St. Elmo Part 11

"Why do you think so?"

"He pointed to you, a few moments ago, and his face was full of wretchedness when he told me, 'Make my mother happy while I am gone, and you will be the first person to whom I have ever been indebted.'

Do not weep so, dear Mrs. Murray; G.o.d can preserve him as well on sea as here at home."

"Oh! but he will not pray for himself!" sobbed the mother.

"Then you must pray all the more for him; and go where he will, he cannot get beyond G.o.d's sight, or out of His merciful hands. You know Christ said, 'Whatsoever you ask in my name, I will do it'; and if the Syrophenician's daughter was saved not by her own prayers but by her mother's faith, why should not G.o.d save your son if you pray and believe?"

Mrs. Murray clasped Edna closer to her heart, and kissed her warmly.

"You are my only comfort! If I had your faith I should not be so unhappy. My dear child, promise me one thing, that every time you pray you will remember my son, and ask G.o.d to preserve him in his wanderings, and bring him safely back to his mother. I know you do not like him, but for my sake will you not do this?"

"My prayers are not worth much, but I will always remember to pray for him; and, Mrs. Murray, while he is away, suppose you have family prayer, and let all the household join in praying for the absent master. I think it would be such a blessing and comfort to you.

Grandpa always had prayer night and morning, and it made every day seem almost as holy as Sunday."

Mrs. Murray was silent a little while, and answered hesitatingly:

"But, my dear, I should not know how to offer up prayers before the family. I can pray for myself, but I should not like to pray aloud."

There was a second pause, and finally she said:

"Edna, would you be willing to conduct prayers for me?"

"It is your house, and G.o.d expects the head of every family to set an example. Even the pagans offered sacrifices every day for the good of the household, and you know the Jews had morning and evening sacrifices; so it seems to me family prayer is such a beautiful offering on the altar of the hearthstone. If you do not wish to pray yourself, you could read a prayer; there is a book called Family Prayer, with selections for every day in the week. I saw a copy at the parsonage, and I can get one like it at the book store if you desire it."

"That will suit my purpose much better than trying to compose them myself. You must get the book for me. But, Edna, don't go to school to-day, stay at home with me; I am so lonely and low-spirited. I will tell Mr. Hammond that I could not spare you. Beside, I want you to help me arrange some valuable relics belonging to my son, and now that I think of it, he told me he wished you to use any of his books or MSS. that you might like to examine. This is a great honor, child, for he has refused many grown people admission to his rooms.

Come with me, I want to lock up his curiosities."

They went through the rotunda and into the rooms together; and Mrs.

Murray busied herself in carefully removing the cameos, intaglios, antique vases, goblets, etc., etc., from the tables, and placing them in the drawers of the cabinets. As she crossed the room tears fell on the costly trifles, and finally she approached the beautiful miniature temple and stooped to look at the fastening. She selected the smallest key on the bunch, that contained a dozen, and attempted to fit it in the small opening, but it was too large; then she tried her watch-key, but without success, and a look of chagrin crossed her sad, tear-stained face.

"St. Elmo has forgotten to leave the key with me."

Edna's face grew scarlet, and stooping to pick up a heavy cornelian seal that had fallen on the carpet, she said, hastily:

"What is that marble temple intended to hold?"

"I have no idea; it is one of my son's oriental fancies. I presume he uses it as a private desk for his papers."

"Does he leave the key with you when he goes from home?"

"This is the first time he has left home for more than a few weeks since he brought this gem from the East. I must write to him about the key before he sails. He has it on his watch-chain."

The same curiosity which, in ages long past, prompted the discovery of the Eleusinian or Cabiri mysteries now suddenly took possession of Edna, as she looked wonderingly at the shining f.a.gade of the exquisite Taj Mahal, and felt that only a promise stood between her and its contents.

Escaping to her own room, she proceeded to secrete the troublesome key, and to reflect upon the unexpected circ.u.mstances which not only rendered it her duty to pray for the wanderer but necessitated her keeping always about her a SOUVENIR of the man whom she could not avoid detesting, and was yet forced to remember continually.

On the following day, when she went to her usual morning recitation, and gave the reason for her absence, she noticed that Mr. Hammond's hand trembled, and a look of keen sorrow settled on his face.

"Gone again! and so soon! So far, far away from all good influences!"

He put down the Latin grammar and walked to the window, where he stood for some time, and when he returned to his armchair Edna saw that the muscles of his face were unsteady.

"Did he not stop to tell you good-bye?"

"No, my dear, he never comes to the parsonage now. When he was a boy, I taught him here in this room, as I now teach you. But for fifteen years he has not crossed my threshold, and yet I never sleep until I have prayed for him." "Oh! I am so glad to hear that! Now I know he will be saved."

The minister shook his gray head, and Edna saw tears in his mild blue eyes as he answered:

"A man's repentance and faith can not be offered by proxy to G.o.d. So long as St. Elmo Murray persists in insulting his Maker, I shudder for his final end. He has the finest intellect I have ever met among living men; but it is unsanctified--worse still, it is dedicated to the work of scoffing at and blaspheming the truths of religion. In his youth he promised to prove a blessing to his race and an ornament to Christianity; now he is a curse to the world and a dreary burden to himself."

"What changed him so sadly?"

"Some melancholy circ.u.mstances that occurred early in his life.

Edna, he planned and built that beautiful church where you come on Sabbath to hear me preach, and about the time it was finished he went off to college. When he returned he avoided me, and has never yet been inside of the costly church which his taste and his money constructed. Still, while I live, I shall not cease to pray for him, hoping that in G.o.d's good time he will bring him back to the pure faith of his boyhood."

"Mr. Hammond, is he not a very wicked man?"

"He had originally the n.o.blest heart I ever knew, and was as tender in his sympathies as a woman, while he was almost reckless in his munificent charities. But in his present irreligious state I hear that he has grown bitter and sour and illiberal. Yet, however repulsive his manner may be, I can not believe that his nature is utterly perverted. He is dissipated but not unprincipled. Let him rest, my child, in the hands of his G.o.d, who alone can judge him. We can but pray and hope. Go on with your lesson."

The recitation was resumed and ended; but Edna was well aware that for the first time her teacher was inattentive, and the heavy sighs that pa.s.sed his lips almost unconsciously told her how sorely he was distressed by the erratic course of his quondam pupil.

When she rose to go home she asked the name of the author of the Family Prayers which she wished to purchase for Mrs. Murray, and the pastor's face flushed with pleasure as he heard of her cherished scheme.

"My dear child, be circ.u.mspect, be prudent; above all things, be consistent. Search your own heart; try to make your life an exposition of your faith; let profession and practice go hand in hand; ask G.o.d's special guidance in the difficult position in which you are placed, and your influence for good in Mrs. Murray's family may be beyond all computation." Laying his hands on her head, he continued tremulously: "O my G.o.d! if it be thy will, make her the instrument of rescuing, ere it be indeed too late. Help me to teach her aright; and let her pure life atone for all the inconsistencies and wrongs that have well-nigh wrought eternal ruin."

Turning quickly away, he left the room, before she could even catch a glimpse of his countenance.

The strong and lasting affection that sprang up between instructor and pupil--the sense of dependence on each other's society--rarely occurs among persons in whose ages so great a disparity exists.

Spring and autumn have no affinities--age has generally no sympathy for the gushing sprightliness, the eager questioning, the rose-hued dreams and aspirations of young people; and youth shrinks chilled and constrained from the austere companionship of those who, with snowy locks gilded by the fading rays of a setting sun, totter down the hill of life, journeying to the dark and silent valley of the shadow of death.

Preferring Mr. Hammond's society to that of the comparative strangers who visited Mrs. Murray, Edna spent half of her time at the quiet parsonage, and the remainder with her books and music.

That under auspices so favorable her progress was almost unprecedentedly rapid, furnished matter of surprise to no one who was capable of estimating the results of native genius and vigorous application. Mrs. Murray watched the expansion of her mind, and the development of her beauty, with emotions of pride and pleasure, which, had she a.n.a.lyzed them, would have told her how dear and necessary to her happiness the orphan had become.

As Edna's reasoning powers strengthened, Mr. Hammond led her gradually to the contemplation of some of the gravest problems that have from time immemorial perplexed and maddened humanity, plunging one half into blind, bigoted traditionalism, and scourging the other into the dreary sombre, starless wastes of Pyrrhonism. Knowing full well that of every earnest soul and honest, profound thinker these ontologic questions would sooner or later demand audience, he wisely placed her in the philosophic palaestra, encouraged her wrestlings, cheered her on, handed her from time to time the instruments and aids she needed, and then, when satisfied that the intellectual gymnastics had properly trained and developed her, he invited her-- where he felt a.s.sured the spirit of the age would inevitably drive her--to the great Pythian games of speculation, where the lordly intellects of the nineteenth century gather to test their ratiocinative skill, and bear off the crown of bay on the point of a syllogism or the wings of an audacious hypothesis.

Thus immersed in study, weeks, months, and years glided by, bearing her young life swiftly across the Enna meads of girlhood, nearer and nearer to the portals of that mystic temple of womanhood, on whose fair fretted shrine was to be offered a heart either consumed by the baleful fires of Baal, or purified and consecrated by the Shekinah, promised through Messiah.

CHAPTER IX.

During the first year of Mr. Murray's absence his brief letters to his mother were written at long intervals; in the second, they were rarer and briefer still; but toward the close of the third he wrote more frequently, and announced his intention of revisiting Egypt before his return to the land of his birth. Although no allusion was ever made to Edna, Mrs. Murray sometimes read aloud descriptions of beautiful scenery, written now among the scoriae of Mauna Roa or Mauna Kea, and now from the pinnacle of Mount Ophir, whence, through waving forests of nutmeg and clove, flashed the blue waters of the Indian Ocean, or the silver ripples of Malacca; and, on such occasions, the orphan listened eagerly, entranced by the tropical luxuriance and grandeur of his imagery, by his gorgeous word- painting, which to her charmed ears seemed scarcely inferior to the wonderful pen-portraits of Ruskin. Those letters seemed flecked with the purple and gold, the amber and rose, the opaline and beryline tints, of which he spoke in telling the glories of Polynesian and Malaysian skies, and the matchless verdure and floral splendors of their serene spicy dells. For many days after the receipt of each, Mrs. Murray was graver and sadder, but the spectre that had disquieted Edna was thoroughly exorcised, and only when the cold touch of the golden key startled her was she conscious of a vague dread of some far-off but slowly and surely approaching evil. In the fourth year of her pupilage she was possessed by an unconquerable desire to read the Talmud, and in order to penetrate the mysteries and seize the treasures hidden in that exhaustless mine of Oriental myths, legends, and symbolisms, she prevailed upon Mr. Hammond to teach her Hebrew and the rudiments of Chaldee. Very reluctantly and disapprovingly he consented, and subsequently informed her that, as he had another pupil who was also commencing Hebrew, he would cla.s.s them, and hear their recitations together. This new student was Mr.

Gordon Leigh, a lawyer in the town, and a gentleman of wealth and high social position. Although quite young, he gave promise of eminence in his profession, and was a great favorite of the minister, who p.r.o.nounced him the most upright and exemplary young man of his acquaintance. Edna had seen him several times at Mrs.

Murray's dinners, but while she thought him exceedingly handsome, polite, and agreeable, she regarded him as a stranger, until the lessons at the Parsonage brought them every two days around the little table in the study. They began the language simultaneously; but Edna, knowing the flattering estimation in which he was held, could not resist the temptation to measure her intellect with his, and soon threatened to outrun him in the Talmud race. Piqued pride and a manly resolution to conquer spurred him on, and the venerable instructor looked on and laughed at the generous emulation thus excited. He saw an earnest friendship daily strengthening between the rivals, and knew that in Gordon Leigh's magnanimous nature there was no element which could cause an objection to the companionship to which he had paved the way.