CHAPTER XVIII
WhenJoyce awoke that first Sunday morning in her new home the sun was streaming broad across her bed. By that she knew it was very late. It suddenly came to her consciousness for the first time that she had been so busy getting her dress done in time to reach Mrs. Powers’ at twelve o’clock that it had never occurred to her to do any marketing for Sunday, and of course everything had been closed up tight when she came home at half past ten. Well, there was enough in the house to keep her from starving, and she would just have to get along. There were probably restaurants open, but why go to a restaurant on Sunday? She had not been brought up to be much away from home on the Lord’s day, and while she understood that it might be necessary sometimes for restaurants to be open on Sunday for some poor homeless ones, still, she didn’t see patronizing them if she could help it.
Examination of her larder proved that there were still a few crackers, a small piece of cheese, two slices of dried beef, one banana, and almost half a loaf of bread. There was a little milk left in the bottle too, and she could have that for breakfast. It was not an extensive array for a Sunday dinner, and probably Mrs. Powers’ menu would have offered a more tempting list, but she drew a relieved sigh to think that she did not have to get Mrs. Powers’ dinner that day, no, nor eat it, either.
She ate her breakfast of crackers and milk hungrily, for one cannot work as hard as she had worked for thepast three days without developing an appetite, and by the time she was finished, and everything put away, the church bells were ringing.
It was interesting to be going to a new church. All her life she had attended the same church. It came to her while she was brushing her shoes and putting on her serge dress and hat that, perhaps, some of the dear people would miss her and wonder. Perhaps sometime she would write to the minister or her Sunday-school teacher and explain that she had felt an entire change would be good for her, less sad; and that she had gone thus quietly because she dreaded the good-byes. Yes, that would probably be the right thing to do after she had once established herself, and had a good paying job, and could report herself as doing well. It made her almost homesick to think of how all the old friends were on their way to Sunday School just now—how her place would be vacant in the class and her spot in the pew empty.
It wouldn’t be the first time though, for Nannette had contrived both Sundays since Aunt Mary’s death to keep Joyce at home, the first time because she had a sick headache and wanted Joyce to stay and wait on her, the second time because she and Eugene were going somewhere and demanded that Joyce remain at home with the children, who were supposed to be under the weather. People would not think it strange that she had not come this Sunday either, perhaps, and she knew Nannette well enough to be sure that by this time there was some well-arranged story sent about explaining, with perfect plausibility, her absence. So she had no uneasiness on the score of her friends.
She chose the pretty church with the stone arches and ivy wreathing for her first entrance into religious worship in her new home. It bore the name of her own denomination on its bronze tablet outside the door, and she entered with a kind of feeling that it partly belonged to her.
The church was filled with well-dressed people, and a vested choir was singing an anthem as she entered. She was annoyed to be late and slipped into a seat near the door.
The vested choir would have been an innovation in the old church in Meadow Brook, but she thought it rather pretty. The church was artistic and beautiful, with deep-toned woods, vaulted ceiling, and gleam of jeweled windows picturing forth sacred themes in memory of certain departed church members. She sat in the softly cushioned pew and listened to the glorious music, the rich tones of the organ, the well-trained voices. Now, indeed, was her soul to find rest and refreshment for the hard times of her life. She relaxed and found peace and a sense of nearness to God in this, His house.
The Powers family entered, to her surprise, a bit noisily, with their guests, and made quite a flutter getting certain seats. They seemed to be important personages, for whom the ushers hurried to find the place in four hymn books, and present calendars of the day, with smiles and obsequious bows. The men were fresh from a round on the golf course, and had that air of bored patronage and indifference that so many men wear on Sunday morning, as if virtue fairly exuded from their rosy faces because they had come in from the velvety green to this sombre stuffy dullness for a little while to patronize God. Thewomen were attired in spring array and filled the air about them with the faint, sweet perfume of the well-groomed. The eyes of their envious sisters were fixed upon their hats and coats in earnest study from the minute of their entrance, and many a woman forsook her mild attention to the service and tortured her mind with such problems as how she could get together a becoming hat like that without paying the price of an imported one, or whether there was enough in the breadths of grandmother’s old silk gown to cut a silk coat like the one Anne Powers was wearing.
Joyce, in her back seat, was surprised that her employer of yesterday should be in church. She had unconsciously labeled her as a non-churchgoer. In Meadow Brook the people who gave dinner parties on Sunday did not pay much attention to churchgoing, and as she watched from her shadowed seat under the gallery and saw Mrs. Powers’ delicate airs, and the way she held her book and sang, she marvelled that this pretty woman, with the rapt expression, could be the same one who spoke so contemptuously to her the day before.
But when the minister ascended the pulpit for the sermon she tried to put such thoughts away from her mind and to listen to what was being said. It was not for her to judge the people in God’s house, and God himself might be able to see something acceptable in the worship of these people that was not apparent to her.
The minister had read the story of the man born blind, and it had given her a warm feeling about her heart to remember the dear old story, so linked with thoughts of her Aunt Mary, and especially of that wonderfulday in the woods, so she settled herself to enjoy the story once more, and to thrill over the miracle of the healing as she had always been able to thrill over this particular story even after she had grown up.
As the sermon opened up with an eloquent passage descriptive of the oriental day and setting of the story her mind was back in the aisles of the grove with the boy and Aunt Mary, and the birds singing far overhead. Her own sweet thoughts leaped ahead in the story, till suddenly, she became aware of words that were being spoken, words that did not seem to fit the thread of the story at all. What was this? No miracle? Common sense? Jesus used clay to give the man something to do himself, possibly it might have had some medicinal qualities as some clays known to the medical profession of the day are known to have healing qualities. But more likely the clay was a mere agent to bestir the man, to awaken him to a sense of himself, and stimulate his nerves to action—a mere psychological effect on the man’s spirit, something that Jesus, with his unusually keen insight into men’s natures, saw was needed. Such cures were often performed today, by shock of fire or fright, by inducing the subject to in some way believe that he was healed. There was a great deal in will power and in the state of mind, and Jesus used common sense and set men right withthemselves. Perhaps the man had not been really blind at all from his birth, but had merely got in the habit of keeping his eyes shut and thinking he was blind, until he and his friends had come to believe that it was true. There was much proof for this theory in the way that his cure was accepted by his friends and neighbors andeven by his parents. If there had been a real need of cure it was not at all likely that the parents of the invalid would have taken the cure so lightly and even professed that they knew nothing at all about it. The matter was evidently held lightly among them. The work of Jesus on this earth was really to bring men tothemselves, to awaken them to a sense of what they coulddo for themselves, in even rising above weakness and physical infirmity. They called Jesus divine because they could find no better word to call Him, but we were all divine, all the children of God as was Jesus, and all able to do what Jesus did. Perhaps not in the same degree, for he was the greatest man that ever lived, but still, in a sense, we could do for suffering humanity just what Jesus did. If we were not actual physicians, able to heal disease, we could yet persuade men to common sense, awake them to open their eyes to things about them.
Joyce sat straighter in her seat and her cheeks grew hot with excitement. She felt as if some exquisite, sacred fabric, that was beyond price, and had always been most dear to her had been torn in tatters and scattered to the four winds. She felt as if she must arise and cry out to the man that what he was saying was false—that he was blaspheming!
She looked around startled on the indifferent audience composed in a dreamy silence of peace, eyes intent upon the preacher, lips placid, no look of protest in their faces! How strange! How awful! Was there no one, not one, to stand up for the Bible, for the miracle of healing, for the matchless God-nature of Christ?
But other words suddenly arrested her, standing out from the drab background of the sermon sharply:
“The time has come when the world no longer needs a bloody atonement to appease an angry God. The world has grown beyond that ghastly idea. The death of Christ was to show the world how much He loved it, not to wash away its evil deeds in some mysterious way. People must undo their own evil deeds. No one could do that for them. We must work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, for it was the God in us that works. We all have God in us, only we are not letting Him work, just as that blind man had sight, but he was not using it—”
Joyce almost started to her feet. She seemed to be crying out in her throat so that it hurt: “That is not true, oh, that is not true! Will no one tell him what an awful thing he is saying?” But not a sound came from her lips, of course. She found that her limbs were trembling and she felt as though she scarcely dared look up. To think that she was here in God’s house listening to this and no one making any protest! She looked around again, aghast at the smug, satisfied faces of the congregation. It was almost as if they were not listening.
The minister’s voice broke again upon her troubled spirit:
“No man’s death can do away with my guilt. No amount of shed blood can cleanse me from sin. I’ve got to do thatmyself. As Jesus made the man go to the river and wash the clay away, so you and I must wash away our own sins in the sweat of our brow, working for Him. We must feed the hungry, clothe the naked, be kind one to another, uplift the fallen, uplift and broaden humanity,put away sin from our lives, and in its place put deeds of kindness such as Jesus did. That life and that alone can atone for a sinful past. Let us pray.”
During the prayer that followed tears came into the eyes of the wounded girl, but a choir of the angelic host seemed somewhere far away to be chanting, and the words they spoke were clear and distinct:
“The blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from all sin.
“He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
They rang in her heart with triumph as she lifted her head for the closing song, whose words she could not see because of the tears in her eyes, and when it was over, and the benediction was spoken, she turned, humiliated and sad, to go out of the house of God. Just behind her came a clear, languid voice, drawling:
“Yes, wasn’t it a sweet sermon? Perfectly lovely. I just love to hear Doctor Darling preach; he is so refined, and he makes one feel so good—”
And out in the sunshine the young girl walked back to her little house stricken, almost sick, with the experience of the morning. This was her first experience of Modernism in a Christian church. Summer visitors in Meadow Brook had complained that the minister there was old-fashioned, and they really ought to have a young man who would be broad in his views and educate the youngpeople in up-to-date religion. But the people of Meadow Brook loved Doctor Ballantine and his wife, and did not want to see them leave. He had been there a long time and the elders in the church all thought as he did, so until some of the younger generation who had not been taught by him in the Scriptures grew up he was not likely to be ousted.
Joyce had read a little about the state of things in the religious world, but she had thought of Modernism as one thinks of leprosy, or the starving Russians, as something far, far away and awful, to prevent which one ought to give money and send missionaries, but which one was never likely to meet with in daily life. Now, suddenly brought face to face with it, she was shaken to her soul.
Not that the sermon of the morning had given her any doubts. It could not have done that even if it had been strong in arguments and logic, and not weak, garbled statements of half-facts she had known all her life, for Joyce was a Christian, rooted and grounded in the Word, and had lived too many years in a sweet communion with her Saviour to have been shaken even a little in her sweet faith. No, it had made her angry, tremblingly, impotently angry. She felt as if she could not stand it that words like those should have been preached in a Christian pulpit under the name of an orthodox faith, and no one put in a protest. She longed to be a man that she might do something about it, a prophet that she might cry out; a wise leader that she might come to the people and tell them how the curse of God would be upon them if they listened to words like those—how their souls would be lost—!
She sat down on her wooden box in her small home,going over it all with sorrowing heart. She did not even take off her hat, so absorbed and excited she was. She went over the Bible verses that she knew that proved the minister had been wrong, verses that she had learned when a child, and her heart began to swell with triumph over the wonder and the joy of the salvation that was hers.
“He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me,hatheverlasting life, andshall notcome into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”
“For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.”
“For by grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.”
“Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.”
How her heart thrilled with the words as she said them over, and how she rejoiced that she had been taught in the Word. Sunday after Sunday during her little girlhood it had been the regular afternoon employment for her and Aunt Mary to learn a chapter in the Bible, or a group of verses that Aunt Mary had selected during the week on some special topic. Sometimes she had done the selecting herself and had taken such joy in finding out a group of verses on a certain topic. Now they came flocking from her fine memory like a troop of strong angels sent to protect her.
“Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washingof regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour.”
How she wished she had her Bible that she might spend the afternoon hunting out other verses! What else was there about the blood? Ah!
“Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins!”
“For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”
“God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more, then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.”
“For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purity of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”
She could remember the very afternoon when she learned that, curled up on the foot of Aunt Mary’s bed while she took a little nap, in the days when Aunt Mary was just beginning to be frail and had to rest more than usual. And how proud she had been to think she had found this wonderful verse all by herself. And now she had an inexpressible longing to take that Bible verse to the minister who had preached that strange dead sermon that morning and show him. Perhaps he didn’t know. Perhaps he never had heard. But of course he must. And he was one of those men they called Modernists, whowere taking the heart and life out of the faith of today, who were helping to fulfill the prophecies about the latter days, when men would prefer teachers with strange doctrines.
She was half frightened at the thought. It seemed to her that she must turn and flee back into the safe harbor of Meadow Brook, where dear old Doctor Ballantine preached about the cross of Christ every Sunday, and everybody knew and believed the old doctrines. It seemed as if perhaps she had run away into danger and horror, and the tempter might be preparing a snare for her feet.
She did not feel safe until she had dropped upon her knees and asked for guidance and strength to keep true to Christ, even though she might have to pass through a portion of the world where there was no faith.
As she rose from her knees it occurred to her that Elijah, the prophet, had once got into some such a panic, and thought he was the only loyal prophet left, and the Lord had told him he had yet five thousand other prophets who would not bow the knee to Baal. There were very likely many Christians in this town, and by and by she would go out and find them.
So she got up cheerfully and went about getting some dinner. She hadn’t a great appetite, for she had worn herself out for several days past, and when she had eaten she lay down on the heap of papers and fell asleep. When she awoke she realized that that paper bed was getting pretty hard, and she really must do something about it tomorrow; one could not sleep on newspapers indefinitely. She shook the papers out, and crumpled them anew, until they had some spring in them again, and smoothed it nicelyfor when she should come back that night, and then, with a couple of crackers and some cheese folded neatly in a bit of wrapping-paper and tucked in her pocket, she started out.
Her first object was to find a church. She wasn’t quite sure how she was going to tell whether it was the right kind of a church from the outside or not, without listening to another sermon, but she prayed in her heart as she went that somehow she might drop into a place where she would find help and comfort to her soul, and might, if possible, find it without having to listen to more words such as she had heard that morning. It seemed to her that it was disloyal to her Lord even to listen to such things.
The day was wonderful, and the spring air was sweet with the breath of flowers. As she walked down the pleasant streets the blueness of the sky and the greenness of the grass made a kind of ecstasy for her spirit. The little lazy clouds floating, the flight of a bird across the blue, the redness of the maple buds on the trees, all gave her joy. There were tulips in some of the yards she passed, red and yellow, pink and white; and hyacinths made delicate the air, and she thought what a wonderful God to make so many beautiful, intricate flowers, each with a different perfume. Little blue crocuses were sticking up their gallant buds from lawns here and there, quaint processions of blue and white and yellow. The town was in its Sunday best, and everything promising a gorgeous summer. One could not help being glad on such a day even though one were all alone.
A church steeple loomed ahead and Joyce quickenedher step. It was a plainer church than the one she had attended in the morning and she thought as she approached, perhaps here she would find a company of live Christians who were awake to what was being preached in the other church and would have the good old gospel. Her eyes eagerly sought the bulletin-board posted up just outside the door. The hours of service were there, the usual hours, but everything else was completely covered by a large card announcing the Brotherhood Minstrel Show to be held on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings of that week, tickets fifty cents a night.
Joyce turned away disappointed. The minstrel show might be all right. They had entertainments at home sometimes, of course, for the young people, but people who were really alive to the terrible things that were being preached in another church of their own town would surely be interested in something besides minstrel shows. Of course they might be, and just not have put it on the outside of the church, but she didn’t somehow feel that here was her place of worship.
She walked on for at least a mile, passing, as she did so, out of one suburb into another. She was interested in the pretty little bungalows she passed, and in the finer houses when she turned to another street, but she was looking for churches. Presently she came to another, a smart yellow brick affair out on the street with the doors open and a brisk air of business around the place. Groups of young people were wending their way toward it, and going in the door. A large blackboard outside the entrance announced the various activities of the week. Monday evening there was a rehearsal for the Christian Endeavorpageant, and all costumes were to be brought, Tuesday evening Class A was holding a bazaar and supper for the benefit of the new basketball team. Wednesday evening there was to be a lecture by a professor from a famous university entitled, “Why I Know That the World is Growing Better.” Thursday there was a choir rehearsal, and a meeting of the Ladies’ Aid to arrange to coöperate with the Red Cross for the annual fair, Friday there was a church social, and Saturday there was a picnic in one of the amusement parks with a moonlight ride home in automobiles. Joyce read it carefully through, searching in vain for a word that would show the faith of these people of great activities, but found nothing, not even a prayer meeting. Probably that lecture was in place of one. Well, it might be all right, but she had been taught that the world wasn’t growing better, and never would till Christ came to make things over. Lifting her eyes above the blackboard, she saw that the church bulletin announced the minister’s topic for that night, “The Political Situation Today.” She turned away with a sigh. Well, it might be all right, but it promised nothing from the outside. She walked on, turning down another street.
Two hours she walked, keeping the general direction of her home in mind so that she would not get lost. She found several little churches, all more or less attractive in a way, but none of them giving any clue to what was preached inside, and at last, with a heavy heart and weary feet, she turned her steps homeward, coming back by a different street.
It was when she was within four or five blocks ofwhere she judged her little house must be that she came upon another church built of rough stone, rugged and substantial, but beautiful in its simple lines. The door was open and a burst of song from young voices greeted her:
“What can wash away my stain?Nothing but the blood of Jesus.What can make me whole again?Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”
“What can wash away my stain?Nothing but the blood of Jesus.What can make me whole again?Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”
“What can wash away my stain?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.”
Joyce turned in at the door as a bird flies home to its nest.