The First Soprano Part 6

Surely science had never yielded her treasures to sneering unbelief, but to humble, patient faith. Must he so find out G.o.d?

Again he pondered: Could G.o.d, if there were a G.o.d, be expected to be less mysterious, less wonderful, less unsearchable than the subtle forces found in nature, and actually utilized, but never understood?

"What is electricity?" he asked himself. "I do not know, but I can use it. I know it is. So may not G.o.d be, invisible, uncomprehended, but real, and demonstrable to the man who applies himself to know Him?"

Hubert was very near a determination to thus apply himself. But should G.o.d be sought for as a force or as a personality? The old argument, hackneyed but true, spoke to him: The presence of design argues a designer. No blind force ever clasped the petals of a lily together, to say nothing of the arrangement of a universe. Had Hubert known it, there was a pa.s.sage of Inspiration which read:

"The invisible things of him from the creation or the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his everlasting power and G.o.dhead."

Now how to address himself to G.o.d--how to conduct this new experiment--was the question. He remembered the conditions of disciples.h.i.+p to science, and determined that he would follow them.

First, there was child-likeness. A fragment of Scripture, words of Jesus Christ, came to him:

"Except ye . . . become as little children ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."

How simple the principle. No pride of supposed knowledge, no dogmatism of unbelief might be brought to the door of this mysterious kingdom by the man who would enter in. Then, he must follow the things revealed if he would know more. What did he know about G.o.d? Or what must be true of Him, granted that He is?

"If He is," thought Hubert, "and is my Creator, then He must know me altogether."

"Thou G.o.d seest me."

It was a text--he did not know its connection--learned years before in Sunday-school, before his independence of spirit had withdrawn his neck from an unloved yoke. Now it spoke to him clearly. Surely G.o.d (if He were) must see him, and surely He must hear him. He did not consciously remember the words, "he that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall He not see?" But thoughts of like nature pa.s.sed through his mind. A creator who could bestow such marvelous faculties must Himself possess them in infinite measure. And a G.o.d who had given to His creatures such powers of communication, must surely have means to make Himself understood.

"If He is," said Hubert, "then He is great! He is infinite. I cannot measure His power in any line. Surely He can reveal Himself to me if He will. Is He willing?"

In the contemplation of G.o.d the man grew less and less in his own esteem. Would G.o.d reveal Himself to such an atom in the wide universe as he? Did He care for him or about him?

"G.o.d is Love," whispered memory, from the Book, and the suggestion beat upon the unarmored heart of the seeker, and was not unwelcome.

"I will put it to the test," he said to himself. "I will ask Him."

He rose from his chair and thought to fall upon his knees, but was resisted. An unlooked for struggle arose within him.

He had said to Frothingham that he was not proud of his scepticism, but now his independent thought arose before him, an image not willing to be crucified. He saw the sneers of his fellow unbelievers, should he join the ranks of the religious. Suppose G.o.d should reveal Himself?

Would he not be bound to serve Him? A vision of the Man who called Himself the Son of G.o.d arose dim and wraith-like, sorrowful, homeless, poor--crucified! If G.o.d revealed Himself, perhaps he must follow that Man! Was it worth it? Was it not better to go on as he was, rich, independent, self-governed? If he asked for light, was he ready to follow the light?

His hands clenched themselves in the struggle. The vision of self-abnegation was so real that it sickened him. Home, possessions, friends.h.i.+ps, and his own life also, seemed demanded by the vision of that Man. But to turn back from the light that might be gained was to fall into a darkness more d.a.m.nable and more desolate than before.

"Buy the truth and sell it not," urged a voice, and some glimmer of encouragement seemed in his imagination to smile from the face of the Man of Sorrows. In his decision the sweat broke from his brow and the veins stood in cords of agony. He fell upon his knees, and said aloud:

"O G.o.d, if Thou art, reveal Thyself to me, and I will serve Thee."

The solitary gas jet still flickered in the room, the moonlight shone without, the silent household slept. No voice answered the young man's prayer, nor sensible Presence wrapped him about; but a crisis was marked in one life that night and the result was to be light and peace.

Hubert had not imagined what sort of a response should be made to his request, and it was well he had not. But he felt a sense of relief at a decision gained after he had uttered his prayer to G.o.d, and soon retired to his bed. It was not to enjoy much sleep, however, for still the vision of the Man of Calvary haunted him, and with it a sense that it was in His footsteps he must tread, if the truth should really be revealed to him. In the slow hours of the night he counted the cost of the tower he should build, and wondered if he would be able to finish it. To him it was granted at the outset of the way to know something of the rugged terms of true disciples.h.i.+p.

The next morning dawned murky and cool. A thin, struggling rain beat against the windows of Hubert's room when he woke. Things look different by the cold light of day, especially if the day be rainy, from the same things seen by gaslight. With Hubert's instant memory of the night before, came the temptation to dismiss its happenings as a dream and go back to his former way of living. But he could not do so in honesty. He had made a pledge to a supposed Being, whom he must now treat as a reality until the most honest experiment proved Him not to he, or to be inaccessible. Clearly a line of procedure formed itself in his mind. He must seek to know those laws, or principles, that governed the new realm which he sought to enter, and endeavor to adjust himself to them.

So he took from its place on the shelves the Book that was most likely of all to give the suggestions he needed, because it dealt specifically with the matter in hand. Of all those who bore witness in the Book the most remarkable one was Jesus Christ. So he turned to the New Testament, and to the Gospels. He was none too familiar with their teachings, but he believed that of them all the Gospel of John contained the fullest statement of abstract principles. He would read it.

It was still early, and he settled himself for an hour's study. It occurred to him to invoke afresh that One whom he was seeking for light upon His own law. An impulse of pride almost deterred him, but he thought,

"If He is, and I am His creature, I can afford to be humble. Indeed, it is the only fitting thing."

So he bowed his head and said:

"O G.o.d, I am seeking Thee. Help me to understand the truth."

He found the Gospel of John, and began at the beginning. He read the sublime statements concerning the Word, and wondered if they were true.

If true, it was the most wonderful fact in the world. If untrue--oh, what darkness lay in the shadow of so great light's negation! He read the twelfth verse, and the thirteenth, and pondered them in the light of the foregoing statement. If they were true, then He who was "with G.o.d," who "was G.o.d"--he paused to consider the mysterious relations.h.i.+p; mysterious, yet not thereby incredible; he would not repeat the folly of the gardener by too ready unbelief! If true, then G.o.d, that eternal Word, came down to man, and "as many as received Him," to them it was granted to become the sons of G.o.d! They were translated into the realm whence He came forth.

The stupendous fact--if fact?--glowed like a sun-lit prism and awoke an ardent longing that it might be so. Ah, to escape the limits of this petty life! How mean and small it seemed. Man at his best, his grandest, but to live out a brief day, and then go out into the uncertain darkness forever! If G.o.d had ordained a way into His own infinite realm, surely it was worth the finding.

But what was it to "receive" Him? In what sense did they in the days of His fleshly life receive Him? Was it in a more physical, tangible way than would he possible to man now? Evidently not; for of those among whom He moved in bodily presence, the majority "received Him not." Certainly His mission to the earth was not for that generation only, but for all men. Perhaps the receiving was explained by the companion statement, "even to them that believe on His name."

But to "believe" was not less difficult to Hubert than to "receive."

He had boasted his inability to believe that which was unsupported by evidence, and had found bitter fault with evangelical doctrine, which, he supposed, put a high premium upon blind credulity,--an att.i.tude of mind, he contended, which would render a man as open to receive the teachings of Buddha, or Mahomet if he happened to hear them, as those of Jesus Christ. He might have added, or the teachings of a Payne, or an Ingersoll, or, as a remoter example, of the serpent in Eden who beguiled a credulous woman.

Hubert's search had become so earnest that he did not now pause to nurse his rancor against the defenseless word "believe," and it even flashed into his thought that, should he study diligently its use, he might discover in it a further or different meaning than he had credited it with. At this point he wished for a Greek Testament, but there was none in the house. Later in the day, however, he surprised a book dealer by the purchase of one, and prepared himself for further studies in the "believes" of John's Gospel.

For the present he contented himself with reading on, striving to note all the story and its argument, pa.s.sing over much, undoubtedly, that would have spoken volumes had he had ears to hear, but still finding much that spoke pointedly and clearly to him. He pondered the testimony of John the Baptist to "the Lamb of G.o.d, which taketh away the sin of the world," and did not understand it. But a feeling almost of jealous envy stole into his heart toward the two disciples of the Baptist, who, hearing the witness, followed Jesus. His hungry soul echoed their "Where dwellest Thou?" in the mystical sense in which he instinctively read it, and he felt it would be joy indeed to hear that One say, "Come and see." Would he not come, indeed, if he were bidden!

Hubert read until the breakfast bell sounded, and then went down to pursue his study in Winifred's bright face, and wonder how much she really knew of the matter he was trying to search out.

"Winnie," he said to her after breakfast, "do you still think you have begun to know G.o.d?"

"Yes," she said placidly, "I am sure of it."

"How do you know?" said he. "How does He manifest Himself?"

"I don't know," she answered. "I can't explain it, but He seems very real."

"How did you find Him? What did you do?" he questioned further.

"Oh, I just came to Him," she answered. "And," as she reflected of that night's compact, "I gave myself up to Him."

So that was the way Winifred found Him. Was that the way to "believe"?

But Winifred had none of his doubts about G.o.d. She believed that He was, and the mental a.s.sent led to the heart surrender. But if he should _do_ her act of faith--? If a man with doubts should give himself up would he be received? With such reflections Hubert went out into his day's work.

Again he accomplished the day's business with faithfulness to all details, but with the consciousness every hour of a perplexity unsolved--a burden unlifted. Again he was glad when the office door closed behind him and he turned his face homeward, striding beneath his umbrella through the now settled rain, with the Greek Testament grasped in his hand.

An attractive wood fire burned in the drawing-room grate that evening, but Hubert resisted its invitation and retired to his "scientific den,"

as Winifred called it, to pursue his new studies. He set himself to read again in the Greek that which he had read in English. He was struck by the fact that the word translated "believe" was also rendered "commit" in a pa.s.sage in the second chapter. That seemed somewhat more practical to his apprehension.

He lingered long on the interview with Nicodemus, and as the rain beat upon the roof and window pane he listened to the words uttered on a Judean night, so long ago, to a man who like himself sought the truth.

In the first chapter of the Gospel, in its introduction, he had caught a glimpse of infinite stretches and light unapproachable, and it seemed no marvel that a man, if he would enter that kingdom, _must be born into it_! Marvel, indeed, it might be, that such a birth were possible, but not that it was needful. For how could he transgress the boundaries of the human sphere into which he had been born, and lift himself into the higher? It was impossible. No, that life must somehow come forth to him. He must be "born from above."

As he read on into the book, still bearing in mind the character ascribed to Jesus Christ in its beginning, he could not wonder that He spoke with such authority. Not "Thus saith the Lord," but "Verily, verily, I say unto you," the new Prophet declared. What wonder, if He were such a Being as described, that He should offer living water to the Samaritan woman, since "in Him was life," nor that "the work of G.o.d" for obtaining eternal life should be narrowed down to a belief in--a committal unto--Himself?