The Forerunner Part 130

"She must have written a lot," he said, taking out two folded papers, and then a letter.

"My dear great-nephews," ran the epistle, "as your parents have a.s.sured me that you have kept your promise, and denied yourselves b.u.t.ter for the s.p.a.ce of a year, here is the fifty dollars I promised to each of you--wisely invested."

Mr. Fernald opened the papers. To Holdfast Fernald and to J. Edwards Fernald, duly made out, receipted, signed and sealed, were two $50 life memberships in the Missionary society!

Poor children! The younger one burst into wild weeping. The older seized the b.u.t.ter dish and cast it on the floor, for which he had to be punished, of course, but the punishment added nothing to his grief and rage.

When they were alone at last, and able to speak for sobbing, those gentle youths exchanged their sentiments; and these were of the nature of blasphemy and rebellion against G.o.d. They had learned at one fell blow the hideous lesson of human depravity. People lied--grown people--religious people--they lied! You couldn't trust them! They had been deceived, betrayed, robbed! They had lost the actual joy renounced, and the potential joy promised and withheld. The money they might some day earn, but not heaven itself could give back that year of b.u.t.ter. And all this in the name of religion--and of missionaries!

Wild, seething outrage filled their hearts at first; slower results would follow.

The pious enthusiasm of the little town was at its height. The religious imagination, rather starved on the bald alternatives of Calvinism, found rich food in these glowing tales of danger, devotion, sometimes martyrdom; while the spirit of rigid economy, used to daylong saving from the cradle to the grave, took pa.s.sionate delight in the success of these n.o.ble evangelists who went so far afield to save lost souls.

Out of their narrow means they had sc.r.a.ped still further; denied themselves necessaries where no pleasures remained; and when the crowning meeting was announced, the big collection meeting, with the wonderful brother from the Church in Asia to address them again, the meeting house was packed in floor and gallery.

Hearts were warm and open, souls were full of enthusiasm for the great work, wave on wave of intense feeling streamed through the crowded house.

Only in the Fernalds' pew was a spirit out of tune.

Fernald, good man though he was, had not yet forgiven. His wife had not tried.

"Don't talk to me!" she had cried pa.s.sionately, when he had urged a reconciliation. "Forgive your enemies! Yes, but she hasn't done any harm to _me!_. It's my boys she's hurt! It don't say one word about forgiving other people's enemies!"

Yet Mrs. Fernald, for all her anger, seemed to have some inner source of consolation, denied her husband, over which she nodded to herself from time to time, drawing in her thin lips, and wagging her head decisively.

Vengeful bitterness and impotent rage possessed the hearts of Holdfast and J. Edwards.

This state of mind in young and old was not improved when, on arriving at the meeting a little late, they had found the head of the pew was occupied by Miss McCoy.

It was neither the time nor the place for a demonstration. No other seats were vacant, and Mrs. Fernald marched in and sat next to her, looking straight at the pulpit. Next came the boys, and murder was in their hearts. Last, Mr. Fernald, inwardly praying for a more Christian spirit, but not getting it.

Holdfast and young J. Edwards dared not speak in church or make any protest; but they smelled the cardamum seeds in the champing jaws beyond their mother, and they cast black looks at each other and very secretly showed clenched fists, held low.

In fierce inward rebellion they sat through the earlier speeches, and when the time came for the address of the occasion, even the deep voice of the brother from Asia failed to stir them. Was he not a missionary, and were not missionaries and all their works proved false?

But what was this?

The address was over; the collection, in cash, was in the piled plates at the foot of the pulpit. The collection in goods was enumerated and described with full names given.

Then the hero of the hour was seen to confer with the other reverend brothers, and to rise and come forward, raising his hand for silence.

"Dearly beloved brethren and sisters," he said, "in this time of thanksgiving for gifts spiritual and temporal I wish to ask your patience for a moment more, that we may do justice. There has come to my ears a tale concerning one of our recent gifts which I wish you to hear, that judgment may be done in Israel.

"One among us has brought to the House of the Lord a tainted offering--an offering stained with cruelty and falsehood. Two young children of our flock were bribed a year ago to renounce one of the scant pleasures of their lives for a year's time--a whole long year of a child's life. They were bribed with a promise--a promise of untold wealth to a child, of fifty dollars each."

The congregation drew a long breath.

Those who knew of the Fernald boys' endeavor (and who in that friendly radius did not?) looked at them eagerly. Those who recognized Miss McCoy looked at her, too, and they were many. She sat, fanning herself, with a small, straight-handled palmleaf fan, striving to appear unconscious.

"When the time was up," the clear voice went on remorselessly, "the year of struggle and privation, and the eager hearts of childhood expected the reward; instead of keeping the given word, instead of the money promised, each child was given a paid life membership in our society!"

Again the house drew in its breath. Did not the end justify the means?

He went on:

"I have conferred with my fellow members, and we are united in our repudiation of this gift. The money is not ours. It was obtained by a trick which the heathen themselves would scorn."

There was a shocked pause. Miss McCoy was purple in the face, and only kept her place for fear of drawing more attention if she strove to escape.

"I name no names," the speaker continued, "and I regret the burden laid upon me to thus expose this possibly well-meant transaction, but what we have at stake to-night is not this handful of silver, nor the feelings of one sinner, but two children's souls. Are we to have their sense of justice outraged in impressionable youth? Are they to believe with the Psalmist that all men are liars? Are they to feel anger and blame for the great work to which our lives are given because in its name they were deceived and robbed? No, my brothers, we clear our skirts of this ignominy. In the name of the society, I shall return this money to its rightful owners. 'Whoso offendeth one of these little ones, it were better that a millstone be hanged about his neck and he cast into the depths of the sea.'"

A QUESTION

Why is it, G.o.d, that mother's hearts are made So very deep and wide?

How does it help the world that we should hold Such welling floods of pain till we are old Because when we were young one grave was laid-- One baby died?

IS IT WRONG TO TAKE LIFE?

"Thou shalt not kill."

This is about as explicit as words can be; there is no qualification, no palliating circ.u.mstance, no exception.

"Thou"--(presumably you and I, any and every person) "shalt not"--(a prohibition absolute) "kill"--(take life: that is, apparently, of anything).

How do we read this? How apply it?

Some have narrowed it to a.s.sa.s.sination only, frankly paraphrasing the simple law, as "Thou shalt do no murder," and excepting the whole range of war-slaughter, of legal execution, of "self-defence" and "justifiable homicide."

Some have widened it to cover not only all human beings, but all animal life as well; the Buddhist and his modern followers sparing even the ant in the path, and the malaria-planting mosquito.

Such extremists should sit in sackcloth and ashes over the riotous carriage of their own phagasytes; ever ruthlessly destroying millions upon millions of staphyllococci and similar intruders.

Where should the line be drawn? And why? Especially why? Why is it wrong to kill?

If we hark back to the direct command, we find that it could not have been intended as universally binding.

"Whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed," and all the explicit directions as to who should be killed, and how; for such and such offences, certainly justify the axe and rope of the executioner; and beyond that come numbers of inspired commands as to the merciless extermination of opposing tribes in which men, women and children were "put to the sword"--even to babes unborn. Killing seemed highly honorable, even compulsory, among the people on whom this stern command was laid.

Scholars teach us that the ten commandments were in truth not given to the Israelites until after the return of Hezekiah; that may alter the case a little, but a.s.suredly if we are to believe the Old Testament at all there was no blame attached to many kinds of killing.

The Prophets and Psalmists particularly yearned to have their enemies destroyed, and exulted in their destruction.