CHAPTER V
IS GOD DEMONSTRABLE?
The scene of the morning in the garden haunted Hubert during the hours of business that day. Matters were attended to with his accustomed skill, but always an undercurrent of memory presented to him Winifred's beaming face and her announcement, "I think I have begun to know God."
"I wish I knew Him. I wish I knew the truth," he repeated to himself again and again.
Hubert had entered with heartiness into his father's business, and though still young had already attained a partnership in it. "Robert Gray & Son," read the clear, uncompromising sign, and the name of no firm in the city was more respected. Hubert's devotion to business, rather than to more scholarly pursuits, was a deep gratification to the father, who enjoyed his son's fellowship and found help in his fresh enterprise and keen foresight.
To-day Hubert was glad when the last matters were attended to and he was able to go home. At dinner he was abstracted and silent, and retired to his own apartments. Just off his sleeping room was a smaller one which constituted his laboratory, for Hubert was a man of science in his leisure hours. This room was the one discomfort of poor Mrs. Gray, who feared explosions or electric shocks, and sighed many a time as she heard the door close after the entering form of her son. To-night it closed firmly, and had not opened again before slumber muffled the ears of the apprehensive mother, nor had the light from the single gas burner ceased to throw out its yellow challenge to the mellow, midnight moonlight without. Could Mrs. Gray have looked within, she would have seen Hubert sunk in the depths of a leather covered chair, with his dark, frowning face leaning upon his hand. He was thinking.
Something like this was the matter of his thoughts:
In this little room questions had been asked and answered. From the standpoint of the known, or even from the conjectured, excursions into the unknown had been undertaken, and the explorer returned with trophies of ascertained fact. How had it come to pass? Obedience to the laws of force revealed had brought its recompense of further revelation. How humbly, with what child-likeness, he had followed those subtle laws propounded to him by others; laws whose deep mystery he could in no wise understand, but which he believed, and, believing, demonstrated. Were there such principles to be observed in the spiritual realm? Were there laws of the unseen kingdom, which, if obeyed, brought demonstration? He gave a little gesture of impatience as he thought of the unthinking assertion of some that they would believe nought they could not understand!
"Stupid!" he muttered, and remembered an effort of his own, when a school-boy, to illuminate the mind of the gardener with a few scientific facts, only to be met with a loud guffaw of unbelief. Surely science had never yielded her treasures to sneering unbelief, but to humble, patient faith. Must he so find out God?
Again he pondered: Could God, if there were a God, 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 God 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 God 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 passage 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 Godhead."
Now how to address himself to God—how to conduct this new experiment—was the question. He remembered the conditions of discipleship 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 God? 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 God 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 God (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 passed through his mind. A creator who could bestow such marvelous faculties must Himself possess them in infinite measure. And a God 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 God the man grew less and less in his own esteem. Would God reveal Himself to such an atom in the wide universe as he? Did He care for him or about him?
"God 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 God should reveal Himself? Would he not be bound to serve Him? A vision of the Man who called Himself the Son of God arose dim and wraith-like, sorrowful, homeless, poor—crucified! If God 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, friendships, 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 damnable 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 God, 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 God, 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 discipleship.
* * * * * *
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 God, 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 God," who "was God"—he paused to consider the mysterious relationship; mysterious, yet not thereby incredible; he would not repeat the folly of the gardener by too ready unbelief! If true, then God, that eternal Word, came down to man, and "as many as received Him," to them it was granted to become the sons of God! 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 God 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 attitude 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, passing 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 God, 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 God?"
"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 God. She believed that He was, and the mental assent 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 passage 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 God" for obtaining eternal life should be narrowed down to a belief in—a committal unto—Himself?
As he considered these things, the emphasis shifted from "believe" to the Person in whom to believe; and it seemed to him that the teaching must be not so much that faith was in itself a way of salvation, as that it was a simple necessity to the taking of the Way—the One sent forth from God; in short, that its own value was purely relative to the One believed in. This seemed to settle a very important question, and drew the sceptic's attention away from his own capabilities of belief to the claims of the proposed object of his faith. He read His words with an interest that was painfully intense, and almost groaned his prayerful longing to know if they were true.
"After all," thought he, "be a man credulous or doubting, absolute knowledge waits upon revelation—upon demonstration."
"O God," he cried finally, "if Thou art, and if Jesus Christ is, and is such an One as described here, give me evidence! Let me know Him and Thee."
He lifted his book again, and this time he read:
"If any man is willing to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether I speak from myself."
If a voice had spoken aloud the words it would not have conveyed the message more directly to his heart. He paused, as before a pivotal moment of destiny.
"'Willing to do His will!'"
His face whitened. The agony of the night before was upon him. The way of the cross—the picture of the Man who like no other had done the will of God, rose before him and demanded all things.
As drowning men are said to have pass in review the events of a lifetime before them, so in a moment's time the strategic elements of his life appeared before him, and the finger of God pressed the most sensitive points in his nature. He pointed to the counting room of the keen business man, and Hubert saw himself poor for the Kingdom of God's sake. He pointed to the beautiful home and its inmates, and he saw himself homeless, having "hated" father and mother and sister—ah, sharpest pang of all!—for the sake of discipleship to the sorrowful Son of Man. An invisible attraction drew him after Him, and with ashen lips but with fixed heart Hubert Gray took up his cross.
"I am willing to do Thy will," he said. "Only let me know the teaching."
The immediate result of Hubert's work of faith cannot be written. It is incommunicable. One may point to after effects in a life transformed, but of that supernatural witness which comes to men's souls, stamping the words of God as very truth indeed, no description can be given. As jealously guarded as the crown jewels in the Tower of London is the secret of the Lord which is revealed or hidden at His will. To the foolish one who "in his heart" says, "There is no God," no glorious revelation comes; and often even the patent fact of His divine creatorship is not observed. But, given a hungry soul, he shall be filled with good things. And the Spirit waits to charge with electric certainty the teaching of God's truth to the man who in meekness adjusts himself to it.
Cold and colorless glows the transparent prism in the shadow. But let the sun shine through it, and lo! it is alive with all the colors of glory and beauty. So the sunlight shone in the laboratory of Hubert Gray that night and lit up with many rays of refracted glory the doctrine of Jesus Christ. Light focused itself upon the Person, and Hubert saw, as years of painful study would not have taught him without that light, the mysterious merging of his own identity with His; saw mistily, what afterward he should discern more clearly, his own worthless, sinful life vanished in the dying of the One "lifted up"; saw radiantly his own triumph and everlasting life together with the living Christ. To the secret abode where lives are "hid with Christ in God," he came and saw. The unspeakable gladness of the revelation turned the rugged cross into a crown of glory.
The fragrance of a flower stole from his bedroom into the laboratory.
He smiled as he recognized it.
"I have not seen the flower," he said, "but its undoubted witness is here. I do not see Thee, Jesus, my Lord and my God, but I believe Thee!—Thou art here." And he worshiped Him.