"O PRICELESS LIFE!"
When Haldane came down the following morning he found Bertha playing on
the piazza as unconscious of the loss of her father as the birds singing
among the trees of their master. Amy soon joined them, and Haldane saw
that her eyes had the same appealing and indescribable expression, both
of sadness and terror, reminding one of some timid and beautiful animal
that had been brought to bay by an enemy that was feared inexpressibly,
but from which there seemed no escape.
He took her hand with a strong and reassuring pressure.
"Oh," she exclaimed with a slight shudder, "how can the sun shine? The
birds, too, are singing as if there were no death and sorrow in the
world."
"Only a perfect faith, Miss Amy, can enable us, who do know there is
death and sorrow, to follow their example."
"It's all a black mystery to me," she replied, turning away.
"So it was to me once."
An old colored man, the husband of the negress who had assisted Haldane
in his watch, now appeared and announced breakfast.
It was a comparatively silent meal, little Bertha doing most of the
talking. Amy would not have touched a mouthful had it not been for
Haldane's persuasion.
As soon as Bertha had finished, she said to Haldane:
"Amy told me that you did papa ever so much good last evening: now I
want to see him right away."
"Does she not know?" asked Haldane in a low tone.
Amy shook her head. "It's too awful. What can I tell her?" she faltered.
"It is indeed inexpressibly sad, but I think I can tell the child
without its seeming awful to her, and yet tell her the truth," he
replied. "Shall I try to explain?"
"Yes, and let me listen, too, if you can rob the event of any of its
unutterable horror."
"Will Bertie come and listen to me if I will tell her about papa?"
The child climbed into his lap at once, and turned her large blue eyes
up to his in perfect faith.
"Don't you remember that papa spoke last night of leaving you; but said
you would surely meet again?"
At this the child's lip began to quiver, and she said: "But papa always
comes and kisses me good-by before he goes away."
"Perhaps he did, Bertie, when you were asleep in your crib last night."
"Oh yes, now I'm sure he did if he's gone away, 'cause I 'member he once
woke me up kissing me good-by."
"I think he kissed you very softly, and so you didn't wake. Our dear
Saviour, Jesus, came last night, and papa went away with him. But he
loves you just as much as ever, and he isn't sick any more, and you will
surely see him again."
"Do you think he will bring me something nice when he comes?"
"When you see him again he will have for you, Bertie, more beautiful
things than you ever saw before in all your life, but it may be a long
time before you see him."
The child slipped down from his knees quite satisfied and full of
pleasant anticipation, and went back to her play on the piazza.
"Do you believe all that?" asked Amy, looking as if Bertha had been told
a fairy tale.
"I do, indeed. I have told the child what I regard as the highest form
of the truth, though expressed in simple language. Miss Amy, I know that
your father was ever kind to you. Did he ever turn coldly away from any
earnest appeal of yours?"
"Never, never," cried the girl, with a rush of tears.
"And can you believe that his Heavenly Father turned from his touching
appeal last night? Christ said to those who were trusting in him, 'I
will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am there ye
may be also.' As long as your father was conscious, he was clinging to
that divine hand that has never failed one true believer in all these
centuries. Surely, Miss Amy, your own reason tells you that the poor
helpless form that we must bury today is not your father. The genial
spirit, the mind that was a power out in the world, the soul with its
noble and intense affections and aspirations--these made the man that
was your father. Therefore I say with truth that the man, the
imperishable part, has gone away with him who loved humanity, and who
has prepared a better place for us than this earth can ever be under the
most favoring circumstances. You can understand that the body is but the
changing, perishing shadow.
"When you compare the poor, disease-shattered house in yonder room, with
the regal spirit that dwelt within it, when you compare that prostrate
form--which, like a fallen tree in the forest, is yielding to the
universal law of change--with the strong, active, intelligent man that
was your father, do not your very senses assure you that your father has
gone away, and, as I told Bertha, you will surely see him again? It may
seem to you that what I said about the good-by kiss was but a fiction to
soothe the child, but in my belief it was not. Though we know with
certainty so little of the detail of the life beyond, we have two good
grounds on which to base reasonable conjecture. We know of God's love;
we know your father's love; now what would be natural in view of these
two facts? I think we can manage to keep Bertha from seeing that which
is no longer her father, and thus every memory of him will be pleasant.
We will leave intact the impression which he himself made when he acted
consciously, for this which now remains is not himself at all."
Further conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Dr. Orton; but
Haldane saw that Amy had grasped at his words as one might try to catch
a rope that was being lowered to him in some otherwise hopeless abyss.
"I feared that such might be the end," said the doctor, gloomily, on
learning from Haldane the events of the night; "it frequently is in
constitutions like his." Then he went up and saw Mrs. Poland.
The lady's condition gave him much anxiety, but he kept it to himself
until they were alone. After leaving quieting medicines for her with
Amy, and breaking utterly down in trying to say a few words of comfort
to the fatherless girl, he motioned to Haldane to follow him.
"Come with me to the city," he said, "and we will arrange for such
disposal of the remains as is best."
Having informed Amy of the nature of his errand, and promising to
telegraph Mrs. Arnot, Haldane accompanied the physician to the business
part of town.
"You have been a godsend to them," said the kind-hearted old doctor,
blowing his nose furiously. "This case comes a little nearer home than
any that has yet occurred; but then the bottom is just falling out of
everything, and it looks as if we would all go before we have a frost.
It seems to me, though, that I can stand anything rather than see Amy
go. She is engaged to a nephew of mine--as fine a fellow as there is in
town, if I do say it, and I love the girl as if she were my own child.
My nephew is travelling in Europe now, and I doubt if he knows the
danger hanging over the girl. If anything happens to her it will about
kill him, for he idolizes her, and well he may. I'm dreadfully anxious
about them all. I fear most for Mrs. Poland's mind. She's a New England
lady, as I suppose you know--wonderfully gifted woman, too much brain
power for that fragile body of hers. Well, perhaps you did not
understand all that was said last night; but Mrs. Poland has always been
a great reader, and she has been carried away by the materialistic
philosophy that's in fashion nowadays. Queer, isn't it? and she
two-thirds spirit herself. Her husband and my best friend was as genial
and whole-souled a man as ever lived, fond of a good dinner, fond of a
joke, and fond of his family to idolatry. His wife had unbounded
influence over him, or otherwise he might have been a little fast; but
he always laughed at what he called her 'Yankee notions,' and said he
would not accept her philosophy until she became a little more material
herself. Poland was a square, successful business man, but I fear he did
not lay up much. He was too open-hearted and free-handed--a typical
Southerner I suppose you would say at the North, that is, those of you
who don't think of us as all slave-drivers and slave-traders. I expect
the North and South will have to have a good, square, stand-up fight
before they understand each other."
"God forbid!" ejaculated Haldane.
"Well, I don't think you and I will ever quarrel. You may call us what
you please if you will take care of Poland's family."
"I have already learned to have a very thorough respect both for your
head and heart, Doctor Orton."
"I'm considerably worse than they average down here. But as I was
telling you, Mrs. Poland was a New England woman, and to humor her her
husband employed such white servants as could be got in the city, and
poor trash they were most of the time. When the fever appeared they left
instantly. Poland bought the old colored people who are there with the
place, and gave them their freedom, and only they have stood by them.
What they would have done last night if you had not come, God only
knows. Poor Amy, poor Amy!" sighed the old doctor tempestuously; "she's
the prettiest and pluckiest little girl in the city. She's half
frightened out of her wits, I can see that, and yet nothing but force
could get her away. For my nephew's sake and her own I tried hard to
induce her to go, but she stands her ground like a soldier. What is best
now I hardly know. Mrs. Poland is so utterly prostrated that it might
cost her life to move her. Besides, they have all been so terribly
exposed to the disease that they might be taken with it on the journey,
and to have them go wandering off the Lord knows where at this chaotic
time looks to me about as bad as staying where they are, and I can look
after them. But we'll see, we'll see." And in like manner the sorely
troubled old gentleman talked rapidly on, till they reached the
undertaker's, seemingly finding a relief in thus unburdening his heart
to one of whose sympathy he felt sure, and who might thus be led to feel
a deeper interest in the objects of his charge.
Even at that time of general disaster Haldane's abundant funds enabled
him to secure prompt attention. It was decided that Mr. Poland's remains
should be placed in a receiving vault until such time as they could be
removed to the family burying-ground in another city, and before the day
closed everything had been attended to in the manner which refined
Christian feeling would dictate.
Before parting with Haldane, Doctor Orton had given him careful
directions what to do in case he recognized symptoms of the fever in any
of the family or himself. "Keep Amy and Bertha with their mother all you
can," he said; "anything to rouse the poor woman from that stony despair
into which she seems to have fallen."
The long day at length came to an end. Haldane of necessity had been
much away, and he welcomed the cool and quiet evening; and yet he knew
that with the shadow of night, though so grateful after the glare and
heat to which he had been subjected, the fatal pestilence approached the
nearer, as if to strike a deadlier blow. As the pioneer forefathers of
the city had shut their doors and windows at nightfall, lest their
savage and lurking foes should send a fatal arrow from some dusky
covert, so now again, with the close of the day, all doors and windows
must be shut against a more subtle and remorseless enemy, whose viewless
shafts sped with a surer aim in darkness.
Amy had spent much of the day in unburdening her heart in a long letter
to her cousin Laura, in which in her own vivid way she portrayed the
part Haldane had acted toward them. She had also written to her distant
and unconscious lover, and feeling that it might be the last time, she
had poured out to him a passion that was as intense and yet as pure as
the transparent flame that we sometimes see issuing from the heart of
the hard-wood maple, as we sit brooding over our winter fire.
"Come and sit with us, and as one of us," she had said to Haldane, and
so they had all gathered at the bedside of the widow, who had scarcely
strength to do more than fix her dark, wistful eyes on one and another
of the group. She was so bewildered and overwhelmed with her loss that
her mind had partially suspended its action. She saw and heard
everything; she remembered it all afterward; but now the very weight of
the blow had so stunned her that she was mercifully saved from the agony
of full consciousness.
Little Bertha climbed upon Haldane's lap and pleaded for a story.
"Yes, Bertie," he said, "and I think I know a story that you would like.
You remember I told you that your papa had gone away with Jesus; would
you not like to hear a story about this good friend of your papa's?"
"Yes, yes, I would. Do you know much about him?"
"Quite a good deal, for he's my friend too. I know one true story about
him that I often like to think of. Listen, and I will tell it to you.
Jesus is the God who made us, and he lives 'way up above the sky.' But
he not only made us, Bertie, but he also loves us, and in order to show
us how he loves us he is always coming to this world to do us good; and
once he came and lived here just like a man, so that we might all be
sure that he cared for us and wanted to make us good and happy. Well, at
that time when he lived here in this world as a man he had some true
friends who loved him and believed in him. At a certain time they were
all staying on the shore of a sea, and one evening Jesus told his
friends to take a little boat and go over to the other side of the sea,
and he would meet them there. Then Jesus, who wanted to be alone, went
up the side of the mountain that rose from the water's edge. Then night
came and it began to grow darker and darker, and at last it was so dark
that the friends of Jesus that were in the boat could only see a very
little way. Then a moaning, sighing wind began to rise, and the poor men
in the boat saw that a storm was coming, and they pulled hard with their
oars in hopes of getting over on the other side before the storm became
very bad; but by the time they reached the very middle of the sea, the
wind began to blow furiously, just as you have seen it blow when the
trees bent 'way over toward the ground, and some perhaps were broken
down. A strong wind at sea makes the water rise up in waves, and these
waves began to beat against the boat, and before very long some of the
highest ones would dash into it. The men pulled with their oars with all
their might, but it was of no use; the wind was right against them, and
though they did their best hour after hour, they still could get no
nearer the shore. How sad and full of danger was their condition! the
dark, dark night was above and around them, the dark, angry waves
dashing by and over them, the cold, black depths of water beneath them,
and no sound in their ears but the wild, rushing storm. What do you
think became of them?"
"I'm afraid they were drowned," said Bertha, looking up with eyes that
were full of fear and trouble.
"Have you forgotten Jesus?"
"But he's 'way off on the side of the mountain."
"He is never so far from his friends but that he can see them and know
all about them. He saw these friends in the boat, for Jesus can see in
the darkness as well as in the light; and when the night grew darkest,
and the waves were highest, and his friends most weary and discouraged,
he came to them so that they might know that he could save them, when
they felt they could not save themselves. And he came as no other help
could have come--walking over the very waves that threatened to swallow
up his friends; and when he was near to them he called out, 'Be of good
cheer, it is I; be not afraid.' Then he went right up to the boat and
stepped into it among his friends. Oh! what a happy change his coming
made, for the winds ceased, the waves went down, and in a very little
while the boat reached the sea-shore. The bright sun rose up, the
darkness fled away, and the friends of Jesus were safe. They have been
safe ever since. Nothing can harm Jesus' friends. He takes care of them
from day to day, from year to year, and from age to age. Whenever they
are in trouble or pain or danger he comes to them as he did to his
friends in the boat, and he brings them safely through it all. Don't you
think he is a good friend to have?"
"Isn't I too little to be his friend?"
"No, indeed; no one ever loved little children as he does. He used to
take them in his arms and bless them, and he said, 'Suffer them to come
to me'; and where he lives he has everything beautiful to make little
children happy."
"And you say papa is with him?"
"Yes, papa is with him."
"Why can't we all go to him now?"
"As soon as he is ready for us he will come for us."
"I wish he was ready for mamma, Amy, and me now, and then we could all
be together. It's so lonely without papa. Oh! I'm so tired," she added
after a few moments, and a little later her head dropped against
Haldane's breast, and she was asleep.
"Mr. Haldane," said Amy in a low, agitated voice, "have you embodied
your faith in that story to Bertha?"
"Yes, Miss Amy."
"Why do you think"--and she hesitated. "How do you know," she began
again, "that any such Being as Jesus exists and comes to any one's
help?"
"Granting that the story I have told you is true, how did his disciples
know that he came to their help? Did not the hushed winds prove it? Did
not the quieted waters prove it? Did not his presence with them assure
them of it? By equal proof I know that he can and will come to the aid
of those who look to him for aid. I have passed through darker nights
and wilder storms than ever lowered over the Sea of Galilee, and I know
by simple, practical, happy experience that Jesus Christ, through his
all-pervading Spirit, has come to me in my utter extremity again and
again, and that I have the same as felt his rescuing hand. Not that my
trials and temptations have been greater than those of many others, but
I have been weaker than others, and I have often been conscious of his
sustaining power when otherwise I would have sunk beneath my burden.
This is not a theory, Miss Amy, nor the infatuation of a few ignorant
people. It is the downright experience of multitudes in every walk of
life, and, on merely scientific grounds, is worth as much as any other
experience. This story of Jesus gains the sympathy of little Bertha; it
also commands the reverent belief of the most gifted and cultivated
minds in the world."
"Oh, that I could believe all this; but there is so much mystery, so
much that is dark." Then she glanced at her mother, who had turned away
her face and seemed to be sleeping, and she asked: "If Christ is so
strong to help and save, why is he not strong to prevent evil? Why is
there a cry of agony going up from this stricken city? Why must father
die who was everything to us? Why must mother suffer so? Why am I so
shadowed by an awful fear? Life means so much to me. I love it," she
continued in low yet passionate tones. "I love the song of birds, the
breath of flowers, the sunlight, and every beautiful thing. I love
sensation. I am not one who finds a tame and tranquil pleasure in the
things I like or in the friends I love. My joys thrill every nerve and
fibre of my being. I cling to them, I cannot give them up. A few days
ago life was as full of rich promise to me as our tropical spring. It is
still, though I will never cease to feel the pain of this great sorrow,
and yet this horrible pit of death, corruption, and nothingness yawns at
my very feet. Mr. Haldane," she said in a still lower and more
shuddering tone, "I have a terrible presentiment that I shall perish
with this loathsome disease. I may seem to you, who are so quiet and
brave, very weak and cowardly; but I shrink from death with a dread
which you cannot understand and which no language can express. It is
repugnant to every instinct of my being, and I can think of it only with
unutterable loathing. If I were old and feeble, if I had tasted all the
joys of life, I might submit, but not now, not now. I feel with father
that it is fiendish cruelty to give one such an intense love of life and
then wrench it away; and, passionately as I love life, there is one far
more dear. There is that in your nature which has so won my confidence
that I can reveal to you my whole heart. Mr. Haldane, I love one who is
like you, manly and noble, and dearly as I prize life, I think I could
give it away in slow torture for his sake, if required. How often my
heart has thrilled to see his eyes kindle with his foolish admiration,
the infatuation of love which makes its object beautiful at least to the
lover. And now to think that he does not know what I suffer and fear, to
think that I may never see him again, to think that when he returns I
may be a hideous mass of corruption that he cannot even approach. Out
upon the phrases 'beneficent nature,' and 'natural law.' Laws which
permit such things are must unnatural, and to endow one with such a love
of life, such boundless capabilities of enjoying life, and then at the
supreme moment when the loss will be most bitterly felt to snatch it
away, looks to me more like the work of devilish ingenuity than of a
'beneficent nature.' I feel with father, it is fiendish cruelty."
Haldane bowed his head among Bertha's curls to hide the tears that would
come at this desperate cry of distress; but Amy's eyes were hard and
dry, and had the agonized look which might have been their expression
had she been enduring physical torture.
"Miss Amy," he said brokenly after a moment, "you forget that your
father said, 'If this life is all, it is fiendishly cruel to tear us
from that which we have learned to love so dearly,' and I agree with
him. But this life is not all; the belief that human life ends at death
is revolting to reason, conscience, and every sense of justice. If this
were true the basest villain could escape all the consequences of his
evil in a moment, and you who are so innocent, so exquisite in your
spiritual organization, so brave and noble that you can face this awful
fear in your devotion to those you love--you by ceasing to breathe
merely would sink to precisely the same level and be no different from
the lifeless clay of the villain. Such monstrous injustice is
impossible; it outrages every instinct of justice, every particle of
reason that I have.
"Miss Amy, don't you see that you are like the disciples in the boat out
in the midst of the sea? The night is dark above you, the storm is wild
around you, the waves are dashing over you, the little boat is frail,
and there are such cold, dark depths beneath it. But we can't help these
things. We can't explain the awful mystery of evil and suffering; sooner
or later every human life becomes enveloped in darkness, storm, and
danger. That wave-tossed boat in the midst of the sea is an emblem of
the commonest human experience. On the wide sea of life, numberless
little barks are at this moment at the point of foundering. Few are so
richly freighted as yours, but the same unknown depths are beneath each.
But, Miss Amy, I pray you remember the whole of this suggestive Bible
story. Those imperilled disciples were watched by a loving, powerful
friend. He came to their aid, making the very waves that threatened to
engulf the pathway of his rescuing love. He saved those old-time
friends. They are living to-day, they will live forever. I can't explain
the dark and terrible things of which this world is full, I cannot
explain the awful mystery of evil in any of its forms. I know the
pestilence is all around us; I know it seems to threaten your precious,
beautiful life. I recognize the fact, as I also remember the fact of the
darkness and storm around the little boat. But I also know with absolute
certainty that there is one who can come to your rescue, whose province
it is to give life, deathless life, life more rich and full of thrilling
happiness than you have ever dreamed of, even with your vivid
imagination."
"How, how can you know this? What _proof_ can you give me?" she
asked; and no poor creature, whose life was indeed at stake, ever bent
forward more eagerly to catch the sentence of life or death, than did
Amy Poland the coming answer.
"I know it," he replied more calmly, "on the strongest possible grounds
of evidence--my own experience, the experience of Mrs. Arnot, who is
sincerity itself, and the experience of multitudes of others. Believers
in Jesus Christ have been verifying his promises in every age, and in
every possible emergency and condition of life, and if their testimony
is refused, human consciousness is no longer a basis of knowledge. No
one ever had a better friend than Mrs. Arnot has been to me; she has
been the means of saving me from disgrace, shame, and everything that
was base, and I love her with a gratitude that is beyond words, and yet
I am not so conscious of her practical help and friendship as that of
the Divine Man who has been my patient unwavering friend in my long,
hard struggle."
Under his words, the hard, dry despair of Amy had given way to gentler
feelings, which found expression in low, piteous sobbing.
"Oh, when will he come to me?" she asked, "for I cannot doubt after such
words."
"When you most need him, Miss Amy. It is your privilege to ask his
comforting and sustaining presence now; but he will come when he sees
that you most need him."
"If ever poor creatures needed such a friend as you have described, we
need him now," faltered Mrs. Poland, turning her face toward them and
then they knew that she had heard all.
Amy sprang to her embrace, exclaiming, "Mother, is it possible that we
can find such a friend in our extremity?"
"Amy, I am bewildered, I am overwhelmed."
Haldane carried little Bertha to her crib and covered her with an
afghan. Then coming to the lady's side he took her hand and said gently,
and yet with that quiet firmness which does much to produce conviction:
"Mrs. Poland, before leaving your husband to his quiet sleep we read
words which Jesus Christ once spoke to a despairing, grief-stricken
woman. Take them now as if spoken to you. 'Jesus said unto her, I am the
resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead,
yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never
die.' As your husband said to you, you will all surely meet again."
Then he lifted her hand to his lips in a caress that was full of
sympathy and respect, and silently left the room.