COMFORTED.
SATURDAY morning, and the minister in his dingy study struggling with
an unfinished sermon. Struggling with more than this--with an attempt
to keep in the background certain sad and startling facts that his
meat bill was growing larger, and that his last quarter's salary was
still unpaid; that his wife was at this moment doing some of the family
washing which illness had prevented her from accomplishing before, and
taking care of two children at the same time; that his Sunday coat was
growing hopelessly shabby, and there was nothing in his pocket-book
wherewith to replace it with a new one; that the children needed shoes,
and there was no money to buy them; that his wife was wearing herself
out with over-work and anxiety, and he was powerless to help it; that
his people were absorbed in their farms, and stores, and shops, and
cared little for him, or for the truths which he tried to present. What
a spirit in which to prepare a sermon for the Sabbath that was hurrying
on!
The study was dingy from force of necessity. The carpet was faded, and
worn in places into positive holes; the table-spread was faded, because
it had been long worn, and was cheap goods and cheap colors in the
first place. Everything about him was wearing out, and the old-young
minister felt that he was wearing out, too, years before his time. I
do not know that it is any wonder that he frowned when he heard the
knock at the side door. It was nearly Saturday noon; he had not time
for loiterers, yet he must answer that knock; thus much he could save
his wife. He threw down his pen, with which he had just written the
half-formed sentence, "the inexorable and inscrutable decrees of God,"
and went to the door to admit Bud, and the umbrella.
Not much need for delay here, and yet Bud lingered. The umbrella had
been set aside, and the minister had said it was no matter that it had
not been brought before, and still Bud did not go. He held his hat in
his hand, and worked with nervous fingers at the frayed band around it,
and at last, summoning all his courage, dashed into the centre of his
subject:
"If you please, sir, will you tell me where Jerusalem is?"
"Jerusalem!" repeated the minister, and he was even more astonished
than Alice Ansted had been; but he looked into Bud's eager, wistful
face, and saw there something, he did not understand what, which made
him throw the door open wider, and say, "Come in;" and almost before he
knew what he was doing, he had seated Bud in the old arm-chair by the
stove, in the study, and was sitting opposite him.
You don't expect me, I hope, to describe that interview? There have
been many like it, in degree, all over the world, but nothing quite so
strange had ever come to this minister before. Actually a hungry soul
looking for the Jerusalem above, about which he, the minister, had read
that morning, with bated breath and an almost rebellious longing to be
there, where "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying,
neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed
away."
It was not difficult to show Bud the way. He was like a child who heard
with wide-open wondering eyes, and for the first time, the astounding
fact that the Jerusalem toward which his eyes were turned was near at
hand; that there was no ocean to cross, no dangerous journey to take;
it was simply to put forth the hand and accept the free gift.
I pause, pen in hand, to wonder how I can make plain to you that this
is no made-up story; that Bud is a real character who lives and does
his work in the world to-day. It is so natural in reading what people
call fiction, to turn from the book with a little sigh, perhaps, and
say: "Oh, yes; that is all very well in a _book_, but in real life
things do not happen in this way; and there are no people so ignorant
as that Bud, anyway." But some of us do not write fiction; we merely
aim to present in compact form before thoughtful people, pictures of
the things which are taking place all around them. Bud did live, and
_does_ live; and he was just so ignorant, and he did hear with joy the
simple, wonderful story of the way to the Jerusalem of his desires, and
he did plant his feet firmly on the narrow road, and walk therein.
I want to tell you what that minister did after the door had been
closed on Bud for a few minutes. He walked the floor of his limited
study with quick, excited steps, three times up and down, then he
dropped on his knees and prayed this one sentence, "Blessed be the
Lord God, who only doeth wondrous things!" Then he went out to
the kitchen, and kissed his wife, and made up the fire under her
wash-boiler, and filled two pails with water, and carried Johnnie away
and established him in a high-chair in the study, with pencil and paper
and a picture-book; and then he took the five sheets of that sermon
over which he had been struggling, and tore them in two, and thrust
them, decrees and all, into the stove! Not that he was done with the
decrees, or that he thought less of them than before; but a miracle
had just been worked in his study, and he had been permitted to be the
connecting link in the wondrous chain through which ran the message to
a new-born soul, and the decree which held him captive just then was
that one in which the Eternal God planned to give his Son to save the
world. And he was so glad that this decree was inexorable, that its
inscrutability did not trouble him at all. I am glad that he made up
that fire, and filled those water-pails, and, busy as he had need to
be, gave some gentle attention to Johnnie. A religious uplifting which
does not bubble over into whatever practical work the heart or the
hands find to do, is not apt to continue.
It was on the following Sabbath that Miss Benedict found opportunity to
offer to mark the verses in Bud's Bible.
"Bud," she said, stopping at the bell-rope where he tolled the bell,
"if you will let me take your Bible after church--did you bring it with
you? Well, if you will let me take it, I will mark some verses in it
that I think will help you. Did you read a verse each day?"
"Oh, yes'm," said Bud, and there was that in his voice which made her
turn and look closely at him. "I read it, and I found out the way, and
I went and spoke to Him, and He took me right in, as He said He would,
and there's no comfort like it, I'm sure. I don't miss little Jack's
mother any more."
What did all this mean? Bud began in the middle of things, according
to his wont. He forgot that Miss Benedict had heard nothing about the
promised comfort in Jerusalem, nor the difficulties he had had in
being shown into the right way. Yet there is something in the family
language, however awkwardly used, that conveys a meaning to those of
the same household.
"Bud, do you really mean that you went to Jesus Christ, and he gave
you comfort?"
"I do that, ma'am," said Bud, with hearty voice and shining eyes, and
he gave the bell-rope a vigorous pull. "He was right by my side all the
time, the minister said, when I bothered so about crossing the ocean,
and there wasn't any ocean to cross; and I've got the comfort, and I'm
going to hear the singing that you told about. I didn't think I ever
could, but now I know the way."
Claire turned away silently, and walked softly into church, awed. Had
poor Bud really met the Lord in the way? It looked so. She need have no
more regrets over those unmarked verses. But how wonderful it was! And
that is just the truth, dear, half-asleep Christian; wonders are taking
place all about you, and it is possible that you are merely engaged
in trying to prove to yourself and others that "the age of miracles
is past;" though why you should be very anxious to prove it, does not
clearly appear even to yourself.
The minister, who preached that morning, was the same minister who had
stood behind that desk and read his sermons to that people for seven
years, though some of his hearers rubbed their eyes, and looked about
them in a dazed way, and wondered if this _could_ be so. What had
happened to the man? He had not a scrap of paper before him. In the
estimation of some, he did not preach. Mrs. Graves, who read sermons
aloud at home on Sabbath afternoons, and was inclined to be literary,
said that it was not a _sermon_ at all--that it was just a talk. But
Deacon Graves, who was not literary, replied:
"Well, if he should take to talking very often, we should all have to
wake up and look after our living, for it pretty nigh upset everything
we have done this good while, and I must say it kind of made me feel as
though I should like to see something stirring somewhere."
None of them knew about the minister's uplifting, only Bud, and Bud did
not know that it was an uplifting, or that the minister cared, or that
the sermon had anything to do with him, or, for that matter, that it
was any different from usual. Bud knew _he_ was different, and it gave
him the most intense and exquisite joy to discover that he understood
nearly every word that the minister said; but this he attributed not
to a change in the sermon, but because he had fairly started on his
journey to the heavenly Jerusalem. It is possible that some listeners
need that sort of uplifting before the sermons to which they appear to
listen will ever be other than idle words.
Yes, there was one other who knew that a strange and sweet experience
had come to the disheartened minister. That was his wife. She had known
it ever since he came and kissed her, and made up that fire, and filled
those pails. The kiss would have been very precious to her without the
other, but the human heart is such a strange bit of mechanism, that I
shall have to confess to you, that in the light of that new-made fire,
the tenderness glowed all day.
And now the preparations for the concert went on with rapid strides.
The Ansteds slipped into the programme almost before they realized it,
and were committed to this and that chorus and solo, and planned and
rearranged and advised with an energy that surprised themselves.
It has been intimated to you that opportunities for enjoying good music
were rare at South Plains.
What musical talent they possessed had lain dormant, and the place was
too small to attract concert singers, so an invitation to a musical
entertainment came to the people with all the charm of novelty. Of
course, the girls took care that the invitations should be numerous and
cordial. In fact, for three weeks before the eventful evening, almost
the sole topic of conversation, even in the corner grocery, had been
the young folks' concert and the preparations that were making.
Still, after taking all these things into consideration, both the
girls and their leader were amazed, when at last the hour arrived, to
discover that every available inch of room in the stuffy little church
was taken.
"For once in its life it is full!" announced Anna Graves, peeping
out, and then dodging hastily back. "Girls, it is full to actual
suffocation, I should think; and they have come to hear us sing. Think
of it!"
Well, whether those girls astonished themselves or not, they certainly
did their fathers and mothers. Indeed, I am not sure that their young
teacher did not feel an emotion of surprise over the fact that they
acquitted themselves so well. Their voices, when not strained in
attempting music too difficult for them, had been found capable of
much more cultivation than she had at first supposed, and she had done
her best for them, without realizing until now how much that "best"
was accomplishing. It was really such a success, and, withal, such a
surprise, that some of the time it was hard to keep back the happy
tears. It is true there was one element in the entertainment which the
teacher did not give its proper amount of credit. The fact is, she had
so long been accustomed to her own voice as to have forgotten that to
strangers it was wonderful. I suppose that really part of the charm
of her singing lay in the simplicity of the singer. Her life had been
spent in a city, where she came in daily contact with grand and highly
cultivated voices, and she, therefore, gauged her own as simply one
among many, and a bird could hardly have appeared less conscious of his
powers than did she.
Not so her audience. They thundered their delight until again and again
she was obliged to appear, and each time she sang a simple little song
or hymn, suited to the musical capacities of the audience, so that she
but increased their desire for more.
It was all delightful. Yet really, sordid beings that they were, I
shall have to admit that the crowning delight was when they met the
next morning, tired, but happy, and counted over their gains, and
looked in each other's faces, and exclaimed, and laughed, and actually
cried a little over the pecuniary result.
"Girls," said Miss Benedict, her eyes glowing with delight, "we can
carpet the entire aisles. Think of that!"
Then began work.
"Since we haven't been doing anything for the last two months," said
Mary Burton, with a merry laugh, "I suppose we can have the privilege
of going to work now."
Meantime, the days had been moving steadily on. Christmas holidays had
come and gone, and the boys, as well as the girls, to whom the holiday
season had been apt to be a time of special dissipation and temptation,
had been tided safely over it by reason of being so busy that they
had no time for their usual festivities. The vacation to which Claire
Benedict had looked forward with sad heart, on her first coming to
South Plains, because it would be a time when she might honorably go
home if she could afford it, and she knew she could not, had come and
passed, and had found her in such a whirl of work, so absorbed from
morning until night, as to have time only for postals for the mother
and sister.
"When the rush of work is over," so she wrote, "I will stop for
repairs, and take time to write some respectably lengthy letters, but
just now we are so overwhelmed with our desire to get the church ready
for Easter Sunday that we can think of nothing else. Mamma, I do wish
you and Dora could see it now, and again after it emerges from under
our hands!"
"What _is_ the matter with her?" asked Dora, and then mother and
daughter laughed. It was impossible to be very dreary with those breezy
postals constantly coming from Claire. It was impossible not to have an
almost absorbing interest in the church at South Plains, and think of,
and plan for it accordingly.
"Mamma," Dora said, after having read the latest postal, as she sat
bending it into various graceful shapes, "I suppose that church down
on the beach that the girls of our society are working for, looks
something like the one at South Plains. I think I will join that
society after all; I suppose I ought to be doing something, since
Claire has taken up the repairing of old churches for a life-business."
This last with a little laugh, and the mother wrote to Claire a few
days later:
"Your sister has finally succeeded in overcoming her dislike to joining
the benevolent society again, and is becoming interested in their work.
They have taken up that seaside church again which you were going to do
such nice things for, you know. Dora has felt all the time that there
was nothing for her to do now, because we are poor, and has held aloof,
but yesterday she joined the girls, and brought home aprons to make for
the ready-made department of Mr. Stevenson's store. The plan is that
Mr. Stevenson shall furnish shades for the church windows at cost, and
the girls are to pay him by making up aprons for that department. I am
glad for anything that rouses Dora; not that she is bitter, but she
is sad, and feels herself useless. My dear, you are doing more than
repairing the church at South Plains; you are reaching, you see, away
out to the seaside."