W
HAT she did next that night was to sit with her elbows in her lap, and her chin resting on her hands, and stare into vacancy for half an hour. She was very much bewildered. Col. Baker had awakened a train of thought that would never slumber again. He need not hope for such a thing. Her brother Charlie saw deeper into her nature than she did herself. She was tenacious of an idea; she had grasped at this one, which, of itself, would perhaps never have occurred to her.
Hitherto she had played at cards as she had played on the piano or worked at her worstedcats and dogs, or frittered away an evening in the smallest of small talk, or done a hundred other things, without thought of results, without so much as realizing that there were such things as results connected with such trifling commonplaces.
At least, so far as the matter of cards was concerned, she would never do so again. Her quiet had been disturbed. The process of reasoning by which she found herself disturbed was very simple. She had discovered, as if by accident, that her pastor; as she loved to call Dr. Dennis, lingering on the word, now that it had such a new meaning for her, disapproved of card-playing, not only for himself, but for her; at least that Col. Baker so supposed.
Now there must be some foundation for this belief of his. Either there was something in the nature of the game which Col. Baker recognized, and which she did not, that made him understand, as by instinct, that it would be disapproved by Dr. Dennis, or else he had heard him so express himself, or else he was totally mistaken, and was misrepresenting that gentleman's character.
She thought all this over as she sat staring into space, and she went one step further—she meant to discover which of these three statements was correct. If Dr. Dennis thought it wrong to play cards, then he must have reasons for so thinking. She accepted that at once as a necessity to the man. They must also have been carefully weighed reasons, else he would not have given them a place in his creed. This also was a necessity to a nature like his.
Clearly there was something here for her to study; but how to set about it? Over this she puzzled a good deal; she did not like to go directly to Dr. Dennis and ask for herself; she did not know how to set to work to discover for herself the truth; she could pray for light, that to be sure; but having brought her common sense with her into religious matters, she no more expected light to blaze upon her at the moment of praying for it, than she expected the sun to burst into the room despite the closing of blinds and dropping of curtain, merely because she prayed that it might shine.
Clearly if she wanted the sun, it was her part to open blinds and draw back curtains; clearly ifshe wanted mental light, it was her part to use the means that God had placed at her disposal. Thus much she realized. But not being a self-reliant girl, it resulted in her saying to Eurie Mitchell when she slipped in the next evening to spend an hour:
"I wish we girls could get together somewhere this evening; I have something to talk over that puzzles me a great deal."
You are to understand that the expression, "we girls," meant the four who had lived Chautauqua together; from henceforth and forever "we girls" who went through the varied experiences of life together that were crowded into those two weeks, would be separated from all other girls, and their intercourse would necessarily be different from any other friendships, colored always with that which they had lived together under the trees.
"Well," said Eurie, quick, as usual, to carry out what another only suggested, "I'm sure that is easily managed. We can call for Ruth, and go around to Marion's den; she is always in, and she never has any company."
"But Ruth nearly always has," objectedFlossy, who had an instant vision of herself among the fashionable callers in the Erskine parlor, unable to get away without absolute rudeness.
"I'll risk Ruth if she happens to want to come with us," Eurie said, nodding her head sagely. "She will dispose of her callers in some way; strangle them, or what is easier and safer, simply ignore their existence and beg to be excused. Ruth is equal to any amount of well-bred rudeness; all that is necessary is the desire to perform a certain action, and she will do it."
This prophecy of Eurie's proved to be the case. Nellis Mitchell was called into service to see the girls safely over to the Erskine mansion, where they found two gentlemen calling on Ruth and her father. No sooner did she hear of their desire to be together, than, feeling instant sympathy with it, she said, "I'll go in five minutes." Then they heard her quiet voice in the parlor:
"Father, will you and our friends excuse me for the remainder of the evening, and will you enjoy my part of the call and yours too? I have just had a summons elsewhere that demands attention."
"Isn't that perfect in its propriety, besides bringing things to the exact point where she wants them to be?" whispered Eurie to Flossy as they waited in the hall. "Oh, it takes Ruth to manage."
"I wonder," said Flossy, with her far-away look, and half-distressed, wholly-perplexed curve of the lip—"I wonder if it is strictlytrue;that is what troubles me a good deal."
Oh, Dr.Hurlbutyour address to the children that summer day under the trees was the germ of this shoot of sensitiveness for the strict truth, that shall bloom into conscientious fruit.
It was by this process that they were all together in Marion's den, as Eurie called her stuffed and uninviting little room. Never was mortal more glad to be interrupted than she, as she unceremoniously tossed aside school-books and papers, and made room for them around the table.
"You are a blessed trio," she said, exultantly. "What good angel put it into your hearts to come to me just now and here? I am in the dismals; have been down all day in the depths of swamp-land, feeling as if I hadn't a friend onearth, and didn't want one; and here you are, you blessed three."
"But we didn't come for fun or to comfort you, or anything of that sort," explained Flossy, earnestly, true to the purpose that had started her. "We came to talk something over."
"I don't doubt it. Talk it over then by all means. I'll talk at it with all my heart. We generally do talk something over, I have observed, when we get together; at least we do of late years. Which one wants to talk?"
Thus introduced, Flossy explained the nature of her perplexities; her occupation the evening before; the interruption from Dr. Dennis; the sweeping action of Col. Baker, and the consequent talk.
"Now do you suppose that is true?" she said, suddenly breaking off at the point where Col. Baker had assured her that all clergymen looked with utter disfavor on cards.
Marion glanced from one to another of the faces before her with an amused air; none of them spoke.
"It is rather queer," she said, at last, "that I have to be authority, or that I seem to be theonly one posted, when I have but just emerged from a state of unbelief in the whole subject. But I tell you truly, my blessed little innocent, Col. Baker is well posted; not only the clergy, but he will find a large class of the most enlightened Christians, look with disapproval on the whole thing in all its variations."
"Why do they?" This from Flossy, with a perplexed and troubled tone.
"Well," said Marion, "now that question is more easily asked than answered. It requires an argument."
"An argument is just what I want; I like to have things explained. Before that, though, one thing that puzzles me is how should Col. Baker be so familiar with the views of clergymen?"
"That is a curious fact, my mousie; you will find it, I fancy, in all sorts of strange places. People who are not Christians seem to have an intuitive perception of the fitness of things. It is like dancing and theatre-going, and a dozen other questions. It is very unusual to meet people who do not sneer at Christians for upholding such amusements; they seem to realizean incongruity between them and the Christian profession. It was just as plain to me, I know, and I have sneered many a time over card-playing Christians, and here you are, dear little Flossy, among them, just for the purpose of teaching me not to judge."
Ruth, for the first time, took up the subject:
"If your statement is true, Marion, how is it that so many professed Christians indulge in these very things?"
"Precisely the question that I just asked myself while I was talking. By what means they become destitute of that keen insight into consistencies and inconsistencies, the moment they enter the lists as Christian people, is more than I can understand, unless it is because they decide to succumb to the necessity of doing as other people do, and let any special thinking alone as inconvenient and unprofitable. I don't know how it is; only you watch this question and think about it, and you will discover that just so surely as you come in contact with any who are active and alert in Christian work, whose religion you respect as amounting to something, you are almost sure to see them avoiding allthese amusements. Who ever heard of a minister being asked to spend an evening in social card-playing! I presume that even Col. Baker himself knows that that would be improper, and he would be the first to sneer."
"Of course," Ruth said, "ministers were expected to be examples for other people to follow."
"Well, then," Flossy said, her perplexity in no way lessened, "ought we not to follow?"
Whereupon Marion clapped her hands.
"Little Flossy among the logicians!" she said. "That is the point, Ruth Erskine. If the example is for us to follow, why don't we follow? Now, what do you honestly think about this question yourself?"
"Why," said Ruth, hesitatingly, "I have always played cards, in select circles, being careful, of course, with whom I played; just as I am careful with whom I associate, and, contrary to your supposition, I have always supposed those people who frowned on such amusements to be a set of narrow-minded fanatics. And I didn't know that Christian people did frown on such amusements; though, to be sure, now that Ithink of it, there are certain ones who never come to card-parties nor dancing-parties. I guess the difficulty is that I have never thought anything about it."
Marion was looking sober.
"The fact is," she said, gravely, "that with all my loneliness and poverty and general forlornness, I have had a different bringing up from any of you. My father did not believe in any of these things."
"And he was a Christian man," Flossy said, quickly. "Then he must have had a reason for his belief. That is what I want to get at. What was it?"
"He found it in an old book," said Marion, looking at her, brightly, through shining eyes. "He found most of his knowledge and his hope and joy in that same book. The Bible was almost the only book he had, and he made much of that."
"And yet you hated the Bible!" Eurie said this almost involuntarily, with a surprised tone.
"I hated the way in which people lived it, so different from my father's way. I don't think Iever really discarded the book itself. But I was a fool; I don't mind owning that."
Flossy brought them back to the subject.
"But about this question," she said. "The Bible was just where I went for help, but I didn't find it; I looked in the Concordance for cards and for amusements, and for every word which I could think of, that would cover it, but I couldn't find anything."
Marion laughed again. This little morsel's ignorance of the Bible was to this girl, who had been an avowed infidel for more than a dozen years, something very strange.
"The Bible is a big book, darling," she said, still laughing. "But, after all, I fancy you will find something about the principle that governs cards, even if you cannot find the word."
Meantime Ruth had been for some minutes regarding Eurie's grave face and attentive eyes, with no small astonishment in her gaze. At this point she interrupted:
"Eurie Mitchell, what can be the matter with you? were you ever known to be so quiet? I haven't heard you speak on this theme, or any other, since you came into the room; yet youlook as though you had some ideas, if you chose to advance them. Where do you stand on this card question?"
"We never play cards at home," Eurie said, quickly, "and we never go where we know they are to be played."
Flossy turned upon her the most surprised eyes. Dr. Mitchell's family was the most decidedly unconventional and free and easy of any represented there. Flossy had supposed that they, of all others, would make cards a daily pastime.
"Why not?" she asked, briefly and earnestly, as one eager to learn.
"It is on Nell's account," Eurie said, still speaking very gravely. "Nell has but one fault, and that is card-playing; he is just passionately fond of it; he is tempted everywhere. Father says Grandfather Mitchell was just so, and Nell inherits the taste. It is a great temptation to him, and we do not like to foster it at home."
"But home card-playing is so different; that isn't gambling." This from Flossy, questioningly.
"Nell learned to play at home," Eurie said,quickly. "That is, he learned at Grandfather Mitchell's when he was a little boy. We have no means of knowing whether he would have been led into gambling but for that early education. I know that Robbie shall never learn if we can help it; we never mean to allow him to go where any sort of cards are played, so long as we have him under control."
All this was utterly new to Flossy.
"Then, if your little Robbie should come, with other children, to see me, and I should teach them a game of cards to amuse them, I might be doing you a positive injury," she said, thoughtfully.
"I certainly should so consider it," Eurie said, with quickness and with feeling. "Girls, I speak vehemently on this subject always; having one serious lesson at home makes people think."
"It is a question whether we have any right to indulge in an amusement that has the power to lead people astray," Ruth said, grave and thoughtful, "especially when it is impossible to tell what boy may he growing up under that influence to whom it will become a snare."
Marion added:
"Flossy, do you begin to see?"
"I see in every direction," Flossy said. "There is no telling when we may be doing harm. But, now, let me be personal; I play with father a great deal; he is an old man, and he has no special temptation, certainly. I have heard him say he never played for anything of more value than a pin in his life. What harm can there possibly be in my spending an evening with him in such an amusement, if it rests and entertains him?"
"Imagine some of your Sunday-school boys accepting your invitation to call on you, and finding you playing a social game with your father; then imagine them quoting you in support of their game at the billiard saloon that same evening a little later," Marion said, quickly. "You see, my little Flossy, we don't live in nutshells or sealed cans; we are at all times liable to be broken in upon by people whom we may influence and whom we may harm. I confess I don't want to do anything at home that will have to be pushed out of sight in haste and confusion because some one happens to come in. I want to be honest, even in my play."
Over this Flossy looked absolutely aghast.Those boys of hers, they were getting a strong hold upon her already; she longed to lead them. Was it possible that by her very amusements she might lead them astray! Another point was, that Nellis Mitchell could never be invited to join them in a game. She had invited him often, and she winced at the thought. Did his sister think she had helped him into temptation? Following these trains of thought, she was led into another, over which she thought aloud.
"And suppose any of them should ask me if I ever played cards! I should have to say yes."
"Precisely," said Marion. "And don't you go to thinking that you can ever hide behind that foolish little explanation, 'I play simply for amusement; I think it is wrong to play for money.' It won't do: it takes logical brains to see the difference, and some even of thosewon'tsee it; but they can readily see that, having plenty of money, of course you have no temptation to play cards for it, and they see that with them it is different."
"T
HERE is Bible for that doctrine too."
"Where?" Flossy asked, turning quickly to Marion.
"In this verse: 'If meat maketh my brother to offend, I will eat no meat while the world stands.' Don't you see you never can know which brother may be made to offend?"
"And it is even about so useful a thing as food," said Flossy, looking her amazement; she had never heard that verse before in her life. "About just that thing; and nothing so really unnecessary to a complete life as card-playing may be."
"Col. Baker sneers at the inconsistency of people who have nothing to do with cards, and who play croquet," Eurie said this with cheeks a little heightened in color; she had come in contact with Col. Baker on this very question.
Ruth looked up quickly from the paper on which she was scribbling.
"I think myself," she said, "that if it should seem necessary to me to give up cards entirely, consistency would oblige me to include croquet, and all other games of that sort."
"I shouldn't feel obliged to do any such thing," Marion said, promptly; "at least, not until I had become convinced that people played croquet late into the night, in rooms smelling of tobacco and liquor, and were tempted to drink freely of the latter, and pawn their coats, if necessary, to get money enough to carry out the game. You see, there is a difference."
"Yet people can gamble in playing croquet," Eurie said, thoughtfully.
"Oh, yes, and people can gamble with pins, or in tossing up pennies. The point is, they are not in the habit of doing it; and pins suggest nosuch thing to people in general; neither do croquet balls; while the fact remains that the ordinary use of cards, is to gamble with them; and comparatively few of those who use them habitually confine themselves to quiet home games. People are in danger of making their brothers offend by their use; we all know that."
"If that is true, then just that one verse from the Bible ought to settle the whole question." There was no mistaking the quiet meaning in Flossy's voice; it was as good as saying that the whole questionwassettled for her. Marion regarded her with evident satisfaction; her manner was all the more fascinating, because she was so entirely unconscious that this way of looking at questions, rather than this firm manner of settling questions, was not common, even among Christians. "Can you show me the verse in your Bible?" she presently asked.
"I can do that same with the greatest pleasure," Marion said, bringing forward a new and shining concordance. "I really meant to have a new dress this fall; I say that, Ruthie, for your special comfort; but the truth is, there was an army of Bible verses that I learned in my youthtrooping up to me, and I had such a desire to see the connection, and find out what they were all about, that I was actually obliged to sacrifice the dress and get a concordance. I have lots of comfort with it. Here is the verse, Flossy."
Flossy drew the Bible toward her with a little sigh.
"I wish I knew an army of verses," she said. "Seems to me I don't know any at all." Then she went to reading.
"I know verses enough," Eurie said, "but they seem to be in a great muddle in my brain. I can't remember that any of them were ever explained to me; and it isn't very often that I find a place where any of them will fit in."
"They do fit in, though, and with astonishing closeness, you will find, as you grow used to them. I have been amazed at that feature of the Bible. Some of the verses that occur in the selections for parsing are just wonderful; they seem aimed directly at me. What have you found, Flossy?"
"Wonderful things," said Flossy, flushing and smiling.
"You are reading backward, aren't you? Iknow those verses; just you let me read them, substituting the object about which we are talking, and see how they will fit. You see, girls, this astonishing man, Paul by name—do you happen to know his history?—more wonderful things happened to him than to any other mortal I verily believe. Well, he was talking about idols, and advising his Christian friends not to eat the food that had been offered to idols; not that it would hurt them, but because—well, you'll see the 'because' as I read. I'll just put in our word, for an illustration, instead of meat. 'But cards commend us not to God: for neither if we play are we the better; neither if we play not, are we the worse. But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling-block to them that are weak; for if any man see thee which hast knowledge, sit at cards, shall not the conscience of him which is weak be emboldened to sit at cards also? And through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish for whom Christ died? But when ye sin so against the brethren and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ. Wherefore if cards make my brother to offend, I will play no more cardswhile the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.' Doesn't that fit?"
"Let me look at that," said Eurie, suddenly, drawing the Bible to her. "After all," she said, after a moment, "what right have you to substitute the word cards? It is talking about another matter."
"Now, Eurie Mitchell, you are too bright to make such a remark as that! If the Bible is for our help as well as for Paul's, we have surely the right to substitute the noun that fits our present needs. We have no idolsnowadays; at least they are not made out of wood and stone; and the logic of the question is as clear as sunlight. We have only to understand that the matter of playing cards is a snare and a danger to some people, and we see our duty clearly enough, because, how are we ever to be sure that the very person who will be tempted is not within the reach of our influence. What do you think, Flossy? Is the question any clearer to you?"
"Why, yes," Flossy said, slowly, "that eighth verse settles it: 'For meat commendeth us not to God, for neither if we eat are we the better,neither if we eat not are we the worse.' It certainly can do no one any harm if I let cards alone, and it is equally certain that it may do harm if I play them. I should think my duty was clear."
"I wonder what Col. Baker will say to that duty?"queriedEurie, thinking aloud rather than speaking to any one. "He is very much given over to the amusement, if I am not mistaken."
Flossy raised her eyes and fixed them thoughtfully on Eurie's face, while a flush spread all over her own pretty one. Was it possible that she had helped to foster this taste in Col. Baker. Howmanyevenings she had spent with him in this way.Washe very muchaddictedto the use of cards, she wondered; that is, outside of their own parlor? Eurie seemed to know something about it.
"What makes you think so?" she asked, at last.
"Because I know so. He has a great deal to do with Nell's infatuation. He was the very first one with whom Nell ever played for anything but fun. Flossy Shipley, you surely knowthat he derives a good deal of his income in that way?"
"I certainly didnotknow it," Flossy said, with an increasing glow on her cheeks. The glow was caused by wondering how far her own brother, Charlie, had been led by this man.
"Girls," said Marion, concluding that a change of subject would be wise, "wouldn't a Bible reading evening be nice?"
"What kind of an evening can that be?"
Marion laughed.
"Why, a reading together out of the Bible about a certain subject, or subjects, that interested us, and about which we wanted to inform ourselves? Like this, for instance. I presume there are dozens of texts that bear on this very question. It would be nice to go over them together and talk them up."
Flossy's eyes brightened.
"I would like that exceedingly," she said. "I need the help of you all. I know so very little about the Bible. We have musical evenings, and literary evenings; why not Bible evenings? Let's do it."
"Apropos of the subject in hand, before wetake up a new one, what do you think of this by way of illustration?" Ruth asked, as she threw down on the table a daintily written epistle. There was an eager grasping after it by this merry trio, and Eurie securing it, read aloud. It was an invitation for the next evening to a select gathering of choice spirits for the purpose of enjoying a social evening at cards.
"What do you propose to do with it?" Marion asked, as Eurie balanced the note on her hand with an amused face; the illustration fitted so remarkably into the talk.
"Decline it," Ruth said, briefly. And then added, as an after-thought, "I never gave the subject any attention in my life. I am, perhaps, not entirely convinced now, only I see as Flossy does, that I shall certainly do no harm by declining; whereas it seems I may possibly do some by accepting; therefore, of course, the way is clear."
She said it with the utmost composure, and it was evident that the idea of such a course being disagreeable to her, or of her considering it a cross to decline, had not occurred to her. She cared nothing at all about these matters, and hadonly been involved in them as a sort of necessity belonging to society. She was more than willing to be "counted out."
As for Flossy, she drew a little sigh of envy. She would have given much to have been constituted like Ruth Erskine. She knew that the same like invitation would probably come to her, and she knew that she would decline it; but, aside from loss of the pleasure and excitement of the pretty toilet and the pleasant evening among her friends, she foresaw long and wearisome discussions with Col. Baker, with Charlie, with her father; sarcastic remarks from Kitty and her lover, and a long train of annoyances. She dreaded them all; it was so easy to slip along with the current; it was so hard to stem it and insist on going the other way.
As for Marion Wilbur, she envied them both; a chance for them to dash out into a new channel and make some headway, not the everlasting humdrum sameness that filled her life.
Flossy was fascinated with the Bible words, that were so new and fresh to her.
"Those verses cover a great deal of ground,"she said, slowly reading them over again. "I can think of a good many things which we call right enough, that, measured by that test, would have to be changed or given up. But, Marion, you spoke of dancing and theatre-going. I can't quite see what the verses have to do with either of those amusements; I mean not as we, and the people in our set, have to do with such things. Do you think every form of dancing is wicked?"
"What wholesale questions you ask, my morsel! And you ask them precisely as though I had been made umpire and you must abide by my decisions, whatever they are. Now, do you know I never believed in dancing? I had some queer, perhaps old-fashioned, notions about it all my life. Even before there was any such thing as a conscientious scruple about it, I should not have danced if I had had a hundred chances to mingle in just the set that you do; so, perhaps, I am not the one of whom to ask that question."
"I should think you were just the one. If you have examined it, and know why you think so, you can surely tell me, and give me a chanceto see whether I ought to think as you do or not."
"Ineed posting, decidedly, on that question," Eurie said, throwing off her earnestness and looking amused. "If there is anyone thing above another that I do thoroughly enjoy, it is dancing; and I give you all fair warning, I don't mean to be coaxed out of it very easily. I shall fight hard for that bit of fun. Marion don't know anything about it, for she never danced; but the rest of you know just what a delicious exercise it is; and I don't believe, when it is indulged in reasonably, and at proper places, there is any harm at all in it. If I am to give it up, you will have to show me strong reasons why I should."
"All this fits right in with my idea," Marion said. "Nothing could be more suitable for our first Bible reading. Let us take an evening for it, and prepare ourselves as well as we can beforehand, and examine into the Bible view of it. Eurie, you will be expected to be armed with all the Scriptural arguments in its favor. I'll try for the other side. Now, Ruth and Flossy, which side will you choose?"
"Neither," Ruth said, promptly. "I am interested in the subject, and shall be glad to be informed as to what the Bible says about it, if any of you are smart enough to find anything that will bear on the subject; but I believe the Bible left that, as well as some other things, to our common sense, and that each of us have to decide the matter for ourselves."
"All right," said Marion, "we'll accept you on the non-committal side. Only, remember you are to try to prove from the Bible that it has leftusto decide this matter for ourselves."
"I shall take every side that I find," Flossy said. "What I want to know is, the truth about things."
"Without regard as to whether the truth is so fortunate as to agree with your opinion or not?" said Marion. "You will, probably, be quite as likely to find the truth as any of us. Well, I like the plan; there is work in it, and it will amount to something. When shall it be?"
"Next Friday," said Flossy.
"No," said Ruth; "Friday is the night of Mrs. Garland's lawn party."
"A dancing party," said Eurie. "Good!Let us come together on Thursday evening. If there is a dancing party just ahead, it will make us all the more zealous to prove our sides; I shall be, at least, for I want to go to Mrs. Garland's."
D
R. DENNIS had just gone into his study to make ready for the evening prayer-meeting, when he heard his door-bell ring. He remembered with a shade of anxiety that his daughter was not yet out of school, and that his sister and housekeeper was not at home. It was more than likely that he would be interrupted.
"What is it, Hannah?" he asked, as that person appeared at his door.
"It is Miss Erskine, sir. I told her that Miss Dennis was out of town, and Miss Grace was at school, and she said it was of no consequence, she wanted to see the minister himself. Will I tell her that you are engaged?"
"No," said Dr. Dennis, promptly. The sensation was still very new, this desire on the part of any of the name of Erskine to see him. His preparation could afford to wait.
Two minutes more and Ruth was in the study. It was a place in which she felt as nearly embarrassed as she ever approached to that feeling. She had a specific purpose in calling, and words arranged wherewith to commence her topic; but they fled from her as if she had been a school girl instead of a finished young lady in society; and she answered the Doctor's kind enquiries as to the health of her father and herself in an absent and constrained manner. At last this good man concluded to help her.
"Is there any thing special that I can do for you to-day?" he asked, with a kindly interest in his tone, that suggested the feeling that he was interested in her plans, whatever they were, and would be glad to help.
"Yes," she said, surprised into frankness by his straightforward way of doing things; "or, at least, I hope you can. Dr. Dennis, ought not every Christian to be at work?"
"Our great Example said; 'I must workthe works of him that sent me while it is day.'"
"I know it; that very verse set me to thinking about it. That is what I want help about. There is no work for me to do; at least, I can't find any. I am doing just nothing at all, and I don't in the least know which way to turn. I am not satisfied with this state of things; I can't settle back to my books and my music as I did before I went away; I don't enjoy them as I used to; I mean, they don't absorb me; they seem to be of no earthly use to anyone but myself, and I don't feel absolutely certain that they are of any use to me; anyway, they are not Christian work."
"As to that, you are not to be too certain about it. Wonderful things can be done with music; and when one is given a marked talent for it, as I hear has been the case with you, it is not to be hidden in a napkin."
"I don't know what I can do with music, I am sure," Ruth said, skeptically. "I suppose I must have a good deal of talent in that direction; I have been told so ever since I can remember; but beyond entertainingmy friends, I see no other special use for it."
"Do you remember telling me about the songs which Mr. Bliss sang at Chautauqua, and the effect on the audience?"
"Yes," said Ruth, speaking heartily, and her cheeks glowing at the recollection "but he was wonderful!"
"The same work can be done in a smaller way," Dr. Dennis said, smiling. "I hope to show you something of what you may do to help in that way before another winter passes; but, in the meantime, mere entertainment of friends is not a bad motive for keeping up one's music. Then there is the uncertain future ever before us. What if you should be called upon to teach music some day?"
A vision of herself toiling wearily from house to house in all weathers, and at all hours of the day, as she had seen music teachers do, hovered over Ruth Erskine's brain, and so utterly improbable and absurd did the picture seem, when she imagined it as having any reference to her, that she laughed outright.
"I don't believe I shall ever teach music," she said, positively.
"Perhaps not; and yet stranger things than thathavehappened in this changeful life."
"But, Dr. Dennis," she said, with sudden energy, and showing a touch of annoyance at the turn which the talk was taking, "my trouble is not an inability to employ my time; I do not belong to the class of young ladies who are afflicted withennui." And a sarcastic curve of her handsome lip made Ruth look very like the Miss Erskine that Dr. Dennis had always known. She despised people who had no resources within themselves. "I can find plenty to do, and I enjoy doing it; but the point is, I seem to be living only for myself, and that doesn't seem right. I want Christian work."
To tell the truth Dr. Dennis was puzzled. There was so much work to do, his hands and heart were always so full and running over, that it seemed strange to him for anyone to come looking for Christian work; the world was teeming with it.
On the other hand he confessed to himself that he was utterly unaccustomed to hearing people ask for work; or, if the facts be told, to having any one do any work.
Years ago he had tried to set the people of theFirst Church to work; but they had stared at him and misunderstood him, and he confessed to himself that he had given over trying to get work out of most of them. While this experience was refreshing, it was new, and left him for the moment bewildered.
"I understand you," he said, rallying. "There is plenty of Christian work. Do you want to take a class in the Sunday-school? There is a vacancy."
Ruth shook her head with decision.
"That is not at all myforte. I have no faculty for teaching children; I am entirely unused to them, and have no special interest in them, and no sort of idea how they are to be managed. Some people are specially fitted for such work; I know I am not."
"Often we find our work much nearer home than we had planned," Dr. Dennis said, regarding her with a thoughtful air. "How is it with your father, Miss Erskine?"
"My father?" she repeated; and she could hardly have looked more bewildered if her pastor had asked after the welfare of the man in the moon.
"Are you trying to win him over to the Lord's side?"
Utter silence and surprise on Miss Erskine's part. At last she said:
"I hardly ever see my father; we are never alone except when we are on our way to dinner, or to pay formal calls on very formal people. Then we are always in a hurry. I cannot reach my father, Dr. Dennis; he is immersed in business, and has no time nor heart for such matters. I should not in the least know how to approach him if I had a chance; and, indeed, I am sure I could do no good, for he would esteem it an impertinence to be questioned by his daughter as to his thoughts on these matters."
"Yet you have an earnest desire to see him a Christian?"
"Yes," she said, speaking slowly and hesitatingly; "of course I have that. To be very frank, Dr. Dennis, it is a hopeless sort of desire; I don't expect it in the least; my father is peculiarly unapproachable; I know he considers himself sufficient unto himself, if you will allow the expression. In thinking of him, I have felt that a great many years from now, when he is old,and when business cares and responsibilities have in a measure fallen off, and given him time to think of himself, he might then feel his need of a Friend and be won; but I don't even hope for it before that time."
"My dear friend, you have really no right to set a different time from the one that your Master has set," her pastor said, earnestly. "Don't you know that his time is alwaysnow?How can you be sure that he will choose to give your father a long life, and leisure in old age to help him to think? Isn't that a terrible risk?"
Ruth Erskine shook her decided head.
"I feel sure that my work is not in that direction," she said. "I could not do it; you do not know my father as well as I do; he would never allow me to approach him. The most I can hope to do will be to hold what he calls my new views so far into the background that he will not positively forbid them to me. He is the only person I think of whom I stand absolutely in awe. Then I couldn't talk with him. His life is a pure, spotless one, convincing by its very morality; so he thinks that there is no need of a Saviour.I do pray for him; I mean to as long as he and I live; but I know I can do nothing else; at least not for many a year."
How was Dr. Dennis to set to work a lady who knew so much that she could not work? This was the thought that puzzled him. But he knew how difficult it was for people to work in channels marked out by others. So he said, encouragingly:
"I can conceive of some of your difficulties in that direction. But you have other friends who are not Christians?"
This being said inquiringly, Ruth, after a moment of hesitation, answered it:
"I have one friend to whom I have tried to talk about this matter, but I have had no success. He is very peculiar in his views and feelings. He agrees to every thing that I say, and admits the wisdom and reasonableness of it all, but he goes no further."
"There are a great many such people," Dr. Dennis said, with a quick sigh. He met many of them himself. "They are the hardest class to reach. Does your friend believe in the power of prayer? I have generally found the safestand shortest way with such to be to use my influence in inducing them to begin to pray. If they admit its power and its reasonableness, it is such a very simple thing to do for a friend that they can hardly refuse."
"I don't think he ever prays," Ruth said, "and I don't believe he would. He would think it hypocritical. He says as much as that half the praying must be mockery."
"Granting that to be the case, does he think he should therefore not offer real prayer? That would be a sad state. Because I have many hypocrites in my family whose words to me are mockery, therefore no one must be a true friend."
"I know," said Ruth, interrupting. "But I don't know how to reach such people. Perhaps he may be your work, Dr. Dennis, but I don't think he is mine. I don't in the least know what to say to him. I refer to Mr. Wayne."
"I know him," Dr. Dennis said, "but he is not inclined to talk with me. I have not the intimacy with him that would lead him to be familiar. I should be very certain, if I were you,that my work did not lie in that direction before I turned from it."
"I am certain," Ruth said, with a little laugh.
"I don't know how to talk to such people. I should feel sure of doing more harm than good."
"But, my dear Miss Erskine, I beg your pardon for the reminder, but since you are thrown much into his society, will it not be necessary for you, as a Christian, to talk more or less about this matter? Should not your talk be shaped in such a way as to influence him if you can?"
"I don't think I understand," Ruth said, doubtfully. "Do you mean that people should talk about religion all the time they are together?"
During this question Dr. Dennis had drawn his Bible toward him and been turning over the leaves.
"Just let me read you a word from the Guide-book on this subject: 'Only let your conversation be as becometh the Gospel of Christ.' 'As he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation.' 'Seeing, then, that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of person ought ye to be, in all holy conversationand godliness?' What should you conclude as to Christian duty in the matter of daily conversation?"
Ruth made no answer to this question, but sat with earnest, thoughtful look fixed on her pastor's face.
"Who follows that pattern?" she asked, at last.
"My dear friend, is not our concern rather to decide whether you and I shall try to do it in the future?"
Someway this brought the talk to a sudden lull. Ruth seemed to have no more to say.
"There is another way of work that I have been intending to suggest to some of you young ladies," Dr. Dennis said, after a thoughtful silence. "It is something very much neglected in our church—that is the social question. Do you know we have many members who complain that they are never called on, never spoken with, never noticed in any way?"
"I don't know anything about the members," Ruth said. "I don't think I have a personal acquaintance with twenty of them—a calling acquaintance, I mean."
"That is the case with a great many, and it is a state of things that should not exist. The family ought to know each other. I begin to see your work clearer; it is the young ladies, to a large extent, who must remedy this evil. Suppose you take up some of that work, not neglecting the other, of course. 'These ought ye to have done, and not to have left the other undone,' I am afraid will be said to a good many of us. But this is certainly work needing to be done, and work for which you have leisure."
He hoped to see her face brighten, but it did not. Instead she said:
"I hate calling."
"I dare say; calling that is aimless, and in a sense useless. It must be hateful work. But if you start out with an object in view, a something to accomplish that is worth your while, will it not make a great difference?"
Ruth only sighed.
"I have so many calls to make with father," she said, wearily. "It is the worst work I do. They are upon fashionable, frivolous people, who cannot talk aboutanything. It is worse martyrdomnow than it used to be. I think I am peculiarly unfitted for such work, Dr. Dennis."
"But I want you to try a different style of calls. Go alone; not with your father, or with anyone who will trammel your tongue; and go among a class of people who do not expect you, and will be surprised and pleased, and helped, perhaps. Come, let me give you a list of persons whom I would like to have you call on at your earliest opportunity. This is work that I am really longing to see done."
A prisoner about to receive sentence could hardly have looked more gloomy than did Ruth. She was still for a few minutes, then she said:
"Dr. Dennis, do you really think it is a person's duty to do that sort of work for which he or she feels least qualified, and which is the most distasteful?"
"No," said Dr. Dennis, promptly. "My dear Miss Erskine, will you be so kind as to tell me the work for which you feel qualified, and for which you have no distaste?"
Again Ruth hesitated, looked confused, and then laughed. She began to see that she was making a very difficult task for her pastor.
"I don't feel qualified for anything," she said, at last. "And I feel afraid to undertake anything. But at the same time, I think I ought to be at work."
"Now we begin to see the way clearer," he said, smiling, and with encouragement in his voice. "It may seem a strange thing to you, but a sense of unfitness is sometimes one of the very best qualifications for such work. If it is strong enough to drive us to the blessed Friend who has promised to make perfect our weakness in this as in all other efforts, and if we go out armed in His strength we are sure to conquer. Try it. Take this for your motto: 'As ye have opportunity.' And, by the way, do you know the rest of that verse? 'Especially to them who are of the household of faith.' It is members of the household that I want you to call on, remember."
Ruth laughed again, and shook her head. But she took her list and went away. She had no more that she wanted to say just then; but she felt that she had food for thought.
"I may try it," she said, as she went out, holding up her list, "but I feel that I shall blunder, and do more harm than good."
Dr. Dennis looked after her with a face onwhich there was no smile. "There goes one," he said to himself, "who thinks she is willing to be led, but, on the contrary, she wants to lead. She is saved, but not subdued. I wonder what means the great Master will have to use to lead her to rest in his hands, knowing no way but his?"