DAVID'S PRONOUNCEMENT
When David's reply arrived, in due course, he went straight to the point
in this matter of Mrs. Mallory's conscience, with a directness which
fully satisfied Diana.
"It is impossible," wrote David, "to give an opinion as to which was the
greater or lesser wrong, when your friend had already advanced so far
down a crooked way. Undoubtedly it was a difficult moment for her in the
railway carriage, as in all probability her own critical thought gave
you the mental suggestion of not being suitably got up for town. But
you, in similar circumstances, would have said: 'Why, what does the fact
of your clothes being countrified matter, compared to the immense
comfort of having you with me. And if all the people we meet, could know
how kind you have been and how you raced to the train, they would not
give a second thought to what you happen to be wearing.'
"But a straightforward answer, such as you would have given, would not
be a natural instinct to a mind habitually fencing and hedging, and
shifting away from facing facts.
"Personally, on the difficult question of confession of wrong-doing, I
hold this: that if confession rights a wrong, and is clearly to the
advantage of the person to whom it is made, then confession is indeed an
obvious duty, which should be faced and performed without delay.
"But--if confession is merely the method adopted by a stricken and
convicted conscience, for shifting the burden of its own wrong-doing by
imparting to another the knowledge of that wrong, especially if that
knowledge will cause pain, disappointment, or perplexity to an innocent
heart--then I hold it to be both morbid and useless.
"Mrs. Mallory did not undo the fact of her lapse from absolute
truthfulness by telling you of it, in a way which she must have known
would cause you both mortification and pain. She simply added to the sin
of untruthfulness, the sins of ingratitude, and of inconsideration for
the feelings of another. Had she forged your signature to a cheque, she
would have been right to confess it; because confession would have been
a necessary step toward restitution. All confession which rights a
wrong, is legitimate and essential. Confession which merely lays a
burden upon another, is morbid and selfish. The loneliness of a
conscience under conviction, bearing in solitude the burden of acute
remembrance of past sins, is a part of the punishment those sins
deserve. Then--into that loneliness--there comes the comfort of the
thought: 'He Who knows all, understands all; and He Who knows and
understands already, may be fully told, all.' And, no sooner is that
complete confession made, than there breaks the radiance of the promise,
shining star-like in the darkness of despair: 'If we confess our sins,
He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness.' Mrs. Mallory could thus have got back into the
light of restored communion, without ever mentioning the matter to you.
"But this kind of mind is so difficult to help, because its lapses are
due to a lack of straightforward directness, which would be, to another
mind, not an effort, but an instinct.
"Such people stand in a chronic state of indecision, at perpetual
cross-roads; and are just as likely to take the wrong road, as the
right; then, after having travelled far along that road, are pulled up
by complications arising, not so much from the predicament of the
moment, as from the fact that they vacillated into the wrong path at the
crucial time when they stood hesitating. They need Elijah's clarion call
to the people of Israel: 'How long halt ye between two opinions? If the
Lord be God, follow Him; but, if Baal, then follow him'--honest idolatry
being better than vacillating indecision.
"This species of mental lameness reminds me of a man I knew at college,
who had one leg longer than the other. He was no good at all at racing
on the straight; but, round the grass plot in the centre of one of our
courts, no one could beat him. He used to put his short leg inside, and
his long leg out, and round and round he would sprint, like a
lamplighter. People who halt between two opinions always argue in a
circle, but never arrive at any definite conclusion. They are no good on
the straight. They find themselves back where they originally started.
They get no farther.
"Mrs. Mallory should take her place in the Pool of Bethesda among the
blind, and the halt, and the withered. She should get her eyes opened
to a larger outlook on life; her crooked walk made straight; and her
withered sensibilities quickened into fresh life. Then she would soon
cease to try you with her morbid conscience.
"Mrs. Mallory should give up defacing her Bible with the ink of her own
ideas or the ideas of others. Human conceptions, however helpful, should
not find a permanent place, even in your own individual copy of the Word
of God. The particular line of truth they emphasised, may have been the
teaching intended for that particular hour of study. But, every time you
turn to a passage, you may expect fresh light, and a newly revealed line
of thought. If your eye is at once arrested by notes and comments, or
even by the underlining of special words, your mind slips into the
groove of a past meditation; thus the liberty of fresh light, and the
free course of fresh revelation, are checked and impeded. Do not crowd
into the sacred _sanctuary_ of the Word, ideas which may most helpfully
be garnered in the _classroom_ of your notebook. Remember that the Bible
differs from all human literature in this: that it is a living, vital
thing--ever new, ever replete with fresh surprises. The living Spirit
illumines its every line, the living Word meets you in its pages. As in
the glades of Eden, when the mysterious evening wind (_ruach_) stirred
the leaves of the trees, making of that hour 'the cool of the day'--you
can say, as the wind of the Spirit breathes upon your passage through
the Word: 'I hear the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the
cool of the day.' Then, passing down its quiet glades, straightway, face
to face, you meet your Lord. No unconfessed sin can remain hidden in the
light of that meeting. No conscience can continue morbid if illumined,
cleansed, adjusted, by habitual study of the Word.
* * * * *
"There! I have calmly given my view of the matter, as being 'by
profession, a guide of doubting souls, an expounder of problems of
casuistry,' and all the other excellent things it pleased you to call
me.
"Now--as a man--allow me the relief of simply stating, that I should
dearly like to pound Mrs. Mallory to pulp, for her utter ingratitude to
you."
* * * * *
This sudden explosion on David's part, brought out delighted dimples in
Diana's cheeks; and, thereafter, whenever Mrs. Mallory proved trying,
she found consolation in whispering to herself: "David--my good, saintly
David--would dearly like to pound her to pulp!"