VI
Yes, he left her, and he left London; but he could not leave the text. It confronted him once more. He had taken refuge in a little fishing village on the East Coast. Up on the cliffs, among the corn-fields, flecked with their crimson poppies, he came upon a quaint old church. He stepped inside. In the porch was a painting of an old ruin--ivy-covered, useless and desolate--standing out, jagged and roofless, against a purple sky. The picture bore a striking inscription:
The ruins of my soul repair
And make my heart a house of prayer.
'The ruins of my soul!' Rodney thought of the discord within.
'Make my heart a house of prayer!' Rodney thought of the maestro.
He passed out into the little graveyard on the very edge of the cliff. He was amused at the quaint epitaphs. Then one tombstone, lying flat upon the ground, a tombstone which, in large capitals, called upon the reader to 'Prepare to meet thy God,' startled him. Again he thought of the clashing discords of his soul.
'Then, suddenly,' says Mrs. Barclay, 'the inspired Word did that which It--and It alone--can do. It gripped Rodney and brought him face to face with realities--past, present and future--in his own inner life. At once, the Bishop's motto came into his mind; the three words his gentle mother used to draw that her little boy might paint them stood out clearly as the answer to all vague and restless questionings: GOD IS LOVE!'
'God is Love!'
'Prepare to Meet thy God!'
How could he, with his old hate in his heart, stand in the presence of a God of Love?
Standing there bareheaded, with one foot on the prone tombstone, Rodney grappled with the passion that he had cherished through the years, and thus took his first step along the path of preparation.
'I forgive the woman who came between us,' he said aloud. 'My God, I forgive her--as I hope to be forgiven!'
'As soon as a man comes to understand that GOD IS LOVE,' said Dr. Chalmers, 'he is infallibly converted.' That being so, Rodney Steele was infallibly converted that day, and that day he entered into peace.