WHICH SHALL PROSPER, THIS OR THAT?
The Rev. John Birge stood before the window in his cosy little study,
and drummed disconsolately and dismally on the pane. Without there was a
genuine carnival among the elements, a mingling of snow and rain, which
became ice almost as it fell, and about which a regular northeast wind
was blustering. The Rev. John looked, and drummed, and knitted his
brows, and finally turned abruptly to little Mrs. John, who sat in the
smallest rocking-chair, toasting her feet on the hearth.
"Now, Emma, isn't it strange that of all the evenings in the week
Thursday should be the one so constantly stormy? This is the third one
in succession that has been so unpleasant that very few could get out."
This sentence was delivered in a half-impatient, half-desponding tone;
and Mrs. John took time to consider before she answered, soothingly:
"Well, you will have the satisfaction of feeling that those who come out
this evening love the prayer-meeting enough to brave even such a storm
as this, and of remembering that there are many others who would brave
it if they dared."
But the minister was not to be beguiled into comfort; he gave an
impatient kick to an envelope that lay at his feet, and continued his
story.
"I haven't a _thing_ prepared suitable for such an evening as this. My
intention was to have a short, practical, personal talk, addressed
almost entirely to the unconverted; and I shall have Deacon Toles and
Deacon Fanning, and a few other gray-haired saints, who don't need a
word of it, to listen to me. I had in mind just the persons that I hoped
to reach by this evening's service, and that makes it all the more
discouraging to feel almost absolutely certain that not one of them will
be out to-night. I certainly do not see why it is that the one evening
of the week, which as Christians we try to give to God, should be so
often given up to storm."
Mrs. John could not see her husband's face this time, it had been turned
again to the window pane; but there was that in the tone of his voice
which made her change her tactics.
"It _is_ a pity and a shame," she said, in demure gravity, "that
Thursday evening of all others should prove stormy. Do you think it can
be possible that our Heavenly Father knows that so many of his people
have made it an evening of prayer? Or if he does, can't he possibly send
some poor little sinner to meeting, if it be his will to do so, as well
as those saints you spoke of?"
The minister did not reply for a little. Presently he turned slowly from
the window and met his wife's gaze; then he laughed, a low, half-amused,
half-ashamed laugh. He could afford to do so, for be it known this was a
new order of things in the minister's household. Truth to tell, it was
the little wife who became out of sorts with the weather, with the
walking, with the people, and had to be reasoned, or coaxed, or petted
into calm by the grave, earnest, faithful, patient minister; and his
rebellious spirit had been slain to-night by the use of some of his own
weapons, hurled at him indeed in a pretty, graceful, feminine way, but
he recognized them at once, and could afford to laugh. Afterward when he
had buckled his overshoes and buttoned his overcoat, and prepared to
brave the storm in answer to the tolling bell, he came over to the
little rocking-chair.
"My dear," he said, "we will kneel down and have a word of prayer, that
our Father will have this meeting in his care, and bring good out of
seeming ill."
And as they knelt together they had changed places again, and the
minister's wife looked up with a kind of wistful reverence to the calm,
earnest face of her husband.
"It storms like the mischief," Mr. Roberts said on this same evening, as
he closed the door with a bang, and a shrug of his shoulders. "Very few
people will venture out this evening. Tode, if you want an hour or two
for a frolic, now is your time to take it. After you have been up with
the mail you can go where you like until the train is due."
Here was fun for Tode. This would give him two full hours, and he had at
least two dozen schemes for filling up the time; but it chanced that
wind and sleet and cold were too much even for him.
"Jolly!" he said. "What a regular old stunner _that_ was," as a gust of
wind nearly blew him away; and he clapped both hands to his head to see
if his cap had withstood the shock.
"This ain't just the charmingest kind of an evening that ever I was out.
I'd tramp back to our hotel quicker, only a fellow don't like to spend
his evening just exactly where he does all the others when it's a
holiday. I wonder what's in here? They're singing like fun, whatever
'tis. I mean to peek in--might _go_ in; no harm done in taking a look.
'Tain't anyways likely that it blows in there as it does out here. Tode
and me will just take a look, we will."
And he pushed open the door and slipped into the nearest seat by the
fire just as the singing was concluded, and the Rev. John Birge began to
read; and the words he read were about that strange old story of the
great company and the lack of food, and the lad with the five barley
loaves and two small fishes, and the multitude that were fed, and the
twelve baskets of fragments that remained--story familiar in all its
details to every Sabbath-school scholar in the land, but utterly new to
Tode, falling on his ear for the first time, bearing all the charm of a
fairy tale to him. There was just one thing that struck this ignorant
boy as very strange, that a company of men and women, some of them
gray-headed, should spend their time in coming together that stormy
evening, and reading over and talking about so utterly improbable a
tale. He listened eagerly to see what might be the clew to this mystery.
"We are wont to say," began Mr. Birge, "that the age of miracles is
past; yet if we knew in just what mysterious, unknown paths God leads
the children of this day to himself, I think some of their experiences
would seem to us no less miraculous than is this story which we are
considering to-night."
No clew here to the mystery; only a number of words which Tode did not
understand, and something about God, which he could not see had anything
to do with the fairy story. I wonder if we Christian people ever fully
realize how utterly ignorant the neglected poor are of Bible truth. One
more ignorant in the matter than was Tode can hardly be imagined. He
knew, to be sure, that there was a day called Sunday, and that stores
and shops as a general rule were closed on that day, just why he would
have found very difficult to explain. He knew that there were such
buildings as churches, and that these were opened on these same Sundays,
and that well-dressed people went into them, but they had nothing
whatever to do with _him_. Oh no, neither had Sunday nor churches. He
knew in a vague general way that there was a Being called God, who
created all things, and that the aforesaid well-dressed people were in
some way connected with him; but it chanced, oh, bitter chance, that
there had never come to him the slightest intimation that God in Christ
was busy looking up the homeless, the friendless, the forsaken ones of
earth, and bidding them find home and friend and joy in him. The meeting
continued with but one other interruption. Midway in the services the
door opened somewhat noisily, and with many a rustle and flutter Mrs.
Hastings and Miss Dora made their way from out the storm and found
shelter in the quiet chapel. This was just as Deacon Fanning asked a
question.
"Mr. Birge, don't you think this little story is to teach us, among
other things, that God can take the very few, weak, almost worthless
materials that we bring him, and do great things with them?"
"I think we may learn that precious truth from the story," answered Mr.
Birge. "And I never feel saddened and discouraged with the thought that
I have nothing with which to feed the multitudes, that this story does
not bring me comfort. God doesn't need even our five barley loaves, but
stoops to use them that we may feel ourselves workers together with
him."
What queer talk it was! Tode had never heard anything like it in his
life.
Then Deacon Toles had something to say.
"Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, just expresses our feelings, I think,
sometimes. 'There is a lad here which hath five barley loaves, and two
small fishes; but what are they among so many?' Andrew was gloomy and
troubled even while talking face to face with Jesus. Not disposed to
think that the Master could do anything with so little food as that,
it's just the way I feel every now and then. 'Lord, here we are, a
handful of people, and we have fragments of the bread of life in our
hearts: but what are we among so many?'"
"Yet the Lord fed the five thousand despite Andrew's doubts," chimed in
the pastor. "May we not hope and pray that he will deal thus graciously
with us?"
Tode could make nothing of it all, and was half inclined to slip out and
go on his way; but the same dear Savior who had so long ago fed the five
thousand had his All-seeing Eye bent on this one poor boy, and had
prepared a crumb for him.
There arose from the seat near the door an old gray-haired man. His
dress was very plain and poor, his manner was uncultured, his language
was ungrammatical. There were those who were disposed to think that so
illiterate a man as old Mr. Snyder ought not to take up the valuable
time. However old Mr. Snyder prayed, and Tode listened.
"O, dear Jesus," he said, "the same who was on the earth so many years
ago, and fed the hungry people, feed us to-night. We are poor, we want
to be rich; take us for thy children; help us to come to thee just as
the people used to do when thou didst walk this very earth, and ask for
what we want. We need a friend just like Jesus for our own--a friend who
will love us always, who will take care of us always, who will give us
everything we need, and heaven by and by. We know none are too poor or
too bad for thee to take and wash in thy blood, and feed with thy love
which lasts forever. Give us faith to trust thee always, to work for
thee here, and to keep looking ahead to that home in heaven, which thou
hast got all ready for us when we die. Amen."
There were those present who did not quite see the connection of this
prayer with the topic of the evening. There were those who thought it
very commonplace and rather childish in language. But how can we tell
what strange, bewildering thoughts it raised in the heart of our poor
Tode?
Was there really such a somebody somewhere as that man talked about, who
would make people rich, or anyhow give them all they needed; who would
take care of them, no matter how poor or how bad; who would even take
care of them in that awful time when they had to die, and all this just
for the asking? If there were any truth in it why didn't folks ask, and
have it all? But then if there wasn't, what did these folks all mean?
"They don't look like fools; now that's a fact," said Tode,
meditatively, and was in great bewilderment.
The meeting closed. Mrs. Hastings rustled up to the minister.
"So sorry to have intruded upon you, Mr. Birge, but the gale was so
unusually severe. Dora and I were making our way to the carriage, which
was but a very short distance away, and just as we reached your door
there came a fearful gust of wind and we were obliged to desist."
While Mr. Birge was explaining that to come to prayer-meeting was not
considered an intrusion, Dora turned to Tode. Now Tode had in mind all
day a burning desire to tell Dora that he had made all the twenty-six
letters of the alphabet, just twenty-six times on twenty-six old
envelopes that he had gathered together from various waste-baskets, and
could "make every one of 'em to a dot." But instead of all this he said:
"Say, do you believe all this queer talk?"
"What do you mean, Tode?"
"Why this about the youngster, and his fishes and bread, and such lots
of folks eating 'em, and more left when they got done than there was
when they begun. Likely story, ain't it?"
Dora's eyes were large and grave.
"Why, Tode, it's in the Bible," she said, reverently.
Tode knew nothing about reverence, and next to nothing about the Bible.
"What of that?" he said, defiantly. "It's queer stuff all the same; and
what did that old man mean about his friend, and taking care of folks,
everybody, good or bad, and feeding 'em, and all that?"
"It's about Jesus, Tode. Don't you know; he died, you see, for us, and
if we love him he'll take care of us, and take us to heaven. Sometimes
do you think that you'll belong to him, Tode? I do once in a while."
"I don't know anything what you're talking about," was Tode's answer,
more truthful than grammatical.
"Why, give your heart to him, you know, and love him, and pray, and all
that. But, Tode, won't you run around to Martyn's and order the carriage
for us? John was to wait there until we came, and I guess he'll think we
are never coming."
Mrs. Hastings repeated the direction, and Tode vanished, brushing by in
his exit the very man who had prayed at his dying mother's bedside years
before, and who had intended to keep an eye on him. As he slid along the
icy pavements the boy ruminated on what he had heard, and especially on
that last explanation, "Why, give your heart to him, you know, and love
him, and pray, and all that." To whom, and how, and where, and when?
What a perfectly bewildering confusion it all was to Tode.
"I'll be hanged if I can make head or tail to any of it," he said aloud.
Then he whistled, but after a moment his whistle broke off into a great
heavy sigh. Someway there was in Tode's heart a dull ache, a longing
aroused that night, and which nothing but the All-seeing, All-pitying
Love could ever soothe.
"There were fourteen people in prayer-meeting," the Rev. John informed
his wife. "The two deacons of whom I spoke, and several other good men.
I couldn't make use of my lecture at all, for there were none present
but professing Christians, save and except Mrs. Pliny Hastings, who
apologized for _intruding_!"
And then the husband and wife laughed, a half-amused, half-sorrowful
laugh.
After a moment Mr. Birge added:
"There _was_ a rather rough-looking boy there; strayed in from the
storm, I presume. I meant to speak with him, but Mrs. Hastings annoyed
me so much that it escaped my mind until he brushed past me and
vanished."