Mr. Claghorn's Daughter Part 31

"I don't know that I'm more of an unbeliever than you are. I'm sure if the Reverend Eliphalet has not by this time modified his opinions, he has no expectation of meeting you in heaven. Hear him as he warns humanity against the devices of Satan: 'Of which,' he says, 'the traces are visible even in the church. In these days there hath arisen a delusive hope as to infants. Some hold, and a few dare to a.s.sert, though with bated breath, that all infants die in the grace of G.o.d. Who saith this? Not G.o.d, who, by His Eternal Decree, hath declared that none but His Elect are saved. Not our Confession of Faith, formulated at Westminster in earnest prayer and reverence for the Word. Not the framers of that Confession, of whom I may mention Twisse, as having specially wrote against this new-born folly, extorted by the cunning of the Enemy of Souls by means of the bleatings of foolish mothers--search the Scripture, reader! Nowhere shalt thou find any saved but His Elect.'"

"Abominable!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the lady.

"Poetical. 'Bleatings of foolish mothers' is quite so. And now our good man actually drops into the poetry of the Reverend Michael Wigglesworth, whose 'Day of Doom' he quotes at length. I will not inflict the whole fifteen stanzas upon you; but listen to a morsel or two. This is the Argument: The Still-born appear at the Seat of Mercy, and put in a plea for grace that might have weight in Senegambia, but which has none in the heaven of Eliphalet and of Hampton:

'Then to the bar they all drew near who died in Infancy, And never had, or good or bad, effected personally, But from the womb unto the tomb were straightway carried (Or at the least, ere they transgressed), who thus began to plead.'

"Their plea is that since Adam, the actual delinquent, has been 'set free, and saved from his trespa.s.s,' they are on better grounds ent.i.tled to consideration. To the finite intelligence there would seem to be some force in the infantile argument. What says Omnipotence?

'I may deny you once to try, or grace to you to tender, Though he finds Grace before my face who was the chief offender.

You sinners are, and such a share as sinners may expect, Such you shall have, for I do save none but mine own elect; Yet to compare your sin with their who sinned a longer time, I do confess yours is much less, though every sin's a crime; A crime it is, therefore in bliss you may not hope to dwell, But unto you I shall allow THE EASIEST ROOM IN h.e.l.l.'"

The doctor closed the book. "I submit that I have proved my contention,"

he said. "Do you doubt now that Mrs. Leonard was affected by her browsings among Leonard's books? The men who wrote the matter of which this volume is made up were largely the founders of Hampton, men whose names she has heard venerated as almost inspired of G.o.d."

"Even so, how could she believe such absurdities?"

"I do not a.s.sert that she believed. Belief in the impossible is impossible. But have you never been deeply impressed by fiction; never been scared by a ghost story? Have you shed tears over the sorrows of Colonel Newcome? The few quotations you have heard cause you to shrink, though you are well aware they are but foolish words. But if you could _see_ the scenes herein depicted, I do not think you could bear the prospect. I am sure _I_ should howl as l.u.s.tily as any h.e.l.lish monster here referred to. Well, Mrs. Leonard being so const.i.tuted, has actually _seen_ these horrors, and, in the central figure, has contemplated the writhings of her child."

"Oh, Doctor!" she spoke in a subdued tone, her eyes expressing more than her words.

"Even you, here in this well-lighted and cheerful room, with me, a very material and matter-of-fact person, beside you, even you can feel a faint reflection of the terrors in which this woman spent the day.

Alone, without food, a deserted room, a gloomy house, but lately cheerful with the prattle of a childish voice, forever silent, but of which the echoes still linger in the mother's ears--here's enough and more than enough to disturb an exalted temperament, a morbid imagination. Add this"--the doctor shook the book in his hand--"and what need of belief, if by belief you mean the result of a reasoning process?

The ideas suggested _here took possession of her_! Belief! Pshaw! n.o.body believes in this stuff; but Hampton says it believes."

"But that's monstrous!"

"Nothing more common than loud a.s.sertions of belief where is no belief.

That's politics, partisanship."

"But this is religion----"

"So-called."

"But----"

"The Westminster Confession is a written doc.u.ment. The men who composed it knew what they wished to say, and said it so clearly that n.o.body can misapprehend their meaning. Your own creed of compromises--pardon me, compromise is always the resort of politicians who understand their business--was wiser, or luckier; its Articles are all loopholes in regard to this doctrine of Election----"

"Doctor, your ignorance of my church is so palpable that I decline to take your word concerning Hampton and the Confession of Faith. I've never read it----"

"Even its adherents are not so rash. It becomes a serious matter as to one's self-respect to maintain a monstrous absurdity, after one knows it. Nevertheless, the Westminster Confession teaches as truth all that the Reverend Eliphalet says, or that Michael Wigglesworth grotesquely sings. Moreover, it is annually published under the t.i.tle of 'The Const.i.tution and Standards of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America'--a solemn declaration that G.o.d, before the creation of man, d.a.m.ned the great majority to everlasting agony so excruciating as to be beyond conception, and all for His own glory and pleasure."

"Yet I know, and you ought to know, that Christianity offers salvation to every soul through the medium of its Founder."

"Denied _in toto_ by Westminster. According to the Confession, not even Jesus Christ could diminish the number of the d.a.m.ned, fixed before the creation of a single soul. If Mrs. Leonard's baby was born to be d.a.m.ned, d.a.m.ned he is."

"Now I know you are a.s.serting what is not so. I have heard infant d.a.m.nation denied by Hampton professors."

"And may again. I do not claim that a single human being believes the Westminster Confession; but I do maintain that he who acknowledges that Confession as his standard, and retains membership in that church, which annually promulgates the same as truth, either believes an outrageous absurdity, or says he believes it. If he is not willing to do this, he has no right in the organization; why, only the other day Dr. Willis was requested to get out because he declined to say he believed that which he does not believe."

"Doctor, I am sorry to say it, but your statements are not credible----"

"Don't apologize. Of course they are not; but they are true. I certainly don't blame you for doubting my word. But you shall ask Hodge; I'll lend you his commentary. Hodge hopes as to infants, but is honest enough to admit that in the Confession there is no ground for hope. He d.a.m.ns all heathen incontinently, which includes all the babies I ever knew, though he may have known babies that were not heathen. And, after all, why this solicitude for babies? Why is it less monstrous to condemn to eternal torture a being six feet long than one of three? Why, on the last occasion I was in a church I heard these words: 'The sentiment which sorrows over what G.o.d reveals as His will is simply maudlin. When the Christian finds out who are in the regions of despair he will neither be affected by their number nor by the duration of their punishment.'

That's not much better than 'bleating mothers.' And in the meanwhile"--he concluded a tirade so rapidly uttered that his auditor had had no opportunity to interrupt--"they are quarreling about Socrates and tobacco, crusading against my bottle of claret, and sending missionaries to j.a.pan." Who "they" were he had no opportunity to designate, for at this moment a messenger from the nurse announced that the patient was awake.

When the doctor and the lady entered the room, Natalie looked at them, but betrayed no surprise. Mrs. Joe was startled by the expression of her face, which was peaceful, even happy. "Heaven is beautiful," she said, without other preface. "Birds and flowers and little children. Oh! the happy little children and Lenny among them; all so happy, so rosy! Ah, I am glad!" And even as she sighed her gladness she sank into slumber. The doctor watched her anxiously for many minutes; then he signed to Mrs.

Joe to follow, and they softly left the room.

"Is it death?" asked the lady, who had been frightened by his anxious face.

"Such visions often mean death; there's nothing certain yet, but every hope. Go to bed, Mrs. Claghorn; I shall remain here."

But though the lady declined to go to bed, the discussion was not resumed.

About four in the morning he went alone to the room, and soon returned with a smiling face. "She is sleeping naturally," he said. "A few hours since I feared for her reason; now I have great hope. I shall return at eight o'clock. Let n.o.body go near her. Burn that thing; she must never see it again." He pointed to the "Call to the Careless," and left the house.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

STARTLING EFFECT OF "DR. BURLEY'S TRUE MEANING."

Leonard remained in New York, ignorant of the events which had transpired at Stormpoint, concerning which, however, he was soon informed by a letter written by Mrs. Joe, a letter which conveyed the intelligence that his wife had fainted in the cemetery "as a consequence of over-exertion," that Dr. Stanley wished the intended visit to Newport to be made as soon as possible, that there was no need of his presence in Easthampton, and that if he were to come there he would probably find his wife already departed. All of which, though dictated by the physician, had been written with misgiving, as conveying an insufficient statement of the facts. But the doctor had been peremptory. "Keep them apart," he had said. "The only subject on which Leonard can expatiate just now is d.a.m.nation, and of that the wife has had more than enough."

Leonard evinced no desire to follow the Newport party. Misled by the communication from the lady of Stormpoint, and yet more influenced by reluctance to enter the household of Mrs. Leon, of which household he a.s.sumed Berthe Lenoir to be still an inmate, he was willing to enjoy a holiday which he thought he had fairly earned. Mrs. Joe, though surprised by his acquiescence, was relieved. She was still more surprised when her keen vision detected that Natalie was equally relieved. "It seemed," she observed to the doctor, "to lighten her heart."

"Instinct," he replied, and made no further comment; but though ordinarily very discreet as to professional matters, he mentioned the circ.u.mstance to his wife, at the same time advancing a theory which startled that lady.

Freed from anxiety concerning Natalie, whose letters, though very short, reported continuing improvement in the matter of health, Leonard resolved, for the present at least, to forget the ingrat.i.tude of Hampton, and to enjoy to the fullest his bachelor outing. He recalled his strolls on Parisian Boulevards, and in fancy lived in past delights, promenading Broadway with the old Parisian strut, though modified, and not oblivious of the fact that here, as in Paris, were handsome eyes, not unwilling to return the glance of one who had been likened to a Greek G.o.d.

Sometimes, indeed often, he lamented that his lot had not been cast in the great world. His instincts truthfully told him that, as a man of action, he would have presented no mean figure; there were even moments when he wished, though he knew the futility of such a wish, that he might never see Hampton or hear of theology again. This he knew well enough was but the natural reaction from the strain of his recent labors, but he toyed with the thought, half playfully, half regretfully, as indicating one of the things that might have been. If there were any conscience-p.r.i.c.ks they were too feeble to be felt; he had ceased to be a boy (so he said to himself); the boy, for instance, he had been when, on the Heidelberg terrace, he had yearned over the erring soul of his cousin. The religious sentiment which once had glowed so ardently in his bosom was burned out, consumed in the heat of partisan theology; but though he knew this, he did not know the meaning of the fact. To him it meant that his salvation was a.s.sured, and with that conviction the great concern of life had pa.s.sed into the peace which pa.s.seth understanding.

Just now, however, he was not giving much attention to his personal religious att.i.tude, as he moved among the city's throngs well-clad, rosy and with the form and grace of an athlete and the eager eyes of innocence and unconscious desire. In the delight of the holiday, a delight which sometimes rose to a surprising fervor, he thought of certain Parisian peccadillos, and more than once half resolved to renew his acquaintance with the ballet and _belles jambes_, like unto those of Mademoiselle Coralie, which gamboled ravishingly in the haze of memory; but he rejected the imprudent suggestion; he might be recognized, and Brigston would rejoice in unholy glee, if its most potent adversary--he wondered if this fact were known to the pa.s.sers-by--were discovered in a temple of dubious recreation. Such recollections brought Paris very vividly before his eyes, and for some reason also the memory of Berthe and of that rapturous kiss; and perhaps at such times the handsome face a.s.sumed the look of which Mrs. Joe had disapproved.

The remembrance of Berthe recalled Natalie, who, as he believed, was in the house with her former maid, and Natalie's beauty, and he was filled with tenderness, and his soul yearned with a great longing, and had it not been that Berthe was there he would have fled to Newport. He recognized now a fact of which he had, in a vague way, been long conscious, the fact that ever since the birth of the boy he and his wife had grown somewhat apart. She had been engrossed with the child, and he with his theological war. He regretted it, and resolved that it must not be so in the future. Loving one another as they did, it would be easy to grow together again. He would tell her how grievously he had been treated by Hampton, in its envy; and on the beautiful bosom that he loved and that was his own, would pour out his griefs and find sweetest solace. If she would only curtail her visit!

One day there came a letter from his wife which he opened in the eager hope that it would announce the termination of her stay in Newport. He was disappointed in this, and was further rendered uneasy by the tone of constraint in which it was written, or which he imagined; for if there were constraint, it was hard to point out just where it lay; yet he felt, if he could not see, that the pen of the writer had been heavy in her hand. But he was more than uneasy; he felt resentment rising within him as he read the postscript, which was as follows: "Do you believe that there is an eternal h.e.l.l and that many are condemned? Will you answer this as briefly as possible?"

He studied the written words with growing annoyance. The curtness of the question seemed to indicate that to the questioner the matter was of minor import--trivial, in fact; if she really thought thus, then all his recent labors had been labor in vain. Nothing had so angered him as suggestions of this character, frequently made by a G.o.dless secular press. One journal had, with pretended gravity, argued that since all heathen and their progeny must be d.a.m.ned, extermination was more merciful than the hopeless attempt at conversion, and at least as practicable; another had flippantly suggested that Professor Claghorn be required to demonstrate the utility of theological seminaries, since no product of those inst.i.tutions could, by any possibility, be instrumental in saving a single soul--and so on. All of which he had borne with a fair show of equanimity, but he had smarted; and now Natalie's question seemed, at first sight, an echo of the unworthy journalistic jibes.

There might be various opinions concerning h.e.l.l; it was conceivable that the great majority preferred an att.i.tude of incredulity as to its inevitable destination; but, at least, it was a serious subject.

But later readings of the letter seemed to indicate that it had been written with a heavy heart. There was affection in it, but a tone of gloom as well, which, though Natalie admitted that her health was completely restored, was too apparent to permit the supposition of a trifling postcript. The inference, then, must be that she had arrived at a not uncommon stage of religious agitation, often preliminary to conversion, a stage which he knew to be frequently of intense suffering to the neophyte, though satisfactory to pious observers, who were inclined to see in the lowest depths of misery the sure precursor of the highest joy. He had, himself, at an unusually early age, pa.s.sed through a similar experience, and though that period of anguish was so far behind him that he could not recall its terrors, he knew that they had been very dreadful, and that his parents, to whom he had been as the apple of their eye, had been correspondingly complacent. There was, in these days, less of the agonized form of religious experience, but he could easily understand that it might happen to Natalie, who, in religion, was still but a babe.

The only way to deal with the matter was the way in which it had been treated in his own case. There must be no slurring of the truth. He would disdain that course in private as much as he had disdained it in public. Hampton might shrink from disclosure of eternal verity; he would not.

Wherefore, he sent to Natalie his pamphlet, ent.i.tled, "Dr. Burley's True Meaning," not sorry that she should see how clearly and uncompromisingly he could state matters which others had been willing to obscure. The true meaning of the Confession, and, therefore, of the Bible, and, therefore, of the learned biblical scholar whose text Leonard illuminated, was that the majority of mankind was on the way to a h.e.l.l, eternal, and of torture inconceivable.