A TALK AT POTLURG.
It would be three weeks before the assizes came. The house of Potlurg
was searched by the police from garret to cellar, but in vain; the cup
was not found.
As soon as they gave up searching, Alexa had the old door of the laird's
closet, discernible enough on the inside, reopened, and the room
cleaned. Almost unfurnished as it was, she made of it her
sitting-parlor. But often her work or her book would lie on her lap, and
she would find herself praying for the dear father for whom she could do
nothing else now, but for whom she might have done so much, had she been
like Dawtie. Her servant had cared for her father more than she!
As she sat there one morning alone, brooding a little, thinking a
little, reading a little, and praying through it all, Meg appeared, and
said Maister Andrew wanted to see her.
He had called more than once to inquire after Dawtie, but had not before
asked to see her mistress.
Alexa felt herself unaccountably agitated. When he walked into the room,
however, she was able to receive him quietly. He came, he said, to ask
when she had seen Dawtie. He would have gone himself to see her, but his
father was ailing, and he had double work to do. Besides, she did not
seem willing to see him! Alexa told him she had been with her the day
before, and had found her a little pale, and, she feared, rather
troubled in her mind. She said she would trust God to the last, but
confessed herself assailed by doubts.
“I said to her,” continued Alexa, “'Be sure, Dawtie, God will make your
innocence known one day!' She answered: 'Of course, ma'am, there is
nothing hidden that shall not be known; but I am not impatient about
that. The Jews to this day think Jesus an impostor!' 'But surely,' said
I, 'you care that people should understand you are no thief, Dawtie!'
'Yes, I do,' she answered; 'all I say is, that is does not trouble me. I
want only to be downright sure that God is looking after me all the
time. I am willing to sit in prison till I die, if He pleases.' 'God
can't please that!' I said. 'If He does not care to take me out, I do
not care to go out,' said Dawtie. 'It's not that I'm good; it's only
that I don't care for anything He doesn't care for. What would it be
that all men acquitted me, if God did not trouble Himself about His
children!'”
“You see, ma'am, it comes to this,” said Andrew: “it is God Dawtie cares
about, not herself! If God is all right, Dawtie is all right. The _if_
sometimes takes one shape, sometimes another, but the fear is the
same--and the very fear is faith. Sometimes the fear is that there may
be no God, and that you might call a fear for herself; but when Dawtie
fears lest God should not be caring for her, that is a fear for God; for
if God did not care for His creature, He would be no true God!”
“Then He could not exist!”
“True; and so you are back on the other fear!”
“What would you have said to her, Mr. Ingram?”
“I would have reminded her that Jesus was perfectly content with His
Father; that He knew what was coming on Himself, and never doubted
Him--just gloried that His Father was what He knew Him to be.”
“I see! But what did you mean when you said that Dawtie's very fear was
faith?”
“Think, ma'am: people that only care to be saved, that is, not to be
punished for their sins, are anxious only about themselves, not about
God and His glory at all. They talk about the glory of God, but they
make it consist in pure selfishness! According to them, He seeks
everything for Himself; which is dead against the truth of God, a
diabolic slander of God. It does not trouble them to believe such things
about God; they do not even desire that God should not be like that;
they only want to escape Him. They dare not say God will not do this or
that, however clear it be that it would not be fair; they are in terror
of contradicting the Bible. They make more of the Bible than of God, and
so fail to find the truth of the Bible, and accept things concerning God
which are not in the Bible, and are the greatest of insults to Him!
Dawtie never thinks about saving her soul; she has no fear about her
soul; she is only anxious about God and His glory. How the doubts come,
God knows; but if she did not love God, they would not be there. Jesus
says God will speedily avenge His elect--those that cry day and night to
Him--which I take to mean that He will soon save them from all such
miseries. Free Dawtie from unsureness about God, and she has no fear
left. All is well, in the prison or on the throne of God, if He only be
what she thinks He is. If any one say that doubt can not coexist with
faith, I answer, it can with love, and love is the greater of the two,
yea, is the very heart of faith itself. God's children are not yet God's
men and women. The God that many people believe in, claiming to be _the_
religious because they believe in Him, is a God not worth believing in,
a God that ought not to be believed in. The life given by such a God
would be a life not worth living, even if He made His votaries as happy
as they would choose to be. A God like that could not make a woman like
Dawtie anxious about Him! If God be not each as Jesus, what good would
the proving of her innocence be to Dawtie! A mighty thing indeed that
the world should confess she was not a thief! But to know that there is
a perfect God, one for us to love with all the power of love of which we
feel we are capable, is worth going out of existence for; while to know
that God himself, must make every throb of consciousness a divine
ecstasy!”
Andrew's heart was full, and out of its fullness he spoke. Never before
had he been able in the presence of Alexa to speak as he felt. Never
before had he had any impulse to speak as now. As soon would he have
gone to sow seed on a bare rock, as words of spirit and life in her
ears!
“I am beginning to understand you,” she said. “Will you forgive me? I
have been very self-confident and conceited! What a mercy things are not
as I thought they were--thought they ought to be!”
“And the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the
sea!” said Andrew. “And men's hearts shall be full of bliss, because
they have found their Father, and He is what He is, and they are going
home to Him.”
He rose.
“You will come and see me again soon--will you not?” she said.
“As often as you please, ma'am; I am your servant.”
“Then come to-morrow.”
He went on the morrow, and the next day, and the day after--almost every
day while Dawtie was waiting her trial.
Almost every morning Alexa went by train to see Dawtie; and the news she
brought, Andrew would carry to the girl's parents. Dawtie continued
unwilling to see Andrew: he had had trouble enough with her already, she
said; but Andrew could not quite understand her refusal.