"Mrs. Mallory enveloped me, thick boots and all, in grateful smiles.
""Oh, of _course not_!" she said. "_Dear_ Mrs. Rivers! Of course not! You are quite _too_ kind!"
"Now, will you believe it, David? Weeks afterwards she came to me and said there was something she _must_ tell me, as it was hindering her in her prayers, and she could not enjoy "fully restored communion," until she had confessed it, and thus relieved her mind.
"I thought the dear lady must, at the very least, have forged my signature to a cheque. I sat tight, and told her to proceed. She thereupon reminded me of that October morning, and said that she _had_ thought my clothes countrified, and _had_ felt ashamed to be seen with me in town.
"Oh, David, can you understand how it hurt? When one had given up the day, and raced to the station, and done it all to help her in her trouble. It was not so much that she had noticed that which was an obvious fact. It was the pettiness of mind which could dwell on it for weeks, and then wound the friend who had tried to be kind to her, by bringing it up, and explaining it.
"I looked at her for a moment, absolutely at a loss what to reply. At last I said: "I am very sorry, Mrs. Mallory. But had I stopped, on that morning, to change into town clothes, I could not have caught your train."
""Oh, I know!" she cried, with protesting hands. "It did not matter at all. It is only that I felt I had not been absolutely truthful."
"Now, David--you, who are by profession a guide of doubting souls, an expounder of problems of casuistry, a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart--will you give me a p.r.o.nouncement on this question? In itself it may be a small matter; but it serves to ill.u.s.trate a larger problem.
"Which was the greater sin in Mrs. Mallory: to have lapsed for a moment from absolute truthfulness; or, to wound deliberately a friend who had tried to be kind to her? Am I right in saying that such an episode is the outcome of the workings of a morbid conscience? It is but one of many.
"I am often tempted to regret my good old Chappie, though she was not a Bible student, had not a halo of fluffy flaxen hair, and never talked, with clasped hands, of the perfections of departed Philips. I am afraid Chappie used to lie with amazing readiness; but always in order to please one, or to say what she considered the right thing.
"By the way, Chappie and Mr. Inglestry dined here the other night. Whenever I see them, David, I am reminded of how we laughed in the luncheon-car, on our wedding-day, over having left Chappie at the church, with two strings to her bow. I remember you said: "Two beaux to her string" more exactly described the situation; a pun for which I should have pinched you, had my spirits on that morning been as exuberant as yours. Poor old Inglestry does not look as well as he used to do. There may be a chance for G.o.d-papa, yet!
"What an epistle! And it seems so full of trivialities, as compared with the deep interest of yours. But it is not given unto us all to build churches. Some of us can only build cottages--humble little four-roomed places, with thatched roof and anxious windows. I try to cultivate a little garden in front of mine, full of fragrant gifts and graces. But, just as I think I have obtained some promise of bloom and beauty, Mrs. Mallory annoys me, or something else goes wrong, and my quick temper, like your early hippopotamus, dances a devastating cake-walk in the garden of my best intentions, and tramples down my oleanders.
"Mrs. Mallory spends most of her time building a mausoleum to the memory of the Rev. Philip. Just now, she is gilding the dome. I get so tired of hearing of Philip"s perfections. It almost tempts me to retaliate by suddenly beginning to talk about you. It would be good for Mrs.
Mallory to realise that she is not the only person in the world who has married a missionary, and lost him. However, in that case, my elaborate parrying of many questions would all be so much time wasted. Besides, she would never understand you and me, and our--friendship.
"When the late Philip proposed to her, he held her hand for an hour in blissful silence, after she had murmured "yes"; then, bent over her and asked whether she took sugar in her tea; because, if she did, they must take some out with them; it was difficult to obtain in the place to which they were going! Philip was evidently a domesticated man. I should have _screamed_, long before the hour of silence was up; and flatly refused to go to any country where I could not buy sugar at a moment"s notice!
"Oh, David, I must stop! You will consider this flippant.
But Uncle Falcon enjoys the joke. He is looking more amused than I have seen him look for many months. He would have liked to see Philip trying to hold my hand. Uncle Falcon"s amber eyes are twinkling.
"Talking of cottages, I was inspecting the schools the other day, and the children recited "po-tray" for my benefit. They all remarked together, in a sing-song nasal chant: "The cottage was a thatched one," with many additional emphatic though unimportant facts. I suggested, when it was over, that "The cottage was a _thatched_ one,"
might better render the meaning of the poet. But the schoolmaster and his wife regarded me doubtfully; saying, that in the whole of their long experience it had always been: "The cottage _was_ a thatched one." I hastily agreed that undoubtedly a long established precedent must never be disregarded; and what _has been_ should ever--in this good conservative land of ours--for that reason, if for no other, continue to be. Then I turned my attention to the drawing and needlework.
"How my old set would laugh if they knew how often I spend a morning inspecting the schools. But many things in my daily life now would be incomprehensible to them and, therefore, amusing.
"How much depends upon one"s point of view. I jumped upon a little lady in the train the other day, travelling up to town for a day"s shopping, for saying with a weary sigh and dismal countenance, that she was "facing Christmas"! Fancy approaching the time of gifts and gladness and thought for others, in such a spirit! I told her the best "facing" for her to do, would be to "right about face" and go home to bed, and remain there until Christmas festivities were over! She pulled her furs more closely around her, and tapped my arm with the jewelled pencil-case with which she was writing her list of gifts. "My dear Diana," she said, "you have always been so fatiguingly energetic." This gave me food for thought. I suppose even the sight of the energy of others is a weariness to easily exhausted people. A favourite remark of Chappie"s used to be, that the way I came down to breakfast tired her out for the day.
"Well, as I remarked before, I must close this long epistle. I am becoming quite Pauline in my postscripts. As I think of it on its way to you, I shall have cause to recite with compunction: "The letter _was_--a long one!"
"Good-bye, my dear David.
"May all best blessings rest upon the Church of the Holy Star, and upon your ministry therein.
"Affectionately yours,
Diana Rivers."
"P.S. Don"t you think you might relieve my natural wifely anxiety, by giving me a few details as to your general health? And please remember to answer my question about Mrs. Mallory"s conscience."
CHAPTER XXVIII
DAVID"S p.r.o.nOUNCEMENT
When David"s reply arrived, in due course, he went straight to the point in this matter of Mrs. Mallory"s conscience, with a directness which fully satisfied Diana.
"It is impossible," wrote David, "to give an opinion as to which was the greater or lesser wrong, when your friend had already advanced so far down a crooked way. Undoubtedly it was a difficult moment for her in the railway carriage, as in all probability her own critical thought gave you the mental suggestion of not being suitably got up for town. But you, in similar circ.u.mstances, would have said: "Why, what does the fact of your clothes being countrified matter, compared to the immense comfort of having you with me. And if all the people we meet, could know how kind you have been and how you raced to the train, they would not give a second thought to what you happen to be wearing."
"But a straightforward answer, such as you would have given, would not be a natural instinct to a mind habitually fencing and hedging, and shifting away from facing facts.
"Personally, on the difficult question of confession of wrong-doing, I hold this: that if confession rights a wrong, and is clearly to the advantage of the person to whom it is made, then confession is indeed an obvious duty, which should be faced and performed without delay.
"But--if confession is merely the method adopted by a stricken and convicted conscience, for shifting the burden of its own wrong-doing by imparting to another the knowledge of that wrong, especially if that knowledge will cause pain, disappointment, or perplexity to an innocent heart--then I hold it to be both morbid and useless.
"Mrs. Mallory did not undo the fact of her lapse from absolute truthfulness by telling you of it, in a way which she must have known would cause you both mortification and pain. She simply added to the sin of untruthfulness, the sins of ingrat.i.tude, and of inconsideration for the feelings of another. Had she forged your signature to a cheque, she would have been right to confess it; because confession would have been a necessary step toward rest.i.tution. All confession which rights a wrong, is legitimate and essential. Confession which merely lays a burden upon another, is morbid and selfish. The loneliness of a conscience under conviction, bearing in solitude the burden of acute remembrance of past sins, is a part of the punishment those sins deserve. Then--into that loneliness--there comes the comfort of the thought: "He Who knows all, understands all; and He Who knows and understands already, may be fully told, all." And, no sooner is that complete confession made, than there breaks the radiance of the promise, shining star-like in the darkness of despair: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Mrs. Mallory could thus have got back into the light of restored communion, without ever mentioning the matter to you.
"But this kind of mind is so difficult to help, because its lapses are due to a lack of straightforward directness, which would be, to another mind, not an effort, but an instinct.
"Such people stand in a chronic state of indecision, at perpetual cross-roads; and are just as likely to take the wrong road, as the right; then, after having travelled far along that road, are pulled up by complications arising, not so much from the predicament of the moment, as from the fact that they vacillated into the wrong path at the crucial time when they stood hesitating. They need Elijah"s clarion call to the people of Israel: "How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be G.o.d, follow Him; but, if Baal, then follow him"--honest idolatry being better than vacillating indecision.
"This species of mental lameness reminds me of a man I knew at college, who had one leg longer than the other. He was no good at all at racing on the straight; but, round the gra.s.s plot in the centre of one of our courts, no one could beat him. He used to put his short leg inside, and his long leg out, and round and round he would sprint, like a lamplighter. People who halt between two opinions always argue in a circle, but never arrive at any definite conclusion. They are no good on the straight. They find themselves back where they originally started.
They get no farther.
"Mrs. Mallory should take her place in the Pool of Bethesda among the blind, and the halt, and the withered. She should get her eyes opened to a larger outlook on life; her crooked walk made straight; and her withered sensibilities quickened into fresh life. Then she would soon cease to try you with her morbid conscience.
"Mrs. Mallory should give up defacing her Bible with the ink of her own ideas or the ideas of others. Human conceptions, however helpful, should not find a permanent place, even in your own individual copy of the Word of G.o.d. The particular line of truth they emphasised, may have been the teaching intended for that particular hour of study. But, every time you turn to a pa.s.sage, you may expect fresh light, and a newly revealed line of thought. If your eye is at once arrested by notes and comments, or even by the underlining of special words, your mind slips into the groove of a past meditation; thus the liberty of fresh light, and the free course of fresh revelation, are checked and impeded. Do not crowd into the sacred _sanctuary_ of the Word, ideas which may most helpfully be garnered in the _cla.s.sroom_ of your notebook. Remember that the Bible differs from all human literature in this: that it is a living, vital thing--ever new, ever replete with fresh surprises. The living Spirit illumines its every line, the living Word meets you in its pages. As in the glades of Eden, when the mysterious evening wind (_ruach_) stirred the leaves of the trees, making of that hour "the cool of the day"--you can say, as the wind of the Spirit breathes upon your pa.s.sage through the Word: "I hear the voice of the Lord G.o.d walking in the garden in the cool of the day." Then, pa.s.sing down its quiet glades, straightway, face to face, you meet your Lord. No unconfessed sin can remain hidden in the light of that meeting. No conscience can continue morbid if illumined, cleansed, adjusted, by habitual study of the Word.
"There! I have calmly given my view of the matter, as being "by profession, a guide of doubting souls, an expounder of problems of casuistry," and all the other excellent things it pleased you to call me.
"Now--as a man--allow me the relief of simply stating, that I should dearly like to pound Mrs. Mallory to pulp, for her utter ingrat.i.tude to you."
This sudden explosion on David"s part, brought out delighted dimples in Diana"s cheeks; and, thereafter, whenever Mrs. Mallory proved trying, she found consolation in whispering to herself: "David--my good, saintly David--would dearly like to pound her to pulp!"
CHAPTER XXIX