A Circuit Rider's Wife Part 8

In regard to the latter I will say I think some very good people will be obliged to wait until they actually get in the Kingdom of Heaven before they experience the s.h.i.+ne and illumination of a spiritual nature. I have seen many a one of this cla.s.s on William's Circuits, and they are about the most difficult saints of all to manage, because they could do what they conceived to be their duty and listen a lifetime to the gospel without ever catching the least hint of its real significance. The strongest sermon William could preach on "Sell all your goods and follow me" never induced a single rich man to do it. He was fortunate if such a man gave five dollars extra to foreign missions on the strength of the appeal.

The wonderful thing about William was that these facts never clouded his convictions or discouraged him. He had a faith over and above the vain pomps and show of this world. He wore clothes so old they glistened along every seam, and little thin white ties, and darned s.h.i.+rts, and was forever stinting himself further for the sake of some collection to which he wanted to contribute. And all these made him an embarra.s.singly impressive figure when he looked out over the gew-gaws of his Sunday congregation, calling upon them to sell all their goods to feed the poor, or to lay down their life for Him, or to put on the whole armor of G.o.d and present their bodies a living sacrifice, which was their reasonable service. Maybe if he had especial "liberty" in his delivery there would be a lively response of "Amens" from the brethren. Maybe some old black bonneted sister would slap her hands and shout a little on the side, but n.o.body ever really did the things he told them to do. If they had, William alone could have revolutionized human society in the course of his ministry. But he was never aware of his failure. He was like a man holden in a heavenly vision, a man supping in one long dream upon the milk and honey of far off Canaan.

For this reason, as I have said, he sometimes blundered in the world about him and I had to come to the rescue.

We were stationed at Arkville, a small village with two country churches attached to make up the Circuit, when this incident happened which will serve to ill.u.s.trate what I mean. The congregation was composed for the most part of men and women who worked in a cotton factory, and of one rich man who owned it. He was that most ferocious thing in human shape, a just man, with a thimble-headed soul, a narrow mind and a talent for making money. He had built the church at Arkville and he paid nearly all the a.s.sessments. He was a despot, with a reputation among his employees of having mercy upon whom he would have mercy. William never understood him. He regarded Brother Sears as a being remarkably generous, and capable of growing in grace. Sears accordingly flattered and honored the church with his presence every Sunday during the first six months of his ministry.

But there came a dreadful Sabbath when William read for his New Testament lesson the story of Dives's extraordinary prosperity in this world, dwelt with significant and sympathetic inflection upon the needy condition of Lazarus lying neglected outside his gate, afflicted with sores. Then he capped the climax, after the singing of the second hymn, by reading out in a deep, sonorous, judgment-trumpet voice:

"And Dives being in torment lifted up his eyes to Abraham in heaven and begged for a drop of water to cool his parched tongue."

It was a tropical text and William preached a burning sermon from it.

As he grew older the vision of h.e.l.l seemed to fade and he laid the scenes of his discourses nearer and nearer the fragrant outskirts of Heaven, but he was now in his hardy old age, and occasionally took a severely good man's obtuse pleasure in picturing the penitentiary pangs of sinners.

I shall always retain a vivid memory of that service--William standing in the little yellow pine-box pulpit with his long gray beard spread over his breast, and his blue eyes shadowed with his dark thoughts of Dives's torment. I can still see, distinctly enough to count them, the rows of sallow-faced men and women with their hacking concert cough, casting looks of livid venom at Sears sitting by the open window on the front bench, a great red-jowled man who was regarding the figure in the pulpit with such a blaze of fury one might have inferred that he had already swallowed a shovelful of live coals. Nevertheless William went on like an inspired conflagration. There proceeded from his lips a sulphurous smoke of damaging words with Dives's face appearing and reappearing in the haze in a manner that was frightfully realistic. I longed to leap to my feet and exclaim:

"William, stop! You are hurting Brother Sears's feelings and appealing to the worst pa.s.sions in the rest of your congregation!"

But it was too late. Suddenly Sears arose and strode out of the house.

Five minutes later William closed with a few leaping flame sentences and sat down, so much carried away with the sincerity of his own performance that he had not even noticed Sears's departure.

When he discovered the sensation he had created and the enormity of his chief steward's indignation, he was far from repentant. He simply withdrew and devoted an extra hour a day to special prayer for Brother Sears. It was no use to advise him that he might as well cut off the electric current and then try to turn on the light as to pray for a man like Sears. He had a faith in prayer that no mere reasoning could obstruct or circ.u.mvent. And the nearer I come to the great answer to all prayers, the more I am convinced that he was right. But in those days I almost suspected William of cheating in the claims he made for the efficacy of prayer. Thus, in the case of Brother Sears, to all appearances it was I who brought about a reconciliation by readjusting one of the little short circuits of his perverse nature.

Brothers Sears was a man who loved to excel his fellow-man even in the smallest things. He not only felt a first-place prominence in the little society of the village, he strove to surpa.s.s the least person in it if there was any point of compet.i.tion between them. It would have been a source of mortification to him if the shoemaker had grown a larger turnip than he had grown.

William and I were walking by his garden one day, after he had sulked for a month, and saw him standing in the midst of it with a lordly air.

William would have pa.s.sed him by with a sorrowful bow, but I hailed him:

"Good afternoon, Brother Sears! You have a beautiful garden, but I believe our pole beans are two inches taller than yours on the cornstalk."

He was all compet.i.tive animation at once, measured the curling height of his tallest bean vine, and insisted upon coming home with us to measure ours, which, thank heavens, were four inches shorter.

He was so elated over this victory that he apparently forgave William on the spot for his Dives sermon, and handed him ten dollars on quarterage to indicate the return of his good will.

"Mary," said William, staring down happily at the crisp bill in his hand as Sears disappeared, "never say again that the Lord does not answer prayer!"

For a moment I felt a flash of resentment. Who was it that had had the courage to beard Sears in his own garden? Who had tolled him all the way across town into our garden to measure our bean stalk? Who was it that had thought up this method of natural reconciliation, anyhow? Not William, walking beside us in sad New Testament silence. Then, suddenly, my crest fell. After all, I was merely the instrument chosen by which William's prayers for Sears had been answered. To his faith we owed this reaction of grace, not to me, who had not uttered a single pet.i.tion for the old goat.

From time to time William had queer experiences with the political element in his churches. This is composed usually, not of bad men, but of men who have Democratic or Republican immortalities. Apt as not the leading steward would be the manager of the political machine in that particular community. There was Brother Miller, for example, at Hartsville, a splendid square-looking man, with a strong face, a still eye, and an impeccable testimony at "experience" meetings. He held up William's hands for two years without blinking, and professed the greatest benefits from his sermons. No man could pray a more open-faced, self-respecting prayer, and not one was more conscientious in the discharge of his duties to the church and the pastor. It never seemed to disturb him that the portion of the community which was opposed to the "machine" that elected everything from the village coroner to the representative, regarded him as the most debauched and unscrupulous politician in that part of the State. He simply accepted this as one of his crosses, bore it bravely, and went on perfecting his remarkably perfect methods for excluding all voters who did not vote for his candidate. He would confide in William sundry temptations he had, enlisted his sympathy and admiration because of the struggle he professed to have in regard to strong drink, although he never actually touched intoxicants, but never once did he mention or admit his real besetting sin. He was willing to repent of everything else, but not of his politics. And St. Paul himself could not have dragged him across the Democratic party line in that county, not even if he had showed him the open doors of Heaven.

I do not know what is to become of such Christians. The country is full of them, and if they cause as many panics and slumps and anxieties in the next world as they do in this one we shall have a lot more trouble there than we have been led to believe from reading Revelations.

CHAPTER XIII

WILLIAM WRESTLING WITH TRAVELING ANGELS

I have had little to say about the joy of William, although he was one of the most joyful men I have ever known. The reason is I never understood it. His joy was not natural like mine (in so far as I had any)--it was supernatural, and not at all dependent upon the actual visible circ.u.mstance about him. It used to frighten me sometimes to face the last month before quarterly conference with only two dollars, half a sack of flour and the hock end of a ham. But then it was that William rose to the heights of a strange and almost exasperating cheerfulness. He could see where he was going plainer. Our extremity gave him an opportunity to trust more in the miracles of providence, and that afforded him the greatest pleasure. He was never weary of putting his faith to the test. He was like a strong wrestling Jacob, going about looking for new angels to conquer. And I am bound to confess that his Lord never really failed him, although he sometimes came within five minutes of doing so.

One Sabbath, I remember, he had an appointment at a church ten miles distant where he was to begin a protracted meeting. At the last moment his horse went lame. It so happened that some weeks previous William had overreached himself in a horse trade. He had swapped an irritable crop-eared mare for a very handsome animal who proved to have a gravel in one of his fore feet. This horse would lay his tail over the dashboard and travel like inspiration for days at a time up and down the long country roads; then, suddenly, if there was a hurried message to go somewhere to comfort a dying man or preach his funeral, the creature would begin to limp as if he never expected to use but three legs again. I believe William suspected the devil had something to do with this diabolical gravel, for he never gave way to impatience as a natural man would have done in such a predicament. Upon the occasion I have mentioned, he helped the old hypocrite back into the stable with a mildness that exasperated me as I watched with my hat on from the window, for it was already past the time when we should have started.

"Silas is too lame to travel to-day," said he a moment later as he entered the kitchen.

"But what will you do, William?" I exclaimed, provoked in spite of myself at his serenity. "It will be dreadful if you miss your appointment at the beginning of the meeting."

"I can do nothing but pray. Mine is the Lord's work. Doubtless he will provide a way for me to get to it," he answered, withdrawing into the parlor and closing the door after him.

I knew that meant wrestling with one of the traveling angels, and held my tongue, but the natural temper in my blood was not so easily controlled. I flopped down in the chair, laid my head upon the window sill and yielded to tears. I was far along in my middle years then, but never to the end did I get accustomed to the stubbornness of William's faith. I always wanted to do something literal and effective myself in the emergency. I seemed to be made so that I couldn't look to G.o.d for help until I had worn myself out.

While I sat there, in a sort of tearful rage with William and the horse, there was a sound of wheels at the front gate. I arose, hastily wiping my eyes, and was just in time to face William's smiling countenance in the parlor doorway.

"Mary, Sister Spindle is not well, and Brother Spindle has driven by to offer us seats in his carriage."

Brother Spindle was the only man in the community who owned a carriage and horses. I flung my arms around William's neck and whispered:

"Forgive me, William, I never can get used to it that the Lord is illogically and incredibly good to you. But I am glad to tag along after you in His mercies."

He had a gentle way of enjoying these triumphs over me. He would cast the blue beam of his eye humorously over me, and then kiss me as if I was still young and beautiful.

Never in all our married life did he get the best of me in an argument.

His arguing faculty was not highly developed. It was easier to silence him than to stir him into opposing speech. But whenever he entered the sacred parsonage parlor and closed the door after him, I always knew he would have the best of me one way or another when he came out.

But it was not this faith in prayer that confused me most, it was the answers that William, and others like him, received to their prayers.

We never went to any church where there was not at least one man or woman who knew, actually knew, how to reach his or her empty hands up to G.o.d and get them filled. And they were always people of rare dignity in the community, although some of them bordered on the simplicity of childhood mentally.

I recall in this connection Sister Carleton. She was a very old woman who seemed to have settled down to be mostly below her waist. Her shoulders were thin, her bosom flat, but she widened out in the hips amazingly. Her face was the most beautifully wrinkled countenance I ever beheld. Every line seemed to enhance some celestial quality in her expression. And she had the dim look of the very old after they begin to recede spiritually from the ruthlessness of mere realities.

She had palsy and used to sit in the Amen Corner of the church at Eureka, gently, incessantly wagging her lovely old head beneath a little black horseshoe bonnet that was tied under her chin with long black ribbons. Sabbath after Sabbath, year after year she was always to be seen there, sweetly abstracted like an old saint in a dream. She had one thought, one purpose left in life. This was to live to see all of her "boys saved." These were three middle-aged men, all of whom had been wild in their youth. Her one connection now with the church was expressed, not by any personal interest in the preacher or his sermons, but in this thought for her children. Some time during every experience meeting we always knew that Sister Carleton would rise trembling to her feet, steady herself with both hands on the bench in front of her, look about her vaguely and ask the prayers of "all Christian people" that her boys might repent and be saved from their sins. They were already excellent and prosperous citizens and remarkable for their devotion to her, but she was not the woman to mince matters. They had not been converted, therefore she prayed for them as if they were still dead in their trespa.s.ses and sins.

The first year of William's ministry in this place the two younger sons were converted and joined the church, but the oldest still "held out,"

as the saying was. In fact, he stayed out of the church literally, never coming to any service.

The next year Sister Carleton had grown very feeble, but at a consecration meeting held one afternoon before the regular revival service at night, she appeared as usual. Before the closing hymn she arose, clasped her old hands over the back of the bench in front of her and made her last pet.i.tion for the "prayers of all Christian people."

"Brother Thompson," she concluded in the deep raucous voice of extreme age, "I have prayed for my youngest boy fifty years, and for my second boy fifty-two years, and for my oldest son nearly sixty years. The two youngest air saved now, but t'other is still out of the fold. I ain't losin' faith, but I'm gittin' tired. Seems as if I couldn't hold out much longer. But I can't go till Jimmy is saved. I ain't got nothin'

else keepin' me but that." She paused, looked about her as if she felt a memory brush past. "When he was jest a little one, no higher 'an that, he was afeerd of the dark. I always had to set by him till he was asleep. And now, seems as if I couldn't leave him for good out in the dark. I want to ast you to pray, not that he may be converted, but that he may be converted this very night. I ain't got time to wait no longer--seems as if I'm jest obliged to git still and rest soon."

She sank back upon the bench, and I wondered what William would do. I never was prepared for the audacity of his faith. But that was one kind of dare he never took.

"Sister Carleton," he replied, "I feel that your prayer will be answered. I've got the faith to believe your son will come here tonight and be saved from his sins."

I wished that he had not been so definite. I felt that it would have been wiser to give some general expression of hope. I feared the effects upon the rest of the congregation and upon William, when we returned for the night service and James Carleton should not be there even, and I was sure he would not be. I reckon first and last I must have halved the strength of William's faith by my lack of faith.

The truth is so bold, so absurd from the present worldly point of view that I almost hesitate to write it here. James Carleton was present at the evening service. He was the first man to reach the altar when the invitation to penitents was given. He was soundly converted, and lived a changed life from that hour.

The next night Sister Carleton was not in her accustomed place for the first time in nearly forty years. A month later she pa.s.sed away, having already received the joy of her reward in the salvation of her children.