MRS. ARNOT'S CREED
When Haldane entered the cottage that evening his eyes were bloodshot
and his face so haggard that Mr. Growther started out of his chair,
exclaiming: "Lord a' massy! what's the matter?"
"Matter enough," replied the youth, with a reckless oath. "The worst
that I feared has happened."
"What's happened?" asked the old man excitedly.
"I've been fighting in the work-room like a bull-dog, and swearing like
a pirate. That's the kind of a Christian I am, and always will be. What
I was made for, I don't see," he added, as he threw himself into a
chair.
"Well, well, well!" said Mr. Growther dejectedly, "I was in hopes she'd
git here in time; but I'm afeered you've just clean backslid."
"No kind of doubt on that score," replied the young man, with a bitter
laugh; "though I now think I never had very far to slide. And yet it all
seems wrong and unjust. Why should my hopes be raised? why should such
feelings be inspired, if this was to be the end? If I was foreordained
to go to the devil, why must an aggravating glimpse of heaven be given
me? I say it's all cruel and wrong. But what's the use! Come, let's have
supper, one must eat as long as he's in the body."
It was a silent and dismal meal, and soon over. Then Haldane took his
hat without a word.
"Where are you goin'?" asked Mr. Growther, anxiously.
"I neither know nor care."
"Don't go out to-night, I expect somebody."
"Who, in the name of wonder?"
"Mrs. Arnot."
"I could as easily face an angel of light now as Mrs. Arnot," he
replied, pausing on the threshold; for even in his reckless mood the old
man's wistful face had power to restrain.
"You are mistaken, Egbert," said a gentle voice behind him. "You can
face me much more easily than an angel of light. I am human like
yourself, and your friend."
She had approached the open door through the dusk of the mild autumn
evening, and had heard his words. He trembled at her voice, but ventured
no reply.
"I have come to see you, Egbert; you will not leave me."
"Mrs. Arnot," he said passionately, "I am not worth the trouble you take
in my behalf, and I might as well tell you at once that it is in vain."
"I do not regard what I do for you as 'trouble,' and I know it is not in
vain," she replied, with calm, clear emphasis.
Her manner quieted him somewhat; but after a moment he said:
"You do not know what has happened to-day, nor how I have been feeling
for many days past."
"Your manner indicates how you feel; and you may tell me what has
happened if you wish. If you prefer that we should be alone, come with
me to my carriage, and in the quiet of my private parlor you can tell me
all."
"No," said Haldane gloomily; "I am not fit to enter your house, and for
other reasons would rather not do so. I have no better friend than Mr.
Growther, and he already knows it all. I may as well tell you here; that
is, if you are willing to stay."
"I came to stay," said Mrs. Arnot quietly; and sitting down, she turned
a grave and expectant face toward him.
"I cannot find words in which to tell you my shame, and the utterness of
my defeat."
"Yes, you can, Egbert. I believe that you have always told me the truth
about yourself."
"I have, and I will again," he said desperately; "and yet it seems like
profanation to describe such a scene to you." But he did describe it,
briefly and graphically, nevertheless. As he spoke of his last fierce
blow, which vanquished his opponent, Mr. Growther muttered:
"Sarved him right; can't help feelin' glad you hit 'im so hard; but then
that's in keepin' with the cussedness of my natur'."
A glimmer of a smile hovered around Mrs. Arnot's flexible mouth, but she
only asked quietly:
"Is that all?"
"I should think that was enough, after all that I had felt and
professed."
"I fear I shall shock you, Egbert, but I am not very much surprised at
your course. Indeed I think it was quite natural, in view of the
circumstances. Perhaps my nature is akin to Mr. Growther's, for I am
rather glad that fellow was punished; and I think it was very natural
for you to punish him as you did. So far from despairing of you, I am
the more hopeful of you."
"Mrs. Arnot!" exclaimed the youth in undisguised astonishment
"Now do not jump to hasty and false conclusions from my words; I do not
say that your action was right. In the abstract it was decidedly wrong,
and for your language there is no other excuse save that an old, bad
habit asserted itself at a time when you had lost self-control. I am
dealing leniently with you, Egbert, because it is a trick of the
adversary to tempt to despair as well as to over-confidence. At the same
time I speak sincerely. You are and have been for some time in a morbid
state of mind. Let my simple common-sense come to your aid in this
emergency. The very conditions under which you have been working at the
mill imposed a continuous strain upon your nervous power. You were
steadily approaching a point where mere human endurance would give way.
Mark, I do not say that you might not have been helped to endure longer,
and to endure everything; but mere human nature could not have endured
it much longer. It is often wiser to shun certain temptations, if we
can, than to meet them. You could not do this; and if, taking into
account all the circumstances, you could have tamely submitted to this
insult, which was the culmination of long-continued and exasperating
injury, I should have doubted whether you possessed the material to make
a strong, forceful man. Of course, if you often give way to passion in
this manner, you would be little better than a wild beast; but for weeks
you had exercised very great forbearance and self-control--for one of
your temperament, remarkable self-control--and I respect you for it. We
are as truly bound to be just to ourselves as to others. Your action was
certainly wrong, and I would be deeply grieved and disappointed if you
continued to give way to such ebullitions of passion; but remembering
your youth, and all that has happened since spring, and observing
plainly that you are in an unhealthful condition of mind and body, I
think your course was very natural indeed, and that you have no occasion
for such despondency."
"Yes," put in Mr. Growther; "and he went away without his breakfast, and
it was mighty little he took for lunch; all men are savages when they
haven't eaten anything."
"Pardon me, Mrs. Arnot," said Haldane gloomily, "all this does not meet
the case at all. I had been hoping that I was a Christian; what is more,
it seems to me that I had had the feelings and experiences of a
Christian."
"I have nothing to say against that," said the lady quietly; "I am very
glad that you had."
"After what has occurred what right have I to think myself a Christian?"
"As good a right as multitudes of others."
"Now, Mrs. Arnot, that seems to me to be contrary to reason."
"It is not contrary to fact. Good people in the Bible, good people in
history, and to my personal knowledge, too, have been left to do
outrageously wrong things. To err is human; and we are all very human,
Egbert."
"But I don't feel that I am a Christian any longer," he said sadly.
"Perhaps you are not, and never were. But this is a question that you
can never settle by consulting your own feelings."
"Then how can I settle it?" was the eager response.
"By settling fully and finally in your mind what relation you will
sustain to Jesus Christ. He offers to be your complete Saviour from sin.
Will you accept of him as such? He offers to be your divine and unerring
guide and example in your everyday life. Will you accept of him as such?
Doing these two things in simple honesty and to the best of our ability
is the only way to be a Christian that I know of."
"Is that all?" muttered Mr. Growther, rising for a moment from his chair
in his deep interest in her words. She gave him an encouraging smile,
and then turned to Haldane again.
"Mrs. Arnot," he said, "I know that you are far wiser in these matters
than I, and yet I am bewildered. The Bible says we must be converted;
that we must be born again. It seems to require some great, mysterious
change that shall renew our whole nature. And it seemed to me that I
experienced that change. It would be impossible for me to describe to
you my emotions. They were sincere and profound. They stirred the very
depths of my soul, and under their influence it was a joy to worship God
and to do his will. Had I not a right to believe that the hour in which
I first felt those glad thrills of faith and love was the hour of my
conversion?"
"You had a right to hope it."
"But now, to-day, when every bad passion has been uppermost in my heart,
what reason have I to hope?"
"None at all, looking to yourself and to your varying emotions."
"Mrs. Arnot, I am bewildered. I am all at sea. The Bible, as interpreted
by Dr. Barstow and Dr. Marks, seems to require so much; and what you say
is required is simplicity itself."
"If you will listen patiently, Egbert, I will give you my views, and I
think they are correct, for I endeavor to take them wholly from the
Bible. That which God requires is simplicity itself, and yet it is very
much; it is infinite. In the first place, one must give up
self-righteousness--not self-respect, mark you--but mere spiritual
self-conceit, which is akin to the feeling of some vulgar people who
think they are good enough to associate with those who are immeasurably
beyond them, but whose superiority they are too small to comprehend. We
must come to God in the spirit of a little child; and then, as if we
were children, he will give to us a natural and healthful growth in the
life that resembles his own. This is the simplest thing that can be
done, and all can do it; but how many are trying to work out their
salvation by some intricate method of human device, and, stranger still,
are very complacent over the mechanical and abnormal results! All such
futile efforts, of which many are so vain, must be cast aside. Listen to
Christ's own words: 'Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.' He
who would enter upon the Christian life, must come to Christ as the true
scientist sits at the feet of nature--docile, teachable, eager to learn
truth that existed long before he was born, and not disposed to thrust
forward some miserable little system of his own. Nothing could be
simpler, easier, or more pleasing to Christ himself than the action of
Mary as she sat at his feet and listened to him; but many are like
Martha, and are bustling about in his service in ways pleasing to
themselves; and it is very hard for them to give up their own way. I've
had to give up a great deal in my time, and perhaps you will.
"In addition to all trust in ourselves, in what we are and what we have
done, we must turn away from what we have felt; and here I think I touch
your present difficulties. We are not saved by the emotions of our own
hearts, however sacred and delightful they may seem. Nor do they always
indicate just what we are and shall be. A few weeks since you thought
your heart had become the abiding-place of all that was good; now, it
seems to you to be possessed by evil. This is common experience; at one
time the Psalmist sings in rapturous devotion; again, he is wailing in
penitence over one of the blackest crimes in history. Peter is on the
Mount of Transfiguration; again he is denying his master with oaths and
curses. Even good men vary as widely as this; but Christ is 'the same,
yesterday, to-day, and forever.' By good men I mean simply those who are
sincerely wishing and trying to obtain mastery over the evil of their
natures. If you still wish to do this, I have abundant hope for you--as
much hope as ever I had."
"Of what value, then, were all those strange, happy feelings which I
regarded as the proofs of my conversion?" Haldane asked, with the look
of deep perplexity still upon his face.
"Of very great value, if you look upon them in their true light. They
were evidences of God's love and favor. They showed how kindly disposed
he is toward you. They can prove to you how abundantly able he is to
reward all trust and service, giving foretastes of heavenly bliss even
in the midst of earthly warfare. The trouble has been with you, as with
so many others, that you have been consulting your variable emotions
instead of looking simply to Christ, the author and finisher of our
faith. Besides, the power is not given to us to maintain an equable flow
of feeling for any considerable length of time. We react from exaltation
into depression inevitably. Our feelings depend largely also upon
earthly causes and our physical condition, and we can never be
absolutely sure how far they are the result of the direct action of
God's Spirit upon our minds. It is God's plan to work through simple,
natural means, so that we may not be looking and waiting for the
supernatural. And yet it would seem that many are so irrational that,
when they find mere feeling passing away, they give up their hope and
all relationship to Christ, acting as if the immutable love of God were
changing with their flickering emotions."
"I have been just so irrational," said Haldane in a low, deep tone.
"Then settle it now and forever, my dear young friend, that Jesus
Christ, who died to save you, wishes to save you every day and all the
days of your life. He does not change a hair-breadth from the attitude
indicated in the words, 'Come unto me; and whosoever cometh unto me I
will in no wise cast out.'"
"Do you mean to say he feels that way toward me all the time, in spite
of all my cantankerous moods?" asked Mr. Growther eagerly.
"Most certainly."
"I wouldn't a' thought it if I'd lived a thousand years."
"What, then, is conversion?" asked Haldane, feeling as if he were being
led safely out of a labyrinth in which he had lost himself.
"In my view it is simply turning away from everything to Christ as the
sole ground of our salvation and as our divine guide and example in
Christian living."
"But how can we ever know that we are Christians?"
"Only by the honest, patient, continued effort to obey his brief
command, 'Follow me.' We may follow near, or we may follow afar off; but
we can soon learn whether we wish to get nearer to him, or to get away
from him, or to just indifferently let him drop out of our thoughts. The
Christian is one who holds and maintains certain simple relations to
Christ. 'Ye are my friends,' he said, not if you feel thus and so, but,
'if ye do whatsoever I command you;' and I have found from many years'
experience that 'his commandments are not grievous.' For every burden he
imposes he gives help and comfort a hundred times. The more closely and
faithfully we follow him, the more surely do fear and doubt pass away.
We learn to look up to him as a child looks in its mother's face, and
'his Spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we are his.' But the
vital point is, are we following him? Feeling varies so widely and
strangely in varied circumstances and with different temperaments that
many a true saint of God would be left in cruel uncertainty if this were
the test. My creed is a very simple one, Egbert; but I take a world of
comfort in it. It contains only three words--Trust, follow Christ--that
is all."
"It is so simple and plain that I am tempted to take it as my creed
also," said Haldane, with a tinge of hope and enthusiasm in his manner.
"And yet remember," warned his friend earnestly, "there is infinite
requirement in it. A child can make a rude sketch of a perfect statue
that will bear some faint resemblance to it. If he persevere he can
gradually learn to draw the statue with increasing accuracy. In taking
this Divine Man as your example, you pledge yourself to imitate One whom
you can ever approach but never reach. And yet there is no occasion for
the weakest to falter before this infinite requirement, for God himself
in spirit is present everywhere to aid all in regaining the lost image
of himself. It is to no lonely unguided effort that I urge you, Egbert,
but to a patient co-working with your Maker, that you may attain a
character that will fit you to dwell at last in your kingly Father's
house; and I tell you frankly, for your encouragement, that you are
capable of forming such a character. I will now bid you good-night, and
leave you to think over what I have said. But write to me or come to me
whenever you wish."
"Good-night, Mr. Growther; hate yourself if you will, but remember that
the Bible assures us that 'God is love'; you cannot hate him."