"What I admired in the prayer was not that, but the unselfishness that puts G.o.d and the world first, and asks bread, forgiveness, and guidance last. It seems to me, Mr. Lurton, that all men are not brought to G.o.d by the same feelings. Don"t you think that a man may be drawn toward G.o.d by self-sacrifice--that a brave, heroic act, in its very nature, brings us nearer to G.o.d? It seems to me that whatever the rule may be, there are exceptions; that G.o.d draws some men to Himself by a sense of sympathy; that He makes a sudden draft on their moral nature--not more than they can bear, but all they can bear--and that in doing right under difficulties the soul finds itself directed toward G.o.d--opened on the side on which G.o.d sits."
Mr. Lurton shook his head, and protested, in his gentle and earnest way, against this doctrine of man"s ability to do anything good before conversion.
"But, Mr. Lurton," urged Albert, "I have known a man to make a great sacrifice, and to find himself drawn by that very sacrifice into a great admiring of Christ"s sacrifice, into a great desire to call G.o.d his father, and into a seeking for the forgiveness and favor that would make him in some sense a child of G.o.d. Did you never know such a case?"
"Never. I do not think that genuine conversions come in that way. A sense of righteousness can not prepare a man for salvation--only a sense of sin--a believing that all our righteousness is filthy rags. Still, I wouldn"t discourage you from studying the Bible in any way. You will come round right after a while, and then you will find that to be saved, a man must abhor every so-called good thing that he ever did."
"Yes," said Charlton, who had grown more modest in his trials, "I am sure there is some truth in the old doctrine as you state it. But is not a man better and more open to divine grace, for resisting a temptation to vice?"
Mr. Lurton hesitated. He remembered that he had read, in very sound writers, arguments to prove that there could be no such thing as good works before conversion, and Mr. Lurton was too humble to set his judgment against the great doctors". Besides, he was not sure that Albert"s questions might not force him into that dangerous heresy attributed to Arminius, that good works may be the impulsive cause by which G.o.d is moved to give His grace to the unconverted.
"Do you think that a man can really do good without G.o.d"s help?" asked Mr. Lurton.
"I don"t think man ever tries to do right in humility and sincerity without some help from G.o.d," answered Albert, whose mode of thinking about G.o.d was fast changing for the better. "I think G.o.d goes out a long, long way to meet the first motions of a good purpose in a man"s heart.
The parable of the Prodigal Son only half-tells it. The parable breaks down with a truth too great for human a.n.a.logies. I don"t know but that He acts in the beginning of the purpose. I am getting to be a Calvinist--in fact, on some points, I out-Calvin Calvin. Is not G.o.d"s help in the good purposes of every man?"
Mr. Lurton shook his head with a gentle gravity, and changed the subject by saying, "I am going to Metropolisville next week to attend a meeting.
Can I do anything for you?"
"Go and see my mother," said Charlton, with emotion. "She is sick, and will never get well, I fear. Tell her I am cheerful. And--Mr. Lurton--do you pray with her. I do not believe anything, except by fits and starts; but one of your prayers would do my mother good. If she could be half as peaceful as you are, I should be happy."
Lurton walked away down the gallery from Albert"s cell, and descended the steps that led to the dining-room, and was let out of the locked and barred door into the vestibule, and out of that into the yard, and thence out through other locks into the free air of out-doors. Then he took a long breath, for the sight of prison doors and locks and bars and grates and gates and guards oppressed even his peaceful soul. And walking along the sandy road that led by the margin of Lake St. Croix toward the town, he recalled Charlton"s last remark. And as he meditatively tossed out of the path with his boot the pieces of pine-bark which in this lumbering country lie about everywhere, he rejoiced that Charlton had learned to appreciate the value of Christian peace, and he offered a silent prayer that Albert might one day obtain the same serenity as himself. For nothing was further from the young minister"s mind than the thought that any of his good qualities were natural. He considered himself a miracle of grace upon all sides. As if natural qualities were not also of G.o.d"s grace!
CHAPTER x.x.xI.
MR. LURTON.
It was a warm Sunday in the early spring, one week after Mr. Lurton"s conversation with Charlton, that the latter sat in his cell feeling the spring he could not see. His prison had never been so much a prison. To perceive this balminess creeping through the narrow, high window--a mere orifice through a thick wall--and making itself feebly felt as it fell athwart the damp chilliness of the cell, to perceive thus faintly the breath of spring, and not to be able to see the pregnant tree-buds bursting with the coming greenness of the summer, and not to be able to catch the sound of the first twittering of the returning sparrows and the hopeful chattering of the swallows, made Albert feel indeed that he and life had parted.
Mr. Lurton"s three months as chaplain had expired, and there had come in his stead Mr. Canton, who wore a very stiff white neck-tie and a very straight-breasted long-tailed coat. Nothing is so great a bar to human sympathies as a clerical dress, and Mr. Canton had diligently fixed a great gulf between himself and his fellow-men. Charlton"s old, bitter aggressiveness, which had well-nigh died out under the sweet influences of Lurton"s peacefulness, came back now, and he mentally p.r.o.nounced the new chaplain a clerical humbug and an ecclesiastical fop, and all such mild paradoxical epithets as he was capable of forming. The hour of service was ended, and Charlton was in his cell again, standing under the high window, trying to absorb some of the influences of the balmy air that reached him in such n.i.g.g.ardly quant.i.ties. He was hungering for a sight of the woods, which he knew must be so vital at this season. He had only the geraniums and the moss-rose that Isa, had sent, and they were worse than nothing, for they pined in this twilight of the cell, and seemed to him smitten, like himself, with a living death. He almost stopped, his heart"s beating in his effort to hear the voices of the birds, and at last he caught the harsh cawing of the crows for a moment, and then that died away, and he could hear no sound but the voice of the clergyman in long clothes talking perfunctorily to O"Neill, the wife-murderer, in the next cell. He knew that his turn would come next, and it did. He listened in silence and with much impatience to such a moral lecture as seemed to Mr. Canton befitting a criminal.
Mr. Canton then handed him a letter, and seeing that it was addressed in the friendly hand of Lurton, he took it to the window and opened it, and read:
"DEAR MR. CHARLTON:
"I should have come to see you and told you about my trip to Metropolisville, but I am obliged to go out of town again. I send this by Mr. Canton, and also a request to the warden to pa.s.s this and your answer without the customary inspection of contents. I saw your mother and your stepfather and your friend Miss Marlay. Your mother is failing very fast, and I do not think it would be a kindness for me to conceal from you my belief that she can not live many weeks. I talked with her and prayed with her as you requested, but she seems to have some intolerable mental burden. Miss Marlay is evidently a great comfort to her, and, indeed, I never saw a more faithful person than she in my life, or a more remarkable exemplification of the beauty of a Christian life. She takes every burden off your mother except that unseen load which seems to trouble her spirit, and she believes absolutely in your innocence. By the way, why did you never explain to her or to me or to any of your friends the real history of the case? There must at least have been extenuating circ.u.mstances, and we might be able to help you.
"But I am writing about everything except what I want to say, or rather to ask, for I tremble to ask it. Are you interested in any way other than as a friend in Miss Isabel Marlay? You will guess why I ask the question. Since I met her I have thought of her a great deal, and I may add to you that I have anxiously sought divine guidance in a matter likely to affect the usefulness of my whole life. I will not take a single step in the direction in which my heart has been so suddenly drawn, if you have any prior claim, or even the remotest hope of establishing one in some more favorable time. Far be it from me to add a straw to the heavy burden you have had to bear. I expect to be in Metropolisville again soon, and will see your mother once more. Please answer me with frankness, and believe me,
"Always your friend,
J.H. LURTON."
The intelligence regarding his mother"s health was not new to Albert, for Isa had told him fully of her state. It would be difficult to describe the feeling of mingled pain and pleasure with which he read Lurton"s confession of his sudden love for Isabel. Nothing since his imprisonment had so humbled Charlton as the recollection of the mistake he had made in his estimate of Helen Minorkey, and his preference for her over Isa. He had lain on his cot sometimes and dreamed of what might have been if he had escaped prison and had chosen Isabel instead of Helen. He had pictured to himself the content he might have had with such a woman for a wife. But then the thought of his disgrace--a disgrace he could not share with a wife--always dissipated the beautiful vision and made the hard reality of what was, seem tenfold harder for the ravishing beauty of what might have been.
And now the vision of the might-have-been came back to him more clearly than ever, and he sat a long while with his head leaning on his hand.
Then the struggle pa.s.sed, and he lighted his little ration of candle, and wrote:
"SUNDAY EVENING.
"REV. J.H. LURTON:
"DEAR SIR: You have acted very honorably in writing me as you have, and I admire you now more than ever. You fulfill my ideal of a Christian. I never had the slightest claim or the slightest purpose to establish any claim on Isabel Marlay, for I was so blinded by self-conceit, that I did not appreciate her until it was too late. And now! What have I to offer to any woman? The love of a convicted felon! A name tarnished forever!
No! I shall never share that with Isa Marlay. She is, indeed, the best and most sensible of women. She is the only woman worthy of such a man as you. You are the only man I ever saw good enough for Isabel. I love you both. G.o.d bless you!
"Very respectfully and gratefully, CHARLTON."
Mr. Lurton had staid during the meeting of the ecclesiastical body--Presbytery, Consociation, Convention, Conference, or what not, it does not matter--at Squire Plausaby"s Albert had written about him, and Isa, as soon as she heard that he was to attend, had prompted Plausaby to enter a request with the committee on the entertainment of delegates for the a.s.signment of Mr. Lurton to him as guest. His peacefulness had not, as Albert and Isabel hoped, soothed the troubled spirit of Mrs. Plausaby, who was in a great terror at thought of death. The skillful surgeon probes before he tries to heal, and Mr. Lurton set himself to find the cause of all this irritation in the mind of this weak woman. Sometimes she seemed inclined to tell him all, but it always happened that when she was just ready to speak, the placid face of Plausaby glided in at the door. On the appearance of her husband, Mrs. Plausaby would cease speaking. It took Lurton a long time to discover that Plausaby was the cause of this restraint. He did discover it, however, and endeavored to get an interview when there was no one present but Isabel. In trying to do this, he made a fresh discovery--that Plausaby was standing guard over his wife, and that the restraint he exercised was intentional. The mystery of the thing fascinated him; and the impression that it had something to do with Charlton, and the yet stronger motive of a sense of duty to the afflicted woman, made him resolute in his determination to penetrate it. Not more so, however, than was Isabel, who endeavored in every way to secure an uninterrupted interview for Mr. Lurton, but endeavored in vain.
Lurton was thus placed in favorable circ.u.mstances to see Miss Marlay"s qualities. Her graceful figure in her simple tasteful, and perfectly fitting frock, her rhythmical movement, her rare voice, all touched exquisitely so sensitive a nature as Lurton"s. But more than that was he moved by her diligent management of the household, her unwearying patience with the querulous and feeble-minded sick woman, her tact and common-sense, and especially the entire truthfulness of her character.
Mr. Lurton made excuse to himself for another trip to Metropolisville that he had business in Perritaut. It was business that might have waited; it was business that would have waited, but for his desire to talk further with Mrs. Plausaby, and for his other desire to see and talk with Isabel Marlay again. For, if he should fail of her, where would he ever find one so well suited to help the usefulness of his life? Happy is he whose heart and duty go together! And now that Lurton had found that Charlton had no first right to Isabel, his worst fear had departed.
Even in his palpitating excitement about Isa, he was the true minister, and gave his first thought to the spiritual wants of the afflicted woman whom he regarded as providentially thrown upon his care. He was so fortunate as to find Plausaby absent at Perritaut. But how anxiously did he wait for the time when he could see the sick woman! Even Isa almost lost her patience with Mrs. Plausaby"s characteristic desire to be fixed up to receive company. She must have her hair brushed and her bed "tidied," and, when Isabel thought she had concluded everything, Mrs.
Plausaby would insist that all should be undone again and fixed m some other way. Part of this came from her old habitual vanity, aggravated by the querulous childishness produced by sickness, and part from a desire to postpone as long as she could an interview which she greatly dreaded.
Isa knew that time was of the greatest value, and so, when she had complied with the twentieth unreasonable exaction of the sick woman, and was just about to hear the twenty-first, she suddenly opened the door of Mrs. Plausaby"s sickroom and invited Mr. Lurton to enter.
And then began again the old battle--the hardest conflict of all--the battle with vacillation. To contend with a stubborn will is a simple problem of force against force. But to contend with a weak and vacillating will is fighting the air.
Mrs. Plausaby said she had something to say to Mr. Lurton. But--dear me--she was so annoyed! The room was not fit for a stranger to see. She must look like a ghost. There was something that worried her. She was afraid she was going to die, and she had--did Mr. Lurton think she would die? Didn"t he think she might get well?
Mr. Lurton had to say that, in his opinion, she could never get well, and that if there was anything on her mind, she would better tell it.
Didn"t Isa think she could get well? She didn"t want to die. But then Katy was dead. Would she go to heaven if she died? Did Mr. Lurton think that if she had done wrong, she ought to confess it? Couldn"t she be forgiven without that? Wouldn"t he pray for her unless she confessed it?
He ought not to be so hard on her. Would G.o.d be hard on her if she did not tell it all? Oh! she was so miserable!
Mr. Lurton told her that sometimes people committed sin by refusing to confess because their confession had something to do with other people.
Was her confession necessary to remove blame from others?
"Oh!" cried the sick woman, "Albert has told you all about it! Oh, dear!
now I shall have more trouble! Why didn"t he wait till I"m dead? Isn"t it enough to have Katy drowned and Albert gone to that awful place and this trouble? Oh! I wish I was dead! But then--maybe G.o.d would be hard on me!
Do you think G.o.d would be hard on a woman that did wrong if she was told to do it? And if she was told to do it by her own husband? And if she had to do it to save her husband from some awful trouble? There, I nearly told it. Won"t that do?"
And she turned her head over and affected to be asleep. Mr. Lurton was now more eager than ever that the whole truth should come out, since he began to see how important Mrs. Plausaby"s communication might be.
Beneath all his sweetness, as I have said, there was much manly firmness, and he now drew his chair near to the bedside, and began in a tone full of solemnity, with that sort of quiet resoluteness that a surgeon has when he decides to use the knife. He was the more resolute because he knew that if Plausaby returned before the confession should be made, there would be no possibility of getting it.
"Mrs. Plausaby," he said, but she affected to be asleep. "Mrs. Plausaby, suppose a woman, by doing wrong when her husband asks it, brings a great calamity on the only child she has, locking him in prison and destroying his good name--"
"Oh, dear, dear! stop! You"ll kill me! I knew Albert had told you. Now I won"t say a word about it. If he has told it, there is no use of my saying anything," and she covered up her face in a stubborn, childish petulance.
CHAPTER x.x.xII.