Almost before Elder Dean had left the threshold Helen stood at the bolted
door. She turned the knob gently while she knocked.
"John," she said anxiously,--"John, dear!" But there was no answer.
"John!" she said again, a thread of fear in her voice. "What is the
matter? Are you ill, dearest? Please let me in!"
Only the rustle of the wind outside and the flickering shadows across the
hall answered her. She shook the door slightly, and then listened. "John,
John!" she called again, and as she heard a long breath inside the closed
room she leaned against the wall, faint with a fright she had not
realized. She heard a slow footstep upon the floor, that stopped on the
other side of the door.
"Helen," her husband said, in a voice she scarcely knew, "I want to be
alone. I am not ill, but I must be--undisturbed. Will you go away,
please?"
"Let me in just one moment, darling," she pleaded, still nervously
turning the knob. "I won't disturb you, but it terrifies me to be shut
out in this way. Please let me just see you, and then I will go right
away."
"No," he answered, "I cannot see you. I do not want to see you, Helen.
I must be alone just now."
"You are sure you are not ill?" she insisted.
"Quite sure."
"Well," she said reluctantly, "I'll go, but call me just as soon as I can
come, will you?"
"Yes," he answered, "but do not come until I do call you."
She heard him walk back to his study table, and then silence seemed to
fall like a shadow on her heart. She was more bewildered than before.
John was in trouble, and she could not help him. Nevertheless, she did
not speak again; she was one of those unusual women who are content to
wait until the moment it is needed, to give their sympathy or tenderness.
So she went to her own room, and sat wistfully looking out at the sweet
spring day; she could not read while this anxiety filled her mind, and
her hands were idle in her lap. She did not even summon John to luncheon,
knowing he would come if he saw fit; for herself, she could not eat. It
was almost five, when she heard John push his chair back (she was sitting
on the lowest step of the staircase, which ended at the study door,
leaning her head against the frame), and again her ear caught the heavy,
long-drawn sigh. Her suspense was to end.
She rose, her hands pressed hard together to check their trembling; she
bit her lip lest she might speak and disturb him one moment before he was
ready to hear her.
He pushed back the bolt, and slowly opened the door and looked at her.
All the words of love and anxiety died on her lips.
"John," she whispered,--"oh, my dear, what is it?"
He came out, and, putting his hands on her shoulders, looked down at her
with terrible, unsmiling eyes. "Helen," he said, "I am grieved to have
distressed you so, but it had to be. I had to be alone. I am in much
trouble. No," laying his hand gently on her lips; "listen to me, dearest.
I am in great distress of soul; and just now, just for a few days, I must
bear it alone."
Helen felt a momentary sense of relief. Distress of soul?--that meant
some spiritual anxiety, and it had not the awfulness to her which a more
tangible trouble, such as sickness, would have.
"What is it, John? Tell me," she said, looking at him with overflowing
love, but without an understanding sympathy; it was more that feeling
which belongs to strong women, of maternal tenderness for the men they
love, quite apart from an intellectual appreciation of their trouble.
John shook his head. "I must bear it alone, Helen. Do not ask me what it
is; I cannot tell you yet."
"You cannot tell me? Oh, John, your sorrow belongs to me; don't shut me
out; tell me, dear, and let me help you."
"You cannot help me," he answered wearily; "only trust me when I say it
is best for me not to tell you now; you shall know all there is to know,
later. Be patient just a few days,--until after the Sabbath. Oh, bear
with me,--I am in great sorrow, Helen; help me with silence."
She put her arms around him, and in her caressing voice, with that deep
note in it, she said, "It shall be just as you say, darling. I won't ask
you another question, but I'm ready to hear whenever you want to tell
me."
He looked at her with haggard eyes, but did not answer. Then she drew
him out into the fresh coolness of the garden, and tried to bring some
brightness into his face by talking of small household happenings, and
how she had missed him during his two weeks' absence, and what plans she
had for the next week. But no smile touched his white lips, or banished
the absent look in his eyes. After tea, during which his silence had not
been broken, he turned to go into his study.
"Oh, you are not going to work to-night?" Helen cried. "Don't leave me
alone again!"
He looked at her with sudden wistfulness. "I--I must," he said, his voice
so changed it gave her a shock of pain. "I must work on my sermon."
"I thought you had written it," she said; "and you are so tired--do wait
until to-morrow."
"I am not going to use the sermon I prepared," he answered. "I have
decided to preach more directly on foreign missions. You know I exchange
with Mr. Grier, of Chester, on the Sabbath; and he will preach to our
church on the attitude of Assembly towards missions. I had intended to
give a more general sermon to his people, but--I have decided otherwise."
Helen was surprised at so long an explanation; John's sermons were
generally ignored by both, but for different reasons. She followed him
into the study, and when she had lighted his lamp he kissed her, saying
softly, "May God bless you, Helen," and then he shut her gently from the
room.
"Don't lock the door, John," she had said. "I won't come in, but don't
lock it." Her lip almost trembled as she spoke.
"No,--no," he said tenderly. "Oh, Helen, I have made you suffer!"
She was quick to protect him. "No, I was only lonely; but you won't lock
it?"
He did not, but poor Helen wandered forlornly about the darkened house,
an indefinable dread chasing away the relief which had come when her
husband spoke of spiritual trouble; she was glad, for the mere humanness
of it, to hear Thaddeus and Alfaretta talking in the kitchen.
The next day, and the next, dragged slowly by. When John was not at his
writing-table, he was making those pastoral calls which took so much time
and strength, and which Helen always felt were unnecessary. Once, seeing
her standing leaning her forehead against the window and looking out
sadly into the rainy garden, he came up to her and took her in his arms,
holding her silently to his heart. That cheered and lightened her, and
somehow, when Sunday morning dawned, full of the freshness of the past
rain and the present wind and sunshine, she felt the gloom of the last
three days lifting a little. True, there was the unknown sorrow in her
heart, but love was there, too. She was almost happy, without knowing it.
They were to go on horseback, for Chester was eight miles off, and the
thought of a ride in this sparkling mountain air brought a glow to her
cheek, which had been pale the last few days. They started early. The sun
seemed to tip the great green bowl of the valley, and make every leaf
shine and glisten; the road wound among the circling hills, which were
dark with sombre pines, lightened here and there by the fresh greenness
of ash or chestnuts; in some places the horse's hoofs made a velvety
sound on the fallen catkins. A brook followed their path, whispering and
chattering, or hiding away under overhanging bushes, and then laughing
sharply out into the sunshine again. The wind was fresh and fickle;
sometimes twisting the weeds and flowers at the wayside, or sending a
dash of last night's raindrops into their faces from the low branches
of the trees, and all the while making cloud shadows scud over the
fresh-ploughed fields, and up and across the blue, distant hills.
John rested his hand on her bridle, as she stroked her horse's mane. "How
the wind has blown your hair from under your hat!" he said.
She put her gauntleted hand up to smooth it.
"Don't," he said, "it's so pretty; it looks like little tendrils that
have caught the sun."
Helen laughed, and then looked at him anxiously; the sunshine brought out
the worn lines in his face. "You work too hard, dearest; it worries me."
"I have never worked at all!" he cried, with a sudden passion of pain in
his voice. "Oh, my wasted life, Helen,--my life that has wronged and
cheated you!"
"John!" she said, almost frightened. Yet it was characteristic that she
should think this was only a symptom of overwork and bodily weariness.
And when at last they reached the church in Chester, and John lifted her
from her saddle, the anxiety had come again, and all the joy of the
summer morning had left her face. They fastened their horses to one of
the big chestnuts which stood in a stately row in front of the little
white church, and then Helen went inside, and found a seat by one of the
open windows; she secretly pushed the long inside shutter, with its drab
slats turned down, half-way open, so that she might look out across the
burying-ground, where the high blossoming grass nodded and waved over the
sunken graves.
John had followed her, and folded a coat over the back of the pew. He
gave her a long, yearning look, but did not speak. Then he turned, and
walked slowly up the aisle, with reverently bent head.
At the first hymn the congregation turned and faced the choir. Helen,
with the shadows of the leaves playing across her hymn-book, leaned
against the high back of the pew behind her, and sang in a strong, sweet
voice, rejoicing in the rolling old tune of "Greenland's icy mountains."
She could see the distant line of the hills, and now and then between the
branches of the trees would come the flash and ripple of the brown river;
and through the open door, which made a frame for the leaves and sky, she
caught sight of the row of horses pounding and switching under the
chestnuts, and those backsliders outside, who found it necessary to "see
to the beasts" rather than attend their religious privileges. But there
were not very many of these, for Mr. Ward's fame as a preacher had spread
through all the villages near Lockhaven.
Helen, watching John while he read the chapter from the Bible, thought
anxiously how tired and worn his face looked, and so thinking, and
looking out into the dancing leaves, the short prayer, and the long
prayer, and the hymn before the sermon passed, and she scarcely heard
them. Then came the rustle of preparation for listening. The men shuffled
about in their seats, and crossed their legs; the women settled their
bonnet-strings, and gave the little children a peppermint drop, and the
larger children a hymn-book to read. There were the usual rustling and
whispering in the choir, and the creaking footsteps of the one or two who
entered shamefacedly, as though they would explain that the horses had
detained them. Then the church was very still.
John Ward rose, and spread his manuscript out upon the velvet cushion of
the white pulpit.
"You will find my text," he said, "in the sixth chapter of Romans, the
twenty-first verse: 'The end of those things is death.'"
It had been announced that his sermon was to be upon foreign missions,
and the people waited patiently while the preacher briefly told them what
had been accomplished by the Presbyterian Church during the last year,
and, describing its methods of work, showed what it proposed to do in the
future.
"That's just a-tunin' up,--he'll set the heathen dancin' pretty soon; you
see!" some one whispered behind Helen; and then there was a giggle and
"hush-sh," as Mr. Ward began to say that foreign missions were inevitable
wherever the sentiment of pity found room in a human heart, because the
guilt of those in the darkness of unbelief, without God, without hope,
would certainly doom them to eternal misery; and this was a thought so
dark and awful, men could not go their way, one to his farm, and another
to his merchandise, and leave them to perish.
The simple and unquestioning conviction with which the preacher began to
prove to his congregation that the heathen were guilty, because Adam,
their federal head and representative, had sinned, perhaps hid from them
the cruelty with which he credited the Deity. No one thought of disputing
his statement that the wrath of God rested upon all unconverted souls,
and that it would, unless they burst from their darkness into the
glorious light of revealed truth, sink them to hell.
Some of the older Christians nodded their heads comfortably at this, and
looked keenly at the sinners of their own families, trusting that they
would be awakened to their danger by these trumpet bursts of doctrine. To
such hearers, it was unnecessary that John Ward should insist upon the
worthlessness of natural religion, begging them remember that for these
heathen, as well as for more favored souls, Christ's was the only name
given under heaven whereby men might be saved, and appealing to God's
people, as custodians of the mercies of Christ, to stretch their hands
out into the darkness to these blind, stumbling, doomed brothers. He bade
them be quick to answer that cry of "Come and help us!" and to listen for
that deeper voice beneath the wail of despair, which said, "Inasmuch as
ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done
it unto me."
The possibility of being saved without a knowledge of Christ remained,
he said, after eighteen hundred years, a possibility illustrated by no
example; and we could only stand in the shadow of this terrible fact,
knowing that millions and millions of souls were living without the
gospel, the only source of life, and dying without hope, and pray God for
the spirit and the means to help them.
Link by link he lengthened the chain of logic till it reached to the
deepest hell. He showed how blasphemous was the cry that men must be
saved, if for lack of opportunity they knew not Christ; that God would
not damn the soul that had had no chance to accept salvation. It had had
the chance of salvation in Adam, and had lost it, and was therefore
condemned. To the preacher this punishment of the helpless heathen seemed
only just.
"Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" he cried, and he stopped
to suppose, for the sake of argument, that Adam had not sinned: surely no
one would have disputed the justice of receiving the blessings which his
godliness would have entailed. Then he began to prove the right of the
potter over the clay. He had forgotten his congregation; the horror of
the damnation of the heathen was lost in the fear that one soul should
perish. He saw only Helen; she was in danger, she was far from God, but
yet the price of admission to heaven could not be altered, though his
heart broke for longing that she should be saved; the requirements of the
gospel had not softened, the decrees of Omnipotence were as unchangeable
as the eternal past.
His words, glowing with his love and grief, were only for her. The
thunders of God's justice shook his soul, while he offered her the
infinite mercy of Christ. But he did not shrink from acknowledging that
that mercy was only for those who would accept it, nor presume to dictate
to God that all sinners should be saved, forced into salvation, without
accepting his conditions.
"What right," he said, "have we to expect that mercy should exist at all?
What madness, then, to think He will depart from the course He has laid
out for himself, and save without condition those who are justly
condemned? Yet justice is satisfied, for Christ has died. O Soul, accept
that sacrifice!" He had come to the edge of the pulpit, one pale hand
clinched upon the heavy cover of the Bible, and the other stretched
tremblingly out; his anxious, grieving eyes looked over the solemn,
upturned faces of his listeners, and sought Helen, sitting in the dusky
shadow by the open window, her face a little averted, and her firm, sweet
lips set in a line which was almost stern.
Some of the women were crying: an exaltation purely hysterical made them
feel themselves lost sinners; they thrilled at John's voice, as though
his words touched some strained chord in their placid and virtuous lives.
"Come," he said, "stand with me to-day under the pierced hands and
bleeding side of Infinite Mercy; look up into that face of divine
compassion and ineffable tenderness, and know that this blood-stained
cross proclaims to all the centuries death suffered for the sin of the
world,--for your sin and mine. Can you turn and go away to outer
darkness, to wander through the shadows of eternity, away from God, away
from hope, away from love? Oh, come, while still those arms are open to
you; come, before the day of grace has darkened into night; come, before
relentless Justice bars the way with a flaming sword. O Soul, Christ
waits!"
He stood a moment, leaning forward, his hands clasped upon the big Bible,
and his face full of trembling and passionate pleading. Then he said,
with a long, indrawn breath, "Let us pray!"
The people rose, and stood with bowed heads through the short, eager,
earnest prayer. Then the preacher gave out the hymn, and there was the
rustle of turning to face the choir. The quaint, doleful tune of Windham
wailed and sobbed through the words,--
"The burden of our weighty guilt
Would sink us down to flames;
And threatening vengeance rolls above,
To crush our feeble frames!"
The choir sang with cheerful heartiness; it was a relief from the tension
of the sermon, a reaction to life, and hope, and healthy humanness after
these shadows of death. It all seemed part of a dream to Helen: the two
happy-faced girls standing in the choir, with bunches of apple-blossoms
in the belts of their fresh calico dresses, and the three young farmers
who held the green singing-books open, all singing heartily together,--
"'Tis boundless, 'tis amazing love,
That bears us up from hell!"
Helen watched them with fascinated curiosity; she wondered if they could
believe what they had just heard. Surely not; or how could they know a
moment's happiness, or even live!
After the benediction had been pronounced she walked absently down the
aisle, and went at once to her horse under the flickering shadows of the
chestnuts. Here she waited for John, one hand twisted in the gray's mane,
and with the other switching at the tall grass with her riding-whip. Only
a few of the people knew her, but these came to speak of the sermon. One
woman peered at her curiously from under her big shaker bonnet. The
stories of Mr. Ward's wife's unbelief had traveled out from Lockhaven.
"Wonderful how some folks could stand against such doctrine!" she said;
"and yet they must know it's a sin not to believe in everlasting
punishment. I believe it's a mortal sin, don't you, Mrs. Ward?"
"No," Helen said quietly.