THE APPLE OF DOUBT IS NIBBLED
The rector of St. Antipas came from preaching his Easter sermon. He was
elated. Of the sermons delivered in New York that morning, he suspected
that his would be found not the least ingenious. Telling excerpts would
doubtless appear in the next day's papers, and at least one paper would
reprint his favourite likeness over the caption, "Dr. Allan Delcher
Linford, the Handsome and Up-to-Date Rector of St. Antipas." Under this
would be head-lines: "The Resurrection Proved; a Literal Fact in History
not less than a Spiritual Fact in the Human Consciousness. An Unbroken
Chain of Living Witnesses."
He even worded scraps of the article on his way from the church to his
study:
"An unusually rich Easter service was held at fashionable St. Antipas
yesterday morning. The sermon by its able and handsome young rector, the
Reverend Dr. Linford, was fraught with vital interest to every thinking
man. The Resurrection he declares to be a fact as well attested as the
Brooklyn Bridge is to thousands who have never seen it--yet who are
convinced of its existence upon the testimony of those who have. Thus
one who has never seen this bridge may be as certain of its existence as
a man who crosses it twice a day. In the same way, a witness to the
risen Christ tells the glorious truth to his son, a lad of fifteen, who
at eighty tells it to his grandson. 'Do you realise,' said the magnetic
young preacher, 'that the assurance of the Resurrection comes to you
this morning by word of mouth through a scant three thousand
witnesses--a living chain of less than three thousand links by which we
may trace our steps back to the presence of the first witness--so that,
in effect, we have the Resurrection on the word of a man who beheld the
living Saviour this very morning? Nay; further, in effect we ourselves
stand trembling before that stone rolled away from the empty but forever
hallowed tomb. As certainly as thousands know that a structure called
the Brooklyn Bridge exists, so upon testimony of the same validity do we
know that "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believed on him might not perish but have everlasting
life." God has not expected us to trust blindly: he has presented
tangible and compelling evidence of his glorious scheme of salvation.'
The speaker, who is always imbued with the magnetism of a striking
personality, was more than usually effective on this occasion, and
visibly moved the throng of fashionable worshippers that--"
"Allan, you outdid yourself!" Aunt Bell had come in and, in the mirror
over the dining-room mantel, was bestowing glances of unaffected but
strictly impartial admiration upon the bonnet of lilac blossoms that
rested above the lustrous puffs of her plenteous gray hair.
The young man looked up from his meditative pacing of the room.
"Aunt Bell, I think I may say that I pleased myself this morning--and
you know that's not easy for me."
"It's too bad Nance wasn't there!"
"Nancy is not pleasing me," began her husband, in gentle tones.
"I didn't feel equal to it, Allan," his wife called from the library.
"Oh, you're there! My dear, you give up too easily to little
indispositions that another woman would make nothing of. I've repeated
that to you so often that, really, your further ignoring it appears
dangerously like perverseness--"
"Is she crying?" he asked Aunt Bell, as they both listened.
"Laughing!" replied that lady.
"My dear, may I ask if you are laughing at me?"
"Dear, no!--only at something I happened to think of." She came into the
dining-room, a morning paper in her hand. "Besides, in to-morrow's paper
I shall read all about what the handsome rector of St. Antipas said, in
his handsome voice, to his handsome hearers--"
He had frowned at first, but now smiled indulgently, as they sat down to
luncheon. "You _will_ have your joke about my appearance, Nance! That
reminds me--that poor romantic little Mrs. Eversley--sister of Mrs.
Wyeth, you know--said to me after service this morning, 'Oh, Dr.
Linford, if I could only believe in Christian dogma as I believe in
_you_ as a man!' You know, she's such a painfully emotional, impulsive
creature, and then Colonel Godwin who stood by had to have _his_ joke:
'The symbol will serve you for worship, Madam!' he says; 'I'm sure no
woman's soul would ever be lost if all clergymen were as good to look
upon as our friend here!' Those things always make me feel so
awkward--they are said so bluntly--but what could I do?"
"Mr. Browett's sister and her son were out with him this morning," began
Aunt Bell, charitably entering another channel of conversation from the
intuition that her niece was wincing. But, as not infrequently happened,
the seeming outlet merely gave again into the main channel.
"And there's Browett," continued the Doctor. "Now I am said to have
great influence over women--women trust me, believe me--I may even say
look up to me--but I pledge you my word I am conscious of wielding an
immensely greater influence over men. There seems to be in my _ego_ the
power to prevail. Take Browett--most men are afraid of him--not physical
fear, but their inner selves, their _egos_, go down before him. Yet from
the moment I first saw that man I dominated him. It's all in having an
_ego_ that means mastery, Aunt Bell. Browett has it himself, but I have
a greater one. Every time Browett's eyes meet mine he knows in his soul
that I'm his master--his _ego_ prostrates itself before mine--and yet
that man"--he concluded in a tone of distinguishable awe--"is worth all
the way from two to three hundred millions!"
"Mrs. Eversley is an unlucky little woman, from what I hear," began Aunt
Bell, once more with altruistic aims.
"That reminds me," said the Doctor, recalling himself from a downward
look at the grovelling Browett, "she made me promise to be in at four
o'clock. Really I couldn't evade her--it was either four o'clock to-day
or the first possible day. What could I do? Aunt Bell, I won't pretend
that this being looked up to and sought out is always disagreeable.
Contrary to the Pharisee, I say 'Thank God I _am_ as other men are!' I
have my human moments, but mostly it bores me, and especially these
half-religious, half-sentimental confidences of emotional women who
imagine their lives are tragedies. Now this woman believes her marriage
is unhappy--"
"Indeed, it is!" Aunt Bell broke in--this time effectually, for she
proceeded to relate of one Morris Upton Eversley a catalogue of
inelegancies that, if authoritative, left him, considered as a husband,
undesirable, not to say impracticable. His demerits, indeed, served to
bring the meal to a blithe and chatty close.
Aunt Bell's practice each day after luncheon was, in her own
terminology, to "go into the silence and concentrate upon the thought of
the All-Good." She was recalled from the psychic state on this
afternoon, though happily not before a good half-hour, by Nancy's knock
at her door.
She came in, cheerful, a small sheaf of papers in her hand. Aunt Bell,
finding herself restored and amiable, sat up to listen.
Nancy threw herself on the couch, with the air of a woman about to chat
confidentially from the softness of many gay pillows, dropping into the
attitude of tranquil relaxation that may yet bristle with eager mental
quills.
"The drollest thing, Aunt Bell! This morning instead of hearing Allan, I
went up to that trunk-room and rummaged through the chest that has all
those old papers and things of Grandfather Delcher's. And would you
believe it? For an hour or more there, I was reading bits of his old
sermons."
"But he was a Presbyterian!" In her tone and inflection Aunt Bell ably
conveyed an exposition of the old gentleman's impossibility--lucidly
allotting him to spiritual fellowship with the head-hunters of Borneo.
"I know it, but, Aunt Bell, those old sermons really did me good; all
full of fire they were, too, but you felt a _man_ back of them--a good
man, a real man. You liked him, and it didn't matter that his
terminology was at times a little eccentric. Grandfather's theology
fitted the last days of his life about as crinoline and hoop-skirts
would fit over there on the avenue to-day--but he always made me feel
religious. It seemed sweet and good to be a Christian when he talked.
With all his antiquated beliefs he never made me doubt as--as I doubt
to-day. But it was another thing I wanted to show you--something I
found--some old compositions of Bernal's that his grandfather must have
kept. Here's one about birds--'jingle-birds, squeak-birds and
clatter-birds.' No?--you wouldn't care for that?--well--listen to this."
She read the youthful Bernal's effort to rehabilitate the much-blemished
reputation of Judas--a paper that had been curiously preserved by the
old man.
"Poor Judas, indeed!" The novelty was not lost upon Aunt Bell, expert
that she was in all obliquities from accepted tradition.
"The funny boy! Very ingenious, I'm sure. I dare say no one ever before
said a good word for Judas since the day of his death, and this lad
would canonise him out of hand. Think of it--St. Judas!"
Nancy lay back among the cushions, talking idly, inconsequently.
"You see, there was at least one man created, Aunt Bell, who could by no
chance be saved--one man who had to betray the Son of Man--one man to be
forever left out of the Christian scheme of salvation, even if every
other in the world were saved. There had to be one man to disbelieve, to
betray and to lie in hell for it, or the whole plan would have been
frustrated. There was a theme for Dante, Aunt Bell--not the one soul in
hell, but the other souls in heaven slowly awakening to the suffering of
that one soul--to the knowledge that he was suffering in order that they
might be saved. Do you think they would find heaven to be real heaven if
they knew he was burning? And don't you think a poet could make some
interesting talk between this solitary soul predestined to hell, and the
God who planned the scheme?"
Aunt Bell looked bored and uttered a swift, low phrase that might have
been "Fiddlesticks!"
"My dear, no one believes in hell nowadays."
"Does any one believe in anything?"
"Belief in the essentials of Christianity was never more apparent."
It was a treasured phrase from the morning's sermon.
"What are the essentials?"
"Belief that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
Son--you know as well as I, child--belief in the atoning blood of the
Christ."
"Wouldn't it be awful, Aunt Bell, if you didn't believe in it, and had
to be in hell because the serpent persuaded Eve and Eve persuaded Adam
to eat the apple--that's the essential foundation of Christianity, isn't
it?"
"Why, certainly--you must believe in original sin--"
"I see--here's a note in Bernal's hand, on one of these old
papers--evidently written much later than the other: 'The old gentleman
says Christmas is losing its deeper significance. What is it? That the
Babe of Bethlehem was begotten by his Father to be a sacrifice to its
Father--that its blood might atone for the sin of his first pair--and so
save from eternal torment the offspring of that pair. God will no longer
be appeased by the blood of lambs; nothing but the blood of his son will
now atone for the sin of his own creatures. It seems to me the sooner
Christmas loses this deeper significance the better. Poor old loving
human nature gives it a much more beautiful significance.'"
"My dear," began Aunt Bell, "before I broadened into what I have called
the higher unbelief, I should have considered that that young man had a
positive genius for blasphemy; now that I have again come into the
shadow of the cross, it seems to me that he merely lacks imagination."
"Poor Bernal! Yet he made me believe, though he seemed to believe in
nothing himself. He makes me believe _now_. He _calls_ to me, Aunt
Bell--or is it myself calling to him that I hear?
"And blasphemy--even the word is ridiculous, Aunt Bell. I was at the
day-nursery yesterday when all those babies were brought in to their
dinner. They are strictly forbidden to coo or to make any noise, and
they really behaved finely for two-and three-year-olds--though I did see
one outlaw reach over before the signal was given and lovingly pat the
big fat cookie beside its plate--thinking its insubordination would be
overlooked--but, Aunt Bell, do you suppose one of those fifty-two babies
could blaspheme you?"
"Don't be silly!"
"But can you imagine one of them capable of any disrespect to you that
would merit--say, burning or something severe like that?"
"Of course not!"
"Well, don't you really believe that God is farther beyond you or me or
the foolish boy that wrote this, than we are beyond those babies--with a
greater, bigger point of view, a fuller love? Imagine the God that made
everything--the worlds and birds and flowers and butterflies and babies
and mountains--imagine him feeling insulted because one of his wretched
little John Smiths or Bernal Linfords babbles little human words about
him, or even worries his poor little human heart with doubts of His
existence!"
"My child, yours is but a finite mind, unable to limit or define the
Infinite. What is it, anyway--is it Christian Science taking hold of
you, or that chap who preaches that they have the Messiah re-incarnated
and now living in Syria--Babbists, aren't they--or is it theosophy--or
are you simply dissatisfied with Allan?" A sudden shrewd glance from
Aunt Bell's baby-blue eyes went with this last.
Nancy laughed, then grew serious. "I think the last is it, Aunt Bell. A
woman seems to doubt God and everything else after she begins to doubt
the husband she has loved. Really, I find myself questioning
everything--every moral standard."
"Nance, you are an ungrateful woman to speak like that of Allan!"
"I never should have done it, dear, if you hadn't made me believe you
knew. I should have thought it out all by myself, and then acted, if I
found I could with any conscience."
"Eh? Mercy! You couldn't. The _idea!_ And there's Allan, now. Come!"
The Doctor was on the threshold. "So here you are! Well, I've just sent
Mrs. Eversley away in tears."
He dropped into an arm-chair with a little half-humorous moan of
fatigue.
"It's a relief, sometimes, to know you can relax and let your whole
weight absolutely down on to the broad earth!" he declared.
"Mrs. Eversley?" suggested Aunt Bell.
"Well, the short of it is, she told me her woes and begged me to give my
sanction to her securing a divorce!"
Nancy sat up from her pillows. "Oh--and you _did?_"
"_Nancy!_" It was low, but clear, quick-spoken, stern, and hurt. "You
forget yourself. At least you forget my view and the view of my Church.
Even were I out of the Church, I should still regard marriage as a
sacrament--indissoluble except by death. The very words--'Whom God hath
joined'"--he became almost oratorical in his warmth--"Surely you would
not expect me to use my influence in this parish to undermine the
sanctity of the home--to attack our emblem of Christ's union with His
Church!"
With reproach in his eyes--a reproach that in some way seemed to be
bland and mellow, yet with a hurt droop to his handsome head, he went
from the room. Nancy looked after him, longingly, wonderingly.
"The maddening thing is, Aunt Bell, that sometimes he actually has the
power to make me believe in him. But, oh, doesn't Christ's union with
his Church have some ghastly symbols!"