As the winter grew into early spring, the fame of the Children’s Home
Meetings spread so rapidly that a larger audience-room became an
imperative necessity. The churches began to inquire into the matter, and
Margaret and Gilbert were beset with questions as to their creed and
purpose. To all such they gave answer, “Our only creed is love, and our
only purpose to help each other.”
“Too vague and indefinite; the structure will fall for lack of proper
support. You ought at least to have a set of rules.”
“So we have,” replied Margaret, “but they spring from the need of the
hour. We have order at our meetings because even disorderly natures find
that to keep the peace best subserves the interest they feel in the
all-pervading friendship we are seeking to establish. Beyond this we
keep in sight, although not obtrusively, the axiom, if such it may be
called, that the interest of one is the interest of all, and
transversely, that the interest of all is the interest of one. When
these simple truths have become the bone and sinew of belief and
practice, then we may go a few steps farther as the way opens and light
dawns.”
“You must have an ultimate line of procedure marked out—some plan as to
its religious aspect, have you not?”
“We teach no so-called system of theology. Since atheists, infidels,
deists, and trinitarians all meet upon the common ground that the
civilized world has never beheld a grander epitome of what is called
‘living’ than that afforded by Jesus of Nazareth, we are content to
forego modern complications of creeds and isms and establish among
ourselves the fundamental truths taught by Jesus and, better yet,
practised by Him. In doing this we think we shall better both man’s
desires and surroundings. This idea, carried to its logical conclusion,
is so far-reaching that inequalities of opportunity will fall away as if
by magic and the now unceasing mutterings of discontent and strife will
be one day relegated to a past age of unconscionable greed and
injustice.”
“The church has been striving to accomplish this for eighteen hundred
years. How can you expect, with no trained organization, to reach so
beatific a state of society?”
“Because we shall not do as the church does and partition the goats from
the sheep. We shall practice no exclusion, no worship of mammon, and
shall acknowledge no caste except that of heart and brain. Personally I
do not look beyond the good of the present hour; if that is rightfully
spent the future will take care of itself. Indeed, our effort is much
like guiding the first steps of the child; development must come with
years and growth.”
“Well, you have a good motive and are an earnest advocate. We shall
watch your progress with interest and wish you God-speed.”
These words were but a type of the interest the movement aroused among
cultured and progressive thinkers who came to watch and listen and went
away to ponder. Margaret and Gilbert, ever watchful of the trend of
current thought, smiled hopefully at each other when, in the columns of
their daily paper, they read the announcement of sermons on such topics
as “The Era of Religious Harmony: What Signs of its Approach? What can
we do to Hasten it?” “The Co-operative Principle in Morals.” “The Ethics
of the Eight-hour Movement.” “Religious Communism.”
“The way is clearing for us,” said Margaret eagerly. “Thought is awake
and we are only followers in the march of progress; we are not even
forerunners.”
“And yet we are looked upon with suspicion by a great many well-meaning
people. The conservative element in the church regards our ideas as
subversive and dangerous.”
“So thought the money-changers in the temple when Jesus drove them out.
What are we attempting to do, indeed, but re-establish the line of faith
on which the church has built itself? And if in doing this we brush some
of our plebeian, homespun ideas against a shocked silken-coated
aristocratic culture, we may advance the price of homespun in the
market, if nothing more. I am not afraid for our cause, since it is
identical with everlasting truth.”
“Yes, and walks hand in hand with the heart-hungry and soul-begging
mortal! Margaret, every time I stretch out my hand to one who has need
of a friend, I feel that the grandeur of that _Life_ which is enthroned
in my conscience and teaches me to aspire to the highest development, is
something infinitely greater than the same truth could have been as a
mere abstraction. Jesus, the Nazarene, a man among men, makes possible
all that is highest in human endeavor. A philosophy as old as the
earliest time and as fundamentally true as God himself, that ‘Nobility
arises from individual virtue and not from Abraham’s blood,’ and which
Jesus made so potent when He walked the earth, needs now, as then,
apostles who fear not to preach the truth. It underlies in all its
simplicity every system of religion and statecraft, and yet it is
ignored, brow-beaten, trampled under foot, and sneered at by those who
seek power at the expense of all that is noblest in man. Oh, had I a
thousand tongues I could not hurl these old truths at the world fast
enough!”
Flushed and tremulous with feeling, Gilbert walked up and down the room,
pouring out the flood of ideas which his work called into activity.
“Social well-being, industrial thrift, active consciences—let us place
these in the corner-stone of the new structure. Religion has been ‘set
apart’ too long; so long, indeed, that within its doors have crept the
monsters of greed, gold-worship, and place-hunting, until its higher and
holier meanings have been well-nigh crowded out. What, indeed, does man
want of a religion that does not permeate every hope, desire, and action
of life? We must bring it down from its idealized height and make it
common as the air we breathe and the bread we eat. Then indeed may man,
glancing upward, behold the dawn of a new and happier day!”
It was a day or two later that Herbert and Elsie were at the organ
trying a new piece of music, which accidentally slipping from its rack
fell behind the organ as it stood diagonally across the room. In rolling
the organ out Elsie discovered a market basket full of groceries hidden
in the corner.
“Where in the world did that basket come from, and what a strange place
to put it!” cried Elsie in amazement. As she glanced at Herbert his
flushed, uneasy face told the whole story.
“I am exceedingly obliged to your estimate of us as objects of charity!”
she exclaimed, placing the basket in the middle of the room, and
standing over it with the air of a queen of tragedy.
Herbert could not forbear a laugh, and there was a trifle of malice in
the tone with which he said: “It seems to me there is a striking
conflict of ideas between the democracy you preach and practice at the
Children’s Home Meetings I hear so much about, and the aristocracy of
pride you practice at home and toward those whom you ought to trust.”
Elsie winced under the home thrust, and with the quickness with which
she could judge herself, answered contritely: “I know I am proud,
Herbert; but I think it is an honorable pride. At least so I have always
considered pride of character, and it always _did_ hurt when anything
struck at my independence. It isn’t as if I were sick, or incapable,
or——”
“Exhibited a proper humility of spirit, instead of an obstinate and
irritating pride,” interrupted Herbert.
“Am I irritating?” asked Elsie simply. “In what way?”
“In ever so many ways,” answered Herbert, evidently bent on
fault-finding. “I seem to count but a cipher in your estimation beside
some of these overmastering ideas of yours. If I exhibit a generous
motive toward you, you smother it——”
“In kisses,” she cried, throwing her arms around his neck and proceeding
to stop further explanation. “Herbert Lynn,” she added, drawing a long
breath after the bit of violent exercise above recorded, “you’re a most
ungrateful man! Now don’t bluster, for it won’t do one bit of good. I’m
going to tell you something new. I love you more than any man in the
world—that is, any I’ve met so far! Keep still! and I’m going to do an
exceedingly generous action; I’m going to keep the groceries, and drop
you a courtesy of the properly humble kind, and say, ‘Thank you kindly,
sir! May heaven’s blessings shower——’ Why, what is the matter? You won’t
even wait for the proper ending of the performance.”
Herbert shook himself loose from her detaining arm and walked to the
window with a highly-offended air.
The laugh on Elsie’s lips and in her eyes died away, and after a
moment’s pondering she followed him and said penitently: “Forgive me,
Herbert; you know I love you more than——”
“What?” asked Herbert suspiciously.
“Money,” said Elsie sententiously.
“Bah!” exclaimed Herbert, angrily.
“Be calm, my friend! Now look me squarely in the eyes and behold your
image reflected there as—I’m in earnest now—truly it is engraven on my
heart, never to be erased as long as I live.”
Herbert’s reply was that speech of silence so eloquent to the ears of
all lovers, and for the time being it bridged over the tide of their
differences.
“Herbert,” said Elsie, when the silence had been effectively disposed
of, “why do you never come to the Children’s Home Meetings?”
“In the first place, because I’ve never been asked, and in the second
place, I’m not altogether in sympathy with the movement.”
A sudden pang shot through Elsie’s heart. “Please explain,” she said
quietly.
“Well, probably my reasons are selfish and personal. I believe you know
that I am somewhat generous at heart, that I am in the main humanity’s
well-wisher, and that I am ever ready to relieve a specific case of
distress; but I do not feel as if I wanted the girl who is to be my wife
hand in glove with the riff-raff of society.”
“The riff-raff of society!” repeated Elsie wonderingly. “Who are they?
How am I hand in glove with them?”
“Well, from what I hear,” answered Herbert uneasily, “you not only talk
the gospel of love in its broadest sense to women of the vilest stamp,
but you take their hands when it is pollution to touch them, you sit
beside them and try to teach them truths they are too dulled and
besotted to learn, and while you are, I must admit, an angel of light,
you are but a mock for their vile tongues, and make, I fear, only
questionable progress.”
“Go on,” said Elsie faintly as Herbert paused.
“There is a spirit of unrest and dissatisfaction abroad which I think
your efforts will do much to incite instead of quell. I do not question
your motives, but I do question your methods. Let them alone, Elsie,
darling, and be content to shine at the hearthstone of those who love
you. Intensify your light for me, instead of diffusing it until it is as
thin and almost as cold as moonshine.”
There was no fire of playful fancy in the eyes that met Herbert’s as
Elsie raised her head from his shoulder. He started as he saw the dull,
cold hopelessness beneath the heavily-fringed eyelids.
“O Herbert! Herbert!” she cried despairingly. “Why do you ask this? Why
did you ever learn to love me? I told you it was a mistake! I am one of
these common people whom you despise. I can no more shut out my
aspirations, hopes, dreams, and efforts for them than I can cut off my
right hand. I have fed on these thoughts until they have become bone and
sinew. You knew us, you knew our methods—why, oh, why did you learn to
love me?”
“For the very reason that you are not one of the common people. I have,
I think, told you several times before that I am not so blind I cannot
tell a jewel regardless of its environment. I loved you _despite_
education, surroundings, social pride, everything. I swept away every
obstacle to call you mine, and I care nothing for the world’s verdict. I
only want you for myself, queen of my heart and home, adored as its
sovereign light, surrounded by all that the eye delights in or the heart
can ask.”
“No, not all,” said Elsie quietly.
“What else?” asked Herbert eagerly. “You shall have everything that love
or wealth can procure.”
“Can they buy a quiet conscience?”
Herbert shrank back. “I think you exaggerate the matter,” he said
hastily. “I cannot see that the conscience is called into question.”
“I can,” said Elsie decidedly. “I had a heritage left me, here,” and she
placed her hand upon her breast as she spoke, “and daily and hourly it
tells me that if I selfishly lock up my God-given sympathies and turn
away from the impulses of my better nature, I am committing a crime
whose punishment is no less severe because eternity shall judge it.”
“Elsie! Elsie!” cried Herbert, awed into a great fear by the solemnity
of her words, “you shall be the dispenser of charity as bounteous as you
desire.”
“And yet be forbidden to soil my hands by contact with poverty or crime.
No, we have too much of that sort of charity already. Besides, do you
not see, Herbert, that there could be no happiness for us holding such
opposite views as we do? Marriage is too holy to admit a division of
sentiment and endeavor between husband and wife. Ah, I have been so weak
to permit a love that I knew could only bring disaster!”
“It is only a few moments ago that you assured me you loved me for all
time.”
“I do.”
“And yet you can throw me over for a disordered society that never will
appreciate an iota of your sacrifice.”
“You are mistaken! The sacrifice appeases a deeper and holier feeling.”
“You have a very strange way of reasoning, it seems to me,” said Herbert
bitterly. “You rob Peter to pay Paul with surprising alacrity.”
The look that Elsie turned upon him was so filled with agony that he
cried remorsefully as he caught her hand and endeavored to draw her
toward him: “Forgive me, Elsie, darling! I am not worthy of your love, I
know; but I hunger so for it—I can’t give it up!”
Elsie drew back with the despairing cry, “We are so wide apart,
Herbert.”
“We needn’t be if you would trust more to me and less to that
hypersensitive soul of yours.”
A look of scorn not usual to Elsie’s face met Herbert’s appealing gaze.
She rose to her feet and stood stiffly before him.
“You are centuries too late. My hypersensitive soul has a right to its
own distinct existence. Your prescience should have told you how little
I could strike palms with you in utter self-annihilation.”
A faint smile crossed Herbert’s face at Elsie’s grandiloquent words and
air, but it died quickly away as she swept haughtily from the room and
would not come back, though he called her repeatedly. Angrily he
snatched his hat and left the house. Abused, insulted, hurt,
misunderstood, he felt himself to be, and the more he reviewed the
situation the more he felt that Elsie’s obstinacy, as he termed it, had
raised an impassible barrier between them. Still his heart would not be
stifled, and it was not till after dispatching a note to her and
despairingly reading her answer—that marriage between people so
distinctly at variance could never bring happiness—that he wholly lost
hope. It was but the work of a few hours to make arrangements to join
his sister abroad. At the last moment he dispatched a note to Elsie
containing these words: “I have placed the sum of five thousand dollars
in the C—— National Bank, subject to your call. If you love me as
devotedly as I can assure you I shall ever cherish your memory, you
cannot do less than make me happy by using it. You owe me this small
recompense for the suffering that will be mine to the day of my death.”