Saxe Holm's Stories Part 17

When Draxy stopped speaking, Deacon Plummer did a manly thing. He rose instantly, and saying "Let us pray," poured out as humble and contrite a pet.i.tion for forgiveness as ever went up on wings of faith to Heaven. It cleared the air, like sweet rain; it rolled a burden off everybody's heart--most of all, perhaps, off Draxy's.

"He is not angry, after all," she said; "G.o.d has laid it to his heart;"

and when, at the end of the services, the old man came up to her and held out his hand, she took it in both of hers, and said, "Thank you, dear Deacon Plummer, thank you for helping me so much to-day. Your prayer was better for the people than my little sermon, a great deal." The deacon wrung her hands, but did not speak a word, only stooped and kissed Reuby.

After this day, Draxy had a new hold on the people. They had really felt very little surprise at her speaking to them as she did. She had slowly and insensibly to herself grown into the same place which the Elder had had in their regard; the same in love and confidence, but higher in reverence, and admiration, for although she sympathized just as lovingly as he in all their feelings, they never for a moment ceased to feel that her nature was on a higher plane than his. They could not have put this in words, but they felt it.

"Donno, how 'tis," they said, "but Mis' Kinney, even when she's closest to ye, an' a doin' for ye all the time, don't seem just like a mortal woman."

"It's easy enough to know how 'tis," replied Angy Plummer, once, in a moment of unguarded frankness, "Mis Kinney is a kind o' daughter o' G.o.d, somthin' as Jesus Christ was His Son. It's just the way Jesus Christ used to go round among folks, 's near 's I can make out; 'n' I for one, don't believe that G.o.d jest sent Him, once for all, 'n' haint never sent anybody else near us, all this time. I reckon He's a sendin' down sons and daughters to us oftener 'n' we think."

"Angy Plummer, I call that downright blasphemy," exclaimed her mother.

"Well, call it what you're a mind to," retorted the crisp Angy. "It's what I believe."

"'Tis blasphemy though, to be sayin' it to folks that can't understand,"

she muttered to herself as she left the room, "ef blasphemy means what Mis' Kinney sez it does, to speak stupidly."

Three years had pa.s.sed. The novelty of Draxy's relation to her people had worn off. The neighboring people had ceased to wonder and to talk; and the neighboring ministers had ceased to doubt and question. Clairvend and she had a stout supporter in old Elder Williams, who was looked upon as a high authority throughout the region. He always stayed at Reuben Miller's house, when he came to the town, and his counsel and sympathy were invaluable to Draxy. Sometimes he said jocosely, "I am the pastor of Brother Kinney's old parish and Mis' Kinney is my curate, and I wish everybody had as good an one."

It finally grew to be Draxy's custom to read one of her husband's sermons in the forenoon, and to talk to the people informally in the afternoon.

Sometimes she wrote out what she wished to say, but usually she spoke without any notes. She also wrote hymns which she read to them, and which the choir sometimes sang. She was now fully imbued with the feeling that everything which she could do, belonged to her people. Next to Reuben, they filled her heart; the sentiment was after all but an expanded and exalted motherhood. Strangers sometimes came to Clairvend to hear her preach, for of course the fame of the beautiful white-robed woman-preacher could not be confined to her own village. This always troubled Draxy very much.

"If we were not so far out of the world, I should have to give it up," she said; "I know it is proper they should come; but it seems to me just as strange as if they were to walk into the study in the evening when I am teaching Reuby. I can't make it seem right; and when I see them writing down what I say, it just paralyzes me."

It might have seemed so to Draxy, but it did not to her hearers. No one would have supposed her conscious of any disturbing presence. And more than one visitor carried away with him written records of her eloquent words.

One of her most remarkable sermons was called "The Gospel of Mystery."

The text was Psalm xix. 2:--

"Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge."

First she dwelt on the sweet meaning of the word Gospel. "Dear friends,"

she said, "it is a much simpler word than we realize; it is only 'good news,' 'good tidings.' We get gospels every day. Our children send us good news of their lives. What gospels of joy are such letters! And nations to nations send good news: a race of slaves is set free; a war has ended; shiploads of grain have been sent to the starving; a good man has been made ruler; these are good tidings--gospels."

After dwelling on this first, simplest idea of the word, until every one of her hearers had begun to think vividly of all the good tidings journeying in words back and forth between heart and heart, continent and continent, she spoke of the good news which nature tells without words.

Here she was eloquent. Subtle as the ideas were, they were yet clothed in the plain speech which the plain people understood: the tidings of the spring, of the winter, of the river, of the mountain; of gold, of silver, of electric fire; of blossom and fruit; of seed-time and harvest; of suns and stars and waters,--these were the "speech" which "day uttered unto day."

But "knowledge was greater" than speech: night in her silence "showed"

what day could not tell. Here the faces of the people grew fixed and earnest. In any other hands than Draxy's the thought would have been too deep for them, and they would have turned from it wearily. But her simplicity controlled them always. "Stand on your door-steps on a dark night," she said,--"a night so dark that you can see nothing: looking out into this silent darkness, you will presently feel a far greater sense of how vast the world is, than you do in broad noon-day, when you can see up to the very sun himself."

More than one young face in the congregation showed that this sentence struck home and threw light on hitherto unexplained emotions. "This is like what I mean," continued Draxy, "by the Gospel of Mystery, the good tidings of the things we cannot understand. This gospel is everywhere. Not the wisest man that has ever lived can fully understand the smallest created thing: a drop of water, a grain of dust, a beam of light, can baffle his utmost research. So with our own lives, with our own hearts; every day brings a mystery--sin and grief and death: all these are mysteries; gospels of mystery, good tidings of mystery; yes, good tidings!

These are what prove that G.o.d means to take us into another world after this one; into a world where all things which perplexed us here will be explained.... O my dear friends!" she exclaimed at last, clasping her hands tightly, "thank G.o.d for the things which we cannot understand: except for them, how should we ever be sure of immortality?"

Then she read them a hymn called "The Gospel of Mystery." Coming after the sermon, it was sweet and clear to all the people's hearts. Before the sermon it would have seemed obscure.

The Gospel of Mystery.

Good tidings every day, G.o.d's messengers ride fast.

We do not hear one half they say, There is such noise on the highway, Where we must wait while they ride past.

Their banners blaze and shine With Jesus Christ's dear name, And story, how by G.o.d's design He saves us, in His love divine, And lifts us from our sin and shame.

Their music fills the air, Their songs sing all of Heaven; Their ringing trumpet peals declare What crowns to souls who fight and dare, And win, shall presently be given.

Their hands throw treasures round Among the mult.i.tude.

No pause, no choice, no count, no bound, No questioning how men are found, If they be evil or be good.

But all the banners bear Some words we cannot read; And mystic echoes in the air, Which borrow from the songs no share, In sweetness all the songs exceed.

And of the mult.i.tude, No man but in his hand Holds some great gift misunderstood, Some treasure, for whose use or good His ignorance sees no demand.

These are the tokens lent By immortality; Birth-marks of our divine descent; Sureties of ultimate intent, G.o.d's Gospel of Eternity.

Good tidings every day.

The messengers ride fast; Thanks be to G.o.d for all they say; There is such noise on the highway, Let us keep still while they ride past.

But the sermon which of all others her people loved best was one on the Love of G.o.d. This one she was often asked to repeat,--so often, that she said one day to Angy, who asked for it, "Why, Angy, I am ashamed to.

Everybody must know it by heart. I am sure I do."

"Yes, that's jest the way we do know it, Mis' Kinney, by heart," said the affectionate Angy, "an' that's jest the reason we want it so often. I never told ye what George Thayer said the last time you read it to us, did I?"

"No, Angy," said Draxy.

"Well, he was singing in the choir that day, 'n place o' his brother, who was sick; 'n' he jumped up on one o' the seats 'n' swung his hat, jest 's you was goin' down the aisle, 'n' we all ketched hold on him to pull him down, 'n' try to hush him; for you can't never tell what George Thayer'll do when his blood's up, 'n' we was afraid he was agoin' to holler right out, 's ef he was in the town-'us; but sez he, in a real low, trembly kind o' voice,

"'Ye needn't be afraid, I ain't agoin' to whoop;--taint that way I feel,--but I had to do suthin' or I should bust': 'n' there was reel tears in his eyes--George Thayer's eyes, Mis' Kinney! Then he jumped down, 'n'

sez he, 'I'll tell ye what that sermon's like: it's jest like one great rainbow all round ye, and before 'n' behind 'n' everywheres, 'n' the end on't reaches way to the Throne; it jest dazzles my eyes, that's what it does.'"

This sermon had concluded with the following hymn, which Draxy had written when Reuby was only a few weeks old:--

The Love of G.o.d.

Like a cradle rocking, rocking, Silent, peaceful, to and fro, Like a mother's sweet looks dropping On the little face below, Hangs the green earth, swinging, turning, Jarless, noiseless, safe and slow; Falls the light of G.o.d's face bending Down and watching us below.

And as feeble babes that suffer, Toss and cry, and will not rest, Are the ones the tender mother Holds the closest, loves the best, So when we are weak and wretched, By our sins weighed down, distressed, Then it is that G.o.d's great patience Holds us closest, loves us best.

O great Heart of G.o.d! whose loving Cannot hindered be nor crossed; Will not weary, will not even In our death itself be lost-- Love divine! of such great loving, Only mothers know the cost-- Cost of love, which all love pa.s.sing, Gave a Son to save the lost.

There is little more to tell of Draxy's ministry. It closed as suddenly as it had begun.

It was just five years after the Elder's death that she found herself, one Sunday morning, feeling singularly feeble and lifeless. She was bewildered at the sensation, for in her apparent health she had never felt it before.

She could hardly walk, could hardly stand. She felt also a strange apathy which prevented her being alarmed.

"It is nothing," she said; "I dare say most women are so all the time; I don't feel in the least ill;" and she insisted upon it that no one should remain at home with her. It was a communion Sunday and Elder Williams was to preach.

"How fortunate it is that Mr. Williams was here!" she thought languidly, as she seated herself in the eastern bay-window, to watch Reuby down the hill. He walked between his grandparents, holding each by the hand, talking merrily and looking up into their faces.