In League with Israel Part 27

She repeated the conversation that had just taken place.

"He has been fighting against that conviction for some time," answered Mr. Marion. "I had a talk with him last week."

"What do you suppose Rabbi Barthold would say if Mr. Herschel should become a Christian?" asked Bethany.

"Ah, I asked the old gentleman that very question yesterday," exclaimed Mr. Cragmore. "It astounded him at first. I could see that the mere thought of such apostasy in one he loves as dearly as his young David, wounded him sorely. O, it grieved him to the heart! But he is a n.o.ble soul, broad-minded and generous. He did not answer for a moment, and when he finally spoke I could see what an effort the words cost him:

"'David is a child no longer,' he said, slowly. 'He has a right to choose for himself. I would rather read the rites of burial over his dead body than to see him cut loose from the faith in which I have so carefully trained him; but no matter what course he pursues, I am sure of one thing, his absolute honesty of purpose. Whatever he does, will be from a deep conviction of right. I, who was denounced and misunderstood in my youth because I cast aside the weight of orthodoxy that bound me down spiritually, should be the last one to condemn the same independence of thought in others.'"

"Herschel would have less opposition to contend with than any Jew I know," remarked Mr. Marion.

"That little sister of his would be rather pleased than otherwise, and, I think, would soon follow his example."

Bethany thought of Esther, but said nothing.

"We'll make it a subject of prayer to-night," said Cragmore, who had been appointed to lead the meeting.

"Yes," answered Marion, clapping his friend on the shoulder. Then he quoted emphatically: "'And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us.'"

"Let's ask him right now!" cried Cragmore, in his impetuous way.

He slipped the bolt in the door, and kneeling beside David's desk, began praying for his absent friend as he would have pleaded for his life. Then Marion followed with the same unfaltering earnestness, and after his voice ceased, Bethany took up the pet.i.tion.

"n.o.body need tell me that those prayers are not heard," exclaimed Marion, triumphantly, as he arose from his knees. "I know better. Come, Bethany; if you are ready to go, we will walk as far as the avenue with you."

As they went down-stairs together, he kept singing softly under his breath, "Blessed be the name, blessed be the name of the Lord!"

By ten o'clock the League-room of the Garrison Avenue Church was crowded.

George Cragmore had prepared a carefully-studied address for the occasion; but during the half hour of the song service preceding it, while he studied the faces of his audience, his heart began to be strangely burdened for David and his people. He covered his eyes with his hand a moment, and sent up a swift prayer for guidance, before he arose to speak.

"My friends," he said in his deep, musical voice, "I had thought to talk to you to-night of 'spiritual growth,' but just now, as I have been sitting here, G.o.d had put another message into my mouth. We are all children of one Father who have met in this room, and for that reason you will bear with me now for the strangeness of the questions I shall ask, and the seeming harshness of my words. This is a time for honest self-examination. I should like to know how many, during the year just gone, have contributed in any way to the support of Home and Foreign Missions?"

Every one in the room arose.

"How many have tried, by prayer, daily influence, and direct appeal, to bring some one to Christ?"

Again every one arose.

"How many of you, during the past year, have spoken to a Jew about your Savior, or in any way evinced to any one of them a personal interest in the salvation of that race?"

Looks of surprise were exchanged among the Leaguers, and many smiled at the question. Only two arose, Mr. Marion and Bethany Hallam.

When they had taken their seats again there was a moment of intense silence. The earnest solemnity of the minister was felt by every one present. They waited almost breathlessly for what was coming.

"There is a young Jew in this city to-night whose heart is turning lovingly towards your Savior and mine. I have come to ask your prayers in his behalf, that the stumbling-blocks in his way may be removed. But it is not for him alone my soul is burdened. I seem to hear Isaiah's voice crying out to me, 'Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your G.o.d. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned.' And then I seem to hear another voice that through the thunderings of Sinai proclaims, 'Thou shalt not bear false witness.' Ah! the Christian Church has been weighed in the balance and found wanting. It must read a terrible handwriting on the wall in the fact that Israel's eyes have not been opened to the fulfillment of prophecy. For had she seen Christ in the daily life of every follower since he was first preached in that little Church at Antioch, we would have had a race of Sauls turned Pauls! We are Christ's witnesses to all men. Do all men see Christ in us, or only a false, misleading image of him? He cherished no racial prejudices. He turned away from no man with a look of scorn, or a cold shrug of indifference. He drew no line across which his sympathies and love and helping hands should not reach. When we do these things, are we not bearing false witness to the character of him whose name we have a.s.sumed, and the emblem of whose cross we wear? I can not believe that any of us here have been willfully neglectful of this corner of the Lord's vineyard. It must be because your hearts and hands were full of other interests that you have been indifferent to this."

Then he told them of Lessing and Ragolsky and David, and called on them to pray that his friend might find the light he was seeking. A dozen earnest prayers were offered in quick succession, and every heart went out in sympathy to this young Jew, whom they longed to see happy in the consciousness of a personal Savior.

David had not gone out to Hillhollow. He dined at the restaurant, and was just starting leisurely down to the depot when he found that his watch told the same time as when he had looked at it an hour before. It must have been stopped even some time before that. At any rate it had made him too late for the train. The next one would not leave till nine o'clock. He stood on a corner debating how to pa.s.s the time, and finally concluded to go back to the office for a magazine he had borrowed from Rabbi Barthold, and take it home to him.

His steps echoed strangely through the deserted hall as he climbed the stairs to the office. He lighted the gas, and sat down to look through the papers on his desk for the magazine. But when he had found it, he still sat there idly, drumming with his fingers on the rounds of his chair.

After awhile he took Bethany's Testament out of his pocket, and began to read. It was marked heavily with many marginal notes and underscored pa.s.sages, that he examined with a great deal of curiosity. Beginning with Matthew's account of the wise men's search, he read steadily on through the four Gospels, past Acts, and through some of Paul's epistles. It was after ten by the office clock when he finished the letter to the Hebrews.

He put the book down with a groan, and, folding his arms on the desk, wearily laid his head on them.

Just then Bethany's parting words echoed in his ears, "No matter where you may be, I shall be praying for you."

It had irritated him at the moment. Now there was comfort in the thought that she might be interceding in his behalf. He loved the faith of his fathers. He was proud of every drop of Israelitish blood that coursed through his veins. He felt that nothing could induce him to renounce Judaism--nothing! Yet his heart went out lovingly toward the Christ that had been so wonderfully revealed to him as he read.

The conviction was slowly forcing itself on his mind that in accepting him he would not be giving up Judaism, that he would only be accepting the Messiah long promised to his own people--only believing fulfilled prophecy.

He wanted him so--this Christ who seemed able to satisfy every longing of his heart, which just now was 'hungering and thirsting after righteousness;' this Christ who had so loved the world that he had given himself a willing sacrifice to make propitiation for its sins--for his--David Herschel's sins.

The old questions of the Trinity and the Incarnation came back to perplex him, and he put them resolutely away, remembering the words that Bethany had quoted, that when Israel should turn to the Lord, the veil should be taken from its heart.

Suddenly he started to his feet, and with his hands clasped above his head, cried out: "O, Thou Eternal, take away the veil! Show me Christ! I will give up anything--everything that stands in the way of my accepting him, if thou wilt but make him manifest!"

He threw himself on his knees in an agony of supplication, and then rising, walked the floor. Time and again he knelt to pray, and again rose in despair to pace back and forth.

He hardly knew what to expect, but Paul's conversion had been attended by such miraculous manifestations that he felt that some great revelation must certainly be made to him.

Opening the little Testament at random, he saw the words, "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that G.o.d hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

"I do believe it," he said aloud. "And I will confess it the first opportunity I have. Yes, I will go right now and tell Uncle Ezra--no matter what it may cause him to say to me."

He looked at the clock again. The old year was almost gone. It was nearly midnight. Rabbi Barthold would be asleep. Then he remembered the watch-night service Bethany had asked him to attend. Cragmore and Marion would be there. He would go and tell them.

He started rapidly down the street, saying to himself: "How queer this seems! Here am I, a Jew, on my way to confess before men that I believe a Galilean peasant is the Son of G.o.d. I don't understand the mystery of it, but I do believe in some way the promised atonement has been made, and that it avails for me."

He clung to that hope all the way down to the Church. It was growing stronger every step.

Bethany had risen to take her place at the piano at the announcement of another hymn, when the door opened and David Herschel stood in their midst. Not even glancing at the startled members of the League, he walked across the room and held out one hand to Cragmore and the other to Marion. His voice thrilled his listeners with its intensity of purpose.

"I have come to confess before you the belief that your Jesus is the Christ, and that through him I shall be saved."

Then a look of happy wonderment shone in his face, as the dawning consciousness of his acceptance became clearer to him.

"Why, I am saved! Now!" he cried in joyful surprise.

Glad tears sprang to many eyes, and only one exclamation could express the depth of Frank Marion's grat.i.tude--an old-fas.h.i.+oned shout of "Glory to G.o.d!" Yes, an old, old fas.h.i.+on--for it came in when "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of G.o.d shouted for joy."

"O, I must tell the whole world!" cried David.

"Come!" exclaimed Cragmore, turning to those around him, and laying his hand on David's shoulder; "here is another Saul turned Paul. Who such missionaries of the cross as these redeemed sons of Abraham? Leagued with such an Israel, we could soon tell all the world. Who will join the alliance?"

In answer they came crowding around David, with warm hand-clasps and sympathetic words, till the bells all over the city began tolling the hour of midnight.