A Face Illumined

by Edward Payson Roe

"Yes," she said hesitatingly, "if you think it is best."

He went around and came openly to her side, bringing a small camp-chair with him. as he steadied himself against a piazza column in taking his seat, and leaned his crutches on the railing, her looks were very sympathetic. With a smile he took on of his crutches in his hands as he said:

"I have come to these very properly at last, and you must have seen their significance. It is my spiritual and moral lameness, however, that now troubles me most, Miss Mayhew. When lying at the bottom of that ravine, expecting death, I vowed, like most sinners in similar circumstances, I suppose, that if I ever escaped I would become a Christian man. I intend to keep the vow if it is a possible thing. But I make no progress. I prayed then, and I have prayed and read my Bible since, but everything is forced and formal, and the thought will come to me continually, that I might as well pray to Socrates or Plato as to Christ. I wish you could teach me your faith."

"Mr. Van Berg," replied Ida, with a troubled face, "I'm not wise enough to guide you in such a matter. I would much rather you would talk with Mr. Eltinge or some learned, good man."

"I shall be glad to see Mr. Eltinge, but I don't care to go to the learned man just yet. We might get into an argument, in which of course I should be worsted, but I fear not convinced. I have never known anything so real as your faith has seemed, but I can obtain nothing that in the least corresponds with it. I ask, but receive no more response than if I spoke to the empty air. Then comes the strong temptation to relapse into the old materialistic philosophy, which I had practically accepted, and to believe that religious experiences are imaginary, or the result of education and temperament. At the same time I have found this philosophy such a wretched support, either in life or in the prospect of death, that I would be glad to throw it away as worthless."

"I fear to speak to you on this subject," she said, "and shall not for a moment attempt to teach you anything. They say facts are stubborn things, and I'll tell you a few, which to my simple, homely common-sense are conclusive. To a man's reason they may count for little. My religious experiences are not the result of education or temperament, but are contrary to both; and if they are imaginary, all my experiences are imaginary. Perhaps I can best tell you what I mean by an illustration that is a pleasant one to me. There is a partially finished picture in your studio that I hope to hang some day in my own sanctum at home. How shall I ever know that I have that picture? How shall I ever know that you have given it to me? I shall know it because you keep your promise and send it to me. I shall have it in my possession, and I shall enjoy it daily. Are not hope, patience, peace, when the world could give no peace, as real as your picture? Is not the honest purpose to overcome a nature that you know is so very faulty, as real a gift as any I could receive? If the Friend I have found promises me such things, and at once begins to keep his word, why should I not trust him? But remember, you must not expect from me very much at first, any more than did Mr. Eltinge from the little pear-tree he lifted up and gave a chance to live. Now, with one more thought, my small cup of theology is emptied. To go back to my illustration: Suppose some person should say that he had not a picture of Mr. Eltinge; that would be no proof that I did not have one, or that you had not given one to me. I don't see, Mr. Van Berg, that the fact that you have no faith this morning, is anything against the fact that I and Mr. Eltinge, and so many others do have faith, with good reasons for it, and are able to say, "I KNOW that my Redeemer liveth.' The testimony of other people counts for something in most matters. Why must such men as Mr. Eltinge be set down either as deceivers or deceived, when they state some of the most certain facts of their experience?"

"I knew you were the right one to come to," he said, looking at her so earnestly that her eyes fell before his; "but why is it, do you think, that I receive no answer?"

"As I told you, my little cup of knowledge is empty, but it seems to me that in your happy, wonderful rescue you were answered. You have promised to become a Christian, Mr. Van Berg. You certainly did not limit your effort to this week. Surely to be a Christian is worth a lifetime of effort."

"I understand you again," he said with a smile; "you leave me no other choice than to make a lifetime of effort. But I fear it will be awfully up-hill work. The Bible seems to me an old-world book. Many parts take a strong hold on my imagination, and of course I know its surpassing literary merit; but I don't find in it much that seems personally applicable or helpful. Do you? I admit, though, that when I read words this morning to the effect that 'a brutish man knoweth not, neither doth a fool understand.' I felt that the good old saint must have had his prophetic eye on me at the time of writing."

"You are as unjust towards yourself as ever, I see," she said. "I have found another Psalm that to me meant so much that I have committed the first part of it to memory. You can understand why the following words are significant," and in the plaintive tones that had vibrated so deeply in his heart when she read to Mr. Eltinge, she repeated: