Playing With Fire Part 32

"There is no such thing as a creed or a system of Divinity in the Book--nothing in it but human relations touched by the Spirit of G.o.d."

"I am glad, however, to hear of Donald's good fortune."

"It is wonderful. Every good gift of life put into his hand unsought. A beautiful and wealthy wife, who loved him from the moment they met, and a father-in-law who treats him already as a dearly beloved son."

"Donald is not his son, however, and never can be. I am forever and ever Donald Macrae's father."

"A splendid home, a large and prosperous business, and the finest climate outside of the Kingdom of Heaven. It is like a fairy tale,"

continued the Major enthusiastically.

Ian smiled, and said slowly, as if he could hardly remember the words he wished to say, "You are right,

'It sounds like stories from the Land of Spirits, If any one attain the thing he merits, Or any merit that which he obtains.'

I am glad to have heard such a romance."

"Marion, or Mrs. Caird, could have told it to you, chapter by chapter, as it was making."

"And with what advices and entreaties!"

"Words only. I never mind words. Ian, you are looking ill. What is the matter with you? Is it the loss of that woman?"

"The d.u.c.h.ess of Rotherham? No. I never allow myself to think of her. It is a loss so transcendantly greater that there is not speech to define the distance. _I have lost G.o.d!_" and he looked up with a face of such desperate sorrow and patience as infected the heart of the older man with uncontrollable pity.

"O Ian! Ian!" he answered in a low, intense voice, "you cannot lose G.o.d, and, if you could, He cannot lose you."

"My father's brother![1] I have lost G.o.d, and the Devil----"

[Footnote 1: Among Highlanders the name of the relationship expresses more emotion than the baptismal name.]

"Stop now. I disclaim for you and for myself all interest in the devil.

I deny him! I deny him! _Ach!_ I will not talk of him. If there be a devil, he can talk for himself."

"My G.o.d has left me. I know not where to find Him. I watch the day and the night through for a whisper or a sign from Him. 'As the hart panteth after the water brook, so panteth my soul for the living G.o.d.' To all my pleading He is deaf and dumb. My heart would break, but He has made it so hard that sometimes I can only pray for tears, lest I die of my soul's thirst."

"But this is dreadful, Ian, dreadful! Dear me! Dear me! What can I do?"

"What do you do when, through faults all your own, you have lost the sense of G.o.d's loving presence?"

"I will tell you truly, Ian. I write down all my sins and shortcomings, and then, kneeling humbly at His feet, I acknowledge them, and ask for pardon. I wait a moment or two, and then I mark them out with the sign of the [symbol: cross]. It cancels all, and generally I can feel this.

If I do not feel it, I know something is wrong, and the confession is to make over again. It seems a childish thing for a man of sixty years old to rely on, Ian, but it has kept me at His Pierced Feet all my life long. If I had been a Roman Catholic--as the Macraes once all of them were--I should have gone to my confessor and had the priest's absolution; and I suppose it is some ancient feeling after the need and the comfort of confession. For I have 'confessed' in this way ever since I was a little lad, and I shall do so as long as I live. I have never told anyone but you of my simple, solemn rite; but it is a very solemn thing to me, however simple. Yes, it is. I speak the truth."

"Thank you. It is sacred and secret with me. Tell me now what would you do if you had to carry the burden Bunyan makes poor Christian carry through the Slough of Despond every Sabbath. It is my unspeakable burden to be compelled to preach. While I am preaching to others I am asking my soul, 'Art thou not thyself become a castaway?' Life is too hard to bear."

"Yet it was small help or comfort you gave your congregation last Sabbath."

"I did not see you in Church."

"I was there. It is indeed a very rare circ.u.mstance, but I was there, and I heard you tell your hearers that, bad as this life was, the next life would be much worse unless they lived a kind of righteousness impossible to them. Why do people listen to such words? Why do you say them? How do you dare to represent G.o.d as ordaining all things, yet angry with the actions of the creatures whom He has created to disobey His orders? And, since a man must sin by the very necessity of his nature, why is he guilty of his sins? How can people bear such sermons?"

"They do not feel them. No one takes them as for themselves. The majority give all menaces to their neighbors. A great many do not believe such doctrine any more than you do."

"Then why do they go and hear it?"

"Because in Glasgow, Uncle, the respectable element compel the scornful to sit in the seat of the righteous. It is fashionable to go to church, and the strictest sect is the most fashionable. Anything like Armenianism or Methodism is democratic, and suitable only for the lower cla.s.ses--it is too emotional, and brings religion down to Ohs! and Ahs!

and to feelings that compel expression. There are various other reasons not worth mentioning."

"And you are permitting this false preaching of a false doctrine to kill you?"

"My trouble is far greater. Is there a G.o.d at all?"

"Now, Ian, such a question as that never darkened any man's life who did not go out of his way to seek it. Why did you meddle with those cloudy German philosophies? Like Satan, they are one everlasting _No_! How could you be influenced by them? I defy any metaphysician to argue me out of the testimony of my soul and my senses. It is not the 'No!' but the victorious 'Yes!' that life demands."

Then Ian made some explanations, but without success. The Major laughed scornfully at the names of his misleaders, and said, "I know all about them that I want to know. I could not sleep if their books were under my roof. _Imphm!_" he added with ejaculatory disdain. "You call their ravings scientific religion and religious philosophy. _Rubbish_, _rubbish_ is the exact term for them."

"They have been widely read, sir."

"Nonsense! The Scotch mind is far too logical to grasp an existence that is non-existent; it sees no reality in what never happened, and you cannot make it believe that 'Being and not Being' are identical facts.

It leaves all such ideas to those who live in that land

'Where Hegel found out, to his profit and fame, That Something and Nothing were one and the same.'

These two lines of a great critic were all I needed. I laughed heartily, and sent all the philosophies I had to the Clyde. Sandy, who threw them into it, said they went straight to the bottom. Ian, you are wandering in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Are you quite alone? Have you lost the Great Companion?"

"Yes."

"Then trust to the Man within you. No one can lose his soul who risks it with his Higher Self. He will lead you to the One mighty to save. And go and do your daily duty as you see it, and I am led to believe you will require to begin in the house on Bath Street. _Dod, Man!_ I'm sorry for the two poor women who have to live with you. You must be a very uncomfortable, unsocial fellow to eat and to bide with."

"I don't think so, Uncle. When I cannot eat it is kind to keep away from the table; when I am unable to converse about the trivial things of this life it is best for me to be silent. A man as full of sorrow as I am----"

"Fills the whole house with his worry and lamenting. Go home, and eat with the two women you are treating so badly, and talk with them about the people and the things that they love and care for. That you _can_ do, and that you _must_ do."

"They love and care for me."

"I'm bound to say you don't deserve it, and that's a fact. Talk to them of Donald and Lord Cramer, and talk hopefully and pleasantly. They will be so grateful to you and so kind in return."

"They are always kind to me."

"Well, well! They just show that the grace of G.o.d and two women can live with a man that no one else could live with. I met Marion last week in the Arcade, and the little girl was miserable. She said you had scarcely spoken a word for three days. It is not right. Go home and talk to them."

"How can I talk what seems foolishness to me?"

"Try it. Foolishness has often turned out to be wisdom. There is what Paul calls 'the foolishness of preaching.' What are you going to do about that subject?"

"What would you do, Uncle?"

"I would preach the Truth, as I saw it and felt it, or--I would not preach it at all."

"Jessy Caird thinks that, until Marion is married, everything should remain as it is. Then! Then I will seek G.o.d until I find Him, or die seeking."