The First Soprano Part 21

"You may ask why does G.o.d restrict Himself to the human instrument in bearing the tidings, and _through the tidings the effective result_, of the Redemption? I cannot tell you why, but I see that it is so. A light from heaven may overpower a Saul of Tarsus, and he may hear words straight from the ascended Christ. But a Christian _man_--Ananias--must be sent to tell him how to wash away his sins, and to minister the Holy Spirit to him. An angel may communicate with Cornelius, the Centurion, but he stays his lips from uttering the Gospel of Christ. That privilege is reserved for the _human_ lips of Peter. Is it not sufficient that the Commander has said, 'Go _ye_'? Had the task been set for angels, it would have been accomplished long since, for _they_ do His pleasure. But He trusted it to us, who might be expected to be so bound by ties of grat.i.tude to His will that we would eagerly spring to do His bidding.

And we have miserably failed. 'Is there not another way?' we languidly ask in the face of the command. I do not see another way. But the Lord has most clearly outlined _this_ way: _That the Gospel should be preached in all the world to every creature, and that the one who believes and is baptized should be saved_. To sit and philosophically consider that an infinite G.o.d must surely find some other way if we fail in this, is not reverence for His wisdom. It is mutiny."

Some of the ladies looked startled at this bold setting forth of the case, and remembered how, privately, they had given voice to the sentiments under criticism before coming to the meeting. The Secretary's keen face betrayed thorough a.s.sent to what the speaker was saying, and the President was glad that she held such a relation as she did to a cause so evidently right, with a reverse side so evidently wrong. The plain little body of the Church Social beamed thorough sympathy.

"Do you say," continued Mr. Carew, "that G.o.d will be merciful to the heathen because of their ignorance? I believe He will, and do not doubt that it will be 'more tolerable' for those who have never heard than for those in this country (heathen also, in the Scriptural sense) who, having often heard, are still rejectors of the Gospel. But there is a greater question involved than that of lessened stripes or mitigated woe. Do you say that men will be _saved_ by lack of knowledge? The prophet said his people _perished_ for lack of it! Ah, if G.o.d had ordained ignorance to be the way of salvation He might have spared Himself great cost!--cost of the redemption sacrifice, and of its proclamation, often in martyr blood.

But He confers His boon to faith and 'faith cometh by _hearing_.'

"You say it will increase the responsibility of the heathen if they hear, and put them in worse case if they reject the message? Very true. But had that been a sufficient reason it would have silenced our Lord's 'Go ye' at the outset of the age. Never would the Gospel have traveled to our barbaric fathers, and we should be without hope to-day. But the treasure was too great which the Saviour sought. No thought of deeper shadows cast by the very brightness of the light could deter Him from holding it forth. Beyond all cost of difficulty, danger, or the deepened condemnation of the lost, was the value of the Church He sought--the pearl of great price for which all other possessions might be forfeited!

Ah, friends, since the object is so dear to Him, where are our hearts that we think of it so coldly! The burden of my plea is _for Him_; not for the missionary, not for philanthropy, not even so much for the heathen themselves, as _for Him_, because He loves and longs to give but lacks the human vessels through which to give!"

The speaker paused, and absently pushed back the hair from his flushed forehead. An almost tragic yearning shone in his deepset eyes. There was one in the congregation whose heart burned in a fellows.h.i.+p of grief over the Saviour's unmet longing. Mr. Carew continued more slowly, in a voice intensely sad and almost broken:

"Do you sometimes quote softly for _your_ comfort, 'I will guide thee with mine eye'? You have thought of His eye upon you--and that is right--to care for, protect and lead. But have you ever watched the glance of His eye with another thought, not for yourself, but _for Him_?

Not to see in it provision and help for you; but to see to what He is looking, for what He is longing--what it is that will give joy to Him?

When I look in His eyes," and the speaker was looking far away from his congregation and spoke as though half forgetting them, "I seem to hear Him saying, 'I have other sheep--I _must bring them_!'"

His voice sank to a whisper. Hubert felt a little convulsive movement beside him and Winifred's hand was shading her eyes. Mr. Carew recovered from the emotion that nearly mastered him, and remembered his hearers and their probable wishes. He began again:

"But perhaps I am neglecting to tell you that which you came especially to hear--some details concerning the actual work of G.o.d in China. You will pardon me, but I cannot forbear speaking wherever I go concerning the principles underlying our work, as well as of the work itself. One might describe the people and their ways--and all that is valuable in making them more real to us--and might present a score of curious things which would perhaps beguile an hour very pleasantly, but still leave an indifferent heart unchanged as to the real motive of missions. However, all that I have said will gain and not lose by our turning attention for a time to the practical outworking of the theory."

Then the speaker gave ill.u.s.trations of the way lost souls are found in China. Very pathetic were some of the incidents, and again and again Winifred's eyes were dim, and an unspeakable pain gnawed at Hubert's heart. Fervently he thanked G.o.d for those whose darkness He had turned to light, but sad beyond expression seemed the repeated instances which had occurred in Mr. Carew's experience of earnest pleadings for missionaries to be sent to various places and his absolute inability to answer the cry. But broader than the fact of the _wish_ of some stood the _need_ of all! Populous cities without one witness to the grace of G.o.d! Wide regions untraversed by the feet of His messengers! Hubert had thought New Laodicea a place of desperate need; and so it was in the matter of vital, fruit-bearing piety. But as he thought of the inky darkness in which China's millions dwelt this seemed a place of light.

The meeting came to an end. But first the President expressed the thanks of those who had listened to the lecture, and hoped all had been stirred to greater zeal and effort for the future in helping so good a cause.

She suggested that the mite-boxes should be redistributed.

"'Mite-boxes!'" thought Hubert and squirmed in his seat impatiently.

Then an inward voice reproved him for his contempt of small things. He thought of the poor that might deposit from time to time small coins that meant much from their slender incomes. Yes, "mites" were all right, if they were like the "widow's," and not the meager drippings from a selfish superfluity. But suppose _he_ take a mite-box? How many of them would be required to hold the h.o.a.rded, unnecessary, unused wealth at his command? He could not insult the Lord and the "dearest object of His heart" by an offering unworthy of his resources.

There was a pleasant buzz of voices at the close of the meeting and n.o.body seemed to be going. Doctor Schoolman was shaking hands with Mr.

Carew. Doors were opened into the parlor and there was the fragrant odor of a collation prepared. For the benevolences of New Laodicea were nothing like certain reluctant pumps that will give nothing until they have been given to. To whet an interest in such meetings as this, and to cajole small sums from unwilling purses, it was found necessary to make a gastronomic appeal.

Hubert and Winifred moved forward to personally express to the lecturer their appreciation of his words. Doctor Schoolman greeted them warmly and introduced them to him. Mr. Carew had noticed the two among his hearers, and looked at them now with an unconsciously appealing glance.

His face was still flushed and the hand Hubert took was hot.

"You are not well," said the latter involuntarily.

"No," said Mr. Carew, rather absently, "I suppose not."

"I should not think this work you are doing would tend to recovery?"

"No, perhaps not," said the missionary.

Hubert looked at him inquiringly. "Then why do you do it?" he wished to ask, but refrained.

Mr. Carew answered his questioning look.

"I am not to be pitied," he said with a smile, "even if I should not recover as I hope to do. Some men are sick and die for pure folly's sake, or for business. They are to be pitied. But if it were given a man to be spent for Christ's sake--to know some faint shadow of suffering for the same cause for which _He_ suffered as we never may--that man is happy, I think."

"He is," said Hubert earnestly, "he is."

Mr. Carew was struck by the sincerity of Hubert's tones. He looked at him with a searching, yearning expression; somewhat, it may be, as the Lord Jesus looked on the rich young man and "loved him." Would this one stand the test of love's requirement?

Some ladies were taking Winifred away to the parlors for refreshments, and someone invited Mr. Carew and Hubert also. They both accepted with the mutual wish to prolong the conversation. As they ate they talked of the Living Bread which must be borne to men.

In the course of their conversation Hubert confessed: "You will be astonished, but I have never before seen the matter as you presented it to-day, and yet I have been a Christian for three years."

"A good many men have been Christians for many years, and yet have not come to see the true motive of missions," said Mr. Carew. "It is singular how the most fundamental principles may be most ignored; I suppose somewhat as a man thinks less of the foundation stones of his house than of what he finds inside it. But in spite of this if a man has really a heart for G.o.d, when the matter is clearly presented to him he responds to it. G.o.d's purpose must find an 'amen' in his heart."

"That is true," said Hubert.

Presently they left the parlor, still talking together earnestly of G.o.d's will, and inadvertently drifted into the great auditorium. Mr. Carew glanced about at its finished elegance.

"Perhaps," he said to Hubert, "they think _this_ instead, is doing the will of G.o.d. I daresay they have read that the house Solomon builds for G.o.d must be 'exceeding magnifical,' and they think so must this be. And, indeed, the spiritual ant.i.type of that house must be beautiful! It 'groweth into a holy temple in the Lord.' And the work of missions is gathering its 'living stones.' But _this_--the New Testament breathes no word of instruction concerning this material house! Ah, if I were to write a general confession for our church I should say: 'We have left undone the things we were told to do, and we have done the things we were not told to do, and there is very little health in us!'"

Hubert smiled at Mr. Carew's words, but felt their force. He ventured to remark: "This building does not look as though there were lack of money among us."

"Oh, no!" said Mr. Carew. "Oh, no!" He repressed his lips, as though fearing to say more than would be courteous. But presently he spoke again in general terms.

"The church at home," he said, "has largely forgotten her pilgrim character. She has put off her sandals, and loosened her robes for luxurious living instead of girding them for service and pilgrimage. As to display and indulgence at home, she says plainly, 'I am rich,' but as to the carrying out the will of G.o.d entrusted to her for the world, she is pitifully poor."

They were emerging from the stately auditorium, and Hubert bethought him to look for Winifred. They met her in one of the rooms with Mrs.

Greenman.

"Oh, Mr. Carew," said the latter, "I was looking for you. Our ladies appreciate so very much your talk to us! I hope--"

Winifred and Hubert were now speaking together and did not hear more of the President's remarks. But before they left the place Hubert had sought Mr. Carew again and had asked him to call at his office the following day.

"I should like to talk with you further concerning your business," he said.

He used the word "business" absent-mindedly, and Mr. Carew smiled, not at all illy pleased with it. Hubert was thinking of an investment.

CHAPTER XVII

LET THE DEAD BURY THEIR DEAD

Winifred and Hubert walked a part of the way home in silence. At length the former spoke.

"It seems to me we have been rather blind concerning the object of missions," she said. "What do you think of it now, Hubert?"

"I am convinced that I have taken a very shallow view of it," Hubert replied. "It is a marvel to me now that I could have missed so completely the true motive of missions. It is as clear as daylight in the Bible. It is humiliating to think one has been so contentedly provincial in thoughts of G.o.d's salvation. I am ashamed of it."

"So am I," agreed Winifred, and then they walked on in silence. An uneasy thought was gnawing at her heart that hardly found expression.

Had it been put in words it would have been something like this:

"How are we _to act_ with reference to new light on the will of G.o.d?