They rode quite silently to the house of the minister with whom John had
exchanged, where they were to dine; after that, the preacher was to go
back to the church for the afternoon sermon.
Mrs. Grier, a spare, anxious-looking woman, with a tight friz of hair
about her temples which were thin and shining, met them at the door. She
had hurried home to "see to things," and be ready to welcome her guests.
John she ushered at once into her husband's study, a poor little room,
with even fewer books than Mr. Ward's own, while Helen she took to the
spare chamber, where she had thoughtfully provided a cambric dress for
her, for the day had grown very warm, and the riding-habit was heavy.
She sat down in a splint rocking-chair, and watched her guest brush out
her length of shining bronze hair, and twist it in a firm coil low on her
neck.
"It was a good gathering," she said; "people came from a distance to
hear Mr. Ward. The folks at Lockhaven are favored to listen to such
preaching."
"No doubt they feel favored to have Mr. Grier with them to-day," Helen
answered, courteously; but there was an absent look in her eyes, and she
did not listen closely.
"Well, people like a change once in a while," Mrs. Grier admitted,
rocking hard. "Mr. Grier's discourse was to be on the same subject as
your husband's, foreign missions. It is one that moves the preachers, and
the people seem to like it, I notice, though I don't know that it makes
much difference in the collections. But I think they like to get all
harrowed up. You'll find there won't be such an attendance in the
afternoon. It is ways and means, then, you know. Yes, seems as if sermons
on hell made them shiver, and they enjoyed it. I've sometimes thought--I
don't know as I'm right--they get the same kind of pleasure out of it
that worldly people do out of a play. Not that I know much about such
things, I'm sure."
Helen smiled, which rather shocked Mrs. Grier; but though the guest
scarcely listened, the little sharp babble of talk was kept up, until
they went down to dinner.
There had been no chance for the husband and wife to speak to each other.
John looked at Helen steadily a moment, but her eyes veiled any thought.
In the midst of Mrs. Grier's chatter, she had gone into the solitude of
her own heart, and slowly and silently light was beginning to shine into
the mysterious darkness of the last few days. John's grief must have had
something to do with this terrible sermon. She felt her heart leap up
from the past anxiety like a bird from a net, and the brooding sadness
began to fade from her face. The preacher had come down from the pulpit
with a certain exhilaration, as of duty done. He was inspired to hope,
and even certainty, by the greatness of the theme. Helen should see the
truth, his silence should no longer mislead her, she should believe in
the justice of God. He had forgotten his sin of cowardice in the
onward-sweeping wave of his convictions; he seemed to yield himself up to
the grasp of truth, and lost even personal remorse in the contemplation
of its majesty.
Mrs. Grier had four noisy children, who all spoke at once, and needed
their mother's constant care and attention, so John and Helen could at
least be silent; yet it was hard to sit through the dinner when their
hearts were impatient for each other.
In a little breathing space at the end of the meal, when two of the
children had clambered down from their high chairs and been dismissed,
Mrs. Grier began to speak of the sermon.
"It was a wonderful discourse, sir," she said; "seems as if nobody could
stand against such doctrine as you gave us. I could have wished, though,
you'd have told us your thoughts about infants being lost. There is a
difference of opinion between Mr. Grier and two of our elders."
"What does Brother Grier hold?" asked the preacher.
"Well," Mrs. Grier answered, shaking her head, "he does say they are all
saved. But the elders, they say that the confession of faith teaches that
elect infants are saved, and of course it follows that those not elect
are lost. My father, Mr. Ward, was a real old-fashioned Christian, and I
must say that was what I was taught to believe, and I hold by it. There
now, Ellen, you take your little sister and go out into the garden, like
a good girl."
She lifted the baby down from her chair, and put her hand into that of
her elder sister.
"Mrs. Grier," Helen said, speaking quickly, "you say you believe it, but
if you had ever lost a child, I am sure you could not."
"I have, ma'am,"--Mrs. Grier's thin lip quivered, and her eyes reddened
a little,--"but that can't make any difference in truth; besides, we have
the blessed hope that she was an elect infant."
It would have been cruel to press the reason for this hope, and Helen
listened instead with a breath of relief to what John was saying,--he, at
least, did not hold this horrible doctrine.
"No, I agree with your husband," he said. "True, all children are born in
sin, and are despised and abhorred as sinners by God. Jonathan Edwards,
you know, calls them 'vipers,' which of course was a crude and cruel way
of stating the truth, that they are sinners. Yet, through the infinite
mercy, they are saved because Christ died, not of themselves; in other
words, all infants who die, are elect."
Mrs. Grier shook her head. "I'm for holding to the catechism," she said;
and then, with a sharp, thin laugh, she added, "But you're sound on the
heathen, I must say."
Helen shivered, and it did not escape her hostess, who turned and looked
at her with interested curiosity. She, too, had heard the Lockhaven
rumors.
"But then," she proceeded, "I don't see how a parson can help being sound
on that, though it is surprising what people will doubt, even the things
that are plainest to other people. I've many a time heard my father say
that the proper holding of the doctrine of reprobation was necessary to
eternal life. I suppose you believe that, Mr. Ward," she added, with a
little toss of her head, "even if you don't go all the way with the
confession, about infants?"
"Yes," John said sadly, "I must; because not to believe in reprobation is
to say that the sacrifice of the cross was a useless offering."
"And of course," Mrs. Grier went on, an edge of sarcasm cutting into her
voice, "Mrs. Ward thinks so, too? Of course she thinks that a belief in
hell is necessary to get to heaven?"
The preacher looked at his wife with a growing anxiety in his face.
"No," Helen said, "I do not think so, Mrs. Grier."
Mrs. Grier flung up her little thin hands, which looked like bird-claws.
"You _don't_!" she cried shrilly. "Well, now, I do say! And what do you
think about the heathen, then? Do you think they'll be damned?"
"No," Helen said again.
Mrs. Grier gave a gurgle of astonishment, and looked at Mr. Ward, but he
did not speak.
"Well," she exclaimed, "if I didn't think the heathen would be lost, I
wouldn't see the use of the plan of salvation! Why, they've got to be!"
"If they had to be," cried Helen, with sudden passion, "I should want to
be a heathen. I should be ashamed to be saved, if there were so many
lost." She stopped; the anguish in John's face silenced her.
"Well," Mrs. Grier said again, really enjoying the scene, "_I'm_
surprised; I wouldn't a' believed it!"
She folded her hands across her waist, and looked at Mrs. Ward with keen
interest. Helen's face flushed under the contemptuous curiosity in the
woman's eyes; she turned appealingly to John.
"Mrs. Ward does not think quite as we do, yet," he said gently; "you know
she has not been a Presbyterian as long as we have."
He rose as he spoke, and came and stood by Helen's chair, and then walked
at her side into the parlor.
Mrs. Grier had followed them, and heard Helen say in a low voice, "I
would rather not go to church this afternoon, dearest. May I wait for you
here?"
"Well," she broke in, "I shouldn't suppose you would care to go, so long
as it's just about the ways and means of sending the gospel to the
heathen, and you think they're all going right to heaven, any way."
"I do not know where they are going, Mrs. Grier," Helen said wearily;
"for all I know, there is no heaven, either. I only know that God--if
there is a God who has any personal care for us--could not be so wicked
and cruel as to punish people for what they could not help."
"Good land!" cried Mrs. Grier, really frightened at such words, and
looking about as though she expected a judgment as immediate as the bears
which devoured the scoffing children.
"If you would rather not go," John answered, "if you are tired, wait for
me here. I am sure Mrs. Grier will let you lie down and rest until it is
time to start for home?"
"Oh, of course," responded Mrs. Grier, foreseeing a chance for further
investigation, for she, too, was to be at home.
But Helen did not invite her to come into the spare room, when she went
to lie down, after John's departure for church. She wanted to be alone.
She had much to think of, much to reconcile and explain, to protect
herself from the unhappiness which John's sermon might have caused her.
She had had an unmistakable shock of pain and distress as she realized
her husband's belief, and to feel even that seemed unloving and disloyal.
To Helen's mind, if she disapproved of her husband's opinions on what to
her was an unimportant subject, her first duty was to banish the thought,
and forget that she had ever had it. She sat now by the open window,
looking out over the bright garden to the distant peaceful hills, and by
degrees the pain of it began to fade from her mind, in thoughts of John
himself, his goodness, and their love. Yes, they loved one another,--that
was enough.
"What does it matter what his belief is?" she said. "I love him!"
So, by and by, the content of mere existence unfolded in her heart, and
John's belief was no more to her than a dress of the mind; his character
was unchanged. There was a momentary pang that the characters of others
might be hurt by this teaching of the expediency of virtue, but she
forced the thought back. John, whose whole life was a lesson in the
beauty of holiness--John could not injure any one. The possibility that
he might be right in his creed simply never presented itself to her.
Helen's face had relaxed into a happy smile; again the day was fair and
the wind sweet. The garden below her was fragrant with growing things and
the smell of damp earth; and while she sat, drinking in its sweetness, a
sudden burst of children's voices reached her ear, and Ellen and the two
little boys came around the corner of the house, and settled down under
the window. A group of lilacs, with feathery purple blossoms, made a
deep, cool shade, where the children sat; and near them was an old
grindstone, streaked with rust, and worn by many summers of sharpening
scythes; a tin dipper hung on the wooden frame, nearly full of last
night's rain, and with some lilac stars floating in the water.
This was evidently a favorite playground with the children, for under the
frame of the grindstone were some corn-cob houses, and a little row of
broken bits of china, which their simple imagination transformed into
"dishes." But to-day the corn-cob houses and the dishes were untouched.
"Now, children," Ellen said, "you sit right down, and I'll hear your
catechism."
"Who'll hear yours?" Bobby asked discontentedly. "When we play school,
you're always teacher, and it's no fun."
"This isn't playing school," Ellen answered, skillfully evading the first
question. "Don't you know it's wicked to play on the Sabbath? Now sit
right down."
There was a good deal of her mother's sharpness in the way she said this,
and plucked Bobby by the strings of his pinafore, until he took an
uncomfortable seat upon an inverted flower-pot.
Ellen opened a little yellow-covered book, and began.
"Now answer, Jim! How many kinds of sin are there?"
"Two," responded little Jim.
"What are these two kinds, Bob?"
"Original and actual," Bob answered.
"What is original sin?" asked Ellen, raising one little forefinger to
keep Bobby quiet. This was too hard a question for Jim, and with some
stumbling Bobby succeeded in saying,--
"It is that sin in which I was conceived and born."
"Now, Jim," said Ellen, "you can answer this question, 'cause it's only
one word, and begins with 'y.'"
"No fair!" cried Bob; "that's telling."
But Ellen proceeded to give the question: "Doth original sin wholly
defile you, and is it sufficient to send you to hell, though you had no
other sin?"
"Yes!" roared Jim, pleased at being certainly right.
"What are you then by nature?" Ellen went on rather carelessly, for she
was growing tired of the lesson.
"I am an enemy to God, a child of Satan, and an heir of hell," answered
Bobby promptly.
"What will become of the wicked?" asked the little catechist.
Bobby yawned, and then said contemptuously, "Oh, skip that,--cast into
hell, of course."
"You ought to answer right," Ellen said reprovingly, but she was glad to
give the last question, "What will the wicked do forever in hell?"
"They will roar, curse, and blaspheme God," said little Jim cheerfully;
while Bobby, to show his joy that the lesson was done, leaned over on his
flower-pot, and tried to stand on his head, making all the time an
unearthly noise.
"I'm roarin'!" he cried gayly.
Ellen, freed from the responsibility of teaching, put the little yellow
book quickly in her pocket, and said mysteriously, "Boys, if you won't
ever tell, I'll tell you something."
"I won't," said Jim, while Bobby responded briefly, "G'on."
"Well, you know when the circus came,--you know the pictures on the
fences?"
"Yes!" said the little boys together.
"'Member the beautiful lady, ridin' on a horse, and standin' on one
foot?"
"Yes!" the others cried, breathlessly.
"Well," said Ellen slowly and solemnly, "when I get to be a big girl,
that's what I'm going to be. I'm tired of catechism, and church, and
those long blessings father asks, but most of catechism, so I'm going
to run away, and be a circus."
"Father'll catch you," said Jim; but Bobby, with envious depreciation,
added,--
"How do you know but what circuses have catechism?"
Ellen did not notice the lack of sympathy. "And I'm going to begin to
practice now," she said.
Then, while her brothers watched her, deeply interested, she took off her
shoes, and in her well-darned little red stockings climbed deliberately
upon the grindstone.
"This is my horse," she said, balancing herself, with outstretched arms,
on the stone, and making it revolve in a queer, jerky fashion by pressing
her feet on it as though it were a treadmill, "and it is bare-backed!"
The iron handle came down with a thud, and Ellen lurched to keep from
falling; the boys unwisely broke into cheers.
It made a pretty picture, the sunbeams sifting through the lilacs on the
little fair heads, and dancing over Ellen's white apron and rosy face;
but Mrs. Grier, who had come to the door at the noise of the cheers, did
not stop to notice it.
"Oh, you naughty children!" she cried. "Don't you know it is wicked to
play on the Sabbath? Ellen's playing circus, do you say, Bobby? You
naughty, naughty girl! Don't you know circus people are all wicked, and
don't go to heaven when they die? I should think you'd be ashamed! Go
right up-stairs, Ellen, and go to bed; and you boys can each learn a
psalm, and you'll have no supper, either,--do you hear?"
The children began to cry, but Mrs. Grier was firm; and when, a little
later, Helen came down-stairs, ready for her ride, the house was
strangely quiet. Mrs. Grier, really troubled at her children's
sinfulness, confided their misdeeds to Helen, and was not soothed
by the smile that flashed across her face.
"They were such good children to study their catechism first," she
interceded, "and making a horse out of a grindstone shows an imagination
which might excuse the playing."
But Mrs. Grier was not comforted, and only felt the more convinced of the
lost condition of Mrs. Ward's soul. The conviction of other people's sin
is sometimes a very pleasing emotion, so she bade her guest good-by with
much cordiality and even pulled the skirt of her habit straight, and gave
the gray a lump of sugar.
Helen told John of the scene under the lilacs, as they trotted down the
lane to the highway, but his mood was too grave to see any humor in it.
Indeed, his frame of mind had changed after he left his wife for his
second sermon. The exhilaration and triumph had gone, and the reaction
had come. He brooded over his sin, and the harassed, distressed look of
the last few days settled down again on his face. But Helen had regained
her sweet serenity and content; she felt so certain that the darkness
since Thursday had been the shadow in which his sermon had been conceived
that her relief brought a joy which obscured any thought of regret that
he should hold such views.
John's head was bent, and his hands were clasped upon his saddle-bow,
while the reins fell loosely from between his listless fingers.
"You are so tired, John," Helen said regretfully.
He sighed, as though rousing himself from thought. "A little, dearest,"
and then his sorrowful eyes smiled. "You look so fresh and rested, Helen.
It was wise for you to lie down this afternoon."
"Oh, but I didn't," she said quickly. "I was busy thinking."
He looked at her eagerly. "Yes," she continued, "I think I know what has
distressed you so these last few days, dear. It is this thought of the
suffering of mankind. If you have felt that all the heathen who have died
are in hell, I don't wonder at your sorrow. It would be dreadful, and I
wish you did not think it. But we will not talk about it,--of course you
would rather not talk about it, even to me, but I understand."
She bent forward, and smiled brightly, as she looked at him. But his face
was full of grief.
"It was not that, Helen," he said; "it was something nearer than that.
It was remorse, because of late, for nearly a year, I have neglected my
people. I have not admonished them and warned them as I ought. And nearer
still, because I have neglected you."
"Me!" she cried, too much astonished to say more.
"Yes," he answered, his head bent again upon his breast, "you, my
dearest, my best beloved,--you, who are dearer than my life to me, dearer
than my happiness. I have known that you have been far from truth, that
you have not believed, and yet I--I have been silent."
Helen looked at him, and the sudden awful thought flashed into her mind
that he did not know what he was saying, and then she said with a gasp:
"Oh, John, is that all? Have you been so unhappy just because of that?
Oh, you poor fellow!"
She brought her horse close beside his, and laid her hand on his arm.
"Dear, what does it matter what I believe or do not believe? We love each
other. And where is your tolerance, John?" She laughed, but the look of
terrible concern in his face frightened her.
"Ah, Helen," he said, "such tolerance as you would have me show would be
indifference."
"Oh, John!" she said, and then began resolutely to speak of other things.
But soon they fell into silence, Helen longing to get home and brush this
useless and foolish anxiety from her husband's heart, and he agonizing
for his sin towards her and towards his people.
The late afternoon sunshine gilded the tender green of the fields, and
slanting deep into the darkness of the woods, touched the rough trunks of
the trees with gold. Long shadows stretched across the road, and the
fragrance which steals out with the evening dews began to come from
unseen blossoms, and early clover; and a breath of the uncertain night
wind brought hints of apple orchards or the pungent sweetness of
cherry-blossoms. They had gone more than half-way home when they drew
rein to water their horses, under a whispering pine by the roadside. The
trough, overflowing with sparkling water, was green with moss and lichen,
and was so old and soft that a bunch of ferns had found a home on its
side. The horses thrust their noses down into it, blowing and sputtering
with sheer delight in the coolness. John made a cup of a big beech leaf,
and filled it for his wife. As he handed it to her, they heard steps, and
in a moment more Mr. Grier came around the curve of the road. His horse,
too, was thirsty, and he let the reins fall on its neck while he greeted
them both with formal and ministerial dignity, saying he "wished they
might have tarried until he came home, and perhaps he could have
persuaded them to stay the night."
The horses pounded and splashed in the pools about their feet, and were
impatient to be off, but Mr. Grier delayed. He spoke of church matters,
and General Assembly, and their respective congregations; and then, with
a little hesitation, he said:--
"I had almost hoped, Mrs. Ward, that you would have been in Brother
Ward's church to-day, even though Mrs. Grier had much pleasure in seeing
you under our roof. I had you in my mind in the preparation of my
sermon."
Mr. Grier was a tall, thin man, with watery blue eyes, and a sparse sandy
beard growing like a fringe under his chin from ear to ear. He moved his
jaws nervously as he waited for her answer, and plucked at his beard with
long, lean fingers.
Helen smiled. "Did you think I should be a large contributor to foreign
missions, Mr. Grier?"
"No, ma'am," he answered solemnly, "I was not thinking of any benefit to
the heathen. I had somewhat to say which I felt might be for the good of
your own soul."
Helen flushed, and flung her head back with a haughty look. "Ah,--you are
very good, I'm sure," she said, "but"--
Mr. Grier interrupted her, wagging his head up and down upon his breast:
"Brother Ward will forgive me for saying so, ma'am, but I had your
welfare at heart. Brother Ward, you have my prayers for your dear wife."
"I--I thank you," John said, "but you must not feel that my wife is far
from the Lord. Have you been told that the truth is not clear to her
eyes? Yet it will be!"
"I hope so,--I hope so," responded Mr. Grier, but with very little hope
in his voice; and then, shaking the reins, he jogged on down the shadowy
road.
"What does he mean?" cried Helen, her voice trembling with anger, and
careless whether the retreating minister overheard her. John gave her a
long, tender look.
"Dearest," he said, "I am sorry he should have spoken as he did, but the
prayers of a good man"--
"I don't want his prayers," she interrupted, bewildered; "it seems to me
simply impertinence!"
"Helen," he said, "it cannot be impertinence to pray for a soul in
danger, as yours is, my darling. I cannot tell how he knew it, but it is
so. It is my sin which has kept you blind and hidden the truth from you,
and how can I be angry if another man joins his prayers to mine for your
eternal salvation?"
"You say this because I do not believe in eternal punishment, John?" she
asked.
"Yes," he answered gently, "first because of that, and then because of
all the errors of belief to which that leads."
"It all seems so unimportant," she said, sighing; "certainly nothing
which could make me claim the prayers of a stranger. Ah, well, no doubt
he means it kindly, but don't let us speak of it any more, dearest."
Their horses were so close, that, glancing shyly about for a moment into
the twilight, Helen laid her head against his arm, and looked tenderly
into his face.
He started, and then put a quick arm about her to keep her from falling.
"No," he said, "no, I will not forget." It was as though he answered some
voice in his soul, and Helen looked at him in troubled wonder.
The rest of the ride was very silent. Once, when he stopped to tighten
her saddle-girth for her, she bent his head back, and smiled down into
his eyes. He only answered her by a look, but it was enough.