That which has been spoken and that which has been written pertains to the material sense; but that which has been heard in the silence, and seen in "the light that no man can approach unto," and experienced in the grandeur of the limitless life--this is God--no tongue has told it, no pen has portrayed it, yet in letters of glory we all may read it. From the mountains and the hills, from the summer skies and the smiling water, the leaves of this unwritten book unfolded before Mrs. Thorpe and she read the deep hidden things of God.
The long golden days came and went like a radiant, glorified dream, each with its share of pleasure, some new joy, some added gladness. There were days when the summer rain beat upon the roof in mellow cadence; when the gray, leaden skies emphasized the cheer and comfort of the plain mountain home. Then, Mrs. Thorpe with some light work in hand, would listen while her hostess, the dear old aunt, related chapters from the past and told incidents and anecdotes from her long experience as a pastor's wife. There were days when the damp earth, warm beneath the sun, gave forth a blissful fragrance of growing things and the green, swelling buds burst into showers of bloom; when the mountain brook, swelled by the rain, babbled in wild, sweet song and dashed its turbulent waters into the placid lake.
There were days when the pastor renewed his boyhood and spent long hours on the shaded banks of the mountain stream with his fishing tackle, baiting for speckled trout. Mrs. Thorpe always accompanied him and sought to divert his mind from every care; while he fished, or perhaps tramped through the woods and sought the homes of the feathered songsters, she would busy herself with some piece of needlework, and when he threw himself on the velvet grass beside her she would read to him from some book, bright, crisp and care-destroying. Sometimes the noonday lunch was carried in a basket and eaten at the foot of the towering, blue-hung mountain, and then together they scaled the mountain's height and from its summit viewed the valleys and woodlands below; saw the lake like a silver basin and the stream like a white thread; and all the world below seemed hushed and at rest, and their individual cares and perplexities seemed to shrink and fall away, and they breathed the life-giving ozone and felt that Life is so much greater thing than its material forms can ever demonstrate. These were days that long afterward lay in the memory like gems, rare, radiant, exquisite.
Mr. Thorpe spent a considerable time with his venerable kinsman, the old minister, and together they lived in the past, a past peopled with father and mother and the sadly lamented brother cut down in his prime, and other dear ones gone to the far, fair shore. When alone Mr. Thorpe's thoughts tended to carry him back to a time when no shadows clouded his life, when no fears regarding physical or spiritual strength assailed him. With the ready assurance which is a phase of the disease from which he was suffering, he felt that he was regaining his health, and believed that full bodily vigor would be restored to him. But where were the hopes and aspirations of his life, once so strong and indomitable? Where the joy and gladness he had once felt in his work?
A dull despair filled him now. Willingly, gladly, he had put his all in his work; and what had he received in return? He felt his heart "Smitten and withered like grass." And the people to whom he had ministered, to whom he had laid bare his heart and life, whom he had sought with all the passion and pleading of his soul, was there anything in their deeds or actions to indicate that their lives were marked with the impress of the Master? And always amid his introspection, there came the thought of his wife. The woman he loved had departed from the beliefs of his life, from the tenets of his faith, she had not followed him; her footsteps had taken a strange, new road, which must lead her ever farther and farther from him. Yet this, that she had not followed him, bitter as it was, was not the bitterest drop in his cup, was not the worst aspect of the trouble that weighed upon him. He had so cultivated the reverence in his nature for that which appealed to him in religion, and so stimulated his devotion to that which he worshiped, that he did not know that any soul-saving righteousness could exist outside the orbit in which his mind revolved. Then it was not only that she had not followed him--when he had so loved her--but it must follow that she was a lost soul.
After long deliberation, Mr. Thorpe, feeling the burden and responsibility of his wife's departure too great to be borne alone, he laid the case before his venerable uncle.
The old man, thoughtful and considerate, heard him through without a word. Then in his gentle voice, slightly tremulous, he said:
"I think you made a mistake, Maurice, when you adopted a lenient attitude toward that which your judgment condemned. From your account, the book you found on your wife's table was rank heresy, openly opposed to established forms of religion. I have thought that perhaps this false conception of the works of Christ, this spurious growth that we know is gaining ground in the world to-day, is the very anti-Christ against which we have been so strenuously warned. It certainly is your duty to show your wife the falsity and error of these attacks on established creeds and doctrines. This blasphemy about spiritual healing is the most egregious error, the most harmful and misleading thing, the most damned and baneful thing that the enemies of pure religion have ever devised. I cannot understand how any honest person can adopt a neutral attitude toward it."
Mr. Thorpe was silent for a few moments, and when he spoke the life and spirit had gone out of his voice, and the shadow that had darkened his life brooded over him.
"There is nothing neutral nor conciliatory in my mind toward this 'wind of doctrine,'" he said. "In my opinion there is no greater sacrilege than for man to claim the power of Christ." He hesitated a moment and then continued as one who forces down the last drop of a bitter draught. "Evelyn was a Christian woman when I married her," he said, "orthodox as you or I; she has been very near to me in all my work, yet she has departed from me; she has not been able to feed and live on that which I could give. And if this woman, whom I have loved and trusted, has failed to find spiritual food under my teaching, how shall I judge my life's work?"