"The beginnings of spiritual life are as the beginnings of natural
life. The babe is born in feebleness, and we must wait through the
periods of infancy, childhood and youth, before we can have the strong
man ready for the burden and heat of the day, or full-armed for the
battle. If Mr. Gray is in the first effort to lead a Christian life,
that is something. He will grow wiser and better in time, I hope."
"There is vast room for improvement," said the merchant. "In my eyes he
is, at this time, only a hypocritical pretender. I hope, for the sake
of the world and the church both, that his new associates will make
something better out of him."
I went away, pretty much of the merchant's opinion. My next meeting
with Mr. Gray was in the shop of a mechanic to whom he had sold a bill
of goods some months previously. He had called to collect a portion of
the amount which remained unpaid. The mechanic was not ready for him.
"I am sorry, Mr. Gray," he began, with some hesitation of manner.
"Sorry for what?" sharply interrupted Mr. Gray.
"Sorry that I have not the money to settle your bill. I have been
disappointed----"
"I don't want that old story. You promised to be ready for me to-day,
didn't you?" And Mr. Gray knit his brows, and looked angry and
imperative.
"Yes, I promised. But----"
"Then keep your promise. No man has a right to break his word. Promises
are sacred things, and should be kept religiously."
"If my customers had kept their promises to me there would have been no
failure in mine to you," answered the poor mechanic.
"It is of no use to plead other men's failings in justification of your
own. You said the bill should be settled to-day, and I calculated upon
it. Now, of all things in the world, I hate trifling. I shall not call
again, sir!"
"If you were to call forty times, and I hadn't the money to settle your
account, you would call in vain," said the mechanic, showing
considerable disturbance of mind.
"You needn't add insult to wrong." Mr. Gray's countenance reddened, and
he looked angry.
"If there is insult in the case it is on your part, not mine," retorted
the mechanic, with more feeling. "I am not a digger of gold out of the
earth, nor a coiner of money. I must be paid for my work before I can
pay the bills I owe. It was not enough that I told you of the failure
of my customers to meet their engagements----"
"You've no business to have such customers," broke in Mr. Gray. "No
right to take my goods and sell them to men who are not honest enough
to pay their bills."
"One of them is your own son," replied the mechanic, goaded beyond
endurance. "His bill is equal to half of yours. I have sent for the
amount a great many times, but still he puts me off with excuses. I
will send it to you next time."
This was thrusting home with a sharp sword, and the vanquished Mr. Gray
retreated from the battle-field, bearing a painful wound.
"That wasn't right in me, I know," said the mechanic, as Gray left his
shop. "I'm sorry, now, that I said it. But he pressed me too closely. I
am but human."
"He is a hard, exacting, money-loving man," was my remark.
"They tell me he has become a Christian," said the mechanic. "Has got
religion--been converted. Is that so?"
"It is commonly reported; but I think common report must be in error.
St. Paul gives patience, forbearance, long-suffering, meekness,
brotherly kindness, and charity as some of the Christian graces. I do
not see them in this man. Therefore, common report must be in error."
"I have paid him a good many hundreds of dollars since I opened my shop
here," said the mechanic, with the manner of one who felt hurt. "If I
am a poor, hard-working man, I try to be honest. Sometimes I get a
little behind hand, as I am new, because people I work for don't pay up
as they should. It happened twice before when I wasn't just square with
Mr. Gray, and he pressed down very hard upon me, and talked just as you
heard him to-day. He got his money, every dollar of it; and he will get
his money now. I did think, knowing that he had joined the church and
made a profession of religion, that he would bear a little patiently
with me this time. That, as he had obtained forgiveness, as alleged, of
his sins towards heaven, he would be merciful to his fellow-man. Ah,
well! These things make us very sceptical about the honesty of men who
call themselves religious. My experience with 'professors' has not been
very encouraging. As a general thing I find them quite as greedy for
gain as other men. We outside people of the world get to be very
sharp-sighted. When a man sets himself up to be of better quality than
we, and calls himself by a name significant of heavenly virtue, we
judge him, naturally, by his own standard, and watch him very closely.
If he remain as hard, as selfish, as exacting, and as eager after money
as before, we do not put much faith in his profession, and are very apt
to class him with hypocrites. His praying, and fine talk about faith,
and heavenly love, and being washed from all sin, excite in us contempt
rather than respect. We ask for good works, and are never satisfied
with anything else. By their fruits ye shall know them."
On the next Sunday I saw Mr. Gray in church. My eyes were on him when
he entered. I noticed that all the lines of his face were drawn down,
and that the whole aspect and bearing of the man were solemn and
devotional. He moved to his place with a slow step, his eyes cast to
the floor. On taking his seat, he leaned his head on the pew in front
of him, and continued for nearly a minute in prayer. During the
services I heard his voice in the singing; and through the sermon, he
maintained the most fixed attention. It was communion Sabbath; and he
remained, after the congregation was dismissed, to join in the holiest
act of worship.
"Can this man be indeed self-deceived?" I asked myself, as I walked
homeward. "Can he really believe that heaven is to be gained by pious
acts alone? That every Sabbath evening he can pitch his tent a day's
march nearer heaven, though all the week he have failed in the
commonest offices of neighborly love?"
It so happened, that I had many opportunities for observing Mr. Gray,
who, after joining the church, became an active worker in some of the
public and prominent charities of the day. He contributed liberally in
many cases, and gave a good deal of time to the prosecution of
benevolent enterprises, in which men of some position were concerned.
But, when I saw him dispute with a poor gardener who had laid the sods
in his yard, about fifty cents, take sixpence off of a weary strawberry
woman, or chaffer with his boot-black over an extra shilling, I could
not think that it was genuine love for his fellow-men that prompted his
ostentatious charities.
In no instance did I find any better estimation of him in business
circles; for his religion did not chasten the ardor of his selfish love
of advantage in trade; nor make him more generous, nor more inclined to
help or befriend the weak and the needy. Twice I saw his action in the
case of unhappy debtors, who had not been successful in business. In
each case, his claim was among the smallest; but he said more unkind
things, and was the hardest to satisfy, of any man among the creditors.
He assumed dishonest intention at the outset, and made that a plea for
the most rigid exaction; covering his own hard selfishness with
offensive cant about mercantile honor, Christian integrity, and
religious observance of business contracts. He was the only man among
all the creditors, who made his church membership a prominent
thing--few of them were even church-goers--and the only man who did not
readily make concessions to the poor, down-trodden debtors.
"Is he a Christian?" I asked, as I walked home in some depression of
spirits, from the last of these meetings. And I could but answer
No--for to be a Christian is to be Christ-like.
"As ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." This is
the divine standard. "Ye must be born again," leaves to us no latitude
of interpretation. There must be a death of the old, natural, selfish
loves, and a new birth of spiritual affections. As a man feels, so will
he act. If the affections that rule his heart be divine affections, he
will be a lover of others, and a seeker of their good. He will not be a
hard, harsh, exacting man in natural things, but kind, forbearing,
thoughtful of others, and yielding. In all his dealings with men, his
actions will be governed by the heavenly laws of justice and judgment.
He will regard the good of his neighbor equally with his own. It is in
the world where Christian graces reveal themselves, if they exist at
all. Religion is not a mere Sunday affair, but the regulator of a man's
conduct among his fellow-men. Unless it does this, it is a false
religion, and he who depends upon it for the enjoyment of heavenly
felicities in the next life, will find himself in miserable error.
Heaven cannot be earned by mere acts of piety, for heaven is the
complement of all divine affections in the human soul; and a man must
come into these--must be born into them--while on earth, or he can
never find an eternal home among the angels of God. Heaven is not
gained by doing, but by living.