The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Part 157

From her childhood she had known them, their wants, their sympathies, their discouragements; and in her heart--though you would not discover this till you had known her long and well--there was a burning sympathy with them, a sympathy born in her, and not a.s.sumed for the sake of having a career. It was this that had impelled her to get a medical education, which she obtained by hard labor and self-denial. To her this was not a means of livelihood, but simply that she might be of service to those all about her who needed help more than she did. She didn't believe in charity, this stout-hearted, clearheaded little woman; she meant to make everybody pay for her medical services who could pay; but somehow her practice was not lucrative, and the little salary she got as a dispensary doctor melted away with scarcely any perceptible improvement in her own wardrobe. Why, she needed nothing, going about as she did.

She sat--now waiting for the end; and the good face, so full of sympathy for the living, had no hope in it. Just another human being had come to the end of her path--the end literally. It was so everyday. Somebody came to the end, and there was nothing beyond. Only it was the end, and that was peace. One o'clock--half-past one. The door opened softly.

The old woman rose from the foot of the bed with a start and a low "Herr! gross Gott." It was Father Damon. The girl opened her eyes with a frightened look at first, and then an eager appeal. Dr. Leigh rose to make room for him at the bedside. They bowed as he came forward, and their eyes met. She shook her head. In her eyes was no expectation, no hope. In his was the glow of faith. But the eyes of the girl rested upon his face with a rapt expression. It was as if an angel had entered the room.

Father Damon was a young man, not yet past thirty, slender, erect.

He had removed as he came in his broad-brimmed soft hat. The hair was close-cut, but not tonsured. He wore a brown ca.s.sock, falling in straight lines, and confined at the waist with a white cord. From his neck depended from a gold chain a large gold cross. His face was smooth-shaven, thin, intellectual, or rather spiritual; the nose long, the mouth straight, the eyes deep gray, sometimes dreamy and puzzling, again glowing with an inner fervor. A face of long vigils and the schooled calmness of repressed energy. You would say a fanatic of G.o.d, with a dash of self-consciousness. Dr. Leigh knew him well. They met often on their diverse errands, and she liked, when she could, to go to vespers in the little mission chapel of St. Anselm, where he ministered.

It was not the confessional that attracted her, that was sure; perhaps not altogether the service, though that was soothing in certain moods; but it was the n.o.ble personality of Father Damon. He was devoted to the people as she was, he understood them; and for the moment their pa.s.sion of humanity a.s.sumed the same aspect, though she knew that what he saw, or thought he saw, lay beyond her agnostic vision.

Father Damon was an Englishman, a member of a London Anglican order, who had taken the three vows of poverty, chast.i.ty, and obedience, who had been for some years in New York, and had finally come to live on the East Side, where his work was. In a way he had identified himself with the people; he attended their clubs; he was a Christian socialist; he spoke on the inequalities of taxation; the strikers were pretty sure of his sympathy; he argued the injustice of the present ownership of land. Some said that he had joined a lodge of the Knights of Labor. Perhaps it was these things, quite as much as his singleness of purpose and his spiritual fervor, that drew Dr. Leigh to him with a feeling that verged on devotion. The ladies up-town, at whose tables Father Damon was an infrequent guest, were as fully in sympathy with this handsome and aristocratic young priest, and thought it beautiful that he should devote himself to the poor and the sinful; but they did not see why he should adopt their views.

It was at the mission that Father Damon had first seen the girl. She had ventured in not long ago at twilight, with her cough and her pale face, in a silk gown and flower-garden of a hat, and crept into one of the confessional boxes, and told him her story.

"Do you think, Father," said the girl, looking up wistfully, "that I can --can be forgiven?"

Father Damon looked down sadly, pitifully. "Yes, my daughter, if you repent. It is all with our Father. He never refuses."

He knelt down, with his cross in his hand, and in a low voice repeated the prayer for the dying. As the sweet, thrilling voice went on in supplication the girl's eyes closed again, and a sweet smile played about her mouth; it was the innocent smile of the little girl long ago, when she might have awakened in the morning and heard the singing of birds at her window.

When Father Damon arose she seemed to be sleeping. They all stood in silence for a moment.

"You will remain?" he asked the doctor.

"Yes," she said, with the faintest wan smile on her face. "It is I, you know, who have care of the body."

At the door he turned and said, quite low, "Peace be to this house!"

VI

Father Damon came dangerously near to being popular. The austerity of his life and his known self-chastening vigils contributed to this effect.

His severely formal, simple ecclesiastical dress, coa.r.s.e in material but perfect in its saintly lines, separated him from the world in which he moved so unostentatiously and humbly, and marked him as one who went about doing good. His life was that of self-absorption and hardship, mortification of the body, denial of the solicitation of the senses, struggling of the spirit for more holiness of purpose--a life of supplication for the perishing souls about him. And yet he was so informed with the modern spirit that he was not content, as a zealot formerly might have been, to s.n.a.t.c.h souls out of the evil that is in the world, but he strove to lessen the evil. He was a reformer. It was probably this feature of his activity, and not his spiritual mission, that attracted to him the little group of positivists on the East Side, the demagogues of the labor lodges, the practical workers of the working-girls' clubs, and the humanitarian agnostics like Dr. Leigh, who were literally giving their lives without the least expectation of reward. Even the refined ethical-culture groups had no sneer for Father Damon. The little chapel of St. Anselm was well known. It was always open. It was plain, but its plainness was not the barrenness of a non-conformist chapel. There were two confessionals; a great bronze lamp attached to one of the pillars scarcely dispelled the obscurity, but cast an unnatural light upon the gigantic crucifix that hung from a beam in front of the chancel. There were half a dozen rows of backless benches in the centre of the chapel. The bronze lamp, and the candles always burning upon the altar, rather accented than dissipated the heavy shadows in the vaulted roof. At no hour was it empty, but at morning prayer and at vespers the benches were apt to be filled, and groups of penitents or spectators were kneeling or standing on the floor. At vespers there were sure to be carriages in front of the door, and among the kneeling figures were ladies who brought into these simple services for the poor something of the refinement of grace as it is in the higher circles. Indeed, at the hour set apart for confession, there were in the boxes saints from up-town as well as sinners from the slums. Sometimes the sinners were from up-town and the saints from the slums.

When the organ sounded, and through a low door in the chancel the priest entered, preceded by a couple of acolytes, and advanced swiftly to the reading-desk, there was an awed hush in the congregation. One would not dare to say that there was a sentimental feeling for the pale face and rapt expression of the devotee. It was more than that. He had just come from some scene of suffering, from the bed of one dying; he was weary with watching. He was faint with lonely vigils; he was visibly carrying the load of the poor and the despised. Even Ruth Leigh, who had dropped in for half an hour in one of her daily rounds--even Ruth Leigh, who had in her stanch, practical mind a contempt for forms and rituals, and no faith in anything that she could not touch, and who at times was indignant at the efforts wasted over the future of souls concerning which no one knew anything, when there were so many bodies, which had inherited disease and poverty and shame, going to worldly wreck before so-called Christian eyes--even she could scarcely keep herself from adoring this self-sacrificing spirit. The woes of humanity grieved him as they grieved her, and she used to say she did not care what he believed so long as he gave his life for the needy.

It was when he advanced to the altar-rail to speak that the man best appeared. His voice, which was usually low and full of melody, could be something terrible when it rose in denunciation of sin. Those who had traveled said that he had the manner of a preaching friar--the simple language, so refined and yet so homely and direct, the real, the inspired word, the occasional hastening torrent of words. When he had occasion to address one of the societies of ladies for the promotion of something among the poor, his style and manner were simplicity itself. One might have said there was a shade of contempt in his familiar and not seldom slightly humorous remarks upon society and its aims and aspirations, about which he spoke plainly and vigorously. And this was what the ladies liked. Especially when he referred to the pitifulness of cla.s.s distinctions, in the light of the example of our Lord, in our short pilgrimage in this world. This unveiling and denunciation made them somehow feel nearer to their work, and, indeed, while they sat there, co-workers with this apostle of righteousness.

Perhaps there was something in the priestly dress that affected not only the congregation in the chapel, but all the neighborhood in which Father Damon lived. There was in the long robe, with its feminine lines, an a.s.surance to the women that he was set apart and not as others were; and, on the other hand, the semi-feminine suggestion of the straight-falling garment may have had for the men a sort of appeal for defense and even protection. It is certain, at any rate, that Father Damon had the confidence of high and low, rich and poor. The forsaken sought him out, the hungry went to him, the dying sent for him, the criminal knocked at the door of his little room, even the rich reprobate would have opened his bad heart to him sooner than to any one else. It is evident, therefore, that Father Damon was dangerously near to being popular.

Human vanity will feed on anything within its reach, and there has been discovered yet no situation that will not minister to its growth.

Suffering perhaps it prefers, and contumely and persecution. Are not opposition, despiteful anger, slander even, rejection of men, stripes even, if such there could be in these days, manna to the devout soul consciously set apart for a mission? But success, obsequiousness, applause, the love of women, the concurrent good opinion of all humanitarians, are these not almost as dangerous as persecution? Father Damon, though exalted in his calling, and filled with a burning zeal, was a sincere man, and even his eccentricities of saintly conduct expressed to his mind only the high purpose of self-sacrifice. Yet he saw, he could not but see, the spiritual danger in this rising tide of adulation. He fought against its influence, he prayed against it, he tried to humiliate himself, and his very humiliations increased the adulation. He was perplexed, almost ashamed, and examined himself to see how it was that he himself seemed to be thwarting his own work.

Sometimes he withdrew from it for a week together, and buried himself in a retreat in the upper part of the island. Alas! did ever a man escape himself in a retreat? It made him calm for the moment. But why was it, he asked himself, that he had so many followers, his religion so few?

Why was it, he said, that all the humanitarians, the reformers, the guilds, the ethical groups, the agnostics, the male and female knights, sustained him, and only a few of the poor and friendless knocked, by his solicitation, at the supernatural door of life? How was it that a woman whom he encountered so often, a very angel of mercy, could do the things he was doing, tramping about in the misery and squalor of the great city day and night, her path unilluminated by a ray from the future life?

Perhaps he had been remiss in his duty. Perhaps he was letting a vague philanthropy take the place of a personal solicitude for individual souls. The elevation of the race! What had the land question to do with the salvation of man? Suppose everybody on the East Side should become as industrious, as self-denying, as unselfish as Ruth Leigh, and yet without belief, without hope! He had accepted the humanitarian situation with her, and never had spoken to her of the eternal life. What unfaithfulness to his mission and to her! It should be so no longer.

It was after one of his weeks of retreat, at the close of vesper service, that Dr. Leigh came to him. He had been saying in his little talk that poverty is no excuse for irreligion, and that all aid in the hardship of this world was vain and worthless unless the sinner laid hold on eternal life. Dr. Leigh, who was laboring with a serious practical problem, heard this coldly, and with a certain contempt for what seemed to her a vague sort of consolation.

"Well," he said, when she came to him in the vestry, with a drop from the rather austere manner in which he had spoken, "what can I do for you?"

"For me, nothing, Father Damon. I thought perhaps you would go round with me to see a pretty bad case. It is in your parish."

"Ah, did they send for me? Do they want spiritual help?"

"First the natural, then the spiritual," she replied, with a slight tone of sarcasm in her voice. "That's just like a priest," she was thinking.

"I do not know what to do, and something must be done."

"Did you report to the a.s.sociated Charities?"

"Yes. But there's a hitch somewhere. The machine doesn't take hold.

The man says he doesn't want any charity, any a.s.sociation, treating him like a pauper. He's off peddling; but trade is bad, and he's been away a week. I'm afraid he drinks a little."

"Well?"

"The mother is sick in bed. I found her trying to do some fine st.i.tching, but she was too weak to hold up the muslin. There are five young children. The family never has had help before."

Father Damon put on his hat, and they went out together, and for some time picked their way along the muddy streets in silence.

At length he asked, in a softened voice, "Is the mother a Christian?"

"I didn't ask," she replied shortly. "I found her crying because the children were hungry."

Father Damon, still under the impression of his neglect of duty, did not heed her warning tone, but persisted, "You have so many opportunities, Dr. Leigh, in your visits of speaking a word."

"About what?" she asked, refusing to understand, and hardened at the slightest sign of what she called cant.

"About the necessity of repentance and preparation for another life," he answered, softly but firmly. "You surely do not think human beings are created just for this miserable little experience here?"

"I don't know. I have too much to do with the want and suffering I see to raise anxieties about a world of which no one can possibly know anything."

"Pardon me," he persisted, "have you no sense of incompleteness in this life, in your own life? no inward consciousness of an undying personality?"

The doctor was angry for a moment at this intrusion. It had seemed natural enough for Father Damon to address his exhortations to the poor and sinful of his mission. She admired his spirit, she had a certain sympathy with him; for who could say that ministering to minds diseased might not have a physical influence to lift these people into a more decent and prosperous way of living? She had thought of herself as working with him to a common end. But for him now to turn upon her, absolutely ignoring the solid, rational, and scientific ground on which he knew, or should know, she stood, and to speak to her as one of the "lost," startled her, and filled her with indignation. She had on her lips a sarcastic reply to the effect that even if she had a soul, she had not taken up her work in the city as a means of saving it; but she was not given to sarcasm, and before she spoke she looked at her companion, and saw in the eyes a look of such genuine humble feeling, contradicting the otherwise austere expression of his face, that her momentary bitterness pa.s.sed away.

"I think, Father Damon," she said, gently, "we had better not talk of that. I don't have much time for theorizing, you know, nor much inclination," she added.

The priest saw that for the present he could make no progress, and after a little silence the conversation went back to the family they were about to visit.

They found the woman better--at least, more cheerful. Father Damon noticed that there were medicines upon the stand, and that there were the remains of a meal which the children had been eating. He turned to the doctor. "I see that you have been providing for them."

"Oh, the eldest boy had already been out and begged a piece of bread when I came. Of course they had to have something more at once. But it is very little that I can do."

He sat down by the bed, and talked with the mother, getting her story, while the doctor tidied up the room a bit, and then, taking the youngest child in her lap and drawing the others about her, began to tell a story in a low voice. Presently she was aware that the priest was on his knees and saying a prayer. She stopped in her story, and looked out through the dirty window into the chill and dark area.

"What is he doing?" whispered one of the children.

"I don't know," she said, and a sort of chill came over her heart. It all seemed a mockery, in these surroundings.

When he rose he said to the woman, "We will see that you do not want till your husband comes back."