AN EMPTY PLACE.
Nora did not feel inclined to tell, even to her brother, had he been at home, the sad story she had heard; yet she felt she must take some one into her confidence, as to what ought to be done. Mr. Alden seemed to be her only resource. So, after much thought, she went to his house on the morning after the oratorio, intending to see him alone, and tell him the whole story. But, as often happens, she found her intentions completely and unexpectedly thwarted. Mr. Alden had been called away from home, on some ministerial duty, and Mrs. Alden and Grace were nursing two sick children through what seemed to be feverish colds.
"I wish Doctor Blanchard were at home again," said Mrs. Alden, who looked much exhausted. "I should like very much to have him come to see these children!"
Nora saw how much both she and Grace needed rest, and, with her usual impulse to help, she volunteered to stay all night and relieve them as far as possible. It was just what she wanted, too, to take her mind off more painful thoughts. And if it had been more of a sacrifice than it was, she would have been more than rewarded by the gratitude with which her offer was accepted, and by the soothing influence of Grace's society and innocent childlike talk about matters completely dissociated from the things which had been oppressing her like a nightmare.
Dr. Blanchard returned next day; and, apprised by Nora's message, of the illness of the children, came, as soon as possible, to see them. But he looked very grave, as he scrutinized them with his keen professional eye. He called Nora aside, and told her that they were undoubtedly sickening with scarlet fever. Nora was startled, but immediately replied:
"Well, you know I've had that, so I'm pretty safe; and I think the best thing I can do is to stay to help to nurse them."
Dr. Blanchard felt that it was the only thing to be done, under the circumstances. It would scarcely do for Nora to return to his own house, as, even if there were no real danger of infection just then, his wife could scarcely have been persuaded of this, on the children's account.
"I knew we should have an unhealthy spring," he said, "if people wouldn't take precautions to have the sources of disease removed. It's disgraceful for men like Mr. Pomeroy to own such hovels as that in which you found Mrs. Travers. I hear there's one case of diphtheria in that region already, and there are sure to be more. If it spreads to their own houses, perhaps they'll wake up."
"Mr. Pomeroy's! Are those his houses?" asked Nora, and then she thought of his own luxurious mansion, his magnificent dinner, and the five-thousand-dollar-subscription—all in one rapid flash. Next moment, her mind was recalled to present considerations, as her brother observed, very seriously:
"I wish you could manage to keep Grace, as well as the other children, as much as possible out of the sick-room. Hers isn't a constitution to stand an attack of fever, and she would have it more severely than they."
Nora's heart sank. She was depressed at any rate, and she remembered the old, too true proverb that "misfortunes never come single."
Mr. Alden returned that day, to her great relief; and he at once undertook a large share of the nursing, which the strong, tender-hearted man could so well perform. Anxious as he naturally was, as to the result of this inroad of dangerous disease among his happy little flock, his faith would not allow him to indulge in useless worry; and the influence of his cheerful spirit cheered not only the little patients, in the natural fretfulness of sick children, but also the nurses themselves. The other children were sent away to the house of a relative, but Grace would not be persuaded to leave her post as eldest daughter, though kept, as the doctor had directed, as much as possible out of the sick-room. The little patients' cases proved light, and it was not long before Dr. Blanchard pronounced them out of danger. But, just as they seemed fairly convalescent, Grace was prostrated by the same disease, in a much severer form.
Dr. Blanchard's fears were only too soon verified. The fever ran its course very rapidly—exhausting her small strength in a few days. There was a short period of delirium in which all her talk was of fair and pleasant things,—woodland wanderings,—spring flowers,—intermingled with snatches of childish fairy-tales, and Christian hymns. Nora could always soothe the delirium a little, by singing Grace's favorite, "He Leadeth Me," or her own, "Lead Kindly Light." But when the delirium passed away, it was evident that the quiet which followed was the quiet of approaching death; and, before they could realize the impending calamity, the real Grace was gone. Only the fair form that had enshrined her happy spirit lay there, cold and inanimate as a beautiful statue.
The blow was to them all a stunning one. Nora could scarcely bring herself to believe that their bright little Grace was really dead! She had hoped to the last, doing everything that love and anxiety could suggest. Even when she stood by the still and rigid form in the "white raiment" that loving hands had covered with flowers, she could not get rid of the feeling that the living Grace was somewhere at hand, or cease expecting every moment to hear her familiar voice. It was almost the first time that death had come very near to her, and opened its unfathomable mystery at her feet. And, apart from her deep sorrow for her little friend, the new experience stirred in her heart the haunting questionings that come to us all, at such times of irretrievable loss.
Mrs. Alden was, very naturally, prostrated with grief and watching, and Mr. Alden had been shut up, either with his wife, or alone in his study, most of the time since Grace had quietly drawn her last breath; so that Nora had much to do and to think of, though one or two other friends came in to help. To her, however, was assigned the sad duty of taking in the two or three old friends who, notwithstanding the circumstances, desired to take a last look at the fair unconscious face.
Nora meantime had comparatively little time to think of the subject that had been so engrossing a few days before. It did recur to her again and again, in intervals of quiet;—but of course she had never ventured to intrude the matter on Mr. Alden at such a time. And she had been thinking, now, of Roland Graeme, with profound sympathy. She could easily divine the sorrow that the death of Grace must have brought to him. And she was not surprised, when, on the eve of the funeral, he appeared, looking sad and haggard, with the request that he might look on the sweet face once more.
"Are you sure it's safe for you?" she asked.
"I've had the disease," he replied, "but if I had not, I should still want to do this."
Nora took him to the door of the room, and, with true respect for his sorrow, left him to enter it alone. He stood by the coffin, silently, controlling his emotion, so that he might fix in his memory forever the fair angel-face with its aureole of golden hair, and the happy smile that the last sleep had brought. He could not think it death. After a time, the door opened, and Mr. Alden, looking ten years older, came softly in. He grasped Roland's hand in silence, then stood, like him, looking tenderly down on the marble face. At last he spoke in a broken voice:
"She is not dead, but sleepeth." There was another silence, till both turned to go. Then the father spoke again in a low, half-audible tone:
"My lamb—my own sweet, gentle lamb! If I did not know you were safe with the good Shepherd, how could I bear it!"
Roland Graeme left the house without a word; but Nora, who caught a passing glimpse of him—his usually happy eyes filled with tears—felt a stronger personal interest in him than she had ever done before. Somehow, he had always seemed to have so little personal stake in life, to live so completely for others and for the cause he had at heart, that he almost conveyed the idea of a transparency,—of a personality without much color of its own. After all, it is perhaps the faults and weaknesses of others that excite most interest in us; and Roland had seemed almost "faultily faultless." But this personal sorrow of his seemed to have emphasized his personality at last; and Nora, for the first time, began to think of him as an individuality, rather than as simply the champion of a worthy cause.
Of course Roland attended the funeral, walking behind Mr. Alden and Frank, with one of the younger boys. It was a warm and lovely day at the end of March, when the first robin's liquid notes were promising the coming spring, and the swelling buds were just beginning to diffuse a subtle fragrance. The grass in the cemetery was growing green, and nature herself seemed to breathe a soothing balm over the sorrowful hearts. After all was over, Mr. Alden remained a while behind the rest; and Roland, sharing his feeling, lingered too, not far off, unwilling to leave him—unwilling too, in his heart, to leave her!
At last, the stricken father raised his head, and, after a gesture that looked like a benediction over the new-made grave, turned slowly and reluctantly away. Roland silently approached him and the two set out on their homeward walk.
"'I am the resurrection and the life,'" said Mr. Alden; "if I did not remember that, I think my heart would break, to go and leave her there. But she's not there!" And then, as he looked back at the cemetery, lying peaceful in the sunset light, he murmured, half to himself, those beautiful lines of Whittier's, that have expressed the feeling of so many sorrowing hearts:—
"Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust,
(Since He who knows our need is just,)
That somehow, somewhere—meet we must;
Alas for him who never sees
The stars shine through his cypress-trees!
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,
Nor looks to see the breaking day,
Across the mournful marbles play!
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,
The truth to flesh and sense unknown,
That Life is ever Lord of Death,
And Love can never lose its own!"
Roland was silent for a while. He did not share Mr. Alden's firm faith; yet, just then, he could not bear to think otherwise. At last, he ventured to say, in his gentlest tone:
"I like the way in which it has been put by a country-man of my own—a young Canadian poet, who has since gone to verify his 'faith':
"'I have a faith—that life and death are one;
That each depends upon the self-same thread;
And that the seen and unseen rivers run
To one calm sea, from one dear fountain-head.'"[2]
"Yes," said Mr. Alden, his sad eye lighting up; "I like that thought. Life is continuous, I'm sure. It is sweet to think of my little Gracie's purified life going on, under fairer, purer conditions. There seems to me a touch of truth in the old Greek saying, that 'whom the Gods love die young.' She was a little Christian from her infancy; but I used sometimes to fear for her happiness in this rude life of ours. She had such a tender and gentle spirit; with the moral sensitiveness of generations of Puritans so exquisitely keen in her, that a comparatively small wrong would give her great pain. We always tried to keep the knowledge of evil as far from her as possible. When she was a very little child, she would cry if she fancied that her mother and I had even a trifling disagreement. She was always our little peacemaker. But what she was, she was by the grace of God."
"Would you mind," said Roland, presently,—partly to give Mr. Alden's mind a little diversion, partly to satisfy a wish he had felt for some time,—"would you mind telling me what you think about some things that seem to me to stand in the way of my ever being what most people mean by a 'believer'?"
"Certainly, not!" said Mr. Alden, looking interested at once.
"Well, then," said Roland, "I never could believe that 'God is love,' and that he could create millions of people to be lost forever because they lived and died where they could never hear the story of Christ's life and death, never hear what people call the 'gospel,' or even because they could not receive it as literal truth. So I have felt as if I would rather trust to a vague, indefinite love, of which my own heart tells me, than to any such narrow gospel as that."
"Certainly, my dear fellow, I think you are perfectly right. I couldn't believe any such narrow gospel. It would be no 'good news' to me."
"Then you don't—" began the young man, with a puzzled air. "But I'm sure I've heard you, sir, in the pulpit, emphasize the Scripture declaration, that 'there is no other name given whereby man can be saved'!"
"Certainly! I could emphasize that truth everywhere—die for it, I trust, if need were. To me it is as precious as the love and Fatherhood of God."
"Then if there is 'no other name,' what becomes of those who never heard of it, but who are doing all they can—living up to the light they have? What can man do more?"
"I'm afraid most of us do a great deal less!" said Mr. Alden. "But I wish people would only read their Bibles with the intelligent common-sense with which they read other books;—history, for example. We Americans are always talking of our Declaration of Independence, just as Englishmen do of their Magna Charta. It affects the position, the freedom of every man, woman and child in this great country. We talk of George Washington as the deliverer of his country, of his heroism as affecting the destinies of every one in it, even the infant in arms! So we may speak of Lincoln's proclamation as freeing the black race in America. But does any one suppose that no one can benefit by these, except those who know the whole story of these deliverances, of the pain and struggle that led up to them, or of their complex relation with our whole social life and Constitutional history?"
"But then it seems to be presupposed that people are saved through hearing and believing the gospel, and you know Paul says that 'Faith cometh by hearing.'"
"Yes, but we are not told that it comes by the mere hearing of the ear! St. Paul was pleading with people whose business and duty it was to tell others what they knew. He was not talking didactic philosophy. And have we no sense of hearing but the outward one? How did Abraham know that he was to go out from the land he knew, to one of which he knew nothing? Just as you and I know that we are bound to help our suffering brothers! Don't we hear the voice, in the plea of misery! And don't you suppose that Abraham, of whom we have no reason to believe that he knew anything definite as to the great Redeemer of the world, was just as much saved by Him as Paul was? People don't let themselves think enough to put two and two together here, as they do in any other matter whatsoever!"
"Then what is your theory of the Atonement?" he asked.
"My dear fellow, I don't attempt a theory. A theory, to my mind, is an attempt to force into a rigid mould of human formulæ, mysteries which, because they belong to the workings of infinite Wisdom and Love, are quite beyond the compass of human thought. Every theory I know fails miserably somewhere. The central doctrine of Christianity is far greater than any human theory, or all of them together;—one proof to me that it never was of human origin! I hold that its essence is greater, even, than the story of Christ's life and death and human character, great as these were, and all-powerful as they are to uplift and strengthen. For it is as old as life itself. In the beginning was the 'Word'—the expression of the divine Will to man! 'That was the true light, that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.' The Christ-light and the Christ-life have, I believe, always brooded over poor humanity, to raise it out of the abyss of sin and death. But for that end there had to be, I can only faintly imagine why, Divine suffering. 'I believe in the forgiveness of sins'—believe in it as much for my sweet Grace, as for the poor despised outcast. For all that we are learning to-day in the direction of heredity, tends to make us realize the immense natural differences of original constitution. But what is our best, compared with Infinite Purity, Infinite Love, which is Goodness?—
'As this poor taper's earthly spark
To yonder argent round'!
And Divine Purity could not pass by moral evil lightly. I feel, as James Hinton said, that 'when I am most a Christian, I am the best man,' but I also feel that when I am the best man, I am most a Christian!"
"But then, the historical and literary arguments! Don't you find any difficulties there?"
"I have never had too much time to think of them," he replied. "I was thoroughly satisfied, on other grounds, before they came much in my way, and I've had my own work to do. I think, however, from what I have read on the subject, that they have been met, in a manner satisfactory to me, at least. But to my mind, religion is not a literary or historical question. Neither is it to be founded, as some tell us, on the witness of the intellect, which has neither compass nor rudder on that sea; nor, as others tell us, on emotion, which is variable and evanescent as these sunset hues."
"On what, then?" asked Roland, as he instinctively followed the direction of his eye.
"On something deeper than either; on the sense of righteousness, the deepest, truest consciousness of humanity. Speaking for myself, I want God—want the Divine Perfection, which is the same thing. I look for Him in Nature, but I cannot find Him there, except in hints and hieroglyphs. Nor can I find in Humanity the perfection I long for. I see imperfection and limitation in all, even the best! But what I want, I find in Jesus of Nazareth; nothing else satisfies me; that does. If I cannot see God there, I can see Him nowhere. I find in Him, as I see Him in the gospels, a moral beauty such as I could never of myself have imagined, but which, the more I know of men—even the best—the more I must appreciate and adore! It sometimes seems to me, that this age of ours is saying, like Pilate, and very much in his spirit, 'Behold The Man!' Well, the more it learns to truly behold the Man, the more it will be compelled to recognize that Manhood as Divine. I should have to become a different moral being, before I could cease to worship in Him the Christ, the only manifestation of the Divine that we are able to comprehend and grasp."
Mr. Alden had grown deeply moved as he continued to speak. When he ended, there was a thoughtful silence. After a little time he added:
"It is here I find my only rest in all perplexity, in all trouble—even in this one. But it is only he who is in deep and humble earnest for the right, who can understand. Only he 'who will do His will' can know this doctrine. But that is a 'salvation' each must work out for himself."
There was little more said during the rest of the walk. Mr. Alden's thoughts had gone back to his own sorrow. As they reached the familiar door, a thousand tender memories and associations rushed over him, and, for the first time in his life, he leaned heavily on his cane, as the father's heart found utterance in the scarcely audible exclamation—"Oh, my gentle child! my tender, loving little Grace!"