Philip roused himself up, interrupting his visitor. The old-time flash of righteous indignation shot out of his eyes as he exclaimed: "I am more than half-minded to stay on that account! The rummies would think they had beaten me out if I left!"
"Oh, Mr. Strong, I can't tell you how glad we would be if you would only stay! And yet——"
"And yet," replied Philip, with a sad smile, "there are many things to take into the account. I thank you out of my heart for the love you have shown me. It means more than words can express." And Philip leaned back with a wearied look on his face, which, nevertheless, revealed his deep satisfaction at the thought of such friendship as this man had for him.
He was getting exhausted with the interview, following so soon on his illness of the night before. The visitor was quick to notice it, and after a warm clasp of hands he went away. Philip, lying there alone while his wife was busy downstairs, lived an age in a few minutes. All his life so far in Milton, the events of his preaching and his experiences in the church, his contact with the workmen, his evident influence over them, the thought of what they would feel in case he left Milton to accept this new work, the dissatisfaction at the thought of an unaccomplished work abandoned, the thought of the exultation of the whiskey men—all this and much more surged in and out of his mind and heart like heavy tides of a heaving ocean as it rushes into some deep fissure and then flows back again with noise and power. He struggled up into a sitting position, and with pain of body almost fell from the couch upon his knees, and with his face bowed upon the letter, which he spread out before him with both hands, he sobbed out a yearning cry to his Master for light in his darkness.
It came as he kneeled down; and it did not seem to him at all strange or absurd that as he kneeled, there came to his thought a picture of the Brother Man. And he could almost hear the Brother Man say: "Your work is in Milton, in Calvary Church yet. Except a man shall renounce all that he hath he cannot be His disciple." It mattered not to Philip that the answer to his prayer came in this particular way. He was not superstitious or morbid, or given to yielding to impulse or fancy. He lay down upon the couch again and knew in his heart that he was at peace with God and his own conscience in deciding to stay with Calvary Church and refuse the call to Fairview.
CHAPTER XVIII.
When, a few minutes later, Mrs. Strong came up, Philip told her exactly how he had decided.
"I cannot leave these poor fellows in the tenements yet; my work is just beginning to count with them. And the church, oh, Sarah, I love it, for it has such possibilities and it must yield in time; and then the whiskey men—I cannot bear to have them think me beaten, driven out, defeated. And in addition to all the rest, I have a feeling that God has a wonderful blessing in store for me and the church very soon; and I cannot banish the feeling that if I should accept the call to Fairview, I should always be haunted by that ghost of Duty murdered and run away from which would make me unhappy in all my future work. Dear little woman," Philip went on, as he drew his wife's head down and kissed her tenderly, while tears of disappointment fell from her—"little woman, you know you are the dearest of all earthly beings to me. And my soul tells me the reason you loved me enough to share earth's troubles with me was that you knew I could not be a coward in the face of my duty, my conscience, and my God. Is it not so?"
The answer came in a sob of mingled anguish and happiness:
"Yes, Philip, but it was only for your sake I wanted you to leave this work. It is killing you. Yet,"—and she lifted her head with a smile through all the tears—"yet, Philip, 'whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried; the Lord do so to me and more also if aught but death part thee and me.'"