The First Soprano Part 18

"Why not? Is it not dark--what we do not know?"

"But I know G.o.d," said Winifred earnestly, "and Jesus Christ. And they are there--in the things we cannot see. The Apostle Paul said, 'For me to live is Christ; _to die is gain_.'"

The words brought no comfort. "'To live is Christ,'" repeated the sick one musingly. "If that were so--?" she was silent for a few moments, and then broke out hopelessly: "No, no! To live has not been Christ!

It has been myself, and you all, and these things! It is not gain to die! It is loss!--loss!--loss of everything I know!"

Her voice rose excitedly, and her glistening fevered eyes looked about restlessly. Winifred feared that the nurse would come, and finding her worse, end the interview. So she prayed that G.o.d would calm the dear patient and give them both His needed grace for the hour. And He heard.

"Let me straighten your pillow, mother dear," she said, and suited the action to the word. Her mother clasped the deft hands that arranged things so comfortably, and looked long with yearning fondness into her daughter's face.

"Winnie," she said finally, "could you sing just a little for me?"

Winifred choked back a sob that tried to escape. "I will try," she said.

She brought a little stringed instrument that her mother loved, with which she sometimes accompanied her songs.

"What shall I sing?" she asked, seating herself beside the bed.

"I don't know," hesitated her mother.

"Would you like that little Scotch song from Sankey's book?"

"Oh, yes. That is very sweet."

So Winifred began the plaintive words:

"I am far frae my hame, an' I'm weary aftenwhiles For the langed-for hame bringin' an' my Faither's welcome smiles."

She began with a stern watch upon her own emotions. But, as she proceeded, from the sadness of the hour rose a longing in her soul for the "ain countrie" where no blight of death and tears are known, and it poured itself out in the song. She sang two of the long stanzas.

"I've His guid word o' promise that some gladsome day the King To His ain royal palace His banished hame will bring.

Wi' heart and wi' een rinnin' ower we shall see The King in a' His beauty in oor ain countrie.

Like a bairn to its mither, a wee birdie to its nest, I wad fain be agangin' noo unto my Saviour's breast; For He gathers in His bosom witless, worthless lambs like me, An' carries them Himself to His ain countrie."

Mrs. Gray had been lying with closed eyes through which the tears forced their way. Now she interrupted:

"What does it say, Winifred? 'He gathers in His bosom?' Please sing those lines again."

So Winifred repeated:

"'For He gathers in His bosom witless, worthless lambs like me, And carries them Himsel' to His ain countrie.'"

"Thank you!" murmured the invalid with a sigh. "Is it true, Winnie?"

"Yes, mother, it is quite true."

"That is what--I have been." She was speaking again with difficulty, and her voice was very low, so that Winifred leaned forward to listen.

"I've been--a 'witless, worthless lamb!' Will He--gather--me?"

"I know He will--if you trust Him!"

"How do you know, Winnie?"

"There is the Scripture, mother. There is the parable of the lost sheep, and then there is another word; 'All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.'"

After a moment the weak voice spoke again:

"Winnie, _you_ know Him; will you pray? Tell Him--I've taken--my own way,--a 'witless, worthless lamb!'"

Winifred slipped to her knees beside the bed and prayed; prayed with the greatest thankfulness she had ever known because she knew G.o.d, and prayed for the dearest object for which she had made request. She reminded G.o.d with great simplicity that He had laid the iniquity of us all who have wandered on His Anointed One, and begged Him to make good the virtue of that act to her poor mother. And the dying lady listened, and believed.

"Dear mother," said Winifred fondly, "do you not see that He will gather you?"

Mrs. Gray's head had sunk back contentedly in the pillows. She smiled faintly.

"Yes, I see it now," she said. "It is very true."

In a few moments she was asleep, and the nurse resumed her watch. But later in the night a quiet alarm summoned the little household to her chamber, and they watched for the moment of parting between the spirit and its fair tenement. Before it came she opened her eyes, and looked at them placidly. Her lips moved, and Winifred bent forward eagerly to catch their words.

"I--am--not--afraid'" they p.r.o.nounced, and then closed their witness for this world forever.

The death of Mrs. Gray brought the first great sorrow to the house of Robert Gray. It did its work in the heart of each who remained. It smote the husband with a conviction of misspent years, of a united fellowship in the things that perish so miserably instead of in those things which remain when all else is shaken. Had he but led his gentle wife, as was his opportunity, in ways of the Spirit, how different might have been their record together. And now the end had come for one, with no "abundant entrance," no glad prospect of long-antic.i.p.ated joys,

"Where the eye at last beholdeth What the heart has loved so long,"

but with the negative testimony of a fear relieved--of wrath averted, through the grace of a longsuffering G.o.d. They had been guilty together of the capital sin of an earth-centered life; and now the iron merchant, elder of the church though he was, awoke from his long dream of money getting and of earthly comfort to the reality of G.o.d, and of his obligation as a redeemed soul to Him. There crept an unfamiliar note of yearning sincerity into the prayers wherewith he took his heretofore formal part in the church prayer meeting, and it almost perceptibly thinned the frozen crust of the "icily regular" service.

The men in his business noticed a new softness in his manner, and sometimes it emboldened them to speak to him of their own cares and sorrows, and they found sympathy.

Hubert grieved for his mother with the strength of an intense, reticent nature. But, as did also his sister, he found solace in G.o.d.

Winifred felt very keenly her mother's loss, missing the vanished hand from every part of the house where she now a.s.sumed her place, seeing everywhere reminders of her dainty touch and quiet taste, and longing for her voice yet more and more as the days went by. This great bereavement came so closely on the separation from one whom she never mentioned now, but who was far from forgotten, that often her heart seemed torn between the two sorrows. Sometimes waves of disheartenment came on cloudy days of testing, when the sun was hidden and life looked cheerless and hard. But anon the face of Jesus Christ broke through the clouds, and with the vision came always joy.

The three who were left drew more closely to each other, and despite their sorrow found a sweetness of comfort together never known before.

CHAPTER XV

"SELL THAT YE HAVE"

Three years had pa.s.sed, and the snows of winter had lain heavily for weeks upon all the region surrounding New Laodicea. It spread soft mantles over lawns and roofs in the city, and only in the streets was its white purity turned by the traffic of man into vileness. On a sharp, clear morning Hubert Gray walked through the cutting air toward his office, and meditated thus:

"What am I doing? What is the occupation that employs so much of my waking time and the powers that G.o.d has given me? 'Diligent in business,' the Scripture says. Yes, I am certainly that, but what is it all for? I am trading in iron, as my father has done, and laying up treasure on earth. That is something--the laying up treasure on earth--that the Lord Jesus said not to do. But did He really mean it?

n.o.body takes it very literally, I suppose.

"'Sell that ye have and give alms.' That is what I read this morning.

'Make for yourselves purses which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not.'