“I suppose _something_ must be done with the money,” he said, after a

little consideration; “but your husband is probably better able to

advise you what, than I am.”

Dr. Richards smiled grimly. “It might be given back to Randolph, or

transferred to Pinkie,” he said grimly; “or even Frank would not turn up

his nose at it.”

“The last I should by no means advise,” said the clergyman quickly;

“indeed, I am not sure that I can advise at all,” he added.

“Well, it is usually a thankless task, I admit,” said the doctor; “but

when you find us at a total deadlock in a question of conscience, eh?”

“I can _not_ see the harm there would be in taking this money and making

a proper use of it,” said Alice emphatically.

Mr. Clare smiled. “I begin to understand,” he said. “Two people are

never at a total deadlock, Dr. Richards, upon any question that requires

immediate action, and which both of them thoroughly understand. Truth

being what it is, the thing is impossible.”

“I book for a future discussion, ‘What _is_ Truth?’ meanwhile, the

previous question is of more immediate interest.”

“Now, it seems to me,” returned the clergyman, “that the cause of the

present deadlock is that both parties miss altogether the full import of

that previous question. _Can_ you make a proper use, Mrs. Richards, of

anything not lawfully yours? Wait a minute, doctor,” with a glance of

mirthful menace, as that personage drew a long breath of satisfaction,

“I want to ask _you_ whether you can rightfully make over to another who

has no better claim to it than yourself, money which he will certainly

make a bad use of, begging your forgiveness, Mrs. Richards, but I know

whereof I speak.”

“I dare say,” she replied sadly.

“Again we wander,” said the doctor. “The question is not of Frank’s

peccadilloes, but of his father’s money.”

“Is it his father’s?”

“Morally? no, by all the gods!”

“And not legally, for it stands in your wife’s name.”

“To whom, then, does it morally belong?” asked Alice.

“Ask your husband!” said Mr. Clare.

“Why, I suppose Mr. Bellamy would say to the nation,” returned the

doctor, “but I certainly don’t propose to hand it over to Congress.

Besides, I don’t care a hang for the nation, as such. I’m an

individualist; and every coin of that accursed hoard is stained with the

blood of individuals.”

“Again you miss the point, my dear sir. If the money be not yours, you

have no concern with it further than to hand it over to its lawful

owners.”

“Who are either dead or wish they were, and could not possibly be traced

in either case.”

“That certainly complicates matters,” said Mr. Clare, laughing; “but, as

some of them were negroes, as I understand it, you might donate a part

at least to the Commission”—

“I’ll be hanged if I do! Besides, they never owned a penny in their

lives, poor devils! The money was made at their expense, but was not

theirs.”

“Dr. Richards, I fear you’re a humbug. Don’t you see that you have the

feeling of property in this money? You speak of it as not yours, yet

you’ll give it to this one, and be hanged if you give it to that”—

“I know!” cried Alice suddenly, her perceptions quickened, perhaps, by

the feeling that her husband was coming off second best from the

encounter of wits; “I know. They are going to sell more stock at

‘Prices’ next month; we could invest this money in Freddy’s name, and

the income from it would give him a support if anything happened to us,

Fred.”

Mr. Clare waited for Dr. Richards to express his approval. “Well, I

don’t know that you could do better,” he said somewhat reluctantly. “It

would be as near to returning the principal to its lawful owners as we

are at all likely to come, and Freddy’s due proportion of the national

wealth would amount to considerably more than the interest at five per

cent, I suppose.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Mr. Clare, who seemed pleased to pass to a

less personal subject. “They want to start a job-printing office at

‘Prices.’ There are a couple of printers among the small shareholders

who would rather be employed by the community than to work as Hal o’ the

Wynd fought, for their own hand; and they think by joining forces they

could get together a pretty good trade. I could get them some little

ecclesiastical printing, you know; and they are looking for some one who

can design crosses, crowns, Greek letters and symbols generally for that

department, and also heads for checks, notes, and so on for the banks

and business houses. I believe, though, it was Louis who undertook to

sound Freddy on the subject. I don’t know whether he draws on wood or

not.”

“I had him taught that branch especially and particularly, though I

can’t say it is his favorite,” said the doctor. “He’d like to paint the

Landing of Columbus, and Edith searching for the body of Harold, I dare

say, if he could stand up to it.”

“He has not disdained to paint slippers,” said Alice; “but that craze is

dying out, and I should be very glad for him to have a more permanent

position. He is so much happier to feel himself earning money, and his

earnings have been very useful,” she added quietly. Truly, Alice’s

trials had been also useful.

“Ah! by the way, I begin to realize why our friend Clare never argues,”

said the doctor. “It is because, as Father McClosky says, ‘he only

convinces.’”

“In this country,” observed Mr. Clare gravely, “we don’t say, ‘I am

convinced,’ but ‘I am satisfied;’ and we are right. Argument may

convince, that is, bind a man so that he cannot reply; satisfaction

gives him enough light to see the matter as it is for himself.

Therefore, while I never argue, I do sometimes try to satisfy.”

“I’m not so sure about your etymology,” replied the doctor, “but we

won’t split hairs. I want room for a good knockdown blow. When you say

‘light enough to see the matter as it is,’ do you mean as _I_ see it is,

or as _you_ see it is, or as it is in itself?”

“The ‘Thing-in-itself’?” Mr. Clare hesitated for a moment, then his

lurking smile became a broad laugh. “I was awfully tempted,” he said;

“it was on the end of my tongue to say that ‘you Kant do it, you know,’

but I won’t. I resist the temptation, and stand firm in the pride of

virtue.”

“But you don’t answer my question,” said the doctor, trying hard not to

smile.

“I will, though, in the Irish fashion, by asking another. Why do you

want to see?”

“That depends on _what_ I want to see.”

“Well, take, for instance, the question lately under discussion. Why did

you wish to see the rights of that?”

“Because it was a bone of contention, a thorn in the flesh, the very

devil himself buffeting me in person, and I wanted to stop the whole

business.”

“That is, it was a personal matter, requiring immediate action! Exactly

so. Now, tell me, are you convinced as to the ownership of that money?”

“Not quite.”

“Are you satisfied about it?”

The doctor laughed. “I see,” he said; “the correct rendering of

‘Ding-an-sich’ is ‘The thing as it appears to your wife.’ Oh, yes! _I’m_

satisfied!”

“Then you have found the only answer that can be given to the question

you booked for future discussion, What is Truth?”

“Found it, eh? well, I certainly don’t recognize it,” said the doctor.

“Your ideas of truth are rather limited, my friend.”

“They are; limited by my human nature, and the peculiarities of my

mental and moral constitution.”

“Good! we agree perfectly. The most bigoted Materialist could ask no

more.”

“Tarry a little,” said Ernest Clare; “I have more to say. Though truth

to me be relative, in Itself it is Absolute, Unconditioned”—

“Unknowable,” said the doctor.

“In Its entirety and for the present, yes; though, for the future, we

have the promise that we shall know even as we are known.”

“Known! by the Truth? Lord, deliver us! here has this man been palming

off religion on us, while I thought he was talking metaphysics.”

“A perfectly meaningless term, with which I decline to concern myself,”

said Mr. Clare; “and you can’t escape religion, Dr. Richards, whether

you talk physics or metaphysics. For my part, I don’t know what people

mean by metaphysics and supernatural, when God clothes the grass of the

field and notes the fall of the sparrow.”

“Oh! mount the table yonder and preach,” said the doctor. “You’re

bursting with it. I can see it in your eye.”

“Thanks! but I can get a better grasp of the subject just here,” said

Mr. Clare, taking the doctor gently but firmly by the collar. “I say,

doctor, did you ever experiment upon the blind spot on the eye?”

“You mean where the optic nerve enters it? well, yes, I have a little;

but what has that to do with it? and what are you up to now?”

“I was remembering a rather striking analogy that occurred to me the

other day; whether, in the spiritual eye, there may not be the converse

of that blind spot—that is, a seeing spot?”

“And the rest of the spiritual eye, whatever and wherever it may be,

insensible to light? Rather inconvenient, if it were not spiritual

light, which is unimportant.”

“But suppose this seeing spot widens with use? suppose the more light

one sees the more one becomes capable of seeing, until, as St. Paul

says, the whole body is full of light?”

“But that is when one’s eye is single,” said Dr. Richards, “whereas you

are supposing a double set of optics.”

“Now you quibble,” retorted the other good-humoredly. “One might have as

many eyes as a fly, yet the _vision_ would be single, as you very well

know.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” returned the doctor; “vision, indeed!

why, people tell me I see things upside down, but I’m not conscious of

it. Besides, how could one see the same things, even on your own

showing, with the physical and spiritual eye? whatever you mean by

that!”

“Do you remember the _Erd Geist_ in ‘Faust’ Dr. Richards? That was a

product of the single vision, I fancy.

“‘=Im Lebensfluthen, im Thatensturm,

Wall’ ich auf und ab,

Webe hin und her!

Geburt und Grab,

Ein ewiges Meer,

Ein wechselnd Weben,

Ein glühend Leben,

So schaff’ ich am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit,

Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid.=”[1]

Footnote 1:

A rather free translation is subjoined. As indicated in the text, the

last line is a quotation:—

“In the restless stream of living,

’Mid the storm of deeds,

Move I hither, thither,

Weave I to and fro!

Birth and the Grave

—One limitless ocean!—

A changeful Creation

Glowing with Life,

Thus my task at Time’s tremulous loom I ply,

And weave for God the Garment thou seest Him by.”

I forget who paraphrased that last line,—

“‘And weave for God the garment thou seest Him by.’”

said Mr. Clare. “It isn’t bad, but ‘living garment’ is even better,

perhaps. The two together make up Goethe’s meaning.”

“Oh! so you give Goethe credit for using his spiritual optics?”

“In right of his poet or prophet-hood. A false prophet—not that Goethe

was _that_, except partially like the rest, and much less so than many

who are called the truest of the true,—but a false prophet is a prophet

still, you know, and woe is unto him according to the falseness of his

prophecy.”

“Because?”

“Because his falsehood is a moral fault. He could have seen truly had he

purified his heart and life, and used his spiritual eyes.”

“Thank fortune! I really feared you were going to say ‘and used the

grace of God.’ I do detest that expression! It is such a mean, cowardly

state of mind for a man to be always asking for grace to do this, and

rejoicing that he had grace given him to do that. Grace indeed! Has he

no backbone of his own?”

“Why, you wouldn’t expect a man to breathe without air,” said the

clergyman, “and why should he see without sunshine? And you’ll find

_that_ etymology quite correct,” he added, as he rose to say good-night.

“Etymology? I don’t understand.”

“Grace—the graces—the Charites—charity—love, as the Revised Version has

it. And don’t you remember Max Müller’s identification of the Charites

with the bright Harits, the far-reaching sun-rays? Love and life, the

life and love of God; not so very detestable after all, eh? Good-night.”

CHAPTER X.

PREACHING AND PRACTICE.

It was a serious grief to Louis, when, following Fritz’s example,

several of the other young men declared themselves, as Fritz had

expressed it, “solid for religion,” not to be able to include himself

among the number. It was an odd thing, he thought, that he, who had

played at being a Christ-kind in his babyhood, whose guide and pattern

in his youth had been the life of the Lord Christ,—that he should stand

aside unable to believe, while others, till then indifferent, pressed

forward to be called by His name. It was easy enough to go to church,

and that Louis did quite regularly, sitting always when others rose or

knelt, and following every word with patient, wistful anxiety. But there

was very little comfort to be got out of churchgoing, so far as Louis

could see; though the sound of Ernest Clare’s voice, and the sight of

his calm, strong face, gave him sometimes the sensation of one

struggling on in utter darkness, who, though he can trace no ray of

light, knows that the full, cloudless sunshine is just beyond. But,

meanwhile, the darkness is hard to bear; and the wistful pleading of the

blue eyes that were fixed so earnestly upon his face went to the very

heart of Ernest Clare.

Mr. Clare was slowly becoming a power at St. Andrew’s, the unfashionable

church to which he had offered his services, gratis, at his first coming

to Micklegard. The rector, an elderly man with a large family, always

ground down to the earth by fuel and grocery bills, had, at first,

looked askance at his unsalaried assistant, as an eccentric whose

dangerous social doctrines were likely to get not only himself, but the

Church at large, into trouble. Indeed, long years of money anxieties,

whereof the care had been faithfully cast upon Him who has promised to

bear it, had almost convinced the rector that a situation wherein lay no

temptation to be anxious for the morrow would be positively irreligious.

He knew too well the blessings of poverty to pray, like pious Agar, to

be delivered therefrom; and while his favorite beatitude was “Blessed

are the poor,” the promise that the meek shall inherit the earth had for

him no signification that was at all borne out by his own individual

experience.

By such a man as this Ernest Clare was quite content to be lightly

esteemed and guarded against. Reading the prayers and lessons, however,

in the rector’s opinion, could harm no one, and spared a weary voice;

even in the baptism of infants, and the visitation of the sick, there is

little scope for dynamite, and it was a great comfort to be able to call

at will upon one so entirely destitute of vanity or self-assertion. So,

by the time the winter came, and the rector got a cold instead of the

voice he lost in catching it, he was ready to accept Mr. Clare’s offer

to preach for him, backed by the promise, voluntarily made, with a smile

of affectionate amusement, “not to say a word of which the rector could

possibly disapprove.”

It was not at all what is usually considered a popular sermon, though of

a kind more likely to be popular than is often supposed. The text was,—

“Because I live, ye shall live also.”

“Very many men,” said the preacher, “have tried to define life, just as

they have endeavored to explain what is meant by a personal God, and

with about the same success. Our own first Article says, ‘There is but

one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions.’

This is not all of the article, as you will see from your prayer-books,

but it is the root-part, which contains and implies all the rest. And

you will notice that most of this one sentence that I have read you says

what God is _not_; there are only two words, ‘living’ (which implies

everlasting), and ‘true,’ to tell us what God _is_. But this, that He is

living and true, nay, that He is life and truth, is really all that we

need to know about Him. Well, then, I hope some of us are asking, What

do we mean by life, and what do we mean by truth? Let us take the latter

first.

“Truth is that which a man troweth or believeth; a better definition

than one might suppose; but there is another word which will lead us

more quickly to the heart of our subject this morning. ‘In sooth’ and in

‘good sooth’ are phrases now found only in poetry; yet we could very

well spare from our daily conversation more sonorous terms than that one

little monosyllable sooth. For it is connected with the Sanskrit word

_sat_, or _satya_, meaning truth; _sat_ being the participle of the verb

_as_, to be. Therefore, when we say, ‘Do you in sooth?’ we mean simply,

‘Do you tell me that which _is_?’

“Now, I once read a book, the author of which was very jubilant over his

discovery that this verb _as_, to be, meant originally, simply, to

breathe. Thus, if we go back a step farther, and say, ‘Do you in sooth?’

or, ‘Do you tell me that which breathes?’ we shall not be long in coming

to the conclusion that Truth and Life are identical; and that What is

Truth? means exactly the same as What is Life?

“Now, though so many attempts have been made, with only partial success,

to define Life, as I told you a while ago, I suppose all of us have a

fair working idea of it, at least as regards this outside world. We know

that a plant or animal is dead when it ceases, as Herbert Spencer says,

to ‘correspond with its environment;’ that is, to receive something from

and return something to the air or water or earth around it. Now,

spiritual Life, or eternal Life, as we often call it, is exactly the

same. We must correspond with our Environment, in Whom ‘we live and move

and have our being;’ that is, our _breathing_, according to Mr. Matthew

Arnold. We must breathe in Truth, and breathe out Love, if we would

correspond with _this_ environment; and then—because He lives we shall

live also. For there is one peculiarity about Life. It cannot stand

still, any more than we can cease breathing; it must grow, else it

ceases to be Life and becomes Death. And so He says _because_ I live ye

shall live also. Not merely His disciples, not merely those who profess

to believe on Him, but the whole world shall live also. ‘The Kingdom of

God is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal

until _the whole_ was leavened.’

“If you look back on the story of the world, you will see for yourselves

how the history of mankind is a history of progress, of climbing higher

and higher. That the world, as a whole, is perceptibly better off,

freer, wiser, and purer, than it was even a hundred years ago, is a

proposition which I suppose few will controvert; but if I say that all

this, and the almost incalculable progress that preceded it, is owing to

the Life of Christ which is in the world, there will not fail some to

deny it. Yet growth implies life, cannot be without life; and he who

refuses to ascribe certain known results to an adequate cause must be

able to produce in evidence some other cause capable of producing the

same effects. But this is the very point where those who deny that the

life of Christ _is_, not _was_, in the world, utterly fail. Also, their

strongest point against Christianity is that the lives of those who do

not believe in the Divinity of Jesus Christ often resemble more nearly

what we call His human character than the lives of professing

Christians. Well, why not? He has told us Himself that He does not care

to be called Lord, Lord, unless we do the things that He says; and if we

really do the things that He says, if we are pure, true, unselfish, and

loving, then, whether we know it or not, His life _is in us_, and will

transform us into its own likeness, just as surely as the life of the

acorn transforms air, earth, and water into the likeness of an oak.

“Perhaps there are some here who think that Jesus Christ was simply a

good man, not even a perfect man, far less the God-man. In fact, I have

often heard just such words from some whom I see here before me.

“You think highly of Christianity as a moral system, and only wish its

professors lived up to their duties. Well, I wish so too. I wish all who

call themselves Christians were one-tenth as kind, as unselfish, as

disinterested, as some of you who call yourselves infidels. But the

difference between you is simply this. The humblest, the most faulty,

sincere Christian knows that whatever good there may be in him is the

fruit of that divine Life; while you are very apt to consider your

virtues your own, and your faults the result of circumstances, due to

heredity, perhaps, or education, or the cross-grained perversity of your

next neighbor. And you are quite right; your faults are due to just

these things. They are a part of the Kingdom of Death, which the Life of

Christ came into the world to conquer.

“It is said that ‘if to-night a new star were created in some

far-distant constellation, ages would pass before its light could reach

us, but only a few seconds before the earth would feel its presence.’

And would not the influence of that star be just the same whether we

knew of it or not? Would our world be deflected from its present orbit

one hair’s-breadth more or less because that new star could not be found

upon a single astronomical chart? The name of Jesus Christ may not be

found upon your guide to the stars, dear friends, but His life is

nevertheless within and around you, making you better as you yield to

it, or worse as you resist it. For as individuals you _can_ resist it,

perhaps, forever, though, as a race, humanity must and will grow more

and more into His image and likeness, Who _is_, that is, Who _breathes_,

Life, Love, and Truth.”

“Now, I suppose,” said Dr. Richards, who waited outside the church door,

with Alice on his arm and Freddy in his chair, whereof Louis served as

propeller,—“now, I suppose you think you have settled the whole

question, and convinced everybody by that sermon?”

“On the contrary,” replied Mr. Clare. “There’s a verse that always comes

into my mind the moment I finish preaching. I wish it wouldn’t, for it

has rather a depressing effect at times, so that I am compelled to

reason myself into optimism again before I can go on with the service,”

with a mischievous glance, as he lent a hand to help the Ark over a

gutter.

“Optimism! humph! I gave you credit for greater knowledge of the world.

What is the verse?”

“‘The sermon being ended,

All turned and descended;

The pikes went on stealing,

The eels went on eeling.

Much delighted were they,

But preferred the old way!’

“It is from St. Anthony’s sermon to the fishes, I believe, but that is

all I know of the poem,” said Mr. Clare.

“Ah! there’s a deal of human nature in fishes,” said the doctor,

laughing. “Well, then, what is the good of preaching?”

“There’s more good in practising, I admit; still a sermon does sometimes

come back to one—like Longfellow’s Arrow, don’t you know,” replied the

clergyman. “But I must say,” he added, laughing, “that I don’t set quite

such a value upon preaching as some people. I should not, for example,

if I had undertaken to ‘Look Backward,’ like Mr. Bellamy, have found my

ideal Sunday in listening to a sermon by telephone. It doesn’t quite

fulfil one’s idea of worship, however excellent the sermon.”

“Worship? why, the life they led in the year 2000 and the work they had

done for the world was a better worship than if they had whined away on

their knees for a month.”

“No doubt; better worship, and the best of divine service; _but_—I don’t

believe that when men learn to work together they will cease to pray

together. This new Cathedral they are going to build in New York is to

me one of the grandest and most heart-cheering signs of the times; but

even _that_, I hope, won’t hold the people when the day of freedom

really dawns. And when poverty is abolished, and every man stands equal

with his brother-man—before man and before God,—then, I believe, from

that mighty host will rise such a shout of loyalty to the Captain of

their Salvation as will shake the Kingdom of Death to its centre. Cannot

you imagine the wild—no, not wild—the disciplined enthusiasm with which

that army of industry, and therefore of liberty, shall sing,—

“‘Hail to the Lord’s Anointed,

Great David’s greater Son,

Hail, in the time appointed,

His reign on earth begun.

He comes to break oppression,

To set the captive free;

To take away transgression,

And rule in equity’?

And the new meaning there will be in so many hymns? ‘All hail the power

of Jesus’ Name,’ ‘Crown Him with many crowns,’ and another, the campaign

song now as then of His soldiers,—

“‘He marches in front of His banner unfurled,

Which He raised that His own might find Him,

And the Holy Church throughout all the world

Falls into rank behind Him.’

Ah! Dr. Richards, you may pessimize to your heart’s content, but,

nevertheless,—

“‘We march to victory

With the Cross of the Lord before us!’”

“I wish you did,” said the doctor. “I’d veil my crest to that Banner

with the best grace in the world. But I haven’t much faith in the

future.”

“You haven’t much faith in God.”

“Why, I can’t shut my eyes to facts, neither can I believe in a God who

is less than omnipotent or less than perfectly good. Yet one of these

hypotheses is necessary to reconcile the existence of God and the

existence of evil.”

“As to omnipotence,” replied Mr. Clare, “it is a very singular thing

that those whose very name for the Deity is ‘the Unknowable’ should be

so ready to deny Him omnipotence, an attribute as incomprehensible by

our finite minds as infinite space or everlasting time.”

“That is _your_ way of getting out of it,” said the doctor.

“It is simply a statement of facts. We can know of God only what He has

revealed to us, through Nature, His ‘living Garment,’ through the

Scriptures, and in Jesus Christ, ‘the brightness of His glory and the

express image of His person.’”

“Well, Nature and the Sermon on the Mount are about as much alike as

chalk and cheese,” said Dr. Richards.

“‘Fire and Hail, Snow and Vapor, Wind and Storm, fulfilling His word,’”

said Mr. Clare. “You’ve been reading Mill, Dr. Richards, and he has

disagreed with you. I remember, too, that Tennyson represents Nature as

crying,—

“‘A thousand types have gone;

I care for nothing, all shall go.’

But Nature does care for something, and if she casts aside a thousand

types, it is only as the fruit-tree casts away millions of petals which

have done their work in protecting the infant fruit. Nature strives

always after _one_ type, _one_ ideal; and will have attained it when man

has fulfilled the command laid upon him at his creation, to ’replenish

the earth and subdue it.’”

“But could not an _All_-good, _All_-powerful Creator have prevented a

great deal of sin and misery by making the world perfect in the

beginning?”

“I don’t think we can reason about what God might or could have done;

that belongs to the realm of the Unknowable. What we can reason about

and are entirely justified—that is, _made just_—in trying to understand,

is what He has done. He is life, therefore Nature lives, and we live.

But life is evidenced by growth, and growth depends chiefly upon effort.

And hence, Dr. Richards, knowledge or virtue or muscular strength must

be developed in you by your own exertions, they cannot be won for you by

another.”

“How about imputed righteousness?”

“There’s not a word in Scripture about imputed righteousness, though it

does say that God will not impute iniquity; that is, that he sees us as

we ought to be, as we will be; and that all His blows and chastisements

are simply to set free this divine ideal, as a sculptor liberates the

angel imprisoned in his block of marble. Does the sculptor impute

roughness or lack of graceful form to the marble?”

Dr. Richards turned suddenly and looked down at his wife, who had at the

moment leaned rather heavily upon his arm. Then he replied, though with

less _verve_ than before,—

“Well, you haven’t touched _my_ spiritual optic nerve yet, Mr. Clare.

How about the millions who die still in the rough, and live on in

eternal torment?”

“I think you mean _everlasting_, not eternal, which has nothing to do

with time. And no one who used his eyes, Dr. Richards, would claim that

the angel is always liberated in _this_ life.”

“Then, you believe”—

“What I believe, my dear friend, is of very little consequence, unless

you can make it out from what I _do_. And yet I do believe in the Love

of God and His uncovenanted mercies, to which those He has promised and

made sure are as a mote in the sunshine to the boundless atmosphere in

which it floats.”

“I suppose it makes you happier,” said the doctor, with a sigh; “and I

never interfere with any one’s happiness,” he added with a glance at his

wife.

When the Richardses had been left at their own door, and Mr. Clare and

Louis went on alone, the latter said,—

“Mr. Clare, I’d give my right hand if I could believe all you said in

your sermon to-day.”

“Keep your right hand to serve God with, Louis,” was the reply. “If you

were more likely to believe without it than with it, He Himself would

take it from you.”

“I don’t think I am likely to believe either way,” was the boy’s reply.

“You see, my father taught me to imitate Christ, to be a little

Christ-child, as he called it, yet to think Christianity itself only a

fairy tale. And I can’t get over the habit,” he added; “_I can’t_ think

of Christ as alive now, or believe that He is God. To me He is dead as

King Arthur and Washington and Barbarossa are dead.”

“And when you wish to believe Him alive, is it that you may serve Him

better, or that you may possess the happiness in the perpetual

consciousness of His presence which others enjoy?” asked the clergyman,

smiling tenderly upon the wistful face upturned to him.

“The last, of course,” returned Louis honestly, “though perhaps I

_could_ serve Him better, if you mean working for others,” he added.

Mr. Clare smiled. “Leave the better service to Him; He knows what He

wants from you,” he said. “For the rest, Prince Louis, are you following

out your father’s teaching in asking or wishing _any_ thing for

yourself? Is that like Jesus Christ, who pleased not Himself?”

“Then what must I do?”

“Do what you believe,” said Mr. Clare. “In fact, neither you nor any of

us _can_ do otherwise. What we believe, that will we do; nothing else.

What we do not show in our lives, we do _not yet_ entirely believe.

There is no escape from that logic, Louis, terrible though it be.” He

paused, hesitated, then went on with a smile. “For I have just shown you

that you have not been living up to what faith you have, which is, after

all, not a little. Therefore, you see, it fails just so far of being a

real faith, and you cannot ask for more until you have made the most of

what you already have. Only go on working, not thinking at all of

yourself, living for others, and some day—if not in this world, at least

in the next—your eyes will be opened like those of the disciples at

Emmaus, and you will say, ‘Did not my heart burn within me, while He

talked with me by the way?’”

“In the next world!” said Louis thoughtfully. “But if there be no other

world, Mr. Clare?”

“Ah! my boy, that you must be content to take—yet a while—on trust. When

your eyes see the King in His beauty, the land that is very far off will

become a reality to you; not until. The best—I was about to say the

sole—argument for immortality is my text of this morning: ‘Because He

lives, we shall live also.’ ‘And this is life eternal, to know Thee, the

only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.’”

“I’m like Dr. Richards,” said Louis, smiling sadly. “You don’t touch my

spiritual optic nerve. But I am glad you tell me _to do_, Mr. Clare, for

I want to believe, and cannot. Yet the Herr Pastor told me once,” he

continued, smiling, “not to put my trust in anything that I did, for

that my righteousness was as filthy rags, and that I must believe in

order to be saved.”

“The Herr Pastor was quite right, my boy. Your righteousness, and mine

also, _is_ as filthy rags compared with His, and compared also with the

wedding garment in which we shall sit down to the marriage supper of the

Lamb. And have I not told you that, as your faith grows, your salvation

from sin grows also? I have not told you that you will ever be able to

_say_ that you believe in this world, because I have known of so many

whose lives have acknowledged Him while their lips, to their latest

breath, denied Him. Am I a poor comforter, Louis?” he added kindly, as

the boy looked down and sighed.

“No, no; I was thinking of Dr. Richards. He is one of those men you

spoke of, and, perhaps, never will believe as you do.”

“Frederick Richards is one of the bravest men I ever knew,” said Mr.

Clare.

He was a very silent man for the next few days; also very gentle and

tender towards all around him, especially his wife, whom he watched as

she went about the house or sat at work beside him, with eyes of wistful

comprehension. It was not until the week was nearly gone that she crept

up to him one evening, in the early twilight, and silently laid her head

upon his breast.

“Yes, my dear, yes,” he said tenderly. “I know all about it, Alice;

there is little about yourself that you need to tell me in words, after

all these years. But we had better not talk about it, I think; for I

might say something to disturb your faith once more, and I should be

sorry to do that.”

“I don’t think you could, _now_,” she replied. “It is no new thing,

Fred; I think it has been growing within me for a long time. And it is

not such faith as I thought I had once.”

“As you thought you had?”

“It was little more than thinking; I did not know what belief really

meant. Oh, don’t say we must not talk about it, dear; I cannot bear any

forbidden subjects between us _now_.”

He drew her nearer, and kissed her, smiling. “Now?” he asked gently.

“It seems as though I had never loved you until now,” she replied.

“Years ago—oh, Fred, can you forgive me!—I believed, as I had been

taught, that it was a sin to marry an infidel; but it would have killed

me to give you up, and so I did what I thought wrong in defiance.”

“Not quite that, I think,” he said tenderly. “It was only that your

heart was stronger than your theology, that’s all.”

“One was true, and therefore did the truth, and the other was false,”

she replied. “But then, when trouble came, I looked upon it as

punishment, or, rather, vengeance, for what was no sin at all. As if I

were so much holier than you,” she cried indignantly; “you whose noble

life taught me the emptiness and selfishness of my own. ‘Unequally yoked

together!’ If we have been, the superiority has been on your side. If

truth be life, you have more of it than I; and I have looked up to you

and learned of you always.”

“Until now?” he said rather sadly.

“Oh! Fred, you have much to teach me yet. It is you who see things as

they are, truly, purely, nobly; and I whose eyes are blinded by the

mists of earth. Only in one thing I have the advantage of you.”

“And that?” he asked.

She rose to her feet,—for till then she had knelt beside his chair,—and,

drawing his head to her bosom, kissed him with such kisses as in all

their life together she had never before given him.

“I _know_ that you are mine now, and always, for life and death, for

time and eternity,” she cried passionately. “I am not afraid to let

myself love you now that neither life nor death can ever come between

us. God has given you back to me, my husband!”

BOOK III.

FLOOD AND FIRE.

CHAPTER I.

“O’ER CRAG AND TORRENT, TILL THE NIGHT IS GONE.”

By the time the spring came again, it had become quite customary for Mr.

Clare to preach at least once on Sunday at St. Andrew’s, and the rector

had been nearly satisfied that such Socialism as his colleague was at

all likely to preach was very harmless Socialism, indeed, scarcely

deserving the name. Also, the rector was inclined to look through very

rose-colored glasses at one who could bring to church such a

stiff-necked generation as Dr. Richards and Karl Metzerott, even though

the former might come partly for love of his wife and son, and the

latter chiefly through jealousy of the preacher’s influence on Louis and

at “Prices,” where the Emperor had begun to feel bitterly conscious of a

rival.

Yet Mr. Clare put forward no claim either to supremacy or even

influence; it was simply the effect of his personality that brought such

crowds to St. Andrew’s, and made his lightest word a command to his

friends and followers at “Prices.” So, at least, said Karl Metzerott;

perhaps the truth was that Ernest Clare’s personality was as nearly

transparent as is possible to human nature; it was not himself, but the

truth that was in him, of which all round felt the power. But it is a

question whether a due appreciation of this fact would have retarded the

growth of the unfriendly feeling whereof Karl had only just begun to be

conscious. Nevertheless, “Prices,” hitherto so united, had begun to show

signs of splitting into two camps. There was no open division, but the

waters were troubled by the Spirit of God, and the word had gone forth

amongst them, “If the Lord be God, then follow Him: but if Baal, then

follow him.”

Mr. Clare’s lectures, as they were called, on Sunday evening were

overwhelmingly well attended, though the magnificent rendering of

chorus, hymn, and anthem, that accompanied them, doubtless formed no

unimportant part of the attraction. There were no formal prayers, an

omission that scandalized some excellent people, including the Herr

Pastor Schaefer, who took the duty upon himself to remonstrate with the

delinquent. Mr. Clare’s reply was somewhat singular.

“‘Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,

Uttered or unexpressed,

The motion of a hidden fire

That trembles in the breast.’

“If the hidden fire be not there, Herr Pastor,” he said, “how can it

possibly tremble? If it be, the music will supply all it can ask; and if

it be only a spark, I don’t want to extinguish it by the cold water of

criticism.”

“But I do not understand you at all, Mr. Clare,” was the reply; “surely

it is every one’s duty to pray.”

“You have been with them nearly twenty years, my friend; have they ever

prayed with you?”

“It is quite true,” said the pastor, in genuine trouble and perplexity,

“that religion seems to have little power over men in these days. Very

few men ever pray at all; but it is not my fault: I pray _with_ them, or

offer to do so; and there my responsibility ends.”

Mr. Clare was silent a moment, then he said gently, “If they ever seem

willing to let me pray with them, I assure you I shall not be slow to

comply.”

He was very silent and thoughtful for the remainder of the day, and in

the evening propounded a very strange question to Father McClosky.

“I say, Bryan, if you were a shepherd, a literal shepherd, you know, and

one of your sheep were to stray into the desert and be lost, what would

you do?”

“Sure, I trust I’d seek till I found it,” replied the Father, with a

look of inquiry.

“And if you couldn’t find it one way you’d try another, eh? You wouldn’t

simply stand on the edge of the wilderness and cry ‘Co-nan, co-nan!’ and

then turn back satisfied, saying, ‘Well, it’s not my fault; I’ve called

you, and there my responsibility ends’?”

Father McClosky laughed, but quickly looked grave and troubled. “Sure,

we clergy have much to answer for,” he said. “There’s mighty few of us,

maybe none, but could say his _mea culpa_ to the sins of negligence and

indifference. We’re all mighty unselfish about responsibility, and

perfectly willing to make any one that wants it a present of our share.”

“I don’t think that peculiarity is confined to the clergy,” said Mr.

Clare.

If it were, the remainder of this chapter might have remained a blank.

For the situation of Micklegard was, as this story has frequently

indicated, upon a river, the physical beauty of which was the pride of

every dweller upon its banks, though its moral character might be marred

by treachery and fickleness. It was fed by mountain streams which were

liable to a sudden rise at the time of the melting of the winter snows,

or at any season after continuous heavy rain, and these floods, or “high

water,” as they were euphoniously termed by those who seemed rather to

prefer to have their cellars washed out occasionally, sometimes rose to

the height of devastating inundations. The cause of their increased

frequency and destructiveness was by some said to be the will of God; by

others, a judgment on the wicked; others still ascribed it to the

reckless destruction of the forests that had once clothed the hills to

the top, and by retaining much of the snow on their sturdy branches,

and, in spring, lessening the influence of the sun, had prevented its

too rapid melting. That these views were at all reconcilable, that the

will of God might be that the hills should bring righteousness to the

people by teaching the reckless and money-loving that they could not

safely trifle with the forces of nature, few seemed able to understand.

Yet, if this lesson had been thoroughly learned, and followed out to its

logical consequences, the calamity of which I have now to write would

certainly never have occurred.

The winter which had just ended had been unusually mild; very little

snow had fallen, even in the hills; but the months of April and May had

been marked by an unusual rainfall, and the Mickle River, though not

over its banks, stood at a height which, earlier in the year, would have

been decidedly alarming, but which was viewed at this season with

complacency as an excellent preparation for the summer droughts.

Ascension Day fell this year near the end of May, and the three Rogation

days preceding it were, as usual, employed as days of prayer for

spiritual but especially for temporal blessings. In some of the churches

constant intercession was carried on from six in the morning to nine at

night, but of these St. Andrew’s was not one.

“I fear I shall never be able to put much heart into a petition for

earthly blessings,” said the rector to Ernest Clare, “though I would not

say so publicly; and, of course, it is quite right to ask God’s blessing

on the fruits of the earth,” he added apologetically; “but to me ‘Thy

Will be done’ includes everything.”

“‘Give us this day our daily bread,’” returned the other gravely.

“Yes, yes, I know; we have the best authority for it, I don’t deny that;

but it seems to me more childlike just to trust God for things of earth,

and spend one’s time in prayer for things of heaven.”

“‘Thy Will be done _on earth_,’” replied the younger clergyman, “and His

will is—as He has told us—to clothe and feed us, as He clothes the grass

of the field and feeds the sparrows. And that will shall be done one

day.”

“Ah! there you are with your Communism,” said the rector. “Well, it’s

only a matter of feeling, and, I dare say, I’m wrong about it.”

“I wish we all had your faith, sir,” said Mr. Clare; “but don’t you

think one sometimes learns to pray by needing to pray for bread? Then,

afterwards, one can pray for the Bread of Heaven.”

“There is no doubt about that,” said the rector.

Ascension Day brought another heavy rainstorm to swell the Mickle

River,—a storm which increased, with the accompaniment of furious winds,

during the night, and on Friday. About the middle of the afternoon Mr.

Clare, who, in his capacity of carpenter, had gone up-town to attend to

a job, was passing a telegraph office on his way home, when he heard his

name called loudly and anxiously; and, turning round, saw a young

operator, well known to him and us, by the name of Heinz Rolf, with his

body half out of the window, beckoning wildly.

“Good God, Mr. Clare! the most horrible disaster!” he gasped, as the

clergyman obeyed the summons. “The dam—the Cannomore Dam—has burst;

forty feet of water rushing down the Cannomore Valley—thirty thousand

people in the water _now_—and”—he paused with his eyes on Mr. Clare’s.

The Irish mind is not, like the German, fundamentally geographical; and

for a moment the clergyman did not entirely grasp the situation.

“How terrible! When did it happen?” he said, with as yet no sense that

the matter might concern him or his.

“The last message came a few minutes ago. Operator stood at her post

till the last gasp—ticked over the wires, ‘This is my last

message,’—then, I suppose, she was swept away, for we can’t get an

answer from anywhere near there. The next news we have of the flood”—

“I see!” said Mr. Clare suddenly. “I see. The next news will be brought

by the water itself!”

For a moment the two men stared at each other in horror. Then Mr. Clare

said, “How much time have we to get ready for it? one hour? two?”

“Can’t hardly tell,” said one of the older operators, looking up from

his instrument. “Of course, she loses force and swiftness as she comes

along, and it won’t be no forty feet that we’ll get; but, with the river

we’ve got now, I guess we’ll have all the water we want. We’ve

telephoned the mayor’s office, and, probably, he’ll have the bells rung,

to warn the people. My folks will have the flood over the tops of their

chimneys, I guess, but I don’t see no way to help it. I can’t leave that

door till the flood comes in at the window, or I won’t, anyway.”

“I’ll see to them,” said Ernest Clare, “and to your family, too, Heinz.

I say, I suppose ‘Prices’ is above high-water mark?”

“It’s six foot, about, above all the high-water mark we have _now_,”

said the operator grimly. “I don’t say where it’ll be to-morrow; but,

maybe, their third story won’t be _very_ wet.”

“It’s as safe as anywhere,” said Heinz, “except the tops of the hills.”

“Just so,” replied the other, and Mr. Clare hurried away.

“I suppose this is the answer to your prayers in the early part of the

week,” said Dr. Richards, when Mr. Clare warned him of the coming

danger.

“I could not tell you about that,” returned the other, “it is hard to

decide upon the meaning of a message until one has read it through.

Meanwhile, my rooms at ‘Prices’ are entirely at your service; and I

should advise you to take valuables, papers, and clothing. You’ll have

time to pack them up if you’re not too long about it. Drive over in your

buggy, doctor, and I’ll send a boy for the Ark.”

Not every one, however, was as easy to move as the Richardses.

“Is it a flood?” asked one Irish family whom he visited and warned.

“Sure, floods is nothin’ when you’re used to ‘em, your Honor.” And not a

step would they budge, until they and their shanty were washed away

together.

Most people refused to believe that a flood was possible at that season

of the year, or that the bursting of the Cannomore Dam could possibly

affect the Mickle River.

But at seven o’clock in the evening the river was over its banks; at

midnight it was within a foot and a half of the level of “Prices,” and

reported to be still rising. There was no rush of a wall of water at

this distance from the scene of the catastrophe; only a slow, steady,

terrible, irresistible rising. Where now was the beautiful river whereof

they had boasted? Instead of it, a boiling, foaming devil rushed

headlong by them; its yellow waters swirling with wreckage and horrible

with corpses. Truly, their pride was turned to their destruction!

“There are those families at the lower mill,” said Mr. Clare suddenly;

“has any one heard of them?”

“They were warned,” said some one, “but whether the blame fools moved

out or not, I can’t say.”

“If you will lend me your boat,” said Mr. Clare, “I will see after

them.”

“You? there’s work for you here, Mr. Clare; besides, the current”—

“Plenty of boats are out already,” said another; “they’ll be seen

after.”

“There’s room for one more,” replied the clergyman quietly, “and I

didn’t win the silver oar in the single-scull race at college for

nothing. Look up on the hills there, black with refugees from the water!

Who will help me to bring them off?”

Not one, but three boat’s crews were immediately at his service, and

more would have been forthcoming had the boats at command been more

numerous.

“You, Louis? I don’t know,” said the clergyman kindly, as the boy

pressed to his side. “What would your father say to me?”

“I shall go too,” said Karl Metzerott.

The rain beat fiercely down upon the seething river, the wind churned

the foul waters into foam which it dashed in their faces as if in bitter

mockery of their pitiful attempts to brave the power of the elements;

beams and timbers, heavy enough to grind their boats into powder,

shouldered each other down the stream, and impeded each other’s

progress, as though they had been human beings engaged in the race for

wealth. Over all lay darkness, for the gasworks were long since under

water, but the feeble light of the lanterns they had brought flashed now

on a man’s face set in the agony of death, the open eyes staring upward

as if in accusation; now on heavy tresses of a woman’s long wet hair,

wrapped by the wind round and round the beam to which she had clung till

her strength failed her.

“Boys!” said Mr. Clare.

He stood to windward of them, and his every word could be distinctly

heard. The men paused in the very act of manning the boats, and turned

to look at him. His hat was off, and the lantern in his hand flashed

fitfully, as it was beaten by the wind, upon his pure, strong face, and

the eyes fixed upon them in longing tenderness, as though they also were

in danger and needed rescue.

“Let us pray,” said Mr. Clare.

Certainly Fritz Rolf set the example, but no man there waited to find it

out. Every hat was off in an instant.

“‘O SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD, WHO BY THY CROSS AND PRECIOUS BLOOD HAST

REDEEMED US, SAVE US, AND HELP US, WE HUMBLY BESEECH THEE, O LORD.’”

The next moment they were in the full course of the river, rushing with

it down, down,—where!

There was no power of rowing upstream, and no need to row down. They

could only keep the boat as steady as possible, and fend off the

wreckage from every side, every man’s eyes strained meanwhile for any

chance of saving life.

At last Ernest Clare gave a great cry. Dancing gayly down the river, as

if at play upon the fearful tide, was a heavy, wooden cradle, hollowed

from a single block. As it floated past him, Mr. Clare caught from it a

little wailing baby, perhaps six months old. He gave it to Louis, who

sat in the stern, and tried to steer as far as steering was possible.

“Button it inside your coat,” he said, and Louis tried to obey. The

child felt the grateful warmth, hushed its wailing, and even fell asleep

from exhaustion. The little face peeped out just below the collar of the

young man’s coat, his arm was round it, and he felt with a strange

sensation the feeble throbbing of its baby bosom, and the sweet, warm

baby breath stealing upward to his neck.

Now a huge beam went crashing against the window of a house round which

the waters raged madly.

“It’s no matter,” said Fritz; “the man that lives there is a fellow with

some snap to him. He moved out his family early this afternoon.”

The inhabitants of the next house had not been so fortunate, for faces

were dimly visible in the dark windows, and voices were heard crying for

rescue in the name of God.

One of the boats was filled with them, father, mother, and eight

children, wet, cold, and miserable, crouching wretchedly in the bottom

of the boat, and half disposed, as it tossed seemingly at the mercy of

the stream, to think it a bad exchange for the house, which at least, as

yet, stood firm.

Boat-load after boat-load was thus rescued, and set ashore at the

nearest point whence they could make their way to a place of succor; for

all the churches and public buildings, and many private houses, stood

open that night, and warm food, shelter, and dry clothing were ready for

all who claimed them.

And still the boats went on, on with the current, upon their errand of

mercy.

Here delayed by the wreckage, there set free by a blow from some passing

timber,—still they kept steadily on down the stream. And now there came

to Louis a strange experience. For it seemed to him that before them

moved a white Figure, wherein he recognized that which once trod the Sea

of Galilee, and through the rushing of the waves and the roaring of the

fierce wind there seemed to fall upon his ears the whisper, “Fear not,

it is I.” And as all his life he had followed the Lord Christ, so now,

he steered after the glimmer of that white form seen or fancied. And by

faith or fancy it led them on till daybreak.

When they had returned home, drenched and exhausted, Louis laid his hand

upon Mr. Clare’s arm, and smiled into his face with white lips but

strangely shining eyes. “Mr. Clare,” he said, “oh, Mr. Clare, I have my

wish, that I tried not to wish for. He has been very good to me. I

_know_ now that He is God, and that He could not—oh! He _could_ not stay

in Heaven while we suffered and died on earth; He _must_ come down to

help and save us!”

“He is saving us now, Louis,” said Mr. Clare, “saving us by what seems

the extremity of His wrath. ‘O Saviour of the world, Who by Thy cross

and precious blood hast redeemed us, save us and help us, we humbly

beseech Thee, O Lord’!”

CHAPTER II.

“POLLY, PUT THE KETTLE ON.”

With the breathing of that first prayer and the attainment of Louis’

wish, the breach between the two parties at “Prices” became a

self-evident fact; and though across the breach the bands of

good-fellowship still held fast, even these no longer bound together the

members of one household, but connected two opposing camps, the

relations between which were manifestly strained.

Karl Metzerott called himself a reasonable man. He professed to have no

personal feeling in the matter, no personal grudge against Mr. Clare.

“No interloper,” he said, “could ever be to ‘Prices’ what he, Karl

Metzerott, had been; and as for present influences, he was abundantly

ready to welcome any that were good. Had he ever opposed this man Clare

until he came out in his true colors? cunning, canting priest that he

was! As for Louis, what he chose to believe was his own affair; it was a

free country, surely, as far as a man’s conscience was concerned; and if

what satisfied his father was not good enough for him, it was nobody’s

business but that of their two selves.”

It was quite true that Mr. Clare was exerting all his powers, and

putting forth his utmost influence; for one of those crucial questions

had arisen which try men’s souls, and separate between the good and the

evil.

The body of water which was known as Cannomore Lake had been increased

immensely beyond its normal proportions by a dam of unusual height, and,

as some undertook to prove by the laws of mechanics, of illegal

proportions and construction. It was owned by a club of wealthy

sportsmen, and used as a fishing-ground; and it was stated that the

waste-gates, which the extra proportions and alleged unscientific

construction of the dam made more than ever necessary, had been

permanently stopped up, to prevent the escape of the fish; that the very

building of the dam had been earnestly protested against; that the

inhabitants of the valley had lived in constant terror of it; and that

some months before the actual catastrophe it had been pronounced by

skilled engineers in a dangerous condition. But the lake had also been

used as a reservoir to supply the town which had suffered most heavily

from its breaking bounds; and some were inclined to cast a part of the

blame upon the authorities there; but it was a question whether in this

matter they could have taken any measures, which would have been at all

sufficient, without the consent of the club; since the dam could only

have been thoroughly repaired after draining off the water, and at great

cost.

“And of course in the height of the fishing season letting off the water

was not to be dreamed of,” was the angry murmur; “for what to a club of

millionnaires were the lives of a few thousand factory hands, compared

with the enjoyment of their favorite sport?”

There were not wanting, either, allusions to the feeding of the carp in

the Roman fish-ponds, which, it was darkly hinted, preceded by not so

_very_ many years the fall of the Roman empire.

Against this spirit Ernest Clare felt it imperative to make all the

stand possible. It was in itself but a trickle, yet it threatened a more

terrible inundation than that of Cannomore, and he was ready, if

necessary, to stop the leak with his own body.

“These are but newspaper reports,” be said. “No one knows, or can know,

where lies the blame, until a thorough investigation has been held,

which will not be possible for some time yet. And, even then, human

justice is not infallible, and this is a matter of which it will be

difficult to take an impartial view. Leave the question of retribution

in the hands of God; you have enough to do in helping those who have

suffered.”

“Ah!” said Karl Metzerott, “if there were a God, and He’d _do_ it, I’d

ask nothing better.”

“See here, my friend,” said Mr. Clare, “suppose each and every member of

that club to be as culpable as you believe him; would you exchange with

him? his money and his guilt against your honest poverty and

self-respect?”

“By ——! I’d see him in —— first!” was the reply.

“Then you are better off than he, as you deserve to be, and God _is_

doing right by both of you,” said Mr. Clare.

“Do you suppose Henry Randolph would exchange with _me_?” was the

scornful question.

“I have no opinion to offer about Mr. Randolph,” said Ernest Clare,

“except, which indeed is not an opinion but a fact, that notwithstanding

his very heavy losses by this flood, both here and at Cannomore, he has

given more liberally to the Relief Fund than any other man in

Micklegard.”

“And so he ought!” growled the shoemaker.

It may be imagined that such arguments did not alter the feeling in the

shoemaker’s heart, though, no doubt, the clergyman’s influence worked

powerfully to prevent the fire from spreading. But what was a real

surprise to Mr. Clare was to find Pastor Schaefer openly in the ranks of

his adversaries, and waving the banner of insurrection!

Mr. Clare now prayed and preached in the hall every Sunday night, and

all the Emperor’s power was insufficient to prevent him, since the

president and a majority of the board of managers were on the side of

peace and order. The Herr Pastor meanwhile seemed to have picked up the

other’s cast-off mantle; for he came out strongly in favor of Communism,

which he found plenty of texts to justify, failing not to lay great

stress on the sudden deaths of Ananias and Sapphira, the first renegades

from that early Commune. And though he duly ascribed these to the hand

of God, and even quoted “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the

Lord,” it was a material vengeance, which his hearers were quite able to

appreciate, and, if need were, to imitate; therefore, it filled the

church, and largely increased the pastor’s popularity.

Mr. Clare, however he might feel at having his own artillery thus turned

against him,—or, rather, against the banner of the Prince of Peace,—gave

no sign to the world; and, while he watched intently for an opportunity

to conciliate his opponents, exhorted his followers to peace, with such

words as “Love your enemies,” “Render unto Cæsar the things that be

Cæsar’s,” and “The powers that be are ordained of God,” therefore their

power can only be restricted or withdrawn by methods which are according

to God’s will. And as His will is our individual sanctification,

anything, any political measure,—such as bribery, conspiracy, or

violence,—which tends to make individuals worse men rather than better,

is not according to that will, and in the long-run is destructive of the

very ends which it is supposed to promote.

There were not wanting instances from history to support this view, of

which perhaps the strongest, next to the abolition of slavery in

America, was the first, contrasted with the second, expulsion of the

Stuarts from the throne of England. For he showed that, great as was

Cromwell, and thorough as has been the victory in our times of the

principles which he espoused, his mistaken method of advocating them,

while it won a brief victory, secured as speedy a reverse. The beheading

of Charles I. contained in itself the seed of the Restoration; but in

1688 the people had learned wisdom. The Seven Bishops unwittingly

inaugurated a bloodless revolution when they preached, by word and

example, the doctrine of passive resistance; and the dynasty then

installed still holds possession of the English throne. “It is a great

mistake in statecraft,” he ended, “to give a bad cause the advantage of

a martyr.”

But it may be readily imagined that to men blinded by anger, and

quivering from personal wrongs, such doctrines as these were eminently

unpalatable. Even Father McClosky, though in public he stood by his

friend stanchly, shook his head in private over the reference to James

II., who was, he said, “a true son of the Church.”

Mr. Clare, however, admitted this point so immediately that the Father

finally compromised upon the assurance—given and received by

himself—that “many a big fool was in the bosom of Holy Church; but,

sure, he’d be a bigger fool entirely if he wasn’t!”

One pleasant incident had broken the strain and stress of these days of

trial. For more than forty-eight hours Micklegard had been cut off from

the outside world. The railways were under water, the telegraph lines

were down; the gas and water works were flooded; not a drop of milk was

to be had, and a famine was threatened; but by prompt industry the last

calamity was averted; and when a train at last rolled into the city,

supplies had been gathered from “over the hills and far away,” to meet

the demands, not only of home consumption, but also of the just arrived

extra mouths.

The food question was naturally the all-important one at “Prices,” and

in Miss Sally’s department, and was undergoing a thorough though

informal discussion in that lady’s little sitting-room on the day of the

arrival of the beforementioned train. The baby, whom Mr. Clare had

rescued and Louis had brought home, contributed very decidedly to the

informality of the proceedings, since he lay, peaceful and happy, upon

the wide, calico-covered lounge, while Miss Sally, with the devoted air

of a troubadour serenading his lady, ground out, from a very small,

round music-box, held close at his ear, the mournful strains of “Home,

sweet home!”

Nobody seemed to consider the situation at all a comical one. Karl

Metzerott occupied his favorite position on the side of the table, and

Polly was almost hidden by the huge account-book wherefrom she was

reading the receipts and expenditures of the last week.

“The thing of it is, we’ve fed half of South Micklegard without charging

a cent,” she concluded, “so, of course, we’ve lost by it considerable

already, and the question is, how much longer we can keep the thing up.”

“You can’t let people starve,” said Miss Sally, looking round from her

music.

“But now that the city is issuing rations”—

“Confound the city!” said Karl Metzerott. “Still, we can’t let our

shareholders suffer; most of them have lost enough as it is. It might be

best for me to see the mayor about that; and then, if we could call a

general meeting of shareholders”—

But what this meeting was to have accomplished will never be known; for

at this moment the shrill, wheezy strains of the music-box were taken up

so softly and tenderly that it seemed an angel’s whisper rather than a

mere mortal violin.

“Home, home, sweet, sweet home!

Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home!”

sang the violin, with soft exultation; while those within the room

looked around amused, yet scarcely surprised, for violins were as plenty

as blackberries in that community. But, when the measure became brisker,

and the strain vividly exhortatory of a certain “Polly” to “put the

kettle on,” in order that the company might “all take tea,” there was a

sudden look of surprise, and—something else—on her namesake’s

countenance, while Karl Metzerott roared in such stentorian tones that

it was quite a mercy he didn’t wake the baby,—

“Franz Schaefer, _bei Donder_! Come in, you villain!”

So Franz—but was it indeed Franz who “came fiddling into the room”?

twisting and turning about the jingling air with that magical bow of

his, and tangling it so inextricably with Howard Payne’s immortal melody

that it was easy to see how, to him, no place would be home where Polly

did _not_ put the kettle on! If it were Franz, he had learned a language

wherein his tongue was neither dull nor slow; but there was the same

honest smile upon the face of the man of thirty that had once

illuminated the countenance of the boy; and when he threw down his

violin—or no! I misrepresent—even at that supreme moment, he laid it

down as tenderly as a new-born baby—and then caught Polly in his arms

and deliberately kissed her, she felt that it was still the boy’s true

heart that beat against her own.

“Hurrah for the fellow who has learned to take his own part!” cried the

Emperor; while Franz, without an idea of being witty, answered

seriously, “In an orchestra, Mr. Metzerott, that is a very necessary

thing!”

It soon transpired that he had by no means given up the position in the

orchestra in B——, where he had made such an excellent reputation, though

he confessed to an intention of returning to America when this same

reputation should have grown to such a height as to entitle him to a

good place and fat salary under the Stars and Stripes. And that it was

his intention that Polly should share the present honors of first violin

and the possible future fatness, was as apparent as that she considered

the difference of age at thirty and thirty-three by no means as absurd

as it had seemed at eighteen and twenty-one.

It was all very natural, perfectly natural, Miss Sally said, with a

sigh; wondering the while whom she could ever find to fill Polly’s

place; so prompt, accurate, abhorrent of waste, even to a fault, and

generally business-like as she had always been. And she was very patient

with the reveries into which Polly now fell, even at the crucial period

of the twelve-o’clock dinner,—with her calling of wrong tables, and

attendants out of their proper order, whereby wrath and confusion were

introduced into the kitchen department of “Prices;” and with her

occasional mild oblivion as to the staying powers of a barrel of sugar

and the sudden rise in the price of coffee.

In truth, Polly’s youth had come upon her suddenly and carried her off

her feet; but, with this exception and her swain’s unusual constancy,

there was nothing romantic or heroic about this pair of lovers. To

sacrifice her happiness to the well-being of “Prices” was an idea for

which Polly’s head had simply no room; and how very wide Franz would

have opened his honest eyes at the notion that there might be nobler

aims in life than the gain of a good place; or that his proposed fat

salary could be considered by any one as robbed from some other fellow.

“Why don’t the other fellow play better than me?” Franz would have

asked; and, if it had been pointed out to him that very possibly the

other fellow might, he would have answered,—providing he could have been

first convinced of this,—“But then, you see, he ain’t got the backbone!”

That one man should starve in a garret while another enjoyed a fat

salary because of the superiority of his vertebral column was a part of

the inequality of things which Franz could never have been brought to

recognize in the abstract, though in the concrete he would have given

his last crust to the “other fellow” without even stopping to divide it.

The world would fare ill without Franz and Polly, who, perhaps, add

quite as much to the sum of human happiness as more self-devoted and

far-seeing people. Indeed, in case of a clear duty, both can be

sufficiently self-sacrificing; and though Franz will never believe the

Commune is imminent until it is proclaimed from the Bartholdi statue to

the Bay of ‘Frisco, yet, if he returns to America in time, he will, when

any important questions are to be settled by the ballot, invariably vote

on the right side.

They were married—of course, by Mr. Clare—in time to permit Franz’s

return to take part in a musical festival in B——, and departed together,

very happy, though amid some tears from Polly, promising to return in a

few years at most.

CHAPTER III.

PANSIES.

It was shortly before the wedding, during the prevalence of a “cool

wave,” that Mr. Clare gave a “tea-party,” as Miss Sally called it. The

“tea” consisted of coffee and small cakes, and the party was

characterized by Dr. Richards, when he was invited to cast an eye over

the list of guests, as likely to result as did the celebrated meeting of

the Kilkenny cats. For it included not only Father McClosky, Pastor

Schaefer, and the Rector of St. Andrew’s, but also a very High Church

divine from North Micklegard who had recently got into trouble with his

bishop by a too promiscuous use of certain technical phrases, a noted

evangelist, and a Temperance lecturer. More than this number the room

would not conveniently hold; and it must be admitted that, although they

passed the time of day and discussed the recent flood as amicably as was

to have been expected from men vowed to the service of humanity, there

lurked in the corner of each reverend eye such a “say unto me

Shibboleth,” that their host congratulated himself more than once upon

the mollifying influence of the “cool wave,” and glanced appreciatingly

at Father McClosky, who, strong in his hold upon the Rock of St. Peter,

balanced his rotund person upon the hind-legs of his chair, and told

anecdotes worthy of Joe Miller.

At last Mr. Clare, who had been rather grave and silent for some time,

rapped slightly upon the table.

“My friends,” he said, “when I asked you to meet me here to-night, I

mentioned my wish to discuss certain public questions, in a spirit of

love and truth, with a number of representative men, who, as

individuals, possess great influence over large constituencies. I will

now add that these public questions have no reference to any theological

dogma, or pious opinion that may be held or advocated by any of us; and,

while I therefore am assured of greater unanimity than might otherwise

be expected,”—here the orator smiled slightly,—“I hope for such

diversity of view as may bring the truth most clearly to light.”

“Ye’re a set of black-hearted Protestants, all of ye,” said Father

McClosky cheerfully; “but, sure, I’ve the coffee urn forninst me, and

the blacker ye get, the more I’ll drink. So drive away, me boys, ’tis

not meself will pay the piper.”

There was a general smile at this, and after a few references to

possible vengeance wreaked by the coffee urn, in the form of dyspepsia,

the High-Churchman courteously requested that Mr. Clare would state the

questions upon which he desired their views.

“It is the cry of the day,” said Mr. Clare, “that Religion has lost her

hold on the masses, and, among the educated classes, on _men_; I wish to

ask you, gentlemen, for your personal experience upon this matter, if

you will be so kind; of course, with the understanding that every word

shall be considered by all of us strictly confidential.”

“Well, _my_ religion is temperance,” said the lecturer, “and that hasn’t

lost its hold on the masses, by a large majority. On the contrary, it is

gaining ground every day.”

“I was prepared to hear you say so. Now may I ask what is the

proportion—approximate, of course—between the number of men and women

engaged in temperance work?”

“Why, the women are for us every time, except such unfortunates as are

themselves slaves of rum, a larger number than is generally believed, I

regret to say, though there is no way of getting at the exact figures.

And they are much more difficult to get hold of; in fact, if we look at

the relative numbers of male and female drunkards—as near as we can

estimate them—the proportion of those reformed will be about five to

one. That is, of twenty male drunkards, known and unknown, and the same

number of females, in the first case we might hope to reform _all_, in

the second only four.”

Mr. Clare sighed. “Let us hope,” he said, “that a part, at least, of the

sixteen, reform as they have sinned, in secret and unknown. And now,” he

turned to the evangelist, “I suppose there is no doubt that your

meetings are well attended?”

“Sometimes a cat could get her whiskers in,” replied that personage

succinctly; “but there are plenty of backsliders.”

“And the proportion of men and women?”

“Well, some say there are—and some say there ain’t—several hundred

thousand more women in the world than men, so naturally we have more at

our meetings, and more women converts, but the proportion don’t go

beyond what one might expect; and if more of ‘em are converted, fewer of

‘em backslide,” said the Evangelist.

There was a melancholy pause, then Father McClosky said with something

of the expression of a dog that expects a beating,—

“I’ll speak next, and encourage ye. Phy is it, I don’t know, but there’s

mighty few _men_ that comes aither to mass or confession nowadays,

though the women are pretty faithful, the Blessed Mother be praised.”

“It is true,” said the High-Churchman; “the proportion is very

discouraging: I have about six times as many female penitents as male.”

Father McClosky looked very quizzical just at this point; but, catching

a pleading glance from his host, he helped himself to a cup of coffee,

and left the floor to the rector of St. Andrew’s.

“My church has been very full of late,” he said, “and the increase has

been chiefly men; the growth would be still more marked, I dare say,” he

added, smiling, “if the expression of our host’s peculiar views were not

restrained—muzzled, so to speak—out of deference to my feelings.”

He exchanged a glance of affectionate confidence with Ernest Clare, then

the latter turned to Pastor Schaefer.

“It rests with you now to speak, Herr Pastor,” he said, “though I

believe I know what your reply will be.”

“My church is full every Sunday,” said the pastor proudly, “and the men

outnumber the women two to one.”

“And, I believe, formerly the proportions were reversed,” said Mr.

Clare. “Gentlemen, my own experience has been similar to that of the

Herr Pastor. When I began my ministry, I preached to congregations of

women. This did not impress me as at all in order; for the Revelation of

God was a revelation to _men_; the Jewish Church was a church of men,

the Bible was written for men, and Christianity was preached to men.

Therefore, if it have now lost its hold upon them, it must be either

that we men, as men, have undergone a radical change, or that the faith

which once moved us is wrongly preached. Of course, an unbeliever would

say that the world is outgrowing Christianity; but that women, as more

conservative and less enlightened—as a class—than men, cling to it

longest. But I am not addressing a party of unbelievers, but of

Christians, therefore we may dismiss that explanation at once.”

“But even though a man may not have outgrown his coat, yet if it has

been fastened up behind by two or three heretical pins, he may not be

able to put it on,” said Father McClosky innocently.

“Omitting the word heretical, which bears a different meaning

to—perhaps—each of us, your conclusion was mine,” said Mr. Clare,

smiling. “For I do not think, gentlemen, that human nature or even

masculine nature has changed very much in the last eighteen hundred

years.”

“It hasn’t changed materially since the days of Homer,” said the

High-Churchman. “Love, war, and religion were the keys to it then. Love,

competition, and money are the keys to it now.”

“That ain’t bad,” said the evangelist; “you wouldn’t mind my using that,

would you? I could do more damage with it than you could.”

“You are most kind, and I am highly flattered,” said the High-Churchman.

“I’m kinder rusty on Homer,” said the lecturer, with a grin, “but I

don’t think human nature has changed much since Jacob’s time. He took a

deal of money in his, if I remember right, or cattle, which is much the

same thing. Yet Jacob was a religious man, too; and the Jews were a

religious people.”

“Their religion was slightly erratic at times, but no one can deny that

they had plenty of it. Well, then, I suppose you all agree that the

fault lies not in Christianity, or in the hearers of it, but in the

manner of presenting it?”

“But what _is_ the fault?” asked the rector of St Andrew’s earnestly.

“The form of religion which is gaining ground with the masses, and which

is still the religion of men, is temperance,” said Mr. Clare.

“Revivalists and evangelists, like our friend here, move the masses

powerfully for a time, but, as he tersely expresses it, they backslide.

Religious bodies, such as those which the rest of us represent, are

_losing_—let us admit the truth that we may amend our mistake—are losing

ground with the masses as a whole, and with the men of the educated

classes, every day of our lives.”

“I fear you are right,” said the High-Churchman, sighing, “though

missions and street-preaching have done a good deal; but, as you say,

they backslide. We can _get_ them, but the thing is to _keep_ them.”

“Exactly. Now, not to speak of the earliest ages of Christianity,

religion still had some power when St. Leo saved Rome and the barbarian

invaders bowed their heads to receive baptism! And in the Middle Ages”—

“The Ages of Faith!” sighed the High-Churchman.

“The Ages of Superstition and priestcraft,” cried the rector of St.

Andrew’s.

“The Ages when Religion stood in the forefront of the battle for freedom

and enlightenment,” said Mr. Clare. “Who drained the marshes and made

the waste places fruitful? The monks! Who stood as protector between

master and slave, oppressor and oppressed? The Church! Who were doctors,

lawyers, teachers, musicians, and architects? The clergy, religious and

secular. Then, as a result of their own very work, some of these

‘professions,’ as we still call them, passed into the hands of the

laity; that is, those who studied medicine could find facilities for so

doing elsewhere than in the cloister.”

“And the monks became jealous,” said the rector of St. Andrew’s.

“Their human nature was the same as ours,” was the reply; “besides, they

really considered human learning something so dangerous in itself that

it ought to be exercised only under the mighty protection of the Church.

We must remember that the Cross was stamped upon what we still call a

crucible, to protect it from the demons who guarded the secrets of

nature, if we would understand the imprisonment of Friar Bacon. The less

pious the experimenter, the more dangerous the experiment: and even the

most religious trembled for his soul in drawing a pentagon, or setting

free those dangerous creatures which we still call geists, ghosts, or

_gases_.”

“The more fools they,” said the Lecturer.

“But, considering the faith of the scientific world now, are ye sure

they were entirely wrong?” asked the Father.

“When oxygen and nitrogen produce water, or right doing produces a wrong

effect, I shall be sure they were entirely _right_,” replied Mr. Clare.

“But we wander from our subject. Take the time of the Religious Wars.

Had religion lost its power _then_ over the masses?”

“The religion of Rome had, over a large part of them,” said the Pastor.

“Because the religion of Rome had become a drag on progress, instead of

its banner-bearer,” said Mr. Clare.

Father McClosky took another cup of coffee. Mr. Clare glanced at him

with a slight smile, and took up his subject a little farther on.

“Look at the English Revolution under Cromwell, and the times which

immediately succeeded it. Neither religion nor its ministers were

powerless to move the masses then.”

“But phwat’s your conclusion?” asked Father McClosky, with some

irritation. “Give us the conclusion, and we can find out the premises

ourselves.”

“You’ll feel better by and by, Bryan,” said his friend, laughing, “and

in what I have to say now we’re all in the same box, except that your

church has rather the advantage. I believe, gentlemen, that the reason

Religion has lost her hold on the masses is because, though not exactly

a drag, she certainly no longer leads the van of progress. Why, it has

even become a sort of reproach that such a man introduces politics into

his pulpit! As if politics were not to the State what religion is to the

individual!”

“Good!” said the temperance lecturer.

“But, my dear friend,” said the rector of St. Andrew’s gently, “you know

we have already agreed that our congregations consist chiefly of women!

Now, what would be the practical use of preaching high or low tariff, or

free trade, to a set of non-voters? while, as for the men, even if they

came to hear us, and considered a parson’s opinions worthy of anything

more than silent contempt,—why, I really fear that the only effect we

should produce would be that of a disgraceful row.”

“I should say so!” replied Mr. Clare, laughing; “but, my dear rector,

the subjects you suggest belong to a past age of the world. You might as

well spend your time in refuting the errors of the Donatists or

Sabellians as to preach either tariff—high or low—or free trade. The

issues are deeper now.”

“I really cannot see it,” said the rector.

“No; I fear we have not absorbed all the lessons of the Cannomore

disaster,” replied Mr. Clare quietly.

“I have been much impressed lately,” said the High-Churchman, who had

evidently been feeling around in his mind for the key of this enigma,

“by the increasing frequency of the allusions in current literature to

an imminent social revolution. Is that what you mean?”

“You do well to use the word imminent,” returned the other gravely.

“But you would not, surely, have us preach _that_!”

“If we don’t, I fear it will preach to us,” said Mr. Clare.

“Well, to be sure, we all know your views,” said the evangelist, “and I

guess most of us suspected what you were driving at; but I’ve converted

too many to be an easy convert myself. You’ve got to prove it every

time.”

“Prove what? the reality of the danger?”

“Well, no!” said the lecturer, “I admit the danger now and here. A

government that licenses the sale of poison has got to fall, sooner or

later, if God Almighty is the Ruler of heaven and earth.”

“_Is_ He the Ruler of earth?” asked Mr. Clare.

“Well! He rules over a set of awful rebels, I admit,” replied the

lecturer.

“Then, see here, my friend; while you are blaming the government for

failing to exercise a power that it doesn’t possess, don’t you feel that

you waste time? Wouldn’t it be wiser and more economical of nervous

force to give the power to the government first, and then require its

exercise?”

“But how are you going to do it?” asked the lecturer.

“I don’t think that is the next question,” observed the High-Churchman;

“you should ask first, how would government exercise such power if it

possessed it?”

“Government can and does, at need, absolutely forbid the sale of liquors

in a military camp,” said Mr. Clare; “and if the entire Union were one

vast camp, garrisoned by an industrial army, working for and paid by

government”—

“By George!” said the temperance lecturer.

“Now, to the rest of you,” said Mr. Clare, smiling at the lecturer’s

sudden “satisfaction,” “I can present what I wish to say most

succinctly, by reading a series of extracts from Lange’s ‘History of

Materialism.’ The authority is a good one, and ought to weigh with us

the more strongly because the author is—or was—not a nominal Christian.”

“But I do not agree with you!” cried the pastor, who had until now been

completely silenced by Irish and American loquacity. “I cannot, as a

Christian pastor, accept the authority of an infidel”—

“Not even when he agrees with you?” asked Mr. Clare, and began to read

before the other could reply.

“‘The present state of things has often been compared with that of the

ancient world before its dissolution.... We have the immoderate growth

of riches, we have the proletariat, we have the decay of morals and

religion; the present forms of government all have their existence

threatened, and the belief in a coming general and mighty revolution is

widely spread and deeply rooted.’

“Nor,” said Mr. Clare, “need we look for our Goths and Vandals only

among the whites. It is my firm belief that only the establishment of a

Commune can save us from a race war, the most deadly and terrible the

world has ever seen. But to continue:—

“‘It is very probable that the energetic, even revolutionary efforts of

this century to transform the form of society in favor of the poor and

down-trodden masses, are very intimately connected with New-Testament

ideas, though the champions of these efforts feel themselves bound in

other respects to oppose what is nowadays called Christianity. History

affords us a voucher for this idea in the fusion of religious and

communistic ideas in the extreme left of the reformation movement of the

sixteenth century.’”

“But what did Count Zinzendorff and his dear Moravians know of

Communism, unless they learned it from the convents and the Church at

large?” asked Father McClosky.

“Or the Book of Acts and the Bible at large,” said his friend.

“Nevertheless, my dear Bryan, you are quite right. We have had to thank

the religious orders for many things already. It is quite probable that

the next generation will learn in their school histories that the ideal

of Communism, ‘_Nihil habentes; omnia possidentes_,’ was kept alive in

the cloister until the world was ready for it. The next extract deserves

our very best attention, gentlemen.

“‘If it comes to the dissolution of our present civilization, it will

hardly be that any existing church, and still less Materialism, will

succeed to the inheritance; but from some unsuspected corner will emerge

some utter absurdity, like the Book of Mormon, or Spiritualism, with

which the justified ideas of the epoch will fuse themselves, to found a

new centre of universal thought, to last, perhaps, for thousands of

years.’”

“Theosophy?” said the High-Churchman, laughing, as the reader paused.

“I should be sorry to see theosophy raise the banner of Socialism, I

confess,” said Mr. Clare. “Flimsy as it is, with its attempts at natural

science, it advocates a pure morality, and has already proclaimed the

Brotherhood of Man. Let it now come forward as the champion of the poor,

and the masses will flock to it.”

“But, phy not,” asked the priest, “av it is so pure and moral as ye

say?”

“It may seem to contradict my own principle, which is to welcome truth,

wherever and however it be found,” said Mr. Clare; “but I don’t

deprecate any influence that will make a man moral; I merely deprecate

the occupation of the throne by any but the rightful heir. But we shall

come to that presently. Let me read you a little more.

“‘There is but one means to meet the alternative of this revolution, or

of a dim stagnation.... _Ideas_ and sacrifices may yet save our

civilization, and transform the path that leads through desolating

revolutions into a path of beneficent reforms.... Even to-day, again, a

new religious community might, by the power of its ideas and the charm

of its social principles, conquer a world by storm.... Whether even out

of the old confessions such a stream of new life might proceed, or

whether conversely a religionless community could kindle a fire of such

devouring force, we do not know. One thing, however, is certain. If the

New is to come into existence and the Old is to disappear, two great

things must combine,—a world-kindling ethical idea, and a social

influence which is powerful enough to lift the depressed masses a great

step forward. Sober reason, artificial systems, cannot do this. The

victory over disintegrating egoism and the deadly chilliness of the

heart will only be won by a great Ideal, which appears amongst the

wondering peoples as a “stranger from another world,” and by demanding

the impossible unhinges the reality!

“‘Often already has an epoch of materialism been but the stillness

before the storm, which was to burst forth from unknown gulfs, and give

a new shape to the world.... The social question stirs all Europe, a

question on whose wide domain all the revolutionary elements of science,

of religion, and of politics seem to have found the battleground for a

great and decisive contest. Whether this battle remains a bloodless

conflict of minds, or whether, like an earthquake, it throws down the

ruins of a past epoch with thunder into the dust, and buries millions

beneath the wreck, certain it is that the new epoch will not conquer

unless it be under the banner of a great idea, which sweeps away egoism,

and sets human perfection in human fellowship as a new aim, in place of

restless toil, which looks only to personal gain.’

“That banner of a great idea,” said Mr. Clare, “should it not bear the

figure of the seventh angel, the sounding of whose trumpet was followed

by great voices in heaven, saying ‘The kingdom of the world is become

the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever

and ever!’ Gentlemen, do you ask a stronger lever whereby to move the

masses?”

There was a pause, then the High-Churchman said slowly, “You are an

enthusiast, Mr. Clare, and enthusiasm is an exceedingly valuable quality

when used on the right side. But, though, of course, you are not

conscious of it, you talk very like a demagogue. One would wish, and we

of the clergy give our lives, that all should be brought into the fold;

but not for the sake of the loaves and fishes.”

“Does sheep ate fish?” asked Father McClosky with a look of inquiring

innocence; but Mr. Clare frowned him into silence, and answered

quickly,—

“The crying defect—perhaps I should say the worst heresy—of our day is,

that it divides Christ. He is, we are told, perfect man and perfect God;

but in practice we clergy, and Christians generally, represent Him as

God only, leaving the beauty of His manhood, the religion of humanity,

to those who deny His Godhead.”

“I don’t think I quite understand you,” said the High-Churchman.

“If you find a family starving,” said Mr. Clare, “you, as a man, relieve

them to the extent of your last penny, and call upon your congregation

to help. It is true that you do this because He says, ‘Inasmuch as ye do

it unto these, ye do it unto me;’ but if the poor people themselves ask,

‘Why does God let us suffer when there is so much wealth in the world,

and He is Almighty?’ you reply, ‘My dear friends, we must not dispute

God’s decrees. He makes some men rich and others poor, and He doth all

things well. But He feeds all with the bread of heaven who call upon

Him, and when you come to that land where we shall hunger no more,

neither thirst any more, He shall wipe away all tears from off all

faces.’”

The High-Churchman laughed good-humoredly. “In that connection it sounds

very like a satire, or would, to the starving family,” he said. “But it

is sound doctrine for all that, Mr. Clare.”

“It has saved the world for nearly nineteen centuries,” said Mr. Clare.

“Yet the inevitable deduction of the starving family would be, either

that God understood nothing of human needs and desires, or that, however

good His meaning and intentions, His power was limited.”

“But things of earth are as dust to Him,” said the rector of St.

Andrew’s. “It is the things of heaven that are permanent and real. What

will be to us a little more or less hunger or sorrow or cold or

nakedness, when we awake up satisfied, after His likeness?”

Mr. Clare regarded the speaker with a glance of reverent tenderness.

“Most true,” he said gently, “and therefore you never give to any

temporal needs?”

“You’ve got him there,” said the evangelist. “Well, I see what you mean,

Mr. Clare, but I _don’t_ see what you are going to do about it. Now, I,

for one, don’t think Socialism a practicable thing; I may wish it was,

but I think it ain’t; so do you expect me to preach a kingdom that I

don’t believe would run two months?”

“People said that our present form of government was impracticable,”

replied Mr. Clare, “and there were many prophecies as to the length of

time it would last.”

“Prophecies which you want to fulfil?”

“By no means. Sudden and sweeping changes are exactly what I deprecate;

but when a form of government has once taken root, I don’t see any

objection to its bearing leaf, flower, and fruit. I hope we shall always

have a United States and a President thereof; though I might wish for a

few more amendments to the Constitution.”

“All right,” said the evangelist. “Which am I to preach about first?”

“Whichever you most strongly believe to be right and just. For instance,

take the trusts and syndicates; do you believe they are pleasing to your

King and mine?”

“Well, you know, trusts—why, you can’t have progress without the freedom

of the individual; and the freedom of the individual sometimes leads to

some other individual being robbed and murdered.”

“That’s all the answer I want,” said Mr. Clare, laughing. “Well, then,

our railroads and telegraph lines,—are they managed as they would be by

a company of angels?”

“There are angels and _angels_,” said the evangelist.

“Are the profits arising from manufactures, etc., equitably divided

between labor and capital?”

“That depends on your notion of equity, and who does the dividing.”

“Then it seems to me,” said Mr. Clare, “that you have a very fair

collection of subjects for sermons on hand, in all of which our Lord

Jesus, both as a man and as King of the whole earth, takes a deep and

practical interest.”

“_But_,” said the High-Churchman, “_I_ might preach such things, Mr.

Clare, for I have no wife and children dependent on me; and, as for our

friends here,”—he indicated the evangelist and the lecturer,—“the

multitudes would flock to hear them. But there is many a poor preacher

would starve if he acted as you would have him; for, remember, the laity

hold the purse-strings.”

“Let him starve, then, in God’s name,” said Mr. Clare passionately;

“have we not just heard how the things of earth are as dust beside the

things of heaven? And if the first kingdom has its martyrs, shall not

also the second? But I do not believe,” he went on more quietly, “that

such a course, whatever loss or want it might entail, whatever

sacrifices of one’s own personal likings and idiosyncrasies, would

involve absolute starvation. The money is not _all_ in the pockets of

the capitalists as yet, and a man who lost one pulpit would find

another, poorer, perhaps, but more powerful. Besides, what I want—the

only thing of real use—is not a sermon here or there, but a general

advance all along the line; a proclamation by the divines of every shade

of opinion that God Almighty takes an interest in politics.”

“It would be an evangelical alliance worth having,” said the

High-Churchman.

“It would be a power,” said Mr. Clare.

“The clerical vote, if it were solid, would be worth buying up,” said

the lecturer. And the evangelist added, “But what steps would you take

to organize your new alliance, and what would you call it?”

“Oh! don’t accuse me of trying to found a party,” said Mr. Clare. “I

have no idea of the kind, I assure you; neither party nor partisans.

_My_ party is ‘all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity;’

my emblem is the Cross; and the counter-sign, ‘Thy Kingdom come, Thy

will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’”

“I’m glad you don’t want to wave the red flag,” said the lecturer; “the

old Stars and Stripes are good enough for me.”

“Long may they wave,” said Mr. Clare. “No. I don’t feel drawn towards

the red flag; it is too distinctive, and would be a beacon rather than a

standard to most people. If I were to change my colors at all,” he went

on, smiling, “though I hope never to do so, I should adopt these.”

He took up a china flower-pot, very prettily decorated by Annie Rolf’s

own hand, wherein were growing large, richly colored purple and gold

pansies.

“The gold of love and the purple of self-devotion—of martyrdom at need,”

he said.

“‘The language of flowers I know not,

But pansies speak to me

Of hope for earth-born toilers,

In _time_ and eternity.’

Gentlemen, will you wear my heart’s-ease?”

The words were simple, but the tone was full of meaning. Instinctively

all felt that the climax of the evening had been reached, the closing

word been spoken; and each one, silently accepting a blossom and

exchanging a cordial pressure with the hand that bestowed it, with only

a murmured “Good-night,” left the room. Not the least cordial pressure

was that which came from the hand of Pastor Schaefer.

CHAPTER IV.

VÆ VICTIS.

Twelve months have passed since the “tea-party,” during which time, it

is to be feared, Mr. Clare has had cause to think more than once how the

pikes and eels preferred the old way. And yet he wears by no means a

discouraged expression as he walks with his constant companion, Louis

Metzerott, through the early August twilight, towards Dr. Richards’s

house. Something has been accomplished during this year, however little.

Pastor Schaefer sometimes holds consultation with him, though usually

not as the taker of what counsel is produced thereat; the rector of St.

Andrew’s, though he is “not to be expected to turn Socialist at his time

of life,” is slowly learning that God is the King of earth as well as of

heaven; and that, whatever blessing or needed lesson may come by means

of suffering, happiness is that which is most consonant with the divine

nature. The temperance lecturer has taken to denouncing the weakness of

the present civil authorities in the license question rather as a

misfortune than a fault; and the evangelist launches satire and

invective against the greed of money, and the evils of “practical

politics:” all which are steps in the right direction.

“But ye’ll never do it, Ernest, me boy,” Father McClosky had said

shortly after the “tea-party;” “ye’ll never get any of the sects nor

Holy Church nayther for your ‘general advance all along the line.’ Av

there was nothing else to prevent it, I’ll tell ye phwat would,—vested

interests. Think of the churches, schools, convents, hospitals, and all

them things; would we ever let them fall into the hands of heretics?”

“The question is, whether you can help it,” said Mr. Clare. “I see the

force of your remark, Bryan; but don’t you think the churches”—