CHAPTER VIII.RITTER FRITZ.
One afternoon late in the summer, Mr. Clare and Dr. Richards, accompanied by a large party of boys and young men, including Freddy and the Ark of the Covenant, had climbed a rather steep road which led to one of their favorite resorts, a quaint and beautiful cemetery on a hill overlooking the river. The names, the German inscriptions, the artificial flowers, the child’s toys upon the smaller graves, the beautiful river flowing beneath—“It is all a mistake,” said Dr. Richards, smiling; “this is not practical, humdrum America; we are in Germany, the home of myth and song, and yonder flows the mysterious and beautiful Rhine. I am positive there is a ruined castle just at the turn of the hill yonder; and, if you listen, you will hear the song of the Lorelei.”
“I hope not,” replied Mr. Clare, so seriously that the others looked at him in surprise, perceiving which he went on more lightly, “There’s a song of the kind to be heard even in humdrum America, boys; and I confess to a terrible fear lest some of us should some day listen to it. A song that promises wealth and happiness to everybody at the cost of only a little bloodshed and violence. ‘All these things will I give thee,’ says Satan to us, as once to our Master, ‘if thou wilt fall down and worship me.’ And don’t you suppose it was a real temptation? to blot out the ‘two thousand years of wrong’ through which theworld has waited, and to establish then and there the kingdom for which we still look?”
“That’s a new explanation of that temptation,” observed Dr. Richards, who never let fall a syllable that could lessen or hinder Mr. Clare’s influence over his “boys.”
“No, it’s in all the Commentaries,” said the clergyman, smiling; “except that we are now hoping that this kingdom may manifest itself to the world after a certain new yet old fashion. And that hope is the more sure,” he added, “because the temptation has grown so loud and insistent. ‘Fall down and worship me; manufacture a little dynamite; plot and conspire a little; murder a few tyrants; it’s all for the good of the race, the salvation of the oppressed, and the rescue of the poor and suffering!’ Do I blink the strength of the temptation, or blame unduly those who fall before it? The blessed Lord Himself can feel for them, and has given them the only effective weapon against it: ‘Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.’”
“It’s pretty hard, sometimes, not to hate a rich man,” said Fritz Rolf gloomily. He laid down beside him on the grass an opera-glass which he had borrowed from Herr Martin, the jeweller, in order to examine some distant object in the landscape; but it had evidently been directed, as he held it to his eyes, towards the town they had left, where, perhaps, the color of a dress had caught his eye. It was on a secluded by-street, shut in by the high side walls of factories, empty and deserted on this summer Sunday evening, that the wearer of the dress stood, with her fair head drooping against the breast of a black coat, the sleeve of which gloomed about the blue waist.
Fritz was very pale, but he said nothing; as he himself would have expressed it, he “wouldn’t give it away to those fellows;” so he kept the glass strictly in his ownpossession, in spite of the objurgations levelled against him. He had borrowed it, he said, he was responsible for it, and he did not mean to have it broken. Only Mr. Clare, whose eyesight was as keen as the rest of his faculties, had caught a gleam of blue down the same treacherous vista of tall chimneys and low fences; and, though it was too far away for recognition of the wearer, fancied that he traced in the young man’s unusual sulky selfishness the features of chivalrous knighthood; upon which hint he spake.
“It must have been especially hard,” he said, “for those old fellows who used ‘to ride abroad redressing human wrong,’ putting down violence with the strong hand.”
“Like King Arthur’s Round Table,” said Freddy eagerly.
“Just so; next time, boys, we’ll bring Tennyson along, and Freddy shall read to us, if he will, about the knights. He reads wonderfully well; as well as he paints. But now I’ll tell you some of the story of it.”
Fritz scarcely listened to the story, he was so busy considering what was best to be done. Long before he could reach the street where he had seen them, the blue dress and the black coat would have vanished; besides, he had no legal or moral right to interfere, or even to suppose that what he had seen was anything more than honest “keeping company.” Indeed, from any contrary supposition Fritz’s honest soul revolted with all the strength of its own integrity; yet the secrecy observed,—for no one at “Prices” suspected that even an acquaintance existed between the two he had seen,—and the man’s reputation, which was none of the best, left no reason to suppose that he, at least, intended honorable marriage. “And it is so easy to deceive a girl,” thought Fritz, grinding his teeth with secret rage. Just at this moment, something Mr. Clare was saying caught his attention.
“No enemy, boys, is bad enough to justify us in hatinghim. It may be perfectly right to knock him down or give him a good thrashing, but only in case it is the best course forhim, as well as for those we want to help. For there is many a brute who is not amenable to any milder argument than a horsewhip; and it is, of course, better for him to try conclusions with that than to be allowed to commit a crime and injure the innocent. Your muscles were given you to protect not only your mothers, sisters, and sweethearts, but also every weak one unable to protect himself; but I should be chary of handing over the oppressor to the secular arm, until all other methods had failed; nor even then to gratify any personal feeling. If you are ready to bind his head up afterwards, you may trust yourself to knock it against a stone wall,” he ended, smiling, “but not unless.”
“I’d like to see the color of his brains first,” said Fritz savagely; “and decide upon mending him afterwards.”
“Then you’re not a good soldier, my boy,” said Mr. Clare. “While you profess to beat the enemy off the open battle-field, you will in reality give him shelter in the fortress intrusted to your special care, your own heart.”
“The enemy! you mean sin?” said Fritz, who was well accustomed to Mr. Clare’s modes of speech.
“The only enemy worth speaking of.”
“But suppose a man is trying to lead some one into sin—a girl, say; and you could prevent it by breaking his head?”
“Would that root out the sin from her heart, Fritz? A girl who will listen to one man might listen to another, and you could not keep on breaking heads forever.”
“She might be deceived once; she could not be the second time.”
“In that case, there need be no question of breaking heads; you need simply open her eyes.”
“And if she refused to believe me?”
“Those who are true know the truth when it comes to them. If a woman deliberately shuts her eyes to a danger of that sort, it argues some untrueness in herself, which he who would save her can only conquer by the completeness of his own truth and purity. He may die for her; hemustdie to self; but he must notdareto sin for her, lest he lose both her and himself.”
Fritz had been lying upon the grass with his handsome head very close to Mr. Clare’s knee, as the latter sat on a circular bench around the stem of a tall chestnut tree; and this conversation had therefore been inaudible to all but themselves. At this point, the young man turned slightly, so as to look the clergyman full in the face. His own, usually so bright and carelessly gay, was pale and drawn with care and anxiety, and his dark eyes asked so plainly, “How much do you know?” that the clergyman answered the question.
“My dear boy,” he said kindly, “I don’t know at all what is troubling you, only that you are troubled. If I can help you, I will, without asking any questions. Mind that, my boy; but the dear Lord, Fritz,doesknow, and can help you better than I can.”
“If a fellow could only believe that,” said Fritz slowly. “I think I’d like to go an errand for you, Mr. Clare. Isn’t there something you’d like at ‘Prices’? I want to get away from the boys”—
“No explanations,” said Mr. Clare, smiling. “I’ll trust you and abet you without. Here is the key of my rooms; you might see if the soot has fallen down the chimney, or the sun faded the carpet.”
“All right,” said Fritz, slowly raising himself to an erect position. He put the key in his pocket, and strolled off, leaving Mr. Clare to satisfy the uproarious curiosity of his companions.
Soot and carpet were in their proper relative positions as he opened the door of the clergyman’s sitting-room, and the sun could not possibly have forced an entrance through the heavy green shutters that guarded the window. The room felt close and warm after the cool evening air on the hill, and Fritz threw the shutters wide, and, leaning his arms on the window-sill, looked down into the street.
“If a fellow could only believe in Jesus Christ!” he murmured. “He’s about the only one I know who could help me; for the pastor never could manage Gretchen; besides, he’d be so wild at the bare idea that he’d be ready to tear me in pieces. Then, any interference from anybody would put her on her ear directly; yet, as the parson says, breaking that rascal’s head wouldn’t do anybody good—but me! Now, Jesus Christ—if there is such a person—could help, if He’d a mind to; and if help of any kinddoescome, it’ll be from Him, that’s a dead certainty. I suppose the parson would ask Him; but, no, hang it all! if He is the sort of person they say He is, and knows all about it, He won’t wait to be asked; Mr. Clare didn’t. Well, there’s just this about it. If Gretchen comes safe out of this, even if she marries some other fellow, so he’s an honest man and not a cursed rascal like Frank Randolph, then I will believe in Him, and fight His battles, too, for all I’m worth.”
It was an odd self-dedication, and one could almost fancy a smile of amused tenderness on the Face that was all the while so very, very close to him. The next moment Gretchen herself came hurriedly around the corner. She was flushed and heated as if from rapid walking; her bonnet was slightly askew, and her “bangs” were wild: the whole appearance of things was as if something had happened, or was about to happen, to her, at last.
“Aha! my lady,” said Fritz to himself, “my eye isupon you, and I propose to keep it there. It’s come to stay. Hello!” he called aloud. “Hello, Gretchen!”
She glanced up and around with an air of frightened guilt until she caught his eye.
“What are you doing there?” she called.
“Waiting for the parson. Where have you been, to get so warm?”
“None of your business,” she cried, as she disappeared around the corner.
Fritz drew in his head with a smile.
“I don’t mind trifles like that,” he said grimly. “Guess she’ll sing another tune by and by; and meanwhile I’ll go get some supper.” He paused before a copy of Gabriel Max’s head of Christ, and looked at it steadfastly, just checking himself in saying, “I am much obliged to you.”
“Stuff and nonsense! He ain’t a picture, anyway,” said Fritz, as he banged the door with unnecessary emphasis.
In spite of his eye being upon her, Gretchen managed to elude him, and go home by herself when her duties were over; and when he followed her to the parsonage, he was told that she had gone to bed with a bad headache. There was a light in her window, however, and a shadow upon the blind as of some one moving about the room. Fritz felt half inclined to keep watch all night; but, though in one sense a full-blooded German, three generations of his kith and kin had breathed American air; so he only said, “Humbug!” and went to bed in a re-actionary frame of mind.
And all the while that Face was so very, very close to him!
He could not sleep; the room was small and close on that warm night; his pillow was first too high, then too low; and all sorts of horrors haunted his restless brain. George, on the pillow beside him, snored loud and heavily,only rousing occasionally to protest against his brother’s restlessness, and bid him—with a mild but terribly sounding German oath—to lie still and go to sleep. But it was not until near morning that Fritz, having by sheer force of will remained motionless unusually long, had a strange dream. He thought the Christ Himself stood beside him, like as Gabriel Max has drawn Him, only without that look of solemn agony. Gently as a father, tenderly as a mother, He laid His hand on the young man’s burning brow, saying, “Sleep, Fritz, I am watching over her.” What he dreamed next, Fritz could not remember; but suddenly it was broad daylight in the room, and he was sitting up in bed, inspired—not oppressed—by the sense thatsomethingwas to be done immediately.
He dressed himself quickly without waking George, and only discovered, when he was outside in the silent street, that he had mechanically put on his Sunday clothes.
“But it’s all right,” said Fritz, “if He’s got anything really for me to do, I’m ready; and if not, I’ll get home in time to change ‘em. Well! I’m hanged if I even know where I’m going, for all I walk so thundering fast. Eh? oh! good-morning to you, Denny,” as the railway porter we once saw conversing with Father McClosky, crossed over the street to meet him.
“What’s up at ‘Prices,’ Fritz,” demanded the porter, “that they do be sendin’ Miss Gretchen to New York be the foive-o’clock train?”
Fritz’s heart stood still for a minute, then he said coolly, “That’s more than I can tell you, Denny. Did you see her off?”
“Sure, I did, an’ mighty glad to oblige her. She axed me to buy her ticket, but that blazin’ young spalpeen that’s managin’ Randolph’s Mill come along, and took it out of my hands intirely, bad luck to him!”
“Oh! Frank Randolph has gone too, has he? Then she won’t travel alone, at any rate.”
“Indade, and she won’t that, for they got into the same car, and it’s mighty attintive he was, wrappin’ her up, and carryin’ her carpet-bag,” said Denny, looking curiously at the young man.
If Fritz had been a genuine American, he would have laughed, even under the given circumstances, at the idea of the elegant Frank Randolph saddled with the pastor’s antiquated carpet-bag, with its faded, once gaudy colors, and oilcloth-covered handles; but, as it was, he only said, still coolly,—
“Well, don’t give it away, Denny; it’s private business she’s gone on. I did not know young Randolph was going on this train, though. I say, if I take the six-o’clock, I won’t be much behind her, will I?”
“Gets in three hours later,” said Denny, “connects with the western express at the junction; but I guess it’s the best ye’ll do now. Phy didn’t ye make the five-o’clock?”
“Overslept myself,” said Fritz. “I say, will you take a note from me to ‘Prices’?”
To which Denis consenting, he wrote on a blank leaf of the huge pocketbook in which he always carried the “pass” Mr. Randolph had procured for him,—
“Dear Mr. Clare,—I’m off for New York. Gretchen has gone on the 5A.M.You promised to help me, so make it all right with the Emperor and Miss Sally, and don’t let the pastor make a row. I’ll bring her back all right in a day or two. Blame it all on me.
“Truly yrs,“Fritz R.”
“Truly yrs,“Fritz R.”
“Truly yrs,“Fritz R.”
“Truly yrs,
“Fritz R.”
“P. S. I don’t want her talked about: my wife, you know.”
CHAPTER IX.“THE ETYMOLOGY OF GRACE.”
“It is rather a confused note,” said Mr. Clare, “and I fear I can’t show it to any one, as it was intended for my eye alone; but I gather from it that Fritz expects to be married in New York, and to return in a day or two.”
“The letter she left on her bureau,” said the pastor, whose eyes were red with weeping, “said much the same, except that she spoke not of so soon returning. I doubted it not to be Fritz with whom she had fled, though she spoke of riches and jewels, and of taking care of her old father. But ach! that a child of mine should so act!”
“Well, young folks will be young folks,” observed the Emperor, who sat looking intensely amused, on the side of the table; “and I suppose they just got tired of waiting.”
“It was that there pass to New York that was burning a hole in Fritz’s pocketbook,” said Miss Sally sagely, “that’s what it was. Well, it’s a foolish business altogether, and I thought better of both of them, but I guess we’ll have to make the best of it.”
“Laugh it off,” advised Father McClosky. “Av coorse, ’twas foolish, as ye say, Miss Sally; but maybe after all ’twas motives of economy injeuced ‘em. Sure, New York’s a mighty aisy place to get married in, annyway; no fuss about a license or that. The wurrust of it is, a felly never knows whin heain’tmarried. I never was there but wance, and thin I shook in me shoes till I was safe outagain; but whin a manwantsto be married”—he paused expressively.
The plan thus outlined being adopted, it came to pass that when Mr. and Mrs. Fritz Rolf returned to Micklegard, as they did in the course of a week, they were greeted with a roar of good-natured ridicule, but found their escapade considered otherwise a matter of slight importance.
But every one wondered at the change that had come over the erstwhile calm and self-reliant Gretchen. She was prettier than ever, with that new softness in her eyes, that shrinking timidity in her manner; and it was beautiful to see how she clung to her young husband, watching every look and gesture as though her life hung upon the issue, while his manner to her was tenderly authoritative; and he seemed altogether older and more sedate,—sobered, as every one said, by his new responsibilities.
Both retained their former positions at “Prices,” though, “for the sake of the example,” as they were sternly assured, they ought, in strict justice, to have been discharged. It was an evening or two after their return that the young bridegroom sought opportunity for a confidential talk with Mr. Clare.
“You’ve stood by me, sir,” he said, “like a man and a brother; and I want to tell you all about it.”
“Whatever you like, Fritz. You know I’m not inquisitive.”
“That you ain’t, Mr. Clare; but you know so much already, I’m afraid you might blame her more than she deserves. Did you suspicion anything that day on the hill?”
“Why, I saw you were troubled; and I knew that your wife—as she is now—had—well, since you ask—had given occasion for complaints of non-attention to business, and had been seen in company you would have disapproved.”
“Is that so? I didn’t know it. Who saw her?”
“Louis Metzerott; but he thinks they met only once, by accident.”
Fritz swore a huge oath under his breath, then begged Mr. Clare’s pardon. “And after all,” he said, “it was a pretty neat job; for I suppose no one else suspects anything.”
“Why, your friend, the porter, upon hearing of your marriage, carried his perplexities to Father McClosky,” said Mr. Clare, laughing, “as to how a young man should have overslept himself on the morning of his projected elopement. I don’t know how he was convinced it was all right and perfectly natural, for there aren’t many matrimonial precedents in the Acta Sanctorum or Alban Butler. But Father McClosky is equal to most things.”
“Then, I suppose he mentioned that she and Frank Randolph left together? It would be better for you to tell the Father, then, Mr. Clare, that when she got to that d—— confounded city, and found he did not mean to marry her, she just slapped his face and left him,” said Fritz proudly. “In a fair, stand-up fight, Gretchen could lick that puppy any day. She’s got twice his muscle; but she had a pretty bad fright, poor girl, wandering about the streets of New York; and so had I for her. I traced ‘em at the depot, by the pastor’s old carpet-bag; but, when I got to the hotel, where they had a suite of rooms, and found both of ‘em gone, I was just ready to give up. However, I started off again, wild enough, you bet; and, just at the corner, who should run into my arms but Gretchen herself! So, as Frank Randolph had registered under a false name at that hotel, and paid a week in advance, we went back there, till I got her a little cheered up; then, we found a clergyman, got married, and stayed the week out at the hotel”—
“You did?” with much surprise.
“You bet your sweet life we did! Why not? Randolph had had enough of it; he wasn’t going to showhisface there again in a hurry, and, if he had, I was ready for him. Yes, sir; we lived like princes, and it didn’t cost us a red cent!”
Mr. Clare repressed a smile. “It was a great danger, and a wonderful escape,” he said gravely. “Hundreds of poor girls are less fortunate, Fritz, than your Gretchen.”
“That’s what I tell her,” said the young man coolly. “Oh! I think she’s all right now; she’s found her master, and knows it. And I’ll never forget the way you’ve stood by me in this, Mr. Clare; you and Jesus Christ,” he added, not irreverently. “I’m solid on the religious question from now on, and don’t you forget it.”
Mr. Clare knew his business too well to ‘thuse over his new convert. “I am glad to hear it, my boy,” he said, with a manner that did not belie his words, yet quietly. “You will find the dear Lord a true friend always; but not, perhaps, always as visibly as in the present instance. Sometimes He requires us to say with Job, ‘Though He slay me,yetwill I trust in Him.’ When you have children of your own, Fritz, you will understand fatherly correction.”
“I see,” said Fritz, smiling, and coloring at the allusion. “Well, I won’t go back on Him, whatever happens; and that’s all there is about it.”
As he went his way to the parsonage, where he and his bride were lodged for the present, there was a quiet smile upon the young bridegroom’s lips. “She’s found her master,” he said within himself; “but that ain’t the best of it. She’s found her heart, too, Gretchen has. She never loved that puppy; she hadn’t a heart then to love him or anybody but herself; but she loves me. She has her faults yet, I know; though any girl will tell lies about a sweetheart and keeping company; but I love her, and sheloves me, and what more a fellow ought to wantIdon’t know.”
And indeed he had the air of being perfectly contented.
Meanwhile Frank Randolph was too well aware of the sorry figure he had cut in the matter, to be otherwise than silent.
And Henry Randolph came home, having deposited his young charges at their convent, and also kept an eye on Dare, with evident success, as the latter returned with him to America; and both were in such jubilant spirits that it seemed as though all things had gone with them exceeding well.
Louis Metzerott felt, quite illogically, that the return of her father had broken the last bond that connected him with Pinkie. He was too young for all the hope and courage to die forever out of his life, but also too young to believe in their resurrection; and, just for the present, life was very bitter to him; and only his inherited share of his father’s dogged resolution brought him safely through the summer and winter to a somewhat eventful spring, whereunto we are hurrying as fast as our pen will take us, with due attention to necessary business matters.
Upon one of these, the disposal of the sum which Mr. Randolph had transferred to her credit, Alice obtained her husband’s permission to consult Mr. Clare.
“So long as your husband’s counsel is not enough for you,” said the doctor, with some bitterness. “But all women are influenced by a straight-cut black coat, even though they may know it covers a fool.”
“Mr. Clare is not a fool, Fred.”
“He’s an enigma, to be as clear-headed as he is, and yet no hypocrite. Go on, ask him whatever you like; I sha’n’t, mind having his views on the subject, that is, if you careto tell me, for they are sure to be original at all events, and you need not bind yourself to carry them out.”
“I shall consult him in your presence and nowhere else,” said Alice, more wounded than she cared to show.
Mr. Clare listened to her statement of the facts in the case, with a calm exterior but some inward perplexity.
“I supposesomethingmust be done with the money,” he said, after a little consideration; “but your husband is probably better able to advise you what, than I am.”
Dr. Richards smiled grimly. “It might be given back to Randolph, or transferred to Pinkie,” he said grimly; “or even Frank would not turn up his nose at it.”
“The last I should by no means advise,” said the clergyman quickly; “indeed, I am not sure that I can advise at all,” he added.
“Well, it is usually a thankless task, I admit,” said the doctor; “but when you find us at a total deadlock in a question of conscience, eh?”
“I cannotsee the harm there would be in taking this money and making a proper use of it,” said Alice emphatically.
Mr. Clare smiled. “I begin to understand,” he said. “Two people are never at a total deadlock, Dr. Richards, upon any question that requires immediate action, and which both of them thoroughly understand. Truth being what it is, the thing is impossible.”
“I book for a future discussion, ‘WhatisTruth?’ meanwhile, the previous question is of more immediate interest.”
“Now, it seems to me,” returned the clergyman, “that the cause of the present deadlock is that both parties miss altogether the full import of that previous question.Canyou make a proper use, Mrs. Richards, of anything not lawfully yours? Wait a minute, doctor,” with a glance of mirthful menace, as that personage drew a long breath ofsatisfaction, “I want to askyouwhether you can rightfully make over to another who has no better claim to it than yourself, money which he will certainly make a bad use of, begging your forgiveness, Mrs. Richards, but I know whereof I speak.”
“I dare say,” she replied sadly.
“Again we wander,” said the doctor. “The question is not of Frank’s peccadilloes, but of his father’s money.”
“Is it his father’s?”
“Morally? no, by all the gods!”
“And not legally, for it stands in your wife’s name.”
“To whom, then, does it morally belong?” asked Alice.
“Ask your husband!” said Mr. Clare.
“Why, I suppose Mr. Bellamy would say to the nation,” returned the doctor, “but I certainly don’t propose to hand it over to Congress. Besides, I don’t care a hang for the nation, as such. I’m an individualist; and every coin of that accursed hoard is stained with the blood of individuals.”
“Again you miss the point, my dear sir. If the money be not yours, you have no concern with it further than to hand it over to its lawful owners.”
“Who are either dead or wish they were, and could not possibly be traced in either case.”
“That certainly complicates matters,” said Mr. Clare, laughing; “but, as some of them were negroes, as I understand it, you might donate a part at least to the Commission”—
“I’ll be hanged if I do! Besides, they never owned a penny in their lives, poor devils! The money was made at their expense, but was not theirs.”
“Dr. Richards, I fear you’re a humbug. Don’t you see that you have the feeling of property in this money?You speak of it as not yours, yet you’ll give it to this one, and be hanged if you give it to that”—
“I know!” cried Alice suddenly, her perceptions quickened, perhaps, by the feeling that her husband was coming off second best from the encounter of wits; “I know. They are going to sell more stock at ‘Prices’ next month; we could invest this money in Freddy’s name, and the income from it would give him a support if anything happened to us, Fred.”
Mr. Clare waited for Dr. Richards to express his approval. “Well, I don’t know that you could do better,” he said somewhat reluctantly. “It would be as near to returning the principal to its lawful owners as we are at all likely to come, and Freddy’s due proportion of the national wealth would amount to considerably more than the interest at five per cent, I suppose.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Mr. Clare, who seemed pleased to pass to a less personal subject. “They want to start a job-printing office at ‘Prices.’ There are a couple of printers among the small shareholders who would rather be employed by the community than to work as Hal o’ the Wynd fought, for their own hand; and they think by joining forces they could get together a pretty good trade. I could get them some little ecclesiastical printing, you know; and they are looking for some one who can design crosses, crowns, Greek letters and symbols generally for that department, and also heads for checks, notes, and so on for the banks and business houses. I believe, though, it was Louis who undertook to sound Freddy on the subject. I don’t know whether he draws on wood or not.”
“I had him taught that branch especially and particularly, though I can’t say it is his favorite,” said the doctor. “He’d like to paint the Landing of Columbus, andEdith searching for the body of Harold, I dare say, if he could stand up to it.”
“He has not disdained to paint slippers,” said Alice; “but that craze is dying out, and I should be very glad for him to have a more permanent position. He is so much happier to feel himself earning money, and his earnings have been very useful,” she added quietly. Truly, Alice’s trials had been also useful.
“Ah! by the way, I begin to realize why our friend Clare never argues,” said the doctor. “It is because, as Father McClosky says, ‘he only convinces.’”
“In this country,” observed Mr. Clare gravely, “we don’t say, ‘I am convinced,’ but ‘I am satisfied;’ and we are right. Argument may convince, that is, bind a man so that he cannot reply; satisfaction gives him enough light to see the matter as it is for himself. Therefore, while I never argue, I do sometimes try to satisfy.”
“I’m not so sure about your etymology,” replied the doctor, “but we won’t split hairs. I want room for a good knockdown blow. When you say ‘light enough to see the matter as it is,’ do you mean asIsee it is, or asyousee it is, or as it is in itself?”
“The ‘Thing-in-itself’?” Mr. Clare hesitated for a moment, then his lurking smile became a broad laugh. “I was awfully tempted,” he said; “it was on the end of my tongue to say that ‘you Kant do it, you know,’ but I won’t. I resist the temptation, and stand firm in the pride of virtue.”
“But you don’t answer my question,” said the doctor, trying hard not to smile.
“I will, though, in the Irish fashion, by asking another. Why do you want to see?”
“That depends onwhatI want to see.”
“Well, take, for instance, the question lately underdiscussion. Why did you wish to see the rights of that?”
“Because it was a bone of contention, a thorn in the flesh, the very devil himself buffeting me in person, and I wanted to stop the whole business.”
“That is, it was a personal matter, requiring immediate action! Exactly so. Now, tell me, are you convinced as to the ownership of that money?”
“Not quite.”
“Are you satisfied about it?”
The doctor laughed. “I see,” he said; “the correct rendering of ‘Ding-an-sich’ is ‘The thing as it appears to your wife.’ Oh, yes!I’msatisfied!”
“Then you have found the only answer that can be given to the question you booked for future discussion, What is Truth?”
“Found it, eh? well, I certainly don’t recognize it,” said the doctor. “Your ideas of truth are rather limited, my friend.”
“They are; limited by my human nature, and the peculiarities of my mental and moral constitution.”
“Good! we agree perfectly. The most bigoted Materialist could ask no more.”
“Tarry a little,” said Ernest Clare; “I have more to say. Though truth to me be relative, in Itself it is Absolute, Unconditioned”—
“Unknowable,” said the doctor.
“In Its entirety and for the present, yes; though, for the future, we have the promise that we shall know even as we are known.”
“Known! by the Truth? Lord, deliver us! here has this man been palming off religion on us, while I thought he was talking metaphysics.”
“A perfectly meaningless term, with which I decline toconcern myself,” said Mr. Clare; “and you can’t escape religion, Dr. Richards, whether you talk physics or metaphysics. For my part, I don’t know what people mean by metaphysics and supernatural, when God clothes the grass of the field and notes the fall of the sparrow.”
“Oh! mount the table yonder and preach,” said the doctor. “You’re bursting with it. I can see it in your eye.”
“Thanks! but I can get a better grasp of the subject just here,” said Mr. Clare, taking the doctor gently but firmly by the collar. “I say, doctor, did you ever experiment upon the blind spot on the eye?”
“You mean where the optic nerve enters it? well, yes, I have a little; but what has that to do with it? and what are you up to now?”
“I was remembering a rather striking analogy that occurred to me the other day; whether, in the spiritual eye, there may not be the converse of that blind spot—that is, a seeing spot?”
“And the rest of the spiritual eye, whatever and wherever it may be, insensible to light? Rather inconvenient, if it were not spiritual light, which is unimportant.”
“But suppose this seeing spot widens with use? suppose the more light one sees the more one becomes capable of seeing, until, as St. Paul says, the whole body is full of light?”
“But that is when one’s eye is single,” said Dr. Richards, “whereas you are supposing a double set of optics.”
“Now you quibble,” retorted the other good-humoredly. “One might have as many eyes as a fly, yet thevisionwould be single, as you very well know.”
“I don’t know anything about it,” returned the doctor; “vision, indeed! why, people tell me I see things upside down, but I’m not conscious of it. Besides, how could onesee the same things, even on your own showing, with the physical and spiritual eye? whatever you mean by that!”
“Do you remember theErd Geistin ‘Faust’ Dr. Richards? That was a product of the single vision, I fancy.
“‘Im Lebensfluthen, im Thatensturm,Wall’ ich auf und ab,Webe hin und her!Geburt und Grab,Ein ewiges Meer,Ein wechselnd Weben,Ein glühend Leben,So schaff’ ich am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit,Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid.”[1]
“‘Im Lebensfluthen, im Thatensturm,Wall’ ich auf und ab,Webe hin und her!Geburt und Grab,Ein ewiges Meer,Ein wechselnd Weben,Ein glühend Leben,So schaff’ ich am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit,Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid.”[1]
“‘Im Lebensfluthen, im Thatensturm,Wall’ ich auf und ab,Webe hin und her!Geburt und Grab,Ein ewiges Meer,Ein wechselnd Weben,Ein glühend Leben,So schaff’ ich am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit,Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid.”[1]
“‘Im Lebensfluthen, im Thatensturm,
Wall’ ich auf und ab,
Webe hin und her!
Geburt und Grab,
Ein ewiges Meer,
Ein wechselnd Weben,
Ein glühend Leben,
So schaff’ ich am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit,
Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid.”[1]
1. A rather free translation is subjoined. As indicated in the text, the last line is a quotation:—“In the restless stream of living,’Mid the storm of deeds,Move I hither, thither,Weave I to and fro!Birth and the Grave—One limitless ocean!—A changeful CreationGlowing with Life,Thus my task at Time’s tremulous loom I ply,And weave for God the Garment thou seest Him by.”
1. A rather free translation is subjoined. As indicated in the text, the last line is a quotation:—
“In the restless stream of living,’Mid the storm of deeds,Move I hither, thither,Weave I to and fro!Birth and the Grave—One limitless ocean!—A changeful CreationGlowing with Life,Thus my task at Time’s tremulous loom I ply,And weave for God the Garment thou seest Him by.”
“In the restless stream of living,’Mid the storm of deeds,Move I hither, thither,Weave I to and fro!Birth and the Grave—One limitless ocean!—A changeful CreationGlowing with Life,Thus my task at Time’s tremulous loom I ply,And weave for God the Garment thou seest Him by.”
“In the restless stream of living,’Mid the storm of deeds,Move I hither, thither,Weave I to and fro!Birth and the Grave—One limitless ocean!—A changeful CreationGlowing with Life,Thus my task at Time’s tremulous loom I ply,And weave for God the Garment thou seest Him by.”
“In the restless stream of living,
’Mid the storm of deeds,
Move I hither, thither,
Weave I to and fro!
Birth and the Grave
—One limitless ocean!—
A changeful Creation
Glowing with Life,
Thus my task at Time’s tremulous loom I ply,
And weave for God the Garment thou seest Him by.”
I forget who paraphrased that last line,—
“‘And weave for God the garment thou seest Him by.’”
“‘And weave for God the garment thou seest Him by.’”
“‘And weave for God the garment thou seest Him by.’”
“‘And weave for God the garment thou seest Him by.’”
said Mr. Clare. “It isn’t bad, but ‘living garment’ is even better, perhaps. The two together make up Goethe’s meaning.”
“Oh! so you give Goethe credit for using his spiritual optics?”
“In right of his poet or prophet-hood. A false prophet—not that Goethe wasthat, except partially like the rest,and much less so than many who are called the truest of the true,—but a false prophet is a prophet still, you know, and woe is unto him according to the falseness of his prophecy.”
“Because?”
“Because his falsehood is a moral fault. He could have seen truly had he purified his heart and life, and used his spiritual eyes.”
“Thank fortune! I really feared you were going to say ‘and used the grace of God.’ I do detest that expression! It is such a mean, cowardly state of mind for a man to be always asking for grace to do this, and rejoicing that he had grace given him to do that. Grace indeed! Has he no backbone of his own?”
“Why, you wouldn’t expect a man to breathe without air,” said the clergyman, “and why should he see without sunshine? And you’ll findthatetymology quite correct,” he added, as he rose to say good-night.
“Etymology? I don’t understand.”
“Grace—the graces—the Charites—charity—love, as the Revised Version has it. And don’t you remember Max Müller’s identification of the Charites with the bright Harits, the far-reaching sun-rays? Love and life, the life and love of God; not so very detestable after all, eh? Good-night.”
CHAPTER X.PREACHING AND PRACTICE.
It was a serious grief to Louis, when, following Fritz’s example, several of the other young men declared themselves, as Fritz had expressed it, “solid for religion,” not to be able to include himself among the number. It was an odd thing, he thought, that he, who had played at being a Christ-kind in his babyhood, whose guide and pattern in his youth had been the life of the Lord Christ,—that he should stand aside unable to believe, while others, till then indifferent, pressed forward to be called by His name. It was easy enough to go to church, and that Louis did quite regularly, sitting always when others rose or knelt, and following every word with patient, wistful anxiety. But there was very little comfort to be got out of churchgoing, so far as Louis could see; though the sound of Ernest Clare’s voice, and the sight of his calm, strong face, gave him sometimes the sensation of one struggling on in utter darkness, who, though he can trace no ray of light, knows that the full, cloudless sunshine is just beyond. But, meanwhile, the darkness is hard to bear; and the wistful pleading of the blue eyes that were fixed so earnestly upon his face went to the very heart of Ernest Clare.
Mr. Clare was slowly becoming a power at St. Andrew’s, the unfashionable church to which he had offered his services, gratis, at his first coming to Micklegard. The rector, an elderly man with a large family, always ground down tothe earth by fuel and grocery bills, had, at first, looked askance at his unsalaried assistant, as an eccentric whose dangerous social doctrines were likely to get not only himself, but the Church at large, into trouble. Indeed, long years of money anxieties, whereof the care had been faithfully cast upon Him who has promised to bear it, had almost convinced the rector that a situation wherein lay no temptation to be anxious for the morrow would be positively irreligious. He knew too well the blessings of poverty to pray, like pious Agar, to be delivered therefrom; and while his favorite beatitude was “Blessed are the poor,” the promise that the meek shall inherit the earth had for him no signification that was at all borne out by his own individual experience.
By such a man as this Ernest Clare was quite content to be lightly esteemed and guarded against. Reading the prayers and lessons, however, in the rector’s opinion, could harm no one, and spared a weary voice; even in the baptism of infants, and the visitation of the sick, there is little scope for dynamite, and it was a great comfort to be able to call at will upon one so entirely destitute of vanity or self-assertion. So, by the time the winter came, and the rector got a cold instead of the voice he lost in catching it, he was ready to accept Mr. Clare’s offer to preach for him, backed by the promise, voluntarily made, with a smile of affectionate amusement, “not to say a word of which the rector could possibly disapprove.”
It was not at all what is usually considered a popular sermon, though of a kind more likely to be popular than is often supposed. The text was,—
“Because I live, ye shall live also.”
“Very many men,” said the preacher, “have tried to define life, just as they have endeavored to explain what is meant by a personal God, and with about the samesuccess. Our own first Article says, ‘There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions.’ This is not all of the article, as you will see from your prayer-books, but it is the root-part, which contains and implies all the rest. And you will notice that most of this one sentence that I have read you says what God isnot; there are only two words, ‘living’ (which implies everlasting), and ‘true,’ to tell us what Godis. But this, that He is living and true, nay, that He is life and truth, is really all that we need to know about Him. Well, then, I hope some of us are asking, What do we mean by life, and what do we mean by truth? Let us take the latter first.
“Truth is that which a man troweth or believeth; a better definition than one might suppose; but there is another word which will lead us more quickly to the heart of our subject this morning. ‘In sooth’ and in ‘good sooth’ are phrases now found only in poetry; yet we could very well spare from our daily conversation more sonorous terms than that one little monosyllable sooth. For it is connected with the Sanskrit wordsat, orsatya, meaning truth;satbeing the participle of the verbas, to be. Therefore, when we say, ‘Do you in sooth?’ we mean simply, ‘Do you tell me that whichis?’
“Now, I once read a book, the author of which was very jubilant over his discovery that this verbas, to be, meant originally, simply, to breathe. Thus, if we go back a step farther, and say, ‘Do you in sooth?’ or, ‘Do you tell me that which breathes?’ we shall not be long in coming to the conclusion that Truth and Life are identical; and that What is Truth? means exactly the same as What is Life?
“Now, though so many attempts have been made, with only partial success, to define Life, as I told you a while ago, I suppose all of us have a fair working idea of it, atleast as regards this outside world. We know that a plant or animal is dead when it ceases, as Herbert Spencer says, to ‘correspond with its environment;’ that is, to receive something from and return something to the air or water or earth around it. Now, spiritual Life, or eternal Life, as we often call it, is exactly the same. We must correspond with our Environment, in Whom ‘we live and move and have our being;’ that is, ourbreathing, according to Mr. Matthew Arnold. We must breathe in Truth, and breathe out Love, if we would correspond withthisenvironment; and then—because He lives we shall live also. For there is one peculiarity about Life. It cannot stand still, any more than we can cease breathing; it must grow, else it ceases to be Life and becomes Death. And so He saysbecauseI live ye shall live also. Not merely His disciples, not merely those who profess to believe on Him, but the whole world shall live also. ‘The Kingdom of God is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal untilthe wholewas leavened.’
“If you look back on the story of the world, you will see for yourselves how the history of mankind is a history of progress, of climbing higher and higher. That the world, as a whole, is perceptibly better off, freer, wiser, and purer, than it was even a hundred years ago, is a proposition which I suppose few will controvert; but if I say that all this, and the almost incalculable progress that preceded it, is owing to the Life of Christ which is in the world, there will not fail some to deny it. Yet growth implies life, cannot be without life; and he who refuses to ascribe certain known results to an adequate cause must be able to produce in evidence some other cause capable of producing the same effects. But this is the very point where those who deny that the life of Christis, notwas, in the world, utterly fail. Also, their strongest point against Christianityis that the lives of those who do not believe in the Divinity of Jesus Christ often resemble more nearly what we call His human character than the lives of professing Christians. Well, why not? He has told us Himself that He does not care to be called Lord, Lord, unless we do the things that He says; and if we really do the things that He says, if we are pure, true, unselfish, and loving, then, whether we know it or not, His lifeis in us, and will transform us into its own likeness, just as surely as the life of the acorn transforms air, earth, and water into the likeness of an oak.
“Perhaps there are some here who think that Jesus Christ was simply a good man, not even a perfect man, far less the God-man. In fact, I have often heard just such words from some whom I see here before me.
“You think highly of Christianity as a moral system, and only wish its professors lived up to their duties. Well, I wish so too. I wish all who call themselves Christians were one-tenth as kind, as unselfish, as disinterested, as some of you who call yourselves infidels. But the difference between you is simply this. The humblest, the most faulty, sincere Christian knows that whatever good there may be in him is the fruit of that divine Life; while you are very apt to consider your virtues your own, and your faults the result of circumstances, due to heredity, perhaps, or education, or the cross-grained perversity of your next neighbor. And you are quite right; your faults are due to just these things. They are a part of the Kingdom of Death, which the Life of Christ came into the world to conquer.
“It is said that ‘if to-night a new star were created in some far-distant constellation, ages would pass before its light could reach us, but only a few seconds before the earth would feel its presence.’ And would not the influenceof that star be just the same whether we knew of it or not? Would our world be deflected from its present orbit one hair’s-breadth more or less because that new star could not be found upon a single astronomical chart? The name of Jesus Christ may not be found upon your guide to the stars, dear friends, but His life is nevertheless within and around you, making you better as you yield to it, or worse as you resist it. For as individuals youcanresist it, perhaps, forever, though, as a race, humanity must and will grow more and more into His image and likeness, Whois, that is, Whobreathes, Life, Love, and Truth.”
“Now, I suppose,” said Dr. Richards, who waited outside the church door, with Alice on his arm and Freddy in his chair, whereof Louis served as propeller,—“now, I suppose you think you have settled the whole question, and convinced everybody by that sermon?”
“On the contrary,” replied Mr. Clare. “There’s a verse that always comes into my mind the moment I finish preaching. I wish it wouldn’t, for it has rather a depressing effect at times, so that I am compelled to reason myself into optimism again before I can go on with the service,” with a mischievous glance, as he lent a hand to help the Ark over a gutter.
“Optimism! humph! I gave you credit for greater knowledge of the world. What is the verse?”