"--And good in everything."
Friendship was without doubt a churchgoing community,--the different
denominations could all boast of creditable congregations on Sunday
mornings,--but on the occasion of Dr. Hollingsworth's visit, the other
churches had a mere handful to divide between them, while at the
Presbyterian church chairs had to be placed in the aisles. Such an unusual
event afforded a pleasing variety in the customary Sabbath monotony.
Something of a festive air pervaded the assembly.
Celia Fair and Miss Betty Bishop, both deserters from the Episcopal
church, chanced to be seated together. Rosalind's urgent invitation to
come and hear our president preach, had brought Celia, and it was, of
course, for old friendship's sake that Miss Betty was there.
"Isn't that Mrs. Whittredge?" she whispered to Celia, as Allan with his
mother and Rosalind passed up the aisle. "I don't know when she has been
at church before." Then at sight of Mrs. Molesworth Miss Betty gave a
slight shrug.
A flutter of interested anticipation was noticeable when Dr. Pierce
entered the pulpit accompanied by the stranger, and it must be confessed
that the service preceding the sermon was gone through with perfunctorily
by the greater part of the congregation. After the notices for the week
had been given, there was a general settling back and recalling of
wandering attention as Dr. Hollingsworth came forward and stood in the
pastor's place at the desk.
Mrs. Molesworth twisted her neck in an endeavor to see if he had notes;
Colonel Parton decided promptly that here was no orator; Belle smiled at
Rosalind across the aisle, thinking of the detective.
In the president's gaze, as it rested upon the assembly, was the same
genial kindliness that had attracted Belle when she first met him on Main
Street. It seemed to draw his audience closer to him, to make of it a
circle of friends. His manner was simple, his tone almost conversational.
At the announcement of his text Celia leaned forward with a sudden
conviction that here was a message for her:--
"It is the Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom."
Varied were the opinions afterward expressed of the sermon that followed.
What Celia carried away with her was something like this:--
"I shall speak to you this morning," he said, "upon a subject that touches
each one of us very nearly, from the oldest to the youngest; for whatever
our circumstances, whether we are rich or poor, learned or simple, whether
our lot is cast in protected homes or in the midst of the world's great
battle-field, our task is one and the same: to become citizens of the
Kingdom of God. This being so, we cannot think too often or too much about
this Kingdom, or inquire too minutely into its laws, or ask ourselves too
earnestly why it is that so few of us accept the gift in anything like its
fulness.
"Although it is offered as a gift, there are conditions to be fulfilled,
difficulties to be overcome. Our Lord recognized this when He said that
the gate was strait and the way narrow, but He also said that this
Kingdom was worth any price, or was beyond all price, to be obtained at
any sacrifice. He emphasized this by a strong figure. It was better to
enter into life maimed, He said,--with hand or foot cut off--rather than
to miss life altogether.... The conditions of entrance into the Kingdom
are apparently so simple it is strange we find them so difficult. I think
they may be sifted down to two: love and faith,--the love from which
service springs, the faith that means joy and peace. If we are to be the
children of our Heavenly Father we must love, and we must have in our
hearts that joy which grows out of trust.
"Jesus said, 'Seek first the Kingdom of God.' If we do this we need
concern ourselves with nothing else, and by concern I mean burden
ourselves. The daily round--the vast machinery of life--must go on, but
after all only he who belongs to the Kingdom is fitted to meet its
problems. He brings to them a calm confidence, a clear vision. His heart
does not beat quick with hate or envy. His energy is not weakened by
worry. His sight is not dimmed by doubt.... Perhaps some of you are
saying--what is so often said--that it is easy to preach; and you ask how
one can cease to worry when the path is dark before him; how one can look
upon the terrible problems of sin and suffering, and not feel their
crushing weight. If what I am saying this morning were simply what I think
about it, you are right to doubt. But these are not my words. Can you
believe that our Lord when He told His disciples to seek the Kingdom and
all other needful things would be added, was simply giving utterance to a
beautiful but impracticable theory? For my part, I cannot.
"I would ask you to notice that Jesus founded all he has to say on one
great fact: the love of your Heavenly Father for you individually. Are you
struggling with poverty, perhaps? Your Heavenly Father knoweth. Try, if
but for a day, to put aside your anxiety and fix your thought on this. The
things you need shall be given, and you shall find strength for another
day of trust.
"Have you been wronged? do you find it hard to forgive? are you bitter?
Your Heavenly Father knoweth. He will take care of your cause. Leave it to
Him; do not be afraid to forget it. Seek, ask, knock, that you may obtain
entrance into the Kingdom of love.
"Are you crushed by sorrow or physical pain? Your Father knoweth. Cease to
fight against it. Come into His Kingdom. Suffering endures but a little
while; and if you will have it so, out of it will come a diviner joy.
"Is the world full of dark problems? Your Heavenly Father knoweth. It is
His world. Your part is to do, not to despair.
"Are you full of youth and hope and glad anticipation? Your Father
knoweth. He made you so, and in a special sense the Kingdom belongs to
you. The simple-hearted, the teachable, the joyous,--of such is the
Kingdom. Enter in, and immortal youth shall be yours.... Oh, if I might
help you to know the beauty, the joy, the peace of the Kingdom into which
we may enter now and here, if we will. Yet we go on our way, oppressed by
care, warped by envy and hate, our eyes blinded by what we call worldly
wisdom."
Something like this was what came to Celia; and as she listened, forgetful
of her surroundings, it linked itself in her thought to the Forest
secret.
It was not so much the words as the aspirations they stirred,--the new
belief in the possibility of high and joyous living, the new courage that
thrilled in her veins. She was still under the spell when after the
benediction Miss Betty asked, with a certain timidity, if she had liked
the sermon.
Celia looked at her blankly for a second before she replied, "Oh, so much!
It was beautiful. I should like to know him." She turned away with a
smile; she was not ready to discuss it yet. She wanted to think.
"He held my attention, I grant, but I don't call it a sermon; it was too
elementary,--it was nothing but a talk," she heard Mrs. Molesworth saying.
"If it wasn't a sermon, it was something better," answered cheery Mrs.
Parton.
"Most magnetic speaker," the colonel was remarking to some one.
And now Rosalind and Belle claimed Celia's attention, demanding to know
what she thought of the detective; and she must come back to earth and
listen and reply and enter into their gayety--an easier matter, to be
sure, than responding to the comments of grown people.
The next morning, on her way to class, Celia met Miss Betty and Dr.
Hollingsworth walking up the hill toward the Gilpin house, and Miss Betty
stopped and presented her companion.
After some moments' chat about other things, as they were separating,
Celia said, "I want to thank you, Dr. Hollingsworth, for my share of your
sermon yesterday." Her face made it evident that this was no merely
conventional speech, and the president looked down upon her benignly
through his glasses.
"I thank you for being willing to take any of my thoughts to yourself," he
said.
Celia now noticed for the first time that he wore an oak leaf, and she
remembered with what delight Rosalind and Belle had told her of his wish
to be an Arden Forester. "I believe," she added, laughing a little, "that
I have the Kingdom of Heaven and the Forest somewhat mixed."
"You will find when you have lived as long as I have that there are often
many names for the same thing," the president answered, smiling.
"And do you believe that things always come right in the Forest?" The
wistful note in Celia's voice told something of her struggle.
"It has been my experience so far on the journey. But, my dear young lady,
the one way to test it is to live there."
"I mean to," she said earnestly.
Whatever the opinion in Friendship of Dr. Hollingsworth's ability as a
preacher, he left behind him a most agreeable impression as a mere man, to
quote Mrs. Parton.
The Arden Foresters would not soon forget a tramp with him over Red Hill.
They found him interested in everything, in a light-hearted, boyish way
that made them overlook the fact that he was the president of a great
university. When they stopped on the hilltop to rest and enjoy the view,
he sat on the fence with them and talked foot-ball and cricket, and told
stories of college pranks without deducing a single useful lesson
therefrom. This was a surprise to Jack, for Dr. Pierce, who lived next
door to the Partons, was fond of morals, and went about with his pockets
full, so to speak.
Before they knew it, they found themselves confiding to him their plans
for the future.
"You must all come to our university," Rosalind said, with decision,
"mustn't they, Dr. Hollingsworth? Jack can study forestry, and Maurice
can study law; and Belle and Katherine--"
"I mean to study medicine if father will let me," Belle put in.
Dr. Hollingsworth smiled upon the bright-eyed little girl, in whose every
movement self-reliance and energy were written. "Don't be in haste to
decide," he said. "There is sure to be something for you to do, and
Rosalind and I shall be glad if, whatever it is, it brings you to our
university."
As they watched the president sign his name in the Arden Foresters' book
that afternoon, there was stirred in each young heart an impulse to be and
to do something worth while in the world.
Meantime, the report spread that in returning to Friendship, Dr.
Hollingsworth had had another object than merely to preach for Dr.
Pierce.