A new name

by Grace Livingston Hill

There was something beautiful and strong and tender about the face of the minister with his eyes closed, standing there in the hush of the candle-lighted tables, the tips of his long, strong fingers touching the tablecloth, the candle-light flickering on his rugged face, peace upon his brow, that impressed Murray tremendously in the brief glance he dared take. And the words from those firm lips were no less awesome. A thrill of something he had never quite experienced before ran down his spine, a thrill not altogether unpleasant.

Those words! They sank into his soul like an altogether new lesson that was being learned. Could he ever repeat it and dare to try to get away with a prayer like that?

“We thank Thee for the new friend that has come among us to live, who is not a stranger, because he is the son of those whom we have long loved and known. We thank Thee for the beautiful lives of his honored father and mother, who at one time walked among us, and the fragrance of whose living still lingers in the memory of some of us who loved them. We thank Thee also that he is not only born of the flesh into the kingdom, but that he has been born again, of the Spirit, and therefore is our brother in Christ Jesus—”

There was more to that “blessing,” although the stranger guest did not hear it. He felt somehow strangely ashamed as these statements of thanksgiving fell from the pastor’s lips, as though he were being held up to honor before One who knew better, who was looking him through and through with eyes that could not be deceived. So now there were two in that room whose eyes were hostile, who knew that he was false, that he did not belong there, the girl they called Anita, and the Invisible One whose blessing was being invoked. And while he felt a reasonable assurance that he could escape and flee from the presence of that scornful girl, he knew in his heart that he could never get away from the other, who was the One they called God. God had never been anything in his life but a name to trifle with. Never once before had he felt any personality or reality to that name God. It filled him with amazement that was appalling in its strangeness. He felt that life hitherto had not prepared him for anything like a fact of this sort. Of course he knew there were discussions of this sort, but they had never come near enough to him for him even to have recognized an opinion about them before. Why they did now he did not understand. But he felt suddenly that he must get out of that room; even if he starved to death, or was shot on the way, he must get away from there.

He opened his eyes cautiously, glanced about furtively for the nearest unguarded exit, and saw the eyes of Jane watching him greedily. She even met his glance with a feather of a smile flitting across her mobile young lips; a nice enough comradely smile, if he only had been in the mood to notice, and if she hadn’t been so persistent and forward; but it annoyed him. He closed his eyes quickly as if they had not been opened, and when he tried to glance about again took the other direction, where he thought he remembered seeing a door into a passageway.

But a dash of blue blocked the passageway. Somehow Anita, in the blue gown, had got there from her position at the other end of the room. She was standing, leaning against the door frame almost as if she were tired. Her shapely little head rested against the wall, and her eyes were closed. There was almost a weary look in the droop of her lips, and the way she held the silver tray down by her side. Somehow she seemed different now when she was not looking at him. There was something attractive about her, a sweet good look that made him think of something pleasant. What was it? Oh! Bessie!

Like a sharp knife the thought went through his heart. Yes, Bessie had a good sweet look like this girl, and Bessie would have had eyes of scorn for any one who was not true to the core. Up in heaven somewhere, if there was such a place as heaven—and now that he was sure he had lost it he began to believe that there was—Bessie was looking down on him with scorn. A murderer, he was, and a coward! Here he was sitting at a meal that was not his, wearing a suit and a name that were not his, hearing God’s blessing invoked upon him and his, and too much of a coward to confess it and take his medicine. Obviously he could not steal out now with that blue dress blocking the way. He must stay here and face worse perhaps than if he had never run away. What had he let himself in for in assuming even for a brief hour another man’s name and position in life? It was clear that this Allan Murray, whom he was supposed to be, was a religious man, come of religious parents; so much of his new-found character he had learned from the minister’s prayer. Now how in time was he to carry out a character like that and play the part? He with the burden of a murderer’s conscience upon him!

The “blessing” was over, to his infinite relief, and a bevy of girls in white aprons, with fluttering ribbon badges and pretty trays, were set immediately astir. The minister turned to him with a question about the wreck, and he recalled vaguely that there had also been a word of thanksgiving in that prayer about the great escape he was supposed to have made. He grasped at the idea eagerly, and tried to steer the conversation away from himself and into general lines of railroad accidents, switching almost immediately and unconsciously to the relative subject of automobile accidents; and then stopping short in the midst of a sentence, dumb, with the thought that he had killed Bessie in an automobile accident, and here he was talking about it—telling with vivid words how a man would drive and take risks, and get used to it. Where was it he had heard that a guilty man could not help talking about his guilt, and letting out to a trained detective the truth about himself?

His face grew white and strained, and the minister eyed him kindly.

“You’re just about all in, aren’t you?” he said sympathetically. “I know just how it is. One can’t go through scenes like that without suffering, even though one escapes unscathed himself. I was on a train not long ago that struck a man and killed him. It was days before I could get rested. There is something terrible about the nerve-strain of seeing others suffer.”