A Soldier's Son Part 2

--FIRST WORK IN THE VINEYARD.

"Would you like me to read to you for a little while this evening, Mr. Higgs? My aunt has given me permission, if you would like me to," Carol asked modestly as he entered the old man's cottage the following Sunday evening. Mr. Higgs was seated as usual at the open door, watching the villagers pa.s.s by on their way to church.

"Thank you kindly, young gentleman. I'll be glad to hear some of the words of the Book. I just keep it close by me. It don't seem Sunday without. But my eyes fail me, and I just sit and ponder over some of the Psalms I can well remember. After the service sometimes a neighbor'll pop in and tell me the text Rector's been preaching about. A mighty fine preacher is Rector, but often I used to say to my Missus--she's dead and gone these five years--his thoughts are like birds, they fly over our heads, and we don't seem able to lay hold of them. If he'd just tell us something simple to help us day by day. I'd be glad now if I could remember some of the sermons I've listened to, year in, year out. But there, it's all gone, and I've got no more understanding of the Bible than when I was a boy. It's ower late to think about it now, and me turned seventy."

"I have been taught to understand the Bible. I should like to teach you what I have been taught. Then, when you understand, you would lose your rheumatism."

"Lose my rheumatism!" The old man repeated the words in the utmost astonishment.

"Why, yes, of course you would," Carol said with that wonderfully sweet smile which won all hearts. "I had hip-disease; but I lost it."

"Well, now, young gentleman, I can say with absolute truth that I have never been told that before--no, never! though I've been a regular church attendant since I was a little choir boy, and never left off going till the joints in my old legs grew so stiff I couldn't walk. It'd want a lot of faith, sir, to believe that just reading the Bible would make 'em lissom again."

"Faith comes with understanding. There is another book; it is called Key to the Scriptures. I haven't a copy of that book now, but I can remember so much of it, I shall be able to help you to understand the Bible perhaps a little better. We will commence with the first chapter of Genesis."

"Yes, now; I remember that chapter pretty well. I learnt it at Sunday School sixty years ago, and I've never quite forgotten it. I could repeat verses straight off now."

"And has it never helped you all through your life?"

"Well, no. I can't say that chapter has. I have found comfort sometimes from the Psalms. 'The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want,' I have often turned to when we'd a growing family and work was slack."

"Let me read the chapter now and then we will talk about it."

The boy opened the Bible, and slowly with an impressiveness which the old man had never before heard, he read the first chapter of Genesis, and three verses of the second chapter. He read as one reads words that are very familiar and understandable.

"Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them, and G.o.d saw everything that He had made, and behold it was very good." He repeated the words from memory, looking with a kindly smile at the old man, as he asked the question: "If G.o.d looked upon everything which He had created, and declared it very good--where do the things come from that are not good? Who created them?"

"Well now, young sir, that is a question I'm not prepared to answer. I can only say like that little black girl in the story, "spose they growed'."

"But everything must grow from something, mustn't it? Every tree and plant has its own seed. G.o.d created every living creature after its kind, and bade it be fruitful and multiply. So you see everything good was created by the Word of G.o.d. Is rheumatism good?"

"'Deed no, young gentleman! It's cruel bad."

"So is hip-disease. It's very, very 'cruel bad,' and because it is the opposite of good it was not amongst the things which G.o.d 'beheld.' Our dear Heavenly Father did not create poor suffering little children maimed with hip-disease, and sometimes blind. He created them in His own image and likeness, and G.o.d could not be suffering sometimes with one disease, sometimes with another, so that His image and likeness could have it too, could He? See, if I hold my hand up so it casts a shadow on the wall, that is an exact image or likeness of my hand, is it not? Now if I just hold something--only a slip of paper between my hand and the reflection, the reflection is deformed, isn't it? But my hand is not affected by it. So when we are bound by any cruel disease, there is something between G.o.d and His image and likeness, something that was never created by Him--was never created at all. It is only a shadowy mist--a belief: and we have to get rid of it, by knowing its unreality. We have to know that because we are G.o.d's children, His spiritual creation, we must be perfect, even as He is perfect. Jesus came to teach people this. He said, 'Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.' But, my cousin says, the world has been slow to learn the lesson. Sin and disease will disappear from our midst just as soon as we do learn it. When she came to me, and I was very ill, she taught me that nothing was real except what G.o.d had created, and p.r.o.nounced good, and He never created hip-disease. Because she understood this so clearly, and taught me to understand it, I soon began to get better. I should like to help you to understand it, so that you would lose your rheumatism. I think I have stayed as long as I had permission to-night. Would you like me to come again next Sunday?"

"'Deed, and I would, young gentleman."

"My name is Carol," the boy said simply.

"Thank 'ee, Master Carol, you've given me something to think about, I shan't forget during the week."

"I should like to teach you the Scientific Statement of Being. It is in that book I told you of, which explains the Bible. If you would learn it, and try to realize it, it would help you so much.'

"My mem'ry 's none of the best now, but I'll try," the old man said regretfully.

"Perhaps it will be better for me to write it for you in large writing, so that you can read it until you know it. I will bring it with me next week. These are the words: 'There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter.' He repeated the words gravely and slowly to the end, the old man gazing at him the while with wondering eyes. The sun was setting; the crimson light streamed through the lattice window upon the boy's upturned face, so sweet, so grave, so loving, and so earnest.

"The words seem difficult to understand at first," he said, "but you will soon grow to love them. It is the truth which Jesus promised should make us free. It has made me free. It will make you free."

CHAPTER VII.

--"I KNOW."

Carol bounded through the park with a light, joyous step. On reaching the Manor House, he would have gone straight to his aunt, but there were visitors with her. So he rejoined his cousins in the school-room.

"Where ever have you been, Carol?" they questioned, as he entered.

"Somewhere Auntie gave me permission to go," he replied quietly.

Miss Markham looked at the boy's beaming face, and she too wondered. He had been absent from the Scripture lesson, which she, and sometimes Mrs. Mandeville, gave the children every Sunday evening. She felt a little remorse that she had been conscious during the lesson of a feeling of relief, on account of the boy's absence. Carol so often asked a question in a quiet, thoughtful manner, which she was unable to answer: and the question would often recur to her afterwards. She had an intuition that the boy had a firmer grasp of spiritual truths than she herself possessed. Many times she would have liked to discuss a subject with him. But Mrs. Mandeville had warned her that the boy had been taught much that was unorthodox, she therefore refrained from discussion.

Though it was much later than usual, Carol was wide awake when Mrs. Mandeville came to his room that night. She had found all the other children fast asleep.

"Auntie, I did want to tell you, I had a very happy time with Mr. Higgs. He's such a nice, interesting old man. I was able to tell him so much that he had never thought about before. Thank you again for letting me go. He will like me to go next Sunday--I may--mayn't I?"

"Of course, dear; as it seems to make you so happy; and I am sure it must be very nice for Mr. Higgs to have you read to him, as he is so troubled with rheumatism. But you must really settle down to sleep now, Carol. You have no idea how late it is."

"Yes, Auntie, I shall soon be asleep, I wanted to tell you first. I feel so happy now, I can say one verse of Mrs. Eddy's beautiful hymn to-night which commences: 'My prayer some daily good to do, 'To thine for Thee;'

"Cousin Alicia used to sing it to me every night when I was ill. I loved it so much, because its measures did bind the power of pain. Often I had fallen asleep before she came to the end."

"You must repeat all the hymn to me some time, Carol, I shall like to hear it."

"Yes, Auntie, in the morning. I have been thinking whilst I was waiting for you to come that when we want to do something for Truth very, very much, Love finds the way. When I am a man, I shall want, more than anything in all the world, just to do what Jesus said, those that loved him were to do, 'Go ye into all the world, preach the Gospel, and heal the sick.' I cannot help remembering there are so many little children lying now, just as I used to lie, always in pain; and they could be healed, just as I was healed, if there were more people who understood what Jesus meant by 'The truth shall make you free."

"And you are quite sure, Carol, it is that which has made you free?"

"Oh, Auntie, dear, I can never let even the tiniest thought of doubt creep up and make me question that. I know. When Uncle Raymond read in church last Sunday 'I know that my Redeemer liveth,' I felt I wanted to stand up and tell all the people because He liveth, I am well. That is 'knowing.' I do long for the time to come when I shall be able to tell them so, and I can give all my time and my money to spread the glad tidings, to fight for Truth."

"Maybe there is a great work, a great future before you, dear boy, surely the instrument has been prepared in a fierce fire, and has come forth strong for the battle. Now, good-night, and G.o.d bless you, darling." He clasped both his arms round her neck, holding her tightly, as in earlier years he used to cling to his mother.

CHAPTER VIII.

--A SECOND VISIT TO THE COTTAGE.

The next Sunday evening when Carol entered the shoemaker's cottage, he was not alone as before.

"This is my daughter, Mrs. Scott, Master Carol, and her little girl," he said to Carol. "We thought, maybe, you wouldn't object if she listened to the reading too. She cannot often go to church, because the little girl has been subject to epilepsy since she was two years old. She's just turned eight now. I told her mother what you told me last Sunday, and she'll be right glad to hear more."

"That I shall, Master Carol. I know something of hip-disease, and if you could be cured of that, I'm sure my little girl could be cured of the fits."

"Why, of course she could. You will be able to help her ever so much only by knowing that G.o.d never created fits; they belong to the mist which we read about in the second chapter of Genesis. I am going to read that chapter to Mr. Higgs to-night. Then you'll understand. I will begin at the fourth verse, because the first three verses belong really to the first chapter, which is an account of the first creation, when G.o.d made everything that was made and it was spiritual and perfect. No one could ever alter or undo G.o.d's perfect work; it remains, and always will remain, perfect. When we understand this, and realize it, the mist will disappear, and all the things which belong to the mist--sin, disease, and death."

Father and daughter looked at the boy with wonder and perplexity. Opening the Bible he read: "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord G.o.d made the earth and the heavens." He continued to the end of the chapter. "Now do you see how different this account of creation is from the first?" he asked. "Who was the Lord G.o.d who took the dust of the ground and formed man over again, after G.o.d had already created him, and p.r.o.nounced His work very good?"

The old man shook his head. "I can only say, as I said last Sunday, Master Carol, in all the sermons I've listened to that has never been explained to me. I don't think I should have let it slip, if it had. It's just the first time I've ever known there were two creations."

"There were not really two creations, though it reads as if there were, because there are not two creators. The sixth verse explains it, 'There went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.' That mist covered everything which G.o.d-Spirit had created--all the host of them; birds, beasts, and flowers, mountains, seas, lakes, rivers, even man: G.o.d's own image and likeness. Because the mist is over everything we do not see the world and man as they really exist. So people have come to believe that G.o.d made man from the dust; for the mist that is spoken of is not a mist like we see rising from the sea, or in the fields of an evening. It means false belief, misunderstanding of G.o.d and His spiritual creation. But, my cousin has told me, there is a woman in America who once caught a glimpse of G.o.d's real creation as she was pa.s.sing through the death valley. And that one glimpse restored her to health. Then she devoted her whole life to learn more of the truth that she might teach others how to see through the mist, and to shake off their old beliefs. She has written a book called Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, which explains all that she has discovered. Simply reading and studying that book has made hundreds of people well."

"Where could we get a copy of it, Master Carol? I'd like to know for my little girl's sake," Mrs. Scott asked.

"I do not quite know, but there are Christian Science churches in London. If you were to write there perhaps someone would tell you. I wish I had a copy to lend you. I have written the Scientific Statement of Being from memory. I am sure it will help you. I am trying to realize it for you, and for the little girl. Think always of that first chapter of the Bible. In the beginning G.o.d created everything that was created, and it was very good. None of the things we want to get rid of could be included in G.o.d's very good, could they? Jesus came to teach men to understand G.o.d better, and he said, 'that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.' So all that came from G.o.d and all that still comes is spiritual. If you could quite realize this, Mr. Higgs, you would soon lose your rheumatism. I am only telling you what has been told me so many times; and I know it is true, because I was very ill when my cousin used to teach me, and I grew better as I began to understand. She helped me, because she saw me always as G.o.d's perfect child, and knew that He had never created hip-disease, therefore it never was created; it belonged to the mist, and it would disappear under the light of Truth as h.o.a.r frost disappears when the sun shines upon it."

"It is wonderful and strange what you are telling us, Master Carol, I've never heard the like before, but somehow I can't doubt it. I call to mind what the Bible says, 'Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings G.o.d ordains strength.' I'd dearly love the girl to be free from those dreadful fits. My rheumatiz is very bad, but I'm an old man, and can't expect to 'scape one o' the signs of old age."

"But you must not expect. You must know that it is not a sign of old age in G.o.d's man. You must always remember the man whom G.o.d created in His own image and likeness."

"I've heard those words many times before, Master Carol, but somehow they never seemed to come home to me as you put it. Why, of course I ought not to suffer with rheumatiz if I am G.o.d's image and likeness. But what about all the poor dwarfed and stunted creatures that are crippled from infancy? There's a little hunchback in the village. He was dropped when he was a baby, and his back grew crooked, so that it's a hump now. How can he be G.o.d's image and likeness?"

"The hunchback is not the likeness of G.o.d, but the real child--the spiritual child is, and G.o.d sees His child as He created it." The boy put his hand over his eyes a moment, realizing that of himself he was not telling these simple-minded people anything. Then he said: "Suppose a great sculptor carved a beautiful statue out of a block of marble. Before he began his work, he would have in his mind the form he wished the marble to take. Gradually, as he worked at it, the marble would become what his thought of it was. Then one day he would see it finished and perfect--just what he intended it to be. Then he would work no more at it. Afterwards, suppose some one came by, and took clay and mixed it with water into a paste, and then daubed the beautiful statue all over, till the limbs looked crooked, and the beauty of the face was spoiled. But it wouldn't be really spoiled, would it? The statue would still be the work of the great sculptor, finished and perfect; the clay and the marble would be quite separate and distinct. Nothing could make them one. So when we read the chapter I have just read to you--the Lord G.o.d took the dust of the ground and made man--G.o.d's man was already made, finished and perfect, and the dust, like the clay, could only seem to hide the perfect creation. But we have to know this and to realize it, if we are to get rid of the dust, and the clay, and the mist. When my cousin was explaining all this to me one day, she said, 'It is not known how or when the belief in a Lord G.o.d who made man of dust arose; but from that false belief came sin, sorrow, disease, and death. Jesus came to teach us the way back to G.o.d; to teach us to see ourselves as the children of G.o.d, not of the dust; and he said all who believed in him, in what he taught, would never see death.' The day will come, my cousin said, when all men will so believe in Jesus the Christ, and will so understand and realize that G.o.d is their Father, that death will be overcome. Every case of sin and disease which is healed by this knowledge--by the Truth--is bringing that day nearer."

The look of bewilderment deepened on the old man's face. Surely, the boy was throwing a different light upon words with which he had been familiar all his life. "We'll think over what you've told us, Master Carol--me and my daughter. It sort o' goes to me that it's true."

Again the words came to him, "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings."

The church clock chimed the half-hour. Carol stood up to go. "The time has gone so quickly. I must not stay longer now. I will come again next Sunday, and all the week will you try to know that G.o.d's work was finished and perfect in the beginning, and everything that seems to have been added to it--rheumatism and fits--has no right to be?"

"We will, Master Carol, we'll just think of the marble statue and the clay. It will help us."

"I will hold the right thought for you and the little girl, and I know that soon you will find that both the afflictions, which seem so real, belong to the mist."

CHAPTER IX.

--"IT IS THE TRUTH."

Carol faithfully kept his appointment on the following Sunday. His cousins ceased to inquire, though not to wonder, what became of him every Sunday evening, and once appealed to Mrs. Mandeville for information. She smilingly replied, "It is a little secret between Carol and me. Perhaps you will be told some time, but not just yet."

As Carol entered the cottage, Mr. Higgs rose from his seat, and stood upright.

"Master Carol," he exclaimed in a voice of suppressed excitement, "it is the Truth, the blessed Truth you've told us. I can't say I've lost my rheumatics entirely, for the joints are like rusty hinges that want a lot o' oiling after being idle so long; but I've just been free from pain all the week; and my little grand-daughter hasn't had one fit all the week."

"No, Master Carol, she has not," Mrs. Scott added. "I won't say she has never gone a whole week without one before, but for the last twelve months I don't think she has, until this week."

"Try not to remember anything that has been. Think it was all a dream, and she is awakening from it. I had a very cruel dream once, but I have awakened from it. G.o.d's children must cling very closely to Him, then nothing can hurt them. It is when shadowy fears come between G.o.d and His image and likeness that dreadful things seem to happen to us."

Mr. Higgs and Mrs. Scott did not understand yet how the boy had all the week been working for them--fighting error with the sword of Truth.

"I want to read a chapter from the New Testament this evening," Carol said, opening the Bible. "It is always a favorite chapter, but one verse, my cousin said, seemed never to have impressed people as applicable to the present day. Yet the words are so simple. I will read the chapter first, then we'll talk about that one verse."

He read the 14th chapter of St. John from the 1st verse to the last, then asked quietly, "Do you remember that Jesus once said, 'Heaven and earth shall pa.s.s away, but my words shall never pa.s.s away'?"

"Yes, Master Carol. I remember those words well."

"Then is there not a verse in the chapter I have just read which seems as if Jesus' words had failed?" The old man looked puzzled.

"I can't say that I know what you are alluding to, Master Carol."

"I will read it again. It is the 12th verse. 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto my Father.' What were the works that Jesus did? Was it not healing the sick, cleansing the lepers, raising the dead, feeding the hungry? Well, if no one can do these works to-day, his word has failed or else no one has sufficient faith (faith may sometimes mean understanding). Many centuries rolled by, and the sick were not healed, nor the lepers cleansed, in Jesus' name. But now we know his words never failed. It was the faith or understanding of those who thought they believed in him which failed; for the sick are being healed now, and the lepers cleansed."

"It is very wonderful as you put it, Master Carol. I can't say it has ever been explained like that to me before."

"Is it not very simple?" Carol asked.

"Why, yes. It has always seemed to me the Master's words were very simple, a child could understand them. But when you come to the Epistles, and the creeds of the Church, there's many things that I have never been able to understand; and often the sermons I've listened to puzzled me more than the texts."

"In the 15th verse Jesus says, 'If ye love me, keep my commandments.' Jesus did not give many commandments to his followers. He told them many things, but of strict commandments he gave only a few. One was, 'Go into all the world, preach the Gospel and heal the sick.' If you had a son, and you commanded him to do two things and he did only one, and left the other alone, would you be pleased with him? Would he be obedient to your commands?"

"Certainly I shouldn't be pleased with him, and I'd soon let him know that, if he didn't do all I commanded, he needn't do anything."

"Yes, but Jesus just makes it a test of love. He says so gently, 'If ye love me, keep my commandments.' To those who keep all his commandments he will one day say, 'Well done, good and faithful servant,' I do hope that some day he will say those words to me."

"I'm right sure he will, Master Carol. It is just wonderful the way you are helping an old man to understand. It amazes me that a boy of your years should have such an understanding."

"Oh, please don't think I am telling you anything of myself. It has all been explained to me many times. I am only telling you what has been told me. I wish my cousin could talk to you. She would help you much better than I can. But we must not withhold what we have because some one else has more, must we? We must hand on the good tidings as well as we are able."

"That's it, Master Carol. Maybe I'll do a little that way myself later on."

"Yes, I am sure you will, but don't talk about your rheumatism being better just yet. Wait until the evil is quite cast out. When I come next week I will explain to you how we learn in Science and Health that G.o.d gave man dominion, and what G.o.d has given can never be taken away. G.o.d says His word shall never return unto Him void. When He decreed anything, it was forever. You could not think of the sun, moon, or stars moving out of their appointed courses, could you? It is only man who seems to have wandered from his native sphere. We have to learn that this is not so; we have not really lost the dominion which G.o.d gave His children in the beginning. St. John says, 'Now are we the sons of G.o.d; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.' That verse helped me so much when I was ill. I learned I had not to die to become a son of G.o.d. G.o.d is my Father here and now, and G.o.d's child ought not to believe a lie. It was a lie that evil could have power over me, and bind me. It is a lie that evil can have power over you, and bind you. If you acknowledge G.o.d as your Father, G.o.d's child should not go along believing he has rheumatism, should he?"

"Thank you, Master Carol. I'll take hold of that. I can understand it. I wish Rector would talk to us sometimes like this. I know it is all in the Bible, yet it never came home to me before."

Mrs. Scott listened attentively to all the boy was telling her father, but made no remark. Her little girl was sitting in the porch nursing her doll, crooning a lullaby. Carol left them with the promise to come again next Sunday.

CHAPTER X.