BUD AS A TEACHER.
IT became a matter of astonishment to discover how many friends the old
church had, and from what unexpected quarters they appeared.
It really seemed as though each worker had an uncle, or brother, or
cousin, of whom she had not given a thought in this connection, who yet
grew interested and offered help.
It was Anna Graves who started this special form of help, by an
announcement that she made one morning:
"Girls, what do you think! My uncle Will is coming to stay two weeks,
and he says he will fresco the church ceiling for us, if we will be
content with plain work that he can do rapidly."
It did not take the eager listeners long to promise to be content with
the very plainest work that could be imagined. Their imagination had
not thought of reaching after frescoed ceilings.
"That is an idea!" said Nettie Burdick. "I wonder if Joe and Charlie
would not help us?"
Now Joe and Charlie were wall-paperers in the city; and it was only a
few days thereafter that Nettie announced with great satisfaction that
they would come out and paper the old church, for their share in the
good work.
Then came Ruth Jennings' brother-in-law who was in business in a
more distant city, and having called for Ruth and waited for her on
the evening when that perplexing question of window-shades was being
discussed, he volunteered a delightful bit of information:
"Didn't they know about the new paper in imitation of stained glass?
So good an imitation that when well laid it would take an expert to
distinguish the difference."
No, indeed, they had never heard of such a thing; and all other
business was suspended while the brother-in-law was plied with
questions, the conclusion of the matter being that he said "their firm"
dealt quite largely in this new invention, and he could have enough for
this little church supplied at cost, if they would like to go into it.
And being able to give in round numbers the probable cost, the girls
gleefully voted to "go into it," provided they could secure any person
who knew how to manage it. This at once developed further resources
belonging to the brother-in-law. He knew all about it, and would lay
the paper for them with pleasure, if some of the "fellows" would help.
He would just as soon spend a day in that way as not.
"Stained-glass windows!" said Ruth Jennings, with a long-drawn sigh
of satisfaction. "As if South Plains had ever dreamed of attaining to
such heights! Girls, _will_ the old red curtains do for dusters, do you
believe, if we wash them tremendously?"
The very next day brought them another surprise. Miss Benedict read
part of a letter from "mamma," wherein it appeared that a certain Mr.
Stuart, of the firm of Stuart, Greenough & Co., had become interested
in the church at South Plains, through Dora's reports of what absorbed
her sister's energies, and in grateful remembrance of certain helps
which Claire's father had given their church in its struggling infancy,
he had selected a walnut desk and two pulpit chairs, which he had taken
the liberty to ship to Miss Claire Benedict, with his kind regards and
earnest wish that her efforts might be prospered, even as her father's
had been before her.
Over this astonishing piece of news some of the girls actually cried.
The pulpit desk and chairs had represented a formidable bill of expense
looming up before them.
Each had been privately sure that they would be obliged at last to take
those which would jar on their esthetic tastes, out of respect to the
leanness of the church purse. And here was solid walnut, selected by a
man of undoubted taste and extensive knowledge in this direction. I
don't think it strange that they cried!
Mary Burton, while she wiped her eyes, made a remark which was
startling to some of the girls:
"How much your father has done for us this winter!" and she looked
directly at Claire Benedict. Didn't Mary remember that the dear father
was dead?
But Miss Benedict understood. Her eyes which had remained bright with
excitement until then, suddenly dimmed; but her smile and her voice
were very sweet.
"Oh, Mary! thank you!" was all she said.
Among the workers it would have been hard to find one more faithful
or more energetic than Bud. He was full of eager, happy life. Much
depended upon him. He could blacken stoves with the skill of a
professional, and none were ever more vigorously rubbed than those
rusty, ash-be-strewn ones which had so long disgraced the church. It
had been good for Bud to have others awaken to the fact that there were
certain things which he could do, and do well.
An eventful winter this was to him. Having made an actual start toward
Jerusalem, it was found that he put more energy into the journey than
many who had been long on the way; and, as a matter of course, before
long it became apparent that he was taking rapid strides.
Miss Alice Ansted was among the first to realize it. She came to Claire
one evening with embarrassed laughter, and a half-serious, half-amused
request for instruction:
"I'm trying to follow out some of your hints, and they are getting me
into more trouble than anything I ever undertook. Sewing societies and
charity parties are as nothing in comparison. I am trying to teach
Bud! He wants to study arithmetic; it is an absurd idea, I think; what
will he ever want of arithmetic? But he was determined, and you were
determined, and between you I have been foolish enough to undertake it,
and now it appears that arithmetic is a very small portion of what he
wants to learn. He wants to know everything that there is in the Bible;
and where church-members get their ideas about all sorts of things,
and what the ministers study in the theological seminary, and why all
the people in the world don't attend prayer-meeting, and I don't know
what not! He acts as though his brain had been under a paralysis all
his life, which had just been removed. I must say he astonishes me
with his questions; but it is easier to _ask_ questions than it is to
answer them. What, for instance, am I to say to ideas like these? Since
you have gotten me into this scrape, it is no more than fair that you
should help me to see daylight."
And then would follow a discussion, nearly always pertaining to some of
the practical truths of the Christian life, or to some direction that
Bud had found in the course of his daily Bible verse, which seemed to
him at variance with the life which was being lived by the professing
Christians about him, and which he turned to his arithmetic-teacher to
reconcile.
Bud, being ignorant, found it impossible to understand why people who
professed to take the Bible for their rule of life, did not follow
its teachings, and he brought each fresh problem to Alice Ansted with
such confident expectation that she knew all about it, that she, who
had only volunteered to explain to him the rules of arithmetic, was
in daily embarrassment. From these conversations, which constantly
grew more close and searching as Bud stumbled on new verses, Claire
Benedict used to turn with a smile of satisfaction, as well as with
almost a feeling of awe, over the wisdom of the Great Teacher. Alice
Ansted might be teaching Bud the principles of arithmetic, but he was
certainly daily teaching her the principles of the religion which she
professed, but did not _live_.
In fact, others beside Alice Ansted were being taught, or, at least,
were being roused, by the newly-awakened mind. The minister had by no
means forgotten the visit which had glorified the study for that day,
and he was still bathing his almost discouraged heart in the brightness
of its memory, when a vigorous knock one morning again interrupted
his studies. His eyes brightened when he saw that the visitor was Bud,
and he invited him in with cordial tone. But no, Bud was in haste.
There was not a trace of the hesitancy and embarrassment which had
characterized his first visit. He spoke with the confidence of one who
had obtained great and sufficient help at this source before, and who
knew that it was the place where help could be found.
"I haven't any time this morning," he said, speaking with a rapidity
which had begun to characterize his newly awakened life. "I'm down at
Snyder's, waiting for the pony to be shod, and there is a fellow there
talking. He says the Bible ain't true; that it is just a lot of made-up
stories to cheat women and children and folks that don't know nothing,
like me. Well, now, I _know_ that it is no such a thing. I know the
Bible is true, because I've tried it; but he hasn't tried it, you see,
sir, and he won't because he don't believe in it, and I thought I would
just run up here and ask you to give me something to show him that it
is all true; something that I can tell him in a hurry, because the
pony will be ready in a few minutes."
What in the world was that minister to say? Was ever such an
embarrassing question thrust at him?
The evidences of Christianity--yes, he had studied them carefully; of
course he had. He had written sermons to prove the truth of the Holy
Scriptures; he had a row of books on the upper shelf of his library,
all of them treating more or less of this subject. He turned and looked
at them; ponderous volumes; it was not possible to take down even the
smallest of them and set Bud to reading it. In the first place, Bud
would no more understand the language in which it was written than he
would understand the Greek Testament which stood by its side; and, in
the second place, Bud wanted knowledge that could be transmitted while
the pony was being shod!
Certainly, this dilemma had its ludicrous side, but had it not also
its humiliating one? Ought there not to be some word which an educated
man like himself could give in haste to an ignorant boy like Bud?
Something so plain that even the pony need not wait while it was being
explained? Suppose the man at the blacksmith-shop had chosen to sneer
over the fact that the earth is round, and Bud had come for an argument
to prove the truth of this fact, how easy it would be to produce one!
Ought he not to be equally ready to defend this much-slandered Bible?
Thoughts are very rapid in their transit. Something like these ideas
rushed through the scholar's mind while he stood looking up at his row
of books, and Bud stood looking up at him with an air of confident
expectation.
"Bud," said the minister, turning suddenly away from his book-shelves,
"how many persons are there at Snyder's?"
"Eight or nine, sir; maybe more."
"Are they from around here?"
"No, sir; mostly from the country; I don't know any of 'em."
"Well, Bud, I want you to listen carefully while I ask two or three
questions. Suppose you had been there before any of those men, and
as one after another began to come in, each should tell of a fire
there had been last night in the city. Suppose you knew that they were
not acquainted with each other, and had not met until they reached
the blacksmith's shop, and suppose they told the same story, without
contradicting one another in any of the important particulars, what do
you believe you would conclude about them? Would you think that they
had told the truth or a made-up story?"
"I reckon it would be the truth, sir; cause how would they know how to
make it up alike?"
"That is just the point," said the gratified minister. While he talked
he had been watching Bud carefully, much in doubt as to whether he had
mind enough to grasp the illustration, but so far it had evidently been
grasped; now he must see if it could be applied.
"Listen! Did you know that thirty-six people told the story of the
Bible, and that many of them not only never saw one another, but many
of them died before others of them were born; and that they told the
same story, without contradicting one another at all?"
"No, sir," said Bud, "I didn't know nothing about it. Is that so?"
Extreme delight glowed in his honest eyes, and he clutched at his cap
and made a movement toward the door. "I thank you, sir; I'll go back
and tell him; it will be a stunner!"
Away went the newly awakened preacher of the Evidences of Christianity,
and the minister went back to his Greek Testament with great
satisfaction. Bud might not be able to convince the scoffer at the
blacksmith's shop; Mr. Ramsey did not expect that he would; he knew
that Satan had many skillful ways of using false weapons and making
them flash like true steel. The thing which gave him pleasure was, that
Bud had understood. He felt nearly certain that the boy's mind would
not leave the question there; it would have to be investigated, and he,
the minister, would have to get ready to help him.
"We ought to be careful to speak about all these things in such a way
that uneducated people could follow us," he said.
And all that morning, while he worked over his sermon for the following
Sabbath, he worked to secure simple words in which to clothe his
thought; he sought illustrations to give it clearness; in short,
he preached to Bud; almost unconsciously he brought the boy before
his mind's eye, cap in hand--a symbol of the people whose thoughts
rested for a moment on what you were saying, and then flitted away to
something else--unless, indeed, the owners were caught during that
moment. This particular minister had never before so fully realized
this truth. He had never before labored so hard to catch the attention
of the unskilled listener; nor had he ever become so intensely
interested in any sermon as he did in that one. If he was to preach it
for Bud, it must be very simple; and in making it very simple, his own
heart took hold of it as a tremendous reality, instead of a thought out
of a book.
I hope I shall be understood when I say that Bud wrote the greater part
of the minister's sermon that week; though he of course, was utterly
unconscious of the fact.