At this revelation a vivid blush glowed on Gracie Dennis" cheek. She remembered Professor Ellis" comments in French. Then the doctor had understood, though his face was so imperturbable! What could he have thought of the courtesy of her guest?
Meantime Mr. Ried wore a perplexed face.
"You are right," he said to the doctor; "we are not enough on a level; I felt our advantage last night when Miss Dennis was explaining the type-writer; but I don"t see the way clear. What subject is there on which all but one of us could meet on common ground, and that one could turn professor?"
Here interposed Mr. Roberts, speaking in a meek tone of voice:--
"If I were not a modest man I should venture a suggestion; as it is, I really don"t know what to do."
The doctor turned to him quickly:--
"Out with it, man; if you are master of a profession or a trade or a theory unknown to the rest of us, you are bound on your honor as a member of this unique organization to present it."
At the same moment Mrs. Roberts came to his aid.
"Oh, Evan, teach us short-hand!"
Whereupon Mr. Roberts heaved what was intended to appear as a relieved sigh, and announced that his modesty was preserved.
Upon this suggestion they seized with eagerness; not one of them knew anything about phonetic writing save Mr. Roberts, and he was master of the art.
"It is the very thing!" the doctor said, with heartiness. "I should like exceedingly to learn it, and Ried and the ladies may be able to make it useful in a hundred ways; and as for the seven, if they really master it, it may be the foundation of a fortune for some of them."
So, without more ado, it was planned that at the very next Monday evening the subject should be skilfully presented, its importance and its fascinations discussed, and the boys be beguiled into taking a first lesson, sandwiched in between the all-important reading and writing lessons.
Alas for plans! On the very next Monday the conspirators, with the exception of young Ried, were together by seven o"clock. The faint aroma of coffee floated through the room. A fruit-basket filled with oranges occupied a conspicuous table, and everything waited for the guests.
While they waited, instead of enjoying themselves as the four were certainly capable of doing, they were noticeably restless; listened for the shuffling of careless feet on the steps, and the sound of uncultured voices in the hall, and waited expectantly whenever the bell pealed, only to be obliged to send word to some caller that "Mr. and Mrs.
Roberts were engaged."
The special occupation of the four seemed to be to look at their watches and to remark that the doctor"s was a trifle fast, and to wonder if half-past seven would be a more suitable hour for the boys, and to wonder what could be detaining Ried.
At last it was half-past seven, and then it was fifteen minutes of eight, and then it was ten minutes of eight! And then the door-bell rang again. It was Ried, and he was alone! One glance at his distressed face told the lookers-on that something was amiss, even before he exclaimed:--
"You won"t see a boy to-night!"
"Why?" "What is the trouble?" "Where are they?"
These were the various ways of putting the same question.
"One of the McCullum partners has become interested in the boys, it seems, and has concluded that he will try what he can do towards their elevation; so he has commenced by presenting each one of them with a ticket to the Green Street Theatre, and there they are at this moment!"
This startling intelligence was variously received. Dr. Everett exclaimed:--
"Is it possible?"
Gracie Dennis remarked that it was something like what she had expected; Mrs. Roberts said not a word, and Mr. Roberts added to the astonishment of the moment by bursting into a laugh.
Poor Ried seemed to feel the laugh more than anything; his face gathered into heavier clouds than before, he bit his lip to hold back the vexed words that were just ready to burst forth, and strode almost angrily to the further corner of the room.
An embarra.s.sed silence seemed to fall upon the others. At least Gracie felt embarra.s.sed; the doctor looked simply expectant.
At last Mr. Roberts drew himself up from his lounging att.i.tude and broke into the stillness.
"Ah, now, good people, don"t let us make serious mistakes! Come back here, my dear young brother, and let us look this thing in the face, and talk it over calmly. Are we children playing at benevolence that at the first discouragement we should cry out, "All is lost!" and retire vanquished? Come, I laughed because really this does not seem such a serious matter to me as it seems to present to the rest of you.
"What did we expect? Here are seven boys, right from the gutters; somehow we have had them laid on our hearts, and have enlisted to help fight the battle that is going on about them in this world. Christ died to save them, and Satan means that the sacrifice shall be in vain. He is bringing all his powers to bear on them; and he has many and varied powers.
"Here comes into the scene a man benevolently inclined; not a Christian, but in his way a philanthropist. By accident he has come in contact with one of the boys; by accident he learns that something--he does not know quite what--is being attempted to benefit them. Can"t you give him the credit of being honest? The only thing he thinks of that he can do to help is to give them an evening"s entertainment. At one of the decent theatres there is being presented what seems to be known in their parlance as a "moral play!" So he presents each boy with a ticket. Now, what did we expect of those boys?
"Last week a lady and two gentleman who have been members of our church for years, left the regular prayer-meeting, and went to the Philharmonic concert.
"Ought we to expect that it would even occur to our seven boys to give up what to them is a rare treat for the pleasure of spending an evening with us? As for the moral obligation, they have probably never so much as heard the words.
"Isn"t it time we knew what we were about? What are we after? It is well enough to teach the poor fellows to read and write, and to help lift them up in other ways, but our efforts will amount to very little unless we succeed in bringing them to the great Lever of human society; unless Christ take hold of this thing we shall fail. Now, has He taken hold? Is He, at least, as much interested in them as we are? Is His Holy Spirit preceding and supplementing all our efforts? And, if this is the case, is an evening at a theatre going to ruin His plans?"
Long before these earnest sentences were concluded Ried had returned from his distant corner, and taken a seat near his employer; his eyes were full of tears, and his voice trembled:--
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Roberts; I"m an ignorant blunderer; I did feel for the moment as though everything were lost."
"We have begun backwards," said Mr. Roberts; "I was reading to-day that a mistake the missionaries made for years in trying to _civilize_ the Greenlanders; and what a perfect failure they made of it until one day almost by accident, a man began to tell them about Christ on the cross, and the story melted them. I don"t think I have thought enough about Him in this matter."
"I stand convicted," Dr. Everett said; "I"ve made the same mistake, I believe, in all my efforts for people. I have been praying for them, it is true; but, after all, I feel now as though there had been too much relying on human means, and not enough on G.o.d. It is a case of "these ought ye to have done, and not to have left the other undone.""
"Well," said Mr. Roberts, looking at his watch, "we are in the same condemnation; it is, I believe, the most common, and one of the most fatal, mistakes that Christian workers make. But there is a way out. We expected to spend until ten o"clock with those boys. It is nearly nine now; suppose we spend the next hour with Christ, asking for the power of the Holy Spirit on any and every effort that we may make for them in the future? Our ultimate aim is to bring every one of them to Jesus and He knows it; now if we have gone about in the wrong way, we have only to ask Him forgiveness and look to Him steadily for guidance. What do you say, friends, shall we spend the hour in taking them to the only One who really can afford them lasting help?"
I suppose that He who "maketh the wrath of man to praise Him" is equally able to manage the folly of man. Could the injudicious philanthropist have looked into that room that evening, and heard the prayers that went up to G.o.d for those boys, and understood something of the power of prayer, he would have had one ill.u.s.tration of how G.o.d manages the foolishness of men.
It was a very earnest prayer-meeting. These workers had each one bowed in secret, and with more or less earnestness, asked for G.o.d"s blessing on their efforts; but it occurred to them that evening, as a very strange thing, that they had never unitedly prayed for this before.
Therefore there was an element of confession in all the prayers that moved Gracie Dennis strangely. Especially was this the case when she heard her old acquaintance, Flossy, pour out her soul"s longings. It happened, so strange are the customs of Christians, that though this was the daughter of a minister of the gospel, herself a Christian, she had never before heard a lady pray in the presence of gentlemen. She had heard of their doing so; heard them criticised with sharp sarcasm. Some of the criticisms which had sounded full of keenness and wit when she heard them, recurred to her at this time, and some way, with Flossy"s low, earnest voice filling her heart, they dwindled into shallowness and coa.r.s.eness. All the same, their baneful influence was on her, and helped to hold her back from opening her lips, for the critic had been Professor Ellis.
When the hostess and her young guest were left alone together that evening, the latter had a question to ask:--
"Flossy Shipley!"--the name you will remember which she always went back to when excited--"I didn"t know you believed in praying in _public_!
Have you changed in _everything_?"
"In public, my dear!" with a quiet smile; "why, I am in my own house!"
"Oh, yes; but you know what I mean--before gentlemen. Do you really think it is necessary?"
"As to that, Gracie, I don"t believe I thought anything about it. I wanted to pray for those boys, and so I prayed."
"And didn"t you really shrink from it at all? How very queer! Flossy, I do believe n.o.body was ever so much changed by religion as you have been.
I don"t see what makes the difference. I"m sure I think I"m a Christian, but I could never do such a thing as that."
"Not if you believed it to be your duty?"
"But I don"t believe it," said the fair logician, her face flushing; "I think it is out of place. I beg your pardon, Flossy, I don"t mean I think it sounded badly in you; but only that for me it would be horrid, and I couldn"t do it."