_A SELECT CONGREGATION_
Grandfather was right. The Good Shepherd had brought Gordon back. I
am quite at a loss to tell just how the change came about, or what its
actual evidences were--but the great ministry in accomplishing it was
the ministry of sorrow. Sorrow and love--that ever undivided
pair--seemed to have conspired for their perfect work. It began, I
think, with the crushing weight that fell upon our hearts in the loss
of Harold and in all the shame and anguish connected with it. That was
God's way, I have always thought, of teaching Gordon how much a
father's heart can suffer--and the inevitable outcome of that is the
Cross itself if God our Father be. How could His love escape love's
inevitable pain, any more than ours? Then, besides, grandfather's
home-going had been a second ordination for Gordon, and the ministry
that followed was new and beautiful. So was mine, if I may designate
my poor service by such a lofty word; for now I knew beyond a
peradventure that God hears and answers prayer. I verily believe
grandfather and I prayed him back between us.
The very day after Gordon's father entered into rest I was sitting in
the gloaming, thinking of the life that had gone from us; one never
knows how dear is an aged life, till the silver-haired presence is
withdrawn. And I heard something that started my heart singing
heavenward with gratitude.
Gordon and Dorothy were at the piano, on which our daughter now loved
to show her new-found skill. And softly on the evening air there
floated out to me the strains of the hymn he had asked her to play.
Surely there is no music, this side of heaven, so sweet as that which a
man's strong voice and a girl's fluttering note combine to make.
"We'll sing it again," I heard Gordon saying; "every word is golden,
Dorothy. Come now:
'Jesus loves me, He who died
Heaven's gate to open wide;
He will wash away my sin
Let His little child come in'"
and then followed some words of Gordon's which I could hardly catch.
But I heard enough to know that he was teaching our little girl the
great and blessed doctrine which he himself had learned by his mother's
knee. How I gloried in this new theology, asserting once again its
holy spell upon my husband's heart, no human tongue can tell.
The months went by. And if ever a man was happy in his work, that man
was Gordon Laird. In his work, I say--for our home lay still under the
shadow of its great and bitter sorrow. After one or two unsatisfactory
letters, followed by a final one of despairing note, no word had come
from Harold. This was what Gordon had feared. Those months stand out
before me now, each one almost separate in its pain, like sombre
mountain peaks robed in cloud. I know all about the anguish of those
who roam some desert waste searching for a spring, or with parched lips
upturned to the unsoftening skies. The slowly dying hope, the burning
fever whenever I heard the postman's knock, the sickening
disappointment, all surge again like a turgid flood about me when I
allow my mind to dwell on those days of silence.
Yet if I suffered I believe Gordon, in a deep, silent way, suffered
even more. My heart ached more for him than for myself. I almost came
to change my mind as to which of the children had first place in
Gordon's heart--it seemed to cry out now for Harold as for nothing else
on earth. Although, and I write it gladly for the comfort of some like
stricken soul, all this worked its gracious ministry upon his troubled
life. Embattled long as his spirit had been with inward misgiving and
silent doubt, this last dark mystery would have wrought sore havoc, I
cannot but believe, had it not been so terrible. Its very fierceness
of attack drove him in upon the Lord whom he had found afresh; and his
soul found its comfort in simplicity of faith and childlike urgency of
prayer. The songs we shall sing in the Yonderland shall give their
chiefest praise for the burdens that were too heavy to be borne alone.
I have spoken of Gordon's urgency of prayer. It was he, not I, who
suggested that we should have a set time, every morning, when we should
pray for nothing else but this--that Harold might be brought back to
us. And it was Gordon, not I, who led Dorothy to include in her
evening prayer the plea that God would bring her brother home.
Yes, I think sometimes that the great Father led my husband into the
wilderness for this very purpose, to make him a minister after His own
heart. I said to him once, just about the time we first began to
realize we weren't going to hear from Harold:
"All this won't affect your life-work, will it, Gordon--your preaching,
I mean?" for it was only natural, after all that had transpired, that I
should have some secret misgivings.
His answer lingers with me like a chime of bells, though it came in
tones subdued and low: "No," he said; "no--I'm going to preach now to
broken hearts."
"Then you'll never lack a congregation, my darling," was the response I
made; and I have always thought it was given me in that hour what to
speak.