Mistaken, or, The seeming and the real
page: 0 (Cover) [View Page 0 (Cover) ] MISTAKEN. page: 0 (TitlePage) [View Page 0 (TitlePage) ] MISTAKEN OR THE SEEMNG AND THE REAL. BY LYDIA FULLER. "Let no misfortune ever master thee"! For only strong endurance leads thee to The day of bliss. Whate'er can chance to man, That he has strength to meet; what he has strength for, That it behooveth him to bear." LAYMAN'S BREVIARY. :' -- PHILADELPHIA J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. I870. page: 0[View Page 0] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. LIPPINCOTT'S PRESS, PHILADELPHIA. TO MY BROTHER, J. A. C, THS VOLUME IS GRATEFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. page: 0-7[View Page 0-7] MISTAKEN; OR, THE SEEMNG AND THE REAL. PART I. CHAPTER I. The clock in the old church-tower struck twelve. The minister in the parsonage study dismally counted the hours. His unfinished sermon lay upon the table before him, and it was twelve o'clock Saturday night. In fact, a beginning had hardly been made. His hand still rested upon the initial page, and the words of the text, "The truth shall make you free," were conspicuous before him. Difficult words to meet in his present frame of mind. For truth has a negative as well as positive aspect. We must die to the old ere we rise to the new, and to most of us as yet death is the more vital experience. We linger around our graves as if they held something still belonging to us, and we page: 8-9[View Page 8-9] do in reality bury somewhat of ourselves under the sod of every sorrow that holds a place as such in the life of to-day. The minister dismally counted the hours. His thoughts had been in the past, wandering back over the years of his ministry in the little parish of Arden, among the hills of New England-back of these to his college-life, the hopes there nurtured, the plans there formed -to the change which came over both, his unexpected call to the ministry, the enthusiasm of his response, and the rest of soul that had attended his labors in the service of his Master. Then his more recent experiences passed in review-painful, bitter, inexplicable. His heart sank beneath them. All his life resolved itself into them. The apparent success and satisfaction of the past were a mockery, leading to this hour - this hour of darkness in which was no promise of a morning!
He turned to the written page: "The truth shall make you free."
"Yes," he murmured, "but what and where is the truth?"-a question that neither begun nor ended with Pilate, that all men ask, and no man can answer to the soul of another man-whose answer is heard only in the bosom of the Infinite. But the minister was looking without to the traditions of men. No wonder that midnight lingered and morning refused to dawn.
Not so was it in the early days of his love. Then the voice of God was audible and the traditions of men unregarded. That voice called him to a work among and for his fellow-men. It silenced the promptings of worldly ambition, it stifled schemes for personal power, wealth and aggrandizement, it left no room to balance questions of orthodoxy, but drew the whole man, with every endowment of mind and heart, into the current of an irresistible love.
The minister was not a controversialist in matters of religion. Indeed, religion does not admit of controversy. It differs in this from theology. Religion is of the inmost consciousness. It is communion of soul with God. It is life, the secret spring and motive-power of action. It individualizes, and it is the only thing that does or can. In all other directions we are on the common plane of universal humanity. We meet God alone on the top of the mountain!
Theology passes for religion with the unintelligent, but a glance discloses the difference. Theology admits of discussion, debate. It is the arena of the intellect. A man may change his theology, but religion is for ever and everywhere the same. The man who studies himself into the ministry may also study himself out, but ministers of God's ordaining are life-incumbents, whether so recognized or not.
Our minister, after preaching twelve years with the sanction of his bishop and the unquestioned page: 10-11[View Page 10-11] faith of a little band of devoted followers, was awakened suddenly to the fact that he knew surprisingly little about theology. The fact startled, troubled and finally brought him to the depths of despair. For in common with the world generally he too had identified theology and religion. The Thirty-nine Articles, if they did not constitute, at least expressed, religious verities. Shake them, and you shook the ground under his feet. Disprove them, and God himself was arraigned before the bar of human reason. It was terrible, yet to precisely this point was the minister brought. And as the most important eras in life often turn upon seemingly the most unimportant events, so with him. His fancied stronghold gave way before the touch of an infant.
Not six months past a freshly-imported and highly-finished specimen of theologic grinding had arrived in Arden, much to the discomfiture, as it proved, of sound orthodoxy. The youthful divine called himself Unitarian, and entered upon his labors with the air of a young Achilles. He characterized Arden as "a slow place," and proposed to give it a friendly jog. Possibly, the Ardenites did need his services. Certainly they hadn't traveled. They were not a migratory people. They tilled the soil, raised cattle and sheep, manufactured a little, "kept store" a little, faithfully observed Fourth of July, Thanksgiving-day, Saturday night and the Sabbath until sundown, and troubled themselves not overmuch about the great world outside of and beyond their own beautiful hills. Railroads had not then comparatively annihilated space. The stage-coach carried the mail, the tourist to and the ambitious traveler away from Arden, and rumor heightened the effect of all information that the town received through these crooked and somewhat misleading channels. Nevertheless, it sent back its tardy echo to the world with no uncertain sound. It was alive, even if slow. The Weekly Argus had as many eyes as its fabled prototype, and they were all open. A thrifty, wide-awake, self-satisfied little borough, content to stay at home, yet up to the mark in its duty to the country-outside of which was little worth minding, a few kings and queens and an effete civilization-and imperative in its demands upon the country to sustain itself as pioneer of the age.
Hither sent by Providence came the Rev. Silas Dunn, and at once opened his artillery upon the intellectual delusions of orthodoxy.
Unitarianism and all free-thinking tendencies had suffered an eclipse in Arden. For years orthodoxy had held undisputed sway. But the spirit of the nineteenth century, in the person of the Rev. Silas, appeared, and orthodoxy trembled. He defiantly threw down the gauntlet, and all the restless, unsatisfied and dissatisfied spirits of the town rallied around him. He was reported in the page: 12-13[View Page 12-13] Argus, talked up on street-corners, and being young, handsome and unmarried, was discussed at tea-parties and quilting-bees.
For a time the savans took no notice. The clergy preached " election," "immersion" and "complete sanctification" a little stronger perhaps, and the fathers unmistakably warned their sons and daughters at home. But this could not continue, of course. Human nature is very belligerent, especially when assailed, and assailed, too, in its theological citadel. Besides, the call to fame is alluring. Not every day is the call heard, nor in out-of-the-way country towns the opportunity given, to signalize one's self as defender of the faith. The Rev. Silas it last made his jog felt. In an evil hour the Baptist minister entered the lists. His public defence of orthodoxy in the townhall failed, however, to meet the Methodist demand, and both were inadequate to orthodox requirements. In the end, the brethren had the mortification of finding the quarrel on their own hands, while the ranks of the enemy were visibly strengthened.
Our minister-Samuel Reid-kept entirely aloof from the controversy. It amazed and grieved him to see his brethren falling into the snare. He gathered his little flock around him with a more vigilant care, and talked to them, in the pulpit and out of it, with a power not his own, but received in those deep and sacred communings with the universal Giver of all things.
At length a deputation from the other churches waited upon him. They represented in dismal colors the demoralizing and growing influence of the sacrilegious invader, and acknowledged the failure of their attempts to silence him. But they were assured that their Episcopal brother could say the needed word for them all, could so present evangelical religion as to satisfy every shade of orthodoxy and bring to confusion this scoffer at sacred and divine things.
Mr. Reid listened quietly and attentively to all that was said, but declined to interfere. "I have no faith," he said, "in the utility of theological discussions. Experience and observation lead me to believes that they only tend to confirm one in already received opinions. My advice would be to let the young man alone. He will soon get through talking, I doubt not, if he has it all to himself."
After some further parleying, the brethren acquiesced in the wisdom of Mr. Reid's method.
They did let the young man alone, and he gravitated to his own place.
But the incident was not without results in the life of Mr. Reid. From time to time during its various developments he had almost impatiently taken his pen to write the decisive word which his brethren at last called upon him to utter. But somehow the word was never written, or, if so, never spoken or published. Instead, and as a final page: 14-15[View Page 14-15] result, he was led to examine more critically than he had ever done before the basis of his theological creed. Then he awoke to the fact that he knew very little about theology, and further on, that, to all appearance, very little could be known of a satisfying or decided character. Opinions opposed each other, and Scripture proved them all. Mr. Reid was too true a man to allow his own personal predilections to blind him. "No one," he had often said, "is fit to teach a truth until he ceases to invest in it personally, to make it tributary in any way to himself." The truth had ever been in his heart and upon his lips, a bright-winged angel speaking to him and through him, but deriving nothing from him-nothing to warp it to merely individual or sectarian purposes. At least, such had been his aim. However closely, therefore, his affections centered in the Church, he dared not allow them to dominate his investigation of her creed.
He studied carefully and prayerfully, hoping and fearing. It was no child's play in which he was engaged. The questions involved were not theoretical merely, but practical. The Church was his home. He had resigned many a worldly hope and ambition to answer the call to preach the Gospel. His heart was in his work. Years had but deepened the enthusiasm of his love for Christ. The truth of that divine life became daily more and more the one only hope of the world!
This was his religion, and it had not occurred to him that its vitality could in anywise be vitiated by the falsity of his theological creed. He had identified theology and religion, and when he saw the walls of the former trembling and the foundations giving way, life and God seemed involved in the coming ruin. Many a midnight vigil he had kept before the one with which our story opens. Through many a text like this one, "The truth shall make you free," had he vainly endeavored to reach and bring down those interior perceptions of the soul whereby he discerned the nature of truth, its universality and adaptability to every state and want of man, but having shouldered his creed, it invariably tethered him, and then as now he had been forced to abandon his purpose and betake himself to some simple exposition of those wonderful parables, to comforting words for the weary and heavy laden, to words of encouragement for those in whose pathway lay Gethsemane, the crown of thorns and Calvary. These truths did make him free indeed! Here he encountered no limitations, no contradictions, nothing but a burning, omnipotent love for mankind, that roused in him a kindred spirit and inspired him to lead a similar life of devotion to others.
And many there were in Arden who could bear witness to the genuineness of that inspiration. From the day of his arrival among them with his young wife to the hour of his bitter trial, of which page: 16-17[View Page 16-17] they knew little, the people to whom he especially came, and many a one outside of his own parish, knew him as a faithful disciple of Him " who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister." Knew them-for the pastor's work was his wife's also. Together they sought out the ignorant and suffering, and together they ministered to their need.
The public-school offered gratuitous instruction, it is true, but nevertheless the pastor-as he came to be called-and his wife had a little charity- school of their own, into which were gathered stragglers of every and of no creed, of all ages and wants, a sort of general hospital for the ignorant, the sick and afflicted. It was not an endowed institution, nor were the charitable munificently disposed toward the enterprise. It called for the sacrifice of personal ease, it depleted a scanty purse, and tested the strength of both body and mind of those who labored with the pastor to carry on the good work. But it was carried on. Day after day did Mr. Reid come among these outcast children of earth with a heart full of pity and love, day after day did he labor to unearth the immortal spirits,almost buried out of sight beneath a triple covering of poverty, ignorance and vice. He gave his all. He lost his own life to find another in the life of the Master whom he served.
It cannot be denied that in all this the Church held a not inconspicuous place. Many there are who can well understand the indescribable enthusiasm which the word Church is capable of arousing. Baptized, confirmed and ordained at the hands of her most apostolic ministry, the Church was to Samuel Reid a sort of Shekinah, the repository of God's divinest instrumentalities of good to man. He was the servant of the Church and of the Lord. The Holy Catholic Church! Around her clustered the most sacred memories, the brightest hopes. A halo of glory encircled her. Conqueror was written upon her brow. He saw her in the not-distant future, no longer the Church militant, but the Church triumphant. In the van of the army! Science, philosophy and art reconciled in religion!
He thought little about the Thirty-nine Articles, but he never questioned them, nor could he suppose them liable to disproof. His trial-hour came when he saw their utter unintelligibility in the light of sound reason and his own interior perceptions of the truth. For renunciation of his theological creed set him adrift in the world. How, indeed, could he continue in his present field of labor? He had been commissioned to preach certain truths, or dogmas rather, which were held to be identical with the Gospel of Christ. The commission was valid only so long as he assented to the dogmas. What then? Should he publicly renounce his faith? What had he to offer in exchange? Was the way clear to his own vision? Alas for these hours of unspeakable anguish! page: 18-19[View Page 18-19] Truly, he needed now the divine consolation he had so often administered to others. And he stood alone. Even his wife but dimly comprehended the ordeal through which he was passing. And to his apprehension no good, but rather unqualified evil, would result to those among whom he had labored by a presentation of the difficulties that surrounded him. He must continue to stand alone. Their religious faith, as his had been, was indissolubly connected with their creed. And what was life without religion? To disentangle faith in God from traditions concerning that faith was the lesson before his own mind, but he dared not raise one doubt in the mind of another. He shrank for every other soul from the burden that rested upon his own.
Yet something must be done, and that something looked to a separation from the little band that had become as a family to him, among whom he had labored, at once the leader, pastor and friend-the good providence for all times and kinds of need. Day after day as he came and went among them, Sabbath after Sabbath as he read the beautiful service of his Church, never leaving him, scarcely in his sleep, was the perplexing and painful thought-" something must be done-and what?"
He left off writing his sermons, seldom selecting his text even until he stood before his people, but it was given him "in that same hour what he ought to say." His bodily form wasted, his eyes grew strangely lustrous, his fine auburn hair became streaked with silver, but his soul rose clearer and higher above the mists and limitations of earth. He caught the inmost secret of the Gospel, and left far behind him the traditions of men!
But the battle exhausted him. His finite and mortal part gave way. Something was done. The minister and his flock were separated. Disease aid its mighty hand upon the pastor, and the people stood in a mournful and wondering silence iwaiting the result. "It could not last," they said, nor indeed was it credible to them that the pastor should die. He did not die. But the sickness lasted. And as the winter months came on he was ordered to a more genial climate. The parting was a sad one. Medical men shook their heads when a return to his labors was talked of by the minister. He himself felt that the farewell was final. Health and strength might return, and with them labor, of course, but the days of his ministry were ended. He said nothing, however. His tried and faithful friend, John Dean, took the parsonage for the winter, and the pastor with his wife left Arden. page: 20-21[View Page 20-21] CHAPTER II. A Southern climate, rest and freedom from care arrested the inroads of disease. With the spring a longing for work returned. The strong spirit reasserted its sway over the body. Then came another question. What and where was the field? Physicians decided against New England as the proper place and preaching as the proper work for Mr. Reid. The opinions of others, however, would have availed nothing under other circumstances than those which surrounded the minister. He had an abiding faith in Providence, and because he was needed there would unquestionably have returned to his parish in Arden but for his conscious unfitness to fulfill the duties of an ordained priest of the Church. The Church closes her doors upon such as he, and there was therefore no alternative but to look elsewhere. Happily for him, the apparent reason for resigning his charge saved him a great deal of suffering and perplexity. The real reason might remain unspoken, thus leaving him to the solution of his own life-problem and his people undisturbed in a faith that he could supplant with nothing better for them.
There was of course no alleviation for the pain of a final separation. Here was a work that suited him, people who needed him, associations that were dear to him. Here were the graves of his three children. Away from here all was blank, life to begin over again, little to begin with and no perceptible standing-place. The old and the new again contrasted, and it is possible that now, as formerly, death to the old was the more vital experience. Yet not to the same extent. Life had. gained somewhat in the battle, and though the parting hour wrung his soul, though the future disclosed little of what it held in store for him, faith which saves did not this time desert him.
"According to your faith so be it unto you," were the words with which he went into the pulpit for the last time. It was a bitter, a triumphant hour! The listening crowd, which embraced as many in Arden as the church could hold, hung with suspended breath upon the farewell message of the pastor. Yet he stayed the gathering tears, and lifted them to that high communion with God which had been his own salvation. None who heard that sermon could ever forget it. It revealed the pastor to some who had never before known him. It revealed God to many more.
A new minister was called to take the place of page: 22-23[View Page 22-23] Samuel Reid in Arden. The church built another parsonage. The one occupied by the Reids was given by Dr. Carroll to his daughter at the time of her marriage. Mr. Dean bought the place, and because nothing else presented, the pastor and his wife went to New York, where Dr. Carroll resided-a minister, too, with an active and growing parish over which he had presided many years. Dr. Carroll was a good Churchman, not extreme, sound in doctrine and morals, in body and mind, a hearty believer in this world as well as the other, and in the duty of a cheerful and temperate enjoyment of earthly blessings. By no possibility could Samuel Reid's experience have overtaken him. Even the narrative, when he heard it, filled him with unbounded astonishment, and not a little passing ire, toward his unworldly and, as it seemed to him, absurdly unsophisticated son-in-law.
"Why, man alive," almost shouted the doctor, "you don't tell me you have left Arden for good and all!"
"I do."
"And for these silly reasons! What reason? Do pray tell me again. I can't get hold of it. Bless me if I can!"
"Why, to put it plain, then, I disbelieve in the Thirty-nine Articles."
"You do! And who are you, pray, to disbelieve in the Thirty-nine Articles, in the face of the apostles, martyrs, fathers of the Church, and wise men of the past eighteen hundred years? Stuff! I disbelieve in your assertion."
"Nevertheless, it is true."
The doctor was posed for a minute, and then broke out in a new direction: "Why in the name of wisdom couldn't you keep your heresy to yourself?"
"I have kept it to myself."
"No, you haven't. You are telling me all about it, and you have left a most promising field of labor because of just these foolish notions."
"You surely wouldn't have had me continue in the ministry?"
"Why not? I surely would. You are in the ministry, and can't help yourself. You don't intend, I presume, to present yourself for trial and deposition, although, after what you have done, I shall not at all wonder at anything you may do."
"There is no occasion for that. It is well known that physicians recommend me to discontinue preaching. But I am at a loss to understand you. Do you see nothing in my views to disqualify me for fulfilling the duties of my office?"
"Your views! I don't know anything about your views, and am unable to see that they are of any earthly consequence. You have been ordained into the ministry of Christ, the ministry of his own appointing, by a bishop duly authorized, and unless you turn heathen and set up a god of your own, I can't for the life of me see how page: 24-25[View Page 24-25] your views are going to affect your position, one way or another. The Church won't break under the weight of them, I fancy, especially if you keep them to yourself. I believe you are crazy. Why, don't you know that you are talked of as future bishop of your State?-that your position is hardly second to that of any minister we have?"
Mr. Reid answered nothing, and his father-in-law continued more mildly: "Use a little worldly wisdom. We are commanded to do so, you know. Keep these things to yourself. I'll trust your orthodoxy according to your own showing. Stay here and preach for me occasionally. I need help. I'm getting old. By and by your time will come. As bishop you will be confined less, and have more moving around, which will benefit your health. Dismiss these over-conscientious scruples. Trust me: you may do so. I am as sound in the faith as are the Articles themselves, and ought to know. Any man would be puzzled if he attempted to understand the Trinity, etc. I should myself. These doctrines are not for the understanding. We walk by faith and not by sight, you remember; and your faith in Christ-a little peculiar, perhaps-is nevertheless stronger than ever. That's the main point- Christ and the Church. You love the Church, and ought not to desert your post. Leave idle speculation to those who can do no better, and fulfill the hopes to which your brief but brilliant career has given rise!"
Still, Mr. Reid said nothing, and the doctor, confident that he had dissipated the difficulty by denying its existence, wisely concluded to leave him to his own reflections.
"There's no trouble about him," he said to, his daughter, who anxiously awaited the result of the interview. "He'll come out all right."
"He couldn't fail of coming out all right, father. But will he be able to continue in the Church?"
"Of course he will. Why, what else can he do? Why shouldn't he continue in the Church?"
"You do not understand my husband," said Anna Reid, sorrowfully. "'What else can he do?'is a question that would never occur to him; and as to the other, I hoped you might help him. Can you not convince him, father?"
"Convince him of what, my child? I have said that there's no trouble about him, have I not?"
"I see, father. You have ignored his difficulties, and that will do no good."
"It is the best, and in fact the only, way, daughter. He believes in the Bible and in Christ as firmly as I do-somewhat differently, perhaps- but what of that? These notions that he has taken into his head about certain doctrines of the Church will disappear as he gets stronger. He is worn out now with hard work, and needs a longer rest, that's all."
page: 26-27[View Page 26-27]"I don't know, father. I hope you are right. Theology is a mystery to me; but," she added, with kindling eyes, "so far as fitness to preach the gospel of Christ is concerned, I do not know my husband's equal."
"Nor I, daughter."
Nevertheless, Mr. Reid did not preach. He waited. And while he waited an angel came to him. The child was a daughter, and her father called her Faith. When she was about a year old, Dr. Carroll came in one day with a very bright face: "I think your time has come, Samuel."
Mr. Reid looked up. "Not to be a bishop," added the doctor, mischievously. "You've cheated us all out of that, more's the pity."
"What then, father," said Mrs. Reid.
"How should you like to turn schoolmaster," said the doctor.
"I have tried that," said Mr. Reid.
"Yes; in Arden. We heard of your and Anna's exploits. The enterprise was not very successful from a bread-and-butter point of view, I believe- at least, the bread and butter did not accumulate in your basket."
"Does the present one promise anything so desirable? The basket is nearly empty, as you have reason to know."
"I wish that troubled you as little as it does me, which would hardly be reasonable to expect, I admit. Yes; the present enterprise will secure your independence."
"Then let me begin at once," responded Mr. Reid, with an eagerness that betrayed how severely he had been tried in the school of waiting.
"As soon as you please. The truth is, this scheme is not a new one to me. Some six months ago one of my well-to-do parishioners said to me, 'I wish I could find the right kind of a school for my two boys. I would give a thousand dollars a year, if necessary, for a man who could educate youth, not merely stuff them with books.' 'I know the man,' I said, 'when you can produce twelve scholars.' Since then we have been at work, and to-day, the requisite number of boys standing ready to be educated, I announced the name of the teacher-Rev. Samuel Reid. You can decline, of course. The parties await your decision somewhat anxiously, I confess. I preferred to disappoint them rather than you, who have had disappointments enough, and therefore I have not mentioned the subject to you until I had something positive to offer. If you like the idea, that old-fashioned out-of-the-way house of mine up town is at your disposal. It is accessible by omnibus, and with a little alteration will answer the double purpose of school and home, I think. Anna can take it in place of the parsonage."
Mrs. Reid glanced at her husband. He was holding the child, and looking at Dr. Carroll with page: 28-29[View Page 28-29] a face in which surprise and pleasure contended for mastery. But his eyes were full and his lips quivering. She went to her father, put her arms around his neck and kissed him. "Thank you for both of us, father," she said.
Mr. Reid bent his head over the soft brown curls of his little Faith.
Behold our pastor, then, once more in a home and work of his own. "It suits me too well," he said to his wife. "There is too much that gratifies my tastes, too little demand for sacrifice. I dare not accept so much happiness."
"Your faith should enable you to bear happiness as well as trouble," she answered.
He smiled and drew the child closer to his heart. She was always with him. Her high chair was taken into the school-room and placed beside her father's. Her little voice was the first to welcome him when the duties of the day were over. She became his atmosphere. As the years rolled on he became hers as well. And the mother, happy and thankful, lived in and for them both.
Mr. Reid's school was a success. He educated. He taught his boys the true and beneficent uses of knowledge. He inspired them to live nobly, purely, truthfully- to study themselves in the varied experiences of life, to recognize God and his providence in them, to heed the lessons, how- ever painful, and to profit thereby. He enlarged upon all books. The text, conscientiously mastered by the pupil, was simply a text for him. History, science, language, were illumined by the deep, universal, human philosophy which he deduced from them all. Indeed, it was not possible to escape education and associate daily with a man like Mr. Reid. The veriest dullard opened his eyes with wonder upon the new world evoked by the master. It was a world unsuspected by him.
Above all did Mr. Reid present for imitation and encouragement the only perfect human life ever lived upon earth. He avoided theology as he would avoid a snare, yet the school-room became to him another pulpit, where, untrammeled by the authority of man, he could give utterance in small measure to the one passion of his soul, to his in truth unutterable love for Christ. So his work more than satisfied him. It filled him with delight.
How it came to pass he hardly knew- certainly without forethought or prevision-but in process of time the child Faith took her regular place in the class-room. Her desk was at her father's elbow, where, in times past, her little high chair had stood. She studied whatever was taught in the school, if not out of books always, still from her father's lips, and with her own quick and vigorous mind. He intended to teach her, of course. He had no thought of sending her away from him page: 30-31[View Page 30-31] for the thing that he could give her far better than another, but he expected to devote a portion of his out-of-school time to her lessons.
During early childhood the mother was loving preceptress, but gradually the work fell from her hands. "I want to hear the boys recite, mamma," she would say when her own tasks were finished; and presently, before they had well considered the fact that the high chair was no longer a necessity, she announced that she could recite with them. "I have learned the lesson you gave them yesterday, papa," said the grave mite.
Dr. Carroll was in the room. He laughed immoderately. "You bit of a child," he said, taking her in his arms, "you can't go to school with a parcel of boys."
"Why not, grandpapa? I do go to school with them every day. I always did."
Here was argument unanswerable, and the doc- tor subsided, with an admonition to the parents to send her to a good girls' school without delay.
But the Reids had ways of their own, and in time the high chair gave place to the desk, and Faith became one of her father's pupils.
CHAPTER III.
Their pupil, her companions and friends, almost her only ones. Thus it was, and for obvious reasons. Without intending to withdraw themselves, it nevertheless happened that, year by year, the circle of society for the Reids perceptibly narrowed, leaving them much to each other, but little to the world outside. Mr. Reid's peculiar spiritual experiences inevitably separated him from his brethren in the Church, and his school-duties absorbed and exhausted him. Besides, general society did not attract either him or his wife. Its ways were not their ways. Their aims and purposes did not agree. The kindred few are everywhere, and among these the Reids came and went as inclination prompted.
But the duties of the day over, the cheerful parlor was a great temptation to Mr. Reid. Here he rested. The river was in sight, green grass and hills and trees. The house stood by itself, and below the window where he sat, wife and child were busy among their plants and flowers. Or their sunny faces were with him in the room. There were talk and reading, work and music. page: 32-33[View Page 32-33] Faith was spontaneously musical, both with voice and fingers, and the realm of harmony delighted her father. The three sang together. They lived in a quiet, contented, happy world.
And, besides this, there was another world, at present seemingly far removed from theirs, yet unforgotten by Samuel and Anna Reid-a world of almost hopeless, helpless misery. They saw it with aching hearts and gave their mite, not daring to consider the little it reached of the all it could not come near. Into this world the parents took their child, and here she received impressions that, in after life, coupled with experiences of her own, brought her into the valley of the shadow of death. Even now did that future forecast itself.
"What makes God allow so much suffering?" she said, pale with emotion, and clinging to her father as they walked away from some abode of wretchedness.
It was not a new thought to Mr. Reid. He considered awhile. "God might have helped it if he had chosen," said his creed, but the man's heart rejected the monstrosity. "He could not help it, my child."
"Then he can't be very happy, can he, father?"
Again his creed presented God looking complacently from heights of celestial bliss, not only upon this world's misery, but also upon that of an endless hell. The sight was unbearable.
"He suffers with us," said the father, scarcely comprehending his own words. "It cannot be otherwise," he added, and instantly one of those hidden gleams of truth that sometimes enlighten the soul flashed before him. Not a new truth, but an old one in clearer light. The Christ! In him was the whole story! The divine in the human, the human in the divine! "It is all there," he said, slowly, and with deep-drawn breath, after an interval of profound silence-" all there." Then he turned to his daughter: "You do not forget how Christ suffered, do you, Faith?"
"No, father. Is he God?"
"Yes," said Mr. Reid, deliberately. "There can be no higher manifestation of the divine. His life and his work are perfect. And it was a part of his life and his work to weep with those that wept. Was it not, Faith?"He talked with himself, but he addressed the child.
And she answered, "Yes, father."
Of course she did not see what he saw, but she received his words implicitly, and respecting his mood, questioned no further. Not long after, however, she had another opportunity.
Dr. Carroll and Mr. Reid were talking. The mother sat by with her sewing, and Faith was absorbed in a book. Contrary to usual habit, the conversation took a theological turn, and continued with some animation until Mr. Reid observed that Faith had closed her book and was attentively listening. He paused and endeavored page: 34-35[View Page 34-35] to change the subject. But she was not so easily disposed of:
"What is the vicarious sacrifice that you preached about last Sunday, grandfather? I couldn't understand you, and I have looked all through the Gospels, and there's not a word about it there. I thought Christ must have taught it. Did he?"
"Don't ask such questions, my dear," said her mother.
"But I want to know," persisted Faith.
"Want to know what?" said the doctor.
"About the vicarious sacrifice, grandfather. Father never says anything about it," she went on, resolutely, although not quite at her ease. "I want to know what you believe, grandfather-what the Church teaches."
"Study your Catechism and creed, child." "That I have done, grandfather. I know them both, and I have read the Prayer-book through, Articles of Faith and all."
"You have?" said the doctor, looking at her curiously. "Well, was not that enough? What more do you want?"
"I should like to understand, grandfather."
Mr. Reid interposed: "Have I not told you, daughter, that I will explain when you are old enough to understand?" He looked troubled, and this settled the controversy. Faith could not pain her father.
But why it should pain him was the mystery. Why the obvious discrepancy between his views and those of her grandfather?-why so much reticence and the manifest determination to ward off her inquiries here, when in all other directions the utmost liberty was allowed? These things only served to enhance her interest in the interdicted topics-an interest painfully perceptible to the watchful eye of her father. Painfully perceptible, since he could only meet it with evasion or denial. And this could not last, of course. He was finally impelled to renew the fruitless search of former years-which, although never wholly resigned, had been suffered to fall into the background under the pressure of present and absorbing duties-the search for some satisfactory reason, some reason applicable to the mind of another, for the faith that was in him, an undertaking more easily proposed than accomplished. Faith is of the life. Experience measures our capacity, the degree and quality of our faith, as of the knowledges that go to its formation. To understand one's faith, then, we must be able to understand the life that produces it. Mr. Reid's was preeminently a heart-faith, born of the discipline of life, received through the baptism of trial, and inwrought with a pure, earnest and single-minded soul-purpose-the faith of a heart-life-a faith not easily translated into the language of the intellect, be the formularies of thought ever so accordant. In his case the formularies were almost entirely wanting. This was his page: 36-37[View Page 36-37] trouble. He sought them in history, philosophy and revelation-for the truth that would justify his unfaltering belief in the universal Fatherhood of God, as opposed to the partial, vindictive, revengeful and utterly selfish character which the Church gives him, and the universal brotherhood of man-as opposed to the practice of man from the beginning of his history.
Of course, the latter heresy is the legitimate offspring of the former. So long as men believe their Deity capable of cruelty, so long they will practice it themselves and glory in their practices, as, in their perverted imaginations, does the God they worship. Mr. Reid saw so much very clearly, and more. He saw that these ideas belonged to an unenlightened, undeveloped condition of humanity. History presented the race ever advancing, rising out of ignorance and vice into constantly higher ideas of the nature of God and the destiny of man, until "in the fullness of time" these ideas culminated, flowered, fruited, in Jesus Christ, the Lord! Before this stupendous miracle of the Incarnation he was, however, dumb. He saw in it the whole story as he told his questioning child, but the dazzling glory of the vision blinded him. Here was a love that in its utter unselfishness transcended the comprehension of the finite mind, and left him in mute adoration at the feet of Jesus, the historic reflection of the eternal I Am! And-crowning hope-the Christ was no surelier God than man- God in his infinite love and sinlessness; man, struggling even unto death beneath the infirmities of nature, yet rising out of them all into conscious union with the Father, thus becoming, as he said, the open way, the living, fulfilled Prophecy of the destiny of all men!
Such was the faith of Mr. Reid's heart; but where might he find a basis for it in his intellect? Not in the Church, as he knew to his sorrow. Neither in philosophy, which coolly ignored Christ altogether. His only hope, then, rested in revelation. But revelation, painful as the fact might be, was not consistent with itself. Before this difficulty he constantly succumbed. Every attempt to put his faith into language revealed not only the poverty and limitations of the medium, but likewise brought him face to face with some passage of Scripture that seemingly nullified his argument completely. He could not admit the reality of the seeming, but its actuality was indubitable. That the seeming did not deceive him, that through "the letter which killeth" he saw " the spirit which giveth life," might afford him satisfaction, as it did, but, he was well aware, would not therefore necessarily produce the same satisfaction in the mind of another. So his search always ended where it begun. With this difference: Daily the thought gathered strength that the time of the promised second advent was at hand, when all things were to be made new, parables abrogated page: 38-39[View Page 38-39] and the Father plainly revealed. The second advent, that would confirm and elucidate the first.
The precise character of his expectations in this regard, Mr. Reid himself could not have defined. Certainly, however, he did not look for a second coming in person, a magnificent day of judgment and the final winding up of mundane affairs. His vision was wider than this, including, indeed, nothing less than the total salvation of society from want and sin. Yet, strange to say, his vision also included the instituted Church as the means to that end. He thought to see her arise, shake off the traditional lore under which she had buried the gospel, and, marshaling the hosts of the world's workers under her own banner, prepare herself as the Bride to meet the coming Bridegroom.
He believed in miracles without question.
Thus, like all men in all time, he was the child of both the past and the future, moored to the one, the known, while launched upon the other, and unknown. Of all men in all time this is true; yet of all men in all time it is also true that the moorings are constantly left behind. A new truth discovered changes both the past and the future. We correct the old data by the new, and reckon from these. But Mr. Reid, as happens to us all, had been compelled to abandon one anchorage without clearly seeing his way to another. His heart's faith had not where to lay its head-a position sufficiently painful and difficult to bear for himself alone, wellnigh unbearable in view of his daughter. The child sent to him in the night of his affliction-a sunbeam parting the clouds- was herself entering the shadow. Where was the guiding light for her young and daring footsteps? Years ago the creed of his Church was upon trial before him, and his own heart trembled awaiting the decision. The exigency was greater now. And from whence should come the help?
Day and night did Mr. Reid revolve this question. He studied and wrote, he meditated and prayed. But he found no answer. History and philosophy-a rational philosophy-affirmed the truth of his intuitions, but furnished no reconciling solvent for discrepancies and contradictions, no synthesis of human life in its varied relations, no commanding law of human action that, like the sun, should bind all lesser laws in obedience to its superior attractions. The solvent, the synthesis and the law were all-for him-in the Incarnation, in revelation, and thence in history and philosophy; but the mass of men would have smiled at his simplicity had he seriously proposed the life and teachings of Christ as practical guides to society; and-amazing fact, although not fully appreciated by Mr. Reid-the institution which pompously proclaims itself his Church would have been the last to lend a listening ear, because the Church owes its very breath of life to a dogma directly opposed to the life and teachings of the page: 40-41[View Page 40-41] Saviour-the dogma that one man, in the sight of God, differs intrinsically from another man.
Clearly, revelation demands a key, and Mr. Reid believed that one would surely be given. How or when or what its nature, he could not divine. All thought upon the subject invariably resolved itself into one thought, "The time is at hand."
With his daughter he contrived to avoid these perplexing questions, endeavoring instead to impress upon her mind positive truths, of life that could not be gainsaid. He led her constantly to the character of Christ, that pure and perfect example of self-abnegation, of victory over the tyranny of the natural, of emancipation into the freedom of the spiritual. And the teaching was not without effect. It developed hardy virtues and religious sentiment. This sentiment found food and expression in everything appertaining to the Church. Her liturgy, her rites and ceremonies, her history and assumption of authority, all these have held the human mind and made of the Church, what it has ever been in one way or another, a controlling power and means of education, refining and purifying the nature of man. The Church held Faith. Her father saw it and was hopeful. Gladly would he have welcomed the day that should enroll her among the company of those whom the Church satisfies, gladly escaped for her the test to which his own faith had been subjected.
CHAPTER IV.
Of all the Church services to which the needs of the human heart have given birth, none is more beautiful and impressive than confirmation, especially to the young and sensitive-minded.
As she grew up, this service more and more appealed to Faith. She had the nature of a devotee, and her being unfolded in an atmosphere of religious consecration to which such a service of right pertained. Always the confirmation scene affected her deeply; always she saw herself one day standing before the altar one of a youthful band of soldiers-soldiers of Christ, pledged to follow him, and, in the beautiful words of the benediction, to "become his for ever, to daily increase in his heavenly grace more and more, until she came to his everlasting kingdom." And now the stated time for this service returned. The Bishop's visit was announced on the Sunday preceding its celebration. Dr. Carroll called upon all who desired confirmation to examine them- page: 42-43[View Page 42-43] selves diligently concerning their fitness for the sacred rite, and to report themselves to him at the time appointed. But Faith, whose resolution was now formed, had still no idea of reporting to her grandfather. Indeed, the child hardly knew whom to consult. It is true that her father would have gladly acquiesced in the step she proposed, yet it is also true that he never led her toward it. She was conscious of something in him not in entire sympathy with it, and entire sympathy she needed. In her mother it might be found, but only in connection with other things, to which she herself could not respond. Still, there was no alternative, and the mother became the chosen confidante.
Mrs. Reid had watched her child closely of late, anxious and hopeful. But when at last Faith appealed to her, she trembled before the coming interview. She had suffered greatly through her husband's experience-an experience never perfectly comprehended. The Church satisfied her. She could not see why it should fail to satisfy any one. It sheltered and homed her holiest intuitions. She loved the very name. She reverenced the walls consecrated to holy service. The Church and her husband at variance had seemed insupportable. She struggled against the idea for a time; she tried to argue; she hoped for help from her father. But all failed. Her husband was imimovable-and the wisest man she knew! There was no alternative but to succumb. She did so, questioning neither him nor the Church, conscious, also, that he held her to a faith which had in large measure lost its efficacy for him. Hardly, however, had she become measurably reconciled to this position of affairs when her daughter threatened to renew the trial. Mrs. Reid listened to her child in amazement-as she grew older, almost in terror. She appealed to her husband, but only to increase her trouble. "I can't instruct our daughter in doctrines that I do not myself believe," he said. Once she tried herself to present the "plan of salvation," as the orthodox doctrinal summary is designated, but retired from the attempt in dismay. Faith said, "Is that what grandfather believes, mother? I never can make out from his sermons. He talks all ways, and confuses me beyond expression. I wouldn't believe so for worlds; would you, mother? Father doesn't, and he's a minister." Mrs. Reid gasped at this unqualified rejection of her creed, and discontinued the conversation.
But now there was no escape. The "plan of salvation" must be unequivocally presented and insisted upon. She knew that her husband would offer no opposition to Faith's acceptance of the doctrines of the Church. It rested with her, then, to convince the child, a task by no means easy. She had been educated by her father, and neither hesitated to question a seeming falsehood nor feared any consequences to which the page: 44-45[View Page 44-45] truth might lead. In view, therefore, of the blind faith in her dogmas which the Church inculcates, Mrs. Reid could only inwardly pray for wisdom to meet her daughter and tremblingly trust the result.
Faith spent the greater part of the afternoon of the Sunday referred to in her own room, and toward evening descended to the parlor, where she expected to find both her parents. But Mr. Reid had gone out. The parlor was deserted. She went to her mother's room, and gained admittance. She was subdued and serious, yet cheerful. Deeply appreciating the idea of personal responsibility, and earnest in her intentions, her new resolve had in it nothing of gloom. She sat demurely before her mother for a few minutes, and then with characteristic straightforwardness said: "I intend to be confirmed, mother, if you and father are willing."
Mrs. Reid started and flushed. Faith always took her by surprise with her decided announcements.
"I hope you do not object, mother?"
Mrs. Reid recovered her composure and responded, warmly, "Nothing on earth would please me so much, my child."
"I was almost sure of it," said Faith, her countenance brightening. "And will my father be willing?"
"Undoubtedly."
"I am very glad, mother. I was afraid, a little afraid, that you might think-that he might think-"
She paused.
"Think what?"
"I hardly know; think it not best."
Mrs. Reid was at a loss how to proceed. Finally she said: "Some preparation is necessary before taking so important a step."
"Yes, mother, that is true. I listened to grandfather's exhortation to-day. It was very impressive and required a great deal. Yet, mother," she added, with her father's look in her face, "it does not seem difficult to me to renounce everything for Christ."
Mrs. Reid's eyes filled with tears. She wavered. Any mere doctrine is cold and hard to offer love. Yet the doctrine was essential. "You know little about renunciation, my child; little about the trials and temptations of life. There is but one unfailing anchor, one refuge against the storms of this world."
"What is that, mother?"
"Faith in Christ."
"So grandfather said to-day. My father, too, is always saying the same thing. I believe it, mother."
'"Did you understand your grandfather?" said Mrs. Reid, timidly, knowing that the east is not farther from the west than was her husband's faith
page: 46-47[View Page 46-47]from her father's, although they used precisely the same language.
"I think I understood," said Faith, thoughtfully.
But Mrs. Reid knew better. She nerved herself and went on. "Faith in Christ means faith in his atoning sacrifice, without which there is no salvation." She determined to make a full and clear statement, cost her what it might to arraign her husband before her creed: But she no more believed what she said than he did.
"No salvation, mother! What do you mean? What is it about the atoning sacrifice?"
Mrs. Reid's heart died within her. But she answered as firmly as she could: "It is that Christ died in our stead-that otherwise God could not pardon our sins."
"Why not?" "Don't you see, my child? The majesty of the Law must be vindicated. Justice must be satisfied. An infinite law was broken. Don't you see?" said the mother, imploringly.
But Faith answered, slowly and emphatically, "No, mother, I do not see. I see no justice in punishing an innocent person because some one else was guilty."
"Christ voluntarily assumed the penalty of our sins, my child."
"That makes his character worthy of the highest love, mother, but it reflects no credit upon God. Besides, the creed says and my father says that Christ is God. Is there more than one?"
"No, no. Faith, you are utterly bewildering," said Mrs. Reid, in despair. "There is but one God-three persons and one God," she added, mechanically repeating the Litany.
"Well, mother, if Jesus Christ is God, we sinned against him as well as against the Father. Why was he so much more willing to forgive than the other? Why did not the Law require to be satisfied for him?"
Mrs. Reid did not reply, and Faith, little sus- pecting the agony of her mind, continued: "The truth is, mother, I do not understand a word of all this, neither do I believe a word of it. It is not in the gospels and is contrary to reason. I believe in Christ as my father has taught me."
"You do not believe a word of it, Faith? Do you know what you are saying?" said Mrs. Reid, aghast at this wholesale heresy.
"Is that so very wrong, mother? My father does not believe it, I know;" and perplexed and troubled to the last degree, she added, "How is one to know what to believe?"
Mr. Reid entered the chamber. "What now?" he inquired, looking from one to the other. His wife tried to answer, but burst into tears instead. Faith went and knelt beside her. "Don't, mother," she said, soothingly. "Indeed I did not intend to hurt you."
page: 48-49[View Page 48-49]"I know it, child. You are not to blame. No one is to blame. I thought- Oh, Samuel, here is the old trouble back upon us again!"
Mr. Reid comprehended, and for a few moments the darkness was tangible. The so much dreaded hour was before him. How should he meet it? What could he say? He closed his eyes in silent prayer. Then he turned to Faith: "What is the trouble now, daughter?"
"I told mother I wished to be confirmed, and-"
Mr. Reid's face brightened: "And why not, mother?"
But this question only increased Mrs. Reid's agitation. "Confirmed in what, Samuel? In the blankest infidelity?"
"Mother!" said Faith, rising. "I am not an infidel."
"Hush," said Mr. Reid, gently, and drew his chair beside that of his wife. She turned to him, hid her face upon his shoulder and sobbed aloud.
After this, evasion of the question was impossible. Mr. Reid told his daughter the story of his life, more especially of the great spiritual struggle through which he passed in Arden. He told her of his doubts, his despair, his victory and peace. He talked freely. He withheld nothing that he thought she could understand. He explained what had seemed strange and inconsistent in his treatment of her.
"I feared for you, my child. In the Church you would not deny your Lord. Out of it you might. Indeed, you would be almost sure to do so."
He recognized the use of the Church in human society, and showed her plainly the incommunicable character, to the commion mind, of what he himself believed. "It will not always be thus," he said. "I see evidences of the approach of another and brighter day. My thoughts and perceptions are not self-originating, nor do I have them independently of, but in strict consociation page: 50-51[View Page 50-51] with, my fellow-men. Others have seen and see what I do. A rational philosophy of religion is the great want of the age. Men are everywhere trying to make or to find one. We want a religion of common, every-day life, not one shut up to special experiences and the elected few-a religion that will permeate and regenerate society; that will equalize the differences among men; that will dissipate want and suffering, upon the physical plane at least. I have never been able to see why this is not the work of the Church of Christ-why she should not gather to herself all instrumentalities for good. And this she will do. The Church will be the standard-bearer of the future. Science, acting in her interests and animated by her spirit, will equip and provision the army-in a word, will inaugurate true methods. Science and Religion are to be married. Then we shall have Art beneficent and beautiful, and then human society, in place of the distorted image that now calls itself by that name. How the change is to be wrought I know not, nor what the hidden truths that are to act as solvents. Great and good men have studied the problem, and from time to time announced their discoveries as the specifics, but none have succeeded. No plan, I am sure, will succeed that does not begin and end in Christ-in the great fact of the Incarnation. Therefore, you see, my daughter, that I am driven to waiting his time. Notes of preparation are sounding on all sides. By and by they will be gathered up into an infinite and universal harmony. Man is one, the creature, and there is but one God, the Creator. They are indissolubly connected-the Divine and the human. We see the relation epitomized in Christ. Some time we shall see it in human society. Then we shall have men and women working together, as the different members and parts of the humnan body, to one end-the health and happiness of the whole."
So Mr. Reid talked. Gradually he led his daughter over the road that he had traveled. He showed her glimmerings of the truth as he saw them in history; in the illumined utterances of men and women who have been in advance of their times; in the developments of science, and the growth of a sentiment of universal brotherhood which was fast dissipating purely arbitrary distinctions and exalting the truth that " all men are created free and equal" before God. "These things look to something for man as man," he said; "something better than we have known; something that prophets and poets have seen in vision; something made possible for us all in the actual life of the God-man, Christ Jesus."
In answer to Faith's inquiries concerning Church doctrine, he was wise and conservative.
"Church history is not distinct from, but a part of, human history. It indicates the growth of the human mind in religious ideas. The doctrines of page: 52-53[View Page 52-53] the Church in their present form answer present necessities, and cannot be ignored or rudely dealt with. The germ of a future higher truth is in them. As they fulfill their purpose they will drop off and reveal the new life they enclose. Such has been the process all along. Doctrines enlarge to suit the life. This is the nature of truth. The Church is destined to undergo a broadening, deepening and heightening process that will render it in reality the 'tabernacle of God with man, the fit dispensary of his infinite and universal love. The Church is a mirror wherein the age may see itself, and we are each and all of us of our own time, how far soever we may be able to see beyond it."'
After this conversation the relation between Faith and her father assumed another aspect. The child became a woman, docile, obedient and reverent still, yet, in a high sense, companionable. To Mrs. Reid, also, the experience proved salutary. She followed her husband in his talks with their daughter, and was able as never before to appreciate his position. "I have been to you a poor helper and worse comforter," she said.
But he answered, "You have been all that I needed. You have been the ballast without which the coming into port of my ship might have been seriously delayed."
Faith listened to his assured words. She felt his strong confidence in the anchorage he had found, and moored her own little shallop alongside, confident, too, not in the anchorage, which she had not practically tested, but in her father.
Once she inquired, "Do you not regret your apparent separation from the Church?"
"I regret nothing, my child. How were that possible? I have been led as was best for me, and into a far better country than I could have hoped for, much less provided."
"But you have been led away from social ties, and no one, I imagine, would enjoy these more than yourself."
"True, there are not many whom I meet, are there?" he said, half inquiringly. "I do not often think of it. I seem to be surrounded with company. I feel no separation from any one, but the closest union. Still, you are right, too. We have not many social ties. Do you feel it, my child?"
"Oh no, father, never. I am satisfied, entirely so. But sometimes I think I should like to go to Arden."
"And I too," said Mrs. Reid.
"Indeed! You have never before expressed the wish."
"I have never before felt it. Latterly, Faith and I have talked much of a visit there."
"It is a new thought to me. Arden has been almost, if not quite, of another world since we page: 54-55[View Page 54-55] left there. Your desire, however, is contagious. I believe I should like to go back."
"And will you, father?"
"Yes." He relapsed into thought. Faith and her mother were silent. By and by he said,
"We shall not see John Dean, my dear."
"No, but Philip and his mother are there."
"Yes, and the church and parsonage. I doubt not the library will look natural. My old study-table and chair will know me, I fancy. Yes, I should like to sit in that room once more. I have journeyed far since I left it. We have, my dear." He raised his eyes, and they rested upon his daughter. "You were not there, little one," he said, with a smile.
"I seem to myself to have been there, father. Arden seems my home, and as for Mrs. Dean and Philip, I should know them anywhere as well as you do-oh, quite as well," she said.
"I doubt not, my child. Well, wife, we will take another look at Arden, if you say so."
"When, father?"
"When school closes next July."
"That is a long time to wait, father. Almost a year."
'I wish," said Mrs. Reid, the color slightly rising, "that you would forego the spring term of your school this year, and give us a longer time away."
"Yes, father, you are not well, you know."
"I am not ill," said Mr. Reid.
"Of course not, father, and we wish to keep you not ill, don't we, mother?" said Faith, cheerfully, and without the slightest doubt that their wishes would be respected. Certainly, it was not to be thought of that her father should be ill- seriously so. She had never entertained the notion, at all events.
Mr. Reid, however, repeated, decidedly, "We will go when school closes."
"And may I write so to Philip?"
"I shall answer Mrs. Dean's letter soon, but- yes, you may write to Philip."
page: 56-57[View Page 56-57]Time passed. The winter months came on. Mr. Reid was not well, as Faith said, but he ignored the fact, and indeed seemed unusually bright and happy. One fearful shadow that had long hung over his life disappeared. His daughter lost none of her faith in the religion of Christ, with a better understanding of her father. To all appearance, quite the contrary. She received his ideas intelligently and with sympathy. She grew, and Mr. Reid watched her with sleepless and vigilant care. She developed individuality. She was not a servile copy of the original, but had judgment of her own and used it. Her father encouraged her to do so. He shrank from imposing his own individuality upon her. It is true that she regarded him as her arbiter, her infallible guide and friend; yet if he lived she would gradually become unmoored from her anchorage in him, to find it once more and for ever in God. If he lived! Ah, there was another shadow that by and by would darken the landscape as it had never been darkened before!
Mr. Reid's health unmistakably declined. He felt it long before he acknowledged it. Others perceived it, but were withheld in his presence from giving utterance to their thought. Even his wife was silenced, and Faith-well, she believed her father. "It is nothing," was the word always. "I am simply tired. The vacation will restore me."
"Of course it will, father," she answered, looking neither to the right nor the left, but straight at that one conclusion. "You are only tired, I know; still, you are not to exhaust yourself completely, and besides, I intend to have a school of my own, or something of the sort, one of these days. Therefore I need practice, and you must lend me your school. There, now, do be quiet. Why, what an idea! As if I were not competent to teach the things that I have been learning of you these eighteen years! Certainly, I will call upon you when we get beyond the elementaries. Only lie still upon the sofa here until then."
So she conquered a place in the school as her father's assistant.
"The vacation will restore me," Mr. Reid said. And so it had done. Rest from his labors and a trip to the mountains had seemingly restored his wonted vigor. The close of the succeeding year, it is true, found him worn and pallid, but he met all alarming suggestions with, "You know the mountains are my medicine. I shall be all page: 58-59[View Page 58-59] ight again when I get there." He lacked courage to face the truth. His daughter made a coward of him. He could not think of leaving her yet a while. He installed himself her providence. "I am necessary to her," he thought. "I must help her over a few more trying years. By and by, when she is safely anchored in some God-guarded haven, I can be spared, but not now."
He kept on with his school. "It is half the battle to deny the danger," he said in answer to his wife's entreaties; but catching the look in her face, he added, "Don't be troubled, dear. I assure you there is no danger." She could do nothing. It was her way to yield to him in all things when he persisted. But she carried an aching, anxious heart.
One day Dr. Carroll called. Mr. Reid was lying upon the sofa, Faith reading aloud to him.
"Well," said the doctor, brusquely, glancing at his son-in-law, "it strikes me that you have enough of books in school. I advise you to let them alone when you can, and go out into the open air."
"I have been out," said Mr. Reid.
"You are killing yourself," said the doctor.
Mr. Reid flushed. "The mountain air is all I need," he answered.
"So you always say. The mountains do undoubtedly benefit you, and would benefit you much more if you stayed there, but you come back here and lose all you gain. You are overworked; that's the simple truth. You ought to shut up your school."
"I have said the same thing, father, but he will not listen to me. I wish you could influence him," said Mrs. Reid, entreatingly.
"Influence one of his mountains! I'd as soon try. A man who has been pronounced in consumption once ought not to require any one to influence him to take care of himself-that is, if he wants to live."
"Why, grandfather!" said Faith, angrily; "my father is not sick. Are you, father?"
"No," replied Mr. Reid, quietly.; He sat up and changed the conversation. But gradually his weakness got the better of him. He lost, in a measure, the power to command his strength. The shadow pursued him, overtook, and one day in the school-room faced him. He was alone. School for the day was over: He sat down as he responded to the last "Good-day, Mr. Reid" -sat down from sheer inability to stand."
"I am not well," he said to himself. "I must get away as soon as possible." The spectre stood before him! "As soon as possible," he repeated, ignoring the shade. "Now I will walk out in the fresh air, and after that rest. Ah, that is the word-rest." He rose to go to the parlor across the hall, but his feet refused page: 60-61[View Page 60-61] their aid. Things around him began to move. He grasped the table, sank again into his chair, and groaned aloud.
Faith was ready for their usual walk and waiting for her father. But he did not come. She grew impatient and went to the school-room door. There she stood transfixed upon the threshold.
"Father!" she cried.
He raised his head. Tears were upon his cheek. He strove to rise, but could not.
She sprang forward. "Father! father! father!" It was a piercing, heartrending cry.
The wife came; she was deathly pale. Without a word they helped him to the parlor.
He lay upon the sofa with shut eyes, his breathing scarcely perceptible.
And they cared for, watched and waited beside him.
The next day school was closed for the winter by Dr. Carroll. "Mr. Reid would go South," he said. It was a sorry time.
A week elapsed. Mr. Reid rallied, and of course rebelled. "You need not have closed the school for the winter," he said. "I shall be able to go on again soon."
But Faith had the helm now. It was a matter of life or death simply. Her father die! She live without him! Preposterous! Inconceivable! He, her oracle, her idol, her ideal!
She thought she loved and worshiped God. She was mistaken. Her father stood first and highest. She answered him, gently but firmly,
"You will not teach another day, father, until you are well, which you are not now-not quite well. You will be soon. Then we shall see."
He submitted. He knew her spirit. It was his own. But she had the advantage-the advantage which youth and health give.
It was matter of life or death to the wife as well. But she had never resisted her husband's will. She was no pilot. That was not her forte. She was splendid under orders, true as the needle, calm, efficient. She would go down with the captain without a word, but she couldn't sail the ship. She had passed through many trials. She took life quietly, but hard. It was an even chance if she survived her commander.
So Faith had charge of both. It was the first time she had been under fire, but she bore it well. Always saying to herself, almost fiercely, too, "My father must not die. I cannot live without him," she accepted her lot as care-taker, and fulfilled the duties as though she had been born to them. Her father said, "Let us stay here. Rest is all I require;" but she learned that years ago when his health failed he had gone to a milder climate and got well.
"We must go south, father," said the resolute girl.
She consulted a physician, a kind man, one page: 62-63[View Page 62-63] who appreciated the circumstances. He recommended a sea-voyage to the West Indies. "It is your only hope, in my opinion." He saw how she built upon her father's life, and wanted to prepare her for the inevitable blow, to dull its edge a little.
She turned upon him quickly, but answered never a word.
"You ought to know the truth," he said, kindly.
"My father was once much worse than he is now," she replied, calmly. "You do not understand his constitution. He needs rest, that is all. But we will take the sea-voyage. It can do no harm."
She closed his mouth. He offered no more opinions or advice.
"I hate physicians," she said to herself. "They know nothing and pretend to know everything."
But she went to her room after she reached home, and cried convulsively. She sent word that she had a headache and stayed away from dinner. In the evening, however, she came down looking very bright and happy. She played and sang. She sat by the sofa where her father reclined, took his hot hand within her own, smoothed his brow and chatted gayly to him and to her mother.
It was a sad sight, this little barque that until now had coquetted with the waves along the shore suddenly putting out to sea! It was a sight that moved the father's heart as nothing else could have done, that made him willing to do anything, everything, to save a life that seemed so needful to her-to them. The wife trembled before the impending blow, but caught from her daughter a hope that sustained her. All three ignored the idea of danger. Faith resented it.
She took her grandparents into counsel, and superintended the preparations for departure, for the voyage and for the winter.
"The house must be shut up, but I have given Bessie directions to go there every week or so and look after things, and to have it ready for us to come back to in May, grandmother. Father says we shall return in May;" and she looked the old lady full in the face.
But she detected nothing that hurt her. "I'll see to all that, darling, and have the house as bright as a new pin for you."
Faith threw her arms around her. "What a dear, good grandmother you are!" Then she rested her weary head against the motherly bosom, and the tears flowed silently.
The day of departure came. Dr. Carroll and his wife stood upon the pier and watched the vessel as it bore their children away from them. Slowly it disappeared from their view, with its precious freight, until the group upon the deck could no longer be distinguished, and then in silence and sadness they turned their steps homeward. page: 64-65[View Page 64-65] An anxious winter succeeded, in which aching hearts were alternately soothed with hopes and tortured by fears. In the spring the same vessel brought back the travelers. But one was not. Only two returned-a widowed wife and fatherless child. The wife was carried to her father's house. She lingered, and they hoped might recover. But one night she called her daughter, who sat beside her bed: "Are you alone, my child?"
"Yes, mother."
"I am dying. Hush! don't call them yet. Come closer, closer, dear. There! lay your head upon my breast once more. You were alone with your father. You are alone with me. Poor little lamb! you will be all alone soon." The mother's heart was rent with anguish. The child, wellnigh benumbed with grief, became consoler.
"Don't, mother dear, don't be troubled about me."
"Ah, you are like your father," murmured the dying woman. "But how can you bear it, my child?"
"Surely, how can I?" was the inaudible response.
"And how can I leave you? It is cruel. I should have borne my trial better and stayed with you, my darling."
"God is cruel, mother." The words were scarcely uttered before she would have gladly recalled them. An almost terrified look overspread the mother's countenance.
"My child, my child, what is it that you are saying?"
She kissed the pale lips and soothed her with loving words. "Never fear, mother. I promised my father, and I promise you," said Faith, trying to speak cheerfully, "not to lose my trust in God. There! be comforted. I shall not-not utterly, I hope," she added to herself.
The mother smiled. The angel of peace descended. The angel of death was near.
Faith called the aged parents, and the three watched from the night side the resurrection into life of the immortal spirit.
page: 66-67[View Page 66-67]PART II.
CHAPTER I.
And so ended one dream. The father and mother awoke in another world, where questions of this life find answer. The daughter awoke here to learn her lesson of faith, as they had learned theirs, in shadow and sunshine, darkness and light, through sorrow and joy.
The funeral day was over, and other days had slowly come and gone without lifting the crushing weight of despair from the heart of the lonely child-so lonely, she was, so unutterably alone.
"My dear," said the grandmother, one morning, "here is a letter from Mrs. Dean begging you to come and stay a while with her." Faith was alone as usual-always alone, almost always with traces of tears upon her face. Mrs. Carroll, kind and patient, had exhausted her every thought in devising means of relief for the sufferer, but without avail. Mrs. Dean's invitation came like welcome and unlooked-for assistance. "Do go," she said, entreatingly. "The change will be good for you-new scenes and new people. You will die shut up here, my child."
But the child lifted her large, forsaken eyes and answered, "Don't send me away, grandmother. I don't want to see new places, and no one can help me now that my-" The sentence remained unfinished.
The grandmother stood by in painful perplexity, listening to the suppressed anguish of the sorely- tried heart. At length Faith looked up. "No one but you, dear grandmother," she said.
"And what can I do?" said Mrs. Carroll to her husband. "The child is right. She knows nothing of help from any one but her parents. Here is one terrible result of their isolated life. No one else can help their child, and they no longer." But Grandfather Carroll bethought him of a way to reach the difficulty. Samuel Reid's faith in God and the daughter's faith in her father seemed to present an open door. He approached it cautiously, however, for he was by no means sure that he understood either the one or the other.
"I have something to say to you, granddaughter," said the old man. "Come with me, my dear." His first mistake; for Faith was at once steeled against this "something," knowing so well the kind yet didactic and somewhat domineering way of her grandfather, which often made his sympathy seem harsh and his advice impertinent. Still, she followed him into his study, and page: 68-69[View Page 68-69] as was her wont, sat upon a low stool at his feet. "He wants me to go away too," she thought. But this fear was soon dispelled, or at least quieted. Dr. Carroll began to speak of her father.
"Don't," she said, imploringly. "I cannot bear it."
"Daughter," responded the old man, "your father would not allow you under any circumstances thus to give way to hopeless grief."
The child was silent.
"It is wrong. It is distrusting the tender mercy of God."
"I don't believe he has any tender mercy," she retorted, quickly and sharply.
"Faith! Is it so you remember your father's teachings?"
Again she was silent. But he could not see her face, and was puzzled what to say next. For the moment, however, her heresy seemed to threaten worse consequences than even the ineffaceable sorrow that had overshadowed her life.
"God is no God if not tenderly merciful," said the old man, gently.
"That may be, grandfather. I know nothing of him."
"Know nothing of him! My child, have you forgotten both your father and mother?"
She raised her head. Her face was white and tearless. "No, grandfather," and fell fainting to the floor.
Chapter II
This then, was the whole story for our little girl. Her barque was wrecked ere she had lost sight of the shore. No help on earth and none in heaven!
Yet life was before her, although for a time after the interview with her grandfather, it did seem that God in his very tender mercy would end the conflict, on this side at least. But she recovered from the long low illness that followed, and with a steady purpose, born during the weeks of convalescence, took her place among the living as one of them-one of them by a destiny she could neither understand nor escape. She never went near the home of her childhood, nor asked one question concerning the disposition of house or furniture.
Her grandmother said, "Would you not like the furniture of your own room?" and she answered, "No, I want nothing from there."' "Nothing from there" was consequently brought to Dr. Carroll's.
She assisted her grandmother about household
page: 70-71[View Page 70-71]affairs, and sat patiently at sewing, which she naturally detested, through the long summer afternoons, until the watchful and loving care of her guardians forced her away from her self-imposed tasks. "Come, Faith, I want you to go out into the sunshine," and sometimes with one, often with both, she walked through familiar streets, wondering at life as the busy throng swept by her, feeling so strangely apart from others and the objects they were pursuing.
One day she and her grandfather were about to cross a narrow alley, when suddenly she stopped.
"I have been down there," she said, with flushing cheeks.
"Have you? Yes, no doubt. But I wouldn't stop now," said the old man, hastily. He dreaded anything and everything that recalled the past to his child.
"I want to, grandfather."
"Want to, my dear! How can you? No, no, come with me. I have a picture down here at the gallery that I want to show you," he said, coaxingly, like one who knows himself utterly incapable of determined resistance, as he was, indeed, with his granddaughter. With her his uiyielding nature balanced itself as all human nature yearns to do. Extremes gravitate toward each other. Our life is a perpetual balance and vibration between them. Very far one way implies just as far the other.
If Dr. Carroll would have his own way sometimes and with some people, there was, of course, a chance for other times and other people. Faith persisted.
"I want to go, grandfather."
"Well, well, child, then you must;" and leaning upon his cane, he followed her into the miserable street. Miserable indeed! They went from house to house, and after she had once passed the ordeal of recognition and inquiry, Faith calmly responded, and with an earnestness that astonished her grandfather entered into the wretched lives around her. "How can you bear to live?" was the question so constantly in her mind that at last she gave it utterance.
But the wornout drudge, in whose face the lineaments of the human were greatly obscured, rebuked her with, "We must live as long as God pleases, miss."
She said no more, but emptied her own and her grandfather's purse before she had traversed half a square, and then led the way back into the sunlight. Again the old question of, it seemed, ages ago trembled upon her lips: "Is God happy, grandfather?"
"Perfect in bliss," said the patriarch, without a thought of any possible application of the truth to mundane affairs.
page: 72-73[View Page 72-73]Faith shivered. "He must be a strange being," she replied.
To this Dr. Carroll made no answer. He was accustomed to his granddaughter's "very peculiar observations," as he called them, but referred them all to the equally peculiar training she had received.
The next day Faith wanted to visit the alley again, but the doctor pleaded indisposition. This, however, settled the question for one day only. The next she was at her post again; and so, between devising excuses for not going and actually allowing himself to yield the point, the poor doctor was wellnigh distracted.
"If she could only be brought into healthy relations with others of her own age, he said to his wife.
"That seems impossible," answered Mrs. Carroll. "She has no interest in those of her own age, which is not strange. She knows comparatively nothing of their life."
"Yes, and that is not the worst of it," said the perturbed doctor. "She wills to know nothing."
"Be patient, husband. The child will change by and by, and be glad of society. Be sure she will."
"Not while her present mania lasts."
"Well, her present mania takes her away from her own trouble."
"I scarcely think it much of an improvement, though. She will use the little money and strength she has, only to find herself unable materially to affect the misery that appalls her, and that experience will not help her a great deal, I fancy."
"True; and yet, husband, there is no answer to her appeal. I myself know of none. I often feel as she expresses herself when she says, 'What right have I to more than I need, grandmother, when so many have not enough, are actually suffering from want?' Can you reply?"
"No, wife, and therefore it seems wise not to make the attempt. We cannot, of course, be responsible for all the destitution we meet with, and Faith is simply insane to imagine it."
The deeper trouble of her granddaughter's heart, that God was responsible, Mrs. Carroll hardly dared listen to, much less put into words. So she bent her white head over the gown she was making for one of Faith's unfortunates, and thought of the happy home despoiled, of the lonely, heartbroken child whom sorrow had made akin to suffering, of her own old age, without one of the many children she had borne to soothe her declining years. All these passed and repassed in review before her mind, while the tears silently gathered and fell upon her homely work.
Meanwhile, her husband in his large easy-chair slept peacefully as a child.
page: 74-75[View Page 74-75]CHAPTER III.
Her present mania, as Dr. Carroll characterized it, did indeed completely absorb Faith's energies. Day after day, through narrow and darksome alleys, up creaking stairways and into cellars where the sunlight was a stranger, did she make her way, followed at first by her old grandfather, afterward alone.
"It is too cold to go out to-day, daughter."
"Yes, grandfather, too cold for you," responded Faith, quietly.
"And you cannot visit those dreadful places by yourself, my child," he answered, decidedly. He had learned some new things himself during the past weeks, had taken a fresh sense of those dreadful places. "Dreadful they are, wife, both the places and the people. No mistake about that; but what can one person do? I confess the sight of so much suffering and degradation operates queerly upon me. The sheer hopelessness of improving these masses, of making the slightest perceptible impression upon the aggregate sum of misery, is enough to drive one away from all possible contact with it. My schooling under Faith has hardened me, I believe."
"That is sad," replied Mrs. Carroll.
"And Faith will wear herself out" continued the doctor, "and become more despairing than ever over life and everything connected with it. You should hear her talk when we are out together."
"I have heard her, husband, and I sometimes wish she could make herself both heard and felt by those who, it would seem, might easily change this aspect of society."
"Nonsense, wife! poverty and vice will never be legislated out of existence."
"How then, husband?"
"I don't know, I am sure. The decrees of the Almighty are inscrutable."
"Ah, indeed," sighed the old lady, " and that is the worst feature of our child's trouble."
"I know it," answered her husband, shortly. This theme he would not pursue.
It had never once occurred to the doctor that he would allow Faith to go alone upon her errands of mercy. "I will humor her a while," he had said to himself, little dreaming that her action in the matter was not contingent upon his. But he awoke to a new idea that cold morning, when, in response to his intimation that her career as a sister of charity had come to an end, she said, "Not go by myself, grandfather! Oh yes, I can easily do that."
page: 76-77[View Page 76-77]"But I cannot allow it, my dear. You don't understand the impropriety, the danger, the absurdity of the thing," said the old man, growing excited.
Faith looked at him in astonishment. "Why, grandfather!" she said, catching at the last word; "how can it be absurd?"
"But the danger," he persisted.
"No one will harm me, grandfather."
He looked at her as she stood before him, at the slight, girlish figure, the wondering brown eyes that seemed always to see so far beyond, yet in whose clear depths was no look of fear, at the entire expression of face and form, and the word danger was not repeated. "No one could harm her," was the involuntary thought. Yet he proffered one more argument. "At this rate, my dear, you will soon come to the end of your little capital, and your old grandfather has not much to spare."
"I know it. I'll not take your money, dear grandfather, and for myself, I can work, you know. Every one should, whether he has money or not."
She was victorious, and soon came into the warm parlor again, muffled and ready for her solitary expedition. After this, no objections were urged to her going out. And under all skies, bright or dark, through rain or snow, she pursued her idea, or it pursued her rather, impelled her on to the solving of this inexplicable riddle, this problem of human misery, want and crime.
Not that she was conscious, save vaguely and dimly-as one entering an unknown country-of either herself or life as it unfolded before her. The shock from which she was unrecovered left her confused, groping amid confusion for the lost thread of existence. The last impression was the strongest, that of unbearable anguish, unexplainable as unbearable; and looking around upon the new world into which she had suddenly been born, quite naturally this one idea was more prominent than any other. What could be the meaning of it all, and who the great God that so ruthlessly blasted happiness and permitted, if he did not ordain and perpetuate, all sorts of wretchedness?
In her daily rounds she often met with others engaged like herself, either alone or as agents of some benevolent association. These people at first attracted her. But when without hesitation, as to those who could understand, she betrayed the workings of her own dismayed heart in view of the misery without end under which humanity staggered hopelessly and helplessly, then she received another disappointment, and turned away more lonely and desolate than before.
"There must be some way out of this," she would say, every finest fibre of her soul quivering with the intensity of her feeling, and looking into eyes where personal aims, other pursuits, hopes page: 78-79[View Page 78-79] and ambitions, imaging themselves, left but a small corner for impressions from this her only world.
Of course the response was comparatively feeble: "It is melancholy indeed;" or, "Yes, it would seem that more effective measures of relief might be organized;" or, perhaps with a gesture of impatience, "Well, I for one am about tired of spending myself upon such wretched canaille, and have a mind to give it up altogether."
"But what is the meaning of it all?" said Faith, desperately. She did not put the question at random, nor without selecting her listener. He was a man past middle age, whose whole life had been an offering to the needs of the needy. "He ought to know," thought Faith, but he shook his head at the strange inquiry.
"God's meaning," he answered, solemnly. "It is not for the finite to question the infinite."
"Why not?" she said to herself, bitterly. "Did he leave us the liberty of choice? Does he consult our happiness as well as his own in creating us?"
"Perfect in bliss," said her grandfather. The thought was unendurable beside the perfect in misery of the impotent creatures of his power.
Far off, in another world that seemed to her now as mythic as the golden age of humanity, another voice had sounded in her ears, another gospel had gladdened her heart. But, alas! that world and that gospel were as the "baseless fabric of a vision." The thought of them, of the life that held them, was agony. The remembered joy and beauty maddened her, and made the wilderness where she was ten times more a wilderness than before. So she closed the door upon it all and struggled on.
One evening, returning home later than usual, she found her grandparents much exercised about her absence. A young clergyman was in the parlor. He had on his overcoat, and was standing hat in hand as Faith entered. Her grandfather, also, was equipped for a walk. "Ah, here she is," he said. "Very much obliged for your kind offer, Mr. Mosier. Take off your coat again. My granddaughter, Miss Reid, Mr. Mosier."
Then turning to Faith: "Why, where have you been, child? Your grandmother and I were very much worried, quite alarmed, in fact. You must stop this. Here were Mr. Mosier and I going out after you, though where to look I didn't know. Mr. Mosier thought we might do something. But really, you mustn't go on in this fashion any longer. It's intolerable."
"Dear grandfather," interrupted Faith, quietly, laying aside her wrappings, "it is very little past my usual time. The days are short, recollect."
"I wish they were shorter, my dear. They are a deal too long for you. Just think of it, Mr. Mosier!" and the old gentleman, inspired by the presence of a listener who looked his interest, re- page: 80-81[View Page 80-81] capitulated the story of his granddaughter's wanderings. "Scarcely a day that she is not out, I assure you, in all weathers too. I followed her as long as I could, but there came an end to my strength, and now she does alone. Goodness knows where, of where not perhaps I should say."
Faith sat but the fire with never a word of remonstrance. Her grandather glanced at her and tempered his tone a little. "I wouldn't say anything if there were any hope that she will accomplish much besides ruining her health and giving away all she has, or if she would take it moderately, as other folks do, but that isn't in her to do. Of course not; it wasn't in--"
Here the doctor paused, however, and it was perhaps well that he had stumbled into a path where he could not go on.
Mr. Mosier listened attentively. He sat where, unobserved by her, he could watch the young girl's face. It gave no indication of what was passing in her mind. At the last word of her grandfather, however, she rose.
" Don't go, dear," said Mrs. Carroll. Faith hesitated. "I want to consult with you about this garment," Mrs. Carroll continued.
"Oh yes;" and now, taking a low seat beside her grandmother, she applied herself to the work in hand.
The doctor looked at her silently for a while as she bent her head over her sewing, the brown curls falling around neck and face; then he said, gently, "We must give our little girl into your charge, Mr. Mosier, when she makes her parish visits."
Faith raised her eyes. "Why, grandfather?"
"So that you may not go alone, my dear."
"But why Mr. Mosier?"
"Oh, you don't know. Mr. Mosier is my assistant now, and your work will be his also."
"Mr. Mosier will have a parish of his own to attend to," said Mrs. Carroll.
"True; yet we haven't many very poor among us, you know."
"And the ladies of your congregation look after those," interposed Faith, quickly. "I should think Mr. Mosier would have plenty of time to go outside his own parish."
"I am sure of it," responded the curate.
"And will you go with me to-morrow?" said Faith, looking at him without a shade of embarrassment on her eager face.
"Certainly; that is, if-" and he turned to Dr. Carroll.
"Grandfather wishes it," she said.
"But, my dear, there is no especial hurry, and besides, it is the last of the week. Mr. Mosier may not have his Sunday's sermon ready."
"He could preach an old one, couldn't you, Mr. Mosier?"
"I can go with you and neglect no duty."
page: 82-83[View Page 82-83]"That is good. And now, grandfather," continued Faith, with animation, "say yes, please."
"Say yes to what? Mr. Mosier has already said yes for himself."
"Certainly; but you know what I want."
"Oh, the front basement. Is that it?"
"Yes, grandfather. Please say yes."
"You'll want the parlor next, and by and by your old grandfather will have to walk out altogether to make room for your parish."
"Indeed, I'll not ask another thing, grandfather, and you shall not be in the least annoyed. Shall he, grandmother?"
"Not in the least," said the old lady, with a smile.
"Oh, you are two against me now! Let a woman alone for having her will."
"And you are not to be troubled at all for the few articles I need, grandfather. We can get them ourselves, grandmother and I."
"But there is really a bottom to your purse, my dear."
"I know it, and there is work, too, and money for the work."
"Not in your present enterprise, I'll be bound."
"No, grandfather, not in this one. Next year I will begin, and make up all losses. I can easily do that."
"Just think of having a crowd of dirty, vagrant children file into your street door every day!" said the doctor, taking courage in the presence of a man who could understand the respectabilities of which his granddaughter seemed profoundly unconscious, to utter his real objection for the first time in her hearing.
"Why, grandfather, Christ associated constantly with publicans and sinners, and all kinds of disreputable people," was the crushing reply.
"What is it?" said Mr. Mosier, thoroughly aroused.
"Only that Faith wants half a dozen or so of little girls to come here every day for a couple of hours and be taught by herself. It can do no harm, father, and will keep the child indoors more."
"Well, well, we shall see;" which reassuring words from Dr. Carroll brought a happy look again into his child's face.
When, shortly after, Mr. Mosier rose to leave he said to Faith, "I shall be at your disposal in the morning, and hope you will command without reserve any service that I can render you in any of your enterprises."
"Thank you! I shall do so most certainly."
If he does not repent that offer, I am mistaken;" said the doctor to his wife, after Faith had given them each a good-night kiss and retired to her own room.
page: 84-85[View Page 84-85]CHAPTER IV.
He was mistaken. Mr. Mosier did not repent, although Faith kept her word and accepted, if she did not command, his services without reserve.
Mr. Mosier's life-experience and character were of the common, every-day sort-the common admixture of joy and sorrow, the common virtues and defects, hopes and aspirations, that pertain to our common humanity. A good churchman, with Dr. Carroll, he never questioned her doctrines; a tender-hearted, sensitive man, with Mr. Reid, he hoped for a better and clearer day to rise upon our poor humanity, and, with Mr. Reid again, hoped in the Church. The Church, the instituted Church, he honestly believed to be God's primary care, the object of his special solicitude and delight.
And although he would have been shocked if told that he believed so, yet it is undoubtedly true that hell, whether here or elsewhere, furnished to his mind a certain needful background for the display of God's glory. Its strictly mediatorial character and office he never suspected, but regarded it as much of a finality in the divine decrees as heaven itself. Of course he did. He believed the doctrines of his Church. He therefore encountered the problem of evil, sin and consequent misery with a divided mind. On one side were God's decrees, inscrutable, but inevitable; on the other, his human heart. And he could neither satisfy the one nor ignore the other. A reverent though unthinking submission to the decrees-this for his Maker. For man, a yearning but comparatively helpless sympathy, God-like in its tenderness if not in its power. Towards one or the other of these two ideas did he gravitate as the experiences of life gave impulsion.
Five years had he preached the gospel, not of Christ exactly, when called to the curacy of the parish over which Dr. Carroll presided. Five years of honest, earnest, conscientious labor, according to the best light he had.
Often he dimly suspected that the Church of his love was playing the role of Church triumphant upon the very battle-field where heaven and hell were contending, or at least that, like the knight of mediaeval story, she fought the enemies of her own imagination, rather than the veritable demons it was her mission to conquer and exorcise; and in his charity sermons he had been accustomed to present this thought with a zeal that some of his hearers pronounced intemperate, if they did not page: 86-87[View Page 86-87] go farther, and name it blasphemous. Inasmuch, was their argument, as God ordained social inequalities, and Christ sanctioned them in his words, "The poor ye have always with you"-an argument that, in his utter inability to answer, precipitated Mr. Mosier upon the other horn of the dilemma for a while, where in unthinking submission- he might recover his equilibrium.
To Mr. Mosier there were two grand divisions of humanity, the Church and the world. The Church was of God, the world and the flesh of the devil.
Two kingdoms within one, since it is clear that the world, the flesh and the devil report finally to God as universal sovereign.
Mr. Mosier, however, entertained no such reconciling idea. The two kingdoms were to him hopelessly, inextinguishably oppugnant. So much of the world as could be reached and brought within the territorial sway of the Church was safe; the rest-well, he never fairly looked over there. The questions were too complicated and contradictory. He sat down on the hither side of the problem and gave himself to the work of his calling, quite naturally subsiding into a notion that creeps into the minds of earnest workers, and may, in fact, be deemed universal, that in the particular line of one's own duty is to be found the most intimate co-operation with God in the unfolding of his plans for all.
Practically, to Mr. Mosier, the Church included Christ, and not Christ the Church, a notion that found no favor in the eyes of Faith Reid. "The Church," she said in answer to his question, "Why not work as one of her missionaries? why not find support, protection and encouragement from her authority and approval?"
"I do not know if I understand you, Mr. Mosier. Would the Church disapprove of what I am doing?"
"By no means, necessarily. But the Church is a divine instrumentality for good, of our Lord's own appointing, and to me it seems wise to go into the world with what help we have as her emissaries, doing in her name whatever is given us to do."
"I was never so accustomed, Mr. Mosier. My father," she added, with heightened color, " knew no higher inspiration than the name of Christ; no higher, and no other, it now seems to me. I know not even that. I go among the poor and wretched because I cannot keep away. They are the only class of people with whom I have anything in common."
"But surely it will not always be so, Miss Reid?"
"Why not?" she responded, sharply. "What is there in life besides worth living for?"
"You will not accomplish your desire in this direction."
page: 88-89[View Page 88-89]"Oh no," she responded, wearily. "I know that I shall not. And yet," returning to her former tone, "is it an impossible work?"
"I cannot answer you. It ought not to be impossible, yet I do not see the way. Many, as you know, have professed that they did, have conceived world-bettering plans, and brought them forth to certain failure. To me, I own, the Church offers the only satisfactory refuge."
"Refuge from what and to whom, Mr. Mosier? To yourself from a perplexing problem?" He was silent, and she continued: "If I believed, as you and others profess to believe, that the Church is the most potent, if not the only, divine instrumentality of good to man, I should be poorly satisfied with the way in which she fulfills her mission. Why, if the Church-meaning of course the people who compose the Church-were disciples of Christ in fact as well as in name, society had not since his time been a mere scramble after power and wealth, and even now might be rescued from the terrible abysses into which it has fallen. At least I can see no possible escape from this conclusion."
He answered thoughtfully: "That may be, Miss Reid. Indeed, I will not weakly evade the unanswerable logic of your head and heart. You are right. The Church has not justified her lofty claims to human regard. But then I cannot rest in this censure. The Church is an aggregation of individuals, and our individual lives absorb us. I cannot wonder that it is so, nor when I consider that few have seen or see the truth clearly-the truth as it is, as it must be, see it as clearly as you do-can I sit in judgment and find no excuse for what we must all deplore. And besides, there is another consideration not to be overlooked-the ways of Providence with man. In a sense, our power for good is limited, and having done what we can in our circumstances-a truth for the Church as well as for the man-submission to God is our only alternative."
"The old story," responded Faith, "which helps me the wrong way. I can easily find excuse for weak, fallible, selfish human nature, but no such hindrances lie in God's pathway as you teach and believe."
"Certainly not. He is omnipotent."
"And good?"
"Most certainly."
"I cannot conceive of it. And despite all the wretchedness which this omnipotent Being permits, he is still 'perfect in bliss,' as my grandfather says. Is that so, Mr. Mosier?" for he was silent.
"It must be so, Miss Reid. I cannot entertain the opposite thought for an instant."
"Preposterous!"
"Dear Miss Reid," said the curate, looking earnestly down into the troubled face beside him -they were walking home together from Faith's page: 90-91[View Page 90-91] parish, as it was called- "pray forgive what I am about to say. You would if you could know my heart," he added, with rising color. "Your own great trouble, which I most fully appreciate, has yet clouded your vision to all the beauty in life. Believe me, it is replete with possible beauty, with happiness unutterable. If I could but convince you."
"I have known the truth of your words, Mr. Mosier, but I shall never know it again."
"Do not think so. That were out of nature. You speak as the young, to whom each feeling is eternal. The shadows of to-day will disappear. You will again know the truth of what I say."
She shook her head, and they finished their walk in silence.
So they talked, or sometimes, speaking in another strain, she would charge him with insincerity, apathy, selfishness and, in his cherished love for the Church, a blind, mistaken faith in shadows.
"Why do you not tell them the truth, Mr. Mosier-that the starving and the heathen are at their own doors, and that here is the place for their money and their labor? This city of New York needs the missionary, I verily believe, far more than those you call heathen, in whose behalf you preached so eloquently last Sunday."
"It is our duty to send the gospel to the heathen," said the curate, touched by her tone.
"I don't know what you mean by the gospel," she answered. "Certainly, every one must follow his own convictions. If, however, you hold your doctrinal system to be equivalent to the gospel which Christ both preached and lived, I must say that I do not agree with you, and have little doubt that the heathen would get along quite comfortably without it. Where in the four evangelists is there one hint of the system upon the truth of which, nevertheless, what you call the Church depends for its existence?"
"But we have other sacred writings, Miss Reid -the Acts of the Apostles of our Lord and their letters. In these I can show you abundant evidence for the Church."
"Who is your master, Mr. Mosier, Christ or Paul? But this discussion is useless, I know. You are looking from one standpoint, I from another, and there is small possibility that we shall ever agree."
"I am sorry to hear you say so, Miss Reid. We are in sympathy practically, which is the essential thing."
"True, and I am very thankful," she responded, gently. "I was quite alone before you came. Since then, I confess, life has not seemed so hopeless an undertaking." She smiled, lifting to his her truthful eyes.
"I would gladly take all your care and trouble if I might," he said.
page: 92-93[View Page 92-93]"You are kind, Mr. Mosier. But that were not well, even if possible. Every soul must bear its own burdens."
"Yet you would not refuse help?" said the curate.
"I have not," she answered, frankly, extending her hand, "as you know. Still, ours is not a personal work, and the help we give each other does not call for personal acknowledgment. It is pleasant, certainly; more than this, it saves from utter discouragement to find other souls moved in sympathy with ours. I know of no one word so terrible as that little word, alone."
It was impossible to continue the conversation, and Mr. Mosier, resigning the hand he held, took his hat from the table before which Faith was sitting, and left the front basement, bitterly conscious of the truth of her last remark. He felt painfully alone.
The charity-school was in operation, and hither the curate often came, sometimes with a pleasant story to read to the children, sometimes a picture about which he told them, always sure of a welcome from them, and because so, as he knew, but would not acknowledge to himself, of one from Faith also.
She was a revelation to him and an inspiration. Ordinary life became luminous, ordinary duties were transformed into pleasures. He caught from her deeper glimpses of himself, of life and providence. He was lifted into a higher atmosphere, where his soul, expanding in the larger liberty, made new demands upon him. His zeal was untiring, his strength apparently unfailing.
"I wonder where rest and recreation come in for Mr. Mosier?" said Dr. Carroll. "He is an indispensable treasure in our parish, and no less in Faith's also, I fancy. But when does he stop?"
The doctor's question was pertinent. Rest and recreation were words seemingly expunged from the curate's vocabulary, unless, indeed, as was quite possible, he found them both in Faith Reid.
She was his inspiration. If the curate dreamed that his present zeal in his Master's service was born exclusively of a Christ-like love, he was undoubtedly mistaken. Yet was the dream nevertheless a prophecy of the reality, a foreshadowing of the possible future. A prophecy of the possible future? Yes. But perhaps through the agency of other instrumentalities than those of the curate's choosing. To him that possible future was possible only by Faith Reid. Grant him this prayer of his soul, and all things were possible. The impossible was not. He was ready for any sacrifice with her by his side, for any trial that her smile illumined and her help made easy. Certainly, to his mind, she was no inspiration to a life of self-seeking. He heard, in the unconscious utterances of wisdom, her inheritance of happy days, the call to "come up higher"-a call page: 94-95[View Page 94-95] to which his single-heartedness gave emphasis, a call that found response in his own soul. He was ready to answer the call, but in his own way, and from the heights of satisfaction and confidence, rather than the valley of humiliation. So if he shall awaken one day to know his mountain for a Pisgah, and to realize that his onward journey lies in the valley below, through the land of the Hittite, his experience is not exceptional, but one with all who finally reach the promised land.
To Faith the curate was neither a revelation nor an inspiration. He brought her no truth that lifted her out of the valley. But he did lighten it and make it more bearable. Surely he did this! That she was in any sense responsible for his activities, for his untiring interest in behalf of the wretched objects of her own care, never once occurred to her. These offered in their forlorn destitution a sufficient reason for her exertions. Why not for his also? How could any one pass them by? How, indeed, could Mr. Mosier come into daily contact with them, and with the hopeless problem which they suggested, and preserve his equanimity as he did? Nay, he seemed at times positively happy, a phenomenon altogether incomprehensible. He was sympathetic, kind and gentle. His atmosphere was pleasant to her, and verily she could not quarrel with his disposition to do his utmost wherever he went. He not only seconded her efforts, he originated others of his own. But his happiness irritated her. It threw a doubt over his whole action. "How is it possible," she thought, " for any one to be happy in this maelstrom of a world?" And the thought did not stop with this world or with finite man. Ah, no! It was a thought that included God and his universe, in whose infinitude there was one truth, and one only, that at all saved her-the truth of Christ and His perfect" life on earth. It was a truth high and deep and broad enough to save her utterly, but it was a truth veiled. She did not understand. Her father's faith held her, but it was not hers!
Thus she wrought on in her own feeble strength as the weeks of winter went by, her heart sinking under her self-imposed and impossible burden; paler, sadder and more discouraged daily; sustained in very deed, though she knew it not, by the unwearied love of the curate. Her grandparents, who had gathered hope from Mr. Mosier's advent among them, became again disheartened, and he, too, grew silent and abstracted.
But a change came.
One day, returning alone from her parish, Faith found an unexpected visitor in the parlor. The faces of her grandparents were lighted up with unwonted pleasure. They greeted her joyfully.
"Whom do you think we have here, my child?" said Mrs. Carroll.
Faith's eyes rested upon the lady, a fair, wo- page: 96-97[View Page 96-97] manly face and figure, winning in expression, graceful and delicate in outline. She wore a semi-Quaker dress of drab stuff, with stomacher of soft white lace. Her auburn hair, touched here and there with silver, lay smooth upon her clear brow. Her hands were small and beautiful. She rose at Mrs. Carroll's question. Faith started forward. "It is Mrs. Dean. Oh, I am so glad you have come!" she said, as with a deep sigh she laid her head upon the motherly bosom.
"I have come for you. Will you go home with me?"
"Yes, anywhere; I will go anywhere with you."
CHAPTER V.
I think we had better not give her time to change her mind," said Mrs. Dean as the same evening she sat with doctor and Mrs. Carroll around the pleasant parlor fire: "I should be glad to stay longer, but this seems best to me." They assented, and the following afternoon was set for the time of departure.
"The boat leaves at six o'clock," said the doctor, "and Faith will spend the most of the day in her parish and with the children. You will have to fix up her trunk, mother."
Yes," answered the grandmother, sadly. She is the last one to go, husband."
"She's not going for long, mother. Mrs. Dean will bring her back to us well and happy, I'll warrant you," said the doctor, confidently.
"I fear not. The child's heart is not here. It is with her parents, and it will draw her to them. Life has no charm for her any longer."
"You may be right," said Mrs. Dean, "but I am impressed she will live to be a useful and happy woman."
page: 98-99[View Page 98-99]"To be sure, mother. Mrs. Dean is right. She understands her, I see. I don't. I never understood her father-a very saint, but unintelligible to me."
"What! Samuel Reid?" said Mrs. Dean. "He seems to me the most comprehensible of men. Yet he was one by himself, I know, and might be misapprehended."
She asked many questions concerning Faith. "I have a tolerable idea of her from your letters, and feel that I cannot go far wrong in my judgment of and for her. Your last letter decided me to come at once and try the influence of my personal presence upon her."
"It has been most satisfactory," said the doctor.
"I think so, and hope much from the change."
"One thing occurs to me," said Mrs. Carroll. "We have not been able to mention her father and mother in her presence since their death, nor anything connected with her home-life. At first, as I wrote you, her grief was overwhelming, but even now she ignores the past. How will Arden affect her?"
"Favorably, I doubt not," replied Mrs. Dean.
"She knows it by heart," said Mrs. Carroll.
"I am aware of that. Still, I have no fear."
Next morning the little girls assembled in the front basement heard with expressions of dismay that their young mistress would leave them for a while. By and by, perhaps, with the vanishing novelty of their new life, the announcement might be received with a certain sense of relief at the idea, not of escape from the gentle, sad eyes and loving tones of their teacher-I think she would have held her own to the last-but from the enforced thraldom, even for two hours of the day, of decent behavior. In the miserable dens that they called home there were few restraints upon their lawless disregard of whatever is characteristically human. There is neither time nor means, inclination nor inducement, to cultivate such qualities where life is reduced to the animal level of a mere scramble after the barest physical necessities. The little children were born into and daily breathed an unhuman atmosphere. It was native to them, and they could but gasp in purer air. Faith saw that they did, nor could she wonder. She knew only too well from whence they came to her, and to what surroundings they returned. She was at school as well as they, and it was hard for her as for them. Every day the iron walls closed more hopelessly around her.
"You will not accomplish your desire," the curate had said to her, and slowly and painfully, as she realized the magnitude of the difficulty, did she acknowledge that he was right. And with tenfold bitterness her heart intrenched itself against all faith in a beneficent and overruling Providence.
The curate's faith exasperated her. "Do not page: 100-101[View Page 100-101] talk to me any more," she said at last. "I simply don't believe a word you say."
Mrs. Dean then appeared at the right moment, being Mrs. Dean and not another. Faith looked at the shining forehead, at the whole face transfused by an inner light, and without stopping to question why at once loved and trusted her. "I will go anywhere with you" expressed the instant conviction of her heart.
But the leaving was not easy. She rose early on the morning after Mrs. Dean's arrival, and went out to purchase a parting gift for each of the children, looking forward with not a little tremor to her final meeting with them. It was more trying than she had anticipated. Their dismay communicated itself to her. She more than half doubted the reality, and then the possibility, of her position. Why this sudden letting go of a work that she had undertaken? But there was no time to consider this question. She was going, and that very day. So much was settled. "I shall come back very soon," she said, in answer to eager inquiries, "and sometimes while I am away the good minister will go and see you."
She looked up and smiled faintly, for he stood within the room. "I have been promising these little ones something in your behalf, Mr. Mosier."
"Which I shall endeavor to make good. What is it? Are you-"
"I am going away for a time."
He walked across the room, took up a book and turned his face from her. Faith dismissed the children, watched them from the window until the last one disappeared down the street, and then sank into a chair and buried her face in her hands. Mr. Mosier came toward her.
"You are going away, Miss Reid?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"With Mrs. Dean. She came for me last night."
"When?"
"This evening."
The curate's voice trembled. "It is hard to bear," he said.
She raised her head and glanced at him. He was very pale. "Am I both weak and wicked to leave my work," she asked, giving utterance to the trouble of her own soul. "Yet you have told me that I should fail. And I have failed. No one can succeed. It is impossible."
He paid no heed to her words. "You take all the light out of my life," he said.
"I?"
"Yes, you. Do you not know it?"
"No," she responded; almost inaudibly. Here was a new despair, unlooked for, scarcely understood. Yet the face before her told the despair and fixed upon her the responsibility.
page: 102-103[View Page 102-103]"What can I do?" she questioned.
"What? Love me, Faith, as I love you-with my whole heart, my entire being." He spoke rapidly, as if fearing that he might lack the courage to finish, and sat down beside her.
But she rose pale as himself. "I wish I did or could, Mr. Mosier. That were something at least, to be able to satisfy one human heart. But I have no love to give any one, of the kind you want; you must know this."
"Yes, I might know it, I suppose. Forgive my seeming rudeness. I was so taken by surprise. The thought of life without daily seeing you, coming upon me suddenly, was unbearable."
"Is it so, indeed?" she answered. "And could the love of one human being, weak and imperfect as yourself, as we all are, would this suffice?"
"I could ask nothing more of heaven," he said.
"Ah, then I do not understand. Heaven must give me more than that, or forfeit its name."
"You have never loved?"
"No, not with your meaning of the word."
After a long silence, which neither seemed willing to break, Faith said, timidly, "I must make a farewell visit to our parish. Will you go?"
He rose and followed her.
As they approached the house on their return, he said, "Do you forgive me?"
"I have nothing to forgive, Mr. Mosier. If I were at all in fault-"
But he interrupted her: "No, no, of course you are not. Neither am I, except that I forgot myself this morning. I could not, cannot, help loving you."
"And I cannot help loving and respecting you in return; not as you wish, I know-I would that it were not so with you-but as a dear friend, as one who has always been very kind to me. Can you not be my friend?"
He smiled. "I can be anything you will. It is a foolish question, Faith, yet I cannot help the asking: may I look to the future for a possible change in your feelings?"
"It pains me more than I can tell to answer. I can only say, I would not."
"Well, then, good-bye." They had reached the house. "Thank you, I will not go in. Good-bye."
"Good-bye."
page: 104-105[View Page 104-105]CHAPTER VI.
On the afternoon of the next day our travelers reached Arden. A lovely spring day, and nowhere are spring days more enchanting than in rugged, rock-ribbed New England. Here old Winter holds the maiden in his icy embrace until, the teeming life within no longer controllable, she bursts her fetters, and with scarcely a hint of her coming, flings her wealth of beauty and fragrance upon the astonished earth and air! Yesterday, Winter, grim and silent; today, Spring, blithe and bonny as birds and flowers. The change seems the work of magic. Hearts beat in unison with Nature. We believe in the hitherto impossible, fan our dying faith into a flame, and rejoicing in its light, take fresh courage for our journey.
All day had Faith watched the changing landscape from the coach window. The green and quiet valleys were restful, her heart sang with the singing brook, and the voices of the hills were audible to her soul. Earth was alive and joyful, while the heavens bent warm and caressingly above it. Fleecy clouds floated in the sky, and melting into each other or drifting far apart, revealed the deep, blue illimitable expanse beyond-- a day of days, full of exuberant, intoxicating delight, full also of divine repose, a day of revelation to the unbelieving heart of the child who had lost sight of the Father's face. Often she turned to her silent companion, silent, yet regarding her with heartfelt interest. "How beautiful, Mrs. Dean!"
"Yes, my child."
Words were an intrusion, and the child tired, very tired, and dazed with the sudden transition from her world of work and heartful care into this one where was a suggestion of neither, but instead an abounding peace to whose sweet influence she gratefully yielded. Mrs. Dean responded when appealed to, but gladly left her to the ministration of the hour.
The afternoon waned. In the western horizon huge billows of clouds uprose, behind which the setting sun hiding and emerging touched their crests with a golden color, that gradually irradiated the whole mass, and left it a shining, many-hued island afloat in an ocean of glory. These multiplied until the scene became grandly beautiful. The fiery god was universal monarch in sky and earth. He encircled the hills and flooded the valleys. The pine trees stood out straight and page: 106-107[View Page 106-107] tall. Each bush was a special shrine. The tiny leaves, the bursting buds and small, young grass sprang forth to meet the resistless monarch, and trembled with delight in his commanding presence!
"How glorious!" exclaimed Faith, her eyes kindling and cheeks flushing with ardor.
They reached the town. It was built upon a gently-rising hill, sloping toward the east and south, and irregularly laid out. Indeed, the wide avenues, bordered with maples and elms, wound in graceful curves around what had been originally selected as beautiful building-sites when the town was small, other houses subsequently taking position accordingly.
Faith intently scanned all objects, streets and houses for something familiar. Her heart was in a tumult. This, then, was Arden; and Arden to her meant only the home of her parents, the scene of her father's bitter struggle. She saw nothing, however, to suggest that Arden, until, moving slowly up the last ascent, they turned into an avenue running north and south, and commanding a view of the town and surrounding country. Then her heart beat painfully. They approached the church. She knew it-knew it well-a small, picturesque edifice of stone, half hidden in summer by the foliage of trees, its rough exterior nearly covered with clinging vines. Faith sensed the whole scene, and more than she saw with mortal eyes. Her father was there! He walked before her in the well-worn path leading to the church door. She passed with him through the vestibule. She heard his tender, solemn voice from the pulpit. The present faded. Involuntarily she leaned from the coach-window to gaze and hold the vision. It passed, and the home glided into view. Behind it, as they entered, the sun was sinking grandly to rest. Mrs. Dean led the way to a room at the end of the hall, into which streamed the soft yet glowing effulgence. It was the library, well furnished with books, pictures and busts in plaster. To the left, between the fire-place and window, was an old-fashioned work-stand, with basket and work lying upon it and a sewing-chair beside it; between the windows, a study-table and arm-chair.
Into this room Faith followed Mrs. Dean, bewildered-and trembling with a consciousness of the place to which she had come. In the middle of the room she paused, glanced hurriedly about her, recognized the oft-described apartment, and at last fixed her eyes upon the study-table and chair.
The color forsook her face. She turned to Mrs. Dean. Her eyes asked the question and received the answer. She staggered forward, sank into the chair, buried her face in her hands upon the table, and the pent-up agony of her heart found expression and relief.
page: 108-109[View Page 108-109]Mrs. Dean did not attempt to stay the passionate outburst. She gently removed bonnet and shawl, laid aside her own, closed the door and sat down beside the young sufferer.
The sun went down; the golden glory faded from the sky; the long Northern twilight slowly vanished. The little stars came forth, twinkling modestly after the day's surpassing splendor, and peeped through the windows into the room where the serene, sweet-voiced woman kept watch over the stricken child. By and by the voice was heard, the sobbing ceased, the child was in the mother's arms, listening to gentle words that told in loving tones the story of two beautiful lives lived in Arden so many years ago-lived within those very walls where they now talked with the stars of heaven shining upon them; lived in daily communion with the great Father who holds all souls in the hollow of his infinite hand.
CHAPTER VII.
The next day was far advanced when Faith awoke to full consciousness. Mrs. Dean had just opened the door of her chamber. She started up.
"Is it morning, Mrs. Dean?"
"I am sorry that I wakened you," said the good lady. "I have been here many times before. It is nearer night again than morning. But a longer sleep would not have harmed you."
"Oh no, indeed. I am quite awake. But how dark it is!"
"The blinds are all closed, and besides, it is raining." She crossed the room and opened the shutters.
"This is very lovely," said Faith, looking out into the soft, gray sky from which the warm rain fell so silently as to be almost imperceptible-fell upon the waiting earth and tiny seeds hidden in her bosom, upon the tender, fresh, green grass, the young buds and leaves, fell like the peace of God into willing souls!
page: 110-111[View Page 110-111]It was the southern window before which they stood, and below them the gently-sloping lawn was dotted here and there with patches of crocus, gayly-colored tulips and the first violets of spring. The village of Arden lay to the north and east. Through the western window might be seen a range of distant hills. To the south and east lay the valley, beautiful and far-reaching, such a one as delights the eye of the artist and the heart of the poet, yet beautiful beyond the skill of the one or the glowing words of the other.
"Beautiful indeed!" said Faith, as Mrs. Dean directed her attention to the noble river that kept its devious and graceful way down from the western hills, sweeping through the valley and around the eastern side of the town. It was a picture that she had often seen in imagination, looked upon through other eyes in other days. Truly, Arden was alive for her! From this same window, this same landscape had gladdened those eyes. Their hearts, as hers now, had swelled responsive to its beauty. With a sharp pang of pain she turned away. The loneliness was too bitter. Joy unshared by love is but a word, and a word, too, emptied of its meaning. But the pang was sharp but brief.
The loving woman before her was a positive presence. "Surely she has a claim upon me," was the healing thought that dissipated the shadow. She replied cheerfully to Mrs. Dean, who said, "Come down soon," as she left the chamber, and dressed without again approaching the window.
"How is she?" inquired Helen Murdock when Mrs. Dean returned to the library.
"Very much refreshed by her long sleep."
"And calmer?"
"Oh yes."
"It is the most singular case that ever came under my notice, and passes my comprehension," said Miss Murdock. She spoke with emphasis, seemingly relegating the whole subject to the domain of the necessarily incomprehensible, since she did not understand.
"Doubtless," replied Mrs. Dean, quietly. "Your experience would hardly enable you to comprehend hers."
"Why not, Aunt Rachel? We are both orphans."
"You had friends outside of your home, Helen, and interests in life apart from your parents."
"That is the strangest circumstance of all, and to my mind altogether inexcusable," said the young lady, with some asperity. "To think of people shutting themselves away from the world, as did Mr. and Mrs. Reid, and bringing up this only daughter in utter seclusion. One might easily foresee the consequences should they happen to die."
"Don't speak so, Helen. You don't know page: 112-113[View Page 112-113] what you are saying. And besides, you are reflecting upon my friends, the dearest friends I have ever known."
"I beg your pardon, dear aunt," and the voice was now singularly low and sweet, "but I was thinking of this young girl's terrible and overwhelming sorrow, of its almost hopeless character because of her isolation."
"True, my dear. I do not commend the wisdom of my friends' course, neither do I pronounce against it. They acted in accordance with their convictions, as we all should; and for Faith, her experience has no doubt been the best for her, and will so prove in the end."
"So Philip says," replied Miss Murdock, decidedly, and as though she had never for an instant harbored a contrary idea. She resumed her work, the copying of a pencil sketch which evinced more genius than training, consisting in fact of a few masterly strokes which presented to view the little church in Arden, with its clambering vines, and over which one of a clump of majestic elms offered graceful protection and shade. Miss Murdock bent painfully to the task, for task it surely was. Nature never intended her for an artist, nor was it artist-love that inspired her. The original sketch was Philip Dean's, and from him her inspiration, an inspiration too that sustained her in other endeavors. Philip loved music, and Helen, although no musician, practiced the piano. He delighted in history, and under his tuition her researches extended back into original chaos. She studied the classics in her native tongue; she read and wrote poetry, or what she called by that name. She lost her reckoning among the metaphysicians, because, notwithstanding he stoutly denied the charge, people called Philip Dean a metaphysician, and Helen suspected that they were at least half right. And, finally, Helen Murdock was a religionist, "a Swedenborgian," she said, which was partially true. A Deanite would perhaps include the whole truth, not, however, that Philip Dean played the part of fool, and anchored to himself, or to any other man, for that matter. He read and believed Swedenborg, and to the extent of her capacity interpreted him to Helen; but, as will be apparent, her capacity was limited to the very natural degree. However, except for an individual crotchet or two upon subjects where she used her own mind, she believed Philip-in Philip, rather.
Of course there can be but one satisfactory analysis of Helen Murdock as she stands before us. She loved Philip Dean-loved him with the concentrated strength of a strong will, with the intensity and persistence of the one love of a lifetime, with the grasp of an only hope. She was twenty-five years of age, with a delicate, wiry figure, infantile features, lustrous, straight, black hair, and eyes of the same color, changing in expression with every feeling that possessed her, as page: 114-115[View Page 114-115] did all her feelings. Her face was inexpressive. It told no stories that she cared to hide. The full lips spoke of habitual pain. She had been all her life an invalid, yet an invalid under successful protest since she had known Philip Dean to love him. They had been children together, and were nearly of one age. She had played with him at home and studied with him at school until the day of games and school studies was over. Then he went away to college, while she languished in a sick room, with little to make life desirable, much to suffer and endure. Her father died during her early childhood. Her mother and Mrs. Dean were friends, and to Mrs. Dean was Helen committed when the death of her mother left her an orphan. This happened at the beginning of Philip's second college year. He came home for his vacation, and after this Helen was no longer a confirmed invalid. She grew strong; that is, comparatively so. A new life coursed through her veins. Her heart awakened, and the trembling, suffering body yielded to its sway. She walked and rode, cultivated flowers, and even got as far as the vegetable garden in the pursuit of health, the doctors assuring her that nothing was more invigorating than contact with mother Earth. By and by she was rewarded. She could ramble in the woods with Philip, and leaning upon his strong arm, climb the hills and sit beside him while he made pictures. Life became a never-ending dream of delight. While he was with her she studied him, and when he went away she studied the things he loved; used his favorite books, and wrote him about them, practiced with pen and pencil in order to win a word of approval, or, better still, to catch the ray of pleasure in his deep blue eyes at finding unlooked-for sympathy in her.
In all this her woman's nature was the impelling power-that nature which in all past history has made of woman a devotee at the shrine of her hero, man, that has given her to know no higher bliss than that of bestowing her all upon the object of her worship, no deeper misery than to have the gift dispraised and cast aside as valueless. Women have loved men better than the truth, and thus to the hurt of both. But another day is dawning, wherein both shall see clearer, and love be for ever lifted out of undue supremacy on the one hand, and undue submission on the other-a day of emancipation for all: for man, from the dominion of his nature; for woman, into the freedom of hers; a day wherein love shall be in fact as well as in name a sacred soul-bond, uniting the two in all the height and depth, the length and breadth, of their eternally dissimilar, but freely and more and more perfectly developed, natures. Meanwhile, such unions are rare and exceptional. Such love can come in as the rule only with the higher development of woman. Here she leads; therefore upon her devolves the respon- page: 116-117[View Page 116-117] sibility of inaugurating true relations between herself and him. And this she is doing. Nor let us be dismayed if at first she sees only the grand truth embodied in her own womanhood to the neglect of the same principle in her brother man-the universal truth of which she is the representative and form, the truth that is to guide them both as one to the fulfillment of their grand creative destiny. She will soon unlearn any seeming truth that separates her from the other half of herself. At present, it is perhaps of all lessons the most imperative that she should know herself a veritable, responsible individual; otherwise, she can bring no veritable, individual help to the birth of God's new and now impending creation. And this lesson wise women, and men too, are rapidly learning.
This lesson, however, Helen Murdock had not learned. For her Philip Dean was; she only in and for him. God might call to her never so loudly. She was safe from the possibility of hearing anything He might say. Philip Dean was her god, whatever deity she theoretically and with pious lips pretended to worship. She belonged to him.
This is no exaggeration of the average woman sentiment of love in the past--a sentiment growing out of her dependent, irresponsible position toward man. Denied all individual existence, she has with a fine, feminine instinct preserved herself by appealing to his masculine love of rule and self-glorification, in which is also the love of protecting. No argument could be sweeter to the natural heart of man than this one with which woman has held him to herself as by right divine. "See! I prefer no claim; I am nothing; I desire to be nothing; I am only thine. Take thine own." And man has taken his own-taken to protect with a lofty and patronizing condescension, it is true--while woman has found her life in ministering to his aggrandizement and pleasure. All this has been needful, however, and the temporary humiliation far better for her than contention as an equal during the ages of strife and conflict through which the race has come; by actual experience, to a knowledge of its capacities and destiny. Indeed, any such seeming elevation would have wrought her utter ruin. Strife and contention are not her weapons. She is the mother of man, the external representative of the Church, the Bride of the Lamb, and she will inaugurate new and diviner methods of warfare, when this, her claim, shall be acknowledged. In her enforced seclusion, through sorrow, submission and pain, she has been purified and grown steadily toward a comprehension of her needs and duties, until, to-day, man having cleared the wilderness and made ready a place for her, she stands prepared to do her part for all in the daily enlarging sphere of her activities. Happy they who page: 118-119[View Page 118-119] see this truth rising out of the decaying, dissolving civilization around us! Happier, nay, blest beyond the power of words to portray, those true lovers who, alive first to the All-Beautiful, see in each other only reflections of that divine Presence! These are they who understand the word, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."
Helen Murdock was the average woman in love. By this I do not, of course, mean that she represents the average woman. She is one of a class. Weak women, selfish, vain, frivolous, unwomanly women, are weak, selfish, vain, frivolous and unwomanly in their loves, and the same is true of their opposites, strong, unselfish, noble and womanly women. But all women hitherto, as a rule, have gained and held the love of men at the sacrifice of themselves, through patient, silent, unquestioned, even slavish submission of their own aspirations to the will of man. Notwithstanding, every age has had its true lovers as its true men and women.
Mrs. Dean said to Helen: "You had interests apart from your home and parents." As compared with Faith Reid, this was undoubtedly true. It was equally true, however, that her first real interest in life, apart from or in connection with her surroundings, dated from Philip Dean; not Philip Dean the playmate, but the man. And so vital was her interest that it communicated itself to him.
He was a student, unlearned in the ways of the world, healthy, cheerful and reverent. His honest blue eyes, met his mother's unabashed. She was his ideal woman-an ideal most blessedly real in all his experience of life. She understood him without a word. Her love was genuine. In a sense her all, he was yet her all to bless with unfailing devotion wherever success and happiness might find and crown him, whether at her side or not. She exacted no tribute. He was free, more free with than without her. As a natural result she satisfied him. He was still young when his father died. Then he became her protector. He felt himself to be so, although she earned the money that kept him in college. John Dean, his father, was too honest to prosper pecuniarily, so his neighbors said, a somewhat sad commentary upon society if true, and it was not wholly false. John Dean considered his neighbor's advantage as well as his own, and the attention was not uniformly reciprocal. That was all.
At his death he left his family the home unencumbered and little more. His wife thereupon opened a school, and keeping a good one, was well and generously patronized. Philip went through college, and then shouldered his knapsack and sought his fortune in the far west. Through all his mother was his companion, counselor and page: 120-121[View Page 120-121] friend. Other women whom he met, young or old, seemed to him small beside her. So other women finally gave him over.
"Philip Dean? Oh, he's of no account," said the slighted miss, whose battery of attractions leveled at him had proved ineffective. "He knows nothing but books and his mother."
Helen Murdock came, and with her a change. She had him at her mercy, so to speak. There were no competitors for the prize, and no conceit of himself in the heart of Philip Dean. He would have been utterly astonished at himself as an object of admiration. He had his work to do, his ideal to strive after, his mother to love. He accepted his work. There was no need to seek it. Because he was willing it came to him-more than he could do. Through life he would apportion to others of his surplus. Better than bread, his gifts would help to nourish and strengthen the soul. Laborers in the vineyard would appoint him their lord. He would be "a man set under authority, having under him soldiers"- set under authority to do a will higher than his own.
Such was Philip Dean. And Helen Murdock loved him, or thought she did. I think she loved herself and wanted him. But the world of to-day would justify her judgment. So let it stand. She loved him, and her own proper life and work became thereafter comparatively worthless. She studied him as the ancients studied the stars that ruled over human destinies. She lived and moved and had her being in him.
Mrs. Dean was unsuspicious. She had no love of this sort in herself. Her life was full of labor when Helen came to them. The sick child needed much care. Mind and body both suffered. Pain made her querulous. She repined at her lot. Her energy, curbed and imprisoned, became the greatest source of discomfort to herself and to Mrs. Dean. It impelled her to exertion, but was not sufficient to sustain her under it. When Philip came home for his vacation, he found a new work awaiting him, and took it up as a matter of course. His mother's weary eyes thanked him as day after day he put aside his own pleasure to plan for the invalid. He played and sang for her. His deep, rich voice startled her slumbering nature. He taught her to use the pencil and brush, although she did no more than copy. But if, as has been said, "Servile copying is the great merit of copying," Helen Murdock deserved praise for her endeavor at least, especially when she copied Philip Dean. His portfolio was at her command, and it sufficed her. She rarely complimented other artists, and if he said, "Really, Helen, you are doing well. I should know my picture in yours," that was reward enough for hours and days of patient labor. He introduced nature to her as a lover might his mistress. Helen's eyes page: 122-123[View Page 122-123] kindled in response to his, her feet grew strong and nimble to follow wherever he might lead. She was an intelligent and pleasant companion. He liked her society, and she loved him.
If, after a day spent rambling in the woods, she looked pale and weary, he saw it, and however she might protest, the next day was spent upon the lounge in the library. Here, "obedient to her praying," he often brought his books and read aloud to her. "You will not like what I have to-day," he said, until another word seemed more fitting. Then it was, "You like all sorts, I believe, Helen. I thought my mother an exceptional woman, but she, I know, is interested in many subjects merely because they interest me." Helen did not respond to the first remark of this kind, nor during the first vacation. But the time came when she did.
At the outset of her acquaintance with Philip she committed one grand mistake. She presumed that he sought his own gratification above all things in giving to her, as did she in receiving from him. No judgment, however, could have been more erroneous. He found her in his path disabled and comparatively helpless. He lifted and carried her along with him, because it was the thing to be done, with no thought of pleasing himself, or of finding a reward in her gratitude and companionship. These were both pleasant when they came, it is true, as he felt and acknowledged. His busy and somewhat secluded life afforded him few opportunities of meeting those in whose presence he would have delighted, and quite naturally Helen became the repository of much that in herself she did not command. Her mistake in crediting to herself what was in strict truth due to favorable surroundings is not surprising, however, when taken in connection with her talent, culture and conceit. If she worshiped Philip Dean, she certainly reckoned the act to her praise and felt entitled to homage in return, as certain saints adore the mercy of God in saving their souls while secretly cherishing approbation of his selective wisdom. Yet one thing troubled her. She did not doubt that she was beloved. The days were full of assurance for her, full of actions, but never a word to fully correspond. Words enough certainly, but the manner of utterance did not suit her; kind words, gentle words, nay, even tender words, but-had she not known better-words that he might have addressed to any one else situated toward him as she was. She did know better. She knew that in all the universe she only of all women might with any propriety listen to such words from the lips of Philip Dean. She knew that he also was aware of this fact. But he did not unmistakably say so and call for her response. This troubled and sometimes irritated her. But, firm in the faith, she preserved her outward equanimity. Philip was poor, his plans in life un- page: 124-125[View Page 124-125] formed, her own health still delicate. A dozen prudential reasons there were for his silence. A speedy marriage could not be thought of. But she did not look for that, only a positive external expression of his love. With that she could trust him any number of eternities, believing as she did that she was that other and indispensable half of Philip Dean without which he was an inconceivable quantity-in truth, was not at all. This was the rock whose firm foundation never failed her in her often very trying position.
As time passed, Mrs. Dean became conscious of something in the atmosphere, but Helen, lynx-eyed and wary, detected and baffled her attempts to define it. Not that she consciously doubted Mrs. Dean's approval. She knew, however, that when the word came from Philip, the mother would acquiesce in any event. For this word she waited and planned, to this word postponed Mrs. Dean.
Aunt Rachel could never feel herself de trop. She was always welcome to walk or ride, talk or read, with Philip and Helen. Philip's beautiful smile and outstretched hand whenever his mother appeared were not more ready than Helen's manifest pleasure.
"Come, mother!" and as Philip drew her to a seat beside him, Helen joined them with evident entire satisfaction. The one question settled, Helen's satisfaction would in reality have been entire. She loved Philip's mother. But the unsettled question vexed her, kept her in a chronic state of internal dissatisfaction and expectation.
Away at college, Philip received a weekly detailed report of the home-life from Helen. She became an integral part of the family, identified with its plans and pursuits, its sorrows and joys. Mrs. Dean alternately trusted and repudiated her impressions, and the doubt kept her silent, doubt at last whether Philip were not himself interested. The doubt was not pleasant to the mother. Helen Murdock could not be her choice for her son, and usually she ignored the possibility.
The years glided on. College-life ended. Life in the West began for Philip Dean, a hard, unlovely life in a new country. At the end of three years he succeeded in locating as mining engineer in a young and thrifty town, and then for the first time since he left turned his steps homeward for a short visit.
Helen bore his absence well-so well that Mrs. Dean heartily repented of her groundless suspicions. They worked together in the school, which it was still necessary to continue. Helen, it is true, had not the strength to sustain any considerable share of the burden, but what she could do she did cheerfully. Every day brought so much nearer the sure and wished-for goal, the one desire of her life, the end which inspired all her efforts. Take away Philip Dean, page: 126-127[View Page 126-127] and Helen Murdock's interest in the universe would not have encumbered the impoverished soul of a miser. Many idyls have been sung in praise of such love, many more than will be again.
Philip came at last, and now the days went by to Helen as to one awaiting sentence of death or acquittal. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick. A weaker faith than hers had trembled for the result. Hers did not.
One day, as the end of Philip's vacation approached, he appeared with his book at the door of the library. He glanced around the room. "Is mother away?"
"Yes, but I am here," answered Helen.
"You will not want me in such company;" and he held the book toward her. "Mother is the only woman I know who can tolerate metaphysics."
"Do stay," said Helen.
"And read aloud?"
"Of course. I can follow if you lead."
"Can you? But I'll not vouch for the leadership. I expect to lose myself and discard the universe before I get through. You will have nothing left to follow, I assure you, not even the ghost of a moonbeam."
"I can be extinguished with you."
"Certainly," said Philip, laughing. "You are a brave little woman, and I accept your companionship, and if everything else vanishes out of existence, I shall expect your black eyes to preserve the balance and insist upon the world of realities."
The answering smile in those same black eyes was perfectly triumphant, and it met Philip whenever he for a moment stopped reading and raised his own. It made him unaccountably uneasy. "This is too bad!" he said at length. "I won't bother you with such nonsense any longer."
"Shall you finish the book yourself?"
"Oh yes. I want to use it, and must follow to the last jumping-off place."
"Don't go away, then."
"But you are surely not interested?"
"Yes, I am, if you are."
Her look and manner told the story, if her words did not-had told it for the last hour.
Philip started as if a bombshell had exploded at his feet. He rose from his chair, stood a moment, tried to make a commonplace response, failed, and sat down again. He looked at the agitated girl before him, wondered where he was and what had happened, and ended by pronouncing her name in a tone of mingled sympathy, astonishment and despair.
"Helen!"And she burst into a passionate fit of weeping.
Philip Dean was a noble man. His high chivalric sense of womanhood could not endure the page: 128-129[View Page 128-129] sight before him. A woman suppliant for the favor of a man! Not if he were the man! He laid aside his metaphysics, leaned forward, and blushing like a girl, drew Helen's hands from her eyes and retained them within his own. She misunderstood his action. He wanted to confer with her as a friend. But her own feelings overwhelmed her. She imputed the same feelings to him, as she had done for years, and filled with joy unspeakable, betrayed the whole secret of her heart. He saw himself implicated, invaded, in the possession of another, and according to that other, with his long-ago given consent. He saw himself the possessor for years of this woman's undivided heart.
Words were useless. He had but to accept the position and make the best of it, unless- The thought of repudiation did occur to him, but it was not to be harbored in the presence of Helen Murdock, and at this especial juncture. He accepted the position, and she was happy.
Mrs. Dean did the same. How it came to pass she did not know-she never knew. A man capable of such heroism is incapable of talking about it. The facts were before her. Her son was the accepted lover of Helen Murdock, herself the future mother of her charge. Mrs. Dean looked once into Philip's honest blue eyes when he brought Helen to her, and saw more than she could have wrung from him, even if disposed to fathom the mystery against his consent. Then she turned and kissed Helen.
After this the lives of the three went on outwardly much as usual. There was little change in their daily pursuits. Philip had shut up the school. His mother protested, but in vain. "You are positively discharged," he wrote, "and must seek occupation elsewhere. I most earnestly recommend, however, that you retire from active service." But Mrs. Dean replied, "I am not yet wholly disabled, my son," and was soon as busy as ever in her old field of labor-the church parish and the sick world beyond. Into this field Helen did not care to enter. She tried to get up some enthusiasm upon the subject, but failed. The sight of misery was unbearable to her, and besides, she once said, "The work seems to me like pouring water into a sieve. You have no more when you leave off than when you began, and are all worn out for your pains."
"Your are sick yourself," answered Philip, "and are not therefore competent to judge. You should not indulge in mother's luxuries until you are stronger. I wish she were less extravagant in this respect."
Helen received the rebuke as a tender and careful thought for herself, only too glad to be exonerated from a distasteful pursuit. Mrs. Dean listened, but said nothing. After this, however, she did not ask Helen's help or society in works page: 130-131[View Page 130-131] of charity, which she quietly forwarded even when oppressed with school and family cares. Obedient to Philip's behest, she transferred her school in the spring before his return home. Thenceforward her own life found other channels of usefulness, and Helen was left undisturbed to her dreams. For, do what she would, in whatever key the music of her life was set, you may be very sure the one dream was always present, heard as an undertone through all changes, accompanying all variations.
And now it was set to love-love open and avowed. True, Philip was a very philosophical lover, but then he was a philosophical man. He must study and grow, although a lover. Life was a real thing to him, and work, work. Helen contented herself with this view of the subject, and after the first few happy days subsided into her usual avocations-walked and rode with Philip, practiced, copied and listened to books in which he delighted, and embroidered everlastingly. The sense of possession compensated for the absence of much that she had looked forward to when this time should come. "He is mine," she mused, and he, unfettered by aught save the claims of his own soul, looked into the girl's happy eyes and was glad for her.
When he left for the West, it was with the understanding that he should return the next summer for his wife.
CHAPTER VIII.
MISS MURDOCK rose when Faith entered the library, and with unusual warmth welcomed her to Arden. Faith, who was now for the first time made aware of Miss Murdock's existence, received her with reserve until Mrs. Dean, observing, said, "My future daughter." Helen's face brightened with pleasure. It was not often that Mrs. Dean alluded to that future relation. Faith said, "Indeed, I did not know," and responded becomingly.
The rain continued to fall gently, making out-of-door pleasures impossible. Helen turned again to her drawing, though not with the same absorption as before. She listened to the conversation between the two who sat there sewing, and often stopped to ask a question or offer an observation.
"Let me help you, Mrs. Dean," said Faith.
"Do you like to sew?"
"No, I think not."
"Don't, then. I am not hurried."
"But I should like to help you."
page: 132-133[View Page 132-133]After a while she inquired: "This is charity work, is it not?"
"Yes."
"Aunt Rachel is a martyr to the cause," said Miss Murdock, smiling pleasantly at her own remark.
Faith looked up at the speaker. "And you?" she questioned.
"I? Oh, I cannot afford that;" and then, a moment after, "I see no end to the work, in fact. One might almost as well not make a beginning."
"I don't see why," answered Faith. "Do you, Mrs. Dean?"
"No, I do not."
"I only speak for myself. I have been told that I must not indulge in such luxuries," said Miss Murdock, curtly.
Her words and manner of putting the subject were quite mysterious to Faith, whose face probably betrayed her, for Mrs. Dean added, "Helen has all her life been an invalid, and is not able to endure much."
"She is right in saying there is no end to the work. Is she not, Mrs. Dean?"
It would, of course, be impossible for any one person to make an end of it. Fortunately, however, no such responsibility devolves upon us."
"Upon whom then, Mrs. Dean?"
"Upon society at large."
"Then why does not society discharge its responsibilities?"
"It is doing so. It can go no faster nor farther toward beneficent ends than the truth leads, and knowledge of the truth comes only by experience."
"We are a part of society, Mrs. Dean?"
"Yes, and responsible for our influence. We help or hinder the work, each one of us in our degree."
"Still, I cannot see that we, either as individuals or as society, are finally responsible for the imperfections and miseries of our life," said Faith, with a troubled air.
"By no means."
"Who then?" was the eager inquiry.
"The Creator," answered Mrs. Dean, quietly.
Faith drew a long breath of relief. Here was a simple, straightforward, reasonable answer at last to this soul-distracting question. She expected no such response. But after a moment came the rest of her trouble. "Is he a benevolent Being, Mrs. Dean?"
"Yes."
"Then how can he permit so much misery?"
"He cannot help it."
"Can he not do as he pleases?"
"He does do as he pleases."
Faith was thoroughly mystified. Mrs. Dean continued, quietly: "He cannot create us good. page: 134-135[View Page 134-135] He cannot create good. That would be to create himself, who is essential good and uncreate. All he can do is to impart good to us who are by nature evil."
"He created us," said Faith.
"He created us," responded Mrs. Dean.
"But I mean, if our nature is evil, he gave it to us."
"Nature is evil, in the nature of things-our nature-all nature. It is not God who is the only good. It is necessarily evil, not in the sense of being wrong, however, but simply as the opposite of good. Night is the opposite of day, its shadow. You cannot say that God create evil in any other sense than the tree its shadow. In that sense you can. Nature, whose highest form is man, considered physically and morally, is but the shadow of God-his utter negation."
"Are we nothing but shadows?" ejaculated Faith.
"Only as we receive of God's life, which is not natural, but spiritual, mere shadows, nothing but evil. Receiving of his life, we are eternally created into his image and likeness."
"It is a new thought and very suggestive," said Faith, "but I do not see its bearings upon my difficulty. I am just as much puzzled to know the need of suffering."
"There is no suffering in the perfect life of nature-would be none in our life if we were allowed to remain subjects of nature, as are plants and animals. But infinite love yearns to create a form so high that it can receive and respond to itself. It does so. It creates man by means of this inflowing life. But the process is painful to us. God's life opposes ours. Gradually, however, through suffering we learn the quality of that life, and freely renounce for it our own natural life. But for this experience we should remain contented animals to the end of the chapter. Do you see?"
"I see something that I never saw before. But if, as seems, evil, sin and suffering are necessary concomitants of our existence, I should think God would be sorry for us."
"You are right. He is sorry. Christ's life, or God's manifest, was the saddest, most suffering life the universe has ever known."
Faith was silent. She remembered similar words from her father, and for the first time since his death allowed her thoughts to dwell upon his never-to-be-forgotten teaching. The rain without fell silently, and within the quiet was also unbroken. Mrs. Dean volunteered nothing further, and Helen bent in silence over her drawing. Here, in the room where the father's soul had been tried, sustained and comforted, a heavenly peace descended into the heart of his child.
"I do not altogether understand," she said, renewing the subject some days after, and in reply to an explanation by Mrs. Dean. "What you say page: 136-137[View Page 136-137] seems true, the only truth, yet I could not convey your ideas to another."
"Wait until Philip comes," said Helen. "He will make it all clear to you." Miss Murdock had asserted the same thing a dozen times at least before this.
Faith smiled now as she answered: "Has Philip some infallible mental recipe for obtuse intellects, or is he able to transfer his own clearness of vision to another?"
Helen resented this flippant, almost irreverent mention of her deity, and replied, with some asperity, "He might not be able to help you. I judged from my own experience, but that, in the nature of the case, is exceptional."
"Not necessarily exceptional, I should say," responded Mrs. Dean. "But Faith must read and think for herself. No one can live either mentally or otherwise for another."
"Certainly not," said Faith.
Helen flushed angrily. "I think," she said, "that there can exist a relation of such absolute oneness between two people that each will understand the other perfectly and intuitively. This was what I meant when I said that, in the nature of the case, my experience is exceptional. Of course no one else can understand Philip as I do. Faith may not be able to do so at all. You know, Aunt Rachel, that many persons, New Churchmen even, declare that book of his quite incomprehensible."
"Has he written a book?" inquired Faith.
"It is simply a course of lectures that he delivered before his little congregation," said Mrs. Dean.
"I did not know that he was a minister. I thought him some sort of an engineer."
"He is an engineer. But my son's religious views are a great delight to him, and a handful of sympathizers off there in that Western city wished him to meet and talk with them on Sunday and lead in their simple worship. These gatherings are a source of great pleasure to him. His time during the week is of course too much occupied to admit of his writing for them, but his friends seem quite satisfied with what he gives them extemporaneously. The lectures were, however, carefully prepared, and called together comparatively large audiences. They were published at the request of many who heard them."
"What are the subjects of the lectures?"
"These very questions that are interesting you."
"Is it possible? Have you the book? I should very much like to read it."
"You would not understand a word of it," said Miss Murdock, decidedly. "It's as much as ever that I do."
"It would surprise me if you did not," said Mrs. Dean. "But there are other things that you must read first."
page: 138-139[View Page 138-139]"You mean Swedenborg," said Faith, glancing in dismay at the library shelves, which contained in formidable array the complete writings of the great Swedish seer.
"You know nothing until you know him," remarked Miss Murdock.
"Faith knows something already, I trust," said Mrs. Dean, with a smile, "but I believe she will find the key to what she now wants in Swedenborg."
"I doubt if she finds it alone, Aunt Rachel. Do you not think it would be well for her to read aloud with us?"
"I prefer to read by myself," said Faith.
Mrs. Dean nodded approvingly, and Faith took the book which she gave her and went to her own room.
Thither I will not follow her. Those who have been tried, as was this young girl, through whatever experience-for the human heart is the same under all external dissimilarities-and have found in Swendenborg the key to this enigma of life, will be able to do so without any words of mine; those who do not receive him would not probably listen to me, and this brief mention must suffice for that large class, at the present day, of those who know nothing of this remarkable man and his still more remarkable mission.
One day, about two months after Faith's arrival in Arden, the three ladies were sitting in the library, and the postman brought a letter for Miss Murdock. "Cousin David," she said, glancing at the superscription. She broke the seal, and in a moment exclaimed, "He will be here in a few days! Listen! You will see that I have been talking about you, Faith. 'Your mention of Miss Reid interests me. I wish you had said more. One does not often meet with a woman like her nowadays. You observe I am getting on in years, and already look back to the days when all things were fairer and people truer than in the now-time. As I was saying, one does not often meet with a woman nowadays, and a young woman, too, who has either time, mind or heart for ideas that seemingly engross Miss Reid. Excepting my fair cousin, of course, young ladies as I see them think a great deal about dress, diamonds and matrimony, with a handsome establishment, if possible, and they think very little of anything else. Miss Reid must be like refreshing rain in a desert. You don't appreciate her, I see' (Helen blushed a little. Her first reading of the letter had been hurried), 'and I beg of you don't torment her with your visionary, transcendental, Swedenborgian notions. She's sufficiently tormented now. Leave her alone until I come. I have been through the thicket where she is now, and know the way out. I shall be delighted to act as pilot to her, and herewith beseech from you and Mrs. Dean a favorable notice of myself, not my faith--you page: 140-141[View Page 140-141] neither of you appreciate that-in advance; that is if your consciences will permit.'"
"I can answer for my conscience," said Mrs. Dean. "Judge Murdock is a gentleman and scholar. But I should not choose him for a pilot in spiritual waters."
"He is intolerable," said Miss Murdock, "and I should advise Faith to have nothing to do with him. He will confuse her hopelessly."
"I doubt it. I should think poorly of the stability of any mind that could be hopelessly confused in an hour's conversation with a person like your cousin."
"He entertains positive opinions, Aunt Rachel."
"But never obtrudes them."
"I don't know about that. I think he does."
"Well, supposing he does, where's the danger?" said Faith.
"Simply, he disbelieves in Swedenborg, and will disturb your impressions of him."
"If that were possible, the impressions would be of little service to me," answered Faith. "I shall be glad to talk with Judge Murdock."
"Philip would disapprove, I am sure," said Helen.
"And pray what is Philip to me?" retorted Faith, sharply.
"You said you thought his book wonderful," replied Miss Murdock, amazed at the new exhibition of character.
"I said that it helped me wonderfully," said Faith, dropping her voice; "but what has that to do with Judge Murdock?"
"Only this, if you accept Philip's views, what possible interest can those of my cousin have for you?"
"Philip's views! I don't intend to accept Philip's views. I purpose entertaining my own. I was not aware either that Philip claimed property in his views. I thought him simply an exponent of Swedenborg. And for that matter, if I understand, the great seer himself arrogates no title to the truth he enunciates. Nor does he profess to, or think that he can, see truth for another. Every one must read and judge for himself, and I know of no better way to judge of anything than by contrast. This is the method Philip uses. He places Swedenborg's philosophy side by side with that of other philosophers. Of course he was obliged to study other philosophers. If Judge Murdock disbelieves Swedenborg, let him show why. That's all I have to say, except that I shall not run away if he comes here."
"You are incomprehensible to me," said Miss Murdock. "Of course, Philip must examine those subjects with his man's intellect and decide what is true, but for a woman to make the attempt seems to me inconsistent and disorderly."
"What you mean by disorderly I don't know, and as for the other word, I have never for an in- page: 142-143[View Page 142-143] stant supposed Swedenborg to exonerate woman from thinking for herself. If he does, my common sense repudiates the idea."
"You will think differently some day, will she not, Aunt Rachel?"
"I hope not, my dear."
"Why, Aunt Rachel, what can you mean?"
"I mean that your appreciation of woman seems to me immature."
"But, surely, Aunt Rachel, Swedenborg teaches-"
"That women have no intellects?"
"No, not that exactly."
"Well, then, that they shouldn't use their intellects?"
"That seems nearer the truth-they shouldn't live from their intellects. I can't express the precise idea, but you know."
"I know what is in your mind, and that it is far from the real truth. You read Swedenborg by the light of this and past ages, while he is far in advance. The ideas of woman which you deduce from him differ not one whit from those that have always reduced her to subjection and inferiority. Swedenborg, on the contrary, sees her the omega of created forms, the highest, most perfect and beautiful, the crown and glory of humanity. You have often heard Philip use this same language."
Helen was silent. She had often heard Philip talk in the same way, but she had heard without understanding. Certainly there was nothing in her that responded, except as he addressed her personality-a personality in bondage to ideas that have ruled the man's and woman's kingdom ever since men and women were. When Philip spoke of womanhood in the glowing dialect of the soul, Helen saw only what she was to him what he wanted and found in her.
page: 144-145[View Page 144-145]CHAPTER IX.
JUDGE MURDOCK came, and as he inquired particularly for Faith, she chose to see him. Not that she was interested in him or in what he had to say. If nothing had been urged, and especially by Miss Murdock, against his probable influence over her, she might have declined his acquaintance. His relationship to Helen was not to his advantage, in her estimation. Faith did not covet an extension of that atmosphere. And besides, she was thoroughly engaged in the study of Swedenborg. Naturally, she would avoid opposition.
But Helen Murdock exasperated her. "I wouldn't go," said that young lady, coming into the library with the request of the judge. "Would you, Aunt Rachel? By the way, he wants to see you too."
Faith rose. "Really," she said, "if it were not too absurd one might think you serious." Mrs. Dean said nothing, but led the way to the parlor.
The judge was a gentleman. He had an unaccountable desire to approach Miss Reid, a desire increased by her presence, but the precedence was due to Mrs. Dean.
He talked with ease and grace, held the attention of his auditors, charmed and interested them. Even his cousin Helen could not altogether escape the fascination. She laughed at his quiet humor, except when directed toward herself, and for a time forgot her own universe in his descriptions of Washington life and people. Mrs Dean was interested in the politics of her country, and the judge, although committed to party, inasmuch as he held a seat in the House of Represenatives, was yet able to look at both sides of a question and appreciate its bearings as a moral rather than strictly political issue. He had lived uprightly and conscientiously, his tastes and associations were refined and cultivated. He was in the prime and vigor of manhood, notwithstanding he spoke of himself as an old gentleman. Mrs. Dean enjoyed his society, and Faith listened to their conversation with real pleasure. A few minutes before leaving he turned to her: "You have never visited Washington, Miss Reid?"
"No, nor heard as much about it as you have told us."
"Don't let my cousin prejudice you against us, I beg. She is persuaded that no good thing can possibly come out of our capital city. I trust page: 146-147[View Page 146-147] your faith in your country's saviours is more orthodox?"
"Meaning you Congressmen, I presume."
"Yes."
"I incline to believe everything good until proven bad."
The judge's eyes sparkled with pleasure. "I approve your answer, Miss Reid."
"One needn't always wait for proof," said Miss. Murdock. "Some things are unmistakably bad."
"Now, my unmerciful cousin, it can't be that your sweeping criticism is aimed at Washington?"
"If the shoe fits-you know the rest, cousin."
"Thank you for leaving the decision with me. I am a competent witness. You must go elsewhere with your shoe."
"You are fond of joking," said Miss Murdock, contemptuously. "According to your own admission, however, Washington is a very hotbed of iniquity. It's full of infidels, too; but that of course," she added, indifferently.
"Have a care, cousin. You will admit that words are of doubtful force and significance when I tell you that I have heard that one, oftener than any other, applied to you Swedenborgians. Haven't I the best of the argument now, Miss Reid?"
"I think you have, judge."
Miss Murdock was disgusted, and showed it.
"He couldn't persuade me with his sophistry," she said, after the judge had left.
"Whom has he persuaded?" inquired Faith.
"I don't think it right to allow an advantage to infidels."
"If your cousin is the infidel and had an advantage, you certainly gave it to him.
"Indeed I did not. I only spoke the truth. One might suppose that you do not accept Christianity as the only true religion."
"One is at liberty to suppose what one pleases with regard to my belief. I grant the same liberty that I take. My belief concerns no one but myself."
"You are cross," said Miss Murdock, pouting. "I only desire your good. I am older, and have had more experience than you. I know my cousin. Philip, too, says he is a sophist."
"I suppose that makes him one."
"How scornfully you always speak of Philip! You wouldn't if you knew him. I should think you might know him better than you seem to. He is--"
"I beg your pardon, Helen, but really Philip, his character, his opinions or himself do not in the least concern me. I will endeavor not to offend you in the future, however. As for your cousin, I am agreeably disappointed in him. I like him. One good turn deserves another. In the future page: 148-149[View Page 148-149] you will, I hope, reserve your unfavorable criticism of him."
Helen Murdock opened her eyes wide. She looked intently at Faith, about whom were indications of unusual excitement. Her color was brilliant, almost painfully so, her eyes said many things-bewilderment, impatience, weariness. Helen Murdock jumped at once to an altogether characteristic conclusion. "Is it possible?" she thought. Nature is more powerful than creeds. Her cousin's infidelity assumed a secondary importance in her eyes. "If it were but possible," was her second thought, succeeded quickly by another, to which, without reflection, she gave utterance. She followed Faith to the foot of the stairs, and laying a friendly hand upon her shoulder, whispered, "I wish it were not so, but indeed, dear, my cousin is not a marrying man."
Faith flashed upon her. She stamped with rage. "You, Helen Murdock!" she ejaculated, shook her rudely off, ran up stairs and shut violently the door of her own room. Thither, after a while, Mrs. Dean followed, and persuaded her forth for a walk.
They strolled down into the valley. Even here the irrepressible rocks of New England appeared above the surface of the earth, but here also mosses, ferns and wintergreen were to these what the grace of genuine kindliness is to the hard New England character. Gentle elevations, sheltered by clumps of pine trees, diversified the valley. Mrs. Dean and Faith ascended one of these, and sat down upon the fragrant bed of needles underneath the pines. The brilliant rays of the afternoon sun were tempered by a lovely haze that veiled as with gossamer the distant heights, the town on the hillside, and the valley around them. The river glanced and gleamed and sparkled, and sung its own song of gladness, going on for ever toward the bosom of the sea.
Faith leaned her head wearily against the great tree under whose shade she was sitting. Her cheeks were hot, her eyes bright, her lips closely pressed to keep back a tide of emotions. Mrs. Dean saw, and waited until she was ready to speak. At last the word came, slowly and with effort:
"It is wicked and weak, I know, but-"
"But what, dear?"
The great tears were slowly falling. "I cannot bear it. I cannot live. Every day it seems harder. I say nothing-"
"I know it, dear."
"But it seems as if my heart would break with this desolation. I want my father, and-" Here the voice broke down utterly, and Mrs. Dean drew the sobbing child to her bosom.
"I have no one," she cried, brokenly.
"Hush, hush, my child."
"I cannot. Every one has some one. God is cruel to me. He cannot be kind or just. I don't page: 150-151[View Page 150-151] love him. I don't believe in him, not one bit, Mrs. Dean."
It was in vain to stem the torrent. She went on, "You have your son, and Helen is eternally talking about her Philip, and, and-"
"My child, I love you as my own daughter, as my son," said the gentle, motherly voice.
The child raised her eyes to the loving face of the matron. Then she closed them and lay quite still, while the afternoon shadows lengthened in the valley. By and by the low, short chirping of the birds warned them of approaching night.
CHAPTER X.
THE judge called the second time, to tender his adieu, as Mrs. Dean supposed. But she learned differently. "You make a flying visit, as usual, cousin," said Miss Murdock.
"My plans are unformed," he said. "I may tax your patience for some time yet."
"I thought you considered Arden an insupportable place?"
"Discipline is good for the soul, cousin. That is a doctrine of yours, I believe, but I think of adopting it into my creed for a while."
"Your creed," she answered, with a short laugh: "I didn't know that you had a creed."
"Certainly not. I have always told you that you know nothing of your cousin. I have a creed, and am constantly enlarging it. In that respect at least I have an advantage over you. Mine is a growing institution. What say you, Miss Reid?"
"If you have fairly stated the case, I must render a verdict in your favor," responded Faith.
"Of course," said Miss Murdock, in a peculiar page: 152-153[View Page 152-153] tone. "Well, cousin, if I can see you again I will be excused this morning;" and she trotted out of the parlor.
Mrs. Dean and the judge sustained the conversation. Faith listened as before. Yet often he turned to her with a question or remark, and oftener still his gray eyes rested upon her face so full of sweet womanly intelligence and a sadness that illy suited a countenance so young--rested, Mrs. Dean observed, as if loth to turn away.
The judge was no Jesuit. He advocated his ends openly, and pursued them unflinchingly. He resorted to no trickery, nor debased himself with double dealing of any sort, either toward others or, more fatal still, toward himself. The thing that he seemed to do was the thing that he did do. His faith in human nature, his belief in human destiny and his inspiration to work he found in a certain blind though not unreasoning reliance in the necessary consequences growing out of established order, nor did he at all trouble himself with inquiries as to the meaning of that order, its beginnings or its source. He was a comfortable companion, a reliable friend and an honest man. The guardian of his cousin and her nearest relative, he usually went to Arden once a year to look after her interests, and, as he said to her, "rub up his theology in a quarrel with her and a Christian conversation with Mrs. Dean. Don't flatter yourself that you and Mrs. Dean agree, cousin. If you do, you talk in different dialects. But you don't. The creed doesn't exist that would suit any two people."
Helen sniffed her disapproval of this sentiment. "You don't know what you are talking about," she said.
His present visit to Arden promised to be longer than usual. Indeed, he announced after Miss Murdock had retired that he had been looking at Arden with new eyes, and "wondered if the summer months might not be passed here pleasantly."
"Are you speaking for yourself?" said Mrs. Dean.
"Yes."
"Not seriously, of course."
"Why not?"
"Why? would be a more appropriate question. I can't imagine your spending the summer months in Arden."
"Again, why not?" The judge smiled, but spoke with decision, and Mrs. Dean answered,
"I beg your pardon. I had no idea of questioning your movements. Your life is in other and far different worlds than any you would find in Arden. That was my thought."
"Has been. Yes, and-you are right-is. For that very reason I welcome a complete change. Fate mercifully ordains such, in our hard, matter-of-fact, otherwise unbearable lives of routine."
"Providence," said Mrs. Dean.
page: 154-155[View Page 154-155]"As you will. I do not at all object; if your belief in an intelligent, overruling Providence satisfies you, I would not weaken it, I assure you."
"I am not satisfied," interposed Faith.
The judge turned to her. Her eyes met his unfalteringly, with a mournful, questioning earnestness. "Why not?" he said.
Mrs. Dean spoke before she could answer: "You are learning, my child. Faith in Providence is not acquired theoretically. It is a life-experience."
"Experience teaches us the wisdom of submission to the inevitable," said the judge.
"Yes, and it teaches us something else," said Mrs. Dean.
"What?" inquired Faith.
"That only the decrees of love are inevitable."
"A sentiment that my philosophy endorses," said the judge.
"Pardon, if I say I doubt it."
"I expected that, Mrs. Dean. But you know that I always rebel against your Swedenborgian monopoly of the universal."
"Perhaps I have justified your criticism. If so, the fault is in me and not in Swedenborg. He monopolizes nothing. He includes all things. But you and I are not talking of the same thing, although we use the same words. Hence the divergence; and if you would take the trouble to judge Swedenborg for yourself, doubtless you would see more clearly than now the point of divergence."
"You are a candid and eloquent pleader," said the judge, smiling; "but I was not made for his philosophy, I believe, nor does it seem to me essential."
"The truth that we can use is essential." "But the truth that we do not want we cannot use."
"No; yet the converse of that is true, and man learns his special needs through sympathy with the needs of others-as far as may be, all others."
"Your argument is unanswerable, Mrs. Dean. I give it up. Appalling as the prospect unquestionably is, I see no escape for me. I must give Swedenborg a hearing. A philosophy that you find essential must hold something for me also. I wonder," he added, rising suddenly, "if a walk is not essential to one or both of you ladies? The afternoon is wondrously beautiful, and the valley looks enchanting. It is years since I stood beside that river."
"We were down there yesterday," said Mrs. Dean.
"And do not care to go again to-day?"
"How is it with you, Faith?"
"I am always ready for a walk. It seems a sin to stay indoors such weather."
page: 156-157[View Page 156-157]"Will you accompany Judge Murdock?"
"Yes, with you."
"I cannot go to-day."
Faith left the room for her hat and shawl.
Mrs. Dean looked troubled.
"I hope I have your approval," said the judge, with straightforward simplicity.
Mrs. Dean did not answer.
"Pardon me," he said; "I did not anticipate this. I leave the matter in your hands."
"I did not anticipate this either. The child is to me as my own."
"Well?"
"She is greatly in need of genuine help."
"Which I cannot give?"
"You will not misunderstand me when I say, No."
"Mrs. Dean," said the judge, speaking rapidly and earnestly, "there is but a moment. I have no wish to control Miss Reid's religious faith or opinions of any sort. To me, as you know, these matters are non-essential. But she attracts me powerfully. Have you confidence in me as a gentleman and man of honor?"
"Certainly."
"And do you accord to Miss Reid her freedom?"
"I have no right to do otherwise."
"No right?"
"No wish, then."
"Thank you. I shall endeavor to prove myself worthy of your trust."
Faith came in. Mrs. Dean invited the judge to return and take tea with them, and the two strolled away together.
page: 158-159[View Page 158-159]CHAPTER XI.
THERE is nothing unnatural or unusual in the sudden fancy of Judge Murdock. Life, society, men and women were hackneyed subjects, to him. He had tried them all without eliciting from any the elixir that would transmute his dross into gold. Every man and woman believes in this elixir-that somewhere and somehow all things are justified, contradictions reconciled, mysteries explained and the upward path made clear and straight. The soul reports faithfully of its own transcendent origin and destiny, and at times her voice is heard above the noise and din of the conflict on the battle-field of this outer world. There are intervals when the pursuit of fame, wealth, pleasure, or any merely selfish end, seems the cheat it really is, when the man would give all that they promise or can bring for the priceless pearl of a soul-satisfying good. At least he thinks he would. Yet how many of us can bear the test, voluntarily accept the sacrifice, and rise to the level of the good we aspire to? Not many. Trial, disappointment and failure-these are the golden gates through which the soul escapes from her bondage to nature, and draws the whole being up into a higher and purer atmosphere.
These gates had not been opened to Judge Murdock. He was what is termed a successful man, one of those born to good luck, as the saying is; with sufficient talent and ambition to hold his place, and not too much to excite the envy of his colleagues. These, joined to a cheerful temperament, healthy body and pleasing manners, easily won for him the respect of men and the admiration of women-too easily to bring lasting satisfaction. He wearied of both, and longed perpetually for fresh worlds to conquer. Helen Murdock's letter after Faith's arrival offered something new and attractive, something out of the tiresome routine into which life was degenerating. He asked questions and obtained a tolerable idea of the novelty-a very peculiar father and mother, an interesting, intelligent young girl out of all relation with the world around her, more eager to know how evil originated than to delude herself with any of its thousand disguises, with almost no knowledge of society,-here, indeed, was a mine worth exploring. If Faith had found favor in the eyes of his cousin, the judge would most likely have dismissed her without a thought. He did not relish that type of woman. But Helen Murdock's well-depicte page: 160-161[View Page 160-161] consternation at a character entirely unamenable to her own standard proved the best recommendation that Faith could have received. The annual visit to Arden included in his imagination a panacea for its other time dullness that promised to transform the little town into a temporary Eden. The real Faith Reid more than answered his expectations. Not that she had said much as yet. He knew, however, that she had ideas and could express them. Her bearing, manner, personal appearance and the atmosphere that surrounded her spoke for her. She listened and, as he was conscious, judged. He longed to encounter her simple, searching analysis of life as he knew it, of popular ideas and universally accepted conclusions. He longed to have her to himself, to talk with her alone.
The proposed walk was an inspiration of the moment. "Mrs. Dean may not go," he thought, and Mrs. Dean knew that he thought so. He was not prepared for her disapproval. He had not been used to that sort of thing, its exact opposite, rather. Of course he could not do justice to her fears, nor conceive of any help Faith Reid might require that he, Judge Murdock, could not render. Religious faiths he believed to be matters of education and temperament. Only bigots exalted them into tests of character, opening and shutting the gates of heaven at the dictum of their creeds. Mrs. Dean was not a bigot. The judge admitted that. Indeed, he had said to her, glancing slyly at his cousin, "I wonder how you ever came to be a Swedenborgian? Those of the faith that I know are absolutely intolerable in their assumptions."
"Aunt Rachel assumes all that any one does," replied Miss Murdock, decidedly. "She believes entirely in Swedenborg."
"I have no objection to that, so long as she does not quarrel with my disbelief."
"I don't see how she avoids it."
"I suppose not, cousin."
"No one ever learned intolerance from Swedenborg," said Mrs. Dean.
"I see no intolerance, Aunt Rachel, in insisting that four is the product of twice two." This was a favorite remark of Miss Murdock's.
"The problems of life demand a more complex mathematics than that," said Mrs. Dean. "The truth is adapted to all minds, and no one can fail of a right solution who endeavors to follow the right as he sees it"-a creed strictly Swedenborgian, but too catholic by far for Miss Murdock.
It suited the judge, however. He commended the wisdom of the sentiment and listened affirmatively to Mrs. Dean, when another, his cousin for instance, would have aroused his violent opposition. Still, he did not understand her attitude toward her young charge. Evidently, Miss Reid page: 162-163[View Page 162-163] was to be made an exception, and Mrs. Dean turn proselyte in her behalf. He observed that she really talked to Faith when replying to him, if the question were a religious or moral one. Their few words alone together also left him in no doubt that she deprecated the influence of his philosophy. He resolved, therefore, out of deference to a lady whom he greatly respected and admired, to further her views as much as he might negatively, by avoiding the presentation of conflicting ones, a resolution quite creditable, but, under the circumstances, difficult to adhere to. Faith had a way of asking direct questions and expecting direct answers.
"What do you mean, Judge Murdock, when you say that experience teaches us the wisdom of submission to the inevitable?"
"I meant what the words imply, Miss Reid."
"But what consolation is there in that idea? It may be wise to submit, as you say, but how are you reconciled to the inevitable?"
The judge hesitated. He wished to evade the subject. "What is your consolation?" he said, at length.
"I have none. At least, I am only learning, as Mrs. Dean said. I do not know. At times I believe in nothing. You said in a letter to your cousin that you had been through the thicket where I am and knew the way out. I conclude she had been telling you of my difficulties, although she knows little enough of me. Which is the way out?"
Again the judge hesitated. He walked slowly, looking down into the earnest upturned face, the questioning eyes that appealed to him for help. A delicious sense of power stole over him. He might become as a god to this virgin soul, transmute her doubts into the most unwavering trust, the most abiding confidence in himself-be her prophet of good things, her priest and confessor, her king and her all! The thought was pleasant. He smiled, and taking her hand to lead her into a smoother path, retained and drew it within his arm. "You want a guide," he said, speaking from his thought- "one who can remove all difficulties out of your way and make of life the beautiful dream it should be to such as you. You ought never to contend with obstacles."
"I don't understand you," answered Faith, vainly endeavoring to free her hand. He held it with a firm grasp. "I have been taught that every soul must fight its own battles. True, we can help each other. I thought perhaps you might help me."
"And so I can, Miss Reid, but to be honest I do hot feel at liberty to express my views to you."
"Why not?"
"Mrs. Dean would not approve. She wishes you to adopt her faith."
"Mrs. Dean is the dearest and best friend I have page: 164-165[View Page 164-165] -I had almost said the only one. I love her after my grandparents, but I cannot make an exception in her favor. You mistake her. Yet even if you did not, I must judge for myself. I cannot accept any one's faith. The proposition is absurd."
"You are strangely independent for one so young."
Faith was silent. She was learning independence in a bitter school. Time was that she had a guide, in whom she trusted implicitly, one who removed all difficulties out of her way and made of life, not a dream, but a bright and living reality. With the going down of that sun her world was left in darkness, night without a star, a darkness, too, that enveloped other lives as well as her own. Vainly she groped in the overwhelming gloom of her strange surroundings, vainly put out her hands, if haply they might encounter an abiding support. They closed upon empty air. Her hearthreaking cries were echoed and re-echoed from lives as empty of hope as her own. Her ship was wrecked, and all around her on the vast and dreary ocean others too were clinging, perhaps to wretched remnants of goodly vessels like hers, or worse still- and these she mostly saw-to fragments in dismal divorcement from their true belongings, only less dismal than the wretched freight they carried. This was the picture, rendered doubly harrowing by the sight of flaunting sails and gayly-painted hulls, that swept by regardless of so much misery that indeed bore cown the helpless and hapless strugglers, engulfing them in their own mighty waves, upon whose crests the victims rose only to bid farewell to the sun for ever! "Where art thou, God?" she cried, 'and who art thou?" Her brief experience in New York ended in disappointment. For a time her own earnestness possessed the field. She thought, as we all do, bringing a full heart to our work, "Surely this can be done," only to experience in the end the utter failure that must attend such individual efforts toward universal ends. We are not God, and cannot do his work. Happy are we if in learning this lesson we also learn the eternal importance of our own work. We cannot do his work, but neither can he do ours. Often did Faith say to Mr. Mosier, weary with the insupportable burden she had assumed, "It is useless to attempt anything. We might as well fold our hands and drift with the rest;" yet, if he seemingly acquiesced, as indeed, wishing to turn her thoughts into healthier channels, he often did, she would turn upon him with a stinging doubt that left no alternative but submission to the leading impulse of her life. Mr. Mosier could not meet the difficulty for her. He could not, indeed, meet it for himself. Experience taught Faith the wisdom of submission to the inevitable for others as well as for herself, but experience brought neither hope nor consolation.
She came to Arden, and found a warm, motherly page: 166-167[View Page 166-167] heart in whose tender embrace her own once more revived. This long-ago home of her dearest ones became daily more and more a home to her. At first, the associations kept painfully alive her sense of loss, but gradually they wrought their work for her, softening and subduing her heart, preparing the soul for good seed that should spring up hereafter to restore and bless. Here too she found the truth she needed. Mrs. Dean led her to the philosophy of Swedenborg. The gates were thrown open, and through them she saw the armies of the Lord Jehovah! Her father and mother were there bright among the glittering throng! Death lost its sting, the grave its victory!-- yea, sometimes, sorrowing, but no longer for them, which were impossible, a truth would flash before her vision, the one truth that sooner or later every child of God shall learn-that he alone is our light and our life, our salvation and our joy!
Finally she met Philip Dean-in his mother, in his letters and in his book. This was indeed a revelation. He too had pondered the questions that troubled her, and as we go to a wheat-field and gather the golden grain out of which we prepare our daily bread, so had he culled from the great seer and adapted to a common though intelligent apprehension the truth that should justify the ways of God to man. She recognized a guide in Philip Dean, an intellectual mentor. She saw in him a friend, a man whom her father might have honored, a man after his type-earnest, honest and true, gentle, chivalrous and loving. The knowledge aroused her. It opened undreamed-of doors, it brought her trembling and despairing into the presence of her own soul. Yes, despairing, for this royal soul was labelled "sold," and she passed her days in the presence of its owner. One perplexity was but the stepping-stone to another, and though submission might be wise, wherein was the reconciliation? Truly she was learning independence in a bitter school, but it could not be doubted that independence was the copy set, disheartening as were her attempts to follow.
Thoughts like these passed rapidly through her mind as she walked in silence beside the judge, he intent upon the varying expression of her face, and busy with the workings of his own mind and heart. "I cannot adopt any one's faith," he repeated to himself, yet the sweet womanly eyes and brow assured him that precisely this was the thing she would one day inevitably delight to do. Be it his faith that should guide her, himself that should mark her orbit. Be it his to astonish the venders of paste and galvanized wares with the prismatic rays of this most truthful gem! Did any one doubt his ability to inspire supreme confidence? Not the judge surely. Or love? He was accustomed to receive before asking. It was page: 168-169[View Page 168-169] late in the day to question his power now and in the presence of this wild wood-flower.
Such were his thoughts as he awaited a response to his last remark. It did not come, and after a while he added in a voice full of tenderness, "Independence will not bring you happiness, Miss Reid. You are formed for protection, love, worship."
"It matters little what one is formed for. One must accept what comes. I give you back your philosophy with my unanswered question."
"Ah, but not unanswerable, trust me. Life is full of compensation."
"Good! we approach a solution at last. Show me your compensation."
"Mine? I will. I give you in one word a panacea for any conceivable ill."
"Well?" Her eyes were raised eagerly to his.
"The word is love," said the judge, in a low voice.
She turned away. "You trifle with the theme," she said; "I did not expect it of you. I am disappointed, as usual," she added, to herself.
He could not mistake her, neither for once in his life could he lead as he pleased. He found himself playing a new role. The wild wood-flower resented his transplanting offices. It had a life of its own, which, would he enjoy its fragrance, he must respect, must learn its ways and adapt himself to them. Decidedly a novel character for Judge Murdock. But the difficulty enhanced the pleasure. He tasted a new flavor, and was ready to offer more for its continuance than did the king in ancient story for its discovery. How to attain his end was the cherished thought during the remainder of the walk and afterward through the evening.
"I think of spending a part of the summer here," he announced to the astonished Miss Murdock as he bade them adieu upon the porch, carrying with him the picture of Faith in her white dress standing by Mrs. Dean in the bright moonlight, her brown hair falling like a veil around the face that had so suddenly become the one in all the world for him.
page: 170-171[View Page 170-171]CHAPTER XII.
THEN he is in love with you," whispered Miss Murdock as they turned into the house, and from that moment the judge found favor in the eyes of his cousin. Love and lovers were words irresistible in her vocabulary, worth the entire dictionary besides. Indeed, the intrinsic importance of other words was not clear to the young lady's mind. That they revolved around these two as satellites around suns was to her a self-evident truth, and, rightly understood, is certainly a living truth for all. But Miss Murdock began at the wrong end, or rather she reversed the heavenly order and sent the universe of love spinning around her petty personality and other petty personalities-the dazzling, universal divine Sun shivered into atoms to illuminate and glorify the little satellites.
"In love with me!" answered Faith, with a flash of anger-why she knew not. "Surely a man's heart is not a thing for a woman to despise or an offering for her to resent," she thought, repentingly, after she had gone to her room. "I was not angry at him. He is a gentleman, and I like him, but I don't like her: I wish I did."
Next day there came a book to Miss Reid, with "the compliments of David Murdock"-one to which reference had been made in their conversation; the day following, an exquisite; bouquet of rare flowers; and so a week passed, every day bringing a memento either for Mrs. Dean or Faith, but no judge. At length Mrs. Dean received a pathetic note: "Won't you invite me to see you again? The days have seemed weeks while waiting for your summons."
"Shall I bid him come?" said Mrs. Dean, reading the note aloud.
"To be sure, Aunt Rachel," quickly responded Miss Murdock. "I thihk it too bad that you treat him so;" and she glanced pointedly at Faith.
"Treat him how?" said Faith, looking full at the speaker. "I wonder who knows what you mean?"
"I do," was the arch response.
"Shall I invite the judge?" said Mrs. Dean, addressing Faith. "Yes, do, by all means-that is, if you wish to."
The word was sent, and the judge came to a five-o'clock tea. Miss Murdock was in the gayest of moods, said pretty things and laughed at them, rallied her cousin on his sudden passion for Arden, and made herself generally conspicuous. The page: 172-173[View Page 172-173] judge received her pleasantries with the greatest gravity, assured her that he was but returning to his early love for the country, descanted upon the beautiful hills that rose like sentinels above their town, and doubted if a lovelier river could be found in all New England than the one that gladdened their landscape. "It is fine fishing-ground, too," he said.
"Have you tried it?"
"Certainly, cousin. I have explored the resources of this place, and can act as chaperone in any direction."
"How fortunate! Philip introduced me to the beauties, but Faith is yet a stranger to them."
"I beg your pardon, Helen; but I am not a stranger to them."
"At least you do not know the woods. I would scarcely venture in them alone myself. The paths are very intricate, but delightful beyond expression."
Faith said nothing.
The judge glanced at her, repressed a response to his cousin's remarks and adroitly turned the conversation. In fact, he took it upon himself altogether, and effectually silenced her. Mrs. Dean responded to him, and soon a new atmosphere was created. The evening passed pleasantly. After tea they adjourned to the southern porch, where, in delightful converse, they watched the day as it slowly retreated before the advancing footsteps of night. They talked of poetry and music. The judge recited well, and gave them choice passages from the ancient and modern gods. "The true artist is a prophet," he said. "The poet sees the truth, the musician feels it. Do you play, Miss Reid?"
"Yes."
"And sing, I know?"
"Yes."
"I have never heard you," exclaimed Miss Murdock. "Why do you never practice?"
"Will you sing for me?" asked the judge.
"Pray excuse me to-night," said Faith, speaking low.
Sing! She had sung for her father on the last night of his life, not since. There, away among strangers, her mother, prostrated by the coming blow, lying in helpless despair in an adjoining room-"Sing, my child," said the dying man, and, obedient to his, her spirit rose above the agony of the hour, and she sang, "There is a land of pure delight." Ah, yes. "Everlasting spring abides there, and neverfading flowers," but not to the child, not then to her. "Death like a narrow sea divides;" and the voice faltered and fell into anguish unutterable. Sing again! and for any one else! How was it possible?
Mrs. Dean understood, and would have come to the rescue if needful. It was not, however. page: 174-175[View Page 174-175] The judge understood also, not the circumstance, the reason why, but the thing itself, and with great tact and delicacy again led the talk into other channels. Faith saw and appreciated. Mrs. Dean rose and invited her guest into the parlor, whither Miss Murdock had betaken herself, and from whence issued sounds from the piano. Faith lingered.
"I thank you," she said, and turned to follow Mrs. Dean.
"Stay one moment," pleaded the judge. But he dared not trust the word that was in his heart. "If you would but command me in any way," he said.
She met his look frankly. Her eyelids did not droop nor the color rise. "You are very kind, and I quite undeserving. Come, your consin wants an audience."
When he rose to leave, Mrs. Dean said, "I did not understand your note, judge. I thought you felt at liberty to consult your own feelings in coming here. Pray do so in future."
"Thank you. I fear that I should trespass upon your patience were I to do that. Indeed, I hesitated before craving your grace for to-day."
"You would not, cousin, if you had known. Every one of us voted in favor of your visit when Aunt Rachel read your note."
The judge's countenance brightened. "What! you, Miss Reid?"
"I did-yes."
"Pardon the question: it was involuntary. I have no claim upon your welcome. Will you extend your kindness, and vote me a walk to-morrow? As my cousin says, the woods of Arden are worth knowing. I will undertake to guide you safely through all intricacies."
"Thank you," said Faith, slightly hesitating- "if Mrs. Dean will go."
"Certainly." The judge turned to his hostess. "It rests with you, madam."
"I will accompany you, judge."
Miss Murdock was disgusted again, but this time not with her cousin. He had her profoundest sympathy. When he came the next day, Mrs. Dean mentioned that she had a little matter of business with him, and went alone to the parlor.
"You have come to deliver sentence?" said the judge. "No. I hardly know what I have come for. I confess myself a good deal bewildered."
"I am glad of a word with you, Mrs. Dean. Of course I recognize your right and duty with reference to Miss Reid."
No response.
"And I cannot believe that a mere difference of opinion on questions that do not touch the practical life will influence you against me."
"Against you, judge?"
page: 176-177[View Page 176-177]"Are you surprised? Yes, against me. I am not skilled in artifice, as you know. My purposes are patent to any one who chooses to consider them. I would rather be the husband of Faith Reid than President of the United States."
I think it will never be," said Mrs. Dean.
"And why?"
"I think she would rather be something else than wife to Judge Murdock."
"At this present time, most likely. A month from now, with your permission, you will not say so. Without your permission I cannot certainly take another step. This I crave."
"Your lives could never harmonize."
"Let us decide that. You trust my honor? You believe me incapable of unkindness to any woman, much less the one whom I hold nearest and dearest of all?"
"But this sentiment upon which you are willing to stake your own future, judge, and hers also, is the growth of a night."
"A very mushroom, Mrs. Dean. I grant the appearance. In reality, it seems to me that I have all my life been awaiting her advent. Confess, now, religious opinions are the obstacle."
"I might truthfully answer both yes and no. I neither judge nor prescribe any one's religion, nor do I feel separated from those who differ with me in mere belief. Of this you must be aware. At the same time, standing apart as a witness in this matter, to an extent a responsible witness, I cannot remain unaffected by any attendant circumstance; neither can I, if I would, regard indifferently what seems to me of importance to Miss Reid. Still, it is a tenet of my faith that beliefs, growing, as they do, out of educational and other influences beyond our control, cannot be obligatory and ought not to be allowed to separate; and I wish to be true to my creed in my attitude toward you now. I object on other grounds. I cannot see in your two characters the elements of an abiding harmony. You belong to the world. Say what you will, I believe that you would think twice before renouncing the presidency of the United States-your ambition, in a word-for the thing that you call love, or, if willing to-day, it would assert its claims to-morrow. And what I mean is this: the ends of your life would never satisfy Faith; she would weary of the influences that surround you, and fail of finding in you the spiritual support and inspiration she needs."
"Mere speculation!" said the judge; "yet I do full justice to your fears. Still, it seems scarcely equitable to deny me-I may say us-a hearing; for although you set it down to vanity, I am not able to regard Miss Reid in the light of a victim should she love me well enough to become my wife."
Mrs. Dean was silent.
"Do you doubt the approval of her grandparents?"
page: 178-179[View Page 178-179]"I cannot say that I do. They would much prefer a churchman for their child; but the man whom she loved they would undoubtedly accept."
"She is lonely and desolate, Mrs. Dean."
"Yes."
"I will give my best thought and affection to her through life. You are a great believer in providence. An unexpected providence has developed our present surroundings. Will you take the responsibility of annulling these?"
Mrs. Dean smiled at this adroit application of her philosophy. She answered, "No, Judge Murdock, I cannot do that. Make your plea. I shall not oppose you, but neither can I help you. Do you understand?"
"Yes, and thank you. I could ask no more."
Mrs. Dean called Faith. She was in the library with Helen.
"I wish I were going too," said that young lady.
"And why not?" responded Faith, kindly.
"No one has asked me."
"Come then, go with me, and let your cousin take Mrs. Dean."
"Not I. I only wish to go in order to keep Aunt Rachel company, and leave you to Cousin David. But they did not ask me, so I shall not intrude, even with so laudable a purpose as that."
Miss Murdock vigorously attacked her embroidery, with a conscious air of not being appreciated. Faith surveyed her curiously, and, contrasting her present with her past attitude toward her cousin, left the library wondering under what head she might be catalogued.
page: 180-181[View Page 180-181]CHAPTER XIII.
MAKE your plea," said Mrs. Dean to the judge, and of course gave him the opportunity to do so. Her house was open to him, and he came and went at his pleasure. Often Faith saw him, sometimes she did not. She went as usual with Mrs. Dean on her charity missions, read, walked and performed necessary and inevitable tasks with her needle. No more than this for herself. Clothes were necessary since the fall, and therefore she tolerated plain sewing; -but embroidery and fine needlework, she was sure, indicated a more fatal lapse than any of which we have record. "And yet," said Miss Murdock, patiently weaving the magic pattern, "I know of no one who likes to wear embroidery better than you do."
"True, Helen; I plead guilty to the inconsistency. But I think it ought to grow with other beautiful things. I should dispense with it rather than do it, you may depend. It is quite as much as I can bear to see you ruining your eyes and shutting yourself away from living beauty for the sake of a wretched caricature."
"Suppose I give you this exquisite piece of handiwork? for exquisite it is."
"Certainly, I don't deny. Thank you! I shall be most happy," said Faith, laughing. "I freely admit my inconsistency, mind you. That, however, don't trouble me a particle. To stitch the embroidery would. But even if I had the patience, it would be a perfect waste of time for me to spend a week more or less over a square inch or so of perishable muslin."
"You would simply have less time for other things," said Helen-"your charity-school, for instance."
"That's so. But I prefer the charity-school, if you please;" and to the charity-school she went.
The one inaugurated so many years ago by Samuel and Anna Reid was still in existence and known as the Pastor's Mission. The memory of those faithful disciples of Christ lingered around the places that had known them so well, as the perfume of a fragrant flower in some cherished seclusion. No one had arisen with a like faith and enthusiasm, yet through the influence of Mrs. Dean and others the school continued an institution of Arden. And to the halt and lame and blind in various ways Faith was introduced as the pastor's daughter. The little ones who had never seen the pastor gathered around her as a friend, yea, and benefactor. Ah, what an hour was that for the child to encounter! How poor and selfish page: 182-183[View Page 182-183] did her own work appear, how blasphemous the discouragement that had overtaken her! "Shall I ever learn, Mrs. Dean?" she said as they slowly walked homeward from their first visit to the mission.
"Are you not learning?" was the cheerful answer. Of course she wanted to go into the mission-school, to devote herself to it, but she had a wise friend and counselor now. "You can do more and better than that," said Mrs. Dean. "The mission-school is one instrumentality for good. Help it all that you can without detriment to other and equally important interests."
"How is it possible for any other interest to be as important?"
"I understand your feeling, my child, and will say that if the removal of the evil were possible in this way, it should demand our first attention. But it is not. Our efforts, all individual efforts toward that end, are empty make-shifts--temporary, ineffective, and in a certain sense vicious expedients until society shall awake to the truth and its own duty."
"I don't know that I understand what you mean by society, nor why you hold it responsible, nor how the work is to be done. My father had a similar idea of the Church. I from him. Now I wonder at his faith. Yet it seems as reasonable as yours in society."
"It is not."
"You speak confidently. Did he know your views?"
"Not intimately. He was never weaned from his idea of the Church. He was compelled to ignore her doctrines, but never abandoned his hope in her as the future pioneer of the race."
"And do you not share that hope?"
"Not as the word Church is commonly defined. Yet I, too, believe that the Church, the Bride of the Lord, will bring forth the mighty fruits of the Spirit in every conceivable form of good to man. Institutions, however, do not constitute the Church. They are constituted by it."
"I see that, but I do not see your Church."
"The Church is a universal brotherhood, the answering unit to the universal fatherhood-' I in them and thou in me, that they may be perfect in one."
"The vision widens," said Faith. "Be patient and you will learn, my child-not for yourself, that were a poor incentive-but for all. Ideas rule the world. Be willing to use them, and you will receive. Here is another field of labor for you, another way in which you can help the Lord, besides feeding the hungry and clothing the naked as you have opportunity and means. Cultivate all your talents, not one merely."
"Helping the Lord! That sounds pleasant, Mrs. Dean."
page: 184-185[View Page 184-185]"Yes, it is pleasant. Nothing can be pleasanter."
"My father would have answered so. You recall him to me vividly and often." Mrs. Dean did not break the silence that followed. By and by Faith said, "But Helen is a Swedenborgian, and she, I am sure, does not see as you do."
"I am not a Swedenborgian, I hope. Do not so mistake me or him. It was no part of his mission to make Swedenborgians."
"I know. But it does seem a little strange that persons should see the same truth so differently."
"Not at all strange. No two minds are alike, and the forms of truth are infinite. 'In my father's house are many mansions.'"
"You help me," said Faith, heartily, and as often as conversations like this one occurred between the two. She was indeed helped by the clear-seeing soul of her friend, but far more by her life of active, cheerful, spontaneous benevolence. From both she gathered the daily bread of her Father's providing. And she grew. But the truth seen is not therefore our own. Truth always comes as a sword. The light that reveals its presence reveals also the enemy it is to conquer. Each advancing step, and other shadows of new and higher truths are around us. Our life is for ever from evening to morning and again from morning to evening. Perpetual day is only with the Infinite. Yet to perpetual day we aspire, to truth absolute, and this from the very constitution of our being. We image the absolute, and herein is the fundamental element of progress. Of conservation as well. The truth of to-day seems to us final. In a sense it is so. It is for ever the basis of to-morrow's truth. By and by we learn this by experience, and, no longer seeking to compel any truth out of true relations, come to accept gratefully and gladly, for ourselves and for all, simply the daily bread we need. Not at first, however. "Why," thought Faith, "if this be truth should any one doubt who hears it?" The thought was not restful. It suggested doubt. "My father found peace and satisfaction without the aid of Swedenborg," she said, to herself. "Others, too, have solved the mystery of life disbelieving rather than believing in his teachings. How do I know if it be not all a delusion? Certainly if some questions are clearer, others if possible more perplexing still are engendered by this strange philosophy." "I doubt if any one knows anything," she said one day to Judge Murdock.
"You might make out a worse case for humanity," he answered.
"Oh yes, I understand your creed, judge; and a most uncomfortable one it is too."
"That depends upon how you take it."
"There is nothing to take."
page: 186-187[View Page 186-187]"You are blind. My creed is as wide as the universe, and as full of meaning."
"I see nothing in your universe worth the trouble of desiring."
"Blind again. My universe is replete with beauty."
"And devoid of knowledge."
"You say so. I do not. You cannot accept the limitations of the finite. I, seeing it inevitable, do so willingly, and thus fall under your misapprehension and censure."
"Inevitable! I believe you love that word."
"Yes, I believe I do," said the judge, slowly.
"It mocks me."
"I know it."
"You are a fatalist."
"Perhaps so."
"And equally happy whether fortune smiles or frowns?"
No answer.
"I hope you are puzzled now?"
"I am not. I was simply wondering how my answer would impress you."
"Well?"
"I don't believe in ill fortune."
"Indeed! You interest me. I reverse my judgment. Your creed is an eminently comfortable one. But by what magic or logic do you dispose of facts?"
"There is an old proverb, Miss Reid: 'Circumstances make the man.' I reverse the saying: 'Men make their circumstances.'"
"Both are true," said Faith.
"Yes. But do you not see that there is power in my proposition to nullify any inevitable ill fortune that may overtake us?"
"For such as you there may be, Judge Murdock--for those endowed with patience, heroism, or wjo are even stoical enough to accept it. I am not. Your philosophy is therefore inadequate, lacking the element of universality. I, happy in my own surroundings, we will say, a witness of your ill fortune, of your patience also, could but implore the reason why, with a deep and painful sense of responsibility somewhere. No, no; your world is dreary."
"And yours?"
"I cannot boast. Mine is little better."
"Nor ever will be, believe me, until you cease struggling with unknown and unknowable problems."
"Unknowable?" responded Faith.
"In the nature of things so."
Faith looked at him curiously. "And you have achieved happiness," she said, "with that idea as a chief corner-stone in your doctrine of life?"
"Yes," he answered low, with an involuntary movement of his hand toward her. "I am very happy."
page: 188-189[View Page 188-189]"You have encountered the difficulties that beset me, and emerged from them into happiness, with no help in the universe or for the universe save what may be found in the inevitableness of destiny, with no faith in a God."
"Stop, my friend. I never said so: quite the contrary."
"In a revealed God, then?"
"God is everywhere revealed."
"In sticks and stones-yes. But that is nothing to me. I am neither a stick nor stone. I mean a revelation of God in humanity. You believe in no such revelation. I am thinking of the Christ."
"The most God-like man the world has yet seen."
"But not God?"
"Oh no: the idea is preposterous."
"Your God, then, is-"
"The spirit of the universe."
"And may be no more than a law."
"I never speculate, where I know and can know nothing."
"Dreary! superlatively dreary!" ejaculated Faith; "and senseless too," she added, with rising ire. "If I know nothing of a person, he does not exist to me. Emphatically, you have no God."
The judge changed the subject always when it drifted into such channels. He had no thought of compassing his end by talk of this kind. Faith's intellectual troubles, which in the beginning seemingly presented a possible hold upon her, did not yield to his remedies. He avoided them now when he could, reserving that conquest for the future, when her heart, all his own, should win for him, when he might lead her to leave logic and philosophy to those who could do no better, and find her supreme joy in, a life of love with him. With that same life of love he now endeavored to familiarize her, to make it an indispensability to her. To this end he devoted himself, his time, thought and activities. For this he taxed his fertile brain to devise expedients whereby he might approach her as a friend, be with her daily, share her thoughts, occupations and diversions without intruding or prematurely disclosing the purpose that animated him. He was prudent, patient and delicate; she unsuspicious, unlearned in society and preoccupied. Experiences that in one way or another come early to most girls, educating them in the ways of love, were unknown to her. Mr. Mosier's confession failed to open any door. She heard his words, but recalled them afterward, as we recall dreams, doubting if she remembered aright. As yet, the future held for her consciously no fairy palace of which she was the queen, having found favor in the eyes of the master, its and her king. Her father was her king, other men unconsidered by her-other men that she met. She knew men ideally; and, as in history ordinary page: 190-191[View Page 190-191] personages are obscured in the blaze of glory that surrounds the hero, so with her. Her hero absorbed all the light. Other men failed to impress her-except, perhaps, Philip Dean. He did impress her. More than this, after she came to Arden the thought of him troubled her, the mention of him by Helen Murdock exasperated her; why, she neither knew nor attempted to analyze. It was sufficient that an impassable gulf separated them, and her from a help that he might have held for her-a gulf of riddles and contradictions, as well as impossibilities. For what conceivable personal relation could arise between two minds apparently the antipodes of each other, and in what would consist their marriage union? Philip Dean fell under her inevitable contempt, and was really the occasion for more perplexing doubts than he solved. Through him a door was opened into a world of bewildering beauty, of which he offered at once the assurance and the chief contradiction. So she turned away from it, and lived her own life of active labor and sweet companionship with Mrs. Dean, of reading and interior communion with her own soul. Not a satisfying life: rather, it was one overcast, even thus early, with doubts, sorrows and perplexities that should be, if at all, the inheritance of maturer years. Into this life the judge came a not unwelcome guest. He brought a different atmosphere. He was a relief. Self-assured, he suggested no doubts; calm, he allayed unrest; delicate, he could not offend; and kind, he appealed to the same sentiment in others. Add to these his knowledge of the world, his acquaintance with books, his culture and refinement, and it would be strange indeed if he failed to interest a character like that of Faith Reid. He did interest her. Gradually she found herself anticipating his daily visit. Sometimes he brought a book to read aloud, and -an easy matter-enticing her out of the house beneath the glorious elms, he would read while she sat by with her sewing and listened, often stopping him with a remark or question, of which interruption he gladly availed himself, cautiously leading her sympathies into communion with his own ideas. He pictured life in roseate hues. He summoned the fairy palace into being before her vision. Its dome pierced the clouds and was bathed in eternal light.
"Ah," she said, "you are a poet, and dream of another world than this."
"It is a true picture," he answered, "and of the world we live in."
"But a picture that fades. Its colors are not enduring."
"You are skeptical. Trust me to justify the portraiture."
"That you could not do for me, you know. I am glad, however, if you have been drawing upon your own experience. It gives one faith to know that life can be the perfect thing you describe."
page: 192-193[View Page 192-193]"It can be," he answered, looking into the clear, unabashed eyes that offered no encouragement to the word waiting for utterance.
"I can imagine for myself no such realization of your dream," she said. "Why not for you?"
"Because I know its opposite too well."
"But surely," said the judge, after a pause, "childhood is not the only world nor our parents, dear as they may be, our only friends. There are other relations in life, one at least, for which we willingly forsake both father and mother."
"I cannot imagine it," said Faith, without looking up.
"No, but the time is coming when you will. A nature like yours cannot live alone. You are too sympathetic and, through your sympathies, dependent."
"I think," said Faith, "that trouble naturally inclines to make us selfish. I know that I was for a long time oblivious to everything except my own sorrow. Now my experience seems one of many. Its echo reaches me on all sides. When I said that I know the opposite of the picture you paint too well, I did not intend to make an appeal for myself. Life is to me, I confess, unattractive; more now, however, because of it as a wretched and hopeless whole than for anything that I suffer as an individual part of it."
"The sentiment is more creditable to your heart than head. By and by you will learn the same resignation for all that you have learned for yourself."
"When I accept your philosophy, I suppose."
"Yes," responded the judge in such a way that Faith added, "That I shall never do, I know."
"As you please. Only accept so much of it as shall make the cultivation of happiness a positive duty, and I am content. You, I fear, would throw away what is within your reach in your struggle after the unattainable."
"I hate the word duty," said Faith. "The duty of cultivating happiness, forsooth! I fancy myself endeavoring to reconcile those two words! Is that the kind of happiness that you have achieved? If so, pray recommend it elsewhere in future. It is not to my taste."
The judge smiled. His face was aglow with pleasure. "Life means love for you," he said. "You were formed for it-to love and be beloved. Your instincts are true. Duty is no word for you. Love is your element, your atmosphere. It surrounds you-it is you-" He paused, for Faith half rose from her seat. "I frighten you," he said, gently and with great, composure. "Don't be disturbed. I have not finished the chapter. Shall I read on? Not unless you wish."
"Read on," she said, but it is doubtful if she heard a word. The judge had gained somewhat. She could not dismiss him, or do other than follow page: 194-195[View Page 194-195] his lead. His self-control mastered her. She sat there listening to his voice and feeling the irresistible charm of his presence, the presence of one who worshiped her as man worships woman. She knew it, and not for the first time now. She had evaded it heretofore. She could not now. Would she? Her heart beat tumultuously. The judge read on. Occasionally he lifted his eyes from the book and allowed them to rest tenderly upon her face-her agitated, tell-tale face. He pursued the chapter to its end. Quietly, as he had read, did he close the book and resume the conversation. "Faith" -he lingered upon the name, holding her steadily with his earnest, impassioned eyes- "has it never come to you that there is a life in love for you blissful beyond expression?"
Her heart stood still at the question. The color forsook her face. She met his eyes once, then quickly rose. "Come, let us go in," she said; "the air is chilly."
But Judge Murdock's movements were as rapid as hers. He stood before her. "Not now," he said. "It is not cold. Yet here is your shawl." He carefully wrapped it around her and gently drawing her to the bench she had left, sat down beside her. She obeyed, agitated no longer, but passive. A great calm stole over her. The judge, however, was too absorbed in himself, and in the assurance of triumph which awaited him, to notice the change in her. "Faith," he whispered, "darling, my darling, come home. Come." But he spoke to marble. There was no response, in word, look or gesture. In vain he pleaded his unalterable love, in vain besought a token that his love was received.
At length she turned slowly toward him. "Judge Murdock," she said, "your candor and kindness demand the same of me. I do not love you."
He laid his hand upon her arm to detain her. "Do not love me!"
"No."
He stood perfectly still regarding her. At last, "Do not, not cannot," he said.
She paused. A moment's silence fell between them-the man of steady purpose, the girl thus suddenly summoned into the presence of her own soul. The conflict was no mean one, but the soul triumphed. "Do not and cannot," she murmured, with white lips. "Now pray let me go." She raised her eyes appealingly.
Mechanically he took her hand, drew it within his arm and led her back to the house. At the door he said, "I cannot receive this as your final decision. You do not banish me. I may see you again."
"I can do nothing for you."
"It is not possible. You are in no state now to decide. Think it over. I love you, Faith, with the best love of my life. Trust me, dear, to win page: 196-197[View Page 196-197] your love in return. I know that I can- There! I will say no more. Do not answer. Go in, child, and rest thee. I will come to-morrow. Remember that I love you. You will?"And she answered, "Yes."
FAITH went into the house and at once to her room. Face to face with her own soul! It was even so, and the soul of a child no longer. No, she must meet her woman's destiny now, must answer herself, as she had answered the judge, for in the brief interval between his sudden avowal and her reply she had neither thought nor reasoned. Every faculty was seemingly paralyzed. Every pulse stood still. Why she uttered the words that she did she could not have defined. They came to her, and she was impelled to speak them. More than this she knew not then. But now- She sat down by the window. The afternoon was glorious. Warmth and color, sunshine and shadow, fragrance and beauty- the earth and o'erarching heavens were intimately ore, one in the fullness of joy, in the blessedness of a perfect peace. Faith's eyes wandered over the landscape, but they saw nothing. Another picture absorbed her, a life-picture, in which the past and present were confusedly and inextricably intermingled, a picture pervaded by the presence of her page: 198-199[View Page 198-199] new-found friend, of the man who loved her, who had laid his life an offering at her feet. Did she love him, or had she answered truly? This was the question that persistently appeared and reappeared through the medley of memories, thoughts, ideas and resolves that trooped remorselessly through every corridor of her brain. Appearing and disappearing, now hospitably entertained, anon rudely dismissed, still the question held its own as the hours went by, still the picture remained, a moving, kaleidoscopic panorama, one dominant color, one persistent presence, in every changing scene. She thought of her father, her home-life. Judge Murdock appeared at the fireside, but he was a stranger there, a foreign element, an inharmonious color. In the miserable alleys of New York she felt more at home with the gentle, timid Christian curate than with the handsome, self-satisfied judge. She turned toward Philip Dean-only to turn away. Neither could Mrs. Dean abide the test. Philip and his mother vanished into the background when brought side by side with Judge Murdock. Yet still was he a king! And with a kingdom, too! Ah, how fair the castle of his building, how beautiful the home evermore guarded by love! For her, too, was the castle builded, for her the home prepared. Only for her of all others. Loving arms but waited her word to bear her away to the shining hills, gleaming in purple and gold along the distant horizon. Those shining hills were his home, there was the palace above the storms and clouds of earth-the home of love. Why had she said nay? Why not now recall the word? Ever as she drifted into this her only harbor, some unseen current seized the little shallop and bore it again into the channel where the waves rode high and the waters were deep, until, wornout with the struggle, she crept to the floor, laid her aching, throbbing head in the chair, and sat there shivering in the warm twilight of the departed day.
So Mrs. Dean found her, lifted her head into her lap and silently laid her hands upon it. The shadows fell around them. By and by the moon rose, filling the room with a mild splendor. The stars hid as from the day, and earth held herself royally in the presence of her queen. Low tones succeeded the silence. "I thought you had gone to the hills, my child. I waited for you and wondered. Have you been long here?"
"Ages." After a while-"I am going away from here, Mrs. Dean. I am going-home." The last word was scarcely audible.
"Yes, my child."
"I am going soon, very soon--to-morrow, I think."
"Not so soon as that."
"Why not?"
"I cannot spare you. And besides, I am charged to keep you until fall."
page: 200-201[View Page 200-201]By my grandparents?"
"Yes, and some one else. Philip wishes to see you. He bids me detain you until he comes."
"I don't want to see Philip."
"Not want to see my son! I can scarcely credit that."
"He won't care to see me, of course."
"He does care. He says so. And Philip's word is to be trusted."
"Well, I don't wish to see him. That's all. I don't wish to see any one. I intend to enter a convent. I'm sick of the world and people."
"A convent is poor medicine for that complaint."
"I think otherwise. The veil is a decided solvent, which is more than can be said of any other one thing, and more to the purpose as well."
"For instance, how does it act?"
"It shuts out troublesome questions."
"I doubt it."
"But it does, Mrs. Dean. You must know that it does."
"As Judge Murdock shuts them out with his philosophy of the inevitable?"
"At least that is better than no philosophy."
"Certainly. In my way, I, too, thoroughly endorse it."
"But that is not his way?"
"No."
"I see no difference, at least I don't see any ground for difference. If there is, I prefer Judge Murdock's way to yours. 'Things are just right,' you say. 'Things are inevitable,' he says, leaving you at liberty to think them as wrong as you know them to be. That's some satisfaction, until you cease caring one way or another, as, I suppose, he has. The inevitability is just as merciless in your faith as his, and not half so rational. Really, I see no practical! difference."
"You will some time."
"I wonder at your hope. I am sure I do not share it. I don't understand your creed, or belief, or doctrines or whatever you call your faith. Your way of thinking and explaining and understanding is incomprehensible to me. I never shall understand. I prefer Judge Murdock's way."
"'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,'" said Mrs. Dean. "Understand, not in mine nor Judge Murdock's way, but in your own. Only let it be a true way."
She sighed wearily. "Ah, that is the trouble! Who car show me the true way?"
"No mortal man nor woman. Nevertheless, if you desire, it will be shown to you."
"I believe I will marry Judge Murdock, Mrs. Dean."
"Will you?"
"Yes; why not?"
"I have said nothing against it."
"But you are thinking against it."
page: 202-203[View Page 202-203]"Am I? Are you sure that the thought is not your own? You said, 'Why not?' I answer 'Why?'"
"He loves me."
"And you?"
"I shall never love any one-that is, I do like him very much. I shall probably never love any one better."
"Well?" "Nothing more."
"Then you are jesting?"
"On the contrary, I am quite serious."
"Impossible! You offer no motive that would justify the action."
"You are hard-hearted. Is my happiness nothing?"
"Ah, now I see something! You are in pursuit of happiness."
"How cruel to mock me!"
"I repel the charge. I too am quite serious and interested in your new experience. You will marry Judge Murdock without loving him--for I cannot as yet admit that you do love him--in order to secure your own happiness."
"Oh, Mrs. Dean," said Faith, raising her head, you are cruel!"
"Not intentionally so, my child. Do I mis-state the case?"
"I don't know, indeed. I know nothing and care for nothing."
"Not even Judge Murdock?"
There was no response; and Mrs. Dean's hand, as it wandered over the young girl's face, was wet with the silently-falling tears. So she said no more until Faith rose and would have left the chamber. She reached the door, but then turned. The moon shone full upon the beautiful face and figure of her friend, peaceful, serene, loving.
"Do not let me drive you from your room," she said, rising. "I will go if you wish to be alone."
"Indeed you shall not-that is, please stay and forgive me, if you can," answered Faith, returning to her place. "I want to do what is right, if I only knew how, and I will listen to yourand try to learn. I have no one but you to whom I can go for help. If my father had but lived, Mrs. Dean, nothing of this kind could have happened. Certainly I cannot imagine myself in doubt with him for a guide. Yet you say that his removal was for the best, is best. How can you?"
"You yourself give the reason, my child. Do you not see? What kind of life is that which lacks the element of personal responsibility? Not human, surely. You confess to a reliance upon your father which would have annulled your own individuality, and defeated the end of your creation. This could not be, and the support was withdrawn. You will now learn to seek your help in God."
page: 204-205[View Page 204-205]"I do not know Him," said Faith, piteously.
"No."
"How then can he help me?"
"Perhaps through me at present, as he did through your father. He reaches us in all possible ways, through every available avenue, until at last we see him and know him for ourselves."
"I can imagine no such experience for me. Still," she added, "I see something that I never saw before. I did wholly depend upon my father. You are right. I loved him supremely."
"Yes, your love was selfish, idolatrous."
"Selfish; that is wrong, I know, but why should I not love my father above all others. He was to me the most lovely. Candidly, you will not be shocked, Mrs. Dean?"
"No."
"God's requirement seems to me exacting, self-glorifying, selfish, the very thing you deprecate in me."
"I understand. You do not know him, as you said. Selfish love is always idolatrous. If selfishness is wrong, then is idolatry also."
"But God can be loved selfishly, for the sake of the blessings he has given or may hold for us."
"That is not love, his love toward us, the love he craves from us. His is a giving love. Ours must be also."
"We can give him nothing."
"True. His love gives us all, gives us himself. The love which he desires from us gives to each other what we receive from him. 'That they all may be one as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee.' True love toward God cures us of selfish love toward each other."
"Ah, now I see, yet I do not see, either-only impossibilities."
"You see with your head. The heart's vision is clearer, purer."
"But I do not see what I am to do," said Faith, after a pause. Mrs. Dean was silent.
"You think I ought to know for myself, but I do not," she said, as the garden scene rose before her vision, and the tones of a loving voice sounded in her ears, creating at least one bright oasis in the wide desert around her. "Tell me, won't you?" She raised her brown eyes wistfully to those of her friend.
Mrs. Dean saw through them into the troubled soul. "My child," she said, gently, "you do not love Judge Murdock, and cannot truly be his wife."
"Can I not learn to love him?" was the answer, in low and hurried words, hiding her face in her hands.
"You can try. But why should you?"
"He is good and noble."
"Yes."
"And unselfish."
page: 206-207[View Page 206-207]"In a sense, yes."
"He loves me."
"Well?"
"I ought to love him. He will be unhappy if I do not."
"Your feeling is a good one, my child. I hardly know how to meet it. I wish to be just to our friend, to consider his happiness as well as yours. You say that you ought to love him. I doubt if any love of yours based upon a sense of duty would satisfy him."
Faith smiled as she recalled his tirade against duty.
"There are many kinds of love," continued Mrs. Dean. "Your respect for our friend, his consideration for you-his love, we will say- might in the end win for him a permanent place in your affections. But there is another possibility which must not be ignored. You might develop away from instead of toward him. I think you would. And I think in the end he would be more unhappy as your husband than now as your rejected lover. You can be good friends, but the love that marries souls is of another sort, I believe, than any that could possibly subsist between you and Judge Murdock."
"I suppose you are right," said Faith, wearily, while her heart beat at the remembered words, "Come home, darling, come home." Alas, was there, then, no home for her, never again?
"You are tired," said Mrs. Dean. "If I leave you now, will you go to bed and stop thinking?"
"I will try."
She rose and walked to the window. The valley and river lay in shadow, but the setting moon irradiated the shining hills that echoed the refrain in her heart, "Come home, darling, come home."
page: 208-209[View Page 208-209]CHAPTER XV.
THE next day Mrs. Dean went alone to the mission-school. Faith wandered listlessly through house and garden, trying to occupy herself in some way, but ended at last by sinking into a chair in the library, where Helen sat stitching and dreaming, perfectly absorbed in herself, her life, and Philip, who was the chief satisfaction of the one and the glory of the other, and perfectly contented in her absorption. She was a perpetual exasperation to Faith. "Positively," she had said, one day, to Judge Murdock, "your cousin parades her happiness as though it were a virtue."
"She is not the same person that she was a year ago," answered the judge. "A more fretful, repining, unhappy creature I never knew until she came to Mrs. Dean and found Philip."
"You know him?" queried Faith.
"Who? Philip? Oh yes. I know him well."
"And is he the miracle Helen would have us believe?" said Faith, with a slightly curling lip.
"He's a grand fellow, is Philip Dean. I often wonder what he finds to like in my sickly little cousin. They are as unlike as two people well can be. But then love reconciles all discrepancies and creates a world of its own around the loving," said the judge, with a bright and tender look in his gray eyes. "Am I right, Miss Reid?"
"I cannot imagine love where there is no sympathy," replied Faith, whose thoughts were with Philip and Helen. "Love cannot create a world out of nothing, nor a very desirable one, I should say, out of discordant elements. It isn't necessary for people to be alike, of course, in order to love each other, but they should be able to understand and delight in their differing characteristics."
"What you say is true of friendship, certainly, but love derives from another law, it would seem, if we may judge from facts. Look at my cousin and Mr. Dean, for instance. He is large-minded and large-hearted, interested in everything outside of himself and everybody but himself, like his mother holding firmly to his own opinions, yet in so catholic and humane a spirit that no honest mind, I am sure, would feel itself arraigned for heresy, no matter how wide the divergence, while on the contrary my cousin is the most offensive little bigot I know, and is certainly large in nothing save her love. That, as I said, has transformed her."
page: 210-211[View Page 210-211]"Has it made her any less a bigot?"
"Well, perhaps not," said the judge, meditatively.
"Or deepened her interest in things that do not concern her personally?"
"I can't say that it has. But the love is unmistakable, which fact corroborates my statement, as you see."
"The love is unmistakable. There's no doubt about that," said Faith.
"For myself," continued the judge, "I could not be inspired with love by any woman whose life lay in the same direction as mine-that is, you understand, one whose ambition was the same as mine. Public interests, contact with the multitude, its favor and applause, the attainment of the desired end,-these things absorb me. But they are unsatisfying. I should wish never to be reminded of them in the presence of my wife, of the woman worth them all and infinitely more."
"How can you be true in your work if this is so?"
"Truth waits upon expediency in this world."
"Are there then no true men and women- men and women ready to sacrifice for truth's sake?"
"Yes, and in one way or another they are always martyrs. They sacrifice themselves."
"I would rather be of them," said Faith.
"I know, and for that reason"-the judge hesitated-"I would have my wife an enthusiast, like you," he said.
Faith blushed, but retorted, laughing, "I am afraid she would be as homeless with you as is the truth, according to your showing, in the world."
"Nay," he answered, "she has my love, the entire devotion of my heart. Have I not said, you beautiful dream of womanhood, that love creates its own world?"
But Faith flashed back: "Your enthusiast has a life of her own to which love must lend furtherance," and, for the time, the judge was silenced. Often the conversation turned similarly, and as often as it did the judge lost ground, the subtle charm that he threw around her was despoiled of its power. Faith saw more and more clearly, and the combat deepened. For the charm held her, and alternately yielding to and repelling it, she drifted toward the end. The end came, but proved to be not a final one. The morning after her talk with Mrs. Dean found her pale, dispirited, restless and unhappy. She did not make her appearance at the breakfast-table, nor see any one until she encountered Helen in the library.
"Why, good-morning," said that young lady, hilariously. "I have some good news, a letter from Philip. There's a message to you in it. He says-"
"I don't care what he says."
page: 212-213[View Page 212-213]"Dear me! what's the matter now? Why, bless me! how pale you are! Have you breakfasted?"
"No."
"You shouldn't range around out-doors on an empty stomach. I never can. Why don't you take a cup of coffee? I heard Aunt Rachel tell Hannah to keep it hot for you."
"I don't want any."
Miss Murdock surveyed the rather woe-begone countenance before her, and then inquired anxiously, "You haven't had a quarrel with my cousin, have you?"
Faith laughed outright. "What then?" she said.
"You are altogether incomprehensible, Faith. What then, indeed!"
"But that does not answer my question. Never mind, however. Don't trouble yourself. It's not of the least consequence."
"You don't deserve to be loved," said Miss Murdock, severely.
"Please, ma'am, not if I try to be very good and- What shall I do to deserve to be loved, as you are, for instance?" said Faith, sharply.
"Don't jest upon subjects of which you are ignorant. If you really loved my cousin, you could not speak in that way of any other love."
Faith's lip curled in scorn. "And pray, Miss Murdock, who set you up as a standard, or as authority?"
"Now don't get angry, I beseech you."
"Thank you! it isn't worth while," was the indolent response.
"Indeed, it is not. I speak for your good."
Another merry peal of laughter. "Speak on."
"I intend to. I have a sort of right. He is my cousin."
"He? Who? Of whom are you discoursing?"
But Miss Murdock took no notice of the interruption.
"And love is a sacred thing," which Faith received in silence. "You will not deny that?" said Helen.
"Never," answered Faith, emphatically, her eyes dancing with mischief.
"Lovers who expect to become husbands and wives, as all lovers should, should guard against even the appearance of dissension or difference." She paused.
"I am all attention," said Faith.
"Now, I have myself heard you contradict my cousin flatly, and set up your opinion as worthy of higher esteem than his."
"Without stopping to inquire into the connection between your sentences, I will merely suggest," answered Faith, "that possibly I do thus hold my opinions."
page: 214-215[View Page 214-215]"It's no way to influence a man," said Miss Murdock, with decision.
"I have no wish to influence Judge Murdock."
"No wish to influence the man you intend to marry?"
"Who told you I did intend to marry him or any one?"
"You love my cousin!"
"Indeed?"
"I have seen it. And he loves you. He has as good as admitted it to me."
"Excellent. And we have your consent?"
"Certainly. Only I do wish you were a little different in some respects-understood the responsibilities of your position better."
"Thank you. Perhaps you could give me some lessons. But now, before going any farther, do relieve my mind of one burden. How am to account for the change in you? If I remember aright, you were opposed to my meeting your cousin at all, getting the most distant glimpse of the man to whom in two months' time you give your blessing as my future husband. Here is something that perplexes me inconceivably. Will you interpret the riddle?"
To which Helen Murdock answered gravely: "I was indeed opposed to your meeting my cousin. He has no true religious faith, and I feared that he might unsettle you, destroy your newly-aroused interest in the truth. But I never once thought of his loving you," she went on cheerily. "Why, you will be the envy of scores of women. Indeed, he is considered quite incorrigible. Truly, it did not occur to me that he would fancy you, who are so much younger, in years at least. But I make little account of that. Philip and I are nearly of an age if you count by years, yet he is in reality ever so much my senior. But you are old. Now don't you think so? I often feel quite juvenile myself beside you. You have an old way, I presume from associating so little with young people. My cousin sees it too. He said to me one day, 'You are a baby beside Faith Reid, Helen.' I didn't mind it, I assure you. Well, as I said, I did not once suppose that he would love you."
"But that only increases the danger," said Faith, "if, as you seem to infer, I return his love."
"You must convert him," replied Miss Murdock, triumphantly. "That is precisely the point."
"Before I marry him?"
"No, you cannot. It will take a long while. He is very set. I wonder that you do not see it, and exercise a little more womanly prudence. You can never convince him by argument. As I told you, it will do no good to oppose him. Men are not influenced by women in that way."
"It is quite perplexing to try to follow you," said Faith. "Really, I should suppose that the page: 216-217[View Page 216-217] logic of your former teachings would bind me, a woman comparatively destitute of rationality, to follow unquestioningly the lead of my husband, Judge Murdock, or whoever else he might chance to be. I should expect you to call upon me dutifully, and at once to become an infidel."
"You shocking girl!"
"Not at all. My conclusions are strictly legitimate. And there is another thing, too. You think that a true marriage relation cannot exist between persons of opposite faiths."
"Swedenborg says so."
"Yes. And I may in the end fail of converting your cousin to Swedenborgianism?"
"I would not admit the possibility."
"Still it exists. I want to get at your real thought."
"I suppose it exists, of course."
"Well then, do you see what you are counteancing?-an alliance that is not marriage."
"But it may become so."
"Nonsense! It may not become so, too. Not that the question could ever by any possibility trouble me. I don't read Swedenborg with your eyes. But I wish to hold the mirror up to you. You wouldn't have me look at a man as an acquaintance or friend who is, as you say, an infidel, and might influence me to become one also; and yet what you call love is to justify me in assuming the marriage relation toward that same man-a relation rendered nevertheless impossible in the nature of what you call truth. Deliver me from such love and such truth too, and defend me from a consistency like yours. I merely say in conclusion," and Faith rose and walked toward the door, "that I have no intention of marrying your cousin, although I infinitely prefer his faith to yours."
The bell rung; Faith stood still. The servant announced Judge Murdock. She cast one appealing look toward Helen-the only spar in sight- and with faltering step left the library.
The judge heard her coming. She paused a moment outside the parlor door. He opened it, took her hand and led her unresistingly to the sofa. He placed himself beside her, retaining her hand. She was passive to the influences of the hour. It was a time of trial, and it came upon her unprepared. Worn with the conflict of the previous night, the morning had brought neither restful thoughts, strengthened purposes, nor loving words from lips that might have helped her to both. Mrs. Dean was away. The house seemed deserted, the garden-well, the garden disturbed her. The world was a wilderness and Helen Murdoch its chief bramble. "I'd turn Turk rather than be like you," she had thought. "Philip Dean must be a miracle of sense. That's patent." She was angry, heartsick and forlorn. The judge saw it not without hope for himself. Would she page: 218-219[View Page 218-219] but turn to him for rest! The thought reached her, whether from him or as the only refuge that appeared within the circling horizon of her vision. This thought was the climax. It startled her. She raised her weary eyes and encountered the longing look in his. They were earnest eyes. It was an earnest face, and told of conflict too, of a struggle for self-control. She tried to release her hand. "Don't, my darling, don't be cruel," he said. She leaned back against the sofa and sighed deeply. It was bitter indeed. Oh that some interposing angel would meet this hour for her, and decide a question in which her whole future lay enfolded-decide it, she cared not how. And yet to find rest once more within the sheltering arms of love! Here they were, waiting, asking, pleading to shield her, to bear her above the storms of life, evermore to be her protection, her defence, her sure abiding-place! There was no other for her. The moor was bleak, the winds rough, and she alone! The judge's words were low and tender. She drifted helplessly upon them. Gently his arm encircled her. He drew her head to his shoulder. Ah, to die thus! Never to wake again nor feel the chilling blasts of this desolate earth-life! The judge bent his head. He thirsted for the kiss that should seal her his own, the freewill-offering of her vanquished heart. His lips rested lightly upon her brown hair, her forehead. The touch electrified her. She opened her eyes and rose to her feet. "Forgive me," she said, "my weakness. I am so miserable, so alone."
He placed his strong arm around her. "I know it. But be so no longer. Come home."
"I cannot," she answered. "The home you offer is not mine."
"Nay then, it is, my darling. I love you. My life henceforth shall be yours, all that I have and am, all that I can do. Do you not know it?- that your life shall be as beautiful as love can make it? Why is not the home that I offer yours? What separates us? Show me your imagined terror. It shall not live a moment in your sight. You love me, darling."
But she answered, white with suppressed emotions: "No, I think I do not. Forgive me. I know not why, but I seem to myself to need your forgiveness. You are kindness itself, and I have been made happier by it. I have received all and given nothing. Yet I intended no wrong. I honor and respect you, and"-her breath came short and quick- "believe me, it is hard to turn away from you?"
"You do love me," interposed the judge. "Why torture me thus? Why torture yourself? Is life so rich in blessing that you can afford to trifle with a happiness already within your reach? Bear with me, dearest. You are, I know, giving undue prominence to considerations of minor importance. Dismiss them. Believe in love. It is all-power- page: 220-221[View Page 220-221] ful. It reconciles all unlikenesses. You shall have your own life, think your own thoughts and go your own ways. Do not imagine that I would hinder you. Many things are much to you now. I, who am older, have outlived my interest in these. I care for only you. Give me a place in your heart-I will take the risk of keeping it-and consent to reign sole queen of mine."
"You are too generous," replied Faith, in a measure restored by the judge's plea, "and I, I believe am utterly selfish. You think of me and I think of myself. I want a life, not my own either-a life in mine, I think. You have lost your interest in what interests me. You do not want me in your life. Where is my home with you?"
The judge was silent. "I could easily persuade myself now," she continued, "to look at only one side of this question, at the side which you present. The temptation is strong. I am alone, fearfully so, for I was all my life the centre of a small but loving circle. I had nothing to desire beyond. Suddenly my world dissolved, and I stand unprotected. You would create it again for me. Your heart reaches me. I feel its gentleness, its love. I am abashed at my own unworthiness. But I know that were I to accept your generous devotion, I should do so in the interest of my own selfishness."
"You make no account of the joy of my life in holding so dear a treasure," said the judge "and you utterly ignore the claims of your own nature in deference to a mere notion of incompatibility. Pardon me, dearest; I cannot bear to use a severe word even in persuading you to your own happiness, but you are inconsistent. Throw these idle speculations to the winds. Be happy, and make me so. Do you distrust me, darling?"
"No, oh no, not that. I am inconsistent. I see it myself. Let it stand that I do not love you. That will surely settle the question in your own mind."
But I do not believe it, dearest. I cannot let it stand thus."
"Yet so it is."
The judge was dismayed, perhaps irritated. Why not? Who likes riddles except to solve them? Here was an insoluble one. Not love him? Absurd! Inexplicable!
Faith noted the sudden change with a pang. She was losing something. She couldn't afford to lose anything. She the bankrupt! And why should she? What power was at work nullifying her friend's influence over her, and making it impossible to yield, much as she desired to do so? Yes, desired. The fact was incontestable. Again, why not? Who knew that Mrs. Dean was certainly right? Who indeed was a better judge than she of a matter that mainly concerned herself? She grew indignant with Mrs. Dean's presumed interference.
page: 222-223[View Page 222-223]"I think I am free to act as I choose," was the thought with which she again turned toward the judge. He caught her smile, the look in her eye, the new determination. The right word at that moment would have won for him. But what he called fate sent him the wrong word.
"Come, dearest," he said, with a fond movement, but remonstrative tone. "Be reasonable. Be a child no longer."
The effect of the words was electrical. By one of those strange but incontrovertible changes in spiritual associations she suddenly found herself hopelessly without the orbit of Judge Murdock's life, acted upon by unseen influences beyond the power of resistance. Her father stood before her. Every thought and impulse swayed around the living presence. Living to her! "No, it can never be," she said to herself, all unconscious of her surroundings, living most fully for the time in the sacred atmosphere of the well-remembered home. The judge's voice recalled her, but for that time his power over her was gone. She saw in him the man to respect, the friend whose feelings were to be tenderly regarded, but no longer the possible lover. Then she told him somewhat of her life, not the outward life-although even here she did not hesitate when seeking to make herself understood-but of the inner world evoked and peopled by her father. "I cannot help it, I would not help it," she said. "He holds me still as he held me in life. Do you understand?" The judge listened, and against his will was convinced. It was a hard struggle, a bitter disappointment, but he met it. He answered slowly: "I believe I do understand you as never before."
"And you do not blame me?"
"Blame you! Oh no, Faith. I may call you Faith, may I not? You will grant me so much, take me so far beyond the outer courts?"
"Willingly," she said, and then a painful silence followed. The judge needed all his philosophy to reconcile him to this special inevitable, and to Faith, torn by conflicting emotions, the interview was becoming wellnigh insupportable.
At last he rose. "We can never escape the final moment," he said, with a forced smile, "and I see that I have no right to prolong it. I shall leave Arden to-night. It seems years since I came here. You have shown me another side of life, truer and nobler than any to which I am used. So much of you belongs to me-the unconscious inspiration to worthier deeds which you are and will be in my future life. So much I trust you are willing to be."
"Not that alone, my friend. I am deeply indebted to you. Can I say more than that I would not have the indebtedness lessened?"
"No, and that word mitigates the pain of parting," he said, with a smile of real pleasure.
page: 224-225[View Page 224-225]But the pain of parting was there. It was there for both of them. It is there for us all until we cross the silent river whose hither shore borders a land where farewells are unknown.
CHAPTER XVI.
A BRIEF episode. Scarcely two months since they first met strangers. Now they parted, the life of each enduringly impressed with that of the other. The judge wrote to Mrs. Dean: "I crave your pardon for my abrupt, seemingly uncourteous leave-taking, and feel assured that I have it, that your generous heart has already excused me. Pray make my apologies also to my cousin Helen. ... I have to thank you for the honorable discharge of your duty toward me. You understood the character and needs of your charge better than I did, better doubtless than I do now, although I see more clearly. I am persuaded that you placed no other obstacle in my way than the inevitable one of your disapproval. You gave me a fair chance, and I thank you. Painful too as is the experience in its denouement; I would not have missed it. Faith Reid is to me a new type of woman. I have learned much from association with her, and cannot but conclude that my life henceforth will be worthier in that I have known her. So much I say to you, page: 226-227[View Page 226-227] because you will sympathize with me in my great disappointment, and be glad to know that the picture is not without its lights as well as its shadows. As this letter goes to the home that shelters her, I cannot forbear writing the words that my heart is continually repeating-I love her. Believe me, dear madam, with sentiments of profound respect, yours, DAVID MURDOCK."
There were moments during the long days which followed the departure of the judge when Faith would gladly have recalled him, when she bitterly pronounced upon herself for her folly, when the well-remembered words of love, now silenced for ever, made her faint with longing and loneliness, when life in any direction offered neither satisfaction nor hope. On the other hand, she was being gradually educated through her own experience of life into truer ideas of its real import. Storms and tempests, if they do not utterly destroy, serve to strengthen the unseen roots and give health and vigor to the tree. So the storms of life strip us of dead foliage, and leave us more and more superior to their fury, less and less subject to the influences that generate them. Faith began to comprehend the lesson of adversity. "I can see for myself better than for others," she said. "And it seems to me that I can appreciate the good of evil," she added with a smile, "in particulars more readily than in universals. Almost any one, I suppose indeed every one, is benefited by suffering. But precisely here is the mystery, after all you have said to enlighten me. Why is it so? The rose unfolds painlessly, the bird sings its life away. Nature is in harmony with herself, and God provides for all. Why is our life so different? Why must we of necessity die so many deaths that we sometimes lose faith in the possibility of any enduring life for us either here or hereafter?"
"Because," answered Mrs. Dean, "although we are neither roses nor birds, yet we have, like them, a natural birth and life, and, unlike them, a capacity for spiritual birth and life. It is this capacity in us for something higher that necessitates conflict and suffering. We naturally cling to the natural, and every loosening of the cords that bind us to nature is painful. Do you not see?"
"Yes, I see that it is so. But is it a necessity in the nature of things, or did God simply choose this method of development for us because it suited him for some reason that we cannot fathom?"
"He never chooses anything as we do, that is, one thing instead of another possible thing. That would imply imperfection in him as it does in us. We can choose good instead of evil, or a higher good in preference to a lower, but he is perfect-perfect love, and his life a spontaneous going forth of this love in forms of perfect wisdom. There is no other order of creation possible than the one we see, no other possible life for us than the one page: 228-229[View Page 228-229] we have, first natural and after that spiritual, as the apostle declares. Perfect love and perfect wisdom can achieve no higher result than this, nor need they. The result is perfect."
"We are imperfect and evil by nature."
"True. But our natural life is not the final result of creative love."
"Does God create us evil, Mrs. Dean?"
"He creates us out of evil eternally and perpetually."
"Ah, that is a new thought. Now tell me who is responsible, if not God, for the existence of the evil out of which we issue?"
"He is responsible in the same sense that the tree is responsible for its shadow. In no other sense, however. Evil is the shadow cast by good. The whole visible creation, including the physical man, is this shadow of God, and for ever remains his shadow. Only we, being capable of re-birth, that is, capable of renouncing this shadow-life, our own natural life of limitation and imperfection, are lifted up into the realm of realities, are brought or created out of evil. We really live when we begin to live spiritually. Was it Goethe who said, 'Only with self-renunciation does life begin?'"
"It is true, Mrs. Dean. Of course then God cannot help the terrible state of things we have here, the want and woe, the sin and misery of our earthly life."
"You mistake. He is helping it all the time as fast and as far as we will permit. But we must recognize not only as individuals, but in our aggregate capacity, the quality of his love, its unalloyed unselfishness, and the necessity that we are under, in the nature of things, to make this love the law of our life also, before we can effectually receive the help he ever stands ready to give us."
"I see, Mrs. Dean. Our life is a mad chase after something for ourselves, or at best an immersion in our own selfish pleasure."
"Yes, and society repeats the story. We have organized injustice, and systematized self-seeking. Some day we must have the opposites of both these, because some day, after men have tried everything else, they will acknowledge the true law of life, the law of love one toward another."
"Ah," said Faith, " would that some angel of heaven might be commissioned to preach this gospel so that men and rulers could no longer plead ignorance!"
"That would violate the most essential law of our being-freedom. Good that we are coerced into does not remain with us. Besides, we really believe only what accords with our life's love. We should not listen to the angel in our present state."
But this kind of talk did not always suit. Often the other side of the picture was presented to her view, and she murmured over her individual lot, as though it were the all-important fact and she page: 230-231[View Page 230-231] had never known release from the essential tyranny of self-centering ideas.
One afternoon she lay upon the sofa in the library. The-conflict of the past weeks had left her disabled and weak. For many days after the departure of the judge she did not leave her room, and the lapse of a month found her still unrestored to her usual vigor. "I wonder," she said, abruptly and emphatically, after a long silence, which Mrs. Dean supposed to be the silence of sleep--"I wonder why I refused the life my friend offered me? He is my friend, Mrs. Dean."
"I hope so."
"It is an attractive life looked at from almost any stand-point."
"Yes."
"Well, why then did I throw it away?" she added, with a kind of sad impatience.
"I know of no reason save that it lacked elements that are vital to you."
"I question if it did. What is more vital than the need of being loved?"
"The need of loving, I should say."
"You are right, as usual, and I did not love, I suppose. What is it to love?"
"You know Swedenborg's definition."
"Can you repeat it?"
"The essence of love is to love others out of or without itself, to desire to be one with them and from itself to make them happy."
"A remarkable definition. I wonder how much of that kind of love there is in the world? And to return to my first wonderment, Mrs. Dean-"
"Well, my dear?" "I forget. There's nothing to wonder about You solved the enigma."
"I?"
"Yes; nevertheless I think I should have been very happy with Judge Murdock."
"Possibly," said Mrs. Dean, with a smile. But Faith had her eyes closed and did not see it. She continued, "Then tell me what perverse influences put that happiness out of my reach."
"I recall your own account of the experience. You said that some remark of his brought your father suddenly before you."
"Yes, yes, I do remember," interrupted Faith, with a sigh. "Ah, well, who can know himself? I know less and less of myself every day I live. Sometimes I seem to be forty people instead of one."
"We are what we may become," answered Mrs. Dean; "and as the actual both involves and evolves the possible, so are we often impelled by the unseen. Life within us to deeds inexplicable to our present self-knowledge. And, too, a friend standing apart may sometimes see us more truly than we, at the time, can see ourselves. I think I thus see you how."
page: 232-233[View Page 232-233]"Then hold the mirror before me, I pray, for indeed I see nothing but riddles and contradictions."
"This is what I see," responded Mrs. Dean. "Something within you rejected the life your friend offered you, notwithstanding it appealed to a conscious need."
"A very conscious need, Mrs. Dean."
"I know, my dear. And I know something else besides."
"Yes."
"The seed planted through your father's instrumentality is alive, a vigorous plant demanding congenial soil and atmosphere. It will always droop save in the presence of impersonal aims and a reverent, loving faith in God. Your friend presented you neither of these in himself, nor did he demand them in you. He spoke to something lower which now sways you, but to which the higher will not yield. Therefore the conflict."
"Yes, it sways me," murmured Faith. "The mountains are grand to look at but hard to climb;" and hearing Miss Murdock's voice in the hall, she turned upon the sofa and relapsed into silence.
Helen Murdock entered the library like a strong breeze. She held an open letter in her hand.
"Oh, Aunt Rachel," she ejaculated, scarcely able to control her voice, "listen." She glanced toward the sofa. "Is she asleep?"
"No," said Faith.
"Then listen, both of you. Philip may be here any moment! It is time for the stage-coach now. He says he shall start for home as soon as possible after writing this letter. And it has been delayed. See, it is dated more than a week back. He must be on his way. And just prepare yourself, Faith, for his severe displeasure. He does not know, of course. I wrote him what I really thought, that you would be our cousin one day, and he takes it in high dudgeon. I don't see why. He says he wrote to you about it, Aunt Rachel, and charged you to show the letter to Faith. Did you?"
"No, Helen, and I think the subject had best be dropped now."
But Miss Murdock heard nothing, and was so carried away by her own anticipations as to be oblivious to all else. "Only think! he may be here to-night! Neither of you seems to take a sense of that, and, Faith, don't tell him for a while. Why should he object? I was pleased. I am sure I thought he would be. But most likely he feared the danger to your religious principles," she concluded, with a patronizing air.
"He might have spared himself the trouble of thinking or writing about my affairs. They do not in the least concern him," said Faith, with flashing eyes, half rising and speaking vehemently. page: 234-235[View Page 234-235] "The idea that he should send his disapproval when he was not consulted, nor his opinion desired!"
"My dear," interposed Mrs. Dean, "you do not understand."
"Of course not, Aunt Rachel. He only thinks of her good."
"My good!" retorted Faith. "I will relieve him of that responsibility when he comes. He has quite enough to do to care for his own good."
So absorbed were they all, each in her own emotion, that they did not hear the stage-coach drive up to the door. A quick step crossed the hall, and a moment after the tall form of Philip Dean stood in their midst.
"Mother!" was the first word. He held her in a close embrace, then turned to Helen.
Faith, meanwhile, stood by the sofa, from which she had risen. She looked toward the door, and wondered if she could reach it. She took one step forward, when Philip, disengaging himself from Helen, came toward her. The length of the room separated them. She saw him through a mist, his pale, noble face, his gentle smile.
"And this is Faith," he said. Their eyes met, a full, unobstructed gaze of soul into soul! She put out her hand and made one more attempt to reach the door. It swam before her. She wavered and fell. But Philip's strong arms were near. He laid her upon the sofa, and Mrs. Dean motioned him and Helen from the room.
Faith opened her eyes and saw herself alone with her friend. "Mrs. Dean," she whispered, in half-frightened tones.
"What, my child?" But the only answer was, "Mother, mother."
page: 236-237[View Page 236-237]CHAPTER XVII.
THERE is nothing to do but to go on, mother?" said Philip, inquiringly. It was the day after his arrival, and they were alone in Mrs. Dean's room.
"No, my son." She was outwardly calm. The light of a deep love was in her eyes, her countenance bright and cheerful. But Philip did not mistake. He felt the inward struggle, the throbbing, motherly heart beat in sympathy with him. He asked a question which he had already decided, from an instinct that caused him to seek support in a mother, perhaps, too, with an unrecognized waiting upon her woman's verdict that might, where a woman is concerned, see more than was possible to him. Her "No, my son," therefore, although entirely inaccordance with his own conviction, nevertheless sounded like a knell. The strong man paled before the coming trial. For a few moments the sacrifice seemed impossible. It was perjury, prostitution, injustice. He could see no law binding him to the keeping of his faith, none founded in truth or right. He hid his face from his mother. The hot tears dropped slowly from between his fingers. She saw them, that mother who would gladly have wept them all to save him, if it might be. But she held hers back with a mighty love and kept the light in her eyes, the cheer upon her countenance. At last he looked up. "Why disregard Faith?" he said.
"Because, my son, she can live without you, live nobly, happily. Helen could not. Your desertion would be her death-blow."
He was silent for a moment, then with a strange joy in his face he said, in low tones, "She loves me, mother, does she not?"
Mrs. Dean returned his look. She would not blink the truth. She could not. "I think she does, my son."
"I cannot tell the time when she was not a sort of ideal, mother. We knew little of her, until lately, yet there was always an indescribable charm for me about her, and indeed about the whole family. The pastor-well, you know, mother, how we regarded him. Their life too seemed so apart from all others. Glimpses that we caught of it in their letters, taken with the memory of them here in Arden, their home coming to be ours, the friendship of years, Mr. Reid's peculiar experiences and character,-altogether they were quite by themselves in my mind, Faith more particularly. I always expected to see and know her some time, and the thought of her was page: 238-239[View Page 238-239] very pleasant until after my engagement with Helen. Then there were times when I could not endure her presence. You understand, mother."
"I understand."
"Especially did she seem very near after she came home with you. You said little about her. I often wondered why, but she was an unfailing theme with Helen. Her mention of Faith irritated me, still I could not summon courage to put a stop to it. I wanted to hear. But the bare thought of her marrying Judge Murdock almost drove me wild. I was unfit for business. I wrote that letter to you. Did you show it to her?"
"I did not."
"Well, it is better so, perhaps. And now," he continued more calmly, "it is all over. What you say is true. My allegiance is due to Helen. She needs me. Let God take care of the other."
"He will, my son."
"Faith can live without me nobly and happily, you say, mother. I thank you for your appreciation of her. I know she can." He rose, pushed the hair from his forehead, damp with the dew of suffering, threw open the window and breathed the pure, inspiring air.
His mother came and stood beside him. He put his arm around her, and bending, kissed her forehead. "Thank God for you, mother! Now go to Faith. She needs you. I will find Helen." He kissed her again and left the chamber.
Then the mother sank upon her knees, and none but the infinite Father saw her tears, or heard the heart-cries for help in behalf of her son. But he saw and heard, and answered.
Two weeks went by, and Faith had not yet left her room since the day of Philip's arrival.
"I refer her sickness entirely to her love for my cousin," said Helen one day. "Unquestionably she loved him. You could see that she did. And why she refused him I cannot understand. It does seem too bad; now does it not, Philip? David is really a noble man, and he truly loved her. As his wife, Faith might have taken a high position, you know."
"I presume the position would have little attraction for her," answered Philip. "She is quite unenlightened in those directions."
"Yes, but she would grace it, nevertheless."
"Undoubtedly; I mean that the position could not tempt her, as it might some women who have been developed society-ward."
"I shall never understand her," said Helen. "It cannot be that she refused my cousin on account of his religious faith, for she denounces sectarianism in unmeasured terms. You should hear her. Positively, one might suppose sometimes that she held the New Church in abhorrence."
"I am sure that I should never make a mistake of that kind," replied Philip, emphatically.
"You would; wait and you will see. I long page: 240-241[View Page 240-241] to hear you silence her. Why, she told me to my face one day-the very day, in fact, that she refused my cousin-that, she infinitely preferred his faith to mine."
Philip smiled.
"Why she refused him, I say again, is the mystery to me."
"It need be no mystery, Helen. There is very little common ground between them. His life-current is already set in one direction, hers tends in another. Their habits, tastes and pursuits are all unlike and uncongenial in the main, I should say."
"Still if they loved each other," persisted Helen - "if she loved him-she might cultivate in herself a likeness to him. You know," she added, blushing, "'how many things I like and do now that I never should have either liked or done but for you."
"A woman's help, whether she be mother, wife or friend, is most to a man when she is most herself," answered Philip.
"You are very perplexing," sighed Helen. "Surely you believe with Swedenborg that woman is the love of man's wisdom?"
"Yes."
"Then how is she most herself, as you say? She is nothing without him."
"He is nothing without her."
"I know it," said Helen, with an important air.
"And when," continued Philip, "the special man sees his highest conception of wisdom in the special woman, he will see, not himself-quite otherwise-but his ideal. And that vision, it is safe to predict, will not be granted to our unanointed earthly eyes and hearts, whatever may be reserved for another generation or a future state of being."
A question trembled upon the lips of Helen Murdock, but she dared not ask it. She therefore contented herself with saying, "I know that I have found my ideal in you, Philip."
"Well, then, dear, God must help me greatly to fulfill your expectations," he answered.
"Faith is coming down this evening," said Helen after a pause, during which Philip had sat with his head bowed in his hands.
He looked up. "I know it," he said.
"Do you think her pretty?"
"I hardly saw her. Pretty? I should say not."
"My cousin thought her positively beautiful."
"She might be that; I should expect it."
"How strangely you talk! Not pretty, yet positivly beautiful! You are like no one else. I wonder what Faith will think of you? There is no end of her scorn of me." Philip did not inquire why, so Miss Murdock told him. "She thinks me a slave to you. She as good as said so one day; and," she continued, piqued by the recol- page: 242-243[View Page 242-243]lection of her wrongs, "she hasn't a much better opinion of you."
"Whom or what am I a slave to?" queried Philip.
"Oh, you are not a slave. You are impertinent, meddlesome, and I have no doubt she thinks you conceited."
"How have I shown a meddlesome disposition?"
"In objecting to her marriage with Judge Murdock."
"But my mother said she never saw my letter," said Philip, slightly flushing.
"Not your mother's letter, but mine. I have not told you, but we were in the midst of a pretty scene when-you came home that day." Helen gave a graphic account of the matter, ending with, "Her temper is really fearful when aroused. I always try to calm her at such times. But one must be firm and maintain one's own ground, else there would be no living with her."
To all of which Philip only answered, "I wish you had not troubled her with my foolish observations. She had enough to bear without those. I don't wonder that she thought me impertinent."
After tea, Faith came down stairs leaning upon the arm of Mrs. Dean. She was still very weak and pale. Philip rose as they entered the library, stepped forward, and extending his hand with a smile, said "Welcome, Faith." He drew an easy-chair to the window, from whence she might watch the setting sun. "I was reading aloud to Helen," he said; "shall I go on?"
"Do," she answered. "The book I have is an inexhaustible mine- 'The Divine Love and Wisdom' of Swedenborg. I never tire of reading it--never fail of seeing some new truth, or an old one in new light. My small parish and I are in the habit of reading and talking together, discussing what we read. I know no better way of arriving at enlarged views than by comparison, so as I read to-night, suppose we resolve ourselves into a committee for mutual enlightenment."
"I shall be delighted," said Faith, responding at once, inexpressibly relieved and really interested in the proposed entertainment, "but I am a fearful caviller. Do you give me leave to ask any question I choose, and any number of them?"
"Unlimited permission," said Philip.
She forgot herself in this new experience. Philip's intelligent reading brought the subjects treated intelligibly before the mind, and he was besides ever ready at the slightest hint to enlarge upon the meaning of the author. Faith was true to her word in asking questions, and Philip redeemed his pledge also. He was clear, calm and patient. Mrs. Dean joined in the conversation, and Helen's random remarks received respectful attention. It was a pleasant time. Faith re- page: 244-245[View Page 244-245] peatedly begged for just a moment longer, and was finally forced away by Mrs. Dean, who feared the effect of the evening's excitement.
"I don't more than half agree with you, Philip," she said as she left the library.
"Because you do not more than half understand."
"We shall see. Good-night, good-night, Helen."
After this Faith rallied quickly. She again took her place by Mrs. Dean, in a measure vacated for the society of Judge Murdock. The mission-school, her sewing, walking and reading, once more engaged her. She remained in her own room more than usual and Mrs. Dean with her. They were much together, Helen very properly asserting her superior claim upon Philip. Still, the circle was complete in the evening, when Philip almost always read aloud, sufficient at least to furnish topics for an interchange of thought and sentiment. Hither Faith brought her difficulties and the results of her own cogitations. "I must make the most of my time," she said. "You will be going away soon, when I shall be left to worry alone over these tormenting questions. Are you ever in doubt, Philip?"
"Am I still in this world?" he answered. "Doubt is the legitimate child of self-confidence. It is the tempter, testing the quality of our faith. The man who never doubts never believes."
"A dangerous doctrine, is it not?"
"No doctrine is dangerous to the single minded. Any doctrine may be to the insincere."
"All doctrines are not true," said Helen.
"Not to all minds."
"But there is only one true doctrine," she persisted.
"Yes, and it has as many aspects as there are human minds to receive it. It grows in us, or rather we grow toward it, and shall do so to all eternity. Truth, like the ever-recurring seasons, has new abundance for each new necessity. We cannot exhaust the truth; did you think so, Helen?"
"I thought there were certain things that were true, and certain other things that were false, and I thought we were to believe the one and reject the other; else where's the use of a revelation?"
"Revelation, you know, respects the laws that govern the human mind. It never compels belief. Besides, assuming the supreme verity of the Christian revelation, do you not suppose the Lord reaches other minds destitute of this revelation, with the truth they need?-truth which nevertheless might be falsehood for us. Swedenborg says that all are saved who act conscientiously according to the tenets of their religion, not some one's else. There is one thing true, which is goodness, and one thing false, which is evil. Good is God, and evil is selfishness. That is a universal creed, uni- page: 246-247[View Page 246-247] versally understood, and universally potent in greater and less degree. No human being can be destitute of conscience, because conscience is the Spirit of God within us lifting us out of animal and into human dimensions."
"Does not conscience teach us what is true?"
"Conscience teaches us what is wrong. Obeying conscience, we rise continually into higher conceptions of the truth. Beliefs grow out of education and experience, most emphatically the latter. With our Christian education, a belief in God is, with most of us, the very last thing we attain to. We believe in ourselves, and live in that belief so long as a plank is left for us to stand upon. Only as mendicants or prodigals do we ever see or believe in God."
"Yours is a catholic creed, Philip, and I like it," said Faith. "Intolerance stirs me to resistance."
"A genuinely catholic spirit tolerates intolerance."
"I never thought of that before. I have allowed myself to detest bigots."
"It is not worth while taking even a selfish view of the subject. Nothing is worth while that opens us to the enemy. We may detest bigotry and intolerance in ourselves as much as we please. That covers the whole ground of our obligation, and answers the entire purpose. And I think if we really do detest the wrong in ourselves, we shall have exhausted the venom when we come to exercise the feeling toward the wrong in others. What do you say to that?"
"I suppose it is true," said Faith, suppressing a sigh, "but your mountains are too steep. Who will ever see their summits?"
"We are climbing up slowly and painfully," said Philip- "slowly and painfully."
A silence fell upon the little company. Each was busy in the hidden world of thought until Philip added, heartily, "But we are surely climbing. We shall yet know ourselves a redeemed race."
"I do not see upon what you base your faith in the final triumph of human nature. Races and nations decline. That seems as certain as their rise. Why should not universal man be destined to the same fate?"
"Why," said Philip, and his eyes kindled with unwonted light, "because of the Incarnation. That is why my faith abounds and cannot fail."
"And that I do not understand," said Faith.
It was some moments before Philip responded, thoughtfully, "I know that you do not."
"And is that all?" said Faith, after waiting patiently through another interval. "Am I not to understand?"
"I was thinking how I might reach you, if at all: Words are so poor and the theme transcends language. Belief in the Incarnation is not of the page: 248-249[View Page 248-249]intellect merely. Besides, I doubt my ability to convey to another mind a truth which I, nevertheless, see quite clearly for myself. No two of us develop in the same way. I do not know perfectly the road you have traveled, although I fancy it is not altogether strange to me, and so cannot tell exactly where you are now. If you can indicate your whereabouts by questions, I may be able to answer you more satisfactorily than by talking from my own apprehension of your need."
"I find it impossible to identify Christ with the Creator of the universe," said Faith, as usual marching straight toward the central difficulty. "You believe them to be identical?"
"Yes. I believe Christ to be a perfect manifestation in nature of the Infinite Divine One. 'In the beginning was the Word. and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh-' You know the rest."
"Word tell us nothing, Philip. If I am to believe a thing simply because I find it in the Bible, I may as well give up. I can't believe what I do not understand."
"Why, Faith," ejaculated Helen, "you surely would believe the Bible whether you understood it or not?"
"I surely would not," was the short answer. "I'm not a parrot nor a machine, nor have I one particle of respect for the mind that accepts truth in any such arbitrary way-pretends to accept it, I mean."
Helen glanced at Philip and then responded: "We have Swedenborg's authority that the Word is true."
"Swedenborg is nothing to me. I have told you so a hundred times. I should think you might remember that much."
"You mean that he is nothing, or rather, comparatively nothing, to you as authority," said Philip, quietly.
"Of course I mean that."
"But that is not your idea, Philip?" interposed Helen, eagerly.
"Oh yes."
"Well, I never-"
But Philip continued, "Each one must find authority for his belief in his own soul. Failing to find it there, Swedenborg, the prophets, nor God himself can help him. So Swedenborg teaches. No other can think for us. As we live so shall we believe. Christ's words are, 'He that doeth his will shall know of the doctrine.' Is it not so, Helen?"
"Certainly, Philip, but it saves me a great deal of trouble to believe because I have confidence in the person. I think it the better way for women."
"The better way for yourself, it may be, Helen. page: 250-251[View Page 250-251] It might not be for another. Here is Faith, for instance, who wants to see for herself."
"Of course," thought Helen. "She has no one to see for her." And she forgave Faith. She could afford to, with her eyes so near, and her understanding so all-sufficient for everybody.
"You see, Faith, I have no wish to coerce your belief," said Philip.
"I knew that."
"Of course you did. Now let us look at the difficulty. You are unable to identify Christ with the Creator?"
"Yes, a man who was born, lived and died like another man-perfect, I believe him to have been. You understand what I mean?"
"Yes, but I take issue with you at the outset. He was not born, he did not live or die like another man, and your recognition of him as perfect will furnish you with proof that he did not. No one believes that any mere man ever lived or could live an absolutely perfect life, and yet it would be entirely safe to challenge the universe to detect the faintest flaw in that of Christ. He claimed to be without sin. If, then, he be not God, upon what hypothesis will you explain his perfection?"
"I have none. I cannot explain it," said Faith. "I suppose I believe that he was divine. But I don't see why, to what end. I don't comprehend the meaning of the Incarnation, the use of it, except, perhaps, as an example. In short, I don't understand the story of his birth. If I did, doubtless I should see the rest."
"You are right. There lies the difficulty, and it is one not easily removed. For to understand the birth of Christ we must first discard all the ordinary familiar notions derived to us through our senses; we must rationally apprehend the truth that nature and the life of nature are not realities, but that nature is simply the mirror wherein is reflected the real. Otherwise it will be impossible to understand any of the phenomena which she presents."
"Was not the life of Christ on earth a reality?"
"Yes, in your meaning of the word. I should say that it was an actuality which mirrored forth the reality. The spiritual is the only real we know."
"Yes."
"The tone of your 'yes' says, 'I more than half doubt.'"
"It says, 'I am trying to comprehend.'"
"Very well. You know rationally that God is the only life."
"I know it, whether rationally or irrationally."
"And that consequently nature, whether in mineral, plant, animal or man, is utterly dead."
"I see that it must be so."
page: 252-253[View Page 252-253]"That the most you can say of nature is, that in all her forms she is receptive of life from God, the life that animates her, being not hers, but his in her."
"I believe you are right."
"Then can you not see that given the form the inflowing life follows of necessity?"
"But life in nature does not proceed after that fashion. The tree does not grow up dead, and when fully grown become suddenly instinct with life."
"Your objection pleases me. It betrays intelligent consideration of the theme. No. Life in nature does not proceed after that fashion, as you say. The unseen soul of things eternally moulds the form as well as fills it when moulded."
"But what application do you make of this truth to the fact of the Incarnation?"
"An intensely literal one, as I hope to show you after a while. You admit that God is not only life but that he is perfect life, perfect love- since love is the only life-love unalloyed by any taint of selfishness."
"Certainly."
"That we are created in his image?"
"Yes."
"That some time then we must reflect his life."
"Why some time? Why not now? If we are created in his image, why not reflect him at once? That is one of my difficulties. We are created in his image, and yet bear no resemblance to him."
"Creation is a gradual process. God is not a magician. The tree is not the work of a moment."
"Surely. We must some time reflect him, then. We must grow, in other words."
"Yes, and all the while he is the unseen life of this gradual unfolding."
"But still I am in the dark."
"Be patient, and try to go no faster nor farther than I lead. Recollect that we are talking all the while about our life in this world upon the plane of nature."
"I do."
"Then what is our life in this world-individual or social?"
"Both, I should say."
"True, and yet our individual is inevitably contingent upon our social life, is it not? We are what we are by virtue of our relations with others."
"The thought is new to me, but I accept it, and believe I see the next step."
"Take it, if so."
"When genuine neighborly love becomes the law of social life, we shall then perfectly reflect God's life."
"I could not myself give better form to the idea."
page: 254-255[View Page 254-255]"Toward this result he is working," said Faith, "and into this form he is moulding us, socially."
"The exact truth."
"And this social life is what you call society- which is coming-how?"
"In all ways, through individual and associated effort. The exceptional private conscience has all along, since Christ's time, been cognizant of the true life of God on earth, and through this instrumentality is the public conscience being educated to put away its public sins of false, unequal and unjust legislation."
"Ah, now I see something that I never saw before. Since Christ's time, you say. Then he was the herald of that great truth?"
"Not alone the herald. That had been insufficient."
"I don't see again."
"How is a result so magnificent as that of a perfect society on earth to be achieved?"
"I thought you said that God was all the while moulding us into that form."
"I did. But by what means?"
"He gave us an example of perfect, unselfish love in the life of Christ, for one thing."
"He gave us a perfect example in the life of Christ, and more. He gave a completed work in that life."
"You surely cannot mean what you say. The work is far from completed yet."
"A completed work, I say, which ensures beyond the possibility of failure the result we have been considering-a perfect society on earth. For this perfect life of God which we have not put on socially, but into whose form he is silently moulding us, which we cannot put on individually until then, found perfect individual embodiment in the life of Christ."
"How was that possible when the race was so far behind?"
"Now we approach the point. Christ was not the outgrowth of the human alone, but of the human impregnated by the divine. The human form-human nature-which from its earliest beginnings he had silently moulded, was ready for this individual manifestation. It was 'the fullness of time,' we read. It was the real birth-hour of humanity."
"What form was ready?-that of the virgin mother?"
"Mary was representative mother merely. The real mother was the common mind of the race, human nature itself, and that mind, history tells us, was teeming with expectation of some marvelous advent. Mary was nothing individually, remember, any more than any one of us. The Incarnation made manifest through her instrumentality argues, perhaps, an identification with her kind in our common destitution and infirmity more complete than any other human personality page: 256-257[View Page 256-257] at the time presented. It certainly argues no exemption from that destitution and infirmity. She represented these, and also the universal inward recognition of the imminent need of the hour. She was a willing instrument, without doubt. So then the divine descended! There is in this nothing contrary to the order of nature-that order rightly understood. He is always descending. The miracle is perpetually before us. He is the momentary life of all life. The result of that special descent in the life of Christ was, it is true, marvelous beyond the power of words to express. Behold the finite, for the first time in history, conscious of the indwelling Infinite-consciously responding! The divine love coming into actual contact with our self-love! The result was inevitable-a marriage-union, a complete fusion of the divine and the human! For remember always that there was no coercion. The form was ready for the influx. It was ready to respond. And through all that suffering life it did respond to universal, unselfish, God-like love, responded to the denying of all selfish natural ties of home, kindred and nation, of the tender human mother, the temptations of ambition, wealth and power, of even the natural love of life, which was freely laid down, with words of forgiveness upon the suffering, dying lips. The life of Jesus Christ was perfect because it was in literal truth the life of God on earth. It was for once, that, it might be for all, the perfect subjugation of self-love, which is our natural life, to its exact opposite, which is his life."
"It was for once that it might be for all?" said Faith.
"Yes; human nature having been married with divine nature in one personality, the fruit of that marriage can be nothing short of the same union between the divine and all human nature. 'And if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.' So you see that a perfect society. on earth is inevitable."
"In one personality, Philip? Does the Infinite then now exist somewhere in that finite personality of Christ?"
"You would smile yourself, Faith, if you realized the contradictions involved in your question. No; the Infinite is never finited in reality, but only in appearance, and in accommodation to the forms of nature. The Incarnation was an apparent finiting of the Infinite, and a real infiniting of the finite. It was a historic fact from our point of view; an eternal verity unrelated to time, from the Creator's."
"Ah, that is the word, Philip-the infiniting of the finite. Certainly it was the birth-hour of the human. Assuredly Christ and the Creator are one. 'He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.' My father's intuitions are at last justified to my mind. I thank you, Philip."
page: 258-259[View Page 258-259]"No, Faith, not that."
"I thank you. I see, too, that our weak and selfish griefs are weaker and more selfish than I ever dreamed; our doubts, repinings and want of faith absurd, to say the least; our apathy in well-doing unaccountable, and our persistent immersion in ourselves unpardonable-"
"By a less than God," interrupted Philip, his eyes kindling in response to the light that illumined hers. "Shake hands, Faith. There! let us hold ourselves to the truth we see."
Not many days after they met in the library. Philip was writing. Faith came to the door, but would have withdrawn. He detained her. "I want to see you," he said.
She sat down at a distance from. him. "Come nearer, Faith. Here, take your father's chair." He rose and gave it to her, stood silent by the window a few moments, then said: "I wish it were possible for you to remain with my mother this winter, Faith."
"I wish it were, Philip."
"She is not given to loneliness, it is true, and doubtless could find some person to bear her company, but no one else is like you; you are a daughter to my mother. I should like to leave you together. Can you not stay?"
"I will to stay, if your mother wants me, and she does, I know. Whether I can depends upon others besides myself."
"Your grandparents?"
"Yes. My first duty is to them. If they desire my return to them, I must go. Otherwise, I shall be glad to stay. I dread returning there."
"Naturally. Yet some time I fancy the place will have a strange attraction for you."
"Possibly, if I can ever get far enough away from myself."
"You will. The mountains are steep, as you said, but you will not falter. They are steep for us all."
"For you too, Philip?"
The color flashed to his brow. "Yes, for me too."
"Then we can help each other," said Faith, in a clear, sweet voice.
He looked at her. "Oh, thank you," he said. "I have hardly dared hope to retain a place in your life. It seems that I have always known you as a friend, it is true, yet I cannot forget that in reality we have seen very little of each other, too little, perhaps, to base an enduring regard."
"What you call the seeming is to me the real, Philip. I know that I have always known you as a friend."
"Is it so, indeed? Well, that sounds comfortable," he added, with a smile. "I may trust, then, in your knowledge of me?"
"You may."
page: 260-261[View Page 260-261]"Faith!" said Philip, starting forward and standing before her, "you asked me once if I ever doubted. At this very moment I am distracted by the demon. I doubt, not, I believe, what I want, but what I ought to do. Can you help me?" He laid his hand upon the arm of the chair where she sat. His eyes were eager and intent.
She met them one moment, then rose hastily. "Stand back," she said, resting her own hand where his had lain. "Suppose, Philip"-her words came slowly and with difficulty- "the two paths that lie before you were equally pleasant. Would you doubt then? Would you know for a certainty what you ought to do? Answer your own soul."
He stood apart from her, his arms tightly folded across his breast. There was no tint of color in either face. Their eyes did not evade but sought each other.
"Answer," prayed Faith, through half-closed lips.
"I will. You have answered for me."
She turned from him, sat down again and laid her head upon the table. By and by she felt the pressure of his hand and heard in calm, clear tones, "God bless thee, my good angel."
The days sped. The time of departure drew near. The wedding preparations were nearly completed, but at the last moment the bridesmaid fell ill. Helen came into the library with the letter containing the news. "Is it not too bad? What shall I do?"
Is your cousin very ill?" asked Philip.
"I don't know, really. Yes, I suppose she is. Her mother says so, I believe. I am so disappointed. But I must have some one. Faith, won't you stand with me?"
"I! What are you talking about?" replied Faith, almost fiercely.
"Nothing so very terrible, I should say, that you need go into a passion over it."
"Surely. Excuse me, pray. But really, Helen, I cannot," said Faith, pleadingly.
"I think you might. Don't you, Philip, and Aunt Rachel?"
Don't, pray don't make any words, Helen. I will do as you wish, of course. You ought not to be disappointed. But," she added, quickly and gayly, interrupting Helen's voluble pleasure, " that will require sewing, will it not, or fussing of some sort, and you know my weakness?"
"Leave all that to me, Faith. You shall not be troubled in the least, only to say what you want."
"Suit yourself, Helen, and I shall be suited."
So the question was settled in less than five minutes, and for scarcely a longer time. The next mail brought a letter for. Faith. Her grand- mother was very ill and desired her immediate presence.
page: 262-263[View Page 262-263]She prepared to obey the summons, scarcely conscious where she was or what doing. But Mrs. Dean, ever ready and wise, arranged all things. When the coach drove to the door and Faith left the library with Mrs. Dean, there upon the porch stood Philip, ready to go also. She glanced at him in surprise and then turned inquiringly to Mrs. Dean.
"Certainly, my dear. Did you suppose we would allow you to go alone?"
"And Helen?"
"Of course Philip must go," said Helen, cheerfully.
"Thank you. You are very kind, Helen." She sprang into the coach, crept into a corner by herself, and there sat through the live-long day, only answering Philip's questions as to her comfort; sat there alone with her life that from past and future pressed heavily upon the present-upon heart and mind and body.
They took a Sound steamer that evening, and the next morning found them in New York harbor. Once before, not two years since, had Faith sailed into the same port from a distant shore. "Not two years," she said to herself as she stepped from the boat. "Truly, that is almost laughable. Not two years!"
They found Mrs. Carroll alive. Faith at once assumed the office of care-taker; as usual, ignoring the possibility of the dread trial that cast its shadow across her way, yet not with her old confidence in the efficacy of this method of disposing of trials. "You could not leave your little girl, could you, dear grandmother?" she said, smoothing the soft silver hair, with a smile on her lips but a great pain at her heart.
Philip waited to hear of Mrs. Carroll, and then went into the city. He did not return until late in the afternoon. He looked worn and haggard, but the light was in his eyes and a hard-won victory in his face and manner. Faith descended to the parlor to meet him.
"Your grandmother is no worse?"
"No; I have hope still, though the doctor offers none."
"I can do nothing for you by remaining here, Faith?"
"No."
"I thought so. Then I will return this evening."
"So soon!"
"It is best, is it not?"
"Yes."
"I have taken leave of Dr. Carroll in his study. There remains only to say good-bye to you. The moments press. I have left no time for words. None are needed. Good-bye." He extended his hand, but she neither moved nor spoke.
"Good-bye, Faith. Not one word, one?"
"Good-bye, Philip." Her hands were motion- less by her side.
page: 264-265[View Page 264-265]With a quick movement he reached the door, then turned.
She raised her eyes and started forward. "Philip!" He came back. "This is cruel," he said, "and God is not. He cares for all. Come. Never fear. He is our father and knows." He took her in his arms, and tenderly, as a mother hushes her child, soothed her upon his manly breast. Then he put back the curls from the young, sad face, kissed the closed eyelids, with a prayer, and went his way.
Leaving her to hers.
CHAPTER XVIII.
And was it a desolate way? At first, yes. Afterward- But let me not anticipate.
Mrs. Carroll lingered for some weeks. It was a holy, happy time. The grain, fully ripe, but waited the hour of the husbandman. Waving in beauty in the golden light of autumn, it distilled fragrance and peace upon the quiet air through the warm, dreamy October days. To Faith, after she had met and conquered herself, laid down one more life in self and risen anew in God-to her, too, it was a holy, happy time. Spirits of the departed blest were near her. She knew them in that saintly, dying presence. "Father and mother are with us, dear grandmother."
"Yes, my darling, they are here."
"Heaven is not afar off, nor our loved ones away."
"No, oh no, my child."
"And God is our father, dear grandmother." She laid her head with a smile upon the snowy counterpane. The roses in the vase exhaled a page: 266-267[View Page 266-267] dying fragrance. The rays of the setting sun streamed into the room. Dr. Carroll entered. He stood beside the bed. "How peacefully she sleeps! Hush! is it sleep, daughter?" Yes, the sleep that knows no waking.
Mr. Mosier was kindness itself. He came at once, the same gentle, thoughtful man, considerate, not for himself, but others. "He is like dew to the parched earth," said Faith, gratefully accepting his services.
And now there followed days when Mr. Mosier was a blessing indeed. Dr. Carroll sank beneath the blow that deprived him of one who had been the light of his home and life. His aged form tottered. His spirit, bruised and broken, offered no support to the failing body. Mr. Mosier was always ready. To him Faith turned for help, and never in vain. He came to talk and read with the lonely old man, to walk and ride with him, to wean him from his grief in all possible ways. At last Faith bethought herself. "Take him," she said, "to see his only sister, my aunt Margaret. She is helpless with paralysis. The short ride on the river will not tire him, and the sight of a greater affliction than his will do him good." So Mr. Mosier and the grandfather started, and Faith bestirred herself to restore order against their return. The house was renovated, the room from which the angel had departed, and which seemed alive with her presence, arranged as of old. Then Faith introduced a change. Before he left, she had ascertained through Mr. Mosier the whereabouts of the furniture of her own home. She had it brought to her grandfather's. She surrounded herself with it in her own room, in the parlors and lastly in the front basement. Hither were removed the mementoes of her own and her father's school-life. She sent away the desks and chairs that had served her purpose in former days, and replaced them with the old familiar ones of her childhood. Her father's study-table, associated far, far back with her own little high chair, now became hers. So the past was restored to her, hallowed by suffering, immortalized by faith in God!
The travelers returned on a Saturday evening. Faith had judged rightly. His sister's condition, to which long years had accustomed him, until he came to bear it with great philosophy, struck Dr. Carroll now in a new way. He came home deeply impressed with the unbearable nature of her trial. "Really, child, it seemed wicked in me to complain, I who have the use of my limbs, to say nothing of this pleasant home and the happy face of my dear little girl to cheer my few remaining days. You will never leave me, child?"
"Never, dear grandfather, and I am planning a great many pleasant days with you."
"So, so, child, that is well." His eyes rested upon her, and for the first time he realized the page: 268-269[View Page 268-269] change that was transforming the impetuous, self-willed, sorrowing girl into the wise and loving woman. His thoughts recurred to Mr. Mosier. "Guess that's it," he soliloquized, "and not a bad idea, either. They can live here with me, and by and by the children will make it pleasanter still."
"A fine fellow is Mr. Mosier," he said aloud, as if Faith were cognizant of and responsive to his thought. "A fine young man, my dear."
"Mr. Mosier is very kind, grandfather-kind to every one as well as to us, you know."
"Oh, these sly-boots!" chuckled the old man to himself. "How they think they deceive us! 'Kind to every one as well as to us.' Oh, of course."
Mr. Mosier came in a while after tea and chatted with them before the open fire. He admired the new pictures and lingered over the rare books that had once belonged to Samuel Reid. Faith talked of her father, and the doctor recounted many an incident of his son-in-law's singular unworldliness -incidents that brought to light the rare and rich qualities of his mind and heart. Faith was busy with her needle. "I hardly believe it myself," she said, looking up in a pause of the conversation,"but I have really undertaken a shirt for you, grandfather, one of those awful frilled ones. Which do you think will conquer, the shirt or I?"
"I can scarcely imagine you as vanquished," replied Mr. Mosier, laughing.
"Oh, you don't know. The odds are fearful, I assure you. I shall record my triumph, if I am so happy, for the benefit of future dismayed, yet courageous, damsels."
"But I don't need the shirt," said Dr. Carroll.
"No, I am simply exercising myself a little, grandfather. I have never been sure that fine sewing was not more than a match for me-in fact, I have been sure that it was. Now I want to see."
"Well, there's no use in troubling yourself unnecessarily. I wouldn't do fine sewing if I didn't want to. Let it alone. Let some one else do it. Half the trouble in the world I believe comes from the spirit you are fostering."
"And at least half the progress," added Mr. Mosier.
"Perhaps so. But we could get along with a little less progress, in my opinion. Faith is all right, however," said the old man, quickly and tenderly; "she is all right," lingering with a benign smile on the last words.
The next day he walked into church leaning on the arm of his granddaughter, and thereafter on every Sunday when he was able to be there. He had given up preaching in the summer, except on rare occasions, at the funeral of an old soldier like himself, or on Sundays, sometimes, previous to page: 270-271[View Page 270-271] communion or confirmation services. Mr. Mosier was pastor in reality, although Dr. Carroll retained the name.
And Mr. Mosier grew in all gentle and godly ways. The "possible," by Faith Reid, that he saw six months ago, was becoming the actual-shall we say?-without her. That would not be strictly true. All both need and have help by and through the human, and she had helped him and continued to help him to new interpretations of life, to a new meaning in the gospel. The Church enlarged before his vision. He saw it no longer circumscribed to any one nation or sect, but universal as man, sacred as humanity; he saw it rising, under all forms, the holy temple of God in the human heart. Faith listened to him from the pulpit, glad and thankful that the, good seed 'was falling into willing hearts, educating them all unconsciously into a higher idea of God and a truer love for man. She did not go among his people, although here and there one sought her out, drawn to her by the hidden attraction of spirit. She had her own world, her own life, her own work, which absorbed her. She had no time for the pursuits of society-in the, ordinary meaning of the word society-because, doubtless, her education had unfitted her to find pleasure in them. We have time for the things we love. As the months wore on she gathered into the front basement another school, not, however, like the one she first convened there. She had that to give now which the outcast children of men could not receive. She went among them, as of old, with an aching heart, and tried, while ministering to their bodies, to bear to them also some of the truths that had lifted her out of despair. But they were hungry and naked and shelterless, and had no heart to think of or care for the ways of Providence or the needs of mind and soul.
"I doubt you are right, miss," was the response she sometimes received, "but my soul doesn't bother me. It don't want no victuals, nor drink, and mostly my body does. And the butcher wants his money, too, and I ain't got none to give him, leastways sometimes. I guess the Lord 'ull take care of my soul, as you say he do. He don't seem to care much about my body, 'cept to make it want everything it can't get, and it 'pears as though he oughter do something."
But such answers seldom came from women. They looked at her in mute despair when she appealed to them on behalf of their womanhood- looked from their want or vice, helpless and hopeless alike by both. "Dear Christ, whom we are thus crucifying with our inhumanity," she would say as she walked away from her parish, "how long before we shall work with thee in thy spirit to sure and saving results?"
"I find it hard to wait," she wrote to Mrs. Dean, "and can only calm myself by thinking that he is page: 272-273[View Page 272-273] waiting also, standing without and knocking, standing patiently until we will to open. Often I wonder that he does not speak the word that no one can fail to hear, speak to governments and churches their duty to their fellow-men, and oftener still I wonder that he tolerates us at all in our stupid, cruel selfishness. He is God or he could not. That is plain."
Mr. Mosier kindled as he listened to her, and although looking from another standpoint than hers, held as he was in the routine of a clerical education and life, he yet responded more fully than any with whom she came in contact. Sometimes, it is true, she almost frightened him with her daring and sweeping deductions. "You unmoor me completely," he said.
"That I cannot do if you are anchored in God," was the reply.
She both held him and repelled him, yet at any time he would have laid his life at her feet if so he might serve her. In truth, his life was at her feet, so much of it at least as she would use. But she was generous and true. She did not use for herself. That was the bitter thought--" she wants nothing of me"-a thought, however, that only appeared to be dismissed, for he also was both generous and true. He was his best self with her. So she held him. He was not her equal, and loved her. So she repelled him.
Faith's school then was from another class than the inarticulated masses. "I need more money than I have," she said to her grandfather.
"You shall have all you want," he answered, his purse in his hand.
"Not that, grandfather. I want ever so much more than you and I together possess."
"Why, bless the child! what will she do with it, and where is it to come from?"
"I know the what and the where," she answered, gayly. "Don't you think I am quite indolent, grandfather?--positively lazy, now? Really, I have nothing to do after I get your own dear self tidied up in the morning and ready for your books and callers."
"But the frilled shirt, granddaughter?"
"Oh yes, I forget. But that I must have for the evening, you know." "Yes, and I think it will last."
"Indeed, grandfather, that shirt is to be finished," said Faith, severely.
"I don't doubt it, not I," laughed the old man. "But what are you after? Do you want to engage frilled shirts to make for a consideration and to keep you out of, mischief? What is it, puss?"
"No, grandfather, I don't want any more frilled shirts to make, but I do want"- she stooped down and whispered in his ear-"I want to open a school in the front basement."
"Tut, tut, child! never speak of it again. page: 274-275[View Page 274-275] Haven't you got over that craze? Those beggarly little things almost drove me wild. I can't think of it, not a minute; never mention the subject again. Anything than that--frilled shirts or what not-"
"But; grandfather," implored Faith, who had vainly endeavored to edge in an explanatory word, "won't you hear me? I don't want that kind of a school."
"Oh, you don't," said the doctor, pulling up fairly out of breath.
"No, I want a nice, respectable school-what you call respectable, you know," she added, mischievously; "nice girls whom I can teach-well, no matter about that. You have not seen the front basement since you came home. Just come down with me now, that's a dear." So the two adjourned to the front basement.
"Why, goodness, child! this is your father's old school furniture."
"Yes, grandfather," she answered, in low and reverent tones, standing beside the table where his hand had rested in the well-remembered days when he talked to his boys and she looked at him with wide-open eyes of admiration and love. "I had them brought here, and I may have a school, mayn't I?"
"Yes, you may;" and his voice was subdued in the presence of the past. "You may have a school, dear." And she did.
Mr. Mosier brought the scholars, as many as she wanted. "I could fill a room twice as large," he said.
"Which would be too large for me. This suits- a round dozen. Now look out for your laurels, Mr. Mosier, for I shall surely preach, too, at the risk of being thought strong-minded; that is the term, is it not?"
"Not for you," said Mr. Mosier. "I don't know but I prefer it, if the only alternative be its opposite-- weak-minded."
"Surely. Why, what shall we call you?" said Mr. Mosier, quite seriously confronting the difficulty; "not weak-minded, of course, but then-"
"You can't abide the other," laughed Faith.
"No."
"Well, perhaps I shall originate a term. At present I am altogether contented with the word woman! minus any adjective. I believe in woman, though not always in women."
Mr. iMosier pondered the distinction, but held his peace.
The women are living now who look back to Miss Reid's school as the opening of a new era in their lives. Like her father, she educated. As the years went by and she lived more deeply, so did she educate into truer and higher ideas of life and duty. "You should be apostles," she said, "and, in a sense, prophets too, keeping with the advance guard in all battles for the right and page: 276-277[View Page 276-277] the reign of righteousness on earth. And this implies a struggle and a victory within your own hearts. He cannot lead others who is too weak to lead himself. Therefore make of self your first enemy. Doubtless it will be your last also, for it is a natural inheritance, and for us, whatever it may be in the distant future, an inheritance of tyranny. Self has ruled the world so long that we constantly forget her rightful office of servant and obey her behests, when it is we who should command."
As years passed society became indebted to Faith Reid for more than one true worker. Her pupils did not leave her to idle in the marketplace. The Lord of the vineyard found them ever ready to bear their part in the heat and burden of the day. Not all, it is true, but all who were taught of her.
Mr. Mosier often visited the school, and Faith, entirely unembarrassed because absorbed in her work, talked, if talking were in order, as though he were not there. And by and by, still true to his worshipful regard for her, he chose a wife from among her advanced pupils, a gentle girl, to whom he was a realized ideal, whom he could guide and protect, love and cherish, as his own. Into their home Faith went, an ever-welcome guest. She had her chair and corner, her place at table, and in due time her little namesake. She carried sunshine with her, entered into all their domestic plans and ways and was to them a constant incentive to higher and better things.
But what of her own life? Was the stream never exhausted? Did she never weary by the way nor falter as the mountain peaks rose high before her? All this and more. Faith and hope and trust in God sometimes failed her. The heavens were brass, the Lord deaf to her cries. Often, too, her work failed, or seemingly so. The sheaves were poor and mean. She would fain have hidden them from the searching eyes of the Lord of the harvest, would fain have dropped out of sight from among the army of workers and been counted as naught. And then, too, why evade the truth? She was young, and had held in her hand life's brimming cup of love, had almost pressed it to her lips, only to set it down untasted, to turn away from it, to wrestle with it as a tantalizing memory, and know that no grave was deep or strong enough to hold its persistent life, that it would rise unbidden as often as buried, rise to cast into the shade for the time all joy not born of its bewilderingly beautiful self.
"I know that such thoughts and feelings are weak," she wrote to Mrs. Dean, "but the knowledge does not cure me."
And Mrs. Dean answered, "Knowledge never cures. It is but the prescription. Life cures. Accept yours patiently and trustingly, and it will bring you a love that you need not bury, but page: 278-279[View Page 278-279] may wear in angel presences and before God himself."
"Ah, I had not thought so. But I see now, and I thank you." So she took up life with a new inspiration, yielding herself to its fermenting and regenerating power. "God is in it," she said, "and that is why it cures."
Not long after her return to New York she received a letter from Judge Murdock asking to be allowed to visit her during the winter. She answered "nay," but from that time the correspondence continued. "Truly," he wrote, after the lapse of three years, "I offer myself to you as an object of charity. Can you refuse my claim, you who are devoted to such? I am ready to read Swedenborg under your tuition, to aid you in all your pet schemes, and to make them mine as far as I can. I have money, but it is valueless to me, and I am sick of pretence. You see I am in a sorry condition, but you may make something of me, nevertheless, since I am able to perceive, acknowledge and aspire after the excellences you so well illustrate. Will you try me? May I come?"
She answered, "The help you need you would not find in me, nor in any man or woman. Have courage, my friend, to look within. If you are sick of pretence, cease to practice it upon your own soul. Become yourself what you aspire after. That alone will satisfy you. I should not. Trust me. The soul is alone until it finds God. Then it can know other souls, and not till then. Dear friend, pardon me. I do not like to preach to you. It seems presumptuous. Believe, I pray you, in my respect for your worth, my gratitude and sincere affection."
At the end of five years a card announced Judge Murdock's marriage with Elizabeth, daughter of Senator Campbell. With it came a note: "We shall be in New York a few days, and expect, of course, to see you." Faith replied, "Do give me the pleasure of entertaining you. Come at once to our home."
They came, and the two women clasped hands across the social chasm that separated them. Elizabeth Campbell was a woman of the world, versed in its ways, mistress of its arts, but superior to both, an elegant, refined and cultivated woman.
"I know you, my dear," she said to Faith. Don't suppose that my husband could keep his adoration of you to himself. I have listened patiently both to your praises and your letters, and have not the smallest doubt that to my appreciation of you I owe the tardy recognition of my own merits. There! don't contradict me. I know what I know, and am not one bit jealous. On the contrary, I feel indebted to you. The judge has changed wonderfully, and for the better, within the last three years, and whether you like it or not, you, I page: 280-281[View Page 280-281] believe, are mainly responsible for the change, but the craft is under my orders now. I say this to you, you understand, not to him. Of course, we women are mere obediences, and all that, as your dear, delightful, dull Swedenborg says. I repeat, the craft is under my orders now, and I feel quite competent to manage it. Only I want you for a friend for my husband and myself too, ma chere. Will you?"
Faith thoroughly enjoyed their visit. They persuaded her into the gay world under their charge, "just to get a bird's-eye view from your eyrie," said Mrs. Murdock. "The sight will do you good. You are too intense, too earnest and too exclusive by half. Why, my dear, these but-terfly creatures are your brothers and sisters, you know--blood-relatives, all. Look at them, and learn a lesson, I say. Their life must be utilized and made serviceable in some way in that new society of which you are dreaming. Why spend all your time in worriting over that other and most unaccountable extreme of humanity? Bring your philosophy to bear upon fashon as well as famine. You have a mission here, I am persuaded."
Faith laughingly rejoined, "I have no mission anywhere, but you speak truth, and I will consider what you say."
"And repent, by all means. It is not enough to consider."
Before the judge and his wife left, however, Mrs. Murdock and Faith talked in other directions and from other moods. "I see what you are doing," said the lady, "and I honor you. Pray don't interrupt me. Certainly it would be an impossible work to me, but I do not tell you to learn a lesson without heeding the admonition myself. Still, we must each apply in our own way and sphere. Your metaphysics are beyond me, your theory of life and love to the last degree Utopian, but your charity and humanity are Christ-like. There! now you may talk."
"You bring me a message," said Faith. "No charity or humanity is Christ-like that lacks the element of universality."
"And your conscience accuses you?"
"Yes. Another thing. We trouble ourselves overmuch if the world's affairs are not managed as we would manage them."
"Undoubtedly, but it is something to be troubled in any wise concerning the world's affairs. Most of us are content with being troubled about our own. So we both have a message, and I shall be glad if I heed mine half as well as I know you will yours."
The judge said, in the presence of his wife, "You were right, Faith, in refusing me. But don't forget that we are fellow-travelers, will you?"
"I shall not forget," she answered.
page: 282-283[View Page 282-283]They were about leaving. It was in the early morning-time. Darkness and dawn were contending. The three stood in the open doorway awaiting the carriage, whose distant approach through the quiet streets could be distinctly heard. "Darkness must retire. Dawn is inevitable," said the judge, smiling as he pronounced the last word, and pointing to the faint flashes of light that appeared and disappeared in the eastern horizon. "I often think, Faith, of a remark made by our good friend Mrs. Dean-you must know Mrs. Dean, wife-made, I believe, the first time we met, Faith. Does it not sound like her?-'Only the decrees of love are inevitable.' I assented, I remember, but not with the faith that I now have. It is wonderful to know that only the decrees of love, infinite love, are inevitable!"
As the sound of retreating wheels died away, Faith turned from the open sky where dawn was now the victor, went to her own room and, without any reason that she could have given herself or another, cried until breakfast-time.
The Murdocks did have a message for her. "I am going to enter society," she said that evening, sitting by the Mosier fireside. Clara Mosier looked up in astonishment, but her husband replied,
"You are right, Faith. One thing I like about you is that you can learn a lesson not only theoretically, but practically."
So Faith entered society, as it is called. In her own way, of course. It did not follow that she must adopt all the ideas she found there. It did follow that her own were enlarged, and that in the circle where she moved they became a power for good.
"No prophet could have made us believe in this day," said Dr. Carroll, encountering Mr. Mosier one evening in his own well-filled parlors. "Still, Faith's parties are like no one's else."
",Of course not; she is like no one else, doctor. They are Faith's parties, and therein lies the difference. She compels us for the time out of our narrow personal lives into the upper region where she dwells."
Mr. Mosier always grew enthusiastic when talking of Faith. Another five years passed, during which the angel of death came again to Faith. This time she was left alone indeed. "Quite alone and desolate," she wrote to Mrs. Dean. "Come to me, dear friend and mother. Why should we live apart? My home is large enough for both."
Mrs. Dean replied, "I will come, but not to stay. Philip and Helen visit me every year, you know, and I must keep a home for them."
"My home is large enough for Philip and Helen too, dear mother. Let them come here to see you, and to see me also."
"You have won, my child," was the response. "The Lord has blessed you."
page: 284-285[View Page 284-285]Mrs. Dean's removal was, however, delayed, She was a busy woman, and many lives clustered around hers. Faith looked, expected and waited for her, and finally received a letter instead--two letters indeed, one from Philip to his mother, the other from Mrs. Dean. Philip's letter announced the death of Helen. "I hoped," he wrote, "that Helen would be able to bear the journey home, but the doctor advised me to wait from day to day for a little more strength, until at last it was too late. She failed rapidly, and now I write this letter a sad and lonely man. Helen has left me. My chief occupation in life seems gone. So long had I watched and tended her that she became to me as a child.
"Dear mother, you noted the gradual change in her when we came home from time to time, but the last year finished the work. Patient and lovely in her sweet submission, she would hardly hear me express my sympathy for her sufferings. 'It is all best,' she said.
"And now, dear mother, I repeat from her what follows, in obedience to her dying behest. She herself tried many times to write to you, but could not. She charged me to tell you so that you would know and understand how grateful she at last became for all your kindness, and, so she charged me, or I would not say it, how ungrateful she had been. 'I thought of myself always first until'-these are her words-- you, Philip, taught me better through the untiring devotion of years. Now I see myself as never before, and I see you and our mother as never before. I see, too, the beautiful life that Faith is living. Tell her so, and thank her, oh, a thousand times, for her loving invitation to us to go to her home.' (Have I told you of it before, mother--Faith's letter to us, so like herself, and containing an invitation, at once cordial, frank and loving, to visit her?) 'She would have helped you take care of me,' said Helen. And here, dear mother, she said something which I will omit. Indeed, I hardly know how to go on. Some time let me tell you the rest. Our sick child, made perfect through suffering, has done her work for me also. God be thanked for the blessing!"
page: 286-287[View Page 286-287]CHAPTER XIX.
Mrs. Dean went to live with Faith, and the two were very happy-happy in each other, happy in their mutual work. Philip wrote constantly to his mother of his life, she and Faith to him of theirs. And one day he was with them. His mother received him in the parlor, and then announced his arrival to Faith in the front basement. She dismissed her school and went up stairs. Philip stood in the centre of the room as she opened the door, the self-same door that had parted him from her sight ten years ago. His hair was prematurely gray, and the lines about his mouth firmer and sadder than before, but it was the same tender-hearted, loyal and reverent man. Faith intended to be calm. "I am almost middle-aged," she thought. But one look into the only eyes that ever read her soul, and her fine resolution vanished. "Philip!" and this time there was neither fear nor the pain of parting to mar the perfect peace of souls united, not in each other simply--ah, no, better than that-united in the one Soul that loves and cares alike for all.
