RUTIt 
 
 BERG EN'S 
 
 LIMITATIONS
 
 
 7
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 A Modern 
 Autoda-Fe 
 
 MARION HARLAND 
 
 New York Chicago Toronto 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company 
 
 M DCCC XCVII
 
 Copyright, 1897, 
 
 BY 
 FLBMIKG H. REVELL. COMPANY
 
 Contents 
 
 CHAP. PAQE 
 
 i. AN OLD-FAITH GIRL .... 9 
 
 n. " WOOD, HAY, STUBBLE " . . . 37 
 
 in. LOCUST-BLOOMS AND HIGHER CRITICISM, 64 
 
 iv. "DYING, SIR! DYING I " ... 99 
 
 2138572
 
 Prologue 
 
 I, who write this true story, am neither 
 theologian nor logician. Therefore I have 
 no disposition to lend an officious laical fin- 
 ger to the composition of the lordly dish to 
 be set presently before King Public by theo- 
 logical pundits and logical critics. 
 
 Nor do 1 obtrude the subject of my story, 
 who was in no wise a heroine upon the 
 notice of my reader, as a type of a class, 
 large or limited. This is biography, not fic- 
 tion. The obligation to write it is laid upon 
 me by a great compassion which I cannot re- 
 sist. If a lesson goes with the telling, it is 
 for those who read to find and to apply it. 
 
 New York> 1891. MARION HARLAND.
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 AN OLD-FAITH GIRL 
 
 IN Connecticut, New Jersey or Minnesota, 
 Briardale would have been a Borough. It 
 had outgrown the chrysalid of the hamlet 
 and the larva of the village without attain- 
 ing to the light and life of the town. Built 
 several miles back from the river and upon 
 a spur of a great railway, it could not be 
 commercial. Although cuddled by hills that 
 leap up into mountains just beyond the 
 township limits, it has nothing that would 
 make it a fashionable resort, unless accident 
 or the caprice of a millionaire or two were to 
 break up the order of nature and conserva- 
 tism a la Hollandaise. The oldest families 
 in the place lived in houses that were origi- 
 nally the objective points of extensive plan-
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 tations, then, as the population increased, of 
 farmsteads, becoming, at last, the residences 
 of burghers whose "grounds" meant orna- 
 mental lawns and kitchen gardens. 
 
 Garrett Bergen was a leading man in 
 Briardale. The woolen mills of Bergen & 
 Craig had contributed more than any other 
 single industry to the growth and prosperity 
 of the inland community. Mr. Bergen's 
 great-great-grandfather had held thousands 
 of acres between and upon these hills, as a 
 grant from the crown. His great-grandfather 
 had deeded for that purpose the land on 
 which the Reformed Dutch church of Briar- 
 dale was built. To his father's liberality was 
 due the fact that the commodious stone edi- 
 fice in which the congregation now wor- 
 shipped the GOD of their fathers, was the 
 handsomest church within a radius of twenty 
 miles from the green square in which it 
 stood. Garrett Bergen had held the office 
 of elder there for thirty years, and for 
 
 twenty had been Superintendent of the Sun- 
 10
 
 An Old-faith Girl 
 
 day School. His only living son was a lad 
 of ten, at the date of my chronicle, and he 
 had three married daughters. The fourth 
 and youngest girl, Ruth, was engaged at 
 eighteen, after an eight years' courtship, to 
 Robert Craig, the son of Mr. Bergen's 
 partner. Robert was then a senior in Rut- 
 gers College. After his graduation he en- 
 tered, at his own wish, an undenominational 
 Theological Seminary, within reasonable 
 visiting distance of his native place and his 
 betrothed. 
 
 The combination of the young peoples' 
 destinies was entirely acceptable to both 
 families. Elder Bergen and Deacon Craig 
 exchanged congratulations in gruff and 
 guarded fashion after the manner of men, 
 over business papers, upon the fact that 
 " family affairs seemed, on the whole, to be 
 shaping themselves very sensibly," and the 
 father of the inchoate divine returned thanks 
 at the family altar, and in the Thursday 
 
 evening prayer-meeting, that the GOD of 
 11
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 the Covenant was faithful to His promises to 
 those who put their trust in Him and 
 brought up their children in the nurture and 
 admonition of the Lord. It was an open 
 church-secret that Robert, Mr. Craig's eld- 
 est-born, was dedicated by his parents to the 
 work of the ministry while in the cradle, and 
 had narrowly escaped the name of Samuel. 
 
 Mrs. Craig discoursed, cheerfully and tear- 
 fully, of the auspicious betrothal to her most 
 intimate neighbor, Mrs. Bergen. 
 
 " It does seem as if none of us had ought 
 to doubt the leadings of Providence now 
 that my Robert is called to the ministry, and 
 your Ruth is going to be a minister's wife," 
 was the application of her " remarks." " If 
 ever a girl was cut out for that place in the 
 Lord's vineyard, it's her. They're a pair of 
 chosen vessels, there's no manner of doubt 
 of that, and foreordained for one another. 
 Such matches don't happen. They are the 
 Lord's work and marvellous in unbelieving 
 
 eyes." 
 
 12
 
 An Old-faith Girl 
 
 Ruth had no misgiving as to so much of 
 her future as depended upon Robert's ability 
 and intention to make her happy. She had 
 acknowledged this to him, many times and in 
 divers ways in reply to loverly questionings. 
 She said it, voluntarily, one Saturday even- 
 ing in May, when, as was his custom, he had 
 come home for the Sabbath. 
 
 To the betrothed couple was assigned the 
 back parlor on these hebdomadal visits. It 
 was a large, square, low-browed room, over- 
 looking the garden through the back win- 
 dows. The Bergens were not more pro- 
 vincial than their neighbors, and this apart- 
 ment was a fair sample of the best room in 
 the best houses of Briardale. In the pattern 
 of the carpet, blue and scarlet roses alter- 
 nated with fine impartiality and a' just disre- 
 gard of possibilities in the matter of natural 
 growth. The wall-paper had a great (and 
 expensive) deal of gilt in it ; the old ma- 
 hogany furniture rich and ripe with fullness 
 
 of years that had driven the color down into 
 13
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 the heart of the wood, where it gleamed as 
 though seen at the bottom of a tankard of 
 old port, had been re-covered last winter 
 with brocaded plush, selected by Mrs. Ber- 
 gen. The color just missed being carmine 
 because it came so near being magenta. It 
 put the mahogany hopelessly out of counte- 
 nance, but as Ruth was the only one of the 
 household who suspected this, little harm 
 was done. The square piano was bought 
 when Anneke, the eldest daughter, began 
 "to take music" thirty years ago. The 
 three tall glass shades on the mantel, the one 
 in the middle protecting a gilt clock, the 
 others match vases filled with artificial 
 flowers made by Charlotte, the second girl, 
 belonged to the same era. The portrait of 
 Cornelius Bergen, the founder of the family 
 in the New World, hung above the clock, 
 just below the ceiling ; that of the present 
 owner of the homestead and the likeness of 
 his wife, taken shortly after their marriage, 
 
 occupied the niches on each side of the 
 14
 
 An Old-faith Girl 
 
 chimney. Other pictures, large and small, 
 a couple of cheap landscapes in oil, a costly, 
 if time and toil were considered picture 
 of Hagar in the Wilderness, wrought in 
 colored silks by Garrett Bergen's mother ; an 
 engraving of Hope and Memory ; a litho- 
 graph of The Angelus, and various family 
 photographs were disposed between ceiling 
 and the chair-board below which the walls 
 were wainscoted. A mahogany bookcase 
 with small paned glass doors, stood between 
 the windows. The contents were mainly 
 historical, memoir-ial and religious. On the 
 shelf devoted to fiction were The Wide, Wide 
 World, Melbourne House, Pilgrim's Progress, 
 The Schoriberg- Gotta Family, Ester Reid, The 
 Prince of the House of David, Stepping 
 Heavenward and four of the Elsie Dinsmore 
 Series. 
 
 I describe this room and would convey a 
 whiff of the atmosphere in which Ruth Ber- 
 gen was born and had lived from babyhood, 
 
 because these tell for much in her character 
 15
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 and history. She had, it is true, spent two 
 terms in a New York school, but her home 
 while there was with a married sister whose 
 husband was in business in that city, and she 
 was in Briardale from Friday evening to 
 Monday morning of each week. Her Sun- 
 day School class was prominent on her list of 
 duties, and she preferred her pastor's sermons 
 to those of the " big preachers " of the metrop- 
 olis. She was esteemed a "rather pretty 
 girl " by her acquaintances. The qualifying 
 word would have seemed invidious to one 
 seeing her for the first time on this evening. 
 She was twenty-two years of age, with the 
 still unformed figure of a girl of fifteen. 
 Her chest was flat and her shoulders sloped 
 sharply from their junction with the neck. 
 The gown she wore remedied these defects 
 to the beholder's eye. She had made it her- 
 self and exultantly announced the fact to 
 her lover. All ministers were poor, accord- 
 ing to her showing or ought to be. Their 
 
 wives ought, assuredly, to study and to 
 16
 
 An Old-faith Girl 
 
 practice economy. She had taken lessons in 
 dressmaking privately, running down to New 
 York once a week for the purpose, for two 
 months and more. 
 
 "But I made this myself every stitch 
 and here at home. Even mother did not see 
 it until tea time this evening. Aren't you 
 just a little bit proud of me ? " she had said, 
 making a bewitching pretence of strutting 
 up and down the room, turning her head 
 over her shoulder to see how the back- 
 breadths hung, and picking at the fullness of 
 the upper parts of the sleeves with profes- 
 sional touches of her deft fingers. 
 
 The gown was of soft woolen stuff, creamy 
 white, and falling naturally into generous 
 folds in the skirt and in the full, round waist 
 girdled by a silken sash, also cream white, 
 with broad bows at the back. She looked 
 almost plump and undeniably graceful. A 
 bunch of cinnamon roses was in her corsage 
 and her cheeks had caught color from them. 
 
 She wound up the exhibition by a little 
 2 17
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 whirl upon her toes that came near being a 
 pirouette and which surprised her full skirt 
 into sinuous swirls, dipped dexterously un- 
 der the arm that would have caught her, 
 and was straightway as demure as a nun. 
 
 " That's enough of nonsense for one even- 
 ing," she declared with a resumption of her 
 habitual decorum and speaking like a matron 
 of twice her years. " Saturday evening, 
 too ! I am ashamed of us both. I think the 
 Spring weather has got into my head and 
 my heels." 
 
 Yet it was a good hour later when she 
 brought out her Bible and " Lesson Paper," 
 and asked Robert's assistance in preparing 
 for to-morrow's class. She looked grave, but 
 none the less happy Robert thought her 
 prettier than when the frolicsome mood had 
 possessed her, as she glanced up at him from 
 her low chair under the centre-table lamp. 
 Her hair was light chestnut and the semi-pir- 
 ouette had separated the natural waves into 
 
 fluffy rings. As Robert contemplated them 
 18
 
 An Old-faith Girl 
 
 from one particular point of view they had 
 a nimbus effect about the pure face. Her 
 gray eyes showed soft and clear under long 
 lashes. Her betrothed could not have re- 
 called if he had tried which he did not 
 think of doing a moment of his twenty-four 
 years of conscious existence in the which 
 he had been better satisfied with her, with 
 his lot in life and with himself, than he was 
 now. 
 
 Robert Craig's eyes were black and well- 
 rounded ; his hair and neat moustache were 
 likewise black; his fine teeth made a pleas- 
 ant gleam between red lips that parted 
 readily in smiling speech. He had an in- 
 telligent face and an easy address that made 
 him popular wherever he went. He loved 
 Ruth Bergen sincerely he would have said, 
 devotedly. He also loved his profession and 
 honestly meant to quit himself like a man in 
 it. His devotion to Robert Van W} - ck 
 Craig, who would be a " Reverend " in 
 
 thirteen months, and a D. D. in ten years, or 
 19
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 less, was above doubt as to genuineness and 
 degree. He was the first college-bred man 
 in the Craig family. That tells the whole 
 story to those who have made self-made men 
 and their kindred a study. 
 
 I like to think of Ruth as she looked and 
 behaved that evening. The sweet humility 
 and delicate spiciness of the old-fashioned 
 spring roses had affinity with the honesty of 
 belief and rectitude of purpose, the single- 
 ness of faith in her GOD, the loyalty to her 
 lover, the artlessness of happiness, that in- 
 formed her nature. These characteristics 
 were Herself. Beyond these, and a fair 
 share of sterling common sense inherited 
 from her father, there was little in her that 
 was not commonplace. Robert had enjoyed 
 her little outburst of girlish gayety to-night 
 the more because it was unusual. She was 
 uniformly cheerful and never morbid, but, as 
 he had often told her, in tender chiding, she 
 took life too seriously. Sometimes he named 
 
 her his " quaint little saint." Had she found 
 20
 
 An Old-faith Girl 
 
 and used the key to the " Little Green 
 Door " of Miss Wilkins's charming fantasy, 
 and walked, just as she was, into a New 
 England Puritan household of 1696, she 
 would have been comfortably at home. By 
 the time she was six years old she knew the 
 Apostles' Creed, the Golden Rule, the Ten 
 Commandments and the first sixteen verses 
 of the fifth chapter of Matthew. At ten, she 
 was awarded a prize Reference Bible an 
 Oxford Edition for reciting, without once 
 tripping or faltering, the whole of The 
 Shorter Catechism. This Bible she had 
 read through every year since that Anniver- 
 sary-Sabbath, never skipping one of the 
 Sons of Levi, or slurring over a chapiter of 
 molten brass or a moan of Lamentations. 
 Three chapters on each working day and 
 five on Sunday, brought her through at an 
 easy pace and invariably, on December 
 thirty-first. After saying her prayers that 
 night with especial fervency, she slipped the 
 
 ribbon bookmark with " GOD is LOVE," em- 
 21
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 broidered upon it, back to the first chapter 
 of Genesis, and fell to work upon it in good 
 heart on New Year's Day. She read one 
 sometimes two chapters before leaving her 
 room for the breakfast table. Perhaps it 
 would not be an actual sin to read a secular 
 sentence the first thing in the morning, but 
 she never did. She told Robert once, shyly, 
 of her feeling that even a few verses sancti- 
 fied the new day. It would be surprising, if 
 it were not natural, she added yet more 
 timidly like one who lifts a corner of the 
 cloth covering the sacramental board how 
 often the lesson for the morning was exactly 
 what she most needed. 
 
 Upon her sixteenth birthday a class was 
 assigned to her and she became a teacher in 
 the Sunday School in which she had sat as a 
 pupil from the day of her enrollment in the 
 Infant Department, a sedate little tot of 
 three. She was an active member of the 
 Society of Christian Endeavor no idle title 
 so far as she was concerned a King's 
 
 22
 
 An Old-faith Girl 
 
 Daughter who lived earnestly and meekly 
 up to her pledge to walk and to work " In 
 His Name." Happy, sincere and useful, she 
 found her sphere as wide and as high as she 
 could have desired. When Robert Craig 
 decided to enter the Theological Seminary, 
 she was almost terrified at thought of the 
 sacred eminence awaiting her as a pastor's 
 wife. For days thereafter, she went quietly 
 through her round of simple duties with a 
 look upon her young face that actually awed 
 her parents a look of tender joy, of pro- 
 found humility, of high resolve, she had no 
 words to express. It was like " Be it unto 
 me according to Thy word" 
 
 This was not her first excursion into the 
 realm indicated by the Lesson Paper dated 
 " May 16th" She was too conscientious to 
 scamp a religious duty. Her habit was to 
 make a note of such points as were not clear 
 to her, and to seek illumination from Robert 
 during his Saturday evening visit. 
 
 The lesson for the morrow, as she had 
 23
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 abundant cause to recollect forever, was the 
 twelfth chapter of Matthew, from the thirty- 
 eighth to the fiftieth verses inclusive. She 
 had consulted the Book of Jonah in obedi- 
 ence to marginal references, and appealed 
 to her betrothed for information as to the 
 city of Nineveh. His sketch of her history, 
 overthrow and antiquities, was hardly love- 
 talk, but the softly shining eyes rested ad- 
 miringly upon his face while the lecture was 
 in progress. When he ceased to speak, she 
 caught his hand and laid, first, her flushed 
 cheek, then a kiss, within the palm, in a 
 modest ecstasy of adoration. 
 
 " Oh ! " she sighed, rapturously. " How 
 much you know, and how good and hand- 
 some you are ! and I am afraid that I love 
 you better than I love my own soul." 
 
 Robert stooped to the tremulous lips and 
 patted her head benevolently and indul- 
 gently before deprecating the imputation 
 of milk-white saintliness which, for reasons 
 
 occult to the simpler sex, is no more flat- 
 24
 
 An Old-faith Girl 
 
 tering to men of his profession than to the 
 laity. 
 
 "That shows how little you know of 
 naughty human nature, my sweet. I am the 
 chief of sinners except in my love for the 
 dearest girl in the universe, who is a thou- 
 sand times too good for me, or for any other 
 coarse-fibred man." Holding her in the hol- 
 low of his left arm, he picked up the Bible 
 that had slidden to the floor from her lap. 
 
 " We will make an end of business before 
 talking of our own affairs. Leaving profane 
 for religious romance, have you any ques- 
 tions to ask about Jack-and-the-bean-stalk, 
 alias Jonah-and-the-gourd? " 
 
 Accustomed, as a divinity-student, to 
 handle Scripture as a carpenter takes hold 
 of plane and adze, he did not at once inter- 
 pret the shocked pallor of the upraised face. 
 
 " O, Robert I " 
 
 " What is it, dear ? " 
 
 " You startled me a little that's all ! I 
 
 know you didn't mean to say that. You 
 25
 
 Iluth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 would be the last person in the world to 
 speak lightly of GOD'S Word." 
 
 Robert pulled down the waistcoat that 
 already showed an inclination in cut toward 
 the strait-breasted vestment which would, 
 ere long, cover his consecrated heart. He 
 swallowed something he analyzed as a fool- 
 ish scruple, before replying. There was to 
 be a time in his future when he would recall 
 sensation and effort, and the memory would 
 salve remorse. 
 
 " You are right there, dear child when I 
 am assured that it is the Word of GOD." 
 
 " But the Bible is that, Robert ! " 
 
 Even then, or so he would fain have per- 
 suaded himself in that remorseful after-time 
 he would have let the matter drop, but 
 for a touch of prim severity in her tone and 
 look that irked his manly sense of superi- 
 ority to censure or schooling from his neo- 
 phyte. True, Ruth had not yet been told 
 that his thesis upon " The Authors of the 
 
 Alleged Prophecy of Isaiah," had been but 
 26
 
 An Old-faith Girl 
 
 yesterday commended by his Professor of 
 Biblical Theology as "thoughtful and sug- 
 gestive." Still, she knew him for her senior 
 in years, her master in mind and her pro- 
 spective husband. Furthermore, the chain 
 of thought-lightning reaching fast and far 
 as the wife of a man of advanced thought, 
 she must be lifted out of her limitations. 
 She was a dear girl and a sensible, or she 
 would not appreciate him so thoroughly. 
 But Briardale was a stunted twig of Chris- 
 tendom. The rocky ramparts and the Dutch 
 element in the settlement had kept from it 
 even the knowledge of the world's forward 
 march. The tone of the community was 
 essentially provincial and in nothing more 
 provincial and slow than in religion. Ruth 
 was capable of better things. He would edu- 
 cate her up to them. 
 
 All this was thought out so consecutively 
 and rapidly that, if his companion noted his 
 hesitation it went naturally with the tug to 
 his waistcoat which she had already observed 
 
 27
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 had one more button and showed less of his 
 shirt-front than had the garment discarded 
 for this. 
 
 "You refer to King James's version of 
 the, then, so-called Canon of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, dear child. It was translated three 
 hundred years ago 'out of the Original 
 sacred Tongues ' as the address to the ' most 
 dread Sovereign ' sets forth," opening her 
 Bible at the introductory pages " by learned 
 men of that time. The scholars of to-day 
 have more learning than they, and other 
 sources of knowledge ancient manuscripts 
 and the like of which those early transla- 
 tors were ignorant. So we are finding out 
 new things about the Bible every day." 
 
 He chose everyday modes of speech in con- 
 cession to her limitations. The alarmed gaze 
 of the gray eyes made him uncomfortable. 
 He must allay her fears before she could be 
 enlightened. 
 
 " Yes, Robert, dear, but they can't find 
 
 out that any part of it isn't true, because it 
 28
 
 An Old-faith Girl 
 
 is GOD'S Word. All the learned men in the 
 world can't do away with that." 
 
 He put his hand upon the fingers spread 
 over the open page. They were tense and 
 cold, and he felt that they pressed the book 
 hard. 
 
 " Little one ! let me tell you a story " - 
 playfully tender. " Once upon a time, 
 more than two thousand years ago a sibyl, 
 (that is a sort of prophetess, you know) 
 brought a book to the King of Rome and 
 offered to sell it to him at a large price. 
 When he refused to buy it she tore out a 
 handful of leaves, burned them before his 
 eyes, and went away. The next day she was 
 at court again and wanted the same price she 
 had asked before, although so many leaves 
 were gone. The king would not listen to 
 her. She burned another handful of leaves 
 and went her way. On the third day she 
 was there once more, demanding the same 
 price for what was left that she had asked 
 
 for the whole. Then, the king consulted the 
 29
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 wise men, the augurs. They told him that 
 he ought to have bought the book at the 
 woman's price in the first place, and, by all 
 means, to secure what was left. 
 
 "That is the fable of The Sibyl's Leaves. 
 Now, what is called The Higher Biblical 
 Criticism has done to the Bible what the 
 Sibyl did to that book, with one very im- 
 portant difference. It has torn out and 
 thrown aside doubtful and worthless matter, 
 burned away the dross from the pure gold of 
 Revelation, and claims for what is left the 
 same price, that is, the same tribute of rev- 
 erence and love, that used to be given to the 
 Old Bible." 
 
 If Robert Van Wyck Craig had ever had 
 misgivings as to the genuineness of his call 
 to preach, they would have been swept away 
 by the tide of complacent surprise that flowed 
 in, upon, and over him, Avith the delivery of 
 this little speech. The anecdote was an in- 
 spiration. So apt was it, so cogent and so 
 
 elegant in finish, that he docketed it mentally 
 30
 
 An Old-faith Girl 
 
 for future use. He experienced a fleeting 
 pang of regret that the inspiration had not 
 been " on time," that it might have been in- 
 corporated in his thesis. But there would 
 be other and finer opportunities, as there 
 would be other and finer audiences. He 
 was, next, aware of a distinct disappointment 
 that no glimmer of admiration relieved the 
 shocked pallor of which he began to be im- 
 patient. The tight, chilled fingers did not 
 yield themselves to his fondling. Indeed 
 their owner seemed not to be aware that 
 they were caressed. Her lips were lax when 
 she would have formed words, and she put 
 up her left hand to press them into steadi- 
 ness. 
 
 "They ought to be very sure what they 
 are doing," she said, in her commonplace 
 phraseology, but solemnly. " There ought 
 not to be any doubt whatever. It is an 
 awful thing to add to anything, or take away 
 from anything that is written in this Book. 
 
 You remember what St. John says of that 
 31
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 sin in the last chapter of Revelations. I 
 heard Dr. Van Saun say once that it seemed 
 as if, when the Spirit had dictated everything 
 else to St. John, He held the Book open for 
 a few moments longer on purpose to put that 
 warning there. 
 
 " If I had the wisdom of Solomon and the 
 learning of all the colleges and seminaries in 
 the world, I should not dare to leave out one 
 word. No ! not so much as the dotting of 
 an i or the crossing of a t. It would be like 
 laying your hand upon the Ark of the 
 Lord." 
 
 " My precious child ! " As the sense of 
 exasperation grew he studied to make his 
 address affectionate, as his mother used to 
 wrap his pill in scraped apple and bury his 
 powders in jam. " Do you know that all 
 that is rank superstition? that you are a 
 Bibliolater a blind worshiper of the Bible? 
 Instead of looking upon this " tapping the 
 cover "as a mere book paper, print and 
 
 binding, and nothing more in and of itself 
 32
 
 An Old-faith Girl 
 
 you throw a sort of halo about it, and handle 
 it as a Roman Catholic handles her crucifix 
 or her scapula. That is sheer folly, a Prot- 
 estant phase of idolatry that I am sorry to 
 say is encouraged, instead of rebuked, by 
 many preachers and Sunday School teachers, 
 especially in our branch of the Church." 
 
 Ruth was motionless. Pier downcast eyes 
 were upon the book in her lap. Her heart 
 beat hurriedly against her lover's enfolding 
 arm. Her features were cut out of sallow 
 marble. The effect was not becoming. He 
 had never surmised until now what the ob- 
 stinacy of an amiable woman might be like. 
 He must not lose his temper in the warmth 
 of the one-sided argument. He threw 
 another parallel forward, in judicial cheer- 
 fulness. 
 
 " Here, for example is this story of Jonah," 
 with a little laugh. " Poor Jonah ! Every- 
 body has a shy at him, and really the tale is 
 undignified enough to justify a joke. Schol- 
 ars have long been divided in opinion as to 
 3 33
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 whether it is a history, or a parable. It 
 seems most natural to regard the book as an 
 allegory, the materials for the narrative being 
 derived from the symbolical language em- 
 ployed by earlier prophets, chiefly that of 
 Jeremiah." 
 
 Involuntarily he made this a sustained 
 recitative, and Ruth gained the impression 
 that he quoted verbatim, doubtless from one 
 of the learned men aforesaid. 
 
 " If Jonah were a real personage and the 
 people of Nineveh were converted by his 
 preaching, that conversion can only have 
 been temporary, as may be clearly perceived 
 from what we read in the prophets concern- 
 ing the inhabitants of that city. In short " 
 relapsing into a colloquial vein " they 
 fell speedily and permanently from grace. 
 The best authorities now agree that the book 
 is a fiction and so absurd throughout that the 
 lovers of the winnowed Scriptures may re- 
 joice together that it is thrown out of the 
 canon. I, for one, prefer to class it with 
 
 34
 
 An Old-faith Girl 
 
 Jack-and-the-bean-stalk rather than insult 
 the intelligence of educated Christians by in- 
 sisting upon a whale capable of swallowing 
 a prophet whole, and a prophet capable of 
 remaining alive for three days between the 
 monster's ribs, and level-headed enough to 
 compose a psalm in such confined quarters, 
 (which psalm, by the way, is mainly made up 
 of other psalms, many of a late, and even 
 post-exilic date) finally of tickling the 
 whale's diaphragm to make him cast the 
 prophet out upon the land." 
 
 He stopped to laugh. Ruth's gravity did 
 not relax. A crease showed between her 
 eyebrows. Her voice was harder, and the 
 sub-tone of prim severity more evident. 
 
 " But Robert, that was a miracle. Nobody 
 pretends that it was anything else." 
 
 The lover held himself in by main force 
 and by a palpable exercise of Christian for- 
 bearance. His recitative was hortatory. 
 
 fc- My darling girl, the miracles of the 
 
 Bible were the work of GOD, either by direct 
 35
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 divine energy, or mediatelj- through holy 
 men, energized to perform them. There is 
 no reason why we should claim that they in 
 any way violate the laws of nature, or dis- 
 turb its harmonies. We ought not to be 
 disturbed by the efforts of scholars to explain 
 them under the forms of divine law, in ac- 
 cordance with the order of Nature." 
 
 Letting himself down again to the auditor's 
 intellectual level, he pursued ; " The whale 
 episode was an outrage upon natural laws 
 
 He dropped his arm from her waist and 
 pushed his chair a few inches away from hers 
 at the sound of footsteps in the hall. Ruth 
 slipped out through the front parlor, as her 
 father entered the back parlor door. 
 
 The t&te-a-tete was over for the evening. 
 
 36
 
 II 
 
 " WOOD, HAY, STUBBLE." 
 
 ROBERT CRAIG was in dutiful waiting for 
 his betrothed next day at the church-door 
 when the congregation streamed out into the 
 open air. 
 
 The day was a poem of tender color and 
 subtle perfume, and sunlight strained through 
 the atmosphere of fifteen perfect May noons. 
 The hum of multitudinous bees in the two 
 gigantic lindens flanking the church-porch, 
 planted by the second Cornelius Bergeii's 
 own hands, was audible to the worshipers 
 in the pauses of the services. Old residents 
 liked the accompaniment to prayer and ser- 
 mon, and told stranger-visitors how three 
 generations had listened to the same. The 
 gardens on both sides of the crooked street 
 blazed with tulips and narcissus and gave up 
 
 royally the breath of warmed hyacinth and 
 37
 
 Ruth Bergcn's Limitations 
 
 violet-beds. Pale-purple swaths of wistaria 
 hid the front of the parsonage next door to 
 the church. Every feathered creature that 
 knew a note of music exploited it in the elms 
 and maples bordering the highways. 
 
 Our young theologue had made himself 
 smarter than his well-set up wont, in a Prince 
 Albert coat with indications of coming dig- 
 nities in the lines of lappels and collar, and 
 closed over the chest as far as buttons and 
 buttonholes went. His trousers were gray, 
 the creases sharp from the tailor's iron. 
 Upon the left lappel of the Prince Albert 
 were two sprays of lilies -of-the valley, minus 
 the green leaves. Our hero was up in the 
 minutest details of fashionable costume. His 
 tall silk hat sat squarely upon his classic 
 head. In mood and tense he was as well 
 set-up as in figure, and in temper as mellow 
 as the weather. His was a sweet nature, and 
 the trifling irritation excited by Ruth's back- 
 wardness in receiving into a good and honest 
 
 mind the advanced views he had embraced 
 38
 
 "Wood, Hay, Stubble" 
 
 with enthusiasm, seemed petty and ungener- 
 ous when he thought it over. The blessed 
 child could not help being narrow. Briar- 
 dale was a cold frame, in which orthodoxy 
 was cultivated after the manner of the fore- 
 fathers. It was rooted and grounded in 
 Dutch soil, which is notoriously intractable 
 to critical extractives and imported fertilizers. 
 What but slowness of intellectual under- 
 standing could be expected of Elder Bergen's 
 daughter and Dominie Van Saun's pet pa- 
 rishioner ? Dominie Van Saun, who believed 
 in the literal resurrection of the human 
 body, and who had sturdily asserted, two 
 Sundays agone, that, while he did not de- 
 clare that the world was created in six days 
 of twenty-four hours each, he was prepared 
 to say that GOD could have done this if He 
 had pleased so to do ! 
 
 The amused smile still lighted his eyes as 
 he lifted his hat and fell into step with Ruth 
 on the church-steps. She met it with a 
 
 pretty blush and responsive smile. The 
 3'J
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 slight shadow that had overhung her during 
 
 o o o 
 
 the latter part of last evening had departed. 
 He had not known that he was depressed by 
 it until his heart bounded anew at missing 
 it. 
 
 " How charming 3 r ou are to-day!" lie 
 uttered it in sincere warmth when they had 
 freed themselves from the crowd by taking 
 the first turning. The side-street did not 
 lead directly toward Ruth's home, but that 
 counted for nothing. 
 
 The glance of proprietorial approval cov- 
 ered the costume that helped to render his 
 betrothed charming. Her tailor-made gown 
 and jacket were of some magical material 
 that was a cool gray in the shade and a yet 
 cooler blue in the sunshine ; her white sailor 
 hat was banded with ribbon of the same 
 shades; she carried in a gray -gloved hand a 
 great bunch of white lilacs. To dispel the 
 trifling confusion caused by the compliment, 
 she held them up for Robert to see and to 
 
 smell. 
 
 40
 
 "Wood, Hay, Stubble" 
 
 " If you want to see something really 
 charming, there it is ! Jenny Htilst gave 
 them to me just now. She is one of my girls, 
 you know, and about the brightest I have. 
 And that reminds me, Robert, of something 
 I thought of in the middle of the night." 
 
 She looked away from him, feigning in- 
 terest in a close-clipped privet hedge on her 
 side of the walk. She even plucked a clus- 
 ter of the white blooms, making commas of 
 dainty sniffs at them, while she talked. 
 
 " You see, after you went away, I got to 
 thinking of what we had been talking about, 
 and I couldn't get to sleep for ever so long. 
 The ideas you had given me were so new and 
 strange, you know and the more I thought 
 the more dreadful they were. I have 
 been trained to believe every single word in 
 the Bible. One of the first texts I learned 
 by heart was "All Scripture is given by in- 
 spiration of GOD." I recollected that, and 
 " Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think 
 ye have eternal life, and these are they that 
 
 41
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 testify of me" oh, and ever so many more of 
 the same kind. Wasn't it odd that I couldn't 
 think of one of them while you were talk- 
 ing to me, although I tried hard ? I think, 
 maybe," averting her face still more and get- 
 ting over the words in a nervous flutter 
 " that saying my prayers had something to 
 do with bringing them to my mind. Any 
 way, while I was tying awake and trying to 
 make it all plain to myself, a thought came 
 to me all at once, as distinctly as if I had 
 read it on the wall where the moonlight was 
 shining. It was that the story of Jonah 
 couldn't be a fiction, or Our Saviour would 
 not have referred to it. And the people of 
 Nineveh must have repented at the preach- 
 ing of Jonah, for He says so in so many 
 words. He never made a mistake. It 
 sounds very conceited in me to set up my 
 opinion against yours and the discoveries of 
 all those learned scholars, but I don't think 
 that answer was of my making. I really be- 
 lieve that it was sent to me." 
 42
 
 "Wood, Hay, Stubble" 
 
 The tears arose so near to the fluttering 
 voice that she checked it for an instant, then 
 went on bravely ; 
 
 "It was like a message from heaven. I 
 thanked GOD for it and I couldn't help 
 crying a little I was so happy. Then 
 another text came to me ; ' Great peace 
 have they that love Thy law.' I never un- 
 derstood what it meant, and all it meant un- 
 til that minute. I fell asleep repeating it to 
 myself. And I haven't been unhappy, or 
 worried, since." 
 
 The corners of her auditor's mouth had 
 twitched several times during the artless 
 tale. Her perturbation was bewitching in it- 
 self, and the color suffusing the cheek which 
 was all she let him see, was the precise shade 
 of an oleander blossom with a sun-ray shim- 
 mering through it. What appealed to his 
 sense of humor was her conviction that she 
 had introduced the topic adroitly, when he 
 saw, from the instant she said " And that 
 
 reminds me " the train she had laid for his 
 43
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 discomfiture. And how mercifully and 
 modestly she had dealt with him and other 
 higher critics ! Transparent, little, bungling 
 angel ! 
 
 When she ventured to glance around to 
 see how he was bearing her broadside, she 
 met a pair of fine eyes brimming with loving 
 amusement. The same was in his accents, 
 mixed up with a something else which she 
 was too unversed in the workings of the 
 theological mind to recognize as the mildly 
 supercilious patronage the man of GOD feels 
 for the amateur who trenches upon sacerdotal 
 preserves. 
 
 " My beloved infant!" He tried to sum- 
 mon another epithet, but this was importu- 
 nate. " You are angelically sweet to drop 
 me so gently when your knock-downer might 
 have stunned me and made an end of my 
 poor attempts at higher criticism. I don't 
 like to detract from the comfort you got out 
 of your meditations upon your bed in the 
 night-watches. I am sorry that you had a 
 
 44
 
 "Wood, Hay, Stubble" 
 
 hard time getting to sleep. Jonah, with Nin- 
 eveh to boot, wasn't worth it. And I am 
 glad that something quieted you at last. If 
 an angel brought the sleeping draught, I 
 bless him for it. But, my darling, I'm afraid 
 we poor students and critics of Holy Writ 
 can hardly accept your conclusion of the 
 whole matter. Christ alluded to Jonah and 
 the whale as a fable with which the common 
 people were familiar, lie also said ' Ye 
 cannot serve GOD and Mammon.' Now, 
 Mammon, Milton tells us, was 
 
 " ' The least erected spirit that fell 
 
 From Heaven ; for even in Heaven his looks and 
 
 thoughts 
 
 Were always downward bent, admiring more 
 The riches of Heaven's pavement trodden gold 
 Than aught divine or holy.' 
 
 "In point of fact, Mammon was a Syriac 
 myth the god of covetousness. As such he 
 was spoken of by Christ, and the people 
 understood what He meant when He warned 
 them against the unrighteous Mammon. Dr. 
 
 Van Saun used, this morning, the expression, 
 45
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 4 The labors of Hercules.' Does lie or do 
 we, believe that such a hero as Hercules 
 ever lived? much less that he performed the 
 labors ascribed to him ? " 
 
 Another capital hit ! an impromptu at 
 that, as was the story of the Sibyl's Leaves. 
 This was good practice in polemic theology, 
 and really Ruth must not be allowed to talk 
 nonsense. The idea of the dear girl's form- 
 ing theories of her own upon a subject that 
 was taxing the astutest intellects of the 
 Church and the age, while diverting enough 
 to him, might prove a serious mortification 
 when they were man and wife. He must 
 gradually and gently break away the limita- 
 tions of education and tradition. Mean- 
 while, he caught himself harking back, rel- 
 ish fully, to the humorous aspects of the con- 
 troversy. His merriment broke bounds in a 
 kindly "Ha! ha!" with the effort to con- 
 template the mistress of his heart as the im- 
 personation of the Dogma of the Inerrancy 
 
 of Scripture. 
 
 46
 
 "Wood, Hay, Stubble" 
 
 The hot blood scalded Ruth's cheeks, hot 
 tears hurt her eyes. 
 
 "Please don't make fun of me!" she 
 begged humbly, the crass presumption of her 
 argument with a man who read the Bible in 
 a dozen or so languages and could quote five 
 lines out of hand from Paradise Lost, bowing 
 her spirit to the dust, " I am very ignorant 
 just a silly girl who has not had your liberal 
 education. I could never have made myself 
 your equal if I had. But my religion is so 
 much to me, Robert dear ! and I got it all 
 from my Bible ! I get frightened to death 
 when you talk so coolly about mistakes in 
 GOD'S Word. There seems to be nothing 
 good, or true, or safe, left in time or in Eter- 
 nity. I'd rather lie down here now and die 
 believing than live a thousand years dis- 
 believing what is my only hope of salva- 
 tion." 
 
 The glowing face and wet eyes were 
 buried in the bouquet of lilacs; her compan- 
 ion heard the sob she tried to smother, lie 
 47
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 had a tender heart, and all of it that was not 
 centred in himself belonged to the piteous 
 pleader. He ceased to smile and hastened to 
 assure her in serious, affectionate words that 
 he would not, for worlds, unsettle her faith, 
 even if he were not in full sympathy with 
 her in this matter. He reminded her that he 
 had turned his back upon flattering worldly 
 prospects even a partnership in the Bergen 
 & Craig Mills and chosen a life of toil and 
 self-denial in the Master's service. 
 
 " When I said to Him and to myself 
 ' Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel ! ' I 
 meant it, dear, through and through. That 
 I may preach this Gospel intelligently and 
 effectively, I seek wisdom by the light of 
 Reason as well as in Revelation. And this I 
 can say in deep sincerity ; I never knew how 
 intensely interesting the study of the Bible 
 could be ; I never guessed what lively zeal 
 and intellectual delight one could bring to 
 the work, until I entered the Seminary. I pore 
 
 over the sacred pages as one who seeks for 
 48
 
 "Wood, Hay, Stubble" 
 
 hid treasure. Every word, every syllable, 
 every letter, receives careful attention." 
 
 "Isn't that because you are on the look- 
 out for mistakes ?" queried Ruth innocently, 
 and her lover was nearer to being angry with 
 her than he had ever been before. 
 
 He wheeled sharply toward her, his lips 
 parting in a retort, but her utter uncon- 
 sciousness of having given offence, and the 
 dispirited droop of eyes and lip corners, dis- 
 armed him. She did not know satire by 
 name or by the hearing of the ear, and ill- 
 nature was as alien to her disposition as 
 logic to her mind. 
 
 Ruth pursued her idea dreamily and, as 
 guilelessly as before, reversed his mood : 
 
 " It's like looking over a barrel of apples 
 for specked ones. Or, a basket of eggs that 
 were laid at different times." 
 
 " You couldn't have hit upon a better 
 illustration ! " cried Robert, admiringly. " I 
 shall make a Higher Critic of you yet. That 
 
 figure of the basket of eggs just suits the 
 4 49
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 case. The Bible was written by different 
 men of different nations and at different 
 periods of time. All were men, imperfect, 
 and liable to err and to forget. There is an 
 Eastern fable that tells how the philosopher's 
 stone, which changed into gold whatever it 
 touched, lay with a heap of other pebbles on 
 the seashore. A gang of men was set to 
 work to identify it. Each had a small bar 
 of iron with which he was told to test every 
 stone as he picked it up, and if, in touching it, 
 did not turn to gold, he was to pitch it into 
 the water. One man got so into the habit 
 of touching the pebble and then tossing it 
 away, that, when at last, the iron became 
 gold, he threw the stone into the sea before 
 he saw what had happened. 
 
 " The Higher Critic holds the philosopher's 
 stone instead of the bit of iron, and with it 
 he tests the materials that go to make up 
 so called Revelation. Luther applied this 
 touchstone when he said : 
 
 "'What does not teach Christ, that is not 
 50
 
 "Wood, Hay, Stubble" 
 
 apostolic, even if St. Peter or St. Paul 
 taught it. Again, what preaches Christ, 
 that would be apostolic, even if Judas, 
 Annas, Pilate and Herod did it.' " 
 
 He had the quotation pat, having written 
 it out in full in his notebook yesterday from 
 the mouth of his favorite professor in the 
 class-room. Without knowing it, he de- 
 livered it with the professional intonations 
 and gesture. He was fairly "in the stride" 
 of disputation and held on his sway dog- 
 matically: 
 
 " Other great and good reformers bring to 
 the study and revision of the Scriptures still 
 other tests. One says, for example, 'What- 
 ever I find in the Bible that agrees with the 
 loftiest ideal my mind can frame of humanity 
 and of divinity, I accept as truth.' An- 
 other has this golden epigram : ' What in- 
 spires me is inspired.' ' 
 
 " I don't understand how he can say that," 
 said commonplace Ruth, dubiously. " Dif- 
 ferent people have different ideals. Even 
 51
 
 Ruth Btrgen's Limitations 
 
 good men, like you and my father, don't 
 always feel alike and wouldn't be satisfied 
 with the same thing. I couldn't have any 
 faith in a Bible that was sifted in that way. 
 It's like the difference between a coal-screen 
 and a flour-sifter." 
 
 " We don't use coal-screens in bread- 
 making," returned Robert, testily. " In 
 other words, the work of critical separation 
 of true from spurious Scripture is not com- 
 mitted to uneducated men. The highest 
 order of scholarship is required for the task." 
 
 " And do high scholars always agree as to 
 what ought to be left in, and what thrown 
 out, of the Bible?" 
 
 The tone was anxious ; over the young 
 face the worry that had rested there last 
 night was creeping. She looked like a per- 
 plexed child. Yet, all unwittingly, she had 
 struck a straight blow. The nascent critic 
 winced for a second under it. A vague sus- 
 picion beset him that Ruth might not be as 
 
 simple as she seemed. She read The Chris- 
 52
 
 "Wood, Hay, Stubble" 
 
 tian Intelligencer, and the Higher Criticism 
 met with scant favor in the columns of that 
 musty organ of a most conservative denomi- 
 nation. The names of Hengstenberg, Shedd, 
 Hodge and Greene might have meaning for, 
 and weight with her. 
 
 "I should like to answer that question 
 more fully than I have time for, now,'' he 
 rejoined, as they reached her father's gate. 
 "I shall walk home with yon after church 
 this afternoon and stay to tea as usual. The 
 rest of our discussion must be postponed 
 until then. Good-bye, sweet ! " 
 
 He set off down the street at a swinging 
 pace and Ruth went slowly into the house 
 and laggingly up to her room. There she 
 laid aside her jacket and hat with listless 
 hands, locked the door and fell upon her 
 knees beside the bed, hiding her face in the 
 coverlet. Presently, she put out a blind 
 hand for a Bible that lay on the stand at the 
 bed-head, and drew it to her heart. The 
 
 movement was sudden and impassioned, as a 
 53
 
 Ruth Bergcn's Limitations 
 
 mother might catch a hurt child to her 
 bosom. 
 
 She carried a headache to the early dinner, 
 and a face so wan and sober that her mother 
 refrained from chiding her want of punctu- 
 ality. The dish before her father was fricas- 
 seed chicken, and Garrett, Jr., had had his 
 second help before his sister made a fourth 
 at the round table. Her father had saved 
 half of the breast for her. Dumplings, and 
 cream gravy, rich with beaten yolks of eggs, 
 went with the white meat laid upon Ruth's 
 plate. Mrs. Bergen's panacea for bodily 
 and mental discomfort was tea. She had 
 sent the teapot to the kitchen to keep it hot 
 for her daughter. As Ruth's cup was filled, 
 the olive-colored liquid hissed and spat in the 
 heated spout. 
 
 " That had ought to brace you up," said 
 the mother, cheerily. " We all feel good-for- 
 nothing this first warm spell. Give me my 
 tea strong and hot as it can be made, says 
 
 I, and let them that like it weaker, ease it 
 54
 
 "Wood, Hay, Stubble" 
 
 down with plenty of cream. It's worth all 
 the medicine going." 
 
 Eating was a difficult undertaking to Ruth, 
 and since drinking was easier, she swallowed 
 the tea. She had found the sun rather hot, 
 coming home, she confessed, and had not 
 thought to take her parasol. When the 
 leaves on the trees were fully grown, she re- 
 marked incidentally, the sidewalks would be 
 better shaded. 
 
 As soon as the meal was finished, the 
 family began to get ready for Sunday School. 
 Mr. Bergen, as an active Superintendent, 
 had the habit of going fifteen minutes earlier 
 than the others "to get things started." 
 He was putting on his hat in the hall when 
 Ruth tripped soundlessly down the stairs : 
 
 " Father ! " she said, avoiding his e}*es and 
 talking fast " Would you mind taking my 
 class this afternoon ? I meant to go until 
 this minute, but I just can't ! " 
 
 Her dimpled chin was trembling, her voice 
 fainted abruptly. 
 
 55
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 Mr. Bergen was reckoned a stern man, the 
 sternness of an upright Christian who had 
 not learned charity by his own stumblings. 
 His convictions were iron, and the chalyb- 
 eate property permeated his moral courage. 
 Haziness and debility of belief were inex- 
 cusable in his judgment. " Know what you 
 believe; then live up to it," would have 
 epitomized his everyday creed. The core of 
 an ironclad heart was warm and soft, and his 
 girl was enwrapped, as in silken down, in that 
 heart-centre. He put his arm about her and 
 kissed her forehead. 
 
 " Poor little head ! " he said, pityingly. 
 "Is it behaving so badly? It's a pretty 
 nice head generally, and we must humor it 
 now and then." 
 
 A dry sob that seemed to tear her throat 
 in passing, answered him. Ruth clung 
 noiselessly to his neck for a moment, then 
 pushed herself from him with a laugh as dry 
 as the sob. 
 
 " It's good in you to think so, father. 
 
 56
 
 "Wood, Hay, Stubble" 
 
 But it is a weak, empty, worthless head, that 
 any sensible woman might be ashamed to 
 carry upon her shoulders. There ! I won't 
 be a baby ! Thank you for taking the class. 
 The girls won't be troublesome, I know. 
 Tell them that there isn't much the matter 
 with me, and give them my love." 
 
 Seated at her chamber- window, she 
 watched with dull eyes, that yet, without her 
 will, saw everything, her mother take her 
 way up the shady street, little Garrett at her 
 side. Mrs. Bergen wore a black silk dress, 
 thick, and not lustrous. Over her shoulders 
 was a short black cloth circular, trimmed 
 with triangular slashes. The slashes were 
 filled with jet passementerie, and a solid 
 tassel dangled at the apex of each. Her 
 black bonnet was adorned with a bunch of 
 heliotropes hedged about with a chevanx de 
 frise of black lace. She never " went quite 
 into colors, don't you know? Mr. Bergen's 
 family connections, as well as hers, being 
 
 large, and life that uncertain." She held her- 
 57
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 self ready to drop into mourning at an hour's 
 notice. For that reason she never bought 
 shiny silks. Black silk was a half-way house 
 between colors and crepe. Heliotrope, or 
 any shade of purple, was a flag station. 
 
 Garrett, Jr., had on his first pair of long 
 trousers that Sunday. To his obstreperous 
 delight he had been emancipated from the 
 ignominy of knickerbockers on Saturday 
 night, his mother acknowledging, reluc- 
 tantly, for he was her last baby, that he was 
 "getting leggy." 
 
 When they were out of sight, Ruth leaned 
 back in her chair and asked herself seriously 
 and coolly, as if she had been somebody else, 
 why she was so wretched. What had hap- 
 pened to cloud the world that was yesterday 
 so fair, and the life for which she had thanked 
 her Heavenly Father this very morning? She 
 recalled how a sweet, warm mist had blurred 
 her reading of the text for the day in her 
 '''Daily Strength for Daily Needs." 
 
 " Fear none of those things which thou shall 
 58
 
 "Wood, Hay, Stubble" 
 
 suffer. Ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be 
 thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a 
 crown of life." 
 
 The talk on the way home had done the 
 harm. But why? What had Robert said 
 except that good and wise men were exam- 
 ining the Bible critically, and leaving out 
 some parts as less likely to be the very words 
 of GOD than others? 
 
 " That was all ! all ! " she said, aloud, in 
 confidence that was defiance. "I will stop 
 thinking about it ! " 
 
 She sat up to look out of the window 
 again. A row of locust-trees shaded the 
 front piazza. The branches of one swept 
 her blinds when she opened and closed them, 
 and she usually left them open. The trees 
 were laden with rosy-and-white flowers. 
 But for the cool wind the perfume would 
 have been too powerful under the westering 
 sun. It was especially delicious in the dewy 
 dawns when she would have known, with- 
 out opening her eyes, that she was no- 
 69
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 where but in her own dear room, associ- 
 ated with the flowery Mays of twenty-two 
 years. Wherever she might live as Robert 
 Craig's wife, the smell of locust-blooms 
 would always remind her of Briardale and 
 home. 
 
 With the thought of Robert and their 
 united lives the odd ache compressed heart 
 and throat. He was so strong and clever ; 
 his brain was so steady that he could weigh 
 evidence without getting excited when such 
 a thing as the truth of the Bible was in- 
 volved. He could read manuscripts in the 
 originals, and throw aside this and keep that, 
 yet hold fast to the faith once delivered to 
 the saints. The only Bible she knew was 
 the dear old Book upon which were founded 
 the Westminster Catechism and the Dort 
 Confession of Faith. Her father was fond 
 of saying that the Dort Confession contained 
 five thousand words, and that for each word 
 a martyr had died. When a mere baby she 
 had learned to lisp, 
 
 60
 
 " Wood, Hay, Stubble " 
 
 "Holy Bible! Book divine, 
 Precious Gospel ! thou art mine," 
 
 and known that Christian men and women 
 had laid down their lives sooner than give it 
 up. 
 
 Her mother had been brought up a Pres- 
 byterian and her children had learned the 
 Westminster Catechism when young, later, 
 the Heidelberg. She repeated, musingly, 
 the second question and answer of the 
 Shorter Catechism : 
 
 " What rule hath GOD given to direct us 
 how we may glorify and enjoy Him ? 
 
 "The Word of GOD which is contained in 
 the Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
 ments is the only rule given to direct us 
 how we may glorify and enjoy Him." 
 
 In the strength of the recollection she got 
 her Bible and Concordance and looked up and 
 wrote down twenty texts in defence of this 
 "only rule." At the top of the list stood, 
 
 " The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but 
 
 the word of our God shall stand forever" 
 61
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 At the bottom were the words to which 
 she had referred in last night's talk, 
 
 " And if any man shall take away from the 
 words of the Book of this ]>ri>liefy, God shall 
 take away his part out of tin 1 , Hook of Life, and 
 out of the Holy City, and from the things ichil-h 
 are written in this Book." 
 
 The blood slackened in her veins as she 
 penned the awful sentence. When it was 
 written she sat looking at it a long time 
 without moving. 
 
 " I should think they would be afraid to 
 do it ! " she whispered to herself. " And 
 St. John, the beloved disciple, said it. He 
 could not have had the heart to put it 
 there, if the Spirit had not said unto him 
 4 Write ! ' I should be afraid of the judg- 
 ment of heaven if I were in their places." 
 
 The swift thought that followed drove 
 her again to her knees. Prayer was the 
 only resort of the simple, narrow-minded 
 creature in the horror that wrapped her in 
 as with a pall. Talk of the inerrancy of 
 
 62
 
 "Wood, Hay, Stubble" 
 
 Scripture conveyed to her intellect us little 
 as the accusation of Bibliolatry. That GOD'S 
 Word should be fallible periled her hope of 
 immortality for her own soul and souls dearer 
 to her than her own. To tamper with the 
 Holy Oracle was sacrilege. This, Robert 
 averred, was an exquisite pleasure to him. 
 
 If she prayed that her own faith might be 
 established, it was as a means to an end. 
 
 "O, my Father!" she broke forth with 
 strong crying and tears " Help me, even 
 me, to keep back Thy servant from pre- 
 sumptuous sins! Let them not have domin- 
 ion over him ! " 
 
 Soul and mind were so saturated with 
 Scripture that heart-break found no other 
 language. 
 
 63
 
 in 
 
 LOCUST-BLOOMS AND HIGHER CRITICISM 
 
 MRS. DE BAUN, the Bergens' eldest daugh- 
 ter, lived in Briar dale, and with her husband 
 took tea at "Father's" every Sunday night, 
 the year around. She was a buxom, chatty 
 matron beside whom Ruth always appeared 
 small and quiet. If the younger sister 
 talked less than usual on this particular 
 evening, nobody noticed it. Robert Craig 
 was in fine feather colloquially, and there 
 were no gaps in the seams of talk with him 
 on one side of the table, the de Bauns on 
 the other and Mr. Bergen ready to take his 
 part from the foot of the well-furnished 
 board. 
 
 " That boy grows nicer every day of his 
 life," declared the prospective sister-in-law 
 
 when, the young people having gone out to- 
 64
 
 Locust-blooms and Higher Criticism 
 
 gether upon the piazza upon no pretext what- 
 ever, she settled herself down for a comfort- 
 able gossip with her mother. 
 
 Her father and husband had their pipes, 
 and each an open window to himself. The 
 shaded lamp burned without smoke or smell 
 upon a stand in a corner, letting the moon- 
 beams stray far enough into the room to 
 show the smoke-rings like silver boats as 
 they sailed through the windows. Mrs. 
 Bergen was in her own easy-chair. Her 
 mother had " taken her comfort " in it on 
 Sunday evenings fifty-odd years ago, and re- 
 counted as peacefully to herself and to 
 others the blessings she had not time on 
 week-days to set in order before them. The 
 chair was to go to Ruth in the course of 
 time and nature. The newest of its many 
 re-coverings was tacked on by Ruth's own 
 hands the Saturday before Easter. It was 
 cretonne, a gray ground with bunches of 
 trailing arbutus dropped upon it at regular 
 
 intervals. Mrs. Bergen considered it " tasty, 
 5 65
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 but quiet. That was like Ruth, you know. 
 She was never one for show." 
 
 Mrs. de Baun (she had ideas of style and 
 was pertinacious of the small c?,) swung 
 gently in a Boston rocker. The cushions of 
 seat and back were covered with the same 
 gray cretonne, and the legs were hidden by 
 a full valance that sucked in and swelled out 
 with the motion of the chair. The leisurely 
 undulations added to the sedative influences 
 of the hour. The group was a fair specimen 
 of our best middle class church-going folk, 
 the backbone and sinew of every law-abid- 
 ing American community. 
 
 " Yes ! " assented the mother, in the 
 throaty cluck that belongs to matrons of her 
 years and caste. " I feel to be very thank- 
 ful that Ruth has made such a wise choice. 
 Robert is a good boy, through and through. 
 His mother was saying only yesterday that 
 he had never given his parents one minute's 
 uneasiness. And I hear that he is consid- 
 ered real talented by the Seminary profess- 
 G6
 
 Locust-blooms and Higher Criticism 
 
 ors and other people who are judges of such 
 things." 
 
 The young people passed the window upon 
 the end piazza, Robert walking next to the 
 house, Ruth's white gown ghostly in the moon- 
 light. The four spectators turned their heads 
 to look after them. The men made no com- 
 ment; the women exchanged moved smiles. 
 
 "He'll get a good wife, and a pretty one," 
 said the sister. "She never had anything 
 more becoming than that dress. And to 
 think of her making it out-and-out! It's 
 easy to see that he's prouder of it than she 
 is. He couldn't keep his eyes off of her all 
 supper time." 
 
 Mr. Bergen refilled his pipe and rammed 
 down the charge with his little finger. 
 
 " I put Robert up to conduct the closing 
 exercises this afternoon," he observed, cas- 
 ually, to his son-in-law. " I had to teach 
 Ruth's class, and I thought he might's well 
 lend me a hand and get his hand in a bit. 
 He gave the school a first-class talk, too, 
 
 67
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 short and right to the point. He took for 
 his text " The men of Nineveh shall rise up 
 in judgment" and so forth. Some of us 
 older folks might profit by what he said 
 about the responsibilities and advantages of 
 those who are born and brought up in a 
 Christian land." 
 
 Robert was telling Ruth of his address 
 while they strolled up and down the porch 
 that ran along the front and one end of the 
 house. The rhythm of their footsteps and 
 the murmur of the young voices underran 
 the sitting-room chat like a piano accompani- 
 ment, throbbing more and more faintly as 
 they turned the farther corner on each round. 
 
 The girl's fingers closed tightly upon her 
 lover's arm when he mentioned her father's 
 request and his compliance. 
 
 " Oh-h ! I hope you didn't say anything 
 about " 
 
 " Jack-and-the -bean -stalk !" Robert fin- 
 ished the exclamation, as she broke it short. 
 
 " Not a bit of it, dear ! Setting aside the 
 68
 
 Locust-blooms and Higher Criticism 
 
 circumstance that your father is a pillar of 
 orthodoxy, and would be ready to burn me 
 at the stake for heresy if I were to ventilate 
 my views of the historical accuracy and 
 verbal inspiration of the Scriptures I do 
 not consider that the rank and fde of church 
 members are prepared for the truths brought 
 to light by Higher Criticism. The elders of 
 this generation are joined to their Bibliolatry 
 and have to be let alone. Light must be ad- 
 mitted cautiously into superstitious souls." 
 
 " What could you say about the lesson if 
 you didn't believe that Jonah ever preached 
 in Nineveh ? " 
 
 " I was not obliged to say that he did not. 
 I let the parable, or fiction, speak for itself 
 and turned my hearers' attention to what 
 would be expected of church-goers and Sun- 
 day School children in this day and country." 
 
 He proceeded to treat her to an abstract 
 of his remarks, citing a couple of felicitous 
 illustrations, warmed to the work by her ap- 
 parent attention. His complacency was 
 
 69
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 dashed by an interruption of his best pas- 
 sage ; 
 
 " But, Robert, you can't always do that. 
 You can't go on dodging the truth forever. 
 There must come a time when you will have 
 to be sincere." 
 
 She felt him bridle and stiffen ; his tone 
 was two-edged. 
 
 " Dodging the subject ! Will have to be 
 sincere ! Really Ruth, your terms are, to 
 say the least, extraordinary." 
 
 He had not hurt her. She was not even 
 apologetic, although breathlessly earnest. 
 
 " When you are a preacher you must 
 preach what you really think. You must 
 not shun to declare the whole counsel of 
 GOD, don't you know ? You cannot keep 
 your people always in the dark. They will 
 find out some time what your real senti- 
 ments are." 
 
 The frost of his silence penetrated her pre- 
 occupied mood. She tried to decipher the 
 
 expression of his face through the shadows. 
 70
 
 Locust-blooms and Higher Criticism 
 
 " You aren't offended with me, are you 
 dear? You can't think how all this shocks 
 me. I couldn't help feeling when you spoke 
 of keeping the rank and file in ignorance of 
 what you believe are the true Scriptures, 
 how much it sounded like the Roman Catho- 
 lic priests' talk of the danger of private in- 
 terpretation and the open Bible. 
 
 "Don't make fun of me ! " at his ejacula- 
 tion of mingled amusement and impatience. 
 " Let me say my poor little say in my poor, 
 feeble way please ! I don't know any other. 
 I was very, very unhappy when I got home 
 to-day. Just as I was, last night. I can't 
 make even you understand how unhappy. 
 And because I have so often found grace 
 and help in other times of need in my Bible, 
 I searched the Scriptures for myself to know 
 if these things were true. What I found 
 there did bring me light and comfort some- 
 what. And then I prayed " hesitatingly, 
 curbed by the reserve common to her class 
 where " spiritual exercises " are the theme of 
 
 71
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 everyday conversation. " That helped me 
 more. I made up my mind to ask you to 
 talk to me freely about these doubts and dif- 
 ficulties. I hope I am strong enough now, 
 after this afternoon to listen and to judge 
 for myself. Make it all as plain as you can 
 for me. I am not learned, you know, but 
 wisdom and strength will be given to me. I 
 have asked for them, for myself " a timid 
 pause, "and for you, dear." 
 
 He drew her to him and kissed her fondly, 
 not without a touch of reverence for the pur- 
 ity of her faith and the earnestness of her love. 
 
 " GOD bless you for the truest, sweetest, 
 dearest woman who ever gave her whole 
 heart to a fellow not half-worthy of her ! I 
 have no terrible revelations to make, darling, 
 as you will see, presently. And you are 
 right in thinking that our views on this and 
 all other important matters should har- 
 monize. A man's wife should be one lobe 
 of his brain as well as his second soul. Let 
 
 me think where to begin with you." 
 72
 
 Locust-blooms and Higher Criticism 
 
 While he adjusted his theological con- 
 sidering-cap, Mr. Bergen's tones, like the 
 drone of a Brobdingnagian hawk's -head 
 moth, boomed through his window : 
 
 "No, sir! I've no charity for a Mugwump! 
 I'd rather be an honest Democrat and be 
 done with it. This hunting with the hounds 
 and running with the hare is contrary to 
 honor and to honesty. You can't ride two 
 horses at once. The servant of two masters 
 is always a sneak and a failure. If I ever 
 leave the Republican party I'll go clean over 
 the fence, not sit, balancing myself on the 
 top-rail." 
 
 Ruth heard him with the outer ears. Her 
 mind made no application of the energetic 
 sentences. She was busy training her bat- 
 tery of proof-texts upon the advancing foe. 
 Every verse was committed to memory. She 
 would keep a steady head and call each up 
 at need, going down upon the knees of her 
 heart to pray for light and courage. 
 
 " It shall be given you in that hour what you 
 73
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 shall speak" was in her thought as Robert 
 began a discourse that lasted forty-five min- 
 utes. 
 
 Mrs. de Baun laughingly timed him by the 
 sitting-room clock, having caught a few words 
 of the introduction. 
 
 " I guess Robert is trying his first sermon 
 upon Ruthie," she opined. " I heard him 
 say ' All Scripture is given by inspiration 
 of GOD.' " 
 
 " That's a safe beginning," quoth her 
 father. "Sound as a nut. There's no dis- 
 count on that theology." 
 
 What Robert really said was : 
 
 " The assertion that 'all Scripture is given 
 by inspiration of GOD ' may be the narrow- 
 est of dogmas, or broad enough to suit the 
 most liberal Higher Critic." 
 
 " What is a Higher Critic ? " interposed 
 Ruth. "And how did they get that name? " 
 
 As I have said, it took Robert three-quar- 
 ters of an hour to answer the question. At 
 
 the end of the first fifteen minutes they sat 
 74
 
 Locust-blooms and Higher Criticism 
 
 down upon the upper step of the front piazza. 
 A bland little wind was shaking the locust- 
 blooms, and sent smiling ripples of moonlight 
 between the clusters, over the lovers. Ruth's 
 hands were folded upon her lap, and if Rob- 
 ert laid one of his, occasionally, upon them, 
 or touched her knee, it was in rhetorical 
 fervor, not in such dalliance as would have 
 befitted the summer night. 
 
 The speaker bore in mind from the outset 
 the pathetic request that he would " make it 
 all as plain as he could." He simplified his 
 language to the best of his ability in relating 
 the various methods by which the Higher 
 Criticism works upon the alleged sacred 
 writings and the conclusions to which it had 
 been forced or led. Ruth, albeit listening as 
 for her life, did notgrasp more than one-half of 
 his meaning. Theological technique was as 
 so much Greek to her understanding and he 
 could not quite avoid the phraseology of the 
 class-room. She did gather and was in no 
 danger of forgetting, that what she had been 
 
 75
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 taught to call, " The Mosaic account of the 
 Creation," is decided unanimously by schol- 
 arly critics to be an allegory, or a religious 
 myth, and was not written by Moses, or in 
 his times. That it is more than likely that 
 Moses was not the author of any of the books 
 generally attributed to him. That "the 
 legislation ritual is of post exilian origin," 
 and set about with spurious " historical " in- 
 cidents to give it weight and interest. That 
 the books of Ruth and Esther are pretty 
 romances, or at the best, historical novels. 
 That the solitary authentic scrap of David's 
 composition which has come down to us is 
 the lament over Saul and Jonathan, and that 
 experts find in this fragment conclusive proof 
 that he wrote none of the Psalms. These, it 
 is thought by some, were composed, for the 
 most part, for the service of the Second Tem- 
 ple, long after David slept with his fathers. 
 Others affirm that the oldest of them was 
 written less than two hundred years before 
 
 Christ, and by many different hands "pious 
 76
 
 Locust-blooms and Higher Criticism 
 
 peasants scattered up and down throughout 
 Galilee who waited for the Consolation ol! 
 Israel the class from which Joseph and 
 Mary were to spring." 
 
 She learned that the handiwork of at least 
 eleven authors is distinctly evident in the 
 alleged Prophecy of Isaiah, and that Daniel 
 never saw or heard of the book which bears 
 his name. That Ezra did not write the 
 Chronicles, or Nehemiah, or even the Book 
 of Ezra. That, while Solomon may have 
 compiled some of the Proverbs set down 
 under his name, he assuredly had no part or 
 lot in The Song of Songs, or in Ecclesiastes. 
 
 Skipping the minor prophets as scarcely 
 worthy of costly ammunition, our callow 
 censor fell valiantly upon the Gospels. Mat- 
 thew he patronized as a well-meaning but 
 credulous tax-gatherer who is identified with 
 Levi, and who collated from a variety of 
 sources a mass of material, all interesting 
 and some of it valuable. It is especially 
 valuable as preserving the Jewish atmos- 
 
 77
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 phere witliout the Jewish narrowness. Mark, 
 according to Robert, is more nearly authentic 
 and is regarded by the best critics as the 
 safest of apostolic authorities. Luke's evi- 
 dence he discounted emphatically as second- 
 hand and traditional. He does not pretend 
 to have been an eyewitness of Our Lord's 
 works or even to have been His contempo- 
 rary. The Roman Catholic story that he got 
 his information from Mary the Mother of 
 Christ is as trustworthy as any other, and 
 this is legendary. 
 
 Our half-baked Higher Critic cast what he 
 called "the Fourth Gospel "into the outer 
 darkness of apocrypha. As airily he rele- 
 gated The Acts to the hazy debatable ground 
 occupied by " the former treatise " addressed 
 to "the most excellent Theophilus." Ac- 
 cording to the youthful enthusiast in latter- 
 day discoveries, the Christian world should 
 move more easily and draw deeper spiritual 
 breath now that apostolic testimony is sifted 
 
 and sorted, the little heap of golden grain 
 78
 
 Locust-blooms and Higher Criticism 
 
 garnered and the chaff consigned to its own 
 place. 
 
 " The Gospels and The Acts are full of 
 contradictions and palpable blunders that 
 have caused the enemies of Revelation to 
 blaspheme with much show of reason. Rob- 
 inson and other pious moles and mules may 
 * harmonize ' violently to the end of time. 
 They deceive nobody who studies without 
 prejudice and uses common sense in judging 
 of what he has read." 
 
 The Epistles were handled with a shade 
 more of respect. The budding divine had a 
 profound regard the regard of one true man 
 for another for Paul. Him, he pronounced 
 in a tone of hearty good-fellowship to be " a 
 gentleman and a scholar," the probable 
 author of one of the Epistles to Timothy, 
 and possibly two more of those to which the 
 Church has appended his name. Of course, 
 no intelligent nineteenth-century reader be- 
 lieves that he had any hand in the Epistle 
 
 to the Hebrews. 
 
 79
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 " The Apocalypse reads like a hasheesh- 
 eater's dream " said Deacon Craig's son, 
 pulling at his strait breasted waistcoat, and 
 filliping a fallen locust-petal from the knee of 
 his gray trousers. " It is an hysterical olla 
 podrida of green rainbows and vari-colored 
 horses, and men with tongues like drawn 
 swords protruding from their mouths, and 
 gates of pearl, and fiery seas of molten glass, 
 and scarlet women that has driven scores of 
 would-be interpreters crazy. Those who 
 have any regard for the dignity of Holy 
 Writ are thankful not to be obliged to admit 
 it to the Canon." 
 
 The side issue of Inspiration now received 
 our fledgeling's attention. He tore the 
 dogma of Verbal Inspiration from top to 
 bottom, and then across, with two spasms of 
 indignant erudition. As to General Inspira- 
 tion the informing of the body of the Bible 
 (or so much of it as remains when screening 
 and sifting and fanning are over) with the 
 breath of Deity, he owned to a generous be-
 
 Locust-blooms and Higher Criticism 
 
 lief in it. He believed, also, that the same 
 sort of inspiration is going on in the world 
 to-day. The twenty-third Psalm was in- 
 spired. So was Longfellow's Psalm of Life. 
 John the Baptist whose neophyte and as- 
 sistant, the Galilean Carpenter, became 
 greater than His master was inspired to 
 preach, and to make straight the path for the 
 Messiah. John Bunyan was moved by the 
 self-same Spirit to write The Pilgrim $ Prog- 
 ress. 
 
 "All that man requires in order to receive 
 this Divine breath is a pure heart and a 
 reverent, receptive mind ; " thus flowed the 
 discourse. " Now, as in the days of Jesus 
 of Nazareth, the commandment with promise 
 is 'He that hath ears to hear, let him 
 hear.' " 
 
 " Can you hold up long enough to let 
 Ruth say, ' Good night ' to us ? " cried Mrs. 
 de Baun jocosely through the sitting-room 
 window. 
 
 Robert laughed and jumped up. 
 6 81
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 " This is too bad ! I don't mean to preach 
 such tedious sermons after I am licensed," 
 he called back. " It isn't often that a man 
 has such a patient and appreciative audience. 
 It is an inspiration in itself." 
 
 Ruth did not offer to rise as lie took her 
 hand to lift her to her feet. 
 
 " We'll be in directly, Anneke," she an- 
 swered her sister. "By the time you can 
 get your bonnet on. Robert ! " in a queer, 
 choked voice as if her throat and tongue 
 were dusty, " I want to ask one question. 
 The scholars of this day are ever and ever 
 so much wiser than those who made King 
 James's Bible. Have they found all the mis- 
 takes in it? Suppose, in another hundred 
 years, or maybe in fifty years, another set of 
 men should decide that the little of the 
 Bible you have left us, is no more inspired 
 than Jonah and St. John's Gospel and Rev- 
 elation? When they have taken away all 
 of the only rule GOD has given to direct us 
 
 how we may glorify and enjoy Him what; 
 
 82
 
 Locust-blooms and Higher Criticism 
 
 will become of people's souls ? Where is 
 this to stop ? " 
 
 Robert's laugh was easy and affectionate : 
 
 " In the first place, my dear girl, you sup- 
 pose an impossibility. In the second place, 
 if we were compelled to confess that the 
 main body of the so-called Canon is the 
 work of man and not of GOD, the truth of 
 what these good men have told us in these 
 Books would remain unmoved. Further- 
 more, we have always the light of reason 
 meaning conscience and the religious feel- 
 ing," 
 
 " Where is the religious feeling to come 
 from when you take away the Bible ? " 
 
 " Where did Enoch, who lived before a 
 word of the Scriptures was written, get the 
 testimony that he pleased GOD? You are 
 the caviller now, my pet, not I. We will 
 talk this out some other time. Now we 
 must go in. Why, darling ! your hands are 
 like snowflakes ! " 
 
 He pressed them to his warm lips and put 
 83
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 his arm about her. She was shivering 
 violently. 
 
 " What a careless, stupid brute I am to 
 keep you out all this time in tl^e dew ! " 
 he was berating himself when they appeared 
 in the sitting-room where the lamp revealed 
 a bloodless face and lips that were blue. 
 Ruth tried to smile and speak, and her teeth 
 chattered uncontrollably. Her limbs were 
 numb and strangely weak. Mrs. Bergen, 
 seriously uneasy, hurried the visitors away 
 and Ruth up to her bed. There she put a 
 rubber bag of hot water to the girl's feet, 
 and administered a cup of scalding tea. She 
 was a mild natured and mild-mannered wo- 
 man, and forebore to blame the young man, 
 or to scold Ruth, although, as she reported 
 to her husband, " you might have swept the 
 dew off of Ruth's skirt by the handful, and 
 it would have been soaked through if it had 
 been cotton goods." If the child had caught 
 a chill the mother was as much to be 
 
 "faulted" as anybody else. 
 84
 
 Locust-blooms and Higher Criticism 
 
 Ruth faintly laid all her discomfort at the 
 door of "one of her bad headaches," thanked 
 her mother, gratefully, but still faintly, for 
 her kindness and promised to try to sleep. 
 In her heart she was yet more grateful to the 
 good woman for asking no questions and go- 
 ing quietly downstairs after extinguishing 
 the lamp. 
 
 The moonbeams flowed in, white and 
 solemn, with the going out of the grosser 
 light, and the smell of the locust-blooms 
 kept it company. The girl lay as one dead, 
 her hands clasped upon her heart, and wished 
 miserably that she had perished in the mo- 
 ment of her birth. Beaten down in nerve, 
 sick in body and in spirit, she could not con- 
 trol imagination. It ran riot in fancies the 
 like of which had never tormented her be- 
 fore. Her pitiful barrier of proof-texts had 
 been swept out to sea like so many splinters 
 before the tide of facts that were arguments ; 
 faith and hope were in the grasp of the un- 
 dertow. Every blow at the Book which was 
 
 85
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 the bulwark of her forefathers' Religion and 
 hers, had seemed to hack away a bit of her 
 heart. 
 
 Says one whose compassion for the suffer- 
 ers she describes has in it no admixture of 
 sympathy in their beliefs " They, too, had 
 their Calvary these determined souls who 
 doggedly died by the cross of the Old Faith 
 in whose shelter their fathers and their 
 fathers' fathers had lived and prayed, had 
 battled and triumphed." 
 
 I despair of winning an intelligent pity 
 for my little Ruth from such as have, from 
 infancy, heard the " Scriptures of the Old 
 and the New Testaments " spoken of as falli- 
 ble classics. The dogma for the dogmas of 
 Doubt are as numerous and as imperious as 
 those of " the old Faith "that " the great 
 patriarchal tales of the Old Testament are 
 no more literally true than the tales of 
 Achilles, of ^Eneas and of King Arthur 
 ancient Sagas about national heroes partly 
 
 mythical, partly legendary, with a few his- 
 86
 
 Locust-blooms and Higher Criticism 
 
 torical kernels embedded in them," hud 
 never been so much as whispered in Ruth 
 Bergen's world, much less doubts of the 
 authenticity of any portion of the New 
 Testament. She had received the kingdom 
 of Heaven and all pertaining thereunto as a 
 little child. Had her erudite lover brought 
 to her on that fragrant May evening the 
 news that she was not the child of her re- 
 puted parents, but base-born, having no 
 claims upon their hearts and no place in 
 their home, her sense of bereavement could 
 not have been keener. 
 
 One text was tossed up to her lips again 
 and again by the salt waves : 
 
 " If the foundations be destroyed what can the 
 righteous do ? " 
 
 "I am not righteous, O Lord, Thou know- 
 est but the foundations are taken from 
 under me. What can I do? what can I 
 build upon ? " she sobbed to the brooding 
 night in ever-growing desolatian. 
 
 The thought that the sibyl of Higher 
 
 87
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 Criticism had left so many precious leaves, 
 and that, as Robert proudly asserted, the 
 very cream of Revelation was now served in 
 faultless vessels to the Church and to Hu- 
 manity, was no consolation to her. A for- 
 midable feminine limitation is the unconquer- 
 able propensity to force a conclusion. She 
 was sure that what had been begun would 
 be completed. Pick and crowbar were busy 
 with the walls of the goodly edifice. Utter 
 demolition was merely a question of time. 
 She was possessed by the stubborn assurance 
 that, as certainly as a generation more 
 learned than those which had preceded it, 
 was screening and panning and assaying 
 Biblical ore, there would arise in days to 
 come, yet others who would improve upon 
 their work until nothing was left of the 
 Scriptures. 
 
 " Not so much as the title ! " she said, bit- 
 terly. " ' HOLY BIBLE ' has no business 
 there." She was crying like a broken-spir- 
 ited child. In her simplicity and her pain, 
 88
 
 Locust-blooms and Higher Criticism 
 
 she burst forth into wild and inapt apos- 
 trophe : 
 
 " 0, God! the heathen have come into Thine 
 inheritance. They have cast fire into Thy sanc- 
 tuary : they have defiled by casting doirn l/i<>, 
 dwelling-place of Thy name to the ground." 
 
 And again, as the ache in head and heart 
 were insupportable : 
 
 " They set their mouth against the heavens, and 
 their tongue walketh through the earth. Tliere- 
 fore, His people return thither, and u-aters of 
 a full cup are wrung out to them.' 1 ' 1 
 
 Startled to find that she was speak- 
 ing aloud, she sat upright and took her 
 racked head between her hands, pressing 
 it with all her might to still the agonizing 
 throbs. 
 
 " I believe I am losing my senses," she 
 thought. " Try as I will, I can't lay hold of 
 the Promises. They used always to be 
 within reach. What good could they do me 
 if I could recollect every one of them ? How 
 do I know which to depend upon, and what 
 
 89
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 are nothing but sinful men's words? A 
 great many ever and ever so many and such 
 strong comforting texts ! are in the Psalms 
 and in St. John. Robert says that GOD 
 never told David and John to write them. 
 He doesn't care whether they are GOD'S 
 words or man's, so long as they are true and 
 do him good. I do ! " flinging it out 
 vehemently. " I want to be sure that ' GOD 
 spake all these words.' Nothing makes my 
 soul safe short of ' Thus saith the Lord ! ' I 
 suppose it's because I am so weak and silly 
 and sinful that nothing else satisfies me. 
 Yet Robert is so positive, and he ought to 
 know. I do want to agree with him in 
 everything. O Lord ! be merciful unto me ! 
 for my soul is sore vexed." 
 
 The eastern branches of the locust trees 
 were flushed by the morning when the hot 
 eyes closed in uurestful sleep. She awoke at 
 eight o'clock to see her mother standing by 
 the bed. She had on a lilac print gown and 
 
 a white apron. Her eyes were liquid with 
 90
 
 Locust-blooms and Higher Criticism 
 
 tender anxiety and in her lips the law of 
 kindness was honey-sweet. 
 
 " My pretty ! " she cooed, stroking Lack 
 the tumbled hair with a plump hand won- 
 drous light for its size. " How is the poor 
 head by now? I wouldn't disturb you be- 
 fore, for I wanted that you should sleep it 
 off." 
 
 " It doesn't ache, I think, mother ! " She 
 raised it and it dropped back on the pillow 
 unexpectedly and heavily. "I'll feel better 
 when I have bathed and dressed," she per- 
 sisted. " I'm ashamed to be so lazy." 
 
 " You're never that, dearie. I was up here 
 awhile ago, but I hadn't the heart to wake 
 you you looked so white and tired. Robert 
 stopped at the door on his way to the 
 seven-twenty train, to ask after you. He 
 said not to call you if you weren't up. He 
 hadn't a minute to spare. Here's a book he 
 left with his love. There's a note with it. 
 He was anxious about your head and was 
 real pleased to hear you were sleeping it off. 
 
 91
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 Now, Til fetch up a cup of green tea. 
 There's nothing better for nervous headache 
 than green tea without so much as a grain of 
 black. As for the stuff people swig because 
 ' English breakfast ' is fashionable, I wouldn't 
 give a cent a pound for it." 
 
 " You and Robert would spoil me to death 
 if I'd let you," Ruth said, with a tremulous 
 smile and an abortive feint at a pout. 
 " There's nothing really the matter with 
 me. I'll take a quinine capsule before I 
 eat my breakfast. I may have a touch of 
 malaria." 
 
 The maternal brow cleared. " Malaria " 
 covers a multitude of bodily sins in the 
 sight of Briardalers. The fiend is an enemy 
 they have almost ceased to dread because 
 familiar with his tricks and his manners. To 
 bombard him with quinine and to scare him 
 with calisaya, to fortify the citadel of health 
 with sarsaparilla and to build bomb-proofs 
 of maltine and chalybeate bitters, are all 
 
 that the average system requires to secure if 
 92
 
 Locust-blooms and Higher Criticism 
 
 from serious injury. To neglect these pre- 
 cautions in the spring and fall is to fly into 
 the face of a forbearing Providence. 
 
 Mrs. Bergen adopted the malarial hypoth- 
 esis with alacrity, and saw to it that her 
 daughter swallowed a two-grain capsule 
 (broken doses are always more effectual than 
 heroic) three times daily on Monday, Tues- 
 day, Wednesday and Thursday. She saw to 
 it the more rigidly because of her increasing 
 dissatisfaction with Ruth's looks and behav- 
 ior. She spent much time in her own room ; 
 there were bistre semicircles under her eyes; 
 her complexion was dull, with gray shadows 
 about the mouth and lurking in the temples. 
 A vein that was scarcely visible when she 
 was well showed as if curved by a blue 
 pencil, where the nose met the brows. 
 
 " She doesn't eat enough to keep a spar- 
 row alive," Mrs. Bergen told her daughter 
 during a visit she paid to Mrs. de Baun on 
 Thursday afternoon. " The child works her 
 brain too hard in my opinion. Her light 
 
 93
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 wasn't out at twelve o'clock last night. I 
 saw it a-shining on the locust trees from my 
 window when I happened to wake and look 
 out. So, upstairs I walked myself, and 
 there she sat with a book Robert left for her 
 a-Monday open before her, and writing in a 
 sort of copy book. She shut it up in a hurry 
 and shoved it under the big book when I 
 spoke, and looked as scared as if she had 
 been caught stealing. I didn't say a cross 
 word to her. It never pays to scold her, 
 you know. She takes it too humbly. But 
 I did tell her that she was breaking herself 
 down studying so constant and after all 
 was said and done, where was the use of try- 
 ing to know everything ? She clipped in as 
 quick as a flash there, and says she, in a de- 
 cided kind of way, ' You're right, mother ! 
 there is no use in it. It's worse than useless. 
 I'll go right to bed.' 
 
 " I saw she was down-hearted, and I 
 petted her a little and saw her into bed and 
 that she'd a pitcher of fresh water by her 
 
 94
 
 Locust-blooms and Higher Criticism 
 
 bed. She tells me she wakes up thirsty 
 these warmish nights, and drinks and 
 drinks. Father, he was wondering this 
 morning if she has an inward fever. If she 
 ain't better in a day or two, I'll ask the 
 doctor to look at her. I 'most wish, some- 
 times, that she wasn't so ambitious. She's 
 that anxious to keep up with Robert that 
 she'll overdo if she ain't careful. And 
 what's education without health ? " 
 
 Having had her grumble out, Mrs. 
 Bergen's mind was pleasantly receptive of 
 environing influences while she walked 
 homeward. She was not really uneasy 
 about Ruth's health and was, in fact, dis- 
 posed to be proud of the intellectual toil she 
 affected to deprecate. At the corner nearest 
 her home she stopped to chat with Mina 
 Romeyn and Annie Bogardus, nice enough 
 girls, both of them, but all agog about beaux 
 and clothes and frolics. They had attended 
 the same New York school with Ruth, but 
 
 Mrs. Bergen doubted if either of them read 
 95
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 three hooks a year. As to poring over and 
 enjoying, much less taking notes out of a 
 hook like that Search-lights of Scripture 
 Rohert had sent to Ruth, and which the 
 mother had opened once only to he con- 
 founded by the ponderous paragraphs and ser- 
 ried footnotes the worthy woman smiled to 
 herself, charitably derisive of the suggestion. 
 Strolling on in the middle of the asphalt 
 sidewalk bounded on both sides with velvet 
 sward, she felt her already bountiful soul 
 expand and glow with the season and the 
 sunsetting. There was not a prettier place 
 up and down the river than Briardale, if it 
 ivas on a Branch road and had only two 
 trains each way a day, and not a nicer house 
 in Briardale than the square, porticoed 
 colonial homestead in which her husband 
 and all his children were born. Pausing at 
 the gate she looked it all over with a full 
 heart. The clump of cinnamon roses in the 
 corner of the yard, planted by her husband's 
 
 mother, had as many flowers as leaves upon 
 96
 
 Locust-blooms and Higher Criticism 
 
 it. The modern "monthlies" were affluent 
 in buds ; the lilac hedge, dividing the lawn 
 on the north side from the garden, still made! 
 a goodly show of mauve and white blossoms. 
 And the honeysuckles ! she had had bushels 
 of suckers and wandering runners pruned 
 away ten days ago, and now, look at them ! 
 Almost as rank as ever, and hardly room 
 for a pin's point between the blooms ! 
 There was a litter of locust-flowers upon the 
 turf and gravel walk. She was sorry they 
 had begun to fall. She ivould say there 
 weren't many sweeter smells than locust- 
 flowers and they were a'most as handsome as 
 roses and lilies. She was always proud of 
 that row of locusts. 
 
 " The lines have fallen to me in pleasant 
 places. Yea, I have a goodly heritage" mur- 
 mured the pious soul, as the mistress of the 
 heritage entered the pleasant places of the 
 roomy hall. The double Dutch doors front 
 and back gave to her glistening eyes the 
 
 symphony in pink-and-white of locust 
 7 97
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 flowers, repeated and chorused by apple 
 and cherry-blooms in garden and orchard. 
 
 Halfway on the staircase leading to her 
 chamber she was arrested by an odd, moan- 
 ing noise. 
 
 98
 
 IV 
 
 "DYING, SIR! DYING!" 
 
 A NOTE from Robert to his betrothed had 
 accompanied Search-lights of Scripture. 
 
 Ruth's gratifying interest in a subject that 
 engrossed much of his own thought just now 
 assured him that she would read with pro- 
 found attention a volume that had opened to 
 him a new world of study and speculation. 
 No fiction had ever given him such lively 
 intellectual pleasure as he had found in these 
 fascinating pages. No scientific discovery 
 was fraught with more important results to 
 the human race than the conclusions the 
 author had drawn from his biological and 
 theological researches. 
 
 " Acting upon the principle of which I 
 spoke last night, I would not trust the 
 average woman to read this book," he went 
 on to say. " The limitations of custom and 
 
 99
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 superstition, mistaken by many for pious 
 fervor, are peculiarly strong with women, 
 and unfit them for impartial consideration 
 where the element of emotion is allowed to 
 enter. Your cool head and excellent com- 
 mon sense are a guarantee that you may be 
 trusted to get all the good out of this 
 treatise and take no harm from the perusal. 
 The author is an eminent clergyman whose 
 advanced views have brought him into 
 especial prominence as a pioneer in the New 
 Movement. 
 
 " I anticipate with unusual eagerness next 
 Saturday evening's talk with you. I cannot 
 express in this hurried note how much I 
 enjoyed our discussion of last night. It was 
 like 'iron sharpening iron.' But when do I 
 not revel in your society ? " etc., etc. 
 
 Ruth's brain was still giddy and her scalp 
 sore to the touch after the cruel headache, 
 when she began on Monday forenoon the 
 perusal of the fascinating book. The first 
 
 two chapters were preliminary and tentative, 
 100
 
 " Dying, Sir ! Dying ! " 
 
 and she had to summon will-power to coerce 
 her mind into a sickly show of attentiveness. 
 Robert's talk had made her tolerably famil- 
 iar with such phrases as Verbal and Plenary 
 Inspiration, the Authenticity of Revelation, 
 Theophany and Christophanies. She had 
 even a shadowy conception of what was 
 meant by Eschatology, and did not faint 
 and fall, albeit bruised and shaken, when 
 she ran up against the jutting crag of Bib- 
 lical Anthropology. Her father had given 
 her Webster's Unabridged when she left school, 
 and a fairly good Encyclopaedia bowed the 
 back of a shelf in the family bookcase. She 
 was not, therefore, altogether left to her own 
 devices when she put out to sea. 
 
 After an hour of conscientious rowing in 
 waters which she could see were dark, and 
 which she took it for granted were deep, 
 she was ashamed to find that her jaws ached 
 for an honest, wide, expressive yawn and 
 that her head was thicker than when she 
 sat down to be fascinated. She was disap- 
 
 101
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 pointed and Robert would be chagrined, 
 when he learned that he had overrated her 
 intellectual scope. Drowsiness, engendered 
 by the warmth of the day and the loss of 
 last night's rightful amount of sleep, was 
 tempting her to relinquish the task and in- 
 dulge herself in a plain, trite noon nap, 
 when, fluttering the leaves negligently, her 
 roving glance rested upon four lines of 
 poetry in the middle of a page. 
 
 " Far hence He lies 
 
 In the lorn, Syrian town, 
 And on His grave, with shining eyes, 
 The Syrian stars look down." 
 
 Still uninterested, she went back to the 
 context : 
 
 " To borrow the eloquent words of an- 
 other, 'The ashes of Jesus of Nazareth 
 mingled with the dust of Palestine.' " 
 
 "What!" 
 
 Alive and alert, she sat up and attacked 
 the chapter embodying the monstrous lie 
 fell upon it as upon a living, audacious foe. 
 
 102
 
 "Dying, Sir! Dying!" 
 
 Until that instant the knowledge that the 
 Resurrection the pivotal truth of the Chris- 
 tian Religion, without which Paul declares 
 Faith to be vain and the Apostles false wit- 
 nesses of GOD was questioned by those who 
 lay claim to the name of "believers," had 
 never come to the old-fashioned church- 
 woman. Nor did the eminent author of 
 Search-lights of Scripture put forward the 
 theory as of his own having and holding. 
 While bringing the search-light to bear upon 
 all articles of the Christian Creed, this could 
 not be overlooked. He cited the doubt as 
 the conviction of others the latchet of whose 
 shoes he was not worthy to unloose ; the 
 arguments against the theory that Christ 
 arose from the dead, as the reasoning of ad- 
 vanced thinkers who would fain shatter the 
 fetters of Bibliolatry and Christolatry and 
 bring the world to the feet of the All-Father 
 and into the glorious light of liberated 
 thought. "These," he said, "are the life- 
 warriors who exalt ethics above creeds, who 
 
 103
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 love Good for Good's sake, and claim eternal 
 life as the heritage, not the reward, of the 
 soul that came from GOD and will return to, 
 and be resolved into GOD." 
 
 The eloquent quotation was continued in 
 these words: 
 
 "'And in the days and weeks that fol- 
 lowed, the devout and passionate fancy of a 
 few mourning Galileans begat the exquisite 
 fable of the Resurrection. How natural - 
 and amid all its falseness how true is that 
 naive and contradictory story! The rapid- 
 ity with which it spread is a measure of 
 many things. It is, above all, a measure of 
 the greatness of Jesus, of the force with 
 which He had drawn to Himself the hearts 
 and imaginations of men.' " 
 
 The chapter immediately preceding that 
 upon The Resurrection was entitled " The 
 Love of Christ''' Another was upon " The 
 Hypothesis that Miracles are of Human 
 Origin" Still another was headed " The 
 
 Man Jesus a Martyr, not a Sacrifice" 
 104
 
 "Dying, Sir! Dying!" 
 
 It was while reading the last-named that 
 Ruth's horrified imagination caught at the 
 idea of refuting the testimony of the Search- 
 lights to her own satisfaction, if not to 
 llobert's conviction, by arguments drawn 
 from Scripture and framed by the common 
 sense her betrothed had commended. She 
 had taken notes of school-lectures, and writ- 
 ten abstracts of sermons, histories and essays. 
 Providing herself with blank-book and foun- 
 tain-pen, she laid open before her, /Search- 
 lights of Scripture, on one side Crudens Con- 
 cordance, on the other the Bible, and near at 
 hand a venerable copy of Adam Clarke's Com- 
 mentaries that had belonged to her grand- 
 father. Thus equipped, she began the cam- 
 paign against principalities and powers that 
 are blockading the Church of GOD on earth. 
 
 A comic element would interfuse the situa- 
 tion were the piteousness of it less apparent. 
 Her tactics were so puerile, her armament 
 and her command of it so incomplete, and, 
 
 above all, her trust in the Promise to which 
 105
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 was her appeal " It shall be given you in that 
 hour what you shall speak " was so childlike 
 in its entireness, that laughter is smothered 
 by a sob. 
 
 For this was all she knew how to do: 
 Upon one page of the blank-book she wrote 
 out objectionable (from her standpoint) ex- 
 tracts from Search-lights, and others of like 
 nature quoted from her recollections of Rob- 
 ert's harangues. She transcribed conscien- 
 tiously such sentiments as had shocked her 
 most cruelly, the sophistries which were 
 most plausible and hardest to answer. That 
 each was a thorn pressed into the quick of 
 her soul, did not turn her aside by so much 
 as a hair's breadth. This done, she wrote 
 upon the opposite pages texts of Scripture 
 adverse to the author's assertions and deduc- 
 tions, and prim little didacticisms of her own 
 composition, drawn from early education and 
 backed up by Adam Clarke and the burning 
 desire to overthrow what must be false. 
 
 It was a battle for her Religion at the first 
 
 106
 
 "Dying, Sir! Dying!" 
 
 as a Religion, a system of belief, a vital, 
 but comparatively abstract, principle. Robert 
 had praised her cool head. She would keep 
 it cool and "level." Women, according to 
 him, were swayed by partialities and by emo- 
 tion in their judgment of evidence. She 
 would remain upon the outside of her subject 
 and give due weight, with a leaning toward 
 mercy, to her opponent's argument. Had 
 her knowledge of her own sex been larger, 
 she would have comprehended that with 
 women an assailed Cause speedily passes 
 from the abstract into the concrete, although 
 not one in ten knows the meaning of the 
 technical terms. The persecuted thing -is 
 taken to heart, adopted by the affections, in- 
 terwoven with conscience, identified with the 
 advocate's personality, until she does not 
 know herself apart from it. To the woman's 
 intellect, Truth (or what she assumes to be 
 truth) is as purely bright as that side of 
 Venus which, astronomers tell us, forever 
 faces the sun. Error is the planet's other 
 
 107
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 and, to us, invisible hemisphere, upon which 
 the sun never rises a realm of black ice 
 and hopeless frosts. With her, doubt and 
 disbelief are synonyms, and gradations of 
 faith are unknown quantities. " Almost a 
 Christian" belongs to the category of "Al- 
 most an honest man " and " Almost a virtu- 
 ous woman." Almost saved is to be wholly 
 lost. 
 
 This idiosyncracy of her sex was by no 
 means the weakest of Ruth Bergen's limita- 
 tions. It closed in and tightened upon her 
 with each hour of the unequal contest. By 
 Wednesday night she knew that she was 
 playing a losing game. She had not slept 
 two hours at a time since Sunday. The 
 weight of what felt like a hot palm lay more 
 and more heavily upon the top of her head 
 as hour was superadded to hour of mental 
 toil and spiritual anguish. She had spasms 
 of almost murderous resentment against 
 those who had discerned and exposed the 
 
 tatters and thin spots in the royal raiment of 
 108
 
 " Dying, Sir ! Dying ! " 
 
 the Scriptures. As judged by her, they had 
 done no good to any living creature. They 
 would make thousands most miserable, who, 
 but fur their officious display of learning, 
 would have ordered their lives according to 
 the Bible in which they believed, died hap- 
 pily, trusting to Bible promises, and gone to 
 the heaven of which they would have re- 
 mained ignorant but for that inspired Word. 
 If all that the Higher Critics as expounded 
 by her betrothed, claimed were true, if 
 Christ's death were not a sacrifice for the 
 sins of the world, but a martyr's fate that 
 had no atoning efficacy ; if the Father had 
 not sent His Only-begotten Son to suffer and 
 to die as a Propitiation for our sins ; if Christ 
 had never arisen from the dead and become 
 the first-fruits of them that sleep ; if Old 
 Testament stories were myths, and Biblical 
 prophecies were not predictions and were 
 never to be fulfilled ; if John the Evangelist 
 were no more inspired than John Greenleaf 
 Whittier, yet, so long as the world is the 
 
 109
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 better and the people in it the happier for 
 believing the old, old Story it is cruel it 
 is fiendish to empty the soul of faith and 
 give it nothing nothing -in exchange for 
 what it valued as a pearl of great price. 
 
 Tliis was the weak and womanish conclu- 
 sion of a three days' study which had been, 
 for two of the three, a desperate battle for 
 her soul's salvation. She could not answer 
 logically one of the arguments she had dis- 
 puted ; it had not been given to her in that 
 supreme hour what she should say, or even 
 think. She had passed through the waters, 
 and they had overflowed her, and the fires 
 had kindled upon her soul. 
 
 " I may be weak. They are wicked ! " she 
 said deliberately. " It is like knocking the 
 crutches from under a cripple's arms, and 
 leaving him to get along without so much as 
 a stick. I wish the man who wrote this book 
 had been paralyzed before he ever put pen 
 to paper. If there is a Hereafter, and if any 
 
 of the things he denies are true, he will have 
 110
 
 "Dying, Sir! Dying!' 
 
 to account for what he has done sometime 
 and somewhere." 
 
 This was on Thursday afternoon, and just 
 after she had read a scholarly exposition of 
 the passage in the alleged prediction of the 
 putative Isaiah : 
 
 " He was wounded for our transgression ; He 
 was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement 
 of our peace was upon Him, and icith His 
 stripes we are healed." 
 
 According to this exposition, the words 
 are not a Messianic prophecy. They have 
 nothing to do with the crucified Messiah, and 
 refer solely to persecuted Israel under the 
 Captivity. 
 
 Ruth brought the two sides of the book 
 together with a sharp concussion, raised her 
 arm high and flung Search-lights across the 
 room with force that drove it fast into a 
 corner. 
 
 " I won't read another word ! " she cried, 
 passionately. " They have undermined my 
 
 faith. They have taken away my only hope 
 111
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 in life and in death. GOD may forgive them 
 if there is any GOD left after they have 
 done with Him. I never will ! " 
 
 She reviewed the closely-written pages of 
 her notebook, and sneered forlornly. Most 
 of the proof-texts were gleaned from dis- 
 puted portions of the Book whose authentic- 
 ity she had tried to substantiate ; her argu- 
 ments were as weak as water. She was like 
 a defeated army that sees its own guns 
 turned upon it. Ripping page after page 
 from the covers, she crammed them into a 
 waste-basket before she obeyed the call to 
 dinner. 
 
 Her mother had a tablespoonful of Beef- 
 Iron-and-Wine poured out for her ; her 
 father shaved a slice of corned beef so thin 
 that it writhed after the knife-blade like a 
 pine-shaving, and laid it silently upon her 
 plate. Mrs. Bergen pressed some homemade 
 pickled white onions upon her daughter. 
 They were first-rate for bringing up the ap- 
 petite, and if Ruth would chew a few grains 
 112
 
 " Dying, Sir ! Dying ! " 
 
 of roasted coffee after dinner, it would make 
 her breath all right again. Not that it mat- 
 tered much anyway. "Robert" slyly 
 "wouldn't be home until Saturday." 
 
 The girl made a languid feint at dining, as 
 much to avert inquiry as to please those 
 whose darling she was. She made talk, too, 
 in the pauses between Mrs. Bergen's kindly 
 cooings. An extra spoonful of green tea 
 " real hyson," had gone into the pot on 
 purpose to tone Ruth's nerves. It was 
 strong enough to bear up an egg, and bitter 
 as soot, even after it had been "eased down " 
 with cream so thick that it had to be ladled 
 out of the cream-jug. Plenty of the same 
 deluged Ruth's share of rice-pudding. Mrs. 
 Bergen "held to cream " as an up-builder of 
 the human system. If her churn were the 
 poorer for her daughter's invalidism, she did 
 not " begrudge " the waste. While the girl 
 toyed with her spoon, dabbling it in the con- 
 tents of her saucer, and now and then, rais- 
 ing it to her lips, her seniors seemed not to 
 8 113
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 notice how little she ate and how little she 
 said. They were very kind and tactful. She 
 had much to be thankful for, and a part of 
 the much was that the cause of her distress 
 was not suspected. Her father would have 
 no patience with Robert's "crochetty no- 
 tions," and her mother would think hard of 
 the boy for worrying her child. In a day or 
 two she would pull herself straight. As soon 
 as she could think of something besides 
 Plenary Inspiration, Scriptural Sagas, the 
 Authenticity of the Fourth Gospel and the 
 Moral Influence Theory, she would prove 
 that she was neither unobservant nor un- 
 grateful. She hoped her father and mother 
 would never hear of the Higher Criticism, 
 and that Garrett, Jr., would live, grow up into 
 an old man and die without ever reading 
 Search-lights of Scripture. 
 
 If only the ringing in her ears, which 
 must be caused by quinine, and the singing 
 over and over in her brain of those four 
 
 dreadful lines would stop ! 
 114
 
 "Dying, Sir! Dying!" 
 
 'Far heuce lie lies 
 
 In the lorn, Syrian town " 
 
 That must be Jerusalem, where they laid 
 Him to rest in Joseph's new tomb 
 
 "And on His grave with shining eyes, 
 The Syrian stars look down." 
 
 The hateful rhyme haunted her, stuck to 
 her memory like thistle-down that, when 
 blown away, floats up a little way and set- 
 tles back again. She caught herself brush- 
 ing it away as she \vould a gnat. 
 
 She was moaning it as fast as she could 
 articulate the syllables, rolling her head from 
 side to side to get rid of the floating parti- 
 cles, when her mother heard her on the stairs 
 and came to see what had gone wrong. 
 
 Ruth lay upon her side across the bed as 
 if she had fallen there. There was no pillow 
 under her head, which had dropped back in 
 an attitude no reasonable creature would 
 have kept for a moment. Her face was 
 
 almost purple. 
 
 115
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 " And no wonder, with all the blood de- 
 terminating to your head, child!" ejaculated 
 Mrs. Bergen, rushing forward to raise it. 
 
 Her color was not lowered, and she talked 
 all the time her mother was loosening her 
 clothes and getting her to bed in such deco- 
 rous sort as became a Christian sickening 
 for typhoid. 
 
 That was the doctor's diagnosis. Here 
 was the key to headache, nausea, insomnia 
 every symptom that had baffled and troubled 
 her friends. Mrs. de Baun was sent for and 
 arrived before bedtime, prepared to stay 
 while the fever ran its course. It ran fast 
 and furiously, and Ruth's talk kept up with 
 it. Not once was it still all that night while 
 the two women sat up with her, their eyes, 
 brimful of awe and grief, meeting in mute 
 questioning over the pillow creased by the 
 tossing head, and while the father, as 
 wretched and sleepless as they, roamed from 
 floor to floor of the house and paced the 
 piazza by the hour until the day broke. 
 
 116
 
 "Dying, Sir! Dying!" 
 
 So frightfully rapid was the " course " 
 that on Saturday noon, they telegraphed for 
 Robert Craig. 
 
 " Ruth dangerously ill. Come at once. No 
 time to lose. Garrett Bergen.' 1 '' 
 
 There were just the regulation ten words. 
 Ten hundred could not have put the case 
 more strongly or carried consternation more 
 forcefully to the lover's heart. The doctor 
 still talked of typhoid and the predestined 
 course, but he would not guarantee that 
 " something might not supervene unless the 
 patient could be quieted." 
 
 " She is talking herself to death," he said 
 to Mr. Bergen upon his return to the 
 chamber after sending the telegram dictated 
 by the father's heart and not the physician's 
 tongue. 
 
 Mr. Bergen stood by the bed, looking 
 down upon the darkly flushed face and wild 
 eyes, his features set hard as in a plaster 
 
 cast. When he put his hand upon her fore- 
 117
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 head, Ruth jerked away from him and kept 
 up the terrible roll back and forth, back and 
 forth. It was enough of itself to exhaust her 
 vitality. Her tongue was swollen, her baked 
 lips moved incessantly in rapid, incoherent 
 whisperings. 
 
 " It beats all where she got the stuff she 
 talks," said the mother. " It's all about the 
 subject of religion. Sometimes she prays, 
 most times she's repeating texts and asking 
 Robert what they mean. Maybe, when he 
 conies, he may be able to quiet her a bit. 
 She's lost her voice and no wonder ! " 
 
 She offered another conjecture by-and-bye. 
 Could the young folks have quarreled ? 
 Ruth was always too sensitive and that 
 bound up in Robert that a sharp word from 
 him would go near to breaking her heart. 
 Opposed to this were Robert's call on the 
 way to the train Monday morning, the letter 
 and parcel left for his betrothed, and Ruth's 
 remark "You and he would spoil me to 
 death if you could." It was a hopeless puz- 
 
 118
 
 "Dying, Sir! Dying!" 
 
 zle. Mrs. de Baun connected her sister's 
 ravings with the sermon on the piazza Sun- 
 day night. Ruth's mind ran continually 
 upon Inspiration and the like, and Robert 
 had discoursed at length upon the subject. 
 But there ! what was the use of guessing ? 
 Most likely the things she talked most of, 
 now that she was out of her head, never 
 entered her brain while she was well. That 
 was generally the way with delirious people. 
 And crazy ones as well. 
 
 Mr. Bergen listened to them with one ear. 
 The other ear and all of his thoughts were 
 bent upon his girl. Leaning low to the 
 fever-dried mouth, he distinguished her 
 lover's name, followed by a medley of the- 
 ological terms and allusions to certain books 
 in the Bible, jumbled together inextricably 
 and without a show of sequence. As he 
 straightened himself with a sigh of utter 
 bafflement, he espied the fallen volume, 
 overlooked in its dark corner In the disorder 
 and anxiety of the last few days. His wife's 
 
 119
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 mention of Ruth's studies during the earlier 
 part of the week had quickened the de- 
 tective instinct within him. On his way 
 across the room to pick up the book, he saw 
 the torn MSS. in the wastebasket. Book 
 and basket went with him downstairs. 
 
 Twilight, murky with rain, was shorten- 
 ing the vista of the village street as Robert 
 Craig leaped from the six o'clock train and 
 took his hurried way by the nearest cross- 
 cuts to the Bergen homestead. The " long 
 season in Ma} 7 ," otherwise known as " the 
 blossom-storm," had closed in upon the 
 valley that morning, continuing, with inter- 
 mittent gusts of wind like hysterical weep- 
 ing, all day. The asphalt sidewalks showed 
 black and glossy between fallen petals from 
 trees and hedges. Before the Bergen house 
 it was carpeted, as with discolored snow, by 
 the bereft locust-trees. In the gravel-walk 
 leading from the gate to the porch the 
 drenched blossoms were drifted between the 
 low box-rows. The young man's hasty feet 
 
 120
 
 "Dying, Sir! Dying!" 
 
 crushed them with a mournful, soaked 
 sound. In the corners of the steps they 
 were huddled by the wind and packed by 
 showers. Robert took in every detail of the 
 scene with the strained intensity of con- 
 sciousness that is born under powerful ex- 
 citement, like a sixth sense with which the 
 other senses and volition have nothing to 
 do. 
 
 The front-door was closed, but not locked. 
 He entered without ringing, passing on at 
 once to the family "living-room " to the left. 
 The light of a lamp streamed out into the 
 silent hall. It stood upon the centre-table 
 by which Mr. Bergen was sitting. His fore- 
 head was between his palms; his elbows 
 rested on the table, and he seemed to be 
 reading intently. About and beyond the 
 book between his elbows were scattered 
 sheets of written paper. Robert took it all 
 in on the threshold, without the pause of a 
 second. Passing swiftly to the old man's 
 side, he laid his hand upon his shoulder. 
 
 121
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 " How is she ? " lie asked in husky breath- 
 lessness. 
 
 He recoiled, throwing up his arm in in- 
 voluntary self-defence, before the gesture with 
 which the master of the house sprang to his 
 feet. His face blackened and wrinkled with 
 grief and rage ; his eyelids were swollen 
 with sleeplessness and tears ; he glared redly 
 at the intruder as at a rattlesnake. When 
 he spoke his lips rolled back from teeth 
 that gnashed upon and bit at the words. 
 
 " So-o-o ! " drawing out the monosyllable 
 until it hissed. " You've come to see your 
 work have you ? ' How is she ? ' Dying, 
 sir ! dying ! 1 thank GOD that she is, when 
 I think what would have become of her soul 
 if this thing had gone on ! " He struck the 
 open book with a fist doubled hard. " This 
 is the sort of devil's dish you have been 
 feeding her upon and poisoning her with 
 through and through. This is your prop- 
 erty. Your name is in it. I'll show you 
 
 what I mean to do with it, as I would do 
 122
 
 "Dying, Sir! Dying!" 
 
 with any other deadly poison rat's bane, or 
 arsenic, or strychnine left within reach of 
 an innocent child like that upstairs." 
 
 Seizing the book with one hand, he cl niched 
 the young man's shoulder with the other and 
 dragged him through the dining-room to the 
 kitchen. 
 
 "Take that lid off!" he commanded the 
 amazed cook. " Don't stand gaping there ! 
 Take it off, I say ! " 
 
 Into the glowing crater thus bared, he 
 thrust the condemned volume, rammed it 
 into the reddest hollow of the coals with the 
 poker, and as it caught fire, clashed the lid 
 back into place. 
 
 " Now come ! " he uttered to the thunder- 
 stricken visitor, stalking back to the living- 
 room. 
 
 " I cannot think " stammered Robert, 
 finding voice as he followed him. 
 
 Had grief driven the old man mad ? The 
 suspicion softened the heart of the younger. 
 
 "I cannot divine," he said, more dis- 
 123
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 tinctly "what you mean to accuse me of, 
 Mr. Bergen." 
 
 The retort was a tigerish snarl. 
 
 "I wish you had never tried to think! 
 What brains you once had were eaten out by 
 self-conceit of your own cleverness. That 
 is the trick of your tribe. The first use you 
 make of the knowledge that you have minds 
 is to try to prove that you have not immortal 
 souls. As soon as you begin to know any- 
 thing, you set to work to show that you and 
 everybody else knows nothing. O, I have 
 heard of agnosticism the most diabolical of 
 all your " isms " and that is what it 
 amounts to just that and nothing else. 
 No, young man ! I have not lost my senses. 
 I mean every word I say and ten thousand 
 times more. I have read what that suffering 
 angel has written here " gathering up the 
 scattered leaves while speaking. " Poor, 
 ignorant lamb ! It was like fighting a razor 
 with a rye-straw. You'll see what I am 
 
 talking about when you read these. Read 
 124
 
 "Dying, Sir! Dying!' 
 
 them you shall, if I have to stand over you 
 while you do it. These are the first-fruits 
 of your ministry of reconciliation " with 
 withering sarcasm. " You have stripped her 
 of everything she held dear and given her 
 worse than nothing in return. When I 
 think of it ! " 
 
 He clenched his jaws; opened the table- 
 drawer, put the papers into it and locked it. 
 Then he faced his companion without look- 
 ing at him an action that had cutting sig- 
 nificance. 
 
 " Now we will go upstairs ! " 
 
 As Robert trod the carpeted stairs cau- 
 tiously, in mechanical imitation of the 
 father's guarded footfalls, one thought formed 
 itself in the seething chaldron of his tor- 
 tured wits. 
 
 " This man's limitations are simply incredi- 
 ble in this age and country ! " 
 
 In the overwhelming bewilderment 
 wrought by Mr. Bergen's attack, the young 
 fellow had not begun to apprehend what he 
 
 125
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 was to meet in that hushed upper chamber. 
 The mental criticism passed upon his host 
 was an automatic act of reason prompted 
 by the habit of looking back of effect for 
 cause. 
 
 Logic and self-conceit fled together with 
 the opening of the bedroom door. Ruth lay 
 high upon her pillows, gasping for breath. 
 Her eyes were shut and sunken, her features 
 pinched into the sharp outlines of death ; her 
 mouth still worked with the fast outflow of 
 words which she was too weak to make audi- 
 ble. This whispering, hardly louder than 
 the failing breath, was the only sound in the 
 room except for the weak sighs of wind made 
 by the fan with which Mrs. de Baun drew 
 the air from the windows to the laboring 
 lungs. Mrs. Bergen was on the other side 
 of the bed. The physician leaned on the 
 footboard. His inert attitude and sorrow- 
 fully impassive visage shot the awful truth 
 straight to the lover's heart. With a stifled 
 cry of exquisite agony, he fell upon his knees 
 
 126
 
 "Dying, Sir! Dying!" 
 
 beside the low bed and laid hold of one of 
 the quivering hands. 
 
 " My darling ! my darling ! O GOD ! I 
 never thought of this ! " 
 
 " Hush ! " said Mrs. De Baun. " She seems 
 to know nobody, but you may disturb her. 
 She called you, about an hour ago, quite dis- 
 tinctly. She has not spoken aloud since." 
 
 "She will not suffer much longer," the 
 doctor said, presently, as the restless lips 
 were still for several minutes at a time. He 
 moved to her side and felt her pulse. 
 
 " Please GOD, she will pass quietly." 
 
 Lengthening distances of silence divided 
 the fluttering whispers. The outer world 
 was stilling into the hush that reigned in the 
 upper chamber. The rain was a muffled pat- 
 ter that did not awaken the wet leaves. The 
 damp air had in it suggestions of the fallen 
 locust-flowers, and the fan brought it in 
 measured breaths over the bed. 
 
 The bed where Ruth lay a-dying ! While 
 
 Robert's eyes never left her altered face, re- 
 127
 
 Ruth Bergen's Limitations 
 
 lentless memory conjured up a hundred vis- 
 ions of what she had been, and what she 
 could never be again. 
 
 Just one week ago to-night ! He groaned 
 aloud. The tricksy sprite who had waltzed 
 away from him, balancing herself on tiptoe 
 to look over her shoulder at the swirling 
 skirt of the gown she was so innocently vain 
 of making all by herself; the fond and frank 
 pupil who had gazed up at him from her low 
 stool and feared that she loved him better 
 than her own soul flitted between him and 
 the graying mask on the pillow. She had 
 always done what he would have her do. 
 Surely she would not leave him now if he 
 could but make her hear and comprehend his 
 need of her. 
 
 He raised himself to her ear so abruptly 
 that no one could hinder the mad movement, 
 and called her aloud, imperatively, in a pas- 
 sion of entreaty. 
 
 " Ruth ! my love ! my love ! Come back 
 
 to me ! " 
 
 128
 
 "Dying, Sir! Dying!" 
 
 Her body shook and thrilled as flame 
 wavers in the wind. Her fingers contracted 
 upon his, then broke from his hold. Her 
 arms were tossed free of the coverings, her 
 eyes opened wide. A thin, shrilling cry that 
 was not her voice, quavered forth from lips 
 that could not move : 
 
 " O Robert ! They have taken away my 
 Lord, and I know not where they have laid 
 Him!" 
 
 Dear Christ ! wounded in the house of Thy 
 friends in this, our day, as in Herod's ! into 
 Thy hands we commit this blinded soul ! 
 
 Thou who takest away the sins of the world, 
 Have mercy upon us! 
 
 129
 
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