tears of pity in her eyes, the imploring tones of her voice, had
produced an electric revulsion in Maggie's excitable nature. She was
not, then, forsaken: she was cared for, loved, followed even into
the wilderness, by one so far above her in rank and station. It was
an illustration of what Christian love was, which made it possible
to believe in the love of Christ. The hymns, the prayers, that spoke
of hope and salvation, had a vivid meaning in the light of this
interpretation. The enthusiasm of gratitude that arose first towards
Eva, overflowed and bore the soul higher towards a Heavenly Friend.
Maggie was now longing to come back and prove by her devotion and
obedience her true repentance, and Eva had decided to take her again.
With two weddings impending in the family, she felt that Maggie's
skill with the needle and her facility in matters pertaining to the
female toilet might do good service, and might give her the sense of
usefulness--the strength that comes from something really accomplished.
Her former experience made her careful, however, of those sore and
sensitive conditions which attend the return to virtue in those who
have sinned, and which are often severest where there is the most
moral vitality, and she was anxious to prevent any repetition on Aunt
Maria's part of former unwise proceedings. All the other _habitués_
of the house partook of her own feeling; Alice and Angie were warmly
interested for the poor girl; and if Aunt Maria could be brought to
tolerate the arrangement, the danger of a sudden domiciliary visit
from her attended with inflammatory results might be averted.
So Eva was very sweet and very persuasive in her manner to-day, for
Aunt Maria had been devoting herself so entirely to the family service
during the few weeks past, that she felt in some sort under a debt
of obligation to her. The hardest person in the world to manage is a
sincere, willful, pig-headed, pertinacious friend who will insist on
doing you all sorts of kindnesses in a way that plagues about as much
as it helps you.
But Eva was the diplomatist of the family; the one with the precise
mixture of the _suaviter in modo_ with the _fortiter in re_. She
had hitherto carried her points with the good lady in a way that
gave her great advantage, for Aunt Maria was one of those happily
self-complacent people who do not fail to arrogate to themselves the
after the most strenuous efforts, to hinder, and Eva's credit of all
the good things that they have not been able, housekeeping and social
successes, so far, were quite a feather in her cap. So, after dinner,
Eva began with:
"Well, you know, Aunt Maria, what with these two weddings coming on,
there is to be a terrible pressure of work--both coming the week after
Easter, you see. So," she added quickly, "I think it quite lucky that
I have found Maggie and got her back again, for she is one of the
quickest and best seamstresses that I know of." Aunt Maria's brow
suddenly darkened. Every trace of good-humor vanished from her face as
she said:
"Now do tell me, Eva, if you _are_ going to be such a fool, when
you were once fairly quit of that girl, to bring her back into your
family."
"Yes, Aunt, I thought it my Christian duty to take care of her, and
see that she did not go to utter ruin."
"I don't know what you mean," said Aunt Maria. "_I_ should say she
_had_ gone there now. Do you think it your duty to turn your house
into a Magdalen asylum?"
"No, I do not; but I do think it is our duty to try to help and save
this _one_ girl whom we know--who is truly repentant, and who wants to
do well."
"Repentant!" said Aunt Maria in a scornful tone. "Don't tell me. I
know their tricks, and you'll just be imposed on and get yourself into
trouble. I know the world, and I know all about it." Eva now rose
and played her last card. "Aunt Maria," she said, "You profess to be
a Christian and to follow the Saviour who came to seek and save the
lost, and I don't think you do right to treat with such scorn a poor
girl that is trying to do better."
"It's pretty well of you, Miss, to lecture _me_ in this style! Trying
to do better!" said Aunt Maria, "then what did she go off for, when
she was at your house and you were doing all you could for her? It was
just that she wanted to go to the bad."
"She went off, Aunt Maria," said Eva, "because she overheard all you
said about her, the day you were at my house. She heard you advising
me to send her mother away on her account, and saying that she was a
disgrace to me. No wonder she ran off."
"Well, serves her right for listening! Listeners never hear any good
of themselves," said Aunt Maria.
"Now, Aunty," said Eva, "nobody has more respect for your good
qualities than I have, or more sense of what we all owe you for your
kindness to us; but I must tell you fairly that, now I am married,
you must not come to my house to dictate about or interfere with my
family arrangements. You must understand that Harry and I manage these
matters ourselves and will not allow any interference; and I tell
you now that Maggie is to be at our house, and under my care, and I
request that you will not come there to say or do anything which may
hurt her mother's feelings or hers."
"Mighty fine," said Aunt Maria, rising in wrath, "when it has come to
this, that servants are preferred before me!"
"It has not come to that, Aunt Maria. It has simply come to this: that
I am to be sole mistress in my own family, and sole judge of what it
is right and proper to do; and when I need your advice I shall ask it;
but I don't want you to offer it unless I do."
Having made this concluding speech while she was putting on her bonnet
and shawl, Eva now cheerfully wished her aunt good afternoon, and made
the best of her way down-stairs.
"I don't see, Eva, how you could get up the courage to face your aunt
down in that way," said Mrs. Van Arsdel, to whom Eva related the
interview.
"Dear Mamma, it'll do her good. She will be as sweet as a rose after
the first week of indignation. Aunt Maria is a sensible woman, after
all, and resigns herself to the inevitable. She worries and hectors
you, my precious Mammy, because you will let her. If you'd show a
brave face, she wouldn't do it; but it isn't in you, you poor, lovely
darling, and so she just preys upon you; but Harry and I are resolved
to make her stand and give the countersign when she comes to our camp."
And it is a fact that, a week after, Aunt Maria spent a day with Eva
in the balmiest state of grace, and made no allusion whatever to the
conversation above cited. Nothing operates so healthfully on such
moral constitutions as a good dose of certainty.
_CHAPTER XLVIII._
THE PEARL CROSS.
Every thoughtful person who exercises the least supervision over what
goes on within, is conscious of living two distinct lives--the outward
and the inward.
The external life is positive, visible, definable; easily made the
subject of conversation. The inner life is shy, retiring, most
difficult to be expressed in words, often inexplicable, even to the
subject of it, yet no less a positive reality than the outward.
We have not succeeded in the picture of our Eva unless we have shown
her to have one of those sensitive moral organizations, whose nature
it is to reflect deeply, to feel intensely, and to aspire after a high
moral ideal.
If we do not mistake the age we live in, the perplexities and
anxieties of such natures form a very large item in our modern life.
It is said that the Christian religion is losing its hold on society.
On the contrary, we believe there never was a time when faith in
Christianity was so deep and all-pervading, and when it was working in
so many minds as a disturbing force.
The main thing which is now perplexing modern society, is the effort
which is making to reduce the teachings of the New Testament to
actual practice in life and to regulate society by them. There is no
skepticism as to the ends sought by Jesus in human life. Nobody doubts
that love is the fulfilling of the law, and that to do as we would be
done by, applied universally, would bring back the golden age, if ever
such ages were.
But the problem that meets the Christian student, and the practical
person who means to live the Christian life, is the problem of
redemption and of self-sacrifice.
In a world where there is always ruin and misery, where the
inexperienced are ensnared and the blind misled, and where fatal and
inexorable penalties follow every false step, there must be a band of
redeemers, seekers and savers of the lost. There must be those who
sacrifice ease, luxury and leisure, to labor for the restoration of
the foolish and wicked who have sold their birthright and lost their
inheritance; and here is just the problem that our age and day present
to the thoughtful person who, having professed, in whatever church or
creed, to be a Christian, wishes to make a reality of that profession.
The night that Eva had spent in visiting the worst parts of New York
had been to her a new revelation of that phase of paganism which
exists in our modern city life, within sound of hundreds of church
bells of every denomination. She saw authorized as a regular trade,
and protected by law, the selling of that poisoned liquor which
brings on insanity worse than death; which engenders idiocy, and the
certainty of vicious propensities in the brain of the helpless unborn
infant; which is the source of all the poverty, and more than half
the crime, that fills alms-houses and prisons, and of untold miseries
and agonies to thousands of families. She saw woman degraded as the
minister of sin and shame; the fallen and guilty Eve, forever plucking
and giving to Adam the forbidden fruit whose mortal taste brings death
into the world; and her heart had been stirred by the sight of those
multitudes of poor ruined wrecks of human beings, men and women, that
she had seen crowding in to that midnight supper, and by the earnest
pleadings of faith and love that she had heard in the good man's
prayers for them. She recalled his simple faith, his undaunted courage
in thus maintaining this forlorn hope in so hopeless a region, and she
could not rest satisfied with herself, doing nothing to help.
In talking with Mr. James on his prospects, he had said that he very
much wished to enlarge this Home so as to put there some dormitories
for the men who were willing to take the pledge to abandon drinking,
where they could find shelter and care until some kind of work could
be provided for them. He stated further that he wished to connect with
the enterprise a farm in the country where work could be found for
both men and women, of a kind which would be remunerative, and which
might prove self-supporting.
Eva reflected with herself whether she had anything to give or to do
for a purpose so sacred. Their income was already subject to a strict
economy. The little elegancies and adornments of her house were those
that are furnished by thought and care rather than by money. Even with
the most rigorous self-scrutiny, Eva could not find fault with the
home philosophy by which their family life had been made attractive
and delightful, because she said and felt that her house had been
a ministry to others. It had helped to make others stronger, more
cheerful, happier.
But when she brought Maggie away from the Home, she longed to send
back some helpful token to those earnest laborers.
On revising her possessions, she remembered that, once, in the days
when she was a rich and rather self-indulgent daughter of luxury, she
had spent the whole of one quarter's allowance in buying for herself a
pearl cross. It cost her not even a sacrifice, for when with a kiss
or two she confessed her extravagance to her father, he only pinched
her cheek playfully, told her not to do so again, and gave a check for
the amount. There it lies, at this moment, in Eva's hands; and as she
turns it abstractedly round and round, and marks the play of light on
the beautiful pearls, she thinks earnestly what that cross means, and
wonders that she should ever have worn it as a mere bauble.
Does it not mean that man's most generous Friend, the highest,
the purest, the sweetest nature that ever visited this earth, was
agonized, tortured, forsaken, and left to bleed life away, unpitied
and unrelieved, for love of us and of all sinning, suffering humanity?
Suddenly the words came with overpowering force to her mind: "He
died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto
themselves."
Immediately she resolved that she would give this cross to the sacred
work of saving the lost. She resolved to give it secretly--without
the knowledge even of her husband. The bauble was something personal
to herself that never would be missed or inquired for, and she felt
about such an offering that reserve and sacredness which is proper
to natures of great moral delicacy. With the feeling she had at
this moment, it was as much an expression of personal loyalty and
devotion to Jesus Christ as was the precious alabaster vase of Mary.
It satisfied, moreover, a kind of tender, vague remorse that she had
often felt; as if, in her wedded happiness and her quiet home, she
were too blessed, and had more than her share of happiness in a world
where there were such sufferings and sorrows.
She had always had a longing to do something towards the world's work,
and, if nothing more, to be a humble helper of the brave and heroic
spirits who press on in the front ranks of this fight for the good.
She did not wish to be thanked or praised, as if the giving up of
such a toy for such a cause were a sacrifice worth naming; for, in
the mood that she was in, it was no sacrifice--it was a relief to an
over-charged feeling, an act of sacramental union between her soul
and the Saviour who gave himself wholly for the lost. So she put the
velvet case in its box, and left it at Mr. James's door, with the
following little note:
"_My Dear Sir_: Ever since that most sad evening when
I went with you in your work of mercy to those unhappy
people, I have been thinking of what I saw, and wishing I
could do something to help you. You say that you do not
solicit aid except from the dear Father who is ever near to
those that are trying to do such work as this; yet, as long
as he is ever near to Christian hearts, he will inspire
them with desires to help in a cause so wholly Christ-like.
I send you this ornament, which was bought in days when
I thought little of its sacred meaning. Sell it, and let
the avails go towards enlarging your Home for those poor
people who find no place for repentance in the world. I
would rather you would tell nobody from whom it comes. It
is something wholly my own; it is a relief to offer it, to
help a little in so good a work, and I certainly shall not
forget to pray for your success.
"Yours, very truly,
E. H.
"P.S.--I am very happy to be able to say that poor M.
seems indeed a changed creature. She is gentle, quiet, and
humble; and is making, in our family, many friends.
"I feel hopeful that there is a future for her, and that
the dear Saviour has done for her what no human being could
do."
We have seen the question raised lately in a religious paper, whether
the sacrifice of personal ornaments for benevolent objects was not
obligatory; and we have seen the right to retain these small personal
luxuries defended with earnestness.
To us, it seems an unfortunate mode of putting a very sacred subject.
The Infinite Saviour, in whose hands all the good works of the world
are moving, is _rich_. The treasures of the world are his. He is as
able now as he was when on earth to bid us cast in our line and find
a piece of silver in the mouth of the first fish. Our gifts are only
valuable to him for what they express in us.
Had Mary not shed the precious balm upon his head, she would not have
been reproved for the omission; yet the exaltation of love which so
expressed itself was appreciated and honored by him.
It is written, too, that he looked upon and loved the young man who
had not yet attained to the generous enthusiasm that is willing to
sacrifice _all_ for suffering humanity.
Religious offerings, to have value in his sight, must be like the
gifts of lovers, not extorted by conscience, but by the divine
necessity which finds relief in giving.
He can wait, as mothers do, till we outgrow our love of toys and come
to feel the real sacredness and significance of life. The toy which is
dear to childhood will be easily surrendered in the nobler years of
maturity.
But Eva's was a nature so desirous of sympathy that whatever dwelt
on her mind overflowed first or last into the minds of her friends;
and, an evening or two after her visit to the mission home, she told
the whole story at her fireside to Dr. Campbell, St. John, and Angie,
Bolton, Jim, and Alice, who were all dining with her. Eva had two
or three objects in this. In the first place, she wanted to touch
the nerve of real Christian unity which she felt existed between the
heart of St. John and that of every true Christian worker--that same
Christian unity that associated the Puritan apostle Eliot with the
Roman Catholic missionaries of Canada. She wished him to see in a
Methodist minister the same faith, the same moral heroism which he had
so warmly responded to in the ritualistic mission of St. George, and
which was his moral ideal in his own work.
She wished to show Dr. Campbell the pure and simple faith in God and
prayer by which so effective a work of humanity had already been done
for a class so hopeless.
"It's all very well," he said, "and I'm glad, if anybody can do it;
but I don't believe prayer has anything to do with it."
"Well, I do," said Bolton, energetically. "I wouldn't think life worth
having another minute, if I didn't think there was a God who would
stand by a man whose whole life was devoted to work like this."
"Well," said Campbell, "it isn't, after all, an appeal to God; it's an
appeal to human nature. Nobody that has a heart in him can see such
a work doing and not want to help it. Your minister takes one and
another to see his Home, and says nothing, and, by-and-by, the money
comes in."
"But in the beginning," said Eva, "he had no money, and nothing to
show to anybody. He was going to do a work that nobody believed in,
among people that everybody thought so hopeless that it was money
thrown away to help him. To whom could he go but God? He went and
asked _Him_ to help him, and began, and has been helped day by day
ever since; and _I_ believe God did help him. What is the use of
believing in God at all, if we don't believe that?"
"Well," said Jim, "I'm not much on theology, but we newspaper fellows
get a considerable stock of facts, first and last; and I've looked
through this sort of thing, and I believe in it. A man don't go on
doing a business of six or seven or eight thousand a year on prayer,
unless prayer amounts to something; and I know, first and last, the
expenses of that concern can't be less than that."
"Well," said Harry, "we have a lasting monument in the great orphan
house of Halle--a whole city square of solid stone buildings. I have
stood in the midst of them, and they were all built by one man,
without fortune of his own, who has left us his written record how,
day by day, as expenses thickened, he went to God and asked for his
supplies, and found them."
"But I maintain," said Dr. Campbell, "that his appeal was to human
nature. People found out what he was doing, their sympathies were
moved, and they sent him help. The very sight of such a work is an
application."
"I don't think that theory accounts for the facts," said Bolton.
"Admitting that there is a God who is near every human heart in its
most secret retirement, who knows the most hidden moods, the most
obscure springs of action, how can you prove that this God did not
inspire the thoughts of sympathy and purposes of help there recorded?
For we have in this Franke's journal, year after year, records of
help coming in when it was wanted, having been asked for of God, and
obtained with as much regularity and certainty as if checks had been
drawn on a banker."
"Well," said Dr. Campbell, "do you suppose that, if I should now start
to build a hospital without money, and pray every week for funds to
settle with my workmen, it would come?"
"No, Doctor, _you're_ not the kind of fellow that such things happen
to," said Jim, "nor am I."
"It supposes an exceptional nature," said Bolton, "an utter
renunciation of self, an entire devotion to an unselfish work, and an
unshaken faith in God. It is a moral genius, as peculiar and as much a
gift as the genius of painting, poetry, or music."
"It is an inspiration to do the work of humanity, and it presupposes
faith," said Eva. "You know the Bible says, 'He that cometh to God
must _believe_ that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those that
diligently seek him.'"
The result of that fireside talk was not unfruitful. The next week was
a harvest for the Home.
In blank envelopes, giving no names, came various sums. Fifty dollars,
with the added note:
"From a believer in human nature."
This was from Dr. Campbell.
A hundred dollars was found in another envelope, with the note:
"To help up the fallen,
From one who has been down."
This was from Bolton.
Mr. St. John sent fifty dollars, with the words:
"From a fellow-worker."
And, finally, Jim Fellows sent fifty, with the words:
"From one of the boys."
None of these consulted with the other; each contribution was a silent
and secret offering. Who can prove that the "Father that seeth in
secret" did not inspire them?
_CHAPTER XLIX._
THE UNPROTECTED FEMALE.
"The Squantum and Patuxet Manufacturing Company have concluded not to
make any dividends for the current year."
Such was the sum and substance that Miss Dorcas gathered from a very
curt letter which she had just received from the Secretary of that
concern, at the time of the semi-annual dividend.
The causes of this arrangement were said to be that the entire income
of the concern (which it was cheerfully stated had never been so
prosperous) was to be devoted to the erection of a new mill and the
purchase of new machinery, which would in the future double the avails
of the stock.
Now, as society is, and, for aught we see, as it must be, the
masculine half of mankind have it all their own way; and the cleverest
and shrewdest woman, in making investments, has simply the choice
between what this or that _man_ tells her. If she falls by chance
into the hands of an honest man, with good sense, she may make an
investment that will be secure to pay all the expenses of her mortal
pilgrimage, down to the banks of Jordan; but if, as quite often
happens, she falls into the hands of careless or visionary advisers,
she may suddenly find herself in the character of "the unprotected
female" at some half-way station of life, with her ticket lost and not
a cent to purchase her further passage.
Now, this was precisely the predicament that this letter announced
to Miss Dorcas. For the fact was that, although she and her sister
owned the house they lived in, yet every available cent of income that
supplied their establishment came from the dividends of these same
Squantum and Patuxet mills.
It is a fact, too, that women, however strong may be their own sense
and ability, do, as a general fact, rely on the judgment of the _men_
of the family, and consider their rulings in business matters final.
Miss Dorcas had all this propensity intensified by the old-world
family feeling. Her elder brother, Dick Vanderheyden, was one of those
handsome, plausible, visionary fellows who seem born to rule over
womankind, and was fully disposed to magnify his office. Miss Dorcas
worshiped him with a faith which none of his numerous failures abated.
The cupboards and closets of the house were full of the remains of
inventions which, he had demonstrated by figures in the face of facts,
ought to have produced millions, and never did produce anything but
waste of money. She was sure that he was the original inventor of the
principle of the sewing-machine; and how it happened that he never
perfected the thing, and that somebody else stole in before him and
got it all, Miss Dorcas regarded as one of the inscrutable mysteries
of Providence.
Poor Dick Vanderheyden was one of those permanent waiters at the
world's pool, like the impotent man in the gospel. When the angel of
success came down and troubled the waters, there was always another
who stepped in before him and got the benefit.