Luke's wife

by Evelyn R. Garratt

"Oh, I mustn't be ill," she gasped, as instead of going into the kitchen, she sank into a chair in the drawing-room. "I shall be no good to Luke, only an anxiety. Oh God show me what to do. Don't let me be a burden to him."

Luke, after Rachel had left, sat sunk again in deep depression.

Then suddenly he remembered the letters in his pocket. He had completely forgotten them, and now when he opened for the second time the Bishop's letter, it suddenly dawned upon him that here was the way out of his difficulty. To accept the country living meant that Rachel could live in the garden, and her strenuous life at Trowsby would be over. She would go to the place as a known invalid and would not be expected to take up parish work. The cloud on his face lifted, and the weight on his heart grew lighter. Moreover, the struggle with poverty of which Rachel had been more conscious evidently than he had, would be over, for the stipend was unusually good.

With a feeling of great thankfulness, he closed the letter and opened the one from London intending to answer them both that night. Of course the London living must be refused. There was no question about it. But as he read over again the description of the work a feeling of intense disappointment took possession of him. He had been longing for this offer! It was, as he had once said to Rachel, the dream of his life.

And here it was within his grasp and yet he was unable to accept it. Instead of preaching to a large congregation and ministering to their souls needs, he would have to vegetate in the country! It would be a living death to him.

During the first year or two of his present charge he had tasted what it was to be able to move people by his oratory; it was only the extra-ordinary craze for amusements that had spoilt it all. It was then he began to long for a wider sphere, and though the parish in which was the church that had been offered to him was in a poor part of London, the congregation consisted of many who had been drawn there by the preaching of the former Vicar. The Trustees were most anxious to secure a good preacher to succeed him. One of them had visited St. Marks on purpose to judge of Luke's preaching, and was much struck by it. This was why the living had been offered to him notwithstanding the fact that he was somewhat young for such an important post. All this was mentioned in the letter that Luke held in his hand, and the fact that he had to decline it filled him with the keenest disappointment. So keen was it that he decided not to tell Rachel that night about either letter. He would wait to answer them till the next day. It was never a good thing to do anything in a hurry.

Luke's silence at supper did not surprise her. She knew that it was a sign that he had some problem to solve. The problem of course, this evening, she knew must be what to do about her. Once or twice she tried to make him smile as she recounted some event of the day; but she was so unsuccessful that she felt it was better to leave him to his thoughts. She was trying herself to unravel the difficulty that had arisen, but so impossible did she find it that she came to the conclusion that the only thing was to leave it in Higher Hands. God had always provided for them and would do so still. Was He not a very present help in time of trouble?

Luke sat up late that night. He was standing before the Bar of his own conscience. He had to face the fact that he was feeling rebellious; struggling against the Will of God. To bury his talents in a village was a repugnant thought to him. How could he endure the quiet and dullness of it? Would it not tend to make him indolent in work? What would be the good of reading all the new thought of the day in order to help those who were troubled by it, if there was no-one who had even heard of the false teaching. How could he spend his time in preparing sermons suitable to men and women whose brains had never been taught to work. He pictured himself preaching to a congregation, the half of which were asleep and the other half on the verge of going to sleep. Then he suddenly remembered how his Lord had spent time over the soul of one poor woman, the Lord of whom it was said, "Never man spake like this man." Had He not taught again and again, both by his words and actions, the value of one individual soul?

Luke's disinclination for a village congregation made him look into his own motives. Had all his work been at Trowsby been done for the glory of God? Had not the first year or two of his great popularity somewhat intoxicated him? Was the wish to preach to large audiences to win them to the service of the Lord? Or was it the delightful sense of power to sway their minds, that attracted him? Was the disappointment and the longing for a larger sphere caused at all by the fact that he was conscious that he had lost hold of his people? That they no longer hung on his words as of yore; that instead of looking up to him, as formerly, with admiration, they looked down on him as out of date?

Sitting by his fire that night, looking at the dying coals, he saw himself for the first time in the light of one who had been weighed in the balances and found wanting. He was right down in the Valley of Humiliation, and in agony of soul.