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Laicus; Or, the Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish, a fiction by Lyman Abbott |
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Chapter 32. God Said, "Let There Be Light" |
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_ CHAPTER XXXII. God said, "Let there be Light" FROM Mr. Gear's Jennie and I drove directly to Maurice Mapleson's. Fortunately we found him at home. Briefly I told him of my visit. "What can we do," I said at the close, "to save this man from the despair of utter skepticism?" "He is in good hands," said Mr. Mapleson, with calm assurance. "No! Mr. Mapleson," said I, "I can do nothing more with him. So long as I had only the intellect to deal with, I thought I knew what to say and when to keep silence. But I dare neither speak nor keep silence now." "I did not mean your hands," said Mr. Mapleson. "What then?" said I. "He is in God's hands," replied the pastor. "God has taken him out of your hands into His own. Leave him there." "Is there then nothing more to be done?" I said. "Yes," said he, "but chiefly prayer." Then after a moment's pause he added: "I believe, Mr. Laicus, in the oft quoted and generally perverted promise: If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. I believe it was intended for just such exigencies as this. It is not a general charter, but a special promise. Now is the time to plead it. Who beside yourself in our church is Mr. Gear's most intimate acquaintance and warmest friend?" I thought a moment before I answered. Then I replied, "To be honest, Mr. Mapleson, I do not believe there is one in the church who understands him. But Deacon Goodsole has had more to do with him than any other, and perhaps understands him better." "Very well," said Mr. Mapleson. "Will you meet Deacon Goodsole at my house to-morrow evening, half an hour before the prayer-meeting, to unite in special prayer for Mr. Gear? I will see the Deacon. I am sure he will come." "I am sure he will," I added warmly; "as sure as that I will be there myself." With that I bade Mr. Mapleson good-night and hurried away. For tea had long been waiting, the children's bed hour was near, and Jennie was growing impatient to be at home. Wednesday evening Mr. Mapleson, the Deacon and I went into our church prayer-meeting from half an hour spent in Mr. Mapleson's study in prayer for Mr. Gear. Mr. Mapleson had seen Mr. Gear that morning. But the stricken father was very silent; he offered no communication; and Mr. Mapleson had pressed for none. I confess I had hoped much from Mr. Mapleson's interview, and I went into the prayer-meeting burdened and sorrowful. I think I have already remarked that Mr. Mapleson's conduct of a prayer-meeting is exceedingly simple. He seldom says much. He sets us all an example of brevity. A few words of Scripture, a few earnest words of his own or a simple prayer, usually constitute his sole contribution to the meeting, which is more truly a meeting for prayer than any other prayer-meeting I ever attended. That evening he seemed loath to open the meeting. We were little late in beginning. When we did begin we were late in getting into the heart of it. He called on one after another to lead in prayer. I did not know but that he was going to omit the reading of Scripture and his own remarks altogether. Our prayer-meeting commences at half-past seven. The pastor never allows it to overrun an hour. And it was after eight when he arose to read. He read from the twelth chapter of Acts, the account of Peter's deliverance from prison. He read it from beginning to end without a comment, and then he spoke substantially as follows. His words were very simple. But that meeting has left an impression upon me that time will never obliterate. I believe I could repeat his words to my dying day. "A great deal is said and written," said he, "about the apostolic faith. But the apostles were men of like passions as we ourselves. They fought the same doubts. They prayed in the same hesitating, uncertain, unbelieving way. Peter was in prison. His friends could do nothing to effect his deliverance-nothing but pray. So they assembled for that purpose. They had the promise of the Lord, 'If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in Heaven.' But they did not believe it. They took some comfort in praying-as we do. But they did not expect any answer to their prayers. The thought that God might really afford deliverance never seems to have occurred to them. And when Peter, delivered by the angel of the Lord, came knocking at the gate of the house, and the startled disciples wondered what this midnight summons might mean, and the servant returned to report that Peter stood without, they laughed at her. You are mad, said they. And when he persisted in his knocking, and she in her assertion, they added with trembling and under-breath to one another, in mortal fear, "It is his ghost." Anything was more credible to their minds than that God should have answered their united prayers. "The promise of God is to the prayer of faith. But God is constantly better than his promise. He does not limit Himself by our expectations. He does exceedingly abundantly more than we can ask or even think. We are not therefore to be driven from our knees by our want of faith. I hear men talk as though prayer were of no avail unless we believe beforehand with assurance that we were going to receive all for which we asked. It is not true. We are not heard for our much asking, nor for much our believing, but for God's great mercy's sake. "When the mission was first started at the Mill village, if I have understood aright, it was started on the application of the children themselves. They gathered around the school-house when the Bible-class assembled. They had no expectation of instruction. When the first person came to the door to invite them in, probably half of them scampered away in fright. Did they expect all that has come? Or would any Christian worker have said, 'They shall not have a Sabbath-school till they ask it, and believe that it will be provided for them?' And our Father does not wait for the prayer of faith. Like the father in the parable he comes while we are yet afar off. If we have faith enough to look wistfully and yearningly for a blessing, He has superabundant love to grant it." And then he read, and we sang that most beautiful hymn: "Oh! see how Jesus trusts himself Unto our childish love! As though by His free ways with us Our earnestness to prove. His sacred name a common word On earth He loves to hear; There is no majesty in Him Which love may not come near. The light of love is round His feet, His paths are never dim; And He comes nigh to us when we Dare not come nigh to Him. Let us be simple with Him, then, Not backward, stiff, nor cold, As though our Bethlehem could be What Sinai was of old." Mr. Mapleson is very fond of music. Singing is a feature of all our prayer-meetings. I have heard him say that he thought more people had been sung into the kingdom of heaven than were ever preached into it. Usually his rich voice carries the bass almost alone. But during the singing of this hymn he sat silent, leaning his head upon his hand. This silence was so unusual that it almost oppressed the meeting. When the hymn closed there was a solemn hush, a strange expectancy; it seemed as though no one dared to break the sacred silence. Our lecture-room occupies half the basement of the church. I sat in a front seat, close by the little desk-a low platform furnished only with a light stand on which rests the minister hymn-book and a small Bible. The room was full, but it had filled up after I came in. The prolonged silence grew painful. Then I heard a rustle as of one rising to his feet. Then a voice; I startled, half turned round, restrained myself, thank God, and only cast on Jennie, at my side, a look of wonder and of thanksgiving. The voice was that of Mr. Gear. "Fellow-townsmen," said he,--he spoke hesitatingly at first as one unused to the place and the assemblage,--"I have come here to make a request. You are surprised to see me here. You will be more surprised to hear my request. I want to ask you to pray for me." He had recovered from his hesitancy now. But he spoke with an unnatural rapidity as though he were afraid of breaking down altogether if he stopped a moment to reflect upon himself and his position. "You know me only as an infidel. I am an infidel. At least I was. Yes! I suppose I still am. My mother died when I was but a babe. My father brought me up. He was orthodox of the orthodox. But oh! he was a hard man. And he had a hard creed. I used to think the creed made the man. Lately I have thought perhaps the man made the creed. At all events both were hard. And I repudiated both. At fourteen I abhorred my father's creed. At eighteen I had left my father's roof. I have never returned except on occasional visits." He had gained more self-possession now, and spoke more slowly and distinctly. The room was as still as that room of death in which the evening before I had prayed with him, kneeling by the corpse of his little boy. "What I have been at Wheathedge you know. I cannot come here to-night on a false pretence. I cannot call myself a desperate sinner. I have wronged no man. I have lived honestly and uprightly before you all. I owe no man anything. I have depended on my daily labor for my daily bread. Out of it I have provided as I had opportunity for the poor around me. No one ever went hungry from my door away. My creed has been a short and simple one, 'Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.' I have tried to live according to my creed. "But I begin to think that my creed is not all the truth. Mr. Laicus first led me to think so. No! my boy first led me to think so. I was satisfied with my creed for myself. But I was not satisfied with it for my boy. "Then I met Mr. Laicus. We commenced to study the Bible together. If he had attempted to prove my opinions wrong I would have defended them. But he did not. We studied the undoubted truth. The doubtful points he left alone. I learned there was more in the Bible, more in human life and the human heart than I had thought. I grew little by little sure that I had not all the truth. But I was unwilling to confess it. I was-yes, I was too proud. "Yesterday"--his voice trembled and he spoke with difficulty for a moment, but quickly recovered himself--"yesterday we lost the light and life out of our house. No! I am wrong. My light was extinguished, and my life was quenched in death. But my wife's was not. The dear boy was as dear to her as he was to me. But she lives and hopes; I am in darkness and almost in despair. My father's hard creed drove me into infidelity. My wife's, my friend's tenderer and happier faith calls me back again. But I do not know the way. "Last night, kneeling by the side of my dear boy, I vowed that I would cast away my pride and seek that light in which my wife and my friends are walking. An hour ago the thought occurred to me-where seek it better than where they are gathered who are walking in this light? It seemed to me I could not come. But I had made the vow. I would not go back from it. I have cast away my pride. Oh! friends, help me to find that light in which you walk. "Do not misunderstand me. I will not have your prayers on false pretences. I am, if not still an infidel, at least an unbeliever. I have no creed. I only believe that there is light somewhere, for others live in it. And I long to come into that light myself. Help me to find the way. And yet-I hardly know why I came here to-night. It was not for counsel. I do not want words now. The kindliest only pain me. Discussion and debate would arouse all the old devil of contradiction in me. Leave me alone. No! Do not leave me alone. Give me your prayers. Give me your Christian sympathies. But for the rest, for a little while, I want to be alone." He sat down. There was a moment of perfect stillness. Then the pastor arose. "Christ's sympathies are broader and His love is larger than we think," said he. "We hedge him round with our poor creeds, and shut Him up in our little churches, and think He works only in our appointed ways. He breaks over the barriers we put about him, and carries on His work of love in hearts that we think are beyond all reach of Him or us. We cannot tell our brother how to find the light. The light will find him. 'Jesus Christ is the light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.' And when the heart casts its pride away the light enters. For thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place; with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the heart of the contrite ones. Into His hands let us commit our brother's spirit." And he poured forth his soul in a prayer which carried heavenward many an unbreathed cry for help, and received in the beating of many hearts a warmer, truer response than any spoken words could have given to it. After service I walked along with Maurice Mapleson. "I was never more astonished in my life," said I, "than when I heard Mr. Gear's voice in the prayer-meeting to-night." "I was not astonished," said Mr. Mapleson. "I went to that prayer-meeting sure that God had in store for us a better answer to our prayers than we had thought. I do not believe in presentiments; but I had a strange presentiment that Mr. Gear would come to our meeting to-night, that God would rebuke our little faith by His unexpected answer. I even waited for Mr. Gear's coming. I saw him enter. I took that chapter of Acts-which God seemed to give me at the moment-partly that I might lead him on to fulfil the purpose which I fully believed had brought him there. While you were singing, I was praying. And when the hymn and the prayer were ended together, I knew God would not let him go away unblest." "I shall never again doubt," said I, "the truth of God's promise-'that if two of us shall agree on earth as touching anything they shall ask, it shall be done for them.'" "Shall you not?" said he, with a smile. "I wish I could be as sure for myself." _ |
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