HABAKKUK.
HE church toward which Tode bent his eager steps was quite filled when he reached it, but the sexton made a way for him, and he settled into a seat with a queer, awkward sense of having slipped into a spot that was not intended for such as he; but the organ tones took up his attention, and then in a moment a burst of music from the congregation, among the words of which he could catch ever and anon that magic name Jesus. So at least they were going to sing about him. Yes, and talk to him also, for Mr. Birge's prayer, though couched in language quite beyond Tode's reaching, yet closed with the to him wonderful sentence, "We ask in the name and for the sake of Jesus our Redeemer." When he opened the great book which Tode knew was the Bible, the boy was all attention; something more from the Bible he was anxious to hear. He got out his bit of pencil and a crumpled twist of paper, and when Mr. Birge announced that he would read the fourth Psalm, Tode bent forward and carefully and laboriously made a figure four and the letters S A M in his very best style, and believed that he had it just right. Then he listened to the reading as sometimes those do not who can glibly spell the words. Yet you can hardly conceive how like a strange language it sounded to him, so utterly unfamiliar was he with the style, so utterly ignorant of its meaning. Only over the last verse he had almost laughed.
"I will both lay me down in peace and sleep; for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety."
Didn't he know about that? The awful night, those dreadful eyes, and the peace in which he laid down and slept at last.
"Oh, ho," he said to himself, "some other fellow has had a time of it, too, I guess, and put it in the Bible. I'm glad I've found out about it just as I did."
Tode didn't mean to be irreverent. You must continually bear in mind the fact that he didn't know the meaning of the word; that he knew nothing about the Bible, nor dreamed that the words which so delighted him were those of inspiration, sounding down through the ages for the peace and comfort of such as he.
Presently Mr. Birge announced his text, reading it from that same great book, and Tode's heart fluttered with delighted expectation as he heard the words, "Jesus of Nazareth passeth by." The very name! and of all news this, that he passes by. Oh, Tode wanted so to see him, to hear about him. He sat erect, and his dark cheek flushed with excitement as he listened eagerly to every word. And the Spirit of the Master had surely helped to indite that sermon, for it told in its opening sentences the simple story, entirely new to Tode.
"A little more than eighteen hundred years ago, very near a certain city, might have been seen a large concourse of people, differently circumstanced in life, many of them such as had been healed of the various diseases with which they had long been afflicted. This throng were following a person upon whose words they hung, and by whose power many of them had been healed. As they passed by the roadside sat a blind man begging. He, hearing the crowd, asks what it is. They answer, 'Jesus of Nazareth passeth by.'"
Thus, through the beautiful and touching story, he dwelt on each detail, giving it vivid coloring, bringing it almost before the very eyes of the eager boy, who drank in every word.
The truth grew plain to his mind, that this Jesus of Nazareth once on earth had now gone back to heaven, and yet, oh beautiful mystery, still was here; and he heard for the first time that old, old story of the scoffed and spit upon, and bleeding and dying Savior; heard of his prayer even in dying for the cruel ones who took his life. So simply and so tenderly was the story told, that when the minister exclaimed: "Oh what a loving, sympathizing, forgiving Savior is ours!" Tode, with his eyes blinded by tears, repeated the words in his heart, and felt "amen."
Then came the explanation of his passing by us now, daily, hourly, calling us in a hundred ways, and then—a few sentences written, it would seem, expressly for Tode's own need:
"Sometimes," said the minister, "he passes by, speaking to the soul with some passage from the Word. Did you never wonder that some portion, some little sentence from the Bible, should so forcibly impress your mind, and so cling to you? Perhaps you tried to drive it away so much did it trouble you, but still it hovered around, and seemed to keep repeating itself over and over to your heart. Be not deceived. This was Jesus of Nazareth passing by, waiting for you to say, 'Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me.'"
Was ever anything so wonderful! How could Mr. Birge have found out about it—that dreadful night—and the one verse saying itself over and over again! Then to think that it was Jesus himself calling and waiting. Could it be possible—was he really calling him? And the tears which had been gathering in Tode's eyes dropped one by one on his hand.
Presently, as he listened, the minister's tones grew very solemn.
"There are none before me to-day who can say, 'He never came to me.' Sinner, he is near you now, near enough to hear your voice, near enough to answer your call. Will you call upon him? Will you let him help you? Will you take him for your Savior? Will you serve him while you live on earth that you may live in heaven to serve him forever?"
From Tode's inmost soul there came answers to these solemn questions: "I will, I will, I will."
And there went out from the church that Sabbath day one young heart who felt himself cured of his blindness by that same Jesus of Nazareth; who felt himself given up utterly to Jesus, body and soul and life; and without a great insight as to what that solemn consecration meant, he yet took in enough of it to feel a great peace in his heart.
"There goes a Christian man, if ever there was one." This said a gentleman to his companion, speaking of another who had passed them.
Tode overheard it, and stood still on the street.
"A Christian," said he to himself, quoting from a sentence in Mr. Birge's sermon. "A Christian is one who loves and serves the Lord Jesus Christ with his whole heart." Then aloud. "I wonder, I do wonder now, if I am a Christian? Oh, what if I was!" A moment of earnest thought, then Tode held up his head and walked firmly on. "I mean to be," he said, with a ring in his voice that meant decision.
Tode was dusting and putting in order a lately vacated room one morning. He was whistling, too; he whistled a great deal these days, and felt very bright and happy. He picked up three leaves which had evidently been torn from an old book; reading matter was rather scarce with him, and he stopped the dusting to discover what new treasure might be awaiting him here. He spelled out, slowly and carefully, the name at the top: "H-a-b-a-k-k-u-k."
"Queerest name for a book ever I heard of," he muttered. "Words must have been scarce, I reckon. Let's see what it reads about. School book, like enough; if 'tis I'll get it all by heart."
And Tode sat down upon the edge of a chair to investigate. The story, if story it were, commenced abruptly to him.
"Scorn unto them," being the first words on the page. He read on: "They shall deride every stronghold; for they shall heap dust and take it."
"My! what curious talk," said Tode. "What ever is it coming at? I can't make nothing out of it."
Nevertheless he read on; only a few lines more and then this sentence: "Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One?"
A sudden look of intelligence and delight flushed over Tode's face; and springing up he rushed into the hall and down the stairs, nearly tumbling over Mr. Ryan in his haste.
Mr. Ryan was a good-natured boarder, and on very friendly terms with Tode.
"Oh, Mr. Ryan!" burst forth Tode. "What is this reading on these leaves?"
"Why, Tode, what's up now; forgot how to read?"
"Oh bother, no; but I mean where did it come from. It's tore out of a book, don't you see?"
"Piece of a Bible," answered Mr. Ryan, giving the leaves a careless and the boy a searching glance. "What is there so interesting about it?"
"What's it got such a queer name for? What does H-a-b-a-k-k-u-k spell, and what does it mean?"
"That's a man's name, I believe."
"Who was he, and what about him?"
"More than I know, my boy. Never heard of him before that I know of. What do you care?"
It was Tode's turn to bestow a searching glance.
"Got a Bible of your own?" he asked at last.
"Oh yes, I own one, I believe."
"And never read it! Bah, what good does it do you to have books if you don't read 'em? Now I'm going to find out about this 'H-a-b-a-k-k-u-k,' and then I shall know more than you do."
Mr. Ryan laughed a little, but withal seemed somewhat embarrassed. Tode left him and sped back to his dusting.
"Queer chap that," muttered Mr. Ryan. "I don't know what to make of him."
And a little sense of what might be termed shamefacedness stole over him at the thought that this ignorant boy prized more highly his three leaves of a Bible, picked out of the waste-basket, and possibly was going to know more about it than he, Edgar Ryan, had gleaned from his own handsomely bound copy, wherein his Christian mother had written years ago his own loved name. Mr. Ryan, the cultivated young lawyer, took down his handsome Bible from the shelf of unused books as soon as he had reached his office, dusted it carefully, and turned over the leaves to discover something about Habakkuk.
As for Tode, he literally poured over his three leaves. Very little of the language did he understand—the great and terrible figures were utterly beyond his knowledge; yet as he read them once, and again and again, something of the grandeur and sublimity stole into his heart, helped him without his knowledge, and now and then a word came home, and he caught a vague glimpse of its meaning. "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil." That was plain; that must mean the great All-seeing Eyes, for Tode knew enough of human nature to have much doubt as to whether any human eyes were pure. But then those unsleeping eyes did behold evil—saw. Oh, Tode could conceive better than many a Sabbath-school scholar can just how much evil there was to behold. How was that? Ah! Tode's brain didn't know, couldn't tell; but into his heart had come the knowledge that between all the evil men and women in this evil world, and those pure eyes of an angry God, there stood the blood-red cross of Christ.
There were many guests to be waited on; the tables were filling rapidly. Tode was springing about with eager steps, handling deftly coffee, oysters, wine, anything that was called for—bright, busy, brisk as usual. As he set a cup of steaming coffee beside Mr. Ryan's plate, that gentleman glanced up good-humoredly and addressed him.
"Well, Tode, how is Habakkuk?"
"First-rate, sir, only there's some queer things in it."
"I should think there was!" laughed Mr. Ryan, spilling his coffee in his mirth. "Rather beyond you, isn't it?"
"Well, some of it," said Tode, hesitatingly. "But it all means something, likely, and I'm learning it, so I'll have it on hand to find out about one of these days, when I find a lawyer or somebody who can explain it, you know."
This last with a twinkle of the eye, and a certain almost noiseless chuckle, that said it was intended to hit.
"You're learning it!" exclaimed Mr. Ryan, undisguised astonishment mingling with his amusement.
"Yes, sir. Learn a figure a day. It's all marked off into figures, you know, sir."
"Well, of all queer chaps, you're the queerest!"
And Mr. Ryan went off into another laugh as Tode sped away to a new corner. By the time he was ready for a second cup of coffee, Mr. Ryan was also ready with more questions.
"Well, sir, what's to-day's figure?"
"For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea," repeated Tode, promptly and glibly.
"Indeed! and what do you make out of that?"
"It makes itself; and that's something that's going to be one of these days."
"Oh, and what does the 'glory of the Lord' mean, Tode?"
"I don't know; expect he does, though," answered Tode, simply and significantly.
Mr. Ryan didn't seem inclined to continue that line of questioning.
"Well," he said, presently, "let's turn to an easier chapter. What's to-morrow's figure?"
"Don't know. I might look though, if you wanted to hear." And Tode drew his precious three leaves from his vest pocket.
"Oh, you carry Habakkuk about with you, do you? Well, let's have the figure by all means, only pass me that bottle of wine first."
But Tode's face paled and his limbs actually shook.
"I can't do it," he said at last.
"You can't! Why, what's up?"
"Just look for yourself, sir. It's the figure 15." And he thrust the bit of leaf before the gay young lawyer, and pointed with his finger to the spot.
Of all words that could have come before his eyes just then, it seemed strange indeed that these should be the ones:
"Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink!"
"Pshaw!" said Mr. Ryan at last, with a little nervous laugh. "Don't be a goose, Tode. Take your paper away and pass me the wine."
"I can't, sir," answered Tode, earnestly. "I promised him to-day, I did, that I was going to do it all just as fast as I found it out."
"Promised who? What are you talking about?"
"Promised the Lord Jesus Christ, sir. I told him this very day."
"Fiddlesticks. You don't understand. This refers to drunkards."
"It don't say so," answered Tode, simply.
"Yes, it does. Don't it say, 'and makes him drunk?'"
"It says and makes him drunk also," Tode said, with a sharp, searching look.
Mr. Ryan laughed that short nervous laugh again.
"You ought to study law, Tode," was all he said. Then after a moment. "I advise you to attend to business, and let Habakkuk look after himself. Jim, pass that wine bottle this way."
This to another attendant who was near at hand, and Tode moved away to attend to other wants, and to turn over in his mind this new and startling thought.
