And so they parted with the best of good will on both sides, and a certain definite effect of goodness impressed upon all hands by their contact with C. B., which none of them were ever able to forget quite as long as they lived. Very gently and tenderly the helpless skipper was conveyed ashore, and to the best hotel in the City, there to await the coming out of the steamer that sailed between Hong Kong, Yokohama, and San Francisco. The American Consul had been apprised of Captain Taber’s coming, and paid him an early visit of condolence and comfort, promising to do all in his power to aid him, and to convey to Captain Silchester his most cordial thanks for the timely help rendered to his suffering countryman.
C. B. was full of wonderment at the new and strange scenes around him, but saw little of them, for nothing would persuade him to leave his friend for more than a few minutes at a time. He did not lightly construe the terms of his service, and when ordered with playful vehemence by the skipper to go away and leave him to himself for a few hours he never went beyond an easy call. But he got a great deal of interest in observing the quaint manners of the Japanese, who seemed to him to be almost denizens of another world to that which he had hitherto known. Their courtesy, cleanliness and ability appealed to him very much, but he wondered with painful intensity how they could be apparently so happy and good without knowing anything of God. And then he had an interview with a clerical gentleman belonging to the Established Church, who was on his travels round the world, and being an inmate of the hotel called upon the captain.
The latter introduced C. B. as his friend as well as personal attendant, and Mr. Vinter, the clergyman, made the almost unpardonable mistake of treating our hero as if he was an ignorant Kanaka, that is without a touch of kindliness or sympathy as of a being infinitely high and wise, but without love, to another very low and foolish. C. B. not being at all sensitive and full of reverence for the man of God as he thought him, began to talk freely upon the things of God as he had never been able to do since he left his home, where they were in everybody’s mouth as the most frequent topic. To his utter amazement and to the captain’s indignation the clergyman listened for a while with a gradually contracting brow, and presently said severely—
“You should be less fluent and more reverent about holy things. You cannot understand them, it is not possible that you should. You must learn to leave such discussion as you have ventured to indulge in to those who like myself are set apart as chosen ministers of the Gospel.”
Had it not been so sad it would have been ludicrous to see the open-mouthed stare of utter amazement with which C. B. regarded his new mentor. For what he now heard from the mouth of a man whom he was ready to regard as directly commissioned by God was to the effect that the whole teaching of his life had been wrong. He dimly felt that this man wished him to understand that so far from a close acquaintance with and an intimate knowledge of God and the things of His kingdom being right and according to His will, it was necessary to regard Him as unapproachable except through a certain specially ordained class, and that the sweet familiarity with Jesus which he had always been taught and had understood from his Testament to be the end and the aim of the Saviour’s teaching was irreverent and wrong.
And then, to his great relief, the helpless skipper came to his rescue, saying with clear and energetic voice—
“Forgive me, Mr. Vinter, if I seem rude, and allow me the privilege of a man with one foot in the grave. I’ve learned more of God in a few months’ acquaintance with this dear man than in all the rest of my life. You gentlemen talk about God mostly too in language that a plain man can’t understand, this man lives Him, has done ever since he came aboard my ship. I’d rather have him with me, as far as the education of my soul is concerned, than all the priests and clergy in the world. And you call him irreverent! But so I s’pose you would have done Peter an’ James an’ John, an’ as for Paul, well there!”
Mr. Vinter made no reply, but rose with majestic gesture as of one who finds the air polluted and passed out, nor did they ever see him again. But the captain said cheerily—
“Git your Bible, Christmas, and read me that beautiful story again, beginning with ‘Then drew near all the publicans and sinners for to hear Him?’ I bet they did. They recognized the real thing same as I do, they’d had enough of Pharisees same as I have. And then people will be foolish enough to wonder why the Gospel don’t spread among the heathen! Why a man like that might easily make heathen, he’d certainly never make a Christian, he doesn’t know how to begin. Go on with your reading, dear boy.”
And in the comfort of the reading and the fellowship of his friend C. B. felt the wound that had been made in his soul by that foolish and injudicious man heal over. But he often returned to the subject and asked many questions of the skipper concerning the ways of the religious folk in America, and whether it was really true that the great bulk of the people could be so foolish as to deny themselves so great a pleasure as he had always found it, and those whom he had grown up with, but was at last compelled to admit that it must be so though it was a profound mystery to him.