Chapter 12

"I have time but for one word to-night, and even that cannot be at length. Linnet and I are just in from a lecture on Miss Mitford! There were tears running down over my heart all the time that I was listening. You call me brave; she was brave. Think of her pillowed up in bed writing her last book, none to be kind to her except those to whom she paid money. Linnet was delighted and intends to 'write a composition' about her. Just let me keep my hand on your arm (will you?) when evil impulses are about. You do not quite know how to interpret the circumstances that seem to be in answer to your prayer? It is as if you spoke to God in English and the answer comes in Sanscrit. I think I have received such answers myself. And if we were brutes, with no capacity of increasing our understanding, I should think it very queer. Sometimes it is hard work to pray until we get an answer and then it is harder still to find out its meaning. I imagine that Linnet and Marjorie, even Will Rheid, would not understand that; but you and I are not led along in the easiest way. It must be because the answer is worth the hard work: his Word and Spirit can interpret all his involved and mystical answers. Think with a clear head, not with any pre-formed judgment, with a heart emptied of all but a willingness to read his meaning aright, be that meaning to shatter your hopes or to give bountifully your desire--with a sincere and abiding determination to take it, come what may, and you will understand as plainly as you are understanding me. Try it and see. I have tried and I know. There may be a wound for you somewhere, but oh, the joy of the touch of his healing hand. And after that comes obedience. Do you remember one a long time ago who had half an answer, only a glimmer of light on a dark way? He took the answer and went on as far as he understood, not daring to disobey, but he went on--something like you, too--in 'bitterness,' in the heat of his spirit, he says; he went on as far as he could and stayed there. That was obedience. He stayed there 'astonished' seven days. Perhaps you are in his frame of mind. Nothing happened until the end of the seven days, then he had another word. So I would advise you to stay astonished and wait for the end of your seven days. In our bitterness and the heat of our spirit we are apt to think that God is rather slow about our business. Ezekiel could have been busy all that seven days instead of doing nothing at all, but it was the time for him to do nothing and the time for God to be busy within him. You have inquired of the Lord, that was your busy time, now keep still and let God answer as slowly as he will, this is his busy time. Now Linnet and I must eat a cracker and then say good-night to all the world, yourself, dear John, included.

"Yours,

"PRUDENCE"

* * * * *

"_Washington, Dec._ 21, 18--.

"DEAR MARJORIE:

"Aunt Helen sent me your letter; it came an hour ago. I am full of business that I like. I have no time for sight-seeing. I wish I had! Washington is the place for Young America to come to. But Young America has to come on business this time. Perhaps I will come here on my wedding trip, when there is no business to interfere. I am not ashamed to say that if I had been a girl I would have cried over your letter. Helen was _something_ to everybody; she used to laugh and then look grave when she read your letters about her and the good she was to you. There will never be another Helen. There is one who has a heartache about her and no one knows it except himself and me. She refused him a few days before she was taken ill. He stood a long time and looked at her in her coffin, as if he forgot that any one was looking at him. I told him it was of no use to ask her, but he persisted. She had told me several times that he was disagreeable to her. Her mother wonders who will take her place to us all, and we all say no one ever can. I thank God that she lived so long for my sake. You and she are like sisters to me. You do me good, too. I should miss your letters very much, for I hear from home so seldom. You are my good little friend, and I am grateful to you. Give my best love to every one at home and tell mother I like my business. Mother's photograph and yours and Helen's are in my breast pocket. If I should die to-night would I be as safe as Helen is?

"Your true friend,

"HOLLIS RHEID."

* * * * *

"_The Homestead, Jan_. 4, 18--.

"DEAR FRIEND HOLLIS:

"Thank you for your letter from Washington. I took it over to your mother and read it to her and your father, all excepting about the young man who stood and looked at Helen in her coffin. I thought, perhaps, that was in confidence. Your father said: 'Tell Hollis when he is tired of tramping around to come home and settle down near the old folks,' and your mother followed me to the door and whispered: 'Tell him I cannot feel that he is safe until I know that he has repented and been forgiven.' And now, being through all this part, my conscience is eased and I can tell you everything else I want to.

"Look in and see us in a snow-storm. Mother is reading for the one hundred and twenty-second and a half time somebody's complete works on the New Testament, and father and Mr. Holmes are talking about--let me see if I know--ah, yes, Mr. Holmes is saying, 'Diversity of origin,' so you know all about it.

"Sometimes I listen instead of studying. I would listen to this if your letter were not due for the mail to-morrow. Father sits and smiles, and Mr. Holmes walks up and down with his arms behind him as he used to do during recitation in school. Perhaps he does it now, only you and I are not there to see. I wish you were here to listen to him; father speaks now and then, but the dialogue soon develops into a monologue and the master entertains and instructs us all. If you do not receive this letter on time know that it is because I am learning about the Jew; how he is everywhere proving the truth of prophecy by becoming a resident of every country. And yet while he is a Jew he has faces of all colors. In the plains of the Ganges, he is black; in Syria, lighter and yet dusky; in Poland his complexion is ruddy and his hair as light as yours. There was a little Jewess boarding around here last summer as olive as I imagine Rebekah and Sarah, and another as fair and rosy as a Dane. But have you enough of this? Don't you care for what Livingstone says or Humboldt? Don't you want to know the four proofs in support of unity of origin? I do, and if I write them I shall remember them; 1. Bodily Structure. 2. Language. 3. Tradition. 4. Mental Endowment. Now he is telling about the bodily structure and I do want to listen.--And I _have_ listened and the minute hand of the clock has been travelling on and my pen has been still. But don't you want to know the ten conclusions that have been established--I know you do. And if I forget, I'll nudge Morris and ask him. Oh, I see (by looking over his shoulder) he has copied them all in one of his exercise books.

"You may skip them if you want to, but I know you want to see if your experience in your extensive travels correspond with the master's authority. Now observe and see if the people in Washington--all have the same number of teeth, and of additional bones in their body. As that may take some time, and seriously interfere with your 'business' and theirs, perhaps you had better not try it. And, secondly, they all shed their teeth in the same way (that will take time also, so, perhaps, you may better defer it until your wedding trip, when you have nothing else to do); and, thirdly, they all have the upright position, they walk and look upward; and, fourthly, their head is set in every variety in the same way; fifthly, they all have two hands; sixthly, they all have smooth bodies with hair on the head; seventhly, every muscle and every nerve in every variety are the same; eighthly, they all speak and laugh; ninthly, they eat different kind of food, and live in all climates; and, _lastly_, they are more helpless and grow more slowly than other animals. Now don't you like to know that? And now he has begun to talk about language and I _must_ listen, even if this letter is never finished, because language is one of my hobbies. The longer the study of language is pursued the more strongly the Bible is confirmed, he is saying. You ought to see Morris listen. His face is all soul when he is learning a new thing. I believe he has the most expressive face in the world. He has decided to be a sailor missionary. He says he will take the Gospel to every port in the whole world. Will takes Bibles and tracts always. Morris reads every word of _The Sailors Magazine_ and finds delightful things in it. I have almost caught his enthusiasm. But if I were a man I would be professor of languages somewhere and teach that every word has a soul, and a history because it has a soul. Wouldn't you like to know how many languages there are? It is _wonderful_. Somebody says--Adelung (I don't know who he is)--three thousand and sixty-four distinct languages, Balbi (Mr. Holmes always remembers names) eight hundred languages and five thousand dialects, and Max Müller says there are nine hundred known languages. Mr. Holmes can write a letter in five languages and I reverence him, but what is that where there are, according to Max Müller, eight hundred and ninety-five that he does not know a word of? Mr. Holmes stands still and puts his hands in front of him (where they were meant to be), and says he will tell us about Tradition to-morrow night, as he must go up to his den and write letters. But he does say Pandora's box is the story of the temptation and the fall. You know she opened her box out of curiosity, and diseases and wars leaped out to curse mankind. That is a Greek story. The Greek myths all seem to mean something. Father says: 'Thank you for a pleasant evening,' as Mr. Holmes takes his lamp to leave us, and _he_ says: 'You forget what I have to thank you all for.'

"My heart _bursts_ with gratitude to him, sometimes; I have his books and I have him; he is always ready so gently and wisely to teach and explain and never thinks my questions silly, and Morris says he has been and is his continual inspiration. And we are only two out of the many whom he stimulates. He says we are his recreation. Dull scholars are his hard work. Morris is never dull, but I can't do anything with geometry; he outstripped me long ago. He teaches me and I do the best I can. He has written on his slate, 'Will you play crambo?' Crambo was known in the time of Addison, so you must know that it is a very distinguished game. Just as I am about to say 'I will as soon as this page is finished,' father yawns and looks up at the clock. Mother remarks: 'It is time for worship, one of the children will read, father.' So while father goes to the door to look out to see what kind of a night it is and predict to-morrow and while mother closes her book with a lingering, loving sigh, and Morris pushes his books away and opens the Bible, I'll finish my last page. And, lo, it is finished and you are glad that stupidity and dullness do sometime come to an abrupt end.

"FRIEND MARJORIE."

* * * * *

"_In the Schoolroom, Jan_. 23, 18--.

"MY BLESSED MOTHER:

"Your last note is in my breast pocket with all the other best things from you. What would boys do without a breast pocket, I wonder. There is a feeling of study in the very air, the algebra class are 'up' and doing finely. The boy in my seat is writing a note to a girl just across from us, and the next thing he will put it in a book and ask, with an unconcerned face, 'Mr. Holmes, may I hand my arithmetic to somebody?' And Mr. Holmes, having been a fifteen-year-old boy himself, will wink at any previous knowledge of such connivings, and say 'Yes,' as innocently! It isn't against the rules to do it, for Mr. Holmes, never, for a moment, supposes such a rule a necessity. But I never do it. Because Marjorie doesn't come to school. And a pencil is slow for all I want to say to her. She is my talisman. I am a big, awkward fellow, and she is a zephyr that is content to blow about me out of sheer good will to all human kind. But, in school, I write notes to another girl, to my mother. And I write them when I have nothing to say but that I am well and strong and happy, content with the present, hopeful for the future, looking forward to the day when you will see me captain of as fine a ship as ever sailed the seas. And won't I bring you good things from every country in the world, just because you are such a blessed mother to

"Your unworthy boy,

"M.K."

* * * * *

"_New York, Jan. 30, 18--._

"MY MARJORIE:

"Your long letter has been read and re-read, and then read aloud to Linnet. She laughed over it, and brushed her eyes over it; and then it was laid away in my archives for future reference. It is a perfect afternoon, the sun is shining, and the pavements are as dry as in May. Linnet endeavored to coax me out, as it is her holiday afternoon, and Broadway will be alive with handsome dresses and handsome faces, and there are some new paintings to be seen. But I was proof against her coaxing as this unwritten letter pressed on my heart, so she has contented herself with Helen's younger sister, Nannie, and they will have a good time together and bring their good time home to me, for Nannie is to come home to dinner with her. Linnet looked like a veritable linnet in her brown suit with the crimson plume in her brown hat; I believe the girl affects grays and brown with a dash of crimson, because they remind her of a linnet, and she _is_ like a linnet in her low, sweet voice, not strong, but clear. She will be a lovely, symmetrical woman when she comes out of the fire purified. How do I know she will ever be put in any furnace? Because all God's children must suffer at some times, and then they know they are his children. And she loves Will so vehemently, so idolatrously, that I fear the sorrow may be sent through him; not in any withdrawing of his love, he is too thoroughly true for that, not in any great wickedness he may commit, he is too humble and too reliant upon the keeping power of God to be allowed to fall into that, but--she may not have him always, and then, I fear, her heart would really break.

"She reminds me of my own young vehemence and trust. But the taking away will be the least sorrow of all. Why! How sorrowfully I am writing to-day: no, how truly I am writing of life to-day: of the life you and she are entering--are already entered upon. But God is good, God is good, hold to that, whatever happens. Some day, when you are quite an old woman and I am really an old woman, I will tell you about my young days.

"Your letter was full of questions; do not expect me to answer them all at once. First, about reading the Bible. You poor dear child! Do you think God keeps a book up in Heaven to put down every time you fail to read the Bible through in a year? Because you have read it three times in course, so many chapters a weekday, and so many a Sunday, do you think you must keep on so or God will keep it laid up against you?

"Well, be a law keeper if you must, but keep the whole law, and keep it perfectly, in spirit and in letter, or you will fail! And if you fail in one single instance, in spirit or in letter, you fail in all, and must bear the curse. You must continue in _all things_ written in the law to do them. Are you ready to try that? Christ could do it, and he did do it, but can you? And, if not, what? You must choose between keeping the law and trusting in Christ who has kept it for you. You cannot serve two masters: the Law and Christ. Now, I know I cannot keep the law and so I have given up; all I can do is to trust in Christ to save me, in Christ who is able to obey all God's law for me, and so I trust him and love him, and obey him with the strength he gives me. If we love him, we will keep his commandments, he says. 'I can do all things through Christ strengthening me'--even keep his commandments, which are not grievous. If you must be a law keeper in your own strength, give up Christ and cling to the law to save you, or else give up keeping the law for your salvation and cling to Christ. Keep his commandments because you love him, and not keep the old law to save your soul by your own obedience. Read the Bible because you love it, every word. Read till you are full of some message he gives you, and then shut it up; don't keep on, because you must read so many chapters a day.

"My plan is--and I tell you because it has been blessed to me--to ask him to feed me with his truth, feed me _full_, and then I open the Book and read. One day I was filled full with one clause: '_Because they fainted_.' I closed it, I could read no more. At another time I read a whole Epistle before I had all I was hungry for. One evening I read a part of Romans and was so excited that I could not sleep for some time that night. Don't you like that better than reading on and on because you have set yourself to do it, and ending with a feeling of relief because it is _done_, at last? These human hearts are naughty things and need more grace continually. Just try my way--not my way but God's way for me,--and see how full you will be fed with your daily reading.

"I just bethought myself of a page in an old journal; I'll copy it for you. It has notes of my daily reading. I wish I had kept the references, but all I have is the thought I gathered. I'll give it to you just as I have it.

"'April 24, 18--. Preparation is needed to receive the truth.

"'25. Ezekiel saw the glory before he heard the Voice.

"'26. He permits long waiting.

"'27. It is blessed to hear his voice, even if it be to declare punishment.

"'28. The word of God comes through the lips of men.

"'29. God works with us when we work with him.

"'30. God's work, and not man's word, is the power,

"'May 1. Man fails us, _then_ we trust in God.

"'2. Death is wages, Life is a gift.

"'3. Paul must witness at Jerusalem before going to Rome.

"'4. When God wills, it is not _to be_, it _is_.

"'5. To man is given great power, but it is not his own power.

"'6. Even his great love Christ _commends_ to us.

"'7. To seek and find God all beside must be put away.

"'11. The day of the Lord is darkness to those who do not seek him.

"'12. For all there were so many yet was not the net broken.

"'13. Even after Aaron's sin the Lord made him High Priest.

"'14. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities--for Christ's sake.

"'15. It is _spirit_ and not letter that God looks at.

"'16. His choices rule all things.

"'17. That which is not forbidden may be inquired about.

"'18. Captivity is turned upon repentance and obedience.

"'19. Rejoicing comes after understanding his words.

"'20. A way of escape is made for sin.

"'21. Faith waits as long as God asks it to wait.

"'22. He strengthens our hearts through waiting to wait longer.

"'23. Anything not contrary to the revealed will of God we may ask in prayer.'

"These lessons I took to my heart each day. Another might have drawn other lessons from the same words, but these were what I needed then. The page is written in pencil, and some words were almost erased. But I am glad I kept them all this time; I did not know I was keeping them for you, little girl. I have so fully consecrated myself to God that sometimes I think he does not let any of me be lost; even my sins and mistakes I have used to warn others, and through them I have been led to thank him most fervently that he has not left me to greater mistakes, greater sins. Some day your heart will almost break with thankfulness.

"And now, childie, about your praying. You say you are _tired out_ when your prayer is finished. I should think you would be, poor child, if you desire each petition with all your intense nature. Often one petition uses all my strength and I can plead no more--in words. You seem to think that every time you kneel you must pray about every thing that can be prayed about, the church, the world, all your friends, all your wants, and everything that everybody wants.

"What do you think of my short prayers? This morning all I could ejaculate was: 'Lord, this is thy day, every minute of it.' I have had some blessed minutes. When the sinner prayed, 'Lord, be merciful to me a sinner,' he did not add, 'and bless my father and mother, brothers and sisters, and all the sick and sinful and sorrowing, and send missionaries to all parts of the world, and hasten thy kingdom in every heart.' And when Peter was sinking he cried: 'Lord, save me, I perish,' and did not add, 'strengthen my faith for this time and all time, and remember those who are in the ship looking on, and wondering what will be the end of this; teach them to profit by my example, and to learn the lesson thou art intending to teach by this failure of mine.' And when the ship was almost overwhelmed and the frightened disciples came to him--but why should I go on? Child, _pour_ out your heart to him, and when, through physical weariness, mental exhaustion, or spiritual intensity of feeling, the heart refuses to be longer poured out, _stop_, don't pump and pump and _pump_ at an exhausted well for water that has been all used up. We are not heard for much speaking or long praying. Study the prayer he gave us to pray, study his own prayer. He continued all night in prayer but he was not hard upon his weak disciples, who through weariness and sorrow fell asleep while he had strength to keep on praying. Your master is not a hard master. We pray when we do not utter one word. Let the Spirit pray in you and don't try to do it all yourself. Don't make crosses for yourself. Before you begin to pray think of the loving, lovely Saviour and pitiful Father you are praying to and ask the Spirit to help you pray, and then pray and be joyful. Pray the first petition that comes out of your heart, and then the second and the third, and thank him for everything.

"But here come the girls laughing upstairs and I must listen to the story of their afternoon. Linnet will tell you about the pictures.

"More than ever your sympathizing friend,

"P. P."

* * * * *

"_Feb_. 2, 18--.

"DEAR HOLLIS:

"Your mother asked me to write to you while I am here, in your home, so that it may seem like a letter from her. It is evening and I am writing at the kitchen table with the light of one candle. How did I come to be here at night? I came over this afternoon to see poor grandma and found your mother alone with her; grandma had been in bed three days and the doctor said she was dying of old age. She did not appear to suffer, she lay very still, recognizing us, but not speaking even when we spoke to her.

"How I did want to say something to help her, for I was afraid she might be troubled, she was always so 'afraid' when she thought about joining the Church. But as I stood alone, looking down at her, I did not dare speak. I did not like to awaken her if she were comfortably asleep. Then I thought how wicked I was to withhold a word when she might hear it and be comforted and her fear taken away, so I stooped over and said close to her ear, 'Grandma,' and all she answered was, in her old way, 'Most a hundred;' and then I said, '"The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin, even the sins of most a hundred years;"' and she understood, for she moaned, 'I've been very wicked;' and all I could do was to say again, '"The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin."' She made no reply and we think she did not speak again, for your mother's cousin, Cynthy, was with her at the last and says she bent over her and found that she did not breathe, and all the time she was with her she did not once speak.