The church which David's grim old Indian-fighting great-grandfather had
dedicated to freedom of belief in the wilderness, cutting off a parcel
of his lands as he had hotly sworn and building on it a schoolhouse
also, stood some miles distant across the country. The vast estate of
the pioneer had been cut to pieces for his many sons. With the next
generation the law of partible inheritance had further subdivided each
of these; so that in David's time a single small farm was all that had
fallen to his father; and his father had never increased it. The church
was situated on what had been the opposite boundary of the original
grant. But he with most of the other boys in the neighborhood had
received his simple education in that school; and he had always gone to
worship under that broad-minded roof, whatsoever the doctrines and
dogmas haply preached.
These doctrines and dogmas of a truth were varied and conflicting
enough; for the different flocks and herds of Protestant believers with
their parti-colored guides had for over fifty years found the place a
very convenient strip of spiritual pasture: one congregation now
grazing there jealously and exclusively; afterwards another.
On this quiet bright Sunday morning in the summer of 1865, the building
(a better than the original one, which had long before been destroyed
by accidental burning) was overcrowded with farming folk, husbands and
wives, of all denominations in the neighborhood, eager to hear the new
plea, the new pleader. David's father and mother, intense sectarians
and dully pious souls, sat among them. He himself, on a rearmost bench,
was wedged fast between two other lads of about his own age--they dumb
with dread lest they should be sent away to this university. The
minister soon turned the course of his sermon to the one topic that was
uppermost and bottommost in the minds of all.
He bade them understand now, if they had never realized it before, that
from the entrance of educated men and women into the western
wilderness, those real founders and builders of the great commonwealth,
the dream of the Kentuckians had been the establishment of a broad,
free institution of learning for their sons. He gave the history of the
efforts and the failures to found such an institution, from the year
1780 to the beginning of the Civil War; next he showed how, during
those few awful years, the slow precious accumulations of that
preceding time had been scattered; books lost, apparatus ruined, the
furniture of lecture rooms destroyed, one college building burned,
another seized and held as a hospital by the federal government; and he
concluded with painting for them a vision of the real university which
was now to arise at last, oldest, best passion of the people, measure
of the height and breadth of the better times: knowing no North, no
South, no latitude, creed, bias, or political end. In speaking of its
magnificent new endowments, he dwelt upon the share contributed by the
liberal-minded farmers of the state, to some of whom he was speaking:
showing how, forgetful of the disappointments and failures of their
fathers, they had poured out money by the thousands and tens of
thousands, as soon as the idea was presented to them again--the rearing
of a great institution by the people and for the people in their own
land for the training of their sons, that they might not be sent away
to New England or to Europe.
His closing words were solemn indeed; they related to the college of
the Bible, where his own labors were to be performed. For this, he
declared, he pleaded not in the name of the new State, the new nation,
but in the name of the Father. The work of this college was to be the
preparation of young men for the Christian ministry, that they might go
into all the world and preach the Gospel. One truth he bade them bear
in mind: that this training was to be given without sectarian theology;
that his brethren themselves represented a revolution among believers,
having cast aside the dogmas of modern teachers, and taken, as the one
infallible guide of their faith and practice, the Bible simply; so
making it their sole work to bring all modern believers together into
one church, and that one church the church of the apostles.
For this university, for this college of the Bible especially, he
asked, then, the gift and consecration of their sons.
Toward dusk that day David's father and mother were sitting side by
side on the steps of their front porch. Some neighbors who had spent
the afternoon with them were just gone. The two were talking over in
low, confidential tones certain subjects discussed less frankly with
their guests. These related to the sermon of the morning, to the
university, to what boys in the neighborhood would probably be entered
as students. Their neighbors had asked whether David would go. The
father and mother had exchanged quick glances and made no reply.
Something in the father's mind now lay like worm-wood on the lips.
He sat leaning his head on his hand, his eyes on the ground, brooding,
embittered.
"If I had only had a son to have been proud of!" he muttered. "It's of
no use; he wouldn't go. It isn't in him to take an education."
"No," said the mother, comforting him resignedly, after a pause in
which she seemed to be surveying the boy's whole life; "it's of no use;
there never was much in David."
"Then he shall work!" cried the father, striking his knee with clenched
fist. "I'll see that he is kept at work."
Just then the lad came round from behind the house, walking rapidly.
Since dinner he had been off somewhere, alone, having it out with
himself, perhaps shrinking, most of all, from this first exposure to
his parents. Such an ordeal is it for us to reveal what we really are
to those who have known us longest and have never discovered us.
He walked quickly around and stood before them, pallid and shaking from
head to foot.
"Father!"--
There was filial dutifulness in the voice, but what they had never
heard from those lips--authority.
"I am going to the university, to the Bible College. It will be hard
for you to spare me, I know, and I don't expect to go at once. But I
shall begin my preparations, and as soon as it is possible I am going.
I have felt that you and mother ought to know my decision at once."
As he stood before them in the dusk and saw on their countenances an
incredible change of expression, he naturally mistook it, and spoke
again with more authority.
"Don't say anything to me now, father! And don't oppose me when the
time comes; it would be useless. Try to learn while I am getting ready
to give your consent and to obtain mother's. That is all I have to say."
He turned quickly away and passed out of the yard gate toward the barn,
for the evening feeding.
The father and mother followed his figure with their eyes, forgetting
each other, as long as it remained in sight. If the flesh of their son
had parted and dissolved away into nothingness, disclosing a hidden
light within him like the evening star, shining close to their faces,
they could scarce have been struck more speechless. But after a few
moments they had adjusted themselves to this lofty annunciation. The
mother, unmindful of what she had just said, began to recall little
incidents of the lad's life to show that this was what he was always
meant to be. She loosened from her throat the breast-pin containing the
hair of the three heads braided together, and drew her husband's
attention to it with a smile. He, too, disregarding his disparagement
of the few minutes previous, now began to admit with warmth how good a
mind David had always had. He prophesied that at college he would
outstrip the other boys from that neighborhood. This, in its way, was
also fresh happiness to him; for, smarting under his poverty among rich
neighbors, and fallen from the social rank to which he was actually
entitled, he now welcomed the secondary joy which originates in the
revenge men take upon each other through the superiority of their
children.
One thing both agreed in: that this explained their son. He had
certainly always needed an explanation. But no wonder; he was to be a
minister. And who had a right to understand a minister? He was entitled
to be peculiar.
When David came in to supper that night and took his seat, shame-faced,
frowning and blinking at the candle-light, his father began to talk to
him as he had never believed possible; and his mother, placing his
coffee before him, let her hand rest on his shoulder.
He, long ahungered for their affection and finding it now when least
expected, filled to the brim, choked at every morsel, got away as soon
as he could into the sacred joy of the night Ah, those thrilling hours
when the young disciple, having for the first time confessed openly his
love of the Divine, feels that the Divine returns his love and accepts
his service!