GEORGE AND ANDREW.
George went home the next day; and the following week sent Andrew a
note, explaining that when he saw him he did not know his obligation to
him, and expressing the hope that, when next in town, he would call upon
him. This was hardly well, being condescension to a superior. Perhaps
the worst evil in the sense of social superiority is the vile fancy that
it alters human relation. George did not feel bound to make the same
acknowledgment of obligation to one in humble position as to one in the
same golden rank with himself! It says ill for social distinction, if,
for its preservation, such an immoral difference be essential. But
Andrew was not one to dwell upon his rights. He thought it friendly of
Mr. Crawford to ask him to call; therefore, although he had little
desire to make his acquaintance, and grudged the loss of time, to no man
so precious as to him who has a pursuit in addition to a calling,
Andrew, far stronger in courtesy than the man who invited him, took the
first Saturday afternoon to go and see him.
Mr. Crawford the elder lived in some style, and his door was opened by a
servant whose blatant adornment filled Andrew with friendly pity: no man
would submit to be dressed like that, he judged, except from necessity.
The reflection sprung from no foolish and degrading contempt for
household service. It is true Andrew thought no labor so manly as that
in the earth, out of which grows everything that makes the loveliness or
use of Nature; for by it he came in contact with the primaries of human
life, and was God's fellow laborer, a helper in the work of the
universe, knowing the ways of it and living in them; but not the less
would he have done any service, and that cheerfully, which his own need
or that of others might have required of him. The colors of a parrot,
however, were not fit for a son of man, and hence his look of sympathy.
His regard was met only by a glance of plain contempt, as the lackey,
moved by the same spirit as his master, left him standing in the
hall--to return presently, and show him into the library--a room of
mahogany, red morocco, and yellow calf, where George sat. He rose, and
shook hands with him.
“I am glad to see you, Mr. Ingram,” he said. “When I wrote I had but
just learned how much I was indebted to you.”
“I understand what you must mean,” returned Andrew, “but it was scarce
worth alluding to. Miss Fordyce had the better claim to serve you!”
“You call it nothing to carry a man of my size over a mile of heather!”
“I had help,” answered Andrew; “and but for the broken leg,” he added,
with a laugh, “I could have carried you well enough alone.”
There came a pause, for George did not know what next to do with the
farmer fellow. So the latter spoke again, being unembarrassed.
“You have a grand library, Mr. Crawford! It must be fine to sit among so
many books! It's just like a wine-merchant's cellars--only here you can
open and drink, and leave the bottles as full as before!”
“A good simile, Mr. Ingram!” replied George. “You must come and dine
with me, and we'll open another sort of bottle!”
“You must excuse me there, sir! I have no time for that sort of bottle.”
“I understand you read a great deal?”
“Weather permitting,” returned Andrew.
“I should have thought if anything was independent of the weather, it
must be reading!”
“Not a farmer's reading, sir. To him the weather is the Word of God,
telling him whether to work or read.”
George was silent. To him the Word of God was the Bible!
“But you must read a great deal yourself, sir!” resumed Andrew, casting
a glance round the room.
“The books are my father's!” said George.
He did not mention that his own reading came all in the library-cart,
except when he wanted some special information; for George was “a
practical man!” He read his Bible to prepare for his class in the
Sunday-school, and his Shakespeare when he was going to see one of his
plays acted. He would make the best of both worlds by paying due
attention to both! He was religious, but liberal.
His father was a banker, an elder of the kirk, well reputed in and
beyond his circle. He gave to many charities, and largely to educational
schemes. His religion was to hold by the traditions of the elders, and
keep himself respectable in the eyes of money-dealers. He went to church
regularly, and always asked God's blessing on his food, as if it were a
kind of general sauce. He never prayed God to make him love his
neighbor, or help him to be an honest man. He “had worship” every
morning, no doubt; but only a Nonentity like his God could care for such
prayers as his. George rejected his father's theology as false in logic
and cruel in character: George knew just enough of God to be guilty of
neglecting Him.
“When I am out all day, I can do with less reading; for then I have the
'book of knowledge fair,'” said Andrew, quoting Milton. “It does not
take _all_ one's attention to drive a straight furrow or keep the harrow
on the edge of the last bout!”
“You don't mean you can read your Bible as you hold the plow!” said
George.
“No, sir,” answered Andrew, amused. “A body could not well manage a book
between the stilts of the plow. The Bible will keep till you get home; a
little of it goes a long way. But Paul counted the book of creation
enough to make the heathen to blame for not minding it. Never a wind
wakes of a sudden, but it talks to me about God. And is not the sunlight
the same that came out of the body of Jesus at His transfiguration?”
“You seem to have some rather peculiar ideas of your own, Mr. Ingram!”
“Perhaps, sir! For a man to have no ideas of his own, is much the same
as to have no ideas at all. A man can not have the ideas of another man,
any more than he can have another man's soul, or another man's body!”
“That is dangerous doctrine.”
“Perhaps we are not talking about the same thing! I mean by _ideas_,
what a man orders his life by.”
“Your ideas may be wrong!”
“The All-wise is my judge.”
“So much the worse, if you are in the wrong!”
“It is the only good, whether I be in the right or the wrong. Would I
have my mistakes overlooked? What judge would I desire but the Judge of
all the earth! Shall He not do right? And will He not set me right?”
“That is a most dangerous confidence!”
“It would be if there were any other judge. But it will be neither the
Church nor the world that will sit on the great white throne. He who
sits there will not ask: 'Did you go to church?' or 'Did you believe in
this or that?' but' Did you do what I told you?'”
“And what will you say to that, Mr. Ingram?”
“I will say: 'Lord, Thou knowest!”
The answer checked George a little.
“Suppose He should say you did not, what would you answer?”
“I would say: 'Lord, send me where I may learn.'”
“And if He should say: 'That is what I sent you into the world for, and
you have not done it!' what would you say then?”
“I should hold my peace.”
“You do what He tells you then?”
“I try.”
“Does He not say: 'Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together?'”
“No, sir.”
“No?”
“Somebody says something like it in the Epistle to the Hebrews.”
“And isn't that the same?”
“The Man who wrote it would be indignant at your saying so! Tell me, Mr.
Crawford, what makes a gathering a Church?”
“It would take me some time to arrange my ideas before I could answer
you.”
“Is it not the presence of Christ that makes an assembly a Church?”
“Well?”
“Does He not say that where two or three are met in His name, there is
He in the midst of them?”
“Yes.”
“Then thus far I will justify myself to you, that, if I do not go to
what you call _church_, I yet often make one of a company met in His
name.”
“He does not limit the company to two or three.”
“Assuredly not. But if I find I get more help and strength with a
certain few, why should I go with a multitude to get less? Will you draw
another line than the Master's? Why should it be more sacred to worship
with five hundred or five thousand than with three? If He is in the
midst of them, they can not be wrong gathered!”
“It _looks_ as if you thought yourselves better than everybody else!”
“If it were so, then certainly He would not be _one_ of the gathering!”
“How are you to know that He is in the midst of you?”
“If we are not keeping His commandments, He is not. But His presence can
not be _proved_; it can only be known. If He meets us, it is not
necessary to the joy of His presence that we should be able to prove
that He does meet us! If a man has the company of the Lord, he will care
little whether another does or does not believe that he has.”
“Your way is against the peace of the Church! It fosters division.”
“Did the Lord come to send peace on the earth? My way, as you call it,
would make division, but division between those who call themselves His
and those who are His. It would bring together those that love Him.
Company would merge with company that they might look on the Lord
together. I don't believe Jesus cares much for what is called the
visible Church; but He cares with His very Godhead for those that do as
He tells them; they are His Father's friends; they are His elect by whom
He will save the world. It is by those who obey, and by their obedience,
that He will save those who do not obey, that is, will bring them to
obey. It is one by one the world will pass to His side. There is no
saving in the lump. If a thousand be converted at once, it is every
single lonely man that is converted.”
“You would make a slow process of it!”
“If slow, yet faster than any other. All God's processes are slow. How
many years has the world existed, do you imagine, sir?”
“I don't know. Geologists say hundreds and hundreds of thousands.”
“And how many is it since Christ came?”
“Toward two thousand.”
“Then we are but in the morning of Christianity! There is plenty of
time. The day is before us.”
“Dangerous doctrine for the sinner!”
“Why? Time is plentiful for his misery, if he will not repent; plentiful
for the mercy of God that would lead him to repentance. There is plenty
of time for labor and hope; none for indifference and delay. God _will_
have his creatures good. They can not escape Him.”
“Then a man may put off repentance as long as he pleases!”
“Certainly he may--at least as long as he can--but it is a fearful thing
to try issues with God.”
“I can hardly say I understand you.”
“Mr. Crawford, you have questioned me in the way of kindly anxiety and
reproof; that has given me the right to question you. Tell me, do you
admit we are bound to do what our Lord requires?”
“Of course. How could any Christian man do otherwise?”
“Yet a man may say: 'Lord, Lord,' and be cast out! It is one thing to
say we are bound to do what the Lord tells us, and another to do what He
tells us! He says: 'Seek ye _first_ the kingdom of God and His
righteousness:' Mr. Crawford, are you seeking the kingdom of God
_first_, or are you seeking money first?”
“We are sent into the world to make our living.”
“Sent into the world, we have to seek our living; we are not sent into
the world to seek our living, but to seek the kingdom and righteousness
of God. And to seek a living is very different from seeking a fortune!”
“If you, Mr. Ingram, had a little wholesome ambition, you would be less
given to judging your neighbors.”
Andrew held his peace, and George concluded he had had the best of the
argument--which was all he wanted; of the truth concerned he did not see
enough to care about it Andrew, perceiving no good was to be done, was
willing to appear defeated; he did not value any victory but the victory
of the truth, and George was not yet capable of being conquered by the
truth.
“No!” resumed he, “we must avoid personalities. There are certain things
all respectable people have agreed to regard as right: he is a
presumptuous man who refuses to regard them. Reflect on it, Mr. Ingram.”
The curious smile hovered about the lip of the plow-man; when things to
say did not come to him, he went nowhere to fetch them. Almost in
childhood he had learned that, when one is required to meet the lie,
words are given him; when they are not, silence is better. A man who
does not love the truth, but disputes for victory, is the swine before
whom pearls must not be cast. Andrew's smile meant that it had been a
waste of his time to call upon Mr. Crawford. But he did not blame
himself, for he had come out of pure friendliness. He would have risen
at once, but feared to seem offended. Crawford, therefore, with the
rudeness of a superior, himself rose, saying:
“Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Ingram?”
“The only thing one man can do for another is to be at one with him,”
answered Andrew, rising.
“Ah, you are a socialist! That accounts for much!” said George.
“Tell me this,” returned Andrew, looking him in the eyes: “Did Jesus
ever ask of His Father anything His Father would not give Him?”
“Not that I remember,” answered George, fearing a theological trap.
“He said once: 'I pray for them which shall believe in Me, that they all
may be one, as Thou Father art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also many
be one in us!' No man can be one with another, who is not one with
Christ.”
As he left the house, a carriage drove up, in which was Mr. Crawford the
elder, home from a meeting of directors, at which a dividend had been
agreed upon--to be paid from the capital, in preparation for another
issue of shares.
Andrew walked home a little bewildered. “How is it,” he said to himself,
“that so many who would be terrified at the idea of not being
Christians, and are horrified at any man who does not believe there is a
God, are yet absolutely indifferent to what their Lord tells them to do
if they would be His disciples? But may not I be in like case without
knowing it? Do I meet God in my geometry? When I so much enjoy my
Euclid, is it always God geometrizing to me? Do I feel talking with God
every time I dwell upon any fact of his world of lines and circles and
angles? Is it God with me, every time that the joy of life, of a wind or
a sky or a lovely phrase, flashes through me? Oh, my God,” he broke out
in speechless prayer as he walked--and those that passed said to
themselves he was mad; how, in such a world, could any but a madman wear
a face of joy! “Oh, my God, Thou art all in all, and I have everything!
The world is mine because it is Thine! I thank Thee, my God, that Thou
hast lifted me up to see whence I came, to know to whom I belong, to
know who is my Father, and makes me His heir! I am Thine, infinitely
more than mine own; and Thou art mine as Thou art Christ's!”
He knew his Father in the same way that Jesus Christ knows His Father.
He was at home in the universe, neither lonely, nor out-of-doors, nor
afraid.