“You’re quite sure we can go nex’ spring?” queried Bess. “Do many people live there?”
“The Lord Jesus Christ and all his angels,” he answered reverently. “And the saints who have been redeemed, little children, and a multitude no man can number.”
A perplexing frown settled between Dil’s eyes.
“Seems as if I couldn’t never get the thing straight ’bout—’bout Jesus Christ,” and a flush wavered over her face. “When the people in the court get drunk and fight, they swear ’bout him. If he jest gives people strength to beat and bang each other, how can he help ’em to be good? Maybe there’s more than one. An’ why don’t the one who lives in the beautiful heaven have a different name. I ast the Mission teacher once, an’ she said I was a wicked girl. Mammy said there wasn’t any God at all. How do you know?”
There was a brave, eager innocence in her eyes, and a curious urgency as well.
“’Cause,” she subjoined, “if God lives in heaven and keeps it for people, if there wasn’t any God, there couldn’t be any heaven. Some folks in the court have the Virgin Mary, but I never see God.”
There was no irreverence in her tone, but a perplexed wonder. And John Travis was helpless before it. How did the missionaries who went to the heathen ever make them understand? They had their idols of wood and stone, and had prayed to them; but this child had no God, not even an idol, though she loved Bess with every fibre of her being.
And he had almost said in his heart, “There is no God.” A first great cause, an atom rushing blindly about the darkness for another atom, a protoplasm, a long series of evolutions—how complacent he had been about it all! Could he teach these children science? He had heard the talk of the slums occasionally, blood-curdling oaths, threats, wishes, curses hurled at one another. These two little girls lived in it. Could any one enlighten them, unless they were taken to a new, clean world? Yet their souls seemed scarcely soiled by the contact, their faces bore the impress of purity.
Was it thus when the Lord came in the flesh, when the wickedness of the world was very great, its hopelessness well nigh fatal? He found many ignorant souls; but they learned of him and believed, and went forth to convert the world. Was it so much more wicked now?
“Let me tell you about the true Jesus,” he said in a soft, low tone, almost afraid to bear witness, he was so ignorant himself. “Long ago, when people were full of sorrow and suffering, and had forgotten how to be good to each other, God, who lived in this beautiful heaven, sent his Son down to teach them. He came and lived among them and helped them. Why, my little Dil, it’s just like your caring for Bess. She can never do anything to pay you back. She cannot sweep the house, nor tend the babies, nor sew, nor earn money. But you do it because you love her, and you only want love in return. She gives it to you.”