THE MIRACLE TAKES PLACE
"The body of my sermon is finished; may the Lord breathe into it the
breath of life!" ejaculated Dr. Marks, leaning back in his chair.
Haldane now secured his attention by knocking lightly on the open door.
The old gentleman arose and came forward with the ordinary kindly manner
with which he would greet a stranger.
"You do not remember me," said Haldane.
"I cannot say that I do. My eyesight is not as good as when I was at
your age."
"I am also the last one you expect to see, but I trust I shall not be
unwelcome when you know my motive for coming. I am Egbert Haldane, and I
have hoped that your study would remain open, though nearly all
respectable doors are closed against me."
"Egbert Haldane! Can I believe my eyes?" exclaimed the old clergyman,
stepping eagerly forward.
"When last in this place," continued the youth, "I was led by your
generous forgiveness of my rude behavior toward you to say, that if I
ever wished to become a Christian I would come to you sooner than to any
one else. I have come, for I wish to be a Christian."
"Now the Lord be praised! He has heard his servant's prayers," responded
Dr. Marks fervently. "My study is open to you, my son, and my heart,
too," he added, taking Haldane's hand in both of his with a grasp that
emphasized his cordial words. "Sit down by me here, and tell me all that
is on your mind."
This reception was so much kinder than he had even hoped, that Haldane
was deeply moved. The strong, genuine sympathy unsealed his lips, and in
honest and impetuous words he told the whole story of his life since
their last interview. The good doctor was soon fumbling for his
handkerchief, and as the story culminated, mopped his eyes, and
ejaculated, "Poor fellow!" with increasing frequency.
"And now," concluded Haldane, "if I could only think that God would
receive me as you have--if he would only change me from my miserable
self to what I know I ought to be, and long to be--I feel that I could
serve him with gratitude and gladness the rest of my life, even though I
should remain in the humblest station; and I have come to ask you what I
am to do?"
"He will receive you, my boy; he will receive you. No fears on that
score," said the doctor, with a heartiness that carried conviction. "But
don't ask me what to do. I'm not going to interfere in the Lord's work.
He is leading you. If you wanted a text or a doctrine explained I'd
venture to give you my views; but in this vital matter I shall leave you
in God's hands, 'being confident of this very thing, that he which hath
begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.'
I once set about reforming you myself, and you know what a bungle I made
of it. Now I believe the Lord has taken you in hand, and I shall not
presume to meddle. Bow with me in prayer that he may speedily bring you
into his marvellous light and knowledge." And the good man knelt and
spread his hands toward heaven, and prayed with the simplicity and
undoubting faith of an ancient patriarch.
Was his faith contagious? Did the pathos of his voice, his strongly
manifested sympathy, combine with all that had gone before to melt the
young man's heart? Or, in answer to the prayer, was there present One
whose province it is to give life? Like the wind that mysteriously rises
and comes toward one with its viewless, yet distinctly felt power.
Haldane was conscious of influences at work in his heart that were as
potent as they were incomprehensible. Fear and doubt were passing away.
Deep emotion thrilled his soul. Nothing was distinct save a rush of
feeling which seemed to lift him up as on a mighty tide, and bear him
heavenward.
This was what he had sought; this was what he had hoped; this strong,
joyous feeling, welling up in his heart like a spring leaping into the
sunlight, must be conversion.
When he arose from his knees his eyes were full of tears, but a glad
radiance shone through them, and grasping the doctor's hand, he said
brokenly:
"I believe your prayer has been answered. I never felt so strangely--so
happy before."
"Come with me," cried the old man, impetuously, "come with me. Your
mother must learn at once that her son, who 'was dead, is alive again';"
and a few moments later Haldane was once more in the low carriage, on
his way, with the enthusiastic doctor, to his old home.
"We won't permit ourselves to be announced," said the childlike old
clergyman as they drove up the gravelled road. "We will descend upon
your mother and sisters like an avalanche of happiness."
The curtains in the sitting-room were not drawn, and the family group
was before them. The apartment was furnished with elegance and taste,
but the very genius of dreariness seemed to brood over its occupants.
The sombre colors of their mourning dresses seemed a part of the deep
shadow that was resting upon them, and the depth and gloom of the shadow
was intensified by their air of despondency and the pallor of their
faces. The younger daughter was reading, but the elder and the mother
held their hands listlessly in their laps, and their eyes were fixed on
vacancy, after the manner of those whose thoughts are busy with painful
themes.
Haldane could endure but a brief glance, and rushed in, exclaiming:
"Mother, forgive me!"
His presence was so unexpected and his onset so impetuous that the widow
had no time to consider what kind of a reception she ought to give her
wayward son, of whom she had washed her hands.
Her mother-love triumphed; her heart had long been sore with grief, and
she returned his embrace with equal heartiness.
His sisters, however, had inherited more of their mother's
conventionality than of her heart; and the fact that this young man was
their brother did not by any means obliterate from their minds the other
facts, that he had a very bad reputation and that he was abominably
dressed. Their greeting, therefore, was rather grave and constrained,
and suggested that there might have been a death in the family, and that
their brother had come home to attend the funeral.
But the unworldly Dr. Marks was wholly absorbed in the blessed truth
that the dead was alive and the lost found. He had followed Haldane into
the apartment, rubbing his hands, and beaming general congratulation.
Believing that the serene light of Heaven's favor rested on the youth,
he had forgotten that it would be long before society relaxed its dark
frown. It seemed to him that it was an occasion for great and unmixed
rejoicing.
After some brief explanations had been given to the bewildered
household, the doctor said:
"My dear madam, I could not deny myself the pleasure of coming with your
son, that I might rejoice with you. The Lord has answered our prayers,
you see, and you have reason to be the happiest woman living."
"I am glad, indeed," sighed the widow, "that some light is beginning to
shine through this dark and mysterious providence, for it has been so
utterly dark and full of mystery that my faith was beginning to waver."
"The Lord will net suffer you to be tempted above that you are able,"
said the clergyman, heartily. "When relief is essential it comes, and it
always will come, rest assured. Take comfort, madam; nay, let your heart
overflow with joy without fear. The Lord means well by this young man.
Take the unspeakable blessing he sends you with the gladness and
gratitude of a child receiving gifts from a good Father's hands. Since
he has begun the good work, he'll finish it."
"I hope so. I do, indeed, hope that Egbert will now come to his senses,
and see things and duty in their true light, as other people do,"
ejaculated the widow, fervently. "If he had only taken the excellent
advice you first gave him here how much better it would have been for us
all! But now--" A dreary sigh closed the sentence.
"But now," responded the doctor, a little warmly, "the Lord has saved a
soul from death, and that soul is your only son. It appears to me that
this thought should swallow up every other; and it will, when you
realize it," he concluded, heartily. "This world and the fashion of it
passeth away. Since all promises well for the world to come, you have
only cause for joy. As for my excellent advice, I was better pleased
with it at the time than the Lord was. I now am thankful that he let it
do no more harm than it did."
"We cannot help the past, mother," said Haldane, eagerly, "let us turn
our eyes to the future, which is all aglow with hope. I feel that God
has forgiven me, and the thought fills my heart with a tumult of joy.
Your warm embrace assures me that you have also forgiven the wrong, the
shame, and sorrow you have received at my hands. Henceforth it shall be
my life-effort that you receive the reverse of all this. I at last feel
within me the power to live as a true man ought."
"I trust your hopes may be realized, Egbert; I do, indeed; but you were
so confident before--and then we all know what followed," concluded his
mother, with a shudder.
"My present feeling, my present motives, in no respect resemble my
condition when I started out before. I was then a conceited fool,
ignorant of myself, the world, and the task I had attempted. But now I
feel that all is different. Mother," he exclaimed with a rush of
emotion, "I feel as if heaven had almost begun in my heart! why, then,
do you cloud this bright hour with doubts and fears?"
"Well, my son, we will hope for the best," said his mother, endeavoring
to throw off her despondency, and share in the spirit which animated her
pastor. "But I have dwelt so long in sorrow and foreboding that it will
require time before I can recover my old natural tone. These sudden and
strong alternations of feeling and action on your part puzzle and
disquiet me, and I cannot see why one brought up as you have been should
not maintain a quiet, well-bred deportment, and do right as a matter of
course, as your sisters do. And yet, if Dr. Marks truly thinks that you
mean to do right from this time forward, I shall certainly take courage;
though how we are going to meet what has already occurred I hardly see."
"I do, indeed, believe that your son intends to do right, and I also
believe that the Lord intends to help him--which is of far greater
consequence," said Dr. Marks. "I will now bid you good-night, as
to-morrow is the Sabbath; and let me entreat you, my dear madam, in
parting, to further by your prayer and sympathy the good work which the
Lord has begun."
Haldane insisted on seeing the old gentleman safely back to his study.
Their ride was a rather quiet one, each being busy with his own
thoughts. The good man had found his enthusiasm strangely quenched in
the atmosphere in which Mrs. Haldane dwelt, and found that, in spite of
himself, he was sharing in her doubts and fears as to the future course
of the erratic and impulsive youth at his side. He blamed himself for
this, and tried to put doubt resolutely away. By a few earnest words he
sought to show the young man that only as the grace of God was daily
asked for and daily received could he hope to maintain the Christian
life.
He now began to realize what a difficult problem was before the youth.
Society would be slow to give him credit for changed motives and
character, and as proof would take only patient continuance in
well-doing. The good doctor now more than suspected that in his own home
Haldane would find much that was depressing and enervating. Worse than
all, he would have to contend with an excitable and ungoverned nature,
already sadly warped and biased wrongly. "What will be the final
result?" sighed the old gentleman to himself. But he soon fell back
hopefully on his belief that the Lord had begun a good work and would
finish it.
Haldane listened attentively and gratefully to all that his old friend
had to say, and felt sure that he could and would follow the advice
given. Never before had right living seemed so attractive, and the path
of duty so luminous. But the thought that chiefly filled him with joy
was that henceforth he would not be compelled to plod forward as a weary
pilgrim. He felt that he had wings; some of the divine strength had been
given him. He believed himself changed, renewed, transformed; he was
confident that his old self had perished and passed away, and that, as a
new creature, ennobling tendencies would control him completely. He felt
that prayer would henceforth be as natural as breathing, and praise and
worship, the strong and abiding instincts of his heart.