MENTAL PROBLEMS.
"Dr. Deems," said Ruth, looking up from her programme with a thoughtful
air. "I wonder if he is a man whom I have any special desire to hear?"
You must constantly remember the entire ignorance of these girls on all
names and topics that pertained to the religious world. Ruth knew indeed
that the gentleman in question was a New York clergyman; that was as far
as her knowledge extended.
"His subject is interesting," Flossy said.
"I don't think it is," said Eurie. "Not to me, anyhow. Nature and I
have nothing in common, except to have a good time together if we can
get it. She is a miserably disappointed jade, I know. What has she done
for us since we have been here except to arrange rainy weather? I'm
going to visit his honor the mummy this morning, and from there I am
going to the old pyramid; and I advise you to go with me, all of you.
Talk about nature when there is an old fellow to see who was acquainted
with it thousands of years ago. Nature is too common an affair to be
interested in."
"Oh, are you going to the museum?" said Flossy. "Then please get me one
of the 'Bliss' singing books, will you? I want to secure one before they
are all gone. Girls, don't you each want one of them to take home? The
hymns are lovely."
"I don't," said Eurie, "unless he is for sale to go along and sing them.
I can't imagine anything tamer than to hear some commonplace voice
trying to do those songs that he roars out without any effort at all.
What has become of the man?"
"He has gone," said Marion. "Called home suddenly, some one told me.
His singing is splendid, isn't it? I don't know but I feel much as you
do about the book. Think of having Deacon Miller try to sing, 'Only an
armor-bearer!' I don't mind telling you that I felt very much as if I
were being lifted right off my feet and carried up somewhere, I hardly
know where, when I heard him sing that. I was coming down the hill, away
off, you know, by the post-office--no, away above the post-office, and
he suddenly burst forth. I stopped to listen, and I could hear every
single word as distinctly as I can hear you in this tent."
"Hear!" said Eurie, "I guess you could. I shouldn't be surprised if they
heard him over at Mayville, and that is what brings such crowds here
every day. Did you ever _see_ anything like the way the people come
here, anyhow?"
"I don't feel at all as you do," said Flossy, going back to the question
of singing-books. "After we get let down a little, 'Only an
armor-bearer' will sound very well even from common singers. It has in
it what can't be taken out because a certain voice is lost; and the
book is full of other and simpler pieces, and lovely choruses, that
people can catch after one hearing."
"Flossy is going home to introduce it into the First Church," Eurie
said, gravely.
Flossy's cheeks flushed.
"I had not thought of that," she said, simply; "perhaps we can. In any
case get me a couple, Eurie."
The discussion on the morning service ended in a division of the party.
Ruth, who had come over early on purpose to attend, was obliged to
succumb to a feeling of utter weariness and lie down.
Eurie steadily refused to go to the platform meeting, assuring them that
she knew Dr. Deems would be "as dry as a stick; all New York ministers
were."
So Flossy and Marion went away together, Marion with her note-book in
the hope of getting an item for a newspaper letter that must be written
that afternoon.
They were late, and almost abandoned in despair the hope of getting
within hearing, until a happy thought suggested a seat on the platform
stair at the speaker's back. There was a "crack" there, Marion said,
into which they presently crept.
The address was already commenced. Marion listened at first with that
indifferent air that a face wears when its owner perforce commences in
the middle of a thing, and has to _wait_ his way to a tangible idea of
what is being said.
There was not long waiting, however. Her eyes began to dilate and her
face to glow; she was almost a worshiper of eloquence, and surely no one
ever sat for two hours and listened to a more unbroken flow of rich,
glowing words, shining like diamonds, than fell lavishly around the
listeners that Friday morning at Chautauqua. But a few minutes and
Marion's pencil began to move with speed. This was the thought that had
thrilled her:
"First, light; then liberation from chaos; then grass; and then God
stopped his work and gazed with delight on the picture he had drawn.
Think what a picture it must have been! There was nothing but rocks
ground down when God said, 'Earth, grow!' Then straightway the mother
power fell down upon the earth, life pulsed in her veins, and the baby
shoot of grass sprang up, and the rocky earth wrapped herself in her
garment of emerald, and God, stopping his work said, 'Useful,
beautiful!'"
When the speaker touched upon the doctrine of the resurrection Marion's
pencil paused, and she leaned eagerly forward to get a glimpse of his
face. That doctrine had seemed to her doubting heart the strangest,
wildest, most hopeless of the Christian theories. If clear light could
shine on that, could there not on _anything_? Her face was aglow with
interest not only, but with anxiety.
This morning, for the first time in her life, she could be called an
honest doubter. She had fancied herself able to believe any thing of
which her reason had been convinced; but she found, to her surprise and
dismay, that so fixed had the habit of unbelief become, it seemed
impossible to shake it off, and that she needed to be convinced and
reconvinced; that her questionings came in on every hand, seized upon
the smallest point, and tormented her without mercy. What about this
strange story of the resurrection?
As she listened a subdued smile broke over her face--a smile of
sarcasm. How very absurdly simple the argument from nature was, how
utterly unanswerable! And after the sentence, "Tell me how that
wonderful field of waving grain came from the bare kernels of corn, and
I will tell you how my blessed baby shall rise an angel," Marion said in
tone so distinct that it struck on Flossy's ear like a knell, "What a
fool!" Not the speaker, as the dismayed and disappointed Flossy
supposed, but _herself_.
"The measure of every man is his faith," said Dr. Deems. "The greatest
thing a human being can do is not to perceive, nor to _compare_, not to
_reason_, but to _believe_." And again Marion smiled. If this were true
what a pigmy she must be! She began to more than suspect that she was.
"Don't waste time," said the Doctor, "in trying to reconcile science and
the Bible. Science wasn't intended to teach religion. The Bible wasn't
intended to teach science; but wherever they touch they agree. God sends
his servants--scientific men--all abroad through nature to gather facts
with which to illustrate the Bible."
Marion began to write again, but it was only in snatches here and
there; not that there was not that which she longed to catch, but she
could not write it--the sentences just poured forth; and how perfectly
aglow with light and beauty they were! This one sentence she presently
wrote:
"In the black ink of his power God wrote the Book of nature; in the red
ink of his love he wrote the Bible; and all this _power_ is to bring us
all to this _love_. Oh, to rest in arms like these! Are they not strong
enough?"
Suddenly Marion closed her book and slipped her pencil into her pocket;
she could not write. And although she thrilled through every nerve over
the majestic sentences that followed and was carried to a pitch of
enthusiasm almost beyond her control, when the jubilant thunder of
thousands of voices rang together in the matchless closing words,
"Blessing, and glory, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might,
be unto our God, forever and ever. Amen." She made no further attempt to
write; her heart was full; there rang in it this eager cry, "Oh, to rest
in arms like these!" Strong enough? Aye, indeed! Doubts were forever set
at rest. The Maker of all nature could be none other than God, and the
God of nature was the God of the Bible. It was as clear as the sunlight.
Reason was forever satisfied, but there lingered yet the hungering cry,
"Oh, to rest in arms like these!"
And Flossy said not a word to her of the resting place. Not because she
had not found it strong and safe; not because she did not long to have
her friend rest there, but because of that despairing murmur in her
heart. "What is the use in saying anything? Had she not heard with her
own ears Marion's sneering sentence in the face of the unanswerable
arguments that had been presented?" I wonder how often we turn away from
harvest fields that are ready for the reader because we mistake for a
sneer that which is the admission of a convicted soul?
By afternoon Ruth was rested and ready for meeting; if the truth be
known it was her troubled brain which had tired her body and obliged her
to rest. She had begun to take up that problem of "Christian work." The
platform meeting of the evening before, and, more than anything else,
Dr. Niles' address, had fanned her heart into a flame of desire to do
something for the Master. But what could she do? She and Flossy had
talked it over together after they reached their room at the hotel; in
fact they talked away into the night.
"I don't know," Flossy said, with a little laugh, "but I shall have to
depend on the 'unconscious influence' which I exert to do my work for
me. I don't know of anything which I can actually _do_. Dr. Niles made a
great deal of that."
"Yes," Ruth, said, "but you see, Flossy, the people whose unconscious
influence does any good are the ones after all who are moving around
_trying_ to do something. I don't feel sure that he lets the unconscious
influence of the drones amount to much, unless it is in the wrong scale.
Dr. Niles made a good deal of _that_, you remember."
"Don't you like him ever so much, Ruth?"
"Why, yes," Ruth said again, turning her pillow wearily. "I liked him of
course; how could I help it? But, after all, he made me very
uncomfortable. I seem to feel as though I _must_ find something to do. I
have a great deal of time to make up. I tell you what it is, Flossy, I
wish you and I could do something for those two girls. Isn't it strange
that they are not interested?"
"But they are not." Flossy said it as positively as if she could see
right into their hearts. "I think Marion is worse than ever; and as for
Eurie, she won't even go to the meetings, you know."
"I know. Perhaps we would only do harm to try. But what _can_ we do? I
am sure I don't see anything. And don't you know how clearly Dr. Niles
made it appear that there was a special work for each one?"
So they discussed the question, turning it over and over, and getting
almost no light, coming to feel themselves very useless and worthless
specks on the sea of life, until late in the night Flossy said:
"I'll tell you what it is, Ruth, we must just ask for work--little bits
of work, you know--and then keep our eyes open until it comes. I know of
things I can do when I get home."
"So do I," said Ruth, "but I want to begin now."
Silence for a few minutes, and then Flossy asked:
"Ruthie, have you written to Mr. Wayne?"
"No," said Ruth, her cheeks flushing even in the darkness. "I wrote a
long letter just before this came to me, but I burned it, and I am glad
of it."
Then they went to sleep. But the desire for the work did not fade with
the daylight. Flossy had even been tempted to say a humble little word
to Marion, but had been deterred by the sound of that sneer of which I
told you; and Ruth, lying on her bed, had revolved the subject and sent
up many an earnest prayer, and went out to afternoon service resolved
upon keeping her eyes very wide open.
The special attraction for the afternoon was a conference of primary
class teachers. They were out in full force, and were ready for any
questions that might fill the hearts and the mouths of eager learners.
Our girls had each their special favorites among these leaders. Ruth
found herself attracted and deeply interested in every word that Mrs.
Clark uttered. Marion was making a study of both Mrs. Knox and Miss
Morris, and found it difficult to tell which attracted her most. Even
Eurie was ready for this meeting. She had never been able to shake off
the thought of Miss Rider, and her eager enthusiasm in this work, while
Flossy had been fascinated and carried away captive by the magnetic
voice and manner of Mrs. Partridge.
"She makes me glow," Flossy said, in trying to explain the feeling to
the calmer Ruth. "Her life seems to quiver all through me, and make me
long to reach after it; to have the same power which she has over the
hearts of wild uncared-for children."
And Ruth looked down on the exquisite bit of flesh and blood beside her,
and thought of her elegant home and her elegant mother, and of all the
softening and enervating influences of her city life, and laughed. How
little had she in common with such a work as that to which Mrs.
Partridge had given her soul!
Keeping her eyes open, as she had planned to do, this same Flossy saw as
she was passing down the aisle the hungry face of one of her boys, as
she had mentally called the Arabs with whom her life had brushed on the
Sunday morning The word just described it still, a hungry face like one
hanging wistfully around the outskirts of a feast in which he had no
share. Flossy let go her hold of Ruth's arm and darted toward him.
"How do you do?" she said, in winning voice, before he had even seen
her. "I am real glad to see you again. If you will come with me I will
get a seat for you. A lady is going to speak this afternoon who has five
hundred boys in her class in Sunday-school."
Now the Flossy of two weeks ago, if she could have imagined herself in
any such business, would have been utterly disgusted with the result,
and gone away with her pretty nose very high.
The boy turned his dirty face toward her and said, calmly:
"What a whopper!"
The experience of a lifetime could not have answered more deftly:
"You come and see. I am almost certain she will tell us about some of
them."
Still he stared, and Flossy waited with her pretty face very near to
his, and her pretty hand held coaxingly out.
"Come," she said again. And it could not have been more to the boy's
surprise than it was to hers that he presently said:
"Well, go ahead. I can send if I don't like it. I'll follow."
And he did.