Never in his life had Murray Van Rensselaer been asked to make a speech
or do a stunt that he had been known to refuse or be inadequate to
the occasion. It had been his boast that a fellow could always say
something if he would just have his wits about him, but the time had
come when wits would not serve him. He was suddenly confronted with
the Lord God, and told to speak to Him before many witnesses! A great
swelling horror arose around him like a cloud of enemies about to
throttle him. His speech went from him, and his strength, also his
self-confidence. A few weeks back he might have jumped to his feet
and rattled off a pleasant little prayer, fitting in its petitions,
correct in its address and setting, and felt smart about having arisen
to the occasion. Not so now. He felt himself to be sitting confused and
ashamed before the Lord, and he had nothing to say.
He was in sore straits. He realized fully that if he did not do what he
was asked, his mask was off, and before all this assembled multitude he
would be discovered and brought to shame. Yet he dared not say off a
prayer that he did not mean. So much he had grown in the knowledge of
the Holy One. He knew it would be blasphemy.
There was a dead silence in the room, a settling down of awe and
waiting; half-bowed heads, trying to glimpse the new president before
the petition began, yet reverently waiting for him to address the
great high throne of God for them.
A panic came upon him. He dared not sit still. Old habit of responding
to any challenge, no matter how daring, goaded him; fear got him to his
unwilling feet, and there he stood.
The silence grew. The heads were bent reverently now. Such a young man
to be such a great leader they thought. Such a deep spiritual look upon
his face!
Murray stood there and faced God, his voice all gone!
Then the audience seemed to melt away behind a great misty cloud.
A radiance was before his closed eyes, and his voice came back.
Unwillingly it had to speak, to recognize the Presence in which he
stood.
“Oh, God!--”
A wave of sympathy came up from the audience inaudibly, as incense from
an altar. Murray felt the uplift of their spirits, as if they were far
away, yet pressing him forward.
“You know I am not worthy to speak for this people--” He paused. His
forehead was damp with the mighty physical effort of the words, as if
they were drawn forth from his very soul.
“You know I am a sinful man--”
He felt as if he stood in the court-room at last, confessing himself
guilty before the world. Now his mother would know! Now his father
would know! Now Bessie’s mother, and Mrs. Summers, and all of them
would know, but he was glad! Already his soul felt lighter! The burden
was going!
“You know I am not what they think--!” he burst forth. “I am not able
to preside at a meeting like this. Won’t _You_ take my place, O God?
Won’t _You_ lead these people, and won’t _You_ help me and tell me what
to do? I am willing for You to do what You like with me. I’m _hiding_
in You!”
He hesitated. Then he added what he had heard in prayers ever since
he came to Marlborough, what Mrs. Summers always closed her evening
petition with--“For Jesus Christ’s sake, Amen.”
Two ministers at the back of the church whispered to one another softly.
“A most remarkable prayer!” said one.
“Yes, and a most remarkable young man, they say!” said the other. “A
wonder in this age that his head is not turned with all the praise he
is receiving. How humble he is!”
Murray slumped into his seat with a sense of exhaustion upon him, and
dropped his head upon his shielding hand. The leader in a sweet tenor
voice started softly the hymn:
“Have Thine own way, Lord, Have Thine own way!
Thou art the potter, I am the clay:
Mould me and make me after thy will,
While I am waiting yielded and still.”
The many voices took it up and it swept through the room like a prayer,
softly, tenderly, the words clear and distinct. Murray had never heard
anything like it before.
“Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Search me and try me, Master, to-day!
Whiter than snow, Lord, Wash me just now,
As in Thy presence humbly I bow.”
Murray felt a great longing sweep over him to be washed whiter than
snow. He had never heard talk like this, but it filled his need. He
felt soiled inside. He did not understand it at all, but he seemed to
have been wandering for a long time in filth, and now he realized that
what he needed was cleansing. His own soul began to cry out with the
spirit of the prayer-song that was trembling about him from all these
people, who seemed to know the words, and by some miracle to all feel
the same way that he did. Why! Were they all praying for him?
--“wounded and weary, help me I pray!
Power, all power, surely is Thine!
Touch me and heal me Saviour divine!”
They sang with such assurance, as if they knew He could and would
do what they asked. Dared he ask too? Were there conditions to such
assurance? Would God take a man who had killed a girl, and then gone on
masquerading as a Christian just to save his skin alive?
“Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!” went on the quiet
prayer. Ah! That was the condition. Surrender! Well, he was ready. That
was what that fellow Saul did, just said, “Lord, what wilt Thou have me
to do?” He could ask that.
“Hold o’er my being absolute sway!” went on the song. Yes, he could
echo that. He was ready for anything, if there was only a way out of
this awful hole he was in. He was sick of himself and his own way. It
had never been much but froth. He saw that now. Why had he not seen it
before?
“Fill with Thy Spirit till all shall see
Christ only, always, living in me!”
What would that be like? Filled with Christ’s spirit! And men looking
at him would see Christ, not Murray Van Rensselaer any more. He
understood. That was just what he had been trying to put across about
Allan Murray, and he had almost done it. That was the reason why he
had not been able to get away, because men looking at him had seen
Allan Murray, and taken him for what they expected Allan Murray to be!
Ah! But this was to be Jesus Christ! Could he possibly get away with
that? Only this was not to be a getaway. It was to be real. He was to
surrender, and let Jesus Christ live in him. Just cut out the things he
wanted as if they were not, and let the Spirit of Christ do with him
what He liked. Would that be unbearable? What was there he cared for
anyway now? Why! He _wanted_ to do this! He _wanted_ to be made over!
He _wanted_ to die to the old life forever and be made new, and this
seemed to be the only way to do it: _Could this be the new birth?_
There were other voices praying now, just short sentence prayers,
tender and pleading, and all with an assurance as if the Lord to whom
they prayed were quite near. They prayed for the young leader, that the
Holy Spirit might be outpoured upon him, and Murray sat with bowed head
in great wonder and humility, and spoke within himself:
“Oh, God! Hear them! Hear them! _Let me be Your child too!_” Surely,
then, before the Throne, mention was made of Murray Van Rensselaer’s
name, and it was said of him, “For, behold he prayeth!”
Murray went through the rest of that Convention in a daze of joy and
wonder. He was not aware that he was doing an amazing thing, really an
outrageous thing when one came to think of it. He had not the slightest
perception of the gigantic fraud he was perpetrating upon an adoring
public. He was absorbed in the thing that had come to pass within his
own soul.
Every prayer that ascended to heaven, every song that was sung, every
speech that was made, he drank in like the milk of a new-born babe.
It all seemed to be happening for him. He was learning great things
about this Saviour that was his. He was finding out new facts about the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit. For before he was like some of the early
Christians, who said, “We have not so much as heard whether there be
any Holy Ghost.” He was but a babe in the truth.
For the rest he did as he was told. They asked him to preside at
the meeting, and with gravity and humility he took his place, not
realizing at all that it was presumption in him, and that he was a
false deceiver. His entire mind was engrossed with the wonder that had
been wrought in himself. He went through the entire two days as one
goes through a fire or an earthquake, or any other sudden cataclysm
which changes everything normal, and where one has to act for the
moment. He had no consciousness for the time being of the past or its
consequences, or that he was in the least responsible for them now.
Back in his mind he knew they were to be reckoned with some time, but
he seemed to sense as the babe senses its mother’s care, that he now
had a Saviour to deal with those things for him. He was a new creature
in Christ. Old things were passed away, and behold all things were
become new!
They were wonderfully kind and helpful to him. They had all the matters
of business carefully thought out and written up on little cards, with
the hours neatly penned, and what he had to say about each item of
business. They handed him a new card at the beginning of each session,
and they thought him so modest that he kept in the background, and
did not try to shine when everybody was ready to bow down to him. He
asked intelligent questions now and then about matters of business,
and he carried them through without a hitch when it came to voting and
appointing committees.
Somehow, too, he got through the introductions which were a part of
his duty, though none of the speakers were at all known to him. They
would say, “Now, the next is Scarlett, from Green County. You know,
the fellow that made his mark getting hold of the foreigners in his
district and forming them into a society, and finally into the nucleus
of a church. Great fellow, Scarlett! Give him the best send-off you
can! He isn’t very prepossessing in appearance, but he’s a live wire!”
And Murray would get up and revamp these remarks into the finest kind
of a “send-off,” in his own peculiarly happy phrasing, and then sit
down and wonder as some plain little man, with clothes from a cheap
department store, and an unspeakable necktie, would get up and tell in
murderous English of the souls that had been saved and the workers that
had developed in his little corner of the vineyard. Murray found his
eyes all dewy and his voice husky when the Scarlett man was done, and
he turned for his next cue to his mentor.
“Whipple of China. Yes, _the_ Whipple! Stuck by his Mission when the
mob was burning his school, and came through. He’s back, you know. Got
it all built up again. Raised the money himself--but he’ll tell about
that, of course.”
And Murray would get up and say:
“It ill befits me to try to say anything in introducing Mr. Whipple,
of China. You all know of his thrilling escape, and of his wonderful
success in rebuilding the work that the enemy had pulled down. I am
sure you want to hear him tell his own story, and I will not take one
moment of his precious time in anticipating it. Mr. Whipple.”
Then he would sit down again to listen to a tale of God’s care for
His own, more thrilling than any that had ever come his way in story,
drama, or life. And this was what men who knew the Lord had been doing
with their lives! While he had been drivelling his away in childish
nonsense, they had been risking their lives for the sake of telling the
story of salvation. Salvation! Oh, _Salvation_! What a great word! He
seemed never to have heard it before. What if some one had shouted that
in his ear as he started away in the night from that hospital door?
If it had been whispered behind him as he stood by Mrs. Chapparelle’s
kitchen window and watched her go away to answer the door-bell! If he
could have heard it as he lay on the trucks of the freight car and
rode over the tortuous way! That there _was_ salvation! Salvation for
him! Why, he had not even realized then that he was a sinner. He had
only thought of the consequences of his sin if he were found out. He
had felt sorry for having hurt Bessie and her mother, of course, but
he had no sense of personal sin. And now he had. Now he knew what the
burden had been that weighted him down, growing gradually heavier and
heavier through the weeks. And now it was gone! He wanted to run and
shout that there was such a word as salvation, and that it was his! He
did not quite know how he got it nor what it was, but he knew it was
his, and that he had surrendered himself for life. He was not his own
any more. He belonged to some one who would undertake for him. His old
self was dead, and Christ had promised to see to all that. There would
be things for him to do, of course, when this meeting was over. He did
not know what they were, but he would be shown. He was like a person
blinded now, groping, being led. It came to him that he was like Saul
of Tarsus, waiting there in the street called Straight, for some one
to say, “Brother Saul, receive thy sight!” Strange what an impression
that first Bible story of his life had made upon him! It probably would
not have been remembered if he had not heard it in such a peculiar way,
first taught by his wild little Sunday-school class, and then read
slowly, with original comments, by Mrs. Summers not many nights later
at her evening worship. He realized that he had got a great deal of
knowledge from Mrs. Summers. He put that away in his mind for future
gratitude, and absorbed himself in listening to the speakers, who one
and all seemed to have the same power and impetus back of their lives,
whether they were from China or Oklahoma or Sayres’ Corners. Not all
of them could speak good grammar. Not all of them knew how to turn a
finished phrase, but all knew the Lord Jesus Christ, and seemed glad
about it. Strange there could have been so many people in the world who
knew and loved these things, and believed in a life that was invisible
and eternal, and he had never come in contact with any of them before!
He had known church people, not a few. His mother went to church
sometimes, professed to be a member of one of the most fashionable
congregations in his home city, but he felt positive his mother knew
nothing of surrender to Christ. Why had no one ever told people in his
home circle? His father! Did his father know?
It was undoubtedly Murray’s absorption in the great new peace that
had come to his soul through simple self-surrender, that carried him
through the entire services of those days without self-consciousness or
fear. His quiet self-effacement made a deep impression on all. He did
not seem to realize that he had evaded all attempts to bring him into
the limelight. He had been so entirely taken up with his new thoughts
that the old situation that had haunted him for weeks was gone for the
time.
They came home on the midnight train, and it happened that the man from
China was riding on that same train to the city farther on, and sat
with Murray.
Now, Murray had never talked with a man face to face who had been
through so many hair-breadth escapes as this man from China. Neither
had he ever talked with a man or known a man who was so altogether
consecrated. So it came about that he sat an entranced listener again
to the words of a disciple who had given his life to preaching the
gospel in China.
“And how did you feel the night they surrounded the Mission with the
fire burning all about you, and creeping in the ceiling above?” asked
Murray, wonderingly. To think that a man had been through that and
could sit calmly and talk about it.
“Oh, well, I had to work all the time, of course, stamping out the fire
that fell all about, but I kept all the time thinking in the back of
my mind that perhaps I’d see the Lord Jesus Himself pretty soon. That
was a great thought. There was only one thing held me back. I didn’t
want to go till I had told a few more people about Him. I couldn’t bear
to go when there were so few of us telling the story, don’t you see?
Why, in China, do you know how many thousands of people there are to
a missionary? People I mean who have _never even heard_ the name of
_Jesus_?”
“No,” said Murray, “but I’m beginning to have a realizing sense of how
many thousands there are in my own land who don’t know Him, and haven’t
even got one missionary _to the whole bunch of them_! I’m wondering if
you could even _get at_ some of them to tell them, they’re so full of
their own matters. Take my own home city, now--.”
Murray had forgotten that he was Allan Murray now of Marlborough. He
was thinking of his home and father and mother, and the fashionable
circle from which he had fled. There is no telling what he might not
have said had not some one plucked him by the sleeve and called:
“Hey, Murray! This is our station! Aren’t you going to get out? Not
going on to China tonight, are you?” And they hustled him off into the
night, with the stars looking down and a strange feeling that all the
earth had been made over anew for him.
Murray undressed in a dream. He had not heard any of the nice things
they had said about him as they walked down the silent street to Mrs.
Summers’ door. He had answered only in monosyllables. He had been
thinking that when one got to know the news the next thing was to tell
it, and how was that going to work out with the life he had left behind
him and the mess that he was in? What was the thing for him to do next?
He did not see the pile of mail lying on his bureau. If he had he would
probably have paid very little heed to it. He had got over the sudden
start that it gave him to see mail addressed to Allan Murray awaiting
him. There had been letters several times, most of them circulars, one
or two business letters. He had pried them open carefully to discover
any possible clue to the situation, and then sealed them and put them
carefully away in the trunk. Opening the letters even of a dead man
were not to his taste, but in this case it seemed almost necessary if
he were to remain where he was.
However, the mail lay unnoticed till morning. He turned out the light
and knelt awkwardly by his bed. It is a strange thing when a man kneels
for the first time before his Maker. Murray dropped down and hid his
face in the pillow, as if he were coming to a refuge, yet did not know
what to say.
He knelt a moment quietly waiting, then he said aloud in a low clear
voice, as if there were some one else visible in the room:
“Lord, what do you want me to do now?”
In the morning he saw the letters. It was Sunday morning. He remembered
that at once, for a bell was ringing off in the distance somewhere.
And then his glance wandered to the little pile of letters lying on
the bureau. They seemed to recall him to himself. He reached out and
got them. Several circulars. There had been mail before from the
same firms. Two letters bore the names of Christian Endeavor County
Secretaries, and the last in the pile said, in a clear hand, written
in the upper left-hand corner: “If not called for in five days please
return to Mr. Allan Murray.”