The First Soprano Part 3

"Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out."

Renewed a.s.surance came with the words.

"I believe it," she said to herself. "I have been very false, but He is true. He says the truth. I believe it."

The thought of the choir scarcely entered her mind now in her new-found joy. The question, to sing or not to sing, had shifted to the deeper one of relationship to G.o.d, and the peace that came with its settlement overshadowed everything else. She went down to breakfast with a light heart and very cheerful countenance. Hubert looked at her in surprise from under gloomy brows. His own had been a restless night.

"Has your headache gone, dear?" asked her mother solicitously.

"Oh, long ago, Mother," said Winifred. She wanted to tell her mother the better news than of a headache gone, but did not know how to begin.

They talked of ordinary things until breakfast was nearly over. Then Mr. Gray said:

"Mr. Mercer was sorry to miss you from the choir last night, Winnie, and hoped you were not going to be ill."

"Thank you, Father. Mr. Mercer is always very kind."

"He hopes you will surely be at the rehearsal Friday night, as he expects to take up some specially fine music."

Winifred's heart heat violently as she summoned courage to say:

"I do not think I shall sing in the choir any more, Father."

"Why--what, Winnie? What's that you are saying? You not sing in the choir any more?"

"What are you saying, Winifred," added Mrs. Gray.

Winifred nerved herself for the statement. It might as well he said now as ever, while they were all together.

"Yes, Father," she said, "I do not think I can sing in the choir any longer. I saw very clearly yesterday that I had never been a true worshiper. I have never meant the words that I sang. I have scarcely thought about G.o.d while I sang words about Him or addressed to Him.

Many of them I could not say honestly. It has all been for effect, and to--to please you all. So I--I concluded--I--couldn't go on any longer."

It had been a very difficult speech, and Winifred's voice sank at the end.

Mr. Gray looked very grave.

"You surprise me, Winnie," he said. "You surprise me very much. You should be conscientious, surely, but you will let me say I think you are taking the matter too seriously,"

Silent Hubert shot a reproachful glance at his father. In his estimation here was a case of downright honesty that called for applause, not repression.

"I think your father is right, Winifred," said Mrs. Gray faintly, and then she added, rather illogically, "but I do not understand just what you mean."

"Can I take the truth too seriously, Father?" asked Winifred, still speaking with an effort. It was an ingenuous question, but Robert Gray found it hard to answer.

"No," he said, after a moment's hesitation, "not truth itself, but we may get wrong ideas of it. But, Winnie," he added, with real sorrow in his voice, "I hope you do not mean to tell us that you will not hereafter try to worship G.o.d, since the past has been so unsatisfactory to you?"

"Oh, no, Father," said Winifred quickly, with rising courage as her experience of the night before came vividly to her. "I have more to tell. I was very unhappy about it all last night, and--I prayed--she blushed, for it was new to speak of such things--I prayed, and it came to me that there was a way to come to G.o.d just as I was, and He would make me a true worshiper; and I came."

Winifred's embarra.s.sment could not quite cover her joy as she made her confession. The father looked relieved.

"I am thankful,--very thankful, Winnie," he said. "You did n.o.bly.

That was quite right--quite right. But now I do not see that you need give up your singing, but that you might go on sincerely where you have failed before."

He looked a little anxious, for her singing in the church was very dear to him.

Winifred's brow clouded. "I fear I cannot, Father. Not now, at least."

"No? Well, we'll talk about it later," he said kindly, and they left the breakfast table.

In the hall Hubert waited for Winifred with his own form of benediction:

"You're a brick, Winnie," he said, and planted a kiss upon her fair forehead.

She smiled and returned his kiss with an affectionate caress. Hubert's slangy praise was dearer to her than any polished compliment from another source.

Hubert did not understand why he hated the world and things a little less as he walked to business that morning, the stone walk answering to his usual sharp, decisive step. He did not know that it was a gleam of something pure and true, of a religion not in word but in deed, that had flashed across his path and mitigated its darkness.

Winifred had a long talk alone with her father in the library later in the day. She had thought out her reasons, and understood better, herself, the instinctive feeling that led her not to resume her place in the choir under the altered conditions.

"I am just beginning to worship, Father," she said, "and I feel I could do so better out of sight--for awhile, at least. You do not know the temptation it would be to fall back into the old way. I am afraid I could not stand it. I would rather just slip into the congregation beside you, Father, and sing to G.o.d when my heart sings, and keep still when it doesn't."

So her father yielded the point to her conscience.

"G.o.d bless you, Winnie," he said with glistening eyes, as he stroked her chestnut locks. "It may be I have been a bit of an idolater, myself."

Poor Mrs. Gray sighed, and quite gave up trying to understand Winifred's strange position. She hoped she would be able to give some suitable reason for withdrawing, and not set the whole church talking about her peculiar views. She remembered hopefully that her daughter had suffered from laryngitis not long ago, and she mentally nursed the almost vanished trouble into proportions that would forbid her singing much. She was sure Dr. Lansing would give an opinion to that effect now. But, dear me! as for herself, she did not know how she should ever sit in that church and hear anyone else sing in Winifred's place!

It was to be feared that there were many others who would find it difficult to sit in that church if their own natural wishes and tastes were not gratified there. What it was to be gathered "in My name," as the Lord Jesus had said,--into the name of Him whose flesh with its longing and loves had been carried pitilessly to the cross, that from its death there might spring forth for all His own life in the Spirit unto G.o.d--what this was, few at New Laodicea knew; nor what it was, so gathered, to behold Him in the midst. Oh, lonely heart without the door of His own house! He knocks patiently, not in the hope that the whole household will hear Him, but for "any man" who has ears to hear and will open to Him.

Winifred had another task before her that day, and she did it promptly.

She did not know how really in her ready obedience she was walking in the steps of "the father of all them that believe," who, when Isaac was to be offered, rose early in the morning to go about the sacrifice.

She went straight to Mr. Mercer, the leader of the choir, and told him of her withdrawal. She told her story with simplicity and dignity, and it commanded his respect.

"I honor your convictions, Miss Gray," he said. "We shall find it hard to fill your place, and I am very sorry you are going. But I would not for a moment urge you to remain. As I say, I honor your convictions.

I only wish I had the courage of them myself."

His face grew heavy. He knew well the deity that led him to that place, and the anxious care that governed each Sunday's work. To bring his choir to the perfect standard of musical merit which his artist soul craved was his ambition. He knew pleasure as he approximated to that goal, and vexation almost to despair when he fell far short. He knew it was not before G.o.d but at another shrine he poured out his soul's libation.

"I know I am not a worshiper," he said. "I have never professed to be a Christian--oh, I am not a Mohammedan or a Hindu!--but I do not profess to be a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. I should not like,"

he said reflectively, "to add to a life indifferent to my Creator the insult of a mock worship."

He bent his brows heavily to consider if such a course were really his.

"I would leave the whole thing to-day," he said vehemently, "as you are doing, Miss Gray, if I could. I would follow other lines in my profession, but I am in this now and it is my living. It means bread and b.u.t.ter to those dependent on me."

He paused, and Winifred said nothing but looked at him with strong sympathy. He went on:

"It will not excuse me, I suppose, but whose is the greater sin? Is it mine, or theirs who hired me? I thought of it professionally. If one honest man had met me with the question, 'Can you lead that part of our worship to G.o.d in spirit and in truth?' I should have known that I could not, and said so. Then I should have turned my attention to secular paths where secular men belong. But there's the rub! Not one of them thought of it, I suppose. What a farce it is! The minister yesterday talked of incense rising to G.o.d. It doesn't get beyond their nostrils, I think. You know that man--what's his name?--he's a stock broker, who sits down the right aisle? Well, you know there was a talk once of dismissing the quartette, and retaining only the chorus (under my direction) to reduce expenses. That man declared if the quartette were dismissed he would leave the church. He is not a member anyway, I think, but he pays! There is worship for you! I tell you, the people glut their own souls with good music, and go home thinking they have worshiped G.o.d. Oh, I wish there were reality in the world!"