A flutter of interested antic.i.p.ation was noticeable when Dr. Pierce entered the pulpit accompanied by the stranger, and it must be confessed that the service preceding the sermon was gone through with perfunctorily by the greater part of the congregation. After the notices for the week had been given, there was a general settling back and recalling of wandering attention as Dr. Hollingsworth came forward and stood in the pastor"s place at the desk.
Mrs. Molesworth twisted her neck in an endeavor to see if he had notes; Colonel Parton decided promptly that here was no orator; Belle smiled at Rosalind across the aisle, thinking of the detective.
In the president"s gaze, as it rested upon the a.s.sembly, was the same genial kindliness that had attracted Belle when she first met him on Main Street. It seemed to draw his audience closer to him, to make of it a circle of friends. His manner was simple, his tone almost conversational.
At the announcement of his text Celia leaned forward with a sudden conviction that here was a message for her:--
"It is the Father"s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom."
Varied were the opinions afterward expressed of the sermon that followed.
What Celia carried away with her was something like this:--
"I shall speak to you this morning," he said, "upon a subject that touches each one of us very nearly, from the oldest to the youngest; for whatever our circ.u.mstances, whether we are rich or poor, learned or simple, whether our lot is cast in protected homes or in the midst of the world"s great battle-field, our task is one and the same: to become citizens of the Kingdom of G.o.d. This being so, we cannot think too often or too much about this Kingdom, or inquire too minutely into its laws, or ask ourselves too earnestly why it is that so few of us accept the gift in anything like its fulness.
"Although it is offered as a gift, there are conditions to be fulfilled, difficulties to be overcome. Our Lord recognized this when He said that the gate was strait and the way narrow, but He also said that this Kingdom was worth any price, or was beyond all price, to be obtained at any sacrifice. He emphasized this by a strong figure. It was better to enter into life maimed, He said,--with hand or foot cut off--rather than to miss life altogether.... The conditions of entrance into the Kingdom are apparently so simple it is strange we find them so difficult. I think they may be sifted down to two: love and faith,--the love from which service springs, the faith that means joy and peace. If we are to be the children of our Heavenly Father we must love, and we must have in our hearts that joy which grows out of trust.
"Jesus said, "Seek first the Kingdom of G.o.d." If we do this we need concern ourselves with nothing else, and by concern I mean burden ourselves. The daily round--the vast machinery of life--must go on, but after all only he who belongs to the Kingdom is fitted to meet its problems. He brings to them a calm confidence, a clear vision. His heart does not beat quick with hate or envy. His energy is not weakened by worry. His sight is not dimmed by doubt.... Perhaps some of you are saying--what is so often said--that it is easy to preach; and you ask how one can cease to worry when the path is dark before him; how one can look upon the terrible problems of sin and suffering, and not feel their crushing weight. If what I am saying this morning were simply what I think about it, you are right to doubt. But these are not my words. Can you believe that our Lord when He told His disciples to seek the Kingdom and all other needful things would be added, was simply giving utterance to a beautiful but impracticable theory? For my part, I cannot.
"I would ask you to notice that Jesus founded all he has to say on one great fact: the love of your Heavenly Father for you individually. Are you struggling with poverty, perhaps? Your Heavenly Father knoweth. Try, if but for a day, to put aside your anxiety and fix your thought on this. The things you need shall be given, and you shall find strength for another day of trust.
"Have you been wronged? do you find it hard to forgive? are you bitter?
Your Heavenly Father knoweth. He will take care of your cause. Leave it to Him; do not be afraid to forget it. Seek, ask, knock, that you may obtain entrance into the Kingdom of love.
"Are you crushed by sorrow or physical pain? Your Father knoweth. Cease to fight against it. Come into His Kingdom. Suffering endures but a little while; and if you will have it so, out of it will come a diviner joy.
"Is the world full of dark problems? Your Heavenly Father knoweth. It is His world. Your part is to do, not to despair.
"Are you full of youth and hope and glad antic.i.p.ation? Your Father knoweth. He made you so, and in a special sense the Kingdom belongs to you. The simple-hearted, the teachable, the joyous,--of such is the Kingdom. Enter in, and immortal youth shall be yours.... Oh, if I might help you to know the beauty, the joy, the peace of the Kingdom into which we may enter now and here, if we will. Yet we go on our way, oppressed by care, warped by envy and hate, our eyes blinded by what we call worldly wisdom."
Something like this was what came to Celia; and as she listened, forgetful of her surroundings, it linked itself in her thought to the Forest secret.
It was not so much the words as the aspirations they stirred,--the new belief in the possibility of high and joyous living, the new courage that thrilled in her veins. She was still under the spell when after the benediction Miss Betty asked, with a certain timidity, if she had liked the sermon.
Celia looked at her blankly for a second before she replied, "Oh, so much!
It was beautiful. I should like to know him." She turned away with a smile; she was not ready to discuss it yet. She wanted to think.
"He held my attention, I grant, but I don"t call it a sermon; it was too elementary,--it was nothing but a talk," she heard Mrs. Molesworth saying.
"If it wasn"t a sermon, it was something better," answered cheery Mrs.
Parton.
"Most magnetic speaker," the colonel was remarking to some one.
And now Rosalind and Belle claimed Celia"s attention, demanding to know what she thought of the detective; and she must come back to earth and listen and reply and enter into their gayety--an easier matter, to be sure, than responding to the comments of grown people.
The next morning, on her way to cla.s.s, Celia met Miss Betty and Dr.
Hollingsworth walking up the hill toward the Gilpin house, and Miss Betty stopped and presented her companion.
After some moments" chat about other things, as they were separating, Celia said, "I want to thank you, Dr. Hollingsworth, for my share of your sermon yesterday." Her face made it evident that this was no merely conventional speech, and the president looked down upon her benignly through his gla.s.ses.
"I thank you for being willing to take any of my thoughts to yourself," he said.
Celia now noticed for the first time that he wore an oak leaf, and she remembered with what delight Rosalind and Belle had told her of his wish to be an Arden Forester. "I believe," she added, laughing a little, "that I have the Kingdom of Heaven and the Forest somewhat mixed."
"You will find when you have lived as long as I have that there are often many names for the same thing," the president answered, smiling.
"And do you believe that things always come right in the Forest?" The wistful note in Celia"s voice told something of her struggle.
"It has been my experience so far on the journey. But, my dear young lady, the one way to test it is to live there."
"I mean to," she said earnestly.
Whatever the opinion in Friendship of Dr. Hollingsworth"s ability as a preacher, he left behind him a most agreeable impression as a mere man, to quote Mrs. Parton.
The Arden Foresters would not soon forget a tramp with him over Red Hill.
They found him interested in everything, in a light-hearted, boyish way that made them overlook the fact that he was the president of a great university. When they stopped on the hilltop to rest and enjoy the view, he sat on the fence with them and talked foot-ball and cricket, and told stories of college pranks without deducing a single useful lesson therefrom. This was a surprise to Jack, for Dr. Pierce, who lived next door to the Partons, was fond of morals, and went about with his pockets full, so to speak.
Before they knew it, they found themselves confiding to him their plans for the future.
"You must all come to our university," Rosalind said, with decision, "mustn"t they, Dr. Hollingsworth? Jack can study forestry, and Maurice can study law; and Belle and Katherine--"
"I mean to study medicine if father will let me," Belle put in.
Dr. Hollingsworth smiled upon the bright-eyed little girl, in whose every movement self-reliance and energy were written. "Don"t be in haste to decide," he said. "There is sure to be something for you to do, and Rosalind and I shall be glad if, whatever it is, it brings you to our university."
As they watched the president sign his name in the Arden Foresters" book that afternoon, there was stirred in each young heart an impulse to be and to do something worth while in the world.
Meantime, the report spread that in returning to Friendship, Dr.
Hollingsworth had had another object than merely to preach for Dr.
Pierce.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVENTH.
OLD ENEMIES.
"Kindness n.o.bler ever than revenge."
If things came right in the Forest, it was not through effort. One had simply to surrender to its spell, to breathe in the beauty and the calm, to live there, as the president had said.
Celia"s thoughts were interrupted by Sally"s hurried entrance.
"Laws a mercy! Miss Celia, honey, Mrs. Whittredge"s in the parlor. I come mighty nigh askin" her what she wanted in dis yere house."
Celia looked up in astonishment. Mrs. Whittredge! What could it mean? "And she asked for me?" she repeated.
"I done tol" her your mamma was sick, but she "lowed "twas you she wanted."