CHAPTER x.x.xII.
THE CHRISTMAS SUNDAY.
This Christmas Sabbath, though marked by no unusual event, was destined to be a memorable day in the lives of Frank Hemstead and Charlotte Marsden. A chain of unforeseen circ.u.mstances and experiences, and a sequence of emotions still less understood, had lifted them higher and higher, until this culminating day was scarcely one of earthly existence.
Lottie, in her previous life, had been frivolous and selfish; but her evil resulted from thoughtlessness, rather than from the deliberate purpose to do wrong. She was the type of mult.i.tudes of her fair sisters, who, with sparkling eyes, look out upon life in its morning to see only what it offers to them, and not the tasks it furnishes them for others. Only by experience--only by G.o.d"s logic of events--do they find that their happiness is in these tasks; in unselfish giving and doing.
The world had been at Lottie"s feet. It had offered her all that it has to give to a girl in her station; but when, withdrawn from it by a day of suffering, she had summed up her treasures, she had found that she had nothing but remorse. She had been receiving all her life, and yet had nothing. She would then gladly have remembered that she had given even one an impulse towards a truer and happier life. But she could not. Apart from natural impulses of affection towards kindred and friends, her only thought in regard to all had been,--How can I make them minister to me and my pleasure?
With tact and skill, enhanced by exceeding beauty, she had exacted an unstinted revenue of flattery, attention, and even love; and yet, when, in weakness and pain, she wished the solace of some consoling memory, she found only an accusing conscience.
This experience conveyed to the practical girl a startling lesson.
With all her faults, she did not belong to the cla.s.s that is hopeless, because so weak and shallow. Though her handsome face might often express much that was unlovely and unwomanly, it ever expressed mind.
When she, in her turn, like hosts of others, came to realize the limitations of her being, her weakness and need, she looked around, instinctively, for help and support. Human teaching presented a G.o.d from whom she shrank in fear and dislike. The Bible revealed Jesus. When she most felt her need, the Bible presented One whose eyes overflowed with sympathy, and whose hand was omnipotent. She instinctively felt, like Mary of old, that, at "His feet," there were rest and hope.
The feeling was not reached as a mathematician solves an equation, or a theologian comes to a conclusion, but more after the manner in which some women and most children will look at a person and say, "I like him; I"ll trust him."
There was nothing incongruous or unnatural in the contemporary love growing up in her heart for Hemstead, though it is possible that some may so think. In some minds the ideas of love and pa.s.sion seem inseparable, and they regard religion as something far removed.
These are but the right wing of that sinister cla.s.s who jumble their pa.s.sions and religion together, and, in pious jargon and spiritual double entendre, half conceal and half convey the base meaning of their hearts. In others, love, or what with them goes by the name, is equally inseparable from management and match-making, trousseaux and settlements,--concerns pertaining to earth, and very earthy, it must be admitted. No doubt many excellent, solid people would regard Lottie"s spiritual condition with grave suspicion, and ask, disapprovingly, "What business have two such DIFFERENT loves to be originating in her heart at the same time?" But, in the term "different," they beg the question. Where is the antagonism? Where is even the dissimilarity? Are not these two impulses of the heart near akin, rather? and does not a truer and deeper philosophy of life teach that love for a human object may be as certainly G.o.d"s will as love towards Himself? Have these solid, excellent people aught to say against the faithful devotion of a wife, or the patient tenderness of a mother, which are corner-stones of the family, as the family is the corner-stone of all true civilization? But what is the origin of the wife"s devotion and the mother"s tenderness?
These people, surely, are as wist as they are solid. They would have the day without the dawn.
At any rate, it would appear that Heaven was making the match between Hemstead and Lottie,--making it as the spring comes on in northern lat.i.tudes, subtilely, imperceptibly, and yet speedily.
Just how or when it came about, they did not know; but when they met on that Christmas morning, the peace and gladness of an a.s.sured and reciprocal love smiled from each other"s eyes. They needed no explanations. Frank Hemstead"s face had ever been as easily interpreted as his honest words; and he now had taught Lottie"s face to tell the truth. A blessed truth it revealed to him that Christmas day.
As he entered the pulpit that morning his face was radiant with the purest human love, as well as love to G.o.d. So far from being incongruous, the one seemed to kindle and intensify the other.
Though his sermon was simplicity itself he spoke as one inspired.
His message now was a gospel, and came to his hearers as the angel"s announcement (which was his text) to the shepherds.
But his closing words were searching, and sent many of his hearers home thoughtful and conscience-smitten, as well as cheered by the great hope which Christmas day should ever bring to the world.
"I would gladly correct," he said, "the impression which I fear was made on some minds last Sabbath. Christ is the embodiment of Christianity, and His coming to the world was "tidings of great joy"; His coming to every sinful heart should be "tidings of great joy." But I fear that I led some to dread His coming, as they would purgatorial fires. How did the All-powerful One come? As a little, helpless child, that he might disarm our fears and enlist our sympathy. How did He live? The humblest among the humble, that no one on earth should be too lowly to go straight to His side with his griefs. How did He act? He took little children in His arms, and blessed them. He laid His hand on the loathsome leper from whom all shrank. He looked into the glare of the demoniac"s eyes: the demons fled. Then, in meekness, He would offer to enter the poor wretch"s heart, and dwell in what had been the foul abode of the foulest fiends. When men wept, He, from sympathy, wept with them, though his next breath changed their mourning into joy. When man dishonored G.o.d, or wronged his fellow-men,--as did the Pharisees, with their unhallowed traffic in the Temple, their robbery of the widow and fatherless, their blocking up of the way of life with their senseless ceremonies, puerile traditions,--no knight in all the heroic past ever breathed out a more fiery indignation. How did He die? In such a way that even the thief might be redeemed and live eternally. He was an ideal man, as well as perfect G.o.d.
He was the servant of all, as well as King of kings. Not from his throne did He stoop to us. He stood at our side, and sustained fainting humanity with His encircling arm, as a brother. Little wonder, then, that the angel called the announcement that G.o.d had thus visited His creatures "good tidings of great joy."
"But there is a brief word of pointed and searching significance in this message. The angel said, "Unto YOU is born a Saviour."
Is that true of each one of us? Is this Christmas day a mockery, reminding us of a hope that is not ours,--of a heaven in which we have no right or part? Does conscience tell us to-day that we have looked upon the light that shone at Bethlehem with apathetic eyes, and heard the angel"s message with unbelieving hearts, so that practically no Saviour has been born unto us? Why do you keep this day as a festival, my hearer? I can tell you why you may. If you will receive it, the angel"s message is to you personally; unto you is born a Saviour who will forgive your past sin, and shield you from its consequences,--who will enn.o.ble your future life, and sustain and comfort you under the inevitable sorrow and suffering awaiting,--and who will receive you into an eternal and a happy home at the end of your brief sojourn here. May not this Christmas pa.s.s until each one has received the abiding peace and joy of the angel"s message into the depths of his heart."
After the service, Miss Martell, with glistening eyes, said to Harcourt, "I am glad you heard that sermon."
"I admit," he replied, with bowed head, "that it is better than my old philosophy. I think Hemstead must have written it for me."
As the young clergyman helped Lottie into the sleigh, she whispered, "You wrote that sermon for me."
Both were right. Hemstead had preached Christ, who is G.o.d"s embodied truth, meant alike for every human hearty and alike adapted to all.
CHAPTER x.x.xIII.
THE END OF THE "JEST."
It is a common impression that impending disasters cast their shadows before; and especially in the realm of fiction do we find that much is made of presentiments, which are usually fulfilled in a very dramatic way. But the close observer of real life, to a large degree, loses faith in these bodings of ill. He learns that sombre impressions result more often from a defective digestion and a disquieted conscience than from any other cause; and that, after the gloomiest forebodings, the days pa.s.s in unusual serenity.
Not that this is always true, but it would almost seem the rule.
Perhaps more distress is caused by those troubles which never come, but which are feared and worried over, than by those which do come, teaching us, often, patience and faith.
Does not experience show that disasters and trials more often visit us, like the "thief in the night," unexpectedly?
At any rate, it so occurred to Hemstead and Lottie on the dreary Monday that followed their glorified Sunday. And yet, never did a day open with fairer promise. A cloudless sky bent over a crystal earth. The mystic peace of Christmas seemed to have been breathed even into bleak December; for the air was mild and still, and the shadow of many a slender tree crept across the snow as steadily as that made by the sun-dial on the lawn.
Within doors all appeared equally serene. The fire burned cheerily upon the hearth when Hemstead came down to breakfast. What was of far more importance, the light of love glowed as brightly in Lottie"s eyes, as she beamed upon him across the table; and the spell which kept him, unthinking, unfearing, in the beatified present remained unbroken.
But the darkest shadows were creeping towards both.
To any situated as they were, and in their condition of mind and heart, a mere awakening would have been a rude shock. Some one had only to show them, with the remorseless logic of this world, what all their heavenly emotions involved, in order to cause perplexity and almost consternation. They could not long dwell, like the immortal G.o.ds, on the Mount Olympus of their exalted feeling, subsisting on the nectar and ambrosia of tones and glances.
Lottie was the fashionable daughter of an ultra-fashionable mother and a worldly father, in whose eyes sins against the beau monde were the most irrational and unpardonable.
Hemstead was a predestined home missionary, upon whom the Christian Church proposed to inflict the slow martyrdom of five or six hundred a year. Mrs. Marchmont but reflected the judgment of the world when she thought that for two young people, thus situated, to fall in love with each other, would be the greatest possible misfortune.
Therefore, with the sincerest sense of duty, and the very best intentions, she set about preventing it, after all the mischief had been done.
Like a prudent lady, as she was, she first sought to get sufficient information to justify her in speaking plainly to both nephew and niece. For this purpose she drew Addie out on Sunday afternoon, asking her if she had noticed anything peculiar in the manner of Hemstead and Lottie towards each other. Then, for the first time, and with just indignation, to her credit be it said, she learned of the practical joke of which her nephew was to have been the victim. She skilfully drew from her daughter all the details of its inception and the mode in which it had been carried out; for, to Addie"s superficial observation, Lottie was only indulging in one of her old flirtations, She neither saw, nor was she able to understand, the change in Lottie"s feelings and character. She also wronged Lottie by giving the impression that she herself had had nothing to do with the plot, with the exception that she had promised not to interfere.
Mrs. Marchmont could scarcely believe what she heard, but Addie referred her to Bel, who confirmed her words and admitted that from the first she had "known it was very wrong, but had not believed that anything would come of it, until it seemed too late."
"Besides," she said, "Lottie told me that if I said a word, or interfered in any way, she would from that time treat me as a stranger, and she said it in a way that proved she meant it. Therefore, whatever you do, please let it appear that I have no part in it."
"You surprise and shock me greatly," said Mrs. Marchmont. "With all Lottie"s wild nonsense and fondness for flirting, I would not have thought that she could be guilty of such deliberate and persistent effort to trifle with one so sincere and good as Frank. The most heartless coquette would scarcely call him fair game. She puzzles me too, for she does not seem like one who is acting, but more like one in earnest. Besides, look at the interest she is beginning to take in religion. She surely could not employ such sacred things for the purposes of mere flirtation."
But Bell soon converted Mrs. Marchmont to her way of thinking.
Lottie had found Hemstead more interesting than she had expected, and had foolishly and recklessly permitted a mere sentiment for him to develop, which, in her case, would end with the visit, and soon be forgotten in the mad whirl of New York gayety. "But with Mr. Hemstead," concluded Bel, "it will be a very different affair.
He is one of the kind that will brood over such a disappointment and wrong to the end of life."
So it was settled that Mrs. Marchmont should "speak plainly" to her nephew, and warn him against "Lottie"s wiles," as soon as possible.
But no opportunity occurred before Monday morning, and then not until Hemstead had received some of the most blissful experiences that he had yet enjoyed. For, immediately after breakfast, all had flocked into the back parlor, where the laden Christmas tree revealed the secrets that had filled the air with mystery during the preceding days.
All had been remembered, and Mr. Martell"s munificence towards the gallant coachman quite took away his breath.