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Four Girls at Chautauqua

<h2 id="id01302" style="margin-top: 4em">CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2> <h5 id="id01303">MENTAL PROBLEMS.</h5> "Dr. Deems," said Ruth, looking up from her programme with a thoughtful air. "I wonder if he is a man whom I have any special desire to hear?" You must constantly remember the entire ignorance of these girls on all names and topics that pertained to the religious world. Ruth knew indeed that the gentleman in question was a New York clergyman; that was as far as her knowledge extended. "His subject is interesting," Flossy said. "I don't think it is," said Eurie. "Not to me, anyhow. Nature and I have nothing in common, except to have a good time together if we can get it. She is a miserably disappointed jade, I know. What has she done for us since we have been here except to arrange rainy weather? I'm going to visit his honor the mummy this morning, and from there I am going to the old pyramid; and I advise you to go with me, all of you. Talk about nature when there is an old fellow to see who was acquainted with it thousands of years ago. Nature is too common an affair to be interested in." "Oh, are you going to the museum?" said Flossy. "Then please get me one of the 'Bliss' singing books, will you? I want to secure one before they are all gone. Girls, don't you each want one of them to take home? The hymns are lovely." "I don't," said Eurie, "unless he is for sale to go along and sing them. I can't imagine anything tamer than to hear some commonplace voice trying to do those songs that he roars out without any effort at all. What has become of the man?" "He has gone," said Marion. "Called home suddenly, some one told me. His singing is splendid, isn't it? I don't know but I feel much as you do about the book. Think of having Deacon Miller try to sing, 'Only an armor-bearer!' I don't mind telling you that I felt very much as if I were being lifted right off my feet and carried up somewhere, I hardly know where, when I heard him sing that. I was coming down the hill, away off, you know, by the post-office—no, away above the post-office, and he suddenly burst forth. I stopped to listen, and I could hear every single word as distinctly as I can hear you in this tent." "Hear!" said Eurie, "I guess you could. I shouldn't be surprised if they heard him over at Mayville, and that is what brings such crowds here every day. Did you ever see anything like the way the people come here, anyhow?" "I don't feel at all as you do," said Flossy, going back to the question of singing-books. "After we get let down a little, 'Only an armor-bearer' will sound very well even from common singers. It has in it what can't be taken out because a certain voice is lost; and the book is full of other and simpler pieces, and lovely choruses, that people can catch after one hearing." "Flossy is going home to introduce it into the First Church," Eurie said, gravely. Flossy's cheeks flushed. "I had not thought of that," she said, simply; "perhaps we can. In any case get me a couple, Eurie." The discussion on the morning service ended in a division of the party. Ruth, who had come over early on purpose to attend, was obliged to succumb to a feeling of utter weariness and lie down. Eurie steadily refused to go to the platform meeting, assuring them that she knew Dr. Deems would be "as dry as a stick; all New York ministers were." So Flossy and Marion went away together, Marion with her note-book in the hope of getting an item for a newspaper letter that must be written that afternoon. They were late, and almost abandoned in despair the hope of getting within hearing, until a happy thought suggested a seat on the platform stair at the speaker's back. There was a "crack" there, Marion said, into which they presently crept. The address was already commenced. Marion listened at first with that indifferent air that a face wears when its owner perforce commences in the middle of a thing, and has to wait his way to a tangible idea of what is being said. There was not long waiting, however. Her eyes began to dilate and her face to glow; she was almost a worshiper of eloquence, and surely no one ever sat for two hours and listened to a more unbroken flow of rich, glowing words, shining like diamonds, than fell lavishly around the listeners that Friday morning at Chautauqua. But a few minutes and Marion's pencil began to move with speed. This was the thought that had thrilled her: "First, light; then liberation from chaos; then grass; and then God stopped his work and gazed with delight on the picture he had drawn. Think what a picture it must have been! There was nothing but rocks ground down when God said, 'Earth, grow!' Then straightway the mother power fell down upon the earth, life pulsed in her veins, and the baby shoot of grass sprang up, and the rocky earth wrapped herself in her garment of emerald, and God, stopping his work said, 'Useful, beautiful!'" When the speaker touched upon the doctrine of the resurrection Marion's pencil paused, and she leaned eagerly forward to get a glimpse of his face. That doctrine had seemed to her doubting heart the strangest, wildest, most hopeless of the Christian theories. If clear light could shine on that, could there not on anything? Her face was aglow with interest not only, but with anxiety. This morning, for the first time in her life, she could be called an honest doubter. She had fancied herself able to believe any thing of which her reason had been convinced; but she found, to her surprise and dismay, that so fixed had the habit of unbelief become, it seemed impossible to shake it off, and that she needed to be convinced and reconvinced; that her questionings came in on every hand, seized upon the smallest point, and tormented her without mercy. What about this strange story of the resurrection? As she listened a subdued smile broke over her face—a smile of sarcasm. How very absurdly simple the argument from nature was, how utterly unanswerable! And after the sentence, "Tell me how that wonderful field of waving grain came from the bare kernels of corn, and I will tell you how my blessed baby shall rise an angel," Marion said in tone so distinct that it struck on Flossy's ear like a knell, "What a fool!" Not the speaker, as the dismayed and disappointed Flossy supposed, but herself. "The measure of every man is his faith," said Dr. Deems. "The greatest thing a human being can do is not to perceive, nor to compare, not to reason, but to believe." And again Marion smiled. If this were true what a pigmy she must be! She began to more than suspect that she was. "Don't waste time," said the Doctor, "in trying to reconcile science and the Bible. Science wasn't intended to teach religion. The Bible wasn't intended to teach science; but wherever they touch they agree. God sends his servants—scientific men—all abroad through nature to gather facts with which to illustrate the Bible." Marion began to write again, but it was only in snatches here and there; not that there was not that which she longed to catch, but she could not write it—the sentences just poured forth; and how perfectly aglow with light and beauty they were! This one sentence she presently wrote: "In the black ink of his power God wrote the Book of nature; in the red ink of his love he wrote the Bible; and all this power is to bring us all to this love. Oh, to rest in arms like these! Are they not strong enough?" Suddenly Marion closed her book and slipped her pencil into her pocket; she could not write. And although she thrilled through every nerve over the majestic sentences that followed and was carried to a pitch of enthusiasm almost beyond her control, when the jubilant thunder of thousands of voices rang together in the matchless closing words, "Blessing, and glory, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God, forever and ever. Amen." She made no further attempt to write; her heart was full; there rang in it this eager cry, "Oh, to rest in arms like these!" Strong enough? Aye, indeed! Doubts were forever set at rest. The Maker of all nature could be none other than God, and the God of nature was the God of the Bible. It was as clear as the sunlight. Reason was forever satisfied, but there lingered yet the hungering cry, "Oh, to rest in arms like these!" And Flossy said not a word to her of the resting place. Not because she had not found it strong and safe; not because she did not long to have her friend rest there, but because of that despairing murmur in her heart. "What is the use in saying anything? Had she not heard with her own ears Marion's sneering sentence in the face of the unanswerable arguments that had been presented?" I wonder how often we turn away from harvest fields that are ready for the reader because we mistake for a sneer that which is the admission of a convicted soul? By afternoon Ruth was rested and ready for meeting; if the truth be known it was her troubled brain which had tired her body and obliged her to rest. She had begun to take up that problem of "Christian work." The platform meeting of the evening before, and, more than anything else, Dr. Niles' address, had fanned her heart into a flame of desire to do something for the Master. But what could she do? She and Flossy had talked it over together after they reached their room at the hotel; in fact they talked away into the night. "I don't know," Flossy said, with a little laugh, "but I shall have to depend on the 'unconscious influence' which I exert to do my work for me. I don't know of anything which I can actually do. Dr. Niles made a great deal of that." "Yes," Ruth, said, "but you see, Flossy, the people whose unconscious influence does any good are the ones after all who are moving around trying to do something. I don't feel sure that he lets the unconscious influence of the drones amount to much, unless it is in the wrong scale. Dr. Niles made a good deal of that, you remember." "Don't you like him ever so much, Ruth?" "Why, yes," Ruth said again, turning her pillow wearily. "I liked him of course; how could I help it? But, after all, he made me very uncomfortable. I seem to feel as though I must find something to do. I have a great deal of time to make up. I tell you what it is, Flossy, I wish you and I could do something for those two girls. Isn't it strange that they are not interested?" "But they are not." Flossy said it as positively as if she could see right into their hearts. "I think Marion is worse than ever; and as for Eurie, she won't even go to the meetings, you know." "I know. Perhaps we would only do harm to try. But what can we do? I am sure I don't see anything. And don't you know how clearly Dr. Niles made it appear that there was a special work for each one?" So they discussed the question, turning it over and over, and getting almost no light, coming to feel themselves very useless and worthless specks on the sea of life, until late in the night Flossy said: "I'll tell you what it is, Ruth, we must just ask for work—little bits of work, you know—and then keep our eyes open until it comes. I know of things I can do when I get home." "So do I," said Ruth, "but I want to begin now." Silence for a few minutes, and then Flossy asked: "Ruthie, have you written to Mr. Wayne?" "No," said Ruth, her cheeks flushing even in the darkness. "I wrote a long letter just before this came to me, but I burned it, and I am glad of it." Then they went to sleep. But the desire for the work did not fade with the daylight. Flossy had even been tempted to say a humble little word to Marion, but had been deterred by the sound of that sneer of which I told you; and Ruth, lying on her bed, had revolved the subject and sent up many an earnest prayer, and went out to afternoon service resolved upon keeping her eyes very wide open. The special attraction for the afternoon was a conference of primary class teachers. They were out in full force, and were ready for any questions that might fill the hearts and the mouths of eager learners. Our girls had each their special favorites among these leaders. Ruth found herself attracted and deeply interested in every word that Mrs. Clark uttered. Marion was making a study of both Mrs. Knox and Miss Morris, and found it difficult to tell which attracted her most. Even Eurie was ready for this meeting. She had never been able to shake off the thought of Miss Rider, and her eager enthusiasm in this work, while Flossy had been fascinated and carried away captive by the magnetic voice and manner of Mrs. Partridge. "She makes me glow," Flossy said, in trying to explain the feeling to the calmer Ruth. "Her life seems to quiver all through me, and make me long to reach after it; to have the same power which she has over the hearts of wild uncared-for children." And Ruth looked down on the exquisite bit of flesh and blood beside her, and thought of her elegant home and her elegant mother, and of all the softening and enervating influences of her city life, and laughed. How little had she in common with such a work as that to which Mrs. Partridge had given her soul! Keeping her eyes open, as she had planned to do, this same Flossy saw as she was passing down the aisle the hungry face of one of her boys, as she had mentally called the Arabs with whom her life had brushed on the Sunday morning The word just described it still, a hungry face like one hanging wistfully around the outskirts of a feast in which he had no share. Flossy let go her hold of Ruth's arm and darted toward him. "How do you do?" she said, in winning voice, before he had even seen her. "I am real glad to see you again. If you will come with me I will get a seat for you. A lady is going to speak this afternoon who has five hundred boys in her class in Sunday-school." Now the Flossy of two weeks ago, if she could have imagined herself in any such business, would have been utterly disgusted with the result, and gone away with her pretty nose very high. The boy turned his dirty face toward her and said, calmly: "What a whopper!" The experience of a lifetime could not have answered more deftly: "You come and see. I am almost certain she will tell us about some of them." Still he stared, and Flossy waited with her pretty face very near to his, and her pretty hand held coaxingly out. "Come," she said again. And it could not have been more to the boy's surprise than it was to hers that he presently said: "Well, go ahead. I can send if I don't like it. I'll follow." And he did. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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