Chapter XVII: First Fruits

"LEWIS," said his wife, as she came to him in the hall, robed for walking, "I have a little plan: I want you to walk home with Dorothy to-night, and let me go with John; I would like to have a talk with him. But more than that, I want you to have a talk with Dorothy, and you never get opportunity to see her alone."

"O Louise!" said her husband, undisguised dismay in voice and manner; yet he tried to disguise it—he did not want her to know how entirely he shrank from such a plan.

"I don't think, dear, that it will be wise. Dorothy is at all times afraid of me, and a long walk alone with me would be a terrible undertaking in her eyes; and, besides, Louise dear, I am not like you—I cannot talk familiarly with people on these topics as you can."

"Don't talk any more than you think wise; get acquainted with Dorrie, and drop one little seed that may spring up and bear fruit. I want you to try it, Lewis."

There was something in her face and voice when she said such things that had often moved Lewis before to go contrary to his own wishes. It worked the same spell over him now; without another word of objection he turned away—though the walk home in the starlight had been a delightful prospect—and went to do what was a real cross to him.

What had he and Dorothy in common? What could they say to each other?

"What is all this?" John questioned sharply as Lewis strode out of the gate with the frightened Dorothy tucked under his arm. He suspected a trap, and he had all a young man's horror of being caught with cunningly-devised plans. He was quick-witted; if this were one of Louise's schemes to lecture him under pretence of enjoying a walk, she would find him very hard to reach.

Fortunately for her, Louise was also quick-witted. He was not one to be caught with guile, at least not guile of this sort. She answered his question promptly and frankly.

"It is a plan of mine, John: I wanted to talk with you, and it seemed to me this would be a good opportunity. You do not mind walking with me, do you?"

Thus squarely met, what was John to say? He said nothing, but he reasoned in his heart that this was a straightforward way of doing things, anyhow—no "sneaking" about it.

"Well," he said, as, after offering his arm, they walked over the frozen earth for a little in silence, "what have you got to say to me? Why don't you begin your lecture?"

"O John! It isn't in the least like a lecture; it is a simple thing, very easily said: I wish you were a Christian man; that comprises the whole story."

What a simple story it was! What was there in it that made John's heart beat quicker?

"What do you care?" he asked her.

"Why, isn't that a singular question? If I love my King, don't I want all the world to be loyal to him? Besides, if I love my friends, don't I desire for them that which will alone give them happiness?"

"What do you mean by 'being a Christian'?"

"I mean following Christ."

"What does that mean? I don't understand those cant phrases, and I don't believe anybody else does."

"Never mind 'anybody else;' what is there in that phrase which you don't understand?"

"I don't understand anything about it, and never saw anything in any one's religion to make me want to; I believe less in religion than I do in anything else in life. It is a great humbug. Half your Christians are making believe to their neighbours, and the other half are making believe not only to their neighbours but to themselves. Now you have my opinion in plain English."

And John drew himself up proudly, after the manner of a young man who thinks he has advanced some unanswerable arguments.

"Never mind 'other people's religion' just now, John; I don't want you to be like a single person whom you ever saw. I am not anxious just now to know whether you believe in religion or not. Do you believe there is such a person as Jesus Christ?"

Then there was utter silence. John, who had a hundred ways of twisting this subject, and was ready with his lancet to probe the outer covering of all professions, and who believed that he could meet all arguments with sneers; was silenced by a name. He did not believe in religion, nor in churches, nor in ministers, nor in the Bible; at least he had sharply told himself that he did not. But was he prepared to say plainly, here in the stillness of the winter night, under the gaze of the solemn stars, that he did not believe there was such a person as Jesus Christ?

Foolish disciple of a foolish infidel though he thought he was, something, he did not know what, some unseen, unrealized power, kept him from speaking those blasphemous and false words; yes, for he knew in his heart that to deny his belief in the existence of such a person would be as false as it was foolish.

He would have been glad to have had Louise advance her arguments, press the subject, be as personal as she pleased—anything rather than this solemn silence; it made him strangely uneasy.

But Louise only waited; then presently she repeated her question.

"Why, of course, I suppose so," was at last John's unwilling admission.

"Are you very familiar with his history?"

Another trying question. Why could not she argue, if she wanted to, like a sensible person? He was willing to meet her half-way; but these short, simple, straightforward questions were very trying.

"Not remarkably, I guess," he answered at last with a half-laugh.

What an admission for a man to have to make who was expected to prove why he did not believe in anything!

But Louise had apparently no intention of making him prove anything.

"Well," she said simply, "then we have reached our starting-point. I wished that you were a follower of Christ; in order to follow him, of course, you will have to know him intimately."

"Who follows him?"

The question was asked almost fiercely. Oh, if Louise could only have reminded him of his mother, could have brought her forth as an unanswerable argument against this foolish attempt at scepticism! She knew mothers who could have been so brought forward, but, alas for him! John Morgan's mother was not one of them. The minister? She thought of him quickly, and as quickly laid his name aside. He was a "good fellow," a genial man; John already half fancied him; but it would not do to bring him forward as a model of one who was following Christ. Alas, again, for John that his pastor could not have been a satisfactory pattern! She thought of her husband, and with a throb of wifely pain realized that she must not produce his name. Not, indeed, because he was not a follower, but because this unreasonable boy could so readily detect flaws, and was fiercely claiming a perfect pattern. She must answer something.

"O John!" she said, and her voice was full of feeling, "very many are, in weakness and with stumblings; but what has that to do with the subject? Suppose there is not a single honest follower on earth, does that destroy you and Christ? To point out my follies to Jesus Christ will not excuse you, for he does not ask you to follow me. John, don't let us argue these questions that are as plain as sunlight. You believe in Jesus Christ; will you study him, and take him for your model?"

"Not until I see somebody accomplish something in the world who pretends to have done so."

He said it with his accustomed sneer; he knew it was weak and foolish—was in a sense unanswerable because of its utter puerility; yet, all the same, he repeated it in varied forms during that walk, harping continually on the old key—the inconsistencies of others. In part he believed his own statements; in fact he was at work at what he had accused Christians of doing—"making believe" to himself that the fault lay all outside of himself.

Louise said very little more; she had not the least desire to argue. She believed that John, like many other young men in his position, knew altogether too little about the matter to be capable of honest argument. She believed he was, like many another, very far from being sincerely anxious to reach the truth, else he would not have had to make that humiliating admission that he was unacquainted with the character of Jesus Christ.

He talked a good deal during the rest of the way; waxed fierce over the real or fancied sins of his neighbours; instanced numerous examples, and seemed surprised and provoked that she made not the slightest attempt to controvert his statements.

"Upon my word!" he said at last, "you are easily vanquished. You have never lived in such an interesting community of Christians as this, I fancy. So you haven't a word to say for them?"

"I didn't know we were talking about them," she answered quietly; "I thought we were talking about Jesus Christ. I am not acquainted with them, and in one sense they are really of no consequence; but I do know Jesus, and can say a word for him, if you will present anything against him. Still, as you seem very anxious to talk of these others, I want to ask one question—Do you believe these traits of character which you have mentioned were developed by religion?"

"Of course not, at least I should hope not; it is the absurdity of their professions, in view of such lives, to which I was trying to call your attention."

"Well, suppose we grant that their professions are absurd, what have you and I gained what has that to do with the personal question which rests between us and Christ?"

"Oh well," he said, sneering, "that is begging the question. Of course if the life is such an important one, the fruit ought to be worth noticing. Anyhow, I don't intend to swell the army of pretenders until they can make a better showing than they do now."

It was precisely in this way that he swung around the subject, always glancing away from a personal issue. You have doubtless heard them, these arguers, going over the same ground, again and again, exactly as though it had never been touched before. Louise was sore-hearted; she began to question, miserably, as to whether she had made a mistake. Was not this talk worse than profitless? Was he not even being strengthened in his own follies? She had so wanted to help him, and he really seemed farther away from her reach than when they had started on this walk. She was glad when they neared their own gate. John had relapsed into silence, whether sullen or otherwise she had no means of knowing. They had walked rapidly at last, and gained upon Dorothy and Lewis, who were now coming up the walk.

"Good-night," said Louise gently.

"Good-night," he answered. Then, hesitating, "I'm rather sorry, on your account, that I am such a good-for-nothing. Perhaps, if I had had a specimen of your sort about me earlier, it might have made a difference; but I'm soured now beyond even your reach. I'd advise you to let me go to decay as fast as possible;" and he pushed past her into the hall, up the stairs, leaving her standing in the doorway waiting for her husband.

Meantime, in silence and embarrassment, Lewis and Dorothy had trudged along. At least he was embarrassed; he had no means of knowing what she was feeling, save that the hand which rested on his arm trembled. This very fact disturbed him; why had she need to be afraid of him? Was he a monster, that she should shrink and tremble whenever he spoke to her? Still, conscience told him plainly that he had never exerted himself greatly to make her feel at ease with him. Then he fell to thinking over her emotionless weariness of a life. What was there for her anywhere in the future more than in the present? She would, probably, stagnate early, if the process were not already completed, and settle down into hopeless listlessness. Much he knew about life, especially the life of a girl not yet nearly out of her teens!

Still his view of it gave him a feeling of unutterable pity for the sister of whom he had hitherto thought but little connectedly, except to admit a general disappointment in her. Now he began to say to himself, "What if she should awaken to a new life in Christ? What a restful, hopeful life it might give her! She will never be able to do much for him, but what wonderful things he could do for her!" This was a new standpoint from which to look at it. Heretofore he had thought of her as one who would be nothing but a passive traveller to heaven, even if she were converted, and therefore not of much consequence! Was that it? Oh no; he shrank from that way of putting it. He had really not been so indifferent as he had been hopeless. If he had put the thought into words, he would have had to admit that there had not seemed to him enough of Dorothy for Christ to save! Something very like that, at least. Still he had honestly meant to try to say a word to her. Not so much for her sake, nor even for the Master's sake, but because of his wife's eager face and earnest voice. He had determined to talk pleasantly to her, to tell her some bright and interesting thing connected with his long absences from home, and then, when he got her self-forgetful and interested, drop just a word for Christ in a very faint and faithless sort of hope that it might, possibly some time, bear fruit.

He did nothing of the sort. Some feeling, new and masterful, took possession of him, made him have a desire for fruit; made him anxious, for the sake of this desolate outlook in her life, to brighten it with Christ. So the first words he spoke, and they were spoken very soon after the walk commenced, were,—

"Do you know, Dorothy, I can't help wishing with all my heart that you belonged to Christ!"

Then the hand on his arm trembled violently; and while he was thinking how he should quiet her tremor, and chiding himself for having been so abrupt, Dorothy made answer with a burst of tears,—

"O Lewis, I never wished anything so much in my life! Will you show me how?"

"Did you know how Dorothy felt?" Lewis said, beginning the moment the door of their room closed on himself and wife. There was a new look on his face, an eager, almost an exalted look, and a ring in his voice that made Louise turn and regard him half curiously as she said,—

"Nothing beyond the fact that she has seemed to me very impressible for a day or two, and that I have had strong faith in praying for her. Why?"

"Why, Louise, she melted right down at the first word. She is very deeply impressed, and wonderfully in earnest; and I half believe she is a Christian' at this moment. I found her in bewilderment as to just what conversion meant, but she grasped at my explanation like one who saw with the eyes of her soul. I was so surprised and humiliated and grateful!"

All these phases of emotion showed in his prayer. Louise, who had believed him much in earnest for years, had never heard him pray as he did that evening for his sister Dorothy. As she listened and joined in the petitions, her faith, too, grew strong to grasp the thought that there was a new name written in heaven that night and rejoiced over among the angels. And yet her heart was sad. In vain she chid it for ungratefulness, and dimly suspected selfish motives at the bottom. But it did seem so strange to her that John, for whom she had felt such a constantly increasing anxiety, for whom she had prayed as she could not pray even for Dorothy, held aloof, and was even farther away to-night than she had felt him to be before; and Dorothy, at a word from the brother who had hardly given her two connected thoughts for years, had come joyfully into the kingdom!

Was Louise jealous? She would have been shocked at the thought; and yet, in what strange and subtle ways the tempter can lend us unawares, even when we believe ourselves to be almost in a line with Christ.