MAVIS PLACE CHAPEL.
It was on the corner of Merle Street and Mavis Place. The Reverend
Hilary Vireo, as I have told you, was the minister.
It might have been called, if anybody had thought of it, "The Chapel
of the New Song." For it was the very gospel of hope and gladness
that Hilary Vireo preached there, and had preached and lived for
twenty years, making lives to sing that would have moaned.
"Haven't you a song in your heart, somewhere?" was his word once, to
a man of hard life, who came to him in a trouble, and telling him of
it, passed to a spiritual confidence, such as Vireo drew out of
people without the asking. At the end of his story, the man had said
that "he supposed it was as good as he ought to expect; he hadn't
any business to look for better, and he must just bear it, for
_this_ life. He hoped there _was_ something afterwards for them that
could get to it, but he didn't know."
"Aren't you _glad_ of things, sometimes?" said Mr. Vireo. "Of a
pleasant day, even,--or a strong, fresh feeling in the morning?
Don't you touch the edge of the great gladness that is in the world,
now and then, in spite of your own little single worries? Well,
_that's_ what God means; and the worry is the interruption. He
_never_ means that. There's a great song forever singing, and we're
all parts and notes of it, if we will just let Him put us in tune.
What we call trouble is only his key, that draws our heart-strings
truer, and brings them up sweet and even to the heavenly pitch.
Don't mind the strain; believe in the _note_, every time his finger
touches and sounds it. If you are glad for one minute in the day,
that is his minute; the minute He means, and works for."
The man was a tuner of pianofortes. He went away with that lesson in
his heart, to come back to him repeatedly in his own work, day by
day. He had been believing in the twists and stretches; he began
from that moment to believe in the music touches, far apart though
they might come. He lived from a different centre; the growth began
to be according to the life.
"It's queer," he said once, long afterward, reminding Mr. Vireo of
what he had spoken in the moment it was given through him, and then
forgotten. "A man can put himself a'most where he pleases. Into a
hurt finger or a toothache, till it is all one great pain with him;
or outside of that, into something he cares for, or can do with his
well hand, till he gets rid of it and forgets it. There's generally
more comfort than ache, I do suppose, if we didn't live right in the
middle of the ache. But you see, that's the great secret to find
out. If ever we _do_ get it,--complete"--
"Ah, that's the resurrection and the life," said Mr. Vireo.
Among the crowd that waited about the open chapel doors, and through
the porches, and upon the stair-ways, one clear, sunny, October
morning, on which the congregation would not gather quietly to its
pews, stood this man, and many another man, and woman, and little
child, to whom a word from Hilary Vireo was a word right out of
heaven.
They would all have a first sight of him to-day,--his first Sunday
among them after the whole summer's absence in Europe. He might
easily not get into his pulpit at all, but give his gift in crumbs,
all the way along from the street curb-stones to the aisles in the
church above,--they waylaid him so to snatch at it from hand, face,
voice, as he should come in. It would not be altogether unlike
Hilary Vireo, if seeing things this way, he stopped right there
amongst them, to deal out heart-cheer and sympathy right and left,
face to face, and hand to hand,--the Gospel appointed for that day.
"What a crowd there'll be in heaven about some people!" said a tall,
good-looking man to Hilary Vireo, in an undertone, as he came up the
sidewalk with him into the edge of these waiting groups.
"May be. There'll be some scattering, I fancy, that we don't look
for. We shall find _all_ our centres there," returned Mr. Vireo,
hastily, as his people closed about him and the hand-shaking began.
Christopher Kirkbright made his way to the stairs, as the passage on
one side became cleared by the drifting of the parish over to the
western door, by which the minister was entering. A little way up he
found his sister, sitting with a young woman in the deep window
ledge at the turn, whence they could look quietly down and watch the
scene. Overhead, the heavy bell swung out slow, intermitted peals,
that thrilled down through all the timbers of the building, and
forth upon the crisp autumn air.
"My brother--Miss Ledwith," said Miss Euphrasia, introducing them.
Desire Ledwith looked up, The intensity that was in her gray eyes
turned full into Christopher Kirkbright's own. It was like the
sudden shifting of a lens through which sun-rays were pouring. She
had been so absorbed with watching and thinking, that her face had
grown keen and earnest without her knowing, as it had been always
wont to do; only it was different from the old way in this,--that
while the other had been eager, asking, unsatisfied, this was simply
deep, intent; a searching outward, that was answered and fed
simultaneously from within and behind; it was the _transmitted_
light by which the face of Moses shone, standing between the Lord
and the people.
She was not beautiful now, any more than she had been as a very
young girl, when we first knew her; in feature, that is, and with
mere outward grace; but her earnestness had so shaped for itself,
with its continual, unthwarted flow, a natural and harmonious outlet
in brow and eyes; in every curve by which the face conforms itself
to that which genuinely animates it, that hers was now a countenance
truly radiant of life, hope, purpose. The small, thin, clear cut
nose,--the lip corners dropped with untutored simplicity into a rest
and decision that were better than sparkle and smile,--the coolness,
the strength, that lay in the very tint and tone of her
complexion,--these were all details of character that had asserted
itself. It had changed utterly one thing; the old knitting and
narrowing of the forehead were gone; instead, the eyes had widened
their spaces with a real calm that had grown in her, and their outer
curves fell in lines of largeness and content toward the contour of
the cheeks, making an artistic harmony with them.
It was not a face, so much as a living soul, that turned itself
toward Miss Euphrasia's brother, as Miss Kirkbright spoke his name
and Desire's.
For some reason, he found himself walking into the church beside
them afterward, thinking oddly of the etymology of that
word,--"introduced."
"Brought within; behind the barriers; made really known. Effie gave
me a glimpse of that girl,--her _self_. I don't think I was ever so
really introduced before."
He did not know at all who Miss Ledwith was; she might have been one
of the chapel protégées; from Hanover or Neighbor Street, or where
not; they all looked nice, in their Sunday dress; those who were
helped to dress were made to look as nice as anybody.
Desire Ledwith had on a dark maroon-colored serge, made very simply;
bordered, I believe, with just a little roll binding of velvet
around the upper skirt. Any shop-girl might have worn that; any
shop-girl would perhaps have been scarcely satisfied to wear the
plain black hat, with just one curly tip of ostrich feather tucked
in where the velvet band was folded together around it.
Desire sat with her class; it was her family, she said; her
church-family, at any rate; she had chosen her scholars from those
who had no parents to come with, and sit by; they were all glad of
their home-place weekly, at her side.
Miss Kirkbright and her brother went into the minister's pew. Miss
Kirkbright did not usually come to the service; the school, in which
she taught, met in the afternoon; but this was Mr. Vireo's first
Sunday, and his friend, her brother Christopher, had just come home
with him across the Atlantic.
There was singing, in which nearly every voice joined; there was
praying, in which one voice spoke as to a Presence felt close
beside; and all the people felt at least that _he_ felt it, and that
therefore it must be there. They believed in it through him, as we
all believe in it through Christ, who is in the bosom of the Father.
That they might some time come where he stood now, and know as he
knew, many of them were simply, carefully, daily striving to "do the
Will."
He spoke to them of "journeyings;" of how God was everywhere in the
whole earth; of how Abraham had the Lord with him, as he travelled
up through a land he knew not, as he dwelt in Padan Aram, as he
crossed the desert and came down through the hill-country into
Canaan. Of how the Lord met Jacob at Bethel, when he was on his way
through strange places, to go and serve his uncle Laban; how he went
with Joseph into Egypt, and afterwards led out the children of
Israel through forty years of wandering, showing them signs, and
comforting them all the way; how "He leadeth me" is still the
believer's song, still the heart-meaning of every human life.
"Whether we go or stay, as to place, we all move on; from our
Mondays to our Saturdays; from one experience to another; and before
us and beside us, passes always and abides near that presence
of _the Lord_. Do you know what 'the Lord' means? It is the
bread-giver; the feeder; the provider of every little thing. That is
the name of God when He comes close to humanity. In the beginning,
_God_ created the heavens and the earth; but _the Lord_ spoke unto
Adam; _the Lord_ appeared unto Abraham; _the Lord_ was the God of
Israel.
"God is _our_ Lord; our daily leader; our bread-giver, from meal to
meal, from mouthful to mouthful. The Angel of his Presence saves us
continually. And in these latter days, the 'Lord' is 'Christ;' the
human love of Him come down into our souls, to take away our
sins,--to give us bread from heaven to eat; to fulfill in the inward
kingdom every type and sign of the old leading; through need and
toil, through strange places, through tedious waitings, through the
long wilderness, and over the river into the Land that is beautiful
and very far off."
The four walked away from the church together; they stopped on the
corner of Borden Street. Here Desire and Mr. Vireo would leave
them,--their way lying down the hill.
"I liked your doctrine of the Lord," said Miss Euphrasia to the
minister. "That is true New Church interpretation, as I receive it."
"How can any one help seeing it? It shines so through the whole,"
said Desire.
"Leader and Giver; it is the one revelation of Scripture, from
beginning to end," said Mr. Vireo. "'Come forth into the land that I
shall show thee.' 'Follow Me, and I will give unto you everlasting
life.' The same call in the Old Testament and in the New."
"'One Lord, one faith, one baptism,'" repeated Miss Euphrasia.
"Leading--_by the hand_; giving--_morsel by morsel_," said Mr.
Kirkbright, emphasizing the near and dear detail.
"That makes me think," said Miss Euphrasia, suddenly. "Desire," she
went on, without explaining why, "we are going up to Brickfield
Farms next week, Christopher and I. Why shouldn't you go too,--and
bring her home, you know?"
As true as she lived, Miss Euphrasia hadn't a thought--whatever
_you_ may think--of this and that, or anything, when she said it.
Except the simple fact, that it was beautiful October weather, and
that _she_ should like it, and that Sylvie and Desire would get
acquainted.
"It will do you good. You'd better," said Mr. Vireo, kindly.
Christopher Kirkbright said nothing, of course. There was nothing
for him to say. He did not think very much. He only had a passing
feeling that it would be pleasant to see this grave-faced girl
again, and to understand her, perhaps, a little.