laughing, rollicking, big +gentleman, with a great, loud voice, and beautiful long curls that touched +his velvet coat-collar. His sweeping golden moustache, wide-brimmed white +hat, the choice rings on his fingers, his magnificently ponderous gold +watch-chain and a watch of the finest silver, all proclaimed him a being +of such flawless elegance both in person and attire that the little boy +never grew tired of showing him to the village people and to Clytie. He +did not stay at the big house, for some reason, but at the Eagle Hotel, +whence he came to see his boys each day, or met them hurrying to see him. +And for a further reason which the little boys did not understand, their +grandfather continued to be too busy to see this perfect father once +during the week he stayed in the village. + +Deeming it a pity that two such choice spirits should not be brought +together, the little boy urged his father to bring his fiddle to the big +house and play and sing some of his fine songs, so that his grandfather +could have a chance to hear some good music. He knew well enough that if +the old man once heard this music he would have to give in and enjoy it, +even if he was too busy to come down. And if only his father would tune up +the fiddle and sing that very, very good song about, + + "The more she said 'Whoa!' + They cried, 'Let her go!' + And the swing went a little bit higher," + +if only his grandfather could hear this, one of the funniest and noisiest +songs in the world, perhaps he would come right down stairs. But his +father laughed away the suggestion, saying that the old gentleman had no +ear for music; which, of course, was a joke, for he had two, like any +person. + +Clytemnestra, too, was at first strangely cool to the incomparable father, +though at last she proved not wholly insensible to his charm, providing +for his refection her very choicest cake and the last tumbler of +crab-apple jelly. She began to suspect that a man of manners so engaging +must have good in him, and she gave him at parting the tracts of "The +Dying Drummer Boy" and "Sinner, what if You Die To-day?" for which he +professed warm gratitude. + +The little boy afterward saw his perfect father hand these very tracts to +Milo Barrus, when they met him on the street, saying, "Here, Barrus, get +your soul saved while you wait!" Then they laughed together. + +The little boy wondered if this meant that Milo Barrus had come to the +Feet, or been born again, or something. Or if it meant that his father +also spelled God with a little g. He did not think of it, however, until +it was too late to ask. + +The flawless father went away at the end of the week, "over the County +Fair circuit, selling Chief White Cloud's Great Indian Remedy," the little +boy heard him tell Clytie. Also he heard his grandfather say to Clytie, +"Thank God, not for another year!" + +The little boy liked Nancy better than ever after that, because she had +liked his father so much, saying he was exactly like a prince, giving +pennies and nickels to everybody and being so handsome and big and grand. +She wished her own Uncle Doctor could be as beautiful and great; and the +little boy was generous enough to wish that his own plain grandfather +might be _almost_ as fine. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE SUPERLATIVE COUSIN BILL J. + + +A splendid new interest had now come into the household in the person of +one whom Clytemnestra had so often named as Cousin Bill J. Grandfather +Delcher having been ordered south for the winter by Dr. Crealock, Cousin +Bill J., upon Clytie's recommendation, was imported from up Fredonia way +to look after the cow and be a man about the place. Clytie assured +Grandfather Delcher that Cousin Bill J. had "never uttered an oath, though +he's been around horses all his life!" This made him at once an object of +interest to the little boy, though doubtless he failed to appraise the +restraint at anything like its true value. It had sufficed Grandfather +Delcher, however, and Cousin Bill J., securing leave of absence from the +livery-stable in Fredonia, arrived the day the old man left, making a +double excitement for the household. + +He proved to be a fascinating person; handsome, affable, a ready talker +upon all matters of interest--though sarcastic, withal--and fond of boys. +True, he had not long hair like the little boy's father. Indeed, he had +not much hair at all, except a sort of curtain of black curls extending +from ear to ear at the back of his bare, pink head. But the little boy had +to admit that Cousin Bill J.'s moustache was even grander than his +father's. It fell in two graceful festoons far below his chin, with a +little eyelet curled into each tip, and, like the ringlets, it showed the +blue-black lustre of the crow's wing. In the full sunlight, at times, it +became almost a royal purple. + +Later observation taught the little boy that this splendid hue was applied +at intervals by Cousin Bill J. himself. He did it daintily with a small +brush, every time the moustache began to show a bit rusty at the roots; +Bernal never failed to be present at this ceremony; nor to resolve that +his own moustache, when it came, should be as scrupulously cared for--not +left, like Dr. Crealock's, for example, to become speckled and gray. + +Cousin Bill J.'s garments were as splendid as his character. He had an +overcoat and cap made from a buffalo hide; his high-heeled boots had +maroon tops set with purple crescents; his watch-charm was a large gold +horse in full gallop; his cravat was an extensive area of scarlet satin in +the midst of which was caught a precious stone as large as a robin's egg; +and in smoking, which his physician had prescribed, he used a superb +meerschaum cigar-holder, all tinted a golden brown, upon which lightly +perched a carven angel dressed like those that ride the big white horse in +the circus. + +But aside from these mere matters of form, Cousin Bill J. was a man with a +history. Some years before he had sprained his back, since which time he +had been unable to perform hard labour; but prior to that mishap he had +been a perfect specimen of physical manhood--one whose prowess had been +the marvel of an extensive territory. He had split and laid up his three +hundred and fifty rails many a day, when strong men beside him had +blushingly to stop with three hundred or thereabouts; he had also cradled +his four acres of grain in a day, and he could break the wildest horse +ever known. Even the great Budd Doble, whom he personally knew, had said +more than once, and in the presence of unimpeachable witnesses, that in +some ways he, Budd Doble, knew less about a horse than Cousin Bill J. did. +The little boy was wrought to enthusiasm by this tribute, resolving always +to remember to say "hoss" for horse; and, though he had not heard of Budd +Doble before, the name was magnetic for him. After you said it over +several times he thought it made you feel as if you had a cold in your +head. + +Still further, Cousin Bill J. could throw his thumbs out of joint, sing +tenor in the choir, charm away warts, recite "Roger and I" and "The Death +of Little Nell," and he knew all the things that would make boys grow +fast, like bringing in wood, splitting kindling, putting down hay for the +cow, and other out-of-door exercises that had made him the demon of +strength he once was. The little boy was not only glad to perform these +acts for his own sake, but for the sake of lightening the labours of his +hero, who wrenched his back anew nearly every time he tried to do +anything, and was always having to take a medicine for it which he called +"peach-and-honey." The little boy thought the name attractive, though his +heart bled for the sufferer each time he was obliged to take it; for after +every swallow of the stuff he made a face that told eloquently how +nauseous it must be. + +As for the satire and wit of Cousin Bill J., they were of the dry sort. He +would say to one he met on the street when the mud was deep, "Fine weather +overhead"--then adding dryly, after a significant pause--"_but few going +that way!"_ Or he would exclaim with feigned admiration, when the little +boy shot at a bird with his bow and arrow, "My! you made the feathers fly +_that_ time!"--then, after his terrible pause--_"only, the bird flew with +them_." Also he could call it "Fourth of Ju-New-Years" without ever +cracking a smile, though it cramped the little boy in helpless laughter. + +Altogether, Cousin Bill J. was a winning and lovely character of merits +both spiritual and spectacular, and he brought to the big house an exotic +atmosphere that was spicy with delights. The little boy prayed that this +hero might be made again the man he once was; not because of any flaw that +he could see in him--but only because the sufferer appeared somewhat less +than perfect to himself. To Bernal's mind, indeed, nothing could have been +superior to the noble melancholy with which Cousin Bill J. looked back +upon his splendid past. There was a perfect dignity in it. Surely no mere +electric belt could bring to him an attraction surpassing this--though +Cousin Bill J. insisted that he never expected any real improvement until +he could save up enough money to buy one. He showed the little boy a +picture cut from a newspaper--the picture of a strong, proud-looking man +with plenteous black whiskers, girded about with a wide belt that was +projecting a great volume of electricity into the air in every direction. +It was interesting enough, but the little boy thought this person by no +means so beautiful as Cousin Bill J., and said so. He believed, too, +though this he did not say, from tactful motives, that it would detract +from the dignity of Cousin Bill J. to go about clad only in an electric +belt, like the proud-looking gentleman in the picture--even if the belt +did send out a lot of electric wiggles all the time. But, of course, +Cousin Bill J. knew best. He looked forward to having his father meet this +new hero--feeling that each was perfect in his own way. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SEARCHING THE SCRIPTURES + + +Around the evening lamp that winter the little boys studied Holy Writ, +while Allan made summaries of it for the edification of the proud +grandfather in far-off Florida. + +Tersely was the creation and the fall of man set forth, under promptings +and suggestions from Clytie and Cousin Bill J., who was no mean Bible +authority: how God, "walking in the garden in the cool of the day," found +his first pair ashamed of their nakedness, and with his own hands made +them coats of skins and clothed them. "What a treasure those garments +would be in this evil day," said Clytie--"what a silencing rebuke to all +heretics!" But the Lord drove out the wicked pair, lest they "take also of +the tree of life and live forever," saying, "Behold, the man is become as +one of _us!_" This provoked a lengthy discussion the very first evening as +to whether it meant that there was more than one God. And Clytie's +view--that God called himself "Us" in the same sense that kings and +editors of newspapers do--at length prevailed over the polytheistic +hypothesis of Cousin Bill J. + +On they read to the Deluge, when man became so very bad indeed that God +was sorry for ever having made him, and said: "I will destroy man whom I +have created from the face of the earth; both man and the beast and the +creeping thing, and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have +made them." + +Hereupon Bernal suggested that all the white rabbits at least should have +been saved--thinking of his own two in the warm nest in the barn. He was +unable to see how white rabbits with twitching pink noses and pink rims +around their eyes could be an offense, or, indeed, other than a pure joy +even to one so good as God. But he gave in, with new admiration for the +ready mind of Cousin Bill J., who pointed out that white rabbits could not +have been saved because they were not fish. He even relished the dry quip +that maybe he, the little boy, thought white rabbits _were_ fish; but +Cousin Bill J. didn't, for his part. + +Past the Tower of Babel they went, when the Lord "came down to see the +city and the tower," and made them suddenly talk strange tongues to one +another so they could not build their tower actually into Heaven. + +The little boy thought this a fine joke to play on them, to set them all +"jabbering" so. + +After that there was a great deal of fighting, and, in the language of +Allan's summary, "God loved all the good people so he gave them lots of +wives and cattle and sheep and he let them go out and kill all the other +people they wanted to which was their enemies." But the little boy found +the butcheries rather monotonous. + +Occasionally there was something graphic enough to excite, as where the +heads of Ahab's seventy children were put into a basket and exposed in two +heaps at the city's gate; but for the most part it made him sleepy. + +True, when it came to getting the Children of Israel out of Egypt, as +Cousin Bill J. observed, "Things brisked up considerable." + +The plan of first hardening Pharaoh's heart, then scaring him by a +pestilence, then again hardening his heart for another calamity, quite +won the little boy's admiration for its ingenuity, and even Cousin Bill J. +would at times betray that he was impressed. Feverishly they followed the +miracles done to Egypt; the plague of frogs, of lice, of flies, of boils +and blains on man and beast; the plague of hail and lightning, of locusts, +and the three days of darkness. Then came the Lord's final triumph, which +was to kill all the first-born in the land of Egypt, "from the first-born +of Pharaoh, that sitteth upon the throne, even unto the first-born of the +maid-servant that is behind the mill; and all the first-born of beasts." +Again the little boy's heart ached as he thought pityingly of the +first-born of all white rabbits, but there was too much of excitement to +dwell long upon that humble tragedy. There was the manner in which the +Israelites identified themselves, by marking their doors with a sprig of +hyssop dipped in the blood of a male lamb without blemish. Vividly did he +see the good God gliding cautiously from door to door, looking for the +mark of blood, and passing the lucky doors where it was seen to be truly +of a male lamb without blemish. He thought it must have taken a lot of +lambs to mark up all the doors! + +Then came that master-stroke of enterprise, when God directed Moses to +"speak now in the ears of the people and let every man borrow of his +neighbour, and every woman of her neighbour, jewels of silver and jewels +of gold," so that they might "spoil" the Egyptians. Cousin Bill J. +chuckled when he read this, declaring it to be "a regular Jew trick"; but +Clytie rebuked him quickly, reminding him that they were God's own words, +spoken in His own holy voice. + +"Well, it was mighty thoughtful in God," insisted Cousin Bill J., but +Clytie said, however that was, it served Pharaoh right for getting his +heart hardened so often. + +The little boy, not perceiving the exact significance of "spoil" in this +connection, wondered if Cousin Bill J. would spoil if some one borrowed +his gold horse and ran off with it. + +Then came that exciting day when the Lord said, "I will get me honour upon +Pharaoh and all his host," which He did by drowning them thoroughly in the +Red Sea. The little boy thought he would have liked to be there in a +boat--a good safe boat that would not tip over; also that he would much +like to have a rod such as Aaron had, that would turn into a serpent. It +would be a fine thing to take to school some morning. But Cousin Bill J. +thought it doubtful if one could be procured; though he had seen Heller +pour five colours of wine out of a bottle which, when broken, proved to +have a live guinea-pig in it. This seemed to the little boy more wonderful +than Aaron's rod, though he felt it would not reflect honour upon God to +say so. + +Another evening they spent before Sinai, Cousin Bill J. reading the verses +in a severe and loud tone when the voice of the Lord was sounding. Duly +impressed was the little boy with the terrors of the divine presence, a +thing so awful that the people must not go up into the mount nor even +touch its border--lest "the Lord break forth upon them: There shall not a +hand touch it but he shall surely be stoned or shot through; whether it be +beast or man it shall not live." Clytie said the goodness of God was +shown herein. An evil God would not have warned them, and many worthy but +ignorant people would have been blasted. + +Then He came down in thunder and smoke and lightning and +earthquakes--which Cousin Bill J. read in tones that enabled Bernal to +feel every possible joy of terror; came to tell them that He was a very +jealous God and that they must not worship any of the other gods. He +commanded that "thou shalt not revile the Gods," also that they should +"make no mention of the names of other Gods," which Cousin Bill J. said +was as fair as you could ask. + +When they reached the directions for sacrificing, the little boy was +doubly alert--in the event that he should ever determine to be washed in +the blood of the lamb and have to do his own killing. + +"Then," read Cousin Bill J., in a voice meant to convey the augustness of +Deity, "thou shalt kill the ram and take of his blood and put it upon the +tip of the right ear of Aaron and upon the tip of the right ear of his +sons, and upon the thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe of +their right foot." So you didn't have to wash all over in the blood. He +agreed with Clytie, who remarked that no one could ever have found out how +to do it right unless God had told. The God-given directions that ensued +for making the water of separation from "the ashes of a red heifer" he did +not find edifying; but some verses after that seemed more practicable. +"And thou shalt take of the ram," continued the reader in majestic +cadence, "the fat and the rump and the fat that covereth the inwards, and +the caul above the liver, and the two kidneys and the fat that is upon +them--" + +Here was detail with a satisfying minuteness; and all this was for +"a wave-offering" to be waved before the Lord--which was indeed an +interesting thought. + +"If God was so careful of His children in these small matters," said +Clytie; "no wonder they believed He would care for them in graver matters, +and no wonder they looked forward so eagerly to the coming of His Son, +whom He promised should be sent to save them from His wrath." + +Through God's succeeding minute directions for the building and upholstery +of His tabernacle, "with ten curtains of fine twined linen and blue and +purple and scarlet, with cherubims of cunning work shalt thou make them," +the interest of the little boys rather languished; likewise through His +regulations about such dry matters as slavery, divorce, and polygamy. His +directions for killing witches and for stoning the ox that gores a man or +woman had more of colour in them. But there was no real interest until the +good God promised His children to bring them in unto the Amorites and the +Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the +Jebusites, to "cut them off." It was not uninteresting to know that God +put Moses in a cleft of the rock and covered it with His hand when He +passed by, thus permitting Moses a partial view of the divine person. But +the actual fighting of battles was thereafter the chief source of +interest. For God was a mighty God of battles, never weary of the glories +of slaughter. When it was plain that He could make a handful of two +thousand Israelites slay two hundred thousand Midianites, in a moment, as +one might say, the wisdom of coming to the Feet, being born again, and +washing in the blood ceased to be debatable. It would seem very silly, +indeed, to neglect any precaution that would insure the favour of this +God, who slew cities full of men and women and little children off-hand. +The little boy thought Milo Barrus would begin to spell a certain word +with the very biggest "G" he could make, if any one were to bring these +matters to his notice. + +As to Allan, who made abstracts of the winter's study, Clytemnestra and +her transcendent relative agreed that he would one day be a power in the +land. Off to Florida each week they sent his writing to Grandfather +Delcher, who was proud of it, in spite of his heart going out chiefly to +the littler boy. + +"So this is all I know now about God," ran the conclusion, "except that He +loved us so that He gave His only Son to be crucified so that He could +forgive our sins as soon as He saw His Son nailed up on the cross, and +those that believed it could be with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and +those that didn't believe it, like the Jews and heathens, would have to be +in hell for ever and ever Amen. This proves His great love for us and that +He is the true God. So this is all I have learned this winter about God, +who is a spirit infinite eternal and unchangeable in his being, wisdom and +power holiness justice goodness and truth, and the word of God is +contained in the scriptures of the old and new testament which is the only +rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him. In my next I will take +up the meek and lowly Jesus and show you how much I have learned about +him." + +They had been unable to persuade the littler boy into this species of +composition, his mind dwelling too much on the first-born of white rabbits +and such, but to show that his winter was not wholly lost, he submitted a +secular composition, which ran: + +"BIRDS + +"The Animl kindom is devided into birds and reguler animls. Our teacher +says we had ougt to obsurv so I obsurv there is three kinds of birds +Jingle birds Squeek birds and Clatter birds. Jingle birds has fat rusty +stumacks. I have not the trouble to obsurv any more kinds." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +ON SURVIVING THE IDOLS WE BUILD + + +It is the way of life to be forever building new idols in place of the +old. Into the fabric of these the most of us put so much of ourselves that +a little of us dies each time a cherished image crumbles from age or is +shattered by some lightning-stroke of truth from a cloud electric with +doubt. This is why we fade and wither as the leaf. Could we but sweep +aside the wreck without dismay and raise a new idol from the overflowing +certainty of youth, then indeed should we have eaten from that other tree +in Eden, for the defence of which is set the angel with the flaming sword. +But this may not be. Fatuously we stake our souls on each new +creation--deeming that _here_, in sooth, is one that shall endure beyond +the end of time. To the last we are dull to the truth that our idols are +meant to be broken, to give way to other idols still to be broken. + +And so we lose a little of ourselves each time an idol falls; and, +learning thus to doubt, wistfully, stoically we learn to die, leaving some +last idol triumphantly surviving us. For--and this is the third lesson +from that tree of Truth--we learn to doubt, not the perfection of our +idols, but the divinity of their creator. And it would seem that this is +quite as it should be. So long as the idol-maker will be a slave to his +creatures, so long should the idol survive and the maker go back to useful +dust. Whereas, did he doubt his idols and never himself--but this is +mostly a secret, for not many common idolmongers will cross that last +fence to the west, beyond the second field, where the cattle are strange +and the hour so late that one must turn back for bed and supper. + +To one who accepts the simple truth thus put down precisely, it will be +apparent that the little boy was destined to see more than one idol +blasted before his eyes; yet, also, that he was not come to the foolish +caution of the wise, whom failure leads to doubt their own powers--as if +we were not meant to fail in our idols forever! Being, then, not come to +this spiritual decrepitude, fitted still to exercise a blessed contempt +for the Wisdom of the Ages, it is plain that he could as yet see an idol +go to bits without dismay, conscious only of the need for a new and a +better one. + +Not all one's idols are shattered in a day. This were a catastrophe that +might wrench even youth's divine credulity. + +Not until another year had gone, with its heavy-gaited school-months and +its galloping vacation-days, did the little boy come to understand that +Santa Claus was not a real presence. And instead of wailing over the ruins +of this idol, he brought a sturdy faith to bear, building in its place +something unseen and unheard of any save himself--an idol discernible only +by him, but none the less real for that. + +The Imp with the hammer being no respecter of dignities, the idol of the +Front Room fell next, increasing the heap of ruins that was gathering +about his feet. Tragically came a day one spring, a cold, cloudy, +rational day, it seemed, when the Front Room went down; for the little +boy saw all its sanctities violated, its mysteries laid bare. And the +Front Room became a mere front room. Its shutters were opened and its +windows raised to let in light and common fresh air; its carpet was on the +line outside to be scourged of dust; the black, formidable furniture was +out on the wide porch to be re-varnished, like any common furniture, +plainly needing it; the vases of dyed grass might be handled without risk; +and the dark spirit that had seemed to be in and over all was vanished. +Even the majestic Ark of the Covenant, which the sinful Uzza once died for +so much as touching reverently, was now seen to be an ordinary stove for +the burning of anthracite coal, to be rattled profanely and polished for +an extra quarter by Sherman Tranquillity Tyler after he had finished +whitewashing the cellar. Fearlessly the little boy, grown somewhat bigger +now, walked among the debris of this idol, stamping the floor, sounding +the walls, detecting cracks in the ceiling, spots on the wall-paper and +cobwebs in the corners. Yet serene amid the ruins towered his valiant +spirit, conscious under the catastrophe of its power to build other and +yet stauncher idols. + +Thus was it one day to stretch itself with new power amid the base ruins +of Cousin Bill J., though the time was mercifully deferred--that his soul +might gain strength in worship to put away even that which it worshipped +when the day of new truth dawned. + +When Cousin Bill J., in the waning of that first winter, began actually +to refine his own superlative elegance by spraying his superior garments +with perfume, by munching tiny confections reputed to scent the breath +desirably, by a more diligent grooming of the always superb moustache, the +little boy suspected no motive. He saw these works only as the outward +signs of an inward grace that must be ever increasing. So it came that his +amazement was above that of all other persons when, at Spring's first +breath of honeyed fragrance, Cousin Bill J. went to be the husband of +Miss Alvira Abney. He had not failed to observe that Miss Alvira sang +alto, in the choir, out of the same book from which Cousin Bill J. +produced his exquisite tenor. But he had reasoned nothing from this, +beyond, perhaps, the thought that Miss Alvira made a poor figure beside +her magnificent companion, even if her bonnet was always the gayest bonnet +in church, trembling through every season with the blossoms of some +ageless springtime. For the rest, Miss Alvira's face and hair and eyes +seemed to be all one colour, very pale, and her hands were long and thin, +with far too many bones in them for human hands, the little boy thought. + +Yet when he learned that the woman was not without merit in the sight of +his clear-eyed hero, he, too, gave her his favour. At the marriage he felt +in his heart a certain high, pure joy that must have been akin to that in +the bride's own heart, for their faces seemed to speak much alike. + +Tensely the little boy listened to the words that united these two, +understanding perfectly from questions that his hero endowed the woman at +his side with all his worldly goods. Even a less practicable person than +Miss Alvira would have acquired distinction in this light--being endowed +with the gold horse, to say nothing of the carven cigar-holder or the +precious jewel in the scarlet cravat. Probably now she would be able to +throw her thumbs out of joint, too! + +But to the little boy chiefly the thing meant that Cousin Bill J. would +stay close at hand, to be a joy forever in his sight and lend importance +to the town of Edom. For his hero was to go and live in the neat rooms of +Miss Alvira over her millinery and dressmaking shop, and never return to +the scenes of his early prowess. + +After the wedding the little boy, on his way to school of a morning, would +watch for Cousin Bill J. to wheel out on the sidewalk the high glass case +in which Miss Alvira had arranged her pretty display of flowered bonnets. +And slowly it came to life in his understanding that between the not +irksome task of wheeling out this case in the morning and wheeling it back +at night, Cousin Bill J. now enjoyed the liberty that a man of his parts +deserved. He was free at last to sit about in the stores of the village, +or to enthrone himself publicly before them in clement weather, at which +time his opinion upon a horse, or any other matter whatsoever, could be +had for the asking. Nor would he be invincibly reticent upon the subject +of those early exploits which had once set all of Chautauqua County +marvelling at his strength. + +At first the little boy was stung with jealousy at this. Later he came to +rejoice in the very circumstance that had brought him pain. If his hero +could not be all his, at least the world would have to blink even as he +had blinked, in the dazzling light of his excellences--yes, and smart +under the lash of his unequalled sarcasm. + +It should, perhaps, be said that dissolution by slow poison is not +infrequently the fate of an idol. + +Doubtless there was never a certain day of which the little boy could have +said "that was the first time Cousin Bill J. began to seem different." Yet +there came a moment when all was changed--a time of question, doubt, +conviction; a terrible hour, in short, when, face to face with his hero, +he suffered the deep hurt of knowing that mentally, morally, and even +esthetically, he himself was the superior of Cousin Bill J. + +He could remember that first he had heard a caller say to Clytie of Miss +Alvira, "Why, they do say the poor thing has to go down those back stairs +and actually split her own kindlings--with that healthy loafer setting +around in the good clothes she buys him, in the back room of that +drug-store from morning till night. And what's worse, he's been seen with +that eldest--" + +Here the caller's eyes had briefly shifted sidewise at the small listener, +whereupon Clytie had urged him to run along and play like a good boy. He +pondered at length that which he had overheard and then he went to Miss +Alvira's wood-pile at the foot of her back stairs, reached by turning up +the alley from Main Street. He split a large pile of kindling for her. He +would have been glad to do this each day, had not Miss Alvira proved to be +lacking in delicacy. Instead of ignoring him, when she saw him from her +back window, where she was second-fitting Samantha Rexford's pink waist, +she came out with her mouth full of pins and gave him five cents and tried +to kiss him. Of course, he never went back again. If _that_ was the kind +she was she could go on doing the work herself. He was no Ralph Overton or +Ben Holt, to be shamed that way and made to feel that he had been Doing +Good, and be spoken of all the time as "our Hero." + +As for Cousin Bill J., of _course_ he was a loafer! Who wouldn't be if he +had the chance? But it was false and cruel to say that he was a healthy +loafer. When Cousin Bill J. was healthy he had been able to fell an ox +with one blow of his fist. + +Nor was he disturbed seriously by rumours that his hero was a +"come-outer"; that instead of attending church with Miss Alvira he could +be heard at the barbershop of a Sabbath morning, agreeing with Milo Barrus +that God might have made the world in six days and rested on the seventh; +but he couldn't have made the whale swallow Jonah, because it was against +reason and nature; and, if you found one part of the Bible wasn't so, how +could you tell the rest of it wasn't a lot of grandmother's tales? + +Nor did he feel anything but sympathy for a helpless man imposed upon when +he heard Mrs. Squire Cumpston say to Clytie, "Do you know that lazy brute +has her worked to a mere shadow; she just sits in that shop all day long +and lets tears fall every minute or so on her work. She spoiled +five-eighths of a yard of three-inch lavender satin ribbon that way, that +was going on to Mrs. Beasley's second-mourning bonnet. And she's had to +cut him down to twenty-five cents a day for spending-money, and order the +stores not to trust him one cent on her account." + +He was sorry to have Miss Alvira crying so much. It must be a sloppy +business, making her hats and things. But what did the woman _expect_ of a +man like Cousin Bill J., anyway? + +Yet somehow it came after a few years the new light upon his old idol. One +day he found that he neither resented nor questioned a thing he heard +Clytie herself say about Cousin Bill J.: "Why, he don't know as much as a +goat." Here she reconsidered, with an air of wanting to be entirely +fair:--"Well, not as much as a goat really _ought_ to know!" And when he +overheard old Squire Cumpston saying on the street, a few days later, "Of +all God's mean creatures, the meanest is a male human that can keep his +health on the money a woman earns!" it was no shock, though he knew that +Cousin Bill J. was meant. + +Departed then was the glory of his hero, his splendid dimensions shrunk, +his effective lustre dulled, his perfect moustache rusted and scraggly, +his chin weakened, his pale blue eyes seen to be in force like those of a +china doll. + +He heard with interest that Squire Cumpston had urged Miss Alvira to +divorce her husband, that she had refused, declaring God had joined her to +Cousin Bill J. and that no man might put them asunder; that marriage had +been raised by Christ to the dignity of a sacrament and was now +indissoluble--an emblem, indeed, of Christ's union with His Church; and +that, as she had made her bed, so would she lie upon it. + +Nor was the boy alone in regarding as a direct manifestation of Providence +the sudden removal of Cousin Bill J. from this life by means of pneumonia. +For Miss Alvira had ever been esteemed and respected even by those who +considered that she sang alto half a note off, while her husband had +gradually acquired the disesteem of almost the entire village of Edom. +Many, indeed, went so far as to consider him a reproach to his sex. + +Yet there were a few who said that even a pretended observance of the +decencies would have been better. Miss Alvira disagreed with them, +however, and after all, as the village wag, Elias Cuthbert, said in the +post-office next day, "It was _her_ funeral." For Miss Alvira had made no +pretense to God; and, what is infinitely harder, she would make none to +the world. She rode to the last resting-place of her husband--Elias also +made a funny joke about his having merely changed _resting-places_--decked +in a bonnet on which were many blossoms. She had worn it through years +when her heart mourned and life was bitter, when it seemed that God from +His infinity had chosen her to suffer the cruellest hurts a woman may +know--and now that He had set her free she was not the one to pretend +grief with some lying pall of crepe. And on the new bonnet she wore to +church, the first Sabbath after, there still flowered above her somewhat +drawn face the blossoms of an endless girlhood, as if they were rooted in +her very heart. Beneath these blossoms she sang her alto--such as it +was--with just a hint of tossing defiance. Yet there was no need for that. +Edom thought well of her. + +No one was known to have mourned the departed save an inferior dog he had +made his own and been kind to; but this creature had little sympathy or +notice, though he was said to have waited three days and three nights on +the new earth that topped the grave of Cousin Bill J. For, quite aside +from his unfortunate connection, he had not been thought well of as a dog. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE PASSING OF THE GRATCHER; AND ANOTHER + + +From year to year the perfect father came to Edom to be a week with his +children. And though from visit to visit there were external variations in +him, his genial and refreshing spirit was changeless. When his garments +were appreciably less regal, even to the kind eye of his younger son; when +his hat was not all one might wish; the boots less than excellent; the +priceless watch-chain absent, or moored to a mere bunch of aimless keys, +though the bounty from his pockets was an irregular and minute trickle of +copper exclusively, the little boy strutted as proudly by his side, +worshipping him as loyally, as when these outer affairs were quite the +reverse. Yet he could not avoid being sensible of the fluctuations. + +One year the parent would come with the long hair of one who, having been +brother to the red Indian for years, has wormed from his medicine man the +choicest secret of his mysterious pharmacopaeia, and who would out of love +for suffering humanity place this within the reach of all for a nominal +consideration. + +Another year he would be shorn of the sweeping moustache and much of the +tawny hair, and the little boy would understand that he had travelled +extensively with a Mr. Haverly, singing his songs each evening in large +cities, and being spoken of as "the phenomenal California baritone." His +admiring son envied the fortunate people of those cities. + +Again he would be touring the world of cities with some simple article of +household use which, from his luxurious barouche, he was merely +introducing for the manufacturers--perhaps a rare cleaning-fluid, a +silver-polish, or that ingenious tool which will sharpen knives and cut +glass, this being, indeed, one of his prized staples. It appeared--so the +little boy heard him tell Milo Barrus--that few men could resist buying a +tool with which he actually cut a pane of glass into strips before their +eyes; that one beholding the sea of hands waving frantically up to him +with quarters in them, after his demonstration, would have reason to +believe that all men had occasion to slice off a strip of glass every day +or so. Instead of this, as an observer of domestic and professional life, +he believed that out of the thousands to whom he had sold this tool, not +ten had ever needed to cut glass, nor ever would. + +There was another who continued indifferent to the personal estate of this +father. This was Grandfather Delcher, who had never seen him since that +bleak day when he had tried to bury the memory of his daughter. When the +perfect father came to Edom the grandfather went to his room and kept +there so closely that neither ever beheld the other. The little boy was +much puzzled by this apparently intentional avoidance of each other by two +men of such rare distinction, and during the early visits of his father he +was fruitful of suggestion for bringing them together. But when he came to +understand that they remained apart by wish of the elder man, he was +troubled. He ceased then all efforts to arrange a meeting to which he had +looked forward with pride in his office of exhibiting each personage to +the other. But he was grieved toward his grandfather, becoming sharp and +even disdainful to the queer, silent old man, at those times when the +father was in the village. He could have no love and but little +friendliness for one who slighted his dear father. And so a breach +widened between them from year to year, as the child grew stouter fibre +into his sentiments of loyalty and justice. + +Meantime, age crept upon the little boy, relentlessly depriving him of +this or that beloved idol, yet not unkindly leaving with him the pliant +vitality that could fashion others to be still more warmly cherished. + +With Nancy, on afternoons when cool shadows lay across the lawn between +their houses, he often discussed these matters of life. Nancy herself had +not been spared the common fate. Being now a mere graceless rudiment of +humanity, all spindling arms and legs, save for a puckered, freckled face, +she was past the witless time of expecting to pick up a bird with a broken +wing and find it a fairy godmother who would give her three wishes. It was +more plausible now that a prince, "all dressed up in shiny Prince +Clothes," would come riding up on a creamy white horse, lift her to the +saddle in front of him and gallop off, calling her "My beautiful darling!" +while Madmasel, her uncle, and Betsy, the cook, danced up and down on the +front piazza impotently shouting "Help!" She suspected then, when it was +too late, that certain people would bitterly wish they had acted in a +different manner. If this did not happen soon, she meant to go into a +convent where she would not be forever told things for her own good by +those arrogantly pretending to know better, and where she could devote a +quiet life to the bringing up of her children. + +The little boy sympathised with her. He knew what it was to be +disappointed in one's family. The family he would have chosen for his own +was that of which two excellent views were given on the circus bills. In +one picture they stood in line, maddeningly beautiful in their pink +tights, ranging from the tall father and mother down through four children +to a small boy that always looked much like himself. In the other picture +these meritorious persons were flying dizzily through the air at the very +top of the great tent, from trapeze to trapeze, with the littlest boy +happily in the greatest danger, midway in the air between the two proud +parents, who were hurling him back and forth. + +It was absurd to think of anything like this in connection with a family +of which only one member had either courage or ambition. One had only to +study Clytie or Grandfather Delcher a few moments to see how hopeless it +all was. + +The next best life to be aspired to was that of a house-painter, who could +climb about unchided on the frailest of high scaffolds, swing from the +dizziest cupola, or sway jauntily at the top of the longest ladder--always +without the least concern whether he spilled paint on his clothes or not. + +Then, all in a half-hour, one afternoon, both he and Nancy seemed to cross +a chasm of growth so wide that one thrilled to look back to the farther +side where all objects showed little and all interests were juvenile. And +this phenomenon, signalised by the passing of the Gratcher, came in this +wise. As they rested from play--this being a time when the Gratcher was +most likely to be seen approaching by him of the Gratcher-eye, the usual +alarm was given, followed by the usual unbreathing silence. The little boy +fixedly bent his magic eye around the corner of the house, the little girl +scrambling to him over the grass to clutch one of his arms, to listen +fearfully for the setting of the monster's crutches at the end of each +stride, to feel if the earth trembled, as it often distinctly did, under +his awful tread. + +Wider grew the eyes of both at each "Now he's nearer still!" of the little +boy, until at last the girl must hide her head lest she see that awful +face leering past the corner. For, once the Gratcher's eye met yours +fairly, he caught you in an instant and worked his will. This was to pick +you up and look at you on all sides at once with the eyes in his +finger-ends, which tickled you so that you lost your mind. + +But now, at the shrillest and tensest report of progress from the gifted +watcher, all in a wondrous second of realisation, they turned to look into +each other's eyes--and their ecstasy of terror was gone in the quick +little self-conscious laughs they gave. It was all at once as if two +grown-ups had in a flash divined that they had been playing at a childish +game under some spell. The moment was not without embarrassment, because +of their having caught themselves in the very act and frenzy of showing +terror of this clumsy fiction. Foolishly they averted their glances, after +that first little laugh of sudden realisation; but again their eyes met, +and this time they laughed loud and long with a joy that took away not +only all fears of the Gratcher forever, but their first embarrassment of +themselves. Then, with no word of the matter whatsoever, each knowing that +the other understood, they began to talk of life again, feeling older and +wiser, which truly they were. + +For, though many in time wax brave to beard their Gratcher even in his +lair, only the very wise learn this--that the best way to be rid of him is +to laugh him away--that no Gratcher ever fashioned by the ingenuity of +terror-loving humans can keep his evil power over one to whom he has +become funny. + +The passing of the Gratcher had left no pedestal crying for another idol. +In its stead, for his own chastening and with all reverence, the little +boy erected the spirit of that God which the Bible tells of, who is +all-wise and loving, yet no sentimentalist, as witness his sudden +devastations among the first-born of all things, from white rabbits to +men. + +But an idol next went down that not only left a wretched vacancy in the +boy's pantheon, but fell against his heart and made an ugly wound. It was +as if he had become suddenly clear-seeing on that day when the Gratcher +shrivelled in the blast of his laugh. + +A little later came the father on his annual visit, and the dire thing was +done. The most ancient and honoured of all the idols fell with a crash. A +perfect father was lost in some common, swaggering, loud-voiced, +street-mannered creature, grotesquely self-satisfied, of a cheap, shabby +smartness, who came flaunting those things he should not have flaunted, +and proclaiming in every turn of his showy head his lack of those things +without which the little boy now saw no one could be a gentleman. + +He cried in his bed that night, after futile efforts to believe that some +fearful change had been wrought in his father. But his memory of former +visits was scrupulously photographic--phonographic even. He recalled from +the past certain effects once keenly joyed in that now made his cheeks +burn. The things rioted brutally before him, until it seemed that +something inside of him strove to suppress them--as if a shamed hand +reached out from his heart to brush the whole offense into decent hiding +with one quick sweep. + +This time he took care that Nancy should not meet his father. Yet he +walked the streets with him as before--walking defiantly and with shame +those streets through which he had once led the perfect father in festal +parade, to receive the applause of a respectful populace. Now he went +forth awkwardly, doggedly, keen for signs that others saw what he did, and +quick to burn with bitter, unreasoning resentment, when he detected that +they did so. Once his father rallied him upon his "grumpiness"; then he +grew sullen--though trying to smile--thinking with mortification of his +grandfather. He understood the old man now. + +He was glad when the week came to an end. Bruised, bewildered, shamed, but +loyal still and resentful toward others who might see as he did, he was +glad when his father went--this time as Professor Alfiretti, doing a +twenty-minute turn of hypnotism and mind-reading with the Gus Levy +All-Star Shamrock Vaudeville, playing the "ten-twenty-thirties," whatever +they were! + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE STRONG PERSON'S NARRATIVE + + +Near the close of the following winter came news of the father's death. +In some town of which the boy had never heard, in another State, a +ramshackle wooden theatre had burned one night and the father had perished +in the fire through his own foolhardiness. The news came by two channels: +first, a brief and unilluminating paragraph in the newspaper, giving +little more than the fact itself. + +But three days later came a friend of the father, bringing his few poor +effects and a full relation of the matter. He was a person of kind heart, +evidently, to whom the father had spoken much of his boys in Edom--a +bulky, cushiony, youngish man who was billed on the advertising posters of +the Gus Levy All-Star Shamrock Vaudeville as "Samson the Second," with a +portrait of himself supporting on the mighty arch of his chest a grand +piano, upon which were superimposed three sizable and busy violinists. + +He told his tale to the two boys and Clytie, Grandfather Delcher having +wished to hear no more of the occurrence. + +"You understan', it was like this now," he began, after having with a +calculating eye rejected two proffered chairs of delicate structure and +selected a stout wooden rocker into which he settled tentatively, as one +whom experience had taught to distrust most of the chairs in common use. + +"The people in front had got out all right, the fire havin' started on the +stage from the strip-light, and also our people had got out through the +little stage-entrance, though havin' to leave many of our props--a good +coat I had to lose meself, fur-lined around the collar, by way of helpin' +the Sisters Devere get out their box of accordions that they done a Dutch +Daly act with for an enn-core. Well, as I was sayin', we'd all hustled +down these back stairs--they was already red hot and smokin' up good, you +understan', and there we was shiverin' outside in the snow, kind of +rattled, and no wonder, at that, and the ladies of the troupe +histurrical--it had come like a quick-change, you understan', when all of +a sudden up in the air goes the Original Kelly. Say, he lets out a yell +for your life--'Oh, my God!' he says, 'my kids--up there,' pointin' to +where the little flames was spittin' out through the side like a +fire-eatin' act. Then down he flops onto his knees in the snow, prayin' +like the--prayin' like _mad_, you understan', and callin' on the blessed +Virgin to save little Patsy, who was just gittin' good with his drum-major +act and whirlin' a fake musket--and also little Joseph, who was learnin' +to do some card-tricks that wasn't so bad. Well, so everybody begins to +scream louder and run this way and that, you understan', callin' the kids +and thinkin' Kelly was nutty, because they must 'a got out. But Kelly +keeps right on prayin' to the holy Virgin, the tears runnin' down his +make-up--say, he looked awful, on the dead! And then we hears another +yell, and here was Prof. at the window with one of the kids, sure enough. +He'd got up them two flights of stairs, though they was all red smoky, +like when you see fire through smoke. Well, he motions to catch the kid, +so we snatches a cloak off one of the girls and holds it out between us, +you understan', while he leans out and drops the kid into it, all safe and +sound. + +"Just then we seen the place all light up back of him, and we yelled to +him to jump, too--he could 'a saved himself, you understan', but he waves +his hand and shook his head--say, lookin' funny, too, with his _mus_-tache +half burned off, and we seen him go back out of sight for the other little +Kelly--Kelly still promisin' to give up all he had to the Virgin if she +saved his boys. + +"Well, for a minute the crowd kep' still, kind 'a holdin' its breath, you +understan', till the Prof.'d come back with the other kid--and holdin' it +and holdin' it till the fire gits brighter and brighter through the +window--and--nothin' happens, you understan'--just the fire keeps on +gittin' busy. Honest, I begun to feel shaky, but then up comes one of +these day-after-to-morrow fire-departments, like they have in them towns, +with some fine painted ladders and a nice new hose-cart, and there was +great doings with these Silases screamin' to each other a foot away +through their fire-trumpets, only the stairs had been ablaze ever since +the Prof. got up 'em, and before any one does anything the whole inside +caves in and the blaze goes way up to the sky. + +"Well, of course, that settles it, you understan'--about the little Kelly +and the Prof. We drags the original Kelly away to a drug-store on the +corner of the next block, where they was workin' over the kid Prof. +saved--it was Patsy--and Kelly was crazy; but the Doc. was bringin' the +kid around all right, when one of the Miss Deveres, she has to come nutty +all to once--say, she sounded like the parrot-house in Central Park, +laughin' till you'd think she'd bust, only it sounded like she was cryin' +at the same time, and screamin' out at the top of her voice, 'Oh, he +looked so damned funny with his _mus_-tache burned off! Oh, he looked so +damned funny with his _mus_-tache burned off!'--way up high like that, +over and over. Well, so she has to be held down till the Doc. jabs her arm +full of knockouts. Honest, I needed the dope myself for fair by that time, +what with the lady bein' that way I'm 'a tellin' you, and Kelly, the crazy +Irishman--I could hear him off in one corner givin' his reg'ler stunt +about his friend, O'Houlihan, lately landed and lookin' for work, comes to +a sausage factory and goes up to the boss and says, 'Begobs!'--_you_ know +the old gag--say, I run out in the snow and looked over to the crowd +around the fire and thought of Prof. pokin' around in that dressin'-room +for Kelly's other kid, when he might 'a jumped after he got the first one, +and, say, this is no kid--first thing I knew I begin to bawl like a baby. + +"Well, as I was sayin', there I am and all I can see through the fog is +one 'a these here big lighted signs down the street with 'George's Place' +on it, and a pitcher of a big glass of beer. Me to George's, at once. When +Levy himself finds me there, about daylight, I'm tryin' to tell a gang of +Silases how it all happened and chokin' up every time so's I have to have +another. + +"Well, of course, we break up next day. Kelly tells me, after he gits +right again, that little Patsy was saved by havin' one 'a these here +scapulars on--he shows it to me hanging around the kid's neck, inside his +clothes. He says little Joseph must 'a left his off, or he'd 'a' been +saved, too. He showed me a piece in one 'a these little religious books +that says there was nothing annoyed the devil like a scapular--that a man +can't be burned or done dirt to in no way if he wears one. I says it's a +pity the Prof. didn't have one on, but Kelly says they won't work for +Protestants. But I don't know--I never _purtended_ to be good on these +propositions of religious matters. And there wasn't any chance of findin' +the kid to prove if Kelly had it right or not. + +"But the Prof. he was certainly a great boy for puttin' up three-sheets +about his own two kids; anybody that would listen--friend or +stranger--made no difference to _him_. He starred 'em to anybody, you +understan'--what corkers they was, and all like that. It seemed like +Kelly's havin' two kids also kind 'a touched on his feelin's. Honest, I +ain't ever got so worked up over anything before in me whole life." + +When this person had gone the old man called the two boys to his room and +prayed with them; keeping the younger to sit with him a long time +afterward, as if feeling that his was the heavier heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A NEW THEORY OF A CERTAIN WICKED MAN + + +The time of the first sorrow was difficult for the boy. There was that +first hard sleep after one we love has gone--in which we must always +dream that it is not true--a sleep from which we awaken to suffer all the +shock of it again. Then came black nights when the perfect love for the +perfect father came back in all its early tenderness to cry the little boy +to sleep. Yet it went rapidly enough at last, as times of sorrow go for +the young. There even came a day when he found in a secret place of his +heart a chastened, hopeful inquiry if all might not have been for the +best. He had loved his father--there had been between them an unbreakable +bond; yet this very love had made him suffer at every thought of him while +he was living, whereas now he could love him with all tender memories and +with no poisonous misgivings about future meetings with their +humiliations. Now his father was made perfect in Heaven, and even +Grandfather Delcher--whose aloofness here he had ceased to blame--would +not refuse to meet and know him there. + +Naturally, then, he turned to his grandfather in his great need for a new +idol to fill the vacant niche. Aforetime the old man in his study upstairs +had been little more than a gray shadow, a spirit of gloom, stubbornly +imprisoning another spirit that would have been kind if it could have +escaped. But the little boy drew near to him, and found him curiously +companionable. Where once he had shunned him, he now went freely to the +study with his lessons or his storybook, or for talk of any little matter. +His grandfather, it seemed, could understand many things which so old a +man could scarcely have been expected to understand. In token of this +there would sometimes creep over his brown old face a soft light that made +it seem as if there must still be within him somewhere the child he had +once been; as if, perhaps, he looked into the little boy as into a mirror +that threw the sunlight of his own boyhood into his time-worn face. Side +by side, before the old man's fire, they would talk or muse, since they +were friendly enough to be silent if they liked. Only one confidence the +little boy could not bring himself to make: he could not tell the old man +that he no longer felt hard toward him, as once he had done, for his +coldness to his father; that he had divined--and felt a great shame +for--the true reason of that coldness. But he thought the old man must +understand without words. It was hardly a matter to be talked of. + +About his other affairs, especially his early imaginings and difficulties, +he was free to talk; about coming to the Feet, and the Front Room, and +being washed in the blood, and born again--matters that made the old man +wish their intimacy had not been so long delayed. + +But now they made up for lost time. Patiently and ably he taught the +little boy those truths he needed to know; to seek for eternal life +through the atoning blood of the Saviour, whose part it had been to +purchase our redemption from God's wrath by his death on Calvary. Of other +matters more technical: of how the love that God of necessity has for His +own infinitely perfect being is the reason and the measure of the hatred +he has for sin. Above all did he teach the little boy how to pray for the +grace of effectual calling, in order that, being persuaded of his sin and +misery, he might thereafter partake of justification, adoption, +sanctification, and those several benefits which, in this life, do either +accompany or flow from them. They looked forward with equal eagerness to +the day when he should become a great and good man, preaching the gospel +of the crucified Son to spellbound throngs. + +[Illustration: "They looked forward with equal eagerness to the day when +he should become a great and good man."] + +Together they began again the study of the Scriptures, the little boy now +entering seriously upon that work of writing commentaries which had once +engaged Allan. In one of these school-boyish papers the old man came upon +a passage that impressed him as notable. It seemed to him that there was +not only that vein of poetic imagination--without which one cannot be a +great preacher--but a certain individual boldness of approach, monstrous +in its naive sentimentality, to be sure, but indicating a talent that +promised to mature splendidly. + +"Now Jesus told his disciples," it ran, "that he must be crucified before +he could take his seat on the right hand of God and send to hell those who +had rejected him. He told them that one of them would have to betray him, +because it must be like the Father had said. It says at the last supper +Jesus said, 'The Son of Man goeth as it is written of him; but woe unto +that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed; it had been good for that man +if he had not been born.' + +"Now it says that Satan entered into Judas, but it looks to me more like +the angel of the Lord might have entered into him, he being a good man to +start with, or our Lord would not have chosen him to be a disciple. Judas +knew for sure, after the Lord said this, that one of the disciples had got +to betray the Saviour and go to hell, where the worm dieth not and the +fire is not quenched. Well, Judas loved all the disciples very much, so he +thought he would be the one and save one of the others. So he went out and +agreed to betray him to the rulers for thirty pieces of silver. He knew if +he didn't do it, it might have to be Peter, James, or John, or some one +the Saviour loved very dearly, because it _had_ to be one of them. So +after it was done and he knew the others were saved from this foul deed, +he went back to the rulers and threw down their money, and went out and +hung himself. If he had been a bad man, it seems more like he would have +spent that money in wicked indulgences, food and drink and entertainments, +etc. Of course, Judas knew he would go to hell for it, so he was not as +lucky as Jesus, who knew he would go to heaven and sit at the right hand +of God when he died, which was a different matter from Judas's, who would +not have any reward at all but going to hell. It looks to me like poor +Judas had ought to be brought out of hell-fire, and I shall pray Jesus to +do it when he gets around to it." + +However it might be with our Lord's betrayer, there was one soul now seen +to be deservedly in hell. Through the patient study of the Scriptures as +expounded by Grandfather Delcher, the little boy presently found himself +accepting without demur the old gentleman's unspoken but sufficiently +indicated opinion. His father was in everlasting torment--having been not +only unbaptised, but godless and a scoffer. With a quickening sense of the +majesty of that Spirit infinitely good, a new apprehension of His plan's +symmetry, he read the words meant to explain, to comfort him, silently +indicated one day by the old man: + +"Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one +vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? + +"What if God, willing to show His wrath, and to make His power known, +endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to +destruction? + +"And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of +mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory." + +It hurt at first, but the young mind hardened to it dutifully--the big, +laughing, swaggering, scoffing father--a device of God made for torment, +that the power of the All-loving might show forth! If the father had only +repented, he might have gone straight to heaven as did Cousin Bill J. For +the latter had obtained grace in his last days, and now sang acceptably +before the thrones of the Father and the Son. But the unbaptised scoffer +must burn forever--and the little boy knew at last what was meant by +"the majesty of God." + + + + +BOOK TWO + +The Age of Reason + + + +[Illustration] + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE REGRETTABLE DEMENTIA OF A CONVALESCENT + + +"You know you _please_ me--_really_ you do!" + +Allan, perfect youth of the hazel eyes and tawny locks, bent upon +inquiring Nancy a look of wholly pleasant reassurance, as one wishful to +persuade her from doubt. + +"I'm not joking a bit. When I say you please me, I mean it." + +His look became rather more expansive with a smile that seemed meant to +sympathise guardedly with her in her necessary rejoicing. + +Meekly, for a long second, Nancy drew the black curtains of her eyes, +murmuring from out the friendly gloom: + +"It's very good of you, Allan!" + +Then, before he could tell reasons for his pleasing, which she divined he +was about to do, the curtains were up and the eyes wide open to him with a +question about Bernal. + +He turned to the house and pointed up to the two open windows of the +study, in and out of which the warm breeze puffed the limp white curtains. + +"He's there, poor chap! He was able to get that far for the first time +yesterday, leaning on me and Clytie." + +"And to think I never knew he was sick until we came from town last night. +I'd surely have left the old school and come before if I'd heard. I +wouldn't have cared _what_ Aunt Bell said." + +"Eight weeks down, and you know we found he'd been sick long before he +found it out himself--walking typhoid, they called it. He came home from +college with me Easter week, and Dr. Merritt put him to bed the moment he +clapped eyes on him. Said it was walking typhoid, and that he must have +been worrying greatly about something, because his nervous system was all +run down." + +"And he was very ill?" + +"Doctor Merritt says he went as far as a man can go and get back at all." + +"How dreadful--poor Bernal! Oh, if he _had_ died!" + +"Out of his head for three weeks at a time--raving fearfully. And you +know, he's quite like an infant now--says the simplest things. He laughs +at it himself. He says he's not sure if he knows how to read and write." + +"Poor, dear Bernal!" + +With some sudden arousing he studied her face swiftly as she spoke, then +continued: + +"Yes, Bernal's really an awfully good chap at bottom." He turned again to +look up at the study windows. "You know, I intend to stand by that fellow +always--no matter _what_ he does! Of course, I shall not let his being my +brother blind me to his faults--doubtless we _all_ have faults; but I tell +you, Nancy, a good heart atones for many things in a man's make-up." + +She seemed to be waiting, slightly puzzled, but he broke off--"Now I must +hurry to mail these letters It's good to be home for another summer. You +really _do_ please me, Nance!" + +She thought, as he moved off, that Allan was handsome--more than handsome, +indeed. He left an immediate conviction of his superb vitality of body and +mind, the incarnation of a spirit created to prevail. Featured in almost +faultless outline, of a character unconsciously, unaffectedly proclaiming +its superior gravity among human masses, he was a planet destined to have +many satellites and be satellite to none; an _ego_ of genuine lordliness; +a presence at once masterly and decorative. + +And yet she was conscious of a note--not positively of discord, but one +still exciting a counter-stream of reflection. She had observed that each +time Allan turned his head, ever so little, he had a way of turning his +shoulders with it: the perfect head and shoulders were swung with almost a +studied unison. And this little thing had pricked her admiration with a +certain needle-like suspicion--a suspicion that the young man might be not +wholly oblivious of his merits as a spectacle. + +Yet this was no matter to permit in one's mind. For Nancy of the +lengthened skirts and the massed braids was now a person of reserves. Even +in that innocent insolence of first womanhood, with its tentatively +malicious, half-conscious flauntings, she was one of reticences toward the +world including herself, with petticoats of decorum draping the child's +anarchy of thought--her luxuriant young emotions "done up" sedately with +her hair. She was now one to be cautious indeed of imputations so blunt as +this concerning Allan. Besides, how nobly he had spoken of Bernal. Then +she wondered _why_ it should seem noble, for Nancy would be always a +creature to wonder where another would accept. She saw it had seemed noble +because Bernal must have been up to some deviltry. + +This phrase would not be Nancy's--only she knew it to be the way her +uncle, for example, would translate Allan's praise of his brother. She +hoped Bernal had not been very bad--and wondered _how_ bad. + +Then she went to him. Her first little knock brought no answer, nor could +she be sure that the second did. But she knew it was loud enough to be +heard if the room were occupied, so she gently opened the door a crack and +peeped in. He lay on the big couch across the room under the open window, +a scarlet wool dressing-gown on, and a steamer-rug thrown over the lower +part of his body. He seemed to be looking out and up to the tree that +appeared above the window. She thought he could not have heard her, but he +called: + +"Clytie!" + +She crossed the room and bent a little over to meet his eyes when he +weakly turned his head on the pillow. + +"Nancy!" + +He began to laugh, sliding a thin hand toward one of hers. The laugh did +not end until there were tears in his eyes. She laughed with him as a +strong-voiced singer would help a weaker, and he tried to put a friendly +force into his grip of the firm-fleshed little hand he had found. + +"Don't be flattered, Nance--it's only typhoid emotion," he said at last, +in a voice that sounded strangely unused. "You don't really overcome me, +you know--the sight of you doesn't unman me as much as these fond tears +might make you suspect. I shall feel that way when Clytie brings my lunch, +too." He smiled and drew her hand into both his own as she sat beside him. + +"How plump and warm your hand is--all full of little whispering pulses. My +hands are cold and drowsy and bony, and _so_ uninterested! Doesn't fever +bring forward a man's bones in the most shameless way?" + +"Oh, Bernal--but you'll soon have them decently hidden again--indeed, +you're looking--quite--quite plump." She smiled encouragingly. A sudden +new look in his eyes made her own face serious again. + +"Why, Nance, you're rather lovely when you smile!" + +She smiled. + +"Only then?" + +He studied her, while she pretended to be grave. + +He became as one apart, giving her a long look of unbiassed appraisal. + +"Well--you know--now you have some little odds and ends of features--not +bad--no, not even half bad, for that matter. I can see thousands of miles +into your eyes--there's a fire smouldering away back in there--it's all +smoky and mysterious after you go the first few thousand miles--but, I +don't know--I believe the smile is _needed_, Nance. Poor child, I tell you +this as a friend, for your own good--it seems to make a fine big +perfection out of a lot of little imperfections that are only fairly +satisfactory." + +She smiled again, brushing an escaped lock of hair to its home. + +"Really, Nance, no one could guess that mouth till it melts." + +"I see--now I shall be going about with an endless, sickening grin. It +will come to that--doubtless I shall be murdered for it--people that do +grin that way always make _me_ feel like murder." + +"And they could never guess your eyes until the little smile runs up to +light their chandeliers." + +"Dear me!--Like a janitor!" + +"--or the chin, until the little smile does curly things all around +it--" + +"There, now--calm yourself--the doctor will be here presently--and you +know, you're among friends--" + +"--or the face itself until those little pink ripples get to chasing each +other up to hide in your hair, as they are now. You know you're blushing, +Nance, so stop it. Remember, it's when you smile; remember, also, that +smiles are born, not made. It's a long time since I've seen you, Nance." + +"Two years--we didn't come here last summer, you know." + +"But you've aged--you're twice the woman you were--so, on the whole, I'm +not in the least disappointed in you." + +"Your sickness seems to have left you--well--in a remarkably unprejudiced +state of mind." + +He laughed. "That's the funny part of it. Did they tell you this siege had +me foolish for weeks? Honest, now, Nance, here's a case--how many are two +times two?" He waited expectantly. + +"Are you serious?" + +"It seems silly to you, doesn't it--but answer as if I were a child." + +"Well--twice two are four--unless my own mind is at fault." + +"There!--now I begin to believe it. I suppose, now, it _couldn't_ be +anything else, could it? Yesterday morning the doctor said something was +as plain as twice two are four. You know, the thing rankled in me all day. +It seemed to me that twice two ought to be twenty-two. Then I asked Clytie +and she said it was four, but that didn't satisfy me. Of course, +Clytemnestra is a dear soul, and I truly, love her, but her advantages in +an educational way have been meagre. She could hardly be considered an +authority in mathematics, even if she is the ideal cook and friend. But I +have more faith in your learning, Nance. The doctor's solution seems +plausible, since you've sided with him. I suppose you could have no motive +for deceiving me?" + +She was regarding him with just a little anxiety, and this he detected. + +"It's nothing to worry about, Nance--it's only funny. I haven't lost my +mind or anything, you know--spite of my tempered enthusiasm for your +face--but this is it: first there came a fearful shock--something +terrible, that shattered me--then it seemed as if that sickness found my +brain like a school-boy's slate with all his little problems worked out on +it, and wickedly gave it a swipe each side with a big wet sponge. And now +I seem to have forgotten all I ever learned. Clytie was in to feed me the +inside of a baked potato before you came. After I'd fought with her to eat +the skin of it--such a beautiful brown potato-skin, with delicious little +white particles still sticking to the inside where it hadn't all been dug +out--and after she had used her strength as no lady should, and got it +away from me, it came to me all at once that she was my mother. Then she +assured me that she was not, and that seemed quite reasonable, too. I told +her I loved her enough for a mother, anyway--and the poor thing giggled." + +"Still, you have your lucid moments." + +"Ah, still thinking about the face? You mean I'm lucid when you smile, and +daffy when you don't. But that's a case of it--your face--" + +"My face a case of _what?_ You're getting commercial--even shoppy. Really, +if this continues, Mr. Linford, I shall be obliged--" + +"A case of it--of this blankness of mine. Instead of continuing my early +prejudice, which I now recall was preposterously in your favour, I survey +you coldly for the first time. You know I'm afraid to look at print for +fear I've forgotten how to read." + +"Nonsense!" + +"No--I tell you I feel exactly like one of those chaps from another +planet, who are always reaching here in the H.G. Wells's stories--a +gentleman of fine attainments in his own planet, mind you--bland, +agreeable, scholarly--with marked distinction of bearing, and a personal +beauty rare even on a planet where the flaunting of one's secretest bones +is held to betoken the only beauty--you understand _that?_--Well, I come +here, and everything is different--ideals of beauty, people absurdly +holding for flesh on their bones, for example--numbers, language, +institutions, everything. Of course, it puzzles me a little, but see the +value I ought to be to the world, having a mature mind, yet one as clean +of preconceptions and prejudice as a new-born babe's." + +"Oh, so that is why you could see that I'm not--" + +"Also, why I could see that you _are_--that's it, smile! Nance, you _are_ +a dear, when you smile--you make a man feel so strong and protecting. But +if you knew all the queer things I've thought in the last week about time +and people and the world. This morning I woke up mad because I'd been +cheated out of the past. Where _is_ all the past, Nance? There's just as +much past somewhere as there is future--if one's soul has no end, it had +no beginning. Why not worry about the past as we do about the future? +First thing I'm going to do--start a Worry-About-the-Past Club, with dues +and a president, and by-laws and things!" + +"Don't you think I'd better send Clytie, now?" + +"No; please wait a minute." He clutched her hand with a new strength, and +raised on his elbow to face her, then, speaking lower: + +"Nance, you know I've had a feeling it wasn't the right thing to ask the +old gentleman this--he might think I hadn't been studying at college--but +_you_ tell me--what is this about the atoning blood of Jesus Christ? It +was a phrase he used the other day, and it stuck in my mind." + +"Bernal--you surely know!" + +"Truly I don't--it seems a bad dream I've had some time--that's all--some +awful dream about my father." + +"It was the part of the Saviour to purchase our redemption by his death on +Calvary." + +"Our redemption from what?" + +"From sin, to be sure." + +"What sin?" + +"Why, our sin, of course--the sin of Adam which comes down to us." + +"You say this Jesus purchased our redemption from that sin by dying?" + +"Yes." + +"From whom did he purchase it?" + +"Oh, dear--this is like a catechism--from God, of course." + +"The God that made Adam?" + +"Certainly." + +"Oh, yes--now I seem to remember him--he was supposed to make people, and +then curse them, wasn't he? And so he had to have his son killed before he +could forgive Adam for our sins?" + +"No; before he could forgive _us_ for Adam's sin, which descended to us." + +"Came down like an entail, eh? ... Adam couldn't disinherit us? Well, how +did this God have his son die?" + +"Why, Bernal--you _must_ remember, dear--you knew so well--don't you know +he was crucified?" + +"To be sure I do--how stupid! And was God _very_ cheerful after that? No +more trouble about Adam or anything?" + +"You must hush--I can't tell you about these things--wait till your +grandfather comes." + +"No, I want to have it from you, Nance--grandad would think I'd been +slighting the classics." + +"Well, God takes to heaven with him those who believe." + +"Believe what?" + +"Who believe that Jesus was his only begotten son." + +"What does he do with those who don't believe it?" + +"They--they--Oh, I don't know--really, Bernal, I must go now." + +"Just a minute, Nance!" He clutched more tightly the hand he had been +holding. "I see now! I must be remembering something I knew--something +that brought me down sick. If a man doesn't believe God was capable of +becoming so enraged with Adam that only the bloody death of his own son +would appease his anger toward _us_, he sends that man where--where the +worm doeth something or other--what is it? Oh, well!--of course, it's of +no importance--only it came to me it was something I ought to remember if +grandad should ask me about it. What a quaint belief it must have been." + +"Oh, I must go!--let me, now." + +"Don't you find it interesting, Nance, rummaging among these musty old +religions of a dead past--though I admit that this one is less pleasant to +study than most of the others. This god seems to lack the majesty and +beauty of the Greek and the integrity of the Norse gods. In fact, he was +too crude to be funny--by the way, what is it I seem to recall, about +eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the son?--'unless ye eat the +flesh of the son--'" + +She drew her hand from his now and arose in some dismay. He lay back upon +his pillow, smiling. + +"Not very agreeable, is it, Nance? Well, come again, and I'll tell you +about some of the pleasanter old faiths next time--I remember now that +they interested me a lot before I was sick." + +"You're sure I shouldn't send Clytie or some one?" She looked down at him +anxiously, putting her hand on his forehead. He put one of his own lightly +over hers. + +"No, no, thank you! It's not near time yet for the next baked potato. If +Clytie doesn't give up the skin of this one I shall be tempted to forget +that she's a woman. There, I hear grandad coming, so you won't be leaving +me alone." + +Grandfather Delcher came in cheerily as Nancy left the room. + +"Resting, my boy? That's good. You look brighter already--Nancy must come +often." + +He took Nancy's chair by the couch and began the reading of his morning's +mail. Bernal lay still with eyes closed during the reading of several +letters; but when the old man opened out a newspaper with little rustlings +and pats, he turned to him. + +"Well, my boy?" + +"I've been thinking of something funny. You know, my memory is still +freakish, and things come back in splotches. Just now I was recalling a +primitive Brazilian tribe in whose language the word 'we' means also +'good. 'Others,' which they express by saying 'not we,' means also +'evil.' Isn't that a funny trait of early man--we--good; not we--bad! I +suppose our own tongue is but an elaboration of that simple bit of human +nature--a training of polite vines and flowering shrubs over the crude +lines of it. + +"And this tribe--the Bakairi, it is called--is equally crude in its +religion. It is true, sir, is it not, that the most degraded of the +savages tribes resort to human sacrifice in their religious rites?" + +"Generally true. Human sacrifice was practised even by some who were well +advanced, like the Aztecs and Peruvians." + +"Well, sir, this Bakairi tribe believed that its god demanded a sacrifice +yearly, and their priests taught them that a certain one of their number +had been sent by their god for this sacrifice each year; that only by +butchering this particular member of the tribe and--incredible as it +sounds--eating his body and drinking his blood, could they avert drouth +and pestilence and secure favours for the year to come. I remember the +historian intimated that it were well not to incur the displeasure of any +priest; that one doing this might find it followed by an unpleasant +circumstance when the time came for the priests to designate the next +yearly sacrifice." + +"Curious, indeed, and most revolting," assented the old man, laying down +his paper. "You _are_ feeling more cheerful, aren't you--and you look so +much brighter. Ah, what a mercy of God's you were spared to me!--you know +you became my walking-stick when you were a very little boy--I could +hardly go far without you now, my son." + +"Yes, sir--thank you--I've just been recalling some of the older +religions--Nancy and I had quite a talk about the old Christian faith." + +"I'm glad indeed. I had sometimes been led to suspect that Nancy was the +least bit--well, frivolous--but I am an old man, and doubtless the things +that seem best to me are those I see afar off, their colour subdued +through the years." + +"Nancy wasn't a bit frivolous this morning--on the contrary, she seemed +for some reason to consider me the frivolous one. She looked shocked at me +more than once. Now, about the old Christian faith, you know--their god +was content with one sacrifice, instead of one each year, though he +insisted on having the body eaten and the blood drunk perpetually. Yet I +suppose, sir, that the Christian god, in this limiting of the human +sacrifice to one person, may be said to show a distinct advance over the +god of the Bakairi, though he seems to have been equally a tribal god, +whose chief function it was to make war upon neighbouring tribes." + +"Yes, my boy--quite so," replied the old man most soothingly. He stepped +gently to the door. Halfway down the hall Allan was about to turn into his +room. He came, beckoned by the old man, who said, in tones too low for +Bernal to hear: + +"Go quickly for Dr. Merritt. He's out of his head again." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +FURTHER DISTRESSING FANTASIES OF A CLOUDED MIND + + +When young Dr. Merritt came, flushed and important-looking, greatly +concerned by the reported relapse, he found his patient with normal pulse +and temperature--rational and joyous at his discovery that the secret of +reading Roman letters was still his. + +"I was almost afraid to test it, Doctor," he confessed, smilingly, when +the little thermometer had been taken from between his lips, "but it's all +right--I didn't find a single strange letter--every last one of them meant +something--and I know figures, too--and now I'm as hungry for print as I +am for baked potatoes. You know, never in my life again, after I'm my own +master, shall I neglect to eat the skin of my baked potato. When I think +of those I let go in my careless days of plenty, I grow heart-sick." + +"A little at a time, young man. If they let you gorge as you'd like to +there would be no more use sending for me; you'd be a goner--that's what +you'd be! Head feel all right?" + +"Fine!--I've settled down to a pleasant reading of Holy Writ. This Old +Testament is mighty interesting to me, though doubtless I've read it all +before." + +"It's a very complicated case, but I think he's coming on all right," the +doctor assured the alarmed old man outside the door. "He may be a little +flighty now and then, but don't pay any attention to him; just soothe him +over. He's getting back to himself--stronger every hour. We often have +these things to contend with." + +And the doctor, outwardly confident, went away to puzzle over the case. + +Again the following morning, when Bernal had leaned his difficult way down +to the couch in the study, the old man was dismayed by his almost +unspeakable aberrations. With no sign of fever, with a cool brow and +placid pulse, in level tones, he spoke the words of the mad. + +"You know, grandad," he began easily, looking up at the once more placid +old man who sat beside him, "I am just now recalling matters that were +puzzling me much before the sickness began to spin my head about so fast +on my shoulders. The harder I thought, the faster my head went around, +until it sent my mind all to little spatters in a circle about me. One +thing I happened to be puzzling over was how the impression first became +current that this god of the Jews was a being of goodness. Such an +impression seems to have been tacitly accepted for some centuries after +the iniquities so typical of him had been discountenanced by society--long +after human sacrifice was abhorred, and even after the sacrificing of +animals was held to be degrading. It's a point that escapes me, owing to +my addled brain; doubtless you can set me right. At present I can't +conceive how the notion could ever have occurred to any one. I now +remember this book well enough to know that not only is little good ever +recorded of him, but he is so continually barbarous, and so atrociously +cruel in his barbarities. And he was thought to be all-powerful when he is +so pitifully ineffectual, with all his crude power--the poor old fellow +was forever bungling--then bungling again in his efforts to patch up his +errors. Indeed, he would be rather a pathetic figure if he were not so +monstrous! Still, there is a kind of heathen grandeur about him at times. +He drowns his world full of people because his first two circumvented him; +then he saves another pair, but things go still worse, so he has to keep +smiting the world right and left, dumb beasts as well as men; and at last +he picks out one tribe, in whose behalf he works a series of miracles, +that devastated a wide area. How he did love to turn a city over to +destruction! And from the cloud's centre he was constantly boasting of his +awful power, and scaring people into butchering lambs and things in his +honour. Yet, doubtless, that heathen tribe found its god 'good,' and other +people formed the habit of calling him good, without thinking much about +it. They must have felt queer when they woke up to the fact that they were +calling infinitely good a god who was not good, even when judged by their +poor human standards." + +Remembering the physician's instructions to soothe the patient, the +distressed old man timidly began-- + +"'For God so loved the world'"--but he was interrupted by the vivacious +one on the couch. + +"That's it--I remember that tradition. He was even crude enough to beget a +son for human sacrifice, giving that son power to condemn thereafter those +who should not detect his godship through his human envelope! That was a +rather subtler bit of baseness than those he first perpetrated--to send +this saving son in such guise that the majority of his creatures would +inevitably reject him! Oh! he was bound to have his failures and his +tortures, wasn't he? You know, I dare say the ancient Christians called +him good because they were afraid to call him bad. Doubtless the one great +spiritual advance that we have made since the Christian faith prevailed +is, that we now worship without fearing what we worship." + +Once more the distressed old man had risen to stand with assumed +carelessness by the door, having writhed miserably in his chair until he +could no longer endure the profane flood. + +"But, truly, that god was, after all, a pathetic figure. Imagine him amid +the ruins of his plan, desolate, always foiled by his creatures--meeting +failure after failure from Eden to Calvary--for even the bloody expedient +of sending his son to be sacrificed did not avail to save his own chosen +people. They unanimously rejected the son, if I remember, and so he had to +be content with a handful of the despised Gentiles. A sorrowful old figure +of futility he is--a fine figure for a big epic, it seems to me. By the +way, what was the date that this religion was laughed away. I can remember +perfectly the downfall of the Homeric deities--how many years there were +when the common people believed in the divine origin of the Odyssey, while +the educated classes were more or less discreetly heretical, until at last +the whole Olympian outfit became poetic myths. But strangely enough I do +not recall just the date when _we_ began to demand a god of dignity and +morality." + +The old man had been loath to leave the sufferer. He still stood by the +open door to call to the first passer-by. Now, shudderingly wishful to +stem the torrent of blasphemies, innocent though they were, he ventured +cautiously: + +"There was Sinai--you forget the tables--the moral law--the ten +commandments." + +"Sinai, to be sure. Christians used to regard that as an occasion of +considerable dignity, didn't they? The time when he gave directions about +slavery and divorce and polygamy--he was beautifully broad-minded in all +those matters, and to kill witches and to stone an ox that gored any one, +and how to disembowel the lambs used for sacrifice, and what colours to +use in the tabernacle." + +But the horrified old man had fled. Half an hour later he returned with +Dr. Merritt, relieving Clytie, who had watched outside the door and who +reported that there had been no signs of violence within. + +Again they found a normal pulse and temperature, and an appetite +clamouring for delicacies of strong meat. Young Dr. Merritt was greatly +puzzled. + +"I understand the case perfectly," he said to the old man; "he needs rest +and plenty of good nursing--and quiet. We often have these cases. Your +head feels all right, doesn't it?" he asked Bernal. + +"Fine, Doctor!" + +"I thought so." He looked shrewdly at the old man. "Your grandfather had +an idea you might be--perhaps a bit excited." + +"No--not a bit. We've had a fine morning chatting over some of the +primitive religions, haven't we, old man?" and he smiled affectionately up +to his grandfather. "Hello, Nance, come and sit by me." + +The girl had paused in the doorway while he spoke, and came now to take +his hand, after a look of inquiry at the two men. The latter withdrew, the +eyes of the old man sadly beseeching the eyes of the physician for some +definite sign of hope. + +Inside, the sufferer lay holding a hand of Nancy between his cheek and the +pillow--with intervals of silence and blithe speech. His disordered mind, +it appeared, was still pursuing its unfortunate tangent. + +"The first ideas are all funny, aren't they, Nance? Genesis in that +Christian mythology we were discussing isn't the only funny one. There was +the old northern couple who danced on the bones of the earth nine times +and made nine pairs of men and women; and there were the Greek and his +wife who threw stones out of their ark that changed to men; and the Hindu +that saved the life of a fish, and whom the fish then saved by fastening +his ship to his horn; and the South Sea fisherman who caught his hook in +the water-god's hair and made him so angry that he drowned all the world +except the offending fisherman. Aren't they nearly as funny as the god who +made one of his pair out of clay and one from a rib, and then became so +angry with them that he must beget a son for them to sacrifice before he +would forgive them? Let's think of the pleasanter ones. Do you know that +hymn of the Veda?--'If I go along trembling like a cloud, have mercy, +Almighty, have mercy!' + +"'Through want of strength, thou strong and bright God, have I gone +wrong. Have mercy, Almighty, have mercy!' + +"And Buddha was a pleasant soul, Nance--with stuff in him, too--born a +prince, yet leaving his palace to be poor and to study the ways of wisdom, +until enlightenment came to him sitting under his Bo tree. He said faith +was the best wealth here. And, 'Not to commit any sin, to do good and to +purify one's mind, that is the teaching of the awakened'; 'not hating +those who hate us,' 'free from greed among the greedy.' They must have +been glad of Buddhism in their day, teaching them to honour their parents, +to be kind to the sick and poor and sorrowing, to forgive their enemies +and return good for evil. And there was funny old Confucius with his +'Coarse rice for food, water to drink, the bended arm for a +pillow--happiness may be enjoyed even with these; but without virtue, both +riches and honour seem to me like the passing cloud.' Another one of his +is 'In the book of Poetry are three hundred pieces--but the designs of +them all mean, "Have no depraved thoughts."' Rather good for a Chinaman, +wasn't it? + +"And there was old Zoroaster saying to his Ormuzd, 'I believe thee, O God! +to be the best thing of all!' and asking for guidance. Ormuzd tells him to +be pure in thought, word and deed; to be temperate, chaste and +truthful--and this Ormuzd would have no lambs sacrificed to him. Life, +being his gift, was dear to him. And don't forget Mohammed, Nance, that +fine old barbarian with the heart of a passionate child, counselling men +to live a good life and to strive after the mercy of God by fasting, +charity and prayer, calling this the 'Key of Paradise.' He went after a +poor blind man whom he had at first rebuffed, saying 'He is thrice welcome +on whose account my Lord hath reprimanded me.' He was a fine, stubborn old +believer, Nance. I wonder if it's not true that the Christians once +studied these old chaps to take the taste of their own cruder God out of +their minds. What a cruel people they must have been to make so cruel a +God! + +"But let's talk of you, Nance--that's it--light the chandeliers in your +eyes." + +He spoke drowsily now, and lay quiet, patting one of her hands. But +presently he was on one elbow to study her again. + +"Nance, the Egyptians worshipped Nature, the Greeks worshipped Beauty, the +Northern chaps worshipped Courage, and the Christians feared--well, the +hereafter, you know--but I'm a Catholic when you smile." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +REASON IS AGAIN ENTHRONED + + +Slowly the days brought new life to the convalescent, despite his +occasional attacks of theological astigmatism. And these attacks grew +less frequent and less marked as the poor bones once more involved +themselves in firm flesh--to the glad relief of a harried and scandalised +old gentleman whose black forebodings had daily moved him to visions of +the mad-house for his best-loved descendant. + +Yet there were still dreadful times when the young man on the couch +blasphemed placidly by the hour, with an insane air of assuming that those +about him held the same opinions; as if the Christian religion were a +pricked bubble the adherents of which had long since vanished. + +If left by himself he could often be heard chuckling and muttering +between chuckles: "I will get me honour upon Pharaoh and all his host. I +have hardened his heart and the heart of his host that I might show these +my signs before him." + +Entering the room, the old gentleman might be met with: + +"I certainly agree with you, sir, in every respect--Christianity was an +invertebrate materialism of separation--crude, mechanical separation--less +spiritual, less ethical, than almost any of the Oriental faiths. Affirming +the brotherhood of man, yet separating us into a heaven and a hell. +Christians cowering before a being of divided power, half-god and +half-devil. Indeed, I remember no religion so non-moral--none that is so +baldly a mere mechanical device for meeting the primitive mind's need to +set its own tribe apart from all others--or in the later growth to +separate the sheep from the goats, by reason of the opinion formed of +certain evidence. Even schoolboys nowadays know that no moral value +inheres in any opinion formed upon evidence. Yet, I dare say it was +doubtless for a long period an excellent religion for marauding nations." + +Or, again, after a long period of apparently rational talk, the +unfortunate young man would break out with, "And how childish its +wonder-tales were, of iron made to swim, of a rod turned to a serpent, of +a coin found in a fish's mouth, of devils asking to go into swine, of a +fig-tree cursed to death because it did not bear fruit out of season--how +childish that tale of a virgin mother, who conceived 'without sin,' as it +is somewhere naively put--an ideal of absolutely flawless falsity. Even +the great old painters were helpless before it. They were driven to make +mindless Madonnas, stupid bits of fleshy animality. It's not easy to +idealise mere physical motherhood. You see, that was the wrong, perverted +idea of motherhood--'conceiving without sin.' It's an unclean dogma in its +implications. I knew somewhere once a man named Milo Barrus--a sort of +cheap village atheist, I remember, but one thing I recall hearing him say +seems now to have a certain crude truth in it. He said: 'There's my old +mother, seventy-eight this spring, bent, gray, and wasted with the work of +raising us seven children; she's slaved so hard for fifty years that she's +worn her wedding-ring to a fine thread, and her hands look as if they had +a thousand knuckles and joints in them. But she smiles like a girl of +sixteen, she was never cross or bitter to one of us hounds, and I believe +she never even _wanted_ to complain in all her days. And there's a look of +noble capacity in her face, of soul dignity, that you never saw in any +Madonna's. I tell you no "virgin mother" could be as beautiful as my +mother, who bore seven children for love of my father and for love of the +thought of us.' Isn't it queer, sir, that I remember that--for it seemed +only grotesque at the time I heard it." + +It was after this extraordinary speech, uttered with every sign of +physical soundness, that young Dr. Merritt confided to the old man when +they had left the study: + +"He's coming on fine, Mr. Delcher. He'll eat himself into shape now in no +time; but--I don't know--seems to me you stand a lot better show of making +a preacher out of his brother. Of course, I may be mistaken--we doctors +often are." Then the young physician became loftily humble: "But it +doesn't strike me he'll ever get his ideas exactly into Presbyterian shape +again!" + +"But, man, he'll surely be rid of these devil's hallucinations?" + +"Well, well--perhaps, but I'm almost afraid they're what we doctors call +'fixed delusions.'" + +"But I set my heart so long ago on his preaching the Word. Oh, I've looked +forward to it so long--and so hard!" + +"Well, all you can do now is to feed him and not excite him. We often have +these cases." + +The very last of Bernal's utterances that could have been reprobated in a +well man was his telling Clytie in the old gentleman's presence that, +whereas in his boyhood he had pictured the hand of God as a big black hand +reaching down to "remove" people--"the way you weed an onion bed"--he now +conceived it to be like her own--"the most beautiful fat, red hand in the +world, always patting you or tucking you in, or reaching you something +good or pointing to a jar of cookies." It was so dangerously close to +irreverence that it made Clytemnestra look stiff and solemn as she +arranged matters on the luncheon tray; yet it was so inoffensive, +considering the past, that it made Grandfather Delcher quite hopeful. + +Thereafter, instead of babbling blasphemies, the convalescent became +silent for the most part, yet cheerful and beautifully rational when he +did speak, so that fear came gradually to leave the old man's heart for +longer and longer intervals. Indeed, one day when Bernal had long lain +silent, he swept lingering doubts from the old man's mind by saying, with +a curious little air of embarrassment, yet with a return of that old-time +playful assumption of equality between them--"I'm afraid, old man, I may +have been a little queer in my talk--back there." + +The old man's heart leaped with hope at this, though the acknowledgment +struck him as being inadequate to the circumstance it referred to. + +"You _were_ flighty, boy, now and then," he replied, in quite the same +glossing strain of inadequacy. + +"I can't tell you how queerly things came back to me--some bits of +consciousness and memory came early and some came late--and they're still +struggling along in that disorderly procession. Even yet I've not been +able to take stock. Old man, I must have been an awful bore." + +"Oh, no--not _that_, boy!" Then, in glad relief, he fell upon his knees +beside the couch, praying, in discreetly veiled language, that the pure +heart of a babbler might not be held guilty for the utterances of an +irresponsible head. + +Yet, after many days of sane quiet and ever-renewing strength--days of +long walks in the summer woods or long readings in the hammock when the +shadows lay east of the big house, there came to be observed in the young +man a certain moody reticence. And when the time for his return to college +was near, he came again to his disquieted grandfather one day, saying: + +"I think there are some matters I should speak to you about, sir." Had he +used the term "old man," instead of "sir," there might still have been no +cause for alarm. As it was, the grandfather regarded him in a sudden, +heart-hurried fear. + +"Are the matters, boy, those--those about which you may have spoken during +your sickness?" + +"I believe so, sir." + +The old man winced again under the "sir," when his heart longed for the +other term of playful familiarity. But he quickly assumed a lightness of +manner to hide the eagerness of his heart's appeal: + +"_Don't_ talk now, boy--be advised by me. It's not well for you--you are +not strong. Please let me guide you now. Go back to your studies, put all +these matters from your mind--study your studies and play your play. Play +harder than you study--you need it more. Play out of doors--you must have +a horse to ride. You have thought too much before your time for thinking. +Put away the troublesome things, and live in the flesh as a healthy boy +should. Trust me. When you come to--to those matters again, they will not +trouble you." + +In his eagerness, first one hand had gone to the boy's shoulder, then the +other, and his tones grew warm with pleading, while the keen old eyes +played as a searchlight over the troubled young face. + +"I must tell you at least one thing, sir." + +The old man forced a smile around his trembling mouth, and again assumed +his little jaunty lightness. + +"Come, come, boy--not 'sir.' Call me 'old man' and you shall say +anything." + +But the boy was constrained, plainly in discomfort. "I--I can't call you +that--just now--sir." + +"Well, if you _must_, tell me one thing--but only one! only one, mind you, +boy!" In fear, but smiling, he waited. + +"Well, sir, it's a shock I suffered just before I was sick. It came to me +one night when I sat down to dinner--fearfully hungry. I had a thick +English chop on the plate before me; and a green salad, oily in its bowl, +and crisp, browned potatoes, and a mug of creamy ale. I'd gone to the +place for a treat. I'd been whetting my appetite with nibbles of bread and +sips of ale until the other things came; and then, even when I put my +knife to the chop--like a blade pushed very slowly into my heart came the +thought: 'My father is burning in hell--screaming in agony for a drop of +this water which I shall not touch because I have ale. He has been in this +agony for years; he will be there forever.' That was enough, sir. I had to +leave the little feast. I was hungry no longer, though a moment before it +had seemed that I couldn't wait for it. I walked out into the cold, raw +night--walked till near daylight, with the sweat running off me. And the +thing I knew all the time was this: that if I were in hell and my father +in heaven, he would blaspheme God to His face for a monster and come to +hell to burn with me forever--come with a joke and a song, telling me +never to mind, that we'd have a fine time there in hell in spite of +everything! That was what I knew of my poor, cheap, fiddle-playing +mountebank of a father. Just a moment more--this is what you must remember +of me, in whatever I have to say hereafter, that after that night I never +ceased to suffer all the hell my father could be suffering, and I suffered +it until my mind went out in that sickness. But, listen now: whatever has +happened--I'm not yet sure what it is--I no longer suffer. Two things only +I know: that our creed still has my godless, scoffing, unbaptised father +in hell, and that my love for him--my absolute _oneness_ with him--has not +lessened. + +"I'll stop there, if you wish, leaving you to divine what other change has +taken place." + +"There, there," soothed the old man, seizing the shoulders once more with +his strong grip--"no more now, boy. It was a hard thing, I know. The +consciousness of God's majesty comes often in that way, and often it +overwhelms the unprepared. It was hard, but it will leave you more a man; +your soul and your faith will both survive. Do what I have told you--as if +you were once more the puzzled little Bernal, who never could keep his +hair neatly brushed like Allan, and would always moon in corners. Go +finish your course. Another year, when your mind has new fortitude from +your recreated body, we will talk these matters as much as you like. Yet +I will tell you one thing to remember--just one, as you have told me one: +You are in a world of law, of unvarying cause and effect; and the +integrity of this law cannot be destroyed, nor even impaired, by any +conceivable rebellion of yours. Yet this material world of law is but the +shadow of the reality, and that reality is God--the moral law if you +please, as relentless, as inexorable, as immutable in its succession of +cause and effect as the physical laws more apparent to us; and as little +to be overthrown as physical law by any rebellion of disordered sentiment. +The word of this God and this Law is contained in the Scriptures of the +Old and New Testaments, wherein is the only rule to direct us how we may +glorify and enjoy Him. + +"Now," continued the old man, more lightly, "each of us has something to +remember--and let each of us pray for the other. Go, be a good boy--but +careless and happy--for a year." + +The old man had his way, and the two boys went presently back to their +studies. + +The girl, Nancy, remembered them well for the things each had said to her. + +Allan, who, though he constantly praised her, had always the effect of +leaving her small to herself. "Really, Nance," he said, "without any +joking, I believe you have a capacity for living life in its larger +aspects." + +And on the last day, Bernal had said, "Nance, you remember when we were +both sorry you couldn't be born again--a boy? Well, from what the old +gentleman says, one learns in time to bow to the ways of an inscrutable +Providence. I dare say he's right. I can see reasons now, my girl, why it +was well that you were not allowed to meddle with Heaven's allotment of +your sex. I'm glad you had to remain a girl." + +One compliment pleased her. The other made her tremble, though she laughed +at it. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A FEW LETTERS + + +(From Bernal Linford to the Reverend Allan Delcher.) + +_Dear Grandfather:_ The college year soon ends; also my course. I think +you hoped I wouldn't want again to talk of those matters. But it isn't so. +I am primed and waiting, and even you, old man, must listen to reason. The +world of thought has made many revolutions since you shut yourself into +that study with your weekly church paper. So be ready to hear me. + +Affectionately, +BERNAL LINFORD. + + +(From the Reverend Allan Delcher to Bernal Linford.) + +"Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright, but they have +sought out many inventions." I am sending you a little book. + +GRANDFATHER. + + +(From Bernal Linford to the Reverend Allan Delcher.) + +_Dear Old Man:_ How am I going to thank you for the "little book"--for +Butler's Analogy? Or rather, how shall I forgive you for keeping it from +me all these years? I see that you acquired it in 1863--and I never knew! +I must tell you that I looked upon it with suspicion when I unwrapped +it--a suspicion that the title did not allay. For I recalled the last time +you gave me a book--the year before I came here. That book, my friend, was +"Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia." I began it with deep respect for you. I +finished with a profound distrust of all Abyssinians and an overwhelming +grief for the untimely demise of Mrs. Johnson--for you had told me that +the good doctor wrote this book to get money to bury her. How the circle +of mourners for that estimable woman must have widened as Rasselas made +its way out into the world! Oh, Grandad, if only they had been able to +keep her going some way until he needn't have done it! If only she could +have been spared until her son got in a little money from the Dictionary +or something! + +All of which is why I viewed with unfriendly distrust your latest gift, +the Analogy of Joseph Butler, late Lord Bishop of Durham. But, honestly, +old man, did you know how funny it was when you sent it? It's funnier than +any of the books of Moses, without being bloody. What a dear, innocent old +soul the Bishop is! How sincerely he believes he is reasoning when he is +merely doing a roguish two-step down the grim corridor of the eternal +verities--with a little jig here and there, and a pause to flirt his frock +airily in the face of some graven image of Fact. Ah, he is so weirdly +innocent. Even when his logical toes go blithely into the air, his dear +old face is most resolutely solemn, and I believe he is never in the least +aware of his frivolous caperings over the floor of induction. Indeed, his +unconsciousness is what makes him an unfailing delight. He even makes his +good old short-worded Saxon go in lilting waltz-time. + +You will never know, Grandad, what this book has done for me. I am +stimulated in the beginning by this: "From the vast extent of God's +dominion there must be some things beyond our comprehension, and the +Christian scheme may be one of them." And at the last I am soothed with +this heart-rending _pas seul:_ "Concluding remarks by which it is clearly +shown that those men who can evade the force of arguments so probable for +the truth of Christianity undoubtedly possess dispositions to evil which +would cause them to reject it, were it based on the most absolute +demonstration." Is not that a pearl without price in this world of lawful +conclusions? + +By the way, Grandad--recalling the text you quote in your last--did you +know when you sent me to this university that the philosophy taught, in a +general way, is that of Kant; that most university scholars smile +pityingly at the Christian thesis? Did you know that belief in Genesis had +been laughed away in an institution like this? With no intention of +diverting you, but merely in order to acquaint you with the present state +of popular opinion on a certain matter, I will tell you of a picture +printed in a New York daily of yesterday. It's on the funny page. A +certain weird but funny-looking beast stands before an equally +funny-looking Adam, in a funny Eden, with a funny Eve and a funny Cain and +Abel in the background. The animal says, "Say, Ad., what did you say my +name was? I've forgotten it again." Our first male parent answers somewhat +testily, as one who has been vexed by like inquiries: "Icthyosaurus, you +darned fool! Can't you remember a little thing like that?" + +In your youth this would doubtless have been punished as a crime. In mine +it is laughed at by all classes. I tell you this to show you that the +Church to-day is in the position of upholding a belief which has become +meaningless because its foundation has been laughed away. Believing no +longer in the god of Moses who cursed them, Christians yet assume to +believe in their need of a Saviour to intercede between them and this +exploded idol of terror. Unhappily, I am so made that I cannot occupy that +position. To me it is not honest. + +Old man, do you remember a certain saying of Squire Cumpston? It was this: +"If you're going to cross the Rubicon, _cross_ it! Don't wade out to the +middle and stand there: you only get hell from both banks!" + +And so I have crossed; I find the Squire was right about standing in the +middle. Happily, or unhappily, I am compelled to believe my beliefs with +all my head and all my heart. But I am confident my reasons will satisfy +you when you hear them. You will see these matters _in a new light._ + +Believe me, Grandad, with all love and respect, + +Affectionately yours, +BERNAL LINFORD. + + +(From the Reverend Allan Delcher to Bernal Linford.) + +_My Boy:_ For one bitten with skepticism there is little +argument--especially if he be still in youth, which is a time of raw and +ready judgments and of great spiritual self-sufficiency. You wanted to go +to Harvard. I wanted you to go to Princeton, because of its +Presbyterianism and because, too, of Harvard's Unitarianism. We +compromised on Yale--my own alma mater, as it was my father's. To my +belief, this was still, especially as to its pulpit, the stronghold of +orthodox Congregationalism. Was I a weak old man, compromising with Satan? +Are you to break my heart in these my broken years? For love of me, as for +the love of your own soul, _pray_. Leave the God of Moses until your +soul's stomach can take the strong meat of him--for he _is_ strong +meat--and come simply to Jesus, the meek and gentle--the Redeemer, who +died that his blood might cleanse our sin-stained souls. Centre your +aspirations upon Him, for He is the rock of our salvation, if we believe, +_or the rock of our wrecking to endless torment if we disbelieve_. Do not +deny our God who is Jesus, nor disown Jesus who is our God, nor yet +question the inerrance of Holy Writ--yea, with its everlasting burnings. +"He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved, but he that believeth +not shall be damned." + +I am sad. I have lived too long. + +GRANDFATHER. + + +(From Bernal Linford to the Reverend Allan Delcher.) + +_Grandad:_ It's all so plain, you must see it. I told you I had crossed to +the farther bank. Here is what one finds there: Taking him as God, Jesus +is ineffectual. Only as an obviously fallible human man does he become +beautiful; only as a man is he dignified, worthy, great--or even +plausible. + +The instinct of the Jews did not mislead them. Jesus was too fine, too +good, to have come from their tribal god; yet too humanly limited to have +come from God, save as we all come from Him. + +Since you insist that he be considered as God, I shall point out those +things which make him small--as a God. I would rather consider him as a +man and point out those things which make him great to me--things which I +cannot read without wet eyes--but you will not consider him as man, so let +him be a God, and let us see what we see. It is customary to speak of his +"sacrifice." What was it? Our catechism says, "Christ's humiliation +consisted in his being born, and that in a low condition, made under the +law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God and the cursed +death of the cross; in being buried and continuing under the power of +death for a time." + +As I write the words I wonder that the thing should ever have seemed to +any one to be more than a wretched piece of God-jugglery, devoid of +integrity. Are we to conceive God then as a being of carnal appetites, +humiliated by being born into the family of an honest carpenter, instead +of into the family of a King? This is the somewhat snobbish imputation. + +Let us be done with gods playing at being human, or at being half god and +half human. The time has come when, to prolong its usefulness, the Church +must concede--nay, proclaim--the manhood of Jesus; must separate him from +that atrocious scheme of human sacrifice, the logical extension of a +primitive Hebrew mythology--and take him in the only way that he commands +attention: As a man, one of the world's great spiritual teachers. +Insisting upon his godship can only make him preposterous to the modern +mind. Jesus, born to a carpenter's wife of Nazareth, declares himself, one +day about his thirtieth year, to be the Christ, the second person in the +universe, who will come in a cloud of glory to judge the world. He will +save into everlasting life those who believe him to be of divine origin. +Yet he has been called meek! Surely never was a more arrogant character in +history--never one less meek than this carpenter's son who ranks himself +second only to God, with power to send into everlasting hell those who +disbelieve him! He went abroad in fine arrogance, railing at lawyers and +the rich, rebuking, reproving, hurling angry epithets, attacking what we +to-day call "the decent element." He called the people constantly "Fools," +"Blind Leaders of the Blind," "faithless and perverse," "a generation of +vipers," "sinful," "evil and adulterous," "wicked," "hypocrites," "whited +sepulchres." + +As the god he worshipped was a tribal god, so he at first believed himself +to be a tribal saviour. He directed his disciples thus: "Go not into the +way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not. But +go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel"--(who emphatically +rejected and slew him for his pretensions). To the woman of Canaan whose +daughter was vexed with a devil, he said: "It is not meet to take the +children's bread to cast it to dogs." Imagine a God calling a woman a dog +_because she was not of his own tribe!_ + +And the vital test of godhood he failed to meet: It is his own test, +whereby he disproves his godship out of his own mouth. Compare these +sayings of Jesus, each typical of him: + +"Resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn +to him the other also." Yet he said to his Twelve: + +"And whosoever shall not receive you nor hear you, when you depart thence +shake off the dust of your feet for a testimony against them." + +Is that the consistency of a God or a man? + +Again: "Blessed are the merciful," _but_ "Verily I say unto you it shall +be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for +that city." Is this the mercy which he tells us is blessed? + +Again: "And as ye would that men should do to you do ye also to them +likewise." Another: "Woe unto thee, Chorazin, woe unto thee, Bethsaida ... +and thou, Capernaum, which are exalted unto heaven, shall be brought down +to hell." Is not this preaching the golden rule and practicing something +else, as a man might? + +Again: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that +hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. + +"For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the +publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren, what do ye more than +others? Do not even the publicans so?" That, sir, is a sentiment that +proves the claim of Jesus to be a teacher of morals. Here is one which, +placed beside it, proves him to have been a man. + +"_Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the son of man also +confess before the angels of God_; + +"_but whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my +father, which is in heaven._" + +Is it God speaking--or man? "_Do not even the publicans so?_" + +Beside this very human contradiction, it is hardly worth while to hear him +say "Resist not evil," yet make a scourge of cords to drive the +money-changers from the temple in a fit of rage, human--but how ungodlike! + +Believe me, the man Jesus is better than the god Jesus; the man is worth +while, for all his inconsistencies, partly due to his creed and partly to +his emotional nature. Indeed, we have not yet risen to the splendour of +his ideal--even the preachers will not preach it. + +And the miracles? We need say nothing of those, I think. If a man disprove +his godship out of his own mouth, we shall not be convinced by a coin in a +fish's mouth or by his raising Lazarus, four days dead. So long as he +says, "I will confess him that confesseth me and deny him that denieth +me," we should know him for one of us, though he rose from the dead before +our eyes. + +Then at the last you will say, "By their fruits ye shall know them." Well, +sir, the fruits of Christianity are what one might expect. You will say it +stands for the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. That it has +always done the reverse is Christianity's fundamental defect, and its +chief absurdity in this day when the popular unchurchly conception of God +has come to be one of some dignity. + +"That ye may know how that the Lord doth put a difference between the +Egyptians and Israel." There is the rock of separation upon which the +Church builded; the rock upon which it will presently split. The god of +the Jews set a difference between Israel and Egypt. So much for the +fatherhood of God. The Son sets the same difference, dividing the sheep +from the goats, according to the opinions they form of his claim to +godship. So much for the brotherhood of man. Christianity merely +caricatures both propositions. Nor do I see how we can attain any worthy +ideal of human brotherhood while this Christianity prevails: We must be +sheep and goats among ourselves, some in heaven, some in hell, still +seeking out reasons "Why the Saints in Glory Should Rejoice at the +Sufferings of the Damned." We shall be saints and sinners, sated and +starving. A God who separates them in some future life will have children +that separate themselves here upon His own very excellent authority. That +is why one brother of us must work himself to death while another idles +himself to death--because God has set a difference, and his Son after him, +and the Church after that. The defect in social Christendom to-day, sir, +is precisely this defect of the Christian faith--its separation, its +failure to teach what it chiefly boasts of teaching. We have, in +consequence, a society of thinly veneered predatoriness. And this, I +believe, is why our society is quite as unstable today as the Church +itself. They are both awakening to a new truth--which is _not_ separation. + +The man who is proud of our Christian civilisation has ideals susceptible +of immense elevation. Christianity has more souls in its hell and fewer in +its heaven than any other religion whatsoever. Naturally, Christian +society is one of extremes and of gross injustice--of oppression and +indifference to suffering. And so it will be until this materialism of +separation is repudiated: until we turn seriously to the belief that men +are truly brothers, not one of whom can be long happy while any other +suffers. + +Come, Grandad, let us give up this God of Moses. Doubtless he was good +enough for the early Jews, but man has always had to make God in his own +image, and you and I need a better one, for we both surpass this one in +all spiritual values--in love, in truth, in justice, in common decency--as +much as Jesus surpassed the unrepentant thief at his side. Remember that +an honest, fearless search for truth has led to all the progress we can +measure over the brutes. Why must it lose the soul? + +BERNAL. + + +(From the Reverend Allan Delcher to Bernal Linford.) + +My boy, I shall not believe you are sane until I have seen you face to +face. I cannot believe you have fallen a victim to Universalism, which is +like the vale of Siddim, full of slime-pits. I am an old man, and my mind +goes haltingly, yet that is what I seem to glean from your rambling + screed. Come when you are through, for I must see you once more. + +"For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that +the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not +condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath +not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God." + +Lastly--doubt in infinite things is often wise, but doubt of God must be +blasphemy, else he would not be God, the all-perfect. + +I pray it may be your mind is still sick--and recall to you these words of +one I will not now name to you: "Father, forgive them, for they know not +what they do." + +ALLAN DELCHER. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +"IS THE HAND OF THE LORD WAXED SHORT?" + + +A dismayed old man, eagerly trying to feel incredulous, awaited the +home-coming of his grandsons at the beginning of that vacation. + +Was the hand of the Lord waxed short, that so utter a blasphemer--unless, +indeed, he were possessed of a devil--could walk in the eye of Jehovah, +and no breach be made upon him? Even was the world itself so lax in these +days that one speaking thus could go free? If so, then how could God +longer refrain from drowning the world again? The human baseness of the +blaspheming one and the divine toleration that permitted it were alike +incredible. + +A score of times the old man nerved himself to laugh away his fears. It +could not be. The young mind was still disordered. + +On the night of the home-coming he greeted the youth quite as if all were +serene within him, determined to be in no haste and to approach the thing +lightly on the morrow--in the fond hope that a mere breath of authority +might blow it away. + +And when, the next morning, they both drifted to the study, the old man +called up the smile that made his wrinkles sunny, and said in light tones, +above the beating of an anxious heart: + +"So it's your theory, boy, that we must all be taken down with typhoid +before we can be really wise in matters of faith?" + +But the youth answered, quite earnestly: + +"Yes, sir; I really believe nothing less than that would clear most +minds--especially old ones. You see, the brain is a muscle and thought is +its physical exercise. It learns certain thoughts--to go through certain +exercises. These become a habit, and in time the muscle becomes stiff and +incapable of learning any new movements--also incapable of leaving off +the old. The religion of an old person is merely so much reflex nervous +action. It is beyond the reach of reason. The individual's mind can +affect it as little as it can teach the other muscles of his body new +suppleness." + +He spoke with a certain restrained nervousness that was not reassuring. +But the old man would not yet be rebuffed from his manner of lightness. + +"Then, wanting an epidemic of typhoid, we of the older generation must die +in error." + +"Yes, sir--I doubt even the efficacy of typhoid in most cases; it's as +difficult for an old person to change a habit of thought as to take the +wrinkles from his face. That is why what we very grandly call 'fighting +for the truth' or 'fighting for the Lord' is merely fighting for our own +little notions; they have become so vital to us and we call them 'truth.'" + +The youth stopped, with a palpable air of defiance, before which the old +man's assumption of ease and lightness was at last beaten down. He had +been standing erect by the table, still with the smile toning his +haggardness. Now the smile died; the whole man sickened, lost life +visibly, as if a dozen years of normal aging were condensed into the dozen +seconds. + +He let himself go into the big chair, almost as if falling, his head +bowed, his eyes dulled to a look of absence, his arms falling weakly over +the chair's sides. A sigh that was almost a groan seemed to tell of pain +both in body and mind. + +Bernal stood awkwardly regarding him, then his face lighted with a sudden +pity. + +"But I thought _you_ could understand, sir; I thought you were different; +you have been like a chum to me. When I spoke of old persons it never +occurred to me that you could fall into that class! I never knew you to be +unjust, or unkind, or--narrow--perhaps I should say, unsympathetic." + +The other gave no sign of hearing. + +"My body was breaking so fast--and you break my heart!" + +"There you are, sir," began the youth, a little excitedly. "Your heart is +breaking _not_ because I'm not good, but because I form a different +opinion from yours of a man rising from the dead, after he has been +crucified to appease the anger of his father." + +"God help me! I'm so human. I _can't_ feel toward you as I should. Boy, I +_won't_ believe you are sane." He looked up in a sudden passion of hope. +"I won't believe Christ died in vain for my girl's little boy. Bernal, +boy, you are still sick of that fever!" + +The other smiled, his youthful scorn for the moment overcoming his deeper +feeling for his listener. + +"Then I must talk more. Now, sir, for God's sake let us have the plain +truth of the crucifixion. Where was the sacrifice? Can you not picture the +mob that would fight for the honour of crucifixion to-morrow, if it were +known that the one chosen would sit at the right hand of God and judge all +the world? I say there was no sacrifice, even if Christian dogma be +literal truth. Why, sir, I could go into the street and find ten men in +ten minutes who would be crucified a hundred times to save the souls of us +from hell--_not_ if they were to be rewarded with a seat on the throne of +God where they could send into hell those who did not believe in them--but +for no reward whatever--out of a sheer love for humanity. Don't you see, +sir, that we have magnified that crucifixion out of all proportion to the +plainest truth of our lives? You know I would die on a cross to-day, not +to redeem the world, but to redeem one poor soul--your own. If you deny +that, at least you won't dare deny that you would go on the cross to +redeem _my_ soul from hell--the soul of one man--and do you think you +would demand a reward for doing it, beyond knowing that you had ransomed +me from torment? Would it be necessary to your happiness that you also +have the power to send into hell all those who were not able to believe +you had actually died for me? + +"One moment more, sir--" The thin, brown, old hand had been raised in +trembling appeal, while the lips moved without sound. + +"You see every day in the papers how men die for other men, for one man, +for two, a dozen! Why, sir, you know you would die to save the lives of +five little children--their bare carnal lives, mind you, to say nothing of +their immortal souls. I believe I'd die myself to save two thousand--I +_know_ I would to save three--if their faces were clean and they looked +funny enough and helpless. Here, in this morning's paper, a negro +labourer, going home from his work in New York yesterday, pushed into +safety one of those babies that are always crawling around on railroad +tracks. He had time to see that he could get the baby off but not himself, +and then he went ahead. Doubtless it was a very common baby, and certainly +he was a very common man. Why, I could go down to Sing Sing tomorrow, and +I'll stake my own soul that in the whole cageful of criminals there isn't +one who would not eagerly submit to crucifixion if he believed that he +would thereby ransom the race from hell. And he wouldn't want the power to +damn the unbelievers, either. He would insist upon saving them with the +others." + +"Oh, God, forgive this insane passion in my boy!" + +"It was passion, sir--" he spoke with a sudden relenting--"but try to +remember that I've sought the truth honestly." + +"You degrade the Saviour." + +"No; I only raise man out of the muck of Christian belief about him. If +common men all might live lives of greater sacrifice than Jesus did, +without any pretensions to the supernatural, it only means that we need a +new embodiment for our ideals. If we find it in man--in God's creature--so +much the better for man and so much the more glory to God, who has not +then bungled so wretchedly as Christianity teaches." + +"God forgive you this tirade--I know it is the sickness." + +"I shall try to speak calmly, sir--but how much longer can an educated +clergy keep a straight face to speak of this wretchedly impotent God? +Christians of a truth have had to bind their sense of humour as the +Chinese bound their women's feet. But the laugh is gathering even now. +Your religion is like a tree that has lain long dead in the forest--firm +wood to the eye but dust to the first blow. And this is how it will +go--from a laugh--not through the solemn absurdities of the so-called +higher criticism, the discussing of this or that miracle, the tracing of +this or that myth of fall or deluge or immaculate conception or trinity to +its pagan sources; not that way, when before the inquiring mind rises the +sheer materialism of the Christian dogma, bristling with absurdities--its +vain bungling God of one tribe who crowns his career of impotencies--in +all but the art of slaughter--by instituting the sacrifice of a Son +begotten of a human mother, to appease his wrath toward his own creatures; +a God who even by this pitiful device can save but a few of us. Was ever +god so powerless? Do you think we who grow up now do not detect it? Is it +not time to demand a God of virtue, of integrity, of ethical dignity--a +religion whose test shall be moral, and not the opinion one forms of +certain alleged material phenomena?" + +When he had first spoken the old man cowered low and lower in his chair, +with little moans of protest at intervals, perhaps a quick, almost +gasping, "God forgive him!" or a "Lord have mercy!" But as the talk went +on he became slowly quieter, his face grew firmer, he sat up in his chair, +and at the last he came to bend upon the speaker a look that made him +falter confusedly and stop. + +"I can say no more, sir; I should not have said so much. Oh, Grandad, I +wouldn't have hurt you for all the world, yet I had to let you know why I +could not do what you had planned--and I was fool enough to think I could +justify myself to you!" + +The old eyes still blazed upon him with a look of sorrow and of horror +that was yet, first of all, a look of power; the look of one who had +mastered himself to speak calmly while enduring uttermost pain. + +"I am glad you have spoken. You were honest to do so. It was my error not +to be convinced at first, and thus save myself a shock I could ill bear. +But you have been sick, and I felt that I should not believe without +seeing you. I had built so much--so many years--on your preaching the +gospel of--of my Saviour. This hope has been all my life these last +years--now it is gone. But I have no right to complain. You are free; I +have no claim upon you; and I shall be glad to provide for you--to educate +you further for any profession you may have chosen--to start you in any +business--away from here--from this house--" + +The young man flushed--wincing under this, but answered: + +"Thank you, sir. I could hardly take anything further. I don't know what I +want to do, what I can do--I'm at sea now. But I will go. I'm sure only +that I want to get out--away--I will take a small sum to go with--I know +you would be hurt more if I didn't; enough to get me away--far enough +away." + +He went out, his head bowed under the old man's stern gaze. But when the +latter had stepped to the door and locked it, his fortitude was gone. +Helplessly he fell upon his knees before the big chair--praying out his +grief in hard, dry sobs that choked and shook his worn body. + +When Clytie knocked at the door an hour later, he was dry-eyed and +apparently serene, but busy with papers at his table. + +"Is it something bad about Bernal, Mr. Delcher," she asked, "that he's +going away so queer and sudden?" + +"_You_ pray for him, too, Clytie--you love him--but it's nothing to talk +of." + +But the alarm of Clytemnestra was not to be put down by this. + +"Oh, Mr. Delcher--" a look of horror grew big in her eyes--"You don't mean +to say he's gone and joined the Universalists?" + +The old man shook his head. + +"And he ain't a _Unitarian_?" + +"No, Clytie; but our boy has been to college and it has left him rather +un--unconforming in some little matters--some details--doubtless his +doctrine is sound at core." + +"But I supposed he'd learn everything off at that college, only I know he +never got fed half enough. What with all its studies and football and +clubs and things I thought it was as good as a liberal education." + +"Too liberal, sometimes! Pray for Bernal--and we won't talk about it +again, Clytie, if you please." + +Presently came Allan, who had heard the news. + +"Bernal tells me he will not enter the ministry, sir; that he is going +away." + +"We have decided that is best." + +"You know, sir, I have suspected for some time that Bernal was not as +sound doctrinally as you could wish. His mind, if I may say it, is a +peculiarly literal one. He seems to lack a certain spiritual +comprehensiveness--an enveloping intuition, so to say, of the spiritual +value in a material fact. During that unhappy agitation for the revision +of our creed, I have heard him, touching the future state of unbaptised +infants, utter sentiments of a heterodoxy that was positively effeminate +in its sentimentality--sentiments which I shall not pain you by repeating. +He has often referred, moreover, with the same disordered sentimentality, +to the sad fate of our father--about whose present estate no churchman can +have any doubt. And then about our belief that even good works are an +abomination before God if performed by the unregenerate, the things I have +heard him--" + +"Yes--yes--let us not talk of it further. Did you wish to see me +especially, Allan?" + +"Well, yes, sir, I _had_ wished to, and perhaps now is the best moment. I +wanted to ask you, sir, how you would regard my becoming an Episcopalian. +I am really persuaded that its form of worship, translating as it does so +_much_ of the spiritual verity of life into visible symbols, is a form +better calculated than the Presbyterian to appeal to the great throbbing +heart of humanity. I hope I may even say, without offense, sir, that it +affords a wider scope, a broader sweep, a more stimulating field of +endeavour, to one who may have a capacity for the life of larger aspects. +In short, sir, I believe there is a great future for me in that church." + +"I shouldn't wonder if there was," answered the old man, who had studied +his face closely during the speech. Yet he spoke with an extreme dryness +of tone that made the other look quickly up. + +"It shall be as you wish," he continued, after a meditative pause--"I +believe you are better calculated for that church than for mine. Obey your +call." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +IN THE FOLLY OF HIS YOUTH + + +At early twilight Bernal, sore at heart for the pain he had been obliged +to cause the old man, went to the study-door for a last word with him. + +"I believe there is no one above whose forgiveness I need, sir--but I +shall always be grieved if I can't have yours. I _do_ need that." + +The old man had stood by the open door as if meaning to cut short the +interview. + +"You have it. I forgive you any hurt you have done me; it was due quite as +much to my limitations as to yours. For that other forgiveness, which you +will one day know is more than mine--I--I shall always pray for that." + +He stopped, and the other waited awkwardly, his heart rushing out in +ineffectual flood against the old man's barrier of stern restraint. For a +moment he made folds in his soft hat with a fastidious precision. Finally +he nerved himself to say calmly: + +"I thank you, sir, for all you have done--all you have ever done for me +and for Allan--and, good-bye!" + +"Good-bye!" + +Though there was no hint of unkindness in the old man's voice, something +formal in his manner had restrained the other from offering his hand. +Still loath to go without it, he said again more warmly: + +"Good-bye, sir!" + +"Good-bye!" + +This time he turned and went slowly down the dim hall, still making the +careful folds in his hat, as if he might presently recall something that +would take him back. At the foot of the stairs he stopped quickly to +listen, believing he had heard a call from above; but nothing came and he +went out. Still in the door upstairs was the old man--stern of face, save +that far back in his eyes a kind spirit seemed to strive ineffectually. + +Across the lawn from her hammock Nancy called to Bernal. He went slowly +toward her, still suffering from the old man's coldness--and for the hurts +he had unwittingly put upon him. + +The girl, as he went forward, stood to greet him, her gown, sleeveless, +neckless, taking the bluish tinge that early twilight gives to snow, a +tinge that deepened to dusk about her eyes and in her hair. She gave him +her hand and at once he felt a balm poured into his tortured heart. After +all, men were born to hurt and be hurt. + +He sat in the rustic chair opposite the hammock, looking into Nancy's +black-lashed eyes of the Irish gray, noting that from nineteen to twenty +her neck had broadened at the base the least one might discern, that her +face was less full yet richer in suggestion--her face of the odds and ends +when she did not smile. At this moment she was not only unsmiling, but +excited. + +"Oh, Bernal, what is it? Tell me quick. Allan was so vague--though he said +he'd always stand by you, no matter what you did. What _have_ you done, +Bernal? Is it a college scrape?" + +"Oh, that's only Allan's big-hearted way of talking! He's so generous and +loyal I think he's often been disappointed that I didn't do something, so +he _could_ stand by me. No--no scrapes, Nance, honour bright!" + +"But you're leaving--" + +"Well, in a way I have done something. I've found I couldn't be a minister +as Grandad had set his heart on my being--" + +"But if you haven't done anything wicked, why not?" + +"Oh, I'm not a believer." + +"In what?" + +"In anything, I think--except, well, in you and Grandad and--and Allan and +Clytie--yes, and in myself, Nance. That's a big point. I believe in +myself." + +"And you're going because you don't believe in other things?" + +"Yes, or because I believe too much--just as you like to put it. I +demanded a better God of Grandad, Nance--one that didn't create hell and +men like me to fill it just for the sake of scaring a few timid mortals +into heaven." + +"You know Aunt Bell is an unbeliever. She says no one with an open +mind can live twenty years in Boston without being vastly +broadened--'broadening into the higher unbelief,' she calls it. She +says she has passed through nearly every stage of unbelief there is, +but that she feels the Lord is going to bring her back at last to rest +in the shadow of the Cross." + +As Aunt Bell could be heard creaking heavily in a willow rocker on the +piazza near-by, the young man suppressed a comment that arose within him. + +"Only, unbelievers are apt to be fatiguing" the girl continued, in a lower +tone. "You know Aunt Bell's husband, Uncle Chester--the meekest, dearest +little man in the world, he was--well, once he disappeared and wasn't +heard of again for over four years--except that they knew his bank account +was drawn on from time to time. Then, at last, his brother found him, +living quietly under an assumed name in a little town outside of +Boston--pretending that he hadn't a relative in the world. He told his +brother he was just beginning to feel rested. Aunt Bell said he was +demented. While he was away she'd been all through psychometry, the +planchette, clairvoyance, palmistry, astrology, and Unitarianism. What are +you, Bernal?" + +"Nothing, Nance--that's the trouble." + +"But where are you going, and what for?" + +"I don't know either answer--but I can't stay here, because I'm +blasphemous--it seems--and I don't want to stay, even if I weren't sent. +I want to be out--away. I feel as if I must be looking for something I +haven't found. I suspect it's a fourth dimension to religion. They have +three--even breadth--but they haven't found faith yet--a faith that +doesn't demand arbitrary signs, parlour-magic, and bloody, weird tales in +a book that becomes their idol." + +The girl looked at him long in silence, swaying a little in the hammock, a +bare elbow in one hand, her meditative chin in the other, the curtains of +her eyes half-drawn, as if to let him in a little at a time before her +wonder. Then, at last: + +"Why, you're another Adam--being sent out of the garden for your sin. Now +tell me--honest--was the sin worth it? I've often wondered." She gave an +eager little laugh. + +"Why, Nance, it's worth so much that you want to go of your own accord. Do +you suppose Adam could have stayed in that fat, lazy, silly garden after +he became alive--with no work, no knowledge, no adventure, no chance to do +wrong? As for earning his bread--the only plausible hell I've ever been +able to picture is one where there was nothing to do--no work, no +puzzling, no chances to take, no necessity of thinking. Now, isn't that an +ideal hell? And is it my fault if it happens to be a description of what +Christians look forward to as heaven? I tell you, Adam would have gone out +of that garden from sheer boredom after a few days. The setting of the +angel with the flaming sword to guard the gate shows that God still failed +to understand the wonderful creature he had made." + +She smiled, meditative, wondering. + +"I dare say, for my part, I'd have eaten that apple if the serpent had +been at all persuasive. Bernal, I wonder--and wonder--and wonder--I'm +never done. And Aunt Bell says I'll never be a sweet and wholesome and +stimulating companion to my husband, if I don't stop being so vague and +fantastic." + +"What does she call being vague and fantastic?" + +"Not wanting any husband." + +"Oh!" + +"Bernal, it's like the time that you ran off when you were a wee thing--to +be bad." + +"And you cried because I wouldn't take you with me." + +"I can feel the woe of it yet." + +"You're dry-eyed now, Nance." + +"Yes--and the pink parasol and the buff shoes I meant to take with me are +also things of the past. Mercy! The idea of going off with an unbeliever +to be bad and--everything! 'The happy couple are said to look forward to a +life of joyous wickedness, several interesting crimes having been planned +for the coming season. For their honeymoon infamy they will perpetrate a +series of bank-robberies along the Maine coast.' There--how would that +sound?" + +"You're right, Nance--I wouldn't take you this time either, even if you +cried. And your little speech is funny and all that--but Nance, I believe, +these last years, we've both thought of things now and then--things, you +know--things to think of and not talk of--and see here--The man was driven +out of the garden--but not the woman. She isn't mentioned. She could stay +there--" + +"Until she got tired of it herself?" + +"Until the man came back for her." + +He thought her face was glowing duskily in the twilight. + +"I wonder--wonder about so many things," she said softly. + +"I believe you're a sleeping rebel yourself, Nance. If ever you do eat +from that tree, there'll be no holding you. You won't wait to be driven +forth!" + +"And you are, a wicked young man--that kind never comes back in the +stories." + +"That may be no jest, Nance. I should surely be wicked, if I thought it +brings the happiness it's said to. Under this big sky I am free from any +moral law that doesn't come from right here inside me. Can you realize +that? Do I seem bad for saying it? What they call the laws of God are +nothing. I suspect them all, and I'll make every one of them find its +authority in me before I obey it." + +"It sounds--well--unpromising, Bernal." + +"I told you it was serious, Nance. I see but one law clearly--I am bound +to want happiness. Every man is bound always to want happiness, Nance. No +man can possibly want anything else. That's the only thing under heaven +I'm sure of at this moment--the one universal law under which we all make +our mistakes--good people and bad alike?" + +"But, Bernal, you wouldn't be bad--not really bad?" + +"Well, Nance, I've a vague, loose sort of notion that one isn't really +compelled to be bad in order to be happy right here on earth. I know the +Church rather intimates this, but I suspect that vice is not the delicious +thing the Church implies it to be." + +"You make me afraid, Bernal--" + +"But if I do come back, Nance, having toiled?" + +"--and you make me wonder." + +"I think that's all either of us can do, Nance, and I must go. I have to +say good-bye to Clytie yet. The poor soul is convinced that I have become +a Unitarian and that there's a conspiracy to keep the horrible truth from +her. She says grandad evaded her questions about it. She doesn't dream +there are depths below Unitarianism. I must try to convince her that I'm +not _that_ bad--that I may have a weak head and a defective heart, but not +that. Nance--girl!" + +He sat forward in the chair, reaching toward her. She turned her face +away, but their hands trembled toward each other, faltering fearfully, +tremulously, into a clasp that became at once firm and knowing when it +felt itself--as if it opened their blind eyes to a world of life and light +without end, a world in which they two were the first to live. + +Lingeringly, with slow, regretting fingers, the hands fell apart, to +tighten eagerly again into the clasp that made them one flesh. + +When at last they were put asunder both arose. The girl patted from her +skirts the hammock's little disarranging touches, while the youth again +made the careful folds in his hat. Then they shook hands very stiffly, and +went opposite ways out of a formal garden of farewell; the youth to sate +that beautiful, crude young lust for living--too fierce to be tamed save +by its own failures, hearing only the sagas of action, of form and colour +and sound made one by heat--the song Nature sings unendingly--but heard +only by young ears. + +The girl went back to the Crealock piazza to hear of one better set in the +grace of faith. + +"That elder young Linford," began Aunt Bell, ceasing to rock, "has a +future. You know I talked to him about the Episcopal Church, strongly +advising him to enter it. For all my broad views"--Aunt Bell sighed +here--"I really and truly believe, child, that no one not an Episcopalian +is ever thoroughly at ease in this world." + +Aunt Bell was beautifully, girlishly plump, with a sophisticated air of +smartness--of coquetry, indeed--as to her exquisitely small hands and +feet; and though a certain suggestion of melancholy in her tone +harmonised with the carefully dressed gray hair and with her apparent +years, she nevertheless breathed airs of perfect comfort. + +"Of course this young chap could see at once," she went on, "what +immensely better form it is than Calvinism. _Dear_ me! Imagine one being a +Presbyterian in this day!" It seemed here that the soul of Aunt Bell +poised a disdainful lorgnette before its eyes, through which to survey in +a fitting manner the unmodish spectacle of Calvinism. + +"And he tells me that he has his grandfather's consent. Really, my dear, +with his physique and voice and manner that fellow undoubtedly has a +future in the Episcopal Church. I dare say he'll be wearing the lawn +sleeves and rochet of a bishop before he's forty." + +"Did it ever occur to you, Aunt Bell, that he is--well, just the least +trifle--I was going to say, vain of his appearance--but I'll make it +'self-conscious'?" + +"Child, don't you know that a young man, really beautiful without being +effeminate, is bound to be conscious of it. But vain he is not. It +mortifies him dreadfully, though he pretends to make light of it." + +"But why speak of it so often? He was telling me to-day of an elderly +Englishman who addressed him on the train, telling him what a striking +resemblance he bore to the Prince of Wales when he was a youth." + +"Quite so; and he told me yesterday of hearing a lady in the drug-store +ask the clerk who 'that handsome stranger' was. But, my dear, he tells +them as jokes on himself, and he's so sheepish about it. And he's such a +splendid orator. I persuaded him to-day to read me one of his college +papers. I don't seem to recall much of the substance, but it was full of +the most beautiful expressions. One, I remember, begins, 'Oh, of all the +flowers that swing their golden censers in the parterre of the human +heart, none so rich, so rare as this one flower of--' you know I've +forgotten what it was--Civilisation or Truth or something. Anyway, +whatever it was, it had like a giant engine rolled the car of Civilisation +out from the maze of antiquity, where she now waits to be freighted with +the precious fruits of living genius, and so on." + +"That seems impressive and--mixed, perhaps?" + +"Of course I can't remember things in their order, but it was about the +essential nature of man being gregarious, and truth is a potent factor in +civilisation, and something would be a tear on the world's cold cheek to +make it burn forever--isn't that striking? And Greece had her Athens and +her Corinth, but where now is Greece with her proud cities? And Rome, +Imperial Rome, with all her pomp and splendour. Of course I can't recall +his words. There was a beautiful reference to America, I remember, from +the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the lakes of the frozen North to the +ever-tepid waters of the sunny South--and a perfectly splendid passage +about the world is and ever has been illiberal. Witness the lonely lamp of +Erasmus, the cell of Galileo, the dying bed of Pascal, the scaffold of +Sidney--Sidney who, I wonder?" + +"Has it taken you that way, Aunt Bell?" + +"And France, the saddest example of a nation without a God, and succeeding +generations will only add a new lustre to our present resplendent glory, +bound together by the most sacred ties of goodwill; independent, yet +acknowledging the sovereignty of Omnipotence, and it was fraught with +vital interest to every thinking man--" + +"Spare me, Aunt Bell--it's like Coney Island, with all those carrousels +going around and five bands playing at once!" + +"But his peroration! I can't pretend to give you any idea of its +beauties--" + +"Don't!" + +"Get him to declaim it for you. It begins in the most impressive language +about his standing on top of the Rocky Mountains one day and placing his +feet upon a solid rock, he saw a tempest gathering in the valley far +below. So he watches the storm--in his own language, of course--while all +around him is sunshine. And such should be our aim in life, to plant our +feet on the solid rock of--how provoking! I can't remember what the rock +was--anyway, we are to bid those in the valley below to cease their +bickerings and come up to the rock--I think it was Intellectual +Greatness--No!--Unselfishness--that's it. And the title of the paper was a +sermon in itself--'The Temporal Advantage of the Individual No Norm of +Morality.' Isn't that a beautiful thought in itself? Nancy, that chap will +waste himself until he has a city parish." + +There was silence for a little time before Aunt Bell asked, as one having +returned to baser matters: + +"I wonder if the jacket of my gray suit came back from that clumsy tailor. +I forgot to ask Ellen if an express package came." + +And Nancy, whose look was bent far into the dusk, answered: + +"Oh, I wonder if he will come back!" + + + + +BOOK THREE + +The Age of Faith + + + +[Illustration] + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE PERVERSE BEHAVIOUR OF AN OLD MAN AND A YOUNG MAN + + +When old Allan Delcher slept with his fathers--being so found in the big +chair, with the worn, leather-bound Bible open in his lap--the revived +but still tender faith of Aunt Bell Hardwick was bitten as by frost. And +this though the Bible had lain open at that psalm in which David is said +to describe the corruption of a natural man--a psalm beginning, "The +fool hath said in his heart, 'There is no God.'" + +For it straightway appeared that the dead man had in life done a +perverse and inexplicable thing, to the bitter amazement of those who +had learned to trust him. On the day after he sent a blasphemous +grandson from his door he had called for Squire Cumpston, announcing to +the family his intention to make an entirely new will--a thing for which +there seemed to be a certain sad necessity. + +When he could no longer be reproached it transpired that he had left "to +Allan Delcher Linford, son of one Clayton Linford," a beggarly pittance +of five thousand dollars; and "to my beloved grandson, Bernal Linford, I +give, devise and bequeath the residue of my estate, both real and +personal." + +Though the husband of her niece wore publicly a look of faith +unimpaired, and was thereby an example to her, Aunt Bell declared +herself to be once more on the verge of believing that the proofs of an +overseeing Providence, all-wise and all-loving, were by no means +overwhelming; that they were, indeed, of so frail a validity that she +could not wonder at people falling away from the Church. It was a trying +time for Aunt Bell. She felt that her return to the shadow of the cross +was not being made enough of by the One above. After years of running +after strange gods, the Episcopal service as administered by Allan had +prevailed over her seasoned skepticism: through its fascinating leaven +of romance--with faint and, as it seemed to her, wholly reverent hints +of physical culture--the spirit may be said to have blandished her. And +now this turpitude in a man of God came to disturb the first tender +rootlings of her new faith. + +The husband of her niece had loyally endeavoured to dissuade her from +this too human reaction. + +"God has chosen to try me for a purpose, Aunt Bell," he said very +simply. "I ought to be proud of it--eager for any test--and I am. True, +in these last years I had looked upon grandfather's fortune as mine--not +only by implied promise, but by all standards of right--even of +integrity. For surely a man could not more nearly forfeit his own +rights, in every moral aspect, than poor Bernal has--though I meant +always to stand by him. So you see, I must conclude that God means to +distinguish me by a test. He may even subject me to others; but I shall +not wince. I shall welcome His trials. He turned upon her the face of +simple faith." + +"Did you speak to that lawyer about the possibility of a contest--of +proving unsound mind?" + +"I did, but he saw no chance whatever." + +Aunt Bell hereupon surveyed her beautifully dimpled knuckles minutely, +with an affectionate pride--a pride not uncritical, yet wholly +convinced. + +"Of course," added Allan after a moment's reflection, "there's no sense +in believing that every bit of one's hard luck is sent by God to test +one. One must in all reverence take every precaution to prove that the +disaster is not humanly remediable. And this, I may say, I have done +with thoroughness--with great thoroughness." + +"Bernal may be dead," suggested Aunt Bell, brightening now from an +impartial admiring of the toes of her small, plump slippers. + +"God forbid that he should be cut off in his unbelief--but then, God's +will be done. If that be true, of course, the matter is different. +Meantime we are advertising." + +"I wish I had your superb faith, Allan. I wish Nancy had it...." + +Her niece's husband turned his head and shoulders until she had the +three-quarters view of his face. + +"I have faith, Aunt Bell. God knows my unworthiness, even as you know it +and I know it--but I have faith!" + +The golden specks in his hazel eyes blazed with humility, and a flush of +the same virtue mantled his perfect brow. + +Such news of Bernal Linford as had come back to Edom, though meagre and +fragmentary, was of a character to confirm the worst fears of those who +loved him. The first report came within a year after his going, and +caused a shaking of many heads. + +An estimable farmer, one Caleb Webster, living on the outskirts of Edom, +had, in a blameless spirit of adventure, toured the Far West, at +excursion rates said to be astounding for cheapness. He had met the +unfortunate young man in one of the newer mining towns along his +exciting route. + +"He was kind of nursin' a feller that had the consumption," ran the +gossip of Mr. Webster, "some one he'd fell in with out in them parts, +that had gone there to git cured. But, High Mighty! the way them two +carried on at all hours wasn't goin' to cure no one of nothin'! +Specially gamblin', which was done right in public, you might say, +though the sharpers never skinned me none, I'll say that! But these two +was at it every night, and finally they done just like I told the young +fools they'd do--they lost all they had. They come into the Commercial +House one night where I was settin' lookin' over a time-table, both +seemin' down in the mouth. And all to once this sick young man--Mr. +Hoover, his name was--bust out cryin'--him bein' weak or mebbe in liquor +or somethin'. + +"'Every cent lost!' he says, the tears runnin' down those yellow, sunk +cheeks of his. But Bernal seems to git chipper again when he sees how +Mr. Hoover is takin' it, so he says, 'Haven't you got a cent left, +Hoover? Haven't you got anythin' at all left? Just think,' he says, +'what I stood to win on that last turn, if it'd come my way--at four to +one,' he says, or somethin' like that; them gamblin' terms is too much +for me. 'Hain't you got nothin' at all left?' he says. + +"Then this Hoover--still cryin', mind you--he says, 'Not a cent in the +world except forty dollars in my trunk upstairs that I saved out to bury +me with--and they won't send me another cent,' he says, 'because I tried +'em.' + +"It sounded awful to hear him talkin' like that about his own buryin', +but it didn't phase Bernal none. + +"'Forty dollars!' he says, kind of sniffy like. 'Why, man, what could +you do for forty dollars? Don't you know such things are very outrageous +in price here? Forty _dollars_--why,' he says, 'the very best you could +do would be one of these plain pine things with black cloth tacked on to +it, and pewter trimmin's if _any_,' he says. 'Think of _pewter_ +trimmin's!' + +"'Say,' he says, when Hoover begun to look up at him, 'you run and dig +up your old forty and I'll go back right now and win you out a full +satin-lined, silver-trimmed one, polished mahogany and gold name-plate, +and there'll be enough for a clock of immortelles with the hands stopped +at just the hour it happens,' he says. 'And you want to hurry,' he says, +'it ought to be done right away--with that cough of yours.' + +"Me? Gosh, I felt awful--I wanted to drop right through the floor, but +this Hoover, he says all at once, still snufflin', mind you: 'Say, +that's all right,' he says. 'If I'm goin' to do it at all, I ought to do +it right for the credit of my folks. I ought to give this town a flash +of the right thing,' he says. + +"Then he goes upstairs, leaning on the balusters, and gets his four +ten-dollar bills that had been folded away all neat at the bottom of his +trunk, and before I could think of anythin' wholesome to say--I was that +scandalised--they was goin' off across the street to the Horseshoe +Gamin' Parlour, this feller Hoover seemin' very sanguine and asking +Bernal whether he was sure they was a party in town could do it up right +after they'd went and won the money for it. + +"Well, sir, I jest set there thinkin' how this boy Bernal Linford was +brought up for a preacher, and 'Jest look at him now!' I says to +myself--and I guess it was mebbe an hour later I seen 'em comin' out of +the swingin' blinds in the door of this place, and a laffin' fit to kill +themselves. 'High Mighty! they done it!' I says, watchin' 'em laff and +slap each other on the back till Hoover had to stop in the middle of the +street to cough. Well, they come into the Commercial office where I am +and I says, 'Well, boys, how much did you fellers win?' and Hoover says, +'Not a cent! We lost our roll,' he says. 'It's the blamedest funniest +thing I ever heard of,' he says, just like that, laffin' again fit to +choke. + +"'_I_ don't see anythin' to laff at,' I says. 'How you goin' to live?' + +"'How's he goin' to die?' says Bernal, 'without a cent to do it on?' + +"'That's the funny part of it,' says Hoover. 'Linford thought of it +first. How _can_ I die now? It wouldn't be square,' he says--'me without +a cent!' + +"Then they both began to laugh--but me, I couldn't see nothin' funny +about it. + +"Wal, I left early next mornin', not wantin' to have to refuse 'em a +loan." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +HOW A BROTHER WAS DIFFERENT + + +In contrast with this regrettable performance of Bernal's, which, alas! +bore internal evidence of being a type of many, was the flawless career +of Allan, the dutiful and earnest. Not only did he complete his course +at the General Theological Seminary with great honour, but he was +ordained into the Episcopal ministry under circumstances entirely +auspicious. Aunt Bell confided to Nancy that his superior presence quite +dwarfed the bishop who ordained him. + +His ordination sermon, moreover, which his grandfather had been +persuaded into journeying to hear, was held by many to be a triumph of +pulpit oratory no less than an able yet not unpoetic handling of his +text, which was from John--"The Truth shall make you free." + +Truth, he declared, was the crowning glory in the diadem of man's +attributes, and a subject fraught with vital interest to every thinking +man. The essential nature of man being gregarious, how important that +the leader of men should hold Truth to be like a diamond, made only the +brighter by friction. The world is and ever has been illiberal. Witness +the lonely lamp of Erasmus, the cell of Galileo, the dying bed of +Pascal, the scaffold of Sidney--all fighters for truth against the +masses who cannot think for themselves. + +Truth was, indeed, a potent factor in civilisation. If only all +truth-lovers could feel bound together by the sacred ties of fraternal +good-will, independent yet acknowledging the sovereignty of Omnipotence, +succeeding ages could but add a new lustre to their present resplendent +glory. + +Truth, triumphant out of oppression, is a tear falling on the world's +cold cheek to make it burn forever. Why fear the revelation of truth? +Greece had her Athens and her Corinth, but where is Greece to-day? Rome, +too, Imperial Rome, with all her pomp and polish! They were, but they +are not--for want of Truth. But might not we hope for a land where Truth +would reign--from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the lakes of the +frozen North to the ever-tepid waters of the sunny South? + +Truth is the grand motor-power which, like a giant engine, has rolled +the car of civilisation out from the maze of antiquity where it now +waits to be freighted with the precious fruits of living genius. + +The young man's final flight was observed by Aunt Bell to impress +visibly even the bishop--a personage whom she had begun to suspect was +the least bit cynical, perhaps from having listened to many first +sermons. + +"Standing one day," it began, "near the summit of one of the grand old +Rocky Mountains that in primeval ages was elevated from ocean's depths +and now towers its snow-capped peak heavenward touching the azure blue, +I witnessed a scene which, for beauty of illustration of the thought in +hand, the world cannot surpass. Placing my feet upon a solid rock, I +saw, far down in the valley below, the tempest gathering. Soon the +low-muttered thunder and vivid flashes of lightning gave token of +increasing turbulence with Nature's elements. Thus the storm raged far +below while all around me and above glittered the pure sunlight of +heaven, where I mingled in the blue serene; until at last the thought +came electric-like, as half-divine, here is exemplified in Nature's own +impressive language the simple grandeurs of Truth. While we are in the +valley below, we have ebullitions of discontent and murmurings of +strife; but as we near the summit of Truth our thought becomes elevated. +Then placing our feet on the solid Rock of Ages, we call to those in the +valley below to cease their bickerings and come up higher. + +"Truth! Oh, of all the flowers that swing their golden censers in the +parterre of the human heart, none so rich, so rare, as this one flower +of Truth. Other flowers there may be that yield as rich perfume, but +they must be crushed in order that their fragrance become perceptible. +But the soul of this flower courses its way down the garden walk, out +through the deep, dark dell, over the burning plain, up the +mountain-side, _up_ and ever UP it rises into the beautiful blue; all +along the cloudy corridors of the day, _up_ along the misty pathway to +the skies, till it touches the beautiful shore and mingles with the +breath of angels!" + +Yet a perverse old man had sat stonily under this sermon--had, even +after so effective a baptism, neglected to undo that which he should +never have done. Moreover, even on the day of this notable sermon, he +was known to have referred to the young man, within the hearing of a +discreet housekeeper, as "the son of his father"--which was an invidious +circumlocution, amounting almost to an epithet. And he had most weakly +continued to grieve for the wayward lost son of his daughter--the +godless boy whom he had driven from his door. + +Not even the other bit of news that came a little later had sufficed to +make him repair his injustice; and this, though the report came by the +Reverend Arthur Pelham Gridley, incumbent of the Presbyterian pulpit at +Edom, who could preach sermons the old man liked. + +Mr. Gridley, returning from a certain gathering of the brethren at +Denver, had brought this news: That Bernal Linford had been last seen +walking south from Denver, like a common tramp, in the company of a poor +half-witted creature who had aroused some local excitement by declaring +himself to be the son of God, speaking familiarly of the Deity as +"Father." + +As this impious person had been of a very simple mind and behaved +inoffensively, rather shrinking from publicity than courting it, he had +at first attracted little attention. It appeared, however, that he had +presently begun an absurd pretence of healing the sick and the lame; +and, like all charlatans, he so cunningly worked upon the imaginations +of his dupes that a remarkable number of them believed that they +actually had been healed by him. In fact, the nuisance of his operations +had grown to an extent so alarming that thousands of people stood in +line from early morning until dusk awaiting their turn to be blessed and +"healed" by the impostor. Just as several of the clergy, said Mr. +Gridley, were on the point of denouncing this creature as anti-Christ +and thus exploding his pretensions; and when the city authorities, +indeed, appealed to by the local physicians, were on the point of +suppressing him for disorderly conduct, and a menace to the public +health, since he was encouraging the people to forsake their family +physicians; and just as the news came that a long train-load of the +variously suffering was on its way from Omaha, the wretched impostor had +himself solved the difficulty by quietly disappearing. As he had refused +to take money from the thousands of his dupes who had pressed it upon +him in their fancied relief from pain, it was known that he could not be +far off, and some curiosity was at first felt as to his +whereabouts--particularly by those superstitious ones who continued to +believe he had healed them of their infirmities, not a few of whom, it +appeared, were disposed to credit his blasphemous claim to have been +sent by God. + +According to the lookout thus kept for this person, it was reported that +he had been seen to pass on foot through towns lying south of Denver, +meanly dressed and accompanied by a young man named Linford. To all +inquiries he answered that he was on his way to fast in the desert as +his "Father" had commanded. His companion was even less communicative, +saying somewhat irritably that his goings and comings were nobody's +business but his own. + +Some six months later the remains of the unfortunate person were found +in a wild place far to the south, with his Bible and his blanket. It was +supposed that he had starved. Of Linford no further trace had been +discovered. + +The most absurd tales were now told, said Mr. Gridley, of the miracles +of healing wrought by this person--told, moreover, by persons of +intelligence whom in ordinary matters one would not hesitate to trust. +There had even been a story started, which was widely believed, that he +had raised the dead; moreover, many of those who had been deluded into +believing themselves healed, looked forward confidently to his own +resurrection. + +Mr. Gridley ventured the opinion that we should be thankful to the daily +press which now disseminates the news of such things promptly, instead +of allowing it to travel slowly by word of mouth, as it did in less +advanced times--a process in which a little truth becomes very shortly a +mighty untruth. Even between Denver and Omaha he had observed that the +wonder-tales of this person grew apace, thus proving the inaccuracy of +the human mind as a reporter of fact. Without the check of an +unemotional daily press Mr. Gridley suspected that the poor creature's +performances would have been magnified by credulous gossip until he +became the founder of a new religion--a thing especially to be dreaded +in a day when the people were crazed for any new thing--as Paul found +them in Athens. + +Mr. Gridley mentioned further that the person had suffered from what the +alienists called "morbid delusions of grandeur"--believing, indeed, that +but One other in the universe was greater than himself; that he would +sit at the right hand of Power to judge all the world. His most puerile +pretension, however, was that he meant to live, even if the work +required a thousand years, until such time as he could save all persons +into heaven, so that hell need have no occupants. + +But this distressing tale did not move old Allan Delcher to reconsider +his perverse decision, though there had been ample time for reparation. +Placidly he dropped off one day, a little while after he had cautioned +Clytie to keep the house ready for Bernal's coming; and to have always +on hand one of those fig layer-cakes of which he was so fond, since as +likely as not he would ask for this the first thing, just as he used to +do. It must seem homelike to him when he did come. + +Having betrayed the trust reposed in him by an unsuspecting grandson, it +seemed fitting that he should fall asleep over that very psalm wherein +David describeth the corruption of the natural man. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +HOW EDOM WAS FAVOURED OF GOD AND MAMMON + + +In the years gone, the village of Edom had matured, even as little boys +wax to manhood. Time was when all but two trains daily sped by it so +fast that from their windows its name over the station door was naught +but a blur. Now all was changed. Many trains stopped, and people of the +city mien descended from or entered smart traps, yellow depot-wagons or +immaculate victorias, drawn by short-tailed, sophisticated steeds +managed by liveried persons whose scraped faces were at once impassive +and alert. + +In its outlying parts, moreover, stately villas now stood in the midst +of grounds hedged, levelled, sprayed, shaven, trimmed and +garnished--grounds cherished sacredly with a reverence like unto that +once accorded the Front Room in this same village. Edom, indeed, had +outgrown its villagehood as a country boy in the city will often outgrow +his home ways. That is, it was still a village in its inmost heart; but +outwardly, at its edges, the distinctions and graces of urban +worldliness had come upon it. + +All this from the happy circumstance that Edom lay in a dale of beauty +not too far from the blessed centre of things requisite. First, one by +one, then by families, then by groups of families, then by cliques, the +invaders had come to promote Edom's importance; one being brought by the +gracious falling of its little hills; one by its narrow valleys where +the quick little waters come down; one by the clearness of its air; and +one by the cheapness with which simple old farms might be bought and +converted into the most city-like of country homes. + +The old stock of Edom had early learned not to part with any massive +claw-footed sideboard with glass knobs, or any mahogany four-poster, or +tall clock, or high-boy, except after feigning a distressed reluctance. +It had learned also to hide its consternation at the prices which this +behaviour would eventually induce the newcomers to pay for such junk. +Indeed, it learned very soon to be a shrewd valuer of old mahogany, +pewter, and china; even to suspect that the buyers might perceive +beauties in it that justified the prices they paid. + +Old Edom, too, has its own opinion of the relative joys of master and +servant, the latter being always debonair, their employers stiff, formal +and concerned. It conceives that the employers, indeed, have but one +pleasure: to stand beholding with anxious solemnity--quite as if it were +the performance of a religious rite--the serious-visaged men who daily +barber the lawns and hedges. It is suspected by old Edomites that the +menials, finding themselves watched at this delicate task, strive to +copy in face and demeanour the solemnity of the observing +employer--clipping the box hedge one more fraction of an inch with the +wariest caution--maintaining outwardly, in short, a most reverent +seriousness which in their secret hearts they do not feel. + +Let this be so or not. The point is that Edom had gone beyond its three +churches of Calvin, Wesley and Luther--to say nothing of one poor little +frame structure with a cross at the peak, where a handful of benighted +Romanists had long been known to perform their idolatrous rites. Now, +indeed, as became a smartened village, there was a perfect little +Episcopal church of redstone, stained glass and painted shingles, with a +macadam driveway leading under its dainty _porte-cochere_, and at the +base of whose stern little tower an eager ivy already aspired; a +toy-like, yet suggestively imposing edifice, quite in the manner of +smart suburban churches--a manner that for want of accurate knowledge +one might call confectioner's gothic. + +It was here, in his old home, that the Reverend Allan Delcher Linford +found his first pastorate. Here from the very beginning he rendered +apparent those gifts that were to make him a power among men. It was +with a lofty but trembling hope that the young novice began his first +service that June morning, before a congregation known to be +hypercritical, composed as it was of seasoned city communicants, +hardened listeners and watchers, who would appraise his vestments, +voice, manner, appearance, and sermon, in the light of a ripe +experience. + +Yet his success was instant. He knew it long before the service +ended--felt it infallibly all at once in the midst of his sermon on +Faith. From the reading of his text, "For God so loved the world that he +gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believed therein might not +perish, but have everlasting life," the worldly people before him were +held as by invisible wires running from him to each of them. He felt +them sway in obedience to his tones; they warmed with him and cooled +with him; aspired with him, questioned, agreed, and glowed with him. +They were his--one with him. Their eyes saw a young man in the splendour +of his early prime, of a faultless, but truly masculine beauty, delicate +yet manfully rugged, square-chinned, straight-mouthed, with tawny hair +and hazel eyes full of glittering golden points when his eloquence +mounted; clear-skinned, brilliant, warm-voiced, yet always simple, +direct, earnest; a storehouse of power, yet ornate; a source of +refreshment both physical and spiritual to all within the field of his +magnetism. + +So agreed those who listened to that first sermon on Faith, in which +that virtue was said be like the diamond, made only the brighter by +friction. Motionless his listeners sat while he likened Faith to the +giant engine that has rolled the car of Religion out from the maze of +antiquity into the light of the present day, where it now waits to be +freighted with the precious fruits of living genius, then to speed on to +that hoped-for golden era when truth shall come forth as a new and +blazing star to light the splendid pageantry of earth, bound together in +one law of universal brotherhood, independent, yet acknowledging the +sovereignty of Omnipotence. + +Rapt were they when, with rare verbal felicity and unstudied eloquence, +the young man pictured himself standing upon a lofty sunlit mountain, +while a storm raged in the valley below, calling passionately to those +far down in the ebullition to come up to him and mingle in the blue +serene of Faith. Faith was, indeed, a tear dropped on the world's cold +cheek of Doubt to make it burn forever. + +Even those long since _blase_ to pulpit oratory thrilled at the simple +beauty of his peroration, which ran: "_Faith!_ Oh, of all the flowers +that swing their golden censers in the parterre of the human heart, none +so rich, so rare, as this one flower of Faith. Other flowers there may +be that yield as rich perfume, but they must be crushed in order that +their fragrance become perceptible. But this flower--" + +In spite of this triumph, it had taken him still another year to prevail +over one of his hearers. True, she had met him after that first +triumphant ordination sermon with her black lashes but half-veiling the +admiration that shone warm in the gray of her eyes; and his low +assurance, "Nance, you _please_ me! Really you do!" as his yellow eyes +lingered down her rounded slenderness from summer bonnet to hem of +summer gown, rippled her face with a colour she had to laugh away. + +Yet she had been obstinate and wondering. There had to be a year in +which she knew that one she dreamed of would come back; another in which +she believed he might; another in which she hoped he would--and yet +another in which she realised that dreams and hopes alike were +vain--vain, though there were times in which she seemed to feel again +the tingling life of that last hand-clasp; times when he called to her; +times when she had the absurd consciousness that his mind pressed upon +hers. There had been so many years and so much wonder--and no one came. +It had been foolish indeed. And then came a year of wondering at the +other. The old wonder concerning this one, excited by a certain fashion +of rendering his head in unison with his shoulders--as might the statue +of Perfect Beauty turn upon its pedestal--with its baser residue of +suspicion, had been happily allayed by a closer acquaintance with Allan. +One must learn, it seemed, to distrust those lightning-strokes of +prejudice that flash but once at the first contact between human clouds. + +Yet in the last year there had come another wonder that excited a +suspicion whose troubling-power was absurdly out of all true proportion. + +It was in the matter of seeing things--that is, funny things. + +Doubtless she had told him a few things more or less funny that had +seemed to move him to doubt or perplexity, or to mere seriousness; but, +indeed, they had seemed less funny to her after that. For example, she +had told Aunt Bell the anecdote of the British lady of title who says to +her curate, concerning a worthy relative by marriage lately passed away, +toward whom she has felt kindly despite his inferior station: "Of course +I _couldn't_ know him here--but we shall meet in heaven." Aunt Bell had +been edified by this, remarking earnestly that such differences would +indeed be wiped out in heaven. Yet when Nancy went to Allan in a certain +bubbling condition over the anecdote itself and Aunt Bell's comment +thereon, he made her repeat it slowly, after the first hurried telling, +and had laughed but awkwardly with her, rather as if it were expected of +him--with an eye vacant of all but wonder--like a traveller not sure he +had done right to take the left-hand turn at the last cross-roads. + +Again, the bishop who ordained him had, in a relaxed and social moment +after the ceremony, related that little classic of Bishop Meade, who, +during the fight over a certain disestablishment measure, was asked by a +lobbyist how he would vote. The dignified prelate had replied that he +would vote for the bill, for he held that every man should have the +right to choose his own way to heaven. None the less, he would continue +to be certain that a gentleman would always take the Episcopal way. To +Nancy Allan retold this, adding, + +"You know, I'm going to use it in a sermon some time." + +"Yes--it's very funny," she answered, a little uncertainly. + +"Funny?" + +"Yes." + +"Do you think so?" + +"Of course--I've heard the bishop tell it myself--and I know _he_ thinks +it funny." + +"Well--then I'll use it as a funny story. Of course, it _is_ funny--I +only thought"--what it was he only thought Nancy never knew. + +Small bits of things to wonder at, these were, and the wonder brought no +illumination. She only knew there were times when they two seemed of +different worlds, bereft of power to communicate; and at these times his +superbly assured wooing left her slightly dazed. + +But there were other times, and different--and slowly she became used to +the idea of him--persuaded both by his own court and by the spirited +encomiums that he evoked from Aunt Bell. + +Aunt Bell was at that time only half persuaded by Allan to re-enter the +church of her blameless infancy. She was still minded to seek a little +longer outside the fold that _rapport_ with the Universal Mind which she +had never ceased to crave. In this process she had lately discarded +Esoteric Buddhism for Subliminal Monitions induced by Psychic Breathing +and correct breakfast-food. For all that, she felt competent to declare +that Allan was the only possible husband for her niece, and her niece +came to suspect that this might be so. + +When at last she had wondered herself into a state of inward +readiness--a state still governed by her outward habit of resistance, +this last was beaten down by a letter from Mrs. Tednick, who had been a +school friend as Clara Tremaine, and was now married, apparently with +results not too desirable. + +"Never, my dear," ran the letter to Nancy, "permit yourself to think of +marrying a man who has not a sense of humour. Do I seem flippant? Don't +think it. I am conveying to you the inestimable benefits of a trained +observation. Humour saves a man from being impossible in any number of +ways--from boring you to beating you. (You may live to realise that the +tragedy of _the first_ is not less poignant than that of the second.) +Whisper, dear!--All men are equally vain--at least in their ways with a +woman--but humour assuredly preserves many unto death from betraying it +egregiously. Beware of him if he lack it. He has power to crucify you +daily, and yet be in honest ignorance of your tortures. Don't think I am +cynical--and indeed, my own husband is one of the best and dearest of +souls in the world, _the biggest heart_--but be sure you marry no man +without humour. Don't think a man has it merely because he tells funny +stories; the humour I mean is a kind of sense of the fitness of things +that keeps a man from forgetting himself. And if he hasn't humour, don't +think he can make you happy, even if his vanity doesn't show. He +can't--after the expiration of that brief period in which the vanity of +each is a holy joy to the other. Remember now!" + +Curiously enough this well-intended homily had the effect of arousing in +Nancy an instant sense of loyalty to Allan. She suffered little flashes +of resentment at the thought that Clara Tremaine should seem to +depreciate one toward whom she felt herself turning with a sudden +defensive tenderness. And this, though it was clear to the level eye of +reason that Clara must have been generalising on observations made far +from Edom. But her loyal spirit was not less eager to resent an affront +because it might seem to have been aimless. + +And thereafter, though never ceasing to wonder, Nancy was won. Her +consent, at length, went to him in her own volume of Browning, a pink +rose shut in upon "A Woman's Last Word"--its petals bruised against the +verses: + + "What so false as truth is, + False to thee? + Where the serpent's tooth is, + Shun the tree. + + "Where the apple reddens, + Never pry-- + Lest we lose our Edens, + Eve and I. + + "Be a god and hold me + With a charm! + Be a man and fold me + With thine arm!" + +That was a moment of sweetness, of utter rest, of joyous peace--fighting +no longer. + +A little while and he was before her, proud as a conquerer may be--glad +as a lover should. + +"I always knew it, Nance--you _had_ to give in." + +Then as she drooped in his arms, a mere fragrant, pulsing, glad +submission-- + +"You have _always_ pleased me, Nancy. I know I shall never regret my +choice." + +And Nancy, scarce hearing, wondered happily on his breast. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE WINNING OF BROWETT + + +A thoughtful Pagan once reported dignity to consist not in possessing +honours, but in the consciousness that we deserve them. It is a theory +fit to console multitudes. Edom's young rector was not only consoled by +it, he was stimulated. To his ardent nature, the consciousness of +deserving honour was the first vital step toward gaining it. Those +things that he believed himself to deserve he forthwith subjected to the +magnetic rays of his desire: Knowing with the inborn certainty of the +successful, that they must finally yield to such silent, coercing +influence and soon or late gravitate toward him in obedience to the same +law that draws the apple to the earth's lap. In this manner had the +young man won his prizes for oratory; so had he won his wife; so had he +won his first pastorate; so now would he win that prize he was conscious +of meriting next--a city parish--a rectorate in the chief seat of his +church in America, where was all wealth and power as well as the great +among men, to be swayed by his eloquence and brought at last to the +Master's feet. And here, again, would his future enlarge to prospects +now but mistily surmised--prospects to be moved upon anon with +triumphant tread. Infinite aspiration opening ever beyond itself--this +was his. Meantime, step by step, with zealous care for the accuracy of +each, with eyes always ahead, leaving nothing undone--he was forever +fashioning the moulds into which the Spirit should materialise his +benefits. + +The first step was the winning of Browett--old Cyrus Browett, whose +villa, in the fashion of an English manor-house, was a feature of remark +even to the Edom summer dwellers--a villa whose wide grounds were so +swept, garnished, trimly flowered, hedge-bordered and shrub-upholstered +that, to old Edom, they were like stately parlours built foolishly out +of doors. + +Months had the rector of tiny St. Anne's waited for Browett to come to +him, knowing that Browett must come in the end. One less instinctively +wise would have made the mistake of going to Browett. Not this one, +whose good spirit warned him that his puissance lay rather with groups +of men than with individuals. From back of the chancel railing he could +sway the crowd and make it all his own; whereas, taking that same crowd +singly, and beyond his sacerdotal functions, he might be at the mercy of +each man composing it. He knew, in short, that Cyrus Browett as one of +his congregation on a Sabbath morning would be a mere atom in the +plastic cosmos below him; whereas Browett by himself, with the granite +hardness of his crag-like face, his cool little green eyes--unemotional +as two algebraic x's--would be a matter fearfully different. Even his +white moustache, close-clipped as his own hedges, and guarding a stiff, +chilled mouth, was a thing grimly repressed, telling that the man was +quite invulnerable to his own vanity. A human Browett would have +permitted that moustache to mitigate its surroundings with some flowing +grace. He was, indeed, no adversary to meet alone in the open field--for +one who could make him in a crowd a mere string of many to his harp. + +The morning so long awaited came on a second Sunday after Trinity. Cyrus +Browett, in whose keeping was the very ark of the money covenant, +alighted from his coupe under the _porte-cochere_ of candied Gothic and +humbly took seat in his pew like a mere worshipper of God. + +As such--a man among men--the young rector looked calmly down upon him, +letting him sink into the crowd-entity which always became subject to +him. + +His rare, vibrant tones--tones that somehow carried the subdued light +and warmth of stained glass--rolled out in moving volume: + +"The Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before +him." + +Then, still as a mere worshipper of God, that Prince of the power of +Mammon down in front knelt humbly to say after the young rector above +him that he had erred and strayed like a lost sheep, followed too much +the devices of his own heart, leaving undone those things he ought to +have done, and doing those things which he ought not to have done; that +there was no health in him; yet praying that he might, thereafter, lead +a godly, righteous and sober life to the glory of God's holy name. Even +to Allan there was something affecting in this--a sort of sardonic +absurdity in Browett's actually speaking thus. + +The kneeling financier was indeed a gracious and lovely spectacle to the +young clergyman, and in his next words, above the still-bended +congregation, his tones grew warmly moist with an unction that thrilled +his hearers as never before. Movingly, indeed, upon the authority that +God hath given to his ministers, did he declare and pronounce to his +people, being penitent, the absolution and remission of their sins. +Wonderful, in truth, had it been if his hearers did not thrill, for the +minister himself was thrilled as never before. He, Allan Delcher +Linford, was absolving and remitting the sins of a man whose millions +were counted by the hundred, a god of money and of power--who yet +cringed before him out there like one who feared and worshipped. + +Nor did he here make the mistake that many another would have made. +Instead of preaching to Cyrus Browett alone--preaching at him--he +preached as usual to his congregation. If his glance fell, now and then, +upon the face of Browett, he saw it only through the haze of his own +fervour--a patch of granite-gray holding two pricking points of light. +Not once was Browett permitted to feel himself more than one of a crowd; +not once was he permitted to rise above his mere atomship, nor feel that +he received more attention than the humblest worshipper in arrears for +pew-rent. Yet, though the young rector regarded Browett as but one of +many, he knew infallibly the instant that invisible wire was strung +between them, and felt, thereafter, every tug of opposition or signal of +agreement that flashed from Browett's mind, knowing in the end, without +a look, that he had won Browett's approval and even excited his +interest. + +For the sermon had been strangely, wonderfully suited to Browett's +peculiar tastes. Hardly could a sermon have been better planned to win +him. The choice of the text itself: "And thou shalt take no gift: for +the gift blindeth the wise and perverteth the words of the righteous," +was perfect art. + +The plea was for intellectual honesty, for academic freedom, for +fearless independence, which were said to be the crowning glories in the +diadem of man's attributes. Fearlessly, then, did the speaker depreciate +both the dogmatism of religion and the dogmatism of science. "Much of +what we call religion," he said, "is only the superstition of the past; +much of what we call science is but the superstition of the present." He +pleaded that religion might be an ever-living growth in the human heart, +not a dead formulary of dogmatic origin. True, organisation was +necessary, but in the realm of spiritual essentials a creed drawn up in +the fourth century should not be treated as if it were the final +expression of the religious consciousness _in secula seculorum_. One +should, indeed, be prepared for the perpetual restatement of religious +truth, fearlessly submitting the most cherished convictions to the light +of each succeeding age. + +Yet, especially, should it not be forgotten in an age of +ultra-physicism, of social and economic heterodoxies, that there must +ever be in human society, according to the blessed ordinance of God, +princes and subjects, masters and proletariat, rich and poor, learned +and ignorant, nobles and plebeians--yet all united in the bonds of love +to help one another attain their moral welfare on earth and their last +end in heaven;--all united in the bonds of fraternal good-will, +independent yet acknowledging the sovereignty of Omnipotence. + +He closed with these words of Voltaire: "We must love our country +whatever injustice we suffer in it, as we must love and serve the +Supreme Being, notwithstanding the superstitions and fanaticism which so +often dishonour His worship." + +The sermon was no marked achievement in coherence, but neither was +Browett a coherent personality. It was, however, a swift, vivid +sermon--a short and a busy one, with a reason for each of its parts, +incoherent though the parts were. For Browett was a cynic doubter of his +own faith; at once an admirer of Voltaire and a believer in the +Established Order of Things; despising a radical and a conservative +equally, but, hating more than either, a clumsy compromiser. He must be +preached to as one not yet brought into that flock purchased by God with +the blood of His Son; and at the same time, as one who had always been +of that flock and was now inalienable from it. In a word, Browett's +doubt and his belief had both to be fed from the same spoon, a fact that +all young preachers of God's word would not have fathomed. + +Thus our young rector proved his power. His future rolled visibly toward +him. During the rest of that service there sounded in his ears an +undertone from out the golden centre of that future: "_Reverend Father +in God, we present unto you this godly and well-learned man to be +ordained and consecrated Bishop--_" + +Rewarded, indeed, was he for the trouble he had taken long months before +to build that particular sermon to fit Browett, after specifications +confided to him by an obliging parishioner--keeping it ready to use at a +second's notice, on the first morning that Browett should appear. + +How diminished would be that envious railing at Success could we but +know the hidden pains by which alone its victories of seeming ease are +won! + +The young minister could now meet Browett as man to man, having +established a prestige. + +It had been said by those who would fain have branded him with the +stigma of disrepute that Browett's ethics were inferior to those of the +prairie wolf; meaning, perhaps, that he might kill more sheep than he +could possibly devour. + +Browett had views of his own in this matter. As a tentative evolutionist +he looked upon his survival as unimpeachable evidence of his +fitness,--as the eagle is fitter than the lamb it may fasten upon. +Again, as a believer in Revealed Religion, he accepted human society +according to the ordinance of God, deeming himself as Master to be but +the rightful, divinely-instituted complement of his humblest +servant--the two of them necessary poles in the world spiritual. + +One of the few fads of Browett being the memorial window, it was also +said by enviers that if he would begin to erect a window to every small +competitor his Trust had squeezed to death there would be an +unprecedented flurry in stained glass. But Browett knew, as an +evolutionist, that the eagle has a divine right to the lamb if it can +come safely off with it; as a Christian, that one carries out the will +of God as indubitably in preserving the established order of prince and +subject, of noble and plebeian, as in giving of his abundance to relieve +the necessitous--or in endowing universities which should teach the +perpetual sacredness of the established order of things in Church and +State. + +In short, he derived comfort from both poles of his belief--one the God +of Moses, a somewhat emotional god, not entirely uncarnal--the other the +god of Spencer, an unemotional and unimaginative god of Law. + +It followed that he was much taken with a preacher who could answer so +appositely to the needs of his soul as did this impressive young man in +a chance sermon of unstudied eloquence. + +There were social meetings in which Browett dispassionately confirmed +these early impressions gained under the spell of a matchless oratory, +and in due time there followed an invitation to the young rector of St. +Anne's of Edom to preach at the Church of St. Antipas, which was +Browett's city church. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A BELATED MARTYRDOM + + +The rectory at Edom was hot with the fever of preparation. The +invitation to preach at St. Antipas meant an offer of that parish should +the preaching be approved. It was a most desirable parish--Browett's +city church being as smart as one of his steam yachts or his private +train (for nothing less than a train sufficed him now--though there were +those of the green eyes who pretended to remember, with heavy sarcasm, +the humbler day when he had but a beggarly private car, coupled to the +rear of a common Limited). It was, moreover, a high church, its last +rector having been put away for the narrowness of refusing to "enrich +the service." This was the church and this the patron above all others +that the Reverend Allan Delcher Linford would have chosen, and earnestly +did he pray that God in His wisdom impart to him the grace to please +Browett and those whom Browett permitted to have a nominal voice in the +control of St. Antipas. + +Both Aunt Bell and Nancy came to feel the strain of it all. The former +promised to "go into the silence" each day and "hold the thought of +success," thereby drawing psychic power for him from the Reservoir of +the Eternal. + +Nancy could only encourage by wifely sympathy, being devoid of those +psychic powers that distinguished Aunt Bell. Tenderly she hovered about +Allan the morning he began to write the first of the three sermons he +was to preach. + +As for him, though heavy with the possibilities of the moment, he was +yet cool and centred; resigned to what might be, yet hopeful; his manner +was determined, yet gentle, almost sweet--the manner of one who has +committed all to God and will now put no cup from him, how bitter +soever. + +"I am so hopeful, dearest, for your sake," his wife said, softly, +wishing to reveal her sympathy yet fearful lest she might obtrude it. He +was arranging many sheets of notes before him. + +"What will the first one be?" she asked. He straightened in his chair. + +"I've made up my mind, Nance! It's a wealthy congregation--one of the +wealthiest in the city--but I shall preach first from the parable of +Dives and Lazarus." + +"Isn't that--a little--wouldn't something else do as well--something +that wouldn't seem quite so personal?" + +He smiled up with fond indulgence. "That's the woman of it--concession +for temporal advantage." Then more seriously he added, "I wouldn't be +true to myself, Nance, if I went down there in any spirit of truckling +to wealth. Public approval is a most desirable luxury, I grant +you--wealth and ease are desirable luxuries, and the favour of those in +power--but they're only luxuries. And I know in this matter but one real +necessity: my own self-approval. If consciously I preached a polite +sermon there, my own soul would accuse me and I should be as a leaf in +the wind for power. No, Nance--never urge me to be untrue to that divine +Christ-self within me! If I cannot be my best self before God, I am +nothing. I must preach Christ and Him crucified, whether it be to the +wealthy of St. Antipas or only to believing poverty." + +Stung with contrition, she was quick to say, "Oh, my dearest, I didn't +mean you to be untrue! Only it seemed unnecessary to affront them in +your very first sermon." + +"I have been divinely guided, Nance. No considerations of expediency can +deflect me now. This _had_ to be! I admit that I had my hour of +temptation--but that has gone, and thank God my integrity survives it." + +"Oh, how much bigger you are than I am, dearest!" She looked down at him +proudly as she stood close to his side, smoothing the tawny hair. Then +she laid one finger along his lips and made the least little kissing +noise with her own lips--a trick of affection learned in the early days +of their love. After a little she stole from his side, leaving him with +head bent in prayerful study--to be herself alone with her new +assurance. + +It was moments like this that she had come to long for and to feed her +love upon. Nor need it be concealed that there had not been one such for +many months. The situation had been graver than she was willing to +acknowledge to herself. Not only had she not ceased to wonder since the +first days of her marriage, but she had begun to smile in her wonder, +fancying from time to time that certain plain answers came to it--and +not at all realising that a certain kind of smile is love's unforgivable +blasphemy; conscious only that the smile left a strange hurt in her +heart. + +For a little hour she stayed alone with her joy, fondly turning the +light of her newly fed faith upon an idol whose clearness of line and +purity of tint had become blurred in a dusk of wondering--an idol that +had begun, she now realised with a shudder, to bulk almost grotesquely +through that deepening gloom of doubt. + +Now all was well again. In this new light the dear idol might even at +times show a dual personality--one kneeling beside her very earnestly to +worship the other with her. Why not, since the other showed itself truly +worthy of adoration? With faith made new in her husband--and, therefore, +in God--she went to Aunt Bell. + +She found that lady in touch with the cosmic forces, over her book, "The +Beautiful Within," her particular chapter being headed, "Psychology of +Rest: Rhythms and Sub-rhythms of Activity and Repose; their Synchronism +with Subliminal Spontaneity." Over this frank revelation of hidden +truths Aunt Bell's handsome head was, for the moment, nodding in +sub-rhythms of psychic placidity--a state from which Nancy's animated +entrance sufficed to arouse her. As the proud wife spoke, she divested +herself of the psychic restraint with something very like a carnal yawn +behind her book. + +"Oh, Aunt Bell! Isn't Allan _fine_! Of course, in a way, it's too +bad--doubtless he'll spoil his chances for the thing I know he's set his +heart upon--and he knows it, too--but he's going calmly ahead as if the +day for martyrs to the truth hadn't long since gone by. Oh, dear, +martyrs are _so_ dowdy and out-of-date--but there he is, a great, noble, +beautiful soul, with a sense of integrity and independence that is +stunning!" + +"What has Allan been saying now?" asked Aunt Bell, curiously unmoved. + +"_Said?_ It's what he's _doing!_ The dear, big, stupid thing is going +down there to preach the very first Sunday about Dives and Lazarus--the +poor beggar in Abraham's bosom and the rich man down below, you +remember?" she added, as Aunt Bell seemed still to hover about the +centre of psychic repose. + +"Well?" + +"Well, think of preaching that primitive doctrine to _any one_ in this +age--then think of a young minister talking it to a church of rich men +and expecting to receive a call from them!" + +Aunt Bell surveyed the plump and dimpled whiteness of her small hands +with more than her usual studious complacence. "My dear," she said at +last, "no one has a greater admiration for Allan than I have--but I've +observed that he usually knows what he's about." + +"Indeed, he knows what he's about now, Aunt Bell!" There was a swift +little warmth in her tones--"but he says he can't do otherwise. He's +going deliberately to spoil his chances for a call to St. Antipas by a +piece of mere early-Christian quixotism. And you must see how _great_ he +is, Aunt Bell. Do you know--there have been times when I've misjudged +Allan. I didn't know his simple genuineness. He wants that church, yet +he will not, as so many in his place would do, make the least concession +to its people." + +Aunt Bell now brought a coldly critical scrutiny to bear upon one small +foot which she thrust absently out until its profile could be seen. + +"Perhaps he will have his reward," she said. "Although it is many years +since I broadened into what I may call the higher unbelief, I have never +once suspected, my dear, that merit fails of its reward. And above all, +I have faith in Allan, in his--well, his psychic nature is so perfectly +attuned with the Universal that Allan simply _cannot_ harm himself. Even +when he seems deliberately to invite misfortune, fortune comes instead. +So cheer up, and above all, practise going into the silence and holding +the thought of success for him. I think Allan will attend very +acceptably to the mere details." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE WALLS OF ST. ANTIPAS FALL AT THE THIRD BLAST + + +On that dreaded morning a few weeks later, when the young minister faced +a thronged St. Antipas at eleven o'clock service, his wife looked up at +him from Aunt Bell's side in a pew well forward--the pew of Cyrus +Browett--looked up at him in trembling, loving wonder. Then a little +tender half-smile of perfect faith went dreaming along her just-parted +lips. Let the many prototypes of Dives in St. Antipas--she could see the +relentless profile of their chief at her right--be offended by his +rugged speech: he should find atoning comfort in her new love. Like +Luther, he must stand there to say out the soul of him, and she was +prostrate before his brave greatness. + +When, at last, he came to read the biting verses of the parable, her +heart beat as if it would be out to him, her face paled and hardened +with the strain of his ordeal. + + "And it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by + the angels into Abraham's bosom; the rich man also died and + was buried. + + "And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and + seeth Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom. + + "And he cried and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me and + send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water + and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.' + + "But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime + receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; + but now he is comforted and thou art tormented.'" + +The sermon began. Unflinchingly the preacher pointed out that Dives, +apparently, lay in hell for no other reason than that he had been a rich +man; no sin was imputed to him; not even unbelief; he had not only +transgressed no law, but was doubtless a respectable, God-fearing man of +irreproachable morals--sent to hell for his wealth. + +And Lazarus appeared to have won heaven merely by reason of his poverty. +No virtue, no active good conduct, was accredited to him. + +Reading with the eye of common understanding, Jesus taught that the +rich merited eternal torment by reason of their riches, and the poor +merited eternal life by reason of their poverty, a belief that one +might hear declared even to-day. Nor was this view attested solely by +this parable. Jesus railed constantly at those in high places, at the +rich and at lawyers, and the chief priests and elders and those in +authority--declaring that he had been sent, not to them, but to the +poor who needed a physician. + +But was there not a seeming inconsistency here in the teachings of the +Master? If the poor achieved heaven automatically by their mere poverty, +_why were they still needing a physician?_ Under that view, why were not +the rich those who needed a physician--according to the literal words of +Jesus? + +Up to the close of this passage the orator's manner had been one of +glacial severity--of a sternness apparently checked by rare self-control +from breaking into a denunciation of the modern Dives. Then all was +changed. His face softened and lighted; the broad shoulders seemed to +relax from their uncompromising squareness; he stood more easily upon +his feet; he glowed with a certain encouraging companionableness. + +Was that, indeed, the teaching of Jesus--as if in New York to-day he +might say, "I have come to Third Avenue rather than to Fifth?" Can this +crudely literal reading of his words prevail? Does it not carry its own +refutation--the extreme absurdity of supposing that Jesus would come to +the squalid Jews of the East Side and denounce the better elements that +maintain a church like St. Antipas? + +The fallacy were easily probed. A modern intelligence can scarcely +prefigure heaven or hell as a reward or punishment for mere carnal +comfort or discomfort--as many literal-minded persons believe that +Jesus taught. The Son of Man was too subtle a philosopher to teach that +a rich man is lost by his wealth and a poor man saved by his poverty, +though primitive minds took this to be his meaning. Some primitive minds +still believe this--witness the frequent attempts to read a literal +meaning into certain other words of Jesus: the command, for example, +that a man should give up his cloak also, if he be sued for his coat. +Little acumen is required to see that no society could protect itself +against the depredations of the lawless under such a system of +non-resistance; and we may be sure that Jesus had no intention of +tearing down the social structure or destroying vested rights. Those who +demand a literal construction of the parable of Dives and Lazarus must +look for it in the Bowery melodrama, wherein the wealthy only are +vicious and poverty alone is virtuous. + +We have only to consider the rawness of this conception to perceive that +Jesus is not to be taken literally. + +Who, then, is the rich man and who the poor--who is the Dives and who +the Lazarus of this intensely dramatic parable? + +Dives is but the type of the spiritually rich man who has not charity +for his spiritually poor brother; of the man rich in faith who will not +trouble to counsel the doubting; of the one rich in humility who will +yet not seek to save his neighbour from arrogance; of him rich in +charity who indifferently views his uncharitable brethren; of the man +rich in hope who will not strive to make hopeful the despairing; of the +one rich in graces of the Holy Ghost who will not seek to reclaim the +unsanctified beggar at his gate. + +And who is Lazarus but a type of the aspiring--the soul-hungry, whether +he be a millionaire or a poor clerk--the determined seeker whose eye is +single and whose whole body is full of light? In this view, surely more +creditable to the intellect of our Saviour, mere material wealth ceases +to signify; the Dives of spiritual reality may be the actual beggar rich +in faith yet indifferent to the soul-hunger of the faithless; while poor +Lazarus may be the millionaire, thirsting, hungering, aspiring, day +after day, for crumbs of spiritual comfort that the beggar, out of the +abundance of his faith, would never miss. + +Christianity has suffered much from our failure to give the Saviour due +credit for subtlety. So far as money--mere wealth--is a soul-factor at +all, it must be held to increase rather than to diminish its possessor's +chances of salvation, but not in merely providing the refinements of +culture and the elegances of modern luxury and good taste, important +though these are to the spirit's growth. The true value of wealth to the +soul--a value difficult to over-estimate--is that it provides +opportunity for, and encourages the cultivation of, that virtue which is +"the greatest of all these"; that virtue which "suffereth long and is +kind; which vaunteth not itself and is not puffed up"--Charity, in +short. While not denying the simple joys of penury, nor forgetting the +Saviour's promises to the poor and meek and lowly, it is still easy to +understand that charity is less likely to be a vigorous soul-growth in a +poor man than in a rich. The poor man may possess it as a germ, a seed; +but the rich man is, through superior prowess in the struggle for +existence, in a position to cultivate this virtue; and who will say that +he has not cultivated it? Certainly no one acquainted with the efforts +of our wealthy men to uplift the worthy poor. A certain modern +sentimentality demands that poverty be abolished--ignoring those +pregnant words of Jesus--"the poor ye have _always_ with +you"--forgetting, indeed, that human society is composed of unequal +parts, even as the human body; that equality exists among the social +members only in this: that all men have their origin in God the Creator, +have sinned in Adam, and have been, by the sacrificial blood of God's +only begotten Son, born of the Virgin Mary, equally redeemed into +eternal life, if they will but accept Christ as their only true +Saviour;--forgetting indeed that to abolish poverty would at once +prevent all manifestations of human nature's most beauteous trait and +virtue--Charity. + +Present echoes from the business world indicate that the poor man +to-day, with his vicious discontent, his preposterous hopes of +trades-unionism, and his impracticable and very _un-Christian_ dreams of +an industrial millennium, is the true and veritable Dives, rich in +arrogance and poor in that charity of judgment which the millionaire has +so abundantly shown himself to possess. + +The remedy was for the world to come up higher. Standing upon one of the +grand old peaks of the Rocky Mountains, the speaker had once witnessed a +scene in the valley below which, for beauty of illustration of the +thought in hand, the world could not surpass. He told his hearers what +the scene was. And he besought them to come up to the rock of Charity +and mingle in the blue serene. Charity--a tear dropped on the world's +cold cheek of intolerance to make it burn forever! Or it was the grand +motor-power which, like a giant engine, has rolled the car of +civilisation out from the maze of antiquity into the light of the +present day where it now waits to be freighted with the precious fruits +of living genius, then to speed on to that hoped-for golden era when +truth shall rise as a new and blazing star to light the splendid +pageantry of earth, bound together in one law of universal brotherhood, +independent, yet acknowledging the sovereignty of Omnipotence. Charity +indeed was what Voltaire meant to inculcate when he declared: "Atheism +and fanaticism are the two poles of a universe of confusion and horror. +The narrow zone of virtue is between these two. March with a firm step +in that path; believe in a good God and do good." + +The peroration was beautifully simple, thrilling the vast throng with a +sudden deeper conviction of the speaker's earnestness: "_Charity!_ Oh, +of all the flowers that have swung their golden censers in the parterre +of the human heart, none so rich, so rare as this one flower of charity. +Other flowers there may be that yield as rich perfume, but they must be +crushed before their fragrance becomes perceptible; but _this_ flower at +early morn, at burning noon and when the dew of eve is on the flowers, +has coursed its way down the garden walk, out through the deep, dark +dell, over the burning plain, and up the mountain side--_up_, ever UP it +rises into the beautiful blue--up along the cloudy corridors of the day, +up along the misty pathway to the skies till it touches the beautiful +shore and mingles with the breath of angels." + +Hardly was there a dissenting voice in all St. Antipas that Sabbath upon +the proposal that this powerful young preacher be called to its pulpit. +The few who warily suggested that he might be too visionary, not +sufficiently in touch with the present day, were quieted the following +Sabbath by a very different sermon on certain flaws in the fashionable +drama. + +The one and only possible immorality in this world, contended the +speaker, was untruth. A sermon was as immoral as any stage play if the +soul of it was not Truth; and a stage play became as moral as a sermon +if its soul was truth. The special form of untruth he attacked was what +he styled "the drama of the glorified wanton." Warmly and ably did he +denounce the pernicious effect of those plays, that take the wanton for +a heroine and sentimentalise her into a morbid attractiveness. The stage +should show life, and the wanton, being of life, might be portrayed; but +let it be with ruthless fidelity. She must not be falsified into a +creature of fine sensibilities and lofty emotions--a thing of dangerous +plausibility to the innocent. + +The last doubter succumbed on the third Sabbath, when he preached from +the warning of Jesus that many would come after him, performing in his +name wonders that might deceive, were it possible, even the very elect. +The sermon likened this generation to the people Paul found in Athens, +running curiously after any new god; after Christian Science--which he +took the liberty of remarking was neither Christian nor scientific--or +mental science, spiritism, theosophy, clairvoyance, all black arts, +straying from the fold of truth into outer darkness--forgetting that +"God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that +whosoever believed therein might not perish, but have everlasting life." +As this was the sole means of salvation that God had provided, the time +was, obviously, one fraught with vital interest to every thinking man. + +As a sagacious member of the Board of Trustees remarked, it would hardly +have been possible to preach three sermons better calculated, each in +its way, to win the approval of St. Antipas. + +The call came and was accepted after the signs of due and prayerful +consideration. But as for Nancy, she had left off certain of her +wonderings forever. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THERE ENTERETH THE SERPENT OF INAPPRECIATION + + +For the young rector of St. Antipas there followed swift, rich, +high-coloured days--days in which he might have framed more than one +triumphant reply to that poet who questioned why the spirit of mortal +should be proud, intimating that it should not be. + +Also was the handsome young rector's parish proud of him; proud of his +executive ability as shown in the management of its many organised +activities, religious and secular; its Brotherhood of St. Bartholomew, +its Men's Club, Women's Missionary Association, Guild and Visiting +Society, King's Daughters, Sewing School, Poor Fund, and still others; +proud of his decorative personality, his impressive oratory and the +modern note in his preaching; proud that its ushers must each Sabbath +morning turn away many late-comers. Indeed, the whole parish had been +born to a new spiritual life since that day when the worship at St. +Antipas had been kept simple to bareness by a stubborn and perverse +reactionary. In this happier day St. Antipas was known for its advanced +ritual, for a service so beautifully enriched that a new spiritual +warmth pervaded the entire parish. The doctrine of the Real Presence was +not timidly minced, but preached unequivocally, with dignified boldness. +Also there was a confessional, and the gracious burning of incense. In +short, St. Antipas throve, and the grace of the Holy Ghost palpably took +possession of its worshippers. The church was become the smartest church +in the diocese, and its communicants were held to have a tone. + +And to these communicants their rector of the flawless pulchritude was a +gracious spectacle, not only in the performance of his sacerdotal +offices, but on the thoroughfares of the city, where his distinction was +not less apparent than back of the chancel rail. + +A certain popular avenue runs between rows of once splendid mansions now +struggling a little awkwardly into trade on their lowest floors, like +impoverished but courageous gentlefolk. To these little tragedies, +however, the pedestrian throng is obtuse--blind to the pathos of those +still haughty upper floors, silent and reserved, behind drawn curtains, +while the lower two floors are degraded into shops. In so far as the +throng is not busied with itself, its attention is upon the roadway, +where is ever passing a festival procession of Success, its floats of +Worth Rewarded being the costliest and shiniest of the carriage-maker's +craft--eloquent of true dignity and fineness even in the swift silence +of their rubber tires. This is a spectacle to be viewed seriously; to be +mocked at only by the flippant, though the moving pedestrian mass on the +sidewalk is gayer of colour, more sentient--more companionable, more +understandably human. + +It was in this weaving mass on the walk that the communicants of St. +Antipas were often refreshed by the vision of their rector on pleasant +afternoons. Here the Reverend Doctor Linford loved to walk in God's +sunlight out of sheer simple joy in living--happily undismayed by any +possible consciousness that his progress turned all faces to regard him, +as inevitably as one would turn the spokes of an endless succession of +turnstyles. + +Habited with an obviously loving attention to detail, yet with tasteful +restraint, a precise and frankly confessed, yet never obtrusive, +elegance, bowing with a manner to those of his flock favoured by heaven +to meet him, superbly, masculinely handsome, he was far more than a mere +justification of the pride St. Antipas felt in him. He was a splendid +inspiration to belief in God and man. + +Nor was he of the type Pharasaic--the type to profess love for its kind, +yet stay scrupulously aloof from the vanquished and court only the +victors. Indeed, this was not so. + +In the full tide of his progress--it was indeed a progress and never a +mere walk--he would stop to address a few words of simple cheer to the +aged female mendicant--perhaps to make a joke with her--some pleasantry +not unbefitting his station, his mien denoting a tender chivalry which +has been agreeably subdued though not impaired by the experience +inevitable to a man of the world. When he dropped the coin into the +withered palm, he did it with a certain lingering hurriedness, as one +frankly unable to repress a human weakness, though nervously striving to +have it over quickly and by stealth. + +Young Rigby Reeves, generalising, as it later appeared, from inadequate +data, swore once that the rector of St. Antipas kept always an eye ahead +for the female mendicant in the tattered shawl and the bonnet of +inferior modishness; that, if the Avenue was crowded enough to make it +seem worth while, he would even cross from one side to the other for the +sake of speaking to her publicly. + +While the fact so declared may have been a fact, the young man's +corollary that the rector of St. Antipas sought this experience for the +sake of its mere publicity came from a prejudice which closer +acquaintance with Dr. Linford happily dissolved from his mind. As +reasonably might he have averred, as did another cynic, that the rector +of St. Antipas was actuated by the instincts of a mountebank when he +selected his evening papers each day--deliberately and with kind +words--from the stock of a newswoman at a certain conspicuous and +ever-crowded crossing. As reasonable was the imputation of this other +cynic, that in greeting friends upon the thronged avenue, the rector +never failed to use some word or phrase that would identify him to those +passing, giving the person addressed an unpleasant sense of being placed +in a lime-light, yet reducing him to an insignificance just this side +the line of obliteration. + +"You say, 'Ah, Doctor!' and shake hands, you know," said this +hypercritical observer, "and, ten to one, he says something about St. +Antipas directly, you know, or--'Tell him to call on Dr. Linford at the +rectory adjoining St. Antipas--I'm always there at eleven,' or 'Yes, +quite true, the bishop said to me, "My dear Linford, we depend on you in +this matter,"' or telling how Mrs. General Somebody-Something, you +know--I never could remember names--took him down dreadfully by calling +him the most dangerously fascinating man in New York. And there you are, +you know! It never fails, on my word! And all the time people are +passing and turning to stare and listen, you know, so that it's quite +rowdy--saying 'Yes--that's Linford--there he is,' quite as if they were +on one of those coaches seeing New York; and you feel, by Jove, I give +you my word, like the solemn ass who goes up on the stage to help the +fellow do his tricks, you know, when he calls for 'some kind gentleman +from the audience.'" + +It may be told that this other person was of a cynicism hopelessly +indurated. Not so with Rigby Reeves, even after Reeves alleged the other +discoveries that the rector of St. Antipas had "a walk that would be a +strut, by gad! if he was as short as I am"; also that he "walked like a +parade," which, as expounded by Mr. Reeves, meant that his air in +walking was that of one conscious always of leading a triumphal +procession in his own honour; and again, that one might read in his eyes +a keenly sensuous enjoyment in the tones of his own voice; that he +coloured these with a certain unction corresponding to the flourishes +with which people of a certain obliquity of mind love to ornament their +chirography; still again that he, Reeves, was "ready to lay a bet that +the fellow would continue to pose even at the foot of the Great White +Throne." + +Happily this young man was won out of his carping attitude by closer +acquaintance with the rector of St. Antipas, and learned to regard those +things as no more than the inseparable antennae of a nature unusually +endowed with human warmth and richness--mere meaningless projections +from a personality simple, rugged, genuine, never subtle, and entirely +likable. He came to feel that, while the rector himself was unaffectedly +impressed by that profusion of gifts with which it had pleased heaven to +distinguish him, he was yet constantly annoyed and embarrassed by the +fact that he was thus made so salient a man. Young Reeves found him an +appreciative person, moreover, one who betrayed a sensible interest in a +fellow's own achievements, finding many reasons to be impressed by a few +little things in the way of athletics, travel, and sport that had never +seemed at all to impress the many--not even the members of one's own +family. Rigby Reeves, indeed, became an ardent partisan of Dr. Linford, +attending services religiously with his mother and sisters--and nearly +making a row in the club cafe one afternoon when the other and more +obdurate cynic declared, with a fine assumption of the judicial, that +Linford was "the best actor in New York--on the stage or off!" + +It was concerning this habit of the daily stroll that Aunt Bell and her +niece also disagreed one afternoon. They were in the little dark-wooded, +red-walled library of the rectory, Aunt Bell with her book of devotion, +Nancy at her desk, writing. + +From her low chair near the window, Aunt Bell had just beheld the +Doctor's erect head, its hat of flawless gloss, and his beautifully +squared shoulders, progress at a moderate speed across her narrow field +of vision. In so stiffly a level line had they passed that a profane +thought seized her unawares: the fancy that the rector of St. Antipas +had been pulled by the window on rollers. But this was at once atoned +for. She observed that Allan was one of the few men who walk always like +those born to rule. Then she spoke: + +"Nancy, why do you never walk with Allan in the afternoon? Nothing would +please him better--the boy is positively proud to have you." + +"Oh, I had to finish this letter to Clara," Nancy answered abstractedly, +as if still intent upon her writing, debating a word with narrowed eyes +and pen-tip at her teeth. + +But Aunt Bell was neither to be misunderstood nor insufficiently +answered. + +"Not this afternoon, especially--_any_ afternoon. I can't remember when +you've walked with him. So many times I've heard you refuse--and I dare +say it doesn't please him, you know." + +"Oh, he has often told me so." + +"Well?" + +"Aunt Bell--I--Oh, _you've_ walked on the street with Allan!" + +"To be sure I have!" + +"Well!" + +"Well--of course--that _is_ true in a way--Allan _does_ attract +attention the moment he reaches the pavement--and of course every one +stares at one--but it isn't the poor fellow's fault. At least, if the +boy were at all conscious of it he might in very little ways here and +there prevent the very tiniest bit of it--but, my dear, your husband is +a man of most striking appearance--especially in the clerical garb--even +on that avenue over there where striking persons abound--and it's not to +be helped. And I can't wonder he's not pleased with you when it gives +him such pleasure to have a modish and handsome young woman at his side. +I met him the other day walking down from Forty-second Street with that +stunning-looking Mrs. Wyeth, and he looked as happy and bubbling as a +schoolboy." + +"Oh--Aunt Bell--but of course, if you don't see, I couldn't possibly +tell you." She turned suddenly to her letter, as if to dismiss the +hopeless task. + +Now Aunt Bell, being entirely human, would not keep silence under an +intimation that her powers of discernment were less than phenomenal. The +tone of her reply, therefore, hinted of much. + +"My child--I may see and gather and understand much more than I give any +sign of." + +It was a wretchedly empty boast. Doubtless it had never been true of +Aunt Bell at any time in her life, but she was nettled now: one must +present frowning fortifications at a point where one is attacked, even +if they be only of pasteboard. Then, too, a random claim to possess +hidden fruits of observation is often productive. Much reticence goes +down before it. + +Nancy turned to her again with a kind of relief in her face. + +"Oh, Aunt Bell, I was sure of it--I couldn't tell you, but I was sure +you must see!" Her pen was thrown aside and she drooped in her chair, +her hands listless in her lap. + +Aunt Bell looked sympathetically voluble but wisely refrained from +speech. + +"I wonder," continued the girl, "if you knew at the time, the time when +my eyes seemed to open--when I was deceived by his pretension into +thinking--you remember that first sermon, Aunt Bell--how independent and +noble I thought it was going to be. Oh, Aunt Bell--what a slump in my +faith that day! I think its foundations all went, and then naturally the +rest of it just seemed to topple. Did you realise it all the time?" + +So it was religious doubt--a loss of faith--heterodoxy? Having listened +until she gathered this much, Aunt Bell broke in--"My dear, you must let +me guide you in this. You know what I've been through. Study the higher +criticism, reverently, if you will--even broaden into the higher +unbelief. Times have changed since my youth; one may broaden into almost +anything now and still be orthodox, especially in our church. But beware +of the literal mind, the material view of things. Remember that the +essentials of Christianity are spiritually historic even if they aren't +materially historic--facts in the human consciousness if not in the +world of matter. You need not pretend to understand how God can be one +in essence and three in person--I grant you that is only a reversion to +polytheism and is so regarded by the best Biblical scholars--but never +surrender your belief in the atoning blood of the Son whom He sent a +ransom for many--at least as a spiritual fact. I myself have dismissed +the Trinity as one of those mysteries to be adoringly believed on earth +and comprehended only in heaven--but that God so loved the world that he +gave his only begotten Son--Child, do you think I could look forward +without fear to facing God, if I did not believe that the blood of his +only begotten Son had washed from my soul that guilt of the sin I +committed in Adam? Cling to these simple essentials, and otherwise +broaden even into the higher unbelief, if you like--" + +"But, Aunt Bell, it _isn't_ that! I never trouble about those +things--though you have divined truly that I have doubted them +lately--but the doubts don't distress me. Actually, Aunt Bell, for a +woman to lose faith in her God seems a small matter beside losing faith +in her husband. You can doubt and reason and speculate and argue about +the first--it's fashionable--people rather respect unbelievers +nowadays--but Oh, Aunt Bell, how the other hurts!" + +"But, my child--my preposterous child! How can you have lost faith in +that husband of yours? What nonsense! Do you mean you have taken +seriously those harmless jesting little sallies of his about the snares +and pitfalls of a clergyman's life, or his tales of how this or that +silly woman has allowed him to detect in her that pure reverence which +most women do feel for a clergyman, whether he's handsome or not? Take +Mrs. Wyeth, for example--" + +"Oh, Aunt Bell--no, no--how can you think--" + +"I admit Allan is the least bit--er--redundant of those +anecdotes--perhaps just the least bit insistent about the snares and +pitfalls that beset an attractive man in his position. But really, my +dear--I know men--and you need never feel a twinge of jealousy. For one +thing, Allan would be held in bounds by fear of the world, even if his +love for you were inadequate to hold him." + +"It's no use trying to make you understand, Aunt Bell--you _can't!_" + +Whereupon Aunt Bell neglected her former device of pretending that she +did, indeed, understand, and bluntly asked: + +"Well, what is it, child?" + +"Nothing, nothing, nothing, Aunt Bell--it's only what he _is_." + +"What he _is_? A handsome, agreeable, healthy, good-tempered, loyal, +upright, irreproachable--" + +"Aunt Bell, he's _killing_ me. I seem to want to laugh when I tell you, +because it's so funny that he should have the power to--but I tell you +he's killing out all the good in me--a little bit every day. I can't +even _want_ to be good. Oh, how stupid to think you could see--that any +one could see! Sometimes I do forget and laugh all at once. It's as +grotesque and unreal as an imaginary monster I used to be afraid +of--then I'm sick, for I remember we are bound together by the laws of +God and man. Of course, you can't see, Aunt Bell--the fire hasn't eaten +through yet--but I tell you it's burning inside day and night." + +She laughed a little, as if to reassure her puzzled listener. + +"A fire eating away inside, Aunt Bell--burning out my goodness--if the +firemen would only come with engines and axes and hooks and things, and +water--I'd submit to being torn apart as meekly as any old house--it +hurts so!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE APPLE OF DOUBT IS NIBBLED + + +The rector of St. Antipas came from preaching his Easter sermon. He was +elated. Of the sermons delivered in New York that morning, he suspected +that his would be found not the least ingenious. Telling excerpts would +doubtless appear in the next day's papers, and at least one paper would +reprint his favourite likeness over the caption, "Dr. Allan Delcher +Linford, the Handsome and Up-to-Date Rector of St. Antipas." Under this +would be head-lines: "The Resurrection Proved; a Literal Fact in History +not less than a Spiritual Fact in the Human Consciousness. An Unbroken +Chain of Living Witnesses." + +He even worded scraps of the article on his way from the church to his +study: + +"An unusually rich Easter service was held at fashionable St. Antipas +yesterday morning. The sermon by its able and handsome young rector, the +Reverend Dr. Linford, was fraught with vital interest to every thinking +man. The Resurrection he declares to be a fact as well attested as the +Brooklyn Bridge is to thousands who have never seen it--yet who are +convinced of its existence upon the testimony of those who have. Thus +one who has never seen this bridge may be as certain of its existence as +a man who crosses it twice a day. In the same way, a witness to the +risen Christ tells the glorious truth to his son, a lad of fifteen, who +at eighty tells it to his grandson. 'Do you realise,' said the magnetic +young preacher, 'that the assurance of the Resurrection comes to you +this morning by word of mouth through a scant three thousand +witnesses--a living chain of less than three thousand links by which we +may trace our steps back to the presence of the first witness--so that, +in effect, we have the Resurrection on the word of a man who beheld the +living Saviour this very morning? Nay; further, in effect we ourselves +stand trembling before that stone rolled away from the empty but forever +hallowed tomb. As certainly as thousands know that a structure called +the Brooklyn Bridge exists, so upon testimony of the same validity do we +know that "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, +that whosoever believed on him might not perish but have everlasting +life." God has not expected us to trust blindly: he has presented +tangible and compelling evidence of his glorious scheme of salvation.' +The speaker, who is always imbued with the magnetism of a striking +personality, was more than usually effective on this occasion, and +visibly moved the throng of fashionable worshippers that--" + +"Allan, you outdid yourself!" Aunt Bell had come in and, in the mirror +over the dining-room mantel, was bestowing glances of unaffected but +strictly impartial admiration upon the bonnet of lilac blossoms that +rested above the lustrous puffs of her plenteous gray hair. + +The young man looked up from his meditative pacing of the room. + +"Aunt Bell, I think I may say that I pleased myself this morning--and +you know that's not easy for me." + +"It's too bad Nance wasn't there!" + +"Nancy is not pleasing me," began her husband, in gentle tones. + +"I didn't feel equal to it, Allan," his wife called from the library. + +"Oh, you're there! My dear, you give up too easily to little +indispositions that another woman would make nothing of. I've repeated +that to you so often that, really, your further ignoring it appears +dangerously like perverseness--" + +"Is she crying?" he asked Aunt Bell, as they both listened. + +"Laughing!" replied that lady. + +"My dear, may I ask if you are laughing at me?" + +"Dear, no!--only at something I happened to think of." She came into the +dining-room, a morning paper in her hand. "Besides, in to-morrow's paper +I shall read all about what the handsome rector of St. Antipas said, in +his handsome voice, to his handsome hearers--" + +He had frowned at first, but now smiled indulgently, as they sat down to +luncheon. "You _will_ have your joke about my appearance, Nance! That +reminds me--that poor romantic little Mrs. Eversley--sister of Mrs. +Wyeth, you know--said to me after service this morning, 'Oh, Dr. +Linford, if I could only believe in Christian dogma as I believe in +_you_ as a man!' You know, she's such a painfully emotional, impulsive +creature, and then Colonel Godwin who stood by had to have _his_ joke: +'The symbol will serve you for worship, Madam!' he says; 'I'm sure no +woman's soul would ever be lost if all clergymen were as good to look +upon as our friend here!' Those things always make me feel so +awkward--they are said so bluntly--but what could I do?" + +"Mr. Browett's sister and her son were out with him this morning," began +Aunt Bell, charitably entering another channel of conversation from the +intuition that her niece was wincing. But, as not infrequently happened, +the seeming outlet merely gave again into the main channel. + +"And there's Browett," continued the Doctor. "Now I am said to have +great influence over women--women trust me, believe me--I may even say +look up to me--but I pledge you my word I am conscious of wielding an +immensely greater influence over men. There seems to be in my _ego_ the +power to prevail. Take Browett--most men are afraid of him--not physical +fear, but their inner selves, their _egos_, go down before him. Yet from +the moment I first saw that man I dominated him. It's all in having an +_ego_ that means mastery, Aunt Bell. Browett has it himself, but I have +a greater one. Every time Browett's eyes meet mine he knows in his soul +that I'm his master--his _ego_ prostrates itself before mine--and yet +that man"--he concluded in a tone of distinguishable awe--"is worth all +the way from two to three hundred millions!" + +"Mrs. Eversley is an unlucky little woman, from what I hear," began Aunt +Bell, once more with altruistic aims. + +"That reminds me," said the Doctor, recalling himself from a downward +look at the grovelling Browett, "she made me promise to be in at four +o'clock. Really I couldn't evade her--it was either four o'clock to-day +or the first possible day. What could I do? Aunt Bell, I won't pretend +that this being looked up to and sought out is always disagreeable. +Contrary to the Pharisee, I say 'Thank God I _am_ as other men are!' I +have my human moments, but mostly it bores me, and especially these +half-religious, half-sentimental confidences of emotional women who +imagine their lives are tragedies. Now this woman believes her marriage +is unhappy--" + +"Indeed, it is!" Aunt Bell broke in--this time effectually, for she +proceeded to relate of one Morris Upton Eversley a catalogue of +inelegancies that, if authoritative, left him, considered as a husband, +undesirable, not to say impracticable. His demerits, indeed, served to +bring the meal to a blithe and chatty close. + +Aunt Bell's practice each day after luncheon was, in her own +terminology, to "go into the silence and concentrate upon the thought of +the All-Good." She was recalled from the psychic state on this +afternoon, though happily not before a good half-hour, by Nancy's knock +at her door. + +She came in, cheerful, a small sheaf of papers in her hand. Aunt Bell, +finding herself restored and amiable, sat up to listen. + +Nancy threw herself on the couch, with the air of a woman about to chat +confidentially from the softness of many gay pillows, dropping into the +attitude of tranquil relaxation that may yet bristle with eager mental +quills. + +"The drollest thing, Aunt Bell! This morning instead of hearing Allan, I +went up to that trunk-room and rummaged through the chest that has all +those old papers and things of Grandfather Delcher's. And would you +believe it? For an hour or more there, I was reading bits of his old +sermons." + +"But he was a Presbyterian!" In her tone and inflection Aunt Bell ably +conveyed an exposition of the old gentleman's impossibility--lucidly +allotting him to spiritual fellowship with the head-hunters of Borneo. + +"I know it, but, Aunt Bell, those old sermons really did me good; all +full of fire they were, too, but you felt a _man_ back of them--a good +man, a real man. You liked him, and it didn't matter that his +terminology was at times a little eccentric. Grandfather's theology +fitted the last days of his life about as crinoline and hoop-skirts +would fit over there on the avenue to-day--but he always made me feel +religious. It seemed sweet and good to be a Christian when he talked. +With all his antiquated beliefs he never made me doubt as--as I doubt +to-day. But it was another thing I wanted to show you--something I +found--some old compositions of Bernal's that his grandfather must have +kept. Here's one about birds--'jingle-birds, squeak-birds and +clatter-birds.' No?--you wouldn't care for that?--well--listen to this." + +She read the youthful Bernal's effort to rehabilitate the much-blemished +reputation of Judas--a paper that had been curiously preserved by the +old man. + +"Poor Judas, indeed!" The novelty was not lost upon Aunt Bell, expert +that she was in all obliquities from accepted tradition. + +"The funny boy! Very ingenious, I'm sure. I dare say no one ever before +said a good word for Judas since the day of his death, and this lad +would canonise him out of hand. Think of it--St. Judas!" + +Nancy lay back among the cushions, talking idly, inconsequently. + +"You see, there was at least one man created, Aunt Bell, who could by no +chance be saved--one man who had to betray the Son of Man--one man to be +forever left out of the Christian scheme of salvation, even if every +other in the world were saved. There had to be one man to disbelieve, to +betray and to lie in hell for it, or the whole plan would have been +frustrated. There was a theme for Dante, Aunt Bell--not the one soul in +hell, but the other souls in heaven slowly awakening to the suffering of +that one soul--to the knowledge that he was suffering in order that they +might be saved. Do you think they would find heaven to be real heaven if +they knew he was burning? And don't you think a poet could make some +interesting talk between this solitary soul predestined to hell, and the +God who planned the scheme?" + +Aunt Bell looked bored and uttered a swift, low phrase that might have +been "Fiddlesticks!" + +"My dear, no one believes in hell nowadays." + +"Does any one believe in anything?" + +"Belief in the essentials of Christianity was never more apparent." + +It was a treasured phrase from the morning's sermon. + +"What are the essentials?" + +"Belief that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten +Son--you know as well as I, child--belief in the atoning blood of the +Christ." + +"Wouldn't it be awful, Aunt Bell, if you didn't believe in it, and had +to be in hell because the serpent persuaded Eve and Eve persuaded Adam +to eat the apple--that's the essential foundation of Christianity, isn't +it?" + +"Why, certainly--you must believe in original sin--" + +"I see--here's a note in Bernal's hand, on one of these old +papers--evidently written much later than the other: 'The old gentleman +says Christmas is losing its deeper significance. What is it? That the +Babe of Bethlehem was begotten by his Father to be a sacrifice to its +Father--that its blood might atone for the sin of his first pair--and so +save from eternal torment the offspring of that pair. God will no longer +be appeased by the blood of lambs; nothing but the blood of his son will +now atone for the sin of his own creatures. It seems to me the sooner +Christmas loses this deeper significance the better. Poor old loving +human nature gives it a much more beautiful significance.'" + +"My dear," began Aunt Bell, "before I broadened into what I have called +the higher unbelief, I should have considered that that young man had a +positive genius for blasphemy; now that I have again come into the +shadow of the cross, it seems to me that he merely lacks imagination." + +"Poor Bernal! Yet he made me believe, though he seemed to believe in +nothing himself. He makes me believe _now_. He _calls_ to me, Aunt +Bell--or is it myself calling to him that I hear? + +"And blasphemy--even the word is ridiculous, Aunt Bell. I was at the +day-nursery yesterday when all those babies were brought in to their +dinner. They are strictly forbidden to coo or to make any noise, and +they really behaved finely for two-and three-year-olds--though I did see +one outlaw reach over before the signal was given and lovingly pat the +big fat cookie beside its plate--thinking its insubordination would be +overlooked--but, Aunt Bell, do you suppose one of those fifty-two babies +could blaspheme you?" + +"Don't be silly!" + +"But can you imagine one of them capable of any disrespect to you that +would merit--say, burning or something severe like that?" + +"Of course not!" + +"Well, don't you really believe that God is farther beyond you or me or +the foolish boy that wrote this, than we are beyond those babies--with a +greater, bigger point of view, a fuller love? Imagine the God that made +everything--the worlds and birds and flowers and butterflies and babies +and mountains--imagine him feeling insulted because one of his wretched +little John Smiths or Bernal Linfords babbles little human words about +him, or even worries his poor little human heart with doubts of His +existence!" + +"My child, yours is but a finite mind, unable to limit or define the +Infinite. What is it, anyway--is it Christian Science taking hold of +you, or that chap who preaches that they have the Messiah re-incarnated +and now living in Syria--Babbists, aren't they--or is it theosophy--or +are you simply dissatisfied with Allan?" A sudden shrewd glance from +Aunt Bell's baby-blue eyes went with this last. + +Nancy laughed, then grew serious. "I think the last is it, Aunt Bell. A +woman seems to doubt God and everything else after she begins to doubt +the husband she has loved. Really, I find myself questioning +everything--every moral standard." + +"Nance, you are an ungrateful woman to speak like that of Allan!" + +"I never should have done it, dear, if you hadn't made me believe you +knew. I should have thought it out all by myself, and then acted, if I +found I could with any conscience." + +"Eh? Mercy! You couldn't. The _idea!_ And there's Allan, now. Come!" + +The Doctor was on the threshold. "So here you are! Well, I've just sent +Mrs. Eversley away in tears." + +He dropped into an arm-chair with a little half-humorous moan of +fatigue. + +"It's a relief, sometimes, to know you can relax and let your whole +weight absolutely down on to the broad earth!" he declared. + +"Mrs. Eversley?" suggested Aunt Bell. + +"Well, the short of it is, she told me her woes and begged me to give my +sanction to her securing a divorce!" + +Nancy sat up from her pillows. "Oh--and you _did?_" + +"_Nancy!_" It was low, but clear, quick-spoken, stern, and hurt. "You +forget yourself. At least you forget my view and the view of my Church. +Even were I out of the Church, I should still regard marriage as a +sacrament--indissoluble except by death. The very words--'Whom God hath +joined'"--he became almost oratorical in his warmth--"Surely you would +not expect me to use my influence in this parish to undermine the +sanctity of the home--to attack our emblem of Christ's union with His +Church!" + +With reproach in his eyes--a reproach that in some way seemed to be +bland and mellow, yet with a hurt droop to his handsome head, he went +from the room. Nancy looked after him, longingly, wonderingly. + +"The maddening thing is, Aunt Bell, that sometimes he actually has the +power to make me believe in him. But, oh, doesn't Christ's union with +his Church have some ghastly symbols!" + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +SINFUL PERVERSENESS OF THE NATURAL WOMAN + + +Two months later a certain tension in the rectory of St. Antipas was +temporarily relieved. Like the spring of a watch wound too tightly, it +snapped one day at Nancy's declaration that she would go to Edom for a +time--would go, moreover, without a reason--without so much as a woman's +easy "because." This circumstance, while it froze in the bud every +available objection to her course, quelled none of the displeasure that +was felt at her woman's perversity. + +Her decision was announced one morning after a sleepless night, and +after she had behaved unaccountably for three days. + +"You are not pleasing Allan," was Aunt Bell's masterly way of putting +the situation. Nancy laughed from out of the puzzling reserve into which +she had lately settled. + +"So he tells me, Aunt Bell. He utters it with the air of telling me +something necessarily to my discredit--yet I wonder whose fault it +really is." + +"Well, of all things!" Aunt Bell made no effort to conceal her +amazement. + +"It isn't necessarily mine, you know." Before the mirror she brought the +veil nicely about the edge of her hat, with the strained and solemn +absorption of a woman in this shriving of her reflection so that it may +go out in peace. + +"My failure to please Allan, you know, may as easily be due to his +defects as to mine. I said so, but he only answered, 'Really, you're not +pleasing me.' And, as he often says of his own predicaments--'What could +I do?' But I'm glad he persists in it." + +"Why, if you resent it so?" + +"Because, Aunt Bell, I must be quite--_quite_ certain that Allan is +funny. It would be dreadful to make a mistake. If only I could be +certain--positive--convinced--sure--that Allan is the funniest thing in +all the world--" + +"It never occurred to me that Allan is funny." Aunt Bell paused for an +instant's retrospect. "Now, he doesn't joke much." + +"One doesn't have to joke to be a joke, Aunt Bell." + +"But what if he were funny? Why is that so important?" + +"Oh, it's important because of the other thing that you know you know +when you know that." + +"Mercy! Child, you should have a cup of cocoa or something before you +start off--really--" + +The last long hatpin seemingly pierced the head of Nancy and she turned +from the glass to fumble on her gloves. + +"Aunt Bell, if Allan tells me once more in that hurt, gentle tone that I +don't please him, I believe I shall be the freest of free women--ready +to live." + +She paused to look vacantly into the wall. "Sometimes, you know, I seem +to wake up with a clear mind--but the day clouds it. We shouldn't +believe so many falsities, Aunt Bell, if they didn't pinch our brains +into it at a tender age. I should know Allan through and through at a +glance to-day, if I met him for the first time; but he kneaded my poor +girl's brain this way and that, till I'd have been done for, Aunt Bell, +if some one else hadn't kneaded and patted it into other ways, so that +little memories come back and stay with me--little bits of sweetness and +genuineness--of _realness_, Aunt Bell." + +"Nance, you are morbid--and I think you're wrong to go up there to be +alone with your sick fancies--why are you going, Nance?" + +"Aunt Bell, can I really trust you not to betray me? Will you promise to +keep the secret if I actually tell you?" + +Aunt Bell looked at once important and trustworthy, yet of an +incorruptible propriety. + +"I'm sure, my dear, you would not ask me to keep secret anything that +your husband would be--" + +"Dear, no! You can keep mum with a spotless conscience." + +"Of course; I was sure of that!" + +"What a fraud you are, Aunt Bell--you weren't sure at all--but I shall +disappoint you. Now my reason--" She came close and spoke low--"My +reason for going to Edom, whatever it is, is so utterly silly that I +haven't even dared to tell myself--so, you see--my _real_ reason for +going is simply to find out what my reason really is. I'm dying to know. +There! Now never say I didn't trust you." + +In the first shock of this fall from her anticipations Aunt Bell +neglected to remember that All is Good. Yet she was presently far enough +mollified to accompany her niece to the station. + +Returning from thence after she had watched Nancy through the gate to +the 3:05 Edom local, Aunt Bell lingered at the open study door of the +rector of St. Antipas. He looked up cordially. + +"You know, Allan, it may do the child good, after all, to be alone a +little while." + +"Nancy--has--not--pleased--me!" The words were clean-cut, with an +illuminating pause after each, so that Aunt Bell might by no chance +mistake their import, yet the tone was low and not without a quality of +winning sweetness--the tone of the injured good. + +"I've seen that, Allan. Nance undoubtedly has a vein of selfishness. +Instead of striving to please her husband, she--well, she has +practically intimated to me that a wife has the right to please herself. +Of course, she didn't say it brutally in just those words, but--" + +"It's the modern spirit, Aunt Bell--the spirit of unbelief. It has made +what we call the 'new woman'--that noxious flower on the stalk of +scientific materialism." + +He turned and wrote this phrase rapidly on a pad at his elbow, while +Aunt Bell waited expectantly for more. + +"There's a sermon that writes itself, Aunt Bell. 'Woman's deterioration +under Modern Infidelity to God.' As truly as you live, this thing called +the 'new woman' has grown up side by side with the thing called the +higher criticism. And it's natural. Take away God's word as revealed in +the Scriptures and you make woman a law unto herself. Man's state is +then wretched enough, but contemplate woman's! Having put aside Christ's +authority, she naturally puts aside _man's_, hence we have the creature +who mannishly desires the suffrage and attends club meetings and argues, +and has views--_views_, Aunt Bell, on the questions of the day--the +woman who, as you have just succinctly said of your niece, 'believes she +has a right to please herself!' There is the keynote of the modern +divorce evil, Aunt Bell--she has a right to please herself. Believing no +longer in God, she no longer feels bound by His commandment: 'Wives be +subject to your husbands!' Why, Aunt Bell, if you can imagine +Christianity shorn of all its other glories, it would still be the +greatest religion the world has ever known, because it holds woman +sternly in her sphere and maintains the sanctity of the home. Now, I +know nothing of the real state of Nancy's faith, but the fact that she +believes she has a right to please herself is enough to convince me. I +would stake my right arm this moment, upon just this evidence, that +Nancy has become an unbeliever. When I let her know as plainly as +English words can express it that she is not pleasing me, she looks +either sullen or flippant--thus showing distinctly a loss of religious +faith." + +"You ought to make a stunning sermon of that, Allan. I think society +needs it." + +"It does, Aunt Bell, it does! And we are going from bad to worse. I +foresee the time in this very age of ours when no woman will continue to +be wife to a man except by the dictates of her own lawless and corrupt +nature--when a wife will make so-called love her only rule--when she +will brazenly disregard the law of God and the word of his only begotten +crucified Son, unless she can continue to feel what she calls 'love and +respect' for the husband who chose her. We prize liberty, Aunt Bell, but +liberty with woman has become license since she lost faith in the word +of God that holds her subject to man. We should be thankful that the +mother Church still stands firm on that rock--the rock of woman's +subjection to man. Our own Church has quibbled, Aunt Bell, but look at +the fine consistency of the Church of Rome. As truly as you live, the +Catholic Church will one day hold the only women who subject themselves +to their husbands in all things because of God's command--regardless of +their anarchistic desire to 'please themselves.' There is the only +Christian Church left that knows woman is a creature to be ruled with an +iron hand--and has the courage to send them to hell for 'pleasing +themselves.'" + +He glowed in meditation a moment, then, in a burst of confidence, +continued: + +"This is not to be repeated, Aunt Bell, but I have more than once +questioned if I should always allow the Anglo-Catholic Church to modify +my true Catholicism. I have talked freely with Father Riley of St. +Clements at our weekly ministers' meetings--there's a bright chap for +you--and really, Aunt Bell, as to mere universality, the Church of Rome +has about the only claim worth considering. Mind you, this is not to be +repeated, but I am often so much troubled that I have to fall back on my +simple childish faith in the love of the Father earned of him for me by +the Son's death on the cross. But what if I err in making my faith too +simple? Even now I am almost persuaded that a priest ordained into the +Episcopal Church cannot consecrate the elements of the Eucharist in a +sacrificial sense. Doubts like these are tragedies to an honest man, +Aunt Bell--they try his soul--they bring him each day to the foot of +that cross whereon the Son of God suffers his agony in order to ransom +our souls from God's wrath with us--and there are times, Aunt Bell, when +I find myself gazing longingly, like a little tired child, at the open +arms of the mother Church--on whose loving bosom of authority a man may +lay all his doubts and be never again troubled in his mind." + +Aunt Bell sighed cheerfully. + +"After all," she said briskly, "isn't Christianity the most fascinating +of all beliefs, if one comes into it from the higher unbelief? Isn't it +fine, Allan--doesn't the very thought excite you--that not only the +souls of thousands now living, but thousands yet unborn, will be +affected through all eternity for good or bad, by the clearness with +which you, here at this moment, perceive and reason out these spiritual +values--and the honesty with which you act upon your conclusions. How +truly God has made us responsible for the souls of one another!" + +The rector of St. Antipas shrugged modestly at this bald wording of his +responsibility; then he sighed and bent his head as one honestly +conscious of the situation's gravity. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE REASON OF A WOMAN WHO HAD NO REASON + + +It was not a jest--Nancy's telling Aunt Bell that her reason for going +to Edom was too foolish to give even to herself. At least such reticence +to self is often sincerely and plausibly asserted by the very inner +woman. Yet no sooner had her train started than her secret within a +secret began to tell itself: at first in whispers, then low like a voice +overheard through leafy trees; then loud and louder until all the noise +of the train did no more than confuse the words so that only she could +hear them. + +When the exciting time of this listening had gone and she stepped from +the train into the lazy spring silence of the village, her own heart +spelled the thing in quick, loud, hammering beats--a thing which, now +that she faced it, was so wildly impossible that her cheeks burned at +the first second of actual realisation of its enormity; and her knees +weakened in a deathly tremble, quite as if they might bend +embarrassingly in either direction. + +Then in the outer spaces of her mind there grew, to save her, a sense of +her crass fatuity. She was quickly in a carriage, eager to avoid any +acquaintance, glad the driver was no village familiar who might amiably +seek to regale her with gossip. They went swiftly up the western road +through its greening elms to where Clytie kept the big house--her own +home while she lived, and the home of the family when they chose to go +there. + +At last, the silent, cool house with its secretive green shutters rose +above her; the wheels made their little crisping over the fine metal of +the driveway. She hastily paid the man and was at the side door that +opened into the sitting-room. As she put her hand to the knob she was +conscious of Clytie passing the window to open the door. + +Then they were face to face over the threshold--Clytemnestra, of a +matronly circumference, yet with a certain prim consciousness of +herself, which despite the gray hair and the excellent maturity of her +face, was unmistakably maidenish--Clytie of the eyes always wise to +another's needs and beaming with that fine wisdom. + +She started back from the doorway by way of being playfully +dramatic--her hands on her hips, her head to one side at an astounded +angle. Yet little more than a second did she let herself simulate this +welcoming incredulity--this stupefaction of cordiality. There must be +quick speech--especially as to Nancy's face--which seemed strangely +unfamiliar, set, suppressed, breathless, unaccountably young--and there +had to be the splendid announcement of another matter. + +"Why, child, is it you or your ghost?" + +Nancy could only nod her head. + +"My suz! what ails the child?" + +Here the other managed a shake of the head and a made smile. + +"And of all things!--you'll never, never, never guess!--" + +"There--there!--yes, yes--yes! I know--know all about it--knew it--knew +it last night--" + +She had put out a hand toward Clytie and now reached the other from her +side, easing herself to the doorpost against which she leaned and +laughed, weakly, vacantly. + +"Some one told you--on the way up?" + +"Yes--I knew it, I tell you--that's what makes it so funny and +foolish--why I came, you know--" She had now gained a little in +coherence, and with it came a final doubt. She steadied herself in the +doorway to ask--"When did Bernal come?" + +And Clytie, somewhat relieved, became voluble. + +"Night before last on the six-fifteen, and me getting home late from the +Epworth meeting--fire out--not a stick of kindling-wood in--only two +cakes in the buttery, neither of them a layer--not a frying-size chicken +on the place--thank goodness he didn't have the appetite he used +to--though in another way it's just downright heartbreaking to see a +person you care for not be a ready eater--but I had some of the plum +jell he used to like, and the good half of an apple-John which I at once +het up--and I sent Mehitty Lykins down for some chops--" + +"Where is he?" + +There had seemed to be a choking in the question. Clytie regarded her +curiously. + +"He was lying down up in the study a while ago--kicking one foot up in +the air against the wall, with his head nearly off the sofy onto the +floor, just like he used to--there--that's his step--" + +"I can't see him now! Here--let me go into your room till I freshen and +rest a bit--quick--" + +Once more the indecisive knees seemed about to bend either way under +their burden. With an effort of will she drew the amazed Clytie toward +the open door of the latter's bedroom, then closed it quickly, and stood +facing her in the dusk of the curtained room. + +"Clytie--I'm weak--it's so strange--actually weak--I shake so--Oh, +Clytie--I've got to cry!" + +There was a mutual opening of arms and a head on Clytie's shoulder, wet +eyes close in a corner that had once been the good woman's neck--and +stifling sobs that seemed one moment to contract her body rigidly from +head to foot--the next to leave it limp and falling. From the nursing +shoulder she was helped to the bed, though she could not yet relax her +arms from that desperate grip of Clytie's neck. Long she held her so, +even after the fit of weeping passed, clasping her with arms in which +there was almost a savage intensity--arms that locked themselves more +fiercely at any little stirring of the prisoned one. + +At last, when she had lain quiet a long time, the grasp was suddenly +loosened and Clytie was privileged to ease her aching neck and cramped +shoulders. Then, even as she looked down, she heard from Nancy the +measured soft breathing of sleep. She drew a curtain to shut out one +last ray of light, and went softly from the room. + +Two hours later, as Clytemnestra attained ultimate perfection in the +arrangement of four glass dishes of preserves and three varieties of +cake upon her table--for she still kept to the sinfully complex fare of +the good old simple days--Nancy came out. Clytie stood erect to peer +anxiously over the lamp at her. + +"I'm all right--you were a dear to let me sleep. See how fresh I am." + +"You do look pearter, child--but you look different from when you came. +My suz! you looked so excited and kind of young when I opened that door, +it give me a start for a minute--I thought I'd woke out of a dream and +you was a Miss in short skirts again. But now--let me see you closer." +She came around the table, then continued: "Well, you look fresh and +sweet and some rested, and you look old and reasonable again--I mean as +old as you had ought to look. I never did know you to act that way +before, child. My neck ain't got the crick out of it yet." + +"Poor old Clytie--but you see yesterday all day I felt queer--very +queer, and wrought up, and last night I couldn't rest, and I lay awake +and excited all night--and something seemed to give way when I saw you +in the door. Of course it was nervousness, and I shall be all right +now--" + +She looked up and saw Bernal staring at her--standing in the doorway of +the big room, his face shading into the dusk back of him. She went to +him with both hands out and he kissed her. + +"Is it Nance?" + +"I don't know--but it's really Bernal." + +"Clytie says you knew I had come." + +"Clytie must have misunderstood. No one even intimated such a thing. I +came up to-day--I had to come--because--if I had known you were here, +wouldn't I have brought Allan?" + +"Of course I was going to let you know, and come down in a few +days--there was some business to do here. Dear old Allan! I'm aching to +get a stranglehold on him!" + +"Yes--he'll be so glad--there's so much to say!" + +"I didn't know whom I should find here." + +"We've had Clytie look after both houses--sometimes we've rented +mine--and almost every summer we've come here." + +"You know I didn't dream I was rich until I got here. The lawyer says +they've advertised, but I've been away from everything most of the +time--not looking out for advertisements. I can't understand the old +gentleman, when I was such a reprobate and Allan was always such a +thoroughly decent chap." + +"Oh, hardly a reprobate!" + +"Worse, Nance--an ass--think of my talking to that dear old soul as I +did--taking twenty minutes off to win him from his lifelong faith. I +shudder when I remember it. And yet I honestly thought he might be made +to see things my way." + +Their speech had been quick, and her eyes were fastened upon his with a +look from the old days striving in her to bring back that big moment of +their last parting--that singular moment when they blindly groped for +each other but had perforce to be content with one poor, trembling +handclasp! Had that trembling been a weakness or a strength? For all +time since--and increasingly during the later years--secret memories of +it had wonderfully quickened a life that would otherwise have tended to +fall dull, torpid, stubborn. It was not that their hands had met, but +that they had trembled--those two strange hands that had both repelled +and coerced each other--faltering at last into that long moment of +triumphant certainty. + +Under the first light words with Bernal this memory had welled up anew +in her with a mighty power before which she was as a leaf in the wind. +Then, all at once, she saw that they had become dazed and speechless +above this present clasp--the yielding, yet opposing, of those +all-knowing, never-forgetting hands. There followed one swift mutual +look of bewilderment. Then their hands fell apart and with little +awkward laughs they turned to Clytie. + +They were presently at table, Clytie in a trance of ecstatic +watchfulness for emptied plates, broken only by reachings and urgings of +this or that esteemed fleshpot. + +Under the ready talk that flowed, Nancy had opportunity to observe the +returned one. And now his strangeness vaguely hurt her. The voice and +the face were not those that had come to secret life in her heart during +the years of his absence. Here was not the laughing boy she had known, +with his volatile, Lucifer-like charm of light-hearted recklessness in +the face of destiny. Instead, a thinned, shy face rose before her, a +face full of awkwardness and dreaming, troubled and absent; a face that +one moment appealed by its defenseless forgetfulness, and the next, +coerced by a look eloquent of tested strength. + +As she watched him, there were two of her: one, the girl dreaming +forward out of the past, receptive of one knew not what secrets from +inner places; the other, the vivid, alert woman--listening, waiting, +judging. She it was whose laugh came often to make of her face the +perfect whole out of many little imperfections. + +Later, when they sat in the early summer night, under a moon blurred to +a phantom by the mist, when the changed lines of his face were no longer +relentless and they two became little more than voices and remembered +presences to each other, she began to find him indeed unchanged. Even +his voice had in an hour curiously lost that hurting strangeness. As she +listened she became absent, almost drowsy with memories of that far +night when his voice was quite the same and their hands had trembled +together--with such prescience that through all the years her hand was +to feel the groping of his. + +Yet awkward enough was that first half-hour of their sitting side by +side in the night, on the wide piazza of his old home. Before them the +lawn stretched unbroken to the other big house, where Nancy had wondered +her way to womanhood. Empty now it was, darkened as those years of her +dreaming girlhood must be to the present. Should she enter it, she knew +the house would murmur with echoes of other days; there would be the +wraith of the girl she once was flitting as of old through its peopled +rooms. + +And out there actually before her was the stretch of lawn where she had +played games of tragic pretense with the imperious, dreaming boy. +Vividly there came back that late afternoon when the monster of Bernal's +devising had frightened them for the last time--when in a sudden flash +of insight they had laughed the thing away forever and faced each other +with a certain half-joyous, half-foolish maturity of understanding. One +day long after this she had humorously bewailed to Bernal the loss of +their child's faith in the Gratcher. He had replied that, as an +institution, the Gratcher was imperishable--that it was brute humanity's +instinctive negation to the incredible perfections of life; that while +the child's Gratcher was not the man's, the latter was yet of the same +breed, however it might be refined by the subtleties of maturity: that +the man, like the child, must fashion some monster of horror to deter +him when he hears God's call to live. + +She had not been able to understand, nor did she now. She was looking +out to the two trees where once her hammock had swung--to the rustic +chair, now falling apart from age, from which Bernal had faced her that +last evening. Then with a start she was back in the present. Nancy of +the old days must be shut fat in the old house. There she might wander +and wonder endlessly among the echoes and the half-seen faces, but never +could she come forth; over the threshold there could pass only the wife +of Allan Linford. + +Quick upon this realisation came a sharp fear of the man beside her--a +fear born of his hand's hold upon hers when they had met. She shrank +under the memory of it, with a sudden instinct of the hunted. Then from +her new covert of reserve she dared to peer cautiously at him, seeking +to know how great was her peril--to learn what measure of defense would +best insure her safety--recognising fearfully the traitor in her own +heart. + +Their first idle talk had died, and she noted with new alarm that they +had been silent for many minutes. This could not safely be--this +insidious, barrier-destroying silence. She seemed to hear his heart +beating high from his own sense of peril. But would he help her? Would +he not rather side with that wretched traitor within her, crying out for +the old days--would he not still be the proud fool who would suffer no +man's law but his own? She shivered at the thought of his nearness--of +his momentous silence--of his treacherous ally. + +She stirred in her chair to look in where Clytie bustled between kitchen +and dining-room. Her movement aroused him from his own abstraction. For +a breathless stretch of time she was frozen to inertness by sheer +terror. Would that old lawless spirit utter new blasphemies, giving +fearful point to them now? Would the old eager hand come again upon hers +with a boy's pleading and a man's power? And what of her own secret +guilt? She had cherished the memory of him and across space had +responded to him through that imperious need of her heart. Swiftly in +this significant moment she for the first time saw herself with critical +eyes--saw that in her fancied security she had unwittingly enthroned the +hidden traitor. More and more poignant grew her apprehension as she felt +his eyes upon her and divined that he was about to speak. With a little +steadying of the lips, with eyes that widened at him in the dim light, +she waited for the sound of his voice--waited as one waits for something +"terrible and dear"--the whirlwind that might destroy utterly, or +pass--to leave her forever exulting in a new sense of power against +elemental forces. + +"Would you mind if I smoked, Nance?" + +She stared stupidly. So tense had been her strain that the words were +mere meaningless blows that left her quivering. He thought she had not +heard. + +"Would you mind my pipe--and this very mild mixture?" + +She blessed him for the respite. + +"Smoke, of course!" she managed to say. + +She watched him closely, still alert, as he stuffed the tobacco into his +pipe-bowl from a rubber pouch. Then he struck the match and in that +moment she suffered another shock. The little flame danced out of the +darkness, and wavering, upward shadows played over a face of utter +quietness. The relaxed shoulders drooped sideways in the chair, the body +placidly sprawled, one crossed leg gently waving. The shaded eye +surveyed some large and tranquil thought--and in that eye the soul sat +remote, aloof from her as any star. + +She sank back in her chair with a long, stealthy breath of relief--a +relief as cold as stone. She had not felt before that there was a chill +in the wide sweetness of the night. Now it wrapped her round and slowly, +with a soft brutality, penetrated to her heart. + +The silence grew too long. With a shrugging effort she surmounted +herself and looked again toward the alien figure looming unconcerned in +the gloom. A warm, super-personal sense of friendliness came upon her. +Her intellect awoke to inquiries. She began to question him of his days +away, and soon he was talking freely enough, between pulls of his pipe. + +"You know, Nance, I was a prodigal--only when I awoke I had no father to +go to. Poor grandad! What a brutal cub I was! That has always stuck in +my mind. I was telling you about that cold wet night in Denver. I had +found a lodging in the police station. There were others as forlorn--and +Nance--did you ever realise the buoyancy of the human mind? It's +sublime. We rejected ones sat there, warming ourselves, chatting, and +pretty soon one man found there were thirteen of us. You would have +thought that none of them could fear bad luck--worse luck--none of them +could have been more dismally situated. But, do you know? most of those +fellows became nervous--as apprehensive of bad luck as if they had been +pampered princes in a time of revolution. I was one of the two that +volunteered to restore confidence by bringing in another man. + +"We found an undersized, insignificant-looking chap toddling aimlessly +along the street a few blocks away from the station. We grappled with +him and hustled him back to the crowd. He slept with us on the floor, +and no one paid any further attention to him, except to remark that he +talked to himself a good bit. He and I awoke earliest next morning. I +asked him if he was hungry and he said he was. So I bought two fair +breakfasts with the money I'd saved for one good one, and we started out +of town. This chap said he was going that way, and I had made up my mind +to find a certain friend of mine--a chap named Hoover. The second day +out I discovered that this queer man was the one who'd been turning +Denver upside down for ten days, healing the halt and the blind. He was +running away because he liked a quieter life." + +He stopped, laughing softly, as if in remembrance--until she prompted +him. + +"Yes, he said, 'Father' had commanded him to go into the wilderness to +fast. He was always talking familiarly with 'Father,' as we walked. So I +stayed by him longer than I meant to--he seemed so helpless--and I +happened at that time to be looking for the true God." + +"Did you find him, Bernal?" + +"Oh, yes!" + +"In this strange man?" + +"In myself. It's the same old secret, Nance, that people have been +discovering for ages--but it is a secret only until after you learn it +for yourself. The only true revelation from God is here in man--in the +human heart. I had to be years alone to find it out, Nance--I'd had so +much of that Bible mythology stuffed into me--but I mustn't bore you +with it." + +"Oh, but I must know, Bernal--you don't dream how greatly I need at this +moment to believe _something_--more than you ever did!" + +"It's simple, Nance. It's the only revelation in which the God of +yesterday gives willing place to the better God of to-day--only here +does the God of to-day say, 'Thou shalt have no other God before me but +the God of to-morrow who will be more Godlike than I. Only in this way +can we keep our God growing always a little beyond us--so that to-morrow +we shall not find ourselves surpassing him as the first man you would +meet out there on the street surpasses the Christian God even in the +common virtues. That was the fourth dimension of religion that I wanted, +Nance--faith in a God that a fearless man could worship." + +He lighted his pipe again, and as the match blazed up she saw the absent +look still in his eyes. By it she realised how far away from her he +was--realised it with a little sharp sense of desolation. He smoked a +while before speaking. + +"Out there in the mountains, Nance, I thought about these things a long +time--the years went before I knew it. At first I stayed with this +healing chap, only after a while he started back to teach again and they +found him dead. He believed he had a mission to save the world, and that +he would live until he accomplished it. But there he was, dead for want +of a little food. Then I stayed a long time alone--until I began to feel +that I, too, had something for the world. It began to burn in my bones. +I thought of him, dead and the world not caring that he hadn't saved +it--not even knowing it was lost. But I kept thinking--a man can be so +much more than himself when he is alone--and it seemed to me that I saw +at least two things the world needed to know--two things that would +teach men to stop being cowards and leaners." + +Her sympathy was quick and ardent. + +"Oh, Bernal," she said warmly, "you made me believe when you believed +nothing--and now, when I need it above all other times, you make me +believe again! And you've come back with a message! How glorious!" + +He smiled musingly. + +"I started with one, Nance--one that had grown in me all those years +till it filled my life and made me put away everything. I didn't accept +it at first. It found me rebellious--wanting to live on the earth. Then +there came a need to justify myself--to show that I was not the mere +vicious unbeliever poor grandad thought me. And so I fought to give +myself up--and I won. I found the peace of the lone places." + +His voice grew dreamy--ceased, as if that peace were indeed too utter +for words. Then with an effort he resumed: + +"But after a while the world began to rumble in my ears. A man can't cut +himself off from it forever. God has well seen to that! As the message +cleared in my mind, there grew a need to give it out. This seemed easy +off there. The little puzzles that the world makes so much of solved +themselves for me. I saw them to be puzzles of the world's own +creating--all artificial--all built up--fashioned clumsily enough from +man's brute fear of the half-God, half-devil he has always made in his +own image. + +"But now that I'm here, Nance, I find myself already a little +bewildered. The solution of the puzzles is as simple as ever, but the +puzzles themselves are more complex as I come closer to them--so complex +that my simple answer will seem only a vague absurdity." + +He paused and she felt his eyes upon her--felt that he had turned from +his abstractions to look at her more personally. + +"Even since meeting you, Nance," he went on with an odd, inward note in +his voice, "I've been wondering if Hoover could by some chance have been +right. When I left, Hoover said I was a fool--a certain common variety +of fool." + +"Oh, I'm sure you're not--at least, not the common kind. I dare say that +a man must be a certain kind of fool to think he can put the world +forward by leaps and bounds. I think he must be a fool to assume that +the world wants truth when it wants only to be assured that it has +already found the truth for itself. The man who tells it what it already +believes is never called a fool--and perhaps he isn't. Indeed, I've come +to think he is less than a fool--that he's a mere polite echo. But oh, +Bernal, hold to your truth! Be the simple fool and worry the wise in the +cages they have built around themselves." + +She was leaning eagerly forward, forgetful of all save that her starved +need was feasting royally. + +"Don't give up; don't parrot the commoner fool's conceits back to him +for the sake of his solemn approval. Let those of his kind give him what +he wants, while you meet those who must have more. I'm one of them, +Bernal. At this moment I honestly don't know whether I'm a bad woman or +a good one. And I'm frightened--I'm so defenseless! Some little soulless +circumstance may make me decisively good or bad--and I don't want to be +bad! But give me what I want--I must have that, regardless of what it +makes me." + +He was silent for a time, then at last spoke: + +"I used to think you were a rebel, Nance. Your eyes betrayed it, and the +corners of your mouth went up the least little bit, as if they'd go +further up before they went down--as if you'd laugh away many solemn +respectabilities. But that's not bad. There are more things to laugh at +than are dreamed of. That's Hoover's entire creed, by the way." + +She remembered the name from that old tale of Caleb Webster's. + +"Is--is this friend of yours--Mr. Hoover--in good health?" + +"Fine--weighs a hundred and eighty. He and I have a ranch on the +Wimmenuche--only Hoover's been doing most of the work while I thought +about things. I see that. Hoover says one can't do much for the world +but laugh at it. He has a theory of his own. He maintains that God set +this planet whirling, then turned away for a moment to start another +universe or something. He says that when the Creator glances back at us +again, to find this poor, scrubby little earth-family divided over its +clod, the strong robbing the weak in the midst of plenty for +all--enslaving them to starve and toil and fight, spending more for war +than would keep the entire family in luxury; that when God looks closer, +in his amazement, and finds that, next to greed, the matter of +worshipping Him has made most of the war and other deviltry--the hatred +and persecution and killing among all the little brothers--he will laugh +aloud before he reflects, and this little ballful of funny, passionate +insects will be blown to bits. He says if the world comes to an end in +his lifetime, he will know God has happened to look this way, and +perhaps overheard a bishop say something vastly important about +Apostolic succession or the validity of the Anglican Orders or +Transubstantiation or 'communion in two kinds' or something. He insists +that a sense of humour is our only salvation--that only those will be +saved who happen to be laughing for the same reason that God laughs when +He looks at us--that the little Mohammedans and Christians and things +will be burned for their blasphemy of believing God not wise and good +enough to save them all, Mohammedan and Christian alike, though not +thinking excessively well of either; that only those laughing at the +whole gory nonsense will go into everlasting life by reason of their +superior faith in God." + +"Of course that's plausible, and yet it's radical. Hoover's father was a +bishop, and I think Hoover is just a bit narrow from early training. He +can't see that lots of people who haven't a vestige of humour are +nevertheless worth saving. I admit that saving them will be a thankless +task. God won't be able to take very much pleasure in it, but in strict +justice he will do it--even if Hoover does regard it as a piece of +extravagant sentimentality." + +A little later she went in. She left him gazing far off into the night, +filled with his message, dull to memory on the very scene that evoked in +her own heart so much from the old days. And as she went she laughed +inwardly at a certain consternation the woman of her could not wholly +put down; for she had blindly hurled herself against a wall--the wall of +his message. But it was funny, and the message chained her interest. She +could, she thought, strengthen his resolution to give it out--help him +in a thousand ways. + +As she fell asleep the thought of him hovered and drifted on her heart +softly, as darkness rests on tired eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE REMORSE OF WONDERING NANCY + + +She awoke to the sun, glad-hearted and made newly buoyant by one of +those soundless black sleeping-nights that come only to the town-tired +when they have first fled. She ran to the glass to know if the +restoration she felt might also be seen. With unbiassed calculation the +black-fringed lids drew apart and one hand pushed back of the temple, +and held there, a tangled skein of hair that had thrown the dusk of a +deep wood about her eyes. Then, as she looked, came the little dreaming +smile that unfitted critic eyes for their office; a smile that wakened +to a laugh as she looked--a little womanish chuckle of confident joy, as +one alone speaking aloud in an overflowing moment. + +An hour later she was greeting Bernal where the sun washed through the +big room. + +"Young life sings in me!" she said, and felt his lightening eyes upon +her lips as she smiled. + +There were three days of it--days in which, however, she grew to fear +those eyes, lest they fall upon her in judgment. She now saw that his +eyes had changed most. They gave the face its look of absence, of +dreaming awkwardness. They had the depth of a hazy sky at times, then +cleared to a coldly lucid glance that would see nothing ever to fear, +within or without; that would hide no falseness nor yet be deceived by +any--a deadly half-shut, appraising coolness that would know false from +true, even though they mated amicably and distractingly in one mind. + +The effect of this glance which she found upon herself from time to time +was to make Nancy suspect herself--to question her motives and try her +defenses. To her amazement she found these latter weak under Bernal's +gaze, and there grew in her a tender remorse for the injustice she had +done her husband. From little pricking suspicions on the first day she +came on the last to conviction. It seemed that being with Bernal had +opened her eyes to Allan's worth. She had narrowly, flippantly misjudged +a good man--good in all essentials. She was contrite for her unwifely +lack of abnegation. She began to see herself and Allan with Bernal's +eyes: she was less than she had thought--he was more. Bernal had proved +these things to her all unconsciously. Now her heart was flooded with +gratitude for his simple, ready, heartfelt praise of his brother--of his +unfailing good-temper, his loyalty, his gifts, his modesty so often +distressed by outspoken admiration of his personal graces. She listened +and applauded with a heart that renewed itself in all good resolves of +devotion. Even when Bernal talked of himself, he made her feel that she +had been unjust to Allan. + +Little by little she drew many things from him--the story of his +journeyings and of his still more intricate mental wanderings. And it +thrilled her to think he had come back with a message--even though he +already doubted himself. Sometimes he would be jocular about it and +again hot with a passion to express himself. + +"Nance," he said on another night, "when you have a real faith in God a +dead man is a miracle not less than a living--and a live man dying is +quite as wondrous as a dead man living. Do you know, I was staggered one +day by discovering that the earth didn't give way when I stepped on it? +The primitive man knowing little of physics doesn't know that a child's +hand could move the earth through space--but for a certain mysterious +resistance. That's God. I felt him all that day, at every step, pushing +the little globe back under me--counteracting me--resisting me--ever so +gently. Those are times when you feel you must tell it, Nance--when the +God-consciousness comes." + +"Oh, Bernal, if you could--if you could come back to do what your +grandfather really wanted you to do--to preach something worth while!" + +"I doubt the need for my message, Nance. I need for myself a God that +could no more spare a Hottentot than a Pope--but I doubt if the world +does. No one would listen to me--I'm only a dreamer. Once, when I was +small they gave me a candy cane for Christmas. It was a thing I had long +worshipped in shop-windows--actually worshipped as the primitive man +worshipped his idol. I can remember how sad I was when no one else +worshipped with me, or paid the least attention to my treasure. I +suspect I shall meet the same indifference now. And I hope I'll have the +same philosophy. I remember I brought myself to eat the cane, which I +suppose is the primary intention regarding them--and perhaps the fruits +of one's faith should be eaten quite as practically." + +They had sent no word to Allan, agreeing it were better fun to surprise +him. When they took the train together on the third day, the wife not +less than the brother looked forward to a joyous reunion with him. And +now that Nancy had proved in her heart the perverse unwifeliness of her +old attitude and was eager to begin the symbolic rites of her atonement, +it came to her to wonder how Bernal would have judged her had she +persisted in that first wild impulse of rebellion. She wanted to see +from what degree of his reprobation she had saved herself. She would be +circuitous in her approach. + +"You remember, Bernal, that night you went away--how you said there was +no moral law under the sky for you but your own?" + +He smiled, and above the noise of the train his voice came to her as his +voice of old came above the noise of the years. + +"Yes--Nance--that was right. No moral law but mine. I carried out my +threat to make them all find their authority in me." + +"Then you still believe yours is the only authority?" + +"Yes; it sounds licentious and horrible, doesn't it; but there are two +queer things about it--the first is that man quite naturally _wishes_ to +be decent, and the second is that, when he does come to rely wholly upon +the authority within himself, he finds it a stricter disciplinarian than +ever the decalogue was. One needs only ordinary good taste to keep the +ten commandments--the moral ones. A man may observe them all and still +be morally rotten! But it's no joke to live by one's own law, and yet +that's all anybody has to keep him right, if we only knew it, +Nance--barring a few human statutes against things like murder and +keeping one's barber-shop open on the Sabbath--the ruder offenses which +no gentleman ever wishes to commit. + +"And must poor woman be ruled by her own God, too?" + +"Why not?" + +"Well, it's not so long ago that the fathers of the Church were debating +in council whether she had a soul or not, charging her with bringing +sin, sickness and death into the world." + +"Exactly. St. John Damascene called her 'a daughter of falsehood and a +sentinel of hell'; St. Jerome came in with 'Woman is the gate of the +devil, the road to iniquity, the sting of the scorpion'; St. Gregory, I +believe, considered her to have no comprehension of goodness; pious old +Tertullian complimented her with corrupting those whom Satan dare not +attack; and then there was St. Chrysostom--really he was much more +charitable than his fellow Saints--it always seemed to me he was not +only more humane but more human--more interested, you might say. You +know he said, 'Woman is a necessary evil, a domestic peril, a deadly +fascination, a painted ill.' It always seemed to me St. Chrysostom had a +past. But really, I think they all went too far. I don't know woman very +well, but I suspect she has to find her moral authority where man finds +his--within herself." + +"You know what made me ask--a little woman in town came to see Allan not +long ago to know if she mightn't leave her husband--she had what seemed +to her sufficient reason." + +"I imagine Allan said 'no.'" + +"He did. Would you have advised her differently?" + +"Bless you, no. I'd advise her to obey her priest. The fact that she +consulted him shows that she has no law of her own. St. Paul said this +wise and deep thing: 'I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that +there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him that esteemeth anything +unclean, to him it is unclean!'" + +"Then it lay in her own view of it. If she had felt free to go, she +would have done right to go." + +"Naturally." + +"Yet Allan talked to her about the sanctity of the home." + +"I doubt if the sanctity of the home is maintained by keeping unwilling +mates together, Nance. I can imagine nothing less sanctified than a home +of that sort--peopled by a couple held together against the desire of +either or both. The willing mates need no compulsion, and they're the +ones, it seems to me, that have given the home its reputation for +sanctity. I never thought much about divorce, but I can see that much at +once. Of course, Allan takes the Church's attitude, which survives from +a time when a woman was bought and owned; when the God of Moses classed +her with the ox and the ass as a thing one must not covet." + +"You really think if a woman has made a failure of her marriage she has +a right to break it." + +"That seems sound as a general law, Nance--better for her to make a +hundred failures, for that matter, than stay meekly in the first because +of any superstition. But, mind you, if she suspects that the Church may, +after all, have succeeded in tying up the infinite with red-tape and +sealing-wax--believes that God is a large, dark notary-public who has +recorded her marriage in a book--she will do better to stay. Doubtless +the conceit of it will console her--that the God who looks after the +planets has an eye on her, to see that she makes but one guess about so +uncertain a thing as a man." + +"Then you would advise--" + +"No, I wouldn't. The woman who has to be advised should never take +advice. I dare say divorce is quite as hazardous as marriage, though +possibly most people divorce with a somewhat riper discretion than they +marry with. But the point is that neither marriage nor divorce can be +considered a royal road to happiness, and a woman ought to get her +impetus in either case from her own inner consciousness. I should call +divorcing by advice quite as silly as marrying by it." + +"But it comes at last to her own law in her own heart?" + +"When she has awakened to it--when she honestly feels it. God's law for +woman is the same as for man--and he has but two laws for both that are +universal and unchanging: The first is, they are bound at all times to +desire happiness; the second is, that they can be happy only by being +wise--which is what we sometimes mean when we say 'good,' but of course +no one knows what wisdom is for all, nor what goodness is for all, +because we are not mechanical dolls of the same pattern. That's why I +reverence God--the scheme is so ingenious--so productive of variety in +goodness and wisdom. Probably an evil marriage is as hard to be quit of +as any vice. People persist long after the sanctity has gone--because +they lack moral courage. Hoover was quite that way with cigarettes. If +some one could only have made Jim believe that God had joined him to +cigarettes, and that he mustn't quit them or he'd shatter the +foundations of our domestic integrity--he'd have died in cheerful +smoke--very soon after a time when he says I saved his life. All he +wanted was some excuse to go on smoking. Most people are +so--slothful-souled. But remember, don't advise your friend in town. Her +asking advice is a sign that she shouldn't have it. She is not of the +coterie that Paul describes--if you don't mind Paul once more--'Happy is +he that condemneth not himself in that which he alloweth.'" + +There had come to the woman a vast influx of dignity--a joyous increase +in the volume of that new feeling that called to her husband. She would +have gone back, but one of the reasons would have been because she +thought it "right"--because it was what the better world did! But +now--ah! now--she was going unhampered by that compulsion which galls +even the best. She was free to stay away, but of her own glad, loyal +will she was going back to the husband she had treated unjustly, judged +by too narrow a standard. + +"Allan will be so astonished and delighted," she said, when the coupe +rolled out of the train-shed. + +She remembered now with a sort of pride the fine, unflinching sternness +with which he had condemned divorce. In a man of principles so staunch +one might overlook many surface eccentricities. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE FLEXIBLE MIND OF A PLEASED HUSBAND + + +As they entered the little reception-room from the hall, the doors of +the next room were pushed apart and they saw Allan bowing out Mrs. +Talwin Covil, a meek, suppressed, neutral-tinted woman, the inevitable +feminine corollary of such a man as Cyrus Browett, whose only sister she +was. + +The eyes of Nancy, glad with a knowing gladness, were quick for Allan's +face, resting fondly there during the seconds in which he was changing +from the dead astonishment to live recognition at sight of Bernal. +During the shouts, the graspings, pokings, nudgings, the pumping of each +other's arms that followed, Nancy turned to greet Mrs. Covil, who had +paused before her. + +"Do sit down a moment and tell me things," she urged, "while those boys +go back there to have it out!" + +Thus encouraged, Mrs. Covil dropped into a chair, seeming not loath to +tell those things she had, while Nancy leaned back and listened +duteously for a perfunctory ten minutes. Her thoughts ran ahead to +Allan--and to Bernal--as children will run little journeys ahead of a +slow-moving elder. + +Then suddenly something that the troubled little woman was saying fixed +her attention, pulling up her wandering thoughts with a jerk. + +"--and the Doctor asked me, my dear, to treat it quite +confidentially, except to bother Cyrus. But, I'm sure he would wish you +to know. Of course it is a delicate matter--I can readily understand, as +he says, how the public would misconstrue the Doctor's words and apply +them generally--forgetting that each case requires a different point of +view. But with Harold it is really a perfectly flagrant and dreadful +case of mismating--due entirely to the poor boy's thoughtless +chivalry--barely twenty-eight, mind you--as if a man nowadays knows his +mind at all well before thirty-five. Of course, divorce is an evil that, +broadly speaking, threatens the sanctity of our home life--no one +understands that better than your husband--and re-marriage after divorce +is usually an outrageous scandal--one, indeed, altogether too +common--sometimes I wonder what we're coming to, it seems to be done so +thoughtlessly--but individual instances are different--'exceptions prove +the rule,' you know, as the old saying goes. Now Harold is ready to +settle down, and the girl is of excellent family and all that--quite the +social and moral brace he needs, in fact." + +Nancy was attentive, yet a little puzzled. + +"But--you speak of your son, Harold--is he not already married?" + +"That's it, my dear. You know what a funny, bright, mischievous boy +Harold is--even a little deliciously wild at times--doubtless you read +of his marriage when it occurred--how these newspapers do relish +anything of the sort--she was a theatrical young woman--what they call a +'show girl,' I believe. Humph!--with reason, I _must_ say! Of all the +egregious and inveterate showiness! My dear, she is positively a +creature! Oh, if they'd only invent a monocle that would let a young man +pierce the glamour of the footlights. I pledge you my word, she's--but +never mind that! Harold was a thoughtless, restless boy--not bad, you +know, but heedless. Why, he was quite the same about business. He began +to speculate, and of course, being brother Cyrus's nephew, his advantage +was considerable. But he suddenly declared he wouldn't be a broker any +more--and you'd never guess his absurd reason: simply because some stock +he held or didn't hold went up or down or something on a rumour in the +street that Mr. Russell Sage was extremely ill! He said that this +brought him to his senses. He says to me, 'Mater, I've not met Mr. Sage, +you know, but from what I hear of him it would be irrational to place +myself in a position where I should have to experience emotion of any +sort at news of the old gentleman's taking-off. An event so agreeable to +the natural order of God's providence, so plausible, so seemly, should +not be endowed with any arbitrary and artificial significance, +especially of a monetary character--one must be able to view it +absolutely without emotion of any sort, either of regret or +rejoicing--one must remain conscientiously indifferent as to when this +excellent old gentleman passes on to the Golden Shore'--but you know +the breezy way in which Harold will sometimes talk. Only now he seems +really sobered by this new attachment--" + +"But if he is already married--" + +"Yes, yes--if you can call it married--a ceremony performed by one of +those common magistrates--quite without the sanction of the Church--but +all that is past, and he is now ready to marry one who can be a wife to +him--only my conscience did hurt me a little, and brother Cyrus said to +me, 'You see Linford and tell him I sent you. Linford is a man of +remarkable breadth, of rare flexibility.'" + +"Yes, and of course Allan was emphatically discouraging." Again she was +recalling the fervour with which he had declared himself on this point +on that last day when he actually made her believe in him. + +"Oh, the Doctor is broad! He is what I should call adaptable. He said by +all means to extricate Harold from this wretched predicament, not only +on account of the property interests involved, but on account of his +moral and spiritual welfare; that, while in spirit he holds deathlessly +to the indissolubility of the marriage tie, still it is unreasonable to +suppose that God ever joined Harold to a person so much his inferior, +and that we may look forward to the real marriage--that on which the +sanctity of the home is truly based--when the law has freed him from +this boyish entanglement. Oh, my dear, I feel so relieved to know that +my boy can have a wife from his own class--and still have it right up +there--with Him, you know!" she concluded with an upward glance, as +Nancy watched her with eyes grown strangely quiet, almost +steely--watched her as one might watch an ant. She had the look of one +whose will had been made suddenly to stand aside by some great inner +tumult. + +When her caller had gone she dropped back into the chair, absently +pulling a glove through the fingers of one hand--her bag and parasol on +the floor at her feet. One might have thought her on the point of +leaving instead of having just come. The shadows were deepening in the +corners of the room and about her half-shut eyes. + +A long time she listened to the animated voices of the brothers. At last +the doors were pushed apart and they came out, Allan with his hand on +Bernal's shoulder. + +"There's your bag--now hurry upstairs--the maid will show you where." + +As Bernal went out, Nancy looked up at her husband with a manner +curiously quiet. + +"Well, Nance--" He stepped to the door to see if Bernal was out of +hearing--"Bernal pleases me in the way he talks about the old +gentleman's estate. Either he is most reasonable, or I have never known +my true power over men." + +Her face was inscrutable. Indeed, she only half heard. + +"Mrs. Covil has been telling me some of your broader views on divorce." + +The words shot from her lips with the crispness of an arrow, going +straight to the bull's-eye. + +He glanced quickly at her, the hint of a frown drawing about his eyes. + +"Mrs. Covil should have been more discreet. The authority of a priest in +these matters is a thing of delicate adjustment--the law for one may not +be the law for all. These are not matters to gossip of." + +"So it seems. I was thinking of your opposite counsel to Mrs. Eversley." + +"There--really, you know I read minds, at times--somehow I knew that +would be the next thing you'd speak of." + +"Yes?" + +"The circumstances are entirely different--I may add that--that any +intimation of inconsistency will be very unpleasing to me--very!" + +"I can see that the circumstances are different--the Eversleys are not +what you would call 'important factors' in the Church--and besides--that +is a case of a wife leaving her husband." + +"Nance--I'm afraid you're _not_ pleasing me--if I catch your drift. Must +I point out the difference--the spiritual difference? That misguided +woman wanted to desert her husband merely because he had hurt her +pride--her vanity--by certain alleged attentions to other women, +concerning the measure of which I had no knowledge. That was a case +where the cross must be borne for the true refining of that dross of +vanity from her soul. Her husband is of her class, and her life with him +will chasten her. While here--what have we here?" + +He began to pace the floor as he was wont to do when he prepared a +sermon. + +"Here we have a flagrant example of what is nothing less than spiritual +miscegenation--that's it!--why didn't I think of that phrase +before--spiritual miscegenation. A rattle-brained boy, with the +connivance of a common magistrate, effects a certain kind of alliance +with a person inferior to him in every point of view--birth, breeding, +station, culture, wealth--a person, moreover, who will doubtless be glad +to relinquish her so-called rights for a sum of money. Can that, I ask +you, be called a _marriage?_ Can we suppose an all-wise God to have +joined two natures so ill-adapted, so mutually exclusive, so repellent +to each other after that first glamour is past. Really, such a +supposition is not only puerile but irreverent. It is the conventional +supposition, I grant, and theoretically, the unvarying supposition of +the Church; but God has given us reasoning powers to use fearlessly--not +to be kept superstitiously in the shackles of any tradition whatsoever. +Why, the very Church itself from its founding is an example of the +wisdom of violating tradition when it shall seem meet--it has always had +to do this." + +"I see, Allan--every case must be judged by itself; every marriage +requires a special ruling--" + +"Well--er--exactly--only don't get to fancying that you could solve +these problems. It's difficult enough for a priest." + +"Oh, I'm positive a mere woman couldn't grapple with them--she hasn't +the mind to! All she is capable of is to choose who shall think for +her." + +"And of course it would hardly do to announce that I had counselled a +certain procedure of divorce and re-marriage--no matter how flagrant the +abuse, nor how obvious the spiritual equity of the step. People at large +are so little analytical." + +"'Flexible,' Mr. Browett told his sister you were. He was right--you +_are_ flexible, Allan--more so than I ever suspected." + +"Nance--you _please_ me--you are a good girl. Now I'm going up to +Bernal. Bernal certainly pleases me. Of course I shall do the handsome +thing by him if he acts along the lines our talk has indicated." + +She still sat in the falling dusk, in the chair she had taken two hours +before, when Aunt Bell came in, dressed for dinner. + +"Mercy, child! Do you know how late it is?" + +"What did you say, Aunt Bell?" + +"I say do you know how late it is?" + +"Oh--not too late!" + +"Not too late--for what?" + +There was a pause, then she said: "Aunt Bell, when a woman comes to make +her very last effort at self-deception, why does she fling herself into +it with such abandon--such pretentious flourishes of remorse--and +things? Is it because some under layer of her soul knows it will be the +last and will have it a thorough test? I wonder how much of an arrant +fraud a woman may really be to herself, even in her surest, happiest +moments." + +"There you are again, wondering, wondering--instead of accepting things +and dressing for dinner. Have you seen Allan?" + +"Oh, yes--I've been seeing him for three days--through a glass, darkly." + +Aunt Bell flounced on into the library, trailing something perilously +near a sniff. + +Bernal came down the stairs and stood in the door. + +"Well, Nance!" He went to stand before her and she looked up to him. +There was still light enough to see his eyes--enough to see, also, that +he was embarrassed. + +"Well--I've had quite a talk with Allan." He laughed a little +constrained, uneasy laugh, looking quickly at her to see if she might be +observing him. "He's the same fine old chap, isn't he?" Quickly his eyes +again sought her face. "Yes, indeed, he's the same old boy--a great old +Allan--only he makes me feel that I have changed, Nance." + +She arose from her chair, feeling cramped and restless from sitting so +long. + +"I'm sure you haven't changed, Bernal." + +"Oh, I must have!" + +He was looking at her very closely through the dusk. + +"Yes, we had an interesting talk," he said again. + +He reached out to take one of her hands, which he held an instant in +both his own. "He's a rare old Allan, Nance!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS OF THE GREAT MACHINE + + +For three days the brothers were inseparable. There were so many ancient +matters to bring forward of which each could remember but a half; so +many new ones, of which each must tell his own story. And there was a +matter of finance between them that had been brought forward by Allan +without any foolish delay. Each of them spoke to Nancy about it. + +"Bernal has pleased me greatly," said her husband. "He agrees that +Grandfather Delcher could not have been himself when he made that +will--being made as it was directly after he sent Bernal off. He finds +it absurd that the old man, so firm a Christian, should have +disinherited a Christian, one devoted to the ministry of Jesus, for an +unbeliever like Bernal. It is true, I talked to him in this strain +myself, and I cannot deny that I wield even a greater influence over men +than over women. I dare say I could have brought Bernal around even had +he been selfish and stubborn. By putting a proposition forward as a +matter of course, one may often induce another to accept it as such, +whereas he might dispute it if it were put forward as at all debatable. +But as a matter of fact he required no talking to; he accepted my views +readily. The boy doesn't seem to know the value of money. I really +believe he may decide to make over the whole of the property to me. That +is what I call a beautiful unselfishness. But I shall do handsomely by +him--probably he can use some money in that cattle business. I had +thought first of ten thousand dollars, but doubtless half that will be +wiser. I shall insist upon his taking at least half that. He will find +that unselfishness is a game two can play at." + +Nancy had listened to this absently, without comment. Nor had Bernal +moved her to speech when he said, "You know, Allan is such a sensitive +old chap--you wouldn't guess how sensitive. His feelings were actually +hurt because I'd kept him out of grandad's money all these years. He'd +forgotten that I didn't know I was doing it. Of course the old boy was +thinking what he'd have done in my place--but I think I can make it +right with him--I'm sure now he knows I didn't mean to wrong him." + +Yet during this speech he had shot furtive little questioning looks at +her face, as if to read those thoughts he knew she would not put into +words. + +But she only smiled at Bernal. Her husband, however, found her more +difficult than ever after communicating his news to her. He tried once +to imagine her being dissatisfied with him for some reason. But this +attempt he abandoned. Thereafter he attributed her coldness, aloofness, +silence, and moodiness to some nervous malady peculiar to the modern +woman. Bernal's presence kept him from noting how really pronounced and +unwavering her aversion had become. + +Nor did Bernal note her attitude. Whatever he may have read in Allan at +those times when the look of cold appraisement was turned full upon him, +he had come to know of his brother's wife only that she was Nancy of the +old days, strangely surviving to greet him and be silent with him, or to +wonder with him when he came in out of that preposterous machine of many +wheels that they called the town. No one but Nancy saw anything about it +to wonder at. + +To Bernal, after his years in the big empty places, it was a part of all +the world and of all times compacted in a small space. One might see in +it ancient Jerusalem, Syria, Persia, Rome and modern Babylon--with +something still peculiar and unclassifiable that one would at length +have to call New York. And to make it more absorbing, the figures were +always moving. Where so many were pressed together each was weighted by +a thousand others--the rich not less than the poor; each was stirred to +quick life and each was being visibly worn down by the ceaseless +friction. + +When he had walked the streets for a week, he saw the city as a huge +machine, a machine to which one might not even deliver a message without +becoming a part of it--a wheel of it. It was a machine always +readjusting, always perfecting, always repairing itself--casting out +worn or weak parts and taking in others--ever replacing old wheels with +new ones, and never disdaining any new wheel that found its place--that +could give its cogs to the general efficiency, consenting to be worn +down by the unceasing friction. + +Looking down Broadway early one evening--a shining avenue of joy--he +thought of the times when he had gazed across a certain valley of his +West and dreamed of bringing a message to this spot. + +Against the sky many electric signs flamed garishly. Beneath them were +the little grinding wheels of the machine--satisfied, joyous, wisely +sufficient unto themselves, needing no message--least of all the simple +old truth he had to give. He tried to picture his message blazing +against the sky among the other legends: from where he stood the three +most salient were the names of a popular pugilist, a malt beverage and a +theatre. The need of another message was not apparent. + +So he laughed at himself and went down into the crowd foregathered in +ways of pleasure, and there he drank of the beer whose name was flaunted +to the simple stars. Truly a message to this people must be put into a +sign of electric bulbs; into a phonograph to be listened to for a coin, +with an automatic banjo accompaniment; or it must be put upon the stage +to be acted or sung or danced! Otherwise he would be a wheel rejected--a +wheel ground up in striving to become a part of the machine at a place +where no wheel was needed. + +For another experience cooling to his once warm hopes, the second day of +his visit Allan had taken him to his weekly Ministers' Meeting--an +affair less formidable than its title might imply. + +A dozen or so good fellows of the cloth had luncheon together each +Tuesday at the house of one or another, or at a restaurant; and here +they talked shop or not as they chose, the thing insisted upon being +congeniality--that for once in the week they should be secure from +bores. + +Here Presbyterian and Unitarian met on common ground; Baptist, Catholic, +Episcopalian, Congregationalist, Methodist--all became brothers over the +soup. Weekly they found what was common and helpful to all in discussing +details of church administration, matters of faith, methods of handling +their charitable funds; or the latest heresy trial. They talked of these +things amiably, often lightly. They were choice spirits relaxed, who +might be grave or gay, as they listed. + +Their vein was not too serious the day Bernal was his brother's guest, +sitting between the very delightful Father Riley and the exciting +Unitarian, one Whittaker. With tensest interest he listened to their +talk. + +At first there was a little of Delitzsch and his Babel-Bible addresses, +brought up by Selmour, an amiable Presbyterian of shining bare pate and +cheerful red beard, a man whom scandal had filliped ever so coyly with a +repute of leanings toward Universalism. + +This led to a brief discussion of the old and new theology--Princeton +standing for the old with its definition of Christianity as "a piece of +information given supernaturally and miraculously"; Andover standing for +the new--so alleged Whittaker--with many polite and ingenious evasions +of this proposition without actually repudiating it. + +The Unitarian, however, was held to be the least bit too literal in his +treatment of propositions not his own. + +Then came Pleydell, another high-church Episcopalian who, over his chop +and a modest glass of claret, declared earnest war upon the whole +Hegel-Darwinian-Wellhausen school. His method of attack was to state +baldly the destructive conclusions of that school--that most of the +books of the Old Testament are literary frauds, intentionally +misrepresenting the development of religion in Israel; that the whole +Mosaic code is a later fabrication and its claim to have been given in +the wilderness an historical falsehood. From this he deduced that a mere +glance at the Bible, as the higher critics explain it, must convince the +earnest Christian that he can have no share in their views. "Deprive +Christianity of its supernatural basis," he said, "and you would have a +mere speculative philosophy. Deny the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden, +and the Atonement becomes meaningless. If we have not incurred God's +wrath through Adam's disobedience, we need no Saviour. That is the way +to meet the higher criticism," he concluded earnestly. + +As the only rule of the association was that no man should talk long +upon any matter, Floud, the fiery and aggressive little Baptist, +hereupon savagely reviewed a late treatise on the ethnic Trinities, put +out by a professor of ecclesiastical history in a New England +theological seminary. Floud marvelled that this author could retain his +orthodox standing, for he viewed the Bible as a purely human collection +of imperfect writings, the wonder-stories concerning the birth and death +of Jesus as deserving no credence, and denied to Christianity any +supernatural foundation. Polytheism was shown to be the soil from which +all trinitarian conceptions naturally spring--the Brahmanic, +Zoroastrian, Homeric, Plotinian, as well as the Christian trinity--the +latter being a Greek idea engrafted on a Jewish stalk. The author's +conclusion, by which he reached "an undogmatic gospel of the spirit, +independent of all creeds and forms--a gospel of love to God and man, +with another Trinity of Love, Truth and Freedom," was particularly +irritating to the disturbed Baptist, who spoke bitterly of the day +having dawned when the Church's most dangerous enemies were those +critical vipers whom she had warmed in her own bosom. + +Suffield, the gaunt, dark, but twinkling-eyed Methodist, also sniffed +at the conclusion of the ethnic-trinities person. "We have an age of +substitutes," he remarked. "We have had substitutes for silk and +sealskin--very creditable substitutes, so I have been assured by +a lady in whom I have every confidence--substitutes for coffee, +for diamonds--substitutes for breakfast which are widely +advertised--substitutes for medicine--and now we are coming to have +substitutes for religion--even a substitute for hell!" + +Hereupon he told of a book he had read, also written by an orthodox +professor of theology, in which the argument, advanced upon scriptural +evidence, was that the wicked do not go into endless torment, but +ultimately shrivel and sink into a state of practical unconsciousness. +Yet the author had been unable to find any foundation for universalism. +This writer, Suffield explained, holds that the curtain falls after the +judgment on a lost world. Nor is there probation for the soul after the +body dies. The Scriptures teach the ruin of the final rejecters of +Christ; Christ teaches plainly that they who reject the Gospel will +perish in the endless darkness of night. But eternal punishment does not +necessarily mean eternal suffering; hence the hypothesis of the soul +gradually shrivelling for the sin of its unbelief. + +The amiable Presbyterian sniffed at this as a sentimental quibble. +Punishment ceases to be punishment when it is not felt--one cannot +punish a tree or an unconscious soul. But this was the spirit of the +age. With the fires out in hell, no wonder we have an age of sugar-candy +morality and cheap sentimentalism. + +But here the Unitarian wickedly interrupted, to remind his Presbyterian +brother that his own church had quenched those very certain fires that +once burned under the pit in which lay the souls of infants unbaptised. + +The amiable Presbyterian, not relishing this, still amiably threw the +gauntlet down to Father Riley, demanding the Catholic view of the future +of unbaptised children. + +The speech of the latter was a mellow joy--a south breeze of liquid +consonants and lilting vowels finely articulated. Perhaps it was not a +little owing to the good man's love for what he called "oiling the rusty +hinges of the King's English with a wee drop of the brogue"; but, if so, +the oil was so deftly spread that no one word betrayed its presence. +Rather was his whole speech pervaded by this soft delight, especially +when his cherubic face, his pink cheeks glistening in certain lights +with a faint silvery stubble of beard, mellowed with his gentle smile. +It was so now, even when he spoke of God's penalties for the souls of +reprobate infants. + +"All theologians of the Mother Church are agreed," replied the gracious +father, "first, that infants dying unbaptised are excluded from the +Kingdom of Heaven. Second, that they will not enjoy the beatific vision +outside of heaven. Third, that they will arise with adults and be +assembled for judgment on the last day. And, fourth, that after the last +day there will be but two states, namely: a state of supernatural and +supreme felicity and a state of what, in a wide sense, we may call +damnation." + +Purlingly the good man went on to explain that damnation is a state +admitting of many degrees; and that the unbaptised infant would not +suffer in that state the same punishment as the adult reprobate. While +the latter would suffer positive pains of mind and body for his sins, +the unfortunate infant would doubtless suffer no pain of sense whatever. +As to their being exempt from the pain of loss, grieving over their +exclusion from the sight of God and the glories of His Kingdom, it is +more commonly held that they do not suffer even this; that even if they +know others are happier than themselves, they are perfectly resigned to +God's will and suffer no pain of loss in regard to happiness not suited +to their condition. + +The Presbyterian called upon them to witness that his church was thus +not unique in attaining this sentimentality regarding reprobate infants. + +Then little Floud cited the case of still another heretic within the +church, a professor in a western Methodist university, who declared that +biblical infallibility is a superstitious and hurtful tradition; that +all the miracles are mere poetic fancies, incredible and untrue--even +irreverent; and that all spiritual truth comes to man through his brain +and conscience. Modern preaching, according to the book of this heretic, +lacks power because so many churches cling to the tradition that the +Bible is infallible. It is the golden calf of their worship; the +palpable lie that gives the ring of insincerity to all their moral +exhortations. + +So the talk flowed on until the good men agreed that a peculiarity of +the time lay in this: that large numbers of ministers within the church +were publishing the most revolutionary heresies while still clinging to +some shred of their tattered orthodoxy. + +Also they decided that it would not be without interest to know what +belief is held by the man of common education and intelligence--the man +who behaves correctly but will not go to church. + +Here Father Riley sweetly reminded them--"No questions are asked in the +Mother Church, gentlemen, that may not be answered with authority. In +your churches, without an authority superior to mere reason, destructive +questions will be asked more and more frequently." + +Gravely they agreed that the church was losing its hold on the people. +That but for its social and charitable activities, its state would be +alarming. + +"Your churches!" Father Riley corrected with suave persistence. "No +church can endure without an infallible head." + +Again and again during the meal Bernal had been tempted to speak. But +each time he had been restrained by a sense of his aloofness. These men, +too, were wheels within the machine, each revolving as he must. They +would simply pity him, or be amused. + +More and more acutely was he coming to feel the futility, the crass, +absurd presumption of what he had come back to undertake. From the lucid +quiet of his mountain haunts he had descended into a vale where +antiquated cymbals clashed in wild discordance above the confusing +clatter of an intricate machinery--machinery too complicated to be +readjusted by a passing dreamer. In his years of solitude he had grown +to believe that the teachers of the world were no longer dominated by +that ancient superstition of a superhumanly malignant God. He had been +prepared to find that the world-ideal had grown more lofty in his +absence, been purified by many eliminations into a God who, as he had +once said to Nance, could no more spare the soul of a Hottentot than the +soul of a pope. Yet here was a high type of the priest of the Mother +Church, gentle, Godly, learned, who gravely and as one having authority +told how God would blight forever the soul of a child unbaptised, thus +imputing to Deity a regard for mechanical rites that would constitute +even a poor human father an incredible monster. + +Yet the marvel of it seemed to him to lie in this: that the priest +himself lived actually a life of loving devotion and sacrifice in marked +opposition to this doctrine of formal cruelty; that his church, more +successfully than any other in Christendom, had met the needs of +humanity, coming closer to men in their sin and sickness, ministering to +them with a deeper knowledge, a more affectionate intimacy, than any +other. That all these men of God should hold formally to dogmas belying +the humaneness of their actual practise--here was the puzzling anomaly +that might well give pause to any casual message-bringer. Struggle as he +might, it was like a tangling mesh cast over him--this growing sense of +his own futility. + +Along with this conviction of his powerlessness there came to him a new +sense of reliance upon Nancy. Unconsciously at first he turned to her +for sunlight, big views and quiet power, for the very stimulus he had +been wont to draw from the wide, high reaches of his far-off valley. +Later, came a conscious turning, an open-eyed bringing of all his needs, +to lay them in her waiting lap. Then it was he saw that on that first +night at Edom her confidence and enthusiasm had been things he leaned +upon quite naturally, though unwittingly. The knowledge brought him a +vague unrest. Furtive, elusive impulses, borne to him on the wings of +certain old memories--memories once resolutely put away in the face of +his one, big world-desire--now came to trouble him. + +It seemed that one must forever go in circles. With fine courage he had +made straight off to toil up the high difficult paths of the ideal. +Never had he consciously turned, nor even swerved. Yet here he was at +length upon his old tracks, come again to the wondering girl. + +Did it mean, then, that his soul was baffled--or did it mean that his +soul would not suffer him to baffle it, try as he might? Was that girl +of the old days to greet him with her wondering eyes at the end of every +high path? These and many other questions he asked himself. + +At the close of this day he sought her, eager for the light of her +understanding eyes--for a certain waiting sympathy she never withheld. +As she looked up now with a kind of composed gladness, it seemed to him +that they two alone, out of all the world, were sanely quiet. Silently +he sank into a chair near her and they sat long thus, feeling no need of +words. At last she spoke. + +"Are you coming nearer to it, Bernal?" + +He laughed. + +"I'm farther away than ever, Nance. Probably there's but one creature in +this city to-day as out of place as I am. He's a big, awkward, +country-looking dog, and he was lost on Broadway. Did you ever see a +lost dog in a city street? This fellow was actually in a panic, wholly +demoralised, and yet he seemed to know that he must conceal it for his +own safety. So he affected a fine air of confidence, of being very busy +about an engagement for which he feared he might be late. He would trot +swiftly along for half a block, then pause as if trying to recall the +street number; then trot a little farther, and stop to look back as if +the other party to his engagement might happen along from that +direction. It was a splendid bit of acting, and it deceived them all, in +that street of mutterers and hard faces. He was like one of them, busy +and hurried, but apparently cool, capable, and ominously alert. Only, in +his moments of indecision, his eyes shifted the least bit nervously, as +if to note whether the real fear he felt were detected, and then I could +read all his secret consternation. + +"I'm the same lost dog, Nance. I feel as he felt every time I go into +that street where the poor creatures hurry and talk to themselves from +sheer nervous fatigue." + +He ceased speaking, but she remained silent, fearing lest she say too +little or too much. + +"Nance," he said presently with a slow, whimsical glance, "I'm beginning +to suspect that I'm even more of a fool than Hoover thought me--and he +was rather enthusiastic about it, I assure you!" + +To which she at length answered musingly: + +"If God makes us fools, doubtless he likes to have us thorough. Be a +great fool, Bernal. Don't be a small one." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE INEFFECTIVE MESSAGE + + +The week had gone while he walked in the crowds, feeling his remoteness; +but he knew at last that he was not of the brotherhood of the zealots; +that the very sense of humour by which he saw the fallacies of one +zealot prevented him from becoming another. He lacked the zealot's +conviction of his unique importance, yet one must be such a zealot to +give a message effectively. He began to see that the world could not be +lost; that whatever might be vital in his own message would, soon or +late, be delivered by another. The time mattered not. Could he not be as +reposeful, as patient, as God? + +In spite of which, the impulse to speak his little word would recur; and +it came upon him stoutly one day on his way up town. As the elevated +train slowly rounded a curve he looked into the open window of a room +where a gloomy huddle of yellow-faced, sunken-cheeked, brown-bearded men +bent their heads over busy sewing-machines. Nearest the window, full +before it, was one that touched him--a young man with some hardy spirit +of hope still enduring in his starved face, some stubborn refusal to +recognise the odds against him. And fixed to his machine, where his eyes +might now and then raise to it from his work, was a spray of lilac--his +little spirit flaunting itself gaily even from the cross. The pathos of +it was somehow intensified by the grinding of the wheels that carried +him by it. + +The train creaked its way around the curve--but the face dreaming +happily over the lilac spray in that hopeless room stayed in his mind, +coercing him. + +As he entered the house, Nancy met him. + +"Do go and be host to those men. It's our day for the Ministers' +Meeting," she continued, as he looked puzzled, "and just as they sat +down Allan was called out to one of his people who is sick. Now run like +a good boy and 'tend to them." + +So it came that, while the impulse was still strong upon him, he went in +among the dozen amiable, feeding gentlemen who were not indisposed to +listen to whomsoever might talk--if he did not bore--which is how it +befell that they had presently cause to remark him. + +Not at first, for he mumbled hesitatingly, without authority of manner +or point to his words, but the phrase, "the fundamental defect of the +Christian religion" caused even the Unitarian to gasp over his glass of +mineral water. His green eyes glittered pleasantly upon Bernal from his +dark face with its scraggly beard. + +"That's it, Mr. Linford--tell us that--we need to know that--do we not, +gentlemen?" + +"Speak for yourself, Whittaker," snapped the aggressive little Baptist, +"but doubtless Mr. Linford has something to say." + +Bernal remained unperturbed by this. Very earnestly he continued: +"Christianity is defective, judged even by poor human standards; untrue +by the plain facts of human consciousness." + +"Ah! Now we shall learn!" Father Riley turned his most gracious smile +upon the speaker. + +"Your churches are losing their hold upon men because your religion is +one of separation, here and hereafter--while the one great tendency of +the age is toward brotherhood--oneness. Primitive man had individual +pride--family pride, city pride, state pride, national pride +followed--but we are coming now to the only permissible pride, a world +pride--in which the race feels its oneness. We are nearly there; even +now the spirit that denies this actual brotherhood is confined to the +churches. The people outside more generally than you dream know that God +does not discriminate among religions--that he has a scheme of a dignity +so true that it can no more permit the loss of one black +devil-worshipper than that of the most magnificent of archbishops." + +He stopped, looking inquiringly--almost wistfully, at them. + +Various polite exclamations assured him of their interest. + +"Continue, by all means," urged Whittaker. "I feel that you will have +even Father Riley edified in a moment." + +"The most cynical chap--even for a Unitarian," purled that good man. + +Bernal resumed. + +"Your God is a tribal God who performed his wonders to show that he had +set a difference between Israel and Egypt. Your Saviour continues to set +the same difference: Israel being those who believed his claim to +Godship; Egypt those who find his evidence insufficient. But we humans +daily practise better than this preaching of retaliation. The Church is +losing power because your creeds are fixed while man, never ceasing to +grow, has inevitably gone beyond them--even beyond the teachings of your +Saviour who threatened to separate father from son and mother from +daughter--who would distinguish sheep from goats by the mere +intellectual test of the opinion they formed of his miracles. The world +to-day insists on moral tests--which Christianity has never done." + +"Ah--now we are getting at it," remarked the Methodist, whose twinkling +eyes curiously belied his grimly solemn face. "Who was it that wished to +know the belief of the average unbeliever?" + +"The average unbeliever," answered Bernal promptly, "no longer feels the +need of a Saviour--he knows that he must save himself. He no longer +believes in the God who failed always, from Eden to Calvary, failed even +to save his chosen tribe by that last device of begetting a son of a +human mother who should be sacrificed to him. He no longer believes that +he must have a mediator between himself and that God." + +"Really, most refreshing," chortled Father Riley. "More, more!" and he +rapped for silence. + +"The man of to-day must have a God who never fails. Disguise it as you +will, your Christian God was never loved. No God can be loved who +threatens destruction for not loving him. We cannot love one whom we are +not free _not_ to love." + +"Where shall we find this God--outside of Holy Writ," demanded Floud, +who had once or twice restrained himself with difficulty, in spite of +his amusement. + +"The true God comes to life in your own consciousness, if you will clear +it of the blasphemous preconceptions imposed by Christianity," answered +Bernal so seriously that no one had the heart to interrupt him. "Of +course we can never personify God save as a higher power of self. Moses +did no more; Jesus did no more. And if we could stop with this--be +content with saying 'God is better than the best man'--we should have a +formula permitting endless growth, even as He permits it to us. God has +been more generous to us than the Church has been to Him. While it has +limited Him to that god of bloody sacrifice conceived by a barbaric Jew, +He has permitted us to grow so that now any man who did not surpass him +morally, as the scriptures portray him, would be a man of inconceivable +malignity. + +"You see the world has demonstrated facts that disprove the Godship of +your God and your Saviour. We have come, indeed, into a sense of such +certain brotherhood that we know your hell is a falsity. We know--a +knowledge of even the rudiments of psychology proves--_that there will +be a hell for all as long as one of us is there_. Our human nature is +such that one soul in hell would put every other soul there. Daily this +becomes more apparent. We grow constantly more sensitive to the pain of +others. This is the distinctive feature of modern growth--our increasing +tendency to find the sufferings of others intolerable to ourselves. A +disaster now is felt around the world--we burn or starve or freeze or +drown with our remote brothers--and we do what we can to relieve them +because we suffer with them. It seems to me the existence of the +S.P.C.A. proves that hell is either for all of us or for none of +us--because of our oneness. If the suffering of a stray cat becomes our +suffering, do you imagine that the minority of the race which +Christianity saves could be happy knowing that the great majority lay in +torment? + +"Suppose but two were left in hell--Judas Iscariot and Herbert +Spencer--the first great sinner after Jesus and the last of any +consequence. One betrayed his master and the other did likewise, only +with far greater subtlety and wickedness--teaching thousands to +disbelieve his claims to godhood--to regard Christianity as a crude +compound of Greek mythology and Jewish tradition--a thing built of myth +and fable. Even if these two were damned and all the rest were +saved--can you not see that a knowledge of their suffering would +embitter heaven itself to another hell? Father Riley was good enough to +tell us last week of the state of unbaptised infants after death. Will +you please consider coldly the infinite, good God setting a difference +for all eternity between two babies, because over the hairless pate of +one a priest had sprinkled water and spoken words? Can you not see that +this is untrue because it is absurd to our God-given senses of humour +and justice? Do you not see that such a God, in the act of separating +those children, taking into heaven the one that had had its little head +wetted by a good man, and sending the reprobate into what Father Riley +terms, 'in a wide sense, a state of damnation'--" + +Father Riley smiled upon him with winning sweetness. + +"--do you not see that such a God would be shamed off his throne and +out of heaven by the pitying laugh that would go up--even from sinners? + +"You insist that the truth touching faith and morals is in your Bible, +despite its historical inaccuracies. But do you not see that you are +losing influence with the world because this is not so--because a higher +standard of ethics than yours prevails out in the world--a demand for a +veritable fatherhood of God and a veritable brotherhood of man--to +replace the caricatures of those doctrines that Christianity submits." + +"Our young friend seems to think exceeding well of human nature," +chirped Father Riley. + +"Yes," rejoined Bernal. "Isn't it droll that this poor, fallen human +nature, despised and reviled, 'conceived in sin and born in iniquity,' +should at last call the Christian God and Saviour to account, weigh them +by its own standard, find them wanting, and replace them with a greater +God born of itself? Is not that an eloquent proof of the living God that +abides in us?" + +"Has it ever occurred to you, young man, that human nature has its +selfish moments?" asked the high-church rector--between sips of claret +and water. + +"Has it ever occurred to you that human nature has _any_ but selfish +moments?" replied Bernal. "If so, your impression was incorrect." + +"Really, Mr. Linford, have you not just been telling us how glorious is +this nature of man--" + +"I know--I will explain to you," he went on, moving Father Riley to +another indulgent smile by his willingness to instruct the gray-bearded +Congregationalist who had interrupted. + +"When I saw that there must be a hell for all so long as there is a hell +for one--even for Spencer--I suddenly saw there was nothing in any man +to merit the place--unless it were the ignorance of immaturity. For I +saw that man by the very first law of his being can never have any but a +selfish motive. Here again practical psychology sustains me. You cannot +so much as raise your hand without an intention to promote your +happiness--nor are you less selfish if you give your all to the +needy--you are still equally doing that which promotes your happiness. +That it is more blessed to give than to receive is a terse statement of +a law scientifically demonstrable. You all know how far more exquisite +is the pleasure that comes from giving than that which comes from +receiving. Is not one who prefers to give then simply selfish with a +greater wisdom, a finer skill for the result desired--his own pleasure? +The man we call good is not less selfish than the man we call bad--only +wiser in the ways that bring his happiness--riper in that divine +sensitiveness to the feelings of his brother. Selfish happiness is +equally a law with all, though it send one of us to thieving and another +to the cross. + +"Ignorance of this primary truth has kept the world in spiritual +darkness--it has nurtured belief in sin--in a devil, in a God that +permits evil. For when you tell me that my assertion is a mere +quibble--that it matters not whether we call a man unselfish or wisely +selfish--you fail to see that, when we understand this truth, there is +no longer any sin. 'Sin' is then seen to be but a mistaken notion of +what brings happiness. Last night's burglar and your bishop differ not +morally but intellectually--one knowing surer ways of achieving his own +happiness, being more sensitive to that oneness of the race which +thrills us all in varying degrees. When you know this--that the +difference is not moral but intellectual, self-righteousness disappears +and with it a belief in moral difference--the last obstacle to the +realisation of our oneness. It is in the church that this fiction of +moral difference has taken its final stand. + +"And not only shall we have no full realisation of the brotherhood of +man until this inevitable, equal selfishness is understood, but we shall +have no rational conception of virtue. There will be no sound morality +until it is taught for its present advantage to the individual, and not +for what it may bring him in a future world. Not until then will it be +taught effectively that the well-being of one is inextricably bound up +with the well-being of all; that while man is always selfish, his +selfish happiness is still contingent on the happiness of his brother." + +The moment of coffee had come. The Unitarian lighted a black cigar and +avidly demanded more reasons why the Christian religion was immoral. + +"Still for the reason that it separates," continued Bernal, "separates +not only hereafter but here. We have kings and serfs, saints and +sinners, soldiers to kill one another--God is still a God of Battle. +There is no Christian army that may not consistently invoke your God's +aid to destroy any other Christian army--none whose spiritual guides do +not pray to God for help in the work of killing other Christians. So +long as you have separation hereafter, you will have these absurd +divisions here. So long as you preach a Saviour who condemns to +everlasting punishment for disbelief, so long you will have men pointing +to high authority for all their schemes of revenge and oppression here. + +"Not until you preach a God big enough to save all can you arouse men to +the truth that all must be saved. Not until you have a God big enough to +love all can you have a church big enough to hold all. + +"An Indian in a western town must have mastered this truth. He had +watched a fight between drunken men in which one shot the other. He said +to me, 'When I see how bad some of my brothers are, I know how good the +Great Spirit must be to love them all!'" + +"Was--was he a member of any church?" inquired the amiable Presbyterian, +with a facetious gleam in his eyes. + +"I didn't ask him--of course we know he wasn't a Presbyterian." + +Hereupon Father Riley and the wicked Unitarian both laughed joyously. +Then the Congregationalist, gazing dreamily through the smoke of his +cigarette, remarked, "You have omitted any reference to the great fact +of Christianity--the sacrifice of the Son of Man." + +"Very well, I will tell you about it," answered the young man quite +earnestly, whereat the Unitarian fairly glowed with wicked +anticipations. + +"Let us face that so-called sacrifice honestly. Jesus died to save those +who could accept his claim to god-ship--believing that he would go to +sit at the right hand of God to judge the world. But look--an engineer +out here the other day died a horrible death to save the lives of a +scant fifty people--their mere physical lives--died out of that simple +sense of oneness which makes us selfishly fear for the suffering of +others--died without any hope of superior exaltation hereafter. Death of +this sort is common. I would not belittle him you call the Saviour--as a +man he is most beautiful and moving to me--but that shall not blind me +to the fact that the sacrificial element in his death is surpassed daily +by common, dull humans." + +A veiled uneasiness was evident on the part of his listeners, but the +speaker gave no heed. + +"This spectacle of sacrifice, of devotion to others, is needed as an +uplift," he went on earnestly, "but why dwell upon one remote--obscured +by claims of a God-jugglery which belittle it if they be true--when all +about you are countless plain, unpretentious men and women dying deaths +and--what is still greater,--living lives of cool, relentless devotion +out of sheer human love. + +"Preach this divineness of human nature and you will once more have a +living church. Preach that our oneness is so real that the best man is +forever shackled to the worst. Preach that sin is but ignorant +selfishness, less admirable than virtue only as ignorance is less +admirable than knowledge. + +"In these two plain laws--the individual's entire and unvarying +selfishness and his ever-increasing sensitiveness to the sufferings of +others--there is the promise not of a heaven and a hell, but of a heaven +for all--which is what the world is more and more emphatically +demanding--which it will eventually produce even here--for we have as +little sensed the possibilities of man's life here as we have divined +the attributes of God himself. + +"Once you drove away from your church the big men, the thinkers, the +fearless--the souls God must love most truly were it possible to +conceive him setting a difference among his creatures. Now you drive +away even the merely intelligent rabble. The average man knows your +defect--knows that one who believes Christ rose from the dead is not by +that fact the moral superior of one who believes he did not; knows, +indeed, of God, that he cannot be a fussy, vain, blustering creature who +is forever failing and forever visiting the punishment for his failures +upon his puppets. + +"This is why you are no longer considered a factor in civilisation, save +as a sort of police-guard upon the very ignorant. And you are losing +this prestige. Even the credulous day-labourer has come to weigh you and +find you wanting--is thrilling with his own God-assurance and stepping +forth to save himself as best he can. + +"But, if you would again draw man, heat him, weld him, hold him--preach +Man to him, show him his own goodness instead of loading him with that +vicious untruth of his conception in iniquity. Preach to him the +limitless devotion of his common dull brothers to one another through +their sense of oneness. Show him the common beautiful, wonderful, +selfish self-giving of humanity, not for an hour or for a day, but for +long hard life-times. Preach the exquisite adjustment of that human +nature which must always seek its own happiness, yet is slowly finding +that that happiness depends on the happiness of all. The lives of daily +crucifixion without hope of reward are abundant all about you--you all +know them. And if once you exploit these actual sublimities of human +nature--of the man in the street--no tale of devotion in Holy Writ will +ever again move you as these do. And when you have preached this long +enough, then will take place in human society, naturally, spontaneously, +that great thing which big men have dreamed of doing with their +artificial devices of socialism and anarchism. For when you have +demonstrated the race's eternal oneness man will be as little tempted to +oppress, starve, enslave, murder or separate his brothers as he is now +tempted to mutilate his own body. Then only will he love his neighbor as +himself--still with a selfish love. + +"Preach Man to man as a discovery in Godhood. You will not revive the +ancient glories of your Church, but you will build a new church to a God +for whom you will not need to quibble or evade or apologise. Then you +will make religion the one force, and you will rally to it those great +minds whose alienation has been both your reproach and your +embarrassment. You will enlist not only the scientist but the poet--and +all between. You will have a God to whom all confess instinctively." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE WOMAN AT THE END OF THE PATH + + +He stopped, noticing that the chairs were pushed back. There was an +unmistakeable air of boredom, though one or two of the men still smoked +thoughtfully. One of these, indeed--the high church rector--even came +back with a question, to the undisguised apprehension of several +brothers. + +"You have formulated a certain fashion of belief, Mr. Linford, one I +dare say appealing to minds that have not yet learned that even reason +must submit to authority; but you must admit that this revelation of God +in the human heart carries no authoritative assurance of immortality." + +Bernal had been sitting in some embarrassment, dismayed at his own +vehemence, but this challenge stirred him. + +"True," he answered, "but let us thank God for uncertainty, if it take +the place of Christian belief in a sparsely peopled heaven and a crowded +hell." + +"Really, you know--" + +"I know nothing of a future life; but I prefer ignorance to a belief +that the most heinous baby that ever died in sin is to languish in a +state of damnation--even 'in a wide sense' as our good friend puts it." + +"But, surely, that is the first great question of all people in all +ages--'If a man die shall he live again?' + +"Because there has never been any dignified conception of a Supreme +Being. I have tried to tell you what my own faith is--faith in a God +wiser and more loving than I am, who, being so, has devised no mean +little scheme of revenge such as you preach. A God more loving than my +own human father, a God whose plan is perfect whether it involve my +living or dying. Whether I shall die to life or to death is not within +my knowledge; but since I know of a truth that the God I believe in must +have a scheme of worth and dignity, I am unconcerned. Whether his plan +demand extinction or immortality, I worship him for it, not holding him +to any trivial fancy of mine. God himself can be no surer of his plan's +perfection than I am. I call this faith--faith the more perfect that it +is without condition, asking neither sign nor miracle." + +"And life is so good that I've no time to whine. If this _ego_ of mine +is presently to become unnecessary in the great Plan, my faith is still +triumphant. It would be interesting to know the end, but it's not so +important as to know that I am no better--only a little wiser in certain +ways--than yesterday's murderer. Living under the perfect plan of a +perfect Creator, I need not trouble about hidden details when so many +not hidden are more vital. When, in some far-off future, we learn to +live here as fully and beautifully as we have power to, I doubt not that +in the natural ways of growth we shall learn more of this detail of life +we call 'death'--but I can imagine nothing of less consequence to one +who has faith. + +"I saw a stanza the other day that tells it well: + + "'We know not whence is life, nor whither death, + Know not the Power that circumscribes our breath. + But yet we do not fear; what made us men, + What gave us love, shall we not trust again?'" + +While quoting the lines his eyes had been straight ahead, absently +dwelling upon the space between the slightly parted doors that gave into +the next room. But even as he spoke, the last line faltered and halted. +His glance slowly stiffened out of widening eyes to the face it had +caught there--a face new, strange, mesmeric, that all at once enchained +him soul and body. With a splendid, reckless might it assailed him--left +him dazed, deaf, speechless. + +It was the face of Nancy, for the first time all its guards down. Full +upon him flamed the illumined eyes that made the face a yielding +radiance; lifted a little was the chin of gentle curves, the under lip +caught as if in that quivering eagerness she no longer breathed--the +face of Nancy, no longer wondering, Nancy at last compelled and +compelling. A moment the warm light flashed from each to each. + +He stopped in a sudden bewilderment, looking blankly, questioningly at +the faces about him. Then out of the first chaos came the sense of +having awakened from some long, quiet sleep--of having suddenly opened +his eyes upon a world from which the morning mists had lifted, to see +himself--and the woman who stood always at the end of that upward +path--face to face for the first time. One by one his outer sensations +returned. At first he heard a blurred murmuring, then he became aware +that some of the men were looking at him curiously, that one of them had +addressed him. He smiled apologetically. + +"I beg your pardon. I--I couldn't have been listening." + +"I merely asked," repeated Floud, "how you expect to satisfy humanity +with the vague hope that you would substitute for the Christian promise +of eternal life." + +He stared stupidly at the questioner. + +"I--I don't know." He passed a hand slowly upward over his forehead. +"Really I can hardly trouble about those matters--there's so much life +to live. I think I knew a moment ago, but I seem to have forgotten, +though it's doubtless no great loss. I dare say it's more important to +be unafraid of life than to be unafraid of death." + +"You were full of reasons a moment ago," reminded Whittaker--"some of +them not uninteresting." + +"Was I? Oh, well, it's a small matter--I've somehow lost hold of it." He +laughed awkwardly. "It seems to have come to me just now that those who +study an apple until it falls from its stem and rots are even more +foolish than those who pluck and eat." + +Again he was silent, with a great hidden impatience for them to be gone. +But Whittaker, the wicked Unitarian, detained them still a moment +longer. + +"How hardly we should believe in a God who saved every one!" he breathed +softly to the remains of his cigar. + +"Humph! Such a God would be a mere mush of concession!" retorted Floud, +the Baptist. + +"And how true," pursued the unruffled Unitarian, "that we cannot worship +a 'mere mush of concession'--how true that our God must hate what we +hate, and punish what we would punish. We might stomach a God who would +save orthodox burglars along with orthodox bishops, but not one who +saved unbaptised infants and adults of unsound doctrine. Dear, dear, +yes! We must have a God with a little human spite in Him or He seems to +be spineless." + +"A hopeless cynic," declared the soft voice of the Catholic--"it's the +Unitarianism working out of him, mind you!" + +"So glad to have met you!" continued the same good man to Bernal. "Your +words are conducive to thought--you're an earnest, decent lad at all +events." + +But Bernal scarcely heard them or identified the speakers. They were to +him but so many noisy wheels of the vast machine, each revolving as it +must. His whole body seemed to send electric sparks of repulsion out to +them to drive them away as quickly as might be. All his energies were +centred to one mighty impulse. + +At last the door closed and he stood alone with the disordered table and +the pushed back chairs, doggedly gathering himself. Then he went to the +doors and with a hand to each, pushed them swiftly apart. + +She stood at the farther side of the room. She seemed to have fled +there, and yet she leaned toward him breathless, again with the under +lip caught fast in its quivering--helpless, piteously helpless. It was +this that stayed him. Had she utterly shrunk away, even had he found her +denying, defiant--the aroused man had prevailed. But seeing her so, he +caught at the back of a chair as if to hold himself. Then he gazed long +and exultingly into the eyes yielded so abjectly to his. For a moment it +filled him to see and know, to be certain that she knew and did not +deny. But the man in him was not yet a reasoning man--too lately had he +come to life. + +He stepped eagerly toward her, to halt only when one weak white hand +faltered up with absurd pretension of a power to ward him off. Nor was +it her hand that made him stop then. That barrier confessed its +frailness in every drooping line. Again it was the involuntary +submission of her whole poise--she had actually leaned a little further +toward him when he started, even as her hand went up. But the helpless +misery in her eyes was still a defense, passive but sufficient. + +Then she spoke and his tension relaxed a little, the note of helpless +suffering in her voice making him wince and fall back a step. + +"Bernal, Bernal, Bernal! It hurts me so, hurts me so! It's the +Gratcher--isn't it hurting you, too? Oh, it must be!" + +He retreated a little, again grasping the back of the chair with one +hand, but there was no restraint in his voice. + +"Laugh, Nance, laugh! You know what laughing does to them!" + +"Not to this one, Bernal--oh, not to this one!" + +"But it's only a Gratcher, Nance! I've been asleep all these years. Now +I'm awake. I'm in the world again--here, do you understand, before you. +And it's a glad, good world. I'm full of its life--and I've money--think +of that! Yesterday I didn't know what money was. I was going to throw it +away--throw it away as lightly as I threw away all those good, precious +years. How much it seems now, and what fine, powerful stuff it is! And +I, like a sleeping fool, was about to let it go at a mere suggestion +from Allan." + +He stopped, as if under the thrust of a cold, keen blade. + +[Illustration: "He gazed long and exultingly into the eyes yielded so +abjectly to his."] + +"Allan--Allan!" he repeated dazedly while the look of pain deepened in +the woman's eyes. He stared back at her dumbly. Then another awakening +became visible in him and he laughed awkwardly. + +"It's funny, Nance--funny--and awful! Do you know that not until I spoke +his name then had a thought of Allan come to me? Can you comprehend it? +I can't now. But it's the truth. I woke up too suddenly. +Allan--Allan--." It sounded as if he were trying to recall some +forgotten personality. "Oh, Allan!" + +The last was more like a cry. He fell into the chair by which he had +stood. And now the woman erected herself, coming forward to stand before +him, her head bowed, her hands convulsively interlocked. + +"Do you see it all, Bernal? Is it plain now? Oh, how it tortured +me--that last Gratcher--the one we make in our own image and yet make to +be perfect. It never hurt me before, but now I know why. It couldn't +hurt me so long as I looked it straight in the eye--but just now my eyes +had to fall before it, and all in a second it was tearing me to pieces. +That's the only defense against this last Gratcher, Bernal, to look it +in the eyes unafraid. And oh, it hurts so--and it's all my own miserable +fault!" + +"No, it's your goodness, Nance." He spoke very quietly now. "Only the +good have a Gratcher that can't be laughed away. My own was late in +coming. Your Gratcher has saved us." + +He stood up and took her unresisting hands in both his own. They rested +there in peace, yielding themselves like tired children to caring arms. + +"Now I shall be healed," she said. + +"It will take me longer, Nance. My hurt is more stubborn, more +complicated. I can't help it. Something in me resists. I see now that I +know too much--too much of you, too much of--" + +She saw that he must have suffered some illumination upon Allan. There +was a look of bitter comprehension in his face as he broke off. She +turned away from it. + +When, an hour later, Allan came in, he found them chatting easily of the +few people of St. Antipas that Bernal had met. At the moment, they were +discussing Mrs. Wyeth, whose face, Bernal declared, was of a rare +perfection. Nance turned to her husband. + +"You must thank Bernal," she said, "for entertaining your guests this +afternoon." + +"He wouldn't if he knew what I said--or how it must have bored them. One +thing, Nance, they won't meet here again until you swear I've gone!" + +"Bernal's heart is right, even if his theology doesn't always please +me," said his brother graciously, examining some cards that lay on the +table. "I see Mrs. Wyeth has called," he continued to Nancy, looking up +from these. + +"Yes. She wanted me to see her sister, poor Mrs. Eversley, who is ill at +her house. I promised to look in to-morrow." + +"I've just been telling Nance how beautiful I think Mrs. Wyeth is," said +Bernal. "She's rare, with that face of the low-browed Greek. It's one of +the memories I shall take back to my Eve-less Eden." + +"She _is_ beautiful," said Nancy. "Of course her nose is the least bit +thin and long, but it rather adds zest to her face. Now I must dress for +dinner." + +When Nancy had gone, Bernal, who had been speaking with a marked +lightness of tone, turned to Allan with an equally marked seriousness. + +"Old chap, you know about that money of mine--of Grandfather's?" + +Allan instantly became attentive. + +"Of course, there's no hurry about that--you must take time to think it +over," he answered. + +"But there _is_ hurry! I shouldn't have waited so long to make up my +mind. + +"Then you _have_ made up your mind?" questioned his brother, with +guarded eagerness. + +"Definitely. It's all yours, Allan. It will help you in what you want to +do. And not having it will help me to do what I want to do--make it +simpler, easier. Take it--and for God's sake be good to Nancy." + +"I can't tell you how you please me, Bernal. Not that I'm avid for +money, but it truly seems more in accord with what must have been +grandfather's real wish. And Nancy--of course I shall be good to +her--though at times she seems unable to please me." + +There was a sanctified displeasure in his tone, as he spoke of Nancy. It +caused Bernal to turn upon him a keen, speculative eye, but only for a +moment. And his next words had to do with matters tangible. "To-morrow +I'll do some of the business that can be done here. Then I'll go up to +Edom and finish the transfers that have to be made there." After a brief +hesitation, he added: "Try to please _her_ a bit, Allan. That's all." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +IN WHICH THE MIRROR IS HELD UP TO HUMAN NATURE + + +When, the next day, Nancy went to pay her promised visit to Mrs. +Eversley, the rectory was steeped in the deep household peace of +mid-afternoon. Both Allan and Bernal had gone out soon after luncheon, +while Aunt Bell had withdrawn into the silence, there to meditate the +first letters of the alphabet of the inexpressible, to hover about the +pleasant line that divides the normal from the subliminal. + +Though bruised and torn, Nancy was still grimly upright in the eye of +duty, still a worthy follower of orthodox ways. Buried in her own +eventful thoughts in that mind-world where love is born and dies, where +beliefs rise and perish but no sound ever disturbs the stillness, she +made her way along the shaded side of the street toward the Wyeth +residence. Not until she had passed several doors beyond the house did +she recall her errand, remember that her walk led to a goal, that she +herself had matters in hand other than thinking, thinking, thinking. + +Retracing her steps, she rang the bell and asked for Mrs. Eversley. +Before the servant could reply, Mrs. Wyeth rustled prettily down the +hall from the library at the back. She wore a gown of primrose yellow. +An unwonted animation lighted the cold perfection of her face, like fire +seen through ice. + +"_So_ glad to see you!" she said with graceful effusion--"And the +Doctor? And that queer, fascinating, puzzling brother of yours, how are +they? So glad! Yes, poor sister keeps to her room and you really mustn't +linger with me an instant. I'm not even going to ask you to sit down. Go +right up. Her door's at the end of the hall, you know. You'll comfort +the poor thing beautifully, you dear!" + +She paused for breath, a vivid smile taking the place of words. Mrs. +Linford, rendered oddly, almost obstinately reserved by this excessive +cordiality, was conscious of something unnatural in that smile--a too +great intensity, like the greenness of artificial palms. + +"Thank you so much for coming, you angel," she went on playfully, "for +doubtless I shall not be visible when you go. You see Donald's off in +the back of the house re-arranging whole shelves of wretched, dusty +books and he fancies that he must have my suggestions." + +"The door at the end of the hall!" she trilled in sweet but unmistakable +dismissal, one arm pointing gracefully aloft from its enveloping foam of +draperies, that same too-intense smile upon the Greek face that even +Nancy, in moments of humane expansion, had admitted to be all but +faultless. And the latter, wondering not a little at the stiff +disposition to have her quickly away, which she had somehow divined +through all the gushing cordiality of Mrs. Wyeth's manner, went on +upstairs. As she rapped at Mrs. Eversley's door, the bell of the street +door sounded in her ears. + +Somewhat less than an hour after, she came softly out again, opening and +closing the door noiselessly. So effectually had she soothed the +invalid, that the latter had fallen into a much-needed sleep, and Nancy, +eager to escape to that mind-world where the happenings are so momentous +and the silence is so tense, had crept like a mouse from the room. + +At the top of the stairs she paused to gather up her skirts. Then her +ears seemed to catch the sound of voices on the floor below and she +remained motionless for a second, listening. She had no desire to +encounter for the second time the torrent of Mrs. Wyeth's manner, no +wish to meet unnecessarily one so disagreeably gifted in the art of +arousing in her an aversion of which she was half ashamed. + +No further sound greeted her straining ears, and, deciding that the way +was clear, she descended the thickly carpeted stairs. Near the bottom, +opposite the open doors of the front drawing-room, she paused to look +into the big mirror on the opposite wall. As she turned her head for a +final touch to the back of her veil, her eyes became alive to something +in that corner of the room now revealed to her by the mirror--something +that held her frozen with embarrassment. + +Though the room lay in the dusk of drawn curtains, the gown of Mrs. +Wyeth showed unmistakably--Mrs. Wyeth abandoned to the close, still +embrace of an unrecognized man. + +Distressed at the awkwardness of her position, Nancy hesitated, not +knowing whether to retreat or go forward. She had decided to go on, +observing nothing--and of course she _had_ observed nothing save an +agreeable incident in the oft impugned domesticity of Mr. and Mrs. +Wyeth--when a further revelation arrested her. + +Even as she put her foot to the next step, the face of Mrs. Wyeth was +lifted and Mrs. Wyeth's big eyes fastened upon hers through the +impartial mirror. But their expression was not that of the placid matron +observed in a passage of conjugal tenderness. Rather, it was one of +acute dismay--almost fear. Poor Mrs. Weyth, who had just said, +"Doubtless I shall not be visible when you go!" + +Even as she caught this look, Nancy started down the remaining steps, +her cheeks hot from her own wretched awkwardness. She wanted to +hurry--to run; she might still escape without having reason to suspect +that the obscured person was other than he should be in the opinion of +an exacting world. Then, as her hand was at the door, while the silken +rustling of that hurried disentanglement was in her ears, the voice of +Wyeth sounded remotely from the rear of the house. It seemed to come +from far back in the library, removed from them by the length of the +double drawing-rooms--a comfortable, smooth, high-pitched voice--lazy, +drawling-- + +"Oh, _Linford!_" + +_Linford!_ The name seemed to sink into the stillness of the great +house, leaving no ripple behind. Before an answer to the call could +come, she had opened the great door and pulled it sharply to behind her. + +Outside, she lingered a moment as if in serenely absent contemplation of +the street, with the air of one who sought to recall her next +engagement. Then, gathering up her skirts, she went leisurely down the +steps and passed unhurriedly from the view of those dismayed eyes that +she felt upon her from the Wyeth window. + +On the avenue she turned north and was presently alone in a shaded aisle +of the park--that park whose very trees and shrubs seem to have taken on +a hard, knowing look from having been so long made the recipients of +cynical confidences. They seemed to understand perfectly what had +happened, to echo Wyeth's high-pitched, friendly drawl, with an added +touch of mockery that was all their own--"Oh--Linford!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +FOR THE SAKE OF NANCY + + +It was toward six o'clock when she ascended the steps of the rectory. +Bernal, coming from the opposite direction, met her at the door. Back of +his glance, as they came together, was an intimation of hidden things, +and at sight of him she was smitten by an electric flash of wonder. The +voice of Wyeth, that friendly, untroubled voice, she now remembered had +called to no specific Linford. In the paralysis of embarrassment that +had seized her in that darkened hallway, she had failed to recall that +there were at least two Linfords in existence. In an instant her inner +world, wrought into something like order in the past two hours, was +again chaos. + +"Why, Nance--you look like night, when there are no stars--what is it?" +He scanned her with an assumption of jesting earnestness, palpably meant +to conceal some deeper emotion. She put a detaining hand on his arm as +he was about to turn the key in the lock. + +"Bernal, I haven't time to be indirect, or beat about, or anything--so +forgive the abruptness--were you at Mrs. Wyeth's this afternoon?" + +His ear caught the unusual note in her voice, and he was at once +concerned with this rather than with her question. + +"Why, what is it, Nance--what if I was? Are you seeing another +Gratcher?" + +"Bernal, quick, now--please! Don't worry me needlessly! Were you at Mrs. +Wyeth's to-day?" + +Her eyes searched his face. She saw that he was still either puzzled or +confused, but this time he answered plainly, + +"No--I haven't seen that most sightly cold lady to-day--more's the +pity!" + +She breathed one quick little sigh--it seemed to him strangely like a +sigh of relief. + +"I knew you couldn't have been." She laughed a little laugh of secrets. +"I was only wondering foolish wonders--you know how Gratchers must be +humoured right up to the very moment you puff them away with the deadly +laugh." + +Together they went in. Bernal stopped to talk with Aunt Bell, who was +passing through the hall as they entered; while Nancy, with the manner +of one not to be deflected from some set purpose, made straight for +Allan's study. + +In answer to her ominously crisp little knock, she heard his "Come!" and +opened the door. + +He sat facing her at his desk, swinging idly from side to side in the +revolving chair, through the small space the desk permitted. Upon the +blotter before him she saw that he had been drawing interminable +squares, oblongs, triangles and circles, joining them to one another in +aimless, wandering sequence--his sign of a perturbed mind. + +He glanced up with a look of waiting defiance which she knew but masked +all his familiar artillery. + +Instantly she determined to give him no opportunity to use this. She +would end matters with a rush. He was awaiting her attack. She would +make none. + +"I think there is nothing to say," she began quickly. "I could utter +certain words, but they would mean one thing to me and other things to +you--there is no real communication possible between us. Only remember +that this--to-day--matters little--I had already resolved that sooner or +later I must go. This only makes it necessary to go at once." + +She turned to the door which she had held ajar. At her words he sat +forward in his chair, the yellow stars blazing in his eyes. But the +opening was not the one he had counted upon, and before he could alter +his speech to fit it, or could do more than raise a hand to detain her, +she had gone. + +He sat back in his chair, calculating how to meet this mood. Then the +door resounded under a double knock and Bernal came in. + +"Well, old boy, I'll be off to-night. The lawyer is done with me here +and now I'll go to Edom and finish what's to be done there. Then in a +few days I'll be out of this machine and back to the ranche. You know +I've decided that my message to the world would best take the +substantial form of beef--a message which no one will esteem +unpractical." + +He paused, noting the other's general droop of gloom. + +"But what's the trouble, old chap? You look done up!" + +"Bernal--it's all because I am too good-hearted, too unsuspecting. Being +slow to think evil of others, I foolishly assume that others will be +equally charitable. And you don't know what women are--you don't know +how the sentimental ones impose upon a man in my office. I give you my +word of honour as a man--my word of _honour_, mind you!--there never has +been a thing between us but the purest, the most elevated--the loftiest, +most ideal--" + +"Hold on, old chap--I shall have to take the car ahead, you know, if you +won't let me on this one...." + +"--as pure a woman as God ever made, while as for myself, I think my +integrity of purpose and honesty of character, my sense of loyalty +should be sufficiently known--" + +"Say, old boy--" Bernal's face had lighted with a sudden flash of +insight--"is it--I don't wish to be indiscreet--but is it anything about +Mrs. Wyeth?" + +"Then you _do_ know?" + +"Nothing, except that Nance met me at the door just now and puzzled me a +bit by her very curious manner of asking if I had been at the Wyeth's +this afternoon." + +"_What_?" The other turned upon him, his eyes again blazing with the +yellow points, his whole figure alert. "She asked you _that--Really_?" + +"To be sure!" + +"And you said--" + +"'No'--of course--and she mumbled something about having been foolish to +think I could have been. You know, old man, Nance was troubled. I could +see that." + +His brother was now pacing the floor, his head bent from the beautifully +squared shoulders, his face the face of a mind working busily. + +"An idiot I was--she didn't know me--I had only to--" + +Bernal interrupted. + +"Are you talking to yourself, or to me?" + +The rector of St. Antipas turned at one end of his walk. + +"To both of us, brother. I tell you there has been nothing between +us--never anything except the most flawless idealism. I admit that at +the moment Nancy observed us the circumstances were unluckily such that +an excitable, morbidly suspicious woman might have misconstrued them. I +will even admit that a woman of judicial mind and of unhurried judgments +might not unreasonably have been puzzled, but I would tear my heart open +to the world this minute--'Oh, be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as +snow, thou shalt not escape calumny!'" + +"If I follow you, old chap, Nancy observed some scene this afternoon in +which it occurred to her that I might have been an actor." There was +quick pain, a sinking in his heart. + +"She had reason to know it was one of us--and if I had denied it was +I--" + +"I _see_--why didn't you?" + +"I thought she must surely have seen me--and besides"--his voice +softened with affection--"do you think, old chap, I would have shifted a +misunderstanding like that on to _your_ shoulders. Thank God, I am not +yet reduced to shirking the penalties of my own blameless acts, even +when they will be cruelly misconstrued." + +"But you should have done so--It would mean nothing to me, and +everything to you--to that poor girl--poor Nance--always so helpless and +wondering and so pathetically ready to _believe_! She didn't deserve +that you take it upon yourself, Allan!" + +"No--no, don't urge! I may have made mistakes, though I will say that +few men of my--well, my attractions! Why not say it bluntly?--few men of +my attractions, placed as I have been, would have made so few--but I +shall never be found shirking their consequences--it is not in my +nature, thank God, to let another bear the burden--I can always be a +man!--" + +"But, old boy--you must think of poor Nancy--not of me!" Again he felt +the hurt of her suspicion. + +"True--compassion requires that I think of her rather than of my own +pride--and I have--but, you see, it's too late. I committed myself +before I knew she didn't _know_!" + +"Let her believe it is still a mistake--" + +"No, no--it would be trickery--and it's impracticable--I as good as +confessed to her, you see--unless"--he brightened here and stopped in +his walk--"unless she could be made to believe that I meant to shield +you!" + +"That's it! Really, you are an executor, Allan! Now we'll put the poor +girl easy in her mind again. I'll tell her you did it to shield me. You +know it's important--what Nancy thinks of you, old chap--she's your +wife--and--it doesn't matter a bit how meanly--she thinks of me--of +course not. I dare say it will be better for me if she _does_ think +meanly of me--I'll tell her at once--what was it I did?" + +"No--no--she wouldn't believe you now. I dislike to say this, Bernal, +but Nancy is not always so trusting as a good woman should be--she has a +habit of wondering--but--mind you, I could only consent to this for the +sake of her peace of mind--" + +"I understand perfectly, old chap--it will help the peace of mind of all +of us, I begin to see--hers and mine--and yours." + +"Well, then, if she can be made to suspect this other aspect of the +affair without being told directly--ah!--here's a way. Turn that +messenger-call. Now listen--I will have a note sent here addressed to +you by a certain woman. It will be handed to Nancy to give to you. She +will observe the writing--and she will recognise it,--she knows it. You +will have been anxious about this note--expecting it--inquiring for it, +you know. Get your dinner now, then stay in your room so the maid won't +see you when the note comes--she will have to ask Nance where you +are--" + +At dinner, which Bernal had presently with Aunt Bell and two empty +seats, his companion regaled him with comments upon the development of +the religious instinct in mankind, reminding him that should he ever +aspire to a cult of his own he would find Boston a more fertile field +than New York. + +"They're so much broader there, you know," she began. "Really, they'll +believe anything if you manage your effects artistically. And that is +the trouble with you, Bernal. You appeal too little to the imagination. +You must not only have a novelty to preach nowadays, but you must preach +it in a spectacular manner. Now, that assertion of yours that we are all +equally selfish is novel and rather interesting--I've tried to think of +some one's doing some act to make himself unhappy and I find I can't. +And your suggestion of Judas Iscariot and Mr. Spencer as the sole +inmates of hell is not without a certain piquancy. But, my dear boy, you +need a stage-manager. Let your hair grow, wear a red robe, do +healing--" + +He laughed protestingly. "Oh, I'm not a prophet, Aunt Bell--I've learned +that." + +"But you could be, with proper managing. There's that perfectly stunning +beginning with that wild healing-chap in the far West. As it is now, you +make nothing of it--it might have happened to anybody and it never came +to anything, except that you went off into the wilderness and stayed +alone. You should tell how you fasted with him in a desert, and how he +told you secrets and imparted his healing power to you. Then get the +reporters about you and talk queerly so that they can make a good story +of it. Also live on rice and speak with an accent--_any_ kind of accent +would make you more interesting, Bernal. Then preach your message, and +I'd guarantee you a following of thousands in New York in a month. Of +course they'd leave you for the next fellow that came along with a key +to the book of Revelations, or a new diet or something, but you'd keep +them a while." + +Aunt Bell paused, enthusiastic, but somewhat out of breath. + +"I'll quit, Aunt Bell--that's enough--" + +"Mr. Spencer is an example for you. Contrast his hold on the masses with +Mrs. Eddy's, who appeals to the imagination. I'm told by those who have +read his works that he had quite the knack of logic, and yet the +President of Princeton Theological Seminary preaches a sermon in which +he calls him 'the greatest failure of the age.' I read it in this +morning's paper. His text was, 'Ye believe in God, believe also in me.' +You see, there was an appeal to the imagination--the most audacious +appeal that the world has ever known--and the crowd will be with this +clergyman who uses it to refute the arguments of a man who worked hard +through forty years of ill-health to get at the mere dry common-sense of +things. If Jesus had descended to logic, he'd never have made a convert. +But he appealed magnificently to the imagination, and see the result!" + +His mind had been dwelling on Allan's trouble, but now he came back to +his gracious adviser. + +"You do me good, Aunt Bell--you've taken all that message nonsense out +of me. I suppose I _could_ be one of them, you know--one of those +fellows that get into trouble--if I saw it was needed; but it isn't. Let +the men who can't help it do it--they have no choice. Hereafter I shall +worry as little about the world's salvation as I do about my own." + +When they had finished dinner he let it be known that he was not a +little anxious concerning a message that was late in arriving, and he +made it a point, indeed, that the maid should advise Mrs. Linford to +this effect, with an inquiry whether she might not have seen the delayed +missive. + +Then, after a word with Allan, he went to his room and from his south +window smoked into the night--smoked into something approaching quietude +a mind that had been rebelliously running back to the bare-armed girl in +dusky white--the wondering, waiting girl whose hand had trembled into +his so long ago--so many years during which he had been a dreaming fool, +forgetting the world to worship certain impalpable gods of +idealism--forgetting a world in which it was the divinely sensible +custom to eat one's candy cane instead of preserving it superstitiously +through barren years! + +He knew that he had awakened too late for more than a fleeting vision of +what would have made his life full. Now he must be off, up the path +again, this time knowing certainly that the woman would never more stand +waiting and wondering at the end, to embitter his renunciations. The +woman was definitely gone. That was something, even though she went with +that absurd, unreasoning, womanish suspicion. And he had one free, dear +look from her to keep through the empty days. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE FELL FINGER OF CALUMNY SEEMS TO BE AGREEABLY DIVERTED + + +Shut in his study, the rector of St. Antipas paced the floor with nicely +measured steps, or sat at his desk to make endless squares, circles, and +triangles. He was engrossed in the latter diversion when he heard the +bell sound below. He sat back to hear the steps of the maid, the opening +of the door; then, after an interval, her steps ascending the stairs and +stopping at his own door; then her knock. + +"A letter for Mr. Bernal, sir!" + +He glanced at the envelope she held, noting its tint. + +"He's not here Nora. Take it to Mrs. Linford. She will know where he +is." + +He heard her go down the hall and knock at another door. She was +compelled to knock twice, and then there was delay before the door +opened. + +He drew some pages of manuscript before him and affected to be busy at a +work of revision, crossing out a word here, interlining one there, +scanning the result with undivided attention. + +When he heard a knock he did not look up, but said, "Come!" Though still +intent at his work, he knew that Nancy stood there, looking from the +letter to him. + +"Nora said you sent this letter to me--it's for Bernal--" + +He answered, still without looking up, + +"I thought he might be with you, or that you might know where he was." + +"I don't." + +He knew that she studied the superscription of the envelope. + +"Well, leave it here on my desk till he comes. I sent it to you only +because I heard him inquiring if a letter had not come for him--he +seemed rather anxious about some letter--troubled, in fact--doubtless +some business affair. I hoped this might be what he was expecting." + +His eyes were still on the page before him, and he crossed out a word +and wrote another above it, after a meditative pause. Still the woman at +the door hesitated. + +"Did you chance to notice the address on the envelope?" + +He glanced at her now for the first time, apparently in some surprise: +"No--it is not my custom to study addresses of letters not my own. Nora +said it was for Bernal and he had seemed really distressed about some +letter or message that didn't come--if you will leave it here--" + +"I wish to hand it to him myself." + +"As you like." He returned to his work, crossing out a whole line and a +half with broad, emphatic marks. Then he bent lower, and the interest in +his page seemed to redouble, for he heard the door of Bernal's room +open. Nancy called: + +"Bernal!" + +He came to the door where she stood and she stepped a little inside so +that he might enter. + +"I am anxious about a letter. Ah, you have it!" + +She was scanning him with a look that was acid to eat out any untruth in +his face. + +"Yes--it just came." She held it out to him. He looked at the front of +the envelope, then up to her half-shut eager eyes--eyes curiously +hardened now--then he blushed flagrantly--a thorough, riotous blush--and +reached for the letter with a pitiful confusion of manner, not again +raising his uneasy eyes to hers. + +"I was expecting--looking--for a message, you know--yes, yes--this is +it--thank you very much, you know!" + +He stammered, his confusion deepened. With the letter clutched eagerly +in his hand he went out. + +She looked after him, intently. When he had shut his own door she +glanced over at the inattentive Allan, once more busy at his manuscript +and apparently unconscious of her presence. + +A long time she stood in silence, trying to moderate the beating of her +heart. Once she turned as if to go, but caught herself and turned again +to look at the bent head of Allan. + +At last it seemed to her that she could trust herself to speak. Closing +the door softly, she went to the big chair at the end of the desk. As +she let herself go into this with a sudden joy in the strength of its +supporting arms, her husband looked up at her inquiringly. + +She did not speak, but returned his gaze; returned it, with such +steadiness that presently he let his own eyes go down before hers with +palpable confusion, as if fearing some secret might lie there plain to +her view. His manner stimulated the suspicion under which she now seemed +to labour. + +"Allan, I must know something at once very clearly. It will make a +mighty difference in your life and in mine." + +"What is it you wish to know?" His glance was oblique and his manner one +of discomfort, the embarrassed discomfort of a man who fears that the +real truth--the truth he has generously striven to withhold--is at last +to come out. + +"That letter which Bernal was so troubled about came from--from that +woman--how could I avoid seeing that when it was handed to me? Did you +know it, too?" + +"Why, Nancy--I knew--of course--I knew he expected--I mean the poor boy +told me--" Here he broke off in the same pitiful confusion that had +marked Bernal's manner at the door--the confusion of apprehended deceit. +Then he began again, as if with gathered wits--"What was I saying? I +know nothing whatever of Bernal's affairs or his letters. Really, how +should I? You see, I have work on my mind." As if to cover his +awkwardness, he seized his pen and hastily began to cross out a phrase +on the page before him. + +"Allan!" Though low, it was so near a cry that he looked up in what +seemed to be alarm. She was leaning forward in the chair, one hand +reaching toward him over the desk, and she spoke rapidly. + +"Allan, I find myself suspecting now that you tried to deceive me this +afternoon--that Bernal did, also, incredible as it sounds--that you +tried to take the blame of that wretched thing off his shoulders. That +letter to him indicates it, his own pitiful embarrassment just now--oh, +an honest man wouldn't have looked as he did!--your own manner at this +instant. You are both trying--Oh, tell me the truth now!--you'll never +dream how badly I need it, what it means to my whole life--tell me, +Allan--for God's sake be honest this instant--my poor head is whirling +with all the lies! Let me feel there is truth somewhere. Listen. I swear +I'll stay by it, wherever it takes me--here or away from here--but I +must have it. Oh, Allan, if it should be in you, after all--Allan! dear, +_dear_--Oh! I do see it now--you _can't_ deceive--you _can't_ deceive!" + +Slowly at first his head bent under her words, bent in cowardly evasion +of her sharp glance, the sidelong shiftings of his eyes portraying him, +the generous liar, brought at last to bay by his own honest clumsiness. +Then, as her appeal grew warmer, tenderer, more insistent, the fine head +was suddenly erected and proud confession was written plainly over the +glowing face--that beautiful contrition of one who has willed to bear a +brother's shame and failed from lack of genius in the devious ways of +deceit. + +Now he stood nobly from his chair and she was up with a little loving +rush to his arms. Then, as he would have held her protectingly, she +gently pushed away. + +"Don't--don't take me yet, dear--I should be crying in another +moment--I'm so--so _beaten_--and I want not to cry till I've told you, +oh, so many things! Sit again and let us talk calmly first. Now +why--_why_ did you pretend this wretched thing?" + +He faced her proudly, with the big, honest, clumsy dignity of a rugged +man--and there was a loving quiet in his tones that touched her +ineffably. + +"Poor Bernal had told me his--his _contretemps_. The rest is simple. He +is my brother. The last I remember of our mother is her straining me to +her poor breast and saying, 'Oh, take care of little Bernal!'" Tears +were glistening in his eyes. + +"From the very freedom of the poor boy's talk about religious matters, +it is the more urgent that his conduct be irreproachable. I could not +bear that even you should think a shameful thing of him." + +She looked at him with swimming eyes, yet held her tears in check +through the very excitement of this splendid new admiration for him. + +"But that was foolish--quixotic--" + +"You will never know, little woman, what a brother's love is. Don't you +remember years ago I told you that I would stand by Bernal, come what +might. Did you think that was idle boasting?" + +"But you were willing to have me suspect _that_ of you!" + +He spoke with a sad, sweet gentleness now, as one might speak who had +long suffered hurts in secret. + +"Dearest--dear little woman--I already knew that I had been unable to +retain your love--God knows I tried--but in some way I had proved +unworthy of it. I had come to believe--painful and humiliating though +that belief was--that you could not think less of me--your words +to-night proved that I was right--you would have gone away, even without +this. But at least my poor brother might still seem good to you." + +"Oh, you poor, foolish, foolish, man--And yet, Allan, nothing less than +this would have shown you truly to me. I can speak plainly now--indeed I +must, for once. Allan, you have ways--mannerisms--that are unfortunate. +They raised in me a conviction that you were not genuine--that you were +somehow false. Don't let it hurt now, dear, for see--this one little +unstudied, impetuous act of devotion, simple and instinctive with your +generous heart, has revealed your true self to me as nothing else could +have done. Oh, don't you see how you have given me at last what I had to +have, if we were to live on together--something in you to _hold_ to--a +foundation to rest upon--something I can know in my heart of hearts is +stable--despite any outward, traitorous _seeming_! Now forever I can be +loving, and loyal, in spite of all those signs which I see at last are +misleading." + +Again and again she sought to envelope him with acceptable praises, +while he gazed fondly at her from that justified pride in his own +stanchness--murmuring, "Nance, you please me--you _please_ me!" + +"Don't you see, dear? I couldn't reach you before. You gave me nothing +to believe in--not even God. That seeming lack of genuineness in you +stifled my soul. I could no longer even want to be good--and all that +for the lack of this dear foolish bit of realness in you." + +"No one can know better than I that my nature is a faulty one, +Nance--" + +"Say unfortunate, Allan--not faulty. I shall never again believe a fault +of you. How stupid a woman can be, how superficial in her judgments--and +what stupids they are who say she is intuitive! Do you know, I believed +in Bernal infinitely more than I can tell you, and Bernal made me +believe in everything else--in God and goodness and virtue and truth--in +all the good things we like to believe in--yet see what he did!" + +"My dear, I know little of the circumstances, but--" + +"It isn't _that_--I can't judge him in that--but this I must +judge--Bernal, when he saw I did not know who had been there, was +willing I should think it was you. To retain my respect he was willing +to betray you." She laughed, a little hard laugh, and seemed to be in +pain. "You will never know just what the thought of that boy has been to +me all these years, and especially this last week. But now--poor weak +Bernal! Poor _Judas_, indeed!" There was a kind of anguished bitterness +in the last words. + +"My dear, try not to think harshly of the poor boy," remonstrated Allan +gently. "Remember that whatever his mistakes, he has a good heart--and +he is my brother." + +"Oh! you big, generous, good-thinking boy, you--Can't you see that is +precisely what he _lacks_--a good heart? Oh, dearest, I needed this--to +show Bernal to me not less than to show you to me. There were grave +reasons why I needed to see you both as I see you this moment." + +There were steps along the hall and a knock at the door. + +"It must be Bernal," he said--"he was to leave about this time." + +"I can't see him again." + +"Just this once, dear--for _my_ sake! Come!" + +Bernal stood in the doorway, hat in hand, his bag at his feet. With his +hat he held a letter. Allan went forward to meet him. Nancy stood up to +study the lines of an etching on the wall. + +"I've come to say good-bye, you know." She heard the miserable +embarrassment of his tones, and knew, though she did not glance at him, +that there was a shameful droop to his whole figure. + +Allan shook hands with him, first taking the letter he held. + +"Good-bye--old chap--God bless you!" + +He muttered, with that wretched consciousness of guilt, something about +being sorry to go. + +"And I don't want to preach, old chap," continued Allan, giving the hand +a farewell grip, "but remember there are always two pairs of arms that +will never be shut to you, the arms of the Church of Him who died to +save us,--and my own poor arms, hardly less loving." + +"Thank you, old boy--I'll go back to Hoover"--he looked hesitatingly at +the profile of Nancy--"Hoover thinks it's all rather droll, you +know--Good-bye, old boy! Good-bye, Nancy." + +"My dear, Bernal is saying good-bye." + +She turned and said "good-bye." He stepped toward her--seeming to her to +slink as he walked--but he held out his hand and she gave him her own, +cold, and unyielding. He went out, with a last awkward "Good-bye, old +chap!" to Allan. + +Nancy turned to face her husband, putting out her hands to him. He had +removed from its envelope the letter Bernal had left him, and seemed +about to put it rather hastily into his pocket, but she seized it +playfully, not noting that his hand gave it up with a certain +reluctance, her eyes upon his face. + +"No more business to-night--we have to talk. Oh, I must tell you so much +that has troubled me and made me doubt, my dear--and my poor mind has +been up and down like a see-saw. I wonder it's not a wreck. Come, put +away your business--there." She placed the letter and its envelope on +the desk. + +"Now sit here while I tell you things." + +An hour they were there, lingering in talk--talking in a circle; for at +regular intervals Nancy must return to this: "I believe no wife ever +goes away until there is absolutely no shred of possibility left--no +last bit of realness to hold her. But now I know your stanchness." + +"Really, Nance--I can't tell you how much you please me." + +There was a knock at the door. They looked at each other bewildered. + +"The telephone, sir," said the maid in response to Allan's tardy "Come +in." + +When he had gone, whistling cheerily, she walked nervously about the +room, studying familiar objects from out of her animated meditation. + +Coming to his desk, she snuggled affectionately into his chair and gazed +fondly over its litter of papers. With a little instinctive move to +bring somewhat of order to the chaos, she reached forward, but her elbow +brushed to the floor two or three letters that had lain at the edge of +the desk. + +As she stooped to pick up the fallen papers the letter Bernal had left +lay open before her, a letter written in long, slanting but vividly +legible characters. And then, quite before she recognised what letter it +was, or could feel curious concerning it, the first illuminating line of +it had flashed irrevocably to her mind's centre. + +When Allan appeared in the doorway a few minutes later, she was standing +by the desk. She held the letter in both hands and over it her eyes +flamed--blasted. + +Divining what she had done, his mind ran with lightning quickness to +face this new emergency. But he was puzzled and helpless, for now her +hands fell and she laughed weakly, almost hysterically. He searched for +the key to this unnatural behaviour. He began, hesitatingly, expecting +some word from her to guide him along the proper line of defense. + +"I am sure, my dear--if you had only--only trusted me--implicitly--your +opinion of this affair--" + +At the sound of his voice she ceased to laugh, stiffening into a wild, +grim intensity. + +"Now I can look that thing straight in the eyes and it can't hurt me." + +"In the eyes?" he questioned, blankly. + +"I can _go_ now." + +"You will make me the laughing-stock of this town!" + +For the first time in their life together there was the heat of real +anger in his voice. Yet she did not seem to hear. + +"Yes--that last terrible Gratcher can't hurt me now." + +He frowned, with a sulky assumption of that dignity which he felt was +demanded of him. + +"I don't understand you!" + +Still the unseeing eyes played about him, yet she heard at last. + +"But _he_ will--_he_ will!" she cried exultingly, and her eyes were wet +with an unexplained gladness. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +A MERE BIT OF GOSSIP + + +The Ministers' Meeting of the following Tuesday was pleasantly enlivened +with gossip--retained, of course, within seemly bounds. There was absent +the Reverend Dr. Linford, sometime rector of St. Antipas, said lately to +have emerged from a state of spiritual chrysalis into a world made new +with truths that were yet old. It was concerning this circumstance that +discreet expressions were oftenest heard during the function. + +One brother declared that the Linfords were both extremists: one with +his absurdly radical disbelief in revealed religion; the other flying at +last to the Mother Church for that authority which he professed not to +find in his own. + +Another asserted that in talking with Dr. Linford now, one brought away +the notion that in renouncing his allegiance to the Episcopal faith he +had gone to the extreme of renouncing marriage, in order that the Mother +Church might become his only bride. True, Linford said nothing at all +like this;--the idea was fleeting, filmy, traceable to no specific words +of his. Yet it left a track across the mind. It seemed to be the very +spirit of his speech upon the subject. Certainly no other reason had +been suggested for the regrettable, severance of this domestic tie. +Conjecture was futile and Mrs. Linford, secluded in her country home at +Edom, had steadfastly refused, so said the public prints, to give any +reason whatsoever. + +His soup finished, the Reverend Mr. Whittaker unfolded the early edition +of an evening paper to a page which bore an excellent likeness of Dr. +Linford. + +"I'll read you some things from his letter," he said, "though I'll +confess I don't wholly approve his taste in giving it to the press. +However--here's one bit: + +"'When I was ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church I dreamed of +wielding an influence that would tend to harmonise the conflicting +schools of churchmanship. It seemed to me that my little life might be +of value, as I comprehended the essentials of church citizenship. I will +not dwell upon my difficulties. The present is no time to murmur. +Suffice it to say, I have long held, I have taught, nearly every +Catholic doctrine not actually denied by the Anglican formularies; and I +have accepted and revived in St. Antipas every Catholic practice not +positively forbidden. + +"But I have lately become convinced that the Anglican orders of the +ministry are invalid. I am persuaded that a priest ordained into the +Episcopal Church cannot consecrate the elements of the Eucharist in a +sacrificial sense. Could I be less than true to my inner faith in a +matter touching the sacred verity of the Real Presence--the actual body +and blood of our Saviour? + +"After conflict and prayer I have gone trustingly whither God has been +pleased to lead me. In my humble sight the only spiritual body that +actually claims to teach truth upon authority, the only body divinely +protected from teaching error, is the Holy, Catholic and Roman Church. + +"For the last time I have exercised my private judgment, as every man +must exercise it once, at least, and I now seek communion with this +largest and oldest body of Christians in the world. I have faced an +emergency fraught with vital interest to every thinking man. I have met +it; the rest is with my God. Praying that I might be adorned with the +splendours of holiness, and knowing that the prayer of him that humbleth +himself shall pierce the clouds, I took for my motto this sentence from +Huxley: 'Sit down before fact as a little child; be prepared to give up +every preconceived notion; follow humbly wherever and to whatever +abysses Nature leads.' Presently, God willing, I shall be in communion +with the See of Rome, where I feel that there is a future for me!" + +The reader had been absently stabbing at his fish with an aimless fork. +He now laid down his paper to give the food his entire attention. + +"You see," began Floud, "I say one brother is quite as extreme as the +other." + +Father Riley smiled affably, and begged Whittaker to finish the letter. + +"Your fish is fresh, dear man, but your news may be stale before we +reach it--so hasten now--I've a presentiment that our friend goes still +farther afield." + +Whittaker abandoned his fish with a last thoughtful look, and resumed +the reading. + +"May I conclude by reminding you that the issue between Christianity and +science falsely so called has never been enough simplified? Christianity +rests squarely on the Fall of man. Deny the truth of Genesis and the +whole edifice of our faith crumbles. If we be not under the curse of God +for Adam's sin, there was never a need for a Saviour, the Incarnation +and the Atonement become meaningless, and our Lord is reduced to the +status of a human teacher of a disputable philosophy--a peasant moralist +with certain delusions of grandeur--an agitator and heretic whom the +authorities of his time executed for stirring up the people. In short, +the divinity of Jesus must stand or fall with the divinity of the God of +Moses, and this in turn rests upon the historical truth of Genesis. If +the Fall of man be successfully disputed, the God of Moses becomes a +figment of the Jewish imagination--Jesus becomes man. And this is what +Science asserts, while we of the outer churches, through cowardice or +indolence--too often, alas! through our own skepticism--have allowed +Science thus to obscure the issue. We have fatuously thought to +surrender the sin of Adam, and still to keep a Saviour--not perceiving +that we must keep both or neither. + +"There is the issue. The Church says that man is born under the curse of +God and so remains until redeemed, through the sacraments of the Church, +by the blood of God's only begotten Son. + +"Science says man is not fallen, but has risen steadily from remote +brute ancestors. If science be right--and by _mere evidence_ its +contention is plausible--then original sin is a figment and natural man +is a glorious triumph over brutehood, not only requiring no +saviour--since he is under no curse of God--but having every reason to +believe that the divine favour has ever attended him in his upward +trend. + +"But if one finds _mere evidence_ insufficient to outweigh that most +glorious death on Calvary, if one regards that crucifixion as a tear of +faith on the world's cold cheek of doubt to make it burn forever, then +one must turn to the only church that safeguards this rock of Original +Sin upon which the Christ is builded. For the ramparts of Protestantism +are honeycombed with infidelity--and what is most saddening, they are +giving way to blows from within. Protestantism need no longer fear the +onslaughts of atheistic outlaws: what concerns it is the fact that the +stronghold of destructive criticism is now within its own ranks--a +stronghold manned by teachers professedly orthodox. + +"It need cause little wonder, then, that I have found safety in the +Mother Church. Only there is one compelled by adequate authority to +believe. There alone does it seem to be divined that Christianity cannot +relinquish the first of its dogmas without invalidating those that rest +upon it. + +"For another vital matter, only in the Catholic Church do I find +combated with uncompromising boldness that peculiarly modern and vicious +sentimentality which is preached as 'universal brotherhood.' It is a +doctrine spreading insidiously among the godless masses outside the true +Church, a chimera of visionaries who must be admitted to be dishonest, +since again and again has it been pointed out to them that their +doctrine is unchristian--impiously and preposterously unchristian. +Witness the very late utterance of His Holiness, Pope Pius X, as to +God's divine ordinance of prince and subject, noble and plebeian, master +and proletariat, learned and ignorant, all united, indeed, but not in +_material_ equality--only in the bonds of love to help one another +attain their _moral_ welfare on earth and their last end in heaven. Most +pointedly does his Holiness further rebuke this effeminacy of universal +brotherhood by stating that equality exists among the social members +only in this: that all men have their origin in God the Creator, have +sinned in Adam, and have been equally redeemed into eternal life by the +sacrifice of our Lord. + +"Upon these two rocks--of original sin and of prince and subject, riches +and poverty--by divine right, the Catholic Church has taken its stand; +and within this church will the final battle be fought on these issues. +Thank God He has found my humble self worthy to fight upon His side +against the hordes of infidelity and the preachers of an unchristian +social equality!" + +There were little exclamations about the table as Whittaker finished and +returned at last to his fish. To Father Riley it occurred that these +would have been more communicative, more sentient, but for his presence. +In fact, there presently ensued an eloquent silence in lieu of remarks +that might too easily have been indiscreet. + +"Pray, never mind me at all, gentlemen--I'll listen blandly whilst I +disarticulate this beautiful bird." + +"I say one is quite as extreme as the other," again declared the +discoverer of this fact, feeling that his perspicacity had not been +sufficiently remarked. + +"I dare say Whittaker is meditating a bitter cynicism," suggested Father +Riley. + +"Concerning that incandescent but unfortunate young man," remarked the +amiable Presbyterian--"I trust God's Providence to care for children and +fools--" + +"And yet I found his remarks suggestive," said the twinkling-eyed +Methodist. "That is, we asked for the belief of the average +non-church-goer--and I dare say he gave it to us. It occurs to me +further that he has merely had the wit to put in blunt, brutal words +what so many of us declare with academic flourishes. We can all name a +dozen treatises written by theologians ostensibly orthodox which +actually justify his utterances. It seems to me, then, that we may +profit by his blasphemies." + +"How?" demanded Whittaker, with some bluntness. + +"Ah--that is what the Church must determine. We already know how to +reach the heathen, the unbookish, the unthinking--but how reach the +educated--the science-bitten? It is useless to deny that the brightest, +biggest minds are outside the Church--indifferentists or downright +opponents of it. I am not willing to believe that God meant men like +these to perish--I don't like to think of Emerson being lost, or Huxley, +or Spencer, or even Darwin--Question: has the Church power to save the +educated?" + +"Sure, I know one that has never lacked it," purled Father Riley. + +"There's an answer to you in Linford's letter," added Whittaker. + +"Gentlemen, you jest with me--but I shall continue to feel grateful to +our slightly dogmatic young friend for his artless brutalities. Now I +know what the business man keeps to himself when I ask him why he has +lost interest in the church." + +"There's a large class we can't take from you," said Father Riley--"that +class with whom religion is a mode of respectability." + +"And you can't take our higher critics, either--more's the pity!" + +"On my word, now, gentlemen," returned the Catholic, again, "that was a +dear, blasphemous young whelp! You know, I rather liked him. Bless the +soul of you, I could as little have rebuked the lad as I could punish +the guiltless indecence of a babe--he was that shockingly naif!" + +"He is undoubtedly the just fruit of our own toleration," repeated the +high-church rector. + +"And he stands for our knottiest problem," said the Presbyterian. + +"A problem all the knottier, I suspect," began Whittaker-- + +"Didn't I _tell_ you?" interrupted Father Riley. "Oh, the outrageous +cynic! Be braced for him, now!" + +"I was only going to suggest," resumed the wicked Unitarian, calmly, +"that those people, Linford and his brother--and even that singularly +effective Mrs. Linford, with her inferable views about divorce--you know +I dare say that they--really you know--that they possess the courage +of--" + +"Their _convictions_!" concluded little Floud, impatient alike of the +speaker's hesitation and the expected platitude. + +"No--I was about to say--the courage--of ours." + +A few looked politely blank at this unseasonable flippancy. Father Riley +smiled with rare sweetness and murmured, "So cynical, even for a +Unitarian!" as if to himself in playful confidence. + +But the amiable Presbyterian, of the cheerful auburn beard and the +salient nose, hereupon led them tactfully to safe ground in a discussion +of the ethnic Trinities. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SEEKER*** + + +******* This file should be named 15797.txt or 15797.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/5/7/9/15797 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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