Still Beulah stood on the hearth, with a dreamy abstraction looking out from her eyes, and when she spoke there was a touch of impatience in her tone:
"Why try to escape it all, Clara? If those "grand old masters,"
those "bards sublime," who tell us in trumpet-tones of "life"s endless toil and endeavor," speak to you through my loved books, why should you "long for rest"?"
"An unfledged birdling cannot mount to the dizzy eyries of the eagle," answered Clara meekly.
"One grows strong only by struggling with difficulties. Strong swimmers are such from fierce buffetings with hungry waves. Come out of your warm nest of inertia! Strengthen your wings by battling with storm and wind!" Her brow bent as she spoke.
"Beulah, what sustains you would starve me."
"Something has come over you, Clara."
"Yes; a great trust in G.o.d"s wisdom and mercy has stolen into my heart. I no longer look despondingly into my future."
"Why? Because you fancy that future will be very short and painless?
Ah, Clara, is this trust, when the end comes and there is no more work to do?"
"You are mistaken; I do not see Death beckoning me home. Oh, I have not earned a home yet! I look forward to years of labor, profit, and peace. To-day I found some lines in the morning paper. Nay, don"t curl your lips with a sneer at what you call "newspaper poetry."
Listen to the words that came like a message from the spirit-land to my murmuring heart." Her voice was low and unsteady, as she read:
""Two hands upon the breast, and labor"s done; Two pale feet crossed in rest, the race is won.
Two eyes with coin-weights shut, all tears cease; Two lips where grief is mute, and wrath at peace.
So pray we oftentimes, mourning our lot; G.o.d, in his kindness, answereth not!""
"Such, Beulah, I felt had been my unvoiced prayer; but now!"
""Two hands to work addressed; aye, for his praise, Two feet that never rest; walking his ways; Two eyes that look above, still through all tears; Two lips that breathe but love; never more fears.
SO WE CRY AFTERWARD, LOW AT OUR KNEES.
PARDON THOSE ERRING CRIES! FATHER, HEAR THESE!"
"Oh Beulah, such is now my prayer."
As Beulah stood near the lamp, strange shadows fell on her brow; shadows from the long, curling lashes. After a brief silence, she asked earnestly:
"Are your prayers answered, Clara? Does G.o.d hear you?"
"Yes; oh, yes!" "Wherefore?"
"Because Christ died!"
"Is your faith in Christ so firm? Does it never waver?"
"Never; even in my most desponding moments."
Beulah looked at her keenly; and asked, with something like a shiver:
"Did it never occur to you to doubt the plan of redemption, as taught by divines, as laid down in the New Testament?"
"No, never. I want to die before such a doubt occurs to me. Oh, what would my life be without that plan? What would a fallen, sin-cursed world be without a Jesus?"
"But why curse a race in order to necessitate a Saviour?"
Clara looked in astonishment at the pale, fixed features before her.
A frightened expression came over her own countenance, a look of shuddering horror; and, putting up her wasted hands, as if to ward off some grim phantom, she cried:
"Oh, Beulah! what is this? You are not an infidel?"
Her companion was silent a moment; then said emphatically:
"Dr. Hartwell does not believe the religion you hold so dear."
Clara covered her face with her hands, and answered brokenly:
"Beulah, I have envied you, because I fancied that your superior intellect won you the love which I was weak enough to expect and need. But if it has brought you both to doubt the Bible, I thank G.o.d that the fatal gift was withheld from me. Have your books and studies brought you to this? Beulah! Beulah! throw them into the fire, and come back to trust in Christ."
She held out her hands imploringly; but, with a singularly cold smile, her friend replied:
"You must go to sleep. Your fever is rising. Don"t talk any more to- night; I will not hear you."
An hour after Clara slept soundly, and Beulah sat in her own room bending over a book. Midnight study had long since become an habitual thing; nay, two and three o"clock frequently found her beside the waning lamp. Was it any marvel that, as Dr. Hartwell expressed it, she "looked wretched." From her earliest childhood she had been possessed by an active spirit of inquiry which constantly impelled her to investigate, and as far as possible to explain, the mysteries which surrounded, her on every side. With her growth grew this haunting spirit, which asked continually: "What am I? Whence did I come? And whither am I bound? What is life? What is death? Am I my own mistress, or am I but a tool in the hands of my Maker? What const.i.tutes the difference between my mind and my body? Is there any difference? If spirit must needs have body to incase it, and body must have a spirit to animate it, may they not be identical? With these primeval foundation questions began her speculative career. In the solitude of her own soul she struggled bravely and earnestly to answer those "dread questions, which, like swords of flaming fire, tokens of imprisonment, encompa.s.s man on earth." Of course mystery triumphed. Panting for the truth, she pored over her Bible, supposing that here, at least, all clouds would melt away; but here, too, some inexplicable pa.s.sages confronted her. Physically, morally, and mentally she found the world warring. To reconcile these antagonisms with the conditions and requirements of Holy Writ, she now most faithfully set to work. Ah, proudly aspiring soul! How many earnest thinkers had essayed the same mighty task, and died under the intolerable burden? Unluckily for her, there was no one to direct or a.s.sist her. She scrupulously endeavored to conceal her doubts and questions from her guardian. Poor child? she fancied she concealed them so effectually from his knowledge; while he silently noted the march of skepticism in her nature. There were dim, puzzling pa.s.sages of Scripture which she studied on her knees; now trying to comprehend them, and now beseeching the Source of all knowledge to enlighten her. But, as has happened to numberless others, there was seemingly no a.s.sistance given. The clouds grew denser and darker, and, like the "cry of strong swimmers in their agony," her prayers had gone up to the Throne of Grace. Sometimes she was tempted to go to the minister of the church where she sat Sunday after Sunday, and beg him to explain the mysteries to her.
But the pompous austerity of his manners repelled her whenever she thought of broaching the subject, and gradually she saw that she must work out her own problems. Thus, from week to week and month to month, she toiled on, with a slowly dying faith, constantly clambering over obstacles which seemed to stand between her trust and revelation. It was no longer study for the sake of erudition; these riddles involved all that she prized in Time and Eternity, and she grasped books of every description with the eagerness of a famishing nature. What dire chance threw into her hands such works as Emerson"s, Carlyle"s, and Goethe"s? Like the waves of the clear, sunny sea, they only increased her thirst to madness. Her burning lips were ever at these fountains; and, in her reckless eagerness, she plunged into the gulf of German speculation. Here she believed that she had indeed found the "true processes," and, with renewed zest, continued the work of questioning. At this stage of the conflict the pestilential scourge was laid upon the city, and she paused from her metaphysical toil to close glazed eyes and shroud soulless clay. In the awful hush of those hours of watching she looked calmly for some solution, and longed for the unquestioning faith of early years. But these influences pa.s.sed without aiding her in the least, and, with rekindled ardor, she went back to her false prophets. In addition, ethnology beckoned her on to conclusions apparently antagonistic to the revealed system, and the stony face of geology seemed radiant with characters of light, which she might decipher and find some security in. From Dr. Asbury"s extensive collection she s.n.a.t.c.hed treatise after treatise. The sages of geology talked of the pre-Adamic eras, and of man"s ending the slowly forged chain, of which the radiata form the lowest link; and then she was told that in those pre-Adamic ages paleontologists find no trace whatever of that golden time when the vast animal creation lived in harmony and bloodshed was unknown; ergo, man"s fall in Eden had no agency in bringing death into the world; ergo, that chapter in Genesis need puzzle her no more.
Finally, she learned that she was the crowning intelligence in the vast progression; that she would ultimately become part of Deity.
"The long ascending line, from dead matter to man, had been a progress G.o.dward, and the next advance would unite creation and Creator in one person." With all her aspirations she had never dreamed of such a future as was here promised her. To-night she was closely following that most anomalous of all guides, "Herr Teufelsdrockh." Urged on by the same "unrest," she was stumbling along dim, devious paths, while from every side whispers came to her: "Nature is one: she is your mother, and divine: she is G.o.d! The "living garment of G.o.d."" Through the "everlasting No," and the "everlasting Yea," she groped her way, darkly, tremblingly, waiting for the day-star of Truth to dawn; but, at last, when she fancied she saw the first rays silvering the night, and looked up hopefully, it proved one of many ignes-fatui which had flashed across her path, and she saw that it was Goethe, uplifted as the prophet of the genuine religion. The book fell from her nerveless fingers; she closed her eyes, and groaned. It was all "confusion, worse confounded." She could not for her life have told what she believed, much less what she did not believe. The landmarks of earlier years were swept away; the beacon light of Calvary had sunk below her horizon. A howling chaos seemed about to ingulf her. At that moment she would gladly have sought a.s.sistance from her guardian; but how could she approach him after their last interview? The friendly face and cordial kindness of Dr. Asbury flashed upon her memory, and she resolved to confide her doubts and difficulties to him, hoping to obtain from his clear and matured judgment some clew which might enable her to emerge from the labyrinth that involved her. She knelt and tried to pray. To what did she, on bended knees, send up pa.s.sionate supplications? To nature? to heroes? These were the new deities. She could not pray; all grew dark; she pressed her hands to her throbbing brain, striving to clear away the mists. "Sartor" had effectually blindfolded her, and she threw herself down to sleep with a shivering dread, as of a young child separated from its mother, and wailing in some starless desert.
CHAPTER XXI.
It was Christmas Eve--cold, cloudy, and damp. The store windows were gay with every conceivable and inconceivable device for attracting attention. Parents, nurses, and porters hurried along with mysterious looking bundles and important countenances. Crowds of curious, merry children thronged the sidewalks; here a thinly clad, meager boy, looked, with longing eyes and empty pockets, at pyramids of fruit and sweetmeats; and there a richly dressed group chattered like blackbirds, and occasionally fired a pack of crackers, to the infinite dismay of horses and drivers. Little chaps just out of frocks rushed about, with their round, rosy faces hid under grotesque masks; and shouts of laughter, and the squeak of penny trumpets, and mutter of miniature drums swelled to a continuous din, which would have been quite respectable even on the plain of Shinar.
The annual jubilee had come, and young and old seemed determined to celebrate it with due zeal. From her window Beulah looked down on the merry groups, and involuntarily contrasted the bustling, crowded streets with the silence and desolation which had reigned over the same thoroughfares only a few months before. One brief year ago childish voices prattled of Santa Claus and gift stockings, and little feet pattered along these same pavements, with tiny hands full of toys. Fond parents, too, had gone eagerly in and out of these gay shops, hunting presents for their darlings. Where were they? children and parents? Ah! a cold, silent band of sleepers in yonder necropolis, where solemn cedars were chanting an everlasting dirge. Death"s harvest time was in all seasons; when would her own throbbing pulses be stilled and her questioning tones hushed? Might not the summons be on that very wintry blast which rushed over her hot brow? And if it should be so? Beulah pressed her face closer to the window, and thought it was too inconceivable that she also should die. She knew it was the common birthright, the one unchanging heritage of all humanity; yet long vistas of life opened before her, and though, like a pall, the shadow of the tomb hung over the end, it was very distant, very dim.
"What makes you look so solemn?" asked Clara, who had been busily engaged in dressing a doll for one of Mrs. Hoyt"s children.
"Because I feel solemn, I suppose."
Clara came up and, pa.s.sing her arm round Beulah"s shoulder, gazed down into the noisy street. She still wore mourning, and the alabaster fairness of her complexion contrasted vividly with the black bombazine dress. Though thin and pale, there was an indescribable expression of peace on the sweet face; a calm, clear light of contentment in the mild, brown eyes. The holy serenity of the countenance was rendered more apparent by the restless, stormy visage of her companion. Every pa.s.sing cloud of perplexed thought cast its shadow over Beulah"s face, and on this occasion she looked more than usually grave.
"Ah, how merry I used to be on Christmas Eve! Indeed, I can remember having been half wild with excitement. Yet now it all seems like a flitting dream." Clara spoke musingly, yet without sadness.
"Time has laid his wonder-working touch upon you," answered Beulah.
"How is it, Beulah, that you never speak of your childhood?"
"Because it was
"All dark and barren as a rainy sea."