Their Yesterdays

by Harold Bell Wright

Without plan on his part, his walk led toward a quarter of the city where he had never been before and where he came at last to an old cemetery. The ancient iron gates, between their vine clad columns of stone, were invitingly open and within the enclosure were great trees that locked their green arms above the silent, grass grown, graves as though in sheltering kindness for the dead. Tempted by the beauty of the place the man entered, and, in the deep shade of the old trees, screened from the road by their mossy trunks, found a seat. Here and there, among the old graves under the trees, a few people moved slowly; pausing often to decipher the inscriptions upon the leaning and fallen tombstones. So old was that ancient burying place that there was left among the living no one to keep the flowers upon the graves and visitors came only from idle curiosity.

And it was so, that, as the man sat there under the quiet old trees, the graves with their leaning and fallen tombstones, or, perhaps, the day itself, led his mind back to those companion graves that marked the passing of his boyhood—back to father and mother and to their religion—back to the religion of his Yesterdays. And the week of toil and strife, of struggle and of storm, slipped far, far, away. The disturbing questions, the doubt and the uncertainty of the morning, raised as the fogs lift to leave the landscape clear.

It was such a little way from the boy's home to the church that, when the weather was fine, they always walked. And surely no day could have been finer than that Sunday to which the man went back. As the boy, all washed and combed and dressed in his Sunday best, sat on the big gate post waiting for his father and mother, it seemed to him that every living thing about the place knew what day it was. In the pasture across the road, the horses, leisurely cropping the new grass, paused often to lift their heads and look about with an air of kindly interest in things to which they would have given no heed at all had they been in week day harness. And one old gray, finding an inviting spot, lay down to roll—got up—and, because it felt so good, lay down again upon his other side; and then, as if regretting that he had no more sides to rub, stretched himself out with such a huge sigh of content that the boy on the gate post laughed; whereat the horse raised his head and looked at him as though to say: "Little boy, don't you know that it is Sunday?" Under the big elm, in the corner of the pasture, the cows stood, with half closed eyes, chewing their cuds with an air of pious meditation. The hens strolled sedately about singing solemnly: ca-w-w, ca-w-w, ca-w-w, and the old red rooster, standing on tiptoe, flapped his wings as if to crow then checked himself suddenly and looked around as if to say: "Bless me, I nearly forgot what day it is!" Then the clear, mellow, tones of the church bell floated across the little valley and the boy's parents came out of the house. The dog, stretched at full length on the porch, lifted his head but did not offer to follow. He, too, seemed to know, thought the boy as he climbed down from the post to walk soberly away with his parents.

Before they reached the lower end of the garden, the little girl with her mother and uncle came out of their house and, at the gate, waited for them while the little girl waved her hand in greeting. Then the two men and the two women walked on ahead and, as the boy and girl followed, the boy, looking shyly at his companion, saw the sunlight on her soft, brown, hair that was so prettily arranged with a blue ribbon—saw the merry eyes under the broad brim of her best hat—saw the flushed, softly rounded, cheek with the dimple, the curve of the red lips, and the dainty chin—saw her dress so clean and white and starched—saw and wondered if the angels in heaven could be more beautiful than this little girl.

So they went, that Sunday, down the hill, across the creek, and up the gentle slope beyond, until they came to the cross roads where the white church stood under the old elm and maple trees. Already there were many teams standing under the sheds or tied to the hitch racks along the side of the road. And by the roads that led away in four directions, through the fields and meadows and pastures of the farms, other country folk were coming from their homes and their labors to worship the God of seedtime and harvest.

There were no ushers in that church of the Yesterdays for there would be no strangers save those who would come with their friends; but the preacher himself was at the door to greet his people or was moving here and there among them, asking with care for the absent ones. Neither was there a great organ to fill the air with its trembling tones; but, at the humble instrument that served as well, the mother of the little girl presided, while the boy's father led the country choir. And the sunlight of that Sunday streamed through the open windows, softened only by the delicate traceries of gently waving branches and softly rustling leaves.

And in the songs and prayers and sermons of that worship in the Yesterdays, the boy heard the same unknowable things that the man had heard that morning in the city church. Among those people, the boy felt stirring the same spirit that had moved the man. The old preacher was long ago resting in the cemetery on the hill, with the boy's parents, the mother of the little girl, and many, many, others of his flock. A new and more modern minister would be giving, now, to the children of that old congregation, the newest and most modern things that theologians do not know about Religion. But the same old spirit would be there still; doing the same work for the glory of the race. And the boy in the Yesterdays, as he listened to the songs and prayers and sermons, had wondered in his heart about the things he heard—even as the man, he had asked himself many unanswerable questions… But there had been no doubt in the questions of the boy. There had been no disbelief in his wonder. Because the girl's mother played the organ—because the boy's father sang in the choir—because his mother and the little girl were there beside him—the boy believed that which he could not understand.

"By their fruits"—it is a text as good for grown up children as for boys and girls.

What the preachers say about Religion matters little after all. It is the fathers and mothers and the little girls who keep the faith of the world alive. The words of those sermons and prayers and songs in his Yesterdays would go with the boy no farther than the church door; but that which was in the hearts of those who sang and preached and prayed—that which song and sermon and prayer attempted but could not express—that would go with the boy through all the years of his life. From that the man could never get wholly away. It became as much a part of him as his love for his parents was a part.

When church and Sunday school were over the boy went home to the miracle of the Sunday dinner. And, even as the unknowable things upon the Sunday dinner table contributed to his manhood's physical strength and health, so the things expressed by the day that is set apart from all other days contributed to that strength of manhood that is more vital than the strength of bone and muscle and nerve and sinew. In the book wherein it is written: "Man shall not live by bread alone," it is written, also: "Except ye become as little children."