Hills of the Shatemuc Part 142

The day itself was very like yesterday. Elizabeth listened a minute to the sparrow and the locust and the summer wind, but presently she felt that they were overcoming her; and she opened her book to the first chapter of Matthew. She was very curious to find her first _obligation_. Not that she was unconscious of many resting upon her already; but those were vague, old, dimly recognized obligations; she meant to take them up now definitely, in the order in which they might come.

She half paused at the name in the first verse, -- was there not a shadow of obligation hanging around that? But if there were, she would find it more clearly set forth and in detail as she went on. She pa.s.sed it for the present.

From that she went on smoothly as far as the twenty-first verse. That stopped her.

"And she shall bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall save his people from their sins."

"'_His people_,' --" thought Elizabeth. "I am not one of his people. Ought I not to be?"

The words of the pa.s.sage did not say; but an imperative whisper at her heart said "Ay!"

"_His people!_ -- but how can I be one of his people?" she thought again. And impatience bade her turn over the leaf, and find something more or something else; but conscience said, "Stop -- and deal with this obligation first."

"What obligation? -- '_He shall save his people from their sins_.' Then certainly I ought to let him save me from mine -- that is the least I can do. But what is the first thing -- the first step to be taken? I wish Mr. Landholm was here to tell me. --"

She allowed herself to read on to the end of the page, but that gave her not much additional light. She would not turn over the leaf; she had no business with the second obligation till the first was mastered; she sat looking at the words in a sort of impatient puzzle; and not permitting herself to look forward, she turned back a leaf. That gave her but the t.i.tlepage of the New Testament. She turned back another, to the last chapter of the Old. Its opening words caught her eye.

"For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch."

"_The proud, and they that do wickedly_ -- that is my character and name truly," thought Elizabeth. "I am of them. -- And it is from this, and this fate, that 'his people' shall be delivered. But how shall I get to be of them?" Her eye glanced restlessly up to the next words above --

"Then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth G.o.d and him that serveth him not."

"'_Then_,' -- in that day," -- thought Elizabeth, "I can discern between them now, without waiting for that. -- Winthrop Landholm is one that serveth G.o.d -- I am one that serve him not. There is difference enough, I can see now -- but this speaks of the difference at that day; another sort of difference. -- Then I ought to be a servant of G.o.d --"

The obligation was pretty plain.

"Well, I will, when I find out how," -- she began. But conscience checked her.

"This is not the first chapter of Matthew," she said then. "I will go back to that."

Her eye fell lower, to the words,

"But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings."

The tears started to Elizabeth's eyes. "This is that same who will save his people from their sins, -- is it? -- and that is his healing? Oh, I want it! -- There is too much difference between me and them. He shall save his people from their sins, -- I have plenty, -- plenty. But how? -- and what shall I do? It don't tell me here."

It did not; yet Elizabeth could not pa.s.s on. She was honest; she felt an obligation, arising from these words, which yet she did not at once recognize. It stayed her. She must do something -- what could she do? It was a most unwelcome answer that at last slid itself into her mind. _Ask_ to be made one of 'his people' -- or to be taught how to become one? Her very soul started. _Ask?_ -- but now the obligation stood full and strong before her, and she could cease to see it no more. _Ask?_ -- why she never did such a thing in her whole life as ask G.o.d to do anything for her. Not of her own mind, at her own choice, and in simplicity; her thoughts and feelings had perhaps at some time joined in prayers made by another, and in church, and in solemn time. But here? with the blue sky over her, in broad day, and in open air? It did not seem like praying time. Elizabeth shut her book. Her heart beat. Duty and she were at a struggle now; she knew which must give way, but she was not ready yet. It never entered her head to question the power or the will to which she must apply herself, no more than if she had been a child. Herself she doubted; she doubted not him. Elizabeth knew very little of his works or word, beyond a vague general outline, got from sermons; but she knew one servant of G.o.d. That servant glorified him; and in the light which she saw and loved, Elizabeth could do no other but, in her measure, to glorify him too. She did not doubt, but she hesitated, and trembled.

The song of the birds and the flow of the water mocked her hesitancy and difficulty. But Elizabeth was honest; and though she trembled she would not and could not disobey the voice of conscience which set before her one clear, plain duty. She was in great doubt whether to stand or to kneel; she was afraid of being seen if she knelt; she would not be so irreverent as to pray sitting; she rose to her feet, and clasping a cedar tree with her arms, she leaned her head beside the trunk, and whispered her prayer, to him who saves his people from their sins, that he would make her one of them, she did not know how, she confessed; she prayed that he would teach her.

She kept her position and did not move her bended head, till the tears which had gathered were fallen or dried; then she sat down and took up her book again and looked down into the water. What had she done? Entered a pledge, she felt, to be what she had prayed to be; else her prayer would be but a mockery, and Elizabeth was in earnest. "What a full-grown fair specimen he is of his cla.s.s," she thought, her mind recurring again to her adviser and exemplar; "and I -- a poor ignorant thing in the dark, groping for a bit of light to begin!" -- The tears gathered again; she opened the second chapter of Matthew.

She looked off again to feel glad. Was a pledge entered only on her side? -- was there not an a.s.surance given somewhere, by lips that cannot lie, that prayer earnestly offered should not be in vain? She could not recall the words, but she was sure of the thing; and there was more than one throb of pleasure, and a tiny shoot of grateful feeling in her heart, before Elizabeth went back to her book. What was the next 'obligation'? She was all ready for it.

Nothing stopped her much in the second chapter. The 'next obligation' did not start up till the words of John the Baptist in the beginning of the third --

"Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

"What is repentance? -- and what is the kingdom of heaven?"

pondered Elizabeth. "I wish somebody was here to tell me.

Repent? -- I know what it is to repent -- it is to change one's mind about something, and to will just against what one willed before. -- And what ought I to repent about? -- Everything wrong! _Everything wrong!_ -- That is, to turn about and set my face just the other way from what it has been all my life! -- I might as good take hold of this moving earth with my two fingers and give it a twist to go westwards. --"

Elizabeth shut up her book, and laid it on the moss beside her.

"Repent? -- yes, it's an obligation. Oh what shall I do with it! --"

She would have liked to do with it as she did with her head -- lay it down.

"These wrong things are iron-strong in me -- how can I unscrew them from their fastenings, and change all the out-goings and in-comings of my mind? -- when the very hands that must do the work have a bent the wrong way. How can I? -- I am strong for evil -- I am weak as a child for good."

"I will try!" she said the next instant, lifting her head up -- "I will _try_ to do what I can. -- But that is not changing my whole inner way of feeling -- that is not _repenting_. Perhaps it will come. Or is this determination of mine to _try_, the beginning of it? I do not know that it is -- I cannot be sure that it is. No -- one might wish to be a good lawyer, without at all being willing to go through all the labour and pains for it which Winthrop Landholm has taken. -- No, _this_ is not, or it may not be, repentance -- I cannot be sure that it is anything. But will it not come? or how can I get it? How alone I am from all counsel and help! -- Still it must be my duty to try -- to try to do particular things right, as they come up, even though I cannot feel right all at once. And if I try, won't the help come, and the knowledge? -- What a confusion it is! In the midst of it all it is my duty to repent, and I haven't the least idea how to set about it, and I can't do it!

O I wish Winthrop Landholm was here! --"

Elizabeth pondered the matter a good deal; and the more she thought about it, the worse the confusion grew. The duty seemed more imminent, the difficulty more obstinate. She was driven at last, unwillingly again, to her former ressource -- what she could not give herself, to ask to have given her. She did it, with tears again, that were wrung from breaking pride and weary wis.h.i.+ng. More quietly then she resolved to lay off perplexing care, and to strive to meet the moment's duty, as it arose. And by this time with a very humbled and quieted brow, she went on with her chapter. The words of the next verse caught her eye and her mind at once.

"For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."

"Is not this it?" cried Elizabeth. "If I do my part -- all I can -- is not that _preparing the way_ for him to do what I cannot do?"

She thought so, at any rate, and it comforted her.

"Miss 'Lizabeth," said Clam, just behind her, "Karen wants to know what time you'll have dinner?"

"I don't care."

"That's 'zackly Karen's time o' day," said Clam discontentedly.

"I don't care at all, Clam."

"And she says, _what_ 'll you have?"

"Nothing -- or anything. Don't talk to me about it."

"Ain't much good in choosing," said Clam, "when there ain't three things to choose from. How long can you live on pork, Miss 'Lizabeth?"

Elizabeth looked up impatiently.