THE CONFESSION
When Winifred awoke the nest morning it was to wonder if it were really
true--if she had come to God and He had received her. A sweet rest
still in her heart testified to a burden lifted. Her Bible lay open on
the little table where she had found the minister's text while fighting
her battle the day before. A leaf or two had blown over, and she
looked down on the sixth chapter of John and read,
"Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out."
Renewed assurance came with the words.
"I believe it," she said to herself. "I have been very false, but He
is true. He says the truth. I believe it."
The thought of the choir scarcely entered her mind now in her new-found
joy. The question, to sing or not to sing, had shifted to the deeper
one of relationship to God, and the peace that came with its settlement
overshadowed everything else. She went down to breakfast with a light
heart and very cheerful countenance. Hubert looked at her in surprise
from under gloomy brows. His own had been a restless night.
"Has your headache gone, dear?" asked her mother solicitously.
"Oh, long ago, Mother," said Winifred. She wanted to tell her mother
the better news than of a headache gone, but did not know how to begin.
They talked of ordinary things until breakfast was nearly over. Then
Mr. Gray said:
"Mr. Mercer was sorry to miss you from the choir last night, Winnie,
and hoped you were not going to be ill."
"Thank you, Father. Mr. Mercer is always very kind."
"He hopes you will surely be at the rehearsal Friday night, as he
expects to take up some specially fine music."
Winifred's heart heat violently as she summoned courage to say:
"I do not think I shall sing in the choir any more, Father."
"Why--what, Winnie? What's that you are saying? You not sing in the
choir any more?"
"What are you saying, Winifred," added Mrs. Gray.
Winifred nerved herself for the statement. It might as well he said
now as ever, while they were all together.
"Yes, Father," she said, "I do not think I can sing in the choir any
longer. I saw very clearly yesterday that I had never been a true
worshiper. I have never meant the words that I sang. I have scarcely
thought about God while I sang words about Him or addressed to Him.
Many of them I could not say honestly. It has all been for effect, and
to--to please you all. So I--I concluded--I--couldn't go on any
longer."
It had been a very difficult speech, and Winifred's voice sank at the
end.
Mr. Gray looked very grave.
"You surprise me, Winnie," he said. "You surprise me very much. You
should be conscientious, surely, but you will let me say I think you
are taking the matter too seriously,"
Silent Hubert shot a reproachful glance at his father. In his
estimation here was a case of downright honesty that called for
applause, not repression.
"I think your father is right, Winifred," said Mrs. Gray faintly, and
then she added, rather illogically, "but I do not understand just what
you mean."
"Can I take the truth too seriously, Father?" asked Winifred, still
speaking with an effort. It was an ingenuous question, but Robert Gray
found it hard to answer.
"No," he said, after a moment's hesitation, "not truth itself, but we
may get wrong ideas of it. But, Winnie," he added, with real sorrow in
his voice, "I hope you do not mean to tell us that you will not
hereafter try to worship God, since the past has been so unsatisfactory
to you?"
"Oh, no, Father," said Winifred quickly, with rising courage as her
experience of the night before came vividly to her. "I have more to
tell. I was very unhappy about it all last night, and--I prayed--she
blushed, for it was new to speak of such things--I prayed, and it came
to me that there was a way to come to God just as I was, and He would
make me a true worshiper; and I came."
Winifred's embarrassment could not quite cover her joy as she made her
confession. The father looked relieved.
"I am thankful,--very thankful, Winnie," he said. "You did nobly.
That was quite right--quite right. But now I do not see that you need
give up your singing, but that you might go on sincerely where you have
failed before."
He looked a little anxious, for her singing in the church was very dear
to him.
Winifred's brow clouded. "I fear I cannot, Father. Not now, at least."
"No? Well, we'll talk about it later," he said kindly, and they left
the breakfast table.
In the hall Hubert waited for Winifred with his own form of benediction:
"You're a brick, Winnie," he said, and planted a kiss upon her fair
forehead.
She smiled and returned his kiss with an affectionate caress. Hubert's
slangy praise was dearer to her than any polished compliment from
another source.
Hubert did not understand why he hated the world and things a little
less as he walked to business that morning, the stone walk answering to
his usual sharp, decisive step. He did not know that it was a gleam of
something pure and true, of a religion not in word but in deed, that
had flashed across his path and mitigated its darkness.
Winifred had a long talk alone with her father in the library later in
the day. She had thought out her reasons, and understood better,
herself, the instinctive feeling that led her not to resume her place
in the choir under the altered conditions.
"I am just beginning to worship, Father," she said, "and I feel I could
do so better out of sight--for awhile, at least. You do not know the
temptation it would be to fall back into the old way. I am afraid I
could not stand it. I would rather just slip into the congregation
beside you, Father, and sing to God when my heart sings, and keep still
when it doesn't."
So her father yielded the point to her conscience.
"God bless you, Winnie," he said with glistening eyes, as he stroked
her chestnut locks. "It may be I have been a bit of an idolater,
myself."
Poor Mrs. Gray sighed, and quite gave up trying to understand
Winifred's strange position. She hoped she would be able to give some
suitable reason for withdrawing, and not set the whole church talking
about her peculiar views. She remembered hopefully that her daughter
had suffered from laryngitis not long ago, and she mentally nursed the
almost vanished trouble into proportions that would forbid her singing
much. She was sure Dr. Lansing would give an opinion to that effect
now. But, dear me! as for herself, she did not know how she should
ever sit in that church and hear anyone else sing in Winifred's place!
It was to be feared that there were many others who would find it
difficult to sit in that church if their own natural wishes and tastes
were not gratified there. What it was to be gathered "in My name," as
the Lord Jesus had said,--into the name of Him whose flesh with its
longing and loves had been carried pitilessly to the cross, that from
its death there might spring forth for all His own life in the Spirit
unto God--what this was, few at New Laodicea knew; nor what it was, so
gathered, to behold Him in the midst. Oh, lonely heart without the
door of His own house! He knocks patiently, not in the hope that the
whole household will hear Him, but for "any man" who has ears to hear
and will open to Him.
Winifred had another task before her that day, and she did it promptly.
She did not know how really in her ready obedience she was walking in
the steps of "the father of all them that believe," who, when Isaac was
to be offered, rose early in the morning to go about the sacrifice.
She went straight to Mr. Mercer, the leader of the choir, and told him
of her withdrawal. She told her story with simplicity and dignity, and
it commanded his respect.
"I honor your convictions, Miss Gray," he said. "We shall find it hard
to fill your place, and I am very sorry you are going. But I would not
for a moment urge you to remain. As I say, I honor your convictions.
I only wish I had the courage of them myself."
His face grew heavy. He knew well the deity that led him to that
place, and the anxious care that governed each Sunday's work. To bring
his choir to the perfect standard of musical merit which his artist
soul craved was his ambition. He knew pleasure as he approximated to
that goal, and vexation almost to despair when he fell far short. He
knew it was not before God but at another shrine he poured out his
soul's libation.
"I know I am not a worshiper," he said. "I have never professed to be
a Christian--oh, I am not a Mohammedan or a Hindu!--but I do not
profess to be a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. I should not like,"
he said reflectively, "to add to a life indifferent to my Creator the
insult of a mock worship."
He bent his brows heavily to consider if such a course were really his.
"I would leave the whole thing to-day," he said vehemently, "as you are
doing, Miss Gray, if I could. I would follow other lines in my
profession, but I am in this now and it is my living. It means bread
and butter to those dependent on me."
He paused, and Winifred said nothing but looked at him with strong
sympathy. He went on:
"It will not excuse me, I suppose, but whose is the greater sin? Is it
mine, or theirs who hired me? I thought of it professionally. If one
honest man had met me with the question, 'Can you lead that part of our
worship to God in spirit and in truth?' I should have known that I
could not, and said so. Then I should have turned my attention to
secular paths where secular men belong. But there's the rub! Not one
of them thought of it, I suppose. What a farce it is! The minister
yesterday talked of incense rising to God. It doesn't get beyond their
nostrils, I think. You know that man--what's his name?--he's a stock
broker, who sits down the right aisle? Well, you know there was a talk
once of dismissing the quartette, and retaining only the chorus (under
my direction) to reduce expenses. That man declared if the quartette
were dismissed he would leave the church. He is not a member anyway, I
think, but he pays! There is worship for you! I tell you, the people
glut their own souls with good music, and go home thinking they have
worshiped God. Oh, I wish there were reality in the world!"
Mr. Mercer threw his head back and ran his fingers nervously through
his wavy locks. His eyes were burning and there was a bright red spot
on either cheek.
Winifred spoke out impulsively:
"Oh, Mr. Mercer, there is reality! I know there is somewhere, and I--I
am just beginning--but I mean to be a true worshiper, myself."
He looked at her, and the gleam in his dark eyes softened.
"Forgive me," he said, "I spoke too strongly. Yes, I believe there is
reality--a little--somewhere," and he smiled. Something in her soft
brown eyes as he looked in them carried him many years back, when eyes
something like them looked down on him, while a voice sang sacred words
which he knew the heart loved well. Yes, there was reality somewhere.