_A STAND_.
Mrs. Dallas was very deeply disturbed. She saw in these strange views
of Pitt's all sorts of possible dangers to what she had hoped would be
his future career in life. Even granting that they were a youthful
folly and would pass away, how soon would they pass away? and in the
meantime what chances Pitt might lose, what time might be wasted, what
fatal damage his prospects might suffer! And Pitt held a thing so fast
when he had once taken it up. Almost her only hope lay in Betty's
influence.
Betty herself was disturbed, much more than she cared to have known. If
_this_ fascination got hold of Pitt, she knew very well he would, for
the time at least, be open to no other. Her ordinary power would be
gone; he would see in her nothing but a talking machine with whom he
could discuss things. It was not speculation merely that busied his
thoughts now, she could see; not mere philosophy, or study of human
nature; Pitt was carrying all these Bible words in upon himself,
comparing them with himself, and working away at the discrepancy.
Something that he called conscience was engaged, and restless. Betty
saw that there was but one thing left for her to do. Diversion was not
possible; she could not hope to turn Pitt aside from his quest after
truth; she must seem to take part in it, and so gain her advantage from
what threatened to be her discomfiture.
The result of all which was, that after this there came to be a great
deal of talk between the two upon Bible subjects, intermingled with not
a little reading aloud from the Bible itself. This was at Betty's
instance, rather than Pitt's. When she could she got him out for a walk
or a drive; in the house (and truly, often out of the house too) she
threw herself with great apparent interest into the study of the
questions that had been started, along with others collateral, and
desired to learn and desired to discuss all that could be known about
them. So there were, as I said, continual Bible readings, mingled
occasionally with references to some old commentary; and Betty and Pitt
sat very near together, looking over the same page; and remained long
in talk, looking eagerly into one another's eyes. Mrs. Dallas was not
satisfied.
She came upon Betty one day in the verandah, just after Pitt had left
her. The young lady was sitting with her hand between the leaves of a
Bible, and a disturbed, far-away look in her eyes, which might have
been the questioning of a troubled conscience, or--of a very different
feeling. She roused up as Mrs. Dallas came to her, and put on a
somewhat wan smile.
'Where is Pitt?'
'Going to ride somewhere, I believe.'
'What have you got there? the Bible again? I don't believe in all this
Bible reading! Can't you get him off it?'
'It is the only thing to do now.'
'But cannot you get him off it?'
'Not immediately. Mr. Dallas takes a fancy hard.'
'So unlike him!' the mother went on. 'So unlike all he used to be. He
always took things "hard," as you say; but then it used to be science
and study of history, and collecting of natural curiosities, and
drawing. Have you seen any of Pitt's drawings? He has a genius for
that. Indeed, I think he has a genius for everything,' Mrs. Dallas said
with a sigh; 'and he used to be keen for distinguishing himself, and he
did distinguish himself everywhere, always; here at school and at
college, and then at Oxford. My dear, he distinguished himself at
_Oxford_. He was always a good boy, but not in the least foolish, or
superstitious, or the least inclined to be fanatical. And now, as far
as I can make out, he is for giving up everything!'
'He does nothing by halves.'
'No; but it is very hard, now when he is just reading law and getting
ready to take his place in the world--and he would take no mean place
in the world, Betty--it is hard! Why, he talks as if he would throw
everything up. I never would have thought it of Pitt, of all people. It
is due, I am convinced, to the influence of those dissenting friends of
his!'
'Who are they?' Miss Betty asked curiously.
'You have heard the name,' said Mrs. Dallas, lowering her voice, though
Pitt was not within hearing. 'They used to live here. It was a Colonel
Gainsborough--English, but of a dissenting persuasion. That kind of
thing seems to be infectious.'
'He must have been a remarkable man, if his influence could begin so
early and last so long.'
'Well, it was not just that only. There was a daughter'--
'And a love affair?' asked Miss Betty, with a slight laugh which
covered a sudden down-sinking of her heart.
'Oh dear no! she was a child; there was no thought of such a thing. But
Pitt was fond of her, and used to go roaming about the fields with her
after flowers. My son is a botanist; I don't know if you have found it
out.'
'And those were the people he went to New York to seek?'
'Yes, and could not find--most happily.'
Miss Betty mused. Certainly Pitt was 'persistent.' And now he had got
this religious idea in his head, would there be any managing it, or
him? It did not frighten Miss Betty, so far as the religious idea
itself was concerned; she reflected sagely that a man might be worse
things than philanthropic, or even than pious. She had seen wives made
unhappy by neglect, and others made miserable by the dissipated habits
or the ungoverned tempers of their husbands; a man need not be
unendurable because he was true and thoughtful and conscientious, or
even devout. She could bear that, quite easily; the only thing was,
that in thoughts which possessed Pitt lately he had passed out of her
influence; beyond her reach. All she could do was to follow him into
this new and very unwonted sphere, and seem to be as earnest as he was.
He met her, he reasoned with her, he read to her, but Betty did not
feel sure that she got any nearer to him, nevertheless. She was shrewd
enough to divine the reason.
'Mr. Pitt,' she said frankly to him one day, when the talk had been
eager in the same line it had taken that first day on the verandah, and
both parties had held the same respective positions with regard to each
other,--'Mr. Pitt, are you fighting me, or yourself?'
He paused and looked at her, and half laughed.
'You are right,' said he. And then he went off, and for the present
that was all Miss Betty gained by her motion.
Nobody saw much of Pitt during the rest of the day. The next morning,
after breakfast, he came out to the two ladies where as usual they were
sitting at work. It was another September day of sultry heat, yet the
verandah was also in the morning a pleasant place, sweet with the
honeysuckle fragrance still lingering, and traversed by a faint
intermittent breeze. Both ladies raised their heads to look at the
young man as he came towards them, and then, struck by something in his
face, could not take their eyes away. He came straight to his mother
and stood there in front of her, looking down and meeting her look;
Miss Frere could not see how, but evidently it troubled Mrs. Dallas.
'What is it now, Pitt?' she asked.
'I have come to tell you, mother. I have come to tell you that I have
given up fighting.'
'Fighting!?'
'Yes. The battle is won, and I have lost, and gained. I have given up
fighting, mother, and I am Christ's free man.'
'What?' exclaimed Mrs. Dallas bewilderedly.
'It is true, mother. I am Christ's servant. The things are the same.
How should I not be the servant, the _bond-servant_, of Him who has
made a free man of me?'
His tone was not excited; it was quiet and sweet; but Mrs. Dallas was
excited.
'A free man? My boy, what are you saying? Were you not always free?'
'No, mother. I was in such bonds, that I have been struggling for years
to do what was right--what I knew was right--and was unable.'
'To do what was right? My boy, how you talk! You _always_ did what was
right.'
'I was never Christ's servant, mamma.'
'What delusion is this!' cried Mrs. Dallas. 'My son, what do you mean?
You were baptized, you were confirmed, you were everything that you
ought to be. You cannot be better than you have always been.'
He smiled, stooped down and kissed her troubled face.
'I was never Christ's servant before,' he repeated. 'But I am His
servant now at last, all there is of me. I wanted you to know at once,
and Miss Frere, I wanted her to know it. She asked me yesterday whom I
was fighting? and I saw directly that I was fighting a won battle; that
my reason and conscience were entirely vanquished, and that the only
thing that held out was my will. I have given that up, and now I am the
Lord's servant.'
'You were His servant before.'
'Never, in any true sense.'
'My dear, what difference?' asked Mrs. Dallas helplessly.
'It was nominal merely.'
'And now?'
'Now it is not nominal; it is real. I have come to know and love my
Master. I am His for life and death; and now His commands seem the
pleasantest things in the world to me.'
'But you obeyed them always?'
'No, mamma, I did not. I obeyed nothing, in the last resort, but my own
supreme will.'
'But, Pitt, you say you have come to know; what time has there been for
any such change?'
'Not much time,' he replied; 'and I cannot tell how it is; but it
seemed as if, so soon as I had given up the struggle and yielded,
scales fell from my eyes. I cannot tell how it was; but all at once I
seemed to see the beauty of Christ, which I never saw before; and,
mamma, the sight has filled me with joy. Nothing now to my mind is more
reasonable than His demands, or more delightful than yielding obedience
to them.'
'Demands? what demands?' said Mrs. Dallas.
Her son repeated the words with which the twelfth chapter of Romans
begins.
'"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye
present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,
which is your reasonable service; and be not conformed to this world."'
'But, my dear, that means'--
'It means all.'
'How all?'
'There is nothing more left to give, when this sacrifice is presented.
It covers the whole ground. The sacrifice is a living sacrifice, but it
gives all to God as entirely as the offering that imaged it went up in
smoke and flame.'
'What sacrifice imaged it?'
'The burnt-sacrifice of old. That always meant consecration.'
'How do you know? You are not a clergyman.'
Pitt smiled again, less brightly. 'True, mother, but I have been
studying all this for years, in the Bible and in the words of others
who _were_ clergymen; and now it is all plain before me. It became so
as soon as I was willing to obey it.'
'And what are you going to do?'
'Do? I cannot say yet. I am a soldier but just enlisted, and do not
know where my orders will place me or what work they will give me. Only
I _have_ enlisted; and that is what I wanted you to know at once.
Mother, it is a great honour to be a soldier of Christ.'
'I should think,--if I did not see you and hear your voice,--I should
certainly think I heard a Methodist talking. I suppose that is the way
they do.'
'Did you ever hear one talk, mother?'
'No, and do not want to hear one, even if it were my own son!' she
answered angrily.
'But in all that I have been saying, if they say it too, the Methodists
are right, mother. A redeemed sinner is one bought with a price, and
thenceforth neither his spirit nor his body can be his own. And his
happiness is not to be his own.'
Mrs. Dallas was violently moved, yet she had much self-command and
habitual dignity of manner, and would not break down now. More pitiful
than tears was the haughty gesture of her head as she turned it aside
to hide the quivering lips. And more tender than words was the air with
which her son presently stooped and took her hand.
'Mother!' he said gently and tenderly.
'Pitt, I never would have believed this of you!' she said with bitter
emphasis.
'You never could have believed anything so good of me.'
'What are you going to _do?_' she repeated vehemently. 'What does all
this amount to? or is it anything but dissenting rant?'
'Anything but that,' he answered gravely. 'Mother, do you remember the
words,--"No man when he hath lighted a lamp covereth it with a vessel,
or putteth it under a bed; but putteth it on a stand, that they which
enter in may see the light"? Every Christian is such a lighted lamp,
intended for some special place and use. My special use and place I do
not yet know; but this I know plainly, that my work in the world, one
way or another, must be the Lord's work. For that I live henceforth.'
'You will go into the Church?' cried his mother.
'Not necessarily.'
'You will give up reading law?'
'No, I think not. At present it seems to me I had better finish what I
have begun. But if I do, mother, my law will be only one of the means I
have to work with for that one end.'
'And I suppose your money would be another?'
'Undoubtedly.'
'What has money to do with teaching people?' Miss Frere asked. It was
the first word she had spoken; she spoke it seriously, not mockingly.
The question brought his eyes round to her.
'Do you ask that?' said he. 'Every unreasoning, ignorant creature of
humanity understands it. The love that would win them for heaven would
also help them on earth; and if they do not see the one thing, they do
not believe in the other.'
'Then-- But-- What do you propose?'
'It is simple enough,' he said.
'It is too simple for Betty and me,' said his mother. 'I would be
obliged to you, Pitt, to answer her.'
The young man's countenance changed; a shadow fell over it which raised
Miss Frere's sympathy. He went into the house, however, for a Bible,
and coming back with it sat down and read quietly and steadfastly the
beautiful words in Isaiah:
'"To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to
let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke. ... To deal
thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out
to thy house; when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that
thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh."'
'It would take a good deal of money, certainly,' said Miss Frere, 'to
do all that; indeed, I hardly think all the fortunes in the world would
be sufficient.'
Pitt made no answer. He sat looking down at the page from which he had
been reading.
'Nobody is required to do more than his part of the work,' said Mrs.
Dallas. 'If Pitt will be contented with that'--
'What is my part of it, mother?'
'Why, your share; what you can do properly and comfortably, without any
fanaticism of sacrifice.'
'Must I not do all I can?'
'No, not all you _can_. You _could_ spend your whole fortune in it.'
'I was thinking, easily,' observed Miss Frere.
'What is the Bible rule? "When thou seest the naked, that thou cover
him"--"that ye break every yoke." And, "he that hath two coats, let him
impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do
likewise."'
'You can find Scripture to quote for everything, said Mrs. Dallas,
rising in anger; 'that is the way Methodists and fanatics always do, as
I have heard. But I can tell you one thing, Pitt, which you may not
have taken into account; if you persist in this foolishness, your
father, I know, will take care that the fortune you have to throw away
shall not be large!'
With these words she swept into the house. The two left behind were for
some moments very still. Pitt had drooped his head a little, and rested
his brow in his hand; Miss Betty watched him. Her dismay and dislike of
Pitt's disclosures were scarcely less than his mother's, but different.
Disappointed pride was not here in question. That he should give up a
splendid and opulent career did not much trouble her. In the first
place, he might modify his present views; in the second place, if he
did not, if he lived up to his principles, there was something in her
which half recognised the beauty and dignity and truth of such a life.
But in either case, alas, alas! how far was he drifted away out of her
sphere, and beyond her reach? For the present, at least, his mind was
utterly taken up by this one great subject; there was no room in it
left for light things; love skirmishes could not be carried on over the
ground he now occupied; he was wholly absorbed in his new decisions and
experiences, and likely to be engaged with the consequences of them.
Betty was sorry for him just now, for she saw that he felt pain; and at
the same time she admired him more than ever. His face was more sweet,
she thought, and yet more strong, than she had ever seen it; his manner
to his mother was perfect. So had not been her manner towards him. He
had been gentle, steadfast, and true, manly and tender. 'Happy will be
the woman that will share his life, whatever it be!' thought Betty,
with some constriction of heart; but to bring herself into that
favoured place she saw little chance now. She longed to say a word of
some sort that might sound like sympathy or intelligence; but she could
not find it, and wisely held her peace.