DOROTHY'S CONVERSION.
"Oh, a tennis court! How glorious!" exclaimed Dorothy next morning as
she stepped out on the porch and caught her first glimpse of the side
lawn.
Sterling considered it a special providence that no intervening fence
separated the two residences, and nearly every afternoon found him on
the tennis grounds, an eager contestant in the game with Dorothy.
"Good-bye, Mr. Sterling," she said to him one afternoon at the close of
the game. "I must hurry in and do some packing. I shall turn traveler
tomorrow."
"What--going away?" he asked with a startled expression.
"Yes, I am going to Chicago for a few weeks to visit a girl friend."
The light fled from the sky for Sterling. For the next three weeks not
only Dorothy, but the center of the universe seemed to him to be located
in Chicago.
During Dorothy's visit a crisis occurred in her life. While attending a
church service with her girl friend she heard a strange sermon. How new
and startling it sounded. The preacher's theme was "Salvation Through
Christ", and she heard things she had never dreamed of before. Wild
questionings set her heart aflame and there was no rest for her that
night. Her soul's destiny was a subject to which she had never given
serious reflection.
She felt that the man whose sermon had thrown her into this dark
confusion was the only one who might give her light. She sought him out.
A father in Israel he was--Rev. Dr. Moreland, one of the most eminent
ministers in that city. He saw that as a little child she was eagerly
groping in the dark, and with the Bible as a lamp he led her step by
step into the light. She saw herself in God's sight a sinner, guilty and
condemned, and how helpless and hopeless to her seemed her condition.
The story of the Gospel sounded to her like music from Heaven. The love
of Christ for sinners melted her heart and she yielded herself in
child-like trust to him. In her own room at night the surrender was made
and it was complete.
"Son, I could easily tell that Dorothy is coming tomorrow," said Mrs.
Sterling.
"How do you know, mother?"
"By your face. You would have passed for an undertaker during the past
three weeks, and I have tried by every art, but in vain, to chase away
your funereal countenance."
Sterling broke into a hearty laugh.
"Mother, your imagination is out on a frolic. You will have to put a
bridle on it."
Mrs. Sterling was right. Gilbert had learned that Dorothy would arrive
on the morrow.
Dorothy had written her parents about her new-found joy, but they
understood it not. They thought that it was some girlish emotion that
her home life would quickly dissipate.
The news of her conversion came to Sterling as a burst of sunlight. In
speaking of it to his mother he said:
"Of one thing I am sure, and that is that she will make a glorious
Christian. What a light she will be in her home. And, mother, how fine
to have her in my church!"
Dorothy had shortened her visit that she might hurry home and tell her
loved ones of the change in her life. She could not explain the change,
but she knew that for her old things had passed away and all things had
become new.
She was anxious to tell her parents the simple story of Christ's love
and sacrifice for sinners. She recited it almost immediately after her
return, but their eyes seemed holden that they could not see. Possibly
they did not want to see. At any rate, Dorothy received her first biting
disappointment in the reception that her parents gave to her report
about her new-found Savior.
With Mr. Sterling it was different, and in him she found a sympathetic
listener to her story. Not that she impulsively bared her secrets to
him; he was eager to know it all, and his keen interest in contrast to
the utter lack of responsiveness on the part of the parents encouraged
her to confide in him, and to Dorothy, with her new and trembling
faith, Sterling was a friend in need.
A week had passed after her return, and one afternoon Sterling said to
her at the close of a tennis game that her coming into his church would
make their membership exactly 300.
"Mr. Sterling," she replied, "I am anxious to talk with your pastor, Dr.
Vincent, about which church I ought to join."
Her words smote him. The possibility of her uniting with any other
church than his own had not occurred to him, and the bare thought of it
put a load on his heart. He asked her what she meant by her remark
regarding Dr. Vincent.
"Dear old Dr. Moreland," she said, "whose church I attended in Chicago,
and who so kindly led me into the light, told me that I must be sure to
join some church, and when I asked him what church it should be he told
me that I must study my New Testament and let that guide me. I have
carefully read it through twice, and I cannot see that it has helped me
at all to decide about my church membership. I really do not know what
he meant."
Sterling was relieved and the load rolled off his heart, for he felt
sure that with her New Testament as her guide she would turn her steps
towards the Presbyterian church.
By this time they had reached the front porch, where the rest of the
family were seated, and when Dorothy made her last remark the brother,
who was sitting nearby, heard and said:
"What's the need, sister, of your joining any church? You don't think
the church will take you to Heaven, do you?"
"Hold on, son," spoke up the father, "I am not an expert on religious
matters, but it is a plain proposition to me that if Dorothy has
accepted Christianity and become a Christian, the place for her is the
church."
"But what good will it do, father?"
"I believe in a person being one thing or the other," said Mr. Page. "If
you are not a Christian, then of course keep out of the church; if you
set up to be a Christian, then take your medicine; if you claim to be a
soldier, then march up and put on the uniform and join the army."
"Oh, I never thought of not joining a church," said Dorothy.
"But I still hang to my point," said the brother. "Why does Dorothy have
to join the church? Do you think, sister, joining the church will save
you?"
"What a question, brother! Of course not. I hope I am saved already. I
have faith in Christ and I am looking to him for my salvation. Simply
having my name entered as a church member will not save me; I am very
ignorant about these matters, but Dr. Moreland told me that Christ
founded the church as the place in which he wished all who believed in
him to be gathered. If he formed the church for his believers, then is
it not the place for me?"
"Daughter, you are right there to a dot. If Christ organized the church
for his followers and you have given yourself to him, then if you
should refuse to enter the church I should doubt whether you had given
yourself to him; but I think you are wrong on one point. You spoke just
now about studying the Bible to learn what church you ought to join.
That's one on me. I never knew the Bible told a person what church he
ought to join; in fact, I did not think it made any difference what
church or denomination a person selected. I thought it was just pay your
money and take your choice."
"I thought," said the mother, "that all the churches were aiming in the
same direction and that all claimed to be founded on the Bible. Do you
think, daughter, that the Bible will tell you to join one particular
church or denomination rather than some other?"
"Mother, you are right there, as you generally are," said the father.
"Here is the Presbyterian church, the only strong church in town, and it
seems to be a mighty good one from all that I can hear of it. Do you
imagine, daughter, that you must study the Bible to learn whether it
will tell you to join this church or some other church that may be off
somewhere nobody knows where?"
Dorothy seemed lost in reflection.
"I wonder what Dr. Moreland could have meant?" she said. "I notice there
are different names by which the churches are known: for example, the
Presbyterians, the Methodists, etc. They call them, I believe,
denominations. Are these denominations the same? Why do they have the
different names, and why do some people join one denomination and some
another?"
"That is not strange, daughter," spoke up the father. "There are
different kinds of dresses, and one woman prefers one kind and another
another. Some people like the Presbyterian church, some the Methodist
church and so on. It is not a Bible question, simply a question of
taste."
"Miss Dorothy, the denominations differ in matters of doctrine," said
Mr. Sterling.
"You mean, then," said Dorothy, a light coming into her eye, "that the
people who believe that the Bible teaches certain doctrines go into one
church, and the people who believe that it teaches another set of
doctrines go into another church, and that each one joins the church of
his own beliefs?"
"You are entirely correct," said Sterling, confident that when she
compared the denominations his church would win the day. "The
Presbyterian church is founded on the bed rock of Scripture and draws
its life blood from its sacred pages."
"Do you not see, father," said Dorothy, "that in order for me to decide
which church I ought to join I must study the Bible for myself and then
join the church that seems to come nearest to what the Bible seems to me
to teach?"
"I don't agree with you, sister," said Roland. "You say you must join
the church that comes nearest to what the Bible seems to you to teach.
But you know very little about what the Bible teaches. Had you not
better take what old Dr. Vincent, who has been a life-long student of
the Bible, says the Bible teaches than to take what you, after a few
readings, decide it teaches? Why, certainly. I'd rather a thousand times
trust him to tell me what that Book teaches than for me to decide
myself."
"But, brother, I think you miss the point. Dr. Vincent can tell me what
he thinks the Bible teaches, but some learned minister in another
denomination might tell me the Bible taught something different. Mr.
Sterling says each denomination has its own doctrines which it believes
the Bible teaches. If I am going to take what some learned Bible student
says, then which one must I follow? One will tell me that the Bible
teaches the Presbyterian doctrines and another will tell me it teaches
the Methodist doctrines."
"Exactly; and no matter what you do you cannot be sure you are right. I
think one is about as apt to be right as the other. The only thing is to
take a man that you believe is an honest and wise student of the Book
and ask him to tell you its teachings."
"Oh, brother, that doesn't appeal to me at all. I dare not take another
person's word for what this Bible teaches. I can take his counsel and
the counsel of everybody else that I can secure, but I must give the
final decision, I must study this Book for myself. Dr. Vincent is a good
and wise man, of course, but I cannot look into his heart for all the
thoughts that have led him to his decision. The question before me is
not what church does Mr. Vincent think comes nearest the Bible, but what
church do I think comes the nearest."
"Daughter," said Mr. Page, "you are on the right track. You can get all
the light possible from Dr. Vincent and anybody else you choose, but you
are the judge that must bring in the verdict, and when you make the
decision there is no court of appeals. But you have a huge job on your
hands. You must first study all the denominations and then you've got to
master your Bible to see which one of all the denominations squares with
the Book."
"Oh," said Dorothy in a tone of despair, "how can I ever decide such a
big question? Won't you help me, Mr. Sterling?"
Sterling felt that he would like to spend several centuries, beginning
with that very second, in the single matter of helping her. He remarked
with a smile: "Miss Dorothy, I think you need not be alarmed; you are
not as much in the wilderness as you imagine. Suppose on examination you
find that the doctrines of our church are in accord with the teachings
of the Bible, then your duty is plain, is it not?"
"Yes," she replied with a sigh of relief, "and won't you tell me what
are the doctrines of your church?"
His eyes answered her request before his lips had an opportunity to
respond.
"Now you are getting out into the road," said the father. "Tell it to
her, Friend Sterling, and I guess she will find that your church plumbs
the track. In fact, I reckon most of them do."
"Dinner is ready," called the mother.
"There, now," said the father, "that breaks up the meeting at the
critical point, but come in to dinner, Sterling, and we will open the
campaign again after dinner."
"Yes, please do come, Mr. Sterling," said Dorothy. "I am so anxious to
know what are the doctrines of your church."
Sterling was compelled to decline, inasmuch as he had promised to be at
home for dinner to meet a business friend of his father's, but he
assured them that he would be on hand for the discussion very soon after
dinner.