Oh, how long ago that seemed! Everything had changed since then. Science had uprooted simple faith. One lived by sight now. The old myths were still beautiful, of course. But long before Christ came, the Greek philosophers had prayed, and the Indian religions had had their self-denying saviours.
But he had promised to find the way to heaven for them, and they were so ignorant. He had promised to go thither himself, and he had dipped into so many philosophies; he knew so much, and yet he was so ignorant. But there must be a heaven, that was one fact; and there must be a way to go thither.
Sunday morning he was in Albany with Austin and two young men he had known through the winter. One of them was very attentive to a pretty cousin who would be found at Travis Farm. They had a leisurely elegant breakfast, they took a carriage and drove about to points of interest, had a course dinner, smoked and talked in the evening. But the inner John was a little boy again, and had gone to church with his grandmother. The sermon was long, and he did not understand it; but he read the hymns he liked, and chewed a bit of fennel, and went almost asleep. The singing was delightful, the spirited old “Coronation.”
They went out to Travis Farm the next morning. There was grandmother and Aunt Maria, the single Miss Travis, Daisy Brockholst and her dear friend Katharine Lee. Of course the young people had a good time. They always did at Travis Farm, and they were fond of coming.
“Grandmother,” John said, in a hesitating sort of way, “you used to sing an old hymn I liked so much,”
“There is a land of pure delight.”
“Have you forgotten it? I wish you would sing it for me,” and his hand slipped over hers.
“Why—yes, dear. I go singing about the house for company when no one is here; but old voices are apt to get thin in places, you know.”
He did not say he had hunted up an old hymn-book, and read the words over and over. He was ashamed that the children’s talk had taken such hold of him. But presently he joined in, keeping his really fine tenor voice down to a low key, and they sang together.