In Darkness.
LAST Tuesday night Jennie met me at the station. It is unusual for her to do so. The surprise was a delightful one to me. But as I sat down beside her in the basket wagon she did not greet me as joyously as usual. Her mien was so sober that I asked her at once the question:
"Jennie, what is the matter? You look sick."
"I am sick, John," said she; "sick at heart. Willie Gear is dead."
"Willie Gear dead!" I exclaimed.
"Yes," said Jennie. "He was skating on the pond. I suppose this warm weather has weakened the ice. It gave way. Three of the boys went in together. The other two got out. But Willie was carried under the ice."
Jennie was driving. Instead of turning up the hill from the depot she kept down the river road. "I thought you would want to go down there at once," said she. "And so I left baby with Nell and came down for you."
We rode along in silence. Willie Gear was his father's pride and pet. He was a noble boy. He inherited his mother's tenderness and patience, and with them his father's acute and questioning intellect. He was a curious combination of a natural skeptic and a natural believer. He had welcomed the first step toward converting our Bible-class into a mission Sabbath-school, and had done more than any one else to fill it up with boys from the Mill village. He was a great favorite with them all and their natural leader in village sports and games. There was no such skater or swimmer for his age as Willie Gear, and he was the champion ball-player of the village. But I remember him best as a Sabbath-school scholar. I can see even now his earnest upturned face and his large blue eyes, looking strait into his mother's answering gaze, and drinking in every word she uttered to that mission-class which he had gathered and which she every Sabbath taught. He was not very fortunate in his teacher in our own church Sabbath-school. For he took nothing on trust and his teacher doubted nothing. I can easily imagine how his soul filled with indignation at the thought of Abraham's offering up his only son as a burnt sacrifice, and how with eager questioning he plied his father, unsatisfied himself with the assurances of one who had never experienced a like perplexity, and therefore did not know how to cure it.
And Willie was really gone. Would it soften the father's heart and teach him the truth of Pascal's proverb that "The heart has reasons of its own that the reason knows not of;" or would it blot out the last remnant of faith, and leave Mr. Gear without a God as he had been without a Bible and without a Saviour?
I was still pondering these problems, wildly thinking, not aimlessly, yet to no purpose, when we reached the familiar cottage. Is it indeed true that nature has no sympathy? There seemed to me to be on all around a hush that spoke of death. There needed no sorrowful symbol of crape upon the door; and there was none. I almost think I should have known that death was in the house had no one told me.
As I was fastening my horse Mr. Hardcap came up. We entered the gate together.
"This is a hard experience for Mr. Gear," said I to Mr. Hardcap.
"The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether," replied Mr. Hardcap, severely.
I could feel Jennie tremble on my arm, but I made no response to Mr.Hardcap.
Mr. Gear opened the door for us himself before we had time to knock. He was perfectly calm and self-possessed. Jennie said afterward she should not have guessed, to have seen him elsewhere, that he had even heard of Willie's death. But I noticed that he uttered no greeting. He motioned us into the sitting-room without a word.
Here, on a sofa, lay, like a white statue, the form of the dear boy. By the side of the sofa sat the mother, her eyes red and swollen with much weeping. But the fierceness of sorrow had passed; and now she was almost as quiet as the boy whose sleep she seemed to watch; she was quite as pale.
She rose to meet us as we entered, and offered me her hand. Jennie put her arm around the poor mother's waist and kissed her tenderly. But still nothing was said.
Mr. Hardcap was the first to break the silence. "This is a solemn judgment," said he.
Mr. Gear made no reply.
"I hope, my friend," continued Mr. Hardcap, "that you will heed the lesson God is a teachin' of you, and see how fearful a thing it is to have an unbeliev'n heart. God will not suffer us to rest in our sin of unbelief. If we lay up our treasures on earth where moth and rust doth corrupt, we must expect they will take to themselves wings and fly away."
Mr. Hardcap's horrible mutilation of Scripture had always impressed me in a singular manner. But I think its ludicrous side never so affected me before. What is it in me that makes me always appreciate most keenly the ludicrous in seasons of the greatest solemnity and distress? The absurdity of his misapplication of the sacred text mingled horribly with a sense of the insupportable anguish I knew he was causing. And yet I knew not how to interfere.
"I hope he was prepared," said Mr. Hardcap.
"I hope so," said Mr. Gear quietly.
"He was such a noble fellow," said Jennie to the weeping mother. She said it softly, but Mr. Hardcap's ears caught the expression.
"Nobility, ma'am," said he, "isn't a savin' grace. It's a nateral virtoo. The question is, did he have the savin' grace of faith and repentance?"
"I believe," said Mrs. Gear, earnestly, "that Willie was aChristian, if ever there was one, Mr. Hardcap."
"He hadn't made no profession of religion you know, ma'am," said Mr. Hardcap. "And the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked."
Mr. Hardcap is very fond of quoting that text. I wonder if he ever applies it to himself.
"It seems kind o' strange now that he should be taken away so sudden like," continued Mr. Hardcap, "without any warnin'. And you know what the Scripture tells us. 'The wages of sin is death.'"
Mr. Gear could keep silence no longer. "I wish then," said he hoarsely, "God would pay me my wages, and let me go."
"Oh! Thomas," said his wife appealingly. Then she went up to Mr. Hardcap, and laid her hand gently on his arm. "Mr. Hardcap," said she, "it was very good of you to call on us in our sorrow. And I am sure that you want to comfort us, and do us good. But I don't believe my husband will get any good just now from what you have to say. We are stunned by the blow that came so suddenly, and must have a little time to recover from it. Would you feel offended if I asked you to go away and call again some other time?"
"The word must be spoken in season and out of season," said Mr. Hardcap doggedly. Nevertheless he turned to leave. He offered his hand to Mr. Gear, who was leaning with his head upon his hand against the mantel-piece, and possibly did not notice the proffered salutation. At all events he never moved. Mr. Hardcap looked at him a moment, opened his mouth as if to speak, but apparently reconsidered his purpose, for he closed it again without speaking, and so left the room. Mrs. Gear went with him to the door, where I heard her ask him to pray for her and for her husband, and where I heard him answer something about a sin unto death that could not be prayed for. Jennie followed Mrs. Gear softly out; and so Mr. Gear and I were left alone.
Alone with the dead.
"That's your Christian consolation," said Mr. Gear bitterly.
"Is that just to your wife?" I answered him quietly.
"No! It is not just to my wife," he replied. "I would give all I possess to have her faith. She is almost heart-broken,—and yet-yet-I who ought to sustain her would be crazed with grief if I had not her to lean upon. And she-she leans on I know not what. Oh! if I did but know."
"She leans on Him who not in vain Experienced every human pain," I answered softly.
"He was such a noble boy," continued Mr. Gear speaking half to himself, and half to me. "He was so pure, so truthful, so chivalrous, so considerate of his mother's happiness and of mine. And he was beginning to teach me, teach me that I did not know all. I was afraid of my own philosophy for him. I wanted him to have his mother's faith, though I never told him so. I never perplexed him with my own doubtings. I solved what I could of his, I was coming to believe little by little that there was a clearer, better light than that I walked in. I was hoping that he might find it and walk in it. I even dreamed, sometimes, to myself, that he would yet learn how to show it to me. And now he is gone, and the glimmer of light is gone, and the last hope for me is gone with him."
"He is gone," I said softly, "to walk in that clearer, better light, and beckons you to follow."
Mr. Gear made no answer, hardly seemed to note the interruption.
"And this is the bitterness of the blow to me," he continued, still speaking half to me, half to himself. "I thought I believed in immortality. I thought I believed in God. These two beliefs at least were left me. And now nothing is left. My wife says 'he is not dead but sleepeth.' But I cannot see it. To me he is gone, for ever gone. If on the other side of that veil which hides him from me, that mystic something which we call his spirit still lingers, I do not see it. I had a dream of that better land once and called it faith. But this cruel blow has wakened me, and the dream has passed in the very hour when I need it most. And nothing is left me; not even that poor vision."
"Not even God?" said I softly.
"Not even God," he answered with terrible deliberation. "For a bad God is worse than no God at all. And how can I believe that God is good? He looks down on our happy home. He looks on our dear boy, its life and joy. He knows how our life is wrapped up in him. He sees how little by little Willie is leading me up into a higher, happier, holier life. And then He strikes him down, and leaves my wife heart-broken, and me in darkness, bereft by one blow of my child and of my faith."
Then he pointed to the dead boy who lay on the lounge before us. "How can I reconcile this with the love of God?" he cried. "How can you, Mr. Laicus?"
All bitterness was gone now. He looked me earnestly in the eye, and asked eagerly, as one who longed for a solution, and yet was in despair of finding it.
"I cannot," I answered, "and dare not try. If I had only life's book to read, Mr. Gear, I should not believe in a God of love. I should turn Persian, and believe in two gods, one of love and good-will, one of hate and malice."
He looked at me in questioning surprise.
"Love, Mr. Gear, is its own demonstration. I know that God loves me."
"How?" said he.
"How?" said I. "Do you remember when we first met, Mr. Gear, that you told me your God was everywhere, in every brook, and mountain, and flower, and leaf, and storm, and ray of sunshine."
He nodded his head reflectively, as one recalling a half forgotten conversation.
"My God is in the hearts of those that seek Him," said I. "And in my heart I carry an assurance of His love that life cannot disturb. I know His love as the babe knows its mother's love, lying upon her breast. It knows her love though it neither understands her nature nor her ways."
He shook his head sadly.
"Mr. Laicus," said he, "I believe you, but I do not comprehend you. I believe that you have a faith that is worth the having. I would give all I possess or ever possessed to share it with you in this hour. I do not know-I sometimes think it is only a pleasant dream. Would God I could sleep and dream such dreams."
"It is no dream, Mr. Gear, but truth and soberness," said I. "A dream does not last through eighteen centuries, and raise half a world from barbarism to civilization. A dream does not carry mothers through such sorrows as this with outlooking anticipations so clear as those which give Mrs. Gear her radiant hope. No! Mr. Gear. It is you who have been dreaming, and life's sorrow has awakened you."
"Mr. Laicus," he cried almost passionately, "I said I believed in nothing. But it is not true. I have no creed. I do not even believe in God or immortality any more. I have no God. I am without hope. But I believe in my wife. I believe in you. I believe that you and she have something-I know not what-that supports you in temptation and sustains you in sorrow. Tell me what it is. Tell me how I may get it. I will cast my pride away. I would believe. Help my unbelief."
"Mr. Gear," said I, laying my hand upon his arm, "here in the presence of this dear boy, be the solemn witness of your petition and your vow, will you kneel with me to ask of God what you have asked of me, but what He alone can give you, and record before Him the promise you have made to me, but which He alone can receive at your hands?"
He made no answer-hesitated a moment-then knelt, with the dear boy's hand fast clasped in his, while kneeling at his side I echoed the prayer he had already uttered: "I believe; help Thou mine unbelief."
And as we rose I saw the tears streaming down his softened face, the first tears he had shed since I had entered his house. I knew that Willie had taught him more in his death than by his life, and felt that now, to my own heart though not to his, I could answer the question he had asked me, "How can you reconcile this with the love of God?"
God said, "Let there be Light."
FROM Mr. Gear's Jennie and I drove directly to Maurice Mapleson's.Fortunately we found him at home. Briefly I told him of my visit.
"What can we do," I said at the close, "to save this man from the despair of utter skepticism?"
"He is in good hands," said Mr. Mapleson, with calm assurance.
"No! Mr. Mapleson," said I, "I can do nothing more with him. So long as I had only the intellect to deal with, I thought I knew what to say and when to keep silence. But I dare neither speak nor keep silence now."
"I did not mean your hands," said Mr. Mapleson.
"What then?" said I.
"He is in God's hands," replied the pastor. "God has taken him out of your hands into His own. Leave him there."
"Is there then nothing more to be done?" I said.
"Yes," said he, "but chiefly prayer."
Then after a moment's pause he added: "I believe, Mr. Laicus, in the oft quoted and generally perverted promise: If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. I believe it was intended for just such exigencies as this. It is not a general charter, but a special promise. Now is the time to plead it. Who beside yourself in our church is Mr. Gear's most intimate acquaintance and warmest friend?"
I thought a moment before I answered. Then I replied, "To be honest, Mr. Mapleson, I do not believe there is one in the church who understands him. But Deacon Goodsole has had more to do with him than any other, and perhaps understands him better."
"Very well," said Mr. Mapleson. "Will you meet Deacon Goodsole at my house to-morrow evening, half an hour before the prayer-meeting, to unite in special prayer for Mr. Gear? I will see the Deacon. I am sure he will come."
"I am sure he will," I added warmly; "as sure as that I will be there myself."
With that I bade Mr. Mapleson good-night and hurried away. For tea had long been waiting, the children's bed hour was near, and Jennie was growing impatient to be at home.
Wednesday evening Mr. Mapleson, the Deacon and I went into our church prayer-meeting from half an hour spent in Mr. Mapleson's study in prayer for Mr. Gear. Mr. Mapleson had seen Mr. Gear that morning. But the stricken father was very silent; he offered no communication; and Mr. Mapleson had pressed for none. I confess I had hoped much from Mr. Mapleson's interview, and I went into the prayer-meeting burdened and sorrowful.
I think I have already remarked that Mr. Mapleson's conduct of a prayer-meeting is exceedingly simple. He seldom says much. He sets us all an example of brevity. A few words of Scripture, a few earnest words of his own or a simple prayer, usually constitute his sole contribution to the meeting, which is more truly a meeting for prayer than any other prayer-meeting I ever attended.
That evening he seemed loath to open the meeting. We were little late in beginning. When we did begin we were late in getting into the heart of it. He called on one after another to lead in prayer. I did not know but that he was going to omit the reading of Scripture and his own remarks altogether. Our prayer-meeting commences at half-past seven. The pastor never allows it to overrun an hour. And it was after eight when he arose to read. He read from the twelth chapter of Acts, the account of Peter's deliverance from prison. He read it from beginning to end without a comment, and then he spoke substantially as follows. His words were very simple. But that meeting has left an impression upon me that time will never obliterate. I believe I could repeat his words to my dying day.
"A great deal is said and written," said he, "about the apostolic faith. But the apostles were men of like passions as we ourselves. They fought the same doubts. They prayed in the same hesitating, uncertain, unbelieving way. Peter was in prison. His friends could do nothing to effect his deliverance-nothing but pray. So they assembled for that purpose. They had the promise of the Lord, 'If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in Heaven.' But they did not believe it. They took some comfort in praying-as we do. But they did not expect any answer to their prayers. The thought that God might really afford deliverance never seems to have occurred to them. And when Peter, delivered by the angel of the Lord, came knocking at the gate of the house, and the startled disciples wondered what this midnight summons might mean, and the servant returned to report that Peter stood without, they laughed at her. You are mad, said they. And when he persisted in his knocking, and she in her assertion, they added with trembling and under-breath to one another, in mortal fear, "It is his ghost." Anything was more credible to their minds than that God should have answered their united prayers.
"The promise of God is to the prayer of faith. But God is constantly better than his promise. He does not limit Himself by our expectations. He does exceedingly abundantly more than we can ask or even think. We are not therefore to be driven from our knees by our want of faith. I hear men talk as though prayer were of no avail unless we believe beforehand with assurance that we were going to receive all for which we asked. It is not true. We are not heard for our much asking, nor for much our believing, but for God's great mercy's sake.
"When the mission was first started at the Mill village, if I have understood aright, it was started on the application of the children themselves. They gathered around the school-house when the Bible-class assembled. They had no expectation of instruction. When the first person came to the door to invite them in, probably half of them scampered away in fright. Did they expect all that has come? Or would any Christian worker have said, 'They shall not have a Sabbath-school till they ask it, and believe that it will be provided for them?' And our Father does not wait for the prayer of faith. Like the father in the parable he comes while we are yet afar off. If we have faith enough to look wistfully and yearningly for a blessing, He has superabundant love to grant it."
And then he read, and we sang that most beautiful hymn:
"Oh! see how Jesus trusts himselfUnto our childish love!As though by His free ways with usOur earnestness to prove.His sacred name a common wordOn earth He loves to hear;There is no majesty in HimWhich love may not come near.The light of love is round His feet,His paths are never dim;And He comes nigh to us when weDare not come nigh to Him.Let us be simple with Him, then,Not backward, stiff, nor cold,As though our Bethlehem could beWhat Sinai was of old."
Mr. Mapleson is very fond of music. Singing is a feature of all our prayer-meetings. I have heard him say that he thought more people had been sung into the kingdom of heaven than were ever preached into it. Usually his rich voice carries the bass almost alone. But during the singing of this hymn he sat silent, leaning his head upon his hand. This silence was so unusual that it almost oppressed the meeting. When the hymn closed there was a solemn hush, a strange expectancy; it seemed as though no one dared to break the sacred silence.
Our lecture-room occupies half the basement of the church. I sat in a front seat, close by the little desk-a low platform furnished only with a light stand on which rests the minister hymn-book and a small Bible. The room was full, but it had filled up after I came in.
The prolonged silence grew painful. Then I heard a rustle as of one rising to his feet. Then a voice; I startled, half turned round, restrained myself, thank God, and only cast on Jennie, at my side, a look of wonder and of thanksgiving. The voice was that of Mr. Gear.
"Fellow-townsmen," said he,—he spoke hesitatingly at first as one unused to the place and the assemblage,—"I have come here to make a request. You are surprised to see me here. You will be more surprised to hear my request. I want to ask you to pray for me."
He had recovered from his hesitancy now. But he spoke with an unnatural rapidity as though he were afraid of breaking down altogether if he stopped a moment to reflect upon himself and his position.
"You know me only as an infidel. I am an infidel. At least I was. Yes! I suppose I still am. My mother died when I was but a babe. My father brought me up. He was orthodox of the orthodox. But oh! he was a hard man. And he had a hard creed. I used to think the creed made the man. Lately I have thought perhaps the man made the creed. At all events both were hard. And I repudiated both. At fourteen I abhorred my father's creed. At eighteen I had left my father's roof. I have never returned except on occasional visits."
He had gained more self-possession now, and spoke more slowly and distinctly. The room was as still as that room of death in which the evening before I had prayed with him, kneeling by the corpse of his little boy.
"What I have been at Wheathedge you know. I cannot come here to-night on a false pretence. I cannot call myself a desperate sinner. I have wronged no man. I have lived honestly and uprightly before you all. I owe no man anything. I have depended on my daily labor for my daily bread. Out of it I have provided as I had opportunity for the poor around me. No one ever went hungry from my door away. My creed has been a short and simple one, 'Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.' I have tried to live according to my creed.
"But I begin to think that my creed is not all the truth. Mr. Laicus first led me to think so. No! my boy first led me to think so. I was satisfied with my creed for myself. But I was not satisfied with it for my boy.
"Then I met Mr. Laicus. We commenced to study the Bible together. If he had attempted to prove my opinions wrong I would have defended them. But he did not. We studied the undoubted truth. The doubtful points he left alone. I learned there was more in the Bible, more in human life and the human heart than I had thought. I grew little by little sure that I had not all the truth. But I was unwilling to confess it. I was-yes, I was too proud.
"Yesterday"—his voice trembled and he spoke with difficulty for a moment, but quickly recovered himself—"yesterday we lost the light and life out of our house. No! I am wrong. My light was extinguished, and my life was quenched in death. But my wife's was not. The dear boy was as dear to her as he was to me. But she lives and hopes; I am in darkness and almost in despair. My father's hard creed drove me into infidelity. My wife's, my friend's tenderer and happier faith calls me back again. But I do not know the way.
"Last night, kneeling by the side of my dear boy, I vowed that I would cast away my pride and seek that light in which my wife and my friends are walking. An hour ago the thought occurred to me-where seek it better than where they are gathered who are walking in this light? It seemed to me I could not come. But I had made the vow. I would not go back from it. I have cast away my pride. Oh! friends, help me to find that light in which you walk.
"Do not misunderstand me. I will not have your prayers on false pretences. I am, if not still an infidel, at least an unbeliever. I have no creed. I only believe that there is light somewhere, for others live in it. And I long to come into that light myself. Help me to find the way. And yet-I hardly know why I came here to-night. It was not for counsel. I do not want words now. The kindliest only pain me. Discussion and debate would arouse all the old devil of contradiction in me. Leave me alone. No! Do not leave me alone. Give me your prayers. Give me your Christian sympathies. But for the rest, for a little while, I want to be alone."
He sat down. There was a moment of perfect stillness. Then the pastor arose.
"Christ's sympathies are broader and His love is larger than we think," said he. "We hedge him round with our poor creeds, and shut Him up in our little churches, and think He works only in our appointed ways. He breaks over the barriers we put about him, and carries on His work of love in hearts that we think are beyond all reach of Him or us. We cannot tell our brother how to find the light. The light will find him. 'Jesus Christ is the light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.' And when the heart casts its pride away the light enters. For thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place; with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the heart of the contrite ones. Into His hands let us commit our brother's spirit."
And he poured forth his soul in a prayer which carried heavenward many an unbreathed cry for help, and received in the beating of many hearts a warmer, truer response than any spoken words could have given to it.
After service I walked along with Maurice Mapleson.
"I was never more astonished in my life," said I, "than when I heardMr. Gear's voice in the prayer-meeting to-night."
"I was not astonished," said Mr. Mapleson. "I went to that prayer-meeting sure that God had in store for us a better answer to our prayers than we had thought. I do not believe in presentiments; but I had a strange presentiment that Mr. Gear would come to our meeting to-night, that God would rebuke our little faith by His unexpected answer. I even waited for Mr. Gear's coming. I saw him enter. I took that chapter of Acts-which God seemed to give me at the moment-partly that I might lead him on to fulfil the purpose which I fully believed had brought him there. While you were singing, I was praying. And when the hymn and the prayer were ended together, I knew God would not let him go away unblest."
"I shall never again doubt," said I, "the truth of God's promise-'that if two of us shall agree on earth as touching anything they shall ask, it shall be done for them.'"
"Shall you not?" said he, with a smile. "I wish I could be as sure for myself."
A Retrospect.
I am sitting in my library. The fire burns cheerily in the grate. A dear voice is singing sweetly by my side. For baby is restless to-night and Jennie has brought him down to rock him to sleep here and keep me company.
The years pass in review before me. Thank God for the dear wife who three years ago persuaded me that I was a Christian more than a Congregationalist. The years have not been unfruitful. The work has been, oh! so little, and the harvest so great!
I believe the whole church is satisfied with the result of our peculiar method of candidating. I am sure there is no one who would willingly exchange Mr. Mapleson for Mr. Uncannon. There have been rumors once or twice that there was danger Maurice Mapleson would leave. He has twice had invitations to preach in city churches whose pulpits were vacant. But he has declined. "I hope," he says, "to live and die here. It is as God wills. But I have no ambition for a larger field of usefulness. It is all I can do to cultivate this field."
My prophesy has proved true respecting Mr. Work. He has broken down, given up preaching, nominally because of a throat trouble; really, I believe, because of spirit trouble, and has opened a young ladies' school in one of the suburbs of the city. Mr. Uncannon has left North Bizzy after a year's pastorate, for one of the great cities of the West, where he is about equally famous for his fast horses, his good cigars, and his extraordinary pulpit pyrotechnics.
Maurice Mapleson's experiment has proved a complete success. Our church at last is out of its financial difficulties. We held our annual meeting last week. And here is the financial exhibit as it appeared in the treasurer's report:
Cr.Monthly Subscriptions$1,675.00Sunday Collections395.85Ladies' Entertainments (a special fair having been organized byMiss Moore to secure the interest money.)251.06
$2,321.91
2,276.90 Balance in Treasury $45.01
Dr.Minister's Salary$1,500.00Organist, (the office was discontinued, congregational singingestablished, and Deacon Goodsole's eldest daughter voluntered to play.)NothingChurch Repairs-Sundries55.50Interest on Mortgage315.00Sexton (Salary reduced by himself as a contribution to the supportof the church.)175.00Fire, lights and incidentals231.40
$2,276.90
The church has never before had a balance in its treasury, and it was bewildered with astonishment at the result. The money was really due to Maurice, who was to pay, the reader will recollect, the incidental expenses out of the monthly subscriptions and take the remainder as his salary. But Maurice positively refused to take it. He, however, has long wanted the old pulpit cut down and a low platform substituted. The money was voted for that purpose, and the alterations are now going on.
Though the pews are free, the pew system is not wholly abandoned. Each attendant selects a seat for himself or a pew for his family. This is regarded his as much as if he paid pew rent for it. But instead of a fixed rent he pays what he will. No one has paid less than the old rates and some have nearly doubled them. But the improvement in finances is not the only nor even the best result of Maurice Mapleson's experiment. The congregation has increased quite as much as the income. Not less than a score of families are regular attendants on our church who never went to church before. With one or two exceptions every pew is taken. We are beginning to talk quietly about an enlargement.
I think this change had something to do with the revival last Spring. Maurice thinks so at all events. And any attempt to go back to the old system would meet with as much opposition from Deacon Goodsole as from Jim Wheaton. The only member of the congregation who regrets the change is Mrs. Potiphar. She turns up her nose —metaphorically I mean—the natural nose is turned up all the time at that revival. "It did not reach any of our set," she says. "Why, bless you, I don't believe it added fifty dollars to the church income."
One would think to hear her talk that Mrs. Potiphar supported the church. If she does, her right hand does not know what her left hand is doing.
The immediate precursor of that revival was the prayer-meeting which Mr. Gear attended, and in which he asked the prayers of the church. When in June he stood up before the congregation to profess his faith in Christ as a Savior from sin, and in the Holy Spirit as a Divine Comforter in trial and in sorrow, he did not stand alone. Twenty-eight stood with him. Among them were nine of the boys from our Mill village Bible-class. Of that brightest of Sabbath days I cannot trust myself to speak. The tears come to my eyes, and my hand trembles as I write. I must pass on to other thoughts.
I have already explained how the Bible-class gathered to itself a second class of which Mrs. Gear took charge. Both classes have grown steadily, and latterly, rapidly, and are now beyond all that the most sanguine of us ever anticipated. There is a flourishing Sabbath-school at the Mill village. Mr. Gear superintends it. Nearly half of my old scholars are teachers now. But others have come to take their places. My own class is larger than ever. Once a month Mr. Mapleson preaches in the school-house, and in the summer his congregation overflows upon the green sward without. Once or twice he has been forced into the grove adjoining. It is evident that the old school-house will not serve us much longer. Mr. Gear is already revolving plans for the erection of a chapel. It seems to me rather chimerical. No! On second thoughts nothing seems to me chimerical any more. And as Mr. Gear and Miss Moore are both engaged in this enterprize, I am confident it will succeed.
There is not in our church a more active, earnest, devoted Christian worker than Mr. Gear. He is one of the board of trustees, and about the only man on it who is not afraid of Jim Wheaton. He rarely misses a prayer-meeting, and though he does not speak very often he never speaks unless he has something to say. And that is more than can be said of some of those who "occupy the time" in our prayer-meetings. I understand that Mr. Hardcap was not altogether satisfied with Mr. Gear's "evidences" when he appeared before the session. But if daily life affords the true "evidences" of Christian character, there are very few of us that might not be glad to exchange with Mr. Gear. I doubt whether Dr. Argure would think he was sound in the faith. And if the "faith" is synonymous with the Westminster Assembly's Confession of it, I do not believe he is. Deacon Goodsole has confidentially hinted to me his fear that Mr. Gear has some doubts concerning the doctrine of election; and that he is not quite clear even on the doctrine of eternal punishment. It is not impossible. But I do not believe there is a member of our church whose faith in a present, prayer-hearing God is stronger. His first step toward securing a chapel for the Sabbath-school has been taken already. It was a meeting of the Sabbath-school teachers at his own house to pray for a chapel. And he builds on that prayer-meeting a strong assurance that he will get it. I do not think he is quite sound in the catechism. I wish I were as sound in the faith.
I have often wished to know how he solved his old doubts. If I could find his specific for skepticism, I thought to myself, it would be of inestimable value to others. So with some hesitation, lest I should awaken the old unbelief, I asked him the question the other day.
"How did you finally settle your old difficulties concerningChristian truth?" said I.
"I never have," said he quietly. "They disappeared of themselves, as the snow disappears from Snow-cap when May comes."
The fire burns low upon the hearth. The risen moon casts her soft light through the Eastern window and bathes the room with her radiance. The mountains, mist clad, stand as shadows of their daily self, more beautiful in their repose than in the full glory of the busy day. The baby sleeps quietly, nestled close to his mother's breast, too big I tell her for her arms; but she protests I'm wrong. And still I sit, silent, and the past defiles before me.
At length Jennie breaks the silence. "What are you pondering so deeply, John?"
"I was thinking, Jennie, how much I owe the little woman who persuaded me to this dear home, who convinced me that I was, or at least ought to be, a Christian more than a Congregationalist, and who taught me that I could work for Christ without infringing on my daily duties, and so brought to me all the flood tide of happiness that makes my life one long song of joy."