Opening a Chestnut Burr

by Edward Payson Roe

He accompanied them to church the following morning, and his manner was grave even to solemnity. Little wonder. In a certain sense, in view of his resolution, the Judgment Day had come to him.

With heavy, contracted brows he listened to a sermon anything but reassuring. The good old minister inclined to a legal and doctrinal gospel, and to-day his subject was the perfection and searching character of the divine law. He showed how God could make no terms with sin—that he hated it with a terrible and vindictive hatred, because in all respects it was opposite and antagonistic to His nature—because it defiled, degraded, and destroyed. He traced all human wretchedness to this poisonous root, and Gregory trembled and his face grew dark with despair as he realized how it was inwoven with every fibre of his heart. Then in simple but strong language the silver-haired old man, who seemed a type of the ancient prophets, portrayed the great white throne of God's justice, snowy, too dazzling for human eyes, and the conscience-stricken man shrunk and cowered.

He turned to Annie to see how this train of thought, so terrific to him, affected her. Not a trace of fear was upon her face, but only serene, reverent awe. He glanced at Mr. Walton, but the old magistrate sat in his place, calm and dignified, evidently approving the action of the greater Judge. Miss Eulie's face, as seen between himself and the light of the window, appeared spirit-like.

"Thus they will look on the Judgment Day," thought Gregory, "while I tremble even at its picture. O the vital difference between guilt and innocence, between faith and unbelief!"

If the venerable clergyman had been talking personally to Gregory or any sinful creature, he would not have concluded his subject where he did. He would have shown how between the throne of justice and the sinner there stood an Advocate, an Intercessor, a Saviour. But having logically developed his text, he finished his discourse. Perhaps on the following Sabbath he might present the mercy of God with equal clearness. But the sermon of the day, standing alone and confirming the threatenings of an accusing conscience, depressed Gregory greatly. It did not anger him, as such truth usually did. He was too weak and despairing. He now felt the hopelessness and folly of opposition. The idea of getting into a passion with fate! Only weak natures fume at the inevitable. There is a certain dignity in silent, passive despair.

Annie's voice singing the closing hymn beside him sounded like an angel's voice across the "great gulf." Almost mechanically he walked down the aisle out into the sunny noon of a warm October day. Birds were twittering around the porch. Fall insects filled the air with their cheery chirpings. The bay of a dog, the shrill crowing of a cock, came softened across the fields from a neighboring farm. Cow-bells tinkled faintly in the distance, and two children were seen romping on a hillside, flitting here and there like butterflies. The trees were in gala dress of crimson and gold, and even the mountains veiled their stern grandeur in a purple haze, through which the sun's rays shimmered with genial but not oppressive warmth.

The people lingered around the door, shaking hands and greeting one another with the plain but cordial courtesy of the country. Gregory heard one russet-apple-faced man say that "Betsy was better," and an old colored woman, with a visage like that apple in black and mottled decay, said in cheerful tones that "little Sampson was gittin' right peart." A great raw-boned farmer asked a half-grown boy, "How's yer mare?" and the boy replied that the animal was better also. All seemed better that bright day, and from a group near came the expression, "Crops were good this year." While the wealthier and more cultured members of the congregation had kindly nods and smiles for all, they naturally drew together, and there seemed a little flutter of excitement over the renewal of the sewing society that had been discontinued during the summer.

Gregory stood apart from all this, with the heavy contraction still upon his brow, and asked himself, "What have these simple, cheery, commonplace people, with their petty earth-born cares and interests, to do with that 'great white throne' of which we have just heard? and where in this soft, dreamy landscape, so suggestive of peace, rest, and everyday life, lurks any hint of the 'wrath of a just and holy God'?"

And then the old pastor, who a little before had seemed a prototype of John, the stern reformer from the wilderness, came out smiling and benignant, greeting his flock as a father might his children. The very hand that had been raised in denunciation, and in threatening a doom that would appall the heart of courage itself, was given to Gregory in a warm and cordial grasp. The man he had trembled before now seemed the personification of sweet-tempered human kindness. The contrast was so sharp that it seemed to Gregory that either what he saw or what he had heard must be an utter delusion.

As they were driving home, he suddenly broke the moody silence by asking Miss Walton, "How do you reconcile the scene at the church door, so matter-of-fact, cheery, and earthly, with the terrible pictures suggested by the sermon? If such things are before us, it seems to me that bright, sunny days like these are mockery."