THE BAPTISM OF SUFFERING.
IN the course of time it became to Susan Erskine, who was watching
with eager interest the story of her sister’s life, a question of
painful moment as to how the watchful Christ would come to the rescue
of his straying sheep. For, as the days passed, it grew most painfully
apparent that Ruth _was_ straying. She did not gain in the least.
This being the case, it is of course equivalent to saying that she
lost. Steadily her husband proved the fact that his was the stronger
nature, and that he was leading, not being led. Yet his wife did not
get entirely out of the way—not far enough out indeed, to claim the
few pitiful returns that the world has for service. She staid always
in that wretched middle state, not belonging to the world fully, nor
yet fully to Christ; hence, continuous soreness of heart, developing
alternately in gloom and irritability.
There came at last a messenger to her home and heart—a little, tender,
helpless one, just helpless enough and clinging enough to gather all
the tendrils of the heart around and bind them closely. How that
baby was loved! There have been babies loved before—many a heart has
bowed before the shrine of such an idol; but perhaps never baby, from
grandfather down to the little hired nurse, whose duty it was in the
course of time to keep said baby amused, had such patient, persistent,
willing slaves as had this young heir of the house of Burnham. As
for Ruth, she found that she had never even _dreamed_ of the depth
of mother-love. A sort of general interest in healthy, cleanly,
well-dressed children had been one of her pastimes. She had imagined
herself somewhat fond of certain types of childhood, while aware that
she shrank in horror from certain other types. But this new, strange
rush of emotions which filled her heart almost to bursting was an
experience of which she had had no conception. From that hour those
who watched Ruth anxiously to see whether the sweet young life which
was a part of herself would win her back to her covenant vows, saw
with ever-deepening pain that this new-born soul was only another and
a stronger idol. With all the fierceness of her strong nature, with
all the unrest of her dissatisfied heart, did the mother bow before
this tiny soul and bring it worship. She discovered at last that
self-sacrifice was easy; that sleepless nights, and restless days,
and the pressure of many cares and responsibilities were as nothing,
provided baby’s comfort demanded any or all of these.
Now she withdrew entirely from the prayer-meetings, and ceased her
fitful attempts at being identified with the Sabbath-school. She was
even most rare in her attendance on the regular Sabbath service. Did
not baby require a mother’s care? This was her trust—God-given surely,
if anything ever was—and therefore she was to consider it as a work
from him.
There is no error so fatal as a _half_ truth. To be sure, this
theory was not carried out in all respects. The mother found time for
social life. She was seen frequently at concerts and lectures, and
entertainments of various sorts, but this, she said, was a duty she
owed to her husband. And it really seemed as though there were no voice
left in her heart to remind her that the duties she owed to Christ were
being neglected. And Susan, watching and waiting, began to ask her
heart half fearfully, “How will he speak to her next?” That he _would_
speak to her, and that effectually, she fully believed, for Ruth was
surely one of his own. How strange that she _would_ wander and make
it necessary for the Shepherd to seek her with bleeding feet, “over
the mountains, wild and bare,” instead of resting securely and sweetly
within the fold!
Meantime the domestic machinery of the Burnham household worked more
smoothly than it is always wont to do under the peculiar family
relations.
Ruth, whatever her faults, was fully alive to the special cause of
comfort in her household. She never ceased to realize that one of the
greatest blessings of her lot in life was the sudden descent upon her
of a sister. Such a faithful, thoughtful, self-sacrificing sister!—one
who really seemed to be as “wise as a serpent, and as harmless as a
dove.” Even Ruth, though she had an idea that she fully appreciated
her, did not see the extent of her influence over those untutored
girls. Daily her power over them increased; the development in them
mentally was something of which their father was unceasingly proud;
not the less, perhaps, did it give him satisfaction because there
was coupled with it a development of refinement of tone and manner,
a growing sense of the fitness of things, and an evident and hearty
relish for the advantages which his wealth was able to afford them.
Over one thing Susan pondered and prayed, and watched with no little
anxiety: the girls were willing to be her pupils in any other study
save that of personal religion; they were in a degree interested in
Bible study; they by no means shrank from it; they respected her views,
they talked freely with her as to creeds and doctrines; but when it
came to pressing their personal need of Christ as a Saviour from sin,
they were strangely apathetic.
“Had they inherited their father’s distaste for all the personalities
of religion?” Susan questioned, “or had their first delicious glimpse
of this new world, given under the new mother’s tutelage, so stamped
their ambitions that they had no room for deeper thoughts?” From this
last solution she shrank; it made such an awfully solemn matter of
personal responsibility; yet when she saw the almost reverence in which
they held this new mother’s views of whatever pertained to outside
life, she could not but feel that there had been stamped upon their
hearts the belief that she who had reigned so long in the fashionable
world knew all about the important things, and _had shown them what
they were_! At least, Susan felt sure that, could Ruth have realized
the influences she possessed over the unformed minds of her two
daughters, she would have shrunken from using it for trivialities.
As for Ruth, the girls had become secondary matters to her. She had
carried her point; she had proved that dress and attention to the many
refinements of life would make a vast difference in these two; she had
shown their father that it was through sheer neglect that they grew to
be the painful trials which they were; she had proved to him that her
course was the right one. There was no skeleton in their country home
now, to be avoided painfully. The girls were not perfect in deportment,
it is true; but so rapid had been their advancement in certain ways,
and so skillful was the brain which planned their outward adornings,
that they might safely endure introductions as Judge Burnham’s
daughters, in any circle where it was desirable to present them. Ruth
felt, watching them, that even the famous criminal lawyer himself
would never have recognized in them the two distressing specimens
which he had characterized as “discarded American help.” She had shown
her husband, also, that country life was not only endurable, but, in
many respects, desirable; indeed, so satisfied had he become with his
lovely rural home, that, when it was announced as important for baby’s
health that the entire season should be spent there, he offered no
objection, and agreed with alacrity to Ruth’s plan that Susan should
take the girls for a peep at life at Long Branch, and leave them to the
solitude of home. “Very well,” he had said, “provided you will, on
their return, leave Susan in charge of his lordship, and run away with
me to the mountains for a few days.” And Ruth had laughed, and shrugged
her handsome shoulders, and exclaimed over the folly of trying to coax
a mother from her six-months-old baby, for any mountains in the world;
and then she had looked proudly over toward the lace-curtained crib,
and rejoiced in the fact that the hero sleeping there had power enough
to hold father as well as mother a meek worshipper at his shrine; for,
if Judge Burnham really _was_ an idolater, his only son was the supreme
idol in his inmost heart.
So the summer plans were carried out. Ruth serenely discussed seaside
outfits, and decided, with the tone of one who realized that her word
was law, as to whether Minta would look better in a salmon-colored
evening dress, and whether Seraph was too young for a satin-trimmed
one. Long ago Susan, apparently without thought on the subject,
had started the habit of softening the objectional name into this
euphonious one; and Ruth remarked to her husband that perhaps time
would develop the fact that there was almost a prophecy in the name,
if Sereph’s voice continued to develop in strength and sweetness, under
culture. On the whole, there was serene satisfaction in the survey
of her handiwork where these girls were concerned; they bade fair to
do justice to her discernment, and afford food for pride. Still, as
I said, they were secondary. So that they were always well dressed,
and sat properly at table, and entered a room properly, and bowed
gracefully to her callers, and treated her with unfailing respect,
she was at rest concerning them. _Almost_, she had so trodden her
conscience under foot that in these days had she really very little
trouble in the thought that her _best_ for them had ignored the _best_
which life had for any soul.
Susan packed, and arranged, and listened to her numerous directions,
and went off to take her first summering away from cares, which of
one sort or another had held her for a lifetime—went with a shade of
anxiety on her face which was not for herself, nor yet because of her
responsibility in regard to these two unfledged worldlings, but for the
Christian mother hovering over the lace-curtained crib in the rose-hued
nursery; and her heart went murmuring, “How will He speak to her next?”
Not many days after, the next call of the Shepherd came. You are
prepared to hear what it was—that little, sheltered, watched-over
baby fell sick; not very sick; not so but that the doctor went and
came with a cheery air, and told the anxious mother that they would
have her darling as chirk as ever in a day or two, and Judge Burnham
believed him, and laughed at the mother’s dreary face, and made light
of her fears; but poor Ruth did _not_ believe him, and went about her
mother cares and hung over her sick darling with an ever-increasing,
deadening weight at her heart. He was not the family physician of the
Erskines—Dr. Mitchell—Judge Burnham didn’t believe in _him_, so the
coming and going doctor was the one associated with the dark days
wherein they had waited and watched over Ruth’s father.
Whether it was that association, or whatever it was, Ruth shrank
a little from Dr. Bacon, and was not able to give him her full
confidence. Dark days were these, and they dragged their slow lengths
along, and brought regularly the longer and darker nights, for it is
at night that we hang most hopelessly over our sick, and the silence
and quietness of the home grew oppressive to Ruth. She wished for
Susan, she would gladly have had the girls coming and going, yet it
seemed foolish to send for them; there was a skillful nurse, and there
were neighbors, who, though they had been almost ignored by the fine
family at the Hill, yet directly they heard that there was sickness,
came and went with their thoughtful offers of assistance. Why, even
Mrs. Ferris, with her loud voice and her uncouth ways, came and was
welcomed by Ruth, because of the humble work which she did in the
kitchen that tended to baby’s comfort.
And still the doctor came and went with his story that the baby would
be all right in a few days; but the days of mending did not come, and
the shadow deepened and darkened, though as yet it seemed to be seen
only by the mother’s heart, and in that heart a war was being waged
which in fierceness and length of conflict so far transcended all
Ruth’s other struggles with life as to make them pale into nothingness
before her. And the struggle was such that no human heart could
intermeddle, for it was between Ruth and God! She realized in those
days that she had actually had many a struggle with the great God
before, without recognizing it as such, or at least calling it by its
right name.
At first there was wild, fierce rebellion; she clung to her baby, held
him, indeed, so fiercely that he wailed feebly, and looked up into her
face almost in terror, and she cried out that she could not—indeed,
_would not_—give him up; no, not even to the Giver! And the little
face grew daily more wasted, and the little hands more feeble, and the
moments of wakeful recognition shorter, and the hours of half stupor
longer, and the doctor grew less cheery when he came, and Judge Burnham
grew restless and nervous—went later every day to town and returned
earlier, and was, in his silent, restrained, yet passionate way, fully
as rebellious as his wife.