Part 5

But the acme of her suffering lay in the thought that the God of the world had decreed this thing, in His own heart He had conceived it, from the beginning He had foreseen it--premeditated it. What wonder that chaos reigns in His world? What wonder that the children of His creation have from the beginning gone astray? What wonder that envy and hatred, strife, bitterness and despair live and flourish? Can man rise above his conception of his Creator? Can he consistently worship a God who had planned and caused to be done a thing from which the compassionate human heart must shrink and human hand must stay? Is not the whole story of the Creation, the Fall, the Sacrifice, the Redemption, as we have heard it in all its harrowing details, absurd, deplorable, culpable? Can we in sincerity acknowledge ourselves guilty of a sin for which we are not responsible, and grateful to a Creator who, possessing absolute power, fashioned men free in will and action, and then forced upon them the blood of His own innocent Son to save them from the consequences of their freedom?

Yet, bewildered and entangled as Mrs. Thorpe felt herself to be, in this labyrinth of doubt and rebellion, she was aware that other thoughts than these were tapping at the door of her consciousness; tapping and pleading for admission. Deep in her heart soil a grain of truth was throwing out its penetrating rootlets and struggling toward the light. But so completely would these thoughts, if admitted and accepted, uproot every preconceived idea, so entirely would they cast out and destroy that which all her life she had been taught to believe, that their pleading for admittance but increased the confusion of her thoughts and rendered her mental state more chaotic.

When the service was over Mrs. Thorpe became aware that many eyes, curious and sympathetic, were upon her; yet few of her friends spoke to her, for there was an unwritten law that no one should go out of the way to speak to another and that little demonstration should be made inside the church. All was orderly and dignified and befitting the house of the Lord. Strangers came and went; newcomers felt the chill of propriety that pervaded the atmosphere, and the old members felt it, too, and gloried in it.

In her fertile brain Mrs. Thorpe beheld them all, the old members and the new, and the strangers among them, as in a vision, and all were trying to climb the mountains of ice, trying to reach Heaven over a pathway of cold indifference and fixed and rigid form.

Mr. Thorpe joined his wife near the church door and he put his arm protectingly about her as she descended the church steps. He felt that the Lord had been specially kind to give her strength to be present at this service.

Pauline preceded them and was already in the kitchen overseeing the dinner when they arrived. Mrs. Thorpe went directly to her room and, removing her wraps, sank down in her easy chair. Her eyes were dry and bright, but she covered her face with her hands and her shoulders quivered as if beneath a load.

"Never again," she moaned, "never again can I trust myself to hear his voice from the pulpit."

The admission wrung her heart and hurt her as hearts are wrung and hurt when some dear one passes from view of mortal sight.

Pauline tapped at the door and announced dinner. Mrs. Thorpe arose and stood for a moment before her fire.

"If there were a God," she whispered, "if there were a God, loving and strong and powerful--oh, a God who cares for His own, how passionately would I beseech Him to be with me now, to help and uphold me!" She walked over and opened her door. "There really should be such a God--Friend--Father," she continued in an undertone, "for we need Him so!"

Mr. Thorpe and Pauline were awaiting her in the dining-room. Mr. Thorpe, who was never lacking in the small courtesies of the home, seated her at the table and took his place opposite.

"I am glad to see that the exertion of the morning has not overtried your strength, my dear," he said. "Your face in the congregation is an inspiration to me. I hope you will be able to attend regularly hereafter."

Pauline, whose insight was keener than the pastor's, divined that all was not well with Mrs. Thorpe, and broached another subject.

"The church was well filled this morning," she remarked.

"Yes," said Mr. Thorpe. "There seems to be something about the Christmas season that touches all hearts. And I think the Savior's birth means more to the world every year."

"Is this because men's hearts are changing," asked Mrs. Thorpe, "or do we understand Christ's mission better?"

"I think the religious world realizes as it never has before the greatness of the sacrifice that has been made for humanity," replied Mr. Thorpe. "We may call it Christ's mission if we like, but I prefer the term sacrifice in connection with Him who was born to die that we might live."

The flow of talk continued, but as it often happened, Pauline and Mr. Thorpe kept up the conversation. Mrs. Thorpe did not venture another remark, and after the meal went directly to her room. Her husband followed her and seated himself before her open fire. Neither spoke for a few moments, and the pastor reached for a book that lay on a stand nearby. Mrs. Thorpe saw the movement and moved as though to intercept him; but the book was in his hand. It was a small volume bound in white and gold.

Mrs. Thorpe lay back in her chair and her face framed with her dark hair seemed drawn and white as it lay against the scarlet cushion.

"What have you here, my dear? What are you reading nowadays?" asked Mr. Thorpe in a full, smooth voice. And something in the tone caused Mrs. Thorpe's heart to vibrate as to a well-loved melody. How she loved this man; bowed to him, reverenced him. She did not answer him now, she did not stir nor turn her head.

Mr. Thorpe opened the little book at random and his eyes fell upon the following: "God is a spirit and they who worship Him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

"It is difficult to understand how the idea of God as a personal being of power and wrath has taken so strong a hold upon men's minds. Not until this idea is eliminated, totally overcome and cast out, can we know our God as He is, and understand the divine mission that Christ came to perform....

"The Son of God became incarnate on the earth--not to die for men's sins--albeit a cruel and misguided people crucified Him--but by His life to teach the Truth of Life. Not to die the death of a martyr, not to offer a human sacrifice to a God of love, but to teach the children of God's creation to live."

Mr. Thorpe closed the book with his forefinger at the place. Mrs. Thorpe felt, rather than saw, his eyes upon her and she turned and looked into his face.

"Evelyn," he said, "what have you here? Where did you get this--this absurd book?"

Mrs. Thorpe did not answer him; instead she sank back into her chair and closed her eyes.

Mr. Thorpe regarded her for a moment, then he opened the book again and ran his eyes down the page. He halted at this paragraph:

"It may be true that the reluctance with which men change their conception of God, their propensity to cling to the creed and doctrines which have been handed down to them, serves to keep their hearts reverent and worshipful; nevertheless that which is false, all that is erroneous and misleading must die. The world to-day is demanding the truth about the deep hidden things of God.

"No matter how sacred a teaching or belief may have been to our forefathers, nor how efficacious it seemed to meet their needs, we must know that while the immortal Truth changes not, the ideas of men concerning it have changed with the process of the ages. Does anyone believe that while we are progressing in every line of industry, art and science, that to be Christian we must continue to stand in our religious convictions where our forefathers stood?"

Mr. Thorpe glanced at his wife. She had not changed her position, but he noticed a twitching of her eyelids and that the color had rushed into her face, burning her cheeks to a scarlet flame. He did not speak, but continued the next paragraph.

"Let us, then, with all reverence yet unafraid, seek the saving truth of God, strip it of creed and form, remove the tattered garment of prejudice and bigotry, lay low the orthodox beliefs which, while claiming to house and shelter this divine Truth, have hedged it about and endeavored to limit it to that which mortal hands have bound upon church altars."

Mr. Thorpe closed the book sharply, then opened it again and looked for the writer's name. It was a new name to him. He laid the book back on the stand and stepped to his wife's side. He laid his hand gently on her hair.

"Evelyn," he said, "how came you by that book?"

She looked full into his face and answered directly: "I found it in a book-store, down town."

"And you bought it, Evelyn?"

"Yes."

Mr. Thorpe went back to the table, and he saw there another book, one that he had not noticed before. This one was bound in black leather and stamped in gilt. On the cover there was stamped a circle of gilt, and around the circle were these words: "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons." Inside the circle was a cross and a crown. Mr. Thorpe recognized this book, he knew it by sight. He did not touch it now, however, but pointing to it he addressed his wife: "And this book, is this one yours, too, Evelyn?"

"No," she replied, "that is one Mrs. Vane let me take."

Mr. Thorpe resumed his seat by the fire.

"If I believed it necessary to warn you against this sort of reading," he said, "or to caution you against these distortions of the Scripture, I hope I should not hesitate in doing my duty; but I feel that any such warning or caution would imply a lack of faith in your honor, and in your fidelity to your church vows. I have confidence in your judgment, Evelyn, and faith in your sincerity, but I request you to return Mrs. Vane's book at your earliest convenience."

"I had intended to do so," she said, "and shall attend to it to-morrow." Her voice was not quite steady.

She took the offending volumes and laid them on a shelf in the curtained alcove. She felt a sickening sensation creep over her, a sense of dishonor and of disloyalty to her husband.

*CHAPTER VIII*

*STRANDED*

Mrs. Thorpe sat in her room one morning, a piece of needlework in her hands. It was a beautiful piece of work and she held it from her and looked at it critically.

"You are my sedative," she said. "When a heart cries for God and cannot find Him; when a sacrilegious questioner tries to solve some of the problems of this life, or to learn the cause of this great world's woe--when one is so lacking in judgment as to try to do this, serious trouble is likely to follow and then one must have something, really must have something to distract the mind for a time." She gave an odd little laugh and drew her work to her.

A phantasm of her imagination had caused her to discard her books. Whenever she opened a book and prepared to read, a phantom form, sable and somber, peered over her shoulder and read with her.

Then she resolved to read no more books and to think as little as possible about those she had read; and to this end she had taken up needlework. She knew what her condition was physically, and realized that it was only by the exertion of her will power that her mind, too, was not a wreck. She had a curious habit of looking at her mind and brain as something apart from herself, and as another personality she studied their condition.

When she discarded her books, the phantom disappeared for a time, and she believed that she had exorcised it. But after a time she saw that she was mistaken in this, for it returned at intervals, more grim and determined than before. It never made a sudden impression on her, and it never startled her; but always when she became aware of its presence she felt that it had been with her all the time--always, only she had not recognized it. Then silently it would jeer at her blindness and dullness of perception, and triumphantly assert that no one on whom it fixed its choice ever eluded it.

Mrs. Thorpe had begun sorting her silks for her work when her attention was attracted by a song that Pauline was singing:

"Is not this the land of Beulah, Blessed, blessed land of light Where the flowers bloom forever And the sun is always bright?"

The words of the song caused her unrest to burn within her.

"The land of Beulah--blessed land of light," Pauline could sing of this; while she--why had she failed? Had she not worked and watched and prayed--yet the blackness of darkness was about her.

"I am dwelling on the mountains Where the golden sunlight gleams, O'er a land whose wondrous beauty Far exceeds my fondest dreams."

The low, sweet strain continued. Pauline often sang at her work, and the song bubbled forth as though the full heart could not contain it.

"I am drinking at the fountain Where I ever would abide, For I've tasted life's pure river And my soul is satisfied."

Mrs. Thorpe dropped her work and clasped her hands over her mouth, for she felt that she must shriek aloud.

"_Satisfied_! My soul is satisfied! Was it possible that this was vouchsafed to some, while every hope of hers was gone, every longing unfulfilled?"

When she took up her work again she placed stitch after stitch with careful deliberation.

"I must adhere to my resolutions," she thought. "I have no quarrel with the world. I am not responsible for its woes. I cannot fight its wrongs. I will live simply and contentedly, live for my husband and my home." But she refrained from looking over her shoulder, for the black wings of her phantom hovered there.

A few moments later Pauline came into the room. "Mrs. Mayhew is in the parlor and wishes to see you," she said.

Mrs. Thorpe greeted her friend cordially. "I am so glad to see you," she said; "I was feeling a bit down-hearted this morning and longing for a congenial friend."

"Then my plan is opportune," said Mrs. Mayhew. "I came in the carriage to take you home with me for the day. Mr. Thorpe will come to tea and spend the evening, I hope. My brother, Professor Vane, is spending a few days with us, and he and Mr. Thorpe are congenial spirits, you know."

"I am sure that Mr. Thorpe will be pleased to meet your brother again. I had a letter from Mrs. Vane a few days ago. She mentioned that the Professor meant to visit you before long."

"I am glad to know that your friendship with Mrs. Vane ripened into a correspondence."

"We do not correspond regularly. I had a book of hers, one which she let me take last summer. I returned it not long ago and received a letter from her saying that it had arrived safely."

Mrs. Thorpe accepted her friend's invitation for the day and as they drove through the bracing atmosphere her unhappy fancies seemed to fall away from her. There was something in Mrs. Mayhew's personality, wholesome and practical, yet winsome as well, that had a tendency to arouse Mrs. Thorpe out of her troubled dreams and dispel the visions of her morbid imagination.

Yet when they were seated in Mrs. Mayhew's parlor, each with her bit of work, the first topic of conversation plunged her troubled mind again into a sea of doubt and despair.

Mrs. Mayhew drew her chair a little nearer to the grate, rested comfortably in its cushioned depths and let her work lay idle in her hands.

"They tell me," she said, "that there is a great deal of suffering among the poor people on the Flat this winter. The Ladies' Benevolent Society is doing what it can to help them, but cannot reach them all. Geraldine went over to the Flat with some of the ladies yesterday. She tells me that the condition of some of the homes they visited is dreadful to behold."

It is needless to say that Mrs. Mayhew did not know the effect that her words would have upon her friend. She knew that Mrs. Thorpe was often inclined to take other people's burdens sadly to heart, but she was far from knowing the state of mind that her words had wrought in her now.

She, too, was often troubled about the state of affairs on the Flat, but her outlook was very different from Mrs. Thorpe's. She saw in these miserable homes and destitute, unfortunate people, isolated cases of suffering, and their condition she looked upon as something that only the effort of the individual concerned could remedy. By his own effort and endeavor he must extricate himself from this class and advance to one higher. This always left those who remained the same privilege as that of the one who had escaped. Mrs. Mayhew believed this to be the way of the world, and she had learned never to analyze nor to question the world's ways.

Mrs. Thorpe did not interrogate the individual nor consider the class; her mind overreached these and went directly to the overruling Law--that which has created, and which does, or should, control. What greater folly than for man to endeavor to undo what the Lord has done? An overruling, unalterable, unrelenting Law lay over and made helpless and absolutely powerless the puny efforts of man.

She would share her porridge with a hungry neighbor, yes, go hungry herself to relieve a needy one; she would divide her garments to the last shred with those who had none. But while doing so, while trying to defeat the decree of the Ruler, would she prostrate herself before him, bow down and worship him?

"It is not only on Bolton Flat that people are suffering and miserable and destitute and without a God," she said. "The world is circled with woe; the cry of suffering echoes wherever the feet of men have trod. In the still watches of the night when all was quiet and peaceful about me I have heard the moaning of children. And on the street when all was bustle and confusion I have heard the agonized cry of lost souls; and I knew that those about me heard it, yet they paid not the slightest attention, and I, too, went unheeding on my way. Yet men and women everywhere are talking of a Christ--proclaiming a message! Their voices are musical, even as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal; their phraseology--long prayers in the market place; the border of their garments and the broadness of their phylacteries proclaim their devotion!"

Her words ceased, but her thoughts, which she had long held in subjection, were now beyond her control. The fire of her spirit, that had leaped within her earlier in the day, now flamed up and consumed her. Throughout the length and breadth of the land God's men and women were going to a death more horrible than even her wildest hallucinations could picture--wailing and weeping and gnashing of teeth! Children were born into an environment that handicapped them at birth; women and young girls were obliged to sell their souls in order to keep the pitiful life in their bodies; men made a legal, licensed business of crazing their fellow men with drink. And those who professed to follow the world's Redeemer, comfortably housed, with rich garments and sumptuous fare, wrapped themselves in their righteousness and sang songs of praise in costly churches and gave thanks that they were not as other men.

The enormity of the thing was to her a blow straight from a powerful shoulder, a blow that staggered her and left her white with passion. And she felt that in all this world there was nothing so heartrending as the injustice of God. More to herself than to her friend, she said:

"If God is all powerful He is responsible for the conditions resulting from His creation; if He is not all powerful He is not God."

Her limitations were such that she could not know that these things which were so grievous to her were but a foul and tattered garment with which human kind has covered the great heart of God. Pride, vain-glory, uncharitableness, ostentation--from these she shrank in righteous revolt; and without the slightest realization that she had allowed them to become as a bandage about her eyes, blinding her to the overruling Love of the Creator and to the priceless thing in the hearts of her fellow men.

Something of this Mrs. Mayhew was able to understand. She felt that her friend's heresy was not so much a thing of the heart as a distortion of her too finely wrought sensibilities; and she wondered that a hand so exquisitely refined and sensitive should reach out into this bleeding world and touch and handle its ghastly sin-stained burdens.

"My dear friend," she said; "you say that if God is God He is responsible for these things, yet He may be working in a way that you and I know nothing about. It has always been a comforting thought to me that there may be a wideness and a mercy in His plans that our finite minds are not able to grasp. But be this as it may, you have thrown the responsibility back upon Him, then why do you not let it rest there? Why do you fret and worry yourself about it? My dear, I am afraid you are allowing these things to weigh upon you and make you unhappy."

"Unhappy! Mrs. Mayhew I am wretched, tormented, ill, I fear I shall be--mad!"

"Mrs. Thorpe, what has happened to your life? What has brought about all this questioning and unrest?"

"Oh, my friend, if you knew the weary way that I have gone--alone--alone--I have no God!"

"But why have you cut yourself off from these things which the world has accepted? I cannot understand what has caused you to renounce your faith in God. Are you not afraid to stand thus alone?"

"There was a time when I was afraid, when I believed that I must believe that which I could not believe. It was a gruesome part of the way; yet there was no other part that I was so reluctant to leave. While living in fear I believed, most surely, that the first step out of it would be over a precipice; but this conception of what will follow is all that fear really is. Freed from this, my burden became lighter, but the darkness is none the less black."

"But why do you feel that you must go this troubled way alone? The world has accepted a religion. Why do you reject it?"

"The world has accepted a cleverly devised plan whereby men expect to be saved from their sins; they have woven into it the story of the Cross, the tale of the Christ. From the most beautiful life and tragic death that the world has ever known men have gleaned the harrowing, sordid details and fashioned them into form and creed and call it Religion. This thing I do reject. Could a completer foil be devised for mankind than that the nailing of a Christ to the Cross is to save them from the consequences of their iniquitous and selfish living?"