From Jest to Earnest Part 36

But he felt that the glad tumult in his mind rendered him unfit to be her guide just then, and therefore said: "Miss Marsden, I want to think calmly and carefully over what you have said. I want to take this briefest of all texts, 'Jesus wept,' as a lamp in my hand, and with it explore the rest of the Bible. Already it seems that it may be like carrying a light into a treasure vault, and that where before was darkness, gems and riches now will glitter."

"And I, who have had the good fortune to strike the light for you, am in the mean time to sit outside of the 'treasure vault,' and perhaps neither see nor get any of the 'gems.' I don't agree at all to your gloating alone over what may be discovered."

"And can you think I would wish to 'gloat alone'?" said Hemstead, reddening. "It will be my chief joy to bring back all I find to you."

"I'm not that kind of a girl," said Lottie, with a little emphatic gesture. "If I wanted something from the top of a mountain, I would not send a man for it, but would go with him after it. This helpless waiting, or languid looking on, while men do everything for us, is as absurd in one direction as the Indian custom of making the squaw do all the hard work in another. I don't see why we can't take this genial little lamp of a text, and do some exploring together. I will hold the lamp, and you do the looking. Here is the Bible, and there is your seat beside this dismal, smoking fire. I fear you have treated it as you did us this morning,--put on green wood."

"I think you are right in both cases," he said, his telltale color again suddenly rising.

"No matter, it was good wood in both cases, as you will see when it becomes ripe and dry."

"It will never do for me to become dry as a preacher, Miss Marsden."

"Yes, it will in my sense, for then you will kindle more easily, and therefore kindle others. But come, I am holding the lamp, 'Jesus wept.' Every thing you can find in the Bible that will confirm the hope of G.o.d's sympathy--that He cares for us as we are, with all our faults and weaknesses--will be most welcome."

Lottie was so positive and determined, and her manner so irresistible, that Hemstead had no thought, save that of compliance. She had that piquant imperiousness to which men are willing slaves when it is manifested graciously, and by a pretty woman. He was like a ship caught in a gale, and there was nothing to do but scud before it.

At the same time, it seemed that she was driving him swiftly towards the haven and rest of a better and broader faith.

Therefore he sat down by the dismal, smoky hearth, but turned expectantly to her face, which, in contrast, was all aflame with hope and interest.

"The impression grows upon me," he said, "that you are being guided, and therefore you shall guide me."

"I want to settle the question," she replied, "whether I can love and trust G.o.d; or whether, as I feared this morning, I must dread and almost hate Him. It seems to me that the only thing religion does for Cousin Bel is to make her uncomfortable. If what you told us, and what she experiences, is true religion, then I shall ignore it and forget all about it as long as I can,--till G.o.d commences with me, and puts me by way of trial into the fiery furnace of affliction. I fear only a cinder would be the result. But if the natural explanation of these two words, 'Jesus wept,' is true, then G.o.d is kinder, gentler, and more sympathetic than any human friend. Prove to me that the One who, out of pure tender-heartedness, cried just because others around Him were crying, though even about to remove the cause of their sorrow, is the G.o.d of the Bible, and I will thank you, with lasting and unmeasured grat.i.tude. Then your teaching will be a gospel,--good news in very truth. You say the Old and New Testaments both make one Bible, do you not?"

"Yes."

"Well it is the Old Testament that I most dread. It is so full of wars and bloodshed, and strange, stern rites. And then the old prophets say such awful things! Still, I admit that it's all very vague and dim in my mind. Can you find anything in the Old Testament that corresponds with the words 'Jesus wept'?"

The student rapidly turned the leaves of the large Bible upon his lap, and read:

"Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.

"For He knoweth our frame: He remembereth that we are dust."

"That fits like light to the eye," exclaimed Lottie, with exultation.

"What becomes of your sermon, Mr. Hemstead, in view of such texts?

Truth is not contradictory."

"You shall see in a moment, Miss Marsden what becomes of my sermon,"

and he hastily left the room.

While Lottie was wondering at his action, he returned and threw the ma.n.u.script on the hearth. But while the green wood had been smoking so dismally, it had also dried and kindled; and Hemstead's heavy sermon, so far from quenching the rising flame, seemed just the encouragement needed to develop a cheerful blaze, in the midst of which it perished, like a narrow, sour, but sincere, well-meaning old martyr of former days.

In committing this unripe fruit of his brain--his heart had dictated but little of it--to the flames, Hemstead would have felt, a few hours earlier, as a Hindu mother might when casting her child to the crocodiles of the Ganges. Now with exultation he saw it shrivel, as its teachings had shrivelled within his own mind a little before.

"Like as a father pitieth his children," was a better gospel than "like as a sculptor chisels his marble," or "like as a surgeon cuts remorselessly with pulse unquickened, though the patient writhes."

Preacher and pagan stood together by the hearth, and saw perish the Gospel of Fear--of gloomy asceticism--which for so many centuries, in dim, damp cloisters and stony cells has chilled the heart and quenched the spirit.

And yet, to-day, in the broad light of Bible lands, and in the midst of the wholesome and suggestive duties of family life, do not many, under false teachings like that of Hemstead's sermon, find spiritual paths as dark and painful as those of ascetics who made self-mortification the business of life? Christ spake truly when He said, "Men love darkness rather than light." We fill the service of the Author of Light with gloom. The hermit thought he could best serve G.o.d in the chill and dimness of a cave; and the anchorite's cave has been the type of our shadowy, vault-like churches, and of the worshippers' experience ever since.

G.o.d is too wise and good to teach a religion utterly repugnant and contradictory to the nature He has given us. A child's hand may lead a mult.i.tude; a giant's strength can drive but few.

Christ's tears had fallen on the ice in Lottie's heart, and melted it away. It was now tender, receptive, ready for the seeds of truth.

Hemstead's sermon had only hardened it.

Like the Hebrew mothers with their little children, she had pushed her way through frowning doctrines and stately attributes that appeared to encompa.s.s G.o.d, as did the rebuking disciples of old their gentle Master; and there seemed One before her who, like Jesus, was ready to take her in His arms and lavish upon her tenderness without limit.

The glow of the burning sermon lighted up the faces of the Preacher and one who could no longer be called a Pagan, for she stood before the altar of "the unknown G.o.d," and was strongly inclined to place her heart upon it. She believed, though as yet she did not trust.

She understood but little of Bible truth, yet it was no longer a repellent darkness, but rather a luminous haze against which Jesus stood distinctly, tearful from sympathy.

As the obnoxious sermon sank into ashes, Hemstead turned and took Lottie's hand with a pressure that made it ache for hours after, and said: "Now you have seen what has become of my sermon and many of my old beliefs. The furnace of G.o.d's discipline shall no longer, as you have said, flame as the lurid centre of my Gospel; but Jesus Christ, as you have discovered Him, the embodiment of love and sympathy, shall be its centre."

With a smile upon her lips, but with tears in her eyes, Lottie replied, "And such a gospel would win even the border ruffians.

Yes," she added hesitatingly, "I half believe it might win even such a little pagan as Lottie Marsden."

Just then a broad ray of light glinted into the room, and illuminated Lottie's face into such marvellous beauty that Hemstead was spell-bound. He was too intent on watching her to be aware that the ray rested on him also; but she exclaimed: "O Mr. Hemstead!

you don't know how your face is lighted up by the setting sun. If I believed in omens, I should know that your successful work will be out on the frontier,--in the West, whence comes, after this dreary day, such a beautiful light, which suggests, I hope, the fame and glory you are to win there."

"This light from the West falls equally upon you," he said impulsively.

There was a sudden crimson in her face, deeper than that caused by the setting sun.

She gave him a quick, shy glance, to gather his meaning, but said, "Omens are only half-truths, I have heard."

Under a vague but strong impulse he had spoken foolishly, he thought; and suggested that, in seeking to change her character, his motive in part might be a presumptuous hope of his own. Therefore a deeper flush crimsoned his face; but he said quietly: "I believe that, in our day, omens are will-of-the-wisps of the imagination. What need is there of such fitful lights, when the sun of G.o.d's truth is shining in this Bible? Shall we explore farther?"

Again they sat down and sought to reconcile the apparently conflicting truths of G.o.d's mercy and justice,--of His severity and unutterable tenderness. Proofs of both were found upon the page of inspiration "as thick as leaves in Vallombrosa." It was clearly evident that G.o.d would make no terms with sin, whatever He might do for the sinner. But the Divine man, as He stands between justice and the erring, appeared to solve the problem. And if G.o.d's discipline was at times severe, and Christ was glad when faith-inspiring sorrow came, it was also seen that He could weep with the weak human children who cried under the rod, though heaven might result from the transient pain.

CHAPTER XX.

THE DAWNING LIGHT.

Some little time before the supper-bell rang, De Forrest sauntered in, and witnessed a scene that both surprised and puzzled him.

And yet a lover would scarcely have found, in the quiet and pretty picture that the parlor and its occupants made, any ground for jealousy. Hemstead was at the centre-table, under the now-lighted chandelier, reading aloud from the Bible. Lottie sat by the hearth, the firelight playing upon an unusually grave and thoughtful face.

"Well," he exclaimed, "you look for all the world like an old married couple keeping Sunday together."

Of course Hemstead flushed. But why should Lottie's color grow richer than the ruddy fire-light warranted? She knew she was blushing, and the fact puzzled her, for it was a new experience to find the blood flying into her face, and her heart in a sudden flutter.