43136	----	Mou-Setse - A Negro Hero The Orphans' Pilgimage - A Story of Trust in God By L.T. Meade Published by Wm. Isbister, Limited, London. This edition dated 1880. Mou-setse - A Negro hero, by L.T. Meade. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ MOU-SETSE - A NEGRO HERO, BY L.T. MEADE. STORY ONE, CHAPTER ONE. PART I--THE TOWN OF EYEO. After all, his story began like any one else's--he came into the world. In a picturesque town in Africa he opened his eyes; and there is no doubt that his mother was as proud of her little black baby as any English mother would be of her child with fair skin. So far, his story was like any other person's story, but there, I think, the likeness came to an end. He was an African boy, and knew nothing of what we English people call civilisation. Mou-Setse first opened his eyes on the world in a clay hut; but this fact by no means denoted that his parents were poor people; on the contrary, his father was one of the chief men of the town, and a member of the king's council. Nor was the town a poor one. Perhaps I had better describe it a little, and also describe some of the strange actions of its inhabitants, before I really tell Mou-Setse's story. Though most of the houses were built of clay, the town of Eyeo was considered very beautiful. It lay in the midst of a fertile and lovely country called Yarriba. The town measured fifteen miles round, and a great deal of the ground was laid out in fields and gardens, so that, notwithstanding what we should call its want of civilisation, it looked very unlike many of the smoky, dirty towns at home, and very much pleasanter to live in. There were walls round the town twenty feet high, built also of clay; and outside the walls there was a deep ditch. This ditch and this high wall were both necessary to protect the town from its enemies. Of course, like all African towns, it had a great many enemies, but it was supposed to be very well protected. The King of Yarriba lived in Eyeo. He had several wives, and his huts covered a whole square mile of the town. He was an idolater, and he had a council of some of the chief men to help him to rule. The king and his people had a very strange religion; each one of them had a god in his own house, and there were also two chief idols, one called Korowah and the other Terbertaru. One of these gods was for the men, and the other for the women. The women were not allowed to look at the men's god; and when the chief priest offered sacrifice to this god they dared not even glance at him. They might offer to their own god fowls, pigeons, and sometimes bullocks. These curious idolaters had also a very strange way of burying their dead. All the dead man's riches, instead of going to his children, were buried with him. If he happened to have been a very rich man, his dead body was carried in procession round the town to the burying-place, _which was in the floor of his own room_. After he was buried there with all his riches, his family went on living in the house and daily trampled on his grave without the least concern. In this town, with its strange religion and its many odd customs, was born the little black baby who is to be the hero of this story. He was called Mou-Setse, and, though he had black skin and rather round and beady eyes, and though certainly his thick, curling hair was also very woolly, yet in his own way he was as fine a little baby as any fair English child; and, as I have said before, his mother was just as proud of him. Mou-Setse had three brothers and one sister older than himself, so he had plenty of playfellows, and was a great pet, being the youngest of the family. The pretty little fellow used to sit on his mother's lap in the doorway of the mud hut, and play with some very precious glass beads which were hung round her neck. As he grew older he mounted on his elder brother's shoulders, and merrily would he and they laugh as they trotted up and down together. And as he grew still older, and ceased to be a baby, and was able to use his fat, strong legs, he and his brothers and sister went often outside the city walls, and walked through the maize fields beyond and over the plain till they came to the foot of the hills. Then, high up among the rocks, they would wander about in the shade and gather oranges and tamarinds and figs. No English boys could have been happier than these little Africans on such occasions. Neither Mou-Setse nor his brothers thought of any dark days that might come, and were, alas! only too near. STORY ONE, CHAPTER TWO. DARK DAYS IN THE TOWN. I have said that sad days were not very far from poor little Mou-Setse. They came when he was still only a little boy not more than eight years old. The people of Eyeo had need of their high wall and their strong fortifications, for they were surrounded by enemies. One day the news reached them that a strong neighbouring tribe, calling themselves Kakundans, were coming to attack them. The King of Eyeo had never done these people any harm, yet they wanted to conquer him, that they might take him and his subjects for slaves, and gain money by selling them to the Portuguese. This was very terrible news indeed; and great terror and great pain did it bring to the inhabitants of Eyeo. The poor mothers began to tremble as they clasped their babies in their arms and reflected on the dreadful thought that soon they and those little children so precious to them might be torn from each other. The fathers, too, brave warriors as they were, looking in the frightened faces of wives and children, felt some of those heart-pangs which make men resolute to conquer or to die. The king called a council, and it was resolved at this council that all needful preparations for war were to begin at once. Accordingly the priests offered sacrifices to Korowah, who was the men's god, while the women hastened to gain the favour of Terbertaru, who belonged to them. The warriors busied themselves in polishing their knives and sharpening their daggers and securing the handles of their axes. Even the little children tried to help. The elder boys cleaned and brightened the weapons, while the younger went out to pick fruit, rice, and corn, in case the enemy should shut them up and they should be short of food. Little Mou-Setse was particularly busy in this way, and his active little feet were scarcely ever still. These many preparations were not made a moment too soon. The captain of the war, and the chief warrior who was to defend the city gate, were only just appointed when the terrible Kakundans were seen approaching towards Eyeo. With their arms glittering in the sunbeams, on they came, nearer and nearer, trampling down the flourishing rice harvest, until the sound of their feet and the clanking of their weapons were heard just outside the city walls. It was the intention of this cruel enemy to encamp round about the city, and to subdue it by famine. Oh, what trouble there was in Eyeo that night! What weeping and sorrow in many a hut! For though the children were ignorant, and perhaps the wives had some hope, well did the warriors know that they had little chance of escape. They were determined, however, to do what they could, and to defend their wives and children at any cost. From the hour the Kakundans encamped round the city all was in confusion there. There was nothing thought of but the war. Now and then bands of men used to go out and fight with the enemy, but the Eyeo men had very few successes and many failures. As the days went by they grew weaker and weaker. Alas! famine was making them weak. Famine was beginning to tell on old and young alike in the unhappy city. Little Mou-Setse's fat legs grew thin, and his round cheeks hollow, while his bright, black eyes stared more and more out of his face every day. He was only one of many. He and his brothers and sister felt hunger, and even cried for bread, but they had not the terrible fear that pressed so heavily on the hearts of the grown people. That fear was to be realised all to soon. The Eyeo men could bear the dreadful famine no longer, so they consulted together what they should do to get food. The siege had now lasted several months. After thinking and consulting for a long time, they decided on a very dangerous plan. It was this: the bravest of the warriors determined to leave the city for a time, and to go into the country to try and get a supply of food. This was a most bold and dangerous plan. They themselves would be exposed to the attacks of the enemy, while the city would be left defenceless. Hunger, however, had made these brave men desperate. Anything, they thought, was better than their present condition. So the warriors went out in a strong band, leaving the little children, the sick, and the aged behind them. Mou-Setse's father and mother both went away. They bade their children good-bye cheerfully, and little Mou-Setse, as he clasped his arms round his mother's neck, even laughed at the prospect of the good food they all might soon have. Alas! how little they guessed the dreadful things that were about to happen. The Kakundan camp, quickly discovering that the strongest of the inhabitants of Eyeo had left the city to seek food, determined not to lose so good an opportunity to make a final attack on the place. To make this attack, however, they must take two or three days to prepare. But well did the wretched people inside the city know what was going to happen. Poor little Mou-Setse and his brothers and sister became at last really alive to their danger. They all cried and wept; but Mou-Setse, though the youngest, possessed the bravest heart. He knew that crying would do no good; he wondered would it be possible to act, and so to act as to save his brothers and sister. He said nothing to them, but he ran about the town, and chatted to the old women, and finally got them to tell him a secret. This was the secret: as many as possible meant to escape from Eyeo that night. Mou-Setse thought that he and his brothers and his sister might go too. Perhaps they might soon find their father and mother. Mou-Setse believed that if only he had his mother's arms round him again he might be safe. He told his brothers and sister of his plan, and they all agreed to escape that very night. As soon as the night was quite dark they left their hut and went softly in the direction of the city wall. They reached the great city gate in safety, but there a sad scene of confusion met their eyes. Crowds of people were trying to get out, and, in the darkness, many of the feebler ones were killed. It was dreadful to listen to their cries and groans. Mou-Setse saw that little children would have no chance whatever in such a crowd. He wondered could they climb the wall, but its smooth, hard side, twenty feet high, he soon saw would be utterly impracticable. Very sadly the children returned home, and most bitter tears did they shed in each other's arms. Poor little children! they little guessed that never again would they kiss each other, or play together, or be happy with that innocent happiness that the good and loving God gives to little children. Cruel men who followed the devil, not God, were soon to part them the one from the other. In the morning a truly fearful sight met their eyes. The huts were nearly empty; parties of the enemy walked about the streets; the gardens, that used to be so beautiful, were torn and ruined; many aged men, who had killed themselves in their dread of slavery, were lying dead in the streets. A little farther on they heard the crackling of burning wood, and soon the flames of their beloved city burst upon their sight. The enemy had set Eyeo on fire. STORY ONE, CHAPTER THREE. WHAT "THE RIGHT OF SEARCH" DID FOR MOU-SETSE. No doubt, the children who read this story have heard of slaves; have heard how some little children are not free; how they are sold to any one who will give enough money for them; and that whether they have loving mothers and kind fathers who break their hearts at parting from them. The fathers are sold to one slave master, the mothers to another, the children to another. Often, very often, these children and fathers and mothers never meet again. In these days no slaves are allowed to be kept in any English territory, and even in America the slaves are at last set free. At the time, however, when Mou-Setse was a little boy, there were numbers of slaves in America, and indeed in many other parts of the world. Mou-Setse had heard of slaves--for what tiny African boy had not?--and now he knew that he himself was going to be a slave. When he saw the flames rising up in Eyeo, and his beloved home being burnt to ashes, he knew that this fate was before him. "Let us fly!" said his elder brother, whispering eagerly to him in his native tongue; but Mou-Setse shook his head, for he knew he could not fly. All around was a terrible scene of confusion. Women, carrying children in their arms, were trying to escape from the burning huts; sometimes they were entangled in a prickly bush and thrown down, or they were caught by the cruel enemy and tied together in gangs, so that they could not escape. Mou-Setse stood quite still, and his brothers and sister, when they saw he could not fly, stayed near him. Soon the bright-looking children attracted attention, and were taken--then immediately they were separated from each other. Poor little Mou-Setse, as he was carried away in a gang with many other captives, though he forced the tears back from his eyes, and fried, brave little fellow that he was, to keep up a brave heart, yet could not but cast some lingering glances back at the rocky hills where he and his brothers had often played so happily. He felt in his poor little heart that his play days were over, for how often had his mother told him that there was no play for slave children. At last, after a long, long journey, little Mou-Setse and a long gang of other slaves found themselves at a place called Quorra. Here the Portuguese met them, and here they were to be really sold. A trader came to examine Mou-Setse, and finding him strong and healthy, quickly bought him. He was now to be sold again. The trader, seeing that he was a fine boy and handsome, took great pains with him. He gave him good food, and washed his polished black face, and brushed his woolly locks. He did this from no spirit of kindness, but simply from the desire to get a greater price for him. At last, when he had recovered from the fatigues of his journey, and looked fresh and bright, he brought him into the slave market. Here the traders who came to buy clustered round him and pulled off his clothes, and felt his limbs, and made him run, and leap, and throw his legs and arms about. No one cared whether he liked this treatment or not. He was treated in all respects like an animal without either soul or feeling. In about three hours he was bought by another trader and put, with many of his fellow slaves, into a canoe. They were sailing all that evening and all the next day. They passed through some very beautiful country, and Mou-Setse might have enjoyed the lovely scenery had his heart been less full of wonder and pain. As it was, however, he could think of nothing but Eyeo and his home. Again and again he seemed to hear his beloved mother's voice, or he fancied himself looking with pride and admiration at his brave warrior father. Though he loved his mother best, yet it was the remembrance of his father that brought most strength to his poor little heart now; for his father had said to him often in his native language that a brave boy never wept--tears were for women and girls, but not for boys, who hoped to be warriors by-and-bye. Remembering these words of his father's, little Mou-Setse pressed back the tears from his hot eyelids, and endeavoured to wear an indifferent face. He could not quite smile--his heart was too heavy for smiles--but no one saw the glistening of a tear on his dark cheek. Occupied with these bitter and sad thoughts, he could scarcely be expected to notice the beautiful scenery through which the river on which the canoe glided passed. His father, his mother, his brothers, his sister, he was torn from them all; he did not know what had become of them; he might never hope to see them again; he might never learn their fate; their suffering might be even greater than his own. Poor little boy! and he knew of no God to comfort him, and had never heard of any hope beyond this world. At last the canoe reached a place called Ikho. Little Mou-Setse was again sold, and this time was sent to the fold, or the spot where purchased slaves are kept till there is an opportunity to send them off in vessels to other countries. Mou-Setse found life in the fold very dreadful. He had a coarse rope put around his neck, the ends of which were fastened round the necks of other slaves, so that a long row of them were secured together, and one could not move without dragging all the others with him. The boys were thus roped together, and the men chained in fifties. In this terrible place--treated with cruelty, cold, half-naked-- Mou-Setse spent two months. But a greater evil was to come. This poor little African boy was to pass through a black and heavy cloud into God's glorious light. For let no one suppose that God had forgotten this little child whom He had made. Every hair of that little woolly head was numbered by God; every sigh he sighed, every groan he uttered, was heard and regarded by that great and good God, who loved him just as well with his black skin as He loved the fairest and most lovely English child. But Mou-Setse had a dreadful time before him, for God teaches His lessons in the storm as well as the sunshine. This suffering was to take place on board the Portuguese slave-ship to which he was shortly removed. No one can understand who has not witnessed it the miseries of a slave vessel. The negroes are placed on their backs, or fixed in a sitting position, on ranges of shelves, one above the other, and in dark, close places, where hardly any air and no light are allowed to enter. Here they are chained so close together that the space which each is allowed is scarcely so much as he would have in his coffin. Thus they lie for weeks and months, sometimes brought up on deck to jump about in their chains for exercise, exposed to sea-sickness, disease, and to the rubbing of the rough boards on their naked bodies. Many die, and those who live are, on landing, wretched objects. In the vessel in which Mou-Setse was, the men were packed away below deck, but the women and children were allowed to remain above. Sad, sad were their hearts as they thought of their dear native country, and of those little children and fathers and mothers from whom they were severed. Their bodily sufferings were also very hard to bear... But God had not forgotten them. Belief was at hand. At the time of which I speak, the English had put away slavery in their own countries, and they were very anxious to have it stopped everywhere. The other nations of Europe had agreed to check the slave trade so far as to allow to England what was called the right of search. That is to say, if an English ship saw another ship on the sea which was supposed to be a slaver, she might pursue it; and if slaves were found in it she might set them free. English vessels were kept cruising about the seas for this purpose. America, however, though calling herself a free country, had then in the Southern States upwards of two million suffering slaves, and she would not allow to England the right of search. Many slave-ships, therefore, falsely using the American flag, escaped uncaught. The Portuguese brig on board of which little Mou-Setse was had hoisted this flag; but there must have been something suspicious about her appearance, for one day an English man-of-war was seen bearing down upon her. When the captain and the traders saw this large vessel in full pursuit, they were in a great fright. They thought all their profits would be gone, for we may be quite sure they loved money very much, or they would never have taken to the slave trade. In their terror they told the poor slaves an untruth. They said that the people in the large ship wanted to eat them. All hands were set to work at the oars. Even little Mou-Setse pulled with every inch of strength he possessed; for, though he was very unhappy, he did not want to be eaten. So eager and frightened were the poor slaves that ten men pulled at one oar. But all was of no avail. Nearer and nearer came the great ship; and at last, after twenty-four hours of hard chase, she sailed up alongside the slaver, and all the negroes, were captured. Little did Mou-Setse know, as in terror he was taken on board the English ship, that his dark days--at least his very darkest days--were over; that from being a poor slave he was free. But retribution was at hand for those cruel traders who were so indifferent to the fate of the suffering human creatures they had bought and made their own. God sometimes punishes very soon, and in a very awful manner. This was the case on board the vessel where Mou-Setse had endured his worst sufferings. Through some accident the vessel, an old one and badly built, took fire. How terrible it looked in the dark night! How fearful were the cries of the terrified sailors! Mou-Setse and the other rescued slaves saw the flames from the English vessel. The captain and his crew also saw it and hastened back to the rescue, but too late. Before they could reach the spot the slave-ship had blown up and foundered, and those who happened still to be on board had perished. STORY ONE, CHAPTER FOUR. THE DAWN. I do not think Mou-Setse ever told any one what his feelings really were when he at last understood that he was free; that the English who had captured him, far from being his worst enemies, were proving themselves his best friends. There is a story told of him that, when he first landed at Sierra Leone, and saw a kind-looking black woman, he threw his arms round her neck, whispered to her in his native tongue that she was like his mother, and wept some of the tears he had restrained through all his sufferings on her bosom. But perhaps his early and great suffering had made him reserved, for, unlike most of his race, he had few words, and no ejaculations, to betray his feelings. For a time he even scarcely trusted the new life of peace and happiness which was opening before him. He had many dreams of being retaken as a slave, and his little face had a wistful and scarcely trustful expression. The kind English, however, did well by him. He was sent to a mission school at Freetown, where he was taught to read and to speak English; also to write, and, above all, in this school he first got any true, knowledge of God. It was wonderful how this knowledge took possession of him--how he craved to know more and more of his Father in Heaven; how eagerly he asked; how quickly he learned; and then, as the great love of God revealed itself, how his own warm heart leaped up in answer to it, until all the "fear which hath torment" passed away, and the little face became bright and happy. The good missionaries at Sierra Leone were more than kind to Mou-Setse; they had him baptised and openly proclaimed as a Christian. At his baptism they called him "John," but Mou-Setse would never allow himself to be addressed by this name. His mother had herself given him his other name, and the missionaries, when they saw how his heart still clung to his mother, spoke to him and of him by his old African name. In his new home he grew tall and strong; and having, notwithstanding the suffering he had endured on it, a fancy for the sea, went on board an English merchant-vessel when fourteen years of age. In this vessel he travelled over many parts of the world, and saw strange sights and new faces. Thus his childhood and early youth passed away. STORY ONE, CHAPTER FIVE. PART II--A PURPOSE. Mou-Setse grew up to be a man, with a very fixed purpose in his heart. All his thoughts and all his desires were bent on its accomplishment; but, as I said before, he was reserved, and never spoke of this thought of his inmost heart to human being. It brought out, however, marked characteristics in his face, and those who knew him well often spoke of the fire and earnestness in his eyes. As a sailor, he was a favourite with the crew and with the captain--that is, he was as great a favourite as any boy with a black skin could be, for it must not be supposed that all white people were as kind to him as the good missionaries; but, on the whole, he was well treated, and no rude words addressed to him on account of his colour brought a retort from his lips. He was by no means, however, wanting in bravery, as a little incident once showed. A great hulking white fellow had been abusing him, taunting him with cowardice, and daring him to fight. The sailors belonging to his ship looked on amused, and (as he was a blacky) not caring to interfere. "You ain't nothing but a coward," said the white man; "a coward, and the son of a slave." At these words Mou-Setse, who had been sitting very still and apparently unheeding, rose to the full length of his great height. The words "son of a slave" had brought a certain flash into his eye. With a stride, he was at the real coward's side. "I not fight," he said; "you not make me fight, when de Book say no. No; I not fight, but I knock you down." In a moment, without the least apparent effort, the hulking white fellow lay at his feet. "I specs you not like to lie dere," continued Mou-Setse. "Well, you beg de black man's pardon; den you get up and go away." After this little scene, no one cared: again to molest Mou-Setse. He remained a sailor until he was two-and-twenty; then he took his leave of the captain and his crew, and left their ship. He had become a sailor for the furtherance of his hidden and unspoken purpose. Now, having made and saved money, he went away. His purpose was calling him to America--then, indeed, the land of slaves. STORY ONE, CHAPTER SIX. MOU-SETSE SEEKS TO FULFIL HIS PURPOSE. I have said that Mou-Setse had a fixed purpose. This purpose led him to America. He settled in a certain town in one of the States, and with the money he had saved opened a small shop or store. He dealt in the kind of goods that his black brothers and sisters most needed, and many of them frequented his little shop. At this period of his life some people considered him miserly. His shop did well and his money stores increased, but he himself lived in the most parsimonious style; he scarcely allowed himself the necessaries of life, and never thought of marrying or giving himself the comforts of a home. All day long he attended his shop, but in the evening he went about a great deal, and gradually became known to all his black brothers and sisters in the town. Most of these were in slavery, and many had most bitter tales to tell. A few, however, were free; these were the slaves who had worked for long years to obtain sufficient money to buy this precious boon from their masters. With these free slaves Mou-Setse held much intercourse, asking them of their past life, and always inquiring most particularly from what part of Africa they or their parents had come. By degrees, as he collected money, he helped these free slaves to emigrate to Canada, where they could enjoy and make a good use of the freedom they had so dearly won. But he never helped any one to go away with his money without first exacting a promise from him or her. This promise was made in secrecy, and was, I believe, faithfully kept by each and all. As he helped each poor freed slave to get away (and as his gains increased he helped many)--as he helped them off, and knew that he had gained a certain promise from them, his heart grew lighter, and he felt that he was nearer to the realisation of some dearly cherished dream. On these occasions he often repaired to a certain church and prayed. Kneeling in the quiet church, the black man poured out a very full heart to his loving Father in heaven. "God, de good God," he would say, "let me not cry in vain; let me see my fader and moder and my broders and sister again. Give me more of de money, good God, and more, much more of de faith; so dat I may send more and more of de poor blackies to look for dose as I lobs!" But his great anxiety about his own people by no means closed the heart of Mou-Setse to those whose troubles he daily witnessed. For reasons of his own, he was always down on the quay to watch the faces of any new slaves that might come. He knew before any one else of a fresh slave who was brought into the town, and he always attended the slave market. But he did more; he helped his brethren whose groans went daily--indeed, night and day--up to heaven. Many a poor mother, when she was torn from her child, went to Mou-Setse's store, and poured out her great trouble into his kind heart; and somehow or other, he managed to get tidings of the lost child, or the lost parent or husband. By degrees he made an immense connection for himself all over America, and no one knew more about the ways and doings of the black people than he did. STORY ONE, CHAPTER SEVEN. MOU-SETSE WAITS AND WATCHES. Years went by, bringing changes, bringing to Mou-Setse grey hairs, taking from him his fresh youth, and adding to his face some anxious lines. But the years brought greater changes than the light hands they lay upon head and brow, to his black brothers and sisters in America. The brave souls who had fought through thick and thin for the freedom of the slaves, who had gone through danger and hardship almost at the peril of their lives in this great cause, had won a noble victory. America, by setting free her black brethren, had also removed from herself a most grievous curse. The black men were free, and Mou-Setse had removed from the little town where he had first settled to the larger and more flourishing one of St Louis. He had succeeded as a merchant, and was now a rich man. His love for his brethren had also increased with years. He did much to help them. He was reverenced and loved by all who knew him, and that was saying no little, for there was scarcely a black man in the States who did not know Mou-Setse. But the dearly-longed-for and unfulfilled purpose was still discernible on his face, and oftener than ever would he repair to the church to pray. "I specs de dere Lord will be good to me," he would say; "de dere Lord hab patience wid me. I told de Lord dat I would have great patience wid Him. I will wait His good leisure. I believe as I will see my people again." Mou-Setse had for long years now added work to his prayers, leaving no stone unturned to find or obtain some tidings of the father and mother and brothers and sister from whom he had been so cruelly torn. But all his efforts had been as yet in vain, no description even resembling them had ever reached his ears. His black friends told him that his father and mother had either never reached America or had long been dead. But Mou-Setse would never believe these evil reports, his strong faith that at least some of his own would be restored to him, that the work and labour of his life would not be in vain, never deserted him. "I tole de Lord dat I would have great patience," he would reply to those who begged of him to give up so hopeless a search, and doubtless patience was doing its perfect work, for the end for which he so longed was at hand. STORY ONE, CHAPTER EIGHT. FRUIT OF FAITH AND PATIENCE. One very bitter day in March there was great commotion among the black people of St Louis. The snow was falling thickly, the wind was blowing. Inclement as the whole winter had been, this day seemed the worst of all; but it did not deter the freed blacks from braving its hardships, from hurrying in crowds from place to place, and above all from repairing in vast crowds to their own churches. Every coloured church in St Louis was full of anxious blacks, but they had not assembled for any purposes of worship. Unless, indeed, we except that heart worship which takes in the ever-present Christ, even when he comes hungry, naked, and in the guise of a stranger. The black people of St Louis made beds in the church pews and kindled fires in the basements. Having made all preparations, they went, headed by their preachers, to the quays; there to meet some six hundred famished and shivering emigrants, who had come up the river all the way from the States of the Mississippi Valley and Louisiana. In extreme poverty and in wretched plight whole families had come, leaving the plantations where they were born, and severing all those local ties for which the negro has so strong an attachment. All of these poor people, including the very young and the very aged, were bound for Kansas. This was the beginning of a great exodus of the negroes from the Southern to the Northern States. The cause did not seem at first very manifest; but it must be something unusual, something more than mere fancy, which would induce women and children, old and young, with common consent to leave their old homes and natural climate, and face storms and unknown dangers in Northern Kansas. Mou-Setse, with his eyes, ears, and heart ever open, had heard something of the dissatisfaction of the negroes in the South. They were suffering, not, indeed, now from actual slavery, but from wicked rulers who would give the coloured man no justice. Outrages, murders, and wrongs of all descriptions were driving these fugitives from their homes. They said little of hope in the future; it was all of fear in the past. They were not drawn by the attractions of Kansas; they were driven by the terrors of Louisiana. Happen what would, they all resolved to fly, never to return. Death rather than return was their invariable resolution. Mou-Setse, as I have said, had heard of this exodus. Profound secret as the negroes had kept it, yet it had reached his ears. He consulted his black brothers and sisters in St Louis, and it was resolved that the strangers should be well received--hence the preparations in the churches, and hence the assemblage on the quays. Mou-Setse was one of the last to leave the church where he had been most busy. Just as he was about to turn away to help to fetch into warmth and shelter the famished emigrants he turned round. Some voice seemed to sound in his ears; some very strong impelling influence caused him to pause. He entered one of the pews, sat down and buried his head in his hands. Something seemed to tell the black man that the desire of his eyes was coming to him; that his life-work was bearing at last its fruit. So sure was he of this that he forgot to pray. He only said several times, "Tank de Lord; tank de Lord berry much." Then he followed his companions to the quays. How often had he gone there in vain! How often had he gazed at face after face, looking and longing for the forms of those he loved! They had never greeted him. Now his step was elastic, his face bright. Two hours after he had left the church he entered it again, leading by the hand a very old man and a bowed and aged woman. "My fader and moder," he explained very simply to the bystanders. He put the old couple in the most comfortable pew, and sat down by them. They both seemed half dead. The woman lay nearly lifeless. Mou-Setse took her limp and withered hand and began to rub it softly. "How do you know them?" asked some interested bystanders who knew Mou-Setse's story. "De ole woman hab de smile," he said; "I neber forgot my moder's smile. She looked at me on de quay, and she smiled, and my heart leaped, and I said, `Tank de Lord, glory be to God.' I tole ye de Lord would help me." Just then the man stretched himself, opened his eyes, fixed them on Mou-Setse, and began to mutter. Mou-Setse bent his head to listen. Suddenly he sprang to his feet. "Oh praise the Lord!" he exclaimed again. "I said as de Lord would help me. Listen to de ole man, he is talking in de tongue of the Akus, in the country of Yarriba. He was de brave warrior, my fader was." Yes, Mou-Setse was right. The fruit of long patience was at last yielding to him its precious store, and the old warrior of the beautiful African valley had come back through nobody knew what hardships, with his aged wife, to be nursed, cherished, and cared for by a long-lost son. As soon as they were sufficiently revived Mou-Setse took them to the comfortable home he had been so long getting ready for them. Here they told him of their slavery, of the terrors they had undergone, of the bitterness of knowing nothing of his fate, of the lonely days when they had belonged to different masters; then of their release from slavery, and how, as free man and woman, they had met again. But their hardships had been great, for though they had so-called liberty, every privilege belonging to a white man seemed to be denied them. They resolved to fly with their brethren. Selling all they had, they managed to scrape together enough money to pay for their passage in the river steamer. Penniless, famished, half dead, they arrived at St Louis. "It is a good land you hab come to," said Mou-Setse when his mother had finished her narrative, "a land flowing wid milk and honey. Yes, it is a good land; and I am like Joseph, only better dan Joseph was, for I hab got back my fader and moder too, praise de Lord." "I am Jacob," said the old warrior slowly, "and you are, indeed, my son Joseph. It is enough. Praise de Lord." "De Lord is berry good. I tole ye so," exclaimed the aged wife and mother. STORY TWO, CHAPTER ONE. THE ORPHANS' PILGRIMAGE--A STORY OF TRUST IN GOD. In one of the small towns in the north of Austria there once lived a humble pair, as far as earthly goods and position go, but who were rich in what was far better--love to God and simple trust in His Fatherly care. The woman was a Tyrolese, the daughter of an old harper, who still resided in one of the small villages among the mountains. As a motherless girl she had been his only companion, and many a time her sweet pure voice would be heard accompanying her father in the simple melodies of her native land, as he wandered from place to place to earn a livelihood. The time came when the harper's daughter left her hills for a home in town, but was more than repaid by the tender love of her husband, who, though he could earn but a scanty subsistence, was good and kind to her. Their fare was frugal, but, happy in each other's affection, they were content and thankful, and, contrasting their lot with that of the Saviour, would say, "Can we, the servants, expect to fare better than our Lord and Master?" As years passed by, three little children were sent to them by their Father in heaven, to whom they gave the names of Toni, Hans, and Nanny; very precious gifts, and they showed their gratitude by training them early in the right way, teaching them from His word to know the good God, to love and trust Him, to try to please Him, and to love their neighbour as themselves. They were unselfish little children, and would at any time share their scanty meals with others in distress. "Little children, love one another," was a text often repeated, and also practised, by them. The two boys were very fond of each other, and both were united in love for the little sister whom they felt bound to protect. Great was their delight when she first tottered alone across the room, where they stood, one at each end, with outstretched arms to receive her; and when her little voice was heard crying for the first time "Father," "Mother," they shouted for joy. On the opposite side of the street lived an artist, who took great pleasure in this little family, and painted a picture in which he introduced the children, not intending it for sale, but as a gift to their parents, in token of the esteem he felt for them. A very pretty picture it was--little Nanny, lightly draped, showing her fat dimpled shoulders and bare feet, her golden hair floating in the wind, was in a meadow chasing a butterfly; while her brothers stood by, as guardian angels, with hands extended ready to catch her if she stumbled. It might have fetched a high price, but the man was not in needy circumstances, and would not sell it. When Nanny was about four years old it happened that the cholera--that fearful scourge which has from time to time been so fatal in many parts--broke out in this town, and both father and mother were smitten and lay ill with it at the same time. I need not say how, in the midst of pain and weakness, many an anxious thought was turned to the future of their little ones; but, as faith had been strong in the time of health and prosperity, it did not fail them in their hour of need, and they trusted simply to the promise, "Leave thy fatherless children; I will preserve them alive." In a very short time the children were left; orphans, and (the eldest not being more than eight years old) quite unable to do anything for their own support. What was to be done? The neighbours were kind and good to them, but, having families of their own, had enough to do without adding to their cares. It was at length arranged that a letter should be written to an uncle who lived in Vienna, and was doing well as manager of a small theatrical company in that town. Not a very good school, you will say, for these children who had been trained so carefully. No sooner did the man receive the sad news than he set off, arriving just after the funeral was over. He lost no time in selling his brother's small possessions, and, pocketing the money, started for his home, taking the little ones with him. I should say that, at the special request of their friend the artist, the picture was reserved and taken with them. This, then, together with the large Bible from which their father used to read to them morning and evening, and the box containing their clothes, was all that they could call their own. Poor children! they had certainly found a home, but what a contrast to that to which they had been accustomed! Sorely did they miss the tender, watchful love which had surrounded them all their lives, and the peace and calm which dwelt in that household. Their uncle was a hard, money-loving man, and determined to make the best for himself out of this seeming act of kindness. Therefore, instead of giving them a good education and fitting them to make their way in the world respectably, he merely taught them what would be profitable to himself in his own line, viz, dancing and gymnastics. Their whole time was spent in practising to appear in public on the stage, and many a weary hour did they pass, being punished if they dared to complain, and never by any chance being encouraged by a word of approval. Such a life as this soon began to tell upon little Nanny, who had never been a strong child; but not the most earnest entreaties from her brothers would induce the hard-hearted man to allow her to exert herself less. It was a weary life for them all, and many a time when wreaths and bouquets were showered upon them by the applauding audience would they retire and burst into tears for very fatigue and sorrow. Toni and Hans at last became seriously alarmed about their little sister. She got gradually paler and thinner, and when, one day, after dancing for some time, with flushed cheek and shortened breath, she fell to the ground in a faint, they could endure it no longer, but ran to their uncle, beseeching him to have pity on her. I am sorry to tell you, the poor boys were only answered by blows, and making nothing of their grief, he walked carelessly away, saying she would be better after her dinner. This was too much for Hans; he jumped up from the floor where he had been sitting, and stamping his foot, his face glowing with anger, cried out, "I shall not allow her to dance any more!" to which he, of course, received only a scornful laugh in reply. Nanny had by this time revived, and was sitting between her brothers wiping away her tears. "Oh! if father and mother knew of this," said Hans, "I think it would make them weep even in heaven; but perhaps then they would send an angel to help us." "We do not know whether they can see us or not," answered Toni; "but we are sure the good God can. I have been asking Him to put into our minds what we shall do for Nanny. Sometimes I am afraid she will leave us like father and mother did. And do you know I feel as solemn as little Samuel must have done when God called him, for a thought has come into my mind which I am sure must have been put there by our Father in heaven." "And what is it?" asked Hans, in a whisper, folding his little hands, as if inspired by the devotion of his brother. "Why, that we must save our sister, and not let her die," answered Toni. "That would be glorious; but how shall we manage it?" "We must run away from this place with her and take her to our grandfather, in the mountains." "But that is so far away, and we have no money: and then, how should we know the way?" asked Hans anxiously. "The little birds fly away in the winter to Africa--God shows them the way, and gives them strength and food; and shall not we trust Him to help us his children?" It was all clear to Hans now, and the bold resolve was made. From that time the two boys thought of little else than the intended escape. The sight of their little darling pining away before their eyes nerved them to plan and to work. Preparations were carried on in secret: no one having any idea of what was going on. A little playfellow lived close by whose father was a carpenter, and being often in the man's workshop, he came to have a liking for the orphans; and many a spare piece of wood he gave them to play with, which, by watching him at work, they learned in their rude way to fashion into shape. They now began to put the small knowledge they had thus acquired to some account; and after many attempts and failures, at last succeeded in making a rough sort of little cart. The cover of a box with a rail round it formed the seat, the pole was a cast-off measuring-rule which had been thrown away as useless; but when they came to the wheels, they had need of all the patience they possessed; however, perseverance in due time was rewarded, when, after devoting every spare moment they could secure, the little carriage which was to effect their escape was finished. How happy they felt when the finishing touch was put, when it was drawn away to a corner of the yard behind the workshop, and hidden among a heap of sawdust and shavings! A heavy burden seemed lifted off their hearts: they dreamt not of any future difficulties, and only looked forward with eagerness to the moment when they should be free, and when the roses would come back again to their little sister's cheeks. All was now in readiness: that very evening they were to start on their pilgrimage, leaving the shelter of their uncle's house, together with his tyranny, behind them. It was time for Nanny to be let into the secret; and, having done this, the two boys, kneeling down, drew her between them and prayed, "O Lord, send a good angel to help us, and keep uncle from waking when we go away." They had fixed on an evening when they had not to appear in public. All had retired to rest early, and they waited only till they thought it would be safe. The boys then arose, and, dressing themselves quickly, made up a small bundle of clothes, and having lifted the precious picture from the wall, and their father's Bible from the box, they proceeded to summon Nanny. This was of all the most anxious part, for she had from the first slept in her aunt's room. Her little ears, however, were on the alert, and a gentle tap as signal made her leap lightly out of bed, and with shoes in hand and her clothes on her arm, she was in a moment at the door. It was bolted: and how could she reach it? Standing on tiptoe did not help her. So, quickened by fear, no time was lost in getting a chair and mounting on it, the bolt was quickly drawn, and in a moment's time the child was at her brothers' side, pale and trembling. And now came a new dilemma, the house door was locked, and the key in their uncle's room. Here, however, their gymnastic training stood them in good stead, and their bedroom window being not far from the ground, they jumped out of it, and alighted safely on the pavement. The little cart was next brought from its place of concealment. Nanny, wrapped in her cloak, took her seat in it, and the book and picture being laid at her feet, and the bundle serving as a cushion at her back, the children set out on their unknown way. It was quite dark. They had not gone very far when they encountered the watchman with his horn and lantern. Throwing the light full on the strange group, he cried-- "Halt! who goes there?" "Good friends," promptly answered the elder of the boys; when the man, with a kindly smile, let them pass without further inquiry. STORY TWO, CHAPTER TWO. In due time they had got clear of the town, and were trotting along a straight country road as fast as their feet would carry them. Whether the Tyrolese mountains lay to the right or left, before or behind them, they knew not nor seemed to care. They had left their cruel uncle, and the mere thought of this made them happy. They were but little children, and did not reflect on any dangers they might have to encounter. It was in the dim twilight of early morning that they happened to meet a woman driving a cart filled with cans of milk which she was taking to the town. A sudden thought seemed to strike Toni, for, going straight up to her, he said-- "Please, mother, can you tell us the way to the mountains?" "To the Tyrolese mountains?" answered the woman, in a tone of astonishment, standing still, and looking at the group with much interest. Perhaps she had children of her own, and pictured them as little wanderers like those before her. "You are all right so far," she continued, "for a sister of mine left me to go there but the other day, and drove straight along this road. I watched her till she was out of sight. I am afraid I cannot direct you further. But what do you three children want there?" she inquired. "We are going to look for grandfather," Nanny answered in haste, "and he will give us some breakfast, for we are so hungry." At these last words she cast a longing glance at the milk cans. "So hungry, are you?" said the woman, looking at her with real motherly tenderness; then taking out a tin measure, she filled it to the brim, and putting it into her hands, said, "Drink it all up, my dear; and it is milk from a Tyrolese cow, too," she added, smiling. "And we must not forget your good horses. Will they take milk too, I wonder?" offering one of the boys a full can, which she filled a second and a third time. Then she drove on, scarcely giving the children time to thank her. "It was God sent us our breakfast," said Toni. "Father used to say that He sees us, though we cannot see Him, and knows what we are in want of as well as we do ourselves. But now the sun is rising, and we must ask Him to take care of us to-day." Nanny stepped out of her little carriage, and under a wide-spreading beech-tree, the branches of which overshadowed them, the children knelt down, and in their own simple way entreated God's blessing. Just at that moment the sun, like a ball of fire, rose above the horizon and shed over them his golden beams. We can fancy how lovely everything must have appeared to these little ones, who had never known the beauties of sunrise in the country. "It seems as if God was holding his shining hand above us and blessing us," said Toni. "Oh, how pretty!" exclaimed Hans. "Everything about us is so bright; even the very stones; and the little blades of grass look covered with diamonds, but it is the dew which God sends to refresh them. How good He is! He cares for the plants as well as for us, but He made them, so they are His children too." "And look at this," cried Nanny, full of glee, taking up an acorn cup; "only see what a large drop of dew inside--it must be a bath for the tiny insects." Whirr, whirr--up flew a bird from its nest. "Ah, have I frightened you, you poor little thing?" "That must be a lark," said Toni; "look how high it flies, singing all the time; up and up it goes as if it meant to go right up to heaven." "Greet father and mother for me, pretty bird," cried Hans, "for they are in heaven." "Yes, yes, and for Nanny too," said the little maiden; and touching the tips of her small fingers with her lips, she threw them up as if wafting the kisses upward. "Perhaps the lark will carry our prayers to God," said Hans. "Oh no," replied his brother, looking very thoughtful. "God does not need any messenger to take our prayers to Him, for He is always with us; and even if we just think in our hearts what we wish to ask Him, He knows it all quite well. Father said He was close by at all times." "Hark what a pretty song the lark is singing! What a pity we cannot hear what it is about!" "I will tell you, Nanny, what I fancy he would say," said Toni. "`I thank the good God that He has given me wings, so that I can fly up to the blue sky, and that He has made the sun so warm, and the fields so green and soft where I build my nest.'" "That is nice, Toni. But listen! there is a bee humming as it flies by. What does it say, do you think?" "Well, perhaps it is buzzing, `Praise God that He lets me rove from flower to flower to sip the dew and gather honey, and that I am such a happy little bee.'" "Now then," continued the little girl, "there is a large caterpillar creeping along on the ground. It cannot say anything; it neither sings nor hums." Toni was silent a moment; then taking both Nanny's hands into his, he went on, "I was just thinking, my dear little sister, of something mother used to tell me about that. The caterpillar thinks, perhaps, `I certainly am not so beautiful now as many other things in the world, but I have life and can enjoy it. I thank God for that; and some day, when I am tired, He will teach me how to spin myself a cradle in which I may lie down and sleep; then, when I am quite rested, God will come and wake me, and instead of creeping slowly on the ground I shall fly up a lovely thing with wings.'" "And then, you know," said Hans, following out his mother's words, which his brother had recalled, "it will be with our parents something like this butterfly, for first they lived on earth, then God laid them down to sleep in the churchyard, and at last He will come and wake them, and they will be happier and more beautiful than they ever were before." "How can you tell what the birds and insects think about?" said Nanny, looking inquiringly into her brother's face. "Of course we can only fancy it all," Toni replied; "but mother often talked about these things, and taught us to be kind to dumb creatures, and never to hurt even the smallest insect that God had made, because they can feel as well as we; and then she would tell us so many pretty stories of their different ways, that it makes me think sometimes they must have some sort of reason like human beings. But now step in, Nanny; we must not talk any longer, but go on our way, or we shall never reach grandfather's." The little one settled herself comfortably in the cart, her brothers harnessed themselves once more, and away they went. STORY TWO, CHAPTER THREE. When they had gone a short distance, Hans, who had been looking rather grave, whispered into his brother's ear, "Toni, do not say this to Nanny--but how shall we know where grandfather's house is? We may wander among the mountains all day long and never find it." "God will lead us right," answered the trusting boy, "and give us strength for the long journey. Only think, we have been up all night, and are not tired yet. But, Nanny," he said, turning to his sister, "you must go to sleep now; lie down and shut your little eyes." The boys stopped, folded up their coats, putting them under her head for a pillow; and, being protected from the sun's rays by a sort of awning formed of green boughs, she snuggled her head down and was soon fast asleep. It was some hours before Nanny awoke. They had passed through some villages without stopping in any, and were now beginning to feel very hungry. It was early dawn when they had their drink of milk, and they had tasted nothing since. The little girl began to cry piteously, but Toni comforted her, promising they would get something to eat the very next place they came to. Just at that moment a cart filled with potatoes passed them; and as they followed in its track they found, to their great joy, that here and there one or two had fallen on the road, so they were thankfully gathered up and put into Nanny's apron, the carter meanwhile having vanished out of sight. Some distance in front was a large meadow, where a flock of sheep was feeding. When they came near they saw the shepherd in the act of warming his breakfast over a fire of sticks he had just kindled. The boys, running up to him, asked leave to bake their potatoes in the ashes. This was readily granted; and not only that--the man kindly shared his meal with the hungry children, giving each of them some porridge and a slice of bread. How nice it tasted! and how happily they sat round the fire, peeling their potatoes and talking to their new friend! When they had finished breakfast, the boys, who had been on their feet all night, lay down on a green bank to rest, and being very weary soon fell asleep. Manny was quite refreshed after her nap and hearty meal, and amused herself meanwhile with the sheep and lambs, who soon became so friendly that they would let her pat and fondle them as much as she liked. After an hour's time they were again on their journey, and had scarcely proceeded half a mile when a cart laden with wood passed by. The man belonging to it was walking by the side of his horses (his "browns," as he called them), and stopping to speak to our little friends, he asked them where they had come from and whither they were going. When he had heard their simple tale he looked kindly at them, and said, "You have come a long way, and must be weary, my boys; I will give you a lift. Step out, my little lass." So saying he lifted Nanny out of her cart, and hanging it at the back of his waggon, was going to help them, when with one leap they sprang up and placed themselves on a log of wood he had put across to serve as a seat. "There now," he continued, "I can take you ten miles on your way. I wish it had been farther, but I must then unlade my cart and return back again." This was a pleasant and most unexpected rest. It passed only too quickly. They were not long in reaching the place to which the man was bound, when, having deposited his load of wood and taken a kind leave of the children, he drove off, followed by many a loud and hearty "Thank you" from his grateful little friends. It was now mid-day, and they began to wonder where they should dine. It happened, as they passed through the next village, that the peasants were just returning from their work. As may be supposed, the little pilgrims attracted observation, and many questions were asked by one and another till their story was told. Hans, whose thoughts were at that time naturally intent on the subject of dinner, could at last bear it no longer, and said frankly, "You have questioned us about all sorts of things, but no one has asked if we are hungry." "Well said, little fellow," they answered, much amused at this practical hint. Then every one was more anxious than the other to show hospitality to the friendless orphans, till the schoolmaster settled the point by taking them home with him. His pretty house was close by, and having requested his wife, who was in the act of serving up the dinner, to let them have it on the grass, the table was brought out, and they sat down to baked fruit and pancakes--undreamt-of luxuries to the little travellers, who five minutes before knew not where they were to get a piece of bread. To Nanny it recalled the old home, and, throwing her arms round the good woman's neck, she told her how sometimes, when she had been a very good girl, her mother would give her that for a treat. Dinner was over, and now it was time for the children to go on their way. The peasants were waiting to take leave of them, and many had brought their little offerings of sympathy: one a loaf of bread, another a pot of honey, while a feeble old woman came tottering along with a bottle of milk. The children of the village said they must harness Nanny's horses, and admired her spirited steeds, playfully offering them a feed of corn. So they went merrily forward, accompanied for some distance by a troop of the younger inhabitants, and followed by the blessings of all. They had proceeded about a mile when they saw a boy in the distance running along the road they were going. They stopped when he came up, and, as he lifted a corner of his jacket, what was their delight to see snugly lying there rolled up like a ball a Pomeranian puppy, about four weeks old, with a soft, white, silky coat. "What are you going to do with the pretty creature?" they all exclaimed with one breath. "Give him to whoever will take him," said the boy, "for we have three more of the same sort at home. Would you like to have him?" he continued. "That I should dearly," said Hans, holding out both hands to receive the little fellow, "and thank you a thousand times." "You are heartily welcome," returned their new friend; "indeed, I am obliged to you for taking him off my hands." The bottle of milk was at once opened, and, there being no cup, Hans's hand was filled again and again for the dog to lap from, which he did most gratefully; after which a bed was made up of Nanny's cloak, and, with her apron to cover him, he was soon asleep. And now they start off afresh, and their way being for a time in the direction of the boy's home, he proposed harnessing himself to make a third, and away they went full gallop. STORY TWO, CHAPTER FOUR. It was far on in the afternoon when they passed through a beautiful wood. The Tyrol abounds in fir forests, beeches, and chestnuts. We may fancy our little friends, then, enjoying themselves under the shade of the trees. Many hours having passed since their mid-day meal, the loaf of bread was produced, and Toni cut a slice for each with his pocket-knife, spreading it with honey. This proved very grateful to the hungry children, who had tasted nothing since their dinner with the good schoolmaster. Toni and Hans, tired enough by this time, were glad after their meal to stretch themselves on the grass and go to sleep, but Nanny, who had been spared all fatigue, ran about playing with the dog, going here and there, and looking with wondering pleasure at the trees and wild flowers, all of which were so new to her, and talking to the little birds that hopped from bough to bough twittering their pretty songs. The light was playing between the trees, flecking the turf beneath with shadows, and illuminating the trunks of the old firs with a ruddy glow. The little girl skipped about in great delight, getting as she went along a lap full of flowers, which she amused herself by forming into bouquets and wreaths. In stooping down, her eyes fell upon some wood strawberries, which were quite ripe and growing in great numbers. "Oh, what a nice surprise for my brothers!" she said, and set to work gathering as many as she could. Three large leaves were spread on the top of a small rock which served as a table, and when the boys awoke, they were called to partake of the feast. A merry little party they were. And now, having finished their repast by taking a drink of milk from the old woman's bottle, no more time must be lost, Nanny was told to take her seat, and, the dog being laid at her feet, they again set out. The sun was sinking lower and lower in the bright sky, till at length it vanished below the horizon. And now the next question was, where they should sleep? Should they go on to the next village, and beg a night's lodging? For money they had none wherewith to pay for one. "No, no," cried little Nanny, quite in love with the pretty green wood: "let us make this our home for the night; the stars will be our lamps, the moss and flowers our pillow, and the little birds will sing us asleep." She clapped her hands with joy at the thought. The boys were not unwilling to agree to this proposal, and having drawn the cart under a large oak-tree, they all knelt down upon the grass, and Toni prayed aloud. "Our Father in heaven, we thank Thee for having brought us in safety so far; we thank Thee for giving us food when we were hungry. We are sure Thou wilt be with us in the darkness, and Thou wilt hold Thine hand over us, and not let any wild beast or snake come near to hurt us. Please cover Nanny, that the night dew may not give her cold: do, good God, for Thou knowest she is not strong, and we would like to take her quite well to grandfather. Hear us for Jesus' sake. Amen." They rose from their knees, and oh! how full of delight Nanny was! for around on every side, both on the ground and flying about among the bushes, were numbers of the most brilliant sparks; I am sure if she had tried she could not have counted them. "Toni! Hans! look," she exclaimed. "Are these stars? But stars, I am sure, never live in the grass. What can they be?" "They are glow-worms and fireflies," said Toni, and explained to her how that by day they looked brown and ugly, and it was only in the darkness they were so bright. We see Nanny was not without reason in likening these fireflies to stars. She entreated her brothers to catch some of them, that she might hold them in her hand; and they soon collected several, and put them in her hair, so that she looked as if crowned with a wreath of stars. It was now night, and, under the dim light of a half-moon, the children, weary with the previous day's exertion, lay down to rest. Nanny's starry crown soon disappeared; nightingales struck up their thrilling notes, crickets chirped, soft airs whispered among the trees, little birds, with their heads under their wings, roosted in the boughs overhead, and the children soon fell fast asleep, safe under their Heavenly Father's protection. It was bright daylight ere the little ones opened their eyes. They soon recollected themselves, for at first they looked about, wondering where they were, and having risen and breakfasted on bread and honey, with a drink of milk, were not long in setting off again on their travels. So far we have followed them. They had escaped without discovery, their daily wants had been supplied, and they trusted to be before long happy with their grandfather. We shall not, however, be surprised to hear that, while they had been peacefully pursuing their way, there had been no small stir in their uncle's house. When he found the children missing, he was almost beside himself with rage. What now would become of all his fine dreams for the future? They had already helped to fill his purse with gold, and he looked forward greedily to more gains in time to come. Find them he must. Inquiries were made in every direction, advertisements put in the public papers, bills pasted on the walls, police put on the search. What would he not do to get them back again? He himself drove out to the country; fortunately, however, or rather God so ordered it, he took the opposite direction to that which the children had taken. Three days had passed, and the boys were beginning to be very weary and footsore. In the evening they were wondering what to do, and where to go for the night, when they saw a large number of gentlemen and servants on horseback coming towards them. It was a hunting party returning home. "Hallo! hallo!" cried one of them; "here's some fine game. Why, these must be the runaway children about whom there has been such a hue and cry in Vienna. Hold! stop! you are caught," he continued, addressing himself to the terrified little ones. "Come away with us, and to-morrow we will send you home." Nanny clasped her hands, and bursting into a flood of tears, exclaimed, "Please, sir, oh, please not to send us back to uncle!" and Hans, trembling in every limb, begged them to have pity. Toni was the only one of the three who remained calm, saying in a cheerful voice to his sister, "Do not be frightened, Nanny; the good God knows all." By this time the rest of the party had come up, and among them a tall, elderly man with white hair, who smiled kindly on the children, and directed one of his servants to take them to the castle. They were accordingly lifted on to a truck that was conveying the game, the result of the day's sport; their own little cart was slung on behind; and so they arrived at a beautiful house standing in a large park. Nanny and Hans, sobbing bitterly, with their little arms round one another, were seated on a roebuck. Toni, sitting opposite, looked so smiling, trying in his own quiet way to comfort them, that they at length began to look brighter and dried their tears. When they arrived the castle was brilliantly lighted. The children were lifted down and led into a large hall, where a number of ladies were assembled, waiting to receive the party, who had been away since early morning. As you may imagine, great was the astonishment when the little ones were brought in, and many questions were put to them; but it was not till the arrival of the gentlemen that they understood what it all meant. When they were at length joined by the lord of the castle, he went up to the children, and, looking kindly at them, endeavoured to gain their confidence. He began by gently inquiring the cause of their leaving their uncle's house. "Was he unkind to you?" he asked. "Not exactly, sir," quickly replied the little girl; "but I danced till I could dance no longer. I felt as if I was going to die." "It is all true, sir," said Hans. "Toni and I were afraid we should lose our little sister." "I am sure it was God's will we should try and save her," interrupted Toni. "It was _God's will_? How did you know that, little one?" "Why, sir, it must have been God who put a thought into my mind that I ought to get her away. When uncle would make her dance, dance till she fell down and did not know anything, and looked so pale, I thought she was dead. Then I know He must have helped us to make the little cart, and to keep it hidden so that uncle did not see it; and He has led us the right way, and given us food to eat when we were hungry." "Who taught you all that, my boy?" "Nobody, sir," answered Toni; "only father and mother used to talk about God ordering everything, and told us to remember, and that perhaps some day we should see it for ourselves." "Who were your parents?" asked the gentleman, much interested. "I can hardly tell you; but they were God's children, for they called Him Father." "But what was your father? That was what I meant. What did he do?" "Well, sir, in the morning he came and woke us and gave us a kiss, and when we were dressed, he read to us out of the big book; after breakfast he went out to teach music, I think, and when he came home he taught us to read and write: that was what he did." "Did your father not leave you anything?" "Leave us anything?" said the boy thoughtfully. "I heard him say once to mother when he was ill, `If we die we shall have nothing to leave them, but God will be their friend.'" "Was it your father's wish that you should live with your uncle?" "I never heard him say so; but he was talking to mother one day, and he said grandfather was a good old man, and could teach us to be good, and then he went on, `My brother is a wild fellow, but the Lord will be with them and will do for them what is best.'" "And do you think you will be able to reach your grandfather's home after all?" "Yes, sir, indeed I do." "But we must send you back to your uncle--at least, so the police say-- and what then?" "No one can send us back unless it is God's will we should go: father said He is stronger than men." "But how will God hinder it?" "That I cannot tell. He has promised to help those who call upon Him, and what He promises He is sure to do; mother taught us that." All who were standing round the children were touched by the simple faith of this young boy, and the gentleman was silent for a moment, while a tear came into his eye. Then he said, "The Saviour's words come home to me with fresh force, `Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.'" The children were then put under the housekeeper's charge, who gave them a good supper, of which they were much in need. The pretty and comfortable beds were not less welcome, where they slept soundly till long after the sun had risen. At this house our little friends remained till matters were arranged with their uncle. Letters were dispatched telling him they had been found. He was very unwilling to give them up; but at last all obstacles were removed, and their grandfather's address having been procured, they were in due time sent to him under charge of a faithful servant. No doubt the old man gave them a hearty welcome. We can tell you little farther about them, but we know they helped to cheer his old age. They did what they could to lighten his cares; Nanny learnt to play skilfully on the harp, so that in course of time, when her grandfather's eyesight failed, she was able to fill his place. When the young people were out at any time on errands or work, and their grandfather was left alone, the trusty Pomeranian they had named "Caesar" remained in the house as his companion; and when the old man became feeble, and had to rest often in bed, the faithful creature slept at his feet, keeping kindly watch over his aged master. Nor must I forget to add that twice every year, at Christmas and Easter, one of the servants was sent from the castle (though it was a long way distant) with a large basket of provisions. With what delight, you may imagine, the hamper was opened and the contents, one by one, taken out! In autumn, too, when the fruit was ripe, some grapes and peaches occasionally found their way to the humble cottage-home. I think I cannot better conclude this story than by telling you that when the good old man was dying, Nanny was found with her harp at his bedside, playing one of the Tyrolese hymns about "the glories of Heaven." The old man listened in rapture, with his hands clasped, till he entered its Golden Gates.--_Translated from the German_. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The End. 
43390	----	AUNT HATTIE'S LIBRARY for Girls. SERIES I. VOL. I. THE SHEEP AND LAMBS. " II. LILY'S BIRTHDAY. " III. LITTLE MISS FRET. " IV. MAGGIE AND THE MICE. " V. THE LOST KITTY. " VI. IDA'S NEW SHOES. AUNT HATTIE'S LIBRARY for Boys. SERIES II. VOL. I. THE APPLE BOYS. " II. THE CHEST OF TOOLS. " III. THE FACTORY BOY. " IV. FRANKIE'S DOG TONY. " V. THE GOLDEN RULE. " VI. LYING JIM. [Illustration: AUNT HATTIE'S LIBRARY] The Factory Boy. BY AUNT HATTIE, AUTHOR OF THE "BROOKSIDE SERIES," ETC. "Trust in the Lord and do good, ... and verily thou shalt be fed." DAVID. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY HENRY A. YOUNG & CO., NO. 24 CORNHILL. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by REV. A. R. BAKER, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. ROCKWELL & ROLLINS, STEREOTYPERS, 122 Washington Street. To NELLIE, ROLAND COTTON, ANNIE, AND FULLER APPLETON, CHILDREN OF MY BELOVED NEPHEW, THE REV. JOHN COTTON SMITH, D.D., THESE SMALL VOLUMES ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED, WITH THE EARNEST PRAYER THAT THEIR LIVES MAY PROVE THEM TO BE LAMBS IN THE FOLD OF THE GREAT AND GOOD Shepherd of Israel. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Page THE SILVER DOLLAR, 11 CHAPTER II. KIND FRIENDS, 21 CHAPTER III. THE NEW BOOTS, 32 CHAPTER IV. A SAD STORY, 41 CHAPTER V. GOING TO SCHOOL, 53 CHAPTER VI. JOHNNY A FAVORITE, 64 CHAPTER VII. JOHNNY'S TRUST, 74 CHAPTER VII. JOHNNY'S NEW FATHER, 87 CHAPTER IX. THE NEW HOUSE, 99 THE FACTORY BOY. CHAPTER I. THE SILVER DOLLAR. "TAKE a cup of porridge, Johnny, dear. It's too cold to go to work without something warm." Johnny looked in the bowl which stood on the hearth, near a few smouldering brands, and shook his head as he answered,--"I'm not very hungry, mother. There's only enough for you and Ella." Then without another word he hurried away, for the factory bell was ringing; and he knew that he must not be late. Poor little Johnny! How he shivered as he shuffled along that frosty December morning! He could not pick up his feet, as the boys say, and run; for his shoes were much too large for him, and the heels were so worn that it was only by shuffling that he could keep them on his feet. He had scarce a quarter of a mile to go; but cold and hungry as the child was, it seemed a long way to him. He could not help wishing he were a baby like Ella, and could lie in bed all day, with his dead father's coat thrown over him to keep him warm. It was early yet; and few people were stirring except the men, women, and children who were hurrying to enter the factory before the bell ceased to toll. Johnny hurried, too, for he remembered the scolding he had received the day before for being five minutes too late, and was just crossing the railroad track when his toe hit against something, which he stooped to pick up. It was a silver dollar; but he did not know it. He had never seen one. He thought it was a temperance medal, like what he had seen strung around the boys' necks. His eyes shone with pleasure; he had often wished for a medal, and he determined that when he reached the factory he would thread a piece of yarn through the hole and wear it outside his jacket. The place where Johnny worked was a stocking factory. His part was to wind the skeins of yarn upon the long spools, from which the men and large boys wove it into stockings. He had forgotten about his hunger now, and was tying a knot in the string he had put through the dollar, when a young woman came toward him. "What are you doing?" she asked. He held up the medal, saying, eagerly, "I found it." "It's a dollar, a silver dollar, Johnny." "Oh, goody!" cried the boy; "now I can have some new shoes. I thought it was a Father Matthew's medal; but I'd rather have a dollar. Oh, I'm so glad!" The woman looked in his pale face, and couldn't help saying, as she did so,-- "Are you hungry, child?" "Not very." "What did you have for breakfast?" His lips quivered, but he knew by her kind face that she was a friend; and he told her the whole story of his mother's long sickness; and how they had grown poorer and poorer, until there was nothing now but what he earned. "I knew Ella would be hungrier than I," he said, looking the woman full in the face with his clear blue eyes; "and so I didn't take the porridge." "Wait a minute; you sha'n't go to work so," was all she said; and then she was off through the door, down the long steps in a hurry. He pulled his stool close to the small wheel, on which was a large skein of fine yarn, and began to turn it with his foot, when the woman came back, bringing a small basket. "Here, Johnny, eat this and this," giving him a buttered biscuit and a piece of cold meat; "and carry the rest home. There is enough for you, your mother, and Ella, to have a good dinner." Poor Johnny was dumb with astonishment. He could scarcely realize that all this was for him; but as the woman waited to see him eat, he pulled the hard silver dollar from his pocket and held it out to her. "No! no!" she exclaimed; "give it to your mother. She'll know what to do with it, I dare say." That was a happy day for Johnny; almost the happiest he had ever known. He had begun it by giving up his own comfort for that of his mother and sister, and by-and-by God sent him friends to care for him. CHAPTER II. KIND FRIENDS. DONALD MILES was the name of the Superintendent of the stocking factory. He had just married a young wife, and brought her to live in one of the new houses near the mill. She was a Christian woman, who tried to follow her Master, and do good wherever she had opportunity. She took a class in the Sabbath school, and told her husband she meant to have some scholars from the factory. Two or three times she had noticed Johnny running up the steps, and thought, "that boy is too small for such work." You can imagine, then, how she felt when she heard his simple story. In the evening Johnny and his mother were eagerly talking over the various events and scenes of the day when Mrs. Miles opened the door and presented herself before them. "I feel sure," she had said to her husband, "that the child told me the truth. His eyes were too honest to deceive; but still I mean to go this very day and see for myself. Why, they have nothing to eat and are on the very verge of starvation!" "I wish, Johnny," Mrs. Talbot was saying, "that the dollar was ours; and then you should have a pair of shoes; but it is not, and we must contrive some way to find the owner." The room was very poor, but clean as hands could make it. On the floor in the corner was a straw bed, between the windows, a long chest, and near the fire three small wooden stools standing before an old rickety table. Mrs. Miles soon convinced the poor woman that she was a friend; and, before the visit was ended, she found that though one was very poor, and the other comparatively rich, there was one tie which bound them together,--they both loved Christ, and looked forward to living with him forever in heaven. When she rose to go she said to Johnny,-- "I'll take the dollar with me, and ask my husband what shall be done to find the owner, and I'll see about the work for you right away. Why," she added, with a smile, "I can earn a dollar a day closing socks; and I never was called smart with my needle; so keep up good courage. Better days are coming for us." "But I've tried a great many times to get work," answered the poor woman, shaking her head. "They always told me there was none." Mrs. Miles gave her head a little toss, as much as to say, "No one need tell me that story." Then she laughed as she exclaimed,-- "Well, if I can't get work for you, I'll bring you mine. You need it more than I do. Now don't cry,--it will hurt your eyes; but say your prayers and go to bed. I'll be sure to come again soon." When she shut the door, Mrs. Talbot began to cry; but these were happy tears, which brought relief to her overburdened heart. Then she said to Johnny,-- "Let us kneel down and thank God for sending us such a friend." "O mother!" exclaimed the boy, when they arose from prayer; "wasn't that bread and butter nice? I never tasted anything so good." "Yes, dear; and when your father was alive we had bread and butter every day." The next morning, when the little boy went to his work, he looked all about for his kind friend; but he did not see her until he had been dismissed for dinner. He was passing along the sidewalk, when he heard a tap on the window of a house close by, and, looking up, he saw Mrs. Miles beckoning to him. She had a bundle rolled up in a towel, which she told him to give his mother, and tell her she would have company in the evening. And true enough, just as Ella was safely in bed, there was a knock at the humble door, and Mrs. Miles walked in, followed by her husband. Johnny had never seen this gentleman except in the factory; and then he looked very grave as he talked with the men or with merchants who came from the city. Now it was very different. His young wife had told him a pitiful story about the widow; and he came prepared to help her. "So you were lucky to-day, Johnny, and found a dollar," he began, taking the silver piece from his pocket. "I have made inquiries for you, and can find no one who claims it; so I think you may keep it with a good conscience." Johnny's eager face expressed his thanks. "What would you like to buy with it?" "A pair of shoes, sir." "Well, come on to the shoe-store." "Yes," said the lady, with a smile; "and while you are gone, I'll give Mrs. Talbot a lesson in closing the seams of the stockings." CHAPTER III. THE NEW BOOTS. AS they walked together toward the store, Mr. Miles became as much interested in his young companion as his wife could have wished. The child discovered so much intelligence, and had evidently been so well trained, that the superintendent fully agreed with Mrs. Miles, that it was a pity he should not have a chance to go to school. [Illustration: Mr. Mills going with Johnny to buy Shoes Series II, vol. iii, p. 32.] When they reached the store, the gentleman said, laughing,-- "Show us your best goods, now; we want a pair of stout brogans, such as you can warrant will turn water." "For him?" asked the merchant, nodding his head toward Johnny. "Yes, for him. You see he needs them badly enough." "Boots would be better." "Ah, yes." Mr. Miles's eyes began to twinkle. He had a happy thought; and so he put Johnny's silver dollar, which he had been twirling by the string, into his vest pocket, and began to examine carefully one pair after another of the boots laid out for him on the counter. "This is a good pair," he said, at last. "What is the price?" "Three dollars. I'll warrant those; they are custom made; but they were too small for the child whose mother ordered them. I should have charged her five if they'd suited." "Yes, I see they're first-rate boots,--what, in the hose line, I should call 'A, number one.' Now I'll tell you what I propose. This little fellow is the son of a widow, who, when my wife found her, had literally not one mouthful of food. Just think of such destitution if you can!--a good Christian, too; but the death of her husband and her own long sickness have exhausted everything. I propose to give half the price, and let you give the other." "Oh, I can't afford that! Why, I've taken off two dollars already." "Look here, now," urged Mr. Miles; "I'm going to start a subscription for the benefit of the widow. It would make your heart ache to see how very destitute she is of everything. I want your name down, of course; I must have it. So here goes,--'Allen Manning, one dollar and a half.' There, you'll be glad whenever you think of having made a child happy and comfortable." "Well, if you say so, I suppose I must." "Thank you. Now I want your wife to join with mine and just make the widow's hovel a little more tenantable. They'll work together finely, I know. Mrs. Miles says she is sure a little nourishing food will do more for the poor soul than a shop-full of medicine. You see, the poor creature thinks herself in a decline." Mr. Manning tied up the bundle and handed it to Johnny; and then the two started off for home, the boy having looked the thanks his trembling lips refused to utter. "Now, Johnny," said Mr. Miles, "here's your medal; wear it around your neck as long as you are a truthful boy. When you tell your first lie, bring it to me." "I don't dare to tell lies, sir; mother says God hates liars; but 'those that speak the truth are his delight.'" "That's true doctrine; and here we are." Mrs. Miles opened the door when she heard her husband's voice, and said, in a pleasant tone, and manner,-- "She learned the stitch in half the time I did." The proud husband tapped her glowing cheek. I am sure he was thinking what a darling little wife he had. And when Johnny eagerly related the story of the boots, I know she thought,-- "That is so like Donald; he has such a noble heart." "And I have the medal,--I mean the dollar, too, mother. I'm to keep it till I tell a lie." "Which I hope will never happen, dear. But did you thank our good, generous friends? I have no words to express my gratitude." "Never mind for words, Mrs. Talbot. Good-night." CHAPTER IV. A SAD STORY. IT was, indeed, time that help should come to the poor widow, for a cough had fastened itself on her lungs, which would soon have ended her life. The room was damp and chilly, and her clothing quite too scant for winter. Mrs. Miles would not wait till she had earned money to buy wood and clothing and food. "They would all freeze and starve," she told the people where she went begging. "I want to get something to save their lives; and then, when she is comfortable, the woman can earn enough to support her family." In two weeks you would never have known the room; the glass was mended, and now the sun shone in. There was a pretty, old-fashioned bedstead, four nicely painted chairs, a table with leaves, a tiny mirror, a patch spread, and the cunningest little cooking-stove, which kept the room beautifully warm. At least, Johnny thought so when he came dancing home from his work. Besides all this, Mrs. Miles had procured from an old lady some healing syrup, which had nearly cured the troublesome cough; and Mrs. Talbot could sew now very well, without that terrible pain in her side. She told her dear friend one day, that if she could only forget her past trouble, she should be quite happy,--happier than she had ever expected to be again. "You must tell me about your troubles," Mrs. Miles said. And one afternoon, when Johnny was at work in the factory, and Ella was taking her nap, Mrs. Talbot began,-- "I was married when I was only seventeen, and went with my husband to the western part of New York State. He was a carpenter, and could get good wages, which supported us in great comfort. Johnny was almost seven years old when Dexter, that is, my husband, told me he wanted to bring home one of his workmen to live with us. The man had no home, and, as he did not think it right to spend his evenings in a tavern, he was very lonely. His name was Robert Hardy, and he gave very little trouble. He grew to be fond of Johnny, and spent many leisure hours in amusing him and making him playthings. "But one day he came home sick; and for two weeks he never left his bed. Dexter and I took all the care of him. When he grew better, he went away to his mother. He sat by the fire thinking. I expected he would thank us; but he did not. He held Dexter's hand like a vise; and he tried to say good-by to me; but his voice failed. I have never seen him since. I feel sure he was grateful. The doctor had told him our care saved his life. "The very night he left, Dexter grew delirious; he had stayed at home with a cold for a week. The doctor came again, and said he had taken the fever. "Oh, those were dreadful days! He grew worse and worse, and I--it breaks my heart when I think that I had nursed a stranger, and couldn't nurse my own husband--I was lying on a bed in the same room; and my little Ella lay beside me. Every moan of Dexter's went through my heart; and when he died, all hope and joy died with him. I cared for nothing. I remember but little of those long, weary months which followed. I should have died but for the kindness of my neighbors. "The Rector visited me; but I scarcely understood what he said. When Dexter died, there were three hundred dollars laid by in the bank. Fifty of it went for his funeral expenses and my mourning; and the rest went little by little, till I had not a shilling left. Then Johnny was taken sick. I hoped he would die; I hoped we all should die; but I began to think that I was not prepared to follow my husband to heaven. He loved his Saviour, and I did not. "I tried to pray. The Rector's wife prayed with me, and led me to Jesus. I learned to trust in him; but I was wholly inexperienced, and knew not how to earn a living for myself and my little ones. I thought if I could only get home to my parents that I should be happy; but I had nothing left to pay my expenses. "One by one my pieces of furniture were sold, and I was dependent on charity for my daily food. At last they raised the money to pay my fare, and, with all I had in the world packed in Dexter's chest, I left the place where I had experienced the greatest joy and the greatest sorrow I had ever known. "When I reached home I found my father helpless from a paralytic stroke, and mother worn out with care of him. One of my friends owned this old house, and offered me the use of it. He said, as it was near the factory, we could get work. I might have done something, but I took cold and was unable to sit up. Afterward, when I inquired again and again at the factory, I was told that they had already more applicants than they could supply. "At last Johnny got a place there; but his wages were small, and--and--unless you had found us, I think we should really have starved." CHAPTER V. GOING TO SCHOOL. SPRING came at last; and then what delight Ella felt in being allowed to run out of doors, and play on the new, fresh grass with the pussy Mrs. Miles had given her! Johnny was still in the factory; and Mrs. Talbot worked away at the hose, making a very comfortable living. She could smile now at Ella's cunning ways, and laugh with Johnny at the news he brought from the mill, after his day's work was done. He was in Mrs. Miles's class in Sabbath school,--her best scholar, she said. He had won a prize already for obtaining two new scholars; and what do you think it was? Why, a new Bible with clasps; and very proud he was of it, too. Every Sabbath he learned his verses in it,--putting in the red ribbon-mark with great care. In the evening, Johnny read to his mother while she sewed, and now he was learning to write. Mrs. Talbot made a copy on the slate, and he wrote underneath, trying to make every line better than the last. One day he came running home from his work, his face looking very bright and happy. "Mother! mother!" he called out; "I'm going to school! I'm not going to work any more,--I mean not all day. Mrs. Miles has settled it! And O mother! I'm to go there this evening for a big bundle of clothes. She's made me a jacket out of a coat of her husband's, and that was what she wanted my other jacket for. Oh! oh! I'm so glad!" "That is news!" exclaimed Mrs. Talbot. "I'm to be advanced," he added; "she says so, and paid by the hour; and I shall earn just as much working between schools as I do now. O mother! isn't Mrs. Miles splendid?" In the evening, Johnny went for the bundle; and the lady accompanied him home to see how the new clothes fitted. "It's my first trial," she said, laughing; "and I'm very proud to think that I've succeeded so well." Johnny turned round and round, as directed, to show first the back, then the shoulders and front. "I find I have a natural gift at tailoring," cried Mrs. Miles. "I shall throw up making hose, and devote myself to my new calling. Just see that sleeve, now! It looks as well as if it were bought from a fashionable store." "I don't know how to thank you," murmured the widow, laughing through her tears. "I should have tried to cut them over, of course; but I'm afraid I should have made a bungling piece of work of it." "Well, then, if you confess so much, I will tell you that I have a right to be proud; for the times that jacket has been ripped and sewed, and ripped and basted and pressed, are beyond calculation. I made a study of Mr. Miles's wedding-coat, at last, particularly the sleeves, and then I found out what my trouble was. But the victory was worth all the pains; so I don't count the four days I spent on it lost time." "I mean to be very careful of my new clothes," said Johnny, who had been listening in open-mouthed wonder. They both laughed at his grave tone; and then Mr. Miles came for his wife; and they talked about the Sabbath school. "I want you, Mrs. Talbot, to do my wife a favor," said the gentleman, trying to look serious. "She is desirous of having an infant class in the Sabbath school, and wants you for the teacher. Ella, she says, is old enough to go with you." "Me!" exclaimed the widow, in great astonishment. "Me! Why, I am not competent to teach any one." "Neither am I," urged Mrs. Miles; "but I do love my Saviour; and I want the boys and girls around me to love him; so I try to tell them what a good Being he is, and what he has done for us. Can't you do that?" With a deepened color the widow answered,-- "At least, I will try." "I knew you would; and if you will only tell them the 'sweet story of old,' as I heard you telling it to Johnny one of the first visits I made you, and while I was waiting in the entry for you to answer my knock, it is all I will ask. Ever since that time I have only been waiting for summer so that the little ones, Ella among the rest, can go out." [Illustration: Johnny with a new Scholar for the Sabbath-school. Series II, vol. iii, p. 63.] "She tells me beautiful stories about Daniel in the lion's den," exclaimed Johnny; "and about Joseph in prison. I can read them, too, in my new Bible." "There is a small vestry which seems made on purpose for your school," suggested Mr. Miles. "Where we hope to see you next Sabbath," added the lady. "I will do the best I can," was the humble reply; "and I am sure I shall love the work." CHAPTER VI. JOHNNY A FAVORITE. I WISH you could have seen Johnny the first morning he started for school. His face was as clean as soap and water could make it; his hair was nicely parted on his broad forehead; his eyes shone like stars; and his mouth was wreathed with smiles. He wore the new suit Mrs. Miles had given him, and a clean linen collar around his neck. In one hand he carried a little pail full of dinner; and under his other arm, his spelling-book, reader, and slate. He was to call at Mrs. Miles's for a pencil; and so, after bidding his mother good-by and hearing her call after him, "Be a good lad, Johnny, and don't let any idle boys turn you from your book," he hurried away to be in season to choose a seat. This was the first day of the term, and the earliest scholars had the best chance. Mrs. Miles met him at the door with the long slate-pencil nicely sharpened in her hand; and, having looked at him from head to foot, she said, approvingly,-- "You are just right, Johnny, and I'm proud of you." Then she kissed his glowing cheek, and he ran down the steps. I suppose you would like to know where the silver dollar was all this time. Why, round Johnny's neck, to be sure! You know he was to wear it till he told a lie; and, as he had never departed from the truth, it was still there, fastened to a nice ribbon that his mother had bought for it. At school, Johnny liked his teacher and the boys; and they liked Johnny. In school he was as grave as a judge, studying his lessons with all his might; but at recess there was not a merrier boy among the whole set. Playing ball or catcher were new games to him, who had always been obliged to work so hard, and he enjoyed every moment of the time given to them. Then he was always fair at his plays, and ready to oblige his companions. By-and-by it used to be said,-- "Don't cheat, now! Be fair, like Johnny Talbot." This pleased Johnny's friends more than all the rest. To be sure they liked to have him a good scholar,--to have him popular among his school-mates; but it was best of all to know that he tried to do what God would approve. At home he was just the same boy that he was when I first began to tell you about him, and was as ready to give up his pleasure to his mother and Ella as he had been to give up his scant breakfast of Indian porridge, when he knew there was not enough for all. As you may imagine, Johnny was a very busy child. He rose almost as soon as he could see, and reached the farm where his mother and Mrs. Miles bought their milk, before the farmer was ready for him. Then he was back with his two pails, and off for the factory for a couple of hours. He was very happy here, for all the men and women smiled upon him, so he whistled away at his work, though the noise of the machinery prevented any one but himself hearing his music. When the town-clock struck eight he was off for home, where he had only just time to eat his breakfast, wash and dress for school, before it was the hour to start. After school, he changed his clothes again, and had three more hours for work before dark. So the summer passed happily away. Sometimes, indeed, when the boys were starting off for nuts; or when he heard them on the common, flying their kites, he used to wish, just for one moment, that he were rich, so that he could have time to go with them; but he did not cherish such thoughts. He knew that God had been very kind to him, and that his heavenly Father had ordered all things for his best good. His mother had explained to him that it was for Joseph's future advancement that God allowed him to be put into prison, and that this great and good Being is always watchful over those who love and trust him. At home, though Johnny had little leisure, yet he contrived to please Ella so much that she longed for his presence, and would run forth to meet him, her apron full of grass and flowers, which she had gathered for dear Johnny. CHAPTER VII. JOHNNY'S TRUST. BY the industry of Johnny, and the wages of his kind mother, the family at the cottage had passed a very comfortable summer; but now work was scarce, and the widow looked forward with some dread to the cold weather. She well knew that more than one third of the women who worked for the factory had received no hose for several weeks; and that it was only through her friend's exertions that Mr. Miles sent it regularly to her. Then, although her earnings had provided them with abundance of good plain food, yet this sum, even if continued, would not supply fuel and warm clothes. Nor was there anything to pay for mending the roof, where the rain dripped in during every shower. It was on a dreary November evening that Mrs. Talbot talked with her son while Ella, untroubled by anxiety or care, lay soundly sleeping in the bed at the farther corner of the room. With a sigh, the widow told her boy she feared trouble was before them. "Everything seems dark," she went on; "I can't see where help to carry us through the winter is coming from. We can't live in this house much longer unless it has new shingles on the roof; and I know that is a very costly job. Then we all need warm clothes. I'm afraid, Johnny, you'll have to leave school and work harder than you have ever worked before;" and she sighed again. Johnny's chin trembled. "I can't work in the mill, mother," he began, trying to keep back a sob. "One of the men told me to-day there were no orders from the merchants, and they would have to stop." The widow covered her pale face with her hands. "We shall starve, then," she cried out, in a voice of agony. "Oh, if your father were only alive!" She leaned on the table and wept bitterly. "Mother," faltered Johnny, drawing his coat-sleeve across his eyes; "mother, you told me our heavenly Father loves us better than any earthly father. Won't he help us if we pray to him? Don't cry so, mother; I think he knows about it, and perhaps he'll take care of us, as he did when we were starving before." "Johnny! Johnny! I've been wicked. I've been doubting him all day. Yes, my child, he is good, merciful, and true to his promises, even to poor, weak creatures like me. We will pray, and we will trust. I feel happier already. I have been carrying my burden of care when he says we may cast it on him. Come, Johnny, we will pray." They kneeled together by the firelight; and the woman, with a full heart, thanked her heavenly Father for her precious boy,--that his faith had not wavered when she so wickedly doubted his power or his willingness to help them. She thanked him again for his former care of them, and she urged his gracious promise, "I will be the widow's God, and a father to the fatherless." She arose and took her seat with almost a smile. "All my anxiety has gone," she said, in a cheerful tone; "I know my heavenly Father is able and willing to help us. Johnny, my precious boy, how could I murmur when you and Ella are spared?" "I prayed in my heart all the way home," faltered the boy; "I didn't know what we should do; but I kept saying to myself,-- "'God knows all about it,--just as he did about Joseph in prison.'" His mother drew him to her side, and kissed his forehead. "Now you must go to bed," she said. "Though we trust God for the future, we must do all we can to help ourselves. I have work for another week; and you must be off early to yours. When this fails, I feel sure that we shall be provided for somehow." Johnny lay quiet on his couch, and his mother thought him asleep. She read chapter after chapter of God's holy word, comforting herself in his gracious promises, when she was startled by hearing her boy say,-- "Mother, there's my silver dollar, you know. That will buy a good deal." "Yes, dear." Her voice trembled. She knew how much he prized that dollar, and how often Mr. Miles had asked to see it, "to be sure," he said, "that it was not lost or forfeited." She resolved that not until everything else had been sacrificed should that dollar be parted with. Two days later Johnny ran home with the joyful announcement,-- "Mrs. Miles has come home! I've seen her. She beckoned me to go in, and, O mother! what do you think she showed me? The cunningest little baby I ever saw. She wants you to come right over, and she----" Mrs. Talbot interrupted him by saying,-- "That is good news! I'll go at once, and take Ella, so that I can stay and help her. Rake up the fire as quickly as you can, and put on Ella's hood." "I felt a little troubled for you," exclaimed the lady, when, after a cordial embrace, she had heard a confession of the widow's fears; "but I am sure all will come out right and bright. That dear Johnny! I hope my boy will be just like him;" and here she gave the baby a good squeeze. "If the mill is shut, as I suppose it must be, we shall go to my father's for the winter. It will be a trial to all of us; but we will trust it is for the best. My husband told me that he should know certainly at the end of another week. If no orders come in before that time, they can't keep on." Mrs. Talbot took the baby and began to caress it to hide her troubled face; but presently said, with a smile,-- "How thankful we ought to be that there is One who orders all events in our lives, and that this Being is he who calls himself our Father." CHAPTER VIII. JOHNNY'S NEW FATHER. THE cold weather came on early this year. As he ran shivering home from school, Johnny saw, at almost every house, the preparations for winter. Here was a pile of wood, and there a large heap of coal, suggestive of warmth and comfort. Two days more and the important question about the factory would be decided. If Mrs. Miles went away, it would be very desolate. God only knew how they should be able to get along. He thought of all this one night as he was returning from the factory, and to comfort himself began humming his favorite tune,-- "I have a Father in the promised land." As he came in sight of the cottage, he wondered at the bright light which reflected from the windows; but he wondered still more at the scene presented within. Their one table was set in the middle of the floor, and spread with such abundance as he had never seen there. His mother was hurrying to and fro, and intent on the cakes she was frying, while at the same time she talked with a well-dressed man who sat near the fire holding Ella in his lap. "I haven't forgotten your favorite dish," she said, with an arch smile. "You liked rye fritters best, while Dexter preferred buckwheats." "Ah, there is Johnny!" exclaimed the stranger, holding out his hand. "Don't you remember me?" It was, indeed, an old friend,--the man who had been watched and nursed by Mrs. Talbot and her husband, and from whom she had never since heard. He had spent a week in searching for her, he said; and now he meant to take care of her and the children. After supper, he rocked Ella to sleep, and then begged to hold her awhile; for, he said, "I have something to tell you." "You know I had not fully recovered when I went away," he began. "I tried to thank you, but I couldn't; my heart was too full. I heard of Dexter's death, and felt that I had lost a brother. The next thing I did was to make a resolution to be a brother to you and yours. I worked hard and saved every penny. Not that I thought money could pay you for your care of me; but I felt that you might need help. "There," he added, holding out a package, "is the first I earned. I laid it aside for you." The widow's face flushed as she saw written on a corner of the wrapper, "Two hundred dollars." "I found a good place and succeeded well. Every day I repeated the prayer Johnny taught me on my sick-bed, and God answered it. I saw my need of a Saviour, and gladly accepted the one offered me in the Bible. I wrote again and again to you, sending my letters to our old place; but I had no reply. At last I grew too anxious to wait longer, and, settling my business, I set out to find you. I wish I had started a year ago." "God's time is the best time," murmured the widow, her eyes full of tears. Then Mr. Hardy bade Johnny bring the Bible, and they had reading and prayers together. Early as the widow rose the next morning, their guest was up before her, and on the roof examining the building. In the course of the day the leak was stopped, the broken steps mended, and a new lock put on the door. Toward night he went out, but soon returned with a wagon containing a barrel of flour, two casks of potatoes, beside sundry small parcels. An hour later the wagon came again with a neat bedstead, mattress, and two stout blankets, and a whole web of cotton cloth for sheets. Mrs. Talbot clasped her hands on her breast, saying to herself, "The Lord has, indeed, appeared for me." When she tried, with a broken voice; to thank Mr. Hardy, he only smiled as he said,-- "Wait a little. You'll find I'm selfish after all." They had a long talk that evening, after the children were asleep, which accounted perhaps for the pretty pink in the widow's cheek, when Johnny saw her the next morning. "Come here, my boy," said Mr. Hardy, drawing a stool to his side; "I loved your father. He was one of the best men I ever knew. But as he is gone, your mother last night consented that I should be a father to you and Ella. Will you be my true and loving son?" He opened his arms, and Johnny was clasped to his breast. "I will try to be a good son," he whispered. As Mr. Hardy urged there was no use in delay, the next Sabbath morning they went to the Rector's house and were married, Mr. Miles giving the bride away. When Mr. Hardy examined the cottage, he did it with the resolution to repair it, if it proved worth the expense. But he found many of the timbers rotten, and the sills sunken into the ground. He thought it better, therefore, to put up a new house, for which he had abundant means. He hired an old barn, and fitted it up for a shop, and then, when not otherwise engaged, labored diligently at getting out the frame, doors, and windows for his new building. CHAPTER IX. THE NEW HOUSE. THE factory was closed, but only for a few weeks. Just as Mr. Miles was making preparation to leave, orders came in, which obliged him to employ all their old hands. Johnny did not leave school, but worked two hours in the morning, as before. He did not work at night, because his new father insisted that every boy must have some time to play; and then, when Mr. Hardy began to have more work than he could do, Johnny must get kindlings for his mother, or run of errands for her. In the spring the new house was finished; a plain, neat building, with a pretty portico over the front door. Johnny and his mother often talked about their old trials, and always remembered with pleasure that in the hour of their sorest need, they did not forget to trust in the great and good God. Would you like to know what kind of a house it was to be? I will try to describe it as Mr. Hardy did to Johnny and his mother one evening, with Ella sitting on his knee. "There," he said, drawing a plan on Johnny's slate, "is the front door, which leads into the entry. Out of this on one side is a room, which we will call the Sunday-room; because I shall, by and by, have an organ in there, and we will sing psalm tunes on Sunday." Johnny gave a scream of delight, and Ella asked, "May I sing, too?" "Certainly, my dear. Now here on the other side is the room where we shall live and take our meals. Behind the front entry is a large closet, into which I mean to put lockers and drawers, so that your mother can keep her dishes nicely arranged, as they used to be in her old home. I remember," he added, with a smiling glance at his wife, "how cosily the room used to look when Dexter and I came home from our work, and how I thought I should be the happiest man living if I had somebody to care for me as you did for Dexter. "Besides, there will be a kitchen and a shed beyond, where you will have a chance to cut and pile wood. Ella must have some work, too, and so here goes the chicken-house, where she will have to feed the biddies, and find the nice white eggs. Upstairs, Johnny, there will be four chambers, beside a tiny room over the front entry." "Mother is crying!" exclaimed Ella, springing to the floor. "It seems like a dream, a happy dream," said Mrs. Hardy, softly. "Only a few weeks ago, and we were so destitute, and knew not where to turn for help!" "But we prayed to God, mother, and he heard us. I guess that's why he sent Mr. Hardy here, don't you?" * * * * * Transcriber's Note: Obvious punctuation errors repaired. 
60669	----	(This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.) Transcriber's Notes: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=. Small uppercase have been replaced with regular uppercase. Blank pages have been eliminated. Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been left as in the original. AROUND THE WICKET GATE; OR, A FRIENDLY TALK WITH SEEKERS CONCERNING FAITH IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. BY C. H. SPURGEON. "Enter ye in at the strait gate."--_Matt._ vii. 13. AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 10 EAST 23D STREET, NEW YORK. This book is published by special arrangement with the author and his publisher. COPYRIGHT, 1890, BY A. C. ARMSTRONG & SONS. TRANSFERRED TO THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. PREFACE. Millions of men are in the outlying regions, far off from God and peace; for these we pray, and to these we give warning. But just now we have to do with a smaller company, who are not far from the kingdom, but have come right up to the wicket gate which stands at the head of the way of life. One would think that they would hasten to enter, for a free and open invitation is placed over the entrance, the porter waits to welcome them, and there is but this one way to eternal life. He that is most loaded seems the most likely to pass in and begin the heavenward journey; but what ails the other men? This is what I want to find out. Poor fellows! they have come a long way already to get where they are; and the King's highway, which they seek, is right before them: why do they not take to the Pilgrim Road at once? Alas! they have a great many reasons; and foolish as those reasons are, it needs a very wise man to answer them all. I cannot pretend to do so. Only the Lord himself can remove the folly which is bound up in their hearts, and lead them to take the great decisive step. Yet the Lord works by means; and I have prepared this little book in the earnest hope that he may work by it to the blessed end of leading seekers to an immediate, simple trust in the Lord Jesus. He who does not take the step of faith, and so enter upon the road to heaven, will perish. It will be an awful thing to die just outside the gate of life. Almost saved, but altogether lost! A man just outside Noah's ark would be drowned; a manslayer just outside the wall of the city of refuge would be slain; and the man who is within a yard of Christ, and yet has not trusted him, will be lost. Therefore am I in terrible earnest to get my hesitating friends over the threshold. _Come in! Come in!_ is my pressing entreaty. May the Holy Spirit render it effectual with many who shall glance at these pages! May he cause his own almighty voice to be heard creating faith at once! My reader, if God blesses this book to you, do the writer this favour--either lend your own copy to one who is lingering at the gate, or buy another and give it away; for his great desire is that this little volume should be of service to many thousands of souls. To God this book is commended; for without his grace nothing will come of all that is written. [Illustration] PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. The host of American Christians who have had the privilege of listening to the prince of modern preachers of the gospel in his own London Tabernacle, and the countless thousands who have read his printed sermons, have long desired to see and hear him on this side of the ocean. The state of his health, however, which requires frequent respites from his incessant and exhausting labors, precludes the hope of an American tour, with its inevitable demands upon his already overburdened strength. All the more on this account they will welcome a new volume from his pen, designed for the benefit of a class found in every Christian community, the object of the deepest concern to the Church of Christ: a volume written by a master in Israel who has shown such a profound knowledge both of the human heart with all its needs, and of the wisdom and power of God in the gospel, and who has been to so many souls the blessed means of leading them to Christ. This new volume, like the author's many previous books and tracts, his well-organized Colporter Society, etc., testifies to his high appreciation of the power of the press, and to his desire thus to win for Christ myriads of those whom his voice cannot reach. To all who are hovering around the "Wicket Gate," or who even from time to time come within sight of it and wish they were safe within it, this little book is commended, with the hope that even while they are reading they will knock and it shall be opened to them. CONTENTS. PAGE AWAKENING 9 JESUS ONLY 16 FAITH IN THE PERSON OF THE LORD JESUS 24 FAITH VERY SIMPLE 35 FEARING TO BELIEVE 48 DIFFICULTY IN THE WAY OF BELIEVING 57 A HELPFUL SURVEY OF CHRIST'S WORK 65 A REAL HINDRANCE TO FAITH 73 ON RAISING QUESTIONS 80 WITHOUT FAITH NO SALVATION 88 TO THOSE WHO HAVE BELIEVED 93 [Illustration] [Illustration] Around the Wicket Gate. AWAKENING. Great numbers of persons have no concern about eternal things. They care more about their cats and dogs than about their souls. It is a great mercy to be made to think about ourselves, and how we stand towards God and the eternal world. This is full often a sign that salvation is coming to us. By nature we do not like the anxiety which spiritual concern causes us, and we try, like sluggards, to sleep again. This is great foolishness; for it is at our peril that we trifle when death is so near, and judgment is so sure. If the Lord has chosen us to eternal life, he will not let us return to our slumber. If we are sensible, we shall pray that our anxiety about our souls may never come to an end till we are really and truly saved. Let us say from our hearts:-- "He that suffered in my stead, Shall my Physician be; I will not be comforted, Till Jesus comfort me." It would be an awful thing to go dreaming down to hell, and there to lift up our eyes with a great gulf fixed between us and heaven. It will be equally terrible to be aroused to escape from the wrath to come, and then to shake off the warning influence, and go back to our insensibility. I notice that those who overcome their convictions and continue in their sins are not so easily moved the next time: every awakening which is thrown away leaves the soul more drowsy than before, and less likely to be again stirred to holy feeling. Therefore our heart should be greatly troubled at the thought of getting rid of its trouble in any other than the right way. One who had the gout was cured of it by a quack medicine, which drove the disease within, and the patient died. To be cured of distress of mind by a false hope, would be a terrible business: the remedy would be worse than the disease. Better far that our tenderness of conscience should cause us long years of anguish, than that we should lose it, and perish in the hardness of our hearts. Yet awakening is not a thing to rest in, or to desire to have lengthened out month after month. If I start up in a fright, and find my house on fire, I do not sit down at the edge of the bed, and say to myself, "I hope I am truly awakened! Indeed, I am deeply grateful that I am not left to sleep on!" No, I want to escape from threatened death, and so I hasten to the door or to the window, that I may get out, and may not perish where I am. It would be a questionable boon to be aroused, and yet not to escape from the danger. Remember, awakening is not salvation. A man may know that he is lost, and yet he may never be saved. He may be made thoughtful, and yet he may die in his sins. If you find out that you are a bankrupt, the consideration of your debts will not pay them. A man may examine his wounds all the year around, and they will be none the nearer being healed because he feels their smart, and notes their number. It is one trick of the devil to tempt a man to be satisfied with a sense of sin; and another trick of the same deceiver to insinuate that the sinner may not be content to trust Christ, unless he can bring a certain measure of despair to add to the Saviour's finished work. Our awakenings are not to help the Saviour, but to help us to the Saviour. To imagine that my feeling of sin is to assist in the removal of the sin is absurd. It is as though I said that water could not cleanse my face unless I had looked longer in the glass, and had counted the smuts upon my forehead. A sense of need of salvation by grace is a very healthful sign; but one needs wisdom to use it aright, and not to make an idol of it. Some seem as if they had fallen in love with their doubts, and fears, and distresses. You cannot get them away from their terrors--they seem wedded to them. It is said that the worst trouble with horses when their stables are on fire, is that you cannot get them to come out of their stalls. If they would but follow your lead, they might escape the flames; but they seem to be paralyzed with fear. So the fear of the fire prevents their escaping the fire. Reader, will your very fear of the wrath to come prevent your escaping from it? We hope not. One who had been long in prison was not willing to come out. The door was open; but he pleaded even with tears to be allowed to stay where he had been so long. Fond of prison! Wedded to the iron bolts and the prison fare! Surely the prisoner must have been a little touched in the head! Are you willing to remain an awakened one, and nothing more? Are you not eager to be at once forgiven? If you would tarry in anguish and dread, surely you, too, must be a little out of your mind! If peace is to be had, _have it at once_! Why tarry in the darkness of the pit, wherein your feet sink in the miry clay? There is light to be had; light marvellous and heavenly; why lie in the gloom and die in anguish? You do not know how near salvation is to you. If you did, you would surely stretch out your hand and take it, for there it is; and _it is to be had for the taking_. Do not think that feelings of despair would fit you for mercy. When the pilgrim, on his way to the Wicket Gate, tumbled into the Slough of Despond, do you think that, when the foul mire of that slough stuck to his garments, it was a recommendation to him, to get him easier admission at the head of the way? It is not so. The pilgrim did not think so by any means; neither may you. It is not what _you_ feel that will save you, but what _Jesus_ felt. Even if there were some healing value in feelings, they would have to be good ones; and the feeling which makes us doubt the power of Christ to save, and prevents our finding salvation in him, is by no means a good one, but a cruel wrong to the love of Jesus. Our friend has come to see us, and has travelled through our crowded London by rail, or tram, or omnibus. On a sudden he turns pale. We ask him what is the matter, and he answers, "I have lost my pocket-book, and it contained all the money I have in the world." He goes over the amount to a penny, and describes the cheques, bills, notes, and coins. We tell him that it must be a great consolation to him to be so accurately acquainted with the extent of his loss. He does not seem to see the worth of our consolation. We assure him that he ought to be grateful that he has so clear a sense of his loss; for many persons might have lost their pocket-books and have been quite unable to compute their losses. Our friend is not, however, cheered in the least. "No," says he, "to know my loss does not help me to recover it. Tell me where I can find my property, and you have done me real service; but merely to know my loss is no comfort whatever." Even so, to believe that you have sinned, and that your soul is forfeited to the justice of God, is a very proper thing; but it will not save. Salvation is not by our knowing our own ruin, but by fully grasping the deliverance provided in Christ Jesus. A person who refuses to look to the Lord Jesus, but persists in dwelling upon his sin and ruin, reminds us of a boy who dropped a shilling down an open grating of a London sewer, and lingered there for hours, finding comfort in saying, "It rolled in just there! Just between those two iron bars I saw it go right down." Poor soul! Long might he remember the details of his loss before he would in this way get back a single penny into his pocket, wherewith to buy himself a piece of bread. You see the drift of the parable; profit by it. [Illustration] [Illustration] JESUS ONLY. We cannot, too often or too plainly tell the seeking soul that his only hope for salvation lies in the Lord Jesus Christ. It lies in him completely, only, and alone. To save both from the guilt and the power of sin, Jesus is all-sufficient. His name is called Jesus, because "he shall save his people from their sins." "The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins." He is exalted on high "to give repentance and remission of sins." It pleased God from of old to devise a method of salvation which should be all contained in his only-begotten Son. The Lord Jesus, for the working out of this salvation, became man, and being found in fashion as a man, became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. If another way of deliverance had been possible, the cup of bitterness would have passed from him. It stands to reason that the darling of heaven would not have died to save us if we could have been rescued at less expense. Infinite grace provided the great sacrifice; infinite love submitted to death for our sakes. How can we dream that there can be another way than the way which God has provided at such cost, and set forth in Holy Scripture so simply and so pressingly? Surely it is true that "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." To suppose that the Lord Jesus has only half saved men, and that there is needed some work or feeling of their own to finish his work, is wicked. What is there of ours that could be added to his blood and righteousness? "All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." Can these be patched on to the costly fabric of his divine righteousness? Rags and fine white linen! Our dross and his pure gold! It is an insult to the Saviour to dream of such a thing. We have sinned enough, without adding this to all our other offences. Even if we had any righteousness in which we could boast; if our fig leaves were broader than usual, and were not so utterly fading, it would be wisdom to put them away, and accept that righteousness which must be far more pleasing to God than anything of our own. The Lord must see more that is acceptable in his Son than in the best of us. _The best of us!_ The words seem satirical, though they were not so intended. What best is there about any of us? "There is none that doeth good; no, not one." I who write these lines, would most freely confess that I have not a thread of goodness of my own. I could not make up so much as a rag, or a piece of a rag. I am utterly destitute. But if I had the fairest suit of good works which even pride can imagine, I would tear it up that I might put on nothing but the garments of salvation, which are freely given by the Lord Jesus, out of the heavenly wardrobe of his own merits. It is most glorifying to our Lord Jesus Christ that we should hope for every good thing from him alone. This is to treat him as he deserves to be treated; for as he is God, and beside him there is none else, we are bound to look unto him and be saved. This is to treat him as he loves to be treated, for he bids all those who labour and are heavy laden to come to him, and he will give them rest. To imagine that he cannot save to the uttermost is to limit the Holy One of Israel, and put a slur upon his power; or else to slander the loving heart of the Friend of sinners, and cast a doubt upon his love. In either case; we should commit a cruel and wanton sin against the tenderest points of his honour, which are his ability and willingness to save all that come unto God by him. [Illustration] The child, in danger of the fire, just clings to the fireman, and trusts to him alone. She raises no question about the strength of his limbs to carry her, or the zeal of his heart to rescue her; but she clings. The heat is terrible, the smoke is blinding, but she clings; and her deliverer quickly bears her to safety. In the same childlike confidence cling to Jesus, who can and will bear you out of danger from the flames of sin. The nature of the Lord Jesus should inspire us with the fullest confidence. As he is God, he is almighty to save; as he is man, he is filled with all fulness to bless; as he is God and man in one Majestic Person, he meets man in his creatureship and God in his holiness. The ladder is long enough to reach from Jacob prostrate on the earth, to Jehovah reigning in heaven. To bring another ladder would be to suppose that he failed to bridge the distance; and this would be grievously to dishonour him. If even to add to his words is to draw a curse upon ourselves, what must it be to pretend to add to himself? Remember that he, himself, is the Way; and to suppose that we must, in some manner, add to the divine road, is to be arrogant enough to think of adding to him. Away with such a notion! Loathe it as you would blasphemy; for in essence it is the worst of blasphemy against the Lord of love. To come to Jesus with a price in our hand, would be insufferable pride, even if we had any price that we could bring. What does he need of us? What could we bring if he did need it? Would he sell the priceless blessings of his redemption? That which he wrought out in his heart's blood, would he barter it with us for our tears, and vows, or for ceremonial observances, and feelings, and works? He is not reduced to make a market of himself: he will give freely, as beseems his royal love; but he that offereth a price to him knows not with whom he is dealing, nor how grievously he vexes his free Spirit. Empty-handed sinners may have what they will. All that they can possibly need is in Jesus, and he gives it for the asking; but we must believe that he is all in all, and we must not dare to breathe a word about completing what he has finished, or fitting ourselves for what he gives to us as undeserving sinners. The reason why we may hope for forgiveness of sin, and life eternal, by faith in the Lord Jesus, is that God has so appointed. He has pledged himself in the gospel to save all who truly trust in the Lord Jesus, and he will never run back from his promise. He is so well pleased with his only-begotten Son, that he takes pleasure in all who lay hold upon him as their one and only hope. The great God himself has taken hold on him who has taken hold on his Son. He works salvation for all who look for that salvation to the once-slain Redeemer. For the honour of his Son, he will not suffer the man who trusts in him to be ashamed. "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life;" for the ever-living God has taken him unto himself, and has given to him to be a partaker of his life. If Jesus only be your trust, you need not fear but what you shall effectually be saved, both now and in the day of his appearing. When a man confides, there is a point of union between him and God, and that union guarantees blessing. Faith saves us because it makes us cling to Christ Jesus, and he is one with God, and thus brings us into connection with God. I am told that, years ago, above the Falls of Niagara, a boat was upset, and two men were being carried down by the current, when persons on the shore managed to float a rope out to them, which rope was seized by them both. One of them held fast to it, and was safely drawn to the bank; but the other, seeing a great log come floating by, unwisely let go the rope, and clung to the great piece of timber, for it was the bigger thing of the two, and apparently better to cling to. Alas! the timber, with the man on it, went right over the vast abyss, because there was no union between the wood and the shore. The size of the log was no benefit to him who grasped it; it needed a connection with the shore to produce safety. So, when a man trusts to his works, or to his prayers, or almsgivings, or to sacraments, or to anything of that sort, he will not be saved, because there is no junction between him and God through Christ Jesus; but faith, though it may seem to be like a slender cord, is in the hand of the great God on the shore side; infinite power pulls in the connecting line, and thus draws the man from destruction. Oh, the blessedness of faith, because it unites us to God by the Saviour, whom he has appointed, even Jesus Christ! O reader, is there not common-sense in this matter? Think it over, and may there soon be a band of union between you and God, through your faith in Christ Jesus! [Illustration] FAITH IN THE PERSON OF THE LORD JESUS. There is a wretched tendency among men to leave Christ himself out of the gospel. They might as well leave flour out of bread. Men hear the way of salvation explained, and consent to it as being Scriptural, and in every way such as suits their case; but they forget that a plan is of no service unless it is carried out; and that in the matter of salvation their own personal faith in the Lord Jesus is essential. A road to York will not take me there, I must travel along it for myself. All the sound doctrine that ever was believed will never save a man unless he puts his trust in the Lord Jesus for himself. Mr. Macdonald asked the inhabitants of the island of St. Kilda how a man must be saved. An old man replied, "We shall be saved if we repent, and forsake our sins, and turn to God." "Yes," said a middle-aged female, "and with a true heart too." "Ay," rejoined a third, "and with prayer"; and, added a fourth, "It must be the prayer of the heart." "And we must be diligent too," said a fifth, "in keeping the commandments." Thus, each having contributed his mite, feeling that a very decent creed had been made up, they all looked and listened for the preacher's approbation; but they had aroused his deepest pity: he had to begin at the beginning, and preach Christ to them. The carnal mind always maps out for itself a way in which self can work and become great; but the Lord's way is quite the reverse. The Lord Jesus puts it very compactly in Mark xvi. 16: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." Believing and being baptized are no matters of merit to be gloried in; they are so simple that boasting is excluded, and free grace bears the palm. This way of salvation is chosen that it might be seen to be of grace alone. It may be that the reader is unsaved: what is the reason? Do you think the way of salvation, as laid down in the text we have quoted, to be dubious? Do you fear that you would not be saved if you followed it? How can that be, when God has pledged his own word for its certainty? How can that fail which God prescribes, and concerning which he gives a promise? Do you think it very easy? Why, then, do you not attend to it? Its ease leaves those without excuse who neglect it. If you would have done some great thing, be not so foolish as to neglect the little thing. To believe is to trust, or lean upon Christ Jesus; in other words, to give up self-reliance, and to rely upon the Lord Jesus. To be baptized is to submit to the ordinance which our Lord fulfilled at Jordan, to which the converted ones submitted at Pentecost, to which the jailer yielded obedience on the very night of his conversion. It is the outward confession which should always go with inward faith. The outward sign saves not; but it sets forth to us our death, burial, and resurrection with Jesus, and, like the Lord's Supper, it is not to be neglected. The great point is to believe in Jesus, and confess your faith. Do you believe in Jesus? Then, dear friend, dismiss your fears; you shall be saved. Are you still an unbeliever? Then remember, there is but one door, and if you will not enter by it, you must perish in your sins. The door is there; but unless you enter by it, what is the use of it to you? It is of necessity that you obey the command of the gospel. Nothing can save you if you do not hear the voice of Jesus, and do his bidding indeed and of a truth. Thinking and resolving will not answer the purpose; you must come to real business; for only as you actually believe will you truly live unto God. I heard of a friend who deeply desired to be the means of the conversion of a young man, and one said to him, "You may go to him, and talk to him, but you will get him no further; for he is exceedingly well acquainted with the plan of salvation." It was eminently so; and therefore, when our friend began to speak with the young man, he received for an answer, "I am much obliged to you, but I do not know that you can tell me much, for I have long known and admired the plan of salvation by the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ." Alas! he was resting in _the plan_, but he had not believed in _the Person_. The plan of salvation is most blessed, but it can avail us nothing unless we personally believe in the Lord Jesus Christ himself. What is the comfort of a plan of a house if you do not enter the house itself? The man in our cut, who is sitting out in the rain, is not deriving much comfort from the plans which are spread out before him. What is the good of a plan of clothing if you have not a rag to cover you? Have you never heard of the Arab chief at Cairo, who was very ill, and went to the missionary, and the missionary said he could give him a prescription? He did so; and a week after he found the Arab none the better. Did you take my prescription?" he asked. "Yes, I ate every morsel of the paper." He dreamed that he was going to be cured by devouring the physician's writing, which I may call the plan of the medicine. He should have had the prescription made up, and then it might have wrought him good, if he had taken the draught: it could do him no good to swallow the recipe. So is it with salvation: it is not the plan of salvation which can save, it is the carrying out of that plan by the Lord Jesus in his death on our behalf, and our acceptance of the same. Under the Jewish law, the offerer brought a bullock, and laid his hands upon it: it was no dream, or theory, or plan. In the victim for sacrifice he found something substantial, which he could handle and touch: even so do we lean upon the real and true work of Jesus, the most substantial thing under heaven. We come to the Lord Jesus by faith, and say, "God has provided an atonement here, and I accept it. I believe in the fact accomplished on the cross; I am confident that sin was put away by Christ, and I rest on him." If you would be saved, you must get beyond the acceptance of plans and doctrines to a resting in the divine person and finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Dear reader, will you have Christ now? [Illustration] Jesus invites all those who labour and are heavy laden to come to him, and he will give them rest. He does not promise this to their merely dreaming about him. They must come; and they must come TO HIM, and not merely to the Church, to baptism, or to the orthodox faith, or to anything short of his divine person. When the brazen serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, the people were not to look to Moses, nor to the Tabernacle, nor to the pillar of cloud, but to the brazen serpent itself. Looking was not enough unless they looked to the right object: and the right object was not enough unless they looked. It was not enough for them to know about the serpent of brass; they must each one look to it for himself. When a man is ill, he may have a good knowledge of medicine, and yet he may die if he does not actually take the healing draught. We must receive Jesus; for "to as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God." Lay the emphasis on two words: _We must receive_ HIM, and _we must_ RECEIVE _him_. We must open wide the door, and take Christ Jesus in; for "Christ in you" is "the hope of glory." Christ must be no myth, no dream, no phantom to us, but a real man, and truly God; and our reception of him must be no forced and feigned acceptance, but the hearty and happy assent and consent of the soul that he shall be the all in all of our salvation. Will we not at once come to him, and make him our sole trust? [Illustration] The dove is hunted by the hawk, and finds no security from its restless enemy. It has learned that there is shelter for it in the cleft of the rock, and it hastens there with gladsome wing. Once wholly sheltered within its refuge, it fears no bird of prey. But if it did not hide itself in the rock, it would be seized upon by its adversary. The rock would be of no use to the dove, if the dove did not enter its cleft. The whole body must be hidden in the rock. What if ten thousand other birds found a fortress there, yet that fact would not save the one dove which is now pursued by the hawk! It must put its whole self into the shelter, and bury itself within its refuge, or its life will be forfeited to the destroyer. What a picture of faith is this! It is entering into Jesus, hiding in his wounds. "Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in thee." The dove is out of sight: the rock alone is seen. So does the guilty soul dart into the riven side of Jesus by faith, and is buried in him out of sight of avenging justice. But there must be this personal application to Jesus for shelter; and this it is that so many put off from day to day, till it is to be feared that they will "die in their sins." What an awful word is that! It is what our Lord said to the unbelieving Jews; and he says the same to us at this hour: "If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins." It makes one's heart quiver to think that even one who shall read these lines may yet be of the miserable company who will thus perish. The Lord prevent it of his great grace! I saw, the other day, a remarkable picture, which I shall use as an illustration of the way of salvation by faith in Jesus. An offender had committed a crime for which he must die, but it was in the olden time, when churches were considered to be sanctuaries in which criminals might hide themselves, and so escape from death. See the transgressor! He rushes towards the church, the guards pursue him with their drawn swords, athirst for his blood! They follow him even to the church door. He rushes up the steps, and just as they are about to overtake him, and hew him in pieces on the threshold of the church, out comes the Bishop, and holding up the cross, he cries, "Back, back! Stain not the precincts of God's house with blood! Stand back!" The fierce soldiers at once respect the emblem, and retire, while the poor fugitive hides himself behind the robes of the Bishop. It is even so with Christ. The guilty sinner flies straight away to Jesus; and though Justice pursues him, Christ lifts up his wounded hands, and cries to Justice, "Stand back! I shelter this sinner; in the secret place of my tabernacle do I hide him; I will not suffer him to perish, for he puts his trust in me." Sinner, fly to Christ! But you answer, "I am too vile." The viler you are, the more will you honour him by believing that he is able to protect even you. "But I am so great a sinner." Then the more honour shall be given to him if you have faith to confide in him, great sinner though you are. If you have a little sickness, and you tell your physician--"Sir, I am quite confident in your skill to heal," there is no great compliment in your declaration. Anybody can cure a finger-ache, or a trifling sickness. But if you are sore sick with a complication of diseases which grievously torment you, and you say--"Sir, I seek no better physician; I will ask no other advice but yours; I trust myself joyfully with you;" what an honour have you conferred on him, that you can trust your life in his hands while it is in extreme and immediate danger! Do the like with Christ; put your soul into his care: do it deliberately, and without a doubt. Dare to quit all other hopes: venture all on Jesus; I say "venture" though there is nothing really venturesome in it, for he is abundantly able to save. Cast yourself simply on Jesus; let nothing but faith be in your soul towards Jesus; believe him, and trust in him, and you shall never be made ashamed of your confidence. "He that believeth on him shall not be confounded" (1 Peter ii. 6). [Illustration] FAITH VERY SIMPLE. To many, faith seems a hard thing. The truth is, _it is only hard because it is easy_. Naaman thought it hard that he should have to wash in Jordan; but if it had been some great thing, he would have done it right cheerfully. People think that salvation must be the result of some act or feeling, very mysterious, and very difficult; but God's thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are his ways our ways. In order that the feeblest and the most ignorant may be saved, he has made the way of salvation as easy as the A, B, C. There is nothing about it to puzzle anyone; only, as everybody expects to be puzzled by it, many are quite bewildered when they find it to be so exceedingly simple. The fact is, we do not believe that God means what he is saying; we act as if it could not be true. [Illustration] I have heard of a Sunday-school teacher who performed an experiment which I do not think I shall ever try with children, for it might turn out to be a very expensive one. Indeed, I feel sure that the result in my case would be very different from what I now describe. This teacher had been trying to illustrate what faith was, and, as he could not get it into the minds of his boys, he took his watch, and he said, "Now, I will give you this watch, John. Will you have it?" John fell thinking what the teacher could mean, and did not seize the treasure, but made no answer. The teacher said to the next boy, "Henry, here is the watch. Will you have it?" The boy, with a very proper modesty, replied, "No, thank you, sir." The teacher tried several of the boys with the same result; till at last a youngster, who was not so wise or so thoughtful as the others, but rather more believing, said in the most natural way, "Thank you, sir," and put the watch into his pocket. Then the other boys woke up to a startling fact: their companion had received a watch which they had refused. One of the boys quickly asked of the teacher, "Is he to keep it?" "Of course he is," said the teacher, "I offered it to him, and he accepted it. I would not give a thing and take a thing: that would be very foolish. I put the watch before you, and said that I gave it to you, but none of you would have it." "Oh!" said the boy, "if I had known you meant it, I would have had it." Of course he would. He thought it was a piece of acting, and nothing more. All the other boys were in a dreadful state of mind to think that they had lost the watch. Each one cried, "Teacher, I did not know you meant it, _but I thought_--" No one took the gift; but every one _thought_. Each one had his theory, except the simple-minded boy who believed what he was told, and got the watch. Now I wish that I could always be such a simple child as literally to believe what the Lord says, and take what he puts before me, resting quite content that he is not playing with me, and that I cannot be wrong in accepting what he sets before me in the gospel. Happy should we be if we would trust, and raise no questions of any sort. But, alas! we will get thinking and doubting. When the Lord uplifts his dear Son before a sinner, that sinner should take him without hesitation. If you take him, you have him; and none can take him from you. Out with your hand, man, and take him at once! When enquirers accept the Bible as literally true, and see that Jesus is really given to all who trust him, all the difficulty about understanding the way of salvation vanishes like the morning's frost at the rising of the sun. Two enquiring ones came to me in my vestry. They had been hearing the gospel from me for only a short season, but they had been deeply impressed by it. They expressed their regret that they were about to remove far away, but they added their gratitude that they had heard me at all. I was cheered by their kind thanks, but felt anxious that a more effectual work should be wrought in them, and therefore I asked them, "Have you in very deed believed in the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you saved?" One of them replied, "I have been trying hard to believe." This statement I have often heard, but I will never let it go by me unchallenged. "No," I said, "that will not do. Did you ever tell your father that you tried to believe him?" After I had dwelt a while upon the matter, they admitted that such language would have been an insult to their father. I then set the gospel very plainly before them in as simple language as I could, and I begged them to believe Jesus, who is more worthy of faith than the best of fathers. One of them replied, "I cannot realize it: I cannot realize that I am saved." Then I went on to say, "God bears testimony to his Son, that whosoever trusts in his Son is saved. Will you make him a liar now, or will you believe his word?" While I thus spoke, one of them started as if astonished, and she startled us all as she cried, "O sir, I see it all; I am saved! Oh, do bless Jesus for me; he has shown me the way, and he has saved me! I see it all." The esteemed sister who had brought these young friends to me knelt down with them while, with all our hearts, we blessed and magnified the Lord for a soul brought into light. One of the two sisters, however, could not see the gospel as the other had done, though I feel sure she will do so before long. Did it not seem strange that, both hearing the same words, one should come out into clear light, and the other should remain in the gloom? The change which comes over the heart when the understanding grasps the gospel is often reflected in the face, and shines there like the light of heaven. Such newly-enlightened souls often exclaim, "Why, sir, it is so plain; how is it I have not seen it before this? I understand all I have read in the Bible now, though I could not make it out before. It has all come in a minute, and now I see what I could never understand before." The fact is, the truth was always plain, but they were looking for signs and wonders, and therefore did not see what was nigh them. Old men often look for their spectacles when they are on their foreheads; and it is commonly observed that we fail to see that which is straight before us. Christ Jesus is before our faces, and we have only to look to him, and live; but we make all manner of bewilderment of it, and so manufacture a maze out of that which is plain as a pikestaff. The little incident about the two sisters reminds me of another. A much-esteemed friend came to me one Sabbath morning after service, to shake hands with me, "for," said she, "I was fifty years old on the same day as yourself. I am like you in that one thing, sir; but I am the very reverse of you in better things." I remarked, "Then you must be a very good woman; for in many things I wish I also could be the reverse of what I am." "No, no," she said, "I did not mean anything of that sort: I am not right at all." "What!" I cried, "are you not a believer in the Lord Jesus?" "Well," she said, with much emotion, "I, I will try to be." I laid hold of her hand, and said, "My dear soul, you are not going to tell me that you will try to believe my Lord Jesus! I cannot have such talk from you. It means blank unbelief. What has HE done that you should talk of him in that way? Would you tell _me_ that you would try to believe _me_? I know you would not treat me so rudely. You think me a true man, and so you believe me at once; and surely you cannot do less with my Lord Jesus." Then with tears she exclaimed, "Oh, sir, do pray for me!" To this I replied, "I do not feel that I can do anything of the kind. What can I ask the Lord Jesus to do for one who will not trust him? I see nothing to pray about. If you will believe him, you shall be saved; and if you will not believe him, I cannot ask him to invent a new way to gratify your unbelief." Then she said again, "I will try to believe"; but I told her solemnly I would have none of her trying; for the message from the Lord did not mention "trying," but said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." I pressed upon her the great truth, that "He that believeth on him hath everlasting life"; and its terrible reverse-- "He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God." I urged her to full faith in the once crucified but now ascended Lord, and the Holy Spirit there and then enabled her to trust. She most tenderly said, "Oh, sir, I have been looking to my feelings, and this has been my mistake! Now I trust my soul with Jesus, and I am saved." She found immediate peace through believing. There is no other way. [Illustration] God has been pleased to make the necessities of life very simple matters. We must eat; and even a blind man can find the way to his mouth. We must drink; and even the tiniest babe knows how to do this without instruction. We have a fountain in the grounds of the Stockwell Orphanage, and when it is running in the hot weather, the boys go to it naturally. We have no class for fountain-drill. Many poor boys have come to the Orphanage, but never one who was so ignorant that he did not know how to drink. Now faith is, in spiritual things, what eating and drinking are in temporal things. By the mouth of faith we take the blessings of grace into our spiritual nature, and they are ours. O you who would believe, but think you cannot, do you not see that, as one can drink without strength, and as one can eat without strength, and gets strength by eating, so we may receive Jesus without effort, and by accepting him we receive power for all such further effort as we may be called to put forth? Faith is so simple a matter that, whenever I try to explain it, I am very fearful lest I should becloud its simplicity. When Thomas Scott had printed his notes upon "The Pilgrim's Progress," he asked one of his parishioners whether she understood the book. "Oh yes, sir," said she, "I understand Mr. Bunyan well enough, and I am hoping that one day, by divine grace, I may understand your explanations." Should I not feel mortified if my reader should know what faith is, and then get confused by my explanation? I will, however, make one trial, and pray the Lord to make it clear. [Illustration] I am told that on a certain highland road there was a disputed right of way. The owner wished to preserve his supremacy, and at the same time he did not wish to inconvenience the public: hence an arrangement which occasioned the following incident. Seeing a sweet country girl standing at the gate, a tourist went up to her, and offered her a shilling to permit him to pass. "No, no," said the child, "I must not take anything from you; but you are to say, '_Please allow me to pass_,' and then you may come through and welcome." The permission was to be asked for; but it could be had for the asking. Just so, eternal life is free; and it can be had, yea, it shall be at once had, by trusting in the word of him who cannot lie. Trust Christ, and by that trust you grasp salvation and eternal life. Do not philosophize. Do not sit down, and bother your poor brain. Just believe Jesus as you would believe your father. Trust him as you trust your money with a banker, or your health with a doctor. Faith will not long seem a difficulty to you; nor ought it to be so, for it is simple. Faith is trusting, trusting wholly upon the person, work, merit, and power of the Son of God. Some think this trusting is a romantic business, but indeed it is the simplest thing that can possibly be. To some of us, truths which were once hard to believe are now matters of fact which we should find it hard to doubt. If one of our great grand-fathers were to rise from the dead, and come into the present state of things, what a deal of trusting he would have to do! He would say to-morrow morning, "Where are the flint and steel? I want a light;" and we should give him a little box with tiny pieces of wood in it, and tell him to strike one of them on the box. He would have to trust a good deal before he would believe that fire would thus be produced. We should next say to him, "Now that you have a light, turn that tap, and light the gas." He sees nothing. How can light come through an invisible vapour? And yet it does. "Come with us, grandfather. Sit in that chair. Look at that box in front of you. You shall have your likeness directly." "No, child," he would say, "it is ridiculous. The sun take my portrait? I cannot believe it." "Yes, and you shall ride fifty miles in an hour without horses." He will not believe it till we get him into the train. "My dear sir, you shall speak to your son in New York, and he shall answer you in a few minutes." Should we not astonish the old gentleman? Would he not want all his faith? Yet these things are believed by us without effort, because experience has made us familiar with them. Faith is greatly needed by you who are strangers to spiritual things; you seem lost while we are talking about them. But oh, how simple it is to us who have the new life, and have communion with spiritual realities! We have a Father to whom we speak, and he hears us, and a blessed Saviour who hears our heart's longings, and helps us in our struggles against sin. It is all plain to him that understandeth. May it now be plain to you! [Illustration] FEARING TO BELIEVE. It is an odd product of our unhealthy nature--_the fear to believe_. Yet have I met with it often: so often that I wish I may never see it again. It looks like humility, and tries to pass itself off as the very soul of modesty, and yet it is an infamously proud thing: in fact, it is presumption playing the hypocrite. If men were afraid to _dis_believe, there would be good sense in the fear; but to be afraid to trust their God is at best an absurdity, and in very deed it is a deceitful way of refusing to the Lord the honour that is due to his faithfulness and truth. How unprofitable is the diligence which busies itself in finding out reasons why faith in our case should not be saving! We have God's word for it, that _whosoever_ believeth in Jesus shall not perish, and we search for arguments why _we_ should perish if we did believe. If any one gave me an estate, I certainly should not commence raising questions as to the title. What can be the use of inventing reasons why I should not hold my own house, or possess any other piece of property which is enjoyed by me? If the Lord is satisfied to save me through the merits of his dear Son, assuredly I may be satisfied to be so saved. If I take God at his word, the responsibility of fulfilling his promise does not lie with me, but with God, who made the promise. But you fear that you may not be one of those for whom the promise is intended. Do not be alarmed by that idle suspicion. No soul ever came to Jesus wrongly. No one can come at all unless the Father draw him; and Jesus has said, "Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." No soul ever lays hold on Christ in a way of robbery; he that hath him hath him of right divine; for the Lord's giving of himself _for_ us, and _to_ us, is so free, that every soul that takes him has a grace-given right to do so. If you lay hold on Jesus by the hem of his garment, without leave, and behind him, yet virtue will flow from him to you as surely as if he had called you out by name, and bidden you trust him. Dismiss all fear when you trust the Saviour. Take him and welcome. He that believeth in Jesus is one of God's elect. Did you suggest that it would be a horrible thing if you were to trust in Jesus and yet perish? It would be so. But as you must perish if you do not trust, the risk at the worst is not very great. "I can but perish if I go; I am resolved to try; For if I stay away, I know I must for ever die." Suppose you stand in the Slough of Despond for ever; what will be the good of that? Surely it would be better to die struggling along the King's highway towards the Celestial City, than sinking deeper and deeper in the mire and filth of dark distrustful thoughts! You have nothing to lose, for you have lost everything already; therefore make a dash for it, and dare to believe in the mercy of God to you, even to you. [Illustration] But one moans, "What if I come to Christ, and he refuses me?" My answer is, "Try him." Cast yourself on the Lord Jesus, and see if he refuses you. You will be the first against whom he has shut the door of hope. Friend, don't cross that bridge till you come to it! When Jesus casts you out, it will be time enough to despair; but that time will never come. "This man receiveth sinners": he has not so much as begun to cast them out. Have you never heard of the man who lost his way one night, and came to the edge of a precipice, as he thought, and in his own apprehension fell over the cliff? He clutched at an old tree, and there hung, clinging to his frail support with all his might. He felt persuaded that, should he quit his hold, he would be dashed in pieces on some awful rocks that waited for him down below. There he hung, with the sweat upon his brow, and anguish in every limb. He passed into a desperate state of fever and faintness, and at last his hands could hold up his body no longer. He relaxed his grasp! He dropped from his support! He fell--about a foot or so, and was received upon a soft mossy bank, whereon he lay, altogether unhurt, and perfectly safe till morning. Thus, in the darkness of their ignorance, many think that sure destruction awaits them, if they confess their sin, quit all hope in self, and resign themselves into the hands of God. They are afraid to quit the hope to which they ignorantly cling. It is an idle fear. Give up your hold upon everything but Christ, and drop. Drop from all trust in your works, or prayers, or feelings. Drop at once! Drop now! Soft and safe shall be the bank that receives you. Jesus Christ, in his love, in the efficacy of his precious blood, in his perfect righteousness, will give you immediate rest and peace. Cease from self-confidence. Fall into the arms of Jesus. This is the major part of faith--giving up every other hold, and simply falling upon Christ. There is no reason for fear: only ignorance causes your dread of that which will be your eternal safety. The death of carnal hope is the life of faith, and the life of faith is life everlasting. Let self die, that Christ may live in you. But the mischief is that, to the one act of faith in Jesus, we cannot bring men. They will adopt any expedient sooner than have done with self. They fight shy of believing, and fear faith as if it were a monster. O foolish tremblers, who has bewitched you? You fear that which would be the death of all your fear, and the beginning of your joy. Why will you perish through perversely preferring other ways to God's own appointed plan of salvation? Alas! there are many, many souls that say, "We are bidden to trust in Jesus, but instead of that we will attend the means of grace regularly." Attend public worship by all means, but not as a substitute for faith, or it will become a vain confidence. The command is, "Believe and live;" attend to that, whatever else you do. "Well, I shall take to reading good books; perhaps I shall get good that way." Read the good books by all means, but that is not the gospel: the gospel is, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Suppose a physician has a patient under his care, and he says to him, "You are to take a bath in the morning; it will be of very great service to your disease." But the man takes a cup of tea in the morning instead of the bath, and he says, "That will do as well, I have no doubt." What does his physician say when he enquires--"Did you follow my rule?" "No, I did not." "Then you do not expect, of course, that there will be any good result from my visits, since you take no notice of my directions." So we, practically, say to Jesus Christ, when we are under searching of soul, "Lord, thou badest me trust thee, but I would sooner do something else! Lord, I want to have horrible convictions; I want to be shaken over hell's mouth; I want to be alarmed and distressed!" Yes, you want anything but what Christ prescribes for you, which is that you should _simply trust him_. Whether you feel or do not feel, cast yourself on him, that _he_ may save you, and he alone. "But you do not mean to say that you speak against praying, and reading good books, and so on?" Not one single word do I speak against any of those things, any more than, if I were the physician I quoted, I should speak against the man's drinking a cup of tea. Let him drink his tea; but not if he drinks it instead of taking the bath which is prescribed for him. So let the man pray: the more the better. Let the man search the Scriptures; but, remember, that if these things are put in the place of simple faith in Christ, the soul will be ruined. Beware lest it be said of any of you by our Lord, "Ye search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life; but ye will not come unto me that ye might have life." [Illustration] Come by faith to Jesus, for without him you perish for ever. Did you ever notice how a fir-tree will get a hold among rocks which seem to afford it no soil? It sends a rootlet into any little crack which opens; it clutches even the bare rock as with a huge bird's claw; it holds fast, and binds itself to earth with a hundred anchorages. Our little drawing is very accurate. We have often seen trees thus firmly rooted upon detached masses of bare rock. Now, dear heart, let this be a picture of yourself. Grip the Rock of Ages. With the rootlet of little-faith hold to him. Let that tiny feeler grow; and, meanwhile, send out another to take a new grasp of the same Rock. Lay hold on Jesus, and keep hold on Jesus. Grow up into him. Twist the roots of your nature, the fibres of your heart, about him. He is as free to you as the rocks are to the fir-tree: be you as firmly lashed to him as the pine is to the mountain's side. [Illustration] DIFFICULTY IN THE WAY OF BELIEVING. It may be that the reader feels a difficulty in believing. Let him consider. We cannot believe by an immediate act. The state of mind which we describe as believing is a result, following upon certain former states of mind. We come to faith by degrees. There may be such a thing as faith at first sight; but usually we reach faith by stages: we become interested, we consider, we hear evidence, we are convinced, and so led to believe. If, then, I wish to believe, but for some reason or other find that I cannot attain to faith, what shall I do? Shall I stand like a cow staring at a new gate; or shall I, like an intelligent being, use the proper means? If I wish to believe anything, what shall I do? We will answer according to the rules of common-sense. If I were told that the Sultan of Zanzibar was a good man, and it happened to be a matter of interest to me, I do not suppose I should feel any difficulty in believing it. But if for some reason I had a doubt about it, and yet wished to believe the news, how should I act? Should I not hunt up all the information within my reach about his Majesty, and try, by study of the newspapers and other documents, to arrive at the truth? Better still, if he happened to be in this country, and would see me, and I could also converse with members of his court, and citizens of his country, I should be greatly helped to arrive at a decision by using these sources of information. Evidence weighed and knowledge obtained lead up to faith. It is true that faith in Jesus is the gift of God; but yet he usually bestows it in accordance with the laws of mind, and hence we are told that "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." If you want to believe in Jesus, hear about him, read about him, think about him, know about him, and so you will find faith springing up in your heart, like the wheat which comes up through the moisture and the heat operating upon the seed which has been sown. If I wished to have faith in a certain physician, I should ask for testimonials of his cures, I should wish to see the diplomas which certified to his professional knowledge, and I should also like to hear what he has to say upon certain complicated cases. In fact, I should take means to know, in order that I might believe. [Illustration] Be much in _hearing_ concerning Jesus. Souls by hundreds come to faith in Jesus under a ministry which sets him forth clearly and constantly. Few remain unbelieving under a preacher whose great subject is Christ crucified. Hear no minister of any other sort. There are such. I have heard of one who found in his pulpit Bible a paper bearing this text, "_Sir, we would see Jesus_." Go to the place of worship to see Jesus; and if you cannot even hear the mention of his name, take yourself off to another place where he is more thought of, and is therefore more likely to be present. Be much in _reading_ about the Lord Jesus. The books of Scripture are the lilies among which he feedeth. The Bible is the window through which we may look and see our Lord. Read over the story of his sufferings and death with devout attention, and before long the Lord will cause faith secretly to enter your soul. The Cross of Christ not only rewards faith, but begets faith. Many a believer can say-- "When I view thee, wounded, grieving, Breathless, on the cursed tree, Soon I feel my heart believing Thou hast suffered thus for me." If hearing and reading suffice not, then deliberately _set your mind to work to overhaul the matter_, and have it out. Either believe, or know the reason why you do not believe. See the matter through to the utmost of your ability, and pray God to help you to make a thorough investigation, and to come to an honest decision one way or the other. Consider who Jesus was, and whether the constitution of his person does not entitle him to confidence. Consider what he did, and whether this also must not be good ground for trust. Consider him as dying, rising from the dead, ascending, and ever living to intercede for transgressors; and see whether this does not entitle him to be relied on by you. Then cry to him, and see if he does not hear you. When Usher wished to know whether Rutherford was indeed as holy a man as he was said to be, he went to his house as a beggar, and gained a lodging, and heard the man of God pouring out his heart before the Lord in the night. If you would know Jesus, get as near to him as you can by studying his character, and appealing to his love. At one time I might have needed evidence to make me believe in the Lord Jesus; but now I know him so well, by proving him, that I should need a very great deal of evidence to make me doubt him. It is now more natural to me to trust than to disbelieve: this is the new nature triumphing; it was not so at the first. The novelty of faith is, in the beginning, a source of weakness; but act after act of trusting turns faith into a habit. Experience brings to faith strong confirmation. [Illustration] I am not perplexed with doubt, because the truth which I believe has wrought a miracle on me. By its means I have received and still retain a new life, to which I was once a stranger: and this is confirmation of the strongest sort. I am like the good man and his wife who had kept a lighthouse for years. A visitor, who came to see the lighthouse, looking out from the window over the waste of waters, asked the good woman, "Are you not afraid at night, when the storm is out, and the big waves dash right over the lantern? Do you not fear that the lighthouse, and all that is in it, will be carried away? I am sure I should be afraid to trust myself in a slender tower in the midst of the great billows." The woman remarked that the idea never occurred to her now. She had lived there so long that she felt as safe on the lone rock as ever she did when she lived on the mainland. As for her husband, when asked if he did not feel anxious when the wind blew a hurricane, he answered, "Yes, I feel anxious to keep the lamps well trimmed, and the light burning, lest any vessel should be wrecked." As to anxiety about the safety of the lighthouse, or his own personal security in it, he had outlived all that. Even so it is with the full-grown believer. He can humbly say, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." From henceforth let no man trouble me with doubts and questionings; I bear in my soul the proofs of the Spirit's truth and power, and I will have none of your artful reasonings. The gospel to me is truth: I am content to perish if it be not true. I risk my soul's eternal fate upon the truth of the gospel, and I know that there is no risk in it. My one concern is to keep the lights burning, that I may thereby benefit others. Only let the Lord give me oil enough to feed my lamp, so that I may cast a ray across the dark and treacherous sea of life, and I am well content. Now, troubled seeker, if it be so, that your minister, and many others in whom you confide, have found perfect peace and rest in the gospel, why should not you? Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Do not his words do good to them that walk uprightly? Will not you also try their saving virtue? Most true is the gospel, for God is its Author. Believe it. Most able is the Saviour, for he is the Son of God. Trust him. Most powerful is his precious blood. Look to it for pardon. Most loving is his gracious heart. Run to it at once. Thus would I urge the reader to seek faith; but if he be unwilling, what more can I do? I have brought the horse to the water, but I cannot make him drink. This, however, be it remembered--_unbelief is wilful when evidence is put in a man's way, and he refuses carefully to examine it_. He that does not desire to know, and accept the truth, has himself to thank if he dies with a lie in his right hand. It is true that "he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved": it is equally true that "he that believeth not shall be damned." [Illustration] A HELPFUL SURVEY. To help the seeker to a true faith in Jesus, I would remind him of the work of the Lord Jesus in the room and place and stead of sinners. "When we were yet without strength, in due time CHRIST DIED FOR THE UNGODLY" (Rom. v. 6). "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree" (1 Pet. ii. 24). "The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Is. liii. 6). "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God" (1 Pet. iii. 18). Upon one declaration of Scripture let the reader fix his eye. "WITH HIS STRIPES WE ARE HEALED" (Is. liii. 5). God here treats sin as a disease, and he sets before us the costly remedy which he has provided. I ask you very solemnly to accompany me in your meditations, for a few minutes, while I bring before you the stripes of the Lord Jesus. The Lord resolved to restore us, and therefore he sent his only-begotten Son, "very God of very God," that he might descend into this world to take upon himself our nature, in order to our redemption. He lived as a man among men; and, in due time, after thirty years or more of obedience, the time came when he should do us the greatest service of all, namely, stand in our stead, and bear "the chastisement of our peace." He went to Gethsemane, and there, at the first taste of our bitter cup, he sweat great drops of blood. He went to Pilate's hall, and Herod's judgment-seat, and there drank draughts of pain and scorn in our room and place. Last of all, they took him to the cross, and nailed him there to die--to die in our stead. The word "stripes" is used to set forth his sufferings, both of body and of soul. The whole of Christ was made a sacrifice for us: his whole manhood suffered. As to his body, it shared with his mind in a grief that never can be described. In the beginning of his passion, when he emphatically suffered instead of us, he was in an agony, and from his bodily frame a bloody sweat distilled so copiously as to fall to the ground. It is very rarely that a man sweats blood. There have been one or two instances of it, and they have been followed by almost immediate death; but our Saviour lived--lived after an agony which, to anyone else, would have proved fatal. Ere he could cleanse his face from this dreadful crimson, they hurried him to the high priest's hall. In the dead of night they bound him, and led him away. Anon they took him to Pilate and to Herod. These scourged him, and their soldiers spat in his face, and buffeted him, and put on his head a crown of thorns. Scourging is one of the most awful tortures that can be inflicted by malice. It was formerly the disgrace of the British army that the "cat" was used upon the soldier: a brutal infliction of torture. But to the Roman, cruelty was so natural that he made his common punishments worse than brutal. The Roman scourge is said to have been made of the sinews of oxen, twisted into knots, and into these knots were inserted slivers of bone, and huckle-bones of sheep; so that every time the scourge fell upon the bare back, "the plowers made deep furrows." Our Saviour was called upon to endure the fierce pain of the Roman scourge, and this not as the _finis_ of his punishment, but as a preface to crucifixion. To this his persecutors added buffeting, and plucking of the hair: they spared him no form of pain. In all his faintness, through bleeding and fasting, they made him carry his cross until another was forced, by the forethought of their cruelty, to bear it, lest their victim should die on the road. They stripped him, and threw him down, and nailed him to the wood. They pierced his hands and his feet. They lifted up the tree, with him upon it, and then dashed it down into its place in the ground, so that all his limbs were dislocated, according to the lament of the twenty-second psalm, "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint." He hung in the burning sun till the fever dissolved his strength, and he said, "My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death." There he hung, a spectacle to God and men. The weight of his body was first sustained by his feet, till the nails tore through the tender nerves: and then the painful load began to drag upon his hands, and rend those sensitive parts of his frame. How small a wound in the hand has brought on lockjaw! How awful must have been the torment caused by that dragging iron tearing through the delicate parts of the hands and feet! Now were all manner of bodily pains centred in his tortured frame. All the while his enemies stood around, pointing at him in scorn, thrusting out their tongues in mockery, jesting at his prayers, and gloating over his sufferings. He cried, "I thirst," and then they gave him vinegar mingled with gall. After a while he said, "It is finished." He had endured the utmost of appointed grief, and had made full vindication to divine justice: then, and not till then, he gave up the ghost. Holy men of old have enlarged most lovingly upon the bodily sufferings of our Lord, and I have no hesitation in doing the same, trusting that trembling sinners may see salvation in these painful "stripes" of the Redeemer. To describe the outward sufferings of our Lord is not easy: I acknowledge that I have failed. But his soul-sufferings, which were the soul of his sufferings, who can even conceive, much less express, what they were? At the very first I told you that he sweat great drops of blood. That was his heart driving out its life-floods to the surface through the terrible depression of spirit which was upon him. He said, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." The betrayal by Judas, and the desertion of the twelve, grieved our Lord; but the weight of our sin was the real pressure on his heart. Our guilt was the olive-press which forced from him the moisture of his life. No language can ever tell his agony in prospect of his passion; how little then can we conceive the passion itself? When nailed to the cross, he endured what no martyr ever suffered; for martyrs, when they have died, have been so sustained of God that they have rejoiced amid their pain; but our Redeemer was forsaken of his Father, until he cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" That was the bitterest cry of all, the utmost depth of his unfathomable grief. Yet was it needful that he should be deserted, because God must turn his back on sin, and consequently upon him who was made sin for us. The soul of the great Substitute suffered a horror of misery instead of that horror of hell into which sinners would have been plunged had he not taken their sin upon himself, and been made a curse for them. It is written, "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree;" but who knows what that curse means? The remedy for your sins and mine is found in the substitutionary sufferings of the Lord Jesus, and in these only. These "stripes" of the Lord Jesus Christ were on our behalf. Do you enquire, "Is there anything for us to do, to remove the guilt of sin?" I answer: There is nothing whatever for you to do. By the stripes of Jesus we are healed. All those stripes he has endured, and left not one of them for us to bear. "But must we not believe on him?" Ay, certainly. If I say of a certain ointment that it heals, I do not deny that you need a bandage with which to apply it to the wound. Faith is the linen which binds the plaster of Christ's reconciliation to the sore of our sin. The linen does not heal; that is the work of the ointment. So faith does not heal; that is the work of the atonement of Christ. "But we must repent," cries another. Assuredly we must, and shall, for repentance is the first sign of healing; but the stripes of Jesus heal us, and not our repentance. These stripes, when applied to the heart, work repentance in us: we hate sin because it made Jesus suffer. When you intelligently trust in Jesus as having suffered for you, then you discover the fact that God will never punish you for the same offence for which Jesus died. His justice will not permit him to see the debt paid, first, by the Surety, and then again by the debtor. Justice cannot twice demand a recompense: if my bleeding Surety has borne my guilt, then I cannot bear it. Accepting Christ Jesus as suffering for me, I have accepted a complete discharge from judicial liability. I have been condemned in Christ, and there is, therefore, now no condemnation to me any more. This is the ground-work of the security of the sinner who believes in Jesus: he lives because Jesus died in his room, and place, and stead; and he is acceptable before God because Jesus is accepted. The person for whom Jesus is an accepted Substitute must go free; none can touch him; he is clear. O my hearer, wilt thou have Jesus Christ to be thy Substitute? If so, thou art free. "He that believeth on him is not condemned." Thus "with his stripes we are healed." [Illustration] A REAL HINDRANCE. Although it is by no means a difficult thing in itself to believe him who cannot lie, and to trust in One whom we know to be able to save, yet something may intervene which may render even this a hard thing to my reader. That hindrance may be a secret, and yet it may be none the less real. A door may be closed, not by a great stone which all can see, but by an invisible bolt which shoots into a holdfast quite out of sight. A man may have good eyes, and yet may not be able to see an object, because another substance comes in the way. You could not even see the sun if a handkerchief, or a mere piece of rag, were tied over your face. Oh, the bandages which men persist in binding over their own eyes! A sweet sin, harboured in the heart, will prevent a soul from laying hold upon Christ by faith. The Lord Jesus has come to save us from sinning; and if we are resolved to go on sinning, Christ and our souls will never agree. If a man takes poison, and a doctor is called in to save his life, he may have a sure antidote ready; but if the patient persists in keeping the poison-bottle at his lips, and will continue to swallow the deadly drops, how can the doctor save him? Salvation consists largely in parting the sinner from his sin, and the very nature of salvation would have to be changed before we could speak of a man's being saved when he is loving sin, and wilfully living in it. A man cannot be made white, and yet continue black; he cannot be healed, and yet remain sick; neither can anyone be saved, and be still a lover of evil. A drunkard will be saved by believing in Christ--that is to say, he will be saved from being a drunkard; but if he determines still to make himself intoxicated, he is not saved from it, and he has not truly believed in Jesus. A liar can by faith be saved from falsehood, but then he leaves off lying, and is careful to speak the truth. Anyone can see with half an eye that he cannot be saved from being a liar, and yet go on in his old style of deceit and untruthfulness. A person who is at enmity with another will be saved from that feeling of enmity by believing in the Lord Jesus; but if he vows that he will still cherish the feeling of hate, it is clear that he is not saved from it, and equally clear that he has not believed in the Lord Jesus unto salvation. The great matter is to be delivered from the love of sin: this is the sure effect of trust in the Saviour; but if this effect is so far from being desired that it is even refused, all talk of trusting in the Saviour for salvation is an idle tale. A man goes to the shipping-office, and asks if he can be taken to America. He is assured that a ship is just ready, and that he has only to go on board, and he will soon reach New York. "But," says he, "I want to stop at home in England, and mind my shop all the time I am crossing the Atlantic." The agent thinks he is talking to a madman, and tells him to go about his business, and not waste his time by playing the fool. To pretend to trust Christ to save you from sin while you are still determined to continue in it, is making a mock of Christ. I pray my reader not to be guilty of such profanity. Let him not dream that the holy Jesus will be the patron of iniquity. [Illustration] Do you see the tree in my picture? The ivy has grown all over it, and is strangling it, sucking out its life, and killing it. Can that tree be saved? The gardener thinks it can be. He is willing to do his best. But before he begins to use his axe and his knife, he is told that he must not cut away the ivy. "Ah! then," he says, "it is impossible. It is the ivy which is killing the tree, and if you want the tree saved, you cannot save the ivy. If you trust me to preserve the tree, you must let me get the deadly climber away from it." Is not that common sense? Certainly it is. You do not trust the tree to the gardener unless you trust him to cut away that which is deadly to it. If the sinner will keep his sin, he must die in it; if he is willing to be rescued from his sin, the Lord Jesus is able to do it, and will do it if he commits his case to his care. What, then, is your darling sin? Is it any gross wrong-doing? Then very shame should make you cease from it. Is it love of the world, or fear of men, or longing for evil gains? Surely, none of these things should reconcile you to living in enmity with God, and beneath his frown. Is it a human love, which is eating like a canker into the heart? Can any creature rival the Lord Jesus? Is it not idolatry to allow any earthly thing to compare for one instant with the Lord God? "Well," saith one, "for me to give up the particular sin by which I am held captive, would be to my serious injury in business, would ruin my prospects, and lessen my usefulness in many ways." If it be so, you have your case met by the words of the Lord Jesus, who bids you to pluck out your eye, and cut off your hand or foot, and cast it from you, rather than be cast into hell. It is better to enter into life with one eye, with the poorest prospects, than to keep all your hopes, and be out of Christ. Better be a lame believer than a leaping sinner. Better be in the rear rank for life in the army of Christ than lead the van and be a chief officer under the command of Satan. If you win Christ, it will little matter what you lose. No doubt many have had to suffer that which has maimed and lamed them for this life; but if they have entered thereby into eternal life, they have been great gainers. It comes to this, my friend, as it did with John Bunyan; a voice now speaks to you, and says-- WILT THOU KEEP THY SIN AND GO TO HELL? OR LEAVE THY SIN AND GO TO HEAVEN? The point should be decided before you quit the spot. In the name of God, I ask you, Which shall it be--Christ and salvation, or the favourite sin and damnation? There is no middle course. Waiting or refusing to decide will practically be a sure decision for the evil one. He that stands questioning whether he will be honest or not, is already out of the straight line: he that does not know whether he wishes to be cleansed from sin gives evidence of a foul heart. If you are anxious to give up every evil way, our Lord Jesus will enable you to do so at once. His grace has already changed the direction of your desires: in fact, your heart is renewed. Therefore, rest on him to strengthen you to battle with temptations as they arise, and to fulfil the Lord's commands from day to day. The Lord Jesus is great at making the lame man to leap like a hart, and in enabling those who are sick of the palsy to take up their bed and walk. He will make you able to conquer the evil habit. He will even cast the devil out of you. Yes, if you had seven devils, he could drive them out at once; there is no limit to his power to cleanse and sanctify. Now that you are willing to be made whole, the great difficulty is removed. He that has set the will right can arrange all your other powers, and make them move to his praise. You would not have earnestly desired to quit all sin if he had not secretly inclined you in that direction. If you now trust him, it will be clear that he has begun a good work in you, and we feel assured that he will carry it on. [Illustration] ON RAISING QUESTIONS. In these days, a simple, childlike faith is very rare; but the usual thing is to believe nothing, and question everything. Doubts are as plentiful as blackberries, and all hands and lips are stained with them. To me it seems very strange that men should hunt up difficulties as to their own salvation. If I were doomed to die, and I had a hint of mercy, I am sure I should not set my wits to work to find out reasons why I should not be pardoned. I could leave my enemies to do that: I should be on the look-out in a very different direction. If I were drowning, I should sooner catch at a straw than push a life-belt away from me. To reason against one's own life is a sort of constructive suicide of which only a drunken man would be guilty. To argue against your only hope is like a foolish man sitting on a bough, and chopping it away so as to let himself down. Who but an idiot would do that? Yet many appear to be special pleaders for their own ruin. They hunt the Bible through for threatening texts; and when they have done with that, they turn to reason, and philosophy, and scepticism, in order to shut the door in their own faces. Surely this is poor employment for a sensible man. [Illustration] Many nowadays who cannot quite get away from religious thought, are able to stave off the inconvenient pressure of conscience by quibbling over the great truths of revelation. Great mysteries are in the Book of God of necessity; for how can the infinite God so speak that all his thoughts can be grasped by finite man? But it is the height of folly to get discussing these deep things, and to leave plain, soul-saving truths in abeyance. It reminds one of the two philosophers who debated about food, and went away empty from the table, while the common countryman in the corner asked no question, but used his knife and fork with great diligence, and went on his way rejoicing. Thousands are now happy in the Lord through receiving the gospel like little children; while others, who can always see difficulties, or invent them, are as far off as ever from any comfortable hope of salvation. I know many very decent people who seem to have resolved never to come to Christ till they can understand how the doctrine of election is consistent with the free invitations of the gospel. I might just as well determine never to eat a morsel of bread till it has been explained to me how it is that God keeps me alive, and yet I must eat to live. The fact is, that we most of us _know_ quite enough already, and the real want with us is not light in the head, but truth in the heart; not help over difficulties, but grace to make us hate sin and seek reconciliation. [Illustration] Here let me add a warning against tampering with the Word of God. No habit can be more ruinous to the soul. It is cool, contemptuous impertinence to sit down and correct your Maker, and it tends to make the heart harder than the nether millstone. We remember one who used a penknife on his Bible, and it was not long before he had given up all his former beliefs. The spirit of reverence is healthy, but the impertinence of criticizing the inspired Word is destructive of all proper feeling towards God. If ever a man does feel his need of a Saviour after treating Scripture with a proud, critical spirit, he is very apt to find his conscience standing in the way, and hindering him from comfort by reminding him of ill-treatment of the sacred Word. It comes hard to him to draw consolation out of passages of the Bible which he has treated cavalierly, or even set aside altogether, as unworthy of consideration. In his distress the sacred texts seem to laugh at his calamity. When the time of need comes, the wells which he stopped with stones yield no water for his thirst. Beware, when you despise a Scripture, lest you cast away the only friend that can help you in the hour of agony. [Illustration] A certain German duke was accustomed to call upon his servant to read a chapter of the Bible to him every morning. When anything did not square with his judgment he would sternly cry, "Hans, strike that out." At length Hans was a long time before he began to read. He fumbled over the Book, till his master called out, "Hans, why do you not read?" Then Hans answered, "Sir, there is hardly anything left. It is all struck out!" One day his master's objections had run one way, and another day they had taken another turn, and another set of passages had been blotted, till nothing was left to instruct or comfort him. Let us not, by carping criticism, destroy our own mercies. We may yet need those promises which appear needless; and those portions of Holy Writ which have been most assailed by sceptics may yet prove essential to our very life: wherefore let us guard the priceless treasure of the Bible, and determine never to resign a single line of it. What have we to do with recondite questions while our souls are in peril? The way to escape from sin is plain enough. The wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err therein. God has not mocked us with a salvation which we cannot understand. BELIEVE AND LIVE is a command which a babe may comprehend and obey. Doubt no more, but now believe; Question not, but just receive. Artful doubts and reasonings be Nailed with Jesus to the tree. Instead of cavilling at Scripture, the man who is led of the Spirit of God will close in with the Lord Jesus at once. Seeing that thousands of decent, common-sense people--people, too, of the best character--are trusting their all with Jesus, he will do the same, and have done with further delays. Then has he begun a life worth living, and he may have done with further fear. He may at once advance to that higher and better way of living, which grows out of love to Jesus, the Saviour. Why should not the reader do so at once? Oh that he would! [Illustration] A Newark, New Jersey, butcher received a letter from his old home in Germany, notifying that he had, by the death of a relative, fallen heir to a considerable amount of money. He was cutting up a pig at the time. After reading the letter, he hastily tore off his dirty apron, and did not stop to see the pork cut up into sausages, but left the shop to make preparations for going home to Germany. Do you blame him, or would you have had him stop in Newark with his block and his cleaver? See here the operation of faith. The butcher believed what was told him, and acted on it at once. Sensible fellow, too! God has sent his messages to man, telling him the good news of salvation. When a man believes the good news to be true, he accepts the blessing announced to him, and hastens to lay hold upon it. If he truly believes, he will at once take Christ, with all he has to bestow, turn from his present evil ways, and set out for the Heavenly City, where the full blessing is to be enjoyed. He cannot be holy too soon, or too early quit the ways of sin. If a man could really see what sin is, he would flee from it as from a deadly serpent, and rejoice to be freed from it by Christ Jesus. [Illustration] WITHOUT FAITH NO SALVATION. Some think it hard that there should be nothing for them but ruin if they will not believe in Jesus Christ; but if you will think for a minute you will see that it is just and reasonable. I suppose there is no way for a man to keep his strength up except by eating. If you were to say, "I will not eat again, I despise such animalism," you might go to Madeira, or travel in all lands (supposing you lived long enough!), but you would most certainly find that no climate and no exercise would avail to keep you alive if you refused food. Would you then complain, "It is a hard thing that I should die because I do not believe in eating"? It is not an unjust thing that if you are so foolish as not to eat, you must die. It is precisely so with believing. "Believe, and thou art saved." If thou wilt not believe, it is no hard thing that thou shouldst be lost. It would be strange indeed if it were not to be the case. A man who is thirsty stands before a fountain. "No," he says, "I will never touch a drop of moisture as long as I live. Cannot I get my thirst quenched in my own way?" We tell him, no; he must drink or die. He says, "I will never drink; but it is a hard thing that I must therefore die. It is a bigoted, cruel thing to tell me so." He is wrong. His thirst is the inevitable result of neglecting a law of nature. You, too, must believe or die; why refuse to obey the command? Drink, man, drink! Take Christ and live. There is the way of salvation, and to enter you must trust Christ; but there is nothing hard in the fact that you must perish if you will not trust the Saviour. Here is a man out at sea; he has a chart, and that chart, if well studied, will, with the help of the compass, guide him to his journey's end. The pole-star gleams out amidst the cloud-rifts, and that, too, will help him. "No," says he, "I will have nothing to do with your stars; I do not believe in the North Pole. I shall not attend to that little thing inside the box; one needle is as good as another needle. I have no faith in your chart, and I will have nothing to do with it. The art of navigation is only a lot of nonsense, got up by people on purpose to make money, and I will not be gulled by it." The man never reaches port, and he says it is a very hard thing--a very hard thing. I do not think so. Some of you say, "I am not going to read the Scriptures; I am not going to listen to your talk about Jesus Christ: I do not believe in such things." Then Jesus says, "He that believeth not shall be damned." "That's very hard," say you. But it is not so. It is not more hard than the fact that if you reject the compass and the pole-star you will not reach your port. There is no help for it; it must be so. You say you will have nothing to do with Jesus and his blood, and you pooh-pooh all religion. You will find it hard to laugh these matters down when you come to die, when the clammy sweat must be wiped from your brow, and your heart beats against your ribs as if it wanted to leap out and fly away from God. O soul! you will find then, that those Sundays, and those services, and this old Book, are something more and better than you thought they were, and you will wonder that you were so simple as to neglect any true help to salvation. Above all, what woe it will be to have neglected Christ, that Pole-star which alone can guide the mariner to the haven of rest! Where do you live? You live, perhaps, on the other side of the river, and you have to cross a bridge before you can get home. You have been so silly as to nurse the notion that you do not believe in bridges, nor in boats, nor in the existence of such a thing as water. You say, "I am not going over any of your bridges, and I shall not get into any of your boats. I do not believe that there is a river, or that there is any such stuff as water." You are going home, and soon you come to the old bridge; but you will not cross it. Yonder is a boat; but you are determined that you will not get into it. There is the river, and you resolve that you will not cross it in the usual way; and yet you think it is very hard that you cannot get home. Surely something has destroyed your reasoning powers, for you would not think it so hard if you were in your senses. If a man will not do the thing that is necessary to a certain end, how can he expect to gain that end? You have taken poison, and the physician brings an antidote, and says, "Take it quickly, or you will die; but if you take it quickly, I will guarantee that the poison will be neutralized." But you say, "No, doctor, I do not believe in antidotes. Let everything take its course; let every tub stand on its own bottom; I will have nothing to do with your remedy. Besides, I do not believe that there is any remedy for the poison I have taken; and, what is more, I don't care whether there is or not." Well, sir, you will die; and when the coroner's inquest is held on your body, the verdict will be, 'Served him right!' So will it be with you if, having heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, you say, "I am too much of an advanced man to have anything to do with that old-fashioned notion of substitution. I shall not attend to the preacher's talk about sacrifice and blood-shedding." Then, when you perish, the verdict given by your conscience, which will sit upon the King's quest at last, will run thus, "_Suicide: he destroyed his own soul_." So says the old Book--"O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself!" Reader, I implore thee, do not so. [Illustration] TO THOSE WHO HAVE BELIEVED. Friends, if now you have begun to trust the Lord, trust him out and out. Let your faith be the most real and practical thing in your whole life. Don't trust the Lord in mere sentiment about a few great spiritual things; but trust him for everything, for ever, both for time and eternity, for body and for soul. See how the Lord hangeth the world upon nothing but his own word! It has neither prop nor pillar. Yon great arch of heaven stands without a buttress or a wooden centre. The Lord can and will bear all the strain that faith can ever put upon him. The greatest troubles are easy to his power, and the darkest mysteries are clear to his wisdom. Trust God up to the hilt. Lean, and lean hard; yes, lean all your weight, and every other weight upon the Mighty God of Jacob. [Illustration] The future you can safely leave with the Lord, who ever liveth and never changeth. The past is now in your Saviour's hand, and you shall never be condemned for it, whatever it may have been, for the Lord has cast your iniquities into the midst of the sea. Believe at this moment in your present privileges. YOU ARE SAVED. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus, you have passed from death unto life, and YOU ARE SAVED. In the old slave days a lady brought her black servant on board an English ship, and she laughingly said to the Captain, "I suppose if I and Aunt Chloe were to go to England she would be free?" "Madam," said the Captain, "she is _now_ free. The moment she came on board a British vessel she was free." When the negro woman knew this, she did not leave the ship--not she. It was not _the hope of liberty_ that made her bold, but _the fact of liberty_. So you are not now merely hoping for eternal life, but "_He that believeth in him hath everlasting life_." Accept this as a fact revealed in the sacred Word, and begin to rejoice accordingly. Do not reason about it, or call it in question; believe it, and leap for joy. I want my reader, upon believing in the Lord Jesus, to believe for _eternal_ salvation. Do not be content with the notion that you can receive a new birth which will die out, a heavenly life which will expire, a pardon which will be recalled. The Lord Jesus gives to his sheep _eternal_ life, and do not be at rest until you have it. Now, if it be eternal, how can it die out? Be saved out and out, for eternity. There is "a living and incorruptible seed, which liveth and abideth for ever"; do not be put off with a temporary change, a sort of grace which will only bloom to fade. You are now starting on the railway of grace--_take a ticket all the way through_. I have no commission to preach to you salvation for a time: the gospel I am bidden to set before you is, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." He shall be saved from sin, from going back to sin, from turning aside to the broad road. May the Holy Spirit lead you to believe for nothing less than that. "Do you mean," says one, "that I am to believe if I once trust Christ I shall be saved whatever sin I may choose to commit?" I have never said anything of the kind. I have described true salvation as a thorough change of heart of so radical a kind that it will alter your tastes and desires; and I say that if you have such a change wrought in you by the Holy Spirit, it will be permanent; for the Lord's work is not like the cheap work of the present day, which soon goes to pieces. Trust the Lord to keep you, however long you may live, and however much you may be tempted; and "according to your faith, so be it unto you." Believe in Jesus for _everlasting_ life. Oh, that you may also trust the Lord for all the sufferings of this present time! In the world you will have tribulation; learn by faith to know that all things work together for good, and then submit yourself to the Lord's will. Look at the sheep when it is being shorn. If it lies quite still, the shears will not hurt it; if it struggles, or even shrinks, it may be pricked. Submit yourselves under the hand of God, and affliction will lose its sharpness. Self-will and repining cause us a hundred times more grief than our afflictions themselves. So believe your Lord as to be certain that his will must be far better than yours, and therefore you not only submit to it, but even rejoice in it. [Illustration] Trust the Lord Jesus in the matter of _sanctification_. Certain friends appear to think that the Lord Jesus cannot sanctify them wholly, spirit, soul, and body. Hence they willingly give way to such and such sins under the notion that there is no help for it, but that they must pay tribute to the devil as long as they live in that particular form. Do not basely bow your neck in bondage to any sin, but strike hard for liberty. Be it anger, or unbelief, or sloth, or any other form of iniquity, we are able, by divine grace, to drive out the Canaanite, and, what is more, we must drive him out. No virtue is impossible to him that believeth in Jesus, and no sin need have victory over him. Indeed, it is written, "Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace." Believe for high degrees of joy in the Lord, and likeness to Jesus, and advance to take full possession of these precious things; for as thou believest, so shall it be unto thee. "All things are possible to him that believeth"; and he who is the chief of sinners may yet be not a whit behind the greatest of saints. Often realize the joy of heaven. This is grand faith; and yet it is no more than we ought to have. Within a very short time the man who believes in the Lord Jesus shall be with him where he is. This head will wear a crown; these eyes shall see the King in his beauty; these ears shall hear his own dear voice; this soul shall be in glory; and this poor body shall be raised from the dead and joined in incorruption to the perfected soul! Glory, glory, glory! And so near, so sure. Let us at once rehearse the music and anticipate the bliss! But cries one, "We are not there yet." No: but faith fills us with delight in the blessed prospect, and meanwhile it sustains us on the road. Reader, I long that you may be a firm believer in the Lord alone. I want you to get wholly upon the rock, and not keep a foot on the sand. In this mortal life _trust God for all things_; and trust him alone. This is the way to live. I know it by experience. God's bare arm is quite enough to lean upon. I will give you a bit of the experience of an old labouring man I once knew. He feared God above many, and was very deeply taught of the Spirit. My picture will show you what kind of a man he was--great at hedging and ditching; but greater at simple trust. Here is how he described faith:--"It was a bitter winter, and I had no work, and no bread in the house. The children were crying. The snow was deep, and my way was dark. My old master told me I might have a bit of wood when I wanted it; so I thought a bit of fire would warm the poor children, and I went out with my chopper to get some fuel. I was standing near a deep ditch full of snow, which had drifted into it many feet deep--in fact, I did not know how deep. While aiming a blow at a bit of wood my bill-hook slipped out of my hand, and went right down into the snow, where I could not hope to find it. Standing there with no food, no fire, and the chopper gone, something seemed to say to me, 'Will Richardson, can you trust God now?' and my very soul said, 'That I can.'" This is true faith--the faith which trusts the Lord when the bill-hook is gone: the faith which believes God when all outward appearances give him the lie; the faith which is happy with God alone when all friends turn their backs upon you. Dear reader, may you and I have this precious faith, this real faith, this God-honouring faith! The Lord's truth deserves it; his love claims it, his faithfulness constrains it. Happy is he who has it! He is the man whom the Lord loves, and the world shall be made to know it before all is finished. [Illustration: OLD WILL, THE LABOURER.] After all, the very best faith is an everyday faith: the faith which deals with bread and water, coats and stockings, children and cattle, house-rent and weather. The super-fine confectionery religion which is only available on Sundays, and in drawing-room meetings and Bible readings, will never take a soul to heaven till life becomes one long Conference, and there are seven Sabbaths in a week. Faith is doing her very best when for many years she plods on, month by month, trusting the Lord about the sick husband, the failing daughter, the declining business, the unconverted friend, and such-like things. Faith also helps us to use the world as not abusing it. It is good at hard work, and at daily duty. It is not an angelic thing for skies and stars, but a human grace, at home in kitchens and workshops. It is a sort of maid-of-all-work, and is at home at every kind of labour, and in every rank of life. It is a grace for every day, all the year round. Holy confidence in God is never out of work. Faith's ware is so valued at the heavenly court that she always has one fine piece of work or another on the wheel or in the furnace. Men dream that heroes are only to be made on special occasions, once or twice in a century; but in truth the finest heroes are home-spun, and are more often hidden in obscurity than platformed by public observation. Trust in the living God is the bullion out of which heroism is coined. Perseverance in well-doing is one of the fields in which faith grows not flowers, but the wheat of her harvest. Plodding on in hard work, bringing up a family on a few shillings a week, bearing constant pain with patience, and so forth--these are the feats of valour through which God is glorified by the rank and file of his believing people. Reader, you and I will be of one mind in this: we will not pine to be great, but we will be eager to be good. For this we will rely upon the Lord our God, whose we are, and whom we serve. We will ask to be made holy throughout every day of the week. We will pray to our God as much about our daily business as about our soul's salvation. We will trust him concerning our farm, and our turnips and our cows as well as concerning our spiritual privileges and our hope of heaven. The Lord Jehovah is our household God; Jesus is our brother born for adversity; and the Holy Spirit is our Comforter in every hour of trial. We have not an unapproachable God: he hears, he pities, he helps. Let us trust him without a break, without a doubt, without a hesitation. The life of faith is life within God's wicket-gate. If we have hitherto stood trembling outside in the wide world of unbelief, may the Holy Spirit enable us now to take the great decisive step, and say, once for all, "Lord, I believe: help thou mine unbelief!" _Any book in this Catalogue sent postage prepaid on receipt of the price._ RELIGIOUS AND DEVOTIONAL BOOKS PUBLISHED BY THE American Tract Society, 10 East 23d Street, New York. BOSTON, 54 Bromfield St. PHILADELPHIA, 1512 Chestnut St. ROCHESTER, 93 State St. CHICAGO, 211-213 Wabash Avenue. 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56684	----	The Lectures on Faith LECTURE FIRST On the Doctrine of the Church of the Latter Day Saints. Of Faith. Section 1. 1. Faith being the first principle in revealed religion, and the foundation of all righteousness, necessarily claims the first place in a course of lectures which are designed to unfold to the understanding the doctrine of Jesus Christ. 2. In presenting the subject of faith, we shall observe the following order-- 3. first, faith itself--what it is. 4. Secondly, the object on which it rests. And, 5. Thirdly, the effects which flow from it. 6. Agreeable to this order we have first to show what faith is. 7. The author of the epistle to the Hebrews, in the eleventh chapter of that epistle and first verse, gives the following definition of the word faith: 8. Now faith is the substance (assurance) of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 9. From this we learn that faith is the assurance which men have of the existence of things which they have not seen, and the principle of action in all intelligent beings. 10. If men were duly to consider themselves, and turn their thoughts and reflections to the operations of their own minds, they would readily discover that it is faith, and faith only, which is the moving cause of all action in them; that without it both mind and body would be in a state of inactivity, and all their exertions would cease, both physical and mental. 11. Were this class to go back and reflect upon the history of their lives, from the period of their first recollection, and ask themselves what principle excited them to action, or what gave them energy and activity in all their lawful avocations, callings, and pursuits, what would be the answer?--Would it not be that it was the assurance which they had of the existence of things which they had not seen as yet? Was it not the hope which you had, in consequence of your belief in the existence of unseen things, which stimulated you to action and exertion in order to obtain them? Are you not dependent on your faith, or belief, for the acquisition of all knowledge, wisdom, and intelligence? Would you exert yourselves to obtain wisdom and intelligence, unless you did believe that you could obtain them? Would you have ever sown, if you had not believed that you would reap? Would you have ever planted, if you had not believed that you would gather? Would you have ever asked, unless you had believed that you would receive? Would you have ever sought, unless you had believed that you would have found? Or, would you have ever knocked, unless you had believed that it would have been opened unto you? In a word, is there anything that you would have done, either physical or mental, if you had not previously believed? Are not all your exertions, of every kind, dependent on your faith? Or, may we not ask, what have you, or what do you possess, which you have not obtained by reason of your faith? Your food, your raiment, your lodgings, are they not all by reason of your faith? Reflect, and ask yourselves if these things are not so. Turn your thoughts on your own minds, and see if faith is not the moving cause of all action in yourselves; and, if the moving cause in you, is it not in all other intelligent beings? 12. And as faith is the moving cause of all action in temporal concerns, so it is in spiritual; for the Savior has said, and that truly, that he that _believeth_ and is baptized, shall be saved. Mark 16:16. 13. As we receive by faith, all temporal blessings that we do receive, so we, in like manner, receive by faith all spiritual blessings, that we do receive. But faith is not only the principle of action, but of power also, in all intelligent beings whether in heaven or on earth. Thus says the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, 11:3: 14. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God: so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. 15. By this we understand that the principle of power, which existed in the bosom of God, by which the worlds were framed, was faith; and that it is by reason of this principle of power existing in the Deity, that all created things exist--so that all things in heaven, on earth, or under the earth, exist by reason of faith as it existed in HIM. 16. Had it not been for the principle of faith the worlds would never have been framed, neither would man have been formed of the dust--It is the principle by which Jehovah works, and through which he exercises power over all temporal as well as eternal things. Take this principle or attribute, (for it is an attribute) from the Deity and he would cease to exist. 17. Who cannot see, that if God framed the worlds by faith, that it is by faith that he exercises power over them, and that faith is the principle of power? And if the principle of power, it must be so in man as well as in the Deity? This is the testimony of all the sacred writers, and the lesson which they have been endeavouring to teach to man. 18. The Saviour says Matthew 17:19,20, in explaining the reason why the disciples could not cast out the devil, that it was because of their unbelief: For verily I say unto you, said he, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard--seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to you yonder place! and it shall remove: and nothing shall be impossible unto you. 19. Moroni, while abridging and compiling the record of his fathers, has given us the following account of faith as the principle of power: He says, page 563, that it was the faith of Alma and Amulek which caused the walls of the prison to be rent, as recorded on the 264th page; that it was the faith of Nephi and Lehi which caused a change to be wrought upon the hearts of the Lamanites, when they were immersed with the Holy Spirit, and with fire, as seen on the 421st page; and that it was by faith that the mountain Zerin was removed, when the brother of Jared spake in the name of the Lord. See also 565th page. 20. In addition to this we are told in Hebrews 11:32,33,34,35, that Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets, through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens, and that women received their dead raised to life again, &c., &c. 21. Also, Joshua, in the sight of all Israel, bade the sun and moon to stand still, and it was done. Josh. 10:12. 22. We here understand, that the sacred writers say, that all these things were done by faith--It was by faith that the worlds were framed--God spake, chaos heard, and worlds came into order, by reason of the faith there was in HIM. So with man also--he spake by faith in the name of God, and the sun stood still, the moon obeyed, mountains removed, prisons fell, lions' mouths were closed, the human heart lost its enmity, fire its violence, armies their power, the sword its terror, and death its dominion; and all this by reason of the faith which was in him. 23. Had it not been for the faith which was in men, they might have spoken to the sun, the moon, the mountains, prisons, the human heart, fire, armies, the sword, or to death in vain! 24. Faith, then, is the first great governing principle which has power, dominion, and authority over all things; by it they exist, by it they are upheld, by it they are changed, or by it they remain, agreeably to the will of God. Without it, there is no power, and without power there could be no creation, nor existence! OF THEOLOGY _Question_.--What is theology? _Answer_.--It is that revealed science which treats of the being and attributes of God--his relations to us--the dispensations of his providence--his will With respect to our actions--and his purposes with respect to our end. [Buck's Theological Dictionary, page 582]. Q. What is the first principle in this revealed science? A. Faith. [§ I. ¶ 1.] Q. Why is faith the first principle in this revealed science? A. Because it is the foundation of all righteousness. Heb 11:6. without faith it is impossible to please God. 1st John, 3:7 Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness, is righteous, even as he [God] is righteous. [§ I. ¶ 1.] Q. What arrangement should be followed in presenting the subject of faith? A. First, it should be shown what faith is. [§ I. ¶ 3.] Secondly, the object upon which it rests. [§ I. ¶ 4.] And, thirdly, the effects which flow from it. [§ I. ¶ 5.] Q. What is faith? A. It is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Heb 11:1); that is, it is the assurance we have of the existence of unseen things. And being the assurance which we have of the existence of unseen things, must be the principle of action in all intelligent beings. Heb. 11:3 Through faith we understand the worlds were framed by the word of God. [§ I. ¶ 8,9.] Q. How do you prove that faith is the principle of action in all intelligent beings? A. First, by duly considering the operations of my own mind; and, secondly, by the direct declaration of Scripture--Heb. 11:7 By faith Noah, being warned of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith. Heb. 11:8. By faith Abraham, when he was called to go into a place which he should afterwards receive for an inheritance, obeyed, and he went out not knowing whither he went. Heb. 11:9 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. Heb 11:27 By faith Moses forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured as seeing him who is invisible. [§ I. ¶ 10,11.] Q. Is not faith the principle of action in spiritual things as well as in temporal? A. It is. Q. How do you prove it? A. Heb. 11:6 without faith it is impossible to please God. Mark 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. Rom. 4:16 Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all--[§ I. ¶ 12,13.] Q. Is faith anything else beside the principle of action? A. It is. Q. What is it? A. It is the principle of power also. [§ I. ¶ 13.] Q. How do you prove it? A. First, it is the principle of power in the Deity as well as in man. Heb. 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.--[§ I. ¶ 14,15,16] Secondly, it is the principle of power in man also. Book of Mormon, page 264. Alma and Amulek are delivered from prison. Do. page 421. Nephi and Lehi, with the Lamanites, are immersed with the Spirit. Do. page 565. The mountain Zerin, by the faith of the brother of Jared, is removed. Josh. 10:12 Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand you still upon Gibeon, and you Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. Josh. 10:13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves of their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. Mat. 17:19 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? Mat. 17:20. And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief; for verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.--Heb. 11:32 And what shall I say more? for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah, of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets. Heb 11:34 who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance: that they might obtain a better resurrection. [§ I. ¶ 16,17,18,19,20,21,22.] Q. How would you define faith in its most unlimited sense? A. It is the first great governing principle which has power, dominion, and authority over all things. [§ I. ¶ 24.] Q. How do you convey to the understanding more clearly that faith is the first great governing principle which has power, dominion, and authority over all things? A. By it they exist, by it they are upheld, by it they are changed, or by it they remain, agreeable to the will of God; and without it there is no power, and without power there could be no creation, nor existence! [§ I. ¶ 24.] LECTURE SECOND. Of Faith. Section II. 1. Having shown in our previous lecture "faith itself--what it is," we shall proceed to show secondly the object on which it rests. 2. We here observe that God is the only supreme governor and independent being, in whom all fullness and perfection dwells; who is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient; without beginning of days or end of life; and that in him every good gift and every good principle dwell; and that he is the Father of lights; In him the principle of faith dwells independently, and he is the object in whom the faith of all other rational and accountable beings center, for life and salvation. 3. In order to present this part of the subject in a clear and conspicuous point of light, it is necessary to go back and show the evidences which mankind have had, and the foundation on which these evidences are, or were based, since the creation, to believe in the existence of a God. 4. We do not mean those evidences which are manifested by the works of creation, which we daily behold with our natural eyes: we are sensible that, after a revelation of Jesus Christ, the works of creation, throughout their vast forms and varieties, clearly exhibit his eternal power and Godhead. Romans 1:20. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead. But we mean those evidences by which the first thoughts were suggested to the mind of men that there was a God who created all things. 5. We shall now proceed to examine the situation of man at his first creation. Moses, the historian, has given us the following account of him in the first chap. of the book of Genesis, beginning with the 20th verse, and closing with the 30th. We copy from the New Translation: 6. And the Lord God said unto the Only Begotten, who was with him from the beginning, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and it was done. 7. And the Lord God said, Let them have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. 8. So God created man in his own image, in the image of the Only Begotten created he him; male and female created I them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. 9. And I, God, said unto man, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in the which shall be the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. 10. Again, Genesis 2:15,16,17,19,20: And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God, commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, nevertheless, you may choose for yourself, for it is given unto you; but remember that I forbid it, for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die. 11. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and commanded that they should come unto Adam, to see what he would call them. * * * And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field. 12. From the foregoing we learn man's situation at his first creation; the knowledge with which he was endowed, and the high and exalted station in which he was placed--lord, or governor of all things on earth, and at the same time enjoying communion and intercourse with his Maker, without a vail to separate between. We shall next proceed to examine the account given of his fall, and of his being driven out of the garden of Eden, and from the presence of the Lord. 13. Moses proceeds: And they [Adam and Eve] heard the voice of the Lord God, as they were walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife went to hide themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where goest you? And he said, I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I beheld that I was naked, and I hid myself. 14. And the Lord God, said unto Adam, 'Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree whereof I told you you should not eat? If so, you should surely die?' And the man said, The woman whom you gave me, and commanded that she should remain with me, gave me of the fruit of the tree, and I did eat. 15. And I, the Lord God, said unto the woman, What is this thing which you hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. 16. And again, the Lord said unto the woman, I will greatly multiply your sorrow, and your conception. In sorrow you shall bring forth children; and your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you. 17. And the Lord God said unto Adam, because you have hearkened unto the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the fruit of the tree of which I commanded yous, saying, You shall not eat of it! cursed shall be the ground for your sake; in sorrow you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns also, and thistles shall it bring forth to you: and you shall eat the herb of the field. By the sweat of your face shall you eat bread, until you shall return unto the ground--for you shall surely die--for out of it you were taken: for dust you were, and unto dust you shall return. This was immediately followed by the fulfillment of what we previously said: Man was driven, or sent out of Eden. 18. Two important items are shown from the former quotations: First, after man was created, he was not left without intelligence, or understanding, to wander in darkness and spend an existence in ignorance and doubt--on the great and important point which effected his happiness,--as to the real fact by whom he was created, or unto whom he was amenable for his conduct. God conversed with him face to face: in his presence he was permitted to stand, and from his own mouth he was permitted to receive instruction--he heard his voice, walked before him, and gazed upon his glory--while intelligence burst upon his understanding, and enabled him to give names to the vast assemblage of his Maker's works. 19. Secondly, we have seen, that though man did transgress, his transgression did not deprive him of the previous knowledge with which he was endowed, relative to the existence and glory of his Creator; for no sooner did he hear his voice, than he sought to hide himself from his presence. 20. Having shown, then, in the first instance, that God began to converse with man, immediately after he "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," and that he did not cease to manifest himself to him, even after his fall, we shall next proceed to show, that, though he was cast out from the garden of Eden, his knowledge of the existence of God was not lost, neither did God cease to manifest his will unto him. 21. We next proceed to present the account of the direct revelation which man received, after he was cast out of Eden, and further copy from the New Translation: 22. After Adam had been driven out of the garden, he began to till the earth, and to have dominion over all the beasts of the field, and to eat his bread by the sweat of his brow, as I the Lord had commanded him: and he called upon the name of the Lord, and so did Eve his wife also. And they heard the voice of the Lord from the way toward the garden of Eden, speaking unto them; and they saw him not, for they were shut out from his presence; and he gave unto them commandments that they should worship the Lord their God, and should offer the firstlings of their flocks for an offering unto the Lord. And Adam was obedient unto the commandments of the Lord. 23. And after many days an angel of the Lord appeared unto Adam, saying, Why do you offer sacrifices unto the Lord? And Adam said unto him, I know not; but the Lord commanded me to offer sacrifices. 24. And then the angel said unto him, This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father, who is full of grace and truth. And you shall do all that you do in the name of the Son: and you shall repent and call upon God in the name of the Son forever. And in that day the Holy Ghost fell upon Adam, and bore record of the Father and the Son. 25. This last quotation, or summary, shows this important fact, that though our first parents were driven out of the garden of Eden, and were even separated from the presence of God, by a vail, they still retained a knowledge of his existence, and that sufficiently to move them to call upon him. And further, that no sooner was the plan of redemption revealed to man, and he began to call upon God, than the Holy Spirit was given, bearing record of the Father and Son. 26. Moses also gives us an account, in the 4th of Genesis, of the transgression of Cain, and the righteousness of Abel, and of the revelations of God to them. He says: In process of time, Cain brought of the fruit of the ground, an offering unto the Lord.--And Abel also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel, and to his offering: but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. Now Satan knew this, and it pleased him. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, Why are you angry? Why is your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted?--And if you do not well, sin lieth at the door, and Satan desires to have you; and except you shall hearken unto my commandments, I will deliver you up: and it shall be unto you according to his desire. 27. And Cain went into the field, and talked with his brother Abel. And while they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and slew him. And Cain gloried in what he had done, saying, I am free; surely the flocks of my brother will now fall into my hands. 28. But the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel, your brother? And he said, I know not: am I my brother's keeper? And the Lord said, What have you done? the voice of your brother's blood cries unto me from the ground. And now, you shall be cursed from the earth which hath opened her mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto you her strength. A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be in the earth. 29. And Cain said unto the Lord, Satan tempted me because of my brother's flocks. And I was angry: for his offering you accepted and mine was not: My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold you have driven me out this day from the face of men, and from your face shall I be hid also; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass that he that findeth me will slay me because of mine iniquities, for these things are not hid from the Lord. And the Lord said unto him, Therefore, whoever slays Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him seven fold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. 30. The object of the foregoing quotations is to show to this class the way by which mankind were first made acquainted with the existence of a God: that it was by a manifestation of God to man, and that God continued, after man's transgression to manifest himself to him and to his posterity; and, notwithstanding they were separated from his immediate presence, that they could not see his face, they continued to hear his voice. 31. Adam thus being made acquainted with God, communicated the knowledge which he had unto his posterity; and it was through this means that the thought was first suggested to their minds that there was a God. Which laid the foundation for the exercise of their faith, through which they could obtain a knowledge of his character and also of his glory. 32. Not only was there a manifestation made unto Adam of the existence of a God, but Moses informs us, as before quoted, that God condescended to talk with Cain after his great transgression, in slaying his brother, and that Cain knew that it was the Lord that was talking with him: so that when he was driven out from the presence of his brethren, he carried with him the knowledge of the existence of a God; and, through this means, doubtless, his posterity became acquainted with the fact that such a being existed. 33. From this we can see that the whole human family, in the early age of their existence, in all their different branches, had this knowledge disseminated among them; so that the existence of God became an object of faith, in the early age of the world. And the evidences which these men had of the existence of a God, was the testimony of their fathers in the first instance. 34. The reason why we have been thus particular on this part of our subject, is that this class may see by what means it was that God became an object of faith among men after the fall; and what it was that stirred up the faith of multitudes to feel after him; to search after a knowledge of his character, perfections and attributes, until they became extensively acquainted with him; and not only commune with him, and behold his glory, but be partakers of his power and stand in his presence. 35. Let this class mark particularly that the testimony which these men had of the existence of a God, was the testimony of man; for previous to the time that any of Adam's posterity had obtained a manifestation of God to themselves, Adam their common father had testified unto them of the existence of God, and of his eternal power and Godhead. 36. For instance, Abel, before he received the assurance from heaven that his offerings were acceptable unto God, had received the important information of his father that such a being did exist, who had created and who did uphold all things. Neither can there be a doubt existing on the mind of any person, that Adam was the first who did communicate the knowledge of the existence of a God, to his posterity; and that the whole faith of the world, from that time down to the present, is in a certain degree, dependent on the knowledge first communicated to them by their common progenitor; and it has been handed down to the day and generation in which we live, as we shall show from the face of the sacred records. 37. First, Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born. Genesis 5:3. And the days of Adam, after he had begotten Seth, were 800 years; making him 930 years old when he died. Genesis 5:4,5. Seth was 105 when Enos was born. 5:6. Enos was 90 when Cainan was born. 5:9. Cainan was 70 when Mahalaleel was born. 5:12. Mahalaleel was 65 when Jared was born. 5:15. Jared was 162 when Enoch was born. 5:18. Enoch was 65 when Methuselah was born. 5:21. Methuselah was 187 when Lamech was born. 5:25. Lamech was 182 when Noah was born. 5:28. 38. From this account it appears that Lamech, the 9th from Adam, and the father of Noah, was 56 years old when Adam died; Methuselah, 243; Enoch, 308; Jared, 470; Mahalaleel, 535; Cainan, 605; Enos, 695; and Seth, 800. 39. So that Lamech the father of Noah; Methuselah, Enoch, Jared, Mahalaleel, Cainan, Enos, Seth, and Adam, were all living at the same time, and beyond all controversy, were all preachers of righteousness. 40. Moses further informs us, that Seth lived, after he begat Enos, 807 years, making him 912 years old at his death. Genesis 5:7,8. And Enos lived, after he begat Cainan, 815 years, making him 905 years old when he died. 5:10,11. And Cainan lived, after he begat Mahalaleel, 840 years: making him 910 years old at his death. 5:13,14. And Mahalaleel lived after he begat Jared, 830 years, making him 895 years old when he died. 5:16,17. And Jared lived after he begat Enoch, 800 years, making him 962 years old at his death. 5:19,20. And Enoch walked with God, after he begat Methuselah 300 years: making him 365 years old when he was translated. 5:22,23. And Methuselah lived after he begat Lamech, 782 years, making him 969 years old when he died 5:26,27. Lamech lived after he begat Noah, 595 years; making him 777 years old when he died. 5:30,31. 41. Agreeably to this account, Adam died in the 930th year of the world; Enoch was translated in the 987th, Seth died in the 1042nd; Enos in the 1140th; Cainan in the 1235th; Mahalaleel in the 1290th; Jared in the 1422nd; Lamech in the 1651st; and Methuselah in the 1656th, it being the same year in which the flood came. 42. So that Noah was 84 years old when Enos died, 176 when Cainan died, 234 when Mahalaleel died, 366 when Jared died, 595 when Lamech died, and 600 when Methuselah died. 43. We can see from this that Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah, all lived on the earth at the same time; and that Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech, were all acquainted with both Adam and Noah. 44. From the foregoing it is easily to be seen, not only how the knowledge of God came into the world, but upon what principle it was preserved: that from the time it was first communicated, it was retained in the minds of righteous men, who taught, not only their own posterity, but the world; so that there was no need of a new revelation to man, after Adam's creation to Noah, to give them the first idea, or notion of the existence of a God: and not only of a God, but of the true and living God. 45. Having traced the chronology of the world from Adam to Noah, we will now trace it from Noah to Abraham. Noah was 502 years old When Shem was born; 98 years afterwards the flood came, being the 600th year of Noah's age. And Moses informs us that Noah lived after the flood, 350 years, making him 950 years old when he died. Genesis 9:28-29. 46. Shem was 100 years old when Arphaxad was born. Genesis 11:10. Arphaxad was 35 when Salah was born. Gen. 11:12. Salah was 30 when Eber was born. 11:14. Eber was 34 when Peleg was born, in whose days the earth was divided. 11:16. Peleg was 30 when Reu was born. 11:18. Reu was 32 when Serug was born. 11:20. Serug was 30 when Nahor was born. 11:22. Nahor was 29 when Terah was born. 11:24. Terah was 70 when Haran and Abraham were born. 11:26. 47. There is some difficulty in the account given by Moses of Abraham's birth. Some have supposed that Abraham was not born until Terah was 130 years old. This conclusion is drawn from a variety of scriptures, which are not to our purpose at present to quote. Neither is it a matter of any consequence to us whether Abraham was born when Terah was 70 years old, or 130. But in order that there may no doubt exist upon any mind in relation to the object lying immediately before us, in presenting the present chronology we will date the birth of Abraham at the latest period, that is, when Terah was 130 years old. It appears from this account that from the flood to the birth of Abraham, was 352 years. 48. Moses informs us that Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad, 500 years. Gen. 11:11. This added to 100 years, which was his age when Arphaxad was born, makes him 600 years old when he died. Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah, 403 years. 11:13. This added to 35 years, which was his age when Salah was born, makes him 438 years old when he died. Salah lived after he begat Eber, 403 years. 11:15.--This added to 30 years, which was his age when Eber was born, makes him 433 years old when he died.--Eber lived after he begat Peleg, 430 years. 11:17. This added to 34 years, which was his age when Peleg was born, makes him 464 years old. Peleg lived after he begat Reu, 209 years. 11:19. This added to 30 years, which was his age when Reu was born, makes him 239 years old when he died. Reu lived, after he begat Serug, 207 years. Gen. 11:21. This added to 32 years, which was his age when Serug was born, makes him 239 years old when he died. Serug lived after he begat Nahor, 200 years. 11:23. This added to 30 years, which was his age when Nahor was born, makes him 230 years old when he died. Nahor lived after he begat Terah, 119 years. 11:25. This added to 29 years, which was his age when Terah was born, makes him 148 years old when he died. Terah was 130 years old when Abraham was born, and is supposed to have lived 75 years after his birth: making him 205 years old when he died. 49. Agreeable to this last account, Peleg died in the 1996th year of the world, Nahor in the 1997th, and Noah in the 2006th. So that Peleg, in whose days the earth was divided, and Nahor, the grandfather of Abraham, both died before Noah--the former being 239 years old, and the latter 148. And who cannot but see that they must have had a long and intimate acquaintance with Noah? 50. Reu died in the 2026th year of the world, Serug in the 2049th, Terah in the 2083rd, Arphaxad in the 2096th, Salah in the 2126th, Shem in the 2158th, Abraham in the 2183rd, and Eber in the 2187th: which was four years after Abraham's death. And Eber was the fourth from Noah. 51. Nahor, Abraham's brother, was 58 years old when Noah died, Terah 128, Serug 187, Reu 219, Eber 283, Salah 313, Arphaxad 344, and Shem 448. 52. It appears from this account, that Nahor, brother of Abraham, Terah, Nahor, Serug, Reu, Peleg, Eber, Salah, Arphaxad, Shem, and Noah, all lived on the earth at the same time. And that Abraham was 18 years old when Reu died, 41 when Serug and his brother Nahor died, 75 when Terah died, 88 when Arphaxad died, 118 when Salah died, 150 when Shem died, and that Eber lived 4 years after Abraham's death. And that Shem, Arphaxad, Salah, Eber, Reu, Serug, Terah, and Nahor, the brother of Abraham, and Abraham, lived at the same time.--And that Nahor, brother of Abraham, Terah, Serug, Reu, Eber, Salah, Arphaxad, and Shem, were all acquainted with both Noah and Abraham. 53. We have now traced the chronology of the world agreeable to the account given in our present Bible, from Adam to Abraham, and have clearly determined, beyond the power of controversy, that there was no difficulty in preserving the knowledge of God in the world from the creation of Adam, and the manifestation made to his immediate descendants, as set forth in the former part of this lecture, so that the students in this class need not have any dubiety resting on their minds, on this subject; for they can easily see, that it is impossible for it to be otherwise; but that the knowledge of the existence of a God, must have continued from father to son, as a matter of tradition at least. For we cannot suppose, that a knowledge of this important fact, could have existed in the mind of any of the before--mentioned individuals, without their having made it known to their posterity. 54. We have now shown how it was that the first thought ever existed in the mind of any individual, that there was such a Being as a God, who had created and did uphold all things: that it was by reason of the manifestation which he first made to our father Adam, when he stood in his presence, and conversed with him face to face, at the time of his creation. 55. Let us here observe, that after any portion of the human family are made acquainted with the important fact that there is a God, who has created and does uphold all things, the extent of their knowledge, respecting his character and glory, will depend upon their diligence and faithfulness in seeking after him, until like Enoch the brother of Jared, and Moses, they shall obtain faith in God, and power with him to behold him face to face. 56. We have now clearly set forth how it is, and how it was, that God became an object of faith for rational beings; and also, upon what foundation the testimony was based, which excited the inquiry and diligent search of the ancient saints, to seek after and obtain a knowledge of the glory of God; and we have seen that it was human testimony, and human testimony only, that excited this enquiry, in the first instance, in their minds--it was the credence they gave to the testimony of their fathers--this testimony having aroused their minds to inquire after the knowledge of God, the enquiry frequently terminated, indeed always terminated when rightly pursued, in the most glorious discoveries, and eternal certainty. _Question_.--Is there a being who has faith in himself, independently? _Answer_.--There is. Q. Who is it? A. It is God. Q. How do you prove that God has faith in himself independently? A. Because he is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient; without beginning of days or end of life, and in him all fullness dwells. Eph 1:23: Which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. Col 1:19. For it pleased the Father, that in him should all fullness dwell. [§ II. ¶ 2.] Q. Is he the object in whom the faith of all other rational and accountable beings center, for life and salvation? A. He is. Q. How do you prove it? A. Isa. 45:22. Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. Romans 11:34,35,36. For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counselor? or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things, to whom be glory for ever. Amen. Isa. 40: from the 8th to the 18th verses. O Zion that bringest good tidings; [or, O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion?] get you up into the high mountain: O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings; [or, O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem] lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God! Behold the Lord your God will come with strong hand [or, against the strong]; and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. [Or, recompense for his work]. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather his lambs with his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counselor, hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him and taught him in the path of judgment, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing. And Lebanon is not sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering. All nations are before him as nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing, and vanity. Jer. 11:15, 16: He [the Lord] hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his Wisdom, and hath stretched out the heaven by his understanding. When he uttereth his voice there is a multitude of waters in the heavens; and he causeth the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth: he maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasures. 1 Cor 8:6 But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him. [§ II. ¶ 2.] Q. How did men first come to the knowledge of the existence of a God, so as to exercise faith in him? A. In order to answer this question, it will be necessary to go back and examine man at his creation; the circumstances in which he was placed, and the knowledge which he had of God. [§ II. ¶ 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11.]. First, when man was created he stood in the presence of God. Gen. 1:27,28. From this we earn that man, at his creation, stood in the presence of his God, and had most perfect knowledge of his existence. Secondly, God conversed with him after his transgression. Gen 3: from the 8th to the 22nd. [§ II. ¶ 13,14,15,16,17.] From this we learn that, though man did transgress, he was not deprived of the previous knowledge which he had of the existence of God. [§ II. ¶ 19.] Thirdly, God conversed with man after he cast him out of the garden. [§ II. ¶ 22,23,24,25.] Fourthly, God also conversed with Cain after he had slain Abel. Gen 4: from the 4th to the 6th. [§ II. ¶ 26,27,28,29.] Q. What is the object of the foregoing quotation? A. It is that it may be clearly seen how it was that the first thoughts were suggested to the minds of men of the existence of God, and how extensively this knowledge was spread among the immediate descendants of Adam. [§ II. ¶ 30,31,32,33.] Q. What testimony had the immediate descendants of Adam, in proof of the existence of God? A. The testimony of their father. And after they were made acquainted with his existence, by the testimony of their father, they were dependent upon the exercise of their own faith, for a knowledge of his character, perfections, and attributes. [§ II. ¶ 23,24,25,26.] Q. Had any other of the human family, besides Adam, a knowledge of the existence of God, in the first instance, by any other means than human testimony? A. They had not. For previous to the time that they could have power to obtain a manifestation for themselves, the all-important fact had been communicated to them by their common father: and so from father to child the knowledge was communicated as extensively, as the knowledge of his existence was known; for it was by this means, in the first instance, that men had a knowledge of his existence. [§ II. ¶ 35,36]. Q. How do you know that the knowledge of the existence of God was communicated in this manner, throughout the different ages of the world? A. By the chronology obtained through the revelations of God. Q. How would you divide that chronology in order to convey it to the understanding clearly? A. Into two parts: First, by embracing that period of the world from Adam to Noah; and secondly, from Noah to Abraham: from which period the knowledge of the existence of God has been so general, that it is a matter of no dispute in what manner the idea of his existence has been retained in the world. Q. How many noted righteous men lived from Adam to Noah? A. Nine; which includes Abel, who was slain by his brother. Q. What are their names? A. Abel, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, and Lamech. Q. How old was Adam when Seth was born? A. One hundred and thirty years. Gen 5:3. Q. How many years did Adam live after Seth was born? A. Eight hundred. Gen. 5:4. Q. How old was Adam when he died? A. Nine hundred and thirty years. Gen. 5-5. Q. How old was Seth when Enos was born? A. One hundred and five years. Gen. 5:6. Q. How old was Enos when Cainan was born? A. Ninety years. Gen. 5:9. Q. How old was Cainan when Mahalaleel was born? A. Seventy years. Gen. 5:12. Q. How old was Mahalaleel when Jared was born? A. Sixty-five years. Gen. 5:15. Q. How old was Jared when Enoch was born? A. One hundred and sixty two years. Gen. 5:18. Q. How old was Enoch when Methuselah was born? A. Sixty-five years. Gen. 5:21. Q. How old was Methuselah when Lamech was born? A. One hundred and eighty seven years. Gen. 5:25. Q. How old was Lamech when Noah was born? A. One hundred and eighty-two years. Gen. 5:28. For this chronology, see § II. ¶ 37. Q. How many years, according to this account, was it from Adam to Noah? A. One thousand and fifty-six years. Q. How old was Lamech when Adam died? A. Lamech, the ninth from Adam (including Abel), and father of Noah, was fifty-six years old when Adam died. Q. How old was Methuselah? A. Two hundred and forty-three years. Q. How old was Enoch? A. Three hundred and eight years. Q. How old was Jared? A. Four hundred and seventy years. Q. How old was Mahalaleel? A. Five hundred and thirty-five years. Q. How old was Cainan? A. Six hundred and five years. Q. How old was Enos? A. Six hundred and ninety-five years. Q. How old was Seth? A. Eight hundred. For this item of the account, see section second, paragraph 38. Q. How many of these noted men were cotemporary with Adam? A. Nine. Q. What are their names? A. Abel, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah and Lamech. [§ II. ¶ 39.] Q. How long did Seth live after Enos was born? A. Eight hundred and seven years. Gen. 5:7. Q. What was Seth's age when he died? A. Nine hundred and twelve years. Gen. 5:8. Q. How long did Enos live after Cainan was born? A. Eight hundred and fifteen years. Gen. 5:10. Q. What was Enos's age when he died? A. Nine hundred and five years. Gen. 5:11. Q. How long did Cainan live after Mahalaleel was born? A. Eight hundred and forty years. Gen. 5:13. Q. What was Cainan's age when he died? A. Nine hundred and ten years. Gen. 5:14. Q. How long did Mahalaleel live after Jared was born? A. Eight hundred and thirty years. Gen. 5:16. Q. What was Mahalaleel's age when he died? A. Eight hundred and ninety five years. Gen. 5:17. Q. How long did Jared live after Enoch was born? A. Eight hundred years. Gen. 5:19. Q. What was Jared's age when he died? A. Nine hundred and sixty two years. Gen. 5:20. Q. How long did Enoch walk with God after Methuselah was born? A. Three hundred years. Gen. 5:22. Q. What was Enoch's age when he was translated? A. Three hundred and sixty five years. Gen. 5:23 Q. How long did Methuselah live after Lamech was born? A. Seven hundred and eighty two years. Gen. 5:26. Q. What was Methuselah's age when he died? A. Nine hundred and sixty nine years. Gen. 5:27. Q. How long did Lamech live after Noah was born? A. Five hundred and ninety five years. Gen. 5:30. Q. What was Lamech's age when he died? A. Seven hundred and seventy seven years. Gen. 5:31. For the account of the last item see [§ II. ¶ 40.] Q. In what year of the world did Adam die? A. In the nine hundred and thirtieth. Q. In what year was Enoch translated? A. In the nine hundred and eighty seventh. Q. In what year did Seth die? A. In the one thousand and forty second. Q. In what year did Enos die? A. In the eleven hundred and fortieth. Q. In what year did Cainan die? A. In the twelve hundred and thirty fifth. Q. In what year did Mahalaleel die? A. In the twelve hundred and ninetieth. Q. In what year did Jared die? A. In the fourteen hundred and twenty second. Q. In what year did Lamech die? A. In the sixteen hundred and fifty first. Q. In what year did Methuselah die? A. In the sixteen hundred and fifty sixth. For this account see § II. ¶ 41. Q. How old was Noah when Enos died? A. Eighty four years. Q. How old when Cainan died? A. One hundred and seventy nine years. Q. How old when Mahalaleel died? A. Two hundred and thirty four years. Q. How old when Jared died? A. Three hundred and sixty six years. Q. How old when Lamech died? A. Five hundred and ninety five years. Q. How old when Methuselah died? A. Six hundred years. See § II. ¶ 42, for the last item. Q. How many of those men lived in the days of Noah? A. Six. Q. What are their names? A. Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech. [§ II. ¶ 43.] Q. How many of those men were contemporary with Adam and Noah both? A. Six. Q. What are their names? A. Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Methuselah, and Lamech. [§ II. ¶ 43.] Q. According to the foregoing account, how was the knowledge of the existence of God first suggested to the minds of men? A. By the manifestation made to our father Adam, when he was in the presence of God, both before and while he was in Eden. [§ II. ¶ 44.] Q. How was the knowledge of the existence of God disseminated among the inhabitants of the world? A. By tradition from father to son. [§ II. ¶ 44.] Q. How old was Noah when Shem was born? A. Five hundred and two years. Gen. 5:32. 11:10. Q. What was the term of years from the birth of Shem to the flood? A. Ninety eight. Q. What was the term of years that Noah lived after the flood? A. Three hundred and fifty. Gen. 9:28. Q. What was Noah's age when he died? A. Nine hundred and fifty years. Gen. 9:29. [§ II. ¶ 45.] Q. What was Shem's age when Arphaxad was born? A. One hundred years. Gen. 11:10. Q. What was Arphaxad's age when Salah was born! Thirty five years. Gen. 11:12. Q. What was Salah's age when Eber was born? A. Thirty years. Gen. 11:16. Q. What was Eber's age when Peleg was born? A. Thirty four years. Gen. 11:14. Q. What was Peleg's age when Reu was born? A. Thirty years. Gen. 11:18. Q. What was Reu's age when Serug was born? A. Thirty two years. Gen. 11:20. Q. What was Serug's age when Nahor was born? A. Thirty years. Gen. 11:22. Q. What was Nahor's age when Terah was born? A. Twenty nine years. Gen. 11:24. Q. What was Terah's age when Nahor (the brother of Abraham) was born? A. Seventy years. Gen. 11:26. Q. What was Terah's age when Abraham was born? A. Some suppose one hundred and thirty years, and others seventy. Gen. 12:4. 11:26. [§ II. ¶ 42.] Q. What was the number of years from the flood to the birth of Abraham? A. Supposing Abraham to have been born when Terah was one hundred and thirty years old, it was three hundred and fifty two years: but if he was born when Terah was seventy years old, it was two hundred and ninety two years. [§ II. ¶ 47.] Q. How long did Shem live after Arphaxad was born? A. Five hundred years. Gen. 11:11. Q. What was Shem's age when he died? A. Six hundred years. Gen. 11:11. Q. What number of years did Arphaxad live after Salah was born? A. Four hundred and three years. Gen. 21:13. Q. What was Arphaxad's age when he died? A. Four hundred and thirty eight years. Q. What number of years did Salah live after Eber was born? A. Four hundred and three years. Gen. 11:15. Q. What was Salah's age when he died? A. Four hundred and thirty three years. Q. What number of years did Eber live after Peleg was born? A. Four hundred and thirty years. Gen. 11:17. Q. What was Eber's age when he died? A. Four hundred and sixty four years. Q. What number of years did Peleg live after Reu was born? A. Two hundred and nine years. Gen. 11:19. Q. What was Peleg's age when he died? A. Two hundred and thirty nine years. Q. What number of years did Reu live after Serug was born? A. Two hundred and seven years. Gen. 9:21. Q. What was Reu's age when he died? A. Two hundred and thirty nine years. Q. What number of years did Serug live after Nahor was born? A. Two hundred years. Gen. 11:23. Q. What was Serug's age when he died? A. Two hundred and thirty years. Q. What number of years did Nahor live after Terah was born? A. One hundred and nineteen years. Gen. 11:25. Q. What was Nahor's age when he died? A. One hundred and forty eight years. Q. What number of years did Terah live after Abraham was born? A. Supposing Terah to have been one hundred and thirty years old when Abraham was born, he lived, seventy five years; but if Abraham was born when Terah was seventy years old, he lived one hundred and thirty five. Q. What was Terah's age when he died? A. Two hundred and five years. Gen. 9:32. For this account, from the birth of Arphaxad to the death of Terah, see [§ II. ¶ 48.] Q. In what year of the world did Peleg die? A. Agreeable to the foregoing chronology, he died in the nineteen hundred and ninety sixth year of the world. Q. In what year of the world did Nahor die? A. In the nineteen hundred and ninety seventh. Q. In what year of the world did Noah die? A. In the two thousand and sixth. Q. In what year of the world did Reu die? A. In the two thousand and twenty sixth. Q. In what year of the world did Serug die? A. In the two thousand and forty ninth. Q. In what year of the world did Terah die? A. In the two thousand and eighty third. Q. In what year of the world did Arphaxad die? A. In the two thousand and ninety sixth. Q. In what year of the world did Salah die? A. In the twenty one hundred and twenty sixth. Q. In what year of the world did Abraham die? A. In the twenty one hundred and eighty third. Q. In what year of the world did Eber die? A. In the twenty one hundred and eighty seventh. For this account of the year of the world in which those men died, see [§ II. ¶ 49,50.] Q. How old was Nahor (Abraham's brother) when Noah died? A. Fifty eight years. Q. How old was Terah? A. One hundred and twenty eight. Q. How old was Serug? A. One hundred and eighty seven. Q. How old was Reu? A. Two hundred and nineteen. Q. How old was Eber? A. Two hundred and eighty three. Q. How old was Salah? A. Three hundred and thirteen. Q. How old was Arphaxad? A. Three hundred and forty eight. Q. How old was Shem? A. Four hundred and forty eight. For the last account see [§ II. ¶ 51.] Q. How old was Abraham when Reu died? A. Eighteen years, if he was born when Terah was one hundred and thirty years old. Q. What was his age when Serug and Nahor (Abraham's brother) died? A. Forty one years. Q. What was his age when Terah died? A. Seventy five years. Q. What was his age when Arphaxad died? A. Eighty eight. Q. What was his age when Salah died? A. One hundred and eighteen years. Q. What was his age when Shem died? A. One hundred and fifty years. For this see [§ II. ¶ 52.] Q. How many noted characters lived from Noah to Abraham? A. Ten. Q. What are their names? A. Shem, Arphaxad, Salah, Eber, Peleg, Reu, Serug, Nahor, Terah, and Nahor, (Abraham's brother). [§ II. ¶ 52.] Q. How many of these were cotemporary with Noah? A. The whole. Q. How many With Abraham? A. Eight. Q. What are their names? A. Nahor (Abraham's brother), Terah, Serug, Reu, Eber, Salah, Arphaxad, and Shem. [§ II. ¶ 52.] Q. How many were cotemporary with both Noah and Abraham? A. Eight. Q. What are their names? A. Shem, Arphaxad, Salah, Eber, Reu, Serug, Terah, and Nahor (Abraham's brother). [§ II. ¶ 52.] Q. Did any of these men die before Noah? A. They did. Q. Who were they? A. Peleg, in whose days the earth was divided; and Nahor, (Abraham's grandfather). [§ II. ¶ 49.] Q. Did any one of them live longer than Abraham? A. There was one. [§ II. ¶ 50.] Q. Who was he? A. Eber, the fourth from Noah. [§ II. ¶ 50.] Q. In whose days was the earth divided? A. In the days of Peleg. Q. Where have we the account given that the earth was divided in the days of Peleg? A. Gen. 10:25. Q. Can you repeat the sentence? A. Unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided. Q. What testimony have men, in the first instance, that there is a God? A. Human testimony, and human testimony only. [§ II. ¶ 56.] Q. What excited the ancient saints to seek diligently after a knowledge of the glory of God, his perfections and attributes? A. The credence they gave to the testimony of their fathers. [§ II. ¶ 56.] Q. How do men obtain a knowledge of the glory of God, his perfections and attributes? A. By devoting themselves to his service, through prayer and supplication incessantly strengthening their faith in him, until, like Enoch, the brother of Jared, and Moses, they obtain a manifestation of God to themselves. [§ II. ¶ 55.] Q. Is the knowledge of the existence of God a matter of mere tradition, founded upon human testimony alone, until persons receive a manifestation of God to themselves? A. It is. Q. How do you prove it? A. From the whole of the first and second lectures. LECTURE THIRD. Of Faith. Section III. 1. In the second lecture it was shown, how it was that the knowledge of the existence of God, came into the world, and by what means the first thoughts were suggested to the minds of men, that such a Being did actually exist: and that it was by reason of the knowledge of his existence that there was a foundation laid for the exercise of faith in him, as the only Being in whom faith could center for life and salvation. For faith could not center in a Being of whose existence we have no idea; because the idea of his existence in the first instance, is essential to the exercise of faith in him. Rom. 10:14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? (or one sent to tell them?) So then faith comes by hearing the word of God. [New Translation.] 2. Let us here observe, that three things are necessary, in order that any rational and intelligent being may exercise faith in God unto life and salvation. 3. First, the idea that he actually exists. 4. Secondly, A _correct_ idea of his character, perfections, and attributes. 5. Thirdly, An actual knowledge that the course of life which he is pursuing, is according to his will.--For without an acquaintance with these three important facts, the faith of every rational being must be imperfect and unproductive; but with this understanding it can become perfect and fruitful, abounding in righteousness, unto the praise and glory of God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. 6. Having previously been made acquainted with the way the idea of his existence came into the world, as well as the fact of his existence, we shall proceed to examine his character, perfections and attributes, in order that this class may see, not only the just grounds which they have for the exercise of faith in him, for life and salvation, but the reasons that all the world, also, as far as the idea of his existence extends, may have to exercise faith in him the Father of all living. 7. As we have been indebted to a revelation which God made of himself to his creatures in the first instance, for the idea of his existence, so in like manner we are indebted to the revelations which he has given to us, for a correct understanding of his character, perfections, and attributes; because, without the revelations which he has given to us, no man by searching could find out God. Job 11:7,8,9. First Cor. 2:9,10,11: But as it is written, eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him; but God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knows no man but by the Spirit of God. 8. Having said so much, we proceed to examine the character which the revelations have given of God. 9. Moses gives us the following account in Exodus, 34:6 And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, 'The Lord God, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth. Psalm 103:6,7,8 The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed. He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts unto the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy: Psalm 103:17,18: But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children, to such as keep his covenant, and to those that remember his commandments to do them. Psalm 90:2: Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. Heb. 1:10,11,12 And you, Lord, in the beginning, have laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of your hands: they shall perish, but you remain; and they shall wax old as a garment; and as a vesture shall you fold them up, and they shall be changed; but you are the same and your years shall not fail James 1:17: Every good gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights; with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Malachi 3:6. For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. 10. Book of Commandments, chpt. 2nd, commencing in the third line of the first paragraph: For God does not walk in crooked paths, neither does he turn to the right hand or the left, or vary from that which he has said, therefore his paths are strait, and his course is one eternal round: Book of Commandments, chapt. 37:1. Listen to the voice of the Lord your God, even Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, whose course is one eternal round, the same yesterday to-day and forever. 11. Numbers, 23:19. God is not a man, that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent. First John, 4:8. He that loves not, knows not God; for God is love. Acts 10:34: Then Peter opened his mouth and said Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation he that fears God and works righteousness is accepted with him. 12. From the foregoing testimonies, we learn the following things respecting the character of God. 13. First, That he was God before the world was created, and the same God that he was, after it was created. 14. Secondly, That he is merciful, and gracious, slow to anger, abundant in goodness, and that he was so from everlasting, and will be to everlasting. 15. Thirdly, That he changes not, neither is there variableness with him; but that he is the same from everlasting to everlasting, being the same yesterday to-day and forever; and that his course is one eternal round, without variation. 16. Fourthly, That he is a God of truth and cannot lie. 17. Fifthly, That he is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that fears God and works righteousness is accepted of him. 18. Sixthly, That he is love. 19. An acquaintance with these attributes in the divine character, is essentially necessary, in order that the faith of any rational being can center in him for life and salvation. For if he did not, in the first instance, believe him to be God, that is, the Creator and upholder of all things, he could not _center_ his faith in him for life and salvation, for fear there should be greater than he, who would thwart all his plans, and he, like the gods of the heathen, would be unable to fulfill his promises; but seeing he is God over all, from everlasting to everlasting, the Creator and upholder of all things, no such fear can exist in the minds of those who put their trust in him, so that in this respect their faith can be without wavering. 20. But secondly: unless he was merciful and gracious, slow to anger, long-suffering and full of goodness, such is the weakness of human nature, and so great the frailties and imperfections of men, that unless they believed that these excellencies existed in the divine character, the faith necessary to salvation could not exist; for doubt would take the place of faith, and those who know their weakness and liability to sin would be in constant doubt of salvation if it were not for the idea which they have of the excellency of the character of God, that he is slow to anger and long-suffering, and of a forgiving disposition, and does forgive iniquity, transgression, and sin. An idea of these facts does away doubt, and makes faith exceedingly strong. 21. But it is equally as necessary that men should have the idea that he is a God who changes not, in order to have faith in him, as it is to have the idea that he is gracious and long-suffering. For without the idea of unchangeableness in the character of the Deity, doubt would take the place of faith. But with the idea that he changes not, faith lays hold upon the excellencies in his character with unshaken confidence, believing he is the same yesterday, to-day and forever, and that his course is one eternal round. 22. And again, the idea that he is a God of truth and cannot lie, is equally as necessary to the exercise of faith in him, as the idea of his unchangeableness. For without the idea that he was a God of truth and could not lie, the confidence necessary to be placed in his word in order to the exercise of faith in him, could not exist. But having the idea that he is not man that he can lie, it gives power to the minds of men to exercise faith in him. 23. But it is also necessary that men should have an idea that he is no respecter of persons; for with the idea of all the other excellencies in his character, and this one wanting, men could not exercise faith in him, because if he were a respecter of persons, they could not tell what their privileges were, nor how far they were authorized to exercise faith in him or whether they were authorized to do it at all, but all must be confusion; but no sooner are the minds of men made acquainted with the truth on this point, that he is no respecter of persons, than they see that they have authority by faith to lay hold on eternal life the richest boon of heaven, because God is no respecter of persons, and that every man in every nation has an equal privilege. 24. And lastly, but not less important to the exercise of faith in God, is the idea that he is love; for with all the other excellencies in his character, without this one to influence them, they could not have such powerful dominion over the minds of men; but when the idea is planted in the mind that he is love, who cannot see the just ground that men of every nation, kindred, and tongue, have to exercise faith in God so as to obtain eternal life? 25. From the above description of the character of the Deity which is given him in the revelations to men, there is a sure foundation for the exercise of faith in him among every people, nation and kindred, from age to age, and from generation to generation. 26. Let us here observe that the foregoing is the character which is given of God in his revelations to the Former Day Saints, and it is also the character which is given of him in his revelations to the Latter Day Saints, so that the saints of former days, and those of latter days, are both alike in this respect; the "Latter Day Saints" having as good grounds to exercise faith in God, as the former day saints had; because the same character is given of him to both. Q. What was shown in the second lecture? A. It was shown how the knowledge of the existence of God came into the world--[§ III. ¶ 1.] Q. What is the effect of the idea of his existence among men? A. It lays the foundation for the exercise of faith in him.--[§ III. ¶ 1.] Q. Is the idea of his existence, in the first instance, necessary in order for the exercise of faith in him? A. It is. [§ III. ¶ 1.] Q. How do you prove it? A. By the tenth chapter of Romans and fourteenth verse. [§ III. ¶ 1.] Q. How many things are necessary for us to understand, respecting the Deity and our relation to him, in order that we may exercise faith in him for life and salvation? A. Three. [§ III. ¶ 2.] Q. What are they? A. First, that God does actually exist; secondly, correct ideas of his character, his perfections and attributes; and thirdly, that the course which we pursue is according to his mind and will. [§ III. ¶ 3,4,5.] Q. Would the idea of any one or two of the above-mentioned things enable a person to exercise faith in God? A. It would not, for without the idea of them all, faith would be imperfect and unproductive. [§ III. ¶ 5.] Q. Would an idea of these three things lay a sure foundation for the exercise of faith in God, so as to obtain life and salvation? A. It would; for by the idea of these three things, faith could become perfect, and fruitful, abounding in righteousness unto the praise and glory of God. [§ III. ¶ 5.] Q. How are we to be made acquainted with the before mentioned things respecting the Deity, and respecting ourselves? A. By revelation. [§ III. ¶ 6.] Q. Could these things be found out by any other means than by revelation? A. They could not. Q. How do you prove it? A. By the scriptures. Job 11:7,8:9. 1 Corinthians 2:9,10,11. [§ III. ¶ 7.] Q. What things do we learn in the revelations of God respecting his character? A. We learn the six following things: first, that he was God before the world was created, and the same God that he was after it was created. Secondly, that he is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abundant in goodness, and that he was so from everlasting, and will be so to everlasting. Thirdly, that he changes not, neither is there variableness with him, and that his course is one eternal round. Fourthly, that he is a God of truth and cannot lie. Fifthly, that he is no respecter of persons; and sixthly, that he is love. [§ III. ¶ 12,13,14,15,16,17,18.] Q. Where do you find the revelations which give us this idea of the character of the Deity? A. In the bible and book of commandments, and they are quoted in the third lecture. [§ III. ¶ 9,10,11.] Q. What effect would it have on any rational being not to have an idea that the Lord was God, the Creator and upholder of all things? A. It would prevent him from exercising faith in him unto life and salvation. Q. Why would it prevent him from exercising faith in God? A. Because he would be as the heathen not knowing but there might be a being greater and more powerful than he, and thereby he be prevented from fulfilling his promises. [§ III. ¶ 19.] Q. Does this idea prevent this doubt? A. It does; for persons having this idea are enabled thereby to exercise faith without this doubt. [§ III. ¶ 19.] Q. Is it not also necessary to have the idea that God is merciful, and gracious, long-suffering and full of goodness? A. It is. [§ III. ¶ 20.] Q. Why is it necessary? A. Because of the weakness and imperfections of human nature, and the great frailties of man; for such is the weakness of man, and such his frailties, that he is liable to sin continually, and if God were not long-suffering, and full of compassion, gracious and merciful and of a forgiving disposition, man would be cut off from before him in consequence of which, he would be in continual doubt and could not exercise faith; for where doubt is, there faith has no power, but by man's believing that God is full of compassion and forgiveness, long-suffering and slow to anger, he can exercise faith in him and overcome doubt, so as to be exceedingly strong. [§ III. ¶ 20.] Q. Is it not equally as necessary that man should have an idea that God changes not, neither is there variableness with him, in order to exercise faith in him unto life and salvation? A. It is; because without this, he would not know how soon the mercy of God might change into cruelty, his long-suffering into rashness, his love into hatred, and in consequence of which doubt man would be incapable of exercising faith in him, but having the idea that he is unchangeable, man can have faith in him continually, believing that, what he was yesterday he is to-day, and will be forever. [§ III. ¶ 21.] Q. Is it not necessary also, for men to have an idea that God is a being of truth before they can have perfect faith in him? A. It is; for unless men have this idea they cannot place confidence in his word, and not being able to place confidence in his word, they could not have faith in him; but believing that he is a God of truth, and that his word cannot fail, their faith can rest in him without doubt. [§ III. ¶ 22.] Q. Could man exercise faith in God so as to obtain eternal life unless he believed that God was no respecter of persons? A. He could not; because without this idea he could not certainly know that it was his privilege so to do, and in consequence of this doubt his faith could not be sufficiently strong to save him. [§ III. ¶ 23.] Q. Would it be possible for a man to exercise faith in God, so as to be saved, unless he had an idea that God was love? A. He could not; because man could not love God unless he had an idea that God was love, and if he did not love God he could not have faith in him. [§ III. ¶ 24.] Q. What is the description which the sacred writers give of the character of the Deity calculated to do? A. It is calculated to lay a foundation for the exercise of faith in him, as far as the knowledge extends among all people, tongues, languages, kindreds and nations and that from age to age, and from generation to generation. [§ III. ¶ 25.] Q. Is the character which God has given of himself uniform? A. It is, in all his revelations, whether to the Former Day Saints, or to the Latter day saints, so that they all have the authority to exercise faith in him, and to expect by the exercise of their faith, to enjoy the same blessings. [§ III. ¶ 26.] LECTURE FOURTH. Of Faith. SECTION IV. 1. Having shown in the third lecture, that correct ideas of the character of God are necessary in order to the exercise of faith in him unto life and salvation, and that without correct ideas of his character, the minds of men could not have sufficient power with God to the exercise of faith necessary to the enjoyment of eternal life, and that correct ideas of his character lay a foundation as far as his character is concerned, for the exercise of faith, so as to enjoy the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of Jesus Christ, even that of eternal glory; we shall now proceed to show the connection there is between correct ideas of the attributes of God, and the exercise of faith in him unto eternal life. 2. Let us here observe, that the real design which the God of heaven had in view in making the human family acquainted with his attributes, was, that they through the ideas of the existence of his attributes, might be enabled to exercise faith in him, and through the exercise of faith in him, might obtain eternal life. For without the idea of the existence of the attributes which belong to God, the minds of men could not have power to exercise faith in him so as to lay hold upon eternal life. The God of heaven understanding most perfectly the constitution of human nature, and the weakness of men, knew what was necessary to be revealed, and what ideas must be planted in their minds in order that they might be enabled to exercise faith in him unto eternal life. 3. Having said so much we shall proceed to examine the attributes of God, as set forth in his revelations to the human family, and to show how necessary correct ideas of his attributes are, to enable men to exercise faith in him. For without these ideas being planted in the minds of men it would be out of the power of any person or persons to exercise faith in God so as to obtain eternal life. So that the divine communications made to men in the first instance, were designed to establish in their minds the ideas necessary to enable them to exercise faith in God, and through this means to be partakers of his glory. 4. We have, in the revelations which he has given to the human family, the following account of his attributes. 5. First, Knowledge. Acts 15:18. Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. Isaiah 46:9,10. Remember the former things of old; for I am God and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, _declaring the end from the beginning_, and from ancient time the things that are not yet done, saying. My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure. 6. Secondly, Faith, or power. Heb. 11:3. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. Gen. 1:1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Isaiah 14:24,27. The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed so shall it stand. For the Lord of Hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back? 7. Thirdly, Justice. Psalm 89:14. Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne. Isaiah 45:21. Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from the ancient time? Have not I the Lord? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour. Zeph. 5:5. The just Lord is in the midst thereof. Zech. 9:9. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation. 8. Fourthly, Judgment. Ps. 89:14. Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne. Deut. 32:4. He is the Rock, his work is perfect; for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth, and without iniquity: just and right is he. Ps. 9:7. But the Lord shall endure for ever: he has prepared his throne for judgment. Ps. 9:16. The Lord is known by the judgment which he executeth. 9. Fifthly, Mercy. Ps. 89:15. Mercy and truth shall go before his face. Exodus 34:6. And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious. Neh. 9:17.--But you art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful. 10. And Sixthly, Truth. Ps. 89:14. Mercy and truth shall go before thy face. Exodus 34:6. Long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth. Deut. 32:4. He is the Rock, his work is perfect; for all his ways are judgment. A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. Ps 31:5. Into thy hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth. 11. By a little reflection it will be seen, that the idea of the existence of these attributes in the Deity, is necessary to enable any rational being to exercise faith in him. For without the idea of the existence of these attributes in the Deity, men could not exercise faith in him for life and salvation; seeing that without the knowledge of all things God would not be able to save any portion of his creatures; for it is by reason of the knowledge which he has of all things, from the beginning to the end, that enables him to give that understanding to his creatures by which they are made partakers of eternal life; and if it were not for the idea existing in the minds of men that God had all knowledge, it would be impossible for them to exercise faith in him. 12. And it is not less necessary that men should have the idea of the existence of the attribute power in the Deity. For, unless God had power over all things, and was able, by his power, to control all things, and thereby deliver his creatures who put their trust in him, from the power of all beings that might seek their destruction, whether in heaven, on earth, or in hell, men could not be saved; but with the idea of the existence of this attribute planted in the mind, men feel as though they had nothing to fear who put their trust in God, believing that he has power to save all who come to him, to the very uttermost. 13. It is also necessary, in order to the exercise of faith in God, unto life and salvation, that men should have the idea of the existence of the attribute justice, in him. For without the idea of the existence of the attribute Justice, in the Deity, men could not have confidence sufficient to place themselves under his guidance and direction; for they would be filled with fear and doubt, lest the Judge of all the earth would not do right, and thus fear, or doubt, existing in the mind, would preclude the possibility of the exercise of faith in him for life and salvation. But, when the idea of the existence of the attribute justice, in the Deity, is fairly planted in the mind, it leaves no room for doubt to get into the heart, and the mind is enabled to cast itself upon the Almighty without fear and without doubt, and with the most unshaken confidence, believing that the Judge of all the earth will do right. 14. It is also of equal importance that men should have the idea of the existence of the attribute judgment, in God, in order that they may exercise faith in him for life and salvation; for without the idea of the existence of this attribute in the Deity, it would be impossible for men to exercise faith in him for life and salvation, seeing that it is through the exercise of this attribute that the faithful in Christ Jesus are delivered out of the hands of those who seek their destruction; for if God were not to come out in swift judgment against the workers of iniquity and the powers of darkness, his saints could not be saved; for it is by judgment that the Lord delivers his saints out of the hands of all their enemies, and those who reject the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. But no sooner is the idea of the existence of this attribute, planted in the minds of men, than it gives power to the mind for the exercise of faith and confidence in God, and they are enabled, by faith, to lay hold on the promises which are set before them, and wade through all the tribulations and afflictions to which they are subjected by reason of the persecution from those who know not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, believing, that in due time the Lord will come out in swift judgement against their enemies, and they shall be cut off from before him, and that, in his own due time he will bear them off conquerors and more than conquerors in all things. 15. And again, it is equally important that men should have the idea of the existence of the attribute mercy, in the Deity, in order to exercise faith in him for life and salvation. For without the idea of the existence of this attribute in the Deity, the spirits of the saints would taint in the midst of the tribulations afflictions, and persecutions which they have to endure for righteousness' sake; but when the idea of the existence of this attribute is once established in the mind it gives life and energy to the spirits of the saints: believing that the mercy of God will be poured out upon them in the midst of their afflictions, and that he will compassionate them in their sufferings, and that the mercy of God will lay hold of them and secure them in the arms of his love, so that they will receive a full reward for all their sufferings. 16. And lastly, but not less important to the exercise of faith in God, is the idea of the existence of the attribute truth, in him. For without the idea of the existence of this attribute the mind of man could have nothing upon which it could rest with certainty: all would be confusion and doubt; but with the idea of the existence of this attribute in the Deity, in the mind, all the teachings, instructions, promises, and blessings, become realities, and the mind is enabled to lay hold of them with certainty and confidence: believing that these things, and all that the Lord has said, shall be fulfilled in their time; and that all the cursings, denunciations, and judgments, pronounced upon the heads of the unrighteous will also be executed in the due time of the Lord: and, by reason of the truth and veracity of him, the mind beholds its deliverance and salvation as being certain. 17. Let the mind once reflect sincerely and candidly upon the ideas of the existence of the before-mentioned attributes in the Deity, and it will be seen, that as far as his attributes are concerned, there is a sure foundation laid for the exercise of faith in him for life and salvation. For inasmuch as God possesses the attribute knowledge he can make all things known to his saints necessary for their salvation; and as he possesses the attribute power he is able thereby to deliver them from the power of all enemies; and seeing also, that justice is an attribute of the Deity, he will deal with them upon the principles of righteousness and equity, and a just reward will be granted unto them for all their afflictions and sufferings for the truth's sake. And as judgment is an attribute of the Deity also, his saints can have the most unshaken confidence that they will, in due time, obtain a perfect deliverance out of the hands of all their enemies, and a complete victory over all those who have sought their hurt and destruction. And as mercy is also an attribute of the Deity, his saints can have confidence that it will be exercised towards them; and through the exercise of that attribute towards them comfort and consolation will be administered unto them abundantly, amid all their afflictions and tribulations. And lastly, realizing that truth is an attribute of the Deity, the mind is led to rejoice amid all its trials and temptations, in hope of that glory which is to be brought at the revelation of Jesus Christ, and in view of that crown which is to be placed upon the heads of the saints in the day when the Lord shall distribute rewards unto them, and in prospect of that eternal weight of glory which the Lord has promised to bestow upon them when he shall bring them into the midst of his throne to dwell in his presence eternally. 18. In view, then, of the existence of these attributes, the faith of the saints can become exceedingly strong, abounding in righteousness unto the praise and glory of God, and can exert its mighty influence in searching after wisdom and understanding, until it has obtained a knowledge of all things that pertain to life and salvation. 19. Such, then, is the foundation, which is laid, through the revelation of the attributes of God, for the exercise of faith in him for life and salvation; and seeing that these are attributes of the Deity, they are unchangeable--being the same yesterday, to day, and forever--which gives to the minds of the Latter Day Saints the same power and authority to exercise faith in God, which the Former Day Saints had; so that all the saints, in this respect have been, are, and will be alike until the end of time; for God never changes, therefore his attributes and character remain forever the same. And as it is through the revelation of these that a foundation is laid for the exercise of faith in God unto life and salvation, the foundation, therefore, for the exercise of faith was, is, and ever will be the same. So that all men have had, and will have an equal privilege. _Question_. What was shown in the third lecture? _Answer_. It was shown that correct ideas of the character of God are necessary in order to exercise faith in him unto life and salvation; and that without correct ideas of his character, men could not have power to exercise faith in him unto life and salvation, but that correct ideas of his character, as far as his character was concerned in the exercise of faith in him, lay a sure foundation for the exercise of it. [§ IV. ¶ 1.] Q. What object had the God of Heaven in revealing his attributes to men? A. That through an acquaintance with his attributes they might be enabled to exercise faith in him so as to obtain eternal life. [§ IV. ¶ 2.] Q. Could men exercise faith in God without an acquaintance with his attributes, so as to be enabled to lay hold of eternal life? A. They could not. [§ IV. ¶ 2,3.] Q. What account is given of the attributes of God in his revelations? A. First, Knowledge; secondly, Faith, or power; thirdly, Justice, fourthly, Judgment, fifthly, Mercy, and sixthly, truth. [§ IV. ¶ 4,5,6,7,8,9,10.] Q. Where are the revelations to be found which give this relation or the attributes of God? A. In the Old and New Testaments, and they are quoted in the fourth lecture, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth paragraphs.* Q. Is the idea or the existence of these attributes, in the Deity, necessary in order to enable any rational being to exercise faith in him unto life and salvation? A. It is. Q. How do you prove it? A. By the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth paragraphs in this lecture.* Q. Does the idea of the existence of these attributes in the Deity, as far as his attributes are concerned, enable a rational being to exercise faith in him unto life and salvation? A. It does. Q. How do you prove it? A. By the seventeenth and eighteenth paragraphs.* Q. Have the Latter Day Saints as much authority given them, through the revelation of the attributes of God, to exercise faith in him as the Former Day Saints had? A. They have. Q. How do you prove it? A. By the nineteenth paragraph of this lecture.* _Note._ Let the student turn and commit these paragraphs to memory. LECTURE FIFTH. Of Faith. SECTION V. 1. In our former lectures we treated of the being, character, perfections, and attributes of God. What we mean by perfections, is, the perfections which belong to all the attributes of his nature. We shall, in this lecture, speak of the Godhead: we mean the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 2. There are two personages who constitute the great, matchless, governing, and supreme power over all things--by whom all things were created and made, that are created and made, whether visible or invisible: whether in heaven, on earth, or in the earth, under the earth, or throughout the immensity of space--They are the Father and the Son: the Father being a personage of spirit, glory, and power: possessing all perfection and fullness: the Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, a personage of tabernacle, made, or fashioned like unto man, or being in the form and likeness of man, or, rather, man was formed after his likeness, and in his image;--he is also the express image and likeness of the personage of the Father: possessing all the fullness of the Father, or the same fulness with the Father; being begotten of him, and ordained from before the foundation of the world to be a propitiation for the sins of all those who should believe on his name, and is called the Son because of the flesh--and descended in suffering below that which man can suffer, or, in other words, suffered greater sufferings, and was exposed to more powerful contradictions than any man can be. But notwithstanding all this, he kept the law of God, and remained without sin: Showing thereby that it is in the power of man to keep the law and remain also without sin. And also, that by him a righteous judgment might come upon all flesh, and that all who walk not in the law of God, may justly be condemned by the law, and have no excuse for their sins. And he being the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, and having overcome, received a fullness of the glory of the Father--possessing the same mind with the Father, which mind is the Holy Spirit, that bears record of the Father and the Son, and these three are one, or in other words, these three constitute the great, matchless, governing and supreme power over all things: by whom all things were created and made, that were created and made: and these three constitute the Godhead, and are one: the Father and the Son possessing the same mind, the same wisdom, glory, power, and fullness: Filling all in all--the Son being filled with the fulness of the Mind, glory, and power, or, in other words, the Spirit, glory, and power, of the Father--possessing all knowledge and glory, and the same kingdom: sitting at the right hand of power, in the express image and likeness of the Father--a mediator for man--being filled with the fullness of the mind of the Father, or, in other words, the Spirit of the Father: which Spirit is shed forth upon all who believe on his name and keep his commandments: and all those who keep his commandments shall grow up from grace to grace, and become heirs of the heavenly kingdom, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ; possessing the same mind, being transformed into the same image or likeness, even the express image of him who fills all in all: being filled with the fullness of his glory, and become one in him, even as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one. 3. From the foregoing account of the Godhead, which is given in his revelations, the Saints have a sure foundation laid for the exercise of faith unto life and salvation, through the atonement and mediation of Jesus Christ, by whose blood they have a forgiveness of sins, and also a sure reward laid up for them in heaven, even that of partaking of the fulness of the Father and the Son, through the Spirit. As the Son partakes of the fullness of the Father through the Spirit, so the saints are, by the same Spirit, to be partakers of the same fullness, to enjoy the same glory; for as the Father and the Son are one, so in like manner the saints are to be one in them, through the love of the Father, the mediation of Jesus Christ, and the gift of the Holy Spirit; they are to be heirs of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. _Question_. Of what do the foregoing lectures treat? _Answer_. Of the being, perfections, and attributes of the Deity. [§5. ¶1.] Q. What are we to understand by the Reflections of the Deity? A. The perfections which belong to his attributes. Q. How many personages are there in the Godhead? A. Two : the Father and Son. [§5. ¶1.] Q. How do you prove that there are two personages in the Godhead? A. By the Scriptures. Gen. 1:26. Also §2. ¶6. And the Lord God said unto the Only Begotten, who was with him from the beginning, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:--and it was done. Gen. 3:22. And the Lord God said unto the Only Begotten, Behold, the man is become as one of us: to know good and evil. John, 17:5. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with you before the world was. [§5. ¶2.] Q. What is the Father? A. He is a personage of glory and of power. [§5. ¶2.] Q. How do you prove that the Father is a personage of glory and of power? A. Isaiah 60:19. The Sun shall be no more thy light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. 1 Chron. 29:11 Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory. Ps 29:3 The voice of the Lord is upon the waters: the God of glory thunders. Ps 79:9. Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name. Romans 1:23. And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man. Secondly, of power. 1 Chron. 29:4 Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory. Jer. 32:17 Ah! Lord God, behold thou hast made the earth and the heavens by thy great power, and stretched-out arm; and there is nothing too hard for thee. Deut 4:37. And because he loved thy fathers therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought them out in his sight with his mighty power. 2 Samuel 22:33. God is my strength and power. Job 26 commencing with the 7th verse to the end of the chapter. He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing. He binds up the waters in his thick clouds; and the cloud is not rent under them. He holds back the face of his throne, and spreads his cloud upon it. He has compassed the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an end. The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astonished at his reproof. He divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smites through the proud. By his Spirit he has garnished the heavens; his hand has formed the crooked serpent. Lo, these are parts of his ways! but how little a portion is heard of him? But the thunder of his power who can understand? Q. What is the Son? A. First, he is a personage of tabernacle. [§5. ¶2.] Q. How do you prove it? A. John 14:9,10,11, Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet have you not known me, Philip? He that has seen me has seen the Father; and how do you say then, Show us the Father? Do you not believe, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwells in me he does the works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me. Secondly, and being a personage of tabernacle, was made or fashioned like unto man, or being in the form and likeness of man. [§5. ¶2.] Philip. 2. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus; who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of man, and, being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Heb. 2. 14, 16. Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same. For verily he took not on him the nature of angels: but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Thirdly, he is also in the likeness of the personage of the Father. [§5. ¶2.] Heb 1. 1,2,3. God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in times past to the fathers, by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person. Again, Philip. 2:5,6 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus; who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. Q. Was it by the Father and the Son that all things were created and made that were created and made? A. It was. Col 1:15,16,17 Who is the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature; for by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, principalities or powers; all things were created by him and for him; and he is before all things, and by him all things consist. Gen. 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Heb. 1:2 [God] Has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds. Q. Does he possess the fullness of the Father? A. He does. Col. 1:19. 2:9. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Eph 1:23. Which is his [Christ's] body, the fullness of him that fills all in all. Q. Why was he called the Son? A. Because of the flesh. Luke 1:33 That holy thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God.--Math. 3:16,17 And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he [John] saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon him: and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Q. Was he ordained of the Father, from before the foundation of the world, to be a propitiation for the sins of all those who should believe on his name? A. He was. 1 Peter 1:18,19,20: Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation, received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifested in these last times for you. Rev. 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him [the beast] whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. 1 Corin. 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden mystery, which God ordained before the world unto our glory. Q. Do the Father and the Son possess the same mind? A. They do. John 5:30. I [Christ] can of my own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just; because I seek not my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me. John 6:38 For I [Christ] came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. John 10:30. I [Christ] and my Father are one. Q. What is this mind? A. The Holy Spirit. John 15:26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father, he shall testify of me. [Christ]. Gal. 4:6. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts. Q. Do the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit constitute the Godhead? A. They do. [§5. ¶2.] Let the student commit this paragraph to memory. Q. Do the believers in Christ Jesus, through the gift of the Spirit, become one with the Father and the Son, as the Father and the Son are one? A. They do. John 17:20,21. Neither pray I for these (the apostles) alone, but for them also who shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. Q. Does the foregoing account of the Godhead lay a sure foundation for the exercise of faith in him unto life and salvation? A. It does. Q. How do you prove it? A. By the third paragraph of this lecture. Let the student commit this also. LECTURE SIXTH. Of Faith. SECTION VI. 1. Having treated, in the preceding lectures, of the ideas, of the character, perfections and attributes of God, we next proceed to treat of the knowledge which persons must have, that the course of life which they pursue is according to the will of God, in order that they may be enabled to exercise faith in him unto life and salvation. 2. This knowledge supplies an important place in revealed religion; for it was by reason of it that the ancients were enabled to endure as seeing him who is invisible. An actual knowledge to any person that the course of life which he pursues is according to the will of God, is essentially necessary to enable him to have that confidence in God, without which no person can obtain eternal life. It was this that enabled the ancient saints to endure all their afflictions and persecutions, and to take joyfully the soiling of their goods, knowing (not believing merely,) that they had a more enduring substance. Heb. 10:34. 3. Having the assurance that they were pursuing a course which was agreeable to the will of God, they were enabled to take, not only the spoiling of their goods, and the wasting of their substance, joyfully, but also to suffer death in its most horrid forms; knowing, (not merely believing,) that when this earthly house of their tabernacle was dissolved, they had a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Second Cor. 5:1. 4. Such was and always will be the situation of the saints of God, that unless they have an actual knowledge that the course they are pursuing is according to the will of God, they will grow weary in their minds and faint; for such has been, and a ways will be, the opposition in the hearts of unbelievers and those that know not God against the pure and unadulterated religion of heaven, (the only thing which ensures eternal life,) that they will persecute, to the uttermost, all that worship God according to his revelations, receive the truth in the love of it, and submit themselves to be guided and directed by his will, and drive them to such extremities that nothing short of an actual knowledge of their being the favorites of heaven, and of their having embraced that order of things which God has established for the redemption of man, will enable them to exercise that confidence in him, necessary for them to overcome the world, and obtain that crown of glory which is laid up for them that fear God. 5. For a man to lay down his all, his character and reputation, his honor and applause, his good name among men, his houses, his lands, his brothers and sisters, his wife and children, and even his own life also, counting all things but filth and dross for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, requires more than mere belief, or supposition that he is doing the will of God, but actual knowledge: realizing, that when these sufferings are ended he will enter into eternal rest; and be a partaker of the glory of God. 6. For unless a person does know that he is walking according to the will of God, it would be offering an insult to the dignity of the Creator, were he to say that he would be a partaker of his glory when he should be done with the things of this life. But when he has this knowledge, and most assuredly knows that he is doing the will of God, his confidence can be equally strong that he will be a partaker of the glory of God. 7. Let us here observe, that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation; for, from the first existence of man, the faith necessary unto the enjoyment of life and salvation never could be obtained without the sacrifice of all earthly things. It was through this sacrifice, and this only, that God has ordained that men should enjoy eternal life; and it is through the medium of the sacrifice of all earthly things that men do actually know that they are doing the things that are well pleasing in the sight of God. When a man has offered in sacrifice all that he has, for the truth's sake, not even withholding his life, and believing before God that he has been called to make this sacrifice, because he seeks to do his will, he does know, most assuredly, that God does and will accept his sacrifice & offering, & that he has not nor will not seek his face in vain. Under these circumstances, then, he can obtain the faith necessary for him to lay hold on eternal life. 8. It is in vain for persons to fancy to themselves that they are heirs with those, or can be heirs with them, who have offered their all in sacrifice, and by this means obtained faith in God and favor with him so as to obtain eternal life, unless they in like manner offer unto him the same sacrifice, and through that offering obtain the knowledge that they are accepted of him. 9. It was in offering sacrifices that Abel, the first martyr, obtained knowledge that he was accepted of God. And from the days of righteous Abel to the present time, the knowledge that men have that they are accepted in the sight of God, is obtained by offering sacrifice: and in the last days, before the Lord comes, he is to gather together his saints who have made a covenant with him by sacrifice. Ps. 50: 3,4,5. Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about him. He shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people. Gather my saints together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. 10. Those, then, who make the sacrifice will have the testimony that their course is pleasing in the sight of God, and those who have this testimony will have faith to lay hold on eternal life, and will be enabled, through faith, to endure unto the end, and receive the crown that is laid up for them that love the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who do not make the sacrifice cannot enjoy this faith, because men are dependent upon this sacrifice in order to obtain this faith: therefore, they cannot lay hold upon eternal life, because the revelations of God do not guarantee unto them the authority so to do, and without this guarantee faith could not exist. 11. All the saints of whom we have account, in all the revelations of God which are extant, obtained the knowledge which they had of their acceptance in his sight, through the sacrifice which they offered unto him: and through the knowledge thus obtained their faith became sufficiently strong to lay hold upon the promise of eternal life, and to endure as seeing him who is invisible; and were enabled, through faith, to combat the powers of darkness, contend against the wiles of the adversary, overcome the world, and obtain the end of their faith, even the salvation of their souls. 12. But those who have not made this sacrifice to God, do not know that the course which they pursue is well pleasing in his sight; for whatever may be their belief or their opinion, it is a matter of doubt and uncertainty in their mind; and where doubt and uncertainty are, there faith is not, nor can it be. For doubt and faith do not exist in the same person at the same time. So that persons whose minds are under doubts and fears cannot have unshaken confidence, and where unshaken confidence is not, there faith is weak, and where faith is weak the persons will not be able to contend against all the opposition, tribulations, and afflictions which they will have to encounter in order to be heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ Jesus; and they will grow weary in their minds, and the adversary will have power over them and destroy them. _Note_. This Lecture is so plain, and the facts set forth so self-evident, that it is deemed unnecessary to form a catechism upon it: the student is therefore instructed to commit the whole to memory. LECTURE SEVENTH. Of Faith. SECTION VII. 1. In the preceding lectures, we treated of what faith was, and of the object on which it rested. Agreeably to our plan, we now proceed to speak of its effects: 2. As we have seen in our former lectures, that faith was the principle of action and of power in all intelligent beings, both in heaven and on earth, it will not be expected that we shall, in a lecture of this description, attempt to unfold all its effects; neither is it necessary to our purpose so to do; for it would embrace all things in heaven and on earth, and encompass all the creations of God, with all their endless varieties: for no world has yet been framed that was not framed by faith; neither has there been an intelligent being on any of God's creations who did not get there by reason of faith, as it existed in himself or in some other being; nor has there been a change or a revolution in any of the creatures of God, but it has been effected by faith: neither will there be a change or a revolution unless it is effected in the same way, in any of the vast creations of the Almighty; for it is by faith that the Deity works. 3. Let us here offer some explanation in relation to faith, that our meaning may be clearly comprehended: We ask, then, what are we to understand by a man's working by faith? We answer: We understand that when a man works by faith he works by mental exertion instead of physical force: it is by words instead of exerting his physical powers, with which every being works when he works by faith--God said, Let there be light, and there was light--Joshua spake and the great lights which God had created stood still--Elijah commanded, and the heavens were stayed for the space of three years and six months, so that it did not rain: he again commanded and the heavens gave forth rain--all this was done by faith; and the Saviour says, If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, say to this mountain, remove, and it will remove; or say to that sycamine tree, Be ye plucked up and planted in the midst of the sea, and it shall obey you. Faith, then, works by words; and with these its mightiest works have been, and will be, performed. 4. It surely will not be required of us to prove, that this is the principle upon which all eternity has acted and will act; for every reflecting mind must know, that it is by reason of this power that all the hosts of heaven perform their works of wonder, majesty, and glory: Angels move from place to place by virtue of this power--it is by reason of it that they are enabled to descend from heaven to earth; and were it not for the power of faith they never could be ministering spirits to them who should be heirs of salvation, neither could they act as heavenly messengers; for they would be destitute of the power necessary to enable them to do the will of God. 5. It is only necessary for us to say, that the whole visible creation, as it now exists, is the effect of faith--It was faith by which it was framed, and it is by the power of faith that it continues in its organized form, and by which the planets move round their orbits and sparkle forth their glory: So, then, faith is truly the first principle in the science of THEOLOGY, and when understood, leads the mind back to the beginning, and carries it forward to the end; or in other words, from eternity to eternity. 6. As faith, then, is the principle by which the heavenly hosts perform their works, and by which they enjoy all their felicity, we might expect to find it set forth in a revelation from God as the principle upon which his creatures, here below, must act, in order to obtain the felicities enjoyed by the saints in the eternal world, and that when God would undertake to raise up men for the enjoyment of himself, he would teach them the necessity of living by faith, and the impossibility there was of their enjoying the blessedness of eternity without it, seeing that all the blessings of eternity are the effects of faith. 7. Therefore, it is said, and appropriately too, that without faith it is impossible to please God. If it should be asked, Why is it impossible to please God without faith? The answer would be, because, without faith it is impossible for men to be saved; and as God desires the salvation of men, he must of course desire that they should have faith, and he could not be pleased unless they had, or else he could be pleased with their destruction. 8. From this we learn that the many exhortations which have been given by inspired men those who had received the word of the Lord, to have faith in him, were not mere common-place matters, but were for the best of all reasons, and that was, because, without it there was no salvation, neither in this world nor in that which is to come. When men begin to live by faith they begin to draw near to God; and when faith is perfected they are like him; and because he is saved they are saved also; for they will be in the same situation he is in, because they have come to him; and when he appears they shall be like him, for they will see him as he is. 9. As all the visible creation is an effect of faith, so is salvation, also. (We mean salvation in its most extensive latitude of interpretation, whether it is temporal or spiritual.) In order to have this subject clearly set before the mind, let us ask what situation must a person be in, in order to be saved? or what is the difference between a saved man and one who is not saved? We answer from what we have before seen of the heavenly worlds, they must be persons who can work by faith, and who are able, by faith to be ministering spirits to them who shall be heirs of salvation. And they must have faith to enable them to act in the presence of the Lord, otherwise they cannot be saved. And what constitutes the real difference between a saved person and one not saved, is the difference in the degree of their faith: one's faith has become perfect enough to Lay hold upon eternal life, and the other's has not. But to be a little more particular, let us ask, Where shall we find a prototype into whose likeness we may be assimilated, in order that we may be made partakers of life and salvation? or in other words, where shall we find a saved being? for if we can find a saved being, we may ascertain, without much difficulty, what all others must be, in order to be saved--they must be like that individual to be saved: we think, that it will not be a matter of dispute, that two beings, who are unlike each other, cannot both be saved; for whatever constitutes the salvation of one, will constitute the salvation of every creature which will be saved: and if we find one saved being in all existence, we may see what all others must be, or else not be saved. We ask, then, where is the prototype? or where is the saved being? We conclude, as to the answer of this question, there will be no dispute among those who believe the bible, that it is Christ: all will agree in this, that he is the prototype or standard of salvation; or, in other words, that he is a saved being. And if we should continue our interrogation, and ask how it is that he is saved? the answer would be, because he is a just and holy being; and if he were anything different from what he is he would not be saved; for his salvation depends on his being precisely what he is and nothing else; for if it were possible for him to change, in the least degree, so sure he would fail of salvation and lose all his dominion, power, authority and glory, which constitutes salvation; for salvation consists in the glory, authority, majesty, power and dominion which Jehovah possesses, and in nothing else; and no being can possess it but himself or one like him: Thus says John, in his first epistle, 3:2 and 3: Behold, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And any man that hath this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure.--Why purify themselves as he is pure? because, if they do not they cannot be like him. 10. The Lord said unto Moses, Leviticus, 19:2: Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy. And Peter says, first epistle, 1:15 and 16: But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy. And the Saviour says, Matthew, 5:48: Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. If any should ask, why all these sayings? the answer is to be found from what is before noted from John's epistle, that when he (the Lord) shall appear, the saints will be like him: and if they are not holy, as he is holy, and perfect as he is perfect, they cannot be like him; for no being can enjoy his glory without possessing his perfections and holiness, no more than they could reign in his kingdom without his power. 11. This clearly sets forth the propriety of the Saviour's saying, recorded in John's testimony, 14:12: Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these, because I go unto my Father.--This taken in connection with some of the sayings in the Saviour's prayer, recorded in the 17th chapter, gives great clearness to his expressions: He says in the 20, 21, 22, 23, and 24: Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also who shall believe on me through their words; that they all may be one; as you, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am: that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me; for thou lovedest me before the foundation of the world. 12. All these sayings put together, give as clear an account of the state of the glorified saints as language could give--the works that Jesus had done they were to do, and greater works than those which he had done among them should they do, and that because he went to the Father. He does not say that they should do these works in time; but they should do greater works because he went to the Father. He says, in the 24th verse: Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory. These sayings, taken in connection, make it very plain, that the greater works, which those that believed on his name, were to do, were to be done in eternity, where he was going, and where they should behold his glory. He had said, in another part of his prayer, that he desired of his Father, that those who believed on him should be one in him, as he, and the Father were one in each other: Neither pray I for these (the apostles) alone, but for them also who shall believe on me through their words; that they all may be one: that is, they who believe on him through the apostles' words, as well as the apostles themselves: that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee; that they also may be one in us. 13. What language can be plainer than this? The Saviour surely intended to be understood by his disciples: and he so spake that they might understand him; for he declares to his Father, in language not to be easily mistaken, that he wanted his disciples, even all of them, to be as himself and the Father: for as he and the Father were one so they might be one with them. And what is said in the 22nd verse is calculated to more firmly establish this belief, if it needs any thing to establish it. He says, And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one. As much as to say, that unless they have the glory which the Father had given him, they could not be one with them: For he says he had given them the glory that the Father had given him, that they might be one; or, in other words, to make them one. 14. This fills up the measure of information on this subject, and shows most clearly, that the Saviour wished his disciples to understand that they were to be partakers with him in all things: not even his glory excepted. 15. It is scarcely necessary here to observe what we have previously noticed: that the glory which the Father and the Son have, is because they are just and holy beings; and that if they were lacking in one attribute or perfection which they have, the glory which they have, never could be enjoyed by them; for it requires them to be precisely what they are in order to enjoy it: and if the Saviour gives this glory to any others, he must do it in the very way set forth in his prayer to his Father: by making them one with him, as he and the Father are one.--In so doing he would give them the glory which the Father has given him; and when his disciples are made one with the Father and Son, as the Father and the Son are one, who cannot see the propriety of the Saviour's saying, The works which I do, shall they do; and greater works than these shall they do, because I go to my Father? 16. These teachings of the Saviour most clearly show unto us the nature of salvation; and what he proposed unto the human family when he proposed to save them--That he proposed to make them like unto himself; and he was like the Father, the great prototype of all saved beings; and for any portion of the human family to be assimilated into their likeness is to be saved; and to be unlike them is to be destroyed: and on this hinge turns the door of salvation. 17. Who cannot see, then, that salvation is the effect of faith? for, as we have previously observed, all the heavenly beings work by this principle; and it is because they are able so to do that they are saved: for nothing but this could save them. And this is the lesson which the God of heaven, by the mouth of all his holy prophets, has been endeavouring to teach to the world. Hence we are told, that without faith it is impossible to please God; and that salvation is of faith, that it might be by grace to the end, the promise might be sure to all the seed. Romans 4:16--And that Israel, who followed after the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law; for they stumbled at that stumbling stone. Romans 9:32. And Jesus said unto the man who brought his son to him, to get the devil who tormented him, cast out, If you canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. Mark, 9:23. These with a multitude of other scriptures, which might be quoted, plainly set forth the light in which the Saviour, as well as the Former Day Saints, viewed the plan of salvation.--That it was a system of faith--it begins with faith, and continues by faith; and every blessing which is obtained, in relation to it, is the effect of faith, whether it pertains to this life or that which is to come.--To this, all the revelations of God bear witness. If there were children of promise, they were the effects of faith: not even the Saviour of the world excepted: Blessed is she that believed, said Elizabeth to Mary, when she went to visit her;--for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord; Luke, 1:45: Nor was the birth of John the Baptist the less a matter of faith; for in order that his father Zacharias might believe he was struck dumb. And through the whole history of the scheme of life and salvation, it is a matter of faith: every man received according to his faith: according as his faith was, so were his blessings and privileges; and nothing was withheld from him when his faith was sufficient to receive it. He could stop the mouths of lions, quench the violence of fire, escape the edge of the sword, wax valiant in fight, and put to flight the armies of the aliens; women could, by their faith, receive their dead children to life again; in a word, there was nothing impossible with them who had faith. All things were in subjection to the Former Day Saints, according as their faith was--By their faith they could obtain heavenly visions, the ministering of angels, have knowledge of the spirits of just men made perfect, of the general assembly and church of the first born, whose names are written in heaven, of God the judge of all, of Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and become familiar with the third heavens, see and hear things which were not only unutterable, but were unlawful to utter. Peter, in view of the power of faith, 2nd epistle, 1:1,2 and 3, says to the Former Day Saints: grace and peace be multiplied unto you, through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, according as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us unto glory and virtue. In the first epistle, 1:3,4 and 5, he says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. 18. These sayings put together, show the apostle's views most clearly, so as to admit of no mistake on the mind of any individual. He says that all things that pertain to life and godliness were given unto them through the knowledge of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. And if the question is asked, how were they to obtain the knowledge of God? (for there is a great difference between believing in God and knowing him: knowledge implies more than faith. And notice, that all things that pertain to life and godliness were given through the knowledge of God;) the answer is given, through faith they were to obtain this knowledge; and, having power by faith to obtain the knowledge of God, they could with it obtain all other things which pertain to life and godliness. 19. By these sayings of the Apostle we learn, that it was by obtaining a knowledge of God, that men got the knowledge of all things which pertain to life and godliness, and this knowledge was the effect of faith. So that all things which pertain to life and godliness are the effects of faith. 20. From this we may extend as far as any circumstances may require whether on earth or in heaven, and we will find it the testimony of all inspired men, or heavenly messengers, that all things that pertain to life and godliness are the effects of faith and nothing else; all learning, wisdom and prudence fail, and every thing else as a means of salvation but faith. This is the reason that the fishermen of Galilee could teach the world--because they sought by faith and by faith obtained. And this is the reason that Paul counted all things but filth and dross--what he formerly called his gain he called his loss; yea, and he counted all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord. Phil 3:7,8,9 & 10. Because, to obtain the faith by which he could enjoy the knowledge of Christ Jesus the Lord, he had to suffer the loss of all things: this is the reason that the Former Day Saints knew more, and understood more of heaven, and of heavenly things than all others beside, because this information is the effect of faith--to be obtained by no other means. And this is the reason, that men, as soon as they lose their faith, run into strifes, contentions, darkness, and difficulties; for the knowledge which tends to life disappears with faith, but returns when faith returns; for when faith comes, it brings its train of attendants with it--apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, gifts, wisdom, knowledge, miracles, healings, tongues, interpretation of tongues, &c. All these appear when faith appears on the earth, and disappear when it disappears from the earth. For these are the effects of faith, and always have, and always will, attend it. For where faith is, there will the knowledge of God be also, with all things which pertain thereto revelations, visions, and dreams, as well as every other necessary thing, in order that the possessors of faith may be perfected and obtain salvation; for God must change, otherwise faith will prevail with him. And he who possesses it will, through it, obtain all necessary knowledge and wisdom, until he shall know God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, whom he has sent: whom to know is eternal life: Amen. Transcriber's Note This version of the Lectures on Faith is meant to match the relevant portion of the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants. Scans are available, for example, at http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/doctrine-and-covenants-1835/13 
6757	----	by Al Haines. FANNY, THE FLOWER-GIRL; OR, HONESTY REWARDED. TO WHICH ARE ADDED OTHER TALES. BY SELINA BUNBURY. FANNY, THE FLOWER-GIRL "Come, buy my flowers; flowers fresh and fair. Come, buy my flowers. Please ma'am, buy a nice bunch of flowers, very pretty ones, ma'am. Please, sir, to have some flowers; nice, fresh ones, miss; only just gathered; please look." Thus spoke, or sometimes sung, a little girl of perhaps eight years old, holding in her hand a neat small basket, on the top of which lay a clean white cloth, to shade from the sun the flowers which she praised so highly, and a little bunch of which she presented to almost every passer-by, in the hope of finding purchasers; while, after one had passed rudely on, another had looked at her young face and smiled, another had said, "What a nice child!" but not one had taken the flowers, and left the penny or the half-penny that was to pay for them the little girl, as if accustomed to all this, only arranged again the pretty nosegays that had been disarranged in the vain hope of selling them, and commenced anew in her pretty singing tone, "Come, buy my flowers; flowers fresh and fair." "Your flowers are sadly withered, my little maid," said a kind, country-looking gentleman, who was buying some vegetables at a stall near her. "Oh, sir! I have fresh ones, here, sir; please look;" and the child lifted up the cover of her basket, and drew from the very bottom a bunch of blossoms on which the dew of morning still rested. "Please to see, sir; a pretty rose, sir, and these pinks and mignonette, and a bunch of jessamine, sir, and all for one penny." "Bless thee! pretty dear!" said the old lame vegetable-seller, "thou'lt make a good market-woman one of these days. Your honor would do well to buy her flowers, sir, she has got no mother or father, God help her, and works for a sick grandmother." "Poor child!" said the old gentleman. "Here, then, little one, give me three nice nosegays, and there is sixpence for you." With delight sparkling in every feature of her face, and her color changed to crimson with joy, the little flower-girl received in one hand the unusual piece of money; and setting her basket on the ground, began hastily and tremblingly to pick out nearly half its contents as the price of the sixpence; but the gentleman stooped down, and taking up at random three bunches of the flowers, which were not the freshest, said, "Here, these will do; keep the rest for a more difficult customer. Be a good child; pray to God, and serve Him, and you will find He is the Father of the fatherless." And so he went away; and the flower-girl, without waiting to put her basket in order, turned to the old vegetable-seller, and cried, "Sixpence! a whole sixpence, and all at once. What will grandmother say now? See!" and opening her hand, she displayed its shining before her neighbor's eyes. "Eh!" exclaimed the old man, as he approached his eyes nearer to it. "Eh! what is this? why thou hast twenty sixpences there; this is a half-sovereign!" "Twenty sixpences! why the gentleman said, there is sixpence for thee," said the child. "Because he didn't know his mistake," replied the other; "I saw him take the piece out of his waistcoat-pocket without looking." "Oh dear! what shall I do?" cried the little girl. "Why, thou must keep it, to be sure," replied the old man; "give it to thy grandmother, she will know what to do with it, I warrant thee." "But I must first try to find the good gentleman, and tell him of his mistake," said the child. "I know what grandmother would say else; and he cannot be far off, I think, because he was so fat; he will go slow, I am sure, this hot morning. Here, Mr. Williams, take care of my basket, please, till I come back." And without a word more, the flower-girl put down her little basket at the foot of the vegetable-stall, and ran away as fast as she could go. When she turned out of the market-place, she found, early as it was, that the street before her was pretty full; but as from the passage the gentleman had taken to leave the market-place, she knew he could only have gone in one direction, she had still hopes of finding him; and she ran on and on, until she actually thought she saw the very person before her; he had just taken off his hat, and was wiping his forehead with his handkerchief. "That is him," said the little flower-girl, "I am certain;" but just as she spoke, some persons came between her and the gentleman, and she could not see him. Still she kept running on; now passing off the foot-path into the street, and then seeing the fat gentleman still before her; and then again getting on the foot-path, and losing sight of him, until at last she came up quite close to him, as he was walking slowly, and wiping the drops of heat from his forehead. The poor child was then quite out of breath; and when she got up to him she could not call out to him to stop, nor say one word; so she caught hold of the skirt of his coat, and gave it a strong pull. The gentleman started, and clapped one hand on his coat-pocket, and raised up his cane in the other, for he was quite sure it was a pickpocket at his coat. But when he turned, he saw the breathless little flower-girl, and he looked rather sternly at her, and said, "Well, what do you want; what are you about? eh!" "Oh, sir!" said the girl; and then she began to cough, for her breath was quite spent. "See, sir; you said you gave me sixpence, and Mr. Williams says there are twenty sixpences in this little bit of money." "Dear me!" said the gentleman; "is it possible? could I have done such a thing?" and he began to fumble in his waistcoat pocket. "Well, really it is true enough," he added, as he drew out a sixpence. "See what it is to put gold and silver together." "I wish he would give it to me," thought the little flower-girl; "how happy it would make poor granny; and perhaps he has got a good many more of these pretty gold pieces." But the old gentleman put out his hand, and took it, and turned it over and over, and seemed to think a little; and then he put his hand into his pocket again, and took out his purse; and he put the half-sovereign into the purse, and took out of it another sixpence. "Well," he said, "there is the sixpence I owe you for the flowers; you have done right to bring me back this piece of gold; and there is another sixpence for your race; it is not a reward, mind, for honesty is only our duty, and you only did what is right; but you are tired, and have left your employment, and perhaps lost a customer, so I give you the other sixpence to make you amends." "Thank you, sir," said the flower-girl, curtseying; and taking the two sixpences into her hand with a delighted smile, was going to run back again, when the old gentleman, pulling out a pocket-book, said, "Stay a moment; you are an orphan, they tell me; what is your name?" "Fanny, sir." "Fanny what?" "Please, I don't know, sir; grandmother is Mrs. Newton, sir; but she says she is not my grandmother either, sir." "Well, tell me where Mrs. Newton lives," said the gentleman, after looking at her a minute or so, as if trying to make out what she meant. So Fanny told him, and he wrote it down in his pocket-book, and then read over what he had written to her, and she said it was right. "Now, then, run away back," said he, "and sell all your flowers, if you can, before they wither, for they will not last long this warm day; flowers are like youth and beauty--do you ever think of that? even the rose withereth afore it groweth up." And this fat gentleman looked very sad, for he had lost all his children in their youth. "O yes! sir; I know a verse which says that," replied Fanny. "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of grass--but good morning, and thank you, sir," and away Fanny ran. And now, before going on with my story, I must go back to tell who and what Fanny, the flower-girl, was. Mrs. Newton, whom she called her grandmother, was now a poor old woman, confined to her bed by a long and trying illness, that had nearly deprived her of the use of her limbs. But she had not been always thus afflicted. Some years before, Mrs. Newton lived in a neat cottage near the road-side, two or three miles from one of the great sea-port towns of England. Her husband had good employment, and they were both comfortable and happy. Just eight years from this time, it happened that one warm summer's day, Mrs. Newton went to look out from her cottage door down the road, and she saw a young woman standing there, leaning against a tree, and looking very faint and weak. She was touched with pity and asked the poor traveller to walk into her house and rest. The young woman thankfully consented, for she said she was very ill; but she added, that her husband was coming after her, having been obliged to turn back for a parcel that was left behind at the house where they had halted some time before, and therefore she would sit near the door and watch for him. Before, however, the husband came, the poor woman was taken dreadfully ill; and when he did arrive, good Mrs. Newton could not bear to put the poor creature out of the house in such a state; she became worse and worse. In short, that poor young woman was Fanny's mother, and when little Fanny was born, that poor sick mother died, and Fanny never saw a mother's smile. The day after the young woman's death, kind Mrs. Newton came into the room where her cold body was laid out on the bed; and there was her husband, a young, strong-looking man, sitting beside it; his elbows were on his knees, and his face was hid in his open hands. Mrs. Newton had the baby in her arms, and she spoke to its father as she came in; he looked up to her; his own face was as pale as death; and he looked at her without saying a word. She saw he was in too much grief either to speak or weep. So she went over silently to him, and put the little baby into his arms, and then said, "May the Lord look down with pity on you both." As soon as the unhappy young man heard these compassionate words, and saw the face of his pretty, peaceful babe, he burst into tears; they rolled in large drops down on the infant's head. Then in a short time he was able to speak, and he told Mrs. Newton his sad little history; how he had no one in the whole world to look with pity on him, or his motherless child; and how God alone was his hope in this day of calamity. His father had been displeased with him because he had married that young woman, whom he dearly loved; and he had given him some money that was his portion, and would do nothing else for him. The young man had taken some land and a house, but as the rent was too high, he could not make enough of the land to pay it; so he had been obliged to sell all his goods, and he had only as much money left as would, with great saving, carry him to America, where he had a brother who advised him to go out there. "And now," said he, looking over at the pale face of his dear wife, "What shall I do with the little creature she has left me? how shall I carry it over the wide ocean without a mother to care for it, and nurse it?" "You cannot do so," said Mrs. Newton, wiping her eyes; "leave it with me; I have no children of my own, my husband would like to have one; this babe shall lie in my bosom, and be unto me as a daughter. I will nurse it for you until you are settled in America, and send or come for it." The young man wept with gratitude; he wanted to know how he was to repay Mrs. Newton, but she said for the present she did not want payment, that it would be a pleasure to her to have the baby; and it would be time enough to talk about payment when the father was able to claim it, and take it to a home. So the next day they buried the poor young woman, and soon after the young man went away and sailed off to America, and from that day to this Mrs. Newton had never heard anything of him. As she had said, that poor little motherless babe lay in her bosom, and was unto her as a daughter; she loved it; she loved it when it was a helpless little thing, weak and sickly; she loved it when it grew a pretty lively baby, and would set its little feet on her knees, and crow and caper before her face; she loved it when it began to play around her as she sat at work, to lisp out the word "Ganny," for she taught it to call her grandmother; she loved it when it would follow her into her nice garden, and pick a flower and carry it to her, as she sat in the little arbor; and she, holding the flower, would talk to it of God who made the flower, and made the bee that drew honey from the flower, and made the sun that caused the flower to grow, and the light that gave the flower its colors, and the rain that watered it, and the earth that nourished it. And she loved that child when it came back from the infant school, and climbed up on her lap, or stood with its hands behind its back, to repeat some pretty verses about flowers, or about the God who made them. That child was Fanny, the flower-girl; and ah! how little did good Mrs. Newton think she would be selling flowers in the streets to help to support her. But it came to pass, that when Fanny was nearly six years old, Mrs. Newton's husband fell very ill; it was a very bad, and very expensive illness, for poor Mrs. Newton was so uneasy, she would sometimes have two doctors to see him; but all would not do; he died: and Mrs. Newton was left very poorly off. In a short time she found she could not keep on her pretty cottage; she was obliged to leave it; and the church where she had gone every Sunday for so many years; and the church-yard where her husband was buried, and little Fanny's mother; and the infant school where Fanny learned so much; and the dear little garden, and the flowers that were Fanny's teachers and favorites. Oh! how sorry was poor Mrs. Newton. But even a little child can give comfort; and so little Fanny, perhaps without thinking to do so, did; for when Mrs. Newton for the last time sat out in her garden, and saw the setting sun go down, and told Fanny she was going to leave that pretty garden, where she had from infancy been taught to know God's works, the child looked very sad and thoughtful indeed, for some time; but afterwards coming up to her, said, "But, grandmother, we shall not leave God, shall we? for you say God is everywhere, and He will be in London too." And oh! how that thought consoled poor Mrs. Newton; she did not leave God,--God did not leave her. So she left the abode of her younger years--the scene of her widowhood; and she went away to hire a poor lodging in the outlets of London; but her God was with her, and the child she had nursed in her prosperity was her comfort in adversity. Matters, however, went no better when she lived with little Fanny in a poor lodging. She had only one friend in London, and she lived at a distance from her. Mrs. Newton fell ill; there was no one to nurse her but Fanny; she could no longer pay for her schooling, and sometimes she was not able to teach her herself. All this seemed very hard, and very trying; and one would have been tempted to think that God was no longer with poor Mrs. Newton; that when she had left her cottage she had left the God who had been so good to her. But this would have been a great mistake. God was with Mrs. Newton; He saw fit to try and afflict her; but He gave her strength and patience to bear her trials and afflictions. One afternoon her friend came to pay her a visit: she was going out a little way into the country to see a relation who had a very fine nursery-garden, and she begged Mrs. Newton to let little Fanny go with her own daughter. Mrs. Newton was very glad to do so for she thought it would be a nice amusement for Fanny. The nurseryman was very kind to her; and when she was going away gave her a fine bunch of flowers. Fanny was in great delight, for she loved flowers and knew her dear grandmother loved them too. But as she was coming back, and just as she was entering the streets, she met a lady and a little boy of about three years old, who directly held out his hands and began to beg for the flowers. His mamma stopped, and as Fanny was very poorly dressed, she thought it probable that she would sell her nosegay, and so she said, "Will you give that bunch of flowers to my little boy, and I will pay you for it?" "Please, ma'am, they are for grandmother," said Fanny blushing, and thinking she ought to give the flowers directly, and without money to any one who wished for them. "But perhaps your grand-mother would rather have this sixpence?" said the lady. And Mrs. Newton's friend, who had just come up, said, "Well, my dear, take the lady's sixpence, and let her have the flowers if she wishes for them." So Fanny held the flowers to the lady, who took them and put the sixpence in her hand. Fanny wished much to ask for one rose, but she thought it would not be right to do so, when the lady had bought them all: and she looked at them so very longingly that the lady asked if she were sorry to part with them. "Oh! no, ma'am," cried her friend, "she is not at all sorry--come now, don't be a fool, child," she whispered, and led Fanny on. "That is a good bargain for you," she added as she went on; "that spoiled little master has his own way, I think; it would be well for you, and your grandmother too, if you could sell sixpenny worth of flowers every day." "Do you think I could, ma'am?" said Fanny, opening her hand and looking at her sixpence, "this will buy something to do poor granny good; do you think Mr. Simpson would give me a nosegay every day?" "If you were to pay him for it, he would," said her friend; "suppose you were to go every morning about five o'clock, as many others do, and buy some flowers, and then sell them at the market; you might earn something, and that would be better than being idle, when poor Mrs. Newton is not able to do for herself and you." So when Fanny got back, she gave her dear grandmother the sixpence. "The Lord be praised!" said Mrs. Newton, "for I scarcely knew how I was to get a loaf of bread for thee or myself to-morrow." And then Fanny told her the plan she had formed about the flowers. Mrs. Newton was very sorry to think her dear child should be obliged to stand in a market place, or in the public streets, to offer anything for sale; but she said, "Surely it is Providence has opened this means of gaining a little bread, while I am laid here unable to do anything; and shall I not trust that Providence with the care of my darling child?" So from this time forth little Fanny set off every morning before five o'clock, to the nursery garden; and the nursery-man was very kind to her, and always gave her the nicest flowers; and instead of sitting down with the great girls, who went there also for flowers or vegetables, and tying them up in bunches, Fanny put them altogether in her little basket, and went away to her grandmother's room, and spread them out on the little table that poor Mrs. Newton might see them, while the sweet dew was yet sparkling on their bright leaves. Then she would tell how beautiful the garden looked at that sweet early hour; and Mrs. Newton would listen with pleasure, for she loved a garden. She used to say, that God placed man in a garden when he was happy and holy; and when he was sinful and sorrowful, it was in a garden that the blessed Saviour wept and prayed for the sin of the world; and when his death had made atonement for that sin, it was in a garden his blessed body was laid. Mrs. Newton taught Fanny many things from flowers; she was not a bad teacher, in her own simple way, but Jesus Christ, who was the best teacher the world ever had, instructed his disciples from vines and lilies, corn and fruit, and birds, and all natural things around them. And while Fanny tied up her bunches of flowers, she would repeat some verses from the Holy Scriptures, such as this, "O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches." And afterwards she would repeat such pretty lines as these:-- "Not worlds on worlds, in varied form, Need we, to tell a God is here; The daisy, saved from winter's storm, Speaks of his hand in lines as clear. "For who but He who formed the skies, And poured the day-spring's living flood, Wondrous alike in all He tries, Could rear the daisy's simple bud! "Mould its green cup, its wiry stem, Its fringed border nicely spin; And cut the gold-embossed gem, That, shrined in silver, shines within; "And fling it, unrestrained and free, O'er hill, and dale, and desert sod, That man, where'er he walks, may see, In every step the trace of God." "And I, too, have had my daisy given to me," poor Mrs. Newton would say, with tearful eyes, as she gazed on her little flower-girl; "I too have my daisy, and though it may be little cared for in the world, or trodden under foot of men, yet will it ever bear, I trust, the trace of God." But it happened the very morning that the gentleman had given Fanny the half-sovereign in mistake, Mrs. Newton's money was quite spent; and she was much troubled, thinking the child must go the next morning to the garden without money to pay for her flowers, for she did not think it likely she would sell enough to buy what they required, and pay for them also; so she told Fanny she must ask Mr. Simpson to let her owe him for a day or two until she got a little money she expected. Fanny went therefore, and said this to the kind man at the garden; and he put his hand on her head, and said, "My pretty little girl, you may owe me as long as you please, for you are a good child, and God will prosper you." So Fanny went back in great delight, and told this to Mrs. Newton; and to cheer her still more, she chose for her morning verse, the advice that our Lord gave to all those who were careful and troubled about the things of this life "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, oh ye of little faith?" And then she repeated some verses which both she and Mrs. Newton liked very much. "Lo! the lilies of the field, How their leaves instruction yield! Hark to nature's lesson, given By the blessed birds of heaven. "Say with richer crimson glows, The kingly mantle than the rose; Say are kings more richly dressed, Than the lily's glowing vest! "Grandmother I forget the next verse," said Fanny, interrupting herself; "I know it is something about lilies not spinning; but then comes this verse-- "Barns, nor hoarded store have we"-- "It is not the lilies, grandmother, but the blessed birds that are speaking now-- "Barns, nor hoarded store have we, Yet we carol joyously; Mortals, fly from doubt and sorrow, God provideth for the morrow." Poor Mrs. Newton clasped her thin hands, and looked up, and prayed like the disciples, "Lord, increase our faith!" "Eh!" said she, afterwards, "is it not strange that we can trust our Lord and Saviour with the care of our souls for eternity, and we cannot trust Him with that of our bodies for a day." Well! this was poor Mrs. Newton's state on that day, when the gentleman gave Fanny the half-sovereign instead of sixpence, for her flowers. When the little flower-girl came back from her race with her two sixpences, she found the old vegetable-seller had got her three or four pennies more, by merely showing her basket, and telling why it was left at his stall; and so every one left a penny for the honest child, and hoped the gentleman would reward her well. The old man at the stall said it was very shabby of him only to give her sixpence; but when she went home with three sixpences and told Mrs. Newton this story, she kissed her little girl very fondly, but said the gentleman was good to give her sixpence, for he had no right to give her anything, she had only done her duty. "But, grandmother," said Fanny, "when I saw that pretty half-sovereign dropping down to his purse, I could not help wishing he would give it to me." "And what commandment did you break then, my child?" "Not the eighth--if I had kept the half-sovereign I should have broken it," said Fanny, "for that says, thou shalt not steal--what commandment did I break, grandmother; for I did not steal?" "When we desire to have what is not ours Fanny, what do we do? we covet; do we not?" "Oh! yes--thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods," cried Fanny, "that is the tenth commandment; and that half-sovereign was my neighbor's goods, and that fat gentleman was my neighbor. But, grandmother, it is very easy to break the tenth commandment." "Very easy indeed, my dear," said Mrs. Newton, with first a faint smile, and then a deep sigh, "therefore," she added, "we ought always to pray like David, 'Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity.'" There is a very common saying, that when things are at the worst they mend. It is hard to say when matters are at the worst; poor Mrs. Newton knew they might yet be worse with her; but certainly, they were very bad; and a few days after this, as Fanny was tying up her flowers as usual, she lay on her bed thinking what she was to do, and praying that God would direct her to some way of providing for the poor child. While she was thinking and praying, tears stole down her face; Fanny saw them, and stopped her work, and looked sorrowfully at her-- "Now you are crying again, grandmother, she said," and that's what makes me break the tenth commandment, for I can't help wishing the gentleman had given me that half-sovereign. But I will say the verses again to-day about the lilies and birds; for you know I said that morning-- 'Mortals fly from doubt and sorrow, God provideth for the morrow,' and when I came back with my three sixpences, you said God _had_ provided for the morrow, for you had only two or three pennies in the house when I went out." "And how many pennies, pray, have you in the house to-day?" said a rather gruff voice at the door. Mrs. Newton and Fanny started; but there, standing at the door, Fanny saw the fat gentleman who had given her the half-sovereign. "So you have been wishing for my gold, you little rogue," he said, looking as if he meant to frighten her. "Never mind," he added, smiling, "you are a good child, and did what was right; and I always meant to bring it back to you, but I have been kept rather busy these few days past. There it is for you, and try not to break the tenth commandment again." Then turning to Mrs. Newton, he said, "We should not expect rewards, ma'am, for doing our duty, but if children do not meet with approbation when they do right, they may be discouraged, and perhaps think there is no use in being good: for they are silly little creatures, you know, and do not always recollect that God will reward the just one day if men do not." "Oh! sir!" said poor Mrs. Newton, but the tears streamed down, and she could not say a word more. And there Fanny sat gazing on the half-sovereign, as if she was half stupefied. "Well, take up that bit of gold, and do what you like with it," said the fat gentleman; "and then run off to sell your flowers, for we must not be idle because we have got enough for to-day. But do what you like with that money." Fanny rose up from her seat, and looking very much as if she was moving in her sleep, with her wondering eyes fixed on the shining piece that lay in her hand, she walked slowly over to Mrs. Newton, and putting it into hers, said,-- "May I go to the grocer's now, grandmother, and get you the tea for your breakfast?" "Yes, my love," said Mrs. Newton, kissing her, "and take care of this, and bring back the change carefully." Then turning to the gentleman, she said, "I am not young, sir, and I am very, very poorly; I find it hard to go without my tea, but it is a luxury I have been obliged latterly to forego." "But could you not get tea on credit, from the grocer?" said the gentleman. "Oh! yes, I believe so; but there would be no use in getting credit;" said Mrs. Newton, "for I am not certain of being better able to pay next week than I am this week; and when I have not the money to pay for what I wish to get, it is better to do without it, than to add to one's anxieties by running in debt. Do you not think so, sir?" "Ma'am," said the old gentleman, sitting down, and resting his large silver-topped stick between his knees, "it is of very little consequence what I think; but if you wish to know this, I will tell you that I think very well both of you and your little girl, who, as I have heard, for I have made inquiries about you both, is a dependant on your bounty. You have trained her up well, though I wouldn't praise the child to her face; and so take as much tea as you like till you hear from me again, and your grocer need be in no trouble about his bill." So after the fat gentleman had made this rather bluff, but honest-hearted speech, and poor Mrs. Newton had wept, and thanked him in language that sounded more polite, the good old gentleman told her his whole history. He began the world very poor, and without relations able to assist him; he was at last taken into the employment of a young merchant in the city; he had a turn for business, and having been able to render some important services to this young man, he was finally, to his own surprise, and that of every one else, taken into partnership. "During all this time," said he, "I was attached from my boyhood to the daughter of the poor schoolmaster who first taught me to read; I would not marry her while I was poor, for I thought that would be to make her wretched instead of happy; but when I was taken into partnership I thought my way was clear; I went off to Bethnal Green, and told Mary, and our wedding-day was settled at once. Well, we were glad enough, to be sure; but a very few days after, my partner called me into the private room, and said he wanted to consult me. He seemed in high spirits, and he told me he had just heard of a famous speculation, by which we could both make our fortunes at once. He explained what it was, and I saw with shame and regret, that no really honest man could join in it: I told him so; I told him plainly I would have nothing to do with it. You may think what followed; the deeds of partnership were not yet signed, and in short, in two or three days more I found myself poor Jack Walton again--indeed, poorer than I was before I was made one of the firm of Charters and Walton, for I had lost my employment. "Often and often I used to think that David said, he had never seen the righteous forsaken; yet I was suffering while the unrighteous were prospering. It was a sinful, and a self-righteous thought, and I was obliged to renounce it; when, after some time of trial, a gentleman sent for me--a man of wealth, and told me his son was going into business on his own account; that he had heard of my character, and of the cause of my leaving Mr. Charters; that he thought I would be just such a steady person as he wished his son to be with. In short, I began with him on a handsome salary; was soon made his partner; married Mary, and had my snug house in the country. Mr. Charters succeeded in that speculation; entered into several others, some of which were of a more fraudulent nature, failed, and was ruined. He ran off to America, and no one knows what became of him. I have left business some years. I purchased a nice property in the country, built a Church upon it, and have ever thanked God, who never forsakes those who wish to act righteously. "It pleased God to take all my sweet children from me--every state has its trials--the youngest was just like your little flower-girl." Mrs. Newton was much pleased with this story; she then told her own, and little Fanny's. The fat gentleman's eyes were full of tears when she ended; when he was going away he put another half-sovereign into her hand, and saying, "The first was for the child," walked out of the house. A short time afterwards, a clergyman came to see Mrs. Newton--she was surprised; he sat and talked with her some time, and seemed greatly pleased with her sentiments, and all she told him of herself and Fanny. He then told her that he was the clergyman whom Mr. Walton, on the recommendation of the bishop of the diocese, had appointed to the church he had built; that Mr. Walton had sent him to see her, and had told him, if he was satisfied with all he saw and heard, to invite Mrs. Newton and the little flower-girl to leave London, and go and live in one of the nice widows' houses, which good Mr. Walton had built, near the pretty village where he lived. Then there was great joy in poor Mrs. Newton's humble abode; Mrs. Newton was glad for Fanny's sake, and Fanny was glad for Mrs. Newton's sake, so both were glad, and both said-- "Mortals fly from doubt and sorrow, God provideth for the morrow." But the only difference was, that Mrs. Newton said it with watery eyes and clasped hands, lying on her bed and looking up to heaven; and Fanny--merry little thing!--said it frisking and jumping about the room, clapping her hands together, and laughing her joy aloud. Well, there was an inside place taken in the B---- coach, for Mrs. Newton and Fanny; and not only that, but kind Mrs. Walton sent up her own maid to London, to see that everything was carefully done, as the poor woman was ill, and help to pack up all her little goods; and, with her, she sent an entire new suit of clothes for the flower-girl. They set off, and when they got near to the village the coachman stopped, and called out to know if it were the first, or the last of the red cottages he was to stop at; and Mrs. Walton's maid said, "The last,--the cottage in the garden." So they stopped at such a pretty cottage, with a little garden before and behind it. Mr. Walton had known what it was to be poor, and so, when he grew rich, he had built these neat houses, for those who had been rich and become poor. They were intended chiefly for the widows of men of business, whose character had been good, but who had died without being able to provide for their families. He had made an exception in Mrs. Newton's case, and gave her one of the best houses, because it had a pretty garden, which he thought others might not care for so much. They went inside, and there was such a neat kitchen, with tiles as red as tiles could be; a little dresser, with all sorts of useful things; a nice clock ticking opposite the fire-place, and a grate as bright as blacklead could make it. And then there was such a pretty little room at one side, with a rose tree against the window; and a little shelf for books against the wall; and a round table, and some chairs, and an easy couch. And there were two nice bedrooms overhead; and, better than all these, was a pretty garden. Oh! how happy was the little flower-girl; and how thankful was poor Mrs. Newton! The first thing she did was to go down on her knees and thank God. Then Fanny was to go to the school, for Mrs. Walton had her own school, as well as the national school; but Fanny did not know enough to go to it, so she was sent to the national school first, and afterwards she went to the other, where about a dozen girls were instructed in all things that would be useful to them through life--whether they were to earn their bread at service, or to live in their own homes as daughters, wives, or mothers. But every morning, before she went out, she did everything for her dear, good grandmother. She made her breakfast; she arranged her room; and she gathered some fresh flowers in the garden, and put them on the table in the little parlor. Oh! how happy was Fanny when she looked back, and saw how nice everything looked, and then went out singing to her school-- "Barns, nor hoarded store have we, Yet we carol joyously; Mortals flee from doubt and sorrow, God provideth for the morrow." But God will not provide for the morrow, where people will do nothing to provide for themselves; and so Fanny, the flower-girl, knew, for surely God had blessed the labor of her childish hands. Thus passed time away; and Fanny, under the instruction that she had at church, at school, and at home, "grew in grace, and in the knowledge and love of God, and of Jesus Christ our Lord." Good Mrs. Newton was much better in health, and used to walk about sometimes without any support but Fanny's arm, and so time went on till Fanny came to be about fifteen; and then Mrs. Newton, who was not always free from "doubt and sorrow," began to think what was to become of her if she were to die. So one day, when kind Mr. Walton, whom Fanny used once to call the fat gentleman, came in to see her, Mrs. Newton told him that she was beginning to feel anxious that Fanny should be put in a way of earning her own bread, in case she should be taken from her. Mr. Walton listened to her, and then he said,-- "You are very right and prudent, Mrs. Newton, but never mind that; I have not forgotten my little flower-girl, and her race after me that hot morning; if you were dead, I would take care of her; and if we both were dead, Mrs. Walton would take care of her; and if Mrs. Walton were dead, God would take care of her. I see you cannot yet learn the little lines she is so fond of-- "'Mortals flee from doubt and sorrow, God provideth for the morrow.'" Well, not very long after this conversation came a very warm day, and in all the heat of the sun came Mr. Walton, scarcely able to breathe, into Mrs. Newton's cottage; he was carrying his hat in one hand, and a newspaper in the other, and his face was very red and hot. "Well, Mrs. Newton," said he, "what is all this about?--I can't make it out; here is your name in the paper!" "My name, sir!" said Mrs. Newton, staring at the paper. "Aye, indeed is it," said Mr. Walton, putting on his spectacles, and opening the paper at the advertisement side,--"see here!" And he began to read,-- "If Mrs. Newton, who lived about fifteen years ago near the turnpike on the P---- road, will apply to Messrs. Long and Black, she will hear of something to her advantage. Or should she be dead, any person who can give information respecting her and her family, will be rewarded." Mrs. Newton sat without the power of speech--so much was she surprised; at last she said, "It is Fanny's father!--I know, I am sure it can be no one else!" Mr. Walton looked surprised, for he had never thought of this; he was almost sorry to think his little flower-girl should have another protector. At length he said it must be as Mrs. Newton thought, and he would go up to London himself next day, and see Mr. Long and Mr. Black. So he went; and two days afterwards, when Fanny had returned from Mrs. Walton's school, and was sitting with Mrs. Newton in the little shady arbor they had made in the garden, and talking over early days, when they used to sit in another arbor, and Fanny used to learn her first lessons from flowers, then came Mr. Walton walking up the path towards them, and with him was a fine-looking man, of about forty-five years of age. Mrs. Newton trembled, for when she looked in his face she remembered the features; and she said to herself, "Now, if he takes my Fanny from me?--and if he should be a bad man?" But when this man came nearer, he stepped hastily beyond Mr. Walton, and catching Mrs. Newton's hands, he was just going to drop on his knees before her, when he saw Fanny staring at him; and a father's feelings overcame every other, and with a cry of joy he extended his arms, and exclaiming "my child!'--my child!" caught her to his breast. Then there followed so much talk, while no one knew scarcely what was saying; and it was Mr. Walton, chiefly, that told how Fanny's father had had so much to struggle against, and so much hardship to go through, but how he had succeeded at last, and got on very well; now he had tried then to find out Mrs. Newton and his dear little Fanny, but could not, because Mrs. Newton had changed her abode; how, at last, he had met with a good opportunity to sell his land, and had now come over with the money he had earned, to find his child, and repay her kind benefactor. Oh, what a happy evening was that in the widow's cottage! the widow's heart sang for joy. The widow, and she that had always thought herself an orphan, were ready to sing together-- "Mortals flee from doubt and sorrow, God provideth for the morrow." Mrs. Newton found that Mr. Marsden, that was the name of Fanny's father, was all that she could desire Fanny's father to be:--a Christian in deed and in truth; one thankful to God and to her, for the preservation and care of his child; and who would not willingly separate Fanny from her, or let her leave Fanny. As he found Mrs. Newton did not wish to leave kind Mr. Walton's neighborhood, and that his daughter was attached to it also, Mr. Marsden took some land and a nice farm-house, not far from the Manor House, where Mr. Walton lived. He had heard all about the half-sovereign, and loved his little flower-girl before he saw her. So Mrs. Newton had to leave her widow's house; and she shed tears of joy, and regret, and thankfulness, as she did so; she had been happy there, and had had God's blessing upon her and her dear girl. But Fanny was glad to receive her dear, dear grandmother into her own father's house; her own house too; and she threw her arms round the old lady's neck, when they got there, and kissed her over and over again, and said, "Ah! grandmother, do you recollect when I was a little girl tying up my flowers while you lay sick in bed, I used to say so often-- "'Mortals flee from doubt and sorrow, God provideth for the morrow.'" They had a large garden at the farm-house, and Fanny and Mrs. Newton improved it; and Mrs. Newton would walk out, leaning on Fanny's arm, and look at the lilies and roses, and jessamine, and mignonette, and talk of past times, and of their first garden, and their first flowers, and of their first knowledge of the God who made them; who watches the opening bud, and the infant head; who sends his rain upon the plant, and the dew of his blessing upon the child who is taught to know and love Him. And Fanny's father, when he joined them, talked over his trials and dangers from the day that his poor wife lay dead, and his helpless baby lay in his arms, and then he blessed the God who had led him all his life long, and crowned him with loving-kindness. Three years passed, and Fanny, the little flower-girl, was a fine young woman. A farmer's son in the neighborhood wished to get her for his wife; but her father was very sorry to think of her leaving him so soon for another home. He spoke to Fanny about it, and said,--"My dear girl, I have no right to expect you should wish to stay with me, for I never was able to watch over your childhood or to act a father's part by you." And Fanny answered, with a blush and smile, "And I, father, was never able to act a daughter's part by you until now, and therefore I think you have every right to expect I should do so for some time longer. I have no objections to be Charles Brierley's wife, and I have told him so; but we are both young, and at all events I will not leave you." "Now," said Mrs. Newton, who was sitting by, "instead of that young man taking more land, which is very dear about here, would it not be a good plan if he were to come and live with you, Mr. Marsden, and help you with the farm." And Mr. Marsden said, "That is the very thing; I will go and speak to him about it; and Fanny and her husband can have the house, and farm, and all, as much as they please now, and entirely at my death." So it was all settled; and Fanny was married at the village church, and Mr. and Mrs. Walton were at the wedding. Good Mrs. Newton lived on at the farm-house, and when Fanny's first child was born, it was put into her arms. Then she thought of the time when Fanny herself was laid in the same arms; and she blessed God in her heart, who had enabled her to be of use to one human creature, and to one immortal soul and mind, while she passed through this life to the life everlasting. Joy and sorrow are always mingled on this earth; so it came to pass that before Fanny's first child could walk alone, good, kind Mrs. Newton died, and was buried. As a shock of corn cometh in, in its season, so she sank to rest, and was gathered into the garner of her Lord. But-- "The memory of the just Is blessed, though they sleep in dust;" and Fanny's children, and children's children, will learn to love that memory. Many a day, sitting at work in her garden, with her little ones around her, Fanny let them gather some flowers, and talk to her about them; and then they would beg, as a reward for good conduct, that she would tell them about her dear grandmother and her own childish days; and much as children love to hear stories, never did any more delight in a story, than did these children, in the story of Fanny, the Flower-Girl. Convenient Food. Little Frances was crying; her sister Mary hearing her sobs, ran in haste to inquire what had happened; and saw her sitting in a corner of the nursery, looking rather sulky, as if she had recently received some disappointment. "What is the matter, dear little Frances? why do you cry so?" Frances pouted, and would make no reply. "Tell me, dear Frances; perhaps I can do something for you." "Nothing, Mary," she sobbed, "only"-- "Only what, little Frances? It cannot be _nothing_ that makes you cry so bitterly." "Only mamma would not give--" she looked a little ashamed, and did not finish her sentence. "_What_ would she not give?" "Nothing." "Nothing!" Frances shook her elbows, as if troubled by Mary's inquiries, but the tears continued flowing down her cheeks. Just at that moment their sister Anne came into the room, singing in the joy of her heart, with a piece of plum-cake in her hand, holding it up, and turning it about before her sisters to exhibit her newly-acquired possession, on which Frances fixed her eyes with eager gaze, and the tears flowed still faster, accompanied with a kind of angry sob. "Frances! what is the matter that you are crying so? see what I have got! you will spoil all the happiness of our feast." At the word _feast_, Frances' tears seemed arrested, and her mouth looked as if she were going to smile. She left the corner, and immediately prepared to do her part for the feast, setting a little square table, and then, drawing her own little stool, seated herself in readiness as a guest. "Stay," said Anne, "we will make some little paper dishes and plates, and divide the cake;" so saying, she began the operation, and laying down the paper dishes, "there at the top, see! there shall be two chickens, at the bottom a piece of beef, at one side some potatoes, and at the other some cauliflower;" breaking her cake into small pieces to correspond to her imagined provision. Frances looked very impatient at the long preparation, and as Anne seated herself, inviting Mary to partake, Frances stretched out her hand to take the beef for her own portion. "No, no, Frances, you must not help yourself, you know; wait until we all begin in order." Frances very reluctantly withdrew her hand, and, whilst she waited, betrayed her impatience by a little jerking motion of the body, that threw her breast against the table, as if she would beat time into quicker motion. "O we must not forget William!" Anne exclaimed; "where is he? he must taste our feast; stay here, Mary, with Frances, and I will go and find him." Away she ran, and left poor Frances in a fret at this additional delay, but she began to amuse herself by picking up the small crumbs that had been scattered on the stool, and at last proceeded to touch the beef and chickens. "Do not do so, Frances," Mary said, in a reproving voice. Frances colored. "Do not sit _looking_ on, if you are so impatient; employ yourself, and get a seat ready for William." "_You_ may get it, Mary." "Very well; only do not meddle with Anne's feast." Mary had to go into another room for the seat, and whilst she was away, Frances quickly helped herself to half of the pieces which were on the dishes, and, when Mary returned, resumed her position as if nothing had happened. Mary was so busy in arranging the seats, that she did not observe what had been done. Presently Anne came back, accompanied by her brother William; hastening to her place, and looking on her table, she started with surprise, and seemed to say to herself, as she gazed, How came I to make a mistake, an think my pieces of cake were larger? but the expression of her face called Mary's attention, who at once said, "Anne, I am sure you placed larger pieces on your dishes." "Indeed, I thought so, Mary; who has taken any?" "I do not know." "O you are only _pretending_, and you have been hiding some." "No, Anne; I would not have said I do not know, if I had _hid_ it." "No, no more you would, dear Mary. Never mind," she said, glancing a look at Frances, not altogether without suspicion, "it is only to _play_ with, it does not signify whether it is much or little. "William, shall I help you to a little chicken?" "O no, Anne, you have forgot, help the _ladies_ first; and beside, you ought to have placed me at the bottom of the table to carve this dish. What is it?" "Beef, William." "O beef, very well. Come, Miss Frances, let me sit there, and you come to the side of the table." In haste to begin the eating part of the play, she rose immediately to change places, when, to her disgrace, a quantity of crumbs, which had lodged unobserved in a fold of her frock, fell out, and disordered the neatness of the table. "There!" said William, "we have no question to ask who took the liberty to lessen the dishes." "For shame, William, I--" "O Frances, take care what you say, tell no falsehoods; I will tell one truth, and say you are a greedy girl." Frances began to cry again, "For shame, William, to call me names." "I call no names, I only say what I think, and how can I help it, when it is only just now you cried so, because you said mamma had given me a larger piece of cake than yourself; for you must know," he continued, turning to Mary, "we have both had one piece before, and she half of mine to make her quiet; and then she cried again because a piece was put by for you and Anne, and she cannot be contented now, though Anne shares hers amongst us. If this is not being greedy, I do not know what greedy means. It is no names, it is only saying what a thing is." "Now I know another thing," said Anne; "when mamma called me to receive my piece of cake, she said, 'And you shall take a piece also to Mary,' but when she unfolded the paper, there was only _one_ piece; mamma did not say anything, but I think she _thought_ something." At this remark, Frances redoubled her crying, but, for the sake of a share of the present feast, did not attempt to leave the party. No more was said, and the feast was concluded in good humor by all except the conscious greedy girl, and they then all went into the garden together to finish their hour's recreation before they were called again to their lessons. There was a little plantation of young fir-trees at one corner of the garden, intended to grow there for shelter from the north-west wind: the grass was so high amongst them, that the gardener had orders to go and carefully mow it down. He was engaged in the business when the children ran out to see him work. "Hush! hush!" he exclaimed, as they approached, "I have just cleared a bough from the grass, and see what's there!" All curiosity, they went forward on tip-toe, and were directed to something lodged on the spreading branch of a young larch. "A bird's nest!" said William. "A bird's nest!" they all repeated. "But what is in it, I cannot tell." "Look steadily," said the gardener, "and you will find out." It was difficult to trace what it was; something all in a heap, brown naked skin; alive, as might be known by the heaving breathing. William putting his finger to touch them, immediately four wide mouths stretched open, with little tongues raised, and the opening of their throats extended to the utmost. "Look at the little things," said William; "they thought their mother was come when I touched the branch, and they have opened their mouths to be ready to receive what she would put in. "They are _blind_!" said William. "Yes, they cannot have been hatched more than two days." "Will they take what the mother gives them?" asked William. "Yes," said the man, "they trust her, and swallow down what she puts into their mouths." "I wish the mother would come," said Anne. "But she will not whilst we are here," William replied. "Touch it again, William," said Frances. William touched the edge of the nest "See!" said he, "they think the mother is come, they stretch, their months still wider." "Hark!" said Mary, "what an impatient noise they make: they look ready to stretch themselves out of their nest, and as if their little mouths would tear." "Poor little things! do not disappoint them, give them something," said Anne. "We have not proper food for them," said William. "I will run and fetch some crumbs," said Mary. Mary soon returned with a piece of bread, and giving it to her brother as the most experienced, he broke it into extremely small crumbs, and, again touching the nest, awakened the expectation of the young birds: they opened their mouths wide, and as he dropped a small crumb into each, they moved their tongues, trying to make it pass down into their throat. "Poor little things, they cannot swallow well, they want the mother to put it gently down their throat with her beak." "See! see!" said all the girls, "they want more, give them more." William dropped his crumbs again. "More, more, William; see! they are not satisfied." "I dare not give them more for fear of killing them, we cannot feed them like the mother. We will stand still at a little distance, and you will see them go to sleep." When all was quiet, the little nestlings shut their mouths, and dropped their heads. "I should like to see the mother feed them." "You would see how much better she would do it than we can; perhaps, if we could conceal ourselves behind that laurel, she would come, but she will be very frightened, because all is so altered now the grass is cut down, and her nest is exposed; but I dare say she is not for off, she will be watching somewhere." They took William's hint, and retreated behind the laurel; they had not waited ten minutes, before the hen bird flitted past, and, darting over the larch, as if to inspect whether her little brood was safe, she disappeared again. In a few minutes more, she returned, skimming round to reconnoitre that all was safe, she perched upon the nest. Instantly the little nestlings were awake to the summons of her touch and chirp, and, opening their mouths wide, were ready for what she would give. She dropt a small fly into the mouth of one of them, and, having no more, flew away to provide for the other hungry mouths as fast as she could. As soon as she was gone, they again shut their mouths, and dropt their heads in silence. "What a little bit she gave them," said Frances. "Yes," answered William, "but she knows it is _plenty_." "How contented the others seem to wait till she comes again!" "Yes, Mary," William again answered, unable to resist the comparison which had come to his mind, "they did not take the little bit away from the other. Shall we wait till she comes again?" "O do." "Very well, I want to see whether the one that was fed first will take away the bit the others got." The allusion made a little laugh, but, seeing that Frances understood and felt that it applied to her, Anne said, "Do not let us tease Frances; it is better to tell her at once what her fault is, than to seem to like to hurt her." "Indeed, dear Anne, I have not spared to tell her, her fault, as she knows very well, for she has often given me reason, but I cannot make her ashamed of such things; and I know mamma is very uneasy to see it in her." Frances looked grave, but did not cry; turning pale, however, she said, "O Mary take me out of this laurel--I am so sick!" Mary hastened to take her into the freer air, but all in vain. The sisters were alarmed, and took her in to their mamma; who received her gravely, without expressing any concern for her indisposition. "What can we do for Frances, mamma? Will you let her have your smelling bottle, or shall I run and get some sal volatile?" "Neither, my dear Mary; it is an indisposition caused by her own selfish appetite, and probably the relief may be obtained by her stomach rejecting what she so improperly forced upon it. We will wait a short time, and if not, I will give her something less palatable, perhaps, than plum-cake, but necessary to remove it." Frances was too ill to make any remark; she became paler still, and then quickly flushed almost a crimson color, her eyes were oppressed, and her eyebrows contracted, and she impatiently complained, "O my head! how it beats! What shall I do, mamma?" "Bear the consequences of your own inordinate appetite, Frances, and learn to subject it to the wholesome rules of temperance." "O the nasty plum-cake! I wish you had not given me any, mamma." "You _once_ thought the plum-cake _nice_, and you would not be contented with the small portion I knew to be sufficient and safe for you." "O my head! I think it is very cruel, mamma, that you do not pity me." "I do pity you, Frances, and will take care of you now that I see you require help, as I perceive that you will not have any relief without medicine." Frances began again to cry, "O, I am so sick! I cannot take medicine. I am sure I cannot." "Come to your room, Frances; I shall give you something proper, and you had better lie down after you have taken it; you will, perhaps, drop into a sleep, and be well when you awake again." Her mamma took her hand and led her up stairs, and Frances knew very well it was in vain to make any objection, as her mamma always made a point of obedience. The medicine was administered, although for some time Frances refused to look at it. When she laid down, her mamma placed the pillow high under her head, and, drawing the curtain to shade the light, left the room that she might be perfectly quiet. And when she returned to the drawing-room, she inquired of the other children what they had been doing, and received a full account of the feast, and the bird's nest, and all the little circumstances of each. It was time to resume their studies, and, except that Frances was not in her usual place, all things proceeded as before. When the lessons were finished, they entreated their mamma to go with them, and see the bird's nest." "It is _so_ pretty, mamma!" said Anne; "and they know when the mother comes, and they take what she puts into their mouths." "We will first inquire after Frances," she answered; "if she is well enough, she can accompany us." "I will run up, if you will be putting on your bonnet and shawl, mamma." "Very well, I hope you will find her recovered, we will wait your return." Anne soon returned,--"She is gone! I do not see her anywhere!" "Gone! In perhaps we shall find her at play in the garden." In this expectation they all went out, and as they drew near the spot where the nest was, they saw Frances looking very eagerly into the nest, and seeming to be in some agitation, then she threw something out of her hand, and ran away as if wanting not to be seen. "She is about some mischief," William said, and ran forward to the nest. But what was his grief to see one of the little birds dead on the ground, two others in the nest with pieces of bread sticking in their mouths, gasping, unable to swallow or reject it, and the fourth with its crop gorged, and slowly moving its little unfledged head from side to side, struggling in death. Full of sympathy with the little sufferer, and indignant with Frances, he exclaimed, "Provoking girl! she has stuffed the little creatures as she would like to stuff herself; and I believe she has killed them all." The lively interest the other children had in the nest, impelled them to hasten to the spot, and their lamentations, and even tears, soon flowed. "William, William, cannot you do anything for them? do try." "Well, stand still and do not shake my arm--so saying, he began the attempt, and drew the bread carefully out of the distended mouths of the two. "Now the other! the other, William!" "That I cannot help," he answered: "see! she has forced it down, and we cannot get it back again; it is dying now." Anne picked up the dead one from off the ground, and stroking it with her forefinger, "Poor little thing!" she said, "was she so cruel to you!" It was not long before they heard a rustling in the tree near the place, and then a chirp of fright and distress. "Ah!" said their mamma, "there is the mother! poor things, we will go a little distance to let her come to the nest; perhaps she will be able to save the two." They all withdrew, and the little parent bird was soon on her nest, fluttering and chirping to awaken the dead and dying little ones, till at length she sorrowfully brooded down on her nest, and spread her wings over them, occasionally chirping as if to solicit an answer from her little brood. "Oh!" said Mary, bursting into tears, "I cannot bear it! cruel Frances, to be so unkind to the little birds!" "Go and find Frances," said their mamma, "and bring her to me." "I will go," William answered, "I think I know where she will hide herself." It was not long before William returned, leading Frances, who very reluctantly yielded to accompany him. "Come here," said her mamma, stopping the accusations she saw were ready to overwhelm the offending little girl; "come here, and let me talk to you about this sad thing you have done to the little birds. Do you see what you have done by your ill-judged kindness?" "Kindness! mamma," they all exclaimed. "Yes, dear children, she has been very faulty, but I believe she meant to be kind, and through ignorance did this thing which proves the death of the birds. _You_ would not have done it, William, because you have already learnt there is such a thing as a necessary prudence to deal out your morsels with wisdom, and in a measure suited to the age and the capacity of the birds, and also that their food should be of a wholesome kind suitable to their nature. Nothing of this did Frances know, and it seems she had not learnt wisdom from the circumstances she had herself so lately fallen into. "It reminds me of the scripture, which teaches us to profit: 'Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.' These little birds first attracted your attention by their _open mouths_, which they had stretched to receive what their poor mother was preparing to put into them. As one lighted on the edge of their nest, they instinctively opened their little yellow-edged beaks; she delighted to see them do so; and they, taking with content what she had provided for them, with the utmost confidence swallowed it down. She had a bit for every one of them in turn and they waited patiently until it was given them. All was well whilst they were nourished with parental tenderness and prudence, and none other meddled with them, or ventured to give them other things, which they, being blind, received and knew not the hand that gave, nor the consequences of eating food not such as their parent would have provided. "Here you see Frances, neither prudent nor aware of consequences, has stuffed these little birds with improper food, both in quality and quantity. The consequences are fatal; one is dead, another is dying, and it is very uncertain whether the others also will not die. She fed them without measure, and their crops and throats were gorged so as to stop their breathing. They took it greedily, because they knew not the fatal consequences. "Frances, you are a greedy girl. You had been suffering for this offence, and had not the wisdom to leave it to me to apportion your food. You opened your mouth wide, but you must remember it is not written that _you_ are to fill it according to your own desires. 'I will fill it,' saith the Lord. He knows what is good for us, and he will measure his bounty according to his own wisdom." Frances began to look ashamed and sorrowful. "I was to you," her mamma continued, "in the affair of the cake, endeavoring to fulfil this my duty, but you rebelled against my discretion, and would covet more than was right. You _helped yourself_, you gorged your stomach. You were cross and peevish, and ill, and when the medicine had relieved you, as it was designed, you, without reflection, sallied forth and suffocated the little birds. You could not feed them as the _mother_ would. You could not find in the air and on the ground the little insects, and small worms and little grains which were their proper food, and you should have left it to their own mother to fill their opened mouths. _She_ would have made no mistake either in the quality or quantity _convenient_ for them." "O," Mary said, "how that reminds me of the scripture in Proverbs xxx. 8: 'Feed me with food _convenient_ for me.'" "Yes, my dear girl, it's a scripture of great importance and often does it impress my mind in combination with the other I mentioned, Ps. lxxxi. 10: 'Open thy mouth wide, and _I_ will fill it,' in their spiritual application, when I am providing for you, and dividing out your portions, and considering what diet is most suited to your constitution, and limiting the quantity of dainty or rich luxuries not _convenient_ for you. I am also frequently led to apply it to myself, and to offer my petition to the Lord that he will graciously judge for me, both temporally and spiritually to _fill_ my mouth, and feed me with food _convenient_ for me." "I think too, mamma, that there is some meaning belonging to this in our Lord's teaching us to pray, 'Give us this day our daily bread,' Matt. vi. 11." "Assuredly, my dear child, and I am rejoiced to find you are led by this subject to compare spiritual things with spiritual. "You see how the word of God interprets itself, and we are taught to go direct to the bounteous hand who giveth liberally, but never wastefully Our daily bread is sufficient for the day, and we must wait on him still for the daily bread of the succeeding day; so we are instructed to open our mouths wide to ask the Lord to fulfil his promise and to fill them, and to be contented with convenient food." "O Mamma, you cannot think how many scriptures seem to come to my mind, and to give me a clearer understanding. You know the manna which was given in the wilderness, was _convenient_ food when it was gathered daily as the Lord commanded, but when they laid it up, you know it was no longer _convenient,_ for it stunk and bred worms. Does not this teach us to trust God as well as not to _disobey_ him?" "May this ready application of the word of God proceedeth from that grace, my child, which teaches you, like Job, to esteem the word of God more than your necessary food, for you will also remember what our Lord said to the tempter, 'It is written, Man does not live by _bread alone,_ but _by every word_ that proceeded out of the mouth of God.' But we are too apt to forget this, and to imagine that we can provide well for ourselves by fulfilling the desires and lusts of the flesh, and by so doing, we are likely to be brought to _forget_ God, the bountiful and wise Supplier of all our wants." "I remember the text, mamma, which has in it, 'Feed me with food _convenient_ for me; and in another part, 'lest I be full and deny thee,' Prov. xxx. 9; and this little bird's nest has helped me to understand it better." "May the Holy Spirit engrave it on your heart, for it will often remind you of the thankful contentedness with which you ought to wait on the Lord." "Yes, mamma," William said, "but there is no harm, you know, in opening the mouth _wide_." "No, William, certainly no _harm_, for it is a _duty_. 'Open thy mouth wide,' is an injunction of God, but it is immediately subjoined and strictly said, 'and I will fill it.' Therefore bear in mind the double instruction. Neither take the filling on yourself, nor be ready to swallow every crude and unwholesome morsel which the ignorant or the wicked would present to you. Do you remember a certain day last week when something happened?" William looked anxious to recollect what his mamma alluded to, and in less than a minute he shook his head, and said, "Ah, mamma, that is too bad, you mean when Mrs. Arnot called, and you were out." "Yes I do, William; you all opened your mouths wide, and _she_ filled them. Her sweet things did not prove _convenient_ food. You see, therefore, we should learn to discriminate between a heavenly Father's provision, and that of a stranger, whose busy interference may cost you your life. I was not many minutes away from my little nest, when a stranger came, and, by mistaken kindness made you all ill. "Frances, have you never read that scripture: 'Put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite.'" Frances cried, and, sobbing, said, "I do not know what it means?" "What can it mean, my dear Frances, but parallel with those, 'If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off. It is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, than, having two hands or two feet, to be cast into everlasting fire,' Matt. xvvi. 29, 30. ii. 8, 9. It means that spirit which will sacrifice the lust of the heart, and deny itself, though it should be a present mortification. The _throat_ of an inordinate or diseased appetite is to be cut, and its carnal desires crucified." "Was it not something of this kind that Isaac fell into when he sent Esau to hunt venison, and make him savory meat, such as his soul loved? Gen. xxvii. 4." "Yes, William, and this very thing he desired presented the temptation by which he was deceived. And you might have mentioned, too, how Esau himself yielded to his appetite, and sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, Gen. xxv. 29. When we yield to these propensities of the flesh, we lay a snare for our own souls, and expose our weakness to an adversary, ever ready to take advantage of our infirmity. It is a common fault in children to desire with greedy appetite such food as is pernicious, and to wish for more than even a mouth opened wide requires--till at length they learn to lust after _forbidden_ things. And what does it lead to? Frances, you began to pick and steal, and your own iniquity chastised you:--you were sick and ill." Frances hid her face in her frock. "Ah mamma," said Anne, "I shall be afraid of wanting anything, as I used to do; and I hope I shall remember how much better you can feed me, than I can feed myself." "I wish I may too," said William. "If Eve had but waited for the Lord only to fill her mouth, she would not have eaten that which brought sin and death." "Tell me, Frances, if you feel the force of all we have learnt from the little birds, and your own mistaken idea of what would be good for them?" Frances did not answer. "But you know, my child, you were guilty of another fault; when the medicine was offered, which was likely to do you good,--you _refused_ to open your mouth, and was long before you would let me fill it, so you see we must leave it all to the Lord to give us much or little, bitter or sweet, just as he knows to be _convenient_ for us." "Yes," Mary said, "these poor little birds will long teach us a lesson. We may imitate them to open our mouth wide, but we must be warned by what happened to them, to let the _Lord_ only fill them." "Let us look again at the nest." They approached, and frightened the mother so, that she flew off. "See, see! William," said Anne, "the two little things are opening their mouths again. O how beautiful! let us never meddle with them any more. Only remember, 'Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.' Now, Frances, do not cry any more: come, we will bury these little dead birds." Frances wiped her eyes, and Anne giving her a kiss, they went away to do as she proposed. After they had made a little coffin, they put the two little dead birds into it Then William got a spade, and dug a grave just large enough to hold the little coffin: and, as he lowered it into the grave, Mary wiped away the tears which gathered in her eyes. When William had filled up the grave, they all returned to their mamma, who said-- "My dear children, do not let us dismiss this interesting subject without a closer application. My dear Frances, come near to me, and hear what I have to say." Frances drew near with some timidity. Conscious of her faults, and expecting the word of truth to be directed to her heart, she had at that moment rather have escaped from it. But her mamma, taking her hands into hers, and sitting down on a garden stool that was nigh, she felt that the words would be words of love, aid her heart beginning to soften, the tears were ready to flow, for she knew that her mamma would speak to her of Jesus and of his blood, which was shed for sinners. "Do you know quite well, my child, that among the fruits of the Spirit enumerated, Gal. v., there is one called TEMPERANCE?" "Yes, mamma," she replied. "Are you not also conscious, my dear child, that your desire of indulging your appetite is quite contrary to this holy fruit?" "Yes, mamma." "Then what are you to do in order to overcome the one, and to obtain the other?" "I must ask the Lord Jesus to give me the Holy Spirit." "Yes, my child, to him must you come for all help, and he will not send you empty away. Here is a subject on which you must indeed open your mouth wide, in earnest prayer, and wait on the Lord for his gracious answer. 'Ask, and ye shall receive,' he says, and after showing how an _earthly_ father will act towards his child that asks for bread, how does he conclude?" "He says, 'How much _more_ will your _heavenly_ Father give the _Holy Spirit_ to them that ask Him!'" "Will you then, my dear Frances, profit by this gracious instruction, and will _you_ ask for the Holy Spirit?" "Yes, mamma, I will try." "Do you believe the Lord will give you the Holy Spirit when you ask?" "He _says_ He _will_, mamma." "That is enough, my child; what the Lord says is yea and amen. It is written, 'Hath he said, and will he not do it?'" "Yes, mamma, I know God is _Truth_, He cannot lie." "But you know also, my dear Frances, when the Holy Spirit is given, he takes up his abode in the heart, and he _acts_ in the soul, and will not dwell there without producing his holy fruit; and tell me now what is the fruit you particularly want to overcome this sinful desire of appetite which prevails in your heart." "Is it not _temperance_, mamma?" "Yes, and if He comes into your heart, he will give it you, and moreover teach you to _repent_ of your sins; for consider, my Frances, sin is an offence against him, and needs to be repented of. Do you repent?" "I am very sorry, mamma." "But repentance is more than sorrow; it will make you ashamed before God, and make you feel yourself vile; and it will also make you carefully watchful against the temptation; it will make you anxious to quit the sin, and clear your soul from its power; it will make you indignant against it, and urge you to seek that strength from the Spirit, which will resist the sin, and overcome it. When, therefore, you ask for the Holy Spirit, be _willing_ that the Lord should _fill_ you. Be ready to _exercise_ the mighty gift for _all_ his offices, to convict you of sin, to lead you to true expectations, and to strengthen you to overcome your sin, giving you that grace which is specially opposed to the leading sin of your heart." "I wish I had this gift; for my sin makes me very unhappy: I know it is wrong." "Do not stop in _wishes_, dear child, go and _pray_; '_Ask_, and ye shall receive.' 'Open your mouth wide' in the full utterance of all your distress, and of all you desire; pray for what you _want, name_ it; pray for _repentance_, and for _temperance_. Pray that the _lust of your appetite_ may be _crucified_, and pray that the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God who taketh away sin, may be sprinkled upon your guilty soul, and cleanse it from all sin. He giveth liberally, and upbraideth not. He is angry only when we neglect his promises and his gifts. "It is not long since, dear Mary, that you and I conversed on this text, 'My people would not hearken to my voice, Israel would none of me: _so I gave them up to their own heart's lusts_,' Psa. lxxxi. A dreadful judgment! what would become of _you_, dear Frances, if you were given up to the dominion of your appetite?" "But, my dear mamma," Mary said, "do you not remember the end of that psalm, what a sweet verse there is?" "Repeat it, dear girl, and let little Frances hear it!" "'_Had_ they hearkened and obeyed, then should he have fed them with the finest of the wheat, and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied them.'" "O my children," said their mamma, "here is spiritual food for the spiritual appetite! You know who is the Bread of Life, and who is the Rock of our salvation. Turn unto him your whole heart, and though you feel the burden of the body of this death, you shall soon be able to thank God, who, through Jesus Christ our Lord, will deliver you." "Poor Esau repented too late, That once he his birth-right despis'd, And sold for a morsel of meat, What could not too highly be priz'd. How great was his anguish when told, The blessing he sought to obtain Was gone with the birth-right he sold, And none could recall it again! He stands as a warning to all, Wherever the gospel shall come! O hasten and yield to the call, While yet for repentance there's room! Your season will quickly be past; Then hear and obey it to-day, Lest when you seek mercy at last, The Saviour should frown you away. What is it the world can propose? A morsel of meat at the best! For this are you willing to lose A share in the joys of the blest? Its pleasures will speedily end, Its favor and praise are but breath; And what can its profits befriend Your soul in the moments of death? If Jesus, for these, you despise, And sin to the Saviour prefer, In vain your entreaties and cries, When summon'd to stand at his bar: How will you his presence abide? What anguish will torture your heart, The saints all enthron'd by his side, And you be compelled to depart. Too often, dear Saviour, have I Preferr'd some poor trifle to thee; How is it thou dost not deny The blessing and birth-right to me? No better than Esau I am, Though pardon and heaven be mine To me belongs nothing but shame, The praise and the glory be thine." I. The Little Pavior. "Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right,"--PROVERBS, xx. 11. Happy the child who is active, intelligent and obliging, and who takes pleasure in serving those that are about him! Happy above all is the child, who, fearing and loving the Lord, shows himself thus zealous and obliging, from a feeling of piety, and a desire to please God. Such was Francis, and this we shall soon see, from the following narrative: Francis, who was about eight years old, was spending the month of June with his Grandpapa in the country. His Grandpapa lived in a pretty house, roofed with slates, and surrounded with a verandah, in which were seats, and between each seat, some flower-pots. Jessamine and roses entwined themselves around the verandah, and adorned it with elegant festoons of flowers. Behind the house was a yard, where chickens, turkeys, and guinea-fowls, were kept; and in the front, looking towards the west, was laid out a fine garden, well provided with evergreens, such as holly, yew, and pine-trees, and amongst these, also, many birch and ash-trees flourished. At the bottom of the garden, which sloped a little, flowed a pure, but shallow stream, which was crossed by means of a wooden bridge, surrounded with elders and large hazels. This was a delightful dwelling-place, but those who inhabited it, were still more delightful than the beautiful garden or the smiling groves. For it was the beauty of piety which was found in them, united with that gentleness and amiability of character, that humble spirit of cordiality, which our Saviour enjoins upon all his true disciples. These inhabitants, so good and so amiable, were the Grandpapa and Grandmamma of Francis, and their domestics, who, with them served the Lord, and lived in that peace, which His Spirit gives to such as delight in His Word. This dear Grandpapa then, since he was pious, was charitable, and took particular pleasure in visiting his aged neighbors, especially the poor peasants, to whom he always carried comfort and encouragement from that gracious God, with whom he himself daily endeavored more and more to live. He used generally to pay these charitable visits in the middle of the day; after having read the Holy Bible for the second time, in a retired summer-house in the garden, near which a little gate opened upon a footpath, which, passing through the orchard, led to the village. Francis, who was already acquainted with his Grandpapa's habits, never came to disturb him while he was in the summer-house, and whenever he saw his Grandpapa going out of the little gate he took good care not to follow him. But in about an hour or two, he would go to meet him, sometimes towards the road, at others, as far as the bridge over the stream;--his Grandmamma was never uneasy, because she knew that Francis was a prudent boy, and that God watched over him, as one of the lambs of the good shepherd. Grandpapa then, had just finished reading; he had put on his hat and taken his cane, and had gone out through the gate. Francis, who was sitting before the house, under the pretty green verandah, saw him pass behind the garden hedge, and was already thinking of going to meet him at the end of an hour, when to his great surprise he saw his Grandpapa pass again behind the hedge, and then enter the garden through the little gate, walking apparently with much difficulty. "What is the matter, dear Grandpapa?" cried Francis, springing towards the garden.--"Oh! how you are covered with mud! It must be that rude Driver who wanted to fawn upon you. He has always such dirty paws." "You must not scold Driver, but _me_," mildly replied his Grandpapa, "for I incautiously, and most imprudently, walked upon that part of the path which has been inundated by the water from the fountain." "Grandpapa, did you fall?" asked Francis, quite alarmed. "Yes my boy, your Grandfather fell like a heedless man.... But thanks to our gracious God, who ever takes care of us! it was nothing; I was only a little frightened. You see, Francis, you must not forget that we only stand, because God supports us." So saying, his Grandfather entered the house, and with the same serenity related his accident to his wife, who bestowed every attention upon him. Whilst his Grandfather was resting himself, and Francis had ascertained that he had not suffered much, he hastened to look at the spot where his kind Grandpapa had slipped and fallen. It was a little bit of the path, perhaps about three paces long, covered with the water which was issuing from the fountain, and which being of clay, had become very slippery. The trench round the fountain had been already deepened more than once, in order to turn its course from that part of the orchard, but as the ground was rather low, the water always returned. Francis examined all this, and tried to find out what could be done to remedy the evil, in a more durable manner. "_I know!_" he cried at last. "I must make a pavement here, a little higher than the path is at present!" "Come! cheer up! 'Where there's a will,' says Grandpapa, 'with God's help there's a way.' To work, to work! 'For he who does nothing makes little progress,' says also, my dear Grandpapa." It may be here well asked, how a little child, eight years of age, could even conceive such a project, and much more how he could have had sufficient strength to accomplish it. But Francis was not a thoughtless or inattentive child; on the contrary he observed on his way _to_, and _from_ School, and when he walked out with his Papa, everything that workmen did. It was thus that he had often noticed how the Paviors first laid down the stones, and then pressed them together, and as we shall soon see, he found no difficulty in what he was going to attempt. "First and foremost," said he, "the tools!" and immediately he ran off to look for a little wheel-barrow which his Grandpapa had made for him; with the spade, the trowel, and the iron rake, which were at his disposal. When the tools were collected, Francis, having taken off his jacket, traced out the portion to be paved. "Now," said he, "I must take away two or three inches of earth, that the stones may fit in." He then took away the earth, and piled it up on the upper side of the path, in order to compel the water to pass by the drain. "Now," he said, "I must find some sand; where is there any? Oh! behind the hen-house; the masons, who plastered the walls of the yard over again, have left a large heap of it there"--and then he quickly ran with his wheelbarrow, once, twice, and even three times, and soon had as much as was necessary. He spread it out, and arranged it, and then pronounced the great word of all his work, "_Stones!_ No stones, no pavement! I must have at least fifty of them!" He ran about, searched and gathered, near the fountain, round the house, and along the wall of the yard, and soon brought back four wheelbarrows full of nice stones, well shaped, and not too large. But there were not enough, for he was obliged to put five or six abreast. Where are there any more to be found? "In the brook," cried he! "It is rather far off, but I shall soon be there!" And indeed in about a quarter of an hour, he had collected all the proper materials. Then should he have been seen at work! The trowel in his right hand, a stone in his left; the sand which he placed between each stone, and the blows which forced it down, these things succeeded each other rapidly, and were often repeated; till at length, at the end of the third hour, the slippery bit of foot-path was no longer in existence, but in its stead was to be seen a pavement slightly raised, which could never be wetted by the overflowing of the fountain. "That will not do well," said Francis, when he had finished, and was walking over the pavement; "it is uneven, Grandpapa will hurt his feet upon it." And so saying, he ran to the woodhouse in the yard, and returned, bending under the weight of the mallet, with which Thomas used to strike the axe and wedges, when he split the large pieces of oak. "Here is _my_ rammer," said Francis, laughing, as he thought of those used by the paviors; and holding the mallet perpendicularly, he struck with the butt-end, first one stone, and then another, until at length the pavement was completed! It was solid, even and clean, and Francis, repeating in truth, "Where there's a will, with God's help, there's a way," gave thanks in his heart to that good heavenly Father, who gave him both the idea and the will to do this act of filial love, and enabled him to accomplish it. Some sand and a few stones remained; Francis took them up and carried them back near to the house. Then he cleared away the rubbish, and having put on his coat again, returned joyfully to replace his tools in the green-house. All this was done after dinner, between the hours of three and six. The evening passed quietly away. Grandpapa had not received any bruises, and he could not sufficiently thank the Good shepherd, the Lord Jesus, who had, as it were, "carried him in his arms," and "kept all his bones." Grandmamma joined in his praises and thanksgivings, and these two faithful servants blessed the Lord together, whose mercies are over all his works. "To-morrow, please God," said Grandpapa to Francis, "I shall go and see old George. He must have expected me to-day! But be assured, my dear Francis, that your Grandpapa will walk no more like a giddy child; and if the path is still slippery, I shall place my foot prudently upon it." Francis said he hoped the path would be better; and however that might be, that the Lord would preserve him thenceforth from slipping, and above all, from falling. Grandpapa made Francis read the Bible as usual to the whole household. He spoke piously of God's paternal care for our bodies as well as for our souls, and in his prayer he gave abundant thanks to the Saviour who had so graciously preserved him. The morrow came. Grandpapa had quite recovered his accident of the preceding day, and after reading in the summer-house, he got up to go and see old George. Francis, who was observing him from beneath the verandah, no sooner saw him come near the little gate, than he ran round the house to hide himself behind a hazel bush, a short distance from the pavement, in order to see what his Grandpapa would do. Grandpapa walked on towards the orchard, and as soon as he set his foot on the path, he prepared to proceed very carefully. He took three or four steps, and then suddenly stopped, and raising his hands, exclaimed, a "pavement! a pavement here already! How does this happen? Who could have done this? It must be my faithful Thomas!"--he continued--"I must thank him for it;" and he called out loudly, "Thomas! Thomas!" Thomas, who was in the cow-house, heard his voice, and ran to him in alarm. "Have you tumbled again, sir," he asked anxiously? "On the contrary," said Grandpapa, "thanks to _you_, Thomas, for having made this good substantial pavement so quickly and so well; it is really excellent," said he, stamping upon it with his foot, and walking over it in every direction. "It is solid, and even, and slopes on either side! I am very much obliged to you, Thomas." "Alas! sir," said the man, "it is not I who did it--how vexed I am that I did not think of it what stupidity!"... "Who is it then?" asked Grandpapa, "for this has been done since yesterday, and surely these stones are not mushrooms! Who could have thought of this?" "I think I know who it is, sir," answered Thomas, "for yesterday in the afternoon I saw master Francis going down to the brook with his wheelbarrow. I could not think what it was for, but now I understand." "Francis! did you say," exclaimed Grandpapa; "how could that child have done it even if he had wished? Are these stones only nuts, that _that_ dear boy's little hands could have been able to knock them into the ground?" "Do you wish, sir, that I should look for him and bring him here?" asked Thomas. Francis could no longer remain concealed. He ran from behind the bush, and threw himself into his Grandpapa's arms; saying, "Dear Grandpapa, how happy I am to have been able to succeed." "It is _you_ then, indeed, my son!" cried Grandpapa, as he shed tears of joy. "God bless your filial piety towards me! May He return you two-fold all the good you have done my heart. But how did you manage?" "You have often told me, dear Grandpapa, that 'Where there's a will, with the help of God, there's a way,' and I prayed to God, and was able to do it." "Well then, dear Francis," said Grandpapa, solemnly, "I promise you, that every day of my life, as long as I shall walk here below, when I pass over this pavement, which your affection has made for me, I will say to God 'O Lord, prevent Francis from falling in his way! May thy goodness _pave_ for him the path of life, whenever it becomes slippery.'" Francis understood, and respectfully received this blessing; and whilst his Grand father paid his visit, the little pavior went and told his Grandmamma, what he had been able to do, and how God had already blessed him for it. II. The Silver Knife. "Then said Jesus unto him: Go and do thou likewise."--LUKE, x. 37. _Mary_.--(After having searched about the dining-room,) "Who has seen my silver knife? William, John, Lucy, you who are amusing yourselves in the garden, have you seen my silver knife?" _William_.--(Going up to the window, and in a sententious tone of voice,) "'Disorder,' says an ancient writer, 'occasions sorrow, and negligence, blame.'" _Mary_.--"Admirable! But that does not apply to _me_, for it is scarcely an hour since I laid my knife on this very table, which certainly belongs to us." _Lucy_.--"Are you quite sure of it, Mary!" _Mary_--"Yes, indeed, there is no doubt of it, for Sophy asked me to give her a pretty little red apple, as usual, before going to school. I went immediately to the fruit-room for it, and as it was a little spoiled, I cleaned it with my silver knife, which I laid on this table, whilst I was kissing her. I am therefore quite sure of it." _John_.--(Frowning,)--"For my part, I confess, I don't like all these strangers who come about the house. For instance, that little _Jane_, who sells lilies of the valley, and strawberries, and so on--I very much distrust her sullen look; and who knows, if perhaps...?" _Lucy_--"Fie, fie, brother, to suspect that poor little modest gentle child, who supports her sick mother by her own industry! Oh! it is very wrong, John!" "What is the matter?" said their Father, who had heard this dispute from the garden, where he was reading under the shade of a tree. Mary related her story, and finished by saying,--"Well, if it be God's will, So-be-it! My beautiful knife is lost!" "Yes, my dear girl," answered her father, "What God wills, is always best. But it is His will that I should watch over, my household. I must therefore know what has become of your knife. Did you ask Elizabeth if she had taken care of it, when she cleaned the room?" Mary ran to the kitchen, and enquired of Elizabeth. "Your silver knife! Miss," said the servant, coloring. "Have you lost that beautiful knife, which was given you on your birthday?" "I ask you, if you have taken care of it," answered Mary. "I laid it this morning upon the table in the dining-room, near the window." _Elizabeth_.--(with astonishment,)--"Near the window! Oh!--I know where it is, now. About half an hour ago, when I went into the dining-room, to ... put ... down ... some plates, I saw the great magpie, which builds its nest up in the large elm-tree, at the end of the garden, sitting on the window-ledge. It flew away as soon as it saw me; but it had something white and shining in its beak. Oh! yes, I remember now! it was the silver knife!" "The magpie," exclaimed Mary, "with my knife in its beak!" "Oh! Miss," replied Elizabeth, "there is no thief like a magpie. When I was at home, one of their nests was once pulled down, and nine pieces of silver were found in it, and a whole necklace of pearls! Oh! magpies are terrible birds, and you may be sure that your knife is in their nest." Mary returned to her father in the garden, and related to him all that Elizabeth had said, but added, "For my part, I don't believe a word of it!" "And why not?" exclaimed John, sharply, "Elizabeth is quite right! Nothing steals like a magpie. Everybody says so. Come! let us to work! A ladder, a cord, and a long stick! Down with the nest!--Papa, will you allow me to climb the tree!" _Lucy._--(Holding John by the arm.)--"Brother, how _can_ you think of it? The elm is more than eighty feet high! Papa, I beg of you, not to allow it." _Father_.--(Calmly.)--"No one shall get up the tree and risk his life, for a thing which certainly is not there." "There is no thief like a magpie," repeated John, looking at the nest, which might be seen through the higher branches of the tree; "but I confess it would not be easy to reach it. These branches are very long and very slender!" William, who had said nothing as yet, but had been walking backwards and forwards, with his head down, and his hands in his pockets, turned suddenly round to Mary, and said, "I have been thinking we can soon know if your knife is in the nest. We only want a polemoscope for that. Hurrah! long live optics!" "A lemoscope!" said Lucy, "What is that? Is it a long hook?" _William_.--(Smiling rather contemptuously.) "Poor sister! What ignorance!" _Father_--"William, speak kindly--tell your sister what this instrument is, and what you want to do with it." _William._--(Scientifically.)--"In war, when a besieged garrison wishes to know all the movements of the enemy, without being seen, they erect behind the walls, or the ramparts, a mirror, placed at the end of a long pole, and inclining towards the country. You understand, then, that everything that takes place outside, is reflected in the mirror, and can be seen from within, or in another mirror placed at the bottom of the pole, and sloping inwards. This, Lucy, is what is called a polemoscope--that is to say, an instrument for observations in war." "Thank you, William," said Lucy, "but what are you going to do with it?" _William._--"The thing is quite plain. I am going to fasten a small mirror on a light pitchfork, inclining it downwards. This pitchfork I shall fasten firmly to pole; then some one will climb, dear papa, without any danger, as far as the strong branches reach; from thence he can draw up the pole and its mirror, with a long string, and by raising the mirror above the nest, he will enable us to see, with the aid of your telescope, all that the nest contains. This is my plan, and I think it is not so bad!" _Father_.--(Smiling.)--"Dear William. It is a great pity, however, that you are so blind. There are two things you have not considered. One is, that the branches which cover the nest, are very thick and tufted. Therefore, your mirror, even if it reached their summit, would only reflect the leaves, and consequently neither the nest nor the knife; and the other thing which you do not observe, is this, that the magpies, by an admirable instinct, which God has given them, build their nests, not like a basin, as you supposed, but in the form of a ball; so that the nest is covered with a vaulted roof, formed of sticks closely interwoven, which shelters the bird and its brood from bad weather, and above all, from the cruel claw of the kite or hawk." "I am much obliged to you, dear papa," said William. "What a pity," he added, with a sigh; "for my plan would otherwise have been infallible." "Let us seek a better one," said their father. "Mary, go and see if you have not left your knife in the fruit-room. Perhaps it was yesterday, that you peeled the apple for Sophy." "I will do so," said Mary, and she went into the house for the key of the fruit-room. She soon returned, exclaiming, "The key is not in its place, and I put it there this morning." "Miss Mary is mistaken," said Elizabeth, coming out of the kitchen; "I see the key in the door." "Papa," said Mary, "I recollect, when I put the key in the cupboard, this very morning, Sophy looked at it, and said, 'It is certainly the prettiest key on the bunch.'" "Let us go to the fruit-room," said the father, directing his steps thither. "I fear this will prove a sad affair." "What is this, too," cried Mary, examining the shelves, "the big key of the cellar here Where did it come from? And this key covered with cheese, from one end to the other!" "Let us go to the cellar!" said the father. "I believe we shall find out more there than we can here." They opened the door, and found the brilliant silver knife, not in the magpie's nest, but sticking in a cheese, from which a large portion appeared to have been detached. The children were amazed, and their Father much grieved. "Here is your knife, Mary," said John, who first saw it. "Certainly, there is no need of a looking-glass to find it." "You must not joke, my children," said the Father; "this is a very sad business. I am thankful it has taken place in the absence of your dear Mother, and I forbid you writing her anything about it. This must concern me, and me alone." _William_.--(Indignantly.)--"It amounts to a theft, a falsehood!" _Lucy_.--"But who has done it, William? Did not Mary leave her knife here?" _William_.--"Who saw the Magpie carrying it off in his beak?" _Mary_.--(To Lucy.)--"Do you not understand that it was poor Elizabeth, who came here with my knife, which she took off the table where I left it, and who, after having cut a piece of cheese with it, went to the fruit-room, no doubt to steal some apples also." _John_.--(Angrily.)--"Papa, Elizabeth has acted deceitfully--will you allow her to remain with you? One of the Psalms, the 101st, I think, says, 'He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house.'" _The Father_.--(Gravely.) "It is said also in Holy Scriptures, my son, that 'mercy rejoiceth against judgment,' and perhaps, John, if any of us, had been brought up like poor Elizabeth, we might have done even worse than this." "I am quite vexed," said Mary, "Oh! why did I not take more care of that wretched knife!" _William._--"But, Mary, it was not your knife left upon the table, which tempted her to take two keys secretly out of the cupboard, and which made them the instruments of this theft. For Papa," continued he, "it _is_ a theft, and a shameful one too! These stolen keys are no small matter!" _The Father_.--(Calmly.)--"I know it my children, and it grieves my heart, that one of my servants, who daily hears the word of God read and explained, should so far have forgotten the fear of the Lord! This is what saddens me, and wounds me deeply." _Lucy_.--"Elizabeth has not long been our cook, and probably she never heard the word of God before she came here. Poor girl I she is perhaps very unhappy now,--and I am sure, she will repent and turn to God." _The Father_.-"That is right, my dear child, I rejoice to hear you plead the cause of the unhappy, and even of the guilty, for as I said before, 'mercy rejoiceth against judgment.'" "I was therefore wrong," said John, "and I confess it ... for certainly I scarcely pitied her.... I did wrong I and now I think as Lucy does." "And I also," said William, "'Clemency governs courage,' says a Grecian historian, and ..." _The Father._--(Very seriously.)--"But, my dear William, what have the pagans of old and their morals to do here? My son, you know it is the word of God which rules our conduct, and which commands us to suffer and to forgive." _Lucy._--"Papa, will you allow me to repeat a passage, which I learnt by heart last Sunday?" _The Father._--"Repeat it, Lucy, and may God bless it to us all!" _Lucy._--"'Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassion every man to his brother.' It is in the seventh chapter of Zechariah." "I too, was wrong then," said William, "very wrong! for it is the wisdom of God alone, that enlightens us." "True, my son," said his Father, "may God always remind you of this. I am going to speak to Elizabeth," he added, "as for you, my children, do not say a word about it, and above all, bless the Lord, for having made known to you his grace and holy law. Pray to him together, that my words may have their due effect upon the mind of this poor guilty creature." The Father went out to look for Elizabeth, and the children repaired to William's room, who, having knelt down with them, prayed to the Lord to take pity upon her, and to touch her heart, and he ended the prayer in the following words:--"In thy great wisdom, O Most Gracious God, and in thine infinite compassion, through Jesus Christ, grant unto each of us true repentance, and a sincere change of heart, and may this affliction be turned to the glory of our Saviour Jesus." The children then returned to their several occupations, and not one of them ever thought of judging Elizabeth, or even speaking harshly of her. We may add, that the exhortation of her charitable master, produced sincere penitence in Elizabeth, and that the poor girl was not sent out of the house; for "mercy pleaded against judgment." It is thus that God deals with us! Oh! which of us can tell how often he has received pardon from the Lord! III. The Modern Dorcas "The night cometh when no man can work."--JOHN, ix. Oh! my sister! my sister! What a lesson may we learn from the death of our dear Amelia! She was but sixteen years old like myself, and only two years older than you are, but how much had she done for the Lord. I saw and heard her, when Jesus came to call her to himself; I was in the churchyard when they placed her body in the grave! Oh! what a solemn warning! and now I feel humbled before God, and I pray Him to pour into my heart the same Spirit which He bestowed so abundantly upon our friend, as well as that lively faith, which although Amelia 'is dead, yet speaketh,' as it is said of Abel, and which shall speak through her for many years to come! I wrote to you less than a fortnight ago, that Amelia was unwell; but how little I then thought it was her last illness! Oh! how uncertain our life is, dear Esther, and how much wiser we should be if we would only believe so! On the seventh day of her illness, her mother said to me, "Anna, your friend is going to leave us; the danger of her disorder increases every hour, and we must give her up to God!" I wept much and bitterly, and could not at first believe it; but when I was alone with Amelia, the next day, she said to me, with that calm peacefulness which never left her, "I am going away from this world, Anna; yes, dear Anna, I am going to depart; I feel it, and ... I am preparing myself for it!" I tried to turn away her thoughts from this subject; I told her that she was mistaken, and that God would certainly restore her; but she stopped me with firmness of manner, and said, "Do you envy my happiness, Anna? Do you wish to prevent me from going to my Heavenly home, to my Saviour, unto his light and glory?" The entrance of her father and the Doctor prevented my reply, and I left the room in tears. "You must not cry," said her mother to me. "We must pray, and above all, seek profit from the occasion. The time is short! Her end is at hand! But," added this servant of Christ, "_that_ end is the beginning of a life which shall have no end!" Three more days passed away. On the fourth, we had some faint hope, but the following day, all had vanished, and towards evening, Amelia declared, that the Lord was about to take her. "Yes, my dear parents, my excellent father and mother," she said, with a beam of heavenly joy on her countenance, "I am about to leave you; but I do not leave my God, for I am going to see Him, 'face to face.'" "My dear parents," she continued, affectionately, "rejoice at my departure; I am going to Heaven a little before you, it is true, but it is _only before you_, and you know it; and the Apostle says, that, 'to be with Christ is far better.'" I was present, Esther, and was crying. "Why do you cry, Anna?" she said, "Are you sorry to see me go to my Father's house?" "But, Amelia, _I_ lose you; we all lose you; and ..." "I do not like to hear you say that, Anna; do not repeat it, and do not think of it. Our Saviour says that, 'He who believes on Him shall not see death;' and I am certain, that my soul is about to join those of His saints who have already departed this life, for His grace has also justified _me._" "Ah!" said her aunt, who had not left her bedside for two days, "you have always done the will of God, dear Amelia; you are therefore sure of going to Him." "Dear aunt," she replied, with sorrow on her countenance, "I assure you that you grieve me. I have been during the whole of my life, but a poor sinner, and have by no means done what you say; but.... God Himself has pardoned me, and it is only, my dear aunt, because the blood of Jesus has washed away my sins, that I shall see God." It was thus, my sister, that Amelia spoke at intervals almost the whole night. Her voice at length became weaker; and towards morning, after a slight drowsiness, she said to her father, "Papa, embrace your child once more." She then turned to her mother, and said, "My dear mamma, embrace me also, and ... may Jesus comfort you all!" A few minutes after, our darling friend fell gradually asleep, and her last breath died away like the expiring flame of a candle. She experienced nothing of the agony of death. Truly, dear Esther, Amelia knew not what death was! But oh! how I have myself suffered! and how difficult it is to tear one's self thus forever here below, from such a friend as she was! Nevertheless, my sister, God knows we have not dared to murmur. I wish you had heard the prayer that Amelia's father offered up, when his daughter had ceased to breathe! Oh! it was the spirit of consolation itself which spoke! And since that solemn hour, what piety, what strength and peace of mind, Amelia's mother his displayed! I am sure you would have said, that the Lord was present, and that He was telling us with His own voice: "Amelia triumphs--she is in _My_ glory!" I wished to be in the churchyard when our friend, or rather, when her body of dust, was committed to the grave. There were many persons present, but especially poor people; some old men, and several children, came to take their last leave of her. A grey-headed and feeble old man was standing near the grave, leaning with his two hands on a staff, and with his head depressed. He wept aloud, when the clergyman mentioned Amelia's name, as he prayed, and gave thanks to God. He then stooped down, and taking a little earth in his hand, said, as he scattered it over the coffin: "Sleep, sweet messenger of consolation! Sleep, until He whom thy lips first proclaimed to me, calls thee to arise!" And with this, he burst into tears, as they filled the grave. When all was finished, and the funeral procession had departed, the poor people who were present approached the grave, sobbing, and repeating, "Sweet messenger of goodness! Our kind friend, our _true_ mother!" And two or three of the children placed upon her grave nosegays of box and white flowers. "Alas," said a young girl, "she will never hear me read the Bible again, nor instruct me how to live!" Another cried loudly, "Who will now come to visit my sick mother, and read the Bible to her, and bring her comfort and assistance." And there was a father, a poor workman, with two little boys, who, holding his children by the hand, came and placed himself near the spot where the head of Amelia was laid, saying to them, "Here, my poor children, under this sod, rests that sweet countenance which used to smile upon you, as if she had been your mother! Her lips have often told you, that you were not orphans, and that God was better to you than a parent.... Well, my dear children, let us remember what she used to say: 'God has not forgotten us, and He will sustain us!'" I was with my brother, who himself wept with all his heart, to see the sincere grief of these poor people. He whispered to me, "I have a great mind to speak to them, and ask them what Amelia used to do for them." I had the same wish; so we approached a group which surrounded the grave, and asked them when they had become acquainted with Amelia. "For my part," answered the old man, already spoken of, "this messenger of peace visited me two years ago, for the first time. I lived near a family to whom she had brought some worsted stockings, for winter was just setting in, and so my neighbor mentioned me to her, as a poor infirm old man. She desired to see me, and had she been my own daughter, she could never have shown me more respect and kindness! She procured me a warm quilt that same evening, and on the morrow, towards the middle of the day, she came with her excellent mother to pay me a long visit. "You must know, sir," continued the old man, to my brother, "I was then very ignorant, or rather my heart was hard and proud towards God. I had no Bible, and did not care about one. Well, this dear young lady not only brought me one, with her own hands, but came to read and explain it to me, with great patience, at least three times a week, during the first twelve months. "God took pity on me," added the old man, in a low voice, "and last year I began better to understand the full pardon which is in Christ Jesus, and was even able to pray with Miss Amelia. "She used sometimes to call me, 'My old father,' but it was I who ought to have called _her_ the _mother_, the true mother of my soul. "Just one month ago, she came to me for the last time; she gave me with a sweet smile, these worsted gloves, which she had knitted herself, and then recommended me with much respect and kindness to thank our Lord, who sent them me! This was the last of that sweet lady's charities to me!"... Upon this, the old man turned away weeping, and as he walked slowly on, he frequently looked back upon the newly-covered grave. "The same thing happened to me," said the workman. "The mother of these two little children died ten months ago; we were in want of everything, then, and I knew not even how to dress these children. Believe me, Miss," he added, addressing me with feeling, "when the mother is gone, all is gone!... but our gracious God did not forsake us, for He sent us his angel; I say His angel, although she is at present much more than an angel!... Is she not indeed a child of God in heaven? ... but, in short, she clothed these two little ones, and I am sure she did not spare herself in working for them; the clothes they now wear were made chiefly by that dear young lady's hands. Then she used to come and visit us; she often made my two children go to her house, and always gave them good advice. She also sent them to school, and although it was certainly her mother who paid for them, yet it was Miss Amelia who taught them to read at home, and who, almost every Sunday, made them repeat their Bible lessons. "Ah, Miss," he continued, "all that that dear young lady did for us, for our souls as well as for our bodies, will only be known in heaven, and at the last day. For my part, and I say it here over her grave, and in the presence of God, I am certain, that when the Lord Jesus shall raise us all up again, the works of Miss Amelia will follow her, and we shall then see that while upon earth she served God with all her heart. "No," he added, as he wiped away the tears from his children's eyes, "I would not wish her to return from the glory which she now enjoys, at the same time I cannot conceal from you, that my heart mourns for her, and that I know we have lost our consolation, our benefactress, our faithful friend!" "Who has not lost one?" exclaimed a poor woman, at whose side stood the little girls who had planted the flowers; "I know very well that Miss Amelia's mother will take her place, she is so good and kind! but it was no little joy to receive a visit from that sweet and amiable young lady, so good, so pious, and so full of joy. Oh! what should I have done with my husband, so long confined to his bed, if this messenger of goodness had not procured work for me, and recommended me to the ladies who now employ me. And then again, what were we, until Miss Amelia spoke to us? How much she had to put up with when I refused to read the Holy Scriptures! and yet she was never weary of me. Oh! no; she came day after day, to exhort and to teach me, and blessed be God, we begin now to know something of what the Saviour has done for us. "And," added she, drawing the little girl towards her, "I shall go on with my dear children, reading and learning that word of God, which was Miss Amelia's greatest joy. "Come, come, my friends," she said, in a persuasive tone, "_we_ must also die, and be put each in his turn, under this ground; but as our benefactress is not dead ... (no, she is not dead, for the Lord has said it!)--so also shall not we die, if we follow in her steps." The poor woman then wished us good day, and moved away with her children. We all walked on together, still speaking of Amelia. My brother took the names and addresses of many of the poor people, with whom he had just been conversing, and spoke a few words to them of comfort and encouragement. As soon as we were alone, he showed me the list of names, at the head of which was that of the old man, and he said, "Here is a blessed inheritance which Amelia has left us. She has done as Dorcas did: her hands have clothed the poor, and her lips have spoken comfort to them. Dear Anna, Amelia was not older than we are; let us remember this, for we know not when the Lord shall call us." How wise and pious this dear brother is! We have already been able to pay together, two of Amelia's visits. Her mother, to whom we related all we had heard, gave us further particulars of what the pious and indefatigable Amelia used to do. Ah Esther, her religion was not mere "lip-service." The Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ assisted her, and she might have said with truth, I show "my faith by my works." Let us take courage, then, my dear and kind sister! we lament our loss in Amelia's death, but on her own account I lament her not. I can only contemplate her in the presence of God, and of her Saviour, and I rejoice to think of her delight when she entered the region of heaven. How beautiful it must be, Esther, to behold the glory of that heaven! to hear the voices of saints and angels, and to know that God loves us, and will make us happy forever. Think, sister, of the meaning of--_forever!_ Amelia's father, whom I saw a few hours ago with her excellent and pious mother, said to me, in speaking of their darling child, "For my own joy and comfort I should have wished to have kept her with us; but, my dear Anna, even if I could have done so, what would have been all our happiness, compared with that which she now possesses in the presence of her God." But do not suppose, my sister, that Amelia, with all her piety, was less prudent with regard to the things of this world, than faithful regarding those of heaven. Her mother has shown me her books, and her different arrangements, all of which indicate that discretion spoken of in Scripture, carried out in the most minute particulars. First, as respects order and cleanliness in everything belonging to her: it would be impossible to imagine a more proper arrangement than the one she made of each article, both in her wardrobe, her writing-table, her work-box, and her account-book. She had not much money to devote to her works of charity, but her industry made up for her limited means; for instance, in opening the Bible which she generally made use of, I found in it, four or five pages written with a great deal of care; and her journal informed her mother, who read it, of the reason of this circumstance. It runs thus: "As old Margaret has but one Bible, some of the leaves of which have been lost, I have given her mine, which is quite complete, and have taken hers, adding to it some sheets of paper, upon which I have written the passages which were deficient. Thus I have saved the expense of a new Bible; and it is the same thing to me." Amelia's diary is very remarkable; her mother has allowed me to read many portions of it, and to copy out what relates to her usual manner of employing each day. I send it to you, dear Esther, and you will find, as I have done, that the Spirit of God always teaches those who trust in Him, how precious _time_ is here below. The following is what our dear friend wrote upon this subject. "_January 1st_, 1844--Nearly eighteen centuries, and a half have passed away, since our Saviour took upon himself the form of human flesh for our salvation. Those years seemed long as they succeeded each other, but now that they are gone, they appear as nothing. "Families, and nations, and the mighty generations of mankind, which, in times gone by, peopled the earth, have all passed away. Nothing remains of them here below! "But such is not the case in heaven,--I should rather say,--in eternity. There, all these nations still exist, no man can be absent, but must appear before the Sovereign Judge, to answer for the use which he has made of his time. "How short that time is! Where are the years that David lived, and where are those which Methuselah passed in this world? their whole duration seems, at this distance, in the words of St. James, 'Even as a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.' "It will therefore be the same with me. I know not how long I shall live here below, perhaps I shall see but a portion of this year, and shall enter into glory before it is concluded; or perhaps I shall yet see many more years. This the Lord knows, and I ought not to consider that such knowledge would be of any importance to me, since that which constitutes my _life_, is not its length or duration, but the use which is made of it. "It is to Jesus, then, that all my life must be devoted, without him I can do nothing. 'My life is hid with Christ in God.' He has 'bought me with a price,' I ought, therefore, 'to glorify God in my body, and in my spirit, which are God's.' "Truly to live is to know, that my thoughts and actions are all directed to the glory of Jesus, whether upon earth by faith and hope, or in heaven by the sight and by the glory of God. "But here below, I have only time at my disposal; that is to say, days composed of hours or rather, I have in reality but a single day to make use of. Yesterday is no longer mine, and to-morrow, where is it? I have it not yet, and perhaps shall never see it. "Lo my earthly life is 'to-day.' What must I do then with 'to-day,' that God may be honored and glorified in it? for after all, if I have the happiness of counting the year 1844, as dating from a Christian era, and not from that of a false prophet with the Mahomedans, nor yet of a false God, with the poor Indians, it must be to Jesus Christ, from whose birth I count my years, that those years should be dedicated. "Here I am, therefore, in the presence of my Saviour, of whom I implore the Spirit of wisdom and prudence to guide me in the employment of this my day, since in reality I have but one, and that is, 'To-day.' "But I cannot do better than walk in the footsteps of my Redeemer, and in his conduct and conversation whilst on earth, I observe these three things: Temperance, piety, and charity, to all of which he wholly devoted himself, and has thus left me an example to follow. "I will therefore imitate him first in his temperance. He rose early in the morning--he eat frugally--he worked diligently--he wearied himself in well-doing: in a word, he exerted the whole strength of his mind and body in the cause of truth, but never in the cause of evil. "These, therefore, must be settled rules, moderate sleep, moderate repasts, moderate care and attention to the body; active employment, always to a useful purpose, profitable to my neighbor, and never interfering with my duties at home. "In the next place, I must imitate Jesus in His _piety_. His Father's will was as His daily food. What a thought! To live wholly to God, and as He himself teaches us in His Holy Word. To do this, I must know His Word; I must study it, meditate upon it, and learn it by heart. Besides reading, I must pray, for prayer is the life both of my heart and soul with God. What glory is thus permitted to me, a poor sinner, that I _ought_, and that I _can_, live to Him, love Him, and devote myself to Him! It is heaven already begun on earth; for in heaven my soul will enjoy no other happiness than that of knowing God, and living to His glory. This thought fills me with joy, and I am encouraged by it to consecrate myself wholly to Him, as did my Lord and Saviour. "Lastly, I will, by the grace of God, imitate Jesus in his _charity_. How many souls there are about me to love, to comfort, to enlighten and to assist. But I can only do it in the measure which God himself has assigned to me. At my age, and but a girl, subject to the wishes of my parents, I ought only to desire to do good in proportion to the means with which the Lord has furnished me. But I must, in so doing, endeavor to overcome selfishness, idleness, the love of ease, avarice, hardness of heart, pride, and indifference, and I must love my neighbor as myself. Oh! what an important undertaking, and how many excuses and deceits this kind of charity will encounter and overcome. "But I will look to Jesus, and pray to him; I will implore the secret guidance of his Spirit; and since he is faithful, he will not leave me alone, but will lead me, and enable me to walk day by day, I mean 'to-day,' in his sight, and in communion with him, who is so full of love and gentleness." This, my dear Esther, is what I have copied from Amelia's journal. You see the light in which our friend regarded her life on earth, and how much importance she attached to one _day_--a single day. As I read what she had written, I felt my soul humbled before God, and I trembled to think of the useless way in which I had hitherto spent my time. You see in particular what Amelia felt on the subject of piety; what love her soul had for God! and this is what produced in her that active, sincere, and constant charity. You cannot form the least idea of the work, of kindness and benevolence which she was enabled to accomplish. That passage, "The memory of the just is blessed," is truly applicable to her. Amelia was justified in her Saviour, for she trusted in him, and thus was she also justified before God, by her faith in Jesus. The spirit of Jesus led her in "all her way," and in whatever family she appeared, her actions and words manifested a heavenly mind. Her name is remembered with blessing in the hearts of all who knew her; her counsels, her instructions, her example, and her acts of benevolence, are continually spoken of by those who witnessed them, and it is thus that she left behind a sweet savor of holiness, like a ray of heavenly light. Dear Esther, here is an example placed before us; it has been the will of God that we should know her, that we might be charmed with her excellence, and that the happiness both of her life and death, might tempt us to imitate her. No, no, my sister, she is not dead; she is rather, as the poor workman said, at her grave, "a child of God in heaven." As _she_ followed Jesus, let us also follow her, and let her memory be thus a blessing to us both. God be with you, my dear sister. I long to see you, that we may pray the Lord together, to make us like his faithful, holy servant, the dear and pious Amelia. Yours, &c., ANNA. IV. The Tract found by the Way-Side. "Take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer." --Prov. XXV. 4. Every one knows in these days what is meant by a _religious tract_. It is a little printed pamphlet, which is sold at a very low price, or is still oftener given away, or dropped in the streets and lanes, that those who either purchase, or accept, or find them, may read the truths of the Gospel, and the good advice which they contain. This is an old-fashioned way of imparting instruction, both to high and low. It was in use, for instance, as early as the first days of the Reformation, when some faithful Christians of Picardy, in France, assembled together to read the Holy Scriptures, on which account they were exposed to persecution, death, and above all, to be burnt alive. These true disciples of the Lord Jesus composed and distributed, with considerable difficulty, some little pamphlets, in which were taught the doctrines of salvation by Christ alone, and in a form which enabled the poor and ignorant to read and understand; for it was impossible for them at that time to procure a Bible, which was not only a scarce book, but cost a large sum of money: indeed, almost as much as a thousand Bibles would cost in the present day, and which, besides, they could not carry home and read quietly to themselves, as they were able to do with a simple tract. At a later period, and chiefly for the last fifty years, this method has been adopted in almost all countries where true Christian churches and societies have been established; and even now, millions of these tracts, adapted to all ages and conditions of men, are published and distributed every year. It is, however, but too true, that many tracts thus distributed are not _religious tracts_; that is to say, the substance of them is not in conformity with the truth of scripture. Many are published for the purpose of upholding false religion and wicked principles, and which, consequently, do great mischief to those who read them. And if it be asked, "How can a good tract be distinguished from a bad one?" we thus reply to this very natural question. A _good tract_ is that which leads us to the Bible; which speaks of the love of God in Christ; and which encourages the reader to be holy from a motive of love to God. A _bad tract_ is therefore that which does not speak of the Bible; which tells us that salvation may be obtained by human merit, and which consequently would persuade us to be religious from interested motives: that is to say, to obtain pardon by means of our own good works. Those tracts, too, which speak of man's happiness as if it came from man alone, and not from God, and which consequently deny the truth of God's word: these must also be called _bad tracts_, and must therefore be carefully avoided. The good that is done by the distribution of good tracts, can scarcely be believed. There are many families, even in prosperity, who never tasted real happiness until some of these evangelical writings found their way amongst them. The following anecdote is an interesting proof of this: The family of a vinedresser, in the Canton of Vaud, in Switzerland, was, unhappily, as well known in the village in which he lived, for his bad conduct, as for his impiety. The father, whose name we will not mention, was a proud and hard-hearted man, both intemperate and dissolute; and his wife, who thought as little of the fear of God as her husband did, was what might be called a _noisy babbler_. The pastor of the village had often, but vainly, endeavored to lead these unhappy people to a sense of religion, but he was always received by them with scoffing and ridicule. The family was composed of the vinedresser's three children. The eldest, Mark, was as haughty as his father, and although he was only fourteen years of age, he was already able to join in the disorders of his drunken and gaming companions. He was entirely devoid of any sense of religion. His sister, Josephine, who was rather more than twelve years old, possessed a more amiable disposition. The pastor's wife took much interest in this child, who could not help seeing that her parents were not guided by the Spirit of God. Peter, the youngest, was but ten years of age, but his brother's wicked example counteracted all the good which he might have received from that of his more amiable sister. About the end of May, there was to be, in a village not far distant, a match at rifle-shooting. It was a public fete, at which all the people in the neighborhood assembled. On the morning of this day, Mark had answered his father with great insolence, at which he was so much enraged, that he punished him severely, and forbad him, besides, to go to the fete. The father went thither himself, and Mark, after a moment's indecision, determined not to heed the command he had received, but to follow him to the shooting-match. He therefore took advantage of his mother's absence, who, according to her usual custom, was gone to gossip with some of her neighbors, and notwithstanding the remonstrances of Josephine, he hastened over fields and hedges, to the scene of the match. "What is this?" cried he, picking up a little pamphlet, with a cover of colored paper, which was lying on the path near the opening in the hedge. "Oh! it is one of those tracts they leave about everywhere; it will do very well to load my gun;" and so saying, he put the tract into his pocket, and ran on as before. But when he approached the village where they were shooting, dancing, playing, and making a great noise, he suddenly stopped, for he recollected that if he should meet with his father, who was there, he would certainly beat him, and send him home again, in presence of all the people who might be assembled; besides, his brother Peter was there also, and he might see him, and tell his father. He therefore kept at a distance, behind a hedge, not daring to advance any farther. "Supposing I read this book!" said he, at last, after having vainly racked his brain to find out how he could be at the fete without being discovered. "There is nothing in it but nonsense, I know beforehand; however, it will occupy me for a while." This tract was called "The Happy Family," and Mark became so much interested in it, that he not only read the whole, but many parts of it twice over. "How odd it is," said he, when he had finished reading; "I should never have thought it could be thus; this Andrew and Julia, after all, were much happier than we are, and than I am, in particular. Ah!" added he, as he walked on by the hedge-side, looking on the ground, "possibly Josephine may have spoken the truth, and that, after all, the right way is the one which this lady points out." As he thought over the little story he had been reading, he retraced his steps towards his own village, at first rather slowly, but soon at a quicker pace, and he entered his father's house very quietly, and without either whistling or making a noise, as he generally did. "You have not then been to the fete," said Josephine. _Mark_.--(A little ashamed.)--"I dared not go, I was afraid my father would beat me." _Josephine_.--"It would have been better, Mark, if you had been equally afraid of offending God." Mark was on the point of ridiculing her, as he always did, but he recollected Andrew and Julia, and was silent. _Josephine_.--(Kindly.)--"But is it not true, Mark? would it not be better to fear God, than to be always offending him?" _Mark_.--(Knitting his brow.)--"Yes, as Andrew and Julia did! would it not?" _Josephine_.--(surprised.)--"Of whom do you speak, Mark? Is it of "The Happy Family," in which an Andrew and a Julia are mentioned. Have you ever read that beautiful story?" "Here it is," said Mark, drawing the tract from his pocket, and giving it to his sister. _Josephine_.--"Yes, this is it, exactly! But brother, where did you get it, for it is quite new; did you buy it of a _Scripture Reader_." "Did I _buy_ it?" said Mark, sullenly. "Do you suppose I should spend my money in such nonsense as _that?_" _Josephine_.--"Then how did you get it? Did any one give it you?" _Mark_.--(Slyly.)--"Ah! they have often tried to give me some, but I tore them to pieces, and threw them away, before their faces!" _Josephine_.--"So much the worse, Mark! for the truth of God is written in them, and it is very sinful to tear the truth of God in pieces." _Mark_.--(Rudely.)--"But you see I have not torn this, for it is quite whole! And as you are so anxious to know how I came by it, I found it on the ground, near the road, and just beyond the brushwood." _Josephine_.--"Ah! then I know where it came from. The Pastor's son, and the two sons of the schoolmaster, have got up a Religious Tract Society, who distribute them in all directions." _Mark_.--(Reproachfully.)--"And pray why do they scatter them about in this way? Can't they leave people alone, without cramming every body's head with their own fancies. Let them keep their religion to themselves, and leave other people to do the same." _Josephine_.--"Do you think, Mark, that Andrew and Julia did wrong to listen to their father and grandmamma, and to follow the precepts of the Bible in preference to the ridicule of scoffers." _Mark_.--(Softened.)--"I did not say _that_.... I think Andrew and Julia were right; but ... come give me back the Tract; I want to look at something in it again." Mark then went away, carrying the Tract with him; and shortly after, Josephine saw him sitting in the garden, behind a hedge of sweet-briar, reading it attentively. "Where's that good-for-nothing Mark?" demanded the vinedresser, when he returned home at night half tipsy. "Did he dare to venture to the shooting-match? I was told that he was seen sneaking about the outskirts of the village! where is he now?" "He went to bed more than an hour ago," answered his mother, "and was no more at the shooting-match than I was, for I saw him reading in the garden." "Mark, _reading_!" replied his father. "What could he be reading? It would be a miracle to see him with a book in his hand. An idle fellow like him, who never did learn any thing, and never will!" The vinedresser's wife was silent, and after putting poor little Peter to bed, who was quite tired and weary, she managed to get the father to bed also, and peace reigned for a season in this miserable abode. Mark, however, who was not asleep when his father returned, had heard himself called a good-for-nothing idle fellow, and he trembled from head to foot, when he found he had been seen in the neighborhood of the village. "What a good thing it was," said he to himself, "that I did not go on! It was certainly God who prevented me!" added he, half ashamed of the thought because it was so new to him; but he determined no longer to resist it. On the morrow, to the great surprise of his father and mother, Mark got up in good humor; he answered his father without grumbling, and when he was desired to go and work in the field, Mark hastened to take his hoe and spade, and set off, singing merrily. "What has happened to him?" asked the father. "One would scarcely believe it was he! Wife, what did you say to him yesterday, to make him so good-humored this morning?" "I never even spoke to him," said his wife, dryly. "You know how whimsical he is." "I wish he may remain in his present mind!" said the vinedresser; and thereupon he went off to the ale-house, to talk with his neighbors of the best shots of the preceding day. Josephine related the history of the little tract to the good pastor's wife, who advised her to meet Mark on his return from the field, and to speak to him again of what he had read. "Is it _you_, sister?" said Mark, in a happy tone of voice, as soon as he saw her. "It is very good of you to meet me." Josephine, who never received such a welcome from him before, was quite delighted, and going up to him, she said, affectionately, "I want very much to talk with you again about Andrew and Julia." _Mark_.--(Seriously.)--"And so do I. I should like very much to resemble them." _Josephine_.--(Quickly.)--"Do you mean what you say, Mark? Have you thought of it again since yesterday?" _Mark_.--(Still serious.)--"I have thought so much about it, that I am determined to change my habits. Yes, Josephine, I think you are right, and that, after all, religion is better than ridicule." The conversation continued as it had commenced, and when Mark returned home, he went up and kissed his mother, who was just laying the table for dinner. "What's the matter?" said she, with some surprise; "you seem in very good spirits, today." "Nothing is the matter, good mother, but that I wish to alter my conduct," replied Mark, seriously. "To alter your conduct," cried little Peter, as he looked up in his brother's face, and began to titter. "And you, too, little Peter," said Mark, "you must become good, also." "What a funny idea," cried the child, laughing. "_What_ has made you turn schoolmaster, all at once? and, pray, when am I to begin?" "We shall see by-and-bye," said Mark, kindly. "In the meantime, come and help me to tend the cow." "There is something behind all this!" said the mother and she blushed to think that this change had not been occasioned by anything she had said or done to him, herself. When the father returned from the ale-house, they all sat down to dinner, and as usual, without saying "_grace_." Josephine said hers to herself, and Mark, who recollected Andrew and Julia, blushed when he took his spoon to eat his soup. After dinner, when they were out of the house, Josephine said to Mark, "What a pity it is, brother, that papa does not pray before each meal." "All _that_ will come in time, Josephine," said Mark; "I never prayed myself, and yet ... I must now begin directly. But what shall I do? Papa will be very angry if he sees me religious." "I do not think he will," said Josephine, "for I heard him say to mumma, this morning, that he should be very glad if your conduct improved." Mark blushed, but did not reply. He returned to his work without being desired to do so, and his father, who was quite astonished, said to his wife, "There is something very extraordinary about Mark. I wish it may last." "You wish it may last!" said his wife; "how can you wish that, when you do not care to improve yourself." "And you, my poor wife," said the vinedresser, "do you care to change any more than I do? I think as to that matter, we cannot say much against each other." "Well, at all events," said his wife, "I am not a drunkard." "Nor am I a tattler," replied the husband. "And for this reason let us each think of our own fault, and if Mark is disposed to reform, do not let us prevent him; for, my poor wife, _our_ example is not a very good one for him." Josephine, who was working at her needle, in the adjoining room, could not help overhearing this confession of her father, and she felt the more encouraged to uphold Mark in his good intention. She therefore went again to meet him, and repeated to him all she had heard. "I think," added she, "you will do well to relate what has happened to our father and mother, and read them the little tract." "Not yet," said Mark, "for my principles are not sufficiently strong. It is but an hour since the ale-house keeper's son laughed at me, because I told him I would not play at nine-pins with him, during working hours. He asked me if I was becoming a Methodist, and I did not know what answer to make. However, I trust I am already improving, and I have read the little tract again for the third time." "Oh!" said Josephine, "we ought to read the Bible, and we do not possess one." "True," said Mark, somewhat surprised. "I never thought of _that_. We have really no Bible in the house! Indeed, this must not be," he added, looking on the ground, and striking it with his spade. "What shall we do, then?" said Josephine, "for it would be very nice to have one." Mark became thoughtful, but said nothing. From that day his conduct was always regular, and his habits industrious, so much so, that his father, who was never in the habit of showing him much kindness, said to him, at the dinner table, and before all the rest of the family, "Well, my good Mark, tell us what has happened to you; for it is very pleasant to us to see how well you now behave. Tell us, my boy, what has been the cause of this improvement." "It was from this book," said Mark, drawing it out of his pocket, where he always kept it. "What book is it?" said his mother, scornfully. "Is it not some of that horrid trash, that"... "Be silent," cried the father. "If this book has done good, how can it be horrid trash? Do sour grapes produce good wine?" "But," replied the mother, bitterly, "I will not have any of those books and tracts in this house." "Well, for my part," said the vinedresser, "I will encourage all that teach my children to do what is right. Mark has worked well for the last eight days; he has not occasioned me a moment's vexation during the whole of that time, and as he says that this book has been the means of his improvement, I shall also immediately read it myself. Come, Mark, let us hear it. You can read fluently; come, we will all listen. Wife, do you be quiet, and you too, Peter; as for Josephine she is quite ready." Mark began to read, but he could not proceed far; his father got up and went out, without saying a word, and his mother began to remove the dinner-things. But as soon as the family re-assembled in the evening, the father said to Mark, "Go on with your reading, Mark, I want to hear the end, for I like the story." Mark read, and when he came to that part of the tract, in which the Bible is mentioned, the vinedresser looked up to a high shelf on the wall, where were some old books, and said, "wife, had we not once a Bible?" "Fifteen years ago," she answered, "you exchanged it for a pistol." The vinedresser blushed, and listened with out farther interruption until Mark had done reading. When the tract was finished, he remained silent, his head leaning on his hands, and his elbows on his knees. Josephine thought this was the time to speak about the Bible, which she had so long wished to possess, and she went up to her father, and stood for some time by his side without speaking. Her father perceived her, and raising his head, he said to her, "What do you want, Josephine, tell me, my child, what do you want to ask me?" "Dear papa," said the child, "I have long desired to read the Bible, would you be so kind as to buy me one?" "A Bible," cried her mother, "what can _you_ want with a Bible, at _your_ age?" "Oh! wife, wife," said the vinedresser, much vexed, "when will you help me to do what is right?" "Yes, my child," he added, kissing Josephine's cheek, "I will buy you one to-morrow. Do you think there are any to be had at the pastor's house?" "Oh! yes, plenty," cried Josephine, "and very large ones too!" "Very well then," said the father, as he got up, and went out of the house, "you shall have a very large one." "But," said his wife, calling after him, "you don't know how much it will cost." "It will not cost so much as the wine I mean no longer to drink!" replied the father, firmly. He kept his word. The Bible was purchased on the morrow, and the same evening the father desired Mark to read him a whole chapter. The ale-house saw him no more the whole of that week, and still less the following Sunday. His friends laughed at him, and wanted to get him back. He was at first tempted and almost overcome, but the thought of the Bible restrained him, and he determined to refuse. "Are you gone mad, then?" said they. "No," replied he, "but I read the Bible now, and as it says, that drunkards shall not 'inherit the kingdom of God,' I listen to what it says, and I desire to cease to be a drunkard." "You see," said Josephine to Mark, as they accompanied each other to church, "how good God has been to us. We have now a Bible, and it is read by all at home." _Mark_.--"Have you been able to tell the pastor's son how much good his tract has done us?" _Josephine_.--"I told his mother." _Mark_.--"And what did she say?" _Josephine_.--"She said, 'God is wonderful in all his ways,' and that, 'He which hath begun the good work in us, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.'" _Mark_.--(Feelingly.)--"Who could have thought that when I went as a rebel to that Fete, that God was there waiting to draw me to himself. But, dear Josephine, there is yet much to be done." "But," said Josephine, "where God has promised he is also able to perform. He has told us to pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us do so, and you will see that God will renew our hearts, and make us wise and good." 
14379	----	ELSIE AT NANTUCKET A Sequel to _Elsie's New Relations_ by MARTHA FINLEY 1884 PREFACE. Three years ago I spent some six weeks on Nantucket Island, making the town of the same name my headquarters, but visiting other points of interest, to which I take the characters of my story; so that in describing the pleasures of a sojourn there during our heated term, I write from experience; though, in addition to my own notes, I have made use of Northrup's "'Sconset Cottage Life" to refresh my memory and assist me in giving a correct idea of the life led by summer visitors who take up their abode for the season in one of those odd little dwellings which form the "original 'Sconset." Should my account of the delights of Nantucket as a summer resort lead any of my readers to try it for themselves, I trust they will not meet with disappointment or find my picture overdrawn. M.F. CHAPTER I. "How happy they, Who from the toil and tumult of their lives Steal to look down where naught but ocean strives." --_Byron._ "Well, captain, for how long have you Uncle Sam's permission to stay on shore this time?" asked Mr. Dinsmore, as the family at Ion sat about the breakfast-table on the morning after Captain Raymond's arrival. "Just one month certain, sir, with the possibility that the leave of absence may be extended," was the reply, in a cheery tone; "and as I want to make the very most of it, I propose that our plans for a summer outing be at once discussed, decided upon, and carried out." "I second the motion," said Mr. Dinsmore. "Are all the grown people agreed? The consent of the younger ones may safely be taken for granted," he added, with a smiling glance from one to another. "I am agreed and ready for suggestions," replied his wife. "And I," said his daughter. "Vi is, of course, since the proposition comes from her husband," Edward remarked, with a sportive look at her; then glancing at his own little wife: "and as I approve, Zoe will be equally ready with her consent." "Have you any suggestion to offer, captain?" asked Mr. Dinsmore. "I have, sir; and it is that we make the island of Nantucket our summer resort for this year, dividing the time, if you like, between Nantucket Town and the quaint little fishing village Siasconset, or 'Sconset, as they call it for short. There is an odd little box of a cottage there belonging to a friend of mine, a Captain Coffin, which I have partially engaged until the first of September. It wouldn't hold nearly all of us, but we may be able to rent another for the season, or we can pitch a tent or two, and those who prefer it can take rooms, with or without board, at the hotels or boarding-houses. What do you all say?" glancing from his mother-in-law to his wife. "It sounds very pleasant, captain," Elsie said; "but please tell us more about it; I'm afraid I must acknowledge shameful ignorance of that portion of my native land." "A very small corner of the same, yet a decidedly interesting one," returned the captain; then went on to give a slight sketch of its geography and history. "It is about fifteen miles long, and averages four in width. Nantucket Town is a beautiful, quaint old place; has some fine wide streets and handsome residences, a great many narrow lanes running in all directions, and many very odd-looking old houses, some of them inhabited, but not a few empty; for of the ten thousand former residents only about three thousand now remain." "How does that happen, Levis?" asked Violet, as he paused for a moment. "It used to be a great seat of the whale-fishery," he answered; "indeed, that was the occupation of the vast majority of the men of the island; but, as I presume you know, the whale-fishery has, for a number of years, been declining, partly owing to the scarcity of whales, partly to the discovery of coal-oil, which has been largely substituted for whale-oil as an illuminant (as has gas also, by the way), and to substitutes being found or invented for whale-bone also. "So the Nantucketers lost their principal employment, and wandered off to different parts of the country or the world in search of another; and the wharves that once presented a scene full of life and bustle are now lonely and deserted. Property there was wonderfully depreciated for a time, but is rising in value now with the influx of summer visitors. It is becoming quite a popular resort--not sea-side exactly, for there you are right out in the sea." "Let us go there," said Mrs. Dinsmore; "I think it would be a pleasant variety to get fairly out into the sea for once, instead of merely alongside of it." "Oh, yes, do let us go!" "I'm in favor of it!" "And I!" "And I!" cried one and another, while Mr. Dinsmore replied, laughingly, to his wife, "Provided you don't find the waves actually rolling over you, I suppose, my dear. Well, the captain's description is very appetizing so far, but let us hear what more he has to say on the subject." "Haven't I said enough, sir?" returned the captain, with a good-humored smile. "You will doubtless want to find some things out for yourselves when you get there." "Are there any mountains, papa?" asked little Grace. "I'd like to see some." "So you shall, daughter," he said; "but we will have to go elsewhere than to Nantucket to find them." "No hills either?" she asked. "Yes, several ranges of not very high hills; Saul's Hills are the highest; then there are bluffs south of 'Sconset known as Sunset Heights; indeed, the village itself stands on a bluff high above the sandy beach, where the great waves come rolling in. And there is 'Tom Never's Head.' Also Nantucket Town is on high ground sloping gradually up from the harbor; and just out of the town, to the north-west, are the Cliffs, where you go to find surf-bathing; in the town itself you must be satisfied with still-bathing. An excellent place, by the way, to teach the children how to swim." "Then you can teach me, Edward," said Zoe; "I'd like to learn." "I shall be delighted," he returned, gallantly. "Papa," asked Max, "are there any woods and streams where one may hunt and fish?" "Hardly anything to be called woods," the captain answered; "trees of any size are few on the island. Except the shade trees in the town, I think some ragged, stunted pines are all you will find; but there are streams and ponds to fish in, to say nothing of the great ocean. There is some hunting, too, for there are plover on the island." "Well, shall we go and see for ourselves, as the captain advises?" asked Mr. Dinsmore, addressing the company in general. Every voice answered in the affirmative, though Elsie, looking doubtfully at Violet, remarked that she feared she was hardly strong enough for so long a journey. "Ah, that brings me to my second proposition, mother," said Captain Raymond; "that--seeing what a very large company we shall make, especially if we can persuade our friends from Fairview, the Oaks, and the Laurels to accompany us--we charter a yacht and go by sea." "Oh, captain, what a nice idea!" cried Zoe, clapping her hands. "I love the sea--love to be either beside it or on it." "I think it would be ever so nice!" Rosie exclaimed. "Oh, grandpa and mamma, do say yes!" "I shall not oppose it, my dear," Elsie said; "indeed, I think it may perhaps be our best plan. How does it strike you, father?" "Favorably," he replied, "if we can get the yacht. Do you know of one that might be hired, captain?" "I do, sir; a very fine one. I have done with it as with the cottage--partially engaged it--feeling pretty sure you would all fall in with my views." "Captain," cried Zoe, "you're just a splendid man! I know of only one that's more so," with a laughing look at her husband. The captain bowed his acknowledgments. "As high praise as I could possibly ask, my dear sister. I trust that one may always stand first in your esteem." "He always will," said Zoe; "but," with another glance, arch and smiling, into Edward's eyes, "don't tell him, lest he should grow conceited and vain." "Don't tell him, because it would be no news," laughed Edward, gazing with fondness and admiration at the blooming face of the loved flatterer. The talk went on about the yacht, and before they left the table the captain was empowered to engage her for their use. Also the 'Sconset cottage he had spoken of, and one or two more, if they were to be had. "You will command the vessel, of course, captain?" several voices said, inquiringly, all speaking at once. "If chosen commander by a unanimous vote," he said. "Of course, of course; we'll be only too glad to secure your services," said Mr. Dinsmore, everybody else adding a word of glad assent. "How soon do we sail, captain?" asked Zoe. "Must we wait for an answer from Nantucket?" "No; I shall send word by this morning's mail, to Captain Coffin, that we will take his cottage and two others, if he can engage them for us. But there is no time to wait for a reply." "Can't we telegraph?" asked Violet. "No; because there is no telegraph from the mainland to the island. "Now, ladies all, please make your preparations as rapidly as possible. We ought to be off by the first of next week. I can telegraph for the yacht, and she will be ready for us, lying at anchor in our own harbor. "But, little wife," turning to Violet, with a tenderly affectionate air, "you are not to exert yourself in the least with shopping, sewing, or packing. I positively forbid it," he added, with playful authority. "That is right, captain," Elsie said, with a pleased smile. "She is not strong enough yet for any such exertion, nor has she any need to make it." "Ah, mamma," said Violet, "are you not forgetting the lessons you used to give us, your children, on the sin of indolence and self-indulgence?" "No, daughter; nor those on the duty of doing all in our power for the preservation of health as one of God's good gifts, and to be used in His service." They were all gathered upon the veranda now in the cool shade of the trees and vines, for the weather was extremely warm. "I wish we were ready to sail to-day," said Zoe. "How delicious the sea-breeze would be!" A nice-looking, pleasant-faced colored woman stepped from the doorway with a little bundle in her arms, which she carried to Violet. The captain, standing beside his wife, bent over her and the babe with a face full of love and delight. "Isn't she a darling?" whispered Violet, gazing down upon the tiny creature with all a young mother's unspeakable love and pride in her first-born, then up into her husband's face. "That she is!" he responded; "I never saw a fairer, sweeter babe. I should fear to risk her little life and health in a journey to Nantucket by land; but going by sea will, I think, be more likely to do her good than harm." "It's all her, her, when you talk about that baby," laughed Rosie; "why don't you call her by her name?" "So we will, Aunt Rosie, if you will kindly inform us what it is," returned the captain, good-humoredly. "I, sir!" exclaimed Rosie; "we have all been told again and again that you were to decide upon the name on your arrival; and you've been here--how many hours?--and it seems the poor little dear is nameless yet." "Apparently not greatly afflicted by it either," said the captain, adopting Rosie's sportive tone. "My love, what do you intend to call your daughter?" "Whatever her father appoints as her name," returned Vi, laughingly. "No, no," he said; "you are to name her yourself; you have undoubtedly the best right." "Thank you; then, if you like, she shall be mamma's namesake; her first granddaughter should be, I think, as the first grandson was papa's." "I highly approve your choice," he said, with a glance of affectionate admiration directed toward his mother-in-law; "and may a strong resemblance in both looks and character descend to her with the name." "We will all say amen to that, captain," said Edward. "Yes, indeed," added Zoe, heartily. "Thank you both," Elsie said, with a gratified look; "I appreciate the compliment; but if I had the naming of my little granddaughter, she should be another Violet; there is already an Elsie in the family besides myself, you know, and it makes a little confusion to have too many of the same name." "Then, mamma, we can make a variety by calling this one Else for short," returned Violet, gayly, holding up the babe to receive a caress from its grandmother, who had drawn near, evidently with the purpose of bestowing it. "What a pretty pet it is!" Elsie said, taking it in her arms and gazing delightedly into the tiny face. "Don't you think so, captain?" "Of course I do, mother," he said, with a happy laugh. Then, examining its features critically: "I really fancy I see a slight resemblance to you now, which I trust is destined to increase with increasing years. But excuse me, ladies; I must go and write that all-important letter at once, or it will be too late for the mail." He hurried away to the library, and entering it hastily, but without much noise, for he wore slippers, found Lulu there, leaning moodily out of a window. She had stolen away from the veranda a moment before, saying to herself, in jealous displeasure, "Such a fuss over that little bit of a thing! I do believe papa is going to care more for it than for any of us, his own children, that he had long before he ever saw Mamma Vi; and it's just too bad." Knowing Lulu as he did, her father instantly conjectured what was passing in her mind. It grieved and angered him, yet strong affection was mingled with his displeasure, and he silently asked help of God to deal wisely with this child of his love. He remembered that Lulu was more easily ruled through her affections than in any other way, and as she turned toward him, with a flushed and shamefaced countenance, he went to her, took her in his arms, held her close to his heart, and kissed her tenderly several times. "My dear, dear little daughter," he said. "How often, when far away on the sea, I have longed to do this--to hold my dear Lulu in my arms and feel hers about my neck and her sweet kisses on my lips." Her arms were instantly thrown round his neck, while she returned his kisses with interest. "Papa," she said, "I do love you so, _so_ dearly; but I 'most wonder you don't quit loving such a hateful girl as I am." "Perhaps I might not love an ill-tempered, jealous child belonging to somebody else," he said, as if half in jest, half in earnest; "but you are my own," drawing her closer and repeating his caresses, "my very own; and so I have to love you in spite of everything. But, my little girl," and his tone grew very grave and sad, "if you do not fight determinately against these wrong feelings you will never know rest or happiness in this world or the next. "But we won't talk any more about it now; I have no time, as I ought to be writing my letter. Run away and make yourself happy, collecting together such toys and books as you would like to carry with you to Nantucket. Grandma Elsie and Mamma Vi will decide what you and the rest will need in the way of clothing." "I will, papa; and oh, but I think you are good to me!" she said, giving him a final hug and kiss; "a great deal better than I deserve; but I will try to be good." "Do, my child," he said; "and not in your own strength; God will help you if you ask Him." For the moment thoroughly ashamed of her jealousy of the baby, she ran back to the veranda, where the others still were, and bending over it as it lay its mother's arms, kissed it several times. Violet's face flushed with pleasure. "My dear Lulu, I hope you and little Else are going to be very fond of each other," she said. "I hope so, Mamma Vi," Lulu answered, pleasantly; then, in a sudden fit of penitence, added, "but I'm afraid she'll never learn any good from the example of her oldest sister." "My dear child, resolve that she shall," said Grandma Elsie, standing by; "you cannot avoid having a good deal of influence over her as she grows older, and do not forget that you will have to give an account for the use you make of it." "I suppose that's so," Lulu answered, with a little impatient shrug of her shoulders; "but I wish it wasn't." Then, turning abruptly away, "Max and Gracie," she called to her brother and sister, "papa says we may go and gather up any books and toys we want to take with us." The three ran off together in high glee. The ladies stayed a little longer, deep in consultation about necessary arrangements which must fall to their share: then dispersed to their several apartments, with the exception of Violet, who, forbidden to exert herself, remained where she was till joined by her husband, when he had finished and despatched his letter. It was great happiness to them to be together after their long separation. Mr. Dinsmore and Edward had walked out into the avenue, and were seated under a tree in earnest conversation. "Talking tiresome business, I suppose," remarked Zoe, in a half-petulant tone, glancing toward them as she spoke, and apparently addressing Violet, as she was the only other person on the veranda at the moment. "Yes, no doubt; but we must have patience with them, dear, because it is very necessary," Violet answered, with a smile. "Probably they are discussing the question how the plantation is to be attended to in their absence. You know it won't take care of itself, and the men must have a head to direct their labors." "Oh yes, of course; and for that reason Ned is kept ever so busy while we are here, and I do think it will be delightful to get away to the seashore with him, where there will be nothing to do but enjoy ourselves." Zoe skipped away with the last word, ran up to her room, and began turning over the contents of bureau drawers and taking garments from wardrobes and closets, with the view of selecting such as she might deem it desirable to carry with her on the contemplated trip. She was humming softly a snatch of lively song, feeling very gay and light-hearted, when, coming across a gray travelling-dress a little worse for the wear, her song suddenly ceased, while tears gathered in her eyes, then began to fall drop by drop as she stood gazing down, upon this relic of former days. "Just one year ago," she murmured. "Papa, papa! I never thought I could live a whole year without you; and be happy, too! Ah, that seems ungrateful, when you were so, so good to me! But no; I am sure you would rather have me happy; and it would be ungrateful to my dear husband if I were not." She put the dress aside, wiped away her tears, and took down another. It was a dark woollen dress. She had travelled home in it the previous fall, and had worn it once since on a very memorable occasion; her cheek crimsoned at the recollection as she glanced from it to her husband, who entered the room at that instant; then her eyes fell. "What is it, love?" he asked, coming quickly toward her. "Nothing, only--you remember the last time you saw me in this dress? Oh, Ned, what a fool I was! and how good you were to me!" He had her in his arms by this time, and she was hiding her blushing face on his breast. "Never mind, my pet," he said, soothing her with caresses; "it is a secret between ourselves, and always shall be, unless you choose to tell it." "I? No indeed!" she said, drawing a long breath; "I think I should almost die of mortification if any one else should find it out; but I'm glad you know it, because if you didn't my conscience wouldn't give me a bit of peace till I confessed to you." "Ah! and would that be very difficult?" "Yes; I don't know how I could ever find courage to make the attempt." "Are you really so much afraid of me?" he asked, in a slightly aggrieved tone. "Yes; for I love you so dearly that your displeasure is perfectly unendurable," she replied, lifting her head to gaze fondly into his eyes. "Ah, is that it, my darling?" he said, in a glow of delight. "I deem myself a happy man in possessing such a treasure as you and your dear love. I can hardly reconcile myself to the thought of a separation for even a few weeks." "Separation!" she cried, with a start, and in a tone of mingled pain and incredulity. "What can you mean? But I won't be separated from you; I'm your wife, and I claim the right to cling to you always, _always_!" "And I would have you do so, if it could be without a sacrifice of your comfort and enjoyment, but--" "Comfort and enjoyment!" she interrupted; "it is here in your arms or by your side that I find both; nowhere else. But why do you talk so? is anything wrong?" "Nothing, except that it seems impossible for me to leave the plantation for weeks to come, unless I can get a better substitute than I know of at present." "Oh, Ned, I am so sorry!" she cried, tears of disappointment springing to her eyes. "Don't feel too badly about it, little wife," he said, in a cheery tone; "it is just possible the right man may turn up before the yacht sails; and in that case I can go with the rest of you; otherwise I shall hope to join you before your stay at Nantucket is quite over." "Not my stay; for I won't go one step of the way without you, unless you order me!" she added, sportively, and with a vivid blush; "and I'm not sure that I'll do it even in that case." "Oh, yes you will," he said, laughingly. "You know you promised to be always good and obedient on condition that I would love you and keep you; and I'm doing both to the very best of my ability." "But you won't be if you send me away from you. No, no; I have a right to stay with you, and I shall claim it always," she returned, clinging to him as if she feared an immediate separation. "Foolish child!" he said, with a happy laugh, holding her close; "think what you would lose: the sea voyage in the pleasantest of company--" "No; the pleasantest company would be left behind if you were," she interrupted. "Well, very delightful company," he resumed; "then I don't know how many weeks of the oppressive heat here you would have to endure, instead of enjoying the cool, refreshing breezes sweeping over Nantucket. Surely, you cannot give it all up without a sigh?" "I can't give up the thought of enjoying it all with you without sighing, and crying, too, maybe," she answered, smiling through tears; "but I'd sigh and cry ten times as much if I had to go and leave you behind. No, Mr. Travilla, you needn't indulge the hope of getting rid of me for even a week. I'm determined to stay where you stay, and go only where you go." "Dreadful fate!" he exclaimed. "Well, little wife, I shall do my best to avert the threatened disappointment of your hopes of a speedy departure out of this heated atmosphere and a delightful sea voyage to that famous island. Now, I must leave you and begin at once my search for a substitute as manager of the plantation." "Oh, I do hope you will succeed!" she said. "Shall I go on with my packing?" "Just as you please, my dear; perhaps it would be best; as otherwise you may be hurried with it if we are able to go with the others." "Then I shall; and I'm determined not to look for disappointment," she said, in a lively, cheery tone, as he left the room, At the conclusion of his conference with Edward, Mr. Dinsmore sought his daughter in her own apartments. He found her busied much as Zoe was, looking over clothing and selecting what ought to be packed in the trunks a man-servant was bringing in. She had thrown aside the widow's weeds in which she was wont to array herself when about to leave the seclusion of her own rooms, and donned a simple white morning dress that was very becoming, her father thought. "Excuse my wrapper, papa," she said, turning toward him a bright, sweet face, as he entered; "I found my black dress oppressive this warm morning." "Yes," he said; "it is a most unwholesome dress, I think; and for that reason and several others I should be extremely glad if you would give it up entirely." "Would you, my dear father?" she returned, tears springing to her eyes. "I should indeed, if it would not involve too great a sacrifice of feeling on your part. I have always thought white the most suitable and becoming dress for you in the summer season, and so did your husband." "Yes, papa, I remember that he did; but--I--I should be very loath to give the least occasion for any one to say or think he was forgotten by her he loved so dearly, or that she had ceased to mourn his loss." "Loss, daughter dear?" he said, taking her in his arms to wipe away the tears that were freely coursing down her cheeks, and caress her with exceeding tenderness. "No, papa, not lost, but only gone before," she answered, a lovely smile suddenly irradiating her features; "nor does he seem far away. I often feel that he is very near me still, though I can neither see nor speak to him nor hear his loved voice," she went on, in a dreamy tone, a far-away look in the soft brown eyes as she stood, with her head on her father's shoulder, his arm encircling her waist. Both were silent for some moments; then Elsie, lifting her eyes to her father's face, asked, "Were you serious in what you said about my laying aside mourning, papa?" "Never more so," he answered. "It is a gloomy, unwholesome dress, and I have grown very weary of seeing you wear it. It would be very gratifying to me to see you exchange it for more cheerful attire." "But black is considered the most suitable dress for old and elderly ladies, papa; and I am a grandmother, you know." "What of that?" he said, a trifle impatiently; "you do not look old, and are, in fact, just in the prime of life. And it is not like you to be concerned about what people may think or say. Usually your only inquiry is, 'Is it right?' 'Is it what I ought to do?'" "I fear that is a deserved reproof, papa," she said, with unaffected humility; "and I shall be governed by your wishes in this matter, for they have been law to me almost all my life (a law I have loved to obey, dear father), and I know that if my husband were here he would approve of my decision." She could not entirely suppress a sigh as she spoke, nor keep the tears from filling her eyes. Her father saw and appreciated the sacrifice she would make for him. "Thank you, my darling," he said. "It seems selfish in me to ask it of you, but though partly for my own gratification, it is really still more for your sake; I think the change will be for your health and happiness." "And I have the highest opinion of my father's wisdom," she said, "and should never, never think of selfishness as connected with him." Mrs. Dinsmore came in at this moment. "Ah, my dear," she said, "I was in search of you. What is to be done about Bob and Betty Johnson? You know they will be coming home in a day or two for their summer vacation." "They can stay at Roselands with their cousins Calhoun and Arthur Conly; or at the Oaks, if Horace and his family do not join us in the trip to Nantucket." "Cannot Bob and Betty go with us, papa?" Elsie asked. "I have no doubt it would be a very great treat to them." "Our party promises to be very large," he replied; "but if you two ladies are agreed to invite them I shall raise no objection." "Shall we not, mamma?" Elsie asked, and Rose gave a hearty assent. "Now, how much dressmaking has to be done before the family can be ready for the trip?" asked Mr. Dinsmore. "Very little," the ladies told him, Elsie adding, "At least if you are willing to let me wear black dresses when it is too cool for white, papa. Mamma, he has asked me to lay aside my mourning." "I knew he intended to," Rose said, "and I think you are a dear good daughter to do it." "It is nothing new; she has always been the best of daughters," Mr. Dinsmore remarked, with a tenderly affectionate look at Elsie. "And, my dear child, I certainly shall not ask you to stay a day longer than necessary in this hot place, merely to have new dresses made when you have enough even of black ones. We must set sail as soon as possible. Now, I must have a little business chat with you. Don't go, Rose; it is nothing that either of us would care to have you hear." CHAPTER II. "Where the broad ocean leans against the land." --_Goldsmith_. Elsie felt somewhat apprehensive that this early laying aside of her mourning for their father might not meet the approval of her older son and daughters; but it gave them pleasure; one and all were delighted to see her resume the dress of the happy days when he was with them. Zoe, too, was very much pleased. "Mamma," she said, "you do look so young and lovely in white; and it was so nice in you to begin wearing it again on the anniversary of our wedding-day. Just think, it's a whole year to-day since Edward and I were married. How fast time flies!" "Yes," Elsie said; "it seems a very little while since I was as young and light-hearted as you are now, and now I am a grandmother." "But still happy; are you not, mamma? you always seem so to me." "Yes, my child; I have a very peaceful, happy life. I miss my husband, but I know the separation is only for a short time, and that he is supremely blessed. And with my beloved father and dear children about me, heart and hands are full--delightfully full--leaving no room for sadness and repining." This little talk was on the veranda, as the two stood there for a moment apart from the others. Zoe was looking quite bride-like in a white India mull, much trimmed with rich lace, her fair neck and arms adorned with a set of beautiful pearls, just presented her by Edward in commemoration of the day. She called Elsie's attention to them. "See, mamma, what my husband has given me in memory of the day. Are they not magnificent?" "It is a very fine set," Elsie answered, with a smile, glancing admiringly at the jewels and from them to the blooming face of the wearer. "A most suitable gift for his little wife." "He's so good to me, mamma," Zoe said, with warmth. "I love him better every day we live together, and couldn't think of leaving him behind alone, when you all go off to Nantucket. I do hope he'll be able to find somebody to take his place; but if he isn't I shall stay here with him." "That is quite right, dear child; I am very glad you love him so dearly," Elsie said, with a very pleased look; "but I hope your affection will not be put to so severe a test; we have heard of a very suitable person, though it is still uncertain whether his services can be secured. We shall probably know to-morrow." "Perhaps sooner than that," Mr. Dinsmore said, approaching them just in time to hear his daughter's last sentence; "Edward has gone to have an interview with him, and hopes for a definite reply to his proposition. Ah, here he comes now!" as Edward was seen to turn in at the great gates and come up the avenue at a gentle trot. It was too warm for a gallop. As he drew near he took off his hat and waved it in triumph round his head. "Success, good friends!" he cried, reining in his steed at the veranda steps. Then, as he threw the reins to a servant and sprang to the ground, "Zoe, my darling, you can go on with your packing; we may confidently expect to be able to sail with the rest." "Oh delightful!" she exclaimed, dancing about as gleefully as if she had been a maiden of eight or ten instead of a woman just closing the first year of her married life. Everybody sympathized in her joy; everybody was glad that she and Edward were to be of their party. All the older ones were very busy for the next few days, no one finding time for rest and quiet chat except the captain and Violet, who keenly enjoyed a monopoly of each other's society during not a few hours of every day; Mrs. Dinsmore and Elsie having undertaken to attend to all that would naturally have fallen to Violet's share in making ready for the summer's jaunt had she been in robust health. Bob and Betty Johnson, to whom the Oaks had been home for many years, and who had just graduated from school, came home in the midst of the bustle of preparation, and were highly delighted by an invitation to join the Nantucket party. No untoward event occurred to cause disappointment or delay; all were ready in due season, and the yacht set sail at the appointed time, with a full list of passengers, carrying plenty of luggage, and with fair winds and sunny skies. They were favored with exceptionally fine weather all the way, and seas so smooth that scarce a touch of sea-sickness was felt by any, from the oldest to the youngest. They entered Nantucket harbor one lovely summer morning, with a delicious breeze blowing from the sea, the waves rippling and dancing in the sunlight, and the pretty town seated like a queen on the surrounding heights that slope gently up from the water. They were all gathered on deck, eager for a first glimpse of the place. Most of them spoke admiringly of it, but Zoe said, "It's pretty enough, but too much of a town for me. I'm glad we are not to stay in it. 'Sconset is a smaller place, isn't it, captain?" "Much smaller," he answered; "quite small enough to suit even so great a lover of solitude as yourself, Mrs. Travilla." "Oh, you needn't laugh at me," she retorted; "one needn't be a great lover of solitude to care for no more society than is afforded by this crowd. But I want to be close by the bounding sea, and this town is shut off from that by its harbor." "Where is the harbor, papa?" asked little Grace. "All around us, my child; we are in it." "Are we?" she asked, "I think it looks just like the sea; what's the matter with it, Aunt Zoe?" "Nothing, only it's too quiet; the great waves don't come rolling in and breaking along the shore. I heard your father say so; it's here they have the still bathing." "Oh, yes, and papa is going to teach us to swim!" exclaimed Lulu; "I'm so glad, for I like to learn how to do everything." "That's right," her father said, with an approving smile; "learn all you can, for 'knowledge is power.'" They landed, the gentlemen presently secured a sufficient number of hacks to comfortably accommodate the entire party, and after a cursory view of the town, in a drive through several of its more important streets, they started on the road to 'Sconset. They found it, though a lonely, by no means an unpleasant, drive--a road marked out only by rows of parallel ruts across wild moorlands, where the ground was level or slightly rolling, with now and then some gentle elevation, or a far-off glimpse of harbor or sea, or a lonely farmhouse. The wastes were treeless, save for the presence of a few stunted jack-pines; but these gave out a sweet scent, mingling pleasantly with the smell of the salt-sea air; and there were wild roses and other flowering shrubs, thistles and tiger-lilies and other wild flowers, beautiful enough to tempt our travellers to alight occasionally to gather them. 'Sconset was reached at length, three adjacent cottages found ready and waiting for their occupancy, and they took possession. The cottages stood on a high bluff overlooking miles of sea, between which and the foot of the cliff stretched a low sandy beach a hundred yards or more in width, and gained by flights of wooden stairs. The cottages faced inland, and had each a little back yard, grassy, and showing a few flowers, that reached to within a few yards of the edge of the bluff. The houses were tiny, built low and strong, that they might resist the fierce winds of winter in that exposed position, and shingled all over to keep out the spray from the waves, which would penetrate any other covering. Dinner was engaged for our entire party at one of the hotels, of which there were two; but as it yet wanted more than an hour of the time set for the meal, all who were not too tired sallied forth to explore the hamlet and its environs. They found it to consist of about two hundred cottages, similar to those they had engaged for the season, each in a little enclosure. They were built along three narrow streets or lanes running parallel with the edge of the bluff, and stood in groups of twos or threes, separated by narrow cross-lanes, giving every one free access to the town pump, the only source of fresh-water supply in the place. The children were particularly interested in the cottage of Captain Baxter, with its famous ship's figure-head in the yard. Back of the original 'Sconset, on the slight ascent toward Nantucket Town, stood a few more pretentious cottages, built as summer residences by the rich men of the island, retired sea captains, and merchants; this was the one broad street, and here were the two hotels, the Atlantic House and the Ocean View House. Then on the bluff south of the old village, called Sunset Heights, there were some half dozen cottages; a few on the bluff north of it, also. The town explored and dinner eaten, of course the next thing was to repair to the beach to watch the rush and tumble of the restless waves, fast chasing each other in, and the dash of the spray as they broke along the shore. There was little else to see, for the bathing hour was long past; but that was quite enough. Soon, however, nearly every one of the party began to feel unaccountably sleepy. Some returned to the cottages for the indulgence of their desire for slumber, and others, spreading cloaks and shawls upon the sand, enjoyed a delicious rest, warmed by the sun and fanned by the sea breeze. For a day or two they did little but sleep and eat, and sleep and eat again, enjoying it immensely, too, and growing fat and strong. After that they woke to new life, made inquiries in regard to all the sights and amusements the island afforded, and began availing themselves of their opportunities, as if it were the business of life. When it was for a long drive to some notable point, all went together, chartering several vehicles for their conveyance; at other times they not unfrequently broke up into smaller parties, some preferring one sort of sport, some another. "How many of us are going to bathe to-day?" Mr. Dinsmore asked, the second morning after their arrival. "I for one, if you will bear me company and look out for my safety," said his wife. "Most assuredly I will," he answered. "And you too, Elsie?" turning to his daughter. "Yes, sir," she said, "if you think you can be burdened with the care of two." "No, mother," spoke up Edward, quickly; "you and Zoe will be my charge, of course." "Ridiculous, Ned! of course, Harold and I will take care of mamma," exclaimed Herbert. "You will have enough to do to look out for your wife's safety." (The yacht had touched at Cape May and taken the two college students aboard there.) "I shall be well taken care of," their mother said, laughingly, with an affectionate glance from one to another of her three tall sons; "but I should like one of you to take charge of Rosie, another of Walter; and, in fact, I don't think I need anything for myself but a strong hold of the rope to insure my safety." "You shall have more!" exclaimed father and sons in a breath; "the surf is heavy here, and we cannot risk your precious life." Mr. Dinsmore added, "None of you ladies ought to stay in very long, and we will take you in turn." "Papa, may I go in?" asked Lulu, eagerly. "Yes; I'll take you in," the captain answered; "but the waves are so boisterous that I doubt if you will care to repeat the experiment. Max, I see, is waiting his chance to ask the same question," he added, with a fatherly smile directed to the boy; "you may go in too, of course, my son, if you will promise to hold on to the rope. I cannot think that otherwise you would be safe in that boiling surf." "But I can swim, papa," said Max; "and won't you let me go with you out beyond the surf, where the water is more quiet?" "Why yes, you shall," the captain replied, with a look of pleasure; "I did not know that you had learned to swim." "I don't want to go in," said timid little Grace, as if half fearful it might be required of her. "Mamma is not going, and can't I stay with her, papa?" "Certainly, daughter," was the kind reply. "I suppose you feel afraid of those dashing waves, and I should never think of forcing you in among them against your will." Betty Johnson now announced her intention to join the bathers. "It's the first chance I've ever had," she remarked, "and I shan't throw it away. I'll hold on to the rope, and if I'm in any danger I suppose Bob, or some of the rest of you, will come to my assistance?" "Of course we will!" all the gentlemen said, her brother adding, "And if there's a good chance, I'll take you over to Nantucket Town, where there's still-bathing, and teach you to swim." "Just what I should like," she said. "I have a great desire to add that to the already large number of my accomplishments." Miss Betty was a very lively, in fact, quite wild, young lady, whose great desire was for fun and frolic; to have, as she expressed it, "a jolly good time" wherever she went. The captain drew out his watch. "About time to don the bathing-suits," he said; "I understand that eleven o'clock is the hour, and it wants but fifteen minutes of it." Grandma Elsie had kindly seen to it that each little girl--that is, Captain Raymond's two and her own Rosie--was provided with a pretty, neatly-fitting, and becoming bathing dress. Violet helped Lulu to put her's on, and, surveying her with a smile of gratified motherly pride, told her she looked very well in it, and that she hoped she would enjoy her bath. "Thank you," said Lulu; "but why don't you go in too, Mamma Vi?" "Only because I don't feel strong enough to stand up against those heavy waves," Violet answered. "But I am going down to the beach to watch you all, and see that you don't drown," she added, sportively. "Oh Lu, aren't you afraid to go in?" asked little Grace, half shuddering at the very thought. "Why no, Gracie; I've bathed in the sea before; I went in a good many times last summer; don't you remember?" "Yes; but the waves there weren't half so big and strong." "No; but I'll have a rope and papa, too, to hold to; so why need I be afraid?" laughed Lulu. "Mamma is, I think," said Grace, looking doubtfully at her. "Oh no, dear," said Violet; "I should not be at all afraid to go in if I were as strong as usual; but being weak, I know that buffeting with those great waves would do me more harm than good." Their cottages being so near the beach, our party all assumed their bathing suits before descending to it. They went down, this first time, all in one company, forming quite a procession; Mr. and Mrs. Dinsmore heading it, and Violet and Grace, as mere spectators, bringing up the rear. They, in common with others who had nothing to do but look on, found it an amusing scene; there was a great variety of costume, some neat, well-fitting, and modest; some quite immodestly scant; some bright and new; some faded and old. There was, however, but little freshness and beauty in any of them when they came out of the water. Violet and Grace found a seat under an awning. Max came running up to them. "Papa is going in with Lulu first," he said; "then he will bring her out and take me with him for a swim beyond the breakers. I'll just wait here with you till my turn comes." "See, see, they're in the water!" cried Grace; "and oh, what a big, big wave that is coming! There, it would have knocked Lulu down if papa hadn't had fast hold of her." "Yes; it knocked a good many others down," laughed Max; "just hear how they are screeching and screaming." "But laughing, too," said Violet, "as if they find it fine sport." "Who is that man sitting on that bench nearest the water, and looking just ready to run and help if anybody needs it?" asked Grace. "Oh, that's Captain Gorham," said Max. "and to run and help if he's needed is exactly what he's there for. And I presume he always does it; for they say no bather was ever drowned here." Ten or fifteen minutes later a little dripping figure left the water, and came running toward them. "Why, it's Lulu," Gracie said, as it drew near, calling out to Max that papa was ready for him. Max was off like a shot in the direction of the water, and Lulu shouted to her sister, "Oh Gracie, it's such fun! I wish you had gone, too." Violet hastened to throw a waterproof cloak about Lulu's shoulders, and bade her hurry to the house, rub hard with a coarse towel, and put on dry clothing. "I will go with you," she added, "if you wish." "Oh no, thank you, Mamma Vi," Lulu answered, in a lively, happy tone. "I can do it all quite well myself, and it must be fun for you to sit here and watch the bathers." "Well, dear, rub till you are in a glow," Violet said, as the little girl sped on her way. "Oh mamma, see, see!" cried Grace, more than half frightened at the sight; "papa has gone away, way out, and Maxie with him. Oh, aren't you afraid they will drown?" "No, Gracie dear; I think we may safely trust your father's prudence and skill as a swimmer," Violet answered. "Ah, there come Grandma Rose and my mother; but Zoe and Betty seem to be enjoying it too much to leave yet." "Mamma, let's stay here till our people all come out; papa and Maxie, any way" Grace said, persuasively. "Yes; we will if you wish," said Violet. "I was just thinking I must go in to see how baby is doing; but here comes Dinah, bringing her to me." There was no accident that day, and everybody was enthusiastic in praise of the bathing. Zoe and Betty would have liked to stay in the water much longer than their escorts deemed prudent, but yielded to their better judgment. The next morning there was a division of their forces: the Dinsmores, Mrs. Elsie Travilla, Rosie, and Walter, and the Raymonds taking an early start for Nantucket Town, the others remaining behind to enjoy a repetition of the surf bath at 'Sconset. The Nantucket party drove directly to the bathing house of the town, and the little girls took their first lesson in swimming. They all thought it "very nice," even Grace soon forgetting her timidity in the quiet water and with her father to take care of her. After that they went about the town visiting places of note--the Athenaeum, the oldest house, dating back more than a hundred years, no longer habitable, but kept as a relic of olden times, so important that a visit to it is a part of the regular curriculum of the summer sojourner in Nantucket; then to the news-room, where they wrote their names in the "Visitors' Book;" then to the stores to view, among other things, the antique furniture and old crockery on exhibition there and for sale. Many of these stores, situate in wide, handsome streets, were quite city-like in size and in their display of goods. Dinner at one of the hotels was next in order; after that a delightful sail on the harbor, then around Brant Point and over the bar out into the sea. Here the boat new before the wind, dancing and rocking on the waves to the intense delight of the older children; but Gracie was afraid till her father took her in his arms and held her fast, assuring her they were in no danger. As she had unbounded confidence in "papa's" word, and believed he knew all about the sea, this quieted her fears and made the rest of the sail as thoroughly enjoyable to her as it was to the others. The drive back to 'Sconset, with the full moon shining on moor and sea, was scarcely less delightful. They reached their cottage home full of enthusiasm over the day's experiences, ready to do ample justice to a substantial supper, and then for a long delicious night's sleep. CHAPTER III. "And I have loved thee, Ocean!" Captain Raymond, always an early riser, was out on the bluffs before the sun rose, and in five minutes Max was by his side. "Ah, my boy, I though you were sound asleep, and would be for an hour yet," the captain remarked when they had exchanged an affectionate good-morning. "No, sir, I made up my mind last night that I'd be out in time to see the sun rise right out of the sea," Max said; "and there he is, just peeping above the waves. There, now he's fairly up I and see, papa, what a golden glory he sheds upon the waters; they are almost too bright to look at. Isn't it a fine sight?" "Yes, well worth the sacrifice of an extra morning nap--at least once in a while." "You must have seen it a great many times, papa." "Yes, a great many; but it never loses its attraction for me." "Oh, look, look, papa!" cried Max; "there's a fisherman going out; he has his dory down on the beach, and is just watching for the right wave to launch it. I never can see the difference in the waves--why one is better than half a dozen others that he lets pass. Can you, sir?" "No," acknowledged the captain; "but let us watch now and try to make out his secret." They did watch closely for ten minutes or more, while wave after wave came rushing in and broke along the beach, the fisherman's eyes all the while intent upon them as he stood motionless beside his boat; then suddenly seeming to see the right one--though to the captain and Max it did not look different from many of its neglected predecessors--he gave his dory a vigorous push that sent it out upon the top of that very wave, leaped into the stern, seized his oars, and with a powerful stroke sent the boat out beyond the breakers. "Bravo!" cried Max, clapping his hands and laughing with delight; "see, papa, how nicely he rides now on the long swells! How I should like to be able to manage a boat like that. May I learn if I have the chance?" "Yes," said his father; "I should like to have you a proficient in all manly accomplishments, only don't be foolhardy and run useless risks. I want my son to be brave, but not rash; ready to meet danger with coolness and courage when duty calls, and to have the proper training to enable him to do so intelligently, but not to rush recklessly into it to no good end." "Yes, papa," Max answered; "I mean to try to be just such a man as my father is; but do you mean that I may take lessons in managing a boat on the sea, if I can find somebody to teach me?" "I do; I shall inquire about among the fishermen and see who is capable and willing for the task. Come, let us go down to the beach; we shall have abundance of time for a stroll before breakfast." At that moment Lulu joined them with a gay good-morning to each; she was in a happy mood. "Oh, what a lovely morning! what a delightful place this is!" she cried. "Papa, can't we take a walk?" "Yes, Max and I were about starting for one, and shall be pleased to have your company." "I'd like to go to Tom Never's Head, papa," said Max. "Oh, so should I!" cried Lulu. "I believe they call the distance from here about two miles," remarked the captain reflectively; "but such a walk before breakfast in this bracing air I presume will not damage children as strong and healthy as these two of mine," regarding them with a fond, fatherly smile. "So come along, we will try it." He took Lulu's hand, and the three wended their way southward along Sunset Heights, greatly enjoying the sight of the ocean, its waves glittering and dancing in the brilliant sunlight, their booming sound as they broke along the beach and the exhilarating breeze blowing fresh and pure from them. "This is a very dangerous coast," the captain remarked, "especially in winter, when it is visited by fierce gales; a great many vessels have been wrecked on Nantucket coast." "Yes, papa," said Max; "I heard a story the other day of a ship that was wrecked the night before Christmas, eight or ten years ago, on this shore. Nobody knew that a ship was near until the next morning, when pieces of wreck, floating barrels, and dead bodies were cast up on the beach. "They found that one man had got to land alive; they knew it because he was quite a distance from the beach, though entirely dead when they found him. You see there was just one farmhouse in sight from the scene of the disaster, and they had alight that night because somebody was sick; and they supposed the man saw the light and tried to reach it, but was too much exhausted by fatigue and the dreadful cold, for it seemed his clothes had all been torn off him by the waves; he was stark naked when found, and lying on the ground, which showed that he had struggled hard to get up after falling down upon it. "I think they said the ship was called the Isaac Newton, was loaded with barrels of coal-oil, and bound for Holland." "What a terrible death!" Lulu said with a shudder, and clinging more tightly to her father's hand; "every one drowned and may be half frozen for hours before they died. Oh, papa, I wish you didn't belong to the navy, but lived all the time on land! I am so afraid your ship will be wrecked some time," she ended with a sob. "It is not only upon the water that people die by what we call accident, daughter," the captain answered; "many horrible deaths occur on land--many to which drowning would in my opinion be far preferable. "But you must remember that we are under God's care and protection everywhere, on land and on sea; and that if we are His children no real evil can befall us. I am very glad you love me, my child, but I would not have you make yourself unhappy with useless fears on my account. Trust the Lord for me and all whom you love." They pressed onward and presently came upon a lovely lakelet near the beach, as clear as crystal and with bushes with dark green foliage growing on all sides but that toward the sea. They stopped for a moment to gaze upon it with surprise and admiration, then pushed on again till the top of the high bluff known as Tom Never's Head was reached. They stood upon its brink and looked off westward and northward over the heaving, tumbling ocean, as far as the eye could reach to the line where sea and sky seemed to meet, taking in long draughts of the pure, invigorating air, and listening to the roar of the breakers below. "What is that down there?" asked Lulu. "Part of a wreck, evidently," answered her father; "it must have been there a long while, it is so deeply imbedded in the sand." "I wish I knew its story," said Lulu; "I hope everybody wasn't drowned when it was lost." "It must have happened years ago, before that life-saving station was built," remarked Max. "Life-saving station," repeated Lulu, turning to look in the direction of his glance; "what's that?" "Do you not know what that means?" asked her father. "It is high time you did. Those small houses are built here and there all along our coast by the general government, for the purpose of accommodating each a band of surf-men, who are employed by the government to keep a lookout for vessels in distress, and give them all the aid in their power. "They are provided with lifeboats, buoys, and other necessary things to enable them to do so successfully. If it were not too near breakfast time I should take you over there to see their apparatus; but we must defer it to some other day, which will be quite as well, for then we may bring a larger party with us. Now for home," he added, again taking Lulu's hand; "if your appetites are as keen as mine you will be glad to get there and to the table." "Two good hours to bathing-time," remarked Mr. Dinsmore, consulting his watch as they rose from the breakfast table. "I propose that we utilize them in a visit to Sankaty lighthouse." All were well satisfied to do so, and presently they set off, some driving, others walking, for the distance is not great, and even feeble folk often find themselves able to take quite long tramps in the bracing sea air. Max and Lulu preferred to walk when they learned that their father intended doing so; then Grace, though extremely fond of driving, begged leave to join their party, and the captain finally granted her request, thinking within himself that he could carry her if her strength gave out. The little face grew radiant with delight. "Oh, you are a nice, good papa!" she cried, giving him a hug and kiss, for he was seated with her upon his knee. "I am glad you think so," he said, laughingly, as he returned her caress. "Well, as soon as I have helped your mamma into the carriage we will start." They set out presently, Grace holding fast to one of his hands while Lulu had the other, and tripping gayly along by his side till, passing out of the village, they struck into the narrow path leading to Sankaty; then the little maid moved along more soberly, looking far away over the rolling billows and watching the progress of some vessels in the offing. They could hear the dash of the waves on the beach below, but could not see it for the over-hanging cliffs, the path running some yards distant from their brink. "I want to see where the waves come up," said Lulu; "there's Max looking down over the edge; can't we go and look too, papa?" "Yes, with me along to take care of you," he said, turning from the path and leading them seaward; "but don't venture alone, the ground might crumble under your feet and you would have a terrible fall, going down many feet right into the sea." They had reached the brink. Grace, clinging tightly to her father's hand, took one timid peep, then drew back in terror. "Oh, papa, how far down it is!" she exclaimed. "Oh, let's get away, for fear the ground will break and let us fall." "Pooh! Gracie, don't be such a coward," said Lulu. "I shouldn't be afraid even if papa hadn't hold of our hands." "I should be afraid for you, Lulu, so venturesome as you are," said the captain, drawing her a little farther back. "Max, my son, be careful." "Yes, sir, I will. Papa, do you know how high this bluff is?" "They say the bank is eighty-five feet high where the lighthouse stands, and I presume it is about the same here. Now, children, we will walk on." Grace's strength held out wonderfully; she insisted she was not at all tired, even when the end of their walk was reached. The other division of the party had arrived some minutes before, and several were already making the ascent to the top of the lighthouse tower; the rest were scattered, waiting their turn in the neat parlor of the keeper's snug little home, or wandering over the grassy expanse between it and the sea. "There are Grandma Elsie and mamma in the house," cried Grace, catching sight of them through a window. "Yes," said her father, "we will go in there and wait our turn with them," leading the way as he spoke. "Do you want to go up into the tower, Gracie?" "Oh no, no, papa!" she cried, "what would be the use? and I am afraid I might fall." "What, with your big strong father to hold you fast?" he asked laughingly, sitting down and drawing her to a seat upon his knee; for they had entered the parlor. "It might tire you to hold me so hard; I'm getting so big now," she answered naïvely, looking up into his face with a loving smile and stealing an arm about his neck. "Ah, no danger of that," he laughed. "Why, I believe I could hold even your mamma or Lulu, and that against their will, without being greatly exhausted by the exertion. "My dear," turning to Violet, "shall I have the pleasure of helping you up to the top of the tower?" "Thank you, I think I shall not try it to-day," she answered; "they tell me the steps are very steep and hard to climb." "Ah, so I suppose, and I think you are wise not to attempt it." "But I may, mayn't I, papa?" Lulu said. "You know I always like to go everywhere." "I fear it will be a hard climb for a girl of your size," he answered doubtfully. "Oh, but I want to go, and I don't care if it is a hard climb," she said coaxingly, coming close to his side and laying her hand on his shoulder. "Please, papa, do say I may." "Yes, since you are so desirous," he said, in an indulgent tone. Max came hurrying in. "We can go up now, papa," he said; "the others have come down." Edward and Zoe were just behind the boy. "Oh, you ought all to go up," cried the latter; "the view's just splendid." "Mother," said Edward, "the view is very fine, but there are sixty steps, each a foot high; a pretty hard climb for a lady, I should think. Will you go up? may I have the pleasure of helping you?" "Yes," she answered; "I am quite strong and well, and think the view will probably pay for the exertion." They took the lead, the captain following with Lulu, and Max bringing up the rear. Having reached the top and viewed the great light (one of the finest on the coast) from the interior, Elsie stepped outside, and holding fast to Edward's hand made the entire circuit, enjoying the extended view on all sides. Stepping in again, she drew a long breath of relief. "I should not like to try that in a strong wind," she said, "or at all if I were easily made dizzy; no, nor in any case without a strong arm to cling to for safety; for there is plenty of space to fall through between the iron railing and the masonry." "I should tremble to see you try it alone, mother," Edward said. "It is a trifle dangerous," acknowledged the keeper. "Yet safe enough for a sailor," laughed the captain, stepping out. "Oh, papa, let me go too, please do!" pleaded Lulu. "Why should you care to?" asked her father. "To see the prospect, papa; oh, do let me! there can't be any danger with you to hold me tight." For answer he leaned down and helped her up the step, then led her slowly round, giving her time to take in all the beauties of the scene, taking care of Max too, who was slowly following. "I presume you are a little careful whom you allow to make that round?" the captain observed inquiringly to the keeper when again they stood inside. "Yes, and we have never had an accident; but I don't know but there was a narrow escape from it the other day. "Of course crowds of people come here almost every day while summer visitors are on the island, and we can't always judge what kind they are; but we know it is not an uncommon thing for people standing on the brink of a precipice or any height to feel an uncontrollable inclination to throw themselves down it, and therefore we are on the watch. "Well, the other day I let a strange woman out there, but presently when I saw her looking down over the edge and heard her mutter to herself, 'Shall I know him when I see him? shall I know him when I see him?' I pulled her inside in a hurry." "You thought she was deranged and about to commit suicide by precipitating herself to the ground?" Edward said inquiringly. "Exactly, sir," returned the keeper. All of their number who wished to do so having visited the top of the tower, our party prepared to leave. "Are you going to walk back, papa? Mayn't I go with you?" pleaded Grace. "No, daughter, we must not try your strength too far," he said, lifting her into the carriage where Grandma Elsie and Violet were already seated. "I am going on a mile further to Sachacha Pond, ladies," he remarked; "will you drive there, or directly home?" "There, if there is time to go and return before the bathing hour," they answered. "Quite. I think," he replied, and the carriage moved on, he with Max and Lulu, and several of the young gentlemen of the company following on foot. Sachacha Pond they found to be a pretty sheet of water only slightly salt, a mile long and three quarters of a mile wide, separated from the ocean by a long narrow strip of sandy beach. No stream enters it, but it is the reservoir of the rainfall from the low-lying hills sloping down to its shores. Quidnet--a hamlet of perhaps a half dozen houses--stands on its banks. It is to this pond people go to fish for perch; calling it fresh-water fishing; here too they "bob" for eels. Our party had not come to fish this time, yet had an errand aside from a desire to see the spot--namely, to make arrangements for going sharking the next day. Driving and walking on to Quidnet they soon found an old, experienced mariner who possessed a suitable boat and was well pleased to undertake the job of carrying their party out to the sharking grounds on the shoals. He would need a crew of two men, easily to be found among his neighbors, he said; he would also provide the necessary tackle. The bait would be perch, which they would catch here in the pond before setting out for the trip by sea to their destination--about a mile away. Mr. Dinsmore, his three grandsons, and Bob Johnson were all to be of the party. Max was longing to go too, but hardly thought he would be allowed; he was hesitating whether to make the request when his father, catching his eager, wistful look, suddenly asked, "Would you like to go, Max?" "Oh, yes, papa, yes, indeed!" was the eager response, and the boy's heart bounded with delight at the answer, in a kindly indulgent tone, "Very well, you may." Lulu, hearing it, cried out, "Oh, couldn't I go too, papa?" "You? a little girl?" her father said, turning an astonished look upon her; "absurd! no, of course you can't." "I think I might," persisted Lulu; "I've heard that ladies go sometimes, and I shouldn't be a bit afraid or get in anybody's way." "You can't go, so let me hear no more about it," the captain answered decidedly as they turned toward home, the arrangements for the morrow's expedition being completed. "Wouldn't Lulu like to ride?" Violet asked, speaking from the carriage window; "she has already done a good deal of walking to-day." The carriage stopped, and the captain picked Lulu up and put her in it without waiting for her to reply, for he saw that she was sulking over his refusal of her request. She continued silent during the short drive to the cottage, and scarcely spoke while hurriedly dressing for the surf-bath. The contemplated sharking expedition was the chief topic of conversation at the dinner-table, and it was quite evident that those who were going looked forward to a good deal of sport. The frown on Lulu's face grew darker as she listened. Why should not she have a share in the fun as well as Max? she was sure she was quite as brave, and not any more likely to be seasick; and papa ought to be as willing to give enjoyment to his daughter as to his son. She presently slipped away to the beach and sat down alone to brood over it, nursing her ill-humor and missing much enjoyment which she might have had because this--a very doubtful one at the best--was denied her. Looking round after a while, and seeing her father sitting alone on a bench at some little distance, she went to him and asked, "Why can't I go with you to-morrow, papa? I don't see why I can't as well as Max." "Max is a boy and you are a girl, which makes a vast difference whether you see it or not," the captain answered. "But I told you to let me hear no more about it. I am astonished at your assurance in approaching me again on the subject." Lulu was silent for a moment, then said complainingly, "And I suppose I'll not be allowed to take my bath either?" "I don't forbid you," the captain said kindly, putting his arm about her and drawing her in between his knees; "provided you promise to keep fast hold of the rope all the time you are in. With that, and Captain Gorham keeping close watch, you will not be in much danger, I think; but I should be much easier in mind--it would give me great satisfaction--if my little girl would voluntarily relinquish the bath for this one day that I shall not be here to take care of her, for possibly she might be swept away, and it would be a terrible thing to me to lose her." "I 'most wonder you don't say a good thing, papa, I'm so often naughty and troublesome," she said, suddenly becoming humble and penitent. "No, it would not be true; your naughtiness often pains me deeply, but I must continue to love my own child in spite of it all," he responded, bending down and imprinting a kiss upon her lips. "And I love you, papa; indeed, indeed I do," she said, with her arm round his neck, her cheek pressed close to his; "and I won't go in to-morrow; I'm glad to promise not to if it will make you feel easier and enjoy your day more." "Thank you, my dear child," he said. "I have not the least doubt of your affection." Edward had spread a rug on the sand just high enough on the beach to be out of reach of the incoming waves, and Zoe, with a book in her hand, was half reclining upon it, resting on her elbow and gazing far out over the waters. "Well, Mrs. Travilla, for once I find you alone. What has become of your other half?" said a lively voice at her side. "Oh, is it you, Betty?" Zoe exclaimed, quickly turning her head and glancing up at the speaker. "No one else, I assure you," returned the lively girl, dropping down on the sand and folding her hands in her lap. "Where did you say Ned is?" "I didn't say; but he has gone to help mamma down with her shawls and so forth." "He's the best of sons as well as of husbands," remarked Betty; "but I'm glad he's away for a moment just now, as I want a private word with you. Don't you think it is just a trifle mean and selfish for all our gentlemen to be going off on a pleasure excursion without so much as asking if one of us would like to accompany them?" "I hadn't thought anything about it," replied Zoe. "Well, think now, if you please; wouldn't you go if you had an invitation? Don't you want to go?" "Yes, if it's the proper thing; I'd like to go everywhere with my husband. I'll ask him about it. Here he comes, mamma with him." She waited till the two were comfortably settled by her side, then said, with her most insinuating smile, "I'd like to go sharking, Ned; won't you take me along to-morrow?" "Why, what an idea, little wife!" he exclaimed in surprise. "I really hate to say no to any request of yours, but I do not think it would be entirely safe for you. We are not going on the comparatively quiet waters of the harbor, but out into the ocean itself, and that in a whaleboat, and we may have very rough sailing; besides, it is not at all impossible that a man-eating shark might get into the boat alive, and, as I heard an old fisherman say yesterday, 'make ugly work.'" "Then I don't want to go," Zoe said, "and I'd rather you wouldn't; just suppose you should get a bite?" "Oh, no danger!" laughed Edward; "a man is better able to take care of himself than a woman is of herself." "Pooh!" exclaimed Betty; "I don't believe any such thing, and I want to go; I want to be able to say I've done and seen everything other summer visitors do and see on this island." "Only a foolish reason, is it not, Betty?" mildly remonstrated her Cousin Elsie. "But you will have to ask my father's consent, as he is your guardian." "No use whatever," remarked Bob, who had joined them a moment before; "I know uncle well enough to be able to tell you that beforehand. Aren't you equally sure of the result of such an application, Ned?" "Yes." "Besides," pursued Bob, teasingly, "there wouldn't be room in the boat for a fine lady like my sister Betty, with her flounces and furbelows; also you'd likely get awfully sick with the rolling and pitching of the boat, and leaning over the side for the purpose of depositing your breakfast in the sea, tumble in among the sharks and give them one." "Oh, you horrid fellow!" she exclaimed, half angrily; "I shouldn't do anything of the kind; I should wear no furbelows, be no more likely to an attack of sea-sickness than yourself, and could get out of the way of a shark quite as nimbly as any one else." "Well, go and ask uncle," he laughed. Betty made no move to go; she knew as well as he how Mr. Dinsmore would treat such a request. The weather the next morning was all that could be desired for sharking, and the gentlemen set off in due time, all in fine spirits. They were absent all day, returning early in the evening quite elated with their success. Max had a wonderful tale to tell Lulu and Grace of "papa's" skill, the number of sand-sharks and the tremendous "blue dog" or man-eater he had taken. The captain was not half so proud of his success as was his admiring son. "I thought all the sharks were man-eaters," said Lulu. "No, the sand-sharks are not." "Did everybody catch a man-eater?" "No; nobody but papa took a full-grown one. Grandpa Dinsmore and Uncle Edward each caught a baby one, and all of them took big fellows of the other kind. I suppose they are the most common, and it's a good thing, because of course they are not nearly so dangerous." "How many did you catch, Maxie?" asked Grace. "I? Oh, I helped catch the perch for bait; but I didn't try for sharks, for of course a boy wouldn't be strong enough to haul such big fellows in. I tell you the men had a hard tug, especially with the blue-dog. "The sand-sharks they killed when they'd got 'em close up to the gunwale by pounding them on the nose with a club--a good many hard whacks it took, too; but the blue-dog had to be stabbed with a lance; and I should think it took considerable courage and skill to do it, with such a big, strong, wicked-looking fellow. You just ought to have seen how he rolled over and over in the water and lashed it into a foam with his tail, how angry his eyes looked, and how he showed his sharp white teeth. I thought once he'd be right in among us the next minute, but he didn't; they got the lance down his throat just in time to put a stop to that." "Oh, I'm so glad he didn't!" Grace said, drawing a long breath. "Do they eat sharks, Maxie?" "No, indeed; who'd want to eat a fish that maybe had grown fat on human flesh?" "What do they kill them for, then?" "Oh, to rid the seas of them, I suppose, and because there is a valuable oil in their livers. We saw our fellows towed ashore and cut open and their livers taken out." CHAPTER IV. "There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved."--_Acts_ 4: 12. It was down on the beach Max had been telling his story; the evening was beautiful, warm enough to make the breeze from the sea extremely enjoyable, and the whole family party were gathered there, some sitting upon the benches or camp-chairs, others on rugs and shawls spread upon the sand. Max seemed to have finished what he had to say about the day's exploits, and Gracie rose and went to her father's side. He drew her to his knee with a slight caress. "What has my little girl been doing all day?" "Playing in the sand most of the time, papa. I'm so glad those horrid sharks didn't get a chance to bite you or anybody to-day. Such big, dreadful-looking creatures Maxie says they were." "Not half so large as some I have seen in other parts of the world." "Oh, papa, will you tell us about them? Shall I call Max and Lulu to hear it?" "Yes; if they wish to come, they may." There was scarcely anything the children liked better than to hear the captain tell of his experiences at sea, and in another moment his own three. Rosie, Walter, and several of the older people were gathered around him, expecting quite a treat. "Quite an audience," he remarked, "and I'm afraid I shall disappoint you all, for I have no yarn to spin, only a few items of information to give in regard to other varieties of sharks than are to be found on this coast. "The white shark, found in the Mediterranean and the seas of many of the warmer parts of the world, is the largest and the most feared of any of the monsters of the deep. One has been caught which was thirty-seven feet long. It has a hard skin, is grayish-brown above and whitish on the under side. It has a large head and a big wide mouth armed with a terrible apparatus of teeth--six rows in the upper jaw, and four in the lower." "Did you ever see one, papa?" asked Grace, shuddering. "Yes, many a one. They will often follow a ship to feed on any animal matter that may be thrown or fall overboard, and have not unfrequently followed mine, to the no small disturbance of the sailors, who have a superstitious belief that it augurs a death on board during the voyage." "Do you believe it, captain?" queried little Walter. "No, my boy, certainly not; how should a fish know what is about to happen? Do you think God would give them a knowledge of the future which He conceals from men? No, it is a very foolish idea which only an ignorant, superstitious person could for a moment entertain. Sharks follow the ships simply because of what is occasionally thrown into the water. They are voracious creatures, and sometimes swallow articles which even their stomachs cannot digest. A lady's work-box was found in one, and the papers of a slave-ship in another." "Why, how could he get them?" asked Walter. "They had been thrown overboard," said the captain. "Do those big sharks bite people?" pursued the child. "Yes, indeed; they will not only bite off an arm or leg when an opportunity offers, but have been known to swallow a man whole." "A worse fate than that of the prophet Jonah," remarked Betty. "Do the sailors ever attempt to catch them, captain?" "Sometimes; using a piece of meat as bait, putting it on a very large hook attached to a chain; for a shark's teeth find no difficulty in going through a rope. But when they have hooked him and hauled him on board they have need to be very careful to keep out of reach of both his teeth and his tail; they usually rid themselves of danger from the latter by a sailor springing forward and cutting it above the fin with a hatchet. "In the South Sea Islands they have a curious way of catching sharks by setting a log of wood afloat with a rope attached, a noose at the end of it; the sharks gather round the log, apparently out of curiosity, and one or another is apt soon to get his head into the noose, and is finally wearied out by the log." "I think that's a good plan," said Grace, "because it doesn't put anybody in danger of being bitten." No one spoke again for a moment, then the silence was broken by the sweet voice of Mrs. Elsie Travilla: "To-morrow is Sunday; does any one know whether any service will be held here?" "Yes," replied Mr. Dinsmore; "there will be preaching in the parlors of one of the hotels, and I move that we attend in a body." The motion was seconded and carried, and when the time came nearly every one went. The service occupied an hour; after that almost everybody sought the beach; but though some went into the surf--doubtless looking upon it as a hygienic measure, therefore lawful even on the Lord's day--there was not the usual boisterous fun and frolic. Harold, by some manoeuvring, got his mother to himself for a time, making a comfortable seat for her in the sand, and shading her from the sun with an umbrella. "Mamma," he said, "I want a good talk with you; there are some questions, quite suitable for Sunday, that I want to ask. And see," holding them up to view, "I have brought my Bible and a small concordance with me, for I know you always refer to the Law and to the Testimony in deciding matters of faith and practice." "Yes," she said, "God's Word is the only infallible rule of faith and practice. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness!" "Yes, mamma, I have the reference here; Second Timothy, third chapter, and sixteenth verse. And should not the next verse, 'That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works,' stir us up to much careful study of the Bible?" "Certainly, my dear boy; and, oh what cause for gratitude that we have an infallible instructor and guide! But what did you want to ask me?" "A question that was put to me by one of our fellows at college, and which I was not prepared to answer. The substance of it was this: 'If one who has lived for years in the service of God should be suddenly cut off while committing some sin, would he not be saved, because of his former good works?'" "Is any son or daughter of Adam saved by good works?" she asked, with a look and tone of surprise. "No, mother, certainly not; how strange that I did not think of answering him with that query. But he maintained that God was too just to overlook--make no account of--years of holy living because of perhaps a momentary fall into sin." "We have nothing to hope from God's justice," she replied, "for it wholly condemns us. 'There is none righteous, no, not one.... Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight.' "But your friend's question is very plainly answered by the prophet Ezekiel," opening her Bible as she spoke. "Here it is, in the eighteenth chapter, twenty-fourth verse. "'But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die.'" "Nothing could be plainer," Harold said. "I shall refer my friend to that passage for his answer, and also remind him that no one can be saved by works. "Now, mamma, there is something else. I have become acquainted with a young Jew who interests me greatly. He is gentlemanly, refined, educated, very intelligent and devout, studying the Hebrew Scriptures constantly, and looking for a Saviour yet to come. "I have felt so sorry for him that I could not refrain from talking to him of Jesus of Nazareth, and trying to convince him that He was and is the true Messiah." Elsie looked deeply interested. "And what was the result of your efforts?" she asked. "I have not succeeded in convincing him yet, mamma, but I think I have raised doubts in his mind. I have called his attention to the prophecies in his own Hebrew Scriptures in regard to both the character of the Messiah and the time of His appearing, and shown him how exactly they were all fulfilled in our Saviour. I think he cannot help seeing that it is so, yet tries hard to shut his eyes to the truth. "He tells me he believes Jesus was a good man and a great prophet, but not the Messiah; only a human creature. To that I answer, 'He claimed to be God, saying, "I and My Father are One;" "Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham was I am;" and allowed himself to be worshipped as God; therefore either He was God or He was a wretched impostor, not even a good man.' "But, mamma, I have been asked by another, a professed Christian, 'Why do you trouble yourself about the belief of a devout Jew? he is not seeking salvation by works, but by faith; then is he not safe, even though he looks for a Saviour yet to come?' How should you answer that question, mamma?" "With the eleventh and twelfth verses of the fourth chapter of Acts: 'This is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.' "That name is the name of Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified One. He is the only Saviour. We speak--the Bible speaks of being saved by faith, but faith is only the hand with which we lay hold on Christ. "'A Saviour yet to come?' There is none; and will faith in a myth save the soul? No; nor in any other than Him who is the Door, the Way, the Truth, the Life. "'He is mighty to save,' and He alone; He Himself said, 'No man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.' "And is it not for the very sin of rejecting their true Messiah, killing Him and imprecating His blood upon them and on their children, that they have been scattered among the nations and have become a hissing and a byword to all people?" "True, mamma, and yet are they not still God's own chosen people? Are there not promises of their future restoration?" "Yes, many, in both the Old Testament and the New. Zechariah tells us, 'They shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born;' and Paul speaks of a time when the veil that is upon their hearts shall be taken away, and it shall turn to the Lord. "Let me read you the first five verses of the sixty-second chapter of Isaiah--they are so beautiful. "'For Zion's sake will I not hold My peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth. "'And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory; and thou shalt be called by a new name which the mouth of the Lord shall name. "'Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God. "'Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah: for the Lord delighted in thee, and thy land shall be married. "'For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.'" Mr. and Mrs. Dinsmore sat together not many paces distant, each with a book; but hers was half closed while she gazed out over the sea. "I am charmed with the quiet of this place," she remarked presently; "never a scream of a locomotive to break it, no pavements to echo to the footsteps of the passer-by, no sound of factory or mill, or rumble of wheels, scarcely anything to be heard, even on week-days, but the thunder of the surf and occasionally a human voice." "Except the blast of Captain Baxter's tin horn announcing his arrival with the mail, or warning you that he will be off for Nantucket in precisely five minutes, so that if you have letters or errands for him you must make all haste to hand them over," Mr. Dinsmore said, with a smile. "Ah, yes," she assented; "but with all that, is it not the quietest place you ever were in?" "I think it is; there is a delightful Sabbath stillness to-day. I cannot say that I should desire to pass my life here, but a sojourn of some weeks is a very pleasant and restful variety." "I find it so," said his wife, "and feel a strong inclination to be down here, close by the waves, almost all the time. If agreeable to the rest of our party, let us pass the evening here in singing hymns." "A very good suggestion," he responded, and Elsie and the others being of the same opinion, it was duly carried out. CHAPTER V. "Sudden they see from midst of all the main The surging waters like a mountain rise, And the great sea, puff'd up with proud disdain To swell above the measure of his guise, As threatening to devour all that his power despise." --_Spenser_. What with bathing, driving, and wandering about on foot over the lovely moors, time flew fast to our 'Sconseters. It was their purpose to visit every point of interest on the island, and to try all its typical amusements. They made frequent visits to Nantucket Town, particularly that the children might take their swimming lessons in the quiet water of its harbor; also repeated such drives and rambles as they found exceptionably enjoyable. Max wanted to try camping out for a few weeks in company with Harold and Herbert Travilla and Bob Johnson, but preferred to wait until his father should leave them, not feeling willing to miss the rare pleasure of his society. And the other lads, quite fond of the captain themselves, did not object to waiting. In the mean time they went blue-fishing (trying it by both accepted modes--the "heave and haul" from a rowboat or at anchor, and trolling from a yacht under full sail), hunting, eel-bobbing, and perch-fishing. The ladies sometimes went with them on their fishing excursions; Zoe and Betty oftener than any of the others. Lulu went, too, whenever she was permitted, which was usually when her father made one of the party. "We haven't been on a 'squantum' yet," remarked Betty, one evening, addressing the company in general; "suppose we try that to-morrow." "Suppose you first tell us what a 'squantum' is," said Mrs. Dinsmore. "Oh, Aunt Rose, don't you know that that is the Nantucket name for a picnic?" "I acknowledge my ignorance," laughed the older lady; "I did not know it till this moment." "Well, auntie, it's one of those typical things that every conscientious summer visitor here feels called upon to do as a regular part of the Nantucket curriculum. How many of us are agreed to go?" glancing about from one to another. Not a dissenting voice was raised, and Betty proceeded to unfold her plans. Vehicles sufficient for the transportation of the whole party were to be provided, baskets of provisions also; they would take an early start, drive to some pleasant spot near the beach or one of the ponds, and make a day of it--sailing, or rather rowing about the pond, fishing in it, cooking and eating what they caught (fish were said to be so delicious just out of the water and cooked over the coals in the open air), and lounging on the grass, drinking in at the same time the sweet, pure air and the beauties of nature as seen upon Nantucket moors and hills, and in glimpses of the surrounding sea. "Really, Betty, you grow quite eloquent," laughed her brother; "Nantucket has inspired you." "I think it sounds ever so nice," said little Grace. "Won't you go and take us, papa?" "Yes, if Mamma Vi will go along," he answered, with an affectionate look at his young wife; "we can't go without her, can we, Gracie?" "Oh, no, indeed! but you will go, mamma, won't you?" "If your papa chooses to take me," Violet said, in a sprightly tone. "I think it would be very pleasant, but I cannot either go or stay unless he does; for I am quite resolved to spend every one of the few days he will be here, close at his side." "And as all the rest of us desire the pleasure of his company," said her mother, "his decision must guide ours." "There, now, captain," cried Betty, "you see it all rests with you; so please say yes, and let us begin our preparations." "Yes, Miss Betty; I certainly cannot be so gallant as to refuse such a request from such a quarter, especially when I see that all interested in the decision hope I will not." That settled the matter. Preparations were at once set on foot: the young men started in search of the necessary conveyances, the ladies ordered the provisions, inquiries were made in regard to different localities, and a spot on the banks of Sachacha Pond, where stood a small deserted old house, was selected as their objective point. They started directly after breakfast, and had a delightful drive over the moors and fenceless fields, around the hills and tiny emerald lakes bordered with beautiful wild shrubbery, bright with golden rod, wild roses, and field lilies. Here and there among the heather grew creeping mealberry vines, with bright red fruit-like beads, and huckleberry bushes that tempted our pleasure-seekers to alight again and again to gather and eat of their fruit. Everybody was in most amiable mood, and the male members of the party indulgently assisted the ladies, and lifted the children in and out that they might gather floral treasures for themselves, or alighted to gather for them again and again. At length they reached their destination, left their conveyances, spread an awning above the green grass that grew luxuriantly about the old house, deposited their baskets of provisions and extra wraps underneath it, put the horses into a barn near at hand, and strolled down to the pond. A whaleboat, large enough to hold the entire company, was presently hired; all embarked; it moved slowly out into the lake; all who cared to fish were supplied with tackle and bait, and the sport began. Elsie, Violet, and Grace declined to take part in it, but Zoe, Betty, and Lulu were very eager and excited, sending forth shouts of triumph or of merriment as they drew one victim after another from the water; for the fish seemed eager to take the bait, and were caught in such numbers that soon the word was given that quite enough were now on hand, and the boat was headed for the shore. A fire was made in the sand, and while some broiled the fish and made coffee, others spread a snowy cloth upon the grass, and placed on it bread and butter, cold biscuits, sandwiches, pickles, cakes, jellies, canned fruits, and other delicacies. It was a feast fit for a king, and all the more enjoyable that the sea air and pleasant exercise had sharpened the appetites of the fortunate partakers. Then, the meal disposed of, how deliciously restful it was to lounge upon the grass, chatting, singing, or silently musing with the sweet, bracing air all about them, the pretty sheet of still water almost at their feet, while away beyond it and the dividing strip of sand the ocean waves tossed and rolled, showing here and there a white, slowly moving sail. So thoroughly did they enjoy it all that they lingered till the sun, nearing the western horizon, reminded them that the day was waning. The drive home was not the least enjoyable part of the day. They took it in leisurely fashion, by a different route from the one they had taken in the morning, and with frequent haltings to gather berries, mosses, lichens, grasses, and strange beautiful flowers; or to gaze with delighted eyes upon the bare brown hills purpling in the light of the setting sun, and the rapidly darkening vales; Sankaty lighthouse, with the sea rolling beyond, on the one hand, and on the other the quieter waters of the harbor, with the white houses and spires of Nantucket Town half encircling it. They had enjoyed their "squantum," marred by no mishap, no untoward event, so much that it was unanimously agreed to repeat the experiment, merely substituting some other spot for the one visited that day. But their next excursion was to Wanwinet, situate on a narrow neck of land that, jutting out into the sea, forms the head of the harbor; Nantucket Town standing at the opposite end, some half dozen miles away. Summer visitors to the latter place usually go to Wanwinet by boat, up the harbor, taking their choice between a sailboat and a tiny steamer which plies regularly back and forth during the season; but our 'Sconset party drove across the moors, sometimes losing their way among the hills, dales, and ponds, but rather enjoying that as a prolongation of the pleasure of the drive, and spite of the detention reached their destination in good season to partake of the dinner of all obtainable luxuries of the sea, served up in every possible form, which is usually considered the roam object of a trip to Wanwinet. They found the dinner--served in a large open pavilion, whence they might gaze out over the dancing, glittering waves of the harbor, and watch the white sails come and go, while eating--quite as good as they had been led to expect. After dinner they wandered along the beach, picking up shells and any curious things they could find--now on the Atlantic side, now on the shore of the harbor. Then a boat was chartered for a sail of a couple of hours, and then followed the drive home to 'Sconset by a different course from that of the morning, and varied by the gradually fading light of the setting sun and succeeding twilight casting weird shadows here and there among the hills and vales. The captain predicted a storm for the following day, and though the others could see no sign of its approach, it was upon them before they rose the next morning, raining heavily, while the wind blew a gale. There was no getting out for sitting on the beach, bathing, or rambling about, and they were at close quarters in the cottages. They whiled away the time with books, games, and conversation. They were speaking of the residents of the island--their correct speech, intelligence, uprightness, and honesty. "I wonder if there was ever a crime committed here?" Elsie said, half inquiringly. "And if there is a jail on the island?" "Yes, mother," Edward answered; "there is a jail, but so little use for it that they think it hardly worth while to keep it in decent repair. I heard that a man was once put in for petty theft, and that after being there a few days he sent word to the authorities that if they didn't repair it so that the sheep couldn't break in on him, he wouldn't stay." There was a general laugh; then Edward resumed: "There has been one murder on the island, as I have been informed. A mulatto woman was the criminal, a white woman the victim, the motive revenge; the colored woman was in debt to the white one, who kept a little store, and, enraged at repeated duns, went to her house and beat her over the head with some heavy weapon--I think I was told a whale's tooth. "The victim lingered for some little time, but eventually died of her wounds, and the other was tried for murder. "It is said the sheriff was extremely uneasy lest she should be found guilty of murder in the first degree, and he should have the unpleasant job of hanging her; but the verdict was manslaughter, the sentence imprisonment for life. "So she was consigned to jail, but very soon allowed to go out occasionally to do a day's work." "Oh, Uncle Edward, is she alive now?" Gracie asked, with a look of alarm. "Yes, I am told she is disabled by disease, and lives in the poorhouse. But you need not be frightened, little girlie; she is not at all likely to come to 'Sconset, and if she does we will take good care that she is not allowed to harm you." "And I don't suppose she'd want to either, unless we had done something to make her angry," said Lulu. "But we are going to Nantucket Town to stay a while when we leave 'Sconset," remarked Grace uneasily. "But that woman will not come near you, daughter; you need, not have the least fear of it," the captain said, drawing his little girl to his knee with a tender caress. "Ah," said Mr. Dinsmore, "I heard the other day of a curiosity at Nantucket which we must try to see while there. I think the story connected with it will particularly interest you ladies and the little girls." "Oh, grandpa, tell it!" cried Rosie; "please do; a story is just what we want this dull day." The others joined in the request, and Mr. Dinsmore kindly complied, all gathering closely about him, anxious to catch every word. "The story is this: Nearly a hundred years ago there lived in Nantucket a sea-captain named Coffin, who had a little daughter of whom he was very fond." Gracie glanced up smilingly into her father's face and nestled closer to him. "Just as I am of mine," said his answering look and smile as he drew her closer still. But Mr. Dinsmore's story was going on. "It was Captain Coffin's custom to bring home some very desirable gift to his little girl whenever he returned from a voyage. At one time, when about to sail for the other side of the Atlantic, he said to her that he was determined on this voyage to find and bring home to her something that no other little girl ever had or ever could have." "Oh, grandpa, what could that be?" exclaimed little Walter. "Wait a moment and you shall hear," was the reply. "What the captain brought on coming back was a wax baby, a very life-like representation of an infant six months old. He said it was a wax cast of the Dauphin of France, that poor unfortunate son of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette; that he had found it in a convent, and paid for it a sum of money so enormous that he would never tell any one, not even his wife, how large it was." "But it isn't in existence now, at this late day, surely?" Mrs. Dinsmore remarked inquiringly, as her husband paused in his narrative. "It is claimed that it is by those who have such a thing in possession, and I presume they tell the truth. It has always been preserved with extreme care as a great curiosity. "The little girl to whom it was given by her father lived to grow up, but has been dead many years. Shortly before her death she gave it to a friend, and it has been in that family for over forty years." "And is it on exhibition, papa?" asked Elsie. "Only to such as are fortunate enough to get an introduction to the lady owner through some friend of hers; so I understand; but photographs have been taken and are for sale in the stores." "Oh, I hope we will get to see it!" exclaimed Lulu eagerly. "As far as I'm concerned, I'm bound to manage it somehow," said Betty. "How much I should like to know what was really the true story of that poor unfortunate child," said Elsie, reflectively, and sighing as she spoke. "It--like the story of the Man in the Iron Mask--is a mystery that will never be satisfactorily cleared up until the Judgment Day," remarked her father. "Oh, do tell us about it," the children cried in eager chorus. "All of you older ones have certainly some knowledge of the French Revolution, in which Louis XVI. and his beautiful queen lost their lives?" Mr. Dinsmore said, glancing about upon his grandchildren; "and have not forgotten that two children survived them--one sometimes called Louis XVII., as his father's lawful successor to the throne, and a daughter older than the boy. "These children remained in the hands of their cruel foes for some time after the beheading of their royal parents. The girl was finally restored to her mother's relatives, the royal family of Austria; but the boy, who was most inhumanly treated by his jailer, was supposed to have died in consequence of that brutal abuse, having first been reduced by it to a state of extreme bodily and mental weakness. "That story (of the death of the poor little dauphin, I mean, not of the cruel treatment to which he was subjected) has, however, been contradicted by another; and I suppose it will never be made certain in this world which was the true account. "The dauphin was born in 1785, his parents were beheaded in 1793; so that he must have been about eight years old at the time of their death. "In 1795 a French man and woman, directly from France, appeared in Albany, New York, having in charge a girl and boy; the latter about nine years old, and feeble in body and mind. "The woman had also a number of articles of dress which she said had belonged to Marie Antoinette, who had given them to her on the scaffold. "That same year two Frenchmen came to Ticonderoga, visited the Indians in that vicinity, and placed with them such a boy as the one seen at Albany--of the same age, condition of mind and body, etc. "He was adopted by an Iroquois chief named Williams, and given the name of Eleazer Williams. "He gradually recovered his health, and at length the shock of a sudden fall into the lake so far restored his memory that he recollected some scenes in his early life in the palaces of France. One thing he recalled was being with a richly dressed lady whom he addressed as 'mamma.' "Some time later--I cannot now recall the exact date--a Frenchman died in New Orleans (Beranger was his name), who confessed on his death-bed that he had brought the dauphin to this country and placed him with the Indians of Northern New York. He stated that he had taken an oath of secrecy, for the protection of the lad, but could not die without confessing the truth." "I'm inclined to think the story of the dauphin's death in France was not true," remarked Betty. "Didn't Beranger's confession arouse inquiry, grandpa?" asked Zoe. "And did Eleazer Williams hear of it?" "I think I may say yes to both your queries," Mr. Dinsmore answered. "Eleazer's story was published in the newspapers some years ago, and I remember he was spoken of as a very good Christian man, a missionary among the Indians; it was brought out in book form also under the title 'The Lost Prince: A Life of Eleazer Williams.' "Eleazer himself stated that in 1848 he had an interview, on board a steamer from Buffalo, with the Prince de Joinville, who then told him he was the son of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, and tried to induce him to sign away his right to the throne of France, and that he refused to do so. "In his published statement he said he thought the Prince would not deny having made that communication. But the Prince did deny that, though he acknowledged that the interview had taken place." "Did Eleazer ever try to get the throne, grandpa?" asked Max. "No, he never urged his claim; and I dare say was happier as an obscure Indian missionary than he would have been as King of France. He died at the age of seventy." "Poor Marie Antoinette!" sighed Elsie; "I never could read her story without tears, and the very thought of her sorrows and sufferings makes my heart ache." "I don't think I ever read it," said Zoe, "though I have a general idea what it was." "We have Abbott's life of her at Ion," said Elsie. "I'll get it for you when we go home." Harold stepped to the window. "It is raining very little now, if at all," he said, "and the sea must be in a fine rage; let us go and have a look at it" "Oh, yes, let's go!" cried Betty, springing to her feet; "but I'm afraid we've missed the finest of it, for the wind isn't blowing half so hard as it was an hour ago." "Don't be discouraged," said Captain Raymond, sportively; "the waves are often higher than ever after the wind has subsided." "Oh, papa, may I go too?" Grace said, in a pleading tone. "Yes; if you put on your waterproof cloak and overshoes it will not hurt you to be out for a short time," answered the indulgent father. "Lulu, don't go without yours." All were eager for the sight; there was a moment of hasty preparation, and they trooped out and stood upon the edge of the high bank at the back of their cottages gazing upon the sea in its, to most of them, new and terrible aspect; from shore to horizon it was one mass of seething, boiling waters; far out in the distance the huge waves reared their great foam-crested fronts and rushed furiously toward the shore, rapidly chasing each other in till with a tremendous crash and roar they broke upon the beach, sending up showers of spray, and depositing great flakes of foam which the wind sent scudding over the sand; and each, as it retreated, was instantly followed by another and another in unbroken, endless succession. Half a mile or more south of 'Sconset there is a shoal (locally called "the rips") where wind and tide occasionally, coming in opposition, cause a fierce battle of the waves, a sight well worth a good deal of exertion to behold. "Wind and tide are having it out on the rips," the captain presently remarked. "Let us go down to the beach and get the best view we can of the conflict." "Papa, may we go too?" asked Lulu, as the older people hastily made a move toward the stairway that led to the beach; "oh, do please let us!" Grace did not speak, but her eyes lifted to his, pleaded as earnestly as Lulu's tongue. He hesitated for an instant, then stooped, took Grace in his arms, and saying to Lulu, "Yes, come along; it is too grand a sight for me to let you miss it," hurried after the others. Violet had not come out with the rest, her attention being taken up with her babe just at that time, and he would give her the sight afterward on taking the children in. On they went over the wet sands--Mr. Dinsmore and his wife, Edward and his, Betty holding on to Harold's arm, Rose and Walter helped along by Herbert and Bob. To Max Raymond's great content and a little to the discomfiture of her sons, who so delighted in waiting upon and in every way caring for her, Elsie had chosen him for her companion and escort, and with Lulu they hastened after the others and just ahead of the captain and Grace, who brought up the rear. The thunder of the surf prevented any attempt at conversation, but now and then there was a little scream, ending with a shout of laughter from one or another of the feminine part of the procession, as they were overtaken by the edge of a wave and their shoes filled with the foam, their skirts wetted by it. Not a very serious matter, as all had learned ere this, as salt water does not cause one to take cold. Arrived at the spot from where the very best view of the conflict could be had, they stood long gazing upon it, awestruck and fascinated by the terrific grandeur of the scene. I can best describe it in the words of a fellow-author far more gifted in that line than I. "Yonder comes shoreward a great wave, towering above all its brethren. Onward it comes, swift as a race-horse, graceful as a great ship, bearing right down upon us. It strikes 'The Rips,' and is there itself struck by a wave approaching from another direction. The two converge in their advance, and are dashed together--embrace each other like two angry giants, each striving to mount upon the shoulder of the other and crush its antagonist with its ponderous bulk. Swift as thought they mount higher and higher, in fierce, mad struggle, until their force is expended; their tops quiver, tremble, and burst into one great mass of white, gleaming foam; and the whole body of the united wave, with a mighty bound, hurls itself upon the shore and is broken into a flood of seething waters--crushed to death in its own fury. "All over the shoal the waves leap up in pinnacles, in volcanic points, sharp as stalagmites, and in this form run hither and yon in all possible directions, colliding with and crashing against others of equal fury and greatness--a very carnival of wild and drunken waves; the waters hurled upward in huge masses of white. Sometimes they unite more gently, and together sweep grandly and gracefully along parallel with the shore; and the cavernous hollows stretch out from the shore so that you look into the trough of the sea and realize what a terrible depth it is. The roar, meanwhile, is horrible. You are stunned by it as by the roar of a great waterfall. You see a wave of unusual magnitude rolling in from far beyond the wild revelry of waters on 'The Rips.' It leaps into the arena as if fresh and eager for the fray, clutches another Bacchanal like itself, and the two towering floods rush swiftly toward the shore. Instinctively you run backward to escape what seems an impending destruction. Very likely a sheet of foam is dashed all around you, shoe-deep, but you are safe--only the foam hisses away in impotent rage. The sea has its bounds; 'hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther.'"[A] [Footnote A: A. Judd Northrup, in "Sconset Cottage Life."] CHAPTER VI. She is peevish, sullen, froward, Proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty; Neither regarding that she is my child, Nor fearing me as If I were her father. --_Shakespeare_. A day or two of bright, breezy weather had succeeded the storm, and another "squantum" had been arranged for; it was to be a more pretentious affair than the former one, other summer visitors uniting with our party; and a different spot had been selected for it. By Violet's direction the maid had laid out, the night before, the dresses the two little girls were to wear to the picnic, and they appeared at the breakfast-table already attired in them; for the start was to be made shortly after the conclusion of the meal. The material of the dresses was fine, they were neatly fitting and prettily trimmed, but rather dark in color and with high necks and long sleeves; altogether suitable for the occasion, and far from unbecoming; indeed, as the captain glanced at the two neat little figures, seated one on each side of him, he felt the risings of fatherly pride in their attractiveness of appearance. And even exacting, discontented Lulu was well enough pleased with her mamma's choice for her till, upon leaving the table and running out for a moment into the street to see if the carriages were in sight, she came upon a girl about her own age, who was to be of the company, very gayly apparelled in thin white tarletan and pink ribbons, "Good-morning, Sadie," said Lulu. "What a nice day for the 'squantum,' isn't it?" "Yes; and it's most time to start, and you're not dressed yet, are you?" glancing a trifle scornfully from her own gay plumage to Lulu's plainer attire. The latter flushed hotly but made no reply. "I don't see anything of the carriages yet," was all she said; then darting into the cottage occupied by their family, she rushed to her trunk, and throwing it open, hastily took from it a white muslin, coral ribbons and sash, and with headlong speed tore off her plain colored dress and arrayed herself in them. She would not have had time but for an unexpected delay in the arrival of the carriage which was to convey her parents, brother and sister and herself to the "squantum" ground. As it was, she came rushing out at almost the last moment, just as the captain was handing his wife into the vehicle. Max met her before she had reached the outer door. "Lu, Mamma Vi says you will need a wrap before we get back; probably even going, and you're to bring one along." "I sha'n't need any such thing! and I'm not going to be bothered with it!" cried Lulu, in a tone of angry impatience, hurrying on toward the entrance as she spoke. "Whew! what have you been doing to yourself?" exclaimed Max, suddenly noting the change of attire, while Grace, standing in the doorway, turned toward them with a simultaneous exclamation, "Why, Lulu--" then broke off, lost in astonishment at her sister's audacity. "Hush, both of you! can't you keep quiet?" snapped Lulu, turning from one to the other; then as her father's tall form darkened the doorway, and a glance up into his face showed her that it was very grave and stern, she shrank back abashed, frightened by the sudden conviction that he had overheard her impertinent reply to her mamma's message, and perhaps noticed the change in her dress. He regarded her for a moment in silence, while she hung her head in shame and affright; then he spoke in tones of grave displeasure, "You will stay at home to-day, Lulu; we have no room for disrespectful, disobedient children--" "Papa," she interrupted, half pleadingly, half angrily, "I haven't been disobedient or disrespectful to you." "It is quite the same," he said; "I require you to be obedient and respectful to your mamma; and impertinence to her is something I will by no means allow or fail to punish whenever I know of it. Sorry as I am to deprive you of an anticipated pleasure, I repeat that you must stay at home; and go immediately to your room and resume the dress she directed you to wear to-day." So saying he took Grace's hand and led her to the carriage, Max following after one regretful look at Lulu's sorely disappointed face. Grace, clinging about her father's neck as he lifted her up, pleaded for her sister. "Oh, papa, do please let her go; she hasn't been naughty for a long while, and I'm sure she's sorry and will be good." "Hush, hush, darling!" he said, wiping the tears from her eyes, then placing her by Violet's side. "What is wrong?" inquired the latter with concern; "is Gracie not feeling well?" "Never mind, my love," the captain answered, assuming a cheerful tone; "there is nothing wrong except that Lulu has displeased me, and I have told her she cannot go with us to-day." "Oh, I am sorry!" Violet said, looking really pained; "we shall all miss her. I should be glad, Levis, if you could forgive her, for--" "No, do not ask it," he said hastily; adding, with a smile of ardent affection into the azure eyes gazing so pleadingly into his; "I can scarcely bear to say no to you, dearest, but I have passed sentence upon the offender and cannot revoke it." The carriage drove off; the others had already gone, and Lulu was left alone in the house, the one maid-servant left behind having already wandered off to the beach. "There!" cried Lulu, stamping her foot with passion, then dropping into a chair, "I say it's just too bad! She isn't old enough to be my mother, and I won't have her for one; I sha'n't mind her! Papa had no business to marry her. He hardly cares for anybody else now, and he ought to love me better than he does her; for she isn't a bit of relation to him, while I'm his own child. "And I sha'n't wear dowdy, old-womanish dresses to please her, along with other girls of my size that are dressed up in their best. I'd rather stay at home than be mortified that way, and I just wish I had told him so." She was in so rebellious a mood that instead of at once changing her dress in obedience to her father's command, she presently rose from her chair, walked out at the front door and paraded through the village streets in her finery, saying to herself, "I'll let people see that I have some decent clothes to wear." Returning after a little, she was much surprised to find Betty Johnson stretched full length on a lounge with a paper-covered novel in her hand, which she seemed to be devouring with great avidity. "Why, Betty!" she exclaimed, "are you here? I thought you went with the rest to the 'squantum.'" "Just what I thought in regard to your highness," returned Betty, glancing up from her book with a laugh. "I stayed at home to enjoy my book and the bath. What kept you?" "Papa," answered Lulu with a frown; "he wouldn't let me go." "Because you put on that dress, I presume," laughed Betty. "Well, it's not very suitable, that's a fact. But I had no idea that the captain was such a connoisseur in matters of that sort." "He isn't! he doesn't know or care if it wasn't for Mamma Vi," burst out Lulu vehemently. "And she's no business to dictate about my dress either. I'm old enough to judge and decide for myself." "Really, it is a great pity that one so wise should be compelled to submit to dictation," observed Betty with exasperating irony. Lulu, returning a furious look, which her tormentor feigned not to see, then marching into the adjoining room, gave tardy obedience to her father's orders anent the dress. "Are you going in this morning?" asked Betty, when Lulu had returned to the little parlor. "I don't know; papa didn't say whether I might or not." "Then I should take the benefit of the doubt and follow my own inclination in the matter. It's ten now; the bathing hour is eleven; I shall be done my book by that time, and we'll go in together if you like." "I'll see about it," Lulu said, walking away. She went down to the beach and easily whiled away an hour watching the waves and the people, and digging in the sand. When she saw the others going to the bath-houses she hastened back to her temporary home. As she entered Betty was tossing aside her book. "So here you are!" she said, yawning and stretching herself. "Are you going in?" "Yes; if papa is angry I'll tell him he should have forbidden me if he didn't want me to do it." They donned their bathing-suits and went in with the crowd; but though no mishap befell them and they came out safely again, Lulu found that for some reason her bath was not half so enjoyable as usual. She and Betty dined at the hotel where the family had frequently taken their meals, then they strolled down to the beach and seated themselves on a bench under an awning. After a while Betty proposed taking a walk. "Where to?" asked Lulu. "To Sankaty Lighthouse." "Well, I'm agreed; it's a nice walk; you can look out over the sea all the way," said Lulu, getting up. But a sudden thought seemed to strike her; she paused and hesitated. "Well, what's the matter?" queried Betty. "Nothing; only papa told me I was to stay at home to-day." "Oh, nonsense! what a little goose!" exclaimed Betty; "of course that only meant you were not to go to the 'squantum'; so come along." Lulu was by no means sure that that was really all her father meant, but she wanted the walk, so suffered herself to be persuaded, and they went. Betty had been a wild, ungovernable girl at school, glorying in contempt for rules and daring "larks." She had not improved in that respect, and so far from being properly ashamed of her wild pranks and sometimes really disgraceful frolics, liked to describe them, and was charmed to find in Lulu a deeply interested listener. It was thus they amused themselves as they strolled slowly along the bluff toward Sankaty. When they reached there a number of carriages were standing about near the entrance, several visitors were in the tower, and others were waiting their turn. "Let us go up too," Betty said to her little companion; "the view must be finer to-day than it was when we were here before, for the atmosphere is clearer." "I'm afraid papa wouldn't like me to," objected Lulu; "he seemed to think the other time that I needed him to take care of me," she added with a laugh, as if it were quite absurd that one so old and wise as herself should be supposed to need such protection. "Pooh!" said Betty, "don't be a baby; I can take care of myself and you too. Come, I'm going up and round outside too; and I dare you to do the same." Poor proud Lulu was one of the silly people who are not brave enough to refuse to do a wrong or unwise thing if anybody dares them to do it. "I'm not a bit afraid, Miss Johnson; you need not think that," she said, bridling; "and I can take care of myself. I'll go." "Come on then; we'll follow close behind that gentleman, and the keeper won't suppose we are alone," returned Betty, leading the way. Lulu found the steep stairs very hard to climb without the help of her father's hand, and reached the top quite out of breath. Betty too was panting. But they presently recovered themselves. Betty stepped outside just behind the gentleman who had preceded them up the stairs, and Lulu climbed quickly after her, frightened enough at the perilous undertaking, yet determined to prove that she was equal to it. But she had advanced only a few steps when a sudden rush of wind caught her skirts and nearly took her off her feet. Both she and Betty uttered a cry of affright, and at the same instant Lulu felt herself seized from behind and dragged forcibly back and within the window from which she had just emerged. It was the face of a stranger that met her gaze as she looked up with frightened eyes. "Child," he said, "that was a narrow escape; don't try it again. Where are your parents or guardians, that you were permitted to step out there with no one to take care of you?" Lulu blushed and hung her head in silence. Betty, who had followed her in as fast as she could, generously took all the blame upon herself. "Don't scold her, sir," she said; "it was all my doing. I brought her here without the knowledge of her parents, and dared her to go out there." "You did?" he exclaimed, turning a severe look upon the young girl (he was a middle-aged man of stern aspect). "Suppose I had not been near enough to catch her, and she had been precipitated to the ground from that great height--how would you have felt?" "I could never have forgiven myself or had another happy moment while I lived," Betty said, in half tremulous tones, "I can never thank you enough, sir, for saving her," she added, warmly. "No, nor I," said the keeper. "I should always have felt that I was to blame for letting her go out; but you were close behind, sir, and the other gentleman before, and I took you to be all one party, and of course thought you would take care of the little girl." "She has had quite a severe shock," the gentleman remarked, again looking at Lulu, who was very pale and trembling like a leaf. "You had better wait and let me help you down the stairs. I shall be ready in a very few moments." Betty thanked him and said they would wait. While they did so she tried to jest and laugh with Lulu; but the little girl was in no mood for such things; she felt sick and dizzy at the thought of the danger she had escaped but a moment ago. She made no reply to Betty's remarks, and indeed seemed scarcely to hear them. She was quite silent, too, while being helped down the stairs by the kind stranger, but thanked him prettily as they separated. "You are heartily welcome," he said; "but if you will take my advice you will never go needlessly into such danger again." With that he shook hands with her, bowed to Betty, and moved away. "Will you go in and rest awhile, Lu?" asked Betty. "No, thank you; I'm not tired; and I'd rather be close by the sea. Tell me another of your stories, won't you? to help me forget how near I came to falling." Betty good-naturedly complied, but found Lulu a less interested listener than before. The "squantum" party were late in returning, and when they arrived Betty and Lulu were in bed; but the door between the room where Lulu lay and the parlor, or sitting-room, as it was indifferently called, was ajar, and she could hear all that was said there. "Where is Lulu?" her father asked of the maid-servant who had been left behind. "Gone to bed, sir," was the answer. Then the captain stepped to the chamber door, pushed it wider open, and came to the bedside. Lulu pretended to be asleep, keeping her eyes tight shut, but all the time feeling that he was standing there and looking down at her. He sighed slightly, turned away, and went from the room; then she buried her face in the pillows and cried softly but quite bitterly. "He might have kissed me," she said to herself; "he would if he loved me as much as he used to before he got married." Then his sigh seemed to echo in her heart, and she grew remorseful over the thought that her misconduct had grieved as well as displeased him. And how much more grieved and displeased he would be if he knew how she had disregarded his wishes and commands during his absence that day! And soon he would be ordered away again, perhaps to the other side of the world; in danger from the treacherous deep and maybe from savages, too, in some of those far-away places where his vessel would touch; and so the separation might be for years or forever in this world; and if she continued to be the bad girl she could not help acknowledging to herself she now was, how dared she hope to be with her Christian father in another life? She had no doubt that he was a Christian; it was evident from his daily walk and conversation; and she was equally certain that she herself was not. And what a kind, affectionate father he had always been to her; she grew more and more remorseful as she thought of it; and if he had been beside her at that moment would certainly have confessed all the wrong-doing of the day and asked forgiveness. But he was probably in bed now; all was darkness and silence in the house; so she lay still, and presently forgot all vexing thought in sound, refreshing sleep. When she awoke again the morning sun was shining brightly, and her mood had changed. The wrong-doings of the previous day were the merest trifles, and it would really be quite ridiculous to go and confess them to her father; she supposed, indeed was quite sure, that ha would be better pleased with her if she made some acknowledgment of sorrow for the fault for which he had punished her; but the very thought of doing so was so galling to her pride that she was stubbornly determined not to do anything of the kind. She was thinking it all over while dressing, and trying hard to believe herself a very ill-used, instead of naughty, child. It was a burning shame that she had been scolded and left behind for such a trifling fault; but she would let "papa" and everybody else see that she didn't care; she wouldn't ask one word about what kind of a time they had had (she hoped it hadn't been so very nice); and she would show papa, too, that she could do very well without caresses and endearments from him. Glancing from the window, she saw him out on the bluff back of the cottage; but though her toilet was now finished, she did not, as usual, run out to put her hand in his, and with a glad good-morning hold up her face for a kiss. She went quietly to the dooryard looking upon the village street, and peeped into the window of the room where Grace was dressing with a little help from Agnes, their mamma's maid. "Oh, Lu, good-morning," cried the little girl. "I was so sorry you weren't with us yesterday at the 'squantum;' we had ever such a nice time; only I missed you very much." "Your sympathy was wasted, Grace," returned Lulu, with a grand air. "I had a very pleasant time at home." "Dar now, you's done finished, Miss Gracie," said Agnes, turning to leave the room; then she laughed to herself as she went, "Miss Lu she needn't think she don't 'ceive nobody wid dem grand airs ob hers; 'spect we all knows she been glad nuff to go ef de cap'n didn't tole her she got for to stay behin'." Grace ran out and joined her sister at the door. "Oh, Lu, you would have enjoyed it if you had been with us," she said, embracing her. "But we are going to have a drive this morning. We're to start as soon as breakfast is over, and only come back in time for the bath; and papa says you can go too if you want to, and are a good girl; and you--" "I don't want to," said Lulu, with a cold, offended air. "I like to be by myself on the beach; I enjoyed it very much yesterday, and shall enjoy it to-day; I don't need anybody's company." Her conscience gave her a twinge as she spoke, reminding her that she had passed but little of her day alone on the beach. Grace gazed at her with wide-open eyes, lost in astonishment at her strange mood; but hearing their father's step within the house, turned about and ran to meet him and claim her morning kiss. "Where is your sister?" he asked when he had given it. "The little one is asleep, papa," she answered gayly; "the other one is at the door there." He smiled. "Tell her to come in," he said; "we are going to have prayers." Lulu obeyed the summons, but took a seat near the door, without so much as glancing toward her father. When the short service was over Grace seated herself upon his knee, and Max stood close beside him, both laughing and talking right merrily; but Lulu sat where she was, gazing in moody silence into the street. At length, in a pause in the talk, the captain said, in a kindly tone, "One of my little girls seems to have forgotten to bid me good-morning." "Good-morning, papa," muttered Lulu, sullenly, her face still averted. "Good-morning, Lucilla," he said; and she knew by his tone and use of her full name that he was by no means pleased with her behavior. At that moment they were summoned to breakfast. Lulu took her place with the others and ate in silence, scarce lifting her eyes from her plate, while everybody else was full of cheerful chat. A carriage was at the door when they left the table. "Make haste, children," the captain said, "so that we may have time for a long drive before the bathing hour." Max and Grace moved promptly to obey, but Lulu stood still. "I spoke to you, Lulu, as well as to the others," her father said, in his usual kindly tone; "you may go with us, if you wish." "I don't care to, papa," she answered, turning away. "Very well, I shall not compel you; you may do just as you please about it," he returned. "Stay at home if you prefer it. You may go down to the beach if you choose, but nowhere else." "Yes, sir," she muttered, and walked out of the room, wondering in a half-frightened way if he knew or suspected where she had been the day before. In fact, he did neither; he believed Lulu a more obedient child than she was, and had no idea that she had not done exactly as he bade her. This time she was so far obedient that she went nowhere except to the beach, but while wandering about there she was nursing unkind and rebellious thoughts and feelings; trying hard to convince herself that her father loved her less than he did his other children, and was more inclined to be severe with her than with them. In her heart of hearts she believed no such thing, but pretending to herself that she did, she continued her unlovely behavior all that day and the next, sulking alone most of the time; doing whatever she was bidden, but with a sullen air, seldom speaking unless she was spoken to, never hanging lovingly about her father, as had been her wont, but rather seeming to avoid being near him whenever she could. It pained him deeply to see her indulging so evil a temper, but he thought best to appear not to notice it. He did not offer her the caresses she evidently tried to avoid, and seldom addressed her; but when he did speak to her it was in his accustomed kind, fatherly tones, and it was her own fault if she did not share in every pleasure provided for the others. In the afternoon of the second day they were all gathered upon the beach as usual, when a young girl, who seemed to be a new-comer in 'Sconset, drew near and accosted Betty as an old acquaintance. "Why, Anna Eastman, who would have expected to see you here?" cried Betty, in accents of pleased surprise, springing up to embrace the stranger. Then she introduced her to Elsie, Violet, and Captain Raymond, who happened to be sitting near, as an old school friend. "And you didn't know I was on the island?" remarked Miss Eastman laughingly to Betty, when the introductions were over. "I hadn't the least idea of it. When did you arrive?" "Several days since--last Monday; and this is Friday. By the way, I saw you on Tuesday, though you did not see me." "How and where?" asked Betty in surprise, not remembering at the moment how she had spent that day. "At Sankaty Lighthouse; I was in a carriage out on the green in front of the lighthouse, and saw you and that little girl yonder (nodding in Lulu's direction) come out on the top of the tower; then a puff of wind took the child's skirts, and I fairly screamed with fright, expecting to see her fall and be crushed to death; but somebody jerked her back within the window just in time to save her. Weren't you terribly frightened, dear?" she asked, addressing Lulu. "Of course I was," Lulu answered in an ungracious tone; then rose and sauntered away along the beach. "What did she tell it for, hateful thing!" she muttered to herself; "now papa knows it, and what will he say and do to me?" She had not ventured to look at him; if she had she would have seen his face grow suddenly pale, then assume an expression of mingled sternness and pain. He presently rose and followed her, though she did not know it till he had reached her side and she felt him take her hand in his. He sat down, making her sit by his side. "Is this true that I hear of you, Lulu?" he asked. "Yes, papa," she answered in a low, unwilling tone, hanging her head as she spoke, for she dared not look him in the face. "I did not think one of my children would be so disobedient," he said, in pained accents. "Papa, you never said I shouldn't go to Sankaty Lighthouse," she muttered. "I never gave you leave to go, and I have told you positively, more than once, that you must not go to any distance from the house without express permission. Also I am sure you could not help understanding, from what was said when I took you to the lighthouse, that I would be very far from willing that you should go up into the tower, and especially outside, unless I were with you to take care of you. Besides, what were my orders to you just as I was leaving the house that morning?" "You told me to change my dress immediately and to stay at home." "Did you obey the first order?" Lulu was silent for a moment; then as her father was evidently waiting for an answer, she muttered, "I changed my dress after a while." "That was not obeying; I told you to do it immediately," he said in a tone of severity, "What did you do in the mean time?" "I don't want to tell you," she muttered. "You must; and you are not to say you don't want to do what I bid you. What were you doing?" "Walking round the town." "Breaking two of your father's commands at once. What next? give me a full account of the manner in which you spent the day." "I came in soon and changed my dress; then went to the beach till the bathing hour; then Betty and I went in together; then we had our dinner at the hotel and came back to the beach for a little while; then we went to Sankaty." "Filling up the whole day with repeated acts of disobedience," he said. "Papa, you didn't say I mustn't go in to bathe, or that I shouldn't take a walk." "I told you to stay at home, and you disobeyed that order again and again. And you have been behaving very badly ever since, showing a most unamiable temper. I have overlooked it, hoping to see a change for the better in your conduct without my resorting to punishment; but I think the time has now come when I must try that with you." He paused for some moments. Wondering at his silence, she at length ventured a timid look up into his face. It was so full of pain and distress that her heart smote her, and she was seized with a sudden fury at herself as the guilty cause of his suffering. "Lulu," he said, with a sigh that was almost a groan, "what am I to do with you?" "Whip me, papa," she burst out; "I deserve it. You've never tried that yet, and maybe it would make me a better girl, I almost wish you would, papa," she went on in her vehement way; "I could beat myself for being so bad and hurting you so." He made no answer to that, but presently said in moved tones, "What if I had come back that night to find the dear little daughter I had left a few hours before in full health and strength, lying a crushed and mangled corpse? killed without a moment's time to repent of her disobedience to her father's known wishes and commands? Could I have hoped to have you restored to me even in another world, my child?" "No, papa," she said, half under her breath; "I know I wasn't fit to go to heaven, and that I'm not fit now; but would you have been really very sorry to lose such a bad, troublesome child?" "Knowing that, as you yourself acknowledge, you were not fit for heaven, it would have been the heaviest blow I have ever had," he said. "My daughter, you are fully capable of understanding the way of salvation, therefore are an accountable being, and, so long as you neglect it, in danger of eternal death. I shall never be easy about you till I have good reason to believe that you have given your heart to the Lord Jesus, and devoted yourself entirely to His blessed service." He ceased speaking, gave her a few moments for silent reflection, then setting her on her feet, rose, took her hand, and led her back toward the village. "Are you going to punish me, papa?" she asked presently, in a half-frightened tone. "I shall take that matter into consideration," was all he said, and she knew from his grave accents that she was in some danger of receiving what she felt to be her deserts. CHAPTER VII. "The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame."--_Prov_. 29: 15. Lulu hated suspense; it seemed to her worse than the worst certainty; so when they had gone a few steps farther she said, hesitating and blushing very deeply, "Papa, if you are going to punish me as--as I--said I 'most wished you would, please don't let Mamma Vi or anybody know it, and--" "Certainly not; it shall be a secret between our two selves," he said as she broke off without finishing her sentence; "if we can manage it," he added a little doubtfully. "They all go down to the beach every evening, you know, papa," she suggested in a timid, half-hesitating way, and trembling as she spoke. "Yes, that would give us a chance; but I have not said positively that I intend to punish you in that way." "No, sir; but--oh, do please say certainly that you will or you won't." The look he gave her as she raised her eyes half fearfully to his face was very kind and affectionate, though grave and judicial. "I am not angry with you," he said, "in the sense of being in a passion or out of patience--not in the least; but I feel it to be my duty to do all I possibly can to help you to be a better child, and noticing, as I have said, for the last two or three days what a wilful, wicked temper you were indulging, I have been considering very seriously whether I ought not to try the very remedy you have yourself suggested, and I am afraid I ought indeed. Do you still think, as you told me a while ago, that this sort of punishment might be a help to you in trying to be good?" Lulu hesitated a moment, then said impetuously, and as if determined to own the truth though it were to pass sentence upon herself, "Yes, papa, honestly I do; though I don't want you to do it one bit. But," she added, "I sha'n't love you any less if you whip me ever so hard, because I shall know you don't like to do it, and wouldn't except for the reason you've given." "No, indeed, I should not," he said; "but you are to stay behind to-night when the others go to the beach." "Yes, papa, I will," she answered submissively, but with a perceptible tremble in her voice. Grace and Max were coming to meet them, so there was no opportunity to talk any more on the subject, and she walked on in silence by her father's side, trying hard to act and look as if nothing was amiss with her, clinging fast to the hand in which he had taken hers, while Grace took possession of the other. "You ought to have three hands, papa," laughed Max a little ruefully. "Four," corrected Grace; "for some day little Elsie will be wanting one." "I shall have to manage it by taking you in turn," the captain said, looking down upon them with a fatherly smile. Violet and some of the other members of their party were still seated where they had left them on the benches under the awning just out of reach of the waves, and thither the captain and his children bent their steps. Sitting down by his wife's side, he drew Grace to his knee and Lulu close to his other side, keeping an arm round each while chatting pleasantly with his family and friends. Lulu was very silent, constantly asking herself, and with no little uneasiness, what he really intended to do with her when, according to his direction, she should stay behind with him after tea while the others returned to the beach. One thing she was determined on--that she would if possible obey the order without attracting any one's notice. Everybody must have seen how badly she had been behaving, but the thought of that was not half so galling to her pride as the danger of suspicion being aroused that punishment had been meted out to her on account of it. Max watched her curiously, and took an opportunity, on their return to the house, to say privately to her, "I'm glad you've turned over a new leaf, Lu, and begun to behave decently to papa; I've wondered over and over again in the last few days that he didn't take you in hand in a way to convince you that he wasn't to be trifled with. It's my opinion that if you'd been a boy you'd have got a trouncing long before this." "Indeed!" she cried, with an angry toss of her head; "I'm glad I'm not a boy if I couldn't be one without using such vulgar words." "Oh, that isn't such a very bad word," returned Max, laughing; "but I can tell you, from sad experience, that the _thing_ is bad enough sometimes; I'd be quaking in my shoes if I thought papa had any reason to consider me deserving of one." "I don't see what you mean by talking so to me," exclaimed Lulu, passionately; "but I think you are a Pharisee--making yourself out so much better than I am!" The call to supper interrupted them just there, and perhaps saved them from a down-right quarrel. Lulu had no appetite for the meal, and it seemed to her that the others would never have done eating; then that they lingered unusually long about the house before starting for their accustomed evening rendezvous--the beach; for she was on thorns all the time. At last some one made a move, and catching a look from her father which she alone saw or understood, she slipped unobserved into her bedroom and waited there with a fast beating heart. She heard him say to Violet, "Don't wait for me, my love; I have a little matter to attend to here, and will follow you in the course of half an hour." "Anything I can help you with?" Violet asked. "Oh, no, thank you," he said, "I need no assistance." "A business letter to write, I presume," she returned laughingly. "Well, don't make it too long, for I grudge every moment of your time." With that she followed the others, and all was quiet except for the captain's measured tread, for he was slowly pacing the room to and fro. Impatient, impetuous Lulu did not know how to endure the suspense; she seemed to herself like a criminal awaiting execution. Softly she opened the door and stepped out in front of her father, stopping him in his walk. "Papa," she said, with pale, trembling lips, looking beseechingly up into his face, "whatever you are going to do to me, won't you please do it at once and let me have it over?" He took her hand and, sitting down, drew her to his side, putting his arm around her. "My little daughter," he said very gravely, but not unkindly, "my responsibility in regard to your training weighs very heavily on my mind; it is plain to me that you will make either a very good and useful woman, or one who will be a curse to herself and others; for you are too energetic and impulsive, too full of strong feeling to be lukewarm and indifferent in anything. "You are forming your character now for time and for eternity, and I must do whatever lies in my power to help you to form it aright; for good and not for evil. You inherit a sinful nature from me, and have very strong passions which must be conquered or they will prove your ruin. I fear you do not see the great sinfulness of their indulgence, and that it may be that I am partly to blame for that in having passed too lightly over such exhibitions of them as have come under my notice: in short, that perhaps if I had been more justly severe with your faults you would have been more thoroughly convinced of their heinousness and striven harder and with greater success to conquer them. "Therefore, after much thought and deliberation, and much prayer for guidance and direction, I have fully decided that I ought to punish you severely for the repeated acts of disobedience you have been guilty of in the last few days, and the constant exhibition of ill-temper. "It pains me exceedingly to do it, but I must not consider my own feelings where my dear child's best interests are concerned." "Is it because I asked you to do it, papa?" she inquired. "I never thought you would when I said it." "No; I have been thinking seriously on the subject ever since you behaved so badly the day of the 'squantum,' and had very nearly decided the question just as I have fully decided it now. I know you are an honest child, even when the truth is against you; tell me, do you not yourself think that I am right?" "Yes, sir," she answered, low and tremulously, after a moment's struggle with herself. "Oh, please do it at once, so it will be over soon!" "I will," he said, rising and leading her into the inner room; "you shall not have the torture of anticipation a moment longer." Though the punishment was severe beyond Lulu's worst anticipations, she bore it without outcry or entreaty, feeling that she richly deserved it, and determined that no one who might be within hearing should learn from any sound she uttered what was going on. Tears and now and then a half-suppressed sob were the only evidences of suffering that she allowed herself to give. Her father was astonished at her fortitude, and more than ever convinced that she had in her the elements of a noble character. The punishment over, he took her in his arms, laying her head against his breast. Both were silent, her tears falling like rain. At length, with a heart-broken sob, "You hurt me terribly, papa," she said; "I didn't think you would ever want to hurt me so." "I did not want to," he answered in moved tones; "it was sorely against my inclination, I cannot tell you how gladly I should have borne twice the pain for you if so I could have made you a good girl. I know you have sometimes troubled yourself with foolish fears that you had less than your fair share of my affection; but I have not a child that is nearer or dearer to me than you are, my darling. I love you very much." "I'm so glad, papa; I 'most wonder you can," she sobbed; "and I love you dearly, dearly; I know I've not been acting like it lately, but I do, and just as much now as before. Oh, papa, you don't know how hard it is for me to be good!" "I think I do," he said; "for I am naturally quite as bad as you are, having a violent temper, which would most certainly have been my ruin had I not been forced to learn to control it; indeed I fear it is from me you get your temper. "I had a good Christian mother," he went on, "who was very faithful in her efforts to train her children up aright. My fits of passion gave her great concern and anxiety. I can see now how troubled and distressed she used to look. "Usually she would shut me up in a room by myself until I had had time to cool down, then come to me, talk very seriously and kindly of the danger and sinfulness of such indulgence of temper, telling me there was no knowing what dreadful deed I might some day be led to commit in my fury, if I did not learn to rule my own spirit; and that therefore for my own sake she must punish me to teach me self-control. She would then chastise me, often quite severely, and leave me to myself again to reflect upon the matter. Thus she finally succeeded in so convincing me of the great guilt and danger of giving rein to my fiery temper and the necessity of gaining the mastery over it, that I fought hard to do so, and with God's help have, I think, gained the victory. "It is the remembrance of all this, and how thankful I am to my mother now for her faithfulness, that has determined me to be equally faithful to my own dear little daughter, though unfortunately I lack the opportunity for the same constant watchfulness over my children." "Oh, papa, if you only could be with us all the time!" she sighed. "But I never thought you had a temper. I've seen some people fly at their naughty children in a great passion and beat them hard; I should think if you had such a bad temper as you say, you'd have treated me so many a time." "Very likely I should if your grandmother had not taught me to control it," he said; "you may thank her that you have as good a father as you have." "I think I have the best in the world," she said, putting her arm round his neck; "and now that it's all over, papa, I'm glad you did punish me just so hard; for I don't feel half so mean, because it seems as if I have sort of paid for my naughtiness toward you." "Yes, toward me; the account is settled between us; but remember that you cannot so atone for your sin against God; nothing but the blood of Christ can avail to blot out that account against you, and you must ask to be forgiven for His sake alone. We will kneel down and ask it now." Violet glanced again and again toward the cottages on the bluff, wondering and a trifle impatient at her husband's long delay, but at length saw him approaching, leading Lulu by the hand. There was unusual gravity, amounting almost to sternness, in his face, and Lulu's wore a more subdued expression than she had ever seen upon it, while traces of tears were evident upon her cheeks, "He has been talking very seriously to her in regard to the ill-temper she has shown during the past few days," Violet said to herself. "Poor wayward child! I hope she will take the lesson to heart, and give him less trouble and anxiety in future." He kept Lulu close at his side all the evening, and she seemed well content to stay there, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her waist, while she listened silently to the talk going on around her or to the booming of the waves upon the beach not many yards away. When it was time for the children to retire, he took her and Grace to the house. At the door he bent down and kissed Grace good-night, saying, "I shall not wait to see you in your bed, but shall come in to look at you before I go to mine." "May I have a kiss too, papa?" Lulu asked in a wishful, half-tremulous voice, as though a trifle uncertain whether her request would be granted. "Yes, my dear little daughter, as many as you wish," he replied, taking her in his arms and bestowing them with hearty good-will and affection. "I'm sorry--oh, very sorry for all my naughtiness, papa," she whispered in his ear while clinging about his neck. "It is all forgiven now," he said, "and I trust will never be repeated." Lulu was very good, submissive, and obedient during the remainder of her father's stay among them. She was greatly distressed when, two weeks later, orders came for him to join his ship the following day. She clung to him with devoted, remorseful affection and distress in prospect of the impending separation, while he treated her with even more than his wonted kindness, drawing her often caressingly to his knee, and his voice taking on a very tender tone whenever he spoke to her. It was in the evening he left them, for he was to drive over to Nantucket Town and pass the night there in order to take the early boat leaving for the mainland the next morning. Mr. Dinsmore went with him, intending to go to Boston for a few days, perhaps on to New York also, then return to Siasconset. Harold, Herbert, Bob, and Max set out that same evening for their camping ground; so that Mr. Edward Travilla was the only man of the party left to take care of the women and children. However, they would all have felt safe enough in that very quiet spot, or anywhere on the island, without any such protection. Lulu went to bed that night full of remorseful regret that through her own wilfulness she had lost many hours of her father's prized society, besides grieving and displeasing him. Oh, if she could but go back and live the last few weeks over, how differently she would behave! She would not give him the least cause to be displeased with or troubled about her. As often before, she felt a great disgust at herself, and a longing desire to be good and gentle like Gracie, who never seemed to have the slightest inclination to be quick-tempered or rebellious. "She's so sweet and dear!" murmured Lulu half aloud, and reaching out a hand to softly touch the little sister sleeping quietly by her side; "I should think papa would love her ten times better than me; but he says he doesn't, and he always tells the truth. I wish I'd been made like Gracie; but I'm ever so glad he can love me in spite of all my badness. Oh, I am determined to be good the next time he's at home, so that he will enjoy his visit more. It was a burning shame in me to spoil this one so; I'd like to beat you for it, Lulu Raymond, and I'm glad he didn't let you escape." Violet and her mother were passing the night together, and lying side by side talked to each other in loving confidence of such things as lay nearest their hearts. Naturally Vi's thoughts were full of the husband from whom she had just parted--for how long?--it might be months or years. "Mamma," she said, "the more I am with him and study his character, the more I honor and trust and love him. It is the one trial of my otherwise exceptionally happy life, that we must pass so much of our time apart, and that he has such a child as Lulu to mar his enjoyment of--" "Oh, dear daughter," interrupted Elsie, "do not allow yourself to feel otherwise than very kindly toward your husband's child; Lulu has some very noble traits, and I trust you will try to think of them rather than of her faults, serious as they may seem to you." "Yes, mamma, there are some things about her that are very lovable, and I really have a strong affection for her, even aside from the fact that she is his child; yet when she behaves in a way that distresses him I can hardly help wishing that she belonged to some one else. "You surely must have noticed how badly she behaved for two or three days. He never spoke to me about it, tried not to let me see that it interfered with his enjoyment (for he knew that that would spoil mine), but for all that I knew his heart was often heavy over her misconduct. "Yet she certainly does love her father. How she clung to him after she had heard that he must leave us so soon, with a remorseful affection, it seemed to me." "Yes, and though she shed but few tears in parting from him, I could see that she was almost heart-broken. She is a strange child, but if she takes the right turn, will assuredly make a noble, useful woman." "I hope so, mamma; and that will, I know, repay him for all his care and anxiety on her account. No father could be fonder of his children or more willing to do or endure anything for their sake. Of course I do not mean anything wrong; he would not do wrong himself or suffer wrong-doing in them; for his greatest desire is to see them truly good, real Christians. I hope my darling, as she grows older, will be altogether a comfort and blessing to him." "As her mother has been to me, and always was to her father," Elsie responded in loving tones. "Thank you, mamma," Violet said with emotion; "oh, if I had been an undutiful daughter and given pain and anxiety to my best of fathers, how my heart would ache at the remembrance, now that he is gone. And I feel deep pity for Lulu when I think what sorrow she is preparing for herself in case she outlives her father, as in the course of nature she is likely to do." "Yes, poor child!" sighed Elsie; "and doubtless she is even now enduring the reproaches of conscience aggravated by the fear that she may not see her father very soon again. "She and Gracie, to say nothing of my dear Vi, will be feeling lonely to-morrow, and Edward, Zoe, and I have planned various little excursions, by land and water, to give occupation to your thoughts and pleasantly while away the time." "You are always so kind, dearest mamma," said Violet; "always thinking of others and planning for their enjoyment." "Oh, how lonely it does seem without papa! our dear, dear papa!" was Gracie's waking exclamation. "I wish he could live at home all the time like other children's fathers do! When will he come again, Lulu?" "I don't know, Gracie; I don't believe anybody knows," returned Lulu sorrowfully. "But you have no occasion to feel half as badly about it as I." "Why not?" cried Grace, a little indignantly, even her gentle nature aroused at the apparent insinuation that he was more to Lulu than to herself; "you don't love him a bit better than I do." "Maybe not; but Mamma Vi is more to you than she is to me; though that wasn't what I was thinking of. I was only thinking that you had been a good child to him all the time he has been at home, while I was so very, very naughty that--" Lulu broke off suddenly and went on with, her dressing in silence. "That what?" asked Grace. "That I grieved him very much and spoiled half his pleasure," Lulu said in a choking voice. Then turning suddenly toward her sister, her face flushing hotly, her eyes full of tears, bitterly ashamed of what she was moved to tell, yet with a heart aching so for sympathy that she hardly knew how to keep it back, "Gracie, if I tell you something will you never, _never, never_ breathe a single word of it to a living soul?" Grace, who was seated on the floor putting on her shoes and stockings, looked up at her sister in silent astonishment. "Come, answer," exclaimed Lulu impetuously; "do you promise? I know if you make a promise you'll keep it. But I won't tell you without, for I wouldn't have Mamma Vi, or Max, or anybody else but you know, for all the world." "Not papa?" "Oh, Gracie, papa knows; it's a secret between him and me--only--only I have a right to tell you if I choose." "I'm glad he knows, because I couldn't promise not to tell him if he asked me and said I must. Yes, I promise, Lulu. What is it?" Lulu had finished her dressing, and dropping down on the carpet beside Grace she began, half averting her face and speaking in low, hurried tones. "You remember that morning we were all going to the 'squantum' I changed my dress and put on a white one, and because of that, and something I said to Max that papa overheard, he said I must stay at home; and he ordered me to take off that dress immediately. Well, I disobeyed him; I walked round the town in the dress before I took it off, and instead of staying at home I went in to bathe, and took a walk in the afternoon with Betty Johnson to Sankaty Lighthouse, and went up in the tower and outside too." "Oh, Lulu!" cried Grace, "how could you dare to do so?" "I did, anyway," said Lulu; "and you know I was very ill-tempered for two days afterward; so when papa knew it all he thought he ought to punish me, and he did." "How?" "Oh, Grace! don't you know? can't you guess? It was when he and I stayed back while all the rest went to the beach, that evening after Betty's friend told of seeing me at Sankaty." Grace drew a long breath. "Oh, Lu," she said pityingly, putting her arms lovingly about her sister, "I'm so sorry for you! How could you bear it? Did he hurt you very much?" "Oh, yes, terribly; but I'm glad he did it (though I wouldn't for anything let anybody know it but you), because I'd feel so mean if I hadn't paid somehow for my badness. Papa was so good and kind to me--he always is--and I had been behaving so hatefully to him. "And he wasn't in a bit of a passion with me. I believe, as he told me, he did hate to punish me, and only did it to help me to learn to conquer my temper." "And to be obedient, too?" "Yes; the punishment was for that too, he said. But now don't you think I have reason to feel worse about his going away just now than you?" "Yes," admitted Grace; "I'd feel ever so badly if I'd done anything to make dear papa sad and troubled; and I think I should be frightened to death if he was going to whip me." "No, you wouldn't," said Lulu, "for you would know papa wouldn't hurt you any more than he thought necessary for your own good. Now let me help you dress, for it must be near breakfast time." "Oh, thank you; yes, I'll have to hurry. Do you love papa as well as ever, Lu?" "Better," returned Lulu, emphatically; "it seems odd, but I do. I shouldn't though if I thought he took pleasure in beating me, or punishing me in any way." "I don't b'lieve he likes to punish any of us," said Grace. "I _know_ he doesn't," said Lulu. "And it isn't any odder that I should love him in spite of his punishments, than that he should love me in spite of all my naughtiness. Yes, I do think, Gracie, we have the best father in the world." "'Course we have," responded Grace; "but then we don't have him half the time; he's 'most always on his ship," she added tearfully. "Are you ready for breakfast, dears?" asked a sweet voice at the door. "Yes, Grandma Elsie," they answered, hastening to claim the good-morning kiss she was always ready to bestow. Lulu's heartache had found some relief in her confidence to her sister, and she showed a pleasanter and more cheerful face at the table than Violet expected to see her wear. It grew brighter still when she learned that they were all to have a long, delightful drive over the hills and moors, starting almost immediately upon the conclusion of the meal. The weather was charming, everybody in most amiable mood, and spite of the pain of the recent parting from him whom they so dearly loved, that would occasionally make itself felt in the hearts of wife and children, the little trip was an enjoyable one to all. Just as they drew up at the cottage door on their return, a blast of Captain Baxter's tin horn announced his arrival with the mail, and Edward, waiting only to assist the ladies and children to alight, hurried off to learn if they had any interest in the contents of the mailbag. CHAPTER VIII. "Be not too ready to condemn The wrongs thy brothers may have done; Ere ye too harshly censure them For human faults, ask, 'Have I none?'" --_Miss Eliza Cook_. The little girls took up their station at the front door to watch for "Uncle Edward's" return. Gracie presently cried out joyfully, "Oh, he's coming with a whole handful of letters! I wonder if one is from papa." "I'm afraid not," said Lulu; "he would hardly write last night, leaving us so late as he did, and hardly have time before the leaving of the early boat this morning." The last word had scarcely left her lips when Edward reached her side and put a letter into her hand--a letter directed to her, and unmistakably in her father's handwriting. "One for you, too, Vi," he said gayly, tossing it into her lap through the open window. "Excuse the unceremonious delivery, sister mine. Where are grandma and mamma? I have a letter for each of them." "Here," answered his mother's voice from within the room; then as she took the missives from his hand, "Ah, I knew papa would not forget either mamma or me." "Where's my share, Ned?" asked Zoe, issuing from the inner room, where she had been engaged in taking off her hat and smoothing her fair tresses. "Your share? Well, really I don't know; unless you'll accept the mail-carrier as such," he returned sportively. "Captain Baxter?" she asked in mock astonishment. "I'd rather have a letter by half." "But you can't have either," he returned, laughing; "you can have the postman who delivered the letters here--nothing more; yours is 'Hobson's choice.'" Lulu, receiving her letter with a half-smothered exclamation of intense, joyful surprise, ran swiftly away with it to the beach, never stopping till she had gained a spot beyond and away from the crowd, where no prying eye would watch her movements or note if the perusal of her treasure caused any emotion. There, seated upon the sand, she broke open the envelope with fingers trembling with eagerness. It contained only a few lines in Captain Raymond's bold chirography, but they breathed such fatherly love and tenderness as brought the tears in showers from Lulu's eyes--tears of intense joy and filial love. She hastily wiped them away and read the sweet words again and again; then kissing the paper over and over, placed it in her bosom, rose up, and slowly wended her way back toward the house, with a lighter, happier heart than she had known for some days. She had not gone far when Grace came tripping over the sands to meet her, her face sparkling with delight as she held up a note to view, exclaiming, "See, Lu! papa did not forget me; it came inside of mamma's letter." "Oh, Gracie, I am glad," said Lulu; "but it would be very strange for papa to remember the bad child and not the good one, wouldn't it?" she concluded, between a sigh and a smile. "I'm not always good," said Grace; "you know I did something very, very bad last winter one time--something you would never do. I b'lieve you'd speak the truth if you knew you'd be killed for it." "You dear little thing!" exclaimed Lulu, throwing her arm round Grace and giving her a hearty kiss; "it's very good in you to say it; but papa says I'm an honest child and own the truth even when it's against me." "Yes; you said you told him how you had disobeyed him; and If it had been I, I wouldn't have ever said a word about it for fear he'd punish me." "Well, you can't help being timid; and if I were as timid as you are, no doubt I'd be afraid to own up too; and I didn't confess till after that Miss Eastman had told on me," said Lulu. "Now let's sit down on the sand, and if you'll show me your letter, I'll show you mine." Grace was more than willing, and they busied themselves with the letters, reading and rereading, and with loving talk about their absent father, till summoned to the supper-table. Lulu was very fond of being on the beach, playing in the sand, wandering hither and thither, or just sitting gazing dreamily out over the waves; and her father had allowed her to do so, only stipulating that she should not go out of sight or into any place that looked at all dangerous. "I'm going down to the beach," she said to Grace, when they had left the table that evening; "won't you go too?" "Not yet," said Grace; "baby is awake, and looks so sweet that I'd rather stay and play with her a little while first." "She does look pretty and sweet," assented Lulu, glancing toward the babe, cooing in its nurse's arms, "but we can see enough of her after we go home to Ion, and haven't the sea any more. I'll go now, and you can come and join me when you are ready." Leaving the house, Lulu turned southward toward Sunset Heights, and strolled slowly on, gazing seaward for the most part, and drinking in with delight the delicious breeze as it came sweeping on from no one knows where, tearing the crests of the waves and scattering the spray hither and yon. The tide was rising, and it was keen enjoyment to watch the great billows chasing each other in and dashing higher and higher on the sands below. Then the sun drew near his setting, and the sea, reflecting the gorgeous coloring of the clouds, changed every moment from one lovely hue to another. Lulu walked on and on, wilfully refusing to think how great might be the distance she was putting between herself and home, and at length sat down, the better to enjoy the lovely panorama of cloud and sea which still continued to enrapture her with its ever-changing beauty. By and by the colors began to fade and give place to a silvery gray, which gradually deepened and spread till the whole sky was fast growing black with clouds that even to her inexperienced eye portended a storm. She started up and sent a sweeping glance around on every side. Could it be possible that she was so far from the tiny 'Sconset cottage that at present she called home? Here were Tom Never's Head and the life-saving station almost close at hand; she had heard papa say they were a good two miles from 'Sconset, so she must be very nearly that distance from home, all alone too, and with night and a storm fast coming on. "Oh me! I've been disobedient again," she said aloud, as she set off for home at her most rapid pace; "what would papa say? It wasn't exactly intentional this time, but I should not have been so careless." Alarmed at the prospect of being overtaken by darkness and tempest alone out in the wild, she used her best efforts to move with speed; but she could scarcely see to pick her steps or take a perfectly direct course, and now and again she was startled by the flutter of an affrighted night-bird across her path as she wandered among the sand dunes, toiling over the yielding soil, the booming of the waves and the melancholy cadences of the wind as it rose and fell filling her ears. She was a brave child, entirely free from superstitious fears, and having learned that the island harbored no burglars or murderers, and that there was no wild beast upon it, her only fear was of being overtaken by the storm or lost on the moors, unable to find her way till day-break. But, gaining the top of a sand-hill, the star-like gleam of Sankaty Light greeted her delighted eyes, and with a joyful exclamation, "Oh, now I can find the way!" she sprang forward with renewed energy, soon found the path to the village, pursued it with quickened steps and light heart, although the rain was now pouring down, accompanied with occasional flashes of lightning and peals of thunder, and in a few moments pushed open the door of the cottage and stepped into the astonished presence of the ladies of the party. She had not been missed till the approach of the storm drove them all within doors; then perceiving that the little girl was not among them, the question passed from one to another, "Where is Lulu?" No one could say where; Grace remembered that she had gone out intending to take a stroll along the beach, but did not mention in which direction. "And she has never been known to stay out so late; and--and the tide is coming in," cried Violet, sinking pale and trembling into a chair. "Oh, mamma, if she is drowned, how shall I answer to my husband for taking so little care of his child?" "My dear daughter, don't borrow trouble," Elsie said cheerfully, though her own cheek had grown very pale; "it was in my care he left her, not in yours." "Don't fret, Vi," Edward said; "I don't believe she's drowned; she has more sense than to go where the tide would reach her; but I'll go at once to look for her, and engage others in the search also." He started for the door. "She may be out on the moors, Ned," called Zoe, running after him with his waterproof coat. "Here, put this on." "No time to wait for that," he said. "But you must take time," she returned, catching hold of him and throwing it over his shoulders; "men have to obey their wives once in awhile; Lu's not drowning; don't you believe it; and she may as well get a wetting as you." Grace, hiding her head in Violet's lap, was sobbing bitterly, the latter stroking her hair in a soothing way, but too full of grief and alarm herself to speak any comforting words. "Don't cry, Gracie; and, Vi, don't look so distressed," said Betty. "Lulu, like myself, is one of those people that need never be worried about--the bad pennies that always turn up again." "Then she isn't fit for heaven," remarked Rosie in an undertone not meant for her sister's ear; "but I don't believe," she added in a louder key, "that there is anything worse the matter than too long a walk for her to get back in good season." "That is my opinion, Vi," said Mrs. Dinsmore; and Elsie added, "Mine also." No one spoke again for a moment, and in the silence the heavy boom, boom of the surf on the beach below came distinctly to their ears. Then there was a vivid flash of lightning and a terrific thunder crash, followed instantly by a heavy down-pour of rain. "And she is out in all this!" exclaimed Violet in tones of deep distress. "Dear child, if I only had her here safe in my arms, or if her father were here to look after her!" "And punish her," added Rosie. "It's my humble opinion that if ever a girl of her age needed a good whipping, she does." "Rosie," said her mother, with unwonted severity, "I cannot allow you to talk in that way. Lulu's faults are different from yours, but perhaps no worse; for while she is passionate and not sufficiently amenable to authority, you are showing yourself both uncharitable and Pharisaical." "Well, mamma," Rosie answered, blushing deeply at the reproof, "I cannot help feeling angry with her for giving poor Vi so much unnecessary worry and distress of mind. And I am sure her father must have felt troubled and mortified by the way she behaved for two or three days while he was here." "But he loves her very dearly," said Violet; "so dearly that to lose her in this way would surely break his heart." "But I tell you he is not going to lose her in this way," said Betty in a lively tone; "don't you be a bit afraid of it." But Violet could not share the comfortable assurance; to her it seemed more than likely Lulu had been too venturesome, and that a swiftly incoming wave had carried her off her feet and swept her in its recoil into the boiling sea. "I shall never see the dear child again!" was her anguished thought; "and oh, what news to write to her father! He will not blame me, I know, but oh, I cannot help blaming myself that I did not miss her sooner and send some one to search for and bring her back." Elsie read her daughter's distress in her speaking countenance, and sitting down by her side tried to cheer her with loving, hopeful words. "Dear Vi," she said, "I have a strong impression that the child is not lost, and will be here presently. But whatever has happened, or may happen, stay your heart, dear one, upon your God; trust Him for the child, for your husband, and for yourself. You know that troubles do not spring out of the ground, and to His children He gives help and deliverance out of all He sends them. "'God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.' 'He shall deliver thee in six troubles: yea in seven there shall no evil touch thee.'" There was perhaps not more than a half hour of this trying suspense between Edward's departure in search of the missing child and her sudden appearance in their midst: sudden it seemed because the roar of the sea and howling of the storm drowned all other sounds from without, and prevented any echo of approaching footsteps. "Lulu!" they all cried in varied tones of surprise and relief, as they started up and gathered about her dripping figure. "Where have you been?" "How wet you are!" "Oh, dear child, I am so glad and thankful to see you; I have been terribly frightened about you!" This last from Violet. "I--I didn't mean to be out so late or to go so far," stammered Lulu. "And I didn't see the storm coming up in time, and it caught and hindered me. Please, Mamma Vi, and Grandma Elsie, don't be angry about it. I won't do so again." "We won't stop to talk about it now," Elsie said, answering for Violet and herself; "your clothes must be changed instantly, for you are as wet as if you had been in the sea; and that with fresh water, so that there is great danger of your taking cold." "I should think the best plan would be for her to be rubbed with a coarse towel till reaction sets in fully and then put directly to bed," said Mrs. Dinsmore. "If that is done we may hope to find her as well in the morning as if she had not had this exposure to the storm." Lulu made no objection nor resistance, being only too glad to escape so easily. Still she was not quite sure that some punishment might not be in store for her on the morrow. And she had an uncomfortable impression that were it not for her father's absence it might not be a very light one. When she was snugly in bed, Grandma Elsie came to her, bringing with her own hands a great tumbler of hot lemonade. "Drink this, Lulu," she said, in her own sweet voice and with a loving look that made the little girl heartily ashamed of having given so much trouble and anxiety; "it will be very good for you, I think, as well as palatable." "Thank you, ma'am," Lulu said, tasting it; "it is delicious, so strong of both lemon and sugar." "I am glad you like it; drink it all if you can," Elsie said. When Lulu had drained the tumbler it was carried away by Agnes, and Grandma Elsie, sitting down beside the bed, asked, "Are you sleepy, my child? If you are we will defer our talk till to-morrow morning; if not, we will have it now." "I'm not sleepy," Lulu answered, blushing and averting her face, adding to herself, "I suppose it's got to come, and I'd rather have it over." "You know, my child, that in the absence of your father and mine you are my care and I am responsible for you, while you are accountable to me for your good or bad behavior. Such being the case, it is now my duty to ask you to give an account of your whereabouts and doings in the hours that you were absent from us this evening." Lulu replied by an exact statement of the truth, pleading in excuse for her escapade her father's permission to stroll about the beach, even alone, her enjoyment of the exercise of walking along the bluff, and her absorbing interest in the changing beauty of sky and sea--all which tended to render her oblivious of time and space, so that on being suddenly reminded of them she found herself much farther from home than she had supposed. "Was it not merely within certain limits you were given permission to ramble about the beach?" Elsie asked gently. "Yes, ma'am; papa said I was not to go far, and I did not intend to; indeed, indeed, Grandma Elsie, I had not the least intention of disobeying, but forgot everything in the pleasure of the walk and the beautiful sights." "Do you think that is sufficient excuse, and ought to be accepted as fully exonerating you from blame in regard to this matter?" "I don't think people can help forgetting sometimes," Lulu replied, a trifle sullenly. "I remember that in dealing with me as a child my father would never take forgetfulness of his orders as any excuse for disobedience; and though it seemed hard then, I have since thought he was right, because the forgetfulness is almost always the result of not having deemed the matter of sufficient importance to duly charge the memory with it. "In the Bible God both warns us against forgetting and bids us remember: "'Remember all the commandments of the Lord, and do them.' "'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.' "'Beware lest thou forget the Lord.' "'The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.' "You see that God does not accept forgetfulness as a sufficient excuse, or any excuse for sin." "Then you won't, of course," muttered Lulu, carefully avoiding looking into the kind face bending over her; "how am I to be punished? I don't feel as if anybody has a _right_ to punish me but papa," she added, with a flash of indignant anger. "I heartily wish he were here to attend to it," was the response, in a kindly pitying tone. "But since, unfortunately, he is not, and my father, too, is absent, the unpleasant duty devolves upon me. I have not had time to fully consider the matter, but have no thought of being very severe with you; and perhaps if you knew all the anxiety and sore distress suffered on your account this evening--particularly by your mamma and little sister--you would be sufficiently punished already." "Did Mamma Vi care?" Lulu asked, in a half-incredulous tone. "My child, she was almost distracted," Elsie said. "She loves you for both your own and your father's sake. Besides, as she repeated again and again, she was sorely distressed on his account, knowing his love for you to be so great that to lose you would well-nigh break his heart." A flash of joy illumined Lulu's face at this new testimony to her father's love for her, but passed away as suddenly as it came. "I do feel punished in hearing that you were all so troubled about me, Grandma Elsie," she said, "and I mean to be very, very careful not to cause such anxiety again. Please tell Mamma Vi I am sorry to have given her pain; but she shouldn't care anything about such a naughty girl." "That, my child, she cannot help," Elsie said; "she loves your father far too well not to love you for his sake." After a little more kindly admonitory talk she went away, leaving a tender, motherly kiss upon the little girl's lips. At the door Grace met her with a request for a good-night kiss, which was promptly granted. "Good-night, dear little one; pleasant dreams and a happy awaking, if it be God's will," Elsie said, bending down to touch her lips to the rosebud mouth and let the small arms twine themselves around her neck. "Good-night, dear Grandma Elsie," responded the child. "Oh, aren't you ever so glad God brought our Lulu safely home to us?" "I am indeed, dear; let us not forget to thank Him for it in our prayers to-night." Lulu heard, and as Grace's arms went round her neck the next moment, and the sweet lips, tremulous with emotion, touched her cheek, "Were you so distressed about me, Gracie?" she asked with feeling. "Did Mamma Vi care so very much that I might be drowned?" "Yes, indeed, Lu, dear Lu; oh, what could I do without my dear sister?" "You know you have another one now," Suggested Lulu. "That doesn't make any difference," said Grace. "She's the darling baby sister; you are the dear, dear big sister." "Papa calls me his little girl," remarked Lulu, half musingly; "and somehow I like to be little to him and big to you. Oh, Gracie, what do you suppose he will say when he hears about to-night?--my being so bad; and so soon after he went away, too." "Oh, Lu, what made you?" "Because I was careless; didn't think; and I begin to believe that it was because I didn't choose to take the trouble," she sighed. "I'm really afraid if papa were here I should get just the same sort of a punishment he gave me before. Gracie, don't you ever, ever tell anybody about that." "No, Lu; I promised I wouldn't. But I should think you'd be punished enough with all the wetting and the fright; for weren't you most scared to death?" "No; I was frightened, but not nearly so much as that. Not so much as I should be if papa were to walk in just now; because he'd have to hear all about it, and then he'd look so sorry and troubled, and punish me besides." "Then you wouldn't be glad to see papa if he came back?" Grace said, in a reproachfully inquiring tone. "Yes, I should," Lulu answered, promptly; "the punishment wouldn't last long, you know; he and I would both get over it pretty soon, and then it would be so delightful to have him with us again." Lulu woke the next morning feeling no ill effects whatever from her exposure to the storm. Before she and Grace had quite finished their morning toilet Grandma Elsie was at their door, asking if they were well. She stayed for a little chat with them, and Lulu asked what her punishment was to be. "Simply a prohibition of lonely rambles," Elsie answered, with a grave but kindly look; "and I trust it will prove all-sufficient; you are to keep near the rest of us for your own safety." CHAPTER IX. "He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes."--_Prov_. 13: 24. When the morning boat touched at Nantucket pier there were among the throng which poured ashore two fine-looking gentlemen--one in the prime of life, the other growing a little elderly--who sought out at once a conveyance to 'Sconset. The hackman had driven them before, and recognized them with evident pleasure mingled with surprise. "Glad to see you back again, capt'n," he remarked, addressing the younger of his two passengers; "but it's kind of unexpected, isn't it? I understood you'd gone to join your ship, expecting to sail directly for foreign parts." "Yes, that was all correct," returned Captain Raymond, gayly, for he it was, in company with Mr. Dinsmore; "but orders are sometimes countermanded, as they were in this instance, to my no small content." "They'll be dreadful glad to see you at 'Sconset," was the next remark; "surprised, too. By the way, sir, your folks had a fright last evening." "A fright?" inquired both gentlemen in a breath, and exchanging a look of concern. "Yes, sirs; about one of your little girls, capt'n--the oldest one, I understood it was. Seems she'd wandered off alone to Tom Never's Head, or somewhere in that neighborhood, and was caught by the darkness and storm, and didn't find her way home till the older folks had begun to think she'd been swept away by the tide, which was coming in, to be sure; but they thought it might have been the backward flow of a big wave that had rushed up a little too quick for her, taking her off her feet and hurrying her into the surf before she could struggle up again." All the captain's gayety was gone, and his face wore a pained, troubled look. "But she did reach home in safety at last?" he said, inquiringly. "Oh, yes; all right except for a wetting, which probably did her no harm. But now maybe I'm telling tales out of school," he added, with a laugh. "I shouldn't like to get the little girl into trouble, so I hope you'll not be too hard on her, capt'n. I dare say the fright has been punishment enough to keep her from doing the like again." "I wish it may have been," was all the captain said. Then he fell into a revery so deep that he scarcely caught a word of a brisk conversation, in regard to some of the points of interest on the island, carried on between Mr. Dinsmore and the hackman. Lulu was having an uncomfortable day. When she met the family at the breakfast-table Grandma Rose seemed to regard her with cold displeasure; "Mamma Vi" spoke gently and kindly; hoping she felt no injury from last night's exposure, but looked wretchedly ill; and in answer to her mother's inquiries admitted that she had been kept awake most of the night by a violent headache, to which Rosie added, in an indignant tone, and with an angry glance at Lulu: "Brought on by anxiety in regard to a certain young miss who is always misbehaving and causing a world of trouble to her best friends." "Rose, Rose," Elsie said, reprovingly; "let me hear no more such remarks, or I shall send you from the table." Lulu had appeared in their midst, feeling humble and contrite, and had been conscience-smitten at sight of her mamma's pale face; but the sneer on Betty's face, the cold, averted looks of Edward and Zoe, and then Rosie's taunt roused her quick temper to almost a white heat. She rose, and pushing back her chair with some noise, turned to leave the table at which she had but just seated herself. "What is it, Lulu?" asked Grandma Elsie, in a tone of gentle kindliness. "Sit still, my child, and ask for what you want." "Thank you, ma'am," said Lulu. "I do not want anything but to go away. I'd rather do without my breakfast than stay here to be insulted." "Sit down, my child," repeated Elsie, as gently and kindly as before; "Rosie will make no more unkind remarks; and we will all try to treat you as we would wish to be treated were we in your place." No one else spoke. Lulu resumed her seat and ate her breakfast, but with little appetite or enjoyment; and on leaving the table tried to avoid contact with any of those who had caused her offence. "May I go down to the beach, Grandma Elsie?" she asked, in low, constrained tones, and with her eyes upon the floor. "If you will go directly there, to the seats under the awning which we usually occupy, and not wander from them farther than they are from the cliff," Elsie answered. "Promise me that you will keep within those bounds, and I shall know I may trust you; for you are an honest child." The cloud lifted slightly from Lulu's brow at those kindly words. She gave the promise, and walked slowly away. As she descended the stairway that led down the face of the cliff, she saw that Edward and Zoe were sitting side by side on one of the benches under the awning. She did not fancy their company just now, and knew hers would not be acceptable to them. She thought she would pass them and seat herself in the sand a little farther on. Edward was speaking as she came up behind them, and she heard him say, "It was the most uncomfortable meal ever eaten in our family; and all because of that ungovernable child." Lulu flushed hotly, and stepping past turned and confronted him with flashing eyes. "I heard you, Uncle Edward," she said, "though I had no intention of listening; and I say it is very unjust to blame me so when it was Rosie's insulting tongue and other people's cold, contemptuous looks that almost drove me wild." "You are much too easily driven wild," he said. "It is high time you learned to have some control over your temper. If I were your father I'd teach it you, even if I must try the virtue of a rod again and again; also you should learn proper submission to authority, if it had to be taught in the same manner." Lulu was too angry to speak for a moment; she stood silent, trembling with passion, but at length burst out: "It's none of your business how papa manages me, Mr. Travilla; and I'm very glad he's my father instead of you!" "You are a very saucy girl, Lulu Raymond," said Zoe, reddening with anger on her husband's account, "and shamefully ungrateful for all Mr. Travilla's kind exertions on your behalf last night." "Hush, hush, Zoe; do not remind her of it," Edward said. "'A benefit upbraided forfeits thanks.' I should have done quite the same for any one supposed to be in danger and distress." "What was it?" asked Lulu; "nobody told me he had done anything." "He was out for hours in all that storm, hunting you," replied Zoe, with a proudly admiring glance at her husband. "I'm very much obliged," said Lulu, her voice softening. "And sorry you suffered on my account," she added. "I did not suffer anything worth mentioning," he responded; "but your mamma was sorely distressed--thinking you might be in the sea--and, in consequence, had a dreadful headache all night. And since such dire consequences may follow upon your disregard for rules and lawful authority, Lulu, I insist that you shall be more amenable to them. "I believe you think that when your father and grandpa are both away you can do pretty much as you please; but you shall not while I am about. I won't have my mother's authority set at defiance by you or any one else." "Who wants to set it at defiance?" demanded Lulu, wrathfully. "Not I, I am sure. But I won't be ruled by you, for papa never said I should." "I think I shall take down this conversation and report it to him," Edward said, only half in earnest. Lulu turned quickly away, greatly disturbed by the threat, but resolved that her alarm should not be perceived by either him or Zoe. Walking a few yards from them, she sat down upon the sand and amused herself digging in it, but with thoughts busied with the problem, "What will papa say and do if that conversation is reported to him?" A very little consideration of the question convinced her that if present her father would say she had been extremely impertinent, punish her for it, and make her apologize. Presently a glance toward the cottages on the bluff showed her Violet and Grace descending the stairway. She rose and hurried to meet them. "Mamma Vi," she said, as soon as within hearing, "I am ever so sorry to have frightened you so last night and given you a headache. But you oughtn't to care whether such a naughty girl as I am is drowned or not." "How can you talk so, Lulu dear?" Violet answered, putting an arm round the child's waist and giving her a gentle kiss. "Do you think your Mamma Vi has no real love for you? If so, you are much mistaken. I love you, Lulu, for yourself, and dearly for your father's sake. Oh, I wish you loved him well enough to try harder to be good in order to add to his happiness; it would add to it more than anything else that I know of. Your naughtiness does not deprive you of his fatherly affection, but it does rob him of much enjoyment which he would otherwise have." Lulu hung her head in silence, turned, and walked away full of self-accusing and penitent thoughts. She was not crying; tears did not come so readily to her eyes as to those of many children of her age, but her heart was aching with remorseful love for her absent father. "To think that I spoiled his visit home," she sighed to herself. "Oh, I wish he could come back to have it over again, and I would try to be good and not spoil his enjoyment in the very least!" "Come back now?" something seemed to reply; "suppose he should; wouldn't he punish you for your behavior since he left, only two days ago?" "Yes," she sighed; "I haven't the least doubt that if he were here and knew all he would punish me severely again; and I suppose he wouldn't be long in the house before he would hear it all; yet for all that I should be--oh, so glad if he could come back to stay a good while." Last night's storm had spent itself in a few hours, and the morning was bright and clear; yet a long drive planned for that day by our friends was unanimously postponed, as several of them had lost sleep, and wanted to make it up with a nap. Violet sought her couch immediately after dinner, slept off the last remains of her headache, and about the middle of the afternoon was preparing to go down to the beach, where all the others were, except Grace, who was seldom far from mamma's side, when the outer door opened, and a step and voice were heard which she had not hoped to hear again for months or years. The next moment she was in her husband's arms, her head pillowed on his breast, while his lips were pressed again and again to brow and cheek and lips, and Grace's glad shout arose, in sweet, silvery tones, "Papa has come back! Papa has come back! My dear, dear papa!" "Can it be possible, my dear, dear husband?" cried Violet, lifting to his a face radiant with happiness. "It seems too good to be true." "Not quite so good as that," he said, with a joyous laugh, "But it is quite a satisfaction to find that you are not sorry to see me." "Of which you were terribly afraid, of course," she returned, gayly. "Do tell me at once how long our powers of endurance of such uncongenial society are to be taxed?" "Ah, that is beyond my ability." "Then we may hope for weeks or months?" she said, rapturously. "Certainly we are not forbidden to hope," he answered, smiling tenderly upon her. "Oh, I am so glad!" she said, with a happy sigh, leaning her head on his shoulder and gazing fondly up into his face, his right arm about her waist, while Grace clung to the other hand, holding it lovingly between her own and pressing her lips to it again and again. "Ah, my darling little girl," he said presently, letting Violet go to take Grace in his arms. "Are you glad to see papa back again so soon?" "Oh, yes, indeed; nothing else could have made me so very, very glad!" she cried, hugging him close, and giving and receiving many tender caresses. "But how did it happen. Levis?" Violet was asking. "Through some unlooked-for change in the plans and purposes of the higher powers," he answered, lightly. "My orders were countermanded, with no reasons given, and I may remain with my family till further orders; and, as you say, we will hope it may be months before they are received." "And you were glad to come back to us?" Violet said, inquiringly, but with not a shade of doubt in her tones. "Yes, yes indeed; I was full of joy till I heard that one of my children had been disobeying me, bringing serious consequences upon herself and others." His countenance had grown very grave and stern. "Where is Lulu?" he asked, glancing about in search of her. "Down on the beach with mamma and the rest," Violet answered. "Can you give me a true and full account of her behavior since I have been away?" he asked. "My dear husband," Violet said, entreatingly, "please do not ask me." "Pardon me, dearest," he returned. "I should not have asked you; Lulu must tell me herself; thankful I am that many and serious as are her faults, she is yet so honest and truthful that I can put full confidence in her word and feel sure that she will not deceive me, even to save herself from punishment." "I think that is high praise, and that Lulu is deserving of it," remarked Violet, glad of an opportunity to speak a word in the child's favor. Captain Raymond gave her a pleased, grateful look. "You were going to the beach, were you not?" he said. "Then please go on; I shall follow after I have settled this matter with Lulu. There can be no comfort for her or myself till it is settled. Gracie, go and tell your sister to come here to me immediately." "Do be as lenient as your sense of duty will allow, dear husband," whispered Violet in his ear, then hastened on her way. Grace was lingering, gazing at him with wistful, tear-filled eves. "What is it?" he asked, bending down to smooth her hair caressingly. "You should go at once, little daughter, when papa bids." "I would, papa, only--only I wanted to--to ask you not to punish Lulu very hard." "I am glad my little Gracie loves her sister," he said; "and you need never doubt, my darling, that I dearly love both her and you. Go now and give her my message." All day long Lulu had kept herself as far apart from the others--her sister excepted--as lay in her power. She was sitting now alone in the sand, no one within several yards of her, her hands folded in her lap, while she gazed far out to sea, her eyes following a sail in the distant offing. "Perhaps it is papa's ship," she was saying to herself. "Oh, how long will it be before we see him again! And oh, how sorry he will be when he hears about last night and this morning!" At that instant she felt Grace's arms suddenly thrown round her, while the sweet child voice exclaimed, in an ecstasy of delight, "Oh, Lu, he _has_ come! he _has_, he _has_!" "Who?" Lulu asked, with a start and tremble that reminded Grace of the message she had to deliver, and that Lulu's pleasure at their father's unexpected return could not be so unalloyed as her own; all which she had forgotten for the moment in the rapture of delight she herself felt at his coming. "Papa, Lulu," she answered, sobering down, a good deal; "and I was 'most forgetting that he sent me to tell you to come to him immediately." "Did he?" Lulu asked, trembling more than before. "Does he know about last night, Gracie? Did Mamma Vi tell him?" "He knows 'bout it; somebody told him before he got to 'Sconset," said Grace. "But mamma didn't tell him at all; he asked her, but she begged him to please not ask her. Mamma doesn't ever tell tales on us, I'm sure." "No, I don't believe she does. But what did papa say then?" "That you should tell him all about it yourself; you were an honest child, serious as your faults were, and lie could trust you to own the truth, even when you were to be punished for it. But, Lulu, you have to go right up to the house; papa said 'immediately.'" "Yes," Lulu replied, getting upon her feet very slowly, and looking a good deal frightened; "did papa seem very angry?" "I think he intends to punish you," Grace replied, in a sorrowful tone; "but maybe he won't if you say you're sorry and won't do so any more. But hurry, Lulu, or he may punish you for not obeying promptly." "Is Mamma Vi there?" asked Lulu, still lingering. "No; yonder she is; don't you see?" said Grace, nodding her head in the direction of the awning under which nearly their whole party were now seated: "there's nobody there but papa. Oh hurry, Lulu, or he will whip you, I'm afraid." "Don't you ever say that before anybody, Gracie," Lulu said, low and tremulously; then turned and walked rapidly toward the stairway that led up the bluff to the cottages. At a window looking toward the bluff the captain stood, watching for Lulu's coming. "She is not yielding very prompt obedience to the order," he said to himself; "but what wonder? The poor child doubtless dreads the interview extremely; in fact, _I_ should be only too glad to escape it; 'tis no agreeable task to have to deal out justice to one's own child--a child so lovable, in spite of her faults. How much easier to pass the matter over slightly, merely administering a gentle reprimand! But no, I cannot; 'twould be like healing slightly the festering sore that threatens the citadel of life. I must be faithful to my God-given trust, however trying to my feelings. Ah, there she is!" as a little figure appeared at the top of the staircase and hurried across the intervening space to the open doorway. There she halted, trembling and with downcast eyes. It was a minute or more before she ventured to lift them, and then it was a very timid glance she sent in her father's direction. He was looking at her with a very grave, rather stern, countenance, and her eyes fell again, while still she shrank from approaching him. "You are not very glad to see me, I think," he said, holding out his hand, but with no relaxing of the sternness of his expression. "Oh, papa, yes! yes, indeed I am!" she burst out, springing to his side and putting her hand in his, "even though I suppose you are going to punish me just as you did the last time." He drew her to his knee, but without offering her the slightest caress. "Won't you kiss me, papa?" she asked, with a little sob. "I will; but you are not to take it as a token of favor; only of your father's love that is never withdrawn from you, even when he is most severe in the punishment of your faults," he answered, pressing his lips again and again to forehead, cheeks, and lips. "What have you done that you expect so severe a punishment?" "Papa, you know, don't you?" she said, hiding her blushing face on his breast. "I choose to have you tell me; I want a full confession of all the wrong-doing you have been guilty of since I left you the other day." "I disobeyed you last night, papa, about taking a long walk by myself; but it was because I forgot to notice how far I was going; at least, I didn't notice," she stammered, remembering that she had wilfully refrained from so doing. "You forgot? forgot to pay attention to your father's commands? did not think them of sufficient importance for you to take the trouble to impress them upon your mind. I cannot accept that excuse as a good and sufficient one. "And, tell me honestly, are you not, as I strongly suspect, less careful to obey your father's orders when he is away, so that you feel yourself in a measure out of his reach, than when he is close at hand?" "Papa, you ask such hard questions," she said. "Hard to my little daughter only because of her own wrong-doing. But hard or easy, they must be answered. Tell me the truth, would you not have been more careful to keep within prescribed bounds last night if I had been at home, or you had known that you would see me here to-day?" "Yes, papa," she answered, in a low, unwilling tone. "I don't think anybody else can have quite so much authority over me as you, and--and so I do, I suppose, act a little more as if I could do as I please when you are away." "And that after I have explained to you again and again that in my absence you are quite as much under the authority of the kind friends with whom I have placed you as under mine when I am with you. I see there is no effectual way to teach you the lesson but by punishing you for disregarding it." Then he made her give him a detailed account of her ramble of the night before and its consequences. When she had gone as far in the narrative as her safe arrival among the alarmed household, he asked whether her Grandma Elsie inflicted any punishment upon her. "No, sir," answered Lulu, hanging her head and speaking in a sullen tone. "I told her I didn't feel as if anybody had any right to punish me but you." "Lulu I did you dare to talk in that way to her?" exclaimed the captain. "I hope she punished you for your impertinence; for if she did not I certainly must." "She lectured me then, and this morning told me my punishment was a prohibition against wandering away from the rest more than just a few yards. "But, papa, they were all so unkind to me at breakfast--I mean all but Grandma Elsie and Mamma Vi and Gracie. Betty looked sneering, and the others so cold and distant, and Rosie said something very insulting about my being a bad, troublesome child and frightening Mamma Vi into a headache." "Certainly no more than you deserved," her father said. "Did you bear it with patience and humility, as you ought?" "Do you mean that I must answer you, papa?" "Most assuredly I do; tell me at once exactly what you did and said." "I don't want to, papa," she said, half angrily. "You are never to say that when I give you an order," he returned, in a tone of severity; "never venture to do it again. Tell me, word for word, as nearly as you can remember it, what reply you made to Rosie's taunt." "Papa, I didn't say anything to her; I just got up and pushed back my chair, and turned to leave the table. Then Grandma Elsie asked me what I wanted, and I said I didn't want anything, but would rather go without my breakfast than stay there to be insulted. Then she told me to sit down and eat, and Rosie wouldn't make any more unkind speeches." "Were they all pleasant to you after that?" he asked. "No, papa; they haven't been pleasant to me at all to-day; and Uncle Edward has said hateful things about me, and to me," she went on, her cheek flushing and her eyes flashing with anger, half forgetting, in the excitement of passion, to whom she was telling her story, and showing her want of self-control. "And I very much fear," he said, gravely, "that you were both passionate and impertinent. Tell me just what passed." "If I do you'll punish me, I know you will," she burst out. "Papa, don't you think it's a little mean to make me tell on myself and then punish me for what you find out in that way?" "If my object was merely to give you pain, I think it would be mean enough," he said, not at all unkindly; "but as I am seeking your best interests--your truest happiness--in trying to gain full insight into your character and conduct, meaning to discipline you only for your highest good, I think it is not mean or unkind. From your unwillingness to confess to me, I fear you must have been in a great passion and very impertinent. Is it not so?" "Papa, I didn't begin it; if I'd been let alone I shouldn't have got in a passion or said anything saucy." "Possibly not; but what is that virtue worth which cannot stand the least trial? You must learn to rule your own spirit, not only when everything goes smoothly with you, but under provocation; and in order to help you to learn that lesson--or rather as a means toward teaching it to you--I shall invariably punish any and every outbreak of temper and every impertinence of yours that come under my notice when I am at home. Now, tell me exactly what passed between your Uncle Edward and yourself." Seeing there was no escape for her, Lulu complied, faithfully repeating every word of the short colloquy at the beach when she went down there directly after breakfast. Her father listened in astonishment, his face growing sterner every moment. "Lucilla," he said, "you are certainly the most impertinent, insolent child I ever saw! I don't wonder you were afraid to let me know the whole truth in regard to this affair. I am ashamed of your conduct toward both your Grandma Elsie and your Uncle Edward. You must apologize to both of them, acknowledging that you have been extremely impertinent, and asking forgiveness for it." Lulu made no reply; her eyes were downcast, her face was flushed with passion, and wore a stubborn look. "I won't;" the words were on the tip of her tongue; she had almost spoken them, but restrained herself just in time; her father's authority was not to be defied, as she had learned to her cost a year ago. He saw the struggle that was going on in her breast. "You must do it," he said; "you may write your apologies, though, if you prefer that to speaking them." He opened a writing-desk that stood on a table close at hand, and seated her before it with paper, pen, and ink, and bade her write, at his dictation. She did not dare refuse, and had really no very strong disinclination to do so in regard to the first, which was addressed to Grandma Elsie--a lady so gentle and kind that even proud Lulu was willing to humble herself to her. But when it came to Edward's turn her whole soul rose up in rebellion against it. Yet she dared not say either "I won't" or "I don't want to." But pausing, with the pen in her fingers: "Papa," she began timidly, "please don't make me apologize to him; he had no right to talk to me the way he did." "I am not so sure of that," the captain said. "I don't blame him for trying to uphold his mother's authority; and now I think of it, you are to consider yourself under his control in the absence of your mamma and the older persons to whom I have given authority over you. Begin at once and write what I have told you to." When the notes were written, signed, and folded he put them in his pocket, turned and paced the floor. Lulu, glancing timidly into his face, saw that it was pale and full of pain, but very stern and determined. "Papa, are you--are you going to punish me?" she asked, tremulously. "I mean as you did the other day?" "I think I must," he said, pausing beside her, "though it grieves me to the very heart to do it; but you have been disobedient, passionate, and very impertinent; it is quite impossible for me to let you slip. But you may take your choice between that and being locked up in the bedroom there for twenty-four hours, on bread and water. Which shall it be?" "I'd rather take the first, papa," said Lulu, promptly, "because it will be over in a few minutes, and nobody but ourselves need know anything about it." "I made sure you would choose the other," he said, in some surprise; "yet I think your choice is wise. Come!" "Oh, papa, I'm so frightened," she said, putting her trembling hand in his; "you did hurt me so dreadfully the other time; must you be as severe to-day?" "My poor child, I am afraid I must," he said; "a slight punishment seems to avail nothing in your case, and I must do all in my power to make you a good, gentle, obedient child." A few minutes later Captain Raymond joined the others on the beach, but Lulu was not with him. She had been left behind in the bedroom, where she must stay, he told her, until his return. Everybody seemed glad to see him; but after greeting them all in turn, he drew Violet to a seat a little apart from the others. Grace followed, of course, keeping close to her father's side. "Where is Lulu, papa?" she asked with a look of concern, "Up at the house." "Won't you let her come down here, papa? She loves so to be close down by the waves." "She may come after a little," he said, "but not just now." Then taking two tiny notes from his pocket: "Here, Gracie," he said, "take this to your Grandma Elsie and this to your Uncle Edward." "Yes, sir; must I wait for an answer?" "Oh, no," he replied, with a slight smile; "you may come right back to your place by papa's side." Elsie read the little missive handed her at a glance, rose up hastily, and went to the captain with it in her hand, a troubled look on her face. "My dear captain," she said, in a tone of gentle remonstrance, "why did you do this? The child's offence against me was not a grave one in my esteem, and I know that to one of her temperament it would be extremely galling to be made to apologize. I wish you had not required it of her." "I thought it for her good, mother," he answered; "and I think so still; she is so strongly inclined to impertinence and insubordination that I must do all in my power to train her to proper submission to lawful authority and respect for superiors." Edward joined them at that moment. He looked disturbed and chagrined. "Really, captain," he said, "I am not at all sure that Lulu has not as much right to an apology from me as I to this from her. I spoke to her in anger, and with an assumption of authority to which I really had no right, so that there was ample excuse for her not particularly respectful language to me. I am sorry, therefore, she has had the pain of apologizing." "You are very kind to be so ready to over look her insolence," the captain said; "but I cannot permit such exhibitions of temper, and must, at whatever cost, teach her to rule her own spirit." "Doubtless you are right," Edward said; "but I am concerned and mortified to find that I have got her into such disgrace and trouble. I must own I am quite attached to Lulu; she has some very noble and lovable traits of character." "She has indeed," said his mother; "she is so free from the least taint of hypocrisy or deceit; so perfectly honest and truthful; so warm-hearted, too; so diligent and energetic in anything she undertakes to do--very painstaking and persevering--and a brave, womanly little thing." The captain's face brightened very much as he listened to these praises of his child. "I thank you heartily, mother and brother," he said; "for the child is very dear to her father's heart, and praise of her is sweet to my ear. I can see all these lovable traits, but feared that to other eyes than mine they might be entirely obscured by the very grave faults joined with them. But it is just like you both to look at the good rather than the evil. "And you have done so much for my children! I assure you I often think of it with the feeling that you have laid me under obligations which I can never repay." "Ah, captain," Elsie said, laughingly, "you have a fashion of making a great mountain out of a little mole-hill of kindness. Flattery is not good for human nature, you know, so I shall leave you and go back to papa, who has a wholesome way of telling me of my faults and failings." "I really don't know where he finds them," returned Captain Raymond, gallantly; but she was already out of hearing. "Nor I," said Violet, replying to his last remark; "mamma seems to me to be as nearly perfect as a human creature can be in this sinful world." "Now don't feel troubled about it, Ned," Zoe was saying to her husband, who was again at her side. "I think it was just right that she should be made to apologize to you, for she was dreadfully saucy." "Yes; but I provoked her, and I ought to be, and am, greatly ashamed of it. I fear, too, that in so doing I have brought a severe punishment upon her." "Why should you think so?" "Because I know that such a task could not fail to be exceedingly unpalatable to one of her temperament; and don't you remember how long she stood out against her father's authority last summer when he bade her ask Vi's pardon for impertinence to her?" "Yes; it took nearly a week of close confinement to make her do it; but as he showed himself so determined in that instance, she probably saw that it would be useless to attempt opposition to his will in this, and so obeyed without being compelled by punishment." "Well, I hope so," he said. "She surely ought to know by this time that he is not one to be trifled with." It seemed to Lulu a long time that she was left alone, shut up in the little bedroom of the cottage, though it was in reality scarcely more than half an hour. She was very glad when at last she heard her father's step in the outer room, then his voice as he opened the door and asked, "Would you like to take a walk with your papa, little girl?" "Yes indeed, papa!" was her joyful reply. "Then put on your hat and come." She made all haste to obey. "Is Gracie going too, papa? or anybody else?" she asked, putting her hand confidingly into his. "No; you and I are going alone this time; do you think you will find my company sufficient for once?" he asked, smiling down at her. "Oh yes, indeed, papa; I think it will be ever so nice to have you all to myself; it's so seldom I can." They took the path along the bluffs toward "Tom Never's Head." When they had fairly left the village behind, so that no one could overhear anything they might say to each other, the captain said, "I want to have a talk with you, daughter, and we may as well take it out here in the sweet fresh air, as shut up in the house." "Oh, yes, papa; it is so much pleasanter! I can hardly bear to stay in the house at all down here at the seashore; and it seemed a long while that you left me alone there this afternoon." "Yes, I suppose so: and I hope I shall not have occasion to do so again. My child, did you ever consider what it is that makes you so rebellious, so unwilling to submit to authority, and so ready to fly into a passion and speak insolently to your superiors?" "I don't quite understand you papa," she said. "I only know that I can't bear to have people try to rule me who have no right." "Sometimes you are not willing to be ruled even by your father; yet I hardly suppose you would say he has no right?" "Oh, no, papa; I know better than that," she said, blushing and hanging her head; "I know you have the best right in the world." "Yet sometimes you disobey me; at others obey in an angry, unwilling way that shows you would rebel if you dared. "And pride is at the bottom of it all. You think so highly of yourself and your own wisdom that you cannot bear to be controlled or treated as one not capable of guiding herself. "But the Bible tells us that God hates pride. 'Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord; though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.' "'Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.' "'Proud and haughty scorner is his name who dealeth in proud wrath.' "Ah, my dear daughter, I am sorely troubled when I reflect how often you deal in that. My great desire for you is that you may learn to rule your own spirit; that you may become meek and lowly in heart, patient and gentle like the Lord Jesus, 'who when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously.' Do you never feel any desire to be like Him?" "Yes, papa, sometimes; and I determine that I will; but the first thing I know I'm in a passion again; and I get so discouraged that I think I'll not try any more to be good; for I just can't." "It is Satan who puts that thought in your heart," the captain said, giving her a look of grave concern; "he knows that if he can persuade you to cease to fight against the evil that is in your nature he is sure to get possession of you at last. "He is a most malignant spirit, and his delight is in destroying souls. The Bible bids us, 'Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.' "We are all sinners by nature, and Satan, and many lesser evil spirits under him, are constantly seeking our destruction; therefore we have a warfare to wage if we would attain eternal life, and no one who refuses or neglects to fight this good fight of faith will ever reach heaven; nor will any one who attempts it without asking help from on high. "So if you give up trying to be good you and I will have a sad time; because it will be my duty to compel you to try. The Bible tells me, 'Withhold not correction from the child; for if thou beatest him with the rod he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.' "I must if possible deliver you from going to that awful place, and also from the dreadful calamities indulgence of a furious temper sometimes brings even in this life; even a woman has been known to commit murder while under the influence of unbridled rage; and I have known of one who lamed her own child for life in a fit of passion. "Sometimes people become deranged simply from the indulgence of their tempers. Do you think I should be a good and kind father if I allowed you to go on in a path that leads to such dreadful ends here and hereafter?" "No, sir," she said in an awed tone; "and I will try to control my temper." "I am glad to hear that resolve," he replied. "The Bible tells us, 'He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.'" They were silent for a little while, then hanging her head and blushing, "Papa," she asked, "what did you do with those notes you made me write?" "Sent them to those to whom they were addressed. And they were very kind, Lulu; much kinder than you deserved they should be; both your Grandma Elsie and your Uncle Edward expressed regret that you had been made to apologize, and spoke of you in affectionate terms." "I'm glad,'" she said with a sigh of relief; "and I don't mean ever to be at all impertinent to them again." "I trust you will not indeed," he said. "Papa, I think this is about where I was the other evening when I first noticed that the storm was coming." "A long way from home for a child of your age; especially alone and at night. You must not indulge your propensity for wandering to a distance from home by yourself. You are too young to understand the danger of it; too young to be a guide to yourself, and must therefore be content to be guided by older and wiser people. "You said, a while ago, 'I just can't be good;' did you mean to assert that you could not help being disobedient to me that evening?" She hung her head and colored deeply. "It was so pleasant to walk along looking at the beautiful, changing sea, papa," she said, "that I couldn't bear to stop, and wouldn't let myself think how far I was going." "Ah, just as I suspected; your could not was really would not; the difficulty all in your will. You must learn to conquer your will when it would take you in the wrong direction. "We will turn and go back now, as it is not far from tea-time." Lulu shrank from meeting the rest of their party, particularly Grandma Elsie and Edward; but they all treated her so kindly that she was soon at her ease among them again. CHAPTER X. "I am rapt, and cannot Cover the monstrous bulk of this ingratitude With any size of words." --_Shakespeare_. The next day they all set out soon after breakfast for a long drive, taking the direction of the camping-ground of the lads, where they called and greatly astonished Max with a sight of his father, whom he supposed to be far out on the ocean. The boy's delight fully equalled his surprise, and he was inclined to return immediately to 'Sconset; but the captain advised him to stay a little longer where he was; and he accordingly decided to do so; though regretting the loss of even an hour of the society of the father who was to him the best man in the world and the most gallant and capable officer of the navy; in short, the impersonation of all that was good, wise, and brave. The 'Sconset cottages had been engaged only until the first of September, but by that time our friends were so in love with life upon the island that learning of some cottages on the cliffs, a little north-west of Nantucket Town, which were just vacated and for rent, they engaged two of them and at once moved in. From their new abodes they had a fine view of the ocean on that side of the island, and from their porches could watch the swift-sailing yachts and other vessels passing to and fro. The bathing-ground was reached by a succession of stairways built in the face of the cliff. The surf was fine, and bathing less dangerous there than at 'Sconset. Those of them who were fond of the sport found it most enjoyable; but the captain took the children into the town almost every day for a lesson in swimming, where the still bathing made it easy for them. And now they took almost daily sails on the harbor, occasionally venturing out into the ocean itself; pleasant drives also; visiting the old windmill, the old graveyards, the soldiers' monument, and every place of interest in the vicinity. Besides these, there was a little trip to Martha's Vineyard, and several were taken to various points on the adjacent shores of the mainland. Much as they had enjoyed 'Sconset life, it now seemed very pleasant to be again where they could pay frequent visits to libraries and stores, go to church, and now and then attend a concert or lecture. And there was a good deal of quiet pleasure to be found in rambles about the streets and queer byways and lanes of the quaint old town, looking at its odd houses and gardens, and perhaps catching a glimpse of the life going on within. They gained an entrance to some; one day it was to the home of an old sea captain who had given up his former occupation and now wove baskets of various sizes and shapes, all very neat, strong and substantial. There was always something pleasant to do; sometimes it was to take the cars on the little three-mile railroad to Surfside and pass an hour or two there; again to visit the Athenaeum and examine its stores of curiosities and treasures, mostly of the sea; or to select a book from its library; or to spend an hour among the old china and antique furniture offered for sale to summer visitors. They were admitted to see the cast of the dauphin and bought photographs of it, as well as of many of the scenes in and about the town, with which to refresh their memories of the delightful old place when far away, or to show to friends who had never had the pleasure of a visit to its shores. Violet spent many an enjoyable hour in sketching, finding no lack of subjects worthy of her pencil; and those of the party who liked botany found curious and interesting specimens among the flora of the island. They had very delightful weather most of the time, but there was an occasional rainy day when their employments and amusements must be such as could be found within doors. But even these days, with the aid of fancy-work, and drawing materials, newspapers, magazines and books, conversation and games, were very far from dull and wearisome; often one read aloud while the others listened. One day Elsie brought out a story in manuscript. "I have been thinking," she said, "that this might interest you all as being a tale of actual occurrences during the time of the French Revolution; as we have been thinking and talking so much of that in connection with the story of the poor little dauphin." "What is it? and who is the author?" asked her father. "It is an historical story written by Betty's sister Molly," she answered. "For the benefit of the children I will make a few preparatory remarks," she added, lightly, and with a pleasant smile. * * * * * "While France was torn by those terrible Internal convulsions, it was also fighting the combined armies of other nations, particularly Austria and Prussia, who were moved against it from sympathy with the king, and a desire to reinstate him on his throne, and a sense of danger to themselves if the disorganizing principles of the revolutionists should spread into their territories. "Piedmont was involved in this conflict. Perhaps you remember that it is separated from Dauphiny, in France, by the Cottian Alps, and that among the valleys on the Piedmontese side dwell the Waldenses or Vaudois-evangelical Christians, who were for twelve hundred years persecuted by the Church of Rome. "Though their own sovereigns often joined in these persecutions, and the laws of the land were always far more oppressive to them than to their popish fellow-citizens, the Waldenses were ever loyal to king and country and were sure to be called upon for their defence in time of war. "In the spring of 1793--some three months after the beheading of King Louis XVI.--and while the poor queen, the dauphin and the princesses, his sister and aunt, still languished in their dreadful prisons--a French army was attempting to enter Piedmont from Dauphiny, which they could do only through the mountain-passes; and these all the able-bodied Waldenses and some Swiss troops, under the command of General Godin, a Swiss officer, were engaged in defending. "It is among the homes of the Waldenses, thus left defenceless against any plot their popish neighbors might hatch for their destruction, that the scene of this story is laid. "Now, papa, will you be so kind as to read it aloud?" she concluded, handing it to him. "With pleasure," he said, and all having gathered around to listen, he began. * * * * * "On a lovely morning in the middle of May, 1793, a young girl and a little lad might have been seen climbing the side of a mountain overlooking the beautiful Valley of Luserna. They were Lucia and Henri Vittoria, children of a brave Waldensian soldier then serving in the army of his king, against the French, with whom their country was at war. "Lucia had a sweet, innocent face, lighted up by a pair of large, soft, dark eyes, and was altogether very fair to look upon. Her lithe, slender figure bounded from rock to rock with movements as graceful and almost as swift as those of a young gazelle. "'Sister,' cried the lad half pantingly, 'how nimble and fleet of foot you are to-day! I can scarce keep pace with you.' "'Ah, Henri, it is because my heart is so light and glad!' she returned with a silvery laugh, pausing for an instant that he might overtake her. "'Yes,' he said, as he gained her side, 'the good news from my father and Pierre, and Rudolph Goneto--that they are well and yet unharmed by French sword or bullet--has filled all our hearts with joy. Is it not to carry these glad tidings to Rudolph's mother we take this early walk?' "'Yes; a most pleasant errand, Henri;' and the rose deepened on the maiden's cheek, already glowing with health and exercise. "They were now far above the valley, and another moment brought them to their destination--a broad ledge of rock on which stood a cottage with its grove of chestnut-trees, and a little patch of carefully cultivated ground. "Magdalen Goneto, the mother of Rudolph, a matron of placid countenance and sweet and gentle dignity of mien had seen their approach and come forth to meet them. "She embraced Lucia with grave tenderness, bestowed a kind caress upon Henri, and leading the way to her neat dwelling, seated them and herself upon its porch, from which there was a magnificent view of the whole extent of the valley. "To the left, and close at hand, lay San Giovanni, with its pretty villages, smiling vineyards, cornfields and verdant meadows sloping gently away to the waters of the Pelice. On the opposite side of the river, situate upon a slight eminence was the Roman Catholic town of Luserna. To the right, almost at their feet, embowered amid beautiful trees--chestnut, walnut, and mulberry--La Tour, the Waldensian capital and home of Lucia and Henri, nestled among its vineyards and orchards. "Farther up the vale might be seen Bobbi Villar, and many smaller villages scattered amid the fields and vineyards, or hanging on the slopes of the hills, while hamlets and single cottages clung here and there to the rugged mountain-side, wherever a terrace, a little basin or hollow afforded a spot susceptible of cultivation. Beyond all towered the Cottian Alps, that form the barrier between Piedmont and Dauphiny, their snowy pinnacles glittering in the rays of the newly risen sun. "It was thither the able-bodied men of the valley had gone to defend the passes against the French. "Toward those lofty mountains Lucia's soft eyes turned with wistful, questioning gaze; for there were father, brother, lover, hourly exposed to all the dangers of war. "Magdalen noted the look, and softly murmured, 'God, even the God of our fathers, cover their heads in the day of battle!' "'He will, I know He will,' said Lucia, turning to her friend with a bright, sweet smile. "'You bring me tidings, my child,' said Magdalen, taking the maiden's hand in hers, 'good tidings, for your face is full of gladness!' "'Yes, dear friend, your son is well,' Lucia answered with a modest, ingenuous blush; 'my father also, and Pierre; we had word from them only yesternight. But ah me!' she added with a sigh, 'what fearful scenes of blood and carnage are yet enacted in Paris, the gay French capital! for from thence also, the courier brought news. Blood, he says, flows like water, and not content with having taken the life of their king, they force the queen and the rest of the royal family to languish in prison; and the guillotine is constantly at work dispatching its wretched victims, whose only crime, in many instances, is that of wealth and noble birth.' "'Alas, poor wretches! alas poor king and queen!' cried Magdalen; 'and, for ourselves, what danger, should such bloodthirsty ruffians force an entrance into our valleys! The passes had needs be well guarded!' "Lucia lingered not long with her friend, for home duties claimed her attention. "Magdalen went with them to the brow of the hill, and again embracing Lucia, said in tender, joyous accents, 'Though we must now bid adieu, dear child, when the war is over you will come to brighten Rudolph's home and mine with your constant presence.' "'Yes; such was the pledge he won from me ere we parted,' the maiden answered with modest sincerity, a tender smile hovering about the full red lips and a vivid color suffusing for an instant the delicately rounded cheek. "Then with an affectionate good-by, she tripped away down the rocky path, Henri following. "A glad flush still lingered on the sweet, girlish face, a dewy light shone in the soft eyes. Her thoughts were full of Magdalen's parting words and the picture they had called up of the happy married life awaiting Rudolph and herself when he should return to the pursuits of peace. "And he at his post in those more distant mountains, thought of her and his mother; safe, as he fondly trusted, in the homes his strong arm was helping to defend against a foreign foe. The Vaudois, judging others by themselves, were, notwithstanding their many past experiences of the treacherous cruelty of Rome, strangely unsuspicious of their popish neighbors. "The descent was scarcely yet accomplished by our young friends, when startled by the sound of heavy footsteps and gruff voices in their rear, and casting a look behind them, they beheld, rapidly approaching by another path which wound about the base of the mountain, two men of most ruffianly aspect. "A wild terror seized upon the maiden as for an instant she caught the gaze of mingled malice and sensuality they bent upon her; and seizing Henri's hand, she flew over the ground toward La Tour with the fleetness of a hunted doe. "For herself what had she not to fear! and for the child that he might be slain or reserved for a fate esteemed by the Vaudois worse than death, in being carried off to Pignerol and brought up in an idolatrous faith. "The men pursued, calling to her with oaths, curses, obscene words, and jeering laughter. "These but quickened her flight; she gained the bridge over the Angrogna, sped across it, over the intervening ground, and through the gate into the town; the footsteps of her pursuers echoing close behind. "'Ah ha! escaped my embraces for the present, have you, my pretty barbet?' cried one of the miscreants, following her with gloating, cruel eyes as she sped onward up the street, feeling only comparatively safe even there. 'Ah well, it but delays my pleasure a few hours. I know where to find ye and shall pay my respects to-night.' "'And I,' added his companion with a fierce laugh; 'to ye and many another like ye. It's work quite to my taste Holy Mother Church has laid out for us to-night, Andrea.' "'Yes, yes, Giuseppe, we'll not quarrel with the work or the wages; all the plunder we can lay hands on; to say naught of the pretty maids such as yon, or the escape from the fires of purgatory.' "They were wending their way to the convent of the Récollets as they talked. Arrived at its gates they were immediately admitted, to find it filled with cut-throats such as themselves, and soon learned that the church also and the house of the curé were in like condition. "'Good!' they cried, 'how many names in all?' "'Seven hundred,' said one. "'Eight hundred,' asserted another. "'Well, well, be it which it may, we're strong enough for the work, all the able-bodied barbetti being on the frontier,' cried Andrea, exultingly, 'we'll make short shrift with the old men, women and children.' "'Yes; long live the holy Roman Church! Hurrah for the holy faith! Down with the barbetti!' cried a chorus of voices. 'We'll have a second St. Bartholomew in these valleys and rid them of the hated presence of the cursed heretics.' "'That we will,' responded Giuseppe. 'But what's the order of proceedings?' "'All the faithful to meet at Luserna at sunset; the vesper bell of the convent gives the signal shortly after, and we immediately spread ourselves over the valley on a heretic hunt that from San Giovanni to Bobbi shall leave not a soul alive to tell the tale.' "While Magdalen and Lucia conversed in the cottage of the former, M. Brianza, curé of Luserna, seated in the confessional, listened with horror and indignation to a tale of intended wholesale rapine, murder, and arson, which his penitent was unfolding. "'I will have neither part nor lot in this thing,' said the priest to himself, as he left the church a moment later; 'nay more, I shall warn the intended victims of their danger.' "Hurrying to his house, he instantly dispatched messengers in all haste to San Giovanni and La Tour. "About the same time, in the more remote town of Cavour, the fiendish plot was revealed to Captain Odetti, an officer of the Piedmontese militia, then enrolled to act against the French, with a request that he would take part in its execution. Being a rigid Romanist it was confidently expected that he would willingly do so. "But as noble and humane a man as Luserna's good curé, he listened with like horror and detestation, and mounting his horse, instantly set off for La Tour to warn the helpless folk of the threatened calamity, and assist in averting it, if that might yet be possible. "He travelled post haste, for time pressed; the appointed hour for the attack already drew so near that it was doubtful if even the most prompt action could still avail. "Pale and breathless with haste and terror, Lucia and Henri gained the shelter of their home, and in reply to the anxious questioning of mother and grandparents, told of the hot pursuit of the evil men who had chased them into the town. "Their story was heard with much concern, not only by the family, but also by a young man who had entered nearly at the same moment with themselves. "His right arm was in a sling; his face, thin and wan with suffering, wore an expression of anxiety and alarm which deepened momentarily as the narrative proceeded. "'How is Bianca?' he asked, upon its conclusion, the quiet tone telling nothing of the profound solicitude that filled his breast. "'Much the same,' returned Sara Vittoria, the mother. "'A little better, I think,' said a weak but cheerful voice from the next room. 'Maurice, how is your poor arm? come and tell me.' "He rose and complied with the request. "Bianca, the elder sister of Lucia, had been for a year or more the betrothed of Maurice Laborie. He found her lying pale and languid upon a couch. "'What is it, Maurice?' she asked, presently, noticing his troubled look. "'I wish you were well, Bianca.' "'Ah! I am more concerned about your wound.' "His thoughts seemed far away. He rose hastily. "'I must speak to your grandsire. I will be in again;' and he left the room. "Marc Rozel, the father of Sara Vittoria, a venerable, white-haired veteran who had seen his four-score years and ten, sat at the open door of the cottage, leaning upon his staff, his eyes fixed thoughtfully upon the towering heights of Mount Vandelin. "'"As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people from henceforth even forever,"' Maurice heard him murmur as he drew near. "There was comfort in the words, and the cloud of care partially lifted from the brow of the young Vaudois. But accosting the aged saint with deep respect, and bending down to speak close to his ear, he uttered a few rapid sentences in an undertone. "'There seems a threatening of danger, Father Rozel; evil-looking men, such as Lucia and the lad were but now describing, have been seen coming into the town for the last two or three days; till now, it is said, the Romish church, the convent of Récollets, the house of the curé, and several other Catholic houses are full of them. What errand think you draws them hither just at this time, when nearly every able-bodied Vaudois is absent on the frontier?' Rozel's face reflected somewhat of the agitation and alarm in that of Maurice; but ere he could open his lips to reply, a neighbor, a young woman with a child in her arms, came rushing across the street, and calling to them in tones tremulous with excitement and affright, told of the warning just brought by Brianza's messenger. "Her face was white with terror, and she clasped her infant to her breast with a look of agony, as she asked, 'Can it be, oh can it be that we are all to be slain in our helplessness? Something must be done, and that quickly. But what, alas! can we do? our husbands, brothers, fathers are all at a distance, and the fatal hour draws near.' "The tones of her voice and some of her words had reached the ears of those within the cottage, and they now gathered about her in an intensely excited, terrified group. Question and answer followed in rapid succession till each knew all that she had heard. "'Can it be possible?' cried Sara, 'can even popish cruelty, ingratitude, and treachery go so far? are not our brave defenders theirs also? keeping the passes against a common foe?' "A mournful shake of the head from her aged father was the only reply, save the sobs and cries of the frightened children. "But at that instant a horseman came dashing up the street, suddenly drew rein before their dwelling, and hastily dismounting, hurried toward them. "'Captain Odetti!' exclaimed Rozel in some surprise. "'Yes, Rozel, I come to warn you, though, alas! I fear I am too late to prevent bloodshed,' said the officer, sending a pitying glance from one to another of the terror-stricken group. "'There is a conspiracy against you; the assassins are even now on foot; but if I cannot save, I will perish with you. The honor of my religion is at stake, and I must justify it by sharing your danger.' "'Can it be that such designs are really entertained against us?' asked Rozel, in trembling tones, glancing from one loved face to another with a look of keenest anguish. 'On what pretext? I know of none.' "'The late base and cowardly surrender of Fort Mirabouc.' "'There was but one Vaudois present, and his voice was raised against it.' "'True, but what matters that to foes bent upon your destruction? some one was to blame, and why not make a scapegoat of the hated Vaudois? But let us not waste time in useless discussion. We must act.' "The fearful tidings flew from house to house, and in the wildest terror the feeble folk began to make what preparations they could for self-defence; by Odetti's advice barricading the streets and houses, collecting missiles to hurl down from the upper windows upon the heads of the assassins, and at the same time dispatching messenger after messenger to General Godin, the Swiss officer in command of the troops on the frontier, telling of the danger and praying for instant aid. "But he, alas! unable, in the nobility of his soul, to credit the existence of a plot so atrocious, turned a deaf ear to their entreaties, declaring his conviction that the alarm was groundless--a mere panic--and that his troops could not be spared to go on so useless an errand. "As one courier after another returned with this same disheartening report, the terror and despair were such as to beggar description. "Lucia Vittoria, recalling, with many a shudder of wild affright, the evil looks and fierce words and gestures of her pursuers of the morning, resolved to defend her own, her mother's, and sister's honor to the last gasp. "'The terrible excitement of the hour seemed to give her unnatural strength for her task of lifting and carrying stones and fragments of rock to be used in repelling the expected assault. Assisted by Henri and every member of the family capable of the exertion, she toiled unceasingly while anything yet remained to be done. "In the midst of their exertions Magdalen Goneto suddenly appeared among them. "'I have heard, and I come to live or die with you, dear friends,' she said, and fell to work with the others. "At length all was completed, and they could only await in dreadful suspense the coming of events. They had continued to importune the commandant, but with no better success than at first. "In the closed and barricaded dwellings hearts were going up to God in agonized prayer for help, for deliverance. "In that of the Vittorias few words were spoken save as now and again the voice of the aged Rozel or that of his venerable wife, his daughter, or Magdalen Goneto, broke the awful silence with some promise from the Book of books to those who trust in the Lord. "Maurice, whose father and brothers were away with the army, torn with anxiety for mother, sisters, and betrothed alike, persuaded the former to follow Magdalen's example in repairing to the house of the Vittorias, that such efforts as he was able to put forth in his crippled condition might be made in their common defence. "Freely would he shed the last drop of his blood to shield them from harm, but, alas! what match was he for even one of the horde of desperadoes that would soon be upon them? what could he do? how speedily would he be overpowered! Help _must_ be obtained. "He stole out through the garden to learn the latest news from the frontier. "The fourteenth courier had just returned in sadness; the commandant was still incredulous; still firm in his refusal to render aid. "'We are then given up to the sword of the assassin!' groaned his hearers. "'No, no, never! it must not be!' cried Maurice with sudden stern determination, though there was a quiver of pain in his voice; and sending a glance of mingled love and anguish toward the cottage that sheltered those dearer to him than life, he set off at a brisk pace up the valley. "Love moved him to the task, and spite of weakness and pain, never before had he trodden those steep and dangerous mountain paths with such celerity. "Arrived and admitted to Godin's presence, he poured out his petition with the vehemence of one who can take no denial, urging his suit with all the eloquence of intense anxiety and deep conviction of the terrible extremity of the feeble folk in the valley. "Doubt began to creep into the mind of the brave officer. 'Might there not be some truth in the story after all?' Yet he answered as before. 'A mere panic. I cannot believe in a plot so atrocious. What! murder in cold blood the innocent, helpless wives and children of the brave men who are defending theirs from a common foe? No, no; human nature is not so depraved!'" "'So it was thought on the eve of the Sicilian Vespers; on the eve of St. Bartholomew; at the time when Castracaro, when De La Trinite, when Pianeza--' "'Ah,' interrupted the general with a frown, 'but those were deeds of days long gone by, and men are not now what they then were.' "'Sir,' returned Maurice earnestly, 'for twelve hundred years the she-wolf of Rome has ravaged our fold, slaying sheep and lambs alike--sparing neither age nor sex; and, sir, it is her boast that she never changes. "'Nor are men incapable of the grossest injustice and cruelty even in these days. Look at the fearful scenes of blood enacted even now in France! General, the lives of thousands of his majesty's evangelical subjects are trembling in the balance, and I do most solemnly assure you that unless saved by your speedy interposition, or a direct miracle from Heaven, they will this night fall victims to a sanguinary plot. "'Ah, sir, what more can I say to convince, to move you? The assassins are already assembling, the time wanes fast, and will you stretch forth no hand to save their innocent, helpless victims?' "The general was evidently moved by the appeal. 'Had I but sufficient proof,' he muttered in an undertone of doubt and perplexity. "Maurice caught eagerly at the word. 'Proof, general! would Odetti, would Brianza have warned us, were the danger not imminent? And do not the annals of your own Switzerland furnish examples of similar plots?' "'True, too true! yet--' "But at this moment the sixteenth courier came panting up to pour out, in an agony of haste and fear, the same tale of contemplated wholesale massacre, and the story reaching the ears of the Vaudois troops they gathered about the general, imploring, _demanding_ to be sent instantly to the aid of their menaced wives and children. "General Godin's mind had been filled with conflicting emotions while Maurice spoke; his humanity, his honor as a soldier, his duty to the government, were struggling for the mastery. "'Ought he to march without orders or even the knowledge of his superiors? and that too with no more certain proof of the illegal assembling of those who were said to be plotting against the peace and safety of the Vaudois families?' "Yet there was no time to reconnoitre ere the dire mischief might be done. His humanity at last prevailed over more prudential considerations. He commanded the brigade of Waldenses to march instantly, and himself followed with another division. "Bianca Vittoria had been carried to an upper room, where all the family were now gathered about her bed. "With unutterable anguish the mother looked upon her two lovely daughters in the early bloom of womanhood, the babe sleeping upon her breast, the little ones clinging to her skirts, her aged and infirm parents, all apparently doomed to a speedy, violent death--and worse than death. Her own danger was well-nigh forgotten in theirs. "Utter silence reigned in that room and the adjoining one, at this time occupied by Magdalen and the mother and sisters of Maurice; every ear was strained to catch the sound of the approaching footsteps of the assassins, or of the longed-for deliverers; a very short season would now decide their fate. Oh, would help never come! "Lucia, kneeling beside her sister's couch, clasping one thin, white hand in hers, suddenly dropped it and sprang to her feet. "'How fast it grows dark! and what was that?' as a heavy, rolling sound reverberated among the mountains; 'artillery?' and her tones grew wild with terror. "'Thunder; the heavens are black with clouds,' said Magdalen, coming in and speaking with the calmness of despair. "A heavy clap nearly drowned her words, then followed crash on crash; the rain came down in torrents--the wind, which had suddenly risen to almost a hurricane, dashing it with fury against walls and windows; the darkness became intense except as ever and anon the lurid glare of the lightning lit up the scene for an instant, giving to each a momentary glimpse of the pale, terror-stricken faces of the others. "'Alas, alas, no help can reach us now!' moaned Sara, clasping her babe closer to her breast, 'no troops can march over our fearful mountain-passes in this terrific storm and thick darkness. _We must die_!' "'Oh, God of our fathers, save us! let us not fall into the hands of those ruffians, who--more to be feared than the wild beasts of the forest--would rob us of honor and of life!' cried Lucia, falling upon her knees again, and lifting hands and eyes to heaven. "'Amen!' responded the trembling voice of Rozel. 'Lord, Thine hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither Thine ear heavy that it cannot hear!' "The scenes that followed what pen may portray! the wild anguish of some expressed in incoherent words, shrieks of terror, and cries for help, as they seemed to hear amid the roar of the elements the hurried footsteps of the assassins, and to see in the lightning's flash the glitter of their steel; the mute agony of others as in the calmness of despair they crouched helplessly together awaiting the coming blow. * * * * * "Meanwhile the fathers, husbands, sons, brothers were hastening homeward, their brave hearts torn with anguish at thought of the impossibility of arriving before the hour set for the murderers to begin their fiendish work. "There was no regular order of march, but each rushed onward at his utmost speed, praying aloud to God for help to increase it, and calling frantically to his fellows to 'hasten, _hasten_ to the rescue of all they held most dear.' "Alas for their hopes! the shades of evening were already falling, and the storm presently came on in terrific violence, the darkness, the blinding momentary glare of the lightning, the crashing thunder peals, the driving, pouring rain and fierce wind greatly increasing the difficulties and perils of their advance. God Himself seemed to be against them. "But urged on by fear and love for their helpless ones, and by parties of distracted women and children sent forward from La Tour--some of whom, in their terror and despair, asserted that the work of blood had already begun--they pressed onward without a moment's pause, springing from rock to rock, sliding down precipices, scaling giddy heights, leaping chasms which at another time they would not have dared to attempt, and tearing through the rushing, roaring mountain torrents already greatly swollen by the rain. "They reached the last of these, and dashing through it, were presently in sight of La Tour, when the tolling of the vesper bell of the convent of the Récollets--the preconcerted signal for the assassins to sally forth--smote upon their ears. "'Too late! too late!' cried Rudolph Goneto hoarsely. "'But if too late to save, we will avenge!' responded a chorus of deep voices, as with frantic haste they sped over the intervening space. "The next moment the tramp of their feet and the clang of their arms were heard in the streets of the town. Windows and doors flew open and with cries and tears of joy and thankfulness, wives, children, and aged parents gathered about them almost smothering them with caresses. "The storm, which had seemed to seal their doom, had proved their salvation--preventing some of the murderers from reaching the rendezvous in season, and so terrifying the others that they dared not attempt the deed alone; especially as it had already begun to be rumored that troops were on the march to the threatened valley. "Rudolph found himself encircled by his mother's arms, her kisses and tears warm upon his cheek. "He held her close, both hearts too full for speech. Then a single word fell from the soldier's lips, 'Lucia?' "'Safe.' "Darting into the house, guided by some subtle instinct, he stood the next moment in the upper room where she knelt by her sister's couch, the two mingling their tears and thanksgivings together. "All was darkness, but at sound of the well-known step Lucia sprang up with a cry of joy. 'Saved!' "Rudolph's emotions, as he held her to his heart, were too big for utterance. "Some one entered with a light. It was Magdalen, and behind her came Maurice, pale, haggard, and dripping with rain. "Bianca's heart gave a joyous bound. He too was safe. "But a tumult of voices from below--some stern, angry, threatening, others sullen, dogged, defiant, or craven with abject terror--attracted their attention. "Magdalen set down the light and hurried away in the direction of the sounds, Rudolph and Lucia following. "A number of the Waldenses, sword in hand, and eyes flashing with righteous indignation, were gathered about two of the would-be assassins, caught by them almost on the threshold of the cottage. "Their errand who could doubt? and Henri had recognized them as his and Lucia's pursuers of the morning. "She too knew them instantly, and clung pale with affright to Rudolph's arm, while he could scarce restrain himself from rushing upon, and running them through with his sword. "'Spare us, sirs,' entreated Andrea, quaking with fear under the wrathful glance of the father of the maidens, 'spare us; we have not harmed you or yours.' "'Nor plotted their destruction? Miserable wretch, ask not your life upon the plea that it is not forfeit. Can I doubt what would have been the fate of my wife and daughters had they fallen into your hands?' "'But your religion teaches you to forgive.' "'True; yet also to protect the helpless ones committed to my care.' "'We will leave your valleys this hour; never to set foot in them again.' "'Ah! yet how far may we trust the word of one whose creed bids him keep no faith with heretics?' "'" Vengeance is Mine, I will repay."' "It was the voice of the aged Rozel which broke the momentary silence. "Vittoria sheathed his sword. Not his to usurp the prerogative of Him who had that night given so signal deliverance to His 'Israel of the Alps.'" "Is that all?" asked Lulu, drawing a long breath, as Mr. Dinsmore refolded the manuscript and gave it back to his daughter. "Yes," he said, "the author has told of the deliverance of the imperilled ones, and that Vittoria refrained from taking vengeance upon their cowardly foes; and so ends the story of that night of terror in the valleys." "But were all the Waldenses equally forbearing, grandpa?" asked Zoe. "They were; in all the valleys not a drop of blood was shed; justly exasperated though the Waldenses were, they contented themselves with sending to the government a list of the names of the baffled conspirators. "But no notice was taken of it; the would-be murderers were never called to account till they appeared before a greater than an earthly tribunal. "But General Godin was presently superseded in his command and shortly after dismissed the service. Two plain indications that the sympathy of the government was with the assassins and not at all with their intended victims." "But is it true, sir?" asked Max. "Yes; it is true that at that time, in those valleys, and under those circumstances, such a plot was hatched and its carrying out prevented in the exact way that this story relates." "Mean, cowardly, wicked fellows they must have been to want to murder the wives and children and burn and plunder the houses of the men that were defending them and theirs from a common enemy!" exclaimed the boy, his face flushing and eyes flashing with righteous indignation. "Very true; but such are the lessons popery teaches and always has taught; 'no faith with heretics,' no mercy to any who deny her dogmas; and that anything is right and commendable which is done to destroy those who do not acknowledge her authority and to increase her power; one of her doctrines being that the end sanctifies the means!" "But what did they mean when they said they were going to have a second St. Bartholomew in the valleys?" asked Grace. "Did you never hear of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, daughter?" her father asked, stroking her hair caressingly as she sat upon his knee. "No, papa; won't you tell me about it?" "It occurred in France a little more than three hundred years ago; it was a dreadful massacre of the Protestants to the number of from sixty to a hundred thousand; and it was begun on the night of the twenty-third of August; which the Papists call St. Bartholomew's Day. "The Protestants were shot, stabbed, murdered in various ways, in their beds, in the street, any where that they could be found; and for no crime but being Protestants." "And popery would do the very same now and here, had she the power," commented Mr. Dinsmore, "for it is her proudest boast that she never changes. She teaches her own infallibility; and what she has done she will do again if she can." "What is infallibility, papa?" asked Grace. "To be infallible is to be incapable of error or of making mistakes," he answered. "So popery teaching that she has never done wrong or made a mistake justifies all the horrible cruelties she practised in former times; and, in fact, she occasionally tells us, through some of her bolder or less wary followers, that what she has done she will do again as soon as she attains the power." "Which she never will in this free land," exclaimed Edward. "Never, provided Columbia's sons are faithful to their trust; remembering that 'eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,'" responded his grandfather. Grace was clinging tightly to her father, and her little face was pale and wore a look of fright. "What is it, darling?" he asked. "O papa, will they come here some time and kill us?" she asked, tremulously. "Do not be frightened, my dear little one," he said, holding her close; "you are in no danger from them." "I don't believe all Roman Catholics would have Protestants persecuted if they could," remarked Betty. "Do you, uncle?" "No; I think there are some truly Christian people among them," he answered; "some who have not yet heard and heeded the call, 'Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.' We were talking, not of Papists, but of Popery. Sincere hatred of the system is not incompatible with sincere love to its deluded followers." CHAPTER XI. "My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up."--_Psalm_ 5:3. It was early morning; Captain Raymond was pacing to and fro along the top of the cliffs, now sending a glance seaward, and now toward the door of the cottage which was his temporary home, as if expecting a companion in his ramble. Presently the door opened and Lulu stepped out upon the porch. One eager look showed her father, and she bounded with joyful step to meet him. "Good-morning, my dear papa," she cried, holding up her face for a kiss, which he gave with hearty affection. "Good-morning, my dear little early bird," he responded. "Come, I will help you down the steps and we will pace the sands at the water's edge." This was Lulu's time for having her father to herself, as she phrased it. He was sure to be out at this early hour, if the weather would permit, and she almost equally sure to join him: and as the others liked to lie a little longer in bed, there was seldom any one to share his society with her. He led her down the long flights of stairs and across the level expanse of sand, close to where the booming waves dashed up their spray. For some moments the two stood hand in hand silently gazing upon sea and sky, bright with the morning sunlight; then they turned and paced the beach for a time, and then the captain led his little girl to a seat in the porch of a bathing-house, from which they could still look far out over the sea. "Papa," she said, nestling close to his side, "I am very fond of being down here all alone with you." "Are you, daughter?" he said, bending down to caress her hair and cheek. "Well, I dearly love to have my little girl by my side. How long have you been up?" "I can't tell exactly; because, you know, papa, there is no time-piece in my room. But I wasn't long dressing; for I didn't want to lose a minute of the time I might have out here with you." "Did you do nothing but put on your clothes after leaving your bed?" he asked, gravely. "I washed my hands and face and smoothed my hair." "And was that all?" She glanced up at him in surprise at the deep gravity of his tone; then suddenly comprehending what his questioning meant, hung her head, while her cheek flushed hotly. "Yes, papa," she replied, in a low, abashed tone. "I am very, very sorry to hear it," he said. "If my little girl begins the day without a prayer to God for help to do right, without thanking Him for His kind care over her while she slept, she can hardly expect to escape sins and sorrows which will make it anything but a happy day." "Papa, I do 'most always say my prayers in the morning and at night; but I didn't feel like doing it this time. Do you think people ought to pray when they don't feel like it?" "Yes; I think that is the very time when they most need to pray; they need to ask God to take away the hardness of their hearts; the evil in them that is hiding His love and their own needs; so that they have no gratitude to express for all His great goodness and mercy to them, no petitions to offer up for strength to resist temptation and to walk steadily in His ways; no desire to confess their sins and plead for pardon for Jesus' sake. Ah! that is certainly the time when we have most urgent need to pray. "Jesus taught that men (and in the Bible men stand for the whole human race) 'ought always to pray and not to faint.' And we are commanded to pray without ceasing." "Papa, how can we do that?" she asked. "You know we have to be doing other things sometimes." "It does not mean that we are to be always on our knees," he said; "but that we are to live so near to God, so loving Him, and so feeling our constant dependence upon Him, that our hearts will be very often going up to His throne in silent petition, praise or confession. "And if we live in such union with Him we will highly prize the privilege of drawing especially near to Him at certain seasons; we will be glad to be alone with Him often, and will not forget or neglect to retire to our closets night and morning for a little season of close communion with our best and dearest Friend. "You say you love to be alone with me, your earthly father; I trust the time will come when you will love far better to be alone with your heavenly Father. I must often be far away from you, but He is ever near; I may be powerless to help you, though close at your side, but He is almighty to save, to provide for, and to defend; and He never turns a deaf ear to the cry of His children." "Yes, papa; but oh I wish that you were always near me too," she said, leaning her cheek affectionately against his arm. "I am very, very sorry that ever I have been a trouble to you and spoiled your enjoyment of your visits home." "I know you are, daughter; but you have been very good of late. I have rejoiced to see that you were really trying to rule your own spirit. So far as I know, you have been entirely and cheerfully obedient to me, and have not indulged in a single fit of passion or sullenness." "Yes, papa; but I have been nearly in a passion two or three times; but you gave me a look just in time to help me to resist it. But when you are gone I shall not have that help." "Then, my child, you must remember that your heavenly Father is looking at you; that He bids you fight against the evil of your nature, and if you seek it of Him, will give you strength to overcome. Here is a text for you; I want you to remember it constantly; and to that end repeat it often to yourself, 'Thou, God, seest me.' "And do not forget that He sees not only the outward conduct but the inmost thoughts and feelings of the heart." A boy's glad shout and merry whistle mingled pleasantly with the sound of the dashing of the waves, and Max came bounding over the sands toward their sheltered nook. "Good-morning, papa," he cried. "You too, Lulu. Ahead of me as usual, I see!" "Yes," the captain said, reaching out a hand to grasp the lad's and gazing with fatherly affection and pride into the handsome young face glowing with health and happiness, "she is the earliest young bird in the family nest. However, she seeks her roost earlier than her brother does his." "Yes; and I am not so very late, am I, sir?" "No, my boy, I do not suppose you have taken any more sleep than you need for your health and growth; and I certainly would not have you do with less." "I know you wouldn't, papa; such a good, kind father as you are," responded Max. "I wouldn't swap fathers with any other boy," he added, with a look of mingled fun and affection. "Nor would I exchange my son for any other; not even a better one," returned the captain laughingly, tightening his clasp of the sturdy brown hand he held. "I haven't heard yet the story of yesterday's success in boating and fishing; come sit down here by my side and let me have it." Max obeyed, nothing loath, for he was becoming quite expert in both, and always found in his father an interested listener to the story of his exploits. He and the other lads had returned from their camping at the time of the removal of the family party from 'Sconset to Nantucket Town. On the conclusion of his narrative the captain pronounced it breakfast time, and they returned to the house. After breakfast, as nearly the whole party were gathered upon the porch, discussing the question what should be the amusements of the day, a near neighbor with whom they had some acquaintance, ran in to ask if they would join a company who were going over to Shimmo to have a clam-bake. "The name of the place is new to me," remarked Mr. Dinsmore. "Is it a town, Mrs. Atwood?" "Oh, no," replied the lady, "there is only one dwelling; a farmhouse with its barns and other out-houses comprises the whole place. It is on the shore of the harbor some miles beyond Nantucket Town. It is a pleasant spot, and I think we shall have an enjoyable time; particularly if I can persuade you all to go." "A regular New England clam-bake!" said Elsie, "I should really like to attend one, and am much obliged for your invitation, Mrs. Atwood; as we all are, I am sure." No one felt disposed to decline the invitation, and it was soon settled that all would go. The clam-bake was to occupy only the afternoon; so they would have time to make all necessary arrangements, and for the customary surf and still baths. Mrs. Atwood had risen to take leave. "Ah," she said, "I was near forgetting something I meant to say: we never dress for these expeditions, but, on the contrary, wear the oldest and shabbiest dresses we have; considering them altogether the most suitable to the occasion, as then we need not be troubled if they should be wet with spray or soiled by contact with seaweed, grass, or anything else." "A very sensible custom," Mrs. Dinsmore responded, "and one which we shall all probably follow." Mrs. Atwood had hardly reached the gate when Lulu, turning to her father with a very discontented face, exclaimed, "I don't want to wear a shabby old dress! Must I, papa?" "You will wear whatever your Grandma Elsie or mamma directs," he answered, giving her a warning look. Then motioning her to come close to his side, he whispered in her ear, "I see that you are inclined to be ill-tempered and rebellious again, as I feared you would, when I learned that you had begun the day without a prayer for help to do and feel right. Go, now, to your room and ask it." "You needn't fret, Lu; you don't own a dress that any little girl ought to feel ashamed to wear," remarked Betty, as the child turned to obey. "And we are all going to wear the very worst we have here with us, I presume," added Zoe; "at least such is my intention." "Provided your husband approves," whispered Edward sportively. "Anyhow," she answered, drawing herself up in pretended offence; "can't a woman do as she pleases even in such trifles?" "Ah I but it is the privileges of a child-wife which are under discussion now," "Now, sir, after that you shall just have the trouble of telling me what to wear," said Zoe, rising from the couch where they had been sitting side by side; "come along and choose." Lulu was in the room where she slept, obeying her father's order so far as outward actions went; but there was little more than lip-service in the prayer she offered, for her thoughts were wandering upon the subject of dress, and ways and means for obtaining permission to wear what she wished that afternoon. By the time she had finished "saying her prayers," she had also reached a conclusion as to her best plan for securing the desired privilege. Grandma Elsie was so very kind and gentle that there seemed more hope of moving her than any one else; so to her she went, and, delighted to find her comparatively alone, no one being near enough to overhear a low-toned conversation, began at once: "Grandma Elsie, I want to wear a white dress to the clam-bake; and I think it would be suitable, because the weather is very warm, and white will wash, so that it would not matter if I did get it soiled." "My dear child, it is your father's place to decide what concerns his children, when he is with them," Elsie said, drawing the little girl to her and smoothing her hair with soft, caressing touch. "Yes, ma'am; but he says you and Mamma Vi are to decide this. So if you will only say I may wear the white dress, he will let me. Won't you, please?" "If your father is satisfied with your choice I shall certainly raise no objection; nor will your mamma, I am quite sure." "Oh, thank you, ma'am!" and Lulu ran off gleefully in search of her father. She found him on the veranda, busied with the morning paper, and to her satisfaction, he too was alone. "What is it, daughter?" he asked, glancing from his paper to her animated, eager face. "About what I am to wear this afternoon, papa. I would like to wear the white dress I had on yesterday evening, and Grandma Elsie does not object, and says she knows Mamma Vi will not, if you say I may." "Did she say she thought it a suitable dress?" he asked gravely. Lulu hung her head. "No, sir; she didn't say that she did or she didn't." "Go and ask her the question." Lulu went back and asked it. "No, my child, I do not," Elsie answered. "It is very unlikely that any one else will be in white or anything at all dressy, and you will look overdressed, which is in very bad taste; besides, though the weather seems warm enough for such thin material here on shore, it will be a great deal cooler on the water; and should the waves or spray come dashing over us, you would find your dress clinging to you like a wet rag--neither beauty nor comfort in it." "I could wear a waterproof over it while we are sailing," said Lulu. "Even that might not prove a perfect protection," Elsie replied. "I think, my dear, you will do well to content yourself to wear your travelling dress, which is of a light woollen material, neat without being too dressy, and of a color that will not show every little soil. And it is as good and handsome as the dress I shall wear or as Rosie, and probably any one else, will have on." "But you can choose for yourself, Grandma Elsie, and I wish I could." "That is one of the privileges of older years," Elsie answered pleasantly. "I was considerably older than you are before I was allowed to select my own attire. But I repeat that I shall not raise the slightest objection to your wearing anything your father is willing to see on you." Lulu's hopes were almost gone, but she would make one more effort. She went to her father, and putting her arms round his neck, begged in her most coaxing tones for the gratification of her wish. "What did your Grandma Elsie say?" he asked. Lulu faithfully, though with no little reluctance, repeated every word Elsie had said to her on the subject. "I entirely agree with her," said the captain; "so entirely that even had she found no objection to urge against it, I should have forbidden you to wear the dress." Lulu heard him with a clouded brow; in fact, the expression of her face was decidedly sullen. Her father observed it with sorrow and concern. "Sit down here till I am ready to talk to you," he said, indicating a chair close at his side. Lulu obeyed, sitting quietly there while he finished his paper. Throwing it aside at length, he took her hand and drew her in between his knees, putting an arm about her waist. "My little daughter," he said, in his usual kind tone, "I am afraid you care too much for dress and finery. What I desire for you is that you may 'be clothed with humility,' and have 'the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is, in the sight of God, of great price.'" "I never can have that, papa, for it isn't a bit like me," she said, with a sort of despairing impatience and disgust at herself. "No, that is too true; it is not like you as you are by nature--the evil nature inherited from me; but God is able to change that, to give you a clean heart and renew within you a right spirit. Jesus is a Saviour from sin (He saves none in their sins), and He is able to save to the uttermost, able to take away the very last remains of the old corrupt nature with which we were born. "Oh, my child, seek His help to fight against it and to overcome! It grieves me more than I can express to see you again showing an unlovely, wilful temper." "Oh, papa, don't be grieved," she said, throwing her arms round his neck and pressing her lips to his cheek. "I will be good and wear whatever I'm told; look pleasant about it too, for indeed I do love you too well to want to grieve you and spoil your pleasure." "Ah, that is my own dear little girl," he answered, returning her caresses. The sullen expression had vanished from her face and it wore its brightest look, yet it clouded again the next moment, but with sorrow, not anger, as she sighed, "Oh! if you were always with us, papa, I think I might grow good at last; but I need your help so much, and you are gone more than half the time." "Your heavenly Father is never gone, daughter, and will never turn a deaf ear to a cry for strength to resist temptation to sin. He says, 'In me is thine help.' "And we are told, 'God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.'" In the mean time Mrs. Dinsmore, who from choice took most of the housekeeping cares, was ordering an early dinner and various baskets of provisions for the picnic. As the family sat down to the table, these last were being conveyed on board a yacht lying at the little pier near the bathing-place below the cliffs; and almost immediately upon finishing their meal, all, old and young, trooped down the stairways, across the sandy beach, and were themselves soon aboard the vessel. Others of the company were already seated in it, and the rest following a few minutes later, and the last basket of provisions being safely stowed away in some safe corner of the craft, they set sail, dragging at their stern a dory in which was a large quantity of clams in the shell. It was a bright day, and a favorable breeze sent the yacht skimming over the water at an exhilarating rate of speed. All hearts seemed light, every face was bright, not excepting Lulu's, though she was attired in the plain colored dress recommended by Grandma Elsie. There was no greater display of finery than a knot of bright ribbon, on the part of even the gayest young girl present. Betty wore a black bunting--one of her school dresses--with a cardinal ribbon at the throat; Zoe the brown woollen that had for her such mingled associations of pain and pleasure, and looked wonderfully sweet and pretty in it, Edward thought. They sat side by side, and Betty, watching them furtively, said to herself, "They are for all the world just like a pair of lovers yet, though they have been married over a year." Then turning her attention first to Violet and Captain Raymond, then upon her Aunt and Uncle Dinsmore, she came to the same conclusion in regard to them also. "And it was just so with cousin Elsie and her husband," she mused. "I can remember how devoted they were to each other. But she seems very happy now, and she well may be, with father, sons and daughters all so devoted to her. And she's so rich too; never has to consider how to make one dollar do the work of two; a problem I am so often called upon to solve. In fact, it is to her and uncle, Bob and I owe our education, and pretty much everything we have. "I don't envy her her money, but I do the love that has surrounded her all her life. She never knew her own mother, to be sure, but her father petted and fondled her as a child, and was father and mother both to her, I've often heard her say; while mine died before I was born, and mother lost her reason when I was a little thing." But Betty was not much given to melancholy musing, or indeed to musing of any kind; a passing sail presently attracted her attention and turned her thoughts into a new channel. And soon, the wind and tide being favorable, the yacht drew near her destination. There was no wharf, but the passengers were taken to the shore, a few at a time, in the dory. It also landed provision baskets and the clams. Those ladies and gentlemen to whom clam-bakes were a new experience watched with interest the process of cooking the bivalves. A pit of suitable size for the quantity to be prepared was made in the sand, the bottom covered with stones; it was then heated by a fire kindled in it, the brands were removed, seaweed spread over the stones, the clams poured in, abundance of seaweed piled over and about them, a piece of an old sail put over that, and they were left to bake or steam, while another fire was kindled near by, and a large tin bucket, filled with water, set on it to boil for making coffee. While some busied themselves with these culinary operations, others repaired to the dwelling, which stood some little distance back from the beach, the ground sloping gently away from it to the water's edge. The lady of the house met them at the door, and hospitably invited them to come in and rest themselves in her parlor, or sit on the porch; and understanding their errand to the locality, not only gave ready permission for their table to be spread in the shade of her house, but offered to lend anything they might require in the way of utensils. Accepting her offer, they set to work, the men making a rough sort of impromptu table with some boards, and the ladies spreading upon it the contents of the provision baskets. Mrs. Dinsmore, Elsie and the younger ladies of their party, offered to assist in these labors, but were told that they were considered guests, and must be content to look on or wander about and amuse themselves. There was not much to be seen but grassy slopes destitute of tree or shrub, and the harbor and open sea beyond. They seated themselves upon the porch of the dwelling-house, while Captain Raymond and the younger members of their family party wandered here and there about the place. There seemed to be some sport going on among the cooks--those engaged in preparing the coffee. Lulu hurried toward them to see what it was about, then came running back to her father, who stood a little farther up the slope, with Grace clinging to his hand. "Oh!" she said with a face of disgust, "I don't mean to drink any of that coffee; why, would you believe it, they stirred it with a poker?" "Did they?" laughed the captain; "they might have done worse. I presume that was used for lack of a long enough spoon. We must not be too particular on such occasions as this." "But you won't drink any of it, will you, papa?" "I think it altogether likely I shall." "Why, papa! coffee that was stirred with a dirty poker?" "We will suppose the poker was not very dirty," he said, with a good-humored smile; "probably there was nothing worse on it than a little ashes, which, diffused through so large a quantity of liquid, could harm no one." "Must I drink it if they offer me a cup?" "No; there need be no compulsion about it; indeed, I think it better for a child of your age not to take coffee at all." "But you never said I shouldn't, papa." "No; because you had formed the habit in my absence, and, as I am not sure that it is a positive injury to you, I have felt loath to deprive you of the pleasure." "You are so kind, papa," she said, slipping her hand into his and looking up affectionately into his face. "But I will give up coffee if you want me to. I like it, but I can do without it." "I think milk is far more wholesome for you," he said, with a smile of pleased approval. "I should like you to make that your ordinary beverage at meals, but I do not forbid an occasional cup of coffee." "Thank you, papa," she returned. "Grandma Elsie once told me that when she was a little girl her father wouldn't allow her to drink coffee at all, or to eat any kind of hot cakes or rich sweet cake; and oh I don't know how many things that she liked he wouldn't let her have. I don't think he was half as nice a father as ours; do you, Gracie?" "'Course I don't, Lu; I just think we've got the very best in the whole world," responded Grace, laying her cheek affectionately against the hand that held hers in its strong, loving clasp. "That is only because he is your own, my darlings," the captain said, smiling down tenderly upon them. A lady had drawn near, and now said, "Supper is ready, Captain Raymond; will you bring your little girls and come to the table?" "Thank you; we will do so with pleasure," he said, following her as she led the way. The table, covered with a snow-white cloth and heaped with tempting viands, presented a very attractive appearance. The clams were brought on after the most of the company were seated, with their coffee and bread and butter before them. They were served hot from the fire and the shell, in neat paper trays, and eaten with melted butter. Eaten thus they make a dish fit for a king. By the time that all appetites were satisfied, the sun was near his setting, and it was thought best to return without delay. On repairing to the beach, they found the tide so low that even the dory could not come close to dry land; so the ladies and children were carried through the water to the yacht. This gave occasion for some merriment. "You must carry me, Ned, if I've got to be carried," said Zoe; "I'm not going to let anybody else do it." "No; nor am I," he returned, gayly, picking her up and striding forward. "I claim it as my especial privilege." Mr. Dinsmore followed with his wife, then Captain Raymond with his. "Get in, Mr. Dinsmore," said the captain, as they deposited their burdens; "there is no occasion for further exertion on your part; I'll bring mother." "No, sir," said Edward, hurrying shoreward again, "that's my task; you have your children to take care of." "Your mother is my child, Ned, and I think I shall take care of her," Mr. Dinsmore said, hastening back to the little crowd still at the water's edge. "We will have to let her decide which of us shall have the honor," said the captain. "That I won't," Mr. Dinsmore said, laughingly, stepping to his daughter's side and taking her in his arms. "Now, you two may take care of the younger ones," he added, with a triumphant glance at his two rivals. "Ah, Ned, we are completely outwitted," laughed the captain. "Yes; with grandpa about one can't get half a chance to wait upon mother. Betty, shall I have the honor and pleasure of conveying you aboard of yonder vessel?" "Yes, thank you; I see Harold and Herbert are taking Rosie and Walter," she said. "But I warn you that I am a good deal heavier than Zoe." "Nevertheless, I think my strength will prove equal to the exertion," he returned, as he lifted her from the ground. Lulu and Grace stood together, hand in hand, Max on Gracie's other side. "Take Gracie first, please, papa," said Lulu; "she is frightened, I believe." "Frightened?" he said, stooping to take her in his arms; "there is nothing to be afraid of, darling. Do you think papa would leave you behind or drop you into the water?" "No; I know you wouldn't," she said, with a little nervous laugh, and clinging tightly about his neck. "Mayn't I wade out, papa?" Max called after him. "Yes; but stay with your sister till I come for her." "Where's my baby, Levis?" asked Violet, laughingly, as he set Grace down by her side. "The baby! Sure enough, where is it?" he exclaimed, with an anxious glance toward the shore. "Ah, there stands the nurse with it in her arms. You shall have it in yours in a moment." "Here's the baby, papa; please take her first; I don't mind waiting," said Lulu, as he stepped ashore again. He gave her a pleased, approving look. "That is right; it will be but a minute or two," he said, as he took the babe and turned away with it. In a few minutes more, all the passengers were aboard, and they set sail; but they had not gone far when it became evident that something was amiss; they were making no progress. "What is the matter?" asked several voices, and Violet looked inquiringly at her husband. "There is no cause for apprehension," he said; "we are aground, and may possibly have to wait here for the turn of the tide; that's all." "It's the lowest tide I ever saw," remarked the captain of the yacht; "we'll have to lighten her; if some of the heaviest of you will get into the dory, it will help." Quite a number immediately volunteered to do so, among them Edward and Zoe, Bob and Betty, Harold and Herbert. The dory was speedily filled, and then, with a little more exertion the yacht was set afloat. They moved out into deep water, and a gentle breeze wafted them pleasantly toward their desired haven. "Look at the sun, papa," Elsie said, gazing westward. "It has a very peculiar appearance." "Yes," he said, "it looks a good deal like a balloon; it's redness obscured by that leaden-colored cloud. It is very near its setting; we shall not get in till after dark." "But that will not matter?" "Oh, no; our captain is so thoroughly acquainted with his vessel, the harbor and the wharf, that I have no doubt he would land us safely even were it much darker than it will be." Zoe and Edward, in the dory, were talking with a Nantucket lady, a Mrs. Fry. "How do you like our island, and particularly our town?" she asked. "Oh, ever so much!" said Zoe. "We have visited a good many watering-places and sea-side resorts, but never one where there was so much to see and to do; so many delightful ways of passing the time. I think I shall vote for Nantucket again next year, when we are considering where to pass the hot months." "And I," said Edward, "echo my wife's sentiments on the subject under discussion." "Your wife" the lady exclaimed, with a look of surprise. "I took her to be your sister; you are both so very young in appearance." "We are not very old," laughed Edward; "Zoe is but sixteen, but we have been married a year." "You have begun early; it is thought by some that early marriages are apt to be the happiest, and I should think them likely to be, provided the two are willing to conform their tastes and habits each to those of the other. I trust you two have a long life of happiness before you." "Thank you," they both said, Edward adding, "I think we are disposed to accommodate ourselves to each other, and whether our lives be long or short, our trials many or few, I trust we shall always find great happiness in mutual sympathy, love and confidence." The lady asked if they had seen all the places of interest on the island, and in reply they named those they had seen. "Have you been to Mrs. Mack's?" she asked. "No, madam, we have not so much as heard of her existence," returned Edward, sportively. "May I ask who and what she is?" "Yes; she is the widow of a sea-captain, who has a collection of curiosities which she keeps on exhibition, devoting the proceeds, so she says, to benevolent purposes. She is an odd body; herself the greatest curiosity she has to show, I think. You should visit her museum by all means." "We shall be happy to do so if you will kindly put us in the way of it," said Edward. "How shall we proceed in order to gain admittance?" "If we can get up a party it will be easy enough; I shall then send her word, and she will appoint the hour when she will receive us; she likes to show her independence, and will not exhibit unless to a goodly number. "I know of several visitors on the island who want to go, and if your party will join with them there will be no difficulty." "I think I can promise that we will," said Edward. "I will let you know positively to-morrow morning." "That will do nicely. Hark, they are singing aboard the yacht." They listened in silence till the song was finished. "I recognized most of the voices," Mrs. Fry remarked, "but two lovely sopranos were quite new to me. Do you know the owners?" turning smilingly to Edward. "My mother and sister," he answered, with proud satisfaction. "Naturally fine, and very highly cultivated," she said. "You must be proud of them." "I am," Edward admitted, with a happy laugh. The sun was down and twilight had fairly begun. Grace, seated on her father's knee, was gazing out over the harbor. "See, papa, how many little lights close down to the water!" she said. "Yes; they are lamps on the small boats that are sailing or rowing about; they show them for safety from running into each other." "And they look so pretty." "Yes, so they do; and it is a sight one may have every evening from the wharf. Shall I take you down there some evening and let you sit and watch them as they come and go?" "Oh, yes, do, papa; I think it would be so nice! And you would take Max and Lulu too, wouldn't you?" "If they should happen to want to go; there are benches on the wharf where we can sit and have a good view. I think we will try it to-morrow evening if nothing happens to prevent." "Oh, I'm so glad! You are such a good, kind papa," she said, delightedly, giving him a hug. "The very best you have ever had, I suppose," he responded, with a pleased laugh. "Yes, indeed," she answered, naïvely, quite missing the point of his jest. On reaching home Edward and Zoe reported their conversation with the lady in the dory, and asked, "Shall we not go?" "I think so, by all means, since it is for benevolent objects," said Elsie. "Or anyhow, since we feel in duty bound to see all that is to be seen on this island," said Captain Raymond. No dissenting voice was raised, and when the next morning word came that Mrs. Mack would exhibit that afternoon if a party were made up to attend, they all agreed to go. The distance was too great for ladies and children to walk, so carriages were ordered. Captain Raymond and his family filled one. "This is the street that oldest house is on," remarked Lulu, as they turned a corner; "I mean that one we went to see; that has the big horse-shoe on its chimney." "What do they have that for, papa?" asked Grace. "In old times when many people were ignorant and superstitious, it was thought to be a protection from witches." "Witches, papa? what are they?" "I don't think there are any, really," he said, with a kindly smile into the eagerly inquiring little face; "but in old times it was a very common belief that there were people--generally some withered-up old women--who had dealings with Satan, and were given power by him to torment, or bring losses and various calamities upon any one whom they disliked. "When you are a little older you shall hear more about it, and how that foolish belief led to great crimes and cruelties inflicted upon many innocent, harmless people. But now, while my Gracie is so young and timid, I do not want her to know too much about such horrors." "Yes, papa," she responded; "I won't try to know till you think I'm quite old enough." Several vehicles drew up at the same moment in front of Mrs. Mack's door, and greetings and some introductions were exchanged on the sidewalk and door-steps. Edward introduced his mother and Mrs. Fry to each other, and the latter presented to them a Mrs. Glenn, who, she said, was a native of Nantucket, but had only recently returned after an absence of many years. "Mrs. Mack knew me as a young girl," Mrs. Glenn remarked, "and I am quite curious to see whether she will recognize me." At that instant the door was opened in answer to their ring, and they were invited to enter and walk into the parlor. They found it comfortably furnished and neat as wax. Seating themselves they waited patiently for some moments the coming of the lady of the house. At length she made her appearance; a little old lady, neatly attired, and with a pleasant countenance. Mrs. Fry saluted her with a good-afternoon, adding, "I have brought some friends with me to look at your curiosities. This lady," indicating Mrs. Glenn, "you ought to know, as you were acquainted with her in her girlhood." "Do you know me, Mrs. Mack?" asked Mrs. Glenn, offering her hand. "Yes, you look as natural as the pigs," was the rather startling reply; accompanied, however, by a smile and cordial shake of the offered hand. "Now, we'll take the money first to make sure of it," was the next remark, addressed to the company in general. "What is your admission fee?" asked Mr. Dinsmore, producing his pocketbook. "Fifteen cents apiece." "By no means exorbitant if your collection is worth seeing," he returned, good-humoredly. "Never mind your purses, Elsie, Raymond, Ned, I'll act as paymaster for the party." The all-important business of collecting the entrance fees having been duly attended to, Mrs. Mack led the way to an upper room where minerals, shells, sharks' teeth, and various other curiosities and relics were spread out upon tables and shelves, ranged along the sides and in the centre of the apartment. "Now," she said, "the first thing is to register your names. You must all register. You begin," handing the book to Mr. Dinsmore, "you seem to be the oldest." "I presume I am," he said, dryly, taking the book and doing as he was bidden. "Now, you, Raymond," passing it on to the captain, "we'll take it for granted that you are next in age and importance." "That's right, captain," laughed Betty, as he silently took the book and wrote his name, "it wouldn't be at all polite to seem to think yourself younger than any lady present." "Of course not, Miss Betty; will you take your turn next?" "Of course not, sir; do you mean to insinuate that I am older than Aunt Rose?" she asked, passing the book on to Mrs. Dinsmore. "Don't be too particular about going according to ages," said Mrs. Mack, "it takes up too much time." "You may write my name for me, Ned," said Zoe, when he took the book. "Yes, write your sister's name for her; it'll do just as well," said Mrs. Mack. "But I'm not his sister," said Zoe. "What, then? is he your lover?" "No," Edward said, laughing, "we're husband and wife." "You've begun young," she remarked, taking the book and passing it on; "don't look as if you'd cut your wisdom teeth yet, either of you. When the ladies have all registered, some of you grown folks had better do it for the children." Having seen all their names duly inscribed in her register, "Seat yourselves," she said, waving her hand toward some benches and chairs. Then, with the help of a half-grown girl, she set out a small circular table, placed a box upon it, pushed up chairs and a bench or two, and said, "Now, as many of you as can, come and sit round this table; the others shall have their turn afterward." When all the places were filled, she opened the box and took from it a number of beautifully carved articles--napkin-rings, spoons, etc. "Now, all take your turns in looking at this lovely carved work, while I tell you its story," she said, "the story of how it came into my possession." "You see, my husband was a sea-captain, and upon one occasion, when he was about setting sail for a long voyage, a young man, or lad--he was hardly old enough to be called a man--came and asked to be taken as one of the crew. He gave a name, but it wasn't his true name, inherited from his father, as my husband afterward discovered. But not suspecting anything wrong, he engaged the lad, and took him with him on the voyage. "And the lad behaved well aboard the ship, and he used to carve wonderfully well--as you may see by looking at these articles--just with a jack-knife, and finally--keeping at it in his leisure moments--he made all these articles, carving them out of sharks' teeth. "You can see he must have had genius; hadn't he? and yet he'd run away from home to go to sea, as my husband afterward had good reason to believe." She made a long story of it, spinning out her yarn until the first set had examined the carved work to their satisfaction. Then, "Reverse yourselves," she said, indicating by a wave of her hand, that they were to give place at the table to the rest of the company. When all had had an opportunity to examine the specimens of the lad's skill, the young girl was ordered to restore them to the box, but first to count them. That last clause brought an amused smile to nearly every face in the audience, but Lulu frowned, and muttered, "Just as if she thought we would steal them!" Next, Mrs. Mack began the circuit of the room, carrying a long slender stick with which she pointed out those which she considered the most interesting of her specimens or articles of virtu. One of these last was a very large, very old-fashioned back-comb, having a story with a moral attached, the latter recited in doggerel rhyme. She had other stories, in connection with other articles, to tell in the same way. In fact, so many and so long were they, that the listeners grew weary and inattentive ere the exhibition was brought to a close. The afternoon was waning when they left the house. As Captain Raymond and his family drove into the heart of the town on their way home, their attention was attracted by the loud ringing of a hand-bell, followed now and again by noisy vociferation, in a discordant, man's voice. "So the evening boat is in," remarked the captain. "How do you know, papa?" asked Grace. "By hearing the town-crier calling his papers; which could not have come in any other way." "What does he say, papa?" queried Lulu. "I have listened as intently as possible many a time, but I never can make out more than a word or two, sometimes not that." "No more can I," he answered, with a smile; "it sounds to me like 'The first news is um mum, and the second news is mum um mum, and the third news is um um mum." The children all laughed. "Yonder he is, coming this way," said Max, leaning from the carriage window. "Beckon to him," said the captain; "I want a paper." Max obeyed; the carriage stopped, the crier drew near and handed up the paper asked for. "How much?" inquired the captain. "Five cents, sir." "Why, how is that? You asked me but three for yesterday's edition of this same paper." "More news in this one." "Ah, you charge according to the amount of news, do you?" returned the captain, laughing, and handing him a nickel. "Yes, sir; I guess that's about the fair way," said the crier, hastily regaining the sidewalk to renew the clang, clang of his bell and the "um mum mum" of his announcement. CHAPTER XII. "Wave high your torches on each crag and cliff. Let many lights blaze on our battlements; Shout to them in the pauses of the storm, And tell them there is hope." --_Maturings "Bertram."_ The evening was cool, and our whole party were gathered in the parlor of the cottage occupied by the Dinsmores and Travillas--games, fancy-work, reading, and conversation making the time fly. Edward and Zoe had drawn a little apart from the others, and were conversing together in an undertone. "Suppose we go out and promenade the veranda for a little," he said, presently. "I will get you a wrap and that knit affair for your head that I think so pretty and becoming." "Crocheted," she corrected; "yes, I'm quite in the mood for a promenade with my husband; and I'm sure the air outside must be delightful. But you won't have to go farther than that stand in the corner for my things." He brought them, wrapped the shawl carefully about her, and they went out. Betty, looking after them, remarked aside to her Cousin Elsie, "How lover-like they are still!" "Yes," Elsie said, with a glad smile: "they are very fond of each other, and it rejoices my heart to see it." "And one might say exactly the same of the captain and Violet," pursued Betty, in a lower tone, and glancing toward that couple, as they sat side by side on the opposite sofa--Violet with her babe in her arms, the captain clucking and whistling to it, while it cooed and laughed in his face--Violet's ever-beautiful face more beautiful than its wont, with its expression of exceeding love and happiness as her glance rested now upon her husband and now upon her child. "Yes," Elsie said again, watching them, with a joyous smile still wreathing her lips and shining in her eyes; "and it is just so with my dear Elsie and Lester. I am truly blest in seeing my children so well mated and so truly happy." "Zoe, little wife," Edward was saying, out on the veranda, "can you spare me for a day or two?" "Spare you, Ned? How do you mean?" "I should like to join the boys--Bob, Harold, and Herbert--in a little trip on a sailing vessel which leaves here early to-morrow morning and will return on the evening of the next day or the next but one. I should ask my little wife to go with us, but, unfortunately, the vessel has no accommodations for ladies. What do you say, love? I shall not go without your consent." "Thank you, you dear boy, for saying that," she responded, affectionately, squeezing the arm on which she leaned; "go if you want to; I know I can't help missing the kindest and dearest husband in the world, but I shall try to be happy in looking forward to the joy of reunion on your return." "That's a dear," he said, bending down to kiss the ruby lips. "It is a great delight to meet after a short separation, and we should miss that entirely if we never parted at all." "But oh, Ned, if anything should happen to you!" she said, in a quivering voice. "Hush, hush, love," he answered, soothingly; "don't borrow trouble; remember we are under the same protection on the sea as on the land, and perhaps as safe on one as on the other." "Yes; but when I am with you I share your danger, if there is any, and that is what I wish; for oh, Ned, I couldn't live without you!" "I hope you may never have to try it, my darling," he said, in tender tones, "or I be called to endure the trial of having to live without you; yet we can hardly hope to go together. "But let us not vex ourselves with useless fears. We have the promise, 'As thy days, so shall thy strength be.' And we know that nothing can befall us without the will of our Heavenly Father, whose love and compassion are infinite. 'We know that all things work together for good to them that love God.'" "But if one is not at all sure of belonging to Him?" she said, in a voice so low that he barely caught the words. "Then the way is open to come to Him. He says, 'Come unto me.' 'Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out.' The invitation is to you, love, as truly as if addressed to you alone; as truly as if you could hear His voice speaking the sweet words and see His kind eyes looking directly at you. "It is my ardent wish, my most earnest, constant prayer, that my beloved wife may speedily learn to know, love, and trust in Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life!" "You are so good, Ned! I wish I were worthy of such a husband," she murmured, half sighing as she spoke. "Quite a mistake, Zoe," he replied, with unaffected humility; "to hear you talk so makes me feel like a hypocrite. I haves no righteousness of my own to plead, but, thanks be unto God, I may rejoice in the imputed righteousness of Christ! And that may be yours, too, love, for the asking. "'Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.' "They are the Master's own words; and He adds: 'For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.'" Meanwhile the contemplated trip of the young men was under discussion in the parlor. "Dear me!" said Betty, who had just heard of it, "how much fun men and boys do have! Don't you wish you were one of them, Lulu?" "No, I don't," returned Lulu, promptly. "I'd like to be allowed to do some of the things they do that we mustn't, but I don't want to be a boy." "That is right," said her father; "there are few things so unpleasant to me as a masculine woman, who wishes herself a man and tries to ape the stronger, coarser sex in dress and manners. I hope my girls will always be content, and more than content, to be what God has made them." "If you meant to hit me that time, captain," remarked Betty, in a lively tone, "let me tell you it was a miserable failure, for I don't wish I was a man, and never did. Coarse creatures, as you say--present company always excepted--who would want to be one of them." "I'd never have anything to do with one of them if I were in your place, Bet," laughed her brother. "Perhaps I shouldn't, only that they seem a sort of necessary evil," she retorted. "But why don't you invite some of us ladies to go along?" "Because you are _not_ necessary evils," returned her brother, with a twinkle of fun in his eye. "You should, one and all, have an invitation if we could make you comfortable," said Harold, gallantly: "but the vessel has absolutely no accommodations for ladies." "Ah, then, you are excusable," returned Betty. The young men left the next morning, after an early breakfast. Zoe and Betty drove down to the wharf with them to see them off, and watched the departing vessel till she disappeared from sight. Zoe went home in tears, Betty doing her best to console her. "Come, now, be a brave little woman; it's for only two or three days at the farthest. Why, I'd never get married if I thought I shouldn't be able to live so long without the fortunate man I bestowed my hand upon." "Oh, you don't know anything about it, Betty!" sobbed Zoe. "Ned's all I have in the world, and it's so lonesome without him! And then, how do I know that he'll ever get back? A storm may come up and the vessel be wrecked." "That's just possible," said Betty, "and it's great folly to make ourselves miserable over bare possibilities--things which may never happen." "Oh, you are a great deal too wise for me!" said Zoe, in disgust. "Oh," cried Betty, "if it's a pleasure and comfort to you to be miserable--to make yourself so by anticipating the worst--do so by all means. I have heard of people who are never happy but when they are miserable." "But I am not one of that sort," said Zoe, in an aggrieved tone. "I am as happy as a lark when Ned is with me. Yes, and I'll show you that I can be cheerful even without him." She accordingly wiped her eyes, put on a smile, and began talking in a sprightly way about the beauty of the sea as they looked upon it, with its waves dancing and sparkling in the brilliant light of the morning sun. "What shall we do to-day?" queried Betty. "Take a drive," said Zoe. "Yes; I wish there was some new route or new place to go to." "There's a pretty drive to the South Shore, that maybe you have not tried yet," suggested the hackman. "South Shore? That's another name for Surfside, isn't it?" asked Betty. "It's another part of the same side of the island I refer to," he answered. "It's a nice drive through the avenue of pines--a road the lovers are fond of--and if the south wind blows, as it does this morning, you have a fine surf to look at when you get there." "If a drive is talked of to-day, let us propose this one, Zoe," said Betty. "Yes; I dare say it is as pleasant as any we could take," assented Zoe. "I wish Edward was here to go with us." Elsie, with her usual thoughtfulness for others, had been considering what could be done to prevent Zoe from feeling lonely in Edward's absence. She saw the hack draw up at the door, and meeting the young girls on the threshold with a bright face and pleasant smile: "You have seen the boys off?" she said, half inquiringly. "The weather is so favorable, that I think they can hardly fail to enjoy themselves greatly." "Yes, mamma, I hope they will; but ah, a storm may come and wreck them before they can get back," sighed Zoe, furtively wiping away a tear. "Possibly; but we won't be so foolish as to make ourselves unhappy by anticipating evils that may never come," was the cheery rejoinder. "The Edna has a skilful captain, a good crew, and is doubtless entirely seaworthy--at least so Edward assured me--and for the rest we must trust in Providence. "Come in, now, and let me give you each a cup of coffee. Your breakfast with the boys was so early and so slight, that you may find appetite for a supplement," she added, sportively, as she led the way into the cosey little dining-room of the cottage, where they found a tempting repast spread especially for them, the others having already taken their morning meal. "How nice in you, Cousin Elsie!" exclaimed Betty. "I wasn't expecting to eat another breakfast, but I find a rapidly coming appetite; these muffins and this coffee are so delicious." "So they are," said Zoe. "I never knew anybody else quite so kindly thoughtful as mamma." "I think I know several," Elsie rejoined; "but it is very pleasant to be so highly appreciated. Now, my dear girls, you will confer a favor if you will tell me in what way I can make the day pass most pleasantly to you." "Thank you, cousin. It is a delightful morning for a drive, I think," said Betty; then went on to repeat what their hackman had said of the drive to the South Shore. "It sounds pleasant. I think we will make up a party and try it," Elsie said. "You would like it, Zoe?" "Yes, mamma, better than anything I know of beside. The man says that just there the beach has not been so thoroughly picked over for shells and other curiosities, and we may be able to find some worth having." No one had made any special plans for the day, so all were ready to fall into this proposed by Zoe and Betty. Hacks were ordered--enough to hold all of their party now at hand--and they started. They found the drive all it had been represented. For some distance their way lay along the bank of a long pond, pretty to look at and interesting as connected with old times and ways of life on the island. Their hackmen told them that formerly large flocks of sheep were raised by the inhabitants, and this pond was one of the places where the sheep were brought at a certain time of year to be washed and shorn. On arriving at their destination, they found a long stretch of sandy beach, with great thundering waves dashing upon it. "Oh," cried Zoe and Betty, in delight, "it is like a bit of 'Sconset!" "Look away yonder," said Lulu; "isn't that a fisherman's cart?" "Yes," replied her father. "Suppose we go nearer and see what he is doing." "Oh, yes; do let us, papa!" cried Lulu, always ready to go everywhere and see everything. "You may run on with Max and Grace," he said; "some of us will follow presently." He turned and offered his arm to Violet. "It is heavy walking in this deep sand; let me help you." "Thank you; it is wearisome, and I am glad to have my husband's strong arm to lean upon," she answered, smiling sweetly up into his eyes as she accepted the offered aid. The young girls and the children came running back to meet them. "He's catching blue-fish," they announced; "he has a good many in his cart." "Now, watch him, Mamma Vi; you haven't had a chance to see just such fishing before," said Max. "See, he's whirling his drail; there! now he has sent it far out into the water. Now he's hauling it in, and--oh yes, a good big fish with it." "What is a drail?" Violet asked. "It is a hook with a long piece of lead above it covered with eel-skin," answered her husband. "There it goes again!" she exclaimed. "It is a really interesting sight, but rather hard work, I should think." When tired of watching the fisherman, they wandered back and forth along the beach in search of curiosities, picking up bits of sponge, rockweed, seaweed, and a greater variety of shells than they had been able to find on other parts of the shore which they had visited. It was only when they had barely time enough left to reach home for a late dinner that they were all willing to enter the carriages and be driven away from the spot. As they passed through the streets of the town, the crier was out with his hand-bell. "Oh yes! oh yes! all the windows to be taken out of the Athenaeum to-day, and the Athenaeum to be elevated to-night." After listening intently to several repetitions of the cry, they succeeded in making it out. "But what on earth does he mean?" exclaimed Betty. "Ventilated, I presume," replied the captain. "There was an exhibition there last night, and complaints were made that the room was close." Toward evening of the next day our friends in the cliff cottages began to look for the return of the Edna with the four young men of their party. But night fell, and yet they had not arrived. Elsie began to feel anxious, but tried not to allow her disturbance to be perceived, especially by Zoe, who seemed restless and ill at ease, going often out to the edge of the cliff and gazing long and intently toward that quarter of the horizon where she had seen the Edna disappear on the morning she sailed out of Nantucket harbor. She sought her post of observation for the twentieth time just before sunset, and remained there till it grew too dark to see much beyond the line of breakers along the shore below. Turning to re-enter the house, she found Captain Raymond standing by her side. "O captain," she cried, "isn't it time the Edna was in?" "I rather supposed they would be in a little earlier than this, but am not at all surprised that they are not," he answered, in a cheery tone. "Indeed, it is quite possible that they may not get in till to-morrow. When they left it was uncertain that they would come back to-day. So, my good sister, I think we have no cause for anxiety." "Then I shall try not to be anxious," she said; "but it seems like a month since I parted from Ned, and it's a sore disappointment not to see him to-night. I don't know how Vi stands your long absences, captain." "Don't you suppose it's about as hard for me as for her, considering how charming she is?" he asked, lightly. "Perhaps it is; but men don't live in their affections as women do; love is only half the world to the most loving of them, I verily believe, while it's all the world to us." "There is some truth in that," he acknowledged; "we men are compelled to give much time and thought to business, yet many of us are ardent lovers or affectionate husbands. I, for one, am extremely fond of wife and children." "Yes, I am sure of it, and quite as sure that Ned is very fond of me." "There isn't a doubt of it. I think I have never seen a happier couple than you seem to be, or than Leland and his Elsie; yet Violet and I will not yield the palm to either of you." "And was there ever such a mother-in-law as mamma?" said Zoe. "I don't remember my own mother very distinctly, but I do not believe I could have loved her much better than I do Edward's mother." "Words would fail me in an attempt to describe all her excellences," he responded. "Well, Lulu, what is it?" as the child came running toward them. "Tea is ready, papa, and Grandma Rose says 'please come to it.'" Shortly after leaving the table, the captain, noticing that Zoe seemed anxious and sad, offered to go into the town and inquire if anything had been seen or heard of the Edna. "Oh, thank you," she said, brightening; "but won't you take me along?" "Certainly, if you think you will not find the walk too long and fatiguing." "Not a bit," she returned, hastily donning hat and shawl. "Have you any objection to my company, Levis?" Violet asked, with sportive look and tone. "My love, I shall be delighted, if you feel equal to the exertion," he answered, with a look of pleasure that said more than the words. "Quite," she said. "Max, I know you like to wait on me; will you please bring my hat and shawl from the bedroom there?" "Yes, indeed, with pleasure, Mamma Vi," the boy answered, with alacrity, as he hastened to obey. "Three won't make as agreeable a number for travelling the sidewalks as four, and I ought to be looking out for Bob," remarked Betty; "so if anybody will ask me to go along perhaps I may consent." "Yes, do come," said Zoe. "I'll take you for my escort." "And we will walk decorously behind the captain and Vi, feeling no fear because under the protection of his wing," added the lively Betty. "But do you think, sir, you have the strength and ability to protect three helpless females?" she asked, suddenly wheeling round upon him. "I have not a doubt I can render them all the aid and protection they are at all likely to need in this peaceful, law-abiding community," he answered, with becoming gravity, as he gave his arm to his wife, and led the way from the house. "It is a rather lonely but by no means dangerous walk, Cousin Betty," he added, holding the gate open for her and the others to pass out. "Lonely enough for me to indulge in a moderate amount of fun and laughter, is it not, sir?" she returned, in an inquiring tone. She seemed full of life and gayety, while Zoe was unusually quiet. They walked into the town and all the way down to the wharf; but the Edna was not there, nor could they hear any news of her. Zoe seemed full of anxiety and distress, though the others tried to convince her there was no occasion for it. "Come, come, cheer up, little woman," the captain said, seeing her eyes fill with tears. "If we do not see or hear from them by this time to-morrow night, we may begin to be anxious; but till then there is really no need." "There, Zoe, you have an opinion that is worth something, the captain being an experienced sailor," remarked Betty. "So thry to be aisy, my dear, and if ye can't be aisy, be as aisy as ye can!" Zoe laughed faintly at Betty's jest; then, with a heroic effort, put on an air of cheerfulness, and contributed her full quota to the sprightly chat on the homeward walk. She kept up her cheerful manner till she had parted from the rest for the night, but wet her solitary pillow with tears ere her anxiety and loneliness were forgotten in sleep. Her spirits revived with the new day, for the sun rose clear and bright, the sea was calm, and she said to herself, "Oh, surely the Edna will come in before night, and Ned and I will be together again!" Many times that day both she and his mother scanned intently the wide waste of waters, and watched with eager eyes the approach of some distant sail, hoping it might prove the one they looked and longed for. But their hopes were disappointed again and again; noon passed, and the Edna was not in sight. "Mamma, what can be keeping them?" sighed Zoe, as the two stood together on the brow of the hill, still engaged in their fruitless search. "Not necessarily anything amiss," Elsie answered. "You remember that when they went it was quite uncertain whether they would return earlier than to-night; so let us not suffer ourselves to be uneasy because they are not yet here." "I am ashamed of myself," Zoe said. "I wish I could learn to be as patient and cheerful as you are, mamma." "I trust you will be more so by the time you are my age," Elsie said, putting an arm about Zoe's waist and drawing her close, with a tender caress. "I still at times feel the risings of impatience; I have not fully learned to 'let patience have her perfect work.' "There is an old proverb, 'A watched pot never boils,'" she added, with sportive look and tone. "Suppose we seat ourselves in the veranda yonder and try to forget the Edna for awhile in an interesting story. I have a new book which looks very interesting, and has been highly commended in some of the reviews. We will get papa to read it aloud to us while we busy ourselves with our fancy-work. Shall we not?" Zoe assented, though with rather an indifferent air, and they returned to the house. Mr. and Mrs. Dinsmore, the only ones they found there, the others being all down on the beach, fell readily into the plan; the book and the work were brought out, and the reading began. It was a good, well-told story, and even Zoe presently became thoroughly interested. Down on the beach Violet and the captain sat together in the sand, he searching sea and sky with a spyglass. She noticed a look of anxiety creeping over his face. "What is it, Levis?" she asked. "I fear there is a heavy storm coming," he said. "I wish with all my heart the Edna was in. But I trust they have been wise enough not to put out to sea and are safe in harbor some where." "I hope so, indeed," she responded, fervently, "for we have much precious freight aboard of her. But the sky does not look very threatening to me, Levis." "Does it not? I wish I could say the same. But, little wife, are you weatherwise or otherwise?" he asked, laughingly. "Not wise in any way except as I may lay claim to the wisdom of my other half," she returned, adopting his sportive tone. "Ah," she exclaimed the next moment, "I, too, begin to see some indications of a storm; it is growing very dark yonder in the northeast!" Betty came hurrying up, panting and frightened. "O captain, be a dear, good man, and say you don't think we are to have a storm directly--before Bob and the rest get safe to shore!" "I should be glad to oblige you, Betty," he said, "but I cannot say that; and what would it avail if I did? Could my opinion stay the storm?" "Zoe will be frightened to death about Edward," she said, turning her face seaward again as she spoke, and gazing with tear-dimmed eyes at the black, threatening cloud fast spreading from horizon to zenith, "and I--oh, Bob is nearer to me than any other creature on earth!" "Let us hope for the best, Betty," the captain said, kindly; "it is quite possible, perhaps I might say probable, that the Edna is now lying at anchor in some safe harbor, and will stay there till this storm is over." "Oh, thank you for telling me that!" she cried. "I'll just try to believe it is so and not fret, though it would pretty nearly kill me if anything should happen to Bob. Still, it will do no good to fret." "Prayer would do far more," said Violet, softly--"prayer to Him whom even the winds and the sea obey. But isn't it time to go in, Levis? the storm seems to be coming up so very fast." "Yes," he said, rising and helping her to get on her feet. "Where are the children?" "Yonder," said Betty, nodding in their direction. "I'll tell them--shall I?" "No, thank you; you and Violet hurry on to the house as fast as you can; I will call the children, follow with them, and probably overtake you in time to help you up the stairs." Before they were all safely housed, the wind had come down upon them and was blowing almost a gale. It was with considerable difficulty the captain succeeded in getting them all up the long steep flights of stairs by which they must reach the top of the cliff. About the time they started for the house the party on the veranda became aware that a storm was rising. Zoe saw it first, and dropped her work in her lap with the cry, "Oh, I knew it would be so! I just knew it! A dreadful storm is coming, and the Edna will be wrecked, and Edward will drown. I shall never see him again!" The others were too much startled and alarmed at the moment to notice her wild words or make any reply. They all rose and hurried into the house, and Mr. Dinsmore began closing windows and doors. "The children, papa!" cried Elsie; "they must be down on the beach, and--" "The captain is with them, and I will go to their assistance," he replied, before she could finish her sentence. He rushed out as he spoke, to return the next moment with Walter in his arms and the rest closely following. "These are all safe, and for the others I must trust the Lord," Elsie said softly to herself as her father set Walter down, and she drew the child to her side. But her cheek was very pale, and her lips trembled as she pressed them to the little fellow's forehead. He looked up wonderingly. "Mamma, what is the matter? You're not afraid of wind and thunder?" "No, dear; but I fear for your brothers out on this stormy sea," she whispered in his ear. "Pray for them, darling, that if God will, they may reach home in safety." "Yes, mamma, I will; and I believe He'll bring them. Is it 'cause Ned's in the ship Zoe's crying so?" "Yes; I must try to comfort her." And putting him gently aside, Elsie went to her young daughter-in-law, who had thrown herself upon a couch, and with her head pillowed on its arm, her face hidden in her hands, was weeping and sobbing as if her heart would break. "Zoe, love," Elsie said, kneeling at her side and putting her arms about her, "do not despair. 'Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save; neither His ear heavy that it cannot hear.'" "No, but--He does let people drown; and oh, I can never live without my husband!" "Dear child, there is no need to consider that question till it is forced upon you. Try, dear one, to let that alone, and rest in the promise, 'As thy days, so shall thy strength be.'" The captain had drawn near, and was standing close beside them. "Mother has given you the best of advice, my little sister," he said, in his kind, cheery way; "and for your further comfort let me say that it is altogether likely the Edna is safe in harbor somewhere. I think they probably perceived the approach of the storm in season to be warned not to put out to sea till it should be over." "Do you really think so, captain?" she asked, lifting her head to wipe away her tears. He assured her that he did; and thinking him a competent judge of what seamen would be likely to do in such an emergency, she grew calm for a time, though her face was still sad; and till darkness shut out the sight, she cast many an anxious glance from the window upon the raging waters. "If not in harbor, they must be in great peril?" Mr. Dinsmore remarked, aside, and half inquiringly, to the captain. "Yes, sir; yes, indeed. I am far more anxious than I should like to own to their mother, Zoe, or Violet." It was near their tea hour when the storm burst; they gathered about the table as usual, but there was little eating done except by the children, and the meal was not enlivened, as was customary with them, by cheerful, sprightly chat, though efforts in that direction were not wanting on the part of several of their number. The storm raged on with unabated fury, and Zoe, as she listened to the howling of the wind and the deafening thunder peals, grew wild with terror for her husband. She could not be persuaded to go to bed, even when her accustomed hour for retiring was long past, but would sit in her chair, moaning, "O Ned! Ned! my husband, my dear, dear husband! Oh, if I could only do anything to help you! My darling, my darling! you are all I have, and I can't live without you!" then spring up and pace the floor, sobbing, wringing her hands, and sometimes, as a fierce blast shook the cottage or a more deafening thunder peal crashed over-head, even shrieking out in terror and distress. In vain Elsie tried to soothe and quiet her with reassuring, comforting words or caresses and endearments. "Oh, I can't bear it!" she cried again and again. "Ned is all I have, and it will kill me to lose him. Nobody can know how I suffer at the very thought." "My dear," Elsie said, with a voice trembling with emotion, "you forget that Edward is my dearly loved son, and that I have two others, who are no less dear to their mother's heart, on board that vessel." "Forgive me, mamma," Zoe sobbed, taking Elsie's hand and dropping tears and kisses upon it. "I did forget, and it was very shameful, for you are so kind and loving to me, putting aside your own grief and anxiety to help me in bearing mine. But how is it yon can be so calm?" "Because, dear, I am enabled to stay my heart on God, my Almighty Friend, my kind, wise, Heavenly Father. Listen, love, to these sweet words: 'O Lord God of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto Thee? or to thy faithfulness round about Thee? Thou rulest the roaring of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, Thou stillest them.'" "They are beautiful," said Betty, who sat near, in a despondent attitude, her elbow on her knee, her cheek in her hand. "Oh, Cousin Elsie, I would give all the world for your faith, and to be able to find the comfort and support in Bible promises and teachings that you do!" The outer door opened, and Mr. Dinsmore and Captain Raymond came in, their waterproof coats dripping with rain. They had been out on the edge of the cliff taking an observation, though it was little they could see through the darkness; but occasionally the lightning's lurid flash lit up the scene for a moment, and afforded a glimpse of the storm-tossed deep. "Be comforted, ladies," the captain said; "there are at least no signs of any vessel in distress; if any such were near, she would undoubtedly be firing signal-guns. So I think we may hope my conjecture that our boys are safe in harbor somewhere, is correct." "And the storm is passing over," said Mr. Dinsmore; "the thunder and lightning have almost ceased." "But the wind has not fallen, and that is what makes the great danger, grandpa, isn't it?" asked Zoe. "Oh, hark, what was that? I heard a step and voice!" And rushing to the outer door as she spoke, she threw it open, and found herself in her husband's arms. "O Ned, Ned!" she cried, in a transport of joy, "is it really you? Oh, I thought I should never see you again, you dear, dear, _dear_ boy!" She clung round his neck, and he held her close, with many a caress and endearing word, drawing her a little to one side to let his brothers step past them and embrace the tender mother, who wept for joy as she received them, almost as if restored to her from the very gates of death. "There, love, I must let you go while I take off this dripping coat," Edward said, at length, releasing Zoe. "How wet I have made you! I fear your pretty dress is quite spoiled," he added, with a tender, regretful smile. "That's nothing," she answered, with a gay laugh; "you'll only have to buy me another, and you've plenty of money." "Plenty to supply all the wants of my little wife, I hope." "Ah, mother dear," as he threw aside his wet overcoat and took her in his arms, "were you alarmed for the safety of your three sons?" "Yes, indeed I was," she said, returning his kisses; "and I feel that I have great cause for thankfulness in that you are all brought back to me unharmed. 'Oh, that men would praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men!'" Betty had started up on the entrance of her cousins, glancing eagerly from one dripping figure to another, then staggered back and leaned, pale and trembling, against the wall. In the excitement no one had noticed her, but now she exclaimed, in tremulous accents, and catching her breath, "Bob--my brother; where is he?" "O Betty," Harold answered, turning hastily at the sound of her voice, "forgive our thoughtlessness in not explaining that at once! Bob went to a hotel; he said we could bring the news of his safety and our own, and it wasn't worth while for him to travel all the way up here through the storm." "No, of course not; I wouldn't have had him do so," she returned, with a sigh of relief, her face resuming its wonted gayety of expression; "but I'm mighty glad he's safe on terra firma." "But your story, boys; let us have it," said Mr. Dinsmore. "Yes, we _have_ a story, grandpa," said Edward, with emphasis and excitement; "but Harold should tell it; he could do it better than I." "No, no," Harold said; "you are as good a story-teller as I." "There!" laughed Herbert. "I believe I'll have to do it myself, or with your extreme politeness to each other you'll keep the audience waiting all night. "The storm came suddenly upon us when we were about half way home, or maybe something more; and it presently became evident that we were in imminent danger of wreck. The captain soon concluded that our only chance was in letting the Edna drive right before the wind, which would take us in exactly the direction we wished to pursue, but with rather startling celerity; and that was what he did. "She flew over the water like a wild winged bird, and into the harbor with immense velocity. Safely enough, though, till we were there, almost at the wharf, when we struck against another vessel anchored near, and actually cut her in two, spilling the crew into the water." "Don't look so horrified, mother dear," said Harold, as Herbert paused for breath; "no one was drowned, no one even hurt." "Barring the wetting and the fright, as the Irish say," added Edward. "But the latter was a real hurt," said Harold; "for the cry they sent up as they made the sudden, involuntary plunge from their berths, where they were probably asleep at the moment of collision, into the cold, deep water of the harbor, was something terrible to hear." "Enough to curdle one's blood," added Herbert. "And you are quite sure all were picked up?" asked Elsie, her sweet face full of pity for the unfortunate sufferers. "Yes, mother, quite sure," answered Edward; "the captain of the craft said, in my hearing, that no one was missing." "And the captain of the other will probably have pretty heavy damages to pay," remarked Mr. Dinsmore. "I presume so," said Edward; "but even that would be far better than the loss of his vessel, with all the lives of those on board." "Money could not pay for those last," Elsie said, low and tremulously, as she looked at her three tall sons through a mist of unshed tears; "and I will gladly help the Edna's captain to meet the damages incurred in his efforts to save them." "Just like you, mother," Edward said, giving her a look of proud, fond affection. "I entirely approve, and shall be ready to contribute my share," said her father. "But it is very late, or rather early--long past midnight--and we should be getting to bed. But let us first unite in a prayer of thanksgiving to our God for all His mercies, especially this--that our dear boys are restored to us unharmed." They knelt, and led by him, all hearts united in a fervent outpouring of gratitude and praise to the Giver of all good. CHAPTER XIII. "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us."--1 SAMUEL 7:12. It was a lovely Sabbath afternoon, still and bright; Elsie sat alone on the veranda, enjoying the beauty of the sea and the delicious breeze coming from it. She had been reading, and the book lay in her lap, one hand resting upon the open page; but she was deep in meditation, her eyes following the restless movements of the waves that, with the rising tide, dashed higher and higher upon the beach below. For the last half hour she had been the solitary tenant of the veranda, while the others enjoyed their siesta or a lounge upon the beach. Presently a noiseless step drew near her chair, some one bent down over her and softly kissed her cheek. "Papa" she said, looking up into his face with smiling eyes, "you have come to sit with me? Let me give you this chair," and she would have risen to do so, but he laid his hand on her shoulder, saying, "No; sit still; I will take this," drawing up another and seating himself therein close at her side. "Do you know that I have been watching you from the doorway there for the last five minutes?" he asked. "No, sir; I deemed myself quite alone," she said. "Why did you not let me know that my dear father, whose society I prize so highly, was so near?" "Because you seemed so deep in thought, and evidently such happy thought, that I was loath to disturb it." "Yes," she said, "they were happy thoughts. I have seemed to myself, for the last few days, to be in the very land of Beulah, so delightful has been the sure hope--I may say certainty--that Jesus is mine and I am His; that I am His servant forever, for time and for eternity, as truly and entirely His as words can express. Is it not a sweet thought, papa? is it not untold bliss to know that we may--that we shall serve Him forever? that nothing can ever separate us from the love of Christ?" "It is, indeed--Christ who is our life. He says, 'Because I live, ye shall live also;' thus He is our life. Is He not our life also because He is the dearest of all friends to us--His own people?" "Yes; and how the thought of His love, His perfect sympathy, His infinite power to help and to save, gives strength and courage to face the unknown future. 'The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?' 'Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.' "In view of the many dangers that lie around our every path, the many terrible trials that may be sent to any one of us, I often wonder how those who do not trust in this almighty Friend can have the least real, true happiness. Were it my case, I should be devoured with anxiety and fears for myself and my dear ones." "But as it is," her father said, gazing tenderly upon her, "you are able to leave the future, for them and for yourself, in His kind, wise, all-powerful hands, knowing that nothing can befall you without His will, and that He will send no trial that shall not be for your good, and none that He will not give you strength to endure?" "Yes, that is it, papa; and oh, what rest it is! One feels so safe and happy; so free from fear and care; like a little child whose loving earthly father is holding it by the hand or in his strong, kind arms." "And you have loved and trusted Him since you were a very little child," he remarked, half musingly. "Yes, papa; I cannot remember when I did not; and could there be a greater cause for gratitude?" "No; such love and trust are worth more to the happy possessor than the wealth of the universe. But there was a time when, though my little girl had it, I was altogether ignorant of it, and marvelled greatly at her love for God's word and her joy and peace in believing. I shall never cease to bless God for giving me such a child." "Nor I to thank Him for my dear father," she responded, putting her hand into his, with the very same loving, confiding gesture she had been wont to use in childhood's days. His fingers closed over it, and he held it fast in a warm, loving grasp, while they continued their talk concerning the things that lay nearest their hearts--the love of the Master, His infinite perfection, the interests of His kingdom, the many great and precious promises of His word--thus renewing their strength and provoking one another to love and to good works. "Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another; and the Lord hearkened, and heard it; and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name. "And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him." Ere another week had rolled its round, events had occurred which tested the sustaining power of their faith in God, and the joy of the Lord proved to be indeed their strength, keeping their hearts from failing in an hour of sore anxiety and distress. The evening was bright with the radiance of a full moon and unusually warm for the season; so pleasant was it out of doors that most of our friends preferred the veranda to the cottage parlors, and some of the younger ones were strolling about the town or the beach. Betty had gone down to the latter place, taking Lulu with her, with the captain's permission, both promising not to go out of sight of home. "Oh, how lovely the sea is to-night, with the moon shining so brightly on all the little dancing waves!" exclaimed Lulu, as they stood side by side close to the water's edge. "Yes," said Betty; "doesn't it make you feel like going in?" "Do people ever bathe at night?" asked Lulu. "I don't know why they shouldn't," returned her companion. "It might be dangerous, perhaps," suggested Lulu. "Why should it?" said Betty; "it's almost as light as day. Oh, Bob," perceiving her brother close at hand, "don't you want to go in? I will if you will go with me." "I don't care if I do," he answered, after a moment's reflection: "a moonlight bath in the sea would be something out of the common; and there seems to be just surf enough to make it enjoyable." "Yes; and my bathing-suit is in the bath-house yonder. I can be ready in five minutes." "Can you? So can I; we'll go in if only for a few minutes. Won't you go with us, Lulu?" "I'd like to," she said, "but I can't without leave; and I know papa wouldn't give it, for I had a bath this morning, and he says one a day is quite enough." "I was in this morning," said Bob; "Betty, too, I think, and--I say, Bet, it strikes me I've heard that it's a little risky to go in at night." "Not such a night as this, I'm sure, Bob; why, it's as light as day; and if there is danger it can be only about enough to give spice to the undertaking." With the last word she started for the bath-house, and Bob, not to be outdone in courage, hurried toward another appropriated to his use. Lulu stood waiting for their return, not at all afraid to be left alone with not another creature in sight on the beach. Yet the solitude disturbed her as the thought arose that Bob and Betty might be about to put themselves in danger, while no help was at hand for their rescue. The nearest she knew of was at the cottages on the bluff, and for her to climb those long flights of stairs and give the alarm in case anything went wrong with the venturesome bathers, would be a work of time. "I'd better not wait for them to get into danger, for they would surely drown before help could reach them," she said to herself, after a moment's thought. "I'll only wait till I see them really in, and then hurry home to see if somebody can't come down and be ready to help if they should begin to drown." But as they passed her, presently, on their way to the water, Bob said: "We're trusting you to keep our secret, Lulu; don't tell tales on us." She made no reply, but thought within herself, "That shows he doesn't think he's doing exactly right. I'm afraid it must be quite dangerous." But while his remark and injunction increased her apprehensions for them, it also made her hesitate to carry to their friends the news of their escapade till she should see that it brought them into actual danger and need of assistance. She watched them tremblingly as they waded slowly out beyond the surf into the smooth, swelling waves, where they began to swim. For a few moments all seemed to be well; then came a sudden shrill cry from Betty, followed by a hoarser one from Bob, which could mean nothing else than fright and danger. For an instant Lulu was nearly paralyzed with terror; but rousing herself by a determined effort, she shouted at the top of her voice, "Don't give up; I'll go for help as fast as ever I can," and instantly set off for home at her utmost speed. "Help, help! they'll drown, oh, they'll drown!" she screamed as she ran. Harold, who was in the act of descending the last flight of stairs, saw her running toward him, and heard her cry, though the noise of the surf prevented his catching all the words. "What's the matter?" he shouted, clearing the remainder of the flight at a bound. "Betty, Bob--drowning!" she cried, without slackening her speed, "I'm going for help." He waited, to hear no more, but sped on toward the water; and only pausing to divest himself of his outer clothing, plunged in, and, buffeting with the waves, made his way as rapidly as possible toward the struggling forms, which, by the light of the moon, he could dimly discern at some distance from the shore. Faint cries for help and the gleam of Betty's white arm, as for an instant she raised it above the wave, guided him to the spot. Harold was an excellent swimmer, strong and courageous; but he had undertaken a task beyond his strength, and his young life was very near falling a sacrifice to the folly of his cousins and his own generous impulse to fly to their aid. Both Bob and Betty were already so nearly exhausted as to be scarcely capable of doing anything to help themselves, and in their mad struggle for life caught hold of him and so impeded his movements that he was like to perish with them. Mean while Lulu had reached the top of the cliff, then the veranda where the older members of the family party were seated, and, all out of breath with fright and the exertion of climbing and running, she faltered out, "Bob and Betty; they'll drown if they don't get help quickly." "What, are they in the water?" cried Mr. Dinsmore and Captain Raymond, simultaneously springing to their feet; the latter adding, "I fear they'll drown before we can possibly get help to them." "Oh, yes; they're drowning now," sobbed Lulu; "but Harold's gone to help them." "Harold? He's lost if he tries it alone!" "The boy's mad to think of such a thing!" exclaimed Mr. Dinsmore and Edward in a breath, while Elsie's cheek turned deathly pale, and her heart went up in an agonized cry that her boy's life might be spared; the others also. The gentlemen held a hasty consultation, then scattered, Mr. Dinsmore hastening in search of other aid, while Captain Raymond and Edward hurried to the beach, the ladies following with entreaties to them to be careful. But fortunately for the endangered ones, other aid had already reached them--a boat that had come out from Nantucket for a moonlight sail, and from the shore a noble Newfoundland dog belonging to a retired sea captain. Strolling along the beach with his master, he heard the cries for help, saw the struggling forms, and instantly plunging in among the waves, swam to the rescue. Seizing Betty by the hair, he held her head above water till the sailboat drew near and strong arms caught hold of her and dragged her in, pale, dripping, and seemingly lifeless. They then picked up the young men, both entirely unconscious, and made for the shore with all possible haste. It was doubtful if the last spark of life had not been extinguished in every one of the three; but the most prompt, wise, and vigorous measures were instantly taken and continued for hours--hours of agonizing suspense to those who loved them. At length Bob gave unmistakable signs of life; and shortly after Betty sighed, opened her eyes, and asked, feebly, "Where am I? what has happened?" But Harold still lay as one dead, and would have been given up as such had not his mother clung to hope, and insisted that the efforts at restoration should be continued. Through the whole trying scene she had maintained an unbroken calmness of demeanor, staying herself upon her God, lifting her heart to His throne in never-ceasing petitions, and in the midst of her bitter grief and anxiety rejoicing that if her boy were taken from her for a time, it would be but to exchange the trials and cares of earth for the joys of heaven; and the parting from him here would soon be followed by a blissful reunion in that blessed land where sin and sorrow and suffering can never enter. But at length, when their efforts were rewarded so that he breathed and spoke, and she knew that he was restored to her, the reaction came. She had given him a gentle, tender kiss, had seen him fall into a natural, refreshing sleep, and passing from his bedside into an adjoining room, she fainted in her father's arms. "My darling, my dear, brave darling!" he murmured, as he laid her down upon a couch and bent over her in tenderest solicitude, while Mrs. Dinsmore hastened to apply restoratives. It was not a long faint; she presently opened her eyes and lifted them with a bewildered look up into her father's face. "What is it, papa?" she murmured; "have I been ill?" "Only a short faint," he answered. "But you must be quite worn out." "Oh, I remember!" she cried. "Harold, my dear son--" "Is doing well, love. And now I want you to go to your bed and try to get some rest. See, day is breaking, and you have had no sleep, no rest." "Nor have you, papa; do go and lie down; but I must watch over my poor boy," she said, trying to rise from the couch. "Lie still," he said, gently detaining her; "lie here, if you are not willing to go to your bed. I am better able to sit up than you are, and will see to Harold." "His brothers are with him, mamma," said Zoe, standing by; "and Edward says they will stay beside him as long as they are needed." "Then you and I will both retire and try to take some rest, shall we not?" Mr. Dinsmore asked, bending over Elsie and softly smoothing her hair. "Yes, papa; but I must first take one peep at the dear son so nearly lost to me." He helped her to rise; then she perceived that Captain Raymond and Violet were in the room. "Dearest mamma," said the latter, coming forward to embrace her, "how glad I am that you are better, and our dear Harold spared to us!" She broke down in sobs and tears. "Yes, my child; oh, let us thank the Lord for His great goodness! But this night has been quite too much for you. Do you go at once and try to get some rest." "I shall see that she obeys, mother," the captain said, in a tenderly sportive tone, taking Elsie's hand and lifting it to his lips. "I think I may trust you," she returned, with a faint smile. "You were with Bob; how is he now?" "Doing as well as possible under the circumstances; as is Betty also; you need trouble your kind heart with no fear or care for them." It had been a terrible night to all the family--the children the only ones who had taken any rest or sleep--and days of nursing followed before the three who had so narrowly escaped death were restored to their wonted health and strength. Mr. and Mrs. Dinsmore and Elsie devoted themselves to that work, and were often assisted in it by Zoe, Edward, and Herbert. Harold was quite a hero with these last and with Max and Lulu; in fact, with all who knew or heard of his brave deed, though he modestly disclaimed any right to the praises heaped upon him, asserting that he had done no more than any one with common courage and humanity would have done in his place. Bob and Betty were heartily ashamed of their escapade, and much sobered at the thought of their narrow escape from sudden death. Both dreaded the severe reproof they had reason to expect from their uncle, but he was very forbearing, and thinking the fright and suffering entailed by their folly sufficient to deter them from a repetition of it, kindly refrained from lecturing them on the subject, though, when a suitable opportunity offered, he did talk seriously and tenderly, with now one and now the other, on the guilt and danger of putting off repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, reminding them that they had had a very solemn warning of the shortness and uncertainty of life, and asking them to consider the question whether they were ready for a sudden call into the immediate presence of their Judge. "Really now, uncle," remarked Bob on one of these occasions, "there are worse fellows in the world than I am--much worse." "I am willing to admit that, my boy," returned Mr. Dinsmore; "but many of those fellows have not enjoyed the privileges and teachings that you have, and responsibility is largely in proportion to one's light and opportunities. "Jesus said, 'That servant, who knew his Lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to His will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes.'" "Yes; and you think I'm one of the first class, I suppose?" "I do, my boy; for you have been well instructed, both in the church and in the family; also you have a Bible, and may study it for yourself as often and carefully as you will." "But I really have never done anything very bad, uncle." "How can you say that, Robert, when you know that you have lived all your life in utter neglect of God's appointed way of salvation? hearing the gracious invitation of Him who died that you might live, 'Come unto me,' and refusing to accept it? "'God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life,' and having for years refused to believe, how can you assert that you have done nothing very bad? 'How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?'" Bob made no reply, but looked thoughtful, and his uncle went quietly from the room, thinking it well to leave the lad to his own reflections. Passing the door of the room where Harold lay, he was about to enter, but perceiving that the boy and his mother were in earnest conversation, he moved on, leaving them undisturbed. "Mamma," Harold was saying, "I have been thinking much of sudden death since my very narrow escape from it. You know, mamma, it comes sometimes without a moment's warning; and as we all sin continually in thought and feeling, if not in word and deed, as our very best deeds and services are so stained with sin that they need to be repented of and forgiven, how is it that even a true Christian can get to heaven if called away so suddenly?" "Because when one comes to Jesus Christ and accepts His offered salvation, _all_ his sins, future as well as past and present, are forgiven. 'The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.' "Jesus said, 'He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.' 'I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.'" "But oh, mamma, I find myself so weak and sinful, so ready to yield to temptation, that I sometimes fear I shall never be able to hold out to the end!" "My dear boy, let that fear lead you to cling all the closer to the Master, who is able to save unto the uttermost. If our holding out depended upon ourselves, our own weak wills, we might well be in despair; but 'He will keep the feet of His saints.' "'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to His abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.' Can they be in danger who are _kept by the power of God_?" CHAPTER XIV. "My Father's house on high, Home of my soul, how near At times to Faith's discerning eye Thy pearly gates appear." Harold and his cousins had scarcely more than fully recovered from the effects of their almost drowning when Captain Raymond again received orders to join his ship, and it was decided that the time had come for all to leave the island. Bob and Betty received letters from their brother and sister in Louisiana, giving them a cordial invitation to their homes, Dick proposing that Bob should study medicine with him, with a view to becoming his partner, and Molly giving Betty a cordial invitation from herself and husband to take up her residence at Magnolia Hall. With the approval of their uncle and other relatives, these kind offers were promptly accepted. Letters came about the same time from Lansdale, Ohio, inviting the Dinsmores, Travillas, and Raymonds to attend the celebration of Miss Stanhope's one hundredth birthday, which was now near at hand. Mr. Harry Duncan wrote for her, saying that she had a great longing to see her nephews and nieces once more, and to make the acquaintance of Violet's husband and his children. The captain could not go, but it was decided that all the others should. The necessary arrangements were quickly made, and the whole party left the island together, not without some regret and a resolution to return at some future day to enjoy its refreshing breezes and other delights during the hot season. On reaching New York they parted with the captain, whose vessel lay in that harbor. Bob and Betty left them farther on in the journey, and the remainder of the little company travelled on to Lansdale, arriving the day before the important occasion which called them there. Mrs. Dinsmore's brother, Richard Allison, who, my readers may remember, had married Elsie's old friend, Lottie King, shortly after the close of the war of the rebellion, had taken up his abode in Lansdale years ago. Both he and his sister May's husband, Harry Duncan, had prospered greatly. Each had a large, handsome dwelling adjacent to Miss Stanhope's cottage, in which she still kept house, having never yet seen the time when she could bring herself to give up the comfort of living in a home of her own. She had attached and capable servants, and amid her multitude of nieces and grand-nieces, there was almost always one or more who was willing--nay, glad, to relieve her of the care and labor of housekeeping, taking pleasure in making life's pathway smooth and easy to the aged feet, and her last days bright and happy. She still had possession of all her faculties, was very active for one of her age, and felt unabated interest in the welfare of kindred and friends. She had by no means outlived her usefulness or grown querulous with age, but was ever the same bright, cheerful, happy Christian that she had been in earlier years. The birthday party was to be held under her own roof, and a numerous company of near and dear relatives were gathering there and at the houses of the Duncans and Allisons. Richard and Lottie, Harry and May were at the depot to meet the train on which our travellers arrived. It was an altogether joyous meeting, after years of separation. The whole party repaired at once to Miss Stanhope's cottage, to greet and chat a little with her and others who had come before to the gathering; prominently among them Mr. and Mrs. Keith from Pleasant Plains, Indiana, with their daughters, Mrs. Landreth, Mrs. Ormsby, and Annis, who was still unmarried. Very glad indeed were Mrs. Keith and Mr. Dinsmore, Rose and Mildred, Elsie and Annis to meet and renew the old intimacies of former days. Time had wrought many changes since we first saw them together, more than thirty years ago. Mr. and Mrs. Keith were now old and infirm, yet bright and cheery, looking hopefully forward to that better country, that Celestial City, toward which they were fast hastening, and with no unwilling steps. Dr. and Mrs. Landreth and Mr. and Mrs. Dinsmore had changed from youthful married couples into elderly people, while Elsie and Annis had left childhood far behind, and were now--the one a cheery, happy maiden lady, whom aged parents leaned upon as their stay and staff, brothers and sisters dearly loved, and nieces and nephews doated upon; the other a mother whom her children blessed for her faithful love and care, and delighted to honor. This renewal of intercourse, and the reminiscences of early days which it called up, were very delightful to both. The gathering of relatives and friends of course formed far too large a company for all to lodge in one house, but the three--Aunt Wealthy's and those of the Duncans and Allisons--accommodated them comfortably for the few days of their stay, or rather the nights, for during the day they were very apt to assemble in the parlors and porches of the cottage. It was there Elsie and her younger children and Violet and hers took up their quarters, by invitation, for the time of the visit. "But where is the captain, your husband?" inquired Aunt Wealthy of Violet on giving her a welcoming embrace. "I wanted particularly to see him, and he should not have neglected the invitation of a woman a hundred years old." "Dear auntie, I assure you he did so only by compulsion; he would have come gladly if Uncle Sam had not ordered him off in another direction," Violet answered, with pretty playfulness of look and tone. "Ah, then, we must excuse him. But you brought the children, I hope. I want to see them." "Yes; this is his son," Violet said, motioning Max to approach; "and here are the little girls," drawing Lulu and Grace forward. The old lady shook hands with and kissed them, saying, "It will be something for you to remember, dears, that you have seen a woman who has lived a hundred years in this world, and can testify that goodness and mercy have followed her all the days of her life. Trust in the Lord, my children, and you, even if you should live as long as I have, will be able to bear the same testimony that He is faithful to His promises. "I say the same to you, too, Rosie and Walter, my Elsie's children," she added, turning to them with a tenderly affectionate look and smile. They gazed upon her with awe for a moment; then Rosie said, "You don't look so very old, Aunt Wealthy; not older than some ladies of eighty that I've seen." "Perhaps not older than I did when I was only eighty, my dear; but I am glad to know that I am a good deal nearer home now than I was then," Miss Stanhope responded, her face growing bright with joyous anticipation. "Are you really glad to know you must die before very long?" asked Max, in wonder and surprise. "Wouldn't it be strange if I were not?" she asked; "heaven is my home. "'There my best friends, my kindred dwell, There God my Saviour reigns.' "I live in daily, hourly longing expectation of the call." "And yet you are not weary of life? you are happy here, are you not, dear Aunt Wealthy?" asked Mrs. Keith. "Yes, Marcia; I am happy among my kind relatives and friends; and entirely willing to stay till the Master sees fit to call me home, for I know that His will is always best. Oh, the sweet peace and joy of trusting in Him and leaving all to His care and direction! Who that has experienced it could ever again want to choose for him or herself?" "And you have been long in His service, Aunt Wealthy?" Mr. Dinsmore said, half in assertion, half inquiringly. "Since I was ten years old, Horace; and that is ninety years; and let me bear testimony now, before you all, that I have ever found Him faithful to His promises, and His service growing constantly sweeter and sweeter. And so it shall be to all eternity. 'My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.'" Then turning to Mrs. Keith, "How is it with you, Marcia?" she asked; "you have attained to your four-score years, and have been in the service since early childhood. What have you to say for your Master now?" "Just what you have said, dear aunt; never have I had cause to repent of choosing His service; it has been a blessed service to me, full of joy and consolation--joy that even abounds more and more as I draw nearer and nearer to my journey's end. "I know it is the same with my husband," she added, giving him a look of wifely affection; "and I doubt not with my cousins--Horace, Rose, Elsie--with all here present who have had experience as soldiers and servants of Jesus Christ." "In that you are entirely right, Marcia," responded Mr. Dinsmore; "I can speak for myself, my wife, and daughter." Both ladies gave an unqualified confirmation of his words, while their happy countenances testified to the truth of the assertion. "And, Milly dear, you and your husband, your brothers and sisters, can all say the same," remarked Miss Stanhope, laying her withered hand affectionately upon Mrs. Landreth's arm as she sat in a low seat by her side. "We can indeed," Mildred said, with feeling. "What blessed people we are! all knowing and loving the dear Master, and looking forward to an eternity of bliss together at His right hand." The interview between the aged saint and her long-absent relatives was continued for a few moments more; then she dismissed them, with the remark that doubtless they would all like to retire to their rooms for a little, and she must take a short rest in order to be fresh for the evening, when she hoped they would all gather about her again. "I want you all to feel at home and to enjoy yourselves as much as you can," she said, in conclusion. "Play about the grounds, children, whenever you like." Her cottage stood between the houses of the Duncans and Allisons; the grounds of all three were extensive, highly cultivated, and adorned with beautiful trees, shrubbery, and flowers, and there were no separating fences or hedges, so that they seemed to form one large park or garden. Rosie and Walter Travilla, and the young Raymonds were delighted with the permission to roam at will about these lovely grounds, and hastened to avail themselves of it as soon as the removal of the dust of travel and a change of attire rendered them fit. They found a Dutch gardener busied here and there, and presently opened a conversation with him, quite winning his heart by unstinted praises of the beauty of his plants and flowers. "It must be a great deal of work to keep those large gardens in such perfect order," remarked Rose. "Dat it ish, miss," he said; "but I vorks pretty hard mineself, and my son Shakey, he gifs me von leetle lift ven he ton't pees too much in school." "Do you live here?" asked little Grace. "Here in dis garten? no, miss; I lifs oud boud t'ree mile in de country." "That's a long walk for you, isn't it?" said Lulu. "Nein; I don't valks, miss; ven I ish god dings to pring--abbles or botatoes or some dings else--I say to mine Shakey, 'Just hitch de harness on de horse and hang him to de stable door;' or if I got nodings to pring I tells de poy, 'Hitch him up a horseback;' den I comes in to mine vork and I tash! I don't hafs to valk--nod a shtep." "How funny he talks," whispered Grace to Lulu; "I can hardly understand him." "It's because he's Dutch," returned Lulu, in the same low tone. "But I can tell almost all he says. His son's name must be Jakey; the short for Jacob." "What is your name?" asked Max. "Hencle--Shon Hencle. I dinks you all pees come to see Miss Stanhope pe von huntred years olt; ishn't you?" "Yes," said Rosie. "It seems very wonderful to think that she has lived so long." The children, weary with their journey, were sent to bed early that night. Lulu and Grace found they were to sleep together in a small room opening into a larger one, where two beds had been placed for the time to meet the unusual demand for sleeping quarters. These were to be occupied by Grandma Elsie, Violet, Rosie, and Walter. Timid little Grace heard, with great satisfaction, that all these were to be so near; and Lulu, though not at all cowardly, was well pleased with the arrangement. Yet she little thought how severely her courage was to be tested that night. She and Grace had scarcely laid their heads upon their pillows ere they fell into profound slumber. Lulu did not know how long she had slept, but all was darkness and silence within and without the house, when something, she could not have told what, suddenly roused her completely. She lay still, trying to recall the events of the past day and remember where she was; and just as she succeeded in doing so a strange sound, as of restless movements and the clanking of chains, came from beneath the bed. Her heart seemed to stand still with fear; she had never before, in all her short life, felt so terrified and helpless. "What can it be?" she asked herself. "An escaped criminal--a murderer--or a maniac from an insane asylum, I suppose; for who else would wear a clanking chain? and what can he want here but to kill Gracie and me? I suppose he got in the house before they shut the doors for the night, and hid under the bed till everybody should be fast asleep, meaning to begin then to murder and rob. Oh, I do wish I'd looked under the bed while all the gentlemen were about to catch him and keep him from hurting us! But now what shall I do? If I try to get out of the bed, he'll catch hold of my foot and kill me before anybody can come; and if I scream for help, he'll do the same. The best plan is to lie as quiet as I can, so he'll think I'm still asleep; for maybe he only means to rob, and not murder, if nobody wakes up to see what he's about and tell of him. Oh, I do hope Gracie won't wake! for she could never help screaming; and then he'd jump out and kill us both." So with heroic courage she lay there, perfectly quiet and hardly moving a muscle for what seemed to her an age of suffering, every moment expecting the creature under the bed to spring out upon her, and in constant fear that Grace would awake and precipitate the calamity by a scream of affright. All was quiet again for some time, she lying there, straining her ears for a repetition of the dreaded sounds; then, as they came again louder than before, she had great difficulty in restraining herself from springing from the bed and shrieking aloud, in a paroxysm of panic terror. But she did control herself, lay perfectly still, and allowed not the slightest sound to escape her lips. That last clanking noise had awakened Elsie, and she too now lay wide awake, silent and still, while intently listening for a repetition of it. She hardly knew whence the sound had come, or what it was; but when repeated, as it was in a moment or two, she was satisfied that it issued from the room where Lulu and Grace were, and her conjectures in regard to its origin coincided with Lulu's. She, too, was greatly alarmed, but did not lose her presence of mind. Hoping the little girls were still asleep, and judging from the silence that they were, she lay for a few minutes without moving, indeed scarcely breathing, while she tried to decide upon the wisest course to pursue, asking guidance and help from on high, as she always did in every emergency. Her resolution was quickly taken; slipping softly out of bed, she stole noiselessly from the room and into another, on the opposite side of the hall, occupied by Edward and Zoe. "Edward," she said, speaking in a whisper close to his ear, "wake, my son; I am in need of help." "What is it, mother?" he asked, starting up. "Softly," she whispered; "make no noise, but come with me. Somebody or something is in the room where Lulu and Gracie sleep. I distinctly heard the clanking of a chain." "Mother!" he cried, but hardly above his breath, "an escaped lunatic, probably! Stay here and let me encounter him alone. I have loaded pistols--" "Oh, don't use them if you can help it!" she cried. "I shall not," he assured her, "unless it is absolutely necessary." He snatched the weapons from beneath his pillow as he spoke, and went from the room, she closely following. At the instant that they entered hers a low growl came from the inner room, and simultaneously they exclaimed, "A dog!" "Somewhat less to be feared than a lunatic, unless he should be mad, which is not likely," added Edward, striking a light. Lulu sprang up with a low cry of intense relief. "O Grandma Elsie, it's only a dog, and I thought it a crazy man or a wicked murderer!" As she spoke the animal emerged from his hiding-place and walked into the outer room, dragging his chain after him. Edward at once recognized him as a large mastiff Harry Duncan had shown him the previous afternoon. "It's Mr. Duncan's dog," he said; "he must have broken his chain and come in unobserved before the house was closed for the night. Here, Nero, good fellow, this way! You've done mischief enough for one night, and we'll send you home." He led the way to the outer door, the dog following quite peaceably, while Elsie, hearing sobs coming from the other room, hastened in to comfort and relieve the frightened children. Grace still slept on in blessed unconsciousness; but she found Lulu crying hysterically, quite unable to continue her efforts at self-control, now that the necessity for it was past. "Poor child!" Elsie said, folding her in her kind arms, "you have had a terrible fright, have you not?" "Yes, Grandma Elsie; oh, I've been lying here so long, _so long_, thinking a murderer or crazy man was under the bed, just ready to jump out and kill Gracie and me!" she sobbed, clinging convulsively about Elsie's neck. "And did not scream for help! What a brave little girl you are!" "I wanted to, and, oh, I could hardly keep from it! But I thought if I did it would wake Gracie and scare her to death, and the man would be sure to jump out and kill us at once." "Dear child," Elsie said, "you have shown yourself thoughtful, brave, and unselfish; how proud your father will be of his eldest daughter when he hears it!" "O Grandma Elsie, do you think he will? How glad that would make me! It would pay for all the dreadful fright I have had," Lulu said, her tones tremulous with joy, as, but a moment ago, they had been with nervousness and fright. "I am quite sure of it," Elsie answered, smoothing the little girl's hair with caressing hand, "quite sure; because I know he loves you very dearly, and that he admires such courage, unselfishness, and presence of mind as you have shown to-night." These kind words did much to turn Lulu's thoughts into a new channel and thus relieve the bad effects of her fright. But Elsie continued for some time longer her efforts to soothe her into calmness and forgetfulness, using tender, caressing words and endearments; then she left her, with an injunction to try to go immediately to sleep. Lulu promised compliance, and, attempting it, succeeded far sooner than she had thought possible. The whole occurrence seemed like a troubled dream when she awoke in the morning. It was a delicious day in early October, and as soon as dressed she went into the garden, where she found John Hencle already at work, industriously weeding and watering his plants and flowers. "Goot-morning, mine leetle mees," he said, catching sight of her, "Was it so goot a night mit you?" "No," she said, and went on to tell the story of her fright. "Dot ish lige me," he remarked, phlegmatically, at the conclusion of her tale. "Von nighd I hears somedings what make me scare. I know notings what he ish; I shust hears a noise, an' I shumpt de bed out, and ran de shtairs down, and looked de window out, and it wasn't notings but a leetle tog going 'Bow wow.'" "I don't think it was very much like my fright," remarked Lulu, in disgust; "it couldn't have been half so bad." "Vell, maype not; but dat Nero ish a goot, kind tog; he bide dramps, but nefer dose nice leetle girl. Dis ish de great day when dose nice old lady pees von huntred years old. What you dinks? a fery long dime to live?" "Yes; very long," returned Lulu, emphatically. "I wish I knew papa would live to be that old, for then he'd be at home with us almost forty years after he retires from the navy." "Somebody ish call you, I dinks," said John, and at the same moment Grace's clear, bird-like voice came floating on the morning breeze, "Lulu, Lulu!" as her dainty little figure danced gayly down the garden path in search of her missing sister. "Oh, there you are!" she exclaimed, catching sight of Lulu. "Come into Aunt Wealthy's house and see the pretty presents everybody has given her for her hundredth birthday. She hasn't seen them yet, but she is going to when she comes down to eat her breakfast." "Oh, I'd like to see them!" exclaimed Lulu, and she and Grace tripped back to the house together, and on into the sitting-room, where, on a large table, the gifts were displayed. They were many, and some of them costly, for the old lady was very dear to the hearts of these relatives, and they were able as well as willing to show their affection in this substantial way. There were fine paintings and engravings to adorn her walls; fine china, and glittering cut glass, silver and gold ware for her tables; vases for her mantels; richly-bound and illustrated books, whose literary contents were worthy of the costly adornment, and various other things calculated to give her pleasure or add to her ease and comfort. She was not anticipating any such demonstration of affection--not expecting such substantial evidences of the love and esteem in which she was held--and when brought face to face with them was almost overcome, so that tears of joy and gratitude streamed from her aged eyes, They were soon wiped away, however, and she was again her own bright, cheery self, full of thought and care for others--the kindest and most genial of hostesses. She took the head of the breakfast-table herself, and poured the coffee for her guests with her own hands, entertaining them the while with cheerful chat, and causing many a merry laugh with the old-time tripping of her tongue--a laugh in which she always joined with hearty relish. "There is too much butter in this salt," she remarked. "It is some John Hencle brought in this morning. I must see him after breakfast and bid him caution his wife to use less." But as they rose from the table John came in unsummoned, and carrying a fine large goose under each arm. Bowing low: "I ish come to pring two gooses to de von hundredth birthday," he announced; "dey pees goot, peaceable pirds: I ish know dem for twenty years, and dey nefer makes no droubles." A smile went round the little circle, but Miss Stanhope said, with a very pleased look, "Thank you, John; they shall be well fed, and I hope they will like their new quarters. How is Jake doing? I haven't seen him for some time." "No; Shakey is go to school most days. I vants Shakey to knows somedings." "Yes, indeed; I hope Jakey is going to have a good education. But what do you mean to do with him after he is done going to school?" "Vy, I dinks I prings mine Shakey to town and hangs him on to Sheneral Shmicdt and makes a brinting-office out of him." "A printer, John? Well, that might be a very good thing if you don't need him to help you about the farm, or our grounds. I should think you would, though." "Nein, nein," said John, shaking his head; "'tis not so long as I vants Shakey to makes mit me a fence; put I tash! Miss Stanhope, he say he ton't can know how to do it; and I says, 'I tash! Shakey, you peen goin' to school all your life, and you don't know de vay to makes a fence yet.'" "Not so very strange," remarked Edward, with unmoved countenance, "for they don't teach fence-making in ordinary schools." "Vell, den, de more's de bity," returned John, taking his departure. But turning back at the door to say to Miss Stanhope, "I vill put dose gooses in von safe place." "Any place where they can do no mischief, John," she answered, good-humoredly. "Now, Aunt Wealthy," said Annis, "what can we do to make this wonderful day pass most happily to you?" "Whatever will be most enjoyable to my guests," was the smiling reply. "An old body like me can ask nothing better than to sit and look on and listen." "Ah, but we would have you talk, too, auntie, when you don't find it wearisome!" "What are you going to do with all your new treasures, Aunt Wealthy?" asked Edward; "don't you want your pictures hung and a place found for each vase and other household ornament?" "Certainly," she said, with a pleased look, "and this is the very time, while I have you all here to give your opinions and advice." "And help," added Edward, "if you will accept it. As I am tall and strong, I volunteer to hang the pictures after the place for each has been duly considered and decided upon." His offer was promptly accepted, and the work entered upon in a spirit of fun and frolic, which made it enjoyable to all. Whatever the others decided upon met with Miss Stanhope's approval; she watched their proceedings with keen interest, and was greatly delighted with the effect of their labors. "My dears," she said, "you have made my house so beautiful! and whenever I look at these lovely things my thoughts will be full of the dear givers. I shall not be here long, but while I stay my happiness will be the greater because of your kindness," "And the remembrance of these words of yours, dear aunt, will add to ours," said Mr. Keith, with feeling. "But old as you are, Aunt Wealthy," remarked Mr. Dinsmore, "it is quite possible that some of us may reach home before you. It matters little, however, as we are all travelling the same road to the same happy country, being children of one Father, servants of the same blessed Master." "And He shall choose all our changes for us," she said, "calling each one home at such time as He sees best. Ah, it is sweet to leave all our interests in His dear hands, and have Him choose our inheritance for us!" There was a pause in the conversation, while Miss Stanhope seemed lost in thought. Then Mrs. Keith remarked: "You look weary, dear Aunt Wealthy; will you not lie down and rest for a little?" "Yes," she said, "I shall take it as the privilege of age, leaving you all to entertain yourselves and each other for a time." At that Mr. Dinsmore hastened to give her his arm and support her to her bedroom, his wife and Mrs. Keith following to see her comfortably established upon a couch, where they left her to take her rest. The others scattered in various directions, as inclination dictated. Elsie and Annis sought the grounds, and, taking possession of a rustic seat beneath a spreading tree, had a long, quiet talk, recalling incidents of other days, and exchanging mutual confidences. "What changes we have passed through since our first acquaintance !" exclaimed Annis. "What careless, happy children we were then!" "And what happy women we are now!" added Elsie, with a joyous smile. "Yes; and you a grandmother! I hardly know how to believe it! You seem wonderfully young for that." "Do I?" laughed Elsie. "I acknowledge that I feel young--that I have never yet been able to reason myself into feeling old." "Don't try; keep young as long as ever you can," was Annis's advice. "It is what you seem to be doing," said Elsie, sportively, and with an admiring look at her cousin. "Dear Annis, may I ask why it is you have never married? It must certainly have been your own fault." "Really, I hardly know what reply to make to that last remark," returned Annis, in her sprightly way. "But I have not the slightest objection to answering your question. I will tell 'the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.' I have had friends and admirers among the members of the other sex, but have never yet seen the man for love of whom I could for a moment think of leaving father and mother." "How fortunate for them!" Elsie said, with earnest sincerity. "I know they must esteem it a great blessing that they have been able to keep one dear daughter in the old home." "And I esteem myself blest indeed in having had my dear father and mother spared to me all these years," Annis said, with feeling. "What a privilege it is, Elsie, to be permitted to smooth, some of the roughnesses from their pathway now in their declining years; to make life even a trifle easier and happier than it might otherwise be to them--the dear parents who so tenderly watched over me in infancy and youth! I know you can appreciate it--you who love your father so devotedly. "But Cousin Horace is still a comparatively young man, hale and hearty, and to all appearance likely to live many years, while my parents are aged and infirm, and I cannot hope to keep them long." Her voice was husky with emotion as she concluded. "Dear Annis," Elsie said, pressing tenderly the hand she held in hers, "you are never to lose them. They may be called home before you, but the separation will be short and the reunion for eternity--an eternity of unspeakable joy, unclouded bliss at the right hand of Him whom you all love better than you love each other." "That is true," Annis responded, struggling with her tears, "and there is very great comfort in the thought; yet one cannot help dreading the parting, and feeling that death is a thing to be feared for one's dear ones and one's self. Death is a terrible thing, Elsie." "Not half so much so to me as it once was, dear cousin," Elsie said, in a tenderly sympathizing tone. "I have thought much lately on that sweet text, 'Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints;' and that other, 'He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied,' and the contemplation has shown me so much of the love of Jesus for the souls He has bought with His own precious blood and the joyful reception He gives them, as one by one they are gathered home, that it seems to me the death of a Christian should hardly bring sorrow to any heart. Oh, it has comforted me much in my separation from the dear husband of my youth, and made me at times look almost eagerly forward to the day when my dear Lord shall call me home and I shall see His face!" "O Elsie," cried Annis, "I trust that day may be far distant, for many hearts would be like to break at parting with you! But there is consolation for the bereaved in the thoughts you suggest; and I shall try to cherish them and forget the gloom of the grave and the dread, for myself and for those I love, of the parting." They were silent for a moment; then Elsie said, as if struck by a sudden thought, "Annis, why should not you and your father and mother go home with us and spend the fall and winter at Ion and Viamede?" "I cannot think of anything more delightful!" exclaimed Annis, her face lighting up with pleasure; "and I believe it would be for their health to escape the winter in our severer climate, for they are both subject to colds and rheumatism at that season." "Then you will persuade them?" "If I can, Elsie. How kind in you to give the invitation!" "Not at all, Annis; for in so doing I seek my own gratification as well as theirs and yours," Elsie answered, with earnest sincerity. "We purpose going from here to Ion, and from there to Viamede, perhaps two months later, to spend the remainder of the winter. And you and your father and mother will find plenty of room and a warm welcome in both places." "I know it, Elsie," Annis said; "I know you would not say so if it were not entirely true, and I feel certain of a great deal of enjoyment in your loved society, if father and mother accept your kind invitation." While these two conversed together thus in the grounds, a grand banquet was in course of preparation in Miss Stanhope's house, under the supervision of our old friends, May and Lottie. To it Elsie and Annis were presently summoned, in common with the other guests. When the feasting was concluded, and all were again gathered in the parlors, Elsie renewed her invitation already made to Annis, this time addressing herself to Mr. and Mrs. Keith. They heard it with evident pleasure, and after some consideration accepted. Edward and Zoe returned to Ion the following day, Herbert and Harold leaving at the same time for college. The rest of the Travillas, the Dinsmores, and the Raymonds lingered a week or two longer with Miss Stanhope, who was very loath to part with them, Elsie in especial; then bade farewell, scarce expecting to see her again on earth, and turned their faces homeward, rejoicing in the promise of Mr. and Mrs. Keith that they and Annis would soon follow, should nothing happen to prevent. 
43131	----	Mary By Mrs Molesworth Illustrations by Leslie Brooke Published by Macmillan and Co, London and New York. This edition dated 1893. Mary, by Mrs Molesworth. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ MARY, BY MRS MOLESWORTH. CHAPTER ONE. A BIRTHDAY MORNING. One morning Mary awoke very early. It was in the month of May, and the mornings were light, and sometimes the sun shone in through the windows very brightly. Mary liked these mornings. The sunshine made everything in the room look so pretty; even the nursery furniture, which was no longer very new or fresh, seemed quite shiny and sparkling, as if fairy fingers had been rubbing it up in the night. "I wonder what day it is," thought Mary. It was difficult for her to remember the days, for she was not yet four years old. She was only going to be four soon. Mamma had told her her birthday would come in May, and that this year it would be on a Thursday. And every day, ever since Mary knew that May had come, she wondered if it was Thursday. But it was rather puzzling. Two Thursdays had come without it being her birthday. "P'raps mamma has made a mistook," thought Mary. "P'raps my birfday isn't going to be in May this time." For if it changed about from one day to another--last year it was Wednesday, and next year it would be--oh, it was too difficult to remember that--mightn't it change out of May too? Mary didn't think months were quite so difficult to remember as days, for different things came in months. In April there were showers, and in May flowers. Nurse had told her that, and when the months with the long names came it would be winter. "I hope it isn't a mistook," thought Mary. "I'd like it best to be in May. `MAY' is such a nice short little word, and only one letter more makes it `Mary.' No, I think it can't be a mistook." Mary could read very well, and she could spell little words. She had learnt to read when she was so little that she could not remember it. She thought knitting and cross-stitch work were much harder than reading. But she had to learn them, because mamma said too much reading was not good for such a little girl, and would make her head ache, and mamma bought her pretty coloured wools and nice short knitting needles, and Mary had made a carpet for the drawing-room of her doll-house. But though it looked very pretty Mary still liked reading best. She had also worked a kettle-holder for grandmamma: that is to say she had worked the stitches all round the picture of a kettle, which was already on the canvas when mamma bought it. Mamma called it "grounding it," and while she was working it, Mary often wondered what "grounding" it meant, for a kettle-holder was not meant to lie on the ground. She might have asked mamma to explain, but somehow she did not. She was not a very asking child. Big people did not always understand, not even mamma _quite_ always, and it made Mary feel very strange when they did not understand; it almost made her cry. Though even that she did not mind as much as when they told her she would know when she got big. She did not want to wait to know things till when she got big. It made her feel all hot to think what a lot of knowing there would be to do then, it seemed like a very big hill standing straight up in front of her which she would never get to the top of. She thought she would rather go up it in what she called "a roundy-round way." Papa had shown her that way once when it took her breath away to climb up one of the "mountings"--Mary always called hills "mountings"--in grandmamma's garden, and Mary had never forgotten it. She thought the hill of knowing would be much nicer to go up that way, and that she might begin it now--just a little bit at a time. She thought this all quite plain inside her own mind, but she could not have told it to anybody. Very often it is not till children _are_ quite big that they can tell their own thoughts, looking back upon them. And Mary did not know that she _was_ going up the hill of knowing already, a little bit at a time, just as she fancied she would like to go. Mary felt glad when she had settled it in her mind that it could not be a mistake about her birthday coming on a Thursday, and she lay quite still, watching the sunshine. It had got on to her bed by now, and it made all sorts of nice things on the counterpane. Mary's bed was rather a big one for such a little girl, for the cot she used to have was now her brother Artie's; Artie slept now in Leigh's room, and there was only a corner there for quite a small bed. Leigh was the big brother of Artie and Mary. He was eight years old. Yes, the sunshine made the counterpane very pretty. It was quite white, and as Mary's home was in the country, white things did not get a grey dull look as they do in London. There were patterns all over the counterpane, and if Mary bumped up her knees she could make fancies to suit the patterns--like garden paths leading to beautiful castles, or robber caves--the boys told her stories of robber caves which were very interesting, though rather frightening. And this morning the light shone on a pattern she had never noticed so much before. It was a round ring, just in the middle, and flowers and leaves seemed growing inside it. "It's a fairy ring," thought Mary; "I wonder if the fairies p'raps come and dance on it when I'm asleep." For she had seen fairy rings on the grass in the fields sometimes when she and her brothers were out walking, and nurse had told her about them. Mary had often wished she could get up in the night and go down to the fields to see the fairies, but she knew she could not. She would never be able to open the big door. Besides, it would be naughty to go out without mamma's and nurse's leave. And it would be very cold--even if the moon were shining it would be cold. For Mary had stood in the moonlight once or twice and she knew it did not warm like the sun. "I suppose they don't burn such big fires in the moon," she thought. The fancy about the fairy ring on the counterpane was very nice, for she could think about it and "pertend" she saw the fairies dancing without getting out of her warm nest at the top of the bed at all. She thought she would tell Artie about it and perhaps he would help to make some nice stories of fairy rings. Artie was not always very "listening" to Mary's fancies. He did really like them, but he was afraid of Leigh laughing at him. When Leigh was away, and Artie and Mary were alone together, it was very nice. But very often Leigh wanted Artie to play big things with him, and then Mary had to amuse herself alone. Leigh was not an unkind big brother; he would carry Mary if she was tired, and would have read stories to her, if she had not liked best to read them to herself. But he had quite boy ways, and thought little girls were not much more good than the pretty china figures in his mother's cabinets in the drawing-room. So Mary was often alone. But she did not mind. She had lots of friends of different kinds. Now and then nurse would say to her, "It would be nice, Miss Mary, if you had a little sister, wouldn't it?" But Mary shook her head. She did not think so. "No, zank you," she would say, "I doesn't want a little sister." The waking so early and the thinking about the sun and the moon and fairy rings and how soon it would be her birthday, began to make Mary rather tired at last. And after a while she fell asleep again without knowing it. When she woke up for the second time the sun was still shining, though not so brightly as before. And she heard voices talking in the next room, that was the day-nursery. There was a door open between it and the night-nursery where Mary slept. "Thursday, 18th May," said one of the voices. "May's a nice month for a baby, and all the summer before it. `Thursday's child has far to go.' Perhaps little Missie will marry a hofficer and travel to the Injies. Who can say?" Then there was a little laugh. "That's Old Sarah," said Mary to herself. Sarah was the housemaid--the upper housemaid, and though she was not _very_ old, the children called her so because her niece, who was also called Sarah, was the nursery-maid. "Little Sarah," they sometimes called her. Her father was the gardener, and he and her mother lived in a cottage which the children thought the prettiest house in the world. And sometimes they were allowed, for a very great treat, to go there to tea. It was Little Sarah who was talking to Old Sarah just now. Mary heard her voice, but as she spoke rather low she could not quite tell what the nursery-maid said. She only heard the last words--it was something about "nurse will tell her." This put it into Mary's mind that, though it was quite morning now, she had not seen nurse, and yet she must be up and dressed. "Nurse," she called out in her little clear voice. "Nurse, where are you?" The two Sarahs popped their heads in at the door. "Are you awake, Miss Mary?" asked Little Sarah. "In course I'm awake. You heard me calling," said Mary. She thought Little Sarah was very stupid sometimes. "I'm calling nurse," Mary went on, "I don't want you, Little Sarah. You can go and dress Master Artie." If Little Sarah was rather stupid, she was also very good-natured. She glanced at Mary with a smile, but with rather an odd look on her face too. "What does you want? What is you looking at me for?" said Mary. "Oh, nothing," said Sarah. "I was only thinking whatever would you do without nurse if--if nurse was busy and couldn't be so much with you, Miss Mary." "Nurse wouldn't never be busy like that," said Mary. "Oh, well, never mind. I'll dress Master Artie and I dare say nurse--" began Sarah, but she stopped short. Nurse just then came into the room. "Here's Miss Mary worretting for you," said the girl. Nurse hurried up to the little girl's bed. "Have you been awake long, my dear?" she said. "I'm so sorry." "Nurse," whispered Mary, pulling nurse's head close down so that she could whisper to her, "I heard Old Sarah and Little Sarah talking, and Old Sarah sayed `Thursday' and `May.' Is it my birfday comed, nurse? Mamma sayed it was coming in May, and it would be Thursday." "My dearie," said nurse, "you've guessed right. It is your birthday-- the 18th of May." Mary felt pleased, but also a little disappointed. She had been waiting for her birthday and thinking about it for such a long time that now she could scarcely believe it had come. For it seemed just like other days. No, not quite like other days, not as nice. For nurse had got up so early and Old Sarah and Little Sarah had been talking in the nursery-- she did not like anybody to talk like that in the nursery. "Dress me quick, please, nurse," she said, "and then I'll go to mamma's room, and then p'raps my birfday will begin. I don't think it can have beginned yet. I thought--" and then she stopped and her lips quivered a little. "What, my dearie?" said nurse. She was a very kind, understanding nurse always, but this morning she spoke even more kindly than other mornings to Mary. "I don't know," said Mary. "I think I thought mamma would come to kiss me in bed like a fairy, and--and--I thought there'd be stockings or somefin' like that--like Kissimas, you know." Nurse had lifted Mary out of her bath by this time, and was rubbing her with a nice large "soft-roughey" towel--"soft-roughey" was one of Mary and Artie's words--it meant the opposite of "prick-roughey." They did not like "prick-roughey" things. She wrapped Mary all round in the big towel for a minute; it was nice and warm, for it had been hanging in front of the fire; then she gave Mary a little hug. "You mustn't be unhappy, dear Miss Mary," she said. "Mamma meant to come, I'm sure, but she's fast asleep--and when she wakes I'm afraid she'll have a headache. So I'm afraid your birthday won't be quite like what you planned. But I'm sure there'll be some pretty presents for you--quite sure." But Mary looked up with her lips quivering still more, and the tears beginning to come too. "It isn't presents I want," she said. "Not presents like that way. I-- I want mamma. Mammas shouldn't have headaches. It takes away all the birfday-ness." Then she turned her head round and pressed it in to nurse's shoulder and burst into tears. CHAPTER TWO. GUESSING. Poor nurse was very sorry. But she knew it would not do to be _too_ sorry for Mary, for then she would go on crying. And once Mary got into a long cry it sometimes went on to be a very long one indeed. So nurse spoke to her quite brightly. "My dearie," she said, "you mustn't cry on your birthday morning. It's quite a mistake. Look up, dear. See, the sun's coming out so beautiful again, and we'll have Master Leigh and Master Artie calling for their breakfast. And you'll have to be quick, for your papa gave me a message to say you were to go down to see him in the dining-room." Mary gave a little wriggle, though she still kept her face hidden. But as nurse went on talking she slowly turned round so that her dressing could go on. "I've something to say to you before you go down," nurse went on. "There's something that's come just in time for your birthday. I'll give you each two guesses--you and Master Leigh and Master Artie, while you're eating your breakfast." Mary looked up. "Where's my hankercher?" she said, and when nurse gave it to her she wiped her eyes. That was a good sign. "Let me have my guesses now, nursey," she said coaxingly. But nurse kept to what she had said. "No, dear, guesses are much nicer when there's two or three together. Besides, we must be very quick. See, there's your nice frock all ready." And Mary saw, where nurse pointed to, one of her Sunday afternoon frocks lying on a chair. It was a blue one--blue with tiny white stripes, and Mary was very fond of it. It had a very pretty wide sash, just the same colour, and there were little bows on her shoes the same colour too. Her face got quite smiley when she saw all these things. She was not a vain little girl and she did not care about fine clothes, but it gave her a nice feeling that, after all, her birthday was going to be something different to other days. Soon she was dressed; her hair, which was not very long but soft and shaggy and of a pretty brown colour, combed out so that no tuggy bits were left; her hands as clean as a little girl's hands could be; a nice white pinafore on the top of the pretty blue frock, so that Mary felt that, as nurse said, she was quite fit to go to see the Queen, if the Queen had asked her. And when she went into the day-nursery things seemed to get still nicer. There were no bowls of bread and milk, but a regular "treat" breakfast set out. Tea-cups for herself and the boys, and dear little twists of bacon, and toast--toast in a toast-rack--and some honeycomb in a glass dish. "Oh," said Mary, "it _is_ my birfday. I'm quite sure now there's no mistook." And in a minute Leigh and Artie came running in. I do not know, by the by, that Leigh came _running_, most likely he was walking, for he was rather a solemn sort of boy, but Artie made up for it. He scarcely ever walked. He was always hopping or jumping or turning head over heels, he could _almost_ do wheels, like a London street boy. And this morning he came in with an extra lot of jumps because it was Mary's birthday. "You thought we'd forgotten, Leigh and me, now didn't you?" he said. "But we hadn't a bit. It was Leigh said you liked the bacon twisted up and it was me reminded about the honey. Wasn't it now, nurse? And we've got a present for you after breakfast. It's downstairs with papa's and mamma's. We'll give you them all of us together, Mary." But the mention of mamma brought a cloud again to Mary's face. "Nursey says mamma's dot a headache, and we can't see her. Not Mary on her birfday." At this Leigh looked up. "Is that true?" he said. "Is mamma ill?" "She's asleep, Master Leigh, and she may sleep a good while. I dare say you'll all see her when she wakes." "Her shouldn't be 'nill on my birfday," began Mary again. "Rubbish, Mary," said Leigh. "I dare say she'll be all right. And you should be sorry for mamma if she's ill; it isn't her fault." "I am sorry," said Mary dolefully; "that's why I can't help crying." "Come now, Miss Mary," began nurse. "You're forgetting what we fixed. No crying on a birthday, my dear. And you're forgetting about the guesses. I'm going to give you two guesses each, Master Leigh and Master Artie and Miss Mary, about what's come just in time for her birthday. Now don't speak for a minute, but think it well over while you go on with your breakfast." There was a silence then; all the children looked very grave, though their thinking did not prevent their enjoying their nice breakfast. "Now, Master Leigh," said nurse, "you guess first." "A pony," said Leigh. "A new pony instead of Dapple Grey who's getting too old to trot." Nurse shook her head. "No, it's not a new pony. Besides, I don't think Miss Mary would care as much for a new pony as you boys would." "No," Mary agreed. "I don't want no pony but Dapple Grey. Nother ponies trot too fast." Leigh thought again. This time he tried to make his guess some quite "girl" thing. "A doll--a big doll for Mary," he said. Nurse smiled. No, it was not that--at least--"A wax doll, do you mean, Master Leigh?" "Yes, a wax doll. But I don't _think_ it could be a doll, for that could have been got already for a birthday present, and this is quite an _extra_ present, isn't it?" said Leigh. "Yes, _quite_ extra," said nurse. "But now it's Master Artie's turn." Artie's ideas were very jumbled. He did not keep the inside of his head in nearly such good order as Leigh kept his. First he guessed "a fine day for Mary's birthday," as if any "guessing" could be needed for a thing which was already there before their eyes. Then he guessed a _very_ big cake for tea, which was not a very clever guess, as a nice big cake on a birthday was an "of course." So now it came to Mary's own guesses. She looked up eagerly. "For us all to be doo--" Then with a great effort, for Mary was growing a big girl and wanted to speak quite rightly, "to be g-ood all day. Kite g-ood." "That would be very nice," said nurse, "and I hope it will come true, but that's more wishing than guessing, Miss Mary. It's something that's come, not going to come, that I want you to guess about." Mary's face grew very grave. Then it smiled again. "I know," she said, "mamma's headache to g-go away, now, jimmedjetly, and then we'll go and see her." "I hope it will," said nurse. "But that wasn't the guess." She saw that Mary was too little quite to understand. "See if I can't help you," she said. "What would you like best of anything? Don't you think a doll that could learn to speak and love you and play with you would be a nice birthday present?" Artie and Mary looked puzzled. They had to think about it. But Leigh was quicker. "Why, nurse," he said, "a doll like that would be a _living_--oh nurse, I do believe--" but just as he was going to say more there came a tap at the door, and Robert, the footman, came in. "If you please, Mrs Barley," he began. "Barley" was nurse's own name, and, of course, the other servants were all very respectful, and always called her "Mrs Barley." "Master wants the young gentlemen and Miss Mary now at once, if so be as they've finished their breakfast." "I think you should say `Miss Mary and the young gentlemen,' Robert," said Leigh. "Specially as it's Mary's birthday," said Artie. "Oh rubbish," said Leigh; "birthday or no birthday, it's proper." "I beg the young lady's pardon," said Robert, who was a very well brought up footman. "I'm sure I meant no offence," and he looked towards Mary, but just then he could not see anything of her. For while her brothers were correcting Robert, Mary had been employing herself in getting down from her chair, which took a good while, as it was high and she was very short. Nothing but a sort of fluff of blue skirts and sash and white muslin pinafore and shaggy hair, with here and there a shoe or a little pink hand sticking out, was to be seen. Robert sprang forwards, meaning to be extra polite and set Miss Mary right side uppermost again, but in some mysterious way she managed to get on her feet by herself. "No, zank you, Robert," she said with dignity, as she stood there with a rather red face, smoothing down her pinafore. "I can get down alone." "Miss Mary, my dear," said nurse. "I'm always telling you to ask me to lift you down. The chair will topple over some day and you'll be hurting yourself badly." "But, nurse, I'm _four_, now," said Mary. "Four is big." "Of course it is," said Leigh. "Never mind, nurse. The best plan will be for me to hold her chair while she gets down. Are you ready, Artie? Mary and I are." Artie had managed to "honey" his face and hands, and nurse thought Mary too would not be the worse for a slight sponging. "Papa likes a sweet kiss, but not a honey one," she said. But at last they were all ready and on their way down to the dining-room, where they came upon Robert again, ready to throw open the door with great dignity, as he had hurried down the back stairs on purpose to be there before them. Papa was just finishing _his_ breakfast. He looked up with a bright smile. "Well, young people," he said. "Well, my pet," this was to Mary. "So this is your birthday, my little queen--eh?" He lifted her on to his knee and kissed her. Mary loved when papa called her his little queen. "I have to be off immediately," he said, "but first I have to give you your birthday presents from dear mamma and me." "And ours, papa, Leigh's and mine. They're all together--mamma put them all together," said Artie. "All right. They are over there on the side-table. You fetch them," said papa. "Are you going to a meeting, father?" asked Leigh. "Yes, my boy, to lots of meetings. I shan't be back till late to-night." "What are meetings?" Mary was just going to ask, but the sight of Artie and the parcels put it out of her head. There was a beautiful doll's perambulator from papa and mamma, and "a church book," bound in red, and with "Mary" outside, in lovely gold letters; and from Leigh and Artie, a doll's tea-service--cups and saucers and teapot and everything--in white china with little pink flowers, and dear little teaspoons of shining silver, or at least quite as pretty as silver. And then there was the birthday cake--covered with white sugar and with "Mary" in pink letters. There was no fear of Mary forgetting her name this birthday, was there? How her eyes sparkled, and how quick her breath came with pleasure, and how rosy her cheeks grew! "Oh papa," she said, "oh Leigh, oh Artie!" and for a minute or two that was all she could say. "Are you pleased, my pet?" said papa. "Oh, I _never_, never did have such sp'endid presents," said Mary. "Dear little Mary," said Artie, kissing her. "I am so glad you like them." Then another thought struck Mary, as she stood touching gently one of her treasures after the other, as if she did not know which she loved the most. "Papa, dear," she said, "can't I see dear mamma? I would like to zank dear mamma." "And so you shall, my pet," said her father. And he picked her up as he spoke and seated her on his shoulder. Mary was very fond of riding on papa's shoulder. "Come along, boys," he said, "you may come with me, if you won't be noisy, to see mamma and something else--Mary's best birthday present of all." "Anoder birfday present," said Mary, so surprised that she felt quite breathless. "_Anoder_, papa?" "Yes, old woman--you couldn't guess what, if you tried for a week of Sundays," said papa. Papa did say such funny things sometimes! Mary would have begun wondering what a week of Sundays could be like, if her thoughts had not been so busy with the idea of another birthday present, that she could not take in anything else. What _could_ it be? "There's been nothing but guessing to-day," said Artie. "Nurse _was_ making us guess so at breakfast, about something that's comed for Mary's birthday. Could it be this other present, papa? I'm tired of guessing." "Well, don't guess any more," said papa. "I'm going to show you." CHAPTER THREE. A WONDERFUL BIRTHDAY PRESENT. There was a room next to Mary's mother's room which was not often used. Mary was rather surprised when her father carried her straight to this room instead of to her mother's. And when he lifted her down from his shoulder she was still more surprised to see that there was a nice little fire burning in the grate, and that the room looked quite cheerful and almost like another nursery, with a rocking-chair in front of the fire, and the blinds drawn up to let the pretty summer morning brightness in. There was something in the corner of the room which Mary would have stared at a great deal if she had seen it. But just now she did not look that way, for she was surprised for the third time by seeing that a door stood open in the corner near the window, where she had never known before that there was a door. "Where does that go to, papa?" she said, and she was running forward to look when her father stopped her. "It goes into mamma's room, my pet," he said, "but I don't want you to go in there yet. Perhaps mamma's asleep." "It's all dark," said Mary; she had been peeping in. She felt rather strange, and a very tiny, weeny bit frightened. Everything seemed "funny" this birthday morning. She almost felt as if she was dreaming. "Why is mamma's room all dark?" she said again. "Is her asleep?" "I'm not sure, dear. Wait here a minute and I'll see," and her father went into the next room, closing the door a little after him. Mary and her brothers stood looking at each other. What was going to happen? "It's to be a surprise, I s'pose," said Artie. "It's the guesses, _I_ say," said Leigh. "It's a birfday present for me. Papa said so," said Mary. "We're speaking like the three bears," said Artie laughing. "Let's go on doing it. It's rather fun. You say something, Leigh--say `somebody's been in my bed'--that'll do quite well. Say it very growlily." "Somebody's been in my bed," said Leigh, as growlily as he could. Leigh was a very good-natured boy, you see. "Now, it's my turn," said Artie, and he tried to make his voice into a kind of gruff squeak that he thought would do for the mamma bear's talking. "Somebody's been in _my_ bed," he said. "Come along, Mary, it's you now." Mary was laughing by this time. "Somebody," she began in a queer little peepy tone, "somebody's--" but suddenly a voice from the other side of the door made them all jump. "My dear three bears," it said--it was papa, of course, "be so good as to shut your eyes _tight_ till I tell you to open them, and then Mary can finish." They did shut their eyes--they heard papa come into the room and cross over to the corner which they had not looked at. Then there was a little rustling--then he called out: "All right. Open your eyes. Now, Mary, Tiny Bear, fire away. Somebody's lying--" "In my bed," said Mary, as she opened her eyes, thinking to herself how _very_ funny papa was. But when her eyes were quite open she did stare. For there he was beckoning to her from the corner where he was standing beside a dear little bed, all white lace or muslin--Mary called all sorts of stuff like that "lace"--and pink ribbons. "Oh," said Mary, running across the room, "that's _my_ bed. Mamma showed it me one day. It were my bed when I was a little girl." "Of course, it's your bed," said her father. "I told you to be Tiny Bear and say, `somebody's lying in my bed.' Somebody _is_ lying in your bed. Look and see." Mary raised herself up on her tiptoes and peeped in. On the soft white pillow a little head was resting--a little head with dark fluffy curls all over it--Mary could not see all the curls, for there was a flannel shawl drawn round the little head, but she could see the face and the curls above the forehead. "It," this wonderful new doll, seemed to be asleep--its eyes were shut, and its mouth was a tiny bit open, and it was breathing very softly. It had a dear little button of a nose, and it was rather pink all over. It looked very cosy and peaceful, and there seemed a sweet sort of lavendery scent all about the bed and the pretty new flannel blankets and the embroidered coverlet. That _was_ pretty--white cashmere worked with tiny rosebuds. Mary remembered seeing her mamma working at it, and it was lined with pale pink silk. But just then, though Mary saw all these things and noticed them, yet, in another way, she did not see them. For all her real seeing and noticing went to the living thing in this dear little nest, the little, soft, sleeping, breathing face, that she gazed at as if she could never leave off. And behind her, gazing too, though Mary had the best place, of course, as it was her birthday and she was a girl--behind her stood her brothers. For a few seconds, which seemed longer to the children, there was perfect silence in the room. It was a strange wonderful silence. Mary never forgot it. Her breath came fast, her heart seemed to beat in a different way, her little face, which was generally rather pale, grew flushed. And then at last she turned to her father who was waiting quietly. He did not want to interrupt them. "Like as if we were saying our prayers, wasn't it?" Artie said afterwards. But when Mary turned she felt that he had been watching them all the time, and there was a _very_ nice smile on his face. "Papa," she said. She seemed as if she could not get out another word, "papa--is it?" "Yes, darling," he replied, "it is. It's a baby sister. Isn't that the nicest present you ever had?" Then there came back to Mary what she had often said about "not wanting a baby sister," and she could scarcely believe she had ever felt like that. She was sorry to remember she had said it, only she knew she had not understood about it. "I never thought her would be so pretty," she said. "I never thought her would be so sweet. Oh papa, her is a _lubly_ birfday present! When her wakes up, mayn't I kiss her?" "Of course you may, and hold her in your arms if you are very careful," said her father, looking very pleased. He had been very anxious for Mary to love the baby a great deal, for sometimes "next-to-the-baby" children are rather jealous and cross at being no longer the pet and the youngest. It was a very good thing he and her mamma agreed that the baby had come as a birthday present to Mary. The idea of holding her in her own arms was so delightful that again for a moment or two Mary felt as if she could not speak. "And what do you two fellows think of your new sister?" said papa, turning to the boys. Leigh leant over the cradle and peered in very earnestly. "She's something like," he said slowly, "something like those very tiny little ducklings," and seeing a smile on his father's face he went on to explain, though he grew rather red, "I don't know what makes me think that. She looks so soft and cosy, I suppose. You know the little ducklings, papa? They're like balls of fluffy down." "I don't think she's a bit like them," said Artie, who in his turn had been having a good examination of the baby. "I think she's more like a very little monkey. Do you remember that tiny monkey with a pink face, that sat on the organ in the street at grandmamma's one day, Leigh? It _was_ like her." He spoke quite gravely. He had admired the monkey very much. He did not at all mean that the new baby was not pretty, and his father's smile grew rather comical. "See how she scroozles up her face," he went on; "she's _just_ like the monkey now. It was a very nice monkey, you know, papa." But Mary was not pleased. She had never seen a monkey, but there was a picture of one for the letter "M" in what she called her "animal book," and she did not think it pretty at all. "No," she said, "no, Artie, her's not a' inch like a monkey. Her's _booful_, just booful, and monkeys isn't." Then suddenly she gave a little cry. "Oh papa, dear, do look," she called out, "her's openin' her eyes. I never 'amembered her could open her eyes," and Mary nearly danced with delight. Yes indeed, Miss Baby was opening her eyes and more than her eyes--her little round mouth opened too, and she began to cry--quite loud! Mary had heard babies cry before now, of course, but somehow everything about _this_ baby was too wonderful. She did not seem at all like the babies Mary saw sometimes when she was out walking; she was like herself and not anything else. Mary's face grew red again when she heard the baby cry. "Oh papa, dear," she said. "Has her hurt herself?" "No, no, she's all right," said papa. But all the same he did not take baby out of her cot--papas are very fond of their babies of course, but I do not think they like them _quite_ so much when they cry--instead of that, he turned towards the door leading into the next room. "Nurse," he said in a low voice, but nurse heard him. "Yes, sir," said a voice, in reply, and then came another surprise for Mary. The person who came quickly into the room was not "nurse" at all, but somebody quite different, though she had a nice face and was very neatly dressed. Who could she be? The world did seem _very_ upside down this birthday morning to Mary! "Nurse," she repeated to her father, with a very puzzled look. "Yes, dear," said the stranger, "I'm come to be baby's nurse. You see she needs so much taking care of just now while she's still so very little--your nurse wouldn't have time to do it all." "No," said Mary, "I think it's a good plan," and she gave a little sigh of satisfaction. She loved the baby dearly already and she would have been quite ready to give her anything--any of her toys or pretty things, if they would have pleased her--but still she did feel it would have been rather hard for _her_ nurse to be so busy all day that she could not take care of Artie and her as usual. The strange nurse smiled. Mary was what people call an "old-fashioned" child, and one of her funny expressions was saying anything that she liked was "a good plan." She stood staring with all her eyes as the nurse cleverly lifted baby out of the cot and laid her on her knee in a comfortable way, so that she left off crying. But her eyes were still open, and Mary came close to look at them. "Is her going to stay awake now?" she said. "Perhaps she will, for a little while," said the nurse. "But such very tiny babies like to sleep a great deal." Mary stood quite still. She felt as if she could stay there all day just looking at the baby--every moment she found out some new wonder about her. "Her's got ears," she said at last. "Of course she has," said the strange nurse. "You wouldn't like her to be deaf?" "Baby," said Mary, but baby took no notice. "Her _it_ deaf," she went on, looking very disappointed. "Her doesn't look at me when I call her." "No, my dear," said the nurse. "She hasn't learnt yet to understand. It will take a good while. You will have to be very patient. Little babies have a great, great deal to learn when they first come into this world. Just think what a great many things you have learnt yourself since you were a baby, Miss Mary." Mary looked at her. She had never thought of this. "I wasn't never so little, was I?" she said. "Yes, quite as little. And you couldn't speak, or stand, or walk, or do anything except what this little baby does." This was very strange to think of. Mary thought about it for a moment or two without speaking. Then she was just going to ask some more questions, when she heard her father's voice. "Mary," he said, "mamma is awake and you may come in and get a birthday kiss. Leigh and Artie are waiting for you to have the first kiss as you're the queen of the day." "I'd like there to be two queens," said Mary, as she trotted across to her father. "'Cos of baby coming on my birfday. When will her have a birfday of hers own?" she went on, stopping short on her way when this thought came into her head. Her father laughed as he picked her up. "I'm afraid you'll have to wait a whole year for that," he said. "Next year, if all's well, your birthday and baby's will come together." "Oh, that will be nice," said Mary, but then for a minute or two she forgot all about baby, as her father lifted her on to her mother's bed to get the birthday kiss waiting for her. "My pet," said her mother, "are you pleased with your presents, and are you having a happy day?" Mary put up her little hand and stroked her mother's forehead, on which some little curls of pretty brown were falling. "Mamma dear," she said, "your hair isn't very tidy. Shall I call Larkin to brush it smoove?" and she began to scramble off the bed to go to fetch the maid. "What a little fidget you are," said her mother. "Never mind about my hair. I want you to tell me what you think of your little sister." "I think her _sweet_," said Mary. "And her curls is somefin like yours, mamma. But Leigh says hers like little ducks, and Artie says hers like a pink monkey." Mamma began to laugh at this, quite loud. But just then the nurse put her head in at the door. "Baby's opening her eyes so wide, Miss Mary," she said. "Do come and look at her, and you, Master Leigh and Master Artie too. You shall come and see your mamma again in the afternoon." So they all three went back into the other room to have another look at baby. "I say, children," called their father after them. "We've got to fix what baby's to be called. It'll take a lot of thinking about, so you must set your wits to work, and tell me to-morrow what name you like best." CHAPTER FOUR. BABIES. There was plenty to think of all that day. Mary's little head had never been so full, and before bedtime came she began to feel quite sleepy. It had been a very happy day, even though everything seemed rather strange. Their father would have liked to stay with them, but he was obliged to go away. Nurse--I mean Artie's and Mary's own nurse--was _very_ good to them, and so were cook and all the other servants. The birthday dinner was just what Mary liked--roast chicken and bread-sauce and little squirly rolls of bacon, and a sponge-cake pudding with strawberry jam. And there was a very nice tea, too; the only pity was that baby could not have any of the good things, because, as nurse explained, she had no teeth. "She'll have some by next birthday, won't she?" asked Leigh. "I hope so, poor dear," said nurse, "though she'll scarcely be able to eat roast chicken by then." "Why do you say `poor dear'?" asked Leigh. "Because their teeth coming often hurts babies a good deal," said nurse. "It would be much better if they were all ready," said Leigh. "I don't see why they shouldn't be. Baby's got hands and eyes and everything else--why shouldn't she have teeth?" "I'm sure I can't say, Master Leigh," nurse answered. "There's many things we can't explain." Mary opened her mouth wide and began tugging at her own little white teeth. "Them doesn't hurt me," she said. "Ah but they did, Miss Mary," said nurse. "Many a night you couldn't sleep for crying with the pain of them, but you can't remember it." "It's very funny," said Mary. "What's funny?" asked Leigh. "About 'amembering," answered Mary, and a puzzled look came into her face. "Can you 'amember when you was a tiny baby, nurse?" "No, my dear, nobody can," said nurse. "But don't worry yourself about understanding things of that kind." "There's somefin in my head now that I can't 'amember," said Mary, "somefin papa said. It's that that's teasing me, nurse. I don't like to not 'amember what papa said." "You must ask him to-morrow, dearie," nurse answered. "You'll give yourself a headache if you go on trying too hard to remember." "Isn't it _funny_ how things go out of our minds like that?" said Leigh. "I'll tell you what I think it is. I think our minds are like cupboards or chests of drawers, and some of the things get poked very far back so that we can't get at them when we want them. You see the newest things are at the front, that's how we can remember things that have just happened and not things long ago." "No," said Artie, "'tisn't quite like that, Leigh. For I can remember what we had for dinner on my birthday, and that was very long ago, before last winter, much better than what we had for dinner one day last week." "I can tell you how that is," said nurse, "what you had for dinner on your birthday made a mark on your mind because it was your birthday. Everything makes marks on our minds, I suppose, but some go deeper than others. That's how it's always seemed to me about remembering and forgetting. And if there's any name I want to remember very much I say it out loud to myself two or three times, and that seems to press it into my mind. Dear, dear, how well I remember doing that way at school when I was a little girl. There was the kings and queens, do what I would, I couldn't remember how their names came, till I got that way of saying two or three together, like `William and Mary, Anne, George the First,' over and over." The children listened with great interest to nurse's recollections, the boys especially, that is to say; the talk was rather too difficult for Mary to understand. But her face looked very grave; she seemed to be listening to what nurse said, and yet thinking of something behind it. All at once her eyes grew bright and a smile broke out like a ray of sunshine. "I 'amember," she said joyfully. "Nursie said her couldn't 'amember names. It was names papa said. He said us was to fink of a name for baby." "Oh, is that what you've been fussing about?" said Leigh. "I could have told you that long ago. _I've_ fixed what I want her to be called. I've thought of a _very_ pretty name." Mary looked rather sorry. "I can't fink of any names," she said; "I can only fink of `Mary.' Can't her be called `Mary,' 'cos it's my birfday?" Leigh and Artie both began to laugh. "What a silly girl you are," said Leigh; "how could you have two people in one family with the same name? Whenever we called `Mary,' you'd never know if it was you or the baby we meant." "You could say `baby Mary,'" said Mary, who did not like to be called a silly girl. "And when she was big," said Leigh, "how would she like to be called `baby'?" Mary had not thought of this, still she would not give in. "Peoples has the same names," she said. "Papa's name's `Leigh,' and your name's `Leigh,'--there now--" and as another idea struck her, "and us _all_ is called Bertum. Papa's Mr Bertum and mamma's Mrs Bertum and--and--" "And you're `Miss Bertum,'" said Leigh, laughing. "But that's because Bertram is our _family_ name, you see, Mary. We've each got a first name too. It doesn't much matter papa and me being the same, except that sometimes I think mamma's calling me when she means papa, but it would never do if Artie and I had the same name. Fancy, if we were both called `Artie,' we'd never know which you meant." "No," said Mary, laughing too, "it would be a very bad plan. I never thought of that. But I _can't_ think of a pitty name for dear little baby." "There's lots," said Artie, who had been sitting very silent--to tell the truth, he had forgotten all about choosing a name, but he did not want to say so. So he had been thinking of all the names he could, so that he might seem quite as ready as Leigh. "There's Cowslip and Buttercup and Firefly and--" "Nonsense," said Leigh, "considering you're six years old, Artie, you're sillier than Mary. Those are cows' names, and--" "They're not--not all of them," said Artie, "Firefly's a pony's name. It's little Ella Curry's pony's name, and I think it's very pretty." "For a pony perhaps," said nurse, "but then you see, Master Artie, your little sister isn't a pony." "I wish she was," said Leigh, and when nurse looked up astonished he looked rather ashamed. "Of course I don't mean that it isn't nice for her to be a little girl," he went on, "but I do so wish we had a pony." "You may just be patient for a while, Master Leigh," said nurse; "you know your papa's promised you a pony when you're ten years old, and by that time baby will be nearly two." "That won't matter," said Leigh, "even Mary won't be able to ride my pony. It's to be a real sensible one, not a stupid donkey sort of pony, with panniers or a basket on its back." "No," said Artie, "it's to be a galoppy-trot one! Won't we make him go, Leigh." "I shall," said Leigh; "you won't have much to say to it. You'll be too little too." Artie's face fell. Mary, who was sitting beside him, slipped her little hand into his. "Nebber mind, Artie," she said. "We'll ask papa to give us anoder pony. A very gentle one for you and me and baby." "A perambulator will be more in baby's way," said nurse. "Miss Mary's old one is quite worn out and they do make such pretty ones nowadays. I hope your mamma will get her a very nice one." "And may we push it sometimes?" said Artie, brightening up again, "that would be nice." Leigh gave a little laugh. "What a baby you are, Artie," he was beginning, but nurse, who saw that he was in one of his teasing humours, looked up quickly. "It's such a fine evening," she said, "and it's scarcely five o'clock. How would you like to go out a little walk? We didn't go very far to-day. We might go as far as the Lavender Cottages, I've something to take there from your mamma." The boys looked very pleased. "Oh yes, nurse," they said, "do let's go out." "And mayn't we stop and see the puppies at the smithy on the way?" Leigh went on. "I'm f'ightened of those little barky dogs," said Mary; "I don't want to go out, nurse, I'm sleepy." "It'll do you good, my dear, to have a little walk before you go to bed; you'll sleep all the better for it and wake all the fresher in the morning," and a few minutes afterwards, when the little party were walking down the drive, Mary looked quite bright again. It was a very lovely evening. The way to the Lavender Cottages lay across the fields, and, as every one knows, there is nothing prettier than a long stretch of grass land with the tender spring green lighted up by late afternoon sunshine. Mary trotted along contentedly, thinking to herself. "My birfday's going to bed soon," she thought, "and to-morrow morning it'll be gone--gone away for a long, long time," and she gave a little sigh. "But somefins won't be gone away, all my birfday presents will stay, and baby sister will stay, and when my birfday comes back again it will be hers too. Dear little baby sister! I wish her had comed out a walk wif us, the sun is so pitty." The smithy was at the foot of the road leading up to the cottages, just opposite the stile by which they left the fields. This stile had three steps up and three steps down, with a bar of wood to clamber across at the top. It was one of the children's favourite stiles, as the boys always pretended that the bar was a pony on which they had a ride on the way over. To-day nurse and Mary waited patiently till they had ridden far enough. Then Artie hopped down the other side and Leigh stood at the top to help his sister over, for though he was a teasing boy sometimes, he never forgot that she was a little girl and that it was his place to take care of her. "Leigh," said Mary, as he was lifting her down, "I is so f'ightened of those little dogs! Please don't go to see them." "How can you be frightened of them, Mary?" said Leigh. "It's really very silly! They're only baby dogs, don't you understand; they couldn't hurt anybody." This was quite a new idea to Mary, and she stopped short on the second step of the stile to think about it. "_Baby_ dogs," she said, "I never thought little dogs was babies. Is there babies of everything, Leigh?" "Of course there are. Don't you remember the baby ducks? And the little lambs are baby sheep, and even the tiny buds are baby flowers." "And _babies_ never hurts nobody, does they?" said Mary, as she got safely to the ground again with the help of her brother's hand. "Then I won't be f'ightened, Leigh, of the little doggies. You may take me to see them," and as Leigh hurried on to the smithy, which he thought the most delightful place in the world, Mary trotted beside him as fast as her little legs could go, holding firmly to him while she said over to herself, though in rather a trembling voice-- "I never thought them was _baby_ dogs, _babies_ don't hurt nobody." Yakeman the smith was standing in front of his forge, taking a rest after the day's work. "Good-evening, Master Leigh," he said, as the children came up to him. "Come for a look at the puppies, sir? They're getting on finely. Would Missie like to see them too?" and he turned to open a little gate leading into his garden. Leigh looked down at Mary, not quite sure what she would feel about it. Her face was rather red, and she pinched his hand more tightly. "Would you like to see them, Mary?" he asked. "Oh, yes, I'm not f'ightened now," she answered bravely. "You've no call to be afear'd," said Yakeman, as he led the way. "No," said Mary, "'cos them's only babies." The puppies were all tumbling over each other in a comfortable nest of hay in the corner of a shed. There were four of them, brown curly balls, nearly as soft and fluffy as Leigh's favourite ducklings. Yakeman stooped down and picked one up with his big hand and held it close to Mary. She stroked it gently with the very tip of her fingers. "It _are_ sweet," she said, with a rather shaky little laugh, and as no harm came of her touching it, she grew still braver. "May I kiss its little head?" she said, looking up at the tall blacksmith, who smiled down on her. "To be sure, Missie," said he, so Mary buried her nose in the brown fur, suddenly giving a little cry as she felt something warm and wet on her cheek. "He's licking you," said Leigh; "I dare say he means it for kissing though. I say, Mary, wouldn't it be nice if papa would let us have a puppy for our very own." "A baby puppy and a baby sister," said Mary. "Did you know us had got a baby sister?" she went on, to the smith. "Her comed to-day 'cos it were my birfday." "That was a fine birthday present," said Yakeman, "and you'd be welcome to this puppy if your papa would allow you to have it. I've promised two and I'm keeping one myself, but this here I'd not settled about." Mary's eyes sparkled, and so did Leigh's. "We'd have him between us, Mary," said Leigh. "We must ask papa. _You'd_ better ask him because of its being your birthday, you know." Just then they heard nurse's voice, she had been waiting for Artie while he had another ride on the stile. "Master Leigh and Miss Mary, where are you?" she said. "We must be getting on." The children thanked the smith and ran after her, full of the offer which had been made to them. "Oh, nurse," said Mary, when they had told her of it. "Just fink of all my birfday presents! A baby sister and a baby dog, and all my nother things," and she gave a great sigh of pleasure. "Yes, indeed, Miss Mary," said nurse. "I don't think you'll ever forget your fourth birthday." CHAPTER FIVE. WITH PAPA. The children's father came back late that night, but too late for them to see him. And the next morning he had to be off again, this time for two whole days together, so there was no chance of asking him about the dog. Leigh and Mary spoke of it to their mother, but dogs are things that papas have most to do with, and she could only say, "You must ask papa." It was rather trying to have to wait so long to know about it, or at least it would have been so if Mary had not had so many other interesting things to think about just then. There were all her birthday presents, her "regular" birthday presents, as the boys called them, which were still of course quite new, not to speak of the baby, which seemed to Mary more wonderful every time she saw her. Unless you really live with a baby, and that, as you know, had never happened to Mary before, you can have no idea how very interesting babies are, even when they are so tiny that they can do nothing but go to sleep and wake again, and cry when they are hungry, and stretch themselves and yawn, and make oh! such funny faces! Why, that is quite a long list of things to do already, and there are ever so many more queer little ways about a baby when you come to notice them. Even its little pink toes seemed to Mary the prettiest and funniest things she had ever seen in her life. Leigh and she fixed together that, till they had asked their father about the dog, they would not go past the smithy. "It only makes us fink about it," said Mary. And nurse, who, to tell the truth, was not very eager for them to get the puppy, was not sorry when the children asked her not to pass that way. "Miss Mary is still frightened of Yakeman's dogs," she thought to herself, "and it's just as well. I don't know whatever we'd do if we had to take a puppy out walks with us as well as Miss Baby." For of course nurse knew that before long, when the baby grew a little bigger, she would come to live in the nursery altogether and go out walks with the others. Just at first nurse would carry her, but after awhile she would go in the new perambulator which nurse had set her heart upon getting. That reminds me of Mary's present from her father and mother, which, as I told you, was a doll's perambulator. It was a great amusement to them all, not only to Mary. You have no idea what a lot of fun you can get out of a doll's perambulator. It was not only the dolls that went drives in it; the children tried several other things which did not succeed very well. The kitten for one did not like it at all. Leigh caught it one day, when there was no one else to take a drive, for the dolls had all got very bad colds, and Doctor Artie had said that they must on no account go out. Mary looked very grave at this, but of course the doctor's orders had to be obeyed. "What shall we do?" she said sadly. "It will be so dull to go out a walk wifout the perambulator," for till now the dolls had had a drive every day. "Leave it to me," said Leigh, "you'll find some one all ready waiting when you come down to go out." And sure enough when nurse and Mary arrived at the door, there was the perambulator, and seated in the doll's place, or rather tied into it, was a very queer figure indeed--the kitten, as I told you, looking and feeling perfectly miserable. Leigh had done his best to make it comfortable. He had tied it in with a large soft handkerchief very cleverly, but it was mewing piteously all the same. "Come along quick, Mary," he said, "Kitty's in a great hurry to be off; she doesn't like being kept waiting, that's what she's saying." Mary looked as if she was not quite sure if that was what Kitty's mews really meant, but of course, as Leigh was so much bigger and older, she thought he must know best. So she began pushing the perambulator, very gently at first, for fear of frightening poor pussy, who was so much astonished at feeling herself moving that for a moment or two she left off mewing. "There now," said Leigh, "you see how she likes it. Go faster, Mary." Mary set off running as fast as she could, which was not very fast, however, for at four years old, one's legs are still very short, but she did her best, as she wanted to please Leigh and the kitten too. The garden path was smooth and it was a little down hill. Leigh scampered on in front, Mary coming after him rather faster than she meant. Indeed she began to have a queer feeling that her legs were running away with her, when all of a sudden there came a grand upset. Mary found herself on the ground, on the top of the perambulator, and even before she had time to pick herself up her little voice was heard crying out: "Oh poor Kitty! I'se felled on the top of poor Kitty!" But no, Kitty was not as much to be pitied as Mary herself, for the poor little girl's knees were sadly scratched by the gravel and one of her hands was really bleeding. While, there was Kitty, galloping home in great glee--Leigh's handkerchief spreading out behind her like a lady's train. Mary scarcely knew whether to laugh or _cry_. I think she did a little of both. Leigh wanted to catch pussy again, but nurse would not hear of it, and proposed instead that they should use the perambulator to bring home a beautiful lot of primroses for their mother, from the woods. After this adventure with the kitten, Leigh tried one or two other "tricks," as nurse called them. He wanted to make a coachman of one of his guinea-pigs, who sat quite still as long as he had a leaf of lettuce to munch, but when that was done let himself roll out like a ball over and over again, till even Leigh got tired of catching him and putting him back. Artie's pet rabbit did no better, and then it was decided that when the dolls were ill it would be best to use the perambulator as a cart, for fetching flowers and fir-cones and all sorts of things. This was such fun that the dolls were often obliged to stay at home, even when their colds were not very bad. And for nearly a week the children kept away from the smithy. Papa had been home during that week, of course, and they had tried to ask about the puppy. But he was very busy and hurried; all he could say was that he must see the dog first, and that of course he had had no time for. At last there came a morning on which, when the children went down to see their father after the nursery breakfast, they found him sitting comfortably at the table pouring himself out a second cup of nice hot coffee and reading the newspaper, as if he was not in a hurry at all. "Oh papa," said Leigh, "how jolly it is to see you like that, instead of gobbling up your breakfast as if the train was at the door." "If the train came as near as that I shouldn't be so hurried," said his father laughing, but Mary did not look quite pleased. "Papa doesn't gobble," she said. "Leigh shouldn't speak that way, it's like gooses and turkeys." "I didn't mean that kind of gobbling," said Leigh. "Turkeys gobble-wobble--it's their way of talking. I didn't mean _that_ of papa." Mary still looked rather doubtful, but her father caught her up and set her on his knee with a kiss. "Thank you, my princess," he said, "for standing up for your poor old father. Now, what can I do for you? I've got a nice long holiday before me, all to-day and all to-morrow at home, so I'm quite at your service." Mary looked up. She did not quite understand what "quite at your service" meant, and it was her way when she did not understand anything to think it over for a moment or two before she asked to have it explained. It is not a bad way to do, because there are often things a child can get to understand by a little thinking, and some children have a silly way of never using their own minds if they can help it. "Why don't you answer, Mary?" said Leigh. "I know what _I'd_ say, if papa offered to do anything I wanted, and I think you might remember what we're all wanting so much." Mary's face cleared. "I didn't understand," she said. "But I do now. O papa dear, will you come and see the sweet little doggie at the smiffy? We've been waiting and waiting." "Oh dear," said her father, "I'd forgotten all about it. Yes, of course I'll take a look at it. Let's see: they're retriever pups, aren't they?" Leigh did not answer for a moment. To tell the truth, he was not quite sure what kind of dogs Yakeman's were, though he did not like to say so. "They are brown and curly," he said at last. "And the top of our one's head is nearly as soft as--as baby," added Mary. "Baby would be flattered," said her father. "We're going to call it Fuzzy," Mary went on. "It are so very soft." "And oh, by the by," said papa, "you've never chosen a name for your little sister, so mamma and I have had to fix on one. What do you think of Dorothea?" The children looked at their father doubtfully. "Dorothea," said Leigh. "Doro--" began Artie, stopping in the middle, as he forgot the rest. "Dodo--" said Mary, stopping too. "It's a difficult name, papa." "And I don't think it's very pretty," said Leigh. "Wait a minute," said papa. "You'll like it when I explain about it. You know that baby came on Mary's birthday?" "Yes," said Mary. "She were my best birfday present." "That's just it," her father went on. "`Dorothea' means a present--a present from God, which must mean the best kind of present." "Oh," said Mary, "that's very nice! Please say it again, papa, and I'll try to learn it. Dodo--" "No," said Artie, looking very superior. "Doro--not Dodo." "You needn't look down upon Mary," said Leigh, "if you can't get any further than that. It's Dorothea. I can say it well enough of course, but I do think it's a very long name, papa, for such a very little baby." "She'll grow up to be a big girl some day, I hope," said their father. "But you're all in such a hurry you won't let me finish explaining. Besides having a nice meaning, we like Dorothea because there's such a pretty way of shortening it. We're going to call your little sister `Dolly.'" "That's not difficult," said Mary. "Only it seems as if she was a dolly." "No it doesn't," said Leigh. "Your dolls have all got their own names. I like Dolly very much, papa, and I think we'll better call her it now. `Baby' is so common, there's such lots of babies." "There's a baby at the baker's shop," said Artie, who did not like being left out of the conversation. "It's a lot bigger than our baby, it goes in a sitting-up perambulator all alone." "Dear me," said his father. "How very curious! I should like to see it! We shall be having babies riding tricycles next." Artie stared, he did not understand, but Leigh began to laugh. "How funny you are, papa," he said. "Of course, Artie doesn't mean that it pushes itself along, though _I_ think that pushing a perambulator is very stupid. If I had a baby I know what I'd do." "On the whole, I'd rather not be your baby, I think, Leigh. But if we're going to the smithy this morning, we'd better set off. Run and get ready, boys." Leigh and Artie scampered off, and their father was following them, when a sudden sound made him stop short. It was a wail from Mary. "What is the matter, my darling?" he said, turning back to her. "I does so want to come too," said Mary through her tears. "'Cos the little dog were for me." "You shall come, dear," said her father; "but why didn't you ask me without beginning to cry? That's not being a sensible girl." Mary's face was very like an April day. She smiled up at her father in a minute. "I won't cry," she said, "I'll be very good. Will you wait for me if nurse dresses me very quick, papa?" and she set off after her brothers, mounting upstairs as fast as she could, though "could" was not very fast, as right leg was obliged to wait on each step till left leg made up to it. CHAPTER SIX. "FUZZY." Yakeman at the smithy looked very pleased to see his visitors, especially as their father was with the children. "The puppies are getting on finely," he said. "Two of them are going to their new masters to-morrow. But I've held on to the one as Miss Mary fancied, thinking you'd be looking in some day soon." "We've wanted to come ever so often," said Leigh. "We was waiting for papa," added Mary. "And we didn't come round this way 'cos it made us want the dear little dog so much." Yakeman listened gravely. "I thought I hadn't seen you passing the last few days," he said. "But I wouldn't have let the dog go, not without sending up to ask you." "Oh, we knowed you'd keep him," said Mary, and then Yakeman led the way round to the side of the house again, where the four puppies were rolling and tumbling about in perfect content, their mother watching their gambols with great pride. Suddenly a new thought struck Mary. "Won't her be very unhappy when them all goes away?" she asked Yakeman anxiously. "And won't them cry for their mamma?" The smith smiled. "They're getting old enough to do without her now," he said. "But she'll miss them, no doubt, will poor old Beauty," and he patted the retriever's head as he spoke. "It's the way of the world, bain't it, sir?" turning to the children's father. "Dogs and humans. The young ones leave the old ones cheery enough. It's the old ones as it's hard on!" Mary did not quite understand what he meant, but something made her catch hold of her father's hand. "You won't never let me go away, will you, papa?" she whispered. "Not _never_, will you?" "Not unless you want to go, certainly," said her father, smiling down at her. "But now show me which is the puppy you'd like to have." Mary looked rather puzzled, and so, though they would not have owned it, were the boys. "I think," began Leigh, not at all sure of what he was going to say, but just then, luckily, Yakeman came to their help by picking up one of the puppies. "This here is Miss Mary's one. We've called it hers--the missis and I, ever since the last time you was here." He gave a little laugh, though he did not say what he was laughing at. To tell the truth, Mrs Yakeman and he had called the puppy "Miss Mary!" Mary rubbed her nose, as she had done before, on the puppy's soft curly head. "It are so sweet," she said. "We're going to call him `Fuzzy.' But, oh papa!" and her voice began to tremble. "Oh Leigh and Artie, I don't think we should have him if it would make his poor mother unhappy to be leaved all alone." "It won't be so bad as that, Miss Mary," said the smith, who, though he was such a big man, had a very tender heart, and could not bear to see the little girl's face clouded. "We're going to keep Number 4 for ourselves, and after a day or two Beauty will be quite content with him. You can look in and see for yourselves when you're passing." "Of course," said Leigh, in his wise tone. "It'll be all right, Mary. And we can bring Fuzzy to see his mother sometimes, to pay her a visit, you know." Mary's face cleared. Yakeman and Leigh must know best, and papa would not let them have the dog if it was unkind. It was not what _she'd_ like--to live in a house across the fields from mamma, only to pay her a morning call now and then. But still, dogs were different, she supposed. All this time papa had been looking at Fuzzy, as I think we may now begin to call him. "He's a nice puppy," he said, "a very nice little fellow. Of course, he'll want to be properly taken care of, and careful training. But I can trust Mellor--you know Mellor, of course, the coachman?" he went on to the smith. "He's not bad with dogs." "No, sir, I should say he's very good with 'em," Yakeman replied. "Feedin's a deal to do with it--there's a many young dogs spoilt with over feedin'." "I'll see to that," said Mr Bertram. "Now, children, we must be moving on, I think." But the three stood there looking rather strange. "I thought--" began Leigh. "Won't we--" began Artie. "Oh, papa," began Mary. "What in the world is the matter?" said their father in surprise. "Aren't you pleased about the puppy? I'll send Mellor to fetch him to-morrow." "It's just that," said Leigh. "Yes," said Artie. "We thought he'd be ours, our very own," said Mary, at last explaining what they were in trouble about. For though the three had said nothing to each other, each knew that the others were thinking and feeling the same. "We meant to fetch him ourselves," said Leigh again. "We was going to give him his breakfast and dinner and tea in the nursery," chimed in Artie. "I was p'annin'," added Mary, "that he'd sleep in our beds in turns. I didn't tell Leigh and Artie. I were going to 'apprise them. But I meaned to let it be in turns." Papa began to laugh. So did Yakeman. They could not help it. "Sleep in your cots," said papa. "There wouldn't be much left of the cots or you by the morning." "He wouldn't _eat_ us," said Leigh, looking rather startled. "Not exactly," said his father. "But if he took to rolling on the top of you and making hay of the bedclothes--just look at him now tumbling about in the straw with his brothers--you would not be likely to have a very good night." "And if he had three meals a day in the nursery, there'd not be much left of _he_ in a week or less," said Yakeman. The children looked very surprised. "_We_ always have breakfast and dinner and tea," said Artie, "and little dogs is hungry too." "Ah! yes," said the smith; "but they couldn't do with as much as that. And it'd never do neither for the puppy to eat all as you eats, Master Artie. Puppies isn't little young gentlemen and ladies, and every creature has its own ways. He'll be all right in the stable, never you fear, and Mr Mellor'll see as he has all he should." But still the three faces did not clear. Leigh moved away as if he were going to the gate, flicking his boots with a little whip he had in his hand, to seem as if he did not care, though in reality he was very nearly crying. And Artie's and Mary's faces grew longer and longer. "I don't think I want to have him," she said at last. "Zank you, Mr Yakeman, and zank you, papa; but him wouldn't be _nours_--him'd be Mellor's," and then there came a little choke in Mary's voice and a misty look in her eyes, and in a moment Artie's pocket-handkerchief was out of his pocket and he was rubbing her cheeks with all his might. "_Don't_ cry, Mary," he said; "_please_, don't cry. P'raps papa won't--" I am not quite sure what he was going to say. I am not sure that he knew himself. But whatever it was, he was interrupted. For before Mary's tears had had time to begin their journey down her face, papa had picked her up in his arms and was busy comforting her. He could not bear to see her cry! Really, it was rather a wonder that she was not spoilt. "My pet," he said, "there is truly nothing to cry about. The puppy-- what is it you call him, Fudge or Fuss--" Mary could not help laughing a little. Fancy calling a puppy "Fudge." "No, papa dear; _Fuzzy_--that's what we was going to call him." "Well, darling, Fuzzy shall be your very own. You shall go to see him in the stables whenever you like; I'll tell Mellor. And he will go out walks with you--the puppy, I mean, not Mellor--as soon as ever he has learnt to follow." This made Mary laugh again. The idea of Mellor going out a walk with them all, following behind like a well-behaved dog. For Mellor was not very young, and he had a broad red face and was rather fat. Papa was pleased to hear Mary laughing, even though it was rather a shaky little laugh, and he went on to explain more. "You see he's not the sort of dog that you can have in the house, particularly not in the nursery," he said. "Indeed, I hardly think that any dog except a very old and tried one is safe in a nursery, above all, where there's such a little baby as--" "Dolly," said Mary quietly, to show that she had not forgotten what baby was to be called. "Yes, as Dolly," her father went on. "They would be two babies together, and they might hurt each other without meaning it. Dolly might pull Fuddle's hair--" At this all three children burst out laughing, quite a hearty laugh this time. "Oh, papa dear," said Mary, "what a very bad mem'ry you've got! It isn't _Fuddle_! Can't you say _Fuzzy_?" "Fuzzy, _Fuzzy_, Fuzzy," said papa, speaking like the three bears turned the wrong way. "There, now, I think I've got it into my stupid old head at last. Well, as I was saying, Miss Dolly might pull Master Fuzzy's hair, without meaning to hurt him of course, and he might turn round and snap at her, not exactly meaning to hurt her either, but still--it might be rather bad, you see." Mary's face grew very grave. "I never thought of that," she said solemnly. "It would be dedful for dear little baby Dolly to be hurted, though I'm kite sure Fuzzy wouldn't mean it." "But when Dolly's a good bit bigger, and when Fuzzy is quite a trained dog, he may come into the house sometimes, mayn't he?" said Leigh. "At Auntie Maud's," said Artie, "there's _free_ dogs always lying in the hall. They get up and come and sniff you when you go in. When I was a little boy I was frightened of them, but they never bit me." "Ah! well," said his father, "when Dolly's a big girl and Fuzzy's a big dog, we'll see. Some dogs are very good indeed with little children; I hope he'll be. I remember seeing a great Newfoundland that let his master's children ride on his back, just as if he was a little pony. He stalked along as steadily as possible." "And in some countries," said Leigh eagerly, "dogs are taught to draw little carriages, aren't they? I've seen pictures of them, up where there's such lots of snow near the top of the world. Squim--something, those people are called." "Esquimaux, you mean, I suppose," said his father laughing. He had put down Mary by this time, and they were walking on slowly up the hill towards the Lavender Cottages. "Yes, and in other countries not so far off I've seen dogs drawing little carts as soberly as possible." "I _would_ like to see that!" said Artie, his eyes sparkling. "And so would I!" said Mary. And Leigh, though he said nothing, took the idea into his mind more than either of the others. By this time they were close to the top of the little hill where stood the cottages of which we have spoken so often--the Lavender Cottages as they were called; because once, a good many years ago, an old man lived there, whose lavender was famed all about that part of the country. He had a garden, almost like a little field, quite full of it. This garden belonged to one of the end cottages, and it was now a regular cottage kitchen-garden, with potatoes and cabbages and other vegetables growing in it, though in one corner there was still a nice little stock of the old lavender bushes. Here lived an old woman and her son, named Sweeting. Mrs Sweeting had once been cook at the hall when the children's father was a little boy, and she was always pleased to have a visit from any of them. "I hear poor old Mrs Sweeting has been ill," said papa; "I'll just go in for a minute or two to see her. You children can wait outside for me." The boys and Mary were not sorry to do so. They were always fond of coming to the Lavender Cottages, not only to see Mrs Sweeting who was very kind to them, but because they were much interested in the family of children who lived next door. There were such a lot of them! The cottage would never have held them all; but luckily, in the third cottage, at the other end again, lived the grandfather and grandmother of the large family, and some of the bigger boys had a room in their house. Still there were plenty left in the middle cottage, as you will hear. CHAPTER SEVEN. THE PERRY FAMILY AND PAPA'S STORY. Besides the three big boys, the children had counted six more young Perrys in the middle one of the Lavender Cottages, and by degrees they had found out most of their names. The eldest girl was about twelve, and her name was a very funny one--it was Comfort. "How tired she must be of people saying to her that they hope she's a comfort to her father and mother," said Leigh, when he first heard her name. I think nurse told it him, for she knew something of the Perrys, and the odd name had taken her fancy. Comfort was rather a tall girl for her age, and she was clever at school, where she often got prizes. But the next to her, a short, rosy-faced child called Janie, who was generally seen carrying about the baby, a very motherly little girl, seemed as if her elder sister's name would have suited her better. After Janie came Ned, and after Ned three little creatures so near each other that they all looked like babies together, and it was difficult to tell whether they were boys or girls. The quite youngest--the one that all the rest of them called "baby"-- spent most of its life seemingly in Janie's arms. I _suppose_ Janie went to school sometimes, but, anyway, the Bertram children never passed the cottages or met the little Perrys in the lanes without seeing the baby in its usual resting-place. The other two babies seemed to spend their lives in a queer old-fashioned kind of double perambulator. It was made of wicker; and in fine weather, and indeed sometimes in weather that was not so very fine, was almost always to be seen standing at the cottage-door or just outside the gate leading into the little garden, with the two small people tied into it, one at each side. To-day they were there as usual. There, too, was Janie with number three baby in her arms, while Comfort was strolling about with a book in her hand, out of which she seemed to be learning something. "Good-morning," said Leigh, by way of opening the conversation. "Where's Ned? He can't be at school; it's a half-holiday, isn't it?" "Please, sir--no, sir, if Ned was at school, Comfort and me would be at school too," said Janie. And Comfort, hearing the talking, came up to where they were standing. They were all in the lane just outside the little garden. "Ned's run in just to get a bit of cord," said the elder girl. "We're goin' a walk in the woods. We must take the little ones, 'cos mother's washing's got late this week, and she wants them out of the way." It was rather curious that Mrs Perry's washing often did get late. She was a kind, good-natured woman, but "folks said," according to nurse, not the best of good managers. "What's Ned going to do with the cord?" asked Leigh, Artie and Mary standing by, listening with the greatest interest, and holding each other's hands tightly, as they felt just a little shy. "Oh, it's a notion of Ned's," said Janie, rather scornfully. "It's just his nonsense: he don't like pushing p'ram, 'cos he says it's girls' work, and Comfort don't hold with pushing it neither, 'cos she wants to be reading her book." Here Comfort broke in. "'Tisn't that I'm so taken up with my book," she said,--"leastways not to please myself; but I want to get moved up after next holidays. When I'm big enough I'm to be a pupil teacher." "That would be very nice," said Leigh. "And then, when you're quite big, you'll get to be a schoolmistress, I suppose." Comfort murmured something and got very red. To be a schoolmistress was the greatest wish she had. "But I don't see," Leigh went on, "what Ned and the cord's got to do with it." "Bless you, sir," said Janie, "he's going to make hisself into a pony to draw the p'ram, so as Comfort need do nothing but walk behind pushing with one hand and a-holding of the book with the other, and no need to look out where they're going." "Oh, I see," said Leigh slowly. He could not help admiring the idea. Then, as Ned at that moment ran out of the cottage, the three little visitors stood in a row watching with the greatest interest while Ned harnessed himself to the front of the wicker carriage. It was a little difficult to manage, but luckily the Perry family were very good-natured, and the two babies in the perambulator only laughed when they got jogged about. And at last, with Leigh's help, the two-legged pony was ready for the start. Off they set, Comfort holding on behind. She was so interested in it all, by this time that her book was given to one of the babies to hold. This was lucky, as the first start was rather a queer one. Ned was not tied in quite evenly, so when he set off at a trot the perambulator ran to one side, as if a crab instead of a boy were drawing it. And but for Comfort behind, no doubt, in another minute it would have turned over. "Stop, Ned, stop!" shouted his sisters, Leigh and Artie and Mary joining in, and the babies too. Then they all burst out laughing; it did seem so funny, and it took a minute or two before they could set to work to put things right. When Ned's harness was made quite even, he set off again more slowly. This time it was a great success, or it seemed so anyway, though perhaps it was as much thanks to Comfort's pushing behind as to Ned's pulling in front. Mary and her brothers stood watching the little party as they made their way along the smooth path leading to the wood. "It's a good thing," said Leigh, "they're not going the smithy way, for if they went down hill, I believe the carriage would tumble over; it's such a shaky old thing." "When our baby gets a perambulator it'll not be like that ugly old thing, will it?" said Artie. "It will be a reg'lar nice one." "Of course it will," said Mary. "I'd like it to be the same as the one in my animal book. `G' for goats, with little goats drawing it." "We can't have a goat," said Leigh; "but we might have something. Of course it's rubbish to harness a boy into a carriage, but--I've got something in my head." There was no time for Artie and Mary to ask him what he meant, for just then they saw their father coming out of the gate. "I've kept you waiting a long time, I'm afraid," he said. "Poor old Sweeting was so glad to see me, and when she begins talking, it goes on for a good while." "We didn't mind, papa dear," said Mary, slipping her hand into her father's. "We've been speaking to the children in the next cottage. There's such lotses of them. When you was a little boy, papa, did you have lotses of brothers and sisters--did you?" "No, my pet, I hadn't any at all," papa answered. "That was rather sad, wasn't it? But I had a very kind father and mother. Your grandfather died many years ago, but you know for yourselves how kind grandmother is." "Grandmother," said Artie and Mary together, looking rather puzzled. "I don't understand," said Mary, and Artie did not understand either, though he would not say so. "How silly you are!" said Leigh; "of course grandmother is papa's mother." "Oh," said Mary, with a little laugh, "I never thought of that! I understand now. Then grandmother used to be a mamma!" "Yes, indeed, and a very sweet one," said papa. "I'm afraid, perhaps, she spoilt me a very little. When I was a child the rules for small people were much stricter than they are now. But I was never at all afraid of my mother." "Were you afraid of your father?" asked Leigh with great interest. "Well, just a little perhaps. I had to be a very obedient boy, I can tell you. That reminds me of a story--" "Oh, papa, do tell it us!" said all three at once, while Mary, who was holding his hand, began giving little jumps up and down in her eagerness. "It was ever so long ago, almost thirty years! I was only six at the time. My father had to go up to London for a few days, and as my mother was away from home--nursing her mother who was ill--" "What was _she_ to us?" interrupted Leigh, who liked to get things straight in his head. "Great-grandmother," answered his father; "_one_ of your great-grandmothers, not the one that we have a picture of, though." "I thought we had pictures of all our grand--I don't know what you call them--for hundreds of years," said Leigh. "Ancestors, you mean," said his father, "but mostly the Bertram ones of course. But if I begin explaining about that now, we'll never get on with my story. Where was I? Oh, yes! I was telling you that my father took me up to London with him, rather than leave me alone at home. I was very pleased to go, for I'd never been in a town before, and I thought myself quite a great man, going off travelling alone with my father. We stayed at an hotel--I'm not sure where it was, but that doesn't matter; I only know it was in a quiet street running out of another large wide street, where there were lots of shops of all kinds, and carriages and omnibuses and carts always passing by. My father took me out with him as much as he could; sometimes he would leave me waiting for him in a cab at the door of the houses where he had to see people on business, and once or twice he found me fast asleep when he came out. He didn't think that good for me; so after that, he sometimes left me in the hotel in the care of the landlady who had a nice little girl just about my age, with whom I used to play very happily. "One day--the day before we were to leave--my father took me out shopping with him. He had to buy some presents, for it was near Christmas-time, to take home for the little cousins who were coming to stay with us. We went off to a large toy-shop in the big street I told you of. It was a very large shop, with a door at each end--one out of the big street, and the other opening on to a smaller back street nearer our hotel. And besides the toy-shop there was another part where they sold dressing-cases and travelling-bags and things of that kind. "We were a good while choosing the toys; among them, I remember, was a fine rocking-horse which my father was very anxious to hear what I thought of, for though I didn't know it at the time, he meant it for me myself." "Like _our_ old rocking-horse in the nursery?" asked Leigh. Papa smiled. "More than like it," he said; "it is that very horse. I've kept it ever since, and I had it done up with a new mane and tail when you got big enough to ride it, Leigh." "Oh, how nice," said Mary, "to think it's papa's own horse! But, please, go on with the story, papa." "Well, when we had chosen the horse and all the other things, my father had something else to buy that he thought I wouldn't care about in the other part of the shop. And I think he wanted to tell them where to send the horse to without my hearing. He looked at his watch and seemed vexed to find it so late. He asked me if I should be afraid to run back to the hotel alone, and turned towards the door opening on to the back street, from which we could see the hotel as it faced the end of that small street. But I think he must have fancied that I looked a little frightened, for then he changed and pointed to the front door of the shop, telling me to stay there till he came back. He said it would amuse me to stand just outside in the entrance where I could both see the shop window and watch the carriages passing. "`But whatever you do, Charlie,' he said, `don't move from there till I come back for you!'" CHAPTER EIGHT. PAPA'S STORY CONTINUED. "For some time, a quarter of an hour or so, I dare say, I stood at the shop door very contentedly. It was very amusing, as my father had said, to watch the bustle in the street. I don't think I looked much at the things in the shop window; I'd seen so many of the toys inside. But after awhile I began to wish that my father would be quick. He did seem to be a very long time. I peeped in through the glass door, but I couldn't see him anywhere near. I even opened it a tiny bit to listen if I could hear his voice, but I couldn't. People often passed me to go into the shop and to come out, but nobody specially noticed me; they were all too busy about their own affairs; besides, there's nothing uncommon in a little boy standing at a toy-shop window. "It seemed to grow colder too. I should have liked to run up and down on the pavement in front to warm myself a little; but I dared not move from where I was. At last some one belonging to the shop happened to come to the door to reach down some large toys hanging in the entrance, and this shopman noticed me. By this time, though I scarcely knew it, the tears were running down my face; I was growing so very tired with waiting. He said to me-- "`Is there anything the matter? Have you hurt yourself?' "I answered No, I was only waiting for my father who was in the shop. `But I don't know why he's such a long time,' I said; `I am so tired of waiting,' and somehow the saying it out made me begin to cry much more. "The young man was very kind and seemed sorry for me. He wanted me to come inside where it would be warmer, while he went to look for my father; but I shook my head and told him that papa had said I must stay just there where I was. I wouldn't even come the least bit inside the door. I remembered papa's words so well-- "`Whatever you do, Charlie, don't move from there till I come back for you!' "In a few minutes the shopman came back again. He was shaking his head now; there was no one in the shop with a little boy belonging to them. There were one or two ladies whom he had asked, which I thought very ridiculous, as if I could have mistaken papa for a lady, but there was no gentleman at all, and he tried again to persuade me to come inside. He said there must be some mistake; my father had most likely gone on somewhere else; perhaps he'd be back in a little while; he'd never want me to stay out there in the cold. But there was no getting me to move. I can remember, even now, the sort of fixed feeling in my mind that I _wouldn't_ do the least differently from what he had told me. "Then the young man went off to fetch some one else--the owner of the shop most likely. I remember two or three people coming up and all talking to me and trying to get me to come inside. But I wouldn't--even though by this time I couldn't leave off crying--I just went on shaking my head and saying-- "He said I was to stay here." "I dare say they thought me a very tiresome little boy, but they were very kind. The young man, my first friend, brought me out a chair, and then I heard them talking about what was to be done. They had asked me my name, which I told them, but I couldn't tell them the name of the hotel where we were staying, for I didn't know it, and I _wouldn't_ tell them that it was in a street close by, because I was afraid they would carry me off there. I think I was getting rather confused by this time; I could only remember that I must stay where I was if ever I was to see papa again. I heard them saying that the gentleman had only given his country address, as the toys were to be sent straight home. "After awhile, in spite of the cold and my unhappiness, I think I must have fallen asleep a little. I was almost too young to be anxious about my father and to fear that some accident must have happened to him, but yet I can quite remember that I had really very dreadful feelings. As the evening went on and the street grew darker and darker, and there began to be fewer passers-by, it seemed worse and worse. Once I remember bursting out into fresh crying at seeing, by the light of the gas-lamp, a little boy passing along chattering merrily to the gentleman whose hand he was holding. I felt like a poor shipwrecked mariner on a desert island--all the lonelier that I was in the middle of a great town. "No doubt the shop people must have been getting uncomfortable and wondering what was to come of it. It must have seemed very strange to them; and, at last, the head man came out again and spoke to me--this time rather sharply, perhaps he thought it the best thing to do-- "`Young gentleman,' he said, `this really can't go on! You must see you can't sit there the whole night. Try and think again of the name of the place you're staying at.' "`I don't know it,' I said, and I dare say I seemed rather sulky, for he grew crosser. "`Well, if you can't or won't tell us, something'll have to be done,' he answered. `It's the police's business, not ours, to look after strayed children, or children that won't say where they come from. Here, Smith,' he called out to the young shopman, `just look up and down the street if there's a policeman to be seen.' "He didn't really mean to do anything unkind, but he thought it the best way to frighten me into coming inside the shop, or into telling where I lived, for I don't think they quite believed that I didn't know. But the word `policeman' terrified me out of my wits; I suppose I was already half-stupefied with tiredness and crying. If I had dared, I would have rushed out into the street and run off anywhere as fast as I could. But, through all, the feeling never left me that I must stay where I was, and I burst into loud screams. "`Oh, papa, papa!' I cried, `why won't you come back? The police are coming to take me; oh, papa, papa!' "I was crying so that for a moment or two I didn't hear a bustle at the other end of the shop. Then, all at once, I saw some one hurrying to me from the door leading into the other street, and as soon as I saw who it was, I rushed to meet him and threw myself into his arms, for of course it was my father. I don't think, in all my life, I have ever felt greater happiness than I did then. "`Oh, Charlie,' he said, `my poor little boy! Have you been waiting here all these hours--my good, obedient, little son?' "Then he turned to the shopman who was now a little ashamed of himself-- I dare say the poor man had been getting really afraid that I was to be left on his hands altogether--and explained the whole mistake. He had gone straight on to the city after finishing his orders in the other part of the shop, forgetting that the _last_ thing he had said to me was to wait for him at the front door of the shop; for his thoughts were very much taken up that morning with some very serious business, and it was actually not till he got back to the hotel, late in the afternoon, and found I wasn't there, that he remembered that the plan of my running back alone had been given up. "Then he was terribly frightened and rushed off to the shop, hardly daring to hope he would find me still there. He kept saying he could scarcely forgive himself, and even years after, I often heard him say that he couldn't understand what had come over his memory that day. "When the shop people saw how troubled he was about it, they began telling him how they had tried to make me come inside, but that it had been no use, and all the way home papa kept saying to me-- "`My faithful little Charlie'--which pleased me very much. "He carried me to the hotel, and I felt so weak and tired that I didn't mind, even though I was a big boy of six years old. And I remember, even now, how delightful it was to get well warmed at the fire, and what a nice tea papa ordered for me. "And the next day I was none the worse; luckily I hadn't caught cold, which papa was very glad of, as my mother came up to London that day to meet us, and we all three travelled home together." The children had been listening with all their ears to papa's story. When he stopped Mary gave a deep sigh. "That's a bee-yu-tiful story, papa," she said. "But it nearly made me cry for the poor little boy." "You shouldn't say that, Mary," said Leigh. "The poor little boy was papa himself! Don't you understand?" "Yes, in course I do," said Mary. "But papa _were_ a little boy then, so I might call him the poor little boy." "That's right, Mary," said her father. "Stick up for yourself when you know what you mean to say. Yes, indeed, I did feel a very poor little boy that day: the thought of it has always made me so sorry for children who are lost, or think they're lost. It's a dreadful feeling." "Papa," said Mary--she was trotting beside her father, holding his hand very tight,--"I think, please, I don't want never to go to London, for fear I should get losted; and, please, never take Leigh or Artie either--not to London--'cos, you see, it was when you was a little boy your papa nearly losted you, and Leigh and Artie are little boys." "Rubbish, Mary," said Leigh. "I'm eight, and papa was only six, not much bigger than you are now. If _I_ was with papa in London at a shop I could find my way home ever so far; there's always people in the street you can ask. It's not like getting lost when there's nobody to tell you the way." "The worst kind of getting lost," said Artie, "is in the snow. Up on those mountains, you know, where the snow comes down so thick that you can't see, and then it gets so deep that you are buried in it." "Oh, how dedful!" said Mary; "you won't ever take us to that place, will you, papa? I'd be more f'ightened than in London! Where is that country, papa?" "I suppose Artie means Switzerland," said their father. "I mean the picture in my book," said Artie; "where there's dogs, you know, snuffing to find the poor people under the snow." "Oh, the great Saint Bernard mountain you mean!" said papa; "it's sure to be that. You often see pictures of it in children's books; there are such pretty stories about the good dogs and the kind monks who live there." "Can you teach any dogs to do things like that?" asked Leigh. "No; they have to be a particular kind," answered papa; "but a dog like your puppy can be taught to fetch anything out of the water, from a bit of stick to a baby. He's what you call a retriever: that means fetching or finding something. You can teach a good retriever almost anything." "I thought so," said Leigh, nodding his head wisely. "I'll see what I can't teach Fuzzy." They were back in the park by this time. It was a beautiful May day, almost as warm as summer. The children's father stood still and looked round with pleasure. "It is nice to have a holiday sometimes," he said. "What a lovely colour the grass is in the sunshine!" "And how happy the little lambs are; aren't they, papa?" said Mary. "I wish I had one of my very own--like Mary and the lamb in my nursery book." "You couldn't have a lamb _and_ a dog," said Artie. "Fuzzy would soon knock the lamb over." "I never thought of that," said Mary. "Oh, papa dear," she went on, "I do so want baby Dolly to get big quick! There's such lotses of pretty things to show her in the world. The grass and the trees and the lambs"--and while she spoke her blue eyes wandered all round her,--"and the birds and the sky and--and--oh! the daisies, and"--as at that moment she caught sight of the old woman at the lodge crossing the drive with her red cloak on--"and old Mrs Crutch and her pussy-cat, and--" "You're getting to talk nonsense, Mary," said Leigh. "Old Mrs Crutch isn't a pretty thing!" "Her _cloak's_ very pretty," said Mary, "and she does make such nice ginger-b'ead cake." CHAPTER NINE. TEARS AND SMILES. The spring turned into summer, and with the longer days and warmer sunshine and gentle rain there grew up a great many more "pretty things" for Mary to show to her little sister Dolly; and Dolly herself grew like the flowers and the lambs. By the time she was three months old she could not only smile, she could even give little chuckling laughs when she was very pleased. Mary was quite sure that the baby understood all she said to her, and I do not think she would have been very surprised any day if Dolly had begun to talk. "Why can't she talk, mamma?" she asked her mother one morning. "No little baby learns to do everything at once," mamma answered. "She has to learn to walk and run and use her little hands the way you do. Just think what a lot of things babies have to learn; you must have patience." Mary tried to have patience; she did not so much mind baby's not being able to stand or walk or things of that kind, for she could understand that her little legs needed to grow stronger and firmer, but for a long time she could not understand about the not talking, and it got to be quite a trouble to her. "She can cry and she can laugh and she can coo, and she hears all the words we say to her," said Mary, with a little sigh; "I can't think why she won't talk. Oh, baby dear! don't you think you could if you tried? It's _kite_ easy." Baby was lying on the ground out on the lawn, where nurse had spread a nice thick shawl for her in case the grass might be damp, and Mary was sitting beside her, taking care of her for a minute or two all by herself. Nurse had gone in to fetch some more work. Mary was very proud of being trusted with baby. Leigh and Artie were at their lessons. "Baby dear," she said again, "don't you think you could say just some little words if you tried? Nurse would be so pleased when she comes out if she could hear you saying, `Dear little sister Mary' to me!" She was leaning over baby, and gave her a little kiss. Baby looked up and opened her mouth very wide. Mary could see her little pink tongue, but that was all there was to be seen; and just at that moment there started into Mary's head what must be the reason that baby could not speak. "She hasn't got no teeth!" cried Mary. "She's opening her mouth wide to show me! Oh, poor little darling baby! Has they been forgotten? The baby at the Lavender Cottages has got teeth!" Baby did not seem to mind; she lay there smiling quite happily, as if she was pleased that Mary understood her, but Mary felt very unhappy indeed. Something came back into her mind that she had heard about baby's teeth, but it was a long time ago, and she could not remember it clearly. Was it something about them having been forgotten? "I'm afraid there's been a mistook," said Mary to herself. "Oh, poor baby! A'posing she never can speak! Oh, nurse, nurse, do come; I want to tell you something about poor baby!" But nurse was still in the house and could not hear Mary calling, and Mary dared not go to fetch her because baby must not be left alone. So she did what most little girls, and little boys too sometimes, do when they're in trouble,--she began to cry. "Oh, nurse, nurse!" she wailed through her tears, "do come--oh, do come?" And though baby could not speak she certainly could hear. She half-rolled herself round at the sound of her sister's sad sobs and cries, and for a moment or two her own little face puckered up as if she were going to cry too--it is wonderful how soon a tiny baby learns to know if the people about it are in trouble--but then she seemed to change her mind, for she was a very sensible baby. And instead of crying she gave a sort of little gurgling coo that was very sweet, for it said quite plainly that she knew Mary was grieving, and she wanted to be told what it was all about. At first Mary did not hear her, she was so taken up with her own crying. That is the worst of crying; it makes one quite unnoticing of everything else. Then baby rolled herself still nearer; if only she had understood about catching hold of things, no doubt she would have given Mary a little tug. But she had not learnt that yet. So all she could do was to go on with her cooing till at last Mary heard it. Then the big sister turned round, her poor face all red and wet with her tears; and when she saw baby staring up at her with her sweet, big, baby eyes, and cooing away in her dear little voice, which sounded rather sad, she stooped down and gave her _such_ a hug that, if Dolly had not been really very good-natured, I am afraid her cooing would have been changed into crying. "Oh, baby, you sweet--you dear little innicent sweet!" said Mary; "you're too little to understand what I'm crying for. I'm crying 'cos the angels or the fairies has forgotten about your teeth, and I'm afraid you'll never be able to speak--not all your life, poor baby!" But baby only cooed louder than before. And Mary, looking up, saw what baby saw too--that nurse was coming over the lawn; and baby's face broke out into quite a wide smile; she was very fond of nurse. Poor nurse did not smile when she got close to the two little girls, for she saw that Mary was crying, and she was afraid there was something the matter. "Have you hurt yourself, Miss Mary?" she said. "Miss Baby's all right, but what are you crying about?" "Oh, nurse, I've been calling you so," said Mary,--"calling and _calling_. I'm so unhappy about baby;" and then she told nurse the sad thought that had come into her mind, and how troubled she was about it. Nurse listened very gravely, but--would you believe it?--when Mary had finished all her story, what do you think she did? She sat down on the grass and picked up baby in her arms and burst out laughing. I do not think she had laughed so much for a long time. "Oh, Miss Mary, my dear," she said, "you are a funny child!" Mary looked up at her, her face still wet with tears and with a very solemn expression; she did not quite like nurse's laughing at her when she had been so unhappy. "I'm not funny," she said. "It's very sad for poor baby," and new tears came into her eyes at the thought that even nurse did not care. But nurse had left off laughing by this time. "Miss Mary, my dear," she said, "don't make a trouble about it. Miss Baby's teeth will come all in good time. I shouldn't wonder if she has several dear little pearls in her mouth to show you before Christmas. Don't you remember that day when we were talking about her teeth, I told you how yours had come, one after the other, and that they used to hurt you sometimes." Mary's face cleared at this. "Oh, yes," she said, "I 'amember. Does everybody's teeth come like that? Doesn't any babies have them all ready?" "No," said nurse; "why, even the Perrys' baby that's more than a year old hasn't got all its teeth yet, and it can't say many words. Don't you trouble, Miss Mary, the teeth and the talking will come all right. There now," as little Dolly looked up with a crow in nurse's smiling face, "Miss Baby knows all about it, you see!" Mary put her arms round baby and gave her another big hug. "Oh, you dear little sweet!" she said. "Oh, nurse, I do think she's got such lots of things to tell me if only she could speak!" Baby gave a little chuckle as much as to say, "No fear, I'll talk fast enough before long;" and Mary, who was rather like an April day, set off laughing so much that she did not hear steps coming along the terrace till a voice said, quite close to her-- "Well, Mary, darling, what are you and baby so merry about?" It was mamma. Mary looked at her, and then mamma saw that her eyes were red. "It's all right now ma'am," said nurse, for she knew that mamma was wondering what was the matter even though she had not asked; so mamma went on to tell them what she had come out about, for she knew that when Mary had had a fit of crying the tears were rather ready to come back again if anything more was said about her troubles. "Nurse," she said, "I want you to dress Miss Mary as quickly as possible after her dinner. I'm going to take her a drive with me--quite a long drive; I'm going to the town to choose a perambulator for baby." "Oh, mamma!" said Mary in great delight, "how lovely! And may I get into the p'ram-bilator to see if it's comfor'ble for baby?" "Yes," said mamma, "though a tight fit for you will be all right for baby. And I've other things to buy as well! You've got a list ready for me, nurse, haven't you? I'm quite sure the boys need new boots, and wasn't there something about a sash for Mary?" "She wouldn't be the worse for another blue one, ma'am," said nurse. "Her papa always likes her in blue." "Ah! well, I won't forget about it. I like her in blue best too. And baby--doesn't she want anything?" asked mamma. Of course she did, ever so many things. I never knew a baby that did not want a lot of things--or a baby's nurse perhaps we should say--when there was a chance. Ribbons to tie up its sleeves, and little shoes and tiny socks, and some very fine kind of soap that would not make its soft skin smart, and more things than I can remember. Babies have plenty of wants, though they are such small people. And mamma wrote them all down, saying each aloud as she did so, and Mary stood listening with a very grave face. For she thought to herself, "Just _supposing_ mamma lost the paper or couldn't read all the pencil words, or forgot to write down everything, it would be a very good thing for _her_ to know them all and 'amind mamma." Soon it was time to go in to dinner, and Mary was so full of the thought of going to the town with mamma, that at first she sat with her spoon and fork in her hands, looking at her plate without eating at all. "Why don't you eat your dinner, Mary?" said Leigh. "My nungryness has gone away with thinking of going out with mamma and buyin' such lotses of things," said Mary. "How silly you are!" said Leigh. "Why, when I've something nice to think of, it makes me all the hungrier! If you don't eat your dinner, I don't believe mamma will take you." "Yes, Miss Mary, you must eat it," said nurse. "You'll be later than usual of getting your tea, too, so you should make an extra good dinner." Mary did not feel as if she _could_ be hungry, but she did not want to be left behind, so she began to try to eat, and after one or two mouthfuls it got rather easier. Nurse went on talking, for she knew the less Mary thought about not being hungry the better it would be. "Perhaps your mamma, will let you bring home a nice bagful of buns for tea," she said. "That would be a treat for Master Leigh and Master Artie, to make up for their not going to the town too." "I don't want to go," said Leigh. "I hate shopping. It's such rubbish--taking half an hour to choose things you could settle about in half a minute. Of course I suppose it's different for women and girls." Nurse smiled a little. "Have you nothing for Miss Mary to get for you?" she said. "What shops are you going to?" asked Leigh. "Are you going to the confectioner's?" asked Artie. Mary was not quite sure what the confectioner's was. You see, she did not often see shops, as the children's home was quite in the country. But she knew Leigh would laugh at her if she asked, so she just said-- "We're going to all the shops there is, I think. We're going to buy Baby Dolly's p'ram-bilator." She got rather red as she spoke; but Leigh did not notice it, for he was very much interested by this news. "To buy the p'rambulator," he repeated. "Oh, I say--I wouldn't mind going to choose that! But I couldn't stand the rest of the shopping. Mary--" and he hesitated. "What?" said Mary. "There's one thing I want, if you think you could choose it for me; it's a pair of reins. I've got money to pay for them--plenty; so you can tell mamma if she'll pay them in the shop, she can take the money out of my best purse that she keeps for me, when she comes home. They'll cost about--" he stopped again, for he really did not know. "Do you mean red braid ones, Leigh, like my old ones with the bells on?" asked Artie. "No, of course not. I want regular good strong leather ones--proper ones, d'you hear, Mary?" "Yes," said Mary, "I'm listenin'." "Well, look here then; they must be of nice brown leather, and you must pull it well to be sure it's strong. And they must have a kind of front-piece, stiff, you know, that they are fastened to, or perhaps they cross over it, I'm not sure. And they must be about as long as from me, where I'm sitting now, to where Artie is. And if you can't get them nice in one shop, you must ask mamma to let you go to another, and you mustn't be in a hurry to just take the first ones they show you. You must _choose_ well, Mary, and--" "Don't take half an hour about it when half a minute would do," said nurse, in rather an odd voice. Leigh grew very red. "Nurse," he said, "reins are very pertickler things to get. Leather things have to be _good_, you know." "And so have silk things and cotton things and all the other things that ladies take so long to shop about," said nurse. "But, I'm sure poor dear Miss Mary's head will never hold all the explaining you've been giving her. If you take my advice, Master Leigh, you'll run off to your mamma and tell her what you want and settle about the price and everything. She will be just finishing luncheon, I should think. It was to be early to-day." Leigh thought it a good idea, and did as nurse proposed. Mary was very glad not to have to remember all about the reins; her little head was full enough already. She was looking quite pale with excitement when nurse began to dress her in her best things to go out with her mamma. But it was very interesting to have all her Sunday things on on a week-day, and by the time she was ready--her best boots buttoned and her little white silk gloves drawn on, and her fair curls, nicely brushed, hanging down under her big straw hat, which had white bows and tufty feathers at one side--Mary's face had grown rosier again. CHAPTER TEN. SHOPPING. She felt _quite_ happy when she found herself at last settled by mamma's side in the victoria. She gave a deep sigh--it was a sigh of content-- just because she was so happy. But mamma turned round quickly. "My darling," she said, "is there anything the matter? Why are you sighing so?" Mary cuddled a little bit nearer to mamma, and looked up in her face with a smile. "I'm quite _dreffully_ happy, mamma dear," she said. "The breaving comes like that when I'm dreffully happy. But oh, mamma," she went on, with an anxious look creeping over her face, "I _hope_ we'll 'amember all the lotses of things there is to buy!" "I wrote them down, dear," said mamma. "You saw me?" "Yes, but doesn't writing sometimes get rubbed out? I think I can 'amember neely all if you asked me. Did Leigh tell you all about his reins, mamma?" "Yes, dear. He was very particular indeed. I can't think what has put reins in his head again. He told me some time ago that he thought he was getting too big for playing at horses. Perhaps it's to amuse Artie." "I wonder," said Mary, "if p'raps it's something to do with Fuzzy." But her mother did not hear, or at least did not notice what she said. She had taken the paper with the list of things she had to do, out of her bag and was looking it over. It seemed a long way to the town to Mary. It was between five and six miles, and she had not often driven so far, for you know she was still a very little girl. Now and then her mamma looked at her to see if she was getting sleepy, but every time she seemed quite bright. Her little mind was so full of all the messages they had to do that I don't think she _could_ have grown sleepy. And there were a great many pretty and strange and interesting things to notice as they went along. Mamma kept pointing them out to her and talking about them. There were the flowers in the hedges to begin with--some late ones were still in bloom--here and there stray sprays of honeysuckle even, and low down, nearer the ground, there came now and then little glimpses of pretty colours where smaller wild-flowers, such as "ragged robin," "speedwell," "crow's-foot," and a few others were still peeping out. "If I were a tiny flower," said mamma, "I think I would choose my home on the inside of the hedge--the field-side. It would be so hot and dusty near the road." But Mary thought it would be nice to see the carriages and carts passing, and that it would be rather dull to see nothing but the grass, and then she and mamma laughed at their funny fancies, as if flowers had eyes and ears like children. Then they passed a very queer-looking waggon lumbering along. It seemed like a house built of baskets and straw chairs and brushes instead of brick or stone, and Mary's mamma told her it was a travelling shop, and that the people lived inside and had a little kitchen and a little bedroom, and that _sometimes_ they were quite clean and tidy and nice people. There was a tiny window with a red curtain at the side of the waggon they passed, and Mary saw a little girl, with a nice rosy face, peeping out at her. She nearly jumped when she saw the little girl, and she pulled mamma to make her look. "See, see, mamma!" she cried. "They must be nice people that lives in that basket shop, mustn't they, for that little girl's got a clean face, and she's smilin' so sweetly?" "Yes," said mamma; "it looks as if she had a kind father and mother, and I hope she has. For many poor children have quite as kind fathers and mothers as rich children have, you know, Mary." "Like the Perrys--the Perrys at the Lavender Cottages," said Mary. And then she went on thinking to herself how nice it would be to live in a "going-about house," as she called it. And she wished very much indeed she could have seen inside the waggon. The next thing they passed after that, was a great high carriage with four horses; a man in a red coat was blowing a horn, and there were ever so many ladies and gentlemen sitting up on the top. It made _such_ a dust! Mary began to think mamma was right about the field-side of the hedges, for even though she was a little girl in a carriage and not a flower, she felt quite choked for a minute. Mamma told her it was a stagecoach, and that long ago, before clever men had found out how to make railway trains go, drawn by steam-engines instead of horses, people were obliged to travel in these big coaches. Mary was very much surprised. She thought there had always been railways, but mamma had not time to explain any more about them to her, for just then the carriage began to make a very rattling noise over the stones, so that they could scarcely hear each other speak. They were entering the town. Mary looked about her with great interest. It was a long time since she had been there, and the last day she remembered being driven through the streets it had only been to go to the railway station. For the children and their mother were then on their way to visit their grandmamma. That was six months ago, half a year--before Mary's birthday, which had brought her the wonderful present of Baby Dolly--a very long time ago. But Mary remembered how she had wished that day to stop at the shops and look in at the windows. And now she was not only going to look in; she was going to _go_ in to help mamma to choose all the things she had to buy. It was very nice, but it seemed rather to take away her breath again to think of all they had to do. Mary gave a deep sigh, which made her mamma turn round. "Mary, my dear, you are looking quite troubled," she said; "what is it?" "It's on'y the lotses of things," said Mary. "But you mustn't be like that, or I shall be afraid to bring you out shopping with me," said mamma. "It will be all right, you'll see. Here we are at the first shop--the draper's. That's right; give Thomas your hand and get out slowly." Thomas was quite ready to have lifted her out, but Mary did not like being lifted. It seemed as if she was a baby. Mamma knew this, and unless she was in a great hurry she let Mary manage for herself like a big girl. Mary was not like some children, who do not care about any shops except a toy-shop and a confectioner's; she was interested in all the things mamma had to buy, and she liked to watch the careful way mamma went about it. She had a list all ready, and she had put the same sorts of things together on it, so that she did not need to go backwards and forwards from one counter to another. It was a large shop, but there were not many people in it, so Mary climbed up on a chair and sat there comfortably watching, while mamma chose tape and buttons and reels of cotton and needles, and lots of what are called "small-wares." Mary enjoyed seeing them all brought out in their neat boxes and drawers; she thought to herself that she would like very much to have a shop and have all these interesting things to take care of. And then, when they moved a little farther down, to that part of the counter where pretty silks and ribbons were hanging up--silks and ribbons of all sorts of colours and shades--she was still more delighted. "We are going to choose a sash for you now, Mary," said mamma. "And ribbins to tie up Baby Dolly's sleeves. Weren't you forgetting about the ribbins?" said Mary. Mamma had not forgotten, but she did not say so, for she saw her little girl was proud of remembering; and she was pleased too to see that Mary thought of Dolly before herself. "Yes; of course there are baby's bows to get," she said. "Thank you for reminding me. What colour shall they be? Would you like to choose?" The shopman--I think it was the draper himself, who knew Mary's mamma and was pleased to wait upon her--smiled as he brought out a large box full of ribbons of the right width for tying up babies' sleeves. There were so many pretty colours that Mary felt as if she _could not_ choose. "I'd like some of all of them," she said. But mamma helped her by putting aside those that would not do. Yellow would not be pretty for baby, she said, nor green, nor bright red, nor deep blue or purple; and that left only the soft delicate colours--pale pink and pale blue and very pale lilac. There were pretty white ribbons too, with very fine little checks and spots over them, which she said would be very nice. So then Mary found it easier, and she chose four sets--blue, with a little white line down the edge; and white, with a pink check over it; and another, with tiny blue spots, and one of the pale pinky lilac. It was like wild geranium colour, mamma said, and as Mary did not know what that flower was, mamma promised to look for one in the fields to show her. Then there came the choosing of Mary's sashes. Mamma got two, and Mary was quite pleased, for she saw that mamma was the best chooser after all. One was pale blue, very wide, and with a white line down the side. It was just "like the mamma of _Dolly's_ blue ribbon," Mary said, and the other was all pink, very pretty pale pink. Mary did not like it quite so well, but still she felt sure it would look nice, or else mamma "wouldn't have chosened it." It would take too long to tell you about all the things mamma bought. After she had finished at the draper's she went to the shoemaker's and got boots for the boys and slippers for Mary, and dear sweet little blue silk shoes for Dolly. They were to be her very best ones, to match her blue ribbons. Mary was so pleased that her mamma got them. After that came the great thing of all--that was the perambulator. There was a man in that town who made pony-carriages, and he made perambulators too. Mamma took Mary into a large room which was all glass at the front, and was quite filled with pony-carriages. They did look so shiny and nice--some of them were wicker, and some were made of wood like big carriages. Mary would have liked to get into them all, one after the other, to see which was the most comfortable, and she could not help thinking how very nice it would be to be a pony-carriage man's little girl. What lovely games she and Leigh and Artie could have in this big room! It would be even nicer than having a draper's shop. She did not know that carriage-builders' children and drapers' children are not allowed to play with their fathers' carriages and ribbons any more than she and her brothers would be allowed to pull about the books in the library, or to gather all the fruit and flowers in the garden. They passed through the big room with the glass front to a smaller one behind, where there were a good many perambulators. The man who had shown them in explained to Mary's mamma about the different kinds and told her the prices; and mamma chose three which she made the man draw out by themselves in front of all the others. "It must be one of those," she said; "I want a really good one, but still rather plain and strong, as it is for the country roads." Mary thought to herself what a good way of choosing mamma had; it makes choosing so much easier if you put away the things that _won't_ do. And while she was thinking this, mamma told her she wanted her to get into the perambulator standing next, and say if it was comfortable. "I will lift her in," she said to the man. "It's quite strong enough, I suppose?" "Oh, dear, yes, ma'am!" he answered. "It could bear a child twice this little lady's weight. The springs are fust-rate." It was very comfortable, and when Mary jigged up and down a little gently, it felt quite "dancey," she said. "It's the springs," the man repeated; "they're fust-rate." Mary wondered what "fust-rate" meant. She thought she would ask her mamma. Then she was lifted into the next perambulator--the man lifted her in. He meant to be quite kind, but Mary did not like it, and when at last she found herself on the floor again she stroked down her skirts and gave herself a little shake. Mamma saw that she did not like it, but afterwards she told Mary that sometimes it is best to hide that you do not like things, when they are done out of kindness. "It didn't matter to-day," said mamma, "for the man was busy talking to me and he didn't see you shaking yourself; but you must remember for another time." Mary felt very sorry. She did not forget what her mamma said. Even when she grew to be a big girl she remembered about the man meaning to be kind, and how glad she was he had not seen her shake herself. The other perambulators were not quite as wide as the first one. Mary said they felt rather squeezy, so mamma fixed on the first one. But it could not be sent home at once because the lining had to be changed. It was brown, and the linings of mamma's victoria and pony-carriage were dark red, and mamma liked Dolly's carriage to match. So the man promised it should be ready in two or three days; but Mary looked at it a great deal, because she knew Leigh and Artie would want to know exactly what it was like. After that they went to the grocer's, but mamma did not stay long there, and then they went to the toy-shop to get a rattle for baby and reins for Leigh. But neither mamma nor Mary liked the reins much. There were some of red braid, but they were too common, and the leather ones did not seem strong, and they were not made of the right sort of leather; Mary was quite distressed. "What shall we do?" she said. "Leigh will be so disappointed." She said the word quite right, but it took her a good while. Then mamma had a capital thought. "I know," she said. "We'll go to the saddler's. Even if he hasn't got any toy-reins ready he can easily make them." And fancy--was not it lucky?--the saddler had a pair quite ready-- beauties, just like what Leigh wanted. Mamma was so pleased, and so was Mary; though I do not think mamma would have been quite so pleased if she had known what Leigh had in his head about the reins. Then mamma went to the confectioner's, where she bought some very nice little cakes for Mary to take home for the nursery tea, and, as she thought Mary looked a little tired and must be beginning to feel hungry, she asked for a glass of milk for her and a bun, and then she put Mary on a chair close up to the counter, where she could reach the milk. And then, just as she was going to pay for what she had bought, poor mamma started. "Oh, dear!" she said, "where is my little bag with my purse in it? I must have left it somewhere; I was carrying so many parcels." "Mamma, dear," said Mary, "you had it at the reins' shop. I sawed it in your hand." "Oh, I'm so glad!" said mamma. "Then it'll be all right. I'll run back for it. You finish your milk and bun, dear, and I will come for you as quickly as I can." Mary did not quite like waiting alone, but she did not want to trouble her mother, so she said, "Very well, mamma dear." Her milk and bun did not take long to finish, but she sat on still on the high chair, partly because she thought her mamma would look for her there, partly because she could not get down alone, and she was too shy to ask to be lifted off. But mamma did not come as quickly as Mary hoped, though the time seemed longer to her than it really was. In a few minutes she heard the door open, and she looked up gladly, thinking it was her mamma; but it was not. Instead of mamma in came a rather fat lady, with two boys and a girl. The lady had a red face, and they all talked very loudly. "Now, what will you have, my loveys?" said the lady. "Puffs, cheesecakes, macaroons?" The three children pushed up to the counter and began helping themselves. It was not a large shop, and they crushed against Mary, who was growing very uncomfortable. "Dear, dear," said the fat lady, "I am 'ot!" and she fanned herself with her handkerchief. "Haven't you got a chair for me?" The shop-woman looked at the girl who had seated herself on the only chair besides Mary's one. "I dare say Miss isn't tired," she said; "won't you give the lady your chair?" But the girl would not move. "No," she said; "that child isn't eating anything. She can give her chair. Put her down, Fred." And the bigger of the boys lifted Mary roughly down from her perch before the shop-woman could interfere, and then they all burst out laughing, and Mary, whose face had been getting whiter and whiter, rushed to the open door and ran with all her might down the street. CHAPTER ELEVEN. NURSERY TEA. I dare say it was silly of Mary to be so frightened; but then, you know, she was only a very little girl, and she was not used to rude or rough ways. "Mamma, mamma!" she cried as she ran along. And she did not even think or know which way she was going. But the town was not a big one, not like London, where her papa had been left alone in the toy-shop--and the street was quiet. Several people noticed the prettily-dressed little girl running so fast, the tears rolling down her face. "She's lost her way, poor dear," said one woman, standing at the door of a greengrocer's shop. "She's been bitten by a dog," said another. But nobody did anything till, luckily, Mary flew past the draper's where she had been with her mamma; one of the young men in the shop was reaching something out of the window and saw her. He called to the draper--Mr Mitcham--and Mr Mitcham, who was a kind man and had little girls of his own, hurried after Mary and soon caught her up, for she was getting very tired now. Her legs were shaking sadly, and her breath seemed to choke her, and her heart,--oh, how her poor heart was thumping--it seemed to come right up into her ears. "Are you looking for your mamma, my dear?" said Mr Mitcham. He was rather out of breath himself though he had only run a short way, for he was a fat little man, and he seldom took more exercise than walking about his shop. "Zes, zes!" cried Mary, who went back to her baby talk when she was unhappy or frightened. "Her is goned away, and the naughty boy pulled me off my chair, and--oh, oh, where is my mamma goned?" Mr Mitcham, could not make out what was the matter, but, luckily, just at that moment her mamma came round the corner of the street. She had found her bag at the saddler's, but she had had to wait a few minutes for it, as he had locked it up in a drawer while he went to the inn, where the carriage was, to ask if Mrs Bertram was still in the town. Mamma looked quite startled when she saw poor Mary all in tears, but Mary soon got happy again when she felt her own dear mamma's hand clasping hers firmly. And then, when mamma had thanked the draper, she turned back to the confectioner's again, to get the cakes to take home and to pay for them. Mary did not much want to go; she was afraid of seeing the rude boy and his mother again. But mamma told her she must try not to be so easily frightened. "For, you see, dear, when you ran away in that wild way, I might not have been able to find you for some time, and think how unhappy it would have made me." Mary squeezed mamma's hand very tight. She was beginning to see she had been rather silly. "I won't do like that again," she said. "When I'm a big girl I won't be frightened. But, please, mamma, let me _always_ stay 'aside you when we go to shops." When they got to the confectioner's, they found the young woman there very sorry about Mary having run away, as she felt she should have taken better care of her. The stout lady and her children were still there, and the lady was looking very ashamed, for the confectioner had been telling her that Mary was little Miss Bertram of the Priory--the Priory was the name of Mary's home--and that Mrs Bertram would be very vexed. So the rude boy's mother came up with a very red face, and told Mary's mamma if they had only known who the young lady was, they would never have made so free as to disturb her. Mary's mamma listened gravely, and then she said, "I think you should teach your son to be gentle and polite to everybody, especially little girls, _whoever they are_. Of course I know he did not mean to hurt her, but she is accustomed to her brothers behaving very nicely to her at home." Then she turned away rather coldly, and the children and their mother looked very red and ashamed, and just then the victoria came up to the door, with the two pretty bay horses, all so smart and nice. And mamma took Mary's hand to lead her away. But Mary pulled it out of hers for a moment and ran back to the boy. "Please, don't be sorry any more," she said. "I were a silly little girl, but I don't mind now," and she held out her hand. The boy took it and mumbled something about "beg your pardon." And then Mary got up into the carriage beside mamma. "I am glad you did that, Mary dear," she said; "I hope it will make the boy remember." "And I _were_ a silly little girl," said Mary, as she nestled up to her mamma. They did not talk very much going home. Mary was rather tired, and I think she must have had a little nap on the way; for she looked all right again, and her eyes were scarcely at all red when they drove up to the door of Mary's own dear house. There were Leigh and Artie waiting for them; they had heard the carriage coming and they ran up to the door to be there to help their mamma and Mary out, and to tell them how glad they were to see them again. "Tea's all ready waiting," said Leigh; "and, oh, mamma--we were wondering--nurse has put out a 'nextra cup just in case. _Would_ you come up and have tea with us? Then we could hear all about all you've been buying and everything, for Mary mightn't remember so well." "I don't think I'd forget," said Mary; "on'y we _have_ had lotses of 'ventures. Doesn't it seem a long, long time since we started off after dinner? I _would_ like mamma to have tea with us!" Mamma could not resist all these coaxings, and I think she was very pleased to accept the nursery invitation, for it seemed to her a long time since she had seen dear Baby Dolly. So she told Leigh to run up and tell nurse she was coming, and then, when all the parcels were brought into the hall, she chose out some which she sent upstairs; but the parcel of cakes for tea she gave to Artie to carry up. That was a very happy tea-party. There was so much to tell, and so much to ask about. Mary chattered so fast that mamma had to remind her that her tea would be getting quite cold and everybody would have finished before her if she did not take care. But Mary said she was not very hungry because of the afternoon luncheon she had had at the confectioner's; and that reminded her of what had happened there, and she told Leigh and Artie and nurse and Dolly--though I am not sure if Dolly _quite_ understood--the story of the rude boy and how frightened she had been. "Horrid cad," said Leigh; "I'd like to knock him down." "He were much bigger than you, Leigh," said Mary. "What does that matter?" said Leigh. "I'd knock any fellow down who was rude to my sister." Mary thought it was very brave of Leigh to talk like that. She wondered if he would be vexed if he heard she had forgiven the boy afterwards. "I think he was sorry," said mamma. "He had no idea Mary would have minded so much, you see." "I cried," said Mary,--she felt rather proud of herself now for having had such an adventure,--"I cried lotses." "I hope he didn't see you crying," said Leigh. "He would think you a baby and not a lady if he saw you crying." "I leaved off crying when mamma came," said Mary; "but my eyes was reddy." "You shouldn't have cried," said Artie. "You should have looked at him grand--like this." And Artie reared up his head as high as he could get it out of his brown-holland blouse, and stared round at Dolly, who was cooing and laughing at him over nurse's shoulder, with such a very severe face, that the poor baby, not knowing what she had done to vex him, drew down the corners of her mouth and opened her blue eyes very wide and then burst into a pitiful cry. Artie changed all at once. "Darling baby, kiss Artie," he said. "Sweet baby Artie wasn't angry with you." But nurse told him he should not frighten Miss Baby. She was such a noticing little lady already. "And I forgaved the boy," said Mary. "I shaked hands with him." Nobody could quite see what this had to do with Artie and baby, but Mary seemed to know what she meant. Perhaps she thought that if she had "looked grand" at the boy, he would have set off crying like poor Dolly. Then when tea was over and grace had been said--it was Artie's turn to say grace, and he was always very slow at his tea, so they had some time to wait--mamma undid the parcels that she had sent up to the nursery. The children all came round to see the things, and Mary was very pleased to be able to explain about them. "I helped mamma to choose, didn't I, mamma dear?" she kept saying. She was most proud of all, I think, about Baby Dolly's ribbons. And nurse thought them very pretty indeed, and so I suppose did baby, for she caught hold of them when Mary held them out and tried to stuff them all into her mouth. That is a baby's way of showing it thinks things are pretty; it fancies they must be good to eat. "And my reins, mamma?" said Leigh at last; "when are you coming to my reins?" He had been rather patient, considering he was a boy, for boys do not care about ribbons and sashes and those sorts of things, though he was very pleased with his own boots. So mamma looked out the parcel of his reins before she undid the tapes and cottons and buttons she had got for nurse. "They are really very good reins," she said. "I told you we got them at the saddler's. They are much better and stronger than those you buy at a toy-shop." Leigh turned them over in his hands and pulled them and tugged them in a very knowing way. "Yes," he said, "they're not bad--not bad at all. In fact they are beauties. And what did they cost?" "They cost rather dear," she said,--"dearer than you expected. But if you pay me two shillings, I will give you a present of the rest." "Whew!" said Leigh, "more than two shillings. But they are first-rate. Thank you very much indeed, mamma." "And you won't over-drive your horses or your horse, will you?" said mamma. "I suppose Artie will be your regular one, or do you mean to have a pair--Mary too?" Leigh did not answer at once. "I shall drive Artie sometimes, and Mary sometimes, if she likes," he said. "But I've, another horse too, better than them." Mamma did not pay much attention to what he said; she thought he meant one of the gardener's boys or the page, with whom he was allowed to play sometimes, as they were good boys. "And the p'ram-bilator?" Leigh asked. "When is it coming, mamma? and is it a very nice one? Does it go smoothly? and has it good springs?" "I think it's a very nice one," mamma replied. She was pleased to see Leigh so interested about his little sister's carriage. "But it won't be here for some days--a week or so--as they have to change the linings." "Oh," said Leigh to himself in a low voice, "all the better! I'll have time to break him in a little." The next day, and every day after that for some time, Leigh was very busy indeed. He begged nurse to let him off going regular walks once or twice, because he had something he was making in the shed, where he and Artie were allowed to do their carpentering and all the rather messy work boys are so fond of, which it does not do to bring into the house. He was not "after any mischief" he told nurse, and she quite believed it, for he was a very truthful boy; but he said it was a secret he did not want to tell till he had got it all ready. So nurse let him have his way, only she would not allow Artie to miss his walk too, for she did not think it safe to leave him alone with Leigh, with all his "hammering and nailing and pincering" going on. And I think nurse was right. I wonder if you can guess what was Leigh's "secret"--what it was he was so busy about? He did not tell either Artie or Mary; he wanted to "surprise" them. The truth was, he was making harness for Fuzzy and trying to teach him to be driven. He had begun the teaching already by fastening the reins to an arrangement of strong cord round the dog's body, and he was also making better harness with some old straps he had coaxed out of the coachman. He really managed it very cleverly. It took him two or three days to get it finished, and in the meantime he "practised" with the cord. Poor Fuzzy! He was a big strong dog by this time, but still only a puppy. I am sure he must have wondered very much what all the tying up and pulling and tugging and "who-ho"-ing and "gee-up"-ing meant; but he was very good-tempered. I suppose he settled in his own mind that it was a new kind of play; and, on the whole--once he was allowed to start off running, with Leigh holding the reins behind him, trying to imagine _he_ was driving Fuzzy, while it was really Fuzzy pulling _him_--he did not behave badly, though Leigh found "breaking him in" harder work than he had expected. By the fourth day the "proper harness," as Leigh called it, was ready. He had got the coachman's wife, who was very fond of the children and very clever with her fingers, to stitch some of the straps which he could not manage to fasten neatly with boring holes and passing twine through, though that did for part. And as the coachman did not see that this new fancy could do any harm, he was rather interested in it too. So when it was all complete, and Fuzzy was fitted into his new attire, or it was fitted on to him, perhaps I should say, Mr and Mrs Mellor, and the grooms, and two or three of the under-gardeners all stood round admiring, while Leigh started off in grand style, driving his queer steed. "If you had but a little cart now, Master Leigh," said one of the boys; "it'd be quite a turn-out." "Yes," said Leigh, with a smile; "I mean to get to something like that some day. But driving with reins this way is how they often begin with young horses, isn't it, Mellor?" "To be sure it is!" the coachman replied, as he went off, smiling to himself at the funny notions children take up. "The very idea of harnessing a puppy." For Mellor had never been in Flanders, you see, nor in Lapland. CHAPTER TWELVE. LEIGH'S PLAN. Ever since the day the children had waited for their father outside the Lavender Cottages--the day when it was settled that they were to have Fuzzy--the idea of training the dog to be driven, and making him draw the perambulator as he had seen Ned drawing the Perrys' old wicker carriage, had been in Leigh's head. That was why he was so interested about the new carriage for his little sister. He was sensible in some ways. He knew it would be no use harnessing the dog into a cart or anything till he had accustomed him a little to being driven. That was what had made him think of buying reins. He had waited a good while too, till the dog was nearly full-grown and had grown pretty obedient to his voice and call. But when he heard that the perambulator was really to be bought, he thought to himself that it was quite time Fuzzy's "breaking-in" should begin. For it was now late September. Baby Dolly was close upon her fifth "month-day," as the children called it, and growing so big and lively that nurse could scarcely manage to carry her any distance without feeling rather tired, as Dolly was very fond of sitting straight up and looking about her and giving little jumps and springs when Mary or the boys ran up to her. And "Fuzz," as Leigh generally called him--for he thought "Fuzzy" rather a girl's name--was a very big puppy indeed--so big and playful that, when he came galloping over the lawn to the children, Mary used to run behind nurse, if she was there, for fear of being knocked over. It was fun and affection, of course, and when he stood still Mary would pat him and call him "dear Fuzzy," "poor old Fuzzy," quite bravely, but at the bottom, of her heart she was a little afraid of him. And though she did not like to say so to the boys, she often wished that he had stayed a roly-poly, soft, tumbling-about creature, as he was when she had first seen him--only a few weeks old. But Leigh would not have liked that at all, of course. Well, the driving-lessons went on, and thanks to Leigh's patience, of which he had a good deal when he chose, Fuzz became more manageable, as I said. After a while Leigh found an old remains of a little cart on wheels--it was really a sort of small dray which some of his young uncles had knocked together years ago for dragging wood on--which he managed to harness the dog to, to accustom him to feeling something behind him. Fuzz kicked and spluttered and ran away ever so many times; he did not like the rattling noise coming after him, but after a while he grew used to it and would scamper off quite merrily, and so fast that Leigh could scarcely keep up with him. That was the great difficulty-- to make him go slowly. But Leigh was not discouraged. "It'll be all right," he thought, "when he feels he's pulling something heavier." And still he kept it all a secret, except of course from Mellor and the outdoor servants, and they did not know anything about his plan for the perambulator. It came, about ten days after it had been promised. Mary had been growing very impatient. She thought it was _never_ coming, and even her mamma was on the point of writing to the place where she had ordered it, to ask why they were so long of sending it, when all of a sudden one afternoon it arrived. Everybody admired it extremely. It was really a very pretty little carriage, and Baby Dolly liked it very much, to judge by the way she crowed and chattered in her own sweet baby language the first time she was tucked into it for a drive. This was the very morning after it came. For it was luckily a fine, mild day, and the nursery dinner was made a little earlier than usual, so that Baby Dolly should have the best of the afternoon for the first trial of her perambulator; and Mary and the boys and the under-nurse and Fuzzy were all to go too. Nurse had a holiday indeed! She began by pushing the new carriage herself, just to make sure that baby would not be frightened. But frightened--no, indeed; the little lady chuckled and crowed, and was as happy as could be. So then nurse let Leigh push it for a while, and then Artie, and then even Mary for a little bit, though not for very long, as, though it was beautifully light, it was tiring for her to stretch up her arms, and of course she was too small to see in front if the road was getting at all rough, or if there were stones or ruts to get out of the way of. And then nurse told Emma, the under-nurse (I think I have forgotten to say that "Little Sarah" was not big enough to help with Dolly, so a new under-nurse had come), to push it for a while--not that Leigh and Artie were not most eager to do so, but nurse wanted to make sure that Emma pushed it carefully, for there are two ways of doing even such a simple thing as pushing a perambulator, though you might not think it. And Emma was rather a silly girl, though she was very good-natured. "Now, we'se _all_ pussed it except Fuzzy," said Mary. She was dancing along holding nurse's hand and feeling very happy and safe. For, to tell the truth, she was often a little frightened of the doggie knocking her over if she was walking along alone or with only Artie. "Poor Fuzzy!" Mary was always very affectionate to Fuzz when she felt herself well protected; "don't you think, nursie, he'd like to puss it too? If Leigh made him walk like a bear,"--for walking like a bear was one of the tricks Leigh had taught Fuzz,--"on his two behind legs, and then put his two before legs on the pussing place; don't you think he could do it a little, nursie dear? And then we'd all have took turns?" Nursie laughed at Mary's funny idea. "I'm afraid Miss Dolly and the perambulator would soon all be in a heap on the road if Fuzzy was to have a try at pushing," she said. And Fuzz, who always seemed to know when they were talking of him, came close to nurse and looked up wistfully in her face with his bright sweet eyes as if he would say, "I'm rather afraid so too." Leigh gave him a pat. "_Pushing_ the p'rambulator," he said. "No, indeed. You know something better than that; don't you, Fuzz?" And Fuzz wagged his tail as much as to say, "Yes, indeed; _Leigh_ knows what I can do. But we'll keep our secret." No one paid any attention to what Leigh said however; no one had any idea there was any secret to keep. So the little party finished their walk very happily, and returned home greatly pleased with the new perambulator. It was about a fortnight later that something happened which I must tell you about. All this time Leigh kept on patiently with his training or "breaking-in" of Fuzz. Whenever he had a chance of getting off to the stables alone, for half an hour or so, he harnessed the dog to the remains of a cart that I told you of, and drove him up and down the paths. No one but the stablemen and the gardeners knew about it, and they only thought it was a fancy of the boy's and never spoke about it. And Leigh told nobody--not even Artie--of what he had got in his head. He kept saying to himself he wanted to "surprise" them all, and that if he told Artie every one would be sure to hear of it. "And I must manage to try it first without nurse fussing," he thought. "She'd never believe it would do. She's so stupid about some things." But at the bottom of his heart, I think he knew that what he was meaning to do was not a right thing for him to try without leave from the grown-up people, and that it was the fear of their stopping it much more than the wish to "surprise" everybody that made him keep his plan so secret. So he said nothing, but waited for a chance to come. And before long the chance did come. It does seem sometimes as if chances for wrong things or not-right things come more quickly and more surely than for good things, I am afraid. Or is it, perhaps, that we are more ready to catch at them? Now I must tell you that Emma, the under-nurse, was not a very sensible girl. She was more taken up with herself and her dresses and chattering to whoever would listen to her than with her own work and duties; and she was very fond of calling nurse old-fashioned and fussy and too strict, which was not right. She spoke of her in that way to Leigh, and made him fancy he was too big a boy to be treated like a nursery child, which was very mischievous. But she was a good-natured girl, and she was what is called "civil-spoken" to nurse and to the other servants, so nurse hoped she would improve as she got older, though she found her lazy and careless very often. Just about this time, unfortunately, poor nurse sprained her ankle. It did not make her ill, for it was not very bad and soon began to get better, but it stopped her going out walks for two or three days. The first day this happened was one of the afternoons that Leigh had Latin lessons with a tutor, so only Artie and Mary went out a walk with Baby Dolly in the perambulator and Emma pushing it. Nurse spoke a great deal to Emma about being very careful, and not going near the field where the bull was, and not crossing the little bridge which was soon going to be mended, and about several other "nots." And Emma listened to what she said, and that day all went well. Artie and Mary trotted along very peacefully, and now and then, when the road was smooth, Emma let them push baby for a little bit, and baby cooed and crowed when they talked to her. They went near the Perrys' cottage and they met all the children--Janie as usual carrying the baby, Comfort pushing the old wicker carriage with the two other babies, and staring away at the open book in her hand at the same time, so that Janie had to keep calling out every minute or two to warn her where she was going. Ned was not with them, that was the only difference. For Ned was beginning now to do a little work out of school hours. The Perrys all came to a stop when they met the other party. "How do you do?" said Mary and Artie politely. "How do you like our new p'ram-bilator?" "It do be a beauty, Miss," said Janie. Poor Janie looked tired and hot, though it was not a warm day; the baby was growing heavy. "Law," said Emma, "I'd never carry that child if I was you. Why don't you put it in the cart and make one of the others walk?" "Law" is not a pretty word; but Emma was not very particular when she was alone with the children. "Comfort'd never get her reading done if she had to look after Sammy walking," said Janie. "And I'd have to push the carriage if the dear baby was in it." "Where's Ned?" asked Artie. "And why doesn't he pull the carriage?" Emma stared. "Law, Master Artie--" she was beginning, but Janie, who did not seem at all surprised at the question, for of course she had seen Ned's attempts to make a horse of himself, answered quietly-- "It didn't do--not so very well, sir, and it gave me a turn, it did, to see Sammy and Bertie a-tumblin' about, and all but overturned. No, 'tweren't no good; so Ned, he's give it up." "What a pity!" said Artie and Mary together, "isn't our p'ram-bilator nice, Janie?" "'Tis indeed, the wheels _is_ beautiful _and_ the springs," said Janie, as she stood watching, while Artie pushed it up and down, to let her see how it went; while even Comfort took her eyes off her book for a minute or two to join in, the admiration. "And Miss Baby do be getting on finely," the little nurse-sister added. "You've not come our way for a good bit, Miss," said Comfort to Mary. "It's a nice road past the cottages and on to the wood--so smooth, I can go on reading all the way. No need to look to one side nor the t'other." And then the Perrys moved on, with a curtsey from Janie, which she managed with some difficulty on account of the fat baby, and a kind of nod from Comfort, as she let her eyes drop on to her book again. That evening at tea, Mary and Artie told Leigh and nurse about meeting the Lavender Cottages children, and how tired poor Janie looked. "Isn't it a pity Ned couldn't dror the carriage?" said Artie. "_Draw_, not _dror_," said Leigh. "How vulgar you are, Artie. No, I don't see that it could do much good to Janie, for somebody'd have to drive, and so she'd still have the baby to carry. The big sister should take turns with her." "Yes, indeed," said nurse. "That'd be much better than nonsense about harnessing boys. It's a wonder those children weren't driven into bits, that day you told us of." "Oh, but Ned was so stupid," said Leigh. "He hadn't got proper reins, and he fastened the rope in a perfectly silly way. _I_ could show him how to do it properly. In Lapland, you know, nurse, and in some other country, even dogs pull carts quite nicely." "They must be a different kind of dog from ours then," said nurse. "I know dogs used to turn the spit with the meat to roast it before the fire, but they were a queer kind, and I suppose they were trained to it when they were little puppies." "Yes," said Leigh, "that's it. It's all the training. It's no good unless you begin to teach a dog while he's a puppy." He did not say anything more just then; but that evening he said to Emma that he was going out a walk with the little ones the next day, as he would not have any lessons that afternoon. "I suppose nurse won't be able to go out to-morrow," he added. "No, not till the day after, if then," said Emma. "But never mind, Master Leigh, I'll go any way you like to name, and we'll have a nice walk, if it's a fine day." "I hope it will be a fine day," said Leigh. And the next morning, quite early, before his lessons, he took Fuzz a regular "exercising" up and down the long avenue leading to the stables at the back of the house--cart and all--the dog had really learnt to go pretty well. But then a rough little wooden sledge, on wheels, is a very different thing from a beautiful new perambulator with a sweet baby sister inside it. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. BRAVE JANIE. At dinner that day there was some talk of nurse going out to walk with the children. "Oh do come, nursie dear," said Mary. "It _are_ so much nicer when you come too," and baby cooed up in nurse's face for all the world as if she were saying "do come," too. "I'd like to, dearly," said nurse. "But I think I'd better rest my ankle one day more, and then I hope it will be quite well. I feel quite ashamed of having been so stupid about it." "It wasn't _your_ fault," said Artie. "It was the carpet's fault for being loose." "And mine for not seeing it and getting it fastened," said nurse. Though really I think it was more Emma's fault, for she had charge of the passage where nurse had tripped and fallen. "I think you'd much better wait another day," said Leigh gravely. And nurse said to herself that Master Leigh was very thoughtful for his age. But Leigh had a reason of his own for not wanting nurse to go out with them that day, and if he had let himself think about it honestly he would have seen that his dislike to nurse coming showed that he was not doing right. But all he would allow to himself was "Nurse is so fussy." "If we could put you in the p'ram-bilator, that would be nice," said Mary. "But I'm afraid it wouldn't be big enough." "Of course not, you silly girl," said Leigh rather crossly. He did not want the perambulator spoken of, for fear nurse should say something about not playing any tricks with it. But Mary stared at him. She could not understand why he was so cross. It was again a very fine day for October. And as soon as they could be got ready after dinner the children set off for their walk. "I'll follow you in a moment," said Leigh, as they were waiting at the side door into the garden while Emma got out the perambulator. "If you go slowly down the drive I'll make up to you. I'm going to fetch Fuzzy." Mary's face fell. She was frightened of the dog, you know, when nurse was not there for her to walk beside, for Emma only laughed at her. "I _wiss_ poor Fuzzy wasn't coming," she said. "Rubbish," said Leigh, and then he said more kindly, "You needn't be frightened of him, Mary, you'll see. He can't knock you down to-day;" and then, as he ran off, he cried back to Emma, "If I don't catch you up in the drive, turn to the right. We're going round by the smithy and the Lavender Cottages-- it's the best road for the p'ram-bilator." No one paid much attention to what he said, or they might have wondered what he meant, for there were plenty of good roads for the perambulator. Mary kept as close as she could to Emma and baby, and every now and then she looked round over her shoulder for fear of Fuzz coming full bang upon her in his affection, and knocking her down. But till they had got some little way along the road there was no sign of him or of Leigh. Suddenly there came a whoop and cry from behind them. Mary caught hold of Emma's skirt, and in another moment Leigh rushed past them, "driving Fuzz," he would have said, though it looked more like Fuzz dragging _him_. The dog had his harness on, and Leigh was holding the reins and shouting to him. "I'm taking it out of him," he called out, "just to quiet him down. Doesn't he go well?" It was certainly a comfort to Mary to see that Fuzz was not loose; and in a minute or two, when the pair came back again, running more slowly, she left off trembling and began to laugh a little. "Doesn't Fuzzy go just like a little pony?" she said. "Hasn't Leigh taught him cleverly?" Then Leigh showed off all he had trained the dog to do. He made him walk quite slowly, and then run, and then stop short when he called out "Woa-wo-a, now; gently, old man," till they all admired it greatly. "He'd soon learn to pull a cart," said Emma. "He _can_ pull a cart, that's what I've been teaching him for," said Leigh. "He could draw the p'ram-bilator beautifully." "Law!" said Emma, "could he now, really?" "Of course he could," said Leigh, "as soon as we get into the lane I'll let you see. The road's nice and smooth there." Mary clapped her hands. She thought it would be lovely. But Emma did hesitate a little. "Are you sure it's quite safe, Master Leigh?" she said. "Safe, of course it's safe," said Leigh. "But if you're afraid you can hold on behind just like you're doing now, and then you can stop us going faster than you like." The lane, when they got into it, ran almost straight to the cottages. Leigh meant to pass them and come home by the smithy, for he wanted Yakeman to admire him driving Fuzzy. There was a hill to go down, as you may remember, from the cottages to Yakeman's, and I do not know how Leigh meant to manage there. But as things turned out he did not get so far as that. The little party stopped when they had got some way down the lane, and Leigh began to fasten Fuzz to the perambulator. He had got everything ready--for he had secretly tried it before, and he had straps of the right length which he brought out of his pocket. Mary and Artie stood admiring his cleverness, but Baby Dolly was not pleased. She wanted to go on, and of course she did not understand what they were all stopping for. So she began to cry. Poor little girl, what else could she do? "P'raps she's cold," said Mary. "It _are_ raver cold standing still." "Cold, Miss Mary, oh dear no," said Emma. "She's that wrapped up she _couldn't_ be cold. But she's very fractious to-day; she was crying and fretting all the time nurse was dressing her. Nurse spoils her--if she were my baby I'd be a bit sharper with her." "Poor Dolly--dear Dolly," said Mary, going up to her little sister and trying to sooth her. "Don't cry--Dolly's going to have a beauty drive and go _so_ fast." "Get out of the way, Mary," shouted Leigh. "We're just starting, don't you see?" He held the reins in his hand and ran back behind the perambulator. Then he made Emma take her place as usual, holding the bar--not that there was any _need_ for her, he said, but just to make quite sure of Fuzz not running away--they were a funny-looking party, Emma between the reins and Fuzzy wagging his tail in his hurry to be off. Dolly left off crying and stared about her, wondering what it all meant. "Gee-up, old fellow," said Leigh, Emma giving a little starting push at the same time, and off they went, Mary and Artie at each side, breathless with excitement. At first it seemed all right. They went slowly, and Fuzzy did nothing worse than stand still every minute or two, and look over his shoulder to see what was behind him. The first and second times he did this Leigh only called out, "All right, old fellow--gee-up then." But when it got to the third and fourth time Leigh grew impatient. "Get on with you, you stupid fellow," he shouted, cracking the whip he held. And poor Fuzzy, meaning no harm, not understanding what all the unusual noise and fuss were about, did the only thing he could--he _did_ "get on." He started off, running as fast as he could, and that was pretty fast, for the carriage was very light and Emma was pushing--she could not have helped pushing as she was holding the bar and running. And for a minute or two she laughed so that she could not speak. The silly girl thought it was such fun. And seeing her laughing, Leigh thought it was all right and laughed too. But--on went Fuzz, excited by the laughter, and thinking _he_ was doing all right, till--at the corner where the lane they were in crossed another lane or road, wider but much rougher, and full of deep cart-ruts--instead of keeping straight on he turned sharply round, for some doggy reason or other, and rushed, still at the same speed, along this road to the right. "Fuzz," shouted Leigh, tugging at the left rein. "Fuzz, wo-a then, wo-a." "Stop, stop," screamed Emma. But it was no use; in another instant Emma, already panting with running and laughing, found herself flung off as it were, and Leigh, a moment after, lay sprawling at full length on the road, the reins torn out of his grasp, while Fuzzy in the greatest delight rushed on, on--the perambulator after him, swaying from side to side; and, oh dear, dear-- sweet baby Dolly inside! Mary and Artie were some little way behind, but when they came up, this was what they saw: Emma sitting on the road crying and rubbing her arm, Leigh tearing along as fast as he could go, and a small dark thing far in front of him, bumping up and down among the cart-ruts, and swinging from side to side, as if every moment it would tumble over, or else be broken to pieces. Mary stood still and screamed. Artie ran on at once, shouting at the top of his voice, though I do not quite know what good he thought that would do. And then Mary ran after him and left off screaming, which was sensible. Indeed, I think both of them showed more sense than silly Emma, though she was grown up and they were little children. For what could be less use than to sit on the ground crying and rubbing her bruised arm? But somebody else--somebody none of them was thinking of at all--showed the most sense of any one. The Perry children were coming along a field-path at one side of the road--it was dry weather, and the path was pretty hard and smooth, so Comfort and the old wicker perambulator got on pretty well with Janie and the baby beside them of course--when the sound of Leigh's shouts came across the hedge. Janie had quick ears and still quicker wits. "Someat's wrong," she cried, and she plumped the baby into her sister's arms. "Now hold he," she added, and for once Comfort had to leave off reading--indeed the flop of the baby made her book drop to the ground-- and get it into her head that the care of her three baby brothers was _her_ business for the present, while Janie flew to the gate, which she scrambled over or crept under, I am not sure which, in less time than it takes to tell it, and found herself in the middle of the road. Leigh was some little way off still; but nearer than he, and coming nearer every instant, was something else which made even Janie's stout little heart rise up to her mouth, as she afterwards said. It was the perambulator from the Hall, the beautiful new perambulator, banging and dashing along, dragged by something that looked just then very like a little wild beast instead of a well-disposed tame doggie. And yet it was only looks, for Fuzzy was in the best of spirits, quite pleased with himself, and thinking that Leigh's shouts only meant he was to go faster and faster. But Janie had not time to think anything. She only saw that the perambulator was not empty; she only took in that it must be stopped. She would not have been frightened, even if she had thought the dog was mad, for she was very brave. But she knew that her voice would have no power over him, and she made her plan in a moment. Just as the wildly excited dog came close to her--luckily just then he was going pretty evenly--she threw herself in his way, which made him slacken his pace, and then, somehow or other, she got hold of the edge of the carriage, holding on to it with all her strength, and she was very strong for her size. And then--what happened exactly she could not tell--I fancy Fuzzy must have given a bound forward to get rid of this troublesome interruption to his grand race--but before she knew where she was they were all in a jumbled-up heap on the ground, Janie, Baby Dolly, perambulator, and dog--Fuzzy barking loudly; baby, Janie was thankful to hear, crying and roaring, but, as far as the small sister-nurse could make out, unhurt. She had got her safely in her motherly little arms by the time Leigh came up. The first thing he did was to seize hold of the reins which had been dragging behind, for after a glance had shown him that the baby was in good hands, Leigh's next thought was for the new perambulator. "She's not hurt?" he exclaimed. "No, no, sir. I think not," said Janie. "She fell soft--right atop of me, Master Leigh. Hush, hush now, Miss Baby dear. Don't 'ee cry. There's Miss Mary a-coming along. Hush, hush, my dearie." And in surprise at the strange voice, and pleased by the sweet tones, Dolly actually did leave off crying. She opened her eyes wide, and by degrees a smile--a real smile--crept out of her mouth, and brightened up all the little face, still shining with tears. So that when poor wee Mary, all out of breath, and white with fear for her darling sister, came up to the little group, Janie was able to say, while Dolly stretched out her hands in welcome-- "She's not hurt, Miss Mary, dear. She's not hurt." Leigh by this time had unfastened Fuzz, and set the perambulator on its legs, or wheels, again. He was all trembling; and though it was not a hot day of course, the drops were standing out on his forehead. Wonderful to say, the perambulator was not broken or spoilt. "Oh Mary," said Leigh. He could scarcely speak. "Oh Janie, I don't know how to thank you." Janie opened her eyes. It had never come into her head that she had done anything to be thanked for. But she was, as I said, very sensible. "Master Leigh," she replied, "I couldn't a' done less--that's nothing. But I can't think how Mrs Nurse could a' let you do such a thing." "Nurse is ill; at least she's hurt her leg," said Leigh. "It's Emma that's with us." "Then she oughter be ashamed of herself," exclaimed Janie, as if she was nineteen and Emma ten, instead of the other way about. "What's the good of a big person to look after children if she's as silly as them. I beg your parding, Master Leigh, but this 'ere precious baby's had a narrer escape, and no mistake." Janie was hot with indignation and fright. "But you tried yourselves, Janie," said Leigh, feeling rather small. "Ned harnessed himself to--" "_That_ was quite different," said Janie. "And I told you the other day as it hadn't turned out a good plan at all. I'm sure if I'd had any notion you were thinking of such a thing, I'd have--" she stopped, then went on again, "But you'll never try such tricks again, now, will you, Master Leigh? And you'll go straight to your dear mamma as soon as you get in and tell her all about it." "No, I'll never try it again, I promise you. And of course I'd rather tell about it myself, Janie. You won't, will you? They'd be making such a song of it all through the village." "Very well then, I won't say nothing," agreed the little woman. "And I'll tell Comfort--she's in the field there behind the hedge with the babies. I'll see to it that Comfort says nothing neither." Then Janie put Baby Dolly tenderly back into her nest again, charging the children to stay close round her till Emma came up, "for fear the sweet little lady should be frightened again." There was a vision in the distance of Emma slowly making her way to them, and Janie did not want to see her. "I've a sharp tongue in my head, and I'd mebbe say too much," she thought. So she hurried back to her own charges, whom she found quite content; _the_ baby sprawling on Comfort's knee, and Comfort seated on the grass, late October though it was, buried in her book. There was no need to warn _her_ to say nothing. She looked up with a start as Janie ran up to them. "What have you been doing, Janie?" she said. She had no idea anything had been the matter! Emma was very cross when she got to the children. She was vexed at her own arm being bruised, and began scolding Leigh as if he had done it all on purpose to hurt her. "You said it would be as right as could be, Master Leigh," she grumbled, "and how was I to know? _I'm_ not going to be scolded for it, I can tell you." "You needn't be afraid," said Leigh, very proudly. "I'll take all the blame on myself when I tell mamma." Then Emma changed her tone and began to cry. "You'll not really tell your mamma," she said. "_Of course_ I'd be blamed, and I'd lose a good place, and what my poor mother'd say I don't know. It'd go near to break her heart, and she's not well. Oh Master Leigh, you'll not tell? There's no harm done, and Miss Dolly's none the worse, and we'll never be so silly again. Miss Mary, my dear, do ask Master Leigh not to tell." Mary could not bear to see any one cry, least of all a big person. Her lips began to quiver, and she looked timidly at her brother. "Leigh," she began. And Leigh too was very tender-hearted. But both of them, and Artie too, felt deep down in their hearts that however sorry they might be for Emma they were not doing right in giving in to her. They did promise not to tell, however; and then the little party turned homewards in very low spirits, though they had such great reason for thankfulness that their dear little sister was not hurt. They hardly spoke all the way; and Dolly, by this time, tired out by all her adventures, had fallen fast asleep. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. HAPPY AGAIN. It was two or three days after Fuzzy's running away with the perambulator that nurse, who was now quite well again, came in to breakfast in the nursery with a grave face, and without, as usual, Baby Dolly in her arms. "Where's baby?" said Leigh; and Mary, who was deeply engaged with her bowl of bread-and-milk, looked up. "Where's Baby Dolly, nursie?" she said, in turn. "In bed," nurse answered, "in bed and fast asleep. She's had a bad night, and she only fell really asleep when it was about time for getting up. So of course I didn't wake her." "Is she ill?" asked Leigh; and both he, and Mary and Artie, looked at nurse so anxiously that she felt sorry for them. "I hope not," she said. "I hope she'll be all right when she wakes up. The best and strongest of babies have their little turns. Don't look so troubled, my dears." Just then Emma, who had had her breakfast before, came into the room, and was crossing to the door which led into the night-nursery, when she was stopped. "I'll tidy the room myself this morning, Emma," said nurse. "I don't want any one to go in. Miss Dolly's not very well." "She's been very cross this day or two, crying enough to make herself ill. You spoil her, nurse, that's what I say," said Emma, pertly. Nurse made no reply, except to repeat her orders to Emma not to enter the bedroom. As soon as breakfast was over, the three children--Artie and Mary with clean pinafores, and all with smoothed hair and nicely-washed hands-- went downstairs as usual to the dining-room for prayers. But to their surprise their mamma was not there, nor was nurse. They did not wonder much about nurse, however, for they knew some one would have to stay beside baby in case she woke. But to-day several things seemed strange and different from usual. Instead of going up to the nursery again their father told them they were all to go to the little study where Leigh and Artie did their lessons with their tutor. "For baby must not be disturbed," he said, "and if you were all playing in the nursery the noise would go through to the other room." "Mayn't I go up to the nursery, papa dear?" asked Mary. "Just me. I'd be _kite_ quiet. I don't like to be away from nursie and baby," and her voice sounded as if she were going to cry. "And I don't know what to do when Mr Fibbetts comes." "Mr _Phillips_," said papa. "You're getting too big to talk so babyishly, Mary. And you mustn't be selfish, my dear. If you can play quietly in the nursery you can play quietly in the study, or perhaps I'll send Emma to take you out a little." "I don't want Emma. I want mamma, and nursie and Dolly," said Mary. She thought her papa was rather "c'oss," and she was not used to his being the least cross. And she was unhappy about baby; and deep down in her heart was a sort of fear she tried not to think about. Mary had never been so unhappy in all her life before. The fear was not in _her_ heart only. Leigh and Artie were feeling just the same. At first when they found themselves alone in the study they all three tried to pretend there was nothing the matter. They hid away the fear, and covered it up, and told it to go to sleep. But fears like that are very troublesome. They won't go to sleep; just as we think we have got them safely shut in and all seems still, up they jump again, and there they are knocking at the door, not only of our hearts, but of our _consciences_. "You have done wrong," they say, "and wrongdoing brings trouble." And after a while the two little brothers and their sister left off pretending. They sat down close together on the hearthrug and looked at each other. "Leigh," said Artie, in a strange hushed sort of voice, "do you think Baby Dolly's _very_ ill?" Mary did not speak; but she looked up in Leigh's face, so that he turned his head away. "How should I know?" he said roughly. "You heard as much as I did. Babies are often ill." But both the others knew quite well that he was just as unhappy as they were. "Oh, Leigh," said Mary at last, her voice trembling, "do you think it can be 'cos of--" but here she stopped. Leigh turned round sharply. His face was white, but still he tried to be angry. "Why can't you speak out, you silly girl?" he said. "Why don't you say what you mean?--that I've made her ill by the tumbling out of the perambulator? Nonsense, she fell on the top of Janie Perry, and Janie said she came quite softly. How _could_ it have hurt her?" "I don't know," said Mary, but she spoke very sadly. "There's was a little boy," began Artie, "wot fell out of a winder, and he jumped up and said he wasn't hurt, but then he was killed." "What do you mean?" said Leigh. "How was he killed if he wasn't hurt?" "I mean he died soon," said Artie. "P'raps it was the next day. He was hurt inside his head though it wasn't blooding outside." "And babies are so dellykid," said Mary. Leigh gave a sort of angry grunt, something between a sob and a scold. Certainly Mary and Artie were not comforting. But did he deserve comforting? It was true he had meant no harm at all to dear baby. He had thought it would be fun for her as well as for the others and himself--most for himself, I am afraid--if Fuzz could be taught to draw her carriage quite well, like the dogs papa had told them about. But, had it been right to do it secretly, without anybody's leave? He had turned it and twisted it so in his mind that he had persuaded himself he only wanted to "surprise" everybody, for one reason; and for another, that nurse was so silly and fussy; and for still another, that there was no need to tease papa and mamma about every little plan for amusing themselves that he and the others made. But now, somehow, none of these reasons seemed any good; they all slipped and melted away as if there was nothing real in them. And then there was the second piece of concealment--the hiding about the accident. There was no good excuse for that. Leigh's own first feelings had been to tell at once, and Janie Perry had trusted that he would. Why had he given in to Emma? Was it really out of pity for her and her mother; or was it partly--a good big "partly"--that he was afraid of being very much scolded himself? As he got to this point of his gloomy thoughts Leigh gave another groan; it was much more of a groan this time, as if he could not bear his own unhappiness. Then, for he had covered up his eyes, he felt a little hand stealing round his neck--it was Mary. "Oh, Leigh, dear poor Leigh," she whispered. "I _are_ so sorry for you, and I are so miderable." Leigh drew the trembling, quivering little creature to him, and left off trying to keep up. Artie crept near to them, and they all cried together. Then Leigh started up. "I'll go and tell now," he said, "now, this minute. It's been all my fault, and I don't care what Emma says, nor how I'm scolded. P'raps, _p'raps_, the doctor'll be able to do something, even if her head is hurt inside the way that boy's was." He kissed the two others and started off. He seemed away a long time; but, alas! when he came back there was no look of comfort or hope in his face. It was only very white, and his eyes very red. "It's no good," he said, flinging himself down on a chair and bursting out crying. "It's no good. That's my punishment. Now that I want to tell I can't." Mary and Artie could not understand. "Was you too f'ightened, poor Leigh?" said Mary. "Shall I go?" "No, no, it's not about me. It's this way. Papa's gone, ever so long ago. He's gone to the station, and I think he was going to see the doctor on the way. And mamma and nurse are shut up in the night-nursery with baby, not to be disturbed by _nobody_," said Leigh, forgetting his grammar in his distress. "I saw Emma, but _she's_ no good, she'd only tell stories to keep herself from being scolded. But I do think she looks frightened about baby. Oh dear, what _shall_ I do? Darling Baby Dolly, and it's all my fault. I see it now;" and Leigh flung himself on to the floor and burst out sobbing again. "Leigh, Leigh, poor Leigh," said Mary and Artie together. "Mr Fibbetts will be coming," said Mary in a moment, "and then I'll have to go out with Emma. Oh, I don't want to go." Leigh looked up. "Mr Phillips won't be coming," he said, "I forgot. Everything's been so strange to-day. It's Saturday, Mary. He doesn't come on Saturdays. You shan't go out with Emma if you don't want. She's a untrue bad girl; it's a good deal her fault, though she's not been half so wicked as me." "You've not been wicked, dear Leigh. You didn't mean any harm," sobbed Mary. "And we've _all_ been naughty for not telling," added Artie. "Oh, but what _are_ we to do?" cried Leigh again. "The doctor'll be coming and he won't know, and p'raps he'll give Dolly the wrong medicines with not knowing, and baby will get worser and worser. Oh, what _shall_ we do?" "_I_ know," said Mary, in a clear, decided voice, which made both her brothers look at her in surprise. "We'll hide somewhere, so that we can jump out when the doctor passes and tell _him_. So then he must know what to do for Dolly. Where shall we hide, Leigh?" Leigh stopped crying to consider. "Near the lodge would be best," he said. "The bushes are thick, and he must pass there. But it's cold, Mary, and we can't possibly go upstairs to get your things. Artie and I have got our caps and comforters in the hall. And if we left you here Emma would find you." "No, no," said Mary, dancing about in her eagerness, "don't leave me here, Leigh. There's shawls in the hall. Can't you wrap me up in one of them? I'll be _quite_ good. I won't fuss about at all." So it was settled. The three set off as silently as they could to the hall, where they caught up the best wraps they could find. Then they made their way through the big drawing-room, which opened into a conservatory, out by a side path to the drive. Five minutes after they had left the study Emma came to look for them, but found the birds flown. She took no further trouble; for, to tell the truth, she was not sorry to keep out of the children's way; her own conscience was not at all at rest, and she had made up her mind to write to her mother asking for her to come home at once. Though it was two miles to the village it did not take long to drive there, and Mr Bertram luckily caught Mr Wiseman the doctor just as he was starting on his rounds. Mr Wiseman was driving a young horse; he went well, but he was rather timid, and apt to shy when anything startled him. The lodge gates were open; as the children's papa had told the woman that the doctor would be coming, so he drove in without stopping. But, oh dear! Scarcely had he got a few yards up the avenue before there was a great fuss. The young horse was dancing and shaking with fear, and if the groom had not jumped down and got to his head more quickly than it takes me to tell it, who knows what might not have happened. What had frightened him so? Three funny-looking little figures had sprung out from among the bushes, calling out in eager but melancholy tones-- "Mr Wiseman, Mr Wiseman, please stop. Oh please stop." These were Leigh and Artie, one with an old squashy wide-awake of papa's, that was much too big for him, the other with a cloth deer-stalker cap which made him look like a Laplander, for in their hurry they had not been able to find their own things. And Mary, funniest of all, with a shawl mamma used on the lawn, all huddled up round her, and the fringes trailing elegantly behind. For half a minute the doctor thought they were gypsy children from the van on the common. But then again came the cry-- "Oh, Mr Wiseman, _please_ stay," and his quick eye saw that all the little faces were swollen and tear-stained. Something must be very wrong. "The baby," he thought to himself, "poor little woman. Surely nothing worse has happened to her since I saw Mr Bertram? They could never have sent the children to tell me--" He jumped down, stopping an instant to pat his frightened horse. But he had not the heart to scold the children for startling poor Paddy so. "What _is_ the matter, my dear children?" he said kindly. The children knew Mr Wiseman well, and were not afraid of him, still it was not easy to get the story clearly from them. The doctor saw he must be patient, and as soon as he heard baby's name he felt that the matter might be serious, and by careful questioning he at last understood the whole. In his heart he did not feel very uneasy, for little Dolly's father had told him in what way she seemed ill, and it was not the kind of illness that could have come from a fall. But to the children he was very grave, for he thought it most wrong of them, Leigh especially of course, not to have told exactly what had happened; and he thought, too, that the sooner the under-nurse was sent away the better. "I don't think," he said, "I don't think I need to tell you how wrong you have been. There is no fear, Leigh, of your ever trying anything of the kind again without leave. And even you two little ones are old enough to know you should not have kept the accident a secret. But I must hurry on to see poor baby as quickly as possible. Come back to the house now, for it is too cold for you to be standing about, and as soon as I can I will let you know how your little sister is. All you can do now is to be as good as possible, and give no trouble while she is ill, even if your mamma and nurse cannot be with you at all." With these words he sprang up into his dogcart again and drove off quickly to the house, the children gazing after him. Then Mary burst into a sad fit of crying again. "Oh Leigh! Oh Artie!" she said. "Does you think Baby Dolly's going to die?" Leigh was very pale, and his eyes were still swollen and red, but he had made up his mind not to cry any more. He felt he was so much more to blame than the others that he wanted to try to comfort them. "I hope God will make her better," he said in a very low voice. "Please try not to cry, Mary dear. It makes me so very miserable. Let us go home now and wait quietly in the study till Mr Wiseman comes to tell us how baby is." Mary slipped her hand into Leigh's, and choked down her tears. "I'll try not to cry," she said. "But I can't help thinking about if we have to be all alone with Emma, and she'll be so c'oss. Do you think, p'raps, we won't see mamma for a lot of days, Leigh?" Leigh could only say he did not know, but he squeezed Mary's hand tight. "I'll not let Emma be cross to you, Mary dear," he said. "I'll try to be very good to you, for it's all my fault." Artie took Mary's other hand, and they all three went back to the house. The study was just as they had left it--there was no sign of Emma, which they were very glad of. They felt chilly and tired, though they had walked such a little way, and they were glad all to creep round the fire again, and sit there waiting--oh so very, very anxiously, till they heard Mr Wiseman coming. For Leigh had told him they would be in the study. It seemed a long time. "I wonder if he's _never_ coming," said Mary, more than once. At last there came the sound of footsteps, quick and firm, running downstairs. "There he is," said Leigh, and he ran to the door which he opened and stood there listening. But strange to say the footsteps crossed the hall towards the front door, instead of turning down the passage to the study. Leigh could scarcely believe his ears--surely it _could_ not be the doctor? Yes it was--he heard his voice speaking to the butler in the hall. And then--before Leigh had time to run out and call to him, there came the sound of Mr Wiseman's dogcart driving away as fast as it had come. Leigh felt faint with disappointment. He came back into the room again, looking so white that Mary and Artie started up. "He's gone," said Leigh, "gone without coming in to tell us." "Can it be that Dolly's so ill he doesn't like to tell us?" said Artie. "P'raps he's gone to get another doctor," said Mary. "Peoples has two doctors when they're very ill, nurse said. Oh Leigh, dear Leigh, I'm afraid I'm going to cry." Leigh did not speak. If he had, he would have burst out crying himself, I'm afraid. But just then--just when they were feeling as if they _could not_ bear it any more, there came again the sound of some one hastening downstairs, a lighter tread than Mr Wiseman's this time. And the footsteps did not cross the hall. They came quick and eager, one after the other, down the passages to the study. Then the door opened-- and--some one stood there, looking in. "My poor dears," said a loving voice with a little tremble in it. And in another second somebody's arms were round them all--it is wonderful how many children can creep into one pair of arms sometimes!--and they all seemed to be kissing mamma, for of course it was mamma--and each other at once. And somehow--Mary could not remember how mamma told it them--they knew that there were good news. Baby Dolly was not going to be very ill! It had nothing to do with the fall--but, till the doctor came, it was thought the little sister had got scarlet fever or measles, and that was why the children had been kept out of the nursery all the morning and not allowed to see the baby, or mamma or nurse who had been with her. For those illnesses are very easily caught. But it was nothing so bad. It was only a little feverish attack, which would soon pass away if she was kept quiet and warm. "You shall see her this afternoon, just for a minute or two," said mamma. "I told the doctor I would come down myself to tell you the good news. And I am going to take you out a walk, so as to leave the nursery quite quiet." "Not with Emma?" said Mary. She was not sorry, but she was rather surprised. "No, dear, not with Emma. You will not be with Emma any more, for I cannot trust her." Leigh grew very red at this. "Mamma," he said, "then you can't trust _me_." "Yes," she replied. "I do trust you, for I know you have had a lesson you will never forget. Will you, my boy?" "No, mamma, never," said Leigh in a very low voice. The walk was to the Lavender Cottages. Mamma had two reasons for going there. She wanted to thank Janie Perry for the brave way she had behaved; and she also wanted to ask Janie's mother about a niece of hers, who she thought would make a nice nursery-maid instead of Emma. It was a very happy walk; they all felt as if they had never loved mamma _quite_ so much before. And a few days later, when Baby Dolly had got quite well and was able to go out in her carriage once more, mamma came with them again for a great treat. And Fuzzy came too. "Poor old Fuzzy," said Mary, who was hopping along as merry as a cricket, feeling quite safe with mamma's hand. "Poor old Fuzzy. He never _meaned_ to run away, did he, mamma? When Baby Dolly's a big girl we'll tell her she needn't be f'ightened of poor Fuzzy--it's only his play; isn't it, mamma dear?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The End. 
12056	----	PHASES OF FAITH - or - PASSAGES FROM THE HISTORY OF MY CREED. Francis William Newman, 1874 PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. This is perhaps an egotistical book; egotistical certainly in its form, yet not in its purport and essence. Personal reasons the writer cannot wholly disown, for desiring to explain himself to more than a few, who on religious grounds are unjustly alienated from him. If by any motive of curiosity or lingering remembrances they may be led to read his straightforward account, he trusts to be able to show them that he has had _no choice_ but to adopt the intellectual conclusions which offend them;--that the difference between them and him turns on questions of Learning, History, Criticism and Abstract Thought;--and that to make _their_ results (if indeed they have ever deeply and honestly investigated the matter) the tests of _his_ spiritual state, is to employ unjust weights and a false balance, which are an abomination to the Lord. To defraud one's neighbour of any tithe of mint and cummin, would seem to them a sin: is it less to withhold affection, trust and free intercourse, and build up unpassable barriers of coldness and alarm, against one whose sole offence is to differ from them intellectually? But the argument before the writer is something immensely greater than a personal one. So it happens, that to vindicate himself is to establish a mighty truth; a truth which can in no other way so well enter the heart, as when it comes embodied in an individual case. If he can show, that to have shrunk from his successive convictions _would_ have been "infidelity" to God and Truth and Righteousness; but that he has been "faithful" to the highest and most urgent duty;--it will be made clear that Belief is one thing and Faith another; that to believe is intellectual, nay possibly "earthly, devilish;" and that to set up any fixed creed as a test of spiritual character is a most unjust, oppressive and mischievous superstition. The historical form has been deliberately selected, as easier and more interesting to the reader; but it must not be imagined that the author has given his mental history in general, much less an autobiography. The progress of his _creed_ is his sole subject; and other topics are introduced either to illustrate this or as digressions suggested by it. _March 22nd, 1850._ PREFACE TO SIXTH EDITION I had long thought that the elaborate reply made for me in the "Prospective Review" (1854) to Mr. Henry Rogers's Defence of the "Eclipse of Faith," superseded anything more from my pen. But in the course of six years a review is forgotten and buried away, while Mr. Rogers is circulating the ninth edition of his misrepresentations. As my publisher announces to me the opportunity, I at length consent to reply myself to the Defence, cancelling what was previously my last chapter, written against the "Eclipse." All that follows p. 175 in this edition is new. _June_, 1860. CONTENTS. I. MY YOUTHFUL CREED II. STRIVINGS AFTER A MORE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY III. CALVINISM ABANDONED IV. THE RELIGION OF THE LETTER RENOUNCED V. FAITH AT SECOND HAND FOUND TO BE VAIN VI. HISTORY DISCOVERED TO BE NO PART OF RELIGION VII. ON THE MORAL PERFECTION OF JESUS VIII. ON BIGOTRY AND PROGRESS IX. REPLY TO THE "DEFENCE OF THE ECLIPSE OF FAITH" APPENDIX I APPENDIX II PHASES OF FAITH. CHAPTER I. MY YOUTHFUL CREED. I first began to read religious books at school, and especially the Bible, when I was eleven years old; and almost immediately commenced a habit of secret prayer. But it was not until I was fourteen that I gained any definite idea of a "scheme of doctrine," or could have been called a "converted person" by one of the Evangelical School. My religion then certainly exerted a great general influence over my conduct; for I soon underwent various persecution from my schoolfellows on account of it: the worst kind consisted in their deliberate attempts to corrupt me. An Evangelical clergyman at the school gained my affections, and from him I imbibed more and more distinctly the full creed which distinguishes that body of men; a body whose bright side I shall ever appreciate, in spite of my present perception that they have a dark side also. I well remember, that one day when I said to this friend of mine, that I could not understand how the doctrine of Election was reconcilable to God's Justice, but supposed that I should know this in due time, if I waited and believed His word;--he replied with emphatic commendation, that this was the spirit which God always blessed. Such was the beginning and foundation of my faith,--an unhesitating unconditional acceptance of whatever was found in the Bible. While I am far from saying that my _whole_ moral conduct was subjugated by my creed, I must insist that it was no mere fancy resting in my intellect: it was really operative on my temper, tastes, pursuits and conduct. When I was sixteen, in 1821, I was "confirmed" by Dr. Howley, then Bishop of London, and endeavoured to take on myself with greater decision and more conscientious consistency the whole yoke of Christ. Every thing in the Service was solemn to me, except the bishop: he seemed to me a _made-up_ man and a mere pageant. I also remember that when I was examined by the clergyman for confirmation, it troubled me much that he only put questions which tested my _memory_ concerning the Catechism and other formulas, instead of trying to find out whether I had any actual faith in that about which I was to be called to profess faith: I was not then aware that his sole duty was to try my _knowledge_. But I already felt keenly the chasm that separated the High from the Low Church; and that it was impossible for me to sympathize with those who imagined that Forms could command the Spirit. Yet so entirely was I enslaved to one Form,--that of observing the Sunday, or, as I had learned falsely to call it, the Sabbath,--that I fell into painful and injurious conflict with a superior kinsman, by refusing to obey his orders on the Sunday. He attempted to deal with me by mere authority, not by instruction; and to yield my conscience to authority would have been to yield up all spiritual life. I erred, but I was faithful to God. When I was rather more than seventeen, I subscribed the 39 Articles at Oxford in order to be admitted to the University. Subscription was "no bondage," but pleasure; for I well knew and loved the Articles, and looked on them as a great bulwark of the truth; a bulwark, however, not by being imposed, but by the spiritual and classical beauty which to me shone in them. But it was certain to me before I went to Oxford, and manifest in my first acquaintance with it, that very few academicians could be said to believe them. Of the young men, not one in five seemed to have any religious convictions at all: the elder residents seldom or never showed sympathy with the doctrines that pervade that formula. I felt from my first day there, that the system of compulsory subscription was hollow, false, and wholly evil. Oxford is a pleasant place for making friends,--friends of all sorts that young men wish. One who is above envy and scorns servility,--who can praise and delight in all the good qualities of his equals in age, and does not desire to set himself above them, or to vie with his superiors in rank,--may have more than enough of friends, for pleasure and for profit. So certainly had I; yet no one of my equals gained any ascendancy over me, nor perhaps could I have looked up to any for advice. In some the intellect, in others the religious qualities, were as yet insufficiently developed: in part also I wanted discrimination, and did not well pick out the profounder minds of my acquaintance. However, on my very first residence in College, I received a useful lesson from another freshman,--a grave and thoughtful person, older (I imagine) than most youths in their first term. Some readers may be amused, as well as surprized, when I name the delicate question on which I got into discussion with my fellow freshman. I had learned from Evangelical books, that there is a _twofold_ imputation to every saint,--not of the "sufferings" only, but also of the "righteousness" of Christ. They alleged that, while the sufferings of Jesus are a compensation for the guilt of the believer and make him innocent, yet this suffices not to give him a title to heavenly glory; for which he must over and above be invested in active righteousness, by all Christ's good works being made over to him. My new friend contested the latter part of the doctrine. Admitting fully that guilt is atoned for by the sufferings of the Saviour, he yet maintained, there was no farther imputation of Christ's active service as if it had been our service. After a rather sharp controversy, I was sent back to study the matter for myself, especially in the third and fourth chapters of the Epistle to the Romans; and some weeks after, freely avowed to him that I was convinced. Such was my first effort at independent thought against the teaching of my spiritual fathers, and I suppose it had much value for me. This friend might probably have been of service to me, though he was rather cold and lawyerlike; but he was abruptly withdrawn from Oxford to be employed in active life. I first received a temporary discomfort about the 39 Articles from an irreligious young man, who had been my schoolfellow; who one day attacked the article which asserts that Christ carried "his flesh and bones" with him into heaven. I was not moved by the physical absurdity which this youth mercilessly derided; and I repelled his objections as on impiety. But I afterwards remembered the text, "_Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God_;" and it seemed to me as if the compiler had really gone a little too far. If I had immediately then been called on to subscribe, I suppose it would have somewhat discomposed me; but as time went on, I forgot this small point, which was swallowed up by others more important. Yet I believe that henceforth a greater disposition to criticize the Articles grew upon me. The first novel opinion of any great importance that I actually embraced, so as to give roughness to my course, was that which many then called the Oriel heresy about Sunday. Oriel College at this time contained many active and several original minds; and it was rumoured that one of the Fellows rejoiced in seeing his parishioners play at cricket on Sunday: I do not know whether that was true, but so it was said. Another of them preached an excellent sermon before the University, clearly showing that Sunday had nothing to do with the Sabbath, nor the Sabbath with us, and inculcating on its own ground a wise and devout use of the Sunday hours. The evidently pious and sincere tone of this discourse impressed me, and I felt that I had no right to reject as profane and undeserving of examination the doctrine which it enforced. Accordingly I entered into a thorough searching of the Scripture without bias, and was amazed to find how baseless was the tenet for which in fact I had endured a sort of martyrdom. This, I believe, had a great effect in showing me how little right we have at any time to count on our opinions as final truth, however necessary they may just then be felt to our spiritual life. I was also scandalized to find how little candour or discernment some Evangelical friends, with whom I communicated, displayed in discussing the subject. In fact, this opened to me a large sphere of new thought. In the investigation, I had learned, more distinctly than before, that the preceptive code of the Law was an essentially imperfect and temporary system, given "for the hardness of men's hearts." I was thus prepared to enter into the Lectures on Prophecy, by another Oriel Fellow,--Mr. Davison,--in which he traces the successive improvements and developments of religious doctrine, from the patriarchal system onward. I in consequence enjoyed with new zest the epistles of St. Paul, which I read as with fresh eyes; and now understood somewhat better his whole doctrine of "the Spirit," the coming of which had brought the church out of her childish into a mature condition, and by establishing a higher law had abolished that of the letter. Into this view I entered with so eager an interest, that I felt no bondage of the letter in Paul's own words: his wisdom was too much above me to allow free criticism of his weak points. At the same time, the systematic use of the Old Testament by the Puritans, as if it were "the rule of life" to Christians, I saw to be a glaring mistake, intensely opposed to the Pauline doctrine. This discovery, moreover, soon became important to me, as furnishing a ready evasion of objections against the meagre or puerile views of the Pentateuch; for without very minute inquiry how far I must go to make the defence adequate, I gave a general reply, that the New Testament _confessed_ the imperfections of the older dispensation. I still presumed the Old to have been perfect for its own objects and in its own place; and had not defined to myself how far it was correct or absurd, to imagine morality to change with time and circumstances. Before long, ground was broken in my mind on a still more critical question, by another Fellow of a College; who maintained that nothing but unbelief could arise out of the attempt to understand _in what way_ and _by what moral right_ the blood of Christ atoned for sins. He said, that he bowed before the doctrine as one of "Revelation," and accepted it reverentially by an act of faith; but that he certainly felt unable to understand _why_ the sacrifice of Christ, any more than the Mosaic sacrifices, should compensate for the punishment of our sins. Could carnal reason discern that human or divine blood, any more than that of beasts, had efficacy to make the sinner as it were sinless? It appeared to him a necessarily inscrutable mystery, into which we ought not to look.--The matter being thus forced on my attention, I certainly saw that to establish the abstract moral _right_ and _justice_ of vicarious punishment was not easy, and that to make out the fact of any "compensation"--(_i.e._ that Jesus really endured on the cross a true equivalent for the eternal sufferings due to the whole human race,)--was harder still. Nevertheless I had difficulty in adopting the conclusions of this gentleman; FIRST, because, in a passage of the Epistle to the Hebrews, the sacred writer, in arguing--"_For_ it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats can take away sins," &c., &c....--seems to expect his readers to see an inherent impropriety in the sacrifices of the Law, and an inherent moral fitness in the sacrifice of Christ. SECONDLY: I had always been accustomed to hear that it was by seeing the moral fitness of the doctrine of the Atonement, that converts to Christianity were chiefly made: so said the Moravians among the Greenlanders, so Brainerd among the North American Indians, so English missionaries among the negroes at Sierra Leone:--and I could not at all renounce this idea. Indeed I seemed to myself to see this fitness most emphatically; and as for the _forensic_ difficulties, I passed them over with a certain conscious reverence. I was not as yet ripe for deeper inquiry: yet I, about this time, decidedly modified my boyish creed on the subject, on which more will be said below. Of more immediate practical importance to me was the controversy concerning Infant Baptism. For several years together I had been more or less conversant with the arguments adduced for the practice; and at this time I read Wall's defence of it, which was the book specially recommended at Oxford. The perusal brought to a head the doubts which had at an earlier period flitted over my mind. Wall's historical attempt to trace Infant Baptism up to the apostles seemed to me a clear failure:[1] and if he failed, then who was likely to succeed? The arguments from Scripture had never recommended themselves to me. Even allowing that they might confirm, they certainly could not suggest and establish the practice. It now appeared that there was no basis at all; indeed, several of the arguments struck me as cutting the other way. "Suffer little children to come unto me," urged as decisive: but it occurred to me that the disciples would not have scolded the little children away, if they had ever been accustomed to baptize them. Wall also, if I remember aright, declares that the children of proselytes were baptized by the Jews; and deduces, that unless the contrary were stated, we must assume that also Christ's disciples baptized children: but I reflected that the baptism _of John_ was one of "repentance," and therefore could not have been administered to infants; which (if precedent is to guide us) afforded the truer presumption concerning _Christian_ baptism. Prepossessions being thus overthrown, when I read the apostolic epistles with a view to this special question, the proof so multiplied against the Church doctrine, that I did not see what was left to be said for it. I talked much and freely of this, as of most other topics, with equals in age, who took interest in religious questions; but the more the matters were discussed, the more decidedly impossible it seemed to maintain that the popular Church views were apostolic. Here also, as before, the Evangelical clergy whom I consulted were found by me a broken reed. The clerical friend whom I had known at school wrote kindly to me, but quite declined attempting to solve my doubts; and in other quarters I soon saw that no fresh light was to be got. One person there was at Oxford, who might have seemed my natural adviser; his name, character, and religious peculiarities have been so made public property, that I need not shrink to name him:--I mean my elder brother, the Rev. John Henry Newman. As a warm-hearted and generous brother, who exercised towards me paternal cares, I esteemed him and felt a deep gratitude; as a man of various culture, and peculiar genius, I admired and was proud of him; but my doctrinal religion impeded my loving him as much as he deserved, and even justified my feeling some distrust of him. He never showed any strong attraction towards those whom I regarded as spiritual persons: on the contrary, I thought him stiff and cold towards them. Moreover, soon after his ordination, he had startled and distressed me by adopting the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration; and in rapid succession worked out views which I regarded as full-blown "Popery." I speak of the years 1823-6: it is strange to think that twenty years more had to pass before he learnt the place to which his doctrines belonged. In the earliest period of my Oxford residence I fell into uneasy collision with him concerning Episcopal powers. I had on one occasion dropt something disrespectful against bishops or a bishop,--something which, if it had been said about a clergyman, would have passed unnoticed: but my brother checked and reproved me,--as I thought, very uninstructively--for "wanting reverence towards Bishops." I knew not then, and I know not now, why Bishops, _as such_, should be more reverenced than common clergymen; or Clergymen, _as such_, more than common men. In the World I expected pomp and vain show and formality and counterfeits: but of the Church, as Christ's own kingdom, I demanded reality and could not digest legal fictions. I saw round me what sort of young men were preparing to be clergymen: I knew the attractions of family "livings" and fellowships, and of a respectable position and undefinable hopes of preferment. I farther knew, that when youths had become clergymen through a great variety of mixed motives, bishops were selected out of these clergy on avowedly political grounds; it therefore amazed me how a man of good sense should be able to set up a duty of religious veneration towards bishops. I was willing to honour a Lord Bishop as a peer of Parliament; but his office was to me no guarantee of spiritual eminence.--To find my brother thus stop my mouth, was a puzzle; and impeded all free speech towards him. In fact, I very soon left off the attempt at intimate religious intercourse with him, or asking counsel as of one who could sympathize. We talked, indeed, a great deal on the surface of religious matters; and on some questions I was overpowered and received a temporary bias from his superior knowledge; but as time went on, and my own intellect ripened, I distinctly felt that his arguments were too fine-drawn and subtle, often elaborately missing the moral points and the main points, to rest on some ecclesiastical fiction; and his conclusions were to me so marvellous and painful, that I constantly thought I had mistaken him. In short, he was my senior by a very few years: nor was there any elder resident at Oxford, accessible to me, who united all the qualities which I wanted in an adviser. Nothing was left for me but to cast myself on Him who is named the Father of Lights, and resolve to follow the light which He might give, however opposed to my own prejudices, and however I might be condemned by men. This solemn engagement I made in early youth, and neither the frowns nor the grief of my brethren can make me ashamed of it in my manhood. Among the religious authors whom I read familiarly was the Rev. T. Scott, of Aston Sandford, a rather dull, very unoriginal, half-educated, but honest, worthy, sensible, strong-minded man, whose works were then much in vogue among the Evangelicals. One day my attention was arrested by a sentence in his defence of the doctrine of the Trinity. He complained that Anti-Trinitarians unjustly charged Trinitarians with self-contradiction. "If indeed we said" (argued he) "that God is three _in the same sense_ as that in which He is one, that would be self-refuting; but we hold Him to be _three in one sense, and one in another_." It crossed my mind very forcibly, that, if that was all, the Athanasian Creed had gratuitously invented an enigma. I exchanged thoughts on this with an undergraduate friend, and got no fresh light: in fact, I feared to be profane, if I attempted to understand the subject. Yet it came distinctly home to me, that, whatever the depth of the mystery, if we lay down anything about it _at all_, we ought to understand our own words; and I presently augured that Tillotson had been right in "wishing our Church well rid" of the Athanasian Creed; which seemed a mere offensive blurting out of intellectual difficulties. I had, however, no doubts, even of a passing kind, for years to come, concerning the substantial truth and certainty of the ecclesiastical Trinity. When the period arrived for taking my Bachelors degree, it was requisite again to sign the 39 Articles, and I now found myself embarrassed by the question of Infant Baptism. One of the articles contains the following words, "The baptism of young children is in any wise to be retained, as most agreeable to the institution of Christ." I was unable to conceal from myself that I did not believe this sentence; and I was on the point of refusing to take my degree. I overcame my scruples by considering, 1. That concerning this doctrine I had no active _dis_-belief, on which I would take any practical step, as I felt myself too young to make any counterdeclaration: 2. That it had no possible practical meaning to me, since I could not be called on to baptize, nor to give a child for baptism. Thus I persuaded myself. Yet I had not an easy conscience, nor can I now defend my compromise; for I believe that my repugnance to Infant Baptism was really intense, and my conviction that it is unapostolic as strong then as now. The topic of my "youth" was irrelevant; for, if I was not too young to subscribe, I was not too young to refuse subscription. The argument that the article was "unpractical" to me, goes to prove, that if I were ordered by a despot to qualify myself for a place in the Church by solemnly renouncing the first book of Euclid as false, I might do so without any loss of moral dignity. Altogether, this humiliating affair showed me what a trap for the conscience these subscriptions are: how comfortably they are passed while the intellect is torpid or immature, or where the conscience is callous, but how they undermine truthfulness in the active thinker, and torture the sensitiveness of the tenderminded. As long as they are maintained, in Church or University, these institutions exert a positive influence to deprave or eject those who ought to be their most useful and honoured members. It was already breaking upon me, that I could not fulfil the dreams of my boyhood as a minister in the Church of England. For, supposing that with increased knowledge I might arrive at the conclusion that Infant Baptism was a fore-arranged "development,"--not indeed practised in the _first_ generation, but expedient, justifiable, and intended for the _second_, and probably then sanctioned by one still living apostle,--even so, I foresaw the still greater difficulty of Baptismal Regeneration behind. For any one to avow that Regeneration took place in Baptism, seemed to me little short of a confession that he had never himself experienced what Regeneration is. If I _could_ then have been convinced that the apostles taught no other regeneration, I almost think that even their authority would have snapt under the strain: but this is idle theory; for it was as clear as daylight to me that they held a totally different doctrine, and that the High Church and Popish fancy is a superstitious perversion, based upon carnal inability to understand a strong spiritual metaphor. On the other hand, my brother's arguments that the Baptismal Service of the Church taught "spiritual regeneration" during the ordinance, were short, simple, and overwhelming. To imagine a _twofold_ "spiritual regeneration" was evidently a hypothesis to serve a turn, nor in any of the Church formulas was such an idea broached. Nor could I hope for relief by searching through the Homilies or by drawing deductions from the Articles: for if I there elicited a truer doctrine, it would never show the Baptismal Service not to teach the Popish tenet; it would merely prove the Church-system to contain contradictions, and not to deserve that absolute declaration of its truth, which is demanded of Church ministers. With little hope of advantage, I yet felt it a duty to consult many of the Evangelical clergymen whom I knew, and to ask how _they_ reconciled the Baptismal Service to their consciences. I found (if I remember) three separate theories among them,--all evidently mere shifts invented to avoid the disagreeable necessity of resigning their functions. Not one of these good people seemed to have the most remote idea that it was their duty to investigate the meaning of the formulary with the same unbiassed simplicity as if it belonged to the Gallican Church. They did not seek to know what it was written to mean, nor what sense it must carry to every simpleminded hearer; but they solely asked, how they could manage to assign to it a sense not wholly irreconcilable with their own doctrines and preaching. This was too obviously hollow. The last gentleman whom I consulted, was the rector of a parish, who from week to week baptized children with the prescribed formula: but to my amazement, he told me that _he_ did not like the Service, and did not approve of Infant Baptism; to both of which things he submitted, solely because, as an inferior minister of the Church, it was his duty to obey established authority! The case was desperate. But I may here add, that this clergyman, within a few years from that time, redeemed his freedom and his conscience by the painful ordeal of abandoning his position and his flock, against the remonstrances of his wife, to the annoyance of his friends, and with a young family about him. Let no reader accept the preceding paragraph as my testimony that the Evangelical clergy are less simpleminded and less honourable in their subscriptions than the High Church. I do not say, and I do not believe this. _All_ who subscribe, labour under a common difficulty, in having to give an absolute assent to formulas that were made by a compromise and are not homogeneous in character. To the High Churchman, the _Articles_ are a difficulty; to the Low Churchman, various parts of the _Liturgy_. All have to do violence to some portion of the system; and considering at how early an age they are entrapped into subscription, they all deserve our sincere sympathy and very ample allowance, as long as they are pleading for the rights of conscience: only when they become overbearing, dictatorial, proud of their chains, and desirous of ejecting others, does it seem right to press them with the topic of inconsistency. There in, besides, in the ministry of the Established Church a sprinkling of original minds, who cannot be included in either of the two great divisions; and from these _à priori_ one might have hoped much good to the Church. But such persons no sooner speak out, than the two hostile parties hush their strife, in order the more effectually to overwhelm with just and unjust imputations those who dare to utter truth that has not yet been consecrated by Act of Parliament or by Church Councils. Among those who have subscribed, to attack others is easy, to defend oneself most arduous. Recrimination is the only powerful weapon; and noble minds are ashamed to use this. No hope, therefore, shows itself of Reform from within.--For myself, I feel that nothing saved me from the infinite distresses which I should have encountered, had I become a minister of the Episcopal Church, but the very unusual prematureness of my religious development. Besides the great subject of Baptismal Regeneration, the entire Episcopal theory and practice offended me. How little favourably I was impressed, when a boy, by the lawn sleeves, wig, artificial voice and manner of the Bishop of London, I have already said: but in six years more, reading and observation had intensely confirmed my first auguries. It was clear beyond denial, that for a century after the death of Edward VI. the bishops were the tools of court-bigotry, and often owed their highest promotions to base subservience. After the Revolution, the Episcopal order (on a rough and general view) might be described as a body of supine persons, known to the public only as a dead weight against all change that was distasteful to the Government. In the last century and a half, the nation was often afflicted with sensual royalty, bloody wars, venal statesmen, corrupt constituencies, bribery and violence at elections, flagitious drunkenness pervading all ranks, and insinuating itself into Colleges and Rectories. The prisons of the country had been in a most disgraceful state; the fairs and waits were scenes of rude debauchery, and the theatres were--still, in this nineteenth century--whispered to be haunts of the most debasing immorality. I could not learn that any bishop had ever taken the lead in denouncing these iniquities; nor that when any man or class of men rose to denounce them, the Episcopal Order failed to throw itself into the breach to defend corruption by at least passive resistance. Neither Howard, Wesley and Whitfield, nor yet Clarkson, Wilberforce, or Romilly, could boast of the episcopal bench as an ally against inhuman or immoral practices. Our oppressions in India, and our sanction to the most cruel superstitions of the natives, led to no outcry from the Bishops. Under their patronage the two old Societies of the Church had gone to sleep until aroused by the Church Missionary and Bible Societies, which were opposed by the Bishops. Their policy seemed to be, to do nothing, until somebody else was likely to do it; upon which they at last joined the movement in order to damp its energy, and get some credit from it. Now what were Bishops for, but to be the originators and energetic organs of all pious and good works? and what were they in the House of Lords for, if not to set a higher tone of purity, justice, and truth? and if they never did this, but weighed down those who attempted it, was not that a condemnation (not, perhaps, of all possible Episcopacy, but) of Episcopacy as it exists in England? If such a thing as a moral argument _for_ Christianity was admitted as valid, surely the above was a moral argument _against_ English Prelacy. It was, moreover, evident at a glance, that this system of ours neither was, nor could have been, apostolic: for as long as the civil power was hostile to the Church, _a Lord bishop nominated by the civil ruler_ was an impossibility: and this it is, which determines the moral and spiritual character of the English institution, not indeed exclusively, but preeminently. I still feel amazement at the only defence which (as far as I know) the pretended followers of Antiquity make for the nomination of bishops by the Crown. In the third and fourth centuries, it is well known that every new bishop was elected by the universal suffrage of the laity of the church; and it is to these centuries that the High Episcopalians love to appeal, because they can quote thence out of Cyprian[2] and others in favour of Episcopal authority. When I alleged the dissimilarity in the mode of election, as fatal to this argument in the mouth of an English High Churchman, I was told that "the Crown now _represents_ the Laity!" Such a fiction may be satisfactory to a pettifogging lawyer, but as the basis of a spiritual system is indeed supremely contemptible. With these considerations on my mind,--while quite aware that some of the bishops were good and valuable men,--I could not help feeling that it would be a perfect misery to me to have to address one of them taken at random as my "Right Reverend Father in God," which seemed like a foul hypocrisy; and when I remembered who had said, "Call no man Father on earth; for one is your Father, who is in heaven:"--words, which not merely in the letter, but still more distinctly in the spirit, forbid the state of feeling which suggested this episcopal appellation,--it did appear to me, as if "Prelacy" had been rightly coupled by the Scotch Puritans with "Popery" as antichristian. Connected inseparably with this, was the form of Ordination, which, the more I thought of it, seemed the more offensively and outrageously Popish, and quite opposed to the Article on the same subject. In the Article I read, that we were to regard such to be legitimate ministers of the word, as had been duly appointed to this work _by those who have public authority for the same_. It was evident to me that this very wide phrase was adapted and intended to comprehend the "public authorities" of all the Reformed Churches, and could never have been selected by one who wished to narrow the idea of a legitimate minister to Episcopalian Orders; besides that we know Lutheran and Calvinistic ministers to have been actually admitted in the early times of the Reformed English Church, by the force of that very Article. To this, the only genuine Protestant view of a Church, I gave my most cordial adherence: but when I turned to the Ordination Service, I found the Bishop there, by his authoritative voice, absolutely to bestow on the candidate for Priesthood the power to forgive or retain sins!--"Receive ye the Holy Ghost! Whose sins ye forgive, they are forgiven: whose sins ye retain, they are retained." If the Bishop really had this power, he of course had it only _as_ Bishop, that is, by his consecration; thus it was formally transmitted. To allow this, vested in all the Romish bishops a spiritual power of the highest order, and denied the legitimate priesthood in nearly all the Continental Protestant Churches--a doctrine irreconcilable with the article just referred to and intrinsically to me incredible. That an unspiritual--and it may be, a wicked--man, who can have no pure insight into devout and penitent hearts, and no communion with the Source of holy discernment, could never receive by an outward form the divine power to forgive or retain sins, or the power of bestowing this power, was to me then, as now, as clear and certain as any possible first axiom. Yet if the Bishop had not this power, how profane was the pretension! Thus again I came into rude collision with English Prelacy. The year after taking my degree, I made myself fully master of Paley's acute and original treatise, the "Horæ Paulinæ," and realized the whole life of Paul as never before. This book greatly enlarged my mind as to the resources of historical criticism. Previously, my sole idea of criticism was that of the direct discernment of style; but I now began to understand what powerful argument rose out of combinations: and the very complete establishment which this work gives to the narrative concerning Paul in the latter half of the "Acts," appeared to me to reflect critical honour[3] on the whole New Testament. In the epistles of this great apostle, notwithstanding their argumentative difficulties, I found a moral reality and a depth of wisdom perpetually growing upon me with acquaintance: in contrast to which I was conscious that I made no progress in understanding the four gospels. Their first impression had been their strongest: and their difficulties remained as fixed blocks in my way. Was this possibly because Paul is a reasoner, (I asked)? hence, with the cultivation of my understanding, I have entered more easily into the heart of his views:--while Christ enunciates divine truth dogmatically; consequently insight is needed to understand him? On the contrary, however, it seemed to me, that the doctrinal difficulties of the gospels depend chiefly either on obscure metaphor or on apparent incoherence: and I timidly asked a friend, whether the _dislocation_ of the discourses of Christ by the narrators may not be one reason why they are often obscure: for on comparing Luke with Matthew, it appears that we cannot deny occasional dislocation. If at this period a German divinity professor had been lecturing at Oxford, or German books had been accessible to me, it might have saved me long peregrinations of body and mind. About this time I had also begun to think that the old writers called _Fathers_ deserved but a small fraction of the reverence which is awarded to them. I had been strongly urged to read Chrysostom's work on the Priesthood, by one who regarded it as a suitable preparation for Holy Orders; and I did read it. But I not only thought it inflated, and without moral depth, but what was far worse, I encountered in it an elaborate defence of falsehood in the cause of the Church, and generally of deceit in any good cause.[4] I rose from the treatise in disgust, and for the first time sympathized with Gibbon; and augured that if he had spoken with moral indignation, instead of pompous sarcasm, against the frauds of the ancient "Fathers," his blows would have fallen far more heavily on Christianity itself. I also, with much effort and no profit, read the Apostolic Fathers. Of these, Clement alone seemed to me respectable, and even he to write only what I could myself have written, with Paul and Peter to serve as a model. But for Barnabas and Hermas I felt a contempt so profound, that I could hardly believe them genuine. On the whole, this reading greatly exalted my sense of the unapproachable greatness[5] of the New Testament. The moral chasm between it and the very earliest Christian writers seemed to me so vast, as only to be accounted for by the doctrine in which all spiritual men (as I thought) unhesitatingly agreed,--that the New Testament was dictated by the immediate action of the Holy Spirit. The infatuation of those, who, after this, rested on _the Councils_, was to me unintelligible. Thus the Bible in its simplicity became only the more all-ruling to my judgment, because I could find no Articles, no Church Decrees, and no apostolic individual, whose rule over my understanding or conscience I could bear. Such may be conveniently regarded as the first period of my Creed. [Footnote 1: It was not until many years later that I became aware, that unbiased ecclesiastical historians, as Neander and others, while approving of the practice of Infant Baptism, freely concede that it is not apostolic. Let this fact be my defence against critics, who snarl at me for having dared, at that age, to come to _any_ conclusion on such a subject. But, in fact, the subscriptions compel young men to it.] [Footnote 2: I remember reading about that time a sentence in one of his Epistles, in which this same Cyprian, the earliest mouthpiece of "proud prelacy," claims for the _populace_ supreme right of deposing an unworthy bishop. I quote the words from memory, and do not know the reference. "Pleba summam habet potentatem episcopos seu dignos eligendi seu indignos detrudendi."] [Footnote 3: A critic absurdly complains that I do not account for this. Account for what? I still hold the authenticity of nearly all the Pauline epistles, and that the Pauline Acts are compiled from some valuable source, from chap. xiii. onward; but it was gratuitous to infer that this could accredit the four gospels.] [Footnote 4: He argues from the Bible, that a victory gained by deceit is more to be esteemed than one obtained by force; and that, provided the end aimed at be good, we ought not to call it _deceit_, but a sort of _admirable management_. A learned friend informs me that in his 45th Homily on Genesis, this father, in his zeal to vindicate Scriptural characters at any cost, goes further still in immorality. My friend adds, "It is really frightful to reflect to what guidance the moral sentiment of mankind was committed for many ages: Chrysostom is usually considered one of the best of the fathers."] [Footnote 5: I thought that the latter part of this book would sufficiently show how and why I now need to modify this sentiment. I _now_ see the doctrine of the Atonement, especially as expounded in the Epistle of the Hebrews, to deserve no honour. I see false interpretations of the Old Testament to be dogmatically proposed in the New. I see the moral teaching concerning Patriotism, Property, Slavery, Marriage, Science, and indirectly Fine Art, to be essentially defective, and the threats against unbelief to be a pernicious immorality. See also p. 80. Why will critics use my frankly-stated juvenile opinions as a stone to pelt me with?] CHAPTER II. STRIVINGS AFTER A MORE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. My second period is characterized, partly by the great ascendancy exercised over me by one powerful mind and still more powerful will, partly by the vehement effort which throughout its duration urged me to long after the establishment of Christian Fellowship in a purely Biblical Church as the first great want of Christendom and of the world. I was already uneasy in the sense that I could not enter the ministry of the Church of England, and knew not what course of life to choose. I longed to become a missionary for Christ among the heathen,--a notion I had often fostered while reading the lives of missionaries: but again, I saw not how that was to be effected. After taking my degree, I became a Fellow of Balliol College; and the next year I accepted an invitation to Ireland, and there became private tutor for fifteen months in the house of one now deceased, whose name I would gladly mention for honour and affection;--but I withhold my pen. While he repaid me munificently for my services, he behaved towards me as a father, or indeed as an elder brother, and instantly made me feel as a member of his family. His great talents, high professional standing, nobleness of heart and unfeigned piety, would have made him a most valuable counsellor to me: but he was too gentle, too unassuming, too modest; he looked to be taught by his juniors, and sat at the feet of one whom I proceed to describe. This was a young relative of his,--a most remarkable man,--who rapidly gained an immense sway over me. I shall henceforth call him "the Irish clergyman." His "bodily presence" was indeed "weak!" A fallen cheek, a bloodshot eye, crippled limbs resting on crutches, a seldom shaven beard, a shabby suit of clothes and a generally neglected person, drew at first pity, with wonder to see such a figure in a drawing-room. It was currently reported that a person in Limerick offered him a halfpenny, mistaking him for a beggar; and if not true, the story was yet well invented. This young man had taken high honours in Dublin University and had studied for the bar, where under the auspices of his eminent kinsman he had excellent prospects; but his conscience would not allow him to take a brief, lest he should be selling his talents to defeat justice. With keen logical powers, he had warm sympathies, solid judgment of character, thoughtful tenderness, and total self-abandonment. He before long took Holy Orders, and became an indefatigable curate in the mountains of Wicklow. Every evening he sallied forth to teach in the cabins, and roving far and wide over mountain and amid bogs, was seldom home before midnight. By such exertions his strength was undermined, and he so suffered in his limbs that not lameness only, but yet more serious results were feared. He did not fast on purpose, but his long walks through wild country and indigent people inflicted on him much severe deprivation: moreover, as he ate whatever food offered itself,--food unpalatable and often indigestible to him, his whole frame might have vied in emaciation with a monk of La Trappe. Such a phenomenon intensely excited the poor Romanists, who looked on him as a genuine "saint" of the ancient breed. The stamp of heaven seemed to them clear in a frame so wasted by austerity, so superior to worldly pomp, and so partaking in all their indigence. That a dozen such men would have done more to convert all Ireland to Protestantism, than the whole apparatus of the Church Establishment, was ere long my conviction; though I was at first offended by his apparent affectation of a mean exterior. But I soon understood, that in no other way could he gain equal access to the lower and lowest orders, and that he was moved not by asceticism, nor by ostentation, but by a self-abandonment fruitful of consequences. He had practically given up all reading except that of the Bible; and no small part of his movement towards me soon took the form of dissuasion from all other voluntary study. In fact, I had myself more and more concentrated my religious reading on this one book: still, I could not help feeling the value of a cultivated mind. Against this, my new eccentric friend, (himself having enjoyed no mean advantages of cultivation,) directed his keenest attacks. I remember once saying to him, in defence of worldly station,--"To desire to be rich is unchristian and absurd; but if I were the father of children, I should wish to be rich enough to secure them a good education." He replied: "If I had children, I would as soon see them break stones on the road, as do any thing else, if only I could secure to them the Gospel and the grace of God." I was unable to say Amen, but I admired his unflinching consistency;--for now, as always, all he said was based on texts aptly quoted and logically enforced. He more and more made me ashamed of Political Economy and Moral Philosophy, and all Science; all of which ought to be "counted dross for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord." For the first time in my life I saw a man earnestly turning into reality the principles which others confessed with their lips only. That the words of the New Testament contained the highest truth accessible to man,--truth not to be taken from nor added to,--all good men (as I thought) confessed: never before had I seen a man so resolved that no word of it should be a dead letter to him. I once said: "But do you really think that _no_ part of the New Testament may have been temporary in its object? for instance, what should we have lost, if St. Paul had never written the verse, 'The cloak which I have left at Troas, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments.'" He answered with the greatest promptitude: "_I_ should certainly have lost something; for that is exactly the verse which alone saved me from selling my little library. No! every word, depend upon it, is from the Spirit, and is for eternal service." A political question was just then exceedingly agitating Ireland, in which nearly everybody took a great interest;--it was, the propriety of admitting Romanist members of Parliament. Those who were favourable to the measure, generally advocated it by trying to undervalue the chasm that separates Romish from Protestant doctrine. By such arguments they exceedingly exasperated the real Protestants, and, in common with all around me, I totally repudiated that ground of comprehension. But I could not understand why a broader, more generous and every way safer argument was not dwelt on; viz. the unearthliness of the claims of Christianity. When Paul was preaching the kingdom of God in the Roman empire, if a malicious enemy had declared to a Roman proconsul that the Christians were conspiring to eject all Pagans out of the senate and out of the public administration; who can doubt what Paul would have replied?--The kingdom of God is not of this world: it is within the heart, and consists in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. These are our "honours" from God: we ask not the honours of empire and title. Our King is in heaven; and will in time return to bring to an end these earthly kingdoms: but until then, we claim no superiority over you on earth. As the riches of this world, so the powers of this world belong to another king: we dare not try to appropriate them in the name of our heavenly King; may, we should hold it as great a sin to clutch empire for our churches, as to clutch wealth: God forbid that we covet either!--But what then if the enemy had had foresight to reply, O proconsul, this Paul talks finely, and perhaps sincerely: but if so, yet cheat not yourself to think that his followers will tie themselves to his mild equity and disinterestedness. Now indeed they are weak: now they profess unworldliness and unambition: they wish only to be recognised as peaceable subjects, as citizens and as equals: but if once they grow strong enough, they will discover that their spears and swords are the symbol of their Lord's return from heaven; that he now at length commissions them to eject you, as vile infidels, from all seats of power,--to slay you with the sword, if you dare to offer sacrifice to the immortal gods,--to degrade you so, that you shall only not enter the senate, or the privy council of the prince, or the judgment seat, but not even the jury-box, or a municipal corporation, or the pettiest edileship of Italy; nay, you shall not be lieutenants of armies, or tribunes, or anything above the lowest centurion. You shall become a plebeian class,--cheap bodies to be exposed in battle or to toil in the field, and pay rent to the lordly Christian. Such shall be the fate of _you_, the worshippers of Quirinus and of Jupiter Best and Greatest, if you neglect to crush and extirpate, during the weakness of its infancy, this ambitious and unscrupulous portent of a religion.--Oh, how would Paul have groaned in spirit, at accusations such as these, hateful to his soul, aspersing to his churches, but impossible to refute! Either Paul's doctrine was a fond dream, (felt I,) or it is certain, that he would have protested with all the force of his heart against the principle that Christians _as such_ have any claim to earthly power and place; or that they could, when they gained a numerical majority, without sin enact laws to punish, stigmatize, exclude, or otherwise treat with political inferiority the Pagan remnant. To uphold such exclusion, is to lay the axe to the root of the spiritual Church, to stultify the apostolic preaching, and at this moment justify Mohammedans in persecuting Christians. For the Sultan might fairly say,--"I give Christians the choice of exile or death: I will not allow that sect to grow up here; for it has fully warned me, that it will proscribe my religion in my own land, as soon as it has power." On such grounds I looked with amazement and sorrow at spiritual Christians who desired to exclude the Romanists from full equality; and I was happy to enjoy as to this the passive assent of the Irish clergyman; who, though "Orange" in his connexions, and opposed to _all_ political action, yet only so much the more deprecated what he called "political Protestantism." In spite of the strong revulsion which I felt against some of the peculiarities of this remarkable man, I for the first time in my life found myself under the dominion of a superior. When I remember, how even those bowed down before him, who had been to him in the place of parents,--accomplished and experienced minds,--I cease to wonder in the retrospect, that he riveted me in such a bondage. Henceforth I began to ask: what will _he_ say to this and that? In _his_ reply I always expected to find a higher portion of God's Spirit, than in any I could frame for myself. In order to learn divine truth, it became to me a surer process to consult him, than to search for myself and wait upon God: and gradually, (as I afterwards discerned,) my religious thought had merged into the mere process of developing fearlessly into results all his principles, without any deeper examining of my foundations. Indeed, but for a few weaknesses which warned me that he might err, I could have accepted him as an apostle commissioned to reveal the mind of God. In his after-course (which I may not indicate) this gentleman has every where displayed a wonderful power of bending other minds to his own, and even stamping upon them the tones of his voice and all sorts of slavish imitation. Over the general results of his action I have long deeply mourned, as blunting his natural tenderness and sacrificing his wisdom to the Letter, dwarfing men's understandings, contracting their hearts, crushing their moral sensibilities, and setting those at variance who ought to love: yet oh! how specious was it in the beginning! he _only_ wanted men "to submit their understandings _to God_" that is, to the Bible, that is, to his interpretation! From seeing his action and influence I have learnt, that if it be dangerous to a young man (as it assuredly is) to have _no_ superior mind to which he may look up with confiding reverence, it may be even more dangerous to think that he has found such a mind: for he who is most logically consistent, though to a one-sided theory, and most ready to sacrifice self to that theory, seems to ardent youth the most assuredly trustworthy guide. Such was Ignatius Loyola in his day. My study of the New Testament at this time had made it impossible for me to overlook that the apostles held it to be a duty of all disciples to expect a near and sudden destruction of the earth by fire, and constantly to be expecting _the return of the Lord from heaven_. It was easy to reply, that "experience disproved" this expectation; but to this an answer was ready provided in Peter's 2nd Epistle, which forewarns us that we shall be taunted by the unbelieving with thin objection, but bids us, _nevertheless_, continue to look out for the speedy fulfilment of this great event. In short, the case stood thus:--If it was not _too soon_ 1800 years ago to stand in daily expectation of it, it is not too soon now: to say that it is _too late_, is not merely to impute error to the apostles, on a matter which they made of first-rate moral importance, but is to say, that those whom Peter calls "ungodly scoffers, walking after their own lusts"--were right, and he was wrong, on the very point for which he thus vituperated them. The importance of this doctrine is, that _it totally forbids all working for earthly objects distant in time_: and here the Irish clergyman threw into the same scale the entire weight of his character. For instance; if a youth had a natural aptitude for mathematics, and he asked, ought he to give himself to the study, in hope that he might diffuse a serviceable knowledge of it, or possibly even enlarge the boundaries of the science? my friend would have replied, that such a purpose was very proper, if entertained by a worldly man. Let the dead bury their dead; and let the world study the things of the world: they know no better, and they are of use to the Church, who may borrow and use the jewels of the Egyptians. But such studies cannot be eagerly followed by the Christian, except when he yields to unbelief. In fact, what would it avail even to become a second La Place after thirty years' study, if in five and thirty years the Lord descended from heaven, snatched up all his saints to meet him, and burned to ashes all the works of the earth? Then all the mathematician's work would have perished, and he would grieve over his unwisdom, in laying up store which could not stand the fire of the Lord. Clearly; if we are bound to act _as though_ the end of all earthly concerns may come, "at cockcrowing or at midday," then to work for distant earthly objects is the part of a fool or of an unbeliever. I found a wonderful dulness in many persons on this important subject. Wholly careless to ask what was the true apostolic doctrine, they insisted that "Death is to us _practically_ the coming of the Lord," and were amazed at my seeing so much emphasis in the other view. This comes of the abominable selfishness preached as religion. If I were to labour at some useful work for ten years,--say, at clearing forest land, laying out a farm, and building a house,--and were then to die, I should leave my work to my successors, and it would not be lost. Some men work for higher, some for lower, earthly ends; ("in a great house there are many vessels, &c.;") but all the results are valuable, if there is a chance of transmitting them to those who follow us. But if all is to be very shortly burnt up, it is then folly to exert ourselves for such objects. To the dead man, (it is said,) the cases are but one. This is to the purpose, if self absorbs all our heart; away from the purpose, if we are to work for unselfish ends. Nothing can be clearer, than that the New Testament is entirely pervaded by the doctrine,--sometimes explicitly stated, sometimes unceremoniously assumed,--that earthly things are very speedily to come to an end, and _therefore_ are not worthy of our high affections and deep interest. Hence, when thoroughly imbued with this persuasion, I looked with mournful pity on a great mind wasting its energies on any distant aim of this earth. For a statesman to talk about providing for future generations, sounded to me as a melancholy avowal of unbelief. To devote good talents to write history or investigate nature, was simple waste: for at the Lord's coming, history and science would no longer be learned by these feeble appliances of ours. Thus an inevitable deduction from the doctrine of the apostles, was, that "we must work for speedy results only." Vitæ summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam. I _then_ accepted the doctrine, in profound obedience to the absolutely infallible system of precepts. I _now_ see that the falsity and mischief of the doctrine is one of the very many disproofs of the assumed, but unverified infallibility. However, the hold which the apostolic belief then took of me, subjected my conscience to the exhortations of the Irish clergyman, whenever he inculcated that the highest Christian must necessarily decline the pursuit of science, knowledge, art, history,--except so far as any of these things might be made useful tools for immediate spiritual results. Under the stimulus to my imagination given by this gentleman's character, the desire, which from a boy I had more or less nourished, of becoming a teacher of Christianity _to the heathen_, took stronger and stronger hold of me. I saw that I was shut out from the ministry of the Church of England, and knew not how to seek connexion with Dissenters. I had met one eminent Quaker, but was offended by the violent and obviously false interpretations by which he tried to get rid of the two Sacraments; and I thought there was affectation involved in the forms which the doctrine of the Spirit took with him. Besides, I had not been prepossessed by those Dissenters whom I had heard speak at the Bible Society. I remember that one of them talked in pompous measured tones of voice, and with much stereotyped phraseology, about "the Bible only, the religion of Protestants:" altogether, it did not seem to me that there was at all so much of nature and simple truth in them as in Church clergymen. I also had a vague, but strong idea, that all Dissenting churches assumed some special, narrow, and sectarian basis. The question indeed arose: "Was I _at liberty_ to preach to the heathen without ordination?" but I with extreme ease answered in the affirmative. To teach a Church, of course needs the sanction of the church: no man can assume pastoral rights without assent from other parties: but to speak to those without, is obviously a natural right, with which the Church can have nothing to do. And herewith all the precedents of the New Testament so obviously agreed, that I had not a moment's disquiet on this head. At the same time, when asked by one to whom I communicated my feelings, "whether I felt that I had _a call_ to preach to the heathen," I replied: I had not the least consciousness of it, and knew not what was meant by such language. All that I knew was, that I was willing and anxious to do anything in my power either to teach, or to help others in teaching, if only I could find out the way. That after eighteen hundred years no farther progress should have been made towards the universal spread of Christianity, appeared a scandalous reproach on Christendom. Is it not, perhaps, because those who are in Church office cannot go, and the mass of the laity think it no business of theirs? If a persecution fell on England, and thousands were driven into exile, and, like those who were scattered in Stephen's persecution, "went everywhere preaching the word,"--might not this be the conversion of the world, as indeed that began the conversion of the Gentiles? But the laity leave all to the clergy, and the clergy have more than enough to do. About this time I heard of another remarkable man, whose name was already before the public,--Mr. Groves,--who had written a tract called Christian Devotedness, on the duty of devoting all worldly property for the cause of Christ, and utterly renouncing the attempt to amass money. In pursuance of this, he was going to Persia as a teacher of Christianity. I read his tract, and was inflamed with the greatest admiration; judging immediately that this was the man whom I should rejoice to aid or serve. For a scheme of this nature alone appeared to combine with the views which I had been gradually consolidating concerning the practical relation of a Christian Church to Christian Evidences. On this very important subject it is requisite to speak in detail. * * * * * The Christian Evidences are an essential part of the course of religious study prescribed at Oxford, and they had engaged from an early period a large share of my attention. Each treatise on the subject, taken by itself, appeared to me to have great argumentative force; but when I tried to grasp them all together in a higher act of thought, I was sensible of a certain confusion, and inability to reconcile their fundamental assumptions. _One_ either formally stated, or virtually assumed, that the deepest basis of all religious knowledge was the testimony of sense to some fact, which is ascertained to be miraculous when examined by the light of Physics or Physiology; and that we must, at least in a great degree, distrust and abandon our moral convictions or auguries, at the bidding of sensible miracle. _Another_ treatise assumed that men's moral feelings and beliefs are, on the whole, the most trustworthy thing to be found; and starting from them as from a known and ascertained foundation, proceeded to glorify Christianity because of its expanding, strengthening, and beautifying all that we know by conscience to be morally right. That the former argument, if ever so valid, was still too learned and scholastic, not for the vulgar only, but for every man in his times of moral trial, I felt instinctively persuaded: yet my intellect could not wholly dispense with it, and my belief in the depravity of the moral understanding of men inclined me to go some way in defending it. To endeavour to combine the two arguments by saying that they were adapted to different states of mind, was plausible; yet it conceded, that neither of the two went to the bottom of human thought, or showed what were the real _fixed points_ of man's knowledge; without knowing which, we are in perpetual danger of mere _argumentum ad hominem_, or, in fact, arguing in a circle;--as to prove miracles from doctrine, and doctrine from miracles. I however conceived that the most logical minds among Christians would contend that there was another solution; which, in 1827, I committed to paper in nearly the following words: "May it not be doubted whether Leland sees the real circumstance that makes a revelation necessary? "No revelation is needed to inform us,--of the invisible power and deity of God; that we are bound to worship Him; that we are capable of sinning against Him and liable to his just Judgment; nay, that we have sinned, and that we find in nature marks of his displeasure against sin; and yet, that He is merciful. St. Paul and our Lord show us that these things are knowable by reason. The ignorance of the heathens is _judicial blindness_, to punish their obstinate rejection of the true God." "But a revelation _is_ needed to convey a SPECIAL message, such as this: that God has provided an Atonement for our sins, has deputed his own Son to become Head of the redeemed human family, and intends to raise those who believe in Him to a future and eternal life of bliss. These are external truths, (for 'who can believe, unless one be sent to preach them?') and are not knowable by any reasonings drawn from nature. They transcend natural analogies and moral or spiritual experience. To reveal them, a specific communication must be accorded to us: and on this the necessity for miracle turns." Thus, in my view, at that time, the materials of the Bible were in theory divisible into two portions: concerning the _one_, (which I called Natural Religion,) it not only was not presumptuous, but it was absolutely essential, to form an independent judgment; for this was the real basis of all faith: concerning the _other_, (which I called Revealed Religion,) our business was, not to criticize the message, but to examine the credentials[1] of the messenger; and,--after the most unbiassed possible examination of these,--then, if they proved sound, to receive his communication reverently and unquestioningly. Such was the theory with which I came from Oxford to Ireland; but I was hindered from working out its legitimate results by the overpowering influence of the Irish clergyman; who, while pressing the authority of every letter of the Scripture with an unshrinking vehemence that I never saw surpassed, yet, with a common inconsistency, showed more than indifference towards learned historical and critical evidence on the side of Christianity; and indeed, unmercifully exposed erudition to scorn, both by caustic reasoning, and by irrefragable quotation of texts. I constantly had occasion to admire the power with which be laid hold of the moral side of every controversy; whether he was reasoning against Romanism, against the High Church, against learned religion or philosophic scepticism: and in this matter his practical axiom was, that the advocate of truth had to address himself to the _conscience_ of the other party, and if possible, make him feel that there was a moral and spiritual superiority against him. Such doctrine, when joined with an inculcation of man's _natural blindness and total depravity_, was anything but clearing to my intellectual perceptions: in fact, I believe that for some years I did not recover from the dimness and confusion which he spread over them. But in my entire inability to explain away the texts which spoke with scorn of worldly wisdom, philosophy, and learning, on the one hand; and the obvious certainty, on the other, that no historical evidence for miracle was possible except by the aid of learning; I for the time abandoned this side of Christian Evidence,--not as invalid, but as too unwieldy a weapon for use,--and looked to direct moral evidence alone. And now rose the question, How could such moral evidence become appreciable to heathens and Mohammedans? I felt distinctly enough, that mere talk could bring no conviction, and would be interpreted by the actions and character of the speaker. While nations called Christian are only known to heathens as great conquerors, powerful avengers, sharp traders,--often lax in morals, and apparently without religion,--the fine theories of a Christian teacher would be as vain to convert a Mohammedan or Hindoo to Christianity, to the soundness of Seneca's moral treatises to convert me to Roman Paganism. Christendom has to earn a new reputation before Christian precepts will be thought to stand in any essential or close relation with the mystical doctrines of Christianity. I could see no other way to this, but by an entire church being formed of new elements on a heathen soil:--a church, in which by no means all should be preachers, but all should be willing to do for all whatever occasion required. Such a church had I read of among the Moravians in Greenland and in South Africa. I imagined a little colony, so animated by primitive faith, love, and disinterestedness, that the collective moral influence of all might interpret and enforce the words of the few who preached. Only in this way did it appear to me that preaching to the heathen could be attended with success. In fact, whatever success had been attained, seemed to come only after many years, when the natives had gained experience in the characters of the Christian family around them. When I had returned to Oxford, I induced the Irish clergyman to visit the University, and introduced him to many of my equals in age, and juniors. Most striking was it to see how instantaneously he assumed the place of universal father-confessor, as if he had been a known and long-trusted friend. His insight into character, and tenderness pervading his austerity, so opened young men's hearts, that day after day there was no end of secret closetings with him. I began to see the prospect of so considerable a movement of mind, as might lead many in the same direction as myself; and _if_ it was by a collective Church that Mohammedans were to be taught, the only way was for each separately to be led to the same place by the same spiritual influence. As Groves was a magnet to draw me, so might I draw others. In no other way could a pure and efficient Church be formed. If we waited, as with worldly policy, to make up a complete colony before leaving England, we should fail of getting the right men: we should pack them together by a mechanical process, instead of leaving them to be united by vital affinities. Thus actuated, and other circumstances conducing, in September 1830, with some Irish friends, I set out to join Mr. Groves at Bagdad. What I might do there, I knew not. I did not go as a minister of religion, and I everywhere pointedly disowned the assumption of this character, even down to the colour of my dress. But I thought I knew many ways in which I might be of service, and I was prepared to act recording to circumstances. * * * * * Perhaps the strain of practical life must in any case, before long, have broken the chain by which the Irish clergyman unintentionally held me; but all possible influence from him was now cut off by separation. The dear companions of my travels no more aimed to guide my thoughts, than I theirs: neither ambition nor suspicion found place in our hearts; and my mind was thus able again without disturbance to develop its own tendencies. I had become distinctly aware, that the modern Churches in general by no means hold the truth as conceived of by the apostles. In the matter of the Sabbath and of the Mosaic Law, of Infant Baptism, of Episcopacy, of the doctrine of the Lord's return, I had successively found the prevalent Protestantism to be unapostolic. Hence arose in me a conscious and continuous effort to read the New Testament with fresh eyes and without bias, and so to take up the real doctrines of the heavenly and everlasting Gospel. In studying the narrative of John I was strongly impressed by the fact, that the glory and greatness of the Son of God is constantly ascribed to the will and pleasure of the Father. I had been accustomed to hear this explained of his _mediatorial_ greatness only, but this now looked to me like a make-shift, and to want the simplicity of truth--an impression which grew deeper with closer examination. The emphatic declaration of Christ, "My Father is greater than I," especially arrested my attention. Could I really expound this as meaning, "My Father, the Supreme God, in greater than I am, _if you look solely to my human nature?_" Such a truism can scarcely have deserved such emphasis. Did the disciples need to be taught that God was greater than man? Surely, on the contrary, the Saviour must have meant to say: "_Divine as I am_, yet my heavenly Father is greater than I, _even when you take cognizance of my divine nature._" I did not then know, that my comment was exactly that of the most orthodox Fathers; I rather thought they were against me, but for them I did not care much. I reverenced the doctrine of the Trinity as something vital to the soul; but felt that to love the Fathers or the Athanasian Creed more than the Gospel of John would be a supremely miserable superstition. However, that Creed states that there is no inequality between the Three Persons: in John it became increasingly clear to me that the divine Son is unequal to the Father. To say that "the Son of God" meant "Jesus as man," was a preposterous evasion: for there is no higher title for the Second Person of the Trinity than this very one--Son of God. Now, in the 5th chapter, when the Jews accused Jesus "of making himself equal to God," by calling himself Son of God Jesus even hastens to protest against the inference as a misrepresentation --beginning with: "The Son can do nothing of himself:" and proceeds elaborately to ascribe all his greatness to the Father's will. In fact, the Son is emphatically "he who is sent," and the Father is "he who sent him:" and all would feel the deep impropriety of trying to exchange these phrases. The Son who is sent,--sent, not _after_ he was humbled to become man, but _in order to_ be so humbled,--was NOT EQUAL TO, but LESS THAN, the Father who sent him. To this I found the whole Gospel of John to bear witness; and with this conviction, the truth and honour of the Athanasian Creed fell to the ground. One of its main tenets was proved false; and yet it dared to utter anathemas on all who rejected it! I afterwards remembered my old thought, that we must surely understand _our own words_, when we venture to speak at all about divine mysteries. Having gained boldness to gaze steadily on the topic, I at length saw that the compiler of the Athanasian Creed did _not_ understand his own words. If any one speaks of _three men_, all that he means is, "three objects of thought, of whom each separately may be called Man." So also, all that could possibly be meant by _three gods_, is, "three objects of thought, of whom each separately may be called God." To avow the last statement, as the Creed does, and yet repudiate Three Gods, is to object to the phrase, yet confess to the only meaning which the phrase can convey. Thus the Creed really teaches polytheism, but saves orthodoxy by forbidding any one to call it by its true name. Or to put the matter otherwise: it teaches three Divine Persons, and denies three Gods; and leaves us to guess what else is a Divine Person but a God, or a God but a Divine Person. Who, then, can deny that this intolerant creed is a malignant riddle? That there is nothing in the Scripture about Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity I had long observed; and the total absence of such phraseology had left on me a general persuasion that the Church had systematized too much. But in my study of John I was now arrested by a text, which showed me how exceedingly far from a _Tri-unity_ was the Trinity of that Gospel,--if trinity it be. Namely, in his last prayer, Jesus addresses to his Father the words: "This is life eternal, that they may know _Thee, the only True God_, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" I became amazed, as I considered these words more and more attentively, and without prejudice; and I began to understand how prejudice, when embalmed with reverence, blinds the mind. Why had I never before seen what is here so plain, that the _One God_ of Jesus was not a Trinity, but was _the First Person_, of the ecclesiastical Trinity? But on a fuller search, I found this to be Paul's doctrine also: for in 1 Corinth, viii., when discussing the subject of Polytheism, he says that "though there be to the heathen many that are called Gods, yet to us there is but _One God_, the Father, _of_ whom are all things; and _One Lord_, Jesus Christ, _by_ whom are all things." Thus he defines Monotheism to consist in holding the person of the Father to be the One God; although this, if any, should have been the place for a "Trinity in Unity." But did I proceed to deny the Divinity of the Son? By no means: I conceived of him as in the highest and fullest sense divine, short of being Father and not Son. I now believed that by the phrase "only begotten Son," John, and indeed Christ himself, meant to teach us that there was an unpassable chasm between him and all creatures, in that he had a true, though a derived divine nature; an indeed the Nicene Creed puts the contrast, he was "begotten, not made." Thus all Divine glory dwells in the Son, but it is _because_ the Father has willed it. A year or more afterward, when I had again the means of access to books, and consulted that very common Oxford book, "Pearson on the Creed," (for which I had felt so great a distaste that I never before read it)--I found this to be the undoubted doctrine of the great Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, who laid much emphasis on two statements, which with the modern Church are idle and dead--viz. that "the Son was _begotten_ of his Father _before all worlds_," and that "the Holy Spirit _proceedeth from_ the Father and the Son." In the view of the old Church, the Father alone was the Fountain of Deity,--(and _therefore_ fitly called, The One God,--and, the Only True God)--while the Deity of the other two persons was real, yet derived and subordinate. Moreover, I found in Gregory Nazianzen and others, that to confess this derivation of the Son and Spirit and the underivedness of the Father alone, was in their view quite essential to save Monotheism; the _One_ God being the underived Father. Although in my own mind all doubt as to the doctrine of John and Paul on the main question seemed to be quite cleared away from the time that I dwelt on their explanation of Monotheism, this in no respect agitated me, or even engaged me in any farther search. There was nothing to force me into controversy, or make this one point of truth unduly preponderant. I concealed none of my thoughts from my companions; and concerning them I will only say, that whether they did or did not feel acquiescence, they behaved towards me with all the affection and all the equality which I would have wished myself to maintain, had the case been inverted. I was, however, sometimes uneasy, when the thought crossed my mind,--"What if we, like Henry Martyn, were charged with Polytheism by Mohammedans, and were forced to defend ourselves by explaining in detail our doctrine of the Trinity? _Perhaps_ no two of us would explain it alike, and this would expose Christian doctrine to contempt." Then farther it came across me; How very remarkable it is, that the Jews, those strict Monotheists, never seem to have attacked the apostles for polytheism! It would have been so plausible an imputation, one that the instinct of party would so readily suggest, if there had been any external form of doctrine to countenance it. Surely it is transparent that the Apostles did not teach as Dr. Waterland. I had always felt a great repugnance to the argumentations concerning the _Personality_ of the Holy Spirit; no doubt from an inward sense, however dimly confessed, that they were all words without meaning. For the disputant who maintains this dogma, tells us in the very next breath that _Person_ has not in this connexion its common signification; so that he is elaborately enforcing upon us we know not what. That the Spirit of God meant in the New Testament _God in the heart_, had long been to me a sufficient explanation: and who by logic or metaphysics will carry us beyond this? While we were at Aleppo, I one day got into religious discourse with a Mohammedan carpenter, which left on me a lasting impression. Among other matters, I was peculiarly desirous of disabusing him of the current notion of his people, that our gospels are spurious narratives of late date. I found great difficulty of expression; but the man listened to me with much attention, and I was encouraged to exert myself. He waited patiently till I had done, and then spoke to the following effect: "I will tell you, sir, how the case stands. God has given to you English a great many good gifts. You make fine ships, and sharp penknives, and good cloth and cottons; and you have rich nobles and brave soldiers; and you write and print many learned books: (dictionaries and grammars:) all this is of God. But there is one thing that God has withheld from you, and has revealed to us; and that is, the knowledge of the true religion, by which one may be saved." When he thus ignored my argument, (which was probably quite unintelligible to him,) and delivered his simple protest, I was silenced, and at the same time amused. But the more I thought it over, the more instruction I saw in the case. His position towards me was exactly that of a humble Christian towards an unbelieving philosopher; nay, that of the early Apostles or Jewish prophets towards the proud, cultivated, worldly wise and powerful heathen. This not only showed the vanity of any argument to him, except one purely addressed to his moral and spiritual faculties; but it also indicated to me that Ignorance has its spiritual self-sufficiency as well as Erudition; and that if there is a Pride of Reason, so is there a Pride of Unreason. But though this rested in my memory, it was long before I worked out all the results of that thought. Another matter brought me some disquiet. An Englishman of rather low tastes who came to Aleppo at this time, called upon us; and as he was civilly received, repeated his visit more than once. Being unencumbered with fastidiousness, this person before long made various rude attacks on the truth and authority of the Christian religion, and drew me on to defend it. What I had heard of the moral life of the speaker made me feel that his was not the mind to have insight into divine truth; and I desired to divert the argument from external topics, and bring it to a point in which there might be a chance of touching his conscience. But I found this to be impossible. He returned actively to the assault against Christianity, and I could not bear to hear him vent historical falsehoods and misrepresentations damaging to the Christian cause, without contradicting them. He was a half-educated man, and I easily confuted him to my own entire satisfaction: but he was not either abashed or convinced; and at length withdrew as one victorious.--On reflecting over this, I felt painfully, that if a Moslem had been present and had understood all that had been said, he would have remained in total uncertainty which of the two disputants was in the right: for the controversy had turned on points wholly remote from the sphere of his knowledge or thought. Yet to have declined the battle would have seemed like conscious weakness on my part. Thus the historical side of my religion, though essential to it, and though resting on valid evidence, (as I unhesitatingly believed,) exposed me to attacks in which I might incur virtual defeat or disgrace, but in which, from the nature of the case, I could never win an available victory. This was to me very disagreeable, yet I saw not my way out of the entanglement. Two years after I left England, a hope was conceived that more friends might be induced to join us; and I returned home from Bagdad with the commission to bring this about, if there were suitable persons disposed for it. On my return, and while yet in quarantine on the coast of England, I received an uncomfortable letter from a most intimate spiritual friend, to the effect, that painful reports had been every where spread abroad against my soundness in the faith. The channel by which they had come was indicated to me; but my friend expressed a firm hope, that when I had explained myself, it would all prove to be nothing. Now began a time of deep and critical trial to me and to my Creed; a time hard to speak of to the public; yet without a pretty full notice of it, the rest of the account would be quite unintelligible. The Tractarian movement was just commencing in 1833. My brother was taking a position, in which he was bound to show that he could sacrifice private love to ecclesiastical dogma; and upon learning that I had spoken at some small meetings of religious people, (which he interpreted, I believe, to be an assuming of the Priest's office,) he separated himself entirely from my private friendship and acquaintance. To the public this may have some interest, as indicating the disturbing excitement which animated that cause: but my reason for naming the fact here is solely to exhibit the practical positions into which I myself was thrown. In my brother's conduct there was not a shade of unkindness, and I have not a thought of complaining of it. My distress was naturally great, until I had fully ascertained from him that I had given no personal offence. But the mischief of it went deeper. It practically cut me off from other members of my family, who were living in his house, and whose state of feeling towards me, through separation and my own agitations of mind, I for some time totally mistook. I had, however, myself slighted relationship in comparison with Christian brotherhood;--_sectarian_ brotherhood, some may call it;--I perhaps had none but myself to blame: but in the far more painful occurrences which were to succeed one another for many months together, I was blameless. Each successive friend who asked explanations of my alleged heresy, was satisfied,--or at least left me with that impression,--after hearing me: not one who met me face to face had a word to reply to the plain Scriptures which I quoted. Yet when I was gone away, one after another was turned against me by somebody else whom I had not yet met or did not know: for in every theological conclave which deliberates on joint action, the most bigoted scorns always to prevail. I will trust my pen to only one specimen of details. The Irish clergyman was not able to meet me. He wrote a very desultory letter of grave alarm and inquiry, stating that he had heard that I was endeavouring to sound the divine nature by the miserable plummet of human philosophy,--with much beside that I felt to be mere commonplace which every body might address to every body who differed from him. I however replied in the frankest, most cordial and trusting tone, assuring him that I was infinitely far from imagining that I could "by searching understand God;" on the contrary, concerning his higher mysteries, I felt I knew absolutely nothing but what he revealed to me in his word; but in studying this word, I found John and Paul to declare the Father, and not the Trinity, to be the One God. Referring him to John xvii, 3, 1 Corinth. viii, 5, 6, I fondly believed that one so "subject to the word" and so resolutely renouncing man's authority _in order that_ he might serve God, would immediately see as I saw. But I assured him, in all the depth of affection, that I felt how much fuller insight he had than I into all divine truth; and not he only, but others to whom I alluded; and that if I was in error, I only desired to be taught more truly; and either with him, or at his feet, to learn of God. He replied, to my amazement and distress, in a letter of much tenderness, but which was to the effect,--that if I allowed the Spirit of God to be with him rather than with me, it was wonderful that I set my single judgment against the mind of the Spirit and of the whole Church of God; and that as for admitting into Christian communion one who held my doctrine, it had this absurdity, that while I was in such a state of belief, it was my duty to anathematize _them_ as idolaters.--Severe as was the shock given me by this letter, I wrote again most lovingly, humbly, and imploringly: for I still adored him, and could have given him my right hand or my right eye,--anything but my conscience. I showed him that if it was a matter of action, I would submit; for I unfeignedly believed that he had more of the Spirit of God than I: but over my secret convictions I had no power. I was shut up to obey and believe God rather than man, and from the nature of the case, the profoundest respect for my brother's judgment could not in itself alter mine. As to the whole _Church_ being against me, I did not know what that meant: I was willing to accept the Nicene Creed, and this I thought ought to be a sufficient defensive argument against the Church. His answer was decisive;--he was exceedingly surprized at my recurring to mere ecclesiastical creeds, as though they could have the slightest weight; and he must insist on my acknowledging, that, in the two texts quoted, the word Father meant the Trinity, if I desired to be in any way recognized as holding the truth. The Father meant the Trinity!! For the first time I perceived, that so vehement a champion of the sufficiency of the Scripture, so staunch an opposer of Creeds and Churches, was wedded to an extra-Scriptural creed of his own, by which he tested the spiritual state of his brethren. I was in despair, and like a man thunderstruck. I had nothing more to say. Two more letters from the same hand I saw, the latter of which was, to threaten some new acquaintances who were kind to me, (persons wholly unknown to him,) that if they did not desist from sheltering me and break off intercourse, they should, as far as his influence went, themselves everywhere be cut off from Christian communion and recognition. This will suffice to indicate the sort of social persecution, through which, after a succession of struggles, I found myself separated from persons whom I had trustingly admired, and on whom I had most counted for union: with whom I fondly believed myself bound up for eternity; of whom some were my previously intimate friends, while for others, even on slight acquaintance, I would have performed menial offices and thought myself honoured; whom I still looked upon as the blessed and excellent of the earth, and the special favourites of heaven; whose company (though oftentimes they were considerably my inferiors either in rank or in knowledge and cultivation) I would have chosen in preference to that of nobles; whom I loved solely because I thought them to love God, and of whom I asked nothing, but that they would admit me as the meanest and most frail of disciples. My heart was ready to break: I wished for a woman's soul, that I might weep in floods. Oh, Dogma! Dogma! how dost them trample under foot love, truth, conscience, justice! Was ever a Moloch worse than thou? Burn me at the stake; then Christ will receive me, and saints beyond the grave will love me, though the saints here know me not But now I am alone in the world: I can trust no one. The new acquaintances who barely tolerate me, and old friends whom reports have not reached, (if such there be,) may turn against me with animosity to-morrow, as those have done from whom I could least have imagined it. Where is union? where is the Church, which was to convert the heathen? This was not my only reason, yet it was soon a sufficient and at last an overwhelming reason, against returning to the East. The pertinacity of the attacks made on me, and on all who dared to hold by me in a certain connexion, showed that I could no longer be anything but a thorn in the side of my friends abroad; nay, I was unable to predict how they themselves might change towards me. The idea of a Christian Church propagating Christianity while divided against itself was ridiculous. Never indeed had I had the most remote idea, that my dear friends there had been united to me by agreement in intellectual propositions; nor could I yet believe it. I remembered a saying of the noble-hearted Groves: "Talk of loving me while I agree with them! Give me men that will love me when I differ from them and contradict them: those will be the men to build up a true Church." I asked myself,--was I then possibly different from all? With me,--and, as I had thought, with all my Spiritual friends,--intellectual dogma was not the test of spirituality. A hundred times over had I heard the Irish clergyman emphatically enunciate the contrary. Nothing was clearer in his preaching, talking and writing, than that salvation was a present real experienced fact; a saving of the soul from the dominion of baser desires, and an inward union of it in love and homage to Christ, who, as the centre of all perfection, glory, and beauty, was the revelation of God to the heart. He who was thus saved, could not help knowing that he was reconciled, pardoned, beloved; and therefore he rejoiced in God his Saviour: indeed, to imagine joy without this personal assurance and direct knowledge, was quite preposterous. But on the other hand, the soul thus spiritually minded has a keen sense of like qualities in others. It cannot but discern when another is tender in conscience, disinterested, forbearing, scornful of untruth and baseness, and esteeming nothing so much as the fruits of the Spirit: accordingly, John did not hesitate to say: "_We know_ that we have passed from death unto life, _because_ we love the brethren." Our doctrine certainly had been, that the Church was the assembly of the saved, gathered by the vital attractions of God's Spirit; that in it no one was Lord or Teacher, but one was our Teacher, even Christ: that as long as we had no earthly bribes to tempt men to join us, there was not much cause to fear false brethren; for if we were heavenly minded, and these were earthly, they would soon dislike and shun us. Why should we need to sit in judgment and excommunicate them, except in the case of publicly scandalous conduct? It is true, that I fully believed certain intellectual convictions to be essential to genuine spirituality: for instance, if I had heard that a person unknown to me did not believe in the Atonement of Christ, I should have inferred that he had no spiritual life. But if the person had come under my direct knowledge, my _theory_ was, on no account to reject him on a question of Creed, but in any case to receive all those whom Christ had received, all on whom the Spirit of God had come down, just as the Church at Jerusalem did in regard to admitting the Gentiles, Acts xi. 18. Nevertheless, was not this perhaps a theory pleasant to talk of, but too good for practice? I could not tell; for it had never been so severely tried. I remembered, however, that when I had thought it right to be baptized as an adult, (regarding my baptism as an infant to have been a mischievous fraud,) the sole confession of faith which I made, or would endure, at a time when my "orthodoxy" was unimpeached, was: "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God:"[2] to deny which, and claim to be acknowledged as within the pale of the Christian Church, seemed to be an absurdity. On the whole, therefore, it did not appear to me that this Church-theory had been hollow-hearted with _me_ nor unscriptural, nor in any way unpractical; but that _others_ were still infected with the leaven of creeds and formal tests, with which they reproached the old Church. Were there, then, no other hearts than mine, aching under miserable bigotry, and refreshed only when they tasted in others the true fruits of the Spirit,--"love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, fidelity, meekness, self-control?"--To imagine this was to suppose myself a man supernaturally favoured, an angel upon earth. I knew there must be thousands in this very point more true-hearted than I: nay, such still might some be, whose names I went over with myself: but I had no heart for more experiments. When such a man as he, the only mortal to whom I had looked up as to an apostle, had unhesitatingly, unrelentingly, and without one mark that his conscience was not on his side, flung away all his own precepts, his own theories, his own magnificent rebukes of Formalism and human Authority, and had made _himself_ the slave and _me_ the victim of those old and ever-living tyrants,--whom henceforth could I trust? The resolution then rose in me, to love all good men from a distance, but never again to count on permanent friendship with any one who was not himself cast out as a heretic. Nor, in fact, did the storm of distress which these events inflicted on me, subside until I willingly received the task of withstanding it, as God's trial whether I was faithful. As soon as I gained strength to say, "O my Lord, I will bear not this only, _but more also_,[3] for thy sake, for conscience, and for truth,"--my sorrows vanished, until the next blow and the next inevitable pang. At last my heart had died within me; the bitterness of death was past; I was satisfied to be hated by the saints, and to reckon that those who had not yet turned against me would not bear me much longer.--Then I conceived the belief, that if we may not make a heaven on earth for ourselves out of the love of saints, it is in order that we may find a truer heaven in God's love. The question about this time much vexed me, what to do about receiving the Holy Supper of the Lord, the great emblem of brotherhood, communion, and church connexion. At one time I argued with myself, that it became an unmeaning form, when not partaken of in mutual love; that I could never again have free intercourse of heart with any one;--why then use the rite of communion, where there is no communion? But, on the other hand, I thought it a mode of confessing Christ, and that permanently to disuse it, was an unfaithfulness. In the Church of England I could have been easy as far as the communion formulary was concerned; but to the entire system I had contracted an incurable repugnance, as worldly, hypocritical, and an evil counterfeit. I desired, therefore, to creep into some obscure congregation, and there wait till my mind had ripened as to the right path in circumstances so perplexing. I will only briefly say, that I at last settled among some who had previously been total strangers to me. To their good will and simple kindness I feel myself indebted: peace be to them! Thus I gained time, and repose of mind, which I greatly needed. From the day that I had mentally decided on total inaction as to all ecclesiastical questions, I count the termination of my Second Period. My ideal of a spiritual Church had blown up in the most sudden and heartbreaking way; overpowering me with shame, when the violence of sorrow was past. There was no change whatever in my own judgment, yet a total change of action was inevitable: that I was on the eve of a great transition of mind I did not at all suspect. Hitherto my reverence for the authority of the whole and indivisible _Bible_ was overruling and complete. I never really had dared to criticize it; I did not even exact from it self-consistency. If two passages appeared to be opposed, and I could not evade the difficulty by the doctrine of Development and Progress, I inferred that there was _some_ mode of conciliation unknown to me; and that perhaps the depth of truth in divine things could ill be stated in our imperfect language. But from the man who dared to interpose _a human comment_ on the Scripture, I most rigidly demanded a clear, single, self-consistent sense. If he did not know what he meant, why did he not hold his peace? If he did know, why did he so speak as to puzzle us? It was for this uniform refusal to allow of self-contradiction, that it was more than once sadly predicted of me at Oxford that I should become "a Socinian;" yet I did not apply this logical measure to any compositions but those which were avowedly "uninspired" and human. As to moral criticism, my mind was practically prostrate before the Bible. By the end of this period I had persuaded myself that morality so changes with the commands of God, that we can scarcely attach any idea of _immutability_ to it. I am, moreover, ashamed to tell any one how I spoke and acted against my own common sense under this influence, and when I was thought a fool, prayed that I might think it an honour to become a fool for Christ's sake. Against no doctrine did I dare to bring moral objections, except that of "Reprobation." To Election, to Preventing Grace, to the Fall and Original Sin of man, to the Atonement, to Eternal Punishment, I reverently submitted my understanding; though as to the last, new inquiries had just at this crisis been opening on me. Reprobation, indeed, I always repudiated with great vigour, of which I shall presently speak. That was the full amount of my original thought; and in it I preserved entire reverence for the sacred writers. As to miracles, scarcely anything staggered me. I received the strangest and the meanest prodigies of Scripture, with the same unhesitating faith, as if I had never understood a proposition of physical philosophy, nor a chapter of Hume and Gibbon. [Footnote 1: Very unintelligent criticism of my words induces me to add, that "the _credentials_ of Revelation," as distinguished from "the _contents_ of Revelation," are here intended. Whether such a distinction can be preserved is quite another question. The view here exhibited is essentially that of Paley, and was in my day the prevalent one at Oxford. I do not think that the present Archbishop of Canterbury will disown it, any more than Lloyd, and Burton, and Hampden,--bishops and Regius Professors of Divinity.] [Footnote 2: Borrowed from Acts viii. 37.] [Footnote 3: Virgil (�neid vi.) gives the Stoical side of the same thought: Tu ne cede malis, _sed contra audentior ito_.] CHAPTER III. CALVINISM ABANDONED. After the excitement was past, I learned many things from the events which have been named. First, I had found that the class of Christians with whom I had been joined had exploded the old Creeds in favour of another of their own, which was never given me upon authority, and yet was constantly slipping out, in the words, _Jesus is Jehovah_. It appeared to me certain that this would have been denounced as the Sabellian heresy by Athanasias and his contemporaries. I did not wish to run down Sabellians, much less to excommunicate them, if they would give me equality; but I felt it intensely unjust when my adherence to the Nicene Creed was my real offence, that I should be treated as setting up some novel wickedness against all Christendom, and slandered by vague imputations which reached far and far beyond my power of answering or explaining. Mysterious aspersions were made even against my moral[1] character, and were alleged to me as additional reasons for refusing communion with me; and when I demanded a tribunal, and that my accuser would meet me face to face, all inquiry was refused, on the plea that it was needless and undesirable. I had much reason to believe that a very small number of persons had constituted themselves my judges, and used against me all the airs of the Universal Church; the many lending themselves easily to swell the cry of heresy, when they have little personal acquaintance with the party attacked. Moreover, when I was being condemned as in error, I in vain asked to be told what was the truth. "I accept the Scripture: that is not enough. I accept the Nicene Creed: that is not enough. Give me then your formula: where, what is it?" But no! those who thought it their duty to condemn me, disclaimed the pretensions of "making a Creed" when I asked for one. They reprobated my interpretation of Scripture as against that of the whole Church, but would not undertake to expound that of the Church. I felt convinced, that they could not have agreed themselves as to what was right: all that they could agree upon was, that I was wrong. Could I have borne to recriminate, I believed that I could have forced one of them to condemn another; but, oh! was divine truth sent us for discord and for condemnation? I sickened at the idea of a Church Tribunal, where none has any authority to judge, and yet to my extreme embarrassment I saw that no Church can safely dispense with judicial forms and other worldly apparatus for defending the reputation of individuals. At least, none of the national and less spiritual institutions would have been so very unequitable towards me. This idea enlarged itself into another,--_that spirituality is no adequate security for sound moral discernment_. These alienated friends did not know they were acting unjustly, cruelly, crookedly, or they would have hated themselves for it: they thought they were doing God service. The fervour of their love towards him was probably greater than mine; yet this did not make them superior to prejudice, or sharpen their logical faculties to see that they were idolizing words to which they attached no ideas. On several occasions I had distinctly perceived how serious alarm I gave by resolutely refusing to admit any shiftings and shufflings of language. I felt convinced, that if I would but have contradicted myself two or three times, and then have added, "That is the mystery of it," I could have passed as orthodox with many. I had been charged with a proud and vain determination to pry into divine mysteries, barely because I would not confess to propositions the meaning of which was to me doubtful,--or say and unsay in consecutive breaths. It was too clear, that a doctrine which muddles the understanding perverts also the power of moral discernment. If I had committed some flagrant sin, they would have given me a fair and honourable trial; but where they could not give me a public hearing, nor yet leave me unimpeached, without danger of (what they called) my infecting the Church, there was nothing left but to hunt me out unscrupulously. Unscrupulously! did not this one word characterize _all_ religious persecution? and then my mind wandered back over the whole melancholy tale of what is called Christian history. When Archbishop Cranmer overpowered the reluctance of young Edward VI. to burn to death the pious and innocent Joan of Kent, who moreover was as mystical and illogical as heart could wish, was Cranmer not actuated by deep religious convictions? None question his piety, yet it was an awfully wicked deed. What shall I say of Calvin, who burned Servetus? Why have I been so slow to learn, that religion is an impulse which animates us to execute our moral judgments, but an impulse which may be half blind? These brethren believe that I may cause the eternal ruin of others: how hard then is it for them to abide faithfully by the laws of morality and respect my rights! My rights! They are of course trampled down for the public good, just as a house is blown up to stop a conflagration. Such is evidently the theory of all persecution;--which is essentially founded on _Hatred_. As Aristotle says, "He who is angry, desires to punish somebody; but he who hates, desires the hated person not even to exist." Hence they cannot endure to see me face to face. That I may not infect the rest, they desire my non-existence; by fair means, if fair will succeed; if not, then by foul. And whence comes this monstrosity into such bosoms? Weakness of common sense, dread of the common understanding, an insufficient faith in common morality, are surely the disease: and evidently, nothing so exasperates this disease as consecrating religious tenets which forbid the exercise of common sense. I now began to understand why it was peculiarly for unintelligible doctrines like Transubstantiation and the Tri-unity that Christians had committed such execrable wickednesses. Now also for the first time I understood what had seemed not frightful only, but preternatural,--the sensualities and cruelties enacted as a part of religion in many of the old Paganisms. Religion and fanaticism are in the embryo but one and the same; to purify and elevate them we want a cultivation of the understanding, without which our moral code may be indefinitely depraved. Natural kindness and strong sense are aids and guides, which the most spiritual man cannot afford to despise. I became conscious that I _had_ despised "mere moral men," as they were called in the phraseology of my school. They were merged in the vague appellation of "the world," with sinners of every class; and it was habitually assumed, if not asserted, that they were necessarily Pharisaic, because they had not been born again. For some time after I had misgivings as to my fairness of judgment towards them, I could not disentangle myself from great bewilderment concerning their state in the sight of God: for it was an essential part of my Calvinistic Creed, that (as one of the 39 Articles states it) the very good works of the unregenerate "undoubtedly have the nature of sin," as indeed the very nature with which they were born "deserveth God's wrath and damnation." I began to mourn over the unlovely conduct into which I had been betrayed by this creed, long before I could thoroughly get rid of the creed that justified it: and a considerable time had to elapse, ere my new perceptions shaped themselves distinctly into the propositions: "Morality is the end. Spirituality is the means: Religion is the handmaid to Morals: we must be spiritual, in order that we may be in the highest and truest sense moral." Then at last I saw, that the deficiency of "mere moral men" is, that their morality is apt to be too external or merely negative, and therefore incomplete: that the man who worships a fiend for a God may be in some sense spiritual, but his spirituality will be a devilish fanaticism, having nothing in it to admire or approve: that the moral man deserves approval or love for all the absolute good that he has attained, though there be a higher good to which he aspires not; and that the truly and rightly spiritual is he who aims at an indefinitely high moral excellence, of which GOD is the embodiment to his heart and soul. If the absolute excellence of morality be denied, there is nothing for spirituality to aspire after, and nothing in God to worship. Years before I saw this as clearly as here stated; the general train of thought was very wholesome, in giving me increased kindliness of judgment towards the common world of men, who do not show any religious development. It was pleasant to me to look on an ordinary face, and see it light up into a smile, and think with myself: "_there_ is one heart that will judge of me by what I am, and not by a Procrustean dogma." Nor only so, but I saw that the saints, without the world, would make a very bad world of it; and that as ballast is wanted to a ship, so the common and rather low interests and the homely principles, rules, and ways of feeling, keep the church from foundering by the intensity of her own gusts. Some of the above thoughts took a still more definite shape, as follows. It is clear that A. B. and X. Y. would have behaved towards me more kindly, more justly, and more wisely, if they had consulted their excellent strong sense and amiable natures, instead of following (what they suppose to be) the commands of the word of God. They have misinterpreted that word: true: but this very thing shows, that one may go wrong by trusting one's power of interpreting the book, rather than trusting one's common sense to judge without the book. It startled me to find, that I had exactly alighted on the Romish objection to Protestants, that an infallible book is useless, unless we have an infallible interpreter. But it was not for some time, that, after twisting the subject in all directions to avoid it, I brought out the conclusion, that "to go against one's common sense in obedience to Scripture is a most hazardous proceeding:" for the "rule of Scripture" means to each of us nothing but his own fallible interpretation; and to sacrifice common sense to this, is to mutilate one side of our mind at the command of another side. In the Nicene age, the Bible was in people's hands, and the Spirit of God surely was not withheld: yet I had read, in one of the Councils an insane anathema was passed: "If any one call Jesus God-man, instead of God and man, let him be accursed." Surely want of common sense, and dread of natural reason, will be confessed by our highest orthodoxy to have been the distemper of that day. * * * * * In all this I still remained theoretically convinced, that the contents of the Scriptures, rightly interpreted, were supreme and perfect truth; indeed, I had for several years accustomed myself to speak and think as if the Bible were our sole source of all moral knowledge: nevertheless, there were practically limits, beyond which I did not, and could not, even attempt to blind my moral sentiment at the dictation of the Scripture; and this had peculiarly frightened (as I afterwards found) the first friend who welcomed me from abroad. I was unable to admit the doctrine of "reprobation," as apparently taught in the 9th chapter of Paul's Epistle to the Romans;--that "God hardens in wickedness whomever He pleases, in order that He may show his long-suffering" in putting off their condemnation to a future dreadful day: and _especially_, that to all objectors it is a sufficient confutation--"Nay, but O man, who art thou, that repliest against God?" I told my friend, that I worshipped in God three great attributes, all independent,--Power, Goodness, and Wisdom: that in order to worship Him acceptably, I must discern these _as_ realities with my inmost heart, and not merely take them for granted on authority: but that the argument which was here pressed upon me was an effort to supersede the necessity of my discerning Goodness in God: it bade me simply to _infer_ Goodness from Power,--that is to say, establish the doctrine, "Might makes Right;" according to which, I might unawares worship a devil. Nay, nothing so much distinguished the spiritual truth of Judaism and Christianity from abominable heathenism, as this very discernment of God's purity, justice, mercy, truth, goodness; while the Pagan worshipped mere power, and had no discernment of moral excellence; but laid down the principle, that cruelty, impurity, or caprice in a God was to be treated reverentially, and called by some more decorous name. Hence, I said, it was undermining the very foundation of Christianity itself, to require belief of the validity of Rom. ix. 14-24, as my friend understood it. I acknowledged the difficulty of the passage, and of the whole argument. I was not prepared with an interpretation; but I revered St. Paul too much, to believe it possible that he could mean anything so obviously heathenish, as that first-sight meaning.--My friend looked grave and anxious; but I did not suspect how deeply I had shocked him, until many weeks after. At this very time, moreover, ground was broken in my mind on a new subject, by opening in a gentleman's library a presentation-copy of a Unitarian treatise against the doctrine of Eternal Punishment. It was the first Unitarian book of which I had even seen the outside, and I handled it with a timid curiosity, as if by stealth, I had only time to dip into it here and there, and I should have been ashamed to possess the book; but I carried off enough to suggest important inquiry. The writer asserted that the Greek word [Greek: aionios], (secular, or, belonging to the ages,) which we translate _everlasting and eternal_, is distinctly proved by the Greek translation of the Old Testament often to mean only _distant time_. Thus in Psalm lxxvi. 5, "I have considered the years of _ancient_ times:" Isaiah lxiii 11, "He remembered the days _of old_, Moses and his people;" in which, and in many similar places, the LXX have [Greek: aionios]. One striking passage is Exodus xv. 18; ("Jehovah shall reign for ever and ever;") where the Greek has [Greek: ton aiona kai ex aiona kai eti], which would mean "for eternity and still longer," if the strict rendering _eternity_ were enforced. At the same time a suspicion as to the honesty of our translation presented itself in Micah v. 2, a controversial text, often used to prove the past eternity of the Son of God; where the translators give us,--"whose goings forth have been _from everlasting_," though the Hebrew is the same as they elsewhere render _from days of old_. After I had at leisure searched through this new question, I found that it was impossible to make out any doctrine of a philosophical eternity in the whole Scriptures. The true Greek word for _eternal_ ([Greek: aidios]) occurs twice only: once in Rom. i. 20, as applied to the divine power, and once in Jude 6, of the fire which has been manifested against Sodom and Gomorrha. The last instance showed that allowance must be made for rhetoric; and that fire is called _eternal_ or _unquenchable_, when it so destroys as to leave nothing unburnt. But on the whole, the very vocabulary of the Greek and Hebrew denoted that the idea of absolute eternity was unformed. The _hills_ are called everlasting (secular?), by those who supposed them to have come into existence two or three thousand years before.--Only in two passages of the Revelations I could not get over the belief that the writer's energy was misplaced, if absolute eternity of torment was not intended: yet it seemed to me unsafe and wrong to found an important doctrine on a symbolic and confessedly obscure book of prophecy. Setting this aside, I found no proof of any _eternal_ punishment. As soon as the load of Scriptural authority was thus taken off from me, I had a vivid discernment of intolerable moral difficulties inseparable from the doctrine. First, that every sin is infinite in ill-desert and in result, _because_ it is committed against an infinite Being. Thus the fretfulness of a child is an infinite evil! I was aghast that I could have believed it. Now that it was no longer laid upon me as a duty to uphold the infinitude of God's retaliation on sin, I saw that it was an immorality to teach that sin was measured by anything else than the heart and will of the agent. That a finite being should deserve infinite punishment, now was manifestly as incredible as that he should deserve infinite reward,--which I had never dreamed.--Again, I saw that the current orthodoxy made Satan eternal conqueror over Christ. In vain does the Son of God come from heaven and take human flesh and die on the cross. In spite of him, the devil carries off to hell the vast majority of mankind, in whom, not misery only, but _Sin_ is triumphant for ever and ever. Thus Christ not only does not succeed in destroying the works of the devil, but even aggravates them.--Again: what sort of _gospel_ or glad tidings had I been holding? Without this revelation no future state at all (I presumed) could be known. How much better no futurity for any, than that a few should be eternally in bliss, and the great majority[2] kept alive for eternal sin as well as eternal misery! My gospel then was bad tidings, nay, the worst of tidings! In a farther progress of thought, I asked, would it not have been better that the whole race of man had never come into existence? Clearly! And thus God was made out to be unwise in creating them. No _use_ in the punishment was imaginable, without setting up Fear, instead of Love, as the ruling principle in the blessed. And what was the moral tendency of the doctrine? I had never borne to dwell upon it: but I before long suspected that it promoted malignity and selfishness, and was the real clue to the cruelties perpetrated under the name of religion. For he who does dwell on it, must comfort himself under the prospect of his brethren's eternal misery, by the selfish expectation of personal blessedness. When I asked whether I had been guilty of this selfishness, I remembered that I had often mourned, how small a part in my practical religion the future had ever borne. My heaven and my hell had been in the present, where my God was near me to smile or to frown. It had seemed to me a great weakness in my faith, that I never had any vivid imaginations or strong desires of heavenly glory: yet now I was glad to observe, that it had at least saved me from getting so much harm from the wrong side of the doctrine of a future life. Before I had worked out the objections so fully as here stated, I freely disclosed my thoughts to the friend last named, and to his wife, towards whom he encouraged me to exercise the fullest frankness. I confess, I said nothing about the Unitarian book; for something told me that I had violated Evangelical decorum in opening it, and that I could not calculate how it would affect my friend. Certainly no Romish hierarchy can so successfully exclude heretical books, as social enactment excludes those of Unitarians from our orthodox circles. The bookseller dares not to exhibit their books on his counter: all presume them to be pestilential: no one knows their contents or dares to inform himself. But to return. My friend's wife entered warmly into my new views; I have now no doubt that this exceedingly distressed him, and at length perverted his moral judgment: he himself examined the texts of the Old Testament, and attempted no answer to them. After I had left his neighbourhood, I wrote to him three affectionate letters, and at last got a reply--of vehement accusation. It can now concern no one to know, how many and deep wounds he planted in me. I forgave; but all was too instructive to forget. For some years I rested in the belief that the epithet "_secular_ punishment" either solely denoted punishment in a future age, or else only of long duration. This evades the horrible idea of eternal and triumphant Sin, and of infinite retaliation for finite offences. But still, I found my new creed uneasy, now that I had established a practice (if not a right) of considering the moral propriety of punishment. I could not so pare away the vehement words of the Scripture, as really to enable me to say that I thought transgressors _deserved_ the fiery infliction. This had been easy, while I measured their guilt by God's greatness; but when that idea was renounced, how was I to think that a good-humoured voluptuary deserved to be raised from the dead in order to be tormented in fire for 100 years? and what shorter time could be called secular? Or if he was to be destroyed instantaneously, and "secular" meant only "in a future age," was he worth the effort of a divine miracle to bring him to life and again annihilate him? I was not willing to refuse belief to the Scripture on such grounds; yet I felt disquietude, that my moral sentiment and the Scripture were no longer in full harmony. * * * * * In this period I first discerned the extreme difficulty that there must essentially be, in applying to the Christian Evidences a principle, which, many years before, I had abstractedly received as sound, though it had been a dead letter with me in practice. The Bible (it seemed) contained two sorts of truth. Concerning one sort, man is bound to judge: the other sort is necessarily beyond his ken, and is received only by information from without. The first part of the statement cannot be denied. It would be monstrous to say that we know nothing of geography, history, or morals, except by learning them from the Bible. Geography, history, and other worldly sciences, lie beyond question. As to morals, I had been exceedingly inconsistent and wavering in my theory and in its application; but it now glared upon me, that if man had no independent power of judging, it would have been venial to think Barabbas more virtuous than Jesus. The hearers of Christ or Paul could not draw their knowledge of right and wrong from the New Testament. They had (or needed to have) an inherent power of discerning that his conduct was holy and his doctrine good. To talk about the infirmity or depravity of the human conscience is here quite irrelevant. The conscience of Christ's hearers may have been dim or twisted, but it was their best guide and only guide, as to the question, whether to regard him as a holy prophet: so likewise, as to ourselves, it is evident that we have no guide at all whether to accept or reject the Bible, if we distrust that inward power of judging, (whether called common sense, conscience, or the Spirit of God,)--which is independent of our belief in the Bible. To disparage the internally vouchsafed power of discerning truth without the Bible or other authoritative system, is, to endeavour to set up a universal moral scepticism. He who may not criticize cannot approve.--Well! Let it be admitted that we discern moral truth by a something within us, and that then, admiring the truth so glorious in the Scriptures, we are further led to receive them as the word of God, and therefore to believe them absolutely in respect to the matters which are beyond our ken. But two difficulties could no longer be dissembled: 1. How are we to draw the line of separation? For instance, would the doctrines of Reprobation and of lasting Fiery Torture with no benefit to the sufferers, belong to the moral part, which we freely criticize; or to the extra-moral part, as to which we passively believe? 2. What is to be done, if in the parts which indisputably lie open to criticism we meet with apparent error?--The second question soon became a practical one with me: but for the reader's convenience I defer it until my Fourth Period, to which it more naturally belongs: for in this Third Period I was principally exercised with controversies that do not vitally touch the _authority_ of the Scripture. Of these the most important were matters contested between Unitarians and Calvinists. When I had found how exactly the Nicene Creed summed up all that I myself gathered from John and Paul concerning the divine nature of Christ, I naturally referred to this creed, as expressing my convictions, when any unpleasant inquiry arose. I had recently gained the acquaintance of the late excellent Dr. Olinthus Gregory, a man of unimpeached orthodoxy; who met me by the frank avowal, that the Nicene Creed was "a great mistake." He said, that the Arian and the Athanasian difference was not very vital; and that the Scriptural truth lay _beyond_ the Nicene doctrine, which fell short on the same side as Arianism had done. On the contrary, I had learned of an intermediate tenet, called Semi-Arianism, which appeared to me more scriptural than the views of either Athanasius or Arius. Let me bespeak my reader's patience for a little. Arius was judged by Athanasius (I was informed) to be erroneous in two points; 1. in teaching that the Son of God was a creature; _i.e._ that "begotten" and "made" were two words for the same idea: 2. in teaching, that he had an origin of existence in time; so that there was a distant period at which he was not. Of these two Arian tenets, the Nicene Creed condemned _the former_ only; namely, in the words, "begotten, not made; being of one substance with the Father." But on _the latter_ question the Creed is silent. Those who accepted the Creed, and hereby condemned the great error of Arius that the Son was of different substance from the Father, but nevertheless agreed with Arius in thinking that the Son had a beginning of existence, were called Semi-Arians; and were received into communion by Athanasius, in spite of this disagreement. To me it seemed to be a most unworthy shuffling with words, to say that the Son _was begotten, but was never begotten_. The very form of our past participle is invented to indicate an event in past time. If the Athanasians alleged that the phrase does not allude to "a coming forth" completed at a definite time, but indicates a process at no time begun and at no time complete, their doctrine could not be expressed by our past-perfect tense _begotten_. When they compared the derivation of the Son of God from, the Father to the rays of light which ever flow from the natural sun, and argued that if that sun had been eternal, its emanations would be co-eternal, they showed that their true doctrine required the formula--"always being begotten, and as instantly perishing, in order to be rebegotten perpetually." They showed a real disbelief in our English statement "begotten, not made." I overruled the objection, that in the Greek it was not a participle, but a verbal adjective; for it was manifest to me, that a religion which could not be proclaimed in English could not be true; and the very idea of a Creed announcing that Christ was "_not begotten, yet begettive_," roused in me an unspeakable loathing. Yet surely this would have been Athanasius's most legitimate form of denying Semi-Arianism. In short, the Scriptural phrase, _Son of God_, conveyed to us either a literal fact, or a metaphor. If literal, the Semi-Arians were clearly right, in saying that sonship implied a beginning of existence. If it was a metaphor, the Athanasians forfeited all right to press the literal sense in proof that the Son must be "of the same substance" as the Father.--Seeing that the Athanasians, in zeal to magnify the Son, had so confounded their good sense, I was certainly startled to find a man of Dr. Olinthus Gregory's moral wisdom treat the Nicenists as in obvious error for not having magnified Christ _enough_. On so many other sides, however, I met with the new and short creed, "Jesus is Jehovah," that I began to discern Sabellianism to be the prevalent view. A little later, I fell in with a book of an American Professor, Moses Stuart of Andover, on the subject of the Trinity. Professor Stuart is a very learned man, and thinks for himself. It was a great novelty to me, to find him not only deny the orthodoxy of all the Fathers, (which was little more than Dr. Olinthus Gregory had done,) but avow that _from the change in speculative philosophy_ it was simply impossible for any modern to hold the views prevalent in the third and fourth centuries. Nothing (said he) WAS clearer, than that with us the essential point in Deity is, to be unoriginated, underived; hence with us, _a derived God_ is a self-contradiction, and the very sound of the phrase profane. On the other hand, it is certain that the doctrine of Athanasius, equally as of Arius, was, that the Father is the underived or self-existent God, but the Son is the derived subordinate God. This (argued Stuart) turned upon their belief in the doctrine of Emanations; but as _we_ hold no such philosophical doctrine, the religious theory founded on it is necessarily inadmissible. Professor Stuart then develops his own creed, which appeared to me simple and undeniable Sabellianism. That Stuart correctly represented the Fathers was clear enough to me; but I nevertheless thought that in this respect the Fathers had honestly made out the doctrine of the Scripture; and I did not at all approve of setting up a battery of modern speculative philosophy against Scriptural doctrine. "How are we to know that the doctrine of Emanations is false? (asked I.) If it is legitimately elicited from Scripture, it is true."--I refused to yield up my creed at this summons. Nevertheless, he left a wound upon me: for I now could not help seeing, that we moderns use the word _God_ in a more limited sense than any ancient nations did. Hebrews and Greeks alike said _Gods_, to mean any superhuman beings; hence _derived God_ did not sound to them absurd; but I could not deny that in good English it is absurd. This was a very disagreeable discovery: for now, if any one were to ask me whether I believed in the divinity of Christ, I saw it would be dishonest to say simply, _Yes_; for the interrogator means to ask, whether I hold Christ to be the eternal and underived Source of life; yet if I said _No_, he would care nothing for my professing to hold the Nicene Creed. Might not then, after all, Sabellianism be the truth? No: I discerned too plainly what Gibbon states, that the Sabellian, if consistent, is only a concealed Ebionite, or us we now say, a Unitarian, Socinian. As we cannot admit that the Father was slain on the cross, or prayed to himself in the garden, he who will not allow the Father and the Son to be separate persons, but only two names for one person, _must divide the Son of God and Jesus into two persons_, and so fall back on the very heresy of Socinus which he is struggling to escape. On the whole, I saw, that however people might call themselves Trinitarians, yet if, like Stuart and all the Evangelicals in Church and Dissent, they turn into a dead letter the _generation_ of the Son of God, and _the procession_ of the Spirit, nothing is possible but Sabellianism or Tritheism: or, indeed, Ditheism, if the Spirit's separate personality is not held. The modern creed is alternately the one or the other, as occasion requires. Sabellians would find themselves out to be mere Unitarians, if they always remained Sabellians: but in fact, they are half their lives Ditheists. They do not _aim_ at consistency; would an upholder of the pseudo-Athanasian creed desire it? Why, that creed teaches, that the height of orthodoxy is to contradict oneself and protest that one does not. Now, however, rose on me the question: Why do I not take the Irish clergyman at his word, and attack him and others as idolaters and worshippers of three Gods? It was unseemly and absurd in him to try to force me into what he must have judged uncharitableness; but it was not the less incumbent on me to find a reply. I remembered that in past years I had expressly disowned, as obviously unscriptural and absurd, prayers to the Holy Spirit, on the ground that the Spirit is evidently _God in the hearts of the faithful_, and nothing else: and it did not appear to me that any but a few extreme and rather fanatical persons could be charged with making the Spirit a third God or object of distinct worship. On the other hand, I could not deny that the Son and the Father were thus distinguished to the mind. So indeed John expressly avowed--"truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." I myself also had prayed sometimes to God and sometimes to Christ, alternately and confusedly. Now, indeed, I was better taught! now I was more logical and consistent! I had found a triumphant answer to the charge of Ditheism, in that I believed the Son to be derived from the Father, and not to be the Unoriginated--No doubt! yet, after all, could I seriously think that morally and spiritually I was either better or worse for this discovery? I could not pretend that I was. This showed me, that if a man of partially unsound and visionary mind made the angel Gabriel a _fourth person_ in the Godhead, it might cause no difference whatever in the actings of his spirit The great question would be, whether he ascribed the same moral perfection to Gabriel as to the Father. If so, to worship him would be no degradation to the soul; even if absolute omnipotence were not attributed, nay, nor a past eternal existence. It thus became clear to me, that Polytheism _as such_ is not a moral and spiritual, but at most only an intellectual, error; and that its practical evil consists in worshipping beings whom we represent to our imaginations as morally imperfect. Conversely, one who imputes to God sentiments and conduct which in man he would call capricious or cruel, such a one, even if he be as monotheistic as a Mussulman, admits into his soul the whole virus of Idolatry. Why then did I at all cling to the doctrine of Christ's superior nature, and not admit it among things indifferent? In obedience to the Scripture, I did actually affirm, that, as for as creed is concerned, a man should be admissible into the Church on the bare confession that _Jesus was the Christ_. Still, I regarded a belief in his superhuman origin as of first-rate importance, for many reasons, and among others, owing to its connexion with the doctrine of the Atonement; on which there is much to be said. * * * * * The doctrine which I used to read as a boy, taught that a vast sum of punishment was due to God for the sins of men. This vast sum was made up of all the woes due through eternity to the whole human race, or, as some said, to the elect. Christ on the cross bore this punishment himself and thereby took it away: thus God is enabled to forgive without violating justice.--But I early encountered unanswerable difficulty on this theory, as to the question, whether Christ had borne the punishment of _all_ or of _some_ only. If of all, is it not unjust to inflict any of it on any? If of the elect only, what gospel have you to preach? for then you cannot tell sinners that God has provided a Saviour for them; for you do not know whether those whom you address are elect. Finding no way out of this, I abandoned the fundamental idea of _compensation in quantity_, as untenable; and rested in the vaguer notion, that God signally showed his abhorrence of sin, by laying tremendous misery on the Saviour who was to bear away sin. I have already narrated, how at Oxford I was embarrassed as to the forensic propriety of transferring punishment at all. This however I received as matter of authority, and rested much on the wonderful exhibition made of the evil of sin, when _such_ a being could be subjected to preternatural suffering as a vicarious sinbearer. To this view, a high sense of the personal dignity of Jesus was quite essential; and therefore I had always felt a great repugnance for Mr. Belsham, Dr. Priestley, and the Unitarians of that school, though I had not read a line of their writings. A more intimate familiarity with St. Paul and an anxious harmonizing of my very words to the Scripture, led me on into a deviation from the popular creed, of the full importance of which I was not for some time aware. I perceived that it is not the _agonies_ of mind or body endured by Christ, which in the Scriptures are said to take away sin, but his "death," his "laying down his life," or sometimes even his _resurrection_. I gradually became convinced, that when his "suffering," or more especially his "blood," is emphatically spoken of, nothing is meant but his _violent death_. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the analogy of Sacrifice is so pressed, we see that the pains which Jesus bore were in order that he might "learn obedience," but our redemption is effected by his dying as a voluntary victim: in which, death by bloodshed, not pain, is the cardinal point. So too the Paschal lamb (to which, though not properly a sacrifice, the dying Christ is compared by Paul) was not roasted alive, or otherwise put to slow torment, but was simply killed. I therefore saw that the doctrine of "vicarious agonies" was fundamentally unscriptural. This being fully discerned, I at last became bold to criticize the popular tenet. What should we think of a judge, who, when a boy had deserved a stripe which would to him have been a sharp punishment, laid the very same blow on a strong man, to whom it was a slight infliction? Clearly this would evade, not satisfy justice. To carry out the principle, the blow might be laid as well on a giant, an elephant, or on an inanimate thing. So, to lay our punishment on the infinite strength of Christ, who (they say) bore in six hours what it would have taken thousands of millions of men all eternity to bear, would be a similar evasion.--I farther asked, if we were to fall in with Pagans, who tortured their victims to death as an atonement, what idea of God should we think them to form? and what should we reply, if they said, it gave them a wholesome view of his hatred of sin? A second time I shuddered at the notions which I had once imbibed as a part of religion, and then got comfort from the inference, how much better men of this century are than their creed. Their creed was the product of ages of cruelty and credulity; and it sufficiently bears that stamp. Thus I rested in the Scriptural doctrine, that the _death_ of Christ is our atonement. To say the same of the death of Paul, was obviously unscriptural: it was, then, essential to believe the physical nature of Christ to be different from that of Paul. If otherwise, death was due to Jesus as the lot of nature: how could such death have anything to do with our salvation? On this ground the Unitarian doctrine was utterly untenable: I could see nothing between my own view and a total renunciation of the _authority of the doctrines_ promulgated by Paul and John. Nevertheless, my own view seemed mere and more unmeaning the more closely it was interrogated. When I ascribed death to Christ, what did death mean? and what or whom did I suppose to die? Was it man that died, or God? If man only, how was that wonderful, or how did it concern us? Besides;--persons die, not natures: a _nature_ is only a collection of properties: if Christ was one person, all Christ died. Did, then, God die, and man remain alive! For God to become non-existent is an unimaginable absurdity. But is this death a mere change of state, a renunciation of earthly life? Still it remains unclear how the parting with mere human life could be to one who possesses divine life either an atonement or a humiliation. Was it not rather an escape from humiliation, saving only the mode of death? So severe was this difficulty, that at length I unawares dropt from Semi-Arianism into pure Arianism, by _so_ distinguishing the Son from the Father, as to admit the idea that the Son of God had actually been non-existent in the interval between death and resurrection: nevertheless, I more and more felt, that _to be able to define my own notions on such questions had exceedingly little to do with my spiritual state_. For me it was important and essential to know that God hated sin, and that God had forgiven my sin: but to know one particular manifestation of his hatred of sin, or the machinery by which He had enabled himself to forgive, was of very secondary importance. When He proclaims to me in his word, that He is forgiving to all the penitent, it is not for me to reply, that "I cannot believe that, until I hear how He manages to reconcile such conduct with his other attributes." Yet, I remembered, this was Bishop Beveridge's sufficient refutation of Mohammedism, which teaches no atonement. * * * * * At the same time great progress had been made in my mind towards the overthrow of the correlative dogma of the Fall of man and his total corruption. Probably for years I had been unawares anti-Calvinistic on this topic. Even at Oxford, I had held that human depravity is a _fact_, which it is absurd to argue against; a fact, attested by Thucydides, Polybius, Horace, and Tacitus, almost as strongly as by St. Paul. Yet in admitting man's total corruption, I interpreted this of _spiritual_, not of _moral_, perversion: for that there were kindly and amiable qualities even in the unregenerate, was quite as clear a fact as any other. Hence in result I did _not_ attribute to man any great essential depravity, in the popular and moral sense of the word; and the doctrine amounted only to this, that "_spiritually_, man is paralyzed, until the grace of God comes freely upon him." How to reconcile this with the condemnation, and punishment of man for being unspiritual, I knew not. I saw, and did not dissemble, the difficulty; but received it as a mystery hereafter to be cleared up. But it gradually broke upon me, that when Paul said nothing stronger than heathen moralists had said about human wickedness, it was absurd to quote his words, any more than theirs, in proof of a _Fall_,--that is, of a permanent degeneracy induced by the first sin of the first man: and when I studied the 5th chapter of the Romans, I found it was _death_, not _corruption_, which Adam was said to have entailed. In short, I could scarcely find the modern doctrine of the "Fall" any where in the Bible. I then remembered that Calvin, in his Institutes, complains that all the Fathers are heterodox on this point; the Greek Fathers being grievously overweening in their estimate of human power; while of the Latin Fathers even Augustine is not always up to Calvin's mark of orthodoxy. This confirmed my rising conviction that the tenet is of rather recent origin. I afterwards heard, that both it and the doctrine of compensatory misery were first systematized by Archbishop Anselm, in the reign of our William Rufus: but I never took the pains to verify this. For meanwhile I had been forcibly impressed with the following thought. Suppose a youth to have been carefully brought up at home, and every temptation kept out of his way: suppose him to have been in appearance virtuous, amiable, religious: suppose, farther, that at the age of twenty-one he goes out into the world, and falls into sin by the first temptation:--how will a Calvinistic teacher moralize over such a youth? Will he not say: "Behold a proof of the essential depravity of human nature! See the affinity of man for sin! How fair and deceptive was this young man's virtue, while he was sheltered from temptation; but oh! how rotten has it proved itself!"--Undoubtedly, the Calvinist would and must so moralize. But it struck me, that if I substituted the name of _Adam_ for the youth, the argument proved the primitive corruption of Adam's nature. Adam fell by the first temptation: what greater proof of a fallen nature have _I_ ever given? or what is it possible for any one to give?--I thus discerned that there was _à priori_ impossibility of fixing on myself the imputation of _degeneracy_, without fixing the same on Adam. In short, Adam undeniably proved his primitive nature to be frail; so do we all: but as _he_ was nevertheless not primitively corrupt, why should we call ourselves so? Frailty, then, is not corruption, and does not prove degeneracy. "Original sin" (says one of the 39 Articles) "standeth not in the following of Adam, _as the Pelagians do vainly talk_," &c. Alas, then! was I become a Pelagian? certainly I could no longer see that Adam's first sin affected me more than his second or third, or so much as the sins of my immediate parents. A father who, for instance, indulges in furious passions and exciting liquors, may (I suppose) transmit violent passions to his son. In this sense I could not wholly reject the possibility of transmitted corruption; but it had nothing to do with the theological doctrine of the "Federal Headship" of Adam. Not that I could wholly give up this last doctrine; for I still read it in the 5th chapter of Romans. But it was clear to me, that whatever that meant, I could not combine it with the idea of degeneracy, nor could I find a proof of it in the _fact_ of prevalent wickedness. Thus I received a shadowy doctrine on mere Scriptural _authority_; it had no longer any root in my understanding or heart. Moreover, it was manifest to me that the Calvinistic view is based in a vain attempt to acquit God of having created a "sinful" being, while the broad Scriptural fact is, that he did create a being as truly "liable to sin" as any of us. If that needs no exculpation, how more does _our_ state need it? Does it not suffice to say, that "every creature, because he is a creature and not God, must necessarily be frail?" But Calvin intensely aggravates whatever there is of difficulty: for he supposes God to have created the most precious thing on earth in _unstable equilibrium_, so as to tipple over irrecoverably at the first infinitesimal touch, and with it wreck for ever the spiritual hopes of all Adam's posterity. Surely all nature proclaims, that if God planted any spiritual nature at all in man, it was in _stable equilibrium_, able to right itself when deranged. Lastly, I saw that the Calvinistic doctrine of human degeneracy teaches, that God disowns my nature (the only nature I ever had) as not his work, but the devil's work. He hereby tells me that he is _not_ my Creator, and he disclaims his right over me, as a father who disowns a child. To teach this is to teach that I owe him no obedience, no worship, no trust: to sever the cords that bind the creature to the Creator, and to make all religion gratuitous and vain. Thus Calvinism was found by me not only not to be Evangelical, but not to be logical, in spite of its high logical pretensions, and to be irreconcilable with any intelligent theory of religion. Of "gloomy Calvinism" I had often heard people speak with an emphasis, that annoyed me as highly unjust; for mine had not been a gloomy religion:--far, very far from it. On the side of eternal punishment, its theory, no doubt, had been gloomy enough; but human nature has a notable art of not realizing all the articles of a creed; moreover, _this_ doctrine is equally held by Arminians. But I was conscious, that in dropping Calvinism I had lost nothing _Evangelical_: on the contrary, the gospel which I retained was as spiritual and deep-hearted as before, only more merciful. * * * * * Before this Third Period of my creed was completed, I made my first acquaintance with a Unitarian. This gentleman showed much sweetness of mind, largeness of charity, and a timid devoutness which I had not expected in such a quarter. His mixture of credulity and incredulity seemed to me capricious, and wholly incoherent. First, as to his incredulity, or rather, boldness of thought. Eternal punishment was a notion, which nothing could make him believe, and for which it would be useless to quote Scripture to him; for the doctrine (he said) darkened the moral character of God, and produced malignity in man. That Christ had any higher nature than we all have, was a tenet essentially inadmissible; first, because it destroyed all moral benefit from his example and sympathy, and next, because no one has yet succeeded in even stating the doctrine of the Incarnation without contradicting himself. If Christ was but one person, one mind, then that one mind could not be simultaneously finite and infinite, nor therefore simultaneously God and man. But when I came to hear more from this same gentleman, I found him to avow that no Trinitarian could have a higher conception than he of the present power and glory of Christ. He believed that the man Jesus is at the head of the whole moral creation of God; that all power in heaven and earth is given to him: that he will be Judge of all men, and is himself raised above all judgment. This was to me unimaginable from his point of view. Could he really think Jesus to be a mere man, and yet believe him to be sinless? On what did that belief rest? Two texts were quoted in proof, 1 Pet. ii. 21, and Heb. iv. 15. Of these, the former did not necessarily mean anything more than that Jesus was unjustly put to death; and the latter belonged to an Epistle, which my new friend had already rejected as unapostolic and not of first-rate authority, when speaking of the Atonement. Indeed, that the Epistle to the Hebrews is not from the hand of Paul, had very long seemed to me an obvious certainty,--as long as I had had any delicate feeling of Greek style. That a human child, born with the nature of other children, and having to learn wisdom and win virtue through the same process, should grow up sinless, appeared to me an event so paradoxical, as to need the most amply decisive proof. Yet what kind of proof was possible? Neither Apollos, (if he was the author of the Epistle to the Hebrew,) nor yet Peter, had any power of _attesting_ the sinlessness of Jesus, as a fact known to themselves personally: they could only learn it by some preternatural communication, to which, nevertheless, the passages before us implied no pretension whatever. To me it appeared an axiom,[3] that if Jesus was in physical origin a mere man, he was, like myself, a sinful man, and therefore certainly not my Judge, certainly not an omniscient reader of all hearts; nor on any account to be bowed down to as Lord. To exercise hope, faith, trust in him, seemed then an impiety. I did not mean to impute impiety to Unitarians; still I distinctly believed that English Unitarianism could never afford me a half hour's resting-place. Nevertheless, from contact with this excellent person I learned how much tenderness of spirit a Unitarian may have; and it pleasantly enlarged my charity, although I continued to feel much repugnance for his doctrine, and was anxious and constrained in the presence of Unitarians. From the same collision with him, I gained a fresh insight into a part of my own mind. I had always regarded the Gospels (at least the three first) to be to the Epistles nearly as Law to Gospel; that is, the three gospels dealt chiefly in _precept_, the epistles in _motives_ which act on the affections. This did not appear to me dishonourable to the teaching of Christ; for I supposed it to be a pre-determined development. But I now discovered that there was a deeper distaste in me for the details of the human life of Christ, than I was previously conscious of--a distaste which I found out, by a reaction from the minute interest felt in such details by my new friend. For several years more, I did not fully understand how and why this was; viz. that _my religion had always been Pauline_. Christ was to me the ideal of glorified human nature: but I needed some dimness in the portrait to give play to my imagination: if drawn too sharply historical, it sank into something not superhuman, and caused a revulsion of feeling. As all paintings of the miraculous used to displease and even disgust me from a boy by the unbelief which they inspired; so if any one dwelt on the special proofs of tenderness and love exhibited in certain words or actions of Jesus, it was apt to call out in me a sense, that from day to day equal kindness might often be met. The imbecility of preachers, who would dwell on such words as "Weep not," as if nobody else ever uttered such,--had always annoyed me. I felt it impossible to obtain a worthy idea of Christ from studying any of the details reported concerning him. If I dwelt too much on these, I got a finite object; but I yearned for an infinite one: hence my preference for John's mysterious Jesus. Thus my Christ was not the figure accurately painted in the narrative, but one kindled in my imagination by the allusions and (as it were) poetry of the New Testament. I did not wish for vivid historical realisation: relics I could never have valued: pilgrimages to Jerusalem had always excited in me more of scorn than of sympathy;--and I make no doubt such was fundamentally Paul's[4] feeling. On the contrary, it began to appear to me (and I believe not unjustly) that the Unitarian mind revelled peculiarly in "Christ after the flesh," whom Paul resolved not to know. Possibly in this circumstance will be found to lie the strong and the weak points of the Unitarian religious character, as contrasted with that of the Evangelical, far more truly than in the doctrine of the Atonement. I can testify that the Atonement may be dropt out of Pauline religion without affecting its quality; so may Christ be spiritualized into God, and identified with the Father: but I suspect that a Pauline faith could not, without much violence and convulsion, be changed into devout admiration of a clearly drawn historical character; as though any full and unsurpassable embodiment of God's moral perfections could be exhibited with ink and pen. A reviewer, who has since made his name known, has pointed to the preceding remarks, as indicative of my deficiency in _imagination_ and my tendency to _romance_. My dear friend is undoubtedly right in the former point; I am destitute of (creative) poetical imagination: and as to the latter point, his insight into character is so great, that I readily believe him to know me better than I know myself, Nevertheless, I think he has mistaken the nature of the preceding argument. I am, on the contrary, almost disposed to say, that those have a tendency to romance who can look at a picture with men flying into the air, or on an angel with a brass trumpet, and dead men rising out of their graves with good stout muscles, and _not_ feel that the picture suggests unbelief. Nor do I confess to romance in my desire of something _more_ than historical and daily human nature in the character of Jesus; for all Christendom, between the dates A.D. 100 to A.D. 1850, with the exception of small eccentric coteries, has held Jesus to be essentially superhuman. Paul and John so taught concerning him. To believe their doctrine (I agree with my friend) is, in some sense, a weakness of understanding; but it is a weakness to which minds of every class have been for ages liable. * * * * * Such had been the progress of my mind, towards the end of what I will call my Third Period. In it the authority of the Scriptures as to some details (which at length became highly important) had begun to be questioned; of which I shall proceed to speak: but hitherto this was quite secondary to the momentous revolution which lay Calvinism prostrate in my mind, which opened my heart to Unitarians, and, I may say, to unbelievers; which enlarged all my sympathies, and soon set me to practise free moral thought, at least as a necessity, if not as a duty. Yet I held fast an unabated reverence for the moral and spiritual teaching of the New Testament, and had not the most remote conception that anything could ever shatter my belief in its great miracles. In fact, during this period, I many times yearned to proceed to India, whither my friend Groves had transferred his labours and his hopes; but I was thwarted by several causes, and was again and again damped by the fear of bigotry from new quarters. Otherwise, I thought I could succeed in merging as needless many controversies. In all the workings of any mind about Tri-unity, Incarnation, Atonement, the Fall, Resurrection, Immortality, Eternal Punishment, how little had any of these to do with the inward exercises of my soul towards God! He was still the same, immutably glorious: not one feature of his countenance had altered to my gaze, or could alter. This surely was the God whom Christ came to reveal, and bring us into fellowship with: this is that, about which Christians ought to have no controversy, but which they should unitedly, concordantly, themselves enjoy and exhibit to the heathen. But oh, Christendom! what dost thou believe and teach? The heathen cry out to thee,--Physician, heal thyself. [Footnote 1: I afterwards learned that some of those gentlemen esteemed boldness of thought "a lust of the mind," and as such, an immorality. This enables them to persuade themselves that they do not reject a "heretic" for a matter of _opinion_, but for that which they have a right to call "_immoral_". What immorality was imputed to me, I was not distinctly informed.] [Footnote 2: I really thought it needless to quote proof that but _few_ will be saved, Matth. vii. 14. I know there is a class of Christians who believe in Universal salvation, and there are others who disbelieve eternal torment. They must not be angry with me for refuting the doctrine of other Christians, which they hold to be false.] [Footnote 3: In this (second) edition, I have added an entire chapter expressly on the subject.] [Footnote 4: The same may probably be said of all the apostles, and their whole generation. If they had looked on the life of Jesus with the same tender and human affection as modern Unitarians and pious Romanists do, the church would have swarmed with _holy coats_ and other relics in the very first age. The mother of Jesus and her little establishment would at once have swelled into importance. This certainly was not the case; which may make it doubtful whether the other apostles dwelt at all more on the _human personality_, of Jesus than Paul did. Strikingly different as James is from Paul, he is in this respect perfectly agreed with him.] CHAPTER IV. THE RELIGION OF THE LETTER RENOUNCED. It has been stated that I had already begun to discern that it was impossible with perfect honesty to defend every tittle contained in the Bible. Most of the points which give moral offence in the book of Genesis I had been used to explain away by the doctrine of Progress; yet every now and then it became hard to deny that God is represented as giving an actual _sanction_ to that which we now call sinful. Indeed, up and down the Scriptures very numerous texts are scattered, which are notorious difficulties with commentators. These I had habitually _overruled_ one by one: but again of late, since I had been forced to act and talk less and think more, they began to encompass me. But I was for a while too full of other inquiries to follow up coherently any of my doubts or perceptions, until my mind became at length nailed down to the definite study of one well-known passage. This passage may be judged of extremely secondary importance in itself, yet by its remoteness from all properly spiritual and profound questions, it seemed to afford to me the safest of arguments. The _genealogy_ with which the gospel of Matthew opens, I had long known to be a stumbling-block to divines, and I had never been satisfied with their explanations. On reading it afresh, after long intermission, and comparing it for myself with the Old Testament, I was struck with observing that the corruption of the two names Ahaziah and Uzziah into the same sound (Oziah) has been the cause of merging four generations into one; as the similarity of Jehoiakim to Jehoiachin also led to blending them both in the name Jeconiah. In consequence, there ought to be 18 generations where Matthew has given as only 14: yet we cannot call this on error of a transcriber; for it is distinctly remarked, that the genealogy consists of 14 three times repeated. Thus there were but 14 names inserted by Matthew: yet it ought to have been 18: and he was under manifest mistake. This surely belongs to a class of knowledge, of which man has cognizance: it would not be piety, but grovelling superstition, to avow before God that I distrust my powers of counting, and, in obedience to the written word, I believe that 18 is 14 and 14 is 18. Thus it is impossible to deny, that there is cognizable error in the first chapter of Matthew. Consequently, that gospel is not all dictated by the Spirit of God, and (unless we can get rid of the first chapter as no part of the Bible) the doctrine of the verbal infallibility of the whole Bible, or indeed of the New Testament, is demonstrably false. After I had turned the matter over often, and had become accustomed to the thought, this single instance at length had great force to give boldness to my mind within a very narrow range. I asked whether, if the chapter were now proved to be spurious, that would save the infallibility of the Bible. The reply was: not of the Bible as it is; but only of the Bible when cleared of that _and of all other_ spurious additions. If by independent methods, such as an examination of manuscripts, the spuriousness of the chapter could now be shown, _this would verify the faculty of criticism_ which has already objected to its contents: thus it would justly urge us to apply similar criticism to other passages. I farther remembered, and now brought together under a single point of view, other undeniable mistakes. The genealogy of the nominal father of Jesus in Luke is inconsistent with that in Matthew, in spite of the flagrant dishonesty with which divines seek to deny this; and neither evangelist gives the genealogy of Mary, which alone is wanted.--In Acts vii. 16, the land which _Jacob_ bought of the children of Hamor,[1] is confounded with that which _Abraham_ bought of Ephron the Hittite. In Acts v. 36, 37, Gamaliel is made to say that Theudas was earlier in time than Judas of Galilee. Yet in fact, Judas of Galilee preceded Theudas; and the revolt of Theudas had not yet taken place when Gamaliel spoke, so the error is not Gamaliel's, but Luke's. Of both the insurgents we have a dear and unimpeached historical account in Josephus.--The slaughter of the infants by Herod, if true, must, I thought, needs have been recorded by the same historian,--So again, in regard to the allusion made by Jesus to Zacharias, son of Barachias, as _last of the martyrs_, it was difficult for me to shake off the suspicion, that a gross error had been committed, and that the person intended is the "Zacharias son of Baruchus," who, as we know from Josephus, was martyred _within the courts of the temple_ during the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, about 40 years after the crucifixion. The well-known prophet Zechariah was indeed son of Berechiah; but he was not last of the martyrs,[2] if indeed he was martyred at all. On the whole, the persuasion stuck to me, that words had been put into the mouth of Jesus, which he could not possibly have used.--The impossibility of settling the names of the twelve apostles struck me as a notable fact.--I farther remembered the numerous difficulties of harmonizing the four gospels; how, when a boy at school, I had tried to incorporate all four into one history, and the dismay with which I had found the insoluble character of the problem,--the endless discrepancies and perpetual uncertainties. These now began to seem to me inherent in the materials, and not to be ascribable to our want of intelligence. I had also discerned in the opening of Genesis things which could not be literally received. The geography of the rivers in Paradise is inexplicable, though it assumes the tone of explanation. The curse on the serpent, who is to go on his belly--(how else did he go before?)--and eat dust, is a capricious punishment on a race of brutes, one of whom the Devil chose to use as his instrument. That the painfulness of childbirth is caused, not by Eve's sin, but by artificial habits and a weakened nervous system, seems to be proved by the twofold fact, that savage women and wild animals suffer but little, and tame cattle often suffer as much as human females.--About this time also, I had perceived (what I afterwards learned the Germans to have more fully investigated) that the two different accounts of the Creation are distinguished by the appellations given to the divine Creator. I did not see how to resist the inference that the book is made up of heterogeneous documents, and was not put forth by the direct dictation of the Spirit to Moses. A new stimulus was after this given to my mind by two short conversations with the late excellent Dr. Arnold at Rugby. I had become aware of the difficulties encountered by physiologists in believing the whole human race to have proceeded in about 6000 years from a single Adam and Eve; and that the longevity (not miraculous, but ordinary) attributed to the patriarchs was another stumbling-block. The geological difficulties of the Mosaic cosmogony were also at that time exciting attention. It was a novelty to me, that Arnold treated these questions as matters of indifference to religion; and did not hesitate to say, that the account of Noah's deluge was evidently mythical, and the history of Joseph "a beautiful poem." I was staggered at this. If all were not descended from Adam, what became of St. Paul's parallel between the first and second Adam, and the doctrine of Headship and Atonement founded on it? If the world was not made in six days, how could we defend the Fourth Commandment as true, though said to have been written in stone by the very finger of God? If Noah's deluge was a legend, we should at least have to admit that Peter did not know this: what too would be said of Christ's allusion to it? I was unable to admit Dr. Arnold's views; but to see a vigorous mind, deeply imbued with Christian devoutness, so convinced, both reassured me that I need not fear moral mischiefs from free inquiry, and indeed laid that inquiry upon me as a duty. Here, however, was a new point started. Does the question of the derivation of the human race from two parents belong to things cognizable by the human intellect, or to things about which we must learn submissively? Plainly to the former. It would be monstrous to deny that such inquiries legitimately belong to physiology, or to proscribe a free study of this science. If so, there was an _à priori_ possibility, that what is in the strictest sense called "religious doctrine" might come into direct collision, not merely with my ill-trained conscience, but with legitimate science; and that this would call on me to ask: "Which of the two certainties is stronger? that the religious parts of the Scripture are infallible, or that the science is trustworthy?" and I then first saw, that while science had (within however limited a range of thought) demonstration or severe verifications, it was impossible to pretend to anything so cogent in favour of the infallibility of any or some part of the Scriptures; a doctrine which I was accustomed to believe, and felt to be a legitimate presumption; yet one of which it grew harder and harder to assign any proof, the more closely I analyzed it. Nevertheless, I still held it fast, and resolved not to let it go until I was forced. A fresh strain fell on the Scriptural infallibility, in contemplating the origin of Death. Geologists assured us, that death went on in the animal creation many ages before the existence of man. The rocks formed of the shells of animals testify that death is a phenomenon thousands of thousand years old: to refer the death of animals to the sin of Adam and Eve is evidently impossible. Yet, if not, the analogies of the human to the brute form make it scarcely credible that man's body can ever have been intended for immortality. Nay, when we consider the conditions of birth and growth to which it is subject, the wear and tear essential to life, the new generations intended to succeed and supplant the old,--so soon as the question is proposed as one of physiology, the reply is inevitable that death is no accident introduced by the perverse will of our first parents, nor any way connected with man's sinfulness; but is purely a result of the conditions of animal life. On the contrary, St. Paul rests most important conclusions on the fact, that one man Adam by personal sin brought death upon all his posterity. If this was a fundamental error, religious doctrine also is shaken. In various attempts at compromise,--such as conceding the Scriptural fallibility in human science, but maintaining its spiritual perfection,--I always found the division impracticable. At last it pressed on me, that if I admitted morals to rest on an independent basis, it was dishonest to shut my eyes to any apparent collisions of morality with the Scriptures. A very notorious and decisive instance is that of Jael.--Sisera, when beaten in battle, fled to the tent of his friend Heber, and was there warmly welcomed by Jael, Heber's wife. After she had refreshed him with food, and lulled him to sleep, she killed him by driving a nail into his temples; and for this deed, (which now-a-days would be called a perfidious murder,) the prophetess Deborah, in an inspired psalm, pronounces Jael to be "blessed above women," and glorifies her act by an elaborate description of its atrocity. As soon as I felt that I was bound to pass a moral judgment on this, I saw that as regards the Old Testament the battle was already lost. Many other things, indeed, instantly rose in full power upon me, especially the command to Abraham to slay his son. Paul and James agree in extolling Abraham as the pattern of faith; James and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews specify the sacrifice of Isaac as a firstrate fruit of faith: yet if the voice of morality is allowed to be heard, Abraham was (in heart and intention) not less guilty than those who sacrificed their children to Molech. Thus at length it appeared, that I must choose between two courses. I must EITHER blind my moral sentiment, my powers of criticism, and my scientific knowledge, (such as they were,) in order to accept the Scripture entire; OR I must encounter the problem, however arduous, of adjusting the relative claims of human knowledge and divine revelation. As to the former method, to name it was to condemn it; for it would put every system of Paganism on a par with Christianity. If one system of religion may claim that we blind our hearts and eyes in its favour, so may another; and there is precisely the same reason for becoming a Hindoo in religion as a Christian. We cannot be both; therefore the principle is _demonstrably_ absurd. It is also, of course, morally horrible, and opposed to countless passages of the Scriptures themselves. Nor can the argument be evaded by talking of external evidences; for these also are confessedly moral evidences, to be judged of by our moral faculties. Nay, according to all Christian advocates, they are God's test of our moral temper. To allege, therefore, that our moral faculties are not to judge, is to annihilate the evidences for Christianity.--Thus, finally, I was lodged in three inevitable conclusions: 1. The moral and intellectual powers of man must be acknowledged as having a right and duty to criticize the contents of the Scripture: 2. When so exerted, they condemn portions of the Scripture as erroneous and immoral: 3. The assumed infallibility of the _entire_ Scripture is a proved falsity, not merely as to physiology, and other scientific matters, but also as to morals: and it remains for farther inquiry how to discriminate the trustworthy from the untrustworthy within the limits of the Bible itself. * * * * * When distinctly conscious, after long efforts to evade it, that this was and must henceforth be my position, I ruminated on the many auguries which had been made concerning me by frightened friends. "You will become a Socinian," had been said of me even at Oxford: "You will become an infidel," had since been added. My present results, I was aware, would seem a sadly triumphant confirmation to the clearsighted instinct of orthodoxy. But the animus of such prophecies had always made me indignant, and I could not admit that there was any merit in such clearsightedness. What! (used I to say,) will you shrink from truth, lest it lead to error? If following truth must bring us to Socinianism, let us by all means become Socinians, or anything else. Surely we do not love our doctrines more than the truth, but because they are the truth. Are we not exhorted to "prove all things, and hold fast that which is good?"--But to my discomfort, I generally found that this (to me so convincing) argument for feeling no alarm, only caused more and more alarm, and gloomier omens concerning me. On considering all this in leisurely retrospect, I began painfully to doubt, whether after all there is much love of truth even among those who have an undeniable strength of religious feeling. I questioned with myself, whether love of truth is not a virtue demanding a robust mental cultivation; whether mathematical or other abstract studies may not be practically needed for it. But no: for how then could it exist in some feminine natures? how in rude and unphilosophical times? On the whole, I rather concluded, that there is in nearly all English education a positive repressing of a young person's truthfulness; for I could distinctly see, that in my own case there was always need of defying authority and public opinion,--not to speak of more serious sacrifices,--if I was to follow truth. All society seemed so to hate novelties of thought, as to prefer the chances of error in the old.--Of course! why, how could it be otherwise, while Test Articles were maintained? Yet surely if God is truth, none sincerely aspire to him, who dread to lose their present opinions in exchange for others truer.--I had not then read a sentence of Coleridge, which is to this effect: "If any one begins by loving Christianity more than the truth, he will proceed to love his Church more than Christianity, and will end by loving his own opinions better than either." A dim conception of this was in my mind; and I saw that the genuine love of God was essentially connected with loving truth as truth, and not truth as our own accustomed thought, truth as our old prejudice; and that the real saint can never be afraid to let God teach him one lesson more, or unteach him one more error. Then I rejoiced to feel how right and sound had been our principle, that no creed can possibly be used as the touchstone of spirituality: for man morally excels man, as far as creeds are concerned, not by assenting to true propositions, but by loving them because they are discerned to be true, and by possessing a faculty of discernment sharpened by the love of truth. Such are God's true apostles, differing enormously in attainment and elevation, but all born to ascend. For these to quarrel between themselves because they do not agree in opinions, is monstrous. _Sentiment_, surely, not _opinion_, is the bond of the Spirit; and as the love of God, so the love of truth is a high and sacred sentiment, in comparison to which our creeds are mean. Well, I had been misjudged; I had been absurdly measured by other men's creed: but might I not have similarly misjudged others, since I had from early youth been under similar influences? How many of my seniors at Oxford I had virtually despised because they were not evangelical! Had I had opportunity of testing their spirituality? or had I the faculty of so doing? Had I not really condemned them as unspiritual, barely because of their creed? On trying to reproduce the past to my imagination, I could not condemn myself quite as sweepingly as I wished; but my heart smote me on account of one. I had a brother, with whose name all England was resounding for praise or blame: from his sympathies, through pure hatred of Popery, I had long since turned away. What was this but to judge him by his creed? True, his whole theory was nothing but Romanism transferred to England: but what then? I had studied with the deepest interest Mrs. Schimmelpenninck's account of the Portroyalists, and though I was aware that she exhibits only the bright side of her subject, yet the absolute excellencies of her nuns and priests showed that Romanism _as such_ was not fatal to spirituality. They were persecuted: this did them good perhaps, or certainly exhibited their brightness. So too my brother surely was struggling after truth, fighting for freedom to his own heart and mind, against church articles and stagnancy of thought. For this he deserved both sympathy and love: but I, alas! had not known and seen his excellence. But now God had taught me more largeness by bitter sorrow working the peaceable fruit of righteousness; at last then I might admire my brother. I therefore wrote to him a letter of contrition. Some change, either in his mind or in his view of my position, had taken place; and I was happy to find him once more able, not only to feel fraternally, as he had always done, but to act also fraternally. Nevertheless, to this day it is to me a painfully unsolved mystery, how a mind can claim its freedom in order to establish bondage. For the _peculiarities_ of Romanism I feel nothing, and I can pretend nothing, but contempt, hatred, disgust, or horror. But this system of falsehood, fraud, unscrupulous and unrelenting ambition, will never be destroyed, while Protestants keep up their insane anathemas against opinion. These are the outworks of the Romish citadel: until they are razed to the ground, the citadel will defy attack. If we are to blind our eyes, in order to accept an article of King Edward VI., or an argument of St. Paul's, why not blind them so far as to accept the Council of Trent? If we are to pronounce that a man "without doubt shall perish everlastingly," unless he believes the self-contradictions of the pseudo-Athanasian Creed, why should we shrink from a similar anathema on those who reject the self-contradictions of Transsubstantiation? If one man is cast out of God's favour for eliciting error while earnestly searching after truth, and another remains in favour by passively receiving the word of a Church, of a Priest, or of an Apostle, then to search for truth is dangerous; apathy is safer; then the soul does not come directly into contact with God and learn of him, but has to learn from, and unconvincedly submit to, some external authority. This is the germ of Romanism: its legitimate development makes us Pagans outright. * * * * * But in what position was I now, towards the apostles? Could I admit their inspiration, when I no longer thought them infallible? Undoubtedly. What could be clearer on every hypothesis, than that they were inspired on and after the day of Pentecost, and _yet_ remained ignorant and liable to mistake about the relation of the Gentiles to the Jews? The moderns have introduced into the idea of inspiration that of infallibility, to which either _omniscience_ or _dictation_ is essential. That there was no dictation, (said I,) is proved by the variety of style in the Scriptural writers; that they were not omniscient, is manifest. In truth, if human minds had not been left to them, how could they have argued persuasively? was not the superior success of their preaching to that of Christ, perhaps due to their sharing in the prejudices of their contemporaries? An orator is most persuasive, when he is lifted above his hearers on those points only on which he is to reform their notions. The apostles were not omniscient: granted: but it cannot hence be inferred that they did not know the message given them by God. Their knowledge however perfect, must yet in a human mind have coexisted with ignorance; and nothing (argued I) but a perpetual miracle could prevent ignorance from now and then exhibiting itself in some error. But hence to infer that they are not inspired, and are not messengers from God, is quite gratuitous. Who indeed imagines that John or Paul understood astronomy so well as Sir William Herschel? Those who believe that the apostles might err in human science, need not the less revere their moral and spiritual wisdom. At the same time it became a matter of duty to me, if possible, to discriminate the authoritative from the unauthoritative in the Scripture, or at any rate avoid to accept and propagate as true that which is false, even if it be false only as science and not as religion. I unawares,--more perhaps from old habit than from distinct conviction,--started from the assumption that my fixed point of knowledge was to be found in the sensible or scientific, not in the moral. I still retained from my old Calvinistic doctrine a way of proceeding, as if purely moral judgment were my weak side, at least in criticizing the Scripture: so that I preferred never to appeal to direct moral and spiritual considerations, except in the most glaringly necessary cases. Thus, while I could not accept the panegyric on Jael, and on Abraham's intended sacrifice of his son, I did not venture unceremoniously to censure the extirpation of the Canaanites by Joshua: of which I barely said to myself, that it "certainly needed very strong proof" of the divine command to justify it. I still went so far in timidity as to hesitate to reject on internal evidence the account of heroes or giants begotten by angels, who, enticed by the love of women, left heaven for earth. The narrative in Gen. vi. had long appeared to me undoubtedly to bear this sense; and to have been so understood by Jude and Peter (2 Pet. ii.), as, I believe, it also was by the Jews and early Fathers. I did at length set it aside as incredible; not however from moral repugnance to it, (for I feared to trust the soundness of my instinct,) but because I had slid into a new rule of interpretation,--that _I must not obtrude miracles on the Scripture narrative_. The writers tell their story without showing any consciousness that it involves physiological difficulties. To invent a miracle in order to defend this, began to seem to me unwarrantable. It had become notorious to the public, that Geologists rejected the idea of a universal deluge as physically impossible. Whence could the water come, to cover the highest mountains? Two replies were attempted: 1. The flood of Noah is not described as universal: 2. The flood was indeed universal, but the water was added and removed by miracle.--Neither reply however seemed to me valid. First, the language respecting the universality of the flood is as strong as any that could be written: moreover it is stated that the tops of the high hills _were all covered_, and after the water subsides, the ark settles on the mountains of Armenia. Now in Armenia, of necessity numerous peaks would be seen, unless the water covered them, and especially Ararat. But a flood that covered Ararat would overspread all the continents, and leave only a few summits above. If then the account in Genesis is to be received, the flood was universal. Secondly: the narrator represents the surplus water to have come from the clouds and perhaps from the sea, and again to drain back into the sea. Of a miraculous _creation and destruction_ of water, he evidently does not dream. Other impossibilities came forward: the insufficient dimensions of the ark to take in all the creatures; the unsuitability of the same climate to arctic and tropical animals for a full year; the impossibility of feeding them and avoiding pestilence; and especially, the total disagreement of the modern facts of the dispersion of animals, with the idea that they spread anew from Armenia as their centre. We have no right to call in a series of miracles to solve difficulties, of which the writer was unconscious. The ark itself was expressly devised to economize miracle, by making a fresh creation of animals needless. Different in kind was the objection which I felt to the story, which is told twice concerning Abraham and once concerning Isaac, of passing off a wife as a sister. Allowing that such a thing was barely not impossible, the improbability was so intense, as to demand the strictest and most cogent proof: yet when we asked, Who testifies it? no proof appeared that it was Moses; or, supposing it to be he, what his sources of knowledge were. And this led to the far wider remark, that nowhere in the book of Genesis is there a line to indicate who is the writer, or a sentence to imply that the writer believes himself to write by special information from God. Indeed, it is well known that were are numerous small phrases which denote a later hand than that of Moses. The kings of Israel are once alluded to historically, Gen. xxxvi. 31. Why then was anything improbable to be believed on the writer's word? as, for instance, the story of Babel and the confusion of tongues? One reply only seemed possible; namely, that we believe the Old Testament in obedience to the authority of the New: and this threw me again to consider the references to the Old Testament in the Christian Scriptures. * * * * * But here, the difficulties soon became manifestly more and more formidable. In opening Matthew, we meet with quotations from the Old Testament applied in the most startling way. First is the prophecy about the child Immanuel; which in Isaiah no unbiassed interpreter would have dreamed could apply to Jesus. Next; the words of Hosea, "Out of Egypt have I called my son," which do but record the history of Israel, are imagined by Matthew to be prophetic of the return of Jesus from Egypt. This instance moved me much; because I thought, that if the text were "spiritualized," so as to make Israel mean _Jesus_, Egypt also ought to be spiritualized and mean _the world_, not retain its geographical sense, which seemed to be carnal and absurd in such a connection: for Egypt is no more to Messiah than Syria or Greece.--One of the most decisive testimonies to the Old Testament which the New contains, is in John x., 35, where I hardly knew how to allow myself to characterize the reasoning. The case stands thus. The 82nd Psalm rebukes _unjust_ governors; and at length says to them: "I have said, Ye are gods, and all of you are children of the most high: but ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes." In other words:--"though we are apt _to think_ of rulers _as if_ they were superhuman, yet they shall meet the lot of common men." Well: how is this applied in John?--Jesus has been accused of blasphemy, for saying that "He and his Father are one;" and in reply, he quotes the verse, "I have said, Ye are gods," as his sufficient justification for calling himself Son of God; for "the Scripture cannot be broken." I dreaded to precipitate myself into shocking unbelief, if I followed out the thoughts that this suggested; and (I know not how) for a long time yet put it off. The quotations from the Old Testament in St. Paul had always been a mystery to me. The more I now examined them, the clearer it appeared that they were based on untenable Rabbinical principles. Nor are those in the Acts and in the Gospels any better. If we take free leave to canvass them, it may appear that not one quotation in ten is sensible and appropriate. And shall we then accept the decision of the New Testament writers as final, concerning the value and credibility of the Old Testament, when it is so manifest that they most imperfectly understood that book? In fact the appeal to them proved too much. For Jude quotes the book of Enoch as an inspired prophecy, and yet, since Archbishop Laurence has translated it from the Ethiopian, we know that book to be a fable undeserving of regard, and undoubtedly not written by "Enoch, the seventh from Adam." Besides, it does not appear that any peculiar divine revelation taught them that the Old Testament is perfect truth. In point of fact, they only reproduce the ideas on that subject current in their age. So far as Paul deviates from the common Jewish view, it is in the direction of disparaging the Law as essentially imperfect. May it not seem that his remaining attachment to it was still exaggerated by old sentiment and patriotism? I farther found that not only do the Evangelists give us no hint that they thought themselves divinely inspired, or that they had any other than human sources of knowledge, but Luke most explicitly shows the contrary. He opens by stating to Theophilus, that since many persons have committed to writing the things handed down from eye-witnesses, it seemed good to him also to do the same, since he had "accurately attended to every thing from its sources ([Greek: anothen])." He could not possibly have written thus, if he had been conscious of superhuman aids. How absurd then of us, to pretend that we know more than Luke knew of his own inspiration! In truth, the arguments of theologians to prove the inspiration (i.e. infallibility) of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are sometimes almost ludicrous. My lamented friend, John Sterling, has thus summed up Dr. Henderson's arguments about Mark. "Mark was probably inspired, _because he was an acquaintance of Peter_; and because Dr. Henderson would be reviled by other Dissenters, if he doubted it." * * * * * About this time, the great phenomenon of these gospels,--the casting out of devils,--pressed forcibly on my attention. I now dared to look full into the facts, and saw that the disorders described were perfectly similar to epilepsy, mania, catalepsy, and other known maladies. Nay, the deaf, the dumb, the hunchbacked, are spoken of as devil-ridden. I farther knew that such diseases are still ascribed to evil genii in Mussulman countries: even a vicious horse is believed by the Arabs to be _majnun_, possessed by a Jin or Genie. Devils also are cast out in Abyssinia to this day. Having fallen in with Farmer's treatise on the Demoniacs, I carefully studied it; and found it to prove unanswerably, that a belief in demoniacal possession is a superstition not more respectable than that of witchcraft. But Farmer did not at all convince me, that the three Evangelists do not share the vulgar error. Indeed, the instant we believe that the imagined possessions were only various forms of disease, we are forced to draw conclusions of the utmost moment, most damaging to the credit of the narrators.[3] Clearly, they are then convicted of misstating facts, under the influence of superstitious credulity. They represent demoniacs as having a supernatural acquaintance with Jesus, which, it now becomes manifest, they cannot have had. The devils cast out of two demoniacs (or one) are said to have entered into a herd of swine. This must have been a credulous fiction. Indeed, the casting out of devils is so very prominent a part of the miraculous agency ascribed to Jesus, as at first sight to impair our faith in his miracles altogether. I however took refuge in the consideration, that when Jesus wrought one great miracle, popular credulity would inevitably magnify it into ten; hence the discovery of foolish exaggerations is no disproof of a real miraculous agency: nay, perhaps the contrary. Are they not a sort of false halo round a disc of glory,--a halo so congenial to human nature, that the absence of it might be even wielded as an objection? Moreover, John tells of no demoniacs: does not this show his freedom from popular excitement? Observe the great miracles narrated by John,--the blind man,--and Lazarus--how different in kind from those on demoniacs! how incapable of having been mistaken! how convincing! His statements cannot be explained away: their whole tone, moreover, is peculiar. On the contrary, the three first gospels contain much that (after we see the writers to be credulous) must be judged legendary. The two first chapters of Matthew abound in dreams. Dreams? Was indeed the "immaculate conception" merely told to Joseph in a _dream_? a dream which not he only was to believe, but we also, when reported to us by a person wholly unknown, who wrote 70 or 80 years after the fact, and gives us no clue to his sources of information! Shall I reply that he received his information by miracle? But why more than Luke? and Luke evidently was conscious only of human information. Besides, inspiration has not saved Matthew from error about demons; and why then about Joseph's dream and its highly important contents? In former days, I had never dared to let my thoughts dwell inquisitively on the _star_, which the wise men saw in the East, and which accompanied them, and pointed out the house where the young child was. I now thought of it, only to see that it was a legend fit for credulous ages; and that it must be rejected in common with Herod's massacre of the children,--an atrocity unknown to Josephus. How difficult it was to reconcile the flight into Egypt with the narrative of Luke, I had known from early days: I now saw that it was waste time to try to reconcile them. But perhaps I might say:--"That the writers should make errors about the _infancy_ of Jesus was natural; they were distant from the time: but that will not justly impair the credit of events, to which they may possibly have been contemporaries or even eye-witnesses."--How then would this apply to the Temptation, at which certainly none of them were present? Is it accident, that the same three, who abound in the demoniacs, tell also the scene of the Devil and Jesuit on a pinnacle of the temple; while the same John who omits the demoniacs, omits also this singular story? It being granted that the writers are elsewhere mistaken, to criticize the tale was to reject it. In near connexion with this followed the discovery, that many other miracles of the Bible are wholly deficient in that moral dignity, which is supposed to place so great a chasm between them and ecclesiastical writings. Why should I look with more respect on the napkins taken from Paul's body (Acts xix. 12), than on pocket-handkerchiefs dipped in the blood of martyrs? How could I believe, on this same writer's hearsay, that "the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip" (viii. 39), transporting him through the air; as oriental genii are supposed to do? Or what moral dignity was there in the curse on the barren fig-tree,--about which, moreover, we are so perplexingly told, that it was _not_ the time for figs? What was to be said of a cure, wrought by touching the hem of Jesus' garment, which drew physical _virtue_ from him without his will? And how could I distinguish the genius of the miracle of tribute-money in the fish's mouth, from those of the apocryphal gospels? What was I to say of useless miracles, like that of Peter and Jesus walking on the water,--or that of many saints coming out of the graves to show themselves, or of a poetical sympathy of the elements, such as the earthquake and rending of the temple-veil when Jesus died? Altogether, I began to feel that Christian advocates commit the flagrant sophism of treating every objection as an isolated "cavil," and overrule each as obviously insufficient, with the same confidence as if it were the only one. Yet, in fact, the objections collectively are very powerful, and cannot be set aside by supercilious airs and by calling unbelievers "superficial," any more than by harsh denunciations. Pursuing the same thought to the Old Testament, I discerned there also no small sprinkling of grotesque or unmoral miracles. A dead man is raised to life, when his body by accident touches the bones of Elisha: as though Elisha had been a Romish saint, and his bones a sacred relic. Uzzah, when the ark is in danger of falling, puts out his hand to save it, and is struck dead for his impiety! Was this the judgment of the Father of mercies and God of all comfort? What was I to make of God's anger with Abimelech (Gen. xx.), whose sole offence was, the having believed Abraham's lie? for which a miraculous barrenness was sent on all the females of Abimelech's tribe, and was bought off only by splendid presents to the favoured deceiver.--Or was it at all credible that the lying and fraudulent Jacob should have been so specially loved by God, more than the rude animal Esau?--Or could I any longer overlook the gross imagination of antiquity, which made Abraham and Jehovah dine on the same carnal food, like Tantalus with the gods;--which fed Elijah by ravens, and set angels to bake cakes for him? Such is a specimen of the flood of difficulties which poured in, through the great breach which the demoniacs had made in the credit of Biblical marvels. While I was in this stage of progress, I had a second time the advantage of meeting Dr. Arnold, and had satisfaction in finding that he rested the main strength of Christianity on the gospel of John. The great similarity of the other three seemed to him enough to mark that they flowed from sources very similar, and that the first gospel had no pretensions to be regarded as the actual writing of Matthew. This indeed had been for some time clear to me, though I now cared little about the author's name, when he was proved to be credulous.--Arnold regarded John's gospel as abounding with smaller touches which marked the eye-witness, and, altogether, to be the vivid and simple picture of a divine reality, undeformed by credulous legend. In this view I was gratified to repose, in spite of a few partial misgivings, and returned to investigations concerning the Old Testament. For some time back I had paid special attention to the book of Genesis; and I had got aid in the analysis of it from a German volume. That it was based on _at least_ two different documents, technically called the Elohistic and Jehovistic, soon became clear to me: and an orthodox friend who acknowledged the fact, regarded it as a high recommendation of the book, that it was conscientiously made out of pre-existing materials, and was not a fancy that came from the brain of Moses. My good friend's argument was not a happy one: no written record could exist of things and times which preceded the invention of writing. After analysing this book with great minuteness, I now proceeded to Exodus and Numbers; and was soon assured, that these had not, any more than Genesis, come forth from one primitive witness of the facts. In all these books is found the striking phenomenon of _duplicate_ or even _triplicate narratives_. The creation of man is three times told. The account of the Flood is made up out of two discrepant originals, marked by the names Elohim and Jehovah; of which one makes Noah take into the ark _seven_ pairs of clean, and _single_ (or double?) pairs of unclean, beasts; while the other gives him two and two of all kinds, without distinguishing the clean. The two documents may indeed in this narrative be almost re-discovered by mechanical separation. The triple statement of Abraham and Isaac passing off a wife for a sister was next in interest; and here also the two which concern Abraham are contrasted as Jehovistic and Elohistic. A similar double account is given of the origin of circumcision, of the names Isaac, Israel, Bethel, Beersheba. Still more was I struck by the positive declaration in Exodus (vi. 3) that _God was_ NOT _known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by the name Jehovah_; while the book of Genesis abounds with the contrary fact. This alone convinced me beyond all dispute, that these books did not come from one and the same hand, but are conglomerates formed out of older materials, unartistically and mechanically joined. Indeed a fuller examination showed in Exodus and Numbers a twofold miracle of the quails, of which the latter is so told as to indicate entire unacquaintance with the former. There is a double description of the manna, a needless second appointment of Elders of the congregation: water is twice brought out of the rock by the rod of Moses, whose faith is perfect the first time and fails the second time. The name of Meribah is twice bestowed. There is a double promise of a guardian angel, a double consecration of Aaron and his sons: indeed, I seemed to find a double or even threefold[4] copy of the Decalogue. Comprising Deuteronomy within my view, I met two utterly incompatible accounts of Aaron's death; for Deuteronomy makes him die _before_ reaching Meribah Kadesh, where, according to Numbers, he sinned and incurred the penalty of death (Num. xx. 24, Deut x. 6: cf Num. xxxiii. 31, 38). That there was error on a great scale in all this, was undeniable; and I began to see at least one _source_ of the error. The celebrated miracle of "the sun standing still" has long been felt as too violent a derangement of the whole globe to be used by the most High as a means of discomfiting an army: and I had acquiesced in the idea that the miracle was _ocular_ only. But in reading the passage, (Josh. x. 12-14,) I for the first time observed that the narrative rests on the authority of a poetical book which bears the name of Jasher.[5] He who composed--"Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon!"--like other poets, called on the Sun and Moon to stand and look on Joshua's deeds; but he could not anticipate that his words would be hardened into fact by a prosaic interpreter, and appealed to in proof of a stupendous miracle. The commentator could not tell what _the Moon_ had to do with it; yet he has quoted honestly.--This presently led me to observe other marks that the narrative has been made up, at least in part, out of old poetry. Of these the most important are in Exodus xv. and Num. xxi., in the latter of which three different poetical fragments are quoted, and one of them is expressly said to be from "the book of the wars of Jehovah," apparently a poem descriptive of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites. As for Exodus xv. it appeared to me (in that stage, and after so abundant proof of error,) almost certain that Moses' song is the primitive authority, out of which the prose narrative of the passage of the Red Sea has been worked up. Especially since, after the song, the writer adds: v. 19. "For the horse of Pharaoh went in with his chariots and with his horsemen into the sea, and the Lord brought again the waters of the sea upon them: but the children of Israel went on dry land in the midst of the sea." This comment scarcely could have been added, if the detailed account of ch. xiv. had been written previously. The song of Moses _implies no miracle at all_: it is merely high poetry. A later prosaic age took the hyperbolic phrases of v. 8 literally, and so generated the comment of v. 19, and a still later time expanded this into the elaborate 14th chapter. Other proofs crowded upon me, that cannot here be enlarged upon. Granting then (for argument) that the four first books of the Pentateuch are a compilation, made long after the event, I tried for a while to support the very arbitrary opinion, that Deuteronomy (all but its last chapter) which seemed to be a more homogeneous composition, was alone and really the production of Moses. This however needed some definite proof: for if tradition was not sufficient to guarantee the whole Pentateuch, it could not guarantee to me Deuteronomy alone. I proceeded to investigate the external history of the Pentateuch, and in so doing, came to the story, how the book of the Law was _found_ in the reign of the young king Josiah, nearly at the end of the Jewish monarchy. As I considered the narrative, my eyes were opened. If the book had previously been the received sacred law, it could not possibly have been so lost, that its contents were unknown, and the fact of its loss forgotten: it was therefore evidently _then first compiled_, or at least then first produced and made authoritative to the nation.[6] And with this the general course of the history best agrees, and all the phenomena of the books themselves. Many of the Scriptural facts were old to me: to the importance of the history of Josiah I had perhaps even become dim-sighted by familiarity. Why had I not long ago seen that my conclusions ought to have been different from those of prevalent orthodoxy?--I found that I had been cajoled by the primitive assumptions, which though not clearly _stated_, are unceremoniously _used_. Dean Graves, for instance, always takes for granted, that, _until the contrary shall be demonstrated_, it is to be firmly believed that the Pentateuch is from the pen of Moses. He proceeds to set aside, _one by one_, as not demonstrative, the indications that it is of later origin: and when other means fail, he says that the particular verses remarked on were added by a later hand! I considered that if we were debating the antiquity of an Irish book, and in one page of it were found an allusion to the Parliamentary Union with England, we should at once regard the whole book, _until the contrary should be proved_, as the work of this century; and not endure the reasoner, who, in order to uphold a theory that it is five centuries old, pronounced that sentence "evidently to be from a later hand." Yet in this arbitrary way Dean Graves and all his coadjutors set aside, one by one, the texts which point at the date of the Pentateuch. I was possessed with indignation. Oh sham science! Oh false-named Theology! O mihi tam longæ maneat pars ultima vitæ, Spiritus et, quantum sat erit tua dicere facta! Yet I waited some eight years longer, lest I should on so grave a subject write anything premature. Especially I felt that it was necessary to learn more of what the erudition of Germany had done on these subjects. Michaelis on the New Testament had fallen into my hands several years before, and I had found the greatest advantage from his learning and candour. About this time I also had begun to get more or less aid from four or five living German divines; but none produced any strong impression on me but De Wette. The two grand lessons which I learned from him, were, the greater recency of Deuteronomy, and the very untrustworthy character of the book of Chronicles; with which discovery, the true origin of the Pentateuch becomes still clearer.[7] After this, I heard of Hengstenberg as the most learned writer on the opposite side, and furnished myself with his work in defence of the antiquity of the Pentateuch: but it only showed me how hopeless a cause he had undertaken. * * * * * In this period I came to a totally new view of many parts of the Bible; and not to be tedious, it will suffice here to sum up the results. The first books which I looked at as doubtful, were the Apocalypse and the Epistle to the Hebrews. From the Greek style I felt assured that the former was not by John,[8] nor the latter by Paul. In Michaelis I first learnt the interesting fact of Luther having vehemently repudiated the Apocalypse, so that he not only declared its spuriousness in the Preface of his Bible, but solemnly charged his successors not to print his translation of the Apocalypse without annexing this avowal:--a charge which they presently disobeyed. Such is the habitual unfairness of ecclesiastical corporations. I was afterwards confirmed by Neander in the belief that the Apocalypse is a false prophecy. The only chapter of it which is interpreted,--the 17th,--appears to be a political speculation suggested by the civil war of Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian; and erroneously opines that the eighth emperor of Rome is to be the last, and is to be one of the preceding emperors restored,--probably Nero, who was believed to have escaped to the kings of the East.--As for the Epistle to the Hebrews, (which I was disposed to believe Luther had well guessed to be the production of Apollos,) I now saw quite a different genius in it from that of Paul, as more artificial and savouring of rhetorical culture. As to this, the learned Germans are probably unanimous. Next to these, the Song of Solomon fell away. I had been accustomed to receive this as a sacred representation of the loves of Christ and the Church: but after I was experimentally acquainted with the playful and extravagant genius of man's love for woman, I saw the Song of Solomon with new eyes, and became entirely convinced that it consists of fragments of love-songs, some of them rather voluptuous. After this, it followed that the so-called _Canon_ of the Jews could not guarantee to us the value of the writings. Consequently, such books as Ruth and Esther, (the latter indeed not containing one religious sentiment,) stood forth at once in their natural insignificance. Ecclesiastes also seemed to me a meagre and shallow production. Chronicles I now learned to be not credulous only, but unfair, perhaps so far as to be actually dishonest. Not one of the historical books of the Old Testament could approve itself to me as of any high antiquity or of any spiritual authority; and in the New Testament I found the first three books and the Acts to contain many doubtful and some untrue accounts, and many incredible miracles. Many persons, after reading thus much concerning me, will be apt to say: "Of course then you gave up Christianity?"--Far from it. I gave up all that was clearly untenable, and clung the firmer to all that still appeared sound. I had found out that the Bible was not to be my religion, nor its perfection any tenet of mine: but what then! Did Paul go about preaching the Bible? nay, but he preached Christ. The New Testament did not as yet exist: to the Jews he necessarily argued from the Old Testament; but that "faith in the book" was no part of Paul's gospel, is manifest from his giving no list of sacred books to his Gentile converts. Twice indeed in his epistles to Timothy, he recommends the Scriptures of the Old Testament; but even in the more striking passage, (on which such exaggerated stress has been laid,) the spirit of his remark is essentially apologetic. "Despise not, oh Timothy," (is virtually his exhortation) "the Scriptures that you learned as a child. Although now you have the Spirit to teach you, yet that does not make the older writers useless: for "_every divinely inspired writing is also profitable for instruction &c._" In Paul's religion, respect for the Scriptures was a means, not an end. The Bible was made for man, not man for the Bible. Thus the question with me was: "May I still receive Christ as a Saviour from sin, a Teacher and Lord sent from heaven, and can I find an adequate account of what he came to do or teach?" And my reply was, Yes. The gospel of John alone gave an adequate account of him: the other three, though often erroneous, had clear marks of simplicity, and in so far confirmed the general belief in the supernatural character and works of Jesus. Then the conversion of Paul was a powerful argument. I had Peter's testimony to the resurrection, and to the transfiguration. Many of the prophecies were eminently remarkable, and seemed unaccountable except as miraculous. The origin of Judaism and spread of Christianity appeared to be beyond common experience, and were perhaps fairly to be called supernatural. Broad views such as these did not seem to be affected by the special conclusions at which I had arrived concerning the books of the Bible. I conceived myself to be resting under an Indian Figtree, which is supported by certain grand stems, but also lets down to the earth many small branches, which seem to the eye to prop the tree, but in fact are supported by it. If they were cut away, the tree would not be less strong. So neither was the tree of Christianity weakened by the loss of its apparent props. I might still enjoy its shade, and eat of its fruits, and bless the hand that planted it. In the course of this period I likewise learnt how inadequate allowance I had once made for the repulsion produced by my own dogmatic tendency on the sympathies of the unevangelical. I now often met persons of Evangelical opinion, but could seldom have any interchange of religious sentiment with them, because every word they uttered warned me that I could escape controversy only while I kept them at a distance: moreover, if any little difference of opinion led us into amicable argument, they uniformly reasoned by quoting texts. This was now inadmissible with me, but I could only have done mischief by going farther than a dry disclaimer; after which indeed I saw I was generally looked on as "an infidel." No doubt the parties who so came into collision with me, approached me often with an earnest desire and hope to find some spiritual good in me, but withdrew disappointed, finding me either cold and defensive, or (perhaps they thought) warm and disputatious. Thus, as long as artificial tests of spirituality are allowed to exist, their erroneousness is not easily exposed by the mere wear and tear of life. When the collision of opinion is very strong, two good men may meet, and only be confirmed in their prejudices against one another: for in order that one may elicit the spiritual sympathies of the other, a certain liberality is prerequisite. Without this, each prepares to shield himself from attack, or even holds out weapons of offence. Thus "articles of Communion" are essentially articles of Disunion.--On the other hand, if all tests of opinion in a church were heartily and truly done away, then the principles of spiritual affinity and repulsion would act quite undisturbed. Surely therefore this was the only right method?--Nevertheless, I saw the necessity of _one_ test, "Jesus is the Son of God," and felt unpleasantly that one article tends infallibly to draw another after it. But I had too much, just then to think of in other quarters, to care much about Church Systems. [Footnote 1: See Gen. xxxiii. 19, and xlix. 29-32, xxiii.] [Footnote 2: Some say, that Zechariah, son of Jehoiada, named in the Chronicles, is meant; that he is _confounded_ with the prophet, the son of Berechiah, and was _supposed_ to be the last of the martyrs, because the Chronicles are placed last in the Hebrew Bible. This is a plausible view; but it saves the Scripture only by imputing error to Jesus.] [Footnote 3: My Eclectic Reviewer says (p. 276): "Thus because the evangelists held an erroneous _medical_ theory, Mr. Newman suffered a breach to be made in the credit of the Bible." No; but as the next sentence states, "because they are convicted of _misstating facts_," under the influence of this erroneous medical theory. Even this reviewer--candid for an orthodox critic, and not over-orthodox either--cannot help garbling me.] [Footnote 4: I have explained this in my "Hebrew Monarchy."] [Footnote 5: This poet celebrated also the deeds of David (2 Sam. i. 18) according to our translation: if so, he was many centuries later than Joshua; however, the sense of the Hebrew is little obscure.] [Footnote 6: I have fully discussed this in my "Hebrew Monarchy."] [Footnote 7: The English reader may consult Theodore Parker's translation of De Wette's Introduction to the Canon of Scripture. I have also amply exhibited the vanity of the _Chronicles_ in my "Hebrew Monarchy." De Wette has a separate treatise on the Chronicles,] [Footnote 8: If the date of the Apocalypse is twenty years earlier than that of the fourth Gospel, I now feel no such difficulty in their being the composition of the same writer.] CHAPTER V. FAITH AT SECOND HAND FOUND TO BE VAIN. I reckon my fifth period to begin from the time when I had totally abandoned the claim of "the Canon" of Scripture, however curtailed, to be received as the object of faith, as free from error, or as something raised above moral criticism; and looked out for some deeper foundation for my creed than any sacred Letter. But an entirely new inquiry had begun to engage me at intervals, viz., _the essential logic of these investigations._ Ought we in any case to receive moral truth in obedience to an apparent miracle of sense? or conversely, ought we ever to believe in sensible miracles because of their recommending some moral truth? I perceived that the endless jangling which goes on in detailed controversy, is inevitable, while the disputants are unawares at variance with one another, or themselves wavering, as to these pervading principles of evidence.--I regard my fifth period to come to an end with the decision of this question. Nevertheless, many other important lines of inquiry were going forward simultaneously. I found in the Bible itself,--and even in the very same book, as in the Gospel of John,--great uncertainty and inconsistency on this question. In one place, Jesus reproves[1] the demand of a miracle, and blesses those who believe without[2] miracles; in another, he requires that they will submit to his doctrine because[3] of his miracles. Now, this is intelligible, if blind external obedience is the end of religion, and not Truth and inward Righteousness. An ambitious and unscrupulous _Church_, that desires, by fair means or foul, to make men bow down to her, may say, "Only believe; and all is right. The end being gained,--Obedience to us,--we do not care about your reasons." But _God_ cannot speak thus to man; and to a divine teacher we should peculiarly look for aid in getting clear views of the grounds of faith; because it is by a knowledge of these that we shall both be rooted on the true basis, and saved from the danger of false beliefs. It, therefore, peculiarly vexed me to find so total a deficiency of clear and sound instruction in the New Testament, and eminently in the gospel of John, on so vital a question. The more I considered it, the more it appeared, as if Jesus were solely anxious to have people believe in Him, without caring on what grounds they believed, although that is obviously the main point. When to this was added the threat of "damnation" on those who did not believe, the case became far worse: for I felt that if such a threat were allowed to operate, I might become a Mohammedan or a Roman Catholic. Could I in any case rationally assign this as a ground for believing in Christ,--"because I am frightened by his threats"--? Farther thought showed me that a question of _logic_, such as I here had before me, was peculiarly one on which the propagator of a new religion could not be allowed to dictate; for if so, every false system could establish itself. Let Hindooism dictate our logic,--let us submit to its tests of a divine revelation, and its mode of applying them,--and we may, perhaps, at once find ourselves necessitated to "become little children" in a Brahminical school. Might not then this very thing account for the Bible not enlightening us on the topic? namely, since Logic, like Mathematics, belongs to the common intellect,--Possibly so: but still, it cannot reconcile us to _vacillations_ and _contradictions_ in the Bible on so critical a point. Gradually I saw that deeper and deeper difficulties lay at bottom. If Logic _cannot_ be matter of authoritative revelation, so long as the nature of the human mind is what it is,--if it appears, as a fact, that in the writings and speeches of the New Testament the logic is far from lucid,--if we are to compare Logic with Mathematics and other sciences, which grew up with civilization and long time,--we cannot doubt that the apostles imbibed the logic, like the astronomy, of their own day, with all its defects. Indeed, the same is otherwise plain. Paul's reasonings are those of a Gamaliel, and often are indefensible by our logical notions. John, also (as I had been recently learning,) has a wonderful similarity to Philo. This being the case, it becomes of deep interest to us to know,--if we are to accept results _at second hand_ from Paul and John,--_what was the sort of evidence which convinced them?_ The moment this question is put, we see the essential defect to which we are exposed, in not being able to cross-examine them. Paul says that "Christ appeared to him:" elsewhere, that he has "received of the Lord" certain facts, concerning the Holy Supper: and that his Gospel was "given to him by revelation." If any modern made such statements to us, and on this ground demanded our credence, it would be allowable, and indeed obligatory, to ask many questions of him. What does he _mean_ by saying that he has had a "revelation?" Did he see a sight, or hear a sound? or was it an inward impression? and how does he distinguish it as divine?[4] Until these questions are fully answered, we have no materials at all before us for deciding to accept his results: to believe him, merely because he is earnest and persuaded, would be judged to indicate the weakness of inexperience. How then can it be pretended that we have, or can possibly get, the means of assuring ourselves that the apostles held correct principles of evidence and applied them justly, when we are not able to interrogate them? Farther, it appears that _our_ experience of delusion forces us to enact a very severe test of supernatural revelation. No doubt, we can conceive that which is equivalent to a _new sense_ opening to us; but then it must have verifications connecting it with the other senses. Thus, a particularly vivid sort of dream recurring with special marks, and communicating at once heavenly and earthly knowledge, of which the latter was otherwise verified, would probably be admitted as a valid sort of evidence: but so intense would be the interest and duty to have all unravelled and probed to the bottom, that we should think it impossible to verify the new sense too anxiously, and we should demand the fullest particulars of the divine transaction. On the contrary, it is undeniable that all such severity of research is rebuked in the Scriptures as unbelief. The deeply interesting _process_ of receiving supernatural revelation.--a revelation, _not_ of moral principles, but of outward facts and events, supposed to be communicated in a mode wholly peculiar and unknown to common men,--this process, which ought to be laid open and analyzed under the fullest light, _if we are to believe the results at second hand_, is always and avowedly shrouded in impenetrable darkness. There surely is something here, which denotes that it is dangerous to resign ourselves to the conclusions of the apostles, when their logical notions are so different from ours. I farther inquired, what sort of miracle I could conceive, that would alter my opinion on a moral question. Hosea was divinely ordered to go and unite himself to an impure woman: could I possibly think that God ordered _me_ to do so, if I heard a voice in the air commanding it? Should I not rather disbelieve my hearing, than disown my moral perceptions? If not, where am I to stop? I may practise all sorts of heathenism. A man who, in obedience to a voice in the air, kills his innocent wife or child, will either be called mad, and shut up for safety, or will be hanged as a desperate fanatic: do I dare to condemn this modern judgment of him? Would any conceivable miracle justify my slaying my wife? God forbid! It _must_ be morally right, to believe moral rather than sensible perceptions. No outward impressions on the eye or ear can be so valid an assurance to me of God's will, as my inward judgment. How amazing, then, that a Paul or a James could look on Abraham's intention to slay his son, as indicating a praiseworthy faith!--And yet not amazing: It does but show, that apostles in former days, like ourselves, scrutinized antiquity with different eyes from modern events. If Paul had been ordered by a supernatural voice to slay Peter, he would have attributed the voice to the devil, "the prince of the power of the air," and would have despised it. He praises the faith of Abraham, but he certainly would never have imitated his conduct. Just so, the modern divines who laud Joseph's piety towards Mary, would be very differently affected, if events and persons were transported to the present day. But to return. Let it be granted that no sensible miracle could authorize me so to violate my moral perceptions as to slay (that is, to murder) my innocent wife. May it, nevertheless, authorize me to invade a neighbour country, slaughter the people and possess their cities, although, without such a miracle, the deed would be deeply criminal? It is impossible to say that here, more than in the former case, miracles[5] can turn aside the common laws of morality. Neither, therefore, could they justify Joshua's war of extermination on the Canaanites, nor that of Samuel on the Amalekites; nor the murder of misbelievers by Elijah and by Josiah. If we are shocked at the idea of God releasing Mohammed from the vulgar law of marriage, we must as little endure relaxation in the great laws of justice and mercy. Farther, if only a _small_ immorality is concerned, shall we then say that a miracle may justify it? Could it authorise me to plait a whip of small cords, and flog a preferment-hunter out of the pulpit? or would it justify me in publicly calling the Queen and her ministers "a brood of vipers, who cannot escape the damnation of hell"[6] Such questions go very deep into the heart of the Christian claims. I had been accustomed to overbear objections of this sort by replying, that to allow of their being heard would amount to refusing leave to God to give commands to his creatures. For, it seems, if he _did_ command, we, instead of obeying, should discuss whether the command was right and reasonable; and if we thought it otherwise, should conclude that God never gave it. The extirpation of the Canaanites is compared by divines to the execution of a criminal; and it is insisted, that if the voice of society may justify the executioner, much more may the voice of God--But I now saw the analogy to be insufficient and unsound. Insufficient, because no executioner is justified in slaying those whom his conscience tells him to be innocent; and it is a barbarous morality alone, which pretends that he may make himself a passive tool of slaughter. But next, the analogy _assumes_, (what none of my very dictatorial and insolent critics make even the faintest effort to prove to be a fact,) that God, like man, speaks from without: that what we call Reason and Conscience is _not_ his mode of commanding and revealing his will, but that words to strike the ear, or symbols displayed before the senses, are emphatically and exclusively "Revelation." Besides all this, the command of slaughter to the Jews is not directed against the seven nations of Canaan only, as modern theologians often erroneously assert: it is a _universal_ permission, of avaricious massacre and subjugation of "the cities which are very far off from thee, which are _not_ of the cities of these nations," Deut, xx. 15. The thoughts which here fill but a few pages, occupied me a long while in working out; because I consciously, with caution more than with timidity, declined to follow them rapidly. They came as dark suspicions or as flashing possibilities; and were again laid aside for reconsideration, lest I should be carried into antagonism to my old creed. For it is clear that great error arises in religion, by the undue ardour of converts, who become bitter against the faith which they have left, and outrun in zeal their new associates. So also successive centuries oscillate too far on the right and on the left of truth. But so happy was my position, that I needed not to hurry: no practical duty forced me to rapid decision, and a suspense of judgment was not an unwholesome exercise. Meanwhile, I sometimes thought Christianity to be to me, like the great river Ganges to a Hindoo. Of its value he has daily experience: he has piously believed that its sources are in heaven, but of late the report has come to him, that it only flows from very high mountains of this earth. What is he to believe? He knows not exactly: he cares not much: in any case the river is the gift of God to him: its positive benefits cannot be affected by a theory concerning its source. Such a comparison undoubtedly implies that he who uses it discerns for himself a moral excellence in Christianity, and _submits to it only so far as this discernment commands_. I had practically reached this point, long before I concluded my theoretical inquiries as to Christianity itself: but in the course of this fifth period numerous other overpowering considerations crowded upon me which I must proceed to state in outline. * * * * * All pious Christians feel, and all the New Testament proclaims, that Faith is a moral act and a test of the moral and spiritual that is within us; so that he who is without faith, (faithless, unfaithful, "infidel,") is morally wanting and is cut off from God. To assent to a religious proposition _solely_ in obedience to an outward miracle, would be Belief; but would not be Faith, any more than is scientific conviction. Bishop Butler and all his followers can insist with much force on this topic, when it suits them, and can quote most aptly from the New Testament to the same effect. They deduce, that a really overpowering miraculous proof would have destroyed the moral character of Faith: yet they do not see that the argument supersedes the authoritative force of outward miracles entirely. It had always appeared to me very strange in these divines, to insist on the stupendous character and convincing power of the Christian miracles, and then, in reply to the objection that they were _not_ quite convincing, to say that the defect was purposely left "to try people's Faith." Faith in what? Not surely in the confessedly ill-proved miracle, but in the truth as discernible by the heart _without aid of miracle._ I conceived of two men, Nathaniel and Demas, encountering a pretender to miracles, a Simon Magus of the scriptures. Nathaniel is guileless, sweet-hearted and of strong moral sense, but in worldly matters rather a simpleton. Demas is a sharp man, who gets on well in the world, quick of eye and shrewd of wit, hard-headed and not to be imposed upon by his fellows; but destitute of any high religious aspirations or deep moral insight. The juggleries of Simon are readily discerned by Demas, but thoroughly deceive poor Nathaniel: what then is the latter to do? To say that we are to receive true miracles and reject false ones, avails not, unless the mind is presumed to be capable of discriminating the one from the other. The wonders of Simon are as divine as the wonders of Jesus to a man, who, like Nathaniel, can account for neither by natural causes. If we enact the rule, that men are to "submit their understandings" to apparent prodigies, and that "revelation" is a thing of the outward senses, we alight on the unendurable absurdity, that Demas has faculties better fitted than those of Nathaniel for discriminating religious truth and error, and that Nathaniel, in obedience to eye and ear, which he knows to be very deceivable organs, is to abandon his moral perceptions. Nor is the case altered, if instead of Simon in person, a huge thing called a Church is presented as a claimant of authority to Nathaniel. Suppose him to be a poor Spaniard, surrounded by false miracles, false erudition, and all the apparatus of reigning and unopposed Romanism. He cannot cope with the priests in cleverness,--detect their juggleries,--refute their historical falsehoods, disentangle their web of sophistry: but if he is truehearted, he may say: "You bid me not to keep faith with heretics: you defend murder, exile, imprisonment, fines, on men who will not submit their consciences to your authority: this I see to be wicked, though you ever so much pretend that God has taught it you." So, also, if he be accosted by learned clergymen, who undertake to prove that Jesus wrought stupendous miracles, or by learned Moolahs who allege the same of Mohammed or of Menu, he is quite unable to deal with them on the grounds of physiology, physics, or history.--In short, nothing can be plainer, than that _the moral and spiritual sense is the only religious faculty of the poor man_; and that as Christianity in its origin was preached to the poor, so it was to the inward senses that its first preachers appealed, as the supreme arbiters in the whole religious question. Is it not then absurd to say that in the act of conversion the convert is to trust his moral perception, and is ever afterwards to distrust it? An incident had some years before come to my knowledge, which now seemed instructive. An educated, highly acute and thoughtful person, of very mature age, had become a convert to the Irving miracles, from an inability to distinguish them from those of the Pauline epistles; or to discern anything of falsity which would justify his rejecting them. But after several years he totally renounced them as a miserable delusion, _because_ he found that a system of false doctrine was growing up and was propped by them. Here was a clear case of a man with all the advantages of modern education and science, who yet found the direct judgment of a professed miracle, that was acted before his senses, too arduous for him! He was led astray while he trusted his power to judge of miracle: he was brought right by trusting to his moral perceptions. When we farther consider, that a knowledge of Natural Philosophy and Physiology not only does not belong to the poor, but comes later in time to mankind than a knowledge of morals;--that a Miracle can only be judged of by Philosophy,--that it is not easy even for philosophers to define what is a "miracle"--that to discern "a deviation from the course of nature," implies a previous certain knowledge of what _the course of nature_ is,--and that illiterate and early ages certainly have not this knowledge, and often have hardly even the idea,--it becomes quite a monstrosity to imagine that sensible and external miracles constitute the necessary process and guarantee of divine revelation. Besides, if an angel appeared to my senses, and wrought miracles, how would that assure me of his moral qualities? Such miracles might prove his power and his knowledge, but whether malignant or benign, would remain doubtful, until by purely moral evidence, which no miracles could give, the doubt should be solved.[7] This is the old difficulty about diabolical wonders. The moderns cut the knot, by denying that any but God can possibly work real miracles. But to establish their principle, they make their definition and verification of a miracle so strict, as would have amazed the apostles; and after all, the difficulty recurs, that miraculous phenomena will never prove the goodness and veracity of God, if we do not know these qualities in Him without miracle. There is then a deeper and an earlier revelation of God, which sensible miracles can never give. We cannot distinctly learn what was Paul's full idea of a divine revelation; but I can feel no doubt that he conceived it to be, in great measure, an _inward_ thing. Dreams and visions were not excluded from influence, and nacre or less affected his moral judgment; but he did not, consciously and on principle, beat down his conscience in submission to outward impressions. To do so, is indeed to destroy the moral character of Faith, and lay the axe to the root, not of Christian doctrine only, but of every possible spiritual system. * * * * * Meanwhile, new breaches were made in those citadels of my creed which had not yet surrendered. One branch of the Christian Evidences concerns itself with the _history_ and _historical effects_ of the faith, and among Protestants the efficacy of the Bible to enlighten and convert has been very much pressed. The disputant, however, is apt to play "fast and loose." He adduces the theory of Christianity when the history is unfavourable, and appeals to the history if the theory is impugned. In this way, just so much is picked out of the mass of facts as suits his argument, and the rest is quietly put aside. I. In the theory of my early creed, (which was that of the New Testament, however convenient it may be for my critics to deride it as fanatical and _not_ Christian,) cultivation of mind and erudition were classed with worldly things, which might be used where they pre-existed, (as riches and power may subserve higher ends,) but which were quite extraneous and unessential to the spiritual kingdom of Christ. A knowledge of the Bible was assumed to need only an honest heart and God's Spirit, while science, history, and philosophy were regarded as doubtful and dangerous auxiliaries. But soon after the first reflux of my mind took place towards the Common Understanding, as a guide of life legitimately co-ordinate with Scripture, I was impressed with the consideration that _Free Learning_ had acted on a great scale for the improvement of spiritual religion. I had been accustomed to believe that _the Bible_[8] brought about the Protestant Reformation; and until my twenty-ninth year probably it had not occurred to me to question this. But I was first struck with the thought, that the Bible did not prevent the absurd iniquities of the Nicene and Post Nicene controversy, and that the Church, with the Bible in her hands, sank down into the gulf of Popery. How then was the Bible a sufficient explanation of her recovering out of Popery? Even a superficial survey of the history shows, that the first improvement of spiritual doctrine in the tenth and eleventh centuries, came from a study of the moral works of Cicero and Boethius;--a fact notorious in the common historians. The Latin moralists effected, what (strange to think!) the New Testament alone could not do. In the fifteenth century, when Constantinople was taken by the Turks, learned Greeks were driven out to Italy and to other parts of the West, and the Roman Catholic world began to read the old Greek literature. All historians agree, that the enlightenment of mind hence arising was a prime mover of religious Reformation; and learned Protestants of Germany have even believed, that the overthrow of Popish error and establishment of purer truth would have been brought about more equably and profoundly, if Luther had never lived, and the passions of the vulgar had never been stimulated against the externals of Romanism. At any rate, it gradually opened upon me, that the free cultivation of the _understanding_, which Latin and Greek literature had imparted to Europe and our freer public life, were chief causes of our religious superiority to Greek, Armenian, and Syrian Christians. As the Greeks in Constantinople under a centralized despotism retained no free intellect, and therefore the works of their fathers did their souls no good; so in Europe, just in proportion to the freedom of learning, has been the force of the result. In Spain and Italy the study of miscellaneous science and independent thought were nearly extinguished; in France and Austria they were crippled; in Protestant countries they have been freest. And then we impute all their effects to the Bible![9] I at length saw how untenable is the argument drawn from the inward history of Christianity in favour of its superhuman origin. In fact: this religion cannot pretend to _self-sustaining power._ Hardly was it started on its course, when it began to be polluted by the heathenism and false philosophy around it. With the decline of national genius and civil culture it became more and more debased. So far from being able to uphold the existing morality of the best Pagan teachers, it became barbarized itself, and sank into deep superstition and manifold moral corruption. From ferocious men it learnt ferocity. When civil society began to coalesce into order, Christianity also turned for the better, and presently learned to use the wisdom, first of Romans, then of Greeks: such studies opened men's eyes to new apprehensions of the Scripture and of its doctrine. By gradual and human means, Europe, like ancient Greece, grew up towards better political institutions; and Christianity improved with them,--the Christianity of the more educated. Beyond Europe, where there have been no such institutions, there has been no Protestant Reformation:--that is in the Greek, Armenian, Syrian, Coptic churches. Not unreasonably then do Franks in Turkey disown the title Nazarene, as denoting _that_ Christianity which has not been purified by European laws and European learning. Christianity rises and sinks with political and literary influences: in so far,[10] it does not differ from other religions. The same applied to the origin and advance of Judaism. It began in polytheistic and idolatrous barbarism: it cleared into a hard monotheism, with much superstition adhering to it. This was farther improved by successive psalmists and prophets, until Judaism culminated. The Jewish faith was eminently grand and pure; but there is nothing[11] in this history which we can adduce in proof of preternatural and miraculous agency. II. The facts concerning the outward spread of Christianity have also been disguised by the party spirit of Christians, as though there were something essentially _different in kind_ as to the mode in which it began and continued its conquests, from the corresponding history of other religions. But no such distinction can be made out. It is general to all religions to begin by moral means, and proceed farther by more worldly instruments. Christianity had a great moral superiority over Roman paganism, in its humane doctrine of universal brotherhood, its unselfishness, its holiness; and thereby it attracted to itself (among other and baser materials) all the purest natures and most enthusiastic temperaments. Its first conquests were noble and admirable. But there is nothing _superhuman_ or unusual in this. Mohammedism in the same way conquers those Pagan creeds which are morally inferior to it. The Seljuk and the Ottoman Turks were Pagans, but adopted the religion of Tartars and Persians whom they subjugated, because it was superior and was blended with a superior civilization; exactly as the German conquerors of the Western Empire of Rome adopted some form of Christianity. But if it is true that _the sword_ of Mohammed was the influence which subjected Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Persia to the religion of Islam, it is no less true that the Roman empire was finally conquered to Christianity by the sword. Before Constantine, Christians were but a small fraction of the empire. In the preceding century they had gone on deteriorating in good sense and most probably therefore in moral worth, and had made no such rapid progress in numbers as to imply that by the mere process of conversion they would ever Christianize the empire. That the conversion of Constantine, such as it was, (for he was baptized only just before death,) was dictated by mere worldly considerations, few modern Christians will deny. Yet a great fact is here implied; viz., that Christianity was adopted as a state-religion, because of the great _political_ power accruing from the organization of the churches and the devotion of Christians to their ecclesiastical citizenship. Roman statesmen well knew that a hundred thousand Roman citizens devoted to the interests of Rome, could keep in subjection a population of ten millions who were destitute of any intense patriotism and had no central objects of attachment. The Christian church had shown its immense resisting power and its tenacious union, in the persecution by Galerius; and Constantine was discerning enough to see the vast political importance of winning over such a body; which, though but a small fraction of the whole empire, was the only party which could give coherence to that empire, the only one which had enthusiastic adherents in every province, the only one on whose resolute devotion it was possible for a partizan to rely securely. The bravery and faithful attachment of Christian regiments was a lesson not lost upon Constantine; and we may say, in some sense, that the Christian soldiers in his armies conquered the empire (that is, the imperial appointments) for Christianity. But Paganism subsisted, even in spite of imperial allurements, until at length the sword of Theodosius violently suppressed heathen worship. So also, it was the spear of Charlemagne which drove the Saxons to baptism, and decided the extirpation of Paganism from Teutonic Europe. There is nothing in all this to distinguish the outward history of Christianity from that of Mohammedism. Barbarous tribes, now and then, venerating the superiority of our knowledge, adopt our religion: so have Pagan nations in Africa voluntarily become Mussulmans. But neither we nor they can appeal to any case, where an old State-religion has yielded without warlike compulsion to the force of heavenly truth,--"charm we never so wisely." The whole influence which Christianity exerts over the world at large depends on the political history of modern Europe. The Christianity of Asia and Abyssinia is perhaps as pure and as respectable in this nineteenth century as it was in the fourth and fifth, yet no good or great deeds come forth out of it, of such a kind that Christian disputants dare to appeal to them with triumph. The politico-religious and very peculiar history of _European_ Christendom has alone elevated the modern world; and as Gibbon remarks, this whole history has directly depended on the fate of the great battles of Tours between the Moors and the Franks. The defeat of Mohammedism by Christendom certainly has not been effected by spiritual weapons. The soldier and the statesman have done to the full as much as the priest to secure Europe for Christianity, and win a Christendom of which Christians can be proud. As for the Christendom of Asia, the apologists of Christianity simply ignore it. With these facts, how can it be pretended that the external history of Christianity points to an exclusively divine origin? The author of the "Eclipse of Faith" has derided me for despatching in two paragraphs what occupied Gibbon's whole fifteenth chapter; but this author, here as always, misrepresents me. Gibbon is exhibiting and developing the deep-seated causes of the spread of Christianity before Constantine, and he by no means exhausts the subject. I am comparing the ostensible and notorious facts concerning the outward conquest of Christianity with those of other religions. To _account_ for the early growth of any religion, Christian, Mussulman, or Mormonite, is always difficult. III. The moral advantages which we owe to Christianity have been exaggerated by the same party spirit, as if there were in them anything miraculous. 1. We are told that Christianity is the decisive influence which has raised _womankind_: this does not appear to be true. The old Roman matron was, relatively to her husband,[12] morally as high as in modern Italy: nor is there any ground for supposing that modern women have advantage over the ancient in Spain and Portugal, where Germanic have been counteracted by Moorish influences. The relative position of the sexes in Homeric Greece exhibits nothing materially different from the present day. In Armenia and Syria perhaps Christianity has done the service of extinguishing polygamy: this is creditable, though nowise miraculous. Judaism also unlearnt polygamy, and made an unbidden improvement upon Moses. In short, only in countries where Germanic sentiment has taken root, do we see marks of any elevation of the female sex superior to that of Pagan antiquity; and as this elevation of the German woman in her deepest Paganism was already striking to Tacitus and his contemporaries, it is highly unreasonable to claim it as an achievement of Christianity. In point of fact, Christian doctrine, as propounded by Paul, is not at all so honourable to woman as that which German soundness of heart has established. With Paul[13] the _sole_ reason for marriage is, that a man may gratify instinct without sin. He teaches, that _but_ for this object it would be better not to marry. He wishes that all were in this respect as free as himself, and calls it a special gift of God. He does not encourage a man to desire a mutual soul intimately to share griefs and joys; one in whom the confiding heart can repose, whose smile shall reward and soften toil, whose voice shall beguile sorrow. He does not seem aware that the fascinations of woman refine and chasten society; that virtuous attachment has in it an element of respect, which abashes and purifies, and which shields the soul, even when marriage is deferred; nor yet, that the union of two persons who have no previous affection can seldom yield the highest fruits of matrimony, but often leads to the severest temptations. How _should_ he have known all this? Courtship before marriage did not exist in the society open to him: hence he treats the propriety of giving away a maiden, as one in which _her_ conscience, _her_ likes and dislikes, are not concerned: 1 Cor. vii. 37, 38. If the law leaves the parent "power over his own will" and imposes no "necessity" to give her away, Paul decidedly advises to keep her unmarried. The author of the Apocalypse, a writer of the first century, who was received in the second as John the apostle, holds up a yet more degrading view of the matrimonial relation. In one of his visions he exhibits 144,000 chosen saints, perpetual attendants of "the Lamb," and places the cardinal point of their sanctity in the fact, that "they were not defiled with women, but were virgins." Marriage, therefore, is defilement! Protestant writers struggle in vain against this obvious meaning of the passage. Against all analogy of Scriptural metaphor, they gratuitously pretend that _women_ mean _idolatrous religions_: namely, because in the Old Testament the Jewish Church is personified as a virgin betrothed to God, and an idol is spoken of as her paramour. As a result of the apostolic doctrines, in the second, third, and following centuries, very gross views concerning the relation of the sexes prevailed, and have been everywhere transmitted where men's morality is exclusively[14] formed from the New Testament. The marriage service of the Church of England, which incorporates the Pauline doctrine is felt by English brides and bridegrooms to contain what is so offensive and degrading, that many clergymen mercifully make unlawful omissions. Paul had indeed expressly denounced _prohibitions_ of marriage. In merely _dissuading_ it, he gave advice, which, from his limited horizon and under his expectation of the speedy return of Christ, was sensible and good; but when this advice, with all its reasons, was made on oracle of eternal wisdom, it generated the monkish notions concerning womanhood. If the desire of a wife is a weakness, which the apostle would gladly have forbidden, only that he feared worse consequences, an enthusiastic youth cannot but infer that it is a higher state of perfection _not_ to desire a wife, and therefore aspires to "the crown of virginity." Here at once is full-grown monkery. Hence that debasement of the imagination, which is directed perpetually to the lowest, instead of the highest side of the female nature. Hence the disgusting admiration and invocation of Mary's perpetual virginity. Hence the transcendental doctrine of her immaculate conception from Anne, the "grandmother of God." In the above my critics have represented me to say that Christianity has done _nothing_ for women. I have not said so, but that what it has done has been exaggerated. I say: If the _theory_ of Christianity is to take credit from the _history_ of Christendom, it must also receive discredit. Taking in the whole system of nuns and celibates, and the doctrine which sustains it, the root of which is apostolic, I doubt whether any balance of credit remains over from this side of Christian history. I am well aware that the democratic doctrine of "the equality of souls" has a _tendency_ to elevate women,--and the poorer orders too; but this is not the whole of actual Christianity, which is a very heterogeneous mass. 2. Again: the modern doctrine, by aid of which West Indian slavery has been exterminated, is often put forward as Christian; but I had always discerned that it was not Biblical, and that, in respect to this great triumph, undue credit has been claimed for the fixed Biblical and authoritative doctrine. As I have been greatly misunderstood in my first edition, I am induced to expand this topic. Sir George Stephen,[15] after describing the long struggle in England against the West Indian interest and other obstacles, says, that, for some time, "worst of all, we found the people, not actually against us, but apathetic, lethargic, incredulous, indifferent. It was then, and _not till then_, that we sounded the right note, and touched a chord that never ceased to vibrate. _To uphold slavery was a crime against God!_ It was a NOVEL DOCTRINE, but it was a cry that was heard, for it would be heard. The national conscience was awakened to inquiry, and inquiry soon produced conviction." Sir George justly calls the doctrine novel. As developed in the controversy, it laid down the general proposition, that _men and women are not, and cannot be chattels_; and that all human enactments which decree this are _morally null and void_, as sinning against the higher law of nature and of God. And the reason of this lies in the essential contrast of a moral personality and chattel. Criminals may deserve to be bound and scourged, but they do not cease to be persons, nor indeed do even the insane. Since every man is a person, he cannot be a piece of property, nor has an "owner" any just and moral claim to his services. Usage, so far from conferring this claim, increases the total amount of injustice; the longer an innocent man is _forcibly_ kept in slavery, the greater the reparation to which he is entitled for the oppressive immorality. This doctrine I now believe to be irrefutable truth, but I disbelieved it while I thought the Scripture authoritative; because I found a very different doctrine there--a doctrine which is the argumentative stronghold of the American slaveholder. Paul sent back the fugitive Onesimus to his master Philemon, with kind recommendations and apologies for the slave, and a tender charge to Philemon, that he would receive Onesimus as a brother in the Lord, since he had been converted by Paul in the interval; but this very recommendation, full of affection as it is, virtually recognizes the moral rights of Philemon to the services of his slave; and hinting that if Onesimus stole anything, Philemon should now forgive him, Paul shows perfect insensibility to the fact that the master who detains a slave in captivity against his will, is guilty himself of a continual theft. What says Mrs. Beecher Stowe's Cassy to this? "Stealing!--They who steal body and soul need not talk to us. Every one of these bills is stolen--stolen from poor starving, sweating creatures." Now Onesimus, in the very act of taking to flight, showed that he had been submitting to servitude against his will, and that the house of his owner had previously been a prison to him. To suppose that Philemon has a pecuniary interest in the return of Onesimus to work without wages, implies that the master habitually steals the slave's earnings; but if he loses nothing by the flight, he has not been wronged by it. Such is the modern doctrine, developed out of the fundamental fact that persons are not chattels; but it is to me wonderful that it should be needful to prove to any one, that this is _not_ the doctrine of the New Testament. Paul and Peter deliver excellent charges to masters in regard to the treatment of their slaves, but without any hint to them that there is an injustice in claiming them as slaves at all. That slavery, _as a system_, is essentially immoral, no Christian of those days seems to have suspected. Yet it existed in its worst forms under Rome. Whole gangs of slaves were mere tools of capitalists, and were numbered like cattle, with no moral relationship to the owner; young women of beautiful person were sold as articles of voluptuousness. Of course every such fact was looked upon by Christians as hateful and dreadful; yet, I say, it did not lead them to that moral condemnation of slavery, _as such_, which has won the most signal victory in modern times, and is destined, I trust, to win one far greater. A friendly reviewer replies to this, that the apathy of the early Christians to the intrinsic iniquity of the slave system rose out of "their expectation of an immediate close of this world's affairs. The only reason why Paul sanctioned contentment with his condition in the converted slave, was, that for so short a time it was not worth while for any man to change his state." I agree to this; but it does not alter my fact: on the contrary, it confirms what I say,--that the Biblical morality is not final truth. To account for an error surely is not to deny it. Another writer has said on the above: "Let me suppose you animated to go as missionary to the East to preach this (Mr. Newman's) spiritual system: would you, in addition to all this, publicly denounce the social and political evils under which the nations groan? If so, your spiritual projects would soon be perfectly understood, and _summarily dealt with_.--It is vain to say, that, if commissioned by Heaven, and endowed with power of working miracles, you would do so; for you cannot tell under what limitations your commission would be given: it is pretty certain, that _it would leave you to work a moral and spiritual system by moral and spiritual means_, and not allow you to turn the world upside down, and _mendaciously_ tell it that you came only to preach peace, while every syllable you uttered would be an incentive to sedition."--_Eclipse of Faith_, p. 419. This writer supposes that he is attacking _me_, when every line is an attack on Christ and Christianity. Have _I_ pretended power of working miracles? Have I imagined or desired that miracle would shield me from persecution? Did Jesus _not_ "publicly denounce the social and political evils" of Judæa? was he not "summarily dealt with"? Did he not know that his doctrine would send on earth "not peace, but a sword"? and was he _mendacious_ in saying, "Peace I leave unto you?" or were the angels mendacious in proclaiming, "Peace on earth, goodwill among men"? Was not "every syllable that Jesus uttered" in the discourse of Matth. xxiii., "an incentive to sedition?" and does this writer judge it to be _mendacity_, that Jesus opened by advising to OBEY the very men, whom he proceeds to vilify at large as immoral, oppressive, hypocritical, blind, and destined to the damnation of hell? Or have I anywhere blamed the apostles because they did _not_ exasperate wicked men by direct attacks? It is impossible to answer such a writer as this; for he elaborately misses to touch what I have said. On the other hand, it is rather too much to require me to defend Jesus from his assault. Christian preachers did not escape the imputation of turning the world upside down, and at length, in some sense, effected what was imputed. It is matter of conjecture, whether any greater convulsion would have happened, if the apostles had done as the Quakers in America. No Quaker holds slaves: why not? Because the Quakers teach their members that it is an essential immorality. The slave-holding states are infinitely more alive and jealous to keep up their "peculiar institution," than was the Roman government; yet the Quakers have caused no political convulsion. I confess, to me it seems, that if Paul, and John, and Peter, and James, had done as these Quakers, the imperial administration would have looked on it as a harmless eccentricity of the sect, and not as an incentive[16] to sedition. But be this as it may, I did not say what else the apostles might have succeeded to enforce; I merely pointed out what it was that they actually taught, and that, _as a fact_, they did _not_ declare slavery to be an immorality and the basest of thefts. If any one thinks their course was more wise, he may be right or wrong, but his opinion is in itself a concession of my fact. As to the historical progress of Christian practice and doctrine on this subject, it is, as usual, mixed of good and evil. The humanity of good Pagan emperors softened the harshness of the laws of bondage, and manumission had always been extremely common amongst the Romans. Of course, the more humane religion of Christ acted still more powerfully in the same direction, especially in inculcating the propriety of freeing _Christian_ slaves. This was creditable, but not peculiar, and is not a fact of such a nature as to add to the exclusive claims of Christianity. To every _proselyting_ religion the sentiment is so natural, that no divine spirit is needed to originate and establish it. Mohammedans also have a conscience against enslaving Mohammedans, and generally bestow freedom on a slave as soon as he adopts their religion. But no zeal for _human_ freedom has ever grown out of the purely biblical and ecclesiastical system, any more than out of the Mohammedan. In the middle ages, zeal for the liberation of serfs first rose in the breasts of the clergy, after the whole population had become nominally Christian. It was not men, but Christians, whom the clergy desired to make free: it is hard to say, that they thought Pagans to have any human rights at all, even to life. Nor is it correct to represent ecclesiastical influences as the sole agency which overthrew slavery and serfdom. The desire of the kings to raise up the chartered cities as a bridle to the barons, was that which chiefly made rustic slavery untenable in its coarsest form; for a "villain" who escaped into the free cities could not be recovered. In later times, the first public act against slavery came from republican France, in the madness of atheistic enthusiasm; when she declared black and white men to be equally free, and liberated the negroes of St. Domingo. In Britain, the battle of social freedom has been fought chiefly by that religious sect which rests least on the letter of Scripture. The bishops, and the more learned clergy, have consistently been apathetic to the duty of overthrowing the slave system.--I was thus led to see, that here also the New Testament precepts must not be received by me as any final and authoritative law of morality. But I meet opposition in a quarter from which I had least expected it;--from one who admits the imperfection of the morality actually attained by the apostles, but avows that Christianity, as a divine system, is not to be identified with apostolic doctrine, but with the doctrine _ultimately developed_ in the Christian Church; moreover, the ecclesiastical doctrine concerning slavery he alleges to be truer than mine,--I mean, truer than that which I have expounded as held by modern abolitionists. He approves of the principle of claiming freedom, not for _men_, but for _Christians_. He says: "That Christianity opened its arms at all to the servile class was enough; for in its embrace was the sure promise of emancipation.... Is it imputed as a disgrace, that Christianity put conversion before manumission, and _brought them to God, ere it trusted them with themselves_?... It created the simultaneous obligation to make the Pagan a convert, and the convert free." ... "If our author had made his attack from the opposite side, and contended that its doctrines 'proved too much' against servitude, and _assumed with too little qualification the capacity of each man for self-rule_, we should have felt more hesitation in expressing our dissent." I feel unfeigned surprize at these sentiments from one whom I so highly esteem and admire; and considering that they were written at first anonymously, and perhaps under pressure of time, for a review, I hope it is not presumptuous in me to think it possible that they are hasty, and do not wholly express a deliberate and final judgment. I must think there is some misunderstanding; for I have made no high claims about capacity for _self-rule_, as if laws and penalties were to be done away. But the question is, shall human beings, who (as all of us) are imperfect, be controlled by public law, or by individual caprice? Was not my reviewer intending to advocate some form of _serfdom_ which is compatible with legal rights, and recognizes the serf as a man; not _slavery_ which pronounces him a chattel? Serfdom and apprenticeship we may perhaps leave to be reasoned down by economists and administrators; slavery proper is what I attacked as essentially immoral. Returning then to the arguments, I reason against them as if I did not know their author.--I have distinctly avowed, that the effort to liberate Christian slaves was creditable: I merely add, that in this respect Christianity is no better than Mohammedism. But is it really no moral fault,--is it not a moral enormity,--to deny that Pagans have human rights? "That Christianity opened its arms _at all_ to the servile class, _was enough_." Indeed! Then either unconverted men have no natural right to freedom, or Christians may withhold a natural right from them. Under the plea of "bringing them to God," Christians are to deny by law, to every slave who refuses to be converted, the rights of husband and father, rights of persons, rights of property, rights over his own body. Thus manumission is a bribe to make hypocritical converts, and Christian superiority a plea for depriving men of their dearest rights. Is not freedom older than Christianity? Does the Christian recommend his religion to a Pagan by stealing his manhood and all that belongs to it? Truly, if only Christians have a right to personal freedom, what harm is there in hunting and catching Pagans to make slaves of them? And this was exactly the "development" of thought and doctrine in the Christian church. The same priests who taught that _Christians_ have moral rights to their sinews and skin, to their wives and children, and to the fruit of their labour, which _Pagans_ have not, consistently developed the same fundamental idea of Christian superiority into the lawfulness of making war upon the heathen, and reducing them to the state of domestic animals. If Christianity is to have credit from the former, it must also take the credit of the latter. If cumulative evidence of its divine origin is found in the fact, that Christendom has liberated Christian slaves, must we forget the cumulative evidence afforded by the assumed right of the Popes to carve out the countries of the heathen, and bestow them with their inhabitants on Christian powers? Both results flow logically out of the same assumption, and were developed by the same school. But, I am told, a man must not be freed, until we have ascertained his capacity for self-rule! This is indeed a tyrannical assumption: _vindicioe secundum servitutem_. Men are not to have their human rights, until we think they will not abuse them! Prevention is to be used against the hitherto innocent and injured! The principle involves all that is arrogant, violent, and intrusive, in military tyranny and civil espionage. Self-rule? But abolitionists have no thought of exempting men from the penalties of common law, if they transgress the law; we only desire that all men shall be equally subjected to the law, and equally protected by it. It is truly a strange inference, that because a man is possibly deficient in virtue, therefore he shall not be subject to public law, but to private caprice: as if this were a school of virtue, and not eminently an occasion of vice. Truer far is Homer's morality, who says, that a man loses half his virtue on the day he is made a slave. As to the pretence that slaves are not fit for freedom, those Englishmen who are old enough to remember the awful predictions which West Indian planters used to pour forth about the bloodshed and confusion which would ensue, if they were hindered by law from scourging black men and violating black women, might, I think, afford to despise the danger of _enacting_ that men and women shall be treated as men and women, and not made tools of vice end victims of cruelty. If ever sudden emancipation ought to have produced violences and wrong from the emancipated, it was in Jamaica, where the oppression and ill-will was so great; yet the freed blacks have not in fifteen years inflicted on the whites as much lawless violence as they suffered themselves in six months of apprenticeship. It is the _masters_ of slaves, not the slaves, who are deficient in self-rule; and slavery is doubly detestable, because it depraves the masters. What degree of "worldly moderation and economical forethought" is needed by a practical statesman in effecting the liberation of slaves, it is no business of mine to discuss. I however feel assured, that no constitutional statesman, having to contend against the political votes of numerous and powerful slave-owners, who believe their fortunes to be at stake, will ever be found to undertake the task _at all_, against the enormous resistance of avarice and habit, unless religious teachers pierce the conscience of the nation by denouncing slavery as an essential wickedness. Even the petty West Indian interests--a mere fraction of the English empire--were too powerful, until this doctrine was taught. Mr. Canning in parliament spoke emphatically against slavery, but did not dare to bring in a bill against it. When such is English experience, I cannot but expect the same will prove true in America. In replying to objectors, I have been carried beyond my narrative, and have written from my _present_ point of view; I may therefore here complete this part of the argument, though by anticipation. The New Testament has beautifully laid down Truth and Love as the culminating virtues of man; but it has imperfectly discerned that Love is impossible where Justice does not go first. Regarding this world as destined to be soon burnt up, it despaired of improving the foundations of society, and laid down the principle of Non-resistance, even to Injurious force, in terms so unlimited, as practically to throw its entire weight into the scale of tyranny. It recognises individuals who call themselves kings or magistrates (however tyrannical and usurping), as Powers ordained of God: it does _not_ recognize nations as Communities ordained of God, or as having any power and authority whatsoever, as against pretentious individuals. To obey a king, is strenuously enforced; to resist a usurping king, in a patriotic cause, is not contemplated in the New Testament as under any circumstances an imaginable duty. Patriotism has no recognised existence in the Christian records. I am well aware of the _cause_ of this; I do not say that it reflects any dishonour on the Christian apostles: I merely remark on it as a calamitous fact, and deduce that their precepts cannot and must not be made the sufficient rule of life, or they will still be (as they always have hitherto been) a mainstay of tyranny. The rights of Men and of Nations are wholly ignored[17] in the New Testament, but the authority of Slave-owners and of Kings is very distinctly recorded for solemn religious sanction. If it had been wholly silent, no one could have appealed to its decision: but by consecrating mere Force, it has promoted Injustice, and in so far has made that Love impossible, which it desired to establish. It is but one part of this great subject, that the apostles absolutely command a slave to give obedience to his master in nil things, "as to the Lord." It is in vain to deny, that _the most grasping of slave-owners asks nothing more of abolitionists than that they would all adopt Paul's creed_; viz., acknowledge the full authority of owners of slaves, tell them that they are responsible to God alone, and charge them to use their power righteously and mercifully. 3. LASTLY: it is a lamentable fact, that not only do superstitions about Witches, Ghosts, Devils, and Diabolical Miracles derive a strong support from the Bible, (and in fact have been exploded by nothing but the advance of physical philosophy,)--but what is far worse, the Bible alone has nowhere sufficed to establish an enlightened religious toleration. This is at first seemingly unintelligible: for the apostles certainly would have been intensely shocked at the thought of punishing men, in body, purse, or station, for not being Christians or not being orthodox. Nevertheless, not only does the Old Testament justify bloody persecution, but the New teaches[18] that God will visit men with fiery vengeance _for holding an erroneous creed_;--that vengeance indeed is his, not ours; but that still the punishment is deserved. It would appear, that wherever this doctrine is held, possession of power for two or three generations inevitably converts men into persecutors; and in so far, we must lay the horrible desolations which Europe has suffered from bigotry, at the doors, not indeed of the Christian apostles themselves, but of that Bibliolatry which has converted their earliest records into a perfect and eternal law. IV. "Prophecy" is generally regarded as a leading evidence of the divine origin of Christianity. But this also had proved itself to me a more and more mouldering prop, whether I leant on those which concerned Messiah, those of the New Testament, or the miscellaneous predictions of the Old Testament. 1. As to the Messianic prophecies, I began to be pressed with the difficulty of proving against the Jews that "Messiah was to suffer." The Psalms generally adduced for this purpose can in no way be fixed on Messiah. The prophecy in the 9th chapter of Daniel looks specious in the authorized English version, but has evaporated in the Greek translation and is not acknowledged in the best German renderings. I still rested on the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, as alone fortifying me against the Rabbis: yet with an unpleasantly increasing perception that the system of "double interpretation" in which Christians indulge, is a playing fast and loose with prophecy, and is essentially dishonest _No one dreams of a "second" sense until the primary sense proves false_: all false prophecy may be thus screened. The three prophecies quoted (Acts xiii. 33--35) in proof of the resurrection of Jesus, are simply puerile, and deserve no reply.--I felt there was something unsound in all this. 2. The prophecies of the New Testament are not many. First, we have that of Jesus in Matt xxiv. concerning the destruction of Jerusalem. It is marvellously exact, down to the capture of the city and miserable enslavement of the population; but at this point it becomes clearly and hopelessly false: namely, it declares, that "_immediately after_ that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, &c. &c., and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect," &c. This is a manifest description of the Great Day of Judgment: and the prophecy goes on to add: "Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." When we thus find a prediction to break down suddenly in the middle, we have the well-known mark of its earlier part being written after the event: and it becomes unreasonable to doubt that the detailed annunciations of this 24th chapter of Matthew, were first composed _very soon after_ the war of Titus, and never came from the lips of Jesus at all. Next: we have the prophecies of the Apocalypse. Not one of these can be interpreted certainly of any human affairs, except one in the 17th chapter, which the writer himself has explained to apply to the emperors of Rome: and that is proved false by the event.--Farther, we have Paul's prophecies concerning the apostacy of the Christian Church. These are very striking, as they indicate his deep insight into the moral tendencies of the community in which he moved. They are high testimonies to the prophetic soul of Paul; and as such, I cannot have any desire to weaken their force. But there is nothing in them that can establish the theory of supernaturalism, in the face of his great mistake as to the speedy return of Christ from heaven. 3. As for the Old Testament, if all its prophecies about Babylon and Tyre and Edom and Ishmael and the four Monarchies were both true and supernatural, what would this prove? That God had been pleased to reveal something of coming history to certain eminent men of Hebrew antiquity. That is all. We should receive this conclusion with an otiose faith. It could not order or authorize us to submit our souls and consciences to the obviously defective morality of the Mosaic system in which these prophets lived; and with Christianity it has nothing to do. At the same time I had reached the conclusion that large deductions must be made from the credit of these old prophecies. First, as to the Book of Daniel: the 11th chapter is closely historical down to Antiochus Epiphanes, after which it suddenly becomes false; and according to different modern expositors, leaps away to Mark Antony, or to Napoleon Buonaparte, or to the Papacy. Hence we have a _prima facie_ presumption that the book was composed in the reign of that Antiochus; nor can it be proved to have existed earlier: nor is there in it one word of prophecy which can be shown to have been fulfilled in regard to any later era. Nay, the 7th chapter also is confuted by the event; for the great Day of Judgment has not followed upon the fourth[19] Monarchy. Next, as to the prophecies of the Pentateuch. They abound, as to the times which precede the century of Hezekiah; higher than which we cannot trace the Pentateuch.[20] No prophecy of the Pentateuch can be proved to have been fulfilled, which had not been already fulfilled before Hezekiah's day. Thirdly, as to the prophecies which concern various nations,--some of them are remarkably verified, as that against Babylon; others failed, as those of Ezekiel concerning Nebuchadnezzar's wars against Tyre and Egypt. The fate predicted against Babylon was delayed for five centuries, so as to lose all moral meaning as a divine infliction on the haughty city.--On the whole, it was clear to me, that it is a vain attempt to forge polemical weapons out of these old prophets, for the service of modern creeds.[21] V. My study of John's gospel had not enabled me to sustain Dr. Arnold's view, that it was an impregnable fortress of Christianity. In discussing the Apocalypse, I had long before felt a doubt whether we ought not rather to assign that book to John the apostle in preference to the Gospel and Epistles: but this remained only as a doubt. The monotony also of the Gospel had often excited my _wonder_. But I was for the first time _offended_, on considering with a fresh mind an old fact,--the great similarity of the style and phraseology in the third chapter, in the testimony of the Baptist, as well as in Christ's address to Nicodemus, that of John's own epistle. As the three first gospels have their family likeness, which enables us on hearing a text to know that it comes out of one of the three, though we perhaps know not which; so is it with the Gospel and Epistles of John. When a verse is read, we know that it is either from an epistle of John, or else from the Jesus of John; but often we cannot tell which. On contemplating the marked character of this phenomenon, I saw it infallibly[22] to indicate that John has made both the Baptist and Jesus speak, as John himself would have spoken; and that we cannot trust the historical reality of the discourses in the fourth gospel. That narrative introduces an entirely new phraseology, with a perpetual discoursing about the Father and the Son; of which there is barely the germ in Matthew:--and herewith a new doctrine concerning the heaven-descended personality of Jesus. That the divinity of Christ cannot be proved from the three first gospels, was confessed by the early Church, and is proved by the labouring arguments of the modern Trinitarians. What then can be dearer, than that John has put into the mouth of Jesus the doctrines of half a century later, which he desired to recommend? When this conclusion pressed itself first on my mind, the name of Strauss was only beginning to be known in England, and I did not read his great work until years after I had come to a final opinion on this whole subject. The contemptuous reprobation of Strauss in which it is fashionable for English writers to indulge, makes it a duty to express my high sense of the lucid force with which he unanswerably shows that the fourth gospel (whoever the author was) is no faithful exhibition of the discourses of Jesus. Before I had discerned this so vividly in all its parts, it had become quite certain to me that the secret colloquy with Nicodemus, and the splendid testimony of the Baptist to the Father and the Son, were wholly modelled out of John's own imagination. And no sooner had I felt how severe was the shock to John's general veracity, than a new and even graver difficulty rose upon me. The stupendous and public event of Lazarus's resurrection,--the circumstantial cross-examination of the man born blind and healed by Jesus,--made those two miracles, in Dr. Arnold's view, grand and unassailable bulwarks of Christianity. The more I considered them, the mightier their superiority seemed to those of the other gospels. They were wrought at Jerusalem, under the eyes of the rulers, who did their utmost to detect them, and could not; but in frenzied despair, plotted to kill Lazarus. How different from the frequently vague and wholesale statements of the other gospels concerning events which happened where no enemy was watching to expose delusion! many of them in distant and uncertain localities. But it became the more needful to ask; How was it that the other writers omitted to tell of such decisive exhibitions? Were they so dull in logic, as not to discern the superiority of these? Can they possibly have known of such miracles, wrought under the eyes of the Pharisees, and defying all their malice, and yet have told in preference other less convincing marvels? The question could not be long dwelt on, without eliciting the reply: "It is necessary to believe, at least until the contrary shall be proved, that the three first writers either had never heard of these two miracles, or disbelieved them." Thus the account rests on the unsupported evidence of John, with a weighty presumption against its truth. When, where, and in what circumstances did John write? It is agreed, that he wrote half a century after the events; when the other disciples were all dead; when Jerusalem was destroyed, her priests and learned men dispersed, her nationality dissolved, her coherence annihilated;--he wrote in a tongue foreign to the Jews of Palestine, and for a foreign people, in a distant country, and in the bosom of an admiring and confiding church, which was likely to venerate him the more, the greater marvels he asserted concerning their Master. He told them miracles of firstrate magnitude, which no one before had recorded. Is it possible for me to receive them _on his word_, under circumstances so conducive to delusion, and without a single check to ensure his accuracy? Quite impossible; when I have already seen how little to be trusted is his report of the discourses and doctrine of Jesus. But was it necessary to impute to John conscious and wilful deception? By no means absolutely necessary;--as appeared by the following train[23] of thought. John tells us that Jesus promised the Comforter, _to bring to their memory_ things that concerned him; oh that one could have the satisfaction of cross-examining John on this subject! Let me suppose him put into the witness-box; and I will speak to him thus: "O aged Sir, we understand that you have two memories, a natural and a miraculous one: with the former you retain events as other men; with the latter you recall what had been totally forgotten. Be pleased to tell us now. Is it from your natural or from your supernatural memory that you derive your knowledge of the miracle wrought on Lazarus and the long discourses which you narrate?" If to this question John were frankly to reply, "It is solely from my supernatural memory,--from the special action of the Comforter on my mind:" then should I discern that he was perfectly truehearted. Yet I should also see, that he was liable to mistake a reverie, a meditation, a day-dream, for a resuscitation of his memory by the Spirit. In short, a writer who believes such a doctrine, and does not think it requisite to warn us how much of his tale comes from his natural, and how much from his supernatural memory, forfeits all claim to be received as an historian, witnessing by the common senses to external fact. His work may have religious value, but it is that of a novel or romance, not of a history. It is therefore superfluous to name the many other difficulties in detail which it contains. Thus was I flung back to the three first gospels, as, with all their defects,--their genealogies, dreams, visions, devil-miracles, and prophecies written after the event,--yet on the whole, more faithful as a picture of the true Jesus, than that which is exhibited in John. And now my small root of supernaturalism clung the tighter to Paul, whose conversion still appeared to me a guarantee, that there was at least some nucleus of miracle in Christianity, although it had not pleased God to give us any very definite and trustworthy account. Clearly it was an error, to make miracles our _foundation_; but might we not hold them as a result? Doctrine must be our foundation; but perhaps we might believe the miracles for the sake of it.--And in the epistles of Paul I thought I saw various indications that he took this view. The practical soundness of his eminently sober understanding had appeared to me the more signal, the more I discerned the atmosphere of erroneous philosophy which he necessarily breathed. But he also proved a broken reed, when I tried really to lean upon him as a main support. 1. The first thing that broke on me concerning Paul, was, that his moral sobriety of mind was no guarantee against his mistaking extravagances for miracle. This was manifest to me in his treatment of _the gift of tongues_. So long ago as in 1830, when the Irving "miracles" commenced in Scotland, my particular attention had been turned to this subject, and the Irvingite exposition of the Pauline phenomena appeared to me so correct, that I was vehemently predisposed to believe the miraculous tongues. But my friend "the Irish clergyman" wrote me a full account of what he heard with his own ears; which was to the effect--that none of the sounds, vowels or consonants, were foreign;--that the strange words were moulded after the Latin grammar, ending in -abus, -obus, -ebat, -avi, &c., so as to denote poverty of invention rather than spiritual agency;--and _that there was no interpretation_. The last point decided me, that any belief which I had in it must be for the present unpractical. Soon after, a friend of mine applied by letter for information as to the facts to a very acute and pious Scotchman, who had become a believer in these miracles. The first reply gave us no facts whatever, but was a declamatory exhortation to believe. The second was nothing but a lamentation over my friend's unbelief, because he asked again for the facts. This showed me, that there was excitement and delusion: yet the general phenomena appeared so similar to those of the church of Corinth, that I supposed the persons must unawares have copied the exterior manifestations, if, after all, there was no reality at bottom. Three years sufficed to explode these tongues; and from time to time I had an uneasy sense, how much discredit they cast on the Corinthian miracles. Meander's discussion on the 2nd Chapter of the Acts first opened to me the certainty, that Luke (or the authority whom he followed) has exaggerated into a gift of languages what cannot have been essentially different from the Corinthian, and in short from the Irvingite, tongues. Thus Luke's narrative has transformed into a splendid miracle, what in Paul is no miracle at all. It is true that Paul speaks of _interpretation of tongues_ as possible, but without a hint that any verification was to be used. Besides, why should a Greek not speak Greek in an assembly of his own countrymen? Is it credible, that the Spirit should inspire one man to utter unintelligible sounds, and a second to interpret these, and then give the assembly endless trouble to find out whether the interpretation was pretence or reality, when the whole difficulty was gratuitous? We grant that there _may_ be good reasons for what is paradoxical, but we need the stronger proof that it is a reality. Yet what in fact is there? and why should the gift of tongues in Corinth, as described by Paul, be treated with more respect than in Newman Street, London? I could find no other reply, than that Paul was too sober-minded: yet his own description of the tongues is that of a barbaric jargon, which makes the church appear as if it "were mad," and which is only redeemed from contempt by miraculous interpretation. In the Acts we see that this phenomenon pervaded all the Churches; from the day of Pentecost onward it was looked on as the standard mark of "the descent of the Holy Spirit;" and in the conversion of Cornelius it was the justification of Peter for admitting uncircumcised Gentiles: yet not once is "interpretation" alluded to, except in Paul's epistle. Paul could not go against the whole Church. He held a logic too much in common with the rest, to denounce the tongues as _mere_ carnal excitement; but he does anxiously degrade them as of lowest spiritual value, and wholly prohibits them where there is "no interpreter." To carry out this rule, would perhaps have suppressed them entirely. This however showed me, that I could not rest on Paul's practical wisdom, as securing him against speculative hallucinations in the matter of miracles; for indeed he says: "I thank my God, that I speak with tongues _more than ye all_." 2. To another broad fact I had been astonishingly blind, though the truth of it flashed upon me as soon as I heard it named;--that Paul shows total unconcern to the human history and earthly teaching of Jesus, never quoting his doctrine or any detail of his actions. The Christ with whom Paul held communion was a risen, ascended, exalted Lord, a heavenly being, who reigned over arch-angels, and was about to appear as Judge of the world: but of Jesus in the flesh Paul seems to know nothing beyond the bare fact that he _did_[24] "humble himself" to become man, and "pleased not himself." Even in the very critical controversy about meat and drink, Paul omits to quote Christ's doctrine, "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth the man," &c. He surely, therefore, must have been wholly and contentedly ignorant of the oral teachings of Jesus. 3. This threw a new light on the _independent_ position of Paul. That he anxiously refused to learn from the other apostles, and "conferred not with flesh and blood,"--not having received his gospel of many but by the revelation of Jesus Christ--had seemed to me quite suitable to his high pretensions. Any novelties which might be in his doctrine, I had regarded as mere developments, growing out of the common stem, and guaranteed by the same Spirit. But I now saw that this independence invalidated his testimony. He may be to us a supernatural, but he certainly is not a natural, witness to the truth of Christ's miracles and personality. It avails not to talk of the _opportunities_ which he had of searching into the truth of the resurrection of Christ, for we see that he did not choose to avail himself of the common methods of investigation. He learned his gospel _by an internal revelation_.[25] He even recounts the appearance of Christ to him, years after his ascension, as evidence co-ordinate to his appearance to Peter and to James, and to 500 brethren at once. 1 Cor. xv. Again the thought is forced on us,--how different was his logic from ours! To see the full force of the last remark, we ought to conceive how many questions a Paley would have wished to ask of Paul; and how many details Paley himself, if _he_ had had the sight, would have felt it his duty to impart to his readers. Had Paul ever seen Jesus when alive? How did he recognize the miraculous apparition to be the person whom Pilate had crucified? Did he see him as a man in a fleshly body, or as a glorified heavenly form? Was it in waking, or sleeping, and if the latter, how did he distinguish his divine vision from a common dream? Did he see only, or did he also handle? If it was a palpable man of flesh, how did he assure himself that it was a person risen from the dead, and not an ordinary living man? Now as Paul _is writing specially[26] to convince the incredulous or to confirm the wavering_, it is certain that he would have dwelt on these details, if he had thought them of value to the argument. As he wholly suppresses them, we must infer that he held them to be immaterial; and therefore that the evidence with which he was satisfied, in proof that a man was risen from the dead, was either totally different in kind from that which we should now exact, or exceedingly inferior in rigour. It appears, that he believed in the resurrection of Christ, first, on the ground of prophecy:[27] secondly, (I feel it is not harsh or bold to add,) on very loose and wholly unsifted testimony. For since he does not afford to us the means of sifting and analyzing his testimony, he cannot have judged it our duty so to do; and therefore is not likely himself to have sifted very narrowly the testimony of others. Conceive farther how a Paley would have dealt with so astounding a fact, so crushing an argument as the appearance of the risen Jesus _to 500 brethren at once_. How would he have extravagated and revelled in proof! How would he have worked the topic, that "this could have been no dream, no internal impression, no vain fancy, but a solid indubitable fact!" How he would have quoted his authorities, detailed their testimonies, and given their names and characters! Yet Paul dispatches the affair in one line, gives no details and no special declarations, and seems to see no greater weight in this decisive appearance, than in the vision to his single self. He expects us to take his very vague announcement of the 500 brethren as enough, and it does not seem to occur to him that his readers (if they need to be convinced) are entitled to expect fuller information. Thus if Paul does not intentionally supersede human testimony, he reduces it to its minimum of importance. How can I believe _at second hand_, from the word of one whom I discern to hold so lax notions of evidence? Yet _who_ of the Christian teachers was superior to Paul? He is regarded as almost the only educated man of the leaders. Of his activity of mind, his moral sobriety, his practical talents, his profound sincerity, his enthusiastic self-devotion, his spiritual insight, there is no question: but when his notions of evidence are infected with the errors of his age, what else can we expect of the eleven, and of the multitude? 4. Paul's neglect of the earthly teaching of Jesus might in part be imputed to the nonexistence of written documents and the great difficulty of learning with certainty what he really had taught.--This agreed perfectly well with what I already saw of the untrustworthiness of our gospels; but it opened a chasm between the doctrine of Jesus and that of Paul, and showed that Paulinism, however good in itself, is not assuredly to be identified with primitive Christianity. Moreover, it became clear, why James and Paul are so contrasted. James retains with little change the traditionary doctrine of the Jerusalem Christians; Paul has superadded or substituted a gospel of his own. This was, I believe, pointedly maintained 25 years ago by the author of "Not Paul, but Jesus;" a book which I have never read. VII. I had now to ask,--Where are _the twelve men_ of whom Paley talks, as testifying to the resurrection of Christ? Paul cannot be quoted as a witness, but only as a believer. Of the twelve we do not even know the names, much less have we their testimony. Of James and Jude there are two epistles, but it is doubtful whether either of these is of the twelve apostles; and neither of them declare themselves eyewitnesses to Christ's resurrection. In short, Peter and John are the only two. Of these however, Peter does not attest the _bodily_, but only the _spiritual_, resurrection of Jesus; for he says that Christ was[28] "put to death in flesh, but made alive in spirit," 1 Pet iii. 18: yet if this verse had been lost, his opening address (i. 3) would have seduced me into the belief that Peter taught the bodily resurrection of Jesus. So dangerous is it to believe miracles, on the authority of words quoted from a man whom we cannot cross-examine! Thus, once more, John is left alone in his testimony; and how insufficient that is, has been said. The question also arose, whether Peter's testimony to the transfiguration (2 Pet. i. 18), was an important support. A first objection might be drawn from the sleep ascribed to the three disciples in the gospels; if the narrative were at all trustworthy. But a second and greater difficulty arises in the doubtful authenticity of the second Epistle of Peter. Neander positively decides against that epistle. Among many reasons, the similarity of its second chapter to the Epistle of Jude is a cardinal fact. Jude is supposed to be original; yet his allusions show him to be post-apostolic. If so, the second Epistle of Peter is clearly spurious.--Whether this was certain, I could not make up my mind: but it was manifest that where such doubts may be honestly entertained, no basis exists to found a belief of a great and significant miracle. On the other hand, both the Transfiguration itself, and the fiery destruction of Heaven and Earth prophesied in the third chapter of this epistle, are open to objections so serious, as mythical imaginations, that the name of Peter will hardly guarantee them to those with whom the general evidence for the miracles in the gospels has thoroughly broken down. On the whole, one thing only was clear concerning Peter's faith;--that he, like Paul, was satisfied with a kind of evidence for the resurrection of Jesus which fell exceedingly short of the demands of modern logic: and that it is absurd in us to believe, barely _because_ they believed. [Footnote 1: Matt. xii. 39, xvi. 4.] [Footnote 2: John xx. 29.] [Footnote 3: John xiv, 11. In x. 37, 38, the same idea seems to be intended. So xv. 24.] [Footnote 4: A reviewer erroneously treats this as inculcating a denial of the possibility of inward revelation. It merely says, that _some answer_ in needed to these questions; and _none in given_. We can make out (in my opinion) that dreams and inward impressions were the form of suggestion trusted to; but we do not learn what precautions were used against foolish credulity.] [Footnote 5: If miracles were vouchsafed on the scale of a _new sense_, it is of course conceivable that they would reveal new masses of fact, tending to modify our moral judgments of particular actions: but nothing of this can be made out in Judaism or Christianity.] [Footnote 6: A friendly reviewer derides this passage as a very feeble objection to the doctrine of the Absolute Moral perfections of Jesus. It in here rather feebly _stated_, because at that period I had not fully worked out the thought. He seems to have forgotten that I am narrating.] [Footnote 7: An ingenious gentleman, well versed in history, has put forth a volume called "The Restoration of Faith," in which he teaches that _I have no right to a conscience or to a God_, until I adopt his historical conclusions. I leave his co-religionists to confute his portentous heresy; but in fact it is already done more than enough in a splendid article of the "Westminster Review," July, 1852.] [Footnote 8: I seem to have been understood now to say that a knowledge of the Bible was not a pre-requisite of the Protestant Reformation. What I say is, that at this period I learned the study of the Classics to have caused and determined that it should then take place; moreover, I say that a free study of _other books than sacred ones_ is essential, and always was, to conquer superstition.] [Footnote 9: I am asked why _Italy_ witnessed no improvement of spiritual doctrine. The reply is, that _she did_. The Evangelical movement there was quelled only by the Imperial arms and the Inquisition. I am also asked why Pagan Literature did not save the ancient church from superstition. I have always understood that the vast majority of Christian teachers during the decline were unacquainted with Pagan literature, and that the Church at an early period _forbade_ it.] [Footnote 10: My friend James Martineau, who insists that "a self-sustaining power" in a religion is a thing _intrinsically inconceivable_, need not have censured me for coming to the conclusion that it does not exist in Christianity. In fact, I entirely agree with him; but at the time of which I here write, I had only taken the first step in his direction; and I barely drew a negative conclusion, to which he perfectly assents. To my dear friend's capacious and kindling mind, all the thought here expounded are prosaic and common; being to him quite obvious, so far as they are true. He is right in looking down upon them; and, I trust, by his aid, I have added to my wisdom since the time of which I write. Yet they were to me discoveries once, and he must not be displeased at my making much of them in this connexion.] [Footnote 11: It is the fault of my critics that I am forced to tell the reader this is exhibited in my "Hebrew Monarchy."] [Footnote 12: It in not to the purpose to urge the _political_ minority of the Roman wife. This was a mere inference from the high power of the bond of the husband. The father had right of death over his son, and (as the lawyers stated the case), the wife was on the level of one of the children.] [Footnote 13: 1 Cor. vii. 2-9] [Footnote 14: Namely, in the Armenian, Syrian, and Greek churches, and in the Romish church in exact proportion as Germanic and poetical influences have been repressed; that is, in proportion as the hereditary Christian doctrine has been kept pure from modern innovations.] [Footnote 15: In a tract republished from the _Northampton Mercury_ Longman, 1853.] [Footnote 16: The Romans practised fornication at pleasure, and held it ridiculous to blame them. If Paul had claimed authority to hinder them, they might have been greatly exasperated; but they had not the least objection to his denouncing fornication as immoral to Christians. Why not slavery also?] [Footnote 17: I fear it cannot be denied that the zeal for Christianity which began to arise in our upper classes sixty years ago, was largely prompted by a feeling that its precepts repress all speculations concerning the rights of man. A similar cause now influences despots all over Europe. The _Old_ Testament contains the elements which they dread, and those gave a political creed to our Puritans.] [Footnote 18: More than one critic flatly denies the fact. It is sufficient for me here to say, that such is the obvious interpretation, and such _historically has been_ the interpretation of various texts,--for instance, 2 Thess. i. 7: "The Lord Jesus shall be revealed... in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them _that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel_; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction," &c. Such again is the sense which all popular minds receive and must receive from Heb, x. 25-31.--I am willing to change _teaches_ into _has always been understood to teach_, if my critics think anything is gained by it.] [Footnote 19: The four monarchies in chapters ii. and vii, are, probably, the Babylonian, the Median, the Persian, the Macedonian. Interpreters however blend the Medes and Persians into one, and then pretend that the Roman empire is _still in existence_.] [Footnote 20: The first apparent reference is by Micah (vi. 5) a contemporary of Hezekiah; which proves that an account contained in our Book of Numbers was already familiar.] [Footnote 21: I have had occasion to discuss most of the leading prophecies of the Old Testament in my "Hebrew Monarchy."] [Footnote 22: A critic is pleased to call this a mere _suspicion_ of my own; in so writing, people simply evade my argument. I do not ask them to adopt my conviction; I merely communicate it as mine, and wish them to admit that it is _my duty_ to follow my own conviction. It is with me no mere "suspicion," but a certainty. When they cannot possibly give, or pretend, any _proof_ that the long discourses of the fourth gospel have been accurately reported, they ought to be less supercilious in their claims of unlimited belief. If it is right for them to follow their judgment on a purely literary question, let them not carp at me for following mine.] [Footnote 23: I am told that this defence of John is fanciful. It satisfies me provisionally; but I do not hold myself bound to satisfy others, or to explain John's delusiveness.] [Footnote 24: Phil. ii. 5-8; Rom. xv. 3. The last suggests it was from the Psalms (viz from Ps. lxix. 9) that Paul learned the _fact_ that Christ pleased not himself.] [Footnote 25: Here, again, I have been erroneously understood to say that there cannot be _any_ internal revelation of _anything_. Internal truth may be internally communicated, though even so it does not become authoritative, or justify the receiver in saying to other men, "Believe, _for_ I guarantee it." But a man who, on the strength of an _internal_ revelation believes an _external event_, (past, present, or future,) is not a valid witness of it. Not Paley only, nor Priestley, but James Martineau also, would disown his pretence to authority; and the more so, the more imperious his claim that we believe on his word.] [Footnote 26: This appears in v. 2, "by which ye are saved,--_unless ye have believed in vain_" &c. So v. 17-19.] [Footnote 27: 1 Cor. xv. "He rose again the third day _according to the Scriptures_." This must apparently be a reference to Hosea vi. 2, to which the margin of the Bible refers. There is no other place in the existing Old Testament from which we can imagine him to have elicited the rising _on the third day_. Some refer to the type of Jonah. Either of the two suggests how marvellously weak a proof satiated him.] [Footnote 28: Such is the most legitimate translation. That in the received version is barely a possible meaning. There is no such distinction of prepositions as _in_ and _by_ in this passage.] CHAPTER VI. HISTORY DISCOVERED TO BE NO PART OF RELIGION. After renouncing any "Canon of Scripture" or Sacred Letter at the end of my fourth period, I had been forced to abandon all "Second-hand Faith" by the end of my fifth. If asked _why_ I believed this or that, I could no longer say, "_Because_ Peter, or Paul, or John believed, and I may thoroughly trust that they cannot mistake." The question now pressed hard, whether this was equivalent to renouncing Christianity. Undoubtedly, my positive belief in its miracles had evaporated; but I had not arrived at a positive _dis_belief. I still felt the actual benefits and comparative excellencies of this religion too remarkable a phenomenon to be scored for defect of proof. In Morals likewise it happens, that the ablest practical expounders of truth may make strange blunders as to the foundations and ground of belief: why was this impossible as to the apostles? Meanwhile, it did begin to appear to myself remarkable, that I continued to love and have pleasure in so much that I certainly disbelieved. I perused a chapter of Paul or of Luke, or some verses of a hymn, and although they appeared to me to abound with error, I found satisfaction and profit in them. Why was this? was it all fond prejudice,--an absurd clinging to old associations? A little self-examination enabled me to reply, that it was no ill-grounded feeling or ghost of past opinions; but that my religion always had been, and still was, a _state of sentiment_ toward God, far less dependent on articles of a creed, than once I had unhesitatingly believed. The Bible is pervaded by a sentiment,[1] which is implied everywhere,--viz. _the intimate sympathy of the Pure and Perfect God with the heart of each faithful worshipper_. This is that which is wanting in Greek philosophers, English Deists, German Pantheists, and all formalists. This is that which so often edifies me in Christian writers and speakers, when I ever so much disbelieve the letter of their sentences. Accordingly, though I saw more and more of moral and spiritual imperfection in the Bible, I by no means ceased to regard it as a quarry whence I might dig precious metal, though the ore needed a refining analysis: and I regarded this as the truest essence and most vital point in Christianity,--to sympathize with the great souls from whom its spiritual eminence has flowed;--to love, to hope, to rejoice, to trust with them;--and _not_, to form the same interpretations of an ancient book and to take the same views of critical argument. My historical conception of Jesus had so gradually melted into dimness, that he had receded out of my practical religion, I knew not exactly when I believe that I must have disused any distinct prayers to him, from a growing opinion that he ought not to be the _object_ of worship, but only the _way_ by whom we approach to the Father; and as in fact we need no such "way" at all, this was (in the result) a change from practical Ditheism to pure Theism. His "mediation" was to me always a mere name, and, as I believe, would otherwise have been mischievous.[2]--Simultaneously a great uncertainty had grown on me, how much of the discourses put into the mouth of Jesus was really uttered by him; so that I had in no small measure to form him anew to my imagination. But if religion is addressed to, and must be judged by, our moral faculties, how could I believe in that painful and gratuitous personality,--The Devil?--He also had become a waning phantom to me, perhaps from the time that I saw the demoniacal miracles to be fictions, and still more when proofs of manifold mistake in the New Testament rose on me. This however took a solid form of positive _dis_belief, when I investigated the history of the doctrine,--I forget exactly in what stage. For it is manifest, that the old Hebrews believed only in evil spirits sent _by God_ to do _his bidding_, and had no idea of a rebellious Spirit that rivalled God. That idea was first imbibed in the Babylonish captivity, and apparently therefore must have been adopted from the Persian Ahriman, or from the "Melek Taous," the "Sheitan" still honoured by the Yezidi with mysterious fear. That _the serpent_ in the early part of Genesis denoted the same Satan, is probable enough; but this only goes to show, that that narrative is a legend imported from farther East; since it is certain that the subsequent Hebrew literature has no trace of such an Ahriman. The Book of Tobit and its demon show how wise in these matters the exiles in Nineveh were beginning to be. The Book of Daniel manifests, that by the time of Antiochus Epiphanes the Jews had learned each nation to have its guardian spirit, good or evil; and that the fates of nations depend on the invisible conflict of these tutelary powers. In Paul the same idea is strongly brought out. Satan is the prince of the power of the air; with principalities and powers beneath him; over all of whom Christ won the victory on his cross. In the Apocalypse we read the Oriental doctrine of the "_seven angels_ who stand before God." As the Christian tenet thus rose among the Jews from their contact with Eastern superstition, and was propagated and expanded while prophecy was mute, it cannot be ascribed to "divine supernatural revelation" as the source. The ground of it is dearly seen in infant speculations on the cause of moral evil and of national calamities. Thus Christ and the Devil, the two poles of Christendom, had faded away out of my spiritual vision; there were left the more vividly, God and Man. Yet I had not finally renounced the _possibility_, that Jesus might have had a divine mission to stimulate all our spiritual faculties, and to guarantee to us a future state of existence. The abstract arguments for the immortality of the soul had always appeared to me vain trifling; and I was deeply convinced that nothing could _assure_ us of a future state but a divine communication. In what mode this might be made, I could not say _à priori_: might not this really be the great purport of Messiahship? was not this, if any, a worthy ground for a divine interference? On the contrary, to heal the sick did not seem at all an adequate motive for a miracle; else, why not the sick of our own day? Credulity had exaggerated, and had represented Jesus to have wrought miracles: but that did not wholly _dis_prove the miracle of resurrection (whether bodily or of whatever kind), said to have been wrought by God _upon_ him, and of which so very intense a belief so remarkably propagated itself. Paul indeed believed it[3] from prophecy; and, as we see this to be a delusion, resting on Rabbinical interpretations, we may perhaps _account_ thus for the belief of the early church, without in any way admitting the fact.--Here, however, I found I had the clue to my only remaining discussion, the primitive Jewish controversy. Let us step back to an earlier stage than John's or Paul's or Peter's doctrine. We cannot doubt that Jesus claimed to be Messiah: what then was Messiah to be? and, did Jesus (though misrepresented by his disciples) truly fulfil his own claims? The really Messianic prophecies appeared to me to be far fewer than is commonly supposed. I found such in the 9th and 11th of Isaiah, the 5th of Micah, the 9th of Zechariah, in the 72nd Psalm, in the 37th of Ezekiel, and, as I supposed, in the 50th and 53rd of Isaiah. To these nothing of moment could be certainly added; for the passage in Dan. ix. is ill-translated in the English version, and I had already concluded that the Book of Daniel is a spurious fabrication. From Micah and Ezekiel it appeared, that Messiah was to come from Bethlehem and either be David himself, or a spiritual David: from Isaiah it is shown that he is a rod out of the stem of Jesse.--It is true, I found no proof that Jesus did come from Bethlehem or from the stock of David; for the tales in Matthew and Luke refute one another, and have clearly been generated by a desire to verify the prophecy. But genealogies for or against Messiahship seemed to me a mean argument; and the fact of the prophets demanding a carnal descent in Messiah struck me as a worse objection than that Jesus had not got it,--if this could be ever proved. The Messiah of Micah, however, was not Jesus; for he was to deliver Israel from _the Assyrians_, and his whole description is literally warlike. Micah, writing when the name of Sennacherib was terrible, conceived of a powerful monarch on the throne of David who was to subdue him: but as this prophecy was not verified, the imaginary object of it was looked for as "Messiah," even after the disappearance of the formidable Assyrian power. This undeniable vanity of Micah's prophecy extends itself also to that in the 9th chapter of his contemporary Isaiah,--if indeed that splendid passage did not really point at the child Hezekiah. Waiving this doubt, it is at any rate clear that the marvellous child on the throne of David was to break the yoke of the oppressive Assyrian; and none of the circumstantials are at all appropriate to the historical Jesus. In the 37th of Ezekiel the (new) David is to gather Judah and Israel "from the heathen whither they be gone" and to "make them one nation _in the land, on the mountains of Israel_:" and Jehovah adds, that they shall "dwell in the land _which I gave unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers dwelt_: and they shall dwell therein, they and their children and their children's children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever." It is trifling to pretend that _the land promised to Jacob, and in which the old Jews dwelt_, was a spiritual, and not the literal Palestine; and therefore it is impossible to make out that Jesus has fulfilled any part of this representation. The description however that follows (Ezekiel xl. &c.) of the new city and temple, with the sacrifices offered by "the priests the Levites, of the seed of Zadok," and the gate of the sanctuary for the prince (xliv. 3), and his elaborate account of the borders of the land (xlviii. 13-23), place the earnestness of Ezekiel's literalism in still clearer light. The 72nd Psalm, by the splendour of its predictions concerning the grandeur of some future king of Judah, earns the title of Messianic, _because_ it was never fulfilled by any historical king. But it is equally certain, that it has had no appreciable fulfilment in Jesus. But what of the 11th of Isaiah? Its portraiture is not so much that of a king, as of a prophet endowed with superhuman power. "He shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked." A Paradisiacal state is to follow.--This general description _may_ be verified by Jesus _hereafter_; but we have no manifestation, which enables us to call the fulfilment a fact. Indeed, the latter part of the prophecy is out of place for a time so late as the reign of Augustus; which forcibly denotes that Isaiah was predicting only that which was his immediate political aspiration: for in this great day of Messiah, Jehovah is to gather back his dispersed people from Assyria, Egypt, and other parts; he is _to reconcile Judah and Ephraim_, (who had been perfectly reconciled centuries before Jesus was born,) and as a result of this Messianic glory, the people of Israel "shall fly upon the shoulders of the _Philistines_ towards the west; they shall spoil them of the east together: they shall lay their hand on _Edom_ and _Moab_, and the children of _Ammon_ shall obey them." But Philistines, Moab and Ammon, were distinctions entirely lost before the Christian era.--Finally, the Red Sea is to be once more passed miraculously by the Israelites, returning (as would seem) to their fathers' soil. Take all these particulars together, and the prophecy is neither fulfilled in the past nor possible to be fulfilled in the future. The prophecy which we know as Zechariah ix.-xi. is believed to be really from a prophet of uncertain name, contemporaneous with Isaiah. It was written while Ephraim was still a people, i.e. before the capture of Samaria by Shalmanezer; and xi. 1-3 appears to howl over the recent devastations of Tiglathpilezer. The prophecy is throughout full of the politics of that day. No part of it has the most remote or imaginable[4] similarity to the historical life of Jesus, except that he once rode into Jerusalem on an ass; a deed which cannot have been peculiar to him, and which Jesus moreover appears to have planned with the express[5] purpose of assimilating himself to the lowly king here described. Yet such an isolated act is surely a carnal and beggarly fulfilment. To ride on an ass is no mark of humility in those who must ordinarily go on foot. The prophet clearly means that the righteous king is not to ride on a warhorse and trust in cavalry, as Solomon and the Egyptians, (see Ps. xx. 7. Is. xxxi. 1-3, xxx. 16,) but is to imitate the lowliness of David and the old judges, who rode on young asses; and is to be a lover of peace. Chapters 50 and 53 of the pseudo-Isaiah remained; which contain many phrases so aptly descriptive of the sufferings of Christ, and so closely knit up with our earliest devotional associations, that they were the very last link of my chain that snapt. Still, I could not conceal from myself, that no exactness in this prophecy, however singular, could avail to make out that Jesus was the Messiah of Hezekiah's prophets. There must be _some_ explanation; and if I did not see it, that must probably arise from prejudice and habit.--In order therefore to gain freshness, I resolved to peruse the entire prophecy of the pseudo-Isaiah in Lowth's version, from ch. xl. onward, at a single sitting. This prophet writes from Babylon, and has his vision full of the approaching restoration of his people by Cyrus, whom he addresses by name. In ch. xliii. he introduces to us an eminent and "chosen servant of God," whom he invests with all the evangelical virtues, and declares that he is to be a light to the Gentiles. In ch. xliv. (v. 1--also v. 21) he is named as "_Jacob_ my servant, and _Israel_ whom I have chosen." The appellations recur in xlv. 4: and in a far more striking passage, xlix. 1-12, which is eminently Messianic to the Christian ear, _except_ that in v. 3, the speaker distinctly declares himself to be (not Messiah, but) Israel. The same speaker continues in ch. l., which is equally Messianic in sound. In ch. lii. the prophet speaks _of_ him, (vv. 13-15) but the subject of the chapter is _restoration from Babylon_; and from this he runs on into the celebrated ch. liii. It is essential to understand the _same_ "elect servant" all along. He is many times called Israel, and is often addressed in a tone quite inapplicable to Messiah, viz. as one needing salvation himself; so in ch. xliii. Yet in ch. xlix. this elect Israel is distinguished from Jacob and Israel at large: thus there is an entanglement. Who can be called on to risk his eternal hopes on his skilful unknotting of it? It appeared however to me most probable, that as our high Churchmen distinguish "mother Church" from the individuals who compose the Church, so the "Israel" of this prophecy is the idealizing of the Jewish Church; which I understood to be a current Jewish interpretation. The figure perhaps embarrasses us, only because of the male sex attributed to the ideal servant of God; for when "Zion" is spoken of by the same prophet in the same way, no one finds difficulty, or imagines that a female person of superhuman birth and qualities must be intended. It still remained strange that in Isaiah liii. and Pss. xxii. and lxix. there should be _coincidences_ so close with the sufferings of Jesus: but I reflected, that I had no proof that the narrative had not been strained by credulity,[6] to bring it into artificial agreement with these imagined predictions of his death. And herewith my last argument in favour of views for which I once would have laid down my life, seemed to be spent. Nor only so: but I now reflected that the falsity of the prophecy in Dan. vii. (where the coming of "a Son of Man" to sit in universal judgment follows immediately upon the break-up of the Syrian monarchy,)--to say nothing of the general proof of the spuriousness of the whole Book of Daniel,--ought perhaps long ago to have been seen by me as of more cardinal importance. For if we believe anything at all about the discourses of Christ, we cannot doubt that he selected "_Son of Man_" as his favourite title; which admits no interpretation so satisfactory, as, that he tacitly refers to the seventh chapter of Daniel, and virtually bases his pretensions upon it. On the whole, it was no longer defect of proof Which presented itself, but positive disproof of the primitive and fundamental claim. I could not for a moment allow weight to the topic, that "it is dangerous to _dis_believe wrongly;" for I felt, and had always felt, that it gave a premium to the most boastful and tyrannizing superstition:--as if it were not equally dangerous to _believe_ wrongly! Nevertheless, I tried to plead for farther delay, by asking: Is not the subject too vast for me to decide upon?--Think how many wise and good men have fully examined, and have come to a contrary conclusion. What a grasp of knowledge and experience of the human mind it requires! Perhaps too I have unawares been carried away by a love of novelty, which I have mistaken for a love of truth. But the argument recoiled upon me. Have I not been 25 years a reader of the Bible? have I not full 18 years been a student of Theology? have I not employed 7 of the best years of my life, with ample leisure, in this very investigation;--without any intelligible earthly bribe to carry me to my present conclusion, against all my interests, all my prejudices and all my education? There are many far more learned men than I,--many men of greater power of mind; but there are also a hundred times as many who are my inferiors; and if I have been seven years labouring in vain to solve this vast literary problem, it is an extreme absurdity to imagine that the solving of it is imposed by God on the whole human race. Let me renounce my little learning; let me be as the poor and simple: what then follows? Why, then, _still the same thing follows_, that difficult literary problems concerning distant history cannot afford any essential part of my religion. It is with hundreds or thousands a favourite idea, that "they have an inward witness of the truth of (_the historical and outward facts of_) Christianity." Perhaps the statement would bring its own refutation to them, if they would express it clearly. Suppose a biographer of Sir Isaac Newton, after narrating his sublime discoveries and ably stating some of his most remarkable doctrines, to add, that Sir Isaac was a great magician, and had been used to raise spirits by his arts, and finally was himself carried up to heaven one night, while he was gazing at the moon; and that this event had been foretold by Merlin:--it would surely be the height of absurdity to dilate on the truth of the Newtonian theory as "the moral evidence" of the truth of the miracles and prophecy. Yet this is what those do, who adduce the excellence of the precepts and spirituality of the general doctrine of the New Testament, as the "moral evidence" of its miracles and of its fulfilling the Messianic prophecies. But for the ambiguity of the word _doctrine_, probably such confusion of thought would have been impossible. "Doctrines" are either spiritual truths, or are statements of external history. Of the former we may have an inward witness;--that is their proper evidence;--but the latter must depend upon adequate testimony and various kinds of criticism. How quickly might I have come to my conclusion,--how much weary thought and useless labour might I have spared,--if at an earlier time this simple truth had been pressed upon me, that since the religious faculties of the poor and half-educated cannot investigate Historical and Literary questions, _therefore_ these questions cannot constitute an essential part of Religion.--But perhaps I could not have gained this result by any abstract act of thought, from want of freedom to think: and there are advantages also in expanding slowly under great pressure, if one _can_ expand, and is not crushed by it. I felt no convulsion of mind, no emptiness of soul, no inward practical change: but I knew that it would be said, this was only because the force of the old influence was as yet unspent, and that a gradual declension in the vitality of my religion must ensue. More than eight years have since past, and I feel I have now a right to contradict that statement. To any "Evangelical" I have a right to say, that while he has a _single_, I have a _double_ experience; and I know, that the spiritual fruits which he values, have no connection whatever with the complicated and elaborate creed, which his school imagines, and I once imagined, to be the roots out of which they are fed. That they depend directly on _the heart's belief in the sympathy of God with individual man_,[7] I am well assured: but that doctrine does not rest upon the Bible or upon Christianity; for it is a postulate, from which every Christian advocate is forced to start. If it be denied, he cannot take a step forward in his argument. He talks to men about Sin and Judgment to come, and the need of Salvation, and so proceeds to the Saviour. But his very first step,--the idea of Sin,--_assumes_ that God concerns himself with our actions, words, thoughts; _assumes_ therefore that sympathy of God with every man, which (it seems) can only be known by an infallible Bible. I know that many Evangelicals will reply, that I never can have had "the true" faith; else I could never have lost it: and as for my not being conscious of spiritual change, they will accept this as confirming their assertion. Undoubtedly I cannot prove that I ever felt as they now feel: perhaps they love their present opinions _more than_ truth, and are careless to examine and verify them; with that I claim no fellowship. But there are Christians, and Evangelical Christians, of another stamp, who love their creed, _only_ because they believe it to be true, but love truth, as such, and truthfulness, more than any creed: with these I claim fellowship. Their love to God and man, their allegiance to righteousness and true holiness, will not be in suspense and liable to be overturned by new discoveries in geology and in ancient inscriptions, or by improved criticism of texts and of history, nor have they any imaginable interest in thwarting the advance of scholarship. It is strange indeed to undervalue _that_ Faith, which alone is purely moral and spiritual, alone rests on a basis that cannot be shaken, alone lifts the possessor above the conflicts of erudition, and makes it impossible for him to fear the increase of knowledge. I fully expected that reviewers and opponents from the evangelical school would laboriously insinuate or assert, that I _never was_ a Christian and do not understand anything about Christianity spiritually. My expectations have been more than fulfilled; and the course which my assailants have taken leads me to add some topics to the last paragraph. I say then, that if I had been slain at the age of twenty-seven, when I was chased[8] by a mob of infuriated Mussulmans for selling New Testaments, they would have trumpeted me as an eminent saint and martyr. I add, that many circumstances within easy possibility might have led to my being engaged as an official teacher of a congregation at the usual age, which would in all probability have arrested my intellectual development, and have stereotyped my creed for many a long year; and then also they would have acknowledged me as a Christian. A little more stupidity, a little more worldliness, a little more mental dishonesty in me, or perhaps a little more kindness and management in others, would have kept me in my old state, which was acknowledged and would still be acknowledged as Christian. To try to disown me now, is an impotent superciliousness. At the same time, I confess to several moral changes, as the result of this change in my creed, the principal of which are the following. 1. I have found that my old belief narrowed my affections. It taught me to bestow peculiar love on "the people of God," and it assigned an intellectual creed as one essential mark of this people. That creed may be made more or less stringent; but when driven to its minimum, it includes a recognition of the historical proposition, that "the Jewish teacher Jesus fulfilled the conditions requisite to constitute him the Messiah of the ancient Hebrew prophets." This proposition has been rejected by very many thoughtful and sincere men in England, and by tens of thousands in France, Germany, Italy, Spain. To judge rightly about it, is necessarily a problem of literary criticism; which has both to interpret the Old Scriptures and to establish how much of the biography of Jesus in the New is credible. To judge wrongly about it, may prove one to be a bad critic but not a less good and less pious man. Yet my old creed enacted an affirmative result of this historical inquiry, as a test of one's spiritual state, and ordered me to think harshly of men like Marcus Aurelius and Lessing, because they did not adopt the conclusion which the professedly uncritical have established. It possessed me with a general gloom concerning Mohammedans and Pagans, and involved the whole course of history and prospects of futurity in a painful darkness from which I am relieved. 2. Its theory was one of selfishness. That is, it inculcated that my first business must be, to save my soul from future punishment, and to attain future happiness; and it bade me to chide myself, when I thought of nothing but about doing present duty and blessing God for present enjoyment. In point of fact, I never did look much to futurity, nor even in prospect of death could attain to any vivid anticipations or desires, much less was troubled with fears. The evil which I suffered from my theory, was not (I believe) that it really made me selfish--other influences of it were too powerful:--but it taught me to blame myself for unbelief, because I was not sufficiently absorbed in the contemplation of my vast personal expectations. I certainly here feel myself delivered from the danger of factitious sin. The selfish and self-righteous texts come principally from the three first gospels, and are greatly counteracted by the deeper spirituality of the apostolic epistles. I therefore by no means charge this tendency indiscriminately on the New Testament. 3. It laid down that "the time is short; THE LORD IS AT HAND: the things of this world pass away, and deserve not our affections: the only thing worth spending one's energies on, is, the forwarding of men's salvation." It bade me "watch perpetually, not knowing whether my Lord would return at cockcrowing or at midday." While I believed this, (which, however disagreeable to modern Christians, is the clear doctrine of the New Testament,) I acted an eccentric and unprofitable part. From it I was saved against my will, and forced into a course in which the doctrine, having been laid to sleep, awoke only now and then to reproach and harass me for my unfaithfulness to it. This doctrine it is, which makes so many spiritual persons lend active or passive aid to uphold abuses and perpetuate mischief in every department of human life. Those who stick closest to the Scripture do not shrink from saying, that "it is not worth while trying to mend the world," and stigmatize as "political and worldly" such as pursue an opposite course. Undoubtedly, if we are to expect our Master at cockcrowing, we shall not study the permanent improvement of this transitory scene. To teach the certain speedy destruction of earthly things, _as the New Testament does_, is to cut the sinews of all earthly progress; to declare war against Intellect and Imagination, against Industrial and Social advancement. There was a time when I was distressed at being unable to avoid exultation in the worldly greatness of England. My heart would, in spite, of me, swell with something of pride, when a Turk or Arab asked what was my country: I then used to confess to God this pride as a sin. I still see that that was a legitimate deduction from the Scripture. "The glory of this world passeth away," and I had professed to be "dead with Christ" to it. The difference is this. I am now as "dead" as then to all of it which my conscience discerns to be sinful, but I have not to torment myself in a (fundamentally ascetic) struggle against innocent and healthy impulses. I now, with deliberate approval, "love the world and the things of the world." I can feel patriotism, and take the deepest interest in the future prospects of nations, and no longer reproach myself. Yet this is quite consistent with feeling the spiritual interests of men to be of all incomparably the highest. Modern religionists profess to be disciples of Christ, and talk high of the perfect morality of the New Testament, when they certainly do not submit their understanding to it, and are no more like to the first disciples than bishops are like the pennyless apostles. One critic tells me that _I know_ that the above is _not_ the true interpretation of the apostolic doctrine. Assuredly I am aware that we may rebuke "the world" and "worldliness," in a legitimate and modified sense, as being the system of _selfishness_: true,--and I have avowed this in another work; but it does not follow that Jesus and the apostles did not go farther: and manifestly they did. The true disciple, who would be perfect as his Master, was indeed ordered to sell all, give to the poor and follow him; and when that severity was relaxed by good sense, it was still taught that things which lasted to the other side of the grave alone deserved our affection or our exertion. If any person thinks me ignorant of the Scriptures for being of this judgment, let him so think; but to deny that I am sincere in my avowal, is a very needless insolence. 4. I am sensible how heavy a clog on the exercise of my judgment has been taken off from me, since I unlearned that Bibliolatry, which I am disposed to call the greatest religious evil of England. Authority has a place in religious teaching, as in education, but it is provisional and transitory. Its chief use is to guide _action_, and assist the formation of habits, before the judgment is ripe. As applied to mere _opinion_, its sole function is to guide inquiry. So long as an opinion is received on authority only, it works no inward process upon us: yet the promulgation of it by authority, is not therefore always useless, since the prominence thus given to it may be a most important stimulus to thought. While the mind is inactive or weak, it will not wish to throw off the yoke of authority: but as soon as it begins to discern error in the standard proposed to it, we have the mark of incipient original thought, which is the thing so valuable and so difficult to elicit; and which authority is apt to crush. An intelligent pupil seldom or never gives _too little_ weight to the opinion of his teacher: a wise teacher will never repress the free action of his pupils' minds, even when they begin to question his results. "Forbidding to think" is a still more fatal tyranny than "forbidding to marry:" it paralyzes all the moral powers. In former days, if any moral question came before me, I was always apt to turn it into the mere lawyerlike exercise of searching and interpreting my written code. Thus, in reading how Henry the Eighth treated his first queen, I thought over Scripture texts in order to judge whether he was right, and if I could so get a solution, I left my own moral powers unexercised. All Protestants see, how mischievous it is to a Romanist lady to have a directing priest, whom she every day consults about everything; so as to lay her own judgment to sleep. We readily understand, that in the extreme case such women may gradually lose all perception of right and wrong, and become a mere machine in the hands of her director. But the Protestant principle of accepting the Bible as the absolute law, acts towards the same end; and only fails of doing the same amount of mischief, because a book can never so completely answer all the questions asked of it, as a living priest can. The Protestantism which pities those as "without chart and compass" who acknowledge no infallible written code, can mean nothing else, than that "the less occasion we have to trust our moral powers, the better;" that is, it represents it as of all things most desirable to be able to benumb conscience by disuse, under the guidance of a mind from without. Those who teach this need not marvel to see their pupils become Romanists. But Bibliolatry not only paralyzes the moral sense; it also corrupts the intellect, and introduces a crooked logic, by setting men to the duty of extracting absolute harmony out of discordant materials. All are familiar with the subtlety of lawyers, whose task it is to elicit a single sense out of a heap of contradictory statutes. In their case such subtlety may indeed excite in us impatience or contempt; but we forbear to condemn them, when it is pleaded that practical convenience, not truth, is their avowed end. In the case of theological ingenuity, where truth is the professed and sacred object, a graver judgment is called for. When the Biblical interpreter struggles to reconcile contradictions, or to prove that wrong is right, merely because he is bound to maintain the perfection of the Bible; when to this end he condescends to sophistry and pettifogging evasions; it is difficult to avoid feeling disgust as well as grief. Some good people are secretly conscious that the Bible is not an infallible book; but they dread the consequences of proclaiming this "to the vulgar." Alas! and have they measured the evils which the fostering of this lie is producing in the minds, not of the educated only, but emphatically of the ministers of religion? Many who call themselves Christian preachers busily undermine moral sentiment, by telling their hearers, that if they do not believe the Bible (or the Church), they can have no firm religion or morality, and will have no reason to give against following brutal appetite. This doctrine it is, that so often makes men atheists in Spain, and profligates in England, as soon as they unlearn the national creed: and the school which have done the mischief, moralize over the wickedness of human nature when it comes to pass instead of blaming the falsehood which they have themselves inculcated. [Footnote 1: A critic presses me with the question, how I can doubt that doctrine so holy _comes from God_. He professes to review my book on the Soul; yet, apparently became he himself _dis_believes the doctrine of the Holy Spirit taught alike in the Psalms and Prophets and in the New Testament,--he cannot help forgetting that I profess to believe it. He is not singular in his dulness. That the sentiment above is necessarily independent of Biblical _authority_, see p. 133.] [Footnote 2: I do not here enlarge on this, as it is discussed in my treatise on The Soul 2nd edition, p. 76, or 3rd edition, p. 52.] [Footnote 3: 1 Cor. xv. 3. Compare Acts xii. 33, 34, 35 also Acts ii. 27, 34.] [Footnote 4: I need not except the _potter_ and the thirty pieces of silver (Zech. xi. 13), for the _potter_ is a mere absurd error of text or translation. The Septuagint has the _foundry_, De Wette has the _treasury_, with whom Hitzig and Ewald agree. So Winer (Simoni's Lexicon).] [Footnote 5: Some of my critics are very angry with me for saying this; but Matthew himself (xxi. 4) almost says it:--"_All this was done, that it might be fulfilled_," &c. Do my critics mean to tell me that Jesus _was not aware_ of the prophecy? or if Jesus did know of the prophecy, will they tell me _that he was not designing_ to fulfil it? I feel such carping to be little short of hypocrisy.] [Footnote 6: Apparently on these words of mine, a reviewer builds up the inference that I regard "the Evangelical narrative as a mythical fancy-piece imitated from David and Isaiah." I feel this to be a great caricature. My words are carefully limited to a few petty details of one part of the narrative.] [Footnote 7: I did not calculate that any assailant would be so absurd as to lecture me on the topic, that God has no sympathy _with our sins and follies_. Of course what I mean is, that he has complacency in our moral perfection. See p. 125 above.] [Footnote 8: This was at Aintab, in the north of Syria. One of my companions was caught by the mob and beaten (as they probably thought) to death. But he recovered very similarly to Paul, in Acts xiv. 20, after long lying senseless.] CHAPTER VII. ON THE MORAL PERFECTION OF JESUS. Let no reader peruse this chapter, who is not willing to enter into a discussion, as free and unshrinking, concerning the personal excellencies and conduct of Jesus, as that of Mr. Grote concerning Socrates. I have hitherto met with most absurd rebuffs for my scrupulosity. One critic names me as a principal leader in a school which extols and glorifies the character of Jesus; after which he proceeds to reproach me with inconsistency, and to insinuate dishonesty. Another expresses himself as deeply wounded that, in renouncing the belief that Jesus is more than man, I suggest to compare him to a clergyman whom I mentioned as eminently holy and perfect in the picture of a partial biographer; such a comparison is resented with vivid indignation, as a blurting out of something "unspeakably painful." Many have murmured that I do _not_ come forward to extol the excellencies of Jesus, but appear to prefer Paul. More than one taunt me with an inability to justify my insinuations that Jesus, after all, was not really perfect; one is "extremely disappointed" that I have not attacked him; in short, it is manifest that many would much rather have me say out my whole heart, than withhold anything. I therefore give fair warning to all, not to read any farther, or else to blame themselves if I inflict on them "unspeakable pain," by differing from their judgment of a historical or unhistorical character. As for those who confound my tenderness with hypocrisy and conscious weakness, if they trust themselves to read to the end, I think they will abandon that fancy. But how am I brought into this topic? It is because, after my mind had reached the stage narrated in the last chapter, I fell in with a new doctrine among the Unitarians,--that the evidence of Christianity is essentially popular and spiritual, consisting in _the Life of Christ_, who is a perfect man and the absolute moral image of God,--therefore fitly called "God manifest in the flesh," and, as such, Moral Head of the human race. Since this view was held in conjunction with those at which I had arrived myself concerning miracles, prophecy, the untrustworthiness of Scripture as to details, and the essential unreasonableness of imposing dogmatic propositions as a creed, I had to consider why I could not adopt such a modification, or (as it appeared to me) reconstruction, of Christianity; and I gave reasons in the first edition of this book, which, avoiding direct treatment of the character of Jesus, seemed to me adequate on the opposite side. My argument was reviewed by a friend, who presently published the review with his name, replying to my remarks on this scheme. I thus find myself in public and avowed controversy with one who is endowed with talents, accomplishments, and genius, to which I have no pretensions. The challenge has certainly come from myself. Trusting to the goodness of my cause, I have ventured it into an unequal combat; and from a consciousness of my admired friend's high superiority, I do feel a little abashed at being brought face to face against him. But possibly the less said to the public on these personal matters, the better. I have to give reasons why I cannot adopt that modified scheme of Christianity which is defended and adorned by James Martineau; according to which it is maintained that though the Gospel Narratives are not to be trusted in detail, there can yet be no reasonable doubt _what_ Jesus _was_; for this is elicited by a "higher moral criticism," which (it is remarked) I neglect. In this theory, Jesus is avowed to be a man born like other men; to be liable to error, and (at least in some important respects) mistaken. Perhaps no general proposition is to be accepted _merely_ on the word of Jesus; in particular, he misinterpreted the Hebrew prophecies. "He was not _less_ than the Hebrew Messiah, but _more_." No moral charge is established against him, until it is shown, that in applying the old prophecies to himself, he was _conscious_ that they did not fit. His error was one of mere fallibility in matters of intellectual and literary estimate. On the other hand, Jesus had an infallible moral perception, which reveals itself to the true-hearted reader, and is testified by the common consciousness of Christendom. It has pleased the Creator to give us one sun in the heavens, and one Divine soul in history, in order to correct the aberrations of our individuality, and unite all mankind into one family of God. Jesus is to be presumed to be perfect until he is shown to be imperfect. Faith in Jesus, is not reception of propositions, but reverence for a person; yet this is _not_ the condition of salvation or essential to the Divine favour. Such is the scheme, abridged from the ample discussion of my eloquent friend. In reasoning against it, my arguments will, to a certain extent, be those of an orthodox Trinitarian;[1] since we might both maintain that the belief in the absolute divine morality of Jesus is not tenable, when the belief in _every other_ divine and superhuman quality is denied. Should I have any "orthodox" reader, my arguments may shock his feelings less, if he keeps this in view. In fact, the same action or word in Jesus may be consistent or inconsistent with moral perfection, according to the previous assumptions concerning his person. I. My friend has attributed to me a "prosaic and embittered view of human nature," apparently because I have a very intense belief of Man's essential imperfection. To me, I confess, it is almost a first principle of thought, that as all sorts of perfection coexist in God, so is no sort of perfection possible to man. I do not know how for a moment to imagine an Omniscient Being who is not Almighty, or an Almighty who is not All-Righteous. So neither do I know how to conceive of Perfect Holiness anywhere but in the Blessed and only Potentate. Man is finite and crippled on all sides; and frailty in one kind causes frailty in another. Deficient power causes deficient knowledge, deficient knowledge betrays him into false opinion, and entangles him into false positions. It may be a defect of my imagination, but I do not feel that it implies any bitterness, that even in the case of one who abides in primitive lowliness, to attain even negatively an absolutely pure goodness seems to me impossible; and much more, to exhaust all goodness, and become a single Model-Man, unparalleled, incomparable, a standard for all other moral excellence. Especially I cannot conceive of any human person rising out of obscurity, and influencing the history of the world, unless there be in him forces of great intensity, the harmonizing of which is a vast and painful problem. Every man has to subdue himself first, before he preaches to his fellows; and he encounters many a fall and many a wound in winning his own victory. And as talents are various, so do moral natures vary, each having its own weak and strong side; and that one man should grasp into his single self the highest perfection of every moral kind, is to me at least as incredible as that one should preoccupy and exhaust all intellectual greatness. I feel the prodigy to be so peculiar, that I must necessarily wait until it is overwhelmingly proved, before I admit it. No one can without unreason urge me to believe, on any but the most irrefutable arguments, that a man, finite in every other respect, is infinite in moral perfection. My friend is "at a loss to conceive in what way a superhuman physical nature could tend in the least degree to render moral perfection more credible." But I think he will see, that it would entirely obviate the argument just stated, which, from the known frailty of human nature in general, deduced the indubitable imperfection of an individual. The reply is then obvious and decisive: "This individual is _not_ a mere man; his origin is wholly exceptional; therefore his moral perfection may be exceptional; your experience of _man's_ weakness goes for nothing in his case." If I were already convinced that this person was a great Unique, separated from all other men by an impassable chasm in regard to his physical origin, I (for one) should be much readier to believe that he was Unique and Unapproachable in other respects: for all God's works have an internal harmony. It could not be for nothing that this exceptional personage was sent into the world. That he was intended as head of the human race, in one or more senses, would be a plausible opinion; nor should I feel any incredulous repugnance against believing his morality to be if not divinely perfect, yet separated from that of common men so far, that he might be a God to us, just as every parent is to a young child. This view seems to my friend a weakness; be it so. I need not press it. What I do press, is,--whatever _might_ or might _not_ be conceded concerning one in human form, but of superhuman origin,--at any rate, one who is conceded to be, out and out, of the same nature as ourselves, is to be judged of by our experience of that nature, and is therefore to be _assumed_ to be variously imperfect, however eminent and admirable in some respects. And no one is to be called an imaginer of deformity, because he takes for granted that one who is Man has imperfections which were not known to those who compiled memorials of him. To impute to a person, without specific evidence, some definite frailty or fault, barely because he is human, would be a want of good sense; but not so, to have a firm belief that every human being is finite in moral as well as in intellectual greatness. We have a very imperfect history of the apostle James; and I do not know that I could adduce any fact specifically recorded concerning him in disproof of his absolute moral perfection, if any of his Jerusalem disciples had chosen to set up this as a dogma of religion. Yet no one would blame me, as morose, or indisposed to acknowledge genius and greatness, if I insisted on believing James to be frail and imperfect, while admitting that I knew almost nothing about him. And why?--Singly and surely, because we know him to be _a man_: that suffices. To set up James or John or Daniel as my Model, and my Lord; to be swallowed up in him and press him upon others for a Universal Standard, would be despised as a self-degrading idolatry and resented as an obtrusive favouritism. Now why does not the same equally apply, if the name Jesus is substituted for these? Why, in defect of all other knowledge than the bare fact of his manhood, are we not unhesitatingly to take for granted that he does _not_ exhaust all perfection, and is at best only one among many brethren and equals? II. My friend, I gather, will reply, "because so many thousands of minds in all Christendom attest the infinite and unapproachable goodness of Jesus." It therefore follows to consider, what is the weight of this attestation. Manifestly it depends, first of all, on the independence of the witnesses: secondly, on the grounds of their belief. If all those, who confess the moral perfection of Jesus, confess it as the result of unbiassed examination of his character; and if of those acquainted with the narrative, none espouse the opposite side; this would be a striking testimony, not to be despised. But in fact, few indeed of the "witnesses" add any weight at all to the argument. No Trinitarian can doubt that Jesus is morally perfect, without doubting fundamentally every part of his religion. He believes it, _because_ the entire system demands it, and _because_ various texts of Scripture avow it: and this very fact makes it morally impossible for him to enter upon an unbiassed inquiry, whether that character which is drawn for Jesus in the four gospels, is, or is not, one of absolute perfection, deserving to be made an exclusive model for all times and countries. My friend never was a Trinitarian, and seems not to know how this operates; but I can testify, that when I believed in the immaculateness of Christ's character, it was not from an unbiassed criticism, but from the pressure of authority, (the authority of _texts_,) and from the necessity of the doctrine to the scheme of Redemption. Not merely strict Trinitarians, but all who believe in the Atonement, however modified,--all who believe that Jesus will be the future Judge,--_must_ believe in his absolute perfection: hence the fact of their belief is no indication whatever that they believe on the ground which my friend assumes,--viz. an intelligent and unbiassed study of the character itself, as exhibited in the four narratives. I think we may go farther. We have no reason for thinking that _this_ was the sort of evidence which convinced the apostles themselves, and first teachers of the gospel;--if indeed in the very first years the doctrine was at all conceived of. It cannot be shown that any one believed in the moral perfection of Jesus, who had not already adopted the belief that he was Messiah, and _therefore_ Judge of the human race. My friend makes the pure immaculateness of Jesus (discernible by him in the gospels) his foundation, and deduces _from_ this the quasi-Messiahship: but the opposite order of deduction appears to have been the only one possible in the first age. Take Paul as a specimen. He believed the doctrine in question; but not from reading the four gospels,--for they did not exist. Did he then believe it by hearing Ananias (Acts ix. 17) enter into details concerning the deeds and words of Jesus? I cannot imagine that any wise or thoughtful person would so judge, which after all would be a gratuitous invention. The Acts of the Apostles give us many speeches which set forth the grounds of accepting Jesus as Messiah; but they never press his absolute moral perfection as a fact and a fundamental fact. "He went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil," is the utmost that is advanced on this side: prophecy is urged, and his resurrection is asserted, and the inference is drawn that "Jesus is the Christ." Out of this flowed the farther inferences that he was Supreme Judge,--and moreover, was Paschal Lamb, and Sacrifice, and High Priest, and Mediator; and since every one of these characters demanded a belief in his moral perfections, that doctrine also necessarily followed, and was received before our present gospels existed. My friend therefore cannot abash me by the _argumentum ad verecundiam_; (which to me seems highly out of place in this connexion;) for the opinion, which is, as to this single point, held by him in common with the first Christians, was held by them on transcendental reasons which he totally discards; and all after generations have been confirmed in the doctrine by Authority, _i.e._ by the weight of texts or church decisions: both of which he also discards. If I could receive the doctrine, merely because I dared not to differ from the whole Christian world, I might aid to swell odium against rejectors, but I should not strengthen the cause at the bar of reason. I feel therefore that my friend must not claim Catholicity as on his side. Trinitarians and Arians are alike useless to his argument: nay, nor can he claim more than a small fraction of Unitarians; for as many of the them believe that Jesus is to be the Judge of living and dead (as the late Dr. Lant Carpenter did) must as _necessarily_ believe his immaculate perfection as if they were Trinitarians. The New Testament does not distinctly explain on what grounds this doctrine was believed; but we may observe that in 1 Peter i. 19 and 2 Cor. v. 21, it is coupled with the Atonement, and in 1 Peter ii. 21, Romans xv. 3, it seems to be inferred from prophecy. But let us turn to the original Eleven, who were eye and ear witnesses of Jesus, and consider on what grounds they can have believed (if we assume that they did all believe) the absolute moral perfection of Jesus. It is too ridiculous to imagine then studying the writings of Matthew in order to obtain conviction,--if any of that school, whom alone I now address, could admit that written documents were thought of before the Church outstept the limits of Judea. If the Eleven believed the doctrine for some transcendental reason,--as by a Supernatural Revelation, or on account of Prophecy, and to complete the Messiah's character,--then their attestation is useless to my friend's argument: will it then gain anything, if we suppose that they _believed_ Jesus to be perfect, because they _saw_ him to be perfect? To me this would seem no attestation worth having, but rather a piece of impertinent ignorance. If I attest that a person whom I have known was an eminently good man, I command a certain amount of respect to my opinion, and I do him honour. If I celebrate his good deeds and report his wise words, I extend his honour still farther. But if I proceed to assure people, _on the evidence of my personal observation of him_, that he was immaculate and absolutely perfect, was the pure Moral Image of God, that he deserves to be made the Exclusive Model of imitation, and is the standard by which every other man's morality is to be corrected,--I make myself ridiculous; my panegyrics lose all weight, and I produce far less conviction than when I praised within human limitations. I do not know how my friend will look on this point, (for his judgment on the whole question perplexes me, and the views which I call _sober_ he names _prosaic_,) but I cannot resist the conviction that universal common-sense would have rejected the teaching of the Eleven with contempt, if they had presented, as the basis of the gospel their _personal testimony_ to the godlike and unapproachable moral absolutism of Jesus. But even if such a basis was possible to the Eleven, it was impossible to Paul and Silvanus and Timothy and Barnabas and Apollos, and the other successful preachers to the Gentiles. High moral goodness, within human limitations, was undoubtedly announced as a fact of the life of Jesus; but upon this followed the supernatural claims, and the argument of prophecy; _without_ which my friend desires to build up his view,--I have thus developed why I think he has no right to claim Catholicity for his judgment. I have risked to be tedious, because I find that when I speak concisely, I am enormously misapprehended. I close this topic by observing, that, the great animosity with which my very mild intimations against the popular view have been met from numerous quarters, show me that Christians do not allow this subject to be calmly debated, end have not come to their own conclusion as the result of a calm debate. And this is amply corroborated by my own consciousness of the past I never dared, nor could have dared, to criticize coolly and simply the pretensions of Jesus to be an absolute model of morality, until I had been delivered from the weight of authority and miracle, oppressing my critical powers. III. I have been asserting, that he who believes Jesus to be mere man, ought at once to believe his moral excellence finite and comparable to that of other men; and, that our judgment to this effect cannot be reasonably overborne by the "universal consent" of Christendom.--Thus far we are dealing _à priori_, which here fully satisfies me: in such an argument I need no _à posteriori_ evidence to arrive at my own conclusion. Nevertheless, I am met by taunts and clamour, which are not meant to be indecent, but which to my feeling are such. My critics point triumphantly to the four gospels, and demand that I will make a personal attack on a character which they revere, even when they know that I cannot do so without giving great offence. Now if any one were to call my old schoolmaster, or my old parish priest, a perfect and universal Model, and were to claim that I would entitle him Lord, and think of him as the only true revelation of God; should I not be at liberty to say, without disrespect, that "I most emphatically deprecate such extravagant claims for him"? Would this justify an outcry, that I will publicly avow _what_ I judge to be his defects of character, and will _prove_ to all his admirers that he was a sinner like other men? Such a demand would be thought, I believe, highly unbecoming and extremely unreasonable. May not my modesty, or my regard for his memory, or my unwillingness to pain his family, be accepted as sufficient reasons for silence? or would any one scoffingly attribute my reluctance to attack him, to my conscious inability to make good my case against his being "God manifest in the flesh"? Now what, if one of his admirers had written panegyrical memorials of him; and his character, therein described, was so faultless, that a stranger to him was not able to descry any moral defeat whatever in it? Is such a stranger bound to believe him to be the Divine Standard of morals, unless he can put his finger on certain passages of the book which imply weaknesses and faults? And is it insulting a man, to refuse to worship him? I utterly protest against every such pretence. As I have an infinitely stronger conviction that Shakespeare was not in _intellect_ Divinely and Unapproachably perfect, than that I can certainly point out in him some definite intellectual defect; as, moreover, I am vastly more sure that Socrates was _morally_ imperfect, than that I am able to censure him rightly; so also, a disputant who concedes to me that Jesus is a mere man, has no right to claim that I will point out some moral flaw in him, or else acknowledge him to be a Unique Unparalleled Divine Soul. It is true, I do see defects, and very serious ones, in the character of Jesus, as drawn by his disciples; but I cannot admit that my right to disown the pretensions made for him turns on my ability to define his frailties. As long as (in common with my friend) I regard Jesus as a man, so long I hold with _dogmatic_ and _intense conviction_ the inference that he was morally imperfect, and ought not to be held up as unapproachable in goodness; but I have, in comparison, only _a modest_ belief that I am able to show his points of weakness. While therefore in obedience to this call, which has risen from many quarters, I think it right not to refuse the odious task pressed upon me,--I yet protest that my conclusion does not depend upon it. I might censure Socrates unjustly, or at least without convincing my readers, if I attempted that task; but my failure would not throw a feather's weight into the argument that Socrates was a Divine Unique and universal Model. If I write note what is painful to readers, I beg them to remember that I write with much reluctance, and that it is their own fault if they read. In approaching this subject, the first difficulty is, to know how much of the four gospels to accept as _fact_. If we could believe the whole, it would be easier to argue; but my friend Martineau (with me) rejects belief of many parts: for instance, he has but a very feeble conviction that Jesus ever spoke the discourses attributed to him in John's gospel. If therefore I were to found upon these some imputation of moral weakness, he would reply, that we are agreed in setting these aside, as untrustworthy. Yet he perseveres in asserting that it is beyond all reasonable question _what_ Jesus _was_; as though proven inaccuracies in all the narratives did not make the results uncertain. He says that even the poor and uneducated are fully impressed with "the majesty and sanctity" of Christ's mind; as if _this_ were what I am fundamentally denying; and not, only so far as would transcend the known limits of human nature: surely "majesty and sanctity" are not inconsistent with many weaknesses. But our judgment concerning a man's motives, his temper, and his full conquest over self, vanity and impulsive passion, depends on the accurate knowledge of a vast variety of minor points; even the curl of the lip, or the discord of eye and mouth, may change our moral judgment of a man; while, alike to my friend and me it is certain that much of what is stated is untrue. Much moreover of what he holds to be untrue does not seem so to any but to the highly educated. In spite therefore of his able reply, I abide in my opinion that he is unreasonably endeavouring to erect what is essentially a piece of doubtful biography and difficult literary criticism into first-rate religious importance. I shall however try to pick up a few details which seem, as much as any, to deserve credit, concerning the pretensions, doctrine and conduct of Jesus. _First_, I believe that he habitually spoke of himself by the title "_Son of Man_"--a fact which pervades all the accounts, and was likely to rivet itself on his hearers. Nobody but he himself ever calls him Son of Man. _Secondly_ I believe that in assuming this title he tacitly alluded to the viith chapter of Daniel, and claimed for himself the throne of judgment over all mankind.--I know no reason to doubt that he actually delivered (in substance) the discourse in Matth. xxv. "When the Son of Man shall come in his glory,... before him shall be gathered all nations,... and he shall separate them, &c. &c.": and I believe that by _the Son of Man_ and _the King_ he meant himself. Compare Luke xii. 40, ix. 56. _Thirdly_, I believe that he habitually assumed the authoritative dogmatic tone of one who was a universal Teacher in moral and spiritual matters, and enunciated as a primary duty of men to learn submissively of his wisdom and acknowledge his supremacy. This element in his character, _the preaching of himself_ is enormously expanded in the fourth gospel, but it distinctly exists in Matthew. Thus in Matth. xxiii 8: "Be not ye called Rabbi [_teacher_], for one is your Teacher, even Christ; and all ye are brethren"... Matth. x. 32: "Whosoever shall confess ME before men, him will I confess before my Father which is in heaven... He that loveth father or mother more than ME is not _worthy of_ ME, &c."... Matth. xi. 27: "All things are delivered unto ME of my Father; and _no man knoweth the Son but the Father_; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son; and he to whomsoever _the Son will reveal him._ Come unto ME, all ye that labour,... and _I_ will give you rest. Take MY yoke upon you, &c." My friend, I find, rejects Jesus as an authoritative teacher, distinctly denies that the acceptance of Jesus in this character is any condition of salvation and of the divine favour, and treats of my "demand of an oracular Christ," as inconsistent with my own principles. But this is mere misconception of what I have said. I find _Jesus himself_ to set up oracular claims. I find an assumption of pre-eminence and unapproachable moral wisdom to pervade every discourse from end to end of the gospels. If I may not believe that Jesus assumed an oracular manner, I do not know what moral peculiarity in him I am permitted to believe. I do not _demand_ (as my friend seems to think) that _he shall be_ oracular, but in common with all Christendom, I open my eyes and see that _he is_; and until I had read my friend's review of my book, I never understood (I suppose through my own prepossessions) that he holds Jesus _not_ to have assumed the oracular style. If I cut out from the four gospels this peculiarity, I must cut out, not only the claim of Messiahship, which my friend admits to have been made, but nearly every moral discourse and every controversy: and _why_? except in order to make good a predetermined belief that Jesus was morally perfect. What reason can be given me for not believing that Jesus declared: "If any one deny ME before men, _him will I deny_ before my Father and his angels?" or any of the other texts which couple the favour of God with a submission to such pretensions of Jesus? I can find no reason whatever for doubting that he preached HIMSELF to his disciples, though in the three first gospels he is rather timid of doing this to the Pharisees and to the nation at large. I find him uniformly to claim, sometimes in tone, sometimes in distinct words, that we will sit at his feet as little children and learn of him. I find him ready to answer off-hand, all difficult questions, critical and lawyer-like, as well as moral. True, it is no tenet of mine that intellectual and literary attainment is essential in an individual person to high spiritual eminence. True, in another book I have elaborately maintained the contrary. Yet in that book I have described men's spiritual progress as often arrested at a certain stage by a want of intellectual development; which surely would indicate that I believed even intellectual blunders and an infinitely perfect exhaustive morality to be incompatible. But our question here (or at least _my_ question) is not, whether Jesus might misinterpret prophecy, and yet be morally perfect; but whether, _after assuming to be an oracular teacher_, he can teach some fanatical precepts, and advance dogmatically weak and foolish arguments, without impairing our sense of his absolute moral perfection. I do not think it useless here to repeat (though not for my friend) concise reasons which I gave in my first edition against admitting dictatorial claims for Jesus. _First_, it is an unplausible opinion that God would deviate from his ordinary course, in order to give us anything so undesirable as an authoritative Oracle would be;--which would paralyze our moral powers, exactly as an infallible church does, in the very proportion in which we succeeded in eliciting responses from it. It is not needful here to repeat what has been said to that effect in p. 138. _Secondly_, there is no imaginable criterion, by which we can establish that the wisdom of a teacher _is_ absolute and illimitable. All that we can possibly discover, is the relative fact, that another is _wiser than we_: and even this is liable to be overturned on special points, as soon as differences of judgment arise. _Thirdly_, while it is by no means clear what are the new truths, for which we are to lean upon the decisions of Jesus, it is certain that we have no genuine and trustworthy account of his teaching. If God had intended us to receive the authoritative _dicta_ of Jesus, he would have furnished us with an unblemished record of those dicta. To allow that we have not this, and that we must disentangle for ourselves (by a most difficult and uncertain process) the "true" sayings of Jesus, is surely self-refuting. _Fourthly_, if I _must_ sit in judgment on the claims of Jesus to be the true Messiah and Son of God, how can I concentrate all my free thought into that one act, and thenceforth abandon free thought? This appears a moral suicide, whether Messiah or the Pope is the object whom we _first_ criticize, in order to instal him over us, and _then_, for ever after, refuse to criticize. In short, _we cannot build up a system of Oracles on a basis of Free Criticism_. If we are to submit our judgment to the dictation of some other,--whether a church or an individual,--we must be first subjected to that other by some event from without, as by birth; and not by a process of that very judgment which is henceforth to be sacrificed. But from this I proceed to consider more in detail, some points in the teaching and conduct of Jesus, which do not appear to me consistent with absolute perfection. The argument of Jesus concerning the tribute to Cæsar is so dramatic, as to strike the imagination and rest on the memory; and I know no reason for doubting that it has been correctly reported. The book of Deuteronomy (xvii. 15) distinctly forbids Israel to set over himself as king any who is not a native Israelite; which appeared to be a religious condemnation of submission to Cæsar. Accordingly, since Jesus assumed the tone of unlimited wisdom, some of Herod's party asked him, whether it was lawful to pay tribute to Cæsar. Jesus replied: "Why tempt ye me, hypocrites? Show me the tribute money." When one of the coins was handed to him, he asked: "Whose image and superscription is this?" When they replied: "Cæsar's," he gave his authoritative decision: "Render _therefore_ to Cæsar _the things that are Cæsar's_." In this reply not only the poor and uneducated, but many likewise of the rich and educated, recognize "majesty and sanctity:" yet I find it hard to think that my strong-minded friend will defend the justness, wisdom and honesty of it. To imagine that because a coin bears Cæsar's head, _therefore_ it is Cæsar's property, and that he may demand to have as many of such coins as he chooses paid over to him, is puerile, and notoriously false. The circulation of foreign coin of every kind was as common in the Mediterranean then as now; and everybody knew that the coin was the property of the _holder_, not of him whose head it bore. Thus the reply of Jesus, which pretended to be a moral decision, was unsound and absurd: yet it is uttered in a tone of dictatorial wisdom, and ushered in by a grave rebuke, "Why tempt ye me, hypocrites?" He is generally understood to mean, "Why do you try to implicate me in a political charge?" and it is supposed that he prudently _evaded_ the question. I have indeed heard this interpretation from high Trinitarians; which indicates to me how dead is their moral sense in everything which concerns the conduct of Jesus. No reason appears why he should not have replied, that Moses forbade Israel _voluntarily_ to place himself under a foreign king, but did not inculcate fanatical and useless rebellion against overwhelming power. But such a reply, which would have satisfied a more commonplace mind, has in it nothing brilliant and striking. I cannot but think that Jesus shows a vain conceit in the cleverness of his answer: I do not think it so likely to have been a conscious evasion. But neither does his rebuke of the questioners at all commend itself to me. How can any man assume to be an authoritative teacher, and then claim that men shall not put his wisdom to the proof? Was it not their _duty_ to do so? And when, in result, the trial has proved the defect of his wisdom, did they not perform a useful public service? In truth, I cannot see the Model Man in his rebuke.--Let not my friend say that the error was merely intellectual: blundering self-sufficiency is a moral weakness. I might go into detail concerning other discourses, where error and arrogance appear to me combined. But, not to be tedious,--in general I must complain that Jesus purposely adopted an enigmatical and pretentious style of teaching, unintelligible to his hearers, and needing explanation in private. That this was his systematic procedure, I believe, because, in spite of the great contrast of the fourth gospel to the others, it has this peculiarity in common with them. Christian divines are used to tell us that this mode was _peculiarly instructive_ to the vulgar of Judæa; and they insist on the great wisdom displayed in his choice of the lucid parabolical style. But in Matth. xiii. 10-15, Jesus is made confidentially to avow precisely the opposite reason, viz. that he desires the vulgar _not_ to understand him, but only the select few to whom he gives private explanations. I confess I believe the Evangelist rather than the modern Divine. I cannot conceive how so strange a notion could ever have possessed the companions of Jesus, if it had not been true. If really this parabolical method had been peculiarly intelligible, what could make them imagine the contrary? Unless they found it very obscure themselves, whence came the idea that it was obscure to the multitude? As a fact, it _is_ very obscure, to this day. There is much that I most imperfectly understand, owing to unexplained metaphor: as: "Agree with thine adversary quickly, &c. &c.:" "Whoso calls his brother[2] a fool, is in danger of hell fire:" "Every one must be salted with fire, and every sacrifice salted with salt. Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another." Now every man of original and singular genius has his own forms of thought; in so far as they are natural, we must not complain, if to us they are obscure. But the moment _affectation_ comes in, they no longer are reconcilable with the perfect character: they indicate vanity, and incipient sacerdotalism. The distinct notice that Jesus avoided to expound his parables to the multitude, and made this a boon to the privileged few; and that without a parable he spake not to the multitude; and the pious explanation, that this was a fulfilment of Prophecy, "I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter dark sayings on the harp," persuade me that the impression of the disciples was a deep reality. And it is in entire keeping with the general narrative, which shows in him so much of mystical assumption. Strip the parables of the imagery, and you find that sometimes one thought has been dished up four or five times, and generally, that an idea is dressed into sacred grandeur. This mystical method made a little wisdom go a great way with the multitude; and to such a mode of economizing resources the instinct of the uneducated man betakes itself, when he is claiming to act a part for which he is imperfectly prepared. It is common with orthodox Christians to take for granted, that unbelief of Jesus was a sin, and belief a merit, at a time when no rational grounds of belief were as yet public. Certainly, whoever asks questions with a view to _prove_ Jesus, is spoken of vituperatingly in the gospels; and it does appear to me that the prevalent Christian belief is a true echo of Jesus's own feeling. He disliked being put to the proof. Instead of rejoicing in it, as a true and upright man ought,--instead of blaming those who accept his pretensions on too slight grounds,--instead of encouraging full inquiry and giving frank explanations, he resents doubt, shuns everything that will test him, is very obscure as to his own pretensions, (so as to need probing and positive questions, whether he _does_ or _does not_ profess to be Messiah,) and yet is delighted at all easy belief. When asked for miracles, he sighs and groans at the unreasonableness of it; yet does not honestly and plainly renounce pretension to miracle, as Mr. Martineau would, but leaves room for credit to himself for as many miracles as the credulous are willing to impute to him. It is possible that here the narrative is unjust to his memory. So far from being the picture of perfection, it sometimes seems to me the picture of a conscious and wilful impostor. His general character is too high for _this_; and I therefore make deductions from the account. Still, I do not see how the present narrative could have grown up, if he had been really simple and straight-forward, and not perverted by his essentially false position. Enigma and mist seem to be his element; and when I find his high satisfaction at all personal recognition and bowing before his individuality, I almost doubt whether, if one wished to draw the character of a vain and vacillating pretender, it would be possible to draw anything more to the purpose than this. His general rule (before a certain date) is, to be cautious in public, but bold in private to the favoured few. I cannot think that such a character, appearing now, would seem to my friend a perfect model of a man. No precept bears on its face clearer marks of coming from the genuine Jesus, than that of _selling all and following him_. This was his original call to his disciples. It was enunciated authoritatively on various occasions. It is incorporated with precepts of perpetual obligation, in such a way, that we cannot without the greatest violence pretend that he did not intend it as a precept[3] to _all_ his disciples. In Luke xii. 22-40, he addresses the disciples collectively against Avarice; and a part of the discourse is: "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. _Sell that ye have, and give alms_: provide yourselves bags that wax not old; a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, &c.... Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning," &c. To say that he was not intending to teach a universal morality,[4] is to admit that his precepts are a trap; for they then mix up and confound mere contingent duties with universal sacred obligations, enunciating all in the same breath, and with the same solemnity. I cannot think that Jesus intended any separation. In fact, when a rich young man asked of him what he should do, that he might inherit eternal life, and pleaded that he had kept the ten commandments, but felt that to be insufficient, Jesus said unto him: "_If thou wilt be perfect_, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven:" so that the duty was not contingent upon the peculiarity of a man possessing apostolic gifts, but was with Jesus the normal path for all who desired perfection. When the young man went away sorrowing, Jesus moralized on it, saying: "How hardly shall a rich man enter into the kingdom of heaven:" which again shows, that an abrupt renunciation of wealth was to be the general and ordinary method of entering the kingdom. Hereupon, when the disciples asked: "Lo! we _have_ forsaken all, and followed thee: what shall we have _therefore_?" Jesus, instead of rebuking their self-righteousness, promised them as a reward, that they should sit upon twelve[5] thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. A precept thus systematically enforced, is illustrated by the practice, not only of the twelve, but apparently of the seventy, and what is stronger still, by the practice of the five thousand disciples after the celebrated days of the first Pentecost. There was no longer a Jesus on earth to itinerate with, yet the disciples in the fervour of first love obeyed his precept: the rich sold their possessions, and laid the price at the apostles' feet. The mischiefs inherent in such a precept rapidly showed themselves, and good sense corrected the error. But this very fact proves most emphatically that the precept was pre-apostolic, and came from the genuine Jesus; otherwise it could never have found its way into the gospels. It is undeniable, that the first disciples, by whose tradition alone we have any record of what Jesus taught, understood him to deliver this precept to _all_ who desired to enter into the kingdom of heaven,--all who desired to be perfect: why then are we to refuse belief, and remould the precepts of Jesus till they please our own morality? This is not the way to learn historical fact. That to inculcate religious beggary as the _only_ form and mode of spiritual perfection, is fanatical and mischievous, even the church of Rome will admit. Protestants universally reject it as a deplorable absurdity;--not merely wealthy bishops, squires and merchants, but the poorest curate also. A man could not preach such doctrine in a Protestant pulpit without incurring deep reprobation and contempt; but when preached by Jesus, it is extolled as divine wisdom,--and disobeyed. Now I cannot look on this as a pure intellectual error, consistent with moral perfection. A deep mistake as to the nature of such perfection seems to me inherent in the precept itself; a mistake which indicates a moral unsoundness. The conduct of Jesus to the rich young man appears to me a melancholy exhibition of perverse doctrine, under an ostentation of superior wisdom. The young man asked for bread and Jesus gave him a stone. Justly he went away sorrowful, at receiving a reply which his conscience rejected as false and foolish. But this is not all Jesus was necessarily on trial, when any one, however sincere, came to ask questions so deeply probing the quality of his wisdom as this: "How may I be perfect?" and to be on trial was always disagreeable to him. He first gave the reply, "Keep the commandments;" and if the young man had been satisfied, and had gone away, it appears that Jesus would have been glad to be rid of him: for his tone is magisterial, decisive and final. This, I confess, suggests to me, that the aim of Jesus was not so much to _enlighten_ the young man, as to stop his mouth, and keep up his own ostentation of omniscience. Had he desired to enlighten him, surely no mere dry dogmatic command was needed, but an intelligent guidance of a willing and trusting soul. I do not pretend to certain knowledge in these matters. Even when we hear the tones of voice and watch the features, we often mistake. We have no such means here of checking the narrative. But the best general result which I can draw from the imperfect materials, is what I have said. After the merit of "selling all and following Jesus," a second merit, not small, was, to receive those whom he sent. In Matt. x., we read that he sends out his twelve disciples, (also seventy in Luke,) men at that time in a very low state of religions development,--men who did not themselves know what the Kingdom of Heaven meant,--to deliver in every village and town a mere formula of words: "Repent ye: for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." They were ordered to go without money, scrip or cloak, but to live on religious alms; and it is added,--that if any house or city does not receive them, _it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment_ than for it. He adds, v. 40: "He that receiveth _you_, receiveth _me_, and he that receiveth _me_, receiveth HIM that sent me."--I quite admit, that in all probability it was (on the whole) the more pious part of Israel which was likely to receive these ignorant missionaries; but inasmuch as they had no claims whatever, intrinsic or extrinsic, to reverence, it appears to me a very extravagant and fanatical sentiment thus emphatically to couple the favour or wrath of God with their reception or rejection. A third, yet greater merit in the eyes of Jesus, was, to acknowledge him as the Messiah predicted by the prophets, which he was not, according to my friend. According to Matthew (xvi. 13), Jesus put leading questions to the disciples in order to elicit a confession of his Messiahship, and emphatically blessed Simon for making the avowal which he desired; but instantly forbade them to tell the great secret to any one. Unless this is to be discarded as fiction, Jesus, although to his disciples in secret he confidently assumed Messianic pretensions, had a just inward misgiving, which accounts both for his elation at Simon's avowal, and for his prohibition to publish it. In admitting that Jesus was not the Messiah of the prophets, my friend says, that if Jesus were _less_ than Messiah, we can reverence him no longer; but that he was _more_ than Messiah. This is to me unintelligible. The Messiah whom he claimed to be, was not only the son of David, celebrated in the prophets, but emphatically the Son of Man of Daniel vii., who shall come in the clouds of heaven, to take dominion, glory and kingdom, that all people, nations and languages shall serve him,--an everlasting kingdom which shall not pass away. How Jesus himself interprets his supremacy, as Son of Man, in Matt. x., xi., xxiii., xxv., and elsewhere, I have already observed. To claim such a character, seems to me like plunging from a pinnacle of the temple. If miraculous power holds him up and makes good his daring, he is more than man; but if otherwise, to have failed will break all his bones. I can no longer give the same human reverence as before to one who has been seduced into vanity so egregious; and I feel assured _à priori_ that such presumption _must have_ entangled him into evasions and insincerities, which _naturally_ end in crookedness of conscience and real imposture, however noble a man's commencement, and however unshrinking his sacrifices of goods and ease and life. The time arrived at last, when Jesus felt that he must publicly assert Messiahship; and this was certain to bring things to an issue. I suppose him to have hoped that he was Messiah, until hope and the encouragement given him by Peter and others grew into a persuasion strong enough to act upon, but not always strong enough to still misgivings. I say, I suppose this; but I build nothing on my supposition. I however see, that when he had resolved to claim Messiahship publicly, one of two results was inevitable, _if_ that claim was ill-founded:--viz., either he must have become an impostor, in order to screen his weakness; or, he must have retracted his pretensions amid much humiliation, and have retired into privacy to learn sober wisdom. From these alternatives _there was escape only by death_, and upon death Jesus purposely rushed. All Christendom has always believed that the death of Jesus was _voluntarily_ incurred; and unless no man ever became a wilful martyr, I cannot conceive why we are to doubt the fact concerning Jesus. When he resolved to go up to Jerusalem, he was warned by his disciples of the danger; but so far was he from being blind to it, that he distinctly announced to them that he knew he should suffer in Jerusalem the shameful death of a malefactor. On his arrival in the suburbs, his first act was, ostentatiously to ride into the city on an ass's colt in the midst of the acclamations of the multitude, in order to exhibit himself as having a just right to the throne of David. Thus he gave a handle to imputations of intended treason.--He next entered the temple courts, where doves and lambs were sold for sacrifice, and--(I must say it to my friend's amusement, and in defiance of his kind but keen ridicule,) committed a breach of the peace by flogging with a whip those who trafficked in the area. By such conduct he undoubtedly made himself liable to legal punishment, and probably might have been publicly scourged for it, had the rulers chosen to moderate their vengeance. But he "meant to be prosecuted for treason, not for felony," to use the words of a modern offender. He therefore commenced the most exasperating attacks on all the powerful, calling them hypocrites and whited sepulchres and vipers' brood; and denouncing upon them the "condemnation of hell." He was successful. He had both enraged the rulers up to the point of thirsting for his life, and given colour to the charge of political rebellion. He resolved to die; and he died. Had his enemies contemptuously let him live, he would have been forced to act the part of Jewish Messiah, or renounce Messiahship. If any one holds Jesus to be not amenable to the laws of human morality, I am not now reasoning with such a one. But if any one claims for him a human perfection, then I say that his conduct on this occasion was neither laudable nor justifiable; far otherwise. There are cases in which life may be thrown away for a great cause; as when a leader in battle rushes upon certain death, in order to animate his own men; but the case before us has no similarity to that. If our accounts are not wholly false, Jesus knowingly and purposely exasperated the rulers into a great crime,--the crime of taking his life from personal resentment. His inflammatory addresses to the multitude have been defended as follows: "The prophetic Spirit is sometimes oblivious of the rules of the drawing-room; and inspired Conscience, like the inspiring God, seeing a hypocrite, will take the liberty to say so, and act accordingly. Are the superficial amenities, the soothing fictions, the smotherings of the burning heart,... really paramount in this world, and never to give way? and when a soul of _power, unable to refrain_, rubs off, though it be with rasping words, all the varnish from rottenness and lies, is he to be tried in our courts of compliment for a misdemeanor? Is there never a higher duty than that of either pitying or converting guilty men,--the duty of publicly exposing them? of awakening the popular conscience, and sweeping away the conventional timidities, for a severe return to truth and reality? No rule of morals can be recognized as just, which prohibits conformity of human speech to fact; and insists on terms of civility being kept with all manner of iniquity." I certainly have not appealed to any conventional morality of drawing-room compliment, but to the highest and purest principles which I know; and I lament to find my judgment so extremely in opposition. To me it seems that _inability to refrain_ shows weakness, not _power_, of soul, and that nothing is easier than to give vent to violent invective against bad rulers. The last sentence quoted, seems to say, that the speaking of Truth is never to be condemned: but I cannot agree to this. When Truth will only exasperate, and cannot do good, silence is imperative. A man who reproaches an armed tyrant in words too plain, does but excite him to murder; and the shocking thing is, that this seems to have been the express object of Jesus. No good result could be reasonably expected. Publicly to call men in authority by names of intense insult, the writer of the above distinctly sees will never convert them; but he thinks it was adapted to awaken the popular conscience. Alas! it needs no divine prophet to inflame a multitude against the avarice, hypocrisy, and oppression of rulers, nor any deep inspiration of conscience in the multitude to be wide awake on that point themselves A Publius Clodius or a Cleon will do that work as efficiently as a Jesus; nor does it appear that the poor are made better by hearing invectives against the rich and powerful. If Jesus had been aiming, in a good cause, to excite rebellion, the mode of address which he assumed seems highly appropriate; and in such a calamitous necessity, to risk exciting murderous enmity would be the act of a hero: but as the account stands, it seems to me the deed of a fanatic. And it is to me manifest that he overdid his attack, and failed to commend it to the conscience of his hearers. For up to this point the multitude was in his favour. He was notoriously so acceptable to the many, as to alarm the rulers; indeed the belief of his popularity had shielded him from prosecution. But after this fierce address he has no more popular support. At his public trial the vast majority judge him to deserve punishment, and prefer to ask free forgiveness for Barabbas, a bandit who was in prison for murder. We moderns, nursed in an arbitrary belief concerning these events, drink in with our first milk the assumption that Jesus alone was guiltless, and all the other actors in this sad affair inexcusably guilty. Let no one imagine that I defend for a moment the cruel punishment which raw resentment inflicted on him. But though the rulers felt the rage of Vengeance, the people, who had suffered no personal wrong, were moved only by ill-measured Indignation. The multitude love to hear the powerful exposed and reproached up to a certain limit; but if reproach go clearly beyond all that they feel to be deserved, a violent sentiment reacts on the head of the reviler: and though popular indignation (even when free from the element of selfishness) ill fixes the due _measure_ of Punishment, I have a strong belief that it is righteous, when it pronounces the verdict Guilty. Does my friend deny that the death of Jesus was wilfully incurred? The "orthodox" not merely admit, but maintain it. Their creed justifies it by the doctrine, that his death was a "sacrifice" so pleasing to God, as to expiate the sins of the world. This honestly meets the objections to self-destruction; for how better could life be used, than by laying it down for such a prize? But besides all other difficulties in the very idea of atonement, the orthodox creed startles us by the incredible conception, that a voluntary sacrifice of life should be unacceptable to God, unless offered by ferocious and impious hands. If Jesus had "authority from the Father to lay down his life," was he unable to stab himself in the desert, or on the sacred altar of the Temple, without involving guilt to any human being? Did He, who is at once "High Priest" and Victim, when "offering up himself" and "presenting his own blood unto God," need any justification for using the sacrificial knife? The orthodox view more clearly and unshrinkingly avows, that Jesus deliberately goaded the wicked rulers into the deeper wickedness of murdering him; but on my friend's view, that Jesus was _no_ sacrifice, but only a Model man, his death is an unrelieved calamity. Nothing but a long and complete life could possibly test the fact of his perfection; and the longer he lived, the better for the world. In entire consistency with his previous determination to die, Jesus, when arraigned, refused to rebut accusation, and behaved as one pleading Guilty. He was accused of saying that if they destroyed the temple, he would rebuild it in three days; but how this was to the purpose, the evangelists who name it do not make clear. The fourth however (without intending so to do) explains it; and I therefore am disposed to believe his statement, though I put no faith in his long discourses. It appears (John ii. 18-20) that Jesus after scourging the people out of the temple-court, was asked for a sign to justify his assuming so very unusual authority: on which he replied: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." Such a reply was regarded as a manifest evasion; since he was sure that they would not pull the temple down in order to try whether he could raise it up miraculously. Now if Jesus really meant what the fourth gospel says he meant;--if he "spoke of _the temple of his body_;"--how was any one to guess that? It cannot be denied, that such a reply, _primâ facie_, suggested, that he was a wilful impostor: was it not then his obvious duty, when this accusation was brought against him, to explain that his words had been mystical and had been misunderstood? The form of the imputation in Mark xiv. 58, would make it possible to imagine,--if the _three days_ were left out, and if his words were _not_ said in reply to the demand of a sign,--that Jesus had merely avowed that though the outward Jewish temple were to be destroyed, he would erect a church of worshippers as a spiritual temple. If so, "John" has grossly misrepresented him, and then obtruded a very far-fetched explanation. But whatever was the meaning of Jesus, if it was honest, I think he was bound to explain it; and not leave a suspicion of imposture to rankle in men's minds.[6] Finally, if the whole were fiction, and he never uttered such words, then it was his duty to deny them, and not remain dumb like a sheep before its shearers. After he had confirmed by his silence the belief that he had used a dishonest evasion indicative of consciousness that he was no real Messiah, he suddenly burst out with a full reply to the High Priest's question; and avowed that he _was_ the Messiah, the Son of God; and that they should hereafter see him sitting on the right-hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven,--of course to enter into judgment on them all. I am the less surprized that this precipitated his condemnation, since he himself seems to have designed precisely that result. The exasperation which he had succeeded in kindling led to his cruel death; and when men's minds had cooled, natural horror possessed them for such a retribution on such a man. His _words_ had been met with _deeds_: the provocation he had given was unfelt to those beyond the limits of Jerusalem; and to the Jews who assembled from distant parts at the feast of Pentecost he was nothing but the image of a sainted martyr. I have given more than enough indications of points in which the conduct of Jesus does not seem to me to have been that of a perfect man: how any one can think him a Universal Model, is to me still less intelligible. I might say much more on this subject. But I will merely add, that when my friend gives the weight of his noble testimony to the Perfection of Jesus, I think it is due to himself and to us that he should make clear what he means by this word "Jesus." He ought to publish--(I say it in deep seriousness, not sarcastically)--an expurgated gospel; for in truth I do not know how much of what I have now adduced from the gospel as _fact_, he will admit to be fact. I neglect, he tells me, "a higher moral criticism," which, if I rightly understand, would explode, as evidently unworthy of Jesus, many of the representations pervading the gospels: as, that Jesus claimed to be an oracular teacher, and attached spiritual life or death to belief or disbelief in this claim. My friend says, it is beyond all serious question _what_ Jesus _was_: but his disbelief of the narrative seems to be so much wider than mine, as to leave me more uncertain than ever about it. If he will strike out of the gospels all that he disbelieves, and so enable me to understand _what_ is the Jesus whom he reveres, I have so deep a sense of his moral and critical powers, that I am fully prepared to expect that he may remove many of my prejudices and relieve my objections: but I cannot honestly say that I see the least probability of his altering my conviction, that in _consistency_ of goodness Jesus fell far below vast numbers of his unhonoured disciples. [Footnote 1: I have by accident just taken up the "British Quarterly," and alighted upon the following sentence concerning Madame Roland:--"_To say that she was without fault, would be to say that she was not human_." This so entirely expresses and concludes all that I have to say, that I feel surprise at my needing at all to write such a chapter as the present.] [Footnote 2: I am acquainted with the interpretation, that the word Môrè is not here Greek, _i.e., fool_, but is Hebrew, and means _rebel_, which is stronger than Raca, _silly fellow_. This gives partial, but only partial relief.] [Footnote 3: Indeed we have in Luke vi. 20-24, a version of the Beatitudes so much in harmony with this lower doctrine, as to make it an open question, whether the version in Matth. v. is not an improvement upon Jesus, introduced by the purer sense of the collective church. In Luke, he does not bless the poor _in spirit_, and those who hunger _after righteousness_, but absolutely the "poor" and the "hungry," and all who honour _Him_; and in contrast, curses _the rich_ and those who are full.] [Footnote 4: At the close, is the parable about the absent master of a house; and Peter asks, "Lord? (Sir?) speakest thou this parable unto _us_, or also unto _all_?" Who would not have hoped an ingenuous reply, "To you only," or, "To everybody"? Instead of which, so inveterate is his tendency to muffle up the simplest things in mystery, he replies, "Who then is that faithful and wise steward," &c., &c., and entirely evades reply to the very natural question.] [Footnote 5: This implied that Judas, as one of the twelve, had earned the heavenly throne by the price of earthly goods.] [Footnote 6: If the account in John is not wholly false, I think the reply in every case discreditable. If literal, it all but indicates wilful imposture. If mystical, it is disingenuously evasive; and it tended, not to instruct, but to irritate, and to move suspicion and contempt. Is this the course for a religious teacher?--to speak darkly, so as to mislead and prejudice; and this, when he represents it as a matter of spiritual life and death to accept his teaching and his supremacy?] CHAPTER VIII. ON BIGOTRY AND PROGRESS. If any Christian reader has been patient enough to follow me thus far, I now claim that he will judge my argument and me, as before the bar of God, and not by the conventional standards of the Christian churches. Morality and Truth are principles in human nature both older and more widespread than Christianity or the Bible: and neither Jesus nor James nor John nor Paul could have addressed or did address men in any other tone, than that of claiming to be themselves judged by some pre-existing standard of moral truth, and by the inward powers of the hearer. Does the reader deny this? or, admitting it, does he think it impious to accept their challenge? Does he say that we are to love and embrace Christianity, without trying to ascertain whether it be true or false? If he say, Yes,--such a man has no love or care for Truth, and is but by accident a Christian. He would have remained a faithful heathen, had he been born in heathenism, though Moses, Elijah and Christ preached a higher truth to him. Such a man is condemned by his own confession, and I here address him no longer. But if Faith is a spiritual and personal thing, if Belief given at random to mere high pretensions is an immorality, if Truth is not to be quite trampled down, nor Conscience to be wholly palsied in us,--then what, I ask, was I to do, when I saw that the genealogy in the first chapter of Matthew is an erroneous copy of that in the Old Testament? and that the writer has not only copied wrong, but also counted wrong, so, as to mistake eighteen for fourteen? Can any man, who glories in the name of Christian, lay his hand on his heart, and say, it was my duty to blind my eyes to the fact, and think of it no further? Many, alas, I know, would have whispered this to me; but if any one were to proclaim it, the universal conscience of mankind would call him impudent. If however this first step was right, was a second step wrong? When I further discerned that the two genealogies in Matthew and Luke were at variance, utterly irreconcilable,--and both moreover nugatory, because they are genealogies of Joseph, who is denied to be the father of Jesus,--on what ground of righteousness, which I could approve to God and my conscience, could I shut my eyes to this second fact? When forced, against all my prepossessions, to admit that the two first chapters of Matthew and the two first chapters of Luke are mutually destructive,[1] would it have been faithfulness to the God of Truth, or a self-willed love of my own prejudices, if I had said, "I will not inquire further, for fear it should unsettle my faith?" The reader's conscience will witness to me, that, on the contrary, I was bound to say, what I did say: "I _must_ inquire further in order that I may plant the foundations of my faith more deeply on the rock of Truth."' Having discovered, that not all that is within the canon of the Scripture is infallibly correct, and that the human understanding is competent to arraign and convict at least some kinds of error therein contained;--where was I to stop? and if I am guilty, where did my guilt begin? The further I inquired, the more errors crowded upon me, in History, in Chronology, in Geography, in Physiology, in Geology.[2] Did it _then_ at last become a duty to close my eyes to the painful light? and if I had done so, ought I to have flattered myself that I was one of those, who being of the truth, come to the lights that their deeds may be reproved? Moreover, when I had clearly perceived, that since all evidence for Christianity must involve _moral_ considerations, to undervalue the moral faculties of mankind is to make Christian evidence an impossibility and to propagate universal scepticism;--was I then so to distrust the common conscience, as to believe that the Spirit of God pronounced Jael blessed, for perfidiously murdering her husband's trusting friend? Does any Protestant reader feel disgust and horror, at the sophistical defences set up for the massacre of St. Bartholomew and other atrocities of the wicked Church of Rome? Let him stop his mouth, and hide his face, if he dares to justify the foul crime of Jael. Or when I was thus forced to admit, that the Old Testament praised immorality, as well as enunciated error; and found nevertheless in the writers of the New Testament no indication that they were aware of either; but that, on the contrary, "the Scripture" (as the book was vaguely called) is habitually identified with the infallible "word of God;"--was it wrong in me to suspect that the writers of the New Testament were themselves open to mistake? When I farther found, that Luke not only claims no infallibility and no inspiration, but distinctly assigns human sources as his means of knowledge;--when the same Luke had already been discovered to be in irreconcilable variance with Matthew concerning the infancy of Jesus;--was I sinful in feeling that I had no longer any guarantee against _other_ possible error in these writers? or ought I to have persisted in obtruding on the two evangelists on infallibility of which Luke shows himself unconscious, which Matthew nowhere claims, and which I had demonstrative proof that they did not both possess? A thorough-going Bibliolater will have to impeach me as a sinner on this count. After Luke and Matthew stood before me as human writers, liable to and convicted of human error, was there any reason why I should look on Mark as more sacred? And having perceived all three to participate in the common superstition, derived from Babylon and the East, traceable in history to its human source, existing still in Turkey and Abyssinia,--the superstition which mistakes mania, epilepsy, and other forms of disease, for possession by devils;--should I have shown love of truth, or obstinacy in error, had I refused to judge freely of these three writers, as of any others who tell similar marvels? or was it my duty to resolve, at any rate and against evidence, to acquit them of the charge of superstition and misrepresentation? I will not trouble the reader with any further queries. If he has justified me in his conscience thus far, he will justify my proceeding to abandon myself to the results of inquiry. He will feel, that the Will cannot, may not, dare not dictate, whereto the inquiries of the Understanding shall lead; and that to allege that it _ought_, is to plant the root of Insincerity, Falsehood, Bigotry, Cruelty, and universal Rottenness of Soul. The vice of Bigotry has been so indiscriminately imputed to the religious, that they seem apt to forget that it is a real sin;--a sin which in Christendom has been and is of all sins most fruitful, most poisonous: nay, grief of griefs! it infects many of the purest and most lovely hearts, which want strength of understanding, or are entangled by a sham theology, with its false facts and fraudulent canons. But upon all who mourn for the miseries which Bigotry has perpetrated from the day when Christians first learned to curse; upon all who groan over the persecutions and wars stirred up by Romanism; upon all who blush at the overbearing conduct of Protestants in their successive moments of brief authority,--a sacred duty rests in this nineteenth century of protesting against Bigotry, not from a love of ease, but from a spirit of earnest justice. Like the first Christians, they must become _confessors_ of the Truth; not obtrusively, boastfully, dogmatically, or harshly; but, "speaking the truth in love," not be ashamed to avow, if they do not believe all that others profess, and that they abhor the unrighteous principle of judging men by an authoritative creed. The evil of Bigotry which has been most observed, is its untameable injustice, which converted the law of love into licensed murder or gratuitous hatred. But I believe a worse evil still has been, the intense reaction of the human mind against Religion for Bigotry's sake. To the millions of Europe, bigotry has been a confutation of all pious feeling. So unlovely has religion been made by it, Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans, that now, as 2000 years ago, men are lapsing into Atheism or Pantheism; and a totally new "dispensation" is wanted to retrieve the lost reputation of Piety. Two opposite errors are committed by those who discern that the pretensions of the national religious systems are overstrained and unjustifiable. One class of persons inveighs warmly, bitterly, rudely against the bigotry of Christians; and know not how deep and holy affections and principles, in spite of narrowness, are cherished in the bosom of the Christian society. Hence their invective is harsh and unsympathizing; and appears so essentially unjust and so ignorant, as to exasperate and increase the very bigotry which it attacks. An opposite class know well, and value highly, the moral influences of Christianity, and from an intense dread of harming or losing these, do not dare plainly and publicly to avow their own convictions. Great numbers of English laymen are entirely assured, that the Old Testament abounds with error, and that the New is not always unimpeachable: yet they only whisper this; and in the hearing of a clergyman, who is bound by Articles and whom it is indecent to refute, keep a respectful silence. As for ministers of religion, these, being called perpetually into a practical application of the received doctrine of their church, are of all men least able to inquire into any fundamental errors in that doctrine. Eminent persons among them will nevertheless aim after and attain a purer truth than that which they find established: but such a case must always be rare and exceptive. Only by disusing ministerial service can any one give fair play to doubts concerning the wisdom and truth of that which he is solemnly ministering: hence that friend of Arnold's was wise in this world, who advised him to take a curacy in order to settle his doubts concerning the Trinity.--Nowhere from any body of priests, clergy, or ministers, as an Order, is religious progress to be anticipated, until intellectual creeds are destroyed. A greater responsibility therefore is laid upon laymen, to be faithful and bold in avowing their convictions. Yet it is not from the practical ministers of religion, that the great opposition to religious reform proceeds. The "secular clergy" (as the Romanists oddly call them) were seldom so bigoted as the "regulars." So with us, those who minister to men in their moral trials have for the most part a deeper moral spirit, and are less apt to place religion in systems of propositions. The _robur legionum_ of bigotry, I believe, is found,--first, in non-parochial clergy, and next in the anonymous writers for religious journals and "conservative" newspapers; who too generally[3] adopt a style of which they would be ashamed, if the names of the writers were attached; who often seem desirous to make it clear that it is their trade to carp, insult, or slander; who assume a tone of omniscience, at the very moment when they show narrowness of heart and judgment. To such writing those who desire to promote earnest Thought and tranquil Progress ought anxiously to testify their deep repugnance. A large part of this slander and insult is prompted by a base pandering to the (real or imagined) taste of the public, and will abate when it visibly ceases to be gainful. * * * * * The law of God's moral universe, as known to us, is that of Progress. We trace it from old barbarism to the methodized Egyptian idolatry; to the more flexible Polytheism of Syria and Greece; the poetical Pantheism of philosophers, and the moral monotheism of a few sages. So in Palestine and in the Bible itself we see, first of all, the image-worship of Jacob's family, then the incipient elevation of Jehovah above all other Gods by Moses, the practical establishment of the worship of Jehovah alone by Samuel, the rise of spiritual sentiment under David and the Psalmists, the more magnificent views of Hezekiah's prophets, finally in the Babylonish captivity the new tenderness assumed by that second Isaiah and the later Psalmists. But ceremonialism more and more encrusted the restored nation; and Jesus was needed to spur and stab the conscience of his contemporaries, and recal them to more spiritual perceptions; to proclaim a coming "kingdom of heaven," in which should be gathered all the children of God that were scattered abroad; where the law of love should reign, and no one should dictate to another. Alas! that this great movement had its admixture of human imperfection. After this, Steven the protomartyr, and Paul once him persecutor, had to expose the emptiness of all external santifications, and free the world from the law of Moses. _Up_ to this point all Christians approve of progress; but _at_ this point they want to arrest it. The arguments of those who resist Progress are always the same, whether it be Pagans against Hebrews, Jews against Christians, Romanists against Protestants, or modern Christians against the advocates of a higher spiritualism. Each established system assures its votaries, that now at length they have attained a final perfection: that their foundations are irremovable: progress _up_ to that position was a duty, _beyond_ it is a sin. Each displaces its predecessor by superior goodness, but then each fights against his successor by odium, contempt, exclusions and (when possible) by violences. Each advances mankind one step, and forbids them to take a second. Yet if it be admitted that in the earlier movement the party of progress was always right, confidence that the case is now reversed is not easy to justify. Every persecuting church has numbered among its members thousands of pious people, so grateful for its services, or so attached to its truth, as to think those impious who desire something purer and more perfect. Herein we may discern, that every nation and class is liable to the peculiar illusion of overesteeming the sanctity of its ancestral creed. It is as much our duty to beware of this illusion, as of any other. All know how easily our patriotism may degenerate into an unjust repugnance to foreigners, and that the more intense it is, the greater the need of antagonistic principles. So also, the real excellencies of our religion may only so much the more rivet us in a wrong aversion to those who do not acknowledge its authority or perfection. It is probable that Jesus desired a state of things in which all who worship God spiritually should have an acknowledged and conscious union. It is clear that Paul longed above all things to overthrow the "wall of partition" which separated two families of sincere worshippers. Yet we now see stronger and higher walls of partition than ever, between the children of the same God,--with a new law of the letter, more entangling to the conscience, and more depressing to the mental energies, than any outward service of the Levitical law. The cause of all this is to be found in _the claim of Messiahship for Jesus._ This gave a premium to crooked logic, in order to prove that the prophecies meant what they did not mean and could not mean. This perverted men's notions of right and wrong, by imparting factitious value to a literary and historical proposition, "Jesus is the Messiah," as though that were or could be religion. This gave merit to credulity, and led pious men to extol it as a brave and noble deed, when any one overpowered the scruples of good sense, and scolded them down as the wisdom of this world, which is hostile to God. This put the Christian church into an essentially false position, by excluding from it in the first century all the men of most powerful and cultivated understanding among the Greeks and Romans. This taught Christians to boast of the hostility of the wise and prudent, and in every controversy ensured that the party which had the merit of mortifying reason most signally should be victorious. Hence, the downward career of the Church into base superstition was determined and inevitable from her very birth; nor was any improvement possible, until a reconciliation should be effected between Christianity and the cultivated reason which it had slighted and insulted. Such reconciliation commenced, I believe, from the tenth century, when the Latin moralists began to be studied as a part of a theological course. It was continued with still greater results when Greek literature became accessible to churchmen. Afterwards, the physics of Galileo and of Newton began not only to undermine numerous superstitions, but to give to men a confidence in the reality of abstract truth, and in our power to attain it in other domains than that of geometrical demonstration. This, together with the philosophy of Locke, was taken up into Christian thought, and Political Toleration was the first fruit. Beyond that point, English religion has hardly gone. For in spite of all that has since been done in Germany for the true and accurate _exposition_ of the Bible, and for the scientific establishment of the history of its component books, we still remain deplorably ignorant here of these subjects. In consequence, English Christians do not know that they are unjust and utterly unreasonable, in expecting thoughtful men to abide by the creed of their ancestors. Nor, indeed, is there any more stereotyped and approved calumny, than the declaration so often emphatically enunciated from the pulpit, that _unbelief in the Christian miracles is the fruit of a wicked heart and of a soul enslaved to sin_. Thus do estimable and well-meaning men, deceived and deceiving one another, utter base slander in open church, where it is indecorous to reply to them,--and think that they are bravely delivering a religions testimony. No difficulty is encountered, so long as the _inward_ and the _outward_ rule of religion agree,--by whatever names men call them,--the Spirit and the Word--or Reason and the Church,--or Conscience and Authority. None need settle which of the two rules is the greater, so long as the results coincide: in fact, there is no controversy, no struggle, and also probably no progress. A child cannot guess whether father or mother has the higher authority, until discordant commands are given; but then commences the painful necessity of disobeying one in order to obey the other. So, also, the great and fundamental controversies of religion arise, only when a discrepancy is detected between the inward and the outward rule: and then, there are only two possible solutions. If the Spirit within us and the Bible (or Church) without us are at variance, _we must either follow the inward and disregard the outward law; else we must renounce the inward law and obey the outward_. The Romanist bids us to obey the Church and crush our inward judgment: the Spiritualist, on the contrary, follows his inward law, and, when necessary, defies Church, Bible, or any other authority. The orthodox Protestant is better and truer than the Romanist, because the Protestant is not like the latter, consistent in error, but often goes right: still he _is_ inconsistent as to this point. Against the Spiritualist he uses Romanist principles, telling him that he ought to submit his "proud reason" and accept the "Word of God" as infallible, even though it appear to him to contain errors. But against the Romanist the same disputant avows Spiritualist principles, declaring that since "the Church" appears to him to be erroneous, he dares not to accept it as infallible. What with the Romanist he before called "proud reason," he now designates as Conscience, Understanding, and perhaps the Holy Spirit. He refused to allow the right of the Spiritualist to urge, that _the Bible_ contains contradictions and immoralities, and therefore cannot be received; but he claims a full right to urge that _the Church_ has justified contradictions and immoralities, and therefore is not to be submitted to. The perception that this position is inconsistent, and, to him who discerns the inconsistency, dishonest, is every year driving Protestants to Rome. And _in principle_ there are only two possible religions: the Personal and the Corporate; the Spiritual and the External. I do not mean to say that in Romanism there is nothing but what is Corporate and External; for that is impossible to human nature: but that this is what the theory of their argument demands; and their doctrine of Implicit[4] (or Virtual) Faith entirely supersedes intellectual perception as well as intellectual conviction. The theory of each church is the force which determines to what centre the whole shall gravitate. However men may talk of spirituality, yet let them once enact that the freedom of individuals shall be absorbed in a corporate conscience, and you find that the narrowest heart and meanest intellect sets the rule of conduct for the whole body. It has been often observed how the controversies of the Trinity and Incarnation depended on the niceties of the Greek tongue. I do not know whether it has ever been inquired, what confusion of thought was shed over Gentile Christianity, from its very origin, by the imperfection of the New Testament Greek. The single Greek[5] word [Greek: pistis] needs probably three translations into our far more accurate tongue,--viz., Belief, Trust, Faith; but especially Belief and Faith have important contrasts. Belief is purely intellectual; Faith is properly spiritual. Hence the endless controversy about Justification by [Greek: pistis], which has so vexed Christians; hence the slander cast on _unbelievers_ or _misbelievers_ (when they can no longer be burned or exiled), as though they were _faithless_ and _infidels_. But nothing of this ought to be allowed to blind us to the truly spiritual and holy developments of historical Christianity,--much less, make us revert to the old Paganism or Pantheism which it supplanted.--The great doctrine on which all practical religion depends,--the doctrine which nursed the infancy and youth of human nature,--is, "the sympathy of God with the perfection of individual man." Among Pagans this was so marred by the imperfect characters ascribed to the Gods, and the dishonourable fables told concerning them, that the philosophers who undertook to prune religion too generally cut away the root, by alleging[6] that God was mere Intellect and wholly destitute of Affections. But happily among the Hebrews the purity of God's character was vindicated; and with the growth of conscience in the highest minds of the nation the ideal image of God shone brighter and brighter. The doctrine of his Sympathy was never lost, and from the Jews it passed into the Christian church. This doctrine, applied to that part of man which is divine, is the wellspring of Repentance and Humility, of Thankfulness, Love, and Joy. It reproves and it comforts; it stimulates and animates. This it is which led the Psalmist to cry, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee? there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee." This has satisfied prophets, apostles, and martyrs with God as their Portion. This has been passed from heart to heart for full three thousand years, and has produced bands of countless saints. Let us not cut off our sympathies from those, who have learnt to sympathize with God; nor be blind to that spiritual good which they have; even if it be, more or less sensibly, tinged with intellectual error. In fact, none but God knows, how many Christian hearts are really pure from bigotry. I cannot refuse to add my testimony, such as it is, to the effect, that _the majority is always truehearted_. As one tyrant, with a small band of unscrupulous tools, manages to use the energies of a whole nation of kind and well-meaning people for cruel purposes, so the bigoted few, who work out an evil theory with consistency, often succeed in using the masses of simpleminded Christians as their tools for oppression. Let us not think more harshly than is necessary of the anathematizing churches. Those who curse us with their lips, often love us in their hearts. A very deep fountain of tenderness can mingle with their bigotry itself: and with tens of thousands, the evil belief is a dead form, the spiritual love is a living reality. Whether Christians like it or not, we must needs look to Historians, to Linguists, to Physiologists, to Philosophers, and generally, to men of cultivated understanding, to gain help in all those subjects which are preposterously called _Theology_: but for devotional aids, for pious meditations, for inspiring hymns, for purifying and glowing thoughts, we have still to wait upon that succession of kindling souls, among whom may be named with special honour David and Isaiah, Jesus and Paul, Augustine, A Kempis, Fenelon, Leighton, Baxter, Doddridge, Watts, the two Wesleys, and Channing. Religion was created by the inward instincts of the soul: it had afterwards to be pruned and chastened by the sceptical understanding. For its perfection, the co-operation of these two parts of man is essential. While religious persons dread critical and searching thought, and critics despise instinctive religion, each side remains imperfect and curtailed. It is a complaint often made by religious historians, that no church can sustain its spirituality unimpaired through two generations, and that in the third a total irreligion is apt to supervene. Sometimes indeed the transitions are abrupt, from an age of piety to an age of dissoluteness. The liability to such lamentable revulsions is plainly due to some insufficiency in the religion to meet all the wants of human nature. To scold at that nature is puerile, and implies an ignorance of the task which religion undertakes. To lay the fault on the sovereign will of God, who has "withheld his grace" from the grandchildren of the pious, might be called blasphemy, if we were disposed to speak harshly. The fault lies undoubtedly in the fact, that Practical Devoutness and Free Thought stand apart in unnatural schism. But surely the age is ripe for something better;--for a religion which stall combine the tenderness, humility, and disinterestedness, that are the glory of the purest Christianity, with that activity of intellect, untiring pursuit of truth, and strict adherence to impartial principle, which the schools of modern science embody. When a spiritual church has its senses exercised to discern good and evil, judges of right and wrong by an inward power, proves all things and holds fast that which is good, fears no truth, but rejoices in being corrected, intellectually as well as morally,--it will not be liable to be "carried to and fro" by shifting winds of doctrine. It will indeed have movement, namely, a steady _onward_ one, as the schools of science have had, since they left off to dogmatize, and approached God's world as learners; but it will lay aside disputes of words, eternal vacillations, mutual illwill and dread of new light, and will be able without hypocrisy to proclaim "peace on earth and goodwill towards men," even towards those who reject its beliefs and sentiments concerning "God and his glory." NOTE ON PAGE 168. The author of the "Eclipse of Faith," in his Defence (p. 168), referring to my reply in p. 101 above, says:--"In this very paragraph Mr. Newman shows that I have _not_ misrepresented him, nor is it true that I overlooked his novel hypothesis. He says that 'Gibbon is exhibiting and developing the deep-seated causes of the _spread_ of Christianity before Constantine,'--which Mr. Newman says had _not_ spread. On the contrary; he assumes that the Christians were 'a small fraction,' and thus _does_ dismiss in two sentences, I might have said three words, what Gibbon had strained every nerve in his celebrated chapter to account for." Observe his phrase, "On the contrary." It is impossible to say more plainly, that Gibbon represents the spread of Christianity before Constantine to have been very great, and then laboured in vain to account for that spread; and that I, _arbitrarily setting aside Gibbon's fact as to the magnitude of the "spread_," cut the knot which he could not untie. But the fact, as between Gibbon and me, is flatly the reverse. I advance nothing novel as to the numbers of the Christians, no hypothesis of my own, no assumption. I have merely adopted Gibbon's own historical estimate, that (judging, as he does judge, by the examples of Rome and Antioch), the Christians before the rise of Constantine were but a small fraction of the population. Indeed, he says, not above _one-twentieth_ part; on which I laid no stress. It may be that Gibbon is here in error. I shall willingly withdraw any historical argument, if shown that I have unawares rested on a false basis. In balancing counter statements and reasons from diverse sources, different minds come to different statistical conclusions. Dean Milman ("Hist. of Christianity," vol. ii. p. 341) when deliberately weighing opposite opinions, says cautiously, that "Gibbon is perhaps inclined to underrate" the number of the Christians. He adds: "M. Beugnot agrees much with Gibbon, and I should conceive, with regard to the West, is clearly right." I beg the reader to observe, that I have _not_ represented the numerical strength of the Christians in Constantine's army to be great. Why my opponent should ridicule my use of the phrase _Christian regiments_, I am too dull to understand. ("Who would not think," says he, "that it was one of Constantine's _aide-de-camps_ that was speaking?") It may be that I am wrong in using the plural noun, and that there was only _one_ such regiment,--that which carried the Labarum, or standard of the cross (Gibbon, ch. 20), to which so much efficacy was attributed in the war against Licinius. I have no time at present, nor any need for further inquiries on such matters. It is to the devotion and organization of the Christians, not to their proportionate numbers, that I attributed weight. If (as Milman says) Gibbon and Beugnot are "clearly right" as regards _the West_--_i.e._, as regards all that vast district which became the area of modern European Christendom, I see nothing in my argument which requires modification. But why did Christianity, while opposed by the ruling powers, spread "_in the East?_" In the very chapter from which I have quoted, Dean Milman justifies me in saying, that to this question I may simply reply, "I do not know," without impairing my present argument. (I myself find no difficulty in it whatever; but I protest against the assumption, that I am bound to believe a religion preternatural, unless I con account for its origin and diffusion to the satisfaction of its adherents.) Dean Milman, vol. ii. pp. 322-340, gives a full account of the Manichæan religion, and its rapid and great spread in spate of violent persecution. MANI, the founder, represented himself as "a man invested with a divine mission." His doctrines are described by Milman as wild and mystical metaphysics, combining elements of thought from Magianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Buddhism. "His worship was simple, without altar, temple, images, or any imposing ceremonial. Pure and simple prayer was their only form of adoration." They talked much of "Christ" as a heavenly principle, but "did not believe in his birth or death. Prayers and Hymns addressed to the source of light, exhortations to subdue the dark and sensuous element within, and the study of the marvellous book of Mani, constituted their devotion. Their manners were austere and ascetic; they tolerated, but only tolerated, marriage, and that only among the inferior orders. The theatre, the banquet, and even the bath, they severely proscribed. Their diet was of fruits and herbs; they shrank with abhorrence from animal food." Mani met with fierce hostility from West and East alike; and at last was entrapped by the Persian king Baharam, and "was flayed alive. His skin, stuffed with straw, was placed over the gate of the city of Shahpoor." Such a death was as cruel and as ignominious as that of crucifixion; yet his doctrines "expired not with their author. In the East and in the West they spread with the utmost rapidity.... The extent of its success may be calculated by the implacable hostility of other religions to the doctrines of Mani; _the causes of that success are more difficult to conjecture_." Every reason, which, as far as I know, has ever been given, why it should be hard for early Christianity to spread, avail equally as reasons against the spread of Manichæism. The state of the East, which admitted the latter without miracle, admitted the former also. It nevertheless is pertinent to add, that the recent history of Mormonism, compared with that of Christianity and of Manichæism, may suggest that the martyr-death of the founder of a religion is a positive aid to its after-success. [Footnote 1: See Strauss on the Infancy of Jesus.] [Footnote 2: My "Eclectic" reviewer (who is among the least orthodox and the least uncandid) hence deduces, that I have confounded the two questions, "Does the Bible contain errors in human science?" and, "Is its purely spiritual teaching true?" It is quite wonderful to me, how educated men can so totally overlook what I have so plainly and so often written. This very passage might show the contrary, if he had but quoted the whole paragraph, instead of the middle sentence only. See also pp. 67, 74, 75, 86, 87, 125.] [Footnote 3: Any orthodox periodical which dares to write charitably, is at once subjected to fierce attack us _un_orthodox.] [Footnote 4: _Explicit_ Faith in a doctrine, means, that we understand what the propositions are, and accept them. But if through blunder we accept a wrong set of propositions, so as to believe a false doctrine, we nevertheless have _Implicit_ (or Virtual) Faith in the true one, if only we say from the heart: "Whatever the Church believes, I believe." Thus a person, who, through blundering, believes in Sabellianism or Arianism, which the Church has condemned, is regarded to have _virtual faith_ in Trinitarianism, and all the "merit" of that faith, because of his good will to submit to the Church; which is the really saving virtue.] [Footnote 5: [Greek: Dikaiosune] (righteousness), [Greek: Diatheke] (covenant, testament), [Greek: Charis] (grace), are all terms pregnant with fallacy.] [Footnote 6: Horace and Cicero speak the mind of their educated contemporaries in saying that "we ought to pray to God _only_ for external blessings, but trust to our own efforts for a pure and tranquil soul,"--a singular reversing of spiritual religion] CHAPTER IX. REPLY TO THE DEFENCE OF THE "ECLIPSE OF FAITH." This small treatise was reviewed, unfavourably of course, in most of the religious periodicals, and among them in the "Prospective Review," by my friend James Martineau. I had been about the same time attacked in a book called the "Eclipse of Faith," written (chiefly against my treatise on the Soul) in the form of a Platonic Dialogue; in which a sceptic, a certain Harrington, is made to indulge in a great deal of loose and bantering argumentation, with the view of ridiculing my religion, and doing so by ways of which some specimen will be given. I made an indignant protest in a new edition of this book, and added also various matter in reply to Mr. Martineau, which will still be found here. He in consequence in a second article[1] of the "Prospective" reviewed me afresh; but, in the opening, he first pronounced his sentence in words of deep disapproval against the "Eclipse of Faith." "The method of the work," says he, "its plan of appealing from what seems shocking in the Bible to something more shocking in the world, simply doubles every difficulty without relieving any; and tends to enthrone a devil everywhere, and leave a God nowhere.... The whole force of the writer's thought,--his power of exposition, of argument, of sarcasm, is thrown, in spite of himself, into the irreligious scale.... If the work be really written[2] in good faith, and be not rather a covert attack on all religion, it curiously shows how the temple of the author's worship stands on the same foundation with the _officina_ of Atheism, and in such close vicinity that the passer-by cannot tell from which of the two the voices stray into the street." The author of the "Eclipse," buoyed up by a large sale of his work to a credulous public, put forth a "Defence," in which he naturally declined to submit to the judgment of this reviewer. But my readers will remark, that Mr. Martineau, writing against me, and seeking to rebut my replies to him--(nay, I fear I must say my _attack_ on him; for I have confessed, almost with compunction, that it was I who first stirred the controversy)--was very favourably situated for maintaining a calmly judicial impartiality. He thought us both wrong, and he administered to us each the medicine which seemed to him needed. He passed his strictures on what he judged to be my errors, and he rebuked my assailant for profane recklessness. I had complained, not of this merely, but of monstrous indefensible garbling and misrepresentation, pervading the whole work. The dialogue is so managed, as often to suggest what is false concerning me, yet without asserting it; so as to enable him to disown the slander, while producing its full effect against me. Of the directly false statements and garblings I gave several striking exhibitions. His reply to all this in the first edition of his "Defence" was reviewed in a _third_ article of the "Prospective Review," Its ability and reach of thought are attested by the fact that it has been mistaken for the writing of Mr. Martineau; but (as clearly as reviews ever speak on such subjects) it is intimated in the opening that this new article is from a new hand, "at the risk of revealing _division of persons and opinions_ within the limits of the mystic critical _We_." Who is the author, I do not know; nor can I make a likely guess at any one who was in more than distant intercourse with me. This third reviewer did not bestow one page, as Mr. Martineau had done, on the "Eclipse;" did not summarily pronounce a broad sentence without details, but dedicated thirty-four pages to the examination and proof. He opens with noticing the parallel which the author of the "Eclipse" has instituted between his use of ridicule and that of Pascal; and replies that he signally violates Pascal's two rules, _first_, to speak with truth against one's opponents and not with calumny; _secondly_, not to wound them needlessly. "Neglect of the first rule (says he) has given to these books [the "Eclipse" and its "Defence"] their apparent controversial success; disregard of the second their literary point." He adds, "We shall show that their author misstates and misrepresents doctrines; garbles quotations, interpolating words which give the passage he cites reference to subjects quite foreign from those to which in the original they apply, while retaining the inverted commas, which are the proper sign of faithful transcription; that similarly, he allows himself the licence of omission of the very words on which the controversy hangs, while in appearance citing _verbatim_;... and that he habitually employs a sophistry too artful (we fear) to be undesigned. May he not himself have been deceived, some indulgent render perhaps asks, by the fallacies which have been so successful with others? It would be as reasonable to suppose that the grapes which deluded the birds must have deluded Zeuxis who painted them." So grave an accusation against my assailant's truthfulness, coming not from me, but from a third party, and that, evidently a man who knew well what he was saying and why,--could not be passed over unnoticed, although that religious world, which reads one side only, continued to buy the "Eclipse" and its "Defence" greedily, and not one in a thousand of them was likely to see the "Prospective Review," In the second edition of the "Defence" the writer undertakes to defend himself against my advocate, in on Appendix of 19 closely printed pages, the "Defence" itself being 218. The "Eclipse," in its 9th edition of small print, is 393 pages. And how does he set about his reply? By trying to identify the third writer with the second (who was notoriously Mr. Martineau), and to impute to him ill temper, chagrin, irritation, and wounded self-love, as the explanation of this third article: He says (p. 221):-- "The third writer--if, as I have said, he be not the second--sets out on a new voyage of discovery ... and still humbly following in the wake of Mr. Newman's great critical discoveries,[3] repeats that gentleman's charges of falsifying passages, garbling and misrepresentation. In doing so, he employs language, and _manifests a temper_, which I should have thought that respect for himself, if not for his opponent, would have induced him to suppress. It is enough to say, that he quite rivals Mr. Newman in sagacity, and if possible, has more successfully denuded himself of charity.... If he be the same as the second writer, I am afraid that the little Section XV." [_i.e._ the reply to Mr. Martineau in 1st edition of the "Defence"] "must have offended the _amour propre_ more deeply than it ought to have done, considering the wanton and outrageous assault to which it was a very lenient reply, and that the critic affords another illustration of the old maxim, that there are none so implacable as those who have done a wrong. "As the spectacle of the reeling Helot taught the Spartans sobriety, so his _bitterness_ shall teach me moderation. I know enough of human nature to understand that it is very possible for an _angry_ man--and _chagrin and irritation are too legibly written on every page of this article_--to be betrayed into gross injustice." The reader will see from this the difficulty of _my_ position in this controversy. Mr. Martineau, while defending himself, deprecated the profanity of my other opponent, and the atheistic nature of his arguments. He spoke as a bystander, and with the advantage of a judicial position, and it is called "wanton and outrageous." A second writer goes into detail, and exposes some of the garbling arts which have been used against me; it is imputed[4] to ill temper, and is insinuated to be from a spirit of personal revenge. How much less can _I_ defend myself, and that, against untruthfulness, without incurring such imputation! My opponent speaks to a public who will not read my replies. He picks out what he pleases of my words, and takes care to divest them of their justification. I have (as was to be expected) met with much treatment from the religious press which I know cannot be justified; but all is slight, compared to that of which I complain from this writer. I will presently give a few detailed instances to illustrate this. While my charge against my assailant is essentially moral, and I cannot make any parade of charity, he can speak patronizingly of me now and then, and makes his main attacks on my _logic_ and _metaphysics_. He says, that in writing his first book, he knew no characteristics of me, except that I was "a gentleman, a scholar, and _a very indifferent metaphysician_" At the risk of encountering yet more of banter and insult, I shall here quote what the third "Prospective Reviewer" says on this topic. (Vol. x. p. 208):-- "Our readers will be able to judge how well qualified the author is to sneer at Mr. Newman's metaphysics, which are far more accurate than his own, or to ridicule his logic. The tone of contempt which he habitually assumes preposterously reverses the relative intellectual _status_, so far as sound systematic thought is concerned, of the two men." I do not quote this as testimony to myself but as testimony that others, as well as I, feel the _contemptuous tone_ assumed by my adversary in precisely that subject on which modesty is called for. On metaphysics there is hitherto an unreconciled diversity among men who have spent their lives in the study; and a large part of the endless religious disputes turns on this very fact. However, the being told, in a multitude of ingenious forms, that I am a wretched logician, is not likely to raffle my tranquillity. What does necessarily wound me, is his misrepresenting my thoughts to the thoughtful, whose respect I honour; and poisoning the atmosphere between me and a thousand religious hearts. That these do not despise me, however much contempt he may vent, I know only too well through their cruel fears of me. I have just now learned incidentally, that in the last number (a supplementary number) of the "Prospective Review," there was a short reply to the second edition of Mr. Rogers's "Defence," in which the Editors officially _deny_ that the third writer against Mr. Rogers is the same as the second; which, I gather from their statement, the "British Quarterly" had taken on itself to _affirm_. I proceed to show what liberties my critic takes with my arguments, and what he justifies. I. In the closing chapter of my third edition of the "Phases," I had complained of his bad faith in regard to my arguments concerning the Authoritative imposition of moral truth from without. I showed that, after telling his reader that I offered no proof of my assertions, he dislocated my sentences, altered their order, omitted an adverb of inference, and isolated three sentences out of a paragraph of forty-six lines: that his omission of the inferential adverb showed his deliberate intention to destroy the reader's clue to the fact, that I had given proof where he suppresses it and says that I have given none; that the sentences quoted as 1,2,3, by him, with me have the order 3, 2,1; while what he places first, is with me an immediate and necessary deduction from what has preceded. Now how does he reply? He does not deny my facts; but he justifies his process. I must set his words before the reader. _(Defence, 2nd ed., p. 85.) "The strangest thing is to see the way in which, after parading this supposed 'artful dodge,'[5] which, I assure you, gentle reader, was all a perfect novelty to my consciousness,--Mr. Newman goes on to say, that the author of the 'Eclipse' has altered the order of his sentences to suit a purpose. He says: 'The sentences quoted as 1, 2, 3, by him, with me have the order 3, 2, 1.' I answer, that Harrington was simply anxious to set forth at the head of his argument, in the clearest and briefest form, the _conclusions_[6] he believed Mr. Newman to hold, and which he was going to confute. He had no idea of any relation of subordination or dependence in the above sophisms, as I have just proved them to be, whether arranged as 3, 2, 1, or 1, 2, 3, or 2, 3, 1, or in any other order in which the possible permutations of three things, taken 3 and 3 together, can exhibit them; _ex nihilo, nil fit_; and three nonentities can yield just as little. Jangle as many changes as you will on these three cracked bells, no logical harmony can ever issue out of them." Thus, because he does not see the validity of my argument, he is to pretend that I have offered none: he is not to allow his readers to judge for themselves as to the validity, but they have to take his word that I am a very "queer" sort of logician, ready "for any feats of logical legerdemain." I have now to ask, what is garbling, if the above is not? He admits the facts, but justifies them as having been convenient from his point of view; and then finds my charity to be "very grotesque," when I do not know how, without hypocrisy, to avoid calling a spade a spade. I shall here reprint the pith of my argument, somewhat shortened:-- "No heaven-sent Bible can guarantee the veracity of God to a man who doubts that veracity. Unless we have independent means of knowing that God is truthful and good, his word (if we be over so certain that it is really his word) has no authority to us: _hence_ no book revelation can, without sapping its own pedestal, deny the validity of our _a priori_ conviction that God has the virtues of goodness and veracity, and requires like virtues in us. _And in fact_, all Christian apostles and missionaries, like the Hebrew prophets, have always confuted Paganism by direct attacks on its immoral and unspiritual doctrines, and have appealed to the consciences of heathens, as competent to decide in the controversy. Christianity itself has _thus_ practically confessed what is theoretically clear, that an authoritative external revelation of moral and spiritual truth is essentially impossible to man. What God reveals to us, he reveals within, through the medium of our moral and spiritual senses. External teaching may be a training of those senses, but affords no foundation for certitude." This passage deserved the enmity of my critic. He quoted bits of it, very sparingly, never setting before his readers my continuous thought, but giving his own free versions and deductions. His fullest quotation stood thus, given only in an after-chapter:--"What God reveals to us, he reveals _within_, through the medium of our moral and spiritual senses." "Christianity itself has practically confessed what is theoretically clear, _(you must take Mr. Newman's word for both,)_[7] that an authoritative external revelation of moral and spiritual truth is essentially impossible to man." "No book-revelation can, without sapping its own pedestal, &c. &c." These three sentences are what Mr. Rogers calls the three cracked bells, and thinks by raising a laugh, to hide his fraud I have carefully looked through the whole of his dialogue concerning Book Revelation in his 9th edition of the "Eclipse" (pp. 63-83 of close print). He still excludes from it every part of my argument, only stating in the opening (p. 63) as my conclusions, that a book-revelation is impossible, and that God reveals himself from within, not from without In his _Defence_ (which circulates far less than the "Eclipse," to judge by the number of editions) he displays his bravery by at length printing my argument; but in the "Eclipse" he continues to suppress it, at least as far as I can discover by turning to the places where it ought to be found. In p. 77 (9th ed.) of the "Eclipse." he _implies_, without absolutely asserting, that I hold the Bible to be an impertinence. He repeats this in p. 85 of the "Defence." Such is his mode. I wrote: "_Without_ a priori _belief_, the Bible is an impertinence," but I say, man _has_ this _a priori_ belief, on which account the Bible is _not_ an impertinence. My last sentence in the very passage before us, expressly asserts the value of (good) external teaching. This my critic laboriously disguises. He carefully avoids allowing his readers to see that I am contending fundamentally for that which the ablest Christian divines have conceded and maintained; that which the common sense of every missionary knows, and every one who is not profoundly ignorant of the Bible and of history ought to know. Mr. Rogers is quite aware, that no apostle ever carried a Bible in his hand and said to the heathen, "Believe that there is a good and just God, _because_ it is written in this book;" but they appealed to the hearts and consciences of the hearers as competent witnesses. He does not even give his reader enough of my paragraph to make intelligible what I _meant_ by saying "Christianity has practically confessed;" and yet insists that I am both unreasonable and uncharitable in my complaints of him. I here reprint the summary of my belief concerning our knowledge of morality as fundamental, and not to be tampered with under pretence of religion. "If an angel from heaven bade me to lie, and to steal, and to commit adultery, and to murder, and to scoff at good men, and usurp dominion over my equals, and do unto others everything that I wish _not_ to have done to me; I ought to reply, BE THOU ANATHEMA! This, I believe, was Paul's doctrine; this is mine." It may be worth while to add how in the "Defence" Mr. Rogers pounces on my phrase "_a priori_ view of the Divine character," as an excuse for burying his readers in metaphysics, in which he thinks he has a natural right to dogmatize against and over me. He must certainly be aware of the current logical (not metaphysical) use of the phrase _a priori_: as when we say, that Le Verrier and Adams demonstrated _a priori_ that a planet _must_ exist exterior to Uranus, before any astronomer communicated information that it _does_ exist. Or again: the French Commissioners proved by actual measurement that the earth is an oblate spheroid, of which Newton had convinced himself _a priori_. _I_ always avoid a needless argument of metaphysics. Writing to the general public I cannot presume that they are good judges of anything but a practical and moral argument. The _a priori_ views of God, of which I here speak, involve no subtle questions; they are simply those views which are attained _independently of the alleged authoritative information_, and, of course, are founded upon considerations _earlier_ than it. But it would take too much of space and time, and be far too tedious to my readers, if I were to go in detail through Mr. Rogers's objections and misrepresentations. I have the sad task of attacking _his good faith_, to which I further proceed. II. In the preface to my second edition of the "Hebrew Monarchy," I found reason to explain briefly in what sense I use the word inspiration. I said, I found it to be current in three senses; "first, as an extraordinary influence peculiar to a few persons, as to prophets and apostles; secondly, _as an ordinary influence of the Divine Spirit on the hearts of men, which quickens and strengthens their moral and spiritual powers_, and is accessible to them all (in a certain stage of development) _in some proportion to their own faithfulness._ The third view teaches that genius and inspiration are two names for one thing.... _Christians for the most part hold the two first conceptions_, though they generally call the second _spiritual influence_, not inspiration; the third, seems to be common in the Old Testament. It so happens that the _second is the only inspiration which I hold._" [I here super-add the italics] On this passage Mr. Rogers commented as follows ("Defence" p. 156):-- "The latest utterance of Mr. Newman on the subject [of inspiration] that I have read, occurs in his preface to the second edition of his "Hebrew Monarchy," where he tells us, that he believes it is an influence accessible to all men, _in a certain stage of development_! [Italics.] Surely it will be time to consider his theory of inspiration, when he has told us a little more about it. To my mind, if the very genius of mystery had framed the definition, it could not have uttered anything more indefinite." Upon this passage the "Prospective" reviewer said his say as follows (vol x. p. 217):-- "The writer will very considerately defer criticism on Mr. Newman's indefinite definition, worthy of the genius of mystery, till its author has told us a little more about it. Will anyone believe that he himself deliberately omits the substance of the definition, and gives in its stead a parenthetical qualification, which might be left out of the original, without injury either to the grammatical structure, or to the general meaning of the sentence in which it occurs?" He proceeds to state what I did say, and adds: "Mr. Newman, in the very page in which this statement occurs, expressly identifies his doctrine with the ordinary Christian belief of Divine influence. His words are exactly coincident in sense with those employed by the author of the "Eclipse," where he acknowledges the reality of 'the ordinary, though mysterious action, by which God aids those who sincerely seek him in every good word and work.' The moral faithfulness of which Mr. Newman speaks, is the equivalent of the sincere search of God in good word and work, which his opponent talks of." I must quote the _entire_ reply given to this in the "Defence," second edition, p. 224:-- "And now for a few examples of my opponent's criticisms. 1. I said in the "Defence" that I did not understand Mr. Newman's notions of inspiration, and that, as to his very latest utterance--namely, that it was an influence _accessible to all men in a certain stage of development_ [italics], it was utterly unintelligible to me. 'Will any one believe (says my critic) that he deliberately omits the substance of the definition, and gives in its stead a parenthetical qualification, which might be left out of the original without injury either to the grammatical structure or to the general meaning of the sentence in which it occurs? Was anything ever more amusing? A parenthetical clause which might be left out of the original without injury to the grammatical structure or to the general meaning! _Might_ be left out? Ay, to be sure it might, and not only 'without injury,' but with benefit; just as the dead fly which makes the ointment of the apothecary to stink might be left out of _that_ without injury. But it was _not_ left out; and it is precisely because it was there, and diffused so remarkable an odour over the whole, that I characterized the definition as I did--and most justly. Accessible to all men in a certain stage of development! When and how _accessible_? What _species_ of development, I beseech you, is meant? And what is the _stage_ of it? The very thing, which, as I say, and as everybody of common sense must see, renders the definition utterly vague, is the very clause in question." Such is his _entire_ notice of the topic. From any other writer I should indeed have been amazed at such treatment. I had made the very inoffensive profession of agreeing with the current doctrine of Christians concerning spiritual influence. As I was not starting any new theory, but accepting what is notorious, nothing more than an indication was needed. I gave, what I should not call definition, but description of it. My critic conceals that I have avowed agreement with Christians; refers to it as a theory of my own; complains that it is obscure; pretends to quote my definition, and leaves out all the cardinal words of it, which I have above printed in italics. My defender, in the "Prospective Review," exposes these mal-practices; points out that my opponent is omitting the main words, while complaining of deficiency; that I profess to agree with Christians in general; and _that I evidently agree with my critic in particular_. The critic undertakes to reply to this, and the reader has before him the whole defence. The man who, as it were, puts his hand on his heart to avow that he anxiously sets before his readers, if not what I _mean_, yet certainly what I have _expressed_,--still persists in hiding from them the facts of the case; avoids to quote from the reviewer so much as to let out that I profess to agree[8] with what is prevalent among Christians and have no peculiar theory;--still withholds the cardinal points of what he calls my definition; while he tries to lull his reader into inattention by affecting to be highly amused, and by bantering and bullying in his usual style, while perverting the plainest words in the world. I have no religious press to take my part. I am isolated, as my assailant justly remarks. For a wonder, a stray review here and there has run to my aid, while there is a legion on the other side--newspapers, magazines, and reviews. Now if any orthodox man, any friend of my assailant, by some chance reads these pages, I beg him to compare my quotations, thus fully given, with the originals; and if he find anything false in them, then let him placard me as a LIAR in the whole of the religious press. But if he finds that I am right, then let him learn in what sort of man he is trusting--what sort of champion of _truth_ this religious press has cheered on. III. I had complained that Mr. Rogers falsely represented me to make a fanatical "divorce" between the intellectual and the spiritual, from which he concluded that I ought to be indifferent as to the worship of Jehovah or of the image which fell down from Jupiter. He has pretended that my religion, according to me, has received nothing by traditional and historical agencies; that it owes nothing to men who went before me; that I believe I have (in my single unassisted bosom) "a spiritual faculty so bright as to anticipate all essential[9] spiritual verities;" that had it not been for traditional religion, "we should everywhere have heard the invariable utterance of spiritual religion in the one dialect of the heart,"--that "this divinely implanted faculty of spiritual discernment anticipates all external truth," &c. &c. I then adduced passages to show that his statement was emphatically and utterly contrary to fact. In his "Defence," he thus replies, p. 75:-- "I say with an unfaltering conscience, that no controvertist ever more honestly and sincerely sought to give his opponent's views, than I did Mr. Newman's, after the most diligent study of his rather obscure books; and that whether I have succeeded or not in giving what he _thought_, I have certainly given what he _expressed_. It is quite true that I supposed Mr. Newman intended to "divorce" faith and intellect; and what else on earth could I suppose, in common even with those who were most leniently disposed towards him, from such sentiments as these? ALL THE GROUNDS OF BELIEF PROPOSED TO THE MERE UNDERSTANDING HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH FAITH AT ALL. THE PROCESSES OF THOUGHT HAVE NOTHING TO QUICKEN THE CONSCIENCE OR AFFECT THE SOUL. _How then can the state of the soul be tested by the conclusion to which the intellect is led?_ I was _compelled_, I say, to take these passages as everybody else took them, to _mean_ what they obviously _express_." Here he so isolates three assertions of mine from their context, as to suggest for each of them a false meaning, and make it difficult for the reader who has not my book at hand to discover the delusion. The first is taken from a discussion of the arguments concerning the soul's immortality ("Soul," p. 223, 2nd edition), on which I wrote thus, p. 219:--that to judge of the accuracy of a metaphysical argument concerning mind and matter, requires not a pure conscience and a loving soul, but a clear and calm head; that if the doctrine of immortality be of high religious importance, we cannot believe it to rest on such a basis, that those in whom the religious faculties are most developed may be more liable to err concerning it than those who have no religious faculty in action at all. On the contrary, concerning truths which are really spiritual it is an obvious axiom,[10] that "he who is spiritual judgeth all things, and he himself is judged of no man." After this I proceeded to allude to the history of the doctrine among the Hebrews, and quoted some texts of the Psalms, the _argument_ of which, I urged, is utterly inappreciable to the pure logician, "because it is spiritually discerned." I continued as follows:-- "This is as it should be. Can a mathematician understand physiology, or a physiologist questions of law? A true love of God in the soul itself, an insight into Him depending on that love, and a hope rising out of that insight, are prerequisite for contemplating this spiritual doctrine, which is a spontaneous impression of the gazing soul, powerful (perhaps) in proportion to its faith; whereas all the grounds of belief proposed to the mere understanding have nothing to do with faith at all." I am expounding the doctrine of the great Paul of Tarsus, who indeed applies it to this very topic,--the future bliss which God has prepared for them that love him. Does Mr. Rogers attack Paul as making a fanatical divorce between faith and intellect, and say that he is _compelled_ so to understand him, when he avows that "the natural man understandeth not the things of God; for they are foolishness unto him." "When the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." Here is a pretended champion of Evangelical truth seeking to explode as absurdities the sentiments and judgments which have ever been at the heart of Christianity, its pride and its glory! But I justify my argument as free from fanaticism--and free from obscurity when the whole sentence is read--to a Jew or Mohammedan, quite as much as to a Christian. My opponent innocently asks, _how much_ I desire him to quote of me? But is innocence the right word, when he has quoted but two lines and a half, out of a sentence of seven and a half, and has not even given the clause complete? By omitting, in his usual way, the connecting particle _whereas_, he hides from the reader that he has given but half my thought; and this is done, after my complaint of this very proceeding. A reader who sees the whole sentence, discerns at once that I oppose "the _mere_ understanding," to the whole soul; in short, that by the man who has _mere_ understanding, I mean him whom Paul calls "the natural man." Such a man may have metaphysical talents and acquirements, he may be a physiologist or a great lawyer; nay, I will add, (to shock my opponent's tender nerves), _even if he be an Atheist_, he may be highly amiable and deserving of respect and love; but if he has no spiritual development, he cannot have insight into spiritual truth. Hence such arguments for immortality as _can_ be appreciated by him, and _cannot_ be appreciated by religious men as such, "have nothing to do with faith at all" The two other passages are found thus, in p. 245 of the "Soul," 2nd edition. After naming local history, criticism of texts, history of philosophy, logic, physiology, demonology, and other important but very difficult studies, I ask:-- "Is it not extravagant to call inquiries of this sort _spiritual_ or to expect any spiritual[11] results from them? When the spiritual man (as such) cannot judge, the question is removed into a totally different court from that of the soul, the court of the critical understanding.... How then can the state of the soul be tested by the conclusion to which the intellect is led? What means the anathematizing of those who remain unconvinced? And how can it be imagined that the Lord of the soul cares more about a historical than about a geological, metaphysical, or mathematical argument? The processes of thought have nothing to quicken the conscience or affect the soul." From my defender in the "Prospective Review" I learn that in the first edition of the "Defence" the word _thought_ in the last sentence above was placed in italics. He not only protested against this and other italics as misleading, but clearly explained my sense, which, as I think, needs no other interpreter than the context. In the new edition the italics are removed, but the unjust isolation of the sentences remains. "_The_ processes of thought," of which I spoke, are not "_all_ processes," but the processes _involved in the abstruse inquiries to which I had referred_. To say that _no_ processes of thought quicken the conscience, or affect the soul, would be a gross absurdity. This, or nothing else, is what he imputes to me; and even after the protest made by the "Prospective" reviewer, my assailant not only continues to hide that I speak of _certain_ processes of thought, not _all_ processes, but even has the hardihood to say that he takes the passages as _everybody else_ does, and that he is _compelled_ so to do. In my own original reply I appealed to places where I had fully expressed my estimate of intellectual progress, and its ultimate beneficial action. All that I gain by this, is new garblings and taunts for inconsistency. "Mr. Newman," says be, "is the last man in the world to whom I would deny the benefit of having contradicted himself." But I must confine myself to the garbling. "Defence," p. 95:-- "Mr. Newman affirms that my representations of his views on this subject are the most direct and intense reverse of all that he has most elaborately and carefully written!" He still says, "_what_ God reveals, he reveals within and not without," and "he _did_ say (though, it seems, he says no longer), that 'of God we know everything from within, nothing from without;' yet he says I have grossly misrepresented him." This pretended quotation is itself garbled. I wrote, ("Phases," 1st edition, p. 152)--"Of _our moral and spiritual_ God we know nothing without, everything within." By omitting the adjectives, the critic produces a statement opposed to my judgment and to my writings; and then goes on to say. "Well, if Mr. Newman will engage to prove contradictions,... I think it is no wonder that his readers do not understand him." I believe it is a received judgment, which I will not positively assert to be true, but I do not think I have anywhere denied, that God is discerned by us in the universe as a designer, creator, and mechanical ruler, through a mere study of the world and its animals and all their adaptations, _even without_ an absolute necessity of meditating consciously on the intelligence of man and turning the eyes within. Thus a creative God may be said to be discerned "from without." But in my conviction, that God is not _so_ discerned to be _moral_ or _spiritual_ or to be _our_ God; but by moral intellect and moral experience acting "inwardly." If Mr. Rogers chooses to deny the justness of my view, let him deny it; but by omitting the emphatic adjectives he has falsified my sentence, and then has founded upon it a charge of inconsistency. In a previous passage (p. 79) he gave this quotation in full, in order to reproach me for silently withdrawing it in my second edition of the "Phases." He says:-- "The two sentences in small capitals are not found in the new edition of the 'Phases.' _They are struck out_. It is no doubt the right of an author to erase in a new edition any expressions he pleases; but when he is about to charge another with having grossly garbled and stealthily misrepresented him, it is as well to let the world know _what_ he has erased and _why_. He says that my representation of his sentiments is the most direct and intense reverse of all that he has most elaborately and carefully written. It certainly is not the intense reverse of all that he has most elaborately and carefully _scratched out_." I exhibit here the writer's own italics. By this attack on my good faith, and by pretending that my withdrawal of the passage is of serious importance, he distracts the reader's attention from the argument there in hand (p. 79), which is, _not_ what are my sentiments and judgements, but whether he had a right to dissolve and distort my chain of reasoning (see I. above) while affecting to quote me, and pretending that I gave nothing but assertion. As regards my "elaborately and carefully _scratching out_," this was done; 1. Because the passage seemed to me superfluous; 2. Because I had pressed the topic elsewhere; 3. Because I was going to enlarge on it in my reply to him, p. 199 of my second edition.[12] When the real place comes where my critic is to deal with the substance of the passage (p. 94 of "Defence"), the reader has seen how he mutilates it. The other passage of mine which he has adduced, employs the word _reveals_, in a sense analogous to that of _revelation_, in avowed relation to _things moral and spiritual_, which would have been seen, had not my critic reversed the order of my sentences; which he does again in p. 78 of the "Defence," after my protest against his doing so in the "Eclipse." I wrote: (Soul, p. 59) "Christianity itself has thus practically confessed, what is theoretically clear, that an authoritative _external_ revelation of moral and spiritual truth is essentially impossible to man. What God reveals to us, he reveals _within_, through the medium of our moral and spiritual senses." The words, "What God reveals," seen in the light of the preceding sentence, means: "That portion of _moral and spiritual truth_ which God reveals." This cannot be discovered in the isolated quotation; and as, both in p. 78 and in p. 95, he chooses to quote my word _What_ in italics, his reader is led on to interpret me as saying "_every thing whatsoever_ which we know of God, we learn from within;" a statement which is not mine. Besides this, the misrepresentation of which I complained is not confined to the rather metaphysical words of _within_ and _without_, as to which the most candid friends may differ, and may misunderstand one another;--as to which also I may be truly open to correction;--but he assumes the right to tell his readers that my doctrine undervalues Truth, and Intellect, and Traditional teaching, and External suggestion, and Historical influences, and counts the Bible an impertinence. When he fancies he can elicit this and that, by his own logic, out of sentences and clauses torn from their context, he has no right to disguise what I have said to the contrary, and claim to justify his fraud by accusing me of self-contradiction. Against all my protests, and all that I said to the very opposite previous to any controversy, he coolly alludes to it (p. 40 of the "Defence") as though it were my avowed doctrine, that: "_Each_ man, looking exclusively within, can _at once_ rise to the conception of God's infinite perfections." IV. When I agree with Paul or David (or think I do), I have a right to quote their words reverentially; but when I do so, Mr. Rogers deliberately justifies himself in ridiculing them, pretending that he only ridicules _me_. He thus answers my indignant denunciation in the early part of his "Defence," p. 5:-- "Mr. Newman warns me with much solemnity against thinking that 'questions pertaining to God are advanced by boisterous glee.' I do not think that the 'Eclipse' is characterised by boisterous glee; and certainly I was not at all aware, that the things which _alone_[13] I have ridiculed--some of them advanced by him, and some by others--deserved to be treated with solemnity. For example, that an authoritative external revelation,[14] which most persons have thought possible enough, is _im_possible,--that man is most likely born for a dog's life, and 'there an end'--that there are great defects in the morality of the New Testament, and much imperfection in the character of its founder,--that the miracles of Christ might be real, because Christ was a _clairvoyant_ and mesmerist,--that God was not a Person, but a Personality;--I say, I was not aware that these things, and such as these, which alone I ridiculed, were questions 'pertaining to God,' in any other sense than the wildest hypotheses in some sense pertain to science, and the grossest heresies to religion." Now first, is his statement true? _Are_ these the _only_ things which he ridiculed? I quoted in my reply to him enough to show what was the class of "things pertaining to God" to which I referred. He forces me to requote some of the passages. "Eclipse," p. 82 [1st ed.] "You shall be permitted to say (what I will not contradict), that though _Mr. Newman may be inspired_ for aught I know ... inspired as much as (say) _the inventor of Lucifer matches_--yet that his book is not divine,--that it is purely human." Again: p. 126 [1st ed.] "Mr. Newman says to those who say they are unconscious of these facts of spiritual pathology, that _the consciousness of the spiritual man is not the less true, that_ [though?] _the unspiritual man is not privy to it_; and this most devout gentleman quotes with unction the words: _For the spiritual man judgeth all things, but himself is judged of no man_." P. 41, [1st ed.], "I have rejected creeds, and I have found what the Scripture calls, _that peace which passeth all understanding_." "I am sure it passes mine, (says Harrington) if you have really found it, and I should be much obliged to you, if you would let me participate in the discovery." "Yes, says Fellowes:... '_I have escaped from the bondage of the letter and have been introduced into the liberty of the Spirit.... The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. The fruit of the Spirit is joy, peace, not_--'" "Upon my word (said Harrington, laughing), I shall presently begin to fancy that Douce Davie Deans has turned infidel." I have quoted enough to show the nature of my complaints. I charge the satirist with profanity, for ridiculing sentiments which _he himself_ avows to be holy, ridiculing them for no other reason but that with _me also_ they are holy and revered. He justifies himself in p. 5 of his "Defence," as above, by denying my facts. He afterwards, in Section XII. p. 147, admits and defends them; to which I shall return. I beg my reader to observe how cleverly Mr. Rogers slanders me in the quotation already made, from p. 5, by insinuating, first, that it is my doctrine, "that man is _most likely_ born for _a dog's life_, and there an end;" next, that I have taken under my patronage the propositions, that "the miracles of Christ might be real, because Christ was a _clairvoyant_ and mesmerist, and that God is not a Person but a Personality." I cannot but be reminded of what the "Prospective" reviewer says of Zeuxis and the grapes, when I observe the delicate skill of touch by which the critic puts on just enough colour to affect the reader's mind, but not so much as to draw him to closer examination. I am at a loss to believe that he supposes me to think that a theory of mesmeric wonders (as the complement of an atheistic creed?) is "a question pertaining to God," or that my rebuke bore the slightest reference to such a matter. As to Person and Personality, it is a subtle distinction which I have often met from Trinitarians; who, when they are pressed with the argument that three divine Persons are nothing but three Gods, reply that Person is not the correct translation of the mystical _Hypostasis_ of the Greeks, and Personality is perhaps a truer rendering. If I were to answer with the jocosity in which my critic indulges, I certainly doubt whether he would justify me. So too, when a Pantheist objects (erringly, as I hold) that a Person is necessarily something finite, so that God cannot be a Person; if, against this, a Theist contend that God is at once a Person and a Principle, and invent a use of the word Personality to overlap both ideas; we may reject his nomenclature as too arbitrary, but what rightful place ridicule has here, I do not see. Nevertheless, it had wholly escaped my notice that the satirist had ridiculed it, as I now infer that he did. He tells me he _was not aware_ that the holding that _there are great defects in the morality of the New Testament, and much imperfection in the character of its Founder, was a question pertaining to God_. Nor indeed was _I_ aware of it. I regard questions concerning a book and a human being to be purely secular, and desire to discuss them, not indeed with ridicule but with freedom. When _I_ discuss them, he treats my act as intolerably offensive, as though the subject were sacred; yet he now pretends that _I_ think such topics "pertain to God," and he was not aware of it until I told him so! Thus he turns away the eyes of his readers from my true charge of profanity, and fixes them upon a fictitious charge so as to win a temporary victory. At the same time, since Christians believe the morality of the _Old_ Testament to have great defects, and that there was much imperfection in the character of its eminent saints, prophets, and sages; I cannot understand how my holding the very same opinion concerning the _New_ Testament should be a peculiarly appropriate ground of banter and merriment; nor make me more justly offensive to Christians, than the Pauline doctrine is to Jews. In more than one place of this "Defence" he misrepresents what I have written on Immortality, in words similar to those here used, though here he does _not_[15] expressly add my name. In p. 59, he says, that "according to Mr. Newman's theology, it is most _probable_ (in italics) that the successive generations of men, with perfect indifference to their relative moral conditions, their crimes or wrongs, are all knocked on the head together; and that future adjustment and retribution is a dream." (So p. 72.) In a note to the next page, he informs his readers that if I say that I have left the question of immortality _doubtful_, it does not affect the argument; for I have admitted "the probability" of there being no future life. This topic was specially discussed by me in a short chapter of my treatise on the "Soul," to which alone it is possible for my critic to refer. In that chapter assuredly I do _not_ say what he pretends; what I _do_ say is, (after rejecting, as unsatisfactory to me, the popular arguments from metaphysics, and from the supposed need of a future state to _redress the inequalities of this life_;) p. 232: "But do I then deny a future life, or seek to undermine a belief of it? _Most assuredly not_; but I would put the belief (whether it is to be weaker or firmer) on a _spiritual_ basis, and on none other." I am ashamed to quote further from that chapter in this place; the ground on which I there tread is too sacred for controversy. But that a Christian advocate should rise from reading it to tell people that he has a right to _ridicule_ me for holding that "man is _most likely born for a dog's life_, and there an end;" absorbs my other feelings in melancholy. I am sure that any candid person, reading that chapter, must see that I was hovering between doubt, hope, and faith, on this subject, and that if any one could show me that a Moral Theism and a Future Life were essentially combined, I should joyfully embrace the second, as a fit complement to the first. This writer takes the opposite for granted; that if he can convince me that the doctrine of a Future Life is essential to Moral Theism, he will--not _add_ to--but _refute_ my Theism! Strange as this at first appears, it is explained by his method. He draws a hideous picture of what God's world has been in the past, and indeed is in the present; with words so reeking of disgust and cruelty, that I cannot bear to quote them; and ample quotation would be needful. Then he infers, that since I must admit all this, I virtually believe in an immoral Deity. I suppose his instinct rightly tells him, that I shall not be likely to reason, "Because God can be so very cruel or careless to-day, he is sure to be very merciful and vigilant hereafter." Accepting his facts as a _complete_ enumeration of the phenomena of the present world, I suppose it is better inductive logic to say: "He who can be himself so cruel, and endure such monsters of brutality for six or more thousand years, must (by the laws of external induction) be the same, and leave men the same, for all eternity; and is clearly reckless of moral considerations." If I adopt this alternative, I become a Pagan or an Atheist, one or other of which Mr. Rogers seems anxious to make me. If he would urge, that to look at the dark and terrible side of human life is onesided and delusive, and that the God who is known to us in Nature has so tempered the world to man and man to the world as to manifest his moral intentions;--(arguments, which I think, my critic must have heard from Socrates or Plato, without pooling out on them scalding words, such as I feel and avow to be blasphemous;)--then he might perhaps help my faith where it is weakest, and give me (more or less) aid to maintain a future life dogmatically, instead of hopefully and doubtfully. But now, to use my friend Martineau's words: "His method doubles every difficulty without relieving any, and tends to enthrone a Devil everywhere, and leave a God nowhere." Since he wrote his second edition of the "Defence," I have brought out my work called "Theism," in which (without withdrawing my objections to the popular idea of future _Retribution_) I have tried to reason out a doctrine of Future Life from spiritual considerations. I have no doubt that my critic would find them highly aboard, and perhaps would pronounce them ineffably ludicrous, and preposterous feats of logic. If I could hide their existence from him, I certainly would, lest he misquote and misinterpret them. But as I cannot keep the book from him, I here refer to it to say, that if I am to maintain this most profound and mysterious doctrine with any practical intensity, my convictions in the power of the human mind to follow such high inquiries, need to be greatly _strengthened_, not to be undermined by such arguments and such detestable pictures of this world, as Mr. Rogers holds up to me. He throws at me the imputation of holding, that "man is _most likely_ born for a _dog's life_, and there an end." And is then the life of a saint for seventy years, or for seven years, no better than a dog's life? What else but a _long_ dog's life does this make heaven to be? Such an undervaluing of a short but noble life, is consistent with the scheme which blasphemes earth in order to ennoble heaven, and then claims to be preeminently logical. According to the clear evidence of the Bible, the old saints in general were at least as uncertain as I have ever been concerning future life; nay, according to the writer to the Hebrews, "through fear of death they were all their lifetime subject to bondage." If I had called _that_ a dog's life, how eloquently would Mr. Rogers have rebuked me! V. But I must recur to his defence of the profanity with which he treats sacred sentiments and subjects. After pretending, in p. 5, that he had ridiculed nothing but the things quoted above, he at length, in pp. 147-156, makes formal admission of my charge and _justifies himself_. The pith of his general reply is in the following, p. 152:-- "'Now (says Mr. Newman) I will not here farther insist on the monstrosity of bringing forward St. Paul's words in order to pour contempt upon them; a monstrosity which no sophistry of Mr. Harrington can justify!' I think the _real_ monstrosity is, that men should so coolly employ St. Paul's words,--for it is a quotation from the treatise on the "Soul,"--to mean something totally different from anything he intended to convey by them, and employ the dialect of the Apostles to contradict their doctrines; that is the monstrosity ... It is very hard to conceive that Mr. Newman did not see this.... But had he gone on only a few lines, the reader would have seen Harrington saying: 'These words you have just quoted were well in St. Paul's mouth, and had a meaning. In yours, I suspect, they would have none, or a very different one.'" According to this doctrine of Mr. Rogers, it would not have been profane in an unbelieving Jew to _make game_ of Moses, David, and the Prophets, whenever they were quoted by Paul. The Jew most profoundly believed that Paul quoted the old Scriptures in a false, as well as in a new meaning. One Christian divine does not feel free to ridicule the words of Paul when quoted erroneously (as he thinks) by another Christian divine? Why then, when quoted by me? I hold it to be a great insolence to deny my right to quote Paul or David, as much as Plato or Homer, and adopt their language whenever I find it to express my sentiment. Mr. Rogers's claim to deride highly spiritual truth, barely because I revere it, is a union of inhumanity and impiety. He has nowhere shown that Paul meant something "totally different" from the sense which I put on his words. I know that he cannot. I do not pretend always to bind myself to the definite sense of my predecessors; nor did the writers of the New Testament. They often adopt and apply _in an avowedly new sense_ the words of the Old Testament; so does Dr. Watts with the Hebrew Psalms. Such adaptation, in the way of development and enlargement, when done with sincerely pious intention, has never been reproved or forbidden by Christians, Whether I am wise or unwise in my interpretations, the _subject_ is a sacred one, and I treat it solemnly; and no errors in my "logic" can justify Mr. Rogers in putting on the mask of a profane sceptic, who scoffs (not once or twice, but through a long book) at the most sacred and tender matters, such as one always dreads to bring before a promiscuous public, lest one cast pearls before swine. And yet unless devotional books be written, especially by those who have as yet no church, how are we to aid one another in the uphill straggle to maintain some elements of a heavenly life? Can anything be more heartless, or more like the sneering devil they talk of, than Mr. Harrington? And here one who professes himself a religions man, and who deliberately, after protest, calls _me_ an INFIDEL, is not satisfied with having scoffed in an hour of folly--(in such an hour, I can well believe, that melancholy record the "Eclipse of Faith," was first penned)--but he persists in justifying his claim to jeer and snarl and mutilate, and palm upon me senses which he knows are deliberately disavowed by me, all the while pretending that it is my bad logic which justifies him! We know that very many religious men _are_ bad logicians: if I am as puzzle-headed a fool as Mr. Rogers would make people think me, how does that justify his mocking at my religion? He justifies himself on the ground that I criticize the New Testament as freely as I should Cicero (p. 147). Well, then let him criticize me, as freely (and with as little of suppression) as I criticize it. But I do not _laugh_ at it; God forbid! The reader will see how little reason Mr. Rogers had to imagine that I had not read so far as to see Harrington's defence; which defence is, either an insolent assumption, or at any rate not to the purpose. I will here add, that I have received letters from numerous Christians to thank me for my book on the "Soul," in such terms as put the conduct of Mr. Rogers into the most painful contrast: painful, as showing that there are other Christians who know, and _he does not know_, what is the true heart and strength of Christianity. He trusts in logic and ridicules the Spirit of God. That leads me to his defence of his suggestion that I might be possibly as much inspired as the inventor of lucifer matches. He says, p. 154:-- "Mr. Newman tells me, that I have clearly a profound unbelief in the Christian doctrine of divine influence, or I could not thus grossly insult it I answer... that which Harrington ridiculed, as the context would have shown Mr. Newman, if he had had the patience to read on, and the calmness to judge, is the chaotic view of inspiration, _formally_ held by Mr. Parker, who is _expressly_ referred to, "Eclipse," p. 81." In 9th edition, p. 71. The passage concerning Mr. Parker is in the _preceding_ page: I had read it, and I do not see how it at all relieves the disgust which every right-minded man must feel at this passage. My disgust is not personal: though I might surely ask,--If Parker has made a mistake, how does that justify insulting _me_? As I protested, I have made no peculiar claim to inspiration. I have simply claimed "that which all[16] pious Jews and Christians since David have always claimed." Yet he pertinaciously defends this rude and wanton passage, adding, p. 155: "As to the inventor of lucifer matches, I am thoroughly convinced that he has shed more light upon the world and been abundantly more useful to it, than many a cloudy expositor of modern spiritualism." Where to look for the "many" expositors of spiritualism, I do not know. Would they were more numerous. Mr. Parker differs from me as to the use of the phrase "Spirit of God." I see practical reasons, which I have not here space to insist on, for adhering to the _Christian_, as distinguished from the _Jewish_ use of this phrase. Theodore Parkes follows the phraseology of the Old Testament, according to which Bezaleel and others received the spirit of God to aid them in mere mechanical arts, building and tailoring. To ridicule Theodore Parker for this, would seem to me neither witty nor decent in an unbeliever; but when one does so, who professes to believe the whole Old Testament to be sacred, and stoops to lucifer matches and the Eureka shirt, as if this were a refutation, I need a far severer epithet. Mr. Rogers implies that the light of a lucifer match is comparable to the light of Theodore Parker; what will be the judgment of mankind a century hence, if the wide dissemination of the "Eclipse of Faith" lead to inscribing the name of Henry Rogers permanently in biographical dictionaries! Something of this sort may appear:-- "THEODORE PARKER, the most eminent moral theologian whom the first half of the nineteenth century produced in the United States. When the churches were so besotted, as to uphold the curse of slavery because they found it justified in the Bible; when the Statesmen, the Press, the Lawyers, and the Trading Community threw their weight to the same fatal side; Parker stood up to preach the higher law of God against false religion, false statesmanship, crooked law and cruel avarice. He enforced three great fundamental truths, God, Holiness, and Immortality. He often risked life and fortune to rescue the fugitive slave. After a short and very active life full of good works, he died in blessed peace, prematurely worn out by his perpetual struggle for the true, the right, and the good. His preaching is the crisis which marked the turn of the tide in America from the material to the moral, which began to enforce the eternal laws of God on trade, on law, on administration, and on the professors of religion itself." And what will be then said of him, who now despises the noble Parker? I hope something more than the following:--"HENRY ROGERS, an accomplished gentleman and scholar, author of many books, of which by far the most popular was a smart satirical dialogue, disfigured by unjustifiable garbling and profane language, the aim of which was to sneer down Theodore Parker and others who were trying to save spiritual doctrine out of the wreck of historical Christianity." Jocose scoffing, and dialogue writing is the easiest of tasks; and if Mr. Rogers's co-religionists do not take the alarm, and come in strength upon Messrs. Longman, imploring them to suppress these books of Mr. Rogers, persons who despise _all_ religion (with whom Mr. Rogers pertinaciously confounds me under the term infidel), may one of these days imitate his sprightly example against his creed and church. He himself seems to me at present incurable. I do not appeal to _him_, I appeal to his co-religionists, how they would like the publication of a dialogue, in which his free and easy sceptic "Mr. Harrington" might reason on the _opposite_ side to that pliable and candid man of straw "Mr. Fellowes?" I here subjoin for their consideration, an imaginary extract of the sort which, by their eager patronage of the "Eclipse of Faith," they are inviting against themselves. _Extract._ I say, Fellowes! (said Harrington), what was that, that Parker and Rogers said about the Spirit of God? Excuse me (said Fellowes), Theodore Parker and Henry Rogers hold very different views, Mr. Rogers would be much hurt to bear you class him with Parker. I know (replied he), but they both hold that God inspires people; and that is a great point in common, as I view it. Does not Mr. Rogers believe the Old Testament inspired and all of it true? Certainly (said Fellowes): at least he was much shocked with Mr. Newman for trying to discriminate its chaff from its wheat. Well then, he believes, does not he, that Jehovah filled men _with the spirit of wisdom_ to help them make a suit of clothes for Aaron! Fellowes, after a pause, replied:--That is certainly written in the 28th chapter of Exodus. Now, my fine fellow! (said Harrington), here is a question to _rile_ Mr. Rogers. If Aaron's toggery needed one portion of the spirit of wisdom from Jehovah, how many portions does the Empress Eugenie's best crinoline need? Really (said Fellowes, somewhat offended), such ridicule seems to me profane. Forgive me, dear friend (replied Harrington, with a sweet smile). _Your_ views I never will ridicule; for I know you have imbibed somewhat of Francis Newman's fancy, that one ought to feel tenderly towards other men's piety. But Henry Rogers is made of stouter stuff; he manfully avows that a religion, if it is true, ought to stand the test of ridicule, and he deliberately approves this weapon of attack. I cannot deny that (said Fellowes, lifting his eyebrows). But I was going to ask (continued Harrington) whether Mr. Rogers does not believe that Jehovah filled Bezaleel with the Spirit of God, for the work of jeweller, coppersmith, and mason? Of course he does (answered Fellowes), the text is perfectly clear, in the 31st of Exodus; Bezaleel and Aholiab were both inspired to become cunning workmen. By the Goose (said Harrington)--forgive a Socratic oath--I really do not see that Mr. Rogers differs much from Theodore Parker. If a man cannot hack a bit of stone or timber without the Spirit of God, Mr. Rogers will have hard work to convince me, that any one can make a rifled cannon without the Spirit of God. There is something in that (said Fellowes). In fact, I have sometimes wondered how Mr. Rogers could say that which _looks_ so profane, as what he said about the Eureka shirt. Pray what is that? (said Harrington;) and where? It is in his celebrated "Defence," 2nd edition, p. 155. "_If_ Minos and Praxiteles are inspired in the same sense as Moses and Christ, then the inventor of lucifer matches, as well as the inventor of the Eureka shirts, must be also admitted"--to be inspired. Do you mean that he is trying to save the credit of Moses, by maintaining that the Spirit of God which guides a sculptor is _not_ the same in kind as that which guides a saint? No (replied Fellowes, with surprise), he is not defending Moses; he is attacking Parker. Bless me (said Harrington, starting up), what is become of the man's logic! Why, Parker and Moses are in the same boat. Mr. Rogers fires at it, in hope to sink Parker; and does not know that he is sending old Moses to Davy's locker. Now this is too bad (said Fellowes), I really cannot bear it. Nah! Nah! good friend (said Harrington, imploringly), be calm; and remember, we have agreed that ridicule--against _Mr. Rogers_, not against _you_--is fair play. That is true (replied Fellowes with more composure). Now (said Harrington, with a confidential air), you are my friend, and I will tell you a secret--be sure you tell no one--I think that Henry Rogers, Theodore Parker, and Francis Newman are three ninnies; all wrong; for they all profess to believe in divine inspiration: yet they are not ninnies of the same class. I _admit_ to Mr. Rogers that there is a real difference. How do you mean (said Fellowes, with curiosity aroused)? Why (said Harrington, pausing and becoming impressive), Newman is a flimsy mystic; he has no foundation, but he builds logically enough--at least as far as I see--on his fancies and other people's fancies. This is to be a simple ninny. But Mr. Rogers fancies he believes a mystical religion, and doesn't; and fancies he is very logical, and isn't. This is to be a doubly distilled ninny. Really I do not call this ridicule, Mr. Harrington (said Fellowes, rising), I must call it slander. What right have you to say that Mr. Rogers does not believe in the holy truths of the New Testament? Surely (replied Harrington) I have just _as_ much right as Mr. Rogers has to say that Mr. Newman does not believe the holy sentiments of St. Paul, when Mr. Newman says he does. Do you remember how Mr. Rogers told him it was absurd for an infidel like him to third: he was in a condition to rebuke any one for being profane, or fancy he had a right to say that he believed this and that mystical text of Paul, which, Mr. Rogers avows, Newman _totally_ mistakes and does _not_ believe as Paul meant it. Now I may be very wrong; but I augur that Newman _does_ understand Paul, and Rogers does _not_. For Rogers is of the Paley school, and a wit; and a brilliant chap he is, like Macaulay. Such men cannot be mystics nor Puritans in Pauline fashion; they cannot bear to hear of a religion _from within_; but, as I heard a fellow say the other day, Newman has never worked off the Puritan leaven. Well (said Fellowes), but why do you call Mr. Rogers illogical? I think you have seen one instance already, but that is a trifle compared to his fundamental blunder (said Harrington). What can you mean? how fundamental (asked his friend)? Why, he says, that _I_ (for instance) who have so faith whatever in what he calls revelation, cannot have any just belief or sure knowledge of the moral qualities of God; in fact, am logically bound (equally with Mr. Newman) to regard God as _im_moral, if I judge by my own faculties alone. Does he not say that? Unquestionably; he has a whole chapter (ch. III.) of his "Defence" to enforce this on Mr. Newman (replied Fellowes). Well, next, he tells me, that when the Christian message, as from God, is presented to me, I am to believe it on the word of a God whom I suppose to be, or _ought_ to suppose to be, immoral. If I suppose A B a rogue, shall I believe the message which the rogue sends me? Surely, Harrington, you forget that you are speaking of God, not of man: you ought not to reason so (said Fellowes, somewhat agitated). Surely, Fellowes, it is _you_ who forget (retorted Harrington) that syllogism depends on form, not on matter. Whether it be God or Man, makes no difference; the logic must be tried by turning the terms into X Y Z. But I have not said all Mr. Rogers says, I am bound to throw away the moral principles which I already have, at the bidding of a God whom I am bound to believe to be immoral. No, you are unfair (said Fellowes), I know he says that revelation would confirm and _improve_ your moral principles. But I am _not_ unfair. It is he who argues in a circle. What will be _improvement_, is the very question pending. He says, that if Jehovah called to me from heaven, "O Harrington! O Harrington! take thine innocent son, thine only son, lay him on the altar and kill him," I should be bound to regard obedience to the command an _improvement_ of my morality; and this, though, up to the moment when I heard the voice, I had been _bound logically_ to believe Jehovah to be an IMMORAL God. What think you of that for logic? I confess (said Fellowes, with great candour) I must yield up my friend's reputation as a _logician_; and I begin to think he was unwise in talking so contemptuously of Mr. Newman's reasoning faculties. But in truth, I love my friend for the great _spiritual_ benefits I have derived from him and cannot admit to you that he is not a very sincere believer in mystical Christianity. What benefits, may I ask? (said Harrington). I have found by his aid the peace which passeth understanding (replied he). It passes my understanding, if you have (answered Harrington, laughing), and I shall be infinitely obliged by your allowing me to participate in the discovery. In plain truth, I do not trust your mysticism. But are you in a condition to form an opinion? (said Fellowes, with a serious air). Mr. Rogers has enforced on me St. Paul's maxim: "The natural man discerneth not the things of the Spirit of God." My most devout gentleman I (replied Harrington), how unctuous you are! Forgive my laughing; but it does _so_ remind me of Douce Davie Deans. I will make you professor of spiritual insight, &c., &c., &c. * * * * * Now is not this disgusting? Might I not justly call the man a "profane dog" who approved of it? Yet everything that is worst here _is closely copied from the Eclipse of Faith, or justified by the Defence_. How long will it be before English Christians cry out Shame against those two books? VI. I must devote a few words to define the direction and justification of my argument in one chapter of this treatise. All good arguments are not rightly addressed to all persons. An argument good in itself may be inappreciable to one in a certain mental state, or may be highly exasperating. If a thoughtful Mohammedan, a searcher after truth, were to confide to a Christian a new basis on which be desired to found the Mohammedan religion--viz., the absolute moral perfection of its prophet, and were to urge on the Christian this argument in order to convert him, I cannot think that any one would blame the Christian for demanding what is the evidence of the _fact_. Such an appeal would justify his dissecting the received accounts of Mohammed, pointing out what appeared to be flaws in his moral conduct; nay, if requisite, urging some positive vice, such as his excepting himself from his general law of _four wives only_. But a Christian missionary would surely be blamed (at least I should blame him), if, in preaching to a mixed multitude of Mohammedans against the authority of their prophet, he took as his basis of refutation the prophet's personal sensuality. We are able to foresee that the exasperation produced by such an argument must derange the balance of mind in the hearers, even if the argument is to the purpose; at the same time, it may be really away from the purpose to _them_, if their belief has no closer connexion with the personal virtue of the prophet, than has that of Jews and Christians with the virtue of Balaam or Jonah. I will proceed to imagine, that while a missionary was teaching, talking, and distributing tracts to recommend, his own views of religion, a Moolah were to go round and inform everybody that this Christian believed Mohammed to be an unchaste man, and had used the very argument to such and such a person. I feel assured that we should all pronounce this proceeding to be a very cunning act of spiteful, bigotry. My own case, as towards certain Unitarian friends of mine, is quite similar to this. They preach to me the absolute moral perfection of a certain man (or rather, of a certain portrait) as a sufficient basis for my faith. Hereby they challenge me, and as it were force me, to inquire into its perfection. I have tried to confine the argument within a narrow circle. It is addressed by me specifically to them and not to others. I would _not_ address it to Trinitarians; partly, because they are not in a mental state to get anything from it but pain, partly because much of it becomes intrinsically bad _as argument_ when addressed to them. Many acts and words which would be _right_ from an incarnate God, or from an angel, are (in my opinion) highly _unbecoming_ from a man; consequently I must largely remould the argument before I could myself approve of it, if so addressed. The principle of the argument is such as Mr. Rogers justifies, when he says that Mr. Martineau _quite takes away all solid reasons for believing in Christ's absolute perfection._ ("Defence," p. 220.) I opened my chapter (chapter VII.) above with a distinct avowal of my wish to confine the perusal of it to a very limited circle. Mr. Rogers (acting, it seems, on the old principle, that whatever one's enemy deprecates, is a good) instantly pounces on the chapter, avows that "if infidelity _could_ be ruined, such imprudencies[17] would go far to ruin it," p. 22; and because he believes that it will be "unspeakably[18] painful" to the orthodox for whom I do _not_ intend it, he prints the greater part of it in an Appendix, and expresses his regret that he cannot publish "every syllable of it," p. 22. Such is his tender regard for the feeling of his co-religionists. My defender in the "Prospective Review" wound up as follows (x. p. 227):-- "And now we have concluded our painful task, which nothing but a feeling of what justice--literary, and personal--required, would have induced us to undertake. The tone of intellectual disparagement and moral rebuke which certain critics,--deceived by the shallowest sophisms with which an unscrupulous writer could work on their prepossessions and insult their understandings--have adopted towards Mr. Newman made exposure necessary. The length to which our remarks have extended requires apology. Evidence to character is necessarily cumulative, and not easily compressible within narrow limits. Enough has been said to show that there is not an art discreditable in controversy, to which recourse is not freely had in the 'Eclipse of Faith' and the Defence of it." The reader must judge for himself whether this severe and terrible sentence of the reviewer proceeds from ill-temper and personal mortification, as the author of the Eclipse and its Defence gratuitously lays down, or whether it was prompted by a sense of justice, as he himself affirms. [Footnote 1: The "Eclipse" had previously been noticed in the same review, on the whole favourably, by a writer of evidently a different religious school, and before I had exposed the evil arts of my assailant.] [Footnote 2: The authorship is since acknowledged by Mr. Henry Rogers, in the title to his article on Bishop Butler in the "Encyclopædia Britannica."] [Footnote 3: That is, my "discovery" that the writer of the "Eclipse of Faith" grossly misquotes and misinterprets me.] [Footnote 4: Page 225, he says, that each criticism "is quite worthy of Mr. Newman's _friend_, defender and admirer;" assuming a fact, in order to lower my defender's credit with his readers.] [Footnote 5: As he puts "artful dodge" into quotation marks, his readers will almost inevitably believe that this vulgar language is mine. In the same spirit to speaks of me as "making merry" with a Book Revelation; as if I had the slightest sympathy or share in the style and tone which pervades the "Eclipse." But there is no end of such things to be denounced.] [Footnote 6: Italics in the original.] [Footnote 7: In the ninth edition, p. 104, I find that to cover the formal falsehood of these words, he adds: "what he calls his arguments are assertions only," still withholding that which would confute him.] [Footnote 8: I will here add, that this "stinking fly"--the parenthesis ("in a certain stage of development")--was added merely to avoid dogmatizing on the question, how early in human history or in human life this mysterious notion of the divine spirit is recognizable as commencing.] [Footnote 9: If the word _essential_ is explained away, _this_ sentence may be attenuated to a truism.] [Footnote 10: Paul to the Corinthians, 1st Ep. ii.] [Footnote 11: This clause is too strong. "Expect _direct_ spiritual results," might have been better.] [Footnote 12: The substance of what I wrote was this. Socrates and Cicero ask, _where did we pick up our intelligence?_ It did not come from nothing; it most reside in the mind of him from whom we and this world came; God must be more intelligent than man, his creature.--But this argument may be applied with equal truth, not to intelligence only, but to all the essential high qualities of man, everything noble and venerable. Whence came the principle of love, which is the noblest of all! It must reside in God more truly and gloriously than in man. He who made loving hearts must himself be loving. Thus the intelligence and love of God are known through our consciousness of intelligence and love _within_.] [Footnote 13: He puts _alone_ in italics. A little below he repeats, "which alone I ridiculed."] [Footnote 14: He should add: "external _authoritative_ revelation _of moral and spiritual truth_." No communication from heaven could have moral weight, to a heart previously destitute of moral sentiment, or unbelieving in the morality of God.--What is there in this that deserves ridicule?] [Footnote 15: He puts it between two other statements which avowedly refer to me.] [Footnote 16: Mr. Rogers asks on this: "Does Mr. Newman mean that he claims as much as the _apostles_ claimed, _whether they did so rightfully or not_?" See how acutely a logician can pervert the word _all_!] [Footnote 17: There is much meaning in the word imprudencies on which I need not comment.] [Footnote 18: "Unspeakably painful" is his phrase for something much smaller, ("Eclipse" ninth edition p. 194,) which he insists on similarly obtruding, against my will and protest.] APPENDIX I. It is an error not at all peculiar to the author of the "Eclipse of Faith," but is shared with him by many others, and by one who has treated me in a very different spirit, that Christians are able to use atheistic arguments against me without wounding Christianity. As I have written a rather ample book, called "Theism," expressly designed to establish against Atheists and Pantheists that moral Theism which Christians, Jews, and Mohammedans have in common, and which underlies every attempt of any of the three religions to establish its peculiar and supernatural claims; I have no need of entering on that argument here. It is not true, that, as a Theist, I evade the objections urged by real atheists or sceptics; on the contrary, I try to search them to the very bottom. It is only in arguing with Christians that I disown the obligation of reply; and that, because they are as much concerned as I to answer; and ought to be able to give me, _on the ground of natural theology_, good replies to every fundamental objection from the sceptic, if I have not got them myself. To declare the objections of our common adversaries valid against those first principles of religion which are older than Jesus or Moses, is certainly to surrender the cause of Christianity. If this need more elucidation, let it be observed, that no Christian can take a single step in argument with a heathen, much less establish his claim of authority for the Bible, without presuming that the heathen will admit, on hearing them, those doctrines of moral Theism, which, it is pretended, _I_ can have no good reason for admitting. If the heathen sincerely retorts against the missionary such Pagan scepticism as is flung at me by Christians, the missionary's words are vain; nor is any success possible, unless (with me) he can lay a _prior_ foundation of moral Theism, independent of any assumption concerning the claims of the Bible. It avails nothing to preach repentance of sin and salvation from judgment to come, to minds which are truly empty of the belief that God has any care for morality. I of course do not say, and have never said, that the doctrine of the divine holiness, goodness, truth, must have been previously an active belief of the heathen hearer. To have stated a question clearly is often half the solution; and the teacher, who so states a high doctrine, gives a great aid to the learner's mind. But unless, after it has been affirmed that there is a Great Eternal Being pervading the universe, who disapproves of human evil and commands us to pursue the good, the conscience and intellect of the hearer gives assent, no argument of moral religion can have weight with him; therefore neither can any argument about miracles, nor any appeal to the "Bible" as authoritative. Of course the book has not as yet any influence over him, nor will its miracles, any more than its doctrines, be received on the ground of their being in the book. Thus a direct and independent discernment of the great truths of moral Theism is a postulate, to be proved or conceded _before_ the Christian can begin the argument in favour of Biblical preternaturalism. I had thought it would have been avowed and maintained with a generous pride, that eminently in Christian literature we find the noblest, soundest, and fullest advocacy of moral Theism, as having its evidence in the heart of man within and nature without, _independently of any postulates concerning the Bible_. I certainly grew up for thirty years in that belief. Treatises on Natural Theology, which (with whatever success) endeavoured to trace--not only a constructive God in the outer world, but also a good God when that world is viewed in connexion with man; were among the text-books of our clergy and of our universities, and were in many ways crowned with honour. Bampton Lectures, Bridgewater Treatises, Burnet Prize Essays, have (at least till very recently in one case) been all, I rather think, in the same direction. And surely with excellent reason. To avow that the doctrines of Moral Theism have no foundation to one who sees nothing preternatural in the Bible, is in a Christian such a suicidal absurdity, that whenever an atheist advances it, it is met with indignant denial and contempt. The argumentative strength of this Appendix, as a reply to those who call themselves "orthodox" Christians, is immensely increased by analysing their subsidiary doctrines, which pretend to relieve, while they prodigiously aggravate, the previous difficulties of Moral Theism; I mean the doctrine of the fall of man by the agency of a devil, and the eternal hell. But every man who dares to think will easily work out such thoughts for himself. APPENDIX II. I here reproduce (merely that it may not be pretended that I silently withdraw it) the substance of an illustration which I offered in my 2nd edition, p. 184. When I deny that History can be Religion or a part of Religion, I mean it exactly in the same sense, in which we say that history is not mathematics, though mathematics has a history. Religion undoubtedly comes to us by historical transmission: it has had a slow growth; but so is it with mathematics, so is it with all other sciences. (I refer to mathematics, not as peculiarly like to religion, but as peculiarly unlike; it is therefore and _à fortiori_ argument. What is true of them as sciences, is true of all science.) No science can flourish, while it is received on authority. Science comes to us _by_ external transmission, but is not believed _because_ of that transmission. The history of the transmission is generally instructive, but is no proper part of the science itself. All this is true of Religion. THE END. 
14748	----	FOR THE FAITH A Story of the Young Pioneers of Reformation in Oxford by EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN CONTENTS Chapter Note I: The House by the Bridge II: "Christian Brothers" III: A Neophyte IV: "Merrie May Day" V: Sweet Summertide VI: For Love and the Faith VII: In Peril VIII: The Fugitive IX: A Steadfast Spirit X: A Startling Apparition XI: Evil Tidings XII: "Brought Before Governors" XIII: In Prison XV: The Fire At Carfax XVI: "Reconciled" XVII: The Clemency Of The Cardinal XVIII: The Release Notes Note The story of these young pioneers of reformation in Oxford has been told by many historians. But there are slight discrepancies in the various accounts, and it is not quite clear who were the small minority who refused the offered reconciliation, and stood firm to the last. But there is no doubt that John Clarke, Henry Sumner, and one other, whose name varies in the different accounts, died from the effects of harsh imprisonment, unabsolved, and unreconciled to the offended church, and that Clarke would probably have perished at the stake had death not taken him from the hands of his persecutors. There is equally no doubt that Dalaber, Ferrar, Garret, and many others "recanted," as it was called, and took part in the burning of books at Carfax. But these men must not be too hastily condemned as cowards and renegades. Garret, Ferrar, and several others died for their faith in subsequent persecutions, whilst others rose to eminence in the church, which was soon to be reformed and purified of many of the errors against which these young men had protested. It is probable, therefore, that they were persuaded by gentle arguments to this act of submission. They were not in revolt against their faith or the church, but only eager for greater liberty of thought and judgment. Kindly persuasion and skilful argument would have great effect, and the sense of isolation and loss incurred by sentence of excommunication was such as to cause acute suffering to the devout. There is no doubt that Wolsey won over Thomas Garret by kindliness, and not by threats or penalties; and it is to his honour, and to that of the authorities of Oxford, that, after the first panic, they were wishful to treat the culprits with gentleness, save those few who remained obstinate. And even these were later on given back to their friends, although, as it turned out; it was only to die. Chapter I: The House by the Bridge "Holy Church has never forbidden it," said John Clarke, with a very intent look upon his thoughtful, scholar's face. A young man who stood with his elbow on the mantelshelf, his eye fixed eagerly on the speaker's face, here broke in with a quick impetuosity of manner, which seemed in keeping with his restless, mobile features, his flashing dark eyes, and the nervous motion of his hands, which were never still long together. "How do you mean? Never forbidden it! Why, then, is all this coil which has set London aflame and lighted the fires of Paul's Yard for the destruction of those very books?" "I did not say that men had never forbidden the reading of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue by the unlettered. I said that Holy Church herself had never issued such a mandate." "Not by her Popes?" questioned the younger man hastily. "A papal bull is not the voice of the Holy Catholic Church," spoke Clarke, slowly and earnestly. "A Pope is not an apostle; though, as a bishop, and a Bishop of Rome, he must be listened to with all reverence. Apostles are not of man or by man, but sent direct by God. Popes elected by cardinals (and too often amid flagrant abuses) cannot truly be said to hold apostolic office direct from the Lord. No, I cannot see that point as others do. But let that pass. What I do maintain, and will hold to with certainty, is that in this land the Catholic Church has never forbidden men to read the Scriptures for themselves in any tongue that pleases them. I have searched statutes and records without end, and held disputations with many learned men, and never have I been proven to be in the wrong." "I trow you are right there, John Clarke," spoke a deep voice from out the shadows of the room at the far end, away from the long, mullioned window. "I have ever maintained that our Mother the Holy Church is a far more merciful and gentle and tolerant mother than those who seek to uphold her authority, and who use her name as a cloak for much maliciousness and much ignorance." Clarke turned swiftly upon the speaker, whose white head could be plainly distinguished in the shadows of the panelled room. The features, too, being finely cut, and of a clear, pallid tint, stood out against the dark leather of the chair in which the speaker sat. He was habited, although in his own house, in the academic gown to which his long residence in Oxford had accustomed him. But it was as a Doctor of the Faculty of Medicine that he had distinguished himself; and although of late years he had done little in practising amongst the sick, and spent his time mainly in the study of his beloved Greek authors, yet his skill as a physician was held in high repute, and there were many among the heads of colleges who, when illness threatened them, invariably besought the help of Dr. Langton in preference to that of any other leech in the place. Moreover, there were many poor scholars and students, as well as indigent townsfolk, who had good cause to bless his name; whilst the faces of his two beautiful daughters were well known in many a crowded lane and alley of the city, and they often went by the sobriquet of "The two saints of Oxford." This was in part, perhaps, due to their names. They were twin girls, the only children of Dr. Langton, whose wife had died within a year of their birth. He had called the one Frideswyde, after the patron saint of Oxford, at whose shrine so many reputed miracles had been wrought; and the other he named Magdalen, possibly because he had been married in the church of St. Mary Magdalen, just without the North Gate. To their friends the twin sisters were known as Freda and Magda, and they lived with their father in a quaint riverside house by Miltham Bridge, where it crossed the Cherwell. This house was a fragment of some ecclesiastical building now no longer in existence, and although not extensive, was ample enough for the needs of a small household, whilst the old garden and fish ponds, the nut walk and sunny green lawn with its ancient sundial, were a constant delight to the two girls, who were proud of the flowers they could grow through the summer months, and were wont to declare that their roses and lilies were the finest that could be seen in all the neighbourhood of Oxford. The room in which the little company was gathered together this clear, bright April evening was the fragment of the old refectory, and its groined and vaulted roof was beautifully traced, whilst the long, mullioned window, on the wide cushioned seat on which the sisters sat with arms entwined, listening breathlessly to the talk of their elders, looked southward and westward over green meadowlands and gleaming water channels to the low hills and woodlands beyond. Oxford in the sixteenth century was a notoriously unhealthy place, swept by constant pestilences, which militated greatly against its growth as a university; but no one could deny the peculiar charm of its situation during the summer months, set in a zone of verdure, amid waterways fringed with alder and willow, and gemmed by water plants and masses of fritillary. Besides the two sisters, their learned father, and the two young men in the garb of students who had already spoken, there was a third youth present, who looked slightly younger than the dark faced, impetuous Anthony Dalaber, and he sat on the window seat beside the daughters of the house, with the look of one who has the right to claim intimacy. As a matter of fact, Hugh Fitzjames was the cousin of these girls, and for many years had been a member of Dr. Langton's household. Now he was living at St. Alban Hall, and Dalaber was his most intimate friend and comrade, sharing the same double chamber with him. It was this intimacy which bad first brought Anthony Dalaber to the Bridge House; and having once come, he came again and yet again, till he was regarded in the light of a friend and comrade. There was a very strong tie asserting itself amongst certain men of varying ages and academic rank at Oxford at this time. Certain publications of Martin Luther had found their way into the country, despite the efforts of those in authority to cheek their introduction and circulation. And with these books came also portions of the Scriptures translated into English, which were as eagerly bought and perused by vast numbers of persons. Martin Luther was no timid writer. He denounced the corruptions he had noted in the existing ordinances of the church with no uncertain note. He exposed the abuses of pardons, pilgrimages, and indulgences in language so scathing that it set on fire the hearts of his readers. It seemed to show beyond dispute that in the prevailing corruption, which had gradually sapped so much of the true life and light from the Church Catholic, money was the ruling power. Money could purchase masses to win souls from purgatory; money could buy indulgences for sins committed; money could even place unfit men of loose life in high ecclesiastical places. Money was what the great ones of the church sought--money, not holiness, not righteousness, not purity. This was the teaching of Martin Luther; and many of those who read had no means of knowing wherein he went too far, wherein he did injustice to the leaven of righteousness still at work in the midst of so much corruption, or to the holy lives of hundreds and thousands of those he unsparingly condemned, who deplored the corruption which prevailed only less earnestly than he did himself. It was small wonder, then, that those in authority in this and other lands sought by every means in their power to put down the circulation of books which might have such mischievous results. And as one of Martin Luther's main arguments was that if men only read and studied the Scriptures for themselves in their own mother tongue, whatever that tongue might be, they would have power to judge for themselves how far the practice of the church differed from apostolic precept and from the teachings of Christ, it was thought equally advisable to keep out of the hands of the people the translated Scriptures, which might produce such heterodox changes in their minds; and all efforts were made in many quarters to stamp out the spreading flames of heresy in the land. Above all things, it was hoped that the leaven of these new and dangerous opinions would not penetrate to the twin seats of learning, the sister universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Cardinal Wolsey had of late years been busy and enthusiastic over his munificent gift of a new and larger college to Oxford than any it had possessed before. To be sure, he did not find all the funds for it out of his private purse. He swept away the small priory of St. Frideswyde, finding homes for the prior and few monks, and confiscating the revenues to his scheme; and other small religious communities were treated in like manner, in order to contribute to the expenses of the great undertaking. Now a fair building stood upon the ancient site of the priory; and two years before, the first canons of Cardinal College (as Christ Church used to be called) were brought thither, and established in their new and most commodious quarters. And amongst the first of these so-called Canons or Senior Fellows of the Foundation was Master John Clarke, a Master of Arts at Cambridge, who was also a student of divinity, and qualifying for the priesthood. Wolsey had made a selection of eight Cambridge students, of good repute for both learning and good conduct, and had brought them to Oxford to number amongst his senior fellows or canons; and so it had come about that Clarke and several intimate associates of his had been translated from Cambridge to Oxford, and were receiving the allowance and benefits which accrued to all who were elected to the fellowships of Cardinal College. But though Wolsey had made all due inquiries as to the scholarship and purity of life and conduct of those graduates selected for the honour done them, he had shown himself somewhat careless perhaps in the matter of their orthodoxy, or else he had taken it too much for granted. For so it was that of the eight Cambridge men thus removed to Oxford, six were distinctly "tainted" by the new opinions so fast gaining ground in the country, and though still deeply attached to the Holy Catholic Church, were beginning to revolt against many of the abuses of the Papacy which had grown up within that church, and were doing much to weaken her authority and bring her into disrepute with thinking laymen--if not, indeed, with her own more independent-minded priests. John Clarke was a leading spirit amongst his fellows at Cardinal College, as he had been at Cambridge amongst the graduates there. It was not that he sought popularity, or made efforts to sway the minds of those about him, but there was something in the personality of the man which seemed magnetic in its properties; and as a Regent Master in Arts, his lectures had attracted large numbers of students, and whenever he had disputed in the schools, even as quite a young man, there had always been an eager crowd to listen to him. Last summer an unwonted outbreak of sickness in Oxford had driven many students away from the city to adjacent localities, where they had pursued their studies as best they might; and at Poghley, where some scholars had been staying, John Clarke had both preached and held lectures which attracted much attention, and aroused considerable excitement and speculation. Dr. Langton had taken his two daughters to Poghley to be out of the area of infection, and there the family had bettered their previous slight acquaintance with Clarke and some of his friends. They had Anthony Dalaber and Hugh Fitzjames in the same house where they were lodging; and Clarke would come and go at will, therein growing in intimacy with the learned physician, who delighted in the deep scholarship and the original habit of thought which distinguished the young man. "If he live," he once said to his daughters, after a long evening, in which the two had sat discoursing of men and books and the topics of the day--"if he live, John Clarke will make a mark in the university, if not in the world. I have seldom met a finer intellect, seldom a man of such singleness of mind and purity of spirit. Small wonder that students flock to his lectures and desire to be taught of him. Heaven protect him from the perils which too often threaten those who think too much for themselves, and who overleap the barriers by which some would fence our souls about. There are dangers as well as prizes for those about whom the world speaks aloud." Now the students had returned to Oxford, the sickness had abated, and Dr. Langton had brought his daughters back to their beloved home. But the visits of John Clarke still continued to be frequent. It was but a short walk through the meadows from Cardinal College to the Bridge House. On many a pleasant evening, his work being done, the young master would sally forth to see his friends; and one pair of soft eyes had learned to glow and sparkle at sight of him, as his tall, slight figure in its dark gown was to be seen approaching. Magdalen Langton, at least, never wearied of any discussion which might take place in her presence, if John Clarke were one of the disputants. And, indeed, the beautiful sisters were themselves able to follow, if not to take part in, most of the learned disquisitions which took place at their home. Their father had educated them with the greatest care, consoling himself for the early loss of his wife and the lack of sons by superintending the education of his twin daughters, and instructing them not only in such elementary matters as reading and writing (often thought more than sufficient for a woman's whole stock in trade of learning), but in the higher branches of knowledge--in grammar, mathematics, and astronomy, as well as in the Latin and French languages, and in that favourite study of his, the Greek language, which had fallen so long into disrepute in Oxford, and had only been revived with some difficulty and no small opposition a few years previously. But just latterly the talk at the Bridge House had concerned itself less with learned matters of Greek and Roman lore, or the problems of the heavenly bodies, than with those more personal and burning questions of the day, which had set so many thinking men to work to inquire of their own consciences how far they could approve the action of church and state in refusing to allow men to think and read for themselves, where their own salvation (as many argued) was at stake. It was not the first time that a little group of earnest thinkers had been gathered together at Dr. Langton's house. The physician was a person held in high esteem in Oxford. He took no open part now in her counsels, he gave no lectures; he lived the life of a recluse, highly esteemed and respected. He would have been a bold man who would have spoken ill of him or his household, and therefore it seemed to him that he could very well afford to take the risk of receiving young men here, who desired to speak freely amongst themselves and one another in places not so liable to be dominated by listening ears as the rooms of the colleges and halls whence they came. Dr. Langton himself, being a man of liberal views and sound piety, would very gladly have welcomed some reforms within the church, which he, in common with all the early Reformers, loved and venerated far more than modern-day Protestants fully understand. They could not bear the thought that their Holy Mother was to be despoiled, and the Body of Christ rent in pieces amongst them. No; their earnest and ardent wish was that this purging of abuses, this much-needed reformation, should come from within, should be carried out by her own priests, headed up, if possible, by the Pope himself. Such was the dream of many and many a devout and earnest man at this time; and John Clarke's voice always softened with a tender reverence as he spoke of the Holy Catholic Church. So now his eyes lighted with a quick, responsive fire, as he turned them upon his host. "That is just what I am ever striving to maintain--that it is not the church which is in fault, but those who use her name to enforce edicts which she knows nothing of. 'Search the scriptures, for in them ye have life,' spoke our Lord. 'Blessed is he that readeth the words of the prophecy of this book,' wrote St. John in the latter days. All men know that the Word of God is a lamp to the feet and a light to the path. How shall we walk without that light to guide us?" "The church gives us the light," spoke Hugh Fitzjames softly. Clarke turned upon him with a brilliant smile. "She does, she does. She provides in her services that we shall be enlightened by that light, that we shall be instructed and fed. We have little or nothing to complain of in that respect. But there are others--hundreds and thousands--who cannot share our privileges, who do not understand the words they hear when they are able to come to public worship. What is to be done for such? Are their needs sufficiently considered? Who feeds those sheep and lambs who have gone astray, or who are not able to approach to the shepherd daily to be fed?" "Many of such could not read the Scriptures, even were they placed in their hands," remarked Fitzjames. "True; and many might read them with blinded eyes, and interpret them in ignorant fashion, and so the truth might become perverted. Those are dangers which the church has seen, and has striven against. I will not say that the danger may not be great. Holy things are sometimes defiled by becoming too common. But has the peril become so great that men are forced to use such methods as those which London is shortly to witness?" There was a glow in Clarke's eyes which the gathering gloom could not hide. Magdalen seemed about to speak, but Dalaber was before her. "They say that the Tyndale translations are full of glaring errors, and errors which feed the heresies of the Lollards, and are directed against the Holy Church." "That charge is not wholly without foundation," answered Clarke at once, who as a scholar of the Greek language was well qualified to give an opinion on that point. "And deeply do I grieve that such things should be, for the errors cannot all have been through accident or ignorance, but must have been inserted with a purpose; and I hold that no man is guiltless who dares to tamper with the Word of God, even though he think he may be doing God service thereby. The Holy Spirit who inspired the sacred writers may be trusted so to direct men's hearts and spirits that they may read aright what He has written; and it is folly and presumption to think that man may improve upon the Word of God." "But there are errors in all versions of the Scriptures, are there not--in all translations from the original tongue?" Magdalen was now the speaker, and she looked earnestly at Clarke, as though his words were words of the deepest wisdom, from which there was no appeal. "Errors in all--yes; but our Latin version is marvellously true to the original, and when Wycliffe translated into English he was far more correct than Tyndale has been. But it is the Tyndale Testaments which have had so wide a sale of late in this country, and which have set London in commotion--these and the writings of Martin Luther, which the men from the Stillyard have brought up the river in great quantities. But be the errors never so great, I call it a shameful and a sinful thing, one that the Holy Church of olden days would never have sanctioned--that the Word of God should be publicly burnt, as an unholy and polluted thing, in presence of the highest ecclesiastics of the land. In truth, I hold it a crime and a sin. I would that such a scene might even now be averted." "I should well like to see it!" spoke Dalaber, with that eager impetuosity which characterized his movements. "I hate the thing myself, yet I would fain see it, too. It would be something to remember, something to speak of in future days, when, perchance, the folly of it will be made manifest. "Clarke, let us to London tomorrow! Easter is nigh at hand, and your lectures have ceased for the present. Come with me, and let us see this sight, and bring back word to our friends here how they regard this matter in London. What do you say?" Clarke's face was grave and thoughtful. "I have some thoughts of visiting London myself during the next week, but I had not thought to go to see the burning of books at Paul's Cross." "But that is what I wish to see!" cried Dalaber. "So, whether you accompany me thither or not, at least let us travel to London together, and quickly. It will be a thing to remember in days to come; for verily I believe that the church will awaken soon, and like a giant refreshed with wine will show what is in her, and will gather her children about her as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and will feed them, and care for them, and be as she has been before to them, and that we shall see an end of the darkness and indifference which has fallen like a pall upon this land." Clarke rose with a smile, for the twilight was falling, and he spoke his farewells to one after another of the doctor's family. Magdalen's eyes looked longest into his, as his dwelt with a dreamy softness upon her face. "Are you really going to London? Will it be safe?" "As safe as Oxford, sweet mistress. I apprehend no peril either there or here. But at least I am a stranger there, whilst here any man who asks may know the thing I believe. I am not afraid or ashamed to speak the truth I hold." Clarke and Dalaber went out together, and Magdalen turned anxiously upon her father. "What did he mean?" Dr. Langton smiled, but he also sighed a little. "Do not be fearful, my children; we know of no peril in the present. But we may not hide our faces from the fact that in past days this peril has threatened those who dare to speak and think the thing they hold to be truth, when that opinion is not shared by those in high places. Yet let us be thankful in that, for the present time, no peril threatens either John Clarke and his friends or Anthony Dalaber, their pupil." Chapter II: "Christian Brothers" "Freda, I am going to London with Master Clarke. We start at noon today. We travel by road and river, and hope to accomplish our journey in three days. You will wish me Godspeed ere I go?" Freda, her hands full of golden king cups, the sunshine of the morning lighting her fair face and deep, dark eyes, turned at the sound of the voice beside her, and met the burning glance of Anthony Dalaber. "You go to see the burning of the books!" she said, speaking under her breath. "O Anthony, how canst thou?--the Word of God!" "Better they should burn the insentient books than the men who preach the living Word!" spoke Anthony, suddenly putting out his hands and clasping hers. "Freda, there have been men burnt alive before this for speaking such words as we in Oxford whisper amongst ourselves. If such a fate should befall some of us here--should befall me--wouldst thou grieve for me?" Her eyes dilated as she gazed at him. "What are you saying?" she asked slowly. "Is there peril in this journey? Is there peril menacing you here in Oxford?" "There is ever peril where men dare to think for themselves and to read forbidden books." "Master Clarke says they are not forbidden of God or of His Holy Church." "That may be so; but they are forbidden by men who speak in the name and power of the church," answered Anthony, "and with them lies the issue of life and death for so many. Freda, what would you do in my place? Would you forsake these paths which lead to peril, or would you pursue them fearlessly to the end--even, if need be, unto death?" A sudden, intense light leaped into her eyes. She put forth her hand, which she had withdrawn gently from his ardent clasp, and laid it lightly upon his shoulder. "It is not what I would do, what I would say, Anthony. The charge is given by the Spirit of God: 'Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life.'" He took her hand and kissed it passionately. "That crown will I win, my Freda," he cried, "for I will be faithful unto death!" There was a curious mingling of tenderness and admiration in the glance she bent upon him. He was a goodly youth to look at, tall and strongly knit in figure, upright as a young spruce fir, with a keen, dark-skinned face, square in outline and with a peculiar mobility of expression. The eyes were black and sparkling, and the thick, short, curling hair was sombre as the raven's wing. There was no lack of intellect in the face, but the chief characteristic was its eager intensity of ever-changing expression. The girl facing him was as straight and almost as tall as he, but slender and graceful as a young deer. Her hood had fallen back from her chestnut locks, which glistened in the sunshine like burnished copper. Her eyes were of a curious tawny tint, not unlike the colour of her hair, and her complexion was delicately fair, just tinged with rose colour at the cheeks, but of a creamy pallor elsewhere. Her features were delicate and regular, and she, too, was remarkable for the look of intellect in the broad brow and deep, steadfast eyes. Their expression at this moment, as they were fixed upon Dalaber, was one which thrilled him to his heart's core. He had been filled with a passion of self renunciation inspired by her words. But as he gazed into her eyes, something more personal, more human, sprang up within him. He put his lips once more to the hand he held, and his voice shook as he said: "Freda, I love thee! I love only thee!" She did not answer. She did not withdraw her hand. Perhaps she had known this thing before Dalaber spoke the words. She stood before him, looking very earnestly and tenderly into his eyes. It was scarcely the look of a young maiden who is being wooed by the man she loves; and yet there was love in that unfaltering glance, and his heart leapt up as he saw it. "I ask nothing yet, Freda!" he cried--"at least, I ask only the right to love thee! Let me continue to be thy friend, thy companion, as before. Let me see thee and speak with thee as of old. Be thou my star and my guardian angel. I ask no more. I am but a poor student yet, but I will be more one day. Others have said so beside myself. I will rise to fame and fortune. And thou--if thou dost love me, even a little--thou wilt wait, and see what I can do and dare for thy sweet sake!" She smiled her full, gracious smile at him, and again laid a hand upon his shoulder. "Be ever true to thine own noblest self, Anthony Dalaber," she answered, in her rich, musical tones--"be true to thy conscience and to thy friends. Be steadfast and true; and that not for my sake, but for His in whose holy name we are called, and to whose service we are bound. Be faithful, be true; and whether for life or for death, thy reward will be assured." He gazed at her with a glow of rapture in his eyes. "The reward of thy love?" he whispered breathlessly. "That may well be," she answered; "but I was not thinking of that. Fix thine eyes rather on that crown of life which shall be given unto those who overcome." "I will think of both," he answered, in an access of enthusiasm, "for God is our Father; He loves us. I fear not to take all good at His hand. Love to Him--love to thee--faithfulness to both. What more can heart of man desire than such an object to strive after?" His earnestness could not be mistaken. She caught the reflex of his passionate devotion, and thrilled a little beneath his touch. He felt it in a moment, and caught her hands again. "Give me a word of hope!" he cried. "Ah, my beloved, wilt thou not say that some day thou wilt love me?" Freda was not one who would dally and trifle with her heart. "In sooth, methinks I love thee now, Anthony. Nay, hear me a moment longer. I love thee with a strong and sisterly love; but I would know mine own heart better ere I promise more. We will be content with this knowledge for the nonce. I shall watch thee, Anthony; I shall hear of thee; I shall know what thou hast power to do and dare. But now let us say farewell, for I must carry my flowers within doors; and thou--it is time thou wert away. Thou hast a long journey to prepare for." And so, with one kiss, gravely given and taken, the lovers parted, and Anthony went on his way as one who treads on air. Some three days later, with eager eyes and bated breath, Anthony Dalaber was following his friend John Clarke up the landing stairs of a certain wharf in the city of London, and gazing earnestly about him at the narrow, dark street in which he found himself, where the shades of night seemed already to have fallen. He knew whither they were bound--to the house of a priest, Thomas Garret by name, well known to Clarke, and known by name to Dalaber, too. He was one of the most active of the little band now engaged in the perilous task of receiving and distributing the translated Scriptures and the pamphlets issued by Martin Luther and other reformers. He was an ex-fellow of Magdalen College, now a curate of Allhallows, near Cheapside. Dalaber had often had a wish to see this man, having heard of him in many quarters. And now they stood knocking at the door of his house, which opened only a few hundred paces from the riverside. They had to wait some little time; but Clarke was not impatient, though he gave a peculiar knock more than once upon the door. Presently it was opened a very little way, and a voice asked: "Who are you, and what is your errand?" "Crede et manducasti [i]," spoke Clarke, in a low voice; and at once the door was opened wider. He stepped within, and Dalaber followed him. They found themselves in a very narrow entry hall, and could only see in the gloom that a serving man stood before them. "Tell your master that John Clarke from Oxford has come to lodge with him for a few nights, if he can give him house room." The man vanished, but almost immediately reappeared and beckoned to them to follow. He took them down some steps, lighting the way by a lantern; and after they had descended some score they reached a door, which he pushed open, revealing a roomy, cellar-like vault, in which some half-dozen men were busily employed; but so scanty was the illumination that Dalaber could not for the moment see upon what task they were bent. One figure detached itself from the rest and came forward. Dalaber found himself gazing at a small, wiry-looking man in the frock of a priest, whose head was slightly bald in addition to the tonsure, and whose face was thin and lined, as though with vigils and fasting and prayer. It was the face of an ascetic--thin featured and thin lipped, pale almost to cadaverousness, but lighted as though with a fire from within. The extraordinary power of the shining eyes riveted Dalaber's gaze from the first moment. Their glance was turned full upon him after the priest had given greeting to Clarke, and the thin, resonant voice asked quickly: "Whom have you brought? Is he to be trusted?" "To the death!" answered Dalaber, speaking for himself. "Try me, and you shall see." "It is my young friend, Anthony Dalaber," said Clarke, his hand upon the youth's shoulder. "He is very earnest in the study of the Scriptures and in the desire for a better state of things within the church. Methinks he is stanch and true, else would I not have brought him. As we journeyed hither I told him of the work of the Association of Christian Brothers, and he would fain share their toil and peril." "Is that so?" asked the priest, again shooting a fiery glance towards the young student. "Canst thou drink of the cup we may be called upon to drink, and share the fiery baptism with which we may be baptized withal?" And Dalaber, his quick enthusiasm kindling to the spark which seemed to leap towards him from the other, answered without a moment's pause of hesitation, "I can." Then Garret stretched forth his hand and took that of Dalaber in the clasp of brotherhood, and Anthony felt the magnetic thrill tingling through his whole frame. "God be with you, my son, and keep you steadfast," said he; and the other men, who had left their tasks and come forward to greet Clarke and his companion, murmured a deep "amen." Then all turned to the work in hand; and Dalaber saw that they were engaged in hiding beneath the flagstones of the cellar, which had carefully been removed for the purpose, a number of bales and packets, whose contents could easily be guessed at. The earth from beneath the stones had been hollowed out so as to receive these packets in a number of deep cavities; and when the flags were carefully replaced, and a little dirt and dust carefully sifted over the floor, it would require a practised eye to discern the hiding place. And hitherto it had passed undetected. "We are hiding a number of books belonging to various brethren and confederates," spoke Garret, as the task went on. "By a providential warning our brother, Dr. Barnes, received timely notice of visitation at his house, and the books were hurriedly carried hither in the dead of night. You have heard, perhaps, of his arrest?" "No," answered Clarke; "we have but just arrived, and the last fifteen miles we came by water in a wherry. The man knew naught of the talk of the town, save that a great burning of books is to take place on the morrow at Paul's Cross." "Ay," spoke Garret, with a grim compression of the lips, "a mighty burning of forbidden books will take place there. But mark, my friends; had those books yonder been found in Dr. Barnes's house, not books alone but the man himself would have been burnt upon the morrow. The cardinal plainly told him so; and as it is, he has signed a paper which they call a recantation of heresy. Let us not judge him harshly. His friends pleaded, and his foes threatened, and the flesh shrinks from the fiery trial. He will read this confession or recantation tomorrow at St. Paul's, and help to fling the precious books upon the devouring flames. "Ah me! Let us not judge him! Judge nothing before the time, till the Lord come. Oh, would that Ho would come Himself, to bring to an end this dark night of persecution and terror, and take the kingdom and the power and reign!" And again the voices of the brethren answered, "Amen!" "Are there any others who take part in this strange pageant on the morrow?" asked Clarke, after a brief pause. "Yes; five honest fellows from the Stillyard, who have been detected in bringing books up the river and landing them. They are condemned to appear tomorrow, and to assist in the holocaust with their own hands. Being humbler men, they are dealt with more lightly; and men all agree in this, that the cardinal would rather persuade men to escape, and make the way easy for them to abjure what he calls their errors, than drag them to the stake. But he will not shrink from that last step, if he think the welfare of the church demands it; and there are others who bear a yet more cruel hatred towards all who would be free from the shackles of falsehood and superstition. And much power belongs to them. God alone knows what is coming upon this realm." "But God does know; let that be enough!" spoke Clarke, with the quick lighting of his clear blue eyes which gave him such power over his hearers. He and Garret were men of markedly contrasted types--the one all fire, restlessness, energy; the other calm, contemplative, intensely spiritual. Both were alike filled with a deep faith, a deep zeal; one the man of action, the other the man of meditation and devotion--yet deeply attached one to the other, as could be seen by the way they looked and spoke. "Ay, verily, let that be enough; let us remember that the day must come that He who will come shall come, and shall not tarry. Let Him judge; let Him make inquisition for blood. Let our care be that we who are called and vowed to His service are found not called alone, but chosen and found faithful." The brethren, having finished their work, and replaced the flagstones, spoke farewell, and departed one by one; but Clarke and Dalaber remained with their host, and one man besides, whose face was known to Anthony, and who also came from Oxford. He was another of the cardinal's canons who had come from Cambridge with Clarke, and his name was Henry Sumner. Evidently he too was of the band of Christian Brothers; and in the long and earnest talk which lasted far into the night, and to which Dalaber listened with the keenest interest, he bore a share, although the chief speaker was Garret, upon whose lips Dalaber hung with wrapt attention, whilst Clarke's words fell softly like distilled dew, calming the heart, and uplifting the spirit into heavenly regions of light and peace. Anthony Dalaber was the only one in that house who desired to behold the spectacle upon the morrow. Garret's brow was dark, and he spoke of passing the hours in fasting and prayer. Clarke had friends he wished to visit in the city; but Dalaber's curiosity burnt within him, and none dissuaded him from his plan. Indeed, it was thought a pious act by the authorities to witness such a scene, and might have been in one way advantageous to the young Oxford graduate to be seen at such an exhibition, if any chanced to observe him there. Not that Dalaber thought of this himself, but the elder men did; and though they would not have sought to win favour by such an act themselves, they were not sorry for a young confederate to take advantage of the possibility of notice from those in authority. It was wonderful how Argus-eyed and how long of arm were the emissaries of the orthodox party in the church in those times. It seemed to Anthony himself as though all London were astir, and moving towards old St. Paul's, as he threaded the narrow streets towards the stately edifice. Although it wanted half an hour or more to the time when the ceremony should commence--eight o'clock in the morning the open place around the cathedral was packed when Dalaber reached it, and only by the good nature of a citizen, who took him into his house and let him view the scene from a window, was he able to see what passed. A high platform was erected by the great western doors of "Paul's Walk" (some authorities say just within, and some just without the building), where the cardinal's throne, draped with purple, had been set, as well as seats for a great concourse of ecclesiastics beside. Opposite this platform was another and far humbler erection, evidently for the penitents; whilst over the north door, the Rood of the Northern, as it was called, a great gilt crucifix had been set up; and within the rails surrounding it burnt a fire, round which fagots were set, and great baskets containing the forbidden books, which were presently to be solemnly burnt. As the great clock boomed out the hour of eight, two processions simultaneously approached the platform. One swept out through the cathedral doors in all the pomp of power and majesty, the cardinal in scarlet robes, blazing with gems and gold, attended by innumerable dignitaries--abbots and priors, bishops, deans, doctors, and lesser clergy, shining in damask and satin, a right goodly company. For a while all eyes were so fixed upon this glittering array that there was scarce time to note the humble six, in their penitential robes, bare-footed, and carrying tapers, who appeared, attended by their jailers from the Fleet Prison, and were set upon the opposite platform, full in view of all. It was not Cardinal Wolsey, but Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, who delivered to them a fiery oration, descanting to them on the enormity of their offences, and calling upon them to abjure their hateful heresy. His ringing voice carried all over the open space, though Anthony Dalaber could only catch an occasional phrase here and there, which perhaps was as well. But the reply, if reply there were, from the penitents was quite inaudible, though Dr. Barnes was believed to have spoken a solemn recantation in the name of the six, and to declare that they only met the due reward of their sins. Then came the final ceremony, the pacing round and round the fire, the casting into the flames, first the fagots, and then the books put ready for the burning. The people held their breath whilst this was being done; but had observant eyes been fixed upon many of the faces of the crowd, they would have seen looks of fierce hatred directed towards the spot where the powerful cardinal sat aloft, whilst eager hands seemed ofttimes to be stretched out as though to clutch at the precious books, now being ruthlessly consigned to the flames. At last Anthony Dalaber could stand it no longer. Hastily thanking the honest citizen for the "goodly show" he had permitted him to witness, he slipped down into the street, and pushed his way through the throng anywhere, out of sight of the odious pageant of intolerance and bigotry which he had been witnessing. "Had it been Luther's books only, I could have stood it. He is a man, and though a champion for truth, he may err, he does err. And he speaks wild words which he contradicts himself. But the Word of God! Oh, that is too much! To take it out of the hands of the poor and needy, who hunger to be fed, and to cast it to be burnt like the dung of the earth! Surely God will look down! Surely He will punish! Oh, if I had wanted argument and reason for the step I will take in the future, yonder spectacle would have been enough!" For many hours he wandered through the streets and lanes of the city, so intent on his own thoughts that he scarce noted the buildings and fine sights he passed by. But his feet brought him back to the spot of the morning's pageant, and towards evening he found himself looking upon the ashes of what had been the books brought with so much risk by the Hanse merchants and the Stillyard men, and so eagerly desired by the poorer people of the city. All the platforms had been removed. The crucifix no longer glittered overhead, the doors of the cathedral were shut, and none of the pomp of the morning could be seen here now. But several humble persons were raking amid the ashes where the books had been burnt, as though to see whether some poor fragments might not have been left unconsumed; and when they failed to find even this--for others had been before them, and the task of burning had probably been well accomplished--they would put a handful of ashes into some small receptacle, and slip it cautiously into pocket or pouch. One man, seeing Dalaber's gaze fixed upon him, went up to him almost defiantly and said: "Are you spying upon us poor citizens, to whom is denied aught but the ashes of the bread of life?" Dalaber looked him full in the face, and spoke the words he had heard from Clarke's lips the previous evening: "Crede et manducasti." Instantly the man's face changed. A light sprang into his eyes. He looked round him cautiously, and said in a whisper: "You are one of us!" There was scarce a moment's pause before Dalaber replied: "I am one of you--in heart and purpose, at least, if not in actual fact." He paced home through the streets in a tempest of conflicting emotions. But his mind was made up. Come what might--peril, suffering, or death--he had put his hand to the plough. He would not look back. "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life." He seemed to walk to the accompaniment of these words; and when he reached Garret's house he went straight to the master, told his story, and knelt suddenly down before him. "Bless me, even me also, O my father!" he exclaimed, in a burst of emotion to which his temperament made him subject, "for I would now be admitted as member of the Association of Christian Brothers." Chapter III: A Neophyte "And the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and he loved him as his own soul." These words often came into the mind of the priest, Thomas Garret, during the three days which Anthony Dalaber spent at his house, hard by the rushing river, in the city of London. There were ten years in age between them. Dalaber was a youth who had seen little of life beyond what he had learned in Oxford, whereas Garret had already passed through strange and perilous experiences. The one had so far lived amongst books, and with youthful companions of his own standing; the other had been a pioneer in one of the most dangerous movements of the day, and had seen what such courses might well lead him to. Storm and stress had been the portion of the one, a pleasant life of study and pleasure that of the other. It was only during the past six months that association with Clarke and some others of his way of thinking had aroused in Dalaber's mind a sense of restless discontent with existing ordinances, and a longing after purer, clearer light, together with a distaste and ofttimes a disgust at what he saw of corruption and simony amongst those who should have been the salt of the earth. Had it not been for the talks he had heard of late, in Dr. Langton's house, he might have passed through his divinity studies at Oxford as his brother had done before him, content to drift with the stream, ignorant of the undercurrents which were already disturbing its apparently tranquil surface, and ready in due course to be consecrated to his office, and to take some benefice if he could get it, and live and die as the average priest of those times did, without troubling himself over the vexed questions of papal encroachment and traffic in pardons and indulgences which were setting Germany in a flame. But he had been first aroused by seeing the light in Freda's eyes as these questions had been discussed in the hearing of her and her sister. From the first moment of his presentation to Dr. Langton's family Dalaber had been strongly attracted by the beautiful sisters, and especially by Freda, whose quick, responsive eagerness and keen insight and discrimination made a deep impression upon him. The soundness of her learning amazed him at the outset; for her father would turn to her to verify some reference from his costly manuscripts or learned tomes, and he soon saw that Latin and Greek were to her as her mother tongue. When she did join in the conversation respecting the interpretation or translation of the Holy Scriptures, he had quickly noted that her scholarship was far deeper than his own. He had been moved to a vivid admiration at first, and then to something that was more than admiration. And the birth and growth of his spiritual life he traced directly to those impulses which had been aroused within him as he had heard Freda Langton speak and argue and ask questions. That was how it had started; but it was Clarke's teaching and preaching which had completed the change in him from the careless to the earnest student of theology. Clarke's spirituality and purity of life, his singleness of aim, his earnest striving after a standard of holiness seldom to be found even amongst those who professed to practise the higher life, aroused the deep admiration of the impulsive and warm-hearted Dalaber. He sought his rooms, he loved to hear his discourses, he called himself his pupil and his son, and was the most regular and enthusiastic attender of his lectures and disputations. And now he had taken a new and forward step. Suddenly he seemed to have been launched upon a tide with which hitherto he had only dallied and played. He was pushing out his bark into deeper waters, and already felt as though the cables binding him to the shores of safety and ease were completely parted. It was in part due to the magnetic personality of Garret that this thing had come to pass. When Dalaber left Oxford it was with no idea that it would be a crisis in his life. He wished, out of curiosity, to be present at the strange ceremony to be enacted in St. Paul's Churchyard; and the knowledge that Clarke was going to London for a week on some private business gave the finishing touch to his resolution. But it was not until he sat with Thomas Garret in his dark lodgings, hearing the rush of the river beneath him, looking into the fiery eyes of the priest, and hearing the fiery words which fell from his lips, that Dalaber thoroughly understood to what he had pledged himself when first he had uttered the fateful words, "I will be a member of the Association of Christian Brothers." True, Clarke had, on their way to town, spoken to him of a little community, pledged to seek to distribute the life-giving Word of God to those who were hungering for it, and to help each in his measure to let the light, now shrouded beneath a mass of observances which had lost their original meaning to the unlettered people, shine out in its primitive brilliance and purity; but Dalaber had only partially understood the significance of all this. Clarke was the man of thought and devotion. His words uplifted the hearts of his hearers into heavenly places, and seemed to create a new and quickened spirituality within them. Garret was the man of action. He was the true son of Luther. He loved to attack, to upheave, to overthrow. Where Clarke spoke gently and lovingly of the church, as their holy mother, whom they must love and cherish, and seek to plead with as sons, that she might cleanse herself from the defilement into which she had fallen, Garret attacked her as the harlot, the false bride, the scarlet woman seated upon the scarlet beast, and called down upon her and it alike the vials of the wrath of Almighty God. And the soul of Dalaber was stirred within him as he listened to story after story, all illustrative of the corruption which had crept within the fold of the church, and which was making even holy things abhorrent to the hearts of men. He listened, and his heart was hot as he heard; he caught the fire of Garret's enthusiasm, and would then and there have cast adrift from his former life, thrown over Oxford and his studies there--and flung himself heart and soul into the movement now at work in the great, throbbing city, where, for the first time, he found himself. But when he spoke words such as these Garret smiled and shook his head, though his eyes lighted with pleasure. "Nay, my son; be not so hot and hasty. Seest thou not that in this place our work for the time being is well-nigh stopped? "Not for long," he added quickly, whilst the spark flew from his eyes--"not for long, mind you, ye proud prelates and cardinal. The fire you have lighted shall blaze in a fashion ye think not of. The Word of God is a consuming fire. The sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, pierces the heart and reins of man; and that sword hath been wrested from the scabbard in which it has rusted so long, and the shining of its fiery blade shall soon he seen of all men. "No," added the priest, after a moment's pause to recover himself and take up the thread of his discourse; "what was done at Paul's Cross yesterday was but a check upon our work. The last convoy of books has been burnt--all, save the few which we were able to save and to bide beneath the cellar floor. The people have been cowed for a moment, but it will not last. As soon seek to quench a fire by pouring wax and oil upon it!" "You will get more books, then? The work will not cease?" "It will not cease. More books will come. Our brave Stillyard men will not long be daunted. But we must act with care. For a time we must remain quiet. We may not be reckless with the holy books, which cost much in money and in blood--or may do, if we are rash or careless. But nothing now can stop their entrance into a land where men begin to desire earnestly to read them for themselves. Not all, mind you. It is strange how careless and apathetic are the gentry of the land--they that one would have thought to be most eager, most forward. They stand aloof; and the richer of the trades' guilds will have little to say to us. But amongst the poor and unlettered do we find the light working; and in them are our chiefest allies, our most earnest disciples." "Yet we have many at Oxford, learned men and scholars, who would gladly welcome changes and reforms in the church; and there are many amongst the students eager after knowledge, and who long to peruse the writings of Luther and Melancthon, and see these new versions of the Scriptures." "Ay, I know it. I was of Oxford myself. It is but a few years that I left my lodging in Magdalen College. I love the place yet. The leaven was working then. I know that it has worked more and more. Our good friends Clarke and Sumner have told as much. Is not your presence here a proof of it? Oh, there will be a work--a mighty work--to do in Oxford yet; and you shall be one of those who shall be foremost in it." "I?" cried Dalaber, and his eyes glowed with the intensity of his enthusiasm. "Would that I could think it!" "It shall be so," answered Garret. "I read it in your face, I hear it in your voice. The thought of peril and disgrace would not daunt you. You would be faithful--even unto death. Is it not so?" "I would!--I will!" cried Dalaber, stretching out his hand and grasping that of Garret. "Only tell me wherein I can serve, and I will not fail you." "I cannot tell you yet, save in general terms; but the day will come when you shall know. Oxford must have books. There will soon be no doubt as to that. And when we have books to scatter and distribute there, we want trusty men to receive and hide them, and sell or give them with secrecy and dispatch. It is a task of no small peril. Thou must understand that well, my son. It may bring thee into sore straits--even to a fiery death. Thou must count the cost ere thou dost pass thy word." "I care nothing for the cost!" cried Dalaber, throwing back his head. "What other men have done and dared I will do and dare. I will be faithful--faithful unto death." "I shall remember," answered Garret, with a smile upon his thin ascetic face--"I shall remember; and the day will come--a day not far distant, as I hope--when I shall come to thee and remind thee of this promise." "I shall not have forgotten," spoke Dalaber, holding out his hand; "whenever the Brotherhood calls upon me it will find me ready." There was silence for a while, and then Dalaber looked up and asked: "What of Clarke, and Sumner, and others there? Will they not help also in the good work?" "Yes; but in a different fashion," answered Garret. "It is not given to all to serve alike. Those men who dwell within college walls, overlooked by dean and warden, waited on by servants in college livery, bound by certain oaths, and hemmed about by many restrictions, cannot act as those can do who, like yourself, are members of the university, but dwellers in small halls, and under no such restraints. Clarke has done great service, and will do more, by his teachings and preachings, which prepare the hearts of men to receive the good seed, and awaken yearnings after a deeper, purer, spiritual life than that which we see around us in those who should be the bright and shining lights of the day. That is their work, and right well do they perform their tasks. But to such as you belongs the other and arduous labour of receiving and distributing the forbidden books. When the time comes, wilt thou, Anthony Dalaber, be ready?" "I will," spoke the youth in earnest tones; and it was plain that he spoke in all sincerity. The position of students living in colleges and living in halls, as they were called, was, as Garret had said, altogether different. Graduates and undergraduates of the colleges which had sprung up were fenced about with rules and restrictions which have been modified rather than changed with the flight of time. But the hall of olden Oxford was merely a sort of lodging house, generally kept by a graduate or master, but not subject to any of the rules which were binding upon those students who entered upon one of the foundations. Indeed, the growth of colleges had been due in great part to the desire on the part of far-seeing men and friends of order as well as learning to curb the absolute and undesirable freedom of the mass of students brought together at Oxford and Cambridge, and in the middle ages living almost without discipline or control, often indulging in open riots or acts of wholesale insubordination. Anthony Dalaber was not at present a member of any college, nor even of one of the religious houses where students could lodge, and where they lived beneath a sort of lesser control. He and Hugh Fitzjames, both of them youths of limited means, shared a lodging in a house called St. Alban Hall, and were free to come and go as they pleased, none asking them wherefore or whither. He saw at once that what would not be possible to a canon of Cardinal College would be feasible enough to him and his friend, if Fitzjames should sympathize with him in the matter. And, so far, he believed his friend was with him, though without, perhaps, the same eager enthusiasm. When the visit to Garret came to an end, and Anthony Dalaber said farewell to him at the water side, where a barge was to convey them some distance up the river, the priest held his hands long and earnestly, looking into his eyes with affectionate intensity, and at the last he kissed him upon both cheeks and said: "God be with thee, my young brother! May He keep thee firm and steadfast to the last, whatever may befall!" "I am very sure He will," answered Dalaber fervently. "I am yours, and for the good cause, for life or death." They parted then, and the voyage began; but little was spoken by the travellers so long as they remained in the barge. Clarke seemed to be thinking deeply, his eyes fixed earnestly upon Dalaber's face from time to time; whilst the latter sat gazing behind him at the city, sinking slowly away out of his sight, his eyes filled with the light of a great and zealous purpose. They left the water side in the afternoon, and walked towards a certain village, and Clarke, turning towards his companion, said: "I have promised to preach this evening in a certain house yonder. I trow there will be no peril to me or to those who hear me. But of that no man can be certain. What wilt thou do? Come with me, or walk onwards and let us meet on the morrow?" Dalaber hesitated no single moment; Clarke's preaching was one of his keenest delights. And upon this evening he was moved beyond his wont as the young master spoke from his heart to his listeners, not striving to arouse their passions against tyranny or bigotry, but rather seeking to urge them to patience, to that brotherly love which endures all things and hopes all things, and turns to the Almighty Father in never-ceasing faith and joy, imploring His help to open the eyes of the blind, soften the hearts that are puffed up, and cleanse the church, which must be made pure and holy as the bride of Christ, for that heavenly marriage supper for which her spouse is waiting. Nothing was spoken which the orthodox could well complain of; yet every listener knew that such a discourse would not have been preached by any man not "tainted" with what was then called heresy. But the hearts of the hearers burnt within them as they listened; and when, after some further time spent in discussion and prayer, the preacher and his companion found themselves alone for the night in a comfortable bed chamber, Dalaber threw himself upon Clarke's neck in an outburst of fervid enthusiasm. "Oh, let me be ever your son and scholar," he cried, "for with you are the words of life and light!" Then the elder man looked at him with a great tenderness in his eyes, but his voice was full of gravity and warning. "Dalaber," he said, "you desire you know not what. And I fear sometimes that you seek to take upon yourself more than you wot of--more than you are able. My preaching is sweet unto you now, for that no persecution is laid upon you. But the time will come--of that I am well assured, and that period peradventure shortly--when, if ye continue to live godly therein, God will lay upon you the cross of persecution, to try whether you, as pure gold, can abide the fire." "I know it! I am ready!" cried Dalaber, with the characteristic backward motion of his head. His face was like the face of a young eagle. He was quivering from head to foot. Clarke looked at him again with his fatherly smile, but there was trouble also in his eyes. "Be not over confident, my son; and seek not to take upon you more than you are able to bear." Dalaber understood instantly to what Clarke was alluding. "I trust I have not done so. But men will be wanted. I am a Christian Brother. I must not shrink. My word is passed. Not to you, my master, alone, but to Master Garret also." "To whom I did make you known," spoke Clarke, with a very slight sigh. "My son, I would not speak one word to discourage your godly zeal; but bethink you what this may mean. You shall (it may be) be judged and called a heretic; you shall be abhorred of the world; your own friends and kinsfolk shall forsake you; you shall be cast into prison, and none shall dare to help you; you shall be accused before bishops, to your reproach and shame, to the great sorrow of all your friends and kindred. Then will ye wish ye had never known this doctrine; then (it may be) ye will curse Clarke, and wish you had never known him, because he hath brought you into all these troubles." But Dalaber could bear that word no longer; he flung himself at the feet of his master, and the tears broke from his eyes. "Nay, nay, speak not so, I beseech you; you cut me to the heart! I boast not of myself as being wiser or braver or more steadfast than other men; I only pray of you to try me. Send me not away. Let me be pupil, and scholar, and son. I cannot turn back, even if I would. My heart is in the good work. Let me follow in the path I have chosen. I have put my hand to the plough; how can I turn back?" Clarke looked down upon the youth with a world of tender love in his eyes, and raising him up in his arms he kissed him, the tears standing on his own cheeks. "The Lord God Almighty give you grace and steadfastness now and ever," he said in a deep voice, full of feeling, "and from henceforth and ever take me for your father in Christ, and I will take you for my son!" So the compact was sealed between the two; and when on the morrow they took their way towards Oxford, the heart of Anthony Dalaber was joyful within him, for he felt as though he had set his foot upon the narrow path which leads to life everlasting, and he reeked little of the thorns and briers which might beset the way, confident that he would be given grace to overcome. He was happier still when he was able to obtain the exclusive companionship of Freda Langton in the sunny garden of the Bridge House, and pour into her willing ears all the story of his visit and its wonderful consequences. To Anthony Dalaber some sympathetic confidante was almost a necessity of existence; and who so well able to understand him as the girl he loved with every fibre of his being, and who had almost promised him an answering love? There was no peril to her in knowing these things. The day for making rigorous inquisition in all directions had not yet come, and there was no danger to himself in entrusting his safety to one as true and stanch as this maiden. Freda's sympathies from the outset had been with those independent thinkers, who were in increasing peril of being branded as heretics; and she listened with absorbing interest to the story of the hidden books, the little band of Christian Brothers, the work going on beneath their auspices, and the check temporarily put upon it by the holocaust of books which Dalaber had witnessed at St. Paul's. "And you saw it--you saw them burn the books! You saw the great cardinal sitting on his throne and watching! O Anthony, tell me, what was he like?" "His face I could not well see, I was too far away; but he walked with stately mien, and his following was like that of royalty itself. Such kingly pomp I have never witnessed before." "And our Lord came meek and lowly, riding upon an ass, and had not where to lay His head," breathed Freda softly. "Ah, ofttimes do I wonder what He must think of all this, looking down from heaven, where He sits expecting, till His enemies be made His footstool. I wonder what yonder pageant looked like to Him--a prelate coming in His place (as doubtless the cardinal would think) to judge those whose crime has been the spreading abroad of the living Word, and now watching the burning of countless books which contain that living Word, and which might have brought joy and gladness to so many. When I think of these things I could weep for these proud men, who never weep for themselves. I can better understand the words of Master Clarke when he says, 'Plead with your mother--plead with her.'" "We will plead. We have pleaded already; we will plead again and yet again!" cried Dalaber, with a flash in his dark eyes. "But methinks a time will come when the day of pleading will be past, and the day of reckoning will come; and she will have to learn that her children will not always suffer her impurities and abominations, but that they will rise up and cleanse the sanctuary from the filthiness wherewith it is defiled." "Yet let them not cease to love her," spoke Freda gently, "for, as Master Clarke truly says, we are all one body--the Body of Christ; and if we have to war one with another, and rend that body for its own healing, we must yet remember that we are all members one of another even in our strife." "It is a hard saying," spoke Dalaber, "yet I believe it is the truth. God send us more men like John Clarke, to show us the way through this tangle of perplexities!" Chapter IV: "Merrie May Day" "You will come and hear us sing our 'merrie katches' from the tower, sweet ladies. They should sound sweetly this year, more sweetly than ever, for we have improved in our methods, and our boys have been better taught since Master Radley of Cardinal College has given us his help; and he will come and sing with us, and he hath a voice like a silver bell." The speaker was Arthur Cole, a student of Magdalen College, who was now a frequent visitor at the Bridge House. He was a young man of good family and prospects, nearly related to one of the proctors of the university. He had a good presence, an elegant figure, and was master of many favourite sports and pastimes. He kept horses and dogs and falcons, and had several servants lodging in the town to look after these creatures, and to attend him when he sallied forth in search of sport. Moreover, he had recently introduced into Oxford the Italian game of "calcio" (of which more anon), and was one of the most popular and important men of his college. He was always dressed with great care and elegance, although he was no fop; and he was so handsome and so merry withal that all who knew him regarded him with favour, and his friendship was regarded as a sort of passport to the best circle of university life. Freda and Magdalen answered his appeal with smiling glances. They were holding one of their little mimic courts in the garden by the river. Their father had been reading and discoursing with sundry students, who came to him for instruction more individual and particular than could be given in the schools in the earlier part of the day; and the young men before leaving always sought to gain speech with the two fair sisters, who were generally at this hour to be found in the garden. Arthur Cole, Anthony Dalaber, and Hugh Fitzjames, their cousin, had lingered to the last, and now were talking of the joustings and merry makings of the approaching May Day, which was ushered in by the melodious concert from the summit of Magdalen College tower. In olden days this was not a sacred selection of hymns, but madrigals, roundelays, and "merrie katches," as the old chroniclers term them, sung by the boys maintained for the musical part of the daily service, and by such singing men or musically inclined students as were willing and able to help. Anthony Dalaber, who possessed an excellent voice, which he often employed in the service of Cardinal College Chapel, had been invited to assist this year; and a new singing man from that college, Stephen Radley by name, was considered a great acquisition. This man had not long been in Oxford, and had been sent by the cardinal himself on account of his remarkable voice. He did not live in the college itself, but in a lodging near at hand, and equally near to Magdalen College. Arthur Cole, foremost to discover talent and appreciate it, and attracted by the fine presence and muscular development of the singer, had struck up a friendship with him, and Dalaber had followed his example in this. "Radley will lead off the madrigal to springtide and love," he cried, "which erstwhile has been spoiled for lack of a voice that can be heard alone from such a height. I trow it will ring through the soft air like a silver trumpet. You will be there to hear?" and his eyes dwelt upon the face of Freda, whilst those of Arthur rested more particularly upon that of Magdalen. "Ah, yes, we shall certainly be there," they both answered; and Freda added gaily, "Albeit ye begin the day somewhat early. But why should we not be up with the sun on Merrie May Day?" "Why not, indeed?" questioned Arthur eagerly, "for the day will scarce be long enough for all there is to do. You will come to the sports in the meadows later, fair maidens? And I have a favour to ask of you twain. May I be bold enough to proffer it now?" They looked at him with smiling, questioning eyes. "A favour, fair sir?" "Yes, truly; for I would ask of you to be witness to our contest of calcio in yonder green meadow, and to present to the victors the garlands of laurel and flowers which are to be their reward who shall come off triumphant in the strife. No contest is so keenly contested as that which is watched by the bright eyes of fair ladies, and I would ask that ye be the queens of the strife, and reward the victorious company with your own fair hands." The girls assented gladly and gaily. They had heard much of this newly-introduced game, and were curious to witness it. The more ancient sports of quintain, on land and water, morris dancing, quarterstaff, archery, and such like, were all familiar enough. But calcio was something of a novelty; and to be chosen as the queens of the contest was no small pleasure, and their eyes beamed with gratification and delight. Arthur Cole was equally pleased at having won their consent, and told them how that a fine pavilion would be erected in the meadow, where they and their friends could survey the scene at ease, protected alike from the heat of the sun, or from falling showers, should any betide. It was plain that this spectacle was to be on a decidedly magnificent scale. Arthur Cole was said to have expended much money upon the rich dresses of the players; now he spoke of a pavilion for the selected bystanders. It promised to be quite a fresh excitement for the university. Dalaber and Cole went away together slightly later, and Hugh Fitzjames remained to supper with his kinsfolks. "Anthony has taken a mighty liking for yonder fine gentleman of late," remarked the youth. "They are ever together now. Well, he might do worse for a friend. Master Cole is one of the richest students in Oxford." "That is not what attracts Anthony, though," spoke Freda. "I think it has been this new game, into which Anthony has thrown himself with such zest. Perhaps it is good for him to have other things than his books to think of. A short while back he was ever poring over the written page and burning the midnight oil. You said so yourself, Hugh." "Yes, verily; and I have no quarrel with him for it. I think he is safer playing calcio with Cole than for ever studying the books he gets from Clarke and his friends, as he has been doing of late." "Safer?" questioned Freda quickly; "how safer, Hugh?" "Oh, well, you must know what Anthony is like by this time. He can never take aught quietly as other men. There are scores here in Oxford--I am one of them myself--who believe in liberty to think and read what we will, and to judge for ourselves between man and man, even when Holy Church herself is in the question. God can be ill served in the church as well as the monarch on his throne. We are not counted rebels and traitors because we condemn a minister of state; why, then, are we to be counted heretics and the scum of the earth because we see the evils and corruption in the lives of cardinals and clergy? "But to return to Dalaber. He is never content with just quiet thinking and study; he is all in a flame, and must cry aloud from the housetops, if it were not that he is restrained by others. He came from London in a perfect ferment. I trembled to think what he would do next. But as luck would have it, Cole got hold of him to take a vacant place in his own band for calcio, and since then he has been using his muscles rather than his brain, and an excellent good thing, too. He is just the man to get into trouble with the authorities, albeit he may not hold half the 'heresies' of others who escape." "It is his way to throw himself heart and soul into everything he undertakes," spoke Freda, with a certain quiet satisfaction and approval. "I think he never stops to count the cost, but tries to see the right path, and to pursue it to the end." "Yes, but he might sometimes show a little more discretion with his zeal," answered Hugh, with a half laugh. "I have a great liking for Anthony myself. No man could share his chamber and lack that. He is the best of comrades, and he has fine qualities and plenty of courage. But there are times when I fear he will be his own undoing. When he disputes in the schools he will often tread perilously near some 'pestilent heresy,' as the masters would deem it, or show by some of his arguments that he has a dangerous knowledge of forbidden books. Just now things are quiet in Oxford, and not much notice is taken. But who knows how long the calm may last? London has been set in a commotion of late, and is it likely that Oxford will escape, with the cardinal's eyes fixed upon his college here?" "At least let us hope and pray that we may be spared persecution," spoke Magdalen gravely. "Yet truly I believe that were such misfortune to befall us, Anthony Dalaber would be one of those who would stand the test of his faith with constancy and courage." "He would, up to a certain point, I doubt not," answered Hugh. "He would go to the stake, I believe, without flinching, were he taken and sent there straight. But if put in prison, and kept there long, separated from his friends and teachers, and subjected to argument and persuasion and specious promises, well, I know not how he would stand that trial. Kindness and flattery might win him over, where threats and cruelty failed." Freda's face was gravely intent. She was conscious of a growing interest in and affection for Anthony Dalaber since his own fervent declaration of love towards herself. She had given him no definite promise, but she felt that henceforth their lives must of necessity be more or less linked together. She could not be indifferent to aught that concerned him; the stability of his faith and of his character must mean very much to her in the future. But for the moment it was difficult to think of these things. Joyous springtide was on the world; May Day, with all its gay doings, was close at hand; and graver thoughts or anxious fears alike seemed out of place. The girls were up with the lark on May Day morning, donning their holiday robes of white taffeta and spotless lawn, cunningly embroidered by their own skilful fingers, Freda's in silver and Magdalen's in gold thread. They each had girdles of silver and gold cord respectively, and snowy headgear embroidered in like fashion. They looked as fresh and as lovely as the morning itself, and their father's eyes shone with loving pride as they presented themselves before him. "We grow young again in our children," he said, as they sallied forth just as the east was growing rosy with the harbinger of dawn. The dew lay thick upon the grass, whitening it with a glittering mantle; but the paths were dry and firm, and the girls held up their dainty draperies and tripped along so lightly that their white leather embroidered shoes gathered no soil by the way. Then, just as the clock of Cardinal College boomed out the hour, a chorus of sweet, clear voices up high in the air broke into merry song, just as the first early sunbeam struck across the sky, and lighted up the group of singers half hidden behind the low battlements. The meadows below were thronged with gownsmen from the various colleges, as well as by crowds of townsfolk, all in holiday attire, who had streamed out of the gates to hear the singing. Later in the day there might probably be brawling and disputes betwixt the two parties--"town and gown," as they were later dubbed. But the early morning hour seemed to impose peace upon all spirits, and there was no hooting or brawling or rioting of any kind; but a decorous silence was observed, all faces being lifted upwards, as the sweet strains came floating from above, seeming to welcome the dawning day and the joyous season of sunshine and love. "That must surely be Stephen Radley," spoke Freda in a whisper, as one voice, more rich and mellow than the others, seemed to detach itself and float upwards in a flood of melody. All eyes were fixed aloft, all ears strained to catch the sounds. The power and extraordinary sweetness of the voice held the multitude spellbound. "The cardinal's new singing man!" was the whisper passed from mouth to mouth; and when at length the singers emerged from the little door at the base of the tower, there were many who crowded round Radley to compliment him upon his wonderful performance. It was quite a long time before the sisters caught sight of him, and then he was walking arm-in-arm with Master Clarke, who, catching sight of the little group, brought him straight up to them and presented him. Radley was dressed in academic garb, like all the members of the university. He looked about five-and-twenty years old, was a tall and finely proportioned man, deep chested and muscular, with a gravely deferential manner that was pleasing and modest. Arthur Cole and Anthony Dalaber came hastening up to join the group, and presently it broke up somewhat, and thus Magdalen found herself walking towards home with Clarke, whilst the others followed as they chose, having been asked by Dr. Langton to partake of a cold collation at his house, which had been carefully spread overnight by the hands of the girls themselves. "He has a wonderful voice," said Magdalen, with a slight backward glance over her shoulder towards Radley; "who is he, and whence does he come?" "He sang as a boy in one of those grammar schools which the cardinal is now interesting himself so much to promote. But when he lost his boy's voice he was not able to remain at the school, and has since been a servant in several great houses. He obtained a position in the cardinal's house last year, and it was there that the great man heard him singing over his work, and had him brought before him. Finding that he had some learning, and was eager for more, he decided to appoint him as singing man at his own college here, and to let him continue his studies as well. I trow that he would have willingly made him one of the petty canons, but Radley declined that honour. He has no call to the priesthood, he says; and in truth he has heard much in London of the Association of Christian Brothers, and has read many of the forbidden books. "Indeed, I think I may call him one of them. I am not afraid to tell you this, Mistress Magdalen, for I know your heart is full of sympathy for us, who are seekers after purer truth than we can always find amongst those who are set to dispense it to us." The girl's eyes were full of sympathy and earnest interest. "Indeed, I would fain see all men longing after light and truth. God is Light, and God is Truth; His Son came as the Light of the world. He must desire all men to seek the Light. And if His church does not shine with it as it should, men must needs try to add to her light, each in his own measure." Magdalen looked with the greater interest at Radley after having heard what John Clarke spoke of him. He sat beside Dalaber at table, and the two seemed on intimate terms. Arthur Cole was beside her, and took up much of her attention. His admiration was almost openly expressed, and the girl sometimes blushed at his gallant compliments. She liked the gay-hearted young man, but she was not so much attracted towards him as towards Clarke and those more thoughtful spirits. Still, she was not proof against the fascination of his courtly address, and she listened with interest to his account of the game he had learned in Italy and had introduced to England, and which bears so close a resemblance to our modern game of football that it may well be regarded as its parent. This was the first regular match that had been played at Oxford, and considerable excitement prevailed as to what it would be like, and how the players would distinguish themselves. The forenoon hours, however, were mainly given up to the usual pastimes of May Day. Children decked with garlands and flowers chose their queen, and crowned her amid the plaudits of the people. Morris dancers footed it upon the green, and miracle plays were enacted by wandering troops of mummers. There were booths set up, where a sort of fair was held, and sweetmeats and drink dispensed. An ox was being roasted whole in one place, where dinners were served at midday, and trials of strength and skill went on uninterruptedly in the wide meadows round the city, some being the property of the town, and others of the university. On the whole, however, the spirit of concord prevailed, and there was less fighting and brawling than usual between the two parties; and when, after the short pause for the midday repast, the students and masters and all interested in the spectacle hastened to the spot where the game of calcio was to be played, great numbers of the townsfolk flocked there also, and were neither hustled nor jeered by the gowned concourse in the inner circle. There was something distinctly sumptuous in the pavilion which had been raised for a certain number of spectators of the better class, and there was quite a buzz and acclamation as the two beautiful sisters were seen to ascend the few steps and take their places on the centre seats, which had something of the aspect of a throne. They were very well known in Oxford, not for their beauty alone, but for their gentleness and charity, being always ready to succour the sick and afflicted, and to visit with their own presence any stricken houses where trouble of any kind had entered. So that not only the gownsmen but the townsmen were ready to welcome them with cheers, and to acclaim them eagerly as the queens of the day. And now the players came streaming out from another pavilion on the opposite side of the ground, and exclamations of wonder and admiration arose at the picturesque magnificence of their dress. Arthur Cole had had these garments fashioned in Italy and brought over, and very gorgeous did he and his companions look. The lower limbs of the players were encased in woven silk tights, which were thick and strong and elastic. On their feet they wore soft tanned shoes, made all in one piece and fitting closely to the foot. They wore woven silk shirts of fine texture, and over these belted tunics of rich brocade or embroidered linen or any other costly and elastic material. Arthur Cole's own tunic (as captain of his side) was of cloth of gold; whilst that of Dalaber was of white and silver brocade, with silver lacings. The colours of the two sides were displayed in the calzone or silk tights, these being blue and white for Arthur's side, and red and white for Dalaber's. They wore knitted silk caps upon their heads, white and blue or red and blue according to their company, and long gauntlet gloves of soft tanned skin, almost white in colour, and laced with the colour appropriate to the player. A murmur of admiration ran through the spectators as these tall, lithe, muscular youths stepped forth into the bright sunshine of the playing field; and soon all eyes were intently watching the evolutions of the game, which was very much like that of our modern football, though played with more grace and less of brute force and violence. Not a great many of the spectators understood the details of the contest, but they cheered lustily when any side seemed to score an advantage. The rainbow-hued living mass seemed to sway and melt and break up into coloured spray, and join again and roll from side to side like a living creature; and its evolutions were followed with keenest interest by all spectators, and by cheering and shouts of warning or encouragement from those who understood the game, and knew which way the tide was turning. At last the contest ended. Arthur Cole's side had come out victorious in the struggle; but so gallant a stand had been made by the other, that Anthony Dalaber was called up to receive a laurel crown in token of his prowess and skill. He looked very handsome as he stood before Freda, whilst she lightly set the chaplet on his head, whence after a few moments he removed it and laid it at her feet. "That is the place where I would fain lay all my honours and all my gains," he said in a low, passionate whisper, and she felt a wave of hot blood rising in her cheek at his words and at the ardent look in his eyes. She could not doubt this man's love for her, and she wondered whether it would compel her own love in return. A short while back she had regarded him rather in the light of a comrade or brother; but now she felt that a change had come over their relations, and that he would not be satisfied with the sisterly affection of the past. Had she more to give him? She scarcely knew herself as yet; and still, as she revolved the matter in her mind, she felt more and more convinced that without Anthony Dalaber her life would be colourless and cold. His eagerness brought an element into it which she could not well spare. He was becoming a sort of necessity to her. She thought of him almost constantly, yearned over him, desired above all things to see him rise to the level of greatness in any trial which might come upon him. If that were love, then surely she loved him. The thought was not without a mingling of sweetness and pain. She put it from her for the time being; but when the day was over, and the sisters were alone together in their bed chamber, taking off their finery and brushing out their long tresses of hair, it was Magdalen's own words that brought the matter back, as she softly kissed her sister, whispering: "How Anthony loves you, Freda!" "I truly think he does, Magda," answered she, taking her sister's hands and leaning her brow against them. "In sooth he has told me so; but at the first I thought perhaps it was but a passing fancy--we have been so much together of late. Now I truly think that he does care. Magda, what shall I say to him? He will not be long in pressing for his answer." "Does not your own heart tell you, Freda? Can we love and not know it? Tell me that, for I too would fain know. There are so many sorts of love. Can one always judge aright?" "Dost thou feel that too, my Magda? Verily, I have thought that Master Cole--" Magda put her hand upon her sister's lips; her face was all one great blush. "Nay, nay; that is but fantasy. He has a kindly word for all who please his eye. It may be one today and another tomorrow. He is a pleasant comrade; but--" "But not the man of thy choice, sweet sister?" "How can I tell yet? We have not known him long time. And I love better those who talk of higher things than games and songs and pastimes. But the men of books and earnest thought are devoted so oft to the church. And those who are left--one cannot tell. They are brave and winsome and gay; but more than that is wanted in a husband, Freda. Ah, it is hard for us maidens to know." And sitting with arms entwined, the sisters spoke freely and fully to each other of all the things that were in their hearts, and prayed that they might be guided aright in matters which pertained to the life they must look forward to living in the world. Chapter V: Sweet Summertide The months of May and June flew by as if on golden wings. The youths of Oxford, engrossed in study and in merry pastimes, seemed for a while to have cast away those graver thoughts which had been stirring them of late; or at least, if the current still ran, it seemed for the time being to run in silence. Perhaps the knowledge that the cardinal had set himself to the task of nipping in the bud the dangerous growth of incipient heresy alarmed some of the more timid spirits; whilst others sought for truth and light as it was to be found amongst their recognized preachers and teachers, and were often surprised at the depth of spirituality and earnestness which they found in men who were stanch to the core to the traditions of the church, and held in abhorrence the very name and thought of heresy. Dr Langton's daughters heard little of the doings of the "Christian Brethren" during these bright months. Anthony Dalaber was more engrossed in his own studies and in his prowess at calcio (which was the most fashionable game through that summer) than in the religious movement which had occupied his mind before. It was not that he had changed his opinions, or in any way drawn back from his admiration for the men connected with this movement. When he spoke of it sometimes with Freda his eyes would glow with feeling, and all the old fervour and earnestness would come back like a flood upon him; but there was nothing for the moment for him to do. The importation of forbidden books into the country had been temporarily checked by the vigilance of the cardinal and his servants. The king was breaking a lance in argument with Martin Luther, and men were watching the result with interest and curiosity. And there was a certain awakening of spiritual light within the church itself, and pure and enlightened spirits there were making their voices heard; so that many (like John Clarke himself) hoped and believed that the much-needed reformation and purification would come from within, by her own act, rather than by any warfare against her as from without. So, as these happy summer days flew by, the clouds of anxiety and apprehension seemed to disperse and roll away. The sisters were living in a world that was something new to them. Womanhood was awakening within them. They were learning something of its sweetness, of its power, as also of its perplexities and pain. There was no doubt whatever as to the fervency of Anthony Dalaber's love for Freda; whilst Arthur Cole paid such marked attention to Magdalen that she could not but believe him in earnest, albeit no word of love had so far escaped his lips. With July came a change in the situation. One of the many pestilences so frequent in the country and so damaging to Oxford broke out in the neighbourhood of Carfax. It had some of the sweating-sickness symptoms, but was distinct from it in other respects. For a while it did not penetrate into the colleges, and the university authorities made strict rules for the undergraduates and students, hoping that the scourge would confine itself to the town and the families of the citizens. But it was impossible to keep the clerks from wandering through the streets or entering shops and taverns, and little by little cases of sickness appeared first in the halls and then in the colleges, till it was evident that the epidemic was to be a serious one. From the first Clarke had busied himself in visiting and tending the sick. He quitted for the time being his rooms in Cardinal College, and lodged with Stephen Radley, who accompanied him on his errands of mercy. Clarke was one of those men to be found in great numbers in university communities who, whilst not yet in full priest's orders, was qualifying for the priesthood, wore the tonsure, and having passed his degree in arts, was preparing himself in the schools of theology for the career to which he was dedicated. All the canons of Cardinal College were supposed to follow this course of training. But it was not only amongst the men that self sacrifice and devotion made itself manifest. Dr. Langton's two daughters were as forward as any in the desire to help and tend the sick, and perform such offices of pity and kindliness as lay within their power. Their father did not oppose them, though he laid down certain rules, which they dutifully obeyed, by which he hoped to guard them from infection. For his part, he was always foremost in the fight with disease and contagion, and wherever the need was sorest, there was he to be found. Thus it came about that John Clarke and Stephen Radley often found themselves face to face with the fair girls, who came and went like sisters of mercy amid the poor houses crowded together in the low-lying lands without the city walls; and Anthony Dalaber, flinging himself into the crusade with his accustomed energy, found himself in almost constant attendance upon them, carrying out their orders, assisting them in their labour of mercy, and growing more ardently in love with his chosen mistress every day of his life. But devoted workers did not always come through such an ordeal unscathed; and Dr. Langton and John Clarke sickened of the distemper almost at the same time. Neither was grievously ill; but both were forced to give up all work, and lie quietly in bed, suffering themselves to be tended by others. Meantime there had been a very considerable exodus of students and masters from the city, and for the time being all lectures were suspended. There was small chance of any regular resumption of study till the cool crispness of autumn should check and stamp out the spread of this sickness. It was at this juncture that Arthur Cole came forward with an offer which sounded very pleasantly in the ears of those to whom it was made. He came into the pleasant living room of the Bridge House upon the first evening when Dr. Langton had been suffered to leave his bed and lie for a while on the couch in this other and more cheerful apartment. Magdalen had her lute in her hands, and had been softly singing to him, when the sound of the opening door brought her soft, sweet song to a close. They welcomed their visitor cordially. He had been absent from Oxford for a while, and they had not expected to see him. "I have been away at Poghley," he explained, "whither I sent for Dalaber to join me these last days. Did he tell you aught of it?" "He came to bid us a farewell, though he said it would he a brief one," answered Freda; "but he told us no more than that." "I have come to tell the rest," answered Cole, with a smile. "They tell me you were at Poghley last summer, so perchance you saw then the old moated house which lies a few miles from the village? That house is mine, though I have seldom visited it, and never dwelt there till now. But it came into my mind that it would be a pleasant place wherein to pass these next weeks, during which time Oxford will be empty of her scholars and masters. But I love not solitude, and I have gathered together a few congenial spirits. Dalaber and Fitzjames are already there, making all ready, and Radley will start tomorrow, taking Master Clarke in his charge, since it is of all things needful for him to have a change of air to restore him to health. He will be our chaplain, and edify us by his discourses when he has recovered his health and strength. But more than this: we want some man of learning and greater age and standing to direct us in our studies; and it is my great hope that you and your daughters will come and be my guests for a few weeks--you, dear sir, to recover health in the purer air, and then, when your strength permits it, be the director of our studies; and these sweet ladies to enjoy the rest and ease which their recent devoted labours render necessary, and to escape from the noxious miasma now rising from these low lands round Oxford, which is likely to cause the sickness here to increase." The doctor's face lighted as Arthur proceeded to describe the situation of the house and the arrangements he had made for his guests. One wing would be set apart entirely for Dr. Langton and his daughters, who could bring any servant of their own if they desired it; he and his companions would occupy the other part of the building; and it was for the family themselves to decide whether they should be served with their meals in their own apartments, or join the rest at table. No epidemic sickness had ever appeared in the locality. The house was situated on a rather high plain, though sheltered from the winds, and partly surrounded by its own moat. The air was fine and bracing. It would be likely to do good to those who had been exposed to the contagion of sickness, and had been taxing their strength in the good work of tending others. It did not take much argument on Arthur's part to win the grateful consent of Dr. Langton, and the bright eyes of the girls showed how pleasant was the prospect to them. Their father, they were sure, would greatly benefit by the removal to a healthier locality; and though they would willingly have remained on, seeking, even without his guidance, to alleviate the sufferings of the stricken, yet they were both conscious that their energies were rather impaired by watching and anxiety, and that they might in such case be in danger of falling a prey to the sickness themselves. A few days more and they found themselves established in their new quarters, delighted with everything about them. The old, timbered house was rambling and spacious, and the plenishings of their own apartments seemed sumptuous to them; for those were not days of great luxury in the matter of household furniture, and they had never before seen such hangings, such mirrors, such multitude of silver sconces for wax candles, such carpets and skins under foot, such multiplicity of table appointments, or even such store of books and manuscripts for their own and their father's delectation and entertainment. Anthony Dalaber was there to welcome them, Arthur having the good taste to keep somewhat in the background; and he showed them everything with pride and delight, praising his friend, and foretelling the happiest of summer vacations and summer studies to be carried on within these walls. "We have Clarke and Radley and Sumner and Fitzjames here in the house, and there are numbers of other clerks and students lodging in and about the village. When your father is strong enough to lecture and instruct us, he will have quite a gathering in the old raftered refectory below, which I will show you anon. Then there are gardens which will delight your hearts, and shady alleys where bowls can be played, or where we can pace to and fro in pleasant converse. Methinks it is worth all that hath gone before to find such a haven of peace and rest at last." Anthony looked as though he needed rest, as indeed was the case; for he had toiled hard amongst the sick, and when Clarke fell ill, had devoted himself to him day and night, with Radley for his helper. But Radley had had a touch of the sickness himself, and had been unable to do much, so that the bulk of the nursing and the anxiety had fallen upon Dalaber. "But he is better now--Master Clarke, I mean?" spoke Magdalen, with anxious eyes. "Verily yes; he is well-nigh himself again, only he hath the air of one who is worn down with illness. He looks bent and white and frail--he toiled so strenuously amongst the sick; and before that he was studying almost night and day. "But come below into the garden where he is; he will speak for himself. I would that you should see the lilies there. They will rejoice your heart." It was a quaint old garden into which Anthony led them, full of the scent of herbs and spices, rosemary, thyme, and sweetbrier. The trim order of modern gardening was then unknown, and therefore not missed; close-shaven turf was only to be found in the bowling alleys, and lawns were not; but there was a wilderness beauty that was full of charm in such a place as this, and the sisters looked about them with eager eyes, rejoicing in the beauty before them, and inhaling the pure freshness of the air after the heavy and somewhat pestilential atmosphere in which they had lived. Clarke was lying at ease on a bearskin against the turf wall of the bowling alley, a book beside him, which he was not then reading. His eyes lighted at sight of the sisters, and he would have risen, but that they forestalled him, and sat beside him on the soft skin, looking at him with friendly solicitude. He would not talk of himself, but had a hundred things to tell them of the place to which they had come. He inquired how Dr. Langton had borne the journey, and hoped he might visit him later in the day; and as they talked, they were joined by their host himself. And presently he asked Magdalen to come with him and see his hives of bees, for she was somewhat of a naturalist, and was eager to study the habits and habitations of all living things. "We are very grateful to you, fair sir," she said, "for this act of kindness and hospitality to our dear father. I doubt not that he will recover health and strength with great speed here in this sweet place. It seems an abode of peace and harmony. I never saw a house so beautiful." "I am right glad it pleases you, sweet mistress," answered Arthur, a very slight flush mounting to his cheek; "believe me, it is the great hope of my heart that this place shall become dear to you, and that you may find happiness therein." "I thank you, sir," she answered, slightly turning her head away; "your kindness is great, and that not to us alone, but also to others. Our beloved Master Clarke hath the appearance of a man sorely sick, and in need of long rest and refreshment. This he will obtain here as he could not elsewhere. Those who regard his life as a precious one will thank you also for that." "Are you one of those, Mistress Magda?" "Indeed, yes. We have known Master Clarke for some great while now, and methinks he is one of God's saints upon earth--one of those who will assuredly walk with Him in white, one of those who will be faithful and will overcome." Her face kindled, and Arthur, looking somewhat keenly at her, noted a depth of expression in her eyes which no words of his had ever prevailed to bring there. "He is a notable man," he answered slowly, "and one who may have a great future before him, if only he does not let it slip from him by some indiscretion at the beginning." "How mean you?" asked Magdalen, with quickly aroused interest. "I mean that Master Clarke has been already noticed by the cardinal. He was taken from Cambridge because of his good report as to sobriety, learning, and godliness; and the cardinal will, without doubt, keep an eye upon him, and when he has taken his degrees in divinity, will promote him to some living or benefice that will make him rich for life. But let him have a care; that is what his friends would beg of him. Let him have a care that he be not corrupted by new-fangled disputings and questionings, which will benefit no man, and which are already disturbing the peace of the realm and the unity of the church. I would have him beware of these; touch not, taste not, handle not--that is my counsel to him. And if any have influence with him to warn or counsel I would that they should turn him away from such perilous paths, for if he tread them they may lead him to trouble and ruin." Magdalen made no direct reply, and Arthur, looking earnestly into her face, became aware of its absorbed expression, and asked: "Does this trouble you, sweet lady? Are you, too, aware of the peril in which he and others may stand if they intermeddle too much in forbidden matters?" "Yes, I think I know somewhat of it; but what troubles me is that these things should be forbidden. Why may not each man be free in his own soul to read the Scriptures, and to seek to draw help, and light, and comfort from them for himself?" "Ah, dear lady, that is too big a question for my wits to grapple with. I leave these matters to men who are capable of judging. All I say is that the church holds enough for me, that I shall never learn half she has to teach, and that within her fold is safety. Outside pastures may be pleasant to the eye; but who knows what ravening wolves may not be lurking there in the disguise of harmless sheep? The devil himself can appear in the guise of an angel of light; therefore it behoves us to walk with all wariness, and to commit ourselves into the keeping of those whom God has set over us in His Holy Church." "Up to a certain point, yes," answered Magdalen earnestly; "hut there be times when--when--Ah, I cannot find words to say all I would. But methinks that, when such pure and stainless souls as that of Master Clarke are seeking for light and life, they cannot go far astray." Arthur hoped and trusted such was the case, and he was regular in his attendance whenever Clarke preached in the little chapel, or gave lectures in some room of the house, to which many flocked. Dalaber was never absent; all his old zeal and love kindled anew. Several of the guests in that house, including Radley and Fitzjames, often sat up far into the night reading the Scriptures in their own language, and seeming to find new meaning in the fresh rendering, which their familiarity with the original tongues enabled them rightly to estimate. Arthur Cole did not join these readings, though he did not interfere with them. Once he said to Magdalen, with a certain intonation of anxiety in his voice: "I cannot see what they think they benefit thereby. Surely the tongue in which the Scriptures were written must be the best to study them in--for those who have learning to do so. Translators do their best, but errors must creep in. For the ignorant and unlettered we must translate, but why for such men as our friends here?" "But the ignorant and unlettered are forbidden to read or buy the living Word?" said Magdalen quickly. "Yes; because they would not understand, and would breed all sorts of pestilent heresies. The Scriptures are not of private interpretation. They must be taught by those appointed to that work. I grant you willingly that much is needed in the church--men able and willing for the task; but to put the Scriptures into the hands of every clown and hind and shopman who asks for a copy--no; there I say you do more hurt than good." "Our friends here do not that," spoke Magdalen thoughtfully. "No; if they did they would have to go elsewhere. I could not lend my house for such a purpose. As it is--" He stopped short, and the girl looked quickly at him. "As it is what?" she asked. "Ah, well, it is naught. I only meant to say that, if the cardinal were aware of all that went on, even in his own college, he might find fault with much, and make inquisition in many places that would be perilous for many. But as things are I trow all is safe, if they will be content to go no farther." "You speak of the distribution of books to others?" asked Magdalen, who, through Dalaber, had some knowledge of the work of the Christian Brothers. "Yes; that is a very perilous course to take, and I fear many are disposed towards it. There is a man--his name is Garret; he was once a scholar of my college--Magdalen; they say he is one of the chiefest promoters of this dangerous traffic. I hope and trust he will keep himself away from here--from Oxford. He is a dangerous man, in that he works much upon the minds and feelings of others. I trust and hope he will never appear in Oxford to carry on such work as he has done in London. He has escaped hitherto; but if he becomes more mischievous, no man may know how it will end." "But you would not betray him!" cried Magdalen suddenly. He looked at her in some surprise, and she coloured under his gaze. She had not meant much by her words, but she saw that he fancied a purpose in them. "Mistress Magdalen," he asked suddenly, "what do you know of this man and his work?" "Very little; only what Anthony Dalaber and Master Clarke have sometimes told us when these matters have been spoken of--no more than you have told me yourself." "But you have sympathy with him and his object?" "Perhaps I have. In sooth, I scarce know how I feel about such matters. I know there is peril. I love not disobedience, nor scorn those set over us; but yet I feel for those who desire more, and would fain drink of the water of life out of new cisterns. But what I meant was that it grieved me that any should hold such men in reprobation, or should betray them into the hands of their enemies, should they be in any peril." "It is what we are bidden to do sometimes," spoke Arthur gravely. "I know; but I could not do it. I should shrink from any man who could obey such a mandate as that." He looked at her long and earnestly, then he turned and took her hands in his, and stood facing her for a while in silence. "And what would you do for the man who should, instead of betraying, warn, such conspirators of their peril, should he know that they stood in need of warning?" She thrilled somewhat beneath his touch. There seemed a purpose in his words. The colour rose in her face. "I should look upon him as a friend. I should call him noble. I should put my trust in him. Our Lord has promised His blessing to the merciful. Surely He would count that an act of mercy which should save those in peril from the hands of their foes." She spoke with great earnestness and with kindling eyes. His clasp upon her hands tightened. "And what reward would you give to such a man?" he asked; but then, seeming, as it were, to feel shame for these words, he added hastily, "It is thus, sweet lady, with me. Mine uncle is the proctor in Oxford--proctor for the south. Through him I ofttimes glean news unknown to other students. If I should hear of any peril menacing those who hold these new opinions, for which you, I can see, have such tenderness, I will not fail to warn them of it. If I know, they shall know likewise. Will that satisfy you?" "It will," she answered, with a glance that thrilled him to his heart's core. "I thank you from my soul." Chapter VI: For Love and the Faith "Yes, Anthony, I love thee, and one day I will be thy wife!" The words seemed to set themselves to joyous music in the ears of Anthony Dalaber as he hastened homeward through the miry and darkening streets towards his lodging in St. Alban Hall. He trod on air. He regarded neither the drizzling rain overhead nor the mire and dirt of the unpaved streets. He had come from Dr. Langton's house. He had heard Freda pronounce these words, which made her all his own. For some months he had been feeding on hope. He knew that she loved him up to a certain point. But until today she had never openly declared herself. Today he had ventured to plead his cause with a new fervour, and she had given him the answer his heart so craved. "I love thee, Anthony; one day I will be thy wife!" He could have cried aloud in his joy and triumph. "My wife, my wife, my wife! O blessed, blessed thought! For her sake I will achieve all, I will dare all, I will win all. I have talents--they have told me so; I will use them might and main to win myself fame and renown. I have friends; they will help me. Has not Cole spoken ofttimes of what he hoped to do for me in the matter of some appointment later on, when my studies shall be finished here? I have a modest fortune--not great wealth; but it will suffice for the foundation on which to build. Oh yes, fortune smiles sweetly and kindly upon me, and I will succeed for her sweet sake as well as for mine own. "My Freda! my star! my pearl amongst women! How can it be that she loves me? Oh, it is a beautiful and gracious thing! And truly do I believe that it is our faith which has drawn us together; for do we not both believe in the right of free conscience for every man, and the liberty to read for himself, and in his own tongue, the words of the holy Book of Life? Do we not both long for the day when greed and corruption shall be banished from the church we both love, and she shall appear as a chaste virgin, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, meet for the royal Bridegroom who waits for her, that He may present her spotless before His Father's throne?" Dalaber was quoting unconsciously from an address recently delivered in Dr. Randall's house by Clarke to a select audience, who loved to listen to his words of hope and devotion. Clarke's spirit at such times would seem to soar into the heavenlies, and to uplift thither the hearts of all who heard him. He spoke not of strife and warfare; he railed not against the prevailing abuses, as did others; he ever spoke of the church as the Holy Mother, the beloved of the Lord, the spouse of Christ; and prayed to see her purified and cleansed of all the defilement which had gathered upon her during her pilgrimage in this world, after the departure of her Lord into the heavens, that she might be fit and ready for her espousals in the fulness of time, her eyes ever fixed upon her living Head in the heavens, not upon earthly potentates or even spiritual rulers on this earth, but ever waiting and watching for His coming, who would raise her in glory and immortality to sit at His right hand for evermore. Anthony had heard this discourse, and had been fired by it, and had seen how Freda's eyes kindled, and how her breath came and went in the passion of her spiritual exaltation. They were drawn ever closer and more closely together by their sympathy in these holy hopes and aspirations, and her heart had gradually become his, she hardly knew when or how. But the troth plight had been given. Dalaber could have sung aloud in the gladness of his heart. She was his own, his very own; and what a life they would live together! No cloud should ever touch their happiness, or mar their perfect concord. They were one in body, soul, and spirit, and nothing could come between them since they had so united their lives in one. It was very dark as he turned at last into the familiar doorway, and mounted the dim staircase towards his own room--the lodging he and Hugh Fitzjames shared together. But just now Fitzjames was absent, paying one of his frequent visits to the Langtons. Dalaber had spoken to him there only a short while since, and he was therefore surprised to see a line of light gleaming out from under his door; for, since he was out, who else could be in possession of his room? Opening the door hastily, he uttered a cry of surprise and welcome, and advanced with outstretched hands. "Master Garret! You have come!" The small, keen-faced priest with the eyes of fire came out of the circle of lamplight and took the extended hands. "I have come, Anthony Dalaber; I have come, as I said. Have you a welcome for me, and for mine errand?" "The best of welcomes," answered Dalaber, without a moment's hesitation; "I welcome you for your own sake, and for that of the cause in which we both desire to live, and, if need be, to die." Yet even as he spoke the last word the young man's voice faltered for a moment, and he felt a thrill of cold disquiet run, as it were, through his frame. With Freda's kiss of love upon his lips, how could he think of death? No; life and light and love should be his portion. Did not fair fortune smile upon him with favouring eyes? The keen eyes of the elder man instantly detected that some inward misgiving was possessing him. He spoke in his clear and cutting tones, so curiously penetrating in their quality. "You speak of death, and then you shudder. You are not prepared to lay down your life in the cause?" Dalaber was silent for a moment; a flood of recollection overwhelmed him. He heard a sweet voice speaking to him; he heard the very words used. "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." Suddenly he threw back his head and said: "In a good and righteous cause I would face death gladly without shrinking." The keen, flashing eyes were fixed full upon his face. The clear voice spoke on in terse, emphatic phrases. "Be sure of thyself, Anthony Dalaber. Put not thy hand to the plough only to turn back. So far thou art safe. But I have come to do a work here that is charged with peril. Thou needest have no hand in it. Say the word, and I go forth from thy lodging and trouble thee no more. I ask nothing. I do but take thee at thy word. If thy heart has failed or changed, only say so. One word is enough. There are other spirits in Oxford strong enough to stand the test. I came first to thee, Anthony, because I love thee as mine own soul. But I ask nothing of thee. There is peril in harbouring such an one as I. Send me forth, and I will go. So wilt thou be more safe." But even as Garret spoke all the old sense of fascination which this man had exercised upon him in London returned in full force upon Dalaber. The brilliant eyes held him by their spell, the fighting instinct rose hot within him. His heart had been full of thoughts of love and human bliss; now there arose a sense of coming battle, and the lust of fighting which is in every human heart, and which, in a righteous cause, may be even a God-like attribute, flamed up within him, and he cried aloud: "I am on the Lord's side. Shall I fear what flesh can do unto me? I will go forth in the strength of the Lord. I fear not. I will be true, even unto death." There was no quavering in his voice now. His face was aglow with the passion of his earnestness. Next moment Garret was in the midst of one of his fiery orations. A fresh batch of pamphlets had come over from Germany. They exposed new and wholesale corruptions which prevailed in the papal court, and which roused the bitterest indignation amongst those who were banded together to uphold righteousness and purity. Unlike men of Clarke's calibre of mind, and full of the zeal which in later times blazed out in the movement of the Reformation, Garret could not regard the Catholic Church in its true and universal aspect, embracing all Christian men in its fold--the one body of which Christ is the head. He looked upon it as a corrupt organization of man's devising, a hierarchy of ambitious and scheming men, who, having lost hold of the truth, require to be scathingly denounced and their iniquity exposed; whilst those who thus held her in abhorrence heard the voice of the Spirit in their hearts saying, "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partaker of her plagues." The mystical unity of the Catholic Church was a thing understood by few in those days. The one party held themselves the true church, and anathematized their baptized and Christian brethren as heretics and outcasts; whilst, as a natural outcome of such a state of affairs, these outcasts themselves were disposed to repudiate the very name of Catholic. And to this very day, in spite of the light which has come to men, and the better understanding with regard to Christian unity, Romanists arrogate that title exclusively to themselves, whilst others in Protestant sections of the church accord them the name willingly, and repudiate it for themselves, with no sense of the anomaly of such repudiation. But in these days there had been no open split between camp and camp in the Church Catholic, though daily it was growing more and more patent to men that if the abuses and corruptions within the fold were not rectified, some drastic attack from without must of necessity take place. Garret was a man of action and a man of fire. He had pored over treatises, penned fiery diatribes, leagued himself with the oppressed, watched the movement of revolt from superstition and idolatry with the keenest interest. He was in danger, like so many pioneers and so many reformers, of being carried away by his own vehemence. He saw the idolatry of the Mass, but he was losing sight of the worship which underlay that weight of ceremonial and observance. Like the people who witnessed the office, the mass of symbolism and the confusion of it blinded his eyes to the truth and beauty of the underlying reality. He was a devout believer in all primitive truth; he had been, and in a sense still was, a devout priest; but he was becoming an Ishmaelite amongst those of his own calling. He alarmed them by his lack of discretion, by his fierce attacks. He did not stop to persuade. He launched his thunderbolts very much after the same fashion as Luther himself; and the timid and wavering drew back from him in alarm and dismay, fearful whither he would carry them next. And having, in a sense, made London too hot to hold him, he had left at the entreaty of the brethren themselves, and was now arrived at Oxford--his former alma mater--ready to embark upon a similar crusade there. Here he had some friends and confederates, and he hoped soon to make more. He knew that there were many amongst the students and masters eager to read the forbidden books, and to judge for themselves the nature of the controversy raging in other countries. But the work of distribution was attended with many and great dangers; and this visit was of a preliminary character, with a view to ascertaining where and with whom his stores of books (now secreted in a house in Abingdon) might be smuggled into the city and hidden there. And in Anthony Dalaber he found an eager and daring confederate, whose soul, being stirred to its depths by what he heard, was willing to go all lengths to assist in the forbidden traffic. As the weeks flew by Dalaber grew more and more eager in his task--the more so as he became better acquainted with other red-hot spirits amongst the graduates and undergraduates, and heard more and more heated disquisition and controversy. Sometimes a dozen or more such spirits would assemble in his rooms to hear Garret hold forth upon the themes so near to their hearts; and they would sit far into the night listening to his fiery orations, and seeming each time to gain stronger convictions, and resolve to hold more resolutely to the code of liberty which they had embraced. Somewhat apart from these excitable youths, yet in much sympathy with them, was a little band who met regularly, and had done so all through the winter months, in Clarke's rooms in Cardinal College, to listen to his readings and expositions of the holy Scriptures, and to discuss afterwards such matters as the readings had suggested. That there was peril even in such gatherings as these Clarke very well knew; but he earnestly warned all who asked leave to attend them of that possible peril, and some drew back faint-hearted. Still he always had as many as his room could well hold; and Dalaber was one of the most regular and eager of his pupils, and one most forward to speak in discussion. The doctrine of transubstantiation was one of those which was troubling the minds of the seekers after truth. "How can that wafer of bread and that wine in the cup become actual flesh and blood?" spoke Anthony once, with eager insistence, when in one of the readings the story of the Lord's passion had been read from end to end. And he began to quote words from Luther and others bearing on the subject, whilst the students hung upon his words, and listened breathless, with a mingling of admiration and fear. For was not this, indeed, heresy of a terrible kind? Clarke listened, too, very quietly and intently, and then took up the word. "Our blessed Lord cannot lie, nor yet deceive; and He said, 'This is my body this is my blood.' And St. Paul rebuked the early Christians, because in partaking of the holy sacrament they did not discern the Lord's body. And how could they discern what was not present? Nay, let us devoutly and thankfully believe and know that we do in very truth partake of the Lord's body, but in a spiritual mystery, higher and holier than any visible miracle would be. The very essence of a sacrament is that it be spiritual and invisible--the visible symbol of the invisible reality. Real and corporate flesh and blood is sacrifice, not sacrament; but the true spiritual presence of the Lord's body is never absent in His holy rite. Let us, in all holiness and meekness of spirit, discern the Lord's body, and thankfully receive it. And instead of seeking words and formulas in which to express heavenly mysteries, which tongue of man can never utter, nor heart of man comprehend, let us seek for the guiding of the Spirit into all truth, that we may dwell in unity and love with all men, loving even where we see not alike, obeying in as far as we may in sincerity of heart those who are over us in the Lord, seeking the good and not the evil, and praying that the Lord Himself will quickly come to lead and guide His holy church into all the fulness of His own perfect stature." This inculcation of obedience, which was one of Clarke's favourite maxims to his hearers, was by no means palatable to Dalaber, who had launched upon a crusade very contrary to all the commands of the authorities. His heart always kindled at the fervour and beauty of Clarke's teachings; but he was more disposed to a belligerent than a submissive attitude, and in that the influence of Garret was plainly to be felt. Garret was greatly in favour of Clarke's influence over the students--he considered that he paved the way with them, as he himself would be unable to do; but he also held that the young canon did not go far enough, and that more was wanted than he was disposed to teach. He was not in favour of too great insistence upon obedience. He thought that the world and the church had had somewhat too much of that. He was a hot advocate of the new doctrine that every man should think and judge for himself. And Dalaber's nature was one very ready to imbibe such teaching. Clarke, though he believed that the more the Scriptures were read and understood by the people, the more would light pour into the church, was not one of those who was ready to conceal and distribute the forbidden books, whether words of holy Scripture or the writings of the Reformers upon them and upon controverted subjects and church abuses. He held that his own position as a canon forbade this action on his part, and he was also of opinion that there was danger in the too great independence of thought which these writings might engender amongst the unlearned and the hot-headed of the land. He loved to read and discourse upon holy things with men whose hearts were attuned to thoughts of devotion; but he was not one who would willingly stir up strife in the fold, and he clung earnestly to the hope that the church herself would awaken from her sleep and cleanse herself of her many impurities. Yet he was a greater power than he guessed in Oxford, for he was regarded as somewhat of a saint by those who knew him; and of late the attention of the heads of the university had become attracted towards him. Quite unaware of this, he pursued the even tenor of his way, seeking to inspire devotion and love of purity and truth in all with whom he came into contact, but never overstepping the written or unwritten laws of the college, save perhaps that he knew something of the spread of heretical books and doctrines without betraying his knowledge to those in authority. So the winter weeks flew by; and Dalaber, divided between his hours of bliss and love with Freda (to whom he told everything, and whose sympathies were all astir in the cause to which he was pledged) and his perilous work with Garret, whose visits to Oxford from Abingdon and other places were made in a more or less secret fashion, scarcely heeded the flight of time. He was taken out of himself by the excitement of the flying hours. He knew he was doing perilous work; but he knew that Freda's sympathy was with him, and that she regarded him as a hero in a noble cause. That was enough to keep him steadfast and fearless, even if the magnetic personality of Garret had not been so often brought to bear upon him. Whenever Garret was in Oxford---and now he was more and more often there, for he had quite a following in the place eager to hear more from him and receive fresh books--he stayed either with Dalaber, or with Radley, the singing man; and in both their lodgings were cleverly-concealed hiding-places, where books could be stowed, that would defy all search, save that of the most stringent kind. February had come, with its promise of hope, and springtide, and the longer daylight, so dear to the heart of students. Garret had recently appeared once more in Oxford, and was meeting almost daily with the confraternity there. He had brought a fresh consignment of books, some of which he lodged with Dalaber, and some with Radley, as was his wont. There were stolen meetings held in many places, but most often at those two lodgings; and the little band seemed growing in strength daily, when a sudden tempest broke upon it, falling like a bolt from the blue. A meeting at Radley's house had broken up. Dalaber and Garret walked homewards in the dusk towards their quarters in St. Alban Hall. When Garret was in Oxford, Fitzjames gave up his share of Dalaber's lodging to him, and betook himself elsewhere; but when they reached the room they found somebody sitting there awaiting them in the dusk, and Dalaber hailed him as Fitzjames. But as the stranger rose he saw that he had been mistaken. It was Arthur Cole, and his face was grave as he quietly closed the door. "I have come to warn you, Master Garret," he said in a low voice. "Your doings in this place have become known, and have betrayed your whereabouts. Cardinal Wolsey himself has sent down a mandate for your arrest. The Dean of Cardinal College is even now in conference with the Commissary of the University and with Dr. London of New College. You know very well what mercy you are like to meet with if you fall into their hands." Dalaber started and changed colour; but Garret had been a hunted man before this, and received the news quietly. "They know I am in Oxford, then. Do they know where I may be found?" he asked quietly enough. "Not yet. They are about to put the proctors on the scent. Tonight you are safe, but early on the morrow inquisition and search will commence. You will be speedily discovered and arrested if you are not far enough away by that time. "Be warned, Master Garret. You are reckoned as a mischievous man. The cardinal is not cruel, but some of his colleagues and subordinates are. Men have been burnt at the stake before this for offences lighter than yours, for you not only hold heretical doctrines yourself, but you seek to spread them broadcast throughout the land. That is not an offence easily passed over." Dalaber felt as though a cold stream of water were running down his back. His vivid imagination grasped in a moment all the fearful possibilities of the case, and he felt his knees fail for a moment under him. Yet it was not for himself he feared at that moment. He scarcely realized that this tracking down of Garret might lead to revelations which would be damaging to himself. His fears and his tremors were all for his friend--that friend standing motionless beside him as though lost in thought. "You hold me a heretic, too, Master Cole?" "I do," answered the young man at once, and without hesitation. "And yet you come and warn me--a step that might cost you dear were it known to the authorities." "Yes," answered Cole quietly; "I come to warn you, and that for two reasons, neither of which is sympathy with the cause you advocate. I warn you because you are a graduate of Magdalen College, and I had some knowledge of you in the past, and received some kindness at your hands long since, when I was a youthful clerk and you a regent master; and also because I have a great friendship for Dalaber here, and for Clarke, and for others known to you, and who would suffer grief, and fall perhaps into some peril were you to be taken. Also, I hold that it is ofttimes right to succour the weak against the strong, and I love not persecution in any form, though the contumacious and recalcitrant have to be sternly dealt with. So fare you well, and get you gone quickly, for after this night there will be no safety for you in Oxford." With that Cole turned to depart; but he laid a hand on Dalaber's arm, and the latter, understanding the hint, went with him down the staircase, where they paused in the darkness. "Have a care, Anthony, have a care," spoke Cole with energy. "I know not as yet whether you be suspected or not; but, truly, you have shown yourself something reckless in these matters, and there must be many in the place who could betray to the proctors your dealings with Garret. Send him forth without delay. Let there be no dallying or tarrying. Look well to it; and if you have any forbidden books, let them be instantly destroyed. Keep nothing that can be used as evidence against you, for I verily believe there will be close and strict search and inquest made, in accordance with the cardinal's mandate. I only hope and trust that our worthy friend Clarke may not fall into the hands of the bloodhounds, keen on the scent of heresy." "God forbid!" cried Anthony quickly. "God forbid indeed! But there is no knowing. He may be in peril, and others, too. But let there be an end tonight of all dallying with dangerous persons. Send Garret away forthwith, burn your books, and settle once more to your rightful studies. You have played with fire something too long, Anthony; let there be an end of it forthwith, lest the fire leap upon you in a fashion you think not of." Chapter VII: In Peril Dalaber stood a moment as though turned to stone as the full import of these words flashed into his mind. Again he was conscious of the sensation as though cold water were being poured upon him. He found himself shuddering strongly, and stepped out into the street to breathe the freshness of the air. Almost at the moment two of his comrades and confederates, Udel and Diet by name, both of Corpus Christi College, chanced to come along the street, and Dalaber, catching each by an arm, drew them into the shelter of the doorway, and whispered to them the peril in which they all stood more or less involved. If an inquiry were set on foot none could say where it would cease, or who might be suspected. It was evident that Garret himself stood in imminent peril, and that to get him safely away from the city was the first duty incumbent upon them. As soon as ever the gates of the town were opened on the morrow he ought to start away to some place of safety. But where could such a place be found? The three young men went upstairs to Dalaber's lodging, where Garret was standing by the darkening window, lost in thought. "Yes, I must go," he said, in answer to their words. "I am no longer safe here, and for the sake of the cause I must needs hide myself awhile. And yet I sometimes think it might come as well soon as late, if come it must. And surely that will be the end. I have felt it for long." "What end?" asked Dalaber, with a little shudder. "Martyrdom," answered Garret, a quick flash in his eye, which the light, just kindled, seemed to reflect back. "I shall die for the faith at last. I know it, I feel it. And there be moments when I could wish that that day had come, and that I might take the crown which is promised to those who are faithful to the death. Yet something tells me again that this day has not yet come, that the Lord has other work for me to do. Therefore I will fly, and that speedily. Yet whither shall I go? There are many places closed to me already, and I shall be searched for far and wide." Anthony stood hesitating, his hand upon a piece of paper; and then, as if making up his mind, he spoke eagerly and rapidly. "Master Garret, I have here a letter written to me by my brother, who is priest of a parish in Dorsetshire; Stalbridge is the name of the place. But a week since, a clerk coming hither from those parts brought to me a letter from him, which I have here in mine hand; and as you will see, he earnestly begs me to find for him here in Oxford a suitable man to act as his curate. Now, if you were to change your name and go to him with a letter from me, no doubt he would incontinently receive you into his house and give you good welcome; and there you could lie hid and unsuspected till the tide of pursuit was over, after which you could make excuse to leave him again, and go back to where you will." Garret seemed to be turning the matter over in his mind, whilst the other two students appeared to think this just the opportunity desired, and eagerly bade Dalaber commence the letter of introduction, whilst they offered to pack up some clothes and provision for the traveller. "What manner of man is this brother of thine, Anthony?" asked Garret. "Doth he belong to us of the brethren?" A slight flush rose to Dalaber's cheek, which else was unwontedly pale. "Alas, no! He has no knowledge of those things which we prize. There is the trouble. He is a rank Papist. But yet he has a kind heart, and there would surely be no need to speak of such matters with him. You would have your duties to do, as in London, in church and parish. It may be that the Lord would send you thither to sow fresh seed by the wayside." "If I thought that--" began Garret, with kindling eyes. "And wherefore not?" questioned the other two eagerly; "it may even be the Lord's way of spreading the truth. Nay, Master Garret, do not hesitate or tarry. The danger is too sore and pressing, and this is, as it were, an open door of escape. Let us garb you something differently, give you a new name, which Anthony will write in his letter; the letter you will bear upon your person; and then, when you are once beyond the reach of pursuit, you can travel easily and pleasantly, sure that you will be believed, by token of the missive you bear to Master Dalaber of Stalbridge." Garret's face was very set and thoughtful. "Well, I will do it; I will try it," he answered. "It may be that it comes from the Lord. I like it not altogether; but it may be I have work to do for Him there. At least I will not tarry here, where I may be a source of peril to others. So, with the first of the morning light, I will go forth, and get me well on my way to the south ere the hue and cry begin." There was no sleep that night in Anthony Dalaber's lodging. The news spread through the little brotherhood that Garret was in peril, that he was about to leave Oxford; and all through the night furtive visits were being paid him by those who desired his blessing, and to wish him well on his way. As for Dalaber, he wrote his letter with a shaking hand, recommending his friend, one Edmund Thompson, as a curate to help his brother in his parish. Yet all the while he felt a strange sinking at heart which he could not explain or account for. And when, in the grey light of the dawn, he said adieu to his friend, and saw him vanish through the just opened gate and out into the dim murk of the frosty morning, there came over his ardent and impulsive spirit a strange sense of desolation and sinking; and when he returned to his chill and lonely rooms, the first thing he did was to fling himself upon his bed and break into tearless sobs, the revenge of an exhausted nature. "Cui bono? cui bono?" was the voiceless cry of his heart, and at that moment it seemed as if everything were slipping away, even the faith and the love which had upheld him for so long. Sleep surprised him as he thus lay, and he slept deeply for some hours, awaking somewhat refreshed, but full of anxious fears, both for the safety of his friend and for his own future. It was scarcely possible, he argued, that, should Garret's movements be inquired into by the proctors and others, he could fail to fall under suspicion, as, having been much in his company, he would be doubtless suspected, and perhaps apprehended; and a shiver of natural fear and horror ran through him at such a prospect. What had better be his course now? He mused of this as he got himself some food; and while he was thus musing the door opened hastily, and Fitzjames appeared, looking heated and nervous. "Hast heard the news, Dalaber?" "What news ?--not that Master Garret is taken?" "No; but that strict search is to be made for him in and about Oxford. Is it true that he hath had warning, and is fled? I was told so, but scarce knew what to believe." "I saw him forth from the gates at dawn. I marvel they were not watched; but he was something disguised, and travelled under another name, so I trust and hope he may escape pursuit. Is it only he for whom they are looking?" "I have heard naught of others; but who knows where the thing may stop? Thou hadst better have a care to thyself, friend Anthony. It may be that peril will next menace thee." Alone, Dalaber had felt qualms of fear and dread, but the very sight of a comrade's face restored him to confidence and courage. "That may well be," he answered; "and if peril come, I trust I may have courage to endure all that may be put upon me. I have done naught of which my conscience accuses me. I can be strong in mine own integrity of heart." "Yes; but why court danger?" persisted Fitzjames, who had a cordial liking for Dalaber. "Methinks you would be safer in some lodging without the walls, that in case of sudden peril you might the more readily fly. And if these rooms should become suspected and watched, it were better you should be elsewhere. Have you not already spoken of changing into a lodging in Gloucester College, there to prosecute your studies in law?" "Truly yes," answered Dalaber eagerly; "and it was but two days since that Robert Ferrar told me I could have the chamber next to his, which is now vacant; but I have had so many things to think of since then that the matter has passed altogether from my mind." "Then let us quickly remove your belongings thither," spoke Fitzjames, with some eagerness. "It were better you should be gone; and I will testify, if question arise, of your reason for moving, which is that you are relinquishing your divinity studies for those of the law, and desire to enter a college where there is a library and more facilities for the prosecution of these studies. It were better, indeed, since you have resigned all thoughts of the priesthood, to commence your new studies without further loss of time. We have had something too much, methinks, of controversy and questionings of late. Let us seek greater safety by leaving such matters alone for the nonce. If happier days dawn anon, we may be able to resume our readings and discussions; but for the moment--" A significant gesture completed the sentence, and Dalaber made no remonstrance, for indeed he felt that his mind required a space of rest from these perilous controversies. Master Garret's stay had been fraught with intense spiritual excitement for him. As long as the personality of the man was brought to bear upon him his nerves were strung to a high pitch of tension; but the strain had been severe, and the reaction was setting in. He was half afraid of the lengths he had gone in some directions, and there came over him a desire for a breathing space, for a haven of peace and safety; and he felt that Fitzjames had counselled him well in advising a removal to fresh quarters. In those days it was not unusual for a student to move from one hall or even college to another, if he were not upon the foundation of the latter. Gloucester College (where Worcester College now stands) was one of the many religious houses still to be found in Oxford; but it was open to youths who were neither in orders nor intending to enter the priesthood, but only to prosecute their secular studies. Dalaber had a friend there who was one of the inquirers after truth, and was also a friend of Garret. It was he who had told him of the vacant room so near to his own, and thither he and Fitzjames moved all his belongings during that day. It was a pleasant chamber, and he was kindly welcomed by Ferrar, who heard with great concern of Garret's peril. He himself had not fallen under any suspicion as yet, so far as he knew; and he agreed with Fitzjames that Dalaber had better keep himself very quiet for the next few days, prosecuting his studies with zeal, and not showing himself much in the streets. It was to be hoped that the flight of Garret, when known, would avert further peril from Oxford; but as Dalaber had certainly been his closest comrade and companion during his visit, it behoved him to have a care that he excited no more suspicion. "'When they persecute you in one city, flee unto another,'" quoted Fitzjames, as he settled his last load in Dalaber's new lodging, which was beginning to look a little habitable, though still in some confusion. "That is sound Scripture, is it not? and sound sense into the bargain. But the town seems quiet enough to me now; I have gone to and fro in many of the streets, and I have heard and seen nothing to alarm." Dalaber heaved a sigh of relief. He was nerving himself to meet his fate bravely, whatever that fate might be; but the prospect of being arrested and charged with heresy or the circulation of forbidden books was sufficiently unnerving, and the more so to one whose life seemed opening out so full of promise and crowned with the blessing of love. "I must see Freda!" he suddenly exclaimed, as the shades of evening began to fall. "What does she know of this matter, Fitzjames? has it reached her ears that I may be in any peril?" "I trow not; I have told her nothing. She may have heard that the proctors are seeking Master Garret. I know not. When I came away this morn nothing was known at the Bridge House; but if she has heard aught since, she will be anxious for you and for him alike." "Verily yes, and I will go and show myself, and reassure her," cried Dalaber, throwing on his cloak and cap. "I have time enough and to spare to set my things in order later. I have not seen Freda for full three days. I must e'en present myself tonight." "I will go, too," answered Fitzjames; "and let us avoid the city walls and gates, and take the meadow paths past Durham College and Austin Friars, for it were best you did not show yourself abroad too much these next few days. I trust that afterwards all peril will be at an end." There was a clear saffron sky above them, and the crescent moon hung there like a silver lamp. The peace and hush of eventide was in the air, and fell like a charm upon Dalaber's fevered spirit. The sound of the angelus bell was heard from several quarters, and as they passed St. Bernard's Chapel they stepped into the building, and remained kneeling there a brief while, as the vesper service was chanted. Soothed and refreshed, and feeling more in harmony with life and its surroundings, Dalaber pursued his way, his arm linked in that of his friend. Fitzjames was one of those who halted somewhat between two opinions. He was willing and ready to hear and receive much of that new teaching which was stirring men's hearts and beginning to arouse bitter opposition; but he was still one who called himself a true son of the church, and he had no wish to draw down upon himself the perils of excommunication and other punishment which threatened the obstinate heretics. He attended many of John Clarke's lectures; he discoursed much with Dalaber, for whom he had a sincere friendship and admiration; but he did not see why there should be strife and disruption. He thought the church could be trusted to cleanse herself of her errors and corruptions, and that her mandates should be obeyed, even if they were sometimes somewhat harsh and unreasonable, as notably in this matter of the circulation of the Scriptures amongst the people. So he was more anxious for Dalaber to avoid drawing down notice upon himself than that he should play the part of hero and martyr with constancy and courage. And his friendly solicitude had been soothing to Anthony through the day, restoring his balance of mind, and quieting the nervous restlessness which had possessed him hitherto. And now he was approaching the house of his beloved, and her gentle sweetness and tender counsels would fill up the measure of his happiness, and restore that confidence in himself and his cause which had at one time been somewhat rudely shaken. She met him on the threshold, and for the first time since the troth plight her arms were about his neck, and he felt the tremor of her whole slender frame. "Anthony, Anthony, thou art safe!" "Beloved, yes; wherefore didst thou fear for me?" "How could I not fear, not knowing all, when such stories and rumours have been flying about?" "What stories? what rumours?" he asked, feeling his heart begin to beat more rapidly. She drew him into a little antechamber close at hand, and by the light of the flickering fire he saw that her face was pale and anxious, whilst her eyes looked as though they had shed tears. "My Freda, what is the matter? Thou hast been weeping." "Yes, for my heart has been heavy within me. How should it not be? And yet I know that the cause is holy and righteous, and I would have all men to be constant and full of courage. Cannot the Lord preserve His own?" "Yes, yes; let us not fear!" cried Dalaber, his courage rising with the need to reassure his beloved. "But tell me, what hast thou heard?" "Arthur Cole has been here; he has come thrice today, each time with fresh news. Thou dost know how he regards my sister Magda. None can fail to note his love for her; and I think he will win hers at the last. I trow he has well redeemed the pledge he gave her, and that he will get his reward--in time." "His pledge?" "Yes; he vowed to her that if he were able he would give warning to any of the brethren who might be in peril. He hears more than others of what is likely to pass, and he brought us word at daylight this morning that Master Garret was to be closely searched for." "That is true; but he is fled." "He was willing, then, to fly! Ah, I am glad, I am glad! It is not always the greatest thing to stand at bay and fall into peril. A man may rightly think of saving his life and those of his friends by flight. I am thankful he is away. Pray Heaven they get not on his track. They say if he fall into their hands he will perish at the stake." Dalaber shuddered, but answered quietly: "I think he will escape. Had they overtaken him we should have heard. But what else hath Cole told thee that thou shouldst fear and shed tears, thou who art so bold, and filled with spirit and constancy?" "He spoke of Master Clarke," answered Freda, lowering her voice. "He is fearful of danger to him." "Danger for Clarke!" cried Dalaber, almost hotly. "But he has never had aught to do with the sale or distribution of forbidden books. He knows of it, but he takes no part in it. What can they urge against him?" "They only whisper it as yet, but Arthur says they suspect him of heresy. Men who have heard him lecture and preach have spoken of his doctrine, and others have pronounced it dangerous. Arthur himself is full of wrath, for he loves Master Clarke as a brother, and he says he has never heard aught but holy and pure teaching drop from his lips; and none may doubt that Arthur is a true son of the church. He went forth again for tidings; but he only learned that the Dean of Cardinal College, the Commissary of the University, Dr. London of New College, and a few others of like standing with themselves, have met in consultation more than once during the day, and that it is whispered abroad that whether or not they lay hands on Master Garret, they are going to make strict inquisition throughout Oxford for the discovery of heretical teachers and thinkers in the university, and take measures whereby the spread of the peril may be arrested." Dalaber and Freda stood face to face in the flickering light, their eyes full upon each other. He bent down suddenly, and kissed her with an almost passionate intensity of feeling. "If they make strict inquisition, my beloved, they may find that Anthony Dalaber is numbered amongst the heretics." "I know it," Freda answered, and her voice was very low. "And if they should hale him to prison what shall he say and do? Wouldst thou that he should save himself by submission and obedience? or shall he be bold to speak, let the consequences be what they may?" He reached out and held her hands in his. Hers trembled, but his were steady. "I would have Anthony Dalaber true to his soul and true to his friends. I would have him obey, inasmuch as he can do so with a clear conscience toward God and man, but no farther. O my love, my love, how I shall pray for thee now and ever!" He clasped her in his arms, as once before he had done when they had been speaking almost upon this same subject, before the danger cloud hung lowering in the horizon of their sky. "Thou dost bid me be faithful above all things, my Freda--faithful unto death?" He felt the shudder that ran through her frame. It had been easy once to speak these words, but they sounded more terrible now. Yet for all her tremors her voice did not falter. "It is the voice of the Spirit, Anthony; it is His word. But ah! how I hope and pray that such a trial of faith will not be thine! Faithful to death--to such a death! Anthony, my love, my love, how could I bear it?" "Thou wouldst have the strength, as I trust I should, were such a choice before me," he answered gravely. "But why should we fear the worst, when so little has yet happened? All men say of the cardinal that he is not cruel, nor willingly a slayer of men for conscience' sake. He is the bitter foe of heresy; but it may be that it will suffice him that Garret be gone, and that those of us that have consorted with him remain quiet and silent. That we are willing to do. I have removed my lodging to Gloucester College, where I shall henceforth study the law, since I have abandoned all thoughts of the priesthood. It may well be that the storm will roll over our heads without breaking. And when it has passed away we can recommence our readings and discourses together, but quietly, so as not to arouse notice. Even the holy apostles themselves were content to abide quiet and silent amid perils that threatened their freedom and safety. They escaped out of various dangers, and used caution and carefulness; and if they, why not we?" Freda heaved a long breath, as of relief from the over pressure of emotion. She had seen that Arthur Cole had entertained some fears on Dalaber's account, knowing the fiery nature of the man, and his quick, impulsive temperament. He had had misgivings lest he, by some rash act, should draw down the anger of the authorities upon himself, and be made a scapegoat, in the stead of the absent Garret. Therefore Freda heard his words with a certain relief. Constancy and steadfastness she desired to see in him, but not the reckless defiance which rushes upon danger and courts martyrdom. She herself had scarcely known which course her lover would follow, and his appearance in this quiet and thoughtful mood was a great relief to her. "That is how I feel, Anthony," she answered. "Any trial the Lord sends us we must bear for His sake with all constancy; but even He Himself was obedient and submissive, and careful in His words and acts. Let none have cause to accuse us as brawlers, or headstrong, or enemies to law and order; but yet let us, when the time come, be found faithful, even unto death." He took her hand and kissed it, as though to seal the compact. Chapter VIII: The Fugitive Meantime, in the darkness of that February morning, Thomas Garret stepped forth from the sheltering walls of his still-beloved Oxford, and turned his rapid steps in a southerly and westerly direction. His heart was hot within him as he pushed along, choosing the most unfrequented lanes and paths. This was not the first time he had been hunted, and he had acquired some of the instincts of the quarry. He knew how to lie hidden awhile in some sheltered nook, listening and watching, himself unseen. He knew how to avoid notice, and how to pass through public places with the quiet air of confidence which drew no sort of attention towards himself. His priest's gown and hood would be a protection to him after he had shaken himself clear of the pursuit which might be set afoot by the proctors. He had Anthony Dalaber's letter in his wallet, and bread sufficient for the day's needs. He could fearlessly present himself at any religious house when he had reached another county, and he was certain of being well received and cared for by the monks, who received all travellers kindly, but especially those of the "household of faith." He spoke the words half aloud, and then a strange sound broke from his lips, half a laugh and half a groan. "The household of faith! O my God! What would they say if they knew that he who came to them as one of the faithful, was flying an outcast from the wrath of the cardinal, branded as a dangerous heretic? O Lord, be with me, and guide me right. Am I not faithful? Do I not love Thee, O Lord? Am I not sworn to Thy holy service? O Thou who judgest the hearts of men, and knowest all from the beginning, teach me what I should speak and do. Teach me whither I should bend my steps. I am ready to suffer persecution and death for Thy sake and the truth's. Only make me to see what Thou wilt have of me, that I may know whether Thou hast set before me an open door elsewhere, and art driving me thither, or whether Thou wouldst that I should return whence I came, and abide there whatever may befall me." For the farther Garret travelled, the more fearful did he become that he was doing wrong in taking flight after this sort. To fly before his persecutors was one thing--his conscience did not upbraid him for that; but to go into Dorsetshire, to present himself to Anthony Dalaber's brother under a false name, to become curate to a man whose own brother termed him a "rank Papist"--was that indeed his bounden duty? Was that a right or righteous course to pursue? But if he gave up that purpose, what next? He knew not whither to turn, or where he might go with safety. The arm of the cardinal was long. He had eyes that reached far and wide. All Garret's own haunts were likely to be closely watched. The man felt the fire of zeal burning hotly within him. He looked up into the heavens above him, and he felt as though a great work yet lay before him. He broke out into songs of praise and thanksgiving. It seemed to him as though he saw written in the sky glorious promises for those who should endure steadfastly to the end. There was something of the prophetic spirit in the man. At times the world about him would recede from him, and he would be left, as it were, alone upon some vast immeasurable height, seeing as in a dream the things of God and the mysteries of the heavenlies stretched out before him. Such a moment came upon him late in that day as he journeyed. He seemed to see a vast and mighty struggle--an overturning of thrones, principalities, and powers; a far-reaching upheaval in church and in state; a coming judgment, and a coming glory. He awoke as from a trance, with his head on fire and his heart hot within him. Words sprang to his lips, and he gave them utterance with a sense of power not his own. "The Lord will arise. He will judge between man and man, between good and evil, between truth and falsehood. The Lord Himself is our helper. Of whom shall we be afraid? He is the upholder of the righteous cause. Shall we fear what man can do unto us? The time will come when all shall come to the knowledge of the truth; He has promised, and His word cannot fail. Let us put our trust and confidence in Him, and fear no evil, even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. He will be with us to the end, and will overcome in us, when we are too weak to overcome for ourselves." The shades of evening were beginning to fall, and when the reaction set in after this period of spiritual exultation, Garret found himself somewhat weary and exhausted. He had not slept at all during the previous night, and he had been afoot from earliest dawn. He had accomplished a long day's journey, and had only eaten a little bread and drunk of the water of the brooks he had passed on his road. He began to desire the shelter of a roof and the cheering warmth of a fire, for the wind had risen, and blew upon him with keen and nipping cold, and his feet were sore from his long travel over rough ground. He had breasted the rise of a long incline, and now stood at its crest, looking rather wistfully and eagerly over the darkening landscape in search of some human habitation. He knew to a certain extent where he was, and that within some few miles there was a monastic establishment of some repute. But five miles seemed a weary way to him now, and a sense of repulsion had come over him at the thought of presenting himself at any monastery in his priestly garb. Not that he in any sort repudiated the sacred calling, but he felt that if the truth were known the monks would regard him as a wolf in sheep's clothing; and he was experiencing a sense of distaste for any sort of subterfuge, whilst hesitating about giving himself up, lest he should be deserting the cause he had at heart by robbing it of one of its most active members. If the Lord had work for him still to do, how gladly would he do it! As he remained resting awhile on the hilltop, and gazing about him in search of some indication of human habitation, he suddenly saw the beam of some small light glimmering through the increasing darkness; and uttering an exclamation of pleasure, he bent his steps in its direction, confident of finding some human habitation at last. It was not easy to keep the light always in view, but he managed to bear in that direction, and came at last into a region of meadow land, where there were some sheepfolds and pens, in which the flocks had been folded for the night, and which were watched over by a dog, who sprang barking towards Garret, but was pacified when he spoke gently to him, and showed by his actions that he had no intentions upon the sheep. From where he stood he was able to see that the light glimmered out of an unglazed window in a wattled cabin, evidently the sleeping place of the shepherd. After Garret had quieted the dog, he remained gazing for a few minutes at this steady light, and then (he scarcely knew why) he crept up very softly towards the little cabin, and looked in at the orifice. The sight that he saw aroused his quickened interest. The place was very small--only large enough to contain a few sacks of straw for the bed, over which a couple of fleeces had been thrown by way of covering, a small rough table, on which a rush light stood, together with a few wooden platters, a loaf of bread, and a pitcher. A box was the only seat, and upon it sat a grizzled, bent old man, with his back towards the window, and his head bent low over the table. By shifting his position very slightly, Garret was able to see that he was bending over a book which lay open beneath the rush light, and that with his forefinger he was pointing slowly along the line. Garret held his breath in astonishment. In towns, at this time, would be found here and there a humble artisan or labouring man who could read, and amongst such the desire for the printed Scriptures was always keen and ardent. But out here in these lonely wilds, far away from the haunts of man, it was a strange sight to see an old shepherd with a book before him. The boys of the rising generation were beginning to be taught reading and writing in the grammar schools now springing up in the towns, but hinds of the age of this man were generally absolutely ignorant of letters in any form whatever. The sound of a voice broke the stillness. The old man had begun to read the words aloud. "I will--smite the--shepherd--and the--sheep--shall be scattered--" Suddenly a great wave of emotion came upon Garret, and he uttered a strangled cry. The old man hastily thrust his book into the bosom of his coarse tunic, and gazed out of the opening with a strange expression of doubt and fear. "What was that?" he asked, as he rose to his feet; and Garret, flinging back his priest's hood, looked fearlessly in at the aperture. "It is a friend, who loves the holy Word of God, and loves all who are bold enough to love and cherish it, also a man to whom a message has been sent through you, my worthy friend. Open the door and let us clasp hands, for I know that the Lord hath sent me hither, and hath put a word in thy mouth which is meant for me. What shall become of the sheep if the shepherd be smitten? But shall the shepherd flee, unless he be an hireling and love not the sheep? The shepherd must watch yet over his flock, even though he hold himself away from the hand of the smiter. I see it all--I see it all! The Lord hath given me light!" Not one syllable of this eager torrent of words did the old shepherd comprehend; but be recognized the voice of friendship and comradeship in the unseen speaker, and he unfastened his rude door and bade the stranger enter. As Garret stepped into the light in his priest's gown the man gave a little start of surprise. "Nay, fear not," answered Garret; "I am God's priest--not the Pope's. If thou dost own the words of Holy Writ, perchance thou hast even heard the name of Thomas Garret. It is he who stands before thee now." The shepherd gazed at him for a moment as one in a dream, and then he seized his hand and pressed it to his lips. "It is he! it is he! I see it now! It is he whose words awoke my sleeping soul! O sir, I heard you preach once in London town, whither I had been sent on a charge of sheep stealing, but was released. And, indeed, of that offence I was innocent. But my life had been full of other evils, and I might well have sunk into the bottomless pit of iniquity, but that I heard you preach; and those words of fire entered into my soul, and gave me no rest day or night. Then I heard of the Christian Brethren, and they received and comforted me; and when I could earn the money for it, I bought this copy of the Holy Gospels. I have had it these two years now. I had learned to read by that time, and when I had bought it I wanted nothing so much as a quiet life, away from the haunts of men, where I could read and ponder and study the blessed Word without fear of man." "So you took to the life of a shepherd--a calm and peaceful life, that reminds us of many holy things." "I had tended sheep in my youth, and in these parts, sir, before I took to those wilder ways which well-nigh cost me my life. I came back; and some remembered me, and I got employment as shepherd. And here I hope and trust to end my days in peace. But there be whispers abroad that the cardinal and the abbots and priors will make search after the precious books, and rob us of them, and brand us as evildoers and heretics." "Alas, and that is all too true," answered Garret, with a deep sigh. "In me you see a fugitive from the wrath of the cardinal. I left Oxford at dawn of day, and have fled apace through the wildest paths ever since. I am weary and worn with travel, and seeing this light gleaming forth, I thought I would seek here for rest and shelter; but little did I hope to find one of the brethren in this lonely cabin, and one who may himself suffer in the cause of truth and righteousness." "We shall not suffer more than the Lord did," answered the old man, with a sudden illumination of feature, "nor more than He sees good for us. It may be that He wants His martyrs in all generations and in all lands. Does it not speak somewhere in the blessed Book of being made perfect through suffering?" It was wonderful to Garret to find such depth of comprehension and power of expression in this apparently illiterate and humble old man. To be sure, his accent was rough and homely, but the thoughts to which he gave utterance were deep and pure. Soon Garret found himself sitting over the turf fire, sipping gratefully at the warm milk, in which his bread lay soaked, and telling the old man the whole history of his wanderings, his peril, and his doubts about the plan laid down for him with regard to the curacy he had been offered. The more he talked, the more did Garret revolt against the idea of presenting himself to Master Dalaber in Dorsetshire under a false name and in false colours. He could not believe that this could be pleasing to God, and he saw that the old shepherd, though diffident of speech, was of the same opinion. "I will not do it," he said at last, "I will not do it. I cannot. I will retrace my steps to Oxford, but will use all care and discretion to avoid notice. They will by this time have discovered my flight, and Oxford is the last place in which they will now be seeking me. I will enter it by night, slip into one of my old hiding places there, get speech with Anthony Dalaber, and tell him how I have changed my plan, so that he may know I am not with his brother. Then I will put off my priest's garb, and sally forth in the night, and make my way over to Wales, and then to Germany, where I can work with the faithful there, and perchance be of greater use to the cause than in this land, where for the present I am so watched and hunted. "This priest's garb has become hateful to me. I feel in it as though I were acting a lie, albeit I shall ever hold myself the minister and priest of God. It deceives men, who look to see in every garbed priest a servile slave of cardinal and Pope. I can never, never be such an one; wherefore let me cast away the outer trappings, and cease to deceive the eyes of men." The shepherd, who only partially followed this monologue, which Garret uttered half to himself, half to his companion, understood this last argument, and slowly nodded his head. There was beginning to grow up in the minds of many a fear and horror of the priesthood, not by any means always undeserved, though greatly exaggerated in many quarters. But to go back to the perils of Oxford to secure a secular dress seemed a far cry; yet, when the men proceeded to talk the matter over, they saw no other way by which such garb could be obtained. Neither had any money; and it might be dangerous for Garret to show himself at any town to purchase secular raiment there, even if he could beg money at a monastery for his journey. He thought he knew the place well enough to make the experiment, without too much risk either to himself or to others, and before he stretched himself upon the shepherd's bed of straw that night his mind was fully made up. But upon the morrow he was forced to admit that one day's rest would be necessary before he could make the return journey. He was so stiff and exhausted by his long day's travel, and the tension of nerve which had preceded it, and his feet were so sore in places, that he decided to remain with the shepherd for another day and night; and then at dawn, upon the following morning, which would be Friday, he would start forth again, reach Oxford after dark, find some hiding place there for the night, and after making the needful change in his dress, and advising his friends of the change of his plan, he would start forth a free man once more by night, and instead of tying his hands by allying himself with any Papist parish priest, he would cross the water, find himself amongst friends there, and return later to his native shores, bringing with him stores of precious books, which should be distributed to eager purchasers as they had been before. The hours of the day did not seem long to the tired traveller as he mused upon these things. The shepherd went about his daily toil, but often came indoors for a while to talk with his guest; and by the time the second night arrived, Garret was so far rested and refreshed that he had no doubt about making good his return journey upon the morrow, reckoning that by that time, at least, all hue and cry after him in Oxford would be over. He slept soundly and dreamlessly through the night, and was awakened at dawn by the old man, who had made him the best breakfast his humble house could furnish, and waited lovingly upon him till he had satisfied his hunger and was ready to start upon his way. Then Garret embraced him as a brother, thanked him heartily for his hospitality, gave him the blessing the old man begged, receiving one in return. He set his face joyfully towards the city from which he had fled, for it seemed to him as though he had fled thence somewhat unworthily--as though he had not shown a rightful trust in God. It was a rash step he was taking now, but somehow that thought excited in him no anxiety. He felt a great longing to see his friend Dalaber again, to explain matters afresh to him, and to start forth free from all trammels and disguises. He was not, however, rash in exposing himself to recognition by the way, and kept to those secluded byways which had served him so well on his other journey. He scarcely saw a soul the whole of the long day of travel, and although he grew very weary and his feet again gave him pain, he plodded on with a light heart, and was rewarded just before the last of the daylight failed him by a glimpse of the distant towers and buildings of Oxford. His heart yearned over the place when he saw it. It came upon him that here he would stay and abide the consequences. He felt strong to endure all that might be laid upon him. If it were God's pleasure that he should suffer in the cause, would He not give him strength to bear all? For a moment he forgot the peril which might come to others from his apprehension. He only felt that if the martyr's crown were indeed to be his (a thing of which he had a strong presentiment), it might well come soon as late. And therefore, when he reached the city at dark, he slipped into the town itself, instead of lurking outside, as first he had intended, and made his way through the dark, narrow streets to a certain humble lodging, which he had used before, when Dalaber had not been able to receive him. He met not a creature on his way. He did not think his entrance had been marked as he passed through the gates. A thick, drizzling rain was falling, which had wet him to the skin, and which seemed to be keeping every one within doors. He found the door of his old lodging unlocked and the place empty, save for a little firing in a closet, which he soon kindled into a warming blaze. He had bought food at midday in a hamlet through which he passed, and there was enough left in his wallet to provide him with a frugal supper. He dried his clothes at the friendly warmth of the fire, and though the room was destitute of bedding, there were a few sacks on the floor. Laying himself down upon these before the fire, he was soon plunged in a deep and dreamless slumber. How long he slept he never could have guessed. He afterwards knew that it was midnight when he woke. What roused him was the sound of trampling feet on the stairs outside, and the voices of persons ascending. He lay for a few moments in the darkness, which the few smouldering embers of the dying fire scarcely served to illuminate; and then in a sudden access of alarm be sprang to his feet and made for the door. If escape had been in his mind, he was too late. Already the door was burst open. A flood of light from a couple of lanterns dazzled his eyes for some moments, so that he could only see that several men were in the room, and a stern voice exclaimed, "That is the man! Seize him!" Then he knew that his hour had come, and that he was arrested. Next minute he saw clearly, and found himself confronted by the proctors of the university, who regarded him with stern faces. Who had given them warning that Garret had returned to Oxford has never, I believe, been known--at least there is no mention of this made in the history of the known facts. But some person must have recognized the man, tracked him to his lair, and set the bulldogs of the cardinal upon him. He was taken at midnight upon the night of his secret return, and now stood a helpless prisoner in the hands of those set upon his track. He looked at them with calm fearlessness. His spirit rose to the peril, and his mien was dauntless. "Upon what charge am I arrested?" he asked quietly. "You will hear that at the right time and in the right place," was the stern reply; "we are not here to bandy words with you. Put on your gown and hood, though you so little deserve such garb, and come whither you are led. Force will not be used unless you compel it." Garret resumed the outer garments he had laid aside for the night, and pronounced himself ready to follow them whither they would. "Take him to Lincoln College," spoke the senior proctor to his servants. "Dr. London will keep him in ward, and deal with him in the first place." A slight smile passed over Garret's face. Dr. London of Lincoln was well known as one of the most bitter persecutors of the new opinions, and was reported to have stocks and other implements of punishment in a room in his house, which were used upon the recalcitrant and obstinate according to his pleasure. If he were to be Dr. London's prisoner, then farewell to any hopes of mercy. Nevertheless he uttered no word as the men led him through the silent streets. The rain had ceased, and the moon was shining in the sky. The whole city seemed asleep as they hastened along. But as they approached Lincoln College signs of life appeared. In the rector's house lights gleamed from several windows; and as Garret was pushed in at a side door, which was securely locked behind him, and led into a large, square hall, he saw the stern and frowning face of Dr. London gazing at him from the stairway, and a loud and masterful voice exclaimed: "Take him into the strong room, and lock him up for the night. I will have speech with him upon the morrow." Garret was led down a short, flagged passage, and thrust through an open door into a perfectly dark room. The door was closed, the bolt shot home, and he was left in silence and blackness to the company of his own thoughts. Chapter IX: A Steadfast Spirit The day which was spent by Thomas Garret in retracing his steps back to Oxford was passed not unhappily by Anthony Dalaber, who, after the lapse of two uneventful days, began to draw breath again, and make sure of the safety of his friend. He had matters of his own which occupied much of his attention. The store of forbidden books brought to Oxford by Garret had been divided pretty equally between him and Radley; and Dalaber had contrived a very ingenious hiding place just outside his lodging room in St. Alban Hall, where, by removing some planking of the floor, a cavity in the wall had been carefully excavated, and the books secreted there, where it would be difficult for any to find them who had not the clue to the hiding place. It was safer to hide them outside the chamber, as, if discovered, their presence would not incriminate any one--so Dalaber believed. Even Fitzjames, though sharing his lodging and some of his views, did not know where he kept his store of books. They formed such a dangerous possession that Dalaber spoke of them only to those who were heart and soul in the movement. And he decided not to remove them with his other belongings to Gloucester College, as he had no safe repository there to hold them, and it seemed to him that for the present the time had gone by for any work of distribution. It would he needful for the present to keep very quiet, until the suspicions which had evidently been aroused in the minds of the authorities should be laid to rest. It was with a certain sense of relief that Dalaber definitely decided to quit the study of theology and divinity, and to throw himself into that of the law. Religious controversy had become suddenly distasteful to him. The Questions and other books of the theological faculty appeared to him futile and unsatisfactory. He had definitely resolved upon the secular life for himself; and although that did not mean that his convictions were shaken, or that his faith was in any way less precious to him, it gave to him a certain sense of elasticity and freedom of thought and spirit. He could take Dr. Langton as his standard of what a man should be. He did not mix himself up with the burning and controverted questions of the day. He followed his studies in medicine and Greek. His house was a resort of learned men of all schools of thought. Free discussion was carried on there on all sorts of subjects. He favoured the liberality of mind which the church opposed; yet he did not embroil himself with the authorities, and led his own quiet scholarly life, respected and revered of all. "That is the life for me," spoke Dalaber, as he looked round his new lodging, and admired the fashion in which his belongings had been set up there. "I will follow the secular calling, keeping my soul and spirit free to follow the promptings of the Spirit. Whenever I see the opportunity to strike a blow in the cause of freedom, may God give me strength to strike boldly and fearlessly; but I will not thrust myself forward into needless peril. Obedience has its place in the church as well as other virtues. I will not be untrue to my conscience or my convictions, but without good cause I will not embroil myself in these hot controversies and perilous matters. I have no quarrel with Holy Church, as Master Clarke expounds her, I would only see her cleansed and purged of her iniquity, shedding light--the light of God--upon the paths of her children. Perchance, as he says, if we prayed more for her--if we pleaded more with her in secret, interceding before God for her corruptions and unholiness--He Himself would cleanse and purge her, and fit her for her high and holy calling. Love is stronger than hate, for love is of God. I would seek more of that spirit of love which shines and abides so firm in Him. I have been in peril--I am sure of it--and the Lord has saved me from the mouth of the lion. Let me show my gratitude to Him not by falling away from the narrow path which leads to life everlasting, but by treading it in meekness and humility, in His strength rather than mine own." Dalaber was not unconscious of the besetting faults and failings of his temperament--an impulsive self confidence, followed by moments of revolt and lassitude and discouragement. He knew that a quiet stability was the quality he lacked, and that the fire of enthusiasm and the revolt against abuses which blazed hot within him was not the holiest frame of mind in which to meet a crisis such as had lately threatened him. He knew that he might have been tempted to speak dangerous words, to rail against those in authority, and to bring deeper trouble upon himself in consequence. The influence of the fiery Garret upon him was always of this character. Now that he had gone, Dalaber was able to review the situation much more calmly and quietly, and to see that the Lord and His apostles were not advocates of violence and disruption, that they inculcated reverence to governors, spiritual and temporal, as well as patience, long suffering, meekness, gentleness, and forbearance. The sword of the Spirit was not a carnal weapon. Its work was of a higher and holier nature. It might have to be drawn forth in battle; but it must be wielded in obedience, and not in irresponsible rebellion. Faithful steadfastness was asked of all God's children; but not all were called on to go forth as champions of even a righteous cause. Their duty might be to stand and wait for what the Lord would bid them do. Dalaber had a strong conviction that alone, and acting upon his own impulses only, he would do harm rather than good. He was not the stuff of which leaders are made. He knelt down suddenly, and prayed for grace and guidance; and scarcely had he risen from his knees before a step upon the stairs and a knock at the door warned him of the approach of a visitor. The next minute Arthur Cole stood before him. He was followed by a servant, who laid down a bulky parcel and departed. "Ah, friend Dalaber," spoke Cole, with a kindly grip of the hand, "it was told me you were moving into fresh quarters here, and methought a few plenishings might not come amiss to your lodgings. You are something of an anchorite in your method of living, Anthony; but this chamber deserves a little adornment, if you are not averse to such." So speaking, Arthur unfastened the package, and there was a soft skin rug to lay before the hearth, where a small fire of wood and fir cones was burning; a gaily striped quilt for the truckle bed covered it up and gave it an air of elegance; and a few books--in those days a costly and valued possession--completed the kindly bequest. "They tell me you are to prosecute your studies in the law," he said, as he ranged the volumes beside Dalaber's own sparse collection on the shelf; "and since I have trodden the path before you, you are welcome to these volumes, which I seldom refer to now, and can always borrow from you if need should arise." "You are a true friend, Arthur," answered Dalaber, much gratified and delighted. "I thank you heartily. You are a friend to all, and we owe you much. It is the more kindly and welcome because you are not one of us in other matters, and might very well have withdrawn from all companionship with those upon whom the wrath of the cardinal is like soon to fall." "I would speak somewhat anent that same matter, Anthony," said Arthur, suddenly turning upon his friend, and signing him to take the seat opposite. "It is in some sort on that account I have come. But first tell me--is Thomas Garret safely away?" Yes; on his way--" "Nay, tell me not that. I have no wish to learn his whereabouts--only that he is safe outside the city, and not likely to be taken." "He has been away these two days; and if not taken already, I trow he will escape altogether." Arthur heaved a sigh of satisfaction and relief. "I am right glad to hear that, Anthony--for your sake almost more than for his, since you are my friend." "And why for my sake, Arthur?" "Marry, thus that had Garret been found in the place, they would not have stopped short with laying hands upon him. They would have seized also those who had consorted with him. Not finding him, they begin to doubt whether the cardinal was right in tracing him hither, and whether he and his books have indeed been brought here. But let them once lay hands upon him, and not he alone, but also his comrades and associates, will stand in much peril. So have a care, friend Anthony." Dalaber felt the thrill of what was half relief, half fear, run through him; but his glance did not quail. "He is gone," he answered quietly, "and no man has sought to lay hands upon me." "No, and right glad am I of it. I have spoken up for you as one of my friends, and a young man of promise and integrity. But I beg you to have a care for the future, Anthony, and especially during these Lenten weeks upon which we have just entered. For a strict watch will be kept over all suspected men; and if you are found with forbidden books in your possession--" Arthur's eyes roved keenly round the pleasant chamber as he left his sentence unfinished. "I have none here," answered Dalaber. "I have nothing but mine own little copy of the Gospels, which I carry ever on my own person. There are no books here to bring danger upon me or any." "I am right glad to hear it, and I trust you will have no more to do with that perilous traffic. For sooner or later it will bring all men into trouble who mix themselves up with it. And for you who can read the Scriptures in the tongues in which they were written there is the less excuse. I warn you to have a care, friend Anthony, in your walk and conversation. I trust that the storm will pass by without breaking; but there is no telling. There is peril abroad, suspicion, anger, and distrust. A spark might fire a mighty blaze. The cardinal's warning and rebuke to the heads of colleges has wrought great consternation and anger. They are eager to purge themselves of the taint of heresy, and to clear themselves in his eyes." "I misdoubt me they will ever succeed there," muttered Dalaber, with a slight smile. "Thought will not be chained." "No; but men can think in silence and act with prudence," spoke Arthur, with a touch of sharpness in his tone. "I would that you thinkers, who stand in peril of being excommunicated as heretics, had a little more of the wisdom of the serpent which the Scriptures enjoin upon the devout." "Excommunicated!" exclaimed Dalaber, and said no more. To a devout young student, who had all his life through regularly attended the office of the Mass, and had communicated frequently, and prepared himself with confession and fasting and prayer, the idea of excommunication was terrible. That the Mass was overlaid and corrupted in some of its rites and ceremonies Dalaber and others were beginning openly to admit; but that it was based upon the one sacrifice of the atonement, and was showing forth the Lord's death according to His own command, none doubted for a moment; and to be debarred from sharing in that act of worship was not a thought easily to be contemplated. Arthur saw his advantage and pressed it. "Yes, my friend--excommunicated. That is the fate of those who mix themselves up in these matters, and draw down upon their heads the wrath of such men as the cardinal. Believe me, there is such a thing as straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. And that is what you might chance to find you had done, were you cast out from the fold of the church for a few rash acts of ill-advised rebellion and disobedience, when all the while you might have lived in peace and safety, waiting till a better time shall come. If this movement is of God, will He not show it and fight for it Himself?" "Yes; but He must use men in the strife, as He uses men in His Holy Church for their offices there. Yet, believe me, I do not desire strife. I would rather live at peace with all men. I have taken up a secular calling, that I may not be embroiled, and that I may be free to marry a wife when the time comes. Always shall I love and revere those who stand for truth and righteousness; always, I pray, shall I have strength to aid them when occasion serves: but I shall not embark on any crusade upon mine own account. You may make your mind easy on that score, my friend. I do not desire strife and controversy." Arthur looked relieved, and smiled his approval. "Then I trust that on your account, friend Anthony, my fears are needless. I would that I were not anxious also for our beloved friend and master, John Clarke." "Is he in peril?" asked Dalaber, with a startled look. "He had no great dealings with Master Garret." "No; and for that I am thankful. But there are other causes for fear. The cardinal wrote to the chancellor that he had been told how that Oxford was becoming deeply tainted with heresy, that Garret was selling his books by scores to the clerks and students and masters, and that teaching and lectures were being held contrary to the spirit of the church. This has stirred the hearts of the authorities deeply; they have been making close investigation, and have sent word back to the cardinal what they have found here." "And what have they found?" asked Dalaber, breathlessly. "I know not all; but mine uncle told me this much--that they have reported to the cardinal how that the very men chosen and sent by him to 'his most towardly college,' as they call it, are those amongst whom the 'unrighteous leaven' is working most freely, and they specially mention Clarke and Sumner and the singing man Radley as examples of danger to others. What will come of this letter God alone may tell. It has been dispatched, together with the intimation that Garret is not to be found in or near Oxford. We await in fear and trembling the cardinal's reply. Heaven grant that he do not order the arrest of our good friends and godly companions! I am no lover of heresy, as thou dost know, friend Anthony; but from Master Clarke's lips there have never fallen words save those of love and light and purity. To call him a heretic would bring disgrace upon the Church of Christ. Even mine uncle, to whom I spoke as much, said he had never heard aught but good spoken of these men." Dalaber looked very anxious and troubled. The friends sat silent awhile, and then Arthur suddenly rose to his feet, saying: "Let us go and see Master Clarke and have speech of him. I have not been able to get near to him alone since I knew of this matter--so many flock to his rooms for teaching or counsel. But let us to St. Frideswyde for evensong. He will certainly be in his place there, and afterwards he will accompany us, or let us accompany him, to his chamber, where we can talk of these things in peace. I have much that I would fain say to him." "And for my part, I have promised to sing in the choir at the evensong service there as ofttimes as I can spare the time," said Dalaber, rising and throwing on his gown. "I have not seen Master Clarke these past two days. I would tell him of the safe escape of Master Garret; for the twain are sincere friends, and belong both to the brotherhood, though they agree not in all things, and have diverse views how the church is to be made more pure--" "Peace, peace, good Anthony!" spoke Arthur, with a half laugh. "Thou must have a care how thou dost talk rank heresy, and to whom. Such words are safe enow with me; but they say that even walls have ears." "It is my weakness that I speak too freely," answered Dalaber, who had already opened the door. "But in sooth I trow we are safe here, for yonder chamber belongs to the monk Robert Ferrar, who--But no matter. I will say no more. My tongue is something over fond of running away with me, when I am with friends." Evensong at St. Frideswyde's was always a well-attended service. Although it was now the chapel of Cardinal College, the old name still clung to it. The cardinal had removed much of the former priory and chapel of St. Frideswyde to carry out the plans for his college; but though the collegiate buildings were called by his name, the chapel generally retained its older and more familiar title. The daily services were better performed there than in any other college chapel; and many men, like Dalaber himself, possessed of good voices, sang in the choir as often as their other duties permitted them. Service over, the two friends passed out together, and waited for Clarke, who came quietly forth, his face alight with the shining of the Spirit, which was so noticeable in him after any religious exercise. He greeted them both in brotherly fashion, and gladly welcomed them to his lodging. There was something very characteristic of the man in the big, bare room he inhabited. It was spotlessly clean--more clean than any servant would keep it, though the canons of Cardinal College were permitted a certain amount of service from paid menials. The scanty furniture was of the plainest. There was nothing on the floor to cover the bare boards. Two shelves of books displayed his most precious possessions; the rest of his household goods were ranged in a small cupboard in a recess. His bed was a pallet, covered by one blanket. There was no fire burning on his hearth. Several benches ranged along the walls, and a rather large table, upon which a number of books and papers lay, stood in the middle of the room. One corner had been partitioned off, and was very plainly fitted up as an oratory. A beautiful crucifix in ivory was the only object of value in all the room. Arthur and Anthony both knew the place well, but neither entered it without a renewed sensation impossible to define. "It is the abode of peace and of prayer," Dalaber had once said to Freda, describing the lodging to her. "You seem to feel it and to breathe it in the very air. However worn and anxious, fretful or irate, you are when you enter, a hush of peace descends upon your spirit, like the soft fluttering of the wings of a dove. Your burden falls away; you know not how. You go forth refreshed and strengthened in the inner man. Your darkness of spirit is flooded by a great light." They sat down in the failing gleams of the setting sun, and Dalaber told of Garret's night and the errand on which he was bound. Arthur smiled, and slightly shrugged his shoulders; but the confidence his friend unconsciously put in him by these revelations was sacred to him. He had not desired to know; but at least the secret was safe with him. "He will not go there," said Clarke, as he heard the tale. "Not go to my brother?" questioned Dalaber quickly. "No, he will not go there. I know the man too well to believe it. The impulse for flight came upon him, and he was persuaded that it might be an open door. But he will not carry the plan through. His conscience will not permit him to hire himself under a false name to a man who believes him an orthodox priest holding his own views. Garret will never do that, and he will be right not to do it. It would be a false step. One may not tamper with the truth, nor act deceitfully in holy things." Then Arthur Cole began to speak, and to tell Clarke what had happened with regard to the cardinal and the heads of various houses, and how his own name had been set down as one who was suspected of the taint of heresy. "They know that men come to your rooms to read the Scriptures and discourse thereon," he concluded, "and in these times that is almost enough to brand a man a heretic. And yet I know that you are not one. I would that the cardinal himself were half so true a servant of God." A slight smile passed over Clarke's beautiful face. The light seemed to deepen within his eyes. "Take heed, my kindly young friend, or men will call thee heretic next," he said. "It is hard to know sometimes what they mean by the word. Let it be enough for us to know that we are all members of the mystical body of Christ, and that none can sever us from our union with Him, save He Himself; and His word, even to the erring and the feeble and the sinner, is, 'Come unto me. Him that cometh I will in no wise cast out.'" "I know, I know--if that were only enough!" cried Arthur, in perplexity and distress. "It is enough for me," answered Clarke, with his illuminating smile. "But will you not have a greater care for yourself--for our sakes who love you, if not for your own?" urged the other. "What would you have me to do, or not to do?" asked Clarke. "I would have you abandon your reading and discussions--for a time. I would have you, perhaps, even quit Oxford till this storm sweeps by. Why should you not visit your friends in Cambridge? It would excite no great wonderment that you should do so. We cannot spare you to the malice of enemies; and Garret being escaped from the snare, there is no knowing upon whom they may next lay hands. It would break my heart if mischance happened to you, Master Clarke; wherefore I pray you have a care for yourself." Clarke regarded both young men with a very tender smile. "I think I will not go; and how can I refuse to speak with those who come to me? The reading of the Scriptures in any tongue has not been forbidden by the Holy Catholic Church. I will maintain that against all adversaries. What I say here in my room I will maintain before all men, and will show that the Lord Himself, by His holy apostles and prophets, has taught the same. If any are in peril through words which I have spoken, shall I flee away and leave them to do battle alone? Nay; but I will remain here and be found at my post. My conscience is clear before God and man. I have not disobeyed His voice nor yet that of the Catholic Church. Let Him judge betwixt us. I am in His hands. I am not afraid what man can do unto me." Dalaber's face kindled at the sound of these words, and the flame of his enthusiasm for this man blazed up afresh. There had been times when he had fancied that Garret possessed the stronger spirit, because his words were more full of fire, and he was ever a man of action and strife. But when Garret had been brought face to face with peril his nerve had given way. He had struggled after courage, but all the while he had been ready to fly. He had spoken of coming martyrdom with loftiness of resolution; but he had wavered, and had been persuaded that the time had not yet come. Something in Clarke's gentle steadfastness seemed loftier to Anthony Dalaber than what he had witnessed in Garret a few days back. Yet he would have said that Garret would have flown in the face of danger without a fear, whilst Clarke would have hung back and sought to find a middle course. "But if these meetings be perilous," urged Arthur, "why will you not let them drop--for the sake of others, if not your own?" He looked calmly in the questioner's eyes as he answered: "I invite no man to come to me to read or discourse. If any so come, I warn them that there may be peril for them; and many I have thus sent away, for they have not desired to run into any peril. Those who gather round me here are my children in the Lord. I may not refuse to receive them. But I will speak earnestly to them of the danger which menaces them and us; and if any be faint hearted, let them draw back. I would not willingly bring or lead any into peril. But I may not shut my door nor my heart against my children who come to me. The chariots of God are thousands of angels. They are round and about us, though we see them not. Let us not fear in the hour of darkness and perplexity, but wait patiently on the Lord, and doubt not that in His time and in His way He will give us our heart's desire." Clarke's face was uplifted; in the gathering gloom they could scarcely see it, and yet to both it appeared at that moment as the face of an angel. Chapter X: A Startling Apparition It was the following afternoon--Saturday--and Anthony Dalaber sat in his new quarters with an open book before him. He was beginning to feel at home there, and to lay aside some of those pressing anxieties which had beset him ever since the flight of Master Garret upon Arthur Cole's warning. Notwithstanding even the grave talk which had taken place the day previously in the room of John Clarke, Dalaber did not find himself seriously uneasy at present. He had been going to and fro in the town for the past two days, and no one had molested him, or had appeared to take any special note of him. He had attended lecture that morning, and had walked through the streets afterwards in company with several other students of his own standing, and not a word had been breathed about any stir going on, or any alarm of heresy being raised by those in authority. He began to think that Arthur Cole had taken somewhat too seriously some words he had heard on the subject from his relative the proctor. Upon his own spirit a sense of calm was settling down. He trusted and hoped that he was not in personal danger; but he also resolved that, should peril arise, he would meet it calmly and fearlessly, as Clarke was prepared to do should it touch him. On returning to his room he had paid a visit to the monk Robert Ferrar, who lived on the same staircase, and was a friend of Garret's, and had ofttimes made purchases from him of forbidden books. As they sat and talked in Ferrar's room, Anthony espied a copy of Francis Lambert on St. Luke, and eagerly pounced upon it. Although he had left behind him all dangerous books, and had resolved to give himself up to the study of the law, his heart felt hungry and unsatisfied, and he begged leave to carry the volume to his own chamber, that he might indulge himself in its study and in pious meditation thereupon, preparatory to the exercises of the Lord's day, so close at hand. Ferrar made no objection, only remarking that he himself was going out, and should not return until after compline, and asking Dalaber to take care of the book and keep it safe till he should come and claim it, for it was dangerous to leave such volumes where any prying eyes might find them. So now Dalaber was sitting in his own lodging, with the door locked upon him, reading greedily from the open page, and drinking in, as it were, refreshment and strength, when he was roused from his reverie by the sound, first of voices, and then by a sharp rap upon the panels of his door. His heart gave a great throb, and then stood still. He sat mute and motionless, giving no sign of his presence. Something seemed to warn him that this visit, whatsoever it might be, boded him no good. The knock was repeated more loudly. But he still gave no answer, sitting very still, and listening with all his might. He heard no more the sound of voices. Nobody spoke or called his name. But after a very brief pause the knock was repeated a third time, and with that fierce energy which bespoke some strong emotion; and suddenly it came over Dalaber that perhaps it was some one who was in trouble, or was in need of him or his help. Were not the brethren likely to be brought into sudden peril or distress? Might it not even be a friend come to warn him of approaching danger? At least it seemed to him that he must open the door and inquire; and so rapid was the passage of these thoughts that the reverberation of the third summons had scarcely died away before he had turned the key and flung open the door. Then he started back in startled amazement. "Master Garret!" he gasped. "Shelter me, friend Anthony," gasped Garret, whose face was white as paper, "for I am a man undone. They have captured me once. I have escaped them. But they will have me again if I make me not away with all speed." Dalaber dragged him almost roughly within the room, and closed the door with a bang, for he had seen on the staircase the eager face of one of the college servants; and the young man, immediately upon hearing Garret's words, had slipped downstairs--Dalaber guessed only too well upon what errand. "Alas! why have you spoken such words?" he cried, almost fiercely. "Know you not that by so doing in the hearing of that young man, and by such uncircumspect fashion of coming hither, you have disclosed yourself and utterly undone me?" Garret looked fearfully over his shoulder. He seemed completely unnerved and unstrung. "Was the young man following? Alas! I knew it not. I came hither to seek Robert Ferrar, but he was out; and knowing that you had planned to move hither, and thinking it likely you might already have done so, I asked the servant where you were to be found, and he pointed out the place, and said he knew that you were within; but I knew not he had followed me. Could he have known who I am?" "Nay, that I know not; but he heard you declare how you had been taken and had escaped. Alack, Master Garret, we are in a sore strait! How comes it that you are not safe in Dorsetshire, as I have been happily picturing you?" Garret burst into tears. He was utterly broken down. He had not tasted food during the whole day, and was worn out with anxiety and apprehension. Dalaber set bread before him, and he fell upon it eagerly, meantime telling, with tears and sighs, the story of his wanderings, his resolution to return, and his apprehension in the middle of the previous night by the proctors. "They took me to the house of the commissary," added Garret, "and they shut me up in a bare room, with naught save a pitcher of water beside me. I trow they sought to break my spirit with fasting, for none came nigh me when the day dawned, and I was left in cold and hunger, not knowing what would befall me. But when the afternoon came, and a hush fell upon the place, and no sound of coming or going was to be heard, I made shift, after much labour, to slip the bolt of my prison, and to steal forth silently and unobserved; and surely the Lord must have been with me, for I met no living soul as I quitted the college, and I drew my hood over my face and walked softly through the narrowest streets and lanes, and so forth and hither, thinking myself safest without the walls. And now I pray you, my dear young friend and brother, give me a coat with sleeves instead of this gown, and a hat, if you have one that smacks not of the priest; for from henceforth I will stand as a free man amongst men, and will serve no longer in the priest's office. To the Lord I am a priest for ever. I will serve Him with the best that I have; but I will no longer hold any charge or living, since I may not deny my Lord, and thus am called heretic and outcast by those in high places. I will away. I will get me to Germany. I will join the labours of the brethren there. Son Anthony, wilt thou go with me? for I love thee even as mine own soul. Think what we might accomplish together, were we to throw in our lot one with the other, and with the brethren yonder!" Garret looked eagerly in Dalaber's face, and the tears started to the young man's eyes. He had been much moved by Garret's emotion, and for a brief space a wild impulse came over him to share his flight and his future life. What lay before him in Oxford if he stayed? Would he not be betrayed by the servant as Garret's accomplice? Would he not certainly be arrested and examined, and perhaps thrown into prison--perhaps led to the stake? Who could tell? And here was a chance of life and liberty and active service in the cause. Should he not take it? Would he not be wise to fly whilst he had still the chance? Who could say how soon the authorities might come to lay hands on him? Then it would be too late. He had well-nigh made his decision, when the thought of Freda came over him, and his heart stood still. If he fled from Oxford and from her, would he ever see her again? What would she think of him and his flight? Would that be keeping "faithful unto death"? If he left her now, would he ever see her again? And then there was Master Clarke, another father in God. Could he bear to leave him, too--leave him in peril from which he had refused to fly? The struggle was sharp, but it was brief, and with the tears running down his face, Dalaber embraced Master Garret with sincere affection, but told him that he could not be his companion. It seemed to him that the Lord had work for him here; and here he would stay, come what might. "Then, my son, let us kneel down together upon our knees, and lift up our hearts unto the Lord," spoke Garret with broken voice, "praying of Him that He will help and strengthen us; that He will prosper me, His servant, upon my journey, and give me grace to escape the wiles of all enemies, both carnal and spiritual; and that He will strengthen and uphold you, my son, in all trials and temptations, and bring us together in peace and prosperity at last, in this world, if it be His good pleasure, but at least in the blessed kingdom of His dear Son, which, let us pray, may quickly come." They prayed and wept together, for both were deeply moved; and then Garret, having donned a coat of Dalaber's, and having filled his wallet with bread, embraced his young friend many times with great fervour; and after invoking blessings upon him from above, he watched his opportunity, and stole softly away from the college, Dalaber watching till his slight figure disappeared altogether from view. Then with a heavy heart he went up to his room again, and locked his door. Opening his New Testament, which lay on the table beside the borrowed book of the monk, he kneeled down and read very slowly aloud to himself the tenth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel. "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues; and ye shall be brought before governors and kings. But when they deliver you up, take no thought what ye shall speak, for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake, but he that endureth to the end shall be saved. Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Long did Dalaber kneel in prayer, his reading being over, asking that God would endue His tender and newly-born little flock in Oxford with heavenly strength from above, and with the anointing of the Spirit, that they might patiently bear the heavy cross of Christ, which was presently, as he well saw, to be laid upon them, and that their young, weak backs might be strengthened to meet the burden and the cruel yoke. Calmed and soothed by prayer, for others as much as for himself, Dalaber rose, and carefully wrapped together Garret's gown and hood with the monk's book, and hid them carefully beneath his bedding, that none entering the room might see them; and then he robed himself and started forth to warn the brethren of what had happened, for were there any who desired to flee the coming tempest, they must needs lose no more time. He walked rapidly towards the city gate, when he was met by Arthur Cole, who came hastily towards him, a look of great anxiety and vexation on his face. With him was a student of his own college, Eden by name, one of the little band of brethren; and as soon as he saw Dalaber he quickly ran forward. "We are undone!" he exclaimed. "They have taken Master Garret. He is in prison in Lincoln College. He is to be strictly examined after evensong today. If he refuse to give up the names of all to whom he has sold his books, and who have listened to his teachings, they declare he will be sent to the Tower to be examined by the rack." The young lad was quivering all over in excitement and fear. Arthur, coming up at the same minute, spoke almost fiercely. "What possessed the man to return to Oxford, once he was safe away? It seems he came back after dark last night, and was seen and followed and reported on. They found him at midnight, and will use sharp methods with him. I have no love for Garret and his firebrand doctrines; but he will be the means of betraying the whole brotherhood, an he be not steadfast; and who knows how such an one will meet the trials which will beset him? If he should betray thee, Dalaber, or our good master and friend John Clarke, I should find it hard indeed to forgive him." "He will betray none--" began Dalaber; but Cole broke in with a scornful snort. "I would not answer for him. He is a strange mixture of strength and weakness, devotion, constancy, and nervous fear. He--" "He will not betray any, for he is no longer a prisoner. He has escaped from the commissary's house. He is miles away from Oxford by this time. Heaven send he quickly escape beyond the seas!" Dalaber then related what had passed during the afternoon; and Eden, with great joy, volunteered to take the news to some of the brethren, who were suffering great anxiety on his behalf. As for Dalaber himself, he desired above all things to see and speak with Clarke; and Arthur being of the same mind, they proceeded arm in arm along the street in the direction of St. Frideswyde, where evensong would soon be in course of proceeding. "It seems to me, friend Anthony," spoke Arthur gravely, "that if Master Garret has escaped, you are the person most in peril now. If that young man betrays that he fled to you in your lodging in Gloucester College, they will not be long in calling upon you to answer to them for it." "I trust I shall be ready to do so," answered Dalaber, with grave steadfastness. Arthur looked at him with a mixture of admiration and uneasiness. He hesitated awhile, and then said: "What think you of an instant flight? I would help you with the best will in the world. There is my house at Poghley open to you. There is an excellent hiding place there." Again Dalaber hesitated just for a moment; but this time the hesitation lasted scarce more. "Master Garret desired that I should fly with him, but I refused. It came to me that I have been set here, and here will I remain. It may be that the Lord has a testimony for us to deliver. I am ready to leave myself in His hands." Arthur looked thoughtfully at him. "I will do what I can for you, Dalaber; you may be certain of that. But it may not be much." "There is one thing you can do," cried the other quickly, with a lightening of the eyes. "You can tell Freda all the tale, and ask her prayers for me. Now that I am like to be a suspected person, I will no more go to her. But tell her that, come what may, my heart will ever be hers, and that I will seek to remember her words to me. I will strive to be faithful unto death." "I will tell her," answered Arthur, not unmoved. "But we will not think or speak of death. Whatever may be done elsewhere, we men at Oxford have always set our faces against any bitter persecution for conscience' sake. Students are sent here to read, and study, and think; and if here and there be some whose speculations have led them somewhat astray, I doubt not that, when the consensus of opinion is taken, the greater number will be for using mild and gentle methods with them. Only be not too stiff necked, good Anthony. Do not fall into the delusion of thinking that none can be true Christians save your brethren. Bear an open mind as well as a bold front, and I doubt not we shall weather this storm without great hurt or loss." "We?" questioned Dalaber, with a slight smile. "You are not one of us, Arthur, though you show yourself the kindest of friends, and that in the days of adversity rather than of prosperity, for which the Lord will reward you." "I spoke the 'we' in the sense of another brotherhood, Anthony," said the other, with a slightly heightened colour; "for thou art the plighted husband of Frideswyde Langton, whilst I hope soon to win the troth plight of the beauteous Magdalen. Then shall we be brothers, thou and I, and I will play a brother's part by thee now if thou art in danger." The two comrades clasped hands. Dalaber had long known that his friend was paying court to Magdalen, though he did not know how far that suit had progressed. But evidently Arthur did not think the time far distant when he might look upon her as his own, and his friend rejoiced with him. Evensong at St. Frideswyde had already begun before the two friends reached the chapel, so they did not go in, but stood at the choir door, from whence they could see the dean and canons in their robes, and hear the singing, in which Dalaber had so often joined; but there was little of song in his heart just now--only a sense of coming woe and peril. They had scarce been there a few minutes before they beheld Dr. Cottisford coming hastily towards the place, bareheaded, and with a face pale and disturbed, so that Dalaber caught Arthur by the arm and whispered: "Sure, he hath discovered the escape of Master Garret!" The young men drew back behind a buttress to let him pass, and he was too disturbed in mind to mark them. They looked after him as he went up the church, and saw him go to the dean and enter into a whispered colloquy with him. Then both came forth again, looking greatly disturbed; and at that moment up came Dr. London, the Warden of New College, all out of breath with his hurry, so that Arthur whispered from his nook of concealment to Dalaber: "He hath the air of a hungry lion ravening after his prey." The three then stood together talking in excited fashion. "You are to blame, sir, much to blame! How came you to leave him for so many hours unguarded, and only one bolt to the door? These men are as artful as the devil their master. It may be that he gives them powers--" "Tush!" answered Dr. Cottisford angrily; "he got out by his own craft. I had thought that fasting and loneliness would be a profitable discipline for him. But I bid my servants keep an eye to the outer doors, which they omitted to do." "You have done wrong, very wrong. I know not what the cardinal will say," spoke the dean of the college, thrusting out his lips and looking very wise. "It was his command that this pestilent fellow should be taken; and when he hears that he was laid by the heels, and then escaped, being so carelessly guarded, I know not what he will say. You will have to answer for it, Dr. Cottisford. The cardinal's anger is not good to brook." Tears of mortification and anger stood in the eyes of the commissary. He felt that fate had been very unkind to him. "He cannot have got far. He shall be taken. We will haste to send servants and spies everywhere abroad. He got out in full daylight. He must have been seen. We shall get upon his tracks, and then we will hunt him down as bloodhounds hunt their quarry. He shall not escape us long, and then shall he answer for his sins. He will not find that he bath profited aught by the trouble he hath given us." The voices died away in the distance, and the two young men came slowly forth, looking gravely into each other's eyes. "Will they indeed take him?" spoke Dalaber beneath his breath. "They will try, and they will be close on his heels; yet men have escaped such odds before this. But here comes Master Clarke. Heaven be praised that they have not spoken of him in this matter. Perchance the hunt after Garret will divert their minds from the question they have raised about the lectures and readings in his room." Clarke greeted his friends with a smile, but saw that they were troubled; and when they reached his room and told the tale, his own face was serious. They talked awhile together, and then he prayed with them earnestly, for Arthur would not be excluded from joining in this exercise. He prayed that if trial and trouble overtook them, they might have needful strength and faith to meet it; might have grace to follow the Lord's injunction to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves; and might never be tempted to think themselves forgotten or forsaken of the Lord, even though the clouds might hang dark in the sky, and the tempest rage long and furiously about them. After Dalaber had left Clarke's presence, refreshed and strengthened, and had parted from Arthur, who was going back to his own rooms at Magdalen, promising to keep a sharp outlook on all that passed, and do anything he could for his comrades, he went direct to Corpus Christi, where his friends Diet and Udel were generally to be found at this hour; and not only were they in their chamber, but Eden and Fitzjames and several others of the brethren were gathered together in great anxiety, having heard first of the arrest and then of the escape of Garret, and not knowing what to believe in the matter without further testimony. Dalaber's story was listened to, with breathless interest. The escape of Garret was assured thereby, but there was no knowing when he might be captured. In any case Dalaber's position seemed full of peril. But he expressed no fear. "Let them take me if they will," he said; "I will betray none other. Let them do to me what they will; the Lord will give me strength. Have no fear, my friends; I will not betray you. And I trow that there be few, save Master Garret and myself, who could give all the names of the brotherhood, even were they willing." They crowded round him and pressed his hands. Some shed tears, for they all loved the warm-hearted and impetuous Dalaber, and knew that at any moment now he might be arrested. "At least you shall not go back to Gloucester College tonight," spoke Fitzjames eagerly. "They shall not take you there, like a rat in a trap. Come to your old lodging for the night. It may be we shall have thought out a plan by the morning. We will not let you go without a struggle, Anthony. Come with me as of old, and we will watch what betides in the city." Dalaber consented, with a smile, to the entreaties of his friends. He knew that it would make little difference whether he were taken in one place or the other; but he loved Fitzjames, and was ready to go with him. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," he said to himself, whilst his friends escorted him in a body to his old lodging, and left him there with every expression of affection and good will. "I shall not be without comfort in the days to come," said Anthony, "be they never so dark and drear." Chapter XI: Evil Tidings "Anthony Dalaber taken!" spoke Freda, and her face grew white to the lips. "Oh, speak, good sir; what will they do to him?" The monk who stood before the sisters, his cowl drawn over his face, his hands folded in his sleeves, took up the word again, which Freda's impulsive ejaculation had interrupted. "He is not as yet taken prisoner, but he has been commanded to appear before the prior, and I fear me that is but the first step. He begged of me to come and tell you, and give you that packet," and his eyes rested upon a small parcel which Freda held tightly between her two hands; "so here am I to do his bidding, without staying to know what will befall him at the prior's hands. He went to answer the summons as I came forth hither." The monk had found the sisters in their garden, having followed Dalaber's directions, and entered by the little door which he himself had so ofttimes used. At this hour the sisters were wont, in fine weather, to take an hour's exercise up and down the pleasant sheltered walk beneath the wall. Here the monk had found them, and had presented to Freda a small packet which contained Dalaber's New Testament, of which he knew full well he would speedily be deprived, and a few jewels and valuables which he possessed and desired to make over to her. "Tell us all that has befallen him!" cried Freda breathlessly. So far all she had taken in was that Dalaber had been summoned before the prior, but she felt that more lay behind. The monk was visibly troubled, and she knew him to be Anthony's friend. He stood before them with downcast mien and told his tale. "It was yesterday in the afternoon that Anthony Dalaber came to me and borrowed a book. I lent it to him, bidding him be careful of it; and he locked himself into his room, whilst I went my way to sundry tasks I had to perform, and then on to vespers and compline. When I returned, Dalaber's chamber door was shut and locked. I went to mine own room, and presently the young man, a servant of the college, came in to perform some small duty, and he looked at me very cunningly, and asked whether I knew that Master Thomas Garret had been inquiring for me and for Master Dalaber. Having been made aware that he had already fled from Oxford, I gave no credence to the young man's words, and this seemed to anger him, for he told me plainly that Master Garret had come to the college, and had knocked many times at my door in my absence, and then coming away, had asked where Dalaber lived; and being directed to his door by this same youth, he had knocked till he obtained entrance, and had been shut up with him a great while. "I was in doubt what to believe, and so said nothing; but later in the evening I was sent for of the prior, who asked me if I had ever had speech with Master Garret, and knew aught of him. I told him I had not seen him this many a day, nor knew that he was in Oxford, save that the servant had spoken of his having been there this very day, which I scarce believed. Having questioned me closely, he let me go, only warning me to have no dealings in the future with so pestilent a fellow. He saw that I was ignorant of his present whereabouts, and suffered me to depart with only a rebuke. But I left in fear and trembling for Anthony Dalaber, if indeed it should be true what the fellow had said that Master Garret had been shut up with him. "I went many times to his room that evening, and sat up far into the night; but still he did not come, and I was in great fear that he might have been taken prisoner. I resolved not to seek my bed, but to pass the night in fasting and prayer on his account; and I was thus occupied when there was a sound of commotion nigh at hand, and I heard steps and voices and the sound of blows upon the door of Dalaber's chamber. I opened mine own door cautiously, having extinguished my rush light, and I saw that the proctors were there, together with the prior and various servants of the college. Not being able to obtain any reply to their summons, they had up a man with a great bunch of keys; and after some ado they forced open the door, and forthwith entered the chamber. It was empty of its occupant; but they were by no means satisfied with that, and made great search everywhere, tossing everything about in the greatest confusion, ransacking his chest and flinging his clothes about hither and thither, examining every chink and cranny, and well-nigh pulling the bed to pieces in hopes of making some discovery. And here they did find somewhat, for out tumbled a small bundle that had been hid in the bedclothes. There was the book which I had lent him--Lambert on St. Luke--and a gown and hood, which might have been his own; but so soon as the young man of whom I have spoken before saw them, he straightway vowed and declared that it was these things which Master Garret had been wearing when he visited Anthony Dalaber, and showed them a rent in the shoulder, which he said he had particularly observed when showing the priest the way. He had not known till Dalaber opened his door who the visitor was, but as soon as he knew he went to inform the proctors; and the chiefest marvel to me is that they tarried so long before visiting Dalaber's chamber. But belike they made hue and cry after Garret first. Heaven have mercy upon him if they get him into their hands!" "But Anthony, Anthony!" cried Freda, with a quick catch in her breath--"I pray you tell me of him." "Verily I will. When they had finished their search, and had got evidence that Master Garret had been there, they came across to my chamber and asked me what I knew concerning Dalaber. I did answer that I knew nothing, but supposed he would shortly return. I did not believe he had been to his room all night; which thing they did not seem to believe, and kept gazing all around my room, as though wondering whether I were not hiding him there. However, as my bare chamber offered no concealment even for a cat, they had to be satisfied at last; and they went away, only charging me straitly that so soon as Dalaber should return, I must tell him to repair him instantly to the prior, who would have speech of him. This I promised to do, though with a woeful heart, for I felt that evil was meant him, and I love him right well." "Yes, yes; and what followed next?" "Marry, this--that so soon as ever the college gates were open in the morning, at five o'clock, in comes Anthony Dalaber himself, his shoes and hosen all stained with mud, his face pale as though with watching and anxious thought, though his aspect was calm and resolute; and he came up the stairs without seeing me, and began to unlock his door. But the lock had been twisted and bent, and he was still struggling with it when I came out to him and began to tell him what had happened. He got his door opened, and the sight he saw before his eyes confirmed my tale, and he sat down and listened to all I had to say, very quietly, and without flinching. He told me that he and certain of the brethren had passed the night together, in his old lodging at St. Alban Hall, in prayer for grace and guidance; but that, though they had prayed of him to fly, it had not seemed good to him to do so; and that he had resolved to return immediately to his own lodging, and to await there whatever might befall him." "My own brave, steadfast Anthony!" spoke Freda beneath her breath, her eyes shining like stars, but with a glint of tears behind their brightness. "So I gave to him the prior's message, and he said he would lose no time in going to see him. But he knew not when or whether he might ever return to this place. So he made up that little parcel, and he gave it into my hands; and in so doing he begged of me that when eight o'clock had sounded from the steeples, I would myself enter yonder door and present it to one of the two maidens I should find walking here, and say that it was a parting gift from Anthony Dalaber, who was like to be taken of his foes." The tears suddenly welled over and flowed down Freda's cheeks. It was Magdalen who found strength to ask: "What will they do to him? Of what offence can they find him guilty? All the world speak well of him." Robert Ferrar slowly shook his head, but made no reply; indeed, none could say what would befall next. When a man stood in peril of a charge of heresy his friends could not bear to ask too closely what might be his ultimate fate. Freda clasped her sister's hands hard as the monk slowly turned to go. "Peace be with you! May the Lord help and sustain you," he said, in his low, earnest voice, "and give to us all the strength to bear the cross which He may see good to lay upon us!" He paced with bent head along the walk, and vanished through the door by which he had come. Freda, with trembling hands, tore open the packet she had all this while been holding tightly clasped between them, and when she saw its contents the tears gushed forth. She sank down upon the seat in the arbour, and the little, well-worn book fell open at a place where the page had been turned down. It was that chapter in St. Matthew which Anthony had been reading after the departure of Garret, and the sisters devoured the words together, both deeply moved. "O Magda, Magda, how can I bear it?" cried Freda, laying her head upon her sister's shoulder; "I had thought to be so brave, so steadfast. We have spoken of it, and I had thought that in a righteous cause it would not be hard to suffer. And, in sooth, I verily believe I could suffer mine own self. But I cannot bear for him to be alone--for him to have so much laid upon him. O my Anthony! my Anthony!" "And it is so little they ask, so little they hold; and our beloved Master Clarke maintains that the true Catholic Church has forbidden naught that they would fain see restored--only the liberty to read and study the living Word for themselves. They are not rebels; they are not heretics. They love the church, and they are her true sons. Only they maintain that some errors have crept in of man's devising, for which no Scripture warrant can be found; and they know that corruption hath entered even into the sanctuary, and they would fain see it cleansed. Is that sin? Is that heresy? Then methinks our Lord must needs have been a heretic and sinner (if it be not blasphemy to say it), for He would not suffer His Father's house to be polluted nor made a den of thieves. And what else do these godly men ask now than that the Christian Church shall be purified and cleansed of merchandise and barter, and become again a holy house of prayer, undisturbed by any such things?" Magdalen had been one of those who had most earnestly drunk in the teachings of such men as Clarke, who combined an intense and devoted love of Holy Church with an ardent desire after a purer spiritual administration. His words to her soul were as words of life; and one of the things which had first attracted her to Arthur Cole, and become a bond of sympathy between them, was the deep admiration and enthusiasm that he always expressed with regard to Clarke and his doctrine and preaching. Freda had gone somewhat farther along the road which Anthony was pursuing--the road which led eventually to a greater upheaval and disruption than at that day any, save the most ardent foreign reformers, dreamed of. Even Garret and Dalaber and their companions were as yet ignorant of the inevitable result of their teaching and convictions. It seemed to them at this time that such a very little would satisfy them, that the church could not seriously excommunicate them or persecute them for what they believed. And yet--and yet--there was a sense of coming tempest in the very air. And when the sisters, having recovered their self-control, went indoors to tell their tale to their father, they saw that he was much disturbed, and that he considered Anthony's position as very precarious. Just as they were discussing the matter in all its bearings, and anxiously wondering when it would be possible to obtain further news, there was a short summons at the door, and Arthur Cole entered, with a pale and anxious face. Evidently he saw from their faces that something had reached them, and his first question was: "Have you heard the news?" "That Anthony Dalaber has been summoned before the prior? Yes; his friend Ferrar brought us that news not long since. But beyond that we know nothing. Tell us, good Arthur, what is like to befall from that. Is he in any great peril?" "I scarce know myself; but I fear, I fear. They are in a great rage at the escape of Garret; and since he is not to be found, they have laid hands upon Dalaber, and he is even now at Lincoln College, where he is to be examined by the commissary and others, with what result cannot yet be known." "Then he did not go before the prior?" "Yes; he did so at the first. News was hastily brought to me by a clerk from Gloucester College, and I hurried thither in time to hear much that passed at the prior's court. I have friends amongst the fellows and monks. I stood just within the door and heard all. The prior asked him of Garret's visit the day before, and he confessed the latter had been with him, but had quickly gone forth again. He was asked whither he had gone, and answered that he had spoken of Woodstock, where he had a friend amongst the keepers who had promised him a piece of venison for Shrovetide." "Was that true?" asked Freda, who was listening with wide and eager eyes. Arthur smiled slightly. "Most like it was a witty invention to put the bloodhounds off the scent, since Dalaber would scarce deliver over his friend into the hands of his bitter foes." "Is it right to speak a lie even in a good cause?" asked the girl, seeming to address no particular person, but to be thinking aloud. "A nice question in ethics, sweet mistress," spoke Arthur, with a smile; "and it may be there are some (I can believe that Master Clarke would be one) who would die sooner than utter a falsehood. But for my part I hold that, as a man may take life or do some grievous bodily hurt to one who attacks him, and if he act in self defence no blame may attach to him, though at other times such a deed would be sin, so a man may speak a false word (at other times a sin) to save the life of his friend, and keep him out of the hands of those who would do him grievous bodily hurt, and perhaps put him to a cruel death. At least our own priests will assoil us for such sins. They suffer us to do evil that good may come--if not openly preaching the doctrine, yet by implication. I hold that no blame attaches to Anthony for speaking an untruth to save his friend." Freda could not blame him either, though she held the truth in high esteem. It was a cruel predicament in which to be placed, and Anthony was ever impulsive in his thoughts and words. Arthur took up his story again. "The prior gave orders that search should instantly be made in the direction of Woodstock; and then, turning once more to Dalaber, he caught sight of the signet ring he always wore upon his hand, and asked him what it was. Dalaber took it off and gave it him to look at. You doubtless have noted the ring--a piece of jasper, with the letters A. D. graven upon it. The prior looked at it with covetous eyes, and finally put it on his finger. "Sure, this must be mine own signet ring," he said, with a sinister smile, "for it hath mine own initials upon it--A for Anthony, and D for Dunstan." "The robber!" ejaculated Freda hotly. "What said Anthony to that?" "He said naught. He had other matters to think of than the loss of his ring. But, in sooth, there was no time for more to be spoken, for at that moment up came the beadle and other servants of the commissary, desiring that Anthony Dalaber should be brought at once before him in Lincoln College; and forthwith he was taken away, and I could only just whisper to him as he passed me by that I would see you and tell you all that happened." Silence fell upon the little group as Arthur ended his narrative. All hearts were heavy, and they were not made less so by his next words. "And I fear me greatly that Dalaber is not the only one who is in peril in Oxford this day. I fear me much that it will not be long before they lay hands upon Master Clarke." Dismay and sorrow were in all faces. Dr. Langton looked intently at the speaker, as though to ask more, and Arthur answered the unspoken question. "I think I have told you how that the cardinal has been informed that the very men he introduced into Oxford have been foremost in the spread of those doctrines which are begun to be called heresy, though not one word has Master Clarke ever spoken for which he cannot find confirmation in the words of Holy Writ and in the pure teachings of the primitive church. But having heard this, the cardinal is much disturbed, and hath ordered a very close and strict investigation to be made. I know not exactly yet what these words may mean to us; but at no moment should I be surprised to hear that Clarke and others of like mind with himself had been suspended from teaching, if not arrested and accused as heretics." "Oh, it is too much! it is too much!" cried Magdalen, whose face had turned deadly pale. She was much agitated, and her wonted calm had deserted her. Freda, who was standing at the window, suddenly exclaimed that Master Radley was coming hastily across the meadow path towards them, and some instinct seemed to warn them all that he was the bearer of heavy tidings. They could not await his coming, but went downstairs and out into the garden, where they met him breathless with his speed. "Master Clarke is taken!" he cried, emotion and haste making his words barely audible. "He was warned last night of coming peril. The place was full of rumours, and it was known that Garret had been back and had escaped again. We counselled him to fly, but he refused. This morning the proctors sent for him, and he hath not returned. I am expecting a visit every moment to my chambers. They may or may not find the books concealed there; but it is known that I have hidden Master Garret. I shall not escape their malice. For myself I care little; but for that saint upon earth, John Clarke--oh, a church that can call him heretic and outcast must be corrupt to the very core!" "Have a care, my friend, have a care," spoke Arthur, with a quick look round. "I would I could teach you zealous men a little of the wisdom of the serpent. You are careful one for the other, yet for your own selves ye seem to have no thought. But your tidings is evil indeed. So Master Clarke is to be another victim?" "Alas! I fear me so. All the college is talking of it. Our dean, after matins this morning, spoke very grave words, and said how it was grieving him to the quick that this godly college, built and endowed by the holy cardinal himself, should be regarded as a centre of growing heresy, and how that he hoped by God's grace to purge and cleanse it. Master Clarke was not in his stall, and when we came out we heard that he had been taken. They think that others will shortly follow. Master Clarke and Anthony Dalaber are in their hands, and will be straitly examined. If they tell all that will be asked of them, many of us may be in prison ere long; if not, it may take time to hunt the victims down; but I trow they will be snared and taken at last." "Anthony will never betray his friends," spoke Freda beneath her breath, a wave of colour flooding her face. Magdalen had turned away, and was pacing up and down in a secluded walk. Arthur followed and came up with her, looking into her face, which was wet with tears. He took her hand, and she did not repulse him. She felt the need of help and sympathy. She was deeply troubled, and she knew that he was also. "It will be a heavy blow to many of us, Mistress Magdalen, if aught befall our father and friend, Master Clarke." "I feel as though I could not bear it," she answered, with a sob. "His words were as words of life to me." "And to me also," answered Arthur gravely, "even though I do not call myself, as he did, one of this new brotherhood. But I hold him to be a holy man of God, with whom was pure and sound doctrine. If harm befall him, Oxford will suffer the stain of an indelible disgrace." "Can nothing be done?" cried Magdalen earnestly. "Oh, can we do nothing? You are rich, you are powerful, you have many friends in high places--can you do nothing?" "Whatever I can do, I will do," answered Arthur gravely. "I fear me in a crisis like this it will be little; and yet I will leave no stone unturned. I will even see the cardinal himself if I can achieve it, and if his life or safety are in peril. I would risk much for him and for Dalaber, for both are dear to me. Believe me, I will do all that in me lies; but I fear I cannot promise success. I know not what is intended, but I feel that there is much abroad of hatred and enmity against those who are branded with the name of heretic." "It is so hard, so hard," spoke Magdalen again, "when they ask so little--just the liberty of thought and study, and only such things as the Word of God enjoins." Arthur slightly shook his head. He knew well what the answer of the opposing party would be to such an argument; but he was in no mood for controversy, least of all with Magdalen. He stopped as they reached the end of the walk, and she paused instinctively. He possessed himself of both her hands, and she did not draw them away. "Magdalen," he said gently, "when Dalaber spoke to me of the peril that threatened him, he said that he regarded me almost as a brother, in that he was the betrothed of Freda, and he knew how that I did love thee as mine own life. Sweetheart, it scarce seems a moment in which to speak of love and joy; but let me ask at least the right to be near thee and to comfort thee in the hour of darkness and trouble. Those who are in peril are dear to us both. I will do all that one man can compass on their behalf. But let me have one word of hope and comfort ere I leave thee. Say, my beloved--dost thou, canst thou, love me?" She hesitated a little, and then her head bent lower till it rested for a moment upon his shoulder. His arm was round her, and he drew her towards himself. "I think I have loved thee a great while now, Arthur," she answered, and felt his lips upon her brow and hair. So when he walked away an hour later, although his heart was clouded by anxiety and doubt, there was a deep joy and triumph in his soul, and the sun seemed to shine with a golden radiance, despite the heavy clouds hanging in the sky. Chapter XII: "Brought Before Governors" The news brought by Arthur Cole to the house by the bridge was true enough. Anthony Dalaber had scarce answered the questions put to him by the prior of students at Gloucester College before he was called to answer more interrogatories before other potentates of the university. He was bidden to follow the beadle and servants who had come for him without further ado, and had not so much as time to go to his room to make any change of shoes or hosen, which were bedaubed with mud, from his having come through the wet streets and miry roads to Gloucester College that morning at sunrise. Having been told by the monk that the prior's summons was urgent, he had presented himself before him instantly; and now he was hurried off in the direction of Lincoln College, with the soil and dishevelment of his sleepless night yet upon him. Matins were evidently just over, and the students had left the chapel, but to his surprise Dalaber was pushed into that place by his conductors; and there, beside the altar, he saw Dr. Cottisford in close confabulation with Dr. Higdon, the Dean of Cardinal College, and Dr. London, the Warden of New College. These three men were noted throughout the university for their hatred of heresy in any form, and their abhorrence of the movement which had begun to show itself amongst the students and masters. Dalaber felt a certain sinking of spirit as he saw their stern faces, and noted their gestures and the vehemence of their discourse. He felt it boded no good to him, and he lifted his soul in silent prayer for help and strength and wisdom. Then they saw his approach, regarding him with lowering and wrathful glances; and at a sign from them one of the servants fetched chairs in which they seated themselves just without the choir, and the prisoner stood before them. A man in the garb of a notary fetched a small table, with ink horn and parchment, as though to make notes of the answers of the accused. "Your name is Anthony Dalaber," spoke the commissary sternly; "what is your age and standing in the university?" Dalaber explained in a few words what was asked of him, and answered some quick questions as to his removal from hall to college without betraying any confusion or hesitation. "What made you desire to study the law rather than continue in the study of theology and divinity?" "I had reached the conclusion that I was not fitted for the life of a priest," answered Dalaber; "there were too many questions that troubled and perplexed me. In the study of the law I was free from these; therefore I resolved that that should be my vocation." Dr. Cottisford frowned heavily. "What need have you young men to trouble yourselves with vexed questions? I have heard of you, Anthony Dalaber, and it is no good report that hath been brought to me. You have been known to consort this long while with that pestilent heretic, Thomas Garret. He has lodged with you many a time, has lain concealed in your chamber at St. Alban Hall, and has left in your charge a quantity of his pernicious books, which doubtless you have assisted him to distribute amongst other students, so spreading the poison of heresy in our godly and obedient university, and seeking to turn it into a hotbed of error and sin." Dalaber made no response, but his heart beat thick and fast. It seemed as though all were indeed known. "Speak!" thundered Dr. London, now breaking in with no small fury; "what have you to say to such a charge?" "I have known Master Garret, it is true," answered Dalaber, picking his words carefully. "He is an ordained priest in the church. He is a godly man--" "Peace!" roared the angry warden; "we are not here to bandy words with you, Anthony Dalaber. We know what Thomas Garret is, and so do you. Have a care how you provoke us. He was known to be with you the night that he escaped first from Oxford. He is known to have been in your chamber yesterday, ere he slipped away for the second time. Do you dare to deny it?" Dalaber looked with quiet firmness into the angry faces that confronted him. "Master Garret visited me yesterday," he answered quietly, "and went forth from my chamber after a short while, when we had offered prayer and supplication there together." "And whither went he?" "I know not, unless to Woodstock, where he spoke of having a friend among the keepers," answered Dalaber, repeating the fiction he had spoken to the prior. "Tush!" cried the commissary angrily; "right well do you know that you went with him, and kept company with him through the night. Your shoes and your hosen show as much. You have been companying with him for many a mile upon the way. You have not been in bed all night. We were in your room before daybreak, and you were not there." "I abode last night with Master Fitzjames, my former comrade, in our old lodging at St. Alban Hall," answered Dalaber readily, "and that can be proven of many witnesses. Neither did I go forth with Master Garret when he left. I came to St. Frideswyde for evensong, and there I saw you, Mr. Commissary, and you, Dr. London, enter to speak with the dean. And I did well guess that you had come to tell him of the escape of Master Garret, of which he had spoken with me a short while before." It was perhaps not a very politic speech on Dalaber's part. The three men turned angry and threatening glances upon him. "You knew that that pestilent man was being sought for, and had escaped out of our hands, and you assisted him to further flight, and told nothing of what had chanced. Do you know the penalty which is attached to such misdemeanors, Anthony Dalaber?" He made no answer. He knew himself to be in their power; but he resolved not to commit himself or to betray others by any rashness, whereunto by nature he was somewhat prone. The three judges conferred together for a brief while, and then ordered that a Mass book should be brought, and bade Dalaber lay his hand upon it and swear to answer truthfully all questions put to him. "That will I not do," he answered, "for I will not speak of those matters which concern other men. And as for myself, it is abundantly plain that you know already all that there is to be spoken of mine own affairs." A smile passed over Dr. Higdon's face. He was the least severe of the three men, and something in Dalaber's bold bearing touched a sympathetic chord in his heart. "Then, friend Anthony, why should you fear to be sworn? I pray you, show not yourself disobedient and contumacious, lest you bring discredit and trouble upon yourself which otherwise you may escape. It is not our wish to deal harshly with any man; but we would fain purge our godly colleges from the taint of deadly sin. If you are not guilty of such sin in your own soul, have no fear. It is a guilty conscience that makes men fear to lay hands upon the holy Book and take the name of the Most High upon their lips." This specious but rather vague reasoning had its effect upon Anthony; and even more did the kindliness with which the words were spoken prevail with him, so that he consented to swear to speak the truth, though in his heart he resolved that he would only answer for himself, and that nothing which might incriminate others should pass his lips. A long interrogatory now followed, in which he had much ado to fence and parry many of the questions. He soon learned, to his deep grief and sorrow of heart, that John Clarke was under suspicion, if not already arrested under the charge of heresy. He admitted to have been much in his company, and to have attended his public lectures, his public preachings, and those meetings in his rooms for reading, meditation, and discussion, which had long been going on. These were well known by this time to the authorities; but only since the cardinal's letter had stirred up suspicion and fear had there been any distrust aroused as to the nature of such meetings. A whisper here, a hint there, had lately gone abroad, and now Anthony was closely questioned as to the nature of the doctrines discussed, and the readings which had taken place. He answered that no word had ever passed Master Clarke's lips that was not godly, pious, and full of the Holy Ghost. He heeded not the angry looks of Dr. London and the commissary, but addressed himself to Dr. Higdon, who was evidently wishful to think as well as possible of one of the leading canons of his own college. Anthony strenuously denied that Clarke had had any hand in the distribution of forbidden books or translations of the Scriptures. When they read the Bible together, it was read both in the original and in the vulgar tongue, so that the two versions might be carefully studied together; and Dalaber maintained with spirit and success the arguments learned from Clarke that the Catholic Church in this land had never forbidden such reading and study of God's Word. Dr. Higdon might have been satisfied, and even spoke a few words in favour of letting the young man go to his lodgings, only binding him over to appear when summoned in the future. But the other two, having lost Garret, were resolved to make the most of his accomplice; and they argued that what Master Clarke had or had not said was not the main point at issue. He might or might not be the dangerous heretic some asserted. What they maintained was that Dalaber had been associated with Garret in a hundred ways, and that a great bale of forbidden books had been discovered in a secret hiding place just outside his deserted chamber at St. Alban Hall; and that, until he had given some better account of himself and his connection with these matters, he should certainly not be allowed to depart. Moreover, they desired to know the names of other students who had attended Master Clarke's readings and discussions. These were known to have taken place; but as they were mostly held in the evening after dark, it was not so easy to discover who attended them, and Dalaber was required to give such names as he could remember. But here he was resolutely silent, and this so obstinately that he irritated his questioners to the extreme, even Dr. Higdon losing patience with him at the last. Dalaber's manner was bold, and to them aggressive. The poor youth at heart felt fearful enough as he marked the anger his obstinacy had aroused; but he was resolved not to show fear, and not to betray others. He admitted freely that he had helped Garret in the distribution of the forbidden books. Denial would have been useless, even could he have brought himself to take a lie upon his lips and perjure himself; but he absolutely refused to give the names of any persons to whom the books had been given or sold, and this refusal evoked a great deal of anger and some rather terrible threats. "Young man," said Dr. London sternly, "do you know what can and may well be done to you if you remain thus obstinate, and refuse the information which we, as the guardians of the university, do justly demand of you?" "I am in your power," answered Dalaber; "you can do with me what you will." "We can do but little," answered Dr. London. "We can do little but keep you safe in ward--safer than Master Garret was kept; and that shall be my task. But what we can do later is to send you to the Tower of London, where they will examine you by the rack, and thrust you into the little-ease to meditate of your obstinacy; and then will you desire that you had spoken without such harsh pressure, and had listened to the words of counsel and warning given you by those who have your welfare at heart. If once you are handed over to the secular arm, there is no knowing what the end may be. Therefore take heed and be not so stubborn." They watched his face closely as these terrible threats were made; and Anthony, aware of their scrutiny, braced himself to meet it, and to show no signs of any sinking at heart. And indeed the very imminence of the threatened peril seemed to act as a tonic upon his nerves, and he felt something of the strengthening power which has been promised to those who suffer persecution for conscience' sake; so that at that moment there was no fear in his heart, but a conviction that God would fight for him and keep him strong in the faith. Come what might, he would not betray his friends. It was not a question of subtle doctrines, in which his understanding might become confused; it was a simple question of honour betwixt man and man, friend and friend. He had the power to betray a vast number of men who had trusted him, and nothing would induce him to do it, not even the threat of torture and death. He trusted to be able to endure both, should that be his fate. "Take him away," spoke Dr. London at last, in a voice of thunder--"take him away, and we will see him again when discipline has something tamed his spirit. And it will then be strange if we cannot wring somewhat more from him. I will see him myself at a later hour; and you, Dr. Cottisford, will have a care that he doth not escape, as Master Garret did yesterday." "I have provided against that, methinks," was the rather grim reply; and forthwith the three men rose and marched towards the chapel door, the prisoner being led after them by the servants. The commissary then led the way through various passages and up a long stair, and Dalaber gazed with interest as he passed through the door of a large upper chamber, where a strange-looking apparatus stood in one corner. It was something like the stocks set in the marketplaces of the towns, for the detention of rogues and vagrants; but the holes in this were very high up, yet scarce high enough for the hands of a man standing. "Empty your pockets, Anthony Dalaber," spoke the commissary sternly; and when Dalaber had obeyed, he quietly possessed himself of his purse, loose money, knives, and tablets, which, with the girdle he wore, were wrapped together and made into a packet. "If you are found guiltless of the charges wherewith you stand accused, you shall have them again," said Dr. Cottisford somewhat grimly; "meantime they will be safer with me." Dalaber's heart sank somewhat, for he had a few silver pieces in his purse, and had thought perchance to purchase therewith some greater favour from his jailers, whosoever they should be; but being thus robbed, he was powerless in the matter, and could only trust that they would not deal with him over harshly, since he had no means of winning favour and ease. "Set him in the stocks and leave him," spoke the commissary. "Then we shall know there can be none escape." Anthony made no resistance as he was forced to the ground and his legs firmly locked into the stocks, so that his feet were well nigh as high as his head. He uttered no complaint, and he spoke not a word of supplication, although the commissary lingered for a few moments as though to give him chance to do this; but as he remained silent and irresponsive, the latter left the room with a muttered word that sounded like an imprecation, and Dalaber heard the chamber door locked behind him as the last servant took his departure. Left thus alone in that constrained posture, the thoughts of Dalaber flew back to those words of fatherly counsel and warning spoken the previous year by his master and friend John Clarke; and half aloud did Dalaber repeat the concluding sentence of that address: "Then will ye wish ye had never known this doctrine; then will ye curse Clarke, and wish ye had never known him, because he hath brought you to all these troubles." "No, no!" cried Dalaber eagerly, as though crying aloud to one who could hear his words; "that will I never do, God helping me. Come what may, I will thank and praise Him that I have been honoured by the friendship of such a saint upon earth. I thank Him that I have learned to love and to know the Scriptures as I never could have known them but for reading them in mine own tongue, and hearing him discourse upon them. Come what may, none can take that knowledge from me. Whatever I may have to suffer, I shall ever have that treasure in mine heart. And since I am no heretic in doctrine, and believe all that the canons of the church teach, how can they treat me as one who hates and would confound her? I am no follower of Martin Luther, though I hold that he is waging war in a righteous cause. But I would see the church arise and cast forth from herself those things which defile; and more and more do her holy and pious sons agree in this, that she doth need some measure of purification, ere she can be fit to be presented to the Father as the bride of the Lamb." Dalaber was just now under the influences of Clarke rather than of Garret. It was not only fear of what was coming upon him, though that might have some share in the matter, but he had found of late more comfort in the spiritual utterances of Clarke than in the bellicose teachings of Garret. Moreover, he had not been blind to the fact that Garret's courage had ebbed very visibly under the stress of personal peril, whilst Clarke's spirit had remained calm and unshaken. Dalaber had keen sympathy with Garret, in whose temperament he recognized an affinity with his own, and whose tremors and fits of weakness and yielding he felt he might well share under like trial and temptation. Indeed, he did not deny to himself that, were he not thus fast bound, he might have attempted the escape which yesterday he had scorned. But he thought upon the words of his beloved master, and spent the long, weary hours in meditation and prayer; so that when the commissary visited him later in the day and questioned him again, although he still refused to implicate others in any charge, he spoke of his own convictions with modesty and propriety, so that the commissary began to question whether he were, after all, so black a heretic as had been painted, and promised that he should have food sent him, together with pens and paper, on which he was desired to set forth a confession of his faith. He was not, however, released from the stocks until the college was safely shut up for the night, and all gates closed. Dalaber wrote his confession of faith with great care and skill; and he trusted that he had not committed himself to any doctrine which would arouse the ire of those who would read it. Those very early reformers (to use the modern term) were in a very difficult position, in that they had very slight cause of quarrel with the church of which they called themselves true sons. Modern Protestants find it hard to believe what men like Wycliffe and Latimer taught on many cardinal points. To them it would sound like "rank papacy" now. The split between the two camps in the church has gradually widened and widened, till there seems no bridging the gap between Christian and Christian, between churchman and churchman--all being members of one Catholic Church. But it was not so in the days of Anthony Dalaber. The thought of split and schism was pain and grief to most. Luther had foreseen it, was working for it, and the leaven of his teaching was permeating this and other lands; but it had taken no great hold as yet. The church was revered and venerated of her children, and here in England the abuses rampant in so many lands were far less flagrant. England had been kept from much evil by her inherent distrust of papal supremacy. The nation had more or less combated it in all centuries. Rome's headship only received a qualified assent. Sovereigns and people had alike resented the too great exercise of the papal prerogative; and this had done much for the church in England. It seemed as though a very little would be enough to serve the purpose of these early reformers, and in the main they held the doctrines taught, and were willing and ready to obey most of the church's injunctions. A man like Anthony Dalaber, versatile and eager, easily roused to enthusiasm and passionate revolt, but as easily soothed by gentleness and kindly argument of a truly Catholic kind, was not a little perplexed in such a situation as he now found himself. It seemed to him that he would be in a far more false position as a branded heretic, debarred from the communion of the church, than as a faithful son, undergoing some penance and discipline at her hands. He spent many long and painful hours writing out his confession, seeking to make plain the condition of his mind, and proving to his own satisfaction that he was no heretic. He only claimed that men might have liberty to read for themselves in their own tongue the words of the Lord and His apostles, and judge for themselves, under reasonable direction, what these words meant. For the rest, he had little quarrel with the church, save that he thought the sale of indulgences and benefices should be stopped; and in conclusion he begged that, if he had spoken amiss, he might be corrected and reproved, but not given over as a reprobate or heretic. Perhaps, had the words of this confession been read a few days earlier, Dalaber might have escaped with no more than a reprimand and heavy penance. But unluckily for himself the bale of books last brought by Garret, hidden near to his chamber, and traced therefore direct to him, contained writings of a character more inflammatory and controversial than anything which had gone before--books which were thought full of deadly errors, and against which exception could very well be taken on many grounds, both on account of their violent tone and their many contradictions. As a matter of fact, Dalaber had hardly read any of these treatises himself. He had been otherwise occupied of late. But it was not likely that the authorities would believe any such disclaimer, or leave at large one who had meddled with what they regarded as so deadly a traffic. When Anthony's confession was brought to them, they were sitting in conclave over these books, and with a list which had been found of the names and number of works brought over and circulated by Garret. The magnitude of the traffic excited in them the utmost concern and dismay. If one half had been circulated in Oxford, there was no knowing the extent of the mischief which might follow. It was necessary that an example should be made. Already close inquiry had elicited the names of some dozen students or masters concerned. Dalaber and Clarke were accounted ringleaders, but others came in for their share of blame. By Monday night quite a dozen more arrests had been made, and Anthony Dalaber was only taken from the commissary's chamber to be thrown into prison in Oxford, with the grim threat of the Tower of London sounding in his ears. Chapter XIII: In Prison The wrath of the cardinal was greatly stirred. Thomas Garret had escaped once again. His own college had been proved to be, if not a hotbed of heresy, at least one of the centres whence dangerous doctrines had been disseminated; and amongst those who had been engaged in this unrighteous task were several of those very men whom he himself had introduced there, that they might, by their godly life and conversation, be shining lights amongst their companions. It was natural, perhaps, that Wolsey's wrath should burn somewhat fiercely, and be especially directed against the black sheep of his own college. He was too busy with public affairs to come himself to Oxford at this juncture; but he wrote many and lengthy epistles to the authorities there, and prayed them to use every means in their power of ridding the place of heresy, promising to give the matter his own earnest consideration. He had believed that heresy was for the present stamped out in London, owing to the prompt and decisive measures taken. He declared it would be far easier to tackle in the smaller town of Oxford; yet he and others who knew the two schools of thought had an inkling that the seed, once sown in the hearts of young and ardent and thinking men, would be found sprouting up and bearing fruit sometimes when least expected. However, there was no lack of zeal in executing the cardinal's commands; and Clarke, together with other canons of his college, Dalaber of Gloucester College, Udel, Diet, Radley, and even young Fitzjames, whose friendship with Dalaber was thought highly suspicious, were all cast into prison, and some of them into very close and rigorous captivity, with an unknown fate hanging over them, which could not but fill even the stoutest soul with dread and horror. The prisons of the middle ages will scarce bear detailed description in these modern days; the condition of filth and squalor of the lower cells, often almost without air, and reeking with pestilential vapours, baffles words in which to describe it. To be sure, persons in daily life were used to conditions which would now be condemned as hopelessly insanitary, and were not so susceptible and squeamish as we have since become. The ordinary state of some of the poorer students' halls in Oxford appears to us as simply disgusting; yet the thing was accepted then as a matter of course. Nevertheless, the condition of those cast into the prisons of those days was a very forlorn and terrible one, and almost more calculated to break the spirit and the constancy of the captive than any more short and sharp ordeal might do. It is scarcely to be supposed that the prisons in Oxford were superior to those in other parts of the country, and indeed the sequel to the incarceration of Clarke and his companions seems to prove the contrary. But at least, in those days, bribes to the jailers could do, in most cases, something for the amelioration of the lot of the prisoner; and Arthur Cole was possessed of a warm heart, a long purse, and a character for orthodoxy which enabled him to associate on friendly terms with suspected persons without incurring the charge of heresy. His own near relative being proctor of the university, and his own assured position there, gave him great advantages; and these he used fearlessly during the days which followed, and even sought private interviews with the three heads of houses who had the main jurisdiction in the matter of these unfortunate students. But for the first few days after Dalaber's arrest and imprisonment the excitement was too keen to admit of any mediation. The authorities were busy unravelling the "web of iniquity," making fresh discoveries of books, chiefly copies of the New Testament, circulating amongst the students, and sending to prison those who possessed them, or had been known to be connected with the Association of Christian Brothers. All that Arthur could contrive during that first week was a visit to the cell of Dalaber. He was absolutely refused admittance to Clarke, who, he heard, was lodged in a dark and foul prison, where once salt fish had been stored, and which was the most noxious of any in the building. Clarke, it seemed, had now become the object of the greatest suspicion and distrust. The Bishop of Lincoln--then the Diocesan of Oxford--had written most stringently on his account, and no inducement would prevail to gain admittance to him; nor did Arthur feel the smallest confidence that the money greedily accepted by the warder in charge would ever be expended upon the prisoner. He was very heavy-hearted about this friend of his; but he had better fortune in his attempts to gain speech with Dalaber. At the end of a week he prevailed so far as to gain a short interview with him, and was locked into the cell in some haste by the jailer, and bidden to be brief in what he had to say, since it was not long that he could be permitted to remain. Dalaber sprang up from the stone bench on which he had been sitting in a dejected attitude, and when he saw the face of his friend he uttered an exclamation of joy. "Arthur! you have come to me! Nay, but this is a true friend's part. Art sure it is safe to do so? Thou must not run thine own neck into a noose on my account. But oh, how good it is to see the face of a friend!" He seized Arthur's two hands, wringing them in a clasp that was almost pain, and his face worked with emotion. Arthur, as his eyes grew used to the darkness, was shocked at the change which a week had wrought in his friend. Dalaber's face seemed to have shrunk in size, the eyes had grown large and hollow, his colour had all faded, and he looked like a man who had passed through a sharp illness. "What have they done to you, Anthony, thus to change you?" cried Arthur, in concern. "Oh, nothing, as yet. I have but sat in the stocks two days, till they sent me for closer ward hither. After Master Garret's escape bolts and bars have not been thought secure enough out of the prison house. But every time the bolt shoots back I think that it may be the men come to take me to the Tower. They have threatened to send me thither to be racked, and afterwards to be burnt. If it must come to that, pray Heaven it come quickly. It is worse to sit here thinking and picturing it all than to know the worst has come at last." His hands were hot, and the pulses throbbed. Arthur could see the shining of the dilated eyes. Dalaber's vivid imagination had been a rather terrible companion for him during these days of darkness and solitude. The authorities had shown some shrewd knowledge of human nature when they had shut him up alone. Some of the culprits had been housed together in the prison, but Dalaber had been quite solitary. It was not so evil a cell that he occupied as some of the others. Arthur's gold had prevailed thus far. But nothing could save him from the horrors of utter loneliness, and these had told upon him more than greater hardships would have done, had they been shared with others. It had been characteristic of Dalaber all through his life that he could be more courageous and steadfast for others than for himself. "Tush, Anthony! There will be no more such talk now," answered Arthur, with a laugh. "They have found out for themselves all that you withheld. They have laid by the heels enough victims to satisfy the wrath of the bishop and the cardinal. And already there is a difference in the minds of the authorities here. In a short while they will become themselves advocates of mercy. They took a great fright at hearing of heresy in Oxford; but persecution is against the very essence of our existence as a university--persecution for what men think. Mine own uncle only last night was beginning to hope that, having laid hands upon the culprits, they would now be gently dealt with. But for the cardinal and the bishop there would be little to fear." Anthony drew a deep breath, as of relief. His clasp on Arthur's hands slowly slackened. "Then they talk not of the Tower for me, or for any?" "I have heard no word of it. I am sure such matter is not in their thoughts. And truly, if heresy be so grievous a crime, they have need to look to themselves; for those same three judges before whom ye were brought, Anthony, have committed an act of heresy for which the penalty is the same death with which they have threatened you and others." "What mean you?" asked Dalaber, with wide-open eyes. "Marry, this--that when they sought in vain for Master Garret, and were unable to find him, they went themselves to an astrologer, and bid him make a figure by the stars, that he might know whither the fugitive had fled; and he, having done so, declared that Garret had escaped in a tawny coat to the southeastward, and was like to be found in London, where doubtless some of the brotherhood have hid him. And this they have dared to tell to the cardinal and to the bishop, in no wise ashamed of their own act; whereas the church forbids expressly any such asking of portents from the stars, and it is as much heresy as any deed of which you and your comrades have been guilty." Dalaber broke into a short laugh. "By the Mass, but in sooth it is so!" he exclaimed, drawing a long breath. "Shall not the God of all the earth look down and judge between us and our foes? O Arthur, Arthur, how can one not call such men our foes? They hunt us down and would do us to death because we claim the right to love and study the Word of God, and they themselves practise the arts of necromancy, which have been from the beginning forbidden as an abomination in the sight of the Lord, and they feel no shame, but blazon abroad their evil deed. Is it not time that the church were purged of such rulers as these?" "Perchance it is; but that I hold is to be settled not by us but by God Himself. He has not shown Himself backward in the past to cleanse His sanctuary of defilement, and I trow we can leave this work to Him now, and wait His time. Patience, good Anthony, patience. That is my word of counsel to you. You will not reform the church singlehanded. The brethren will not do it; and it were only a source of weakness to rob the church of those of her sons who are longing after righteousness and truth. Be not in such haste. Be content to stand aside, and see for a while how the Lord Himself will work. You know the words of Scripture, that in quietness and confidence shall be your rest. There may be periods when quietness does more to prevail than any open strife. You have made your protest. The world will not listen yet; but the time shall come when it will be more ready. Wait in patience for that day, and seek not to run before the Lord." Such sage counsel was not unpalatable to Dalaber, who was in a less combative mood now than he had been of late. He had been threatened with excommunication, and indeed for a while there was no hope that he would be regarded as a fit person to receive the holy rite. That in itself was terrible to his devout spirit, and when any person spoke gently and kindly to him, and in a friendly and persuasive fashion, he was always eager to declare his love and loyalty for the Catholic Church. He hated the thought of being regarded as an outcast and heathen. He knew that it was so terribly unjust. He had borne witness to his own beliefs; he had made full confession of faith; he had steadfastly refused to betray any comrade. Perhaps he had now done enough for the cause of liberty and righteousness, and might step aside for a while and see what would be the result of the movement now set on foot. He asked eagerly about those who had been taken, and his eyes filled with tears when he heard that Clarke was one of the victims, and one who was likely to be treated with greater harshness than the rest. "A saint of the Lord, if ever there was one!" cried Dalaber earnestly. "Oh, if only they would let me share his confinement! What would not I give to be with him, to tend and comfort him, and listen to his godly words! I should fear nothing, were he beside me. Surely the angels of the Lord will be about his bed through the hours of darkness, and will keep him from the malice of his enemies." "I trust that he will be liberated ere long," answered Arthur gravely. "But they will never make him speak a word that his heart goes not with. And it is said that the bishop and the cardinal are much incensed against the canons of the college who have been found tampering, as they choose to call it, with the holy Catholic faith." "And Freda? How is she, and what says she of all these matters?" "She is in much trouble of spirit, but she bears it with courage, and I do all that I may to comfort her. "I have won the right to think of her as a sister now," added Arthur, with the colour rising in his face, "for Magdalen has promised to be my wife. We are betrothed, and I ask your gratulations, Anthony." These were given with great fervour, and for a brief while the two young men forgot all else in eager lovers' talk. Anthony was assured that no danger threatened the house of Dr. Langton for his friendship with Clarke and others of those now in prison. The anxiety of the authorities was simply with the students and those under their care in the university. The private opinions of private persons in the place did not concern them in any grave fashion. Already enlightened men were beginning to foresee a gradual change in ecclesiastical government in the land, though it might not be just yet. Even the most zealous of the church party, when they were shrewd and far-sighted men, and not immediately concerned with the present struggle, saw signs of an inevitable increase in light and individual liberty of thought which would bring great changes with it. To check heresy amongst the students was the duty of the authorities, in virtue of their office; but they gave themselves no concern outside the walls of their colleges. Perhaps they knew that if they attempted to hunt out all heretics, or such as might be so called, from the city, they would denude it of half its population. Indeed, having once laid hands on the offenders, and argued and talked with them, Dr. London himself, though regarded by the culprits as somewhat like a greedy lion roaring after his prey, and being, in truth, a man of whom not much good can be written, wrote to the cardinal and the Bishop of Lincoln, plainly intimating that he thought the matter might be safely hushed up, and that it would be a pity to proceed to any extremity. "These youths," he said, "have not been long conversant with Master Garret, nor have greatly perused his mischievous books; and long before Master Garret was taken, divers of them were weary of these works, and delivered them back to Dalaber. I am marvellous sorry for the young men. If they be openly called upon, although they appear not greatly infect, yet they shall never avoid slander, because my lord's grace did send for Master Garret to be taken. I suppose his Grace will know of your good lordship everything. Nothing shall be hid, I assure your good lordship, an every one of them were my brother; and I do only make this moan for these youths, for surely they be of the most towardly young men in Oxford, and as far as I do yet perceive, not greatly infect, but much to blame for reading any part of these works." It was Arthur who brought word to the Bridge House of this letter of mediation which had been sent to the bishop, who would then confer with the cardinal; and the hearts of all beat high with hope. "Surely, when he reads that, he will not deal harshly with them!" spoke Freda, her colour coming and going. "I hope not--I trust not; but for the bishop none may answer. I would rather we had the cardinal directly over us; but it is the bishop who is our lord and master." "And is he a hard and cruel man?" "He is one who has a vehement hatred of heresy, and would destroy it root and branch," answered Arthur. "It may be that even this letter will in some sort anger him, though it is meant for the best." "How anger him?" asked Magdalen. "Marry, in that he sees how godly and toward has been the walk of those youths who are now accounted guilty of heresy. Even Dr. London, who has been so busy in the matter of the arrests, now that he hath gotten them safe in ward, is forced to own that they are amongst the best and most promising of the students of the university, and therefore he himself pleads that they be not harshly dealt with. But how the bishop will like to hear that is another matter." "Yet to us it cannot but be a testimony," spoke Dr. Langton gravely, "and one which those in authority would do well to lay to heart. In the matter of wisdom, prudence, and obedience, these young men may have failed somewhat--they may have been carried away by a certain rashness and impetuosity; but that they are of a pious and godly walk and conversation, even their accusers know well. And here in Oxford, where so much brawling and license and sinfulness stalks rampant, does it not say somewhat for these new doctrines that they attract the more toward and religious, and pass the idlers and reprobates by?" So there was much eager talk and discussion throughout Oxford during the days which followed, and excitement ran high when it was known that Garret had been taken--not in London, not in a tawny coat, but near to Bristol--by a relative of Cole, one of the proctors, who had recognized him from the description sent by his relative, and was eager to be permitted to conduct him to Oxford, and hand him over to the authorities. Arthur heard all the story, and was very indignant; for though Garret was no favourite or friend of his, he was a graduate of his own college, and he felt it hard that he should have been hunted down like a mad dog, and caught just at the very moment when he was nearing the coast, and might well have hoped to make good his escape. "I am no friend to Master Wylkins for his zeal," he said, "and right glad am I that the law would not allow him to take possession of the prisoner, but had him lodged in Ilchester jail, despite his offer of five hundred pounds as surety for his safe appearance when called for. He is to be taken now to London, to the cardinal, under special writ. But I have greater hopes of his finding mercy with the cardinal than had he come here and been subject to the Bishop of Lincoln." A little later and the news came that the monk Ferrar, who had suddenly disappeared from Oxford after the arrest of Dalaber, had been taken in London in the house of one of the brethren, and that he and Garret were both in the hands of the cardinal. "What will they do to them?" questioned Freda of Arthur, who came daily to visit them with all the latest news. But that was a question none could answer as yet, though it seemed to Freda as if upon that depended all her life's future. For if these men were done to death for conscience' sake, could Dalaber, their friend and confederate, hope to escape? Arthur always spoke hopefully, but in his heart he was often sorely troubled. He came at dusk today, clad in a cloak down to his heels, and with another over his arm. He suddenly spoke aside to Freda. "Mistress Frideswyde, I sometimes fear me that if our friend Anthony get no glimpse of you in his captivity he will pine away and die. I have leave to take some few dainties to the prison, and I have below a basket in which to carry them. It is growing dusk. Wrapped in this cloak, and with a hat well drawn down over your face, you might well pass for my servant, bearing the load. I might make excuse that you should carry in the basket instead of me. Are you willing to run the risk of rebuke, and perchance some small unpleasantness at the hands of the keepers of the prison, to give this great joy to Anthony?" Freda's face was all aflame with her joy. In a moment she had, with her sister's aid, so transformed herself that none would have guessed her other than the servant of Arthur, carrying a load for his master. She was tall and slight and active, and trod with firm steps as he walked on before her in the gathering dusk. She suffered him not to bear the load even a portion of the way, but played her part of servant to perfection, and so came with a beating heart beneath the frowning gateway of the prison, where it seemed to her that some evil and terrible presence overshadowed all who entered. Arthur was known to the sentries and servants by this time. He visited several of the prisoners, and his gratuities made his visits welcome. He was conducted almost without remark towards Dalaber's cell, and no one made any comment when he said to Freda, in the commanding tone of a master: "Bring the basket along, sirrah! Follow me, and wait for me till I call. I shall not be above a few moments. It grows late." Freda had trembled as she passed the portal, but she did not tremble now. She stood where she was bidden, and Arthur, for a very short time, disappeared in the darkness, and she heard the shooting of a bolt. Then the turnkey came back and said, with a short laugh: "Thy master hath a long purse and a civil tongue. I go to do his bidding, and refresh myself with a sup of good canary. Go on thither with that basket. I shall be back in a few short minutes. He will call thee when he wants thee." The man and his lantern disappeared, and the door of the corridor was slammed to and locked. There was no hope of escape for any behind it, but at least there was entrance free to Anthony's cell. The next moment she was within the miserable place, faintly lighted by the small lantern Arthur had brought, and with a cry she flung herself upon her knees beside the pallet bed on which Dalaber lay, and called him by his name. Arthur meanwhile stood sentry without the door. "Freda, my love!" he cried, bewildered at sight of her, and with the fever mists clouding his brain. "Anthony, Anthony, thou must not die! Thou must live, and do some great good for the world in days to come. Do not die, my beloved. It would break mine heart. Live for my sake, and for God's truth. Ah, I cannot let thee go!" He partly understood and kissed her hand, gazing at her with hungry eyes. "I would fain live, if they will let me," he answered. "I will live for thy sweet sake." She bent and kissed him on the brow. But she might not tarry longer. The sound of the bolt was already heard, and she stood suddenly up, and went forward. "I will live for thy sake, sweetheart!" he whispered; and she waved her hand and hurried out, with tears gushing from her eyes. Chapter XIV: The Power Of Persuasion "I HAVE sent for you, Master Cole," spoke the Dean of Cardinal College, "because it is told to me that you, whilst yourself a blameless son of Holy Church, have strong friendship for some of those unhappy youths who are lying now in ward, accused of the deadly sin of heresy; and in particular, that you are well known to Anthony Dalaber, one of the most notable and most obstinate offenders." "That is true," answered Arthur readily. "I have had friendship this many years with Dalaber, long ere he took with these perilous courses against which I have warned him many a time and oft. Apart from his errors, which I trust are not many or great, he has ever appeared a youth of great promise, and I have believed him one to make his way to fame and honour in days to come, when once these youthful follies are overpast." "I have heard the same from others," answered Dr. Higdon; "and albeit he has never been a student here, nor come under my care, I have oftentimes come across him, in that he has sung in our chapel, and lent us the use of his tuneful voice in our services of praise. I have noted him many a time, and sometimes have had conversation with him, in the which I have been struck by his versatility and quickness of apprehension. Therefore (having in this matter certain powers from my lord cardinal in dealing with these hapless young men) I am most anxious so to work upon his spirit that he show himself not obstinate and recalcitrant. Almost all his comrades have proved their wisdom and the sincerity of their professed devotion to Holy Church by promising submission to the godly discipline and penance to be imposed upon them; but Dalaber remains mutely obstinate when spoken to, and will neither answer questions nor make any confession or recantation of error. I have therefore avoided his company, and abstained from pressing him, lest this only make him the more obstinate. I would fain use gentle and persuasive measures with all these misguided youths, and I trow that we shall thus win them, as we might never do by harshness and cruelty. Loneliness and the taste they have had--some amongst them--of prison life has done somewhat to tame them; and for the rest, we have had little trouble in persuading them to be wise and docile." "I am right glad to hear it," spoke Arthur quickly, "for I have consorted with many amongst these same men; and I know right well that they are godly and well-disposed youths, earnestly desirous to be at peace with all men, and to live in obedience to Holy Church, whom they reverence and love as their mother. They have been something led away through such men as Master Garret, who--" Arthur paused, for a curious smile had illumined Dr. Higdon's face. He looked full at Arthur as he said: "Yes, Master Garret has been much to blame in this matter; but the cardinal has so dealt with him by gentleness and kindness, and by the clear and forceful reasoning of which he is master, that Thomas Garret himself is now here in Oxford, ready to do penance for his sins of disobedience and rebellion; and to this submission do we owe that of his confederates and lesser brethren. When they heard that he had promised compliance to the cardinal's commands, they themselves yielded without much delay." "Garret here in Oxford!" exclaimed Arthur, in surprise, "and a penitent, submissive to the cardinal! Then, truly, no others should be hard to persuade. But what is it that the cardinal asks of them?" Dr. Higdon smiled that rather subtle smile which on many faces, and especially on those of ecclesiastics, tends to grow into one of craft. "He calls it an act of recantation, but we speak of it to the young men as one of obedience and reconciliation. There will be here in Oxford a solemn function, like unto what was seen not more than a year ago in London, when those who have been excommunicated, but are now about to be reconciled, will appear in procession, each carrying a fagot for the fire which will be lighted at Carfax; and having thrown their fagot, they will then throw upon the flames some of those noxious books the poison of which has done such hurt to them and others; and having thus humbled themselves to obedience, they will be received and reconciled, and on Easter Day will be readmitted to the holy ordinances from which they have been excluded all these weeks." "And Garret will take part in that act of obedience?" asked Arthur, in subdued astonishment. "He will. The cardinal has persuaded him to it. What means he has used I know not, save that all has been done by gentle suasion, and nothing wrung from him by cruelty or force. And thus it is that I would deal with Anthony Dalaber. If I know aught of his nature, he would stand like a rock against the fierce buffeting of angry waves, he would go to the rack and the stake with courage and constancy. But a friend may persuade where an adversary would only rouse to obstinacy. And therefore have I sent for you, hoping that you may have wisdom to deal with him and persuade him to this step; for if he submit not himself, I fear to think what may be his fate." "I will willingly try my powers upon him," answered Arthur, speaking slowly and with consideration. "I trow that the world will lose a true and valuable man in losing Anthony Dalaber. It will go far with him that Master Garret has consented to this act of obedience and submission. But there is one other of whom he is sure to ask. Is Master Clarke also about to take part in this ceremony of reconciliation?" A very troubled look clouded Dr. Higdon's face. "Alas! you touch me near by that question. With Clarke we can prevail nothing. And yet there is no more pious and devoted son of the church than he; and God in heaven is my witness that I know him for a most righteous and godly man, and that to hear him speak upon these very matters brings tears to the eyes. His face is as the face of an angel; his words are the words of a saint. My heart bleeds when I think of him." "Why, then, is he accounted heretic and excommunicate?" "You may well ask. I have asked myself that same question, for, as one of the canons of this college here, he is to me as a son. I was wroth at the first when it was told that here in this place we had a nest of pestilent heretics; but since I have come to know more of John Clarke, the more do I grieve that such doctrine as he holds should be condemned as heresy. It is true that he is unsound on some points--that I may not deny; but he is so full of sweetness, and piety, and the love of God and of the church, that I would hold his errors lightly and his graces and gifts in esteem. But alas! the bishop has heard much about his readings and his expounding of the Scriptures. He vows that he and Garret and the monk Ferrar have been the ringleaders in all this trouble, and that, unless they formally recant and join in this act of open submission, they shall be dealt with as obstinate heretics, and handed over to the secular arm, to perish by fire." Arthur's face grew suddenly pale to the lips. "They would burn a saint like Clarke! God forgive them even for such a thought! Truly men may say--" Dr. Higdon raised his hand to stop Arthur's words, but his face was full of distress and sympathy. "We will trust and hope that such a fearful consummation will not be necessary. The others have submitted; and Clarke is but a shadow of himself, owing to the unwholesome nature of the place in which he is confined. I do not despair yet of bringing him to reason and submission. He is not like Dalaber. There is no stubbornness about him. He will speak with sweet courtesy, and enter into every argument with all the reasonableness of a great mind. But he says that to walk in that procession, to take part in that act of so-called recantation and reconciliation, would be in itself as a confession that those things which he had held and taught were heretical. And no argument will wring that admission from him. He declares--and truly his arguments are sound and cogent--that he has never spoken or taught any single doctrine which was not taught by our Lord and His apostles and is not held by the Catholic Church. And in vain do I quote to him the mandates of various Popes and prelates. His answer ever is that, though he gives all reverence to God's ministers and ordained servants in the church, it must ever be to the Head that he looks for final judgment on all difficult points, and he cannot regard any bishop in the church--not even the Bishop of Rome--as being of greater authority than the Lord. "It is here that his case is so hopeless. To subvert the authority of the Pope is to shake the church to her foundations. But nothing I say can make Clarke understand this. It is the one point upon which he is obstinately heretical." "But you still have hopes of inducing him to submit?" "I shall not cease my efforts, or cease to hope," answered Dr. Higdon earnestly, "for in truth I know not what will be the end if he remain obstinate or, rather, I fear too much what that end will be. If it lay with the cardinal, there would be hope; but the bishop is obdurate. He is resolved to proceed to the uttermost lengths. Pray Heaven Clarke may yet see the folly of remaining obstinate, and may consent at the last to submit as the others have done!" "Have all done so?" "There is Dalaber yet to win," answered the dean, "and there are a few more--Sumner for one, and Radley for another--who have not given the assurance yet. If Clarke would submit, they would do so instantly; but they are near to him in the prison, and they can speak with each other, and so they hang together as yet, and what he does they will do. But their peril is not so great as his. The bishop has not named any, save Garret, Ferrar, and Clarke, as the victims of the extreme penalty of the law. Dalaber may well be included if he remains obdurate, and therefore I am greatly concerned that he should be persuaded. "Think you that you can work upon him, were I to win you permission to see him? I have heard that you did visit him awhile since, when he was kept less strictly than is now the case. What was his frame of mind then? and what hopes have you of leading him to a better one?" Arthur sat considering awhile, and then said: "Dalaber is one of those upon whom none can rightly reckon. At one moment he will be adamant, at another yielding and pliable. One day his soul will be on fire, and nothing would move him; but in another mood he would listen and weigh every argument, and might be easily persuaded. One thing is very sure: gentleness would prevail with him a thousand times more than harshness. A friend might prevail where a foe would have no chance. I will gladly visit him, and do what I can; but I would fain, if it might he accorded, see Master Garret first, and take word to Dalaber of mine own knowledge that he has promised submission." The dean considered awhile, and then rose to his feet. "Come, then," he said. "It is not known in Oxford yet; but the cardinal has sent Garret here to me, to be kept in close ward till the day of the reconciliation, now at hand. This is what is to take place. The men who have been excommunicated and set in ward, but who are ready to make submission, will be brought to trial a few days hence, and will sign their recantation, as we call it, to the cardinal, in the presence of the judges, who will then order them to take part in this act of penance, after which they will be admitted once more to communion, and have liberty to resume their studies, or to return to their homes and friends, as best pleases them. Thus we trust to purge Oxford of heresy. But if Master Clarke remain obdurate, and others with him, I fear me there will be some other and terrible scene ere this page of her history closes." "Let me see Master Garret," said Arthur abruptly. "I would I might also see Master Clarke. But whenever I ask this boon it is refused me." The dean shook his head slowly. "No one is permitted access to him, save those who go to reason with him; and so far we reason in vain. But I will admit you to the other prisoner for a few minutes. You have been acquainted with him in the past?" "Slightly. He has never ranked as my friend, but I have known him and met him. He is of my college, and I have been sorry that he has used his knowledge of Oxford to spread trouble there." Garret sprang up as Arthur entered the bare but not unwholesome room where he was confined. He had grown very thin with the long strain of flight, imprisonment, and hardship that had been his portion of late. He greeted Arthur eagerly, his eyes aglow, and on hearing somewhat of his errand he broke out into rapid and excited speech. "Tell Dalaber that the time is not ripe--that it lingers yet. I have been warned of God in a dream. My hour has not yet come. There is work yet for me to do, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! Yes; you need not shrink from me as from a blasphemer. I hold that every man must follow in the steps of the Lord, and drink of His cup, and be baptized with His baptism. But He waited for His hour. He hid Himself and fled and conveyed Himself away. He paid tribute to kings and rulers. He submitted Himself to earthly parents, earthly potentates. And shall we not do likewise? I would lay down my life in His service, and He knows it. But something within me tells me that my work is not yet done. And the church is yet holy, though she has in part corrupted herself. If she will but cleanse herself from her abominations, then will we work in her and not against her. Even the cardinal has spoken of the purifying which must be accomplished. Yes, he has used good and godly words, and I will wait and hope and trust. The Lord would be served by one body, of which He is the Head. He wants one, and not many. Let us have patience. Let us wait. Let us watch and pray. And if we have to submit ourselves to painful humiliation in this life, let us fix our eyes upon the crown of glory which is laid up for us in the heavens, and which fadeth not away." Arthur was convinced of the truth of what Dr. Higdon had spoken, and saw that Garret's mind was made up to do what was required of him. The young man was glad enough that this should be the case; but he felt a certain contempt for the facile disposition of the man, who, after spending years of his life and running innumerable perils in the circulation of these books, could in a few weeks consent to become a participant in the ceremony of solemnly burning them, in acknowledgment that they were dangerous and evil in their tendencies. Far greater was his admiration for Clarke, who, in obedience to the vows he had taken, would have no hand in distributing the forbidden volumes, yet in the hour of trial and peril refused to take part in the ceremony which would be regarded by the spectators and by the world at large as an admission that the Word of God was not for the people, and that he, as a teacher and preacher, had spoken unadvisedly with his lips in expounding the living Word to his hearers. With his mind full of these things Arthur found his way to the prison, and was conducted to Dalaber's cell, which was more closely guarded than at first. The young man, who had been prostrated by fever at the first, had recovered in a measure now, but looked very gaunt and wan and haggard; and he seized Arthur's hands, and wrung them closely in his, whilst tears of emotion stood in his eyes. "I thought you had forgotten me, Arthur!" "Surely you know that I would have come had I been able. But of late neither bribes nor entreaties have availed to gain me entrance. How has it been with you, my friend?" "Oh, I am weary of my life--weary of everything. I would they would end it all as soon as may be; death is better than this death in life. I am sick for the sight of the sun, for a breath of heaven's pure air, for the sight of my Freda's face. Tell me, was it all a dream, or did she indeed come to me?" "She came, and she would have come again, but they made your captivity closer at that time. She grows thin and pale herself in grief and hunger for your fate, Anthony. "But today I come to you with glad tidings of hope. In a few days from this, if you act but wisely and reasonably, as your friends and companions are about to do, you will stand a free man, and you will see your Freda face to face, none hindering." He staggered back almost as though he had been struck. "I shall be free! I shall see Freda! Speak, Arthur! Of what are you dreaming?" "I am not dreaming at all. I come from the Dean of Cardinal College, and from Master Garret, whom he has there in ward, but who is also to be released at the same time. I was permitted speech with him, that I might bring word to you, and that you might know in very truth what was about to happen." "And what is that? Speak!" cried Anthony, who was shaking all over like an aspen. To some temperaments hope and joy are almost more difficult to bear than the blows of adverse fortune. Had the commissary come with news that Dalaber was to suffer death for his faith, he would not have found him so full of tremors, so breathless and shaken. "I have come to speak," answered Arthur kindly, as he seated himself upon the low pallet bed, and made Dalaber sit beside him. "It is in this wise, Anthony. When you and your comrades were taken, the heads and authorities were in great fear that all Oxford was infect and corrupt by some pestilent heresy; but having found and carefully questioned the young men of their faith, and having read your confession, and heard more truly what hath been the teaching they have heard and received, they find nothing greatly amiss, and are now as anxious to deal gently and tenderly with you all as at first they were hot to punish with severity. Had they the power to do as they would, you might all be sent speedily to your homes; but they have to satisfy the cardinal, and, worse still, the bishop, and hence there must somewhat be done ere peace be restored, to assure him that Oxford is purged and clean." "And what will they do?" asked Dalaber, who was still quivering in every nerve. "Marry, nothing so very harsh or stern," answered Arthur, who was feeling his way carefully, trying to combine truth and policy, but erring distinctly on the side of the latter. "But those later books which were found in your hiding place and Radley's room, which are more dangerous and subversive than any that have gone before, are to be cast solemnly out of the place; and, in truth, I think with cause. See, I have brought you one or two to look at, to show you how even Martin Luther contradicts himself and blasphemes. How can the Spirit of God be in a man who will say such contrary things at different times?" And Arthur showed to Anthony a few marked passages in certain treatises, in which the reformer, as was so often the case in his voluminous and hastily-conceived and written works, had flatly contradicted himself, to the perplexity and confusion of his followers. "Such books are full of danger," pursued Arthur, speaking rapidly now. "I say nothing about the translated Scriptures; but the works of a man, and one who is full of excitement and the spirit of controversy, are like to be dangerous to the young. Let the church read and decide, but do not you disseminate such works. It may be more sinful than you have thought. "And now for what will soon happen. You did see the same in London once. There will be a fire in Carfax, and those who have circulated and read such books will walk each with his fagot, and cast first these and then the books upon the flames. So will the bishop be satisfied, and so will peace be restored. "Be not proud and disobedient, Anthony, and refuse to be reconciled with the mother you have offended. The cardinal has shown even to Master Garret the error of his ways, and he will be one to share in this act of submission and reconciliation. He bid me tell you that the hour has not yet come for any further blow to be struck. He, like Master Clarke, now begins to hope that, having pleaded with their mother, she will hear and cleanse herself from all defilement and impurity. He will submit and be reconciled; and if he will do this, surely you, friend Anthony, need not stand aloof." Anthony was pacing the floor in hot excitement. He recalled the scene at St. Paul's the previous year, and his face was working with emotion. "Am I to be called upon to burn the Word of God, as though it were an unholy thing, to be cast forth from the earth?" "No," answered Arthur boldly; "you will only be required to burn a few pamphlets of Martin Luther and other reformers." And he vowed in his heart that he would make good this word, and that, whatever other men might do, Anthony's basket should contain nothing but those later and fiery diatribes, which were certainly not without their element of danger and error and falsehood. "And if I refuse?" Arthur answered with a patience and gentleness that went farther than any sort of threat could have done. "If you refuse, friend Anthony, I fear you will find yourself in danger, and that not in a good or holy cause. For if Master Garret and your comrades are willing to make a small sacrifice of pride, and do a small penance to satisfy the bishop, who is in some sort your lawful ruler in the church, so that peace and amity may be restored, and hatred and variance banished from our university, it were an ungracious act that you should refuse to join with them, for they have sought by patience and kindliness to restore you to your places; and surely it cannot be God's will that you should hold back for this small scruple, and remain cut off from His church by excommunication, as must surely be if you will not be advised and humble yourself thus." "What would Freda bid me do?" suddenly asked Anthony, who was much agitated. Arthur was thankful that he did not ask a question about Clarke. The young man was doing his utmost to win his friend, and had been reared in a school where it was lawful to do evil for the sake of the good which should follow. But he did not wish to be driven to falsehood, and it was with relief that he heard this question. "When Freda came to see you she bid you live--live for her sake," he answered, without hesitation. "Let me leave that word with you--live for her sake. Do not fling away your life recklessly. She has begged that you will live. Therefore, for love of her, if for no other reason, make this submission--be reconciled, and live." Anthony's face was working; he was greatly moved; the tears rained down his cheeks. But at last he seized Arthur's hands in his, and cried: "I will! I will! God forgive me if I judge amiss; but for her sake I will do it, and live." Chapter XV: The Fire At Carfax "Magda, I want my reward." She raised her eyes to his face, a deep flush suffused her cheek, and then faded, leaving her somewhat paler than before. "Thy reward, Arthur? And what is that?" "Nothing less than thyself, my beloved," he answered, with a passionate tenderness. "I have thy heart, thy love; these have been enough this long while. Now I want thee, thine own self. Why should we wait longer? Art thou not ready to give thyself to me--now?" She let her lover draw her close to his side. She looked up at him, and saw that his face was grave and pale. This gravity had grown upon him of late, and she saw that lines of anxiety had begun to appear on his brow, which had not been there six months ago. Her woman's instinct of seeking to comfort and support came instantly to her help. "I will do all that thou dost wish of me, Arthur. If thou hast some trouble, let me share it. A wife should be the helpmeet of her husband in all things. If I am soon to be that, let me begin mine office now." He bent his head and kissed her, and drawing her hand through his arm, began pacing to and fro in the budding nut walk, where the tender flickering green of early springtide was shimmering in the golden sunlight. "My Magda, I have been thinking much of late. I have many plans, and some of them must needs be carried out in all haste. But ere I can fulfil them as I would, I must needs have my wife at my side to help and support me. There will be woman's work as well as man's, and such work as thou dost love." "Tell me," she said, lifting her eyes to his face. "Magda, thou dost know that tomorrow there will be a form of trial, and Anthony Dalaber and others will make submission, be condemned to do penance, and in a few days will fulfil that penance, and then be restored to communion with the church, and to liberty and life?" "Yes, I know," answered Magdalen gravely. "And when this has been done, and they are free, it will be better, far better, that they should quit Oxford for a while, and remain in some seclusion, away from prying eyes and from the suspicion which must attach to all those upon whom the taint of heresy has once fallen. Oxford will be no place for them for a while." "I can believe that they would be happier elsewhere," she answered. "But I sometimes fear for Anthony. He will suffer from agonies of shame and remorse; I know he will. Thou dost think him right to make submission, but he will feel that in so doing he has denied his faith and his Lord. I fear for him, and so does Freda. She is very unhappy." "I know it," answered Arthur quickly; "I can see both sides of this most difficult question of conscience. But I may not be the one to blame Anthony, for I have greatly persuaded him to this act of submission, and I would that, if blame attach to any in Freda's mind, she should throw that blame on me. I will speak with her later anent the matter. "But, Magda, this is the plan I am revolving in my mind. I would provide for Anthony and for others a place of rest and peace and refreshment, where they can regain health of body and serenity of spirit. And where better than at the old manor near to Poghley, where we have spent so many happy days of yore? But I would have my wife with me there--not as guest, but as mistress of the house. And Freda would have a home with us, and thy father likewise, when he desired it. But thou dost know how that he greatly desires to visit Italy; and wert thou my wife, and Freda beneath our care, then he could start with a free heart upon his journey. And we would take up our abode together at Poghley, and live such a life as I have sometimes dreamed of, but which has ever seemed too fair and peaceful for attainment in this world of strife." Magdalen's eyes grew bright and big with the rush of thoughts that came over her. "And thou wouldst have Anthony and his friends, and would seek for them there health, both of body and of spirit? Oh, that would be a sweet and commendable work, Arthur. I would that I might share it with thee." "And so thou shalt, my beloved, for alone I should be sorely let and hindered. Anthony shall be our guest and kinsman--soon to be our brother; for he is without home, and his brother in Dorset is a man of fierce temper, and has sent him a violently accusing letter on hearing what has happened in Oxford, which has cut him to the quick. He will be in sore need of comfort and repose; and if there be others in like case with him, whose friends will only persecute and revile them, then let them come to us also. Ours shall be a house of refuge for the distressed and oppressed. "Thou wilt not refuse to aid me in that task, Magda? I know that thy heart yearns always over all who suffer from sorrow and pain, even though they may in some sort have brought this upon themselves." "I should love such a task," answered the girl earnestly; "I would ask nothing better myself than to tend and comfort those who have suffered in such a cause. But thou, Arthur--how hast thou come to think of such a thing? Thou hast never been one of the brethren; thou hast never been touched by heresy; thou hast ever deplored the rashness of those who have committed themselves to such courses; and yet thou art showing thyself now the friend of all." He looked straight before him with a thoughtful smile. "These men will be 'purged from heresy,' as it is called, ere I offer them the shelter of my house," he answered. "I am risking nothing by so doing. And in truth, sweetheart, if there were somewhat to risk, methinks I would be willing to do the same, if thou didst not shrink from the task. Whether we study the Scriptures for ourselves, or whether we let the church expound them, one lesson we always learn if we listen and read aright, and that is the lesson of charity. We are brethren in Christ, if we are bound by no closer tie--no tie of our own making. Christ was ever merciful to the sick, the afflicted, the erring, the desolate, and we are bidden to follow in His steps. He did not shut Himself up behind walls to live the life of meditation; He walked amongst men, and bid men come to Him. In lesser measure we may surely do the same; and this is what I would fain attempt in these days of trouble for so many--bind up the broken heart, give medicine to the sick, rest to the weary, cheering and comfort to those who are cast down in spirit. It may be little we can accomplish, but let us do that little with all our might. I trust and hope that God will give us His blessing, and grant us power to be a blessing to others." Dr. Langton heard Arthur's proposal with great satisfaction. He had grown somewhat weary of his life in Oxford, and was desirous of taking a long journey into foreign countries, to pursue there some studies which would require the assistance of foreign libraries. Moreover, the frequent outbreaks of sickness now sweeping over Oxford, and especially during the summer months, had aroused his concern, and made him anxious to remove his daughters into some more healthy place. Latterly this matter had appeared likely to arrange itself, with the betrothal of the girls respectively to Anthony Dalaber and Arthur Cole. Still there might be a lapse of several years between betrothal and marriage, and he was seriously meditating the best course to pursue, when Arthur's proposition came as a solution of the problem. Marriages were very quickly and easily performed in those days. They could be consummated at the briefest notice. And Magdalen, having given her promise, was ready to give her hand at any time that Arthur should desire, and depart with him at once for the new home, whither Freda and their father would quickly follow them, and any amongst their suffering friends who, on release, desired that haven of peace and rest. The trial of the tainted students was over. It was Arthur who brought word to the Bridge House as to what had been the result. All day Freda had moved to and fro with restless steps and burning eyes. Her whole being seemed rent asunder by the depth of her emotion. What would Anthony say and do? How would he comport himself? Would he yield and sign the recantation, and join in the act of humiliation and penance, or would he at the last stand firm and refuse compliance? Which choice did she wish him to make? Could she bear to see him treated as an outcast and heretic--he, her faithful, devoted Anthony? But would he ever be quite the same in her eyes, if he, to save himself from the pains and penalties which beset him, drew back and denied those things which he believed? She knew not what to think, what to wish. She paced the house and garden with restless steps, and when Arthur came at last, her agitation was so great that she could not speak a word. But her face was eloquent of her emotion, and he kept her not a moment in suspense. "All has gone well," he answered, "with Anthony as with the rest. They were gently handled and fairly spoken. The confession of faith demanded of them was such as no Christian man could hesitate to make. They were admonished for disobedience, but the errors with which they were charged were not sternly pressed home. They were asked if they desired to be reconciled and restored to communion; and on affirming that they did, they were only bidden to take part in the public act of penance of which they had already heard. All consented to do this, and were then removed to their several prisons; and four days hence will this act of penance be performed, after which our friends will be restored to us and to the church once more." "And Anthony consented with the rest?" asked Freda, with pale lips and wistful eyes. "He did." Arthur looked her full in the face as he spoke. "Anthony might perchance have refused compliance, had it not been for me, Freda. If thou hast any blame for him in this matter, let it rest upon my head, not upon his." "Thou didst persuade him?" "I did. I would do so again. Anthony is young, hot headed, impulsive, rash. Whatever he may grow to in the future, whatever convictions he may then hold, he is not fit yet to be a leader of men, to take up an attitude of defiance to the laws and statutes of the university--leaving the church out of the question--to ruin his career in an impulse which may not be a lasting one. Let him and others have patience. Those things which they ask they may likely obtain without such fierce struggle and such peril. Let men bear the yoke in their youth; it does them no hurt. To be cast forth from the communion of the church would be a greater hurt to Anthony, body and soul, than to do a penance which may do violence to some of his cherished convictions. In this world we ofttimes have to choose, not between absolute right and wrong, but between two courses, neither of which is perfect; and then we are forced to consider which is the less imperfect of the two. I trow that Anthony has made a wise choice; but if to you it seems not so, I pray you blame me rather than him, for I did plead with him more than once, and right earnestly, to take this way. I did use your name also, and begged of him to live for your sake; and methinks that argument did more prevail with him than any other I could have urged." Freda drew her breath rather hard, but the expression of her face softened. "You did bid him do it for my sake? Did he think that I would have thus bidden him act?" "I know not that, but it is like. Remember, sweet Freda, how that, when thou didst see him in his prison, thou didst rain kisses and tears upon his face, and bid him live for thee. How could I not remind him of that? And wouldst thou not rather that he should live than die?" "Oh yes, oh yes! I cannot bear to think of that other terrible peril. I am torn in twain by grief and perplexity. Why do they make it so hard for men to take the perfect way? He would be faithful unto death--I know he would--if he could but see his course clear. But as it is, who can tell what is the best and most right way? To be cut off from the Church of Christ--it is so terrible! Yet to tamper with conscience--is not that terrible too?" "They made it as easy for them as was possible," answered Arthur gently; "let not us make it hard afterwards. Anthony would suffer--it is his nature--whatever course he took. To be excommunicate is keen pain to one of his devout nature; to do penance for what he holds to be no act of sin or heresy will pain him, likewise--not the humiliation of the pageant alone, but the fear lest he has taken a false step and denied his Lord. It is for us, his friends, to receive him joyfully, and restore him to peace and comfort. Be sure that Christ would pardon him, even though he may find it hard to pardon himself." Freda sighed, but her face softened. Magdalen asked a whispered question. "And Master Clarke--did he submit?" "He was not called," answered Arthur gravely; "some say he is too sick to appear, others that he has recanted, but has been spared joining in the procession because that he and two more are not able to walk. Others, again, say that he will not abjure the errors with which he is charged, nor take part in the prescribed penance. I have not been suffered to see him. I know not how it may be. But in sooth, if he be sick as they say, it were time they let him forth from his prison. It is not right nor justice that men should be done to death in noisome dungeons when no crime has been proven against them." The girls' faces were pale with horror and pity. "Canst thou do nothing, Arthur?" pleaded Magdalen. "Thou art rich, and powerful, and well known to so many. Canst thou do nothing to aid them?" "I will do what I can, once the act of penance be over," he answered. "Till then it is useless to stir, for they will seek to work upon them to the very last moment by threats, or by argument, or by entreaty. Should they prove obstinate to the last, I know not what will befall. But if they are like to perish in the prison, it may be that the dean's word will prevail for their release. He is grieved that one so godly in his life and conversation should suffer so cruelly. When this act has been accomplished, belike they may listen to the words of his friends, unless the cruel will of the bishop prevail, and he is sent to a fiery death." It was a very quiet wedding on the morrow that united Magdalen Langton and Arthur Cole as man and wife. They were married at an early hour in St. Mary's Church, and set off that same day for the old manor house, which was to be their future home. Freda could not, however, be persuaded to accompany them on that day. "I must see the fire at Carfax," she said; "I would see it with mine own eyes. Afterwards I will come to you, and will bring Anthony with me; but not till I have seen this thing for myself. I cannot help it. I must be there." Magdalen entreated awhile, but Freda stood firm. "I must see the fire at Carfax," she answered; and at last they forbore to press her, knowing her mind was made up. It wanted but a few days to Easter when the day came for which Freda had waited with feverish, sleepless eyes. The sun rose clear and bright birds carolled in the gladness of their hearts; all nature was filled with the joy of happy springtide; but there was a heavy cloud resting upon Freda's spirits. "I will not blame him; I will speak no word of reproach. In this hard strait should I have been more brave? It may be he is doing what he believes most right. I will not believe him unfaithful to his truer self. Who can judge, save God alone, of what is the most right thing to do in these dark and troublous days?" She rose and donned a black gown, and shrouded herself in a long cloak, the hood of which concealed her face. She was very pale, and there were rings around her eyes that told of weeping and of vigil. Oh, how she had prayed for Anthony, that he might be pardoned wherein he might sin, strengthened wherein he was weak, purified and enlightened in the inner man, and taught by the Holy Spirit of God! As she walked through the streets by her father's side, and marked the gathering crowd thronging towards Carfax and the route to be taken by the procession, she seemed to hear the words beaten out by the tread of hurrying feet: "Faithful unto death--faithful unto death--unto death!" till she could have cried aloud in the strange turmoil of her spirit, "Faithful unto death--unto death!" There was a convenient window in the house of a kindly citizen, which had been put at her father's disposal. When they took their places at it they saw the men already at work over the bonfire in the centre of the cross roads. All the windows and the streets were thronged with curious spectators, and almost at once the tolling of the bells of various churches announced that the ceremony was about to begin. The procession, it was whispered about, was to start from St. Mary's Church, to march to Carfax, where certain ceremonies were to be performed, and then to proceed to St. Frideswyde, where a solemn Mass would be performed, to which the penitents would be admitted. Then, with a solemn benediction, they would be dismissed to their own homes, and admitted to communion upon Easter Day. Freda sat very still at the window, hearing little beside the heavy beating of her own heart and the monotonous tolling of the bells. The crowd was silent, too, and almost all the people were habited in black, partly out of respect to the season of the Lord's passion, partly because this ceremony took the nature of a solemn humiliation. Perhaps there were many standing in that close-packed crowd who knew themselves to have been as "guilty"--if guilt there were--as those who were compelled to do penance that day. There was evident sympathy on many faces, and the girl, looking down from above, noted how many groups there were talking earnestly and quietly together, and how they threw quick glances over their shoulders, as though half afraid lest what they were saying might be overheard. "I trow there are many here who have dared to read the Word of God and discuss it freely together, and compare the church as it now is with the church, the Bride of the Lamb. I wonder if they would have all submitted, had it been their lot to stand before those judges and hear the sentence pronounced." A thrill seemed suddenly to pass through the crowd; the people pressed forward and then surged back. "They are coming! they are coming!" the whisper went round, and Freda felt the blood ebbing away from her cheeks, and for a moment her eyes were too dim to see. The solemn procession of heads and masters, clerks and beadles, seemed to swim before her in a quivering haze. Her strained eyes were fixed upon those other figures bringing up the rear--those men in the garb of the penitent, each bearing a fagot on his shoulder, and carrying a lighted taper in his hand. Was Anthony among them? She held her breath in a sickening suspense, scarce knowing whether or not she longed to see him. She knew almost each face as it loomed up into view: there was young Fitzjames, their kinsman, looking shame-faced but submissive; there were Udel and Diet, Bayley, Cox, and others whom she had never suspected of having been concerned in the movement; and there, almost at the rear of the long procession, walked Anthony Dalaber, his dark, thin face looking worn and haggard, his hair tumbled and unkempt, his dark eyes bent upon the ground, his feet slow and lagging, but whether from weakness or unwillingness she was not able to say. She held her breath to watch him as he appeared. She saw the heavy frown upon his brow; she marked the change which had come over him--the cloud which seemed to envelop him. She knew that he was bowed to the ground with shame and humiliation, and with that sort of fierce despair of which she had seen glimpses in his nature before now. Suddenly all the old tenderness rushed over her as in a flood. She forgot her sense of disappointment in his lack of firmness; she forgot how he had boasted of his courage and devotion, and how, in the time of temptation and trial, he had let himself be persuaded to take the easier path; she forgot all save that he had loved her, and that she had loved him, and that love can surmount all things, because its essence is divine. If he had fallen, he had suffered keenly. Suffering was stamped upon every line of his face. Was not God's love for sinners so great that before the world repented of its wickedness He gave His Son to die for an atonement and expiation? Must we then not love those who err, and who repent of their weakness? Nay, are we not all sinners, all weak, all frail and feeble beings in weak mortal bodies? Shall we judge and condemn one another? Shall we not rather seek to strengthen one another by love and tenderness, and so lead one another onward in the way which leads to life everlasting? These thoughts rushed like a flood through Freda's mind as she watched through a mist of tears the throwing of the fagots and the books upon the fire at Carfax. Three times did the penitents walk round the fire, the bells tolling, and the crowd observing an intense silence, as the servants handed to the young men books from the baskets to fling upon the fire. Only one was given to Anthony, and he gave one quick glance before he threw it into the heart of the blaze. Arthur Cole had been as good as his word. It was no portion of God's Word that he was condemned to burn, but a pamphlet of peculiar bitterness by one of the foreign reformers. Then the procession formed up again, and started for its final goal; and Freda, rising, laid her hand upon her father's arm and said: "Take me home, I prithee, sweet father--take me home first. I have seen enough. I would now go home. And then, when all is over, go thou to St. Frideswyde and bring Anthony to me." Chapter XVI: "Reconciled" Anthony sat with his face buried in his hands, in an attitude of profound dejection. He was gaunt and haggard and worn to a shadow, and Freda's gentle, pitying gaze held in its depths nothing but love and tender compassion. The first rapture of meeting once again had passed. The exultant joy engendered by a sense of freedom had lasted for several hours. Anthony had laughed and sung aloud and shouted for joy in the shady alleys of the garden, amid all the blissful sights and sounds of springtide. He had wandered there with Freda beside him in a sort of trance of happiness, in which all else had been forgotten. The joy to both had been so keen, so exquisite, that it had sufficed them for the present. But with the falling of the softened dusk, with the setting of the sun, with the natural and inevitable reaction upon an enfeebled body and sensitive spirit, following upon a severe and protracted strain, Dalaber's spirits had suddenly left him. An intense depression both of body and mind had followed, and in the gathering twilight of that familiar room he sat in an attitude of profound dejection, whilst Freda scarce knew whether it were better to seek to find words of comfort, or to leave him alone to fight out the inevitable battle. "Why did I do it? Why did I consent?" he suddenly broke out. "Why did I listen to the voice of the charmer? Would it have been so hard to die? Will it not be harder to live with the stain of this sin upon my soul?" "'The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin,'" spoke Freda very softly. "And I have denied my Lord--in deed, if not in word," and he groaned aloud. "It was an act of submission and obedience," spoke Freda, using the arguments familiar to her. "Nor did you yourself cast upon the fire the precious Word of God; you did not deny your faith. You affirmed--so they say--your assent to the doctrines of Holy Church, and did penance for past disobedience. Is that a matter to grieve so greatly over?" She spoke very gently, yet not as though her heart went altogether with her words. Anthony raised his head and broke out into vehement speech, which she welcomed gladly after the long silence of utter depression. "They made it easy for us. They sought to win us by gentle methods. They knew that the most of us loved Holy Church, and were loath indeed to be divorced from her communion. They did not bid us in so many words to deny those things which we have held--the right of every man to hold in his hand the Word of God, and to read and study it for himself; but they made us perform an act which in the eyes of the world will be taken to mean as much--to mean that we acknowledge the sinfulness of circulating that precious, living Word, and are ready to cast it into the flames like an unholy and corrupt thing. "And I consented. I let them persuade me. I let mine eyes be blinded. And now, whither shall I go? I have denied my Lord. I have sinned in His sight. I have not taken up my cross and followed Him. I have sought to save my life, and yet I had thought myself ready to follow Hun to the cross and the grave." "Like Peter," spoke Freda softly. "Yet the Lord looked upon him with tender love; and He forgave him freely and fully, and gave him special charge to strengthen the brethren, to feed the sheep and the lambs. The Lord wore our mortal flesh. He knows that it is weak. He understands all. Be not too much cast down, my Anthony. Perchance in the past thou didst too much trust in thine own strength. In the days to come let us look ever more and more to the Lord Himself. He will first forgive, and then confirm His strength in us." "In us? But thou hast ever been strong in faith," spoke Anthony quickly. "I can read it in thine eyes how that thou dost hold me weak and wavering. Had it been thou who wast thus tried, I trow thou wouldst have stood firm." "Indeed I know not that, Anthony," she answered earnestly, "and I dare not say that I did desire it of thee. I was rent in twain by the struggle. If, indeed, patience and tenderness are shown by those in authority to the sons they hold to be in error, then love should be met by love. We must not rend the body of the Lord by needless strife and contention, if other and gentler means may with patience prevail. We know that obedience and submission to the powers that be are enjoined upon us; yet we know that we must keep our conscience void of reproach. It is hard, indeed, to judge; but let us always seek to take the highest path, and if we fall by reason of weakness in faith, in judgment, or in spirit, let us pray the more fervently for the Spirit of truth to guide us into all truth, and keep us pure within." They had been so earnestly talking that they had not heard the sound of steps and voices in the house, and started when the door was suddenly opened by young Fitzjames, who ushered in Garret and the monk Robert Ferrar. Dalaber started to his feet. He had seen both these former companions of his in the procession that morning, but not a word had been exchanged between them. He stood gazing at them with a strange mixture of emotion. "Anthony Dalaber, we have come to say farewell," said Garret, whose thin, white face and the burning brightness of his eyes testified to the struggle through which his own spirit had passed. "For the present the brotherhood is broken up; for the present the powers of the world are too strong for us; but the day will come when the truth shall be vindicated, when it shall shine forth as the sun in his strength, and we of the faith will be the first to welcome the rising rays. Be not afraid; be not cast down. The Lord will arise, and His enemies will be scattered. And there is work for us all to do, to prepare for His appearing. Let us not be weary in well doing. Though we have bent our heads to the storm, yet we will lift them up with joy anon, knowing that redemption draweth nigh. You believe that, Anthony Dalaber?" "I verily believe that God will visit the earth and His church, and that He will sit as a refiner, and purify her from all impurities; but whether He will condescend to use again such imperfect instruments as we have proved, I do not know. We have bowed ourselves in the house of Rimmon. Shall we ever be fit for the service of the house of God?" Garret was still for a moment, silenced by the strange expression of concentrated remorse upon Dalaber's face. It was Ferrar who spoke in his low, even voice. "'And when I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, the Lord pardon his servant in this thing. And Elisha said unto him, Go in peace.'" Deep silence fell upon the room, and then Freda spoke. "I think God is ever more merciful than man. God reads the heart, and He knows that, though men may fail through weakness, they may rise again in His strength and yet do valiantly." "I will yet live to do Him service!" cried Garret, with kindling eyes. "I will yet live that I may lay down my life for Him if He call me. If I have been deceived this once, He will lead me aright in the days to come. Mine hour will yet come; I know it, I feel it. And He shall see then that Thomas Garret will not shrink even from death for His name's sake." Dalaber looked straight into his face. "I consented to take part in this penance today because I heard that you had submitted. I believed that all had done so. Had I known that Master Clarke had refused, God helping me, I would have refused also; for surely never was there a man who had so fully the mind of the Lord Jesus as John Clarke." Garret's glance fell before that burning gaze. He too had noted that Clarke was not amongst the penitents, and it had cut like a knife into his heart. He had always been so ready with his protestations of willingness to die for the faith, yet he had been won over to an act which looked like one of recantation. Clarke had never boasted, had always spoken with gentle warning of the dangers which beset them, and his doubts as to whether they should have strength to withstand the fiery trial if it came upon them. There had been times when Garret had openly charged him with being lukewarm in the cause. Yet Clarke lay still in his noisome prison, excommunicate, and in danger of death at the stake, whilst they stood free men, reconciled to the church, and restored to her favour. Whose position was that of most true blessedness? Garret twisted his hands nervously together as this flood of thought came surging over him. "They say that Clarke would have been there," spoke young Fitzjames, "but that he was too enfeebled by captivity to walk in the procession." "That is false," said Freda, in a low voice. "Master Clarke might have won his liberty with the rest, but he refused to take any part in the spectacle today at Carfax." "Yet he never circulated the books," broke out Garret. "He ofttimes cautioned me against importing too many of the treatises written in Germany. He would not approve all that they contained. He could have cast such books upon the flames without violating his conscience. Wherefore was he not there with the rest of us?" It was Freda who, after a pause, made answer: "He knew that men would not distinguish between the burning of books by men and the burning of the precious Word of God. It was this that held him back." "Yea, verily," cried Dalaber, with a blaze of his old excitement, "he was true to his conscience, and we were not. He knew that those who saw that procession would regard it as an admission of heresy. He was no heretic, and he would have neither part nor lot with it. He has ever stood firm in this--that the church of the living God is pure and holy, and that she asks no such acts of submission and recantation from her sons, when their only desire has been to extol Him and to make His way clear upon earth. How could his pure and holy spirit make confession of evil? He could not, and he would not. He will lay down his life for the gospel's sake; but he will not be deceived, as we were. "I can see it now as I could not when the walls of prison and the mists of fever were closing me in. We have, as it were, admitted that to read the Word of God and to give it to others to read is a sin against the church. He has stood on the ground he adopted from the first--that the church has never forbidden it, and that those who do so are not her true and faithful stewards and ministers; and for that conviction he is ready to die. He will not let himself be deceived or cajoled. His light is the light from above, and it will shine upon his path to the very end." Ferrar and Garret had no intention of lingering long. They were about to go forth together into the world--probably to make their way to Germany--and Garret had had some thought that Dalaber might possibly accompany them on their journey. But they saw that he had other views for himself, and did not even ask him. The spell which Garret had once exercised upon him was broken now. They would ever be as friends and brothers in a good cause, but the special tie had snapped. Garret was no longer a hero in the eyes of Dalaber, and he felt the subtle change which had come over his ex-pupil. So they clasped hands warmly, exchanged farewells, and the two companions passed out into the darkening night, whilst young Fitzjames lingered wistfully, and brightened as Freda bade him take up his old quarters in that pleasant house. "And on the morrow we will all travel to Poghley together; and you, Fitzjames, shall take word to others who have suffered imprisonment, and whose friends, perchance, may look coldly upon them, that they are welcome to Arthur's house, if they desire a brief space for rest and refreshment. It is open to all who have suffered, but are now 'reconciled,' as it is termed. Anthony and I go thither early in the day, and any who desire may come with or follow after us." "I feel as though I never wished to set eyes on Oxford again, once I get free from it!" cried the youth, who felt bitterly the ignominy and hardships through which he had passed. He had submitted to the imposed penance, having, indeed, no very strong opinions of his own upon controverted subjects, though he had heard much, and received the new doctrines with open mind. But now he felt as though he hated the rulers of the church with a deep and implacable hatred. His boyhood seemed to have passed away from him during those weeks of harsh imprisonment; and he came forth a man, with a stern hatred of bigotry and intolerance, with no formulated plan of action or resistance, with no very definite opinions as to doctrine or dogma, but with a fixed resolve to cast in his lot with those who were fighting for liberty of conscience, or liberty in any form, and with a strong hope that he might live to see the day when he should break a lance for the cause he had espoused. It was indeed too often that men's hearts were filled with bitterness, and that those in places of power and authority made themselves bitter enemies, even of those towards whom they were kindly disposed; whilst the day was coming slowly but surely when they were to reap what they had sown. It was a soft and radiant evening when Freda and her father and Dalaber rode slowly through the gates which led to the moated manor where Arthur Cole and his bride awaited them. Fitzjames and a few others were to follow. But these three, with a couple of servants, arrived first; and upon their approach through the golden green of the beech avenue, Magdalen flew, as it were, to meet her twin, and the sisters were clasped in each other's arms. Arthur was not far behind his fleet-footed spouse, and was clasping hands with Dalaber, and gazing long and searchingly into his face. "Welcome, my friend, welcome!" he said. "It is good to see you stand a free man once more. You have suffered, Anthony; I can see it all too clearly in your face. But I trust that the dark days are over now, and that better times are in store. In the sweet security of home we will seek to forget those trials and troubles which have gone before." Dalaber looked round him at the awakening beauty of the springtide world, and a lump seemed to rise in his throat. His face contracted as though with a spasm of pain, and he spoke in sharpened accents of suffering. "The world of nature looks--thus--to me. And Master Clarke lies rotting in a foul prison, in peril of his life both from sickness and from the cruel malice of the bishop. How can I forget? How can I be happy? Methinks sometimes I would he more truly happy were I lying beside him there." Arthur drew Dalaber a little away from the rest. "Have you had news of him?" "Such news as might be had. Some of the brethren, if they can still be so called, when they are as sheep scattered without a shepherd--some of them came to bid me adieu and speak comforting words. I asked them one and all of him, our beloved teacher; but none had seen him--only they had one and all made inquiry after him, and one had heard this, and the other that. But all affirmed that he, together with Sumner and Radley, was lying in a foul prison, sick unto death with the fever that besets those who lie too long in these noisome holes, or, as some said, with the sweating sickness, which has shown itself once more in Oxford. "But since he refused to take part in the scene at Carfax, and as his companions were firm as himself, they are kept yet in the same foul place. And if help come not they will certainly die; for how can men recover of sickness without some care, or tendance, or better nourishment than will be given them there? Ah, it makes my blood boil to think of it!" It was almost impossible for Dalaber to rejoice in his own freedom and in the beauty of all about him, so woeful were his thoughts about this man whom he so greatly loved. He went to his room that night, but sleep came not to him. He paced to and fro in a strange tumult of mind; and with the first light of dawn he clad himself in his riding suit, and when the household began to stir he sought a servant, and bade him tell the master that he desired instant speech of him. Arthur came in brief space, and looked with surprise into Dalaber's pale, set face. His wan looks told of his sleepless vigil, but he gave no chance for questions to be asked. He spoke himself, and that rapidly. "Arthur, I must forthwith to London. Canst thou lend me a good horse? Else I must needs go afoot." "A horse! Why, the pick of the stable is at thy service, friend Anthony. But whither away so fast, and wherefore?" "I go to seek speech with the cardinal." "With the cardinal, quotha? And wherefore with him?" "I go to ask the life of Master Clarke. They say the cardinal is not bloodthirsty or cruel. I will prove that for mine own self. And if a victim must needs be had, I will offer myself in his place. "Yes, Arthur, I will. Seek not to stay me by fair words. Methinks I have had too much of such. I have been cozened both by friend and by foe--for mine own good, as they would say, but not I. My heart is heavy and hot within me. If Clarke is to lie languishing in prison, let me lie there with him. There can be a worse prison house of the soul than any made by bolts and bars. We can suffer as keenly in such a place as this as in the lowest depth of a dungeon. I have made trial of both. I know what I say. Seek not to stay me, good Arthur, for I must needs go. The fire burns hot within me. It will not be quenched." Arthur looked keenly at him. He was silent for a very brief while, and then he spoke quietly and persuasively. "Thou shalt go, Anthony; but wait only for Monday. Thou art in need of rest, and upon the eve of the festival of Easter thou wouldst never get nigh to the cardinal. Thou art not fit for the long ride today. In two days more thou wilt be in better case for the journey. And I myself will be thy companion, for I have some friends in high places who will lend me their help; and it will be strange if together we cannot succeed in obtaining sight and speech of the cardinal, and proffering our petition. Only wait these two days, that thou mayest be more fit for the fatigues lying before thee." Dalaber would fain have been off that moment, but he saw the force of Arthur's words; and, in truth, the long strain was telling heavily upon him, and as he stood he almost reeled from weakness. He was in no fit state for another day's riding; and when Freda added her voice to that of Arthur, he consented to put off his journey until after Easter. Yet he looked straight into her eyes in making this concession, and added firmly: "But when the time comes I must go. And thou wilt bid me Godspeed, my beloved; and if this journey should perchance bring me hurt--if I should not return to thee therefrom--thou wilt not grieve over it too much. Thou wouldst not withhold me, Freda?" She looked into his eyes. She knew that peril might menace her lover. It was as though he would, having once escaped, put his head again into the jaws of the lion. None could say, if he and the cardinal met, what might be the result to the impulsive but not always discreet Dalaber. It seemed as though some power from within urged him to make a confession, different from the one he had so recently signed. It seemed as though his conscience would not let him rest--as though he felt that he had been guilty of some act of treachery towards his Lord. Freda understood. She would not hold him back, though her eyes filled with tears as he put the question. "I will never withhold thee from what thou dost deem the right path to tread, my beloved," she answered. "I will trust thee in the hands of the all-loving Father, and pray that He may deliver thee out of all peril. Be not rash. That is all I ask. Be as Master Clarke--gentle, faithful, true, pure of heart and blameless of speech. I ask nothing more of thee. Be true unto thine own better self, and thou wilt be supported and upheld through all." Arthur and his wife spoke much of the proposed journey. "Wilt thou risk aught by it, my husband?" asked Magdalen, with a tender anxiety in voice and look. "I risk but little--nothing, perhaps; and right glad am I to proffer this petition for our dear friend and teacher, Master Clarke. It may be we shall fail in what we seek to accomplish, and it may be that Anthony may fall once again under suspicion, and be cast into prison as a heretic. No man can forecast these things, and he will not seek to save himself this time. "He has suffered already from tampering with his conscience. Perchance I overbore him too much. It is hard to know what a man in such straits should do. But I will seek to safeguard him all I can, and bring him safely back. And if we win our petition, and gain liberty for those three sick prisoners, it will be worth all the risk and labour we have undergone to gain it." "Hast ever had speech with the cardinal before?" asked Magdalen, trembling a little at the thought. "I have been in his company at times, but received nothing but a fleeting glance or a passing word of courtesy. I have watched him in converse with others many times. He hath a stately presence, and a great gift of speech. He can win hearts by the grace and kindliness of his address, or he can send men away quaking in fear by the flash of his eagle eye and the stern rebukes which fall from his lips. And none can know beforehand which will be his fashion of receiving a petition, and particularly such a petition as ours. "In God's hands must we leave the issues. But at least for such a man as John Clarke it must surely be right to adventure somewhat. I will go with Anthony. Together, I trust, we shall succeed." "And we at home will pray day and night for your success," answered the young wife, clinging to her husband, from whom she must make up her mind to part on an errand that might be fraught with peril; "and surely I think that God will hear and answer us, and give you grace and power to intercede." So as soon after Easter as Anthony was fit for the saddle the two friends started off together on horseback for London, whilst the wife and the betrothed stood to watch them away, waving them a farewell, and hiding from their eyes the starting tears, which were only allowed to fall when the sisters were left alone together. Chapter XVII: The Clemency Of The Cardinal The great man sat in his private closet, with the ivory crucifix in the corner before the prie dieu chair, a wonderful picture of the annunciation on the wall, where he could see it every time he lifted his eyes, and a table piled with papers before him, though piled with a certain method and order which enabled him to lay his hand in a moment upon any required document. He wore the scarlet robes of his office, and a scarlet skullcap was on his head. His features were those of the ascetic and man of the world. The skin was pale and slightly sallow, like old parchment; the hair was turning white, and was thin upon the temples. The clear-cut features were impressive, both in outline and in expression, and the eye was as the eye of the eagle, so keenly penetrating and far-seeing that many had shrunk before its gaze as before the sharp thrust of a rapier. Arthur Cole entered the presence of the great man with the habitual courtly and almost exaggerated reverence that custom imposed. But Anthony Dalaber, who followed, only bowed with a sort of sullen defiance in look and aspect, not even raising his eyes to meet the flashing, rapid glance which the great man bent upon him as he slowly followed his companion into that august presence. He stood in the background, and his dark face and gaunt figure did not lack elements of dignity. There was something distinguished in the personality of Dalaber, of which those who knew him were keenly conscious. The statesman, who had all his life been wont to take the measure of men with great acumen and discernment, gave more than one quick, keen glance in the direction of Dalaber, as he received Arthur's credentials and cast his eye over them. "You are welcome, Master Cole. I have heard of you before, and everything I have heard redounds to your credit. You are highly spoken of in Oxford, and your career there has not been without distinction. I am keenly interested in all that happens there, and in the welfare of each individual clerk and student. To hear a good report of any gives me sincere pleasure. I am glad on that account to give you this audience, albeit I am always pressed for time in which to compress each day's work." "I thank your Eminence from my heart," answered Arthur; "and if I be permitted to speak, I will be as brief as I can in presenting my petition and pleading my Cause." "You come with a petition? Very good; I will listen and consider it. Is it one that relates to yonder companion of yours?-- "Anthony Dalaber, I believe I mistake not in calling you by that name." Dalaber came a step forward, but made no reply, for Arthur had answered for him, and the cardinal was turning over some papers upon his table, and selecting one or two, ran his eyes rapidly down them, after which he looked up. "I hear of you that you are a youth of excellent parts, and of a quick understanding, and that, with industry and application, you may do great things. I also hear that though you have been led into some indiscretions and dangerous courses, that you have submitted to lawful discipline, and are forgiven and reconciled. All this is as it should be. I rejoice in the repentance of any sinner. I pray, my son, that in the future you may be guarded from all such perilous courses." Arthur almost trembled as these words were spoken. The cardinal's wonderful eyes were fixed full upon the face of Dalaber, and the magnetic nature of the glance seemed to act with a curious, restraining power upon him. He spoke, but it was not with the outburst which his comrade had feared. It was slowly and almost haltingly. "I have done amiss," he said. "None can better know than I how much amiss I have done. I repent me from the bottom of my heart. But I repent not of those things for which I suffered in prison, for which I thought I might be called upon to lay down my life. I repent me that I, having put mine hand to the plough, did look back. I would I had had the courage and steadfastness to resist and stand firm." Arthur trembled; his eyes sought the cardinal's face. Wolsey was regarding Dalaber with great intensity of interest, whilst a fine smile played in shadowy fashion over his thin lips. "Is that what you have come hither to tell me, my son?" "In part it is," answered Dalaber, "for I have felt like a hypocrite and renegade all these days. I love the church; I hold her doctrines; I trow that I would die for the truth which she teaches: but I hold also that men should not be condemned for the reading and free discussion of the Word of God; and if those who did persuade me to submit to discipline and penance for disobedience believe that I repent me of holding and spreading that doctrine, then must I ever live with the sense of having been a traitor to the cause of my Lord and my God." "And you wish to tell me this?" "Yes; that your Eminence may send me back to prison, or to the stake, if it be your will." The same slight smile played round the cardinal's lips. He looked once more at his papers. "It is said here, Anthony Dalaber, that you have given up the study of divinity, and have taken up that of the law?" "That is true," he answered freely. "I am not made for the priesthood; of that I am well assured. I will seek to serve God in the lesser calling, and do my duty there to Him and to the brethren." "A laudable resolve," answered the great man, "in which I wish you all success. Listen to me for a brief moment, my son. The words you have spoken here this day will not be used against yon. I have followed your career. I know your courage and steadfastness of spirit, as well as its weaknesses and vacillations. I know how many godly youths are in like case with you--halting between two opinions, torn asunder in the struggle to judge all these hard and difficult questions for themselves. For you, and for all who yet love Holy Church, I have this piece of counsel to give. Beware how you seek to tamper with the unity of the one body. Beware how you sacrifice the greater for the lesser. It is only a church at unity in herself that can convert the world; we have the Lord's own word for that. If you have read in any tongue His last charge on earth to His apostles, as recorded in the Gospel of St. John, you must see and recognize that. The burden of that wonderful pastoral is, 'That we all may be ONE: that the world may believe.' To rend the body is to destroy its unity. To destroy its unity is to hinder the work of Christ upon earth. Think and ponder that well, and pray for guidance, for patience, for the submissive will which would endure much rather than bring war amongst the members of the one body. Our Lord Himself has warned those who are devout and sincere from the error of straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. Let the church minister the Word of God. Let those who hunger for more ask of her. She will not send them empty away. Already those who style themselves reformers are quarrelling amongst themselves. Soon they will be broken up into a thousand camps. Unity will cease to reign in the church. Confusion and hatred and even bloodshed will follow. "Be advised, Anthony Dalaber. Quit these hard and vexed questions for a while. Take to the less perilous study of the law. With age and experience you will learn your lesson. And I will pray for a blessing upon you, my son, for in truth I believe that the Lord may have work for you to do in days to come; and if so, I trow you will not shrink from doing it." Anthony stood mute. A thousand questions and replies seemed to spring to his lips, but no word passed them. He felt that in argument he was no match for the cardinal, even had disputation with so eminent and august a personage been possible. He felt that somewhere there was an answer to this irrefragable argument, but for the moment he could not find it; he stood tongue tied, silent. The cardinal looked at him with his slight, peculiar smile, and then turned once again to Arthur. "And now for your petition. If it is for favour to be shown to your ardent young friend, after the statement he desired to make to me, with greater courage than discretion (for which, however, I like him none the less), then it is granted already." "It is not for him," answered Arthur; "we have both come hither on the same errand. But we do desire your Eminence's good offices for one who was in somewhat similar case with Dalaber. We have come to plead for the life and liberty of John Clarke, canon of your own beauteous and godly college in Oxford, who, with two other companions, one of them a canon and the other a singing man of that foundation, is lying near to death in a foul prison, and will without doubt perish miserably there, if release doth not speedily come." The cardinal's steel-blue eyes took a new expression, and one which Arthur could in no wise interpret. "Like to die!" He spoke somewhat more abruptly than had hitherto been the case. "You are sure of that?" "I am sure of it," answered Arthur; "and Dr. Higdon, the dean, will tell you the same, if your Eminence will ask him of it. And though Master Clarke lies under the imputation of heresy, I trow there is no sounder churchman nor godly and pure-living man in all Oxford than he, nor one whose life holds so fair a promise of shining like a light in a dark world." "I have heard of this man," spoke the cardinal thoughtfully; "I have known of him many years. I had report of him or ever he was sent to Oxford." "It is known in all Oxford how that your Eminence did send to us there this godly man, whom we have learned to love and revere," spoke Arthur eagerly; "and many a time have we blessed you that your choice did fall upon one of so saint-like a walk in this world. How should we, then, not plead with your Eminence for his life, when it lies thus in jeopardy? If you would speak the word of release we would do the rest." The cardinal sat very still and thoughtful. "John Clarke is not my prisoner. He belongs to the Bishop of Lincoln." "I know that well," cried Arthur eagerly. "But surely the word of your Eminence would prevail with the bishop, and free him from his bonds." "My Lord of Lincoln is very bitter against heretics." "Then let him take me in lieu of Master Clarke!" suddenly cried Dalaber, stepping forward to the cardinal's table, upon which he leaned with both his hands, and his dark eyes flashed fire. "If he must have a victim, let me be that victim. I am tenfold more heretic than Master Clarke. Let me take his place in the foul dungeon; let me, if need be, go to the stake for him. If there must be a victim, let me be that victim; but shall he die whose life has been given for the purity of the faith, and for teaching that very doctrine of the unity of the one Holy Catholic Church upon which your Eminence laid such stress in speaking awhile ago? Give me up to the mercy of the bishop, and let Clarke go free!" The piercing gaze of the cardinal was fixed upon Dalaber's strenuous face. All weakness had vanished from it now. It was full of passionate earnestness and dauntless courage. His dark eyes met those of Wolsey without fear or shrinking. The loftiness of a great resolve, a great sacrifice, was shining in them. "I will consider this matter, my sons," spoke the cardinal, whose face softened as he gazed first at one young man and then at the other. "I must communicate with the bishop, and I will see you again. Fortunately he is not far from London. A messenger can quickly reach him. Come to me here in four days' time, and I will see you again and perchance give you an answer. Will your mind have changed in those days, Anthony Dalaber? Do you indeed mean the things that you have said?" "I do," he answered quietly, and added no protestations. "I will remember," spoke the cardinal; and rising to his feet he gave to Arthur the benediction for which he bent his knee. Dalaber hesitated for a moment, and then he too knelt. There was no hypocrisy in this act. Something in the aspect and the words of the cardinal had changed his opinion of the man during the brief interview. "The Lord bless thee, my son," spoke the priest solemnly. "The Lord give thee grace and discernment, wisdom and light. The Lord strengthen all that is good in thee, that it may live and grow, and cast out and uproot all that may become a stumbling block or root of bitterness within thee. The Lord give to thee the understanding mind, the childlike heart, the pure spirit of the children of light, and lead and guide thee into all truth. Amen." The two companions went quietly from the room, and through the long and stately passages, where the worldly pomp visible had stirred in Dalaber on entering a sense of incongruity and almost of contempt. But he did not think of these things as he walked out into the sunny street; and both had got far upon the road to their lodgings, hard by Moor Fields, ere either spoke a word. "I trow he will do it," then said Arthur, drawing a long breath. "You think so truly?" "I watched his face. It was hard to read its look; yet I thought there came a gleam of anger into it when I spoke of the peril they lay in from death by sickness in that noisome prison. After all, they are all scholars of his own college; and methinks he and the bishop have disagreed ere this over matters of discipline, and where mercy rather than judgment should be shown. All the world says that Master Garret and Robert Ferrar would have been sent to the stake had the bishop's word prevailed, but that the cardinal would not give them up to him. It may be that he will be loath to give up Master Clarke and his friends; but surely the cardinal's word would prevail, if he desired to make it." "And if the bishop has a victim, that might satisfy him," spoke Dalaber gravely. "Thou art thinking of thyself?" asked Arthur quickly. "Why should I not? I have offered myself as a substitute. If they permit the exchange, I will not draw back." Arthur regarded him with a species of admiration. But he was silent awhile, finding speech difficult. Then he asked: "Does Freda know?" "Yes," answered Dalaber briefly. "And she was willing?" "She was willing." They walked on in silence for some time, only pausing when they reached the open space of Moor Fields, where the apprentices were playing quarterstaff, wrestling, and shooting with bow and arrows, and shouting aloud in their glee. The friends stood awhile watching, but their thoughts were far away. Suddenly Arthur broke out into what for him was rather vehement speech. "Then thou art in truth a hero, Anthony, with the spirit of the warrior and the martyr. I have sometimes misjudged thee, thinking thee somewhat unstable, though a man of parts and one to be much beloved. I ask thy pardon now for having so misjudged thee. Thou hast all the stuff in thee which I have sometimes thought was lacking." "It was lacking. Thou hast not misjudged me," answered Anthony gravely. "I have been unstable. I know it myself, none better. Alone, I should be unstable still. Indeed I may not trust myself even from day to day. But there is One who changeth not--One who is with us, and in us, and for us. He will be our strength and our stay in times of darkness and perplexity, and teach us to guide our steps aright. If I have found courage, that courage is His; if I can hold steadfast, it is in His power. That is all. I have put myself into His hands. I shall take no thought for myself, what I shall speak or do. He is showing me that He would have all Christian men to live together in unity and peace. I do truly see and believe that. Yet if He command me to speak or to do that which men will call heresy and sin, He will give me grace to stand firm, even unto death." Arthur was silent awhile. In his heart he scarcely believed that the cardinal would offer up Anthony Dalaber to the tender mercies of the implacable bishop; yet there was no knowing. The great man had evidently been struck by the personality and history of the young graduate, and it was possible he might recognize in him a type of character which might prove dangerous and subversive to the existing order of things. It was an anxious time for Arthur--more anxious, as it seemed, than for Anthony, who remained all the while very calm and tranquil, much occupied in reading and prayer, and very constant in his attendance at the various churches in the great city. Having been for long debarred from taking part in public worship, it seemed a great refreshment of spirit for him to do so now. Arthur generally accompanied him; but often he rose quite early, and slipped out alone for some morning Mass, and came back with his face aglow with the mystic devotion in which he had been engaged. "Call that man a heretic!" thought Arthur, as he watched and marked him; and he little knew that he was not the only man dogging Dalaber's footsteps in those days. The cardinal had his own methods and his own carefully-trained servants, and not a thing that either young man did in those few days was unknown to Wolsey in his sumptuous palace, with the affairs of the kingdom and of other realms more or less pressing upon his attention. On the appointed day they again appeared before him in his closet, and he received them with an urbanity which sat graciously upon his rather austere person. "I have made inquiry concerning the matter upon which you came to me, my sons," he said, "and to my sorrow and regret I find that you spoke only too truly as to the condition into which the unwholesome state of their prison has reduced those three men. I have therefore prevailed with the bishop to permit them to be delivered to their friends. "And if you, Master Cole, who are well known in Oxford, will make personal application to the dean of the college, he will give you the needful authority for obtaining possession of the persons of the prisoners, who will be released and placed under your care. All that will be demanded of you, or of their friends, is that you will take care of them, and be answerable for their appearing at the bishop's tribunal, should he summon them later to appear before him." Arthur's heart leaped for joy within him. He spoke a few words of heartfelt thanks. But Anthony's eyes never left the cardinal's face. "And shall I surrender myself prisoner in their place?" A slight smile lighted the thin, pale face. "Do you so desire to court prison and death, my son?" "I do not desire it," answered Anthony humbly. "I once did think I had courage and strength to fight and to overcome; I did think myself to be a hero. I have learned to know myself better since then. Love and life are sweet to me as to other men. But I did mean that which I did say, and I will not draw back. If a victim be wanted, let it be rather me than Master Clarke." This time the cardinal's smile was more full and free. "We will see whether we cannot make shift without a victim. Anthony Dalaber, you are a free man. There is no talk of arresting you in place of any other. That is neither the law of the land nor the practice of the church. I have watched you, my son; I see that you are of a godly mind. You may yet be a good and a great man in this land. Hold fast the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and God will bless and keep you. "I trust we shall hear no more of heresy in Oxford. And when you receive John Clarke into your keeping, tell him that I regret the harshness to which he has been exposed, and that I have prevailed to effect his release, but that beyond this I cannot help him, but trust that between him and his bishop some better understanding may be speedily arrived at." "We thank your Eminence from our hearts," spoke Arthur, as he bent his knee, feeling a double load of anxiety and sorrow lifted from his heart. "We will not forget all we owe to your clemency and kindness, and with more others than I can name we will pray for all blessings to rest upon your Eminence for this gracious act." The cardinal was pressed for time, and dismissed the young men with a blessing. They went out into the sunny courtyard, scarce able to believe their own success. Liberated from prison! Clarke to be liberated and delivered over to their care! Oh! they would soon restore him to health and strength by their loving ministrations. They would surely succeed in this. All the three to be given up to their friends! They must lose no time in riding to Oxford with the news. Not a day of this lovely springtide should be wasted. They would ride all night, that release might come the earlier. Yes, there was full moon, and already the daylight lasted long and came again early. They would ride without a pause, save for needful refreshment for man and beast, till they reached Oxford. They could be there before daybreak. On the morrow they could carry forth their friends to Poghley. It was a thought fraught with happiness and joy. They would not lose an hour. And so quickly were all their preparations made that before the shadows had grown long, before the sun had sunk far towards the horizon, their reckoning was paid, their bags were packed, their servants summoned, and the little cavalcade was ready to start forth and ride with loose rein to Oxford ere break of day. It was no hardship, that quiet riding through the long hours of the misty night. They did not hurry their beasts, for they could not obtain any interview with dean or prison governor in the dead of night. So they pursued their way quietly, discussing many plans; and before the first light of day had begun to glimmer in the east it was settled that, whilst Arthur should go direct to Oxford with the cardinal's mandate, and should make all needful arrangements for the immediate transportation of the sick men to Poghley, Anthony should ride there direct, to advise the young wife and her sister of what they might expect, and to see all made ready there. Eager as Arthur was to return home to Magdalen, he knew that his authority and his purse would go farther in Oxford than Anthony's. It was needful for him to be there in person; but it might be just as well for Anthony to keep away from the town at that juncture. Dalaber did not himself think of or fear any peril, but Arthur's other arguments prevailed with him; and shortly after dawn, at the parting of the ways, the two friends separated, Arthur and the servants riding direct to Oxford, whilst Dalaber took his solitary way towards Poghley. His heart beat high as he began to trace the familiar outline of wood and hill. When he rode away a week ago, it was with a very strong presentiment that he would never see the place again. So resolved had he been to make confession of such of his beliefs as were accounted heresy that he had not dared to believe he could escape. Yet here he was, safe and sound, and rid at last of that haunting fear and remorse which had eaten into his very soul. True, he had not said much, yet he knew that the cardinal had understood, and had, as it were, declined a further and fuller revelation. He had understood, on his side, that the church did not desire to push matters to extremity, and to lose the love and adherence of its most promising sons. He was willing, for his part, to avoid publicity for a time, to resume his interrupted studies, and to wait in patience for what would come out of this movement within and without the church. But the sense of sailing under false colours had now been taken away. He had relieved his soul; he had spoken the truth; he had offered himself as a victim; he no longer stood condemned as a coward and a denier of his faith. With a glad heart he rode onward through the rosy glow of a red and golden dawn. All nature seemed in harmony with his joy and triumph. The birds shouted their morning songs, and the budding trees and waving grass seemed silently to voice a happy answer. Primroses gemmed the banks, and the frail white anemones carpeted the twinkling woodlands, where sunbeams and shadows chased each other through a maze of tender green leaves. Then the horse beneath him, though somewhat wearied from the long journey, knew his homeward way, pricked forward his ears, and broke into a canter, bravely bearing his rider up the gentle incline, and through the gate that led towards the moated house. Suddenly a white figure seemed to emerge from the thickets of shrubs, and a joyous voice exclaimed: "Anthony, Anthony! is it thou?" He was on his feet in an instant. The horse set off riderless for his own stable. Anthony's arms were about her, his kisses on her face. "Freda! my beloved! my wife!" "Anthony, O Anthony! And thou art free!" "I am free, and the load has fallen. I am free and forgiven, and at peace with God and man. And, Freda, we must hasten to the house with the news; for Arthur has gone forward to obtain the release of Clarke and Sumner and Radley, and as soon as possible--it may even be today--he will bring them here to be cared for." Chapter XVIII: The Release Five days, however, elapsed at Poghley before any news came from Arthur at Oxford, and then it was brought by Dr. Langton, who, upon Dalaber's return, had started forth again to that place, partly to set his house in order and arrange his books and papers before his departure for foreign lands, partly because he hoped his skill in medicine and the arts of healing might prove of use to the victims of the prison house on their release. For the sisters and Dalaber those days were happily passed, despite the anxiety they felt as to what might be passing in Oxford. To them it seemed as though the clouds of peril which had hung so long in their sky were rolling fast away. Dalaber was relieved from that burden of remorse and bitter humiliation which had been weighing upon him. Humble and contrite for past errors, past weaknesses, he was, and would remain; but he had delivered his soul by his frank admissions to the cardinal, and he could respect and admire the dignity and clemency of that powerful man, and be grateful to him for both. Freda was his own, as she had never been before--her mind at rest, her heart satisfied, her old esteem and admiration and trust restored. Together they wandered through orchard, meadow, and woodland, speaking to each other from the bottom of their hearts, unveiling their most sacred thoughts and feelings, and sharing every aspiration, every hope, every plan for present or future. The world for them was a pure Arcadia; they almost forgot for the time being the more troublous world without. It was like a green oasis in their lives, like a haven of rest and peace after driving storms and perilous hurricanes. They lived in the sunshine, and thanked God in their hearts, and received that rest and refreshment of body, soul, and spirit of which both stood rather sorely in need. Then on the fifth day, as the sun was drawing towards its setting, Dr. Langton returned. They pressed eagerly round him to learn the news. His face was thoughtful and very grave. "They are bringing Master Clarke. He is not more than a few miles distant. He will be here before dark. I have come to make all ready for him." "Is Arthur with him?" asked Magdalen, whose hands were clasped about her father's arm. "Yes; he is riding at a foot pace beside the litter. We have had to carry him thus all the way, and by very gentle stages. At the first I doubted if he could bear the journey. But he was himself desirous to see Poghley once again, and we decided to risk it. He has borne the journey almost better than I had feared." "And now we will nurse him back to health and strength," cried Magdalen, with earnestness. "Alas that so good a man should have to suffer so sorely!" Freda observed that her father turned his head slightly away. She felt a sort of constriction at the heart, but it was Dalaber who put the next question. "Is only Clarke coming hither?" he asked. "What of Sumner and Radley who were with him in prison?" Dr. Langton paused a brief while before answering, and then he said in a low and moved voice: "Radley was scarce alive when we came to them. They were all taken to the Bridge House, where we had made preparation to receive them. But he died within a few hours. I scarce know whether he did really understand that liberty had come at last. On the morning of the second day Sumner died, and we thought that Clarke was lying in articulo mortis; but I tried in his case a certain drug, the use of which I have only recently discovered, whereupon he fell into a quiet, natural sleep, and the fever began to leave him. There is much sickness again in the town, and it seemed to me well that, if he could bear removal, he should be taken where stronger and purer air could be breathed. "Yesterday, very early in the morning, we started forth. Arthur had had an easy litter constructed under his own eyes, which can be slung between two horses walking gently and evenly. In this way we have brought him. In another hour he should be here. I wish to make ready some large and airy chamber that opens direct upon the garden, where he can be carried daily to inhale the scents of the flowers and be enwrapped by the sunshine. If there be a chance of recovery--" Dr. Langton stopped short, and Magdalen looked earnestly into his face. She read his thoughts there. "You think he will die?" "I fear so. I misdoubt me if there can be any rally. And in truth, my child"--he drew Magdalen gently onwards with him towards the room which he had fixed upon in his own mind as the one most suited to his purpose--"in truth, I know not if it were true kindness to seek to save that stainless life. I had speech with Dr. Higdon anent this very matter only the night before we started forth, and he told me that, albeit the bishop had been persuaded by the cardinal to permit the release of the prisoners for the present, yet that, should any recover--and in particular, Master Clarke--he was like to demand his surrender later into his own merciless hands; and it is well known that he has said that, since Wolsey would not burn Garret or Ferrar when he had them in his clutches, be would burn Clarke so soon as he was able to stand his trial. Some even say that he only suffered the men to be released from prison that Clarke should be sufficiently recovered to perish at the stake." Magdalen shuddered and hid her face in her hands. "Oh that such things should be! And in a Christian land, and within the very Church of Christ itself!" "We will trust it is not true," spoke Dr. Langton gravely, "or that more Christian and more merciful counsel may prevail. But in all truth I know full well that, short of a miracle, Clarke will only come here to die. Perhaps the best that we can wish for him now is a peaceful and painless passing away in the midst of his friends, with no more fears of prison or martyrdom before his eyes; for in sooth I think his soul has soared into a region where all fear and anxiety are left behind." Magdalen's eyes were full of tears. She had been from the first deeply attracted both by the words and by the personality of John Clarke, and sometimes she had had intimate talks with him on spiritual matters, which had made an indelible impression upon her heart. She now busied herself diligently in making ready for his reception that pleasant sunny chamber which her father had selected. The great canopied beds of the day were too heavy and ponderous to be easily moved; but smaller couches and abundant bedding were quickly collected, and the room began to glow with the masses of flowers that Freda brought in from the garden and woodland beyond. The place was fragrant with the breath of cowslip and primrose, whilst, as the light faded from the west, the dancing flames of the log fire on the hearth gave a cheery air of welcome. The sisters stood clasping hands as their friend was brought in by the bearers, and tenderly laid upon one of the two soft couches made ready--one beside the window, and one in a warmer situation near to the hearth. It was upon this one that he was laid first, and Magdalen caught her breath in a little sob as she gazed upon his face--it was so thin and sunken, so absolutely colourless. The eyes were closed, and though there was an expression of deep peace and happiness upon the face, it looked to her more like the face of one who has triumphed in death than of one who is living and breathing yet. Dalaber flung himself upon his knees beside the couch with a lamentable cry upon his lips. "My master! my master! my friend!" he cried, and at the sound of these words and the familiar voice the long lashes quivered and slowly lifted themselves, and they saw the dim, sweet smile steal over the wan face. "Is that Anthony? I cannot see. God bless thee, my son! He is giving me all I could ask or wish." Dr. Langton signed to his daughters to come away. The patient had no strength for further greetings then. Freda's eyes were blind with tears as she found herself hurrying from the room, and Magdalen threw herself into her husband's arms, weeping aloud in the fulness of her heart. He held her closely to him; he too was deeply moved. "But we must not grieve for him, my beloved; as he himself has said so many times during these days, 'To depart, and to be with Christ, is far better.' He goes forth so joyfully into the great unseen that we must not seek too much to hold him back. His Lord may have need of him elsewhere. In truth, he is more fit for heaven than earth." "He dies a martyr, if any ever did!" spoke Freda, choking back her tears, and speaking with shining eyes. "He has laid down his life for a testimony to the truth. What martyr can do more than that?" "Is there no hope of his life?" asked Magdalen, still clinging to her husband's arm. "Your father fears not," answered Arthur; "and in sooth, after hearing the story of their imprisonment, I think the same myself. Oh, the patience, the sweetness, the self forgetfulness, with which he has borne all! One could weep tears of blood to think that such things are done to living saints on earth in the name of religion." They looked breathlessly at Arthur, and he spoke again. "I will not describe to you what we found when we entered the prison. Enough that one would not herd one's swine in such a place. Two out of the three were dying; and the third, though sick as you now see him, was yet dragging himself from one to the other, to minister to their still greater needs, as he had done from the first, giving to them of his own meagre food and water--neither of which was fit for human beings to touch--and enduring all the slow agonies of fevered thirst day after day, that their in some way be lightened. "Sumner lived to tell us that. From the first Radley had sickened, as the strong men ofttimes do in such places more quickly than the weaker and feebler of body. Clarke, who had brought his body into subjection by fasting, who had nursed the sick in their filthy homes, and spent weeks at times in fever-stricken spots--he resisted longest the ravages of the fell prison fever. He and Sumner nursed Radley as best they might. Then Sumner fell sick, and Clarke had them both to care for. "To the very last he tended them. Though well nigh in as evil a case, he yet would rise and crawl to them, and give them food and water, or moisten their lips when they could no longer eat the coarse prison fare. His patience and sweetness were not quite without effect even on the jailer, and from time to time he would bring them better food and a larger measure of water. "But even so, there was none to help or succour them in their hour of extremest need. May God look down and judge the things which pass upon this earth, and are done by those who take His name freely upon their lips! He whose eyes see all things have seen those three men in their prison house. May He be the judge of all things!" "Thank God you came in time!" spoke Magdalen, with streaming eyes. "Thank God they did not die in that foul hole!" "I do thank Him for that. I fear me poor Radley did not know that release for him had come; his greater release followed so hard afterwards. But Sumner lived long enough to know us, and to rejoice in the hope that Clarke's life would be spared. We did not tell him how little chance there was of that. 'He is one of God's saints upon earth,' were amongst his last words; 'surely He has a great work for him to do here. Afterwards he will walk with Him in white, for he is worthy.' And then in broken words he told us the story of those weeks in prison; and with a happy smile upon his lips he passed away. He did not desire aught else for himself. He left Clarke in the hands of his friends. He folded his hands together and whispered, 'Say the Nunc dimittis for me, and the last prayer;' and as we did so his soul took flight. The smile of holy triumph and joy was sealed by death upon his face." "Faithful unto death," whispered Freda softly to herself, "he has won for himself a crown of life." Anthony came to her presently, looking strangely white and shaken. They passed together out into the moonlight night. He was deeply moved, and she saw it; and her silence was the silence of sympathy. "If only I had shared their faith, their steadfastness, their sufferings!" he spoke at last. But she laid her hand upon his arm and whispered tenderly: "Think not now of that. The past is not ours; and I know that God has forgiven all that was weak or sinful in it. No sin repented of but is washed away in the blood of the Lamb. Let us rejoice in that there are ever those who will follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, both here and hereafter, and will sing the song that no man else can learn. And if we ourselves fail of being counted in that glorious numbered host, may we not rejoice that others are found worthy of that unspeakable glory, and seek to gain strength and wisdom and grace from their example, so that in the days to come we may be able to tread more firmly in the narrow way they have travelled before us?" They saw him the next day, for he asked to be moved out into the garden, into the sunshine of the sweet spring day. Weak as he was, Dr. Langton was of opinion that nothing could either greatly hurt or greatly restore him. And to fulfil his wishes was the task all were eager to perform. So, when the light was just beginning to grow mellow and rosy, and the shadows to lengthen upon the grass, Clarke was carried out and laid upon a couch in the shelter of the hoary walls, whilst he gazed about him with eyes that were full of an unspeakable peace and joy, and which greeted with smiling happiness each friendly face as it appeared. They knew not how to speak to him; but they pressed his wasted hand, and sat in silence round him, trying to see with his eyes and hear with his ears, and listening to the fitful words which sprang from time to time to his lips. "It is like the new heavens and the new earth," he said once--"the earth which the Lord will make new, free from the curse of sin. Ah, what a glorious day that will be! If this fallen world of ours can be so beautiful, so glorious, so full of His praise, so full of heavenly harmonies, what will that other earth he like, where He will reign with His saints, and sin and death shall be no more?" It seemed to others as though he were already living in that new earth of peace and joy, and in the immediate presence of the Lord. The light in his eyes grew brighter day by day, the shining of his face more intense. As his hold upon the things of this world relaxed, so did his sense of heavenly realities increase in intensity. All his words were of peace and love and joy. It seemed as though for him the veil were rent in twain, and his eyes saw the unspeakable glories beyond. His gratitude to those who had brought him forth from the prison and set him in this fair place was expressed again and again. But once, in answer to something Freda spoke, he said with a wonderful lighting of the eyes: "And yet, if you can believe it, we were strangely happy even there, for the Lord was in the midst of us, as surely as He is here amid this peace and loveliness. When we are holding Him by the hand, feeling His presence, seeing His face in the darkness, believing that it is His will for us to be there, it is strange how the darkness becomes light, the suffering ceases, the horror all passes away. I do not mean that the enemy does not intervene--that he does not come and with his whispers seek to shake our faith, to cloud our spirits, to shroud us in darkness and obscurity. But thanks be to God, His Son, having overcome temptation in human flesh, we in His strength, by Him, and through Him, and in Him, have power to overcome. Satan came; but he did not stay, for One that was mightier was with us. Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." That was all he ever spoke of the prison life--no word of its hardships and sufferings, only of the power of the Lord to take away the bitterness, and to comfort, cheer, and strengthen. And so they ceased to think or to speak of it, too. It had not hurt him. The iron had never entered into his soul. And almost by now he had forgotten. All was peace and joy and love. And even the knowledge that his companions had passed away was no trouble to him. "We shall meet so soon again," he said, and the light deepened in his eyes. "I am so curious to know how it is with the departed--whether they lie at rest as in a heaven-sent sleep, while their heart waketh; or whether the Lord has work for them beyond the grave, into which they enter at once. I long to know what that blessed state is like, where we are with Christ, yet not in the glory of the resurrection, but awaiting that at His good pleasure. Well, soon all this will be made known to me; and I cannot doubt we shall meet again in joy and love those with whom we have walked in fellowship upon this earth, and that we shall in turn await those who follow after into peace, and so with them look forward to the glorious day when the living shall be changed and the dead receive their bodies back, glorified in resurrection life, and so enter all together into the presence of God, presented as one holy mystical body to Him, the Bride of the Lamb." There was just one shadow that fell for a moment athwart the perfect peace and joy of this departure. But it was not one that could touch his spirit for more than a moment. As he felt life slipping fast away, and knew that very soon he must say farewell to earth and its sorrows and joys, he called Arthur to his side and asked: "Will they admit me to the rite of the Holy Communion before I die?" It was a question which Arthur had foreseen, and he had himself taken a special journey to Oxford to see the dean upon that very point. But Clarke still lay beneath the ban of excommunication. He was still regarded as a heretic; and although, after all he had passed through, much sympathy was expressed for him, and any further cruelty was strongly deprecated, yet the law of the church forbade that the holy thing should be touched by unhallowed hands, or pass unhallowed lips. So now he looked compassionately into Clarke's face and said: "I fear me they will not do so. I have done what I can; but they will not listen. None may dare to bring it to you until the ban of the church be taken off." Clarke looked into his face at first with a pained expression, but gradually a great light kindled in his eyes. He half rose from the couch on which he was lying, and he stretched forth his hands as though he were receiving something into them. Then looking upwards, he spoke--spoke with a greater strength than he had done for many days--and a vivid smile illuminated his face. They were all standing about him, for they knew the end was near, and they all saw and heard. "Crede et manducasti," he said; and then, with a yet more vivid illumination of his features, he added in a whisper, "My Lord and my God!" Then he fell back, and with that smile of triumph upon his face, passed away. Over his remains, which were permitted to lie in consecrated ground, they set up a white cross; and beneath his name were the words: "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." Notes [i] "Believe, and thou hast eaten." Words often used by the early "heretics," who were debarred from partaking of the feast of Holy Communion. 
7429	----	Juliet Sutherland, Joel Erickson and the DP Team TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS OF FAITH BY MARY COLE Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.--_Paul_. PREFACE The history of the world consists mainly of the stories of the lives of certain men and women whose deeds have been of sufficient importance to make them worth relating. The lives of some persons have been worth narrating because of their abounding in deeds of great merit, such as the lives of Washington, Gladstone, Frances E. Willard, and Joan of Arc. The lives of others have been thought worth narrating because of their great wickedness, as the lives of Nero and Queen Mary of England. But the church too has a history. This history differs from the history of the world, in that it does not record merely the doings of man, but the workings of God through man as his instruments. God is a jealous God who manifests himself only through those who are willing to give him all the glory. Hence not many names of the wise, powerful, talented men of the earth have been enrolled on the history of the church, since they were not humble enough to submit fully into God's hands. In the church truly this scripture has been proved: "God has used the weak things of the world to confound the mighty." Sister Mary Cole, of whose life this book is a brief, authentic sketch, had a natural inheritance that seemed calculated to shut her forever out of a place in the history of the world or of the church. Born with a body that from her earliest childhood was racked with pain, deprived by ill health of education, she seemed naturally unfitted to fill any place in the world and doomed to be only a burden to herself and her friends. How God took her, healed her, and fitted her for his service, and how he used her as an instrument for his glory, is the story of her life. The publication of the story of her life was so remote from her thoughts that it was only by the solicitation of some one who had been greatly helped by her faith and experience and the workings of God through her, and who was unwilling that her trials and triumphs should be lost as a part of the history of the church, that she was prevailed upon to write this brief narrative of her life and work. The story of her life would not, indeed, be worth telling were it stripped of the manifestations of God's power. As you read this simple story, you will see clearly that, as Sister Cole has herself expressed so many times, what she is she is by God's grace, and that all she has accomplished she has accomplished through God's power. If you will take at their value the oft-repeated expressions, "God told me," "God spoke to me," "God made me to understand," realizing that these words tell us something that actually happened, you will get some idea of how marvelously God can use even the weakest members of the human race. Aside from the interest this brief history will have for those readers who have had the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with Sister Cole and who have had the privilege of listening to her stirring messages delivered under the anointing of God's Spirit, it can not fail to interest and profit all who take pleasure in reading about the dealings of God with man. It is the sincere wish of the author and of all those who had a hand in preparing this work, that it will show some their greater privileges in the kingdom of God, and that it will help some to covet the divine help, guidance, and power that are the heritage of all God's children. J.W.P. CONTENTS I. Birth and Ancestry II. Early Afflictions III. Incidents of Childhood IV. Events During the War V. Conversion and Sanctification VI. Events of Early Christian Life VII. My Call to the Ministry VIII. Seven Years of Preparation IX. Healed by Divine Power X. Entering the Gospel Field XI. Laboring in a New Field XII. Out of Sectarian Confusion XIII. The Evening Light XIV. Various Experiences in Gospel Work XV. Various Experiences--Continued XVI. God's Care Over Me XVII. My California Trip XVIII. Visiting Relatives in the East XIX. Mission Work in Chicago XX. A Battle With Smallpox XXI. Camp-Meetings in Various States XXII. Caring for My Aged Mother XXIII. Exhortation to Workers and Ministers POEMS Birthday Lines in Memory of February 5, 1822 The Refiner's Fire Chapter I Birth and Ancestry Like many other people of European descent, born in this country, I can trace my ancestry back to their emigration from Europe; but being so far removed from European environment, my nationality can best be expressed by the short but comprehensive term, American. My father was born in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. He was a descendant of the German Hessians who were brought to this country by the English to fight against the Americans in the Revolutionary War. It is said that from his mother's side he inherited a small portion of Turkish blood. Father's childhood days were spent near some of the Revolutionary battle-fields, where he played with cannon balls that had been used during that great struggle. Perhaps his early surroundings may have developed in him the spirit of partiotism that manifested itself later when, during the Civil War, he stood by his country and defended the stars and stripes. My mother was born in Ohio near the Pennsylvania border, but was reared in Carroll County, Ohio. Her father, whose name was Fleming, was of Scotch-Irish descent. His ancestors came from Ireland at an early day and settled first in Pennsylvania, and later in Ohio. When Mother's great-grandfather and his cousin came over from Ireland and landed in New York, they heard a parrot talking. It said, "A beggar and a clodhopper; a beggar and a clodhopper." They had never heard of a parrot before. The great-grandfather said to his cousin, "Pat, Pat, what kind of a world have we got into? Aven the burds of the woods are making fun of us." My mother's mother was of German descent, and could speak the German language; but she died when mother was but a small child. Very soon afterward Mother's father married an Irish lady by the name of Margret Potter. Mother's stepmother took her drams, had dances, etc.; but Mother was spiritually inclined. In her eighteenth year while attending a Methodist meeting, she was convicted of her sins. She was not saved at the meeting, but prayed through by herself to an experience. God revealed himself to her in a marvelous way and gave her the witness that she was born of him. Mother's father was a Universalist until after she was grown. At that time, although he had never professed a change of heart, he joined the Christian church. Mother's steady Christian character was, therefore, developed without human encouragement; she got help from no one but God. Her older sister said to her one day, "Rebecca, our dear mother died a Universalist; are you going to forsake her faith?" Mother answered, "If Mother did the best she knew, that is between her and her God; it is my duty to do the best I know." Later this sister joined the Catholic Church and finally died in the Catholic home for widows. I was born August 23, 1853, the seventh of a family of twelve children--eight sons and four daughters. Two died before the last two were born, so that there were never more than ten of us living at the same time. The oldest child was Jeremiah. Mother said that at his birth she gave him to the Lord, and prayed earnestly that God would make him like Jeremiah of old. God chose him for the ministry, and he died triumphant in the faith. He discerned the one body, the church, from the time the truth of the unity of God's people was first preached. His body lies in the cemetery near Hammond, Louisiana. The second child was John. He enlisted in the army and gave his life for his country. Out of this family of twelve children, God chose three for the ministry: one of these has gone to his reward and the other two remain to work for the Master. At the time of my birth, my parents lived on a farm adjoining the town of Decatur, in the State of Iowa. Later the town was enlarged until it included Father's farm, which was sold for town lots. My parents remained in Iowa until I was a year old, and then moved to Illinois, where they remained for two years. When I was three years old, they settled in Pettis County, Missouri, near the town of Belmont, afterwards called Windsor. It was there that I spent my childhood and the years of my young womanhood. Chapter II Early Afflictions "Misery stole me at my birth And cast me helpless on the wild." The words of this hymn express my condition from my first advent into the world. My mother had overworked before I was born; and, as a result, I suffered bodily affliction from infancy. I was scarely two years old when I began having spasms. My eyes would roll back in my head, I would froth at the mouth, the tendons of my jaws would draw, causing me to bite my cheeks until the blood ran from my mouth, and I would become unconscious. Although I would remain unconscious for only a short time, yet while I lay in that condition I seemed as one dead. Upon regaining consciousness, I seemed dazed all the rest of that day; and not until I had had a night's sleep, did I have a clear perception of what was going on around me. Sometimes two or three days would pass before I was fully restored. I hada number of these spansm when I was too young to know anything about them. The first one of which I remember, I begain to turn blind and did not know what was the matter; but I soon learned the nature of my affliction. I had to be very careful what I did. If I exposed myself to the direct rays of the sun or even looked straight at the sun, I was likely to have a spasm; if I drank sweet milk it was likely to have the same result. When I quit school at the age of ten years and had nothing to occupy my mind, my thoughts centered on my suffering and the frequency of my spasms seemed to increase. After having a spasm my mind was greatly afflicted with melancholy and depression. I dreaded the recurrence of the fits, and looked forward to their coming with such abhorrence that often the fear of having a spasm would bring on the very thing I dreaded. From the time I can first recollect, most of my life was spent in sadness and disappointment. It seemed as if my whole being were a mass of suffering and affliction. The doctor said there was nothing sound about me but my lungs. Most of my time I appeared to be nothing but a voice. So far as I remember, not one day of that period of my life was passed without pain and suffering. My high temper, of course, added mental suffering to the physical. Many times I wondered why I could not die. My suffering was greatly increased by melancholy and mental depression. I often sat beside my mother and cried, "Mother, why can't I die? Why did I not die when I was a child? I am a trial to myself and to all around me." Mother would say, "Mary, God has a bright design in all this. We do not know the reason why you are so afflicted, but we will know sometime." With such comforting words she many times soothed my troubled spirit. God blessed me with a dear Christian mother. Her gentle, patient life--so loving and Christlike--stamped upon my soul in early childhood the ideal of real Christian character. I had before me constantly an example of what I ought to be. As I look back at those days, my association with my mother seems to have been the only bright spot in my early life. At six years of age I began to have dyspepsia, and as a result, could eat but very little food without suffering. Up to this time and later, I could walk a mile or more; but was liable at any time to have a fit. When about twelve or thirteen years of age, other afflictions set in, such as spinal and female trouble. In my fifteenth year I became a helpless invalid, and lay in bed for five months at one time. When I first became helpless, I thought I was dying. I knew if I went into eternity as I then was I would be lost, and suffered terrible mental anguish. My dear mother came to my bedside with comforting words: "Mary, put your trust in the Lord." I could move neither hand nor foot but could only say, "Mother, I am trying to," knowing at the same time that I was not capable of meeting the conditions--repentance, etc., I decided that I would not tell Mother nor any one else that I felt that I was lost, even if I died in that condition; but God in his mercy saw fit to lengthen out my life. Viewed from the standpoint of mature life, those early years remind me of the experience of the Israel-ites when they came to Marah, where the waters were bitter, and where Moses put something into the bitter waters to make them sweet. In my unsaved condition, I was at Marah; but when the Lord saved my soul, he put something into the bitter stream of my life that made it sweet, and I can truly say, "My December is as pleasant as May: my summer lasts all the year." Yes, I can now obey God's Word: "Rejoice evermore; pray without ceasing; and in everything give thanks" (1 Thessalonians 5:14-16). Oh, what a wonderful change God wrought! It is all through grace divine; for the promise is, "All things work together for good to them that love God." Chapter III Incidents of Childhood The old home farm near Windsor, Missouri, where I spent my childhood and early womanhood, was heavily timbered on the west and the south. There was also a good-sized apple orchard north of the house and a number of beautiful shade trees in the yard, which gave the place a homelike appearance. The house was very ordinary--just a large front room, a large bedroom, an attic large enough for three or four beds, and a large log kitchen. In those days, and even until long after the Civil War, the houses were lighted mostly by candles. The old-fashioned fireplace gave us both light and heat in the rooms where they were, and made very pleasant the long winter evenings. Of course, in many ways they were not equal to our modern improvements, but we had some very happy times around the old fireplace. Mother made the candles we used, in molds especially designed for that purpose. I will not soon forget how I used to watch her put in the cotton wick, tie it at a certain place, and then melt and pour in the tallow. As soon as the tallow cooled, we had candles. Sometimes when we had no candles, we used what was called a grease lamp. This was merely a saucer with a little grease in it and a twisted rag, the greater part of which lay in the grease in the bottom of the saucer. The end which extended up over the edge of the saucer was lighted, and this device served as a lamp until Mother could make more candles. Near the house was a garden from which Mother used often to gather bouquets to cheer me in my lonely hours. These loving acts of Mother's meant much to me in my affliction. Jesus said that the gift of a cup of cold water will be rewarded. I am sure that Mother's reward will be great. When I was about five or six years old, an incident occurred which shows that I, although greatly afflicted, was not altogether wanting in activity. Two of my older sisters and I were playing on a shed adjoining one side of the corn-crib. My sisters wanted to jump off the shed, but were a little afraid to do so for fear they would hurt themselves. They finally decided that they would have me jump first, and if it did not hurt me, then they would jump. Little as I was, I understood their scheme. Nevertheless, I jumped. It hurt me quite a little; but when they asked me if I was hurt, I said, "No." Thinking then, that it would not hurt them, they jumped but they were considerably hurt too. Again they asked if it hurt me, and I admitted that it had. "Why did you not tell us?" "Because," I replied, "you were playing off on me because I am the youngest, and I would not let you know, so that you would have a chance to get hurt too." One morning when I was about six years old, I was going to school in company with my brothers and sisters and other children who went the same road. It was late in the fall, and a heavy rain that had recently fallen, made the narrow lane through which we were obliged to pass, very muddy. Cattle had made deep tracks in the mud, in which the water had collected and then frozen. The bubbles underneath the ice had the appearance of money, and we children ran along looking at the bubbles, and saying "I have found some money." All at once I was sure that I did see a real coin under the ice at the bottom of one of the holes. When I called out "I have found some money," my brothers came quickly to investigate; and, sure enough, there was a fifty-cent piece stuck to the rim of an old pocket book. It had lain there so long that the leather had all rotted away. I was so delighted and spent so much time in enjoying the treasure I had found that I learned but very little that day. One of my earliest recollections is of committing these lines to memory: "In His pure eyes it is a sin To steal a penny or a pin." Not long after this, when I was about four years old, I think, I went with my oldest sister to one of our neighbors on an errand. My sister, who could weave, wanted me to go to the home of another neighbor near by to borrow a part for the old-fashioned loom she was using. While at the house I saw a piece of pink calico about an inch square that attracted my childish fancy. I thought how nice it would be for the little quilt I had begun to piece. As I had no pocket, I put the piece of calico into the bosom of my dress and went back to my sister holding it as if I feared it would get away. Noticing what I was doing, she said, "Mary, what is the matter?" "Nothing," I answered. "What have you there?" "Nothing," I replied again. Right there I told two falsehoods, the first of which I had ever been guilty. They were like black spots on a white robe. My sister said, "I know you have something," and drew out my hand still grasping the scrap of calico. "Where did you get it?" I told the truth then, and she said that I must go back and tell the woman I had stolen it. She took me back; but she had to do all the talking. The old lady wanted to excuse me, and said, "Oh, let her have it; it dosen't amount to anything"; but my sister said, "No, she shall not have it, for she did not ask for it." Oh, how awful I felt! It was about a mile to our house, and I cried nearly the whole way home. On the way I said, "Ell, don't tell Mother"; and she promised that she would not. I had experienced now what Paul meant when he said, "Sin revived and I died." It was the first time in my life I had ever known what guilt was. Reproof given at the first offense has saved me many temptations in later life. Only twice afterward do I remember of having had a like temptation. Perhaps the influence of this incident was strengthened by a story that my mother related to me while I was still a child. This story made a deep impression upon my young heart. In Carroll County, Ohio, not far from where she was raised, there lived two families by the name of Long. The fathers were brothers. Two boys of the two families used to trap for mink and other fur-bearing animals during the winter season. As the fur of the mink at that time brought a good price, the boys were more anxious to catch mink than any other animal. One of the boys once found a mink in his cousin's trap. When he told his mother what he had seen, she said, "Go back, take the mink out of your cousin's trap, set the trap just as it was before, put the mink into your own trap, and tell your cousin that you have caught a mink; he will never know the difference." The boy did as his mother advised, and the cousin never learned of the deception until many years later. The boy who had stolen the mink went from bad to worse until, during the outbreak of the Mormons, I think, he was implicated in the murder of Colonel Davenport of Iowa. While on the scaffold, he confessed that his first step downward was in taking the mink out of his cousin's trap and telling a falsehood about it. God's Word was verified: "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind." Parents, be careful what example you set before your children. If you set a wrong example, they may rise up and curse you: but if you teach them the good and right way, they will "rise up and call you blessed." If when parents see one of their children entering upon his first temptation to take things that do not belong to him, they would do their duty, there would be more honest children today. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." From my earliest childhood I liked poetry and could readily commit it to memory. I often learned poems that were quite difficult for one of my age. The beautiful poems I learned were like rays of sunshine on my pathway and added much comfort to a life that had but few pleasures. I learned the alphabet at home and so made quite rapid progress after I began attending school, although I was greatly hindered because of stammering. Some of my teachers were very helpful to me in overcoming this difficulty. When Mr. Nutter, who taught our school one winter, saw that I could not recite because of my impediment of speech, he had all the classes recite with me so as to take away the embarrassment. I felt very grateful for his kindness. One day when I was ten years old, I had a fit at school. Father thought that while I was afflicted in this way, it would be hard on my mind for me to study, and it would be best to keep me at home. During my last term at school, I read in McGuffey's Fourth Reader, studied the second part of Arithmetic, had learned to spell fairly well in the old Elementary Speller, and had also begun geography--a study which I liked very much. I was beginning to learn to write; but as I was left-handed, my movements were very slow and awkward. Chapter IV Events During the War I was eight years old when the Civil War began. The first event that I remember in connection with the war was our teacher's dismissing school one day so that we might go over to the public road to see the Union soldiers. I suppose there were at least a regiment of these troops, if not more. As I had never seen soldiers before, their fine appearance as they marched by, dressed in their uniforms, with their guns, bayonets, drums, and full military equipment, made a lasting impression on my childish mind. At the beginning of the war, my father wished to move from the State where we were then living. Missouri was a slave State and he knew that there was trouble ahead. Perhaps father would have had his way, had not God shown mother in a dream that he would protect us, and that we would be as safe in Missouri as in any other place. Subsequent events proved that we did well to obey God, for none of our stock or property was taken. The deaths of my brother and sister were the most severe trials through which we had to pass. In January, 1862, the Federal soldiers again came to our neighborhood and camped near the same place where I had first seen them; but, at this time, the scene excited in me entirely different emotions. Snow was on the ground; the weather was very cold; and the soldiers took rails and made a large bonfire to keep themselves warm. The sky was lit up with the flames, and to me, in my nervous condition, the scene was frightful. That same evening some of the soldiers went down to our little town (then called Belmont, afterwards Windsor), brought back to the camp with them the hollow trunk of a tree containing a swarm of bees, and laid it down to take out the honey. Mrs. Hammond, the wife of our nearest neighbor on the east, who lived but a short distance from the camp, thinking that they were planting a cannon, became frightened and came over to our house with her two little children. She was afraid there was going to be a battle, and sought our house as a place of safety. She wanted to stay all night. Father pitied her; and in spite of the fact that the children were sick with diphtheria, he felt that he could not turn her out. Thus we children were all exposed to diphtheria; and as my nerves were in such a bad condition, and as I was greatly frightened because of the news from the camp and the presence of the sick children, I was the first victim of the disease. The next to take it was my sister Katherine. Just before she took her bed, she got her feet wet, and therefore had the disease in a very malignant form. The doctor who was caring for her, assured us that she was better, but he told some of the neighbors that she could not live until morning. We did not know that she was seriously ill until Father, who was sitting up with her that night, said, "Katy, it's time to take your medicine." There was no answer; her gentle spirit had taken its flight. The thought that my sister was dead was almost more than I could endure. The thought that she was gone into eternity, that I would never meet her again in this world, almost broke my heart. I wept for hours at a time. I would sit beside my mother weeping and wondering why my sister had been taken. It seemed that I could never forgive the doctor for deceiving us; and I think I never did fully forgive him, until the time when God pardoned my sins and gave me a forgiving spirit. Dear little sister Katherine! She was twelve years and six months old when she died. She was an unusual child--patient and kind--was never known to disobey her parents, and was loved by all. The other members of the family took the diphtheria one by one, until all but my father and one brother had this awful disease. Some of us were sick for nearly two months and during this time none of the neighbors, except Daniel Douglas, our nearest neighbor on the west, came to lend any assistance. He came over and sat up a part of every other night when the sick ones were at their worst, and needed the most care. Even the woman who brought the disease to us refused to help, until she was compelled to do so by Mr. Douglas; and then she only helped to prepare Katherine's body for burial. It certainly was a sad time. Even nature seemed to cast a gloom over everything--much sleet fell, and everything had a dismal appearance. It was during the war and sometime before Katherine's death that Mr. Hammond used to cross our orchard going to and from his work. One day Father said to one of the Hammond children, "Come over and get some apples to eat"; to which the child answered, "Oh, Papa brings us all the apples we want to eat. He gets them out of your orchard." One day while my brother Harvey was passing through the orchard, he saw an apple caught in the fork of two limbs. Supposing that the apple had fallen from the tree and accidently lodged there, he ate it, and soon began to feel very sick. The doctor found upon examination that the boy was suffering from strychnine poisoning. From remarks that had been dropped, we thought we knew that a certain neighbor had poisoned the apple and that he had done it for spite. A visitor at our house remarked that she feared that the Union soldiers, who were then encamped near her home, would in their absence from home, get the strychnine they had bought for the rats and poison their meal or their water before they got home again. My brother suffered from the effects of the strychnine he had taken for a number of years before he fully recovered. The husband of the woman of whom I have just spoken was a soldier in the Southern army. One time while he was out foraging, he went into a Union woman's house and asked for a pie. Finding out that she had her pies hidden under the puncheon floor, he raised a plank and proceeded to help himself. The woman, seeing her opportunity, threw the plank onto his neck and jumped on the plank. The man got a furlough, came home, and was confined to his bed for some time. It was reported about the neighborhood that he had a spell of fever. The woman who brought the diphtheria to us sought our house as a place of refuge, because the house being "low and in a low place" the cannon balls would pass over it. After the Lord saved me, this incident came to my mind as a lesson in humility. "Low and in a low place." If we as God's servants keep humble and in a low place, the enemy may hurl his darts and shoot his cannon balls: they will go over us and will not harm us. If we don't want to be disturbed or crippled by the enemy of our souls, we should keep low at the feet of Jesus where he can continually shelter us. "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high, shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." Some time after these events the Southern soldiers, commonly known as "bushwhackers," came into our neighborhood and camped in the woods. One evening as it was growing dusk, my oldest sister and the one next older than I went after water to a well half way between our house and the house of our nearest neighbor on the west. From this well both families used water. The girls had to go down a steep hill to get to the well; and as they came back to the brow of the hill, they found our dog lying dead. While the girls were at the well, the soldiers had no doubt killed the dog with a club, as no one heard a gun fired. My sisters went home with the water and then went back to investigate; they wanted to be sure that it was our dog that had been killed. They heard men in the brush near the place where the dog was lying, and being very young and not realizing their danger, they talked rather loudly and boisterously, saying that if they could see the men in the brush, they would shoot them with their fingers. The crackling in the brush indicated that the men were very near. That night a large number of these bushwhackers entered our neighbor's house and stole bonds, notes, and clothing estimated to be worth $2000. Mr. Douglas had just been to Sedalia, where he had procured a good supply of clothing. The soldiers pointed Mr. Douglas's own gun, which had never been known to miss fire before, at his head; but it failed to go off. Our house was not molested. The next day these same men caught one of Mr. Douglas's boys, made him take off his shoes, hat, and all his other clothing, except his underwear, and turned him loose. In this condition, he had to go about a quarter of a mile before reaching home. It was probably some time after these events that the bushwhackers came to our house and wanted Mother to cook a meal for a dozen men. Mother was hardly able to be out of bed, but my sister Mehala, thinking that they were Union soldiers, said, "Mother, I can cook for them." "Well, Mehala," Mother said, "if you can, you may go ahead." Mother helped all she could. They baked two large pones of corn-bread in the oldfashioned fireplace and fried plenty of fresh beef. Although the soldiers had ordered food for a dozen men, only two of them came. One of them took the provisions and the other guarded the house until he thought we would have no chance to report them. Then they went to the home of a neighbor and with much bad language said that Mother was Union and therefore pretended to be sick and did not want to cook for them. During the war, things we had to buy were very high and things we had to sell brought only a trifle. Father sold corn to the Union soldiers for 25 cents a bushel. In imagination I can see the government wagons coming to haul the corn away to their camp. The beds of the wagons were somewhat like those used today, only they sloped outward on either side until they would hold more than twice as much as our ordinary farm wagons. At that time, flour cost $10.00 and upward, a barrel, calico from 35 to 45 cents a yard, and cotton yarn from $9.00 to $11.00 a bunch. This quantity of yarn would make only about 25 yards of jeans. Mother did her own spinning and weaving until some years after the war. We sheared our own sheep, washed and picked the wool, and sent it to the carding machine, where it was made into rolls. Then Mother and my older sister, who was nearly grown, spun the yarn and wove it into jeans and linsey, and also into flannel and blankets. Mother made all the clothing for the family--underwear, pants, vests, coats, and even overcoats. I well remember the old loom and spinning wheel and the little wheel on which I used to quill for my sister while she wove. Small as I was, I had learned to knit. I knit mittens for the soldiers, for which I got 50 cents a pair at Sedalia, the nearest army post, twenty miles away. In the early part of the war Father was a militiaman. At one time he came very near being accidently killed in his own orchard by some of his own men. Some Federal soldiers who were passing came into our orchard, and seeing Father at a distance, thought he was a Southerner. Father, seeing his danger, started to run; but one of the soldiers who was near enough to recognize him, cried, "Cole, don't run or they'll shoot you"; but Father thought he said, "Cole run or they'll shoot you." Finally they got him to understand what they meant, and his life was saved. I am not sure how near to our home actual fighting occurred. There were no battles fought nearer than Lone Jack. A number of our neighbors, however, were shot down in their own dooryards by those of the other side. One of our neighbors who favored the South but who was willing to be anything for the sake of safety, got fooled three times in one day. When the Confederate soldiers came along, he thought they were Federals and professed to be a Union man; and then when the Federal soldiers came by he thought they were Confederates and told them he favored the South. When his own men came by again, they took his property because he had lied to them. His wife followed the soldiers pleading, begging, and crying, until they gave up the property. In his case, lies did not prove to be a satisfactory refuge. At Cole Camp, about twenty-five miles from our place lived some Germans--good honest people, who had worked hard and had gotten quite a bit of property together. These thrifty farmers were not disturbing either side, but some men around Windsor, who called themselves "Home Guards," went down to Cole Camp, killed these inoffensive Germans, stamped their heads with their boot-heels, took all of their goods that they could carry away, while the poor wives were begging for the lives of their companions. Then these miscreants returned to Windsor and divided the spoil. One of my brothers, a mere boy, who was working for one of the "Home Guards," overheard his employer quarreling with another man over the division of the booty. Before the "Home Guards" started on this raid, a preacher named Pierce, of the M. E. South denomination, prayed for their success. After their return, my father overheard him and one of the raiders talking. Father overheard this man tell Pierce that his brother had killed nine Germans and stamped them on the head with his boot heel. Upon hearing this the preacher, throwing back his head, laughed heartily. He seemed to enjoy the story very much. Up until this time Father was a member of the M. E. South denomination; but after overhearing this conversation he no longer professed to be one of them. It has often been remarked that war makes men wicked; but Mother used to say that usually the wickedness was in the men already and that war merely gave them a chance to put their wickedness on exhibition. Boys, of course, were especially demoralized by soldier-life, coming in contact as they did with so many wicked influences. In the early part of the war, both Father and my second brother, John, joined the militia, which was later disbanded. Before the war closed, Father reached his 45th year and after that was too old to go as a soldier. John was quite patriotic and wanted to enlist for regular service. Nevertheless, he and my oldest brother went to Illinois to attend school. When they started, Mother said, "John, don't enlist in the army any more." "Mother," he answered, "I won't unless they draft me; but if they draft I will volunteer, for I don't like the treatment of a drafted soldier." Soon a rumor came that a draft was to be made, on purpose, I suppose, to "beat up" volunteers. So to avoid being drafted, my brother volunteered. He had been exposed to the measles shortly before his enlistment, but supposed that when he joined the army he would get a furlough for at least twenty days. He was disappointed: next day they got marching orders. He took the measles, had to go out on duty when not able, took cold, and soon died with congestion of the lungs. His body lies in the soldiers' graveyard at Chattanooga, Tenn. About the year 1894, I think, while my youngest brother and I were out in gospel work, the Lord greatly burdened my heart to pray for Mother's support. My brother and I were supposed to help provide for her; and at this time Mother was especially in need, although I did not know it. The Lord showed me that I should save up what I had on hands for Mother's support until I should reach home, and that if I did not I would feel very sorry. I did as God directed. When I reached home, Mother began to tell me of the poor crops and other drawbacks and what a hard time they had had. I told her I was glad to see that she had salvation, even if she did not have much of this world's goods, for I had seen many people with much of this world's goods, but with no experience of salvation, and they were in worse condition than she. I was still burdened to pray the Lord to supply Mother's needs; not only for the present, but while she lived. When, after about three weeks' visit at home, I started again in the gospel work, I gave Mother all the change I had to spare. As I did so, she looked at me with tears running down her cheeks and said, "Mary, I don't want to take this; the cause needs it so badly." "Mother," I said, "you are a part of the cause." She laughed and cried but took the money. Shortly after this I got a postal card from my brother at home, saying that he had news from Washington, that Mother had been granted a pension because of my brother John's death during the Civil War. For three years she had been trying to get this pension and had about given up hope of ever receiving it. Mother received $400.00 back pension and $12.00 a month for the remainder of her life. The Lord showed me that my prayer was answered for Mother's support, and the burden left me. Chapter V Conversion and Sanctification A few years after I became a helpless invalid, I was somewhat wrought upon by the Spirit of God, but had no advice as to what I should do. I joined the M. E. Church on probation, although I was yet unsaved. The minister who received me into the church, did not inquire whether I was saved or not, nor did he ask about my spiritual welfare. In my nineteenth year I was convicted of my sins, after the following circumstance: I was having a quarrel with one of my younger brothers. We were both high-spirited and each wanted to have his own way. While the quarrel was in progress, Mother came on the scene, and what she heard was enough to make her heart ache. "Mary, why don't you set a better example?" "Mother," I said, "he commenced on me first. If you make him behave himself, I will behave." "Mary, I am afraid you children will never stop your quarreling until you land in perdition; and if I were out of the way, you would soon be there. You act just as if you wanted me out of the way." I saw her standing there as pale as a corpse with the big tears rolling down her face. She was always pale in those days. I said, "Mother, don't break my heart." "Mary," said she, "you broke my heart first." "Mother, won't you forgive me?" "Yes," she answered, "I forgive you; but there is one higher than I whom you have offended, and you will have to ask his forgiveness." Up to that time I was not under conviction, but the Lord now began to answer the prayer of my oldest brother, who had been praying for my conviction. That same evening I went into the garden, and earnestly asked the Lord to convict me of my sins. I remember now that he had convicted me in the past but that I had resisted until conviction left me. I said to the Lord, "I will not fight conviction now if it kills me right on the spot." The Lord took me at my word; he knew I meant what I said with all my heart. I arose from my knees, and walked toward the house, with such a deep realization of God's displeasure on my lost soul that it seemed as if the earth would open and swallow me up. I shall never forget that awful experience. I think I fully comprehended God's displeasure against rebellious souls, but in his wrath he remembered mercy, and I found myself seeking God with all my heart. I could not weep, but my heart was sincere and deeply determined to seek God until I should know that I was saved. I did not find the Lord at once and the enemy brought discouragement against my soul. I was just about to come to the conclusion that I would seek God only a week, and that if I did not find him then I would quit. But as I walked through the front room, I noticed an old Methodist hymn-book lying on the stand. I opened it and as God would have it, my eyes fell on these lines: "And will you basely to the tempter yield?" Going to the kitchen where Mother was washing, I said, "Mother, there is a hymn in this book that ought to be torn out." She said, "Why, Mary?" After I had read the line to her she said, "Mary, can't you adopt the next line as yours? 'No, in the strength of Jesus, no, I never will give up my shield.'" I decided then and there to seek God until the day of my death, or until I found him. My oldest brother and I went to prayer. He asked me to pray, but all I have ever remembered saying is, "Lord have mercy on me. Lord hear me." He said, "Mary, the Lord does have mercy on you and the Lord does hear you, or you could not have prayed as you have been praying." He asked me whether I was willing to live or die for the Lord; and I said, "I am willing to live, but I am not willing to die in this condition," He replied, "All the Lord wants is your will. He will not let you die in this condition when you want to get saved." But I still persisted that I wasn't willing to die in that condition. Then the enemy tried to bring confusion upon me. The burden of my guilt was all gone and the devil suggested that I was worse than I had thought, that my heart was so hard I could not mourn for my sins any more. Howbeit, the dear Lord came to my rescue. He reminded me that my repentance was genuine, and therefore accepted by him; and that all he required of me was to exercise faith in his promises, and that if I could not do that immediately, I could begin to quote his word, "Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief." I kept repeating that declaration and prayer all day long and until late in the afternoon. I got hold of a little tract in which God's promises were simplified; for instance, "He is our light in darkness; our wisdom in ignorance; our counsellor in perplexity." I said, "Lord, I am perplexed: the burden of guilt is gone and I can't mourn any more, but I can't say that I am saved." Mother had said that the Lord had shown her that she was saved, and I felt sure that as God is no respecter of persons, he must show me that I was saved too. I could not be satisfied short of that; so I said, "Lord, I take thee as my counsellor in perplexity." Then I repeated, "Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief." Before the sentence had dropped from my lips, I said, "Lord, I know; Lord, I know." I can not tell you how happy I was. I arose from my knees, started out of my chamber and to my surprise met the brother with whom I had quarreled. "O Oliver," I said, "the Lord has had mercy on me and saved me." I shall never forget that day. It was May 3, 1871. Up to that time I had not opened my heart to my father concerning my soul's condition and needs, as he was not living a satisfactory life himself, but when I went to the supper table, I was so happy that I said, "O Father, help me praise the Lord." Not knowing how my soul had been longing for God and a new life, he said, "Mary, what has broken loose?" I answered, "I can't praise Him enough; I want you to help me praise him." I was too happy to eat supper, and so went out into the yard and walked up and down praising the Lord to my soul's content. I might say here, it was not fear of everlasting punishment that caused me to seek God, but a good faithful mother's love. I did not want to grieve her heart and as I could not keep from doing so without help from above, I sought salvation with this end in view. At this time there came very forcibly to me the scripture about Mary's anointing the Lord before his burial. I decided that she should be my example. I would give Mother some of the flowers of my experience, and not wait until after she was dead and buried. Had I waited to strew flowers over her grave, I would have expected to hear people say, "She is nothing but a hypocrite. She did not treat her mother right while she was living, and now she is trying to make a show." Let us take a lesson from Mary of old--give flowers to the living; but if we have no flowers, let us see to it that we do not give thorns. It was thorns that the enemies of Christ placed upon his brow in mockery. Later I found that there was something in me that did not want to treat Mother just right--a disposition arising in my heart to disobey her. I felt that this grieved the Lord; and I went and asked him to forgive me. One day I said, "Mother, I am going to set down on paper a record of every day that I keep from getting mad." As I had a very high temper, Mother thought it very foolish for me to undertake such a record. Nevertheless, day after day went by in which I did not become angry, until a month had elapsed; I had not been angry for a month. Just a month after I was saved, my oldest brother, who was a minister, came with a message on the subject of sanctification. He explained the doctrine to Mother and me and showed us our privilege of attaining to this grace. Before noon of that day we made a complete consecration for time and for eternity, grasped the promises, and both of us received the experience. I am sure that my consecration was made in great ignorance; but the Lord understood that I was sincere, and graciously granted me the experience. When I received the sanctifying grace, I did not think of demonstration, or of great feeling, or of anything of that kind: I simply consecrated all a living sacrifice, and reckoned myself dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ. I met the conditions and believed that the work was done. Not until the tempter came, did I fully realize what God had done in sanctifying me. That evening the devil tested me in such a way that had there been any of the old Adam in me, it would have been stirred up; but, thank God! the devil found nothing to work upon. God had removed that depraved nature, the sin-principle inherited from the fall of Adam. As there was nothing but God's glory in my soul, nothing but glory could bubble up, no matter how severe the temptation. I felt so secure--just as if I were out in mid-ocean upon a solid rock, the waves dashing all around me, but powerless to disturb my security and the peace of my soul. Soon after I was sanctified, I testified to my experience, in a Methodist quarterly meeting. The presiding elder made fun of me: he said, "The testimonies of those that claim to be sanctified, sound just like the tones of an old cracked cow-bell. There was only one good testimony made this evening; and that was by one who did not profess sanctification." My only persecution at home came from a neighbor who made fun of my prayers. Her oft-repeated expression was, "Pray like old Mary Cole." Later when her grandchild lay dying, she called on me to pray four times within twenty-four hours. After the child was dead, she said she was hurt because I did not pray for the child's healing, because she was sure that if I had done so the child would have lived. A minister who came onto our circuit some time after this decided that those who had the experience of sanctification should not testify to it. He gave as his reason that he wanted to bring the people to a level in their experiences; in other words, he wanted to bring the sanctified ones down to lift the justified ones up, until they would all be on an equality in experience. Two sisters who were sanctified, came to me and said, "Sister Cole, we have come to the conclusion that we won't testify to sanctification this year, lest we offend the minister." I replied, "If the minister is going to oppose sanctification, so much the more will I testify to it throughout the year." I did so, and God wonderfully blessed me. These women stopped testifying to please the preacher; and before the year was out, they and the preacher were having trouble. After I was sanctified, I was so happy and victorious in my soul, that I wanted to tell my experience to others. At one time I was talking to a lady old enough to be my grandmother, telling her how happy I was, and how I enjoyed the fulness of God's blessing. She seemed to appreciate my story greatly; but after I got through, the thought came to me that she would think that I felt myself important in trying to instruct one so much older than myself. Although I did not know it at the time, this was the enemy whispering to me. I apologized to her for saying anything about my experience: "You must not get hurt at me because I have talked so to you, but I am very happy in the Lord." Looking at me steadily she said, "You are not worth getting hurt over." I saw the point. This was God's reproof. I learned my lesson; and so far as I know, I have never made an apology for what the Lord has done for me. Chapter VI Events of Early Christian Life One day soon after I was saved, I felt God stirring within me, and gave vent to my happy soul by praising his precious name aloud. This seemed to disturb Father, and he commanded me to be quiet. But God stirred me up more and more, until my soul seemed to roar like a lion, and I quoted the following scripture to Father: "If these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out." This looked like disobedience to my father; but the outcome seemed to show that God was leading me, for Father calmed down and did not again interfere with my praising the Lord. Not long after I was sanctified, I received my first light on the subject of dress. One Sunday morning while at the Methodist meeting listening to a sermon, a voice began to talk to my soul: "You profess to be sanctified, living a holy life, and yet your head-dress shows conformity to the world." These words did not come from the pulpit either: nothing was being preached against dress or worldly conformity. Sunday after Sunday the same still, small voice talked to me in this way, until I hardly knew what to do. Finally I said to myself, "I shall not allow my conscience to be tortured in this way any more." Early Monday morning, therefore, as soon as I had an opportunity, I took the flowers off my hat, as they were what the Holy Spirit had been pointing out to me. My Mother, who was sitting by, said, "Mary, what are you doing?" I said, "I am taking these flowers off." "What are you doing that for?" she inquired. "Because," I answered, "I do not want them on." I did not explain matters to her just then. She replied, "That is just a foolish notion of yours. You will soon want the flowers on again." "No, Mother," I answered, "I never will." So I took the flowers off and put them into the vase where we kept our winter bouquet. As I did so, the voice of God said, "If you do not want to be tempted in this matter again, put those flowers into the fire." I immediately obeyed, and from that day to this I have never been tempted to restore the flowers to my hat. About ten years later while I was holding my first meeting at Salisbury, Missouri, I saw a number of young ladies who were dressed so saintlike, and in a manner so becoming to holy lives, that I was convicted immediately for plainness of dress. Some of the sisters who were gospel teachers, came to me at the close of the service, saying that they would like to have a talk with me. I thought I knew what they wanted to say, because God had already been talking to me on the same subject. I was not mistaken. "As you profess to be a holiness teacher," said they, "you ought to be an example in plainness of dress." I told them that I had no plain dresses. All I had were virtually a display of ruffles, flounces, "pin-backs" and "tuck-ups." They then inquired if I would be pleased to have them help me make my clothes over. I told them, "Certainly I would, but some of my dresses are so cut up that they couldn't be made over." I was very thankful when an opportunity was offered to make my clothes plain. God had already given me an understanding of his will in regard to dress; and it was not only easy for me to obey, but a pleasure also. It was not so very long after this--while I was in my second meeting at Sturgeon, Mo.--that a minister handed me some money for my personal use. Soon afterwards his wife came and said that the Lord had shown her that she must give me something too. As this was the first money that had been handed me, I hardly knew what to do; but I accepted it. Then the sister said, "Now, Sister Cole, I will take the money my husband has given you and what I have given, and will buy the goods for a plain dress for you. I will see that it is made plain and neat, and so that it will fit you." How glad I was when I got that dress! Only once after that was I tempted to build again what I had destroyed. Then I got a dress and trimmed it with lace, but I could not wear it that way at all. That was my last temptation to try to dress in style. About nine o'clock one evening in the month of December, of the year I was saved, Mother and I were in the kitchen. I was down on my knees mixing some sausage-meat in a vessel, when all at once I looked up and saw a very bright light, which seemed to be moving very rapidly. "Mother," said I, "what makes that light?" My first thought was that some of my younger brothers were carrying a light and trying to scare us; but when I saw that the light was so strong and moving so fast, I felt sure that I was mistaken. By this time mother was standing in the door and calling, "Mary, come quick and you can see what is causing the light." What I saw, was a large ball of fire. Starting from the west, or a little north of west, it moved southeast at a high rate of speed. When we first saw the ball, about two-thirds of it was hidden behind the horizon, and we gazed at it until it went out of sight. Perhaps our imaginations worked upon our senses; but it seemed that sparks of fire flew back from the ball. In two or three minutes after the ball disappeared, there was a terrible trembling of the earth as if there had been a small earthquake. Probably the ball struck with such force that it shook the earth. This sight was witnessed by people in different states. My feelings at the time of this incident made me think how poor sinners will feel in the day of judgment when they will be standing awaiting their doom, knowing that the wrath of God rests upon them, and that they are without hope. Far more terrifying things than the passing of a comet will be happening then; and many will be crying for the rocks and mountains to fall on them to hide them from the presence of him that liveth and reigneth forever. I confess, that though I was saved, I trembled at seeing that ball of fire in its weird passage. I thought that if this little incident had such an effect upon one who was saved and ready to meet God, what a far more terrible spectacle would the day of judgment be to those who were not ready. One fall, not long after I was saved, the grasshoppers came to our part of the country, and laid their eggs, and in the spring the young grasshoppers hatched out by the million. There were so many grasshoppers and they destroyed the vegetation so rapidly that people began to fear a famine. The governor of the State proclaimed a day of fasting and prayer, and many people gathered at the different houses of worship to plead with the Lord to stay the plague. Even hardhearted sinners left their work and came to these meetings. God heard our petitions, and in three days the grasshoppers were gone. Then some of the unsaved people said, "Oh, well, the grasshoppers would have gone anyway. They just stayed until their wings were grown: they would have gone without prayer." Thus they dishonored God. We had an excellent crop that year--much better than usual; but when Thanksgiving time came, many of those who were at the fast-day meeting had no time to come and thank the Lord for his mercies. Just when the grasshoppers were at their worst, my mother was making garden. Some one said, "You would better not make garden because the grasshoppers will eat it up." "Oh, well," she replied, "I am going to plant it anyway and trust it with the Lord. 'They that sow in hope shall be partaker of their hope.'" Mother did not fight the grasshoppers at all; she just trusted the Lord. A number of people had great battles with the grasshoppers. I remember a doctor's wife who came to her death because of overheating herself in her exertions to keep the grasshoppers from getting her garden. Near one side of Mother's garden there was a patch of fennel. Mother saw the grasshoppers in the garden but they did not seem to take anything but the weeds. Then they moved out into the patch of fennel, stripped it of all its leaves, and left only the stems standing. I do not think Mother ever had a better garden; some of her vegetables were especially fine. "They that trust the Lord shall not be confounded." "Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan his work in vain; God is his own interpreter, And he will make it plain." Chapter VII My Call to the Ministry When I was about twenty-two years of age, I attended a camp-meeting held by a number of different denominations. One night, while at this meeting, I awoke and became conscious that God was calling me to get up and to go outside the tent to pray. As I obeyed the voice of the Lord, I became conscious of his awful presence and remembered what he said to Moses: "Put thy shoes from off thy feet, for the ground whereon thou standest is holy ground." God then called to my remembrance how he had been leading me for sometime to pray in secret for many different persons and interests, and made me to understand that he wanted me to exercise myself in that way at this time also. After I had prayed for everything I could think of, the Lord burdened me to pray again, although it seemed that I had no other language in which to express my petition. The Lord would in a special manner send down the glory in my soul and, at every repeated petition, fill me more and more with his presence. This was done at least three times. Then he confronted me with this question, "Will you consecrate yourself to go out as a life-worker for me?" "Lord," I cried, "I thought I consecrated myself all to you when I was sanctified." "Yes, you did, but not as a life-worker," was his answer; although, of course, this was included in the "all things" that I consecrated to the Master. Although I realized that God was talking to me, yet I began making excuses: "Lord, I am not talented; my education is so meagre; there is no one to go with me; and, besides, I have a stammering tongue." God cut my excuses short with, "Who made man's mouth? I gave Moses Aaron as his spokesman; but I will do a better part by you, I will go with you myself." Praise the Lord! Throughout the years that I have worked for him, this promise has been fulfilled. Again, when the devil suggested that I had no means of traveling, the Lord brought to my mind this scripture, "Yea, the Almighty shall be thy defense, and thou shalt have plenty of silver." For every excuse I made, the Lord had a scripture, until I felt as did Job, that when the Almighty speaks, "I will lay mine hand upon my mouth." So I submitted and consented to obey God. I now suppose that I was ready to go back to bed; but the Lord began to talk to me again. He showed me that he wanted me to pray still more. As I began again to pour out my heart to him, he seemed just to pour the glory into my soul and to press it down until he saw, I suppose, that I was ready to hear his plan for me--a plan that I had not yet contemplated. When he said to me therefore, "Go preach my gospel," I was astonished beyond measure. Oh, it was all so new! I made excuses; but again he gave Scripture to offset every excuse--and all so comforting and strengthening--that I submitted to his will. I went to bed almost overwhelmed by the glory of God. Next day I thought that as I had been blessed in learning God's will concerning me, others would be rejoiced too, to hear me relate my experience. But when I began to tell publicly how God had talked to my soul, to my surprise, it stirred up a spirit of jealousy in some and before night the devil tried to carry out his design to defeat the Lord's plan in regard to me. The devil began by starting a wicked falsehood against me and thus, almost crushing the life out of me. I did not understand the devil's cunning way and did not know how to lean on God, it was a dark hour for me. I remembered how the enemies of Moses tried to slay him when he was a child, and how the Jews tried to destroy our Savior when he was a little babe. God proved himself and protected me; he lifted me above all my persecutions and made me more than a conqueror. I had learned the useful lesson to let the Lord be my defense and not to try to defend myself. On my return home, when I told my class-leader how God had revealed his will to me concerning my future, he said, "You are a pretty looking thing to be called to preach." I thought so too; but to excuse myself, for I hardly knew what to say, I replied, "I do not believe that every one called to preach will have to stand in the pulpit: a person may preach by his life and conduct." Mother was the only other person to whom I told the story of my call, until I began my ministry. Chapter VIII Seven Years of Preparation Although God had given me a very clear, definite call to the ministry, and had made very plain his purpose in regard to me, yet he did not immediately send me out to preach the gospel. Nearly seven years elapsed between the call and the sending--years in which the Lord led me and in which occurred a number of incidents that had a very important influence on my life. These together with some other incidents connected with them, which occurred in after years, will be related in this chapter. About the time of my call to the ministry, but whether shortly before or soon afterwards, I do not remember, I was again confined to my bed from September to March. During a part of this time I was entirely helpless; but oh, with how much greater fortitude did I bear my sickness now than I did in my fifteenth year! God in his infinite love and mercy had brought about a wonderful change. Instead of being tortured and tormented, and in desperation wishing myself dead, the nearer I approached death, the happier I became. At times it seemed that the angels were hovering over me. One night I dreamed that my time had come and that I swooned away, falling into my sister's arms. I thought I heard Sister say, "Mother, she is dying." "Sister," I asked, "do you call this death?" "Yes," was the reply. "If this is death," I answered, "I could die always; it is so sweet, so heavenly, so satisfying." But my couch at this time was not altogether a bed of roses. I suffered greatly and was easily discouraged. I realized that I needed much help and wished that God would in some way send me consolation. The voice of God's Spirit spoke directly to my soul, "If I send you consolation in a dream, will you accept it?" I answered, "Yes, Lord, any way." That night I dreamed that I was in Father's yard, under a shade tree. Looking around me, I saw some things that were not pleasant; but when it occurred to me to look at myself, I found that I was robed in pure white. My soul was stirred as by heavenly music. Although I had never been able to sing, yet now I felt as though I could not keep from trying. My voice rang out like the clear notes of a nightingale; and all at once I was joined by a myriad of heavenly voices. The air was full of music. Peal after peal of the heavenly anthem struck upon my ear, and in my dream I exclaimed, "Is heaven so near the earth as this? Surely I hear the angels singing! Such music I have never heard upon earth!" Then I awoke with this scripture sounding in my ears: "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him and delivereth them." Without a doubt, the angels were around me. The strength and comfort I received in my soul that night were like Elijah's meal, in the strength of which he went forty days. Even now, the thought of my experience sends a thrill of heavenly encouragement to my soul. One evening when I was about twenty-three years old, we were having family worship, and all the saved members of the family had prayed; I felt impressed that if we should have a second season of prayer, God would do something unusual for us. As the different members of the family were praying the second time, my youngest Brother, George, ten years old, was being deeply wrought upon by the Spirit of God. He arose from his knees and started to my chair. As he was in his stocking feet, and moved noiselessly across the floor, nobody saw him. Before he got to my chair his heart failed him, and he went back to where he had been kneeling. Again the Spirit of God worked upon his heart stronger than before; he came to where I was kneeling and said, "Mary, I want to be saved too." We immediately called upon God in his behalf; the Lord wonderfully saved him; and after that he took part in family worship. God had now given me such a love for my younger brothers that when they got into their little troubles they would come to me for help and consolation, as Mother with her large family and many cares had but little time to devote to their spiritual welfare. This small burden that God placed on me was doubtless for my good. When the boys got into little quarrels, they would come to me, and I would say to them, "Do you know the scripture, 'Only by pride cometh contention'?" "Yes." "Do you know what the matter is then?" "Yes, I am up a little." "Do you know what you have to do?" "Yes, to get down." And soon their difficulty would be settled. God wonderfully blessed my soul in thus helping my younger brothers; and all unaware to myself, I was being prepared for my future work. I believe that I, as much as most children, always honored my father; and, after I was saved, I believe I honored him as much as God required. In the incidents I am now about to relate, I mean to cast no reflection upon the memory of my father, now many years gone to his final reward; but I tell them that they may prove a blessing to others. My father was not living a Christian life satisfactory even to himself; and, as a result, the enemy could at times use him as his instrument. Nervous and afflicted as I was in my childhood days, I was afraid of Father when he yielded to the enemy; but after I was saved the Lord gave me much help on this line. At times however, when Father was much under the influence of the enemy, the trials were so severe that Mother and I frequently had to seek God for help two or three times a day. The Lord always came to our rescue and lifted us above the trial. When Father showed his better self, he was very dear to all of us. When my brother Harley was about fourteen years of age, he was saved and living as true a Christian life as one would expect of a boy his age. It seemed at this time that the enemy was especially operating through Father to crush and discourage the child. God stirred up my soul to protect him and to keep him from giving way entirely. One day Harley went on an errand for Father and the mule that he rode accidentally got his ankle hurt. When he returned, Father was very much displeased, and said to my brother, "If you can do no better than that, you had better go to bed." This was in the evening. I picked up the family Bible, walked across the room to my father and said, "We are all willing to go to bed, but we usually have family worship first. Won't you read and pray?" "You can read and pray yourself if you want to," said he. So I sat down and read, and then we knelt down and prayed; God's power came like a mighty wave from the glory world, filling the room. When we arose from our knees Father had disappeared. A few minutes later, when one of my brothers went to the barn, Father said to him, "What is that noise at the house?" My brother answered, "God has given us the victory, and Mary is shouting." "Well," said Father, "that won't do the mule any good;" but the boy answered quickly, "Well, we weren't praying for the mule," and Father never said anything more about the injury to the mule. At another time Harley was lying very sick, and the enemy stirred Father up to treat him cruelly. He told my brother that if he didn't get up, he would give him a good whipping. He started to get the whip. In the meanwhile, my soul was stirred to its limit; God seemed to move my very being to protect the child. I knew that he was really sick and that the enemy was using Father for his own purpose. I went into the room where my brother was lying and stood near him. When father returned, he could see me standing by the head of the old-fashioned bedstead near one of its high posts. He knew by my looks that I was there to shield the sick boy. He ordered me out, but I made no reply. He tried to remove me by force from where I was standing; but I held on to the bedpost until finally by a strong jerk he succeeded in loosing my hold and gave me a push that threw me across the floor a number of feet away, where I fell and went to praying. God answered prayer, and gave us the victory, and Father left the room without another word. Before beginning to resist Father, I had made up my mind to take the whipping myself, rather than see my sick brother imposed upon; but God intervened, and I did not have to suffer. Every time I interfered, Father seemed to realize that it was not I, but God who was reproving him. I was now about twenty-four or twenty-five years of age and I felt that the Lord wanted me to make a few suggestions to Father about his treatment of me. I told him that he should be careful lest he lay himself liable to the law. He answered me harshly, but it seemed that God put his fear on him, for that was the last time Father became violent toward me. Shortly before my healing, which will be described in the next chapter, I had a very peculiar dream in which I saw the whole family sitting at the table eating. Father held in his hand an iron mallet which he began to motion in a threatening way toward Mother. I thought that he intended to take her life with the mallet. Then I thought, "Mother has been so good and kind to me that I can not bear to stay in the room and see this deed done." I started for the door. As I went, God spoke to me, saying, "Pray; ask for the strength of a Samson, if need be; and I will give it." I began praying and God answered. His strength and power came over me. I can not express how strong I felt as I went to my father, took the iron mallet out of his hand. He was like a little child in my hands. I held him until he promised he would never do so again; and all the while his face was twitching with fear, and he was trembling like a leaf. When I was healed, God put much of his divine power into both my soul and body. It seemed that I was just filled with God and that I thrilled with his presence, until at times I was not on earth, but rather in heaven. At one such time Father began to bring false accusations against Harley. His unkind manner, as well as the false charges, showed that he was actuated by a wrong spirit. God seemed to again stir my soul to speak in behalf of the boy. At first Father did not comprehend that God was talking through me, and spoke roughly; but he soon realized that God was using my lips of clay; the fear of the Lord came upon him, and he trembled like a leaf. I saw that God had fulfilled my dream, that he had helped me to take the iron mallet out of Father's hand. So far as I know, Father never acted so cruelly toward my brother again. I wish to warn children who read this narrative not to use this incident to their own shame. If the Spirit of the Lord should ever lead you to resist your father or mother, he will give you the power to win a victory for truth and righteousness; but, if, on the other hand, you resist your parents in your own strength, or for selfish purposes, you will bring upon yourself shame and confusion. Even if you should succeed in having your own way, either through force of will or through your parents' meekly yielding to you, God will make you feel the shame of your wrong-doing. In my personal dealings with Father, God manifested himself and showed himself mighty in caring for me. Once as we were going to meeting, the team became frightened and hard to hold and I became so frightened that I had a spasm after we got to meeting. Father was ashamed because I had had a spasm in public. He seemed to think he was disgraced, and concluded that in the future I should stay at home. I was now saved and sanctified and enjoyed very much attending public services, so Mother and I prayed earnestly that God would put it into Father's heart to let me attend meetings again. Our prayers were answered and I had no more difficulty until sometime afterwards. At that time I had been to a meeting several miles from home and had remained over night with some friends without asking permission. As a punishment, Father again refused to allow me to go to church. Again Mother and I sought the Lord with prayer and fasting, and the Lord soon showed me that we had gained the victory. We felt impressed, however, to spend another day in fasting and prayer. Although Father did not know that we were praying, he came to me and said, "Mary, you can go to meeting"; and from that time he never kept me at home from services. Father owned the farm on which we lived in Pettis County, Missouri. It contained 244 acres of fairly good land and was sufficiently stocked. Although, in a financial way, father was doing as well as his neighbors, he had for a number of years been growing discontented. These periods of discontentment seemed especially to trouble him in the spring before farm work began. At such times he wanted to mortgage his farmland and to move out of the country. Every spring for a number of years, Mother and I would get on our knees and pray earnestly to God that he would overrule Father's roving disposition and make him content to stay at home. Again and again the dear Lord was gracious and answered our petition. Things would go on well for a while, but with the coming of the next spring, we would again have the same experience. One spring when we took to our knees as usual to pray in behalf of Father, the Lord gave me to understand that our petition would not be answered, that Father would have his own way. This seemed almost unbearable, and I cried and prayed for Father until I almost lost my voice. God answered my petition with this suggestion: "If nothing else but to go among strangers and have a hard time will bring your father to the Lord are you willing that he should go?" I answered, "Lord, from this standpoint, but from no other." From that time the burden left me. Father went, and the Lord said to me, "Now you have no excuse for not going into gospel work." Father had been unwilling for me to go, and with his going my last excuse was removed. Father went first to Oregon, but some years later came back as far as Wymore, Nebraska, where he bought property and settled. A few years later he came and stayed with us at home for one winter. In a meeting that my brother George, Sister Lodema Kaser, and I held in Wymore, Father sought the Lord and seemed to get a real experience of salvation. Later he had some little difficulty in retaining his experience. He got tried at some of the brethren and thought he would leave the church, as he had formerly done in sectarianism. He found, however, that in leaving the church he was leaving God, since people can get out of the church of God only through sin. Soon after this he began to be troubled with heart failure. He lived only a few months. My sister who cared for him in his last illness, informed me that at the time of his death he was fully restored to the fellowship of the church and that for some months before he died, he showed every sign of being prepared. God assured me that Father was saved, yet as by fire. This seemed a real miracle as much of the time Father's religious experience had not been satisfactory. We serve a mighty God who works miracles: some of Father's children had been praying so earnestly for him that God would not let them be disappointed. I believe I shall meet him in the glory world. At the time my youngest brothers were saved, and shortly afterwards I was an invalid and unable to go to meeting on Sunday. They took turn about staying with me, while my parents went to meeting. As soon as the rest of the family were gone, we would take down the family Bible and ask the Lord to help us to turn to some scripture that would be good for us. Then we would read. Whenever we came to a promise, we would ask the Lord to help us claim that promise and to get out of it all the benefit that God had in it for us. After reading, we would get down and pray asking God to help us retain what we had read and to make it a blessing to us. When the family would come home from meeting, Mother would tell us all she could remember of the sermon, as she was anxious to get to me all the encouragement she could. As we listened to Mother's account of the services, we realized that we had had the best meeting. This fact became so noticeable that whenever they wanted George to go to meeting, he would say, "No, I want to stay with Mary." After the others were gone, he would say, "Mary, let us read as we did the other Sunday." "George," I would answer, "I feel so weak this morning; I don't feel able to hold the Bible" (it was a very large book), "Mary, I will hold the Bible, if you will do the reading." Weak as I was, I could not refuse, and we would begin, asking God to direct us, stopping to claim each promise, and asking God to bless the Word to our good, and to help us to remember all that would be helpful to us. We continued this practise until I was healed and able to attend the meetings again. I shall never be able to tell the profit that I derived from this little Bible school. God himself was our teacher, and through this responsibility he was preparing me for greater usefulness. It was during this period of apparent inactivity that God gave me my first experience of divine healing. At that time I think I was about twenty-five years of age. I was ignorant that the Lord is as willing and as able to heal our bodies as he is to save our souls. I was suffering greatly with a swelling on the inside of my jaw that entirely closed my mouth. The doctor said he would not dare to lance the swelling as the tendons and arteries lay so near that such an operation would be dangerous. He prescribed a poultice, and said that the swelling would probably break in about three days. I went home suffering greatly: I felt that I could not endure any more. I told my two youngest brothers, who knew how to pray and cast their burdens on the Lord, to call on God earnestly that he would either relieve me of the suffering or give me grace to bear it. Soon they came to my room: one said, "I prayed for the Lord either to relieve you or give you grace to bear the pain," and the other said, "I prayed the Lord to relieve you." In ten minutes every bit of suffering was gone. A sweet calm settled over my body; and to my happy surprise, I found that the swelling had broken. It was soon gone. I suffered no more pain, and next day was able to go to meeting. About a year later I made the acquaintance of a young man to whom I soon became greatly attached. After a time we became engaged. As I had learned to seek the mind of the Lord in all things, I did not find it hard to submit the question of matrimony to his will. The fact that I had had my own way so long, made me feel sure that the Lord was going to let me have my own way about my marriage. But this consideration did not at all affect my consecration, either at this time or when I sought God for healing. When I sought God for healing, he showed me that he wanted my entire service, and that I must seek his benefits for his glory only. It was wholly for God's glory, therefore, that I sought healing. Perhaps some of the young ministers and workers who read this book will wonder at the long period of inactivity, as some might call it, between my call to the ministry and the time when I actually began gospel work. I now look back upon this period as a time filled with blessed experiences that moulded my character, established my faith and peculiarly fitted me for the work to which God had called me. I have always been glad that the Lord had his way. This time was not lost. Like Joseph in prison, whom God was educating to be a prince, I was being prepared in God's own way for future usefulness. During this time of which I am now speaking, God laid it upon my heart to read the many good books, which now fell into my hands, such as Phoebe Palmer's Works--"Faith and Its Effects," "Sanctification Practical," and "Tell Jesus." The last named book was especially helpful in forming my Christian character, containing as it does so many precious experiences of trusting in God. I had the privilege also of reading the works of Mrs. Fletcher, Hester Ann Rodgers, and John Wesley. For the privilege of reading all these, I give God thanks. I put the experiences of which I read to a practical test, thus proving that what God had done for others, he would do for me also. After the test these narrations of God's marvelous dealings were no longer stories in a book, but they had become my own personal experiences. At different times I have hunted awhile for some lost article, when the Lord would come with these words: "Tell Jesus." I would tell him and soon I would find the missing article. He would even direct me to the very spot where it lay concealed. Soon after I read the book, "Tell Jesus," I took my sewing machine apart thinking that I could clean it and put it together again, just as one of my lady friends had done. I soon found that I was not skilful enough, told Jesus, and obtained help to get the machine together all right. Sometimes when I was not near a jeweler, my watch would get out of repair, and I would earnestly ask the Lord to fix it for me, provided he could do so without my becoming fanatical or being led wrong. A number of times he answered my prayer. One time I remember, I let my watch fall and it was greatly damaged; but I could not get to a jeweler to have it repaired. As I felt the need of the watch very much, I asked the Lord earnestly to please fix it for me. The watch soon began running. I intended to take the watch to a jeweler later; but as it kept perfect time I did not need to take it. During all these years God was teaching me as rapidly as he could, lessons of faith and trust. In every severe trial or test, no matter what its nature, I would earnestly lay my trouble before God and he would marvelously lift me up and give me victory. At such times he would give me precious promises such as these: "When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him;" "The desire of the righteous shall be granted;" "They that trust in the Lord shall not be confounded, and shall not lack any good thing." From the beginning, my spiritual life was one of trials; but thank God, the trials were always followed by triumphs. "Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." In such experiences, I learned what has been verified to me again and again throughout the course of my life, that it pays to cast all our cares and burdens upon him who has promised to bear them for us; to leave everything with him; to lay ourselves and all we possess at his feet, tiusting him to care for us and to carry our sorrows. God wants just such an opportunity. He is a wonderful God, a very present help at all times. "They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which can not be moved, but abideth forever." "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so is the Lord round about his people from henceforth even forever." Dear young ministers and workers, God may call you to his work and send you forth at once into the field; but do not be impatient or discouraged if the Lord sees fit to have you tarry awhile after he has called you. Remember, you are implements in the hands of the Lord. As workers called of the Lord, you should be like clay for the Master's use. Be careful, however, lest you become marred in God's hands as was the vessel that Jeremiah saw in the hands of the potter. Do not get in God's way and so spoil his design. Remember that Jesus at twelve years old knew that he must be about his Father's business; but he was thirty before he began his ministry. Remember that John the Baptist tarried in the wilderness for a long time before he began preaching on the banks of Jordan. Remember that the disciples spent ten days in the upper room before power came upon them from on high. You know this; nor do you think that these times of tarrying were wasted. Neither will your time of waiting be lost. Abide God's time; then, when you do enter upon your ministry, you will go, sustained by his power and by his blessing. Chapter IX Healed by Divine Power I have now to relate what to me is one of the most important events of my life. Up to this time I had been a hopeless invalid. The doctors could not cure me. Under the care of some, my health would improve for a short time; but others would not undertake to do anything for me. After inquiring into my condition, they would say that it would be as easy to make a world as to restore me to health. I remember especially that this remark was made by the doctor who was attending me shortly before my healing. At the time I was healed, my case was in the hands of a specialist, who said he could give me no permanent relief in less than a year. Having no hope of help from the doctor and having been taught that the days of divine healing were past, I concluded that there was no hope for me, and that the Lord intended me to be made perfect through suffering. In the spring of 1880, my oldest brother, who had been greatly afflicted with chronic dyspepsia, was healed in answer to prayer. Not until that time did I know that any one had been healed by divine power since the days of the apostles. I did not consider the healing which I have already related a healing, but a special miracle performed in answer to prayer. As he and I were the invalids of the family, we naturally sympathized a great deal with each other, opened our hearts to each other, shared all our troubles and sorrows. During the summer of the year I have just mentioned, my brother came home and began to tell how well he was. "Jeremiah, what patent medicine have you been taking?" He looked at me, smiled and said, "Mary, if you will take the kind of medicine I have, you will be well too." "What kind is that?" "It is faith and prayer--the Lord's word received by faith." This was all new to me--just like a strange language. I asked no more questions, for I did not know what to say. Finally, Mother, who had been listening to the conversation, said to him, "Can you eat a raw egg if I get it for you?" His health had been so poor that at times he could eat nothing but a raw egg, and frequently he would refuse even that. "Mother," he replied, "I can eat two eggs if you can spare that many, and you may cook them for me." When Mother cooked the eggs, he looked at her and said, "Mother, have you any meat?" She looked at him doubtfully, and not comprehending what God had done for his body, said, "I don't believe I will give you any meat this time." He made no reply, knowing that she did not understand. It was October before I saw my brother again. Another swelling had appeared on my jaw, stopping my mouth so that I could take my food only in a liquid form, sucking it through my teeth. My brother again encouraged me to trust the Lord, quoting God's promises to heal the body and relating a number of instances that he had witnessed where persons were healed of fits and other serious afflictions. I told my brother that I did not doubt that the Lord had healed others, but said that I did not know whether or not he wanted to heal me. "Perhaps," said I, "he is leaving me afflicted to keep me humble. If I were healed, I might not keep saved." My brother showed me that God was just as willing to heal me as he was to heal anybody else, and that it was both my duty and privilege to trust God for my healing. "Look over your consecration," said he "and see if you are willing to be healed for God's glory alone." I thought the matter over for some days. One day I prayed for my healing until I thought I could claim it by faith; but I soon found that the work was not done. Upon waking a few mornings later, I said to myself, "I am going to let the Lord heal me today if he will." Then the enemy whispered, "You have not enough faith yet to be healed; put it off a week or two, and by that time your faith will be stronger." Then came the voice of Jesus, "Oh thou of little faith; wherefore didst thou doubt." Dropping on my knees, I cried "Lord if it is unbelief, take it out root and branch"; and I knew he did. Then I said, "Lord, what next?" He then showed me I should pour out my medicine. God revealed to me that I was to be severely tempted, and that if I had any medicine about, that I would be sure to take it and so lose faith for healing. God was now bringing me to a place where I must choose between trusting God and disbelieving his promises. As a first act of faith on my part, I poured out my medicine. God showed me that if I were to doubt the Scriptures: "Who healeth all thy diseases"; "The prayer of faith shall save the sick," etc, I would not stop until I should reject all his Word, die an infidel, be lost in hell, and perhaps be the means of the loss of scores of other souls. I said to Mother, "If you ever prayed earnestly for me, pray now." So we bowed together. After she prayed, I began praying, claimed the promise in Matthew 18:19: "Lord, thou hast said, that if two shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of the Father which is in heaven. Now, Lord, we are agreed that thou shalt heal me--soul, mind, body, and spirit as completely as is most to thy glory." As I said this, I laid hold on the healing power by faith, the witness came from heaven, and the work was done. I arose from my knees saying, "Mother, it is done! I am healed! I am healed!" I felt the virtue go through my body; and, oh, the showers of heavenly grace that filled my soul! I began to praise the Lord. Oh, it was heavenly! "My soul was joyful in glory," for God filled my soul. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by the prophet Isaiah saying, "Then shall the lame man leap as an hart and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out and streams in the desert" (Isaiah 35:6). This was the beginning of a new epoch in my life, the beginning of months to me. It was the first time in my recollection that I could say I was well: the first bright hope of health that I had ever had in this world. That same day I could eat and drink without the slightest distress, anything that was fit for a sound stomach. I had never been able to do this before. But that night the trial came. It seemed that all hell was let loose to try to rob me of my healing faith and to bring back all my diseases. Had I not poured out my medicine, I surely would have yielded. Having no other refuge, I clung to the promises of God, and rebuked the devil until 2 o'clock in the morning. Then I saw fulfilled God's promise: "Resist the devil and he will flee from you"; and there was a great calm. It seemed that the angels came and ministered unto me. My joy was full; my cup ran over. When morning came I began praising the Lord; and for several days, I walked the floor offering almost ceaseless praises to God. The story was circulated throughout the neighborhood, "Mary Cole is having a whole camp-meeting by herself. She claims that God has healed her; but as soon as the excitement wears off, she will be as bad as ever." My appetite was now good, and my strength increased daily. Soon I was able to attend a protracted meeting held by the Methodists, of which denomination I was still a member. When opportunity was given for testimonies, I arose and told of God's wonderful dealings with me--how he had pardoned all my sins, made me his child, afterwards sanctified me wholly, and how he had recently healed my poor afflicted body. I exhorted them to get rid of unbelief and to move out for God on the Bible promises. After meeting, the preacher came to talk to me about my experience. He said he did not doubt that I had been healed, but I must not testify to it, "for" said he, "the people can not stand so much light." I very foolishly concluded to follow the preacher's advice; and immediately the flood-gates of hell seemed to open. The powers of darkness seemed to gather to destroy both soul and body--my mind was almost reeling; intense suffering began in my body. God showed me that I had broken my contract with him in order to please a blinded preacher. My feelings were indescribable. I did not know what to do; but God showed me that if I would renew my covenant with him, resist the devil, and obey God in all things, all would be well. I obeyed God, and my faith again became unwavering; my strength began to increase; and a large scrofulous ulcer that had appeared on my face, soon went away. My blood became pure; and warmth, such as I had never felt before, came into my body. I could now sleep comfortably with half as much covering on my bed as I formerly required. Since my first healing, I have had a few attacks of sickness but God has healed me every time. In the thirty-four years that have elapsed since I began to trust the Lord for the healing of my body, I have never resorted to doctors, nor have I taken any medicine. I have been as well as the average person, and have been able to do work as hard as God has required of me. I recommend God as a physician. At the time I was healed of my other bodily afflictions, I was also relieved of stammering. It is true I stammer some yet, at times, but not nearly so much as I did formerly; and not enough to prevent my preaching the Word. At the time of my healing, Marion, one of my unsaved brothers, was batching near the old home place. He frequently spent his evenings at home, sometimes lying on chairs drawn up in front of the old-fashioned fireplace. On the Wednesday after I was healed, I found him lying before the fire and said to him, "Oh, Marion, have you heard the good news? The Lord has healed me." And he said, "Do you mean that he has healed you or that he has healed that sore on your face?" "I mean that he has healed me, sore and all." Then I went out of the room praising the Lord. Near the close of that same week, Marion attended the revival meeting then going on at the M. E. Church, came to the altar, and got gloriously saved. Mother went to speak to him and to rejoice with him. "The Lord has been good to you, my son, to save you." "Yes," he answered, "I thought if the Lord could heal Mary when the doctors gave her up, he could save a poor sinner like me." In the years that have passed since the Lord so graciously healed me, I have witnessed many cases of healing. One that especially appealed to me occurred in December, 1880, at the Jacksonville, Illinois, Holiness Convention, where my brother Jeremiah first met D. S. Warner. I was not a witness to this incident, but I relate it as my brother, who was present, told the story. A lady by the name of Sarah Gillillen, who was afflicted with a very bad internal cancer, came to that meeting. Several months before the doctors had told her that her case was beyond their skill. She felt impressed that she would be healed at this meeting, and Jeremiah, Brother Warner, and others were very much interested in her case. They sought to encourage her and to strengthen her faith as they had opportunity. Her faith in God seemed to increase rapidly. One Sunday morning she said that the Lord had shown her that if she would get up that morning and testify to her healing he would finish the work. She got up before the large audience and began to give her testimony. A rule had been adopted that if any one testified too long, the congregation should sing him down. As Sister Gillillen testified for some time, they started to sing her down; but one of the ministers said, "Brethren, let her alone. This thing is of God." She continued her testimony; but before she got through, the power of God came down, her face shone with glory, and right then and there God finished her healing. She was made perfectly well. Chapter X Entering the Gospel Field During the seven years that had elapsed since my call to preach the gospel, years in which God had so wonderfully taught me and so gently led me, I never doubted my call. By the help and grace of God I had been able to live pleasing to the Lord, and throughout the entire time had no knowledge of his condemnation or displeasure. I was still engaged to the young man of whom I have already spoken; and after my healing, began to make preparations for the wedding. I was fully submitted to the Lord on the question of matrimony; but as my life had been running along in such a pleasant, even course, and as I had been having my own way in nearly everything, I felt that God was going to let me have my way in this matter also, when to my surprise, God made clear to me that I should not marry. He showed me that he had chosen me for himself, and that he had first right. He brought to my mind such scriptures as this: "Thy maker is thy husband; the Lord of Hosts is his name." As I submitted, the Lord did not leave me comfortless. He showed me that I was not able to fulfil both the mission he had given me, and the life that I had contemplated. For so long a time now since my call to the gospel work I had been at home enjoying the companionship of my mother and of my brothers and sisters, doing the little things that God had given me to do, and feeling the approval of God upon my soul, I had failed to seek God earnestly to see if he would have me move out in active gospel work. In May of the year 1882, my brother Jeremiah, who had been out in the active ministry, returned home. One day he said to me, "Mary, did not the Lord call you to preach his gospel?" "Yes," I replied. "Has he not shown you that that is your future work?" "I thought he had in the past, but it is not clear now." "Do you want to know why it is not clear to you now?" My brother then showed me that I had not been as diligent as I should in seeking to know God's will in the matter, that I had taken too much for granted that the Lord would have me continue doing as I had been for the past seven years. He asked me to pray about going with him into the work at that time. I did as he requested; but, as I was not anxious for an answer, did not pray earnestly enough, and as a result, no answer came. It was not long until Jeremiah asked me if I had prayed about my going with him into the work. I answered that I had, but when he asked me what the Lord had shown me, I was obliged to say, "Nothing." "Well," he replied, "As you are not decided I suppose I would better go right on to the meeting of the holiness association at Salisbury and not wait for you." Seeing that my brother was not satisfied with my answer, I again went to prayer. This time I called upon God with all my heart; and the Lord showed me that I could go into the ministry and be saved or I could stay at home and lose my soul. Doubtless no young minister, no matter how consecrated he may be to the will of God, finds it easy to take his first step in gospel work. I was no exception to the rule. Twice already when I arose in the public assembly to bear witness to God's dealings with me, my testimony became an exhortation, and God spoke through me to the edification of the people; but I had so far done no preaching, and now that I had reached the decision to go with my brother into the active ministry, I was conscious of conflicting emotions. On the one hand, I was glad to go in obedience to God, and on the other I hesitated to take the first step. Besides the natural human shrinking from taking the first step, I knew how Mother would feel about my going, and felt bad to grieve one who had been so kind to me. You must understand, however, that Mother's feeling about my going into gospel work was very different from Father's opposition of which I have already spoken. At the time I broke the news to Mother, she was going through a severe trial. It was about a week after I had my talk with Jeremiah. "Mother," said I, "if you had a child that had been afflicted with a disease that had baffled the skill of all the physicians she had consulted, and finally one physician undertook the case and performed the cure with the consideration that your child should go and work for him whenever and wherever he wished; would you let the child go?" Mother said, "I know just what you mean. If nothing else will do, you may go." "Mother, as I go out into an unfriendly world, I do not expect to have an easy time; but I believe it would not be so hard to endure the buffetings of the world, if I could look back and think that my mother gave me up gladly to the Lord, who has done so much for me." We went into earnest prayer and God gave us victory over the trial. When a week later Mother accompanied me to the train, there were no tears in our eyes. Almost five years passed before I saw her face again. Before starting from home, Mother had said to me, "Mary, here is a little change to buy your stamps and envelopes." As I reached out my hand, my brother said, "Mary do not take that money; Mother will need it. The Lord will provide you with stamps and envelopes." I thought, "Why does he talk that way? Even if he can trust God, I can't; and he ought to let me take the money." He knew better than I. The Lord provided all the stamps and envelopes I needed. Indeed, I do not remember a time that I had to wait long to write a letter for the want of stamp or envelope. As I exercised myself in trusting the Lord, my faith grew; so that I had no fear but that God would provide everything I needed--my carfare, my clothing, and even a little money to give to the cause. The first place my brother and I visited was Salisbury, Missouri, where a holiness convention was being held. A large concourse of people from all parts of the United States were assembled in the large new tobacco factory, which at that time had not been used. When we reached the place, the meeting had been in session for several days. A number of souls had been saved; but at the time of our arrival, not many of the people felt the power of conviction. On the Sunday after our arrival, the minister who had charge of the meeting got up and said, "The Lord has not given me a message this morning, but he has given a message to some one here. If the person who has the message does not deliver it, he will be responsible." The pulpit was filled with ministers, and workers were sitting all around nearby. I was on my feet in a moment. I had a message from heaven--burning words that went right into the hearts of the people. God made my tongue as the pen of a ready writer. The power of God was on me in such measure that I could hardly tell whether I was in heaven or on earth. Even old men bowed themselves and wept like children, and sinners came flocking to the altar. Thank God for the blessing and encouragement that he gave me in delivering this my first public message! As soon as the service was ended, a merchant of the town came and invited me to his home for dinner. I wondered why he should ask me to dinner; but when he began to ask me all the difficult religious questions that he could think of, the mystery was explained. I felt my inability and ignorance as I never had before, and leaned heavily on God for wisdom. The scripture, "I will give you in that hour what ye ought to say," was fulfilled. After a number of difficult questions had been asked, my host said, "I want to ask you one more question." Supposing that this question would be so difficult that it would be impossible for me to answer, I called on God more vehemently than ever. Then came the question: "If you should die now, without a moment's warning, do you know that you are ready?" I was agreeably surprised. That was an easy question to answer. "Yes," said I, with the utmost assurance. "I wish," said his wife, "I could say that"; and a lady who was present added, "I think I would have to pray before I should be ready." In my early evangelistic work I met considerable opposition to woman's preaching, and at nearly every meeting I had to explain the Scriptural teaching on this subject. Nearly all opponents to woman's preaching fortified themselves with such scriptures as these: "It is a shame for a woman to speak in the church"; "Suffer not a woman to teach or to usurp authority," etc. The Lord helped me to successfully drive these opposers out of their false positions and to show them that they were misusing the Scriptures. In this connection, too, I would call attention to 1 Corinthians 11:5, which gives instructions how a woman should pray or prophesy. If a woman be instructed how to prophesy, she surely is granted the right to prophesy. The New Testament definition of "prophesy" is: "He that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, exhortation and comfort." If, then, a woman be allowed to prophesy; that is, to speak unto men to edification, exhortation, and comfort, she is granted all the privileges that any minister enjoys. We read also in Acts 1:14 that after the ascension when the disciples gathered in the upper room, "There all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren," which scripture proves that there were women present at the Pentecostal baptism. After the descent of the Holy Spirit upon those assembled, Peter says (Acts 2:16,17), "But this is that which is spoken by the Prophet Joel; And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams." We see then, according to the prophecy of Joel, that the daughters as well as the sons were to prophesy. According to Acts 2:4, they all spake as the Spirit gave them utterance. Does not the "all" include the women present? Was not their speaking as the Spirit gave utterance the act of a minister in preaching? In Romans 16:1 Paul says, "I commend unto you Phoebe, our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea." Is not the servant of the church the minister? When they used to tell me that this scripture means that a woman could serve the church only by doing temporal work, such as cooking for ministers, etc., I would answer, "If the inference of this scripture is that a woman can serve the church by doing temporal work only, the preachers are not doing their duty, because in the second verse the Lord commanded the other ministers to assist Phoebe. If then the women's only service be to cook for the ministers, the ministers, if they would obey this scripture, should certainly help the women cook." Before going to our second meeting, at Sturgeon, Missouri, I had learned that the women in that place were not allowed to preach. On my arrival I asked some of the women if the sisters had liberty. "Yes," said they, "to pray and sing, and to testify a little." "Well," said I, "I can't sing; but I can pray, and 'testify a little.'" I learned that during this meeting a petition to license a saloon in the town had been drawn up and that a number of the women in attendance at the meeting had signed the petition. During the latter part of the meeting God's Spirit fired my soul to preach the Word, but I had no opportunity. I counseled with some of the ministers about it and received conflicting advice. Some said, "Sister Cole, you know the restrictions; you would better not preach." Others said, "Go ahead, Sister Cole: God will see you through." On the last night of the meeting, whenever I would decide to speak, God would bless my soul; but when I would decide to keep still, it seemed as if I should be paralyzed. One brother made a remark that had a strong tendency to keep me from speaking that evening: "If you get up on the last night of the meeting," said he, "it will look as if you were taking advantage of the man who has the meeting in charge." Finally, after two of the brethren had spoken for a short time, I felt clear to take the floor, and God spoke through me in power. I reminded them of the petition to license the saloon for the purpose of damning souls, and sending them to hell, and spoke of the women's names that had been signed to the petition to license the saloon. "From childhood," said I, "I have heard that woman is the downfall of this world. She is now offered the opportunity to destroy souls, but it is a shame and a disgrace to any town that its women are not allowed to preach in the church to help save souls. Before I came to this meeting, I knew the restrictions; but I made up my mind that if I was thrown into the furnace of trial, I would go into that furnace praying for the one that had put the restrictions upon me." The power of God wonderfully attended the message. At the close of the meeting, a wealthy gentleman, the one who had denied women the privilege of speaking, came and wanted to shake hands with me. "May the Lord bless you," said I, extending my hand. "I believe the Lord blesses you," he answered. I replied that he did. I was told later that on the next day he told certain persons on the street that doubtless that little girl was relieved since she had got her mouth off. At the time of which I now speak, I had never heard a woman preach. My own preaching had been done by God's power and under his anointing. At about the time the Sturgeon meeting closed, I heard of a woman preacher some forty miles away, and felt quite anxious to meet her. In company with my brother, I went to visit her and found a dear saint of God who had been used much in the salvation of souls. She had taken a severe cold, which had later settled on her lungs; and at the time of our visit, her affliction had developed into consumption, and she was growing rapidly worse. It seemed that her faith could not grasp God's promises for healing. We wanted to help the sister all we could, but I had been working very hard, washing and ironing, and was feeling quite exhausted; so much so, indeed, that I did not feel like sitting up while my brother was talking to her. As I was lying on the couch trying to rest, my brother said, "Mary, is there anything you want from the Lord?" "Nothing," said I, "unless it be rest." "Well," said he, "if you can take the Lord for it, he can rest you in an instant." The words were scarcely uttered before my faith grasped the Lord; I was rested from head to foot, jumped off the bed, and fairly bounced up and down with joy, feeling as though I had never been tired. The sister for whom we had been praying, remarked, "That gets away with my faith." "Do you doubt my having been tired?" I asked. "No." "Do you doubt the Lord's resting me?" "No; but I never saw it on this fashion." That afternoon we took the train for Jefferson City, Missouri. After we arrived at our destination, my brother hunted a place for me to board while he went about sixty miles into the country to get a team and wagon to take us to our new field of labor, there being no railroads in that direction. After a day or two, the lady with whom I boarded learned that I was a gospel worker. "If I can get a congregation together," said she, "will you talk to them?" I told her that I would. The people come together, and I asked some one to lead in prayer, but no one made any response. Finally they said that there was a man across the street who could pray, and asked if they should call him. The man came in; he and I led in prayer, and the Lord gave me a message. After the service was over, different ones came and congratulated me, saying, "It was a grand message; you highly entertained us," just as if I were an actress and they came for no other purpose than to be entertained. A number of those present were professors of religion; but I doubted whether there were any possessors. For a time the woman with whom I was staying seemed quite suspicious of me, but God helped me to live so that before the week was out she had perfect confidence in me, and sometimes left her house in my care all day. I helped her what I could about her housework; and at her request, held as many as three cottage meetings during the week. God gave me favor with the woman; for when I went away she charged me only half the usual price for my board and lodging, and even gave me some presents. She did not know that I paid her all the money I had; but the Lord knew all about it, and saw to it that she did not charge me too much. My brother had now come with a team and wagon. Accompanied by the owner of the outfit, we started on our difficult journey to our new field of labor. The roads were very rough and rocky, and we met with some hardships. We tried to camp out one night, but the mosquitos were so bad we had to resume our journey as soon as we could see to travel in the morning. Before we reached our destination, our provisions well-nigh gave out. At the end of our journey we had nothing left but a little stale bread and some bacon. Having no chance to cook anything, we made our last meal on dry bread and raw bacon. Chapter XI Labors in a New Field For the next three years my brother and I worked in Missouri, in territory lying in Maries, Phelps, Pulaski and Miller counties. The country was very rough and hilly. Many of the people were very wicked--most of them being of the type that live in a rough country remote from railroads. A Baptist minister whom we met soon after we began work in this part of the State, is a fair illustration of the religious standard of the people. This man, who, for the want of a better name, we shall call Father B--, a name by which he was known far and near, was called on all occasions where a minister was needed throughout a territory twenty or thirty miles in extent. He served as evangelist and pastor, and officiated at weddings and funerals. The people among whom he labored supported him quite liberally; but he used the money they gave him in buying whiskey, and spent a good share of his time in a drunken, or semi-drunken condition. He used frequently to attend our meetings, because as he expressed it, he liked "to hear the woman preacher." Very frequently he staggered into meeting supported by the man who accompanied him, and sometimes had to be supported after he was seated. His seat on the front bench of the small country schoolhouse in which the meetings were held, brought him so near me that the offensive smell of his breath sickened me almost beyond endurance, and I could scarcely continue my sermon. Yet this man, habitual drunkard as he was, and filthy with tobacco, was considered throughout that region worthy of financial support and of the title and office of minister. About fifteen years before we went to that country, a certain woman, who for many years now has been a true sister in the church, had been saved in one of Father B----'s meetings, obtaining, as she has always believed, a real experience of salvation. But when she saw that Father B---- drank whiskey and chewed tobacco, she became discouraged and took to attending parties and dances. When called before the church to give an account of her conduct, she defended herself by saying that she did not think it any worse for her to attend parties and dances, than it was for the preacher to drink whiskey and to chew tobacco. I do not now remember what action the congregation took in regard to her; but at any rate, she went into sin, and lost her experience. This sister came to our meetings, sought the Lord, and was again restored to divine favor. Father B---- was a very old man when we first met him. He died before we left that part of the country. His last illness was preceded by a drunken spree, during which some rougish boys painted a barren fig-tree on his bald head. He died soon afterward. Notwithstanding the efforts of those who prepared the body for burial, his head went to its last resting-place still marked by some of the paint that portrayed him as a barren fig-tree. But not all of the people had such a low conception of religion. God had some true children in that part of the country. My brother had already held meetings in these countries; God had blessed his efforts; and a number of souls had been saved and sanctified. Nevertheless, when we arrived, the outlook for holding meetings was not good. It was now late in the fall--too late for outdoor meetings--so we began holding services in small schoolhouses. The people came out in crowds. God's Spirit worked on their hearts, and numbers came to the Lord. You must not suppose, however, that any one could preach the straight gospel very long in such a place without meeting opposition. One night while my brother and I were holding our first series of meetings, at a schoolhouse on Dry Creek, in Maries County, Missouri, a mob of about a dozen drunken men came with the intention of breaking up the meeting. When they came, the service had not yet begun. The men entered the room in a boisterous way, talking loudly, and acting in an offensive insulting manner toward every one in the room. I do not remember just how it came about, but for some reason one of the men caught hold of my brother and gave him a jerk that sent him whirling for some distance across the room. I was afraid that Jeremiah was in danger; but when I saw that he was not at all frightened, my fears subsided. There was so much noise and loud talking, however, that we could not begin the meeting, so we offered earnest prayer that the Lord would take charge of things and quell the disturbance. I tried to preach, but there was still too much confusion. While I was standing in the pulpit, one of the drunk men near the door pointed a revolver at me, but God protected me: the weapon did not go off. The man who had pointed the revolver at me, soon went out, accompanied by his comrades and by a number of other men who wanted some of the whiskey. Some of the women went to the door to beg their husbands and brothers to come in, and stood there crying, fearful that their relatives would be killed. I went to the door and said to the women, "Come in. If there is any trouble you can do nothing to prevent it." "We would come in too," said one of the rowdies, "but you always begin on us." "No," I answered, "we will not begin on you. We shall be glad to have you come in, and we shall expect you to behave yourselves." Most of the men outside came in, and the meeting began. The Lord gave me the message. During my discourse, I said, "Fools make a mock at sin, but who is it that mocks God?" "No fools, no tun. You know that too," cried one of the men. Then he began to say the Lord's prayer, but was too drunk to finish it. I paid no attention to the interruption, and continued my sermon. There was no more disturbance, and not a revolver was fired until the mob was some distance from the house. One of the men gave himself up the next day and three others were arrested. They were a shamefaced set of fellows after it was all over. Early in December we were holding meeting on Dry Creek not far from where we held our first series of meetings in Meries county. Some grown-up boys and girls, who had been drinking freely, came to the services and created such a disturbance that Jeremiah thought it best in the interest of good order to have them arrested. On the day of the trial the two lawyers employed to defend these young men and women, ridiculed and belittled my brother, calling him "the immaculate Jeremiah," and insinuating that he thought himself almost equal to Christ. At first I felt greatly tried, but when I looked round and saw that Jeremiah's face was glowing and that he seemed almost happy enough to shout, my burden all left me. I made up my mind that since my brother was so triumphant I, too, would throw off the burden and claim victory. The young people who had disturbed the meeting had to pay a small fine. So far as I know, they behaved better in the future. Just a few days after the occurrence just related, we began a meeting in the Bell schoolhouse, about five miles further down Dry Creek. My brother and I were staying with different families in the district. An M. E. South preacher who lived in the neighborhood, and who had heard of our trouble with the young folks in the other district, sent word to my brother that a mob was coming that night to break up our meeting, and that we should stay away and let him hold that service. He believed that the young people opposed us because we taught holiness, divine healing, etc.; and thought that his age, and the confidence of the people of the neighborhood in him would enable him to control the mob and to hold the meeting without difficulty. He tried to send word to me too; but, as I was staying with a family who lived some distance away, I did not receive his message. Jeremiah remained at his boarding place. I went to the schoolhouse that evening expecting nothing unusual; but to my surprise I found in the house and yard a boisterous crowd of twenty-five or thirty men, who had been drinking freely of the liberal supply of whiskey they had brought with them. They were banded together for the express purpose of having a good time and breaking up the meeting. I can give you no adequate idea of the scene that greeted me as I approached. Men were running in and out of the schoolhouse, drinking, yelling, swearing, and talking at the top of their voices. The confusion was terrible. Soon after my arrival the old preacher attempted to begin the service. He gave out a song, which a few of those present tried to sing; but the crowd was so noisy that the preacher alternately plead with them and reproved them, but without avail. The noise increased: the confusion became so great that, in despair, the old preacher gave up the attempt to hold a meeting and began to take down the names of those members of the mob whom he knew. The men had with them a number of bottles and jugs of whiskey. Drinking, swearing, and yelling continued without intermission, and from time to time we could hear the firing of revolvers. As soon as it seemed safe to do so, I went home with one of my friends, who lived near by. As soon as possible, the old minister had a number of the members of the mob arrested and brought to trial for disturbing the peace. The preacher's actions during the trial showed that his object was, not so much to preserve the peace, as to take vengeance. Not content with a fine, he insisted on a jail sentence. After the prosecution had offered its evidence against the mob, the lawyers on the defense made fun of the preacher saying: "What! you! A minister of the gospel! You want to send them to jail! You should be praying for them and trying to get them saved." His reply was, "Yes, I will do all I can to send them to prison and then I will go and grin at them (in derision) through the bars." I do not now recall whether or not the culprits received any punishment; but at any rate, the preacher's desire for vengeance was not satisfied. It was a common report about the country that he was so disappointed and mortified over what had happened that he did not sleep any that night. The difference of spirit manifested by my brother and that manifested by the old preacher shows the difference between the operation of the love of God and of human vengeance. Soon after we began our labors, I became afflicted with the itch, which was then epidemic in that part of the country. A neighboring high school had been closed because of this disagreeable affliction. Previous to taking the disease myself, I had met some of the saints who had it, and who had not been healed as soon as I thought they should be. I shall have to relate that through ignorance--to my shame, be it said--I was not as compassionate to those unfortunate ones as I should have been. I had made assertions similar to this: "If you can't trust the Lord for healing, I would advise you to use remedies. Mother says that any one who would keep such an affliction any length of time is not decent." Many of the people were wounded because of my heartless way of talking, though I did it ignorantly. The Lord saw that I needed a good lesson, and therefore let the malady come upon me in a severe form. While preaching in small overheated school-houses with but very poor ventilation, my body became overheated, thus aggravating the disease, and soon I was not able to be in the public services at all. My arms swelled so that I could not straighten them; and for some months, I had but little use of my hands. This affliction baffled my faith more than any that I had had up to that time, but I had no temptation to resort to remedies. The case of the lady preacher whom we visited in northern Missouri stood before me as a warning. I decided to have my battle now, and not to give way and lose my healing faith. So I held on steadily by the help of my brother and fought the battle through until God gave me victory. It was some time before I got rid of all the symptoms. The Lord showed me that I must be willing to go into the work again with them still showing. To do so, required humility, and I had to seek the Lord for help. I met rebuffs of which only the Lord and I knew; but God was ordering this experience, and the trial lasted no longer than was for my good. To complete the lesson, God laid upon me the duty of confessing publicly the attitude I had held towards those who had the itch before me, and the way I had talked to them. I made my confession, humbly asking the forgiveness of all who had been wounded by my words. God's way is humility before honor. The going down is painful; but God's lifting up afterwards is sweet. Praise his dear name! Christ was a meek and lowly Savior. To follow his example we must go the lowly way. While yet in sectarianism I got the impression that the devil had to be stirred before a good revival could be held. Acting on this principle, I prayed that the Lord would stir the devil in the series of meetings my brother and I were then beginning at the Tennyson schoolhouse. My prayer was answered. One evening near the beginning of this revival nine respectable young men of Vichy, Missouri, hired horses and saddles at the livery barn and came out to the schoolhouse to attend the meeting. Two desperate characters, reputed to have escaped from the penitentiary, were present, but remained outside the house. The services proceeded unmolested; but, after the service, when the nine young men from Vichy went to get their horses, they found that some one had cut the saddles and bridles in pieces and turned their horses loose. Others found their harness cut and the nuts of their wagons gone. The two desperadoes now began walking back and forth through the yard, displaying their weapons and threatening to shoot any one that accused them of committing any depredation. As the burrs had been removed from the wagon in which I came, I had to ride home on a mule behind another person. Jeremiah said, "Mary, I hope you have learned the lesson to not pray the Lord to stir the devil until you know you are able to cast him out. It is not always necessary that the devil be stirred before a revival. Souls can be saved and even devils cast out without the devil's being stirred and the power of the enemy being put on exhibition." I never again prayed for the devil to be stirred. About the beginning of the new year, the affliction which I have already mentioned, rendered me unfit for public service, and for about three months my brother and I stayed at the home of Brother Baugh on Dry Creek, where we read and studied and prayed and fought the affliction that had been imposed upon us. My brother got his prayers through and obtained healing much sooner than I. He used afterward to say, "I shall thank God through all eternity for having had the itch; because when I prayed through for healing, I struck the evening light," meaning that he was beginning to discern the unity of God's people. This remark was often followed by a happy, hearty laugh. Early in the spring I had so far recovered from my affliction that my brother and I began again to hold meetings in the schoolhouses in the counties where we had been working, covering in all a territory about fifteen or twenty miles in extent. These meetings usually lasted two, three, and four weeks at each place, and were very profitable in the salvation of souls. There were some things in connection with our work, however, that puzzled us greatly. For instance, after we had held a good meeting in which a number of souls had been saved, and had gone on to other appointments, preachers of different denominations would follow us up, preaching against two works of grace and divine healing, and casting reflections on us as ministers, with the result that upon returning after an absence of several weeks, we would find the people discouraged, and the congregation in a bad spiritual condition. These things made our hearts ache. We saw that in our absence the people needed some one to give them advice, encouragement, and spiritual help. Finally my brother said to me, "Mary, I am going to write to the Free Methodists and ask them if they will send us a preacher that will preach holiness." It was not long until we received the following letter from the Free Methodist Conference: "If you get a congregation large enough to guarantee a minister a salary of five or six hundred dollars a year, we will send you a man that believes in holiness." As they did not say that the minister they would send would have the experience of sanctification, their letter afforded but little encouragement. While awaiting the reply of the Free Methodist conference, my brother had visited the Tennyson schoolhouse where we had held meetings sometime before. He found that no sect minister had yet demoralized the believers, and the members were more spiritual than those of any congregation we had yet visited. This occurrence threw some light on our difficulty. My brother, as was his usual custom when he had anything of great importance weighing on his mind, resorted to prayer. As it was March and the weather quite cool, he put on his overcoat and went out to spend the day alone until he got the leadings of the Lord. God began to show him the sin of division. Jeremiah did not see matters very clearly yet, for he asked the Lord how we could get along without any human organization. The Lord asked him what good they had done, and brought to his mind the fact that it was only the spiritual ones, those who had not partaken of the spirit of division, that God could use to any advantage. My brother then inquired of the Lord how this sin of division had been brought about, and the Lord showed him that he could find the answer to his question in history. When my brother had an opportunity to read history, he found that every sect builder told his own story. He saw that not one of the human organizations measured to the pattern of the New Testament church, and that since the sects have human founders, they could not be the church of God as that institution is of divine origin. My brother then went back to the Tennyson schoolhouse, and preached his first sermon on the subject of the unity of God's people. The people joyfully accepted the truth and walked in the light. Jeremiah thought that when I heard what God had revealed to him I would be rejoiced; but, to his surprise, I could not yet discern the body of Christ. I was still under the influence of the wine of Babylon. Our meetings had been attended with excellent results. Many souls had sought the Lord. In one meeting, which lasted three or four weeks, the whole country was stirred. Many young men and even whole families got under deep conviction. After a day spent in fasting and prayer, we came together in the evening, and conviction settled so heavily upon the people and God worked so mightily that we labored at the altar until two o'clock in the morning. Almost every seat was an altar. Rain was falling, and the brush arbor in which the meeting was held did not protect the congregation; but the interest was so great that the seekers paid no attention to the water that constantly dripped through the boughs overhead. About twenty souls, I think, sought the Lord that night. During the whole series of meetings, a large number were saved. About this time Sister Julia Meyers, now of Ima, New Mexico, joined our company, and for some months, traveled with us in the work. She had been healed before coming to us; but she got light on the one church in our meetings. The Lord had been teaching me to more fully trust him for temporal needs as well as for spiritual benefits. When Sister Meyers joined our company, I began to teach her the things that God had been showing me. I saw that she needed help. First she began borrowing money from me now and then to get what she needed. I felt that I should give her the money. Later, when I needed a pair of shoes, she began to feel that she should get them for me. She had enough money to buy the shoes, but found it a little difficult to obey the impression. In the meantime I was earnestly praying for the shoes. God made me to understand that my prayer had gone through, and that I could have had the shoes sooner, had I prayed more earnestly. I was upstairs. It came to me, "How do you know but that the shoes are downstairs waiting for you?" In less than five minutes I was called downstairs; and, sure enough, there were the shoes. At first I did not know where they came from; but Sister Meyers was so blessed in her obedience and sacrifice that she could not keep her secret, and we praised the Lord together. As I was preaching the straight gospel of salvation from sin, sanctification, and divine healing, it was to be expected that I should meet with opposition. I met with some very peculiar and unexpected persecutions. Falsehoods were told about me that should have shamed the devil himself. One rumor was that I was one of the famous outlaws, known as the "James Boys," disguised as a woman. One of the truth fighters published a long account of my meetings in the county newspaper. He branded me as an impostor, saying that I taught false doctrines. He affirmed that sanctification and divine healing were not for the people of the present day, that no one but Enoch and Elijah had been sanctified, both of whom went to heaven without dying. He ended his tirade against me by saying that I ought to be driven out of the country, and that he would join a mob raised for that purpose. A Methodist lady, who no doubt had some understanding of Bible doctrine, replied to the gentleman with an article, in which she said that the Wesleys taught sanctification, and George Mueller, divine healing. "If," said she, "the gentleman would read more, he would be better informed. There is some hope yet for 'Tom Paine,'" referring to the fictitious name signed to his article. I did not know of this wordy battle until it was ended. At times my brother would hold a meeting at one place and at the same time I would hold one a few miles distant. It was at one such time that I held a meeting in the county courthouse. I was assisted by a brother of the M. E. South denomination--a young college student, with but little experience in gospel work, thought that he could not preach unless he had his sermons written out. We preached on alternate evenings. One evening he came to me and said, "I wish you would occupy the pulpit tonight. I have been away and have had no chance for preparation." I told him that I had not had time for preparation either. "Sister Cole," he replied, "you can preach better without preparation than I can with preparation, besides, I haven't had my supper yet." "Perhaps you could preach better without supper," said I. Thus I held him to his duty and did not sympathize with him very much either. That night he had to lean so hard on God that many people said it was the best message they had ever heard him deliver. Perhaps no young preacher going out in gospel work ever felt his inability more than I. As God had promised to be my sufficiency, I leaned hard upon him and did not feel discouraged. My education was so limited, that sometimes during a sermon, while trying to explain the Scriptures, I would lack words to express myself, and would look to the Lord, taking him as my wisdom. On such occasions he would supply me with words, and by his Spirit show me how to use them. Later, upon looking in the dictionary, I would find that they had been used correctly. This experience has been repeated many times in my ministry. Thus the Lord proved true his promise to be my spokesman. When I leaned on him, I was never confounded; no, not once. Truly our God is a covenant-keeping God, whom we can trust under all circumstances and at all times. When the Lord healed me, he bestowed upon me the gift of exhortation and with it such a great measure of the Spirit's power that when I read the Scriptures, there was a heavenly illumination upon it, and I could see a sermon in almost every verse. At times the strength of this heavenly light so dazzled me that my mind and body were well-nigh overwhelmed. I studied and preached the Word under a light whose brightness could come only from the Spirit of the Lord, and I by spiritual sight could see through the Scriptures with a vision as unclouded as the vision before my natural eyes when looking through a clear glass. Oh, it was wonderful! I have always thought that God blessed me with this divine unfolding of the Scriptures because I did not at all depend upon my own human understanding, but leaned wholly upon him at the very time that I was studying or expounding the Word. As I became accustomed to this heavenly light, I was not so much dazzled by its brilliancy, but the gift of exhortation with its accompaniment of divine power, has been mine, except for one brief time, throughout my ministry. As I went from place to place preaching, I began to realize that I needed another gift of the Spirit--the gift of teaching. When the Lord first impressed me that he wanted me to teach, I begged off, saying that I stammered so that it was very hard for me to read. The Lord pitied me and took another plan to get me to do what he desired. Up to this time I had great freedom and much help in exhorting, but now God seemed to have taken this gift from me, and I became as one who had never had it. The Lord showed me that I would have to trust him for ability to teach and to explain the Word, and for help to overcome my stammering, or I would have no gift at all. So I got down and cried to him like a child and plead with him for help. When the Lord saw that I was determined to obey him, he not only gave me the gift of teaching; but, to my surprise, he restored to me the gift of exhortation and let me exercise it as in days gone by. Surely the Lord humored me. I now had two gifts instead of one. But I would not advise others to do as I did, for though the Lord has no respect of person, you may have more light than I had at that time, and it may be that the Lord would not excuse you because of ignorance, as he excused me. Quite early in my evangelistic work I held a meeting in a neighborhood where lived a man who had been an M. E. exhorter. He had once been saved, so the neighbors said, but having accepted a false doctrine that was being taught in that part of the country, and having partaken of its spirit, he was in a bad condition when I went there. He had rejected Christ entirely, saying that Jesus was nothing but an impostor. Sometime before I went to the neighborhood, one of his children had gotten saved, and during the meeting that I held, another one had also come to Christ. Knowing their father's condition, the children feared his persecution and insisted that I should come and visit him. They thought that if I went to the house with them he would be more considerate. For their sakes, I went. I had heard that his practise was to invite ministers to his house, and then to belittle Christ in their presence, to give them no opportunity to return thanks, and to make them feel as far as possible his opposition to Christ. After some conversation, he took down the Bible--the Old Testament I mean, he had no New Testament in the house--and told me that he was going to prove to me that Christ had never come. I told him that he could not do that, because by experience I knew that Christ had come. "If," said I, "you are going to try to prove to me that Christ has not come, you have gotten hold of the wrong person. I would stake my life that Christ has come. I have met the conditions prescribed in his Word, and he has given me the witness of my salvation, and has also healed me." I tried in various ways to see if there was a tender spot in his heart that God could touch. Among other things, I said, "When I first started out in the work of the Lord, I wrote to my mother saying, 'I have found many good friends. All who are Jesus' friends,' I wrote, 'are my friends.' But," I continued, "I suppose I have now found a man who is not a friend of Jesus, and yet is my friend." I thought this would shame him. "Yes," he answered, "I am your friend, but not his." I returned thanks at the table and also asked him the privilege of praying before I left. The Spirit of God intimidated him till he did not dare to refuse me. Never did the name of Jesus seem half so sweet to me as when I got down to pray before this wicked man. It seemed as though all the sweetness of heaven was wrapped up in that name. I could say but little: I could only breathe out the precious name of Jesus; and oh, how he magnified himself through His name! Although I felt the presence of infernal spirits all around me--the very spirit that crucified Christ--yet I felt the presence, too, of the blessed Lord, the Christ of the Bible. Still thinking that I might say something that would touch his heart, I said, as I was about to leave, "Pray for me." He said, "I will; and you pray for me: but not in the name of Jesus;" adding a moment later, "but I know that you will do as you please anyhow." I felt then that unless God directly ordered it, I never wanted to go again to a place where Christ was so entirely rejected. I thought of the scripture which says that they had forgotten that they were once purged. If ever I met a man who had sinned against the Holy Ghost, this was certainly the man. In the early years of my ministry, I sometimes found that when the Lord was burdening my heart to preach on certain subjects my sympathy stood in the way; that is, I was afraid I would hurt somebody's feelings. One night I dreamed that another minister and I were standing near a large casket containing two dead bodies. It seemed that God wanted us to dissect these two bodies, and I said to the minister who was with me, "Brother, we had better get to work before the stench fills the room." When I awoke I knew that God was trying to teach me something. Just a few days afterwards I went across the country accompanied by the brother, and his wife, of whom I had dreamed. Some of the congregation at the place where we were going to hold meeting on the next Sunday, were professing to be saved, and at the same time were living in adultery. Some others needed warning in regard to other sins. The Lord wanted me to preach to these people showing them where they stood; but, because of my sympathy for them, I did not want to handle the subject. The I ord reminded me that I had promised to preach his Word on any subject. "Yes, Lord," said I, "but I sympathize so with these people! I would rather be whipped from head to foot than to preach on this subject at this time." I preached, talking first on one subject and then another, and not coming to anything definite, entirely failing to give them that portion of the Word that they so much needed. That night I took very sick. It seemed that I should die. I did not know what was the matter. I asked the Lord why I was suffering so; and he reminded me that I had said that I would rather be whipped from head to foot than to preach on the subject he had given me, and that now the whipping had come. When God administers correction, he always does a thorough work. I begged earnestly that he would take his hand off, promising him faithfully that I would never grieve him in that way any more; but I saw that I lacked sufficient Holy Ghost boldness to carry out my decision if I continued to sympathize with those for whom the message was intended. So I asked the Lord earnestly for help, telling him that if he wanted to use me in dissecting, he must give me the ability. The lesson has never had to be repeated. During my earlier ministry an incident occurred which to some might seem amusing; but which to me furnished an excellent spiritual illustration. A class-leader of the M. E. South denomination came a number of miles across the country to take me to a certain place to help in a meeting. We had to ford the Gasconade river. It was winter, and the ice was frozen thick. Before we reached the river, some men had cut a road through the ice, so that people could cross on horseback. As we rode out into the stream the flowing water seemed to affect me strangely. It seemed to me that the brother who was with me was trying to pull me off of the horse and drown me. I said, "Don't, don't, it is all I can do to stay on now." When we reached the other side, the brother broke into a hearty laugh: "Sister Cole, did you think I was trying to drown you? I saw that the water made you dizzy, and that you were about to fall off the horse. It was all I could do to keep you from drowning." Many times since then I have thought of this incident, as an illustration of a certain spiritual condition. When a person gets somewhat cold spiritually, the doctrines of the church become indistinct, and, spiritually speaking, his head begins to swim. At such a time he is likely to think that those who are endeavoring to help him out of his difficulties are trying to drown him; that they are in spiritual trouble themselves and that they are trying to pull him into the same difficulty. At another time I was going to a meeting near the place of which I have just told you, and had to cross the same river. It was earlier in the fall; and the Gasconade, although badly swollen, had not yet frozen. The boy who was with me, feared that the river was too high for fording, and asked what we should do. As the appointment had already been made for me, I feared that the people would be disappointed and told him we would better go across if we could. "Shall I go across first and see how deep the water is?" he asked. I told him I thought that would be the better way. He found the water to be deep enough to swim our horses, but thought that we might get across, although we would risk our lives in the attempt. He said that if I wanted to run the risk, he was willing. God protected us and we reached the other side in safety. The young man said to some of his friends afterwards, that he was afraid we would both drown, but that he would not let a woman back him out. "I knew," said he "that if she drowned, she would be saved; but that if I drowned, I should be lost." I certainly appreciated his generosity in risking his life to help me. While holding meetings in that neighborhood, this same young man and his brother, although unsaved, befriended me in every way possible, because they knew that I had come there to do the people good. Their sisters, who professed religion, also manifested great friendliness for me. At one time when some sectarian holiness fighters tried to shut me out of the schoolhouse, the two brothers defended me like lawyers, won the case, and secured the use of the house for as long as I desired to hold meetings. Whenever I needed a conveyance, I had only to call on these young men. I met a brother young in the ministry who had a very clear definite experience of justification and sanctification, and who had had a very definite call. He had had, however, but very little experience in tests and trials, and was therefore not qualified to be the blessing to young converts or to young workers that he might have been. As he had been so victorious in his religious experience, he thought that trials and tests were a sign of weakness, and that those who had them were spiritual weaklings. Whenever a young convert or worker had a test or a trial of faith, and needed special help or encouragement, he would think, "Oh, well it isn't worth while to bother with him; he doesn't amount to much anyway. He will not stand, and if he does, he won't ever be very useful in the Lord's cause. He is not worthy of any attention." God let this brother go through deep waters. He had a severe test; and when he came through, his compassion was much increased, and his care and consideration for the young converts and those in trouble was all that could be desired. He did not find any one then unworthy his consideration. He had learned that every soul worth Christ's dying for, is worth all the effort we can make, either for its deliverance or its establishment. Well did the Psalmist say, "When I was in trouble thou hast enlarged my steps." The Psalmist got the enlargement right in the trial, just as we often do. Much of our development is obtained in the furnace of trial; in fact, I believe most of it. Let us be thankful, therefore, for the dispensation of God's grace, whether it be bestowed by trial or in sunshine; whether it comes in storm or in calm, knowing that God allows all for our highest good. Quite early in our evangelistic labors my brother saw that I had been leaning too much on him. Frequently when God wanted me to deliver a message, I would hold back and let my brother preach instead. I was not getting the experience I should, nor being as useful in the Lord's work as I might. My brother thought that if he should leave me to work alone for a time, the Lord would have a chance to help me more. He therefore began leaving me to hold meetings alone for weeks at a time, while he held services in some nearby neighborhood. Naturally, I felt somewhat fearful about being left to carry on the work alone; but the Lord helped me and enabled me to hold a number of good successful meetings. At one of these meetings God had been answering prayer and conviction was falling heavily upon the people. The whole neighborhood seemed stirred, and crowds were at the altar. Fathers and mothers came seeking salvation. A few, however, among them a Campbellite minister, came with the intention of causing trouble. He wanted a chance, he said to tell the people how to find Jesus. I asked him what he would tell them. "Obey the commendments." "What commandments?" "Join the church and be baptized." "If you have a message from God," said I, "we will hear it; but, if you have not, we will not hear it. Souls are at the altar and their eternal interests are at stake. This is too serious a time to deliver a message not from God." He arose and went out, accompanied by the man who had come with him. When the sinners laughed at him, he said, "If you had had such hot testimonies thrown into your faces, you would have left too." When this same minister came to another meeting to disturb, God got hold of him and brought him to the altar. I don't think he got an experience, but he made no more attempts to disturb the meeting. Every time the enemy undertook to hinder the work, God marvelously helped us. At one time a certain minister came to try to look me out of countenance while I was preaching. His plan was to confuse me so that I could not preach. The enemy knew that if I became the least bit confused, I would stammer so that I could hardly talk. God was present to help me. He so confounded the man that before the service was over, his head went down and I had no more trouble with him. At different times I held meetings of three or four week's duration, preaching twice every day and three times on Sunday. I had no help in the preaching, and but very little at the altar service. There were many people at the altar seeking God and the work was very heavy. The Lord wonderfully sustained me. The fact that I went through such fatiguing experiences as these, laboring sometimes far into the night, shows how wonderfully God had healed me, and how he was sustaining me in my work. Experience alone will show how much the dear Lord can help us physically as well as spiritually if we but trust him. Unbelief and doubts hinder God from being to us our sufficiency at all times and under all circumstances. Faith will take hold of God for things beyond the comprehension of our natural minds. The Word says, "All things are possible with God"; "All things are possible to him that believeth." As we trust in the Lord, he will honor our faith and give us the desire of our hearts. Chapter XII Out of Sectarian Confusion I was still a Methodist. The Methodist did not license women to preach; but when the preachers found out that God was using me in the salvation of souls and that I was not especially interested in building up any certain denomination, I had an abundance of calls. God had already begun talking to my brother Jeremiah about the sin of division, and he was beginning to see the evils of sectarianism. The winter after I was healed, he had attended the Jacksonville, Illinois, holiness convention, and had met there Bro. D. S. Warner, who at that time was editor of a holiness paper, _The Herald of Gospel Freedom_, then published at Rome City, Ind. Brother Warner was already beginning to discern the unity of God's people, but he had not yet received enough light on the subject to sever his connection with the Winebrennerian denomination, of which he was a member. It was about the time of the Jacksonville meeting that _The Herald of Gospel Freedom_ was consolidated with _The Pilgrim_, a small holiness paper published at Indianapolis, Indiana. While at the Jacksonville meeting, Jeremiah subscribed for _The Pilgrim_ and had it sent to me at Windsor, Missouri, as I had not yet begun gospel work. I received only a few numbers of _The Pilgrim_, as that publication was consolidated with _The Herald of Gospel Freedom_ January 1, 1881, under the name _The Gospel Trumpet_. At a later date, when Brother Warner had full light on the church, _The Gospel Trumpet_ was no longer considered a consolidation of the two papers, but an entirely new publication. The first issue of _The Trumpet_ (January 1, 1881) represented a new paper and was later designated as Vol. 1, No. 1. When the publication of _The Pilgrim_ ceased, Brother Warner began to send me _The Gospel Trumpet_ to finish out the unexpired time of my subscription to _The Pilgrim_. During my brother's absence in evangelistic work I received several copies of _The Trumpet_. As soon as I read in _The Trumpet_ about the sin of division and saw that the new paper opposed the licensing of preachers, my sectarian spirit was stirred. I thought that holiness would make the churches, as I called them, better. I was afraid that if people got hold of such literature as _The Trumpet_ it would disgust them with holiness forever. I burned _The Trumpets_ I had already received, and then sat down and wrote Brother Warner never to send me another copy. As I was traditionized, and had opposed the truth in ignorance, the Lord did not hold my opposition as a wilful sin. After my brother had got light on the one body, he was so enthused with the truth that he wanted to explain it to every one he met. While out walking one day the next summer after he discerned the one body, he fell into conversation with a man about the Scriptures. After talking a little while the man said, "I have a paper that reads just as you talk." Going to the house, he brought out _The Gospel Trumpet_ and gave it to my brother, who went down the road reading as he went. He never stopped reading until he had finished the paper. At the earliest opportunity my brother wrote a letter to Brother Warner, asking him if he had enough light on the one body to set it clearly before the people. He also asked him if many were accepting this divine truth. To the first question Brother Warner replied, "Yes," and to the second, "Yes, hundreds are discerning the one body." As soon as my brother learned that Brother Warner and many others had the same truth that God had made so clear and beautiful to him, he rejoiced greatly. He could not rest until he went where Brother Warner was; but, as I had neglected to walk in the light, I was left alone, and that, too, in more ways than one. Some time before I discerned the body of Christ, I had some impressive dreams. In one I thought I was in a large building belonging to some denomination. A conference of that denomination was being held just outside the door, and the ministers wanted me to come and take part. I looked toward the door through which I must pass, and I saw two large worms with their heads together, lying directly across the threshold. In order to enter the room, I would have to step over the worms and would be in great danger of receiving a deadly bite. I said to myself, "I will not run the risk for any man's notions or ways"; and, turning on my heel, I went out of another door. I soon saw my dream fulfilled. The denomination that I had been holding a meeting for insisted that I should join their conference, saying that they would give me a license so that I could hold meetings in their territory. I knew that, according to their discipline, they could not license a woman to preach; and I said to the minister, "You don't dare to give me a license." "Well," said he, "I will tell you what you can do, Sister Cole; we can go to a place not far from here where you have had a good meeting, lay this matter before the people, and have them vote to give you a permit, so that you can hold meetings in any part of our district." I did not feel at all led to take such steps; and, as I had done in my dream, I turned in the other direction. I suppose God was using this method to get me ready for the truth. The summer before I got out of sectarianism, an M. E. South minister invited me to come to their new chapel, to attend the quarterly conference, and to help hold a series of meetings. As the M. E. South denomination did not license women preachers, women were not allowed at the quarterly conference. They had arranged, however, that several other women and I should sit in a room adjoining the conference, so that we could hear the proceedings. This was on Saturday. On Sunday morning they held their quarterly love-feast, partook of the Lord's Supper, and listened to a sermon by the presiding elder. In the afternoon and the evening, I preached. While the afternoon service was in progress, the ministers were holding a private meeting to decide whether or not I should proceed with the meeting I had come to hold. In this part of the country was a wealthy man, a sinner, who contributed very liberally to the support of the work. This man objected to women's preaching and opposed the continuance of the meeting. It was decided that the meeting should not continue, but the pastor of the congregation did not tell me. The pastor and his wife were both present at the service on Monday night, and both seemed well pleased. On Tuesday evening the interest began to increase, and one or two raised their hands for prayer. Just at the close of the service a note was handed me requesting me to close the meeting, as they had decided not to continue at the present time, but to wait until later in the season. I could not keep from crying. I had called the Methodist Church my mother; and now to think that my mother was treating me in this way, made me feel very bad. I went home with a young couple who had been saved a short time before in a meeting held near this place. They felt very bad over what had happened, and we all cried together. The young people tried to encourage me as best they could. Next day they took me to their aunt's, a special friend of mine, who had shown me kindness while I was in that neighborhood before. As we went along the road, I thought to myself, "Any one treated as I have been ought to look sneaking"; and I tried to think of everything I could to make me look that way. When we arrived at our destination, the sister was not in the room, so I hunted the smallest chair I could find, and sat down. As soon as she came in, she saw that I was in trouble and inquired what was the matter. I began to tell her, crying at the same time; but she began to laugh. Well, she laughed and I cried; but after a while I took to laughing too. I never again felt bad about my treatment at that place. I still continued to get calls from the sectarian preachers to go and help hold meetings. I responded to these, and held two or three meetings in different places. Late that fall I held a meeting at Rolla, Mo. The preacher could hardly get an audience when he preached, so he sent for me, thinking that a woman preacher would be quite an attraction and would draw crowds. The crowds came. Although there were a number of ministers present, including the presiding elder, I occupied the pulpit, I think, during half of that meeting. Conviction came upon the people, and a number came to the altar; but not many of those who came, seemed to get an experience. On the last night of the meeting quite a number of bright, intelligent young people, some of them college students came to the altar and some of them were getting saved. As the minister went to talk with the seekers one by one, God put it into my heart to listen to what they were saying. Not once did these preachers say, "Seek the Lord until you find him;" "There is reality in salvation;" "Never stop until you know you are saved." Their instructions were: "Join the church;" "Get baptized," etc. God opened my eyes right there to the awful work that these so-called ministers were doing. I said, "If they are going to help deceive souls that way and send them to destruction, I will never help them again." That was the last meeting in which I ever helped to build up Babylon. Collections were taken up for the ministers and for the general expenses of the meeting, but no one ever said to me, "Do you need any means?" One of the sisters, however, found out that I had a little money, and she asked me to give it to her to use in buying a little clothing for me so I would be suitably dressed to preach in their meeting. I felt that even this was too good for me, because I had failed to walk in the light. At the close of the meeting, to my surprise, I found myself under a wrong spirit. I went to Bro. John P. Bailey and wife, who had accepted the truth when Jeremiah preached his first sermon on the church at that place. I told Brother and Sister Bailey my condition as best I could, and the three of us fasted and prayed three days. God delivered me from the false spirit, gave me light on the one body, the church, and made me glad to walk in the light as fast as it was revealed. Bro. Jake Cruts came to ask my advice on the subject of baptism. "Sister Cole," said he, "what do you think about baptism: is it a commandment of God? If so, what is the correct mode?" Before I could answer him, he continued, "I suppose we shall never know the right mode." "I believe," said I, "if we are sincere and come to God in earnest prayer, he will show us his will, even if the scripture on that doctrine has been wrongly translated." The brother agreed with me, and I said, "Let us get down and pray." While we were on our knees, God made me to understand that in the near future, he would make known to me his will on the subject of baptism. I told the brother who was kneeling with me what God had shown me; but it seemed that I needed to be humbled still more. At this time I received another _Trumpet_ in which there was an article by D. S. Warner on the subject of baptism. I said to myself, "He is nothing but a Baptist preacher anyway," and found myself going into gross darkness. For about two hours it seemed that I was bound for hell. I cried out, "O Lord! why is it that after you have used me in the salvation of souls, some of whom no doubt are in the glory-world, I must now be lost?" The Lord made me understand that I was not responsible for not having been baptized, as I had no knowledge of the teaching of the Scriptures on this subject, but that I was responsible for my present light. He showed me that, if I would walk in the light, I should not be lost. I decided then and there to walk in every ray of light that God gave me. As members of the M. E. Church, my parents had had me sprinkled when I was a child, and up to this time I had had no light on baptism. When I had opportunity and I was buried in baptism, God wonderfully witnessed that I was being baptized in his order. My first text after I got light on the one body of Christ, was Jeremiah 1:6-10 and 17-19. A short time before this I had held a meeting with an M. E. South preacher, who now seemed to stand before me like an obstructing mountain. As I began my sermon, I seemed to see him in that capacity. Before I was through delivering the message, however, God had lifted me above the mountain, so that I was never again troubled in that way. My name was still on the M. E. class-book; but God showed me that I ought to have it removed, and how to have it removed. I sent for my church letter and trusted the Lord to direct me how to dispose of it. One Sunday after a sermon had been delivered on the church of God, I rose and told the congregation about the church letter, told them that the Lord had shown me that I could not have two valid contracts for my entire service with two different parties at the same time. I said, "I have decided that the contract between God and my soul is the more important one." Then I proceeded to tear up my letter, and God sent his mighty power, witnessing that my contract with the Lord was ratified in heaven. So much of heaven came down, and the glory world seemed so near, that I seemed attached to heaven, not by a cord, but by a mighty cable. I shall never be able to express how satisfied I was with God's church. Some sectarian preachers prophesied that I should soon be back preaching for the denominations. One of them was heard to say, "If I knew that Mary Cole would come and help us in a meeting, I would send for her; but I am afraid she won't." I never got any more special calls from Babylon. Shortly after I got light on the one body, however, the devil laid a snare for me. I saw the snare before I got into it, and God's Word was fulfilled: "In vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird." It happened in this way: A certain man who was starting a new sect tried to interest all he could in his project. He did not call his new religious movement by any special name and professed not to have anything to join. He would have the people come and shake hands, inferring that in so doing they were not joining anything, but were merely showing their mutual love and fellowship. In order to be an encouragement to any that might really be trying to live for the Lord, I went up and shook hands with the preacher and others. After we had shaken hands, his design became apparent. He seated me and a few others on one side of the platform and called for others to come and shake hands with us. The Lion of the tribe of Judah began to roar in my soul. I got up very quickly, and the plan was defeated. A common remark made to me by sectarians was, "You ought to join some denomination so that you will be inside the pale of the church," thus inferring that because I did not belong to a human organization, I was not in good pasture, but outside on the commons with poor, ill-fed stock. I understood the figure of speech very well, for I was brought up on a farm where the garden was enclosed with palings. Between these palings were spaces through which small animals could get in and destroy the vegetables--a very good illustration of the sectarian churches surrounded by their palings, through which unclean spirits can slip in and destroy the flock. In the church of God I feel secure; because God has appointed salvation for her walls and bulwarks (Isaiah 26:1), and through these neither evil spirits, nor even the devil himself can penetrate. I was educated to believe, and in this way I often expressed myself, that the M. E. denomination was my spiritual mother. This idea remained with me until I got light on the sin of division and was spiritually able to discern the bride of Christ. Then I saw that "Jerusalem from above is the mother of us all." I saw plainly that if I had two mothers, one must be a stepmother. While my mother was living I never cared to have a stepmother. The prophecies of Scripture so unmistakably point to the one church, the body of Christ, that they can be but poorly explained by those who are trying to make them conform to sectarian theology. I am content with the church of God, with Christ as the door, and nothing inside but the holy throng. Besides, in sectarianism I did not have freedom in my ministry. I could preach only as the sect ministers suggested. If God gave me more light, and I tried to give it to the people, I was likely to receive a rebuke. I remember that at one time while I was holding a meeting for some denomination, God led me to preach on holiness. In the very beginning of the meeting they had advised me not to preach on this subject. What was I to do? The Lord reminded that I had promised I would preach any part of his Word whenever and wherever he led me to do so. He now brought me face to face with the question, "What will you do?" I said, "Lord, I will obey you if you will stand by me." The Lord assured me that he would. I preached on sanctification as a distinct second work of grace, God witnessing to the message by his mighty power. After the service, the minister who had placed the restrictions upon me, said, "Sister Cole, that is the best sermon you preached during the whole meeting." I answered, "I knew that the things you didn't want were the things you needed." After the Lord had led me into the precious truth of the oneness of his people, I was much better satisfied with what God did with me and through me, with the meetings I held, and with the results attained. Although at times not as many people professed salvation now as when I was preaching for the denomination, yet those who got saved reached a settled experience, being satisfied that they were in God's order. They were not looking around for something that more nearly represented the truth. As a minister I was satisfied, knowing that I was delivering the whole counsel of God. No one ever can be satisfied who is not walking in every ray of light that God turns on his pathway. Chapter XIII The Evening Light This chapter is an article written by the author many years after she had received light on the unity of the church. It will acquaint the reader with what is meant by the expression "evening light." "At evening time it shall be light." "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark: but it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light" (Zechariah 14:6,7). The expression "evening light" suggests the thought that there was at one time morning light. The New Testament dispensation is sometimes called the gospel day. Like the natural day, this gospel day has its morning and evening. When the New Testament church was first set in order; when this Holy Ghost dispensation was ushered in; when the gospel day began there was a wonderful outburst of light and power from the glory-world. "The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up" (Matthew 4:16). As a result of this mighty flood of power and light, the place where the saints were assembled was shaken (Acts 2:1-7), the dead were raised to life, the blind were made to see, the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak the lame to walk, all manner of diseases were healed, thousands upon thousands were converted to God, and many signs and wonders were wrought in the name of the holy child Jesus. We also read of Paul's wonderful conversion, of Peter's deliverance from prison, and of many who were delivered from devils. Oh, what wonderful light God shed upon the hearts of men at that time! The shining of this glorious light not only enlightened the minds of those who received it; but it also revealed the effects of past traditions and brushed them away. The light also revealed the New Testament life and experience, far exceeding the standard under the law. The word says, "Light makes manifest"; so under the gospel rays every one's condition was revealed. The light not only showed the people their sins, but also showed them how to get rid of them, and then how later to get sanctified wholly. "For this is the will of God, even your sanctification" (1 Thesselonians 4:3). This, of course, is a much higher standard than was raised under the law. The law was, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, love your neighbor and hate your enemy; but when the gospel light revealed God's will in this dispensation, all people became so responsible because of the knowledge of divine truth revealed to them and the unmeasured divine power bestowed upon them that it was consistent to raise the standard where people would love their enemies and do good to those who despitefully treated them. Nor did their love stop with that; it so increased toward one another that "all that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need" (Acts 2:44,45). In many particulars far too numerous to mention can it be shown that the New Testament standard was raised far above the law standard, showing God's compassion to fallen man. For example, consider the woman taken in adultery. The law said, "Stone her to death"; but Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more." Notice also his compassion toward the Syrophenician woman, who was considered a Gentile dog; toward the people when he performed the miracles of the loaves and fishes; toward the multitude when he fed enemies as well as friends. Again, when the disciples wanted to call down fire from heaven to destroy some who had opposed them, Jesus said, "I am not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." Jesus loved the people so well that he healed even the man in the tombs who was possessed with a legion of devils, and also the ear of the servant of the high priest who was then helping to arrest him. It was his compassion that sent out the disciples to heal the sick, to raise the dead, and to cast out devils. All these things were a result of the burning light that shone forth in the morning of this gospel day. We see that God's church in the beginning was a mighty moving power--a means in God's hands to bring deliverance and salvation to souls, and healing to afflicted bodies. The work done and the signs wrought all so far exceeded what had been done before that the people were made to exclaim, "We never saw it on this fashion." Jesus summed it up well when he said, "The blind received their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me" (Matthew 11:5,6). If from the morning time until now the light had continued to shine with unclouded brightness, who knows how much might have been done toward the salvation of the world! But, alas! the prophecy must needs be fulfilled: "And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day" (Amos 8:9). In Paul's time he said, "For the mystery of iniquity doth already work" (2 Thessalonians 2:7). It was not long until the people began to drift away from God, to substitute outward form for inward experience, and penance for faith. Heresies sprang up. Men lost sight of the church of God, and began to form creeds, and to build up man-made institutions. The first creed was formed in A. D. 325. Men drifted farther and farther away from the way of the Lord, and plunged into gross darkness, until they could even kill the saints and think they were doing God's service. They also fell to worshiping images after the manner of the heathen, and doing many other like things. This departure from light brought about a serious state of affairs; so great was the persecution of God's true children that they were hunted for their lives, and had to hide in dens and caves of the earth. History tells us that death was the penalty for having in possession a New Testament. With such a penalty hanging over the people of God, not many would be professing that did not have the experience. It doubtless took a martyr's consecration to keep a real Christian experience in those days, and it is equally as much needed in these perilous times. This reign of gross darkness continued hundreds of years. "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord" (Amos 8:11). But God had designed to bring again his children out of darkness. He proceeded to do so by giving light to such men as Wycliffe, Huss, Luther, and others. History tells us that when light came to Luther, he was steeped in Catholicism, so much so that he was trying to gain favor with God by various acts of penance. On one occasion while he was climbing the "holy stairs" at Rome on his hands and knees, the Lord thundered in his soul that salvation is by faith in Christ alone. We have no account of Luther's getting light beyond justification, but the reformation did not cease with him. Later the Lord gave to the Wesleys, Fletcher, Hester Ann Rogers, and others, greater light on his Word, showing the privilege not only of justification but also of sanctification. As the departure from the light and whole truth in the morning of the gospel day was a gradual process, so the return to the light has been gradual. The Lord shed some light on the world through Huss, some through Luther, and some through the Wesleys and others, thus restoring the full light according to his own plan. While God wonderfully used these men to shed light on the world in their day, yet many effects of the apostasy were clinging to them. Divine healing in their day was almost unknown or known to but few, and likewise the gifts of the Spirit. Wesley himself testified that he did not possess any of the gifts of the Spirit, and did not think that any one else did. No one in Wesley's time, so far as we know, discerned the one body and the unity of God's children. The one who perhaps came nearest to discerning the body of Christ was either Wesley or Fletcher. In their correspondence with each other, one said in substance the following: "In searching the Word on the unity of God's children, I see that the Scriptures relating to the gathering of God's children into one body must be fulfilled before the end; but I scarcely think we are yet on the threshold of that period." He expressed his desire to see that time by saying, "God hasten the day." No doubt if these men were living today, and walking in the light as they were at that time, they would readily fall into line with the church in this evening time. "At evening time it shall be light." That this scripture might be fulfilled, God in his wisdom saw fit to shed more light on the one body and divine healing, not upon one person alone, but upon a number of his people in different parts of the world. This light began to break forth about 1880. I wish to call your attention here to the way in which God shed forth the light on the church of God. In making a new sect, some man becomes the hub and center, and round him or his ideas revolves the organization. But God did not center this reform in one man, but gave the light to different ones in various parts of the world about the same time. The work of the Holy Spirit upon their hearts in sanctifying them, caused them to see and flow together. It might be said that the giving of this glorious light was in one respect similar to the second coming of the Son of man: "As the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." The fact that many persons in different parts of the world saw this light independently of each other and at about the same time is one evidence that this movement is God's work and not man's. Truly this is the evening time, and it is light. God's will, order, and plan are more fully revealed to his children now than at any other time since the days of the apostles. The Lord enables us more clearly to discern the one body and its operations, and to know our place in it. The gifts of the Spirit are now recognized as belonging rightfully to God's children, and are sought, obtained and used to the glory of God. It is now understood that the same purity of heart and life enjoined by the church in the morning time is not only our privilege to enjoy, but also the standard to which we must measure, and the doctrine that we as ministers must both live and preach. The old Babylon doctrine, "Sin you must," is exposed as a doctrine of devils. The doctrine and practise of trusting the Lord for healing and at the same time using drugs and remedies to help the Lord out is cast aside as false, and the true doctrine of entire trust in God for healing is taught and practised instead. Truly the prophecy is fulfilled which says, "The light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold" (Isaiah 30:26). At the same time that God is shedding more light on his Word, his plan, and his holy bride, he is also giving us more light on the workings of Satan and his deceptive power. As the light shines brighter, of course the battle waxes hotter between God and the devil, between light and darkness. As the light reveals the hiding-places of the devil and exposes his works, he is becoming more and more enraged and is making a desperate fight, for his time is short. This means much to the true saints in these perilous times. The enemy is not only doing all he can to hold those who are already under his power, but is doing all he can to spot the pure bride. Since he already sways his scepter over the sectarian world, he needs waste no time on them, but can direct all his energies against the holy remnant. The harder Satan works, however, the brighter shines the church of God, the one body, the bride of Christ, the more glorious her splendor and beauty. Let us beware. Let us watch and pray, that we may be kept pure and clean. The Lord is the same today as ever, and his promises are as far-reaching. While it takes more grace to live a holy life at this time, yet the dear Lord has provided a sufficiency. As a result we have more to enjoy, and more facilities for doing good. The heavier the responsibilities, the greater the grace. It is a thing indeed to be thankful for, that instead of the reign of conferences and synods, priests and popes, we have the blessed privilege of living under the loving rule of the holy Trinity, with Christ himself as the head of the church, and all we are breth-ren. "And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying Alleluia; for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth" (Revelation 19:6) Truly we are highly favored among men. While we are now living in a time of great spiritual peril, and have to encounter many dangers by the way, yet we have more to enjoy, and God is more perfectly revealing himself now, than at any other time since the apostles. "Brighter days are sweetly dawning, Oh, the glory looms in sight! For the cloudy day is waning, And the ev'ning shall be light. "Misty fogs, so long concealing All the hills of mingled night, Vanish, all their sin revealing, For the ev'ning shall be light. "Oh, what golden glory streaming! Purer light is coming fast; Now in Christ we've found a freedom, Which eternally shall last." Do you not think we should be very thankful since we are the most highly favored people on earth? "And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful" (Colossians 3:15). Those of us who have been delivered from the dark night of Babylon confusion, and translated into this glorious light, surely have every kind of reason for which to be thankful. Therefore "let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready" (Revelation 19:7). "And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him" (Daniel 7:27). Read Daniel 7:15-28. Chapter XIV Various Experiences in Gospel Work Soon after I discerned the one body, my brother and I visited St. James, Mo. We had labored there but a short time when Brother Warner and his company came to the town to hold a camp-meeting. When I was first introduced to Brother Warner, he made the remark, "And so you are the sister that wanted to stay in Babylon in order to get wolves to take care of Iambs?" and then broke into a hearty laugh. He referred to my remark that I was going to continue to work with the sects, so that whenever a congregation was raised up I could get a sectarian minister to serve as pastor. I enjoyed Brother Warner's merriment, as I was free from sectarian bondage. He was truly a man of God; as meek, humble, and Christlike as any one I have ever met. Meeting him seemed very much like meeting Jesus himself, He was always ready to comfort and encourage young workers. He once felt so bad over having neglected to pray for a sister that was suffering, that he went to the altar and sought forgiveness, although his neglect had been due to the fact that he was so busy that he could scarcely have done otherwise than he did. Before I began traveling with my brother, he had labored at St. James, where quite a company of saints was raised up. When we visited the town together, strange things were happening. The members of the congregation were having peculiar manifestations in their services--jumping, dancing, and doing other strange things, which they did not know whether to attribute to God or the devil, but which they thought were of the Lord. My experience at this time showed that I was not entirely free from the influence of the traditions that I had received when a child. In my early years I had been instructed that different bodily demonstrations, such as dancing, jumping, etc., which occurred in the sect meetings some fifty years before, were all of God. When, therefore, we visited this little town, we accepted all their demonstrations as being of God. I even let some who were possessed with devils lay hands on me. I became affected with their false spirit, and on certain occasions my joints would become stiff and I would fall in a trance. About this time Brother Warner and his company came to the town to hold a camp-meeting. As I went to shake hands with Mother Smith, who was with them at that time, I fell stiff. Mother Smith knew what was the matter at once. At first Brother Warner was somewhat puzzled, as he could see that although some of us were affected by this false spirit, we still had the spirit of God. As he wanted to be sure of every step he took, he began to work very carefully, holding on to God for guidance. Finally God showed him that the time had come to send forth judgment. He read the 12th, 13th, and 14th chapters of I Corinthians. He said he was going to give us a big gospel dish at this time, and when he came to the scripture, "Charity does not behave itself unseemly," the judgments went forth in mighty torrents. I was sitting in the congregation, knowing that I had some of the devil's chatties on me. At first I thought I would go out and pray it through; then I said, "No, I will look to God right here where I am." I raised my hand to God and said, "Lord, you must show me what is of God and what is not, so I can take my stand for you." Before my hand went down, God made me to know that Brother Warner and his company were right, and that the judgments going forth were of the Lord. I took my stand for the truth. At this time and place it meant much to stand for the truth, for the whole country was polluted with this false spirit, and when judgment went forth, it stirred up the enemy throughout the whole country. As a result, a mob came that night after the services were ended, tore up the tents, and loaded everybody and everything connected with the meeting onto wagons and quietly sent them off the camp-ground. I was staying that night at a house about two miles from the camp-ground, and so was not present when the mob came. About two o'clock in the morning Brother Warner, who had got separated from his company, came, with a number of others, to the house where I was staying. I was awakened very early in the morning to pray for a brother's child that was sick. I did not feel clear to do this alone, as I had not sufficient victory over the recent attack of the enemy. Finding out that Brother Warner was there, I called him. We laid hands on the child, prayed for it, and it was healed. Then I had them lay hands on me and pray that all the bad effects of the recent attack of the enemy might be overcome. There was still a stir all through the country, and soon the people began to gather at the house where we were staying. Many of them were now able to see that they had been under the influence of wicked spirits, and desired deliverance. So many came that from the time we had our breakfast in the morning until the sun went down at night, we stopped neither to eat nor to rest, but were continually in prayer for those who wanted help. It had been the design of the mob to kill Brother Warner, but the Lord graciously delivered him. It was the second day after the mob came, before Brother Warner found his company; he and they had gone in different directions. In the days following, Mother Smith was quite helpful to me, as the enemy tried to depress and crush me; but the Lord brought me off more than conqueror. A number of other honest souls were also gloriously delivered at this time; some of whom are New Testament ministers today. God soon showed me that I must trust him for heavenly authority over devils and over every foul spirit. I came to God in earnest prayer, claimed my privilege as a minister, and obtained the gift of miracles. I soon had an opportunity to exercise the gift. The following spring, in company with my brother, I had the privilege of attending the Bangor, Michigan, camp-meeting. For sometime I had felt the leadings of the Lord to go to this meeting, but I did not have the means. I began praying earnestly that God would open the way for me to go, but he saw fit to let my faith be tested. The time of the meeting was drawing near, and the money for my trip did not seem to be forthcoming. As the time approached and different people asked me if I was going, I would say yes. Some would ask me if I had the means for my car-fare, to which I would answer no. "Well," said they, "what will you do if God does not give you the means?" I replied, "I will trust him anyway." Soon, however, the Lord showed me that I should begin fasting and praying, and that I should not eat until the money was provided. Breakfast on Saturday morning was my last meal until the following Monday morning. By that time God had answered my prayer: I had enough money to take me to the meeting, and there was a little left to apply on my return fare. It is unnecessary for me to say that I enjoyed this my first meeting after getting victory over my sectarian blindness, past traditions, etc. The meeting was certainly precious and heavenly. The songs were so sweet, being sung in the spirit, and having such a heavenly melody. It seemed, almost, that I was where angels had congregated. Brother Warner would leap, shout, and praise the Lord, both in meeting and between meetings when he would meet a saint. Whenever a new saint came on the ground, you would hear shouts, praises, and halleluiahs, that would make the woods ring. In the morning when we first met each other, our salutations were, "Praise the Lord!" "The Lord bless you!" etc. I have heard Brother Warner say when he met those who seemed to have no praises stirring in their souls, "Have you no calves this morning?" referring to the scripture, "We should offer the calves of our lips, even praises to our God." I have been present when, under the anointing of the Spirit, Brother Warner preached three hours and twenty-five minutes; and those that were interested were not the least bit tired. While my brother and I were attending a camp-meeting at Chanute, Kansas, our systems got filled with malaria. Coming back to the home of Father Bolds, near Webb City, Missouri, I soon came down with typhoid fever. My brother had an attack, also; but, as he fought it more successfully than I, he soon recovered. I had a fight of faith. It seemed difficult for me to get hold of the Lord for healing. On examining my consecration, I found that I was more anxious to die than to live. When I got that difficulty out of the way, the Lord soon raised me up. Nevertheless, I lay three and one-half weeks, most of the time with my tongue swelled stiff in my mouth. I could eat no solid food, not even softened bread. During that time I lived on liquid foods, such as grape juice and buttermilk. Prayer had been offered for me several times, but without avail, for the reason that I have already given. One evening, however, prayer was offered for me again. This time God gave the victory, rebuked the disease, and I was healed, although I was left very weak. The next evening prayer was again offered that my strength be restored, which petition God granted. The following morning Mother Bolds helped me to dress, and in company with her and Father Bolds and my brother, I got into a lumber-wagon and started to Joplin, Missouri, seven miles away, to begin a meeting. That evening I testified, and the next day preached twice; although I could not walk alone, and had to be led by two persons for a week, and by one person for two weeks. It was two weeks before the saliva came into my mouth. During this time, also a number of disorders appeared on my body one after another, almost like new diseases. As each new affliction appeared, God helped me to trust him until it was removed. All this time, however, God had enabled me to help in the services--to preach, to testify, or to pray--whatever seemed to be my duty. Although I seemed able to do so much in the services, yet my mental vigor seemed not to have been restored sufficiently for me to carry on a conversation; and between services, I would scarcely talk at all. Indeed, I was hardly able to think rationally very long at a time; but during the services when the anointing of God's Spirit was upon me, I hardly think any one could have told that I was laboring under any difficulties at all. The meeting at Joplin lasted four weeks. During that time my brother got a call to another place, and I was left to finish the meeting alone. In many ways my body was not yet normal, but it was improving surprisingly fast. Soon after my brother left, Mother Bolds came to call on me, and I begged her to stay until the close of the series of meetings. I felt so helpless yet that I could not keep from crying like a child. She encouraged me as best she could, and told me that she would go home and see to things there, and then come back next day and stay with me until the meeting ended. She was a great encouragement to me and also a great help in the services. Shortly after this I went with Father and Mother Bolds to help hold a meeting some distance from there in southern Missouri. Large crowds were in attendance, God blessed in the services, and souls were convicted and saved. A man and his wife who had professed to get saved, sent for us to come to their house, saying that they were sick. It was a peculiar case, one that we did not at all understand. Brother Bolds and I both went to God in earnest prayer, and the Lord revealed to each of us independently of the other that we had on hands a case of evil spirits. We laid on our hands, did all we could to cast them out; but as we did not know how to trust God for authority over them, they would not go. While dealing with this case, I learned that the man and his father had a grudge against each other, and had not been on speaking terms for sometime. We remained at the house until the night service, when the brother started with us to meeting. We had to pass his father's house on the way. Before starting, the man had asked me privately whether or not he ought to get the difficulty out from between him and his father. I advised him that he should. So when we came to his father's house, he tried to ask his father's forgiveness; but instead of doing as he purposed, the devils began to talk through him and to make strange noises. The son's demonstrations stirred up the devil in his father, who began to rage against Brother Bolds, and to abuse him, calling him wicked vile names. I said to Sister Bolds: "The Lord has used us as well as Brother Bolds in the meeting, and I think we ought to be willing to take our share of the abuse. Let us go up where they are talking." As we appeared, the father turned on me. He said everything that the devil could bring to his mind, but the more he said, the happier I became. Finally, Brother Bolds said, "Sister Cole, I think we had better hurry on to meeting, as the congregation will be there and will be disappointed if we are late." It seemed that I could hardly tear myself away from the place, God was so wonderfully pouring his glory into my soul. The demon-possessed man came along with us, growling and whining like a dog, and making other strange noises. He kept up these demonstrations during the entire meeting. Some of the unsaved people seemed to understand just how matters were and enjoyed it immensely. They laughed and had great fun. For two weeks afterward the devil-possessed man was completely deranged mentally. His father guarded the house and would not let Brother Bolds call on him; although, when the son saw Brother Bolds, he would say, "If you will let that man in, I will soon be all right." After two weeks his mental powers were restored, but he was completely turned against the truth, and would not come to meeting any more. On the night of which we have been speaking, I had promised to go back and stay all night at the home of the son. During the night the Lord woke me up and brought to mind very forcibly that the powers of hell were there, and that I was in the presence of a murderous spirit. The Lord impressed me that I should lie awake and pray. Early in the morning my host began to call to me at the top of his voice: "Leave, old Satan! leave, old Satan!" My first thought was, "This is his home, and I shall be compelled to leave." Snow lay about a foot deep on the ground, and the air was cold and sharp. It was a mile to the nearest house. My next thought was, "Why, my name is not old Satan, and I will not answer to Satan's name; but if he calls me Mary Cole, and tells me to leave, I will go as soon as I can, because it is his place, and not mine." He left the house and went to the barn to feed his stock. I got up and dressed and was impressed to remain until he came back, and then to ask him the privilege of having prayer with him. It seemed that he could not refuse my request. So I read and prayed. Up to this time, I had been bothered very much by my feelings; but now I just leaned on God alone, trusted in his word, claimed the promises, and prayed that he would bring me off more than conqueror. The Lord made me understand that he gave me power over all the powers of the enemy. After prayer the man called me in to breakfast. God had already shown me that he did not want me to eat breakfast; so I told the man I did not care for any. He insisted that I come, and began to cry; but I did not go. The door being open between the room where I was and the room in which they were eating, I heard him say, "Wife, I believe we are mistaken; I believe those are the people of God." The next morning being Sunday, he went with me to the meeting, but that was the last one he attended. This was but a short time after I had the typhoid fever. The fight with the enemy in which I had been engaged, strengthened my faith greatly. I was now more ready to cope with devils than I had ever been before. I had been very weak on that point. Before the experience which I have just related, if I felt all right, I thought everything was all right; but if my feelings were not good, I began to doubt God's promises. God had just brought me off more than conqueror in a severe conflict, and I was now ready to take him at his word, no matter how the enemy raged, and no matter how bad I felt. My faith was now grounded in knowledge. During the meeting we were then holding, we had to endure some persecutions. One cold night some one put red pepper on the stove. The stove was in the center of the room, and the fumes from the pepper almost stifled the people. They had to run out to keep from choking. Brother Bolds quickly raised the window opposite the door, and the draft between the window and the door soon drove the stifling fumes from the house. Although the people were so affected by the fumes of the pepper, yet we ministers did not suffer a bit. Twice during this meeting we were egged--once with frozen eggs. None of the eggs, however, hit any of us. Two persons who were not fully decided to stand for the truth, got some benefit of the eggs. On the road to meeting one night, some of the opposers of the truth were egged by their comrades, who mistook them for members of our company. Several times after getting light on the church I had the privilege of helping in meetings in my own home. These were attended with good results: a few got deliverance and were established in the whole truth. Some are true to God yet. One time while at my home, Sister Lodema Kaser and I went to a little town named Greenridge, about ten miles away; and, being solicited by some good honest souls to hold a meeting, we began services at that place. A good interest soon began to be manifested: conviction settled on the people, and hands began to go up for prayer. The meetings had continued nearly a week, when we received a pressing call from Kansas to come at once to hold services in a certain town. As God was working in a marvelous way where we were, I did not feel clear to go. Even after prayer I still felt that we should continue the meeting where we were. The second letter had come, I think, insisting that we should come. Then I began to infer that if I did not heed this call, they would think that I was refusing because I was so near home. So I submitted and went. To the surprise of the brother who had asked us to come, the Spirit of the Lord did not work in the meeting. The brother soon saw his mistake and asked my pardon. He said, "Sister Cole, I will never do such a thing again." We did not remain long at this place. The only fruit of our labors, so far as we know, was one dear sister who got under conviction, but who did not get a chance to become acquainted with the whole truth until fifteen years afterward, but the light that she got at that time and the conviction that came upon her, followed her until she was gloriously saved. This was Sister Matilda Magley. The last news I had from her, she was a precious saint of God. Another result of this meeting was, that we learned a good lesson. In the future, we were more careful how we let others persuade us out of God's order. I hold that God's true ministers who live close to him are able to get their own leadings from the Lord, especially where souls are at stake. God wants us to have our own individuality. True, the Word says, "Be subject to one another," but we are to be subject always in conformity with his will and his Word. I know that I have had to trust my individual lead ing; I have had to depend upon them to keep me from being led off by wrong influences and spirits. When I saw my privilege to individually learn God's will, I took advantage of it, and I have had reason to thank God for the protection of his Spirit. God's children should be very careful not to urge his servants away from a place before God says go, nor should they urge them to come to a place until God is through with them where they are laboring. By so doing, souls may be lost that otherwise would be saved. At one time I had four pressing calls to hold meetings in different places, and every one of them contained the promise, "We will pay your fare both ways if you will come." God showed me that I should not accept any of them; but should go in another direction, taking my own money to pay my fare. I went, happy in knowing that I was in God's order. Dear ones, let us depend upon the leadings of God's Spirit, and not allow our financial interests to bias our decisions. While traveling in the West, Brother Warner and his company had held a meeting at Galesburg, Kansas, in which a certain woman was saved. Previous to this time she had been a member of a sect and was unsaved. Her husband, who was a doctor and had once had an experience of salvation, was greatly delighted to think that his wife had an experimental knowledge of Christ. It seemed that he could scarcely have been happier had he been saved himself. After his wife was saved, he sent for Sister Kaser and me to come and hold a meeting. We came; but when he met us at the train, we were not the capable-looking people that he expected to see, and he was quite taken aback. Nevertheless, he invited us to his house and was very hospitable. We found his wife to be a precious saint. The meetings began; conviction came upon the people; and God began to save souls. Our burden was mostly for the soul of the doctor. At first he seemed quite unconcerned about himself, but much concerned for others. But God was working, and conviction soon fastened upon him. At last I ventured to ask him to raise his hand for prayer, which he did. Next day I asked him to take further steps toward his salvation; but he said, "Sister Cole, I did as you asked me to last night, and I don't feel any better--I feel worse." I did what I could to encourage him, and the Spirit of the Lord continued to work with him. After meeting one night, his load had become so heavy he could not carry it any longer, and he then and there requested earnest prayer. It was near midnight before God spoke peace to his soul, but a happier person you could hardly find. He soon saw that the old sin principle was still in his heart and the enemy suggested, "Do not get sanctified; you will have to give up certain things that you won't care to give up yet. Just live a good justified life." In some way God gave him a warning that he must seek sanctification. He heeded God's voice, came to the altar, and was fully sanctified. God soon had his hand on him for the work. This was Bro. S. G. Bryant. A man at Essex, Illinois, became interested in the meetings we were holding there. He was educated in four different languages, made a profession of religion, and belonged, I think, to some denomination, but had no experience of salvation. He soon saw that he needed help from God and came to the altar. He had a desperate struggle. He said his education did not help him to get saved, but was only a hindrance, and got between him and God. He wept and plead with God just like any other poor sinner, and finally broke loose from the things that seemed to hinder him and was made to rejoice in the Savior's love. Later he came to the altar and was sanctified. Soon God's hand was on him for spiritual work, and later he became a minister. This was Bro. Addison Kriebel. This incident shows that while education is all right and a good thing to have, yet it is no help in seeking the Lord. The scripture says, that the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. Nor will education bring soul-rest; it can not be substituted for spirituality. Education, however, need not be a hindrance to spirituality if spirituality be made the master and education the servant. If this relationship be maintained, the child of God is safe in the possession of education. At one time my brother Jeremiah was talking to a professor of a college about his soul, and trying to get him to seek the Lord. The professor seemed to be full of learning, and his affections were so set on the things of this world, that Jeremiah could scarcely make any impression on him. While they were talking, the professor's little two-year-old child, who was playing near by, came up and said, "Papa, Papa, put your affections on things above," and returned again to her play. "There," said my brother, "can you take that? Can you accept the lesson the Lord wants to give you?" Wise as the professor was, he was confounded, knowing that God must have put this speech into the heart of his little child to reprove him. "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger" (Psalm 8:2). At one time when Sister Kaser had been called home, I went home on a visit. While there, I got a call to Meridian, Kansas, to hold a meeting. I arrived at the town on an early morning train, remained in the depot until daylight, and then hired a boy to carry my valise to the home of the minister, Mr. J. W. Wyrick, who was pastor at that place. The door was opened in response to my knock; and, as I stepped in, I received a very strange impression. The disordered house struck me peculiarly; but my mind was relieved when the man said that his child was lying very sick and that they had been taking turns sitting up with it. In an inner room, I found his wife, a pitiful, sad-looking person, with a face that bespoke trouble. I kept my feelings and thoughts to myself, knowing that the Lord was able to guide me aright and to use me to his glory. I felt wonderfully impressed, however, with the presence of evil spirits. Not being able to locate them, or to reach any definite conclusion, I waited for further developments. The meeting began. There were at least three factions in the congregation, and I could see but very little good in any of them. The man at whose house I was staying, claimed to represent the church of God. Meeting had continued but a little while before his conduct showed me his spiritual condition, and God wonderfully burdened me for his soul. While he was in prayer, God showed me that his case was serious, and that he was badly under the power of the enemy. It happened at the meeting. The young folks were misbehaving during prayer-time, and Mr. Wyrick prayed against them so vindictively that it was not hard to tell of what spirit he was. I soon felt led to renounce the wrong spirit that Mr. Wyrick had already exhibited in prayer. This stirred him up. He knew that he had not been acting right, and he insisted that I should come to his home for a talk. I did not feel led to go to his house; but he insisted from time to time. Finally his wife came to me and said, "I wish you would come to the house, as it might make my husband treat me better." For her sake I went; but oh, the awful spirit I met! If there had been any want of evidence as to the man's condition, that want was now supplied. He began a tirade--said that Eve was the downfall of the world, and number of other things derogatory to woman's character. He told me that he had had a dream in which a forked-tongued snake had been trying to kill him. "You," said he, "are that forked-tongued snake." I told him that I could bear his abuse for Christ's sake. "But it is not for Christ's sake; it is your own devilish work." I could not reason with him at all, and so I said, "Let us pray." First I prayed, and then he prayed--an abusive prayer against me. He kept pouring out his abusive talk, until I closed the door--"slammed it," he said, which was false. God kept me clear through it all; but he made me to know that he did not want me to meet such cases alone any more, that others should be present to be agreed with me, and to stand against the powers of hell. For several years my youngest brother, George, had been impressed that God wanted him to go into gospel work. He came to where we were then holding meeting. He seemed to think that God had sent him to us for the especial purpose of making me more useful and effectual in gospel work, which no doubt was the case. Nevertheless, God had a deeper design in his coming. We were soon to go East to a camp-meeting. Although, when George left home he had only means enough to take him to the camp-meeting, yet God had shown him that he should come farther west before he went to the meeting. Before the time came for us to start, the railroad had cut rates so that we could travel for about one-third fare. God had worked it out so that we all could attend the meeting. At a meeting Brother George and I were holding in Illinois, there was a brother who wanted to walk by faith. He thought that in order to make a success of such an experience he would have to ask the Lord to take away all feeling. I suppose he must have prayed until he got his prayer through, for God certainly did withdraw all good feelings from him. He took a severe affliction which caused his face and parts of his body to swell badly, and which brought on intense suffering. God seemed to be present when we prayed for him, but the brother was not healed, and his suffering became so severe that we were greatly burdened for him, and went to God in very earnest prayer to know wherein the difficulty lay. God showed us how the brother had prayed, and when we told him what the Lord had revealed to us, he saw his mistake and made matters right with the Lord, then he was soon gloriously healed. I have no idea that he ever asked the Lord again to take away all good feelings so as to enjoy walking by faith. Some few years later, while Sister Kaser, my brother and I were in Robinson, Kansas, at a camp-meeting word came that my father was very sick and wished my brother and me to come at once. Brother Warner and his company were in this meeting. God was gloriously working, and souls were being saved. When the letter came, therefore, we felt very reluctant to leave, and after going to God in earnest prayer, we could not feel that he wanted us to start that day. Besides, I felt impressed that if we should start that day we should not get through to see him alive anyway, so we delayed our trip until the day following. For about two weeks God had been impressing me that I was going to have a severe trial, at the same time bringing to me these comforting words: "I will go with you through it." This promise had been on my mind many times. The next morning we got a telegram that father was dead, and the enemy tried to crush me with the accusation that I did not love my father or I would have started to him the day before. Upon receipt of this telegram George and I started at once. We had not proceeded far on our journey until we learned that the train we should have taken had we gone the day before, was wrecked. Some of the cars went into the river. The Lord's warning had possibly saved us from death; but if not, from unnecessary delay, because had we taken that train, we should not have reached our destination any sooner than we did. As I stood and gazed upon the still form of my father and remembered that a great deal of his Christian life had not been satisfactory, I wished I could have talked with him before he was taken. The night after the funeral, when I had retired to rest, God began to talk to me. "Did I not tell you that you were going to pass through deep waters?" "Yes." "Did I not tell you that I would go through with you?" "Yes." "Have I not done as I promised?" "Yes." Certainly he was a present help--all and more than I could have wished--yes, and more than I comprehended at that time. I was so sustained that I did not at all realize the weight of the burden, because Jesus bore it for me. A little later God seemed to withdraw some of his sustaining power and let me feel to some degree how heavy the burden really was. It seemed that the life would be crushed out of me. I asked the Lord the reason, and he plainly showed me that if he had not withdrawn his sustaining power I should never have known what a burden he had been bearing for me. I thought, too, that another object, no doubt, was to develop in me greater sympathy for others carrying a similar load. As I still felt burdened for the salvation of souls at Robinson, Kansas, I returned to that place, and my brother remained to look after father's business. God gave me stirring messages. A number of souls that had been convicted got down to business and were saved. God's design was accomplished, and my soul was relieved. Our next place of meeting was Wichita, Kans. Our company was to join Brother Warner's company in a camp-meeting at that place. He had received the money to defray the traveling-expenses of both companies. Our company was to meet them at the Robinson depot on a certain morning, and all were to travel together. There had been some misunderstanding, so Sister Kaser and I were not present. Brother Warner, therefore, left word that we should borrow the money and that he would make it right with us when we reached our destination. Sister Kaser and I did not start until the following morning. We told the saints about the misunderstanding and explained that we did not have the money to pay our way. They did not make us a loan, but gave us the money. Not knowing how much the fare was, we asked for too small a sum, not wishing to ask for any more than we absolutely needed. We could buy a ticket only to St. Joseph, Missouri, our first stopping-place, and therefore we did not know how much money we lacked, until we reached that place and asked for tickets to Wichita. To our surprise, we found that we had just enough to pay our way to Newton, Kansas, twenty miles east of Wichita. At first we felt somewhat dismayed to think of going without money to a strange town. We told the station agent of our predicament and also of our having friends at both ends of the road, and asked him what we had better do. He advised us to send a telegram to both places. In the meanwhile we sent a telegram up to the Lord, and he showed us that we should buy our tickets to Newton and trust him to bring matters out all right. We were shouting, happy. I remarked to Sister Kaser, "If some of these people on the train knew our circumstances and knew how happy we are, they would think we were ready for the insane asylum." In the meantime, my brother George was planning to attend the same camp-meeting. He did not know what day we were going, nor did we know the day he was going. After he got started, he found that he was on a road that made very poor connections, and said to himself, "If I did not know that God was leading me to go this way, I should surely think I was out of order." Just before we got to Newton, where we thought we should have to stop because we had no money to go further, George got on the train, rode with us to Newton, got off at the station, and bought our tickets on to Wichita, and we did not have to leave our seats. When we got to the meeting, Brother Warner helped us to take a good shout, and refunded the money that had been given him to pay our fares. We had a glorious camp-meeting and numbers were saved. Hypocrites made some disturbance, but God overruled. While here we met a man by the name of Joseph Prouse, who invited us to come to his place to hold a meeting. We went. The meeting had been in progress three days, when, as we were in a private conversation, talking about the nationality of those present, we found out that Brother Prouse was related to my family. His mother and my mother were half-sisters, both being children of the same father. Brother Prouse was the first relative of ours that we had ever met or heard of that had accepted the whole truth. Not only Brother Prouse was saved, but also his wife and some of his children. Truly we had a time of great rejoicing. It seemed so good to find some of our relatives that knew God and were living Christian lives. The event was so unexpected and such a glad surprise that we praised the Lord together. Shortly before going to Galesburg, Kansas, to hold a meeting, I received a few lines from Brother Warner telling me that two gospel workers, a man and a woman, would join me at that place. In his letter he gave me to understand their spiritual condition so that we should know how to proceed for their good and our own protection. The brother at the place where we were holding the meeting had been saved but a very short time, and was not therefore able to discern false spirits. When he saw that there was no fellowship between these two people and our company, he was tempted to think that it was because we did not have compassion for them. God soon showed him, however, that they were in a bad spiritual condition and that our company was all right. From that time we had his help and encouragement. After a day of prayer and fasting for the couple that needed help, they both humbled themselves. The man fell to the floor stiff under the power of the enemy, but the woman desired deliverance. So far as we could understand, God delivered both of them, but as they did not take a stand against the evil spirits that had been troubling them, they got into the same condition again. Under the influence of a spirit of accusation, they wrote a letter to Brother Warner finding fault with our company of workers. Bro. Charlie Williams, who was at that time a member of our company, was corresponding with Brother Warner. In his letters Brother Warner would say, "God bless you, Brother Charlie!" but he would never say, "God bless you. Sister Kaser and Sister Cole!" At that time the enemy was coming against our souls with terrible accusing power, and we felt that we needed a blessing very much. The accusations of the enemy continued for about two weeks, during which time it seemed that our lives would be crushed out of us. Waking up early one morning, I said, "O Lord! why is it I can't get consolation from a certain source," meaning "Why can't I get an encouraging letter from Brother Warner!" The Lord answered, "I will give you consolation first-handed if you will accept it." My heart opened up to God as a little flower opens to the morning dew, and oh, how I drank in the good things of the kingdom! Then as I found myself, as it were, in a large room with the Lord, feasting on his beauties, his grandeur and glory, the scripture came so forcibly to me: "A day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness" (Psalm 84:10). In my thought I could compare my experience to that of a little child accustomed to but few pretty things and poor surroundings who was put into a beautiful parlor containing all sorts of beautiful things for its pleasure. Being told to help itself, it would walk up and down the room with delight, hardly knowing what to take hold of or to enjoy first. In this experience through which I had just passed, I learned the precious lesson that trial is to God's true children like a wine-press to the grape. As the wine-press brings out the pure juice of the grape, so the trials of a child of God bring out and puts on exhibition a pure Christian character. On going East soon after these events, we met Brother Warner and told him of our experience and of Satan's tempting us to think that he would renounce us. He answered: "No, Sister Cole, we we wouldn't have renounced you, but had we been near enough and had known what you were passing through, we would, had it been in our power, have gone to you and done all we could to help you." During the first summer that my youngest brother was with us in the work, he did not take a very active part. There were several reasons for this. Before leaving home he was nearly broken down through overwork. Besides, like almost all young workers, he was timid and backward, and needed encouragement and support. When the battle was strong, he would not be able to bear much responsibility. I would doubtless have been tempted in regard to my brother's condition had not God made me to know that I must be patient and give his body time to recuperate and give him a chance to develop as a worker. Late in the fall we began a series of meetings in company with another gospel worker who had been in the work for sometime. This worker suggested to me in the early part of the meeting, "You and I will do the preaching, and toward the end your brother can have an opportunity to exercise himself." He spoke as though, should my brother try to take part, the meeting would be spoiled. I said but little in reply, feeling sure that God was able to manage things. As a result of this brother's attitude, however, the accuser also turned on my brother's soul, and as a result, discouragements set in on him thick and fast. I felt that something was going wrong and spoke about it to the older brother, telling him that George needed encouragement and not holding back, as he was timid. The brother assured me that he was giving George all the encouragement he could. Not long after the events of which I have been speaking, I had a dream in which I thought my brother told me that this minister was holding him back and at the same time whipping him and finding fault with him for not moving out. When I awoke, I told the dream to a sister with the remark, "Well, this is nothing but a dream, and I don't believe there is anything in it." Nevertheless, it troubled my mind until I asked my brother about the matter, concluding with the remark, "I guess there isn't anything in it." He answered, "Yes, Mary, I guess there is something in it," and began to cry. God stirred up my soul, and at the first opportunity I talked to the older brother and told him what God had shown me in a dream. He said, "Oh, your brother has been talking to you about it." I said. "No, God showed me first, and then I asked my brother about it." The brother promised that he would never do so again. George and I visited a brother (Harvey W.) of ours that we had not seen for nineteen years, not since I was a little girl and sorely afflicted. He looked at me with big tears running down his cheeks and said, "Mary, I can see that God has done more for you than you can understand, as I have not seen you for so long." A few months later, upon his invitation we came and held a series of meetings in his neighborhood. He had once been a Protestant Methodist preacher, and had enjoyed an experience of salvation, but had been quite doctrinized in the "one-work theory." When we came to hold a meeting, he began to defend his pet theory. I soon saw there was no use to explain the Scriptures to him, as he was unsaved, so I said to him: "Now, Harvey, you know you haven't got the first work, so we will not argue about the second. Come to the Lord. Let him forgive you and save you from your sins, and if you find that you get sanctified at the same time, we will gladly accept your doctrine, but if not, you will know it." Before the meeting closed, he came to the altar, called on God for mercy, and obtained forgiveness. As he arose from the altar, I came to him, praised die Lord with him and said, "Now, brother, do you know that you have received both justification and sanctification?" "No, Mary," he said, "I think I did well to get my sins forgiven." We were once holding a camp-meeting in Nebraska at a new place. The Spirit of the Lord was working mightily. Souls were being saved and sanctified, and bodies were being healed. Much was to be done, and especially toward the close of the meeting our time was fully occupied. While we were the busiest, a brother brought an insane woman to the camp-meeting for healing. Her husband accompanied her. As we were so rushed with the general duties of the meeting, we had no time to give attention to so important a case until the meeting was over. We told the brother that if the man and his wife would remain until after the meeting was over, we would then do all we could for her deliverance. The meeting closed on Sunday evening, and on Monday afternoon after we had packed our things ready for the next meeting, we took the case under consideration and sought the Lord for wisdom as to what should be done, and one of the company (George) obtained this promise: "God does not give us the spirit of fear, but of love, of power, and of a sound mind." While we were at prayer, the insane woman was down-stairs with a little girl, to whom she remarked, "My prayers are up-stairs." She seemed in some way to be conscious that something was being done for her benefit. The woman for whom we had been praying had before her marriage been a bright, intelligent teacher. Before she became afflicted, she weighed 190 pounds, but at the time of which we are speaking, she weighed only 110 pounds. I can not say positively what was the cause of her insanity; but as near as I remember, she wished to become a Christian, and as some of her relatives opposed, her mind gradually became unbalanced. At the time she came to us for prayer, they said she did not sleep for a whole hour during any night, but was walking, talking, or moving about in some way. As we waited on the Lord in her behalf, our souls were encouraged. We came down-stairs, anointed the woman, prayed for her, and claimed the promises; but when we arose from our knees, she was, so far as we could see, ten times worse than before. We did not look at outward appearances, however, but praised God and rested on his promises and counted him faithful in fulfilling them. That evening we went our different ways, but before we separated, we could see a marked change in her for the better. My brother asked them to keep us posted as to how she got along, and about a week later we received word that she was much better and was improving rapidly. About six weeks afterward, I think it was, they said there was scarcely any signs of her insanity. She had resumed her duties as mother and housewife, and was gaining flesh. Just a short time before this latter report, it was said that upon the appearance of some little symptom of her former malady, one of her relatives tried to make her take medicine. The brother who related the story, said in his peculiar German way, that she "spitted it out and wouldn't take it." So far as we have ever learned, the sister was fully restored to health. When we are earnestly looking to God in behalf of some one who needs help, and he gives us a precious promise, it is undoubtedly our privilege and duty to claim the promise and to be strengthened and encouraged thereby. If God does not want to work in the case, doubtless he will not impress us with a promise in this way. At such times we should not feel timid. God is leading, and if we will move forward in faith as rapidly as he leads us, he is sure to bring us off more than conqueror. While working in Oklahoma, we became acquainted with the members of a new sect known as "The Followers." Some articles of their faith were similar to those of the Christian, or Cambellite, denomination. Besides these, they believed in the reception of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands; they professed to speak in tongues and to interpret, a demonstration which God made us to know was a deception of the devil. But the most peculiar tenet of their faith was that their members were not counted perfect until they could pick up a snake without injury. This belief was, we suppose, based on the scripture found in Mark 16:18: "They shall take up serpents." A number of them were able to do this without any bad result, but a few were bitten so badly that they came near dying. The Lord made us to understand so clearly the spiritual condition of these people that we felt clear in pointing out their delusion. In a dream that I had at this time, I saw a ferocious wild animal coming to take my life. It seemed that if I could get hold of its horns God would protect me and help me to overcome it. During the meeting of which I have been speaking, we went home with one of the families of The Followers. As we were returning to the meeting in the evening, one of their number who professed to talk with tongues and to have great authority, began talking his jargon as though he were pronouncing vengeance on us. God gave me to understand that this was the wild animal of my dream and that I should trust God and rebuke the devil, which I did. God put his rebuke on the spirit, and that night, through us, exposed the false doctrine. One of the leaders came out, got a good experience of salvation, and became a minister of the present truth. A number of others also got established in the church of God. Shortly after the events related above, we went to Nishnabotna, where we met a spirit similar to the one we had encountered at St. James, Mo. The demonstrations, however, were not quite so vile, but the spirit was making progress in the community and had a number under its influence. In their meetings they would jump and dance and talk about the great power they had. They declared it was God's power and that if any one went against it, something dreadful would happen to him. They even went so far as to say that if any one spoke against the demonstration they made or "the power," as they called it, God would strike him dead. That same evening one of their number invited us to go home with him. Our conveyance was an old-fashioned farm-wagon. For some reason I did not feel clear in going alone, as the powers of the enemy were so plainly manifested. I therefore asked a certain sister to go with me. We had not gone far until the enemy came at me with great force. "Now you know what was said tonight-that those who opposed the power would be struck dead, and I am going to kill you." I said, "No, you are not." "Yes, I will." "No, you are not." I immediately leaned on God and trusted him for protection. Within a few minutes the enemy tried to carry his threat into effect. The wagon was on the side of a ridge about half way between the summit and the base of a high hill. On our left hand below us a number of feet lay a stream, on our right was a high cliff, and ahead of us was a team which began to balk and push back toward our wagon. For a few minutes it seemed that we must be either crushed by the big team in front or thrown into the stream, God came to our rescue, and the other team was brought under control before ours became very much excited. While the danger threatened us, however, we got out of the wagon, and the sister who was with me sprained her ankle badly. None of the rest of us were hurt. Again the Lord's promises were proved true and the devil a liar. A number of people who had been under the false spirit, when they heard the truth and learned the difference between the workings of the Spirit of the Lord and the demonstrations of false, deceptive spirits, proved themselves honest at heart, took a stand against the enemy, and got deliverance. A number of them are still walking in the light of divine truth. At the Beaver Dam, Indiana, camp-meeting I had rather an amusing experience. There was a woman on the grounds who had been delivered of evil spirits; but as she had not taken the proper stand against the enemy, she had again become possessed. I met her soon after my arrival, and she began almost immediately to try to teach me in regard to dress. As I understood her condition, I said to her plainly, "I know that you are devil-possessed. Wait until you get deliverance again, and then if God gives you a message I will receive it. I will not receive a message from the devil." She smiled and walked away. A number of the sisters slept in an attic. As we were about to retire one night, the devil-possessed woman was acting like an insane person, throwing the bed-clothes down-stairs and acting in a way that showed that the devil had full control of her. Some of the sisters, becoming frightened, huddled in the corner of the room for fear she would hurt them. In the confusion, I forgot for the moment to trust in God. Instead of thinking of God and his protecting power, I thought that the enemy might touch the woman's brain, make her insane, and cause her to do almost any desperate deed. I thought it would be well to protect myself and acted accordingly. Just then Mother Smith, who had been informed of what was going on in the attic, came on the scene, and found the woman raging in the middle of the room and the rest of us huddled in the corners. Mother Smith took in the situation at a glance, and, pointing a finger at me said: "Shame on you, Sister Mary! afraid of the devil! This is nothing but the work of the devil, and here you are hiding from the devil. Shame on you, Sister Mary!" It would be impossible to tell you how I felt, and so I shall not try, neither shall I make excuses nor plead my case. I came out of my corner and Mother Smith began at once to tell us what must be done. She said that the devil-possessed woman must sleep between her and me that night. She had her way. It was not a pleasant night, and I got but little rest. Every little while the woman would take a spell of choking and then laugh in a silly way. At such times Mother Smith and I would lay on our hands and rebuke the devil. We did this, not once, but many times. By morning I had learned my lesson and never from that day to this have I run from the devil. When a soul wants to get deliverance, it is the duty and privilege of the minister to exercise heavenly authority. God has delegated to his New Testament ministry all the power that they need for every emergency. I heard of a minister, a sister, who, when evil spirits were to be cast out, became so frightened that she ran and climbed up on the woodpile. The brethren that were present, were greatly amused and asked her if the enemy had her treed. We need never fear the enemy nor give way to him in the least. If we keep our faith in the Master's promise, "behold, I give unto you.... power over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you." "Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world." Let us remember always that in our own strength we can not expel evil spirits, but that all our power and authority in such cases come from God. If we keep our faith steadfast, the enemy can no more overcome us than he can overcome God himself. Chapter XV Various Experiences--Continued Sometime after I got light on the one body, I was helping Brothers Kilpatrick and Speck in a camp-meeting near Essex, Ill. For three days I was under a severe trial or burden, which became heavier and heavier until it was unbearable. The worst of my difficulty was that I did not know what was the matter. Finally I went to my room, locked the door, threw myself on the bed and cried, "Lord, you must show me what is the matter; I can't stand this any longer." Then the Lord began to talk to me in a loving, fatherly, encouraging way: "This is a battle between God and the devil. Are you willing to fight in it?" "Yes, Lord," I said, "with all my heart"; and almost before I could think, the cloud was all gone, the burden had disappeared, and I was as happy and triumphant as I had ever been. I don't think I had another test during that meeting. Through this peculiar experience I learned the difference between soul-burden and condemnation and between accusation and conviction, as I had never been able to comprehend it before, although I thought I had understood this difference measurably well. Many dear souls have been troubled on these subjects, mistaking soul-burden for condemnation and accusation for conviction. A clear understanding of the difference between these soul experiences will save us from many unnecessary trials. I have been thankful ever since for God's teaching. While in evangelistic work I had the privilege of attending meetings of various kinds in many different States. Shortly before the Gospel Trumpet office was moved to Moundsville, our company attended a camp-meeting at that place. Brother Clayton's earnest labors were beginning to show some results, but the work was still quite new. We arrived there the afternoon before the general meeting began. But little preparation had been made to accommodate the workers who would be present. My brother George had found a place to stay, but nothing had been said to me about lodging. Just before the beginning of the services, a woman came to me and asked if I would go home with her. I did not feel favorably impressed, and thought I would wait and see if I should get another invitation. The night services closed, and no one had yet offered me lodging, so I accepted the woman's invitation. I had been kept awake two nights on my trip to the meeting, and now I had to walk a mile before retiring. As we drew near the house, I felt the awful powers of the enemy coming against my soul. I wondered what kind of place I was going to, but it was too late to turn back. Although it was ten o'clock at night, we met the woman's little grandchild out playing, and the child was by no means in an inviting condition. When we reached the house I understood at once why I had not felt impressed to accept the woman's invitation. Everything was in disorder, and the house was almost as filthy as a swine-pen. The floor was covered with sand on which tobacco-juice was freely sprinkled, and over this filth the beds had been laid down. The woman had already told me that she had a nice clean bed for me in an upstairs room, and in this I hoped to find the rest I so much needed. After eating, with considerable difficulty, a little lunch set before me, I was shown to my room, which had a more cleanly appearance than the room down-stairs. I wanted very much to lock my door; but as I could not, committed myself to God's care, and went to bed. Vermin of different kinds prevented sleep; and not long after going to bed I heard a noise downstairs that indicated the arrival of company of no desirable sort. My heart began to sink within me. "O Lord!" said I, "why have you let me come to a place like this?" and the tears began to course down my cheeks. The answer came, "That you may have an opportunity to be partaker of my suffering." I thought to myself, "I am a poor specimen to fulfil that scripture tonight." I do not believe I slept ten minutes the whole night through. I heard the town-clock every time it struck; but during that night of anxiety and prayer I learned the lesson that I must be ready at all times and under all circumstance, to partake of Christ's suffering, and that in order to partake of his sufferings, I must be very little and very humble. Next morning, with veiled face, I made my way to the camp-ground in as round-a-bout way as I could, so that no one would know where I lodged the night before, and thus reproach be brought upon the cause of Christ. Our next camp-meeting was at Mole Hill, W. Virginia. This was a new place, and not many attended the services; but the Lord blessed in the presentation of the Word, and we had a good meeting. It closed on Sunday. Just before the services on Saturday night, an armed mob came into the camp. Never in all my life had I heard so many awful oaths in so short a time. A number of unsaved young men who lived in that neighborhood and who were favorable to the truth, undertook to defend us and to keep the meeting from being broken up. The mob said that they had come on purpose to tear the tent down, but those who were defending us said that they should not, and that if they undertook to carry out their threat they would be "laid low," meaning that they would kill them. A number of shots were exchanged between the two parties, some of which came very close to me. You may think it very foolish, but I found myself dodging behind the canvas for protection. Afterwards I was amused at myself, but at such a time the weakness of humanity is on exhibition. After the two parties had continued for nearly an hour, I think, I felt strongly impressed that a number of us should kneel down and call earnestly on God for protection. While we were on our knees, God made me to know that none of us should be hurt and that the tabernacle should not suffer damage. I arose from my knees with victory. Not long afterward the young men who were protecting us, got our assailants on the run. They left in such a hurry that one of their number left his hat behind. He made several attempts to come back after it, but our boys always headed him off. The strife lasted all night, and no one in the camp got any rest. At midnight a sister who for a long time had been seeking sanctification, but had not been able to get the experience, came to the Lord, made the consecration, was made happy, and began singing: "Hallelujah for the cleansing! It has reached my inmost soul, For the glory now is streaming; Praise the Lord, He makes me whole!" The next day was a very busy day. God worked mightily. Souls were saved and sanctified, and bodies were healed. It was a day of victory from beginning to end. I had asked the Lord not to let "a dog move his tongue" against the tent. Nothing about the camp was disturbed. Several times during my ministry the Lord has laid upon my heart a message to deliver, and has not made my burden known to the other ministers present. As such times, if one is not very true and faithful to God, he is likely to be accused of the enemy and so prevented from doing his duty. The first experience of this kind that I remember, occurred at a camp-meeting in the State of Indiana. One Sunday when a very large crowd was in attendance, a sectarian minister who seemed to be getting out of Babylon was expected to preach. The brethren thought it would encourage him and edify the congregation. In the afternoon I overheard some of the ministers encouraging him to deliver a message. God made me to understand that this man was not making the progress that he should and that he was not in a condition to deliver a message, especially at such a time. I was looking very earnestly to the Lord when he made me to know that he wanted me to deliver the message, but I knew from what I had heard that he had not made it known to the other ministers. This state of affairs put me in a very trying place; for if I should take the pulpit, it would look as if I wanted to be too forward, thus hindering one who might have the message. The conviction on my heart was so great, however, and God's hand so heavy upon me for this duty, that I got up; but as I was stepping into the pulpit, I saw the sectarian minister with his Bible in his hand just ready to rise to his feet. "Oh, pardon me," said I. "No, you pardon me; go ahead," he replied. "No, you go ahead." "Oh, my message won't spoil." "Mine won't either," I replied. Then he again insisted upon my going ahead; and as I knew God was ordering it, I delivered the message and God wonderfully blessed my soul. Not until the evening service did the other ministers realize that God was putting me forward to deliver the message. That night when there were not more than one-third as many present as there were in the afternoon, the minister of whom I have been speaking, rose to preach. His sermon was nothing but a message from the devil. God's ministers were disgusted. Mother Sarah Smith, who sat right in front of the pulpit and who always encouraged the ministers and held up their hands with her "Amen! Praise the Lord!" began in her usual way. I said to myself, "If I have not misunderstood the voice of God, her amens will stop and her head will go down before this message is ended." It was not long until her amens ceased. Before the sermon was ended, some of the ministers were pacing the grounds in agony because the enemy was filling the pulpit, and some of the sinners felt like taking the ministers out and giving them a threshing because they had permitted such a thing. It was over at last. Brother Warner came to me and said: "Sister Cole, I can see now why God had you take the pulpit in the afternoon when the largest crowd was present. There would have been much more harm done, had he preached then instead of tonight." This experience emphasized to me the fact that it pays to obey God. First, be sure that God is ordering your steps, and then be true to God. He will stand by you though you have to go through fire to do his bidding. At a camp-meeting in Michigan God made it clear to my soul that at the evening service he wanted me to deliver a message especially for the benefit of backsliders. The burden upon me was so great that I could hardly sit still until time for preaching. In the prayer just before the sermon, the brother who led made it very clear that he was sure God was going to have him deliver the message that night. I sympathized with him, of course, and did not want him to have any unnecessary trial; neither did I want to disobey God. I submitted the matter to the Lord, telling him that if he still wanted me to deliver the message, to hold the brother back until it would not appear that I was trying to get ahead of him. God wonderfully owned and blessed his Word, and a number of backsliders were reclaimed. After the service, the brother who had thought he had the message came to me and said, "Sister Cole, I did think I had the message, but the Lord blessed you." "Yes," I said, "the Lord blessed me in obeying; but it took more grace than usual." At a Kansas camp-meeting there was a man present who had not been living a consistent Christian life. He had done things that disqualified him for preaching. I told the Lord that I would do anything he showed me in order to keep the pulpit clean. As is usual at such gatherings, the largest crowd was present on Sunday afternoon. I saw the minister of whom I had just spoken, getting ready to take the pulpit. It came to my mind that if I wanted to obey the Lord and to keep my promise I must act quickly. I asked the Lord to exercise his control and to give me the needed opportunity to obey. He did, and I preached the sermon that day. Very soon afterward an accident occurred in which this minister's false teeth were broken, so that he could not preach during the remainder of the meeting. Thus God's cause was protected. To obey the Lord under the circumstances of which I have just been speaking, takes much grace, especially on the part of the minister who knows the proper attitude toward his fellow ministers and desires to show them courtesy. At different times when I have felt led to move out and deliver a message, others have got ahead of me so that I did not have an opportunity at that time. Frequently under such circumstances God has opened the way for me to deliver the message later and has made it more effectual than it would have been had I delivered it when I first desired to do so. Now, I would not advise workers or ministers to make unusual efforts to get into the pulpit, unless they knew beyond a doubt that God is ordering. But if you are certain of the leadings of the Lord, even if God does not make it plain to others, you may do as God bids you with certainty of success. In a certain meeting I had the message, but another minister took the pulpit so quickly that I had no chance to deliver it. At the close of the service, a number of persons came to me saying, "Sister Cole, you had the message." "Yes," I answered, "I felt sure I did, but I had no chance to deliver it." "Well, maybe God will give you a chance to deliver it yet." "I think he will if he wants it delivered," I replied, "and perhaps when I do have an opportunity, the message will be stronger--boiled down, as it were." The opportunity came the following day. At that time there were present in the meeting a minister and some of his congregation who had gotten out of the way. God so blessed the delivery of the Word that not only the minister but also a number from his congregation got delivered. Isaiah's prophecy that the blind eyes should be opened, was fulfilled during the time of Jesus' earthly ministry, and it is being fulfilled today. I have been a witness to a number of such healings, of which I will relate three. While my brother George and I were holding a meeting in Nebraska, a lady, accompanied by her husband, came a number of miles to be healed of blindness. She was not a saint, nor do I think that she had even been professing. Be that as it may, she had heard that the Lord was healing people. She was so nearly blind that she could not see to sew or read, and could scarcely do her housework at all. At first we talked to her about her soul, and she expressed a desire to get right with God. When asked whether she would rather have salvation or healing, she chose salvation first. We all bowed before the Lord, and asked him to save her soul. She got the witness that she was saved. Although we did not make her healing a special subject of prayer, yet we asked God to do for her eyes all that he saw fit. The following day she went home, and not long afterward we heard that she was much better. After another brief interval of time we heard that her eyes were well and that she could read and sew just as she did before they became afflicted. Her friends who brought her to the meeting for healing were very much tried when we instructed her to seek salvation before healing. They thought that she would be discouraged because we did not make a specialty of her healing. After all, it turned out all right, thus showing that God's way is best. A brother, an old man, came to an Oklahoma camp-meeting for prayer. He had been a sinner from childhood, and at the time of which I write, had been saved but little more than a year. A number of us anointed him and asked God to heal him of rheumatism and of everything else that he saw fit. One of the brother's eyes was in such bad condition that with it he could not distinguish a person from other objects. Soon after prayer was offered, he said the diseased eye had been fully restored. One of the workers in the Chicago Home began to go blind in one of her eyes. The sight kept failing until it was entirely lost. We had prayer, claimed the healing on the authority of God's Word, and did not doubt, although the sight was not restored immediately. For two months she could tell but very little difference in the condition of her eye; but during this time, she held steadily on to God's promise and did not doubt him. At last God saw fit to give her the desire of her heart. Her faith was realized and her sight was restored. Chapter XVI God's Care Over Me A number of times during my life I have been exposed to danger, but have always realized God's protecting hand. The incidents which I shall now relate, show God's goodness and tender care for me. Truly he is a present help in every time of need, and powerful to deliver under all circumstances. One time while I was still in the old home at Windsor, Missouri, I was alone in the house. My parents had gone on a visit about twenty miles away, and two of my younger brothers were somewhere about the farm. I was in the room before the old-fashioned fireplace. Some embers had dropped out on the hearth, and ashes had settled over them, entirely hiding them from view. Presently I knelt on the hearth before the fire and began earnestly calling on God, my calico dress resting on the covered embers on the hearth. Being entirely absorbed in my devotion, I did not know that there was any danger until the flames were going up my back. I rushed to the door, calling loudly for help, in the hope that some one would hear me and come to my assistance. My next thought was to run to the kitchen, get some water, and throw it on the fire; but the thought flashed through my mind that if I should run through the hall, the fire would get such a headway that it would burn me to death. So I called on God earnestly: "O Lord, why is it that I am left here to burn to death alone?" With all my soul, I threw myself on his mercy. Like a good, loving, heavenly Father, he brought it to my mind to go to the closed door and press my back tightly against it until the flames were smothered. Although my clothes were nearly burned from my back, yet I escaped without the slightest injury. Truly God proved himself to be my wisdom and my deliverer. While we were attending a meeting at Sturgeon, Missouri, I was a guest at a farm-house two or three miles from the town. I had no way of returning to town the next day, except to ride in on horseback. Because of my illness in early life, I had never learned to ride on horseback. My parents would never let me try, for fear that I should have a fit, fall from the horse, and be killed. At the place where I was staying, only two horses could be spared from the work on the farm--one gentle animal, too old to work on the farm, the other a fractious colt not sufficiently broken to be safe for a woman to ride. In fact, the young horse had thrown the young woman of the household a number of times. There were three of us to go to town on these two horses--two other young women and I. The old lady had asked me if I was used to riding, and upon hearing that I was not, she said I should ride the old horse. After waiting on the Lord earnestly, however, I felt strongly impressed to ride the young, unbroken animal, trusting myself in God's hands. The Lord had assured me that he would take care of me. The old lady did not want me to ride the colt and seemed to think that I was somewhat obstinate in my decision. Finally, however, she consented. The girls who went with me were young and mischievous, and when they saw that I did not know how to ride and was very awkward, they began to enjoy my predicament and whipped up their horse just to have fun at my expense. I felt very awkward and scarcely knew how to keep my seat in the saddle. On the way to town the girls asked me if I expected to return to the farm that evening. I said that I did not, to which they replied that they were glad because they wanted a horse apiece coming back, so that they could have a race. There had been a heavy rainfall, and in front of the blacksmith shop at the edge of town was a large mud-puddle in which a hog was wallowing as we came up. Disturbed at our approach, the big animal arose from the puddle, splashing mud and water, and making considerable noise. The gentle horse on which the girls were riding became frightened, jumped to one side, and both girls fell off into the mud. The horse on which I was riding was scarcely frightened at all. He just made a slight movement that loosened my foot from the stirrup. Some one came to my assistance until I could get down. I realized that God had protected me. One time not long after this a brother was taking me somewhere on a mule. It suddenly came to my mind that I had not trusted God for protection and that I must do so at once as danger was near at hand. In less than five minutes, as we were going through a bit of timber, the mule got scared and began to rear up. Then he tried his best to run with me through the timber. If he had succeeded, no doubt my brains would have been knocked out against a tree. Again an unseen hand seemed to help me, and although the mule kept rearing up and trying to get away, I was uninjured. At a few other times in my life God has marvelously protected me under similar circumstances. Once the mule on which I was riding became frightened and threw me off. For some time I lay senseless on the ground, but the mule stood still, not moving out of its tracks until I recovered consciousness and crawled away. God answered my prayer, and I was soon all right again. At another time I fell off a horse backwards on my head. A brother and sister who were with me thought that they heard my neck break, but the Lord marvelously protected me, and I was almost as well as usual by evening. At still another time my horse slipped, and I fell off, got caught in the saddle, and was dragged some little distance. At first I called for help, but the sister with me was so frightened that she could not come to my rescue, so I called on God very earnestly, and he helped me out of the dangerous position without any hurt. Before my brother and I began our work in Chicago, while passing through that city with Brother Kilpatrick and his company, we stopped over to visit Lincoln Park. When the street-car was near the edge of the park, one of the company jumped off, saying, "This is Lincoln Park." I had ridden so little on the street-cars that I did not know the danger of getting on or off while the cars were moving, so I jumped too, thinking that if I did not I should not get to see the park. As I jumped, I kept hold of the car and in consequence was dragged about one hundred yards. When the conductor got his car stopped, he gave me a cursing for being so foolish, but he little realized how ignorant I was. Some of our company were almost sick with fright, thinking that I was killed, but God in his mercy protected me and did not allow me to suffer serious injury. After we had begun work in the city of Chicago, we went one day out to a little town called Naperville to visit some saints and to hold a meeting. When we came to the depot to start back, my brother found that he had left his Testament at the house where we had been staying, and he went back after it. There was a little suburban station just a short distance from the depot, and the train ran between the two. Our baggage was at the suburban station. I saw the train coming and, supposing of course that it would stop, I went across to the little station to protect our things. The train was a lightning express which did not stop at that station, and the man in charge of the crossing, seeing my danger, began to yell at me to come back. I was too far across to return, and his yelling came near confusing me, so I merely made my escape. The express was not more than a foot away as I stepped off the track. At different times God has protected me from contageous diseases. While my oldest brother and I were out together in the work, he took the measles. I nursed him during his illness, and others were sure I was taking them. They thought they saw them coming out under my skin, but I was trusting God the best I knew how. Some of the incidents that occurred about this time were rather amusing. About the time I should have been coming down with the measles, Mother Bolds and I attended a meeting in Carthage, Mo. It was a dark night, and we had to cross a little ravine. We lost our way, got into the water, and got drenched. But no bad results came of our wetting, as I was not taking the measles at all. God had protected me. I had my next experience of this kind at Cornell, Nebraska, when I took care of my brother George during his sickness with the measles. George was very sick. Often after giving him food or water I would find myself tasting of what was left. Then I would think, "I do not want to tempt God; what shall I do? It certainly seems I must have the affliction after being so thoughtless." But I thought of this scripture: "If they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them." I asked the Lord to verify that promise to me. On two different nights, however, for about two hours each time, the devil seemed to come and try to impose the disease on me. It seemed that I could hear him say, "I will give you the measles; I will give you the measles." "No, you will not," I would say in reply. "I will not have them unless God wants me to have them. You are not going to give them to me." I knew it was Satan that was trying to push the disease on me. The second night it seemed as though I could resist the devil no longer, and I said, "If I do not get help, I can not stand any more." Then the Lord appeared and let me know that I should not be tried any more, and this scripture was fulfilled: "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape." The enemy disappeared and I did not take the measles. While in San Diego, California, a brother took George and me over the bay to Cornado Island. Before we started, God impressed me that there was danger ahead and that I should pray earnestly for protection. Thinking that I should not have time before starting, I prayed as I went. Upon reaching the island the brother went to moor the boat, and George called to him, "Are you not afraid to fasten your boat so near to the waves from the main ocean?" He answered that he thought there was no danger. We spent a very pleasant day on the island and enjoyed the ocean air. When it came time for us to go home, I found that in walking around I had lost my scarf. The brother who was with us said he thought he knew where it was. He told my brother to hold the oars while he went to get the missing article. On his return George went to pass him the oars, but in some way one of them fell into the water. Just then the large waves began to roll in from the open sea and to fill our little boat. It looked as though death was staring us in the face. My brother saw that he could escape; but as he thought that probably the boatman and I would both be drowned, he stayed with us and did all he could to help get the oar. The boat was full of water. We were all drenched and sat there in the water until we got back to the mainland about four miles away. Although I did not drown, yet probably the wetting would have caused my death had God not answered prayer. How good the Lord was and what a lesson I got! When God impresses us with danger, it is time to lay it to heart and to pray until we know that God has given us the protection we need. Another incident of this kind occurred in California while we were visiting a place known as the Inner Cave. When the tide was out, people could walk round in this cave and enjoy the scenery; but when the tide was in, the cave was filled with water. We supposed that we knew the time when the tide came into the cave, but we had been misinformed. When we got out into the open air again, it was within five minutes of the time for the return of the tide. Had we remained much longer, we should all have been drowned. God has certainly been very merciful to me. Many times has he warned me before meeting with some threatened danger, and always he has protected me from serious harm. Chapter XVII My California Trip For some time a brother in California had been insisting very strongly on our coming to that State to hold meetings. His letters were full of glowing accounts of the beautiful climate and the fine fruit, he thinking that would be an attraction to us. These attractions had no influence upon us. My brother George, Lodema Kaser, and I, who were then together holding a meeting, felt so strongly impressed of the Lord to accept the brother's invitation that we all thought we should go in a week or two. While in earnest prayer, however, God made it clear to me that my mother would need me at home in the near future and that we were not to go to California until a year from the following fall. During the winter of the year in which we first felt impressed to go to California, mother got erysipelas in the face. At that time my brother and I were out in the work, and my unsaved brother put her in the hands of physicians. While we were holding meetings in Oklahoma, we received a telegram that she was very low, and started for home. At Wichita, Kansas, we telegraphed asking if she was still alive. We got the answer, "Yes, but the doctors say she can't live twelve hours." Up to this time I had the assurance that God would heal her, but when I got the doctor's word, I, like Peter, began looking at the waves and concluded that Mother would die. When I got home, however, and had to trust God, I felt ashamed of myself and decided that I would never again put a doctor's word ahead of God's promises. God spared her life, but the medicine had so reduced her strength that George and I had to stay at home and nurse her for two months. About two weeks before we were ready to start for California, I saw in a dream a brother coming to give me twenty dollars to help pay my way to California. He said that he had wanted to use the money in some other way, but that God had shown him to use it for pushing his work in southern California. The dream came true in all its details. Finally our preparations were completed and in November, more than a year after we first felt impressed to go to California, we took train at Newton, Kans. There were seven in our company, Brother and Sister Dansberger, Brother and Sister Gates, Sister Lodema Kaser, and my brother George and I. As we had been brought up in a comparatively level country and had never seen any mountains, the trip was to me a source of wonder and delight. After three days' travel, we reached San Diego and stepped off our train into a land of flowers. Roses were in bloom, geraniums formed a fence around some of the buildings, all nature was in the height of its beauty. We arrived on November 15, just fifteen years to a day from the time I was healed, and exactly five years from the time J. W. Byers reached the Pacific Coast. The contrast between California and the place from which we had come was very marked at this time of the year. A house in San Diego was given us free of rent and an abundant supply of provisions was brought in by the brethren. Figs were very plentiful in that part of California, and our company enjoyed them very much. If I remember correctly, they bore three crops a year. I learned quite a lesson from the nature of this fruit. Fig-trees do not bloom like most other fruit-trees, but the fig itself pushes out at the end of the twig, just as the leaves begin on a hickory-tree. The tree has no flowers, or bloom. I was told that as the fig grew and ripened it had all the appearance of a bloom. A careful examination proved this statement to be true. The inside of the fig looks like the petals of a beautiful flower. To my mind, this beautifully illustrates the Christian who wears all the blossoms on the inside, and it is not only blossom, but genuine fruit, after all. I learned another lesson by the ocean-tide. Certainly God's handiwork is displayed in large bodies of water. I could sit and behold his beauty and grandeur hour after hour and never grow tired. In fact, it seemed that I could see the hand of God, traces of his wonderful works and creation, until I was awed into silence and felt like saying as Job did of old, "When the Almighty speaks, I will put my hand on my mouth." The lesson I learned was this: When the tide is out, the rocks along the shore, covered with seaweed and moss, present an unsightly appearance; but when the tide comes in, these unsightly things are all covered with water, which present the appearance of a sea of glass. When the grace of God is low in our soul, the unseemly parts of human nature are on exhibition; but when the grace of God floods the soul, then Christ is on exhibition and the unseemly parts are hidden away. Another lesson that might be drawn is this: The coming in of the tide might be compared to the trials and the tests that flood our souls, and the going out of the tide to the subsiding of the trials, which, like the going out of the tide, leaves behind pearls and shells and other beautiful things. The beauties of the Christian life are brought to view by the waves of trial that sweep over the souls. We went out into the country, visited the saints, and enjoyed the orange-groves for about two weeks. In the ocean we saw God's hand exhibited in might and power. Here we saw God's hand none the less, although exhibited in gentleness and beneficence. The orange-trees were a beautiful sight. They were loaded with fruit in various stages of development. On the very same tree there would be blossoms and oranges ranging in size from the small green ones to the large ripe ones. Once while we were near the ocean, we thought it a good opportunity to visit the man-of-war that was stationed about half a mile out from the shore. We went out to it in a little sail-boat. As we were passing under a pier, the oarsman dropped one of his oars in the water and regained possession of it only with a great deal of difficulty. One of our party, a sister, becoming greatly frightened because of our danger, took hold of one of the pier-posts and held to it with all her might. In the meantime the brother had gotten hold of his oar and was trying to make the boat move. He soon saw that there was some hindrance, and, looking around, found the sister holding to the pier-post. When asked why she was doing that, she answered, "I am afraid we shall drown." "Woman," he said, "if you will not let go of that post, you will drown every one of us." I have often thought how much like this sister some Christians act. They are afraid they will be overwhelmed, but they hold to something on the shore, to the pier-post of the world or of their own ideas, which makes it impossible for them to get out where it is smooth sailing. Some of these, however, are sincere and honest in heart, finally wake up to what they are doing, say that they have Christ as their pilot, take their hands off, and get out on the open sea of life where the waters are calmed by the Spirit of the Lord. While we were in San Diego there came to us a woman in destitute circumstances. She and her husband had recently come from another part of the country and had not yet succeeded in finding work. They were almost at the point of starvation, and so she came to us to borrow some money. The woman herself professed salvation, but I think knew but little of the truth. Her husband was a sinner. She told us that her husband was out of work and that although he was unsaved he would not eat anything for breakfast that morning for fear there would not be enough left to keep his children from starving until he could get work. We were much moved by the compassion he had shown for his little ones, and thought how much more compassion our Heavenly Father has for his children. The Word says, "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." We felt led to divide the flour, meat, fruit, and butter we had on hands. Before the day was over, there was brought to us from the country ten miles away more provisions than we had given away. The destitute family had enough to live on until the husband got work, which was only a few days later. "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure pressed down, and shaken together, and running over." It has been said that every false doctrine that starts from the eastern part of the United States has a through ticket to the Pacific Coast. We could readily believe this statement. California seemed to be a hot-bed of false doctrine. It was difficult to get any truth to the people or to get them free from the false doctrines of which they had partaken. From San Diego we went to Los Angeles, where we lived in a tent and held meetings in a large tabernacle, with fairly good crowds. The gospel message was not without effect, but we found the people so filled with false doctrine that it was almost impossible to get the truth to them. Even the brother who was so anxious for us to come to California was scattering false doctrine wherever he went. Among other things, he opposed women's preaching. God put us on his trail and kept us after him until the enemy was thoroughly rebuked, and he humbled himself and asked forgiveness. While in this place, most of our little company was under arrest for about three hours for preaching on the street. Some one had reported us to the police and had misrepresented what we were doing. Some of our company enjoyed being under arrest very much, feeling that they had a foretaste of a martyr's experience. When they were released, they came back to the tent rejoicing and praising God that they were counted worthy to suffer for Jesus' sake. This did not end our street-meetings; many more were held during our stay in California. During our stay at Los Angeles, a blacksmith, a brother in the church, while shoeing a horse, got a severe kick in the head. His condition seemed very serious. He came to the tent before meeting began and requested prayer, saying that after prayer he would return to his tent, as he was feeling pretty bad. God wonderfully answered prayer and healed him so that he was able to sit up during the meeting. About three days later one of our company was in his shop and asked him how he was getting along. The reply was that his head was all right, but that a little wound on his hand unnoticed before was giving him some trouble. "But," he added, "I thank the Lord that it is no worse." The brother replied, "Can't you thank the Lord that it is as it is?" The blacksmith stood thoughtful for a moment and then said, "Yes; why shouldn't I thank the Lord that it is just as it is?" The words had scarcely left his mouth before the healing power of God came and made his hand perfectly well. Many other incidents occurred while we were there that space will not permit me to mention here. We remained a little over three months, doing some work in the country, although we were out of town only a few days. At the close of the meeting we moved to Alameda, one of the suburbs of San Francisco. The town at that time covered considerable ground, but had very few large buildings in it. At this place also we lived in a tent as before and held meetings in a large tabernacle. Services were held almost every night, and much precious seed was sown. One day a sister called on us: She said: "Your brother said in his sermon a few nights since that we should bear one another's burdens. How can we do this if we do not open our hearts to others and tell what our burdens are? Do you think it would be all right for me to open my heart to you and tell you my burden?" "Certainly," I answered, "if your soul is burdened." "I have," said she, "a heavy burden to carry. Now, my husband no longer loves me, but he has given all his affections to my sister. They are likely to elope at any time, and my heart is broken. In fact, the grief and trouble I have endured have brought on heart-trouble." As she finished her story, we asked, "Is there anything we can do? We should be glad to do anything to help you bear your burden. Do you think it would be a good idea to have a day of fasting and prayer?" "Yes," said she, "I think it would do good." We told her to set the day, and she chose the next Friday. On that day we all fasted and prayed, especially for this man. It was not over two weeks before God got hold of his heart and gloriously saved him. A happier person than this sister I do not think you could have found. It seemed that she could not cease praising God and thanking us. In order to defray the expenses at home, she raised poultry for the market. To show her gratitude to us, she brought chickens, eggs, and other things for our use until we were afraid she was really robbing herself. She fairly loaded us with good things, and when we called her attention to how generously she was supplying our needs and told her we were afraid she was doing too much, she would say, "Oh, no; I never can repay you for what you have done for my family." We would say, "Do not try too hard to repay us, as it was God who did the work for you." I heard of the man not many years ago, and was still sweetly saved. In our company were Brother and Sister Gates and their three children, who had come with us from Kansas. Not only had Brother and Sister Gates helped us financially, but they had been as a father and mother to us all. They were now about to leave us, and they seemed somewhat burdened lest we should suffer need, as the people had not yet been supplying our needs very much. Of course, the reason why God had not been supplying us otherwise up to this time was not hard to find. The Lord knew that they were supplying our need and that we required no additional help from others. Before leaving us, the sister said, "What are you going to do after we are gone?" I answered: "The Lord has always been a present help in time of need. You and Brother Gates have been very helpful to us, for which we are thankful; but, sister, you must remember that is was God working through you. If God had not been blessing your souls, doubtless we should not have received special help from you. So, after all, the help you gave us came from God. I am sure when you are gone the Lord will not forsake us." It seemed, however, that the Lord wanted to encourage them before their departure by beginning to manifest his care for us. A baker, a stranger to us, came one morning before we were up and left half a dozen loaves of nice bread on the table in one of our tents that we used as a kitchen. The next day Sister Gates said, "Well, you have some nice bread." The following day the same number of loaves were left and the sister remarked, "I think I shall accept some of that bread to take on our journey, and I won't have to bake as I expected." Again, the third morning the usual number of loaves were left in our tent, and Sister Gates remarked: "I wish we knew who that man is, so that we could tell him to stop bringing bread. You will soon have more bread on hands than you will know what to do with." I answered, "God wants to show you how he will take care of us after you are gone." When we found out who the baker was, we asked him to leave a smaller amount of bread for us, as our company was not so large as it had been. He continued, however, to bring us bread, also buns, cookies, and cake, all of which were very much appreciated. His donations continued during most of the time we were at this place. One of our company dropped a tract at a house near the outskirts of the city. This tract was the means of the salvation of the woman who found it. Her husband, who was a dairyman and sold milk in a certain part of the city, told my brother if he would come to a certain place which he passed daily, he could have three pints of milk every day. Two or three days before Brother and Sister Gates left us, provisions of all kinds--fruit, meat, and even baked goods--came pouring in. We had already decided that, as Brother and Sister Gates were soon going to leave us, our company would all take their dinner together on Sunday. Our table was loaded down. The meal looked more like a wedding-dinner than the meal of a few humble traveling preachers. When Brother and Sister Gates saw how bountifully God had provided for us, they were delighted and satisfied. A sister who had come to us shortly after our arrival at Alameda told us that we had to be very careful and economical with the provisions, because we should not be so bountifully supplied here as we had been at San Diego and Los Angeles, because at those other places the church had been taught to give. "There are but few saints here," she said, "and they do not know their duty, so we need not expect large contributions." We replied, "Even if they do not know their duty, God is just the same, and they that trust him shall not be confounded." I do not know that we were better supplied at any other place in the State. During our stay at Alameda, we went over to San Francisco and sat on the porch of the Cliff House overlooking the sea and watched the herds of seals that were playing on a little island out in the ocean about a quarter of a mile. They acted like a party of mischievous children. One of the animals would throw another into the ocean, and the one in the water would come up dripping. As we watched them, we could imagine that they entered into the fun of the sport and really felt mischievous. At Fresno, the next place in our itinerary, a widow provided us with a furnished house, rent free, with fruit in the cellar and everything needed to make us comfortable. We remembered at this time that Elijah was provided for by a widow. In one part of the house was a woman tenant who soon proved to be our enemy and tried to persecute us. While we were having worship, she would make fun of us and disturb us in every way she could. We made up our minds we would obey the Lord in "putting coals of fire on her head." We sought every opportunity to show little kindnesses. At first our efforts were all in vain; she spurned every advance we made. Finally, she took sick, and we went in and asked the privilege of helping her. At first she rejected, but finally consented, and we went to work to prepare her food and to do whatever else was necessary to make her comfortable. Our kindness reached her heart. After she recovered, she showed some signs of gratitude, and we improved every opportunity to accomplish our design of overcoming evil with good. At last she was won to the truth, sought the Lord, found him precious to her soul, and was ever after our firm friend. It was only about three years ago, I think, that she sent me one dollar in a letter. The people in Fresno had heard but little of the present truth. There was one brother living in the town, however, who had done a little house-to-house work, lending books, visiting the sick, etc. Among others, he had made the acquaintance of two aged sisters, one of whom was a habitual user of morphine. She was a doctor's widow and had acquired the habit by taking morphine as a remedy shortly after their marriage. As these old ladies talked with the brother (Martin) and as they learned of what the Lord had done for the souls and bodies of different people, there was awakened in their hearts a desire to trust the Lord for deliverance. One day a sister of our company and I had planned to do some calling. At this time we were in need of such provisions as butter, milk, eggs, etc. The sister thought, therefore, that we had better go to a sister who we felt sure would help us in our time of need. I felt more inclined to go and see the woman who was addicted to the morphine-habit, and accordingly we turned our steps in that direction. The two old ladies were much pleased to have us come, and the one who was bound by the morphine-habit desired very much to be delivered. Before we left, they wanted to know if we had a cow. We told them no, and without our asking they supplied us with all the milk, butter, eggs, and buttermilk we needed. As we left, they requested that we should come back and pray for the sister's deliverance. Their brother also came after me the following Monday morning to go and have prayer for her. For nearly forty years she had been addicted to the morphine habit and had been given up by the doctors who had treated her. Four or five years before this, spots such as usually come on the skin of those who have long been users of morphine, appeared on her skin, showing that she was beyond the reach of medical skill. I went there, prayed for her, but felt that her case was so serious that there would be a prolonged fight, so I returned and sent Sister Kaser. She remained at the house for twelve days. For three or four days it was a life and death fight. Then the old lady began to come out from under the influence of the drug, to throw off the effects, and in twelve days she was like another person. Things that she ate began to taste natural, and her health improved. God had wrought a perfect deliverance. It was during our stay at this place that we had the privilege of visiting the park in which are the giant redwoods of California. For thirty miles on the trip we went in a carriage, and then we took a large mountain-wagon drawn by two pair of horses. As we ascended the mountain to the park, we passed through vegetation in various conditions. At Fresno, where we began our journey, no rain falls and vegetation grows only by means of irrigation. As we ascended, we came first to where there was a small amount of moisture, and the grass was just beginning to make its appearance. As we got further up the mountain, the vegetation was more abundant and flowers were growing here and there. The further we went the greener was the foliage, the stronger the growth, and when we reached the height we were in a grove of giant trees. Just before reaching the park we were threatened with a danger that we least expected. During the summer, government troops camped in the park, and as we came up the narrow road, we met the army-wagons coming toward us. The road was so narrow, with the sheer side of the mountain rising on one side and a precipice on the other, that to pass these wagons was impossible. We had to wait until the government-wagons passed before resuming our trip. When we approached the grove of redwoods, the stumps looked so large that I supposed the trees would be larger than they really were and hence I was quite disappointed in their size. My disappointment, of course, was due to the effect on my senses, for the trees were really immense. I walked through a hollow log through which a lady had ridden on horseback some time before. Later, I stood on top of this log and it seemed as if I were standing on top of a house. The largest tree we measured was 103 feet in circumference at its base. The name of this monster was General Washington. People had climbed far up its sides and carved their names. In order to get a good idea of the height of these great trees, one has to lie on the ground near the base and look up. Through the roots of one tree that was visited, a beautiful spring of ice-cold water bubbled up. The spring came up through a decayed opening in the root of the tree. California is much different from the Eastern States. In the low lands of California there is no lightning nor thunder. The rain comes so gently that sometimes one has to look out-of-doors to see whether or not it is raining. But in the mountains the thunder and lightning are very sharp. Then, too, the difference in temperature between the lowlands and the highlands seems remarkable. At Fresno the thermometer registered 109 after sundown, while on the mountain the temperature was only 60. In California the vegetable growth differs greatly from that in the East. In the East our common elders die every other year; in California they grow to be as large around as a man's body. In the East the castor-bean is an annual; in California it is a tree, many of them larger than a man's body. We had tomatoes in mid-winter from vines that had been bearing for many months, and we saw beets that had grown year after year until they were of great size, in comparison with those of eastern section. While at Fresno we took a trip in carriages across the country to Farmersville, a small town in the interior, about forty miles away. We also attended a camp-meeting at Tulare, where we met Brother and Sister Brundage and other saints. In the month of March, after being in California a year and four months, we took the southern route and returned East by way of Arizona. We stopped at Phoenix and held a two weeks' meeting with good success. One evening I visited a sick sister, who seemed to be suffering considerably. She did not ask for prayer, and I did not volunteer to pray for her. As I left, her little three-year-old child heard her say that she wished Sister Cole had prayed for her while there, as she wanted to be healed and go to meeting that night. "Mama," said the little one, "I will pray for you," and she stepped up and put her little hands on her mama's head. After prayer she said, "Mama, are you better now?" "No." "All right, I will pray for you again." Again she asked the Lord to make her mama well. "Mama, aren't you better now?" "No, I feel as bad as ever." "Well, I will pray for you again." By this time the mother saw that the child had more faith than she. She decided to exercise every bit of faith she had. After the little girl had prayed the third time, she said, "Mama, aren't you better now?" The mother answered, "Yes, I believe the Lord heals me." She got up and dressed herself, and sure enough she was well. At the street-meetings we held in Phoenix, there were present Indians and a number of foreigners of different nationalities. While in this town we had the privilege of visiting our old friends, Brother and Sister Pine, who were then living a few miles out of the city. Both we and they were much delighted to meet again. A day or two more of traveling on the railway, and we were again among familiar scenes, which seemed very dear to us after so long an absence. Chapter XVIII Visiting Relatives in the East After our return from California I found that my body was much worn by our labors in that State. I therefore rested for a few weeks; then in company with my brother George, I attended a number of camp-meetings that summer. A little later in the year we went to visit relatives in Ohio and Indiana, stopping on the way to hold a few meetings in the city of Chicago. On this trip we visited also my mother's old home in Carroll County, Ohio, and while there saw many things, which, although new to us, seemed familiar because of her oft-repeated stories in regard to them. Although we had a pleasant time, because of the sociability and kindness of the people we visited, yet our hearts were saddened that we found none of our relatives enjoying a clear experience of salvation. George returned to the West and I remained for sometime longer with an uncle, Mother's brother. I did what I could while I was there to lead these dear ones to see the full light of Christianity, but I do not know whether or not I accomplished anything. The time was now drawing near for me to return to the West, and I did not have money enough to pay my way. I felt ashamed to let my relatives know anything about it, as I had been telling them of God's goodness in providing for me and trying to teach them to trust God for all things. I had hoped that George, who knew something of my financial straits, would send me some money. I was expecting to hear from him, but when he did write, he sent only a postal card. My uncle's folks had spoken in a way that showed doubt as to whether I had money enough to pay my car-fare, but I had told them that I was trusting the Lord and that he would provide. I prayed very earnestly and the Lord seemed to bring to my mind an incident connected with the crossing of the Jordan by the children of Israel. They had to prove God by stepping into the edge of the water before he saw fit to make the waters roll back, thus opening a path for them through the river. I was impressed that God wanted to test me and that I should have to be willing to go to the depot without the money. Uncle did not take me to the depot, but found a chance for me to ride with a neighbor. At the depot I met a man who professed to be a saint, and I wondered if he would not help me pay my way. He had intimated that he might help me. But he did not ask me whether I needed any money, nor did he offer to give me any. I was asking God earnestly what to do, and I had just about decided to buy a ticket to a point as far as my money would pay and then to trust God for the rest of my fare, when, looking up, I saw in the distance some one coming through the heat, and as he drew nearer, I recognized him as Uncle. He had not come to the depot with me, as he was afraid it would be too hard for him to walk back, but now he was coming. I wondered why, and when he got near me I said, "O Uncle! why did you come through this heat?" The tears began to roll down his face, and he said, "Mary, I was afraid you didn't have enough money." "Uncle," I said, "I guess God showed you, for I didn't have enough. I lack about fifty cents." He said, "When I was at your home, your brothers were so good to help me that I felt it was my duty to see that you had enough money to pay your way." "Uncle," I said, "I won't need more than fifty cents." "Here is a dollar; take it." "No, you give me just fifty cents." He did so, and I had just a few cents more than enough to pay my fare. I can almost see the dear old soul yet coming through the heat almost exhausted--and then to think how good the Lord was to help me in this time of need! The thought of the Lord's kindness melted me to tears, and I thanked him over and over. This incident shows, too, that many times a kind deed long forgotten is rewarded at a later time when help is much needed. Let us not forget to "scatter deeds of kindness for our reaping by and by." A short time after this we went on a visit to the old home at Windsor, Mo. The night after we came an electric storm passed over the little town, accompanied with a high wind and torrents of rain. While the storm was at its height, lightning struck the belfry of the Baptist chapel, two doors from our house. The meeting-house was soon in flames, and the high wind hurled great pieces of burning timbers over our house, and for a while there seemed great danger of its taking fire too. Mother was quite uneasy, but God made us to know that he would protect us. While on this visit, George and I went about twenty miles distance in a buggy to visit a brother and a sister and their families. While on our return trip we stopped at the little town of Lincoln to water our horses, and George took the bits out of the horse's mouth to let him drink. The animal became frightened at the sound of the wind-mill where we were watering, and began to run, and as there were no bits in his mouth, the lines in my hands were useless. My brother undertook to hold the horse, but under the circumstances he could not do so. He saw that my life was in danger, and in trying to rescue me he got wound up in the lines and was hurt quite a little. I was thrown out of the buggy and dragged about a hundred yards and badly injured internally. When George got to me, I was unconscious, but I soon came to myself. Then we both called earnestly on God, who answered prayer. We were both sufficiently relieved so that when the horse got over its fright and the buggy was repaired, we started on our journey of seventeen miles home. We thanked God that the sky was clouded over; thus God held his big umbrella over us and gave us protection from the heat, as we were both very sick and in danger of fainting. I found later that the injury I had received in the runaway was more serious than we had at first thought. I trusted God as best I could for my healing, and we soon started on our way to Neosho Falls, Kansas, to attend a camp-meeting. Within seven days after I was hurt, I was scarcely able to be up at all. My nerves were in such a condition that I could scarcely bear any noise at all, not even the sound of a person's voice. Because of the weakness and the pain I suffered, I missed most of the meeting and lay in bed for about three weeks after the meeting closed. The injury had so affected my brain that I was not capable of grasping God's promises for my healing. About this time I had a dream. I was in a large ship that was in a sinking condition. I was not in the water, but was clinging desperately to the side of the vessel. We called for help, and a tug-boat came to our rescue. Fearing I could not hold on much longer, I called to them to hurry. They replied that they must rescue Sister Martin first. I awoke, and the Lord made me to know that, owing to the condition of my brain, I could not myself obtain healing, and that I should ask the church to help bear the burden. So I got the church at Neosho Falls to fast and pray, and we also had the saints in Moundsville to agree with us in prayer. God heard prayer, healed my body, and my brother and I soon started on our journey east again. On our way we stopped at home and stayed over one night. One of the sisters in that neighborhood begged me to remain and rest a whole year, saying if I did not I would soon be in my grave. My reply was: "I need more than a rest. God wants me to go. He can help me where I am going as well as at home. Pray for me, sister, that God will grant me all the healing I yet need." She promised me she would. From this time on I gained rapidly, but it was a month or more before I was as strong as usual. On our way east we went through Kentucky and held some meetings with Brother Kilpatrick. George took the eczema, and after these meetings his condition became serious. For about two months he suffered greatly. During this time he could not sit down, but had to either stand or lie. Before he recovered, we got a call to come to Chicago. We started, but George was so feeble that I did not know whether or not he would live until we got to our destination. The brother with whom we had been staying insisted that we stay longer, but we felt God urging us on, so we went. Chapter XIX Mission Work in Chicago On arriving in Chicago, we found Brother T----, who had charge of the work in the city, at 1612 Prairie Ave. For nearly a year my brother and I assisted him in the work, and then, as he insisted that we become responsible for the work in a general way, we took charge. When we first went to Chicago, we were not just sure what God wanted us to do. The first winter I helped hold meetings for homeless men in the slum district. As a class, these people were so deep in sin that it was hard to reach them. A few, however, did get a real experience of salvation; but it was difficult for them to keep saved, and when they would give up, they would not stop until they had gone into the grossest kind of sin. Some of them would get converted again and again, only to be overcome by the tempter. Their characters had been so weakened by indulging in sin and giving way to their appetites that it seemed hard for them to become established. It took a great deal of patience and labor to get any of them established. The religious career of many of them was very brief, but others struggled on for a long time. No doubt some became thoroughly established and remained true to the Lord. This work was not very satisfactory to us. True, the souls of these people are as precious in the sight of God as the souls of any other people, but we soon saw that the energy expended upon these people of the slums would, if directed toward people in the great middle walks of life, accomplish far more in the salvation of souls. Gospel workers, if the Lord leads you to take up slum-work, be sure to obey the Lord, but be equally sure that you don't attempt slum-work unless God is leading you. As the work was not satisfactory to us, my brother rented a house for five years as a missionary home. The monthly rent was $25, and it was wonderful how God answered prayer and brought the means to pay the rent. Many times our support would come from a distance. For two or three years before we came to the city, Brother T--- had held meetings every Sunday afternoon in the Masonic Temple. The rent for the room in which we held services in the temple for two and one-half hours each week, was for a time $15 a month, and later $16. Besides the meeting in the Temple, we had cottage-meetings in different parts of the city. Besides renting the home in which most of the workers lived, my brother rented for a year a house to serve as a home for workers in the slum district, paying a monthly rental of $60. As my brother was ignorant of what he was getting into, the Lord seemed to humor him for two or three months by providing the money for the rent of this building. Then my brother got into trouble. He prayed earnestly for money to pay the rent on this building, but his prayers would not go through. Heaven seemed closed against him. After making several efforts in this way, for a while without avail, my brother said that if he could not get his prayers through for money to pay the rent, he would pray that God would make the landlord willing to give up the lease. His prayers were heard, the landlord surrendered the lease, and George got out of his difficulty. Subsequent events showed that the Lord was willing to provide money for us in abundance as long as we acted in accordance with his divine plan for us. In consideration of the facts that we paid our $40 a month for rent on our home and meeting-place, and that we enjoyed but limited privileges in holding meetings, my brother felt impressed before the five years were out that the Lord wanted us to build a home which should be permanent and which should be the property of the church. The work was begun in March, 1903, and by the blessing of God and the cooperation of the church in general, the home and chapel were both finished by Christmas. The greater part of the work was donated, one experienced carpenter giving over $600 worth of labor. Our work in the city was a school of trust. We trusted the Lord for food, for raiment, for rent, and for everything else that we needed. Sometimes when I would have a little money laid by, an opportunity would come to use it, and I would think, "I don't want to give this up, for I may need it later." Then the voice of the Spirit would say to me, "If you don't keep your purse open and use the means you have, God will not supply you." I obeyed God, and he never allowed me to be confounded. Many times when we did not have sufficient food for the whole day, we would get down and ask God to send either money or food. It was marvelous how our prayers were answered, and that from sources from which we should have least expected help. The Lord wonderfully encouraged our hearts in this way. When we were building the home and chapel, a number of the workers felt led to purpose a certain sum to be paid in a year's time. The first year my purpose was $100, to be paid before December 31. I got just enough to finish paying it December 30. The workers were all encouraged in like manner. The next year some of them suggested that, as God had helped them through so marvelously the first year, we should purpose twice as much. I received sufficient money to pay the $200 by Thanksgiving, a month sooner than I had paid the $100 the year before. We often had to trust the Lord for car-fare, and many times it came to us in remarkable ways. One day one of the sisters started out to make a call in the city with only enough money to pay her fare one way. While she was sitting in the car, she looked down into her lap and there lay a quarter. How it got there was a mystery. Sometimes even strangers passing us on the street would feel impressed to hand us enough money to pay our fares. Again, some of the workers while trusting the Lord would find just the amount needed. The Lord showed us here in the city as he did while we were in California, that he wanted us not only to appreciate and enjoy the blessings sent us, but also to pass some of our blessings to those who were needy, and that in so doing we should be blessed as well as those who gave to us. Brethren, God's plan is an unselfish one. If we expect to grow in grace and to develop in trust and in other of his precious graces, we must unselfishly impart what God gives to us. "Freely ye have received, freely give." "He that watereth shall be watered again." "The willing and the obedient shall eat the good of the land." If we withhold blessings from others, whether it be means or any other help that we can afford them, we ourselves shall be losers, and they will be deprived of their rights. Some little time after we located in the city we had our mother come to live with us. She had been a widow for some years. I counted it a happy privilege that I should be allowed to care for her in her old days. I had long desired to care for her and took advantage of the first opportunity of having her come to us. I had also desired that in her old days she should not lose her mind as some old people do, and that she should enjoy a good long [Illustration: MARY COLE Five years after her healing] [Illustration: MOTHER REBECCA COLE In her 92d year. From a photograph taken fourteen months before her death] life. My prayers have been answered and my hopes realized.[Footnote: Nearly a year after the above account was written, on October 22, 1914, Mother died at the age of ninety-two years. She had the right use of her mind until the last. After she had lost the power to see and hear distinctly, she would recognize me by a sign to which we had agreed and would call my name, and even after speech had failed, she still attempted to say, "Mary."] We had been in Chicago only about a year when news came from Hammond, Louisiana, that my oldest brother, Jeremiah, had died at that place, October 13, 1899. While we were in California, Jeremiah came to that State and held meetings, although he was with us only a short time. For some years before his death his health had not been very good, and in the fall of 1899 he went to the South for the third time to winter. While he was holding meetings nor far from Hammond, Louisiana, October 1, he became suddenly sick while preaching and had to leave the pulpit in the middle of his discourse. Bro. F. M. Williamson, at whose home he was staying, begged to be allowed to write or telegraph to his folks, but Jeremiah said, "No, my illness will last but a few days, and it is no use to worry my folks." He lingered until October 13, when he died. Brother Williamson, who was with him until the end, said that my brother had the confidence of everybody in that part of the country and that he died a triumphant death. Shortly before my brother's death a letter was sent us saying that he was very sick, but it did not reach us until several days after his burial. Before going to Chicago, we had worked almost altogether in small towns and in the country. Of course, the work in such a large city as Chicago was quite different. Nevertheless, we were glad for the experience we had had and of the chance we now had for putting it in practise and of making improvement. We learned, however, that the souls of men are much the same, whether they live in a city or in the country, and that God gives his ministers authority over evil spirits wherever they may be found. When we took the Chicago work in charge, there was in the congregation a certain man who had gotten under a wrong spirit and had led others away with him, thus causing trouble and dissension. The false spirit seemed to be strongly entrenched and very hard to get rid of. This man of whom we have spoken, and whom, for want of a better name, we shall designate as Brother B--, sent word to quite a large number of the saints in the city to be present at the meeting-place on a certain Sunday evening, as he would occupy the pulpit from five until six after the regular meeting closed. Some of our company were out of the city during that week, and on Saturday night a fearful snow-storm came, continuing on into Sunday. I wished very much that those workers who were out of the city should return for the Sunday evening service, as I saw that we were going to have to meet the enemy in a very bold way. When I awoke Sunday morning, however, the Lord made me know that I must be willing to face the enemy with him alone, and this song rang in my heart: "I'll go where You want me to go, dear Lord; I'll say what You want me to say." God was my perfect sufficiency. Some of the members of the congregation who might be included under the Scriptural term "lambs" stood by me like warriors. Two of them sat in the pulpit with me, one on each side to hold my hands, as it were. God had warned me in a dream of the enemy's attack and had shown me some things that were very helpful in that very hour. In my dream I had seen the enemy in the form of a ferocious animal approaching to destroy God's children. We were in a large pavilion which was entered by a large open door. In my dream I thought that God told me to go and shut that door. I started to obey, and when I got near it, the animal was about to enter, but God made me to know that he would help me through and enable me to get the door shut. As I shut the large door, the Lord showed me another little door, saying, "Go and shut that too." On the Sunday of which I am speaking, when I really had to face the enemy, God gave me as a subject for my sermon various instances in the history of the church where the enemy had attacked God's children and work and where God himself had defended them and defeated the enemy. I spoke of how Joseph's brethren plotted to take his life and finally sold him into Egypt as a slave; of how God made him a prince and a ruler over his brethren and finally their savior and benefactor. I spoke of Jesus--how the Jews killed him, put his body into a sepulcher, closed it with a great stone, sealed it with the king's seal; how the Lord defeated their purpose, arose from the dead, and ascended to the right hand of God. Right in the middle of the sermon God showed me what he meant by shutting the big door and made me to know that I must expose and renounce the one under the spirit of the devil who was trying to undermine the work. He showed me, furthermore, that another man who was helping him was the little door and that he wanted me to denounce him also. As I began denouncing the spirit of error that had crept into the congregation, the poor deluded ones clamored for a chance to defend themselves, but God showed me that I should give no place to the devil. I advised all the true children of the Lord to leave the meeting-place at the proper time, and not to listen to the enemy's pouring out against God's work and cause. Most of the people took my advice and left at the proper time. Just a few backsliders and chronic grumblers remained to hear Brother B--'s message. I can not tell you how God used this victory to encourage and strengthen my soul. He seemed to humor and pet me all the next day and to bring it to me again and again that he was pleased with me. I seemed to hear him say again and again, "I am well pleased with you." One of the company who had been with us for some time, did not seem to be making the development as a worker that we had expected him to make. He came so far short of our anticipation that we were tempted at times to conclude that we were mistaken in encouraging him to remain in the work with us. The enemy, of course, worked hard to discourage him and we were beginning to think that perhaps it would be well to discourage his remaining longer with us. When I prayed earnestly over the matter, however, the Lord made me understand that this was a worthy child of his and that in his soul there was a trueness and faithfulness not to be found in every worker. The Lord showed me that if we would exercise patience with him, development would come in good time. The outcome has been all that could be desired. For a number of years this brother's name has been familiar throughout the church, and he is still holding some of the most responsible places. At another time this same brother was going through a fiery trial. God no doubt was permitting the trial to broaden him and to develop him for future usefulness. What he was enduring, however, became a severe trial to me. Finally it seemed as though I had endured about all that I could, so I said to him one day, "Either you or I will have to leave. I can't stand this any more." He did not answer me, but went away by himself and asked God to give me more compassion. Dear brothers and sisters in the ministry, right here I would sound a note of warning. Let us be careful when a young worker comes among us. Even if he does not seem promising at first, let us have patience with him and give him a chance; let him prove himself. Let us give him all the encouragement we can and do what we can to help develop him. Perhaps you can help such a one by telling him some of God's dealings with you and how he helped you out of difficulty, how he tided you over and lifted you above discouragements, how he brushed away the dark clouds. Do not be too quick to conclude, "Well, I don't believe God had his hand upon that person, after all," for we might find ourselves working against God instead of being coworkers with him. We had not been in the city a great while until we had more calls than we could fill. People wrote asking us to call on their friends to see if we could not get the truth to them. We were called to visit places that were by no means inviting. We also had calls from suburban towns and other near-by places, and at times we were led to hold meetings for a week or two in places outside the city. Surely we fulfilled the scripture, "Sow beside all waters." We soon learned from experience that not all who came to the home telling pitiful stories of need were deserving of help. Sometimes after giving provisions and even money, we learned that our charity had been misapplied. We soon learned that it was wise to find out whether we were helping the worthy poor or impostors. After the chapel was built, opportunities for reaching souls greatly increased. We now had meetings whenever we chose, especially on Sunday evenings, Thursday afternoon and evening, with good attendance of saints and truth-seekers. Our expenses, too, were greatly lessened in this way, especially at the time of the yearly assemblies. One year the rental of the building in which the assembly was held, was, I think, $300 for ten days. Before a certain assembly the saints had contributed freely to provide money for the coming assembly. Shortly before the meeting began the treasury was robbed of over $200. During the ten years I spent in the Chicago work, I witnessed many wonderful deliverances from sin, from disease, and from evil spirits. The account of these experiences would of itself make a large volume; I can mention only a few here. Sister Pearl Horman, who came to the home, was taken very sick with fever. Her case was very serious, the fever being very high. The Lord rebuked the fever and in a short time she was well. Sister Myra Barrett came to a meeting we were having in the chapel one night, and remained all night in the home. Before morning she had an attack of erysipelas in the face, accompanied by a high fever. The Lord put his rebuke on the disease and not many days later she was able to resume her duties in an office in the city. In answer to a call from Joliet, Illinois, we went to that place and anointed a brother who was very sick with the quinsy. In answer to the prayer of faith, God wonderfully healed him. One winter night a call came from the suburbs of the city for some one to come and anoint a child suffering from a violent attack of pneumonia. The snow lay deep on the ground and the weather was very cold. My brother and I answered the call. As the night was far spent, the street-cars were no longer running in the direction we had to go, and so we had to walk over a mile facing the wintry storm. God answered prayer in behalf of the child. It was better before we left next morning and was soon entirely well. At another time we were called upon to pray for a boy who had appendicitis. The doctors who examined him said that without an operation he could not possibly live, but his father, being a saint, desired prayer. Brother Reardon and I anointed the boy, prayed the prayer of faith, and the boy was healed. God got the glory that time instead of the doctor, not to speak of the saving of a great deal of suffering and a heavy doctor-bill. My mother was in the home at the time Sister Barrett was healed of erysipelas. About ten years before this time Mother had the same affliction, and it came near taking her life. As a result, she had an especial dread of this disease. Before coming to the home, Mother had not been able to wholly trust the Lord for healing, but when she came to live with us, she decided to trust the Lord. But when she saw Sister Barrett having such a severe attack of erysipelas, she became a little alarmed and used something as a preventive, not realizing that it would hinder her faith. In nine days she had a severe attack of erysipelas. For a number of days she had quite a fight of faith, and we sent telegrams to The Trumpet Office twice. God in his mercy rebuked the disease, and she recovered rapidly for one of her age. Although she was past eighty-one, her recovery was much more rapid than it had been ten years before, when she had trusted the doctor. Sometime after mother was entirely well, we found the little preventive she had in her pocket and asked her about it. She confessed with tears that she had been using the preventive. We encouraged her to trust God fully for protection as well as for everything else. From that time forward she has been able to put her trust wholly in God. Some say that people get too old to trust the Lord, but in her case the older she gets, the more childlike becomes her trust in God. A brother Jones, now of West Virginia, came to the home from a place where there was an epidemic of smallpox. He was just beginning to take the disease; in fact, a pimple or two had already appeared. He would take spells of being deathly sick, a common occurrence before breaking out with smallpox. The brother was innocent in coming to the home in that condition, thinking that he had been exposed to the chicken-pox and that he was just coming down with a bad case of that disease. He trusted the Lord wholly for healing, and we all united our faith with his against the disease. The Monday following his arrival he, in company with my brother and others of the saints, went to the camp-meeting at Moundsville, W. Va. That same evening God made us who were left at the home to understand very definitely that the brother had the smallpox and that we should pray very earnestly that God would keep him from breaking out until the nature of the disease could be discovered and the brother be put under quarantine to protect the camp-meeting. Our greatest fears were that the whole camp would be quarantined. The Lord encouraged our hearts to continue in prayer that he would overrule the whole matter. In a few days they found out that Brother Jones was taking the smallpox, and they put him under quarantine. Very soon afterward he broke out. God had answered our prayers to keep him from breaking out, and he also protected us at the home and those at the camp-meeting. Our God is able to protect in every time of need. Two or three days later a boy came from the same smallpox-infected district. By this time physicians in Michigan City had found out that the disease they had there was smallpox, and were going to put the house where he had been staying under quarantine. The brother who had just come thought he had sufficient faith to protect himself and others from the disease; but we who were older in the work and understood the ways of the Lord better, advised him to return, lest if he should have the smallpox in the city, they would put him in the pest-house, where he would not have the same chance to trust the Lord that he would if at home. So he returned to his home and had the disease there. Again God marvelously protected us. A young sister came to the home for help in both soul and body. After earnest prayer in her behalf, we found that she was in no condition to get help to her soul until her body became stronger. She had greatly overworked and her mind was about to give way. It was a month before we were able to talk to her at all about her soul. Her nerves were in such a condition that when she heard a prayer, a song, or a scripture, she could scarcely keep from screaming. As soon as she was able, we did all the Lord showed us to do for her soul. We found that all that God had laid to her charge was overworking and neglecting her spiritual life. Soon everything was made right with her soul, but it took months for her nerves and brain to get back to their normal condition. We learned a good lesson from this incident. If we neglect our spiritual lives, we shall be losers every time. The Lord is a jealous God, and if he can't be first, he won't be second. If we want him to work in and through us, we must give him a chance to keep our souls replenished and ready for work. At different times while in city-work I have myself allowed temporal things to get too much on my mind, thus causing me to neglect my devotions. My spirituality would begin to weaken, and I would become less capable of being a blessing to souls. Had I been more diligent at certain times in secret prayer and searching the Scriptures, I should have been spared some sad experiences and heartaches. One day the sister who was doing the cooking, made up a large batch of light bread, containing, I think, fifteen or twenty pounds of flour. The sister waited the proper length of time for the bread to rise, but it showed no signs at all of rising. Some of us talked the matter over and concluded that we could not afford to throw the flour away and that we had better ask God to make the bread rise. We did so, but the bread remained as lifeless as before. Finally a number of us gathered in the kitchen, knelt down on the floor, and asked God to make the bread rise. It was not long until our prayers were answered. That batch of dough made as good bread as I have ever eaten. God wonderfully stirred up the thanksgiving in our souls for this answer to prayer. One of the company in the home had been exposed to the measles, and they were beginning to break out on his body. The Lord brought to his mind that he did not need to have the measles and that if he would put up a fight of faith against them, the Lord would heal him. He was anointed and prayed for, and God did put his rebuke on the affliction. The following day he exercised himself too much and had to have prayer again. That was on Saturday evening. Monday morning he was sufficiently well to start on a trip to Ohio to see his people. The possibilities of faith can not be comprehended by the finite mind of man. Well did the apostle say, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Among many precious ones associated with us in the work in Chicago was Sister Clara Tuttle, now gone to her reward. She was a great help to my brother and me, and a blessing to the work in general. Shortly after she became acquainted with the truth, she asked the Lord what was her place in the body, and he told her it was to be a good mother. She filled her place well. This dear sister was not only a good mother to her own children, but to others, especially to the young workers who had no mother or whose mothers were unsaved. She not only gave good counsel to the young workers, but prayed with them in times of perplexity. Would to God there were more mothers in Israel like her! "Her children will rise up and call her blessed." I still remember the counsel she gave a brother who, was coming to the Missionary Home to stay for a time. "Now, brother, you have been acquainted with Brother Cole and his sister as gospel workers and have loved them dearly; but you have seen, them only in the pulpit and public meeting, where you have had but little opportunity to come in contact with their human weaknesses. When you go into the home to live with them, you will find that they are but human and make some mistakes. Be careful now that you do not judge them. Be careful that you don't allow these human weaknesses to hide the fact that they are ministers anointed by God to carry the gospel message to a lost world. Remember that God does not judge them from a human standpoint. If he judged any of us in that way, we should all be found wanting." BIRTHDAY LINES In Memory of February 5, 1822 Time moves on, and on, and onward, Piling up its teeming years; Each unfolds its store of blessings, Each one brings its joys and tears. Ninety years have thus been numbered Since one cold and wintry morn, On the fifth of February, When "our Mother Cole" was born. While her little life was tender, Only in its babyhood, God removed her loving mother To a world more pure and good. Left now the little helpless baby Without mother's love or care, Many shadows o'er it hovered, Many sorrows it must share. But her father kind and faithful Bro't much sunshine in her life; Tenderly he loved and blest her Until she became a wife. As a mother she was noble, Bore her lot with fortitude, Worried not o'er "sad tomorrows," But looked forward to the good. When Life's cares and trials oppressed her, She had One in whom to trust; Lovingly He bore her sorrows, And in Him her soul was blest. She had always words of kindness For the sad and those alone; And she often bore their sorrows As if they had been her own. Old age does not foil the beauty Of her sweet unselfish ways; She still clings to Christ her Savior, On her lips are words of praise. Tho' upon her bed she lingers, There's no sorrow in her room, For her cheery words of comfort Dispel darkness and the gloom. Like a sunbeam softly falling As if on an errand of love, Cheering up some lonely hour, Pointing to a world above; Or, the lily rich with fragrance, Shedding forth its sweet perfume, So the life of our dear mother Cheers and brightens up her room. When her pilgrimage is ended, And her days are numbered here, She will only bloom the sweeter In that paradise o'er there. Soon the angels will be coming, Bear her to that land of rest, Where she'll ever be with Jesus, To rejoice among the blest. [Illustration: FAITH MISIONARY HOME 300 W. 74th St., Chicago, Illinois] [Illustration: ANDERSON OLD PEOPLE'S HOME Anderson Indiana] Chapter XX A Battle with Smallpox Soon after we began work in the city, my brother George went out to assist in a meeting at Edgewood, Iowa. A mother desired prayer for her little girl, so my brother and another minister laid hands on her and prayed for her healing. The mother said that some one thought her child was taking smallpox, but that she was sure it was a mistake. The ministers saw a few little pimples on the child's lip and asked her if the same breaking-out was on other parts of her body. The mother's answer was, "None to speak of," and they reached the conclusion that the pimples on her lip were fever-sores. Under the impression that the child had nothing seriously wrong with her, my brother went to Roseville, Illinois, to begin a series of meetings. When the meeting had continued about a week, my brother began to be sick. Still in ignorance as to the nature of his sickness, he continued the meetings a few days longer. His illness increased and the first fever came upon him. The congregation was exposed before he knew what was the matter, but God overruled, answering the prayers of his children to protect all in attendance. When the nature of my brother's disease came to be fully understood, it seemed that all hopes of doing good at that place were blasted. Nevertheless, some seed had fallen on good ground, and these later brought forth precious fruit. A sister who had been present at my brother's meetings, accepted the truth, got a good experience, and began living the life of a saint. Her nephew, Bro. John Murphy, now a minister of the church at Farmersville, California, came to visit her, bringing with him Bro. John Hauck. These two young men had been attending a Baptist college at Ottawa, Kans. A traveling minister who visited that place preached the doctrine of entire sanctification and these two young men sought and obtained the experience. The next morning after receiving the baptism of the Spirit, they started out like Abraham of old, not knowing whither they went, nor did they know where the Lord was leading them until they reached the home of Brother Murphy's aunt. Here they found a copy of _The Gospel Trumpet_. As soon as they read _The Trumpet_, they knew where the Lord was leading them. They made their way to The Gospel Trumpet office, where Brother Murphy remained as a worker for two or three years and Brother Hauck for nearly ten years. Both are now ministers in this reformation. At least four ministers and four other workers at The Trumpet office, besides a score of other souls, have entered God's service through this sister's influence. So in spite of the fact that my brother thought that his labors at Roseville ended without results, many souls have been brought into the kingdom. "Cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou shalt find it after many days." "Drop a pebble in the water, just a splash and it is gone; but there are half a hundred ripples circling on, and on." "He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing bringing his sheaves with him." My brother wrote me a card that he was not feeling well. On its receipt I was greatly burdened and felt led to go where he was, though I knew nothing about his condition. I waited until I received another message from him, which said that he was worse. I thought that God was leading me to go to him and felt a great burden as though I were going to meet something very serious, quite out of the ordinary. A number of other workers and I met and prayed for an hour before I went. I sent a telegram that I was coming. Some of the saints thought that I should wait until I got an answer to my telegram before starting; but I said, "No, God wanted me to telegraph that I was coming, and then start as quickly as possible." The Lord gave me this scripture: 1 Peter 4, commencing at the twelfth verse. The thirteenth verse was an especial comfort to me. I understood that I was going to meet something unusual, that I was going to have a severe battle in some way; but with this knowledge I had the admonition, "But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings." Two weeks before this God gave me the same scripture, with the impression that I should see its fulfilment in the near future. I arrived at Roseville about twelve days after my brother had prayed for the little girl and found him already beginning to break out. We learned that the other minister who had been with him, took the disease about the same time. For a day or two after my arrival, however, we were not certain that my brother had the smallpox. As soon as we were convinced of the nature of the disease, we sent for a physician to come and quarantine us so that others would be protected, and the battle began. The doctor called every day, said he had to come to protect the home where we were staying. He vaccinated quite a number, including me and Sister Elizabeth Hill, who was helping me care for brother George. Sister Hill trusted the Lord that the vaccination would not take. Her faith proved effectual. I thought I had to let the vaccination take, did not resist, and so had a severe time of it. I was the sickest when my brother needed the greatest attention--just as the scales were falling off. The doctor did his best to get a chance to treat my brother. He worked by strategy and seemed to have some new scheme every day. He shut me out of the room and tried to force my brother to take medicine when he was too weak to think. He made my brother promise to use the medicine and then tried to make me promise that I would see that it was used. I told him I would do as my brother said. After the doctor's departure, I had a little talk with George, and he decided to continue trusting the Lord. From the very beginning he had put his case in God's hands. When the fever reached its height and the disease was at its climax, God rebuked it, and soon my brother was on the road to recovery. Inside of an hour the fever was going down and in twelve hours it was entirely gone. The same evening the fever was rebuked, the doctor came. My brother said, "Doctor, I am better." "Yes," he answered, "But not permanently so." "Yes," said my brother, "permanently, and I know where the healing came from. God sent it, and I know I shall not get worse." From that time forward his improvement was rapid. Soon after that the effects of the disease settled in his eyes, and for a time it seemed that his sight would be destroyed, but in answer to prayer his eyes began to recover and were soon all right again. Then the pox attacked his nose, closing the nostrils so that it seemed almost to kill him to breathe. It was during one of these times that the doctor was most determined to push his remedies on him, and he succeeded, too, in a small measure. The medicine was applied once or twice, but God made it very clear to me that he had the case in his own hands, and we applied ourselves to prayer. In less than an hour the obstructions were removed from his nose, and he breathed like a little child, so easily that we could scarcely hear his breath across the room. Then came the doctor's last attempt to push remedies on us. He said we needed something to keep his face from pitting, declaring that unless some remedies were used it would pit badly. Again we sought the Lord in prayer. There was but one pit left on his face, and that would not be noticed unless attention were called to it. God proved the doctor wrong in every point by not leaving a trace of the disease on my brother's body. After the fever went down, it was with difficulty that my brother was kept warm. It was late in the fall, the weather was cold, and my brother's blood was so thin it would have been very easy for him to take cold. The doctor carried out smallpox laws to the extreme, putting up a wet sheet in my brother's door as he was scaling off. I felt rather bold: as said of one of old, I wasn't afraid of the king's command. So at night I put the wet sheet back so that my brother could get the warmth of the fire. In the morning I put the sheet back across the door before the doctor came. But we had not fought this battle through alone. His church in general were praying earnestly for us. It seemed when we plead the promises we touched an agreement, and it was like a mighty cable. We felt so secure and were so hedged in by prayer and faith that when I thought of the danger of taking the smallpox, it seemed I could exercise faith so easily in agreement. It was very easy for me to say, "By faith I know God will not let me take it." After I was vaccinated, some one said to me, "Now you feel more safe, don't you?" My answer was "No, I have no confidence in that at all. My confidence is in the Lord. It is he who has protected me. He shall have all the glory." What few letters we had a chance to write, had to be dictated to some one standing about thirty yards away from us. During this time I concluded that if ever there was a disease followed by the persecutions of the devil, it was the smallpox. Before this I had sometimes thought that Job's affliction was the small pox, but I now came to the conclusion that I was mistaken. Had his disease been smallpox, his three comforters would not have hung around him as they did to torture him. The enemy tried to inflict punishment upon us in every way he could. A great many in the neighborhood felt hurt because George had unconsciously brought the disease to that part of the country. Then the doctor, besides trying to push his remedies upon us and to make us as uncomfortable as possible in trusting the Lord, created all the sentiment he could against us in the neighborhood. At the same time he was making all the money he could by vaccinating others. One woman that was vaccinated at that time, had varioloid, so the doctor said. The county built a pest-house for her and her husband. This, together with his other charges, cost the county eight hundred dollars. This woman, so I was informed, thought she was immune from the disease and when smallpox broke out the next fall, undertook to nurse those who were having it. Again the doctor's words were proved false. She took the smallpox and died. It will always do to trust God; man is weak at best. When George was about to recover, the authorities wanted to raise the quarantine too soon, thus exposing others to danger. Defeated in this attempt, their next move was to hold us longer than necessary. I had been praying that if the enemy tried to work in either way, God would defeat their purpose. I am sure it would have done your soul good to hear my brother when he had recovered sufficiently to get up and walk around. He walked the floor singing this song: "How can you part with Jesus, So loving, so kind and gracious! His service to me is precious; I am happy as I can be. I love my Lord; He loveth me. The life of a Christian suits me; I am happy as I can be." He would sing the song over and over and then praise God. It was good of the Lord to so wonderfully sustain and protect him and all of us through this affliction. I do not know that any of us are able to appreciate as we should even the prayers of the saints during this trying time; not to speak of the generous offers of help made by some of the dear ones in the Lord and the unsaved members of my own family. One of my unsaved brothers and a sister minister, both having families, volunteered to come and help me care for George if I needed them. But I felt that to accept their offer would endanger their families unnecessarily, and told them that the Lord would help us and that we would get along. It touched our hearts, however, to think that they would risk their lives for our help and comfort. We appreciated all this to the extent of our abilities, and our hearts were melted in real thanksgiving because of such kindness. Every now and then during the quarantine I would get real hungry for encouragement and consolation. At such times my prayer was, "O Lord, give me some scripture that will be a help to me." The Lord would invariably point me to 1 Peter 4:12 and 13, laying emphasis especially on the thirteenth verse. The Lord showed me that he wanted me to rejoice more. I would reply: "Lord, I thought I got out of that scripture all there was in it. I thought I had rejoiced all I could." At such times his answer would be, "You can rejoice more; there is more in it for you yet." Like a good teacher, he held me to the lesson until I learned it well. When we are in affliction, remember there is some lesson in it for us which we must leam. If we do not get it, the Lord will have to repeat the experience--give us the lesson over--because it was not learned the first time. By learning the lesson thoroughly the first time, we avoid its repetition. I remember a prayer that was much on my lips during this trial of which I have been speaking: "Lord, help me to get out of the fire what you have in it for me, and help me to leave in the fire what you want me to be rid of." Even with the preparation this trial gave me, I was none too well prepared to encounter some things I had to meet soon afterward. God knew his business. He knew what was coming, knew the lesson I needed and gave it to me at the proper time. It pays to be submissive to God. If we are fully submitted into his hands, he will prepare us by the proper schooling for every test of life and in every difficulty bring us off more than conquerors. While my brother's illness was so severe, we were so wonderfully held up by the prayers of God's children that we did not feel the weight of the affliction that we were passing through. When my brother was sufficiently recovered, however, that the church got the news that he was getting better, their prayers were not so constant. By that time the sister at whose home I was staying and who had assisted me so faithfully in caring for my brother, was almost overcome by the long strain she had undergone. In fact, we were both almost ready to collapse. In our weak condition we felt the need of the prayers of others, but as the church had the impression that my brother was so far recovered that he no longer needed help, we had to fight the battle alone. I learned this, that no matter how much others help us by their prayers in time of trial, when we become able to take on responsibility ourselves, God requires us to do all we can for our own help and protection. It was at this time that I felt very keenly that I should have rejoiced more when the trial was on. Chapter XXI Camp-Meetings in Various States While engaged in the work in Chicago I had the privilege of attending camp-meetings in a number of States. While at a camp-meeting at Grand Forks, N. Dakota, I received an invitation to attend a meeting at Hammond, Louisiana, about 1,500 miles south. For some time I had had a desire to go to that part of the country for different reasons, and therefore gladly embraced this opportunity. I went by way of Chicago, remaining at the home for about a week. The kindness of my reception in the South gave me the impression that people in the South are very hospitable and large-hearted. I think that in this respect they excel many of our Northern and Eastern people. I found that in the South much is expected of ministers coming from the East or the North. The responsibilities of the meeting, therefore, were all that I could go through, even with the help of the Lord. It was July, and the weather was so warm that we could not use the tabernacle during the heat of the day, but had to resort to a little grove near by. During this meeting I went twelve miles and visited my brother's grave; on this trip I also called on some saints who lived in that part of the country. I had a pleasant drive and also got a chance to enjoy some of the Southern figs which grow in those parts. Notwithstanding I was much fatigued when I returned that evening and thought I would not go out to meeting at all. Then I thought I would go for the first of the service and return to my lodging before the meeting closed, as I would be too tired to remain. But God planned otherwise. He showed me that I must trust him for strength and be prepared to preach that evening. God delivered the message through me and blessed it to the salvation of a number of souls. Soon after the camp-meeting I returned to Chicago. As I started homeward, I found that the oppressive heat had greatly reduced my strength. Because of the heat, too, I had been tempted to drink too much ice-water, lemonade, etc. When about sixty miles from home, my heart began to fail, and I saw that unless the Lord helped me I was not going to be able to get through. I can not express to you how earnestly I called upon God. Almost every moment of the time from there on I trusted the Lord to hold me up, for it seemed that in spite of myself my heart would fail. The Lord came to my rescue. I reached my destination all right, and suffered no serious harm later. One fall I went to the camp-meeting at Carthage, Mo. At this meeting I met some of my old friends from Maries County, Missouri, and other places, some of whom I had not met for more than twenty years. One of them was a brother whom I first met near Rolla, Mo. Seeing him reminded me of an incident that occurred in connection with his mother-in-law, old Sister Bell, at the time I was holding meetings in that part of the country. She was a large woman. One winter she slipped on the ice and came near breaking her back. The accident occurred in the middle of the week, and until the following Sunday morning she was paralyzed. The meeting that Sunday was at the Bell home. We found her lying helpless. As we talked to her about her healing, she seemed anxious to be healed. She was a good, pure saint, and lived close to the Lord. In the prayer before preaching we were especially burdened for her and prayed earnestly that God would heal her. God encouraged our hearts. After preaching we again talked to her a little while and quoted some of the promises. I told her how God had heard and answered prayer for my healing; I had had an attack of some disease a day or two before, and God had wonderfully delivered me from it. As we talked, her faith seemed to grow by bounds and leaps. We asked her if she was willing to die. She said she was; and again, if she was willing to live if the Lord wanted her to, and again she answered yes. Then we asked her if she believed the Lord would heal her. She said she did. Her husband and oldest daughter were standing by, expecting her to die any minute. Her mother, who was a skeptic, was also present. She wanted me to persuade her daughter to take medicine. I replied that I would talk to her daughter, but did not tell her what I would say. When I found out that the sister's faith was strong in God, I did what I could to encourage her to trust God for immediate healing. All at once, while we were talking, she said, "The Lord heals me." Her husband, fearing that the death-struggle was coming on, went to hold her in bed. I told him to let her go--that this was of God and that he would take care of her. She bounded out of bed and went running through the house, saying that God had healed her and that a sluice of praise was going through her soul. Her son-in-law was not present, so I hastened over to his house to tell him the good news. "Do you know what came to me first?" said he. "No," I answered. "Well, it came to me that she was lying in bed all this time to have a chance to show off on Sunday, but I know she isn't a hypocrite, and therefore it isn't that way. But I am glad I wasn't there, for fear I should have had to believe." When I met this brother at Carthage, Missouri, he was not, I am sorry to say, as strong in the faith as was his privilege. He had made great improvement, however. How cruel is unbelief! It makes God a liar and causes one to believe the devil. From Carthage I went to Webb City, Missouri, where I visited friends and saints whom I had known years before. Among the number was mother Sunderland. [Footnote: Since the above statement was written, Mother Sunderland has gone to her reward.] From Webb City I went to Chanute, Kansas, and visited two saints, old friends of mine who needed encouragement. While at Chanute I ate something that did not agree with me. I partly recovered, and then went on to Neosho Falls, Kansas, where I remained for two weeks and held a few services. As I still had severe sick spells, I sent for prayers to The Trumpet office and the saints in Kansas City and Chicago. The sister with whom I was staying held on to God, pleading the promises in my behalf like a hero, and with such importuning faith that I was soon able to pursue my journey. I made my next stop at Kansas City, remaining there for nearly a month, I think. When I first arrived at that place, I was quite weak. I did not fully comprehend how sick I had been. Bro. James Peterman, who had charge of the home, was called away the first Sunday after I arrived, and so I had charge of both services. I walked three-quarters of a mile three times that day and preached twice. The next day I walked a mile and a half, most of the way up hill. My exertions proved entirely too much for me, and I endured some rather severe suffering. My body was badly worn out, and as a result my mind got into a sad, discouraged mood. My meditations were something like this: I shall soon be getting old and helpless, and not able to do much in the work. If I live, it will not be long until I shall be a burden upon some one else. It was a late hour before my nerves got sufficiently quieted so that I could rest. The next morning I had a dream. I saw a little child about two years old playing on the floor. Some one came by and stepped on the little one's fingers, and it began to cry with pain. His father came along, took him up in his arms and caressed him, and very soon the pain was all gone, and the little fellow was all right again. It seemed that the father had such love and pity for the child that I felt the effects of it in my own soul. When I awoke I said, "Lord, what is there in this dream for me?" I realized that no doubt God had permitted it for my good. Immediately this scripture came to me: "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." The Lord seemed to say to my soul, "Now I want to pity you." I accepted his kindness as best I knew how. I thought I had gotten out of the dream all the benefit that the Lord had in it for me; but when I went to rise and dress myself, God spoke again, saying, "Don't be in a hurry. I want to have a chance to pity you." Then he kept bringing to my mind his goodness in a way that touched the right spot, covered my need, and at last I was permitted to arise and dress. After I was dressed the following words came to me: "He knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are but dust." The dream was still so visible before me. I could still see the father pitying his child, and I felt the strength of that pity in my own soul. It was so real that I comprehended as I never had before in my life, something of the depths of God's pity for his children. Had it been some person dealing with me, he might have said, "Oh, you didn't need to let the cloud come over you. You didn't need to have the blues in this way." But instead of speaking to me in that manner, God just poured out his pity until he chased all the dark clouds away, until his presence filled the vacancy, until he satisfied every longing of my soul. Dear ones, we have a merciful high priest, who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, who was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Therefore he is able to succor them that are tempted. Do you not think he will do to trust? Then, let us trust him and not be afraid, though the clouds seem dark and lowering. God will do to trust in the storms and tempests of life the same as when it is calm--only during the storm he will have a better chance to reveal his mercy, his goodness, and his power. After being with the dear ones in the Kansas City home for nearly a month, I returned to Chicago. Upon my arrival in the city I found that my body was quite run down. Yet God enabled me to do quite active service. No doubt, however, I went at times when, if I had consulted the Lord more carefully, he would have said rest. I was not able to be nearly so active as I had been in the past, and God seemed directing me to take a change, as city-work means constant activity. About a year after my former visit, I again went to Kansas City to visit the work there for a season, remaining there for about three months. I enjoyed the work there very much, although I could take on but little responsibility. God blessed my efforts. In Kansas City I saw in operation the method of working through the circulating library and cottage-meetings. They had quite a number of the different books printed at The Trumpet office. These are loaned in various parts of the city by the workers from the home, who visit the homes, talk with the readers, take up the books that have already been read, and loan new ones. The reading of the books often opens the way for cottage-meetings, which are held by the workers and young ministers from the home. The holding of these meetings serve two purposes; namely, getting the truth to the people and affording an opportunity to the young ministers and workers to get experience in gospel work. After being in Kansas City a time, I went to see some old friends at Kingston, Mo. God led us to have two or three services a week for about two weeks. After about two weeks two of the sisters from the missionary home in Kansas City were sent for, and we had a two weeks' meeting. While I was at Kingston, God in different ways gave me much needed encouragement. One day a sister was giving her adopted daughter some good advice on the subject of marriage. Among other things, the sister told the girl that if she married in God's order she would have some one to love her and care for her in her old age. The enemy took advantage of this to hurl a dart at me, because I was growing old, might soon become helpless, and had no one to sympathize with or care for me. For a time everything seemed dark, as though God had let me see certain things and had then veiled his face from me. I wondered why this was. I meditated: "Well, I have obeyed the Lord, have done what he wanted me to do. He certainly will not forsake me now. If I should live to be old and helpless, he will not let any serious thing come on me, because I have been obedient." About this time God spoke to my soul, calling my attention to the thirty-seventh Psalm, third and fourth verses: "Trust in the Lord, and do good." Now, this was my part. This is what God required of me--to trust in him and do good. Then came his part: "So shall thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed." His part was to see that I had a place to stay and sufficient food. The scriptures that he brought to my mind at that time have not lost their sweetness and power even to this day. I can not tell you how precious these special lessons of God have been to me; how they have helped my feet to press the everlasting rock, He is a covenant-keeping God, and his Word is true and forever settled in heaven. Well might the Psalmist say, "I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. He is ever merciful, and lendeth; and his seed is blessed." Never again has the enemy dared to tempt me in this way. Praise the Lord! Truly he is all that we take him for by faith. "All things are yours." "Ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." Will he not with him freely give you all things? The Father gave the Son, heaven's best gift, and did he leave out the minor gifts? Nay, verily, he will fulfil every promise to the letter if we meet the conditions. It was Joshua who said, I think, "Not one of these good promises has failed." Neither have any of them failed any of us who put our trust in Him. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but his word will stand secure. "Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven." "Even down to old age, all my people shall prove, My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love; And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn, They'll still like lambs in my bosom be borne." After being in Kingston one month, we came to Kansas City, remained a short time, made a call some distance out to pray for the sick, and on my return to the city had urgent word to come to Chicago, as my mother was needing my attention. After a short stay in Chicago I went to the camp-meeting at Anderson, Indiana, and enjoyed the feast there. Then I went out in the country near Summitville, Indiana, for a little rest and recreation. I was at Summitville about five weeks and during that time assisted Bro. N. S. Duncan in a series of meetings that God blessed and owned. Shortly after this I felt led to go to Iowa a few weeks to be what help I could to a dear sister who was going through some deep trials. Her difficulty seemed to be mainly self-accusation. In other words, she had set her spiritual standard so high that she could not live up to her own ideal. Like nearly all people who undergo that difficulty, she was good at heart, but the struggle to get out of her difficulty was severe. God came to her help, gave her victory over her trials, such as she had never been able to have before. She has never been troubled again in the same manner, and she is now firmly established in the way of the Lord. Some of God's dear little ones who are very conscientious, sometimes look upon the Lord as a severe father. It seems to them that he, like Pharaoh, wants them to make brick without straw, to gather stubble. With this idea of God in mind, they have a hard time and fail to see him as a good, kind, loving heavenly Father, one whose heart is overflowing with mercy and compassion for his dear tried children, ready to make a way for their escape. In fact, if they could but see it, he has already made a way of escape and wants to help them into it just as soon as they will let him. His promises cover the need of every one. If taken and belived, one promise of itself is sufficient. "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able to bear; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." While the fire is hottest, let us stop and think that this kind Father will not permit the flames to be any severer or the fire any hotter than is most for our good, and that he has a bright design in all that he permits to come upon us. He wants us to hold still, so that he can bring out his design in us. Let us be careful that we do not foil his plans. If we do not, not only will he be pleased, but we also shall be glad that we submitted to him. I spent five weeks laboring with this sister. Perhaps some will think that a long time to spend on one soul, and even think the time wasted, but did you ever think how great is the value God places upon one soul? "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" According to the Lord's estimate, one soul is worth more than the whole world. Nor do we know how many other souls that one will bring to the Lord--like the one woman at the well to whom Jesus delivered a message and who went and told many others. Let us be faithful, therefore, in helping souls, whether it be one or many. Chapter XXII Caring for my Aged Mother Provision had now been made for the removal of my mother to the Old People's Home at Anderson, Ind. As there was not sufficient help at the home then to care for her, I took that duty upon myself. As soon as help should come, I was to be free to go and be in meetings what little I was able, except when I needed to care for her, either when she was sick or when they were short of help. In the days following my coming to Anderson, I went to Sioux Falls, S. Dakota, to visit a sister who was needing some special encouragement. It was mid-winter. Some told me before I started that there was danger of my being snow-bound, and advised me to take plenty of provisions with me; but as I did not anticipate any such difficulty, I did not heed the warning. We got along pretty well until about ten miles from Sioux Falls. The recent heavy snows had so obstructed the way that the engine could not pull through. It would run a little way into the drift, then back up, and again push its way into the drift as far as possible. It kept working its way forward in this manner from one o'clock in the afternoon until very nearly midnight, when we arrived at Sioux Falls. Sure enough, my provisions did run out on the way; but with the generosity peculiar to most people under like circumstances, the other passengers, although strangers to me, helped me out and supplied all the food needed. Doubtless many of these people knew nothing of real salvation, but their liberal-heartedness proved that sin had not effaced all of the marks of God's love from their hearts. I remained six weeks at Sioux Falls, during which time I had but little chance to do missionary work other than to encourage the sister whom I went to visit. However, I did go out and put Trumpets in some of the yards and on the porches of neighboring houses. Possibly some of these papers may have proved silent messengers of salvation. Sometimes when the mercury was ten degrees below zero, and the snow deep on the ground, I would go out and walk and distribute Trumpets or tracts. In spite of the cold and snow, I enjoyed my stay. I did what God directed me to do, and I trust that he has blessed my labors. At any rate, the sister whom I went to visit has written me a number of times that she does not know what she would have done had not God sent me at that time to help her through the difficulties she was then encountering. On my return trip I took a severe cold while traveling in a chilly car. My train was late and did not make connections at Chicago. I telephoned out to the Faith Missionary Home, and they gave me an invitation to come and remain over night. I accepted their kindness and was soon in the home where I had spent so many years in the work of the Lord. That evening I made a call on a dear sister that I was anxious to meet, and by the time I got back to the home again I was real sick. I had taken a severe attack of the grip and was suffering greatly. Most of the workers were gone to meetings in different parts of the city, but a sister who had remained at home, laid her hands on me and prayed the prayer of faith. I was able next morning to resume my journey back to the Old People's Home at Anderson. Although my system had been greatly weakened and rendered more liable to taking cold than it had been before, yet I was well enough so that I soon went about fifteen miles to the little town of Cammack and assisted Sister Maud Smith in a two weeks' meeting. Soon after my return I took a severe attack of pneumonia. Prayer was offered, but the disease seemed to be stubborn. I was anointed, and prayer was again offered, but the battle was still on. So we called in some more of God's ministers and again had prayer. This time God healed me, and next day I was able to go down to dinner. Nevertheless, I remained weak for some days, but soon felt almost entirely restored to health. In about two weeks, however, I took another attack of pneumonia, one more severe than the first. Again we had a stubborn fight. We prayed three times before any effects were visible. Pleurisy was setting in, and I had begun to spit blood. My temperature had reached 103-3/4 when God gave the witness from heaven that he healed me. I did not get strength nearly so quickly as I did before, and had to keep my bed most of the time for two days. Nevertheless, I never doubted once my healing, and indeed it had been accomplished. I have never suffered from that affliction since. This is only one of the many times that the Lord has come to my rescue and touched my body. Sometimes I have been healed instantly, and at other times God has given me the witness that I was healed, but my strength returned gradually and it was several days before I could be about as usual. However, the healing came. God was doing the work in his own way, and he always has a purpose and reason for any method he may use. Let us not question the method he uses, but trust him. Since coming to the Old People's Home I have not been privileged to go out much to help in meetings. This has been partly due to the fact that Mother has needed much care and also to the fact that my strength has not been equal to the exertion. But I have had the privilege of helping in other ways. Very often the old people in the home need prayer for their healing or help and encouragement in their souls. Besides, I have had the privilege of giving help and encouragement to some of the workers in The Trumpet office, and also to others living nearby. I am very thankful for these opportunities. The Lord has also been helping me to trust him for means to support his cause in the Missionary field and other places. Although I can not give much, yet I appreciate the privilege of giving the little. At first I felt led to purpose forty cents a month. The Lord provided this sum every time. For a year I kept up this purpose and never once had to borrow. The Lord also provided means for me to help his cause in other directions. The next year I felt led to ask God to help me trust him for fifty cents a month for missionary work. I never failed to have my money ready at the proper time. The third year I felt like trusting the Lord for seventy-five cents a month, paying this amount in advance. One consideration that made me reach the decision to pay in advance was that if God should call me before the month was out I should not be in debt. I have never been disappointed. Sometimes the Lord gives me happy surprises in this as well as in other things. If we give God a chance, he will develop our faith to trust him for means as well as for other things, if we are not able to work and earn the money, and have a desire to help his cause. During the present year in which I am writing, I am trusting the Lord for a dollar a month for foreign missionary work, and early in the spring the Lord gave me enough to pay my purpose for the whole year. He made it clear to me that I should use the money for that purpose. The Lord has helped me also to trust him for my clothing and other needs, and for the needs of my mother. He is such a present help. A number of times I have asked him for money in the morning, and before the sun went down I had all that I asked for. "According to your faith," says the Word, "so be it unto thee." "The desire of the righteous shall be granted." Some persons have thought that God did not answer prayer for the healing of old people, since they would soon have to die anyway. We know that God will not make them young again, as that is not his plan; but since coming to the Old People's Home I have witnessed the healing of many aged people. In fact, my mother, the oldest inmate of the home, has trusted God for a number of years. The older she gets, the stronger her faith seems to be. Every time these old people are afflicted, the Lord answers prayer. In asking God for healing, they seem childlike, and simple, fully expect God to heal them when they call upon him. One of the inmates of the home, an old lady in her eighty-seventh year was at the point of death. From appearances one would have supposed that her end was near. She had no hope of recovery. Her burial clothes were made ready. She had been prayed for a number of times, but was still suffering great agony. She did not know what was causing the suffering, but thought it might be appendicitis. Some of us, however, could not be satisfied to let her die without making further effort for her healing, so we sent for Bro. E. E. Byrum. She was again anointed and prayed for. While we were on our knees, God assured my heart that he would hear and answer prayer. Her suffering did not seem to decrease, however, immediately, and in less than an hour Brother Byrum was again called. He came at once, as he had remained in the house. The second time he offered prayer that God would relieve her of her suffering. Although her condition still looked discouraging, yet God made us know that she was going to get well. Although she did not recover very rapidly, yet for one of her age the change was marvelous, and not long afterward she had her usual health. A year or more afterwards she was able to return to Pennsylvania to visit some of her folks. She concluded to remain there and is still living in that State. One of the aged brothers in the home was greatly afflicted. His mind was giving way somewhat, and he got into a very melancholy condition, thinking that he ought never to leave his room, and especially that he should not be out-of-doors. It could easily be seen that if he continued very long in this condition, he would not only lose his mind but be bedfast and perhaps die. He desired very much to be sanctified and asked several of us to come to his room and pray for him. We went to his room and talked to him on the subject of sanctification, and while he was surrendering all to the Lord, we had him consecrate his will that he would be out-of-doors all that the Lord wanted him to be. He promised he would do so, and the Lord sanctified him. In the two years or more that have passed since then, he has not broken his promise, but has remained in the house only when the weather prevented his being out. As a result, his mind is almost entirely restored, his body is much stronger, and he is not like the same person. In the four years I have been in the Old People's Home nursing my mother, I have noticed that the older people get the less able they are to comprehend anything new. For this reason it is hard for an old person to grasp the promises of God for salvation; but if they have been saved in their younger years and have lived a consistent Christian before they come to such a great age, they will every year grow more and more like Jesus, trusting him more fully, and seem more humble and thankful as they draw nearer the grave. I have been more strongly impressed than ever before that people should seek God while they are young before they become unable to grasp the promises. I feel the more impressed to sound a warning because there are some in the home with whom we have labored again and again, but who are so aged and infirm that seemingly they can not reach a decision to seek until they find. Their unsaved condition, in view of their extreme age, puts them in a very serious place. The spiritual workers in The Trumpet Family sometimes take me with them to visit those who need help in the city. One day we went to see a man who was on his death-bed. He had never known God. When we first went into the room, we did not know that he would be able to talk with us much, but we prayed earnestly that God's Spirit would work with him. That was all we could do at that time. Later we went and had prayer with him again, talking to him about his soul, and prayed earnestly that God would spare his life until he could obtain salvation, and that God would keep his mind clear so that he would be able to meet the conditions. We went to see him the third time. In the meantime other workers had been to see him, and he was becoming concerned about his soul. While one of the brethren was praying with him, he grasped the promises that God would save him, and was able to rejoice in the Lord. When I went to see him a little later, he seemed to have complete victory and was very happy. While thinking of this occurrence at a later time, it seemed to me that I had done nothing toward the brother's salvation, since I was not present at the time he was saved. But the Lord began to talk to my soul: "Paul may plant, and Apollos may water, but God gives the increase. Are you not willing to plant and let some one else water? Are you not willing to be coworkers with others for the Lord?" I saw the point and answered, "Amen, Lord, I am willing; any way to get souls saved." One day my mother was taken suddenly ill. Her affliction was overflowing of the gall. It seemed that she would strangle to death. She was anointed and prayer was offered; then we sent for the elders and again had prayer, but it seemed that she was dying. A few hours later, thinking she was dying, we sent for some of the elders and a number of us gathered about her bed. The blood seemed to be settling under her skin as though she were mortifying before she died, and the Superintendent, who was standing near the bed, said he was sure he heard the death-rattle in her throat. Even at that time we offered prayer the third time, and all these more pronounced symptoms disappeared and she looked natural once more. She remained quite sick, however, for several days. God had made it clear to one of the brethren that we had offered the prayer of faith and that her life would be spared for a time. She is still living at this time, a marvel of God's divine power. Chapter XXIII Exhortation to Workers and Ministers In conclusion I feel that the Lord would be pleased for me to say a few words for the encouragement of young ministers and workers. In my work in the ministry I have come through many varied experiences that, I trust, will be helpful to you in the trials through which you will have to pass before you get settled in the Lord's work. The first difficulty met by most young ministers and workers is in regard to their call. Unless the call be clear and definite, they are likely to be in some doubt as to whether or not they are called, and thus be exposed to the temptations of the enemy that God has not called them at all. Sometimes God makes a call so clear that it is beyond question, and the one called has no chance to doubt it for a moment. This was my experience at first; but when I got my mind filled with other plans, instead of keeping in view the past leadings of the Lord, sad to say, I began to doubt my call. But when I began again to seek God's will, everything cleared up, and I felt certain of my call. Many others have difficulties right on this point. They feel led to do something for the Lord, and undertake to follow the leadings of his Spirit, but they do not feel the presence of God as they expected to feel it, or do not have the liberty that they think they should have. Then comes the temptation, "Has God called me, or am I trying to push out without any calling?" If they are very conscientious, it is easy for them to become confused when confronted with this temptation. They will pray over it and trouble over it. They are very timid and feel afraid to ask older workers lest what they have supposed to be a call is an imagination of their own and they will get a good sharp rebuke. They will struggle along in this condition until it becomes unbearable; then perhaps they will open their hearts to some person in whom they have confidence. If they get the proper instruction, they can soon be lifted out of this dilemma; but if not, they may do as some have done before--get so confused that they will lose the grace of God out of their souls. My advice would be: If you have any idea that you are called, go to exercising yourself as best you can, whether it be in exhortation, teaching, or testimony, or whatever God brings most clearly to your mind. If you are not sure about your calling, in the meantime be patient and wait on God. Be sure you cast your burden entirely on him and let him bear it for you. If God's hand is on you for service, you will sooner or later be perfectly satisfied as to what he wants you to do; but if it should be otherwise, and you are honest of heart, you will be only too glad to know that you are not called. Thus your mind will be relieved. If you are exercising yourself in spiritual things and no one is getting any benefit, you should take time to consider well whether God is calling you or not. I verily believe that if God's hand is on any one for service, whether he be a beginner or some one of experience, some will get a blessing when he teaches, exhorts, or delivers a message, because with his Word, God gives the anointing of his Spirit. "But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal" (1 Corinthians 12:7). According to the Word, then, we can safely say that if there is no profit to the hearers in what is being set forth, God's Spirit is not inditing the message. A young worker who was doubtful about his call, once went to an older brother for advice. This is what he received: "If you feel that God wants you to go out into evangelistic work, go right along, even if you are not sure that God is calling you. Go along, and then if you have success, you will know it is your own efforts and trust in God that has brought success, and not the efforts and faith of another. By following this plan you can easily determine whether or not God's hand is on you for the work." Now, the method the brother proposed might succeed in some cases all right, but I hardly think it would do in all cases, as all are not led out alike. One of my brothers, when he was first called, felt led to be with me in the work, that God might make me more useful by his presence. He did not comprehend at all that God's hand was on him for service, but later God began to lead him out and to use and bless his efforts. By and by God got him to the point where he could reveal to him his future work. At first my brother hardly knew what to do. He was at a place where he had to fulfil his calling or else grieve God. He chose the former course, and God made him a useful minister, but his development was gradual. If you begin exercising yourself in the ministry, and God does not bless your efforts, and God's children do not realize that his Spirit is working through you, you would do well to go slowly and to keep submitted to the brethren, lest you should find yourself running ahead of the leadings of the Spirit of the Lord. If God is leading a young worker out for service, he not only will make him feel sooner or later the weight of the call, but will so impress the church that they will know that God is inditing his message. When you once get it definitely settled that you are called to the ministry, never allow the difficulties and trials of this life so to cloud your vision that you doubt your call. It is one of the tricks of the enemy by trials and discouragement to make the ministers doubt their calling. When your call is once settled, do not go over it again and again to find out whether God is in earnest about it. If you should backslide, of course, then you should wait until God makes clear his will to you again. If a person is not stable in his experience, even though he has had a call to service, that call does not remain so clear and God does not always trust him at once after his recovery from his unsettled state. Some young workers who feel clear that God has called them to service, try to measure their call by what others think of it. Such a course will bring on confusion. It is all right to be submissive to the brethren, but the Lord wants each of us to get his own bearings. Pray through until you get the mind of God, and at the same time be subordinate to the brethren. If they see it is not best for you to move out rapidly, heed what they tell you. Be sure to keep your own individuality. If you feel that God has shown you a duty, do it in his fear, in a humble, submissive way. God may be leading you, and yet he may not be making his design very clear to others. There may be many difficulties in your way, such as bashfulness, want of fluent speech, awkwardness of manner, and ignorance. If, however, God has called you, and you keep submissive to him, he will in his own way bring out his design in you. Whatever your hands find to do, do it with your might. One has said, "Instant obedience is the secret of divine guidance." Some young workers become discouraged if they are not used extensively. You need not conclude, however, that because the Lord does not give you a message often, he does not want to use you at all. Keep submitted and obey God. If God is leading you into evangelistic work, move out. If many souls are saved, be thankful; but if few are saved, still be thankful. Obey God. Do all that he shows you to do, and expect souls to be saved. Pray earnestly that God may convict souls. Pray through until you know that God is going to work with you for the salvation of mankind. Be so true, so humble, and so faithful, and so fill your calling by the help of God, that you can say with Paul, "I magnify mine office." During my evangelistic labors I have come to places where from a natural standpoint the prospect was so discouraging and the religious confusion of the people so great that, if we could not have interceded with God for help, it would have been useless for us to remain. When we went to God in earnest prayer, however, and plead with him for souls, God never disappointed us. Many times we have had our greatest victories where the prospects seemed especially discouraging. As we have already said, a definite call is the first essential for a gospel worker; but even with such a call a minister will fail, unless he goes forth filled with the Spirit. You may have a call, you may really be sent by the Lord; but unless you keep filied with the Spirit, your labors will soon cease to bring results. Do not try to imitate the manner and methods of others, but keep yourself so submitted to God and so pliable in his hands that he can have his way with you, even as the potter does with the clay. Let God mold and fashion you into a vessel after his own design. Again, do not neglect to search the Scriptures. Under the illumination of the Holy Spirit, the Scriptures will prove a mine of wealth to you. Education is all right in its place; but when you lean upon it as a means of understanding the Scriptures, or when you depend upon it for unction and liberty and for ability to teach, preach, or exhort, you will make a sad failure. You will disappoint yourself, the people, and God. Do not question your calling because you have a poor education. Make good use of your present opportunities. Read good books. Get all the help and information you can in regard to soul-saving, but be careful you do not lean on your education for soul-unction. Many a time the Lord has called my attention to this thought before I rose to address an audience. Again and again he has reminded me to be sure not to depend upon myself, but to lean always on him, to drink in of his Spirit, so that I might give out to others. Human speech fails me in trying to bring out the importance of this thought. I trust that God will interpret my thought to your heart in a more forceful manner than words will allow. Thus far I have been speaking mainly to young workers in the early part of their ministry. Now I wish to say a few words that will be helpful to them as they grow older in the service. If you are fully persuaded that God has chosen you as his mouthpiece to declare the everlasting gospel to eternity-bound souls, you should feel the weight of your responsibility. A very weighty responsibility rests upon him who stands between the living and the dead. The attitude a minister holds, both toward his call also toward the Word of God, and also toward the people, is of vital importance. No better instruction to ministers has ever been given than that which Paul gave to Timothy: "I charge thee, therefore, before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering, and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears" (2 Timothy 4:1-3). The admonition to preach the word implies that what goes forth from the pulpit should be in harmony with the Scriptures, backed up by the Spirit of God. Do not give the people theories nor illustrate your speech by fabulous stories. Do not dwell too much with the surface problems of Christianity, but spend more time in leading the people to a deep heart-experience. If they get the inner man right its beauty will shine out through their entire being. In short, speak to the people the oracles of God, so that if they are at all susceptible to the truth, your speech will appeal to them as the Word of God spoken through your lips of clay. In preaching, guard against relating many touching incidents merely to work up the human sympathy. We have to deal with the hearts of men as well as with their minds and judgments. Any one that has a love for God's pure word will find in it a force and power that will have a good effect when it is presented in simple and plain language under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. In preaching on some subjects, it is necessary to have a large number of texts, but ministers make a mistake who think that they must make every sermon a Bible-reading. The use of too many scriptures confuses the listeners; it is often better to concentrate the attention of the hearers on one text until its full meaning is mastered. At the proper time Bible-lessons are in order, but the admonition, "Preach the word," does not mean that you are to read a large number of scriptures, but merely that you should present the Word of God as paramount to everything else. The ministry of Babylon have fed their people with much worldliness mixed together with a small portion of the Word of God. For this reason God's people scattered in Babylon have not fared well. At meeting their intellects would be fed, but their souls would be starved. You can not, however, feed others until your own soul is fed. This is done by searching the Scriptures and by praying much. If it is laid upon any one more than another to search the Scriptures, it is laid upon God's ministry, whom he has set apart to teach his Word and to feed his people. It is good to read God's Word slowly and carefully, to meditate upon it, to read it in different ways, by course, by subject. After reading a small portion, take time to dwell upon it, to pray over it, until it has become your own, not only as a possession of your mind, but also as a soul-experience. If you depend thus upon the Spirit of the Lord, he will give you new messages for the people. God gives his ministers many things that are good to repeat again and again, especially to different audiences; but a repetition of old thoughts many times in the same congregation is too much like serving warmed-over food. It lacks appetizing qualities. Something fresh from the Spirit of the Lord will make the people hungry to hear more of the word, and will make the word charming to their souls. When the minister gets a message direct from the Spirit, then presents it under the anointing of the Spirit, it will have beauty, sweetness, and a freshness that no power of mere human words, no trick of oratory, nor beauty of illustration, can give. If you will bear this in mind and drink of the Spirit before you come before your congregation, give the Lord a chance to use you as an avenue through which to speak, you will be a success in your calling. To be a New Testament minister, you must be able to exhibit at least some of the gifts of the Spirit. These are yours by right of your calling. Paul says, "But rather that ye should prophesy." Without this special insight into the Scriptures and power to present them to others, you will not be able to fulfil your calling as a mouthpiece of the Spirit. Before laying special stress on the gifts, however, you would do well to see that you are filled with the Spirit. Remember that the gifts are as the fruits and the Spirit as the tree. One who has not the Spirit can not bear the fruit. Do not try to substitute the gifts of the Spirit for spirituality. Covet earnestly the best gifts. Nevertheless, you should be careful that you do not try by your own human efforts to obtain the gifts, instead of earnestly seeking the Lord for their bestowal. By undue human efforts, many have obtained the manifestation of a false spirit, which they have placed on exhibition as the genuine. Paul said to Timothy, "Be instant in season." To do this you must keep close in touch with the Lord and let him be your wisdom, yea, your all. Paul said further, "Be instant out of season." This expression has been puzzling to many young ministers. If you will watch to do good and to lift up Christ at every possible opportunity, your chance for doing good will increase. Sometimes there will seem to be no opportunity, no open door; then you must open the door yourself. Go in and do what you can for souls. Sometimes what you do will seem altogether out of season. Later, however, you may see that God's blessing was upon your labors and that some soul has received a benefit. "Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine." In order to be able to do this according to the Word of God, you will have to live a life above reproach, or your rebukes and reproofs will come back upon your own head, when rebuking and reproving, long-suffering is very needful. As a rule, people will not take the truth all at once. Paul said to Timothy in another place, "Consider what I say, and the Lord give thee understanding in all things." With what carefulness a minister must speak when he comes in contact with those who have not yet fallen in love with the truth. One word spoken unwisely may forever shut the door of salvation for some eternity-bound soul. The last word in this admonition should not be forgotten: "with all long-suffering and doctrine." Doctrine has a very important place. Mistakes have been made in preaching the Word. Sometimes it is all doctrine and no experience; sometimes it is all experience and no doctrine. Paul said to Titus, "But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine." And to Timothy: "Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.... Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them, for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee." Paul's words seem to show that the doctrines of the New Testament are of vital importance. For example, we should understand the doctrine of repentance and justification, of sanctification, of divine healing, of the one body, and of every other subject connected with our eternal interest. If a minister keeps the church well grounded in the doctrine of the New Testament, he will in a large measure forestall the possibility of their being seduced by false spirits and of giving place to doctrines of devils. But to know the doctrine means more than to gain a mental knowledge of it. No minister is properly equipped to teach justification or sanctification until he has an actual heart-experience. As the minister presents the truth on these doctrines, the Spirit of the Lord should bear definite witness to his possession of these graces, so that he can present the truth definitely from an experimental standpoint. Then he will not say, "I think it is so and so," or "I guess it is this way or that," but he can speak with authority. "Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught that he may be able by sound doctrine, both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers" (Titus 1:9). God's Word on any point, illuminated by the Spirit, brings out sound doctrine. It is certain that we can not improve on the Word. We may give illustrations which are good in their place, but these can not improve on the Word. We may give illustrations which are good in their place, but these [words missing] of God's Spirit, knowing that we have the experience in ourselves, God can so impress our teachings upon our hearers that it will be difficult to ever get them mixed up in doctrine. "Sound speech, that can not be condemned; that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you" (Titus 2:8). Our speech in the pulpit should be of such a nature that it will appeal to the hearers. Foolishness, lightness, jesting, indulged in by the minister while preaching the everlasting gospel, is entirely out of place. Nor does this admonition apply entirely to the pulpit, but at all times, under all circumstances, a minister should be an example to the flock. Only thus can we ministers expect to obey God and fulfil our calling and accomplish God's will in the salvation of the world. Those who are young in the ministry should not get discouraged because they have not fully comprehended and practised the different things herein set forth. The older ministers should encourage the young to do all they know of God's will and to trust him to make his will plainer and clearer. Young minister, you should encourage yourself. You should be patient under the molding and fashioning hand of God, trusting him so to fasten these truths upon your heart and mind that it will be as natural to practise them as it is to breathe. If we as ministers are humble enough, God can get to the people through us what he wants the people to hear. If we would but be patient under God's controlling power and let him work out in us his own good pleasure, we should have less trouble and there would be fewer mistakes to be cleared up. Our lives should be living epistles, known and read of all men, so that when the world reads our lives, they will read the Bible. It is very essential to the welfare of the minister as well as to the welfare of the church that the ministers treat each other with special courtesy and consideration. The mere act of a young minister in taking an easy seat and leaving some older brother or sister in the ministry to sit in an uncomfortable place, and other similar acts of discourtesy, will have a bad effect upon the congregation. Many times young ministers hold an irreverent attitude toward older ones. They should consider them as their seniors and as fathers in the gospel. Older ministers, too, should act as fathers in the gospel and show all consideration and kindness when giving advice and admonition to the younger brethren. Before approaching a younger worker to admonish or instruct him, you who are older in the gospel work, should wait carefully before God in prayer for what to say. You should call to mind the testings, trials, and experiences of your younger days in the ministry. If you keep these fully in mind and speak to the young ministers as you would have wished some one to speak to you in your early days, you can save your younger brethren in the ministry many heartaches and trials. If approached in this way, they are much more likely to heed your warnings and your advice. Young people are apt to think that if a road appears fair before them it is safe to travel. Sometimes in the path that seems so open to you, the older ones see pitfalls and dangers. If you will but be cautioned by those who are more experienced, you will be saved many trials and heartaches. Again, young ministers are sometimes very timid and do not exercise themselves in spiritual things as they should, especially in the presence of their elders. When this occurs, both the older and younger ministers should do all they can to remedy the trouble. The older ministers should encourage the younger to do their duty, and the younger should lean on God for the help they need, and should move out, even when they have to go with fear and trembling. Dear young fellow worker, if you want to make a success of your calling, keep close to the Savior; keep in touch with him at all times. Do not let your mind drift away on things that are not for your good. Let your meditation be such that your soul will be stored with truths that will be helpful to give out to others. The subject of our thoughts has much to do with our speech and determines whether our words will be wholesome to present to the people. The apostle gives very definite instructions on this point. "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things" (Philemon 4:8). Let your mind dwell upon God, upon his plan, upon his goodness and his mercy, then the Lord will have a chance to impress these things upon your soul more clearly than they can be impressed in any other manner. With your meditation, combine secret prayer. As you meditate, talk with God and let God talk with you. To have a good conversation with a friend, you must not do all the talking, but must give your friend an opportunity to talk also. Likewise, when you are talking with God, give him a chance to reveal precious thoughts to your soul. Give him a chance to fill your inner being with heaven's sweetness. If God fills your heart with the riches of heaven, then you can give out that richness and blessing to others; then you can be the means of arousing in your hearers a hungering for the good things of God, and they will come again to hear the Word of the Lord. Now, as I bring to a close this brief sketch of my life history, I realize that, like this story, my active work in the ministry is near its close. Although my body is well spent and the weight of years is somewhat heavy upon me, yet the divine fire still glows on the altar of my heart, and my interest in gospel work is not diminished. In the few years that may still remain to me of my earthly pilgrimage, I shall take a lively interest in those young brothers and sisters whom God has called to take the places of us who are being compelled to retire from active service. I shall watch with interest the work of the ministry, not only as individuals but as a body. I shall hope and pray that you who are now stepping into the ranks as workers for the Lord will avoid many mistakes that we older ministers have made. If this little volume points out any pitfalls that should be avoided or any pleasant paths that your feet may walk in with safety; if it encourages you to trust the Lord more fully for all things and inspire you to place yourself more fully in his hands for service, it will have accomplished the purpose of the author. Our salvation was purchased by the suffering and death of Christ. The salvation of the world will be brought about only through our suffering and soul-travail. "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." "As soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children." "He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." Remember that without trials you can not have triumphs. Paul says something about enduring hardness like good soldiers, thus recognizing the fact that hardness is the portion of a good soldier. If you are a worthy minister, you are sure to endure hardness, buffeting, persecution, and perils by false brethren; but, thank God, through all these you can be more than conqueror, and look forward to the final reward. Paul says, "I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us." THE REFINER'S FIRE He sat by a fire of seven-fold heat, As he watched by the precious ore, And closer He bent with a searching gaze As he heated it more and more. He knew he had ore that could stand the test, And he wanted the finest gold To mold as a crown for the King to wear, Set with gems with a price untold. So he laid our gold in the burning fire, Though we fain would have said him "Nay," And he watched the dross that we had not seen, And it melted and passed away. And the gold grew brighter and yet more bright, But our eyes were so dim with tears, We saw but the fire, not the Master's hand, And questioned with anxious fears. Yet our gold shone out with a richer glow, As it mirrored a Form above, That bent o'er the fire, though unseen by us, With a look of ineffable love. Can we think that it pleases His loving heart To cause us a moment's pain? Ah, no! but He saw through the present cross The bliss of eternal gain. So He waited there with a watchful eye, With a love that is strong and sure, And His gold did not suffer a whit more heat 
40482	----	Transcriber's Note: Italics are indicated by _underscores_. Daily quotations from published prayers, which are italicised here and in the original, have been indented. Bolding is indicated by =equal signs=. Daily quotations from Scripture, which are bolded here and in the original, have also been indented. Small capitals have been rendered in upper case. Inconsistencies in spelling (e.g. "Savior" and "Saviour") and in hyphenation have been retained. In the two chemical formulae in Chapter 4 "^" is followed by a superscript and "_" by a subscript. Minor changes have been made to the format of biblical references; and corrections made to apparent punctuation errors elsewhere in the text. The Meaning of Faith HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK AUTHOR OF "THE MANHOOD OF THE MASTER," "THE MEANING OF PRAYER," "THE CHALLENGE OF THE PRESENT CRISIS," ETC. ASSOCIATION PRESS NEW YORK: 347 MADISON AVENUE 1922 COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS Printed in the United States of America The Bible Text used in this volume is taken from the American Standard Edition of the Revised Bible, copyright 1901, by Thomas Nelson & Sons, and is used by permission. TO MY MOTHER IN MEMORIAM "_'Tis human fortune's happiest height to be A spirit melodious, lucid, poised, and whole; Second in order of felicity To walk with such a soul._" PREFACE A book on faith has been for years my hope and intention. And now it comes to final form during the most terrific war men ever waged, when faith is sorely tried and deeply needed. Direct discussion of the war has been purposely avoided; the issues here presented are not confined to those which the war suggests; but many streams of thought within the book flow in channels that the war has worn. Since the conflict had to come, I am glad for this book's sake that it was not written until it had Europe's holocaust for a background. Against one misunderstanding the reader should be guarded. If anyone approaches these studies, expecting to find detailed and special views of Christian doctrine, he will be disappointed. The perplexities of mind and life and the affirmations of religious faith, with which these studies deal, lie far beneath sectarian doctrinal controversy. I have tried to make clear a foundation on which faith might build its thoughts of Christian truth. And while I have spoken freely of God and Christ and the Spirit, of the Cross and life eternal, I have not intended or endeavored a complete theology. I have had in mind that elemental matter of which Carlyle was thinking when he wrote: "The thing a man does practically lay to heart, and know for certain concerning his vital relations to the mysterious Universe, and his duty and destiny there, _that_ is in all cases the primary thing for him, and creatively determines all the rest. _That_ is his religion." As in "The Meaning of Prayer," the Scripture has been used for the basis and interpretation of the daily thought. The Bible is our supreme record of man's experience with faith; it recounts in terms of life faith's sources and results, its successes and failures, its servants and its foes. And because faith is not a _tour de force_ of intellect alone, but is an act of life, prayers have been used for the expression of aroused desire and resolution. My indebtedness to many helpers is very great. But to my friend and colleague, Professor George Albert Coe, my gratitude is so definitely due for his careful reading of the manuscript, that the book should not go out lacking an acknowledgment. H. E. F. December 15, 1917. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Special acknowledgment is gladly made to the following: to E. P. Dutton & Company for permission to use prayers from "A Chain of Prayer Across the Ages" and from "The Temple," by W. E. Orchard, D.D.; to the Rev. Samuel McComb and the publishers for permission to quote from "A Book of Prayers," Copyright, 1912, Dodd, Mead & Company; to the American Unitarian Association for permission to draw upon "Prayers," by Theodore Parker; to the Pilgrim Press and the author for permission to use selections from "Prayers of the Social Awakening," by Dr. Rauschenbusch; to the Missionary Education Movement for permission to make quotations from "Thy Kingdom Come," by Ralph E. Diffendorfer; to Fleming H. Revell Co., for permission to make use of "A Book of Public Prayer," by Henry Ward Beecher; and to the publishers of James Martineau's "Prayers in the Congregation and in College," Longmans, Green & Co. None of the above material should be reprinted without securing permission. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE PREFACE vii I. FAITH AND LIFE'S ADVENTURE 1 II. FAITH A ROAD TO TRUTH 26 III. FAITH IN THE PERSONAL GOD 51 IV. BELIEF AND TRUST 77 V. FAITH'S INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTIES 103 VI. FAITH'S GREATEST OBSTACLE 129 VII. FAITH AND SCIENCE 158 VIII. FAITH AND MOODS 184 IX. FAITH IN THE EARNEST GOD 210 X. FAITH IN CHRIST THE SAVIOR: FORGIVENESS 237 XI. FAITH IN CHRIST THE SAVIOR: POWER 263 XII. THE FELLOWSHIP OF FAITH 289 SCRIPTURE PASSAGES USED IN THE DAILY READINGS 316 SOURCES OF PRAYERS USED IN THE DAILY READINGS 317 PUBLISHERS' NOTE The complex subject of Faith has required an extended treatment, which has made the present volume much longer than the author's previous works. Every item of expense connected with publishing has greatly increased even within the past few months, and, to the regret, alike of publisher and author, it has been found necessary to charge more for this volume than for "The Meaning of Prayer" and "The Manhood of the Master." CHAPTER I Faith and Life's Adventure DAILY READINGS Discussion about faith generally starts with faith's _reasonableness_; let us begin with faith's _inevitableness_. If it were possible somehow to live without faith, the whole subject might be treated merely as an affair of curious interest. But if faith is an unescapable necessity in every human life, then we must come to terms with it, understand it, and use it as intelligently as we can. _There are certain basic elements in man which make it impossible to live without faith._ Let us consider these, as they are suggested in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which, better than any other book in the Bible, presents faith as an unavoidable human attitude. First Week, First Day =Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen.--Heb. 11:1.= As Moffatt translates: "Now faith means we are confident of what we hope for, convinced of what we do not see." When faith is described in such general terms, its necessity in human life is evident. Man cannot live without faith, because he deals not only with a past which he may know and with a present which he can see, but with a _future in whose possibilities he must believe_. A man can no more avoid looking ahead when he lives his life than he can when he sails his boat, and in one case as in the other, his direction is determined by his thought about what lies before him, his "assurance of things hoped for." Now, this future into which continually we press our way can never be a matter of demonstrable knowledge. We know only when we arrive, but meanwhile we believe; and our knowledge of what is and has been is not more necessary to our quest than our faith concerning what is yet to come. As Tennyson sings of faith in "The Ancient Sage": "She sees the Best that glimmers thro' the Worst, She feels the sun is hid but for a night, She spies the summer thro' the winter bud, She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls, She hears the lark within the songless egg, She finds the fountain where they wail'd 'Mirage'!" However much a man may plan, therefore, to live without faith, he cannot do it. When one strips himself of all convictions about the future he stops living altogether, and active, eager, vigorous manhood is always proportionate to the scope and power of reasonable faith. The great spirits of the race have had the aspiring, progressive quality which the Scripture celebrates: =These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things make it manifest that they are seeking after a country of their own. And if indeed they had been mindful of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city.--Heb. 11:13-16.= _Almighty God, let Thy Spirit breathe upon us to quicken in us all humility, all holy desire, all living faith in Thee. When we meditate on the Eternal, we dare not think any manner of similitude; yet Thou art most real to us in the worship of the heart. When in the strife against sin we receive grace to help us in our time of need, then art Thou the Eternal Rock of our salvation. When amid our perplexities and searchings, the way of duty is made clear, then art Thou our Everlasting Light. When amid the storms of life we find peace and rest through submission, then art Thou the assured Refuge of our souls. So do Thou manifest Thyself unto us, O God!_ _Our Heavenly Father, we give Thee humble and hearty thanks for all the sacred traditions which have come down to us from the past--for the glorious memories of ancient days, concerning that Divine light in which men have been conscious of Thy presence and assured of Thy grace. But we would not content ourselves with memories. O Thou who art not the God of the dead, but the God of the living, manifest Thyself unto us in a present communion. Reveal Thyself unto us in the tokens of this passing time. Give us for ourselves to feel the authority of Thy law: give us for ourselves to realize the exceeding sinfulness of sin: give us for ourselves to understand the way of salvation through sacrifice. Teach us, by the Spirit of Christ, the sacredness of common duties, the holiness of the ties that bind us to our kind, the divinity of the still small voice within that doth ever urge us in the way of righteousness. So shall our hearts be renewed by faith; so shall we ever live in God. Amen._--John Hunter. First Week, Second Day =By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go out unto a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he became a sojourner in the land of promise, as in a land not his own, dwelling in tents, with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: for he looked for the city which hath the foundations, whose builder and maker is God.--Heb. 11:8-10.= =By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to share ill treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; accounting the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he looked unto the recompense of reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.--Heb. 11:24-27.= Man cannot live without faith because his relationship with the future is an affair not alone of thought but also of action; _life is a continuous adventure into the unknown_. Abraham and Moses pushing out into experiences whose issue they could not foresee are typical of all great lives that have adventured for God. "By faith" is the first word necessary in every life like Luther's and Wesley's and Carey's. By faith John Bright, when his reforms were hard bestead, said: "If we can't win as fast as we wish, we know that our opponents can't in the long run win at all." By faith Gladstone, when the Liberal cause was defeated, rose undaunted in Parliament, and said, "I appeal to time!" and by faith every one of us must undertake each plain day's work, if we are to do it well. Robert Louis Stevenson said that life is "an affair of cavalry," "a thing to be dashingly used and cheerfully hazarded." But so to deal with life demands faith. The more one sees what venturesome risks he takes every day, what labor and sacrifice he invests in hope of a worthy outcome, with what great causes he falls in love until at his best he is willing for their sakes to hazard fortune and happiness and life itself, the more he sees that the soul of robust and serviceable character is faith. _O God, who hast encompassed us with so much that is dark and perplexing, and yet hast set within us light enough to walk by; enable us to trust what Thou hast given as sufficient for us, and steadfastly refuse to follow aught else; lest the light that is in us become as darkness and we wander from the way. May we be loyal to all the truth we know, and seek to discharge those duties which lay their commission on our conscience; so that we may come at length to perfect light in Thee, and find our wills in harmony with Thine._ _Since Thou hast planted our feet in a world so full of chance and change that we know not what a day may bring forth, and hast curtained every day with night and rounded our little lives with sleep; grant that we may use with diligence our appointed span of time, working while it is called today, since the night cometh when no man can work; having our loins girt and our lamps alight, lest the cry at midnight find us sleeping and the door fast shut._ _Since we are so feeble, faint, and foolish, leave us not to our own devices, not even when we pray Thee to; nor suffer us for any care to Thee or for any pain to us to walk our own unheeding way. Plant thorns about our feet, touch our hearts with fear, give us no rest apart from Thee, lest we lose our way and miss the happy gate. Amen._--W. E. Orchard. First Week, Third Day Man cannot live without faith because the prime requisite in life's adventure is _courage_, and the sustenance of courage is faith. =And what shall I more say? for the time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah; of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, waxed mighty in war, turned to flight armies of aliens. Women received their dead by a resurrection: and others were tortured, not accepting their deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: and others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were tempted, they were slain with the sword: they went about in sheep-skins, in goat-skins; being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves, and the holes of the earth. And these all, having had witness borne to them through their faith, received not the promise, God having provided some better thing concerning us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.--Heb. 11:32-40.= When in comparison with men and women of such admirable spirit, one thinks of weak personalities, that ravel out at the first strain, he sees that the difference lies in courage. _When a man loses heart he loses everything._ Now to keep one's heart in the midst of life's stress and to maintain an undiscourageable front in the face of its difficulties is not an achievement which springs from anything that a laboratory can demonstrate or that logic can confirm. It is an achievement of faith, "The virtue to exist by faith As soldiers live by courage." Consider this account of Havelock, the great English general: "As he sat at dinner with his son on the evening of the 17th, his mind appeared for the first and last time to be affected with gloomy forebodings, as it dwelt on the probable annihilation of his brave men in a fruitless attempt to accomplish what was beyond their strength. After musing long in deep thought, his strong sense of duty and his confidence in the justice of his cause restored the buoyancy of his spirit; and he exclaimed, 'If the worst comes to the worst, we can but die with our swords in our hands!'" No man altogether escapes the need for such a spirit, and, as with Havelock and the Hebrew heroes, confidence in someone, faith in something, is that spirit's source. _O God, who hast sent us to school in this strange life of ours, and hast set us tasks which test all our courage, trust, and fidelity; may we not spend our days complaining at circumstance or fretting at discipline, but give ourselves to learn of life and to profit by every experience. Make us strong to endure._ _We pray that when trials come upon us we may not shirk the issue or lose our faith in Thy goodness, but committing our souls unto Thee who knowest the way that we take, come forth as gold tried in the fire._ _Grant by Thy grace that we may not be found wanting in the hour of crisis. When the battle is set, may we know on which side we ought to be, and when the day goes hard, cowards steal from the field, and heroes fall around the standard, may our place be found where the fight is fiercest. If we faint, may we not be faithless; if we fall, may it be while facing the foe. Amen._--W. E. Orchard. First Week, Fourth Day Man cannot live without faith, because the adventure of life demands not only courage to achieve but _patience to endure and wait_, and all untroubled patience is founded on faith. When the writer to the Hebrews speaks of those who "through faith and patience inherit the promises" (Heb. 6:12), he joins two things that in experience no man successfully can separate. By as much as we need patience, we need faith. =But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were enlightened, ye endured a great conflict of sufferings; partly, being made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, becoming partakers with them that were so used. For ye both had compassion on them that were in bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your possessions, knowing that ye have for yourselves a better possession and an abiding one. Cast not away therefore your boldness, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, having done the will of God, ye may receive the promise.--Heb. 10:32-36.= The most difficult business in the world is _waiting_. There are times in every life when action, however laborious and sacrificial, would be an unspeakable relief; but to sit still because necessity constrains us, endeavoring to live out the admonition of the psalmist, "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him," is prodigiously difficult. _No one can do it without some kind of faith._ "In your patience," said Jesus, "ye shall win your souls" (Luke 21:19), but such an achievement is no affair of logic or scientific demonstration; it is a venture of triumphant faith. The great believers have been the unwearied waiters; faith meant to them not controversial opinion, but sustaining power. As another has phrased it, "Our faculties of belief were not primarily given to us to make orthodoxies and heresies withal; they were given us to _live_ by." _We beseech of Thee, O Lord our God, that Thou wilt grant to every one of us in Thy presence, this morning, the special mercies which he needs--strength where weakness prevails, and patience where courage has failed. Grant, we pray Thee, that those who need long-suffering may find themselves strangely upborne and sustained. Grant that those who wander in doubt and darkness may feel distilling upon their soul the sweet influence of faith. Grant that those who are heart-weary, and sick from hope deferred, may find the God of all salvation. Confirm goodness in those that are seeking it. Restore, we pray Thee, those who have wandered from the path of rectitude. Give every one honesty. May all transgressors of Thy law return to the Shepherd and Bishop of their souls with confession of sin, and earnest and sincere repentance. Amen._--Henry Ward Beecher. First Week, Fifth Day Man cannot live without faith because he exists in a universe, the complete explanation of which is forever beyond his grasp, so that _whatever he thinks about the total meaning of creation is fundamentally faith_. =By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which appear.--Heb. 11:3.= Not only is this true, but if we think that there is _no_ God, that also is faith; and if we hold that the basic reality is physical atoms, that is faith; and whatever anybody believes about the origin and destiny of life is faith. When Haeckel says that the creator is "Cosmic Ether," and when John says that "God is love," they both are making a leap of faith. This does not mean that faith can dispense with reason. In these studies we shall set ourselves to marshal the ample arguments that support man's faith in God. But when the utmost that argument can do has been achieved, the finite mind, dealing with the infinite reality, is forced to a sally of faith, a venture of confidence in Goodness at the heart of the world, not opposed to reason but surpassing reason. _Faith always sees more with her eye than logic can reach with her hand._ And especially when men come to the highest thought of life's meaning and believe in the Christian God, they face the fact which the writer to the Hebrews presents: =And without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing unto him; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him.--Heb. 11:6.= Indeed, in all stout conviction about the meaning of life there is a certain defiant note, refusing to surrender to small objections. Cried Stevenson, "I believe in an ultimate decency of things; ay, and if I woke in hell, should still believe it!" _O Thou Infinite Spirit, who needest no words for man to hold his converse with Thee, we would enter into Thy presence, we would reverence Thy power, we would worship Thy wisdom, we would adore Thy justice, we would be gladdened by Thy love, and blessed by our communion with Thee. We know that Thou needest no sacrifice at our hands, nor any offering at our lips; yet we live in Thy world, we taste Thy bounty, we breathe Thine air, and Thy power sustains us, Thy justice guides, Thy goodness preserves, and Thy love blesses us forever and ever. O Lord, we cannot fail to praise Thee, though we cannot praise Thee as we would. We bow our faces down before Thee with humble hearts, and in Thy presence would warm our spirits for a while, that the better we may be prepared for the duties of life, to endure its trials, to bear its crosses, and to triumph in its lasting joys...._ _In times of darkness, when men fail before Thee, in days when men of high degree are a lie, and those of low degree are a vanity, teach us, O Lord, to be true before Thee, not a vanity, but soberness and manliness; and may we keep still our faith shining in the midst of darkness, the beacon-light to guide us over stormy seas to a home and haven at last. Father, give us strength for our daily duty, patience for our constant or unaccustomed cross, and in every time of trial give us the hope that sustains, the faith that wins the victory and obtains satisfaction and fulness of joy. Amen._--Theodore Parker. First Week, Sixth Day Man cannot live, lacking faith, because _without it life's richest experiences go unappropriated_. Opportunities for friendship lie all about us, but only by trustful self-giving can they be enjoyed; chances to serve good causes continually beckon us, but one must have faith to try; superior minds offer us their treasures, but to avail oneself of instruction from another involves teachable humility. A man without capacity to let himself go out to other men in friendly trust or to welcome new illumination on his thought with grateful faith would be shut out from the priceless treasures of humanity. A certain trustful openheartedness, a willingness to venture in personal relationship and in attempts at service is essential to a rich and fruitful life. And what is true of man's relationship with man is true of man's relationship with God. So Prof. William James, of Harvard, states the case: "Just as a man who in a company of gentlemen made no advances, asked a warrant for every concession, and believed no one's word without proof, would cut himself off by such churlishness from all the social rewards that a more trusting spirit would earn--so here, one who should shut himself up in snarling logicality and try to make the gods extort his recognition willy-nilly, or not get it at all, might cut himself off forever from his only opportunity of making the gods' acquaintance." _Wherever in life great spiritual values await man's appropriation, only faith can appropriate them._ =Let us fear therefore, lest haply, a promise being left of entering into his rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it. For indeed we have had good tidings preached unto us, even as also they: but the word of hearing did not profit them, because it was not united by faith with them that heard!--Heb. 4:1, 2.= _O Infinite Source of life and health and joy! the very thought of Thee is so wonderful that in this thought we would rest and be still. Thou art Beauty and Grace and Truth and Power. Thou art the light of every heart that sees Thee, the life of every soul that loves Thee, the strength of every mind that seeks Thee. From our narrow and bounded world we would pass into Thy greater world. From our petty and miserable selves we would escape to Thee, to find in Thee the power and the freedom of a larger life.... We recognize Thee in all the deeper experiences of the soul. When the conscience utters its warning voice, when the heart is tender and we forgive those who have wronged us in word or deed, when we feel ourselves upborne above time and place, and know ourselves citizens of Thy everlasting Kingdom, we realize, O Lord, that these things, while they are in us, are not of us. They are Thine, the work of Thy Spirit brooding upon our souls._ _Spirit of Holiness and Peace! Search all our motives; try the secret places of our souls; set in the light any evil that may lurk within, and lead us in the way everlasting. Amen._--Samuel McComb. First Week, Seventh Day Man cannot live without faith, because in life's adventure the central problem is _building character_. Now, character is not a product of logic, but of faith in ideals and of sacrificial devotion to them. What is becomes only the starting point of a campaign for what _ought to be_, and in the prosecution of that campaign what ought to be must be believed in with passionate intensity. Faith of some sort, therefore, is necessarily the dynamic of character; only limp and ragged living is possible without faith; and the greatest characters are girded by the most ample faith in God and goodness. The writer to the Hebrews saw this intimate relationship between quality of faith and quality of life, and challenged his readers to judge the Christian faith by its consequence in character. =Remember them that had the rule over you, men that spake unto you the word of God; and considering the issue of their life, imitate their faith.--Heb. 13:7.= Such are the basic elements in human experience that make faith necessary: we deal with a future, about which we must think, with reference to which we must act, and adventuring into which we need courage and patience; this venture of life takes place in a world the meaning of which can be grasped only by a leap of faith; and in this venture the best treasures of the spirit are obtainable only through openheartedness, and character is possible only to men of resolute conviction. Plainly the subject to whose study we are setting ourselves is no affair of theoretical interest alone; it affects the deepest issues of life. No words could better summarize this vital idea of faith which the Epistle to the Hebrews presents than Hartley Coleridge's: "Think not the faith by which the just shall live Is a dead creed, a map correct of heaven, Far less a feeling, fond and fugitive, A thoughtless gift, withdrawn as soon as given. It is an affirmation and an act That bids eternal truth be present fact." _How great are the mercies, O Lord our God, which Thou hast prepared for all that put their trust in Thee!... Thou hast comfort for those that are in affliction; Thou hast strength for those that are weak; ... Thou hast all blessings that are needed, and standest ready to be all things to all, and in all. And yet, with bread enough and to spare, with raiment abundant, and with all medicine, how many are there that go hungry, and naked, and sick, and destitute of all things! We desire, O Lord, that Thou wilt, to all Thine other mercies, add that gift by which we shall trust in Thee--faith that works by love; faith that abides with us; faith that transforms material things, and gives them to us in their spiritual meanings; faith that illumines the world by a light that never sets, that shines brighter than the day, and that clears the night quite out of our experience. This is the portion that Thou hast provided for thy people. We beseech of Thee, grant us this faith, that shall give us victory over the world and over ourselves; that shall make us valiant in all temptation and bring us off conquerors and more than conquerors through Him that loved us. Amen._--Henry Ward Beecher. COMMENT FOR THE WEEK I When Donald Hankey, who died in the trenches in the Great War, said that "True religion is betting one's life that there is a God," he not only gave expression to his own virile Christianity, but he gave a good description of all effective faith whatsoever. Faith is holding reasonable convictions, in realms beyond the reach of final demonstration, and, as well, it is thrusting out one's life upon those convictions as though they were surely true. _Faith is vision plus valor._ Our study may well begin by recognizing that, as it is exercised in the religious life, such faith is the supreme use of an attitude which we are employing in every other realm. No man can live without vision to see as true what as yet he cannot prove, or without valor to act on the basis of his insight. Our vocabulary in ordinary relationships, quite as much as in religion, is full of words involving faith. I believe, I feel sure, I am confident, I venture--such phrases express our common attitudes in work and thought. Each day we act on reasonable probabilities, hold convictions not yet verified, take risks whose outcome we cannot know, and trust people whom we have barely met. We may pride ourselves that our twentieth century's life is being built on scientifically demonstrable knowledge, but a swift review of any day's experience shows how indispensable is another attitude, without which our verifiable knowledge would be an unused instrument. In order to _live_ we must have insight and daring. It is not alone the just who live by faith; lacking it, there is no real life anywhere. To be sure, we may not leap from this general necessity of faith to the conclusion that therefore our religious beliefs are justified. Many men use faith in business and in social life who cannot find their way to convictions about God. But our desire to understand faith's meaning is quickened when we see how indispensable a place it holds, how tremendous an influence it wields, whether it be religiously applied or not. All sorts of human enterprise bear witness to its unescapable necessity. Haeckel, the biologist, describing science's method, says: "Scientific faith fills the gaps in our knowledge of natural laws with temporary hypotheses." Lincoln, the statesman, entreating the people, cries: "Let us have faith that right makes might and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty." Stevenson, the invalid, trying with fortitude to bear his trial, writes: "Whether on the first of January or the thirty-first of December, faith is a good word to end on." And the Master states the substance of religion in a single phrase: "Have faith in God" (Mark 11:22). Scientific procedure, social welfare, personal quality, religion--the applications of our subject are as wide as life. Vision and valor are the dynamic forces in all achievement, intellectual as well as moral, and as for man's spiritual values and satisfactions, "It is faith in something," as Oliver Wendell Holmes put it, "which makes life worth living." II One major reason for this necessary place of faith in our experience is clear. _Life is an adventure and adventure always demands insight and daring._ That "Chinese" Gordon, on his hazardous expedition into the Soudan, should be thrown back on undiscourageable faith in himself, in the justice of his cause, in the bravery of his men, and in God; that he should even speak of praying his boats up the Nile, seems to us natural; for some kind of faith is obviously necessary to any great adventure. But men often forget that all ordinary living is essentially adventurous and that by this fact the need of faith is woven into the texture of every human life. It is an amazing adventure to be born upon this wandering island in the sky and it is an adventure to leave it when death calls. To go to school, to make friends, to marry, to rear children, to face through life the swift changes of circumstance that no man can certainly predict an hour ahead, these are all adventures. Each new day is an hitherto unvisited country, which we enter, like Abraham leaving Ur for a strange land, "not knowing whither he went" (Heb. 11:8), and every New Year we begin a tour of exploration into a twelvemonth where no man's foot has ever walked before. If we all love tales of pioneers, it is because from the time we are weaned to the time we die, life is pioneering. Of course we cannot live by verifiable knowledge only. Imagine men, equipped with nothing but powers of logical demonstration, starting on such an enterprise as the title of Sebastian Cabot's joint stock company suggests: "Merchants Adventurers of England for the discovery of lands, territories, isles and seignories, unknown." Indeed no knowledge of the sort that our scientific inductions can achieve ever will take from life this adventurous element. Scientific knowledge in these latter decades has grown incalculably; yet for all that, every child's life is a hazardous experiment, every boy choosing a calling takes his chances, every friendship is a risky exploration in the province of personality, and all devotion to moral causes is just as much a venturesome staking of life on insight and hope as it was when Garrison attacked slavery or Livingstone landed in Africa. To one who had acquired not only all extant but all possible knowledge, as truly as to any man who ever lived, life would be full of hazard still. He could not certainly know in advance the outcome of a single important decision of his life. He could not at any moment tell in what new, strange, challenging, or terrific situation the next hour might find him. With all his science, he must face each day, as Paul faced his journey to Rome, "not knowing the things that shall befall me there" (Acts 20:22). The reason for this is obvious. Our systematized knowledge is the arrangement under laws of the experiences which we have already had. It furnishes invaluable aid in guiding the experiments and explorations which life continuously forces on us. In every enterprise, however, we must use not only legs to stand on, but tentacles as well with which to feel our way forward--intuitions, insights, hopes, unverified convictions, faith. We project our life forward as we build a cantilever bridge. Part of the structure is solidly bolted and thoroughly articulated in a system; but ever beyond this established portion we audaciously thrust out new beginnings in eager expectation that from the other side something will come to meet them. Without this no progress ever would be possible. Every province of life illustrates this necessity of adventure. In _science_, the established body of facts and laws is only the civilized community of knowledge from whose frontiers new guesses and intuitions start. Says Sir Oliver Lodge about the great Newton: "He had an extraordinary faculty for guessing correctly, sometimes with no apparent data--as for instance, his intuition that the mean density of the earth was probably between five and six times that of water, while we now know it is really about five and one half." In _personal character_, our habits are basic, but our ideals in which, despite ourselves, we must believe, are pioneers that push out into new territory and call our habits after them to conquer the promised land. In _social advance_, some Edmund Burke, statesman of the first magnitude, basing his judgment on the established experience of the race, can call slavery an incurable evil and say that there is not the slightest hope that trade in slaves can be stopped; and yet within eighty-two years the race can feel its way forward to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. As for _daily business_, adventurous daring is there the very nerve of enterprise. Says a modern newspaper man: "There are plenty of people to do the possible; you can hire them at forty dollars a month. The prizes are for those who perform the impossible. If a thing can be done, experience and skill can do it; if a thing cannot be done, only faith can do it." Great in human life is this adventurous element, and, therefore, great in human life is the necessity of faith. To chasten and discipline, to make reasonable and stable the faiths by which we live is a problem unsurpassed in importance for every man. III One result of special interest follows from this truth. It is commonly suspected that as mankind advances, the function of faith proportionately shrinks. It is even supposed that the place of faith in human life has sensibly diminished with our growing knowledge, and that Matthew Arnold told the truth: "The sea of faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world." Accordingly by custom we call the mediæval centuries the "Age of Faith." But even a cursory comparison between the mediæval people and ourselves reveals that among the many differences that distinguish us from them, none is more marked than the diversity and range of our faiths. One considers in surprise the things which they did not believe. That the world would ever grow much better, that social abuses like political tyranny and slavery could be radically changed, that man could ever master nature by his inventions until her mighty forces were his servants, that the whole race could be reached for Christ, that war could be abolished and human brotherhood in some fair degree established, that common men could be trusted with responsibility for their own government or with freedom to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences--none of these things did the mediæval folk believe. One of the most distinguishing characteristics of the so-called "Age of Faith" was its lack of faith. It lived in a static world; it was poor in possibilities except in heaven; it pitiably lacked those most certain signs of vital faith, the open mind eager for new truth and the ardent, vigorous life seeking new conquests. In comparison with such an age our generation's faiths are rich and manifold. To call our time an "Age of Doubt" because of its free spirit of critical inquiry, is seriously to misunderstand its major drift. Bunyan's Pilgrim found Doubting Castle kept by Giant Despair and his wife Diffidence and in any Doubting Castle these two always dwell. But who, considering our generation's life as a whole, would call it diffident or desperate? It is rather robust and confident; its social faiths, at least, are unprecedented in their sweep and certainty. Even the Great War is the occasion of such organized faith in a federated and fraternal world as mankind has never entertained before. The truth is that with the progress of the race the adventure of life is elevated and enlarged, and in consequence faith grows not less but more necessary. _The faiths of a savage are meager compared with a modern man's._ The Australian bushman never dreams of laboring for social ideals even a few years ahead. What can he know of those superb faiths in economic justice and international brotherhood, which even in the face of overwhelming difficulty, master the best of modern men? The primitive mind was not curious enough to wonder whether the sun that rises in the morning was the same that set the night before. What could such a mind understand of modern science's faith in the universal regularity of law? Put a Moro head hunter beside Mr. Edison, and see how incalculable the difference between them, not simply in their knowledge, but in their faith as to what it is possible for humanity to do with nature! Or put a fetish worshipper from Africa beside Phillips Brooks and compare the faith of the one in his idol with the faith of the other in God. Faith does not dwindle as wisdom grows; vision and valor are not less important. _The difference between the twentieth century man and the savage is quite as much in the scope and quality of their faith as in the range and certainty of their knowledge._ Faith, therefore is not a transient element in human life, to be evicted by growing science. For whatever life may _know_, life _is_ adventure; and as the adventure widens its horizons, the demand for faith is correspondingly increased. If one tries to imagine the world with all faith gone--knowledge supposedly having usurped its place--he must conceive a world where no conscious life and effort remain at all. Take trust in testimony away from courts of law, and unsure experiments from the physician's practice; refuse the teacher his confidence in growing minds and the business man his right to ventures that involve uncertainty; abstract from civic reforms all faith in a better future, from science all unproved postulates, from society all mutual trust and from religion all belief in the Unseen, and life would become an "inane sand heap." A man who tries to live without faith will die of inertia. A society that makes the attempt will be paralyzed within an hour. The question is not whether or no we shall live by faith. The question is rather--By what faiths shall we live? What range and depth and quality shall they have? How reasonable and how assured shall they be? IV Among all the faiths which mankind has cherished and by which it has been helped in life's adventure, none have been more universally and more passionately held than those associated with religion. In the daring experiment of living, men naturally have sought by faith interpretation not only of life's details but of life itself--its origin, its meaning, and its destiny. Australian bushmen, unable to count above four on their fingers, have been heard discussing in their huts at night whence they came, whither they go, and who the gods are anyway. And when one turns to modern manhood in its finest exhibitions of intelligence and character, he sees that Professor Ladd, of Yale, speaks truly: "The call of the world of men today, which is most insistent and most intense, if not most loud and clamorous, is the call for a rehabilitation of religious faith." For it does make a prodigious difference to the spirit of our adventure in this world, whether we think that God is good or on the other hand see the universe as Carlyle's terrific figure pictures it--"one huge, dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling on, in its dead indifference, to grind me limb from limb." It does make a difference of quite incalculable magnitude whether we think that our minds and characters are an evanescent product of finely wrought matter which alone is real and permanent, or on the contrary with John believe that "Now are we children of God and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be" (I John 3:2). How great a difference in life's adventure religious faith does make is better set forth by concrete example than by abstract argument. On the one side, how radiant the spirit of the venture as the New Testament depicts it! The stern, appealing love of God behind life, his good purpose through it, his victory ahead of it, and man a fellow worker, called into an unfinished world to bear a hand with God in its completion--here is a game that indeed is worth the candle. On the other side is Bertrand Russell's candid disclosure of the consequences of his own scepticism: "Brief and powerless is man's life; on him and all his race the slow sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way; for Man condemned today to lose his dearest, tomorrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day--proudly defiant of the irresistible forces that tolerate for a moment his knowledge and his condemnation, to sustain alone, a weary but unyielding Atlas, the world that his own ideals have fashioned despite the trampling march of unconscious power." Man's life, interpreted and motived by religious faith, is glorious, but shorn of faith's interpretations life loses its highest meaning and its noblest hopes. Let us make this statement's truth convincing in detail. _When faith in God goes, man the thinker loses his greatest thought._ Man's mind has ranged the universe, has woven atoms and stars into a texture of law; his conquering thoughts ride out into every unknown province of which they hear. But among all the ideas on which the mind of man has taken hold, incomparably the greatest is the idea of God. In sheer weight and range no other thought of man compares with that. Amid the crash of stars, the reign of law, the vicissitudes of human history, and the griefs that drive their ploughshares into human hearts, to gather up all existence into spiritual unity and to believe in God, is the sublimest venture of the human mind. _When faith in God goes, man the worker loses his greatest motive._ Man masters nature until the forces that used to scare him now obey; in society he labors tirelessly that his children may have a better world. Wars come, destroying the achievements of ages; yet when war is over, man rebuilds his cities, recreates his commerce, dreams again his human brotherhoods, and toils on. Many motives, deep and shallow, fine and coarse, have sustained him in this tireless work, but when one seeks the fountain of profoundest hope in mankind's toil he finds it in religious faith. To believe that we do not stand alone, hopelessly pitted against the dead apathy of cosmic forces which in the end will crush us in some solar wreck and bring our work to naught; to believe that we are fellow-laborers with God, our human purposes comprehended in a Purpose, God behind us, within us, ahead of us--this incomparably has been the master-faith in man's greatest work. _When faith in God goes, man the sinner loses his strongest help._ For man is a sinner. He tears his spiritual heritage to shreds in licentiousness and drink. He wallows in vice, wins by cruelty, violates love, is treacherous to trust. His sins clothe the world in lamentation. Yet in him is a protest that he cannot stifle. He is the only creature whom we know whose nature is divided against itself. He hates his sin even while he commits it. He repents, tries again, falls, rises, stumbles on--and in all his best hours cries out for saviorhood. No message short of religion has ever met man's need in this estate. That God himself is pledged to the victory of righteousness in men and in the world, that he cares, forgives, enters into man's struggle with transforming power, and crowns the long endeavor with triumphant character--such faith alone has been great enough to meet the needs of man the sinner. _When faith in God goes, man the sufferer loses his securest refuge._ One who has walked with families through long illnesses where desperate prayers rise like a fountain day and night, who has seen strong men break down in health or lose the fortune of a lifetime, who has stood at children's graves and heard mothers cry, "How empty are my arms!" does not need long explication of life's tragic suffering. The staggering blows shatter the hopes of good and bad alike. Whether one's house be built on rock or sand, on both, as Jesus said, the rains descend and the floods come and the winds blow. In this experience of crushing trouble nothing but religious faith has been able to save men from despair or from stoical endurance of their fate. To face the loom of life and hopefully to lay oneself upon it, as though the dark threads were as necessary in the pattern as the light ones are, we must believe that there is a purpose running through the stern, forbidding process. What men have needed most of all in suffering, is not to know the explanation, but _to know that there is an explanation_. And religious faith alone gives confidence that human tragedy is not the meaningless sport of physical forces, making our life what Voltaire called it, "a bad joke," but is rather a school of discipline, the explanation of whose mysteries is in the heart of God. No one who has lived deeply can ever call such faith a "matter of words and names." To multitudes it is a matter of life and death. _When faith in God goes, man the lover loses his fairest vision._ When we say our worst about mankind, this redeeming truth remains, that each of us has some one for whose sake he willingly would die. The very love lyrics of the race are proof of this human quality, from homely folk songs like "John Anderson, My Jo, John" to great poetry like Mrs. Browning's sonnets. We call them secular, but they are ineffably sacred. And when one seeks the faith that has made these loves of men radiant with an illumination which man alone cannot create, he finds it in religion. Love is not a transient fragrance from matter finely organized--so men have dared believe; love is of kin with the Eternal, has there its source and ground and destiny; love is the very substance of reality. "God is love, and he that abideth in love, abideth in God, and God abideth in him" (I John 4:16). Man the lover is bereft of his finest insight and love's inner glory has departed, when that faith has gone. _When faith in God goes, man the mortal loses his only hope._ Man's nature, like a lighthouse, combines two elements. At the foundation of the beacon all is stone; as one lifts his eyes, all is stone still; but at the top is something new and wonderful. It is the thing for which the rock was piled. Its laws are not the laws of stone nor are its ways the same. For while the stolid rock stands fast, this miracle of light with speed incredible hurls itself out across the sea. Two worlds are here, the one cold and stationary, the other full of the marvel and mystery of fire. So man has in him a miracle which he cannot explain; he "feels that he is greater than he knows"; and he never has been able to believe that the mystery of spirit was given him in vain, had no reality from which it came, and no future beyond death. The finest thing ever said of Columbus is a remark of his own countryman, "The instinct of an unknown continent burned in him." That is the secret of Columbus' greatness. All the arguments by which he attempted to convince the doubters were but afterthoughts of this; all the labors by which he endeavored to make good his hopes were but its consequence. And if we ask of man why so universally he has believed in life to come, the answer leaps not superficially from the mind, but out of the basic intuitions of man's life. We know that something is now ours which ought not to die; the instinct of an unknown continent burns in us. But all the hopes, the motives, the horizons that immortality has given man must go, if faith in God departs. In a godless world man dies forever. One, therefore, who is facing loss of faith may not regard it as a light affair. To be sure, some denials of religion, even a Christian must respect. Huxley, for example, at the death of his little boy, wanting to believe in immortality as only a father can whose son lies dead, yet, for all that, disbelieving, wrote to Charles Kingsley, "I have searched over the grounds of my belief, and if wife and child and name and fame were all to be lost to me one after another as the penalty, still I will not lie." One respects _that_. When George John Romanes turned his back for a while on the Christian faith, he wrote out of his agnosticism, "When at times I think, as think at times I must, of the appalling contrast between the hallowed glory of that creed which once was mine, and the lonely mystery of existence as now I find it--at such times I shall ever feel it impossible to avoid the sharpest pang of which my nature is susceptible." One respects _that_. But some discard religion from their life's adventure with no such serious understanding of the import of their denial. They are pert disbelievers. They toss faith facilely aside in a light mood. Such frivolous sceptics indict their own intelligence. Whoever discards religious faith should appoint a day of mourning for his soul, and put on sackcloth and ashes. He must take from his life the greatest thought that man the thinker ever had, the finest faith that man the worker ever leaned upon, the surest help that man the sinner ever found, the strongest reliance that man the sufferer ever trusted in, the loftiest vision that man the lover ever saw, and the only hope that man the mortal ever had. So he must deny his faith in God. Before one thus leaves himself bereft of the faith that makes life's adventure most worth while he well may do what Carlyle, under the figure of Teufelsdröckh, says that he did in his time of doubt: "In the silent night-watches, still darker in his heart than over sky and earth, he has cast himself before the All-seeing, and with audible prayers cried vehemently for Light." V If minimizing the importance of religious faith is unintelligent, so is avoiding some sort of decision about religious faith impossible. Most of those into whose hands these studies fall will grant readily faith's incalculable importance. Some, however, will be not helped but plunged into deeper trouble by their consent. For they feel themselves unable to decide about a matter which they acknowledge to be the most important in the world. Asked whether they believe in God, they would reply with one of Victor Hugo's characters, "Yes--No--Sometimes." They grant that to be steadily assured of God would be an invaluable boon, but for themselves, how can they balance the opposing arguments and find their way to confidence? All our studies are intended for the help of such, but at the beginning one urgent truth may well be plainly put. However undecided they may appear, men cannot altogether avoid decision on the main matters of religion. Life will not let them. For while the mind may hold itself suspended between alternatives, the adventure of life goes on, and men inevitably tend to live either as though the Christian God were real or as though he were not. Some questions allow a complete postponement of decision. As to which of several theories about the Northern Lights may be true, a man can hold his judgment in entire suspense. Life does not require from him any action that depends on what he thinks of the Aurora Borealis; and whether a man think one thing or another, no conceivable change would be the consequence in anything he said or did. But there is another kind of question, where, however much the mind may waver between opinions and may resolve on indecision, life itself compels decision. A man cannot really be agnostic and neutral on a question like the moral law of sexual purity, for, by an irrevocable necessity, he has to act one way or another. He may stop thinking, but he cannot stop living. With tremendous urgency the adventure of life insistently goes on, and it never pauses for any man to make up his mind on any question. Therefore while a man may theoretically suspend his judgment as to the requirements of the moral law, his life will be a loud, convincing advertisement to all who know him that he has vitally decided. _A man can avoid making up his mind, but he cannot avoid making up his life._ Quite as truly, though, it may be, not quite as obviously, religious questions belong to this second class. Not all questions that are called religious belong there. With fatal pettiness religious men have reduced the great faiths to technicalities and some beliefs called religious a man may hold or not, with utter indifference to anything he is or does. But on the basic attitudes of religion such as we have just rehearsed, a man cannot be completely neutral, no matter how he tries. Bernard Shaw's remark, "What a man believes may be ascertained not from his creed, but from the assumptions on which he habitually acts," should be taken to heart by any one trying to remain religiously neutral. For one cannot by any possibility avoid "assumptions on which he habitually acts." He tends to undertake social service either as confident cooperation with God's purpose or as an endeavor to make one corner of an unpurposed world as decent as possible. He tends to follow his ideals, either as the voice of God calling him upward, or as the work of natural selection, adjusting him to a temporary environment. He tends to face suffering either hopefully as a school of moral discipline, in a world presided over by a Father, or grimly as a hardship in which there is no meaning. He tends to face death either as the supreme adventure, full of boundless hope, or as a final exit that leads nowhere. He may never consciously formulate his ideas on any of these matters, he may maintain an intellectual agnosticism, genuine and complete, but his living subtly involves the confession of some faith. "A man's action," said Emerson, "is only the picture-book of his creed." And the more thoughtful he is, the more he will be aware of that unescapable tendency to confess in his living an inward faith about life. One practical result of this urgent truth is too frequently seen to be doubtful. _Those who in religion do not decide, thereby decide against religion._ Religious faith is a positive achievement, and he who does not deliberately choose it, loses it. A man who, rowing down Niagara River, debates within himself whether or not he will stop at Buffalo, and who cannot decide, thereby has decided. His irresolution has not for a moment interfered with the steady flow of the river, and if he but debate long enough concerning his stop at Buffalo, he will awake to discover that he has finally decided not to stop there. As much beyond the control of man's volition is the steady flow of life. It pauses for no man's indecision, and if one is irresolute about any positive, aspiring faith in any realm, his indecisiveness is decision of a most final sort. This, then, is the summary of the matter. Life is a great adventure in which faith is indispensable; in this adventure faith in God presents the issues of transcendent import; and on these issues life itself continuously compels decision. Our obligation is obvious--since willy-nilly the decision must be made--to make it consciously, to reach it by reason, not by chance, by thinking, not by drifting. If a man is to be irreligious, let him at least know why, and not slip into this estate, as most irreligious men do, by careless living and frivolous thought. If a man is to be religious, let him have reason for his choice; let his faith be founded not on credulity and chance, but on real experience and reasonable thought. So his faith shall be good not only for domestic consumption, but for export too--clear in his own mind and convincing to his friends. The forms of thought shift with the centuries and old situations cannot be repeated in detail, but one crisis in its essential meaning is perennial: "Elijah came near unto all the people, and said, How long go ye limping between the two sides? if Jehovah be God follow him; but if Baal then follow him" (I Kings 18:21). CHAPTER II Faith a Road to Truth DAILY READINGS Many minds are prevented from even a fair consideration of religious faith by prejudices which spring, not from reasoned argument, but from practical experience. They are biased before argument has begun; they _feel_ that faith means credulity, and that religious faith in particular is a surrender of reason. Before we positively present faith as an indispensable means of dealing with reality in any realm, let us, in the daily readings, consider some of the practical experiences and attitudes that thus prejudice men against religion. Second Week, First Day Many men are biased in advance by the _unwise treatment to which in their childhood they were subjected_. Paul pictures the home life of Timothy as ideal: =I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers in a pure conscience, how unceasing is my remembrance of thee in my supplications, night and day longing to see thee, remembering thy tears, that I may be filled with joy; having been reminded of the unfeigned faith that is in thee; which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and, I am persuaded, in thee also.--II Tim. 1:3-5.= "Unfeigned faith" is often thus a family heritage, handed down by vital contagion. But in many homes religion is not thus beautifully presented to the children; it is a hard and rigorous affair of dogma and restraint. "Oh, why," said a young professional man, whom Professor Coe quotes, "why did my parents try to equip me with a doctrinal system in childhood? I supposed that the whole system must be believed on pain of losing my religion altogether. And so, when I began to doubt some points, I felt obliged to throw all overboard. I have found my way back to positive religion, but by what a long and bitter struggle!" If, however, one has been so unfortunate as to be hardened in youth by unwise training, is it reasonable on that account forever to shut himself out from the most glorious experience of man? This complaint about mistreatment in youth is often an excuse, not a reason for irreligion. Says Phillips Brooks: "I have grown familiar to weariness with the self-excuse of men who say, 'Oh, if I had not had the terrors of the law so preached to me when I was a boy, if I had not been so confronted with the woes of hell and the awfulness of the judgment day, I should have been religious long ago.' My friends, I think I never hear a meaner or a falser speech than that. Men may believe it when they say it--I suppose they do--but it is not true. It is unmanly, I think. It is throwing on their teaching and their teachers, or their fathers and their mothers, the fault which belongs to their own neglect, because they have never taken up the earnest fight with sin and sought through every obstacle for truth and God. It has the essential vice of dogmatism about it, for it claims that a different _view_ of God would have done for them that which no view of God can do, that which must be done, _under any system, any teaching_, by humility and penitence and struggle and self-sacrifice. Without these no teaching saves the soul. With these, under any teaching, the soul must find its Father." _O Thou, who didst lay the foundations of the earth amid the singing of the morning stars and the joyful shouts of the sons of God, lift up our little life into Thy gladness. Out of Thee, as out of an overflowing fountain of Love, wells forth eternally a stream of blessing upon every creature Thou hast made. If we have thought that Thou didst call into being this universe in order to win praise and honor for Thyself, rebuke the vain fancies of our foolish minds and show us that Thy glory is the joy of giving. We can give Thee nothing of our own. All that we have is Thine. Oh, then, help us to glorify Thee by striving to be like Thee. Make us just and pure and good as Thou art. May we be partakers of the Divine Nature, so that all that is truly human in us may be deepened, purified, and strengthened. And so may we be witnesses for Thee, lights of the world, reflecting Thy light._ _Help us to make religion a thing so beautiful that all men may be won to surrender to its power. Let us manifest in our lives its sweetness and excellency, its free and ennobling spirit. Forbid that we should go up and down the world with melancholy looks and dejected visage, lest we should repel men from entering Thy Kingdom. Rather, may we walk in the freedom and joy of faith, and with Thy new song in our mouths, so that men looking on us may learn to trust and to love Thee. Amen._--Samuel McComb. Second Week, Second Day Many men are prejudiced against religion during their youthful _period of revolt against authority_. Listen to an ancient father talking with his sons: =Hear, my sons, the instruction of a father, And attend to know understanding: For I give you good doctrine; Forsake ye not my law. For I was a son unto my father, Tender and only beloved in the sight of my mother. And he taught me, and said unto me: Let thy heart retain my words; Keep my commandments, and live; Get wisdom, get understanding; Forget not, neither decline from the words of my mouth; Forsake her not, and she will preserve thee; Love her, and she will keep thee. Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom; Yea, with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her, and she will promote thee; She will bring thee to honor, when thou dost embrace her. She will give to thy head a chaplet of grace; A crown of beauty will she deliver to thee.= =--Prov. 4:1-9.= No father can read this urgent, anxious plea without understanding the reason for its solicitude. Every boy comes to the time when he breaks away from parental authority and begins to take his life into his own hands. It is one of youth's great crises, and the spirit of it is sometimes harsh and rebellious. So Carlyle describes his own experience: "Such transitions are ever full of pain: thus the Eagle when he moults is sickly; and, to attain his new beak, must harshly dash-off the old one upon rocks." For religious faith this period of life is always critical. Stevenson in his revolt, when he called respectability "the deadliest gag and wet-blanket that can be laid on man," also became, as he said, "a youthful atheist." How many have traveled that road and stopped in the negation! Stevenson did not stop, and years afterward wrote of his progress: "Because I have reached Paris, I am not ashamed of having passed through Newhaven and Dieppe." Surely if anyone has been "a youthful atheist," it was an experience to be "passed through." _O God, we turn to Thee in the faith that Thou dost understand and art very merciful. Some of us are not sure concerning Thee; not sure what Thou art; not sure that Thou art at all. Yet there is something at work behind our minds, in times of stillness we hear it, like a distant song; there is something in the sky at evening-time; something in the face of man. We feel that round our incompleteness flows Thy greatness, round our restlessness Thy rest. Yet this is not enough._ _We want a heart to speak to, a heart that understands; a friend to whom we can turn, a breast on which we may lean. O that we could find Thee! Yet could we ever think these things unless Thou hadst inspired us, could we ever want these things unless Thou Thyself wert very near?_ _Some of us know full well; but we are sore afraid. We dare not yield ourselves to Thee, for we fear what that might mean. Our foolish freedom, our feeble pleasures, our fatal self-indulgence suffice to hold us back from Thee, though Thou art our very life, and we so sick and needing Thee. Our freedom has proved false, our pleasures have long since lost their zest, our sins, oh how we hate them!_ _Come and deliver us, for we have lost all hope in ourselves. Amen._--W. E. Orchard. Second Week, Third Day Some men--often the precocious, clever ones--are biased against religion because _in youth they accepted an immature philosophy of life and have never changed it_. The crust forms too soon on some minds, and if it forms during the period of youthful revolt, they are definitely prejudiced against religious truth. The difference between such folk and the great believers is not that the believers had no doubts, but that they did not fix their final thought of life until more mature experience had come. They fulfilled the admonition of a wise father to keep up a tireless search for truth: =My son, if thou wilt receive my words, And lay up my commandments with thee; So as to incline thine ear unto wisdom, And apply thy heart to understanding; Yea, if thou cry after discernment, And lift up thy voice for understanding; If thou seek her as silver, And search for her as for hid treasures: Then shalt thou understand the fear of Jehovah, And find the knowledge of God.= =--Prov. 2:1-5.= Mrs. Charles Kingsley, for example, says of her husband that at twenty "He was full of religious doubts; and his face, with its unsatisfied, hungering, and at times defiant look, bore witness to the state of his mind." At twenty-one Kingsley himself wrote: "You believe that you have a sustaining Hand to guide you along that path, an Invisible Protection and an unerring Guide. I, alas! have no stay for my weary steps, but that same abused and stupefied reason which has stumbled and wandered, and betrayed me a thousand times ere now, and is every moment ready to faint and to give up the unequal struggle." If Kingsley had framed his final philosophy then, what a loss to the world of an inspiring life transfigured by Christian faith! He cried after discernment, lifted up his voice for understanding, and he found the knowledge of God. Many a man ought to revise in the light of mature experience and thought a hasty irreligious guess at life's meaning which he made in youth. _O Father, we turn to Thee because we are sore vexed with our own thoughts. Our minds plague us with questionings we cannot answer; we are driven to voyage on strange seas of thought alone. Dost Thou disturb our minds with endless questioning, yet keep the answers hidden in Thy heart, so that away from Thee we should always be perplexed, and by thoughts derived from Thee be ever drawn to Thee? Surely, our God, it must be so._ _But still more bitter and humbling, O Father, is our experience of failure, so frequent, tragic, and unpardonable. We have struggled on in vain, resolves are broken ere they pass our lips; we can see no hope of better things, we can never forgive ourselves; and after all our prayers our need remains and our sense of coming short but deepens. Yet, at least we know that we have failed, and how, if something higher than ourselves were not at work within?_ _Our desperate desires have driven us at last to Thee, conscious now, after all vain effort, that it is Thyself alone can satisfy, and now at peace to know that Thou it is who art desired, because Thou it is who dost desire within us. Beyond our need reveal Thyself, its cause and cure; in all desire teach us to discern Thy drawing near. Amen._--W. E. Orchard. Second Week, Fourth Day Men are often prejudiced against religion because _the churches which they happened to attend in youth urged on them an irrational faith_. Some men never recover from the idea that all religion everywhere must always be the same kind of religion against which in youth their good sense rose in revolt; they are in perpetual rebellion against religion as it was when they broke with it a generation ago. But if one thing more than another grows, expands, becomes in the intelligent and pure increasingly pure and intelligent, it is religion. Consider an early Hebrew idea of God: =And it came to pass on the way at the lodging-place, that Jehovah met him, and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah took a flint, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet; and she said, Surely a bridegroom of blood art thou to me. So he let him alone. Then she said, A bridegroom of blood art thou, because of the circumcision.--Exodus 4:24-26.= Over against so abhorrent a picture of a deity who would have committed murder, had not a mother swiftly circumcised her son, consider a later thought of God: =How think ye? if any man have a hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and go unto the mountains, and seek that which goeth astray? And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth over it more than over the ninety and nine which have not gone astray. Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.--Matt. 18:12-14.= So religion grows with man's capacity to receive higher, finer revelations of the divine. And in no age of the world has so great a change passed over the intellectual framework of faith as in the generation just gone. To live in protest against forms of belief a generation old is fighting men of straw; the vanguard of religious thought and life has pushed ahead many a mile beyond the point of such attack. Men who threw away the living water of the Gospel because they disliked the water-buckets in which their boyhood churches presented it, are living spiritually thirsty lives when there is no reasonable need of their doing so. There is many an unbeliever with a "God-shaped blank" in his heart, who could be a confident and joyful believer if he only knew what religion means to men of faith today. _O God, who hast formed all hearts to love Thee, made all ways to lead to Thy face, created all desire to be unsatisfied save in Thee; with great compassion look upon us gathered here. Our presence is our prayer, our need the only plea we dare to claim, Thy purposes the one assurance we possess._ _Some of us are very confused; we do not know why we were ever born, for what end we should live, which way we should take. But we are willing to be guided. Take our trembling hands in Thine, and lead us on._ _Some of us are sore within. We long for love and friendship, but we care for no one and we feel that no one cares for us. We are misunderstood, we are lonely, we have been disappointed, we have lost our faith in man and our faith in life. Wilt Thou not let us love Thee who first loved us?_ _Some of us are vexed with passions that affright us; to yield to them would mean disaster, to restrain them is beyond our power, and nothing earth contains exhausts their vehemence or satisfies their fierce desire._ _And so because there is no answer, no end or satisfaction in ourselves; and because we are what we are, and yet long to be so different; we believe Thou art, and that Thou dost understand us. By faith we feel after Thee, through love we find the way, in hope we bring ourselves to Thee. Amen._--W. E. Orchard. Second Week, Fifth Day Many minds are prejudiced against religion because, having gone so far as to feel the credulity of religious belief, they have never gone further and _seen the credulity of religious unbelief_. Irreligion implies a creed just as surely as religion does; and many a man's return to faith has begun when his faculties of doubt, which hitherto had been used only against belief in God, became active against belief in no-God. Mr. Gilbert Chesterton, with his characteristic vividness and exaggeration, narrates such an experience: "I never read a line of Christian apologetics. I read as little as I can of them now. It was Huxley and Herbert Spencer and Bradlaugh who brought me back to orthodox theology. They sowed in my mind my first wild doubts of doubt. Our grandmothers were quite right when they said that Tom Paine and the free-thinkers unsettled the mind. They do. They unsettled mine horribly. The rationalist made me question whether reason was of any use whatever; and when I had finished Herbert Spencer I had got as far as doubting (for the first time) whether evolution had occurred at all. As I laid down the last of Colonel Ingersoll's atheistic lectures the dreadful thought broke across my mind, 'Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.' I was in a desperate way." Lest Mr. Chesterton's whimsicality may hide the seriousness of such an experience, we may add that Robert Louis Stevenson's first break with his "youthful atheism" came when, under the influence of Professor Fleeming Jenkin, he too began to have his "first wild doubts of doubt." He began thinking, as he says, that "certainly the church was not right, but certainly not the anti-church either." Many a man has played unfairly with his doubts; he has used them against religion, but not against irreligion. When he is thorough with his doubts he may join the many who understand what the apostle meant when he wrote to Timothy: =O Timothy, guard that which is committed unto thee, turning away from the profane babblings and oppositions of the knowledge which is falsely so called; which some professing have erred concerning the faith.= =Grace be with you.--1 Tim. 6:20, 21.= _O God, too near to be found, too simple to be conceived, too good to be believed; help us to trust, not in our knowledge of Thee, but in Thy knowledge of us; to be certain of Thee, not because we feel our thoughts of Thee are true, but because we know how far Thou dost transcend them. May we not be anxious to discern Thy will, but content only with desire to do it; may we not strain our minds to understand Thy nature, but yield ourselves and live our lives only to express Thee._ _Shew us how foolish it is to doubt Thee, since Thou Thyself dost set the questions which disturb us; reveal our unbelief to be faith fretting at its outworn form. Be gracious when we are tempted to cease from moral strife: reveal what it is that struggles in us. Before we tire of mental search enable us to see that it was not ourselves but Thy call which stirred our souls._ _Turn us back from our voyages of thought to that which sent us forth. Teach us to trust not to cleverness or learning, but to that inward faith which can never be denied. Lead us out of confusion to simplicity. Call us back from wandering without to find Thee at home within. Amen._--W. E. Orchard. Second Week, Sixth Day Many men are biased in favor of their habitual doubt because they do not see that _positive faith is the only normal estate of man_. We live not by the things of which we are uncertain, but by the things which we verily believe. Columbus doubted many of the old views in geography, but these negations did not make him great; his greatness sprang from the positive beliefs which he confidently held and on which he launched his splendid adventure. Goethe is right when he makes Mephistopheles, his devil, say, "I am the spirit of negation," for negation, save as it paves the way for positive conviction, always bedevils life. The psalmist reveals the ideal experience for every doubter. First, _uncertainty_: =But as for me, my feet were almost gone; My steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at the arrogant, When I saw the prosperity of the wicked.= =--Psalm 73:2, 3.= Then _vision_: =When I thought how I might know this, It was too painful for me; Until I went into the sanctuary of God, And considered their latter end.= =--Psalm 73:16, 17.= Then, _positive assurance_: =Thou wilt guide me with thy counsel, And afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.= =--Psalm 73:24-26.= Doubt, therefore, does have real value in life; it clears away rubbish and stimulates search for truth; but it has no value unless it is finally swallowed up in positive assurance. So Tennyson pictures the experience of his friend, Arthur Hallam: "One indeed I knew In many a subtle question versed, Who touch'd a jarring lyre at first, But ever strove to make it true: Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds, At last he beat his music out. There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds. He fought his doubts and gather'd strength, He would not make his judgment blind, He faced the spectres of the mind And laid them: thus he came at length To find a stronger faith his own." _O Most Merciful, whose love to us is mighty, long-suffering, and infinitely tender; lead us beyond all idols and imaginations of our minds to contact with Thee the real and abiding; past all barriers of fear and beyond all paralysis of failure to that furnace of flaming purity where falsehood, sin, and cowardice are all consumed away. It may be that we know not what we ask; yet we dare not ask for less._ _Our aspirations are hindered because we do not know ourselves. We have tried to slake our burning thirst at broken cisterns, to comfort the crying of our spirits with baubles and trinkets, to assuage the pain of our deep unrest by drugging an accusing conscience, believing a lie, and veiling the naked flame that burns within. But now we know Thou makest us never to be content with aught save Thyself, in earth, or heaven, or hell._ _Sometimes we have sought Thee in agony and tears, scanned the clouds and watched the ways of men, considered the stars and studied the moral law; and returned from all our search no surer and no nearer. Yet now we know that the impulse to seek Thee came from Thyself alone, and what we sought for was the image Thou hadst first planted in our hearts._ _We may not yet hold Thee fast or feel Thee near, but we know Thou holdest us. All is well. Amen._--W. E. Orchard. Second Week, Seventh Day Men are often prejudiced against religion or any serious consideration of it, because they _never have felt any vital need of God_. To study wireless telegraphy in the safe seclusion of a college laboratory is one thing; to hear the wireless apparatus on a floundering ship send out its call for help across a stormy sea is quite a different matter. Many folk have never thought of faith in God save with a mild, intellectual curiosity; they do not know those deep experiences of serious souls with sin and sorrow and anxiety, with burden for great causes and desire for triumphant righteousness in men and nations--experiences that throw men back on God as their only sufficient refuge and hope. _Men never really find God until they need him_; and some men never feel the need of him until life plunges them into a shattering experience. Even in scientific research new discoveries are made because men _want_ them, and Mayer, lighting on a theory that proved to be of great value, says, "Engaged during a sea voyage almost exclusively with the study of physiology, I discovered the new theory, for the sufficient reason that I _vividly felt the need of it_." How much more must the vital discovery of God depend on life's conscious demand for him! And how certainly a shallow, frivolous nature, unstirred by the deep concerns of life, is biased against any serious interest in religious faith! Great believers have first of all _thirsted_ for God. =Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labor for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto me; hear, and your soul shall live: and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.... Seek ye Jehovah while he may be found; call ye upon him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto Jehovah, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.--Isa. 55:1-3, 6, 7.= _Grant unto us, we pray Thee, the lost hunger and thirst after righteousness--the longing for God. Grant unto us that drawing power by which everything that is in us shall call out for Thee. Become necessary unto us. With the morning and evening light, at noon and at midnight, may we feel the need of Thy companionship.... Though Thou dost not speak as man speaks, yet Thou canst call out to us; and the soul shall know Thy presence, and shall understand by its own self what Thou meanest. Grant unto us this witness of the Spirit, this communion of the soul with Thee--and not only once or twice: may we abide in the light._ _Thou hast come unto Thine own; and even as of old, Thine own know Thee not, and believe Thee not. How many are there that have learned Thy name upon their mother's knee, but have forgotten it! How many are there that grew up into the happiness of a childhood in which piety presided, but have gone away, and have not come back again to their first love and to their early faith! How many are there marching on now in the Sahara of indifference and in the wilderness of unbelief!... Lord, look upon them; have merciful thoughts toward them, and issue those gracious influences of power by which what is best in them shall lift itself up and bear witness against that which is worst. Amen._--Henry Ward Beecher. COMMENT FOR THE WEEK I We are to deal in this chapter with one of the most common experiences of doubt and are to attempt the statement of a truth useful in meeting it. Many minds are undone at the first symptoms of religious uncertainty, because they suppose that their doubt is philosophical, and they feel a paralyzing inability to deal with philosophy at all. As men have been known to take to their beds at hearing the scientific names of illnesses which hitherto they had patiently endured, so minds are sometimes overwhelmed by an unsettlement of faith that takes the name of philosophic doubt. It is well, then, early in our study, to note the homely, familiar experience, which in most cases underlies and helps to explain the problem of theological unrest. We all began, as children, with an unlimited ability to believe what we were told. We were credulous long before we became critical. God and Santa Claus, fairy stories and life after death--in what beautiful, unquestioning confusion we received them all! Our thinking was altogether imitative, as our talking was. From the existence of Kamchatka to the opinion that it was wrong to lie, we had no independent knowledge of our own. Reliance on authority was our only road to truth. One prescription was adequate for every need of information: ask our parents and be told. This situation was the occasion of our first unsettlement of faith: we discovered the fallibility of our parents. They failed to tell us what we asked, or we found to be untrue what they had said, or they themselves confessed how much they did not know. To some this was a shock, the memory of which has never been forgotten. Edmund Gosse, the literary critic, tells us that up to his sixth year he thought that his father knew everything. Then came the fateful crisis when his father wrongly reported an incident which Edmund himself had witnessed. "Nothing could possibly have been more trifling to my parents," he writes, "but to me it meant an epoch. Here was the appalling discovery never suspected before that my father was not as God and did not know everything. The shock was not caused by any suspicion that he was not telling the truth, as it appeared to him, but by the awful proof that he was not, as I had supposed, omniscient." By most of us, however, the transfer of our faith from our parents' authority to some other basis of belief was easily accomplished. We found ourselves resting back on the priest or the church or the creed or the Bible. Still our convictions were not independently our own; we had never fought for them or thought them through; they were founded on the say-so of authority. What we wished to know we asked another, and what was told us we implicitly believed. The time inevitably comes, however, to a normally developing mind, when such an attitude of unquestioning credulity becomes impossible. The curious "Why?" of the growing child, that began in early years to besiege all statements of fact, now ranges out to call in question the propositions of religious faith. For long-accepted truths, from the rotundity of the earth to the existence of God, the enlarging intellect wants reasons rather than dogmas. So normal is this period of interrogation that it is regularly slated on the timetables of psychological development. Starbuck fixes the average age of the doubt period at about eighteen years for boys and about fifteen for girls. At whatever time and in whatever special form this period of doubt arises, the characteristic quality of its outcome is easily described. In the end the fully awakened mind is ill content to accept any authoritative statements that he dare not question or deny. He resents having a quotation from any source waved like a revolver in his face with the demand that he throw up his intellectual hands. No more in religion than in politics does he incline to stand before infallibility, like the French peasants before Louis XI, saying, "Sire, what are our opinions?" He claims his right to question everything, to make every truth advance and give the countersign of reasonableness, to weigh all propositions in the scales of his own thinking, and if he is to love the Lord his God at all, to do it, not with all his credulity, but, as Jesus said, with all his mind. Biography reveals how many of the great believers have passed through this youthful period of rebellion against accepted tradition and have suffered serious religious unsettlement in the process. Robert Browning tells us that as a boy he was "passionately religious." When his period of questioning and revolt arrived, however, it carried him so far that he was publicly rebuked in church for intentional misbehavior, and in his sixteenth year, under the influence of Shelley's "Queen Mab," he declared himself an atheist. But in his "Pauline," written when he was twenty-one, the direction in which his quest was leading him was plain: "I have always had one lode-star; now As I look back, I see that I have halted Or hastened as I looked towards that star-- A need, a trust, a yearning after God." And when he grew to his maturity, had left his early credulousness with the revolt that followed it far behind and had used his independent thinking to productive purpose, from what a height of splendid faith did he look back upon that youthful period of storm and stress which he called "the passionate, impatient struggles of a boy toward truth and love"! Henry Ward Beecher's intellectual revolution was postponed until he had entered the theological seminary. "I was then twenty years old," he writes, "and there came a great revulsion in me from all this inchoate, unregulated, undirected experience. My mind took one tremendous spring over into scepticism, and I said: 'I have been a fool long enough--I will not stir one step further than I can see my way, and I will not stand a moment where I cannot see the truth. I will have something that is sure and steadfast.' Having taken that ground, I was in that state of mind for the larger part of two years." A wholesome restraint upon the wild perversions, the anarchic denials, the abysmal despairs of this period of life is the clear recognition that in some form it is one of the commonest experiences of man. II The treatment accorded to a youth who is passing through this difficult adjustment often determines, in a fine or lamentable way, his subsequent attitude towards religion. _Negative repression of real questions is of all methods the most fatal, whether it be practiced on the youth by others or by the youth upon himself._ "I have not been in church for twenty years," said a college graduate. "Why?" was the inquiry. "Because in college I learned from geology through how many ages this earth was slowly being built. Troubled by the conflict between this new knowledge and my early training, I went to my minister. He said that the Bible told us the earth was made in six days and that I must accept that on faith. That's why." Thousands of men are religious wrecks today because, when the issue was raised in their thinking between their desire for a reason and their traditional beliefs, they were told that to ask a reason is sin. George Eliot's experience unhappily is not unique. Just when in girlhood her mind was waking to independent thought, a book now long unread, Hennell's "Inquiry Concerning the Origin of Christianity," convinced her immature judgment that her early credulity had been blind. No one was at hand to state the faith in a reasonable way or to meet, not by denying but by using her right to think, the attacks of Hennell, which now are forgotten in their futility. She never came through her youthful unsettlement. Years after, F. W. H. Myers wrote: "I remember how at Cambridge I walked with her once in the Fellows' Garden of Trinity, on an evening of rainy May, and she, stirred somewhat beyond her wont, and taking as her text the three words which have been used so often as the inspiring trumpet calls of men--the words God, Immortality, Duty--pronounced with terrible earnestness, how inconceivable was the first, how unbelievable was the second, and how peremptory and absolute the third. Never, perhaps, had sterner accents affirmed the sovereignty of impersonal and unrecompensing law. I listened and night fell; her grave, majestic countenance turned toward me like a Sibyl's in the gloom; it was as though she withdrew from my grasp one by one the two scrolls of promise, and left me the third scroll only, awful with inevitable fate." In this period of readjustment, whether one is the youth in the midst of the struggle or the solicitous friend endeavoring to help, one most needs a clear perception of the ideal outcome of such intellectual unrest. Let us attempt a picture of that ideal. The youth who long has taken on his parents' say-so the most important convictions that the soul can hold, or who, with no care to think or question for himself, has looked to Book or Church for all that he believed about God, now feels within him that intellectual awakening that cannot be quieted by mere authority. He long has taken his truth preserved by others' hands; now he desires to pick it for himself, fresh from the living tree of knowledge. His declaration of independence from subjection to his parents or his Church is not at first irreverent desire to disbelieve; it is rather desire to enter into the Samaritans' experience when they said to the woman who first had told them about Jesus: "Now we believe, not because of _thy_ speaking; for we have _heard for ourselves_, and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world" (John 4:41). The youth turns from second-hand rehearsal of the truth to seek a first-hand, original acquaintance with it. As he began in utter financial dependence on his father, then made a bit of spending money of his own, and at last moved out to make his living, ashamed to be a pensioner and parasite when he should be carrying himself, so from his old, intellectual dependence the youth passes to a fine responsibility for his own thinking and belief. He knows that such transitions, whether financial or intellectual, generally mean stress and perplexity, but if he is to be a man the youth must venture. In this transition beliefs will certainly be modified. Not only do forms of religious thinking shift and change with the passing generations, but individuals differ in their powers to see and understand. Religious faith, like water, takes shape from the receptacles into whose unique nooks and crannies it is poured. If the truth which the youth possesses is to be indeed his own, it will surely differ from the truth which once he learned, by as much as his mind and his experience differ from his father's. Even in the New Testament one can easily distinguish James' thought from Paul's and John's from Peter's. But change of form need not mean loss of value. To pass by fine gradations from unquestioning credulity to thoughtful faith is not impossible. Thus a boy learns to swim with his father's hands beneath him and passes so gradually from reliance upon another to independent power to swim alone that he cannot tell when first the old support was quietly withdrawn. Thus ideally pictured, this transition is nothing to be feared; it is one of life's steps to spiritual power. This period of questioning and venture we have called the passage from credulity to independence, but its significance is deeper than those words imply. _It is the passage from hearsay to reality._ Of all inward intimate experiences, religion reaches deepest and is least transferable. It is as incommunicable as friendship. A father may commend a comrade to his son and lay bare his own deep friendship with the man, but if the son himself does not see the value there nor for himself in loyalty and love make self surrender, the father can do nothing more. Friendship cannot be carried on by proxy. One can as easily breathe for another as in another's place be loyal to a friend or trust in God. When, therefore, the youth moves out from mere dependence on his father, his Bible, or his Church to see and know God in his own right, he is fulfilling the end of all religion. _For this his father taught him, for this the Book was written and the Church was founded._ As George Macdonald put it, "Each generation must do its own seeking and finding. The father's having found is only the warrant for the children's search." Said Goethe: "What you have inherited from your fathers you must earn for yourself before you can call it yours." This individual experience makes religion real, and the "awkward age" of the spirit when the old security of credulous belief has gone and the new assurance of personal conviction has not yet fully come, is a small price to pay for the sense of reality that enters into religion when a man for himself knows God. Such is the ideal transition from credulity to independence, from hearsay to reality. III One fallacy which disastrously affects many endeavors after this ideal transition is the prejudice that, since faith has hitherto in the youth's experience meant credulous acceptance of another's say-so, faith always must mean that. Faith and credulity appear to him identical. In "Alice through the Looking Glass" the Queen asserts that she is a hundred and one years, five months, and one day old. "I can't believe that," said Alice. "Can't you?" said the Queen. "Try again, draw a long breath and shut your eyes." So blind, irrational, and wilful does faith seem to many! So far from being an essential part of all real knowledge, therefore, faith seems to stand in direct contrast with knowledge, and this impression is deepened by our common phraseology. Tennyson, for example, sings: "We have but faith: we cannot know; For knowledge is of things we see." Before there can be any profitable discussion of religious belief, therefore, we need to see that faith is one of the chief ways in which continually we deal with reality; it is a road to truth, without which some truth never can be reached at all. The reason for its inevitableness in life is not our lack of knowledge, but rather that faith is as indispensable as logical demonstration in any real knowing of the world. Behind all other words to be said about our subject lies this fundamental matter: _faith is not a substitute for truth, but a pathway to truth; there are realities which without it never can be known_. For one thing, no one can know _persons_ without faith. The world of people, without whom if a man could live, he would be, as Aristotle said, either a brute or a god, is closed in its inner meaning to a faithless mind. Entrance into another life with insight and understanding is always a venture of trust. We cry vainly like Cassim before the magic cave, "Open, Barley," if we try to penetrate the secrets of a human personality without sympathy, loyalty, faith. These alone cry "Open, Sesame." Surely this knowledge of persons, impossible without faith, is as important as any which we possess. While the physical universe furnishes the general background of our existence, the immediate world in which we really live is personal, made up of people whom we fear or love, by whom we are cheered, admonished, hurt, and comforted. "The world is so waste and empty," cried Goethe, "when we figure but towns and hills and rivers in it, but to know that someone is living on it with us, even in silence--this makes our earthly ball a peopled garden." A solitary Robinson Crusoe would give up any other knowledge, if in return he could know even a benighted savage like Friday. But even a savage cannot be known by logical demonstration. Crusoe could so have learned some things, but when he wanted to know Friday, he came by way of adventures in confidence, personal trust and self-commitment, growing reliance and appreciative insight, assured loyalty and faith. He _knew_ whom he had _believed_. Moreover, such knowledge of persons is as solid as it is important. That two plus two make four cannot be gainsaid, and doubtless no other kinds of information can be quite so absolute as mathematical theorems. But when one thinks of a comrade, long loved and trusted until he is known through and through, for practical purposes one can think of nothing more stable than his knowledge of his friend. The plain fact is that we _do_ know people, know them well, and that this knowledge never has been or can be a matter of logical demonstration. By taking Arthur Hallam to pieces and analyzing him, the inductive mind might work out all the laws that are involved in Arthur Hallam's constitution; but that mind with all its knowledge would not know Arthur Hallam. Tennyson's "In Memoriam," however, makes clear that knowledge of a friend is not interdicted because scientific demonstration cannot supply it. Tennyson knew Hallam well, and this knowledge, far more solid and significant than most other information he possessed, was not achieved by grinding laws out of facts; it came, as all such knowledge comes, by faith. As one considers what this understanding of the personal world, seen with the open eyes of trust and loyalty, means to us, how assured it is, how it enriches and deepens life, he perceives that here at least faith is something far more than a stop-gap for ignorance, a dream, a fantasy. It is positively a pathway to truth. There is another realm where faith is our only way of dealing with reality; by it alone can we know _the possibilities of individuals and of society_. We are well assured now in the United States that the nation can be economically prosperous without slavery. But sixty years ago plenty of people were assured of the contrary, were convinced that if the abolitionists succeeded we could not economically endure. How did we come by this significant knowledge that the immoral system was dispensable? Not by logical demonstration. The economists of most of our universities logically demonstrated that slavery was essential. _Faith was the pathway to the truth._ Faith that a new order minus slavery was possible gained adherents, grew in certainty with access of new believers, fed its followers on hopes unrealized but passionately believed in, until _faith became experiment, and experiment became experience, and experience brought forth knowledge_. The nation trusted and tried. This is the only way to truth in the realm of moral possibilities. If the world were finished, its _i's_ all dotted and its _t's_ all crossed, we might exist on that sort of descriptive science that finds the facts and plots their laws. But the world is in the making; what is _actual_ is not quite so important to us as what is _possible_; we live, as Wordsworth sings, in "Hope that can never die, Effort and expectation and desire, And something evermore about to be." To endeavor to satisfy man, therefore, with descriptions of the actual is preposterous. The innermost meaning of personal and social life lies in the contrast between what we are and what we may become. Beyond the achieved present and the demonstrable future, stands the ideal, whose possibility we can never know as a truth without faith enough to try. When, therefore, one hears disparagement of faith as a poor makeshift for knowledge, he may be pardoned a sharp rejoinder. When has man ever found solid knowledge in this most important realm of human possibilities, without faith as the pioneer? We do not know first and then supply by belief what knowledge lacks. _We believe first, as Columbus did, and then find new continents because what faith first suggested a great venture has confirmed._ When Stephenson proposed to run a steam car forty miles an hour, a host of wise-acres proved the feat impossible on the ground that no one could move through the air so rapidly and still survive. If now we know that one easily survives a speed of over a hundred miles an hour in an aeroplane, it is because a faith that _saw_ and _dared_ introduced us to the information. We know now that democracy is not a futile dream, nor the conquest of the air by wireless and of the land by electricity a madman's frenzy; we know truths of highest import and certainty from the usefulness of radium to the wisdom of religious liberty, and all this knowledge existed as belief in possibility before it became truth in fact. Faith was "assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). Faith is no makeshift. Its power is nowhere felt more effectively than in the achievement of knowledge. IV So far is faith, then, from being blind credulity, that it alone deserves to be called the Great Discoverer. Everywhere faith goes before as a pioneer and the more prosaic faculties of the mind come after to civilize the newly opened territory. In the evolution of the senses touch developed first. All the knowledge that any creature had, concerned the tangible. But in time other senses came. Dimly and uncertainly creatures discerned by hearing and seeing the existence of distant objects. They became aware of presences which as yet they could not touch; they were furnished with clues, in following which they found as real what at first had been intangible. Such a relation faith bears to knowledge. Faith, said Clement of Alexandria, is the "ear of the soul." Said Ruskin, faith is "veracity of insight." By it we hear what as yet we cannot touch and see what the arms of our logic are not long enough to reach. All the elemental, primary facts of life are faith's discoveries; we have no other means of finding them. By faith we discover our _selves_. We do not hold back from living until we can prove that we exist. We never can strictly prove that we exist. The very self that we are trying to demonstrate would have to be used in the demonstration. We have no other way of getting at ourselves except to take ourselves for granted--accepting "This main miracle that you are you, With power on your own act and on the world." As Mr. Chesterton remarked, "You cannot call up any wilder vision than a city in which men ask themselves if they have any selves." By faith all men go out to live as though their selves were real. By faith we accept the existence of the _outer world_. We do not restrain ourselves from acting as though the physical world were really there, until we can prove it. We never can strictly prove it; perhaps it is not there at all. When through a microscope an Indian was shown germs in the Ganges' water, to convince him of the peril of its use, he broke the instrument with his cane, as though when the microscope was gone, the facts had vanished too. In his philosophy all that we see is illusion. Perhaps this is true--the world a phantasm and our minds fooling us. But none of us believes it. And we do not believe it because we live by faith--the elemental faith on which all common sense and science rest and without which man's thought and work would halt--that our senses and our minds tell us the truth. "It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. _Reason itself is a matter of faith._ It is an act of faith to assert that one's thoughts have any relation to reality at all." By faith we even discover the _universe_. We cannot think of the world as a multiverse; we always think of it as having unity, and we do so whether as scientists we talk about the uniformity of nature, or as Christians we speak of one Creator. Not only, however, can no one demonstrate that this is a universe; _it positively does not look as though it were_. Opposing powers snarl at each other and clash in a disorder that gives to the casual observer not the slightest intimation that any unity is there. Thunder storms and little babies, volcanoes and Easter lilies, immeasurable nebulæ in the heavens and people getting married on the earth--what indescribable contrasts and confusions! Still we insist on thinking unity into this seeming anomaly, and out of it we wrest scientific doctrines about the uniformity of law. As Professor James, of Harvard, put it, "The principle of uniformity in nature has to be _sought_ under and in spite of the most rebellious appearances; and our conviction of its truth is far more like religious faith than like assent to a demonstration." One might suppose that beliefs so assumed and so incapable of adequate demonstration would make the knowledge based upon them insecure. _But the fact is that all our surest knowledge is thus based on assumptions that we cannot prove._ "As for the strong conviction," Huxley says, "that the cosmic order is rational, and the faith that throughout all duration, unbroken order has reigned in the universe, I not only accept it, but I am disposed to think it the most important of all truths." Faith then, in Huxley's thought, is not a makeshift when knowledge fails. Rather by faith we continually are getting at the most important realities with which we deal. As Prof. Ladd, of Yale, impatiently exclaims: "The rankest agnostic is shot through and through with all the same fundamental intellectual beliefs, all the same unescapable rational faiths, about the reality of the self and about the validity of its knowledge. You cannot save science and destroy all faith. You cannot sit on the limb of the tree while you tear it up by the roots." V If faith is thus the pioneer that leads us to knowledge of persons and of moral possibilities; if by faith we discover our selves, the outer world's existence and its unity, why should we be surprised that faith is our road to God? Superficial deniers of religion not infrequently seek the discredit of a Christian's trust by saying that God is only a matter of faith. To which the Christian confidently may answer: Of course God is a matter of faith. Faith is always the Great Discoverer. A man finds God as he finds an earthly friend. He does not go apart in academic solitude to consider the logical rationality of friendship, until, intellectually convinced, he coolly arms himself with a Q. E. D. and goes out to hunt a comrade. Friendship is never an adventure of logic; it is an adventure of life. It is arrived at by what Emerson called the "untaught sallies of the spirit." We fall in love, it may be with precipitant emotion; our instincts and our wills are first engaged; the whole personality rises up in hunger to claim the affection that it needs and without which life seems unsupportable; faith, hope, and love engage in a glorious venture, where logic plays a minor part. But to make friendship rational, to give it poise, to trace its origins and laws, to clarify, chasten, and direct--this is the necessary work of thought. Faith discovers and reveals; reason furnishes criticism, confirmation, and discipline. So men find God. They are hungry for him not in intellect alone, but with all their powers. They feel with Tolstoi: "I remembered that I only _lived_ at those times when I believed in God." They need him to put sense and worth and hope into life. As with the reality of persons, the validity of knowledge, the unity of the world, so in religion the whole man rises up to claim the truth without which life is barren, meaningless. His best convictions at the first are all of them insights of the spirit, affirmations of the _man_. But behind, around and through them all play clarifying thoughts, and reasons come to discipline and to confirm. But the reasons by themselves could not have found God. Faith is the Great Discoverer. "Oh! world, thou choosest not the better part, It is not wisdom to be only wise, And on the inward vision close the eyes; But it is wisdom to believe the heart. Columbus found a world and had no chart Save one that Faith deciphered in the skies; To trust the soul's invincible surmise Was all his science and his only art. Our knowledge is a torch of smoky pine That lights the pathway but one step ahead Across the void of mystery and dread. Bid then the tender light of Faith to shine By which alone the mortal heart is led Into the thinking of the thought Divine."[1] [1] Professor Santayana, of Harvard. CHAPTER III Faith in the Personal God DAILY READINGS We are to consider this week the Christian faith that God is personal. Before, however, we deal with the arguments which may confirm our confidence in such a faith, or even with the explanations that may clarify our conception of its meaning, let us, in the daily readings, consider _some of the familiar attitudes in every normal human life, that require God's personality for their fulfilment_. Men have believed in a personal God because their own nature demanded it. Third Week, First Day Men have believed in a personal God because of a _deep desire to think of creation as friendly_. F. W. Myers, when asked what question he would put to the Sphinx, if he were given only one chance, replied that he would ask, "Is the universe friendly?" Some have tried to think of creation as an enemy which we must fight, as though in Greenland we strove to make verdure grow, although the soil and climate were antagonistic. Some have tried to think creation neutral, an impersonal system of laws and forces, which we must impose our will upon as best we can, although in the end the system is sure to outlast all our efforts and to bring our gains to naught. But at the heart of man is an irresistible desire to think creation a friend, with whose good purposes our wills can be aligned, and whose power can carry our efforts to victorious ends. Says Gilbert Murray, of Oxford University, "As I see philosophy after philosophy falling into this unproven belief in the Friend behind phenomena, as I find that I myself cannot, except for a moment and by an effort, refrain from making the same assumption, it seems to me that perhaps here too we are under the spell of a very old ineradicable instinct." _But friends are always persons, and if creation is friendly then God is in some sense personal._ This faith is the radiant center of the Gospel. =But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thine inner chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father who is in secret, and thy Father who seeth in secret shall recompense thee. And in praying use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.--Matt. 6:6-14.= _O Lord, we would rest in Thee, for in Thee alone is true rest to be found. We would forget our disappointed hopes, our fruitless efforts, our trivial aims, and lean on Thee, our Comfort and our Strength. When the order of this world bears cruelly upon us; when Nature seems to us an awful machine, grinding out life and death, without a reason or a purpose; when our hopes perish in the grave where we lay to rest our loved dead: O what can we do but turn to Thee, whose law underlieth all, and whose love, we trust, is the end of all? Thou fillest all things with Thy presence, and dost press close to our souls. Still every passion, rebuke every doubt, strengthen every element of good within us, that nothing may hinder the outflow of Thy life and power. In Thee, let the weak be full of might, and let the strong renew their strength. In Thee, let the tempted find succor, the sorrowing consolation, and the lonely and the neglected their Supreme Friend, their faithful Companion._ _O Lord, we are weary of our old, barren selves. Separate us from our spiritual past, and quicken within us the seeds of a new future. Transform us by the breath of Thy regenerating power, that life may seem supremely beautiful and duty our highest privilege, and the only real evil a guilty conscience. Let us be no longer sad, or downcast, or miserable, or despairing, vexed by remorse, or depressed by our failures. Take from us the old self. Give us a new self, beautiful, vigorous, and joyous. Let old things pass away and let all things become new. Kindle within us a flame of heavenly devotion, so that to us work for Thee shall become a happiness, and rest in Thee shall become an energy, unchecked by fears within and foes without. Give us love, and then we shall have more than all we need, for Thou art Love, Thyself the Giver and the Gift. Amen._--Samuel McComb. Third Week, Second Day =Bless Jehovah, O my soul; And all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless Jehovah, O my soul, And forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; Who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; Who satisfieth thy desire with good things, So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle.= =--Psalm 103:1-5.= Such an attitude of thankfulness as this psalm represents is native to man's heart. When he is glad he feels grateful: he has an irrepressible impulse to thank somebody. As between a boastful Nebuchadnezzar--"This great Babylon which I have built ... by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty" (Dan. 4:30)--and the Master, grateful for the dawning success of his cause--"I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth" (Matt. 11:25)--we can have no doubt which is the nobler attitude. Man at his best always looks upon his blessings as gifts, his powers as entrustments, his service as a debt which he owes, and his success as an occasion of gratitude rather than pride. _But we cannot be really thankful to impersonal power._ Little children blame chairs for their falls and thank apple trees for their apples, but maturity outgrows the folly of accusing or blessing impersonal things. Thankfulness, in any worthy interpretation of the term, can never be felt except toward friendly persons who _intended the blessing_ for which we are glad. A thoughtful man, therefore, cannot be grateful to a godless world-machine, even though it has treated him well, for the world-machine never purposed to treat him well and his happiness is a lucky accident, with no good will to thank for it. Haeckel says that there is no God--only "mobile, cosmic ether." Imagine a congregation of people, under Haeckel's leadership, rising to pray, "O Mobile Cosmic Ether, blessed be thy name!" It is absurd. _Unless God is personal, the deepest meanings of gratitude in human hearts for life and its benedictions have no proper place in the universe._ _O God above all, yet in all; holy beyond all imagination, yet friend of sinners; who inhabitest the realms of unfading light, yet leadest us through the shadows of mortal life; how solemn and uplifting it is even to think upon Thee! Like sight of sea to wearied eyes, like a walled-in garden to the troubled mind, like home to wanderer, like a strong tower to a soul pursued; so to us is the sound of Thy name._ _But greater still to feel Thee in our heart; like a river glorious, cleansing, healing, bringing life; like a song victorious, comforting our sadness, banishing our care; like a voice calling us to battle, urging us beyond ourselves._ _But greater far to know Thee as our Father, as dear as Thou art near; and ourselves begotten of Thy love, made in Thy image, cared for through all our days, never beyond Thy sight, never out of Thy thought._ _To think of Thee is rest; to know Thee is eternal life; to see Thee is the end of all desire; to serve Thee is perfect freedom and everlasting joy. Amen._--W. E. Orchard. Third Week, Third Day =Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: According to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, And cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions; And my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, And done that which is evil in thy sight.= =--Psalm 51:1-4.= Penitence is one of the profoundest impulses in man's heart. And man at his deepest always feels about his sin as the Psalmist did: he has wronged not only this individual or that, but he has sinned against the whole structure of life, against whatever Power and Purpose may be behind life, and his penitence is not complete until he cries to the Highest, "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned." While men, therefore, have always asked each other for forgiveness, they have as well asked God for it. _But such an attitude is utterly irrational if God is not personal._ Persons alone care what we do, have purposes that our sins thwart, have love that our evil grieves, have compassion to forgive the penitent; and to confess sin to a world-machine--careless, purposeless, loveless, and without compassion--is folly. Yesterday we saw how impossible it was really to feel grateful to a materialist's god; today imagine congregations of people addressing to the Cosmic Ether any such penitent confessions as Christians by multitudes continually address to their Father: "We have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep." _Plainly in a world where creative power is impersonal the deepest meanings of penitence have no place._ Read over the prayer that follows, considering the futility of addressing such a penitent aspiration to anything impersonal; and then really pray it to the God whom Christ revealed: _We beseech Thee, Lord, to behold us with favor, folk of many families and nations gathered together in the peace of this roof, weak men and women subsisting under the covert of thy patience. Be patient still; suffer us yet awhile longer--with our broken purposes of good, with our idle endeavors against evil, suffer us awhile longer to endure and (if it may be) help us to do better. Bless to us our extraordinary mercies; if the day come when these must be taken, brace us to play the man under affliction. Be with our friends, be with ourselves. Go with each of us to rest; if any awake, temper to them the dark hours of watching; and when the day returns, return to us, our sun and comforter, and call us up with morning faces and with morning hearts--eager to labor--eager to be happy, if happiness shall be our portion--and if the day be marked for sorrow, strong to endure it._ _We thank Thee and praise Thee; and in the words of him to whom this day is sacred, close our oblation. Amen._--Robert Louis Stevenson.[2] Third Week, Fourth Day =Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Spirit.--Rom. 15:13.= =For in hope were we saved: but hope that is seen is not hope: for who hopeth for that which he seeth? But if we hope for that which we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.--Rom. 8:24, 25.= Hope is no fringe on the garment of human life; it is part of the solid texture of our experience; without it men may exist, but they cannot live. Now some minds live by hope about tomorrow, or at the most, the day after tomorrow, and do not take long looks ahead. But as men grow mature in thoughtfulness, such small horizons no longer can content their minds; they seek a basis for hope about the far issue of man's struggle and aspiration. They cannot bear to think that creation lacks a "far-off divine event"; they cannot tolerate a universe that in the end turns out to be "An eddy of purposeless dust, Effort unmeaning and vain." _But it is obvious that if God is not in control of creation, with personal purpose of good will, directing its course, there is no solid basis for hope._ If the universe is in the hands of physical forces, then a long look ahead reveals a world collapsing about a cold sun, and humanity annihilated in the wreck. Some such finale is the inevitable end of a godless world. As another pictures it, mankind, like a polar bear on an ice floe that is drifting into warmer zones, will watch in growling impotence the steady dwindling of his home, until he sinks in the abyss. All optimistic philosophies of life have been founded on faith in a personal God, who purposes good to his children, and without such faith no hope, with large horizons, is reasonable. Paul is fair to the facts when he says, "Having no hope and without God in the world" (Eph. 2:12). When one asks why men have believed in a personal God, this clearly is part of the answer: only a personal God can be "the God of hope." _O God of heaven above and earth beneath! Thou art the constant hope of every age--the reliance of them that seek Thee with thoughtfulness and love. We own Thee as the guardian of our pilgrimage; and when our steps are weary we turn to Thee, the mystic companion of our way, whose mercy will uphold us lest we fall. Thou layest on us the burden of labor throughout our days; but in this sacred hour Thou dost lift off our load, and make us partakers of Thy rest. Thou ever faithful God, our guide by cloud and fire! without this blest repose our life were but a desert path; here we abide by the refreshing spring, and pitch our tents with joy around Thy holy hill. Yet when we seek to draw nigh to Thee, Thou art still above us, like the heavens. O Thou that remainest in the height, and coverest Thyself with the cloud thereof! behold, we stand around the mountain where Thou art; and if Thou wilt commune with us, the thunder from Thy voice of love shall not make us afraid. Call up a spirit from our midst to serve Thy will; and take away the veil from all our hearts, that with the eye of purity we may look on the bright and holy countenance of life. And when we go hence to resume our way, may it be with nobler spirits, with more faithful courage, and more generous will. For life and death we trust ourselves to Thee as disciples of Jesus Christ. Amen._--James Martineau. Third Week, Fifth Day =Jehovah is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: Thou maintainest my lot. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; Yea, I have a goodly heritage. I will bless Jehovah, who hath given me counsel; Yea, my heart instructeth me in the night seasons. I have set Jehovah always before me: Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: My flesh also shall dwell in safety. For thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol; Neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of life: In thy presence is fulness of joy; In thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.= =--Psalm 16:5-11.= Many things in human life bring joy. From the sense of a healthy body and the exhilaration of a sunshiny day to the deep satisfactions of home and friends--there are numberless sources of happiness. But man has always been athirst to find joy in thinking about the total meaning of life. Lacking that, the details of life lose radiance, for, in spite of himself, man "Hath among least things An undersense of greatest; sees the parts As parts, but with a feeling of the whole." If when he thinks about God, he can, like this psalmist, rejoice in the love behind life, the good purpose through it, the glorious future ahead of it, then all his other blessings are illumined. Not only are there happy things _in life_, but _life itself_ is fundamentally blessed. But if when he raises his thought to the Eternal, he has no joyful thoughts about it, sees no love or purpose there, then a pall falls on even his ordinary happiness. Alas for that man who does not like to think about life's origin and destiny and meaning, because he has no joyful faith about God! Some men have what Epictetus called "paralysis of the soul" every time they think of creation, for to them it is a huge physical machine crashing on without reason or good will. But some men have such a joyful faith in the divine that their gladness about the whole of life redeems their sorrow about its details. So Samuel Rutherford in prison said, "Jesus Christ came into my room last night and every stone flashed like a ruby." For the thought of God in terms of friendly personality is the most joyful idea of him that man has ever had. Man's thirst for joy is one of the sources of his faith in a personal God. He has wanted what Paul called "joy and peace in believing" (Rom. 15:13). _We rejoice, O Lord our God, not in ourselves nor in the firm earth on which we tread, nor in the household, nor in the church, nor in all the procession of things where mankind moves with power and glory. We rejoice in the Lord. We rejoice in Thy strength. A strange joy it is. Day by day we find ourselves breaking out into gladness through the ministration of the senses, and by the play of inward thought; but Thou art never beheld by us.... Thou never speakest to us, nor do we feel Thy hand, nor do we discern Thy face of love and glory and power. We break away from all other experiences, and look up into the emptiness, as it seems to us, which yet is full of life; into that which seems cold and void, but wherein moves eternal power; into the voiceless and inscrutable realm where Thou dwellest, God over all, blessed forever.... O Lord our God, how near Thou art to us! and we do not know it. How near is the other life! and we do not feel it. It clothes us as with a garment. It feeds us. It shines down upon us. It rejoices over us.... Thither, out of narrow and anguishful ways, out of sorrows, out of regrets, out of bereavements, we look; and already we are rested before we reach it._ _Grant unto us, today, we beseech Thee, this beatific vision. Amen._--Henry Ward Beecher. Third Week, Sixth Day =For when one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not men? What then is Apollos? and what is Paul? Ministers through whom ye believed; and each as the Lord gave to him. I planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: but each shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow-workers: ye are God's husbandry, God's building.--I Cor. 3:4-9.= One of the profoundest motives that can grip man's heart is the conviction that he is a fellow-worker with the Divine. To feel that there is a great Cause, on behalf of which God himself is concerned, and in the furtherance of which we can be God's instruments and confederates, is the most exhilarating outlook on life conceivable. Even people who deny God try to get this motive for themselves. One such man hopes for the success of his favorite causes in "the tendency of the universe"; another talks about "the nature of things taking sides." _But nothing save personality has moral tendencies, and only persons take sides in moral issues._ If the guidance of the world is personal, then, and then only, can we rejoice with confidence in a great Ally, who has moral purposes and who has committed to us part of his work. This was the Master's motive when he said, "My Father worketh even until now, and I work" (John 5:17). But one clearly sees that such an inspiring consciousness of cooperation with the Eternal depended on the certainty with which the Master called the Eternal by a personal name--Father. When men like Livingstone have gone out in sacrificial adventure for the saving of men they have not banked on the "tendency of the universe," nor trusted in any abstract "nature of things taking sides"; they have been servants of a personal God, under orders from him, and they have counted on personal guidance in the service of a cause whose issue was safe in God's hands. _O God, we pray Thee for those who come after us, for our children, and the children of our friends, and for all the young lives that are marching up from the gates of birth, pure and eager, with the morning sunshine on their faces. We remember with a pang that these will live in the world we are making for them. We are wasting the resources of the earth in our headlong greed, and they will suffer want. We are building sunless houses and joyless cities for our profit, and they must dwell therein. We are making the burden heavy and the pace of work pitiless, and they will fall wan and sobbing by the wayside. We are poisoning the air of our land by our lies and our uncleanness, and they will breathe it._ _O God, Thou knowest how we have cried out in agony when the sins of our fathers have been visited upon us, and how we have struggled vainly against the inexorable fate that coursed in our blood or bound us in a prison-house of life. Save us from maiming the innocent ones who come after us by the added cruelty of our sins. Help us to break the ancient force of evil by a holy and steadfast will and to endow our children with purer blood and nobler thoughts. Grant us grace to leave the earth fairer than we found it; to build upon it cities of God in which the cry of needless pain shall cease; and to put the yoke of Christ upon our business life that it may serve and not destroy. Lift the veil of the future and show us the generation to come as it will be if blighted by our guilt, that our lust may be cooled and we may walk in the fear of the Eternal. Grant us a vision of the far-off years as they may be if redeemed by the sons of God, that we may take heart and do battle for Thy children and ours. Amen._--Walter Rauschenbusch. Third Week, Seventh Day =I will extol thee, my God, O King; And I will bless thy name for ever and ever. Every day will I bless thee; And I will praise thy name for ever and ever. Great is Jehovah, and greatly to be praised; And his greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall laud thy works to another, And shall declare thy mighty acts. Of the glorious majesty of thine honor, And of thy wondrous works, will I meditate. And men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts; And I will declare thy greatness. They shall utter the memory of thy great goodness, And shall sing of thy righteousness. Jehovah is gracious, and merciful; Slow to anger, and of great lovingkindness. Jehovah is good to all; And his tender mercies are over all his works. All thy works shall give thanks unto thee, O Jehovah; And thy saints shall bless thee.= =--Psalm 145:1-10.= Adoration springs from the deeps of man's spirit. We never can be content with looking down on things beneath us, nor with looking out on things that find our level. We always must look up to things above us. As a mediæval saint said, "_The soul can never rest in things that are beneath itself._" Worship, therefore, is an undeniable impulse in man's heart. Poets worship Beauty; scientists worship Truth; every man of honor worships Right. That is, the good, true, and beautiful stand above us calling out our adoration, and all the best in us springs from our worshipful response to their appeal. But this impulse to adore is never fulfilled until we gather up all life into spiritual unity and bow down in awe and joy before God. That is adoration glorified, worship crowned and consummated. And the only God whom man can adore with awe and joy is personal. No impersonal thing is worshipful; however great a _thing_ may be it still lies beneath our soul. No abstract Idea is worshipful; we still are greater than any _idea_ that we can hold. Only God, thought of in personal terms but known to be greater than any terms which human life can use, is adorable. _Men have believed in Him because worship is man's holiest impulse._ Such are the experiences of man, with which faith in a personal God is inseparably interwoven. Our demand for a friendly creation, our deepest impulses to thanksgiving, penitence, hope, joy, cooperation with the Eternal, and adoration of the highest--all require personality in God. As Professor William James said, "The universe is no longer a mere _It_ to us, but a _Thou_ if we are religious." _O Lord our God, Thy greatness is unsearchable, and the glory of Thy presence has overwhelmed us. Thou art hidden in excess of light; and if we were to behold Thee in the great sphere in which Thou art living, none of us would dare to draw near to Thee. Our imperfections, our transgressions, our secret thoughts, our wild impulses, that at times come surging in upon us, are such that we should be ashamed to stand before the All-searching Eye. Our lives are before Thee, open as a book, and Thou readest every word and every letter thereof. Blessed be Thy name, Thou hast taught us to come to Thee through the Lord Jesus Christ as through a friend, and thou hast taught us to draw near to Thee in person through the familiar way of Fatherhood; from our childhood we have said, Our Father, and in this way we are not afraid; in this way we come familiarly and boldly: not irreverently, but with the familiarity which love gives. Thou hast poured the light of Thy love upon the path which we tread, and Thou hast taught us to come rejoicing before Thee.... Open Thy hand and Thy heart, and say to every one of us, Peace be unto you! Amen._--Henry Ward Beecher. COMMENT FOR THE WEEK I We have been using freely the most momentous word in human speech as though we clearly understood its meaning. We have been speaking of God as though the import of the term were plain. But most of us, asked to state precisely what we mean by "God," would welcome such a refuge from our confusion as Joubert sought. "It is not hard to know God," said he, "provided one will not force oneself to define him." Many people who stoutly claim to believe in God live in perpetual vacillation as to what they mean by him. Writes one: "God to my mind is an impersonal being, but whether for convenience or through sheer impotence I pray to him as a personal being.... I know I talk on both sides of the fence, but that is just where I am." At times, indeed, some question whether there is any need to think or say what "God" may signify. They call him by vague names--the All, the Infinite. In moods of exalted feeling, impatient of definition, they wish to be left alone with their experience of the Eternal; they resent the intrusion of theology, as a poet, lost in wonder at a landscape, might resent the coming of surveyors with their clanking chains. So Walt Whitman wanted to see the stars rather than hear the astronomer, and after listening to the learned lecture, with its charts and diagrams, he says, "I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wandered off by myself, In the mystical moist night air, and from time to time Looked up in perfect silence at the stars." But, for all that, we well may be thankful for astronomers. At times the "mystical, moist night air" is absent; we do not wish to "look up in perfect silence at the stars"; and, even though we know in advance that they are bound to be inadequate, we do want as clear and worthy ideas as possible about the universe. Moreover, when such ideas are ours, looking up in perfect silence at the stars is more impressive than it ever was before. No more can men content themselves with a vague consciousness of God. Spirits like Wordsworth have raptures of which they sing, "In such access of mind, in such high hour Of visitation from the living God, Thought was not--in enjoyment it expired." In communion with nature, in love for family, in fellowship with God, such hours may come, but nature, family, and God must also be the objects of understanding thought. Days of vital need, if not of mental doubt, inevitably come when it is impossible any longer to use a term like "God" without knowing what we mean. The special urgency of this is felt by most of us because as children we were taught to picture the Divine in terms of personality. The God of the Bible is personal. Little that persons do, save sinning, is omitted from the catalogue of God's activities as he is pictured for us in the Scripture. He knows, loves, purposes, warns, rebukes, allures, rewards, and punishes, as only persons can. And all our relationships with him are clearly personal. When we pray we say "Our Father"; when we seek our duty we ask, "What wilt thou have me to do?" God is _He_ and _Thou_, not _It_, and friendship is the ideal relation of all souls with him. Moreover, in our maturity we are not likely to be interested in a God who is not personal. Whoever curiously asks why he believes in God, will find not simply _reasons_ but _causes_ for his faith, and will perceive that the causes of faith lie back of the reasons for it. Vital need always precedes the arguments by which we justify its satisfaction. A man eats one thing and shuns another on principles of dietetics that can be defended before his intelligence; but behind all such sophisticated reasons stands the vital cause of eating--hunger. So back of intellectual arguments for belief in God lies the initial cause of faith: _men are hungry_. Men believe in God because they hunger for a world that is not chance and chaos, but that is guided by a Purpose. They believe in God, because in their struggles after righteousness they hunger for a Divine Ally in whom righteousness has its origin, its ground and destiny. They believe in God because they hunger for confidence that Someone cares about our race in its conflicts and defeats and because in their individual experience they want a friend. Without such faith man feels himself to be, in Goethe's phrase, "a troubled wanderer upon a darkened earth." Plainly this elemental human hunger for purpose, righteousness, and friendship calls for something akin to personality in God. _Only persons have purpose, character, and friendliness._ The vital motives which lead men to seek God's comfort, forgiveness, guidance, and cooperation plainly imply his personality. Things do not forgive us, love us, nor purpose good concerning us, nor can any thing be imagined so subtle and so powerful as to satisfy the needs on account of which men come to God. If God is not personal, he can feel no concern for human life and a God of no concern is of no consequence. The philosophers of India, with a well-reasoned pantheistic system and centuries to make their philosophy effective, have failed to quell this deathless thirst for a God who counts. Every wayside shrine of Hinduism incarnates the old faith in gods conceived as friends, not things; and Buddha, who taught impersonal deity, is now himself adored as the Personal Lord of Love and Blessedness. Wherever one finds vital religion one finds that God is no dry impersonal abstraction, but man's friend. Boscamen, speaking of the Egyptian Book of the Dead and of the Chaldean Tablets, says: "Six thousand years ago in Egypt and Chaldea--it is not dread, but the grateful love of a child to his father, of friend to friend, that meets us in the oldest books of the world." And when one turns from the oldest to the newest books this inner demand of man's religious life has not ceased; it has been refined and confirmed. "The All would not be the All unless it contained a Personality," said Victor Hugo. "That Personality is God." Biography is lavish in illustrations of this need in man's religious life. The biographer of Theodore Parker, the freelance preacher of Boston, remarks: "In his _theology_ God was neither personal nor impersonal, but a reality transcending these distinctions. In his _devotions_ God was as personal as his own father or mother, and he prayed to him as such, daringly indifferent to the anthropomorphisms of his unfettered speech." When one passes from speculation to religion, he always comes into a realm where only a personal God will do. On this point even confessed unbelievers furnish confirmation. One who calls himself an agnostic writes: "At times in the silence of the night and in rare lonely moments, I experience a sort of communion of myself with Something Great that is not myself. Then the Universal Scheme of things has on me the effect of a sympathetic Person, and my communion therewith takes on a quality of fearless worship. These moments happen, and they are to me the supreme fact in my religious life." Always for the purposes of vital religion, God must have on us the "effect of a sympathetic Person." II When one, however, subjects this need of his religious life to searching thought, what difficulty he encounters! Multitudes, if they were candid, would confess what a college senior wrote: "When I am just thinking about God in a speculative or philosophical way, I generally think of him as impersonal, but for practical purposes I think of him as personal." Many folks feel thus distraught; at the heart of their religious life is the paralyzing doubt, that in a universe like this to think of God as personal is absurd. If a train moving a mile a minute should leave the earth, it must travel 40,000,000 years before it would reach the nearest star. The Creator of such a world is not readily reduced to the similitude of human life. Once men lived on a flat earth, small in compass and cosily tucked beneath the sky's coverlet, but now the world's vastness beggars imagination. As an astronomer remarked, coming from a session with his telescope, "This does away with a six-foot god; you cannot shake hands with the Creator of _this_." Men used to suppose that Arcturus was a single star, but now new telescopes reveal Arcturus as a galaxy of stars, thousands in number, with interstellar spaces so immense that thought breaks down in spanning them and imagination even cannot make the leap. Is the God of such a universe to be conceived in terms of a magnified man? So to picture deity seems at first sight a survival of mere childishness. Professor John Fiske, of Harvard, has told us that when he was a boy God always conjured up in his imagination the figure of a venerable bookkeeper, with white flowing beard, standing behind a high desk and writing down the bad deeds of John Fiske. How many of us can recall such early crude and childish thoughts of God! A mother asked her young daughter what she was drawing. "A picture of God," was the answer. "But no one knows what God looks like," the mother said. "They will," came the rejoinder, "when I get through." We all began with some such primitive idea of deity. Indeed, these early conceptions long persist in many minds, as the following statements, written by college students, indicate: "I think of God as real, actual skin and blood and bones, something we shall see with our eyes some day, no matter what lives we lead on earth." "It may be a remnant of youth, but anyhow, every time I think of God there appears a vague image of a man, with all members of the body, just enormously large." "I have always pictured him according to a description in _Paradise Lost_ as seated upon a throne, while around are angels playing on harps and singing hymns." "I think of God as having bodily form and being much larger than the average man. He has a radiant countenance beaming with love and compassion. He is erect and upright, fearless and brave."[3] No one of us may be contemptuous of such crude ideas; we all possessed them once. Indeed the loss of them, with their picture of deity, clear in feature and distinct in outline, has been to some a shock from which faith has not recovered. When increasing knowledge discredited our immature theology, and our world immeasurably widened, the very human God of our first imaginations was lost among the stars. We learned that this is a universe where the light that falls upon our eyes tonight left the far heavens when Abraham was shepherding on Syrian hills. The Christian Gospel of the personal Father which once was good news became a serious problem. We still may cling to the old meanings of our religious faith; still we may pray in hours of need as though our childhood's God were really there; but at times we suspect that we are clinging to the beauty of an early memory while reluctantly we lose conviction of its truth. Many modern men and women can understand the plight of the famous Dr. Jowett of Oxford, who, so runs the tradition, inserted "used to" in a muffled voice, when he recited the creed: "I _used to_ believe in God the Father Almighty." With such misgivings, whether as habitual disturbers of our faith or as occasional moods of unbelief that come and go, most of us must be familiar. What Charles Darwin is reported to have said about himself, many if they spoke frankly would say too: "Sometimes I feel a warm sense of a personal God, and then"--with a shake of his head--"it goes away." III Whatever may be our theology, the fact is plain that the denial of a personal God solves no problem. For if we may not think of God in terms of personality, the query still remains, which was there before--_in what terms shall we conceive of the Eternal_? In a discussion on the nature of the sky, one boy, denying the idea of a solid canopy, exclaimed, "There ain't any sky." Said the other, seeing how little this negation solved the problem, "Well, what _is_ it that ain't?" Some such inquiry one must put to his doubts about God's personality. Though we may deny a personal God, nevertheless in the place where he once stood, creator and sustainer of all existence, is Something that we do think of somehow. We may have but little of Carlyle's sublime imagination; may not easily transport ourselves to stand with him on the far northern cliff, "behind him all Europe and Africa fast asleep, except the watchmen, and before him the silent Immensity and Palace of the Eternal, whereof our sun is but the porch-lamp." Yet who of us, regarding the illimitable universe, on the far outskirts of which our little earth is whirling, so minute that through the strongest telescope from the nearest star its conflagration would be quite invisible, has escaped the sense of a Universal Power? And the human mind cannot so keep itself at home in little tasks and pleasures as to evade the question: How shall we think of the Power that made the universe? In what terms? By what analogies? Hours of revelation come in every serious life when no desire compares in urgency with the desire to know the character of the Eternal. It does make a prodigious difference what hands hold the leash of the universe. This second fact is also clear, that if we are to think of the Eternal at all, we must think in terms of something drawn from our experience. When we sing of Paradise we speak of golden streets and gates of pearl, and Thoreau remarks that, arriving in heaven, he expects to find pine trees there. Such words we do not take literally, but such words we cannot utterly avoid, for if we are to speak at all of the unknown glory, we must use pictures from the known. So we think of God in human symbols. We cannot catch him in an abstract definition as though a boy with a butterfly net should capture the sun at noon. Our minds are not fitted for such enterprise. Of necessity we take something homely, familiar, close at hand, and lifting it up as far as we can reach, say _God is most like that_. No one who thinks at all of the Eternal escapes this necessity. By this method the _materialist_ reaches his philosophy. Haeckel laughs to scorn the opening clause of the "Apostles' Creed." "I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth"--for such faith no words are contemptuous enough. This denial does not mean however that Haeckel has no faith; he deliberately offers a creedal substitute which runs in part: I believe in a "chemical substance of a viscous character, having albuminous matter and water as its chief constituents." In such terms does Haeckel think of the Eternal. A professor of medicine has remarked that such a theory reduces all reality to "phosphorus and glue." When some Psalmist cries, "Bless the Lord, O my soul," nothing substantial is speaking or is being spoken to save phosphorus and glue! When an Italian patriot cries, "The time for dying comes to all, but the time for dishonoring oneself ought never to come," nothing is real and causal save phosphorus and glue! And every gracious and redeeming deed in history from the love of mothers to the cross of Christ has been a complicated working out of phosphorus and glue! In whatever labored phrases he may state his case, the materialist's method there is obvious; he has taken physical energy, of whose presence in his own body he is first assured, and whose reality he has then read out into the world, and this homely and familiar experience he has lifted up as far as he can reach to say, the Eternal is most like that. So far as method is concerned, the _theist_ of necessity travels the same road; only he insists on a nobler symbol than physical energy in terms of which to think of God. He takes _mind_. He says in effect: There may be wide stretches of the universe where our intellects meet no answer and find no meaning. But in much of the universe we do see meaning; and how can intelligence find sense where intelligence has not put sense? A few scratches on a cliff's face in Assyria, after centuries of neglect, rendered up their meaning to the mind of Rawlinson. They were themselves the work of intelligence, and intelligence could read them. So, the theist continues, the universe is in part at least intelligible. Our minds fit into it and are answered by it. We can trace its laws and predict its movements. Man first worked out the nature of the ellipse in theoretical geometry, and then telescopes later showed the gigantic ellipses of planetary orbits in the heavens. Can it be that this intelligible world, readable by mind, is itself essentially mindless? As easily believe that the notes of Wagner's operas were accidentally blown together by a whirlwind and yet are playable by man! Therefore the theist believes the universe to be rational; he takes mind as he has known it in himself, and lifting it as high as he can reach, cries, God is most like that. So far as the general method of approach is concerned, the Christian travels the same road to his idea of God. Only he cannot believe that the best he knows is too good or too great to be a symbol in terms of which to think of the Eternal. Therefore he will not take a byproduct of experience such as physical energy, nor a section of personality such as mind; he takes the full orb of personality, _self-conscious being that knows and purposes and loves_, and he affirms that God is most like this. Such in its simplest form is the Christian assertion of God's personality. In one of his noblest passages Martineau has put into classic form this necessity, which we have been discussing, of thinking about God in terms of human experience: "God, being infinite, can never be fully comprehended by our minds; whatever thought of him be there, his real nature must still transcend: there will yet be deep after deep beyond, within that light ineffable; and what we see, compared with what we do not see, will be as the raindrop to the firmament. Our conception of him can never _correspond with the reality_, so as to be without omission, disproportion, or aberration; but can only _represent the reality_, and _stand for God_ within our souls, till nobler thoughts arise and reveal themselves as his interpreters. And this is precisely what we mean by a symbolical idea. The devotee who prostrates himself before a black stone,--the Egyptian who in his prayers was haunted by the ideal form of the graceful ibis or the monstrous sphinx--the Theist who bends beneath the starry porch that midnight opens to the temple of the universe--the Christian who sees in heaven a spirit akin to that which divinely lived in Galilee, and with glorious pity died on Calvary--all alike assume a representation of him whose immeasurable nature they can neither compass nor escape. And the only question is, whether the conception they portray upon the wall of their ideal temple is an abominable idol, or a true and sanctifying mediatorial thought." IV In their endeavor thus to think of God in terms of personality, some are perplexed because in their imagination a person is inseparable from flesh. "I think of God as a personal being," writes a college student. "A personal being would have a form that you could see or touch." But this would be true only if the grossest materialism were accepted, and the spiritual life declared to be the product of brain as digestive fluids are of salivary glands. On any other basis, personality is not indissolubly bound to body nor by it necessarily delimited. A man cannot hear without his ear, but he is not his ear; he cannot hear without the auditory nerve, but he is not the auditory nerve; he cannot hear without the temporal lobe of the brain, but he is not the brain nor any portion of it. These may be the instruments which he uses; he is free when they are well, hampered when they are broken, and at last he is separable from them all. John Quincy Adams at the age of eighty met a friend upon a Boston street. "Good morning," said the friend, "and how is John Quincy Adams today?" "Thank you," was the ex-president's reply, "John Quincy Adams himself is well, quite well, I thank you. But the house in which he lives at present is becoming dilapidated. It is tottering upon its foundation. Time and the seasons have nearly destroyed it. Its roof is pretty well worn out. Its walls are much shattered and it trembles with every wind. The old tenement is becoming almost uninhabitable and I think John Quincy Adams will have to move out of it soon. But he himself is quite well, quite well." Such a conception of man as _being_ a permanent personality and _having_ a temporary body is essential to any worthy meaning when we use personal terms about God. With such an elevated thought, however, of what personality does mean, it soon is evident that no other reality with which we deal is so worthy to be the symbol of an Eternal Spirit. Is one perplexed that God, who is invisible, should be pictured in the similitude of human persons? But _we_ are invisible. The outward husks and fleshly garment of our friends we indeed have seen, but upon the friend himself--consciousness, love, purpose, ideal, and character--no eye has looked. No mirror ever has been strong enough to show us to ourselves. In every homely conversation this ineffable miracle is wrought: out of the unseen where I dwell, I signal by word and gesture to you back in the unseen where you dwell. We are inhabitants now of the intangible and unseen world; we are as invisible as God. Indeed, personality is essentially the most unlimited reality with which we deal; in comparison a solar system is a little thing. Consider _memory_, by which we can retrace our youthful days, build our shanties once again at brooksides, replay our games, and recapitulate the struggles and the joys of the first days at school. Nothing in all the universe can remember except persons. Were we not so familiar with this element in human greatness, we would more often pause to exclaim, as did Augustine, fifteen centuries ago, "Great is the power of memory. Amazement overcomes me when I think of it. And yet men go abroad to gaze upon the mountains, the broad rivers, the wide ocean, the courses of the stars, and pass themselves, the crowning wonder, by!" Consider _imagination_, by which, sitting still in body we can project ourselves around the world, can walk down Princes Street in Edinburgh, or stand in mingled awe and condemnation before the tomb of Napoleon in Paris, or rise uncovered before the majesty of the Matterhorn. Nothing in all the universe can do that except persons. Were full power to act wherever we can _think_ added to our gifts, we should come so near to incipient omnipresence as to be in dread of our responsibility. Consider _love_, by which we live not so much where our bodies are as where our friends and family may be. Love expands the individual until his real life is independent of geography. Says one lover to another: "The widest land Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine With pulses that beat double." Many a mother in America has _lived_ in the trenches of France; many a man has found that what might happen to him where his body was could not be compared with what might happen to him where his friendships were; and as we grow in love and loyalty we find ourselves scattered all over creation. How far such an expansion of life may go our Lord revealed when he said, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these, my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me." (Matt. 25:40.) Nothing in heaven above or on the earth beneath can so extend itself in love save persons. Finally, consider _creative power_ by which human beings project themselves into the future, and, with masterful ideals in mind, lay hold on circumstance and bend it to their will. As if he shared creative power with the Eternal, an engineer summons nature's forces to his bidding and lays his will upon them, until where nothing was a structure stands that mankind may use for centuries. Nothing in all the universe can so create except persons. In that essentially creative act where deathless ideas and harmonies are given being by poets and musicians, so that something out of nothing is brought to pass by personality, man faces a mystery as abysmal as God's making of the world. "Paradise Lost" is wonderful; but not half as wonderful as the creative personality itself who years before projected it. "An inward prompting," Milton says, "which now grew daily upon me, that by labor and intense study, joined with the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written to after times as they should not willingly let it die." Nothing can so create save personality. Personality is not so limited that we should be ashamed to think of God in terms of it. Rather, of all realities with which we deal, personality alone, invisible, reaching back in memory, reaching out in imagination, expanding itself in love, and laying hold upon the future with creative power, is a worthy symbol of the Eternal Spirit. Even when the meaning of personality has been so enlarged and elevated, we should not leave our statement of belief in God as though our experience of personality were a mould into which our thought of him is poured and so delimited. We are not presumptuous Lilliputians, running out with verbal stakes and threads, to pin down the tall, majestic Gulliver of the Eternal and dance in theological exultation round our capture. We know better than that. We understand how insufficient is every human name for God. We know that when we have said our best--"How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past tracing out!" (Rom. 11:33). Nothing more has marred the Christian message and discredited the Christian faith than the unwise presumption that has forced its definitions into the secrets of the Infinite. "It is enough to say," exclaims Leslie Stephen, "that they defined the nature of God Almighty with an accuracy from which modest naturalists would shrink in describing the genesis of a black beetle." The antidote to such vain pride of theology is found in the wholesome modesty of the Bible. There man enquires, "Canst thou by searching find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is high as heaven; what canst thou do? Deeper than Sheol; what canst thou know?" (Job 11:7). There God replies: "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isa. 55:9). Scripture bears abundant testimony to the symbolic nature of our human terms for God. "Like as a father pitieth his children, so Jehovah pitieth them that fear him" (Psalm 103:13). "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you" (Isa. 66:13). "I will betroth thee unto me" (Hos. 2:20). "Return, ... saith Jehovah, for I am a husband unto you" (Jer. 3:14). "The Lord spake unto Moses ... as a man speaketh unto his friend" (Ex. 33:11). Father, Mother, Bridegroom, Husband, Friend--these are symbols of God. Men, endeavoring to frame some worthy thought of the Eternal, lift up their best in phrases such as these, and in them enshrine their noblest concepts of the divine. They have no better, truer thing to say of God, no wiser way in which to say it. But when they think of the Eternal as he must be, and of their human words, infinitesimal in comparison, they know that all their best names for God are like small measures of water dipped from an immeasurable sea. For all that, so much of God as they can grasp and understand is the most important truth that mankind knows. Let even a tea-cup of water be taken to a laboratory and it will tell the truth about the sea; _that one tea-cup will reveal the quality of the whole ocean_. Yet it will not reveal all the truth about the ocean. When one considers the reach of the sea over the rim of the world; thinks of the depths that no eye can pierce, the distances that no mind can imagine; remembers the currents that sweep through the sea, the tides that rise there, and the storms that beat it to its nether wells, he dare not try to put _these_ into a tea-cup. So God sweeps out beyond the reach of human symbols. At once so true and so inadequate are all our words for him. So we might speak to one who incredulously looks upon our faith, but for one who whole-heartedly approaches God as Christianity suggests, no negative and cautionary word is adequate. The Christian method of conceiving God brings the most exhilarating thought of him that man has ever had. It says in brief: Take your _best_ and think of God as most truly symbolized in that. As to what our best is, not even the agnostics doubt. The physical universe belittles us on one side only; it makes a pigmy of the body. In our spirits we still tower above the physical; we are greater than the world we know. Our supreme good, the divinest reality with which we deal, is personality. Then lift that up, says Christianity; it is your best, and you dare not think of God in terms of less; you have Christ's example in arguing from the human best to the divine: "If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, _how much more_ ... your Father." (Matt. 7:11.) The Christian faith asserts that when a man thus thinks of God in terms of the best he knows he is on the road toward truth. How many billion spiritual miles he may have to travel to the end, no man can tell. Only he will never need to stop, retrace his steps, and start upon a lower path than personality, a road that lies beneath righteousness and love. The road leads on and up beyond our imagination, but it is the same road and not another. _God is personality plus, or else he alone is completely personal and we are but in embryo._ If God so is personal, then all the deep meanings of religious life and faith that the saints, our spiritual sires, have known are open to us modern men and women. Forms of thought indeed have changed, but if God is thus our Father and our Friend, the essentials of Christian experience are waiting for us all. Life then is not purposeless; all creation is bound into spiritual unity by personal Will; and in sacrificial labor we are serving one who is able to guard that which we "have committed unto him against that day" (II Tim. 1:12). Old hymns of confidence in time of trial, we too can sing: "Still will we trust, though earth seem dark and dreary, And the heart faint beneath His chastening rod; Though steep and hard our pathway, worn and weary, Still will we trust in God." And we can pray, not indeed with clamorous beggary as though the grace of God were a wayside stall where every greedy hand can pluck what passing whim may wish, but we can commune with God as the real saints have always prayed with humility and gratitude and confident desire for good. Most of all, that priceless privilege is open to us which is the center and sun of Christian thought and life. For if among all realities in our experience, we have dared take the best, personality, as a symbol in terms of which to think of God, how should we not, among all personalities, take the best we know as the highroad of approach to him. Therefore our real symbol of God shall be no man among us, frail and sinful, but our Lord himself "fairest among ten thousand"--"the one altogether beautiful." We shall think of God in terms of him. We shall see "the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (II Cor. 4:6.) [2] Copyright, 1914, Charles Scribner's Sons. Used by permission. [3] From a questionnaire, "Belief in God and Immortality," by Prof. James H. Leuba. CHAPTER IV Belief and Trust DAILY READINGS We have tried to explain our faith in the personal God, and to see the transfiguring influence of that faith on life. But is belief in God always such a blessing as we have pictured? Rather faith, like every other experience of man, has its caricatures and burlesques. Many men are prevented from appreciation of faith in God, with its inestimable blessings, because they have so continually seen faith's perversions. The fact is that belief in God may be an utterly negligible matter in a man's experience or may even become a positively pernicious influence. Let us, in the daily readings, consider some of the _familiar travesties on faith_. Fourth Week, First Day =Praise ye Jehovah. Praise Jehovah, O my soul. While I live will I praise Jehovah: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being, Put not your trust in princes, Nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; In that very day his thoughts perish. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, Whose hope is in Jehovah his God.= =--Psalm 146:1-5.= No one can mistake the note of reality in this psalmist's experience of God. But every one of us knows people who, if asked whether they believed in God, would readily assent, yet to whom faith makes no such difference in life as this psalm expresses. Their faith is nothing but an opinion about God, lightly held, a formal consent that what church or family tradition says must be correct. They have what Luther used to call "the charcoal burner's faith." A man of that occupation, when asked what he believed, said, "What Holy Church believes"; but, questioned further, he could not tell what it was that Holy Church did believe. So formal, vitally unpossessed, and practically unreal is much of our religious opinion that passes for faith. Dean Swift was a churchman of high rank, and yet his biographer is compelled to say of him: "He clung to the doctrines of his church, not because he could give abstract reasons for his belief, but simply because the church happened to be his." Vital religious faith is a very different thing from such dry conventionality. A man may assent to the contents of a college catalogue and yet never have experience of college life; he may agree that a menu is dietetically correct and yet never grow strong from the food; and he may believe in every creed in Christendom and not know what faith in God really means. Opinions about God are a roadway to God, but the end of the journey is a personal fellowship that transfigures life; and to seize opinions as though they were the object of faith is, to use Tagore's figure, "like a man who tries to reach his destination by firmly clutching the dust of the road." _O Thou great Father of us all, we rejoice that at last we know Thee. All our soul within us is glad because we need no longer cringe before Thee as slaves of holy fear, seeking to appease Thine anger by sacrifice and self-inflicted pain, but may come like little children, trustful and happy, to the God of love. Thou art the only true Father, and all the tender beauty of our human loves is the reflected radiance of Thy loving kindness, like the moonlight from the sunlight, and testifies to the eternal passion that kindled it._ _Grant us growth of spiritual vision, that with the passing years we may enter into the fulness of this our faith. Since Thou art our Father, may we not hide our sins from Thee, but overcome them by the stern comfort of Thy presence. By this knowledge uphold us in our sorrows and make us patient even amid the unsolved mysteries of the years. Reveal to us the larger goodness and love that speak through the unbending laws of Thy world. Through this faith make us the willing equals of all Thy other children._ _As Thou art ever pouring out Thy life in sacrificial father-love, may we accept the eternal law of the cross and give ourselves to Thee and to all men. We praise Thee for Jesus Christ, whose life has revealed to us this faith and law, and we rejoice that he has become the first-born among many brethren. Grant that in us, too, the faith in Thy fatherhood may shine through all our life with such persuasive beauty that some who still creep in the dusk of fear may stand erect as free sons of God, and that others who now through unbelief are living as orphans in an empty world may stretch out their hands to the great Father of their spirits and find Thee near. Amen._--Walter Rauschenbusch. Fourth Week, Second Day Faith is travestied in many lives not so much by the substitution of opinion for experience, as by making religion consist in certain devout practices, such as church-going. Ceremonialism, instead of being an aid in making God real, takes the place of fellowship with God. How scathing were the attacks of the prophets on this distortion of religion! =Hear the word of Jehovah, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. What unto me is the multitude of your sacrifices? saith Jehovah: I have had enough of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to trample my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; new moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies--I cannot away with iniquity and the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary of bearing them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.--Isa. 1:10-17.= Many young people, watching conventional observances in religious worship and perceiving no real life active there, come to the conclusion that religious faith is a decent and negligible formality. So William Scott Palmer, tracing his progress from agnosticism to Christianity, describes the religion of his boyhood: "Religion as a personal matter, religion as a life, did not exist for me or for my family. The border-land of my native village went to church at eleven o'clock on fine Sundays, and I went in and with it. There were unlucky Sundays when the Litany was said, and the service prolonged by its unmeaning length; the lucky Sundays were wet ones that cleared up later.... I did not know that there was any vital meaning in religion." And even Sir Wilfred Grenfell, whose work in Labrador is one of this generation's outstanding triumphs of Christian faith, says of his young manhood: "The ordinary exponents of the Christian faith had never succeeded in interesting me in any way, or even in making me believe that they were more than professionally concerned themselves. Religion appeared to be a profession, exceedingly conventional, and most unattractive in my estimation--the very last I should have thought of selecting." No travesty on faith is more deadly in its effects than this substitution of conventional observance for life. _O Jesus, we thy ministers bow before Thee to confess the common sins of our calling. Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that we love Thee and that our hearts' desire is to serve Thee in faithfulness; and yet, like Peter, we have so often failed Thee in the hour of Thy need. If ever we have loved our own leadership and power when we sought to lead our people to Thee, we pray Thee to forgive. If we have been engrossed in narrow duties and little questions, when the vast needs of humanity called aloud for prophetic vision and apostolic sympathy, we pray Thee to forgive. If in our loyalty to the Church of the past we have distrusted Thy living voice and have suffered Thee to pass from our door unheard, we pray Thee to forgive. If ever we have been more concerned for the strong and the rich than for the shepherdless throngs of the people for whom Thy soul grieved, we pray Thee to forgive._ _O Master, amidst our failures we cast ourselves upon Thee in humility and contrition. We need new light and a new message. We need the ancient spirit of prophecy and the leaping fire and joy of a new conviction, and Thou alone canst give it. Inspire the ministry of Thy Church with dauntless courage to face the vast needs of the future. Free us from all entanglements that have hushed our voice and bound our action. Grant us grace to look upon the veiled sins of the rich and the coarse vices of the poor through Thine eyes. Give us Thine inflexible sternness against sin, and Thine inexhaustible compassion for the frailty and tragedy of those who do the sin. Make us faithful shepherds of Thy flock, true seers of God, and true followers of Jesus. Amen._--Walter Rauschenbusch. Fourth Week, Third Day =And he spake also this parable unto certain who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and set all others at nought: Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I get. But the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote his breast, saying, God, be thou merciful to me a sinner. I say unto you, This man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled; but he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.--Luke 18:9-14.= The men against whom the Master directed this parable were bigots. Self-opinionated, self-conceited, dogmatic, and contemptuous--they wore all the attributes of bigotry. _And bigotry is a very familiar perversion of faith._ Vital fellowship with God ought to make men gracious, magnanimous, generous; it ought to make life with God seem so incomparably important that when anyone has that, his opinions about God will be tolerantly regarded, however mistaken they may appear to be. Dr. Pritchett, when President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, passed through a classroom where a young instructor was conducting a chemical experiment. "The reaction itself," says Dr. Pritchett, "was going on in a retort on the table, while on a blackboard was written the conventional formula, which in the science of chemistry is used to describe the reaction. It so happened that the instructor had made a mistake in writing the formula; instead of CO^2 he had written CO_3. But this made not the slightest difference in the reaction which was going on in the flask." So, a man may live his life with an admirably Christian spirit, although he describes it with a mistaken formula. His error is theoretical, not vital. But a bigot is so sure that he alone knows the true formula, that a man without that formula is altogether wrong, and that he must either set him right or condemn him utterly, that he grows bitter, hard, unlovely. His opinions may be right, but his spirit is wrong. The faith that should make his life radiant is perverted to make it narrow, harsh, contemptuous. He renders hateful the very faith he seeks to commend and ruins the reputation of the God whom he is zealous to exalt. So the Pharisee of the parable missed all the beauty of the Publican's life because he thought the Publican's formula was wrong. No one can estimate the irreparable damage which zealous bigots have done to true faith. _O Thou who art of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, canst Thou bear to look on us conscious of our great transgression? Yet hide not Thy face from us, for in Thy light alone shall we see light._ _Forgive us for the sins which crowd into the mind as we realise Thy presence; our ungovernable tempers, our shuffling insincerities, the craven fear of our hearts, the pettiness of our spirits, the foul lusts and fatal leanings of our souls. Not for pardon only, but for cleansing, Lord, we pray._ _Forgive us, we beseech Thee, our unconscious sins; things which must be awful to Thy sight, of which we yet know nothing. Forgive by giving us in fuller measure the awakening of Thy presence, that we may know ourselves, and lose all love of sin in the knowledge of what Thou art._ _Forgive us for the things for which we can never forgive ourselves; those sad turned pages of our life which some chance wind of memory blows back again with shame; for the moment of cruel passion, the hour beyond recall, the word that went forth to poison and defame, the carelessness that lost our opportunity, the unheeded fading of bright ideals._ _Forgive us for the things that others can never forgive; the idle tale, the cruel wrong, the uncharitable condemnation, the unfair judgment, the careless criticism, the irresponsible conduct._ _Forgive us for the sins of our holy things; that we have turned the sacred page without a sigh, read the confessions of holy men and women and never joined therein, lived in Thy light and never prayed to be forgiven or rendered Thee thanksgiving; professed to believe in Thee and love Thee, yet dared to injure and hate._ _Naught save being born again, nothing but a miracle of grace, can ever be to us forgiveness. Cleanse our hearts, renew our minds, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from us. Amen._--W. E. Orchard. Fourth Week, Fourth Day Of all perversions of faith none is more fatal than the substitution of opinions about God for integrity of character and usefulness of life. With what scathing vehemence does James, as Dr. Moffatt renders him, attack this travesty on faith. ="My brothers, what is the use of anyone declaring he has faith, if he has no deeds to show? Can his faith save him? Suppose some brother or sister is ill-clad and short of daily food; if any of you says to them, 'Depart in peace! Get warm, get food,' without supplying their bodily needs, what use is that? So faith, unless it has deeds, is dead in itself. Someone will object, 'And you claim to have faith!' Yes, and I claim to have deeds as well; you show me your faith without any deeds, and I will show you by my deeds what faith is! You believe in one God? Well and good. So do the devils, and they shudder. But will you understand, you senseless fellow, that faith without deeds is dead? When our father Abraham offered his son Isaac on the altar, was he not justified by what he did?"--James 2:14-21.= An American business man not long dead, who hated any word from the pulpit about social righteousness, used to complain: "Preachers are talking so everlastingly about this earth. I've done my best to get them to stick to the Gospel, and not allow 'worldliness' to get into the teachings of the Church; but the good old preachers have gone to glory." Yet this pious zealot helped wreck the finances of a great railroad system, and with part of the proceeds built a theological seminary. _There was no vital, intelligent connection between his faith in God and his ideals of character and service._ One verse should be made to flame in Christian pulpits: "If any provideth not for his own, and specially his own household, he hath denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever" (I Tim. 5:8). Domestic fidelity is here only typical of all basic moral obligations. What this verse says in principle is clear: theoretical unbelief is not the worst sin in God's sight; any man who fails in the fundamental duties of rectitude and service has thereby denied the faith and is worse than an atheist. _O thou holy One and just! if alone the pure in heart can see thee, truly we must stand afar off, and not so much as lift up our eyes unto heaven. Were it not that thou hast help and pity for the contrite spirit, we could only cry, "Depart from us, we are sinful men, O Lord!" For idle words, for proud thoughts and unloving deeds; for wasted moments and reluctant duties, and too eager rest; for the wandering desire, the vain fancy, the scornful doubt, the untrustful care; for impatient murmurs, and unruly passions, and the hardness of a worldly heart; thou, Lord, canst call us unto judgment, and we have naught to answer thee. But, O thou Judge of men, thou art witness that we do not love our guilty ways; make our conscience true and tender that we may duly hate them, and refuse them any peace as enemies to thee. Stir up within us a great and effectual repentance that we may redeem the time which we have lost, and in the hours that remain may do the work of many days. Thou knowest all our secret snares; drive from us every root of bitterness: with thy severity pluck out, O Lord, the thorns of sin from our entangled souls, and bind them as a crown of contrition around our bleeding brows; and having made our peace with thee may we henceforth watch and pray that we enter not again into temptation, but bear our cross with patience to the close. Amen._--James Martineau. Fourth Week, Fifth Day Some of the most lamentable perversions of religious faith arise from inadequate ideas of God. Consider, for example, the way Manasseh thought that the Divine ought to be worshiped. =For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars for Baal, and made an Asherah, as did Ahab king of Israel, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them. And he built altars in the house of Jehovah, whereof Jehovah said, In Jerusalem will I put my name. And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of Jehovah. And he made his son to pass through the fire, and practised augury, and used enchantments, and dealt with them that had familiar spirits, and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of Jehovah, to provoke him to anger.--II Kings 21:3-6.= Then compare the thought of the Master on the same subject. =But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth: for such doth the Father seek to be his worshippers. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and truth.--John 4:23, 24.= There is no reason to suppose that Manasseh was insincere; he is one of an innumerable company in whom the religious motive has been harnessed to warped and ignorant ideas of God. Religious faith, like any other tremendous power, is terrific in evil consequences when it goes wrong. Men, under its subtle and prevailing influence, have waged bloody wars, worshiped with licentious rituals, carried on pitiless persecutions, and in bigotry, cruelty, and deceit have grown worse than they would have been with no religion whatsoever. And men, in its inspiring light, have launched missionary movements, founded great philanthropies, built schools, hospitals, orphanages, and in sacrifice, courageous service, and hope of human brotherhood have made man's history glorious. Religion needs intelligence to save it from becoming a ruinous curse; like all power of the first magnitude it is a disaster if ignorantly used. Since religious faith will always be a major human motive, under what obligations are we to save it from perversion and to keep it clean and right! _Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we are most unworthy to be called Thy children; for when light and darkness have been set before us, we have often chosen darkness rather than light. Conscious that within us are the elements of a nobler and a meaner life, we have yet given way to the meaner appetites, and have not obeyed the inspiration Thou hast kindled within us. We entreat Thee now of Thy grace to call us back from the ways of temptation and sin into that higher life which Thou dost breathe upon us, and which is manifested in Jesus Christ our Lord. Give us the self-knowledge, the humility, the repentance, the aspiration which draw us to the Cross of Christ, that worshiping there in lowliness, we may see the weakness of falsehood and the strength of truth, the exceeding sinfulness of selfishness, and the beauty of love and sacrifice._ _O Thou whose secret is with them that fear Thee, inspire us with that loyalty of soul, that willingness to do Thy will to which all things are clear. Darkness, we know, cometh upon the proud and disobedient; confusion is ever attendant upon self-will; while to the humble, the earnest, and the pure-minded, the way of duty and spiritual health is made clear. O Spirit of the Eternal, subdue within us all pride, all vainglory, all self-seeking, and bring every thought and every desire into obedience to the law of Christ our Lord._ _Almighty Father, to Thee would we consecrate these earthly days from infancy to age. Thee would we remember in childhood and youth. Thee would we serve in all the relations and activities of middle age. Thee would we teach our children to love and serve. Be Thou our stay and hope when health and strength shall fail. And when we are summoned hence, do Thou, O Life of our life, illumine the mystery of the invisible world with Thy presence and love. We ask these blessings in the spirit of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen._--John Hunter. Fourth Week, Sixth Day The perversions of religious faith, working pitiable instead of benevolent consequences, are often seen on mission fields. Consider Paul's address in Athens: =And Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus, and said,= =Ye men of Athens, in all things I perceive that ye are very religious. For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. What therefore ye worship in ignorance, this I set forth unto you. The God that made the world and all things therein, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is he served by men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and he made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain even of your own poets have said,= =For we are also his offspring.= =--Acts 17:22-28.= Paul did not need to plead for religion with the Athenians; they were already "very religious." Only religion was not doing for them what it ought; it was a power used "in ignorance"; and Paul, valuing all that was good there, quoting their own poets with appreciation, nevertheless longed to take their strong religious motives and so clarify and direct them that faith might mean unqualified benediction. Is not this always the right missionary method? The people of India are intensely religious; no tribe in Africa lacks its gods; and everywhere the faith-motive is immensely powerful. But often it makes mothers drown their babies in sacred rivers, it consecrates caste systems as holy things, it centers man's adoration around unworthy objects, its powers, gone wrong, are a curse and not a blessing. If in Jesus Christ religious faith has come to us, through no merit of our own, as an unspeakable benediction, ought we not, humbly, without dogmatism or intolerance, and yet with passionate earnestness, to share our best with all the world? Religious faith may either depress or lift a people's life; it is forever doing one or the other in every nation under heaven; and _there is no hope for the world until this master-motive is lifting everywhere_. _Almighty God, our Father in heaven, who hast so greatly loved the world that Thou hast given Thine only-begotten Son, the Redeemer, communicate Thy love to the hearts of all believers, and revive Thy Church to preach the Gospel to every creature._ _O Thou who rulest by Thy providence over land and sea, defend and guide and bless the messengers of Christ; in danger be their shield, in darkness be their hope; enrich their word and work with wisdom, joy, and power, and let them gather souls for Thee in far fields white unto the harvest._ _O Thou who by Thy Holy Spirit workest wonders in secret, open the eyes that dimly look for light to see the day-star in Christ; open the minds that seek the unknown God to know their Heavenly Father in Christ; open the hearts that hunger for righteousness to find eternal peace in Christ. Deliver the poor prisoners of ignorance and captives of idolatry, break down the bars of error, and dispel the shadows of the ancient night; lift up the gates, and let the King of glory and the Prince of Peace come in._ _Thy kingdom, O Christ, is an everlasting kingdom! Strengthen Thy servants to pray and labor and wait for its appearing; forgive our little faith and the weakness of our endeavor; hasten the day when all nations shall be at peace in Thee, and every land and every heart throughout the world shall bless the name of the Lord Jesus, to the glory of God the Father. Amen._--Henry van Dyke. Fourth Week, Seventh Day The sad perversions of religious faith are not a matter for foreign missions only. At home, too, we find people who seem to be rather worse than better because they are religious. Just as power in any other form may be abused, so may religious faith. Some in the name of religion become censorious and intolerant, some superstitious, some slaves to morbid fears; and ignorance, self-conceit, pride, and worldly ambition when driven and enforced by a religious motive are infinitely worse than they would have been without it. Toward this fact two attitudes are possible. One is to throw over religion on account of its abuses; which is as reasonable as to deny all the blessings of electricity because in ignorant hands it is a dangerous power. The other is to take religious faith more seriously than ever, to see how great a force for weal or woe it always is in human life, and to strive in ourselves and in others for a high, intelligent, and worthy understanding and use of it. For religion can mean what Amiel said of it: "There is but one thing needful--to possess God. Religion is not a method: it is a life--a higher and supernatural life, mystical in its root and practical in its fruits; a communion with God, a calm and deep enthusiasm, a love which radiates, a force which acts, a happiness which overflows." From our study of the perversions and travesties of faith, we turn therefore in the weekly comment to consider faith's vital meanings. So Paul, writing to the Galatians, rejoices in religion as a gloriously transforming power in life. =But I say, Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary the one to the other; that ye may not do the things that ye would. But if ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, parties, envyings, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of which I forewarn you even as I did forewarn you, that they who practise such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control; against such there is no law. And they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof.--Gal. 5:16-23.= _Thou, O God, hast exalted us so that no longer we walk with prone head among the animals that perish. Thou hast ordained us as Thine own children, and hast planted within us that spiritual life which ever seeks, as the flame, to rise upward and mingle with Thee. Every exaltation, every pure sentiment, all urgency of true affection, and all yearning after things higher and nobler, are testimonies of the divinity that is in us. These are the threads by which Thou art drawing us away from sense, away from the earth, away from things coarse and unspiritual, and toward the ineffable. We rejoice that we have in us the witness of the Spirit, the indwelling of God. For, although we are temples defiled, though we are unworthy of such a Guest, and though we perpetually grieve Thee, and drive Thee from us, so that Thou canst not do the mighty work that Thou wouldst within us, yet we rejoice to believe that Thou dost linger near us. Even upon the outside, Thou standest knocking at the door until Thy locks are wet with the night dews, and dost persuade us with the everlasting importunity of love, and draw us upward, whether with or without our own knowledge. Thou art evermore striving to imbue us with Thyself, and to give us that divine nature which shall triumph over time and sense and matter; and we pray that we may have an enlightened understanding of this Thy work in us and upon us, and work together with Thee. Amen._--Henry Ward Beecher. COMMENT FOR THE WEEK One might be tempted by the last chapter to suppose that, if he could accept the proposition that God is personal, he would be well upon his way toward Christianity. But in theory at least Plato accepted this proposition four hundred years before Christ, when he said: "God is never in any way unrighteous--He is perfect righteousness; and he of us who is most righteous is most like Him." He, too, used personality as a symbol of God. When, however, one compares Plato with Jesus, how incalculably greater is the religious meaning of our Lord! There is something more in the Master's experience and thought than the belief that God is personal. Evidently our quest must be followed further than the last chapter carried us. In Scripture two kinds of faith in the personal God are clearly indicated. On the one side stand verses such as this: "Thou believest that God is one; thou doest well; the demons also believe and shudder" (James 2:19). On the other, one finds through both the Testaments witness and appeal for a kind of faith that plainly differs from the first: "O my God, in thee have I trusted" (Psalm 25:2). It is not difficult to guess the terms in which many would describe this difference. In the first, so the familiar explanation runs, we are dealing with the _mind's_ faith in God; the man's intellect assents to the belief that God is and that He is one. In the second we are dealing with the _heart's_ faith in God; the whole man is here involved in an adoring trust that finds in reliance upon God life's stimulus and joy. This distinction between the faith of the intellect and of the heart is valid, but it does not go to the pith of the truth. When a professor in the class-room, discussing conflicting theories of life's origin, concludes that theism is the reasonable interpretation of the universe, the listener understands that the lecturer believes in God's existence. But if the professor could be followed home and overheard in a private prayer, like Fénelon's: "Lord, I know not what I ought to ask of Thee; Thou only knowest what I need; Thou lovest me better than I know how to love myself. O Father! give to Thy child that which he himself knows not how to ask," something incalculably more than the classroom talk disclosed would be revealed about the meaning of the teacher's faith. And as the classroom lecture and the private prayer stand so contrasted, the gist of the difference is plain. In the one, faith was directed toward a _theory_; in the other faith laid hold upon a _Person_. That the intellect was more involved in the first and the emotions in the second is incidental to the main matter, that _two differing objects were in view_. Toward these two objects we continually are exercising faith--_ideas and people, propositions and persons_. Now faith in a proposition we conveniently may call belief; and faith in a person, trust. We believe that gravitation and the conservation of energy universally apply, that democracy will prove better than absolutism, and that prison systems can be radically reformed; these and innumerable other propositions that cannot be demonstrated we confidently believe. But in quite another way we daily are exercising faith; _we have faith in our friends_. How profound a change comes over the quality and value of faith when it thus finds its objective in a person! Our beliefs in propositions are of basic import and without them we could not well exist, but it is by trust in persons that we live indeed. Belief in monogamy, for all its importance, is a cold abstraction, and few could be found to die for it. Men do not lay down their lives for abstract theories, any more than they would suffer martyrdom, as Chesterton remarked, for the Meridian of Greenwich. But when monogamy is translated from theory into personal experience, when belief in the idea becomes trust in a life-long comrade of whom one may sing: "What I do And what I dream include thee, as the wine Must taste of its own grapes," faith has taken a form for which men do live and die in glad surrender. Although the same word, faith, be applied to both, trust in persons reaches deeper than belief in propositions and supplies a warmth and power that belief cannot attain. In religion these two aspects of faith continually are found and both are indispensable. Trust in a person, for example, presupposes belief in his existence and fidelity. "He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that seek after him" (Heb. 11:6). Trust cannot exist without belief, but when one seeks the inner glory of the religious life that has overflowed in prayer and hymn, supplied motive for service and power for character, he finds it not in belief, but in the vital relationships involved in trusting a Person. Men often have discussed their particular beliefs with cool deliberation, have stated them in formal creeds, have changed them with access of new knowledge and experience. But _trust_, the inner reliance of the soul on God and glad self-surrender to his will, has persisted through many changes, clothing itself with beliefs like garments and casting them aside when old. Trust has made rituals and churches and unmade them when they were ineffectual, it has been the life behind the theory, the experience behind the explanation; and its proper voice has been not creed and controversy, but psalm and song and sacrifice. Men have felt in describing this inward friendship that their best words were but the "vocal gestures of the dumb," able to indicate but unable to express their thoughts. _For while belief is theology, trust is religion._ II This central position of trust in the Christian life is evident when one considers that in its presence or absence lies the chief point of difference between a religious and an irreligious man. The peculiarity of religion is not that it has beliefs; everybody has them. As we have seen, Huxley, who called himself an agnostic, said that he thoroughly believed the universe to be rational, than which only a few greater ventures of faith can be imagined. A man may not want to have beliefs. He may say that knowledge is wool, warm to clothe oneself withal, that belief is cotton, and that he will not mingle them. But for all that he still does have beliefs and he cannot help it. When, therefore, a Christian and an atheist converse they can match belief with belief. "I believe," says one, "in God the Father"; and "I believe," says the other, "in the eternal physical universe, without spiritual origin or moral purpose." Says the Christian, "I believe in the immortality of persons," and the atheist replies, "I believe that the spirit dies with the body as sound ceases when the bell's swinging iron grows still." Says the Christian, "I believe in the ultimate triumph of righteousness"; and the atheist replies, "I believe that all man's aspiration after good is but the endless sailing of a ship that never shall arrive." So the two may play battledore and shuttlecock, but if, so having paired beliefs, they part with no more said, they have missed the real point of their difference. The irreligious man can match the Christian's belief with his own, but one thing he cannot match--the Christian's trust. _He has nothing that remotely corresponds with that._ The Christian always has this case to plead with an unbelieving man: Do not suppose that the difference between us is exhausted in a conflict of contrasting propositions. Great indeed is the divergence there! But the issue of all such difference lies in another realm. When you face life's abysmal mysteries that your eyes can no more pierce than mine, you have no one to trust. When misfortunes fall that send men to their graves, as Sydney Smith said, with souls scarred like a soldier's body, you have no one to trust. When you face the last mystery of all and whether going say farewell to those who stay, or staying bid farewell to those who go, you have no one to trust. You can match my belief with your belief, but for one thing you have no counterpart. "Jehovah is my shepherd, I shall not want" (Psalm 23:1). You cannot match that! "My heart hath trusted in him, and I am helped" (Psalm 28:7). You cannot match that! "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Gen. 18:25); "We have our hope set on the living God" (I Tim. 4:10); "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:46). That trust you cannot match! III In the light of this distinction between belief and trust some mistaken types of faith can be easily described. There, for example, is the _faith of formal creedalism_. We cannot have trust without some belief, but we may unhappily have belief without any trust. Now a man who believes the doctrines that underly the Christian life but who does not vitally trust the Person whom those doctrines present, has missed the heart out of faith's meaning. He is like one who cherishes a letter of introduction to a great personality, but has never used it; he has the formal credentials, but not the transforming experience. It follows that we cannot estimate a man merely by knowing his beliefs. I believe in all the Christian truths, says one; and the curious question rises, how did these beliefs of his come into his possession? They may have been handed to him by his forbears like a set of family jewels, a static and external heritage, which now he keeps in some ecclesiastical safe-deposit vault and on state days, at Christmas or at Easter, goes to see. Still he may claim that they are his beliefs; he may even quarrel about their genuineness, not because he ever uses them but because they are his. He may repeat the creed with the same unquestioning assent that he gives to the conventional cut of his clothes. His beliefs are not the natural utterance and explanation of his inner life with God and man, but are put on as they were handed to him, like the fashions of his coats. So easy is it to be formally orthodox! Over against such conventional believers one thinks of other folk whom he has known. They have no such stereotyped, clear-cut beliefs. They are very puzzled about life. It seems to them abysmally mysterious. And when they speak they talk with a modesty the formal creedalist has never felt: My beliefs are most uncertain. Confused by many voices shouting conflicting opinions about truths which I once accepted without thinking, I cannot easily define my thoughts. But I do trust God. That assent of the mind which I cannot give to propositions, I can give to him. Life is full of mystery, but I do not really think that the mystery is darkness at its heart. My faith has yet its standing ground in this, that the world's activities are not like the convulsions of an epileptic, unconscious and purposeless. There is a Mind behind the universe, and a good purpose in it. "Yet in the maddening maze of things, And tossed by storm and flood, To one fixed trust my spirit clings; I know that God is good." Say as one may that such an attitude is far from adequate, yet as compared with the merely formal acceptance of inherited opinions how incomparably superior its religious value is! The people of placid, stiff beliefs are not the successors of the real saints. When one reads George Matheson's books of devotion, for example, or sings his hymn "O Love, that wilt not let me go," or learns of his great work in his church in Edinburgh, one might suppose that he never had a doubt. Yet listen to his own confession: "At one time with a great thrill of horror, I found myself an absolute atheist. After being ordained at Innellan, I believed nothing; neither God nor immortality. I tendered my resignation to the Presbytery, but to their honor they would not accept it, even though an Highland Presbytery. They said I was a young man and would change. I have changed." One need only read such books of his as "Can the Old Faith Live with the New?" to see through what a searching discipline of strenuous thought he passed in the regaining of his faith. But if one would know what held his religious life secure while he was working out his beliefs from confusion to clarity, one must turn to Matheson's poem: "Couldst thou love _Me_ When creeds are breaking-- Old landmarks shaking With wind and sea? Couldst thou refrain the earth from quaking And rest thy heart on _Me_?" Many a man has been held fast by his trust in God while in perplexity he thought out his beliefs about God. Indeed, within the Scripture, whatever word is used to describe the attitude of faith, this vital personal alliance with God is everywhere intended. For convenience we have called faith in propositions belief, but that does not mean that when the Scriptures use "believe" they are urging the acceptance of propositions. Not often in the Bible are we invited merely to agree with an opinion; we are everywhere called to trust a Person. "Trust in the Lord" in the Old Testament, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ" in the New, are neither of them the proclamation of a theory, but the exaltation of a personality. Wherever in Scripture doctrines are insisted on--the unity of God, the deathlessness of the spirit, the divinity of Christ--they are never doctrines for their own sakes; _they are either commendatory truths about a Friend, that we may not fail to trust him, or they are ideas about life that have come to men because they did trust him_. _Trust in a Person is either the source or the goal of every Christian doctrine._ The Gospel at its center is not a series of propositions, but a concrete, personal relationship opened between the soul and the Divine, out of which new powers, joys, possibilities flow gloriously into human life. When out of this experience of divine fellowship Paul, for example, speaks of faith he means by it the alliance that binds him to his friend. He fairly sings of the peace that comes from such believing (Rom. 15:13), of the love that is its motive power and chief expression (Gal. 5:6), and of "the sacrifice and service" which are its issue (Phil. 2:17). He enthusiastically commends to everyone this divine alliance through which moral defeat is changed to victory in the "righteousness which is of God by faith" (Phil. 3:9); and his prose slips over into poetry when he describes his new transfigured life as "access by faith into that grace wherein we stand" (Rom. 5:2). Plainly he is not talking here about a set of propositions; he is rejoicing in a transforming personal relationship. Some faith is nothing but an inherited set of opinions and it gives a cold light like an incandescent bulb; some faith, like sunshine, is brighter for seeing than any incandescence can ever be, but warm too, so that under its persuasive touch new worlds of life spring into being. The faith of the New Testament and of the real saints is not the cold brilliance of a creed in whose presence one can freeze even while he sees; it is the warm, life-giving sunshine of a trust in God that makes all gracious things grow, and puts peace and joy, hope and love into life. Belief in propositions is there, but the crown and glory of it are trust in a Person. IV In the light of this distinction between belief and trust, the inadequacy of another type of faith can easily be understood. Many would protest that they have not accepted their beliefs as an external heritage from the past, but rather have thought them through, and hold them now as _reasonable theories to explain the facts of the spiritual life_. They would say that as a geologist observes the rocks and constructs an hypothesis to account for their origin and nature, so the mind, observing man's contacts with invisible powers, constructs religious beliefs as explanations of experience. They would insist that their theology is not merely traditional, but in large degree is independently appropriated and original. They hold it as an hypothesis to make intelligible man's experiences of the spiritual world. There is significant truth in this view of faith. Man's ideals, his loves, hopes, aspirations, his unescapable sense of moral obligation, his consciousness of Someone other than himself, are facts, as solidly present in experience as stars and mountains. To explain these facts by theology is as rational as to explain the stars by astronomy. Every believer in religious truth should welcome this confirming word from Dr. Pritchett, written when he was President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: "Science is grounded in faith just as is religion, and scientific truth, like religious truth, consists of hypotheses, never wholly verified, that fit the facts more or less closely." But when one turns from such a statement to inquire what faith has actually meant to religious men, he does not find that their experience could easily be defined as belief in an hypothesis. The prophets, standing their ground through national disaster, undiscourageable in their conviction of God's good purpose for His people, would have been surprised to hear their faith so described. When the Sons of Thunder were swept out into a new life by the influence of Jesus, or the seer of Patmos was ravished with visions of eternal victory, or Paul was made conqueror in a fight for character that had been his despair, they would hardly have spoken of their experiences as belief in an hypothesis. Real religion has always meant something more vital than holding a theory about life. When Robert Louis Stevenson says of his transformation of character, "I came about like a well-handled ship. There stood at the wheel that unknown steersman whom we call God"; when Tolstoi cries: "To know God and to live are one and the same thing"; when Professor William James, of Harvard, writes of his consciousness of God, "It is most indefinite to be sure and rather faint, and yet I know that if it should cease, there would be a great hush, a great void in my life"; one sees what conversion of character, what increase of life's value, what spiritual reenforcement religion has meant even to such unconventional believers. When they speak of it, they are evidently thinking of a vital power and not a theory. The most obscure Christian to whom religion has become a necessity in living, knows how far short the plummet of hypothetical belief comes from reaching bottom. In sin, burdened by a sense of guilt that he could not shake off and unable to forgive himself, he has cried to be forgiven, and the Gospel that has been his hope was no injunction to hold hard by his hypothesis! In sorrow, when the blows have fallen that either hallow or embitter life, he has sought for necessary fortitude, and the Gospel which established him certainly was not, Cast thy care on thine hypothesis! And when, more than conqueror, he faces death, his confidence and hope will rest on no such prayer as this, O Hypothesis, guide me! The word of religion is of another sort, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for _Thou_ art with me." Not belief in propositions, but trust in a Person has been the heart of the Gospel, and to make any hypothesis, however true, do duty as religion is to give the soul a stone when it asks for bread. The futility of seeking contentment in faith as an hypothesis alone is especially manifest in our time. This is an age of swiftly changing ideas in every realm. As in science, so in religion, today one theory holds the field to be displaced tomorrow by another. A man in theology, as much as in politics or psychology, goes to bed supposing he has settled his opinions, and wakes up to find a new array of evidence that disturbs his confidence. When, therefore, religious faith has meant no more to its possessor than theory, there is no security or rest. Each day the winds of opinion shift and veer, and minds at the beginning obstinate in their beliefs, at last, dismayed by the reiterated uncertainties of thought, give up their faith. Where, then, have the men of faith found the immovable center of their confidence? Paul revealed the secret. On the side of his particular opinions he frankly confessed his limited and uncertain knowledge. "Now we know in fragments," he wrote, "now we see through a glass darkly." "How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past tracing out!" But on the side of his trust he is adamant: "I know _him_ whom I have believed." The certainty of his life was his relationship with a person, and his beliefs were the best he yet had thought in the explication and establishment of that trust. The great believers of the Church continually have exhibited this dual aspect of their faith. Even St. Augustine, facing the profound mysteries involved in his trinitarian belief, complains that human speech is pitiably futile in trying to explain what "Three persons" means, and that if he uses the familiar phrase, he does so not because he likes it, but because he may not be silent and knows no better thing to say. But when Augustine prays to the God whose nature is so unfathomable that no man can see it fully or express it adequately, he reveals no such uncertain thought: "Grant me, even me, my dearest Lord, to know Thee and love Thee and rejoice in Thee.... Let the love of Thee grow every day more and more here, that it may be perfect hereafter; that my joy may be great in itself and full in Thee. I know, O God, that thou art a God of truth; O make good Thy gracious promises to me!" So children do not fully understand an earthly father and often hold conceptions grotesquely insufficient to do justice to his life and work. But they may have for him well-founded trust. Even in the years of infancy an ennobling personal relationship begins, despite the inadequacy of their beliefs, and that trust yearly deepens while mental concepts shift and change with access of new knowledge. _The abiding core of a child's life with his father is not belief but trust._ Such has always been the secret of faith's stability in men who have entered into personal fellowship with God. Even of the first disciples it has been said--"They would have had difficulty sometimes to tell you _what_ they believed, but they could always have told you in _whom_ they believed." V The truth of which we have been speaking has pertinent bearing on the main object of our studies. We shall be considering the difficulties which Christians have with their beliefs, and the arguments which may clarify and establish our minds' confidence in God. But many problems in the realm of intellectual belief cannot be solved by any arguments which the mind devises. The trouble often lies not in our theories about the religious life, but in our religious life itself. _The deeper difficulty is not that our thinking is unreasonable, but that our experience is unreal._ To a man who never had seen the stars or felt the wonder of their distances, astronomy would be a lifeless topic and his endeavors to think about it a blundering and futile operation. Our theories about anything depend for their interest and worth upon the vividness with which we experience the thing itself and care to understand its meaning. This is true about matters like the stars; how much more true about the intimate affairs of man's own life! Democracy vs. autocracy is a crucial problem. But plenty of men are so careless about human weal, think so little of their country and the world as objects of solicitude and devotion, that to discuss in their presence democratic and autocratic theories of state is a waste of time. The trouble is not with their minds; they may be very clever and acute. The trouble is with their lives. They need to experience patriotism as a vital motive; they need to care immensely what happens to mankind. Only then will the problems of government grow vivid, and the need of a solution become so critical that thinking will be urgent and productive. We never think well about anything for which we do not care. Plenty of people today discuss theology as an academic pastime. It is a speculative game at which they play, as they do at golf, for its fun and lure. They do not really care about God; they feel no crucial need of him. Of little use is all their ingenuity in argument, clever and astute though it may be. Blind men might so discuss the color scheme of an Italian landscape and deaf men debate the harmonies of Handel's oratorios. What is lacking is experience. For our theories are only the explanations of experience, and an emptier game cannot be played than debating explanations of experiences which we have not had. Everyone in difficulty with his faith should give due weight to this important truth. Our intellectual troubles are not all caused by the bankruptcy of our spiritual lives, but many of them are. Men live with drained and unreplenished spirits, from which communion with God and service of high causes have been crowded out. God grows unreal. The self-evidencing experiences that maintain vital confidence in the spiritual life grow dim and unimperative. Men pass years without habitually thinking as though God really were, without making any great decisions as though God's will were King, without engaging in any sacrificial work that makes the thought of God a need and a delight, without the companionship of great ideas or the sustenance of prayer. Then, when experience is denuded of any sense of God's reality, some intellectual doubt is suggested by books or friends, or fearful trouble shatters happiness. What recourse is there in such a case? The arguments of faith have no experience to get their grip upon; they can appeal to no solid and sustained fact of living. Religious confidence goes to pieces and men tell their friends that modern philosophy has been too much for faith. But the underlying difficulty was not philosophical; it was vital. The insolvency of "belief" was due to the bankruptcy of "trust." Personal fellowship with God failed first; the theory about him lapsed afterward. Throughout our endeavor to deal with intellectual perplexity, this fundamental truth should not be forgotten. _The peril of religion is that vital experience shall be resolved into a formula of explanation, and that men, grasping the formula, shall suppose themselves thereby to possess the experience._ If one inquires what air is, the answer will probably be a formula stating that oxygen and nitrogen mixed in proportions of twenty-one to seventy-nine make air. But air in experience is not a formula. Air is the elixir we breathe and live thereby. Air is the magician who takes the words that our lips frame and bears them from friend to friend in daily converse. Air is the messenger who carries music to our ears and fragrance to our nostrils; it is the whisperer among the trees in June, and in March the wild dancer who shakes the bare branches for his castanets. Air is the giant who piles the surf against the rocky shore, and the nurse who fans the faces of the sick. One cannot put that into a formula. No more can God be put into a theology, however true. They who define him best may understand him least. God is the Unseen Friend, the Spiritual Presence, who calls us in ideals, warns us in remorse, renews us with his pardon, and comforts us with power. God is the Spirit of Righteousness in human life, whose victories we see in every moral gain, and allied with whom we have solid hopes of moral victory. God is the One who holds indeed the far stars in his hand, and yet in fellowship with whom each humblest son of man may find strength to do and to endure with constancy and fortitude and deathless hope. And when one lives close to him, so that the inner doors swing easily on quiet hinges to let him in, he is the One who illumines life with a radiance that human wills alone cannot attain. That is God--"Blessed is the man that taketh refuge in him" (Psalm 34:8). CHAPTER V Faith's Intellectual Difficulties DAILY READINGS Most people will readily grant that such a sense of personal fellowship with God as the last week's study presented is obviously desirable. Every one who has experienced such filial life with God will bear witness to its incomparable blessing. Said Tennyson, "I should be sorely afraid to live my life without God's presence, but to feel he is by my side just now as much as you are, that is the very joy of my heart." But many who would admit the desirability of the experience are troubled about the reasonableness of the beliefs that underly it. They want intellectual assurance about their faith. Let us in the daily readings present certain considerations which a mind so perplexed should take into account. Fifth Week, First Day We should let no one deny our right to bring religious belief to the test of reasonableness. Glanvill was right when in the seventeenth century he said, "There is not anything I know which hath done more mischief to Religion than the disparaging of Reason." In the New Testament Paul says: =Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.--I Thess. 5:21.= Peter says: =Yea, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply virtue; and in your virtue knowledge.--II Pet. 1:5.= This might be paraphrased to read, Faith should be _worked out_ into character and _thought through_ into knowledge. As for Jesus: =One of the scribes came, and heard them questioning together, and knowing that he had answered them well, asked him, What commandment is the first of all? Jesus answered, The first is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God, the Lord is one: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.--Mark 12:28-30.= In many a life which has neglected these admonitions Lowell's words have proved true: "Nothing that keeps thought out is safe from thought." In our resolute endeavor to think through the mystery of life, however, and to find a reasonable basis for faith, we need to remember that _the very desire to know is an indication of the reality which we seek_. The dim intuition that the world with all its diverse powers was in some sense a unity, preceded by ages the statement of nature's uniformity which modern science knows; and man's tireless desire to reach a reasonable statement of the unity was an intimation in advance that unity was there. So men do not believe in God because they have proved him; they rather strive endlessly to prove him because they cannot help being sure that he must be there. This in itself is an intimation about reality which no thoughtful man will lightly set aside. Tennyson rightly describes the reason for man's quest after proof about God: "If e'er when faith had fall'n asleep, I heard a voice 'believe no more' And heard an ever-breaking shore That tumbled in the Godless deep; A warmth within the breast would melt The freezing reason's colder part, And like a man in wrath the heart Stood up and answer'd 'I have felt.'" _Eternal Father, Quest of ages, long sought, oft doubted or forsook; can it be that Thou art known to us, the Law within our minds, the Life of every breath we draw, the Love that yearneth in our hearts? Art Thou the Spirit who oft hast striven with us, and whom we greatly feared, lest yielding to His strong embrace we should become more than we dared to be?_ _An impulse toward forgiveness has sometimes stirred within us, we have felt moved to show mercy, the sacrificial life has touched our aspiration; but we were unprepared to pay the price. Was this Thyself, and have we turned from Thee? Something like this we must have done, so barren, joyless and so dead has life become. Canst Thou not visit us again?_ _We hush our thoughts to silence, we school our spirits in sincerity, and here we wait. O may we not feel once more the light upon our straining eyes, the tides of life rise again within our waiting hearts?_ _We never looked to meet Thee in the stress of thought, the toil of life, or in the call of duty; we only knew that somehow life had lost for us all meaning, dignity, and beauty. How then shall we turn back again and see with eyes that fear has filmed? How can we be born again, now grown so old in fatal habit?_ _If we could see this life of ours lived out in Thee, its common days exalted, its circumstances made a throne, its bitterness, disappointment, and failure all redeemed, then our hearts might stir again, and these trembling hands lay hold on life for evermore. Amen._--W. E. Orchard. Fifth Week, Second Day Not only is man's tireless quest for assurance about God an intimation that God must be here to be sought after; but _the spiritual nature of man which insists on the quest is itself a revelation that God actually is here_. Some men say that our spiritual life is the result of evolution, and they suppose that by this magic word they have explained it. But what comes out of a process of growth was somehow latent in the Original Beginning from which the growth started. Palm-trees do not grow from acorns; only oaks evolve from acorns and for the sufficient reason that oaks are somehow _involved in acorns_ to start with. So a universe with spiritual life in it naturally presupposes an Original with spiritual life in It. Whatever evolves must first of all have been involved. The very fact that the seeker after God has a spiritual life, which is restless and unsatisfied without faith in the Eternal Spirit, is one of the clearest indications that, whatever else may be said about the source of life, it must be spiritual. The Nile for ages was a mystery; it flowed through Egypt--a blessed necessity to the land, enriching the soil, and sustaining the people--but nobody knew its source. Long before Victoria Nyanza was discovered, however, thinkers were sure that a great lake must be the explanation of the stream; and when at last they found the sources of the Nile, the lake was even greater than anyone had dreamed. So is man's spirit a revelation of a spiritual origin even before that origin is clearly known. As the Bible puts it: =Now he that wrought us for this very thing is God, who gave unto us the earnest of the Spirit.--II Cor. 5:5.= _O God! mysterious and Infinite, Thou art the first and Thou the last: as our weeks pass away and our age rises or declines, we still return to Thee who ever art the same. We seek Thee as the sole abiding light amid the shadows of perishable things. O Thou most ancient God! to whom the heavens are but of yesterday, and the life of worlds but as the shooting star, there is no number of Thy days and mercies; and what can we do, O Lord, but throw ourselves on Thee who failest not, and from whom our pathway is not hid? With solemn and open heart we would meet Thee here. Cover not Thyself with a cloud, most High, but may our prayer pass through._ _O Thou our constant Witness and our awful Judge! When we remember our thoughtless lives, our low desires, our impatient temper, our ungoverned wills, we know that Thou hast left us without excuse. For Thou hast not made us blind, O Lord, as the creatures that have no sin; nor hast Thou spared the light of holy guidance. Thy still small voice of warning whispers through our deepest conscience; and Thine open Word hath dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, and called us to the feet of Christ to choose the better part. We are not our own, and are ashamed to have lived unto ourselves. Thou hast formed us for Thy service, and we must hide our face that we have shrunk from the glorious hardships of our task, and slumbered on our holy watch. Our daily work has not been wrought as in Thy sight; and we have not made the outgoings of the morning and the evening to praise Thee. The trials of our patience we have received as earthly pains of nature, not as the heavenly discipline of faith; and the fulness of Thy bounties has come to us as dead comfort, not as the quickening touch of Thy everlasting love. O our true and only God! we have lived in a bondage of the world that bringeth no content; and the passions we serve are as strange idols that cannot deliver. Awake, awake, O Arm of the Lord! and burst our bonds in sunder; and help the spirit that struggles within us to turn unto Thee with a pure heart, and serve Thee in newness of spirit. Amen._--James Martineau. Fifth Week, Third Day Many stumble at the very beginning of their quest for God, because they are sure that finite mind can never know the Infinite. The Bible itself asserts that God is in one sense unknowable. =Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out.--Job 37:23.= =Man cannot find out the work that God hath done from the beginning even to the end.--Eccl. 3:11.= =O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?--Rom. 11:33, 34.= But in the same sense in which God is unknowable, all the most important realities with which we deal are also beyond our comprehension. We do not know what electricity is, what matter is, what life is. Ether is utterly beyond the reach of our definitions, and an English scientist calls it "unknown, impalpable, the necessary condition of scientific thought." As for the constituent elements of the material world, we are told that atoms are so infinitesimally minute as to be indivisible, and yet that an "electron ranges about in the atom as a mouse might in a cathedral." The plain fact is that in any realm, human knowledge soon runs off into an unknown region where it deals with invisible realities, which it cannot define, but on which life is based. While therefore we do not know what electricity, ether, electrons, and life itself are, we do know them well _in their relationship with our needs_. So we may know God. Deep beyond deep in him will be past our fathoming, but what God means in his relationships with our lives we may know gloriously. _O Thou who transcendest all thought of Thee as the heavens are higher than the earth; we acknowledge that we cannot search Thee out to perfection, but we thank Thee that Thou, the Invisible, comest to us in the things that are seen; that Thy exceeding glory is shadowed in the flower that blooms for a day, in the light that fades; that Thine infinite love has been incarnate in lowly human life; and that Thy presence surrounds all our ignorance, Thy holiness our sin, Thy peace our unrest._ _Give us that lowly heart which is the only temple that can contain the infinite. Save us from the presumption that prides itself on a knowledge which is not ours, and from the hypocrisy and carelessness which professes an ignorance which Thy manifestation has made for ever impossible. Save us from calling ourselves by a name that Thou alone canst wear, and from despising the image of Thyself Thou hast formed us to bear, and grant that knowledge of Thee revealed in Jesus Christ which is our eternal life. Amen._--W. E. Orchard. Fifth Week, Fourth Day The assurance of God may come in part from looking outward at his creation. This universe seems superficially to be material, but really it is _saturated with the presence of mind_. So a city's streets, buildings, bridges, subways, and railroads might appear to careless thought grossly material; but the fact is that in their origin they all are _mental_. They are not simply iron and steel and stone; they are thought, plan, purpose materialized and made visible. The basic fact about them is that mind shaped them and permeates every use to which they are put. The most important and decisive force in their origination was not anything that can be seen, but the invisible thought that dreamed them and moulded them. So when one looks at creation he finds something more than matter; he finds order, law, uniformity; his mind is at home in tracing regularities, discovering laws, and perceiving purposes. Creation is not grossly material; it is saturated with the evidence of mind. Lord Kelvin, the chemist, walking in the country with Liebig, his fellow-scientist, asked his companion if he believed that the grass and flowers grew by mere chemical forces; and Liebig answered, "No, no more than I could believe that the books of botany describing them could grow by mere chemical forces." =Lift up your eyes on high, and see who hath created these, that bringeth out their host by number; he calleth them all by name; by the greatness of his might, and for that he is strong in power, not one is lacking.= =Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from Jehovah, and the justice due to me is passed away from my God? Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard? The everlasting God, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary; there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to him that hath no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait for Jehovah shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.--Isa. 40:26-31.= _O Thou Infinite Perfection, who art the soul of all things that are ... we thank Thee for the world of matter whereon we live, wherewith our hands are occupied, and whereby our bodies are builded up and filled with food and furnished with all things needful to enjoy. We thank Thee for the calmness of Night, which folds Thy children in her arms, and rockest them into peaceful sleep, and when we wake we thank Thee that we are still with Thee. We bless Thee for the heavens over our head, arched with loveliness, and starred with beauty, speaking in the poetry of nature the psalm of life which the spheres chant before Thee to every listening soul._ _We thank Thee for this greater and nobler world of spirit wherein we live, whereof we are, whereby we are strengthened, upheld, and blessed. We thank Thee for the wondrous powers which Thou hast given to man, that Thou hast created him for so great an estate, that thou hast enriched him with such noble faculties of mind and conscience and heart and soul, capable of such continual increase of growth and income of inspiration from Thyself. We thank Thee for the wise mind, for the just conscience, for the loving heart, and the soul which knows Thee as Thou art, and enters into communion with Thy spirit, rejoicing in its blessing from day to day. Amen._--Theodore Parker. Fifth Week, Fifth Day The vital assurance of faith always comes, not so much from observing the outer world, as from appreciating the meaning of man's inner life. Man knows that he is something more than a physical machine. Theorists may say that our minds are only a series of molecular changes in the brain; but man turns to ask: _Who is it that is watching these molecular changes? The very fact that we can discuss them, is proof that we are something more than they are and of another order._ Leslie Stephen was an agnostic, but at the thought of man as merely a physical machine he grew impatient. "I knock down a man and an image," he said, "and both fall down because both are material. But when the man gets up and knocks me down, the result is not explicable by any merely mechanical action." Man denies his own inward consciousness of self when he refuses to acknowledge the mental and spiritual part of him as the thing he really is. Man may have a body, but he surely is a soul. And when man lets this highest part of him speak its own characteristic word, he always hears a message like this: I am spirit; to grow into great character is the one worthy end of my existence; but how came I to be spirit with spiritual purpose unless my Creator is of like quality? and how can I believe that my existence and my purpose are not a cruel joke unless I am begotten by a Spiritual Life that will sustain my strength and crown my effort? To believe that man's soul is a foundling, laid on the doorstep of a merely physical universe, crying in vain for any father who begot him or any mother who conceived him, is to make our highest life a liar. Therefore man at his best has always believed in God. =For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. For ye received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God.--Rom. 8:14-16.= _O Thou whom no name can tell, whom all our thoughts cannot fully comprehend, we rejoice in all Thy goodness.... We thank Thee for our body, this handful of dust so curiously and wonderfully framed together. We bless Thee for this sparkle of Thy fire that we call our soul, which enchants the dust into thoughtful human life, and blesses us with so rich a gift. We thank Thee for the varied powers Thou hast given us here on earth. We bless Thee for the far-reaching mind, which puts all things underneath our feet, rides on the winds and the waters, and tames the lightning into useful service.... We thank Thee for this conscience, whereby face to face we commune with Thine everlasting justice. We thank Thee for the strength of will which can overpower the weakness of mortal flesh, face danger and endure hardship, and in all things acquit us like men...._ _We thank Thee for this religious sense, whereby we know Thee, and, amid a world of things that perish, lay fast hold on Thyself, who alone art steadfast, without beginning of days or end of years, forever and forever still the same. We thank Thee that amid all the darkness of time, amid joys that deceive us and pleasures that cheat, amid the transgressions we commit, we can still lift up our hands to Thee, and draw near Thee with our heart, and Thou blessest us still with more than a father's or a mother's never-ending love. Amen._--Theodore Parker. Fifth Week, Sixth Day One ground of assurance concerning faith is the way a sincere fellowship with God affects life. In a delicious passage of his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin says, "I was scarce fifteen, when, after doubting by turns of several points, as I found them disputed in the different books I read, I began to doubt of Revelation itself. Some books against Deism fell into my hands; they were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle's Lectures. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short I soon became a thorough Deist. My arguments perverted some others, particularly Collins and Ralph; but, each of them having afterwards wrong'd me greatly without the least compunction, and recollecting Keith's conduct towards me (who was another free thinker), and my own towards Vernon and Miss Read, which at times gave me great trouble, I began to suspect that this doctrine, tho' it might be true, was not very useful." Many men, not yet able to see clearly the issue of conflicting arguments, are practically convinced in favor of faith by the relative effects on life of faith and unbelief. When one carries this thought out until he imagines a world where no one any more believes in God, he feels even more emphatically the negative results of unbelief. As Sir James Stephen said, "We cannot judge of the effects of Atheism from the conduct of persons who have been educated as believers in God, and in the midst of a nation which believes in God. If we should ever see a generation of men to whom the word God has no meaning at all, we should get a light on the subject which might be lurid enough." A practical working conviction is often gained in religion, as in every other realm, not by argument, but by acting on a principle until it verifies itself by its results, or, as in Benjamin Franklin's case, by trying a negation until one is driven from it by its consequences. =Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves. By their fruits ye shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but the corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Therefore by their fruits ye shall know them.--Matt. 7:15-20.= _O God, who remainest the same though all else fades, who changest not with our changing moods, who leavest us not when we leave Thee; we thank Thee that when we lose faith in Thee, soon or late we come to faith in something that leads us back again with firmer trust and more sincerity. Even if we wander into the far country we take ourselves with us; ourselves who are set towards Thee as rivers to the sea. If we turn to foolishness, our hearts grow faint and weary, our path is set with thorns, the night overtakes us, and we find we have strayed from light and life._ _Grant to us clearer vision of the light which knows no shade of turning, that we stray not in folly away; incline our hearts to love the truth alone, so that we miss Thee not at last; give us to realise of what spirit we are, so that we cleave ever to Thee, who alone can give us rest and joy. Amen._--W. E. Orchard. Fifth Week, Seventh Day When all is said and done in the matter of intellectual assurance, many are confused by the seeming lack of finality in the result. After all these ages of debate, they say, see all the innumerable opinions of jarring sects about religious truth! Evidently there is no satisfying conclusion obtainable at all! But look at the innumerable schools of medicine--shall one on their account decide that health is a fruitless study? Consider the infinite variety of taste in food--shall we say that therefore hunger and its satisfaction is a futile question to discuss? Rather, the very variety of the answers in man's quest reveals the importance of the quest itself. Of course proof of God lacks the finality of a scientific demonstration, and this is true _because it moves in a realm so much more important than anything that science touches_. Exactness and finality are possible only in the least important realms. One can measure and analyze and describe to a minute nicety a table which a carpenter has made, but when one turns to the carpenter himself and endeavors to analyze his motives, weigh his thoughts, estimate his quality, and prove his purposes, one drops minute nicety at once. The carpenter is not to be put into a column of figures and added with mathematical precision as his table is. The farther up one moves in the scale the less precise and undeniable do his conclusions become. So science is exact just because it deals with measurable things; but religion, by as much as its realm is more important, can less easily pack its conclusions into neat parcels finally tied up and sealed. A man who will not believe anything which is not precisely demonstrable must eliminate from his life everything except what yardsticks can measure and scales can weigh. Let no man ever give up the fight for faith because he does not seem at once to be reaching an answer which he can neatly formulate. Let him remember Tolstoi, writing on his birthday: "I am twenty-four, and I have not done a thing yet. But I feel that not in vain have I been struggling for nearly eight years against doubt and temptation. For what am I destined? This only the future will disclose." =Hear, O Jehovah, when I cry with my voice: Have mercy also upon me, and answer me. When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Jehovah, will I seek. Hide not thy face from me; Put not thy servant away in anger: Thou hast been my help; Cast me not off, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation. When my father and my mother forsake me, Then Jehovah will take me up. Teach me thy way, O Jehovah; And lead me in a plain path, Because of mine enemies. Deliver me not over unto the will of mine adversaries: For false witnesses are risen up against me, And such as breathe out cruelty. I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of Jehovah In the land of the living. Wait for Jehovah: Be strong, and let thy heart take courage; Yea, wait thou for Jehovah.= =--Psalm 27:7-14.= _Deliver us, our Father, from all those mists which do arise from the low places where we dwell, which rise up and hide the sun, and the stars even, and Thee. Deliver us from the narrowness and the poverty of our conceptions. Deliver us from the despotism of our senses. And grant unto us this morning, the effusion of Thy Spirit, which shall bring us into the realm of spiritual things, so that we may, by the use of all that which is divine in us, rise into the sphere of Thy thought, into the realm where Thou dwellest, and whither have trooped from the ages the spirits of just men now made perfect. Grant, we pray Thee, that we may not look with time-eyes upon eternal things, measuring and dwarfing with our imperfectness the fitness and beauty of things heavenly. So teach us to come into Thy presence and to rise by sympathy into Thy way of thinking and feeling, that so much as we can discern of the invisible may come to us aright. Amen._--Henry Ward Beecher. COMMENT FOR THE WEEK I While it is true that in many cases the apparent unreasonableness of Christian faith springs from the underlying unreality of Christian life, this is not always a sufficient diagnosis of doubt. Horace G. Hutchinson, the English golfer, who spent much of his life in agnosticism and has now come over into Christian faith, thus interprets the spirit of his long unbelief: "All the while I had the keenest consciousness of the comfort that one would gain could he but believe in the truth of the Christian promises. Surely that must always be the agnostic's mood.... It is not that they wilfully reject the appeal to the heart; their will is eager to respond to it. But man has his gift of reason; it cannot be that he is not intended to use it. Least of all can it be part of the great design that he should suspend its use in regard to the most important subject to which his thought can be directed." Such sincere intellectual difficulties with faith must be met with intellectual arguments and not with moral accusations. Plenty of folk of elevated character and admirable lives grant, sometimes impatiently, that the Christian faith is beautiful--but is it _so_? Is not its solacing power a deceptive sleight of hand, by which our pleasing fancies and desires are made to look like truth? So a mirage is beautiful to weary travelers, but their temporary comfort rests on fallacy. McTaggart summed up one of the most wide-spread and masterful desires of this generation when he said, "What people want is a religion they can believe to be true." As one sets himself to meet faith's intellectual difficulties, the attitude in which he is to approach the problem is all-important. Samuel M. Crothers tells us that a young man once left with him a manuscript for criticism, and remarked in passing, "It is only a little bit of my work, and it will not take you long to look it over. In fact it is only the first chapter in which I explain the Universe." When one outgrows this cocksure presumption of youth and gains a graver and more seasoned mind, he leaves behind the attempt to pierce to creation's last secret. He sees that we can no more neatly and finally demonstrate God than we can demonstrate any of life's important faiths. Moreover proof of God, as a theorem in philosophy, is not a deep human need. Men often have supposed that they had such demonstration, but human experience was little affected by the fact. The exhaustless source of mankind's desire for assurance about God is not theoretical curiosity but vital need, and until a man feels the need, sees how urgently man's highest life reaches out toward God, he never will make much of any arguments. Browning's bishop asks his friend: "Like you this Christianity or not? It may be false, but will you wish it true? Has it your vote to be so if it can?" Until a man gives an affirmative answer to that inquiry, until he possesses a life that itself suggests God and wants him, he is not likely to arrive anywhere by argument alone. This is not the case with Christianity only. We cannot prove with theoretical finality that monogamy is the form of family life to which the universe is best adapted. But mankind, trying many experiments with family life, has found in the monogamous family values unique and indispensable. It is because men feel the value of such a love-bond, that they begin to argue for it. And their argument, when one sees deeply into it, is framed after this fashion: We know the _worth_ of this family-life of faithful lovers. We want monogamy and we propose to have it. We do not pretend that our faith in monogamy, as the form of marriage best fitted to this universe, is capable of exact demonstration; but we do see arguments of great weight in favor of it and we do not see any convincing arguments against it. We are persuaded that our faith has reasonable right of way; and we propose to go on believing in monogamy and practicing it and combating its enemies, until we prove our case in the only way such cases ever can be finally proved, by the issue of the matter in the end. So men come into the sort of personal and social life that Jesus represents. Apart from any theories, they value the life itself--its ideals of character, friendship, service, trust. If honesty allows, they propose to live that life. When a man has gone far enough in Christian experience, so that he comes up to his intellectual difficulties by such a road, he is likely to profit by a consideration of the reasons in favor of faith. He is in the attitude of saying: I have found great living in Christ. No argument for the Christian experience can be quite so convincing as the Christian experience itself. I am bound to have that life if I honestly can, and I will search to see whether there is any insuperable intellectual difficulty in the way of it. II One of the initial perplexities of faith concerns the sort of intellectual assurance which we have a right to expect. In a laboratory of physics, the investigator gathers facts, makes inductions as to their laws, and then verifies his findings. He uses a simplicity of procedure and gains a finality of result that makes all other knowledge seem relatively insecure. To be sure, the scientist may seek long for his truth and make many ineffectual guesses that prove false, but, in the end, he reaches a conclusion so demonstrable that every man of wit enough to investigate the subject must agree that it is so. How the Christian wishes for such certainty concerning God! Before, however, any one surrenders confidence in God, because confessedly the affirmations of religious faith cannot be established by such methods as a physicist employs, there is ample reason for delay. We are certain that heat expands and cold contracts, and we can prove the fact and state its laws. But are we not also sure that it is wrong to lie and right to tell the truth? This conviction about truthfulness at least equals in theoretical certainty and in practical right to determine conduct, our confidence in heat's expanding power. This conviction about truthfulness does actually sway life more than does any single scientific truth that one can name. Let us then set ourselves to prove our moral confidence by such methods as the physical laboratory can supply--with yard sticks, and Troy weight scales, and test tubes, and meters! At once it is evident that if we are to hold only such truth as is amenable to the demonstration of a laboratory, we must bid farewell to every _moral conviction_ that hitherto has influenced our lives. God, banished because the physicist cannot prove him, will have good company in exile! Moreover, all our _esthetic convictions_ will have to share that banishment. We know that some things are beautiful. The consensus of the race's judgment has not so much agreed to accept the new astronomy as it has agreed to think sunrise glorious and snow-capped mountains wonderful. Take from our lives our judgments on beauty, so that we may call no music marvelous, no poetry inspiring, no scenery sublime, and some of the most intimate and assured convictions we possess will have to go. A man who has seen the Matterhorn at dawn, when the first shaft of light reaches its rocky pinnacle and streams down in glory over the glaciers that cape its shoulders, will not disbelieve the splendor of the scene, though all the world beside unanimously should cry that it is not beautiful. But prove it by the methods of a laboratory? When the geologist has analyzed all the mountain's rocks, the chemist all its minerals; when the astronomer has traced the earth's orbit that brings on the dawn, and the physicist has counted and tabulated the rays of light that make the colors, our conviction of the scene's beauty will be as little explained or proved as is our confidence in God. It becomes clear that some convictions which we both do and must hold are not amenable to the sort of proof which a scientific laboratory furnishes. Moreover, if we will have no truth beyond the reach of a physicist's demonstration, all our _convictions in the realm of personal relationship_ will have to go. We _know_ that friendship-love is the crown of every human fellowship. Father and son, mother and daughter, brother and sister, wife and husband--these relationships are in themselves bare branches wanting the foliage and fruit of friendship. Of no truth is man at his best more sure than he is that "Life is just our chance o' the price of learning love." But no laboratory ever can deal with such a truth, much less establish it. For this is the neglected insight, for the want of which our religious confidence is needlessly unstable: _Every realm of reality has its own appropriate kind of proof, and a method of proof available in one realm is seldom, if ever, usable in another._ That truthfulness is right is in a way provable, but methods proper to the moral realm must be allowed; that the Matterhorn is sublime is in a sense provable, but by methods which the esthetic realm permits; that love is the crown of life can be soundly established, but one must employ a method appropriate to personal relationships. If, obsessed by the procedure of a laboratory as the solitary path to knowledge, one will have no convictions which cannot meet its tests, then in good logic there must be a great emigration from his soul. All his convictions about morals and beauty, all his convictions about personal friendships and about God must leave together. He will have a depopulated spirit. No man could live on such terms for a single hour. The most essential and valuable equipment of our souls is in convictions which the demonstrations of a physicist can as little reach as an inch worm, clambering up the Himalayas, can measure the distance to the sun. III A man to whom the Christian life has come to be preeminently valuable, and who is asking whether it is intellectually justifiable, is set free, by such considerations as we just have noted, to seek assurance where religious assurance may properly be found. For one thing, he may find help by _trying out the creed of no-God_. Many a man is a wavering believer, makes little excursions into doubt and returns hesitant and unhappy, because he never has dared to see his doubts through to their logical conclusion and to face the world with God eliminated. One may sense the general atmosphere of the world, under the no-God hypothesis, by saying, _In all this universe there is no mind essentially greater than mine._ The import of such a statement grows weightier the more one ponders it. All human minds are infinitesimal in knowledge; endless realities must lie beyond our reach; "our science is a drop, our ignorance a sea." Yet human knowledge is all that anywhere exists, if the no-God hypothesis is true. There is no knower who knows more, and the infinite reality beyond our grasp is not known by any mind at all. No one ever thought it or will think it through eternity. Then, let a man add, _In all this universe there is no goodness essentially greater than mine._ Human goodness is pitiably partial; it is but prophecy of what goodness ought to mean; "Man is a dwarf of himself," as Emerson said. But human goodness is all that anywhere exists, if the no-God hypothesis is true. There never will be any better goodness anywhere, and when the earth comes to its end in a solar catastrophe, there will be no goodness left at all. Certainly the hypothesis of no-God raises more questions than it easily can quell. Indeed the Christian, long accused by unbelieving friends of gross credulity because he holds his creed, may well leave his defense and "go over the top" in an offensive charge. If it is a question of holding creeds, unbelief is a creed as certainly as belief is; it says, I believe that there is no God or that God cannot be known. If it is a question of credulity, the Christian suspects that of all the different kinds of credulousness which the world has seen, nothing ever has surpassed the capacity of modern sceptics to accept impossible beliefs. He who says, I believe that there is no God, nor anything which that name might reasonably connote, is saying, I believe that the fundamental reality everywhere is physical. Long ages ago atoms, electrons, "mobile cosmic ethers" began their mysterious organization, whose present issue is planetary orbits, rocks, organic life, and, highest point of all, the brain of man. Man's mind is but the moving shadow cast by the activity of brain. Man's character is the subtle fragrance of his nerves. Everywhere, if the no-God hypothesis be true, spirit is a _result_, physical energy the _cause_. Some startling corollaries follow such a view. _No man can be blamed for anything._ Molecular action in the brain is responsible alike for saints and sinners, and we are as powerless to change our quality of character or action as a planet is to change its course. Judas and Jesus, Festus and Paul, the Belgian lads and the Prussian officers who mutilated them, the raper and the raped--why blame the one or praise the other when all characters alike are ground from a physical machine, whose action is predetermined by the push of universal energy behind? One man even says that to condemn an immoral deed is like Xerxes whipping the Hellespont--punishment visited on physical necessity which is not to blame. The second corollary is not less startling: _every man thinks as he does because of molecular action in the brain_. A Christian believes in God because his molecules maneuver so, and his opponent is an atheist because his molecules maneuver otherwise, and all convictions of truth, however well debated and reasoned out, are fundamentally the work of atoms, not of mind. What we call intellect as little causes anything as steam from a kettle causes the boiling out of which it comes. Some brains boil Socialism, some do not; some brains boil Episcopalianism and some Christian Science. A determinist and a believer in freewill differ as do oaks and elm trees, for physical reasons only, and folk are Catholic in southern Europe--so we are informed--because their skulls are narrow, and in northern Europe Protestants because their skulls are broad. Truth is a nickname for a neurosis. The standing marvel is that on some matters like the multiplication table our brains boil so unanimously. A third corollary still remains: _we have no creative power of mind and will_. All that is and is to be was wound up in primeval matter, and now in our thoughts and actions is ticking like a clock. "All of our philosophy," says Huxley, "all our poetry, all our science, and all our art--Plato, Shakespeare, Newton, and Raphael--are potential in the fires of the sun." That is to say, Plato had nothing to do with _creating_ his philosophy, nor Shakespeare with writing plays--they were empty megaphones and the real voice is the physical machine from which all things come. Professor Bowne of Boston University, after the publication of his "Metaphysics," received from a physicist a protest against his emphasis on the reality of mind. The professor of physics insisted that the only fundamental reality was physical and that mind is always a result of brain's activity and never a cause of anything. To this Professor Bowne replied that according to the writer's own theory, as he understood it, the letter of protest was the result of certain physical forces issuing in nervous excitations that made scratches on paper, and that the writer's mind had nothing effectual to do with its composition. This, said Professor Bowne, might be a plausible explanation of the letter, but he was unwilling to apply it to the universe. What wonder that the physicist acknowledged to a friend that the retort nettled him, for he did not see just how to answer it? IV One's discontent with this reduction of our lives to physical causation is increased when he studies the _mental process by which men reach it_. It is as if a man should perceive in the works of Shakespeare insight and beauty, pathos and laughter, despair and hope, and should set himself to explain all these as the function of the type. How plausibly he could do it! If one takes Shakespeare's sentences full of spiritual meaning he can readily resolve them into twenty-six constituent letters of the alphabet, and these into certain hooks and dashes, and these into arithmetical points diffused in space. Starting with such abstract points, let one suppose that some fortunate day they arranged themselves into hooks and dashes, and these into letters of the alphabet, and these by fortuitous concourse came together into sentences. Reading them we think we see deep spiritual meaning, but they are all the work of type; the fundamental reality is arithmetical points diffused in space. Such is the process by which a man reduces the mental and moral life of man back to its physical basis; then breaks up the physical basis into atoms; then, starting with these abstractions, builds up again the whole world which he just has analyzed, and thinks he has explained the infinitely significant spiritual life of man. Not for a long time will we accept such a method of explaining the works of Shakespeare! Nor can man contentedly be made to follow so inconsequential a process of thought as that by which the mind and character of Jesus are reduced to a maneuver of molecules. The attractiveness of this explanation of the universe as a huge physical machine is easily understood. It presents a simple picture, readily grasped. It packs the whole explanation of the world into a neat parcel, portable by any mind. In the days of monarchy the government of the universe was pictured in terms of an absolute sovereign; in feudal times the divine economy was pictured as a gigantic feudalism; we always use a dominant factor in the life of man to help us picture the eternal. So in the age whose builder and maker is machinery we easily portray the universe as a huge machine. The process is simple and natural, but to suppose that it is adequate is preposterous. Lord Kelvin, the chemist, knew thoroughly the mechanistic idea of the world. He felt the fascination of it, for he said at Johns Hopkins University, "I never satisfy myself until I make a mechanical model of a thing. If I can make a mechanical model I can understand it. As long as I cannot make a mechanical model all the way through, I cannot understand." But Lord Kelvin knew better than to suppose that this figure comprehended all of reality. "The atheistic idea," said he, "is so nonsensical, that I do not know how to put it into words." The rejection of the no-God hypothesis does not necessarily imply that a man becomes fully Christian in his thought of deity. There are way-stations between no-God and Jesus' Father. _But it does mean that to him reality must be fundamentally spiritual, not physical._ What other hypothesis possibly can fit the facts? For consider the view of a growing universe which we see from the outlook that modern science furnishes. Out of a primeval chaos where physical forces snarled at each other in unrelieved antagonism, where no man had yet arisen to love truth and serve righteousness, something has brought us to a time, when for all our evil, there are mothers and music and the laughter of children at play, men who love honor and for service' sake lay down their lives, and homes in every obscure street where fortitude and sacrifice are splendidly exhibited. Out of a chaos, where a contemporary observer, could there have been one, would have seen no slightest promise of spirit, something has brought us to the Ten Commandments, and the Sermon on the Mount, to great character and growing achievements in social righteousness, to lofty thoughts of the Divine and hopes of life eternal. _Something has been at work here besides matter. No explanation of all this will do, without God._ V Another source of confirmation for the man who, valuing Christian experience, seeks assurance that it is intellectually justifiable, is to be found in the effect of Christian faith on life itself. The nautical tables can be proved by an astronomer in his observatory; but if they are given to a sailor and he beats about the seas with them in safety, finding that they make adventurous voyages practicable, that also would be important witness to their truth. So the Christian ideas of life have not been kept by studious recluses to ponder over and weave philosophies about; they have been down in the market place, men have been practically trying them for generations, and _they make great living_. The ultimate ground of practical assurance about anything is that we have tried it and that it works. A man may have experience that other persons exist, may draw the inference that friendly relations with them are not impossible, but only when he launches out and verifies his thought in an adventure will he really be convinced of friendship's glory. In no other way has final assurance about God come home to man. They who have lived as though God _were_ have been convinced that he _is_; they who have willed to do his will have known. That religious faith does justify itself in life is a fact to which mankind's experience amply testifies. Men have come to God, not as chemists to bread curious to analyze it; they have come as hungry men, needing to eat if they would live. And they have found life glorified by faith in him. The difference between religion and irreligion here is plain. _How seldom one finds enthusiastic unbelievers!_ When all that is fine spirited and resolute in agnostic literature is duly weighed and credited, the pessimistic undertone is always heard. Leslie Stephen thus summarizes life--"There is a deep sadness in the world. Turn and twist the thought as you may there is no escape. Optimism would be soothing if it were possible; in fact, it is impossible, and therefore a constant mockery." No gospel burns in the unbeliever's mind, urgent for utterance; he has no inspiring outlooks to offer, no glad tidings to declare. The more intelligent he is the more plainly he sees this. With Clifford he laments that "the spring sun shines out of an empty heaven to light up a soulless earth" and feels "with utter loneliness that the Great Companion is dead"; with Romanes he frankly states, "So far as the ruination of individual happiness is concerned, no one can have a more lively conception than myself of the possibly disastrous tendency of my work." An unbeliever whose admirable life raised the question as to the philosophy by which he guided it, gave this summary of his creed, "I am making the best of a bad mess." Unbelievers do not spontaneously utter in song the glory of a creed like this, and when they do write poetry, it is of a sort that music will not fit-- "The world rolls round forever like a mill, It grinds out death and life and good and ill, It has no purpose, heart, or mind or will." When from poetry one turns to philosophy, he can see good reasons why hymnals and unbelief should be uncongenial. There is little to make life worth while in a creed which holds as Haeckel does that morality in man, like the tail of a monkey or the shell of a tortoise, is purely a physiological effect, and that man himself is "an affair of chance; the froth and fume at the wave-top of a sterile ocean of matter." Shall the practical unserviceableness of such an idea for the purpose of life, awaken no suspicion as to its truth? Upon the other hand, suppose that by some strange chance the principles of Jesus should over night take possession of mankind. Even as it is, when one starts his thought with the Stone Age, the progress of mankind has obviously been immense. From universal cannibalism after a battle, to massacre without cannibalism marked one great advance; from massacre of all prisoners taken in war to enslavement of them marked another; and when slavery ceased being a philanthropic improvement, as it was at first, and became a sin and shame, humanity took another long step forward. With all our present barbarity, a far look backwards shows a clear ascent. As for the influence of Jesus, Lecky, the historian, tells us that "The simple record of three short years of Christ's active life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists." What if this process were brought to its fulfilment between sunset and dawn, and the new day came with every one sure of God's fatherhood and life eternal, of the law of love and the supremacy of character and with everyone living as though these were true? Whatever intellectual perplexities of belief a man may have, he knows that such a world would be divinely great. No war, no evil lust, no covetous selfishness, no drunkenness! Mankind, relieved of ancient burdens which have ruined character and crushed endeavor, confident of faiths that give life infinite horizons and deathless hopes, in cooperative international fraternity would be making the earth a decent home for God to rear his children in. One finds it hard to believe that ideas which, incarnate in life, would so redeem the world are false. As to the effect of the Christian affirmations on individual character, we do not need to picture an imagined future. A Character has been here who has lived them out. A jury of philosophers might analyze the wood-work and the metals of an organ, and guess from form and material what it is, but we still should need for our assurance a musician. When he sweeps the keys in harmony we _know_ that it is an organ. So when the philosophers have debated the pros and cons of argument concerning faith, Jesus _plays_ the Gospel. His life is the Christian affirmations done into character. When religious faith, at its best, is incarnate in a Man, this is the consequence. And multitudes of folk, living out the implications of the faith, have found the likeness of the Master growing in them. Weighty confirmation of the Gospel's _truth_ arrives when its meaning is translated into life; the world will not soon reject the New Testament in this edition--bound in a Man. To one in perplexity about belief, this proper question therefore rises: What do we think about the Christlike character? Is it not life at its sublimest elevation? But to acknowledge that and yet to deny the central faiths by which such life is lived is to say that those ideas which, incarnate, make living great are false, and those ideas which leave life meager of motive and bereft of hope are true. No one lives on such a basis in any other realm. We always mistrust the validity of any idea which works poorly or not at all. And so far from being a practical makeshift, this "negative pragmatism" is a true principle of knowledge. Says Professor Hocking, of Harvard, "If a theory has no consequences, or bad ones; if it makes no difference to men, or else undesirable differences; if it lowers the capacity of men to meet the stress of existence, or diminishes the worth to them of what existence they have; such a theory is somehow false, and we have no peace until it is remedied." The last word against irreligion is that it makes life unlivable; the last word for faith is that it makes life glorious. VI One who is facing intellectual difficulties in the way of faith may well consider that the very Christian life for whose possession he is seeking justification is itself an argument of the first importance. This life grew up in the universe; it is one expression of the universe; and it is hard to think that it does not reveal a nature kindred to itself in the source from which it came. Mankind has always experienced a relationship with the Unseen which has seemed like communion of soul with Soul. When a psychologist like Professor James, of Harvard, reduces to its most general terms this religious Fact which has been practically universal in the race, he puts it thus: "Man becomes conscious that this higher part (his spiritual life) is coterminous and continuous with a MORE of the same quality, which is operative in the universe outside of him, and which he can keep in working touch with, and in a fashion get on board of and save himself when all his lower being has gone to pieces in the wreck." No experience of man is more common in occurrence, more tremendous in result than this. From the mystics whose vivid sense of God canceled their consciousness that anything else was real, to plain folk who in the strength of the divine alliance have lived ordinary lives with extraordinary spirit, mankind as a whole has known that the best in man is in contact with a MORE. One does not need to be of a mystical temperament, given to raptures, to know what this means. Let him consider his own experience of love and duty, how he is bound by them to his ideals and woven into a community of personal life not only with his friends but with all humanity, until this spiritual life of his becomes the most august and commanding power he knows. When in our bodies we so discern a physical nature, whose laws and necessities we did not create, and whose power binds us into a community of need and labor with our fellows, our conclusion is confident. This experience is the basis of our assurance that a _physical universe is really here_. When, likewise in our inner selves we find a spiritual life, which man did not create, in obedience to which alone is safety, and peace, and power, what shall we conclude? That there is a _spiritual universe_ as plainly evidenced in man's soul as the physical universe is in the body! And when we note the attributes of this Spiritual Order, how it demands righteousness, rebukes sin, welcomes obedience and holds out ideals of endless possibility, it is plain that we are talking about something close of kin to God. As in summer we beat out through some familiar bay, naming the headlands as we sail, until if we go far enough, we cannot prevent our eyes from looking out across the unbounded sea, so if a man moves out through his own familiar spiritual life far enough, he comes to the Spiritual Order which is God. Man has not drifted into his religion by accident or fallen on it merely as superstition; he has moved out from his inner life to affirm a Spiritual Order as inevitably as he has moved out from his bodily experiences to affirm a physical universe. When from this general experience we turn to the specific experiences of religion, which prayer and worship represent, the testimony of the race is confident. Men have not all these ages been lifting up their souls to an unreality from which no response has come. The artesian well of transforming influence in human souls has not flowed from Nowhere. Some, indeed, hearing confidence in God founded on the individual experiences of man, derisively cry "Nonsense!" But if one were to prove that the Sistine Madonna is beautiful, he would have to offer his experience in evidence. "I went to Dresden," he might say, "up into the room where the Madonna hangs ... and it _is_ beautiful. I saw it." Met with derision by a doubter, as though his experience were no proof at all, how shall he proceed? "I am not the only one," he might continue, "who has perceived its beauty. All these centuries the folk best qualified to judge have gone up into that room and have come down again, sure that Raphael's work is beautiful." Is anyone in a position to deride that? So through all ages men and women, from lowest savages to the race's spiritual kings and queens, have gone up to the Divine, and, at their best, from experiences of prayer, worship, forgiven sins, transfigured lives, have come down sure that Reality is there. _One may not call nonsense the most universal and influential experience of the human race!_ The force of this fact is more clearly seen when one considers that man has grown up in this universe, gradually developing his powers and functions as responses to his environment. If he has eyes, so the biologists assure us, it is because the light waves played upon the skin and eyes came out in answer; if he has ears it is because the air waves were there first and ears came out to hear. Man never yet, according to the evolutionist, has developed any power save as a reality called it into being. There would be no fins if there were no water, no wings if there were no air, no legs if there were no land. Always the developing organism has been trying to "catch up with its environment." Yet some would tell us that man's noblest power of all has developed in a vacuum. They would say that his capacity to deal with a Spiritual World, to believe in God, and in prayer to experience fellowship with him, has all grown up with no Reality to call it into being. If so, it stands alone in man's experience, the only function of his life that grew without an originating Fact to call it forth. It does not seem reasonable to think that. The evidence of man's experience is overwhelmingly in favor of a Reality to which his spirit has been trying to answer. Said Max Müller, "To the philosopher the existence of God may seem to rest on a syllogism; in the eyes of the historian it rests on the whole evolution of human thought." CHAPTER VI Faith's Greatest Obstacle DAILY READINGS The speculative doubts leave many minds untouched, but one universal human experience sooner or later faces every serious life with questions about God's goodness. We all meet trouble, in ourselves or others, and oftentimes the wonder why in God's world such calamities should fall, such wretchedness should continually exist, plunges faith into perplexity. Few folk of mature years can fail to understand Edwin Booth when he wrote to a friend, "Life is a great big spelling book, and on every page we turn the words grow harder to understand the meaning of." Now, the basis of any intelligent explanation of faith's problem must rest in a _right practical attitude toward trouble_. To the consideration of that we turn in the daily readings. Sixth Week, First Day =Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial among you, which cometh upon you to prove you, as though a strange thing happened unto you: but insomuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings, rejoice; that at the revelation of his glory also ye may rejoice with exceeding joy. If ye are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are ye; because the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God resteth upon you. For let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or an evil-doer, or as a meddler in other men's matters: but if a man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God in this name.... Wherefore let them also that suffer according to the will of God commit their souls in well-doing unto a faithful Creator.--I Pet. 4:12-16, 19.= Such an attitude toward trouble as Peter here recommends is the most wholesome and hopeful possible to man. And it is reasonable too, if only on the ground that trouble _develops in men the essential qualities of strong character_. Our highest admiration is always reserved for men who master difficult crises. If the story of Joseph, begun beside Bedouin camp fires centuries ago, can easily be naturalized beside modern radiators; if Robinson Crusoe, translated into every tongue is understood by all, the reason lies in the depth of man's heart, where to make the most out of untoward situations is a daily problem. Not every one can grasp the argument or perceive the beauty of "Paradise Lost" and "Paradise Regained," but one thing about them every man appreciates--the blind Milton, sitting down to write them: "I argue not Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer Right onward." The full understanding of Ole Bull's playing on the violin was necessarily restricted to the musical, but no restriction bounds the admiration of men, learned or simple, when in a Munich concert, his A string snaps and he finishes the composition on three strings. That is the human problem in epitome. Getting music out of life's remainders after the break has come; winning the battle with what is left from a defeat; going blind, like Milton, and writing sublimest poetry, or deaf, like Beethoven, and composing superb sonatas; being reared in an almshouse and buried from Westminster Abbey, like Henry M. Stanley; or, like Kernahan, born without arms or legs and yet sitting at last in the British Parliament--all such hardihood and undiscourageable pluck reach back in a man's bosom beyond the strings that ease and luxury can touch, and strike there an iron, reverberating chord. Nothing in human life is so impressive as pluck, "fighting with the scabbard after the sword is gone." And no one who deeply considers life can fail to see that our best character comes when, as Peter says, we "suffer as a Christian." _O Lord our God, let our devout approach to Thee be that of the heart, not of the lips. Let it be in obedience to Thy spiritual law, not to any outward ritual. Thou desirest not temples nor offerings, but the sacrifice of a lowly and grateful heart Thou will not despise. Merciful Father, to all Thy dispensations we would submit ourselves, not grudgingly, not merely of necessity, but because we believe in Thy wisdom, Thy universal rule, and Thy goodness. In bereavement and in sorrow, in death as in life, in joys and in happiness, we would see Thy Hand. Teach us to see it; increase our faith where we cannot see; teach us also to love justice, and to do mercy, and to walk humbly with Thee our God. Make us at peace with all mankind, gentle to those who offend us, faithful in all duties, and sincere in sorrow when we fail in duty. Make us loving to one another, patient in distress, and ever thankful to Thy Divine power, which keeps, and guides, and blesses us every day. Lord, accept our humble prayer, accomplish in us Thy holy will. Let Thy peace reign in our hearts, and enable us to walk with Thee in love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen._--Francis W. Newman, 1805. Sixth Week, Second Day =Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling-place; and we toil, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; being defamed, we entreat: we are made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things, even until now.--I Cor. 4:11-13.= If Paul could be questioned about the experience of trouble which these verses vividly express, would he not say that there had been qualities of character in him and resources in his relationship with God which he never would have known about had it not been for the test of adversity? Trouble not only develops but also _reveals_ character; we do not know ourselves until we have been tried out in calamity. The simplest demand of adversity on every man is that he be "game." Henry Newbolt is not indulging in rhetoric when he tells of a Soudan battle where a British square made up of Clifton graduates is hard beset by a charge of fierce enemies, and, in that crisis, makes the cry of a Clifton football captain, "Play up, boys, play the game!" rally the men and save the day. At school or in the Soudan the problem is the same; the sling with which David plays in his youth is his chief reliance when Goliath comes; a "game" spirit is essential to character from birth to death. We turn from the story of Nelson at Aboukir, nailing six flags to his mast so that if even five were shot away no one would dream that he had surrendered, to find that the spirit there exemplified is applicable to our most common day. The quality which made Nelson an Admiral of England, in spite of his lost arm, his lost eye, his small stature, and his feeble health is one of our elemental needs. And to a supreme degree this quality was in great Christians like Paul. Read his letter to the Philippians and see! Adversity brought his spirit to light, and made it an asset of the cause. In a real sense, trouble, however forbidding, was one of Paul's best friends, and there was a good reason why he should "rejoice in tribulations." _O Father of spirits! Thou lovest whom Thou chastenest! Correct us in our weakness as the children of men, that we may love Thee in our strength as the sons of God. May the same mind be in us which was also in Jesus Christ, that we may never shrink, when our hour comes, from drinking of the cup that he drank of. Wake in us a soul to obey Thee, not with the weariness of servile spirits, but with the alacrity of the holy angels. Fill us with a contempt of evil pleasures and unfaithful ease; sustain us in the strictness of a devout life. Daily may we crucify every selfish affection, and delight to bear one another's burdens, to uphold each other's faith and charity, being tender-hearted and forgiving as we hope to be forgiven. Hold us to the true humility of the soul that has not yet attained; and may we be modest in our desire, diligent in our trust, and content with the disposals of Thy Providence. O Lord of life and death! Thy counsels are secret; Thy wisdom is infinite: we know not what a day may bring forth. When our hour arrives, and the veil between the worlds begins to be lifted before us, may we freely trust ourselves to Thee, and say, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." Amen._--James Martineau. Sixth Week, Third Day If adversity, rightly used, so develops and reveals character, we may expect to find trouble as a background to the most admirable men of the race. We read the luminous histories of Francis Parkman and do not perceive, behind the printed page, the original manuscript, covered with a screen of parallel wires, along which the blind author ran his pencil that he might write legibly. We think of James Watt as a genius at invention, and perhaps recall that Wordsworth said of him, "I look upon him, considering both the magnitude and the universality of his genius, as perhaps the most extraordinary man that this country ever produced." But Watt himself we forget--sickly of body, starving on eight shillings a week, and saying, "Of all things in life there is nothing more foolish than inventing." Kant's philosophy was a turning point in human thought, but lauding Kant, how few recall his struggle with a broken body! Said he, speaking of his incurable illness, "I have become master of its influence in my thoughts and actions by turning my attention away from this feeling altogether, just as if it did not at all concern me." Wilberforce, the liberator of British slaves, we know, and beside his grave in Westminster Abbey we recall the superb title that he earned, "the attorney general of the unprotected and of the friendless," but the Wilberforce who for twenty years was compelled to use opium to keep himself alive, and had the resolution never to increase the dose--who knows of him? One of the chief rewards of reading biography is this introduction that it gives to handicapped men; the knowledge it imparts of the world's great saints and scripture makers, conquerors and reformers, who, in the words of Thucydides, "dared beyond their strength, hazarded against their judgment, and in extremities were of excellent hope." And when one turns to the supreme Character, could the dark background be eliminated and still leave Him? =But now we see not yet all things subjected to him. But we behold him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that by the grace of God he should taste of death for every man. For it became him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.--Heb. 2:8-10.= _O God, who art unsearchable in Thy judgments, and in Thy ways past finding out, we bow before the mystery of Thy Being, and confess that we know nothing, and can say nothing worthy of Thee. We cannot understand Thy dealings with us. We have faith, not sight; when we cannot see, we may only believe. Sometimes Thou seemest to have no mercy upon us. Thou dost pierce us through our most tender affections, quenching the light of our eyes in dreadful darkness. Death tears from us all that we love, and Thou art seemingly deaf to all our cries. Our earthly circumstances are reversed and bitter poverty is appointed us, yet Thou takest no heed, and bringest no comfort to the sorrow and the barrenness of our life. Still would we trust in Thee and cling to that deepest of our instincts which tells us that we come from Thee and return to Thee. Be with us, Father of Mercies, in love and pity and tenderness unspeakable. Lift our souls into Thy perfect calm, where all our wills are in harmony with Thine. Amen._--Samuel McComb. Sixth Week, Fourth Day To one perplexed and disheartened by adversity, a theoretical explanation is generally not half as valuable as concrete instances of courage and fortitude, founded on faith. Whether we be theologians or scientists or as ignorant of both as Caliban, there is an immediate, personal call to arms in the brave fight of George Matheson, one of Scotland's great preachers for all his blindness, or in Louis Pasteur's indomitable will, making his discoveries despite the paralytic stroke that in his forty-sixth year crippled his strength. The qualities which we admire in them are a sort of apotheosis of the qualities which we need in ourselves. For we all are handicapped, some by ill-starred heredity, by unhappy environment, or by the consequences of our own neglect and sin; some by poverty, some by broken bodies, or by dissevered family ties--and all of us by unfortunate dispositions. It does us good then to know that Phillips Brooks failed as a teacher. His biographer tells us that so did his first ambition to be an educator cling to him, that in the prime of life, when he was the prince of preachers, he came from President Eliot's office, pale and trembling, because he had refused a professorship at Harvard. So Robertson, of Brighton, whose sermons began a new epoch in British Christianity, was prevented from being a soldier only by the feebleness of his body, and Sir Walter Scott, who wanted to be a poet, turned to novel writing, anonymously and tentatively trying a new role, because, as he frankly put it, "Because Byron beat me." He is an excellent cook who knows how to make a good dinner out of the left-overs, and hardly a more invigorating truth is taught by history than that most of the finest banquets spread for the delectation of the race have been prepared by men who made them out of the leavings of disappointed hopes. =Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that hath endured such gainsaying of sinners against himself, that ye wax not weary, fainting in your souls.--Heb. 12:1-3.= _Our Father, we thank Thee that while we are sure of Thy protecting care, Thy causal providence, which foresees all things, we can bear the sorrows of this world, and do its duties, and endure its manifold and heavy cross. We thank Thee that when distress comes upon us, and our mortal schemes vanish into thin air, we know there is something solid which we can lay hold of, and not be frustrate in our hopes. Yea, we thank Thee that when death breaks asunder the slender thread of life whereon our family jewels are strung, and the precious stones of our affection fall from our arms or neck, we know Thou takest them and elsewhere givest them a heavenly setting, wherein they shine before the light of Thy presence as morning stars, brightening and brightening to more perfect glory, as they are transfigured by Thine own almighty power._ _We thank Thee for all the truth which the stream of time has brought to us from many a land and every age. We thank Thee for the noble examples of human nature which Thou hast raised up, that in times of darkness there are wise men, in times of doubt there are firm men, and in every peril there stand up heroes of the soul to teach us feebler men our duty, and to lead all of Thy children to trust in Thee. Father, we thank Thee that the seed of righteousness is never lost, but through many a deluge is carried safe, to make the wilderness to bloom and blossom with beauty ever fragrant and ever new, and the desert bear corn for men and sustain the souls of the feeble when they faint. Amen._--Theodore Parker. Sixth Week, Fifth Day One distinguishing mark of the men who have won their victories with the remnants of their defeat is that they refuse to describe their unideal conditions in negative terms. If they cannot live in southern California where they would choose to live, but must abide in New England instead, they do not describe New England in terms of its deficiencies--no orange groves, no acres of calla lilies, no palm trees. There are compensations even in New England, if one will carefully take account of stock and see what positively is there! Or if a man would choose to live in Boston and must live in Labrador, the case of Grenfell suggests that a positive attitude toward his necessity will discover worth, and material for splendid triumphs even on that inhospitable coast. The mark of the handicapped men who have made the race's history glorious has always been their patriotism for the country where they had to live. They do not stop long to pity themselves, or to envy another's opportunity, or to blame circumstances for their defeat, or to dream of what might have been, or to bewail their disappointed hopes. If the soil of their condition will not grow one crop, they discover what it will grow. They have insight, as did Moses, to see holy ground where an ordinary man would have seen only sand and sagebrush and sheep. =Now Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the back of the wilderness, and came to the mountain of God, unto Horeb. And the angel of Jehovah appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will turn aside now, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when Jehovah saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.--Exodus 3:1-5.= _Father of life, and God of the living, Fountain of our being and Light of all our day; we thank Thee for that knowledge of Thyself which lights our life with eternal splendor, for that giving of Thyself which has made us partakers of Thy divine nature. We bless Thee for everything around us which ministers Thee to our minds; for the greatness and glory of nature, for the history of our race, and the lives of noble men; for the thoughts of Thee expressed in human words, in the art of painters and musicians, in the work of builders and craftsmen. We bless Thee for the constant memories of what we are that rise within ourselves; for the pressure of duty, the hush of solemn thoughts, for moments of insight when the veil on the face of all things falls away, for hours of high resolve when life is quickened within, for seasons of communion when, earth and sense forgotten, heaven holds our silent spirits raptured and aflame._ _We have learned to praise Thee for the darker days when we had to walk by faith, for weary hours that strengthened patience and endeavor, for moments of gloom and times of depression which taught us to trust, not to changing tides of feeling, but to Thee who changest not. And now since Christ has won His throne by His cross of shame, risen from His tomb to reign forever in the hearts of men, we know that nothing can ever separate us from Thee; that in all conflicts we may be more than conquerors; that all dark and hostile things shall be transformed and work for good to those who know the secret of Thy love._ _Glory be to Thee, O Lord. Amen._--W. E. Orchard. Sixth Week, Sixth Day When folk have seen into human life deeply enough so that they perceive how adversity can be used to high issues, faith in God becomes not so much a speculative problem as a practical need. They want to deal with trouble nobly. They see that faith in God gives the outlook on life which makes the hopeful facing of adverse situations reasonable and which supplies power to make it possible. The result is that the _great sufferers have been the great believers_. The idea that fortunate circumstances make vital faith in God probable is utterly unsupported by history. Hardly an outstanding champion of faith who has left an indelible impress on man's spiritual life can anywhere be found, who has not won his faith and confirmed it in the face of trouble. What is true of individuals is true of generations. The days of Israel's triumphant faith did not come in Solomon's reign, when wealth was plentiful and national ambitions ran high. The great prophets and the great psalms stand out against the dark background of the Exile and its consequences. =Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of Jehovah; awake, as in the days of old, the generations of ancient times. Is it not thou that didst cut Rahab in pieces, that didst pierce the monster? Is it not thou that driedst up the sea, the waters of the great deep; that madest the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over? And the ransomed of Jehovah shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.= =I, even I, am he that comforteth you: who art thou, that thou art afraid of man that shall die, and of the son of man that shall be made as grass; and hast forgotten Jehovah thy Maker, that stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and fearest continually all the day because of the fury of the oppressor, when he maketh ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor? The captive exile shall speedily be loosed; and he shall not die and go down into the pit, neither shall his bread fail. For I am Jehovah thy God, who stirreth up the sea, so that the waves thereof roar: Jehovah of hosts is his name. And I have put my words in thy mouth, and have covered thee in the shadow of my hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people.--Isa. 51:9-16.= That is a voice out of the Exile. Such great believers, whose faith shone brightest when the night was darkest, have not pretended to know the explanation of suffering in God's world. But they have had insight to see a little and trust for the rest. Stevenson has expressed their faith: "If I from my spy-hole, looking with purblind eyes upon a least part of a fraction of the universe, yet perceive in my own destiny some broken evidences of a plan, and some signals of an overruling goodness; shall I then be so mad as to complain that all cannot be deciphered? Shall I not rather wonder, with infinite and grateful surprise, that in so vast a scheme I seem to have been able to read, however little, and that little was encouraging to faith?" _We thank Thee, O God, that Thou dost ride upon the cloud, and govern the storm. All that to us is dark is light to Thee. The night shineth as the day. All that which seems to us irregular and ungoverned, is held in Thine hand, even as the steed by the rein. From age to age Thou dost control the long procession of events, discerning the end from the beginning; and all the wild mixture, all the confusion, all the sorrow and the suffering, is discerned of Thee. As is the palette to the color, as is violence to development in strength, as is the crushing of the grape to the wine, so in Thy sight all things are beneficent that to us are most confusing and seemingly conflicting and threatening. Sorrow and pain and disaster are woven in the loom of God; and in the end we, too, shall be permitted to discern the fair pattern, and understand how that which brought tears here shall bring righteousness there._ _O, how good it is to trust Thee, and to believe that Thou art wise, and that Thou art full of compassion, as Thou carriest on Thy great work of love and benevolence, sympathizing with all that suffer on the way, and gathering them at last with an exceeding great salvation! We trust Thee, not because we understand Thee, but because in many things Thou hast taught us where we should have been afraid to trust. We have crossed many a gulf and many a roaring stream upon the bridge of faith, and have exulted to find ourselves safe landed, and have learned to trust Thee, as a child a parent, as a passenger the master of a ship, not because we know, but because Thou knowest. Amen._--Henry Ward Beecher. Sixth Week, Seventh Day =Every one therefore that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man, who built his house upon the rock: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon the rock. And every one that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and smote upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall thereof.--Matt. 7:24-27.= An important fact is here asserted by the Master, which is commonly obscured in the commentaries. He says that no matter whether a man's life be built on sand or on rock, he yet will experience the blasts of adversity; on both houses alike "the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew." The Master repeatedly affirmed that trouble comes without necessary reference to character, that while we may always argue that sin causes suffering, we never can confidently argue that suffering comes from sin (Luke 13:4; John 9:1-3). Folks needlessly and unscripturally harass their souls when they suppose that some special trouble must have befallen them because of some special sin. The book of Job was written to disprove that, and as for the Master, he distinctly says that the man of faith with his house on a rock faces the same storm that wrecks the faithless man. _The difference is not in the adversity, but in the adversity's effect._ No more important question faces any soul than this: seeing that trouble is an unevadable portion of every life, good or bad, what am I to do with it? Says Oliver Wendell Holmes, "Did you ever happen to see that most soft-spoken and velvet-handed steam-engine at the Mint? The smooth piston slides backward and forward as a lady might slip her delicate finger in and out of a ring. The engine lays one of its fingers calmly, but firmly, upon a bit of metal; it is a coin now, and will remember that touch, and tell a new race about it, when the date upon it is crusted over with twenty centuries. So it is that a great silent-moving misery puts a new stamp on us in an hour or a moment--as sharp an impression as if it had taken half a lifetime to engrave it." The only flaw in that simile is that the coin cannot decide what impression shall be made. But we can. Rebellion, despair, bitterness, or triumphant faith--we can say which impression adversity shall leave upon us. _O God of our life, whom we dimly apprehend and never can comprehend, to whom nevertheless we justly ascribe all goodness as well as all greatness; as a father teaches his children, so teach us, Lord, truer thoughts of Thee. Teach us to aspire, so far as man may lawfully aspire, to a knowledge of Thee. Thou art not only a God to be honored in times of rest and ease, Thou art also the Refuge of the distressed, the Comforter of the afflicted, the Healer of the contrite, and the Support of the unstable. As we sympathize with those who are sore smitten by calamity, wounded by sudden accident, wrecked in the midst of security, so must we believe that Thy mighty all-embracing heart sympathizes. Pitier of the orphan, God of the widow, cause us to share Thy pity and become Thy messengers of tenderness in our small measure. Be Thou the Stay of all in life and death. Teach all to know and trust Thee, give us a portion here and everywhere with Thy saints; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen._--Francis W. Newman, 1805. COMMENT FOR THE WEEK I Few who have sincerely tried to believe in God's goodness and who have lived long enough to face the harrowing facts of human wretchedness will doubt what obstacle most hampers faith. The major difficulty which perplexes many Christians, when they try to reconcile God's love with their experience, is not belief's irrationality but life's injustice. According to the Psalmist, "The fool hath said in his heart, 'There is no God'" (Psalm 14:1). But the fool is not the only one who has said that. He said it, jeering; he announced it in derision; he did not want God, and contemptuous denial was a joy. It was the temper of his negation that made him a fool. But many hearts, in tones far different from his, have said, "There is no God." Parents cry it brokenheartedly beside the graves of children; the diseased cry it, suffering from keener agony than they can bear; fathers cry it when their battle against poverty has failed and their children plead in vain for bread; and men who care about their kind say it as they watch the anguish with which war, drunkenness, lust, disease, and poverty afflict the race. No man of moral insight will call such folk fools. The wretchedness and squalor, the misery and sin which rest upon so much of humankind are a notorious difficulty in the way of faith. In dealing with this problem two short cuts are often tried, and by them some minds endeavor to evade the issue which faith ought to meet. Some _minimize the suffering_ which creation cost and which man and animals are now enduring. We must grant that when we read the experience of animals in terms of man's own life, we always exaggerate their pain. Animals never suffer as we do; their misery is not compounded by our mental agonies of regret and fear; and even their physical wretchedness is as much lower in intensity as their nerves are less exquisitely tuned. Darwin, who surely did not underestimate the struggle for existence, said in a letter, "According to my judgment, happiness decidedly prevails. All sentient beings have been formed so as to enjoy, as a general rule, happiness." We must grant also that man's practical attitude toward life gives the lie to pessimism. Only the suicides are the logical pessimists, and all the rest of men, most with good heart and multitudes with jubilant enthusiasm, do actually cling to life. Indeed, all normal men discover, that, within limits, their very hardships are a condition of their happiness and do not so much abate their love of life is they add zest and tang. We must grant further that suffering should be measured not by quantity, but by intensity. One sensitive man enduring bereavement, poverty, or disease represents _all_ the suffering that ever has been or ever can be felt. To speak of limitless suffering, therefore, is false. There is no more wretchedness anywhere nor in all the world together, than each one can know in his own person. When all this, however, has been granted, the facts of the world's misery are staggering. Modern science has given terrific sweep and harrowing detail to Paul's assertion, "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now" (Rom. 8:22). Let one whose insight into misery's meanings is quickened by even a little imagination, try to sum up the agony of drunkards' homes, of bereaved families, of hospitals, insane asylums, jails, and prisons, of war with its unmentionable horrors--its blinded, deafened, maddened, raped--and no small palliatives can solve his problem. Rather he understands the picture which James Russell Lowell said he saw years ago in Belgium: an angel holding back the Creator and saying, "If about to make such a world, stay thine hand." Another short cut by which some endeavor to simplify the problem and content their thought is _to lift responsibility for life's wretchedness from God's shoulders and to put it upon man's_. Were man's sin no factor in the world, some say, life's miseries would cease; all the anguish of our earthly lot stands not to God's responsibility but to man's shame. But the sufferings of God's creatures did not begin with man's arrival, and the pain of creation before man sinned is a longer story than earth's misery since. Let Romanes picture the scene: "Some hundred of millions of years ago, some millions of millions of animals must be supposed to have become sentient. Since that time till the present, there must have been millions and millions of generations of millions and millions of individuals. And throughout all this period of incalculable duration, this inconceivable host of sentient organizations have been in a state of unceasing battle, dread, ravin, pain. Looking to the outcome, we find that more than one-half of the species which have survived the ceaseless struggle are parasitic in their habits, lower and insentient forms of life, feasting on higher and sentient forms, we find teeth and talons whetted for slaughter, hooks and suckers molded for torture--everywhere a reign of terror, hunger, sickness, with oozing blood and quivering limbs, with gasping breath and eyes of innocence that dimly close in deaths of cruel torture." Is man responsible for that? For cold that freezes God's living creatures, for lightning that kills them, for volcanoes that burn them, for typhoons that crush them--is man responsible? By no such easy evasion may we escape the problem which faith must meet. "In sober truth," as John Stuart Mill exclaimed, "nearly all the things which men are hanged or imprisoned for doing to one another, are Nature's everyday performances." Who can avoid seeing the patent contrast between the Father of Jesus and the Creator of such a world? "The power that launches earthquakes and arms cuttlefish," said one perplexed believer, "has but a meager relationship to the power that blesses infants and forgives enemies." II Could we hold this problem at arm's length, discussing it in speculative moods when we grow curious about the makeup of the universe, our case would be more simple. But of all life's problems, this most certainly--sometimes creeping, sometimes crashing--invades our private lives. Every man has a date with adversity which he must keep and which adversity does not forget. One notes the evidence of this in every normally maturing life. As children we wanted happiness and were impatient, lacking it. Our cups of pleasure easily brimmed and overflowed. A Christmas tree or a birthday party--and our hearts were like sun-parlors on cloudless days with all the windows open to the light! But the time comes to all when happiness like this is not our problem; we recognize that it is gone; our Edens are behind us with flaming angels at the gate. We have had friends and lost them and something has gone from our hearts that does not return; we have won successes which we do not estimate as highly in possession as we did in dreams, and it may be have lost what little we achieved; we have sinned, and though forgiven, the scars are still upon us; we have been weathered by the rains and floods and winds. Happiness in the old fashion we no longer seek. We want peace, the power to possess our souls in patience and to do our work. We want joy, which is a profound and spiritually begotten grace as happiness is not. This maturity which so has faced the tragic aspects of our human life is not less desirable than childhood; it may be richer, fuller, steadier. We may think of it as Wordsworth did about the English landscape--that not for all the sunny skies of Italy would he give up the mists that spiritualize the English hills. But when trouble comes, life faces a new set of problems that childhood little knew. We have joined the human procession that moves out into the inevitable need of comfort and fortitude. The decisive crisis in many lives concerns the attitude which this experience evokes. Some are led by it more deeply into the meanings of religion. The Bible grows in their apprehension with the enlarging of their life; new passages become radiant as, in a great landscape, hills and valleys lately unillumined catch the rays of the rising sun. At first the human friendliness of Jesus is most real, and the Bible's stories of adventure for God's cause; then knightly calls to character and service become luminous; but soon or late another kind of passage grows meaningful: "Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, our Father who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them" (II Thess. 2:16). Others, so far from being led by adversity into the deeper meanings of faith, renounce faith altogether, and fling themselves into open rebellion against life and any God who may be responsible for its tragedy. They may not dare to say what James Thomson did, but they think it-- "Who is most wretched in this dolorous place? I think myself; yet I would rather be My miserable self than He, than He Who formed such creatures to his own disgrace. The vilest thing must be less vile than Thou From whom it had its being, God and Lord! Creator of all woe and sin! abhorred, Malignant and implacable! I vow That not for all Thy power furled and unfurled, For all the temples to Thy glory built, Would I assume the ignominious guilt Of having made such men in such a world!" Many, however, are not by adversity made more sure of God, nor are they driven into rebellion against him. They are perplexed. It had been so much easier, in the sheltered and innocent idealism of their youth, to believe in God than it is now. As children they looked on life as they might have listened to Mozart's music, ravished with unqualified delight; but now they know that Mozart died in abject poverty, that the coffin which his wife could not buy was donated by charity, that as the hearse went to the grave the driver loudly damned the dead because no drink money had been given him, and that to this day no one knows where Mozart's body lies. Maturity has to deal with so much more tragic facts than youth can ever know. With all the philosophy that man's wit can supply, the wisest find themselves saying what Emerson did, two years after his son's death: "I have had no experience, no progress to put me into better intelligence with my calamity than when it was new." And in this inevitable wrestling with adversity, the cry of men is not simply for more courage. They might easily steady their hearts to endure and overcome, were only one question's answer clear--is there any _sense_ in life's suffering? The one unsupportable thought is that all life's pain and hardship is meaningless and futile, that it has no worthy origin, serves no high purpose, that in misery we are the sport of forces that have no consciousness of what they do, no meaning in it and no care. Such folk want to believe in God, but--can they? III Two preliminary facts about Christianity's relationship with our problem may help to clarify our thought. The doubt sometimes obtrudes itself on minds perplexed about life's tragedies that the Christian's faith in a God of love is an idealistic dream. Such faiths as the Fatherhood of God have come to men, they think, in happy hours when calamity was absent or forgotten; they are the fruition of man's fortunate days. And born thus of a view of life from which the miseries of men had been shut out, this happy, ideal faith comes back to painful realities with a shock which it cannot sustain. But is Christian faith thus the child of man's happy days? Rather the very symbol of Christianity is the Cross. Our faith took its rise in one of history's most appalling tragedies, and the Gospel of a loving God, so far from being an ideal dream, conceived apart from life's forbidding facts, has all these centuries been intertwined with the public brutality of a crucifixion. Every emphasis of the Christian's faith has the mark of the Cross upon it. Jesus had said in words that God was love, but it was at Calvary that the words took fire: "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son" (John 3:16). Jesus had preached the divine forgiveness, but on Golgotha the message grew imperative: "God commendeth his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8). Jesus had put into parables the individual care of the Father for every child, but it was the Cross that drove the great faith home: Christ tasted "death for every man" (Heb. 2:9). Nothing in Christian faith has escaped the formative influence of the Tragedy. The last thing to be said about the Gospel is that it is a beautiful child-like dream which has not faced the facts of suffering. In the New Testament are all the miseries on which those who deny God's love count for support. We are at home there with suffering men: "they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were tempted, they were slain with the sword: they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and the holes of the earth" (Heb. 11:37, 38). The men with whom Christianity began were not strangers to such trouble, so that some modern need remind their innocent and dreaming faith that life is filled with mysterious adversity. _Christianity was suckled on adversity; it was cradled in pain. At the heart of its Book and its Gospel is a Good Man crowned with thorns, nailed to a cross, with a spear wound in his side._ Nor have the great affirmations of faith in God's fatherhood ever been associated with men of ease in fortunate circumstance. The voice that cried "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" spoke in agonizing pain. And through history one finds those words best spoken with a cross for a background. Thomas á Becket said them, martyred in his own cathedral; John Huss said them, going to the stake at Constance; George Wishart said them, roasted at the foot of the sea-tower of St. Andrews. Christian faith is not a dream that came in hours when human trouble had been forgotten; it has furnished from the beginning an interpretation of human trouble and an attitude in meeting it that has made men "more than conquerors." The second preliminary fact is this: _Christianity has never pretended to supply a theoretical explanation of why suffering had to be_. This seeming lack has excellent reason, for such an explanation, if it be complete, is essentially beyond the reach of any finite mind. The most comprehensive question ever asked, some philosopher has said, was put by a child. "Why was there ever anything at all?" No finite mind can answer that. And next in comprehensiveness, and in penetration to the very pith of creation's meaning, is this query, "Why, if something had to be, was it made as it is?" One must be God himself fully to answer that, or to comprehend the answer, could it be written down. To expect therefore, from Christianity or from any other source a theoretical explanation that will plumb the depths of the mystery of suffering is to cry for the essentially impossible. So Carlyle says with typical vividness: "To the minnow every cranny and pebble, and quality and accident of its little native creek may have become familiar; but does the minnow understand the Ocean Tides and periodic Currents, the Trade-winds, and Monsoons, and Moon's Eclipses; by all which the condition of its little Creek is regulated, and may, from time to time (_un_-miraculously enough), be quite overset and reversed? Such a minnow is Man; his Creek this Planet Earth; his Ocean the immeasurable All; his Monsoons and periodic Currents the mysterious Course of Providence through Aeons of Aeons." So little is this inability of ours to know all that we wish about the world a cause for regret, that it ought to be an occasion of positive rejoicing. If _we_ could understand the universe through and through, how small and meager the universe would have to be! The fact is that we cannot understand anything through and through. If one is disheartened because he cannot pierce to the heart of Providence and know all its secrets, let him try his hand upon a pebble and see how much better he will fare. What is a pebble? If one define it roughly as granite he must ask what granite is; if that be defined in terms of chemical properties, he must ask what they are; if they be defined as ultimate forms of matter, he must inquire what matter is; and then he will be told that matter is a "mode of motion," or will be assured by a more candid scientist, like Professor Tait, that "we do not know and are probably incapable of discovering what matter _is_." No one ever solves the innermost problems of a stone, but what can be done with stones our engineering feats are evidence. If, therefore, we recognize at the beginning that the question why suffering had to be is an ultimate problem, essentially insoluble by finite minds, we need not be dismayed. Two opposing mysteries are in the world--goodness and evil. If we _deny_ God, then _goodness_ is a mystery, for no one has ever yet suggested how spiritual life could rise out of an unspiritual source, how souls could come from dust. If we _affirm_ God, then _evil_ is a mystery, for why, we ask, should love create a world with so much pain and sin? Our task is not to solve insoluble problems; it is to balance these alternatives--no God and the mystery of man's spiritual life, against God and the mystery of evil. Such a comparison is not altogether beyond our powers, nor are weighty considerations lacking to affect our choice. IV For one thing, we may well inquire, when we complain of this world's misery, what sort of world we are seeking in its place. Are we asking for a perfectly happy world? But happiness, at its deepest and its best, is not the portion of a cushioned life which never struggled, overpassed obstacles, bore hardship, or adventured in sacrifice for costly aims. A heart of joy is never found in luxuriously coddled lives, but in men and women who achieve and dare, who have tried their powers against antagonisms, who have met even sickness and bereavement and have tempered their souls in fire. Joy is begotten not chiefly from the impression of happy circumstance, but from the expression of overcoming power. Were we set upon making a happy world, therefore, we could not leave struggle out nor make adversity impossible. The unhappiest world conceivable by man would be a world with nothing hard to do, no conflicts to wage for ends worth while; a world where courage was not needed and sacrifice was a superfluity. Beside such an inane lotos-land of tranquil ease this present world with all its suffering is a paradise. Men in fact find joy where in philosophy we might not look for it. Said MacMillan, after a terrific twelve-month with Peary on the Arctic continent: "This has been the greatest year of my life." The impossibility of imagining a worth-while world from which adversity had all been banished is even more evident when one grows ill-content to think of happiness as the goal of life. That we should be merely happy is not an adequate end of the creative purpose for us, or of our purpose for ourselves. In our best hours we acknowledge this in the way we handle trouble. _However much in doubt a man may be about the theory of suffering, he knows infallibly how suffering practically should be met._ To be rebellious, cursing fate and hating life; to pity oneself, nursing one's hurts in morbid self-commiseration--the ignobility of such dealing with calamity we indubitably know. Even where we fall feebly short of the ideal, we have no question what the ideal is. When in biography or among our friends we see folk face crushing trouble, not embittered by it, made cynical, or thrust into despair, but hallowed, sweetened, illumined, and empowered, we are aware that noble characters do not alone _bear_ trouble; they _use_ it. As men at first faced electricity in dread, conceiving toward it no attitude beyond building lightning-rods to ward away its stroke, but now with greater understanding harness it to do their will, so men, as they grow wise and strong, deal with their suffering. They make it the minister of character; they set it to build in them what nothing save adversity can ever build--patience, courage, sympathy, and power. They even choose it in vicarious sacrifice for the good of others, and by it save the world from evils that nothing save some one's suffering could cure. They act as though _character_, not happiness, were the end of life. And when they are at their best they do this not with stoic intrepidity, as though trouble's usefulness were but their fancy, but joyfully, as though a good purpose in the world included trouble, even though not intending it. So Robert Louis Stevenson, facing death, writes to a friend about an old woman whose ventriloquism had frightened the natives of Vailima, "All the old women in the world might talk with their mouths shut and not frighten you or me, but there are plenty of other things that frighten us badly. And if we only knew about them, perhaps we should find them no more worthy to be feared than an old woman talking with her mouth shut. And the names of some of these things are Death and Pain and Sorrow." Whatever, then, may be our theoretical difficulty about suffering, this truth is clear: when we are at our best we practically deal with suffering as though moral quality were the goal of life. We _use_ adversity, as though discipline were its purpose and good its end. It is worth noting that the only theory which fully fits this noblest attitude toward trouble is Christianity. Men may think God a devil, as James Thomson sang, and yet may be practically brave and cheerful, but their theory does not fit their life. Men may believe in no God and no purpose in the world, and yet may face adversity with courage and hope, but their spirit belies their philosophy. When men are at their best in hardship _they act as though the Christian faith in God were true, as though moral quality were the purpose of creation_. If now, we really want a world in which character is the end and aim--and no other world is worth God's making--we obviously may not demand the abolition of adversity. If one imagines a life from its beginning lapped in ease and utterly ignorant what words like hardship, sorrow, and calamity imply, he must imagine a life lacking every virtue that makes human nature admirable. Character grows on struggle; without the overcoming of obstacles great quality in character is unthinkable. Whoever has handled well any calamitous event possesses resources, insights, wise attitudes, qualities of sympathy and power that by no other road could have come to him. For all our complaints against life's misery, therefore, and for all our inability to understand it in detail, who would not hesitate, foreseeing the consequence, to take adversity away from men? He who banishes hardship banishes hardihood; and out of the same door with Calamity walk Courage, Fortitude, Triumphant Faith, and Sacrificial Love. If we abolish the cross in the world, we make impossible the Christ in man. It becomes more clear the more one ponders it, that while this is often a hard world in which to be happy, to men of insight and faith it may be a great world in which to build character. V Before too confidently, however, we accept this conclusion, there is one objection to be heard. So far is the world from being absolved from cruelty, on the plea of moral purpose, one may say, that _its injustice is the very crux of its offense_. See how negligent of justice the process of creation is! Its volcanoes and typhoons slay good and bad alike, its plagues are utterly indifferent to character; and in the human world which it embosoms some drunken Caesar sits upon the throne while Christ hangs on the cross. Who for a single day can watch the gross inequities of life, where good men so often suffer and bad men go free, and still think that the world has moral purpose in it? The Bible itself is burdened with complaint against the seeming senselessness and injustice of God. Moses cries: "Lord, wherefore hast thou dealt ill with this people? Neither hast thou delivered thy people at all" (Exodus 5:22, 23); Elijah laments, "O Jehovah, my God, hast Thou also brought evil upon the widow, with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son?" (I Kings 17:20); Habakkuk complains, "Wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy peace, when the wicked swalloweth up the man that is more righteous than he?" (Hab. 1:13); and Job protests, "Although thou knowest that I am not wicked, ... yet thou dost destroy me" (Job 10:7, 8). Man's loss of faith springs often from this utter disparity between desert and fortune. The time comes to almost every man when he looks on, indignant, desperate, at some gross horror uninterrupted, some innocent victim entreated cruelly. He understands Carlyle's impatient cry, "God sits in heaven and does nothing!" Natural as is this attitude, and unjust as many of life's tragic troubles are, we should at least see this: _man must not demand that goodness straightway receive its pay and wrong its punishment_. He may not ask that every virtuous deed be at once rewarded by proportionate happiness and every sin be immediately punished by proportionate pain. That, some might suppose, would put justice into life. But whatever it might put into life, such an arrangement obviously would take out _character_. The men whose moral quality we most highly honor were not paid for their goodness on Saturday night and did not expect to be. They chose their course _for righteousness' sake alone_, although they knew what crowns of thorns, what scornful crowds about their cross might end the journey. They did not drive close bargains with their fate, demanding insurance against trouble as the price of goodness. They chose the honorable deed for honor's sake; they chose it the more scrupulously, the more pleasure was offered for dishonor; their tone in the face of threatened suffering was like Milne's, Scotland's last martyr: "I will not recant the truth, for I am corn and no chaff; and I will not be blown away with the wind nor burst with the flail, but I will abide both." Every man is instinctively aware and by his admiration makes it known, that the kind of character which chooses right, willing to suffer for it, is man's noblest quality. The words in which such character has found utterance are man's spiritual battle cries. Esther, going before the King, saying, "If I perish, I perish" (Esther 4:16); the three Hebrews, facing the fiery furnace saying, "Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and he will deliver us out of thy hand, O king. But if _not_, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods" (Dan. 3:17, 18); Peter and the apostles, facing the angry Council, saying, "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29); Anaxarchus, the martyr, crying, "Beat on at the case of Anaxarchus; Anaxarchus himself you cannot touch"; Luther, defying the Emperor, "Here stand I; I can do no other"--most words of men are easily dispensable, but no words like these can man afford to spare. They are his best. _And this sort of goodness has been possible, because God had not made the world as our complaints sometimes would have it._ For such character, a system where goodness costs is absolutely necessary. A world where goodness was paid cash in pleasant circumstance would have no such character to show. Right and wrong for their own sakes would be impossible; only prudence and imprudence for happiness' sake could there exist. Out of the same door with the seeming injustice of life goes the possibility of man's noblest quality--his goodness "in scorn of consequence." Many special calamities no one on earth can hope to understand. But when one has granted that fitness to grow character is the only worthy test of creation, it evidently is not so simple as at first it seemed to improve the fundamental structure of the world. VI Indeed, when one in imagination assumes the task of omnipotence and endeavors to construct a universe that shall be fitted for the growth of character, he cannot long hesitate concerning certain elements which must be there. _A system of regular law_ would have to be the basis of that world, for only in a law-abiding universe could obedience be taught. If the stars and planets behaved "like swarms of flies" and nothing could be relied upon to act twice in the same way, character and intelligence alike would be impossible. In this new world, remolded, "nearer to our heart's desire," _progress_ also would be a necessity. A stagnant world cannot grow character. There must be real work to do, aims to achieve; there must be imperfections to overpass and wrongs to right. Only in a system where the present situation is a point of departure and a better situation is a possibility, where ideal and hope, courage and sacrifice are indispensable can character grow. In this improved world of our dreams, _free-will_ in some measure must be granted man. If character is to be real, man must not in his choice between right and wrong be as Spinoza pictured him, a stone hurled through the air, which thinks that it is flying; he must have some control of conduct, some genuine, though limited, power of choice. And in this universe which we are planning for character's sake, individuals could not stand separate and unrelated; _they must be woven into a community_. Love which is the crown of character, lacking this, would be impossible. What happens to one must happen to all; good and ill alike must be contagious in a society where we are "members one of another." No one of these four elements could be omitted from a world whose test was its adaptability for character. Men with genuine power of choice, fused into a fellowship of social life, living in a law-abiding and progressive world--on no other terms imaginable to man could character be possible. _Yet these four things contain all the sources of our misery._ Physical law--what tragic issues its stern, unbending course brings with terrific incidence on man! Progress--how obviously it implies conditions imperfect, wrong, through which we have to struggle toward the best! Free-will--what a nightmare of horror man's misuse of it has caused since sin began! Social fellowship--how surely the innocent must suffer with the guilty, how impossible for any man to bear the consequence of his own sin alone! We may not see why these general conditions should involve the particular calamities which we bewail, but even our finite minds can see thus far into the mystery of suffering: _all our trouble springs from four basic factors in the universe, without any one of which, great character would be impossible_. While, therefore, if one _deny_ God, the mystery of goodness lacks both sense and solution; one may _affirm_ God and find the mystery of evil, mysterious still but suffused with light. God is working out a spiritual purpose here by means without which no spiritual purpose is conceivable. Fundamentally creation is good. We misuse it, we fail to understand its meaning and to appropriate its discipline, and impatient because the eternal purpose is not timed by our small clocks, we have to confess with Theodore Parker, "The trouble seems to be that God is not in a hurry and I am." In hours of insight, however, we perceive how little our complaints will stand the test of dispassionate thought. Our miseries are not God's inflictions on us as individuals, so that we may judge his character and his thought of us by this special favor or by that particular calamity. The most careless thinker feels the poor philosophy of Lord Londonderry's petulant entry in his journal: "Here I learned that Almighty God, for reasons best known to himself, had been pleased to burn down my house in the county of Durham." One must escape such narrow egoism if he is to understand the purposes of God; one must rise to look on a creation, with character at all costs for its aim, and countless æons for its settling. In the making of this world God has _limited himself_; he cannot lightly do what he will. He has limited himself in creating a law-abiding system where his children must learn obedience without special exemptions; in ordaining a progressive system where what _is_ is the frontier from which men seek what _ought to be_; in giving men the power to choose right, with its inevitable corollary, the power to choose wrong; in weaving men into a communal fellowship where none can escape the contagious life of all. What Martineau said of the first of these is true in spirit of them all: "The universality of law is God's eternal act of self limitation or abstinence from the movements of free affection, for the sake of a constancy that shall never falter or deceive." When once a man has risen to the vision of so splendid a purpose in so great a world, he rejoices in the outlook. Granted that now he sees in a mirror darkly, that many a cruel event in human life perplexes still--he has seen enough to give solid standing to his faith. What if an insect, someone has suggested, were born just after a thunderstorm began and died just before it stopped--how dark would be its picture of creation! But we who span a longer period of time, are not so obsessed by thunderstorms, although we may not like them. They have their place and serve their purpose; we see them in a broader perspective than an insect knows and on sultry days we even crave their coming. A broken doll is to a child a cruel tragedy, but to the father watching the child's struggle to accept the accident, to make the best of it and to come off conqueror, the event is not utterly undesirable. He is not glad at the child's suffering, but with his horizons he sees in it factors which she does not see. So God's horizons infinitely overpass our narrow outlooks. There is something more than whimsy in the theologian's saying, which President King reports, that an insect crawling up a column of the Parthenon, with difficulty and pain negotiating passage about a pore in the stone, is as well qualified to judge of the architecture of the Parthenon, as we of the infinitude of God's plans. Seeing as much as we have seen of sense and purpose in the structure of creation, we have seen all that our finite minds with small horizons could have hoped. We have gained ample justification for the attitude toward suffering which Dolly Winthrop in Silas Marner has immortalized: "Eh, there's trouble i' this world, and there's things as we can niver make out the rights on. And all as we've got to do is to trusten, Master Marner--to do the right thing as far as we know and to trusten. For if us, as knows so little, can see a bit o' good and rights, we may be sure as there's a good and a rights bigger nor what we can know--I feel it i' my own inside as it must be so." VII We may not truthfully leave our subject in such a case that faith's concern with human misery will seem to lie merely in giving adversity an explanation. Faith is concerned not alone to _explain_ misery but to _heal_ it. For while it is impossible without hardship to develop character, there are woeful calamities on earth that do not help man's moral quality; they crush and mutilate it; they are barbarous intruders on the plan of God and they have no business in his world. Some ills are such that no theory can reconcile them with the love of God and no man ought to desire such reconciliation; in the love of God they ought to be abolished. Slavery must be a possibility in a world where man is free; but God's goodness was not chiefly vindicated by such a theory of explanation. It was chiefly vindicated by slavery's abolishment. The liquor traffic and war, needless poverty in a world so rich, avoidable diseases that science can overcome--how long a list of woes there is that faith should not so much explain as banish! When some ills like drunkenness and war and economic injustice are thrust against our faith, and men ask that the goodness of God be reconciled with these, faith's first answer should be not speculation but action. Such woes, so far from being capable of reconciliation with God's goodness, are irreconcilable with a decent world. God does not want to be reconciled with them; he hates them "with a perfect hatred." We may not make ourselves patient with them by any theory of their necessity. They are not necessary; they are perversions of man's life; and _the best defense of faith is their annihilation_. Indeed, a man who, rebellious in complaint, has clamorously asked an explanation of life's ills as the price of faith in God, may well in shame consider God's real saints. When things were at their worst, when wrong was conqueror and evils that seemed blatantly to deny the love of God were in the saddle, these spiritual soldiers went out to fight. The winds of ill that blow out our flickering faith made their religion blaze--a pillar of fire in the night. The more evil they faced, the more religion they produced to answer it. They were the real believers, who "through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises." In comparison with such, it is obviously paltry business to drive a bargain with God that if all goes well we will believe in him, but if things look dark, then faith must go. Many a man, therefore, who is no philosopher can be a great defender of the faith. He may not weave arguments to prove that such a world as this in its fundamental structure is fitted to a moral purpose. But he can join the battle to banish from the world those ills that have no business here and that God hates. He can help produce that final defense of the Christian faith--a world where it is easier to believe in God. CHAPTER VII Faith and Science DAILY READINGS The intellectual difficulties which trouble many folk involve the relations of faith with science, but often they do not so much concern the abstract theories of science as they do the particular attitudes of scientists. We are continually faced with quotations from scientific specialists, in which religion is denied or doubted or treated contemptuously, and even while the merits of the case may be beyond the ordinary man's power of argument, he nevertheless is shaken by the general opinion that what ministers say in the pulpit on Sunday is denied by what scientists say all the rest of the week. In the daily readings, therefore, we shall deal with the scientists themselves, as a problem which faith must meet. Seventh Week, First Day No one can hope to deal fairly with the scientists, in their relationship with faith, unless he begins with a warm appreciation of the splendid integrity and self-denial which the scientific search for truth has revealed. =Canst thou bind the cluster of the Pleiades, Or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season? Or canst thou guide the Bear with her train? Knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens? Canst thou establish the dominion thereof in the earth? Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, That abundance of waters may cover thee? Canst thou send forth lightnings, that they may go, And say unto thee, Here we are? Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? Or who hath given understanding to the mind? Who can number the clouds by wisdom? Or who can pour out the bottles of heaven, When the dust runneth into a mass, And the clods cleave fast together?= =--Job 38:31-38.= Such is man's ancient wonder before the physical universe; and in the endeavor to discover the truth about it science has developed saints and martyrs whose selfless and sacrificial spirit is unsurpassed even in the annals of the Church. Men have spent lives of obscure and unrewarded toil to get at a few new facts; they have suffered persecution, and, even after torture, have reaffirmed the truth of their discoveries, as did Galileo, when he insisted, "The earth does move." They have surrendered place and wealth, friends and life itself in their passion for the sheer truth, and when human service was at stake have inoculated themselves with deadly diseases that they might be the means of discovering the cure, or have sacrificed everything that men hold most dear to destroy an ancient, popular, and hurtful fallacy. The phrase "pride of science" is often used in depreciation of the scientists. There is some excuse for the phrase, but in general, when one finds pride, dogmatism, intolerance, they are the work of ignorance and not of science. The scientific spirit has been characteristically humble. Says Huxley: "Science seems to me to teach in the highest and strongest manner the great truth which is embodied in the Christian conception of entire surrender to the will of God. Sit down before the fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever end nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.... I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this." The Christian, above all others, is bound to approach the study of the controversy between science and theology with a high estimate of the integrity and disinterested unselfishness of the scientists. _O God, we thank Thee for the world in which Thou hast placed us, for the universe whose vastness is revealed in the blue depths of the sky, whose immensities are lit by shining stars beyond the strength of mind to follow. We thank Thee for every sacrament of beauty; for the sweetness of flowers, the solemnity of the stars, the sound of streams and swelling seas; for far-stretching lands and mighty mountains which rest and satisfy the soul, the purity of dawn which calls to holy dedication, the peace of evening which speaks of everlasting rest. May we not fear to make this world for a little while our home, since it is Thy creation and we ourselves are part of it. Help us humbly to learn its laws and trust its mighty powers._ _We thank Thee for the world within, deeper than we dare to look, higher than we care to climb; for the great kingdom of the mind and the silent spaces of the soul. Help us not to be afraid of ourselves, since we were made in Thy image, loved by Thee before the worlds began, and fashioned for Thy eternal habitation. May we be brave enough to bear the truth, strong enough to live in the light, glad to yield ourselves to Thee._ _We thank Thee for that world brighter and better than all, opened for us in the broken heart of the Saviour; for the universe of love and purity in Him, for the golden sunshine of His smile, the tender grace of His forgiveness, the red renewing rain and crimson flood of His great sacrifice. May we not shrink from its searching and surpassing glory, nor, when this world fades away, fear to commit ourselves to that world which shall be our everlasting home. Amen._--W. E. Orchard. Seventh Week, Second Day The Christian's appreciation of scientists should not stop short of profound gratitude for their service to religion. If one reads Burns's "Tam o' Shanter," with its "ghaists," "warlocks and witches," and "auld Nick," and remembers that these demonic powers were veritable facts of terror once, he will see in what a world of superstitious fear mankind has lived. Bells were first put into church steeples, not to call folk to worship, but to scare the devils out of thunder-clouds, and the old cathedral bells of Europe are inscribed with declarations of that purpose. The ancients hardly believed in God so vividly as they believed in malicious demons everywhere. Now the Gospel removed the _fear_ of these from the first Christians; it made men aware of a conquering alliance with God, so that believers no longer shared the popular dread of unknown demons. But so long as thunderstorms, pestilences, droughts, and every sort of evil were supposed to be the work of devils, even the Gospel could not dispel the general dread. Only new knowledge could do that. While Christianity therefore at its best has removed the _fear_ of evil spirits, science has removed the _fact_ of them as an oppressive weight on life. Today we not only do not dread them, but we do not think of them at all, and we have science to thank for our freedom. By its clear facing of facts and tracing of laws, science has lifted from man's soul an intolerable burden of misbeliefs and has cleansed religion of an oppressive mass of credulity. _True religion never had a deadlier foe than superstition and superstition has no deadlier foe than science._ Little children, brought up in our homes to trust the love of the Father, with no dark background of malignant devils to harass and frighten them, owe their liberty to the Gospel of Jesus indeed, but as well to the illumination of science that has banished the ancient dreads. =These things have I spoken unto you, while yet abiding with you. But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful.--John 14:25-27.= _To God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, we pour forth most humble and hearty supplications, that He, remembering the calamities of mankind, and the pilgrimage of this our life in which we spend our days, would please to open to us new consolations out of the fountain of His goodness for the alleviating of our miseries. We humbly and earnestly ask that human things may not prejudice such as are Divine, so that from the opening of the gates of sense, and the kindling of a greater natural light, nothing of incredulity ... may arise in our minds towards Divine mysteries; but rather, O Lord, that our minds being thoroughly cleansed and purged from fancy, and yet subject to the Divine will, there may be given unto faith the things that are faith's, that so we may continually attain to a deeper knowledge and love of Thee, Who art the Fountain of Light, and dwellest in the Light which no man can approach unto; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen._--Francis Bacon, 1561. Seventh Week, Third Day If one approach the scientists, as we have suggested, with appreciation of their devoted spirit and of their beneficent service, he is likely to be fair and Christian in his judgment. For one thing, he will readily understand why some of them are not religious men. The laws of psychology are not suspended when religion is concerned; there as elsewhere persistent attention is the price of a vivid sense of reality. When, therefore, a man habitually thinks intensely of nothing but biological tissue, or chemical reactions, or the diseases of a special organ, the results are not difficult to forecast. Darwin's famous confession that in his exacting concentration on biology he utterly lost his power to appreciate music or poetry is a case in point. Said Darwin, "My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of a large collection of facts." It is needless to say that such a mind is not likely to be more vividly aware of God than it is to feel music's beauty or poetry's truth. The plain fact is that if any man should persistently restrict himself to a physical science, should never hear a symphony or an oratorio, should shut out from his experience any dealing with music or enjoyment of it, he would in the end lose all musical capacity, and would become a man whose appreciation of music was nil and whose opinion on music was worthless. _Just such an atrophy of life is characteristic of intense specialists._ When one understands this he becomes capable of intelligent sympathy with scientists, even when he does not at all agree with their religious opinions. Jude gives us a remarkable injunction, plainly applicable here. "On some have mercy who are in doubt." =But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And on some have mercy, who are in doubt; and some save, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.= =Now unto him that is able to guard you from stumbling, and to set you before the presence of his glory without blemish in exceeding joy, to the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and power, before all time, and now, and for evermore. Amen.--Jude 20-25.= _O God, who so fillest all things that they only thinly veil Thy presence; we adore Thee in the beauty of the world, in the goodness of human hearts and in Thy thought within the mind. We praise Thee for the channels through which Thy grace can come to us; sickness and health, joy and pain, freedom and necessity, sunshine and rain, life and death._ _We thank Thee for all the gentle and healing ministries of life; the gladness of the morning, the freedom of the wind, the music of the rain, the joy of the sunshine, and the deep calm of the night; for trees, and flowers, the clouds, and skies; for the tender ministries of human love, the unselfishness of parents, the love that binds man and woman, the confidence of little children; for the patience of teachers and the encouragement of friends._ _We bless Thee for the stirring ministry of the past, for the story of noble deeds, the memory of holy men, the printed book, the painter's art, the poet's craft; most of all for the ministry of the Son of Man, who taught us the eternal beauty of earthly things, who by His life set us free from fear, and by His death won us from our sins to Thee; for His cradle, His cross, and His crown._ _May His Spirit live within us, conquer all the selfishness of man, and take away the sin of the world. Amen._--W. E. Orchard. Seventh Week, Fourth Day The tendency of scientific specialization to shut out the appreciation of life's other values has one notable result: the opinions of scientific specialists in the physical realm on matters of religion are generally not of major importance. There is a popular fallacy that an expert in one realm must be listened to with reverence on all subjects. But the fact is that a great physicist is not by his scientific eminence thereby qualified to talk wisely on politics or literature or religion; rather, so far as _a priori_ considerations are concerned, he is thereby disqualified. Mr. Edison cannot say anything on electricity that is insignificant; but when he gave an interview on immortality he revealed to everyone who knew the history of thought on that subject and the issues involved in it, that on matters outside his specialty he could say things very insignificant. The more one personally knows great specialists, the more he sees how human they are, how interest in one thing shuts out interest in others, how the subject on which the mind centers grows real and all else unreal, how very valuable their judgment is on their specialties, and how much less valuable even than ordinary men's is their judgment on anything beside. This truth does not concern religion only; it concerns any subject which calls into play appreciative faculties that their science does not use. For a man, therefore, to surrender religious faith because a specialist in another realm disowns it is absurd. If one wishes, outside of those whose vital interest in religion makes them specialists there, to get confirmation from another class of men, let him look not to physicists but to judges. They are accustomed to weigh evidence covering the general field of human life; and among the great judicial minds of this generation, as of all others, one finds an overwhelming preponderance of religious men. =But unto us God revealed them through the Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For who among men knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of the man, which is in him? even so the things of God none knoweth, save the Spirit of God. But we received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is from God; that we might know the things that were freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth; combining spiritual things with spiritual words. Now the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged.--I Cor. 2:10-14.= _O Eternal and glorious Lord God, since Thy glory and honor is the great end of all Thy works, we desire that it may be the beginning and end of all our prayers and services. Let Thy great Name be glorious, and glorified, and sanctified throughout the world. Let the knowledge of Thee fill all the earth as the waters cover the sea. Let that be done in the world that may most advance Thy glory. Let all Thy works praise Thee. Let Thy wisdom, power, justice, goodness, mercy, and truth be evident unto all mankind, that they may observe, acknowledge, and admire it, and magnify the Name of Thee, the Eternal God. In all the dispensation of Thy Providence, enable us to see Thee, and to sanctify Thy Name in our hearts with thankfulness, in our lips with thanksgiving, in our lives with dutifulness and obedience. Enable us to live to the honor of that great Name of Thine by which we are called, and that, as we profess ourselves to be Thy children, so we may study and sincerely endeavor to be like Thee in all goodness and righteousness, that we may thereby bring glory to Thee our Father which art in heaven; that we and all mankind may have high and honorable thoughts concerning Thee, in some measure suitable to Thy glory, majesty, goodness, wisdom, bounty, and purity, and may in all our words and actions manifest these inward thoughts touching Thee with suitable and becoming words and actions; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen._--Lord Chief Justice Sir Matthew Hale, 1609. Seventh Week, Fifth Day So far in our thought we have tacitly consented to the popular supposition, that the scientists are at odds with religion. Many of them unquestionably are. But in view of the obsessing nature of scientific specialties, the wonder is not that some scientists are non-religious; the wonder is that so many are profoundly men of faith in God. The idea that scientists as a whole are irreligious is untrue. Lists of testimonials from eminent specialists in favor of religion are not particularly useful, for, as we have said, the judgment of specialists outside their chosen realm is, at the most, no more valuable than that of ordinary men. But if anyone tries to rest his case against religion on the adverse opinions of great scientists, he easily can be driven from his position. Sir William Crookes, one of the world's greatest chemists, writes: "I cannot imagine the possibility of anyone with ordinary intelligence entertaining the least doubt as to the existence of a God--a Law-Giver and a Life-Giver." Lord Kelvin, called the "Napoleon of Science," said that he could think of nothing so absurd as atheism; Sir Oliver Lodge, perhaps the greatest living physicist and certainly an earnest believer, writes, "The tendency of science, whatever it is, is not in an irreligious direction at the present time"; Sir George Stokes, the great physicist (died 1903), affirmed his belief that disbelievers among men of science "form a very small minority"; and Sir James Geikie, Dean of the Faculty of Science at Edinburgh University, impatiently writes, "It is simply an impertinence to say that 'the leading scientists are irreligious or anti-Christian.' Such a statement could only be made by some scatter-brained chatterbox or zealous fanatic." The fact is that, in spite of the tendency of high specialization to crowd out religious interest and insight, our great scientists have never thrown the mass of their influence against religion, and today, in the opinion of one of their chief leaders, are growing to be increasingly men of religious spirit. Whatever argument is to be based on the testimony of the scientists is rather for religion than against it. =For this cause I also, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which is among you, and the love which ye show toward all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him; having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe.--Eph. 1:15-19.= _O Lord, who by Thy holy Apostle hast taught us to do all things in the Name of the Lord Jesus and to Thy glory; give Thy blessing, we pray Thee, to this our work, that we may do it in faith, and heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men. All our powers of body and mind are Thine, and we would fain devote them to Thy service. Sanctify them and the work in which we are engaged; let us not be slothful, but fervent in spirit, and do Thou, O Lord, so bless our efforts that they may bring forth in us the fruit of true wisdom. Strengthen the faculties of our minds, and dispose us to exert them for Thy glory and for the furtherance of Thy Kingdom. Save us from all pride and vanity and reliance upon our own power or wisdom. Teach us to seek after truth, and enable us to gain it; while we know earthly things, may we know Thee, and be known by Thee through and in Thy Son Jesus Christ, that we may be Thine in body and spirit, in all our work and undertakings; through Jesus Christ. Amen._--Thomas Arnold, 1795. Seventh Week, Sixth Day Far more important than the opinions of individual scientists for religion or against it, is the fact that scientists are coming increasingly to recognize the limitations of their field. The field of science _is_ limited; its domain is the system of facts and their laws, which make the immediate environment of man's life; but with the Origin of all life, with the character of the Power that sustains us and with the Destiny that lies ahead of us science does not, cannot deal. The most superficial observance shows how little any great soul lives within the confines of science's discoveries. Carlyle, after his great bereavement, writes to his friend Erskine: "'Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy will be done'--what else can we say? The other night in my sleepless tossings about, which were growing more and more miserable, these words, that brief and grand Prayer, came strangely to my mind, with an altogether new emphasis; as if written and shining for me in mild pure splendor, on the black bosom of the Night there; when I, as it were, read them word by word--with a sudden check to my imperfect wanderings, with a sudden softness of composure which was much unexpected. Not for perhaps thirty or forty years had I once formally repeated that prayer--nay, I never felt before how intensely the voice of man's soul it is; the inmost aspiration of all that is high and pious in poor human nature." But supposing that the facts of science were all of reality and the laws of science all of truth, what sort of prayer could Carlyle have offered? Another has suggested the form which the Lord's Prayer would take in a world that lacked religious faith: "Our brethren who are upon the earth, hallowed be our name; our Kingdom come; our will be done on earth; for there is no heaven. We must get us this day our daily bread; we know we cannot be forgiven, for Law knows no forgiveness; we fear not temptation, for we deliver ourselves from evil; for ours is the Kingdom and ours is the power, and there is no glory and no forever. Amen." In such a barren prayer _the whole of man's life is not represented_. =Let no man deceive himself. If any man thinketh that he is wise among you in this world, let him become a fool, that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He that taketh the wise in their craftiness: and again, The Lord knoweth the reasonings of the wise, that they are vain. Wherefore let no one glory in men. For all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's.--I Cor. 3:18-23.= _O Thou Infinite Spirit, who occupiest all space, who guidest all motion, thyself unchanged, and art the life of all that lives, we flee unto thee, in whom we also live and move and have our being, and would reverence Thee with what is highest and holiest in our soul. We know that Thou art not to be worshiped as though Thou needest aught, or askedst the psalm of praise from our lips, or our heart's poor prayer. O Lord, the ground under our feet, and the seas which whelm it round, the air which holds them both, and the heavens sparkling with many a fire--these are a whisper of the psalm of praise which creation sends forth to Thee, and we know that Thou askest no homage of bended knee, nor heart bowed down, nor heart uplifted unto Thee. But in our feebleness and our darkness, dependent on Thee for all things, we lift up our eyes unto Thee; as a little child to the father and mother who guide him by their hands, so do our eyes look up to Thy countenance, O Thou who art our Father and our Mother too, and bless Thee for all Thy gifts. We look to the infinity of Thy perfection with awe-touched heart, and we adore the sublimity which we cannot comprehend. We bow down before Thee, and would renew our sense of gratitude and quicken still more our certainty of trust, till we feel Thee a presence close to our heart, and are so strong in the heavenly confidence that nothing earthly can disturb us or make us fear. Amen._--Theodore Parker. Seventh Week, Seventh Day The difficulty which many Christians feel concerning science centers around their loyalty to the Bible. They still are under the domination of the thought that the Christian idea of the Bible is the same as the Mohammedan idea of the Koran or the Mormon idea of Joseph Smith's sacred plates. The Koran was all written in heaven, word for word, say orthodox Mohammedans, before ever it came to earth. As for the Mormon Bible, God buried the plates on which he wrote, said Smith, and then disclosed their hiding place, and his prophet translated them verbatim, so that the Mormon book is literally inerrant. But this is not the Christian idea of the Bible. Inspiration is never represented in Scripture as verbal dictation where human powers and limitations are suspended, so that like a phonographic plate the result is a mechanical reproduction of the words of God. Rather God spoke to men through their experience as they were able to understand him, and as a result the great Christian Book, like a true Christian man, represents alike the inbreathing of the Divine and the limitation of the human. So the Epistle to the Hebrews clearly states that God did what he could in revealing partially to partial men what they could understand: =God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds.--Heb. 1:1, 2.= Of all limitations that are entirely obvious in the ancient Hebrew-Christian world, the current view of the physical universe is the most unescapable. To suppose that God never can reveal to men anything about the world, transcending what the ancient Hebrews could understand, is to deny the principle which Jesus applied even to the more important realm of spiritual truth: "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now" (John 16:12). _O Thou who hast visited us with the Dayspring from on high, who hast made light to shine in the darkness, we praise Thy holy name and proclaim Thy wonderful goodness._ _We bless Thee for the dawning of the light in far-off ages as soon as human eyes could bear its rays. We remember those who bore aloft the torch of truth when all was false and full of shame; those far-sighted souls who from the mountain tops of vision heralded the coming day; those who labored in the darkened valleys to lift men's eyes to the hills._ _We thank Thee that in the fulness of the times Thou didst gather Thy light into life, so that even simple folk could see; for Jesus the Star of the morning and the Light of the world._ _We commemorate His holy nativity, His lowly toil, His lonely way; the gracious words of His lips, the deep compassion of His heart, His friendship for the fallen, His love for the outcast; the crown of thorns, the cruel cross, the open shame. And we rejoice to know as He was here on earth, so Thou art eternally. Thou dost not abhor our flesh, nor shrink from our earthly toil. Thou rememberest our frailty, bearest with our sin, and tastest even our bitter cup of death._ _And now we rejoice for the light that shines about our daily path from the cradle to the grave, and for the light that illumines its circuit beyond these spheres from our conception in Thy mind to the day when we wake in Thy image; for the breathing of Thy spirit into ours till we see Thee face to face: in God, from God; to God at last. Hallelujah. Amen._--W. E. Orchard. COMMENT FOR THE WEEK I The innermost questions which some minds raise about religion cannot be answered without candid discussion of the obvious contrasts between faith and science. The conflict between science and theology is one of the saddest stories ever written. It is a record of mutual misunderstanding, of bitterness, bigotry, and persecution, and to this day one is likely to find the devotees of religion suspicious of science and scientists impatient with the Church. If we are to understand the reason for this controversy between science and theology, we must take a far look back into man's history. Stephen Leacock remarks that whenever a professor discusses anything, he has to retreat at least 2,000 years to get a running start. Our retreat must be farther than that; it carries us to the earliest stage in which we are able to describe the thoughts of men. _At the beginning men attributed to superhuman spirits all activities in the world which they themselves did not perform._ If the wind blew, a spirit did it; if the sun rose, a spirit moved it; if a storm came, a spirit drove it. Natural law was non-existent to the primitive man; every movement in nature was the direct result of somebody's active will. From the mysterious whispering of a wind-swept field to the crashing thunder, what man did not cause the gods did. If, therefore, a primitive man were asked the cause of rain, he had but one answer: a god made it rain. That was his _scientific_ answer, for no other explanation of rain could he conceive. That was his _religious_ answer, for he worshiped the spirit on whom he must depend for showers. This significant fact, therefore, stands clear: _To primitive man a religious answer and a scientific answer were identical._ Sunrise was explained, not by planetary movements which were unknown, but by the direct activity of a god, and the Dawn then was worshipped in the same terms in which it was explained. The historic reason for the confusion between science and religion at once grows evident. _At the beginning they were fused and braided into one; the story of their relationship is the record of their gradual and difficult disentangling._ Wherever peace has come between science and religion, one finds a realm where the boundaries between the two are acknowledged and respected. Ask _now_ the question, What makes it rain? There is a scientific answer in terms of natural laws concerning atmospheric pressure and condensation. There is also a religious answer, since behind all laws and through them runs the will of God. These two replies are distinct, they move in different realms, and are held together without inconsistency. As Sabatier put it, "Since God is the final cause of all things, he is not the scientific explanation of any one thing." In how many realms where once confusion reigned between the believers in the gods and the seekers after natural laws, is peace now established! Rain and sunrise, the tides and the eclipses, the coming of the seasons and the growing of the crops--for all such events we have our scientific explanations, and at the same time through them all the man of religion feels the creative power of God. Peace reigns in these realms because here _no longer do we force religious answers on scientific questions or scientific answers on religious questions_. Evidently the old Deuteronomic law is the solution of the conflict between science and religion: "Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor's landmark" (Deut. 27:17). II Left thus in the negative, however, this might seem to mean that we are to divide our minds into air-tight compartments, and allow no influences from one to penetrate another. But science and religion do tremendously affect each other, and no honest dealing ever can endeavor to prevent their mutual reaction. Our position is not thus negative; it affirms a positive and most important truth. Life has many aspects; science, art, religion, approach it from different angles, with different interests and purposes; and while they do _influence_ each other, they are not _identical_ and each has solid standing in its own right. When science has grown domineering, as though her approach to reality were the only one and her conclusions all of truth, the poets have had as much distaste for her as have the theologians. Shelley, who called himself an atheist, had no interest in religion's conflict with the extreme claims of science; yet listen to his aroused and flaming language as he pleads the case for poetry against her: "Poetry is something divine.... It is the perfect and consummate surface and bloom of all things; it is as the odor and color of the rose to the texture of the elements which compose it, and the form and splendor of unfaded beauty to the secrets of anatomy and corruption. What were virtue, love, patriotism, friendship--what were the scenery of this beautiful universe which we inhabit; what were our consolations on this side of the grave--and what were our aspirations beyond it, if poetry did not ascend to bring light and fire from those eternal regions where the owl-winged faculty of calculation dare not even soar?" This involves no denial of science's absolute right to her own field--the "texture of the elements which compose" the rose, and the "secrets of anatomy." But it is a justified assertion that this field of science is not all of reality, and that what the "owl-winged faculty of calculation" can reach is not all of truth. What is a sunset? Science sets forth the answer in tables where the light waves that compose the colors are counted and the planetary movements that bring on the dusk are all explained. Poetry answers in a way how different! "I've dreamed of sunsets when the sun, supine, Lay rocking on the ocean like a god, And threw his weary arms far up the sky, And with vermilion-tinted fingers, Toyed with the long tresses of the evening star."[4] Is one of these answers more true than the other? Rather it is absurd to compare their truth; they are not contradictory; they approach the same fact with diverse interests, and seek in it different aspects of reality. Each has its rights in its own field. And so far is it from being true that science has a clear case in favor of its own superior importance, that Höffding, the philosopher, remarks, "It well may be that poetry gives more perfect expression to the highest Reality than any scientific concept can ever do." Any great fact is too manifold in its meanings to be exhausted by a single method of approach. If one would know the Bible thoroughly, he must understand the rules of grammar. Were one to make grammar his exclusive specialty, the Bible to him, so far as he held strictly to his science, would be nouns and verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and prepositions, and the law-abiding relationships between them. This mere grammarian would know by such a method one aspect of the Bible, but how little of the Book would that aspect be! No rules of grammar can interpret the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians or explain the story of the Cross. The facts and laws of the Book's language a grammarian could know, but the beauty and the soul of it, the innermost transforming truth of it, would be unperceived. So life is too rich and various to be exhausted by any one approach. Science seeks facts and arranges them in systems of cause and effect. Poetry sees these bare facts adorned with beauty, she suffuses them with her preferences and her appreciations. Religion sees the whole gathered up into spiritual unity, filled with moral purpose and good will, and in this faith finds peace and power. There need be no conflict between these various approaches; they are complementary, not antagonistic; and no man sees all the truth by any one of them alone. So a chemist might come to a spring to analyze it; a painter to rejoice in its beauties and reproduce them on his canvas; and a man athirst might come to drink and live. Shall they quarrel because they do not all come alike? Let them rather see how partial is the experience of each without the others! III In the mutual trespassing which has caused our problem, religion has had her guilty share, and the reason is not difficult to find. God did not have to give a modern scientific education to his ancient Hebrew saints before he could begin to reveal to them something of his will and character. And they, writing their experience and thought of him, could not avoid--as no generation's writers can avoid--indicating the view of the physical world which they and their contemporaries held. It is easy, therefore, from scores of Scripture passages to reconstruct the early Hebrew world. Their earth was flat and was founded on an underlying sea. (Psalm 136:6; Psalm 24:1, 2; Gen. 7:11); it was stationary (Psalm 93:1; Psalm 104:5); the heavens, like an upturned bowl, "strong as a molten mirror" (Job 37:18; Gen. 1:6-8; Isa. 40:22; Psalm 104:2), rested on the earth beneath (Amos 9:6; Job 26:11); the sun, moon, and stars moved within this firmament, of special purpose to illumine man (Gen. 1:14-19); there was a sea above the sky, "the waters which were above the firmament" (Gen. 1:7; Psalm 148:4), and through the "windows of heaven" the rain came down (Gen. 7:11; Psalm 78:23); beneath the earth was mysterious Sheol where dwelt the shadowy dead (Isa. 14:9-11); and all this had been made in six days, a short and measurable time before (Gen. 1). This was the world of the Hebrews. Because when the Hebrews wrote the Bible their thoughts of God, their deep experience of him, were interwoven with their early science, Christians, through the centuries, have thought that faith in God stood or fell with early Hebrew science and that the Hebrew view of the physical universe must last forever. In the seventeenth century, Dr. John Lightfoot, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, said: "Heaven and earth, center and circumference, were created all together, in the same instant, and clouds full of water.... This work took place and man was created by the Trinity on October 23, 4004 B. C., at nine o'clock in the morning." Of what tragedy has this identification of science with religion been the cause! When _astronomy_ began to revolutionize man's idea of the solar universe, when for the first time in man's imagination the flat earth grew round and the stable earth began moving through space seventy-five times faster than a cannon-ball, Pope Paul V solemnly rendered a decree, that "the doctrine of the double motion of the earth about its axis and about the sun is false and entirely contrary to Holy Scripture." When _geology_ began to show from the rocks' unimpeachable testimony the long leisureliness of God, laying the foundations of the world, a Christian leader declared geology "not a subject of lawful inquiry," "a dark art," "dangerous and disreputable," "a forbidden province," "an awful evasion of the testimony of revelation." This tragic record of theology's vain conflict with science is the most pitiable part of the Church's story. How needless it was! For now when we face our universe of magnificent distances and regal laws has religion really suffered? Has a flat and stationary earth proved essential to Christianity, as Protestants and Catholics alike declared? Rather the Psalmist could not guess the sweep of our meaning when now we say, "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork" (Psalm 19:1). In the last generation the idea of _evolution_ was the occasion of a struggle like that which attended the introduction of the new astronomy. How was the world made? asked the ancient Hebrew, and he answered, By the word of God at a stroke. That was his scientific answer, and his religious answer too. When, therefore, the evolving universe was disclosed by modern science, when men read in fossil and in living biological structure the undeniable evidence of a long history of gradually changing forms of life, until the world was seen _not made like a box but growing like a tree_, many men of religion thought the faith destroyed. They identified the Christian Gospel with early Hebrew science! Today, however, when the general idea of evolution is taken for granted as gravitation is, how false this identification obviously appears! Says Professor Bowne, "An Eastern king was seated in a garden, and one of his counselors was speaking of the wonderful works of God. 'Show me a sign,' said the king, 'and I will believe.' 'Here are four acorns,' said the counselor; 'will your Majesty plant them in the ground, and then stoop down and look into this clear pool of water?' The king did so. 'Now,' said the other, 'Look up.' The king looked up and saw four oak trees where he had planted the acorns. 'Wonderful!' he exclaimed; 'this is indeed the work of God.' 'How long were you looking into the water?' asked the counselor. 'Only a second,' said the king. 'Eighty years have passed as a second,' said the other. The king looked at his garments; they were threadbare. He looked at his reflection in the water; he had become an old man. 'There is no miracle here, then,' he said angrily. 'Yes,' said the other; 'it is God's work whether he do it in one second or in eighty years.'" Such an attitude as this is now a commonplace with Christian folk. A vast and growing universe through which sweep the purposes of God is by far the most magnificent outlook for faith that man has ever had. The Gospel and Hebrew science are _not_ identical; the Gospel is not indissolubly bound to any science ancient or modern; for science and religion have separable domains. "A fire-mist and a planet, A crystal and a cell, A jelly-fish and a saurian, And caves where cave men dwell. Then a sense of Love and Duty And a face turned from the clod, Some call it Evolution And others--call it God." The same story of needless antagonism is now being written about religion and _natural law_. When science began plotting nature's laws, the control of the world seemed to be snatched from the hands of deity and given over to a system of impersonal rules. God, whose action had been defined in terms of miracle, was forced from one realm after another by the discovery of laws, until at last even comets were found to be not whimsical but as regular in their law-abiding courses as the planets, and God seemed to be escorted to the edge of the universe and bowed out. When Newton first formulated the law of gravitation, the artillery of many an earnest pulpit was let loose against him. One said that Newton took "from God that direct action on his works so constantly ascribed to him in Scripture and transferred it to material mechanism" and that he "substituted gravitation for Providence." But now, when science has so plainly won her case, in her own proper field; when we know to our glory and profit so many laws by which the world is governed, and use our knowledge as the most splendid engine of personal purpose and freedom which man ever had, we see how great our gain has been. _Nor is it more a practical than a religious gain._ God once was thought of chiefly in terms of miraculous action; he came into his world now and again, like the _deus-ex-machina_ of a Greek tragedy, to solve a critical dilemma in the plot. Now all the laws we know and many more are his regular ways of action, and through them all continuously his purpose is being wrought. As Henry Drummond exclaimed, "If God appears periodically, he disappears periodically. If he comes upon the scene at special crises, he is absent from the scene in the intervals. Whether is all-God or occasional God the nobler theory?" Nothing, therefore, can be more pathetic than the self-styled "defenders of the faith" who withstand the purpose of reverent students to give scientific answers to scientific questions. Such men are not really defending the faith. They are doing exactly what Father Inchofer did when he said, "The opinion that the earth moves is of all heresies the most abominable"; what Mr. Gosse did when he maintained, in explanation of geology's discoveries, that God by the use of stratified rock and fossils deliberately gave the earth the _appearance_ of development through long ages, while really he made it in six days; what Mr. Southall did when, in the face of established anthropology, he claimed that the "Egyptians had no Stone age and were born civilized"; what the Dean of Chichester did when he preached that "those who refuse to accept the history of the creation of our first parents according to its obvious literal intention, and are for substituting the modern dream of evolution in its place, cause the entire scheme of man's salvation to collapse." These were not defending the faith; they were making it ridiculous in the eyes of intelligent men and were embroiling religion in controversies where she did not belong and where, out of her proper realm, she was foredoomed to defeat. _For scientific problems are not a matter for faith; they are a matter for investigation._ No one can settle by faith the movements of the planets, the method of the earth's formation, the age of mankind, the explanation of comets. These lie in science's realm, not in religion's, and religious faith demeans herself when she tries to settle them. Let science be the grammarian of the world to observe its parts of speech and their relations! Religion deals with the soul of the world, its deepest source, its spiritual meaning, its divine purpose. IV Science, however, has not always been content with the grammarian's task. When we have frankly confessed religion's sins in trespassing on scientific territory, we must note that _science has her guilty share in the needless conflict_. Today one suspects that the Church's vain endeavor by ecclesiastical authority to force religious solutions on scientific problems is almost over. But the attempt of many scientists to claim the whole field of reality as theirs and to force their solutions on every sort of problem is not yet finished. This, too, is a vain endeavor. To suppose that the process of scientific observation and inference can exhaust the truth of life is like supposing that there is no more meaning in Westminster Abbey than is expressed in Baedeker. Scientists, for example, sometimes claim domains which are not theirs by _spelling abstract nouns with capitals, by positing Law or Evolution as the makers and builders of the world_. But law never did anything; law is only man's statement of the way, according to his observation, in which things are done. To explain the universe as the creation of Law is on a par with explaining homes as the creation of Matrimony. Abstract nouns do not create anything and the capitalizing of a process never can explain it. So, too, Evolution does nothing to the world; it is the way in which whoever makes the world is making it. As well explain the difference between an acorn and an oak by saying that Growth did it, as to explain the progress of creation from stardust to civilization by changing e to E. Science may describe the process as evolutionary, but its source, its moving power, and its destiny are utterly beyond her ken. For another thing, scientists often invade realms which are not theirs, _by stretching the working theories of some special science to the proportions of a complete philosophy of life_. A generation ago, when geology and biology were in their "green and salad days," the enthusiasm inspired by the splendid results of their hypotheses went to strange lengths. One professor of geology seriously explained the pyramids of Egypt to be the remains of volcanic eruption which had forced its way upwards by slow and stately motion. The hieroglyphs were crystalline formations and the shaft of the great pyramid was the airhole of a volcano. Scientists are human like all men; their specialties loom large; the ideas that work in their limited areas seem omnipotent. So a student of the influence of sunlight on life thinks reactions to the sun explain everything. "Heliotropism," he says, "doubtless wrote Hamlet." A specialist on the influence of geography on human nature interprets everything as the reaction of man to seas, mountains, plains, and deserts, and Lombroso even thinks the revolutionary temperament especially native to men who live on limestone formations! Specialists in economic history are sure that man is little more than an animated nucleus of hunger and that all life is explicable as a search for food. And psychologists, charmed by the neatness of description which causal connections introduce into our inner life, leap to the conclusion, which lies outside their realm, that personality is an illusion, freedom a myth and our mental life the rattling of a causal chain forged and set in motion when the universe began. _All this is not science; it is making hypotheses from a limited field of facts masquerade as a total philosophy of life._ The underlying reason why science, when she regards her province as covering everything, inevitably clashes with the interests of religion, is that _she starts her view of the world from the sub-human side_. The typical sciences are physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, biology, and the view of the universe which they present is the basis on which all other sciences proceed. But this foundation is sub-human; the master ideas involved in it are all obtained with the life of man left out of account. Such an approach presents a world-machine, immense and regular, and when, later, psychology and sociology arise, how easy it is to call the human life which they study a by-product of the sub-human world, an exudation arising from the activities of matter. Religion, on the contrary, _starts with human life_. Fall down in awe, Science cries, before this vast sub-human world! And the religious man answers: What world is this I am to bow before? Is it not the universe which my mind knows and whose laws my intellect has grasped? This universe, so far as it exists at all for me, is apprehended by my vision, penetrated by my thought, encompassed by my interpretations. _What is really great and wonderful here, is not the world which I understand, but the mind that understands it--not the sub-human but the human._ Man himself is the supreme Fact, and all the world that man could bow before, man's mind must first of all contain. The master truth is not that my mind exists within a physical universe, but that the physical universe is encompassed by my mind. Therefore, when I interpret life, I will start with man, and not with what lies below him. Romanes, the English scientist, illustrates in his experience the difference which these two approaches make. When, returning from agnosticism to Christianity, he explained his lapse, he said, "I did not sufficiently appreciate the immense importance of _human_ nature, as distinguished from physical nature, in any inquiry touching theism.... Human nature is the most important part of nature as a whole whereby to investigate the theory of theism. This I ought to have anticipated on merely _a priori_ grounds, had I not been too much immersed in merely physical research." Of how many now does this same explanation hold! They segregate man from the rest of the universe, and endeavor an interpretation of the unhuman remainder. They forget that man is part and parcel of the universe, bone of its bone, as imperative an expression of its substantial nature as are rocks and stars, and that _any philosophy which interprets the world minus man has not interpreted the world_. Here is the difference between a Haeckel and a Phillips Brooks. All the dominant ideas of the one are drawn from existence minus man; all the controlling convictions of the other are drawn from the heights and depths of man's own life. The first approach inevitably leads to irreligion, for Spirit cannot reveal itself except in spirit and until one has found God in man he will not find him in nature. The second as certainly leads to religion, for, as Augustine said, "If you dig deep enough in every man you find divinity." Over against the testimony of the sub-human that there is a mechanistic aspect to the world, stands the unalterable testimony of the human that there is as well an ideal, purposive, and spiritual aspect to the world. Surely the latter brings us nearer to the heart of truth. _We never understand anything except in terms of its highest expression and man is the summit of nature._ Could religion find a voice, therefore, she would wish to speak not in terms of apology but of challenge, when science, assuming all of reality for its field, grows arrogant. Describe the aspect of the world that belongs to you, she would say. I have learned my lesson; your field is yours, and no interference at my hands shall trouble you again. But remember the limitations of your domain--to observe and describe phenomena and to plot their laws. That is an immense task and inexpressibly useful. But when you have completed it, the total result will be as unlike the real world as a medical manikin with his wire nerves and painted muscles is unlike a real man. The manikin is sufficiently correct; everything is truly pictured there--_except life_. So things are as science sees them, but things are more than science sees. Plot then the mechanistic aspect of the world, but do not suppose that you have caught all of truth in that wide-meshed net! When you have said your last word on facts observed and laws induced, man rises up to ask imperious questions with which you cannot deal, to present urgent problems for which no solution ever has been found save Augustine's, "I seek for God in order that my soul may _live_." V Our thought so ended, however, would leave science and religion jealously guarding their boundaries, not cooperating as allies. _Such suspicious recognition of each other's realms does not exhaust the possibilities._ When once the separate functions each by the other have been granted, we are free to turn our thought to the inestimable service which each is rendering. Consider the usefulness of science to the ideal causes of which religion is the chief! Science has given us the _new universe_, not more marvelous in its vastness than in its unity. For the spectroscope has shown that everywhere through immeasurable space the same chemical properties and laws obtain; the telescope has revealed with what mathematical precision the orbits in the heavens are traced and how unwaveringly here or among the stars gravitation maintains its hold. Man never had so immense and various and yet so single and unified a world before. Polytheism once was possible, but science has banished it forever. Whatever may be the source of the universe, it is _one_ Source, and whoever the creator, he is more glorious in man's imagination than he could ever have been before. Science also has put at the disposal of the ideal causes _such instruments as by themselves they would never have possessed_. We are hoping for a new world-brotherhood, and we pray for it in Christian churches as the Father's will. But the instruments by which the inter-racial fellowship must be maintained and without which it would be unthinkable are science's gift. Railroads, steamships, telegraphs, telephones, wireless--these are the shuttles by which the ideal faiths in man's fraternity may be woven into fact. When Christian physicians heal the sick or stamp out plagues that for ages have been man's curse and his despair, when social maladjustments are corrected by Christian philanthropy, and saner, happier ways of living are made possible; when comforts that once were luxuries are brought within the reach of all, and man's life is relieved of crushing handicaps; when old superstitions that had filled man's life with dread for ages are driven like fogs before science's illumination, and religious faith is freed of their incumbrance; when great causes of relief have at their disposal the unimaginable wealth which our modern economic system has created--can anyone do sufficient justice to man's debt to science? And once more science has done religion an inestimable service in establishing as a point of honor the ambition _to see straight and to report exactly_. The tireless patience, the inexorable honesty, the sacrificial heroism of scientists, pursuing truth, is a gift of incalculable magnitude. Huxley is typical of science at its best when he writes in his journal his ideal--"To smite all humbugs however big; to give a nobler tone to science; to set an example of abstinence from petty personal controversies and of toleration for everything but lying; to be indifferent as to whether the work is recognized as mine or not, so long as it is done." Countless obscurantisms and bigotries, shams and sophistries have been driven from the churches by this scientific spirit and more are yet to go. Science has shown intellectual dishonesty to be a sin of the first rank. Christianity never can be thankful enough for science; on our knees we should be grateful for her as one of God's most indispensable gifts. Nor should the fact that many a scientist whose contributions we rejoice in was not certain about God defer our gratitude. Cyrus, the Persian, is not the only one to whom the Eternal has said, "I will gird thee, though thou hast not known me" (Isa. 45:5). When, however, science has done her necessary work, she needs her great ally, religion. Without the insight and hope which faith alone can bring, we learn a little about the world, our minds enclosed in boundaries beyond which is dark, unfathomable mystery. We rejoice in nature's beauty and in friendship, suffer much with broken bodies and more with broken family ties, until we die as we were born--the spawn of mindless, soulless powers that never purposed us and never cared. And the whole universe is purposeless, engaged with blind hands, that have no mind behind them, on tasks that mean nothing and are never done. Science and religion should not be antagonists; they are mutually indispensable allies in the understanding and mastery of life. [4] J. G. Holland. CHAPTER VIII Faith and Moods DAILY READINGS The relationship of faith to feeling, rather than faith's relationship to mind, is with many people the more vital interest. The emotional results of faith are rightfully of intense concern to everyone, for our feelings put the sense of value into life. To see a sunset without being stirred by its beauty is to miss seeing the sunset; to have friends without feeling love for them is not to have friends; and to possess life without feeling it to be gloriously worth while is to miss living. Now, in this regard, the attitude of faith stands sharply opposed to its direct contrary--the attitude of fear. Faith and fear are the two emotional climates, in one or the other of which everyone tends habitually to live. To the comparison of these we set ourselves in the daily readings. Eighth Week, First Day =Give ear to my prayer, O God; And hide not thyself from my supplication. Attend unto me, and answer me: I am restless in my complaint, and moan, Because of the voice of the enemy, Because of the oppression of the wicked; For they cast iniquity upon me, And in anger they persecute me. My heart is sore pained within me: And the terrors of death are fallen upon me. Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, And horror hath overwhelmed me. And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! Then would I fly away, and be at rest. Lo, then would I wander far off, I would lodge in the wilderness.= =--Psalm 55:1-7.= How many people are slaves to the mood from which this psalmist suffered! "Fearfulness and trembling" are their habitual attitude toward life. They fear to die and just as much they fear to live; before every vexatious problem, before every opposing obstacle, even before the common tasks and responsibilities of daily living, they stand in dread; and every piece of work is done by them at least three times--in previous worry, in anxious performance, and in regretful retrospect. Such fear _imprisons_ the soul. No two men really live in the same world; for while the outward geography may be identical, the real environment of each soul is created by our moods, tempers, and habits of thought. Fear builds a prison about the man, and bars him in with dreads, anxieties, and timid doubts. And the man will live forever in that prison unless faith sets him free. _Faith is the great liberator._ The psalmist who found himself a prisoner of "fearfulness and trembling" obtained his liberty and became a "soul in peace" (v. 18); and the secret of his freedom he revealed in the closing words of his psalm--"But I will trust in Thee." Faith of some sort is the only power that ever sets men free from the bondage of their timidities and dreads. If a man is the slave of fearfulness, there is no substance in his claim to be a man of faith; a man who has vital faith is not habitually fearful. And as Emerson said, "He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear." _O God, we remember with sadness our want of faith in Thee. What might have been a garden we have turned into a desert by our sin and wilfulness. This beautiful life which Thou hast given us we have wasted in futile worries and vain regrets and empty fears. Instead of opening our eyes to the joy of life, the joy that shines in the leaf, the flower, the face of an innocent child, and rejoicing in it as in a sacrament, we have sunk back into the complainings of our narrow and blinded souls. O deliver us from the bondage of unchastened desires and unwholesome thoughts. Help us to conquer hopeless brooding and faithless reflection, and the impatience of irritable weakness. To this end, increase our faith, O Lord. Fill us with a completer trust in Thee, and the desire for a more whole-hearted surrender to Thy will. Then every sorrow will become a joy. Then shall we say to the mountains that lie heavy on our souls, "Remove and be cast hence" and they shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible unto us. Then shall we renew our strength, and mount up with wings as eagles; we shall run and not be weary; we shall walk and not faint. We offer this prayer in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen._--Samuel McComb. Eighth Week, Second Day Not only is it true that fear imprisons while faith liberates; fear _paralyzes_ and faith _empowers_. The only attitude in which a man has command of his faculties and is at his best, is the attitude of faith; while fear bewilders the mind and paralyzes the will. The physical effects of fear are deadly; it positively inhibits any useful thinking; and in the spiritual life its results are utterly demoralizing. Fear is the panic of a soul. Consider such an estate as the author of Deuteronomy presents: =And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, and there shall be no rest for the sole of thy foot: but Jehovah will give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and pining of soul; and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear night and day, and shalt have no assurance of thy life. In the morning thou shalt say, Would it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would it were morning! for the fear of thy heart which thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.--Deut. 28:65-67.= Such a situation oppresses every vital power, and the conquest of such a situation must always be inward before it can be outward; _the man must pass from fear to faith_. Let even a little faith arise in him, and power begins to return. Men fear that they cannot overcome evil habits, that they cannot successfully meet difficult situations, that they cannot hold out in the Christian life, and that great causes cannot be fought through to victory--and the weakness which appalls them is the creation of their own misgiving. "Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win, By fearing to attempt." But faith is tonic; the results which follow a change of heart from fear to faith are miraculous; spiritual dwarfs grow to giants and achieve successes that before would have been unbelievable. No verse in Scripture has behind it a greater mass of verifiable experience than: "This is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith" (I John 5:4). _Gracious Father, Thou hast invited us, unworthy as we are, to pray for all sorts and conditions of men.... We pray for all who are in bondage to fear, unable to face the tasks of life or bear the thought of death with peace and dignity. Free them from the tyranny of these dark dreads. Let the inspiration of a great faith or hope seize their souls, and lift them above their fruitless worry and idle torments, into a region of joy and peace and blessedness. We pray for the victims of evil habits, the slaves of alcohol or morphine, or any other pretended redeemer of the soul from weariness and pain. Great is the power of these degrading temptations; but greater still is the saving energy of Thy Spirit. So let Thy Spirit enter the hearts of these unhappy children of Thine, that their will may be made strong to resist, and that the burning heat of high thoughts may consume the grosser desires of the flesh. We pray for souls bound beneath self-imposed burdens, vexed by miseries of their own making; for the children of melancholy, who have lost their way and grope without a light; for those who do their work with no enthusiasm, and, when night falls, can find no sleep though they search for it as for hidden treasure. Let Thy light pierce through their gloom and shine upon their path...._ _Unite us to Jesus Christ, Thy perfect Son, in the bonds of a living trust, so that sustained by His example, and sanctified by His Spirit, we may grow more and more into the image of His likeness. These, and all other blessings, we ask in His name and for His sake. Amen._--Samuel McComb. Eighth Week, Third Day There are many situations in life which naturally throw the pall of dread over man's soul. Life is seldom easy, it is often overwhelmingly difficult, and if a man has worry in his temperament, circumstances supply plenty of occasions on which to exercise it. The difference between men lies here: those in whom the fear-attitude is master hold the oppressive trouble so close to the eye that it hides everything else; those whom the faith-attitude dominates hold trouble off and see it in wide perspectives. A copper cent can hide the sun if we hold it close enough to the eye, and a transient difficulty can shut out from a fearful soul all life's large blessings and all the horizons of divine good will. Fear _disheartens_ men by concentrating their attention on the unhappy aspects of life; _but faith is the great encourager_. Whittier lived in a generation full of turmoil and trouble, and his own life is a story of prolonged struggle against illness, disappointments, and poverty. But, listen: "Yet sometimes glimpses on my sight Through present wrong, the eternal right; And, step by step, since time began I see the steady gain of man." That is the attitude of faith; it does not deny the evil, but it sees around it, refuses to be obsessed or scared by it, and takes heart from a large view when a small view would be appalling. And history always confirms the large view. Fear may be right for the moment, but in the long run it is a liar; only faith tells the truth. =Be merciful unto me, O God; for man would swallow me up: All the day long he fighting oppresseth me. Mine enemies would swallow me up all the day long; For they are many that fight proudly against me. What time I am afraid, I will put my trust in thee.= =--Psalm 56:1-3.= _Almighty and ever-living God, we draw near unto Thee, believing that Thou art, and that Thou wilt reward all those who diligently seek Thee. We are weak, mortal men, immersed in this world's affairs, buffeted by its sorrows, flung to and fro by its conflicts of right and wrong. We cry for some abiding stay, for some sure and steadfast anchorage. Reveal Thyself to us as the eternal God, as the unfathomable Love that encompasses every spirit Thou hast made, and bears it on, through the light and the darkness alike, to the goal of Thine own perfection. And yet, when Thou speakest to us, we are covered with confusion, for now we remember all the sadness and evil disorder of our lives. Thou hast visited our hearts with ideals fair and beautiful, but alas! we have grown weary in aspiration, and have declined into the sordid aims of our baser selves. Thou hast given us the love of parent and of friend, that we might thereby learn something of Thine own love; yet too often have we despised Thy gift and shut our hearts to all the wonder and the glory. We make confession before Thee of our sin and folly and ignorance. Again and again we have vowed ourselves to Thy service; again and again our languid wills have failed to do Thy Will. We have been seduced by the sweet poison of sin, and even against light and knowledge we have done that which Thou dost abhor, and which in our secret hearts we loathe. And now we almost fear to repent, lest Thou shouldst call us into judgment for a repentance that must needs be repented of. O mighty Saviour of men! be patient with us a little longer. Take us back to Thyself. Without Thee, we are undone; with Thee, we will take fresh heart of hope, and bind ourselves with a more effectual vow, and laying aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, we will follow Thee whithersoever Thou leadest. Amen._--Samuel McComb. Eighth Week, Fourth Day Fear depresses vitality and is a fruitful cause of nervous disorders, with all their disastrous reactions on man's health. Modern investigation has shown beyond any reasonable doubt that while illness comes often by way of the body, it comes also by way of the mind; our moods and tempers have a physical echo, and of all fatal mental states none is so ruinous as fear. It is not strange, therefore, that some people never are well. As Dr. McComb puts it, "Many play at living--they do not really live. They fear the responsibilities, the struggles, the adventures, not without risk, which life offers them. They fear illness. They fear poverty. They fear unhappiness. They fear danger. They fear the passion of sacrifice. They fear even the exaltation of a pure and noble love, until the settlements in money and social prestige have been duly certified. They fear to take a plunge into life's depths. They fear this world, and they fear still more the world beyond the grave." In such a mood no man can possibly be well. Faith, therefore, which drives out fear, has always been a minister of health. The Master's healings, which to the rationalism of a previous generation seemed incredible, in the light of the present knowledge seem inevitable. He had faith and he demanded faith, and wherever the faith-attitude can be set in motion against the fear-attitude and all its morbid brood, the consequences will be physical as well as moral. An outgrown custom of the early Church does not now seem so strange as it did a generation ago: =Is any among you suffering? let him pray. Is any cheerful? let him sing praise. Is any among you sick? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, it shall be forgiven him. Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working.--James 5:13-16.= _Eternal God, who art above all change and darkness, whose will begat us, and whose all present love doth enfold and continually redeem us, Holy Guest who indwellest, and dost comfort us; we have gathered to worship Thee, and in communion with Thee to find ourselves raised to the light of our life, and the Heaven of our desires._ _Pour upon our consciousness the sense of Thy wonderful nearness to us. Reveal to our weakness and distress the power and the grace that are more than sufficient for us. May we see what we are, Thy Spirit-born children linked by nature, love, and choice to Thy mighty being; and may the vision make all fears to fade, and a Divine strength to pulse within._ _Enable us to carry out from this place the peace and strength that here we gain, to take into our homes a kinder spirit, a new thoughtfulness; that we may brighten sadness, heal the sick, and make happiness to abound. May we take into our daily tasks and life of labor, a sense of righteousness that shall be as salt to every evil and corrupting influence._ _Because we have walked here awhile with Thee, may we be able to walk more patiently with man. Send us forth with love to the fallen, hope for the despairing, strength to impart to the weak and wayward; and carry on through us the work Thou didst commence in Thy Son our Brother Man and Saviour God. Amen._--W. E. Orchard. Eighth Week, Fifth Day Fear makes impossible any satisfying joy in life. A man of faith may be deeply joyful even in disastrous circumstances, but a man of fear would be unhappy in heaven. Stevenson sings in "the saddest and the bravest song he ever wrote": "God, if this were faith?... To go on for ever and fail and go on again, And be mauled to the earth and arise, And contend for the shade of a word and a thing not seen with the eyes: With half of a broken hope for a pillow at night That somehow the right is the right, And the smooth shall bloom from the rough: Lord, if that were enough?" Sad this song may be, but at the heart of it is yet a fierce joy because faith is there. But put a man of fear in luxury and remove from him every visible cause of disquiet and he will still be miserable. The more a man considers these two determinant moods in life, the more he sees that somehow the faith-attitude must be his, if life is to be worth living. Without it life dries up into a Sahara; with it, he comes into a company of the world's glad spirits, who one way or another have felt what the Psalmist sings: =Jehovah is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? Jehovah is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid? When evil-doers came upon me to eat up my flesh, Even mine adversaries and my foes, they stumbled and fell. Though a host should encamp against me, My heart shall not fear: Though war should rise against me, Even then will I be confident. One thing have I asked of Jehovah, that will I seek after: That I may dwell in the house of Jehovah all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of Jehovah, And to inquire in his temple. For in the day of trouble he will keep me secretly in his pavilion: In the covert of his tabernacle will he hide me; He will lift me up upon a rock. And now shall my head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me; And I will offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy; I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto Jehovah.= =--Psalm 27:1-6.= _Gracious Father! We confess the painful riddle of our being, that, while claiming kinship with Thee, we feel far from Thee. O, what means this strange bewilderment, this never-ending war between our worse and better thoughts? We are Thine by right, yet we have not given ourselves wholly to Thy care. Our hearts know no rest, save in Thee, yet they have sought it in this world's vainglory, which passeth away. We seek to quench our thirst at the cisterns of this earth, but they are broken cisterns, that can hold no water. Lead us to Thy well of life that springeth up eternally. Give us to drink of that spiritual water, of which, if any man drink, he shall never thirst again. We lament our want and poverty before Thee. Open Thou our eyes to behold the unsearchable riches of Thy grace, and increase our faith that we may make them ours. Unite us to Thee in the bonds of will and love and purpose. Out of Thy fulness, which is in Christ, give to each one of us according to his need. Make us wise with His Wisdom; pure with His purity; strong with His strength; that we may rise into the power and glory of the life that is life indeed. Hear our hearts' weak and wandering cries, and when Thou hearest, forgive and bless, for His sake. Amen._--Samuel McComb. Eighth Week, Sixth Day =No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment? Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto the measure of his life? And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.= =But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.--Matt. 6:24-33.= The meaning of this passage hinges on the first "therefore." You cannot serve God and selfish gain at the same time, says Jesus; you should choose decisively to serve God; and _therefore_ you must not be anxious about yourself. For _anxious fear so concentrates a man's thought on himself that he can serve no one else_. That this is the meaning of this familiar passage is clear also from its conclusion. The real reason for conquering anxious fear is that a man may give himself wholeheartedly to the service of the Kingdom. That fear does spoil usefulness is obvious; a man cannot be fearful for himself and considerate of his fellows. As Stevenson puts it in "Aes Triplex," "The man who has least fear for his own carcass has most time to consider others. That eminent chemist who took his walks abroad in tin shoes and subsisted wholly upon tepid milk had all his work cut out for him in considerate dealings with his own digestion. So soon as prudence has begun to grow up in the brain, like a dismal fungus, it finds its first expression in a paralysis of generous acts." The shame of our fearful living is that it circles about self, is narrowed down to mean solicitudes about our own comfort, and is utterly incapable of serving God or seeking first his Kingdom. Only faith puts folk at leisure from their small anxieties so that they can be servants of a worthy cause. Jesus, therefore, in this passage is not giving us the impossible injunction not to think about tomorrow; he is stating a truth of experience, that anxious fear for oneself which so draws in the thought that God's great causes are forgotten is a deadly peril in man's life. By faith thrust out the mean and timid solicitudes, is his injunction, that life may be free to put first things first. _We come to Thee, our Father, that we may more deeply enter into Thy joy. Thou turnest darkness into day, and mourning into praise. Thou art our Fortress in temptation, our Shield in remorse, our Covert in calamity, our Star of Hope in every sorrow. O Lord, we would know Thy peace, deep, abiding, inexhaustible. When we seek Thy peace, our weariness is gone, the sense of our imperfection ceases to discourage us, and our tired souls forget their pain. When, strengthened and refreshed by Thy goodness, we return to the task of life, send us forth as servants of Jesus Christ in the service and redemption of the world. Send us to the hearts without love, to men and women burdened with heavy cares, to the miserable, the sad, the broken-hearted. Send us to the children whose heritage has been a curse, to the poor who doubt Thy Providence, to the sick who crave for healing and cannot find it, to the fallen for whom no man cares. May we be ministers of Thy mercy, messengers of Thy helpful pity, to all who need Thee. By our sympathy, our prayers, our kindness, our gifts, may we make a way for the inflow of Thy love into needy and loveless lives. And so may we have that love which alone is the fulfilling of Thy law. Hasten the time when all men shall love Thee and one another in Thee, when all the barriers that divide us shall be broken down, and every heart shall be filled with joy and every tongue with melody. These gracious gifts we ask, in Jesus' name. Amen._--Samuel McComb. Eighth Week, Seventh Day Fear does not reveal its disastrous consequences to the full until it colors one's thoughts about the source and destiny of life. Folk work joyfully at a picture-puzzle so long as they believe that the puzzle can be put together, that it was meant, completed, to compose a picture, and that their labor is an effort made in reasonable hope. But if they begin to fear that they are being fooled, that the puzzle is a hoax and never can be pieced together anywhere by anyone, how swiftly that suspicion will benumb their work! So joyful living depends on man's conviction that this life is not a hapless accident, that a good purpose binds it all together, and that our labor for righteousness is not expended on a futile task without a worthy outcome. But fear blights all such hope; it whispers what one pessimist said aloud: "Life is not a tragedy but a farcical melodrama, which is the worst kind of play." That fear benumbs worthy living, kills hope, makes cynical disgust with life a reasonable attitude, and with its frost withers all man's finest aspirations. _Only faith in God can save men from such fear._ Fear or faith--there is no dilemma so full of consequence. Fear imprisons, faith liberates; fear paralyzes, faith empowers; fear disheartens, faith encourages; fear sickens, faith heals; fear makes useless, faith makes serviceable--and, most of all, fear puts hopelessness at the heart of life, while faith rejoices in its God. =Oh give thanks unto Jehovah; for he is good; For his lovingkindness endureth for ever. Let Israel now say, That his lovingkindness endureth for ever. Let the house of Aaron now say, That his lovingkindness endureth for ever. Let them now that fear Jehovah say, That his lovingkindness endureth for ever. Out of my distress I called upon Jehovah: Jehovah answered me and set me in a large place. Jehovah is on my side; I will not fear: What can man do unto me?= =--Psalm 118:1-6.= _O God, we invoke Thy blessing upon all who need Thee, and who are groping after Thee, if haply they may find Thee. Be gracious to those who bear the sins of others, who are vexed by the wrongdoing and selfishness of those near and dear to them, and reveal to them the glory of their fellowship with the sufferings of Christ. Brood in tenderness over the hearts of the anxious, the miserable, the victims of phantasmal fear and morbid imaginings. Redeem from slavery the men and women who have yielded to degrading habits. Put Thy Spirit within them, that they may rise up in shame and sorrow and make confession to Thee, "So brutish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before Thee." And then let them have the glad assurance that Thou art with them, the secret of all good, the promise and potency of better things. Console with Thy large consolation those who mourn for their loved dead, who count the empty places and long for the sound of a voice that is still. Inspire them with the firm conviction that the dead are safe in Thy keeping, nay, that they are not dead, but live unto Thee. Give to all sorrowing ones a garland for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. Remember for good all who are perplexed with the mysteries of existence, and who grieve because the world is so sad and unintelligible. Teach them that Thy hand is on the helm of affairs, that Thou dost guide Thine own world, and canst change every dark cloud into bright sunshine. In this faith let them rest, and by this faith let them live. These blessings we ask in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen._--Samuel McComb. COMMENT FOR THE WEEK I Many people do not find their most perplexing difficulty either in the realm of trust or of belief, but in a problem which includes both. They are confused because neither their experience of God nor their intellectual conviction of the reasonableness of faith is dependable and steady. Faith comes and goes in them with fluctuating moods that bring an appalling sense of insecurity. Their religious life is not stable and consistent; it runs through variant degrees of confidence and doubt, and its whimsical ups and downs continually baffle them. To classify some folk as men of faith and some as men of doubt does not, in the light of this experience, quite tally with the facts. There are moods of faith and moods of doubt in all of us and rarely does either kind secure unanimous consent. Were we to decide for irreligion, a minority protest would be vigorously urged in the interests of faith, and when most assuredly we choose religion, the prayer, "Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief" (Mark 9:24) is still appropriate. We often seem to be exchanging, as Browning's bishop says: "A life of doubt diversified by faith, For one of faith diversified by doubt." Some hope arises when we observe that this experience which so perplexes us is fully acknowledged in the Bible. The popular supposition is that when one opens the Scripture he finds himself in a world of constant and triumphant faith. No low moods and doubts can here obscure the trust of men; here God is always real, saints sing in prison or dying see their Lord enthroned in heaven. When one, however, really knows the Bible, it obviously is no serene record of untroubled faith. It is turbulent with moods and doubt. Here, to be sure, is the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians, on Immortality, but here too is another cry, burdened with all the doubt man ever felt about eternal life, "That which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; and man hath no preeminence above the beasts" (Eccl. 3:19). The Scripture has many exultant passages on divine faithfulness, but Jeremiah's bitter prayer is not excluded: "Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? Wilt thou indeed be unto me as a deceitful brook, as waters that fail?" (Jer. 15:18). The confident texts on prayer are often quoted, but there are cries of another sort: Job's complaint, "Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him" (Job 23:8); Habakkuk's bitterness, "O Jehovah, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear? I cry unto thee of violence and thou wilt not save" (Hab. 1:2). The Bible is no book of tranquil faith. From the time when Gideon, in a mood like that of multitudes today, cried, "Oh, my Lord, if Jehovah is with us, why then is all this befallen us?" (Judges 6:13) to the complaint of the slain saints in the Apocalypse, "How long, O Master, the holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood" (Rev. 6:10), the Bible is acquainted with doubt. It knows the searching, perplexing, terrifying questions that in all ages vex men's souls. If the Psalmist, in an exultant mood, sang, "Jehovah is my shepherd," he also cried, "Jehovah, why casteth thou off my soul? Why hidest thou thy face from me?" (Psalm 88:14). No aspect of the Scripture could bring it more warmly into touch with man's experience than this confession of fluctuating moods. At least in this the Bible is our book. Great heights are there, that we know something of. Psalmists sing in adoration, prophets are sure of God and of his coming victory; apostles pledge in sacrifice the certainty of their belief, and the Master on Transfiguration Mountain prays until his countenance is radiant. And depths are there, that modern men know well. Saints cry out against unanswered prayer and cannot understand how such an evil, wretched world is ruled by a good God; in their bitter griefs they complain that God has cast them off, and utterly forgotten and, dismayed, doubt even that a man's death differs from a dog's. This is our book. For the faith of many of us, however we insist that we are Christians, is not tranquil, steady, and serene. It is moody, occasional, spasmodic, with hours of great assurance, and other hours when confidence sags and trust is insecure. II Faith so generally is discussed as though it were a creed, accepted once for all and thereafter statically held, that the influence of our moods on faith is not often reckoned with. But the moods of faith are the very pith and marrow of our actual experience. When a Christian congregation recite together their creedal affirmation, "I believe in God," it _sounds_ as though they all maintained a solid, constant faith. But when in imagination, one breaks up the congregation and interprets from his knowledge of men's lives what the faith of the individuals actually means, he sees that they believe in God not evenly and constantly, but more or less, sometimes very much, sometimes not confidently at all. Our faith in God is not a static matter such as the recitation of a creed suggests. Some things we do believe in steadily. That two plus two make four, that the summed angles of a triangle make two right angles--of such things we are unwaveringly sure. No moods can shake our confidence; no griefs confuse us, no moral failures quench our certainty. Though the heavens fall, two and two make four! But our faith in God belongs in another realm. It is a vital experience. It involves the whole man, with his chameleon moods, his glowing insights, his exalted hours, and his dejected days when life flows sluggishly and no great thing seems real. This experience of variable moods in faith does not belong especially to feeble folk, whose ups and downs in their life with God would illustrate their whole irresolute and flimsy living. The great believers sometimes know best this tidal rise and fall of confidence. Elijah one day, with absolute belief in God, defied the hosts of Baal and the next, in desolate reaction, wanted to die. Luther put it with his rugged candor, "Sometimes I believe and sometimes I doubt." John Knox, at liberty to preach, "dings the pulpit into blads" in his confident utterance; but the same Knox recalled that, in the galleys, his soul knew "anger, wrath, and indignation which it conceived against God, calling all his promises in doubt." The Master himself was not a stranger to this experience. He believed in God with unwavering assurance, as one believes in the shining of the sun. But the fact that the sun perpetually shines did not imply that every day was a sunshiny day for him. The clouds came pouring up out of his dark horizons and hid the sun. "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say?" (John 12:27). And once the fog drove in, so dense and dark that one would think there never had been any sun at all. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46). This experience of fluctuating moods is too familiar to be denied, too influential to be neglected. There can be no use in hiding it from candid thought behind the recitation of a creedal formula. There may be great use in searching out its meaning. For there are ways in which this common experience, at first vexatious and disquieting, may supply solid ground for Christian confidence. III In dealing with these variant moods of faith we are not left without an instrument. We have _the sense of value_. We discern not only the _existence_ of things, but their _worth_ as well. When, therefore, a man has recognized his moods as facts, he has not said all that he can say about them. Upon no objects of experience can the sense of value be used with so much certainty as upon our moods. _We know our best hours when they come._ The lapidary, with unerring skill, learns to distinguish a real diamond from a false, but his knowledge is external and contingent, compared with the inward and authoritative certainty with which we know our best hours from our worst. Our great moods carry with them the authentic marks of their superiority. Experience readily confirms this truth. We all have, for example, _cynical and sordid moods_. At such times, only the appetites of physical life seem much to matter; only the things that minister to common comfort greatly count. When Sydney Smith, the English cleric, writes, "I feel an ungovernable interest in my horses, my pigs, and my plants. But I am forced and always was forced to task myself up to an interest in any higher objects," most of us can understand his mood. We grow obtuse at times to all that in our better moods had thrilled us most. Nature suffers in our eyes; great books seem dull; causes that once we served with zest lose interest, and personal relationships grow pale and tame, From such mere dullness we easily drift down to cynicism. Music once had stirred the depths, but now our spirits tally with the scoffer's jest, "What are you crying about with your Wagner and your Brahms? It is only horsehair scraping on catgut." Man's most holy things may lose their grandeur and become a butt of ridicule. When the mood of Aristophanes is on, we too may hoist serious Socrates among the clouds, and set him talking moonshine while the cynical look on and laugh. The spirit that "sits in the seat of the scornful" is an ancient malady. But every man is thoroughly aware that these are not his best moods. From such depleted attitudes we come to worthier hours; _real life_ arrives again. Nature and art become imperatively beautiful; moral causes seem worth sacrifice, and before man's highest life, revealed in character, ideal, and faith, we stand in reverence. These are our great hours, when spiritual values take the throne, when all else dons livery to serve them, and we find it easy to believe in God. Again, we have _crushed and rebellious moods_. We may have been Christians for many years; yet when disaster, long delayed, at last descends, and our dreams are wrecked, we _do_ rebel. Complaint rises hot within us. Joseph Parker, preacher at the City Temple, London, at the age of sixty-eight could write that he had never had a doubt. Neither the goodness of God nor the divinity of Christ, nor anything essential to his Christian faith had he ever questioned. But within a year an experience had fallen of which he wrote: "In that dark hour I became almost an atheist. For God had set his foot upon my prayers and treated my petitions with contempt. If I had seen a dog in such agony as mine, I would have pitied and helped the dumb beast; yet God spat upon me and cast me out as an offense--out into the waste wilderness and the night black and starless." No new philosophy had so shaken the faith of this long unquestioning believer. But his wife had died and he was in a heartbroken mood that all his arguments, so often used on others, could not penetrate. He believed in God as one believes in the sun when he has lived six months in the polar night and has not seen it. These heartbroken moods, however, are not our best. Out of rebellious grief we lift our eyes in time to see how other men have borne their sorrows off and built them into character. We see great lives shine out from suffering, like Rembrandt's radiant faces from dark backgrounds. We see that all the virtues which we most admire--constancy, patience, fortitude--are impossible without stern settings, and that in time of trouble they find their aptest opportunity, their noblest chance. We rise into a new mood, grow resolute not to be crushed, but, as though there were moral purpose in man's trials, to be hallowed, deepened, purified. The meaning of Samuel Rutherford's old saying dawns upon us, "When I am in the cellar of affliction, I reach out my hand for the king's wine." And folk, seeing us, it may be, take heart and are assured that God is real, since he can make a man bear off his trial like that and grow the finer for it. These are our great hours too, when the rains descend, and the winds blow, and the floods come, and beat upon our house, and it is founded on a rock! Once more, we have hours of _discouragement about the world_. The more we have cared for moral causes and invested life in their advancement, the more we are desolate when they seem to fail. Some rising tide in which we trusted turns to ebb again, injustice wins its victories, the people listen to demagogues and not to statesmen, social causes essential to human weal are balked, wars come and undo the hopes of centuries. Who does not sometimes fall into the Slough of Despond? Cavour, disheartened about Italy, went to his room to kill himself. John Knox, dismayed about Scotland, in a pathetic prayer entitled, "John Knox with deliberate mind to his God," wrote, "Now, Lord put an end to my misery." We generally think of Luther in that intrepid hour when he faced Charles V at Worms; but he had times as well when he was sick with disappointment. "Old, decrepit, lazy, worn out, cold, and now one-eyed," so runs a letter, "I write, my Jacob, I who hoped there might at length be granted to me, already dead, a well-earned rest." During the Great War, this mood of discouragement has grown familiar. Many can understand what Robert Louis Stevenson meant when he wrote, of the Franco-Prussian war, "In that year, cannon were roaring for days together on French battlefields, and I would sit in my isle (I call it mine after the use of lovers) and think upon the war, and the pain of men's wounds, and the weariness of their marching.... It was something so distressing, so instant, that I lay in the heather on the top of the island, with my face hid, kicking my heels for agony." But these dismayed hours are not our best. As Bunyan put it, even Giant Despair has fainting fits on sunshiny days. In moods of clearer insight we perceive out of how many Egypts, through how many round-about wilderness journeys, God has led his people to how many Promised Lands. The Exodus was not a failure, although the Hebrews, disheartened, thought it was and even Moses had his dubious hours; the mission of Israel did not come to an ignoble end in the Exile, although multitudes gave up their faith because of it and only prophets dared believe the hopeful truth. The crucifixion did not mean the Gospel's end, as the disciples thought, nor did Paul, imprisoned, lose his ministry. _Nothing in history is more assured than this, that only men of faith have known the truth._ And in hours of vision when this fact shines clear we rise to be our better selves again. What a clear ascent the race has made when wide horizons are taken into view! What endless possibilities must lie ahead! What ample reasons we possess to thrust despair aside, and to go out to play our part in the forward movement of the plan of God! "Dreamer of dreams? we take the taunt with gladness, Knowing that God beyond the years you see, Has wrought the dreams that count with you for madness Into the texture of the world to be." These are our better hours. IV Such sordid, cynical, crushed, rebellious, and discouraged moods we suffer, but we have hours of insight, too, when we are at our best. And as we face this ebb and flow of confidence, which at the first vexatiously perplexed our faith, an arresting truth is clear. The creed of irreligion, to which men are tempted to resign their minds, is simply the _intellectual formulation of what is implied in our less noble hours_. Take what man's cynical, sordid, crushed, rebellious, and discouraged moods imply, and set it in a formal statement of life's meaning, and the result is the creed of irreligion. But take man's best hours, when the highest seems the realest, when even sorrows cannot crush his soul, and when the world is still the battlefield of God for men, and formulate what these hours imply, and the result is the central affirmations of religious faith. Even Renan is sure that "man is most religious in his best moments." Of this high interpretation our variant moods are susceptible, that _we know our best hours when they come, and the faith implied in them is essential Christianity_. As Browning sings it: "Faith is my waking life: One sleeps, indeed, and dreams at intervals, We know, but waking's the main point with us." This fact which we so have come upon is a powerful consideration in favor of religion's truth. _Are we to trust for our guidance the testimony of our worse or better hours?_ We have low moods; so, too, we have cellars in our houses. But we do not _live_ there; we live upstairs! It is not unnatural to have irreligious moods. There may be hours when the eternal Energy from which this universe has come seems to be playing solitaire for fun. It shuffles the stars and planets to see what may chance from their combinations, and careless of the consequence, from everlasting to everlasting it shuffles and plays, and shuffles and plays again. But these are not our best hours. We may have moods when the universe seems to us, as Carlyle's figure pictures it, "as if the heavens and the earth were but boundless jaws of a devouring monster, wherein, I, palpitating, lay waiting to be devoured," but we are inwardly ashamed of times like that. Man comes to this brutal universe of irreligion by way of his ignoble moods. When he lifts up his soul in his great hours of love, of insight, and of devotion, life never looks to him as irreligion pictures it; it never has so looked to him and it never will! In his best hours man always suspects that the Eternal must be akin to what is best in us, that our ideals are born from above, have there their source and destiny, that the Eternal Purpose reigns and yet shall justify the struggle of the ages, and that in anyone who is the best we know, we see most clearly what the Eternal is and means. That goodness is deeper than evil, that spirit is more than flesh, that life is lord of death, that love is the source of all--such convictions come naturally to us when we are at our best. When one examines such affirmations, he perceives that Christianity in its essential faiths is the expression of our finest hours. This is the source whence Christianity has come; it is man's best become articulate. Some used to say that Christian faith had been foisted on mankind by priests. Christian faith has no more artificially been foisted upon human life than the full blown rose is foisted on the bud. Christianity springs up out of man's best life; it is the utterance of his transcendent moods; _it is man believing in the validity of his own noblest days_. Christianity, therefore, at its heart can never fail. Its theologies may come and go, its institutions rise and fall, its rituals have their dawn, their zenith, and their decline, but one persistent force goes on and will go on. _The Gospel is saying to man what man at his best is saying to himself._ Christ has a tremendous ally in human life--our noblest hours. They are all upon his side. What _he_ says, _they_ rise to cry "Amen" to. When we are most truly ourselves we are nearest to him. Antagonistic philosophies, therefore, may spring up to assail the Gospel's influence, and seem to triumph, and fall at last and be forgotten. Still Christ will go on speaking. Nothing can tear him from his spiritual influence over men. _In every generation he has man's noblest hours for his ally._ V In the fact to which our study of man's variant moods has brought us we have not only a confirming consideration in favor of religion's truth, but an _explanation of some people's unbelief_. They live habitually in their low moods; they inhabit spiritual cellars. We are accustomed to say that some friend would be saved from his ignoble attitudes by a vital religious faith; but it is also true that his persistent clinging to ignoble attitudes may be the factor that makes religious faith impossible. According to Dickens's "Tale of Two Cities" a prisoner in the Bastille, who had lived in a cell and cobbled shoes for many years, became so enamored of the narrow walls, the darkness, the task's monotony, that, when liberated, he built a cell at the center of his English home, and on days when the skies were clear and birds were singing, the tap of his cobbler's hammer in the dark could still be heard. So men, by an habitual residence in imprisoning moods, render themselves incapable of loving the wide horizons, the great faiths and hopes of religion. They do not merely make excursions of transient emotion into morose hours and, like men that find that the road is running into malarial swamps, turn swiftly to the hills. They dwell in their moroseness; they _choose_ it, and often obstinately resist deliverance. The common moods that thus incapacitate the soul for faith are easily seen in any man's experience. There are _sullen_ tempers when we are churlish and want so to be. There are _stupid_ tempers, when our soul is too negligent to care, too dull to ask for what only aspiring minds can crave or find. There are _bored_ moods when we feel about all life what Malachi's people felt about worship, "Behold, what a weariness is it!" (Mal. 1:13); _rebellious_ moods when, like Jonah, deprived of a comfort he desired, we cry, "I do well to be angry, even unto death" (Jonah 4:9); _suspicious_ moods, when we mistrust everyone, and even of some righteous Job hear Satan's insinuating sneer, "Does Job fear God for nought?" (Job 1:9). No man is altogether strange to _frivolous_ hours, when those thoughts are lost which must be handled seriously if at all, and _wilful_ hours, when some private desire assumes the center of the stage and angrily resents another voice than his. To say that one who habitually harbors such moods cannot know God is only a portion of the truth; such a man cannot know anything worth knowing. He can know neither fine friends nor great books; he cannot appreciate beautiful music or sublime scenery; he is lost to the deepest loves of family and to every noble enthusiasm for human help. Athwart the knowledge of these most gracious and necessary things stand our obtuse, ignoble moods. The sullen, stupid, bored, rebellious, suspicious, frivolous, or wilful tempers, made into a spiritual residence, are the most deadly prison of the soul. Of course one who dwells there has no confidence in God. Lord Shaftesbury, the English philanthropist, made too sweeping a statement about this, but one can see the basis for his judgment: "Nothing beside ill-humor, either natural or forced, can bring a man to think seriously that the world is governed by any devilish or malicious power. I very much question whether anything beside ill-humor can be the cause of atheism." At least one may be sure that where ill-humor habitually reigns, vital faith in God is made impossible. After full acknowledgment, therefore, of the momentous intellectual problems of belief, we must add that there is a _moral qualification for faith in God_. So great a matter is not achieved by any sort of person, with any kind of habitual moods and tempers. There are views which cellar windows do not afford; one must have balconies to see them. When Jesus said that the pure in heart are blessed because they see God, he was not thinking merely, perhaps not chiefly, of sexual impurity as hindering vision. He was pleading for a heart cleansed of all such perverse, morose, and wayward moods as shut the blinds on the soul's windows. He knew that men could not easily escape the sense of God's reality if they kept their vision clear. On elevated days we naturally think of Spirit as real, and see ourselves as expressions of spiritual purpose, our lives as servants of a spiritual cause. When one habitually dwells in these finer moods, he cannot tolerate a world where his Best is a transient accident. _He must have God, for faith in God is the supreme assertion of the reality and eternity of man's Best._ Any man who habitually lives in his finest moods will not easily escape the penetrating sense of God's reality. VI The certainty with which we tend to be most deeply religious in our best hours is clear when we consider that a man does practically believe in the things which he counts of highest worth. Lotze, the philosopher, even says that "Faith _is_ the feeling that is appreciative of value." It is conceivable that one might be so constituted that without any sense of value he could study facts, as a deaf man might observe a symphony. The sound-waves such a man could mechanically measure; he could analyze the motions of the players and note the reactions of the crowd, but he would hear no music. He would not suffuse the whole performance with his musical appreciations; he would neither like it nor condemn. Man might be so constituted as to face facts without feeling, but he is not. Facts never stand in our experience thus barren and unappreciated--mere neutral _things_ that mean nothing and have no value. The botanist in us may analyze the flowers, but the poet in us estimates them. The penologist in us may take the Bertillon measurements of a boy, but the father in us best can tell how much, in spite of all his sin, that boy is worth. This power to estimate life's _values_ is the fountain from which spring our music, painting, and literature, our ideals and loves and purposes, our morals and religion. Without it no man can live in the real world at all. If we would know, therefore, in what, at our highest altitudes, we tend to believe, we should ask _what it is that we value most, when we rise toward our best_. In our lowest hours what sordid, mercenary, beastly things men may prize each heart knows well. But ever as we approach our best the things that are worth most to us become elevated and refined. Our better moods open our eyes to a world where character is of more worth than all the rest beside, and through which moral purpose runs, to be served with sacrifice. We become aware of spiritual values in behalf of which at need physical existence must be willingly laid down; and words like honor, love, fidelity, and service in our hours of insight have halos over them that poorer moods cannot discern. Man at his best, that is to say, _believes in_ an invisible world of spiritual values, and he furnishes the final proof of his faith's reality by sacrificing to it all lesser things. The good, the true, the beautiful command him in his finer hours, and at their beck and call he lays down wealth and ease and earthly hopes to be their servant. Men really _do believe_ in the things for which they sacrifice and die. In no more searching way can a man's faith be described than _in terms of the objects which thus he values most_. Wherever men find some consuming aim that is for them so supreme in worth that they sacrifice all else to win it, we speak of their attitude as a religion. The "religion of science" describes the absolute devotion of investigators to scientific research as the highest good; the "religion of art" describes the consuming passion with which some value beauty. When we say of one that "money is his God" we mean that he estimates it as life's highest treasure, and when with Paul we speak of others, "whose god is the belly" (Phil. 3:19), we mean men whose sensual life is to them the thing worth most. _What men believe in, therefore, is most deeply seen not by any opinions which they profess, but by the things they prize._ Faith, as Ruskin said, is "that by which men act while they live; not that which they talk of when they die." Many a man uses pious affirmations of Christian faith, but it is easy to observe from his life that what he really believes in is money. Where a man's treasure is, as Jesus said, his heart is, and there his faith is, too. Is there any doubt, then, what we most believe in when we are at our best? While in our lower altitudes it may be easy to believe that the physical is the ultimately real, in our upper altitudes we so value the spiritual world, that we tend with undeniable conviction to feel sure that it must be causal and eternal. Materialism is man's "night-view" of his life; but the "day-view" is religion. Tyndall the scientist was regarded by the Christians of his generation as the enemy of almost everything that they held dear. Let him, then, be witness for the truth which we have stated. "I have noticed," he said, speaking of materialism, "during years of self-observation, that it is not in hours of clearness and vigor that this doctrine commends itself to my mind." The challenge, therefore, presented to every one of us by Christian faith is ultimately this: _Shall I believe the testimony of my better hours or of my worse?_ Many who deny the central affirmations of the Gospel put the object of their denial far away from them as though it were an external thing; they say that they deny the creed or the Bible or the doctrine about God. Such a description of a man's rejection of religious faith is utterly inadequate--the real object of his denial is inward. One may, indeed, discredit forms of doctrine and either be unsure about or altogether disbelieve many things that Christians hold, but when one makes a clean sweep of religion and banishes the central faiths of Christianity _he is denying the testimony of his own finest days_. From such rejection of faith one need not appeal to creed nor Bible, nor to anything that anybody ever said. Let the challenge strike inward to the man's own heart. From his denial of religious faith we may appeal to the hours that he has known and yet will know again, when the road rose under his feet and from a height he looked on wide horizons and knew that he was at his best. To those hours of clear insight, of keen thought, of love and great devotion, when he knew that the spiritual is the real and the eternal, we may appeal. They were his best. He _knows_ that they were his best. And as long as humanity lives upon the earth this conviction must underlie great living--that _we will not deny the validity of our own best hours_. CHAPTER IX Faith in the Earnest God DAILY READINGS Throughout our studies we have been thinking of the effect of faith on the one who exercises it. As an introduction to this week's thought on the earnestness of God, let us approach the effect of faith from another angle. Faith has enormous influence on the one in whom it is reposed; not only the believer but the one in whom he believes is affected by his faith. Ninth Week, First Day =I commend unto you Phoebe our sister, who is a servant of the church that is at Cenchreæ: that ye receive her in the Lord, worthily of the saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever matter she may have need of you: for she herself also hath been a helper of many, and of mine own self.= =Salute Prisca and Aquila my fellow-workers in Christ Jesus, who for my life laid down their own necks; unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles: and salute the church that is in their house. Salute Epænetus my beloved, who is the first-fruits of Asia unto Christ. Salute Mary, who bestowed much labor on you. Salute Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen, and my fellow-prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also have been in Christ before me. Salute Ampliatus my beloved in the Lord.--Rom. 16:1-8.= This series of personal commendations is only the beginning of the last chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans. All the way through one hears the individual names of Paul's friends and fellow-laborers, with his discriminating and hearty praise of each. It is clear that he has faith in these men and women; he believes in them and relies on them. Consider the effect on them that Paul's confidence in their Christian fidelity would naturally have. There is no motive much more stirring than the consciousness that somebody believes in us, is trusting and counting on us. Whatever is fine and noble in human life responds to that appeal. Soldiers who feel that their country is relying upon their fidelity, children who are conscious that their parents believe in them, friends who are heartened by the assurance that some folk completely trust them--how much of the best in all of us has come because we have been the objects of somebody's faith! A Connecticut volunteer in the American Revolution has written that George Washington once paused for a moment in front of his company and said simply, "I am counting on you men from Connecticut." And the recruit clasped his musket in his arms and wept with the devotion which Washington's confidence evoked. Would not the sixteenth chapter of Romans have a similar effect on those who read it? _O Thou loving and tender Father in heaven, we confess before Thee, in sorrow, how hard and unsympathetic are our hearts; how often we have sinned against our neighbors by want of compassion and tenderness; how often we have felt no true pity for their trials and sorrows, and have neglected to comfort, help, and visit them. O Father, forgive this our sin, and lay it not to our charge. Give us grace ever to alleviate the crosses and difficulties of those around us, and never to add to them; teach us to be consolers in sorrow, to take thought for the stranger, the widow, and the orphan; let our charity show itself not in words only, but in deed and truth. Teach us to judge as Thou dost, with forbearance, with much pity and indulgence; and help us to avoid all unloving judgment of others; for the sake of Jesus Christ Thy Son, who loved us and gave Himself for us. Amen._--Johann Arndt, 1555. Ninth Week, Second Day =And it came to pass in these days, that he went out into the mountain to pray; and he continued all night in prayer to God. And when it was day, he called his disciples; and he chose from them twelve, whom also he named apostles: Simon, whom he also named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip and Bartholomew, and Matthew and Thomas, and James the son of Alphæus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.--Luke 6:12-16.= The power that comes to men when someone believes in them must have come to these disciples whom Jesus trusted with his work. We often note the power that was theirs through their faith in Christ; consider today the inspiration that came from Christ's faith in them. He picked them out, commissioned them, relied on them, and believed in their ability with God's help to carry his work to a successful issue. All that is most distinctive and memorable in their character came from their response to that divine trust. How they must have encouraged themselves in times of failure and disheartenment by saying: He believes in us; even though we are ignorant and sinful, he believes in us; he has trusted his work to us, and for all our inability he has faith that we can carry it to triumph! Their faith in themselves and what they could do with God's help must have been almost altogether a reflex of his faith in them. Our contention, therefore, that faith is the dynamic of life has now a new confirmation: _the faith that lifts and motives life is not simply our faith in the Divine, but the faith of the Divine in us_. One of the most glorious results of believing in God is that a man can press on to the further confidence that God believes in us. If he did not, he would never have made us. The very fact that we are here means that he does believe in us, in our possibilities of growth, in our capacities of service, in what he can do in and for and through us before he is done. Man's faith in God and God's faith in man together make an unequalled motive for great living. Yet there is always a sad appendix to every list of trusted men, with somebody's blighted name: "Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor." _Loving Father, our hearts are moved to gratitude and trust when we look up to Thee. We rejoice that through our fleeting days there runs Thy gracious purpose. We praise Thee that we are not the creatures of chance, nor the victims of iron fate, but that out from Thee we have come and into Thy bosom we shall return. We would not, even if we could, escape Thee. Thou alone art good, and to escape from Thee is to fall into infinite evil. Thy hand is upon us moving us on to some far-off spiritual event, where the meaning and the mystery of life shall be made plain and Thy glory shall be revealed. Look in pity upon our ignorance and childishness. Forgive us our small understanding of Thy purpose of good concerning us. Be not angry with us, but draw us from the things of this world which cannot satisfy our foolish hearts. Fill us with Thyself, that we may no longer be a burden to ourselves. So glorify the face of goodness that evil shall have no more dominion over us. Amen._--Samuel McComb. Ninth Week, Third Day The fact that God has faith in us is not alone a source of comfort; it presents a stirring challenge. It means that he is in earnest about achieving his great purposes in human life and that he is counting upon us to help. He has set his heart on aims, about which he cares, and to whose achievement he is calling us; he is confident that with him we can work out, if we will, loftier character and a better world. Let us consider some of the purposes which God is counting on us, in fellowship with him, to achieve. The prophet Micah, in a brief but perfect drama, gives one clue. First the Lord summons his people to a trial, with the eternal mountains for judges: =Hear ye now what Jehovah saith: Arise, contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. Hear, O ye mountains, Jehovah's controversy, and ye enduring foundations of the earth; for Jehovah hath a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel.--Micah 6:1, 2.= Then, the Lord presents his case: =O my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me. For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of bondage; and I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. O my people, remember now what Balak king of Moab devised, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him; remember from Shittim unto Gilgal, that ye may know the righteous acts of Jehovah.--Micah 6:3-5.= Then the people put in their hesitant, questioning plea. =Wherewith shall I come before Jehovah, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves a year old? will Jehovah be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?--Micah 6:6, 7.= Then the mountains pronounce judgment: =He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God?--Micah 6:8.= God, then, is in earnest about _just_, _kind_, _and humble character_. He believes in it as a possibility; he sees the making of it now in human hearts; he is pledged to further and establish it with all his power; and he is counting on us for loyal cooperation with all our powers of choice. Vital faith means a transforming partnership with a God who is in earnest about character. _O Thou who art the Father of that Son which hast awakened us and yet urgeth us out of the sleep of our sins, and exhorteth us that we become Thine, to Thee, Lord, we pray, who art the supreme Truth, for all truth that is, is from Thee. Thee we implore, O Lord, who art the highest Wisdom, through Thee are wise, all those that are so. Thou art the supreme Joy, and from Thee all have become happy that are so. Thou art the highest Good and from Thee all beauty springs. Thou art the intellectual Light, and from Thee man derives his understanding. To Thee, O God, we call and speak. Hear us, O Lord, for Thou art our God and our Lord, our Father and our Creator, our Ruler and our Hope, our Wealth and our Honor, our Home, our Country, our Salvation, and our Life; hear, hear us, O Lord. Few of Thy servants comprehend Thee, but at least we love Thee--yea, love Thee above all other things. We seek Thee, we follow Thee, we are ready to serve Thee; under Thy power we desire to abide, for Thou art the Sovereign of all. We pray Thee to command us as Thou wilt; through Jesus Christ Thy Son our Lord. Amen._--King Alfred, 849. Ninth Week, Fourth Day God also is in earnest about _social righteousness_. =I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Yea, though ye offer me your burnt-offerings and meal-offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let justice roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.--Amos 5:21-24.= Anyone who cares about character must care about social conditions, for every unfair economic situation, every social evil left to run its course means ruin to character. And the God of the Bible, because he cares supremely for personal life at its best, is zealously in earnest about social justice; his prophets blazed with indignation at all inequity, and his Son made the coming Kingdom, when God's will would be done on earth, the center of his message. To fellowship with this earnest purpose of God we all are summoned; God believes in the glorious possibilities of life on earth; he is counting on us to put away the sins that hold the Kingdom back and to fight the abuses that crush character in men. To believe in God, therefore--the God who is fighting his way with his children up through ignorance, brutality, and selfishness to "new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness"--is no weakly comfortable blessing. It means joining a moral war; it means devotion, sacrifice; its spirit is the Cross and its motive an undiscourageable faith. And our underlying assurance that this war for a better world can be won is not simply our belief that it can be done, but _our faith that God is, and that he believes that it can be done_. When we pray we say, "Thy Kingdom come," and we are full of hope about the long, sacrificial struggle, for the purpose behind and through it all is first of all God's. Our earnestness is but an echo of his. _O Thou Eternal One, we adore Thee who in all ages hast been the great companion and teacher of mankind; for Thou hast lifted our race from the depths, and hast made us to share in Thy conscious intelligence and Thy will that makes for righteousness and love. Thou alone art our Redeemer, for Thy lifting arms were about us and Thy persistent voice was in our hearts as we slowly climbed up from savage darkness and cruelty. Thou knowest how often we have resisted Thee and loved the easy ways of sin rather than the toilsome gain of self-control and the divine irritation of Thy truth...._ _We pray Thee for those who amid all the knowledge of our day are still without knowledge; for those who hear not the sighs of the children that toil, nor the sobs of such as are wounded because others have made haste to be rich; for those who have never felt the hot tears of the mothers of the poor that struggle vainly against poverty and vice. Arouse them, we beseech Thee, from their selfish comfort and grant them the grace of social repentance. Smite us all with the conviction that for us ignorance is sin, and that we are indeed our brother's keeper if our own hand has helped to lay him low. Though increase of knowledge bring increase of sorrow, may we turn without flinching to the light and offer ourselves as instruments of Thy spirit in bringing order and beauty out of disorder and darkness. Amen._--Walter Rauschenbusch. Ninth Week, Fifth Day The thought which we have been pursuing leads us to a truth of major importance: if God is thus in earnest, believing in man's possibilities and laboring for them, then he cannot be known by anyone who does not share his purpose and his labor. _Action is a road to knowledge and some things never can be known without it._ If one would know the business world, he must be an active business man; no amount of abstract study and speculation can take the place of vital participation in business struggle. The way to understand any movement or enterprise is to go into it, share its enthusiasms and hopes, labor sacrificially for its success, bear its defeats as though they were our own, and rejoice in its achievements as though nothing so much mattered to our happiness. Such knowledge is thorough and vital; when one who so has learned what war is, or the missionary enterprise, or the fight against the liquor traffic, stands up to speak, a merely theoretical student of these movements sounds unreal and tame. If therefore God is earnest Purpose, with aims in which he calls us to share, no one can thoroughly know him merely by _thinking_; he must know him by _acting_. =But he that doeth the truth cometh to the light, that his works may be made manifest, that they have been wrought in God.--John 3:21.= =Jesus therefore answered them, and said, My teaching is not mine, but his that sent me. If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from myself.--John 7:16, 17.= Many people endeavor to reach a satisfactory knowledge of God by clarifying their thought and working out a rational philosophy. But, by such intellectual means alone, they could not gain satisfactory knowledge of so familiar a thing as home life. To know home life one elemental act is essential: get into a home and share its problems, its satisfactions, and its hopes. So the most adequate philosophy by itself can bring no satisfactory knowledge of God; only by working with God, sharing his purposes for the world, sacrificially laboring for the aims he has at heart can men know him. _Eternal God, who hast formed us, and designed us for companionship with Thee; who hast called us to walk with Thee and be not afraid; forgive us, we pray Thee, if craven fear, unworthy thought, or hidden sin has prompted us to hide from Thee. Remove the suspicion which regards Thy service as an intrusion on our time and an interference with our daily task. Shew to us the life that serves Thee in the quiet discharge of each day's duty, that ennobles all our toil by doing it as unto Thee. We ask for no far-off vision which shall set us dreaming while opportunities around slip by; for no enchantment which shall make our hands to slack and our spirits to sleep, but for the vision of Thyself in common things for every day; that we may find a Divine calling in the claims of life, and see a heavenly reward in work well done. We ask Thee not to lift us out of life, but to prove Thy power within it; not for tasks more suited to our strength, but for strength more suited to our tasks. Give to us the vision that moves, the strength that endures, the grace of Jesus Christ, who wore our flesh like a monarch's robe and walked our earthly life like a conqueror in triumph. Amen._--W. E. Orchard. Ninth Week, Sixth Day Because action with God is essential to any satisfying knowledge of him, action is one of the great resolvers of doubt. Many minds, endeavoring to think through the mystifying problems of God's providence, find themselves in a clueless labyrinth. The more they think the more entangled and confused their minds become. Their thoughts strike a fatal circle, like wanderers lost in the woods, and return upon their course, baffled and disheartened. To such perplexed minds the best advice often is: Cease your futile thinking and go to work. Let action take the place of speculation. Break the fatal round of circular thought that never will arrive, and go out to act on the basis of what little you do believe. Your mind like a dammed stream is growing stagnant; set it running to some useful purpose, if only to turn mill-wheels, and trust that activity will bring it cleansing in due time. Horace Bushnell, the great preacher, while a skeptical tutor at Yale, was disturbed because so many students were unsettled by his disbelief. In the midst of a revival he said that like a great snag he caught and stopped the newly launched boats as fast as they came down. Unable to think his way out of his intellectual perplexity, he faced one night this arresting question: "What is the use of my trying to get further knowledge, so long as I do not cheerfully yield to what I already know?" And kneeling he prayed after this fashion: "O God, I believe there is an eternal difference between right and wrong, and I hereby give myself up to do the right and to refrain from the wrong. I believe that Thou dost exist, and if Thou canst hear my cry and wilt reveal Thyself to me, I pledge myself to do Thy will, and I make this pledge fully, freely, and forever." What wonder that in time the light broke and that Bushnell became a great prophet of the faith! Even Paul, finishing his laborious discussion of God's providence toward Israel, acknowledges his baffled thought: =O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and unto him, are all things. To him be the glory for ever. Amen.--Rom. 11:33-36=. And then, as if he turned from philosophy to action with gratitude, he begins the twelfth chapter: =I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.--Rom. 12:1, 2.= _O God, we thank Thee for the sweet refreshment of sleep and for the glory and vigor of the new day. As we set our faces once more toward our daily work, we pray Thee for the strength sufficient for our tasks. May Christ's spirit of duty and service ennoble all we do. Uphold us by the consciousness that our work is useful work and a blessing to all. If there has been anything in our work harmful to others and dishonorable to ourselves, reveal it to our inner eye with such clearness that we shall hate it and put it away, though it be at a loss to ourselves. When we work with others, help us to regard them, not as servants to our will, but as brothers equal to us in human dignity, and equally worthy of their full reward. May there be nothing in this day's work of which we shall be ashamed when the sun has set, nor in the eventide of our life when our task is done and we go to our long home to meet Thy face. Amen._--Walter Rauschenbusch. Ninth Week, Seventh Day =Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry, and ye gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee hungry, and fed thee? or athirst, and gave thee drink? And when saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? And when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me.--Matt. 25:34-40.= The earnestness of God is not about any diffuse generality; it is about persons. His purposes concern them, and he believes in them and in their capacities for fellowship with him, for growing character and for glorious destiny. If, therefore, one wishes the sense of God's reality which comes from active co-partnership, let him serve persons, believe in them, and be in earnest about them. A woman, troubled by invincible doubts, was given by a wise minister the Gospel of John and a calling-list of needy families, and was told to use them both. She came through into a luminous faith, and which helped her more, her reading or her service, she could never tell. When the Master said that the good we did to the least of his brethren, we did to him, he indicated a road to vital knowledge of him; he said in effect that we can always find him in the lives of people to whom we give love and help. Many will never find him at all unless they find him there. The great believers have been the great servants; and the reason for this is not simply that faith produced service, but also that _service produced faith_. The life of Sir Wilfred Grenfell, for example, makes convincingly plain that his faith sent him to Labrador for service, and that then he drew out of service a compound interest on his original investment of faith. _O God, the Father of the forsaken, the Help of the weak, the Supplier of the needy, who hast diffused and proportioned Thy gifts to body and soul, in such sort that all may acknowledge and perform the joyous duty of mutual service; Who teachest us that love towards the race of men is the bond of perfectness, and the imitation of Thy blessed Self; open our eyes and touch our hearts, that we may see and do, both for this world and for that which is to come, the things which belong to our peace. Strengthen us in the work we have undertaken; give us counsel and wisdom, perseverance, faith, and zeal, and in Thine own good time, and according to Thy pleasure, prosper the issue. Pour into us a spirit of humility; let nothing be done but in devout obedience to Thy will, thankfulness for Thine unspeakable mercies, and love to Thine adorable Son Christ Jesus.... Amen._--Earl of Shaftesbury, 1801. COMMENT FOR THE WEEK I Throughout our studies we have been asserting that faith in God involves confidence that creation has a purpose. But we shall not see the breadth and depth of the affirmation, or its significant meaning for our lives, unless more carefully we face a question, which, as keenly as any other, pierces to the marrow of religion: _Is God in earnest?_ That the God of the Bible is in earnest is plain. If we open the Book at the Exodus, we hear him saying, "I have surely seen the affliction of my people, ... and have heard their cry, ... and I am come down to deliver them" (Exodus 3:7, 8). If we turn to the prophets, we find Hosea, interpreting the beating of God's heart: "How am I to give thee up, O Ephraim? How am I to let thee go, O Israel? How am I to give thee up? My heart is turned upon me, my compassions begin to boil"[5] (Hos. 11:8). Everywhere in the Old Testament, God is in earnest: about personal character--"What doth Jehovah require of thee, but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God?" (Micah 6:8); about social righteousness--"Let justice roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream" (Amos 5:24); about the salvation of the world--"It is too light a thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth" (Isa. 49:6). When from the Old Testament one turns to the New, he faces an assertion of God's earnestness that cannot be surpassed: "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son." God in the New Testament is as much in earnest as that, and all the major affirmations of the Book cluster about the magnetism of this central faith. God is even like a shepherd with a hundred sheep, who having lost one, leaves the ninety and nine and goes after that which is lost, until he finds it (Luke 15:4). From the earliest Hebrew seer dimly perceiving him, to the last apostle of the New Covenant, the God of the Bible is tremendously in earnest. How profoundly the acceptance of this faith deepens the meaning and value of life is evident. For a moment some might think that the major question is not whether _God_ is in earnest but whether _we_ are; but when a man considers the hidden fountains from which the streams of his human earnestness must flow, he sees how necessary is at least the hope that at the heart of it creation is in earnest too. Von Hartmann, the pessimist, makes one of his characters say, "The activities of the busy world are only the shudderings of a fever." How shall a man be seriously in earnest about great causes in a world like that? The men whose devoted lives have made history great have seen in creation's busyness more than aimless shuddering. Moses was in earnest, but behind his consecration was his vision of the Eternal, saying to Pharaoh, "Let my people go!" The Master was in earnest, but with a motive that took into its account the purposefulness of God, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work" (John 5:17). Indeed, no satisfying meaning, no real unity are conceivable in a purposeless universe. The plain fact is that _within_ the universe nobody explains anything without the statement of its purpose. A chair is something to sit down on; a watch is something to tell time by; a lamp is something to give illumination in the dark--and lacking this purposive description, the story of the precedent history of none of these things, from their original materials to their present shape, would in the least tell what they really are. One who knows all else about a telephone, practically knows nothing, unless he is aware of what it is _for_. Nor is the necessity of such explanation lessened when scientists endeavor descriptions in their special realms. Huxley, narrating the growth of a salamander's egg, writes, "Let a moderate supply of warmth reach its watery cradle, and the plastic matter undergoes changes so rapid, and yet so steady and so purposelike in their succession, that one can only compare them to those operated by a skilled modeler upon a formless lump of clay. As with an invisible trowel, the mass is divided and subdivided into smaller and smaller portions, until it is reduced to an aggregation of granules not too large to build withal the finest fabrics of the nascent organism. And, then, it is as if a delicate finger traced out the line to be occupied by the spinal column and moulded the contour of the body; pinching up the head at one end, the tail at the other, and fashioning flank and limb into the due salamandrine proportions, in so artistic a way, that, after watching the process hour by hour, one is almost involuntarily possessed by the notion that some more subtle aid to vision than an achromatic, would show the hidden artist, with his plan before him, striving with skilful manipulation to perfect his work." The obvious fact is that salamanders' eggs act as though they were seriously intent on making salamanders; and lion's cells as though they were tremendously in earnest about making lions. As Herbert Spencer said of a begonia leaf, "We have therefore no alternative but to say, that the living particles composing one of these fragments, have an innate tendency to arrange themselves into the shape of the organism to which they belong." _But if this is so, purpose is essential in the description of every living thing._ All about us is a world of life with something strikingly like purposeful action rampant everywhere, so that in describing an elm tree it will not do to say only that forces from behind pushed it into being; one must say, too, that from our first observation of its cells they acted as though they were intent on making nothing else but elm. They went about their business as though they had a purpose. The tree's cause is not alone the forces from behind; it is as well the aim that in the cells' action lay ahead. Men can describe nothing in heaven above or on the earth beneath without the use of purposive terminology. How shall they try otherwise to describe the universe? _A world in which the minutest particles and cells all act as though they were eagerly intent on achieving aims, can only with difficulty be thought of as an aimless whole._ Man's conviction is insistent and imperious that creation, so surcharged with purposes, must have Purpose. The greatest scientists themselves are often our best witnesses here. Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace are the twin discoverers of evolution. Said the former: "If we consider the whole universe the mind refuses to look at it as the outcome of chance." Said the latter: the world is "a manifestation of creative power, directive mind, and ultimate purpose." What such men have coldly said, the men of devout religion have set on fire with passionate faith. They have been sure that this world is not "A tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing." In every cause that makes for man's salvation they have seen the manifest unveiling of divine intent. _God is in earnest_--this conviction has possessed them utterly, and to live and die for those things on behalf of which the Eternal is tremendously concerned has been the aim, the motive, and the glory of their lives. II One need only watch with casual observance the multitudes who say that they believe in God, to see how few of them believe in this God who is in earnest. When they confess their faith in deity they have something else in mind beside the God of the Bible, compassionately purposeful about his world and calling men to be his fellow-workers. Let us therefore consider some of the fallacies that enable men to believe in a God who is _not_ in earnest. For one thing, some _put God far away_. Missionaries in Africa's interior find tribes worshiping stocks, stones, demons, ghosts, but this does not mean that no idea of a great original god is theirs. Often they are not strangers to that thought, but, as an old Africander woman said, "He never concerned himself with me; why should I concern myself with him?" To such folk a great god exists, but he does not care; he dwells apart, an indifferent deity, who has left this world in the hands of lesser gods that really count. The task of the missionary, therefore, is not to prove the existence of a creator--"No rain, no mushrooms," said an African chief; "no God, no world"--but it is to persuade men that the God who seems so far away is near at hand, that he really cares, and over each soul and all his world is sacrificially in earnest. Such missionary work is not yet needless among Christian people. Said a Copenhagen preacher in a funeral discourse, "God cannot help us in our great sorrow, because he is so infinitely far away; we must therefore look to Jesus." One feels this Siberian exile of God from all vital meaning for our humanity, when he is called the "Absolute," the "Great First Cause," the "Energy from which all things proceed." Like the man, examined by the Civil Service, who, asked the distance from sun to earth, answered, "I do not know how far the sun is from the earth; but it is far enough so that it will not interfere with the proper performance of my duties at the Customs Office," so men with phrases like "the Great First Cause" put God an immeasurable distance off. No man has dealings with a "Great First Cause," no "Great First Cause" ever had vital, personal, constraining meanings for a man. Rather across infinite distance and time unthinkable, we vaguely picture a dim Figure, who gave this toboggan of a universe its primal shove and has not thought seriously of it since. So a wanderer down the street might put a child upon her sled and giving her a start down-hill, go on his way. She may have a pleasant slide, but he will not know; she may fall off, but he will not care; there may be a tragic accident, but that will not be his concern--he has gone away off down the street. Multitudes of nominal believers have a god like that. In comparison with such, one thinks of men like Livingstone. His God was compassionately concerned for Africa, spoke about black folk as Hosea heard him speak concerning Israel, "How can I give thee up? How can I let thee go?" until the fire of the divine earnestness lit a corresponding ardor in Livingstone's heart and he went out to be God's man in the dark continent. Such men have smitten the listless world as winds fill flapping sails, crying "Move!" And the God of such has been tremendously in earnest. III Some gain a God lacking serious purpose, not by putting him afar off, but by endeavoring to bring him so near that they _diffuse him everywhere_. Writers tell us that God is in every rustling leaf and in every wave that breaks upon the beach; we are assured that God is in every gorgeous flower and in every flaming sunset. And the poetry of this is so alluring that we cannot bear to have God specially anywhere, because we are so anxious to keep him everywhere. Preachers delight to illustrate their thought of God with figures drawn from nature's invisible energies-- "Who has seen the wind? Neither I nor you: But when the leaves hang trembling The wind is passing through. Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I: But when the trees bow down their heads The wind is passing by." By such comparisons are we taught to see that God invisibly is everywhere. For all the valuable truth that such speech contains, its practical issue, in many minds today, is to strip God of the last shred of personality, and with that loss to end the possibility of his being in earnest about anything. He has become refined Vapor thinly diffused through space. Folk say they love to meditate on him, and well they may! For such a god asks nothing of anybody except meditation; he has no purposes that call for earnestness in them. When little children are ruined in a city's tenements, when the liquor traffic brutalizes men, when economic inequity makes many poor that a few may be made rich, when war clothes the world with unutterable sorrow, such a god does not care. He is not in earnest about anything. For the only thing in the universe that can be consciously in earnest is personality, and when one depersonalizes God, the remainder is a deity who has no love, no care, no purpose. Thousands do obeisance to such a gaseous idol. From this fallacy spring such familiar confessions of faith as this, "God is not a person; he is spirit." If by this negation one intends to say that God is not a limited individual, that is obviously true; but _the contrast between personality and spirit is impossible_. One may as well speak of dry water as of impersonal spirit. Rays of radium are unimaginably minute and swift, but they are not spirit. Nothing in the impersonal realm can be conceived so subtle and refined that it is spirit. Spirit begins only where love and intelligence and purpose are, and these all are activities of personality. No one can _really_ believe what Jesus said, "God is a Spirit," without being ready to pray as Jesus prayed, "Our Father." Between an impersonal, diffused, and gaseous god, and the God of the Bible, how great the difference! God's pervading omnipresence is indeed affirmed in Scripture. There, as much as in any modern thought, the heavens declare his glory, the flowers of the field are illustrations of his care, and the influences of his spirit are like the breeze across the hills. To the ancient Hebrew, heaven and sheol were the highest and the lowest, but of each the Psalmist says to God, "Thou art there," and as for the uttermost parts of the sea, "even there shall thy hand lead me" (Psalm 139:7-10). Cries Jeremiah from the Old Testament, "Am I a God at hand, saith Jehovah, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places so that I shall not see him? saith Jehovah. Do not I fill heaven and earth?" (Jer. 23:23, 24). And Paul answers from the New Testament, "Not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:27, 28). But the God of the Bible who so pervades and sustains all existence never degenerates into a Vapor. When Egyptian taskmasters crack their whips over Hebrew slaves, he cares. When exiles try in vain to sing the songs of Zion in a strange land, he cares. When evil men build Jerusalem with blood, and rapacious men pant after the dust on the head of the poor, he cares. He is prodigiously in earnest, and those who best represent him, from the great prophets to the sacrificial Son, are like him in this, that they are mastered by consuming purpose. The God of the Bible is sadly needed by his people. For lack of him religion grows often listless and churches become social clubs. IV By another road men travel to believe in a God who is not in earnest: _they think of him as an historic being_. It was said of Carlyle, shrewdly if unjustly, that his God lived until the death of Oliver Cromwell. Whatever may be the truth about Carlyle, it is easy to find folk whose God to all intents and purposes is dead. Long since he closed his work, spoke his last word, and settled down to inactivity and silence. He made the world, created man, thundered from Sinai, established David's kingdom, brought back the exiles, inspired the prophets and sent his Son. He _once_ was earnest; the record of his ancient acts is long and glorious, and men find comfort in reading what he used to do. They would not explicitly confess it, but in fact they habitually think of God in the past tense. They cannot conceive the universe as happening by chance, and they posit God as making it; they cannot believe that the transcendent characters of olden times were uninspired, so God becomes the explanation of their power. When such believers wish to assure themselves of God they go to the stern of humanity's ship and watch the wake far to the rear; but they never stand on the ship's bridge, and feel it sway and turn at the touch of a present Captain in control. They have not risen to the meaning of the Bible's reiterated phrase, "_the living God_." Höffding tells us that in a Danish Protestant church, well on into the nineteenth century, worshipers maintained the custom of bowing, when they passed a certain spot upon the wall. The reason, which no one knew, was discovered when removal of the whitewash revealed a Roman Catholic Madonna. Folk had bowed for three centuries before the place where the Madonna _used to be_. So some folk worship deity; he is not a present reality but a tradition; their faith is directed not toward the living God himself, but toward what some one else has written about a God who used to be alive. They do not feel now God's plans afoot, his purposes as certainly in progress now as ever in man's history. They stand rather like unconverted Gideon, facing backwards and lamenting, "Where are all his wondrous works which our fathers told us of?" (Judges 6:13). Not by what we say, but by our practical attitudes we most reveal how little we believe in an earnest, living God whose voice calls _us_, whose plans need _us_, as much as ever Moses or David or Paul was summoned and required. If we say that we do believe in this living God we are belied by our discouragements, deserving as we often do the rebuke which Luther's wife administered to the Reformer. "From what you have said," she remarked, standing before him clothed in deep, mourning black, "and from the way you feel and act I supposed that God was dead." If we say that we believe in a living, earnest God, we are belied by our reluctance to expect and welcome new revelations of God's truth and enlarging visions of his plan. Willing to believe what the astronomers say, that light from a new star reaches the earth each year, we act as though God's spiritual universe were smaller than his physical, and do not eagerly await the new light perpetually breaking from his heavens. But most of all the little influence which our faith in God has upon our practical service is a scathing indictment of its vitality and power. No one who really believes in an earnest, living God can have an undedicated life. He may not think of the Divine in the past tense chiefly; the present and the future even more belong to God; and through each generation runs the earnest purpose of the Eternal, who has never said his last word on any subject, nor put the final hammer blow on any task. A faith like this, deeply received and apprehended, is a masterful experience. It changes the inner quality of life; it makes the place whereon we stand holy ground; it urgently impresses us into the service of those causes that we plainly see have in them the purpose of God. No outlook upon life compares with this in grandeur; no motive for life is at once so weighty and so fine. V One of the subtlest fallacies by which we miss believing in an earnest God is not describable as an opinion. Men fall into it, who neither reduce God to a Great First Cause, nor diffuse him into a vapor, nor regard him as an historic being. _They rather allow their superstitious sentiments to take the place of worthy faith._ Plenty of people who warmly would insist on their religion, reveal in their practical attitudes how utterly bereft of serious moral purpose their God is. They think their fortune will be better if they do not sit thirteen at a table or occupy room thirteen at a hotel; on occasion they throw salt or look at the moon over their right shoulders and rap on wood to assure their safety or their luck; and to be quite certain of divine favor they hang fetishes, like rabbits' feet, about their necks. Their attitude toward such surviving pagan superstitions is like Fontenelli's toward ghosts. "I do not believe in them," he said, "but I am afraid of them." That this is a law-abiding universe with moral purpose in it, such folk obviously do not believe. Their God is not in earnest. He spends his time watching for dinner parties of thirteen or listening for folk who forget to rap on wood when they boast that they have not been ill all winter. The utter poverty to which great words may be reduced by meager minds is evident when such folk say that they believe in God. Even when these grosser forms of superstition are not present, others hardly more respectable may take their place. God is pictured as a King, surrounded with court ritual, in the complete and proper observance of which he takes delight, and any rupture in whose regularity awakes his anger. To go to church, to say our prayers, to read our Bibles, to be circumspect on Sunday, to help pay the preacher's salary and to contribute to the missionary cause--such things as these comprise the court ritual of God. These Christian acts are not presented as gracious privileges, opportunities, like fresh air and sunshine and friendship, to make life rich and serviceable; they are presented as works of merit, by which we gain standing in God's favor and assure ourselves of his benignity. For with those who so conform to his ordinances and respect his taboos, he is represented as well-pleased, and he blesses them with special favors. But any infraction of these rituals is sure to bring terrific punishment. God watches those who do not sing his praises or who fail in praying, and he marks them for his vengeance! Dr. Jowett tells us that in the Sunday school room of the English chapel where as a child he worshiped, a picture hung that to his fascinated and frightened imagination represented the character of God: a huge eye filled the center of the heavens, and from it rays of vision fell on every sort of minute happening and small misdeed on earth. As such a monstrous Detective, jealous of his rights and perquisites, God is how often pictured to the children! So H. G. Wells indignantly interprets his experience: "I, who write, was so set against God, thus rendered. He and his Hell were the nightmare of my childhood; I hated him while I still believed in him, and who could help but hate? I thought of him as a fantastic monster, perpetually spying, perpetually listening, perpetually waiting to condemn and to strike me dead; his flames as ready as a grill-room fire. He was over me and about my feebleness and silliness and forgetfulness as the sky and sea would be about a child drowning in mid-Atlantic. When I was still only a child of thirteen, by the grace of the true God in me, I flung this lie out of my mind, and for many years, until I came to see that God himself had done this thing for me, the name of God meant nothing to me but the hideous sear in my heart where a fearful demon had been." This "bogey God" is in earnest about nothing except the observance of his little rituals; he is unworthy of a good man's worship, he has no purpose that can capture the consent and inspire the loyalty of serious folk. How many so-called unbelievers are in revolt against this perversion of the idea of God, taught them in childhood! The deity whom they refuse to credit is not the Father, with "the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ" (Eph. 3:11); often they have not heard of him. Their denial is directed against another sort of God. "I wish I could recall clearly," writes one, "the conception of God which I gained as a boy in Sunday school. He was as old as grandfather, I know, but not so kind. We were told to fear him." Surely the real God must sympathize with those who hate his caricature. A vindictive Bogey, querulous about the mint, anise, and cummin of his ritual, in earnest about nothing save to reward obsequious servants and to have his vengeance out on the careless and disobedient, is poles asunder from the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with his majestic purpose for the world's salvation. VI Of all the sentiments, however, by which a worthy faith is made impossible, none is so common, in these recent years, _as the ascription to God of a weak and flaccid affectionateness_. God's love is interpreted by love's meaning in hours when we are gentle with our children or tender with our friends. The soft and cosy aspects of love, its comforts, its pities, its affections, are made central in our thought of God. We are taught, as children, that he loves us as our mothers do; and as from them we look for coddling when we cry for it, so are our expectations about God. Our religion becomes a selfish seeking for divine protection from life's ills, a recipe for ease, an expectant trust, that as we believe in God he in return will nurse us, unharmed and happy, through our lives. No one intimately acquainted with the religious life of men and women can be unaware of this widespread, ingrained belief in a soft, affectionate, grandmotherly God. What wonder that life brings fearful disillusionment! What wonder that in a world where all that is valuable has been "Battered with the shocks of doom To shape and use," the God of coddling love seems utterly impossible! The lack in this fallacious faith is central; there is no place in it for the movement of God's moral purpose. _To ascribe love to God without making it a quality of his unalterable purpose, which must sweep on through costs in suffering however great, is to misread the Gospel._ Many kinds of love are known in our experience, from a nursing mother with her babe to a military leader with his men. In Donald Hankey's picture of "the Beloved Captain" we see affection and tenderness, as beautiful as they are strong: "It was a wonderful thing, that smile of his. It was something worth living for, and worth working for.... It seemed to make one look at things from a different point of view, a finer point of view, his point of view. There was nothing feeble or weak about it.... It meant something. It meant that we were his men and that he was proud of us.... When we failed him, when he was disappointed in us, he did not smile. He did not rage or curse. He just looked disappointed, and that made us feel far more savage with ourselves than any amount of swearing would have done.... The fact was that he had won his way into our affections. We loved him. And there isn't anything stronger than love, when all's said and done." Yet, this Captain, loving and beloved, will lead his men in desperate charges, where death falls in showers, but where the purpose which their hearts have chosen forces them to go. The love of God must be like that; it surely is if Jesus' love is its embodiment. His affection for his followers, his solicitude and tenderness have been in Christian eyes, how beautiful! They shine in words like John's seventeenth chapter where love finds transcendent utterance. Yet this same Master said: "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves" (Matt. 10:16); "Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake" (Matt. 5:11); "Then shall they deliver you up unto tribulation, and shall kill you; and ye shall be hated of all the nations for my name's sake" (Matt. 24:9); "They shall put you out of the synagogues; yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you shall think that he offereth service unto God" (John 16:2); "If any man cometh unto me, and hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26). The love of Jesus was no coddling affection; it had for its center a moral purpose that balked at no sacrifice. He took crucifixion for himself, and to his beloved he cried, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me" (Matt. 16:24). Such love is God's; and _preachers who advertise his Fatherhood as a gentle nurse that shelters us from suffering have sapped the Gospel of its moral power_. God's love is austere as well as bountiful; he is, as Emerson said, the "terrific benefactor." Indeed, faith in a God of coddling love may be one of the most pernicious influences in human life. Our trust, so misinterpreted, becomes a cushion on which to lie, a sedative by which to sleep. When ills afflict the world that men could cure, such misbelievers merely trust in God; when tasks await man's strength, they quietly retreat upon their faith that God is good and will solve all, until religion becomes a by-word and a hissing on the lips of earnest men. Such misbelievers have not dimly seen the Scripture's meaning, where faith is not a pillow but a shield, from behind which plays a sword (Eph. 6:16) and where men do not sleep by faith, but "fight the good fight of faith" instead (I Tim. 6:12). Or if such misbelievers do rouse themselves to lay hold on their Divinity, it is to demand God's love for them and not to offer their lives to God. As Sydney Smith exclaimed about some people's patriotism, "God save the King! in these times too often means, God save my pension and my place, God give my sisters an allowance out of the Privy Purse, let me live upon the fruits of other men's industry and fatten upon the plunder of the public." Faith in God never is elevated and ennobling until we overpass "_God for our lives!_" to cry "_Our lives for God!_" Then at the luminous center of our faith shines the divine purpose, costly but wonderful, that binds the ages together in spiritual unity. To that we dedicate our lives; in that we exceedingly rejoice. No longer do we test God's goodness by our happiness or our ill-fortune; we are _his_ through fair weather and through foul. No longer do we merely hold beliefs, we are held by them, captured now and not simply consoled by faith. Only so are we learning discipleship to Christ and are beginning really to believe in the Christian God. VII From all these common fallacies of thought and sentiment one turns to the New Testament to find the God of the Gospel. The very crux of the Good Tidings is that God is so much in earnest that he is the eternal Sufferer. The ancient Greeks had a god of perfect bliss; he floated on from age to age in undisturbed tranquillity; no cry of man ever reached his empyrean calm; his life was an endless stream of liquid happiness. How different this Greek deity is from ours may be perceived if one tries to say of him those things which the Scripture habitually says of God. "In all their affliction he was afflicted" (Isa. 63:9); "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, these may forget, yet will not I forget thee" (Isa. 49:15); "God, being rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses" (Eph 2:4, 5); "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son" (John 3:16). None of these things that Christians say about their God can be said of a deity who dwells in tranquil bliss. Indeed let one stand over against a war-torn, unhappy world and try to think that God does not suffer in man's agony, and he will see how useless and incredible such a God would be. God looks on Belgium and he does not care; he looks on Armenia desolate and Poland devastated, and he does not care; he sits in heaven and sees his children wounded and alone in No-man's land, watches the deaths, the heart-breaks, the poverty of war, its ruined childhood and its shattered families, and he does not care--how impossible it is to believe in such a God! A God who does not care does not count. Christians, therefore, have the God who really meets the needs of men. He cares indeed, and, with all the modesty that words of human emotion must put on when they are applied to him, he suffers in the suffering of men and is crucified in his children's agonies. God limited himself in making such a world as this; in it he cannot lightly do what he will; he has a struggle on his heart; he makes his way upward against obstacles that man's imagination cannot measure. There is a cross forever at the heart of God. He climbs his everlasting Calvary toward the triumph that must come, and he is tremendously in earnest. One important consequence follows such faith as this. Confidence in such an earnest, sacrificial God makes inevitable the Christian faith in immortality. Our solar system is no permanent theater for God's eternal purposes; it is doomed to dissolution as certainly as any human body is doomed to die. In the Lick observatory one reads this notice under a picture of the sun: "The blue stars are considered to be in early life, the yellow stars in middle life, the red stars in old age.... From the quality of its spectrum the sun is classified as a star in middle age." Those, therefore, who, denying their own immortality, comfort themselves with prophesying endless progress for the race upon the earth, have no basis for their hopes. "We must therefore renounce those brilliant fancies," says Faye the scientist, "by which we try to deceive ourselves in order to endow man with unlimited posterity, and to regard the universe as the immense theater on which is to be developed a spontaneous progress without end. On the contrary, life must disappear, and the grandest material works of the human race will have to be effaced by degrees under the action of a few physical forces which will survive man for a time. Nothing will remain--'Even the ruins will perish.'" If one believes, therefore, in the God who is in earnest, he cannot content himself with such a universe--lacking any permanent element, any abiding reality in which the moral gains of man's long struggle are conserved. God's purpose cannot be so narrow in horizon that it is satisfied with a few million years of painful experiment, costly beyond imagination, yet with no issue to crown its sacrifice. In such a universe as Faye pictures, lacking immortality, generation after generation of men suffer, aspire, labor, and die, and this shall be the history of all creation, until at last Shakespeare's prophecy shall be fulfilled, "The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind." If such is to be the story of creation, there is no purpose in it and the Christian faith in an earnest God is vain. Only one truth is adequate to crown our confidence in a purposeful universe and to make it reasonable: _personality must persist_. We believe in immortality, not because we meanly want rewards ahead, but because in no other way can life, viewed as a whole, find sense and reason. If personality persists, this transient theater of action and discipline may serve its purpose in God's time, and disappear. He is in earnest, but not for rocks and suns and stars, he is in earnest about persons--the sheep of his pasture are men. They are not mortal; they carry over into the eternal world the spiritual gains of earth; and all life's struggle--its vicarious sacrifice, its fearful punishments, its labor for better circumstance and worthier life--is justified in its everlasting influence on personality. When we say that God cares, we mean no vague, diffusive attitude toward a system that lasts for limited millenniums and then comes to an uneventful end in a cold sun and a ruined earth. We mean that he cares for personality which is his child, that he suffers in the travail of his children's character, and that this divine solicitude has everlasting issues when the heavens "wax old like a garment." Still Paul's statement stands, one of the most worthy summaries of God's earnestness that ever has been written: "The creation waits with eager longing for the sons of God to be revealed" (Rom. 8:19).[6] [5] George Adam Smith's Translation. [6] Moffatt's Translation. CHAPTER X Faith in Christ the Savior: Forgiveness DAILY READINGS During the next two weeks we are to consider some of the distinctive meanings which faith in Christ has had for his disciples. They have found in that faith unspeakable blessing and have uttered their gratitude in radiant language. But, just because of this, many folk find themselves in difficulty. Their expectations concerning the Christian life have been lifted very high, and in their experience of it they have been disappointed. Their problem is not theoretical doubt, but practical disillusionment. Their difficulty lies in their experience that the Christian life, while it may be theoretically true, is not practically what it is advertised to be. At this common problem let us look in the daily readings. Tenth Week, First Day Many expect in the Christian experience an emotional life of joy and quietude which they have not found. They are led to expect this by many passages of Scripture about "peace in believing," by many hymns of exultation where a mood of unqualified spiritual triumph finds voice, and by testimonies of men who speak of living years without any depressed hours or flagging spirits. Such a wonderful life of elevated emotion many crave for themselves; they came into the Christian fellowship expecting it; and they neither have it, nor are likely to achieve it. Now the beauty of a clear, high emotional life no one can doubt, _but we must not demand it as a condition of our keeping faith_. We ought not to seek God simply for the sake of sensational experiences, no matter how desirable they may be. In all the ages before Christ, the outstanding example of deep personal religion, expressing itself in over forty years of splendidly courageous prophetic ministry, is Jeremiah, and his temperament was never marked by quietude and joy. His emotional life was profoundly affected by his faith: _courage was substituted for fear_. But if he had demanded the mood of the 103rd psalm as a price for continued faith, he would have lost his faith. He was not temperamentally constructed like the psalmist--and he was a far greater personality. We must not be too much concerned about our spiritual sensations. Consider the Master's parable about the two sons: one had amiable feelings, but his will was wrong, the other lacked satisfactory emotions, but he did the work. =But what think ye? A man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to-day in the vineyard. And he answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented himself, and went. And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not. Which of the two did the will of his father? They say, The first.--Matt. 21:28-31.= _Ah, Lord, unto whom all hearts are open; Thou canst govern the vessel of our souls far better than we can. Arise, O Lord, and command the stormy wind and the troubled sea of our hearts to be still, and at peace in Thee, that we may look up to Thee undisturbed, and abide in union with Thee, our Lord. Let us not be carried hither and thither by wandering thoughts, but, forgetting all else, let us see and hear Thee. Renew our spirits; kindle in us Thy light, that it may shine within us, and our hearts may burn in love and adoration towards Thee. Let Thy Holy Spirit dwell in us continually, and make us Thy temples and sanctuary, and fill us with Divine love and light and life, with devout and heavenly thoughts, with comfort and strength, with joy and peace. Amen._--Johann Arndt, 1555. Tenth Week, Second Day Many came into the Christian life because they needed conquering power in their struggle against sin. They were told that absolute victory could be theirs through Christ, and they set their hearts on that in ardent hope and expectation. But they are disappointed. That they have been helped they would not deny, but they find that the battle with besetting sin is a running fight; it has not been concluded by a final and resounding victory. This seems to them a denial of what Christian preachers and Christian hymns have promised, and perhaps it is. Hymns and preachers are not infallible. Christian experience, however, is plainly aligned against their disappointment. Some men under the power of Christ are immediately transformed so that an old sin becomes thenceforth utterly distasteful; even the desire for it is banished altogether. But a great preacher, only recently deceased, no less really under the power of Christ, had all his life to fight a taste for drink which once had mastered him. His battle never ceased. His victory consisted not in the elimination of his appetite, but in abiding power to keep up the struggle, to refuse subjugation to it, and at last gloriously to fall on sleep, admired and loved by his people who had seen in him steadfast, unconquerable will, sustained by faith. To have done with a sinful appetite in one conclusive victory is glorious; but we must not demand it as a price of keeping faith. Perhaps our victory must come through the kind of patient persistence which James the Apostle evidently knew. =Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into manifold temptations; knowing that the proving of your faith worketh patience. And let patience have its perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing.= =But if any of you lacketh wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting: for he that doubteth is like the surge of the sea driven by the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord; a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.--James 1:2-8.= _O Lord God Almighty, who givest power to the faint, and increasest strength to them that have no might; without Thee we can do nothing, but by Thy gracious assistance we are enabled for the performance of every duty laid upon us. Lord of power and love, we come, trusting in Thine almighty strength, and Thine infinite goodness, to ask from Thee what is wanting in ourselves; even that grace which shall help us such to be, and such to do, as Thou wouldst have us. O our God, let Thy grace be sufficient for us, and ever present with us, that we may do all things as we ought. We will trust in Thee, in whom is everlasting strength. Be Thou our Helper, to carry us on beyond our own strength, and to make all that we think, and speak, and do, acceptable in Thy sight; through Jesus Christ. Amen._--Benjamin Jenks, 1646. Tenth Week, Third Day =Jehovah is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul: He guideth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.= =--Psalm 23:1-4.= What expectations are awakened by such a passage! Many have come into the Christian life because in experience they have found that "it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." They wanted a Guide in the mysterious pilgrimage of life, and in the words of hymns like, "He leadeth me, O blessed thought!" they saw the promise of a God-conducted experience. But they are disappointed. They have the same old puzzles to face about what they ought to do; they have no divine illumination that clears up in advance their uncertainty as to the wisdom of their choices; they are not vividly aware of any guidance from above to save them from the perplexities which their companions face about conduct and career. Of course part of their difficulty is due to false expectation. Not even Paul or John was given mechanical guidance, infallible and unmistakable; they never had a syllabus of all possible emergencies with clear directions as to what should be done in every case; they were guided through their normal faculties made sensitive to divine suggestion, and doubtless they never could clearly distinguish between their thought and their inspirations. Divine guidance, did not save them from puzzling perplexities and unsure decisions. But it did give them certainty that they were in God's hands; that he had hold of the reins behind their human grasp; that when they did wisely and prayerfully the best they knew, he would use it somehow to his service. And so far as the vivid consciousness of being guided is concerned, that probably came _in retrospect_; when they saw how the road came out, they agreed that God's hand must have been in the journey. Such an experience it is reasonable to expect and possible to have. _O God our Lord, the stay of all them that put their trust in Thee, wherever Thou leadest we would go, for Thy ways are perfect wisdom and love. Even when we walk through the dark valley, Thy light can shine into our hearts and guide us safely through the night of sorrow. Be Thou our Friend, and we need ask no more in heaven or earth, for Thou art the Comfort of all who trust in Thee, the Help and Defence of all who hope in Thee. O Lord, we would be Thine; let us never fall away from Thee. We would accept all things without murmuring from Thy hand, for whatever Thou dost is right. Blend our wills with Thine, and then we need fear no evil nor death itself, for all things must work together for our good. Lord, keep us in Thy love and truth, comfort us with Thy light, and guide us by Thy Holy Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen._--S. Weiss, 1738. Tenth Week, Fourth Day Many folk grow up into the Christian life, and so interpret the love of God that they expect from him affectionate mothering; they look to him to keep them from trouble. In childhood, sheltered from life's tragic incidents, this expectation was more or less realized; but now in maturity they are disappointed. God has not saved them from trouble; he has not dealt with them in maternal tenderness. Rather Job's complaint to God is on their lips: =I cry unto thee, and thou dost not answer me: I stand up, and thou gazest at me. Thou art turned to be cruel to me; With the might of thy hand thou persecutest me....= =Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? Was not my soul grieved for the needy? When I looked for good, then evil came; And when I waited for light, there came darkness. My heart is troubled, and resteth not; Days of affliction are come upon me.= =--Job 30:20, 21; 25-27.= One such disappointed spirit says that in youth, even if she hurt her finger, she was told to pray to God and he would take away the bruise; but now life does not seem to be directed by that kind of a God at all. It isn't! A pregnant source of lost faith is to be found in this unscriptural presentation of God's love. In Scripture God's love for his people and their tragic suffering are put side by side, and the Cross where the well-beloved Son is crucified is typical of the whole Book's assertion that God does not keep his children from trouble. Sometimes he leads them into it; and always he lets the operation of his essential laws sweep on, so that disease and accident and death are no respecters of character. When Ananias was sent with God's message to the newly converted Paul, that greeting into the Christian life concerned "how many things he must suffer" (Acts 9:16). Whatever else our faith must take into account, this is an unescapable fact: we are seeking the impossible when we ask that our lives be arranged on the basis that we shall not face trouble. Faith means a conquering confidence that good will, a purpose of eternal love, runs through the whole process. It says, not apart from suffering, but in the face of it: "I'm apt to think the man That could surround the sum of things, and spy The heart of God and secrets of his empire, Would speak but love--with him the bright result Would change the hue of intermediate scenes, And make one thing of all Theology." _Almighty God to whom all things belong, whose is light and darkness, whose is good and evil, Master of all things, Lord of all; who hast so ordered it, that life from the beginning shall be a struggle throughout the course, and even to the end; so guide and order that struggle within us, that at last what is good in us may conquer, and all evil be overcome, that all things may be brought into harmony, and God may be all in all. So do Thou guide and govern us, that every day whatsoever betide us, some gain to better things, some more blessed joy in higher things may be ours, that so we, though but weaklings, may yet, God-guided, go from strength to strength, until at last, delivered from that burden of the flesh, through which comes so much struggling, we may enter into the land of harmony and of eternal peace. Hear us, of Thy mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen._--George Dawson, 1877. Tenth Week, Fifth Day =Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: that we may be no longer children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error; but speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things into him, who is the head, even Christ.--Eph. 4:13-15.= Many came into the Christian life familiar with such an idea of growth. They expected the new life to be an enlarging experience, with new vistas, deepening satisfactions, increasing certitude. If at the beginning the Christian way did not content them, they blamed their immaturity for the unsatisfactory experience; they appealed to the days ahead for fuller light. But they are disappointed. They have not grown. The most they can claim is that they are stationary; the haunting suspicion cannot altogether be avoided that their faith is dwindling and their fervor burning down. This difficulty is not strange--with many folk it is inevitable; for they have never grasped the fact that the Christian life, like all life whatsoever, is law-abiding, and that to expect effects without cause is vain. That a Christian experience has begun with promise does not mean that it will magically continue; that the spirit will naturally drift into an enlarging life. An emotional conversion, like a flaming meteor, may plunge into a man's heart, and soon cool off, leaving a dead, encysted stone. But to have a real life in God, that begins like a small but vital acorn and grows like an aspiring oak, one must obey the laws that make such increasing experience possible. To keep fellowship with God unimpeded by sin, uninterrupted by neglect; to think habitually as though God were, instead of casually believing that he is; to practice love continually until love grows real; and to arrange life's program conscientiously as though the doing of God's will were life's first business--such things alone make spiritual growth a possibility. _We desire to confess, O Lord, that we have not lived according to our promises, nor according to the thoughts and intents of our hearts. We have felt the gravitation of things that drew us downward from things high and holy. We have followed right things how feebly! Weak are we to resist the attraction of evils that lurk about the way of goodness; and we are conscious that we walk in a vain show. We behold and approve Thy law, but find it hard to obey; and our obedience is of the outside, and not of the soul and of the spirit, with heartiness and full of certainty. We rejoice that Thou art a Teacher patient with Thy scholars, and that Thou art a Father patient with Thy children. Thou art a God of long-suffering goodness, and of tender mercies, and therefore we are not consumed._ _And now we beseech of Thee, O Thou unwearied One, that Thou wilt inspire us with a heavenly virtue. Lift before us the picture of what we should be and what we should do, and maintain it in the light, that we may not rub it out in forgetfulness; that we may be able to keep before ourselves our high calling in Christ Jesus. And may we press forward, not as they that have attained or apprehended; may we press toward the mark, for the prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus, with new alacrity, with growing confidence, and with more and more blessedness of joy and peace in the soul. Amen._--Henry Ward Beecher. Tenth Week, Sixth Day The Christian experience which disappoints its possessor by lack of growth is common, because so many leave the idea of growth vague and undefined. They expect in general to grow, but in what direction, to what describable results, they never stop to think. If we ran our other business as thoughtlessly, with as little determinate planning and discipline, as we manage our Christian living, any progress would be impossible. What wonder that as Christians we often resemble the child who fell from bed at night, and explained the accident by saying, "I must have gone to sleep too near the place where I got in"! Growth is always in definite directions, and folk will do well at times, without morbid self-examination, to forecast their desired courses. Becoming Christians from motives of fear, as many do, we should press on to a fellowship with God in which fear vanishes in divine friendship and cooperation. Choosing the Christian life for self-centered reasons, because it can do great things for us, we should press on to glory in it as a Cause on which the welfare of the race depends and for which we willingly make sacrifice. Beginning with narrow ideas of service to our friends and neighborhood, we should press on to genuine interest in the world-field, in international fraternity, and in Christ's victory over all mankind. Such definite lines of progress we well may set before us. And a life that does grow, so that each new stage of maturing experience finds deeper levels and greater heights, is never disappointing; it is life become endlessly interesting and worth while. =Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect: but I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye are otherwise minded, this also shall God reveal unto you: only, whereunto we have attained, by that same rule let us walk.--Phil. 3:12-16.= _Our Father, we pray Thee that we may use the blessings Thou hast given us, and never once abuse them. We would keep our bodies enchanted still with handsome life, wisely would we cultivate the intellect which Thou hast throned therein, and we would so live with conscience active and will so strong that we shall fix our eye on the right, and, amid all the distress and trouble, the good report and the evil, of our mortal life, steer straightway there, and bate no jot of human heart or hope. We pray Thee that we may cultivate still more these kindly hearts of ours, and faithfully perform our duty to friend and acquaintance, to lover and beloved, to wife and child, to neighbor and nation, and to all mankind. May we feel our brotherhood to the whole human race, remembering that nought human is strange to our flesh but is kindred to our soul. Our Father, we pray that we may grow continually in true piety, bringing down everything which would unduly exalt itself, and lifting up what is lowly within us, till, though our outward man perish, yet our inward man shall be renewed day by day, and within us all shall be fair and beautiful to Thee, and without us our daily lives useful, our whole consciousness blameless in Thy sight. Amen._--Theodore Parker. Tenth Week, Seventh Day While some, for reasons such as we have suggested, have made at least a partial failure of the Christian life, and are tempted to feel that their experience is an argument against it, we may turn with confidence to the multitude who have found life with Christ an ineffable blessing. =There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace.--Rom. 8:1-6.= Innumerable disciples of Jesus can subscribe to this Pauline testimony, and the center of their gratitude, as of his, is the victory over sin which faith in Christ has given them. The farther they go with him the more wonderful becomes the meaning of his Gospel. What Thomas Fuller, in the seventeenth century, wrote about the Bible, they feel about their whole relationship with Christ: "Lord, this morning I read a chapter in the Bible, and therein observed a memorable passage, whereof I never took notice before. Why now, and no sooner, did I see it? Formerly my eyes were as open, and the letters as legible. Is there not a thin veil laid over Thy Word, which is more rarified by reading, and at last wholly worn away? I see the oil of Thy Word will never leave increasing whilst any bring an empty barrel." As for the consciousness of filial alliance with the God and Father of Jesus, that has been a deepening benediction. How many can take over the dual inscription on an ancient Egyptian temple, as an expression of their own experience! A priest had written, in the name of the Deity, "I am He who was and is and ever shall be, and my veil hath no man lifted." But near at hand, some man of growing life and deepening faith has added: "Veil after veil have we lifted, and ever the Face is more wonderful." _Eternal and Gracious Father, whose presence comforteth like sunshine after rain; we thank Thee for Thyself and for all Thy revelation to us. Our hearts are burdened with thanksgiving at the thought of all Thy mercies; for all the blessings of this mortal life, for health, for reason, for learning, and for love; but far beyond all thought and thankfulness, for Thy great redemption. It was no painless travail that brought us to the birth, it has been no common patience that has borne with us all this while; long-suffering love, and the breaking of the eternal heart alone could reconcile us to the life to which Thou hast ordained us. We have seen the Son of Man sharing our sickness and shrinking not from our shame, we have beheld the Lamb of God bearing the sins of the world, we have mourned at the mysterious passion and stood astonished at the cross of Jesus Christ; and behind all we have had the vision of an altar-throne and one thereon slain from the foundation of the world; heard a voice calling us that was full of tears; seen beyond the veil that was rent, the agony of God._ _O for a thousand tongues to sing the love that has redeemed us. O for a thousand lives that we might yield them all to Thee. Amen._--W. E. Orchard. COMMENT FOR THE WEEK I Hitherto in our studies we have thought of God as the object of our faith. From the beginning, to be sure, we have been using the Master as the Way. The God who is in earnest about immortal personalities is supremely revealed in Jesus Christ. But through Christ's mediation we have been trying to pierce to the Eternal character and purpose; we have been taking Jesus at his word, "He that believeth on me, believeth not on me but on him that sent me" (John 12:44). The meaning of faith for the Christian, however, cannot be left as though Christ were an instrument which God used for his revealing and then thrust aside, a symbol in terms of whom we may poetically picture God. Christ has been for his people more than a transparent pane, itself almost forgettable, through which the divine light shone. His personality has been central and dominant, and when his disciples have most vividly expressed the meaning of their faith they have said that they believed in him. The first Christians whose experience is enshrined in the New Testament did not deal with faith in God alone. They adored Jesus; they were illimitably thankful to him; they rejoiced to call themselves his bondservants and to suffer for him; they claimed him as a brother, but they acknowledged him their Lord as well; and they bowed before him with inexpressible devotion. "They all set him in the same incomparable place. They all acknowledged to him the same immeasurable debt." One need not read far in the New Testament to see why these first disciples so adored their Lord. He was their Savior. They called him by many other names--Messiah, _Logos_, Son of Man, and Son of God--in their endeavor to do justice to his work and character, but one name shines among all the rest and swings them about it like planets round a sun. He is the Savior. From the annunciation to Joseph, "Thou shalt call his name Jesus; for it is he that shall save his people from their sins" (Matt. 1:21), to the New Song of the Apocalypse (Rev. 5:5-13), the New Testament is written around the central theme of saviorhood. These first disciples were vividly aware of an abysmal need, which had been met in Christ, a great peril from which through him they had escaped; and throughout the New Testament one never loses the accent of astonished gratitude, from folk who were once slaves and now are free, who from victims have been turned to victors. When Wilberforce's long campaign for the freeing of British slaves was at its climax, the population of Jamaica lined the shore for days awaiting the ship that should bring news of Parliament's decision. And when from a boat's prow the messenger cried "Freedom," the island rang with the thanksgiving of the liberated. Such rejoicing one hears in the New Testament. The disciples speak of the freedom wherewith Christ has set them free (Gal. 5:1); they say that they were dead and now are made alive (Rom. 6:11-13); once overwhelmed by sin, they now cry, "More than conquerors" (Rom. 8:37). Nor have they any doubt who is the agent or what is the agency of their salvation: Christ is the Savior and faith the means. "This is the victory that hath overcome the world," they cry, "even our faith" (I John 5:4). If we are to understand this attitude of the first disciples toward Christ the Savior, _we must appreciate as they did the peril from which he rescued them_. One cannot understand the meaning of any character who, like Moses, delivered a people from their bondage, unless he deeply feels the importance of the problem to whose solution the man contributed. Moses shines out against the background of a nation's trouble like a star against the midnight sky. When the blackness of the night is gone, the star has vanished, too. The race's deliverers never can retain their brightness in our gratitude unless we keep alive in our remembrance the evil against which they fought. If we would know Moses, we must know Pharaoh; if we would know Wellington, we must know Napoleon. If we are to value truly the great educators, we must estimate aright the blight that ignorance lays on human life. John Howard will be nothing to us, if we do not know the ancient prison system in comparison with which even our modern jails are paradise; and Florence Nightingale will be an empty name, if we cannot imagine the terrors of war without a nurse. Always we must see the stars against the night. Nor is there any other way in which a Christian can keep alive a vital understanding of his Lord. Many modern Christians seem to have lost vision of the problem that Jesus came to solve, of the human peril to whose conquest he made the supreme contribution. They think that the Church has adored Jesus because of a metaphysical theory about him, but all theories concerning Christ have arisen from a previous devotion to him. Or they think that Jesus is adored because he was so uniquely beautiful in character. But while without this his people never would have called him Lord, not on this account chiefly have they looked on him with inexpressible devotion. No one can understand the Christian attitude toward Jesus except in terms of the bondage from which he came to rescue us. There is a human cry that makes his advent meaningful; it is like the night behind the star of Bethlehem. Long ago a Psalmist heard that cry and every age and land and soul has echoed it, "My sins are mightier than I" (Psalm 65:3).[7] II The peril of sin as the innermost problem of human life is in these days obscure to many minds. For one thing, sin has been so continuously preached about, that it seems to some an ecclesiastical question, fit for discussion, it may be, in a church on Sunday, but otherwise not often emerging in ordinary thought. But sin is no specialty of preaching. If a man, forgetting churches and sermons, seriously ponders human life as he knows it actually to be, if he gathers up in his imagination the deepest heartaches of the race, its worst diseases, its most hopeless miseries, its ruined childhood, its dissevered families, its fallen states, its devastated continents, he soon will see that the major cause of all this can be spelled with three letters--sin. To make vivid this peril as the very crux of humanity's problem on the earth, one needs at times to leave behind the customary thoughts and phrases of religion and to seek testimony from sources that the Church frequently forgets. When governments try to build social states where equity and happiness shall reign, their prison systems, their criminal codes, their courts of law loudly advertise that their problem lies in sin. When jurists plan leagues of nations and sign covenants to make the world a more fraternal place, only to find greed, hate, and cruelty demolishing their well-laid schemes, their failure uncovers the crucial problem of man's sin. When philanthropists try to lift from man's bent back the burdens that oppress him, it becomes plain how infinitely their task would be lightened, if it were not for sin. As for literature--where the seers, regardless of religious prejudice, have tried to see into the human heart and truly to report their insights--its witness is overwhelming as to what man's problem is. No great book of creative literature was ever written without sin at the center. Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, Faust, Les Misérables, Romola, The Scarlet Letter--let the list be extended in any direction and to any length! Always the insight of the creative seers reports one inner peril of the race. Sin is no bogey erected by the theologians, no ghost imagined by minds grown morbid with the fear of God. Sin to every seeing eye is the one most real and practical problem of mankind. For another reason this crucial problem is dimly seen by many minds: we do not often use the word about ourselves. The hardest thing that any man can ever say is "I have sinned." We make mistakes, we have foibles of character and conduct, we even fall into error--but we do not often sin. By such devices we avoid the painful consciousness of our inward malady and even the name of our disease is banished from decorous speech. But sin does not go into exile with its name. Sin has many aliases and can swiftly shift its guise to gain a welcome into any company. Sin in the slums is gross and terrible. It staggers down the streets, blasphemes with oaths that can be heard, wallows in vice unmentionable by modest lips. Then some day prosperity may visit it. It moves to a finer residence, seeks the suburbs, or finds domicile on a college campus. It changes all its clothes. No longer is it indecent and obscene. Its speech is mild, its civility is irreproachable. It gathers a company of friends who minister to pleasure and respectability, and the cry of the world's need dies unheard at its peaceful door. It presses its face continually through the pickets of social allowance, like a bad boy who wishes to trespass on forbidden ground but fears the consequence. Its goodness is superficial seeming; at heart it is as bad as it dares to be. It has completely changed its garments, but it is the same sin--indulgent, selfish, and unclean. Sin, as anyone can easily observe, takes a very high polish. Neither by calling sin an ecclesiastical concern nor by covering its presence in ourselves with pleasant euphemisms can we hide its deadly bane in human life. The truth and import of this negative statement become clear and convincing when its positive counterpart is faced. The world needs _goodness_. The one thing in which mankind is poor and for the lack of which great causes lag and noble hopes go unfulfilled is character. With each access of that humanity leaps forward; with the sag of that all else is failure. And the one name for every loss and lack and ruin of character is sin. That is our enemy. Upon the defeat of that all our dearest hopes depend, and in its victory every dream of good that the race has cherished comes to an end. III The urgency of this truth is manifest when we note the consequence of sin in our own lives. No statement from antiquity has accumulated more confirming evidence in the course of the centuries than the Psalmist's cry, "My sins are mightier than I." Let us consider its truth in the light of our experience. Our sins are stronger than we are _in their power to fasten on us a sense of guilt that we cannot shake off_. Sinful pleasures lure us only in _anticipation_, dancing before us like Salome before her uncle, quite irresistible in fascination. Happiness seems altogether to depend upon an evil deed. But on the day that deed, long held in alluring expectation, is actually done--how swift and terrible the alteration in its aspect! It passes from anticipation, through committal, into memory, and it never will be beautiful again. We lock it in remembrance, as in the bloody room of Bluebeard's palace, where the dead things hung; at the thought of it we shrink and yet to it our reminiscence continually is drawn. Something happens in us as automatic as the dropping of a loosened apple from a tree; all the laws of the moral universe conspire to further it and we have no power to prevent: sin becomes guilt. When on a lonely ocean the floating bell-buoys toll, no human hands cause them to ring; the waste of an unpeopled ocean surrounds them everyway. The sea by its own restlessness is ringing its own bells. So tolls remorse in a man's heart and no man can stop it. Our sins are stronger than we are _in their power to become habitual_. If one who steps from an upper window had only the single act to consider, his problem would be simple. He could step or not as he chose. But when one steps from an upper window he finds himself dealing with a power over which his will has no control. Master of his single act, he is not master of the _gravitation_ that succeeds it. Many a youth blithely plays with sin, supposing that separate deeds--which he may do or refrain from as he will--make up the problem. Soon or late he finds that he is dealing with moral laws, built into the structure of the universe as gravitation is--laws which he did not create and whose operation he cannot control. By them with terrific certainty thoughts grow to deeds, deeds to habits, habits to character, character to destiny. At the beginning sin always comes disguised as liberty. Its lure is the seductive freedom which it promises from the trammels of conscience and the authority of law. But every man who ever yet accepted sin's offer of a free, unfettered life, discovered the cheat. Free to do the evil thing, to indulge the baser moods--so men begin, but they end _not free to stop_, bound as slaves to the thing that they were free to do. They have been at liberty to play with a cuttle-fish, and now that the first long arm with its suckers grasps them, and the second arm is waving near, they are not at liberty to get away. Our sins are mightier than we are _in their power to make us tempt our fellows_. When we picture our sinfulness, even to ourselves, we naturally represent our lives assailed by the allurements of evil and passively surrendering. We are the tempted; we pity ourselves because the outward pressure was too strong for the inward braces. We forget that in sin we are not simply the passive subjects of temptation; sin always makes us active tempters of our fellows. No drug fiend ever is content until he wins a comrade in his vice; a thief would have his friends steal, too; a gossip is not satisfied until other lips are tearing reputations into shreds; and vindictiveness is happiest when other hearts as well are lighted with lurid tempers. Sin always is contagious as disease is; the tempted becomes tempter on the instant that he falls. Peter weak, lures Jesus to his weakness, and the Master recognizes the active quality of his disciple's sin; "Get thee behind me, Satan!" (Matt. 16:23). Sin satanizes men and sends them out to seduce their fellows. When, therefore, a sensitive man repents of his evil, he abhors himself--not mildly as a victim, but profoundly as a victimizer. He repents of the way he has played Satan to others, sometimes deliberately, sometimes by the unconscious influence of an unworthy spirit. He remembers the times when his words have poisoned the atmosphere which others breathed, when his tempers have conjured up evil spirits in other hearts, when his attitude has made wrongdoing easy for his friends and family, and well-doing hard. And his desperate helplessness in the face of sin is made most evident when he recalls the irrecoverable injury which lives have suffered and are suffering, hurt, perhaps ruined, by his evil. _Our sins are mightier than we are in their power to bring their natural consequences upon other lives._ The landlord, of whom President Hyde has told, who without disinfection rented to a new family an apartment where a perilous disease had been, is typical of every evil-doer. When the only child of the incoming family fell sick of the disease and died, and the landlord was faced with his guilt, he pleaded his unwillingness to spend the money which the disinfection would have cost. He denied his Lord for ten dollars. Let the law punish him as it can, the crux of his moral problem lies in the fact that however much he may be sorry now, he never can bear all the consequences of his sin. Somewhere there is a childless home bearing part of the result of his iniquity. One who had done a deed like that might well crave death and oblivion. But everyone who ever sinned is in that estate. No man ever succeeded in building around his evil a wall high and thick enough to contain all evil's consequences. They always flow over and seep through; they fall in cruel disaster on those who love us best. One never estimates his sin aright until he sees that no man ever bears all the results of his own evil. Always our sins nail somebody else to a cross; they even "crucify ... the Son of God afresh" (Heb. 6:6). Such is the meaning of the peril against whose background the New Testament believers saw the luminous figure of the Savior. Sin brings men into the debt of a great guilt which they cannot pay and into the bondage of tyrannous habits which they cannot break; it makes men tempting satans to their fellows, and it hurls its results like vitriol across the faces of their family and friends. And when one looks on the lamentable evils of the world at large, its sad inequities, its furious wars, he sees no need to deal delicately with sin or to speak of it in apologetic tones. Sin is, as the New Testament saw it, the central problem of mankind. If anyone has ever come with the supreme contribution to its conquest, the face of the world may well be turned toward him today. In the Christian's faith, such a Savior has come. For if the visitor from Mars who so often has been imagined coming to earth, should come again, and amazed at the churches built, the anthems sung, the service wrought in Jesus' name, should curiously inquire what this character had done to awaken such response, we should have to answer: Jesus of Nazareth made no direct contribution to science or art or government or law--with none of these important realms did he concern himself. Only one thing he did: _he made the indispensable contribution to man's fight for great character against sin_. And because that is man's crucial problem, all science, art, government, and law are under an unpayable indebtedness to him. Because that is man's innermost need, his birthday has become the hinge of history, until one cannot write a letter to his friend without dating his familiar act from the advent of him who came to save us in our struggle for godliness against evil. IV Faith in Christ has a double relationship with the problem of man's sin; it concerns _the basis on which we are to be judged and the strength by which we are to conquer_. Christ has brought to men a gospel of forgiveness and power. With regard to the first--and with the first alone this chapter is concerned--the opinion of many modern men is swift and summary: folk are to be judged by what they do; the output of a man, as of a machine, is the test of him. Until this popular method of judgment is convicted of inadequacy, there is no hope of understanding what Christians have meant by being "saved through faith" (Eph. 2:8). We must see that men are worth more than they _do_. A man's deeds alone are an insufficient basis for judgment, because _motives for the same act may be low or high_. No one can be unaware of the Master's meaning when he speaks of those who do their alms before men to be seen of them (Matt. 6:1ff), or of Paul's when he says, "If I bestow all my goods to feed the poor ... but have not love" (I Cor. 13:3). Some men habitually shine to good advantage by such means; they have the facile gift of putting their best foot forward. Like a store at Christmas time, its finest goods in the window and inferior stock for sale upon the counters, they are infinitely skilful in gaining more credit than their worth deserves. One who has dealt with such folk becomes aware that to estimate an isolated deed is superficial; one must know the motive. A cup of cold water or a widow's penny may awake the Master's spirited approval, and millions rung into the temple treasury by showy Pharisees meet only scorn. Deeds alone are an insufficient basis for judgment because, while we are more than body, _our bodies are the instruments of all that visibly we do_. Many a man in spirit is like a swift mill race, eager for service, but the flesh, a battered mill wheel, ill sustains the spirit's vehemence; it breaks before the shock. One must shut the gates and patch up the wheel, before the spirit, impatient for utterance, may have its way again; and some mill-wheels never can be mended. Says one of Robert Louis Stevenson's biographers: "When a temporary illness lays him on his back, he writes in bed one of his most careful and thoughtful papers, the discourse on 'The Technical Elements in Style.' When ophthalmia confines him to a darkened room, he writes by the diminished light. When after hemorrhage, his right hand has to be held in a sling, he writes some of his 'Child's Garden' with his left hand. When the hemorrhage has been so bad that he dare not speak, he dictates a novel in the deaf and dumb alphabet." When one has lived with handicapped folk, discerning behind the small amount of work the infinite willingness for more, and in the work done a quality that makes quantity seem negligible, he perceives that deeds are no sufficient measure of spiritual value. Only an eye that pierces behind the unwrought work to the _man_, willing while the flesh was weak, can ever estimate how much some spirits are worth. Deeds alone are an insufficient basis for judgment because _men face unequal opportunities_. Some start with one talent, some with ten. The cherished son of a Christian family ought to live a decent life; how favorable his chance! But if a vagrant wharf-rat by some mysterious vision of decency and determination of character makes a man of himself, how much more his credit! The worth of goodness cannot be estimated without knowledge of the struggle which it cost. When one considers the smug, conventional respectability of some, possessing every favorable help to goodness, and the rough but genuine integrity of others who have fought a great fight against crippling handicaps to character, he sees why, in any righteous judgment, the last will be first, as Jesus said, and the first last. Only God, with power to understand what heredity and circumstance some men have faced, what enticements they have met, what a fight they have really waged even when they may have seemed to fail, can tell how much they are worth. "What's done we partly may compute, But know not what's resisted." Judgment based on deeds alone can never truly estimate a man, because in every important decision of our lives an _"unpublished self" finds no expression in our outward act_. Duty is not always clear; at times it seems a labyrinth without a clue. Perplexed, we balance in long deliberation the opposing reasons for this act or that, until, forced to choose, we obtain only a majority vote for the decision. Yet that uncertain majority alone is published in our deed; man's eyes never see the unexpressed protestant minority behind. And when the choice proves wrong, and friends are grieved and enemies condemn and what we did is hateful to ourselves, only one who knows how much we wanted to do right, and who accounts not only the published but the unpublished self can truly estimate our worth. Peter, who denied his Lord, it may be because he wanted the privilege of being near him at the trial, is not the only one who has appealed from the outward aspect of his deed to the inner intention of his heart: "Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee" (John 21:17). Moreover, even when we choose aright, _no deed can ever gather into utterance all that is best and deepest in us_. A mother's love is as much greater than any word she speaks or act she does, as the sunshine is greater than the focused point where in a burning glass we gather a ray of it. We are infinitely more than words can utter or deeds express. No adequate judgment, therefore, can rest on deeds alone. A machine may be estimated by its output, but a man is too subtle and profound, his motives and purposes too inexpressible, his temptations and inward struggles too intimate and unrevealed, his possibilities too great to be roughly estimated by his acts alone. "Not on the vulgar mass Called 'work' must sentence pass, Things done, that took the eye and had the price; O'er which, from level stand, The low world laid its hand, Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice: But all, the world's coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account; All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount: Thoughts hardly to be packed Into a narrow act, Fancies that broke through language and escaped; All I could never be, All, men ignored in me, This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped." V If, however, we are to understand the Christian's meaning when he speaks of being saved by faith (Rom. 3:28; 5:1; Gal. 3:24), we need to see not only that men are worth more than they _do_, but as well that they are worth more than they _are_. Some things always start large and grow small; some things always start small and grow large; but a man may do either, and his value is determined not so much by the position he is in, as it is by the direction in which he is moving. Even of stocks upon the market in their rise and fall this truth is clear. The figure at which a stock is quoted is important, but the meaning of that figure cannot be understood unless one knows whether it was reached on the way up or the way down. How much more is any static judgment of a man impossible! One starts at the summit, with endowments and opportunities that elevate him far above his fellows, and frittering away his chance, drifts down. Another, beginning at the bottom, by dint of resolute endeavor climbs upward, achieving character in the face of odds before which ordinary men succumb. Somewhere these two men will pass, and, statically judged, will be of equal worth. But one is drifting down; one climbing up. The innermost secret of their spiritual value lies in that hidden fact. _When, therefore, one would judge a man, he must pierce behind the deeds that he can see, behind the present quality that he can estimate, back to the thing the man has set his heart upon, to the direction of his life, to the ideal which masters him--that is, to his faith._ There lies the potential future of the man, his ultimate worth, the seed of his coming fruit. If one has eyes to see what that faith is, he knows the man and what the man is bound to be. When, therefore, men set their hearts on Christ, lay hold on him by faith as life's Master and its goal, that faith opens the door to God's forgiveness. In Augustine's luminous phrase, "The Christian already has in Christ what he hopes for in himself." He is Christ's brother in the filial life with God, young, immature, undeveloped--but the issue of that life is the measure of the stature of Christ's fulness. God does not demand the end when only the beginning is possible, does not scorn the dawn because it is not noon. He welcomes the first movement of man's spirit toward him, not for the fruit which yet is unmatured, but for the seed which still is in the germ; he takes the will for the deed, because the will is earnest; he sees the journey's end in Christlike character, when at the road's beginning the pilgrim takes the first step by faith. There is no fiction here; God ought to forgive and welcome such a man. All good parents act so toward their children. This divine grace corresponds with truth, for a man is _worth_ the central, dominant faith, that determines life's direction and decides its goal. And the Gospel that God so deals with man, announced in the words of Jesus, illustrated in his life, sealed in his death, has been a boon to the race that puts all men under an immeasurable debt to Christ. VI This method of judgment which all good men use with their friends and families has been often disbelieved, in its Christian formulations, because it has been misrepresented and misunderstood. But human life, far outside religious boundaries, continually illustrates the wisdom and righteousness of so judging men by faith. Roswell McIntyre deserted during the Civil War; he was caught, court-martialled, and condemned to death. He stood with no defense for his deed, no just complaint against the penalty, and with nothing to plead save shame for his act, and faith that, with another chance, he could play the man. On that, the last recourse of the condemned, President Lincoln pardoned him. "EXECUTIVE MANSION, Oct. 4, 1864. Upon condition that Roswell McIntyre of Co. E, 6th Reg't of New York Cavalry, returns to his Regiment and faithfully serves out his term, making up for lost time, or until otherwise discharged, he is fully pardoned for any supposed desertion heretofore committed, and this paper is his pass to go to his regiment. ABRAHAM LINCOLN." Was such clemency an occasion for lax character? The answer is written across the face of Mr. Lincoln's letter in the archives: "Taken from the body of R. McIntyre at the Battle of Five Forks, Va., 1865." Five Forks was the last cavalry action of the war; McIntyre went through to the finish. Any one who knows the experience of being forgiven understands the motives that so remake a pardoned deserter. The relief from the old crushing condemnation, the joy of being trusted again beyond desert, the gratitude that makes men rather die than be untrue a second time, the unpayable indebtedness from which ambition springs, "whether at home or absent, to be well-pleasing unto him" (II Cor. 5:9)--this is the moral consequence of being pardoned. Goodness so begotten reaches deep and high, has in it conscious joy and hope, feels vividly the value of its moral victories, possesses great motives for sacrificial service in the world. The Apocalypse is right. There is a song in heaven that angels cannot sing. Only men like McIntyre will know how to sing it. The vital and transforming faith that saves is always better presented in a story than in an argument, and in the Scripture the best description of it is Jesus' parable of the Prodigal. As the Master drew that portrait of life in the far country, all the watching Pharisees thought that such a boy was lost. The Prodigal himself must have guessed that his case was hopeless. His friends, his character, his reputation, his will were gone, and in the inner court-room of his soul with maddening iteration he heard sentence passed, Guilty. Only one hope remained. If he was unspoiled enough by the far country's pitiless brutality to think that at home they might bear no grudge, might find forgiveness possible, might offer him another chance as a hired servant, if he could think that perhaps his father even _wanted_ him to come home, then there was hope. With such slender faith the boy turned back from the far country. He had the same lack of character, the same weakened will, the same evil habits. Only one difference had as yet been wrought. Before, he had been facing toward swine, now he was facing toward home. The _direction_ of his life was changed by faith. And when the father saw him, homeward bound, "_while he was yet afar off,_" forgiveness welcomed him. No pardon could unload from the lad's life all the fearful consequences of his sin. As long as he lived, the scars on health, repute, and usefulness were there. But forgiveness could take the sin away _as a barrier to personal friendship with the father_; the old relationships of mutual confidence, helpfulness, and love could be restored; the glorious chance could be bestowed of fighting through the battle for character, not hopelessly in the far country, but victoriously at home. One of the chief glories of the Gospel is that it has so reclaimed the waste of humanity, made sons of Prodigals and patriots of McIntyres. Its Pauls were persecutors, its Augustines the slaves of lust, and its rank and file men and women to whom Christ's message has meant forgiveness, reinstatement, a new chance, and boundless hope. Scientific business conserves its waste and makes invaluable by-products from what once was slag; but Christ has been the conserver of mankind. The lost and sick have been returned to sanity and wholesomeness and service; humanity has been enriched beyond computation, with Bunyans and Goughs and Jerry McAuleys. Tolstoi's simple confession in "My Religion" is typical of multitudes: "Five years ago I came to believe in Christ's teaching, and my life suddenly became changed: I ceased desiring what I had wished before, and began to desire what I had not wished before. What formerly had seemed good to me appeared bad, and what had seemed bad appeared good.... The direction of my life, my desires became different: what was good and bad changed places." Tolstoi had indulged, as he acknowledges, in every form of unmentionable vice practiced in Russia; and yet forgiven, reinstated, transformed, he was carried to his burial by innumerable Russian peasants with banners flying. Where Christ's influence has vitally come, the loss and wreck and flotsam of the moral world have been so reclaimed to character and power. At the beginning of the Christian era, a few desolate sand lagoons lay off the Paduan coast of Italy. There the wild fowl made their nests; the lonely skiffs of fishermen threaded the reedy channels; the storms washed the shifting and uncertain sands. And possibly to this day the lagoons would have been thus barren and deserted, had not the Huns swept down on Italy. The Huns made the building of Venice necessary. They did not intend so fair a consequence of their terrific onslaughts. Their thoughts were on death and pillage. But because they came, the Italians fled to the lagoons, built there, behind the barricade of restless waters, their gleaming city, developed there the commerce that combed the world, built the Doge's palace as the abode of justice, and raised St. Mark's in praise of God. Venice was the city of Salvation; it rose resplendent because the Huns had come. So Christ turns the ruin of sin to victory, and builds in human life character, recovered and triumphant. If his Gospel can have its way, a spiritual Venice will arise to make the onslaught of the moral Huns an evil with a glorious issue. What wonder that inexpressible devotion has been felt for him by all his people? [7] "Iniquities prevail against me." CHAPTER XI Faith in Christ the Savior: Power DAILY READINGS As we saw in the last week's study, Christian faith has always centered around the person of Jesus himself. This week let us consider some testimonies from the New Testament as to the meaning and effect of this definitely Christian faith. Eleventh Week, First Day It must be clear to any observing mind that the world does not suffer from lack of faith. There is faith in plenty; everybody is exercising it on some object. In the Bible we read of folk who "trust in vanity" (Isa. 59:4), who "trust in lying words" (Jer. 7:4), or "in the abundance of riches" (Psalm 52:7); and the Master exclaims over the difficulty which those who "trust in riches" have when they try to enter the Kingdom of God (Mark 10:24). Faith, then, is a necessary faculty of the soul: the power by which we commit ourselves to any object that wins our devotion and commands our allegiance. No man avoids its use, and men differ only in the objects toward which their faith is directed. Of all the tragedies caused by the misuse of human powers, none is more frequent and disastrous than the ruin that follows the misuse of faith. With this necessary and powerful faculty in our possession, capable of use on things high or low, to what determination can a man more reasonably set himself than this?--_since I must and do use faith on something, I will choose the highest_. It is with such a rational and worthy choice that the Christian turns to Jesus. He is the best we know; we will direct our faith toward him. This does not mean that in the end our faith does not rest on God; it does, for Jesus is the Way, the Door, as he said, and faith in him moves up through him to the One who sent him. As Paul put it, "Such confidence have we through Christ to God-ward" (II Cor. 3:4). But faith in Jesus is the most vivid, true, and compelling way we have of committing ourselves to the highest and best we know. In the light of this truth, we can understand why John calls such faith the supreme "work" which God demands of us. =Work not for the food which perisheth, but for the food which abideth unto eternal life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him the Father, even God, hath sealed. They said therefore unto him, What must we do, that we may work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.--John 6:27-29.= _Gracious Father! Thou hast revealed Thyself gloriously in Jesus Christ, the Son of Thy love. In Him we have found Thee, or rather, are found of Thee. By His life, by His words and deeds, by His trials and sufferings, we are cleansed from sin and rise into holiness. For in Him Thou hast made disclosure of Thine inmost being and art drawing us into fellowship with Thy life. As we stand beneath His Cross, or pass with Him into the Garden of His Agony, it is Thy heart that we see unveiled, it is the passion of Thy love yearning over the sinful, the wandering, seeking that it may save them. No man hath seen Thee at any time, but out from the unknown has come the Son of Man to declare Thee. And now we know Thy name. When we call Thee Father, the mysteries of existence are not so terrible, our burdens weigh less heavily upon us, our sorrows are touched with joy. Thy Son has brought the comfort that we need, the comfort of knowing that in all our afflictions Thou art afflicted, that in Thy grief our lesser griefs are all contained. Let the light which shines in His face, shine into our hearts, to give us the knowledge of Thy glory, to scatter the darkness of fear, of wrong, of remorse, of foreboding, and to constrain our lives to finer issues of peace and power and spiritual service. And this prayer we offer in Christ's name. Amen._--Samuel McComb. Eleventh Week, Second Day The New Testament clearly reveals the experience that _forgiveness_ comes in answer to such self-committing faith in Christ as we spoke of yesterday. =And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven. And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that even forgiveth sins? And he said unto the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.--Luke 7:48-50.= In popular thought forgiveness is often shallowly conceived. It is thought to be an easy agreement to forget offense, a good-natured waving aside of injuries committed as though the evil done were of no consequence. But forgiveness is really a most profound and searching experience; and it takes two persons, each sacrificially desirous of achieving it, before it can be perfected. In the pardoner, the passion for saviorhood must submerge all disgust at the sin in love for the sinner; and in the pardoned, desire for a new life must create sacrificial willingness to hate and forsake the evil and humbly accept a new chance. It follows, therefore, that no one can forgive another, no matter how willing he may be to do so, unless the recipient fulfils the conditions that make pardon possible. Forgiveness is a mutual operation; no forgetting or good will on the part of one person is forgiveness at all; and the attitude in the forgiven man that makes the reception of pardon possible is negatively penitence and positively faith. Any experience of human forgiveness reveals that the offender must detest his sin and turn from it in trust and self-commitment to claim the mercy and choose the ideals of the one whom he has wronged. That God in Christ is willing to forgive is the Christian Gospel; and if we go unforgiven it is for lack of faith. That is the hand which grasps the proffered pardon. _Almighty God, whose salvation is ever nigh to them that seek Thee, we think of our little lives, of their wayward ways, and we remember Thee and are troubled. Our days pass from us and we are heated with strifes, and troubled and restless, with mean temptations and fugitive desires. We spend our years in much carelessness, and too seldom do we think of the greatness of our trust and the wonder and mystery of our being. We are vexed with vain dreams and trivial desires. We live our days immersed in petty passions. We strain after poor uncertainties. We pursue the shadows of this passing life and continually are we visited by our own self-contempt and bitterness. We have known the better and have chosen the worse. We have felt the glory and power of a higher life and yet have surrendered to ignoble temptations and to satisfactions that end with the hour._ _Almighty Father, of Thy goodness do Thou save our lives, so smitten with passion, from the failure and misery that else must come to us. Be with us in our hours of self-communion, and inspire us with good purpose and service to Thee. Be with us when heart and flesh faint, and there seems no help or safety near us. Be with us when we are carried into the dry and lonely places, seeking a rest that is not in them. Sustain us, we beseech Thee, under the burden of our many errors and failures. From the confused aims and purposes of our lives may there be brought forth, by the aid of Thy Spirit, and the teaching and discipline of life, lives constant and assured in service and obedience to Thee. Amen._--John Hunter. Eleventh Week, Third Day It is clear in the New Testament that all the _free movements of divine help_ depend on the presence of man's faith. Words like these are continually on the lips of Jesus: "Be of good cheer; thy faith hath made thee whole" (Matt. 9:22); "According to your faith be it done unto you" (Matt. 9:29); "Great is thy faith: be it done unto thee even as thou wilt" (Matt. 15:28). Human life as a whole confirms the truth which such words suggest: _Man's faith is always the limit of his blessing; he never obtains more than he believes in._ Men live in a world of unappropriated truth and unused power; and the blessings of truth and power can be reached only by ventures of faith. Even electricity withholds its service from a man who, like Abdul Hamid, has not faith enough to try. In personal relationships this fact becomes even more clear. Whatever gifts of good will may be waiting in the heart of any man, we are shut out from them forever, unless we have the grace of faith in the man and open-hearted self-commitment to him. As the Christian Gospel sees man's case, the central tragedy lies here: that God in Christ is willing to do so much more in and for and through us than we have faith enough to let him do. Our unbelief is not a matter of theoretical concern alone; it practically disables God, it handicaps his operation in the world, it is an "evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God" (Heb. 3:12). The divine will is forced to wait upon the lagging faith of man. How often the Master exclaimed, "O ye of little faith!" (Matt. 6:30; 8:26). And the reason for his lament was eminently practical. =And coming into his own country he taught them in their synagogue, insomuch that they were astonished, and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things? And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and in his own house. And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.--Matt. 13:54-58.= _Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, we desire to come to Thee in all humility and sincerity. We are sinful; pardon Thou us. We are ignorant; enlighten Thou our darkness. We are weak; inspire us with strength. In these times of doubt, uncertainty, and trial, may we ever feel conscious of Thine everlasting light. Soul of our soul! Inmost Light of truth! Manifest Thyself unto us amid all shadows. Guide us in faith, hope, and love, until the perfect day shall dawn, and we shall know as we are known._ _Almighty God, teach us, we pray Thee, by blessed experience, to apprehend what was meant of old when Jesus Christ was called the power of God unto salvation, for we stand in need of salvation from sin, from doubt, from weakness, from craven fear; we cannot save ourselves; we are creatures of a day, short-sighted, and too often driven about by every wind of passion and opinion. We need to be stayed upon a higher strength. We need to lay hold of Thee. Manifest Thyself unto us, our Father, as the Saviour of our souls, and deliver us from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Amen._--John Hunter. Eleventh Week, Fourth Day Not only is man's power to appropriate the divine blessing dependent on faith; in the experience of the New Testament man's power of achievement has the same source. =Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast it out? And he saith unto them, Because of your little faith: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.--Matt. 17:19, 20.= Mountains are symbols of difficulty, and the Master's affirmation here that faith alone can remove them is clearly confirmed in human experience. It may seem at times as though faith, compared with the obstacles, were like a minute mustard seed before the ranges of Lebanon, but faith can overcome even that disproportion in size. Great leaders always must have such confidence. Listen to Mazzini: "The people lack faith ... the faith that arouses the multitudes, faith in their own destiny, in their own mission, and in the mission of the epoch; the faith that combats and prays; the faith that enlightens and bids men advance fearlessly in the ways of God and humanity, with the sword of the people in their hand, the religion of the people in their heart, and the future of the people in their soul." In any great movement for human good, the ultimate and deciding question always is: How many people can be found who have faith enough to believe in the cause and its triumph? When enough folk have faith, any campaign for human welfare can be won. Without faith men "collapse into a yielding mass of plaintiveness and fear"; with faith they move mountains. And when men have faith in Christ as God's Revealor--faith, not formal and abstract, but real and vital--they begin to feel about the word "impossible" as Mirabeau did, "Never mention to me again that blockhead of a word!" _O God, our Father, our souls are made sick by the sight of hunger and want and nakedness; of little children bearing on their bent backs the burden of the world's work; of motherhood drawn under the grinding wheels of modern industry; and of overburdened manhood, with empty hands, stumbling and falling._ _Help us to understand that it is not Thy purpose to do away with life's struggle, but that Thou desirest us to make the conditions of that struggle just and its results fair._ _Enable us to know that we may bring this to pass only through love and sympathy and understanding; only as we realize that all are alike Thy children--the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, the fortunate and the unfortunate. And so, our Father, give us an ever-truer sense of human sisterhood; that with patience and steadfastness we may do our part in ending the injustice that is in the land, so that all may rejoice in the fruits of their toil and be glad in Thy sunshine._ _Keep us in hope and courage even amid the vastness of the undertaking and the slowness of the progress, and sustain us with the knowledge that our times are in Thy hand. Amen._--Helen Ring Robinson. Eleventh Week, Fifth Day Faith in Christ has always been consummated, in the experience to which the New Testament introduces us, in an inward transformation of life. =I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me.--Gal. 2:20.= Such conversion of life is the normal result of a vital fellowship whose bond is faith. For one thing, a man at once begins to care a great deal more about his own quality when he believes in Christ and in Christ's love. "What a King stoops to pick up from the mire cannot be a brass farthing, but must be a pearl of great price." To be loved by anyone is to enter into a new estimate of one's possible value; to be loved by God in Christ is to come into an experience where our possible value makes us alike ashamed of what we are and jubilant over what we may become. We begin saying with Irenæus, "Jesus Christ became what we are that he might make us what he is." And then, faith, ripening into fellowship, opening the life sensitively to the influence of the friend, issues in a character infused by the friend's character. He lives in us. Such transformation of life does not happen in a moment; it requires more than instantaneous exposure to take the Lord's picture on a human heart; but time-exposure will do it, and "Christ in us" be alike our hope of glory and our secret of influence. _O Father Eternal, we thank Thee for the new and living way into Thy presence made for us in Christ; the way of trust, sincerity, and sacrifice. Beneath His cross we would take our stand, in communion with His Spirit would we pray, in fellowship with the whole Church of Christ we would seek to know Thy mind and will._ _We desire to know all the fulness of Christ, to appropriate His unsearchable riches, to feed on His humanity whereby Thou hast become to us the bread of our inmost souls and the wine of life, to become partakers of Thy nature, share Thy glory, and become one with Thee through Him._ _Give unto us fellowship with His sufferings and insight into the mystery of His cross, so that we may be indeed crucified with Him, be raised to newness of life, and be hidden with Christ in Thee._ _We desire to make thankful offering of ourselves as members of the body of Christ; in union with all the members may we obey our unseen Head, so that the Body may be undivided, and Thy love, and healing power, and very Self may be incarnate on the earth in one Holy Universal Church. Amen._--W. E. Orchard. Eleventh Week, Sixth Day With faith in Christ so seen as the secret of divine forgiveness and assistance, of achieving power and inward transformation, there can be little surprise at the solicitude which the New Testament shows concerning the disciples' faith. We find this urgent interest in Paul: =Wherefore when we could no longer forbear, we thought it good to be left behind at Athens alone; and sent Timothy, our brother and God's minister in the gospel of Christ, to establish you, and to comfort you concerning your faith; ... night and day praying exceedingly that we may see your face, and may perfect that which is lacking in your faith.--I Thess. 3:1, 2, 10.= =We are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, even as it is meet, for that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the love of each one of you all toward one another aboundeth.--II Thess. 1:3.= And one of the most appealing revelations of Jesus' habit in prayer concerns his supplication for Peter's faith. =Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you, that he might sift you as wheat: but I made supplication for thee, that thy faith fail not; and do thou, when once thou hast turned again, establish thy brethren.--Luke 22:31, 32.= In all such passages one feels at once that faith is used as Paul uses it in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians--a comrade and ally of hope and love. It is not a matter of dogma and does not move in the realm of opinion, although ideas of the first magnitude may be involved in it. It is primarily a bond of divine fellowship, which at once keeps the life receptive to all that God would do for the man and moves the man to do all that he should for God. If that fails, even Peter would fall in ruins, and the expression is none too strong, when in I Timothy the failure of such vital faith is described as a "shipwreck" (I Tim. 1:19). But when by faith the consciousness of God has grown clear, and alliance with him is so real that we stop arguing about it and begin counting on it in daily living, the increment of power and confidence and stability which a man may win is quite incalculable. _O Thou plenteous Source of every good and perfect gift, shed abroad the cheering light of Thy seven-fold grace over our hearts. Yea, Spirit of love and gentleness, we most humbly implore Thy assistance. Thou knowest our faults, our failings, our necessities, the dulness of our understanding, the waywardness of our affections, the perverseness of our will. When, therefore, we neglect to practice what we know, visit us, we beseech Thee, with Thy grace, enlighten our minds, rectify our desires, correct our wanderings, and pardon our omissions, so that by Thy guidance we may be preserved from making shipwreck of faith, and keep a good conscience, and may at length be landed safe in the haven of eternal rest; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen._--Anselm, 1033. Eleventh Week, Seventh Day Some who gladly acknowledge the surprising results which faith can work in life, do not see any great importance in the object to which faith attaches itself. They say that faith is merely a psychological attitude, and that faith in one thing does as well as faith in another. Folk are healed, they point out, by all kinds of faith, whether directed toward fetishes, or saints' relics, or metaphysical theories, or God himself. It is the faith, they say, and not the object, which does the work. There is a modicum of truth in this. Faith, by its very power to organize man's faculties and give them definite set and drive, is itself a master force, and if a man has no interest beyond the achievement of some immediate end, like conquering nervous qualms or getting strength for a special task, he may achieve that end by believing in almost anything, provided he believes hard enough. _But to believe in some things may debauch the intelligence and lower the moral standards, even while it achieves a practical end._ To win power for a business task by believing in a palm-reader's predictions is entirely possible, but it is a poor bargain; a man sells out his intelligence for cash. The object in which a man believes does make an immense difference in the effect of his faith on his _mind_ and _character_. An African savage may gain courage for an ordeal by believing in his fetish--but how immeasurable is the abyss between the meaning of that faith for the whole of life and the meaning of a Christian's faith in God! We have no business, for the sake of immediate gain, to allow our faith to rest in anything lower than the highest. =Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, ye have been put to grief in manifold trials, that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold that perisheth though it is proved by fire, may be found unto praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ: whom not having seen ye love; on whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory: receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.--I Peter 1:3-9.= _Gracious Father of our spirits, in the stillness of this worship may we grow more sure of Thee, who art often closest to us when we feel Thou hast forsaken us. The toil and thought of daily life leave us little time to think of Thee; but may the silence of this holy place make us aware that though we may forget Thee, Thou dost never forget us. Perhaps we have grown careless in contact with common things, duty has lost its high solemnities, the altar fires have gone untended, Thy light within our minds has been distrusted or ignored. As we withdraw awhile from all without, may we find Thee anew within, until thought grows reverent again, all work is hallowed, and faith reconsecrates all common things as sacraments of love._ _If pride of thought and careless speculation have made us doubtful of Thee, recover for us the simplicity that understands Thou art never surer than when we doubt Thee, that through all failures of faith Thou becomest clearer, and so makest the light that once we walked by seem but darkness. Help us then to rest our faith on the knowledge of our imperfection, our consciousness of ignorance, our sense of sin, and see in them shadows cast by the light of Thy drawing near._ _If Thy purposes have crossed our own and Thy will has broken ours, enable us to trust the wisdom of Thy perfect love and find Thy will to be our peace._ _So lead us back to meet Thee where we may have missed Thee. Amen._--W. E. Orchard. COMMENT FOR THE WEEK I The forgiveness which the Gospel offers--reinstating a man in the personal relationships against which he sinned, and giving him another chance--opens opportunity, but by itself it does not furnish power. The saviorhood of Christ, however, so far from failing at this crucial point, makes here its chief claim to preeminence. However one may explain it, the normal quality of a genuine Christian life is moral energy. The Gospel not alone to Paul, but to all generations of Christ's disciples, had been "God's saving power for everyone who has faith" (Rom. 1:16).[8] Faith always supplies moral dynamic. Emerson's challenge, "They can conquer who believe they can," is easily verified in daily life. In practical business, in social reform, in personal character, no more common or fatal barrier to success exists than disbelief in possibilities. While some who think they can when they cannot, prove the rule by its exception, we are sure in advance that one who believes he cannot, has lost his battle before it has begun. Granted a task worth doing, sufficient strength for its accomplishment, and motives in plenty to make success desirable, and one insinuating enemy can spoil the enterprise. Let the subtle fear that the task is impossible obsess the thought, paralyze the nerve, and no hope is left. Like chlorine gas, such fear defeats us before we have begun to fight and fills our trenches with asphyxiated powers. Anyone who is to be a savior to mankind, therefore, must be able to make men say, "I can." That Christ has had that influence on men is the commonplace of Christian biography from the beginning until now. "In him who strengthens me I am able for anything" (Phil. 4:13)[9] is a word of Paul's which the best Christian experience confirms. It does not mean that men can do what they will, overriding all obstacles to chosen goals; it means that they are aware of resources in reserve, of power around them and in them, so that they are not afraid of anything which they may face. If a duty ought to be done, they are confident that they can do it; if a trouble must be borne, they are assured that they can bear it. This buoyant faith is more than a grace of temperament. In Paul's case, for example, it was not due to rugged health, for that he lacked; it was not the easy optimism of some happiness cult, for he was a persecuted man, bearing in his body "the marks of the Lord Jesus"; and such a note of assured resource as we just have quoted did not come from the hopefulness of fortunate circumstance, but from a prison where he wore a chain. Paul himself is certain that his sense of power springs from discipleship to Jesus. And when one turns to the gospels, he sees that whenever the Master had opportunity to exert to the full his influence on men, some such result as here appears in Paul is evident. A contagious personality always enlarges the sense of possibilities and powers in other men. A man, leaving Trinity Church, where he had heard Phillips Brooks, exclaimed, "He always makes me feel so strong." It was said that one could not stand for a moment with Edmund Burke under an archway, to let a shower pass by, without emerging a greater man. Each one of us knows folk who so impress him. We go into their presence, weak, self-pitiful; when we come out, the horizons are broader, the possibilities have enlarged, there is more in us than we had suspected, we are convinced that we _can_. To a degree that escapes our estimation Jesus exerted that influence on men. Napoleon said that he made his generals out of mud. Out of what, then, did the Master make his apostles? At the beginning, Peter, for example, is protesting, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord," and Jesus is bending over him, saying: Come after me, and I will make you a fisher of men; if you will, you can. After months of influence, Peter, still shamed and weak, is pleading his love against his deed, and Jesus is saying: Feed my sheep; feed my lambs; if you will, you can. In Jesus' relationship with his disciple, a great personality stands over a lesser one, by life and word insistently saying, _You can_, until power is vitally transmitted, and in the vacillating, vehement Simon there emerges rock-like, stable Peter. Throughout the Christian centuries nothing has been more typical than this of the Master's influence on men. He has come to innumerable sodden lives, held slaves to tyrannous sin, saying in the hopelessness of bondage, "I cannot," and he has touched them with his contagious confidence, until they rose into freedom, saying, "By the help of God, I can!" He has come into social situations, where ancient evils, long entrenched and seemingly invincible, withstood the assault of reformation, and he has put inexhaustible resource into his people, until they said with an old reformer, "Impossible? If that is all that is the matter, let us go ahead!" He has come to his Church, reluctant to undertake a world-wide mission, staggered by the task's magnitude, and he has made men pray with _life_ and not alone with lip, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Wherever the influence of Christ vitally has come, the horizons of possibility have widened and the sense of power grown inexhaustible. _Such influence is of the very essence of saviorhood and the attitude that appropriates it is saving faith._ When John B. Gough, desperately enmeshed in habit, faces the Christian Gospel of release one easily may trace his changing response. Dubious at first, he wants to believe it but he does not dare. He wishes it were true, but the whole logic of his situation, his long habit, his spoiled reputation, his weakened will, argue against the possibility. As Augustine said about his lust, "The worse that I knew so well had more power over me than the better that I knew not." Still, a note of authority in the Gospel, as though spoken by one whose power to perform is equal to the thing he promises, arrests Gough's mind, captures his imagination, awakens his spirit's deep desire, until at last the Master's call, "You can," is answered by the human cry, "I will," and the man moves out into new possibilities, new powers, and increasing liberty. That _is_ salvation. It is no formal status decreed by legal enactment, as though a judge technically acquitted a prisoner. It is new life, inward liberation from old habits, apprehensions, anxieties, and fears. It lifts horizons, consumes impossibilities, and at the center of life sets the stirring conviction that what ought to be done can be done. Christians who are accustomed lightly to assert that they are saved need specially to take this truth to heart. Some speak as though salvation were a technicality and they sing about it, "'Tis done, the great transaction's done." To many such, were candor courteous, one would wish to say: Saved? Saved from what? You are habitually anxious. Your life is continually vexed with little fears and apprehensions. When trouble comes, you are sure that you cannot stand it; when tasks present themselves, you are certain that you cannot perform them. You have pet self-indulgences, from major sins to little meannesses; you know that they are wrong; but when suggestion comes that you surrender them, you are sure that you have not the strength. When causes, plainly Christian, on whose successful issue man's weal depends, appeal to you for help, you weaken every enterprise by your disheartenment. Saved from _what_? Not from fear, timidity, selfishness, and stagnation! And if you say, Saved from Hell--what is Hell but the final subjugation of the soul to such sins as you now are cherishing? The words of Jesus are promises of saviorhood from real and present evils: "Be not _anxious_" (Matt. 6:34); "Go, _sin_ no more" (John 8:11); "_Fear_ not, little flock" (Luke 12:32). When one, by faith, turns his face homeward from such destroyers of life, he begins to be saved; but only as he lives by faith in fellowship with the Divine and so achieves progressive victory, does he keep on being saved. _The heart of salvation is victorious power._ II Not all men feel the need of the power which comes from discipleship to Christ. They live content without such increment of strength as Christians find in faith. Their power is equal to their tasks because their tasks are levelled to their power. One cannot understand, therefore, what the Saviorhood of Christ has meant to men, unless he sees how Christ has created the need of the very power he furnishes. He has done this, in part, _by awakening the desire for an ascending life_. Men do not naturally want to believe in possibilities too great and taxing; it always is easier to leave undisturbed the _status quo_. Even changing one's residence is difficult. Though one may move to a better house, yet to decide to move, to break old relationships, to tear up and refit the furnishings, and to adjust oneself to new associations mean stress and strain. So men come to be at home with habits; they are comfortably accustomed to timidity and self-indulgence. Release into a new life does not lure as privilege; it repels as hardship. Some sins, indeed, are followed by remorse, but others, grown habitual, bring a sense of well-being and content. We like ourselves; we do not want a better life; we are unwilling to pay its cost. Our sins are no bed of nettles, but a lotus land of decent ease. Were we candidly to speak to them, we should say, O Sin, you are a comfortable friend! When most we want forbidden fruit you suggest excuses. You side happily with our inclinations and save us from the struggle that high duty costs and the sacrifice of striving for the best. Among the blessings of our lives, we count you not the least, O decent, comfortable, self-indulgent Sin! Idlers thus drift listlessly and refuse a voyage with a purpose and a goal; youths living by low standards, look on Christlike character as beyond their interest and possibility; undedicated men find excuse for holding back devotion to great causes in the world--we shelter ourselves from aspiration and enterprise behind our faithlessness. Into such a situation Christ repeatedly has come, bringing a vision of what life ought to be, too imperative to be neglected, too challenging to be denied. Men have been shaken out of their content; the true color of their lives has been revealed against his white background, the meanness of their plans against the wide ranges of his purpose. From seeing him they have gone back to be content in their old habits, but in vain. Can one who has seen a home be happy in a hovel? Ranke, the historian, says, "More guiltless and more powerful, more exalted and more holy, has naught ever been on earth than his conduct, his life, and his death. The human race knows nothing that could be brought even afar off into comparison with it." So he has been the disturber of man's ignoble self-content, and to say that we believe in him means that, no longer able to endure the thing we are, we go on pilgrimage toward the thing he is. Faith means that we decide to _move_. This first essential work of saviorhood Christ has wrought, and when men start to follow him, they feel the need of power. For another thing, Christ has created a thirst for the power he furnishes by _revealing the quality of character in the possession of which salvation ultimately consists_. At the beginning of the ethical development whether of the individual or of the race, goodness is defined in terms of prohibitions. There are many things which men ought _not_ to do; they walk embarrassed in the presence of their duty like courtiers before an exacting prince. How negative and repelling such goodness is! As another exclaims: "They do not break the Sabbath themselves, but no one who has to spend it with them likes to see the dreadful day come round. They do not swear themselves, but they make all who know them want to. They are just as good as trying not to be bad can make them." Discerning spirits, therefore, turn to goodness positively conceived. "Thou shalt not" becomes "Thou shalt"; duty consists of rules to be kept, precepts to be observed, principles to be applied, and we go out to do good deeds to men. But whoever seriously tries to do deeds really good, faces a need of moral elevation, as much beyond the outward act of good as that surpasses the observance of prohibitions. _Good deeds are not a matter of will alone, but of spiritual quality._ Let the wind blow to fan the faces of the sick, but if it discover that it is laden with disease, what shall it do? To blow this way or that may be within volition's power, but not to _cleanse_ oneself. The task of character reaches inward, beyond the things we do or refrain from doing to the man we are. Goodness is something more than girding up the loins, blowing upon the hands, and setting to the work of being dutiful. It springs from the spirit's depths; it is tinctured with the spirit's quality; and deeds are never really better than the soul whose utterances they are. From "Thou shalt not do" to "Thou shalt do" and from "Thou shalt do" to "Thou shalt be," man's flying goal of goodness moves. And this ideal in Christ has been incarnate, visible, imperative. He _was_ right in the inner quality and flavor of his life; and to be like him involves a pure and powerful personality. Whoever sets that task ahead knows that he cannot strut proudly into it. Like Alice entering Wonderland he must grow very small before he can grow large. The Christ who has power to give has revealed the need of it. Not only by the intensifying of the ideal, but by its extension, has Christ created thirst for divine help. In youth the problem of character concerns personal habits. Our untamed strength must be broken to the harness, and the snaffle bit be used upon our wayward powers. We justly fear our sins and in their triumph we see the wreck of individual prospects and the ruin of our families' hopes. Our concern centers about ourselves, and its crux is self-mastery. But when in maturity, somewhat "at leisure from ourselves" in settled habits, we no longer fear our own ruin nor think it probable, goodness extends its meaning. To play our part in man's advancement, to live, work, sacrifice, and if need be die for causes on which our children's hopes depend, becomes our ideal. As boys in spring-time when the ice is melting see from a hill-top the swirling flood that overflows the plain, and know that somewhere underneath the unfamiliar and tumultuous rapids the main channel runs, from which the floods have broken, to which in time they must return, so in a generation when man's life has broken its banks in fury we still believe that the main course of the divine purpose is not forever lost. To believe that, and in the strength of it to toil for the ends God seeks, becomes to awakened spirits the essential soul of goodness. When such meanings enter into his ideal, a man runs straight upon the need of God. For we may make our contribution to the cause of man's good upon the earth and our children may make theirs, but if this world is a spiritual Sahara, never meant for character and social weal, and against the dead set of the desert's power we are building oases here with our unaided fingers, then the issue of our work stands in no doubt. The Sahara will pile its burning sands about us and hurl its blistering winds across us, and we and our works together come to naught. By as much, then, as a man really cares about democracy and liberty and social equity, about human brotherhood and Christian civilization, by so much he needs God, who gathers up the scattered contributions of his children and builds them into victory. A man alone may keep the decalogue, but alone he cannot save the world. Who dreams of that wants power. And Christ has made men dream of that, believe in that with passionate certainty, until "Thy Kingdom come" is the daily prayer of multitudes. To no human strength can such prayer be offered; we are not adequate to an eternal, universal task. Again Christ has brought us to the need of power, and his people call him Savior, because the need which he creates he also satisfies. In one of the tidal rivers near New York, the building of a bridge was interrupted by a derelict sunk in the river's bottom. Divers put chains about the obstacle and all day long the engineer directed the maneuvering of tugs as they puffed and pulled in vain endeavor to dislodge the hulk. Then a young student, fresh from the technical school, asked for the privilege of trying, and from the vexed, impatient chief obtained his wish. "What will _you_ do it with?" the engineer enquired. "The flat-boats in which we brought the granite from Vermont," the young man answered. So when the tide was out, the flat boats were fastened to the derelict. The Atlantic began to come in; its mighty shoulders underneath the boats lifted--lifted until the derelict had to come. The youth had harnessed infinite energy to his task. To the consciousness of such resource in the spiritual world Christ has introduced his people. They have meant not formula but fact, not technicality but experience, when they have called him Savior. III This consciousness of power has come in part from Christ's revelation of God the Father. Whoever has sinned against his friend or unkindly wronged a child knows what sin does to personal relationships. How swift a change comes over a son's thought of his father when the son has sinned! The wrong may have been done secretly so that his sire does not know, and the boy alone on earth is conscious of it. But for all that the filial relationship has lost its glory. Before the sin, the son was happy with his father near; they were companions, confidants, and to the boy fatherhood was very beautiful. Now, he is most unhappy with his father near; the father's eyes like a detective's pierce him through, the face like a judge's waits sternly to condemn. He is looking at his father through the dark glasses of his sin, and they distort his vision. When one considers the gods whom men have worshiped, approaching them by bloody altar-stairs, offering their first-born to assuage wrath or win from apathy to favor, he sees, extended to a racial scale, our boyhood's tragedy. _Mankind has been looking at the Father through its ignorance and sin and it has seen him beclouded and awry._ Christ changed all that. By what he taught, by what he was, by what he suffered he has said to man, so that man increasingly has believed it--You are wrong about God. He does not stand aloof--careless or vindictive; he is not as he looks to you through the twisted lenses of your evil. He loves you. He _cares_ beyond your power to understand, and all my compassion but reveals in time what is eternally in him. He is pledged to the victory of goodness in you and in the world, and you have not used all your power until you have used his, for that, too, is yours. From that day the fight against sin has been a new thing, and men have gone into it with battle-cries they never used before--"_God_ was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself" (II Cor. 5:19); "_God_ commendeth his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8); "If _God_ is for us, who is against us?" (Rom. 8:31). This access of power has come in part from Christ's revelation of _man_. When a jewel is taken from darkness into sunlight, there is a two-fold revealing. The sunlight is disclosed in new glory, for it never seemed so beautiful before as it appears breaking in splendor through the jewel's heart. And there is a revelation of the jewel. Dull and unillumined in the dark, it is lustrous when the sun enlightens it. So Christ brought us an unveiling of the Father; the Divine never had seemed so wonderful as when it poured in glory through his purity and love. And he brought as well a new revelation of man. Our human nature, bedimmed by sin and lusterless, he in his own person took up into the light, and lifting it where all mankind could see he cried--This _is_ human nature--man as God intended him to be--no slave of fate and dupe of sin, but a free man and a victor. And from that day the war on sin has had new spirit in it, and battle cries that presage triumph have grown familiar on the fighters' lips: "Now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be" (I John 3:2); "Till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13); "His precious and exceeding great promises; that through these ye may become partakers of the divine nature" (II Pet. 1:4). IV Christ's double revelation of God and man, however, has had its vital impact of power on life in what Christians have always called _the experience of the Spirit_. When the New Testament speaks its characteristic word about the Spirit, it means the conscious presence of the living God in the hearts of men, and that is the very essence of religion. The first Christians did not know God in one way only; they knew him in three ways. So one man might know Beethoven the composer and be an authority upon his works; another might know Beethoven the performer and delight in his playing; and another might know Beethoven the man and rejoice in his friendship--but no one could know the whole of Beethoven until he knew him all three ways. The New Testament Christians came thus to God. He was the Father, Creator of all; he was the Character, revealed in Jesus; but as well he was the Spiritual Presence in their lives, their sustenance and power. "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit" (II Cor. 13:14)--such was their experience of the Divine. It was not dogma; it was _life_. God was Creator, Character, and Comforter. Christian experience is in continual danger of drifting from this vital center. In our age especially, we are prone to find God at the end of an argument and to leave him there. We have been compelled by militant agnosticism to put our apologetic armies on the defensive. Finding it impossible to hold the respect of men's intelligence without reasonable arguments in the faith's behalf, we have had to draw such inferences from the nature of the material universe, from the necessities of human thought, the demands of human conscience, and the progress of moral evolution in history, that materialism should be made, what indeed it is, a discredited affair. But God so arrived at, by way of reason, is an external matter. He is an hypothesis to explain the universe. "He sitteth upon the circle of the earth and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers before him." Granted the incalculable value in such faith, putting unity into history and purpose into life--it is not religion and it never can be. _Religion begins when the God outwardly argued is inwardly experienced._ Religion begins when we cease using the tricky and unstable aeroplane of speculation to seek Him among the clouds, and retreat into the fertile places of our own spirits where the living water rises, as Jesus said. God outside of us is a theory; God inside of us becomes a fact. God outside of us is an hypothesis; God inside of us is an experience. God the Father is the possibility of salvation; God the Spirit is actuality of life, joy, peace, and saving power. God the transcendent may do for philosophy, but he is not enough for religion. Without this completion of the Gospel, Christ's saviorhood does not reach inward to our need. For lacking it, we stand before the Master with the same admiration that a man who is no painter feels when he sees a Raphael. He knows the work is sublime, but he is not proposing to reproduce it. He is conquered by its beauty, but he knows no possibility of its imitation. If, however, there were a spirit of Raphael that could lay hold upon a man's life and transform him to the master's skill and power, then his admiration would become inwardly effective. _It takes the spirit of Raphael to do Raphael's work._ If this gospel of an indwelling dynamic is not coupled with our admiration for Jesus, we are like a student practicing the fingering of the Hallelujah Chorus on an organ from which the power has been shut off. With what accuracy his fingers travel the keys, who can tell? Once Handel's soul, on fire with the passion of harmony, burned itself into that composition. He wrote it upon his knees. But with whatever agility the student's fingers follow the notes, no Hallelujah Chorus comes from his organ to praise God and move men. So the record of this matchless character handed to us in the gospels, like notes of music meant to be played again, is but our despair, if we must attempt its reproduction on a powerless organ. Our admiration for it is external and ineffectual. We fall thereby into a static religion of creed; we have no dynamic religion of progress and hope. This then is the glorious message, where the Christian Gospel reaches its climax, and which alone puts fullest meaning into Jesus' perfect life: _the Spirit of God in Jesus made his quality; that same Spirit is underground in our lives, striving to well up in characters like his, until we live, yet not we, but Christ lives in us_. Any spring day may serve to illustrate this faith. Where does the restlessness in nature have its source? Every tree, in discontent, hastens to make buds into leaves, and every blade of grass is tremulous with impatient life. No tree, however, is a sufficient explanation of its own haste and dissatisfaction; no flower has in itself the secrets of its eager growth. The spirit of life is abroad, and crowding itself everywhere on old, dead forms, is making them bloom again. Explain then, the moral restlessness of our hearts in other wise! We do ill, and are distraught with remorse until we repent and make reparation. We attain money or talents, and are chased day and night by the urgent call to their spiritual dedication. We conform ourselves to decency and still hear a call for goodness beyond all earthly need. We succeed as the world calls it, and we know that it is failure; we fail as the world sees it, and our hearts sing for joy because we know that we have succeeded. Everywhere we are confronted with a pulsing life that longs to get itself expressed in us. We cannot get away from God. He is not far, he is here. This Spirit, for whom there is no better name than the Spirit of Jesus, is our continual companion. We are locked in an enforced fellowship with him. There is no friend with whom we deal more directly and continually than with him. Every time we open an inspiring book and devoutly study it, this Spirit is pleading for entrance. Every time we pray he stands at the door and knocks. Every time some child in need, or some great cause demanding sacrifice, lays claim on us, this Spirit is crying to be let in. Men's hunger for food, their love for family and friends, are not more direct, concrete, immediate experiences than our dealings with this Spirit of the Lord. He is not only God the Father; he is God the Spirit, striving to dwell in us and work through us. Into a vital use of this relationship with the Divine, Christ opened the way and multitudes have followed. He has taught men to find that same resourcefulness in the spiritual world which science finds in the physical. Every successful invention of a man like Edison involves a twofold faith: that there is inexhaustible power in the universe and that, with persistent patience and cooperation, there is no telling what marvels yet may come from the employment of it. Faith is science's flying column. It runs out into engineering, agriculture, medicine, and refuses to limit the possibilities. Science is a tremendous believer; it lives by faith that almost anything may yet be done. Such a relationship Paul sustained with the Spirit. He was confident of resources there, "exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think" (Eph. 3:20). He was a spiritual Edison, a believer in the divine reality and power and their availability by faith in human life. Only such a Gospel is adequate to man's deepest need. Sin, whether its forms be decent or obscene, cripples men's wills with the appalling certainty that they are slaves. As a hypnotist draws imaginary circles around his victims, across which they cannot step, so Sin, that Svengali of the soul, whether in personal or social life, paralyzes its dupes with disbelief in possibilities. To innumerable folk, emprisoned by their fears and sins, Christ has been the Savior. He has awakened that faith which, as he said, is the greatest mountain-mover known to men. They have been "strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man" (Eph. 3:16). V When one considers, as we have in these two chapters, what Christ has meant in the experience of his people, little wonder can remain that they have called him by such high names as have aroused man's incredulity. For this Gospel of power has never been separable from him, as though he were its historic fountain and could easily be forgotten by those who far down-stream enjoyed the water. His personality itself has been the inspiration of his people. At Marston Moor, when the Puritans and Cavaliers were aligned for battle and all was in readiness for conflict to begin, Oliver Cromwell came riding across the plain. And the chronicler says that at the sight of him the Puritans sent up a great victorious shout, as though their battle already had been won. Some such effect our Lord has had on his disciples. To explain that effect one would have to speak not so much of his teaching as of himself--his character and purpose; nor so much of them as of the Cross where all he taught and was came to a point of flame that has set the world on fire. Christ was the "nerve o'er which do creep The else unfelt oppressions of the earth." He suffered with man and for man, he uniquely embodied in his own experience the universal law that the consequences of sin fall in part on the one who loves the sinner and tries to save him; and in that sacrifice his work for man was consummated, and his influence over man confirmed. When his people have bowed before him in unutterable devotion they have been thinking not only of what he has done for them, but of what it cost him to do it. Why, therefore, should we wonder that his disciples at their best have called Jesus divine? His first followers began with no abstract ideas of deity; they began with "the man, Christ Jesus" (I Tim. 2:5). They had no idea at the first that he was more. His bodily and mental life had obeyed the laws of normal human development, advancing "in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men" (Luke 2:52). He hungered after his temptation, thirsted on the Cross, slept from weariness while the boat tossed in a storm, and exhausted, sat beside the well. Like other men he had elevated hours of great rejoicing; times when compassion moved him to tears, as when he saw a multitude unshepherded or, swinging round the brow of Olivet, beheld Jerusalem; and hours of hot indignation, too, as when he found his Father's house a den of thieves or spoke out his heart against the Pharisees. He asked questions, and was astonished, now at the people's lack of faith, again at the centurion's excess of it. His fellowship with God was nourished by secret prayer, his power replenished by retreat to quiet places for communion, and all his life was lived, his temptations faced, his troubles borne, and his work done in a spirit of humble, filial dependence on his Father. Thus real and human, a sharer in their limitations, their sorrows, and their moral trials, the first disciples saw the Master. But ever as they lived with him, whether in physical presence or in spiritual fellowship, he wrought in them a Savior's work. He became to them manhood indeed, but manhood plus. He grew in their apprehension, as though a boy had thought an ocean's inlet were a lake enclosed, and now discovers that it is the sea itself, and all its tides the pulse of the great deep. How should they name this greatness in their Lord? They were not utterly without a clue, for he himself had introduced them to the life divine. They had learned through him to say about themselves that they were temples in which God dwelt (II Cor. 6:16), that God abode in them (I John 4:12), that he stood ever waiting to come in (Rev. 3:20), and that the possession of the divine nature was the Gospel's promise (II Pet. 1:4). By what other element in their experience could they interpret the greatness of their Lord? It might be inadequate, but it was the best they had. They rose to understand the divine life in him from the experience of the divine life in themselves. "God was in Christ," they said. They never dreamed of claiming equality with him. Like pools beside the sea, they understood the ocean's quality from their own. There are not two kinds of sea-water; nor, with one God, can there be two kinds of divine life. But so understanding the sea, shall the pool claim equality with it? Rather, the sea has deeps, tides, currents, and relationships with the world's life that no pool can ever know. So Christ was at once their brother and their Lord. He was real, because they interpreted his life divine from the foregleams of God's presence in themselves. He was adorable, because he was an ocean to their landlocked pools, and they waited for his tides. Only by some such road as these first disciples trod can men come to a vital understanding of the Lord. Nothing but _experience_ can give us a living estimate of anything; without that theory is vain. Let a man live with the Master's manhood until it grows luminous and through it he sees the character of God; let a man avail himself of the Master's saviorhood until forgiven and empowered he finds the "life that is life indeed"; let a man grow in the experience of God's presence until he knows not only the God without but the God within; and then if he rises to estimate his Lord, he will not hesitate to see in Jesus the incarnate presence of the living God. After that, theology may help or hinder him, according as it is wise and vital or cold and formal; but with theology or not, he knows the heart of the New Testament's attitude toward Jesus. He understands why the first Christians summed up their faith as "believing in the Lord Jesus Christ." [8] Moffatt's translation. [9] Moffatt's translation. CHAPTER XII The Fellowship of Faith DAILY READINGS Our thought turns, in our closing week of study, from believers taken one by one, to believers gathered in fellowship. This community of faith has wider boundaries than the organized churches; in a real sense it includes all servants of man's ideal aims; yet in the Church we naturally seek the chief meanings of fellowship for faith. Why men do not go to church, is often asked. But why men do go, so that in spite of countless failures in the churches, attendance on public worship and loyalty to organized religion are among mankind's most usual habits, is an inquiry far more important. To that inquiry let us in the daily readings turn our thought. Twelfth Week, First Day =But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye shut the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye enter not in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering in to enter.= =Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is become so, ye make him twofold more a son of hell than yourselves....= =Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and faith: but these ye ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone. Ye blind guides, that strain out the gnat, and swallow the camel!--Matt. 23:13-15; 23, 24.= Jesus' indictment of the Jewish Church is terrific, and yet no one who knows the story of the Christian churches can doubt that they often have deserved the same condemnation. They have at times committed all the sins that can be laid at any institution's door; they have been selfish, formal, worldly, cruel. A wonder-story from the Arctic says that once the candle-flames froze and the explorers broke them off and wore them for watch charms; the flames of the great fire congealed and were wound like golden ornaments around men's necks. So repeatedly the burning words of Scripture, the blazing affirmations of old creeds, on fire at first with the passion of souls possessed by God, have been frozen in the churches' Arctic climate, and handed to men like talismans and amulets, with no saving warmth or light. Creeds, rituals, organizations--how often these frozen forms of life have taken the place of inward spiritual power! Dr. Washington Gladden would not be alone in saying: "While therefore I had as large an experience of church-going in my boyhood as most boys can recall, I cannot lay my hand on my heart and say that the church-going helped me to solve my religious problems. In fact, it made those problems more and more tangled and troublesome." And yet the Church goes on. Voltaire prophesied its collapse in fifty years, and in fifty years the house where he made the prophecy was a depot for the circulation of the Scriptures. The Church's persistence, continual adaptation to new conditions, and apparently endless power of revival must have some deep reason. It may be because prayer like this which follows has never utterly died out in the sanctuary. _O Thou that dwellest not in temples made with hands! We ever stand within the courts of Thy glorious presence, only we open now the gates of our poor praise. Thou hast enriched this day of rest, O Lord, with Thy choicest gifts of peace; and lo! Thou unforgetting God, its record is before Thee, for ages past, moistened with penitential tears, and illumined with glad hopes, and hallowed by the innumerable prayers of faithful and saintly men. In this our day may the churches of Thy Holy One seek Thee still in spirit and truth; may we also enter in and find our rest, being of one heart and mind, and serving Thee with a wakeful and humble joy. Teach us now how we may converse with Thee, for we cannot order our speech by reason of darkness. We are naked and without disguise before Thee; oh! hide not Thyself from us behind our ignorance and sin. May we at least in this Thine hour shake off the sluggish clouds of sense and self that cling around our souls; and strenuously open our whole nature to the breath of Thy free spirit, and the healthful sunshine of Thy grace. Let the divine image of the Son of God visit us with power; driving out, with the chastisement of penitence, all obtruding passions that profane the temple of our hearts, and turn into a place of traffic that native house of prayer. O God of glory, God of grace! let not the things which are spiritually discerned be foolishness unto us through the blindness of our conscience: Thou knowest the thoughts of our wisdom that they are vain; take them from us, and bid them vanish away, lost in that wisdom from above which is revealed only to the pure in heart. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thee be every thought of praise! Amen._--James Martineau. Twelfth Week, Second Day Some men doubtless go to church from traditional habit only, but such a motive obviously is not adequate to explain why the recurrent tides of humanity, even after an ebb in interest, sweep back to the Church again. In the eighteenth century, for example, Butler reports the common opinion that all that remained for Christianity was decent obsequies. But in a few years the Wesleys began a movement that changed the spiritual complexion of the English-speaking world, and swept multitudes into Christian fellowship. One reason for this repeated fact is clear. Mankind cannot and will not consent to live without faith in God, and faith in God in its genesis and its sustenance is largely a matter of contagion. We are not so much taught it; we catch it. It is vitally imparted in the family circle, and wherever kindred and believing spirits gather. No man is so independent as to escape the vital fact that his noblest emotions, attitudes, ideals, and faiths are socially engendered and socially sustained; he never would have had them in a solitary life and a solitary life would soon spoil those which he has now. A man may believe in his country and love her; but let him join in a patriotic movement or even attend a high-spirited patriotic meeting, and he will believe in her and love her more ardently. Man's religious life is not lawless; it is regulated by the same necessities of fellowship. The Church has made many mistakes, but on her altar the fire has never utterly gone out, and in her fellowship the faith of multitudes has been kindled. =Let us hold fast the confession of our hope that it waver not; for he is faithful that promised: and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works; not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as ye see the day drawing nigh.--Heb. 10:23-25.= _Great is Thy name, O God, and greatly to be praised. In Thee all our discordant notes rise into perfect harmony. It is good for us to think of the wonder of Thy being. Thou art silent, yet most strong; unchangeable, yet ever changing; ever working, yet ever at rest, supporting, nourishing, maturing all things. O Thou Eternal Spirit, who hast set our noisy years in the heart of Thy eternity, lift us above the power and evils of the passing time, that under the shadow of Thy wings we may take courage and be glad. So great art Thou, beyond our utmost imagining, that we could not speak to Thee didst Thou not first draw near to us and say, "Seek ye my face." Unto Thee our hearts would make reply, "Thy face, Lord, will we seek."... We thank Thee for our birth into a Christian community, for the Church and the Sacraments of Thy grace, for the healing day of rest, when we enter with Thy people into Thy House and there make holy-day; for the refreshment of soul, the joys of communion, the spiritual discipline, the inspiration of prayer and hymn and sermon.... We praise Thee for the myriad influences of good, conscious and unconscious, that have been about us, deeply penetrating our inner life, shaping and fitting us for Thy Kingdom. Thou hast indeed forgiven all our iniquities, and healed all our diseases, and redeemed our life from destruction, and crowned us with loving-kindness. Therefore would we call upon our souls, and all that is within us, to bless Thy holy Name. Amen._--Samuel McComb. Twelfth Week, Third Day =For ye, brethren, were called for freedom; only use not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but through love be servants one to another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.--Gal. 5:13-15.= One fundamental reason for the endless revival of the Church is that faith never is satisfied until it issues in work. It insists on our being "servants one to another." We have spoken of God's merciful acceptance of a man when out of sin he turns his life by faith toward Christ; but to interpret this as meaning the adequacy of faith without effective service is to misread Scripture and to demoralize life. Faith that does not lead to service is no real faith at all. But whenever men endeavor to express in work any faith which they may hold they must come together. Service involves cooperation. A hermit may have faith, but his faith does not concern any ideal hopes on earth; it has no outlooks save upon his own soul's condition in the world to come; it is a narrow, selfish, inoperative thing. As soon as men are grasped by some moving faith about what ought to be done for God's service and man's welfare here and now, a hermit's solitude or any sort of unaffiliated life becomes impossible. They must combine in a fellowship of faith and of labor to seek common ends. They begin to say with Edward Rowland Sill, "For my part I long to 'fall in' with somebody. This picket duty is monotonous. I hanker after a shoulder on this side and the other." And to fall in with others to serve Christian ends means some kind of church. Let us pray today for a church more fit to express this passion to serve. _God, we pray for Thy Church, which is set today amid the perplexities of a changing order, and face to face with a great new task. We remember with love the nurture she gave to our spiritual life in its infancy, the tasks she set for our growing strength, the influence of the devoted hearts she gathers, the steadfast power for good she has exerted. When we compare her with all other human institutions, we rejoice, for there is none like her. But when we judge her by the mind of her Master, we bow in pity and contrition. Oh, baptize her afresh in the life-giving spirit of Jesus! Grant her a new birth, though it be with the travail of repentance and humiliation. Bestow upon her a more imperious responsiveness to duty, a swifter compassion with suffering, and an utter loyalty to the will of God. Put upon her lips the ancient Gospel of her Lord. Help her to proclaim boldly the coming of the Kingdom of God and the doom of all that resist it. Fill her with the prophet's scorn of tyranny, and with a Christ-like tenderness for the heavy-laden and down-trodden. Give her faith to espouse the cause of the people, and in their hands that grope after freedom and light to recognize the bleeding hands of the Christ. Bid her cease from seeking her own life, lest she lose it. Make her valiant to give up her life to humanity, that like her crucified Lord she may mount by the path of the cross to a higher glory. Amen._--Walter Rauschenbusch. Twelfth Week, Fourth Day =For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek: for the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich unto all that call upon him: for, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach, except they be sent? even as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that bring glad tidings of good things!--Rom. 10:11-15.= The necessity of affiliation for effective faith is clear when one considers the missionary enterprise. One of the noblest qualities in human life is our natural desire to share our blessings. Every normal child is happier when some other child is joining in the play; every lover of music is gladdened by sharing with a friend enjoyment of a favorite symphony; save in singularly churlish folk the love of having others partake our joys is spontaneous and hearty. To those whom Christian faith, has blessed with hope and power, the undeniable impulse comes to share these finest benedictions with all other men. The missionary enterprise does not rest upon a text; it wells up from one of the worthiest impulses in man's life. One may be fairly sure, that save as some perverted theology inhibits a spirit of love, a man's missionary interest will be proportionate to the reality and value of his own experience. If he himself has something well worth sharing, he will want to share it. But the missionary enterprise is more than any individual can compass; it demands organization, cooperation, and massed resources; it cannot be prosecuted without a church. The further our thought proceeds the more clear it becomes that the question is not, shall we have churches? but rather, since churches are inevitable, of what sort shall they be? _O Thou who hast made all nations of men to seek Thee and to find Thee; bless, we beseech Thee, Thy sons and daughters who have gone forth, into distant lands, bearing in their hands Thy Word of Life. We rejoice that, touched with the enthusiasm of Christ, so many have consecrated their lives to proclaiming the message of Thy love to those other sheep of Thine who are not of our fold, that they may be united with us and that there may be one flock and one Shepherd. Help Thy ministering servants to recognize the fragments of truth and goodness that are ever found where men are sincere and to claim these glimpses of Thyself as the prophecies of a fuller revelation. When discouraged by the hardness of their task, and the meager fruit of all their labor, give them faith to see the far-off whitening harvest. Inspire them with Thy gracious promise that though the sower may go forth weeping, bearing precious seed, he will come again with joy, bringing his sheaves with him. Comfort them in their exile and loneliness with a sense of Thy companionship and with the prayers and sympathy of their brethren at home. Through them let Thy Word have free course and be glorified. And so let Thy Kingdom come, and Thy Will be done on earth as in Heaven, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen._--Samuel McComb. Twelfth Week, Fifth Day =After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.--Matt. 6:9-15.= The central ideal of Christian effort is set for us in the first petition of the Master's prayer. But a Kingdom on earth, with God's will done here in heavenly fashion, is a social idea. It means not only right personal quality; it means right family life, and economic, political, and international relationships Christianized. No amount of fine individual character, necessary as it is, will of itself rectify the social maladjustments and inequities. Were everyone as good as possible, we still should need organized action. All parts of an engine may be correct, and yet they may be wrongly fitted together. As it is, social relations obviously demand concerted action; we must join together to combat immoral industrial conditions, to throttle the liquor traffic, to make human fraternity a fact and not a dream. The opposition to all such reforms is organized, and no haphazard attack will succeed. Now, many organizations may arise to serve special ends and may do excellent service to the cause, but what has proved true in the conflict with the liquor traffic, is true also of enterprises for industrial justice and international cooperation--_only when the churches see the moral issue and put their power in, is there any hope of victory_. A Christian whose faith involves the Kingdom sees plainly that he cannot go on without the Church. _O Lord, we praise Thy holy name, for Thou hast made bare Thine arm in the sight of all nations and done wonders. But still we cry to Thee in the weary struggle of our people against the power of drink. Remember, Lord, the strong men who were led astray and blighted in the flower of their youth. Remember the aged who have brought their gray hairs to a dishonored grave. Remember the homes that have been made desolate of joy, the wifely love that has been outraged in its sanctuary, the little children who have learned to despise where once they loved. Remember, O Thou great avenger of sin, and make this nation to remember._ _May those who now entrap the feet of the weak and make their living by the degradation of men, thrust away their shameful gains and stand clear. But if their conscience is silenced by profit, do Thou grant Thy people the indomitable strength of faith to make an end of it. May all the great churches of our land shake off those who seek the shelter of religion for that which damns, and stand with level front against their common foe. May all who still soothe their souls with half-truths, saying "Peace, peace," where there can be no peace, learn to see through Thy stem eyes and come to the help of Jehovah against the mighty. Help us to cast down the men in high places who use the people's powers to beat back the people's hands from the wrong they fain would crush._ _O God, bring nigh the day when all our men shall face their daily task with minds undrugged and with tempered passions; when the unseemly mirth of drink shall seem a shame to all who hear and see; when the trade that debauches men shall be loathed like the trade that debauches women; and when all this black remnant of savagery shall haunt the memory of a new generation but as an evil dream of the night. For this accept our vows, O Lord, and grant Thine aid. Amen._--Walter Rauschenbusch. Twelfth Week, Sixth Day =Neither for these only do I pray, but for them also that believe on me through their word; that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us: that the world may believe that thou didst send me. And the glory which thou hast given me I have given unto them; that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that thou didst send me, and lovedst them, even as thou lovedst me.--John 17:20-23.= To the Christian the Church is a problem, just because she is a necessity. He caught his faith from the contagion of her fellowship and he sees that if he is to serve effectively the ideals of Christ and the coming of the Kingdom he must work through some church. But because the Church is necessary, he is not thereby made content with her. She is at once helping and hindering the spread of the faith; she is the source of immeasurable good and yet she is not "one, that the world may believe." A traveler across the American plains in springtime sees fences, tiresomely prominent, staring at him from the landscape; but in summer when he returns the fences are invisible. The wheat and corn are growing, the earth is bearing fruit, and while the old divisions may be there, they all are hidden. One suspects that if Christians everywhere set themselves with hearty zeal to bear the fruit of service for the common weal, if they gave themselves to achieve the aims of Christ for men with ardor and thoroughness, the sectarian divisions would grow unimperative and disappear. We may not be able to think the disagreements through, but we may be able to work them out; even where we cannot recite a common creed, we can share a common purpose. The War, where Jewish rabbis have held crucifixes before the eyes of dying soldiers, and where Catholic priests have met death, as one did at Gallipoli, following a Wesleyan chaplain--"my Protestant comrade"--into danger, has revealed how deeply underneath our sharp divisions our spiritual loyalties seek unity when crisis comes. For all the unity that can come without compromise to conscience, surely the Christian people are bound to pray and work. _O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Saviour, the Prince of Peace; give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions. Take away all hatred and prejudice, and whatsoever else may hinder us from godly union and concord; that as there is but one body and one Spirit, and one hope of our calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, so we may be all of one heart and of one soul, united in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity, and may with one mind and one mouth glorify Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen._--"The Book of Common Prayer." Twelfth Week, Seventh Day =For I am already being offered, and the time of my departure is come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give to me at that day; and not to me only, but also to all them that have loved his appearing.--II Tim. 4:6-8.= The fellowship of faith is not bounded by the earth. Paul's expectation took into its account a communion that far overreached the confines of temporal experience. The New Testament believers not only held but vividly apprehended that the "whole family" to which they belonged in Christian communion was "in heaven and on earth." Their outlook Wordsworth has expressed in modern words: "There is One great society alone on earth: The noble Living and the noble Dead." To that society of the world's prophets and martyrs, seers and servants, it may well be a man's ambition to belong. And that ideal is not impossible to anyone, for the mark and seal of their fellowship is that they have "kept the faith." When others despaired, lost heart, and deserted causes on which man's welfare hung, they kept the faith. When mysteries perplexed their minds and discouragement, to human vision, was more rational than hope, they turned from sight to insight and they kept the faith. When new knowledge, half-understood, disturbed old forms of thought and multitudes were confused in uncertainty and disbelief, they kept the faith. And they often came to their end, like Paul, having "suffered the loss of all things"--yet not all, for they had kept the faith. "For all the saints, who from their labors rest, Who Thee by faith before the world confessed, Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest, Alleluia! O may Thy soldiers, faithful, true, and bold, Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old, And win with them the victor's crown of gold, Alleluia! O blest communion, fellowship Divine! We feebly struggle; they in glory shine; Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine. Alleluia!" _O God, Thou only Refuge of Thy children! who remainest true though all else should fail, and livest though all things die; cover us now when we fly to Thee. Thy shelter was around our fathers. Thy voice called them away, and bids us seek Thee here till we depart to be with them. In Thy memory are the lives of all men from of old. Before Thy sight are the secret hearts of all the living. We stand in awe of Thy justice which, since the ages began, hath never changed: and we cling to Thy mercy that passeth not away._ _Almighty Father, Thou art a God afar off as well as nigh at hand. Thou who in times past didst pity the prayers of our forerunners, and especially of that suffering servant of Thine whom Thou hast made our Leader unto Thee! be pleased to strengthen us now, O Lord, to bear our lighter cross and surrender ourselves for duty and for trial unto Thee. Show us something of the blessed peace with which they now look back on their days of strong crying and tears, and teach us that it is far better to die in Thy service than to live for our own. Rebuke within us all immoderate desires, all unquiet temper, all presumptuous expectations, all ignoble self-indulgence, and feeling on us the embrace of Thy Fatherly hand, may we meekly and with courage go into the darkest ways of our pilgrimage, anxious not to change Thy perfect will, but only to do and bear it worthily. May we spend all our days in Thy presence, and meet our death in the strength of Thy grace, and pass thence into the nearer light of Thy knowledge and love. Amen._--John Hunter. COMMENT FOR THE WEEK I So far in our studies we have been dealing with the individual believer in his search for a reasonable faith. But we must face at last what from the beginning has been true, that there is no such thing as an individual believer. _All faiths are social._ However little we may be aware of each other's influence, however intangible the social forces which shape the convictions by which we live, no man builds or keeps his faiths alone. We may pride ourselves on our independent thought, but the fact remains as Prof. William James has stated it: "Our faith is faith in some one else's faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case." The realm of religious conviction is not the only place where we hold with a strong sense of personal possession what has been given us by others, and often forget to acknowledge our indebtedness. We believe in democracy and popular education, not because by some gift of individual genius we are wiser than our unbelieving sires, but because, in the advance of the race, that faith has been wrought out by many minds, and, with minute addition of our own thought, we share the general conviction. As a man considers how rich and varied are the faiths he holds, how few of them he ever has thought through or ever can, and how helpless he would be, if he were set from the beginning to create any one of them, he gains new insight into Paul's words, "What hast thou that thou didst not receive? but if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?" (I Cor. 4:7). Indeed, this same truth holds in every relationship. Nothing is more impossible than a "self-made man." In no realm can that common phrase be intelligently applied to anyone. If in business one has risen from poverty to wealth, he has used railroads that he did not invent and telephones that he does not even understand; he has built his business on a credit system for which he did not labor and whose moral basis has been laid in the ethical struggles of unnumbered generations. For the clothes he wears, the food he eats, the education he receives, he is debtor to a social life that taps the ends of the earth and that has cost blood not his and money which he never can repay. If granting this, a man still say, "My power and the might of my hand hath gotten me this wealth" (Deut. 8:17), he may well consider whence his power has come. His distant ancestors stalked through primeval forests, their brows sloped back, their hairy hides barren of clothes, and in their hands stone hatchets, by the aid of which they sought their food. What has this Twentieth Century boaster done to change the habits of the Stone Age to the civilization on which his wealth is based or to elevate man's intellect to the grasp and foresight of the modern business world? All the power by which he wins his way is clearly a social gift, and any contribution which he may add is infinitesimal compared with his receipts. By this truth all declarations of individual independence need to be chastened and controlled and all boasting cancelled utterly. Normal minds have their times of self-assertion in religion, when they grow impatient of believing anything simply because they have been told. As a college Junior put it: "I must clear the universe of God, and then start in at the beginning to see what I can find." But to assert a reasonable independence ought not to mean that one cut himself off from the support of history, the accumulated experience of the race, the insight of the seers, and in unassisted isolation walk, like Kipling's cat, "by his wild lone." No man can do that anywhere and still succeed. Imagine a man, in politics, dubious of his old affiliations and disturbed by the conflicting opinions of his day. If, so perplexed, he should throw over all that ever had been thought or done in civic life, and in an unaided individual adventure attempt out of his own mind to constitute a state, in what utter confusion would he land! No mind can begin work as though it were the first mind that ever acted, or were the only mind in action now. All effective thinking is social; contributions from innumerable heads pour in to make a wise man's knowledge. And to suppose that any man can climb the steep ascent of heaven all alone and lay his hands comprehensively on the Eternal is preposterous. No one ever apprehended a science so, much less God! Even Jesus fed his soul on the prophets of his race. II Indeed, Jesus' attitude toward the fellowship of faith is most revealing, seen against the background of his nation's history. In the beginning, there was in Israel no such thing as individual religion. In the earliest strata of the Bible's revelation, we find no indication of a faith that brought God and each of his people into intimate relationships. Jehovah was the God of the nation as a whole and not of the people one by one. When he spoke, he spoke to the community through a leader; "Speak thou with us and we will hear," the people cried to Moses, "but let not God speak with us lest we die" (Exodus 20:19). It was at the time of the Exile, when the nation fell in ruins, and the hearts of faithful Jews were thrown back one by one on God that individual trust, peace, joy, and confidence found utterance. It was Jeremiah (Chap. 31) and Ezekiel (Chap. 18) who saw men individually responsible to God, and who opened the way for loyal Jews to be his people even when the nation was no more. And what they began Jesus completed. He lifted up the individual and made each man the object of the Father's care. "It is not the will of your Father ... that _one_ of these little ones should perish" (Matt 18:14). "What man of you, having a hundred sheep, and having lost _one_ of them ..." (Luke 15:4). "The very hairs of your head are all numbered" (Matt. 10:30). As for religion's inner meaning, it became in Jesus' Gospel not a national ritual but a private faith: "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thine inner chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father who is in secret" (Matt. 6:6). While Jesus, however, so emphasized the inward, individual aspects of religion, he did not leave it there, as though persons could ever be like jugs in the rain, separate receptacles that share neither their emptiness nor their abundance. He bound his disciples into a fellowship. He joined their channels until, like interflowing streams, one contributed to all and the spirit of all was expressed in each. He braided them into friendship with himself and with each other, so close that the community did what no isolated believer ever could have done--it survived the shock of the crucifixion, the agony of sustained persecution, the frailties of its members, and the discouragements of its campaign. On that _group_ the Master counted for his work: "The gates of Hades shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18). And when the New Testament Church emerged, the fellowship which Christ himself had breathed into it was clear and strong. Men who became Christians, in the New Testament, came into a new relationship with God indeed, but into a new human fraternity as well. They were "builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit" (Eph. 2:22), and even when death came that fellowship was not destroyed. They were still "the whole family in heaven and on earth" (Eph. 3:15). John Wesley was right: "The Bible knows nothing of a solitary religion." In the Old Testament religion was predominantly national; in the New Testament, individuals rejoicing in the "Beloved Community" could not describe their life without the reiteration of "one another." They were to "pray one for another" and "confess sins one to another" (James 5:16); they were to "love one another" (I Pet 1:22), "exhort one another" (Heb. 3:13), "comfort one another" (I Thess. 4:18); they were to "bear one another's burdens" (Gal. 6:2) and in communal worship "admonish one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" (Col. 3:16). So when they thought of their faith, they never held it in solitary confidence; they were "strong to apprehend _with all the saints_ what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge" (Eph. 3:18). III When a modern believer endeavors to interpret this spirit in the New Testament in terms of his own wants, he sees at once that he needs fellowship for the _enriching_ of his faith. Cooperation for achievement is a modern commonplace, but when Paul prayed, as we have quoted him, that the Ephesians might be "strong to _apprehend_ with all the saints," he was stating the more uncommon proposition that men must cooperate for knowledge. He saw the divine love in its length, breadth, depth, and height on one side, and on the other a solitary man endeavoring to understand it. Impossible! said Paul; the divine love in its fulness cannot be known in solitude, it must be apprehended in fellowship. At first nothing seems more strictly individual than knowledge. To know is an intimate, personal affair; it cannot be carried on by proxy. But even casual thought at once makes clear that in solitude we cannot know even the physical universe. No man can go apart and through the narrow aperture of his own mind see the full round of truth. For astronomers study the stars, geologists the rocks, chemists know their special field and physicists know theirs; each scientist understands in part, and if one is to know the breadth and length and height and depth of the physical world he must be strong to apprehend with all the scientists. In religion this necessity of cooperation in knowing God may not at first seem evident. In the secret session behind closed doors, as Jesus said, one finds his clearest thought of God, and in the individual heart the divine illumination comes. So some insist; and the answer does not deny, but surpasses the truth in the insistence. _Is yours the only heart where God is to be found? Does the sea of his grace exhaust itself in what it can reveal in your bay?_ Rather, in how many different ways men come to God, how various their experiences of him, and how much each needs the rest for breadth and catholicity of view! One man comes to God by way of intellectual perplexity and he knows chiefly faith's illumination of life's puzzling problems; another comes through the experience of sin and he responds to such a phrase as "God our Saviour" (I Tim. 1:1); another comes to God through trouble and has found in faith "eternal comfort and good hope through grace" (II Thess. 2:16); and another by way of a happy life has found in God the object of devoted gratitude. One, a mystic, finds God in solitary prayer; another, a worker, knows him chiefly as the Divine Ally. Some are very young and have a child's religion; some are at the summit of their years and have a strong man's achieving faith; and some are old and are familiar with the face of death and the thought of the eternal. How multiform is man's experience of God! Some compositions cannot be interpreted by a solo. Let the first violinist play with what skill he can, he alone is not adequate to the endeavor. There must be an orchestra; the oboes and viols, the drums and trumpets, the violins and cellos must all be there. So faith in God is too rich and manifold to be interpreted by individuals alone; a fellowship is necessary. Even Paul, in one of his most gloriously mixed-up and yet revealing sentences, prays for fellowship that his faith may be enriched: "I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established; that is, that I with you may be comforted in you, each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine" (Rom. 1:11, 12). Poverty of faith, therefore, is not due only to individual lapses of character and perplexities of mind; _it is due to neglect of Christian fellowship_. One who with difficulty has clung to his slender experience of God, goes up to the church on Sunday. Even though it be a humble place of prayer, if the worship is genuine, the hymns, the prayers, the Scriptures gather up the testimony of centuries to the reality of God. Here David speaks again and Isaiah answers; here Paul reaffirms his faith and John is confident that God is love. Here the saints before Christ cry, "Jehovah is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer" (Psalm 18:2), and the sixteenth century answers, "A mighty fortress is our God"; and the nineteenth century replies, "How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord!" We go up to the church finding it hard to sing, "_My_ Jesus, _I_ love thee, _I_ know thou art _mine_"; we go down with a _Te Deum_ in our hearts: "The glorious company of the apostles praise thee; The goodly fellowship of the prophets praise thee; The noble army of martyrs praise thee; The holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge thee." In the rich and varied faiths of the Church we find a far more fruitful relationship with God than by ourselves we ever could have gained. Without such an enriching experience men can only with difficulty keep faith alive. Twigs that snap out of the camp-fire lose their flame and fall, charred sticks; but put them back and they will burn again, for fire springs from fellowship. Amiel, after an evening of solitude with a favorite book on philosophy, wrote what is many a Christian's prayer: "Still I miss something--common worship, a positive religion, shared with other people. Ah! when will the church to which I belong in heart rise into being? I cannot, like Scherer, content myself with being in the right all alone. I must have a less solitary Christianity." IV Men need fellowship, not only for the enrichment of their faith, but for its _stability_. No man can successfully believe anything all alone. Let an opinion in any realm be denied, despised, neglected by common consent of men, and not easily do we hold an unshaken conviction of its truth. But let it be agreed with, supported and endorsed by many, especially by men of insight, and with each additional testimony to its truth our faith grows confident. A fundamental experience of man is that his faiths are socially confirmed. Authority of some sort, therefore, never is outgrown in any province of knowledge, and strugglers after faith have solid right to the sustenance which it can give. For one thing the authority of the _expert_ is acknowledged everywhere. When a great astronomer speaks about the stars, most of us put our hands upon our mouths and humble ourselves to listen. If in science, expert knowledge has this authority--not artificial, infallible, and externally enforced, but vital, serviceable, and real--how much more in realms where insight and spiritual quality are indispensable! Such authority comes in the spirit of Paul: "Not that we have lordship over your faith, but are helpers of your joy" (II Cor. 1:24). An amateur stands before a picture like Turner's "The Building of Carthage" and either does not notice the details, or noticing sees no special meaning there. But when Ruskin, Turner's seer, begins to speak--how wonderful the children in the foreground sailing toy boats in a pool, prophecy of Carthage's future greatness on the sea!--one by one the details take fire and glow with meaning as our eyes are opened. Such is the service of a real authority. It does not, as Weigel says, put out a person's eye and then try to persuade him to see with some one else's. It rather cures our blindness and enables us to see what by ourselves we were incapable of seeing. Christ supremely, when allowed to be himself, has helped men thus. He has not oppressed the mind with burdensome authority, denying us our right to think. He has come appealing to our little insight with his own clear vision, "Why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?" (Luke 12:57). Things which we see dimly he has clarified; things which we did not see at all, he has made manifest. He has been what he called himself, the Light, and his people have said of him what the man in John's ninth chapter said, "He opened mine eyes" (John 9:30). A struggler after faith may well count among his assets the insight of the seers and of the Seer. As another states it: "Our weak faith may at times be permitted to look through the eyes of some strong soul, and may thereby gain a sense of the certainty of spiritual things which before we had not." Beside the authority of the seers, there is _the authority of racial experience_, to which indeed no mind ought slavishly to subject itself, but from which all minds ought to gain insight and confidence. Tradition has done us much disservice. Oppressions that might long before have been outgrown have been counted holy because they were hoary. There must be something to commend an opinion or a custom beside its age, and all progress depends upon recognizing that "Time makes ancient good uncouth." But if out of the past have come evils to be overthrown, out of the past also have come the best possessions of the race. "Traditional" has grown to be an adjective of ill repute; it signifies in common parlance the inheritance of oppressive ideals and institutions that hold the "dead hand" over hopes of progress. But our best music also, our poetry, and our art are traditional; the discoveries of our scientists on the long road from alchemy to chemistry, from magic to physics are traditional; all that each new generation begins with, fitted out like the well-favored child of a provident father, is traditional. No one can describe the utter barrenness of life, if we could not build on the accumulations of our sires, using the result of their toil as the basis of our work, their hardly won wisdom as our guide. To discount anything because it is traditional is to discount everything, except that comparatively minute addition which each new generation makes to the slowly accumulating wisdom and wealth of the race. As Mr. Chesterton has put it: "Tradition may be defined as the extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man's opinion, even if he is our father." Now racial experience is dubious at many points and at very few does it approach finality. But on one matter it speaks with a unanimity that is nothing short of absolute. _Man cannot live without religion_--like the earth beneath the mountain peaks this universal experience of the race underlies the special insights of the seers. When during the mid-Victorian discomfiture of faith at the first disclosures of the new science, Tennyson's "In Memoriam" appeared, Prof. Sidgwick wrote of it, "What 'In Memoriam' did for us, for me at least in this struggle, was to impress on us the ineffable and irradicable conviction that _humanity_ will not and cannot acquiesce in a godless world." That conviction is confirmed by the whole experience of the race. To be sure religion, like love, exists in all degrees. From degraded lust to the relationship of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, love is infinite in variety; it takes its quality from the character of those whom it affects; yet through all its changes it is itself so built into the structure of mankind, that though there be loveless individuals, life as a whole is unimaginable without it. So religion runs the gamut of human quality. In a Hindu idolater it performs disgusting rites to placate an angry god, and in Rabindranath Tagore it cries: "If thou speakest not I will fill my heart with thy silence and endure it. I will keep still and wait like the night with starry vigil and its head bent low with patience. The morning will surely come, the darkness will vanish, and thy voice pour down in golden streams, breaking through the sky." In Torquemada it is cruel; in Father Damien it becomes a passion for saviorhood. Religion helped Sennacherib to his campaigns and Isaiah to his prophecies; it preached the Sermon on the Mount and it dragged Jesus before Pilate. Can the same spring send forth sweet water and bitter? But religion does it, for religion is life motived by visions of God; it is tremendous in strength, but with man's unequal power to understand the Divine, it is ambiguous in quality. Like electricity, it is magnificent in blessing or terrible in curse. Yet through all its degrees man's relationship with the Invisible is so essentially a part of his humanity that lacking it he has never yet been discovered, and without it he cannot be conceived. It was this impressive witness of racial experience that made John Fiske, of Harvard, say, "Of all the implications of the doctrine of evolution with regard to man, I believe the very deepest and strongest to be that which asserts the Everlasting Reality of Religion." This testimony of the spiritual seers and this cumulative experience of the race have a right to play a weighty part in any consideration of religious faith. Even a rebellious youth might pause before he scoffs at a mature and thoughtful mind, letting his Church, his Scripture, and his Christ speak impressively to him about the reality of God. What we all do in every other realm, when we are wise, this mind is doing in religion. His individual grasp on truth he sets in the perspective of history. He does not feel himself upon a lonely quest when he seeks God; rather he feels behind him and around him the race of which he is a part and which never yet has ceased to believe in the Divine, and he sees his own insights illumined by those supreme spirits who have talked with God "as a man talketh with his friend." He knows as well as any youth that authority has been stereotyped in theories of artificial infallibility, to which no mature mind for a moment can weakly surrender its right to think, but he refuses to give up a real authority because some have held a false one. The authority of the dictionary is one thing--literal and external. But the authority of a good mother moves on a different plane. It is not artificial and oppressive. It is vital and inspiring. She has lived longer, experienced more than her children; she is wiser, better, more discerning than they. A man who has had experience of great motherhood comes to feel that if his mother thinks something very strongly and very persistently, he would better consider that thing well, for the chances are overwhelming that there is truth in it. How much more shall he feel so about the age-long experience of the saints with God! In this respect at least there still is truth in Cyprian's words, "He that hath God for his Father, hath the Church for his Mother." V Faith needs fellowship not alone for enrichment and stability, but for _expression_. For faith, as from the beginning we have maintained, is not an effortless acceptance of ideas or personal relationships; it is an active appropriation of convictions that drive life, and Christian faith especially has always involved a campaign whose object is the saving of the world. Such an expression of religious life involves cooperation; men cannot effectively support the "work of faith" (I Thess. 1:3) apart from fellowship. The necessity for this cooperative expression of religion is clear when we consider the _one in whom we believe_. How anyone can expect in solitude to believe in Christ is a mystery. For Christ, with overflowing love to those who shared his filial fellowship with God, said, "No longer do I call you servants ... I have called you friends" (John 15:15); his care encompassed folk who never heard of him and whom he never saw, "Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring ... and they shall become one flock, one shepherd" (John 10:16); and beyond his generation's life his love reached out to followers yet unborn, "Them also that believe on me through their word" (John 17:20). Whatever other quality a movement sprung from such a source may possess, it must be social. Moreover, Jesus' faith was active; the meaning of it he himself disclosed, "All things are possible to him that believeth" (Mark 9:23). In such a spirit, both by himself and through his followers, he sought the lost, healed the sick, preached the Gospel, and expectantly proclaimed an earth transformed to heaven. Such a character cannot be known in contemplation under the trees in June or through the pages of an interesting book. If Garibaldi, leading his men to the liberation of Italy, had found a devotee who said, I believe in you; I love to read your deeds, and often in my solitary, meditative hours I am cheered by the thought of you--one can easily imagine the swift and penetrating answer! That you believe in me is false; no one believes in me who does not share my purpose; the army is afoot, great business is ahead, the cause is calling, he who believes follows. Such a spirit was Christ's. The hermits, whether of old time in their cells, or of modern time with their unaffiliated lives, are wrong. _The final test of faith in Christ is fellowship in work._ The Church itself has been to blame for much undedicated faith. Correctness of opinion has been substituted, as a test, for fidelity of life. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved," has been interpreted to mean: accept a theory about Christ's person and all is well. But one need only go back in imagination to the time when first that formula was used to see how vital was its import. To believe in Christ then meant to accept a despised religion, to break ties that men value more than life, to face the certainty of contempt and the risk of violence. To believe in Christ then meant coming out from old relationships and going to a sect where one was pilloried with derision, that one might work for the things which Christ represents. No one did that as a theory; it required a tremendous thrust of the will, a decision that reached to the roots of life. All this was involved in believing on Christ, and our decent holding of a theory about him, in a time when all lips praise him, is a poor substitute for such vital faith. John tells us that once a multitude of Jews professed belief in Jesus, but the Master, hearing their affirmations, saw the superficial meaning there. "Many believed on his name," says John--"but Jesus did not trust himself unto them" (John 2:23, 24). How many believe in Christ in such a way that he cannot believe in them! They forget that while the test of a man is his faith, the test of faith is faithfulness. An apostolic injunction needs modern enforcement, "that they who have believed God may be careful to maintain good works" (Titus 3:8). The necessity for a cooperative expression of religion is evident again in the _truth which we believe_. Take in its simplest form the Gospel which Christianity presents, that God is in earnest about personality, and what urgency is there for associated work! For personality is being ruined in this world. False ideas of life, idolatry whether to fetishes in Africa or to money here, irreligion in all its manifold and blighting forms, are destroying personality from within, and from without sweatshops, tenements, war, the liquor traffic, industrial inequity, are engaged in the same task of ruin. The common contrast between individual and social Christianity is superficial. The one thing for which the Christian cares is personal life, and in its culture and salvation he sees the aim of God and Godlike men. Whatever, therefore, affects _that_ is his concern, and what is there that does not affect it? What men believe about life's meaning and its destiny strikes to the core of personal life, and the houses in which men live, the conditions under which they work, the wages that they are paid, and the environments which surround their plastic childhood--these, too, mould for good or ill the fortunes of personality. The Christian, therefore, who intelligently holds the faith that he professes cannot be negligent either of evangelism, education, and missionary enterprise upon the one side, or of social reformation on the other. These are two ends of the tunnel by which the Gospel seeks to open out a way for personality to find its freedom. A man who says that he believes in Jesus Christ, and yet is complacent about child labor and commercialized vice, poor housing conditions and unjust wages, the trade in liquor and the butchery of men in war, stands in peril of hearing the twenty-third chapter of Matthew's gospel brought up to date for his especial benefit by the same lips that spoke it first. The indignation of the Master falls on priests and Levites who, speeding to the temple service, "pass by on the other side" the victims of social injury. Isolated Christians, however, cannot further this campaign for personality redeemed from inward ills and outward handicaps. _Evil is organized, and goodness must be, too._ As wisely would a single patriot shoulder a rifle and set out for France as would an unaffiliated Christian set his solitary strength against the massed evil of the world. Men increase effectiveness by a large per cent through fellowship, as ancient Hebrews saw: "Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand" (Lev. 26:8). VI Many secondary fellowships offer to a Christian opportunity for associated service; no cooperative endeavor to make this a better world for God to rear his children in should lack Christian sympathy and support. But the primary fellowship of Christians is the Church. Some indeed would have no church; they would have man's spiritual life a disembodied wraith, without "a local habitation and a name." But no other one of all man's finer interests has survived without organized expression. Justice is a great ideal; any endeavor to incarnate it in human institutions sullies its purity. One who dwelt only on the lofty nature of justice, who thought of it uncontaminated and ideal, might protest against its embodiment in the tawdry ritual and demeaning squabbles of a law court. Between the poetry of justice and the recriminations of lawyers, the perjury of witnesses, the fumbling uncertainty of evidence, the miscarriages of equity, how bitterly a scornful mind could point the contrast! But a reverent mind, sorry as it may be at the misrepresentation of the ideal in the human institution, is ill content with scorn. He who with insight reads the history of jurisprudence, perceives how the courts of law, with all their faults, have conserved the gains in social equity, have propagated the ideal for which they stand, have made progress sometimes slowly, sometimes with a rush like soldiers storming a redoubt, and in times of stress have been a bulwark against the invasion of the people's rights. The poetry of justice would have been an idle dream without equity's laborious embodiment in codes and courts. Some minds dwell with joy upon the spiritual Church. Its names are written on no earthly roster, but in the Book of Life; its worship is offered in no earthly temple, but in the trysting places where soul meets Over-soul in trustful fellowship; its baptism is not with water but with spirit, its eucharist not with bread but with the shared life of the Lord. Or, ranging out to think of the Church as an ideal human brotherhood men dream as Manson did in "The Servant in the House": "If you have eyes, you will presently see the church itself--a looming mystery of many shapes and shadows, leaping sheer from floor to dome. The work of no ordinary builder!... The pillars of it go up like the brawny trunks of heroes: the sweet human flesh of men and women is moulded about its bulwarks, strong, impregnable: the faces of little children laugh out from every corner-stone: the terrible spans and arches of it are the joined hands of comrades; and up in the heights and spaces there are inscribed the numberless musings of all the dreamers of the world. It is yet building--building and built upon. Sometimes the work goes forward in deep darkness: sometimes in blinding light: now beneath the burden of unutterable anguish: now to the tune of a great laughter and heroic shoutings like the cry of thunder. Sometimes, in the silence of the night-time, one may hear the tiny hammerings of the comrades at work up in the dome--the comrades that have climbed ahead." All such ideals, like pillars of fire and cloud, lead the march toward a promised land. They are to the actual Church what the poetry of justice is to the actual courts. But in one case as in the other, such ideals are dreams if, with labor and struggle, through many mistakes, against the disheartenment of man's frailty and sin, we do not work out an institution that shall embody and express man's spiritual life. Even now a discerning spirit whose own faith has been nourished at the altar regards the Church with boundless gratitude. She has indeed been to the Gospel what courts are to justice, indispensable and yet burdensome, an institution that the ideal cannot live without and yet often cannot easily live with. No one feels her faults so acutely as one who devotedly values the Gospel and longs for its adequate expression on the earth. Yet the Church conserves the race's spiritual gains, fits out our youth with the treasure of man's accumulated faith, is a power house of endless moral energy for good causes in the world, exalts the ideal aims of life amid the crushing pressure of material pursuits, holds out a gospel of hope to men whom all others have forsaken, and to the ends of the earth proclaims the good pews of God and the Kingdom. No other fellowship offers to men of faith so great an opportunity to make distinctive contribution to the race's spiritual life. In the presence of the Church's service and the Church's need an unaffiliated believer in Jesus Christ is an anomaly. For enrichment, stability, and expression, faith must have fellowship. _"Oh magnify Jehovah with me, and let us exalt His name together"_ (Psalm 34:3). SCRIPTURE PASSAGES USED IN THE DAILY READINGS EXODUS 3:1-5 (VI-5); 4:24-26 (II-4). DEUTERONOMY 28:65-67 (VIII-2). II KINGS 21:3-6 (IV-5). JOB 30:20, 21, 25-27 (X-4); 37:23 (V-3); 38:31-38 (VII-1). PSALMS 16:5-11 (III-5); 23:1-4 (X-3); 27:1-6 (VIII-5); 27:7-14 (V-7); 51:1-4 (III-3); 55:1-7 (VIII-1); 56:1-3 (VIII-3); 73:2, 3, 16, 17, 24-26 (II-6); 103:1-5 (III-2); 118:1-6 (VIII-7); 145:1-10 (III-7); 146:1-5 (IV-1). PROVERBS 2:1-5 (II-3); 4:1-9 (II-2). ECCLESIASTES 3:11 (V-3). ISAIAH 1:10-17 (IV-2); 40:26-31 (V-4); 51:9-16 (VI-6); 55:1-3 (II-7). AMOS 5:21-24 (IX-4). MICAH 6:1-8 (IX-3). MATTHEW 6:6-14 (III-1); 6:9-15 (XII-5); 6:24-33 (VI-6); 7:15-20 (V-6); 7:24-27 (VI-7); 13:54-58 (XI-3); 17:19-20 (XI-4); 18:12-14 (II-4); 21:28-31 (X-1); 23:13-15, 23, 24 (XII-1); 25:34-40 (IX-7). MARK 12:28-30 (V-1). LUKE 6:12-16 (IX-2); 7:48-50 (XI-2); 18:9-14 (IV-3); 22:31, 32 (XI-6). JOHN 3:21 (IX-5); 4:23, 24 (IV-5); 6:16, 17 (IX-5); 6:27-29 (XI-1); 7:16, 17 (IX-5); 14:25-27 (VII-2); 17:20-23 (XII-6). ACTS 17:22-28 (IV-6). ROMANS 8:1-6 (X-7); 8:14-16 (V-5); 8:24, 25 (III-4); 10:11-15 (XII-4); 11:33, 34 (V-3); 11:33-12:2 (IX-6); 15:13 (III-4); 16:1-8 (IX-1). I CORINTHIANS 2:10-14 (VII-4); 3:4-9 (III-6); 3:18-23 (VII-6); 4:11-13 (VI-2). II CORINTHIANS 5:5 (V-2). GALATIANS 2:20 (XI-5); 5:13-15 (XII-3); 5:16-23 (IV-7). EPHESIANS 1:15-19 (VII-5); 4:13-15 (X-5). PHILIPPIANS 3:12-16 (X-6). I THESSALONIANS 3:1, 2, 10 (XI-6); 5:21 (V-1). II THESSALONIANS 1:3 (XI-6). I TIMOTHY 6:20, 21 (II-5). II TIMOTHY 1:3-5 (II-1); 4:6-8 (XII-7). HEBREWS 1:1, 2 (VII-7); 2:8-10 (VI-3); 4:1, 2, (I-6); 10:23-25 (XII-2); 10:32-36 (I-4); 11:1 (I-1); 11:3, 6 (I-5); 11:8-10 (I-2); 11:13-16 (I-1); 11:24-27 (I-2); 11:32-40 (I-3); 12:1-3 (VI-4); 13:7 (I-7). JAMES 1:2-8 (X-2); 2:14-21 (IV-4); 5:13-16 (VIII-4). I PETER 1:3-9 (XI-7); 4:12-16, 19 (VI-1). II PETER 1:5 (V-1). JUDE 20-25 (VII-3). SOURCES OF PRAYERS USED IN THE DAILY READINGS ALFRED, KING--IX-3, "A Chain of Prayer Across the Ages," by S. F. Fox. ANSELM, ST.--XI-6. "A Chain of Prayer Across the Ages," by S. F. Fox. ARNDT, JOHANN--IX-1; X-1. "A Chain of Prayer Across the Ages," by S. F. Fox. ARNOLD, THOMAS--VII-5. "A Chain of Prayer Across the Ages," by S. F. Fox. BACON, FRANCIS--VII-2. "A Chain of Prayer Across the Ages," by S. F. Fox. BEECHER, HENRY WARD--I-4; I-7; II-7; III-5; III-7; IV-7; V-7; VI-6; X-5. "A Book of Public Prayer." BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER--XII-6. DAWSON, GEORGE--X-4. "A Chain of Prayer Across the Ages," by S. F. Fox. HALE, SIR MATTHEW--VII-4. "A Chain of Prayer Across the Ages," by S. F. Fox. HUNTER, JOHN--I-1; IV-5; XI-2; XI-3; XII-7. "Devotional Services for Public Worship." JENKS, BENJAMIN--X-2. "A Chain of Prayer Across the Ages," by S. F. Fox. MCCOMB, SAMUEL--I-6; II-1; III-1; VI-3; VIII-1; VIII-2; VIII-3; VIII-5; VIII-6; VIII-7; IX-2; XI-1; XII-2; XII-4. "A Book of Prayers for Public and Personal Use." MARTINEAU, JAMES--III-4; IV-4; V-2; VI-2; XII-1. "Prayers in the Congregation and in College." NEWMAN, FRANCIS W.--VI-1; VI-7. "A Chain of Prayer Across the Ages," by S. F. Fox. ORCHARD, W. E.--I-2; I-3; II-2; II-3; II-4; II-5; II-6; III-2; IV-3; IV-6; V-1; V-3; V-6; VI-5; VII-1; VII-3; VII-7; VIII-4; IX-5; X-7; XI-5; XI-7. "The Temple." PARKER, THEODORE--I-5; V-4; V-5; VI-4; VII-6; X-6. "Prayers." RAUSCHENBUSCH, WALTER--III-6; IV-1; IV-2; IX-4; IX-6; XII-3; XII-5. "Prayers of the Social Awakening." ROBINSON, HELEN RING--XI-4. "Thy Kingdom Come," by Ralph E. Diffendorfer. SHAFTESBURY, EARL OF--IX-7. "A Chain of Prayer Across the Ages," by S. F. Fox. STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS--III-3. "Prayers Written at Vailima." VAN DYKE, HENRY--IV-6. "Thy Kingdom Come," by Ralph E. Diffendorfer. WEISS, S.--X-3. "A Chain of Prayer Across the Ages," by S. F. Fox.