THE DOCTOR'S GLASSES
"'There is no hatred, lad, so bitter as that hatred born of a religious
love; no falsehood so vile as the lie spoken in defense of truth; no
wrong so harmful as the wrong committed in the name of righteousness; no
injustice so terrible as the injustice of those who condemn in the name
of the Saviour of the world!'"
When Dan, forced into something of his habitual self-control and calmness
by the presence of his old friend, began telling the Doctor of the action
of the church the other checked him abruptly with, "I know all about
that, lad."
"You know!" ejaculated Dan.
"Certainly I know. Isn't Martha one of the elect? I reckon everybody in
the whole town but you knew it before noon of the day after the meeting."
Dan muttered something about being a blind fool and the old Doctor
answered, "Humph! The fools are they who see too much, boy. Such
blindness as yours is a gift of the gods; for Heaven's sake don't let
any quack fit you out with glasses!"
Dan threw himself wearily into a chair and there was a spirit of
recklessness in his reply, as though he were letting go of himself again.
"How is a blind man to recognize a quack? I would to God I had your
glasses!"
"Perhaps," said the Doctor deliberately, "I might lend them to you, just
for once, you know."
"Well then," said the other, sitting up suddenly, "let me have them! How
do you see this thing? What have I done or not done? For what shall I
blame myself? What fatal error have I made that, with the best of
motives, with the--," he hesitated, then--"I can say it to you, Doctor,
and I will--with the sacrifice of the dearest thing in the world to me, I
am cast out in this fashion? If I can find a reason for it, I can bear
it."
"It is your blindness, boy. You could not help it; you were born blind.
I have always known this would come."
"You have always known this would come?" repeated Dan questioningly.
"Yes, I have always known, because for half a century, boy, I have
observed the spirit of this institution. Mind, I do not say the spirit
of the people in the institution. Strong people, Dan, sometimes manage
to live in mighty sickly climates. The best people in the world are
sometimes held by evil circumstances which their own best intentions
have created. The people in the church are the salt of the earth. If
it were not for their goodness the system would have rotted long ago.
The church, for all its talk, doesn't save the people; the people save
the church. And let me tell you, Dan, the very ones in the church who
have done the things you have seen and felt, at heart respect and believe
in you."
Dan broke forth in such a laugh as the Doctor had never heard from his
lips. "Then why?"
"Because," said the old man, "it is their religion to worship an
institution, not a God; to serve a system, not the race. It is history,
my boy. Every reformation begins with the persecution of the reformer
and ends with the followers of that reformer persecuting those who would
lead them another step toward freedom. Misguided religious people have
always crucified their saviors and always will!"
Dan was silent, awed by the revelation of his old friend's mind.
Presently the Doctor continued, "There is no hatred, lad, so bitter as
that hatred born of a religious love; no falsehood so vile as the lie
spoken in defense of truth; no wrong so harmful as the wrong committed
in the name of righteousness; no injustice so terrible as the injustice
of those who condemn in the name of the Saviour of the world!"
"What then, as you see it--what can I do?" demanded Dan.
The Doctor changed his tone. His reply was more a question than an
answer. "There are other churches?"
Dan laughed bitterly. "They have taken care of that, too." He began to
tell of the call to Chicago and the Elders' refusal to give him a letter,
but again the Doctor interrupted him. "Yes, I know about that, too."
"Well," demanded Dan almost angrily.
"Well," answered the other easily, "there are still other churches."
"You mean--."
"I mean that you are not the only preacher who has been talked about by
his church, and branded by his official board with the mark of the devil
in the name of the Lord. It's easy enough! Go farther, get a little
obscure congregation somewhere, stay long enough to get a letter, not
long enough to make another name; try another in the same fashion. Lay
low, keep quiet, stay away from conventions, watch your chance, and--when
the time is ripe--make a hit with the state workers in some other state.
You know how! It's all easy enough!"
Dan leaped to his feet. "Good God, Doctor! I have done nothing wrong. Why
should I skulk, and hide, and scheme to conceal something I never did,
for the privilege of serving a church that doesn't want me? Is this the
ministry?"
"It seems to be a large part of it," answered the other deliberately.
"My boy, it's the things that preachers have not done that they try
hardest to hide. As to why, I must confess that I am a little
near-sighted myself sometimes."
"I can't, I can't do it, Doctor!"
"Humph! I didn't suppose you could," came dryly from the old man.
Dan did not heed but went on in a hopeless tone to tell the Doctor how he
had written his resignation, and had declined to consider the call to
Chicago. "Don't you see that I couldn't take a church if one were offered
me now?" he asked. "Don't you understand what this has done for me? It's
not the false charges. It's not that! It's--it's the thing, whatever it
is, that has made this action of the church possible. I am forced to
doubt, not alone the church, but everything--the people, myself, God,
Christ, Christianity, life itself; everything! How can I go on with a
work, in which I cannot say to myself with truth that I believe?" His
voice ended in a groan.
And the old man, who knew the lad so well felt as though he were gazing
upon the big, naked soul. Then, indeed, the Doctor knew that the hour had
come.
There are those who, capable of giving but little to life, demand of life
much in return. To such weak natures doubt means not much. But souls like
this one, capable of giving themselves to the last atom of their
strength, demand no small returns in convictions as to the worthiness of
the cause to which they contribute. To such, doubt is destruction. It was
because Dan had believed so strongly, so wholly in the ministry of the
church that he had failed. Had he not accepted so unreservedly, and given
himself so completely to the ministry as it was presented to him in
theory, had he in some degree doubted, he would have been able to adjust
himself to the actual conditions. He would have succeeded.
For while, theoretically, the strength of the church is in its fidelity
to the things in which it professes to believe; practically and actually
the strength of the church of today is in its tacit acceptance of its
unbeliefs. Strange things would befall us if we should ever get the habit
of insisting that our practice square with our preaching; if churches
should make this the test of fellowship--that men must live their
doctrines, rather than teach them--that they must live their beliefs
rather than confess them--that they must live their faiths, rather than
profess them.
Dan's was not a nature that could preach things in which he only half
believed to a people whose belief he knew to be no stronger than his own.
It was with these things in mind that the Doctor had waited for this
moment in Dan's life, for the old man realized, as the young man could
not, what such moments mean.
Rising and going to the window overlooking the garden the Doctor called
to Dan, "Come here, boy!"
Together they stood looking down on the little plot of ground with its
growing vegetables, where Denny, with his helpless, swinging arm, and
twisted, dragging foot, was digging away, his cheery whistle floating up
to them. The physician spoke with a depth of feeling he had never
betrayed before, while Dan, troubled as he was, listened in wonder to
his friend, who had always been so reticent in matters such as this.
"Dan," he said, "you wished for my glasses. 'Tis always a mighty
dangerous thing to try to see through another man's eyes, but here are
mine." He pointed below.
"Down there I see religion--Christianity--what you will, but religion;
living, growing, ever-changing, through the season-ages; lying dormant
sometimes, it may be, but always there; yielding to each season the
things that belong to that season; depending for its strength and power
upon the Great Source of all strength and power; depending as truly upon
man's efforts, upon his cultivation and care. There is variety, harmony,
law, freedom. There is God! Something for all--potatoes, peas, turnips,
cabbage. If you do not care for lettuce, perhaps radishes will satisfy.
And there, boy, in the midst of his church, ministering to the needs of
his congregation, and thus ministering to men--is my minister: crippled,
patient Denny, who gives his frail strength to keep the garden growing.
"And look you, boy, at the great rock in the very center of the field!
How often Denny has wished it out of his way! I caught the poor lad
digging, one time, to find, if he could, how deep it is in the earth,
and how big. For three days I watched him. Then he gave it up. It is
beyond his strength and he wisely turned to devote his energies to the
productive soil around it.
"There is a rock in every garden, Dan. Religion grows always about the
unknowable. But Denny's ministry has naught to do with the rock, it has
to do with the growing things about it. So religion is in the knowable
things not in the unknowable; there such men as you, lad, must find it.
And the rock, boy, was not put in the garden by men. It belongs to the
earth itself."
While the Doctor was speaking his eyes had been fixed on the crippled
boy in the garden. He turned now, for the first time, to face the young
man by his side. Dan's eyes had that wide, questioning look. The old
physician moved to the other window.
"Now come, see what men have done." He pointed to the cast-iron monument.
"These people will tell you that was erected to commemorate the life of
my friend. His was a warm, tender, loving spirit--a great, ever-growing
soul. What can that hard, cold, immovable mass tell of him? How can that
thing--perpetuating an issue that belongs to a past age, that has nothing
to do with the life of today--how can that thing speak of the great heart
that loved and gave itself always to men?
"Through my glasses that is the church! How can an institution, or a
system of theological beliefs--with cast-iron prejudices, cast-iron
fidelity to issues long past and forgotten, cast-iron unconcern of vital
issues of the life of today and cast-iron want of sympathy with the
living who toil and fight and die on every side--how can such speak the
great loving, sympathetic, helpful spirit of Him whose name only it
bears, as that bears only the name of my friend?
"But would the people of this town, out of love for my dead friend, tear
down that monument if Denny should leave his garden to argue with them
about it? Why, they would tell him that it is because of their love for
the statesman that they keep it there and they believe it--and it is
true. Well, then, let them keep their monument and let Denny work in his
garden! And don't you see, Dan, that the very ones who fight for the
cast-iron monument must depend at last for their lives and strength upon
the things that Denny grows in his garden. Now boy, that's the first and
only time I ever preached."