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Page 2
The suavity with which he apologized for alluding to his own ruin, as if
he had passed beyond the point of any personal feeling in the matter, had
something uncanny and creeping in its effect on the listeners, as if they
heard a dead soul speaking through living lips.
"After my disgrace," pursued the young man in the same quietly
explanatory tone, "the way I felt about myself was very much, I presume,
as a mechanic feels, who by an unlucky stroke has hopelessly spoiled the
looks of a piece of work, which he nevertheless has got to go on and
complete as best he can. Now you know that in order to find any pleasure
in his work, the workman must be able to take a certain amount of pride
in it. Nothing is more disheartening for him than to have to keep on with
a job with which he must be disgusted every time he returns to it, every
time his eye glances it over. Do I make my meaning clear? I felt like
that beaten crew in last week's regatta, which, when it saw itself
hopelessly distanced at the very outset, had no pluck to row out the
race, but just pulled ashore and went home.
"Why, I remember when I was a little boy in school, and one day made a
big blot on the very first page of my new copybook, that I didn't have
the heart to go on any further, and I recollect well how I teased my
father to buy me a new book, and cried and sulked until he finally took
his knife and neatly cut out the blotted page. Then I was comforted and
took heart, and I believe I finished that copybook so well that the
teacher gave me the prize.
"Now you see, don't you," he continued, the ghost of a smile glimmering
about his eyes, "how it was that after my disgrace I couldn't seem to
take an interest any more in anything? Then came the revival, and that
gave me a notion that religion might help me. I bad heard, from a child,
that the blood of Christ had a power to wash away sins and to leave one
white and spotless with a sense of being new and clean every whit. That
was what I wanted, just what I wanted. I am sure that you never had a
more sincere, more dead-in-earnest convert than I was."
He paused a moment, as if in mental contemplation, and then the words
dropped slowly from his lips, as a dim self-pitying smile rested on his
haggard face.
"I really think you would be sorry for me if you knew how very bitter was
my disappointment when I found that, these bright promises were only
figurative expressions which I had taken literally. Doubtless I should
not have fallen into such a ridiculous mistake if my great need had not
made my wishes fathers to my thoughts. Nobody was at all to blame but
myself; nobody at all. I'm blaming no one. Forgiving sins, I should have
known, is not blotting, them out. The blood of Christ only turns them red
instead of black. It leaves them in the record. It leaves them in the
memory. That day when I blotted my copybook at school, to have had the
teacher forgive me ever so kindly would not have made me feel the least
bit better so long as the blot was there. It wasn't any penalty from
without, but the hurt to my own pride which the spot made, that I wanted
taken away, so I might get heart to go on. Supposing one of you--and
you'll excuse me for asking you to put yourself a moment in my place--had
picked a pocket. Would it make a great deal of difference in your state
of mind that the person whose pocket you had picked kindly forgave you,
and declined to prosecute? Your offence against him was trifling, and
easily repaired. Your chief offence was against yourself, and that was
irreparable. No other person with his forgiveness can mediate between you
and yourself. Until you have been in such a fix, you can't imagine,
perhaps, how curiously impertinent it sounds to hear talk about somebody
else forgiving you for ruining yourself. It is like mocking."
The nine o'clock bell pealed out from the mill tower.
"I am trespassing on your kindness, but I have only a few more words to
say. The ancients had a beautiful fable about the water of Lethe, in
which the soul that was bathed straightway forgot all that was sad and
evil in its previous life; the most stained, disgraced, and mournful of
souls coming forth fresh, blithe, and bright as a baby's. I suppose my
absurd misunderstanding arose from a vague notion that the blood of
Christ had in it something like this virtue of Lethe water. Just think
how blessed a thing for men it would be if such were indeed the case, if
their memories could be cleansed and disinfected at the same time their
hearts were purified! Then the most disgraced and ashamed might live good
and happy lives again. Men would be redeemed from their sins in fact, and
not merely in name. The figurative promises of the Gospel would become
literally true. But this is idle dreaming. I will not keep you," and,
checking himself abruptly, he sat down.
The moment he did so, Mr. Lewis rose and pronounced the benediction,
dismissing the meeting without the usual closing hymn. He was afraid that
something might be said by Deacon Tuttle or Deacon Miller, who were good
men, but not very subtile in their spiritual insight, which would still
further alienate the unfortunate young man. His own intention of finding
opportunity for a little private talk with him after the meeting was,
however, disappointed by the promptness with which Bayley left the room.
He did not seem to notice the sympathetic faces and out-stretched hands
around him. There was a set smile on his face, and his eyes seemed to
look through people without seeing them. There was a buzz of conversation
as the people began to talk together of the decided novelty in the line
of conference-meeting exhortations to which they had just listened. The
tone of almost all was sympathetic, though many were shocked and pained,
and others declared that they did not understand what he had meant. Many
insisted that he must be a little out of his head, calling attention to
the fact that he looked so pale. None of these good hearts were half so
much offended by anything heretical in the utterances of the young man as
they were stirred with sympathy for his evident discouragement. Mr. Lewis
was perhaps the only one who had received a very distinct impression of
the line of thought underlying his words, and he came walking down the
aisle with his head bent and a very grave face, not joining any of the
groups which were engaged in talk. Henry Burr was standing near the door,
his hat in his hand, watching Madeline out of the corners of his eyes, as
she closed the melodeon and adjusted her shawl.
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