Danger; Or, Wounded in the House of a Friend Part 36

"Not in your own strength, but in G.o.d's," she said reverently. "You have tried your own strength many times, but it has failed as often.

But his strength never fails."

She lifted her finger and pointed to the text on the wall, "Without me ye can do nothing," then added: "But in him we can do all things.

Trusting in yourself, my friend, you will go forth from here to an unequal combat, but trusting in him your victory is a.s.sured. You shall go among lions and they will have no power to harm you, and stand in the very furnace flame of temptation without even the smell of fire being left upon your garments."

"Ah, ma'am, you are doubtless right in what you say," Mr. Ridley answered, all the enthusiasm dying out of his countenance. "But I am not a religious man. I have never trusted in G.o.d."

"That is no reason why you should not trust in him now," she answered, quickly. "All other hope for you is vain, but in G.o.d there is safety.

Will you not go to him now?"

There came a quick, nervous rap upon the door; then it was flung open, and Ethel, with a cry of "Oh, father, my father, my father!" sprang across the room and threw herself into Mr. Ridley's arms.

With an answering cry of "Oh, Ethel, my child, my child!" Mr. Ridley drew her to his bosom, clasped her slender form to his heart and laid his face, over which tears were flowing, down among the thick ma.s.ses of her golden hair.

"Let us pray," fell the sweet, solemn voice of the lady manager on the deep stillness that followed. All knelt, Mr. Ridley with his arm drawn tightly around his daughter. Then in tender, earnest supplication did this Christian woman offer her prayers for help.

"Dear Lord and Saviour," she said, in hushed, pleading tones, "whose love goes yearning after the lost and straying ones, open the eyes of this man, one of thy sick and suffering children, that he may see the tender beauty of thy countenance. Touch his heart, that he may feel the sweetness of thy love. Draw him to come unto thee, and to trust and confide in thee as his ever-present and unfailing Friend. In thee is safety, in thee is peace, and nowhere else."

G.o.d could answer this prayer through its influence upon the mind of him for whom it was offered. It was the ladder on which his soul climbed upward. The thought of G.o.d and of his love and mercy with which it filled all his consciousness inspired him with hope. He saw his own utter helplessness, and felt the peril and disaster that were before him when his frail little vessel of human resolution again met the fierce storms and angry billows of temptation; and so, in despairing abandonment of all human strength, he lifted his thoughts to G.o.d and cried out for the help and strength he needed.

And then, for he was deeply and solemnly in earnest, there was a new birth in his soul--the birth of a new life of spiritual forces in which G.o.d could be so present with him as to give him power to conquer when evil a.s.sailed him. It was not a life of his own, but a new life from G.o.d--not a self-acting life by which he was to be taken over the sea of temptation like one in a boat rowed by a strong oarsman, but a power he must use for himself, and one that would grow by use, gaining more and more strength, until it subdued and subordinated every natural desire to the rule of heavenly principles, and yet it was a life that, if not cherished and made active, would die.

There was a new expression in Mr. Ridley's face when he rose from his knees. It was calmer and stronger.

"G.o.d being your helper," said the lady manager, impressively, "victory is sure, and he will help you and overcome for you if you will let him.

Do not trust to any mere personal motives or considerations. You have tried to stand by these over and over again, and every time you have fallen their power to help you has become less. Pride, ambition, even love, have failed. But the strength that G.o.d will give you, if you make his divine laws the rule of your life, cannot fail. Go to him in childlike trust. Tell him as you would tell a loving father of your sin and sorrow and helplessness, and ask of him the strength you need. Read every morning a portion of his holy word, and lay the divine precepts up in your heart. He is himself the word of life, and is therefore present in a more real and saving way to those who reverence and obey this word than it is possible for him to be to those who do not.

"Herein will lie your strength. Hence will come your deliverance. Take hold upon G.o.d our Saviour, my friend, and all the powers of h.e.l.l shall not prevail against you. You will be tempted, but in the moment you hear the voice of the tempter look to G.o.d and ask him for strength, and it will surely come. Don't parley, for a single moment. Let no feeling of security lead you to test your own poor strength in any combat with the old appet.i.te, for that would be an encounter full of peril. Trust in G.o.d, and all will be safe. But remember that there is no real trust in G.o.d without a life in harmony with his commandments. All-abiding spiritual strength comes through obedience only."

Mr. Ridley listened with deep attention, and when the lady ceased speaking said:

"Of myself I can do nothing. Long ago I saw that, and gave up the struggle in despair. If help comes now, it must come from G.o.d. No power but his can save me."

"Will you not, then, go to him?"

"How am I to go? What am I to do? What will G.o.d require of me?"

He spoke hurriedly and with the manner of one who felt himself in imminent danger and looked anxiously for a way of escape.

"To do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly before him; he requires nothing more," was the calmly spoken reply.

A light broke into Mr. Ridley's face.

"You cannot be just and merciful if you touch the accursed thing, for that would destroy your power to be so. To touch it, then, will be to sin against G.o.d and hurt your neighbor. Just here, then, must your religious life be in. For you to taste any kind of intoxicating drink would be a sin. G.o.d cannot help you, unless you shun this evil as a sin against him, and he will give you the power to shun it if, whenever you feel the desire to drink, you resist that desire and pray for strength by which to gain a victory.

"Every time you do this you will receive new spiritual strength, and be so much nearer the ark of safety. So resisting day by day, always in a humble acknowledgment that every good gift comes from a loving Father in heaven, the time is not far distant when your feet will be on the neck of the enemy that has ruled over you so long. G.o.d, even our G.o.d, will surely bring you off conqueror."

Mr. Ridley on whose calmer face the light of a new confidence now rested, drew his arm closely about Ethel, who was leaning against him, and said:

"Take heart, darling. If G.o.d is for us, who shall be against us?

Henceforth I will trust in him."

Ethel put her arms about his neck, weeping silently. The matron and lady manager went out and left them alone.

Mrs. Birtwell did not visit the Home on this morning to see how it fared with Mr. Ridley as she had intended doing. The shadow of a great evil had fallen upon her house. For some time she had seen its approaches and felt the gathering gloom. If the reader will go back over the incidents and characters of this story, he will recall a scene between Mrs. Whitford and her son Ellis, the accepted lover of Blanche Birtwell, and will remember with what earnestness the mother sought to awaken in the mind of the young man a sense of danger, going so far as to uncover a family secret and warn him of a taint in his blood. It will also be remembered how the proud, self-confident young man rejected, her warnings and entreaties, and how wine betrayed him.

The humiliation that followed was deep, but not effective to save him.

Wine to his inherited appet.i.te was like blood to the wolf-nature. To touch it was to quicken into life an irrepressible desire for more. But his pride fought against any acknowledgment of his weakness, and particularly against so public an acknowledgment as abstinence when all around him were taking wine. Every time he went to a dinner or evening-party, or to any entertainment where wine was to be served, he would go self-admonished to be on guard against excess, but rarely was the admonition heeded. A single gla.s.s so weakened his power of restraint that he could not hold back his hand; and if it so happened that from any cause this limit was forced upon him, as in making a morning or an evening call, the stimulated appet.i.te would surely draw his feet to the bar of some fashionable saloon or hotel in order that it might secure a deeper satisfaction.

It was not possible, so impelled by appet.i.te and so indulging its demands, for Ellis Whitford to keep from drifting out into the fatal current on whose troubled waters thousands are yearly borne to destruction.

After her humiliation at Mrs. Birtwell's, a smile was never seen upon the mother's face. All that she deemed it wise to say to her son when he awoke in shame next morning she said in tears that she had no power to hold back. He promised with solemn a.s.severations that he would never again so debase himself, and he meant to keep his promise. Hope stirred feebly in his mother's heart, but died when, in answer to her injunction, "Touch not, taste not, handle not, my son. Herein lies your only chance of safety," he replied coldly and with irritation:

"I will be a man, and not a slave. I will walk in freedom among my a.s.sociates, not holding up manacled wrists."

Alas! he did not walk in freedom. Appet.i.te had already forged invisible chains that held him in a fatal bondage. It was not yet too late. With a single strong effort he could have rent these bonds asunder, freeing himself for ever. But pride and a false shame held him back, from making this effort, and all the while appet.i.te kept silently strengthening every link and steadily forging new chains. Day by day he grew feebler as to will-power and less clear in judgment. His fine ambition, that once promised to lift him into the highest ranks of his profession, began to lose its stimulating influence.

None but his mother knew how swiftly this sad demoralization was progressing, through others were aware of the fact that he indulged too freely in wine.

With a charity that in too many instances was self-excusing, not a few of his friends and acquaintances made light of his excesses, saying:

"Oh, he'll get over it;" or, "Young blood is hot and boils up sometimes;" or, "He'll steady himself, never fear."

The engagement between Ellis and Blanche still existed, though Mr. and Mrs. Birtwell were beginning to feel very much concerned about the future of their daughter, and were seriously considering the propriety of taking steps to have the engagement broken off. The young man often came to their house so much under the influence of drink that there was no mistaking his condition; but if any remark was made about it, Blanche not only exhibited annoyance, but excused and defended him, not unfrequently denying the fact that was apparent to all.

One day--it was several months from the date of that fatal party out of which so many disasters came, as if another Pandora's box had been opened--the card of Mrs. Whitford was placed in the hands of Mrs.

Birtwell.

"Say that I will be down in a moment."

But the servant who had brought up the card answered:

"The lady wished me to say that she would like to see you alone in your own room, and would come up if it was agreeable."

"Oh. certainly. Tell her to come right up."

Wondering a little at this request, Mrs. Birtwell waited for Mrs.

Whitford's appearance, rising and advancing toward the door as she heard her steps approaching. Mrs. Whitford's veil was down as she entered, and she did not draw it aside until she had shut the door behind her. Then she pushed it away.

An exclamation of painful surprise fell from the lips of Mrs. Birtwell the moment she saw the face of her visitor. It was pale and wretched beyond description, but wore the look of one who had resolved to perform some painful duty, though it cost her the intensest suffering.

CHAPTER XXV.

"I HAVE come," said Mrs. Whitford, after she was seated and had composed herself, "to perform the saddest duty of my whole life."