CHAPTER XXV.
In all my previous acquaintance with Mr. Jasper he had told me nothing of his history. I had never made inquiries as I considered it impertinent to pry into the secrets of people and preferred to remain in ignorance unless they chose of their own accord to tell me. I knew him to be a very reserved man, one who had traveled and seen a great deal, read and studied much and was an independent thinker. His theory, was that as he was responsible for his thoughts and deeds of this life and for the life to come, he could not avoid the necessity of being free in all things. He was most courteous in hearing all sides and diligent in reading everything on every subject as an impartial judge, but at the end he formed his own conclusions to which he adhered tenaciously for himself.
One day he incidentally referred to his religious life. His parents were devoted Christians and he was brought up in their faith. His mother was the stronger willed of the two. She was of Dutch descent, of a hardy and resolute race. She had an excellent mind, though not well educated. Her good common sense answered in place of education. She exacted implicit respect and obedience from her children. She laid down no rules, but every one knew what she desired and not one dared act contrary to what mother wished. There was no harshness, but a mother’s love shown in all her acts towards her children. She did not lecture them or parley with them, but “it is right my son and must be done,” and it was. She demanded obedience first and afterwards, sometimes, would give her reasons. She seldom made mistakes. Her good judgment so calmly acted upon, impressed all that it was best to do as she directed.
One thing indicated her character. She was very particular about the observance of Sunday. On Saturday the boy’s clothes were seen in order, their boots were blacked and they had their baths and the Sunday dinner was prepared as far as possible. On Sunday morning every one in the household, even to the dogs, knew and felt it was a sacred day. All went to church no matter what the weather might be and no Sunday sickness was allowed. After the service came the dinner, not a cold water, dry biscuit affair, but the best dinner of the week, smoking hot roasts, tarts, pies and cream pudding in abundance, just what would please hungry, growing boys and make them love the mother and give them a warm regard for Sunday. After that, books and papers, no novels on that day, with singing and pleasant conversations, the mother the center of the household group; walking in the garden, orchard or fields, but no visiting or making calls, nor did she encourage visitors on Sunday. It was a day of quiet rest at home.
Outside the house the father ruled, but in the house the mother was ruler and priestess. The parents never interfered in each other’s domain. If anything was said about something outside the house, it was, “Go to your father.” If about anything within the house, it was, “Ask your mother.” The mother often counselled with her husband about the children but never before them. Their matured decision was acted upon as if they had never spoken on the subject. Such was the love and respect and implicit obedience to the parents, that the boys never went away from home without asking permission of the mother, for it seemed to be within her province to know where her boys were. This habit clung to them until they reached manhood or as long as they were at home, for during school vacations and afterwards, before going out, it was always, “I will ask mother first.” This may seem very rigid, but what could have been better for a family of energetic boys than such a system of which they were trained to venerate and love mother and home?
While Mr. Jasper was telling this I recalled what I had read in the autobiography of George Ebers, where he writesof his mother’s influence: “I had no thought, performed no act, without wondering what would be her opinion of it, and this intimate relation, though in an altered form, continued until her death. In looking back, I may regard it as a tone of my whole development that my conduct was regulated according to the more or less close mental and outward connection in which I stood to her.”
And the sisters, for there were several, dear, good, noble girls, models of the mother in every respect, a family group clinging together, the interest of each belonging to all and never sundered except by death. There was no separate purse among the children. If one needed a little money he was free to help himself, and this continued even after they had grown to manhood, each assisting the others and no account kept.
It was a sad, sad day when death suddenly removed the mother from her privileged place in the home.
Mr. Jasper stopped suddenly with tears in his eyes and a choking sob in his voice, while he sat in silence for some minutes, looking back over the years as if he saw that home and the mother again.
I had known so little, almost nothing of my mother; yet such as she was she was still my mother. It has always caused me deep, heartfelt grief when others have told me of their mothers. Why could not I have had a mother’s love and care? Why?
The loss of such a treasure is next to losing God, the greatest loss, it seems to me, that can befall a human being. I had no father, not a real one, and have no feeling about him except—I have often heard people speak with great respect of their father, but the heart’s affection always goes to the mother.
I was thinking to myself and did not realize the silence of Mr. Jasper. He then continued: “Such was my home and early training. I was kept from bad company, ‘tied to my mother’s apron string,’ as the boys said, but it was a good string, one of the best that God ever made. One incident occurred when I was in my sixteenth year that left a profound impression on my mind and on my life. A neighbor’s wife and her son—he was just my age to a day—hadlately returned from a visit to a distant place where he had met some young people with whom I was slightly acquainted.
“We were in their drawing room and the mother was sewing or reading. Mention was made of a young man several years older than we were. At his name the mother remarked, ‘How sad it was! He was a young man of good family, fine ability and excellent prospects, but he had gone with bad women, became diseased and so offensive that his family could not endure his presence but had to provide him rooms outside the house.’ I do not remember her exact words. She was a refined, educated, Christian lady, and I know must have spoken on such a subject with as much delicacy as possible. I was absolutely ignorant of such things. Some might say I was a very innocent youth. I proudly bear the taunt. Such was the effect of her remarks upon me, that I went home sick with disgust and could eat no dinner.
“That feeling has never left me. Whenever in my travels I have seen a prostitute, I have had the same feelings of disgust, and when meeting men whom I knew to be licentious I would have as quickly taken a slimy toad in my hand as to have shaken hands with them. Laying aside all the morality of the subject, I never could appreciate the exquisite, refined taste of a gentleman or any man who had any self respect, who could associate with women common to everybody. And what puzzles me now is how any man belonging to a Christian church and professing to be a follower of Jesus, who was purity itself, can be guilty of sexual immorality. They are foul hypocrites, and besides, traitors to Jesus as much as Judas was.
“That lady’s talk gave me a shock that has lasted as a blessing all my life. I have often wondered why parents, ministers and teachers, should have such false modesty about these most important things to the young. They say nothing until the youth falls into the mire and slime of the ditches of sin, and then hold up their hands in holy horror and wonder how it could have happened.”
These remarks recalled Mr. Percy’s earnest talk to me when he, with both of my hands clasped in his, and tearsin his eyes, gazing into mine, begged me, for the love of God and for the sake of my own soul, to keep myself pure and clean. And I remember, too, that never, in all the years of my school days, did our burly principal or the teachers utter a word on a subject that was of infinitely more importance, than all our mathematics or history or our whole school course of study. When I have thought of the ruin of some of my schoolmates, through their ignorance of danger, I have bitterly blamed the whole false or deficient system of education. Only the pure in heart shall see God, but purity is entirely left out of our school education and mostly from the services in the churches.
Mr. Jasper continued, “I joined the church of my parents during my college life, and for years afterwards, I accepted the Bible as the inspired word of God, and all that the church taught as direct from Him. I never had a doubt about these things. I often wondered when others spoke of their doubts. The fact was, that I never read or thought of anything contrary to what I had blindly accepted as the truth. I was happy in this state of mind or ignorance. This continued for years. To be as brief as possible: I engaged in business and met with reverses through the betrayal of some men professing to be Christians. What to do I did not know. I was like a man shipwrecked on a desert island, or rather cast away among savages, for those whom I supposed my friends turned against me. Men whom I had assisted begged to be excused, ‘it was not convenient,’ or ‘some other time,’ when I asked for a little assistance. Men whom I had put upon their feet at a sacrifice to myself hardly knew me when we met. Once it was ‘Harry,’ but then, ‘Mister’ of the coolest kind. I was criticised and censured for becoming poor. When a man is down everybody, even his former friends, are ready to give him a kick. Mankind is very much like the vultures we see in India. Not one of them in sight anywhere until a poor brute is wounded, when they are seen coming in every direction to pull their victim to pieces and devour him. The world can forgive anything but poverty.
“I expected to find some sympathy and kindness in thechurch where I had taken a prominent part, but instead, I was told in effect that I had better take a back seat. This seemed to me intensely cruel and unjust.
“To be excluded from the church of my parents, to be slighted by those professing to be Christians, and by whom I was once respected and treated as a brother, without any reason given, was unendurable. I was grieved beyond measure, astonished and broken-hearted. My poor wife nearly died from grief, and my children, though I tried to conceal it from them, saw my agony. I tried to think what might be the reason of such harsh treatment, until my head seemed ready to burst, and such was the intense agony of my feelings that I was in fear that my heart might fail me, for it sadly ached. At last the question came. How is it possible for Christian men to act in this way? Are they followers of Jesus, who can hurt me so much without giving any reason whatever? As I have said, I never had a doubt about religion before, not one, but now the question came, Can a religion be true, and of God, that can allow men to treat me so unjustly and without mercy? I walked in my garden for hours, many a time till late at night, to retire to a weary, restless sleep.
“Then one night the crisis came. I had a fearful dream. I do not believe in dreams, but this one, whether the fancy of a disordered brain or whatever it was, had a terrible result. I thought I saw a great treeless plain, in the center a low spot of ground from which arose a dense white mist and I heard a voice saying of the mist: ‘This is your God and beside it there is nothing else.’ I awoke in horror, bathed in a cold perspiration. I tried to recover my senses, but for all I could do, I felt myself a changed man. Completely worn out I fell asleep again. In the morning I began to tell my wife my dream but she checked me saying, ‘It is too awful, don’t speak of it!’ But I could not get rid of it. The mist was as real to me as myself. It overpowered me. I was a changed man as much so as if I had been metamorphosed into another being. A thousand times I have tried to analyze that dream and to account for it. I never had a doubt in my life about theexistence of God, for I had always believed and trusted in Him implicitly, to my great comfort and peace. The only doubting question I ever had was whether a religion could be from God that could allow its believers to treat me as I had been treated. Whatever caused the dream I was another being from what I was the day before; I had no belief in a God whatever. My faith in the divinity of Jesus and in the divine inspiration of the Bible had ceased entirely. I had no feeling about the matter. I could not pray, for I had nothing to pray to. I had no fear, none in the least. I had done nothing to bring me into this condition and felt no responsibility for it. I had not the least desire to go back into the church and would not have accepted the highest place in it, if they had come on their knees begging me to take it. Strangely enough, though the day previous and for weeks and months I had been in an agony of distress, I was now serenely quiet and at peace; all the old conflict had gone.
“I lost breath in my soul sometimesAnd cried, God save me if there’s any GodBut even so, God saved me; and being dashedFrom error on to error, every turnStill brought me nearer to the central truth.”
“I lost breath in my soul sometimesAnd cried, God save me if there’s any GodBut even so, God saved me; and being dashedFrom error on to error, every turnStill brought me nearer to the central truth.”
“I lost breath in my soul sometimesAnd cried, God save me if there’s any GodBut even so, God saved me; and being dashedFrom error on to error, every turnStill brought me nearer to the central truth.”
“I lost breath in my soul sometimes
And cried, God save me if there’s any God
But even so, God saved me; and being dashed
From error on to error, every turn
Still brought me nearer to the central truth.”
“I am not trying to explain anything, but simply stating the truth as to my condition. Some good Christians might say that I had become a hardened sinner and God had withdrawn the light of His countenance from me. This would be false, for I had committed no sin of which I was conscious, that would cause such a terrible transition. All through my life I had considered atheism an impossibility and looked upon any one who professed to be an atheist with horror, and if any one had suggested the day before that I would fall into this state I would have been shocked. I yield to no living being in honesty of purpose. It was my interest to be right and do right and to know why I was so changed in a few moments and by a dream. I had no thought or desire to be without God. Why should I, when all my life I had loved and tried to serve Him? It was a wonderful strange feeling, as if I had just been born into a new life, for not only my mind but my body seemed to have been transformed.
“Weeks and months passed while I engaged in business with the greatest peace and tranquility. Yet the thought was always present: ‘There must be inevitably an Infinite Creator, God.’ My reason told me this and that I ought to pray to Him. This belief gradually increased until one day, like a sudden light, my faith in God returned, filling my whole being with joy and peace that has never left me. He is now my life, my all. Nothing gives me so much peace and happiness as prayer when I can talk with God, to my Father who knows me infinitely better than I know myself. But I never got back my old faith in the Bible nor in the divinity of Jesus.
“I have a great respect for the Bible as a wonderful book, and a love and regard for Jesus as a great man and teacher. Yet I cannot but believe that the deification of Jesus was the most appalling blunder of all time. I do not wish to offend you, but truly, when I go to church and hear Jesus addressed as God I feel shocked more so than when I see a heathen worshiping a stone image as a god. My reason, my heart, and all my feelings rebel against putting anything in the place of the Infinite God. I am as honest in this as it is possible for a human being to be in anything, and if it is possible for any one to have a witness within himself that he is right, I have that. I go direct to God. He can hear me as easily as He can hear any one else, and I believe and know that He is always ready to listen unto me when I come. I want no mediator, nothing of any kind to stand between me and God. I know that if my father were living and I should send any one to intercede for me he would feel hurt and ask, ‘Am I such a father that my own son cannot come to me instead of sending some one else?’ Why should we make out God to be such an unnatural Father that He will not admit His own children to His presence without being paid for it or through some one else as an intercessor? ‘All’s love yet all’s law, in the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and in the clod.’
“As to original sin and an atonement to satisfy a broken law, these to me are mythological stories begotten from men’s fertile imagination. The best atonement is a repentantheart, a contrite spirit and a pure life. ‘As a father pitieth his children so does the Lord love them that fear Him. Who shall ascend unto the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart. For thy name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity for it is great. What man is he that feareth the Lord? Him shall He teach in the way that He shall show, his soul shall dwell at ease. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him and He will show them His covenant. The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and His ears are open unto their cry. The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart and saveth such as are of a contrite spirit.’
“There is scarcely a Psalm that has not a passage showing that God is willing to forgive and receive all those who come to Him direct and in the right spirit. Why mystify and muddle a thing that is so plain that any one can easily understand? I cannot conceive how a holy God, and more, a God of infinite mercy, could be willing to accept, much less take delight in, any worship or sacrifice that would cause suffering to even the most insignificant animal. No one can think of vivisection, though for philanthropic purposes, without a sense of pain. I cannot see the slaughter of an animal or bird, even when they are for food, without a feeling of pity. How then can I, though a weak mortal, yet having such feelings, bow down and worship a God who is declared to take pleasure in the destruction of life and offerings of blood! May God forgive me if I am wrong, but I cannot help thinking and feeling as I do. I would rather believe that all mankind are in error than to hold such an idea of the God I love and worship.
“Vicarious atonement is contrary to all the principles of justice. The sufferings of innocent victims to appease the wrath of an angry God is repugnant to the noblest instincts of the human race and a degrading superstition of which only the lowest heathen should be guilty. Moral justice can never be satisfied by the death or punishment of the innocent for the guilty. Nowhere on earth is one allowed to suffer in place of another. To buy off justice is bribery and to accept a bribe is a crime. How then can people attributeto a just God what is considered by universal mankind an act of infamy?
“Jesus is to the world an example of what a human being should be, and not as a sacrifice to an offended God or to satisfy a broken law.
“Having escaped from the old theological dogmas, how was it possible for me to go back to them? How could I accept such a horrible statement as this, made by a very prominent divine, who wrote text books on theology still used in the divinity schools? ‘The saints in glory will be far more sensible how dreadful the wrath of God is, and will better understand how dreadful the sufferings of the damned are, yet this will be no occasion of grief to them, but rejoicing. They will not be sorry for the damned, it will cause no uneasiness or dissatisfaction to them, but, on the contrary, when they see this sight it will occasion rejoicing and excite them to joyful praise.’
“Another equally prominent divine writes: ‘The happiness of the elect in heaven will in part consist in witnessing the torments of the damned in hell, and among them it may be their own children, parents, husbands, wives, and friends on earth. One part of the business of the blessed is to celebrate the doctrine of reprobation. While the decree of reprobation is eternally executing on the vessels of wrath, the smoke of their torment will be eternally ascending in view of the vessels of mercy, who, instead of taking the part of these miserable objects, will say amen, hallelujah, praise the Lord. When the saints shall see how great the misery is from which our God hath saved them, and how great a difference He hath made between their state and the state of others who, by nature and perhaps by practice, no more sinful and ill-deserving than they, it will give them more a sense of the wonderfulness of God’s grace to them. Every time they look upon the damned, it will excite in them a lively and admiring sense of the grace of God in making them so to differ. The sight of hell torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever.’
“I have candidly and truthfully given you, Mr. Japhet, my experience for what it may be worth to you, but my conclusions are all of life to me.”