{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_15467/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_15467","id":"gutenberg_15467","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15467","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Novels","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christian fiction, American"],"text":"E-text prepared by Al Haines\n\n\n\nTHE FIRST SOPRANO\n\nby\n\nMARY HITCHCOCK\n\nAuthor of _One Christmas_\n\nUnion Gospel Press\nCleveland, Ohio\n\n1912\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nCHAPTER\n\n     I  IN THE CHURCH\n    II  THE HOUSE OF GRAY\n   III  THE CONFESSION\n    IV  ADELE\n     V  IS GOD DEMONSTRABLE?\n    VI  MR. FROTHINGHAM AND THE CHOIR REHEARSAL\n   VII  A NEW SUNDAY\n  VIII  \"NOT OF THE WORLD\"\n    IX  \"TWO OF ME\"\n     X  THE CHURCH SOCIAL\n    XI  MR. BOND'S LECTURE\n   XII  THE SOUL HEARS A CAUSE\n  XIII  EXPERIENCE\n   XIV  A \"WITLESS, WORTHLESS LAMB\"\n    XV  \"SELL THAT YE HAVE\"\n   XVI  THE MISSIONARY MEETING\n  XVII  LET THE DEAD BURY THEIR DEAD\n XVIII  GOD, MY EXCEEDING JOY\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nIN THE CHURCH\n\nIt was Sunday morning in a church at New Laodicea.  The bell had ceased\npealing and the great organ began its prelude with deep bass notes that\nvibrated through the stately building.  The members of the choir were\nall in their places in the rear gallery, and prepared in order their\nmusic in the racks before them.  Below the worshipers poured in steady,\nquiet streams down the carpeted aisles to their places, and there was a\ngentle murmur of silk as ladies settled in their pews and bowed their\nheads for the conventional moment of prayer.  Exquisitely stained\nwindows challenged the too garish daylight, but permitted to enter\nsubdued rays in azure, violet and crimson tints which fell athwart the\neastern pews and garnished the marble font and the finely carved\npulpit.  They fell upon the silvering hair of the Reverend Doctor\nSchoolman as he pronounced the invocation and read the opening hymn,\nbut they failed to reach the young stranger, seated behind, who\naccompanied him this morning.\n\nFaultlessly in their usual current ran the services until the time for\nthe anthem by the choir, and then the people settled themselves\ncomfortably in their pews with expectant faces and ears slightly turned\nto catch every strain from the well-trained voices in the gallery\nbehind.  This time the selection was from Mendelssohn and a soprano\nvoice began alone:\n\n  \"Oh, for the wings, for the wings of a dove!\n  Far away, far away would I rove!\"\n\nClear, pure and true, the sweet voice floated through the church.  With\ndramatic sympathy it yielded to the spirit of the melody and the pathos\nof the words.  It touched hearts with a sense of undefined sorrow and\nlonging.  Madame Chapeau, the French milliner, who rented a sitting in\nthe church of her patrons, sat with eyes filled with tears that\nthreatened to plough pale furrows through the roses of her cheeks.\n\n  \"In the wilderness build me a nest,\"\n\nsuggested the sweet voice.  Two weeks in a lonely country place had\nbeen far too long the summer before for Madame, and a wilderness was\nthe last place she desired.  But the plaintive song touched a\nsentimental chord and answered every purpose.  Mr. Stockman, who sat\nmidway of the center aisle, grasping his gold-headed cane, suffered the\nkeen business lines of his face to relax and looked palpably pleased.\nHe recalled the money contributed to the expense of the choir, and\nreflected that he would not withdraw a dollar of it.  To be sure, he\nremembered that the services of this soprano, daughter of Robert Gray,\nthe iron merchant and elder of the church, were gratuitous; but still\nhe was glad to associate the thought of his money with the choir that\ncould render such music.  And presently the chorus joined in the song,\nand many voices added their harmony, to the increasing passion of the\ncry:\n\n  \"In the wilderness build me a nest,\n  And remain there forever at rest!\"\n\nSensitive souls thrilled to the music, which unquestionably always\nadded the capstone to the aesthetic enjoyment of this, the most elegant\nchurch at New Laodicea.  The minister sat with a studied expression of\napprobation and subdued enjoyment.  The young stranger at his side sat\nwith eyes shaded by his hand.\n\nThe choir seated themselves with pleased relief, for there had been no\nnoticeable flaw in the production.  The leader's sensitive face looked\nas nearly satisfied as it ever became over any performance.  The\norganist slid off his bench and dropped into his chair to listen to the\nsermon--or, perhaps not to listen.  But he had done his part well,\nfaithfully filling in all the interstices of time between numbers of\nthe program, so that the congregation had been bored by no moments of\nsilence nor thrust back upon the necessity of meditation.\n\nThere were a few words of introduction, and it was found that the\nstranger was to speak.  He was just a trifle surprising in appearance,\nfor his coat had no ministerial cut, and was even a bit more suggestive\nof business than of the profession of divinity.  But he was soon\nforgiven this; for his voice was even and pleasant, and he looked at\nhis congregation with a pair of frank blue eyes, while he spoke with\nthe simplicity of a man who has somewhat to say to his fellowmen and\nsays it honestly.  His text excited no curiosity, for it was this:\n\"_The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship\nthe Father in spirit and in truth_.\"\n\nIn the choir Miss Winifred Gray had composed herself to listen.\nFortunately she was at the rear of her admiring hearers and had not to\nconfront their faces as she sat down.  She had enjoyed her part\nexceedingly.  She loved her music, and the greater its pathos the\nkeener her enjoyment in rendering it.  There was a subtle sense of\npower, too, which she did not analyze, in moving a whole congregation\nto admiration and sympathy.  With her whole heart she had entered into\nher musical work, in which the church divided attention with the\ndrawing-room and an occasional concert.  She sat now in pleased triumph\nand had no ears for the opening words of the young man's sermon.  But\nit dawned upon her gradually that he was speaking from the words, \"in\nspirit and in truth.\"  He spoke of the former worship which dealt with\nexternals of place and method--with \"carnal ordinances imposed until a\ntime of reformation\"; and then of a new era of worship which Christ had\nbrought in, wherein true worshipers draw nigh to God, not with sensuous\nofferings, but \"in spirit and in truth.\"\n\nWinifred could not follow all that he said, for it seemed a new and\nstrange language for the most part, but she gathered this: that somehow\nChrist had opened the way for all believers into the very spiritual\npresence of God, into a holy place not made with hands (and the more\nreal because it was not, being God-made and eternal), and that there\nworshipers stood before eyes of perfect discernment, unclothed by\noutward semblance, and offered \"spiritual sacrifices\" unto Him.  It was\na beautiful picture, but awful.  Winifred shuddered as she thought of\nthe august Presence that inhabited the Holiest of All that the minister\nspoke of, and wondered if she would dare approach it.  To stand in\nnaked spirit before eyes of flame and to be read through and through,\ndaring to speak no unmeant word, but only that which the heart\ndesigned, in absolute sincerity!  Was worship in spirit such a real\nthing as that?  Was she a true worshiper?  Why was she there that\nmorning?  She glanced about the building, with its arches and columns,\nits stained windows, and almost perfect arrangement of form and color.\nBut the minister was saying:\n\n\"This material structure is not the house of God.  No longer is God\nlocalized to our faith as in the days of symbol and shadow, when surely\nJerusalem was 'the place where men ought to worship.'  For the symbol\nhas given place to the 'truth,' and in that, 'in spirit,' men worship.\nBut while in every place, or, better still, without reference to\nplace--'neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem'--true worshipers\nshall find Him, still His spiritual people form a temple for His\nmanifestation, wherever they are gathered, and there is He.  'In the\nmidst' He takes His rightful place, and that place we must accord\nHim--the center of our heart's attention and worship.\"\n\nWinifred resumed her question.  Why had she come?  Was it to meet that\nOne, to gaze in spirit upon His pierced hands and side, as the minister\nwas saying, and to rejoice in Him as the risen Lord?  She did not quite\nknow what he meant.  She went back over the morning's experience,\nbeginning with her dressing-room, when before her mirror she donned her\nnew and very pretty silk dress and arranged all her faultless toilet,\nadjusting the modish hat that became so well her own type of beauty,\nfitted on the fresh, dainty gloves that should clasp her beloved music\nwhen she should open her throat and sing like a glad bird, delighting\nin its song, however plaintive.  And then she had gone.  Had she\nthought of Him in all this?  Winifred's honest soul said, No.  But\nchurch?  She had thought of \"church,\" with all that it stood for of\nbuilding, and congregation, and set order of things, and there had been\na sort of subconscious satisfaction in the fact that going to church\nwas a religious thing to do, and that to sing in the choir (especially\nfor no pay, as she did) was very meritorious.  But was it so?\n\nThe minister was saying:\n\n\"If worship is not sincere, it becomes, spiritually, an abomination.\nIf, for instance, our singing, instead of being a true sacrifice of\npraise to God degenerates into the sensuous enjoyment of a 'concourse\nof sweet sounds,' it is no longer worship, and it is not even an\ninnocent employment.  However fine it may be as a musical\nentertainment, if offered as a _substitute for worship_ it may be\nlikened to the offering of 'strange fire,' which met such instant\njudgment in the time of Moses.\"\n\nWinifred winced under the clear, bold words.  There was a little\nwell-bred stir in the congregation.  Doctor Schoolman's disciplined\ncountenance betrayed a startled moment and then relapsed into an\nexpression of bland, but non-committal interest.  Winifred glanced\nabout to see how her neighbors were taking it.  She looked first at\nGeorge Frothingham, for he and she were unusually good friends.  His\nhandsome face showed only abstraction, and she knew he had not heard a\nword that was said.  She glanced warily back toward the organ and saw\nthe player in his chair, but he was indulging in a few winks of sleep.\nHis duties at the theater the night before had illy prepared him for\nvery wakeful attention to the sermon, and other influences were telling\nupon him, too, for the man of music knew the taste of wines.  The\nleader of the choir was listening.  His penetrating eyes were fixed\nupon the calm-faced man in the pulpit, and an unconscious scowl bent\nhis dark brows.  Yet it was not an angry frown, but simply intent.  He\nlooked half defensive, half convicted.\n\nThe minister went on:\n\n\"I fear that this is an unusual way of looking at it, and that we are\nall too accustomed to pass unchallenged our professed worship.  Vice\nmay be so habitual and under such common sanction as to be mistaken for\nvirtue.  But surely in the most vital matter of our intercourse with\nGod we do well to let every act be tested by the truth.  It shall be so\ntested eventually, whether we will or no; and even now in the midst of\nthe churches the Son of Man is walking, still with eyes of flame, and\nstill He is saying: 'I know thy works.'\"\n\nWinifred's next excursion in thought away from the sermon led her to\nreview her part of the morning program, and she wondered if the\nminister thought of it too.  The hymns?--she had forgotten what they\nwere.  But the anthem--was it unto the Lord she sang her part?  Was\nthere an atom of sincerity in the sentiment she sang?  The words were\nfrom a Psalm, she thought, and she did not really understand what David\nmeant.  Had she any clearer ideas as to what Winifred Gray might mean?\nShe surely did not wish the wings of a dove, literally, nor to fly away\ninto the wilderness.  She loved her home and many friends and had no\ndesire to escape from them or her surroundings.  If it meant to fly\naway to heaven--?  Surely she did not wish that!  The world and \"the\nthings that are in the world\" were very attractive to the young\nsoprano.  She had no wish for heaven save as an alternative from hell.\nWhat did it mean?  Was it a heart-rest that David longed for?  But she\nhad been conscious of no unrest--until just now.  Honestly, the truth\nwas that she had not meant anything!  Was it worship?  But her friends\nwould tell her she sang it with feeling, she argued defensively, and\nthen asked herself candidly, what sort of feeling?  She had sung\nMignon's song with equal sympathy the night before.  She confessed the\ntruth; it was dramatic instinct that led her in both songs, and the\nSpirit of God in neither.\n\n\"I am a hypocrite,\" she cried within herself, \"and no true worshiper!\"\n\nThen she thought of the positive side of her action.  While there was\nno offering to God, she had received in her own heart the subtle\nincense of the people's praise.  Enveloped in its cloud she had sat\nuntil the sermon disturbed her.  She wished the young stranger had not\ncome to preach.  Doctor Schoolman's sermons were nice, and learned, and\nelevating, and never gave her such uncomfortable thoughts!  Had he\npreached this morning all might have gone on as before so pleasantly.\n\nAnd now?--should it not go on?  Could she think for a moment of\nstopping it all?  Impossible!  But to go on with it was--\"abomination!\"\nThat was what the preacher said.  Perhaps he was wrong, or she\nmisunderstood.  Doctor Schoolman would know.  But what said her own\nconscience?  After all, she knew the battle must be fought out there.\nWas it not sin to take sacred words on her lips and not mean them?  How\nmany times had she taken God's name in vain, pouring out pretended\ninvocation to Him, while her heart addressed only the congregation for\ntheir approval!  But it had been so thoughtless!  He would surely\nforgive.  But now she had thought about it, and it could never be the\nsame again.\n\nBy this time Winifred was thoroughly miserable.  She pondered over and\nagain what she should do, at times in imagination resigning her\nposition in the choir; then saying:\n\n\"Impossible!  It is absurd!  Who ever heard of its being wicked to sing\nin the choir?  How could I explain myself?\"\n\nThen she reflected that she would study to be earnest, that she would\nschool herself to think of Him and sing to Him.  She took her hymn-book\nand found the place of the last hymn, resolved to put sincerity in\npractice at once.  It was chosen, without reference to the unexpected\nsermon, and was the well-known psalm of love and longing which earnest\nsouls have sung for many years:\n\n  \"For thee, O dear, dear country,\n  Mine eyes their vigils keep;\n  For very love, beholding\n  Thy happy name they weep.\n  The mention of Thy glory\n  Is unction to the breast,\n  And medicine in sickness,\n  And love, and life, and rest.\"\n\n\"I cannot sing it!\" Winifred almost sobbed to herself.  \"It is not\ntrue--to me.\"\n\nThen she read on.  Before, she would have been carried away with the\nrhythm and the graceful thought.  But now as she read:\n\n\"Oh, sweet and blessed country That eager hearts expect!\"\n\n\"It's not true--it's not true!\" she thought.  \"I cannot sing these\nsongs.  I know nothing of their sentiment.  I am not a true worshiper\nof the Father.  I do not believe I know Him!\"\n\nThen Winifred covered her eyes with her hand.  \"'Thou desirest truth in\nthe inward parts,'\" the preacher was quoting.\n\nThe words sent a pang through her heart.  \"God has found no truth in\nme,\" she thought, \"I have been a lie.\"\n\nThen she sat in wretchedness, fighting back the tears that struggled to\nescape--tears of shame, remorse, wounded self-love, and grief that her\nfavorite idol, a god whom she did know and had served well, was to be\ntaken down from its niche in the house of the Lord and cast out.  She\nheard little of the remainder of the sermon, and what she heard added\nto her misery; for it told of the joy of true worshipers when at last\nthey should stand face to face with Him whom, having not seen, they\nlove,--\n\n  \"All rapture through and through\n  In God's most holy sight.\"\n\nThe sense of isolation, of exclusion from it all, was very painful; and\nWinifred did not know that this very knowledge of exclusion, and its\ngrief, were harbingers of eternally better things.  She stood with the\nothers as they sang the closing hymn, and her own silence was\nunobserved, as she did not always join the chorus.  She had recovered\nher composure by the time the benediction was pronounced and the organ\nwas yielding an unusually lively postlude to whose strains she and\nGeorge Frothingham descended the stairs together.\n\n\"The old chap is almost waltzing us out to-day,\" that gentleman\nremarked, referring to the organist.  \"Winifred, you outdid yourself\nto-day on that lovely thing.\"\n\nWinifred smiled faintly.  \"Did you hear the sermon to-day, George?\" she\nasked.\n\n\"Did I hear it?  Well, that's good.  Do I hear sermons when I go to\nchurch?  But I confess to a little absentmindedness; not to equal that\nof our friend at the organ, however,\" and George laughed.  Then he\ncaught sight of a group of people in the vestibule below and exclaimed:\n\n\"Hello!  There's your father and the preacher!  I believe he is going\nto take him home to dinner.  Don't look for me under your hospitable\nroof to-day, Winifred.\"\n\n\"Why?\" she began.\n\n\"I have no taste for parsons.  He'll talk the backs off the chairs.\nSee if he doesn't.  Good-by.\"  And the young man strode carelessly away.\n\nWinifred joined her mother in the vestibule, and they held a whispered\nconsultation as to the probabilities of the young minister's going home\nwith them.  It seemed evident that Mr. Gray had taken him captive.\n\n\"Take him in the carriage and let me walk, mother,\" Winifred said, \"I\nwould much rather.\"  So she slipped away and did not meet the minister\nuntil dinner.\n\n\nHubert Gray, Winifred's only brother, had also been at church that\nmorning.  This was somewhat unusual, for Hubert was a sceptic, and he\ndid not like to appear what he was not.  But occasionally he went to\nhear what might be said and turn it over in his questioning brain.  He\nwas a young man of strong aversions, and one of his special dislikes\nhappened to be the unfortunate Doctor Schoolman.\n\n\"I hate cant,\" he declared.  \"His very tones are studied and unnatural.\nHis voice quavers to order, and if I should see tears on his face I\nshould think he had pumped them up someway for effect.  I don't like to\nbe practiced on.  I should like a man to believe something earnestly\nand say it honestly.\"\n\nAnd so he stayed away for the most part, but like many a man who is a\nsceptic, found that the subject of the Christ would not down, and he\ncould not let it alone.  So after absences he would go again to hear,\nthough it should be only to gain fresh occasion for his doubts or\ncynical criticisms.  To-day he was the first to arrive at home and met\nWinifred in the hall as she came in.\n\n\"The spiritual priesthood did very well to-day, Winnie,\" he said, by\nway of greeting.  \"I hope you all sang 'with grace in your hearts unto\nthe Lord.'  I am sure Frothingham did.  I saw him--eh, Winnie, what's\nthe matter?\"\n\nFor Winifred had turned a quivering face toward her brother.\n\n\"I didn't, Hubert,\" she said.  \"There was no grace in my heart.\"  And\nthen she hastened up the stairs to her room.\n\n\"Hm-m!\" said Hubert reflectively, and repeated the observation at\nintervals until dinner was served.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE HOUSE OF GRAY\n\nThe family gathered for dinner with its usual decorum.  Winifred sat\nopposite the young minister, and Hubert was beside him.  Mr. Robert\nGray carved the turkey with his usual skill and the sharpest of knives.\nHe began his anticipated discussion with the preacher:\n\n\"Your sermon fitted pretty closely to-day, Mr. Bond,\" he said, as he\nseparated a joint successfully.\n\n\"Did it really?\" said Mr. Bond, with a smile that lit up a singularly\npleasant face.  \"I am glad to hear it.  That is what sermons are for, I\nbelieve?\"\n\n\"Just so,\" said Mr. Gray, and he added with a little chuckle of\nenjoyment, \"I like it--I like it.  We need it, I assure you.  There is\nno question about that.  Why, Winnie, not a bit of the fowl?  You are\nlosing your appetite, child.  Yes, sir, we need to be stirred up.  If\nthere is anything I believe in, it is sincerity.  But now, don't you\nthink, Mr. Bond, that you put it just a little grain too stiff?\"\n\n\"In what way, Mr. Gray?\"\n\n\"Well, now, I say the Apostles' Creed.  I know it by heart.  I don't\nknow how many hundreds of times I have said it.  It says itself.\nPerhaps that is why I don't always stop to think what it does say.  But\nI do not suppose there is a word in it that I do not believe.  Now if\nmy mind happens to wander while I am, saying it--if it happens, mind\nyou--\"\n\n\"Father, Julia is waiting for Mr. Bond's plate,\" interposed Mrs. Gray\nsoftly from the other end of the table.\n\n\"I beg your pardon.\"  Then, as the delinquent plate went to its\ndestination, \"If my mind happens to wander to some little matter of\nbusiness, or something or other, while I say the Creed--_am I a\nhypocrite_?\"\n\nThe merchant propounded the question with a note of triumph, as though\nthe bold-spoken minister were rather cornered now.  Mr. Bond answered\nrespectfully, but with subdued amusement:\n\n\"I think, Mr. Gray, that the Lord would recognize the absence of\ninsincere intent, but that so far as worship goes, you might as well\nset some Tibetan prayer-wheels going.\"\n\nA gleam of enjoyment shot from Hubert's eyes, and a laugh almost\nescaped him.\n\n\"Ah, just so--just so!\" said Mr. Gray, a little discomfited.  \"But\nwould it be better not to say it?\"\n\n\"It would be better to mean it,\" said Mr. Bond.\n\n\"He parries well,\" thought Hubert.\n\n\"Winifred,\" said Mrs. Gray, off whose smooth nature these discussions\nrolled harmlessly, \"the music was very fine this morning.\"\n\nWinifred, who would have preferred almost any subject to this, cast an\nappealing glance at her mother, but it was unheeded.  She had hoped Mr.\nBond would not recognize her as the singer.\n\nMrs. Gray went on: \"Mrs. Butterworth, who sits just the other side of\nthe partition from us, you know, was quite carried away.  She looked\nvolumes at me, but she just whispered 'heavenly!'  She said after\nchurch she hoped you would come to her party next week and bring your\nsongs.  You have such a gift, she said.\"\n\nAnd Mrs. Gray herself sighed religiously at the thought of Winnie's\n\"gift.\"  Winnie could have sighed, too, but it was with torture.\n\nMrs. Gray was a comfortable lady, absorbed in the quiet machinery of a\nconventionally proper life.  She loved her family, her church, and a\nmoderate amount of society.  She loved things.  Quiet satisfaction\nbeamed from the gentle eyes on the choice silver of the dining-room, on\nher blue antique china, on the costly, tasteful accessories of the\ndrawing-room, and, indeed, on all the well chosen appointments of the\nquietly elegant home.  Interest in her own person and its adornment had\nbeen gradually diverted toward Winifred, whose beauty, grace of manner,\nand accomplishments, were an unfailing joy.  Now she sighed in quiet\ngratitude to the vague deity known as Providence for Winifred's\npeculiarly sweet gift.  As to the sermon of the morning, she was one of\nthose hearers in whose mind a sermon and its application do not\nnecessarily go together.\n\nWinifred felt two pairs of eyes upon her from across the table as her\nmother talked to her in a voice not intended to interrupt the gentlemen\nin their conversation.  There were Hubert's eyes of darker brown than\nher own and very searching, and the preacher's blue eyes that looked\ninquiringly through rimless eye-glasses.  She could think of no answer\nto her mother, and so bent her eyes silently upon her plate, while a\nflush rose to her temples.  Mrs. Butterworth's rapturous \"heavenly\" was\nin strong contrast to the conviction of godless insincerity which\nfilled her own heart.\n\nMercifully to her embarrassment her father began again:\n\n\"But do you not think, Mr. Bond, that we must take things as they are?\nGranted that there is a great deal of unreality in the church, what are\nwe going to do about it?  Can one man who sees the point work a\nrevolution in the whole church?  Must we not just take conditions as\nthey are and make the best of them?\"\n\n\"Perhaps we may not hope to revolutionize a whole church,\" replied Mr.\nBond, \"but,\" and his face grew stern with an expression that told of a\nbattlefield already fought for and won, \"he may refuse to add one unit\nto the aggregation of untrue worshipers, or to uphold an organized\nsystem of unreality.  I sometimes fear, Mr. Gray,\" and there was a ring\nof sadness in his voice, \"that we too readily take conditions as they\nare, and make the worst of them!\"\n\n\"Yes, I am afraid you are right--you are right,\" said the merchant\nslowly.  Then he added, \"but so far you have given us only a negative\nremedy.  My son here could go so far with you.  He washes his hands of\nthe whole matter.\"\n\nMr. Bond turned to Hubert inquiringly.\n\n\"Really?\" he questioned.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Hubert, thus thrust unwillingly into the discussion, \"I am\nno worshiper at all.\"\n\n\"And may I ask why?\" queried Mr. Bond.\n\n\"Your book says that whoever comes to God must believe that He is, and\nthat He rewards those who seek Him.  I am not sure of either\nproposition, and so I do not pretend to come to Him.\"\n\nThe frank eyes looked through the eyeglasses pleasantly.  \"Are you sure\nof the contrary?\" he asked.\n\n\"No,\" said Hubert honestly.\n\n\"Admitting the supposition that He is, and is a rewarder of them that\nseek Him, does it cover the ground of responsibility to ignore Him\nbecause you are not sure?\"\n\n\"Perhaps not,\" said Hubert.  \"But,\" he added doggedly, \"if He is, and\nwishes to be known and worshiped, He ought to be demonstrable.\"\n\nMrs. Gray looked a little frightened.  She never liked to hear Hubert\ntalk about those things, and it was so mortifying to have him take such\na stand against the church and everything everybody--at least most\nrespectable people--believed.  She was sure he was saying something\ndreadful now.  Mr. Gray looked apprehensive, too.  Winifred's\nself-revelation of the morning made her feel like casting no stones at\nher brother.\n\nMr. Bond looked at Hubert mildly.\n\n\"I think you are quite right,\" he said.\n\nHere the discussion seemed to end.  Hubert could make no reply to the\nman who agreed with him.  An instinct to fight for his position had\nsprung up, but he was disarmed by Mr. Bond's assent to his proposition.\nHe was not accustomed to being met like that.  His father's loyal\npolicy had been to protect his household from infidel talk, and he had\nnot taken too much pains to ascertain his son's point of view, and if\npossible, to lead him from it into light.  Hubert had found some\nChristian people ready to argue with him who would admit no position he\nheld, however logical, believing that every arrow from the sceptic's\nquiver must be a poisoned one.  He withdrew in bitterness from such\nencounters.  To-day Mr. Bond's honest sympathy with his outspoken\nconviction found a sensitive chord in the young man's stout-seeming\nheart.\n\nConversation drifted to lesser things until the ample meal was\nfinished, and the little company broke up.  Mr. Gray was sure his guest\nwould wish a little rest and quiet in preparation for the evening\nservice, which assurance happily freed himself for the usual nap which\nhis soul coveted after the Sunday early dinner.  Mrs. Gray departed for\nher own pretty room, her dainty dressing gown, silk draperies, and\ngentle doze.  Winifred went to her room to resume the battle that was\non, Hubert betook himself to his accustomed walk.\n\nWalking down the avenue graced by his own home, Hubert glanced across\nthe street and saw, to his regret, the handsome figure and airy step of\nGeorge Frothingham.  He hoped that gentleman did not see him, for he\ndisliked him and did not wish to be bored by a conversation.  Hubert\ndisliked Frothingham on two separate counts: first, because he was not\nthe sterling quality of man Hubert thought he ought to be, and secondly\nbecause, being such a man as he was, he still dared raise his miserable\neyes toward Winifred.  More than any other object in the world Hubert\nloved his sister, and his grief was very hot and sore when it became\napparent that she and George were \"as good as engaged,\" as all their\ncircle of friends affirmed.  They were not actually so, the \"George\"\nand \"Winifred\" terms resulting from an acquaintance since childhood,\nand had Hubert been a praying man he would have prayed that such a\nconsummation might never occur.  He voiced his sentiments unmistakably\nto Winifred, but on this point they could not agree.\n\n\"It is one of your unreasonable dislikes,\" she said, and so they came\nperilously near a serious difference.\n\n\"He isn't genuine--he isn't manly,\" said Hubert, \"there is nothing to\nhim.  His name ought to have stopped with the first syllable.\"\n\nWinifred had looked her indignation, and mourned that Hubert could not\nsee the charming qualities that made Frothingham popular with many.\n\nHubert's wish that the young man should not see him was unrealized, and\nhe was speedily joined by him.\n\n\"Hello, Gray,\" said Mr. Frothingham, affably.  He was always affable to\nHubert for obvious reasons.  \"I wonder if you are going to hear the\nReverend Professor Cutting's lecture on the Higher Criticism?  That's\nrather in your line, isn't it?  You know they have found that a good\nlot of the Bible is all rot.\"\n\n\"I think they are a pack of asses,\" said Hubert, savagely, his opinions\naccentuated by dislike of his questioner.  \"Indeed I am not going.\"\n\n\"Whew-w!  You surprise me, Hubert.  I thought you were a bit of a\nsceptic yourself?\"\n\n\"So I am, but I am not proud of the fact.  My doubts are quite enough\nfor my own enjoyment without listening to Prof. Cutting's unbeliefs.\"\n\n\"But you know he talks from the Christian standpoint.  He is not an\nunbeliever.\"\n\n\"Isn't he!  That's just what I object to in those men.  If they would\nconfess themselves companions of the sceptical writers whom I have read\nand speak from a Free Thinkers' platform, I would have some respect for\nthem.  What do they believe that they did not?  They respected the life\nand teachings of Jesus, but did not believe in His inerrant knowledge\nnor assumption of divinity.  I do not see how any man can claim to be a\n_Christian_ and not believe that what Jesus claimed for Himself was\ntrue.  If not true, He was either a deluded man and so unfit to lead\nothers into absolute truth, or He was a liar and morally unfit to\nteach.  I wonder that these men can't see through a ladder, for all\ntheir learned research.\"\n\n\"You are pretty hard on them, Hubert.\"\n\n\"I am saying the simple truth.  I tell you I have no respect for those\nmen.  To profess to be Christians and from within the fort batter down\nits fortifications isn't honest.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" said Frothingham, who, having no certain convictions of\nhis own, was prepared to enjoy a racy tirade from either side.\n\n\"So you are wrong, you see,\" said Hubert, \"in thinking Prof. Cutting's\nlecture in my line.  When I get ready to open a broadside against the\nChristian religion, I'll not put on a ministerial coat and collar to do\nit in.  You'd be shot in war if the enemy caught you in their\nclothes--and you'd deserve it!\"\n\n\"That's right,\" laughed George again.  \"Tell me when you are going to\ndeliver your broadside.\"\n\n\"It will not be very soon,\" said Hubert.  \"I do not find such comfort\nin my doubts as to give me a missionary call to spread them.\"\n\nThey came to a turn in the road and parted.  Hubert had had a more\nanimated conversation with his sister's friend than he remembered ever\nto have had before.  He strode on alone through the park whither his\nsteps had taken him, still pursuing the same line of thought.\n\n\"No,\" he reflected, \"why should I seek to communicate my doubts?  I\nnever knew a man to be worse for believing in Jesus Christ.  I believe\nsome men have been better for it.  Certainly I do not admire the\ncompany I am in.\"\n\nHis mind reviewed a company such as would be called together by an\ninfidel cause, and he recoiled from it.  He saw socialist faces of the\nbaser type, ready but for the occasion to blossom into anarchism; he\nsaw clever women whose bold loosening of the yoke of conventional\nreligion had relaxed also the hold of conventional morals, and he was\nglad Winifred was not among them; he saw the face of Doctor Bossman,\nthe leader of the cause, tall, massive-browed, handsome, with bold,\nfull, outstanding eyes, a man of defiant words, of jovial popularity,\nand egregiously self-centered.  Into the young man's mind, in contrast\nto the proud face, there flashed fragments of the words of the\nNazarene: \"Except ye be converted, and become as little children!\"  He\nsaw other faces not so typical, and found himself seated amongst them,\nand abhorred the fraternity cemented by a common unbelief--a cold\nnegation.  He was unhappy.  He found no territory on which to stand.\nHe hated the cant and formalism that chilled him in the fashionable\nchurch.  He hated the insolent creed of the deist, and the ignorance of\nthe agnostic.  He seemed to be hating almost all things with himself\nincluded.  If he had been sure there was a God who heard mortals pray,\nhe would have cried to Him to deliver him from so wretched a position.\nBut he roused himself from his reverie and sought to throw to the winds\nhis unhappy feelings.  He walked back to the house endeavoring to think\nof to-morrow's business, and determining to give himself to an\ninteresting book when he got there.\n\n\nWinifred had a headache which was opportune.  By it she excused herself\nfrom tea and from church that evening.  Her father carried her\napologies to the leader of the choir.  Mr. Gray alone of the family\nlistened to the evening discourse, and he listened well, for the young\nminister spoke again with truth and earnestness.  The machinery of the\nmeeting moved smoothly, and George Frothingham sang with much feeling,\n\"If with all your hearts ye truly seek Him.\"\n\n\nIn Winifred's room the light burned late.  The battle waged there saw\nmany tears and the confirmation of the edict put forth in the morning\nservice that the false god must be taken from its niche in the house of\nthe Lord.\n\n\"I will not be a hypocrite,\" Winifred said to herself.  \"I will not go\nthrough a theatrical display, however refined and solemn, and call it\nworship.  I am no true worshiper.\"\n\nThen she burst into fresh tears, in which mingled grief that she was\nnot a worshiper, and sorrow that she must leave an occupation and\nassociations so dear.  It seemed like taking out a good part of her\nlife, for Winifred was young, and things loved were ardently loved.\n\nThere was one who contested the ground with her in her room that night,\nand told her she was no worse than others, that they were as\nthoughtless and insincere as she; that her course and theirs passed\nunder the common sanction of churches everywhere, and that there was no\nreason why she should be singular amongst all others.  Why should she\nbe disturbed from the commonly accepted course by a single sermon\npreached by a stranger, and he a young man?  Doctor Schoolman had never\nsaid such things.  She might at least wait and talk it over with him or\nsome wise person.  He might be able to show her that God did not really\ncare whether people quite meant what they said in singing, and that it\nwas a meritorious thing, as she had always thought, to sing about Him\nto other people and to sing well.  It might do people good.  Some\npeople had actually wept sometimes!\n\nThe last thought was very striking, for Winifred did not know well the\nWord which is able to discriminate between soul and spirit, and she\nmistook emotion for some sign of spirituality.  These arguments pressed\nhard, and had in their favor the natural leaning of the heart that\nlonged to go on with the loved employment.  But there was another\nlonging too, and it was to be honest.  And underneath all was the true\nbeginning of wisdom--the fear of God.\n\n\"The minister told the truth,\" she said.  \"And if everybody else goes\non with the farce I will do as he said to father at dinner: 'refuse to\nadd one unit to the aggregation of untrue worshipers.'  I'll join\nHubert outside of it all before I will go on!\"\n\nThen she wept afresh, for the vision of isolation \"outside of it all\"\nwas too painful.  The presence of God had grown awesome and the light\nof His eyes intolerable, but outside was darkness unbearable.  She\nflung herself down beside the bed where many a time she had \"said\nprayers\" at night, and sobbed:\n\n\"O God, I am not a true worshiper, but I wish I were!  I have drawn\nnigh to Thee with my lips while my heart was far from Thee.  I have\nbeen a lie.  Oh, make me true! make me true!\"\n\nAfter this outburst of prayer she was calmer, but remained silently\nupon her knees by the bedside.  Gradually there came to her memory the\nsubstance of other words the minister had said;\n\n\"Into the presence and unto the very heart of God there is a\nblood-bought way opened by our blessed Christ for the most wicked one\nwho wishes to take it.\"\n\n\"Is there a way for me,\" she prayed, \"a way to come to Thee just as I\nam?\"  And the sound of her own words brought back the memory of the old\nsong, familiar since her childhood:\n\n  \"Just as I am without one plea,\n  But that Thy blood was shed for me,\n  And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,\n    O Lamb of God, I come!\"\n\n\"O God,\" she cried, \"I can sing that!  I do come, just as I am--I do\ncome!\"\n\nA sweet sense of rest, such as she had never known, stole into\nWinifred's heart.  Some One seemed to be welcoming her with ineffable\ntenderness.  She was not out in the dark, but was at home with God.\nThe awful presence she had dreaded was infinitely sweet.  At last she\nstood in the Holy Place, still foolish, weak, unworthy, but with the\nglory of Another's name covering her as with priestly robes, and she\nworshiped.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE CONFESSION\n\nWhen Winifred awoke the nest morning it was to wonder if it were really\ntrue--if she had come to God and He had received her.  A sweet rest\nstill in her heart testified to a burden lifted.  Her Bible lay open on\nthe little table where she had found the minister's text while fighting\nher battle the day before.  A leaf or two had blown over, and she\nlooked down on the sixth chapter of John and read,\n\n\"Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out.\"\n\nRenewed assurance came with the words.\n\n\"I believe it,\" she said to herself.  \"I have been very false, but He\nis true.  He says the truth.  I believe it.\"\n\nThe thought of the choir scarcely entered her mind now in her new-found\njoy.  The question, to sing or not to sing, had shifted to the deeper\none of relationship to God, and the peace that came with its settlement\novershadowed everything else.  She went down to breakfast with a light\nheart and very cheerful countenance.  Hubert looked at her in surprise\nfrom under gloomy brows.  His own had been a restless night.\n\n\"Has your headache gone, dear?\" asked her mother solicitously.\n\n\"Oh, long ago, Mother,\" said Winifred.  She wanted to tell her mother\nthe better news than of a headache gone, but did not know how to begin.\n\nThey talked of ordinary things until breakfast was nearly over.  Then\nMr. Gray said:\n\n\"Mr. Mercer was sorry to miss you from the choir last night, Winnie,\nand hoped you were not going to be ill.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Father.  Mr. Mercer is always very kind.\"\n\n\"He hopes you will surely be at the rehearsal Friday night, as he\nexpects to take up some specially fine music.\"\n\nWinifred's heart heat violently as she summoned courage to say:\n\n\"I do not think I shall sing in the choir any more, Father.\"\n\n\"Why--what, Winnie?  What's that you are saying?  You not sing in the\nchoir any more?\"\n\n\"What are you saying, Winifred,\" added Mrs. Gray.\n\nWinifred nerved herself for the statement.  It might as well he said\nnow as ever, while they were all together.\n\n\"Yes, Father,\" she said, \"I do not think I can sing in the choir any\nlonger.  I saw very clearly yesterday that I had never been a true\nworshiper.  I have never meant the words that I sang.  I have scarcely\nthought about God while I sang words about Him or addressed to Him.\nMany of them I could not say honestly.  It has all been for effect, and\nto--to please you all.  So I--I concluded--I--couldn't go on any\nlonger.\"\n\nIt had been a very difficult speech, and Winifred's voice sank at the\nend.\n\nMr. Gray looked very grave.\n\n\"You surprise me, Winnie,\" he said.  \"You surprise me very much.  You\nshould be conscientious, surely, but you will let me say I think you\nare taking the matter too seriously,\"\n\nSilent Hubert shot a reproachful glance at his father.  In his\nestimation here was a case of downright honesty that called for\napplause, not repression.\n\n\"I think your father is right, Winifred,\" said Mrs. Gray faintly, and\nthen she added, rather illogically, \"but I do not understand just what\nyou mean.\"\n\n\"Can I take the truth too seriously, Father?\" asked Winifred, still\nspeaking with an effort.  It was an ingenuous question, but Robert Gray\nfound it hard to answer.\n\n\"No,\" he said, after a moment's hesitation, \"not truth itself, but we\nmay get wrong ideas of it.  But, Winnie,\" he added, with real sorrow in\nhis voice, \"I hope you do not mean to tell us that you will not\nhereafter try to worship God, since the past has been so unsatisfactory\nto you?\"\n\n\"Oh, no, Father,\" said Winifred quickly, with rising courage as her\nexperience of the night before came vividly to her.  \"I have more to\ntell.  I was very unhappy about it all last night, and--I prayed--she\nblushed, for it was new to speak of such things--I prayed, and it came\nto me that there was a way to come to God just as I was, and He would\nmake me a true worshiper; and I came.\"\n\nWinifred's embarrassment could not quite cover her joy as she made her\nconfession.  The father looked relieved.\n\n\"I am thankful,--very thankful, Winnie,\" he said.  \"You did nobly.\nThat was quite right--quite right.  But now I do not see that you need\ngive up your singing, but that you might go on sincerely where you have\nfailed before.\"\n\nHe looked a little anxious, for her singing in the church was very dear\nto him.\n\nWinifred's brow clouded.  \"I fear I cannot, Father.  Not now, at least.\"\n\n\"No?  Well, we'll talk about it later,\" he said kindly, and they left\nthe breakfast table.\n\nIn the hall Hubert waited for Winifred with his own form of benediction:\n\n\"You're a brick, Winnie,\" he said, and planted a kiss upon her fair\nforehead.\n\nShe smiled and returned his kiss with an affectionate caress.  Hubert's\nslangy praise was dearer to her than any polished compliment from\nanother source.\n\nHubert did not understand why he hated the world and things a little\nless as he walked to business that morning, the stone walk answering to\nhis usual sharp, decisive step.  He did not know that it was a gleam of\nsomething pure and true, of a religion not in word but in deed, that\nhad flashed across his path and mitigated its darkness.\n\nWinifred had a long talk alone with her father in the library later in\nthe day.  She had thought out her reasons, and understood better,\nherself, the instinctive feeling that led her not to resume her place\nin the choir under the altered conditions.\n\n\"I am just beginning to worship, Father,\" she said, \"and I feel I could\ndo so better out of sight--for awhile, at least.  You do not know the\ntemptation it would be to fall back into the old way.  I am afraid I\ncould not stand it.  I would rather just slip into the congregation\nbeside you, Father, and sing to God when my heart sings, and keep still\nwhen it doesn't.\"\n\nSo her father yielded the point to her conscience.\n\n\"God bless you, Winnie,\" he said with glistening eyes, as he stroked\nher chestnut locks.  \"It may be I have been a bit of an idolater,\nmyself.\"\n\nPoor Mrs. Gray sighed, and quite gave up trying to understand\nWinifred's strange position.  She hoped she would be able to give some\nsuitable reason for withdrawing, and not set the whole church talking\nabout her peculiar views.  She remembered hopefully that her daughter\nhad suffered from laryngitis not long ago, and she mentally nursed the\nalmost vanished trouble into proportions that would forbid her singing\nmuch.  She was sure Dr. Lansing would give an opinion to that effect\nnow.  But, dear me! as for herself, she did not know how she should\never sit in that church and hear anyone else sing in Winifred's place!\n\nIt was to be feared that there were many others who would find it\ndifficult to sit in that church if their own natural wishes and tastes\nwere not gratified there.  What it was to be gathered \"in My name,\" as\nthe Lord Jesus had said,--into the name of Him whose flesh with its\nlonging and loves had been carried pitilessly to the cross, that from\nits death there might spring forth for all His own life in the Spirit\nunto God--what this was, few at New Laodicea knew; nor what it was, so\ngathered, to behold Him in the midst.  Oh, lonely heart without the\ndoor of His own house!  He knocks patiently, not in the hope that the\nwhole household will hear Him, but for \"any man\" who has ears to hear\nand will open to Him.\n\n\nWinifred had another task before her that day, and she did it promptly.\nShe did not know how really in her ready obedience she was walking in\nthe steps of \"the father of all them that believe,\" who, when Isaac was\nto be offered, rose early in the morning to go about the sacrifice.\nShe went straight to Mr. Mercer, the leader of the choir, and told him\nof her withdrawal.  She told her story with simplicity and dignity, and\nit commanded his respect.\n\n\"I honor your convictions, Miss Gray,\" he said.  \"We shall find it hard\nto fill your place, and I am very sorry you are going.  But I would not\nfor a moment urge you to remain.  As I say, I honor your convictions.\nI only wish I had the courage of them myself.\"\n\nHis face grew heavy.  He knew well the deity that led him to that\nplace, and the anxious care that governed each Sunday's work.  To bring\nhis choir to the perfect standard of musical merit which his artist\nsoul craved was his ambition.  He knew pleasure as he approximated to\nthat goal, and vexation almost to despair when he fell far short.  He\nknew it was not before God but at another shrine he poured out his\nsoul's libation.\n\n\"I know I am not a worshiper,\" he said.  \"I have never professed to be\na Christian--oh, I am not a Mohammedan or a Hindu!--but I do not\nprofess to be a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.  I should not like,\"\nhe said reflectively, \"to add to a life indifferent to my Creator the\ninsult of a mock worship.\"\n\nHe bent his brows heavily to consider if such a course were really his.\n\"I would leave the whole thing to-day,\" he said vehemently, \"as you are\ndoing, Miss Gray, if I could.  I would follow other lines in my\nprofession, but I am in this now and it is my living.  It means bread\nand butter to those dependent on me.\"\n\nHe paused, and Winifred said nothing but looked at him with strong\nsympathy.  He went on:\n\n\"It will not excuse me, I suppose, but whose is the greater sin?  Is it\nmine, or theirs who hired me?  I thought of it professionally.  If one\nhonest man had met me with the question, 'Can you lead that part of our\nworship to God in spirit and in truth?' I should have known that I\ncould not, and said so.  Then I should have turned my attention to\nsecular paths where secular men belong.  But there's the rub!  Not one\nof them thought of it, I suppose.  What a farce it is!  The minister\nyesterday talked of incense rising to God.  It doesn't get beyond their\nnostrils, I think.  You know that man--what's his name?--he's a stock\nbroker, who sits down the right aisle?  Well, you know there was a talk\nonce of dismissing the quartette, and retaining only the chorus (under\nmy direction) to reduce expenses.  That man declared if the quartette\nwere dismissed he would leave the church.  He is not a member anyway, I\nthink, but he pays!  There is worship for you!  I tell you, the people\nglut their own souls with good music, and go home thinking they have\nworshiped God.  Oh, I wish there were reality in the world!\"\n\nMr. Mercer threw his head back and ran his fingers nervously through\nhis wavy locks.  His eyes were burning and there was a bright red spot\non either cheek.\n\nWinifred spoke out impulsively:\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Mercer, there is reality!  I know there is somewhere, and I--I\nam just beginning--but I mean to be a true worshiper, myself.\"\n\nHe looked at her, and the gleam in his dark eyes softened.\n\n\"Forgive me,\" he said, \"I spoke too strongly.  Yes, I believe there is\nreality--a little--somewhere,\" and he smiled.  Something in her soft\nbrown eyes as he looked in them carried him many years back, when eyes\nsomething like them looked down on him, while a voice sang sacred words\nwhich he knew the heart loved well.  Yes, there was reality somewhere.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nADELE\n\nWinifred awoke Tuesday morning with melody in her heart.  She moved\nabout her room with the exhilaration of a fresh joy in living.  She\ntook her Bible, which still wore the genteel, unsullied dress of a\nstranger, and turned to the place she wished to read.  She had not got\nbeyond the text of Sunday:\n\n\"The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshiper shall worship the\nFather in spirit and in truth.\"\n\nShe pondered the text.  \"Shall worship the Father,\" she mused.  \"Oh,\nhow sweet!  That august One whom I feared is '_the Father_.'  He loves\nme!\"\n\nShe went with her book to the open window and stood, a fair priestess\nin her white morning dress, and looked out over a portion of her\nFather's wide domain.  Oh, how warm and bright the sunlight that lit\nall things with glory!  How fair were the distant hills beyond the\ncity, with their varied dress of wood and meadow!  In the garden below,\nhow each group of flowers and the green sward answered with joy to the\ncaress of the sun.  How exultantly the lilies stood, and she could\ncatch the incense from the bed of tiny clustering flowers nearest her\nwindow.  She lifted her face toward the sky of melting summer blue, and\nsang softly:\n\n  \"Holy, holy, holy; Lord God Almighty!\n  All Thy works shall praise Thy name,\n        in earth and sky and sea;\n  Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty;\n  God in three persons, blessed Trinity!\"\n\nShe looked again at the words whose entrance had given light, and read\nfarther: \"For the Father seeketh such to worship Him.\"\n\n\"He has been seeking me!\" she cried, and some glimmering apprehension\nof the great love of the Father which seeks the fellowship of sincere\nand simple children, made her bosom heave and her eyes fill with tears,\n\"_He loves me_,\" she repeated as before, and her heart nestled itself\nin the great truth like a bird that has found its nest.\n\nPresently she looked again from her window and saw Hubert walking in\nthe garden.\n\n\"Dear Hubert!\" she said to herself.  \"I wish he knew.\"\n\nWith an impulse she laid her book hastily down and ran down the stairs\nand into the garden.  She flew noiselessly across the soft grass and\nsurprised Hubert from behind, clasping his arm with a cheerful \"Good\nmorning!\"\n\nHe looked down on her glowing face and kissed it.\n\n\"How bright you look,\" he said.  \"Were you up with the birds?  I heard\nyou singing your matins with them.\"\n\n\"Did you hear me?\" said Winifred, with a blush at being overheard.\n\n\"Yes.  What makes you so happy, Winnie?\"\n\n\"Oh, Hubert,\" she cried, and she clasped his arm more tightly, \"My\nheart is almost breaking with joy!  I think I have begun--to know God!\"\n\nHe looked at her with a surprised hunger in his dark eyes.\n\n\"And do you find the knowledge such a joy?\" he asked, with deep sadness\nin his own voice.\n\n\"Oh, yes, Hubert,\" she said.  \"He is so good!\"\n\nLater in the day a small breeze swept in the front door of the Gray\nMansion, past the maid, up the stairway, and to the door of Winifred's\nlittle sitting-room.  It came with the person of Miss Adele Forrester.\n\n\"Hello,\" said a bright voice.  \"Anybody here?\"\n\nWinifred rose from her quaint little window-seat with an expression of\npleasure.\n\n\"Oh, Adele!  I am so glad to see you.\"\n\nThe two young ladies kissed each other and sat down to talk with the\neasy familiarity of old friends.\n\n\"Dear!\" cried exclamatory Miss Forrester.  \"I am out of breath!--I have\nraced so!  I left home an hour ago, but was beguiled by some\nfascinating bargains in Butterworth's windows.  Do see that love of a\nthing for ninety-eight cents.  Did you ever see such a bargain?  I\nwouldn't let them send it for I wanted you to see it.\"\n\nThe fascinating trifle was admired, and then Miss Forrester flew at the\nchief matter of her visit enthusiastically.\n\n\"Do you know what is in the wind, Winifred?  Professor Black, who leads\nthe choir in the Linden Street church, is going to get up a comic opera\nwith a cast from the various choirs, and I am invited.  We are to go to\nNorthville and give it in the little one-horse theater there.  Won't it\nbe gay?  We shall astonish the natives of that small town!  Have you\nhad your invitation?\"\n\nWinifred shook her head.\n\n\"How calm you are.  I am very much excited about it already.  You know\nI like that sort of thing.  It isn't decided what we shall give, but\nprobably Pinafore, or Patience, or some old thing.  They won't care at\nNorthville.  Do say what you think of it, Winifred?  Don't be so\nunecstatic.\"\n\nWinifred smiled, not very merrily.  \"I can't get ecstatic,\" she said.\n\"I shall not be in it.\"\n\n\"You will not be in it!\" Adele cried.  \"Oh, why not?\"--coaxingly.\n\"Doesn't your father approve of it?--or your mother?--of going off like\nthat, I mean?  It will be perfectly proper.  We shall be chaperoned.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's not it,\" said Winifred.  \"I have left the choir.\"\n\nAdele opened her bright eyes wide in astonishment.\n\n\"Left the choir!\" she exclaimed under her breath, and then leaned back\nin her chair with a gesture of comical despair of expressing herself.\n\nWinifred could not help laughing at her friend's dismay.  She said\nnothing and Adele soon recovered herself.\n\n\"A little tiff with the leader or somebody?\" she queried.  \"Such things\nare not unknown to us.  I am prepared to take your part, Winnie, right\nor wrong.  But you don't mean you've left for good?  Oh, come and sing\nwith us at St. John's--that would be lovely!\"\n\nWinifred girded herself mentally for her task.  She and lively Miss\nForrester had never discussed spiritual things together.  They spoke\nfreely of their choirs and of church, but that never seemed dissonant\nwith the most frivolous social things.  Now as Winifred thought of the\nreal Holy Place and the worship there \"in spirit and in truth,\" it\nseemed difficult to speak of it.  She began bravely, and began at the\nbeginning, with Mr. Bond's sermon.  She rehearsed many of the things\nthat he said, and told frankly of her own conviction of the truth and\nhow it troubled her.  Adele listened gravely and with a sympathetic\nmoisture in her eyes as Winifred told, with little hitches in her voice\nand evident effort at self-control, of her determination to leave the\ntheater of her unreal worship, and then of the way she had found into\nthe real presence of God and of His forgiveness.  She paused here, and\nAdele put her arms impulsively about her and kissed her.\n\n\"Winnie,\" she said, \"you know I always loved you.  I love you better\nthan ever now.\"\n\nThen they both cried, though they could not have explained to each\nother why.  Adele was the first to recover herself.\n\n\"I am such a goose,\" she said.  \"I always cry.  But now, Winnie,\" she\nadded, \"are you not going to keep on singing, only 'in spirit and in\ntruth,' as you say?\"\n\n\"I hope I shall keep on singing,\" said Winifred, slowly, \"but I dare\nnot trust myself, just now anyhow, to go on with the choir.  I am so\nused to singing for applause\"--and she blushed at the remembrance of\nsuch a motive in the house of the Lord--\"or for music's sake, I am\nafraid I should find myself doing so still.  I mean to worship God\ntruly,\" and a look of determination settled the sensitive face into\nresolute lines; \"and I shall try to do that which will help me most to\nthat end.  It seems to me now that that will be to join the others\nunobserved.  Perhaps I shall see it differently some day, but now I\nfeel it safer to put my poor, vain, little self as far out of sight as\npossible and try to think of God.\"\n\n\"You are a dear, honest little thing!\" cried Adele affectionately.\nThen she added very seriously, \"but it almost seems to me that if your\nobjections are right they might apply to the whole system.\"\n\nWinifred looked perplexed.  She had dimly thought of that.  The word\n\"system\" recalled Mr. Bond's phrase, \"an organized system of\nunreality,\" which she had turned over in her mind a number of times.\nWould he call the choir that?  She thought of the leader, who professed\nnothing as a Christian; of the organist, who, she must admit, was a\ndrunkard; of George Frothingham with his careless indifference; and of\nherself of two days ago.  Perhaps there were others--very likely there\nwere--who sang with grace in their hearts unto the Lord, but it\ncertainly looked as though that were no object in their selection.  But\nshe thought of Doctor Schoolman, who raised no objections and always\nsat with such an expression of bland repose while they sang.  She\nthought of the elders--her own father among them--and, indeed, of\ncommon consent everywhere in all the churches; at least, all she knew.\nWho was she, who was only \"just beginning to worship,\" that she should\nentertain ideas contrary to them all?\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said hesitatingly to Adele, \"I hope you will not\nthink my ideas revolutionary.  I can't judge for others--others so much\nwiser than I.  But, for myself, I think I see the way I ought to take.\"\nAnd so she settled the matter for herself, on her own convictions.\n\n\"Perhaps you are right,\" Adele said.\n\nShe could not speak further of the opera which seemed awkwardly out of\nplace in the light of what Winifred had said.  After a pause she said:\n\n\"I'm afraid we are all hypocrites more or less, but it is a wonder we\nhad not thought of it before.  But, do you know, I've sometimes thought\nit rather queer that Mr. Francis should sing in our choir?  He is a\nconfessed infidel.  I do not believe our rector knows it.  I do not\nthink he would allow it.  Mr. Francis just drifted into the choir when\nwe needed a basso very much.  But, when you think of it, isn't it\nblasphemy to take the name of the Lord, whom he professes not to\nbelieve in, so solemnly upon his lips in church?\"\n\nWinifred consented that so it seemed to her.\n\nThen a sudden recollection amused Miss Forrester.  \"Speaking of\nworshipers,\" she said, \"now there is my precious Cousin Dick.  How do\nyou think he occupied himself in the midst of Morning Prayer a couple\nof Sundays ago?  The rogue!  I certainly was keeping the run of the\nservice, but it was edifying to see his head bowed so devoutly until he\npassed a slip of paper over to me.  What do you think was on it?  Not a\nsuddenly inspired hymn, but some doggerel lines about\n\n  \"'A certain young woman\n  Who sang high soprano.'\n\n\"I looked daggers at him, but of course he saw I wanted to laugh.  Then\nhe looked such a picture of rapt piety!  Oh, he is a _case_!\"  And\nAdele gave way to the laughter she had smothered in church.\n\nWinifred smiled, too, as she thought of the irrepressibly merry youth.\nBut her pleasure was not as unmixed as it would have been three days\nbefore.  Henceforth, any jest to be quite enjoyed must be free from\ntaint of irreverence toward holy things.  She had \"begun to know God,\"\nand the knowledge gave a sensitiveness to the honor of His name and the\nthings of His house.\n\nAdele recovered from her mirth and resumed the subject seriously.\n\n\"I am afraid we are sorry worshipers, when you come to look at it,\" she\nsaid.  \"If our office is really such a sacred one--and I see it must\nbe, if we take it seriously--why, then, we ought to be pretty good\npeople; earnest, and reverent, and all that, I mean.  But it doesn't\nseem to be our distinguishing trait,\" and she smiled.  \"Not mine, at\nleast.  I ought not to generalize too much.  I am sure there are\npersons in our choirs who live beautiful, devoted lives; but the lot I\nfraternize with mostly are not likely to go to the stake just yet for\ntheir piety.  What awfully jolly dances the Emmanuel church choir gave\nlast winter!  I was invited two or three times and went.  But you know\nit has struck me once or twice as a little odd that we church singers,\n_as such_, should go into that sort of thing.  If some of us should\nstray into it individually it's nothing remarkable, I suppose.  But\nisn't it a bit queer that, as a company, we should lead off in those\nthings?  I suppose,\" with a twinkle of malicious enjoyment in her eyes,\n\"our Emmanuel church neighbors could not find vent for their joy in the\nLord in Hosannas on Sunday, and had to work it off at their heels on\nweek days.\"\n\nAdele enjoyed her own satire, but Winifred was too repentant to laugh.\n\n\"Oh, Adele,\" she said, \"it is dreadful that there has been no 'joy in\nthe Lord' about it.  At least, I never knew it in the choir.  Christ\nwas never the center of our thoughts\" (she was thinking of Mr. Bond's\nsermon), \"the object of devotion.  If we worshiped anybody or anything\noutside of ourselves it was Music.\"\n\n\"Orpheus?\" suggested Adele.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Winifred, \"we were pagans, I suppose.  But oh, Adele, God\nis so good to forgive!  It seems as though He were not looking at it at\nall--as if it had never been.\"\n\nAdele looked at her friend narrowly.  \"Winnie,\" she said at length,\nsolemnly, \"I know what has happened.  You are converted.\"\n\nWinifred opened her eyes in surprise.  She had not thought to so define\nher new experience.  Adele went on:\n\n\"We don't talk much about it in our church, you know.  But I used to go\nsometimes with old Auntie Bloom--she was so blind she couldn't see the\nsidewalk--to a little Methodist church of some sort, Free, or Reformed,\nor something, and they made a great deal of that.  Auntie Bloom used to\nget rather excited over it herself sometimes when she 'testified.'  I\nused to duck my head when she waved her arms about.  'A new creature!'\nshe used to shout.  'There's nothing like being a new creature!'\"  And\nAdele quoted the old lady with good-natured mimicry.\n\nWinifred's face glowed.  \"No,\" she said, \"there's nothing like it!--if\nthat is what has happened to me.\"\n\nAdele looked at the happy face covetously.  \"You look as though it were\ngood, Winnie,\" she said, and added meditatively: \"I think it is all\ntrue about it.  But you know, Winnie, when I was confirmed I really\nmeant to be good.  It was so solemn, and I thought I never should\nforget that dear old bishop's hand on my head.  But I haven't turned\nout much of a saint, you know, dear.\"\n\n\"I never thought you were wicked, Adele,\" said Winifred.\n\n\"Well, I never robbed a bank,\" said Adele, \"but there's no question\nabout my being 'this worldly' enough.\"\n\nWinifred did not know just how to answer this.  It seemed a charge that\nwould cover both their previous lives.  In a moment's silence a\nsweet-toned clock on the mantel softly struck a half hour.\n\n\"Oh, I must be gone!\" cried Miss Forrester, \"and we haven't talked\nabout half--\"\n\n\"Do stay to lunch,\" interrupted Winifred.\n\n\"Impossible, dear.  I am due at home--half an hour ago!\" and she\nlaughed at the discrepancy between her appointment and appearance.\n\"Good-by, Winnie.\"  And she was off.\n\nThe two, very opposite in temperament, were very warm friends.\nWinifred saw beneath a light exterior a quantity of good, sound sense\nand a warm heart.  She was a frequent guest at their house.  Mrs. Gray\nliked her, though deploring her occasional indulgence in slang.  Mr.\nGray enjoyed her racy conversation, and Hubert professed a dislike of\nher volatile qualities.  This last fact grieved Winifred, who liked her\nfriend to be appreciated.\n\n\"She has a rather frivolous exterior,\" she once explained to Hubert,\n\"but she is really very sensible.\"\n\n\"One would like to hear from the sensible interior occasionally,\" he\nreplied, and Winifred withdrew from the defense.  She was the more\ngrieved by his indifference to her friend because, with her quick\nintuition, she had half guessed at a secret liking in Adele for her\ncynical brother.\n\nTo-day at luncheon Winifred ventured to offer him the information:\n\n\"Adele Forrester was in to see me this morning.\"\n\n\"I heard her giggle,\" he replied laconically, and Winifred subsided\ninto silence.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nIS GOD DEMONSTRABLE?\n\nThe scene of the morning in the garden haunted Hubert during the hours\nof business that day.  Matters were attended to with his accustomed\nskill, but always an undercurrent of memory presented to him Winifred's\nbeaming face and her announcement, \"I think I have begun to know God.\"\n\n\"I wish I knew Him.  I wish I knew the truth,\" he repeated to himself\nagain and again.\n\nHubert had entered with heartiness into his father's business, and\nthough still young had already attained a partnership in it.  \"Robert\nGray & Son,\" read the clear, uncompromising sign, and the name of no\nfirm in the city was more respected.  Hubert's devotion to business,\nrather than to more scholarly pursuits, was a deep gratification to the\nfather, who enjoyed his son's fellowship and found help in his fresh\nenterprise and keen foresight.\n\nTo-day Hubert was glad when the last matters were attended to and he\nwas able to go home.  At dinner he was abstracted and silent, and\nretired to his own apartments.  Just off his sleeping room was a\nsmaller one which constituted his laboratory, for Hubert was a man of\nscience in his leisure hours.  This room was the one discomfort of poor\nMrs. Gray, who feared explosions or electric shocks, and sighed many a\ntime as she heard the door close after the entering form of her son.\nTo-night it closed firmly, and had not opened again before slumber\nmuffled the ears of the apprehensive mother, nor had the light from the\nsingle gas burner ceased to throw out its yellow challenge to the\nmellow, midnight moonlight without.  Could Mrs. Gray have looked\nwithin, she would have seen Hubert sunk in the depths of a leather\ncovered chair, with his dark, frowning face leaning upon his hand.  He\nwas thinking.\n\nSomething like this was the matter of his thoughts:\n\nIn this little room questions had been asked and answered.  From the\nstandpoint of the known, or even from the conjectured, excursions into\nthe unknown had been undertaken, and the explorer returned with\ntrophies of ascertained fact.  How had it come to pass?  Obedience to\nthe laws of force revealed had brought its recompense of further\nrevelation.  How humbly, with what child-likeness, he had followed\nthose subtle laws propounded to him by others; laws whose deep mystery\nhe could in no wise understand, but which he believed, and, believing,\ndemonstrated.  Were there such principles to be observed in the\nspiritual realm?  Were there laws of the unseen kingdom, which, if\nobeyed, brought demonstration?  He gave a little gesture of impatience\nas he thought of the unthinking assertion of some that they would\nbelieve nought they could not understand!\n\n\"Stupid!\" he muttered, and remembered an effort of his own, when a\nschool-boy, to illuminate the mind of the gardener with a few\nscientific facts, only to be met with a loud guffaw of unbelief.\nSurely science had never yielded her treasures to sneering unbelief,\nbut to humble, patient faith.  Must he so find out God?\n\nAgain he pondered: Could God, if there were a God, be expected to be\nless mysterious, less wonderful, less unsearchable than the subtle\nforces found in nature, and actually utilized, but never understood?\n\n\"What is electricity?\" he asked himself.  \"I do not know, but I can use\nit.  I know it is.  So may not God be, invisible, uncomprehended, but\nreal, and demonstrable to the man who applies himself to know Him?\"\n\nHubert was very near a determination to thus apply himself.  But should\nGod be sought for as a force or as a personality?  The old argument,\nhackneyed but true, spoke to him: The presence of design argues a\ndesigner.  No blind force ever clasped the petals of a lily together,\nto say nothing of the arrangement of a universe.  Had Hubert known it,\nthere was a passage of Inspiration which read:\n\n\"The invisible things of him from the creation or the world are clearly\nseen, being understood by the things that are made, even his\neverlasting power and Godhead.\"\n\nNow how to address himself to God--how to conduct this new\nexperiment--was the question.  He remembered the conditions of\ndiscipleship to science, and determined that he would follow them.\nFirst, there was child-likeness.  A fragment of Scripture, words of\nJesus Christ, came to him:\n\n\"Except ye . . . become as little children ye shall not enter into the\nkingdom of heaven.\"\n\nHow simple the principle.  No pride of supposed knowledge, no dogmatism\nof unbelief might be brought to the door of this mysterious kingdom by\nthe man who would enter in.  Then, he must follow the things revealed\nif he would know more.  What did he know about God?  Or what must be\ntrue of Him, granted that He is?\n\n\"If He is,\" thought Hubert, \"and is my Creator, then He must know me\naltogether.\"\n\n\"Thou God seest me.\"\n\nIt was a text--he did not know its connection--learned years before in\nSunday-school, before his independence of spirit had withdrawn his neck\nfrom an unloved yoke.  Now it spoke to him clearly.  Surely God (if He\nwere) must see him, and surely He must hear him.  He did not\nconsciously remember the words, \"he that planted the ear, shall he not\nhear?  He that formed the eye, shall He not see?\"  But thoughts of like\nnature passed through his mind.  A creator who could bestow such\nmarvelous faculties must Himself possess them in infinite measure.  And\na God who had given to His creatures such powers of communication, must\nsurely have means to make Himself understood.\n\n\"If He is,\" said Hubert, \"then He is great!  He is infinite.  I cannot\nmeasure His power in any line.  Surely He can reveal Himself to me if\nHe will.  Is He willing?\"\n\nIn the contemplation of God the man grew less and less in his own\nesteem.  Would God reveal Himself to such an atom in the wide universe\nas he?  Did He care for him or about him?\n\n\"God is Love,\" whispered memory, from the Book, and the suggestion beat\nupon the unarmored heart of the seeker, and was not unwelcome.\n\n\"I will put it to the test,\" he said to himself.  \"I will ask Him.\"\n\nHe rose from his chair and thought to fall upon his knees, but was\nresisted.  An unlooked for struggle arose within him.\n\nHe had said to Frothingham that he was not proud of his scepticism, but\nnow his independent thought arose before him, an image not willing to\nbe crucified.  He saw the sneers of his fellow unbelievers, should he\njoin the ranks of the religious.  Suppose God should reveal Himself?\nWould he not be bound to serve Him?  A vision of the Man who called\nHimself the Son of God arose dim and wraith-like, sorrowful, homeless,\npoor--crucified!  If God revealed Himself, perhaps he must follow that\nMan!  Was it worth it?  Was it not better to go on as he was, rich,\nindependent, self-governed?  If he asked for light, was he ready to\nfollow the light?\n\nHis hands clenched themselves in the struggle.  The vision of\nself-abnegation was so real that it sickened him.  Home, possessions,\nfriendships, and his own life also, seemed demanded by the vision of\nthat Man.  But to turn back from the light that might be gained was to\nfall into a darkness more damnable and more desolate than before.\n\n\"Buy the truth and sell it not,\" urged a voice, and some glimmer of\nencouragement seemed in his imagination to smile from the face of the\nMan of Sorrows.  In his decision the sweat broke from his brow and the\nveins stood in cords of agony.  He fell upon his knees, and said aloud:\n\n\"O God, if Thou art, reveal Thyself to me, and I will serve Thee.\"\n\nThe solitary gas jet still flickered in the room, the moonlight shone\nwithout, the silent household slept.  No voice answered the young man's\nprayer, nor sensible Presence wrapped him about; but a crisis was\nmarked in one life that night and the result was to be light and peace.\n\nHubert had not imagined what sort of a response should be made to his\nrequest, and it was well he had not.  But he felt a sense of relief at\na decision gained after he had uttered his prayer to God, and soon\nretired to his bed.  It was not to enjoy much sleep, however, for still\nthe vision of the Man of Calvary haunted him, and with it a sense that\nit was in His footsteps he must tread, if the truth should really be\nrevealed to him.  In the slow hours of the night he counted the cost of\nthe tower he should build, and wondered if he would be able to finish\nit.  To him it was granted at the outset of the way to know something\nof the rugged terms of true discipleship.\n\n     *     *     *     *     *     *\n\nThe next morning dawned murky and cool.  A thin, struggling rain beat\nagainst the windows of Hubert's room when he woke.  Things look\ndifferent by the cold light of day, especially if the day be rainy,\nfrom the same things seen by gaslight.  With Hubert's instant memory of\nthe night before, came the temptation to dismiss its happenings as a\ndream and go back to his former way of living.  But he could not do so\nin honesty.  He had made a pledge to a supposed Being, whom he must now\ntreat as a reality until the most honest experiment proved Him not to\nhe, or to be inaccessible.  Clearly a line of procedure formed itself\nin his mind.  He must seek to know those laws, or principles, that\ngoverned the new realm which he sought to enter, and endeavor to adjust\nhimself to them.\n\nSo he took from its place on the shelves the Book that was most likely\nof all to give the suggestions he needed, because it dealt specifically\nwith the matter in hand.  Of all those who bore witness in the Book the\nmost remarkable one was Jesus Christ.  So he turned to the New\nTestament, and to the Gospels.  He was none too familiar with their\nteachings, but he believed that of them all the Gospel of John\ncontained the fullest statement of abstract principles.  He would read\nit.\n\nIt was still early, and he settled himself for an hour's study.  It\noccurred to him to invoke afresh that One whom he was seeking for light\nupon His own law.  An impulse of pride almost deterred him, but he\nthought,\n\n\"If He is, and I am His creature, I can afford to be humble.  Indeed,\nit is the only fitting thing.\"\n\nSo he bowed his head and said:\n\n\"O God, I am seeking Thee.  Help me to understand the truth.\"\n\nHe found the Gospel of John, and began at the beginning.  He read the\nsublime statements concerning the Word, and wondered if they were true.\nIf true, it was the most wonderful fact in the world.  If untrue--oh,\nwhat darkness lay in the shadow of so great light's negation!  He read\nthe twelfth verse, and the thirteenth, and pondered them in the light\nof the foregoing statement.  If they were true, then He who was \"with\nGod,\" who \"was God\"--he paused to consider the mysterious relationship;\nmysterious, yet not thereby incredible; he would not repeat the folly\nof the gardener by too ready unbelief!  If true, then God, that eternal\nWord, came down to man, and \"as many as received Him,\" to them it was\ngranted to become the sons of God!  They were translated into the realm\nwhence He came forth.\n\nThe stupendous fact--if fact?--glowed like a sun-lit prism and awoke an\nardent longing that it might be so.  Ah, to escape the limits of this\npetty life!  How mean and small it seemed.  Man at his best, his\ngrandest, but to live out a brief day, and then go out into the\nuncertain darkness forever!  If God had ordained a way into His own\ninfinite realm, surely it was worth the finding.\n\nBut what was it to \"receive\" Him?  In what sense did they in the days\nof His fleshly life receive Him?  Was it in a more physical, tangible\nway than would he possible to man now?  Evidently not; for of those\namong whom He moved in bodily presence, the majority \"received Him\nnot.\"  Certainly His mission to the earth was not for that generation\nonly, but for all men.  Perhaps the receiving was explained by the\ncompanion statement, \"even to them that believe on His name.\"\n\nBut to \"believe\" was not less difficult to Hubert than to \"receive.\"\nHe had boasted his inability to believe that which was unsupported by\nevidence, and had found bitter fault with evangelical doctrine, which,\nhe supposed, put a high premium upon blind credulity,--an attitude of\nmind, he contended, which would render a man as open to receive the\nteachings of Buddha, or Mahomet if he happened to hear them, as those\nof Jesus Christ.  He might have added, or the teachings of a Payne, or\nan Ingersoll, or, as a remoter example, of the serpent in Eden who\nbeguiled a credulous woman.\n\nHubert's search had become so earnest that he did not now pause to\nnurse his rancor against the defenseless word \"believe,\" and it even\nflashed into his thought that, should he study diligently its use, he\nmight discover in it a further or different meaning than he had\ncredited it with.  At this point he wished for a Greek Testament, but\nthere was none in the house.  Later in the day, however, he surprised a\nbook dealer by the purchase of one, and prepared himself for further\nstudies in the \"believes\" of John's Gospel.\n\nFor the present he contented himself with reading on, striving to note\nall the story and its argument, passing over much, undoubtedly, that\nwould have spoken volumes had he had ears to hear, but still finding\nmuch that spoke pointedly and clearly to him.  He pondered the\ntestimony of John the Baptist to \"the Lamb of God, which taketh away\nthe sin of the world,\" and did not understand it.  But a feeling almost\nof jealous envy stole into his heart toward the two disciples of the\nBaptist, who, hearing the witness, followed Jesus.  His hungry soul\nechoed their \"Where dwellest Thou?\" in the mystical sense in which he\ninstinctively read it, and he felt it would be joy indeed to hear that\nOne say, \"Come and see.\"  Would he not come, indeed, if he were bidden!\n\nHubert read until the breakfast bell sounded, and then went down to\npursue his study in Winifred's bright face, and wonder how much she\nreally knew of the matter he was trying to search out.\n\n\"Winnie,\" he said to her after breakfast, \"do you still think you have\nbegun to know God?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she said placidly, \"I am sure of it.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\" said he.  \"How does He manifest Himself?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" she answered.  \"I can't explain it, but He seems very\nreal.\"\n\n\"How did you find Him?  What did you do?\" he questioned further.\n\n\"Oh, I just came to Him,\" she answered.  \"And,\" as she reflected of\nthat night's compact, \"I gave myself up to Him.\"\n\nSo that was the way Winifred found Him.  Was that the way to \"believe\"?\nBut Winifred had none of his doubts about God.  She believed that He\nwas, and the mental assent led to the heart surrender.  But if he\nshould _do_ her act of faith--?  If a man with doubts should give\nhimself up would he be received?  With such reflections Hubert went out\ninto his day's work.\n\nAgain he accomplished the day's business with faithfulness to all\ndetails, but with the consciousness every hour of a perplexity\nunsolved--a burden unlifted.  Again he was glad when the office door\nclosed behind him and he turned his face homeward, striding beneath his\numbrella through the now settled rain, with the Greek Testament grasped\nin his hand.\n\nAn attractive wood fire burned in the drawing-room grate that evening,\nbut Hubert resisted its invitation and retired to his \"scientific den,\"\nas Winifred called it, to pursue his new studies.  He set himself to\nread again in the Greek that which he had read in English.  He was\nstruck by the fact that the word translated \"believe\" was also rendered\n\"commit\" in a passage in the second chapter.  That seemed somewhat more\npractical to his apprehension.\n\nHe lingered long on the interview with Nicodemus, and as the rain beat\nupon the roof and window pane he listened to the words uttered on a\nJudean night, so long ago, to a man who like himself sought the truth.\nIn the first chapter of the Gospel, in its introduction, he had caught\na glimpse of infinite stretches and light unapproachable, and it seemed\nno marvel that a man, if he would enter that kingdom, _must be born\ninto it_!  Marvel, indeed, it might be, that such a birth were\npossible, but not that it was needful.  For how could he transgress the\nboundaries of the human sphere into which he had been born, and lift\nhimself into the higher?  It was impossible.  No, that life must\nsomehow come forth to him.  He must be \"born from above.\"\n\nAs he read on into the book, still bearing in mind the character\nascribed to Jesus Christ in its beginning, he could not wonder that He\nspoke with such authority.  Not \"Thus saith the Lord,\" but \"Verily,\nverily, I say unto you,\" the new Prophet declared.  What wonder, if He\nwere such a Being as described, that He should offer living water to\nthe Samaritan woman, since \"in Him was life,\" nor that \"the work of\nGod\" for obtaining eternal life should be narrowed down to a belief\nin--a committal unto--Himself?\n\nAs he considered these things, the emphasis shifted from \"believe\" to\nthe Person in whom to believe; and it seemed to him that the teaching\nmust be not so much that faith was in itself a way of salvation, as\nthat it was a simple necessity to the taking of the Way--the One sent\nforth from God; in short, that its own value was purely relative to the\nOne believed in.  This seemed to settle a very important question, and\ndrew the sceptic's attention away from his own capabilities of belief\nto the claims of the proposed object of his faith.  He read His words\nwith an interest that was painfully intense, and almost groaned his\nprayerful longing to know if they were true.\n\n\"After all,\" thought he, \"be a man credulous or doubting, absolute\nknowledge waits upon revelation--upon demonstration.\"\n\n\"O God,\" he cried finally, \"if Thou art, and if Jesus Christ is, and is\nsuch an One as described here, give me evidence!  Let me know Him and\nThee.\"\n\nHe lifted his book again, and this time he read:\n\n\"If any man is willing to do his will, he shall know of the teaching,\nwhether it be of God, or whether I speak from myself.\"\n\nIf a voice had spoken aloud the words it would not have conveyed the\nmessage more directly to his heart.  He paused, as before a pivotal\nmoment of destiny.\n\n\"'Willing to do His will!'\"\n\nHis face whitened.  The agony of the night before was upon him.  The\nway of the cross--the picture of the Man who like no other had done the\nwill of God, rose before him and demanded all things.\n\nAs drowning men are said to have pass in review the events of a\nlifetime before them, so in a moment's time the strategic elements of\nhis life appeared before him, and the finger of God pressed the most\nsensitive points in his nature.  He pointed to the counting room of the\nkeen business man, and Hubert saw himself poor for the Kingdom of God's\nsake.  He pointed to the beautiful home and its inmates, and he saw\nhimself homeless, having \"hated\" father and mother and sister--ah,\nsharpest pang of all!--for the sake of discipleship to the sorrowful\nSon of Man.  An invisible attraction drew him after Him, and with ashen\nlips but with fixed heart Hubert Gray took up his cross.\n\n\"I am willing to do Thy will,\" he said.  \"Only let me know the\nteaching.\"\n\nThe immediate result of Hubert's work of faith cannot be written.  It\nis incommunicable.  One may point to after effects in a life\ntransformed, but of that supernatural witness which comes to men's\nsouls, stamping the words of God as very truth indeed, no description\ncan be given.  As jealously guarded as the crown jewels in the Tower of\nLondon is the secret of the Lord which is revealed or hidden at His\nwill.  To the foolish one who \"in his heart\" says, \"There is no God,\"\nno glorious revelation comes; and often even the patent fact of His\ndivine creatorship is not observed.  But, given a hungry soul, he shall\nbe filled with good things.  And the Spirit waits to charge with\nelectric certainty the teaching of God's truth to the man who in\nmeekness adjusts himself to it.\n\nCold and colorless glows the transparent prism in the shadow.  But let\nthe sun shine through it, and lo! it is alive with all the colors of\nglory and beauty.  So the sunlight shone in the laboratory of Hubert\nGray that night and lit up with many rays of refracted glory the\ndoctrine of Jesus Christ.  Light focused itself upon the Person, and\nHubert saw, as years of painful study would not have taught him without\nthat light, the mysterious merging of his own identity with His; saw\nmistily, what afterward he should discern more clearly, his own\nworthless, sinful life vanished in the dying of the One \"lifted up\";\nsaw radiantly his own triumph and everlasting life together with the\nliving Christ.  To the secret abode where lives are \"hid with Christ in\nGod,\" he came and saw.  The unspeakable gladness of the revelation\nturned the rugged cross into a crown of glory.\n\nThe fragrance of a flower stole from his bedroom into the laboratory.\nHe smiled as he recognized it.\n\n\"I have not seen the flower,\" he said, \"but its undoubted witness is\nhere.  I do not see Thee, Jesus, my Lord and my God, but I believe\nThee!--Thou art here.\"  And he worshiped Him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nMR. FROTHINGHAM AND THE CHOIR REHEARSAL\n\nUnsympathetic Nature was still in tears when the next morning broke\nupon Hubert's new-found joy.  But so ardent was it that no weather\ncould dampen it.  His first waking thoughts were of the marvelous\ntreasure he had found.  A new life stretched out before him.  He was a\nnew man.  He had entered into a new world whose center of gravity was\nin heaven, \"where Christ is,\" and an indescribable, exultant gladness\nfilled his soul.  He had received Him, the divine Visitant from that\nother world, and his own soul was quickened with the life He brought.\nHenceforth he claimed kinship with Him and with the Father.  A new\nmotive power of living had entered into his being.  He was not\nconscious of prayer, but it was in his heart, making response to the\nrevelation which had come to him, \"Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?\"\nThe new realm must have its own laws of living, very contrary to those\nof this world, and he would know them.\n\nFirst of all there was a simple, straightforward task before him and he\nwas eager to discharge it.  So after a hasty toilet he went down to the\nlibrary where he rightly surmised he should find his father--also an\nearly riser--and presented himself at the other side of the table\nbefore him.\n\n\"Eh! Good morning, Hubert,\" said Mr. Gray, as he looked up from his\nreading.\n\n\"Good morning, father,\" said Hubert.  And he added, \"I have something\nto tell you.\"\n\n\"Really?  I hope there is no ill news?\"  Mr. Gray's first thought was\nof business, but a second glance at Hubert's face showed there was no\nunpleasant message to communicate.  And there was a strange expression\non his son's face.  He had never seen it before--not, at least, since\nHubert was a boy.  No, not even then.  What was it?\n\nHubert answered his father's questions of word and searching look.\n\n\"No, father,\" he said, \"it is far from ill news.  It is this: I am no\nlonger a sceptic.  I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.\"\n\n\"Eh?  What?  Hubert!\"\n\nThe older man's face passed in lightning changes from stages of wonder\nto joy, and he sprang from his chair.  He grasped his son's hand across\nthe table.\n\n\"Hubert!\" he repeated, \"my dear boy!\"\n\nHis voice choked on the last word.  A certain strain of Scottish blood\nforbade a warmer demonstration, but the two men's hand-clasp was\neloquent.  Presently Mr. Gray asked Hubert to be seated and tell him\nall about it, wondering much meanwhile at the change very often sighed\nfor but seldom expected.\n\nHubert told his story as directly as possible, but minus many details\nof his heart struggle of which his reserved nature made it impossible\nto speak.  But, bare of all embellishment, the story gave great joy to\nhis father.  His own example as a Christian had not been a brilliant\none.  His principles were just, as men count equity, and his life\nirreproachable by their standards.  But the business man seemed often\nto hold the ascendency over the disciple of Jesus Christ, and Hubert\nhad sometimes wondered cynically wherein his father differed from\nhimself except in his attendance upon outward religious forms.  But the\nspark of life, dull and smoldering, answered to the breath of Hubert's\ngood news of salvation, and he was unfeignedly glad.\n\nThey started together for the dining-room when the bell rang, but met\nWinifred in the hall.  She had just come in from the garden, clad in\nrain-coat and cap, roses glowing in her cheeks from the keen, damp air,\nand a big bouquet of flame-colored flowers in her hands.\n\n\"We shall have sunshine without the sun,\" she cried to Hubert.  \"These\nflowers have caught his color.\"\n\n\"That is a parable,\" he answered quickly.\n\n\"Expound it please,\" she said.\n\nMr. Gray went on into the dining-room, and Hubert explained to Winifred\nher mystic text.\n\n\"These flowers,\" he said, \"give indisputable evidence of the sun's\nexistence, even though we cannot see it.  They could not have their\ncolor without it.  There is a sweet soul in this house who caught the\nbeams of the Sun before I quite knew that He was, and she testified of\nHim, reflecting His glory when I was in great darkness.  It helped me\nto suppose that He existed and to try to find out for myself.\"\n\nWinifred looked deeply in Hubert's dark eyes and saw the hunger gone\nfrom them.  He smiled on her.\n\n\"Hubert,\" she said, \"have you found Him?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said.\n\nHer flowers fell to the floor.  She threw her arms about his neck with\na sob of joy.\n\n\"Oh, Hubert, I am so glad!\" she cried.  \"I prayed--\" and her voice\nbroke.\n\nBreakfast waited in the dining-room, but Mr. Gray improved the time by\ntrying to explain to his wife the great change that had come to their\nson.  She could not understand the phenomenon, and the process that led\nto it was exceedingly misty, but she was glad if Hubert had come to see\nthings differently, and hoped he would join the church at once, and the\nreproach of his sceptical views be wiped out forever.  She felt a\nlittle nervous and excited at the announcement, and wondered just what\nacknowledgment of it she should make.  A pink flush had stolen into her\nfair face by the time Hubert and Winifred entered.  He walked straight\nacross the room to where she was standing and took her soft, white hand\nin both his.\n\n\"Has father told you my news, mother?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes, dear Hubert,\" she said, and kissed him.  \"I am very glad.  It has\nbeen a grief--\" and she hesitated.  She thought to say, \"that you have\nnot been with us,\" but he finished the sentence for her.\n\n\"That I have not been a Christian?  I know it must have been.  Forgive\nme for all the pain it has given you.  I have been wrong and blind.\"\n\nThe maid peered in, and Mrs. Gray was glad of the interruption and to\npropose that they sit down at once.  She was glad of breakfast, too.\nShe saw no reason why the coffee should spoil, even though the son and\nheir of the house had just now come into an inheritance exceeding the\nmost fabulous fortunes of earth.\n\nThe blessing was asked less formally than usual, and Mr. Gray thanked\nthe Lord also for the Bread of Life which had visited them.  Later in\nthe course of conversation he remarked:\n\n\"By the way, you will all be interested to hear that Mr. Bond, who\npreached for us last Sunday, is to give a series of Bible Lectures in\nthe Y.M.C.A. Hall, beginning in about a fortnight.  Mr. Selton is\nbringing it about.  It was through him that we had the privilege of\nhearing Mr. Bond last Sunday.\"\n\n\"Then it was not upon Doctor Schoolman's invitation?\" queried Hubert.\n\n\"Oh, he invited him, of course, but it was at Mr. Selton's wish.  He is\nvery influential, you know.  He heard Mr. Bond when he was in New York\nlast winter and was much interested in his teaching.  So he suggested\nhaving him here for a Sunday, and himself undertook the expense.\"\n\nFortunately for this instance Mr. Selton possessed the two\nqualifications, so often united in church life, of influence and wealth.\n\n\"Later,\" went on Mr. Gray, \"he spoke with several men, including\nmyself, about the advisability of the Bible Lectures, having secured\nMr. Bond's consent before he left on Monday.  We saw no objection.  I\nthink, myself, that we need a little stirring up now and then.\"\n\n\"And the lectures are to be in the Y.M.C.A. Hall?\" asked Hubert, with\ninterest.\n\n\"Yes, that is a central point, and we wish to make them union meetings.\"\n\n\"I am very glad to hear about it,\" said Hubert.\n\n\nThe rainy day passed, its somberness meanwhile lightened by a greater\nglow than that of Winifred's flame-colored flowers, and Friday came,\nradiant with sunshine.  It was passed without special incident until\nevening, which was the time of the weekly choir rehearsal.  Then Mr.\nGeorge Frothingham called, as had become his wont, to escort Winifred\nto the church.  That had once been Hubert's task, and bitterly he had\nresented it when gradually the change came about.  Now he need have no\nfear, for his sister was not going.  She had not seen Frothingham since\nSunday, and during the day had looked forward with a little unpleasant\ndread to the interview that must be.  She imagined various ways in\nwhich she should break to him the news that she had left the choir, but\nnone seemed satisfactory.  All her little speeches left her as the time\ndrew near.\n\nHe found her at the piano, where improvised melodies had been working\noff her nervous apprehension.\n\n\"Not ready?\" he asked, after the usual salutations.\n\n\"I am not going.\"\n\n\"Really?  You are not ill, I hope?\"\n\n\"Oh, no!  I never was better,\" confessed Winifred.\n\n\"You should go above all things to-night,\" he said.  \"Mr. Mercer is\ngoing to give us parts of the Redemption.\"\n\nThe music was certainly alluring.\n\n\"I have left the choir,\" said Winifred faintly.\n\nMr. Frothingham never lost his easy self-poise over anything which this\njestingly tolerated world offered him, but he allowed himself to be\nsurprised now.\n\n\"You are surely not in earnest?\" he said.  \"You of all persons!  I\nthought you were devoted to the choir.  You are not going to desert us\nfor some other field of conquest?\"\n\n\"Oh, no!\" said Winifred.\n\n\"Have you quarreled with Mercer?\" he persisted.  \"He _is_ cranky\nsometimes.  Shall I fight him?\"\n\nWinifred had to laugh at the thought of the handsome, immaculate young\nman before her in a pugilistic encounter with Mr. Mercer.\n\n\"No, you needn't do that,\" she said; and added, \"you would get the\nworst of it, I think.\"\n\n\"Oh, really!  Thanks very much!  Perhaps you do not know my prowess in\nthose lines?  But on the whole I should prefer a smaller man than\nMercer.  He shall be spared if you say so.\"\n\n\"You relieve me,\" said Winifred, laughing.\n\nBut how was she to explain the truth to Frothingham?  It was easier to\njest with him than to speak earnestly, and Winifred had an instinctive\nfeeling, not definitely acknowledged, that to make him understand a\nspiritual idea would be impossible.\n\n\"But really, Winifred,\" he went on, \"if it is not rude to ask, I should\nlike to know what great reason makes you desert us now in the very\nheight of your success, and, I should think, enjoyment?\"\n\nSmiles left her face, and a flush of embarrassment deepened in her\ncheeks.  It was very hard to speak to him of these things--harder than\nit had been to any other.\n\n\"That is just it,\" she said slowly.  \"It has been a success for me,\nartistically, and a great enjoyment.  But there has been nothing in it\nfor--for--Christ.\"  She hesitated before the sacred name.  Why was it\nso hard to speak it before him?\n\nHe was silent.  They were already by the simple mention of that name in\ndeeper water, conversationally, than he was accustomed to.  She had to\ngo on.\n\n\"I have been convinced,\" she said, \"that it has all been very wrong.  I\nhave been offering to God a pretended worship, when it has really been\nthe worship of our Art.  That must be idolatry, I think.  I can't go on\nwith it.\"\n\nWinifred stopped decisively, and Frothingham found words to reply with\njust a tinge of irony:\n\n\"I am afraid you are a bit too metaphysical for me, Winifred.  I don't\nquite understand you.  Do you mean to say singing in the choir is\nwrong?  If it is, it is a pretty common sin and quite generally\napproved of.\"\n\n\"No, it isn't wrong,\" said Winifred desperately; \"at least, it would be\nthe loveliest thing in the world, I think, if we were all _true\nworshipers_, and meant what we sang, and sang to God.  But you know it\nhasn't been anything of the sort.  We have sung for our own pleasure\nand the applause of the people.\"\n\n\"And the money, some of us,\" asserted Frothingham with indifferent\ncandor.  \"But I don't see why we should be troubled about it.  It's a\npart of the machine.  It goes to make up the church worship, and a\nconsiderable part of it.  I suppose they offer it to the Lord--or\nwhatever you call it--whether we individual performers mean anything or\nnot.\"\n\nWinifred thought of the prayer-wheels.  Did the church turn the machine\nand grind out praises by proxy?  How much merit did they accumulate\nthereby in the eyes of God who is a Spirit, and would be worshiped \"in\nspirit and in truth\"?  It was very perplexing.  She could not argue it\nall out with him, but she said:\n\n\"If the individual worshipers are insincere, I should think the total\nresult\" (she had a little of her father's business logic) \"would be\ninsincerity.\"\n\nHe smiled at her reasoning.  \"Let the clergy thrash that out,\" he said.\n\"When they or the church find fault it will be time enough for my\nconscience to twinge.\"\n\n\"I think one of the clergy did find fault in the sermon Sunday\nmorning,\" ventured Winifred.\n\n\"Oh, that young fellow?\" said Frothingham carelessly.  \"I didn't find\nout what he was getting at.  Doctor Schoolman always looks beatific\nwhen we sing.  While he continues to beam I shall still consider that\nsinging in the choir is about the most pious act I do.\"\n\nMr. Frothingham was rather vain of the brevity of his list of pious\ndeeds.\n\n\"Oh, come on, Winifred,\" he continued, grasping her hand coaxingly,\n\"don't bother your head about such mystical things.  Come on and sing.\nThink of the Redemption.\"\n\nShe did think of it, and tears struggled to come with the thought.\n\n\"I am not going,\" she said, without looking in his eyes.  \"Don't ask\nme, George.\"\n\n\"And you have no pity on poor me, going without you?\"\n\n\"No,\" she answered, smiling.  \"You will survive it.\"\n\n\"Cruel lady!\" he said dramatically, and bore her slender fingers to his\nlips.\n\nShe withdrew her hand with a slight flush, and he bethought him to look\nat his watch.\n\n\"Oh,\" he exclaimed, \"it's late.  Mercer will think he has lost me, too.\"\n\nHe made hasty adieux and was off, his light, swinging step sounding\npleasantly down the walk.\n\nWinifred stood where he had left her, with a conflict of emotions in\nher heart.  She still felt the tingle of his lips upon her hand, and\nstill smiled at the airy nothings he said.  But there was pain in the\ncompound of her thoughts; pain at a difference between them that\nproclaimed its power to grow wider; pain at defeat in making a\nprinciple understood and appreciated; pain most of all from the subtle\nsense of something pure and sweet now sullied, as though too rude a\nbreath had blown upon a sensitive flower, or as though pearls had been\nignorantly trodden upon.\n\nMeanwhile Frothingham, on his way to the handsome church, indulged in\ncharacteristic meditations of his own regarding Winifred's strange\nfreak.  He heartily hoped she would get over it.  It was a stupid turn\nfor affairs to take as regarded himself; for perpetual meetings at the\nchoir, with the pleasant walks attached, and frequent private\nrehearsals in the Gray drawing-room had furnished admirable facilities\nfor the courtship of whose issue he had not a doubt.  But it was far\nfrom a misfortune that could not be mended.  He should miss her\nimmensely, of course, but there were other pleasant people in the choir\nand he held an easy popularity among them.  Then he was too well\ningratiated in her favor and as a frequent guest at her house to be\ndisplaced by this matter.  He should still do the attentive in every\navailable way.  But he hoped she was not getting fanatical.  It would\nbe inexpressibly stupid to have a wife over pious, with extreme views\nabout things.  He should like her to be religious up to a certain\npoint.  He thought women ought to be that.  It was a good thing to have\nsomebody in a house who knew something about those things in case of\ntrouble.  Mr. Frothingham was himself in the insurance business--at the\nhead of a prominent company's office for that city--and he was\naccustomed to take business-like account of life risks, and to\nrecognize death as a hard factor to be dealt with.  Just now he\nunconsciously erected a kind of spiritual lightning rod against his\nfuture house in the piety of its expected mistress.  But he hoped she\nwould not get too religious--not enough so to interfere with the life\nof gayety which he expected to continue for many a year.  But it did\nnot occur to him to relinquish her even if she should begin to show\nsymptoms of extreme views.  He was rather fond of Winifred--quite so,\nin fact; and he was not indifferent to \"the old man's ducats,\" as he\nhad confided to himself and to one or two most intimate friends.  On\nthe whole he congratulated himself on pleasant prospects ahead, and was\nnot too much disconcerted by his own appearance alone at the rehearsal.\n\n\nWinifred spent the evening rather ill at ease.  Its pleasant habit was\nbroken up.  Had she been foolish?  Was she not taking an unheard-of\nstand?  Would it have been better to go along and conform her course to\nthe popular conscience instead of her own, perhaps very silly, one?\nShe should be laughed at, and it was miserable to be laughed at or\nthought eccentric.  She tried to play the piano, but imagined strains\nfrom the Redemption interrupted her.  She went to talk with her mother,\nbut found her seated beside the library table with her embroidery while\nher father read aloud.\n\nMrs. Gray managed to utter an aside:\n\n\"I had forgotten, child, that you were not going to the rehearsal.  How\nstrange it seems!\"\n\nWinifred drifted away again, unable to listen to what her father was\nreading.  Hubert was nowhere to be found.  She went at last to her own\nroom and did the best thing possible.  She poured out her heart before\nGod, telling Him with the simplicity that had characterized her first\ncoming to Him her perplexity and unhappiness.\n\n\"I am miserable,\" she said to Him.  \"I don't know whether I have done\nright or not, and I miss the music so much.  Please let me know if it\nis right to give it up? I do wish to worship Thee.\"\n\nNo flood of revelation poured at once upon her, but she took her Bible\nand read.  She had learned no method of study, but read where she\nchanced to open.  The portion did not say anything about choirs or\nrehearsals, but it led her mind away and soothed her.  And its\natmosphere was so pure and fragrant that when the debated thing rose\nagain it was instantly judged by contrast.  Very different was the\nspiritual air of her choir experience, as in imagination she stepped\nback into it; and the fellowship of George Frothingham, Mr. Mercer, and\nthe drink-sodden organist, did not seem like the communion of the\nsaints as she found it in the Acts of the Apostles.\n\nWith the vanishing of her doubts as to the wisdom of her course came\nback the gentle peace that she had known for five blessed days, and its\nprice was above all musical delights.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nA NEW SUNDAY\n\nSunday morning found four people seated in the comfortable pew which\nthe iron merchant was able to pay for.  And, by the way, what a\ncomfortable thing is wealth in the various ramifications of life, even\nto one's church relationships!  No fear of the unwelcome bidding, \"Sit\nthou here under my footstool\"--in the undesirable front seats where\none's neck must be craned backward to admit of seeing the minister; nor\nof being relegated to the back pews when ears have become a little dull\nwith age.  How thankful should one be whose lot in life is thus\nfavorably cast!  But we have not admitted to our consciousness a\nthankfulness that the Epistle of James is not often read; or, if read,\ntoo literally dwelt upon.  We have found a grateful oil to pour upon\nany rising waters of ill conscience in reflecting upon the beneficent\nadjustment of social relationships by a wise Providence and the divine\nright of money-kings.\n\nMrs. Gray and her neighbor, Mrs. Butterworth, exchanged serene glances\nof recognition across the shallow partition that separated them, but\nthe latter added a look of inquiry as it was observed that Winifred was\nwith her family.  Mrs. Gray's heart sank at the thought of having to\nexplain the phenomenon when once the service should be over.  Winifred\nfelt that many eyes must note her presence there instead of in the\nchoir, and the embarrassment of the thought almost dissipated the\nspirit of true worship for which she had longed and prayed.  But she\nhad soon forgotten to a considerable degree the people about her, and\ngave herself diligently to the service.  It was not altogether without\nself-consciousness, however, that she joined in the hymns, fearing lest\nher own voice should be heard above others.  Mrs. Gray, too, wished\nthat she would not sing quite so loudly, lest it should destroy the\nconvenient fiction of the laryngitis.\n\nHubert realized that he took his place in the congregation on an\nentirely new basis this day, and he endeavored earnestly to put away\nall spirit of his former prejudice and to receive in meekness anything\nwhich his Lord might say to him from His place in the midst.  He tried\nto forget how utterly hollow and meaningless the formalities of the\nservice had heretofore seemed to him, and to discern, if possible,\nwithin the mold of man's fashioning the operation of the Spirit of God.\nWith his own heart at peace with God and charged with His joy, it was\neasy to look upon all about him more kindly, with an eye as critical to\nfind good and honor it as to discover evil.  Upon even his long-time\naversion, Doctor Schoolman, he looked with expectancy, for had he not,\nafter all, known for these many years Him whom he--Hubert--had but just\n\"begun to know,\" as Winifred would put it?  With ears now open, should\nhe not hear much which would cause his heart to burn within him?\n\nHubert and Winifred shared the same hymn-book, and together sang with\ndeep gladness hymns which ascribe praises to Christ.  But, intent upon\ntruthfulness, Winifred paused before sentiments not understood, or the\nprofession of experiences quite unfelt, and let the congregation sing\non without her.  The privilege of doing so gave her keen satisfaction,\neven though it was difficult to stop in the midst of a pleasant melody.\n\n\"Better a break in the melody than in sincerity,\" she said to herself,\n\"since the Lord is here and taking note of everything.\"\n\nThe thought of His presence was very sweet; not at all the vision of\nterror which it had seemed to her a week ago.  She found the fear of\nHim not incompatible with the purest confidence and love.\n\nThe choir rendered their accustomed service, and a new soprano, on\ntrial, exploited her skill in solo parts.  She sang without Winifred's\nrefinement of artistic sense, but sang fashionably.  She sang\ndramatically, and cast languishing glances at the unresponsive backs of\nthe congregation, blinking over her notes as though invisible\nfootlights dazzled her eyes.  It was not easy to find the sentiment\nsung in the midst of the quavering notes, so the poor worshipers below\ncould scarcely offer \"amens\" in their hearts; but they might perhaps\nconsider thankfully that some sort of noise, \"joyful\" or otherwise, had\nbeen made unto the Lord by their paid proxy.\n\nDoctor Schoolman's sermon was a typical one.  Finished and elegant, his\npolished sentences reached his congregation gently; not like swift\narrows from a tense bow, but rather like harmless darts taken from the\npreacher's quiver and laid without violence against the hearts of his\nlisteners.  Very good arrows they often were from the philosophic\nstandpoint, but seldom fashioned from the rugged essential truths of\nthe doctrine of Christ.\n\nHe had a text from Scripture certainly.  But no slavish adherence to\nits evident meaning, as seen by its setting, hampered the orator in his\nthought.  Indeed, was it not a kindness to the old Book that still\nsomewhat from its pages was thought worthy to act as a peg upon which\nto hang the ripe and cultivated ideas of the twentieth century?\n\nHubert did not find his soul much fed by the discourse, but, keen and\ndiscriminating as his mind might be, he was not yet a Bible student and\nable to disentangle the original thoughts of the preacher from the\nteachings of revelation.  He found much to assent to ethically, but,\ncompared with the revelation in his laboratory when the pure light of\nheaven shone upon the pages of John's Gospel, the rhetorical utterances\nof Doctor Schoolman were as water unto wine.  They were not so\ncommanding but that he at last found time to glance at his neighbors to\nsee how they were taking the sermon.  Winifred was too near him to be\nlooked at, likewise his father; but he could see his mother.  Very\nelegant, very composed, very approving she looked.  A calm contentment\nbeamed upon her mobile face, and Hubert could not help it that his\nsharp eye, formed to detect minutiae, printed upon his mind even the\ndetails of the picture she made, sitting so quietly there.  Soft,\nlustrous, black silk became well the figure which a life of gentle\ninactivity caused to incline to corpulence, while a modest show of\nexquisite lace relieved its somberness.  There was just a tiny glitter\nof costly gems, not too vulgarly showy for church, and the most\nsuitable of bonnets crowned the graceful head, whose waves of soft\nbrown hair still repudiated silver.\n\nThe minister's text led him to heaven at this point, and he drew it in\nsentimental lines; a place whose essential light was not so much the\nLamb as other things; a place of reunited friends, of congenial\noccupations, of tastes gratified, and of knowledge ever widening.  He\noffered no uncomfortable suggestion that any of his hearers might fail\nof entering there.\n\nHubert saw among his hearers abstracted faces not a few; interested,\nstudious faces; and hungry faces which looked their longing for meat\nnot found as yet in the Lord's house.  Among the last class he noticed\nin one of the front pews a man, evidently an artisan, whose deep, large\neyes looked yearningly toward the pulpit with an appeal for bread,\nwhile from it there came, through fine and learned discourse, to his\nuntutored mind a stone.  His face smote Hubert with a sudden pity, and\na hunger crept into his own heart, not alone to know Christ, but to\nmake Him known.  He wondered if this man had ever seen Him as he had.\nOh, if he could only tell him of Him, and turn the misery of those\nlonging eyes into joy!\n\nThe sermon ended.  It was never very long; for Doctor Schoolman well\nknew that patience, that sits good-naturedly for hours at games or\nraces, or in the seats of a packed theater, has very short limits at\nchurch.  He never taxed it, nor himself, too far.  So the closing hymn\nwas punctually sung, and the benediction was pronounced in tender tones\nupon the congregation.\n\nMrs. Butterworth's curiosity blossomed afresh when the meeting was over\nand she had the opportunity of speaking with Winifred and her mother.\nShe addressed herself to the former, to Mrs. Gray's mingled relief and\nterror; relief that she herself was not called upon to find excuses,\nand terror lest Winifred should make herself ridiculous.\n\n\"You were not in the choir this morning?\" she said with a \"why\" in her\nvoice.\n\n\"No,\" said Winifred, \"I have left the choir.\"\n\n\"Really!\" exclaimed Mrs. Butterworth in a shocked voice.  \"I hope not\nfor good?\"\n\n\"Yes--I think it is for good,\" Winifred confessed.\n\n\"Oh, please do not say so!\" cried Mrs. Butterworth, but in a suppressed\nvoice, for they had not yet left the church.  \"What shall we do?  We\nhave enjoyed your singing so very much!\"\n\n\"I am afraid I have been too conscious of that fact,\" said Winifred\nfrankly, while her mother looked alarmed.  \"I think I shall be able to\nworship God more sincerely in the congregation.\"\n\nMrs. Gray felt that the worst had come, now that Winifred had declared\nher position.  She almost turned faint as she heard her speak to Mrs.\nButterworth so simply and directly of worshiping God.  To be sure they\nwere still in the building supposably dedicated to that end, but to\nspeak aloud of it in so many words seemed very bad form.  Her daughter\nmight sing protests of adoration in the ears of the whole congregation,\nwith the loudest of affected fervor, and she found no fault with it.\nBut the comfort of that was that nobody believed she meant it!\n\nMrs. Butterworth looked at Winifred keenly, and partially grasped her\nmeaning.\n\n\"Oh, I hope you'll not look at it that way,\" she said half soothingly.\n\"It might suit your own feelings better, but what about ours?  I have\noften said,\" and her eyebrows arched plaintively, \"that your singing\ndid me more good than the sermon!\"\n\nWinifred looked at the worldly, fashionable woman and wondered, not at\nall cynically, how much good her combined efforts with Doctor\nSchoolman's had done toward a life-transformation.\n\n\"I am sorry not to sing,\" she said sympathetically, \"since you enjoyed\nit so much, I would gladly continue if I could.  I cannot.  But there\nis already someone in my place--\"\n\nMrs. Butterworth lifted her hand in silent protest.  She looked at\nWinifred reproachfully, and settled her lips as one who should say\nnothing of the new singer in contrast with her favorite.  She shook her\nhead resignedly, and at this moment they were joined by someone else\nwho proffered greetings.  Winifred was glad to join Hubert and to slip\nout as quickly as possible, they both as usual preferring the walk home\nto the carriage.  Frothingham saw them from afar, and inwardly\ncommented upon Hubert's unwonted appearance at church for two\nconsecutive Sundays, and his own consequent loss.  He had no mind to\njoin Winifred with Hubert for a third.\n\nThe two exchanged views of the sermon on the way home.  It seemed very\nstrange to hear Hubert speak of it sympathetically.  He mentioned some\nadmirable points which he found in the minister's reasoning, and\nrefrained from saying that the change of heart he had himself\nexperienced had not made less hateful to him Doctor Schoolman's\naffected style.\n\n\"How did you like the sermon?\" he asked Winifred when he had expressed\nhis own opinion.\n\n\"Oh, I don't know,\" said Winifred hesitatingly.  \"He said some lovely\nthings.  That illustration from Greek mythology was beautiful.  I am\nsure I shall remember that.  But I wish,\" she added innocently, \"that\nhe had said more about the Lord.\"\n\n\"So do I,\" said Hubert decidedly.\n\nThey walked on in silence for awhile and then Hubert spoke.\n\n\"I am not a qualified judge of sermons,\" he said, \"but I would a\nhundred times rather read the Gospel of John.\"\n\n\"Are you still reading it?\" said Winifred,\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"I wish we might read it together,\" she said wistfully.\n\n\"We might,\" he said.  \"Shall we begin to-day?\"\n\n\"By all means.  But I can't read Greek,\" she added doubtfully.  She had\nobserved the Greek Testament with its fresh markings.\n\nHe laughed.  \"But fortunately I can read English,\" he said.  And so it\nwas arranged.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nNOT OF THE WORLD\n\nThat afternoon found Hubert and Winifred with their books, looking\nabout for the most suitable place to read.  Somnolent sounds from the\ncouch in the library warned them not to locate there.  They decided on\na cool window-seat in the drawing-room overlooking the garden.  There\nthey settled themselves and found their places.  It was decided to\nbegin at the point Hubert had reached, which was the seventeenth\nchapter.  Before beginning to read Hubert shaded his eyes with his hand\nfor a moment to ask, as had become his wont since he first sought to\nknow God, for light upon the Word.  Winifred understood the act and\njoined him silently.\n\nHe began reading reverently and slowly.  The simple, stately words fell\nvery sweetly upon their ears.  They paused often, so as to understand\nmore fully what they read.  They read with the intent earnestness of\nthose who explore new territory, and who have immense interests in\nthings discovered.  They lingered first over the second verse:\n\n\"As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give\neternal life to as many as Thou hast given him.\"\n\n\"'As many as thou hast given him,'\" repeated Winifred.  \"What do you\nthink that means, Hubert?\"\n\nHubert gazed into vacancy meditatively.  \"I don't know,\" he announced,\nvery slowly; \"there is a profound mystery here which I have seen in\nearlier chapters.  I do not see the point of meeting between two laws\nthat seem almost contradictory.  But one point seems very clear, and it\nmeets us very simply on our human side: that is, that the one who 'is\nwilling to do His will' is the one whom the Father 'gives' to Jesus\nChrist.\"\n\n\"It is very sweet,\" said Winifred, \"to think of being given by the\nFather to Him.  It seems surer, somehow, than to just give oneself.\"\n\nHubert's deep eyes kindled and glowed with a liquid fire.  \"Yes,\" he\nsaid in a suppressed voice, \"it is wonderful.\"  He was standing on\nground that had not by long habit grown coldly theological, but was\ninstinct with life to him through a new and vital experience.\n\nThey read on:\n\n\"And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true\nGod, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.\"\n\nThey paused to meditate, and Winifred was the first to break the\nsilence.\n\n\"Hubert,\" she said in a low voice, \"it must be we have entered upon\neternal life.  We have begun to know Him.\"\n\nHer voice sank upon the last word, and her lips trembled.\nInstinctively she held out her hand to her brother, and he clasped it\nin his.  Tears streamed down upon her book, and Hubert was not ashamed\nthat his own eyes were moist.  They were silent for some moments, while\nthe young man beheld afresh that eternal, infinite realm out of which\nthe Word had come forth, and he knew himself born into it.  Earth\nseemed illusory--but the scene of a moment--in the glory of that vision.\n\nThey read on and Hubert explained to his sister what he saw in the\nrequest of the Lord Jesus to be given again the glory which He had with\nthe Father \"before the world was.\"  Never in his reading of the Gospel\nhad he lost sight of its beginning, and he read these words, as he had\nothers, in its light.  He turned back and read the opening verses of\nthe first chapter to Winifred in explanation of the glory to be given\nback, and the very fact of its being asked for, as though having been\nsurrendered for the time, shed a light upon passages poorly understood\nbefore, which had shown clearly His humanity and His subjection to the\nFather.\n\nAgain they read on, pondering as they read, but paused over the ninth\nverse:\n\n\"I pray for them; I pray not for the world, but for them which Thou\nhast given Me; for they are Thine.\"\n\n\"Do you think that means, Hubert,\" said Winifred, \"that He does not\npray for the world?  It seems very exclusive.  But we know that God\nloves the world?\"\n\n\"I think,\" said Hubert, \"that the discrimination is not _against_ the\nworld, but rather _for_ those given Him out of it.  He must care\nspecially for them.  Perhaps if we read on we shall see the special\ncharacter of this prayer for us.\"\n\nThe words \"for us\" slipped out very naturally, and he did not recall\nthem, so sweet and sure was the confidence of having been given into\nthe hands of Jesus Christ.\n\nSo they read on, and noted the petitions of the priestly prayer for His\nown.  They did not sound the depths of meaning in them, for they were\nyet but babes; but they observed the strong line of enclosure which\nseparated them from the world and the Lord's reiterated statement that\nthey were not of it, even as He.\n\n\"It is very strange,\" remarked Winifred to Hubert, \"that Doctor\nSchoolman has never told us about this.\"  But she amended quickly,\n\"Perhaps he has many times and I have not listened.  But I have always\nthought we were all very much alike, only that some people were better\nthan others; never that there was such a sharp line drawn between those\nwho are given to Christ and the rest of the world.\"\n\n\"I do not think we have heard much about it,\" said Hubert.  \"I have not\nbeen much of a church-goer, but I think for the most part we have been\ntalked to as though we were all on the same plane as regards\nrelationship to God and Jesus Christ.\"\n\n\"But this line is so very exclusive,\" said Winifred almost regretfully.\n\n\"So very _inclusive_, you mean,\" said Hubert, smiling.\n\n\"An inclusive line must be exclusive also, must it not?\" she persisted.\n\n\"I suppose it must,\" he admitted.  \"The same walls that shut us in this\nhouse shut everybody else out.  But there is a way in,\" he added,\nintent upon the doctrine of God's free grace found true by his own\nexperiment.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Winifred, \"'Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast\nout.'  That gave me great comfort when I read it, Hubert.  But I was\nthinking now that if I had not come to know that I was outside, I\nshould never have come inside.\"\n\nThey finished the chapter, dwelling upon the words:\n\n\"Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me\nwhere I am; that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me;\nfor Thou lovedst Me before the foundation of the world.\"\n\nTheir hearts burned at the love that longed for them to be with Him and\nto see His glory.  And they should see it!  The distant scene glowed\nwith reality and seemed near.  There was One with them whom they did\nnot see, One who still draws near when loved disciples commune\nconcerning Him, and it was He who made the Scriptures an open, radiant\npage.  Very pure and fragrant was the spiritual air they breathed then,\nand it prepared them to judge of baser atmosphere.  \"Sanctify them\nthrough Thy truth,\" the Lord Jesus had asked, and as they pondered the\nWord of Truth the answer to His prayer began.\n\nWhen they finished their reading Winifred surprised Hubert by what\nseemed an irrelevant remark.\n\n\"I do not think I shall go to Mrs. Butterworth's party, Hubert,\" she\nsaid.\n\nHer brother had no need to add, \"Nor shall I,\" for he was not a society\nman.  But he looked at her inquiringly.\n\n\"I don't know why,\" she replied to his look, \"but it seems very\ndifferent from this.  Don't you think so?\"\n\n\"I do indeed,\" he answered, understanding what she meant by \"this.\"\n\nWinifred had not arrived at analytical reasons, but had intuitively\nreached a conclusion.  Just a mental picture of the coming brilliant\nevent at Mrs. Butterworth's; the gay scene, the intoxicating music, the\nhollow courtesies, flattering words and glances, the dancing--just an\ninstant vision of the scene that arose in sheer contrast against the\npure holiness of the things they had been considering, and Winifred\nturned from it quickly.  To have spoken her impression, and Hubert's\nevident approval, helped her to hold to it in later hours of temptation.\n\nThe Japanese gong sounded musically for Sunday evening tea before they\nwere aware that time had flown.  They assembled with their elders who\nlooked not so much refreshed by their slumbers as our young friends by\ntheir study.  The repast over, Hubert, who wished to do all things\nrequired of a Christian, but who felt a secret repugnance to listening\nagain to Doctor Schoolman, sounded Winifred's mind on the matter.\n\n\"Are you going to hear Doctor Schoolman?\" he asked.\n\n\"Why, I suppose so,\" said she.  \"What else should one do?\"\n\n\"What is he going to preach about?\" he asked evasively.\n\n\"I don't know.  Let's look in the paper and see.\"\n\nSo they found Saturday's paper and saw that this evening was to have\nthe first of a series of discourses on \"Poets and Their Teachings,\"\nwith Tennyson as the first subject.\n\n\"I am not hungering for a literary lecture,\" said Hubert.  \"I should\nlike to hear something clearly about Christ.\"\n\n\"We might go somewhere else,\" said Winifred, giving the suggestion\nwhich he wished.\n\nThey looked at the paper again to see the advertised subjects at\nvarious churches.  They found some sensational, that might bear\nreference to the Lord or might not; some very promising, but at\nchurches too far away; and finally they decided upon a little church in\na street near them, whose modest announcement told simply of \"preaching\nat 7:30.\"\n\nIt was with something of a spirit of adventure and an almost troubled\nconscience that Winifred deserted her usual place of attendance.  They\nturned down a less fashionable street than their own and came to the\nchurch, a small brick structure, very fresh and new looking.  A few\nyoung people still lingered about the door, loath to go in from the\nsummer twilight.  Within the newness rivaled that without.  The pew\nbacks shone with varnish, and the aisles glowed with fresh, red carpet.\nThe simple pulpit was carefully polished and a bright bookmark hung\nfrom the gilt-edged leaves of the Bible.  The choir occupied a platform\nat the right of the minister, facing the congregation, and each member\nheld the visitors in view as they were shown to a seat.  The evening\ncongregation was scattering, so their advent was the more noticeable.\nThey were early also, which gave the young girl organist some time to\nlook at them fixedly across the back of the cabinet organ at which she\nwas seated, before beginning her voluntary.  Then she played \"Alice,\nWhere Art Thou?\" with loud and ill-assorted stops.  Had Winifred been\nless bent on sincere worship, or their quest for Christ-preaching been\nless serious, she would have found it difficult to keep from laughing\nwith the sudden sense of humor which assailed her.\n\nThe service was nearly as elaborate as the statelier neighbor-church\ncould boast.  The choir rendered an anthem in process of time, and\nWinifred studied their faces earnestly, wondering if any thought of\nreality was in their hearts as they sang.  They were nearly all young,\nwith thoughtless, unspiritual faces, but they sang the sentiments of\ndiscipline and sorrow.  There was no artistic value in their singing,\nand Winifred thought with a sigh, \"It does not help any that the music\nshould be poor.  They have no more heart in it than had we with our\ntrained skill.\"\n\nThe minister was a man of moderate abilities and somewhat ungraceful\nappearance.  He was tall, sandy-haired, with a half-anxious\ncountenance, as though the cares of the shining new edifice and of the\nflock rather troubled him.  He preached with no striking originality,\nbut with evident earnestness, mingled with abortive efforts at\nrhetoric.  He spoke good words for Christ, extolling His power to save\nsinners; and the simple statements, however trite they may have sounded\nto others, were music in the eager ears of those who had just come to\nknow Him.\n\nAt the close of the meeting he made his way to the door to shake hands\nwith the departing hearers, and Hubert gave him his with a cordial\ngrasp, and with thanks for his \"excellent sermon.\"  The minister's face\nbrightened and he looked after his appreciative visitors with hope that\nthey might come again.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\n\"TWO OF ME\"\n\nAffairs moved quietly in the Gray household as the week advanced.  Mr.\nFrothingham called one evening and made himself very entertaining to\nthe two ladies.  Mrs. Gray laughed gently at his jokes, for he was a\ntireless jester (sometimes a tiresome one), and he enjoyed seeing the\nserious light in Winifred's eyes change to mirth under his curious\nspeeches.\n\nThe two sang together, and after that she played dreamy snatches from\nBeethoven while he leaned back in an easy chair and listened.  What a\nharmonious and pleasant life stretched before the two together!  Mrs.\nGray lived over again through her daughter's heart days when Robert\nGray and she were learning that life was sweetest when they were\ntogether, and she sighed in a pensive mingling of emotions as she\nmentally gave Winifred up to the reign of the ancient conqueror.  She\nfell asleep over the fleecy shawl she was knitting as her daughter\nplayed, and was not aroused when Mr. Frothingham rose to go.  Winifred\nand he exchanged smiling glances as they saw her closed eyes, and spoke\nin low tones together.  Mr. Frothingham lingered just a perceptible\nmoment over Winifred's hand in parting, and looked down into her face\nwith an unspoken question she had never read before so clearly.  Her\neyes fell, and the flush in her fair face deepened into lovelier red.\n\n\"Good night,\" each said softly, and he went away.\n\nWinifred drank in the luxury of her own sweet thoughts until his step\nceased to sound, and then went over to her mother's chair.  She stooped\nand kissed her forehead.  Mrs. Gray opened her eyes.\n\n\"Dear me!  I lost myself for a moment,\" she said.  Then, \"Is George\ngone?\" she added.\n\n\"Yes, mother.\"\n\nMrs. Gray looked at the clock.  \"And it's time,\" she said with parental\nduty.  \"You must go to bed at once, dear.\"\n\nWinifred had had a happy evening, and the reflection that looked back\nat her from the glass in her dressing-room was radiant.  But, after\nall, in the depths of her heart there was a tinge of something sad, an\nunsatisfied sense of some good thing wanting.  What was it that the\nevening lacked?  A little book upon the table suggested the answer with\na mute reproach.  In all the evening's pleasure there had been no sweet\nsavor of Jesus Christ.  Now as she took the book and tried to read her\nheart beat coldly toward Him.  The words did not speak to her, but\nseemed like misty voices far away, spoken for other ears.  The tide of\nanother love had come sweeping in, strong and insistent.  George\nFrothingham's face smiled before her, and instead of the words she was\nreading she heard his voice as they sang together:\n\n  \"I would that my love could silently\n  Flow in a single word.\"\n\nShe looked away from the book and gave herself to dreaming until the\nlittle clock reminded her of the hour.  Then she roused from her\nreverie.\n\n\"It is too late,\" she thought.  \"I will not try to read now.  In the\nmorning I will make up for it.\"\n\nShe knelt beside the bed for her customary evening prayer, and found\nherself \"saying\" it as in former days.  She stopped abruptly.\n\n\"Forgive me, Lord,\" she said, \"I did not think what I was saying.\"\n\nThen a feeling of remorse, of real unhappiness, seized her.  Where was\nthe true worship she had coveted and found?  It had flown like a bird\nfrom her windows.  In distress she prayed:\n\n\"O Lord, I have missed Thee!  I cannot see Thy face, I do not hear\nThee.  Do not let me lose Thee!\"\n\nHer wandering thoughts came back to the supreme need.  She was not\nversed in the theology of any school, and could not have stated her\ncase to suit any.  But her sensitive soul barometer registered danger\nin the atmosphere, and she had no rest until it changed.  Being blessed\nwith the grace of honesty--with \"truth in the inward parts\"--she poured\nout her heart before God, and found much relief in so doing.  The whole\nsubject did not clear at once.  A process was required for that.  But a\nsimple understanding with her Lord that He was to be first at any cost\nwas re-affirmed, and it gave rest.  With the restored sense of His\nfellowship she slept.\n\nMorning dawned with the sweet twittering of birds, the breath of\nsyringas and roses, and a faultless sky.  It was a joy to live.\n\nHubert was out for an early ride, and his black horse Sahib's satin\ncoat shone brightly in the morning sunlight.  He took the shortest way\nout of the city and was soon cantering gently down the country road\nbeside a singing brook, filling his eyes with the beauty everywhere,\nworshiping its Maker, and wondering how he might best serve Him.\n\nWinifred sang morning psalms to the Lord, with a corresponding melody\nin her heart.  But sometimes the shadow of a question fell athwart the\nprospect that seemed so shining.  It was about Mrs. Butterworth's\nparty.  Sunday it had seemed very clear that she should not go, but\nsince, with the seventeenth of John not so fresh in her mind, the\nmatter seemed not so settled.  How should she excuse herself at this\nlate day?  What would Mrs. Butterworth think?  More than that, what\nwould her mother think?  Would she not be much annoyed?  There was\nanother factor, too.  When George Frothingham was there last evening\nshe was so glad the party was not mentioned.  How could she have told\nhim she was not going?  And when she thought of him she wished to go.\nHe would be there, looking especially handsome in most careful evening\ndress.  She could almost hear the strains of Werner's orchestra as she\nimagined herself floating over the polished floor with the best of\ndancers.  There was still another factor.  Hanging in her wardrobe,\nsheathed carefully in a protecting sheet, was the loveliest of white\ndresses.  It had been worn but once, and that in another town.  Both\nher mother and she agreed that it was the very thing for Mrs.\nButterworth's party.  What a pity not to wear it!  And if staying away\nfrom Mrs. Butterworth's were a precedent to be followed, where should\nshe ever wear it?  A very small reason this, say you.  But you are\nmistaken.  Deeply intrenched in the feminine heart is the desire to be\nbeautiful, and though \"holy women\" since the days of old have learned\nthe supreme excellence of the inward adornment over the outward, the\nlatter is slow to lose its appeal.  Not yet, at least, had Winifred\nbecome indifferent to it.\n\nThis morning before descending the stairs she was beguiled into taking\ndown the dress, just to look at it, spreading it out in fleecy, shining\nfolds upon the bed.  How beautiful it was!  She had not learned for her\nsoul's comfort that the wise man's counsel is very profound when he\ninstructs, \"Look not upon the wine when it is red\"!  Even in the\ndaylight tiny brilliants flashed out from their setting in foamy lace\nabout the neck.  Well Winifred knew what a radiant picture would stand\nwithin her mirror-frame when the dress should be donned, and eyes\nbright with excited anticipation should rival the glow of diamonds.  If\nshe went, she should wear the slender gold necklace with its single\npendant of diamonds which her father had given her.  But she was not\ngoing--and for what an intangible reason!\n\nHubert had returned from his ride, and Winifred met him in the upper\nhall and confided to him her perplexity.\n\n\"I feel as though there were two of me instead of one,\" she said.  \"One\nof us would like to go to Mrs. Butterworth's party.\"\n\n\"And the other one?\" asked Hubert.\n\n\"Decided last Sunday not to go,\" she answered.\n\n\"Which one do you think is on the Lord's side?\" he queried.\n\n\"The one that says not to go,\" she replied, without hesitation.\n\n\"I should stand by that one if I were you,\" he advised.\n\n\"I will,\" she said, and slipped her hand in his as they went down the\nstairs.\n\nAt the breakfast table the dreaded discussion was precipitated.  Mrs.\nGray addressed her daughter.\n\n\"Winifred, dear,\" she said, \"have you looked at your new white dress to\nsee if it requires anything to be done before Mrs. Butterworth's party?\nDid we not think the girdle should be altered slightly?\"\n\n\"I was looking at it this morning, mother,\" faltered Winifred, and\nHubert shot a sympathetic glance across the table.\n\n\"Will it need altering, do you think?\"\n\n\"N--no,\" she hesitated, \"I think it is all right.\"  Then she girded the\nloins of her intention and added: \"But I think, mother, if you do not\nmind, I should prefer not to go to Mrs. Butterworth's party.\"\n\n\"Why, Winifred!\" exclaimed her mother in surprise.  \"What can you be\nthinking of?  The invitations were accepted long ago.  You are not ill,\ncertainly?\"\n\n\"Oh, no!\" said Winifred.  \"But I think I can excuse myself to Mrs.\nButterworth so that she will not be offended.  My chief regret will be\nif it disappoints you, mother.\"\n\n\"But what can be your reasons?\" said Mrs. Gray.  \"They must be very\ngood if you would decline the invitation at this late day.  It will be\nvery rude unless you are positively hindered.\"\n\n\"I know it,\" said Winifred humbly.  \"But the reasons seem very strong\nto me.\"\n\nShe was of a sympathetic nature, and it was easy to look at things\nthrough another's eyes.  She saw the case clearly from her mother's\nstandpoint, and it was difficult to muster her own defense.  But she\nprayed inwardly that the One she sought to please would come to her\naid, and He did.  It was no small help, also, that Hubert,\nstrong-minded and firm as a rock, was on her side.  She went on\nbravely, but in a low voice and with downcast eyes:\n\n\"You know I have begun to try to worship God, mother; and to know Him\njust a little is the sweetest thing I ever knew.  Hubert and I were\nreading the Bible together Sunday\"--she glanced across at him\nappealingly, and his face encouraged her--\"and we read some of the\nwords of Jesus to His Father.  He said that we--that is, those who were\ngiven to Him--were 'not of the world,' just as He is not.  It impressed\nme very much.  I could not help seeing Mrs. Butterworth's party, and it\nseemed to me like 'the world,' and that perhaps I did not belong there.\nIt seemed so very, very different from what we were reading, that I\nthought I never could go again to such a place.  I shall be very glad,\nif you don't mind it too much, mother, if I may stay at home?\"\n\nShe stopped and waited for her answer.  There was silence for a moment,\nand then Mrs. Gray, who had passed through various stages of\napprehension and distress as her daughter spoke, replied as calmly as\npossible:\n\n\"I am sure I ought to be very glad, Winifred, to have you religiously\ninclined.  But I should be extremely sorry to have you get any\nfanatical ideas.  I never thought you were given to eccentric things,\nand I hope you will not become so.  It seems to me that you and\nHubert\"--she hesitated to include her son in the remark, but ventured\nit--\"are rather young Christians to decide such things for yourselves\nin such an extraordinary way.  You should look at older persons.  I\nsuppose I am not an example\"--and her tone was just a trifle icy for\nsuch a gentle lady--\"but Mrs. Schoolman will be there with her\ndaughters, and so will many of the most prominent members of our\nchurch.  I really cannot approve of such an extraordinary\nidea!--extraordinary!\" and she repeated the word which usually\nindicated the high water mark of her well-bred disapproval.\n\nWinifred looked silently at her plate, and Mrs. Gray spoke again,\nlooking at her husband.\n\n\"I wish, father,\" she said, \"that you would try and set Winifred right\non this matter.  We cannot let her go on in such a mistake.  Where will\nit lead to?\" and with real distress she considered the calamity of her\nbeautiful daughter's withdrawal from society, and the dashing her own\nfond pride to the ground.\n\nMr. Gray had been listening thoughtfully.  Now, being appealed to, he\nspoke.\n\n\"To tell the truth, mother,\" he said, \"I do not think the idea quite so\nextraordinary as you do.  When I was a boy, where I lived, if young\npeople were converted it made all sorts of difference as to the things\nthey did and the places they went to.  We didn't expect to see them at\ndances, or at the theater, or any such places.  If we did, everybody\nreckoned that they had backslidden.  Those things were called\n'worldly.'  We have almost lost the word now, but it must be\ndescriptive of something, I should say.  If Winifred instinctively\ntakes a stand against such things, without being talked to about it, I\nshall think it is the old sort of religion that she has somehow\ndiscovered, and shall not be sorry.  I would really prefer it to be a\nkind that can be distinguished without reference to the church records.\nThat variety is scarce enough, in all conscience!\"\n\nWinifred was surprised at her father's defense, and it unnerved her.\nTears sprang to her eyes, and she nearly choked over the coffee with\nwhich she sought to hide her quivering lips.  Hubert looked gratefully\nat his father.  Mrs. Gray looked much depressed.  She expected wise\nwords of reproach that would settle the matter with Winifred and\nperhaps save much trouble in the future.  And now he really inclined to\nher view of the case!  It was disappointing.  But men, after all, did\nnot always see social matters as women did.  She was not accustomed to\narguing with her husband, but this case required more resistance than\nusual.\n\n\"I am surprised, father,\" she said sorrowfully, \"to hear you put it\nthat way.  I do not think you can realize what it means for a young\nwoman to drop out of society.  And I do not see how you can compare\nthose times you speak of with the present.  I am sure Doctor Schoolman\nfrequently tells us what remarkable advance we have made over those\ntimes in every way.  I hope you do not wish to go backward!\" and Mrs.\nGray felt a little flutter of triumph at her own unusual skill in\nargument.  Nobody responded at once and she gathered courage to go on.\n\n\"I quite agree with that young man who spoke at our church in behalf of\nthe Y.M.C.A. Gymnasium.  You remember he said that the days had quite\ngone by for a 'long-faced Christianity.'  I thought it a very sensible\nremark.\"\n\n\"Winifred has not troubled us with a very long face lately,\" remarked\nher father, glancing at her.  \"It has lengthened somewhat since we\nbegan our discussion, but I think it has been unusually cheerful for a\nweek or so.\"\n\nWinifred colored under these personal observations.\n\n\"I do not know what it will become,\" said her mother, \"if she denies\nherself all gayety like those young persons you tell about.\"\n\n\"My memory of those young persons,\" said Mr. Gray, smiling, \"is not a\nvery melancholy one.  Some of them were pretty severe upon themselves\nand other people too, I will admit.  But the most of them seemed to\nhave found something so very satisfactory that these diversions were\nnot required.  I think Winifred is like the latter sort.  I hope so.\nBut, Hubert,\" turning to his son, \"you look very much interested in\nthis matter, but have said nothing.  I suppose you agree with Winifred?\"\n\n\"I do, sir,\" said Hubert readily.\n\n\"I thought so--I thought so,\" said his father, far from displeased with\nthe reply.  He did not explain to the little company that he, himself,\nhad been one of the \"young persons\" referred to, and that great had\nbeen his comfort in the early days of the new life; but that a series\nof decoys had gradually led him back to the world's excitements and\nambitions, until his professed Christianity had crystallized into the\nformal, eminently respectable, but powerless mold of conventional\nreligion.  His memory of early, ardent days was stirred, and he gladly\nwarmed himself by its fires.\n\n\"But, Hubert,\" he went on, \"you are a thoughtful young man--how do you\naccount for the fact that Christ, Himself, attended social functions?\nHe was not a recluse.  He was at the marriage in Cana of Galilee, at a\ndinner in the house of Simon the Pharisee, at a feast in Bethany, and I\ndo not know at how many other social gatherings.  Indeed it was charged\nagainst Him that He received sinners and ate with them.  What do you\nmake of it?\"\n\n\"It is a difficult question, father,\" said Hubert.  \"But I should think\nif we consider in what capacity He went to those places, and what He\ndid when He got there, it might give us light.\"\n\n\"That is so,\" said Mr. Gray.  \"In what capacity do you think He went?\"\n\n\"He had come to give life to men,\" said Hubert with kindling eyes.  \"He\nmust go wherever He might find them--wherever occasion presented\nitself.  I do not think He sought His own gratification.\"\n\n\"Nor do I,\" said Mr. Gray.  \"What about 'what He did when He got\nthere'?\"\n\n\"He performed a miracle, for one thing, at Cana,\" replied Hubert, whose\ndiligent study of the Gospel of John now served him well.\n\n\"So He did,\" assented Mr. Gray.  \"If our little girl could do that,\nnow, it might do to let her go,\" and he glanced at her fondly.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Hubert, \"and He evidently became the central figure there,\nmanifesting His glory.  If one of His followers could capture Mrs.\nButterworth's ball for Him it would surely pay to go.  If I thought\nWinnie were to do that I would certainly put on a dress suit and go\nmyself.\"\n\nHubert could not resist a teasing glance at his mother.  That lady was\nplainly horrified.  The thought of Winifred's \"preaching,\" as she\nmentally called it, to anyone at the party, or doing any other\neccentric thing, was far more shocking than her staying away.\n\nMr. Gray secretly enjoyed the look upon his wife's face.\n\n\"And the other places?\" he went on.\n\n\"I am not familiar with the incident in the house of Simon the\nPharisee,\" said Hubert.\n\n\"It is very striking and beautiful,\" said Mr. Gray.  \"Christ forgave a\nsinner--a woman of the city--and He had somewhat to say to His host,\nthe Pharisee, about it.  He spoke a very telling parable at that\ndinner.\"\n\nMrs. Gray again looked uneasy.  She hoped Winifred would not feel it\nher duty, finally, to go, if it involved a religious errand.\n\n\"And at Bethany?\" Mr. Gray continued.\n\n\"He was anointed for His burial,\" said Hubert, gravely.\n\n\"Ah, yes!\" said his father in a subdued voice.\n\nBoth men thought reverently of the scene when one who had been raised\nfrom the dead sat at meat with Him who, for his sake and for all\nothers, was Himself to die; and where one of the company poured upon\nHis blessed feet love's grateful, costly sacrifice.  To such a feast\nthe true worshiper might indeed gladly go.\n\nIt was tacitly agreed that Winifred was to follow her own inclination\nwith regard to the party.  Mrs. Gray was far too loyal and amiable a\nwife to seriously oppose her husband's wish, and the sudden fear that\nWinifred, if she went to the party, might feel called upon to bear some\nsort of unusual testimony to her Lord affected the case strongly.  But\nshe grieved much over her daughter's prospective withdrawal from the\nassemblies of the \"best people.\"\n\nWinifred wrote a simple, truthful note to Mrs. Butterworth, and was\nrelieved when it was dispatched.  A sensitive dread of criticism and of\ndoing an unusual thing was offset by the sweet consciousness of a happy\nfellowship conserved.  No rude breath from the gay assembly's sensuous\ndelights was to blow upon this flower of communion, so pure, so\nfragrant.  So Winifred rejoiced, only an occasional shadow falling\nathwart her peace when she thought of one whose increasingly intimate\nfellowship threatened the life of the fair flower as surely as could\nMrs. Butterworth's party.  It was an uneasy suggestion, not a\nrecognized fact, and she put it hastily from her when it arose.\n\nThe evening of the party came and Mrs. Gray prepared herself and went,\nnot too early and not too foolishly late.  She had a faculty of\nstriking the happy mean in life's proprieties.  Winifred looked at her\nadmiringly, with the candid conviction that no better dressed nor finer\nlooking woman of her years would be there.  She felt a pang of sorrow,\ntoo, in her mother's disappointment at leaving her behind, as she\nkissed her good-night.  The carriage rolled away and presently bore its\nfair passenger to the door of her friend's brilliantly lighted house,\nwhere we will leave her.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nTHE CHURCH SOCIAL\n\nAnother social event followed hard on the heels of Mrs. Butterworth's\nparty, and this Mrs. Gray succeeded in inducing both her son and\ndaughter to attend, it being no less sacred a function than the\nquarterly Church Social.  Hubert was not familiar with the institution,\nbut so ardently burned his love for the Lord Jesus Christ that he now\nsought rather than avoided the company of those who knew Him, if so be\nsome word of Him might be spoken.  He longed for the fellowship of joy\nwith those who, like himself, had been called out of darkness into \"His\nmarvelous light.\"  This was denied in the formal services of the\nchurch, but surely the pent up devotion of the worshipers would find\nsome avenue of expression when they met together socially without those\nrestraints.  Hubert was disposed to discount his own former estimate of\nchurch-members' sincerity, and did not doubt that many had found an\nexperience as genuine as his own of the grace of God.\n\nMr. Gray did not care to go, preferring the library and the new number\nwith its fascinating leaves uncut of a magazine, religio-worldly, that\nhad solved for last days the problem beyond the Saviour's ken of how to\nserve God and mammon.  Three went, however, in the comfortable\ncarriage, to Mrs. Gray's great satisfaction, and drew up before the\nside entrance to the handsome church.\n\nBright light streamed from the parlor windows, illuminating exquisitely\nstained pictures of the Apostles.  Strains from a select orchestra\ngreeted them as they entered the house, and Hubert recognized with a\nqueer feeling of incongruity the overture from a well-known opera.  The\nappealing notes of the violins drew his memory instantly to the\nproduction he had lately enjoyed, but he thrust the mental vision from\nhim as unworthy of Christ, and tried not to listen to the seductive\nstrains.\n\n\"A very poor selection for a Christian gathering,\" he thought to\nhimself.  Hubert was inexperienced, and to him a gathering of\nChristians meant a \"Christian gathering.\"\n\nThe parlors presented a gayly attractive scene.  They were decorated in\nred and white.  Flowers and foliage were profuse, and the handsome\ntoilettes of the ladies added much to the brilliant effect.  Doctor\nSchoolman and his wife were receiving, and our party joined the line of\nguests making their orderly way toward them.  Doctor Schoolman was very\namiable, and his wife, a vivacious little lady in satin and artificial\ncurls, chatted volubly with the members of the flock as they were\ndutifully presented.\n\n\"You naughty child!\" she cried playfully to Winifred.  \"How could you\ndesert us with your charming voice?  Dear Mrs. Gray, you really should\nchastise your daughter--you really should!\"  And she shook the false\ncurls with mock severity.\n\nMrs. Gray began her own lament and disclaimer of any responsibility in\nWinifred's apostasy.\n\n\"But the dear child's voice,\" she said extenuatingly, \"has really been\nvery much taxed.\"\n\n\"It's not that,\" said Winifred, honestly.  But Mrs. Schoolman's eye was\ncaught by the guest next in line and further explanations were\nunnecessary.\n\nMeanwhile Doctor Schoolman had been greeting Hubert.\n\n\"Mr. Hubert Gray!\" he exclaimed, very blandly.  \"Really this is a\npleasure.  I am glad to see you.\"\n\n\"I am glad to come,\" said Hubert, looking in the Doctor's face frankly.\nHe wished to tell him how the Lord's people had become so vitally his.\nBut the reverend gentleman did not note his earnest look.\n\n\"We are honored if you can give us some of your valuable time.  You are\nsuch a man of business, your father tells me; and of scientific\nresearch, too, as we all know.  It is kind to let us tear you away a\nlittle while from stocks and bonds and experiments.\"\n\n\"I have concluded, Doctor Schoolman,\" said Hubert gravely, \"that there\nare interests more important than business or science.\"\n\n\"Quite so--quite so,\" said Doctor Schoolman.  \"I am glad you see it.\nWe cannot afford to give all our attention to the graver pursuits of\nlife.  We need relaxation.  'All work and no play'--you know the old\nadage, eh?  Ha, ha!\"\n\nAnd the minister laughed an easy, social laugh, not at all boisterous,\nbut of a mirth well in hand and suited to the occasion.\n\nHubert looked at him almost with a frown.  But we of wider experience\nare prepared to forgive the Doctor that he did not recognize the\nspiritual as the more important interests which might lead a young man\nto a church social.  While Hubert debated a reply which should\nilluminate Doctor Schoolman as to his real motive, others were pressing\nup to take the hand of the minister, and he passed on with his mother\nand Winifred.  They drifted not far away, and Hubert glanced frequently\nat Doctor Schoolman, watching his suave smile, almost catching the\nsmooth pleasantries that fell from his accustomed tongue--mild,\nclerical jests, wherewith he of the pulpit assures him of the pew, \"I\nam as thou art.\"  Very nice and proper it might all be, but to the one\nwho longed to hear some word of Him whom he loved with such fresh,\nintense earnestness, it was as gall and wormwood.\n\nHe turned away and reviewed the whole scene about him.  Mrs. Gray and\nWinifred were already in conversation with a group of people near him,\nand he heard his mother's soft, deprecating voice, as in reply to an\neager storm of questioning.  A flush was rising in his sister's face,\nand just a touch of iron determination, not unknown to the house of\nGray, settled her shapely lips.\n\n\"Brave little soul!\" he said to himself as he thought of the offenses,\nanent Mrs. Butterworth's party and the choir, for which she must answer\nin the court of popular opinion.\n\nNot far from him a group of girls, very smartly dressed, standing in\ninteresting proximity to a corresponding group of youths, flirted and\ngiggled with evident enjoyment.  A soberer group farther on Hubert\nfound to be discussing the war situation in the East, as he drew near\nin a spirit of investigation.  Some one in the party kindly drew him\ninto their midst, where he joined the conversation for a time.  Then\nthere was a diversion, the new soprano having consented to sing.  The\nmurmur of voices subsided for the most part, save from a party of\nelderly people, hard of hearing, who continued their absorbing\nconversation throughout.  Miss Trilling sang a love song with much\nexpression, and responded to an encore with a humorous selection.  The\nyoung people applauded loudly, and their elders smiled with indiligent\npleasure.  Hubert continued his search, now rather despairing, for that\nfor which he had come.  This time he proceeded under the guidance of a\nman who offered to introduce him to some whom he did not know.  They\npassed a quiet little wall-flower in a sober dress and he looked at her\nwistfully, seeing something in her face which made him think she knew\nhis Lord and would talk of Him if there were hut a chance.  But his\nguide drew him on.  He listened to bits of conversation, straining his\nears in vain to hear one reference to Christ.  The conversations were\nsometimes serious, more often gay, but none spoke of their Lord.\n\nHubert's heart withdrew within him, and he had no further inclination\nto speak to any of his new-found hope.  A bitter theory was forming\nitself in his mind.  This company was no different from any other in\nthe world.  Were they not all as he thought them in the days of his\nscepticism? If they knew Him whom he had come to see as the supremest\nObject of devotion in all the universe, could they forbear to speak of\nHim when they met together?  Would they not be like flaming brands,\nigniting one another in their fervent zeal?  He was not acquainted with\nthe book of Malachi, and had perhaps never read the words: \"Then they\nthat feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened\nand heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them\nthat feared the Lord and that thought upon His name.\"  Had he known the\nwords they would have seemed a satire in this company.\n\n\"They do not know Him,\" he thought passionately, \"and I--am I under a\ndelusion?  Is it all a farce?\"\n\nThe suggestion was intense pain, and he put it from him.  No, that One\nwhom he had seen in his laboratory, the Man of the cross and of the\nglory, was no delusion.  To admit Him to be such would be blackest\nmidnight.  He held on to his revelation with an iron clasp, but he\nlonged to escape from an atmosphere that now stifled him.  He made his\nway to his mother and Winifred.\n\n\"Shall I take you to the refreshment room?\" he asked in a cold,\nstrained voice.\n\nWinifred looked at him anxiously, with eyes almost as troubled as his\nown.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said in an undertone, \"and let us get away as soon as\npossible.\"\n\nMrs. Gray consented genially to be escorted to the room, elaborately\ndecorated, where charmingly-gowned young women dispensed elegant\nrefreshments.  Several gentlemen, among whom Hubert recognized elders\nof the church, with their wives and other ladies, passed gay bandinage\none to another as they sipped cooling ices.  Hubert took nothing, but\nstood, silent and stern, while his mother, unconscious of the tempest\nin his breast, leisurely and daintily enjoyed her refreshment.\n\n\"Where are the poor people?\" Hubert asked Winifred in something of his\nold sarcastic tone, as they left the room.\n\n\"I am afraid they are not here,\" said she, gently.  Then she glanced\naround.  \"Yes, there are some, I see.  There is Madge Nichol, that\nyoung woman in the stylish blue dress.  She has done sewing for me, and\nseemed to need the money very much.  But see how she is dressed!  It\nmust be much beyond her means.\"\n\nThen a womanly intuition smote her, and she looked down at her own\ncostly dress.\n\n\"I see how it is, Hubert,\" she said.  \"I think we are to blame.  No\ngirl would like to meet us in this way unless she were well dressed.\"\n\n\"I should advise them to stay away,\" said Hubert.  \"They would lose\nnothing valuable.\"\n\n\"That is what I shall do, I think,\" said Winifred with a sigh.  \"Do let\nus get away as soon as mother is ready.\"\n\n\"Shall I see if the carriage is waiting, mother?\" said Hubert,\ninterrupting when he could a discussion of the best places in which to\nspend the coming heated term.\n\n\"You might,\" Mrs. Gray replied, \"I did not wish to stay late.\"\n\nHubert went out with alacrity to signal the faithful coachman, already\nin waiting.\n\nThey had soon departed, and both young people were glad to get out\nunder the pure, gleaming stars and hasten the carriage to the dear home\nwhere the face of the Lord had first been seen by each, and was yet to\nbe seen in increasing loveliness.\n\nHubert found his father still in the library, but asleep.  He awoke as\nhis son entered.\n\n\"Well, Hubert,\" he said, \"did you have a good time?\"\n\n\"No, sir,\" Hubert replied, \"I had a wretched time.\"\n\n\"How was that?\" his father asked.  \"What happened?\"\n\n\"Nothing happened that I expected.  I thought there would be some there\nwho knew and loved Jesus Christ, and would wish to talk of Him.  I did\nnot hear Him mentioned.  I might as well have been at Mrs.\nButterworth's ball so far as that goes.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Mr. Gray, apologetically, \"it was a social time, you know.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know it, father.  That is why I went.  Are not people usually\nmost sociable about the things that interest them most?  There was a\ncompany of people, professedly born from above and expecting soon to\nsee the very glory of God.  They take it very coolly, at all events.  I\nbelieve it is a sham.\"\n\n\"Oh, Hubert,\" groaned his father, \"don't say that.\"\n\n\"I don't mean,\" said Hubert quickly, \"that Jesus is a sham.  I\nbelieve,\" and his deep eyes softened, \"that He is the most real fact in\nthe universe.  But the belief of those people, father!  That sort of\ngathering is what Doctor Schoolman calls 'relaxation,' and I think he\nis right.  I am convinced that Christ is irksome to them; a subject to\nbe endured on Sundays, but to enjoy relaxation from at other times.  Am\nI right?\"\n\n\"Hubert,\" said Mr. Gray, slowly, \"I believe you are partly right.  But\nbe deliberate and generous in your conclusions.  Do not judge us too\nhastily or hotly.\"\n\nHubert winced as his father included himself in his own sweeping\nindictment.  Mr. Gray went on:\n\n\"Some of us have known Him, even as you do, in earlier days.  But we\nhave lost the brightness of our vision through\"--he hesitated--\"through\nsin.  We have followed afar off, and are very poor representatives now.\nBe patient, and it may be the warm zeal of such as you will quicken us\nagain.\"\n\nHe looked at his son appealingly.  Hubert's generous heart melted.\n\n\"Forgive me, father,\" he said humbly.  \"I have no right to judge\nanybody.  Forget my tirade if you can.  And I,\" he added with a faint\nsmile, \"will try to forget the Social.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nMR. BOND'S LECTURE\n\nHubert recovered from the cold bath into which he had been thrown like\na Spartan babe by his first contact with church sociability.  His, as a\nnew creature, was a vigorous constitution, and was destined to out-live\nmany a shock incident to the earthly career of a heaven-born man.  Both\nhe and Winifred returned to their joy and calm, and were looking\nforward eagerly to Mr. Bond's lectures.\n\nOn the day of his arrival Mr. Gray came home to luncheon with an\nannouncement.\n\n\"My dear,\" he said to his wife, \"Mr. Selton tells me that his wife has\nunexpectedly been called to Chicago by her mother's illness, and they\nwill be unable to entertain Mr. Bond.  He suggested that we might like\nto do so.\"\n\nWinifred and Hubert looked up with animation.\n\n\"Indeed!  And you told him?\" asked Mrs. Gray, with a housewifely\ninstinct of defense against invasion.\n\n\"I told him,\" said Mr. Gray, \"that I knew no reason why we could not do\nso, and that it would be a great pleasure.  I told him, however, that I\nshould ask you about it, and 'phone him if there were any arrangement\nto prevent it.\"\n\nMrs. Gray considered.  The chief guest room stood ready, immaculate in\nyellow and white, since the spring cleaning.  There was no reason why\nit should be denied, but she had hoped that its repose would not be\nbroken until Miss Virginia White, her most aristocratic friend, should\nmake her promised visit.  However, it would be manifestly unreasonable\nto refuse to receive Mr. Bond, and she could not offer him another room\nwhile that stood empty.  Yes, the yellow-and-white room must be\nsacrificed.\n\n\"No, Father,\" she said amiably, \"there is no reason why we cannot take\nhim.  When will he come?\"\n\n\"He arrives this evening by the eight o'clock train from New York.\nHubert, perhaps you would like to meet him?\"\n\n\"I should,\" said Hubert.  \"I am glad he is coming here.\"\n\n\"So am I,\" said Winifred.  \"It will be lovely.\"\n\nThat afternoon Winifred \"called up\" her friend Adele, and the telephone\ntransmitted a lively conversation.  The result of it was that Adele\npromised to go with Winifred to Mr. Bond's Bible lectures; at least to\none, to see if she liked it.\n\nIn the evening Hubert met Mr. Bond at the station.  They were scarcely\nseated in the light trap and facing toward home when the young minister\nsaid:\n\n\"Well, Mr. Gray, have you found God demonstrable?\"\n\n\"Yes!\" Hubert almost shouted, and the two grasped each other's hands in\nthe strong grip of a fraternity never formed by man.\n\n\"I thought so,\" said Mr. Bond.\n\n\"How did you know?\" said Hubert.\n\n\"I thought it would be so,\" said the other, \"and I saw it in your face\nas we met.  Thank God for it.\"\n\n\"Amen,\" said Hubert fervently.\n\nMr. Bond led Hubert on with keen interest to tell of the process of his\nsearch after God, and of the illumination brighter than the light of\nday, that came to him when the Spirit shone with such clear luster on\nthe Word.  To Hubert it seemed the happiest hour of his life, as he\nconversed with a man who seemed to understand the processes of his own\nheart, and to be thoroughly at home in the new world into which he\nhimself had entered.\n\nThe drive was all too brief, but later in the evening, when good-night\nhad been spoken to the rest of the household, the two men sat in the\nunlighted veranda and talked until midnight of Christ and the matters\nof His realm.\n\n\nThe _tout ensemble_ of the company gathered to hear Mr. Bond's first\nlecture was somewhat curious.  It was not a large congregation, but it\nwas representative, being drawn from the interested or curious of\nnearly every kind of church or religious coterie in the city.  Keen\nBible students were there, notebooks in hand, prepared to capture any\nnew suggestion which might help them.  The critical were there,\nrepresenting various shades of belief and prejudice, from the quiet\nrepressionist, who, disdaining emotion, views with dispassionate\ncoldness the great tenets of the faith, to the irrepressible enthusiast\nwhose spiritual understanding is often lost beneath a foam of feeling;\nfrom the instructed brother who reads his title clear with logical\naccuracy in the Scriptures and glories in his standing with belieing\nindifference to his state, to the anxious soul whose hope of heaven\nveers with every changing wind of fitful emotion.  Each critic was bent\non discovering if the stranger would hew faithfully to the line of his\nown demarcation.\n\nThere were Mr. Selton's friends, people of his own station, who\nresponded to his personal invitation to come, prepared to listen\ncourteously, to express polite thanks at the end for the pleasure\nconferred, and, for the most part, to find various lions in the way of\nattending again, profound as were their regrets!\n\nMr. Gray and Hubert both succeeded in getting the hour away from\nbusiness, and the latter arrived at the hall just as his mother, with\nWinifred and Adele, was entering and joined them.  Adele formed a\nsingular figure in the midst of the assembly.  No thought of unusual\nsobriety had toned down her usually stylish and somewhat striking\ncostume, and a large red hat of the milliner's finest skill shaded\nbecomingly her piquant face.  Her keen, merry eyes studied the\ncongregation, and she could not resist whispering a few impressions to\nWinifred before the lecture began.\n\n\"Isn't this a funny crowd?\" she asked.  \"Such a combination!  Look at\nthat meek little body in the front row and the fat dowager behind her.\nAnd do see that anarchist-looking man at the side who is looking at Mr.\nBond as though he would eat him up.  Do you know who he is?  I hope he\nhasn't a bomb in his pocket.\"\n\n\"I don't know him, but I'll ask Hubert,\" said Winifred, and she passed\nthe question along.\n\n\"Hubert, who is that man yonder--the one with the high shoulders.\nAdele thinks he is an anarchist.\"\n\n\"I think so, too,\" said Hubert.  \"At least he is a socialist of a very\nvirulent type.  He has come as a critic, I suppose.  He professes to\nstudy religionists, and writes scornful letters about them to a\nsocialist paper.\"\n\nWinifred communicated this intelligence to Adele, who was much pleased\nwith her own acumen.  Presently she resumed:\n\n\"Do look at that woman ahead of us!--the one in the little bonnet, and\nso distressingly neat.  She has been surveying us.  She doesn't approve\nof me, but she commiserates me.  That's plain enough.  Well, I am a\nsinner, no doubt, and she has found me out!  If she looks around again\ndo see what you think of her.\"\n\nMrs. Bland did look around again, and both young ladies observed her.\nA rather shapely mouth was settled in an expression of studied repose,\nand her eyes rested approvingly, or with patient toleration, on others\nwho were minded to come to the Bible lecture.  Her hair was parted with\nconscientious exactness, and upon her whole appearance there sat the\npicture of conscious piety.\n\n\"Oh, I can't stand her!\" whispered Adele in an ecstasy of dislike.  \"I\nshould fly if I had to look at her long!  Sister Saint Serena--the\nSalubrious!\"\n\nWinifred choked down a laugh at Adele's suddenly inspired alliteration,\nwhile Hubert looked a dignified reproach.  It was a poor preparation,\ncertainly, for what was to follow.  Adele's face straightened\ninnocently, while Winifred still struggled to suppress her risibility.\n\nThere were few preliminaries before Mr. Bond proceeded to speak.  His\nsubject dealt with vital matters, with underlying truth upon which\nrests all lesser fact, and he spoke with a calm certainty, unlike \"the\nScribes.\"  His lecture betrayed a familiarity with the Scriptures such\nas his auditors had seldom met with before, and a reverence for them\nborn not of superstition but of some apprehension of their unfathomed\ndepths.  Our little party listened with fascinated interest.\nEspecially was Hubert delighted when from the portions that had been\nthe favorite debating ground of his sceptical friends riches of meaning\nwere discovered that stamped unmistakably the divine imprimatur upon\nthem.  Winifred and Adele forgot Mrs. Bland and every one else\nlistening; the one with sweet content in hearing anything that\nconcerned the One she loved, and the other with an awakened interest in\nlines of thought she had never pursued before.\n\n\"He is _splendid_!\" said Adele at the close of the lecture.  \"I am\ncoming every day.  Unless--there's that bothersome card party Thursday!\nStupid affair!  But I won't go.  What's the use?\"\n\nAnd so Mr. Bond secured a regular attendant.\n\nMany were the expressions of interest, some of them very genuine.  Mrs.\nGray had listened to her guest with valorous attempts to resist the\nhabitual afternoon nap, and told him later how very good indeed the\nlecture was and hoped he would quite understand how manifold were the\ncares of a household, and how unavoidable her hindrances, should she be\nunable to be present every day.  And Mr. Bond did understand his gentle\nhostess very well, and often as he saw her in her home his meditative\neye rested upon her fair mother-face with an expression of chivalrous\npity and of earnest longing.\n\nThe second day's lecture found the audience sifted to some degree of\nthe idly curious and of a part of the critics unto whose standards the\nspeaker had failed to attain.  As Mr. Bond's language was remarkably\nfree from the current phraseology of the schools of teaching, it was\ndifficult for theological birds to discover at once whether indeed he\nwere of their feather, and a second hearing, at least, was needed.  But\nno uncertain note was sounded to the alarm of any advocate of the most\northodox written creed or of the severest unwritten code of belief, in\nanswer to the pivotal question of all theology: Jesus, the Son of\nMan--_Who is He_?  None gave more ardent honor to that Mystery of\ngodliness, who\n\n  \"Was manifested in the flesh,\n    Justified in the spirit,\n    Seen of the angels,\n      Preached among the Gentiles,\n        Believed on in the world,\n          Received up in glory.\"\n\nIf some fell away from the gathering, there were new hearers, brought\nthrough the good report of those interested, and the company numbered\nrather more than before.  Adele's \"anarchist\" was again there,\nfastening his pale, strange eyes upon the face of the lecturer whether\nhe spoke or was quietly sitting; at times half crediting its look of\ncandor, then relapsing into sneering hopelessness of finding an honest\nman among his class.  He determined to try his favorite test of a\nbenevolent scheme before Mr. Bond should go away, and see if he would\nabide by the Sermon on the Mount.\n\nTo-day the lecturer's theme was Redemption, and from all the cardinal\ndivisions of the Scriptures he drew illustrations of their one\nconsistent theme.  It was when he reached the Day of Atonement under\nthe Levitical institution, that Adele Forrester's interest reached its\nheight.  He drew a vivid, simple picture, as a teacher might present an\nobject lesson to a child, of the offering, the priest, the waiting\ncongregation, the presentation in the Holiest of All, and the blessing\nof the people.\n\nAdele leaned forward in her seat as he proceeded.  She had never seen\nit just like that before.  She imagined herself one of the Jewish\ncongregation, with a guilty score against her which needed to be wiped\nout.  What if there were a flaw in the offering?  What if the priest\nwere not acceptable, and she were to go back with the debt\nuncanceled--with reconciliation not effected?  Her mind leaped forward\nbefore the speaker could reach the point to the Lamb without spot or\nblemish and the High Priest who \"ever liveth to make intercession\" for\nHis people.  Was that what it meant?  And was it already accomplished?\nThe speaker was saying:\n\n\"There is both correspondence and contrast here.  In the first case\nthere was indeed remission of sins, because the Lord had covenanted to\nmeet His people upon that ground.  But it was temporary, and the work\nimperfect.  The _taking away of sins_ was not actual, but pictorial,\neach sacrifice pointing forward to the effective one to come.  There\nwas no vital relationship between the victim and the worshiper, and the\ndeath of one could not be made actually good to the other.  Nor could a\nnew life of righteousness be imparted.  So the work was imperfect,\nunfinished, always looking forward to the perfect, eternal redemption\nwhich should be wrought by the One who has power to impart the virtue\nof His death and the power of His endless life.\"\n\nBefore Adele's mind there came the vision of a vain, empty, earthward\nlife.  But clearer still she saw the Lamb bearing away all offenses and\nher hopeless coming short, and the High Priest who with perfect\nacceptance presented the offering of His blood for her.  Why had she\nnever seen it before?\n\nOh, what grace!  Oh, what a lightened soul!--to be free as a child\nunborn of any guilt of sins!  She caught her breath with a little\nconvulsive sob and sank back in her seat, grasping Winifred's hand with\na tight, expressive grip.  She trusted herself with no words when the\nmeeting ended, but blinking back the tears that sparkled in her eyes\nmade a hasty exit from the hall.\n\nThe days of Mr. Gerald Bond's visit to the Grays were all happy ones.\nHubert and Winifred were living in a new world of revelation, and\ndelighted exceedingly in the help one well instructed and \"apt to\nteach\" was able to give them in the mystery of the faith.  Mr. Gray,\ntoo, enjoyed his guest's presence and brought knotty questions to him\ndaily for solution.  Mrs. Gray recognized the excellent spirit that was\nin him, and found herself quietly wondering more than once why the\nother ministers she knew did not seem equally interested in the matters\nof their calling when off duty, so to speak, but were so much at home\nin all the affairs of the world.  Gerald Bond seemed to live in the\natmosphere of the holy things in which he ministered, and Mrs. Gray\nlooked upon him with an admiration akin to awe.  But he was\nnevertheless so thoroughly a man, of finest sympathy, courteous,\ngentle, and withal possessed of a genial, penetrating wit which all\nenjoyed, that Mrs. Gray could not simply admire him from afar, but took\nhim into her heart with a warm liking.  She looked forward with real\nregret to the day when the yellow-and-white room would be without its\noccupant.\n\nHubert came in for the greater share of the young man's leisure hours,\nand evening often saw them pacing the garden walks, or lingering\nmeditatively by its fountain, in deepest conversation.  In Hubert's\nsoul still the question was burning, \"Lord, what wilt Thou have me to\ndo?\" and beyond a thin veil of time the answer was waiting him.\n\"God . . . hath appointed thee to know His will, and to see the\nRighteous One, and to hear a voice from His mouth.  For thou shalt be a\nwitness for Him.\"\n\n\nThe Bible lectures came and went, having no more rapt listener than\nAdele Forrester, who marveled at the light that had come to her,\nilluminating all truth that she had formally learned and recited, and\nadding wondrous things out of the Law never hinted at before.  When\nSunday came she went to church a true worshiper, and sang with all her\nheart:\n\n  \"O sing unto the Lord a new song\n  For He hath done marvellous things.\"\n\nShe did not follow Winifred's course in retiring from the choir, and\nexplained to her afterwards:\n\n\"It did not seem the right thing for me, dear, although I think you did\njust right.  You see, I am not a star singer, for one thing, and never\nsing solos.  So my temptation to show off would not be like yours with\nyour exquisite voice.  Though I do believe, Winifred,\" she said\nearnestly, \"that one might do that some day--sing solos, I mean--with a\nsincere heart to the Lord, and not be vain about it.  And oh, it would\nbe so sweet!  To praise Him with one's whole heart 'in the great\ncongregation'--to try and tell about Him!--but, after all, there is no\nverse chaste enough and no melody sweet enough to describe Him!  Oh,\nWinifred, when I see _His wounds_,\" and Adele covered her eyes as\nthough, shutting out other things, she could see Him, while her voice\nsank to a sob--\"it breaks my heart!  What a silly girl I have been--and\nit was for me!\"\n\nPresently she resumed: \"When I sang Sunday, I remembered something that\nMr. Bond had said.  I was afraid lest some inattention or failure to\njust grasp and mean the sentiments I sang might make my worship\nunacceptable.  But I remembered that in the Tabernacle service after\nthe priest had done all he could--at the brazen altar, and the laver,\nyou know, having his heart set right and his conduct cleansed--still\nthere was provided blood on the horns of the altar of incense beside\nwhich he worshiped.  After all he could do he might still need it, I\nsuppose.  So I thought that although my poor service is very imperfect,\nand must come far short of what it ought to be, at best, still there\nwill always be the blood and I shall take refuge in that.\"\n\nWinifred looked at her friend wonderingly.\n\n\"That is very beautiful, Adele,\" she said.  \"I am glad to see it.\"\n\nAdele's words had opened a dim vista of possibility, very precious, and\nhad suggested arms wherewith to resist any shrinking self-fear or\naccusation that might attack her by the way.  But though her \"gift,\" as\nMrs. Butterworth and her mother called it, might some day be transmuted\ninto a true gift of the Spirit, she felt with instinctive spiritual\nrepugnance that its sphere of use would not be the former theater of\nher vanity.  Adele might still sing in the chancel the canticles of the\nchurch, but as for her the associations of the choir of Doctor\nSchoolman's church were far too unhallowed to admit of a return to\nthem.  To her it was so clear that she wondered a little why Adele and\nshe should take no nearer ground as to their respective action.\n\n\"I suppose,\" she said aloud with a little perplexity, \"that we must\neach do what seems right, according to the clearest light we have.  We\nmay not both see all the truth about anything at the same time.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Adele with a decisive shake of her head, \"and we can't walk\nby each other's consciences.  But talking about seeing 'all the truth'\nmakes me think of something.  You know I was in the Berkshire Hills\nlast summer?  Well, I saw Greylock from several points of view.  From\none it seemed a rather sharp spur; from another it was long and obtuse;\nand from the last,--when somebody pointed out an ordinary, featureless\nascent and said: 'That's Greylock,' I could scarcely believe it.  I\nimagine our views of the truth are somewhat like that.  It will take\ntime to walk all around it, I think.\"\n\n\"I think so,\" said Winifred reflectively.  \"Then if somebody had met\nyou when you had seen but one view of the mountain, and had described\nsimply another--\"\n\n\"We should have quarreled!\" said Adele.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nTHE SOUL HEARS A CAUSE\n\nMidsummer heat was advancing and the fashionable residents of the city\nwhere our story is located--a city not too large, cleanly, healthful,\nand beautiful for situation--found it necessary to leave town.  Mrs.\nGray was among the number whose constitution demanded a change from the\naccustomed air and scene, and from the round of conventional home life\nto the equally conventional routine of life in a summer hotel.  At\nleast, she supposed she required it.  And was it not the regular thing\nto do?  And had she not arranged with Mrs. Dr. Greene long ago that\nthey should secure quarters together in the Loftimore House overlooking\nthe blue waters of Silverguile Lake?  But when the last trunks were\npacked and, gone, and she looked around in the cool quiet of her own\nhome, the soft eyes were troubled and she said to Winifred:\n\n\"I wish I were not going, dear.  It is a trouble, after all.  And you\nare not going!  You will come for a little while, won't you, child?\"\nAnd she gave her an already homesick caress.\n\nWinifred promised, if it could be arranged.  Mr. Gray and Hubert both\nfound it impossible to leave but for a short time, and Winifred was\nglad of an excuse to stay with them, presiding in the quiet house with\nits summer lack of visitors and improved opportunity for her new and\nengrossing pursuit.  She would go on to know God better, as she found\nHim mirrored in the clear, still waters of His Word.\n\nThe days sped by all too rapidly.  Adele did not leave for the summer,\nand the two spent hours together, comparing impressions and experiences\nand the light gained upon the Scripture portions which they were\nreading simultaneously.  Then Winifred rehearsed to Hubert at night\ntheir discoveries and difficulties, and he added the wisdom given to\nhim to their own.  Sometimes his sister quoted to him surprisingly\noriginal and apt comments from Adele and he wondered silently.  If he\nhad wished to hear from the \"sensible interior,\" he now did so, and it\nspoke from the depths of a new spiritual insight.\n\n\nGeorge Frothingham continued to pay occasional court to his ladye\nfaire.  The time for his customary holidays drew near, and as he\narranged for a flying European trip which he had promised himself this\nyear, it entered his heart to close the anticipated compact with\nWinifred for the life journey together.  Very sweet were the hopes\nwhich mingled with shrewd business calculations, and he congratulated\nhimself on assured prospects.\n\nBut Winifred was not happy when she thought of him.  His coming gave\nher pleasure always, and it was anticipated with a shy new\nconsciousness since the night they had read each other's hearts more\ncertainly through the tell-tale windows of their eyes.  But though his\ncoming gave her pleasure, it left her always with a disappointment.\nConcerning the one thing that had come to be the most vital interest in\nher life they were not in sympathy.  Sometimes when the beauties in\nChrist Jesus seemed most patent to her own soul, it seemed that he must\nsurely see them if represented to him.  But the mention of that Name\nfroze upon her lips when met with the usual bantering jest, or\nindifferent acquiescence, accompanied by a look at his watch or the\nsudden memory of an engagement.  The conviction could not be denied\nthat a wall as thick as that of a tomb stood between them in matters of\nthe spirit.\n\n\"He is dead,\" she confessed to herself in honest grief, \"as dead as I\nwas before my quickening--just as it says in the Ephesians.  He makes\nno more response to spiritual things than would one of the people in\ntheir graves in the cemetery if I talked to them.  And what fellowship\ncan life have with death?  But--but--I love him!\"\n\nThe Flesh cried out for the sovereignty of human love, but the Spirit\nargued for the reign of Christ.  Between the two the Soul stood, a\ntortured arbiter, and heard the cause.\n\nThe Spirit pleaded:\n\n\"O Soul, if to you to live is Christ, why do you bring into your life's\nclosest fellowship an alien to Him?  Why do you give the supremest\nplace of earthly relationship, pledging life-long loyalty and\nobedience, to one whose mind is foreign--even 'enmity'--to the law of\nChrist?  Can you follow the course of life he would plan, and still\nserve Christ?  Can two walk together except they be agreed?\"\n\n\"You might win him,\" the Flesh pleaded.  \"A woman's power is very\ngreat.  Remember he loves you.\"\n\n\"I have no power now,\" the Soul ruled.\n\n\"You might have eventually,\" the Flesh persisted.  \"The example of a\ngodly life will win.\"\n\n\"You cannot live a godly life while you walk with him,\" interposed the\nSpirit.  \"'The friendship of the world is enmity with God.'\"\n\nWinifred was startled.  \"That is a very strong text,\" she thought.\n\"But it probably doesn't mean that.  Godly women have lived Christian\nlives with very ungodly husbands.\"\n\n\"But they did not walk together,\" argued a voice.  \"They were only in\npart united.  In the realm of the spirit--the realm that should\nlead--they were divided.\"\n\n\"There is encouragement held out to believing wives in the Scripture,\"\nsuggested one who knows how to quote Scripture for his purpose, \"that\nthey may win their unbelieving husbands by their chaste behavior.\"\n\n\"There is no encouragement given to believing women to marry\nunbelieving men,\" said the Spirit defensively.  \"A woman whose faith\nfinds her so united may have hope.  But can you expect the favor of God\nupon a mission undertaken in disobedience?\"\n\n\"Is it quite disobedience?\" pondered Winifred weakly.  \"I must look in\nthe Bible to find all I can about it.\"\n\nThe Flesh resisted this course and suggested delay, at least in\nsearching the Scriptures about it.  She might not understand the\nScriptures.  It would be better to ask some Christian friend.\n\nSo the matter was delayed, but not for long.  For the Soul grew unhappy\nwith the weight of a matter withheld from the clear light of the Word,\nand a mist rose between it and the face of Christ.  Any sorrow could be\nborne rather than lose vision of His face, and Winifred brought her\ncause at last with sobs and tears to the feet of Him who had been\ncrucified, determined that His word should end the case at any cost.\nThen she searched the Book with what result each Bible student knows.\nShe found permission for a Christian's marriage \"in the Lord.\"  But the\nwhole testimony of the Scripture frowned darkly upon a yoking together\nwith unbelievers; and what yoke was closer than the one she\ncontemplated?\n\nThe Spirit said amen; and Winifred remembered how all her interviews\nwith George Frothingham had left her not helped at all in the way of\nthe spirit, but rather hindered.  What would be a lifelong fellowship?\nShe cast to the winds all thought of inaugurating a dubious mission for\nthe young man's salvation through means of a forbidden fellowship, and\nso the Soul, led by the Spirit, took wood and fire and repaired to the\nmount of sacrifice.\n\n\nThe decisive evening came, and Frothingham, never more elegant nor more\nwinning, appeared.  He was not dismayed by Winifred's unusual\nconstraint, for he had noticed a growing shyness and drew his own happy\nconclusion from it.  He had brought a roll of music--a new love song,\ninto which he poured the richness of his mellow voice while Winifred\naccompanied him.  But her fingers trembled over the keys and she struck\na false note occasionally.\n\nLater they were standing beneath the chandelier, the light falling upon\nWinifred's pale face, as she answered words he had been speaking.\n\n\"No, I cannot marry you,\" she said, and her voice shrank from the words\nas ranch for the pain they must cause him as for her own.  \"It is\nimpossible.\"\n\nHis handsome face clouded with surprise and alarm.  He pleaded,\nexpostulated, reasoned, but in vain.  Winifred was firm, and a certain\nwomanly dignity hid the grief that she felt, lest its display should\nafterward bring humiliating regret.  She told him as clearly as she\ncould the reason why she could not become his wife, and to his\nunspiritual judgment it seemed a petty cause.  He was accustomed to\nseeing a type of religion that could exist in harmony with the world,\nand he did not see why the fact that Winifred was a Christian and had\nbecome uncommonly interested in that sort of thing should hinder her\nbeing the best of wives to a worldly man like himself.  They need not\nquarrel about it.  As to any scruples that might be entertained in her\nconscientious little head about all the gaiety he cared for, he\ninwardly credited himself with skill to overcome them when once she\nshould be his.  But Winifred made it clear to him at last that the\nmatter was unmistakably and finally settled, and deep was his chagrin.\nWounded pride rose with a sense of his rejection, and he straightened\nhis fine figure in haughty coldness.\n\n\"Very well,\" he said.  \"I must abide by your decision, and we will\npart.\"\n\n\"We shall still be friends?\" she asked timidly.\n\nHe did not look at the little hand she outstretched.  \"If we cannot be\nmore than friends, we must be less now,\" he answered coldly.\n\nHe bade her an abrupt good-night and she watched him depart.  Still\nstanding where he had left her she looked through the graceful palms\nthat from their setting of marble partially veiled the drawing-room\nfrom the hall and saw him standing, never so handsome as now in his\npale sternness, fastidiously drawing on his gloves according to his\nwont.\n\nHer heart made a final appeal.  Was she mad, that she should drive him\naway when _she loved him_?  Let her call him back!  Love is sovereign.\nLet it rule.\n\nAs a very tiny object may blot out the widest view if it be near enough\nto the vision, so this glittering treasure of an earthly love swung\nbefore her eyes, and it hid the broader prospect of fair and eternal\njoys in Christ.  \"Command that these stones be made bread,\" one had\nsaid to her Lord when he hungered, and the same strong and subtle one\ncounseled now: \"Take the joy that is offered!  Your heart will be\nstarved and desolate if you let it go.  Call him back!\"\n\nAlmost her weak heart assented.\n\n\"George!\" the cry rose, but it died, mercifully, in a whisper upon her\ndry lips.\n\nFrothingham had quite prepared himself to emerge from the house--for\nthe last time, probably--and he passed out, giving no backward glance\nat the figure that stood beneath the light in the drawing-room.\n\nWinifred roused from her statue-like stillness as the door closed\nbehind him.  The heavy breath of odorous flowers stole in through an\nopen window and sickened her.  For years after she could not dissociate\ntheir fragrance from the sorrow of that hour.  She turned to the piano.\nHe had left his music--and he would never come back for it!  She turned\naway and climbed the stairs with heavy steps to her own room.  And\nthere we will leave her, where, after the battle, a heavenly Visitor\nwas to come forth with bread and wine for her refreshing.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nEXPERIENCE\n\nWinifred's heart did not break.  Or, if it broke, it was quickly\nhealed, for there dwelt in the house One whose office it is to bind up\nthe broken-hearted.  It was not that she did not grieve, or that no\nvoid cried out again and again to be filled.  But she learned a paradox\nas the days went on: of an inexplicable peace beneath the sharpest\npain, and of a buoyant joy that would not be held down by sorrow.\nHubert looked on, making mental notes as to what had happened, but\nasking no questions.\n\nOur trio of young people who had entered a life of worship found their\nhearts impelling them toward fields of service also.  Winifred sought\nin many quiet ways to make known to others Him whom she had come to\nknow with such delight, and a casual visit from Adele one day threw\nlight upon the occupation of the others.\n\n\"By the way, Winifred,\" Miss Forrester said, apropos of some topic\ndiscussed, \"your brother gave a splendid talk at the Cleary Street\nMission last night.  Oh, you ought to have heard him!  It was fine!\"\n\nWinifred opened her eyes widely.  \"Hubert at the Mission last night?\nHe never told me.\"\n\n\"I suspect he doesn't let his left hand know what his right hand is\ndoing,\" suggested Adele.  \"But he certainly was there.  And when Mr.\nMcBride asked him to speak he promptly did so.  It was splendid!  Not\nsimply what he said, you know, but the fact that he said it--a business\nman talking in a matter-of-fact, business way to other men of something\nhe evidently thought the most important matter in the world.  Of course\nmost of the people were of a far different class from his, but you\nwould never guess it from his words.  He didn't patronize them a bit.\nI liked that so much.  And you should have seen how those men fastened\ntheir eyes on him and listened to what he said.\"\n\n\"How lovely!\" cried Winifred.  \"I wish I had been there.  But pray tell\nme, Adele, how happens it that you were there?\"\n\n\"Oh, I am a regular attendant in Cleary Street,\" said Adele laughing.\n\"At least I go regularly on certain nights in the week and play the\norgan--a wretched, squeaky, little thing--and raise my voice on Sankey\nhymns also.\"\n\n\"You do!\" cried Winifred with a mixture of amusement, dismay and\nadmiration in her voice.  \"Well, I declare!\"\n\n\"I don't see why you should be so shocked,\" said Adele, enjoying her\nfriend's astonishment.  \"Pray, why shouldn't I go?  Do you doubt my\nqualifications?  I am not the musician you are, dear, but my skill is\nquite up to those tunes, I assure you.\"\n\n\"I hope you don't wear that red hat of yours and your usual stunning\ncostumes, Adele?\"\n\n\"It occurred to me after I had gone a few times,\" said Adele quietly,\n\"that it might be well to modify my gear.  I think you would approve of\nmy revised toilet.  It is very simple.\"\n\n\"Adele, I know you can't help looking well, whatever you wear,\" said\nWinifred, who suddenly observed a somewhat altered \"gear\" in evidence.\n\"If you should put on a Salvation Army bonnet it would look stylish.\nIt couldn't help itself.  But please tell me more about the Mission.\nHow happened you to go at all?\"\n\n\"I heard Mr. McBride speak at a meeting.  He told of the work of the\nMission, and of the need of helpers--especially of somebody to help in\nthe music.  It occurred to me that that was the kind of assistance I\nmight give, and that it would be very nice to contribute in some small\nway, at least, to the work of the Mission.  And,\" she continued very\ngravely, \"I volunteered and was gladly accepted.\"\n\n\"That is very noble, I think,\" said Winifred.  \"But what did your\nfriends think?\"\n\n\"I did not ask them,\" Adele answered coolly.  \"I have fallen from\ncaste, anyhow, and it doesn't matter much.  You know since I have seen\nthe Lord\"--it was Adele's way of putting it--\"I have tried to--to\nwitness to Him in some way or other to my old friends; and the result\nhas been a pretty liberal letting alone from them.  His name does not\nseem a very welcome one--outside of a church!\"  Then she went on with a\ngleam of indignant sorrow in her bright eyes: \"That is what breaks\none's heart!  That these very people may kneel beside you in church and\nrecite His holy name as glibly as possible; but outside--it is\nunwelcome!  Winifred, can it be a Christian life at all into any avenue\nof which Christ is an intrusion?  Oh, if they loved Him--if they had\never seen Him at all!--they would be so glad of any mention of Him!\"\n\nAfter a moment a gleam of amused memory succeeded Adele's pained\noutburst.  She went on:\n\n\"The other night I think I reached the climax of my fall into disfavor.\nYou know these summer evenings at the Mission we take the organ and\nhymn books and go out before the door and have a street meeting.  Well,\non this occasion our open-air meeting was in full swing and our usual\nscore of auditors were lined up in the gutters and everywhere to hear.\nMr. McBride had announced 'The best Friend to have is Jesus,' and was\nhimself swinging his arms and singing lustily, while I played and\npumped the panting little instrument and sang as loudly as I could,\ntoo.  Suddenly there turned down the street a handsome automobile (I\ndon't know why, for they never go down that street) and in it the\nMisses Steele and Miss Proudfeather from Baltimore.  To crown it all,\nwith them was seated my precious Cousin Dick!  Our poor little crowd\nhuddled aside to let them pass.  They all saw me and Dick took off his\nhat with great ceremony; but the ladies evidently thought they would\nspare me the mortification of a recognition under the circumstances.  I\ncouldn't help laughing within myself, though it was a bit embarrassing.\nDick was hilarious over it.  He evidently sees nothing improper in it,\nbut a very good joke.  He says he expects to hear me preaching there\nyet.  I told him it might be to his benefit if he did.\"\n\nBoth laughed.  \"But just think, Adele,\" said Winifred, \"how infinitely\nbetter to be in that little street crowd _with the Lord_, than driving\nabout in the finest motor car without Him!\"\n\n\"Yes!\" cried Adele, \"I wouldn't trade places for worlds!\"\n\n\"I should think not,\" said Winifred, with scorn of the idea.\n\nAdele was finding out, like her friend, that the way of the cross\nbrings separation, and she had her own peculiar tests as to faithful\nwitnessing.  Her merry-hearted cousin drew her out in words more\nfrequently than any other, and plied her with questions concerning this\nnew type of religion.\n\n\"It's no new sort of religion at all,\" she insisted.  \"It's just the\nold sort you read of in the New Testament--and the prayer-book!  Only I\nam afraid I never really had it before--or it had not really got me.\nIf people would only be sincere, Dick, you would find it is the same\nsort.\"\n\n\"I do not think the ordinary sort is much good,\" said Dick, with the\nair of a connoisseur in religions.\n\nIt was to be lamented that the present incumbent at St. John's had not\nmet with the young man's very hearty favor.  The freshly introduced\nintoning struck him humorously.  He imitated it in ordinary remarks\nabout the house.\n\n\"Where's--my--hat?\" he inquired in a whining chant, after the manner of\nthe unfortunate rector's plaintively intoned \"Let us pray.\"\n\nAdele, always alive to the ridiculous, laughed; but still she wished he\nwould not be irreverent.\n\n\"The way we go through the service,\" said Dick, \"is so as to relieve it\nof as much sense as possible.  No wonder some of us turn out\nhypocrites.  But you don't, Adele.  However, I'll reserve my estimate\nof your case till we see how you hold out at your new gait.\"\n\nSo Dick watched the \"new gait,\" and Adele prayed that it might be a\nwalk worthy of the Lord.\n\n\nMeantime Hubert was pursuing his study of divinity in a normal\nway--with an open Bible and the Spirit of the Author to interpret.  He\nsought also the fellowship of His people and deep was his perplexity as\nhe found into how many countless sects the \"one body\" had been divided.\nVery contrary to the Bible it seemed, but very helplessly he stood\nbefore the fact that seemed as hopeless of remedy as of denial.  What\nought he, one unit among the whole, to do about it?  Kindly people\nsought to draw him into their various fellowships, and he peered into\ntheir folds and sought to find the place where his Lord was most\nhonored and His presence most manifest.  He found old churches, great\nand cold, whose service moved with slumbrous calm, and his ardent soul\nwas chilled.  He found others where activity bristled and cheerfulness\nprevailed, but where the world held court as obvious as in the market\nsquare; and from these he turned away with a still sharper grief.  He\nfound other congregations built in strife and schism, but with some\nfragrance still of the name of Jesus Christ, and rejoiced that He was\npreached.\n\n\"'They feared the Lord and served their own gods,'\" he said to himself,\nas almost everywhere he saw the strange mingling of worship of the true\nGod with the too patent service of the gods of pleasure and of wealth.\n\nHe found little companies, gathered in protest from shameless\nworldliness or infidel denial of the Lord, and with them he had\nsympathy, but still looked hungrily for a fuller expression of the\ntruth than they offered.  He found himself in companies where correct,\npunctilious statements of the truth abounded, and where the most\ncareful zeal sought to restore an apostolic order of worship.  But he\nfound that the statements grew dry and juiceless in their formal\nexactness, and that prescribed form could not insure the animating\nSpirit without which it was as useless as the phylacteries of the\nPharisees.  He concluded that truth was deeper and fresher than any\ndefinitions of it, as the fountain excels the cistern; and that life\nwas sovereign over form, though in form it embody itself.\n\nHe found perfection nowhere.  After a disappointing meeting, the climax\nof a series of experiences in which arguments from various schools of\ndoctrine had jostled against each other, and the varying phases of\npractice, emotional, anti-emotional, informal and ritualistic, with the\nintervening shades of difference, had presented themselves, he stood in\nthe veranda at home with Winifred and described to her the procession\nof rival claims which a divided church presents to a Christian man's\nadherence, and ended with the question:\n\n\"Where shall we find the truth, Winifred?\"\n\n\"In Christ,\" she answered simply.\n\n\"You are right, wise little sister,\" he said admiringly.  \"And there we\nwill look for it.\"\n\nHe turned from his quest for perfection in any detachment of the church\nand sought the place where God would have him, not alone for the green\npasture to be found but for the testimony to be given.  Deeper lessons\nwere learned as time advanced--lessons of \"grace\" as well as \"truth.\"\nKeen discrimination was tempered by love toward that Body which, though\ndistorted and maimed, was still beloved by her Lord, and though\nbesieged by error was still \"the pillar and ground of the truth.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nA \"WITLESS, WORTHLESS LAMB\"\n\nThe air at Silverguile Lake did not altogether agree with Mrs. Gray.\nRheumatic damps rose from the water, and the mornings were chilly and\nuncomfortable.  The inane round of dressing, eating, appearing in the\nveranda, taking the daily drive, and other mild etcetera, grew irksome;\nand, beyond all, the faces of the dear ones at home were longed for.\nWinifred came for a few days, and then the place brightened like a\ncloudy day that surprises the world with sunshine at its close.\n\nMrs. Gray was far from well when the home journey was undertaken, and\nWinifred looked at her with apprehension.  But they traveled\ncomfortably and reached home in the evening where welcome waited.  But\nan alarming chill overtook the mother before she had retired that\nnight, and the doctor was hastily summoned.  The chill was a harbinger\nof serious illness, and the cheerful house became shrouded in dread of\ncoming sorrow.  Winifred devoted herself eagerly to her mother, but\nprofessional skill was needed also.  The telephone rang frequent calls\nfrom the office during the anxious days to inquire for the loved\npatient, and life for the time was enveloped in the one painful query:\nWill mother live?\n\nThe doctor gave sparing reports, but careful directions.  Winifred\nmoved about the house with a pale face and frightened eyes, until the\ndoctor told her that she evidently needed his services also, and that\nshe must not let her mother see her with that face.  Then she fled to\nher room and poured out her pitiful need to God, and begged His grace\nfor calm and cheerfulness.  With unfailing faithfulness He gave her\nwhat she asked, and she went back to minister with Him at hand to help.\n\n\"Winnie, dear, is that you?\" said a faint voice from the bed.\n\n\"Yes, mother.\"\n\n\"Come here, dear, let me look at you.\"\n\nWinifred went and sat beside her where they could look into each\nother's faces.\n\n\"Dear, do you think I am very ill?  Does the doctor say so?\"\n\n\"He has not said much, mother.  But he is taking every care.\"\n\n\"Yes, I see.  What do you think, child?\"\n\n\"I do not know, mother.  But we hope you are getting on as well as\npossible.\"\n\n\"Winnie,\" said she again, and her voice came with difficulty, \"I think\nI am very ill.  I have had sickness before, but not like this.  Things\nseem slipping away.\"\n\nWinifred's eyes filled with tears, but she forced them back.  \"Do not\nthink that, mother,\" she pleaded.\n\n\"They are all slipping away,\" insisted the sick woman.  \"Every\none--father, Hubert, you--everyone--everything I know--all slipping\naway.\"\n\nWinifred looked to her invisible Companion in an agony of entreaty for\nher mother.  Presently Mrs. Gray's voice again arose plaintively from\nthe pillow:\n\n\"I am afraid--I am afraid, Winnie.  I don't know--the things ahead!\nThese,\"--and her poor hands closed themselves over the counterpane as\nthough they would try to hold the tangible, known things--\"are slipping\naway, and I--am afraid.\"\n\n\"God never slips away,\" whispered Winifred.\n\n\"No?\" queried the mother.  \"But I--can't--see Him!  I don't--know Him.\"\n\nSo the secret, before unconfessed and unrealized, came out at last.\nShe did not know Him.  The church, the service, the minister,--the\nexternal routine of a nominally Christian life, all was slipping away\ninto a mist of past that could not be retained.  And now the soul\nstood, a terror-stricken stranger, before the things not known.\n\n\"I am afraid,\" repeated the faint voice.\n\nWinifred longed for words of comfort, but they did not seem at hand.\n\nThe white-robed nurse came into the room with a little air of\nprofessional authority.  \"I think our patient should not talk any more\njust now,\" she said, and Winifred retired.\n\nShe met Hubert in the hall and drew him to her own little sitting-room,\nwhere they pleaded with God together for the eternal comfort of the\nbeloved sufferer.\n\nEvening came and Winifred was again by her mother's side.\n\n\"Winifred,\" said the gentle voice, stronger to-night for the increased\nfever.\n\n\"Yes, dear mother?\"\n\n\"Winnie, dear, would you be afraid if--if you were ill--like me?--if\nyou were going to--\"\n\n\"To die,\" she was about to say, but she could not speak the word.  She\nshivered instead, as though a cold wind had struck her.\n\nWinifred did not wait for the unwelcome word.\n\n\"No--I think not, mother,\" she said simply.\n\n\"Why not?  Is it not dark--what we do not know?\"\n\n\"But I know God,\" said Winifred earnestly, \"and Jesus Christ.  And they\nare there--in the things we cannot see.  The Apostle Paul said, 'For me\nto live is Christ; _to die is gain_.'\"\n\nThe words brought no comfort.  \"'To live is Christ,'\" repeated the sick\none musingly.  \"If that were so--?\" she was silent for a few moments,\nand then broke out hopelessly: \"No, no!  To live has not been Christ!\nIt has been myself, and you all, and these things!  It is not gain to\ndie!  It is loss!--loss!--loss of everything I know!\"\n\nHer voice rose excitedly, and her glistening fevered eyes looked about\nrestlessly.  Winifred feared that the nurse would come, and finding her\nworse, end the interview.  So she prayed that God would calm the dear\npatient and give them both His needed grace for the hour.  And He heard.\n\n\"Let me straighten your pillow, mother dear,\" she said, and suited the\naction to the word.  Her mother clasped the deft hands that arranged\nthings so comfortably, and looked long with yearning fondness into her\ndaughter's face.\n\n\"Winnie,\" she said finally, \"could you sing just a little for me?\"\n\nWinifred choked back a sob that tried to escape.  \"I will try,\" she\nsaid.\n\nShe brought a little stringed instrument that her mother loved, with\nwhich she sometimes accompanied her songs.\n\n\"What shall I sing?\" she asked, seating herself beside the bed.\n\n\"I don't know,\" hesitated her mother.\n\n\"Would you like that little Scotch song from Sankey's book?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes.  That is very sweet.\"\n\nSo Winifred began the plaintive words:\n\n  \"I am far frae my hame, an' I'm weary aftenwhiles\n  For the langed-for hame bringin' an' my Faither's welcome\nsmiles.\"\n\nShe began with a stern watch upon her own emotions.  But, as she\nproceeded, from the sadness of the hour rose a longing in her soul for\nthe \"ain countrie\" where no blight of death and tears are known, and it\npoured itself out in the song.  She sang two of the long stanzas.\n\n  \"I've His guid word o' promise that some gladsome day the King\n  To His ain royal palace His banished hame will bring.\n  Wi' heart and wi' een rinnin' ower we shall see\n  The King in a' His beauty in oor ain countrie.\n  Like a bairn to its mither, a wee birdie to its nest,\n  I wad fain be agangin' noo unto my Saviour's breast;\n  For He gathers in His bosom witless, worthless lambs like me,\n  An' carries them Himself to His ain countrie.\"\n\nMrs. Gray had been lying with closed eyes through which the tears\nforced their way.  Now she interrupted:\n\n\"What does it say, Winifred?  'He gathers in His bosom?'  Please sing\nthose lines again.\"\n\nSo Winifred repeated:\n\n  \"'For He gathers in His bosom witless, worthless lambs like me,\n  And carries them Himsel' to His ain countrie.'\"\n\n\"Thank you!\" murmured the invalid with a sigh.  \"Is it true, Winnie?\"\n\n\"Yes, mother, it is quite true.\"\n\n\"That is what--I have been.\"  She was speaking again with difficulty,\nand her voice was very low, so that Winifred leaned forward to listen.\n\"I've been--a 'witless, worthless lamb!'  Will He--gather--me?\"\n\n\"I know He will--if you trust Him!\"\n\n\"How do you know, Winnie?\"\n\n\"There is the Scripture, mother.  There is the parable of the lost\nsheep, and then there is another word; 'All we, like sheep, have gone\nastray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord hath laid\non Him the iniquity of us all.'\"\n\nAfter a moment the weak voice spoke again:\n\n\"Winnie, _you_ know Him; will you pray?  Tell Him--I've taken--my own\nway,--a 'witless, worthless lamb!'\"\n\nWinifred slipped to her knees beside the bed and prayed; prayed with\nthe greatest thankfulness she had ever known because she knew God, and\nprayed for the dearest object for which she had made request.  She\nreminded God with great simplicity that He had laid the iniquity of us\nall who have wandered on His Anointed One, and begged Him to make good\nthe virtue of that act to her poor mother.  And the dying lady\nlistened, and believed.\n\n\"Dear mother,\" said Winifred fondly, \"do you not see that He will\ngather you?\"\n\nMrs. Gray's head had sunk back contentedly in the pillows.  She smiled\nfaintly.\n\n\"Yes, I see it now,\" she said.  \"It is very true.\"\n\nIn a few moments she was asleep, and the nurse resumed her watch.  But\nlater in the night a quiet alarm summoned the little household to her\nchamber, and they watched for the moment of parting between the spirit\nand its fair tenement.  Before it came she opened her eyes, and looked\nat them placidly.  Her lips moved, and Winifred bent forward eagerly to\ncatch their words.\n\n\"I--am--not--afraid'\" they pronounced, and then closed their witness\nfor this world forever.\n\nThe death of Mrs. Gray brought the first great sorrow to the house of\nRobert Gray.  It did its work in the heart of each who remained.  It\nsmote the husband with a conviction of misspent years, of a united\nfellowship in the things that perish so miserably instead of in those\nthings which remain when all else is shaken.  Had he but led his gentle\nwife, as was his opportunity, in ways of the Spirit, how different\nmight have been their record together.  And now the end had come for\none, with no \"abundant entrance,\" no glad prospect of long-anticipated\njoys,\n\n  \"Where the eye at last beholdeth\n  What the heart has loved so long,\"\n\nbut with the negative testimony of a fear relieved--of wrath averted,\nthrough the grace of a longsuffering God.  They had been guilty\ntogether of the capital sin of an earth-centered life; and now the iron\nmerchant, elder of the church though he was, awoke from his long dream\nof money getting and of earthly comfort to the reality of God, and of\nhis obligation as a redeemed soul to Him.  There crept an unfamiliar\nnote of yearning sincerity into the prayers wherewith he took his\nheretofore formal part in the church prayer meeting, and it almost\nperceptibly thinned the frozen crust of the \"icily regular\" service.\nThe men in his business noticed a new softness in his manner, and\nsometimes it emboldened them to speak to him of their own cares and\nsorrows, and they found sympathy.\n\nHubert grieved for his mother with the strength of an intense, reticent\nnature.  But, as did also his sister, he found solace in God.\n\nWinifred felt very keenly her mother's loss, missing the vanished hand\nfrom every part of the house where she now assumed her place, seeing\neverywhere reminders of her dainty touch and quiet taste, and longing\nfor her voice yet more and more as the days went by.  This great\nbereavement came so closely on the separation from one whom she never\nmentioned now, but who was far from forgotten, that often her heart\nseemed torn between the two sorrows.  Sometimes waves of disheartenment\ncame on cloudy days of testing, when the sun was hidden and life looked\ncheerless and hard.  But anon the face of Jesus Christ broke through\nthe clouds, and with the vision came always joy.\n\nThe three who were left drew more closely to each other, and despite\ntheir sorrow found a sweetness of comfort together never known before.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\n\"SELL THAT YE HAVE\"\n\nThree years had passed, and the snows of winter had lain heavily for\nweeks upon all the region surrounding New Laodicea.  It spread soft\nmantles over lawns and roofs in the city, and only in the streets was\nits white purity turned by the traffic of man into vileness.  On a\nsharp, clear morning Hubert Gray walked through the cutting air toward\nhis office, and meditated thus:\n\n\"What am I doing?  What is the occupation that employs so much of my\nwaking time and the powers that God has given me?  'Diligent in\nbusiness,' the Scripture says.  Yes, I am certainly that, but what is\nit all for?  I am trading in iron, as my father has done, and laying up\ntreasure on earth.  That is something--the laying up treasure on\nearth--that the Lord Jesus said not to do.  But did He really mean it?\nNobody takes it very literally, I suppose.\n\n\"'Sell that ye have and give alms.'  That is what I read this morning.\n'Make for yourselves purses which wax not old, a treasure in the\nheavens that faileth not.'\n\n\"How much does it mean?  We cannot always press the words of the Lord\nto their utmost literal meaning.  I suppose He used language a great\ndeal as we do, to be taken at its face value, and not screwed and\npressed and tortured into literal exactness until all the spirit is\ntaken out of it?  But these words sound very bald and unequivocal.  I\nwish I knew what they meant.  Would I act on them if I did?  There's\nthe rub.  It is undoubtedly hard for a man with money to look at the\nmatter disinterestedly.  And Jesus said, 'How hardly shall they that\nhave riches enter into the kingdom of God!'\n\n\"But if a man wishes to know how to interpret these words, I suppose he\nmay consider other words of the Lord and their evident interpretation\nand find a rule.  For instance, He said, 'Labor not for the meat which\nperisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life.'  He\nevidently did not literally mean not to labor for daily bread, for that\nis something we are told to do.  'Work with your hands, that ye\nmay . . . have need of nothing,' it says.  And, 'If any will not work,\nneither let him eat'; and again, 'That with quietness they work, and\neat their own bread.'  So that is clear enough.  Apparently what He\nmeant was to emphasize the supreme need of the other kind of food--'the\nmeat that endures unto everlasting life.'  The one pales into such\ninsignificance--into nothingness!--compared with the other, that He\nputs His hand over it--He puts it out of sight completely, and says,\n'Look at this!  This is the supreme thing, the one thing needful!'\"\n\nHubert grew enthusiastic as he meditated the meaning of the text and\nthe supreme need.  He walked faster, and trod the snowy walk\nemphatically.\n\n\"What a splendid text!\" he thought.  \"If I go to the mission to-night\nperhaps I shall speak from it.  'Labor not . . . but for'--ah! that\nword 'labor,' as applied in the second phrase needs explaining also,\nand Jesus did explain it.  '_This is the work of God, that ye believe\non Him whom He hath sent_.'  That is 'labor' for the living bread--to\nbelieve on Him!\"\n\nBut he returned to his former consideration.  \"'Sell that ye have and\ngive alms.'  I wonder if the principle in the other text will apply to\nthat?  Did He mean, not literally that they were to sell all and give,\nbut rather to emphasize the supreme importance of the treasure in\nheaven?  Did He push aside one and bring forward the other, saying,\n'Look at _this_!  Let go the other, and lay hold of this.  Lift up your\neyes to the kingdom it is your Father's good pleasure to give you.\nTake stock in that.  Little flock, you are so very rich yonder, you can\nafford to give up what you have here.  Give to the poor that have no\ntreasure here, and perhaps none yonder.'  Ah, but my paraphrasing has\nnot led me far from the literalness of the text!  And how beautiful it\nis!  That Man of Glory, 'Heir of all things,' poor for a little while\nfor our sakes, counseling His little flock to follow for a brief season\nin the steps of His poverty, laying up more abundant treasure in His\neternal kingdom!\"\n\nBy this time Hubert had reached his place of business and was stumbling\nover the office boy in the hall.  When alone in his office, at his\ndesk, he leaned his head upon his hands and prayed:\n\n\"O Lord, teach me what those Scriptures mean that I may obey them.\nSave me from the bias of self-interest.  Help me to live by the\nunderstanding I had with Thee at the outset of our walk together.  What\nmay I do to please Thee?  My time and my energies are Thine, for I am\nbought with a price.  Thou seest my possessions.  What shall I do with\nthem?\"\n\nHe lifted his head with a lightened heart.  \"He will show me what to\ndo,\" he thought.\n\nThat day at lunch Hubert propounded a question to his father.\n\n\"Father,\" said he, \"what do you think Jesus meant by saying, 'Sell that\nye have and give alms?'\"\n\nMr. Gray reflected.  \"Hm!\" he observed, \"eh--well--\" then, with a sly\ntwinkle as though rather enjoying a coat that fitted tightly, \"it\ndoesn't sound very obscure, does it?  The language is simple.  What\nwould you think it meant?\"\n\n\"That is a point I am studying.  If a man came to it without prejudice\nor self-interest, it would seem very simple, I imagine.  But I am not\nsure that it should be pressed to absolute literalness.  But, granted\nthat it means _something_, was it of limited application, or would\nChrist say the same thing to His followers to-day?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Mr. Gray, whose theological studies had been greatly\nstimulated in recent months, and who had fallen into the hands of a\nvariety of teachers, \"you know some people draw pretty fine\ndistinctions now-a-days.  They may tell us that that does not belong to\nthe church.  I shouldn't wonder a bit if some of them would slip this\nover our heads and let it fall on some other people.  But I should say,\nif you ask me, that such a principle, if it applied to anybody, might\ncertainly to us; that if heavenly-mindeduess could be enjoined upon any\nit might certainly upon those who are raised and seated with Christ in\nheavenly places.'\"\n\n\"I think you are right, father.  But now, just what is the\nprinciple--what is the true spirit of the text?  In short, what are we\n_to do_ about it?\"\n\nMr. Gray looked at his son curiously before replying.  Was it for the\nsake of _doing the word_ that he pondered its meaning?  To expound a\ntext and to act upon it were two separate things.  The former was\nsometimes the pleasanter task.  But he answered honestly:\n\n\"I suppose the true way to understand a Scripture is to read it in its\nrelation to other Scripture--in the light of every other Scripture.  I\nconfess I have not so studied it.  And,\" he added cautiously, \"one must\nbe very sure of the meaning of a word before he acts upon it.\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" said Hubert.  Then he added privately that they had not\nwaited to understand the text before proceeding to pile up treasure\nupon earth in abundance.  \"I intend to look up the subject,\" he said\naloud, \"and see what the Bible really does teach about it; that is,\nwhat the New Testament says.  I suppose if we searched the Old\nTestament we should find earthly prosperity guaranteed the Lord's\npeople on the ground of obedience.  But we are under the new covenant,\nwith heavenly riches assured.\"\n\n\"Just so--just so,\" murmured Mr. Gray.\n\nThe next morning the subject was renewed.\n\n\"I have found, father,\" said Hubert, \"that the apostolic church did\nprecisely what Jesus had told His flock to do.  They sold what they\nhad.  It was an effect of the coming of the Holy Spirit.  I suppose the\nheavens were so opened through that illumination that earthly\npossessions shriveled into nothingness by comparison.  What precept\nalone could never have power to do the entrance of the Spirit did.  It\nturned out the love of the world and 'the things that are in the\nworld.'\"\n\nAn enthusiastic light glowed in Hubert's face as he spoke.  His father\neyed him curiously as on the day before.\n\n\"Just so--just so,\" he replied, absently.\n\nPresently, however, he rallied to the discussion.  \"But, Hubert,\" he\nsaid, \"do you remember what they did with the proceeds of their sales?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Hubert, \"they laid them at the feet of the Apostles, and\ndistribution was made to the needs of all the company.\"\n\n\"That was not an indiscriminate alms-giving,\" said Mr. Gray.\n\n\"No,\" replied Hubert.  \"But the parting with their possessions of those\nwho had property supplied the need of those who had none.  That could\nbe called alms-giving, I should think.\"\n\n\"That seemed to be confined to the church,\" said Mr. Gray meditatively.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Hubert, \"and when a beggar solicited alms of Peter and\nJohn, they had nothing to give him!  No--I beg pardon--they had much to\ngive him, through the 'riches in glory.'  They gave him ability to make\nhis own living, which was far better than an alms.  But is there not\nsome other Scripture that will tell us the relative positions of the\nchurch and the world to us in our giving?\"\n\n\"I think so,\" said Mr. Gray.  \"How is this?  'As we have opportunity\nlet us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the\nhousehold of faith.'\"\n\n\"That is to the point,\" said Hubert.\n\n\"But to return to the Pentecostal precedent,\" said Mr. Gray; \"if we\nwere to sell out, at whose feet would you propose laying the proceeds?\"\nHe looked slyly at Hubert.  \"At Doctor Schoolman's?\"\n\n\"Never,\" said Hubert, and then he laughed.  \"I beg the gentleman's\npardon for my emphasis,\" he said, \"but it never would occur to me to\nturn over my money to him.\"\n\nMr. Gray smiled.  He felt that he had scored a good point against any\nrash procedure in the matter of possessions.\n\n\"At whose feet, then,\" he persisted, \"would you think to lay it down?\"\n\n\"There's the rub,\" said Hubert grimly.\n\n\"Ah, just so,\" said his father.\n\nThere was silence for a few moments and then Mr. Gray began again:\n\n\"Those early conditions at Jerusalem have never been reproduced since\nthey were broken up by the scattering of the church, and I do not\nremember any hint in the Epistles to the Churches that there should be\nan effort to establish a similar communism in any place.\"\n\n\"No?\" said Hubert.  \"I shall search farther and see what they do say.\"\n\nAnd he did.  A less disinterested disciple would not have pressed such\na vigorous search toward an end that might mean his own monetary\ndisadvantage.  But a supreme longing to know the will of God and to do\nit was master of the situation.  Moreover he remembered the vision of\nthe cross that stood at the outset of his Christian way, and the terms\nof complete abandonment of himself and his circumstances to which he\nconsented in his heart.\n\nHe pursued diligent and business-like methods in his study.  With the\naid of a concordance he found and tabulated what the Gospels had to say\nabout \"money,\" \"gold,\" \"silver,\" \"goods,\" \"riches\" and \"treasure,\"\nwords that might serve as clews to discover the mind of God in the\nmatter he searched out.  Also he read carefully the Epistles to see\nwhat, in the more settled state of the church, was enjoined after the\ndissolving of the community at Jerusalem.\n\nHis thoughtful study involved the spare hours of many days, and he\nemerged from it with certain convictions which were not likely soon to\nbe shaken.  He set his arguments in order with a deliberation and logic\nwith which a lawyer might prepare his brief.  His leading conclusions\nas to the teaching of the Scriptures on the subject were somewhat as\nfollows:\n\nFirst, that the possession of riches is a disadvantage to a man as to\nhis entering the kingdom of heaven.  Indeed, that it would render it\nimpossible but for the grace of God with whom all things are possible.\n\nSecond, that the teaching of the Lord Jesus placed the seeking of\nworldly goods in utter contempt and disregard as compared with heavenly\nriches.  Indeed, they might well be abandoned for the sake of that\ntreasure.  That even the necessities of life were not the things to be\nanxiously sought, but were guaranteed by God in response to the\ndiligent, first-in-order, whole-hearted seeking of His kingdom and\nrighteousness.  That this teaching, however, was guarded against\nmisinterpretation by practical instructions in the Epistles to work for\nhonest support and in order to have to give.\n\nThird, that an instant effect of the coming of the Holy Spirit was a\npractical illustration of that disdain of earthly goods inculcated by\nthe teaching of the Lord Jesus; and the result was not the want of any,\nfor \"neither was there among them any that lacked.\"\n\nFourth, that that striking example, set at the head of the age as an\nobject-lesson for its entire course, was not literally followed by the\nChurches subsequently formed, but its principle was carried forward to\nthem also, Paul enjoining an \"equality,\" saying to the Corinthians,\n\"Your abundance being a supply at this present time for their want,\nthat their abundance also may become a supply for your want; that there\nmay be equality.\"\n\nFifth, that the giving up of possessions at Pentecost was spontaneous\nand voluntary, not forced; and the subsequent giving was to be not a\nlegal necessity, but as the heart inclined.  The flavor of delight to\nGod would be lost if otherwise.  The giving would have value in His\neyes only as it was done, not of necessity, but cheerfully.\n\nHubert reviewed the articles of his newly formed financial creed,\nfeeling that it was far from exhaustive, but that its principles must\nhelp to clear his vision as to the attitude a Christian man should take\ntoward this world's gain.  From the whole trend of the teaching he\ngathered that the true Gospel of Christ demanded a complete reversal of\nthe generally accepted rudiments of worldly thrift, and that its key\nword for the use of money was not \"get,\" but \"give.\"  Sometimes he\nhesitated and turned pale before a radical step which he found his\nheart prompting, and again he looked at the possessions now in his own\nright and was glad he had so much to place at the absolute disposal of\nthe Lord he loved.\n\n\"It is not a necessity,\" he said.  \"I may do as I will.  And I will to\ndo that which will serve Him best.\"\n\nHe read the text, \"Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that,\nthough he was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through\nHis poverty might be rich.\"  Tears, to which his eyes were unused, made\nthem glisten for a moment.  \"Ah, if through my poverty some might be\nmade forever rich!\" he thought.\n\nHow to put in practice what he desired to do became a problem.  He went\nto his office with the sense of a new relationship to its business.  A\nnew Proprietor sat at the desk with him, and, afraid to act rashly, on\nHim he wisely waited for the clear instructions which should show how\nbest His interests might be served.\n\nThe new Proprietor looked on him and saw a man triumphing where the\nmultitude of essaying disciples fail: not in lofty ideals, not in\nemotional experiences, not in grand works undertaken; but in the\nprosiest, hardest spot--albeit the touchstone of many a man's\nconsecration--the _money question_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nTHE MISSIONARY MEETING\n\nIt was early summer when the Women's Foreign Missionary Society of Doctor\nSchoolman's church was to have a public meeting.  On Sunday the faithful\ncalendar announced it, and Doctor Schoolman made special mention of it,\nurging attendance.  A missionary home on furlough was to exercise a part\nof his \"well-earned rest\" in addressing the meeting.  It was to be held\nin the afternoon, but it was suggested that as many men of the\ncongregation as possible unite with the ladies in giving welcome to one\nwho had distinguished himself by faithful and valuable service on the\nforeign field.\n\nThe announcement was discussed in the Gray household and Hubert\ndetermined to join Winifred in attendance.\n\n\"Not that I believe much in it,\" he said, \"when here all about us, and\nespecially in our large cities, there are plenty of objects for our\ncommiseration quite as wretched, undoubtedly, as those in foreign\ncountries.\"\n\n\"No doubt,\" said Winifred.  \"It always seemed to me to be looking rather\nfar afield for something to do.\"\n\nHowever, the two determined to hear the voice from China.\n\nWednesday, the day for the meeting, came, and Hubert left work in time to\njoin Winifred on her way.  They found the lecture-room of the church\nrather better filled than was usual at a missionary meeting, but only a\nfew gentlemen were present.  Winifred had time to observe some of the\nfaces about her before the meeting began.  She knew the Secretary, a\nwoman with a keen, earnest face, always active in good works, and\nindefatigable in her efforts to excite a generally indifferent church\ninto some glow of interest in the missionary cause.  There were a few\nother faces as interested as her own.  Hubert saw the plain little body\nhe had singled out at the church social as one who perhaps would find it\na pleasure to talk about the Lord.  Her eyes looked expectantly toward\nthe quiet looking man who came in with Doctor Schoolman.\n\nThe President, rather new to her office, fingered her jeweled watch-chain\nnervously as she opened the meeting.  The company sang \"From Greenland's\nIcy Mountains,\" and Doctor Schoolman offered prayer.  The Secretary read\nthe minutes of the previous meeting--a \"Thank-offering meeting\"--and it\nwas discovered that the sum of $90 had been realized.  The ladies\nexchanged glances of satisfaction at the amount.\n\n\"Hm-m!  Their combined thanks foot up to that,\" thought Hubert.  He was a\nbusiness man and must be forgiven such a practical view of the case.\n\"The Lord must be gratified!\"\n\n\"I feel, ladies,\" said the President, pushing a diamond ring up and down\nupon her finger anxiously, \"very much pleased that our poor gifts have\namounted to so much.  We cannot all do what we would, but we may give our\nmites, and together they will count for something in the work.  We cannot\ntell what these ninety dollars may mean to the heathen.\"\n\n\"Their mites!\" thought Hubert, with something of his old-time irony.  He\nwas freshly instructed on the subject of money, and knew well the story\nof the widows' mites.  \"If Mrs. Greenman herself had given the ninety\ndollars, I should think she was beginning to feel a tinge of gratitude\nfor something.\"\n\nWinifred had fastened her brown eyes musingly upon the President.  She\nwas wondering if money might express thanks, and, if so, how much would\nappropriately suggest her own gratitude to God for His \"unspeakable gift.\"\n\n\"No gift would be large enough,\" she thought, and then the familiar lines\ncame to her mind:\n\n  \"Were the whole realm of nature mine,\n  That were a present far too small;\n  Love so amazing, so divine,\n  Demands my soul, my life, my all.\"\n\n\"How true that is,\" she thought.  \"But I suppose it is nice to give some\ntoken, even though one cannot adequately express one's thanks.\"\n\nThere were some other reports and then the leading alto from the choir\nsang:\n\n  \"There is a green hill far away.\"\n\n\"I am sure we are all glad,\" said the President, \"to have with us Mr.\nHugh Carew from China, who has labored for years among the heathen there.\nWe shall be pleased to hear him tell us something of his work.\"\n\nAnd Mr. Hugh Carew began.  He was a man uninteresting to look upon, save\nthat his face wore a certain indefinable expression of a man who has been\na stranger in many places; a man habituated to loneliness and to silence.\nBut he was evidently a man also accustomed to speak, for he addressed his\naudience with easy grace.\n\n\"The pleasure is mine,\" he said, \"in being able to present to your\ninterest and sympathy the dearest object of the heart of God.\"\n\nHubert started to hear the man's work, as he thought, thus spoken of.\nMr. Carew went on:\n\n\"Of course I refer not to my simple share in it, but to God's great work\nof salvation in all lands.\"\n\n\"Ah, that is what he means,\" thought Hubert, and repeated to\nhimself--\"the dearest object of God's heart!\"\n\n\"You may question my definition of that work,\" said Mr. Carew, \"but a\nmoment's reflection will convince you that it is true.  We may measure\nthe object's value by the price expended for it.  For what other than the\ndearest object would God have been willing to give His most priceless\ntreasure--the Son of His love?  You will pardon my giving some attention\nto the fundamental facts of our common salvation before speaking\nspecifically of the work in which I have had a part for some years in\nChina.  My apology is this: that wherever the returned missionary goes,\neven among God's people, he finds himself obliged to defend his work to\nsome who regard it as an impractical and self-devised effort at doing\ngood, rather than the simple carrying out of the expressed will of God.\nWe have to go back to first principles and inquire afresh: '_What is the\nwill of God_?'\"\n\n\"That sounds sensible,\" thought Hubert, who loved to hear vital\nprinciples discussed.\n\n\"Some very simple, well-worn texts will serve for our brief study,\" said\nMr. Carew.  \"First there is that comprehensive passage, familiarly known\nand quoted in all evangelical circles: '_For God so loved the world that\nHe gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not\nperish, but have everlasting life_.'  The words that I wish to emphasize\nespecially are two:--'_the world_.'  They show you the scope of God's\nlove and gift.  He loved 'the world,' not some favored race within it.\nAnd love, which cannot rest inactive, _gave_; gave according to its own\nmeasure--'His only begotten Son.'  We cannot be otherwise than agreed\nthat this love and this gift were for all, and so must include my poor\nChina.  Indeed, could you divide God's love arithmetically (it is a\nfoolish way to put it--you cannot divide infinity!) then my friends over\nthere might claim about one-fifth of it, I suppose, as they number about\nthat proportion of the world's population.\"\n\nThe ladies smiled indulgently at the curious way of putting it, but were\nnot yet persuaded in their hearts that so considerable a portion of the\nlove of God could be diverted from their own delightfully engrossing\nrace, not to China alone, but to other peoples also, as would follow by\nthat kind of arithmetic.  Let the missionary talk.  It would still be as\nobvious to their consciousness as the glittering pompon on Mrs.\nGreenman's bonnet that themselves were the consistent and natural\nmonopolists of the favor of their Creator!\n\nBut Mr. Carew went on: \"We may find our two very illuminating little\nwords in another text almost equally familiar.  It is this: '_Behold the\nLamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world_.'  This lets us\nfarther into God's attitude and purpose concerning 'the world.'  Loving\nall His creatures, He still saw that they were involved in ruin brought\non by sin.  If He brought them to Himself--the only event that could\nsatisfy love--it must be by a great and costly Redemption.  One emanating\nfrom Himself must be projected into the ruin and death of the world and\ncome back to Him, spotless and unsullied, bringing with Him 'many sons'\nunto the glory.  But He must purge their sins.  So He gave Him to be a\nLamb of sacrifice; that He taking the sins of the world upon Him, might\nwork in Himself a death unto sin that should be made good to all that\nbecome united to Him.  Potentially, then, the sin of '_the world_' is\ntaken away.  If we wish to support further this point in our study\nconcerning 'the world' we may turn to Paul and hear, 'God was in Christ,\nreconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto\nthem.'  Or the Apostle John will tell us that 'He is the propitiation for\nour sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of _the whole\nworld_.'\n\n\"Now that we have reminded ourselves of the love, and of the gift\nembracing redemption, it occurs to us to ask how are our poor brothers in\nChina to avail themselves of the gift or to hear of the love.  Another\nwell-known test, containing our two words again, tells us very clearly.\nIt offers the only logical answer to the question, and it is this: '_Go\nye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature_.'  Love\nhas devised its gift and prepared it at unspeakable cost, and now\ncommands our feet that we may bear it to all habitable parts of the\nearth.  Wherever the objects of God's love are, there the gift must be\nborne.  Do we not all see that the work which we call 'Foreign Missions'\nis in the direct, simple carrying out of the purpose of God, bearing the\nknowledge of the gift to all for whom it is intended, that they may avail\nthemselves of it?  What object could be dearer to the heart of God?  What\nHe has Himself done shows us of what moment the matter is to Him.  How\ncan we ever excuse ourselves that it has been a matter of such\nindifference to us?  He has limited Himself to human instruments for the\ncarrying to the lips of dying ones whom He loves the water from the\nsmitten Rock, and how have we responded?  Are we indeed His sons and\ndaughters, that His supreme wish should be our last concern?\"\n\nThe speaker's eyes had deepened in color as he spoke.  Now they burned\nwith intense feeling.  His long, tenacious hands were clenched\nrepressively.  He went on:\n\n\"I imagine I hear an objection that the same work is being done at home,\nand that there is ample field here still.  We may not trust our own\nunderstanding to argue the case as to the value of confining our efforts\nto the home field, but let the Scriptures, always ready to instruct us,\ngive us light.  Probably we will agree that Paul, the apostle-missionary,\nis in his life an exponent of the theory of Gospel preaching.  He had an\nambition.  Hear how he expresses it: 'Yea, being ambitious so to preach\nthe Gospel, _not where Christ was already named_, that I might not build\nupon another man's foundation; but, as it is written\n\n  \"'They shall see, to whom no tidings of him came,\n  And they who have not heard shall understand.'\n\n\"He shows his Roman readers his method; telling them that from Jerusalem\nunto Illyricum (just across the Adriatic Sea from Italy) he had 'fully\npreached the Gospel of Christ.'  Now he was ready to look farther, his\ntask to those regions being accomplished.  What did he mean?  Was he\nleaving behind him converted areas, whose every inhabitant magnified God\nin Christ Jesus?  Far from it.  'Fully preached' though he had,\ncommunities were still heathen, but for the lights that he had kindled\nfrom place to place in his persecuted journeyings.  Remembering that he\nis in his life the model for Gospel preaching, as he is in his writings\nthe messenger of Christian doctrine, must we not see that the Gospel is\nfor _broadcast sowing_, not for close gardening, save by the careful\nhands that God will raise up in the wake of the evangelist.  Or, to use\nanother figure, it is the _notification, to lost heirs_, of a fortune\nbequeathed them; and the responsibility of the ones entrusted with the\ncarrying out of the will is not so much to persuade heirs to receive\ntheir inheritance as to notify them of it.  So the Apostle preached 'not\nwhere Christ was named,' having a zeal to discharge his debtorship of\nmaking known to all nations God's gift of grace.  Now over into\nSpain--far, far afield, as distances then were gauged--the eager eyes of\nthe Apostle looked and longed for a crown of rejoicing from that land\nalso in the day of Christ.  In him we see the faithful exposition of the\nmissionary idea.\"\n\nBy this time Hubert was looking at the speaker very intently, with\nwidened, almost startled, eyes that were opening to a new idea.  Winifred\nalso sat with riveted gaze, her cheeks slightly paling beneath the\ndeepening conviction of a tremendous truth.  True worshiper that she was,\nto know the truth must be to shape her life in consonance with it, and a\nvoice at her heart gave warning that to be conformed to this newly\nrevealed will of God would be pain.  But where was the theory that had\nseemed so clear and sensible to both Hubert and herself when they came to\nthe meeting?  Hubert always had clear ideas.  What would he say to this?\nNow Mr. Carew was saying:\n\n\"I have frequently heard it objected to foreign missions that there are\nworks of philanthropy still to be done here.  The objection is absolutely\nirrelevant.  The work of missions is not an indefinite 'doing good.'  It\nis the bearing of a _specific good_ to those who have not received it.\nIt is not, _per se_, the bettering of temporal conditions.  It is the\nsecuring to those who believe its message the _best eternal conditions_.\nIt is not a matter of 'elevation'--it is a matter of translation.  Not\ninto a bettered life, but into a _new_ life with an eternal outlook--into\na new realm altogether, and that divine--the Gospel we carry ushers its\nbelievers!  How would the poor, irrelevant argument I have quoted have\naffected Paul?  Looking across the sea to Spain, and to Rome by the way,\nhe was leaving behind him in Judea, in Asia--in all the region unto\nIllyricum, hungry people still unfed and the naked still unclothed.  Want\nand misery still stretched out their hands to be relieved.  But they\ncould not stay the feet of the Apostle.  He had heard _the supreme call_!\nGod had a supreme gift to bestow; the world had a supreme need; and to\nbring the need and the gift together was his absorbing, constraining\nzeal.  Would God it were ours also!  Friends, my plea for China is not\nfor its temporal needs; it is not that its women's feet are bound, that\nits men are opium-stupefied, or that it needs our Western ideas, as it is\nwaking from its Eastern way.  It is this: _God has an unspeakable gift\nfor its people, and we must bear it to them_.\"\n\nHis tall figure was leaning forward and his burning eyes chanced to rest\nfully upon Hubert.  The latter started, and a half audible groan burst\nfrom his lips.  Was it the burden of a new motive, or the sudden smiting\nof a chord he knew right well?  The \"unspeakable gift!\"  Yes, he knew it;\nand its glory was ineffable beyond the highest earthly good he had known.\nHappy the man under commission to bear such a treasure, though it be to\nthe uttermost parts of the earth!  And the great Giver longed to bestow\nit on the millions of His creatures, but waited the unwilling feet of His\nmessengers!  It was heart-breaking!  But was there no other way?  Why\nshould an infinite God limit Himself to finite man in carrying out His\ngreat design?  Mr. Carew continued:\n\n\"You may ask why does God restrict Himself to the human instrument in\nbearing the tidings, and _through the tidings the effective result_, of\nthe Redemption?  I cannot tell you why, but I see that it is so.  A light\nfrom heaven may overpower a Saul of Tarsus, and he may hear words\nstraight from the ascended Christ.  But a Christian _man_--Ananias--must\nbe sent to tell him how to wash away his sins, and to minister the Holy\nSpirit to him.  An angel may communicate with Cornelius, the Centurion,\nbut he stays his lips from uttering the Gospel of Christ.  That privilege\nis reserved for the _human_ lips of Peter.  Is it not sufficient that the\nCommander has said, 'Go _ye_'?  Had the task been set for angels, it\nwould have been accomplished long since, for _they_ do His pleasure.  But\nHe trusted it to us, who might be expected to be so bound by ties of\ngratitude to His will that we would eagerly spring to do His bidding.\nAnd we have miserably failed.  'Is there not another way?' we languidly\nask in the face of the command.  I do not see another way.  But the Lord\nhas most clearly outlined _this_ way: _That the Gospel should be preached\nin all the world to every creature, and that the one who believes and is\nbaptized should be saved_.  To sit and philosophically consider that an\ninfinite God must surely find some other way if we fail in this, is not\nreverence for His wisdom.  It is mutiny.\"\n\nSome of the ladies looked startled at this bold setting forth of the\ncase, and remembered how, privately, they had given voice to the\nsentiments under criticism before coming to the meeting.  The Secretary's\nkeen face betrayed thorough assent to what the speaker was saying, and\nthe President was glad that she held such a relation as she did to a\ncause so evidently right, with a reverse side so evidently wrong.  The\nplain little body of the Church Social beamed thorough sympathy.\n\n\"Do you say,\" continued Mr. Carew, \"that God will be merciful to the\nheathen because of their ignorance?  I believe He will, and do not doubt\nthat it will be 'more tolerable' for those who have never heard than for\nthose in this country (heathen also, in the Scriptural sense) who, having\noften heard, are still rejectors of the Gospel.  But there is a greater\nquestion involved than that of lessened stripes or mitigated woe.  Do you\nsay that men will be _saved_ by lack of knowledge?  The prophet said his\npeople _perished_ for lack of it!  Ah, if God had ordained ignorance to\nbe the way of salvation He might have spared Himself great cost!--cost of\nthe redemption sacrifice, and of its proclamation, often in martyr blood.\nBut He confers His boon to faith and 'faith cometh by _hearing_.'\n\n\"You say it will increase the responsibility of the heathen if they hear,\nand put them in worse case if they reject the message?  Very true.  But\nhad that been a sufficient reason it would have silenced our Lord's 'Go\nye' at the outset of the age.  Never would the Gospel have traveled to\nour barbaric fathers, and we should be without hope to-day.  But the\ntreasure was too great which the Saviour sought.  No thought of deeper\nshadows cast by the very brightness of the light could deter Him from\nholding it forth.  Beyond all cost of difficulty, danger, or the deepened\ncondemnation of the lost, was the value of the Church He sought--the\npearl of great price for which all other possessions might be forfeited!\nAh, friends, since the object is so dear to Him, where are our hearts\nthat we think of it so coldly!  The burden of my plea is _for Him_; not\nfor the missionary, not for philanthropy, not even so much for the\nheathen themselves, as _for Him_, because He loves and longs to give but\nlacks the human vessels through which to give!\"\n\nThe speaker paused, and absently pushed back the hair from his flushed\nforehead.  An almost tragic yearning shone in his deepset eyes.  There\nwas one in the congregation whose heart burned in a fellowship of grief\nover the Saviour's unmet longing.  Mr. Carew continued more slowly, in a\nvoice intensely sad and almost broken:\n\n\"Do you sometimes quote softly for _your_ comfort, 'I will guide thee\nwith mine eye'?  You have thought of His eye upon you--and that is\nright--to care for, protect and lead.  But have you ever watched the\nglance of His eye with another thought, not for yourself, but _for Him_?\nNot to see in it provision and help for you; but to see to what He is\nlooking, for what He is longing--what it is that will give joy to Him?\nWhen I look in His eyes,\" and the speaker was looking far away from his\ncongregation and spoke as though half forgetting them, \"I seem to hear\nHim saying, 'I have other sheep--I _must bring them_!'\"\n\nHis voice sank to a whisper.  Hubert felt a little convulsive movement\nbeside him and Winifred's hand was shading her eyes.  Mr. Carew recovered\nfrom the emotion that nearly mastered him, and remembered his hearers and\ntheir probable wishes.  He began again:\n\n\"But perhaps I am neglecting to tell you that which you came especially\nto hear--some details concerning the actual work of God in China.  You\nwill pardon me, but I cannot forbear speaking wherever I go concerning\nthe principles underlying our work, as well as of the work itself.  One\nmight describe the people and their ways--and all that is valuable in\nmaking them more real to us--and might present a score of curious things\nwhich would perhaps beguile an hour very pleasantly, but still leave an\nindifferent heart unchanged as to the real motive of missions.  However,\nall that I have said will gain and not lose by our turning attention for\na time to the practical outworking of the theory.\"\n\nThen the speaker gave illustrations of the way lost souls are found in\nChina.  Very pathetic were some of the incidents, and again and again\nWinifred's eyes were dim, and an unspeakable pain gnawed at Hubert's\nheart.  Fervently he thanked God for those whose darkness He had turned\nto light, but sad beyond expression seemed the repeated instances which\nhad occurred in Mr. Carew's experience of earnest pleadings for\nmissionaries to be sent to various places and his absolute inability to\nanswer the cry.  But broader than the fact of the _wish_ of some stood\nthe _need_ of all!  Populous cities without one witness to the grace of\nGod!  Wide regions untraversed by the feet of His messengers!  Hubert had\nthought New Laodicea a place of desperate need; and so it was in the\nmatter of vital, fruit-bearing piety.  But as he thought of the inky\ndarkness in which China's millions dwelt this seemed a place of light.\n\nThe meeting came to an end.  But first the President expressed the thanks\nof those who had listened to the lecture, and hoped all had been stirred\nto greater zeal and effort for the future in helping so good a cause.\nShe suggested that the mite-boxes should be redistributed.\n\n\"'Mite-boxes!'\" thought Hubert and squirmed in his seat impatiently.\nThen an inward voice reproved him for his contempt of small things.  He\nthought of the poor that might deposit from time to time small coins that\nmeant much from their slender incomes.  Yes, \"mites\" were all right, if\nthey were like the \"widow's,\" and not the meager drippings from a selfish\nsuperfluity.  But suppose _he_ take a mite-box?  How many of them would\nbe required to hold the hoarded, unnecessary, unused wealth at his\ncommand?  He could not insult the Lord and the \"dearest object of His\nheart\" by an offering unworthy of his resources.\n\nThere was a pleasant buzz of voices at the close of the meeting and\nnobody seemed to be going.  Doctor Schoolman was shaking hands with Mr.\nCarew.  Doors were opened into the parlor and there was the fragrant odor\nof a collation prepared.  For the benevolences of New Laodicea were\nnothing like certain reluctant pumps that will give nothing until they\nhave been given to.  To whet an interest in such meetings as this, and to\ncajole small sums from unwilling purses, it was found necessary to make a\ngastronomic appeal.\n\nHubert and Winifred moved forward to personally express to the lecturer\ntheir appreciation of his words.  Doctor Schoolman greeted them warmly\nand introduced them to him.  Mr. Carew had noticed the two among his\nhearers, and looked at them now with an unconsciously appealing glance.\nHis face was still flushed and the hand Hubert took was hot.\n\n\"You are not well,\" said the latter involuntarily.\n\n\"No,\" said Mr. Carew, rather absently, \"I suppose not.\"\n\n\"I should not think this work you are doing would tend to recovery?\"\n\n\"No, perhaps not,\" said the missionary.\n\nHubert looked at him inquiringly.  \"Then why do you do it?\" he wished to\nask, but refrained.\n\nMr. Carew answered his questioning look.\n\n\"I am not to be pitied,\" he said with a smile, \"even if I should not\nrecover as I hope to do.  Some men are sick and die for pure folly's\nsake, or for business.  They are to be pitied.  But if it were given a\nman to be spent for Christ's sake--to know some faint shadow of suffering\nfor the same cause for which _He_ suffered as we never may--that man is\nhappy, I think.\"\n\n\"He is,\" said Hubert earnestly, \"he is.\"\n\nMr. Carew was struck by the sincerity of Hubert's tones.  He looked at\nhim with a searching, yearning expression; somewhat, it may be, as the\nLord Jesus looked on the rich young man and \"loved him.\"  Would this one\nstand the test of love's requirement?\n\nSome ladies were taking Winifred away to the parlors for refreshments,\nand someone invited Mr. Carew and Hubert also.  They both accepted with\nthe mutual wish to prolong the conversation.  As they ate they talked of\nthe Living Bread which must be borne to men.\n\nIn the course of their conversation Hubert confessed: \"You will be\nastonished, but I have never before seen the matter as you presented it\nto-day, and yet I have been a Christian for three years.\"\n\n\"A good many men have been Christians for many years, and yet have not\ncome to see the true motive of missions,\" said Mr. Carew.  \"It is\nsingular how the most fundamental principles may be most ignored; I\nsuppose somewhat as a man thinks less of the foundation stones of his\nhouse than of what he finds inside it.  But in spite of this if a man has\nreally a heart for God, when the matter is clearly presented to him he\nresponds to it.  God's purpose must find an 'amen' in his heart.\"\n\n\"That is true,\" said Hubert.\n\nPresently they left the parlor, still talking together earnestly of God's\nwill, and inadvertently drifted into the great auditorium.  Mr. Carew\nglanced about at its finished elegance.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" he said to Hubert, \"they think _this_ instead, is doing the\nwill of God.  I daresay they have read that the house Solomon builds for\nGod must be 'exceeding magnifical,' and they think so must this be.  And,\nindeed, the spiritual antitype of that house must be beautiful!  It\n'groweth into a holy temple in the Lord.'  And the work of missions is\ngathering its 'living stones.'  But _this_--the New Testament breathes no\nword of instruction concerning this material house!  Ah, if I were to\nwrite a general confession for our church I should say: 'We have left\nundone the things we were told to do, and we have done the things we were\nnot told to do, and there is very little health in us!'\"\n\nHubert smiled at Mr. Carew's words, but felt their force.  He ventured to\nremark: \"This building does not look as though there were lack of money\namong us.\"\n\n\"Oh, no!\" said Mr. Carew.  \"Oh, no!\"  He repressed his lips, as though\nfearing to say more than would be courteous.  But presently he spoke\nagain in general terms.\n\n\"The church at home,\" he said, \"has largely forgotten her pilgrim\ncharacter.  She has put off her sandals, and loosened her robes for\nluxurious living instead of girding them for service and pilgrimage.  As\nto display and indulgence at home, she says plainly, 'I am rich,' but as\nto the carrying out the will of God entrusted to her for the world, she\nis pitifully poor.\"\n\nThey were emerging from the stately auditorium, and Hubert bethought him\nto look for Winifred.  They met her in one of the rooms with Mrs.\nGreenman.\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Carew,\" said the latter, \"I was looking for you.  Our ladies\nappreciate so very much your talk to us!  I hope--\"\n\nWinifred and Hubert were now speaking together and did not hear more of\nthe President's remarks.  But before they left the place Hubert had\nsought Mr. Carew again and had asked him to call at his office the\nfollowing day.\n\n\"I should like to talk with you further concerning your business,\" he\nsaid.\n\nHe used the word \"business\" absent-mindedly, and Mr. Carew smiled, not at\nall illy pleased with it.  Hubert was thinking of an investment.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nLET THE DEAD BURY THEIR DEAD\n\nWinifred and Hubert walked a part of the way home in silence.  At\nlength the former spoke.\n\n\"It seems to me we have been rather blind concerning the object of\nmissions,\" she said.  \"What do you think of it now, Hubert?\"\n\n\"I am convinced that I have taken a very shallow view of it,\" Hubert\nreplied.  \"It is a marvel to me now that I could have missed so\ncompletely the true motive of missions.  It is as clear as daylight in\nthe Bible.  It is humiliating to think one has been so contentedly\nprovincial in thoughts of God's salvation.  I am ashamed of it.\"\n\n\"So am I,\" agreed Winifred, and then they walked on in silence.  An\nuneasy thought was gnawing at her heart that hardly found expression.\nHad it been put in words it would have been something like this:\n\n\"How are we _to act_ with reference to new light on the will of God?\nIf Hubert and I are really His children, called into His fellowship,\nthen we must be sympathetic with His wish and do what we can to forward\nit.  What would that be?\"\n\nSoon they reached the door of their home.  Home!  What a pleasant word\nit is.  How easily the accustomed key turned in the latch, and how\nfamiliarly the house belongings greeted them as they entered.  Ay,\n\"there's no place like home,\" and its cords wind themselves about us\nsilently, certainly, until it seems almost a sacrilege to think of\nleaving it.\n\nHubert went at once to his room, to the spot where questions were wont\nto be settled, and when dinner was announced he begged to be excused.\n\nWinifred and her father sat alone at the table.  He inquired concerning\nthe missionary meeting, and she rehearsed to him much of what Mr. Carew\nhad said.\n\n\"Ah, very good--very good,\" Mr. Gray said.  \"Very conclusive, I should\nthink.\"\n\nBut it did not occur to him how a conclusive argument and a life action\nmight stand related.  Theories cost nothing when only the mind assents\nto them.  But wrought in the heart, they mold lives after them.\n\nIn Hubert's room a painful heart process was going on.  Sunk in a deep,\ncapacious chair, with head resting upon his hand, he set in order\nbefore himself the axiomatic truths he had heard.\n\n\"God's supreme work is salvation,\" he meditated.  \"The field for this\nwork is the world--the whole world.  Salvation is wrought--as to man's\npart--through faith in a message preached.  The message requires a\nmessenger.  In vast proportions of the field the messengers are\nwanting.  What should be done about it?  Clearly, the messengers should\nrally at the command of God.  But it must be at His command.  Men\ncannot go self-sent.\"\n\nThis thought gave a brief respite to the haunting sense of a\nresponsibility.\n\n\"_Whom shall I send and who will go for us_?\" The double questions\nheard by Isaiah in the temple repeated itself now in Hubert's mind.\n\n\"There are two questions there,\" he said.  \"'Whom shall _I send_, and\nwho will go for us?'  A man can only answer, finally, the second.  God\nmust answer His own first query,--although Isaiah did suggest, 'send\nme.'  Must not any loyal child _if he hear_ his Father's appeal say,\n'Here am I'?\"\n\nHubert's head sank lower upon his hand.\n\n\"Have I heard the voice of His need?\" he asked, but hesitated to answer\nhis own question.  \"Yes,\" he said finally, aloud, in a strained voice,\n\"I have heard.  I can never un-hear His words.  I may disregard them,\nmake myself forget them, but I can never go back to the place of twelve\nhours ago and be as though I had never known His mind.  I have been in\nHis temple--I, a worshiper purged by His infinite grace, I have seen a\nvision of His will, and have heard the voice of His need.  I can never\nundo the fact.\"\n\nLines that somebody had written repeated themselves in his mind:\n\n  \"Light obeyed increaseth light;\n   Light rejected bringeth night.\n   Who shall give me power to choose,\n   If the love of light I lose?\"\n\nWhy did he still hesitate?  Why did his \"here am I\" linger for hours\nunsaid?  A sense of the reality of present things and of home\nsurroundings swept over him.  These were the possible things.  But\nthose--?  He shuddered.  Dim, misty, in a veil of unreality lay China,\na distant land.  What relation had he with it?  There were\nmissionaries, a strange, separated, unusual folk, specially created for\nthe purpose, no doubt; but _he_, a practical, everyday, intensely real\nsort of being--what had he to do with things so far away?  Oh, no!  It\nwas not for him.  Let him put aside the overwrought fancies of the day,\nand return to practical life again.\n\nHe almost rose from his seat as though to emphasize his sober thought,\nbut an impression restrained him.\n\n\"And so I lose My witnesses!\" he imagined his Lord saying with grief.\n\"They are walking by sight and not by faith, and the seen, tangible\nthings hold them.  Who will stretch out his hands to lay hold upon the\nthings of eternal life?\"\n\nHubert sank in rebuked silence under the spell of the afternoon's\ndisclosure.  It was reality, if he were a Christian.  It must be faced.\nBut how the seen things wrestled with the heavenly vision!  Habit, long\nassociation, and tender love mingled a cup of sacrifice that he must\ndrink.  Could he leave all these for the sake of the joyful message of\nhis Lord?\n\nNow imagination pictured the leavetaking.  How the familiar scenes of\nhis home and native city remonstrated with his choice!  In fancy he\nwrung for the last time his father's hand, he bade one last farewell to\nthe flower-dressed grave of his gentle mother, and--and _Winifred_!\n\nA dry, tearless sob shook him.  O sweet sister, loved most of all since\nthe days when, her jealous-eyed protector, he walked beside her to the\nschool, shared sturdily but keenly her childish woes and fought all\nbattles for her!  Loved now with a closer, spiritual tie in their\nmutual devotion to their blessed Lord!  How could he give her up?  How\ncould he leave her undefended now by his watchful love?\n\nThe scene of three years ago when he handed the sword of his\nself-served and self-defended life to Jesus Christ, and purposed in His\nheart to follow Him at any cost, was vividly rehearsed in his memory.\nPossessions, home, kindred, all things, were nominated in the bond of\nthe whole-hearted surrender to his Lord.  The time had come to hold to\nthose honest terms.\n\nHubert rose from his seat with a pale face, and a death-like sinking at\nhis heart.  \"Yes, Lord Jesus,\" he uttered with dry lips, \"I am at Thy\ncommand.  Forgive my coward halting.  If Thou wilt send me, I will go.\"\n\n\nOn the other side of the hall, in her pretty room, Winifred had prayed:\n\"We have seen the glance of Thine eye, O Lord, and know Thy longing.\nOpen our eyes to see how we may serve Thee, and strengthen our hearts\nto bear--nay, to love!--Thy will.  If we must give each other up\"--a\nlong pause, broken by storms of weeping, intervened--\"then let us\nsee--oh, _let us see Thy face_!\"\n\n\nWhen Winifred and Hubert first met in the hall next morning some gleams\nof comfort had already stolen into both their hearts.  He put his arm\nabout her as they descended the stairs together, and at the foot they\npaused.\n\n\"Dear little sister!\" he said caressingly.\n\nHer eyes filled at his unusual tenderness; for Hubert's love, however\nfervent and well believed-in, was not demonstrative.  She looked up in\nhis face with a long, serious question.  He answered it by asking:\n\n\"Shall I go?--for Him, Winnie?\"\n\n\"Yes, Hubert,\" she said earnestly, \"oh, yes!\"  But the color flickered\nin her cheeks and her lips grew white.\n\nThey stood for a moment together but neither spoke.  Together they\npresented afresh their offering to God, and He knew that it was costly.\n\nAt breakfast neither spoke of the matter that was uppermost in their\nhearts.  But later Hubert sought his father in the library and made\nknown to him the step he had taken.\n\nGrief, dismay, and almost anger, struggled in the older man's heart.\nHe looked at his son with sorrowful sternness.\n\n\"Then--then, Hubert,\" he said very slowly, \"you have concluded to leave\nme.\"\n\nA pang shot through Hubert's heart, keener than any thought of his own\npain, but he answered steadily:\n\n\"I have concluded, father, to follow Christ.\"\n\nMr. Gray frowned.  He was not conscious of frowning at the name of\nChrist, or at so pure a sentiment as that uttered, but grief made him\ninsensible to what he did.\n\n\"And is that,\" he asked with some irony, \"the only way you can find of\nfollowing Him?  Can no one follow Him at home?\"\n\n\"I do not see that he can if he is called abroad, father.\"\n\n\"And are you called?\" he asked sharply, still the pain at his heart\ndulling any sense of shame that he could speak unsympathetically of\nsuch a thing.\n\nHubert answered gently.\n\n\"I believe I am, father,\" he said.\n\nMr. Gray stared at his son silently.  His face grew ashen and the hand\nupon the table before him trembled visibly.  Hubert stood in an agony\nof mute sympathy.  At last the father rose without a word and prepared\nto leave the room.  His face looked older by a decade than an hour\nbefore.  Hubert made a movement to detain him and opened his lips to\nspeak; but the other waved him aside with a quick gesture of the\ntrembling hand.  And so they parted.\n\nHubert looked after his father with a breaking heart.  He had thought\nthe crisis of his grief was passed when alone in his room he wrestled\nout the problem for his own heart.  But now a heavier weight rested\nupon his soul.  Must he break his father's heart?  Must the hope of\nhappy comradeship in future years be put aside, and with the\ndisappointment his father age and weaken irrecoverably?  He saw him\nwalk down the path slowly and heavily, and a feeling of awful guilt\nswept over him.  Was he his father's murderer?  Was he following a\ndelusion that would make himself an exile and lay his father\nprematurely in his grave?  The thought overpowered him.  He sank\nhelplessly in a chair and groaned out his burden to the Lord.\n\n\"O Lord,\" he prayed, \"am I walking in Thy footsteps, or am I a deluded\nwretch, bringing sorrow, and it may be death, to those I love most?\"\nHe paused, and his head sank deeply.  \"Lord, this is grief,\" he\ngroaned.  \"This is grief.  I have not known it before.\"\n\nAnd so it seemed.  Thoughts of his own loneliness and possible\nhardships seemed light compared with this.\n\n\"Grief!\" he repeated, as though he found relief in the pitiful uttering\nof the word whose depths he was sounding.  Then memory framed a passage\nwhich held the same word.  \"A man of sorrows,\" it repeated, \"and\n_acquainted with grief_!\"\n\nHow sweet the words sounded!  And how dear the imagined face of Him of\nwhom they were spoken!\n\n\"Tell me of Thy grief,\" he whispered.  \"Didst Thou cause grief?\"\n\nWords of Scripture again came to his help.\n\n\"Yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul,\" he heard Simeon say\nto the mother of his Lord, and it dawned upon him that when Jesus faced\nthe cross with its agony He must have felt through His tenderest of\nhearts the sword-piercing of His Mother's sorrow.  Ah, yes!  He caused\ngrief.  And as He took His own way to the cross He raised a standard\nfor those who follow of pitiless separations and of broken ties, if\nneed be, for His kingdom's sake.  \"_If any man cometh unto Me, and,\nhateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and\nbrethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My\ndisciple_.\"\n\nTexts that Hubert had passed lightly before were now illuminated with\nmeaning and power as the occasion rose for them to be translated into\nlife.  He found a rare sweetness of comfort in those which assured him\nthat he need not fear he was out of the path of the Saviour's\nfootprints, though he found them blood-marked or washed with many\ntears.  He turned to some familiar words which he wished to see before\nhim again in plain black and white.  They were found toward the end of\nthe ninth chapter of Luke.\n\n\"Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father,\" said one in response\nto his Lord's \"follow me.\"  And said Jesus, \"_Let the dead bury their\ndead, but go thou and preach the kingdom of God_.\"\n\n\"Let the dead bury their dead!\"  What a strange expression, and what\ncould it mean!  Hubert pondered the text, no longer in keen agony of\nmind, for his distress had lightened as he saw even on the painful way\nthe light of God's will shining.  Anything could be borne, if the face\nof the Lord still shone upon it!\n\n\"What does it mean?\" he queried in deep meditation.\n\nSlowly a meaning, not the full one, doubtless, but suited to his need,\ndawned upon him.  Let the spiritually dead attend to the affairs of\ndeath.  Let them follow the conventional, natural round, and answer\nalways to the cries of human love and longing.  Let them keep to\nearthly ties and earthly work.  But let the living be about the affairs\nof life!  A ministry waits that only living hands can serve.  Let\nfilial hearts render unto earthly love that which is due, but see that\n_thou_, child of God, render also unto God the things which are God's.\n\n\"There are a thousand things,\" thought Hubert, \"that unregenerated men\ncan do quite as well as any.  Indeed, they have an affinity with\nearthly things that is lacking in the heaven-born man.  To trade in\niron and amass wealth does not require a living man.  I will let others\ndo it.  The supreme business of my Father calls, and I must be about\nit.  But my earthly father?  Shall I wait first to bury him?  The Lord\nsays, No.\"\n\nHubert studied his pattern in His life as well as words.\n\n\"He was subject to His parents,\" he reflected, \"until the time came for\nHis ministry and He had reached mature years of responsibility.  Then,\nwhen He had entered upon His task, not even His mother's voice could\nturn Him from it.  When His friends thought Him beside Himself, and she\nwith them sought to take Him away from His work, He said, 'Who is My\nmother? . . .  Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my\nbrother and sister and mother.'  But He still was not unfilial.  When\nnot even the thought of the sword through her heart could take Him from\nthe cross, He made provision for her, commending her to John's faithful\nlove.\"\n\nHubert's eyes grew soft again with thoughts of his father.  There was\nno need to think of provision for him, for he had enough.  But he\nlonged to give him always the joy of a son's tender love and\ncompanionship.  Still the supreme call was inexorable, and another\nFather's business demanded filial fellowship.\n\n\"Thou must care for him, Lord,\" he said, and with a sudden impulse he\nknelt beside the library table and prayed that God would take away all\nthe sting of his father's grief, and give him joy instead; joy in\nfellowship with the great Father in His giving.\n\nAfter prayer he was much relieved and went to his work as usual,\nadmitting to his office soon after his arrival Mr. Carew, who called in\nresponse to his wish of the day before.  Hubert had more to offer than\nthe financial gift contemplated.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nGOD, MY EXCEEDING JOY\n\nA heavy cloud hung over the house for days.  Mr. Gray was silent and\nsad.  All attempts to renew the conversation of that painful Thursday\nmorning were waived aside.  Hubert was at a loss to know how to proceed\nwith his project, but he and Winifred gave themselves to diligent\nprayer.  As to the latter, sharp as was her grief at the thought of\nparting with her brother, her love for God was stronger, and she did\nnot hesitate for a moment in her consent that he should go.\n\n\"I do not know any other answer to give to God,\" she said.  \"Surely I\nhave nothing too precious for Him, when He has given all to me.  And\nyou know,\" she said with a radiant smile, \"Hubert and I can never lose\neach other!  We cannot lose what is in Christ!\"\n\nShe made these remarks to Adele Forrester, to whom the matter of\nHubert's call to foreign service was communicated.  Her friend listened\nvery quietly.\n\nAdele had been steadily growing in God's grace since the day when His\nway of salvation dawned so brightly upon her.  She was the same\nmerry-hearted young woman as before, but a certain womanly sweetness,\nnever really lacking beneath the gay exterior, developed in\never-increasing winsomeness.  A capacity for intense enjoyment found\nnew sources for its filling in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and she\npursued faithfully and happily the ways she saw of serving Him.  To-day\nshe received Winifred's news with evident sympathy, but with a reserve\nof feeling not expressed.\n\n\"Our Bishop preached a splendid missionary sermon two weeks ago,\" she\nremarked.  \"He made things very plain indeed.  I think we all felt that\nwe had been almost traitors in not rallying to the Lord's standard\nbetter than we had done.  Even Dick paid some attention, for he said\nafter church--you know what a tease he is--'_now_ I hope you see where\nyou ought to be!'\"\n\n\"Oh, Adele,\" said Winifred, \"I haven't thought to ask you in months how\nthe choir is getting along.  The mention of Dick reminds me.  Do you\nstill enjoy your singing?\"\n\nAdele laughed.  \"My 'occupation's gone,'\" she said.  \"We are supplanted\nby a boy choir.  The present minister likes that better.  A saucy\nlittle fellow who brings our evening paper and fights his business\ncompetitors once in a while is one of our successors.  He looks quite\ncherubic in a surplice.\"\n\n\"And you?\"\n\n\"I sing praises in the congregation, and what is left over I sometimes\noffer in the mission.\"\n\n\"So you still keep up your service at the mission?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes!\"\n\nAdele did not add how much appreciated were those services, nor how she\nhad added visitation amongst the families represented at the mission to\nthe evident blessing of not a few.\n\nTheir conversation drifted back to the subject of Hubert's leaving, and\nAdele entered a compact of prayer for the right development of all\nthings relating to it.\n\nGradually the Spirit of God wrought in the heart of Robert Gray.  He\nwas led to think of the darkness of unbelief out of which his son had\nbeen brought, and to consider how fitting a thing it was that a life\nthus renewed should be held at the command of God.  But it was hard to\nthink of him as a foreign missionary!  Mr. Gray had believed\ntheoretically in the cause of missions and had given a yearly\nsubscription to the society representing it.  But to give his son--ah,\nthat was a different matter!  At the first shock of the thought he had\nrecoiled, and a naturally stubborn heart kept the question at bay for a\ntime.  But he could not long fight with God.  The fellowship lost while\nhe steeled his heart against the unwelcome demand was too great a price\nto pay.  Gradually it came to him that the greater weight that bowed\nhis soul and took the joyous spring from life was not Hubert's proposed\nleaving, but the hiding of God's face.\n\n\"In thy favor is life,\" he prayed.  \"Any bereavement would be better\nthan for Thee to hide Thy face from me.\"\n\nAnd the Face shone out again as his softened will loosened its\ntenacious grip of that it held.  But still he was a man of strong\nopinions, and slow to be convinced that his clear-headed, business-like\nson was the one to follow the still hazy-seeming, far-off life of a\nmissionary.\n\nIt was a happy day when the ban was lifted from the subject and Hubert\nwas free to discuss it with his father and arrange business matters for\na separation.  A new element in the matter taxed the sympathy of the\nhard-headed business man, when it became apparent that his hitherto\npractical son intended not only withdrawing his active partnership from\nthe firm of Robert Gray & Son, but to sell his interest in the concern,\nliberating the proceeds for the use of God.\n\n\"What folly!\" said the elder man frankly.\n\n\"Do you remember our discussion of the Scripture about it?\" replied\nHubert, smiling.  \"I think I submitted to you the conclusions drawn\nfrom a study concerning it.  I might as well act upon my convictions,\nor I shall lose them.  You know what James says about the 'hearers\nonly' of the word?\"\n\n\"Yes, I know what he says,\" said his father a little testily.  \"But\nabout this money question there must be a sensible middle course\nsomewhere between a fanatical giving away everything you have and a\nclose-fisted holding on to it all.  Give to the Lord of your first\nfruits, certainly.  That is a good thing.  But a man ought to look out\nfor himself.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Hubert, \"I believe there is a rational course to be\nfollowed, and perhaps the Lord may not wish to hereafter provide for me\nmiraculously that which I now have in hand naturally.  I do not see all\nthe details clearly yet.  But certainly over and above my own\nnecessities--which will be simple--there is something to lay at once at\nthe feet of the Lord.  I am glad I have so much for Him.\"\n\n\"Don't let your enthusiasm run away with your common sense.  Try to be\npractical.\"\n\n\"I think I am practical,\" said Hubert, smiling again, \"although it is\nhard for a man to judge his own actions.  It seems to me the practical\nway to give is to give.  The people whom I consider impractical are\nthose who, having an abundance for themselves, dole out pittances for\nthe Lord and regret they are so little!  The poor, perplexed ladies in\nthe missionary society vex their brains in planning how to 'raise'\nsomething for Him.  They take mite-boxes themselves, and they encourage\nthe gifts of the poor, the children, the babies--and even the dolls, I\nam told!  It is very pathetic.  But why does it never occur to them--to\nthose who can afford it, I mean--to _give_?  That is what I should call\npractical.  I suppose Mrs. Greenman did not find much difficulty in\n'raising' enough money to pay for her swell reception the day after the\nmissionary meeting, I saw the street lined with carriages and heard an\norchestra playing inside as I passed.  We can imagine the decorations\nand the fine gowning.  Now that was practical.  What she wanted was a\nfine display, and she practically put her hand in her pocket and paid\nfor it.  But she says they cannot all do what they would like for\nmissions!  Why do they plead poverty there?  Mrs. Greenman would not\nlike to have her husband poorly rated in Bradstreet's, and I am sure\nshe did not wish to have her guests the other day think of poverty.\nBut before the Lord--ah, maybe that is what they think it is to be\n'_poor in spirit_!'  But if they would be honest!  If she should say,\nnow, in the missionary meeting: 'The amount raised is not what we might\nhave given, but it is all we really wish to give in view of the\nluncheon parties, fine dresses, and all that sort of thing, that we\nfind more important,'  I think that way of putting it would be\npractical, and honest withal.\"\n\nMr. Gray actually laughed, and the sound was music to his son's ears.\n\n\"Very good, Hubert,\" he said.  \"You had better give them a lecture.\"\n\n\"Had I not better give them an object lesson?\" Hubert suggested instead.\n\n\"There is one thing you cannot do,\" Mr. Gray said with a sly triumph.\nHubert looked at him inquiringly.  \"You cannot give away your mother's\nlegacy.  The terms of the will provide for that.  The property cannot\nbe alienated.\"\n\nHubert looked at his father blankly for a moment.  The fact stated he\nhad quite forgotten.\n\n\"You are right,\" he exclaimed.  Then his brow cleared of its blank\nsurprise and he laughed.  \"That settles it about the rest,\" he said.\n\"The income from that property will amply support me and any poor\ninterests a humble missionary may have.\"\n\n\"Just so,\" said his father.  \"Or it might maintain a poor fool who had\nmissed his calling and was sent home.\"\n\nHubert laughed again.  \"Quite so,\" he assented.\n\nAnd so the clouds broke away from over the house of Gray.  A restored\nmutual understanding gave relief amounting to joy even in the face of\ncoming separation.\n\nHubert's enterprise, like a great ship, could not be launched hastily.\nMonths of preparation passed in which the business matter was finally\nsettled and other affairs adjusted.  It was finally concluded that the\nentire business of Robert Gray & Son should be sold, as the senior\npartner did not wish to carry it on without his son.\n\n\"It is not a question of the poor-house if you do give it up now,\nfather,\" Hubert said to him, and he assented.\n\nThe missionary-to-be found himself called to many places to speak on\nbehalf of the cause, and he did so with great readiness.  His intense\nardor caused his words to burn their way into many hearts.  Again and\nagain his own heart was overwhelmed within him by the greatness of his\ntheme.  Cold figures became burning facts as he looked at the wide\nareas untouched by the Gospel.  The slighted wish of his Lord became an\nanguish in his soul.  That men and women should call themselves by His\nname and still live unto themselves, never grieved by His message\nundelivered, His errand of love undone, was a shame intolerable.\nSometimes when the passion for his Lord's will swept his soul, and he\nbeheld in contrast the idle hands of the church, paralyzed by pleasure\nor filled with self-interests, in secret he cast himself upon his face\nand wept as only a strong man, unused to tears, can weep.\n\nThe heart of Robert Gray turned with increasing fondness to his\ndaughter who still saw her place to be at his side.  A great comfort\nwas she to him in these days of trial.  For herself, Winifred was\nfinding out afresh \"the sweetness of an accepted sorrow.\"  The joy of\nthe Lord was inexpressible.  She could scarcely understand the gladness\nthat filled her soul after sacrifice \"more than when their corn and\ntheir wine increased.\"\n\n\"Why are you so radiant?\" Adele asked in one of their many conferences.\n\n\"I do not know,\" she answered, blushing at being surveyed so\nadmiringly.  \"But do you remember that Psalm, Adele, that says:\n\n  \"'O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me,\n  Let them bring me unto thy holy hill'--\n\n\"that is getting very near to God, Adele--\n\n  \"'And to thy tabernacles.\n\n\"That is nearer still; but listen to that that comes next:\n\n  \"'Then will I go unto the altar of God,\n  Unto God my exceeding joy.'\n\n\"I think this is the reason why I am so happy.  His light and His truth\nhave led me to His holy precincts and I have gone to His altar--to the\naltar of burnt offering.  And, Adele,\"--her eyes filled with tears of\nan inexpressible gladness--\"it is _there_ we find Him to be our\n'exceeding joy.'  I cannot explain it--I cannot even tell it--but He is\n'_my exceeding joy_!'\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Adele, her own eyes filling.  \"I have found Him there.\nAnd I think one reason why so many Christians seem to have no joy is\nbecause they have not come to His altar in the sense you mean.  Perhaps\nthey have seen Christ there for them in some sense, but have never\nquite taken their place there with Him.  Do you remember, too,\nWinifred, that it was when the burnt offering began on that great\noccasion in Hezekiah's time that 'the song of the Lord began also?'\"\n\n\"Oh, yes!\" Winifred responded.  \"'The song of the Lord!'  It has surely\nbegun here, Adele.\"\n\nAnd so it had, indeed.  That evening as Hubert returned from a busy day\nin town he found his sister singing;\n\n  \"'O joy that seekest me through pain,\n  I cannot close my heart to thee;\n  I trace the rainbow through the rain,\n  And feel the promise is not vain\n  That morn shall tearless be.'\"\n\n\"Singing, little sister?\" was his greeting.\n\n\"Yes, Hubert.  That has been much of my occupation to-day.\"\n\n\"That is good,\" he replied.  \"By the way, I heard some news in town\nto-day.\"  He endeavored to speak carelessly, but looked at her\napprehensively.\n\n\"Yes?  What is it?\"\n\nHe walked to the window and examined a flower with apparent interest.\n\n\"I hear that George Frothingham's engagement to Miss Randolph, the\nbanker's daughter, is announced.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Winifred calmly, \"I saw that in the morning paper.  You\nneed not have been afraid to tell me, Hubert.  His engagement is a\nmatter of perfect indifference to me.\"\n\n\"Thank the Lord!\" Hubert exclaimed impulsively.\n\n\"Amen,\" she responded, still calmly.\n\nOn another evening Hubert returned with still another piece of news.\nHe had gone to the Cleary Street Mission to speak, and was late in\nreturning.  Winifred, who loved to hear accounts of all his meetings,\nwaited up for him.  She was in her little sitting-room when he\nreturned.  He came straight to her door and answered her ready \"come\nin\" with a light step and glowing face.  He plunged at the special\nmatter of joy at once.\n\n\"Winifred,\" he said, \"I am not going to China alone.\"\n\nThe color changed in her face at the sudden announcement.\n\n\"Who--who is it, Hubert?  Is it--?\"\n\n\"Adele.\"\n\n\"Oh, Hubert, I am so glad!\" she cried joyfully, and kissed him in warm\ncongratulation.\n\nThen suddenly the thought of her own loss intruded.  Must she give her\nup also?  Her eager gladness turned to a burst of tears.  How swept of\nall whom she had loved, except her dear father, seemed the home scenes\nnow.  She would gladly have restrained herself for Hubert's sake, but\nthe sudden grief was uncontrollable.  She sobbed convulsively, as when\nyears ago some childish grief had broken in storms upon her and Hubert\nhad stood by in tearless but painful sympathy, suggesting boyish\nconsolations, ready to sacrifice any plaything or possession that might\nmend her broken heart.  Now he stood helplessly before this passionate\noutburst.\n\n\"Forgive me, Winifred,\" he said contritely, \"it is cruel of me to take\nher away.\"\n\n\"No, it isn't,\" sobbed Winifred.  \"It is just--what I--wished.  Only--I\nshall--miss her so!\"\n\n\"Of course,\" he replied pitifully.\n\nThe storm subsided, and Winifred looked at her brother apologetically.\n\n\"I am ashamed,\" she said, still with long catches in her breath.  \"I\ncouldn't help it.  I am not sorry--she is going--I am very glad!\"\n\n\"You are very brave,\" he said.\n\n\"But it's true,\" she persisted.  \"It's all over now, Hubert.  I shall\nnot cry like that again.  Let us talk about it.\"\n\nThey talked about it till the small hours came.  Winifred's face\ncleared of every trace of sorrow, and she loved to think of the cheer\nand help that Hubert would have in the far-off land.  No braver heart\nof all they knew could have been found to share his pilgrimage; and\nthey imagined how Adele's keen sense of humor might turn many a sorry\nhappening into mirth.  Also she had served an apprenticeship here among\nthe poor and outcast whom she had come to love and who loved her well.\n\n\"Winifred,\" said Hubert suddenly in the midst of their conversation,\n\"Gerald Bond is to preach for Dr. Schoolman next Sunday.\"\n\nFor some reason best known to himself he watched her countenance\nnarrowly as he made the announcement.  But her fair face showed only\nsweet unconsciousness.\n\n\"Really?\" she said.  \"I am very glad.\"\n\n\"We must have him with us if we can.  I long to talk with him about\nthese new things.\"\n\n\"Certainly.  You must invite him, Hubert.\"\n\n\"Winnie,\" said her brother, \"I seem to have a spirit of prophesy upon\nme to-night.  Almost I can see the path before us with some of its\nlights and shadows.  Oh, there will be compensations for all sorrows!\"\n\n\"I know it,\" she said earnestly.\n\n\"You will say it is my own great joy that God has given that makes me\nprophesy.  Perhaps it is.  But I see this, Winnie; He will never be in\nour debt when we yield our all to Him.  Sweet surprises, unlooked for\njoys, will be thrown in all the way.  Goodness and mercy shall follow\nus all our days!\"\n\n\"I believe it, Hubert, and then--we shall dwell in the house of the\nLord forever!\"\n\nHe drew her to the low open window, and they stepped together into the\nbalcony.  The lights of the city were still burning, but in the east a\nflickering star was proclaiming the not distant advent of a greater\nlight.\n\n\"Do you see the parable in lights, Winnie?  See how brightly the street\nis lighted.  No one need lose his way or bemoan the darkness, though it\nis night.  But yonder is a prophet of a fuller light.  He is saying,\n'The sun will come.'  Here is my parable: It is night, surely, while\nour Lord is still away.  But He gives us light.  No way will ever be\ncheerless for you and me, little sister.  I know He will give me as I\ngo numberless pleasures, fresh interests, and boundless consolation in\nHimself for all that is left behind.  And for you, Winifred, I almost\nsee some rare, sweet blessings over your dear head, just ready to fall\nupon it.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Winifred, \"I am sure it's true.  I have been singing to-day,\n\n  \"'Glory to Thee for all the grace\n  I have not tasted yet!'\"\n\n\"These are like the lights in the city, Winnie, but there is a day-star\nin our hearts that is foretelling the perfect day.  Presently the grace\nof the journeying shall give way to the eternal glory--to the\nhomecoming!  Look, sister, do you see that impulse of the dawn, as\nthough the darkness pulsated with premonition of its coming?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Winifred, with deep gladness in her voice.  \"The coming of\nthe Lord draweth nigh.\"","title":"The first soprano","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":51002}