"I have come to see you, Egbert; you will not leave me."
"Mrs. Arnot," he said pa.s.sionately, "I am not worth the trouble you take in my behalf, and I might as well tell you at once that it is in vain."
"I do not regard what I do for you as "trouble," and I know it is not in vain," she replied, with calm, clear emphasis.
Her manner quieted him somewhat; but after a moment he said:
"You do not know what has happened to-day, nor how I have been feeling for many days past."
"Your manner indicates how you feel; and you may tell me what has happened if you wish. If you prefer that we should be alone, come with me to my carriage, and in the quiet of my private parlor you can tell me all."
"No," said Haldane gloomily; "I am not fit to enter your house, and for other reasons would rather not do so. I have no better friend than Mr.
Growther, and he already knows it all. I may as well tell you here; that is, if you are willing to stay."
"I came to stay," said Mrs. Arnot quietly; and sitting down, she turned a grave and expectant face toward him.
"I cannot find words in which to tell you my shame, and the utterness of my defeat."
"Yes, you can, Egbert. I believe that you have always told me the truth about yourself."
"I have, and I will again," he said desperately; "and yet it seems like profanation to describe such a scene to you." But he did describe it, briefly and graphically, nevertheless. As he spoke of his last fierce blow, which vanquished his opponent, Mr. Growther muttered:
"Sarved him right; can"t help feelin" glad you hit "im so hard; but then that"s in keepin" with the cussedness of my natur"."
A glimmer of a smile hovered around Mrs. Arnot"s flexible mouth, but she only asked quietly:
"Is that all?"
"I should think that was enough, after all that I had felt and professed."
"I fear I shall shock you, Egbert, but I am not very much surprised at your course. Indeed I think it was quite natural, in view of the circ.u.mstances. Perhaps my nature is akin to Mr. Growther"s, for I am rather glad that fellow was punished; and I think it was very natural for you to punish him as you did. So far from despairing of you, I am the more hopeful of you."
"Mrs. Arnot!" exclaimed the youth in undisguised astonishment
"Now do not jump to hasty and false conclusions from my words; I do not say that your action was right. In the abstract it was decidedly wrong, and for your language there is no other excuse save that an old, bad habit a.s.serted itself at a time when you had lost self-control. I am dealing leniently with you, Egbert, because it is a trick of the adversary to tempt to despair as well as to over-confidence. At the same time I speak sincerely. You are and have been for some time in a morbid state of mind. Let my simple common-sense come to your aid in this emergency. The very conditions under which you have been working at the mill imposed a continuous strain upon your nervous power. You were steadily approaching a point where mere human endurance would give way.
Mark, I do not say that you might not have been helped to endure longer, and to endure everything; but mere human nature could not have endured it much longer. It is often wiser to shun certain temptations, if we can, than to meet them. You could not do this; and if, taking into account all the circ.u.mstances, you could have tamely submitted to this insult, which was the culmination of long-continued and exasperating injury, I should have doubted whether you possessed the material to make a strong, forceful man. Of course, if you often give way to pa.s.sion in this manner, you would be little better than a wild beast; but for weeks you had exercised very great forbearance and self-control--for one of your temperament, remarkable self-control--and I respect you for it. We are as truly bound to be just to ourselves as to others. Your action was certainly wrong, and I would be deeply grieved and disappointed if you continued to give way to such ebullitions of pa.s.sion; but remembering your youth, and all that has happened since spring, and observing plainly that you are in an unhealthful condition of mind and body, I think your course was very natural indeed, and that you have no occasion for such despondency."
"Yes," put in Mr. Growther; "and he went away without his breakfast, and it was mighty little he took for lunch; all men are savages when they haven"t eaten anything."
"Pardon me, Mrs. Arnot," said Haldane gloomily, "all this does not meet the case at all. I had been hoping that I was a Christian; what is more, it seems to me that I had had the feelings and experiences of a Christian."
"I have nothing to say against that," said the lady quietly; "I am very glad that you had."
"After what has occurred what right have I to think myself a Christian?"
"As good a right as mult.i.tudes of others."
"Now, Mrs. Arnot, that seems to me to be contrary to reason."
"It is not contrary to fact. Good people in the Bible, good people in history, and to my personal knowledge, too, have been left to do outrageously wrong things. To err is human; and we are all very human, Egbert."
"But I don"t feel that I am a Christian any longer," he said sadly.
"Perhaps you are not, and never were. But this is a question that you can never settle by consulting your own feelings."
"Then how can I settle it?" was the eager response.
"By settling fully and finally in your mind what relation you will sustain to Jesus Christ. He offers to be your complete Saviour from sin.
Will you accept of him as such? He offers to be your divine and unerring guide and example in your everyday life. Will you accept of him as such?
Doing these two things in simple honesty and to the best of our ability is the only way to be a Christian that I know of."
"Is that all?" muttered Mr. Growther, rising for a moment from his chair in his deep interest in her words. She gave him an encouraging smile, and then turned to Haldane again.
"Mrs. Arnot," he said, "I know that you are far wiser in these matters than I, and yet I am bewildered. The Bible says we must be converted; that we must be born again. It seems to require some great, mysterious change that shall renew our whole nature. And it seemed to me that I experienced that change. It would be impossible for me to describe to you my emotions. They were sincere and profound. They stirred the very depths of my soul, and under their influence it was a joy to worship G.o.d and to do his will. Had I not a right to believe that the hour in which I first felt those glad thrills of faith and love was the hour of my conversion?"
"You had a right to hope it."
"But now, to-day, when every bad pa.s.sion has been uppermost in my heart, what reason have I to hope?"
"None at all, looking to yourself and to your varying emotions."
"Mrs. Arnot, I am bewildered. I am all at sea. The Bible, as interpreted by Dr. Barstow and Dr. Marks, seems to require so much; and what you say is required is simplicity itself."
"If you will listen patiently, Egbert, I will give you my views, and I think they are correct, for I endeavor to take them wholly from the Bible. That which G.o.d requires is simplicity itself, and yet it is very much; it is infinite. In the first place, one must give up self-righteousness--not self-respect, mark you--but mere spiritual self-conceit, which is akin to the feeling of some vulgar people who think they are good enough to a.s.sociate with those who are immeasurably beyond them, but whose superiority they are too small to comprehend. We must come to G.o.d in the spirit of a little child; and then, as if we were children, he will give to us a natural and healthful growth in the life that resembles his own. This is the simplest thing that can be done, and all can do it; but how many are trying to work out their salvation by some intricate method of human device, and, stranger still, are very complacent over the mechanical and abnormal results! All such futile efforts, of which many are so vain, must be cast aside. Listen to Christ"s own words: "Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart." He who would enter upon the Christian life, must come to Christ as the true scientist sits at the feet of nature--docile, teachable, eager to learn truth that existed long before he was born, and not disposed to thrust forward some miserable little system of his own. Nothing could be simpler, easier, or more pleasing to Christ himself than the action of Mary as she sat at his feet and listened to him; but many are like Martha, and are bustling about in his service in ways pleasing to themselves; and it is very hard for them to give up their own way. I"ve had to give up a great deal in my time, and perhaps you will.
"In addition to all trust in ourselves, in what we are and what we have done, we must turn away from what we have felt; and here I think I touch your present difficulties. We are not saved by the emotions of our own hearts, however sacred and delightful they may seem. Nor do they always indicate just what we are and shall be. A few weeks since you thought your heart had become the abiding-place of all that was good; now, it seems to you to be possessed by evil. This is common experience; at one time the Psalmist sings in rapturous devotion; again, he is wailing in penitence over one of the blackest crimes in history. Peter is on the Mount of Transfiguration; again he is denying his master with oaths and curses. Even good men vary as widely as this; but Christ is "the same, yesterday, to-day, and forever." By good men I mean simply those who are sincerely wishing and trying to obtain mastery over the evil of their natures. If you still wish to do this, I have abundant hope for you--as much hope as ever I had."
"Of what value, then, were all those strange, happy feelings which I regarded as the proofs of my conversion?" Haldane asked, with the look of deep perplexity still upon his face.
"Of very great value, if you look upon them in their true light. They were evidences of G.o.d"s love and favor. They showed how kindly disposed he is toward you. They can prove to you how abundantly able he is to reward all trust and service, giving foretastes of heavenly bliss even in the midst of earthly warfare. The trouble has been with you, as with so many others, that you have been consulting your variable emotions instead of looking simply to Christ, the author and finisher of our faith. Besides, the power is not given to us to maintain an equable flow of feeling for any considerable length of time. We react from exaltation into depression inevitably. Our feelings depend largely also upon earthly causes and our physical condition, and we can never be absolutely sure how far they are the result of the direct action of G.o.d"s Spirit upon our minds. It is G.o.d"s plan to work through simple, natural means, so that we may not be looking and waiting for the supernatural. And yet it would seem that many are so irrational that, when they find mere feeling pa.s.sing away, they give up their hope and all relationship to Christ, acting as if the immutable love of G.o.d were changing with their flickering emotions."
"I have been just so irrational," said Haldane in a low, deep tone.
"Then settle it now and forever, my dear young friend, that Jesus Christ, who died to save you, wishes to save you every day and all the days of your life. He does not change a hair-breadth from the att.i.tude indicated in the words, "Come unto me; and whosoever cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.""
"Do you mean to say he feels that way toward me all the time, in spite of all my cantankerous moods?" asked Mr. Growther eagerly.
"Most certainly."
"I wouldn"t a" thought it if I"d lived a thousand years."
"What, then, is conversion?" asked Haldane, feeling as if he were being led safely out of a labyrinth in which he had lost himself.
"In my view it is simply turning away from everything to Christ as the sole ground of our salvation and as our divine guide and example in Christian living."
"But how can we ever know that we are Christians?"
"Only by the honest, patient, continued effort to obey his brief command, "Follow me." We may follow near, or we may follow afar off; but we can soon learn whether we wish to get nearer to him, or to get away from him, or to just indifferently let him drop out of our thoughts. The Christian is one who holds and maintains certain simple relations to Christ. "Ye are my friends," he said, not if you feel thus and so, but, "if ye do whatsoever I command you;" and I have found from many years"
experience that "his commandments are not grievous." For every burden he imposes he gives help and comfort a hundred times. The more closely and faithfully we follow him, the more surely do fear and doubt pa.s.s away.